Central Powers. Their peculiar German virtue, their tremendously
complete organisation, which enabled them to put so large a proportion
of their total resources into their first onslaught and to make so great
and rapid a recovery in the spring of 1915, leaves them with less to
draw upon now. Out of a smaller fortune they have spent a larger sum.
They are blockaded to a very considerable extent, and against them fight
not merely the resources of the Allies, but, thanks to the complete
British victory in the sea struggle, the purchasable resources of all
the world.

Conceivably the Central Powers will draw upon the resources of their
Balkan and Asiatic allies, but the extent to which they can do that may
very easily be over-estimated. There is a limit to the power for treason
of these supposititious German monarchs that Western folly has permitted
to possess these Balkan thrones--thrones which need never have been
thrones at all--and none of the Balkan peoples is likely to witness with
enthusiasm the complete looting of its country in the German interest by
a German court. Germany will have to pay on the nail for most of her
Balkan help. She will have to put more into the Balkans than she takes
out.

Compared with the world behind the Allies the Turkish Empire is a
country of mountains, desert and undeveloped lands. To develop these
regions into a source of supplies under the strains and shortages of
war-time, will be an immense and dangerous undertaking for Germany. She
may open mines she may never work, build railways that others will
enjoy, sow harvests for alien reaping. The people the Bulgarians want in
Bulgaria are not Germans but Bulgarians; the people the Turks want in
Anatolia are not Germans but Turks. And for all these tasks Germany must
send men. Men?