redetermined, Britain, France, and Russia were all distracted
by domestic controversies. She trusted also to her reading of the minds
and temper of her opponents; and here she went wildly astray, as must
always be the fate of the nation or the man who is blinded by
self-complacency and by contempt for others.

But, above all, she put her trust in a vast political combination which
she had laboriously prepared during the years preceding the great
conflict: the combination which we have learned to call Mittel-Europa.
None of us realised to how great an extent this plan had been put in
operation before the war began. Briefly it depended on the possibility
of obtaining an intimate union with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a
control over the Turkish Empire, and a sufficient influence or control
among the little Balkan states to ensure through communication. If the
scheme could be carried out in full, it would involve the creation of a
practically continuous empire stretching from the North Sea to the
Persian Gulf, and embracing a total population of over 150,000,000.
This would be a dominion worth acquiring for its own sake, since it
would put Germany on a level with her rivals. But it would have the
further advantage that it would hold a central position in relation to
the other world-powers, corresponding to Germany's central position in
relation to the other nation-states of Europe. Russia could be struck
at along the whole length of her western and south-western frontier;
the British Empire could be threatened in Egypt, the centre of its
ocean lines of communication, and also from the Persian Gulf in the
direction of India; the French Empire could be struck at the heart, in
its European centre; and all without seriously laying open the
attacking powers to the invasion of sea-power.

It was a bold and masterful scheme, and it was steadily pursued during
the years before the war. Austro-Hungary was easily influenced. The
ascendancy of her ruling races--nay, the very existence of her
composite anti-national empire--was threatened by the nationalist
movements among her subject-peoples, who, cruelly oppressed at home,
were more and more beginning to turn towards their free brothers over
the border, in Serbia and Rumania; and behind these loomed Russia, the
traditional protector of the Slav peoples and of the Orthodox faith.
Austro-Hungary, therefore, leant upon the support of Germany, and her
dominant races would be very willi