THE PAN-GERMAN NET

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 96, 23 April 1917, Page 6

THE PAN-GERMAN NET

In these days when the .Central Alii- I ance gives forth a cracking sound from ] somewhere near the Centre, it is interest- I ing to recall the; extent- of the German dream of Middle Europe as defined by Ftana voh Liszt, Jurist and Pan-German-ist. To give Middle Europe a start, Liszt proposes the union of Germany and \ Austria-Hungary, to which nucleus would be drawn all the States between the Scheldt and the Vistula, and even the three Scandinavian countries. "I | include among the middle European j States," says LisH, " all European territory from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean, the European mainland without France and the Spanish Peninsula on the one hand, and without Russia on the other. . . . Apart from an independent Polish State which may bo formed, the Balkan Peninsula, including European Turkey, would form a p6ftion of Middle Europe," linking up,this German Coiiib federation with Islam, With consider^ able detail, TAstt tries to show, sdlne sort of "gain that would attract Rumania, Bui' garia, etc., but when he comes to the Sorb States he relapses With German candour uport : the arbitrament) of force: " Serbia and Montenegro willj, have to obey, and will have jo do as they are told." Boiled down, this sentence repre' seiita the whole book. If the peoples on whom the German claim has fallen do not like it, they must simply be made to like it; no mercy need be to any over-hohdufed , guest who has the bad taste to decline the invitation. But, after all, the German writer ends with a note of moderation. < H& would like to include France and the Spanish Peninsula and to drive Britain; from Gibraltar, but is obliged to cohfess that to do so is beyond the programme of " the immediate future." . . '