THE WESTERN FRONT AND POLITICAL STRATEGY *

I TRUST that I have shown in my earlier articles, first, that the strategy of the Allies ought, like that of the Germans, to be a strategy of the political sciences, under penalty of remaining in a dangerous condition of inferiority; secondly, that action on the part of the Allies confined to the Western Front is not enough to make their victory certain, but that, to be effective, their action must embrace the whole theatre of war now represented by Pan-Germany in its entirety. The partisans of the Western Front theory believe that every effort put forth elsewhere must work to the disadvantage of that Front. The exact contrary is true, on condition that the field of action far away from the Western theatre is wisely chosen. Strong evidence of this is seen in the consideration that the German Offensive in the West would have been impossible if the Allies had been sagacious enough to replace the vanished Russian Front by an insurrectionary front extending from the Baltic to their lines in Macedonia-which is what the Germans would inevitably have done had they been in the place of the Allies. I have already indicated the broad outlines of the plan based on this conception.†

The object of the present paper is to find for the Allies three of the unknown quantities of the strategical equation which they must necessarily solve. We shall see that the working out of the ethnographical, national-psychological, and geographical unknown quantities (the last in its relation with the first two) is sufficient to bring out clearly possibilities of complete and comparatively speedy victory which have never as yet been distinctly envisaged by the Allies. It is the purpose of this analysis to disclose, first, the nature of the peoples embraced in Pan-Germany, considered as a whole; secondly, how far the geographical distribution of such of these peoples as are anti-Pan-Germanist would enable them to manifest their sentiments to good purpose.

The total population of Pan-Germany amounts to 180,000,000 souls, made up of two sharply contrasted elements.

* Copyright in U.S.A. by the Atlantic Monthly.

† See chapters xii and xiii of the second (enlarged) edition of Pan-Germany: the Disease and Cure. Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1918.

(1) The Germans and their vassals-or pro-Germans-numbering, say, 94,000,000.

(2) The slaves-say, 86,000,000.

There are, in fact, confined in Pan-Germany against their will, the enormous number of 86,000,000 Slavs, Latins, and Semites, belonging to fourteen different nationalities. This fact is of preponderating importance: for this vast aggregation of French, Belgians, Alsace-Lorrainers, Danes, Poles, Lithuanians, Letts, Ruthenians (with a reservation to be indicated below), Czechs, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, Italians, Armenians, Greeks, and Arabs, are anti-German by conviction. They are well aware that only the decisive victory of the Entente can put an end to their slavery. Having studied most of these oppressed peoples on the spot for more than twenty years, being familiar with their interests and their sentiments, I assert that here is a psychological situation of supreme interest to the Allies. Furthermore, I maintain that these 86,000,000 Slavs, Latins, and Semites, by reason of the strategic importance of the regions they occupy, represent-on the single condition that they are supplied with means of effective action closely adapted to their peculiar situation-a force capable of affording infinitely more valuable assistance in bringing about victory than any that the 182,000,000 inhabitants of the former Empire of the Tsars could ever have contributed. The immense advantage that the Allies can derive from this state of affairs will appear fully in the light of the deductions which can be drawn from the following analysis of the various peoples of Pan-Germany. The essential object of this analysis is to determine the numbers, in each of the main groups which make up the population of PanGermany-that is to say, the Germans and pro-Germans on the one hand, and their slaves on the other-(1) of men and of women, respectively; (2) of men mobilized in the armies of Pan-Germany; (3) of men not mobilized who, therefore, have remained at home or are employed in munition factories.

How the Ethnological Analysis is worked out.-From these various points of view, it would manifestly be impossible to derive figures which are rigorously accurate; but it is proper to observe that even approximate accuracy is sufficient to make our deduction of very practical value. And it is possible to reach that point by starting from these three bases of reckoning:

(a) In respect to those whom we term "the slaves" we shall distinguish between subjects of the Entente countries and subjects of the Central Powers. The latter alone can be regularly mobilized in the armies of Pan-Germany.

(b) We shall assume that females make up half of the total population of a country. In many countries the number of females is slightly above 50 per cent.; but the difference is

generally so small that it could not cause a serious error in the deductions which serve as a basis of our argument.

(c) We shall assume that the Germans have mobilized 20 per cent. of their subjects and of the subjects of their vassal-allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. This proportion is large enough to do away with any danger of an estimate below the facts. Indeed, this figure of twenty in one hundred of the whole population-consequently including women-is the highest among known results of the various mobilizations. Moreover, it corresponds with the results of the German mobilization so far as the information gleaned in three years enables us to determine it. Lastly, this figure embraces practically all the physically sound men between 15 and 60 years. In selecting it as a basis, therefore, we may be assured that we do not under-estimate the mobilized forces of Pan-Germany.

I

An analysis of the first group, the 94,000,000 Germans and pro-Germans, would result as follows:

Now, if we study the situation, we shall notice that the Germans and pro-Germans are disadvantageously grouped. The Germans in Germany alone form a solid block. They touch the Magyars only on the West. The loyalty of the Magyar proletariat to the German alliance might be seriously shaken for the reasons set forth hereafter. The Bulgarians are entirely surrounded by foes except on their Ottoman frontiers. As for the Turks, aside from the small still-existing fraction of Turkey in Europe, adjoining Bulgaria-Anatolia and the Kurd country-the people throughout all the rest of the Ottoman Empire are hostle to them.

