Page:The future of Bohemia by Seton-Watson (1915).pdf/34

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
30
THE FUTURE OF BOHEMIA

privileges as the Magyars in the future Greater Roumania. Such an arrangement is difficult, but most certainly attainable.

The Southern Slav Question has already forced itself upon the attention of the world. The time will soon come when the Bohemian Question will assume an equal importance, and it is therefore essential to realize that the two problems are intimately connected and likely to be more so every day. The interests of the Czechs and of the Southern Slavs coincide at every point.

Forty-five years ago a far-sighted Russian wrote as follows: “The Eastern Question is not to be solved in the Balkans, nor the Polish Question in Warsaw, nor the Black Sea Question on the Bosphorus. All three are held together by a common knot, which lies on the middle Danube. The Eastern Question can only be solved in Vienna,” and again “The Eastern Question is a Slav Question.” It is interesting to find the same writer discussing the possible enemies of Russia in the future. First on the list is England—there for once we have happily proved him wrong. The Poles he regards as doubtful—“whether we have the Poles for us or against us, depends on us Russians, and on us alone.” What could be more prophetic than this? It is even truer in 1915 than it was in 1870. But above all he regards as Russia’s future enemies “the Germans with their allies, the Turks and the Magyars.” “To Russia,” he adds, “Hungary forms the advance-guard of Germany.” That has