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Excerpt from The New Eastern Europe
A new Balkans has been created in Eastern Europe and no diplomatic reversal of the Treaty of Brest can reverse the facts of the situation. The Ukraine may join with Russia again, for Little Russia is one of All the Russias after all. But the non-russian, non-orthodox races of the Borderland, Finns, Balts, Letts, Esths, Lithuanians, Poles, are now launched for good or bad on an independent career. Hitherto they have been held in artificial equilibrium by the presence of the German armies. Now these are being withdrawn, and there is beginning to ensue, as in the Balkans when the Turkish power was removed, a jostling of infant nationalities struggling to find their feet. The young Balkan States could look to powerful neighbours, Austria on the one hand and Russia on the other, for support; and the rest of Europe could preserve the peace of the Balkans, tant bien que ml, by balancing the rival in¿uences of these two Powers. But the two great neighbours of the new Eastern Europe are both in collapse: and the friction between the several States has a free field. Force, in the shape of international Armies of Occupation, can no doubt hold it in suspense, as the austro-german Occupation held it in suspense. But a mistake will be made if it is supposed that it can be dissipated by force - still less by diplomatic machinery. Friction in the case of young Nationalisms in con¿ict is a process of biological growth.
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