Q2 1903; BERLIN
-- That well-known traveler and author, Sir Harry Johnston, who is in close touch with German affairs, places
himself in the position of an aspiring German in a recent number of the Fianz-Chronik. He dreams he says, as he is sure many Germans are dreaming, of a great
Austro-German empire- a confederation which would eventually extend from the shores of the Baltic and North Sea to the Adriatic, Aegean and the Black Sea, and
beyond through Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.
This continuous Empire, Johnston says, from the Elbe to the Euphrates, is surely as glorious a dream as any great nation might caress. This empire might not include all the northern parts of Asia Minor; it might have to leave outside its limits Syria and Palestine; Greece, continental and insular, for the memory of its past and the hope of its future, should always be an independent state; Arabia and Egypt myst be left to the influence of England; Tripoli and Barka to France and Italy.
But this new confederation would be, on a larger scale, a repetition of what Germany now is- an empire of many confederating states, large and small, with a common fleet and army for extraterritorial purposes, a common foreign and fiscal policy. The Kingdom of Poland might be reconstituted. The Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia become in reality kingdoms, with Kings similar to those who rules over Wurtemburg, Bavaria and Saxony. In a like manner there would be a kingdom of Servia, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia, a Republic of Constantinople like the Republic of Hamburg; a free city of Smyrna like the free city of Bremen; a government over Mesopotamia, like the Imperial State of Alsace-Lorraine. Roumania's connection with this new German Empire might be that of a friendly but independent ally, similar to the position occupied by Greece.
This continuous Empire, Johnston says, from the Elbe to the Euphrates, is surely as glorious a dream as any great nation might caress. This empire might not include all the northern parts of Asia Minor; it might have to leave outside its limits Syria and Palestine; Greece, continental and insular, for the memory of its past and the hope of its future, should always be an independent state; Arabia and Egypt myst be left to the influence of England; Tripoli and Barka to France and Italy.
But this new confederation would be, on a larger scale, a repetition of what Germany now is- an empire of many confederating states, large and small, with a common fleet and army for extraterritorial purposes, a common foreign and fiscal policy. The Kingdom of Poland might be reconstituted. The Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia become in reality kingdoms, with Kings similar to those who rules over Wurtemburg, Bavaria and Saxony. In a like manner there would be a kingdom of Servia, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia, a Republic of Constantinople like the Republic of Hamburg; a free city of Smyrna like the free city of Bremen; a government over Mesopotamia, like the Imperial State of Alsace-Lorraine. Roumania's connection with this new German Empire might be that of a friendly but independent ally, similar to the position occupied by Greece.



