THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE RELATIONS OF 
 GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 
 
 GEORGE
 
 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, J:DINBURGH, and new YORK
 
 THE RELATIONS OF 
 GEOGRAPHY & HISTORY 
 
 BY THE 
 
 
 REV. H? b! GEORGE, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1901
 
 
 r 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 BY HORACE HART, M.A. 
 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Every reader of history is aware that he must learn 
 some geography, if he would understand what he reads. 
 Comparatively few however, if one may judge from 
 experience, seem to realize how much light geography 
 throws on history. Geographical influences account for 
 much that happens or has happened. Geographical 
 knowledge affords valuable data for solving historical 
 problems. At the same time human action alters the 
 aspect of those things of which geography takes cogni- 
 zance : man cuts canals and tunnels mountains, drains 
 marshes and constructs artificial harbours, though it 
 must be admitted that these things are trifles compared 
 to the steady operation of geographical causes all history 
 through. 
 
 I have attempted to point out systematically how 
 these causes work, first in general, and then in reference 
 to the various countries of Europe. Obviously this can 
 only be done in specimens : to do it fully would be to 
 write all history afresh. The specimens given may 
 however, I hope, suffice to call the attention of students 
 of history to the modes in which geography operates, 
 so that they may be ready to perceive its influence 
 on whatever period or country they may be dealing 
 with. 
 
 It is plainly impossible to supply maps enough to
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 exhibit in detail every geographical fact to which 
 I refer, and every historical fact connected with them. 
 I have therefore taken for granted that readers will 
 consult their own atlases. The only exception made 
 is in favour of two maps of Europe, so placed that they 
 may be easily compared. They give the physical features 
 identically, while the one shows the divisions into which 
 Europe falls on a well established physical principle, 
 and the other shows the existing political divisions. 
 
 I do not suppose that everything which I state as 
 a fact is indubitably true, any more than that all my 
 inferences will strike readers as unanswerable. As to 
 the former, I have in some cases expressly said that 
 the facts rest on uncertain evidence : perhaps I may 
 in others have underrated, and therefore ignored, the 
 strength of objections taken to current views. At any 
 rate it has seemed irrelevant to enter into any exami- 
 nation of disputed questions. As to the inferences, 
 some may possibly be deemed too obvious to be worth 
 stating, others to be even more dubious than I make 
 them. I hope, however, that I have sufficiently guarded 
 myself against being supposed to attribute too much 
 to geographical influences. Since they work con- 
 currently with other causes, it is plainly impossible to 
 determine which have in fact produced given results ; 
 all that one can say with certainty is that the geogra- 
 phical influences were working, and that given results 
 did in fact follow. 
 
 I have used th^ forms of proper names which are 
 familiar in English. If I were writing history, I might
 
 PREFACE 
 
 vu 
 
 hesitate to speak of Charlemagne, since that form of 
 the great emperor's name is used to imply historical 
 opinions which I deem erroneous. For an incidental 
 reference I only care that he shall be easily recognized 
 by the reader. So again every English reader is 
 acquainted with the form Lorraine : many might need 
 to have Lothringen explained to them. Every language, 
 English on the whole less than some others, does in 
 fact shape for itself a certain number of foreign names, 
 under influences which vary indefinitely. A form of 
 name once naturalized in English, whatever the process 
 of derivation, is lawful property to every Englishman. 
 I therefore have no scruple about writing Ratisbon and 
 Basle, Brussels and Venice, in spite of the fact that 
 their own inhabitants call them Regensburg and Basel, 
 Bruxelles and Venezia. 
 
 Hereford B. George, 
 
 Oxford, 
 Jan. 1901.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY i 
 
 II. THE GENERAL NATURE OF GEOGRAPHICAL 
 
 INFLUENCES 7 
 
 IIL FRONTIERS 20 
 
 IV. TOWNS -38 
 
 V. NOMENCLATURE 50 
 
 VL FALLACIES OF THE MAP 62 
 
 VIL SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR ... 76 
 
 VIIL GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 95 
 
 IX. OUTLINES OF EUROPE 11 1 
 
 X. THE BRITISH ISLANDS 132 
 
 XL FRANCE 151 
 
 XIL THE SPANISH PENINSULA 166 
 
 XIIL ITALY 180 
 
 XIV. THE ALPINE PASSES AND THEIR HISTORY . 201 
 
 XV. SWITZERLAND 218 
 
 XVL THE RHINE-LAND 227 
 
 XVIL THE BALTIC REGION 241 
 
 XVIIL THE DANUBE BASIN 250 
 
 XIX. THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR. . . .263 
 XX. THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN . . . .274 
 
 XXL AMERICA 283 
 
 INDEX 280
 
 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY 
 AND HISTORY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 History is not intelligible without geography. This is 
 obviously true in the sense that the reader of history must 
 learn where are the frontiers of states, where wars were 
 fought out, whither colonies were dispatched. It is equally, 
 if less obviously, true that geographical facts very largely 
 influence the course of history. Even the constitutional 
 and social developments within a settled nation are scarcely 
 independent of them, since geographical position affects 
 the nature and extent of intercourse with other nations, 
 and therefore of the influence exerted by foreign ideas. All 
 external relations, hostile and peaceful, are based largely on 
 geography, while industrial progress depends primarily, 
 though not exclusively, on matters described in every 
 geography book — the natural products of a country, and 
 the facilities which its structure affords for trade, both 
 domestic and foreign. 
 
 The present age, which has witnessed the practical 
 completion of the task of exploring the earth, which has 
 seen geology developed into a comprehensive science, and 
 evolution established as at least a tenable working hypothesis, 
 is in possession of the data which enable us to correlate 
 geography with other branches of knowledge. Its facts
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 being pretty fully ascertained, inferences can reasonably 
 be deduced from them ; and the nature and limits of the 
 power exercised by these facts in determining the course of 
 human history can be with some confidence stated. Geo- 
 graphy in fact has reached the stage at which it can be used 
 critically. 
 
 For this very reason, perhaps, it is difficult for us to 
 realize how recent a thing accurate geography really is. 
 Though learned men among the ancients were aware that 
 the earth is a sphere, the idea had gained no real hold on 
 mankind at the close of the Middle Ages. Even after the 
 discovery of America and of the route round the Cape, 
 the famous bull of Pope Alexander VI assigned all new 
 discoveries west of a given meridian to Spain, all east of it 
 having been previously granted to Portugal, without pro- 
 viding for what wa^ to happen when Spanish and Portuguese 
 should meet on the other side of the globe. It is true that 
 modern research has discovered traces of Europeans having 
 reached America before Columbus, and of still more ancient 
 voyages round Africa : but it was only when the compass 
 had been invented that exploration could be systematic and 
 fruitful of results. Not until the telescope and other instru- 
 ments had been devised was it possible to make a reasonably 
 correct survey. Even with these scientific aids the work 
 went on but slowly. It is little over a century since the 
 English claimed, as discoverers, to take possession of what 
 is now British Columbia ; and the claim was resisted by 
 Spain, on the ground that Spain, having first reached the 
 American shore of the Pacific, had acquired thereby a right 
 to the whole coast. Less than forty years ago it was a difficult 
 and adventurous journey to cross the American continent 
 north of the United States. Half a century ago the map of 
 Africa was almost a blank except on the coasts : the source 
 of the Nile was still unknown, the Niger was wrapt in almost 
 equal obscurity, and the Congo was unheard of. Then
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 less was known of the Alps than is now known of the 
 Andes : there were no tolerable Alpine maps except of 
 a part of Switzerland. The existence of the Dariel pass 
 was the only fact about the Caucasus in the least degree 
 familiar, and that probably to very few except the learned, 
 who might be aware that the Caucasian gates, as the pass 
 was called by antiquity, had been used for 2,000 years or 
 more. About the Himalayas little was known beyond the 
 names of a few great peaks. The centre of Australia was 
 utterly unexplored: New Guinea was a name, and no more. 
 Now, there is no extensive region anywhere on the earth's 
 surface, except at the poles, of which the general con- 
 figuration is unknown, though there are still plenty of details 
 to fill in. 
 
 It may safely be assumed that whenever and wherever 
 civilization began to be real, men would begin to acquire 
 some knowledge first of the land they lived in, and by 
 degrees of other lands also. How slow their progress was 
 may be best seen from the writings of Herodotus, himself 
 a great traveller and a diligent inquirer, though possibly 
 too credulous. Egyptian civilization had flourished then 
 for thousands of years ; yet the account of the Nile which 
 he gives on Egyptian authority is correct only for a com- 
 paratively short distance up, and then plunges into a priori 
 reasoning as to what ought to be, in order that the Nile 
 and Danube may correspond. About the Danube Herodotus 
 obviously had learned nothing, save that it flowed generally 
 eastward across Europe, and that its mouth was in the Black 
 Sea. Practically nothing of Europe outside the Mediterranean 
 basin, except scraps of information derived from Phoenician 
 traders, such as the fact of the existence of the British 
 islands, was known to the classical world till after the fall 
 of Carthage. Indeed it would be no great exaggeration to 
 say that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was the first step towards 
 the Romans obtaining a general idea of the configuration of 
 
 B 2
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Europe. By that time the Celtic peoples were in possession 
 of western Europe, and the Teutons had followed them, or 
 driven them out, as far as the neighbourhood of the Rhine. 
 How far westwards the Slavs had advanced by that date, 
 we cannot even conjecture with any confidence. 
 
 We have of course glimpses, through etymology, through 
 investigation of primitive tombs and other remains of 
 hum^an occupation, of a prior state of things. Fragments 
 of at least one earlier race still survive, and there may have 
 been others before the Basques and the Finns. We know 
 also that successive waves of population flowed over Europe 
 from central Asia, and geography makes it certain what 
 their general route was. The earliest records seem to put 
 it out of the question that they can have i)assed through 
 Asia Minor. That is to say, they came north of the Black 
 Sea, and then penetrated into the centre of Europe, partly 
 by the Danube valley, partly by the plain of north Germany, 
 the Carpathians forming as it were the promontory which 
 divided the stream into two parts. There is no real doubt 
 that Celts, Teutons, and Slavs entered Europe in this 
 manner ; and there is fair ground for supposing that the 
 Graeco-Italian peoples, belonging in some sense to the 
 Celtic wave, diverged to the south-west, before they would 
 have had the great dividing line of the Alps to encounter. 
 We cannot however affirm with anything like certainty that 
 all inhabitants reached Europe from this quarter. In fact 
 the probabilities seem to be the other way, as regards 
 some at least of the peoples traceable in the Italian and 
 Spanish peninsulas at the first dawn of history. 
 
 Something more is discoverable about western Asia, 
 where comparative civilization dates very far back, as far 
 probably as in Egypt. And modern archaeological discoveries 
 tend to show the existence of civilized mankind in the 
 eastern Mediterranean from a much earlier date than used 
 to be supposed, men of a prior race possibly to the Greek.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 If they knew, which is highly improbable, anything of the 
 world outside the Alediterranean basin, they left no traces 
 of their knowledge behind. The Greek ignorance of what 
 lay beyond their own land, and the sea which carried their 
 trade, was tolerably complete. Anything like coherent 
 geographical knowledge, beyond these narrow limits, only 
 begins with Caesar's history, followed in the next century by 
 the Ger7jiatiia of Tacitus and the geographical work of 
 Strabo, and later again by Pausanias. 
 
 It does not follow, because mankind until comparatively 
 recently were ignorant of geography, that their history was 
 not affected by it. On the contrary, the less they knew, 
 the more influence geography was likely to have over their 
 destinies. A tribe or collection of tribes, once started on 
 a career of migration, would be guided in the direction 
 of their movement mainly by the natural features of the 
 country they were passing through. They would skirt 
 the base of a chain of mountains, or follow the seashore, 
 indifferent where such a course led them, because ignorant 
 of all alike. We need always to remember this, in attempt- 
 ing to estimate the bearings of geography on history. If 
 we could imagine the possibility of mankind in general 
 having known, throughout human history, what is now 
 known of the earth's surface, the course of that history 
 might have been very materially altered. 
 
 In Keith Johnston's school geography there are a series 
 of little pictures, showing what portions of the world were 
 at different ages more or less known. They are made to 
 look like bits of landscape seen through a break in dense 
 clouds, and the result is to give a very vivid impression of 
 the smallness of the area known until very recently. In 
 one respect they exaggerate the knowledge possessed, for 
 the true form of the land is given that it may be recognizable, 
 whereas in fact ancient maps distort very greatly the shapes 
 and sizes of the countries depicted. The Hereford Mappa
 
 6 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Mundi, a map of the late thirteenth century belonging to 
 Hereford Cathedral, is probably known to many, as it was 
 published with a little book of comment and explanation 
 nearly thirty years ago. It comprehends all countries then 
 supposed to be known, and is probably a fair specimen of 
 such productions. The wonder however is not that such 
 an amount of distortion was possible, but that so much 
 knowledge was possessed before men had the compass 
 to give accurate direction, or instruments for measuring.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GENERAL NATURE OF GEOGRAPHICAL 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 No one will deny, however firmly he insists on believing 
 in free will, that the destinies of men are very largely deter- 
 mined by their environment. Among the many influences 
 covered by this very wide modern phrase, the most obvious, 
 for mankind as a whole as distinguished from individuals, 
 are the geographical. Climate determines what men's food 
 shall be, at any rate before extensive commerce has 
 been developed, and whether or not they need work hard 
 for a living. The physical features of the earth, sea, 
 mountains, &c., go far to fix their occupations, and to 
 decide whether they are to live within reach of easy inter- 
 course with neighbours. The aspect of nature about them 
 colours, and to a certain extent suggests, their ideas and 
 beliefs. There are however other influences, perhaps too 
 numerous to specify, which have aided in moulding the 
 destinies of mankind. Speculations as to what race means 
 are more or less futile, because verification is impossible, 
 but it is vain to deny that different peoples do exhibit 
 different characteristics, and these may or may not be due 
 to some original variation not explicable by known facts. 
 Geographical influences certainly contributed much ; there 
 were others, more or less numerous and important, which 
 lie outside the sphere of geography. The character of a given 
 race is the resultant of all these influences, operating parallel, 
 or contrary, or in succession to one another : its history is
 
 8 THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 still further complicated by being the resultant of its contact, 
 hostile or friendly, with other races, each of which has its own 
 character. 
 
 Thus, in setting forth the geographical influences which 
 have guided or modified history, it is necessary to guard 
 against overstating their force. The causes really operate, 
 but they are liable to be counteracted by other influences : 
 all that can reasonably be said is that they tend to produce 
 the effect named, and that if that effect is not produced, 
 some reason must be found other than geographical. These 
 generalizations are however none the less valuable, as 
 materials for forming a fair judgement as to the past and 
 rational inferences as to the future. This may be illustrated 
 from the not incongruous field of political economy. The 
 assumption underlying that science is that men will in 
 general wish to act in accordance with their material in- 
 terests. Given that men desire so to act, political economy 
 lays down rules for their guidance, and points out the 
 consequences, in the way of injury to such interests, result- 
 ing from disobeying them. Every one is aware that there 
 are many other springs of human action. Men are governed 
 by their passions or their prejudices, or sacrifice themselves 
 from motives of benevolence, and so in many ways act 
 contrary to economic principles. No sane person however 
 would deny the truth of the conclusions of political economy, 
 merely because its dictates do not in all cases prevail over 
 other motives : it suffices that they hold good in the long 
 run. The same thing is true in relation to geography. The 
 temperate zone, or rather a narrower zone within it, does 
 furnish the climate best suited for the development of the 
 human race, even though men of great vigour, mental and 
 bodily, are occasionally born in the tropics. Mountains do 
 form natural lines of separation, even though here and there 
 the same people are found on both sides of a chain. The 
 sea does foster energy, and help in the general development
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 9 
 
 of wealth, even though some dwellers by the seashore have 
 not used their opportunities. The one necessary thing, if 
 we would use geography aright, is neither to ignore these 
 exceptions nor to mistake them for the rule. 
 
 It is plain that if we would understand the relations 
 of geography to history, we must begin our consideration 
 of geography by looking at the physical features of the 
 earth, ignoring historical divisions, and this for several 
 reasons. 
 
 1. Physical features are permanent, while frontiers vary. 
 
 2. They very largely govern the beginnings of history. 
 
 3. They affect the destinies of nations after they have 
 been formed. 
 
 4. It is only late in history that human labour can avail to 
 modify their influence, and at most this can only be done 
 to a small extent. 
 
 Names are of course written on the earth's surface by man, 
 and it is practically impossible to describe physical con- 
 formation without the use of them. It is however easy to 
 employ names of which the physical signification is perfectly 
 clear, though the warning is necessary that a given name 
 may bear, or have borne, a different meaning when used 
 politically. 
 
 I. The geologist might perhaps take exception to tlie 
 statement that physical features are permanent, since his 
 science can point to periods when what now are mountain 
 ranges were below the sea. One event not extremely remote 
 in geological time has modified history enormously — the 
 formation of the straits of Dover, transforming England 
 from an outlying corner of the Continent into a separate 
 island. For it is evident that the insular position of England 
 has contributed largely towards her unique status in the 
 world, and so towards the settlement of north America and 
 Australia by men chiefly of English race, and imbued with 
 English ideas. Geological changes however in general work
 
 lo THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 very slowly ; there has been hardly time, since the first dawn 
 of history, for gradual changes to work to any perceptible 
 extent. A harbour here and there has silted up ; the sea has 
 receded or encroached along a few strips of coast ; a few 
 coral islands have emerged from the ocean. There is just 
 enough to remind us that the earth we inhabit is under- 
 going, though at an infinitely slower rate, physical changes 
 not altogether unlike those which in animals and plants we 
 call life. It is a matter of dispute whether or not any great 
 changes were wrought, in earlier geological periods, in a more 
 rapid and violent manner. Certainly nothing of the kind 
 has happened in historical times, except on a very small 
 scale. One or two rivers have changed their course ; a few 
 square miles here and there have been desolated by a volcanic 
 eruption or by a landslip. The greatest change of this kind 
 that Europe has witnessed since history began is the con- 
 version of the Zuyder Zee, once an inland lagoon, into an 
 arm of the sea. This added to the facilities for maritime 
 development which Holland possessed ; but it did not 
 create them, and therefore is of little historical moment. 
 One cannot of course say that such events are impossible. 
 A volcanic eruption on the scale of that of Krakatoa, not 
 many years ago, would suffice to destroy the greatest city in 
 the world. Such a disaster to Rome or Constantinople 
 in the past, to London or Paris in modern times, would 
 have changed incalculably the whole course of history. Our 
 knowledge however enables the experts to say that such 
 eruptions are most improbable except in certain localities ; 
 and at any rate they have involved, within historical memory, 
 no catastrophe greater than the destruction of Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii. For historical purposes at least, we are justified 
 in saying that the physical features of the earth undergo no 
 change of which account need be taken. 
 
 2. In the beginnings of human history, before much of 
 the earth was peopled, the movements of nomad tribes must
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES ii 
 
 have been determined almost entirely by the natural features 
 of the country. Totally ignorant of everything that was not 
 before their eyes, they would have no motive for attempting 
 to overcome obstacles for the sake of reaching what lay 
 beyond. Accident or caprice might lead them to do so 
 occasionally, but in general they would take the easiest 
 direction in which to move. It is obviously simpler to skirt 
 the base of a chain of mountains rather than to cross them. 
 Fens are practically impassable obstacles ; virgin forests are 
 usually difficult to penetrate, and always bewildering. Rivers 
 on the other hand are useful guides, and afford the easiest 
 of routes, assuming the possession of anything like boats. 
 Similarly it is easy to make a way along the sea-coast, and 
 impossible to be lost while the sea is in sight. Such con- 
 siderations are so obvious that they may fairly be assumed 
 to hold good of the movements of primitive man, though 
 of course there can be no positive knowledge on the 
 subject. 
 
 The definite evidence which we possess as to the pre- 
 historic races in Europe, derived from the discovery in 
 various places of human remains dating from a very remote 
 past, is scanty in itself, and can only be conjecturally inter- 
 preted. We know in this way of the existence in sundry 
 localities of cave-dwelling men, virtually mere savages, and 
 there is a fair presumption that they were widespread. 
 These however, whether they did or did not gradually 
 develop some kind of civilization for themselves, dis- 
 appeared before other races higher in the scale of progress, 
 and little more can be said to be known of them than the 
 fact that they existed. The earliest people who come in 
 any sense within the ken of history were civilized enough to 
 have fixed dwellings, to keep cattle, and cultivate the soil 
 more or less. Hence their settlements would be mainly in 
 the open country, which afforded pasture and room for 
 tillage, largely along the coasts and river banks, which
 
 12 THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 would supply fish, besides facilities for such locomotion 
 as they needed. Under such conditions the forests would 
 be penetrated only so far as the pursuit of game might 
 require, the fens and the mountains hardly at all. 
 
