even the Mediterranean littoral. Italy is faced with
something of the same problem as Germany, but to a lesser extent. Her
surplus population already finds a considerable outlet in Argentina
and South Brazil, among peoples, institutions, and language largely
approximating to those left behind. While Italy has, indeed need of a
world policy as well as Germany, her ability to sustain a great part
abroad cannot be compared to that of the Teutonic people. Her claim is
not so urgent; her need not so insistent, her might inadequate.

The honesty and integrity of the German mind, the strength of the
German intellect, the skill of the German hand and brain, and justice
and vigour of German law, the intensity of German culture, science,
education and social development, these need a great and healthy field
for their beneficial display, and the world needs these things more
than it needs the British mastery of the seas. The world of European
life needs to-day, as it needed in the days of a decadent Roman
Empire, the coming of another Goth, the coming of the Teuton. The
interposing island in the North Sea alone intervenes. How to surmount
that obstacle, how to win the freedom of the "Seven Seas" for Europe
must be the supreme issue for Germany.

If she falls she is doomed to sterility. The supreme test of German
genius, of German daring, of German discipline and imagination lies
there.

Where Louis XIV., the Directory, and Napoleon failed, will the heirs
of Karl the Great see clearly?

And then, when that great hour has struck, will Germany, will Europe,
produce the statesman soldier who shall see that the key to ocean
freedom lies in that island beyond an island, whose very existence
Europe has forgotten?

Till that key is out from the Pirate's girdle, Germany may win a
hundred "Austerlitzes" on the Vistula, the Dnieper, the Loire, but
until she restores that key to Europe, to paraphrase Pitt, she may
"roll up that map of the world; it will not be wanted these fifty
years."

Chapter V

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEAR WEST

The foregoing reflections and the arguments drawn from them were
penned before the outbreak of the war between Turkey and the Balkan
Allies.

That war is still undecided as I write (March 1913), but whatever its
precise outcome may be, it is clear that the doom of Turkey as a great
power is sealed, and that the complications of the Near East will,
in future, assume an entirely fresh aspect. Hithert