While the Slavs form the great bulk of the inhabitants of eastern Europe, the Teutons, or people of Teutonic race and language, are widely spread in the west and north, including the German-speaking people of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, the English-speaking people of the British Islands (in a very far-away sense), the Scandinavian-speaking people of Norway and Sweden, the Flemish-speaking people of Belgium, and practically the whole people of Denmark and Holland. Yet, though these are racially related there is no such feeling as a Pan-Teutonic sentiment combining them into a racial unity. Instead of community and fraternity, a very marked racial and natural divergence exists between the several peoples named, especially between the British and Germans. Pan-Germanism is not Pan-Teutonism in any proper sense, being confined to the several German countries of Europe, and especially to the combination of states in the German Empire. It is the Teuton considered in this minor sense that has set himself against the Slav, as a measure of self-defense against the torrent of Slavism apparently seeking an outlet in all directions.
Prolific as we know the Anglo-Saxons to have once been and as the Germans still appear to be, there are few instances in human history of a natural growth of population like that of the Slavs in recent years. They have grown to outnumber the Germans nearly three to one, and may perhaps do so in the future in a still greater proportion.
This is a scarcely desirable state of affairs in view of the fact that the Slavs as a whole are lower and more primitive in character and condition than the Germans. The cultivated portion of Slavic populations forms a very small proportion in number of the whole, and stands far in advance of the abundant multitude of peasants and artisans, a vast body of people who are ruled chiefly by fear; fear of the State on one side, of the Church on the other.
INTERMINGLING OF RACES
There has long been an embittered, remorseless, and often bloody struggle for supremacy between the Teuton and the Slav, yet there has been considerable intermingling of the races, many German traders making their way into Russian towns, while multitudes of Slavic laborers have penetrated into German communities. Eastern Prussia has large populations of Slavs and its Polish subjects in Posen have been persistently non-assimilable. But only within recent times has there arisen a passion to “Russianize” all foreign elements in the one nation and on the other hand to “Germanize” all similar foreign elements in the other. Austria-Hungary is the most remarkable combination of unrelated peoples ever got together to make part of a state, and is especially notable for its many separate groups of Slavs. Bohemia, for instance, has a very large majority of Slavic population, eager to be recognized as such, and there are Slavic populations somewhat indiscriminately scattered throughout the dual-monarchy, especially in Hungary.
These Slavic populations, however, differ widely in religious belief. While largely of the Greek confession of faith, a considerable section of them are Roman Catholics, and many are faithful Mohammedans. This difference in religion plays a major part in their political relations, a greater one than any feeling of nationality and racial unity, and aids greatly in adding to the diversity of condition and sentiment among these mixed populations.
THE NATIONS AT WAR
In the war which sprang so suddenly and startlingly into the field of events in 1914 very little of this sentiment of race animosity appeared. While the German element remained intact in the union of Germany and Austria, there was a strange mingling of races in the other side of the struggle, that of the Slavic Russian, the Teutonic Britain, and the Celtic French. As for Italy, the non-Germanic member of the Triple Alliance, it at first wisely declared itself out of the war, as one in which it was in no sense concerned and under no obligation to enter into from the terms of its alliance. Later events tended to bring it into sympathy with the non-Germanic side, as a result of enmity to Austria. So the conflict became narrowed down to a struggle between Pan-Germanism on the one hand and a variety of unrelated racial elements on the other. It may be that Emperor William had a secret purpose to unite, if possible, all German-speaking peoples under his single sway and that Czar Nicholas had similar views regarding a union of the Slavs, but as they did not take the world into their confidence no one can say what plans and ambitions lay hidden in their mental treasure chests. In this connection it is certainly of interest that three of the leaders in this five-fold war were near relatives, the Czar, the Kaiser and the British King being cousins and all of Teutonic blood. This is a result of the intermarriage of royal families in these later days.