The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-26

weaken Germany's character as an essen-
 tially national state. Kaiser Wilhelm and
 Bethmann FIollweg here agree. They
 want to get all they can, but do not want to get hurt in the process
 Kaiser Wilhelms one great anuexion
 plan Is said to be in the northeast He wants to take Russias Baltic prov.nccs,
 including Libau and Riga and the coun- try south as far as Dvinsk including
 Dorpat, with its once German university.
 Also Germany would like to stretch her. sell along the Baltic as far as Reval.
 All this country has German links; the
 landowners and bourgeoisie are the pos
 terlty of the Teutonic knights, and the peasants and workmen are Let's or Ests, who hate Germans but are Lutherans by
 religion and might be assimilated. Reval. Tn German hands, would be a perpetual
 threat to Petrograd. It would give Ad- miral Tirpitz command over the Gulf
 of Finland. Falkenhayn, Germany's best
 political strategist, stands strongly for this plan. The possession of the Baltic provinces would retain to Germany the outfianking position towards Russia,
 which she used during the war to such 1 advantage. Up to now east Prussia out l fanlSed Russia in Poland. and made dan gerous any Russian attempt to advance west If Russia is pushed out of Po land. and Germany in the north does not | transfer her frontier east of her present
 
 peace. would no longer outfank Russia l If Germany takes the greater part of l the Baltic provinces, she would continue l to outfank Russia: and in a future war she would present to Russian army marching west the same peril as she has presented in the present war. If this an- ' nexation is combined with Kaiser Will
 helms buffer state notion, Germanys se- curity against retaliation war would
 be doubly great.
 Arnhem Michailis, retired Danish diplo- mat says that Kaiser Wilhelm had this scheme since the beginning of the war. In Mons last autumn, Minister of War Falkenhayn delivered a lecture on the subject in Kaiser Wilhelmn's presence
 Falkenhayn developed the buffer state theory. He proclaimed that Germanys strategical safety demanded an independ ent Poland, and predicted that an inde- pendent Poland would be anti-Russian. as the Poles are Catholics, and have more
 in common with central and west Europe l than with Russia. reconstructed Po- land. FallSenhayn added. would in itself l be too small to make an effective buffer state. Therefore, with the new Poland should be united all Lthuania, and the Ukraine. This would be reconstruc-
 tion not of ethnical Poland but of his | torical Poland, which was a nationally composite state stretching from the Bal
 tic to the Black Sea. and embracing the great part of the Ukraine. Russia, said Falkenhayn, would persistently aspire to recover what she had lost: and this l would bring her into opposition with the seventh great power. The seventh great 1 power would be too weak to resist Rus l sa, and would be compelled to lean on Germany and Austria-Hungary. The new l state would be an effective buttress. "A 1 Russian push towards the west would I spend it's force on the buffer states forti- l fled frontier and long berore the buffer state was crushed by Russia's overwhelm- ing might, Germany would have dealt with her foes in west Europe, and would be l free to tackle Russia
 Michailis. as result of visits to Der lin. knows that Kaiser Wilhelm has embraced this plan. The plan Is all the more popular because careful Chancellor 1 Bethmann Hol1weg Is mortally afraid of l the problems which wholesale annexations
 would bring to Germany. Germany s whole strategy during the past weeks has been dictated by the plan. Kaiser Will l helms original plan was to take War ! saw and the Narew fortresses; make them into strong fortified line; make no fur ther advance into Russia and then turn against France and England. If the l German armies succeeded in entering Paris, that, reasoned the strategists would end the war. Now the plan Is ichanged After the Vistuia was taken began an ambitious march against the Bug, and even east of the Bug; and Kaiser Wilhelm is now committed to con- quering all east Poland. all Lithuania, the greater part of the Baltic provinces. White Russia, the Red Russian province of volhynia and probably the Ukraine and Bessarabia This is an area as big as any European state vexcept Russia herself. All of it except the Baltic prov
 inces. and perhaps Bessaraba, would go l if Kaiser Wilhelmn's plans succeed-to make up Europe's seventh great power. Germany's plan Is to occupy even more territory than this as only by offering to give back some of the occupied terri tory can she hope to induce Russia to make peace Probably Hindenburg's s group of armies will strike at Smolensk, which is only fortnight's march from
 Svinsk, near which the extreme left wing ] now stands. If this succeeds, and if 1 Russia cannot recover the territory in battle. the buffer state will be genuine great power both in territory and popu- llation. Its strength against Russia will
 be all the greater because it will contain all Russia's great manufa curing cities except Petrograd, Moscow and Charchow. IL will embrace Lodz, Warsaw, Riga, i Libau, Bielostock. Wilma, Ekaterinoslaw, Odessa, which concentrate three-quarters of Russia's industrial production. Kaiser Wilhelm sees that this would enormous | ly weaken Russian military sense. as the war shows every day that next to men, industrial efficiency counts most | ''Russia." says Michailis. would be | transformed into a semi-Asiatic, agricul- | tural state, isolated from Europe, as che was by Poland In the middle ages. Kaiser Wilhelm sees that such Russia
 could never again play role in Europe proper"
 Kaiser Wilhelms plan Is that the new seventh great power should be nationally composite similar to Aus l tria- Hungary. It would not be so torn | by race contrasts. for nearly all the
 inhabitants would belong to one or another slav branch. It would contain no Great Russians In Europe, the great Russians number about 70 0OO. 900 out of 1S0,000,0o0. In the west of the empire, the raw material for the buff fer state. there are no Great Russians
 except officials and a few colonists. In | the north of the buffer state territory are Lithuanians; in the center and west, Poles; to tho east of the Poles. White Russians, and in the southeast. Ukrainians whom the great Russians call little Russians. The Poles and Lith-
 uanians are Catholics: the White Rus
 sians and the little Russians are. Greek
 ish. Today. outside Poland proper, the pie are Poles. Tn Wilma. Lithuania's | capital, the Polish language Is heard.
 Kieff has least of all the Polish char
 acter; 1t was once the capital of a
 Russian principality; and where not
 Russian 1t Ia today little Russian and
 T~ xf~l- E~-A Dy-