 Again, we can only conjecture what led the early inhabitants 
 to move ever westwards till they reached the Atlantic. It 
 may have been the pressure of a new wave of migration into 
 Europe from western Asia. It may have been merely the 
 growth of population. One way or another Europe came to 
 be inhabited, in the loose way appropriate to comparative 
 barbarism. When the era of conquest began, ample occasion 
 arose for the exploration of regions hitherto left without 
 inhabitants. When a new race came to dispossess prior 
 inhabitants by force, the latter had to escape somewhere or 
 perish. If they could simply migrate, no doubt they did so, 
 as the Celts apparently did before the oncoming Teutons, 
 and earlier races before the Celts. Otherwise the hill 
 regions, and the fens also, became places of refuge for 
 the dispossessed tribes, where their enemies could not 
 easily reach them, and had no motive to try, unless it 
 were race hatred. If the pressure of the invaders was 
 severe, the fugitives would penetrate deeper and deeper 
 into the recesses of the great mountain chains, and discover 
 ways across them, perhaps to find unoccupied valleys beyond, 
 perhaps to encounter fresh enemies. In this way, while the 
 mountain ridges, large and small, would in general be the 
 natural and obvious barriers between adjacent tribes, ex- 
 ceptions might easily arise, whereby both sides of a ridge 
 were occupied by the same people. 
 
 As time went on, as men grew less savage and more 
 settled, and learned to live within reach of one another 
 without perpetual war, there would arise a need for recog- 
 nized boundaries between tribes, or between aggregates of 
 tribes that were making, the first steps towards a larger 
 union. Geographical facts doubtless in most cases deter-
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 13 
 
 mined these. A mountain chain, or a marshy inlet from 
 the sea, or a belt of dense forest, did in fact lie between 
 one and another, and would become the formal boundary, 
 as having been the actual barrier separating their original 
 haunts. By slow degrees they might find ways across, and 
 begin to buy and sell with their neighbours, until definite 
 routes came to be well known and more or less frequented. 
 In the absence of any means for accurately determining 
 directions or measuring distances, there could be nothing 
 like a clear notion of the geography of any region as 
 a whole. A vague knowledge such as this can be traced 
 as early as the first faint dawn of history, and may well 
 have existed long before. 
 
 The evidence is of course ample that geography did in 
 fact operate in the way that a priori reasoning would 
 suggest, to make the natural barriers into political frontiers, 
 though not without exceptions. The evidence is equally 
 conclusive that rivers acted in the opposite manner. Before 
 artificial roads came to be constructed, rivers were the best 
 of highways. They facilitated rather than impeded commu- 
 nication between the inhabitants of the opposite banks. 
 Hence the tendency is for a given tribe or set of tribes 
 to occupy the whole basin of a navigable river, not the 
 right or left bank only, while obviously the smaller streams 
 offer no serious obstacle to a rude people. 
 
 3. The chief modes in which geography affects the 
 destinies of established nations are through the possession 
 of a sea-coast with satisfactory harbours, and through the 
 protecting or isolating influence of mountain frontiers. 
 Both of these topics are of sufficiently widespread impor- 
 tance to be discussed separately in subsequent chapters. 
 Other points, such as the refuge afforded by hill regions 
 to beaten peoples that will not submit to a conqueror, are 
 mentioned in connexion with the countries where such 
 things have happened. Others are merely the continuation
 
 14 THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 and development of what had been operating in pre-historic 
 times, as when navigable rivers became regular arteries of 
 commerce. In some cases all that we can say with certainty 
 is that given geographical conditions were favourable to 
 given political developments, whether they caused them 
 or not. For instance, the geographical formation of Greece, 
 both the mainland cut up by mountains into many small 
 sections, and still more the numerous small islands, must have 
 favoured the development of separate city states. It would 
 however be unreasonable to argue that these geographical 
 conditions suggested the idea, which in fact is common to 
 the whole Graeco-Italian race. So again it has been said 
 that the long political predominance of feudal aristocracy 
 was only possible in fairly level countries. This is so far 
 true that their military strength could only be effectively 
 exerted in regions fit for mailed horsemen to fight in. It 
 would however be preposterous to attribute the origin 
 of feudalism to the influence of the plains. One has never 
 heard that the Mongols, who were all horsemen and came 
 off the boundless steppes, developed any feudal ideas, 
 or even the less barbarous Cossacks of later ages. 
 
 4. If geographical conditions influence history, it is 
 equally true that history, or rather human action of which 
 history is the record, affects geography. The natural 
 barriers, which once kept peoples inexorably apart, are 
 rendered comparatively inoperative by human labour. The 
 civilizing value of roads has been strongly felt ever since 
 the days of the Roman empire, when the golden milestone, 
 whence distances were measured into every remote pro- 
 vince, seemed to symbolize the dominion of a power that 
 for centralizing authority has scarcely had a parallel. As 
 engineering skill and appliances have improved, the influence 
 of roads has grown even greater. Great mountain chains 
 are now crossed. by roads, even penetrated by tunnels, so 
 that their separating effect almost vanishes, their protecting
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 15 
 
 value as frontiers is greatly modified. Spain is far behind 
 most European countries in the number of her railways and 
 in the quality of her roads. Yet probably enough has been 
 done to render another Peninsular war impossible. An- 
 other Wellington could not base his whole system of defence 
 on the extreme slowness with which his separate enemies 
 could communicate, and the impossibility of their keeping 
 vast numbers concentrated. Marshes too have been drained, 
 whereby not only the amount of fertile and habitable land 
 has been increased, but also their importance as a protection 
 or otherwise has disappeared. The fens no longer shut off 
 East Anglia from central England. The vast region of the 
 Pinsk marshes protected a great part of Russia in 181 2; 
 if a new Napoleon invaded Russia now, he would not have 
 his operations limited to a portion of the western frontier. 
 The clearing of forests seems to have permanently affected 
 climate in many regions. The construction of harbour works, 
 besides assisting commerce, has modified the geographical 
 conditions under which maritime war is waged. The Kiel 
 canal greatly increases the practical naval strength of 
 Germany, by rendering it possible to move ships securely 
 between the Baltic and the North Sea, instead of their being 
 compelled to make the circuit of Jutland and pass through 
 the Sound under the guns of a foreign, perhaps hostile, 
 power. The cutting of the isthmus of Suez has almost 
 revolutionized one-half of ocean commerce, and has modified 
 profoundly many political conditions which depend on geo- 
 graphical facts. But for the Suez canal, England might, 
 in view of the great improvement in speed of ocean voyages, 
 have been content with the Cape route to India for all 
 purposes except passenger traffic. As it is, she has been 
 compelled to retain a hold on Egypt; and the whole balance 
 of power in the Mediterranean, the geographical conditions 
 affecting possible war in that sea, are deeply affected thereby. 
 Analogous results would obviously follow from the cutting
 
 i6 THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 of the isthmus of Panama, whatever power that may make 
 and control the canal. 
 
 Some few of these works, such as the St. Gotthard tunnel 
 and the Suez canal, do really curtail distances to be traversed, 
 but most of them only facilitate locomotion of various kinds. 
 It is only metaphorically that the world is made smaller by 
 the vastly improved speed of communication due to steam, 
 and to the rapid improvement in machinery which has taken 
 place of late years. For practical purposes however the 
 metaphor holds good, and most conspicuously of all in war. 
 When Napoleon came back from Elba, and the European 
 powers, assembled in congress at Vienna, agreed that each 
 should send its contingent for combined hostilities against 
 him, all of them had troops more or less completely ready 
 for war, and no great delay was expected in setting them in 
 motion. Nevertheless it was calculated that no Russian forces 
 could appear on the frontier of France until at least three 
 months had elapsed, which was perfectly reasonable, con- 
 sidering the distance. From the Niemen to the nearest point 
 of French soil is about 900 miles in a direct line, and the 
 Russians would necessarily have had a much greater average 
 distance to traverse, marching every step of the way. Now 
 an army that keeps up for a long time an average of ten 
 miles a day does extremely well ; it marches of course nearly 
 half as much again on an ordinary day, but there must be 
 many days of rest, of waiting for supplies, of delays through 
 weather and other accidents, interposed in a march lasting 
 for months. All this is completely changed by the intro- 
 duction of railways. Could the same conditions recur, 
 Russian troops might be conveyed into France, provided 
 that there were trains available to carry them, in fewer 
 hours than the soldiers of Tzar Alexander 1 would have 
 taken days to march the same distance. Words are not 
 necessary to point out how enormously this increase in 
 speed of locomotion affects all military calculations.
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 17 
 
 The same influences work for peace, and for human 
 happiness generally, even while they visibly render possible 
 war on an ever larger scale. Facilities for transport of 
 goods render nations more habitually dependent on one 
 another, and therefore less willing to proceed to extremities 
 in case of a quarrel. Similarly they diminish the chances 
 of suffering through famine and analogous calamities. The 
 easier and quicker the task of conveying food to a district 
 whose own supplies have failed, the less likely it is that 
 the failure will be cruelly felt. The sooner assistance can 
 be sent when a great inundation has occurred, the fewer 
 will be the victims. It is not to be denied that there are 
 drawbacks to all these facilities, but on the whole the 
 balance of advantage is much in favour of them. 
 
 Much the same considerations apply to the still more 
 rapid transmission of information by means of the telegraph. 
 Of its value and usefulness in time of peace nothing need 
 be said ; but on the other hand it renders possible most 
 of the gambling which accompanies international trade. 
 It may however be worth while to point out the essential 
 difference it makes in the conduct of war. In former times 
 the commander-in-chief in an extensive theatre of operations 
 could only calculate — he could never know — the exact state 
 of things. Reports from a distant corps took perhaps 
 twenty-four hours to arrive ; orders based on them 
 required the same time for delivery. In the interval the 
 enemy's movements might have changed the whole face 
 of events. By the aid of the telegraph a general can now 
 know exactly where each of his subordinates is, and all that 
 they know at the moment, and can transmit his orders 
 instantaneously ; an accuracy of combined movements is now 
 fairly easy which was literally impossible without the telegraph. 
 The precision of Von Moltke's strategy in 1870 is most 
 justly admired,, but he had at his command an instrument 
 which no other commander had ever wielded. The general 
 
 GEORGE C
 
 i8 THE GENERAL NATURE 
 
 effect of this, as of most such advances in the machinery 
 of civiHzation, is to strengthen the strong, and diminish the 
 chances of the weaker side, though not quite uniformly. 
 Napoleon's brilliant defence when the Allies invaded France 
 in 1 8 14 was based on the fact that they were advancing 
 in two widely separated masses, while he occupied a central 
 position, and could therefore strike at them alternately. In 
 this way his very inferior forces were made effectual to keep 
 his enemies at bay for some time ; and the advantage of 
 * interior lines ' which he possessed is obviously indestruc- 
 tible, being founded on mathematical principles. It is 
 however certain that Napoleon's resistance could have been 
 much more rapidly crushed if Bliicher and Schwarzenberg 
 had been in instantaneous communication with one another, 
 instead of a day or two apart. 
 
 It would perhaps be too much to say that these results 
 of human action in modifying geography are an unmixed 
 good ; but at any rate they are all the work of advancing 
 civilization and greater efficiency of human labour. In- 
 stances of an opposite kind are not far to seek. Asia 
 Minor once had many rich and flourishing cities in the 
 coast regions, and much prosperity inland : and Syria was 
 in somewhat the same condition. Since the Seljuk Turks 
 overran western Asia, all this prosperity has disappeared. 
 Cyprus, formerly a garden, has shared the same fate. The 
 northern coast of Africa once contained a great seat of 
 empire, and furnished vast quantities of corn to feed Rome 
 under the Caesars. Its devastation was begun by the 
 Vandals, carried on by the Arabs, and the mischief has 
 only partially been repaired within the French dominions, 
 but nowhere else. Another Carthage is under present 
 conditions impossible. 
 
 Real as are all these modes in which human action has 
 modified the influence of geography, they are obviously but 
 trifles in comparison with the natural forces which they to
 
 OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 19 
 
 a slight extent counteract. The Alps have lost their 
 mystery, but they still form a barrier which must be 
 crossed : they affect the convenience of every traveller, 
 the cost of every parcel of goods, conveyed into or out 
 of the basin of the Po. Civilized enterprise may seek 
 out new localities in which valuable products can be made 
 to grow ; but the steady working of the great natural forces 
 still determines climate, with all its boundless effects on 
 human history. . Man may drain and plant, redeeming 
 a little space here and there from barrenness or from 
 malaria : but all he has done or ever can do is infinitesimal 
 beside the influence of the Gulf Stream, which is only one 
 small fraction of the world's system of ocean currents. 
 
 c 2
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FRONTIERS 
 
 The nature of its frontiers has so important an influence 
 on the history of a state that it is worth while to discuss 
 separately the different kinds of frontier. 
 
 Of sea-coasts very little need be said : they admit of no 
 variations and present no problems. They give a people 
 some opportunity, greater or less according to the number 
 and character of the harbours, of becoming maritime and 
 commercial. Races differ immensely as to the extent to 
 which they utilize such opportunities, but at the least there 
 will always be fishing and coasting trade, rendering one 
 section of the population hardy and daring. 
 
 Of land frontiers, those which geography would select 
 are mountain chains and other natural features interposing 
 a serious barrier to intercourse. In the ages when tribes 
 were migratory, either before the earth was peopled, or 
 when successive waves followed each upon its predecessor, 
 the new-comers seeking to destroy or dispossess the prior 
 inhabitants, these mountain chains determined the direction 
 of their movements. Kindred tribes that went one to the 
 right, another to the left, of such an obstacle, had their 
 destinies permanently affected by the choice. When they 
 became stationary, the barrier still operated to keep them 
 apart. Such frontiers are formed in Europe by the Pyrenees, 
 the Alps, the Carpathians, and in a lesser degree by other
 
 FRONTIERS 21 
 
 mountain chains. In process of time mankind settled 
 down to permanent occupation of territory ; and then the 
 mountains, which had been obstacles dividing races, tended 
 to become permanent frontiers. Circumstances might and 
 did occur which left the same people in possession on both 
 sides of a mountain chain, but the more obviously natural 
 thing was that its crest should form the actual boundary 
 line. Historically it becomes of real importance whether 
 this is the case or not, and also, if it is so, what is the 
 character of the mountain chain. 
 
 Whatever their size or formation, mountains necessarily 
 constitute an impediment to peaceful intercourse. Travelling 
 across them without the aid of good roads is laborious, 
 possibly dangerous. Even the excellent roads which now 
 traverse the Alpine passes, even the tunnels which pierce 
 some of them, only suffice to diminish the trouble and 
 expense. Military expeditions across a mountain range, 
 if the summit ridge be not the frontier line heltl by the 
 enemy, are no more than a vast concentration of ordinary 
 traffic. For all purposes mountain roads cost more time to 
 traverse than an equal distance of level ground ; and if, as 
 is probable in war, the whole has to be conveyed by one or 
 two roads, the delay involved will be considerable. Thus if 
 A and B be two contiguous states, separated by a mountain 
 chain, and A holds the reverse slope of the mountains down 
 to the open country, A will necessarily have the disadvan- 
 tage, in invading B, of transporting all supplies across an 
 obstacle ; and if the army be compelled to retreat, the risk 
 of disaster before it can recross the mountains will be 
 greater than if no such obstacle existed. These, however, 
 are but small drawbacks to set against immense advantages. 
 A is perfectly secure against invasion by B, originally or 
 as a counter-stroke ; ^'s armies can be massed behind 
 the mountain screen, and can be conveyed to the other 
 side without committing an act of war. B is in permanent
 
 22 FRONTIERS 
 
 danger of invasion, should there be unfriendly relations 
 between the two powers, and can take no specific steps to 
 ward off attack short of actual hostilities. The exact converse 
 would of course hold good, if B held A?, slope of the inter- 
 vening chain, assuming that the geography were alike on 
 both sides. As a matter of fact, however, this is rarely 
 the case ; mountains are generally steeper on one side than 
 on the other ; the level of the plain country on each side may 
 not be the same ; the valleys which descend from them will 
 be longer or shorter according to these conditions. The 
 chain may or may not be fairly straight ; if it is curved, the 
 lateral valleys will probably converge on the concave side. 
 The ridges which separate the lateral valleys may be straight 
 or curved, low enough to permit of easy lateral communica- 
 tion across them, or high enough to isolate each valley. 
 No two mountain chains are alike in these respects : what 
 is true of one, as to the modes in which military operations 
 can be conducted across it, holds good of another only in 
 the most general way, not in detail. 
 
 A single instance will make this abundantly clear. The 
 frontier between France and Italy runs along the crest of 
 the western Alps, with some insignificant variations in 
 detail. The distance across, from fairly open country 
 on one side to similar country on the other, is from 
 forty to sixty miles according to the route chosen, and 
 there are several available. Only a portion of this distance 
 is more laborious to traverse than ordinary country not 
 absolutely level. The existence of the Mont Cenis tunnel 
 moreover would greatly facilitate transport by one of the 
 alternative routes. Thus if either France or Italy held 
 the exits of the passes on the other side of the Alps, it 
 could prepare an attack on its neighbour with no drawback 
 except that of having some thirty or forty miles of the line 
 by which its forces are' moved and supplied more difficult 
 than the average. This drawback is trifling compared to the
 
 FRONTIERS 
 
 23 
 
 advantage of being perfectly secure against a counter-stroke. 
 The geography of the region, however, would make it an 
 enormously greater gain for France to hold the eastern 
 slopes of the Alps than for Italy to hold the western. 
 All the routes into Italy, as the map shows, converge 
 more or less on Turin. French invading forces could 
 therefore be conveyed into Italy by various routes, and 
 would have the maximum of facility for concentrating 
 and co-operating beyond the mountains. The converse 
 would obviously be the case if Italian armies invaded 
 France. The results of this geographical formation can 
 no doubt be put the other way. The Italians would 
 know for certain that they must station their defending 
 army somewhere near Turin : the French would have to 
 wait until they learned by what route or routes the invasion 
 was coming. This, however, with the modern facilities for 
 transmitting information and for moving by rail, would be 
 but a trifling disadvantage to France, compared with the 
 Italians' difficulty of getting the sections of their invading 
 force into communication with each other, or the alternative 
 course of using a single route. 
 
 It is a standing menace to the peace of the world, if 
 a nation which is permanently stronger than its neighbour, 
 and is aggressive in its policy, happens to possess also this 
 advantage of holding the reverse slope of the mountains 
 which lie between them. Apart from this, however, on 
 general principles of equity, it is desirable that the natural 
 frontier, which the crest of a mountain chain supplies, 
 should be adopted politically. The conformation may be 
 more advantageous to one side or the other in case of 
 hostilities : one or the other may find it necessary, or 
 deem it worth while, to protect itself by artificial fortifi- 
 cations. Again, changes in the art of war, and other 
 incidents of ' material progress, such as the construction 
 of roads and railways, alter the conditions from age to
 
 24 FRONTIERS 
 
 age. All these are however matters of detail, more or 
 less important according to circumstances. They do not 
 affect the general principle, which clearly pronounces no 
 mountain frontier fair to both sides, which does not at 
 least approximately follow the crest. Geographical theory 
 is on this point in perfect accord with the permanent 
 interests of mankind. 
 
 What has been said so far about mountain frontiers 
 proceeds, as will be seen, on the tacit assumption that 
 the chain is one like the Alps, passable with reasonable 
 facility at various points, though by no means everywhere. 
 If it is practically impassable no question arises ; the 
 amount of influence that could be exerted on a campaign 
 by the small handful of men who might cross a really lofty 
 chain, such, for instance, as the portion of the Alps between 
 the Great St. Bernard and the Simplon, is a quantite 
 ncgligeable . 
 
