Q. What was the foundation of the Italian Irredentist movement? A.-This, also, was a spiritual and noble striving of the Italian people toward a fine and just unity. Q.-Just what did the Italian Irredentists desire? A. They desired the provinces in the north that were under foreign domination but which contained populations that were Italian or largely Italian. Q.-Were all these provinces under Austria? A.-Most of them were. But at one time (though little has been heard of this lately) Italian Irredentism was directed also against the French possession of the stretch of Mediterranean coast that includes the city of Nice. Q. Did French expansion into Northern Africa hurt Germany's interest sufficiently to become a cause for war? A.-In one sense, no. It seems perfectly fair to say that the French Morocco adventure did not injure actual German interests, or at least that it did so only in a small degree. But in another sense it was a very real additional cause toward ultimate war, because it enabled the German imperialists to point to another seizure of world-area and to inculcate in the German people the conviction that they were being gradually walled in. Q. What was the original status of Albania? a A.-When Turkey extended well over the Balkan peninsula, Albania was Turkish Province. After the Balkan War (1913) it was erected as an independent State. Q. What happened to it when the great war began? A.-Prince William of Wied, who had been appointed by the London Ambassadorial Conference in 1913 to rule the country with an International Commission of Control, was driven out, and Albania became a scene for rival native factions. Italy soon occupied portions of it, and was extending her hold when the Austrians broke through Montenegro in 1916, captured the important port of Durazzo, and advanced south as far as Avlona, then held by Italy. Q. If the status of Albania is to be decided according to race, what country should have it? A. The Albanians appear to have been a race by themselves. From 1431, when the Turks overran the country, they became largely Turkish in ideas and habits, and though they rebelled frequently, the rebellions were against the government rather than against Turkish rule. Indeed, the most formidable rebellions were often led by Turks. Q. What is the objection to Albania's autonomy? A.-None, speaking in accordance with the principle that small nations should have the right of self-determination. The practical obstacle (aside from the desire of Italy and Austria to possess or "protect" the country) is that two-thirds of the population is fanatically Moslem, while the other third is Christian with almost equal fanaticism. Add to this that the Christians again are divided into two not at all friendly sects, Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic, and that the Moslems also have many sects. Q.-Why should Italy and Austria (or any other country) desire to rule such a difficult country? Is it rich? A. Not so far as known. It has an area of only about 11,000 square miles (a little bigger than Maryland), and its population is only about eighty to the square mile. There are few roads, except military roads built since the war. Agriculture is almost non-existent. Q-What, then, is its value? A.-Its value is that it extends along the Adriatic coast opposite Italy and has many harbors. Therefore, it is one of the strategic geographical elements in the rival Austrian and Italian struggle for the control of the Adriatic. Q.-Did Austria ever own Venice? A. She once held all the province of Venetia and Lombardy, but lost them in 1859 when, under Cavour, Sardinia made her successful fight for Italian freedom. Lombardy followed and thus control of the Italian provinces was lost to Austria. She had scarcely emerged from this struggle, when, in 1864, she went to war with Denmark, and she became joint sovereign over Schleswig-Holstein. This addition to her domain was but nominal, and she lost it two years later, when Prussia humbled her in the war for German supremacy. Q.-How many Italians are in Dalmatia, Istria, and Fiume? A. About 40 per cent of the inhabitants of Fiume are of Italian descent. In Dalmatia, with a population of some 600,000, 3 per cent only are Italian. In Istria, roughly a third of a total population of 350,000 is said to be Italian. While there are only about 60,000 Italians altogether in Austria there are more than 700,000 who speak Italian or modifications of that language. Q. What is the "Balance of Power"? A. It is a principle whose effective observance began after the fall of Napoleon, when the nations opposed to him deemed that future peace might be assured by preventing any one nation from again becoming over-powerful. France was, therefore, stripped of so much territory that she should never regain the overwhelming influence she once had. The principle was gradually extended. The theory of the balance of power became the keystone of European politics, and its maintenance has been considered so important in the minds of the statesmen of Europe that no scruples have ever been allowed to stand in the way when it was threatened. At first the "balance of power" was upheld by the combination of all nations against any one that grew too large. They made occasional treaties to act jointly, but always the established precedent was that if at any time the status quo was destroyed, the treaties were void. Thus, if any state, however small, should shift its boundaries, any other state would hold itself free to abrogate existing treaties, and form new treaties to establish a new balance of power. Q. What was the Congress of Vienna? A.