This is an annotated version of the book1.contains an updated biography of the author at the end of the book for a better understanding of the text.2.This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errorsIt is everywhere admitted that the result of the great war must beeither, upon the whole, to produce a new map of Europe upon theGerman model, or a new map of Europe upon the model suitable to theideas of the Allies.By this it is not meant that either ideal will be completelyreached, but that in the settlement one or the other will certainlypreponderate. Indeed, it is in the struggle between these two newmaps of Europe as ideals that the motive of the war consists.Now, before attempting to determine in a graphic fashion what thosetwo ideals are--before, that is, trying to draw two maps which shallrepresent respectively the German goal and the goal of the Allies, wemust lay down certain postulates which are not always recognized butwhich are certainly true.Unless we recognize their truth we shall come to accept wildstatements, and to be frightened of those ridiculous prophecies whichpropose the extermination of Germany on the one hand, or the rule ofthe German government over England or France on the other.I. The first of these postulates is that a modern European nation nolonger desires to _annex_ white men in Europe, and the territory theyinhabit.The example of Alsace-Lorraine alone has proved a sufficientlesson; the continued vitality of Poland after a hundred years hasproved another, and even the difficulties of the Austro-Hungariangovernments, with their subject races, a third. This does notmean that a modern European government would not annex in anycircumstance. The possession of some all-important military orcommercial point might occasionally make the perilous experimentworth while. But it means that the idea of annexation as an obviouscorollary to military success has disappeared.II. The second postulate is as follows: It is universallyrecognized--by the Germans quite as much as by ourselves--that thepolitical boundaries so long established in Europe hardly evercorrespond to exact national groupings, and very often violentlyconflict with the realities of national life.No one is so foolish, for instance, as to pretend that the Finnishprovinces of Russia are not quite separate from the rest of theCzar's dominions in tradition, and consciousness, and habit, andall the rest that makes a nation. No one in England now denies theexistence of an Irish nationality.No one, to take an Eastern case, would pretend that the Serbianfeeling of nationality was not very real, and was very far from beingcontained by the present boundaries of Serbia.The excuse for the old point of view--the point of view thatpolitical boundaries were sufficient and that the true nationalitieswhich they cut through or suppressed might be neglected--was thatin time, with the modern rapidity of communication and the power ofthe modern State, these divergent elements would be _absorbed_, or_digested into_, the greater nationality which governed them. Butexperience has falsified this very reasonable conception. It hasbeen found not only that this transformation did not take place, buteven that the old real nationalities were actually getting stronger.Poland, for instance, artificially cut through by the German, Austrian, and Russian frontiers, did seem for a time as though itwere going to spring into a Russian, a German, and an Austriantype of Polish men; and in the latter case, that of Austria, someconsiderable advance was made towards such a result. But generationspassed, and the process did not continue; on the contrary, the tidebegan to set backwards, and the conception of a united Poland is farstronger to-day even in the small and successful Austrian portion ofPoland than it was thirty years ago