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.