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CHAPTER XIII

SUMMARY AND APPLICATIONS

The science of geography attains its highest usefulness when called into the service of man. Having in mind the influence of regional environment upon human societies and particularly upon language and nationality as shown in the foregoing chapters, let us next look at the bearing of our conclusions on the determination of international frontiers. The problem consists in ascertaining the logical or natural limit of the spread of language and nationality. Growing at first in listless response to environment, natural frontiers eventually attain a stage where intelligent conformity to the same environment becomes necessary. Here the linguistic factor based on a sound geographical foundation acquires practical value though it is not necessarily the only determining element.

The spirit of nationality represents the highest development of the idea of self-preservation. Its growth can be traced from the individual to the family, thence to the tribe and city, until the formation of the political state is obtained. In the last stages of this process, nationality attains perfection through homogeneity of its component individuals. The men who compose a single nation must think together. Their ideals and aims must be one and they must be conscious of a common destiny. Language, as the currency of thought, naturally becomes the unifier. To a notable degree areas of homogeneous language in Europe have been spared the havoc of battle or siege. On the other hand, linguistic borderlands have always been scenes of armed struggle and destruction.

Community of origin is not essential among members of the same nation. The bond of language and identity of historical destiny suffice for the creation of nationality. An English-speaking immigrant on United States soil, imbued with the spirit of the principles on which the country’s independence is founded, finds himself in a state of response to the idea of American nationality. And yet, the idea of nationality is no mere integration of historical associations. It stands enthroned in the land. The poet touches his compatriot’s heart by recalling the murmur of the forest or by a picture of the winding shore. Through the charm of living green enshrined in circling hills, at times through an appreciation of the solemn peak rising heavenward, man found love of homeland. A strong tie between humanity and the land was created by these relations.

Nationality cannot depend on language alone, for it is founded on geographical unity. The past thousand years of European history contain sufficient proof of the fact. The three southern peninsulas Spain, Italy and Greece are homelands of an equal number of nations. A single language is current in each. To the north a similar differentiation of nations adapts itself to regional divisions. Plains, mountains and seas have limited European nationalities to definite number and extension.

Thus every people acquires a peculiar genius which expresses itself in characteristic fashion and cannot be made to assume a guise alien to its own spirit. It absorbs the idealism of its captors and molds it into its own form. The poet’s intuition rarely echoed deeper truth than in the oft-quoted passage which immortalized the spirit of Hellas:

Europe was stirred to the consciousness of nationality by the French Revolution. Nations began finding themselves when the doctrine of man’s equality, proclaimed on French soil, found responsive welcome among the peoples of the continent. But the new spirit caused dismay in every court circle. The inevitable reaction that followed was reflected in the treaty of Vienna of 1815, when national aspirations were ignominiously ignored and peoples beheld themselves bartered as chattels. The delegates in attendance sat as representatives of dynastic interests. Their interest in remodeling the political map of Europe was absorbed wholly by the idea of securing compensation for the spoliation of the territorial property of their sovereigns. Their labors meant triumph for autocratic rule. Popular clamor for national grouping was unheeded. Instead of quieting Europe, the treaty of Vienna was a virtual admission on the part of less than three dozen men that Europeans were incapable of bearing the glorious burden of their own destinies. The tares of monarchical despotism were left to stain the field of popular freedom.

But the seed sown by the great act of the French Revolution was hardy. It was too late to eradicate liberal spirit from European society. A mighty struggle of ideas ushered in the revolts of 1830 and 1848. Twenty odd years more, and for the first time in its history western Europe was parceled into linguistic nations. The birth of Germany during this period was significantly heralded by an outburst of patriotic literature which for fire and enthusiasm was unprecedented. Geibel’s demand for a united Germany in Heroldsrufe was but the echo of the aspirations of millions of his countrymen. France emerged out of these ordeals without loss of her linguistic territory. The area of German speech received marked attention. In truth the morning of modern German nationality may be said to have broken in 1815. A year prior to this historic date, the decision had been reached at the treaty of Paris (March 30, 1814) to unite the German states into a single confederation. The dominating thought of European diplomacy, at the time, was to prevent a recurrence of Napoleonic disturbances.

