rchy, the
Germans, the Magyars, and the Jews; but it is no criterion for the attitude
of large masses of the population. In fact, the war has accentuated the
centrifugal tendencies which were so marked a feature of recent years, and
which the introduction of Universal Suffrage and the annexation of Bosnia
arrested but failed to eradicate; a stringent censorship may conceal, but
cannot alter, this fact. Disaffection is rife in portions of the army and
affects its powers of resistance, while the financial and economic crisis
grows from week to week. Cynics have tried to define the mutual relations
of Germany and Austria-Hungary by comparing the former to a strong man
carrying a corpse upon his shoulders, and the course of the war during
the first three months would seem to confirm this view. So far as
Austria-Hungary is concerned, its two outstanding features have been the
signal failure of the "punitive expedition" against Serbia and the debacle
of Auffenberg's army in Galicia. Friendly observers were prepared for a
break-down in the higher command and were aware that many Slav regiments
could not be relied upon, but they had expected more from the German and
Magyar sections of the army and from the very efficient officers' corps, as
a stiffening element. It is now known that despite the aggressive policy
of its chiefs, the Austro-Hungarian army was far from ready, and that its
commissariat and sanitary arrangements utterly broke down.

The evident failure to profit by the experience of two general
mobilisations within the previous six years is in itself a proof that there
is "something rotten in the state," and it is already obvious that only a
complete and crushing victory of Germany can extricate Austria-Hungary from
the war without loss of prestige and actual territory. Unless the Russians
can be not merely defeated but driven out, it is absolutely certain that
they will retain the province of Galicia, or at least the eastern portion,
with its Ruthene or Ukrainian population; unless the Serbian army can be
overwhelmed, Bosnia and at least some portion of Dalmatia will fall into
the hands of Serbia. This would be an eminently unsatisfactory solution
or rather it would be no solution at all, for it would solve neither the
Polish, the Ukraine, nor the Southern Slav questions. I merely refer to it
as a possible outcome of one form of stalemate; it is hardly necessary to
add that from every point of view stalemate is the re