These considerations, therefore, lead us to the conclusion that the final liberation of all the Latin and Slav peoples of Austria-Hungary from the German yoke is a matter of universal social interest. In fact, it constitutes an essential condition of the progress of liberal ideas, of the pacific development and organization of democracy in the whole world. CHAPTER VII. THE BALKANS AND THE PANGERMAN PLAN. I. The connexion between the Pangerman plan and the plan of Bulgarian supremacy. II. Greece and the Pangerman ambitions. III. Roumania and the Pangerman plan. In virtue of the geographical position which they occupy in the zone “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” the Balkan States are of extreme importance for the making or the marring of the whole Pangerman plan. Moreover, events have proved to the satisfaction of the most sceptical the influence which these States exert on the issue of the struggle. Public opinion, therefore, both in Allied and neutral countries, should note very clearly the intimate relation which exists between the Balkan factors and the universal Pangerman plan. I can here touch only on the fundamental Balkan factors, those that have a durable and permanent character, not on the attitude of certain governments in the Eastern peninsula. That attitude for the last year has been singularly vacillating. It shifts, in fact, under the action of those parasitic German influences which, through the dynastic ties of the reigning families, backed by the threats of Berlin, sway these governments in opposition to the national interests which it is their bounden duty to defend. Moreover, simple justice compels us to acknowledge, that the diplomatic mistakes made by the Allies, especially in 1915, in consequence of their imperfect acquaintance with Balkan facts, has been singularly favourable to the success of the German influences.