With their restricted territories, as well as by the jealousies which animated their rulers, the German states lay, an easy prey, at the mercy of any ambitious foreign leader. In their union, Europe hoped to lay the foundations of continental peace. Such a federation, it was thought, would safeguard the other European countries from a concerted German attack, as it seemed highly improbable that the entire confederacy would join in a war undertaken by any one of its members for purposes of self-aggrandizement. By this arrangement provision was made for the strengthening of a number of weak states without the creation of a new powerful unit in the group of European nations. Thirty million Germans, comprising by far the majority of the German-speaking inhabitants of the period, were thus politically welded for the first time in modern history.

The idea of nationality had received scant attention in Germany before the nineteenth century. Kant, Fichte and Hegel contributed powerfully to its awakening. Hardly had the concept become familiar to German thought before its relation with language became established. The trend of feeling on the subject is best expressed by Arndt about half a century before the fruition of Bismarck’s life project at Versailles:

A literary history of a country is, in great measure, the mirror of its political growth. The development of social aptitudes, of intellectual faculties or of material wants within a given area is, in the last resort, an expansion of the living forces which make for nationality and which, ultimately, find their way to literary records. Nationality and literature are thus bound together by geography and history. Whatever be the period under observation, the spirit of the day pervades them both. A striking example of this relation is observable in medieval France, where the troubadours personified the feudal conditions which prevailed in the country. And furthermore literature, as a human product, partakes of all the limitations which are subtly imposed by the land on the fancy. It varies therefore, according to region, in mental temperament, tastes and emotions or modes of thought.

So because it is part of life and a living influence, literature has always consolidated the nation-forming power of language. Poetry, especially, is often an intensified reflection of national thought and life. In the words of Irving, “Poets always breathe the feeling of a nation.” The cultivation of literature serves national ends. In the very child, love of country is instilled through the medium of doggerel—sometimes through lines of exquisite simplicity. In thus strengthening the idea of nationality, literature may be compared to the statue hewn from the marble of language by patriotic and artistic thought.

Belgian writers, in this respect, occupy a place of their own in European literature. Verhaeren and Maeterlinck voice the depth of their sincerity in the language of their Walloon colleague Lemonnier. Love of country in Spaak, a Fleming, is sung in French verse:

Antoine Clesse, the poet of Mons, likewise expresses popular feeling in French:

No matter how the works of these poets are analyzed, in the inmost souls of these writers it is the land that speaks. Belgium is fathomed in their hearts. Their eyes lingered lovingly on the scenery in the midst of which they lived. Flat roads winding interminably over flat lands, chimes whose tones mellow with age ring from the crumbling tops of old towers, rustic feasts enlivened by the roaring mirth and joviality celebrated by Flemish painters, these are the visions which are evoked by the French words assembled by Belgian writers in their compositions. One would seek in vain, however, for these Belgian scenes in French literature. Like the Belgicisms which abound delightfully in every Belgian writer’s works, they portray the soul of Belgian poetry as sincerely as they afford genuine glimpses of Belgian lands. The same subtle sensation of the living earth has been felt on the troubled surface of mountainous Switzerland. For of Swiss lands and life few descriptions will ever combine the charm and faithfulness which characterize the works of Gottfried Keller, foremost among the country’s writers who drew on the joint inspiration of flaming patriotism and the incomparable beauty of Swiss landscape.

And how often has the written or spoken word fanned the flame of nationality among downtrodden peoples! The story is the same from land to land and age to age. The soul of a nation in bondage is wrapped around its patriotic literature. Generation after generation of Bohemians, Finns or Poles have drunk at the national fount of poem and song. Within the peasant’s thatched home as in the city abode, the well-worn volume, pregnant with past glory, becomes the beacon of hope. It lights the darkness of oppression’s heaviest hours. For men of feeling, destiny will ever be hailed in the word that stirs. The harvest reaped by Cavour was of Dante’s sowing.

