on. It is here that the German
will be induced by his Government to see his compensations. He will be
consoled for the restoration of Serbia by the prospect of future
conflicts between Italian and Jugoslav that will let him in again to the
Adriatic. His attention will be directed to his newer, closer
association with Bulgaria and Turkey. In those countries he will be told
he may yet repeat the miracle of Hungary. And there may be also another
Hungary in Poland. It will be whispered to him that he has really
conquered those countries when indeed it is highly probable he has only
spent his substance in setting up new assertive alien allies. The
Kaiser, if he is not too afraid of the precedent of Sarajevo, may make a
great entry into Constantinople, with an effect of conquering what is
after all only a temporarily allied capital. The German will hope also
to retain his fleet, and no peace, he will be reminded, can rob him of
his hard-earned technical superiority in the air. The German air fleet
of 1930 may yet be something as predominant as the British Navy of 1915,
and capable of delivering a much more intimate blow. Had he not better
wait for that? When such consolations as these become popular in the
German Press we of the Pledged Allies may begin to talk of peace, for
these will be its necessary heralds.

The concluding phase of a process of general exhaustion must almost
inevitably be a game of bluff. Neither side will admit its extremity.
Neither side, therefore, will make any direct proposals to its
antagonists nor any open advances to a neutral. But there will be much
inspired peace talk through neutral media, and the consultations of the
anti-German allies will become more intimate and detailed. Suggestions
will "leak out" remarkably from both sides, to journalists and neutral
go-betweens. The Eastern and Western Allies will probably begin quite
soon to discuss an anti-German Zollverein and the co-ordination of their
military and naval organisations in the days that are to follow the war.
A discussion of a Central European Zollverein is already afoot. A
general idea of the possible rearrangement of the European States after
the war will grow up in the common European and American mind; public
men on either side will indicate concordance with this general idea, and
some neutral power, Denmark or Spain or the United States or Holland,
will invite representatives to an informal discussion of these
possibilities.

P