On the East some have imagined they would erect as against Russia a mutilated and dependent Polish State. It is more probable that they would confine themselves to procuring some liberty for Russian Poland, and obtaining some convention as to fortification and commerce. Russia will always be formidable, and to maintain the mutual bond of a subject Poland between Russia and herself would serve in the future, as it has served in the past, the ends of Prussia. It is essential to Prussia that no really independent Poland should re-arise, even mutilated. It is even essential that there should be no one area that the Poles could regard as the nucleus of a really free Polish State. In the Balkans the Germanic Powers would certainly demand the control over what is now Serbia, and, at the risk of further war, the outlet at Salonika. The remnant of the Turkish Empire in Europe they already regard as being under their protectorate. As to the West, they would, rightly, treat it merely as a defeated foe. France (they would say) might continue to decline--for the Germans, getting things out of Berlin, always talk of “the decay of the Latin peoples”--her decline accelerated by stringent commercial treaties and a heavy indemnity; England would be envisaged in the same terms. Germany would demand from England certain coaling stations; she would impose on England also certain commercial conditions. But there would be no need to restrict the building of a Fleet, for there a victorious Germany would feel easily able to look after herself. [Illustration: MAP III. EUROPE REMODELLED BY GERMANY AND AUSTRIA Boundary of Germanic Allies to-day, with their dependent States. Small districts which might be actually annexed: the Lower Scheldt, Middle Meuse, Ardennes, Luxembourg, a corner of French Lorraine, a few frontier districts of Russian Poland. Countries which would be dependent upon the Germanic hegemony, being of kindred blood and speech, and which would in special points admit actual economic or political control by Germans. Buffer Polish States, which Prussia might erect dependent on herself and as a barrier against Russia. Holland, a special case. Kindred in speech. Not actually annexed, perhaps, but allowed only a quasi-independent position with German control, veiled, in the two principal ports, and facilities for German Navy. Also included in any economic policy. Districts in no way kindred to Germanic peoples, but to be annexed, or at any rate directly controlled in order to command the Balkans, to dominate Constantinople, and to get a passage to the Ægean Sea. District which German Empire might annex, both on account of its German elements in population, and on account of controlling the Baltic.]