In the bitter linguistic struggles waged in Europe two gratifying facts are discernible. The dominance of the majority by an intellectually gifted minority prevails in every country and age. Furthermore, the survival of oppressed minorities in the midst of oppressing majorities appears to be general. The one is the reward of competence; the other is the triumph of right over might. Both are victories of the human will. Both have been purchased by dint of hard struggle. Humanity is the better for them.

Neither has conquest always been able to introduce a new language. The widening sphere of Roman influence carried the original dialect of the capital to the confines of the world. But it is unlikely that Latin was spoken in the Nubian provinces or other outlying districts to a greater degree than English is spoken in India today. It was only the language of the dominant element and the one in which official transactions were recorded. As a rule the oldest language of a country is spoken by its peasants. The tillers of the soil usually represent the oldest stratum in the population of a region. The principle holds in territories which have borne the brunt of successive invasions. It is the same in Macedonia, Poland or Transylvania. On the other hand, the land-owning class is generally recruited from among past invaders.

The value of language as a national asset was shown in France during the trying days of war when the very existence of the country was at stake. Respect for the mother-tongue is deeply immured in every Frenchman’s heart. In no other country does the feeling reach the same pitch. The French educational system provides ample facilities for the early initiation of students to the beauties of their vernacular. The clear and connected thought for which French writing stands preëminent, its capacity for expressing the most subtle shades of meaning, are largely results of literary discipline.

A perusal of war-time literature cannot sufficiently indicate the part played by French language in periods of stress. One must preferably have had the privilege of acquaintance with correspondence exchanged between relatives and intimates. Patriotism pours unfaltering from the artless lines never intended for strangers’ eyes. It is as if the crowded consciousness of French nationality found constant release through its language. Every observant foreigner in France has been struck by this fact. In some instances where perception was more than usually attentive we find, as in E. Wharton’s “Fighting France,” that:

One of the most remarkable instances of the influence of poetry on national destiny is found in Serbian nationality, which has been cast altogether in the mold of the country’s epic ballads or “pjesmes.” Although primarily inspired by the valorous deeds of legendary heroes, these indigenous compositions describe Serbian life and nature with extraordinary verisimilitude and beauty. They are national in a significant sense, not merely because the very soul of the Serbian people is displayed in their lines, but also because they have perpetuated Serbian history and language. The purity of the Serbian tongue, its freedom from alien words, no less than the maintenance of historical continuity in Serbia are due, in a large measure, to the wandering of native minstrels—the guzlars—who went to and fro reciting or singing the wonderful exploits of their noted countrymen. Their unconscious, though passionate insistence provided the Serbian with the only schooling in national sentiment which he has undergone for generations beginning with half-mythical times. However slow, the method was effective, for it prevented atrophy of national hopes. Without this influence the Serbians would probably have degenerated into a people listless and inert to the call of nationality. The very name of Serbia might never have been recorded in modern history.

The guzlars were therefore peddlers of nationality. The most convincing evidence of their vital contribution to the formation of the modern Serbian state is found during the five hundred years in which the Turk’s benumbing rule was felt in the land. Marko Kraljevitch, the popular hero-knight, feudal lord and outlaw, according as occasion demanded, embodies Serbian resistance and Serbian revolt against Moslem invaders. The stirring accents in which tales of his deep attachment to Serbia were recounted awakened exultant delight in the heart and brain of listeners and inspired them to the hope of liberation from the hated yoke. Serbia was prepared for the day of national independence by means of this slow and century-long propaganda.

