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Dr. Friedjung naturally approves of the separation of German Bohemia, but regrets that the change is not to come into force sooner than 1 January, 1919. Turning to the policy of Dr. Kramař, he declares that “it is clear as daylight that this must end in collapse unless the triumph of the Engish and French on the battlefield finally places the enemies of Germanism on the throne in Prague also. Kramař and his people have set their fortune on this one lottery ticket, and it is already obvious that they have drawn a blank. . . . Those who prophesied a revolt in Prague owing to the decree regarding District Autonomy have been happily proved wrong by events. Those know little of Czech popular psychology who credit them with the heroic or rather desperate resolve to risk an armed struggle which would be foredoomed to failure. Often as everything in Bohemia has seemed stretched to breaking-point during the past fifty years, the break has never come. . . . The Czechs are sober people who, from the safe haven of London, Paris and New York, preach revolution, but will avoid the madness of an armed rising in Bohemia. . . . What helps the Czechs is the fear of an insurrection which prevails in many quarters in Vienna, especially in the higher, and their leaders have skilfully played on this instrument. . . . Therefore: no persecution, except for clear treason, but also no weak concession, and, above all, not the zigzag policy to which the Clam-Martinitz, Lobkowitz and Silva-Taroucas are always offering their noble names and scanty intelligence.”

The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century: Sir Augustus Oakes, C.B., and R. B. Mowat, M.A. (The Clarendon Press. 7s. 6d.) The war has produced a large demand for such books as this. We published the other day a notice of Mr. Ponsonby’s useful little pamphlet, “Wars and Treaties, 1815–1914,” which the ordinary reader will probably find indispensable to the proper comprehension of all those territorial and economic discussions which will arise whenever peace becomes a practical possibility. In the present volume the authors present a more expert historical record in the form of twelve chapters dealing with the principal international crises which produced large changes in the European map during the nineteenth century. Chapter I., on the conclusion of treaties in its technical aspect, may be regarded as a useful summary of diplomatic practice and etiquette for those who have not time to read Sir Ernest Satow’s large two-volume work upon the subject (see The New Europe, No. 41). Chapters II. to XII. deal with the treaties themselves, which are given verbatim and in each case are prefaced by a useful though slight historical résumé of the wars which preceded them and the political situations of which they were the visible expression. The book contains ten useful little maps, without which, indeed, a great part of it would be incomprehensible even to the instructed reader.

Though it does not fall within the scope of this valuable little book to reflect upon the short-lived character of the documents with which it deals, or to point out that the ink is hardly dry upon any treaty before the process of decay sets in, to the student turning these pages in search of light upon the problems which now face the whole civilised world the most valuable lesson which this book contains is the unwritten warning at the end of each chapter against trusting too far to the guidance of diplomacy or to the unwisdom of governments and chancelleries. With the possible exception of Chapter VII., which deals with the union of Italy, there is hardly a single case dealt with in this book in which national or economic forces—which the treaty-making Powers might have foreseen and ought to have foreseen—did not tear the treaty to ribbons before many years were over. The conclusion which we draw from that is not so much that the Governments which signed the treaties were in themselves wicked agents, but that acting in an international sphere with