Almost all the neutral States, though as yet they are hardly aware of it, have a vital interest, not only in compelling Germany to abandon her conquests in the East and in the West, but also in preventing her from establishing her supremacy over Austria-Hungary by means of the war. This latter aim is perfectly logical, since the German supremacy over Central Europe would secure for the government of Berlin formidable means of domination both by land and sea (see p. 106). One of the effects of the colossal upheaval in the mutual relation of the forces of the States involved, in view of the abnormal concentration of the sources of power in German hands, would be that the independence of the neutral States would inevitably be gravely imperilled. In this chapter we shall consider the situation of countries still neutral, which would be particularly affected by the achievement of the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” I. The case of Portugal is typical, because here we have a small State which, in the opinion of many, seemed for a long time as if it could keep out of the conflict; whereas on the contrary the necessity of defending itself against the German schemes for swallowing it up, compelled it at last to plunge into the war. Ever since the opening of hostilities in Europe, Portugal has been the scene of German intrigues carried on with the greatest activity; indeed, even before the outbreak of the European conflagration the train had been laid as carefully in Portugal as elsewhere. Working through reactionary centres, these intrigues ostensibly aimed at the restoration to the throne of Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Bragança, who had been dethroned, on October 5th, 1910, by the revolution which gave birth to the Portuguese Republic. Afterwards, on the 4th of September, 1913, he married the German princess Augustine-Victoria, of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen. The German agents also brought influence to bear on certain Portuguese anarchists in order, by every possible means, to stir up trouble in the country which had been marked out for ruin by the Pangerman plot of 1911. We have seen (p. 103) what Portuguese colonies that plot had specially in view. Now in 1912 the government of Berlin, eagerly and astutely plotting its European war on the assumption that England would stand out of it, and that she might be lulled into acquiescence by the bait of temporary colonial gains, availed itself of the official negotiations with Lord Haldane to propose to the English Cabinet that England and Germany should divide the Portuguese colonies in Africa between them.