 There are, however, other types of mountain chains 
 besides the Alps, though people in general are apt to be 
 entirely ignorant both of the facts and of the inferences 
 to which they lead. Some are not single ranges at all, 
 at least for practical purposes. A single line of watershed 
 may no doubt always be traced : but the lateral valleys 
 are extremely long, or run nearly parallel to the axis of 
 the chain, so that the ridges separating them have to 
 be crossed. From the point of view of human passage, 
 peaceful or military, they become wide strips of mountain 
 land. The difficulties inherent in crossing any mountains 
 are indefinitely prolonged, and therefore rendered much 
 harder to overcome. The greater the height above sea 
 level, the greater on the average will the strictly physical 
 obstacles be, though exceptions may be found. The greater 
 also will be the climatic difficulties, such as the effects of 
 cold on travellers, and the total blocking of routes during 
 a part of the year by snow. On the other hand, mountain
 
 FRONTIERS 25 
 
 regions of less elevation would be inhabited : and if the 
 inhabitants resist the passage of an army, they have oppor- 
 tunities not merely in proportion to the distance to be 
 traversed, but in an increasing ratio. If it requires a given 
 number of men to guard the route of an army across a 
 mountain chain twenty-five miles wide from plain to plain, 
 it would probably take eight or ten times as many to hold 
 100 miles. 
 
 It follows that when a belt of mountain country is very 
 wide it may operate, as a frontier, very much as if it were 
 extremely high. Communication may be so difficult as to 
 render it virtually impossible to conduct a military expedi- 
 tion across it, at any rate if that expedition is to be 
 permanently supported from the other side of the moun- 
 tains. Artificial means may of course be used to diminish 
 the difficulties. Properly-made roads, or in modern days 
 railways, greatly accelerate the pace at which the passage 
 can be made, and so render the barrier no longer one of 
 a prohibitive character. Hill tribes may be disarmed, or 
 possibly reduced to willing obedience, in which case the 
 frontier of the power which has accomplished the task 
 is to all intents and purposes pushed forward to the 
 farther side of the mountains. The physical difficulties 
 however still remain : it becomes a question in each case 
 whether they are sufficiently great to render it imprudent to 
 hold an outlet on the farther side, in face of a possible 
 enemy. 
 
 The Suleiman mountains, on the north-western frontier 
 of India, afford apt illustrations. During a great part of 
 their length they are high enough, and the mountain belt 
 wide enough, to form a real barrier — not impassable indeed, 
 but practically sufficient. At two points, however, one near 
 the northern and the other towards the southern extremity, 
 there are passes, the Khaibar and the Bolan, which need 
 separate mention. The Khaibar is the defile through which
 
 26 FRONTIERS 
 
 the Cabul river descends to the Indus ; but instead of 
 following the river throughout, the route is carried over 
 the hills in the neck of a great loop made by the river. 
 It has been in all ages the main route out of central Asia 
 into India, and in itself is not difficult. That is to say, 
 invaders in full possession of Afghanistan, with no prospect 
 of having their exit into India opposed, could pass freely. 
 As a matter of historical fact those conditions repeated 
 themselves again and again. India offered a rich and 
 easy prey : the invaders entered to take possession, not 
 to carry on elaborate war across the frontier ; and the 
 hill tribes either let them pass once for all, or joined in 
 the quest of plunder. Whether a civilized army with all 
 its train could pass through the Khaibar in face of another 
 civilized army is another question entirely. That English 
 armies have penetrated it proves nothing in favour of such 
 a venture, any more than the fact that an English force 
 once met with a great disaster there proves the contrary. 
 The Khaibar however is only removed from the same 
 category as the Alpine passes by the fact that the region 
 traversed by it is inhabited by warlike hill tribes, passion- 
 ately hostile to foreign intrusion. 
 
 Somewhat different is the case of the Bolan pass. The 
 distance is longer; the greatest obstacle to its use is the 
 waterless character of much of the region traversed. As 
 a route into India it is more circuitous than the Khaibar, 
 but almost equally accessible should the contingency be 
 realized, which alarmists profess to expect at any moment, 
 of Russia completely mastering Afghanistan and proceeding 
 thence to invade India. The Indian frontier has in fact 
 l)een pushed in this quarter beyond the Suleiman moun- 
 tains, a military post has been established at Quetta, and 
 a railway constructed through the Bolan pass. Geography 
 would affirm this to be a. grave mistake. If the contingency 
 came to pass, Quetta would be a direct challenge to Russian
 
 FRONTIERS 27 
 
 attack, and would with difficulty be defended at so great 
 a distance from India^ though something has been done 
 by the railway to diminish this difficulty. Whether the 
 fact that Russia is not in possession of Afghanistan, and 
 that our occupation of Quetta gives us greater influence over 
 the Ameer, and greater facility in aiding him if he invoked 
 our assistance, is an adequate reason for our holding the 
 place, is a question not of geography but of politics. 
 
 There is yet another type of mountain frontier that is no 
 protection at all, but rather an embarrassment — a chain of 
 hills which can be crossed practically anywhere, so far as 
 physical difficulties are concerned. Of course a sort of 
 natural selection operates in such cases. Roads are made 
 over the passes which afford the easiest gradients, or in the 
 directions which most conveniently connect important places. 
 Then the other routes are neglected, and with good reason: 
 for a made road makes a vast difference in the facilities 
 of wheeled traffic. In war, especially, heavy vehicles for 
 transport, which are essential under modern conditions, 
 practically must have roads : it pays better to wait while 
 a road is cut than to attempt to convey them without one. 
 Nevertheless, the natural passes can be used for the passage 
 of actual troops of all kinds, and for such supplies as are 
 necessary for a short time, provided that they are conveyed 
 by pack animals or light vehicles. Over such a frontier 
 invasion can be made anywhere : the only limitation on the 
 invader's choice is that he must so plan his movements as 
 to seize wnthout much delay one or more of the routes 
 provided with good roads. The enemy may watch all 
 points, but he cannot guard all adequately : he must resign 
 himself to being invaded as easily as if the frontier were an 
 artificial line. Indeed, he is hampered by the fact that 
 troops posted to guard any pass that is not attacked must 
 retreat, perhaps a long distance, down the lateral valley 
 leading to it, and run the risk of being cut off while thus
 
 28 FRONTIERS 
 
 isolated. On the same principle as before, such a chain of 
 hills is an obviously reasonable and convenient line to 
 adopt as a frontier, from the point of view of present 
 expediency. It is of course not so likely to be a real 
 dividing line between races and languages as a less 
 accessible range. That is to say, its natural tendency 
 to serve as a barrier in the beginnings of human history 
 is more likely to have been obliterated, in the course of 
 time, by the many causes which tend to overrule the 
 dictates of geography. 
 
 Another natural feature which in the modern world has 
 tended to come into use as a frontier between states is a 
 river. Historically, or rather pre-historically, when mankind 
 were in the migratory stage, rivers served the opposite 
 purpose. They served as guides for moving tribes, leading 
 them in the direction where there were least obstacles to 
 their advance, to regions which were probably level and 
 fertile. They w^ere convenient highways : it is obviously 
 easier to convey heavy loads in a boat than by beasts of 
 burden. Thus also they facilitated intercourse between 
 opposite banks, so that as a general rule both sides of 
 a river were peopled by the same race, instead of its 
 being a barrier keeping alien races apart. Instances are 
 too numerous to quote ; the best illustration perhaps is 
 furnished by the Danube. Its whole upper basin is occupied 
 by Germans, though not politically one, down to where it 
 passes between the extremity of the Carpathians and the 
 easternmost spur of the Alps : and the political frontier 
 between Germany and Austria crosses the Danube, nowhere 
 running along it. Again, its lower basin, from Presburg 
 to Orsova, is inhabited almost entirely by Slavs, though 
 Magyars form the dominant element in some portion of it. 
 Only at the lower end of its course do we find people of 
 different race on its opposite banks. 
 
 For reasons of convenience streams large and small were
 
 FRONTIERS 29 
 
 no doubt used from the first as boundary lines for property, 
 between the lands occupied by two adjacent tribes or 
 families. As soon as ownership began, means of marking 
 boundaries were required, in order to avoid quarrels between 
 neighbours. And some of these might in time, through 
 conquests or migrations, through the gradual formation of 
 aggregated political units among peoples of the same stock 
 (as can be traced in several countries), have become political 
 boundaries also. This process would of course tend to 
 obliterate the earlier influence of rivers as common high- 
 ways : but it was not till large kingdoms had been formed 
 that rivers w^ere deemed natural frontiers. 
 
 When modern history began, wars were waged mainly for 
 the personal or dynastic ambition of sovereigns, and no 
 account whatever was taken of the feelings of their people. 
 After a successful war the victor annexed territory, whatever 
 under the circumstances the vanquished would cede. If 
 it was the whole of a province, as for instance when 
 Louis XIV compelled Spain to cede Franche Comte, 
 existing boundaries merely changed their significance. If, 
 as was more commonly the case, conquest was done piece- 
 meal, then the lately contending parties had to select some 
 line of delimitation. It was obviously most convenient to 
 take one marked by something recognizable, natural or 
 possibly artificial : in the absence of accurate surveys nothing 
 else was really feasible. One of the earliest and most famous 
 of such delimitations was made in the treaty of Wedmore, 
 when Alfred agreed that the Danes should retain possession 
 of England north and east of the line formed by the great 
 Roman road of Watling Street. 
 
 The development of the modern art of war is largely 
 responsible for rivers becoming frontiers. To cross a river 
 in face of a tolerably equal enemy is not so difficult as it 
 might seem, if the assailant has boats or means of con- 
 structing a bridge. He can always distract the attention of
 
 30 FRONTIERS 
 
 the enemy by feints at many points, and sooner or later 
 seize a passage. And if he has the immediate superiority 
 of strength without which an invasion is a mere raid, he can 
 secure his footing on the further bank by seizing some place 
 possessing a permanent bridge, or by fortifying a tete de pont 
 to protect his own military bridges. Even then, however, it 
 is a matter of great delay and some risk transferring all the 
 necessary hnpedimenia of a modern army over a single 
 bridge, or even several laid close together. Invasion across 
 a river of any size is a somewhat more serious task than 
 crossing an artificial line; but experience goes far to prove 
 that the difficulty lies not in the first crossing, but in the 
 subsequent working. There is always here a weak spot in 
 the line of communication of the invading army, not only 
 inviting attack by the enemy, but exposed to natural 
 interruption. When Napoleon marched to Vienna in 1809, 
 he found himself face to face with the Austrians across the 
 Danube, the permanent bridges being destroyed. His first 
 effort to cross by the isle of Lobau, just below Vienna, 
 failed disastrously in spite of the topography being decidedly 
 favourable to his enterprise. This was because, when the 
 Austrians were barely able to hold in check the forces sent 
 to gain a footing on the northern bank, the bridges into 
 Lobau from the southern bank broke down, and Napoleon 
 was unable to send reinforcements. The Danube had 
 risen in flood with the spring melting of the Alpine snows, 
 and carried away the bridges. It was not until after several 
 weeks of delay that Napoleon, with all the resources of the 
 Vienna arsenal at his command, could master the Danube. 
 This is rather an exceptional case, but it serves to illustrate 
 the possibilities which a river frontier offers. And since the 
 same is true for both sides, it is obvious that each will have 
 some little protection against the other through adopting the 
 river as a boundary line between them. 
 
 The greater and wider the river, the greater is the
 
 FRONTIERS 31 
 
 protection afforded, till ultimately it is a more formidable 
 obstacle than the sea itself, since vessels for transport 
 cannot in general be so readily accumulated. For instance, 
 it may be doubted whether any army whatever, much less 
 one coming from beyond the Suleiman mountains, could 
 force a passage of the Indus in face of a British army 
 defending India. European rivers are of course on a much 
 smaller scale : they can be crossed, but still they present 
 a real obstacle. So long as motives of military convenience 
 were predominant, they tended to be adopted as frontiers. 
 The modern tendency is towards considering, or at least 
 professing to consider, national affinities in re-settling 
 boundaries. The last great cession of territory in Europe 
 deprived France of its piece of territory bordering on the 
 Rhine, and restored to Germany a district German in race 
 and language. Indeed, the fact that at present so few 
 lengths of river in Europe are political frontiers is in itself 
 evidence in favour of the geographical view, that a river is 
 not a natural barrier between races. 
 
 Many frontiers are artificial, and cannot appeal to 
 geography as justifying them, or the reverse. Some are 
 artificial in the strictest sense of the word. The boundary 
 line between the United States and Canada, westward from 
 the great lakes, is the 49th parallel of latitude. Similar 
 lines have been adopted in delimiting the African posses- 
 sions, or spheres of influence, of sundry European powers, 
 and in dividing from one another some of the xAustralian 
 colonies. Many in Europe have some explanation in 
 topography : this or that portion has been made to run 
 along some stream or chain of hills, or coincides with the 
 limits of some ancient township or feudal domain. This, 
 however, is not enough to give them a geographical raison 
 d'etre : they exist because it has been so arranged, and 
 there is no more to be said. Even if a frontier as drawn 
 leaves some inhabitants under the government of an alien
 
 32 FRONTIERS 
 
 race, geography will be slow to condemn it. It will, at any 
 rate, demand evidence that any other line will not involve 
 an equal amount of prima facie injustice. There is always 
 some admixture of races along the line which separates two 
 peoples. Geography may well despair of drawing any 
 frontier that will honestly satisfy ethnology, and must 
 therefore let politics settle the question. 
 
 On all frontiers the contiguous nations tend to construct 
 fortresses, by way of strengthening their defence. Where 
 the frontier consists of a mountain chain, the fortresses may 
 with advantage be placed at some distance down, so as to 
 guard the egress from more than one lateral valley, though 
 this is by no means always possible. This of course does 
 not preclude fortifications on a small scale on or close to 
 the frontier line, but these will be merely subsidiary, for 
 a reason already suggested — the impossibility of defending 
 the whole of a long line, while the enemy can choose his 
 points of attack. Where the frontier is open, the exact 
 position of a fortress will be determined by a variety of 
 considerations, of which the topographical conditions are 
 the most obvious. In modern times the importance of 
 enclosing in a fortress a great railway junction would 
 ])robably be deemed paramount, especially as with the long 
 range of modern artillery a large area must be included 
 within the fortified ring. All however are meant to serve 
 a double purpose, directly to stop the invaders on one or 
 more routes, and to threaten his flank if he advances by 
 others, thereby compelling him to detach a force in order to 
 besiege or blockade the place. 
 
 Fortifications destined to protect an artificial frontier will 
 of course vary considerably, according to the topographical 
 conditions, and little need be said of them as involving 
 geographical principles. There are however distinct types 
 of frontier defences, and the methods adopted by France 
 and Germany to defend the line of their common frontier may
 
 FRONTIERS 33 
 
 aptly serve as an illustration. Both have the same end in 
 view, to render an attack as dangerous as possible to the 
 enemy, but they set about it in very dissimilar ways. The 
 length is about 200 miles : of this one-quarter lies along 
 the crest of the Vosges mountains, a perfectly definite 
 geographical feature, though passable in many places : the 
 rest is altogether arbitrary, so far as physical conformation 
 goes. 
 
 The French have fortified the whole line, not of course 
 on the actual boundary, but a little way behind it : they 
 claim to be able to cross the fire of heavy guns at any 
 point, except where they have deliberately left a gap in 
 front of Epinal. Such a barrier can only be pierced by 
 a direct attack in front, since it obviously cannot be turned 
 without entering on Belgian territory to the north or Swiss 
 to the south, both of which states are permanently neutral. 
 The French theory is that a direct attack would inevitably 
 fail, in view of the modern improvements in the art of 
 destruction : at any rate it would involve enormous losses, 
 such as no army could be expected to face. The weak 
 point of it is that a very great number of troops are required 
 to man a line 200 miles long, opposite any point of which 
 the enemy can accumulate vast forces. A successful attack 
 would obviously make a disastrous breach in the front line ; 
 could the French have sufficient forces in their second line 
 to prevent this disaster from being overwhelming? The 
 opinion of most critics, at the time when the P^ench 
 defences were planned, was that the Germans could 
 certainly succeed if they were willing to face the heavy 
 cost of the first assault. Nearly the whole of the French 
 active army would have been needed adequately to man 
 the lines ; and as such an attack would necessarily take 
 place, if at all, at the outbreak of hostilities, their reserves 
 could not yet be in the field. The range of firearms has 
 since then been vastly extended : and the experience of the
 
 34 FRONTIERS 
 
 war in south Africa seems to show that far smaller numbers 
 will in consequence suffice for holding a well-fortified posi- 
 tion. Whether this development in the art of war will avail 
 to justify the original French scheme, is a question which 
 one hopes will not be answered by experiment. 
 
 The Germans set to work on a totally different principle. 
 They possess two fortresses, Metz and Strassburg, which 
 have in past ages frequently been bones of contention be- 
 tween France and Germany. Metz is some thirty miles from 
 the northern or Belgian end of the frontier line, Strassburg 
 is about halfway from Metz to the southern or Swiss end- 
 Each of these is able to receive within the outer ring of its 
 fortifications an almost unlimited number of troops. The 
 railways run eastwards from both^ connected at a consider- 
 able distance back from the frontier. By these great masses 
 of men may be concentrated in either or both, or shifted 
 from one to the other, without the enemy knowing what is 
 going on. The French are liable to an attack in great force 
 out of either, with little chance of ascertaining from which 
 quarter it will come. If the French try to invade^ they can- 
 not move forward a step without placing before both Strass- 
 burg and Metz armies sufficient to hold in check any 
 German force that might possibly issue from them. Other- 
 wise, not only may a counter invasion be attempted, but 
 also they can be attacked in flank and rear as soon as they 
 have advanced a short distance. Forces large enough to 
 mask effectually Metz and Strassburg would make so great 
 a deduction from the French active army that there would 
 be little left for a forward move at the outbreak of hostili- 
 ties. If then the French must remain on the defensive till 
 some at least of their reserves are ready for the field, the 
 Germans have time to strike the first blow. 
 
 Both sides have, of course, fortresses in the second line ; 
 but these only remotely concern the geography of frontier 
 defence. The Germans however have also the natural
 
 FRONTIERS 35 
 
 advantage that at some distance back flows the broad 
 stream of the Rhine. This would present a serious obstacle 
 to a French invading army if it penetrated so far, and thus 
 give the Germans time for shifting their troops and pre- 
 paring an irresistible flank attack out of Strassburg or Metz. 
 
 The difference of principle between the two defensive 
 systems is obvious. The French have rendered impossible 
 any but a direct frontal attack, and believe that against such 
 their line is impregnable. The Germans have only two 
 points where invasion is impossible ; they say in effect to the 
 enemy — advance if you dare, for you cannot ward off the 
 blows we shall deliver against your flank. The German 
 principle is, so far as one can see, unaffected by the military 
 developments of the last thirty years. It furnishes a much 
 more efficient basis for an attack, a less direct provision 
 for defence. Under present conditions it would seem as if 
 a German invasion might possibly succeed, though there 
 would be considerable chance of failure, and that a French 
 invasion would almost certainly result in great disaster. 
 The unforeseen often happens, but apart from the unfore- 
 seen, the frontier between France and Germany, artificial 
 during most part of its length, is nearly as effective a barrier 
 as a mountain chain with no gaps below the limit of perpetual 
 snow. 
 
 It will have appeared very plainly that the nature of a 
 country's frontier must exercise a perpetual influence on its 
 wars — influence in detail, if the phrase may be allowed. 
 At certain points it is open to attack, at others it is practi- 
 cally safe. Conversely it can assume the offensive, if 
 desirous to do so, in some directions much more advan- 
 tageously than in others. Certain places are important 
 strategical points, and are sure to figure in any war. Fron- 
 tiers however may exercise an influence on a much larger 
 scale, permanently affecting for good or for evil a nation's 
 destinies. The protection afforded by the sea is obvious and 
 
 D 2
 
 36 FRONTIERS 
 
 continual, as are the opportunities it gives for commerce. 
 The nature and hmits of sea-power are however better 
 discussed separately. It is almost equally obvious that 
 a country like Spain, with a single short land frontier, 
 marked off by a mountain chain, is thereby greatly isolated, 
 unless it makes good use of its sea-coasts. That Spain has 
 fallen behind in the race of material progress is doubtless 
 largely due to the character of her people : but their decline 
 in energy, both industrial and intellectual, has been assisted 
 by the geographical conditions. 
 
