Mr. Dietrich Schaefer, the well-known historian, in the Review _Panther_, affirmed, early in February, 1915: “It is absolutely necessary for us to expand the sphere of our power, especially eastward ... the immense Russian force must recede behind the Dnieper” (quoted by _L’Information_, 5th February, 1915). A Swedish pamphlet, ascribed to the Germanophile, Adrian Molin, explained, also early in 1915, that Germany, with the help of Sweden, was to have given the finishing stroke in separating Russia from Europe by means of a barrier formed of Buffer-States, to wit, Finland and the Ukraine. Now, for the last twenty-five years in particular, the Pangerman agents have endeavoured to sow the seeds of rebellion among the 20 millions of Small-Russians who live in the Russian Governments grouped around Kieff. Finally, the Moslem regions of Russia (Caucasus, Central Asia, etc.) were to form special States under the sway of Turkish suzerainty, and, through that channel, to bear the yoke of German influence. [Illustration: THE GERMAN CLAIMS IN THE EAST.] Such were the means elaborated at Berlin to bring about the annihilation of Russia as a great power, when once her armies had been destroyed; and this might have happened perhaps, if the English intervention, by enabling France to make a stand, had not prevented Germany from first smashing France and then concentrating all her forces against the Empire of the Tsar, in accordance with the plan of the General Staff of Berlin. We can form an estimate of the annexations which Germany, as late as the beginning of 1916, still hoped to effect at the cost of Russia by examining the memorial of May 20th, 1915, addressed to the Imperial Chancellor; although the phraseology in which it is drawn up aims at concealing the full extent of the Pangerman demands, it yet tallies, in its tendencies, with the programme published by Tannenberg in 1911: “With regard to the East,” says that memorial, “the following consideration must guide us: For the great increase of industrial power which we expect in the West we must secure a counterpoise by the annexation of an agricultural territory of equal value in the East. It is necessary to strengthen the agricultural basis of our national economy; to secure room for the expansion of a great German agricultural settlement; to restore to our Empire the German peasants living in a foreign land, particularly in Russia, who are now actually without the protection of the law; finally, we must increase considerably the number of our fellow countrymen able to bear arms; all these matters require an important extension of the frontiers of the Empire and of Prussia towards the East through the annexation of at least some parts of the Baltic provinces and of territories to the South of them, while keeping in view the necessity of a military defence of the Eastern German frontier.