Were Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, and the Rhineland, upon the one
hand, the Hungarian plain, Russian Poland, and East Prussia, upon the
other hand, united in one strong, patriotic, homogeneous
German-speaking group with the Government of Berlin and the Baltic
plain, and were Bavaria, Switzerland, the Tyrol, Bohemia, to
constitute the weaker and less certain ally, while the least certain
half of that uncertain ally lay in Eastern Bohemia and in what is now
Lower Austria, well defended from attack upon the East, the conditions
would be exactly reversed, and the Austro-German alliance would be
geographically and politically of the stronger sort. As it is, the
combined accidents of geography and political circumstance make it
peculiarly vulnerable.

[Illustration: Sketch 10.]

Having already considered in a diagram the way in which the
geographical disposition of Austria-Hungary weakens Germany in the
face of the Allies, let us translate that diagram into terms of actual
political geography. These two oblongs, with their separate parts,
are, as a fact, as follows: Where A is the German Empire, the shaded
portion, B, is Austria-Hungary, and this last divided into B1, the
more certain Austrian part, and B2, the less certain exposed
Hungarian part, the latter of which is only protected from Russian
assault by the Carpathian range of mountains, CCC, with its passes at
DDD. M, the enemy on the right, Russia, is attacking the alliance, AB,
along XX; while the enemy on the left, N, France and her Allies, is
attacking along the lines YY.

Hungary, B2, is not only geographically an outlier, but politically is