 On the other hand, a nation that has open frontiers, 
 having no geographical protection against attack by its 
 neighbours, can only become great if it possesses ample 
 military strength. That is to say, it must permanently 
 devote to military service a larger proportion of its man- 
 hood than a nation less exposed. This doubtless works for 
 good in some degree : the people are forced to cultivate 
 energy and self-reliance, to recognize the duty of making 
 great sacrifices in the cause of patriotism, or they may cease 
 to be a nation. It works however also for evil, possibly even 
 more : industrial progress is of course retarded by a dispro- 
 portionate amount of the population being withdrawn from 
 peaceful labour. More important still, it gives occasion for 
 the growth of what we have of late learned to call mili- 
 tarism. The king has good ground for saying, as the whole 
 policy of the earlier kings of Prussia in effect said — unless 
 you obey me implicitly as soldiers obey, I cannot undertake 
 that we shall hold our own, much less that we shall improve 
 our position. Such a government, frankly despotic, may be 
 successful externally, but internally it tends to make the 
 military spirit tyrannically predominant, and thus to depress 
 ail peaceful pursuits. It is of course possible, as Prussia 
 has shown, for a nation so situated to turn its energies 
 towards the arts of peace, when once its military strength 
 was fully established. And it will do so all the more
 
 FRONTIERS 37 
 
 vigorously because its energies have been well drilled, 
 though in some respects with considerably less success than 
 if these energies had been more spontaneously developed. 
 Militarism however is by no means a matter solely of 
 frontiers. All that one has a right to say is that Prussia, 
 for instance, could never have risen above a petty state 
 unless she had become thoroughly military, and that for 
 this growth a heavy price has been paid.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TOWNS 
 
 As soon as men had reached the agricultural stage, which 
 involves permanent habitations and some accumulation of 
 property, they began to feel the need of protection against 
 enemies, and therefore to form towns. As nomads, they 
 may or may not have been accustomed to dwell together in 
 communities larger than a single family. They may or 
 may not have learned to surround their temporary camping 
 places with ditches or mounds, by way of safeguarding their 
 cattle. At any rate, they early chose sites for their towns 
 which were easily capable of defence — hill tops, so that an 
 enemy might have to ascend a slope exposed to their 
 missiles before reaching the base of their rude wall of earth 
 or loose stones — peninsulas nearly surrounded by the loop 
 of some river, so that the neck alone required defence, or 
 possibly both in one. Instances of towns which had their 
 origin in such hill-forts might be quoted by the hundred. 
 That London was one of them is indicated by its name, 
 one of the elements in which is the Celtic dun, a hill-fort ; 
 otherwise it is difficult, as must be confessed, to discern the 
 nucleus of rising ground from which London has extended 
 itself over many square miles. More obvious instances are 
 given by smaller cities, such as Lincoln, Carcassonne; 
 Nuremberg, Sion, Stirling. Sites more or less thoroughly 
 enclosed by a river are occupied by Durham, Berne, Toledo,
 
 TOWNS 39 
 
 all of which have the double advantage of being also on 
 high ground. Rome is remarkable, though not unique, as 
 a specimen of a town which has grown out of the union of 
 two or more such hill-forts in close proximity to each other. 
 
 Next probably in order of time come settlements which 
 were more or less commercial in their origin, situated at 
 some ford, or at a later date a bridge, or at the outlet of 
 a defile, or where two tracks crossed each other. By such 
 places must pass the few travellers of early times, and it 
 was naturally convenient for all parties that goods should 
 be there exchanged. Of these again the number is very 
 large. Oxford, Hereford, Utrecht, carry in their names 
 the suggestion that they owe their origin to being con- 
 venient spots for crossing rivers. Others again are situated 
 where two rivers meet, such as Paris, Lyons, Mainz. Of 
 others it may be surmised, or it is known, that they stand 
 where a ,very ancient bridge was built, or a trade route 
 crossed a river. Of towns growing up at the outlet of 
 a defile, perhaps the most conspicuous instances are Carlisle, 
 Dresden, and Verona. 
 
 Fishing villages on the sea-shore, with or without the 
 further advantage of a defensible position, would arise at 
 a very early stage in human history. Some of these de- 
 veloped into trading ports, as soon as the art of naval 
 construction was far enough advanced, or into head quarters 
 of sea-rovers. Every bit of sea-coast in Europe shows such 
 settlements : the reasons why one grew important, while its 
 neighbours remained mere villages, are by no means always 
 discernible from the geography ; but it may safely be said 
 that a situation capable of defence was of great value in 
 helping a small maritime town to become great. Constan- 
 tinople, and still more markedly Venice, are cases in point. 
 
 Towns at the mouths of navigable rivers tended to be 
 placed as high up them as was feasible, in order to be better 
 protected against enemies coming by sea. This was no
 
 40 TOWNS 
 
 small consideration in times like those depicted in the 
 Odyssey, when what we should call piracy was regarded 
 as a natural occupation, inconvenient to peaceful people 
 ashore, but not abhorred as criminal. Of course the dis- 
 tance up a river at which it was possible to establish a port 
 depended on the size of the ships in use. Many a place 
 which had relatively much maritime importance in early 
 ages has been superseded, because its river was too shallow 
 or too tortuous for the larger vessels of more modern times. 
 Bristol, for instance, was once the second city in England, 
 possibly superior in shipping even to London. The obvious 
 reason why it has been outstripped by Glasgow and Liverpool, 
 to take only ports on the western side of the island, is that 
 access to it up the tidal river Avon is for large vessels both 
 difficult and tedious. Naturally the commerce of Bristol 
 is partially carried on in new docks situated where the 
 Avon enters the Severn, but the disadvantage that the city 
 is so far off is irreparable. Cardiff, on the other hand, 
 is essentially a modern place, owing its importance mainly 
 to steam coal. Bordeaux and Nantes again are ancient 
 towns, standing far up the Garonne and the Loire; but 
 the chief Atlantic trade of France is centred in Havre, 
 a town of comparatively recent foundation, close to the 
 open sea. Marseilles, the greatest of French ports, all 
 things being taken into account, is also in all probability 
 the most ancient : it has been prosperous for considerably 
 over 2,000 years. Prima facie it would seem to be an excep- 
 tion ; but the harbour runs sufficiently far inland for security, 
 at any rate before long-range cannon came into use, while 
 the water is also deep. 
 
 As civilization advanced, the towns grew larger and 
 more numerous. The Graeco-Italian peoples, making them 
 political units, developed them to an importance which left 
 the open country a mere appendage of the towns. This 
 apparently did not happen anywhere else, unless we except
 
 TOWNS 41 
 
 the Phoenician trading cities and their offshoots, Tyre, 
 Carthage, Cadiz. These latter, it may be observed, being 
 entirely maritime, tended to select sites open to the sea 
 and easily defensible on the land side — an island closing 
 a harbour, or a tongue of land enclosed between the sea 
 and a lagoon not completely land-locked. Cadiz stands 
 to this day a type of such city sites, though Tyre and 
 Carthage are things of the past. 
 
 Increase in the size of towns rendered many of the early 
 hill sites inconveniently small. In some cases the town 
 grew outside the original limits, and was sooner or later 
 enclosed by a fresh wall. Rome may be taken to have 
 reached this stage when the wall of Servius was built. 
 It was apparently due to extension of this kind that so 
 many ancient towns have within them streets far too steep 
 for convenience, sometimes even too steep for any wheeled 
 vehicles. If the buildings are not themselves ancient, they 
 have merely replaced older ones : these are sure to be the 
 localities which have been longest occupied. In other 
 places a new town grew up on more level ground, the 
 hill top being crowned by a castle, from which the feudal 
 chief lorded it over his vassals below. A more extreme ' 
 case is furnished by Old Sarum, which was deserted in 
 favour of the present Salisbury, some miles off. Lack of 
 water, if not actually the determining cause of this move- 
 ment, renders the original site, though excellent for defence, 
 unfit for anything beyond a very small population. The 
 most singular instance is perhaps Carcassonne. This town 
 had already had a long history at the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, and was then surrounded by elaborate 
 walls which, aided by its highly defensible situation, enabled 
 it to stand a long siege in the Albigensian war. A genera- 
 tion or two later fresh walls were built, enclosing more 
 ground down the slopes of the hill. Since then the old 
 town has been almost entirely deserted, and a new
 
 42 TOWNS 
 
 Carcassonne has grown up on the plain a mile or two off, 
 which derives no slight advantage from the travellers who 
 come to see the ancient walls. 
 
 As population increased, and mankind became thoroughly 
 stationary, sites less favourable than those originally selected 
 came to be occupied by newer towns. With the develop- 
 ment of skill in building, it became possible to protect 
 effectually towns that had no naturally defensible position. 
 New towns, that could from the first be surrounded by 
 effective walls, might grow up in any locality that possessed 
 other advantages. A rough method of natural selection 
 naturally determined which of them should become im- 
 portant, and which should not. Geographical conditions, 
 such as the proximity of a navigable river to facilitate trade, 
 were obvious factors in such selection, but doubtless were 
 not the only ones. It is plainly impossible to determine 
 in each case, or even in many cases, what influences have 
 actually resulted in making a town great, or keeping it 
 small. All that geography can do is to point out generally 
 the conditions which tell for or against their chances of 
 growing to importance. 
 
 Defensibility was an essential condition, down to the 
 close of the Middle Ages, for the prosperity of all towns, 
 whether they were more or less autonomous city republics, 
 or the head quarters of some feudal chief. In modern 
 history, which from the geographical point of view may 
 be taken to start from the consolidation of nations on 
 the ruins of feudalism, the state of things is vitally altered. 
 Most towns need no defences at all : the ancient walls are 
 levelled, and the distinction between town and suburbs 
 vanishes, generally much to the sanitary advantage of the 
 population, though with a loss of picturesqueness. Other 
 towns become fortresses first, centres of population only 
 secondarily : industrial advantage is deliberately postponed 
 to the one consideration of making them effective elements
 
 TOWNS 43 
 
 of national defence. In the present day this means little ; 
 with the immensely increased range of artillery, a place 
 is fortified by means of outlying works, distant some miles 
 from its centre. Thus probably the only inconvenience 
 suffered is that railways are not allowed to pass through 
 a town like Metz : trains come in and out again by the 
 same line. In the last century the industries of Lille 
 and Liege, for instance, now important, must have been 
 grievously cramped by the fortifications. 
 
 Of modern fortresses some have, so to speak, been 
 selected by geography, others arbitrarily. Belfort, for 
 instance, in the gap between the Jura and the Vosges, 
 is a place pointed out by nature for a fortress, if such 
 things are to exist at all. Even if French ambition were 
 again to realize its favourite aspiration, and France were 
 extended to the Rhine, Belfort would inevitably form part 
 of the second line of defence. Alsace being German, it 
 is in the front line. Only if an empire like Charlemagne's 
 could be established permanently, would Belfort cease to 
 have any military importance. Rheims, on the other hand, 
 was made a fortress arbitrarily, though with good reason. 
 It was thought right to fortify some place in that region, 
 for the second line of defence ; and Rheims, as a large 
 town and considerable railway centre, was preferred to less 
 important places. The majority of European fortresses, 
 however, do not exactly belong to either of these classes. 
 Given the existing frontiers, which are partly the out- 
 come of the movements of peoples in remote ages, though 
 partly dictated by geography — given also that certain towns 
 have grown important, which again is only partly due to 
 geography — the places suitable for fortresses are obvious. 
 Strassburg, Mainz, Cologne, along the course of the Rhine, 
 are familiar examples. 
 
 One class of towns is essentially a product of advanced 
 civilization, namely health resorts. These are of two sorts,
 
 44 TOWNS 
 
 those possessing mineral springs that are found to heal 
 disease, and those which have merely advantages of 
 climate and scenery. Some few of the former are very 
 ancient, notably Bath and Aachen, both of which date 
 from Roman times, if not earlier. Of the latter class it 
 would be difficult to cite one fair specimen that is ancient 
 and still surviving. Roman luxury frequented the sea-side, 
 but the only place which can safely be said to have owed its 
 origin to the practice is Baiae, which has perished. The vast 
 majority of such towns are of very modern growth. Health 
 resorts have also tended, for reasons easily discernible, to 
 be also pleasure resorts, and the secondary purpose of their 
 existence has often superseded the primary one. In the 
 modern world they grow apace, wherever fashion dictates 
 or skilful speculation sees its opportunity, until in some 
 countries the Fremden-industrie, as the Swiss call it, becomes 
 a recognized source of national wealth. 
 
 The industrial town is a thing essentially modern. So 
 long as weaving and other similar industries were worked 
 by hand, they could be carried on anywhere : there was 
 no advantage in the workers congregating together. With 
 the introduction of machinery, which was largely dependent 
 for its effectiveness on steam-power, this again necessitating 
 the use of coal, all was changed. Machines could only be 
 used for manufactures on a large scale. Coal was neces- 
 sarily cheapest in the localities where it was dug. Thus 
 manufacturing towns grew up on the coal-fields, and 
 especially in those places where coal was found in prox- 
 imity to iron, the other indispensable and bulky requisite 
 for manufactures. The sites where vast populations have 
 accumulated — populations moreover having definite econo- 
 mic interests, and therefore important factors in politics — 
 were thus inexorably fixed by geography. It is conceivable 
 that the considerations which determine where manufac- 
 turing populations shall congregate may be greatly altered
 
 TOWNS 45 
 
 if electricity becomes the chief motive-power. Electric 
 force is transmissible, and if the cost of transmission can 
 be kept within fairly narrow limits it may be feasible to 
 generate it on the coal-fields, and utilize it at a distance. 
 Similar use is made of water-power at some few places, 
 notably at Niagara, and it is quite possible that this may 
 be done on a much wider scale. In fact, enthusiasts have 
 been found to say that Piedmont, ringed round by a horse- 
 shoe of high mountains, is destined to become the workshop 
 of Europe. Without going quite so far as this, one can easily 
 imagine many ways in which the distribution of population 
 might thus be modified, and with it the history of the 
 country. 
 
 Many of the cities which were greatest when authentic 
 history was first beginning, have now perished altogether, 
 or at best have shrunk to very small dimensions. Nineveh 
 and Babylon, Tyre and Sidon, the various Persian capitals, 
 Thebes — none of these can be said to exist as towns. 
 Carthage, too, has perished, though the modern town of 
 Tunis adjoins its site. The deliberate policy of conquerors 
 in some instances was directed to prevent the restoration 
 of cities that had been more or less completely destroyed 
 by the chances of war. In other cases political changes, 
 such as the occupation of the country by uncivilized hordes, 
 have left no room for towns to flourish. Possibly super- 
 stition has here and there banned the site of a ruined city, 
 or it proved easier to occupy new ground. Geographical 
 reasons more or less completely accounted for their growing 
 up originally, and those reasons in many instances hold 
 good still. Geography however can only recommend 
 a site ; if there are not men capable of using it, or if 
 motives good or bad deter those who might have done so, 
 she speaks in vain. 
 
 Geography can however account for the abandonment 
 of some towns. Changes in climate or in other natural
 
 46 TOWNS 
 
 conditions may render a place no longer worth inhabiting. 
 Posidonia (Paestum) must once have been a considerable 
 city, if one may judge from the great temples still standing ; 
 now it is a malarious desert. Aigues-Mortes was the 
 Mediterranean port of St. Louis, and was in his son's reign 
 thought worth surrounding by walls worthy of Milan. It 
 might have maintained a rivalry with Marseilles, if the 
 action of the sea had further opened its lagoons ; as it is, 
 the sea has virtually closed them up, and Aigues-Mortes 
 is like a withered kernel in an imposing shell. Man's 
 neglect and mismanagement have in other places opened 
 the way for the forces of nature to work ruin, which in some 
 instances is irreparable. 
 
 Some towns have risen to special pre-eminence as the 
 capitals of states, and these form in some sense a class 
 apart. Most of them possess more or less marked advan- 
 tages of situation. It would not be easy to select better 
 sites for the capitals of England and France than London 
 and Paris. Madrid is thoroughly central to Spain, though 
 little else can be said in its favour. Moscow again is 
 central, though the reasons why it, rather than any other 
 place in the same region, should have risen to importance, 
 do not appear on the face of the geography. Vienna is the 
 most obvious centre for the congeries of provinces forming 
 the Austrian monarchy, Hungary being left out of account. 
 Lisbon and Copenhagen are undoubtedly the natural 
 capitals of the small and peculiarly constituted states to 
 which they belong. 
 
 Other capitals owe their present rank to historical in- 
 fluences or to deliberate choice. Berlin was originally the 
 chief town of a small frontier district. As the markgraves 
 of Brandenburg gradually grew in power and extent of 
 dominion, the fortunes of Berlin rose with theirs, till it has 
 now become the capital not merely of the kingdom of 
 Prussia, but of the German empire. Whether Rome is in
 
 TOWNS 47 
 
 the best situation for the capital of modern Italy is doubtful ; 
 but in view of the ancient traditions of the Roman empire, 
 no other city could possibly be preferred. Constantinople 
 was deliberately selected as a new seat of empire when the 
 whole Mediterranean basin obeyed one master ; and the 
 choice was excellent under the political and other conditions 
 then prevailing. It has remained a capital ever since, 
 though its geographical importance has greatly declined. 
 The site of Alexandria, between lake Mareotis and the sea, 
 commended itself to the great conqueror whose name the 
 city bears, and time has amply justified his choice. Peters- 
 burg was built by the founder of the greatness of Russia, in 
 order to bring the nation into nearer connexion with the 
 sea and with the civilization of western Europe. The 
 wisdom of Peter the Great's step might be criticized : but 
 whatever its success, Petersburg has by no means extin- 
 guished the ancient importance of Moscow. 
 
 It is the exception, rather than the rule, that a capital 
 should be also a really important place for manufactures. 
 Even in London, great as are its industries, the other 
 interests centred there suffice to relegate the manufacturing 
 element to the background. The same holds good in a 
 still greater degree of Paris, and there is scarcely another 
 capital of which the manufactures are worth taking into 
 account. All capitals however illustrate the saying that 
 nothing succeeds like success. When a town has been 
 made the seat of government, it has every chance of 
 becoming also the centre of national life. Because some 
 classes frequent the capital, others are led to do so also. 
 Roads and railways converge to it ; those forms of com- 
 merce and finance which have the widest range of business 
 are almost compelled to seat themselves there, even if it is 
 not a centre of manufactures. National establishments of 
 all kinds, from the head quarters of the army to the chief 
 public museums, are practically sure to be placed at the
 
 48 TOWNS 
 
 capital. Nowhere in Europe is the seat of the government 
 of a country not really among its greatest towns, except in 
 the small state of Holland, where special circumstances led 
 to The Hague becoming the capital. Switzerland is possibly 
 also an exception : Berne is certainly not a more important 
 town than Geneva or Ziirich. Switzerland however is a 
 federation, and not homogeneous in race or language : 
 historical reasons well account for Berne becoming the 
 administrative centre. Precisely for the same reason the 
 United States set up a new town, in a district severed for 
 the purpose from the component states of the union, to 
 serve as the seat of government. It is a marked testimony 
 to the power which an administrative capital exerts in 
 attracting population, that Washington, which has no other 
 raisofi d'etre, should have grown so large as in fact it is. 
 
 A state is obviously likely to suffer if its capital is badly 
 placed. There is no capital in Europe which is dangerously 
 exposed to military attack, at least relatively to the size of 
 the state, unless it be Belgrade. Brussels is of course near 
 the frontier, but a state of the size of Belgium cannot from 
 the nature of the case place its capital out of reach of 
 attack. Several states however have capitals on the sea- 
 coast, which would be at the mercy of an enemy superior at 
 sea. Portugal, for instance, is extremely vulnerable at 
 Lisbon : and the position of Copenhagen has several times 
 exposed Denmark to attack which proved irresistible. 
 Constantinople is more or less protected by the difficulties 
 of navigation, and on the Mediterranean side by the Dar- 
 danelles ; otherwise it could hardly have flourished as a 
 capital for so many centuries. 
 
 Security against attack is of course not the only considera- 
 tion. Other advantages may well outweigh a certain 
 amount of exposure. There is no other town in Servia 
 which could be thought of as a rival to Belgrade. Portugal 
 would not gain by shifting her capital away from Lisbon, or
 
 TOWNS 49 
 
 Greece from Athens. Security, thorough or comparative, 
 is however a matter of real importance ; and states which, 
 like France, do not deem their capitals really safe, naturally 
 fortify them. 
 