Possibilities of Insurrection among the Germans and their Vassals. -(a) German Workmen in Germany. An effective An effective uprising of German workmen in Germany, like that which the Allied Socialists have hoped for and expected, has never been possible, for the following fundamental reason: Even if they do not accept the term Pan-Germanists," a large majority of them are PanGermanists in fact. They have, indeed, long been convinced supporters of an economic Pan-Germany--that is to say, of Central Pan-Germany at least, the immense advantage of which from the standpoint of their material interest, the years-old propaganda directed from Berlin had proved to them long before the war. The German Social Democrats are so bent upon supporting Central Pan-Germany that they are not willing even to consider the

liberation of the down-trodden Slavs of Austria-Hungary, because their servitude is indispensable to the maintenance of Central Pan-Germany. Indeed, this was most explicitly expressed by the Vorwärts of February 28, 1918, which went so far as to declare flatly that the demands of the Inter-Allied Socialist Conference in London would never be accepted by the Central Powers. Furthermore, the majority of the German Socialists, by reason of their Teutonic mental habit and their unchangeable atavism, are profoundly gratified by the military successes of Germany, and the resultant enormous booty.

(b) German Workmen in Austria. They are anti-Slav. They have, to be sure, organized some strikes, but these movements cannot be regarded as opposed to the policy of Vienna, for they took place, by a strange coincidence, early in 1918, at the very moment when Count Czernin was multiplying his pacifist manœuvres, intended especially to deceive Great Britain and the United States. Moreover, these German Socialists in Austria have never taken sides against the Hapsburgs. So that their attitude, therefore, is not distinctively democratic. We can place no more reliance on them than on the Social Democrats of the German Empire.

(c) Bulgarians. It is impossible to think for an instant of their separation from the Central Empires, which has never been practicable. The Bulgarians concluded their pact with Berlin long before the war, with the very distinct and premeditated determination to acquire the hegemony of the Balkans; and it is theirs, for the moment. On many points, indeed, the Bulgarian dreams are surpassed. Now, they understand very clearly that they will be able to retain their present conquests only with the assistance of Austria-Germany. Moreover, they are very proud to serve as a bridge between Germany and the Ottoman Empire. We must regard the Bulgarians as absolutely devoted to the maintenance of Pan-Germany.

(d) Among the Magyars, on the contrary, there is a condition of affairs, not generally realized by the Allies, which might, however, be made to forward materially the cause of the Entente. The fact is that, if the necessary steps were taken by the Allies, the majority of the Magyars might well be led to revolt against the Pan-Germanist yoke of Berlin and the feudal yoke of Budapest.

Among the ten million Magyars, there are six millions of agricultural labourers and two millions of industrial workmensay, in all, eight millions (male and female) of proletarians by birth, who possess absolutely nothing, who sell their physical strength for pitifully low wages which they are compelled to accept, and who are cynically exploited by the two millions of

nobles, priests, and office-holders, who are the only real partisans of Germany in Hungary. This deep social division may be made to serve as the basis of a powerful revolutionary manoeuvre on the part of the Allies. These eight millions of Magyar proletarians, who are beyond question ruthlessly oppressed by the Magyar nobles, fall into three categories: (a) mobilized men (20 per cent. of the whole), say, 1,600,000; (b) males not mobilized, who have remained in Hungary, 2,400,000; and (c) females in Hungary, 4,000,000. The net figures of these three categories, as estimated a little farther on, might play a very important part in the anti-Pan-Germanist revolution whose organization we are discussing. The concurrence of the Magyar proletariat would contribute notably to the dissolution of Pan-Germany, for it would assure the geographical connecting link between the insurrection of the Polish-Czech regions in the north and that of the Jugo-Slav regions in the South. Thus by favour of the revolution of the Magyar proletariat the insurrection would extend in a straight line from the Baltic to the Salonika Front, which would be a great advantage in every aspect. These eight millions of Magyar proletarians are genuinely desirous of peace, and are not accessible to the imperialistic seductions which induce the German Socialists to play the game of the Berlin General Staff. As they certainly did not want war, they bitterly detest those who forced it upon them: the great Magyar landed proprietors who exploit them without pity, and whose feudal spirit is identical with that of the Prussian Junkers —with whom, indeed, these Magyar nobles act in close association for the preservation of their privileges, the continuance of which would make certain the perpetuation of the servitude of the Magyar proletariat.

As a result of this social condition of affairs, the pacifist manifestations at Budapest on several occasions have assumed a really serious aspect. For all these reasons, it is rational to conclude that these eight millions of proletarians are capable of rising in revolt against their masters, the feudal Magyars, at the same time with, or shortly after, the Slavs and Latins of Central Europe. But such an uprising on their part assumes one explicit condition—namely, that the Allies fully understand the really horrible social conditions under which they live, and assure them beforehand, formally and with an absolute purpose to keep their promise, that the first certain result of the triumph of the Entente will be to put an end to the agrarian and feudal regime in Hungary, which keeps the proletariat in a state of slavery. Thus the movement to be undertaken in the Magyar portion of Hungary is, in essence, a social movement based upon an agrarian revolt.