Now, if Central Pan-Germany were to survive, thus assuring to Germany all its vast attendant advantages, and leaving the Allies to face their incalculable war-losses, could such a peace properly be called a ‘white peace’? Could a peace which gave Germany the domination of Europe be called a ‘drawn game,’ a ‘peace without annexations or indemnities’? What sort of ‘limping peace’ (_paix boiteuse_) would permit Prussian militarism to hold sway over the 150 million people of Pan-Germany instead of the 68 millions of 1914, and put 30 million soldiers at Berlin’s disposal? What one of the exhausted states of Europe could lift a hand under such conditions? This would be no _paix boiteuse_; it would be the peace of slavery. If the Allies are to understand the crucial situation which lies before them, they must realize that, as Lloyd George said, ‘The security of civilization is directly involved in the independence of Serbia.’ But the independence of Serbia can never be assured so long as Germany practically exercises hegemony over the 50 million people of Austria-Hungary, for the Austro-German unit of 118 million inhabitants, all subject to Berlin, is geographically the mistress of the Balkans. _The pledge of Serbia’s independence, therefore, does not lie in Serbia, but north of the Danube._ This pledge involves the liberation of the peoples under Hapsburg domination,—the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Jugo-Slavs, and Roumanians,—which alone can permit the creation of a barrier sufficiently strong to block the Hamburg-Persian Gulf line, and, at the same time, annul the vast advantages that the definite establishment of the formidable economic and military Pan-German scheme would assure to the Kaiser and his people. Now it is much easier to devise the destruction of Pan-Germany than is generally supposed. This fact will become plain as soon as the Allies as a whole realize that the freedom of the nationalities subject to the Hapsburgs should not only be an object of the Entente victory, but also a means to that victory. This, however, is a matter which needs greater elaboration than I can give it at this point. It is discussed at length in the concluding chapters of this volume. In a word, the solution of the Central European problem means everything for the Allies. So long as it shall remain unsolved, victory will be out of their reach. On the other hand, when this one point has been settled, all the other special war-aims of each of the Allies can be fulfilled with ease.