 Similarly, it is a misfortune if the capital of a country 
 has an unhealthy climate. Neither Italy nor Spain can 
 be said to be well off in this respect ; and in Spain at 
 least there is literally nothing in favour of Madrid save 
 its central position. In India the bad climate of Calcutta 
 has proved a serious evil. As the East India Company 
 drifted into its imperial sway over India, so Calcutta, 
 originally not even the most important of the Company's 
 stations, drifted into being the capital. It is only since the 
 telegraph has been widely extended, and railways diminish 
 the practical importance of distance, that the Indian govern- 
 ment has ventured to spend much time at Simla, a place 
 which, for all its purer air, would be impossible as a seat of 
 government without these modern appliances. 
 
 There is indeed a worse evil than an ill-situated capital, 
 and that is to have none at all. No student of the Middle 
 Ages can have failed to observe that the peripatetic habits 
 of the kings, intelligible as they were under the social and 
 political conditions then prevailing, interfered with orderly 
 government. The fixing of the court of Common Pleas at 
 Westminster, which put an end to all doubt about London 
 being the one capital city of England, was a recognized 
 step in the progress of the English nation. The existence 
 of Paris as a capital for France, while Germany by the 
 operation of various causes had none, is one reason, 
 though certainly not the only one, why the kings of France 
 did, and the kings of Germany did not, succeed in trans- 
 forming their feudal supremacy over a number of nearly 
 independent vassals into substantial sovereignty.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 NOMENCLATURE 
 
 [I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Canon Isaac Taylor's 
 Words and Places for much of the material of this chapter, especially 
 for the etymology of early geographical names. I have not studied the 
 subject at first hand, and I am aware that there is none on which 
 competent judges differ more widely or more obstinately than on 
 etymology. It is quite possible that the weight of expert opinion may 
 be now against one or another of his derivations ; but concerning 
 a large number of them there is, I believe, no doubt. Moreover the 
 general principles rest on too many instances to be vitiated by a few of 
 them being deemed inapplicable. His book contains copious lists 
 of the elements, significant in the various languages, that recur in local 
 names. I have made no attempt to reproduce any of this information, 
 except so far as was necessary by way of ilhistration.] 
 
 There is another way in which geography and history are 
 closely connected, and that is through nomenclature. It 
 can hardly be said that geographical names influence 
 history, except where occasionally the existence of a name 
 may be used as an argument in favour of some political 
 claim. Names however serve, like other survivals from 
 a long distant past, as materials out of which history may 
 be constructed ; and on some points of pre-historic history, 
 if the phrase may be allowed, they furnish almost the only 
 evidence available. Like sites of camps and other relics of 
 human labour, they require to be interpreted with the aid 
 of special knowledge. Like the traces of primitive insti- 
 tutions, they need a wide range of comparison, in order 
 that inferences from them may be sound. Like all frag- 
 mentary evidence, they need to be used with caution :
 
 NOMENCLATURE 51 
 
 conclusions drawn from them must always be, in some 
 degree, conjectural. If these limitations be kept in view 
 they supply information about early times, as trustworthy as 
 any other source from which knowledge of things pre-historic 
 can be derived. Moreover, they serve to keep in memory 
 more recent events, the facts of which come well within the 
 ken of written history, but might without the aid of nomen- 
 clature be more easily forgotten. 
 
 Geographical nomenclature, as has been well said, is fossil 
 history. The naturalist traces the stages of animal life on 
 the earth by examination of the fossils imbedded in the 
 successive geological strata. Just in the same way, the 
 succession of races that have inhabited a given country 
 have left traces of themselves behind, in the names of 
 rivers and other natural features, and later of towns. The 
 palaeontologist's materials are, indeed, more abundant and 
 more complete. If some bones or shells of a given species 
 have been worn till they are not certainly recognizable, 
 plenty of others probably are uninjured, and the bulk of 
 them are in no risk of destruction. On the other hand, the 
 extent of the earth's surface is so great that only a fraction 
 of it has been subjected to thorough geological examination. 
 New materials may at any time be unearthed that will 
 serve to extend the knowledge which palaeontology already 
 possesses, or to modify in detail some of its conclusions. 
 The historian has only the existing nomenclature to deal 
 with : nothing, from the nature of the case, can be added. 
 New lights may conceivably be thrown on the etymology of 
 certain names, but there is no probability of this being done 
 on a large scale. Such or such a geographical name is 
 significant in a given tongue, and in no other known 
 language. The inference that it was given by people 
 speaking that language is reasonable, though there is 
 obviously no means of verifying it, in the strict sense of 
 the term 'verification.' 
 
 E 2
 
 52 NOMENCLATURE 
 
 Experience seems to show that geographical names, once 
 given, usually last. They are in the first instance signifi- 
 cant, as is natural : arbitrary names are occasionally in- 
 vented by modern novelists, but even they merely make 
 variations on established types. The first inhabitants — the 
 first, that is to say, of whom we have any cognizance 
 through nomenclature — called a river the ' white water,' for 
 instance, or a hill range the 'blue mountains.' Any par- 
 ticular tribe would have need of but very few such appella- 
 tions ; and as the same process would be going on in many 
 localities, similar names naturally recur. Primitive peoples 
 had no very large supply of words ; the number of adjec- 
 tives available to qualify nouns meaning ' water ' or ' stream ' 
 was but small. Hence there is a considerable sameness in 
 the signification of river-names throughout Europe, and 
 also of hills and mountains, though in a less degree, for 
 a reason which can be easily discerned. That is to say, the 
 original elements in the names, so far as etymology can 
 trace their meaning, are but few, though the present appella- 
 tions, having gone through many centuries of phonetic 
 change, seem distinctive enough. 
 
 After a time came a new race of conquerors, who subdued 
 the prior inhabitants and made slaves of them. They, 
 having need of names for the things about them, would 
 readily adopt those which they found their slaves using. 
 Then begins the era of ' proper ' names, strictly so called — 
 that is to say, of words which have no significance except 
 that of designating an individual. Very possibly the new- 
 comers used the old name as an adjective, and appended it 
 to their own word for ' stream ' or ' hill \' This, in fact, is 
 
 ^ Canon Taylor quotes a very remarkable instance. In the south of 
 Scotland is a hill called Mounibenjerlaiu. The original name was the 
 Celtic Ben Yair, head of the stream better known under the later form 
 of its name, 'Yarrow.' The Angles took the Celtic name as an adjectival 
 prefix to their own word for a hill, law. The Norman repeated the 
 process by prefixing mount to the Angle name.
 
 NOMENCLATURE 53 
 
 nowadays universal : we talk of the river Avon or Wye, 
 indifferent to the fact that those names are merely Celtic 
 words for a stream. 
 
 From the nature of the case, names were earliest required 
 for natural features, which are permanent. It was only as 
 men ceased to be migratory that they would find occasion 
 to give names to their own settlements. Only gradually, as 
 population thickened on the ground, would the state of 
 things arise which we now find all over Europe, places of 
 human habitation large or small, from great cities down to 
 isolated farms, planted so close that only a map on a large 
 scale can find room for all the names. In the case of the 
 towns — the word is appropriate to denote all collections of 
 dwellings, since its original meaning is ' enclosure ' — the 
 same process went on as with the rivers. The first settlers 
 gave the name, which in all probability lasted, though 
 possibly modified by later comers. Names for large dis- 
 tricts were likely to come into existence comparatively late, 
 when population was fairly settled and widespread. Then, 
 and not till then, general names would become useful, and 
 they naturally were derived very largely from the tribes, or 
 congeries of tribes, that inhabited them. 
 
 These generalizations are sufficiently obvious to need no 
 support from argument. These are the things that might 
 naturally be expected to happen, and in a great many 
 instances evidence is available to prove that they did 
 happen. Nevertheless, it is right to remark that names 
 furnish rather treacherous materials on which to found 
 historical inferences, unless the instances are numerous 
 enough to preclude risk of misinterpretation. There are 
 many possibilities of conclusions based on a few names, if 
 there is nothing else to support them, being mistaken. 
 Names are transformed, often beyond recognition, in the 
 course of time, through phonetic changes in transference 
 from one language to another, through the slow automatic
 
 54 NOMENCLATURE 
 
 shifting of pronunciation as generations pass away, through 
 misunderstanding of the original meaning. A couple of 
 instances of the latter will suffice by way of illustration. 
 The Romans called the unconquered inhabitants of northern 
 Britain Picti : this accorded well with their habit of staining 
 their bodies, but it was in fact a transliteration of their own 
 name for themselves, which apparently meant ' warriors.' 
 So, again, the Mongolian hordes that threatened to sub- 
 merge Europe in the thirteenth century were properly called 
 Tatars : but the horror they inspired suggested that they 
 must have come out of Tartarus, and Tartars accordingly 
 they and their kin are called to this day. 
 
 Some names were possibly significant in a language now 
 utterly lost, so that the clue to their meaning has perished. 
 Sometimes there are found in two different languages words 
 of almost identical sound, but of very dissimilar meaning, 
 and it therefore becomes doubtful to which of the two the 
 origin of a given name is to be referred. Thus the his- 
 torian, seeking to decipher the unrecorded past by the aid 
 of etymology, has many more uncertainties to contend with 
 than the naturalist over his fossils. Nevertheless, the indi- 
 cations are sufficiently numerous, and many of them suffi- 
 ciently certain, to form a very valuable guide, enabling him 
 to discern the scope and order, though not the date or 
 duration, of those great movements of mankind which 
 gradually peopled Europe. And we may be all the more 
 confident in our inferences, when we observe that in 
 America and Australia, which have been freshly peopled 
 within recent centuries, many names seem to have been 
 given, and retained, in much the same fashion. 
 
 Nomenclature confirms the view, which has long been 
 regarded as established, that the bulk of the European 
 peoples came in successive waves of migration from the 
 east. First appeared the Celts, the Gaelic branch of them 
 before the Cymric. The Teutons followed the Celts, and
 
 NOMENCLATURE 55 
 
 the Slavs came last of all. Nomenclature does not assert, 
 and obviously cannot disprove, the existence of prior in- 
 habitants. It suggests with considerable force the opinion 
 that, if there were such, they either were too low down on 
 the scale to give names to places, or were exterminated by 
 the incoming Celts. Even this inference is subject to 
 possible qualification. There are names of which the signi- 
 ficance is doubtful or entirely unknown, and these may be 
 legacies from a pre-Celtic population. Nomenclature also 
 tends to confirm the belief that the Iberians, who were 
 apparently in possession of south-western Europe before the 
 Celts appeared on the scene, came into Europe across the 
 straits of Gibraltar. 
 
 Obviously no study of names can give any information as 
 to race^ if that word be used in relation to physical features, 
 such as colour, and shape of skull. It tells us that most 
 part of Europe was formerly occupied by men who spoke 
 a Celtic language, and there is a reasonable presumption, 
 until positive evidence to the contrary is adduced, that they 
 were also akin physically. But were it actually proved that 
 there never was such a thing as a Celtic race physically 
 speaking, this would in no way shake the conclusion, which 
 is all that nomenclature warrants, that the bulk of the 
 earliest names in Europe are of Celtic origin. This holds 
 good undoubtedly in relation to natural features, and also 
 to the towns of which the importance is ancient, if we include 
 those bearing Latin names. And this we may reasonably 
 do : Greek and Latin are apparently nearer linguistically 
 to the Celtic than to the other members of the great Aryan 
 family of languages. 
 
 The names indicating human habitations are very largely 
 Teutonic, in the regions from which the Teutons ousted 
 prior Celtic inhabitants, as for instance in most parts of 
 England. The Celts were thinly spread in the ages when 
 they had much of Europe to themselves ; it was only after
 
 56 NOMENCLATURE 
 
 the Teutonic immigration that distinct seats of habitation 
 niultiphed. And inasmuch as the Teutons were averse to 
 walled towns, preferring small villages, and even separate 
 dwellings each in its own enclosure, the number of names 
 of this class which are of Teutonic origin is extremely 
 large. 
 
 Behind the Teutons the Slavs came in, occupying the 
 regions left more or less vacant as the Teutonic tribes 
 poured into the Roman empire. They inherited the names 
 of rivers and mountains, and doubtless of a few towns and 
 villages : but the major part of the latter, in the portions of 
 Europe now Slavonic, may be judged from their names to 
 have been originally of Slav foundation. Nomenclature 
 confirms, and helps to render definite, what history records 
 somewhat vaguely, that the Slavs pushed westwards nearly 
 to the Rhine, in the time between the fall of the Western 
 empire and Charlemagne, but were ousted again by the 
 Teutons. 
 
 The indications of nomenclature concur, in general, with 
 what is known, or believed to be known, from other sources. 
 If no written records existed, it would enable us to fix the 
 limits of the Roman empire. Here and there also it shows 
 us facts of which there is no other trace. For instance, the 
 number of Teutonic village names in the portion of P'rance 
 immediately adjoining the straits of Dover is extremely 
 large, indicating a complete occupation of that district by 
 Teutons. Exactly when and how they came there cannot 
 be determined with certainty ; but the fact that these names 
 are largely identical with village names on this side of 
 the Channel is certain, and cannot be accidental. At any 
 rate, all Teutons have disappeared from this district, so far 
 as language is a test of race. 
 
 Tribal names may for historical purposes be taken as 
 ultimate facts. Their origin naturally is in very remote an- 
 tiquity, and their meaning, though it can often be con-
 
 NOMENCLATURE 57 
 
 jectured, can rarely be said to be certainly known. The 
 names of countries and provinces derived from these tribal 
 names can readily be verified, since they were conferred, or 
 more properly established themselves, within the ages of 
 written history. This very fact makes it easier to exemplify, 
 by means of them, some of those vagaries of nomenclature 
 which compel the historian, who has a due regard for 
 evidence, to treat inferences deduced from nomenclature 
 alone as lacking in certainty. 
 
 No power that has ever existed has written on the map 
 so many traces of itself as the Roman empire. They are 
 almost as numerous as the roads and buildings it has 
 bequeathed. Many towns are called after the imperial 
 family titles. Frejus is Forum Julii, Saragossa is Caesarea 
 Augusta, Augsburg is the germanized form of Augusta 
 Vindelicorum, Aosta is Augusta Praetoria. Many more, 
 conspicuous among them the -casters and -chesters of our 
 own country, tell in their names that they owed their origin 
 to permanent Roman camps. The name of the whole is to 
 be found, as was perhaps natural, in outlying portions. 
 The Seljuk Turks gave the name of Roum to the kingdom 
 which they set up in Asia Minor, after conquering it from 
 the Eastern empire. The very modern kingdom of 
 Roumania owes its name to the settlers on the lower 
 Danube being proud of their connexion with the empire. 
 The only trace of it near head quarters, save the ' eternal 
 city ' itself, is the name of Romagna, that clung to the 
 province in Italy which the Eastern emperors retained, 
 after most part of Justinian's conquests had melted away. 
 Yet some names conferred by Rome did not prove indelible. 
 The tribal appellations of the Parish and Taurini, for 
 instance, appear in the modern Paris and Turin, while 
 Augusta Taurinorum is forgotten and Lutetia survives only 
 in literature. One of the chief Roman administrative 
 centres north of the Alps, Augusta Treverorum, recalls
 
 58 NOMENCLATURE 
 
 no longer in its name the greatest period in its history. 
 For once the French form, Treves, is nearer to the primi- 
 tive tribe-name than its proper German appellation, 
 Trier. 
 
 Lombardy and Burgundy are called after the Teutonic 
 tribes that conquered them, but both names now signify 
 something much smaller than the original kingdom. Indeed, 
 what is now known as Burgundy comprises but a very 
 small bit of the kingdom so entitled. The people whom 
 the Romans called Boii had their seat in Bohemia, which 
 has retained its original name, in spite of Slav occupation 
 after the Teutons quitted it to intrude into the empire. 
 Whether the Boii were Teutons, or were Celts conquered 
 later by Teutons who adopted the name, does not seem 
 clear. It appears, however, to be certain that Bavaria — the 
 original form of the name is Boioaria — was so called after 
 the Teuton people who moved from Bohemia into the 
 upper Danube provinces of the empire. Most remarkable 
 of all is perhaps the history of the Prankish name. That 
 powerful people conquered all northern Gaul, while re- 
 taining their own German lands. Subsequently, under the 
 Carolingian house, they dominated most part of western 
 Europe. Their name survives in the almost forgotten 
 German region of Franconia, which represents in a vague 
 and partial way their original seat. And it also survives in 
 the modern France, which country no doubt formed part of 
 Charlemagne's empire, though much of it never was entered 
 by the Franks, and the nationality of the whole is entirely 
 alien to the Teutonic. Because the French were prominent 
 in the first crusade, the Mohammedans of Syria, and the 
 Levant generally, came to call Europeans Franks ; and the 
 bastard Italian current in Mediterranean ports obtained 
 the name of lingua franca. Perhaps the most curious 
 consequence of the people of Gaul assuming, and nearly 
 monopolizing, the Frank name, occurred in the fourteenth
 
 NOMENCLATURE 59 
 
 century. When the direct line of succession from father to 
 son failed, for the first time since the accession of Hugh 
 Capet, the French, very wisely as things turned out, adopted 
 the rule of exclusive male succession to the throne. And 
 they thought proper to justify this by quoting, and rather 
 misapplying, a usage of the Salian Franks, which had no 
 more authority than any principle that might have been 
 culled from Roman law. 
 
 Countries, and the peoples inhabiting them, are by no 
 means universally known by the names which the latter use 
 for themselves. The great nation of central Europe calls its 
 country Deutschland. We have always employed the name 
 Germany, which has descended from the time of Tacitus. 
 The French call their neighbour Allemagne, after an un- 
 important Teuton people that settled in and about Alsace 
 in the break-up of the Western empire \ Occasionally, 
 names given by foreigners prevail. For instance, all the 
 world knows Wales by the name which the English gave 
 to the region still occupied by the Celts whom they had 
 driven westward, though nothing could be more unlike the 
 native name. The same word reappears in other parts of 
 Europe, and is in fact the common Teutonic appellation 
 for strangers. At more than one point on the frontier of 
 what is ethnically Germany are to be found pairs of con- 
 tiguous villages, of which one is called Deutsch-, the other 
 Walsch-. There is, however, a possibility of another 
 interpretation for some of those names, that may serve 
 to illustrate one difficulty mentioned above as tending to 
 render uncertain conclusions derived from nomenclature. 
 The Teutonic wa/, the root from which come the w^ords 
 of which Welsh is a specimen, and the Celtic ga/, the 
 root of the terms Gael and Gaul, are phonetically inter- 
 
 ' It is a curious commentary on the French claim to the ' natural 
 frontier ' of the Rhine that their own special name for Germany should 
 be derived from a tribe whose chief seat was on the left bank.
 
 6o NOMENCLATURE 
 
 changeable, according to a well-established principle of 
 philology. Hence it cannot be certain that some of the 
 names which are supposed to be Teutonic appellations for 
 strangers, are not in reality transferences into a Teutonic 
 tongue of their Celtic neighbours' own names for themselves. 
 This, however, can hardly apply to Wales, the Celtic popu- 
 lation being Cymric and not Gaelic. 
 
 Names given in modern times, since the beginning of 
 the age of discovery, which may be said to date from the 
 voyage of Columbus, follow the same general rules, but 
 with one marked difference. European discoverers in 
 America retained the river names which they found the 
 natives using, such as Mississippi and Ohio, and those of 
 a few conspicuous mountains, such as Popocatepetl. Where 
 European names, such as St. Lawrence, have been adopted, 
 the presumption is that no native name reached the early 
 settlers. To their own settlements the Europeans usually 
 gave names for themselves ; but instead of evolving new 
 words, they gave to their new homes names taken from 
 the old country. An American or Australian Stratford, 
 for instance, would not be a place where a street, an old 
 Roman road, crossed a river by a ford : it would be de- 
 liberately so called in remembrance of the Warwickshire 
 town where Shakespeare was born, or perhaps of some 
 more obscure Stratford. 
 
 The early discoverers named many places after them- 
 selves or their patrons, or again from some accidental 
 circumstance. Thus the straits of Magellan perpetuate 
 the memory of the first mariner who sailed round the 
 world : the island of Dominica was first sighted on a 
 Sunday. The mode in which the cape of Good Hope 
 obtained its final name is a well-known story. Such 
 instances are perhaps too familiar to be worth quoting, 
 but they serve as records of phases of history that will 
 therefore be all the less likely to pass into oblivion.
 
