It is in the very heart of Europe. Certainly the majority of the German
people refuse stubbornly to accept the consequences of the defeat
inflicted upon them as more than a temporary check to their strength
and supremacy among civilised people. They are so conscious of their
own genius in organisation and industry, so confident in the future
destiny of the German folk, so sure that their increasing population
is bound to prevail over the weaker and dwindling stock of a nation
like France, that they are only waiting for the time when, as they
think, the inevitable laws of history will carry them in a tide over
the present barriers that have been imposed upon them. Meanwhile,
they rage at the humiliations they have to suffer, and brood over
the injustice of their present condition. Their sense of being the
victims of world injustice is a fixed idea or what, in the present
jargon of psycho-analysis, is called a “complex.” It is not less
dangerous for that, and to regain their liberty of action, freedom
from foreign interference with foreign occupation, and release from
immense burdens of foreign debt, there are large numbers of Germans who
would willingly die with a racial patriotism and passion exalted above
all self-interest. Many old women in Germany would like to march with
sharpened scissors behind the German troops. Many young girls would
gladly go with their hatpins to stab a Frenchman or two in revenge for
the Ruhr. Europe will not be safe until that racial hatred between
France and Germany has died down or has been killed by a new spirit
and a community of interests. Herriot, the democratic Prime Minister
of France, was the first to offer a truce to that hatred, and the new
spirit has begun to work a little on both sides of the Rhine, though it
is a delicate growth which will need great encouragement. In Hungary,
and to a less extent in Austria, racial passion is also smouldering,
and could be quickly fanned into flame. The Hungarians are a proud
fighting race, who feel themselves superior to neighbours like the
Serbs and Roumanians occupying some of their ancient territory. “It
will not always be like this,” some of them told me. “Something will
break, and we shall move. Not all the tears of women will put out the
red flame of that future war of liberation when we shall join hands
with our kinsfolk and smash these artificial boundaries imposed by a
scandalous peace.”
The Balkans are still a stewpot of racial passions and rivalries—Serbs,
Bulgars, Montenegrins, Albanians, Roumanians, Greeks and Turks all
snarling at each other, all waiting until the Great Powers get to grips
again, or are too busy to intervene between these smaller nations.