Replete with the glow and color of Serbian lands, the pjesme voices Serbia’s national aspirations once more in the storm and stress of new afflictions. Its accents ring so true that the geographer, in search of Serbian boundaries, tries in vain to discover a surer guide to delimitation. For Serbia extends as far as her folk-songs are heard. From the Adriatic to the western walls of Balkan ranges, from Croatia to Macedonia, the guzlar’s ballad is the symbol of national solidarity. His tunes live within the heart and upon the lips of every Serbian. The pjesme may therefore be fittingly considered the measure and index of a nationality whose fiber it has stirred. To make Serbian territory coincide with the regional extension of the pjesme implies defining of the Serbian national area. And Serbia is only one among many countries to which this method of delimitation is applicable.

In Finland, nationality is embodied in the heartening lines of the “Kalevala,” that Iliad of the north which takes its coloring from nature with no less delightful sensitiveness than the Homeric masterpiece. The lines of the poem define this Finnish epic as:

In this poem the beauty and color of Finland’s inland seas and the bleakness of surrounding plains are painted in bold strokes and with loving effusiveness. The Finn finds in its lines a reminder of the scenes among which he has been reared and the link which binds him to his past and to his land. As a mosaic of national life pieced together by patriotism the Kalevala occupies a unique position among literary productions of northern countries. Even a note of Asiatic melancholy pervades its verses as if to recall the share of Asia in the formation of Finnish national life.

The lyrics and songs collected in the Kalevala were brought together in the beginning of the nineteenth century at a critical period of Finnish history when national feeling had sunk to its lowest ebb. Swedes and Russians vied with one another in their efforts to denationalize Finland and bring the peninsula within the sphere of their respective influence. No sooner was the Kalevala published, however, than Finnish nationality asserted itself with renewed vigor. Today after the lapse of almost a century since this revival, Finland’s spirit of national independence is diffused more widely than ever among its people. Such was the influence of a literary echo of their land.

Among the peoples of Turkey, nationality and literature become largely expressions of religious feeling. It could not be otherwise in a country in which creed is the only medium of intellectual progress. The oppressed native found refuge from the tyranny of his Turkish masters in his church. His natural yearning for a higher life found solace only within the sanctuaries of his faith. All the education he received was obtained in schools attached to the churches.

But to unravel the hopeless confusion which, at first glance, seems to permeate human groupings in Turkey is, in the main, a problem of geography. The region consists of a mountainous core and a series of marginal lowlands. Its elevated area is a link in the central belt of mountains which extends uninterruptedly from Asia into Europe. This long chain of uplifts is the original seat of an important race of highlanders collectively known as Homo alpinus.[265] As far as is ascertainable to date, the mountaineers of Turkey have all the anatomical characteristics pertaining to this branch of the human family. Their religion and language may differ but the physical type remains unchanged. Basing themselves on this relation, anthropologists have assumed that Asiatic Turkey is the brood-home of a sub-species of Homo alpinus which is gradually acquiring recognition as a primordial Armenoid element.[266] This type exists in its greatest purity today among the Mohammedan dissenters of the Anatolian table-land as well as among the Druzes and Maronites of Syria.

By geographical position, Asiatic Turkey is the junction of land thoroughfares which trend from south to north as well as from east to west. Its aboriginal population came inevitably into contact with the races whose migrations are known to have begun about 4,000 B.C. A second group of peoples is thus obtained in which the old strain is considerably modified. Armenians, Turks, upland Greeks, Jacobites, Nestorians and most of the Kurds represent this mixed element. A third group consists of lowlanders who never made the ascent of Turkish mountains and consequently carry no traces of Hittite ancestry. Maritime Greek populations and Arabs fall under this classification.

In the main we see that the mountain bears in its central part a homogeneous and coherent people. Distance from the core has slight effect upon the physical characteristics of the mountaineers, as long as they do not forsake the upland for the lowland. Their ideas, however, undergo modifications which can be interpreted as concessions to the views of more powerful peoples with whom contact is established. Customs, however, generally remain unchanged even if they have to be maintained in secrecy.

