Crescent and Iron Cross by E.F. Benson — Read

I

Let us commit the crime of _lese-majeste_, and assume (though the Emperor Wilhelm II. has repeatedly announced the contrary) that Germany is not at the conclusion of the European War to find herself in possession of the world. She has prepared her plans in anticipation of the auspicious event; in fact she has had a most interesting map of Europe produced which, except by its general shape, is scarcely recognisable. The printing of it, it is true, was a little premature, for it shows what Europe was to have been like in 1916, and the apportionments are not borne out by facts. But assuming that there is some radical error about it all from her point of view, and assuming that there will not be either a conclusive peace favourable to Prussian interests, or even an inconclusive peace, but one in which the Allies will be able to dictate and enforce their own terms, the magnitude of the problems that will await their decision may well appal the most ingenious of their statesmen.