-It met to re-make the territorial and political map of Europe after the fall of Napoleon, and it opened on November 1, 1814. England, Austria, Russia and Prussia insisted upon regulating_all_problems themselves and excluded France from the deliberations. King Louis XVIII, however, succeeded in being adImitted with some of the smaller states. Finland and the Duchy of Varsow (Warsaw) were given to Russia by the Congress. The Duchy of Posen, part of Saxony and that of Hanover, the principality of Neuchatel, Cologne and Treves, were Iceded to Prussia. Austria got back Istria, Dalmatia, Friuli, Mantua, Venice, Lombardy, Tyrol and Croatia. The Pope recovered his states. The house of Bourbon recovered Naples and Madrid. England obtained the principal French colonies. Q. How did British control of the seas make a cause for war? A. Because it made the United Kingdom (a European nation with a population not as large as that of Germany) the actual owner of what is in area and population the greater part of the earth: or, at least, having in the past enabled Great Britain to acquire this vast possession, control of the sea has since then enabled Great Britain to hold it and to make what is now known as the British Empire a domain more than 31⁄2 times as large as the United States with all its outlying possessions, and with a population more than 41⁄2 times as large. Q.-Did not Great Britain use this power generously? A.-Yes, very generously. Perhaps no great empire in history has been administered with such a minimum of onerous restrictions on rivals. Q. Is the British Empire very old? A.-Great Britain's hold on the world through her sea-power has given her imperial world-power for centuries, but the "Empire" as an embodied conception is not very old. When Disraeli became Premier of Great Britain for the second time (1874), the chief colonies were Canada and Australia, each of which had a Constitution of its own. Disraeli persuaded Queen Victoria to be crowned Empress of India in 1876. He had already solidified English control in the East by the purchase of the majority stock in the Suez Canal in 1875. With the Island of Cyprus, obtained after the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, Malta and Gibraltar, England secured control of the Mediterranean. Disraeli's successors completed the water route in 1882, when, by taking a protectorate over Egypt, they gained the western shore of the Red Sea. England already held the port of Aden on the eastern shore. Aden in itself is an insignificant desert town, but in its strategic value for controlling the Red Sea and the Suez Canal it is almost as important a possession as is Gibraltar. After gaining the Red Sea, the next step in making the "belt of Empire" was to define the whole southeastern coast of Arabia as being in the British sphere of influence. of the Baltic. They were considered barbarians by the Germans of the Middle Ages. These Prussians were conquered by the German Order of Teutonic Knights, who were burghers chiefly from Bremen and Lübeck. The conquest of the Prussians began in the early years of the thirteenth century and lasted for the better part of a hundred years. The invading Germans killed the men of these Balto-Slavic tribes and carried away the women and children into practical slavery. The modern Prussian is a union of these two races. Q.-Is there an Imperial organiza- Q.-Why did other nations fear the tion? A. In 1875 the Imperial Federation League was formed to promote closer relations with the colonies. Conferences of the ministers of the colonies have been held since 1887, and a permanent Imperial staff of secretaries is kept in London. In 1901 the "League of the Empire" was created. Q. What is the political organiza tion of the British Empire? A. The colonies are divided into three classes: (1) The self-governing: Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Australia and the Union of South Africa; the power in these is really exercised by a responsible cabinet, although the governor is appointed by the Crown. (2) Crown colonies, in which the lower chamber is elected and the upper chamber and the governor appointed by the Crown; these are the Bahamas, Jamaica, Mauritius and Malta. (3) Colonies in which a Crown governor rules alone-Gibraltar and Saint Helena. In India, the King as Emperor appoints a governor, called the viceroy, who is assisted by a partly elective council. British Central Africa, British East Africa, Nigeria and Uganda are protectorates, and in Egypt the British consulgeneral has practically the powers of a governor. The most remarkable feature of the English government in Egypt and India is that populations of several hundred millions of believers in Oriental religions, many of them allied to the Turk, are held in control by a few thousand Englishmen specially trained for the colonial service. Berlin-Bagdad project? A.