Nevertheless, relief alone cannot account for the variety of peoples and religions in Asiatic Turkey. The easternmost fringe of Christianity emerging sporadically out of an ocean of Mohammedanism discloses, by the variety of its discordant elements, the extent to which distance from Constantinople, the religious capital of the eastern church, had weakened the power of ecclesiastical authority. Armenians, Nestorians, Chaldeans, Jacobites and Maronites, one and all heretics in the eyes of Orthodox prelates, were merely independent thinkers who relied on the remoteness of their native districts in order to protest, without peril to themselves, against the innovations of Byzantine theologians, or to stand firm on the basis of the rites and doctrines of early Christianity.

From the social standpoint the eastern half of Asiatic Turkey deserves investigation as the seat of an immemorial conflict between nomadism and sedentary life. Every stage of the transition between the two conditions may be observed. The feuds which set community against community in Turkey often originate in the divergent interests of nomad and settled inhabitant, and are enforced by economic factors. As an example the Kurds of the Armenian highlands may be mentioned. The perpetuation of nomadism in their case is the result of extensive horse-breeding[267]—their chief source of revenue—which compels them to seek low ground in winter.

Viewed as a whole, Asiatic Turkey has changed from an ideal nursery of hardy men to a land of meeting between races and peoples as well as between their ideals. It may be safely predicted that the future of its inhabitants bids fair to be as intimately affected as their past by the remarkable situation of the country and its physical features. One can only hope, for their sake, that a thorough invasion of highland and lowland by the spirit of the west will not be delayed much longer. This much may be said now, that the establishment of Christian rule in the land would probably be attended by wholesale conversions to Christianity in many so-called Mohammedan communities, where observance of Islamic rites has been dictated by policy, rather than by faith.

In dealing with the varied influences which engage attention in a study of linguistic areas the student is frequently compelled to pause before the importance of economic relations. Inspection of a map of Europe suggests strikingly that zones of linguistic contact were destined by their very location to become meeting-places for men speaking different languages. They correspond to the areas of circulation defined by Ratzel.[268] The confusion of languages on their site is in almost every instance the result of human intercourse determined by economic causes. Necessity, far more than the thought of lucre, compels men to resort to intercourse with strangers. In Belgium, after the Norman conquest, the burghers of Flanders were able to draw on English markets for the wool which they converted into the cloth that gave their country fame in the fairs of Picardy and Champagne.[269] We have here a typical example of Ratzel’s “Stapelländern” or “transit regions.”

In very small localities the spread of language brought about by economic changes has occasionally come under the scrutiny of modern observers. At Grimault, in the ancient land of Burgundy, the deterioration of the local patois due to intensive working of quarries between 1860 and 1880 has been studied by E. Blin.[270] Laborers from remote districts were attracted by the prospect of work. Some intermarried with the natives. The influx of the foreign element was followed by the replacement of the locality’s vernacular by French.

In west-central Europe the line of traffic along the Rhine at the end of the twelfth century ran from Cologne to Bruges along the divide between French and Flemish. Lorraine, a region of depression between the Archean piles of the Ardennes and Vosges, invited access from east and west and was known to historians as a Gallo-Romanic market place of considerable importance.[271]

In our time the river trade between Holland and Germany along the Rhine has caused expansion of Dutch into German territory as far as Wesel and Crefeld. The intruding language, however, yields to German wherever the latter is present.[272] Prevalence of French in parts of Switzerland is generally ascribed to travel through certain Alpine passes.[273] The area of human circulation between Lake Constance and Lake Geneva has endowed Switzerland with 35 different dialects of German, 16 of French, 8 of Italian and 5 of Romansh.[274] The penetration of German into the Trentino has already been explained. In Austria the entire valley of the Danube has provided continental trade with one of its most important avenues. Attention is called elsewhere to the Balkan peninsula as an intercontinental highway. In a word, language always followed in the wake of trade and Babel-like confusion prevailed along channels wherein men and their marketable commodities flowed.

