alliance of Hungary with Prussia was by no means incompatible with the postulates of pan-Germanism, false though they were. Nor is it of little moment that, from 1849 onwards, the Magyars were antagonistic to Russia and that, as an Asiatic people, they were doubtless prepared to fall in with German ideas of expansion eastwards. For the same reason it was easy for Germany to secure Turkish acquiescence. I cannot say whether the non-Slav element in the mixed blood of the Bulgars predisposed them also to join the Turks and the Germans in the war. By religion, the Bulgarian dynasty was Catholic; politically, it was Austrian and therefore also German; and, like the other Allies and friends of Prussia, the Bulgars were subject to German educational influences.
Similarly, the initial uncertainty and wavering in the attitude of the Vatican towards the struggle between Germany and the Allies was determined by the old relationship between Austria and Papal Rome, and by consideration for the large Catholic minority in Germany. Practically and historically, the Triple Alliance represented the Middle Ages and the absolutist monarchical régime as it evolved after the weakening of ecclesiastical absolutism during the modern era; and, politically, pan-Germanism became the chauvinistic programme of Prussian militarism. Against it France, Russia, the British Empire, Italy, the United States and the other Allies took their stand, all of them, with the exception of Russia, being democratic, constitutional or republican States. Modern Democracy ranged itself against Theocracy.
In contra-distinction to Germany and Austria, the Allies accepted the modern principle of nationality for all peoples and supported the cause of small States and nations, a cause of far-reaching importance, as I have shown when referring to the zone of little peoples who lie between the Germans and the Russians. The democratic principle implies that small States and nations stand on a footing of equality with the big, just as the rights of the so-called “small man” within his own community are, in theory, equal to those of the wealthy and powerful. In foreign affairs the consistent application of the democratic principle is, however, only beginning; and even in the domestic affairs of individual States it has hardly gone beyond the initial stages. But, by accepting the principle of nationality, the Allies guarded themselves against Chauvinism. True, Germany too was “national,” though she conceived her “nationality” as something superior to the “nationality of others. The Allies, on the other hand, recognized both the
