Kosár
Written in the eve of WWII by the famous British economist, this is a brilliant geopolitical and economic analysis of the countries of the Danubian basin, correctly forecasting a two-front was and the eventual demise of Nazi Germany.
"In 1886 a young Englishman, son of Joseph Chamberlain, was sent to Paris by his family to prepare for a career in public affairs. One day, at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, he heard the lecturer on diplomatic history, Albert Sorel, make this pronouncement: " On the day when the Turkish question is settled Europe will be confronted with a new problem—that of the future of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." But what perturbed young Austen Chamberlain was not the possibility that the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy might collapse and its dominions disintegrate. It was that Sorel went on to draw a conclusion most discomfiting to any thinking Englishman. The young man, destined to be Foreign Secretary of his country, heard the French professor describe the disintegration of Austria-Hungary as a possible preliminary to the break-up of the British Empire.
Sir Austen Chamberlain said that he never forgot Sorel's warning. The former Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom was not happy about the disruption of the Austro-Hungarian political and economic unity, sanctioned by the victorious Allies in the Peace Treaties. He became towards the close of his life increasingly unhappy about the future of maimed and lamed Austria, threatened by Germany's Third Reich. But, perhaps fortunately, he did not live to see what happened to Europe in 1938. For then what his French professor had feared half a century earlier came to pass. The last vestiges of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the small independent states reared on its ruins and in its place, collapsed before two short and sharp German diplomatic assaults..."