 NOMENCLATURE 6i 
 
 A study of the nomenclature of America, or of Australia 
 and the other islands of the southern hemisphere, would 
 almost suffice to reproduce the outline of their history. 
 It tells of the share taken by the various European nations 
 in the earliest discoveries and colonization, and of the 
 preponderance gradually acquired by England. It gives 
 more than a clue to dates of settlement : the names of 
 the states of the American Confederation which lie along 
 the Atlantic nearly all record the epoch at which they 
 were colonized. The indigenous names further inland in 
 north America, and in the islands of the Pacific, speak 
 of the European settlers living more or less at peace with 
 the native peoples. The reappearance of famous European 
 names speak occasionally of real or fancied resemblance, 
 as at Venezuela, but are more frequently due to somewhat 
 incongruous fancy, as when the Egyptian Memphis re- 
 appeared on the Mississippi. These however have no 
 historical importance.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 In geography, as in all other departments of human 
 knowledge, men naturally draw inferences from the facts 
 that they have ascertained, or think that they have ascer- 
 tained. Indeed this is an essential condition of the spread 
 of knowledge : the mistaken conclusions, which in the light 
 of fuller information seem to us absurd, were necessary 
 steps towards the acquisition of that further information. 
 If Columbus had not believed, understanding the sphericity 
 of the earth but immensely misjudging its size, that India 
 lay beyond the Atlantic, he would not have made the 
 voyage that discovered America. It was not however until 
 considerable advances had been made towards full geo- 
 graphical knowledge, not until there was some general idea 
 of the modes in which geography affects the destinies of 
 mankind, that there was developed a habit of using geo- 
 graphical facts, and inferences based on them, in the 
 sphere of politics. Such phrases as ' nationality ' and 
 ' natural frontiers ' are comparatively modern, and could 
 not have become current unless it had been realized that 
 geography was something more than a collection of facts. 
 They have been, and still are, liable to gross misuse : 
 they have been employed as plausible pretences to cover 
 the most unscrupulous ambition, as well as to define reason- 
 able political aspirations. They have served a good purpose 
 in bringing home to mankind the conviction that there 
 are, and ought to be, other motive powers in politics
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 63 
 
 besides force. And they have been used to delude whole 
 peoples into ideas and aspirations which are at variance 
 with history and common sense. In fact, the misuse of 
 them is far more common than their accurate employment. 
 Arguments based on them almost invariably err in the 
 direction of pressing them too far, of insisting on them 
 as paramount to all other considerations. Thus while they 
 are liable to exert an undue influence over those who are 
 easily carried away by a plausible catchword, they are 
 also liable to be too summarily dismissed by those who 
 detest specious claptrap. It is not reasonable that they 
 should be allowed no hearing because their significance is 
 exaggerated, any more than that they should be given 
 undue weight because of their superficial plausibility. 
 Question-begging phrases, such as those referred to, pro- 
 voke too emphatic rejection, as well as too ready acqui- 
 escence. For both reasons, because such phrases express 
 a real influence exerted on mankind by geography, and 
 also because their misuse is dangerous, it is necessary to 
 form definite conceptions of their meaning. 
 
 Bacon, if such ideas could have been prematurely sug- 
 gested in his age, would have classed them as idola chartae, 
 fallacies of the map. The politician who wants an argument 
 to support some aspiration, produces a map coloured to 
 suit his purpose. All districts in which a given language 
 is spoken are tinted alike, regardless perhaps of the fact 
 that in some of them another language is equally current : 
 and the world is asked to draw the conclusion that all 
 ought in justice and fairness to be under the same 
 government. Or a country in which different races live 
 under the same political rule is coloured to show the 
 variety of race, and the world is invited to infer that one 
 or another of them ought in justice to be politically separate 
 from the rest. ■ Or again the map is used to show how 
 extremely convenient certain frontiers would be for a given
 
 64 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 nation, and the inference is tacitly drawn that that nation 
 has a moral right to seize them when it can. Such unfair 
 use of deductions from geographical principles is not always 
 wilful even in its origin : it certainly extends to many who 
 know no better, who believe what they are told and have 
 no wish to be dishonest. Still more often, perhaps, the 
 unfairness lies in exaggeration : there is a substratum of 
 truth in the plea put forward, but it is given an im- 
 portance, or pressed to an extent, which is altogether 
 unreasonable. 
 
 Few political phrases are more frequently used than 
 ' nationality,' none with more audacious disregard of 
 historical facts on the part of politicians who have an 
 end in view, or more blind credulity on the part of their 
 followers. x'Vnd yet it is a name for a very real thing, for 
 a sentiment which influences great masses of men for their 
 own sake, and operates powerfully to elicit the sympathy 
 of others. In spite of perversion and exaggeration, it works 
 more for good than for harm, and cannot honestly or 
 wisely be altogether ignored whenever it is invoked. All 
 the more important does it become to form a clear concep- 
 tion of the solid truth that underlies vague talk and 
 unscrupulous ambition. 
 
 The word ' nationality ' is unfortunately used in a variety 
 of senses, all the more confusing because they are cognate. 
 ' Nation ' is properly speaking a political term, denoting the 
 people who are in fact subject to the same government, 
 whatever their divergences of race or language or sentiment. 
 Words may of course be used loosely without much heed 
 to accuracy : but no one speaks deliberately of the Irish 
 nation, or the Bohemian nation, or the Polish nation, 
 without meaning to imply that in his judgement Ireland, 
 or Bohemia, or Poland, has a right to a separate political 
 organization. Nationality is strictly the fact of belonging 
 to a particular nation ; a man is said to invoke his nation-
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 65 
 
 ality, for instance, when being in a foreign land he claims 
 exemption, as a foreigner, from liabilities which attach 
 only to its citizens. It is also used, less accurately, but 
 perhaps conveniently, to express belonging to a particular 
 race, which may or may not be also a nation. ' I knew his 
 nationality by his accent,' may be said alike of an English- 
 man in France, and of an Irishman anywhere in the United 
 Kingdom of which Ireland forms a part. The word is 
 however used, in defiance of grammatical propriety, to 
 mean, like nation, not a fact, but a portion of mankind. 
 A nationality signifies, in modern language, all those people 
 who are in fact united by ties of affinity of some kind, 
 and who are therefore, in their own judgement or in that 
 of the speaker, entitled to aspire after a separate political 
 existence. And it is more or less suggested that it is the 
 business of the civilized world in general to support these 
 aspirations. Where such a sentiment exists, it deserves 
 respect, though not necessarily indulgence at all costs : 
 where it is manufactured or simulated, it deserves severe 
 condemnation as a wanton disturber of peace. The 
 question still remains— and it is here that it intimately 
 concerns geography — on what such a sentiment is founded. 
 
 Is nationality a matter of race ? No race is unmixed, at 
 any rate in the civilized world. Besides the continual 
 absorption of individual foreigners, there is hardly a section 
 of Europe in which a conquest has not taken place, result- 
 ing in a fusion of conquerors and conquered. There have 
 been instances of leaders identifying themselves with 
 a nationahty to which they did not by descent belong. 
 
 Is nationality a matter of language? However many 
 foreign words a language may annex, its structure remains : 
 it belongs essentially to a particular group of tongues. There 
 may be many more words in an English dictionary of 
 Romance origin than of Teutonic ; but English is none the 
 less a Teutonic tongue. Yet a whole people may change its 
 
 GEORGE F
 
 66 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 language, voluntarily or on compulsion. It would be 
 obviously absurd to say that the Norsemen ipso facto became 
 French in nationality, when after seizing a portion of the 
 soil of France they adopted its language. A common 
 speech will doubtless assist the fusion of races, and will 
 help to create a sentiment of common nationality, but it is 
 no trustworthy test. 
 
 Is physical geography a test ? Separate nationalities, so 
 far as sentiment goes, may exist within regions which seem 
 to be marked by physical nature for political unity : peoples 
 that hate each other may be separated by no difference of 
 race, and by the most artificial of frontiers. The truth is 
 that we cannot go behind the sentiment : it is a fact which 
 can be more or less accounted for, according to circum- 
 stances, but it is not a gospel. Other facts must be weighed 
 also, and may outweigh it when political questions arise 
 involving nationality in its strict sense. 
 
 Historical instances may be cited of very diverse import. 
 In some cases the sentiment of nationality is quite genuine, 
 and the claims based on it deserve the sympathy of out- 
 siders. In some it is or has been a sham, artificially 
 suggested in order to find a pretext for an unjust claim. 
 In most, probably, there is some admixture of misrepre- 
 sentation, ignorant or wilful, with a real and reasonable 
 sentiment. 
 
 The national independence of Poland was destroyed by 
 barefaced robbery : nothing could be more natural than 
 that the sentiment of Polish nationality should survive, and 
 involve bitter hatred of the oppressors. And the circum- 
 stances make it intelligible that the hatred should be 
 concentrated on one of the three robbers. It is quite 
 reasonable that foreign sympathy should be extended to 
 the Poles, even by those who are aware that the nation had 
 itself largely to blame for the original calamities. 
 
 Teutonic Alsace, Protestant and German-speaking, was
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 67 
 
 conquered by France in the seventeenth century, the last 
 stage of the conquest being marked by circumstances of 
 exceptional treachery and wrong. Nevertheless it became 
 thoroughly French in sentiment, and strongly resented 
 being re-transferred to victorious Germany in 1871. On 
 which side is the principle of nationality to be invoked 
 in the case of Alsace — for or against the present state of 
 things ? There is nothing but sentiment to draw it towards 
 France, nothing except sentiment to alienate it from Germany. 
 
 In Switzerland patriotic feeling is very strong, in spite 
 of the fact that three languages are spoken in the Federal 
 assemblies, and that the cantons are almost equally divided 
 into Protestant and Catholic. The feeling is as strong in 
 the most recent additions to political Switzerland as in the 
 members of the original fourteenth-century confederation, 
 and is warranted by the practical blessings of freedom and 
 good government. Nevertheless, here is vigorous national 
 sentiment which is based on no affinities, and protests 
 against the suggestion that its natural destiny is to separate 
 into its German, French, and Italian elements, and be 
 absorbed in the neighbouring nations. 
 
 Scotland has had a long history as a separate nation, and 
 still retains some separate institutions. The sentiment of 
 Scottish nationality is therefore a natural survival, in spite 
 of Scotland having become politically one with England. 
 Wales never had any approach to political unity ; but the 
 sentiment which has been assiduously fostered of late years 
 has a basis in the Cymric language still spoken by many of 
 the Welsh people, and in something like separateness of 
 race, though the experts are not agreed as to whether that 
 race is mainly Cymric, or of a pre-Celtic stock. Ireland 
 never was a nation : the ancient kings of Irish imagination 
 were mere chiefs of warring septs, which gradually came 
 under English rule. The circumstances of its unhappy 
 history, assisted no doubt by its geographical separateness, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 have however created a very real sentiment of nationality, 
 which is shared by those who differ fundamentally in race 
 and political aspirations. 
 
 Hungary is a nation, with a strong patriotic feeling, in 
 spite of the fact that the major part of the inhabitants are 
 alien in race and language to the dominant Magyar element. 
 Bohemia was formerly a nation in the strict sense, separate 
 politically, separate in race and language, though not with- 
 out a large foreign infusion, and still retains the desire to 
 be treated as a distinct political unit. 
 
 Italy has recently become politically a nation, which does 
 not include all that physical geography would mark off as 
 naturally belonging to it. The sentiment of nationality, 
 which was evoked by hatred of the Austrian yoke in 
 Lombardy, is appealed to where it exists, and even fostered 
 artificially, in order to keep alive a theoretic claim of the 
 kingdom of Italy to further extension. Italia irredenta — the 
 phrase obviously begs many questions — is made to include 
 all districts where Italian is spoken. It tacitly demands 
 that contented Ticino should be detached from Switzer- 
 land — that Austria should surrender her whole sea-coast, 
 a strip of land which Italy could not possibly defend — that 
 ' Malta should be annexed, which has never had any political 
 connexion with Italy since the days of the Roman empire. 
 One does not hear, however, that the advocates of Italia 
 irredenta propose to surrender to France and to Switzerland 
 the French and German-speaking districts of Piedmont. 
 
 Other and less tenable pretensions might be quoted, 
 which are based on community of language, or of race. 
 Napoleon III professed to think that France had a natural 
 right to the headship of all nations speaking a Romance 
 tongue. Russia poses as the natural patron, and destined 
 ruler, of all Slavs and of all adherents of the Greek Church. 
 German unity being an^ accomplished fact, those who are 
 ambitious for Germany talk as if she were wronged by not
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 69 
 
 including the German-speaking provinces of Austria, and 
 Holland, which speaks a language undoubtedly Teutonic, 
 but practically almost as distinct from German as English. 
 It may be admitted that there is some shadow of reason 
 for such claims. Spain, having no land frontier except con- 
 tiguous to France, is more likely to be permeated by French 
 influence than by any other. The capital of the petty state 
 of Belgium does its best to resemble Paris. If the long- 
 predicted break-up of the Austrian monarchy should occur, 
 Tyrol and Salzburg and the duchy of Austria might very 
 naturally gravitate towards Germany. Oppressed subjects 
 of the Sultan, mostly Slav in race and Greek-Christian 
 in creed, very naturally looked for protection to the great 
 Slav and Greek power which was the permanent enemy of 
 Turkey. And now that they have been formed into separate 
 political units, largely by Russian action, they remain 
 more or less in Russian leading-strings. If there were 
 no speciousness in the notions put forward to cover 
 essentially dishonest pretensions^ they would not be worth 
 using. It is because the world in general is on the side of 
 virtue, though often without discerning what virtue is, that 
 vice pays to virtue the homage of hypocrisy. 
 
 The plea of ' natural frontiers ' is less frequently urged 
 than that of nationality, partly because there are com- 
 paratively few cases in which it can be used with any 
 semblance of propriety. When it is put forward, it tacitly 
 assumes that geographical facts are of paramount weight, 
 whereas the advocates of ' nationality ' usually take no 
 account of physical geography. The subject of the different 
 kinds of frontier, natural or historical, and of their impor- 
 tance in affecting the destinies of mankind, was discussed 
 in a previous chapter. Here it need only be said that the 
 map of Europe affords very few natural boundaries so 
 definite and strongly marked, as to justify the assertion 
 that reason and common sense requires that they should
 
 70 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 be also political frontiers. About the British isles and the 
 Spanish peninsula no doubt is possible. Italy is almost 
 as distinctly defined by the hand of nature. Scandinavia, 
 but for its comparatively short frontier touching Russia, 
 is as insular as Great Britain. The Carpathians might 
 physically, but in fact do not, form the frontier between 
 the Austrian and Russian empires. Beyond these, how- 
 ever, there is hardly a mile of land frontier in Europe 
 which is natural in any valid sense — that is to say, a well- 
 marked physical obstacle interposed between peoples differ- 
 ing in race and language. 
 
 As a matter of fact, natural frontiers are not often talked 
 of at present. The Italians choose to base their claim to 
 further extension of their political boundaries on language, 
 and not on the great barrier of the Alps. The rival schools 
 of politicians who dispute as to the natural frontier of India 
 are really arguing as to the most advantageous policy for 
 England to adopt, in view of Russian advance in Asia 
 and of other considerations, and use the phrase as a com- 
 pendious one for the frontier which, all things considered, 
 they deem it desirable to hold. 
 
 There is, however, one claim of ' natural frontiers ' which 
 has been of serious historical importance, and has done 
 much mischief. The French have long been experts in 
 the art of devising high-sounding generalities, which shall 
 support their own specific position or claim, and singularly 
 skilful in convincing themselves of their infallible truth. 
 At the Revolution they based their new legislation on 
 a Declaration of the Rights of Man. Long before that 
 they were strenuous in invoking the ' law of nature,' as 
 a basis for doctrines about maritime warfare which it suited 
 France to uphold. On the same principle was put forward, 
 in support of the insatiable French passion for aggrandise- 
 ment, the theory that the natural frontiers of France were 
 the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Rhine. Nor is there any
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 71 
 
 reason to doubt the practical efificacy of such arguments. 
 The average Frenchman really believes in them : he thinks 
 that France is being defrauded so long as her frontier does 
 not extend to the Rhine. Hence in the many wars of 
 aggression that France has waged, whether inspired by the 
 pure greed of Louis XIV and Napoleon, or by the revolu- 
 tionary desire to extend the French system to other peoples, 
 the bulk of Frenchmen have sincerely believed their cause 
 to be just. Nay, so great may be the power of a plausible 
 formula, that writers not Frenchmen are found to accept, 
 as having theoretical validity, this French claim to a natural 
 frontier. Geography, of course, lends no support to the 
 most important part of this claim. About the Pyrenees 
 there can be no doubt, nor about the Alps between France 
 and Italy. Switzerland is, from the point of view of 
 physical geography, somewhat of an anomaly, though 
 a most beneficial one politically. The whole left bank of 
 the Rhine is, however, and always has been during historical 
 memory, as entirely German in race and language as the 
 right bank. Nor does geography lead one to expect that 
 it would be otherwise. Just as physical geography adopts 
 the whole basin of a given river as a unit, so historical 
 geography shows in general the same race occupying both 
 banks. It is true that a large river is a good defensible 
 line in modern warfare, and that therefore it is convenient 
 to adopt it as the exact boundary, if under all the circum- 
 stances of any particular case the frontier is to be fixed 
 thereabouts. Otherwise it is contrary to geography, whether 
 the theory based on purely physical structure, or the 
 practical results of historic and pre-historic human action, 
 to treat a river as a natural frontier. In the particular 
 instance under discussion, it would be almost as reasonable 
 to assert that the Seine was the natural north-eastern 
 frontier of France, as that the Rhine is the natural western 
 frontier of Germany.
 
 72 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 Whether France will ever again be in a position to give 
 her theory any practical importance is for the future to 
 show. At present there is no sign of similar theories being 
 put forward by any other nation : the field is pretty well 
 occupied by the analogous notions based on nationality. 
 These are very apt to be irreconcilable with ' natural 
 frontiers,' so great is the divergence, from what physical 
 geography might dictate, that has come to pass historically. 
 And it may fairly be said that the cry of nationality is the 
 more likely of the two to deserve political acceptance. 
 A real sentiment, however exaggerated, is a force that must 
 be reckoned with : a theory based on physical facts will 
 remain a theory, unless some corresponding sentiment is 
 evoked. And if it be merely a manipulation of facts to 
 suit ambitious desires, it is one of the basest of impostures. 
 
 There is another generalization about historical facts, 
 based on imperfect understanding of geography, which has 
 been responsible for a good deal of irrelevant nonsense, 
 though fortunately it is not capable of any mischievous use. 
 Certain districts are marked out by nature, it is said, to be 
 the 'cockpits of Europe,' the localities where great battles 
 must from time to time be fought. Of course, there is 
 a small amount of truth in this notion. For instance, in 
 the many wars that have occurred in north Germany, it 
 would be strange if several important encounters had not 
 taken place on the open Saxon plains, where armies can 
 move freely. Somewhere in the Danube basin, battles were 
 sure to be fought when the French invaded Austria. But 
 the real reason why the regions commonly designated the 
 ' cockpits of Europe ' — the Netherlands and the plain of the 
 Po — have been the scene of many decisive battles, is not 
 geographical at all. There was never a great battle fought 
 in the Netherlands, nothing beyond engagements arising 
 out of some local conflict, large or small, until they passed 
 by inheritance into the hands of the Hapsburgs. Then
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 73 
 
 misgovernment led to the revolt of most of the provinces, 
 and to the desperate struggle which lasted through half the 
 sixteenth century, and ended in the independence of Hol- 
 land. But this was essentially a local, not a European 
 conflict. The case was altered when that contest left 
 Spain in possession of the Belgian provinces. France, 
 the hereditary enemy of the Hapsburgs, had thenceforth 
 a region where they could be conveniently attacked, and 
 with good fortune despoiled. It is not too much to say 
 that, but for the permanently aggressive character of French 
 policy, the Netherlands would have seen very few decisive 
 battles. As it was, Louis XIV tried to conquer them, 
 brought upon himself European coalitions formed to check 
 his unscrupulous ambition, and achieved a small measure 
 of success at the cost of several great wars. Revolutionary 
 France annexed Belgium for a time after another war, and 
 lost it again on the fall of Napoleon. The only semblance 
 of a geographical reason for Belgium being a European 
 battlefield appears when Napoleon returned from Elba. 
 Then Belgium was the country in which his tw^o nearest 
 enemies could unite their forces, England from across the 
 North Sea, Prussia from her Rhine provinces. Napoleon 
 saw his advantage in attacking them before his other 
 enemies were ready, and Waterloo was the result. Similarly, 
 the plain of the Po has been in modern times a battle- 
 ground, because Italy had grown helpless politically. 
 France and the Hapsburgs, fighting for the dominion of 
 Italy, necessarily encountered each other in Lombardy. 
 Naturally, it was in earlier times the region where invaders 
 of Italy would be met if possible. Hannibal was en- 
 countered on the Trebbia, the Cimbri near the Ticino ; 
 but the Allia and Sentinum, Cannae and Benevento, tell 
 another tale. 
 