-Primarily there were, of course, the intense national-commercial rivalries that exist between all the States of Europe, even when international relations are very friendly. The Berlin-Bagdad railroad was one of the grandiose commercial projects of the earth. Laughed at as a dream when it was begun, it approached completion in a time when commerce was ready for it; and it was realized then that it must inevitably place Germany at a huge advantage. Behind this direct reason for fear, however, was also the fear of what this railroad might mean to the peace of Europe and the balance of power. The militarist doctrine of the ruling classes, the known plans of powerful German factions for world-dominance, and the menacing methods of German diplomacy, led the European world (and particularly Great Britain) to fear sinister motives behind the commercial project. Q.-Could a railroad in Asia Minor really threaten Great Britain? A. Yes. Apart from the commercial aspects, the German railroad would have jeopardized Great Britain's control of the Persian Gulf and the control of the oil fields of Asia Minor near that gulf. From a military viewpoint, it was an alarming menace against the back-door of India. And the railroad made a very ominous threat against British sea power in a way that is little known. It threatened to divert from Great Britain the big oil-supply of Persia, which country Great Britain had already "acquired"-and oil is essential to a modern navy. Q. What is Pan-Germanism? A. It was originally a movement that could be better described by the title "Germanism," and in that form devoted itself almost wholly to form a truly united Germany by obliterating the sectional lines that divided Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Wurtemburgers, etc. Gradually, in the hands of jingoes and imperialists, it became a movement for uniting all Germanic peoples under one flag; and finally, under the lead of powerful men, it became a sweeping doctrine that appears to mean anything in the way of annexation of neighboring territories that the leaders happen to think they want. It must be stated, however, that powerful as the movement is, it is strongly opposed by large parties in Germany, especially the Socialists. It gained one great element of strength with the great mass of people through the fear that was aroused in them by Pan-Slavism. Q. When did it begin to threaten other nations? A.-About 25 years ago when the PanGerman League was organized. It was small at first, and attracted as little attention as do scores of "leagues" in this country. But it grew by incessant work. About ten years ago it had come to be a power that foreign nations had to recognize. -Was it then that Pan-German they must wrest their "share" from hands Q.-Our term for Imperialism is A.-Not exactly. The United States has had so little actual teaching of imperialism that we have no native term for it. What Americans understand by jingoism is an exaggerated sense of nationalism, which leads the jingo to assert that his own nation has pre-eminent rights and that anything done by other nations in opposition is an offense which should be punished. Q.-Is French A. It is. It was, however, more serious, because, since 1870, the French Chauvinist has had the loss of Alsace-Lorraine as something on which to base a consistent campaign. Therefore, while American jingoism became a political factor only very occasionally, to vanish again with the passing of the occurrence that brought it out, Chauvinism has been a steady and powerful factor in French political life. ism began openly to preach-Whence did it get its name? annexation of neighbors? A. Yes. But it must be added that this preaching was largely by extremists, who were bitterly opposed within Germany, and even within the ranks of the Pan-Germanists. The greater strength of the Pan-German teaching with the people was the demand for colonial possessions -the famous "place in the sun." Q. What was the difference between the Pan-Germanist and the British Imperialist before the war? A. Both were what we call "imperialistic"-meaning a desire for world-empire. The important difference was that the British Imperialists, dealing with possessions practically complete, aimed chiefly at securing and solidifying this vast empire by political internal bondsthat is, they were not endangering the world's peace by seeking any gravely large new conquests. The Pan-Germanist, on the contrary, looking at a world already possessed by others, could not possibly inculcate Pan-Germanism in the minds of the German people without at the same time (whether he wanted to or not) teaching them that sooner or later A. From one of Napoleon's soldiers who had such unreasoning patriotism that even his comrades laughed at him. His name was Chauvin, and after the fall of Napoleon the French public seized on the name and applied it to the old soldiers who still idolized the Emperor. Q.