ABSTRACT
As the twenty-first century was rung in, the mood in Europe was one of optimism. The European economy did not progress with giant steps and the advance toward political unity was slow but the general trend was positive. Political change in Russia and Germany might have taken decades and there is no saying what the outcome would have been—perhaps a constitutional monarchy, perhaps something else. The stream of refugees to Europe in recent decades, most of them not political refugees had created difficulties of various sorts; it could well be that as a result of the economic crisis the attraction of Europe as a target of immigrants from Asia and Africa would be substantially reduced. The Austro-Hungarian multinational empire would probably not have lasted either. But there could have been a peaceful transition toward a commonwealth of nations, which after all shared many interests.