 There is another historical commonplace based on 
 geography, which deserves at least a passing notice. This
 
 74 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 
 
 is the idea set forth in Wordsworth's famous sonnet, that 
 the sea and the mountains are the natural homes of Hberty. 
 It is unnecessary to speculate as to whether the poet's 
 generalization was based upon more than a single instance 
 of each. History shows that there is a certain element of 
 superficial truth in the dictum, and geography can point out 
 the reason why ; but it will be obvious that the term 
 ' liberty ' is used ambiguously. Mountains are a refuge for 
 a people who have the courage to sacrifice much in order 
 to preserve their independence. They abandon the fertile 
 plains, commit themselves to a ruder life, and are prepared 
 to fight desperately, rather than submit to the foreigner. 
 This implies real courage and strength of will, but is com- 
 patible with the most backward civilization, with great 
 capacity for tyrannizing over others. The Scottish High- 
 landers adhered obstinately to their primitive clan system, 
 and to cattle-lifting in the Lowlands. The mountaineers of 
 Uri kept in the harshest subjection the people of what is 
 now canton Ticino. The liberty which has its home in 
 the mountains may only mean a bigoted determination to 
 go one's own way. The Swiss, throughout their history, 
 have combined with sturdy defence of their independence 
 a large amount of political liberty ; but there is not much 
 trace of either among the people inhabiting an equally 
 mountainous region south of the Alps. Still more emphatic 
 is the contrast between Switzerland and its nearest neighbour. 
 Tyrol is geographically indistinguishable from Switzerland, 
 and the people are of the same race. Yet the Tyrolese 
 have never shown any leanings towards democracy : their 
 heroic struggle against a foreign yoke was inspired by 
 hereditary devotion to those very Hapsburgs whom the 
 Swiss had resisted as tyrants. 
 
 A seafaring people will, from the nature of the case, 
 become acquainted with foreign nations and their ideas. 
 It has good opportunities of acquiring wealth, as well as
 
 FALLACIES OF THE MAP 75 
 
 breadth of view, and so far as the progress of civilized 
 mankind is towards poHtical liberty, is not likely to be 
 backward in the movement. Commerce cannot flourish 
 without the security afforded by good government, and is 
 fatally stunted by oppressive taxation, which is more likely 
 to be imposed by a despot or narrow oligarchy than under 
 a freer political system. Sailors must have a large share of 
 courage, and that of the daring rather than of the passive 
 order; and therefore a maritime nation is likely to strive 
 boldly for its aims, whatever they may be. History, how- 
 ever, gives very slight support to the theory that the sea is 
 favourable to political freedom. Athenian citizens lived in 
 extreme democratic equality among themselves ; but they 
 were slave-holders, and grossly oppressive to their dependent, 
 allies. Carthage had the faults of Athens in stronger 
 measure, was more essentially maritime, and was not demo- 
 cratic. Among the maritime states in mediaeval Italy, 
 Venice, which proved the strongest, had an exceptionally 
 narrow oligarchy. The instances which favour the theory 
 are Holland, the most exclusively maritime of all nations, 
 and England. The former fought for its independence 
 with tenacity exceeding that ever needed by the Swiss, and 
 against greater odds. The latter has taught the modern 
 world what constitutional liberty means, but can hardly be 
 said to have learned it through the sea, except so far as 
 insularity favoured the English habit of resenting any form 
 of foreign interference. The only real assistance that the 
 sea gives to political liberty is, however, best exemplified 
 by England. If the fighting strength of a nation is in its 
 navy, that strength cannot be used by would-be tyrants, 
 whether legitimate or revolutionary, to oppress its citizens. 
 Blake expressed not merely his own view, but a permanent 
 truth, when, on being asked to take part against Cromwell, 
 he replied that his business was not to interfere in politics, 
 but ' to keep foreigners from fooling us.'
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 Sea power, naval or commercial, obviously cannot exist 
 unless the geographical conditions permit ; and the more 
 favourable these conditions the greater the power is likely 
 to be. The evidence of history is, however, strongly against 
 the assumption that geographical facilities alone will make 
 a people maritime. The Phoenicians and the Jews dwelt 
 side by side on the same coast, but they made very different 
 uses of their opportunities. The Phoenicians filled the 
 Mediterranean with their commerce, and were the greatest 
 maritime adventurers of the ancient world, carrying their 
 explorations far along the Atlantic coasts both north and 
 south of the entrance to the Mediterranean, if indeed they 
 did not actually circumnavigate Africa. The Jews never 
 developed any aptitude for the sea : Solomon at the height 
 of his power, though fully alive to the value of commerce, 
 seems to have employed Phoenician mariners. Venice 
 and Genoa were indeed almost compelled by geography 
 to be great at sea, if they were to be great at all. Genoa, 
 shut in by the Appennines, had no choice : Venice was 
 safe behind her lagoons so long as she made no attempt 
 at the acquisition of territory inland. Geography, however, 
 does not account for the energy which enabled them to 
 surpass all maritime competitors, both in war and in 
 peace : many other places in the Mediterranean had similar 
 opportunities.
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 77 
 
 Holland is the most conspicuous instance of a state 
 wholly created by the sea : its ocean commerce developed 
 hardy explorers as well as skilful seamen, and supplied 
 the wealth which enabled the Dutch to carry through their 
 long struggle for independence, and afterwards to maintain 
 during most of the seventeenth century the most powerful 
 fleet in the world. The whole region of the Rhine delta 
 had for many centuries shared the same destinies. Small 
 principalities and city republics were intermingled, most 
 of them technically included in the empire, some under 
 the formal suzerainty of France, but all practically inde- 
 pendent. Then they had gradually come under the 
 dominion of Burgundy, afterwards inherited by Spain ; 
 all were equally injured and aggrieved by the Spanish 
 kings trampling on their ancient liberties and privileges. 
 All rose in arms, but the south succumbed to the foreign 
 yoke, while the north persevered. That the Belgians 
 thenceforth had little opportunity of maritime develop- 
 ment was not their fault ; but nothing indicates that they 
 ever possessed the same aptitude for maritime pursuits as 
 the Dutch. 
 
 "When ocean commerce began, Spain had an incredible 
 start. She possesses a large extent of coast, several excel- 
 lent harbours, and a very favourable position on the globe. 
 She had also the further inestimable advantage of having 
 been the first to take possession of vast tracts in the 
 New World. The bad financial policy of the government 
 is doubtless partly answerable for the waste of these ad- 
 vantages, but only in part. The people have never 
 exhibited the commercial spirit, nor valued industry in 
 any form, and they apparently lack the maritime aptitude 
 conspicuous in some other races. Neither in naval war, 
 nor in commerce, nor in exploration, have any Spaniards 
 been really distinguished, at any rate since Spain was 
 united under one crown : the Catalan sailors contributed
 
 78 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 much towards making Aragon a power in the previous 
 centuries. The greatest of all discoveries was made under 
 the Castilian flag, but Columbus was not a Spaniard. Two 
 Spaniards indeed rank high among the daring and usually 
 unscrupulous adventurers who have carved out greatness 
 for themselves with the sword; but Cortes and Pizarro 
 were not sailors, except in the sense that they crossed 
 the Atlantic. Indeed the often-quoted action of Cortes, 
 in burning his ships after landing in Mexico, is the best 
 proof that his instincts were not maritime. It was a mag- 
 nificent piece of daring, none the less admirable because 
 based on calculation ; but it was obviously not the act 
 of a man who valued and relied on the sea. Spain has 
 had great navies at one time and another, which have 
 fought with admirable courage ; but their great disasters, 
 St. Vincent, Trafalgar, above all the Armada, have been 
 largely due to want of seamanship in the widest sense. 
 Despite the advantages of their geography, the Spaniards 
 are not, and never have been, seamen comparable to the 
 English or the Dutch, or even the French. This is all 
 the more remarkable since the Portuguese, scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable from them in race, produced during their 
 short golden age at least two very great explorers, Vasco 
 de Gama and Magalhaens, besides others of lesser note. 
 Moreover they established considerable commerce with 
 the East Indies, from which they were only ousted after 
 a long struggle with the Dutch. It may however be 
 plausibly argued that the maritime success of the Portuguese 
 was artificial, due to the initiative of Prince Henry the 
 Navigator, and that when his influence died out, the 
 maritime greatness of Portugal died too. 
 
 In face of these, and other less striking instances which 
 might be adduced, it is impossible to maintain that environ- 
 ment alone causes or prevents maritime power. Nor do 
 the cases given accord with the theory that it is a matter
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 79 
 
 of race ; in fact the evidence tends rather the other way. 
 For instance, the Bretons, the most distinctively Celtic 
 of the French people, are also their best sailors : whereas 
 it is certainly not from the Celtic sections of the population 
 that the British navy has been chiefly manned or officered. 
 The Boers of the Transvaal, descended from a highly 
 maritime people and sedulous in maintaining the tradition 
 of their descent, have exhibited, incidentally to the war, an 
 almost grotesque dread of the ocean : they regarded being 
 sent over sea as a horrible injury to the prisoners. The 
 Norsemen and their descendants are perhaps the only 
 race of whom it can be said that they are instinctively 
 maritime. Even the Greeks, though the waters of the 
 Levant served to unite Hellas and Ionia rather than 
 to separate them, rather dreaded than loved the sea. 
 Aristotle {Ethics, iii. 7), arguing that it is not true courage 
 to be insensible to fear, takes as his instances of things 
 which every one must fear, earthquakes and the waves. 
 The whole tone of ancient literature, so far as we possess it, 
 Hebrew and Latin as well as Greek, agrees with Horace's 
 language in the familiar ode : — 
 
 lUi robur et aes triplex 
 Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 
 Commisit pelago ratem. 
 
 It is only in modern times, and almost exclusively among 
 men who have inherited Norse blood, that the temper has 
 been developed which loves the sea, and enjoys encountering 
 its perils — a temper almost essential to maritime exploration, 
 and of obvious value for all maritime enterprise, alike in 
 peace and in war. 
 
 If then the evidence forbids us to attribute the develop- 
 ment of maritime power in a given nation either to race 
 or to geographical position, can any principle be discovered? 
 The cautious historian will probably come to the conclusion 
 that it depends on natural selection in the widest sense.
 
 8o SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 on the resultant of many forces, political fortunes and the 
 appearance of great leaders or foreseeing statesmen, as well 
 as race and geographical advantages. Nevertheless, there 
 are many ways in which geographical conditions help or 
 hinder a nation's power, in the form both of commercial 
 wealth and of fighting strength at sea. 
 
 Commerce, for obvious reasons, is mostly worked by 
 established routes, and the direction of these is mainly 
 determined by geography. On land, mountain chains and 
 other obstacles impede commerce or drive it to circuitous 
 channels ; at sea, prevailing winds and currents determine 
 the best course for ships. Commercial routes are of course 
 liable to change from age to age under the influence of 
 new geographical discoveries, or of political revolutions ; 
 but they remain fixed, failing such disturbing forces. 
 Even in the ancient world, when ships rarely ventured. out 
 of sight of land, commerce was mainly carried on by sea, 
 more apparently than in the Middle Ages, when for various 
 reasons the products of the east largely came into Europe 
 by land. After the invention of the compass made it 
 feasible to traverse the ocean in all directions, instead of 
 hugging the coast, the advantages of sea transport for 
 merchandise became even greater. From about the date 
 of the discovery of America, commerce tended to be more 
 and more completely maritime, except for purely internal 
 trade. The invention of steam, while facilitating ocean 
 navigation, has rather checked than augmented this ten- 
 dency. The immensely improved speed at which goods 
 can be conveyed by means of railways has given back to 
 land carriage a little of its lost importance ; but the sea, 
 nevertheless, remains the chief medium of commercial 
 intercourse. It is mainly, though not entirely, of maritime 
 trade that we must be thinking, if we attempt to trace the 
 modes in which geographical conditions tend to favour, or 
 to injure, the commercial welfare of a given city or country.
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 8r 
 
 The Mediterranean was for many ages the centre of 
 human civiHzation — assuming that we leave out of view the 
 abnormal and isolated civilization of China. But there 
 never was a time within historical memory when the 
 luxuries of the east did not reach the Mediterranean, and 
 form an important element in its trade. Until the discovery 
 of America revolutionized commerce, this state of things 
 continued ; and it is chiefly in the political events which 
 altered the channels of eastern trade, that history and 
 geography react on each other in relation to commerce 
 before the sixteenth century. 
 
 There are three possible routes by which the gold and 
 diamonds, the silk and spices of the East Indies could be 
 conveyed to the Mediterranean basin — one altogether mari- 
 time as far as the Egyptian ports on the Red Sea, one 
 up the Persian Gulf and across by land to the coast of 
 the Levant, one entirely by land to the shores of the Black 
 Sea. So long as Egypt continued to be a highly civilized 
 country, that is to say down to the era of Mohammedan 
 conquests, the Red Sea route conveyed the greater part 
 of the traffic from the east, with which were included the 
 products of Arabia and eastern Africa, so far as they 
 reached Europe at all. The Greeks apparently carried on 
 most part of the trade in the Black Sea and in the eastern 
 half of the Mediterranean, though they voyaged but little 
 beyond Sicily. The Phoenicians, or the Carthaginians who 
 succeeded to the position of the mother city, practically 
 monopolized the commerce of the western Mediterranean, 
 after the Etruscan power dwindled, and of the Atlantic 
 coasts. Under the Roman empire trade flourished : general 
 peace made it secure, and the prevailing luxury created 
 a great demand for the commodities ministering to pleasure 
 or ostentation. It seems that the volume of trade greatly 
 diminished when the irruption of the Teutons impoverished 
 the peoples of western Europe, and caused a distinct 
 
 GEOKGK Q
 
 82 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 temporary retrogression in general civilization. Commerce 
 was not, however, diverted from its old channel until the 
 successors of Mohammed overran Egypt. Thenceforth 
 the Red Sea trade dwindled, and, so far as Europe was 
 concerned, ceased to exist, at any rate after the destruction 
 in A. D. 767 of the canal joining the Nile to the Red Sea. 
 Eastern commerce followed the alternative routes mentioned 
 above. 
 
 Constantinople, situated, as has been said, where two 
 seas and two continents meet, had been a place of great 
 trade long before it was made the capital of the Roman 
 empire. The division of the empire into east and west, 
 followed by the submergence of the western half under 
 the Teuton floods, left Constantinople more than ever the 
 head quarters of civilization. The loss of Syria and Egypt, 
 while grievously curtaihng the Eastern empire, worked to 
 the advantage of the capital, which became the one 
 emporium of all trade between Europe and the east. The 
 strength of the Saracens in the Mediterranean, followed 
 by the appearance there of the Norsemen, drove much of 
 the trade to follow overland routes. Land traffic up the 
 Danube into central Europe, or across the Balkan peninsula 
 to the Adriatic in order to reach Italy, all started from 
 Constantinople, which enjoyed a commercial pre-eminence 
 such as no other city has ever possessed. 
 
 It was again political events which brought the Medi- 
 terranean trade back to its natural maritime channels, and 
 destroyed the preponderance of Constantinople. Its 
 admirable geographical position was not sufficient to com- 
 pensate for political decay at home, in the face of new 
 competition. The Normans drove the Saracens off the 
 sea, and themselves settled down to civilization. The 
 Eastern empire lost Asia Minor, and bad government 
 diminished its wealth. , The Italian maritime cities rose to 
 importance, and pushed their trade into what had been
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 83 
 
 the domain of the Greeks. The Crusades at once increased 
 the European demand for eastern luxuries which grew more 
 famihar, and enabled them to be fetched from the Syrian 
 ports in the ships of Venice and Genoa. Finally, the fourth 
 Crusade dealt a deadly blow to the Eastern empire : thence- 
 forth the trade of Constantinople itself passed almost 
 entirely into Italian hands. 
 
 It is a fair matter of speculation how much the superior 
 geographical position of Venice contributed to giving her the 
 advantage over her rival, in spite of Genoa having suc- 
 ceeded in establishing preponderant influence at Con- 
 stantinople. Venice was conveniently situated for the land 
 traffic across the Balkan peninsula, and within reach of 
 easy routes over the Alps into Germany. Genoese trade 
 was easy into France, but had a formidable competitor in 
 Marseilles : in order to reach the Rhine-land it had to cross 
 both Appennines and Alps. The time, however, was rapidly 
 approaching when geographical discovery should supersede 
 Venice and Genoa as the great foci of European commerce. 
 
 The discovery of America, followed immediately by the 
 opening of the Cape route to India, transferred the centre 
 of gravity of the commercial world to the shores of the 
 Atlantic. The Spaniards and Portuguese, who had the 
 first chance, failed to make good use of it. Holland, 
 followed in point of time and ultimately outstripped by 
 England, developed the naval aptitude requisite, and became 
 for the world at large what Carthage, and Constantinople, 
 and Venice, had in turn been for the Mediterranean basin. 
 It was naval strength, added to perfect geographical position, 
 which gave England her immense commercial prepon- 
 derance. And since nothing succeeds like success, the 
 cutting of the Suez canal, which it was imagined might 
 restore to the JNIediterranean ports their lost advantages, 
 has practically facilitated English trade. It remains to be 
 seen whether German commerce, centred in the North Sea 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 ports, will prove an effective rival. It is obvious that 
 Hamburg and Bremen are virtually in the same position 
 on the globe as London, without the security of being on an 
 island, but with the advantage of having the Continent open 
 behind them. 
 
 Naval warfare, pure and simple, is but little controlled 
 by geographical conditions. An army can only move by 
 roads, and must in general keep open its communications 
 with its base — the occasions on which it can venture to 
 ignore this necessity are too few and exceptional to be 
 worth dwelling on. The sea is open in all directions, and 
 trackless : a fleet can go anywhere at any time, and leaves 
 no trace of its passage. A fleet necessarily carries its own 
 supplies on board, and is only controlled by the need of 
 renewing them : and this may be done either by return to 
 a friendly port, or by the dispatch of laden vessels from 
 home. Before the invention of steam power the winds 
 played a very important part in naval warfare ; now it 
 is probable that adverse weather is as great a hindrance to 
 an army as to a fleet. An army is absolutely forbidden to 
 enter neutral territory. If it does so voluntarily, that is 
 an act of war against the neutral ; if involuntarily, the troops 
 driven on to neutral soil are the prisoners of the neutral 
 power, and remain so until the end of the war. Ships 
 of war are in general not refused admission to neutral 
 harbours, though the duration and conditions of their stay, 
 and the nature and amount of supplies which they are 
 allowed to obtain on shore, are very strictly limited by 
 modern usage. 
 
 In land warfare, the stronger power usually invades, 
 while the weaker stands on the defensive. The weaker 
 may of course try to snatch an advantage by striking first, 
 but this is exceptional. In any case, the invader is free 
 to select his line or lines of invasion, though in doing so 
 he is necessarily governed very greatly by the geography.
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 85 
 
 When^ ho\Yever, he has once begun in earnest, he is com- 
 mitted to that particular course, and only withdraws from it 
 if defeated. Moreover, in every step forward, the topo- 
 graphical conditions are of vital importance. The com- 
 mander on the defending side may, or may not, be able 
 to foresee, by the aid of geography, the direction of the 
 coming invasion. Even if he cannot, he knows when it has 
 begun what his task is : he must resist the enemy where the 
 attack is delivered, and he can utilize such geographical 
 features of the country as are within the sphere of operations, 
 and those only. 
 