-Just what classes in Germany and Great Britain give support to these theories? A. All classes, when the originators of the movements succeed in presenting some particularly powerful reason. But if the question means what classes are by nature and thought supporters of these policies, the answer may be: that just as the two policies were much alike, despite the fact that they have caused war, so their protagonists in both nations were much alike, despite the fact that they so bitterly condemn each other. Q-What are these protagonists? A.-Agrarianism (mostly supported by what the world knows now as Junkers) in Germany, and Landlordism in Great Britain. The English equivalent of the German word "Junker" is "Squire." Both classes are land-holders, and most of the land is rural (agrarian as the Germans call it). Q. Why should these classes want foreign expansion? A.-Specifically for the general reason that national expansion means increased wealth, and that an increased revenue flowing in from foreign holdings will tend to reduce home-taxes, which bear heavily on land. But there is a most powerful psychological reason, also. The landholding classes of Germany and Great Britain are intensely conservative. For generations they have been, indeed, the bulwark of conservatism. This conservatism is expressed, and always has been expressed, by bitter hostility to any encroachment on vested privilege or estab lished order within. A corollary to this method of thought is an almost equal hostility to what they consider encroachments from without. Thus they tend naturally to support governments with powerful nationalistic aims. Q. What other things strained Anglo-German relations? A.-There was one mighty factor which was due to neither political policy nor to deliberate enmity. It was the growth of international trade throughout the world. German unity, as produced by the Franco-Prussian War, and the extraordinary development of a commonwealth bound together by an absolutely amazing co-ordination of legislation, executive government, education, industry and labor, changed Germany from an artistic and philosophical nation to a commercial one in practically one generation. Q. What did this mean to the rest of the world? A. In 1870 when the German Imperial Federation was proclaimed in Versailles amid conquered France, Germany was so negligible commercially and nautically that Great Britain, generally keenly sensitive to rivalry, not only felt no apprehension, but welcomed the new Empire. Thirty years later, with the generation that had witnessed the Franco-Prussian War still alive, Germany was challenging Great Britain's place as the world's leading commercial nation. Q.-Had Great Britain fallen be hind in scientific development or commercial capacity? A.-Great Britain was abreast of Germany in intelligence and ability. But Great Britain's vast commercial and political machinery was the result of centuries of growth. Its very vastness and power made difficult any swift, radical changes. The German machinery was new, very radically fitted for the modern conditions in which it had been created. In addition it was, by very virtue of its novelty, very compact, and, so to speak, mobile. Q.-How did this cause military rivalry? A. In the ancient historical way. As soon as a German merchant marine was created, a German navy followed as the almost inevitable consequence. Q.-Had Germany not been a seapower before 1870? A.-Germany never had been a seapower. The so-called German Free Cities, forming the famous Hanseatic League (1241-1630), with Hamburg, Lübeck, Dantzig, and other cities, had owned one of the most powerful mercantile marines in history, but they had no warships that could be called a navy. During all the centuries following the discovery of America, Great Britain's naval supremacy had been challenged seriously only by Spain and France. In 1870 the only naval rival was France. Q. What right did Great Britain have to object to Germany's naval building? A.-No right at all, or all the right in the world, just as Germany had no right at all to build a navy or all the right in the world. It was a simple and straight matter of national interest. Q.-Were there attempts at peaceable agreement? A.-There were many. But they all were based on premises that were inexorably antagonistic. Great Britain held that any agreement must be founded on her national policy and the unbroken traditions of her people that the British Navy must be larger than any other. The Germans held that it must be recognized that their power and their mercantile interests demanded a navy at least equal in strength to that of any other nation. Q.-What justice was there in the British contention? A.-Complete justice, considering that the world was one in which a final ap |