This retrospect also leads to the conclusion that the influence of physical features in the formation of European nationalities has been exerted with maximum intensity in the early periods of their history. This was at the time when man’s adaptation to environment was largely blind and unconditioned by his own will. Freedom from this physical thralldom is attained only through man’s practical knowledge of human necessities and a sound vision of the welfare of his descendants. Manifestations of nature can then be made subservient to the human will. In this regard historians may eventually be induced to divide their favorite study into two main periods characterized respectively by man’s submission to, or his intelligent control of, environment. A proper understanding of this conception may contribute to the establishment of frontiers with a view to eliminating conflicts due to relics of national or historical incompatibility.

The development of modern boundaries should be regarded as a process originating in barriers first provided by nature and subsequently elaborated by the human will for its purposes. Gradually however natural features of the land lose value as national boundaries. This is the result of man’s progress, of the development of railways or wireless stations. It is the removal of natural obstacles; the conquest of distance by speed. All these advances tend to promote intercourse. They are opening the vista of a day when an international boundary will have no greater importance in world affairs than the limiting line of a city plot.

National frontiers, at best, become established by virtue of historical accidents. At given times and in order to promote fellowship among nations it becomes necessary to define the areas over which certain principles of political jurisdiction are recognized as valid by a given body of men. A national frontier in the strictest sense of the term cannot, therefore, be limited by the surface feature which has shaped its development. It has generally outgrown this phase of its extension together with the constantly increasing range of activity of the peoples it once inclosed. Factors of an ethnological, economic or linguistic nature must, therefore, be considered. Then only will the new delimitation be entitled to be qualified as natural.

The preëminence of the linguistic factor set forth in these pages may be illustrated concisely by the accepted recognition of the “langue d’oïl” as the national language of France by all Frenchmen of the present day, although this would have been impossible five centuries ago. Adoption of the linguistic criterion in boundary delimitation becomes, therefore, a mere matter of expediency. Its worth is not due to any assumed abstract value of language. It is merely a practical manner of settling divergences regarding national ownership of border territories. It is of value because the guiding consideration in boundary delimitation or revision is to eliminate future sources of conflict.

The European war is no exception to the fact that almost every conflict of magnitude has been due, in part, to ill-adjusted frontier lines. Slight regard for national aspirations seems to have prevailed in the delimitations determined upon by the signatory powers of every important treaty. The seed of ulterior fighting was thus sown, for one of the main features of modern history is the growth of national feeling as a dominating force in human affairs.

With Europe rid of Napoleon, the treaty of Vienna was framed by his allied foes in 1815 for the purpose of recasting the political map. No heed was paid, however, to the legitimate desire of smaller European nations to rule themselves. An instance of some of the gross blunders committed then was the merging of Belgium and Holland into one nationality in spite of the protests of their representatives. Feelings of the bitterest nature between Belgians and Dutch engendered by this act ultimately forced a war between the two countries in 1830. It was only after their separation that the enmity of the two peoples gave way to cordial relations. Subsequent history has shown that these two nations have often been of greater help to each other while retaining separate political entity than under forced union. In Italy also the progress made towards union by Italian-speaking peoples was checked by this treaty and the country split once more into a number of small independent states. The assignation of Lombardy and Venetia to Austria led eventually to the war of 1859.

In contrast with these cases, Germany’s rise to power with unprecedented rapidity in the history of the world is a striking instance of the splendid development attainable within boundaries peopled by inhabitants of the same speech. With language and an efficient army in control Prussia only needed a leader to direct the gravitation of other German-speaking states within its own orbit. Bismarck stepped in, the right man at the right time. In 1864 he hurled the Prussian fighting machine against Denmark and wrenched the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein from that country. Two years later he turned on Austria and imposed Prussian leadership on the German-speaking world. These warlike moves gave Prussia the ascendency in the North German Confederation. Only the states of southern Germany were now needed to form the German Empire his patriotic mind had conceived. To enlist their sympathies he found it necessary to strike at France. His task was accomplished when a united Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine.

