c; of a discussion of diplomatists;
of patched arrangements. But even under these circumstances the whole
Eastern European situation is so fluid and little controlled by any
plain necessity, that there will be enormous scope for any individual
statesman of imagination and force of will.

There have recently been revelations, more or less trustworthy, of
German schemes for a rearrangement of Eastern Europe. They implied a
German victory. Bohemia, Poland, Galicia and Ruthenia were to make a
Habsburg-ruled State from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Jugo-Slav and
the Magyar were to be linked (uneasy bedfellows) into a second kingdom,
also Habsburg ruled; Austria was to come into the German Empire as a
third Habsburg dukedom or kingdom; Roumania, Bulgaria and Greece were to
continue as independent Powers, German ruled. Recently German proposals
published in America have shown a disposition to admit the claims of
Roumania to the Wallachian districts of Transylvania.

Evidently the urgent need to create kingdoms or confederations larger
than any such single States as the natural map supplies, is manifest to
both sides. If Germany, Italy and Russia can come to any sort of general
agreement in these matters, their arrangements will be a matter of
secondary importance to the Western Allies--saving our duty to Serbia
and Montenegro and their rulers. Russia may not find the German idea of
a Polish _plus_ Bohemian border State so very distasteful, provided that
the ruler is not a German; Germany may find the idea still tolerable if
the ruler is not the Tsar.

The destiny of the Serbo-Croatian future lies largely in the hands of
Italy and Bulgaria. Bulgaria was not in this war at the beginning, and
she may not be in it at the end. Her King is neither immortal nor
irreplaceable. Her desire now must be largely to retain her winnings in
Macedonia, and keep the frontier posts of a too embracing Germany as far
off as possible. She has nothing to gain and much to fear from Roumania
and Greece. Her present relations with Turkey are unnatural. She has
everything to gain from a prompt recovery of the friendship of Italy and
the sea Powers. A friendly Serbo-Croatian buffer State against Germany
will probably be of equal comfort in the future to Italy and Bulgaria;
more especially if Italy has pushed down the Adriatic coast along the
line of the former Venetian possessions. Serbia has been overrun, but
never were the convergent forces of adj