The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

ing the Germans to eat them up the Slavs were proclaimed to be aggressive barbarians, and the greatest danger to Europe. So Panslavism was described as the most dreadful thing in the world —as a tower of all imaginable evils and perils for European civilisation. Panslavism has never been what Germans pretended to see init. But if Panslavism were ever to mean a military coalition of Slav peoples against the liberties and ideals of other nations, such Panslavism will never appeal to the Southern Slavs nor to any other Slav nations. Neither will the idea of Panslayism have any chance of success if it were the mere negation of the past and present European civilisation. The Slavs are a European and Aryan race. As the youngest member of the family, they are lawful heirs to the vast treasury of moral and spiritual inheritance accumulated by European nations since the days of Homer. It would be a sacrilege not to love or to reject it. The Slavs are unable to commit such a crime. But if Panslavism means a pious desire, a lofty aspiration to aggrandise and to deepen the spiritual value of that inheritance by contributing to it some special achievements of the Slav genius, then such a conception of Panslavism has a charm and an attraction to which the Southern Slavs will be happy to contribute and willing to open all their heart. Panslavism, to have any chance of success, must be an absolute reaction against the Pan-Germanism which sought to impose its ideals on the world by blood and iron. 263