Bismarck’s work was flawless as long as he added Germans to the empire of his creation. He erred grievously, however, in including a small number of Frenchmen with Alsace-Lorraine. Had linguistic boundaries been respected at the treaty of Frankfort, and the French districts of the conquered provinces left to France, it is safe to say that Franco-German relations would not have been marked by the lack of cordiality which has characterized them since 1871. From whatever standpoint the subject be approached, the inclusion of a handful of Frenchmen within German territory was neither politic nor economic. Today Germans may well ask themselves whether the move was desirable.

The task of uniting all Germans under a single scepter was not completed by Bismarck. Ten million Germans are still subjects of the Austrian Emperor. But Austria as a political unit stands on exceedingly shaky foundations. This is due to the inclusion within its boundaries of 10 million Hungarians, 20 million Slavs and several million peoples of Romance speech. As a result, Austria is likely to be split into a number of independent states. Should this dissolution come about, the natural desire of Germans is to witness the crumbling of Austria’s pieces into Germany’s lap. The union of all German-speaking inhabitants of Europe into a single nation would then become an accomplished fact.

Considered from the broad standpoint of human migrations England, France and Italy may be regarded as understudies in the drama staged on the old continent. The star performers are Russia and Germany, and the issue is between these two nations. The grouping of European nations with Russia is a mere result of Germany’s preponderant strength. The end of the conflict will necessarily witness the recasting of alliances along with changes of frontier lines.

For at the bottom of it all the fight is between Slav and Teuton. It is a grim and unrelenting struggle for existence that is shaping itself into one of the world’s fiercest racial contests. The Slavic peoples are steadily pressing in from the east though not with the barbarity which characterized their earlier onslaughts. It is the turn of Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovenes, Serbians and Croats, slowly to crowd on the descendants of the blue-eyed flaxen-haired barbarians, representing Germanic peoples.

This Slavonic westerly push has always been blocked by the leading power in the west. France opposed it in the Napoleonic period. Great Britain checked it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Today it is Germany’s turn to stand the brunt of its pressure. As matters stand both Germany and Russia are vigorous, young and fast-growing. The two peoples have taken root on adjacent land like two sturdy oaks. They are now in the stage at which the soil’s nourishment at the border suffices only for one. The weaker must wither. The Teuton is expanding eastward, the Slav is spreading westward. Their main clashing-zone happens to be the Balkan peninsula. The ceaseless agitation in this area and its menace to the world’s peace is a consequence of the antagonism between the Pan-Slavic Colossus and the Pan-German Titan.

Germany’s expansion is a natural phenomenon. The country is overpopulated. It must expand. The sea is a barrier to its westerly expansion. The north is uninviting. The south is being drained of its resources by active and intelligent inhabitants. The “Drang nach Osten” of German Imperialism is therefore inevitable. The line of least resistance points to the east, where fertile territory awaits development.

Little wonder, then, that the attention of Germany’s far-seeing statesmen has been directed toward oriental countries, whose wealth of natural resources and genial climate combine to render them ideally attractive. The verdant vales and forest-clad mountains of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria abound with raw material needed for Germany’s increasing industries. Beyond the narrow watercourse, intervening between Europe and Asia, at the Dardanelles and Bosporus lies Asia Minor, a land marvelously rich in minerals and susceptible of great agricultural development. Farther east the exceedingly fertile Mesopotamian valley, once the granary of the civilized world, stretches between the western Euphrates and Tigris, and bids fair to provide humanity anew with vast supplies of cereals.

This is the vision which has floated alluringly before the minds of German and Austrian statesmen, working hand in hand, Austria paving the way in the Balkans, Germany forcing herself successfully in the control of Asia Minor, which today is a German colony in all but name. By their joint efforts, the Teuton brothers have laid the foundation of an empire whose northern shore is washed by the Baltic and whose southern boundary may extend to the Persian Gulf. The great obstacle to this scheme of German expansion is constituted by the neighborhood of Russia and the predominance of the Slavic element in the population of the Balkan peninsula. Montenegrins, Serbians, Macedonians and even Bulgarians dread annexation by Germany.

