Wandering tribes of semi-civilised people are smaller, less pretentious, and less encumbered. In every war that has taken place in a mountain land, the greater mobility of untrained militia has often led to victories over regular troops. Races of inferior culture are invariably more mobile than those of a higher grade of civilisation; and they are able to equalise the advantages of the superior modes of locomotion with which culture has supplied the latter. Mobility also indicates a weaker hold upon the ground, and thus uncivilised peoples are more easily dislodged from their territories than are nations capable of becoming, as it were, more deeply rooted. In nomadic races, mobility bound up with the necessity for an extensive territory assumes a definite form, and, owing to a constant preparedness for wandering and to the possession of an organised marching system, such peoples have been among the greatest forces in Old World history.
Movements of nations are often spoken of as if certain definite directions were forced upon them by some mysterious power. This view not only wraps itself in the garment of prophecy—for example, when announcing that the direction in which the sun travels must also be that of history—but it formally presupposes a necessary east-to-west progression of historical movements, endeavouring to substantiate its doctrine by citation of examples, from Julius Cæsar to the gold-seekers of California. But this necessity remains always in obscurity. Not only is it contradicted by frequently confirmed reflex movements in historical times, but it is also disproved still more by the great migrations which have taken place on the same continent in contrary directions. In Asia the Chinese have spread over the entire area of interior plain and desert, westward to the nation-dividing barriers of the Pamir Mountains; other Asiatic races have overflowed into Europe—also from east to west. Contrariwise, ever since the sixteenth century we have seen the Russians at work conquering the entire northern part of the continent, constantly pressing on towards the east. Even the sea proved no obstacle, for they both discovered and acquired Alaska during the course of this same movement.
HOW CIVILISATION SPREAD THROUGH EUROPE
The inexorable influence of physical conditions on the life of the peoples is well illustrated by the influence of the Alps in deflecting the path of Mediterranean culture. These mountains hemmed in the north of the Roman Empire and forced the Romans, in their expansion, to the west. Hence Mediterranean culture and Christianity were carried to Central Europe from the west instead of from the south, and the civilisation of Germany depends on that of France. The map shows the route followed by the stream of Roman civilisation.
We shall not attach any universal significance to such fashionable terms employed in historical works as political or historical attraction, elective affinity or balance; least of all shall we presume to discover occult, mysterious sources for them. It is obvious that a powerful nation will overflow in the direction of least resistance; and in the case of a strong Power confronting one that is weak there is a constant movement toward the latter. Thus, from the earliest times, Egypt has pressed on toward the south; and everywhere in the Sudan we find traces of similar movements to the south as far as Adamawa, where they are still to-day in energetic continuance. The history of colonisation in America shows a turning of the streams of immigration, in the south as well as in the north, towards the more thinly settled regions; the more thickly populated are avoided. The migrations of nations, which took place during periods of history when a surplus of unoccupied land existed, were determined to a great extent by natural causes. The more numerous nations become, the greater the obstacles to migration, for most of these obstacles arise from the very nations themselves.
Nations increase with their populations; lands with enlargement of territory. So long as a country has sufficient area, the second form of growth need not of necessity follow the first—the race spreads out over the gaps which are open in the interior, and thus internal colonisation takes place. If there is need for emigration, occupiable districts may be found in the lands of another people—for centuries Germans have thus found accommodation in Austria, Hungary, Poland, and America.
How New States are Born
Of course, such colonists gradually become absorbed into the people among whom they have settled. This is simple emigration, which is therefore connected with the internal colonisation of a foreign land. External colonisation first comes into being when a state acquires territory under its control, into which territory, if it be suitable, a portion of the inhabitants of the state move and settle. Colonisation is not necessarily a State affair from the first. If a race inhabit a country so sparsely as the Indians did America in the sixteenth century, a foreign people, having the power of spreading out, may press into the gaps with such success that this initial internal colonisation may also be advantageous from a political standpoint. The State then intervenes and appropriates the territory over which groups of its inhabitants have previously acquired economic control.
The emigrants formed a social aggregate in the new country, and from this aggregate a state, or the germ of a state, develops. Since such an economic-social preparatory growth greatly assists in the political acquirement of land, it is obvious that this form of colonisation is especially sound and effectual. The opposite method follows when a state first conquers a territory which it occupies later with its own forces; this is colonisation by conquest. It can be capable of development only when subsequent immigration permanently acquires the land as a dwelling-place.