Evening star., 1939-10-01
STAR WASHINGTON D. G., OCTOBER l. se-pARr TWO

exercise profound influence on its poll
cies, particularly in foreign affairs.
Converting Sir Halford's warning to
the allied statesmen into a program for
the resurrection of German world
power, Haushofer preached the creation
of a great ttranscontinental bloc consist
ing of Germany, Russia and Japan, for
the purpose of overthrowing Great
Britain and the United States He de-
veloped this conception into an apoca-
lyptic vision of worldwide rising of
the colored peoples of Asia and Africa
against the capitalist imperialism of the
western democracies-a rebellion to be
sponsored and led by Soviet Russia and
Germany.
Crisis Brought Decision.
Despite his facilities for intimate ap-
proach and support from the German
general staff, Haushofer was unable for
nearly seven years to bring to pass his
plan of a German Russian rapproche-
ment The reason is intelligible to all
who have read "Mein Kampf" Next in
virulence to hatred of the Jews was Hit
ler's phobia against the Slavic race, born
OF his citizenship in Austria Hungary,
where German minority was in death
struggle against majority of Czechs
and Magyars. 1t required the menace of
major war on two fronts, Hitler's prin-
cipal nightmare, to induce him to re-
nounce, whether temporarily or perman-
emily, one OF the two demons of his
racist inferno. On the Russian side, it
may be noted that Stain is not himself
Slav but Georgian-that is, Tartar
and blood-brother to the Turk.
HauShofer no doubt recommended as
a piece of good fortune another con-
stituent which Mackinder defined as an
evil to be combated at all costs. After
declaring that uneven distribution of
fertility and strategical position renders
impossible in nature such a thing as
equality of opportunity among nations,
the Englishman continued:
Unless I wholly misread the facts of
geography, would say that the grouping
OF lands and seas and of fertility and
natural pathways, is such as to lend it.
self to the growth of empires and in the
end OF single world empire"
On what date he formed this opinion
may be learned from glance through
the Oxford professors book, which, to
one remembering the geography primers
OF boyhood days, seems an unknown and
fabulous realm. To begin with, he wipes
national boundaries from the map of
Europe and draws new line, from Adri-
attic to Baltic, in such a manner that
Venice and the Netherlands are to the
West, while Berlin snd Vienna lie to
the East. These two areas he renames
West and East Europe.
Christian and Pagan Realms.
On the west all the countries, including
the German Rhineland, are direct or in
direct heirs of Greek and Roman civili-
zation. Among them Christianity is
deeply rooted. Nearly all pertain to sea
power, in that they are either coastal
like France and Holland; or insular, like
the British Isles; or peninsula, like Spain
and Italy. But on the east Prussia and
European Russia were untouched by the
leglons OF Rome, and have remeined es-
sentially pagan. Due to Arctic ice, these
are landlocked countries, save for the
North, Baltic and Black Seas, and the
remote Pacific Coast.
East Europe says the author, is an
integral part of vast region which he
names the Heartland, and which con-
sists of the lowland plains extending more
than 1000 miles from the mouth of the
Elbe River on the North Sea to the
mouth OF the Amur River, emptying into
the Pacific Ocean on the Siberian coast,
1t spreads from ice fields at the north
to the torrid mountain battlements of
Persia, India and China on the south.
Control of the Heartland under a
single system, according to the Oxford
savant, would be a giant step toward
dominion over what he calls the World
Island, which is another name for the
combined continents of Europe, Asia and
Africa. Modern methods of commune
cation and transportation, in his view.
have effectively converted the three areas
into what they always geographically
were-a single continent. 1t is sur
rounded by water and is none the less an
island because the water on the north is
frozen. The World-Island also is re-
garded as triangular peninsula, with a
base extending from the British Isles to
Japan and its apex at the Cape of Good
Hope.
The World-Island occupies two
twelfths of the globes surface and con-
tains seven-eighths of all humanity.
Bases Essential for Sea Power.
Sir Halford holds that sea power can
not exist without secure and productive
land bases and declares that history is
full of cases in which attempts have been
made, successful and unsuccessful, to
outflank it through land expeditions.
Despite these gloomy representations,
certain diverse omens may be drawn
from the professors theories. On geo.
graphical grounds, it would be suicidal
for Italy and Spain to support an alli-
ance between Germany and Russia, as
1t would be no less self destructive for
France, England, Holland, Belgium, the
scandinavian and Balkan groups of
nations, the Baltic states and Turkey.
Japan, according to this view, cannot re-
main permanently in alliance with bloc
able to challenge her land empire in
China. And even the United States
might feel obliged to help in preventing
the conquest of an all-European base by
an alliance which would seek to settle
accounts by attacking through South and