The map of Europe has not simply been scorched by the consuming heat of our time: it has been, in large measure, destroyed. Only a few remains are left …
From the Atlantic Ocean to the Urals, from Archangel to Salonica, modifications are demanded, modifications are in process, which will introduce, if not a new heaven, at least a new Earth. In only a few instances, and those relatively unimportant, will the nation frontiers of the future resemble those of the past. Spain and Portugal may emerge unaltered from the Conference of Paris, as they did, for that matter, from the Congress of Vienna a century ago. Norway may remain the same, and so perhaps may Sweden and Switzerland.
But where is there another European state which will issue from the impending readjustment unchanged? The boundaries of the British empire, of France, of Germany, of Austria-Hungary, of Italy and Russia, of Serbia and Greece and Roumania and Bulgaria, of Albania and the Turkish empire, all these are to be sketched anew by the consulting draftsmen in Congress assembled upon the banks of the river Seine. For the dividing lines of the past have joined the snows of yesterday. The boundaries of Belgium and Holland and Luxemburg and Denmark will probably undergo rectifications.