At the end of the Balkan wars, Russia had scored heavily against Germany. An enlarged Serbia had been constituted directly in the path of Teutonic advance. In addition to this Slavic victory, every Balkan country had been strengthened considerably by the new delimitation of their frontiers. For the first time in their history, Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians found that their national border could be made to coincide with their linguistic boundary. This national sifting is by no means complete in the Balkan peninsula. But there is no question that notable progress in the recognition of patriotic aspirations was made as soon as the region was rid of its Turkish masters.

With the history of the past hundred years in mind, statesmen engaged in the task of framing peace treaties may well heed the lessons taught by political geography. They might conclude then that greater possibilities of enduring peace exist whenever the delimitation of new frontiers is undertaken with a view to segregating linguistic areas within separate national borders. Commerce and industry will overcome ultimately these barriers and pave the way to friendly international intercourse. These are the lines along which intelligent statecraft will earn its reputation in the future.

The practical value of linguistic frontiers as national boundaries is due to their geographical growth. They are natural because they are the result of human intercourse based largely on economic needs. Having developed naturally, they correspond to national aspirations. Such being the case, the task of frontier delimitation can be made to assume a scientific form. Only in the case of uninhabited or sparsely populated regions will an artificial boundary—say, of the straight line type—prove adequate. But in tenanted portions of the earth’s surface where human wills and desires come into play the problem cannot be dismissed so lightly. The ordinary laws of science must then be applied. This, after all, merely implies drawing on the stock of common sense accumulated by the human race in the course of its development. The clear duty of statesmen engaged in a revision of boundaries is to put the varied interests at stake into harmony with the facts of nature as they are revealed by geography. This is possible because the science deals with the surface of the earth considered as the field of man’s activity. Its data can be drawn upon just as successfully as the engineer draws upon the energy of a waterfall or a ton of coal. Soundness and permanency of the labor of delimitation can thus be insured.

The preceding remarks should not be considered as implying that a mountain, or a river, or even the sea are to be arbitrarily regarded as frontiers. Lines of water-parting deserve particular mention as having provided satisfactory national borders in history. But in boundaries each case should be treated upon its own merits. There was a time when, in Cowper’s words:

And yet the passes of the Alps refute the poet’s statement. Their uniting function eventually overcame their estranging power. The easterly spread of French language over the Vosges concurs in the same trend of testimony. The imposing mass of the Urals is no more of a parting than are the Appalachians. To be pertinent, it will be necessary, in each instance, to consider the complex operations of natural laws and the process of fusing and building up of nationality brought about by their agency.

The value of mountains in the scheme of useful boundary demarcation has been attested in the European war. Towns and villages sheltered behind rocky uplifts have suffered relatively little from the devastation which has marked the struggle in lowlands and plains. The fact is true for the Vosges mountains, the Trentino uplands and the Carpathian region. Although fighting of an exceedingly bitter character was maintained in each of these areas, the loss in property was never extreme. This is one of the many instances where land configuration lends itself advantageously to delimitation work. The need of trustworthy geographical information in partitioning and dividing up territory is obvious. Upon this basis only can boundary revision be satisfactorily pursued.

The long borderland of the French language which marks the northern and eastern boundary of French lands from the English Channel to the Mediterranean, lies unruffled by political agitation in its southeastern stretch, where Italian and French become interchangeable languages. Modifications in this section of the political frontier hardly need be considered. Their occurrence, if any, will probably come as peaceful adjustments dictated by economic reasons. To the north, however, the line has a history tainted by deeds of violence. In this stretch it forms the divide between two civilizations, the French and the German. These, although having flourished side by side, are distinctly opposed in spirit and method. Here, beginning north of the Swiss border, frontier changes appear inevitable.

In the Vosges uplift, certain facts of geographical import have direct bearing on the international boundary problem. The very occurrence of a mountain in this zone of secular conflict has a significance of its own. Aggression has generally made its way up the steep slope and, since the treaty of Frankfort of 1871, strategic advantages lie on the German side. Moreover the crest line shows French linguistic predominance.