 In purely naval warfare, the conditions are totally dif- 
 ferent. The stronger side can have but one naval objective, 
 the destruction of the enemy's fleet, wherever that can be 
 found. Some part of its force may have to be employed for 
 other purposes, of which protecting the national commerce 
 is the most obvious, but these are merely incidental duties. 
 The weaker side sometimes declines to risk a combat, and 
 keeps its ships in harbour, under the protection of shore 
 fortifications. More commonly, it will try to prey on the 
 enemy's commerce, or to form combinations whereby 
 a portion of the enemy's fleet may be taken at a disadvan- 
 tage. Both sides can pass and repass freely over the ocean, 
 which belongs to neither. A circuitous route to a given 
 destination involves no permanent difficulty of communica- 
 tions, nothing but immediate loss of time. If a fleet is not 
 in sight, there is nothing to tell an enemy where it is, or in 
 what direction it is moving. Battles are fought not in 
 positions prepared beforehand, but on the trackless water. 
 They are indeed likely to take place somewhere near 
 belligerent ports, if a fleet is intercepted when trying to 
 quit or enter one, or near ocean trade routes on which 
 merchant shipping may have to be protected or made prize 
 of. Otherwise geography influences the course of naval 
 warfare but little.
 
 8o SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 One important matter, essential to the conduct of war at 
 sea under modern conditions, must not be forgotten. Steam 
 power having become universal, ships of war are Hable to 
 be rendered helpless unless they can renew from time to 
 time their supply of coal. It is essential that there should 
 be ports, in reasonable proximity to the locality where 
 a fleet is operating, at which coal is readily procurable. In 
 time of peace there is obviously no difficulty ; a man-of- 
 war is at liberty to enter any harbour of any nation in 
 which coal is for sale. In war time, however, the case 
 is very different. Coal is now universally regarded as 
 a munition of war, which no neutral nation would be 
 justified in letting a belligerent ship obtain in its ports. 
 To allow it would be regarded by the other side as a definite 
 act of hostility. Hence during war a belligerent ship can 
 only coal at a harbour belonging to its own state, or to an 
 ally, should several nations be involved in the war. The 
 practical result is to compel maritime states, which may 
 have interests to guard, or naval warfare to conduct at 
 a distance from their own shores, to acquire coaling stations, 
 under penalty of not being able to carry on war away from 
 their own waters. During the war of 1898 between Spain 
 and the United States, for instance, it would have been 
 impossible for an American fleet to attack the coasts of 
 Spain. On the other hand, there is no power on the 
 continent of Europe, except possibly France, which could 
 make a naval attack on the coasts of the United States : 
 and even the French harbours in the West Indies are 
 a long way from any point worth attacking. 
 
 Even in the days before steam, the maritime nations 
 deemed it well worth their while to occupy isolated spots 
 on routes important for their trade. It was as a port of 
 ' call on the voyage to the East Indies that the Dutch 
 occupied the cape of. Good Hope, and the English 
 St. Helena. The French made of Mauritius something
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 87 
 
 more, a secure base from which their Indian enterprises 
 might be dispatched or controlled. What was highly con- 
 venient in former times has become essential now. Singa- 
 pore, which is sometimes called ' the coal-hole of the east,' 
 and Aden, which deserves a similar appellation, are among 
 the most valued of British possessions. Malta is more 
 valuable now than ever, if England is to keep up her naval 
 strength in the Mediterranean. These are only instances: 
 there are plenty of other coaling stations about the world, 
 belonging to a variety of nations, and it is in the nature of 
 things that more should be established. 
 
 It is obvious that coaling stations, if they are to perform 
 their vital function of furnishing resources for naval war, 
 must be adequately fortified and garrisoned. Otherwise 
 they offer tempting marks for a hostile attack ; and they 
 either are doubly lost — for the capture of them transfers to 
 the enemy the advantage w^hich they were intended to 
 provide — or they cripple the naval campaign by requiring 
 a fleet for their protection. The proper maintenance of 
 coaling stations once established, a nation which is strong 
 at sea will find no real difficulty in reinforcing and otherwise 
 supplying them during war, and will derive inestimable 
 advantage from them. On the other hand, they are 
 a serious tax on the resources of a belligerent who is 
 weaker at sea than his antagonist. In fact, he is in 
 a painful dilemma : without them he cannot wage war at 
 a distance, while, if he holds them, he is extremely likely 
 to see them captured. There have been no great naval 
 wars since steam came in, but the ready way in which 
 England seized French and other islands, both in the East 
 and West Indies, during the wars of the eighteenth century, 
 may serve as an illustration. 
 
 There is every difference between purely naval warfare 
 and military, expeditions sent over sea, though the latter are 
 obviously feasible only to a tolerably strong maritime power.
 
 88 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that an invasion over 
 sea is impossible in face of superior naval strength. Descents 
 made by a pretender on his native soil are obviously not 
 cases in point. Such an expedition depends for success on 
 the amount of support its leader receives among the people 
 of the country he thus enters, not on continued supplies 
 from the land he set out from. The only apparent ex- 
 ception to the rule really confirms it : Alexander the Great 
 invaded the Persian empire in face of a fleet so superior 
 that he thought it useless to maintain one in opposition 
 to it. His invasion was,- however, made across the very 
 narrow waters separating Europe from Asia Minor, and in 
 his days there was no thought of keeping an army con- 
 tinually supplied from its base of operations. Moreover, 
 Alexander showed, as soon as he had mastered Asia Minor, 
 his full appreciation of the value of naval power. He 
 proceeded to besiege Tyre, the head quarters of the naval 
 power of Persia, and persevered, in spite of enormous 
 difficulties, to a successful end. Then, aided by circum- 
 stances in some sense geographical— by the fact that the 
 Phoenicians and Asiatic Greeks, who furnished the king of 
 Persia with a fleet, were merely his subjects, and had no 
 attachment to his throne — Alexander transferred to himself 
 the preponderance of maritime strength. He was thereby 
 enabled to conquer Syria and Egypt, and so establish a 
 firm basis for his empire round the eastern Mediterranean. 
 
 The dispatch of an army by sea is always a serious 
 undertaking, even if the troops are being sent to a friendly 
 country. It involves the assembling of a vast number of 
 ships, a tedious embarkation, safe convoy across the water, 
 and an equally tedious landing. Steam has eliminated one 
 great difficulty, the need of waiting for a favourable wind : 
 but the impedimenta of a modern army have grown so great 
 that either the number or the size of the transports must 
 be far larger than formerly, involving increased time and
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 89 
 
 trouble in landing. Of course, if the expedition be for the 
 invasion of a hostile country, other difficulties arise. The 
 invading army, assuming it to succeed in landing, has to 
 bring all its supplies and reinforcements, and to keep up its 
 communication with home for all purposes, also across the 
 sea, giving occasion for much delay, and opportunity for 
 the invaded state, if not utterly bereft of a navy, to strike 
 dangerous blows. And if the invading army be defeated 
 and driven back upon its ships, it cannot expect to re- 
 embark without very heavy loss. 
 
 As against these serious drawbacks, an expedition sent 
 by sea has one immense advantage. It can land at any 
 place on the hostile coast which is not too strongly 
 defended. The enemy therefore, unless able to fight at 
 sea, must guard the whole coast, or resign himself to being 
 invaded, and trust to being able to meet the invaders before 
 they have had time to do serious harm. So great is this 
 advantage that a high military authority some years ago 
 maintained that in case of a general European war, with 
 France and Russia in arms against the Triple Alliance, the 
 British fleet alone would be worth something like half a 
 million of men to the Triple Alliance. Germany being 
 decidedly inferior to Russia at sea, and Italy to France, he 
 argued, they must guard their coasts everywhere : and this 
 he calculated would require for Germany 200,000 men and 
 for Italy 300,000. The British fleet would have given 
 preponderance at sea to the Triple Alliance, and therefore 
 have set free all those men for active operations on land. 
 It is immaterial whether the conditions have or have not 
 altered, whether the original calculation was numerically 
 accurate. Within possibly wide limits it was obviously 
 sound, and it affords an apt theoretical illustration of the 
 power which naval strength may confer for military pur- 
 poses. There is one possible flaw in such reasoning : the 
 state threatened with invasion might leave the coasts alone.
 
 90 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 and keep an army at some central spot ready to be 
 dispatched against the invader wherever he appeared. It 
 is not, however, every government which would have the 
 nerve to face the risk of an invasion unresisted, even for 
 a few days, just as very few troops will fight in line with no 
 reserves behind them. It is obvious, however, that with 
 the telegraph to give instantaneous information, and with 
 railways immensely accelerating the transport of troops over 
 long distances, the time during which an invader landing 
 on the coast would be free to act unopposed becomes very 
 short. The risk of failure is so much increased that the 
 prize of success need be great indeed to justify incurring it. 
 Practically no military expedition over sea is worth while 
 unless the invader can calculate on supporting it with his 
 full fighting strength, which implies permanent command of 
 the sea, or, at the very least, inflicting some irreparable 
 injury on the enemy. War between England and France, 
 other powers for whatever reason being not concerned, has 
 happened before, and might occur again. In that case, 
 a French invasion of England, given the present proportion 
 of naval strength, would be lunacy, unless it were thought 
 worth while to sacrifice the whole expedition for the chance 
 (say) of destroying Portsmouth. An English invasion of 
 France, unless for a similar object, would be equally foolish, 
 because no command of the sea could avail to maintain an 
 invading army against the gigantic numbers which a great 
 nation, having universal military service, can place in the 
 field. 
 
 A very narrow arm of the sea will serve as an impassable 
 barrier, if the difference in naval strength be sufficiently 
 great. In 1402 Timur, with his destroying hordes out of 
 central Asia, totally defeated the Ottoman Sultan, and over- 
 ran Asia Minor with ease. But as he had no ships, he was 
 unable to cross into Europe : the relics of the Ottoman 
 power were safe beyond the narrow Bosphorus. In 181 2-3
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR gi 
 
 England was able to guarantee Sweden against attack by 
 Napoleon's overwhelming land armies across the almost 
 equally narrow straits at the entrance of the Baltic. When 
 Napoleon expelled the Bourbon king from Naples, he was 
 powerless to deprive him also of Sicily ; nor, though the 
 whole of the territories belonging to the king of Sardinia 
 on the mainland were actually annexed to France, had 
 Napoleon ever a chance, in face of the British fleet, of 
 acquiring the island of Sardinia. 
 
 Historical instances showing what an army can and 
 cannot do, when transported and maintained from beyond 
 the sea, are best taken from English history. England, as 
 an island state, has necessarily carried on war in no other 
 way, if we leave out civil wars, or what for geographical 
 purposes at least amount to the same thing, wars with 
 Scotland before the union of the kingdoms. Indeed, there 
 have been very few such enterprises which were not English, 
 at least in modern history : ancient history records the 
 disastrous failure of the Athenian expedition to Sicily, in 
 spite of Athens being the leading naval power in the Greek 
 world, and Scipio's success in carrying the second Punic 
 war into Africa. The latter is scarcely a case in point, as 
 Rome and Carthage were then fighting for the mastery all 
 round and over the western Mediterranean. The naval 
 superiority of Rome, however, was a most important factor 
 in the war. It compelled Hannibal, whose real starting- 
 point was the new, not the old Carthage, to pass the 
 Pyrenees and the Alps in order to invade Italy, and 
 prevented his deriving any real support from home. 
 
 English history however abounds in instances, from 
 expeditions which were little more than raids to long and 
 serious wars, some successful, some disastrous, but most 
 of them illustrating one or more of the general principles 
 already indicated. These are: (i) the assailant has the 
 great advantage of surprise, as the enemy cannot tell where,
 
 92 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 perhaps not when, the blow will fall : (2) the assailant has 
 another advantage in mobility ; he can with comparative 
 ease shift his base of operations : (3) military failure will 
 involve disproportionate loss. 
 
 The expedition sent in 1807 to Copenhagen, in order to 
 forestall Napoleon's intended seizure of the Danish fleet, 
 was perfectly successful, partly at least because the Danes 
 were surprised, though they were probably not very 
 reluctant to yield to palpably superior force. Buckingham's 
 expedition to the isle of Rhe, in 1627, succeeded at the 
 outset, but proved a disastrous failure because it was 
 impossible to sustain it from home when France put out 
 her strength. When Sir John Moore was left in command 
 of a small English army at Lisbon, in the latter part of 
 the year 1808, Napoleon was himself in Spain with probably 
 ten times as many troops. Nevertheless Moore could 
 advance into the heart of Spain, seriously threatening 
 Napoleon's communications, because he could change his 
 base at will. He lost seriously in retreating to Corunna, 
 but he would never have been able to return to Lisbon 
 at all, since the very superior French forces, instead of 
 merely pushing him back towards his port of embarkation, 
 would have been able to take him in flank. Similarly, in 
 the last campaign of the Peninsular war, Wellington based 
 his whole scheme on the same facility. He dislodged the 
 French armies, which opposed his advance from the Douro 
 to the Bidassoa, by continually turning their right flank. 
 And this he was able to do because, instead of dragging 
 a lengthening chain from Lisbon, he could transfer his 
 supplies round to the ports on the bay of Biscay, whence 
 the distance to his left wing was very short. In 1854 
 the allies landed unopposed on the coast of the Crimea, 
 because they were free to select the spot ; and when, rightly 
 or wrongly, they deemed it necessary to pass Sebastopol, 
 they were free to fix themselves as they would on the coast
 
 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 93 
 
 to the south of the town. Their base being in fact the sea, 
 they could utihze equally well whatever ports were for 
 military reasons convenient. It should be said, however, 
 that the task of capturing Sebastopol would have been 
 considerably harder if the Russians had possessed a rail- 
 way into the Crimea, or even thoroughly good roads. 
 
 A less obvious, but even more important, illustration of 
 the value of the sea as a base of operations is furnished 
 by the campaign of Waterloo. Wellington's army was guard- 
 ing the western portion of the Belgian frontier, drawing its 
 supplies from the sea, chiefly through Ostend. The Prus- 
 sians lay along the eastern part of the frontier, their base 
 being on the Rhine. So long as the allies were united, 
 they were far stronger than Napoleon ; the risk lay in their 
 being separated. This the two generals agreed should 
 not happen, and their adherence to this resolve, in spite 
 of Napoleon's having struck successfully at the point of 
 junction between them, was rewarded by complete success. 
 It will be plain that the difficulty was much diminished 
 by the fact that Wellington's base was the sea. If forced 
 to retreat he could, at the cost of some inconvenience, 
 direct his supplies through Antwerp instead of Ostend, or 
 even through ports further north. Bliicher ran a greater 
 risk, but he might reasonably rely on temporary assistance 
 from his English colleague, and the need could be but 
 temporary. These considerations may, or may not, have 
 been present to the minds of Wellington and Bliicher : the 
 whole campaign was too short for any difficulty to have 
 actually arisen ; but they are written on the face of the map. 
 
 Wolfe's attack on Quebec, though the whole expedition 
 was on no very great scale, gives perhaps the most perfect 
 illustration in all history of what sea power can do to 
 assist military operations. Wolfe's expedition sailed up the 
 St. Lawrence unopposed, the French having practically no 
 men-of-war to face the escorting fleet. Having command
 
 94 SEA POWER IN PEACE AND WAR 
 
 of the water, Wolfe could land anywhere, and naturally 
 pitched his camp on the south bank of the river, Quebec 
 being on the north, with the French camp along the same 
 shore below the town. By means of the ships Wolfe could 
 attack the French when he pleased, and they could not tell 
 until the last moment where the attack would be delivered. 
 The natural strength of the place was great, and the French 
 had a considerable superiority in numbers. Nevertheless, 
 by judicious use of the fleet Wolfe succeeded in landing 
 unopposed, and in fighting a battle under conditions which 
 prevented the enemy from bringing his full strength to 
 bear, so that the superior quality of the British troops won 
 an easy victory. 
 
 The same general conclusions can be deduced from the 
 long and sustained wars which England has conducted, 
 with every condition against her except sea power. The 
 Hundred Years' war opened with the great naval victory 
 of Sluys : thenceforth English forces could be landed 
 almost anywhere on the French coast. And if the war 
 ended in failure, the task of conquering France being 
 impossible if France chose to resist steadily, it was through 
 the facilities offered by the sea that it achieved a consider- 
 able measure of temporary success. The same holds good 
 of the Peninsular war as a whole, of which more is said in 
 another chapter. On the other hand, when the American 
 colonies revolted, their success was assured when France 
 and Spain took part in the war, thereby temporarily de- 
 priving England of that full command of the sea, without 
 which her armies in America could not be reinforced or 
 supplied.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 War, in the modern sense of the word, is altogether 
 based on geography. The determining motives may be 
 very various, from the selfish ambition of a despot to the 
 excitement of a democracy that deems the national honour 
 insulted ; but they do not much influence the methods in 
 which war is carried on. These depend, mainly if not 
 entirely, on the geographical conditions of each separate 
 case ; and the meaning of these has to be deduced from 
 the state of the art of war, which varies from age to age. 
 
 This is obvious in relation to modern wars, into which 
 the intellectual element enters ever more and more, as 
 operations of all kinds become more elaborate; but it holds 
 good universally. Even in the encounters between con- 
 tiguous tribes of savages, which may more appropriately be 
 called fighting than war, the configuration of the ground 
 gives advantage, casually or through design, to one party or 
 the other. It is impossible to imagine geographical con- 
 ditions under which the surface of the earth should be 
 entirely featureless. Even on an open plain there must 
 be water, or human life can not be sustained ; and water 
 at once influences the mode in which warfare can be carried 
 on. In deserts, where springs are not numerous and the 
 streams originating in them dry up or sink into the earth 
 after a short course, the spots where springs rise become 
 strategic points of vital importance. On a more fertile
 
 96 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 plain, the streams, large and small, become obstacles and 
 therefore lines of defence. They can be forded only at 
 certain points, or their banks are marshy : and the flatter 
 the plain the more likely it is that the small streams will be 
 found to be thus rendered difficult of passage. Moreover, 
 human occupation rapidly gives artificial importance to 
 certain spots. The exact localities in which towns grow up 
 may be determined, on an open plain, by more or less 
 trivial accidents. Probably it would have made no difference, 
 at any rate from a military point of view, if they had grown 
 elsewhere. But when once they have been established, they 
 are henceforth points at which an enemy must strike if he 
 intends conquest ; which he will avoid if intending a mere 
 raid ; within which the inhabitants will gather for defence, 
 or to plan a counter attack. Roads are marked out leading 
 from one town to another, which will naturally cross the 
 streams at convenient spots ; and these become of ever in- 
 creasing importance as warfare is more developed. 
 
 Thus even on the flattest plain conceivable, there is 
 ample opportunity for geography to influence the course of 
 warfare : and as a matter of fact really flat plains are few, if 
 we leave out of sight the deserts which barely admit of any 
 settled inhabitants. In the regions which are habitually, 
 and quite reasonably, regarded as level because they contain 
 no important ranges of hills, there are usually minor in- 
 equalities of surface sufficient to make a vast difference in 
 the conduct of a campaign, still more in the tactics of battle. 
 For instance, European Russia is always described as one 
 vast plain : in the whole expanse there is only one range of 
 hills worth marking on the map. In the 500 miles or more 
 between the frontier and Moscow, traversed by Napoleon's 
 invading army in 18 12, there are no variations of level 
 exceeding about 200 feet : yet the campaign was as full as 
 any other of occasions on which the geography, or the 
 topography, materially influenced the course of events.
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 97 
 
 In average country there are of course the same geo- 
 graphical conditions affecting war as on the flattest plain, 
 and others besides. There are rivers large and small, with 
 the towns and other results of human occupation : and there 
 are also hills, and perhaps mountains, which may in many 
 ways influence the course of military operations. A con- 
 siderable mountain range, if it lies between the belligerents, 
 is a serious obstacle to the assailant, and probably deter- 
 mines the plan of defence for the other party. If it runs at 
 an angle to the common frontier, it will tend to limit the 
 theatre of operations to one side or the other of the chain. 
 Lesser ranges of hills, besides acting somewhat in the same 
 way as greater ones, may furnish defensive positions, or 
 shelter from the enemy's observation the movement of 
 troops. Isolated hills, while serving on a small scale as 
 points in a position for battle, are also of great value 
 as stations for reconnoitring. 
 
 Occasionally warfare has to be carried on in a region 
 which is altogether mountainous, as for instance in nearly 
 all the fighting which has taken place in India since the 
 suppression of the Mutiny, or when the Tyrolese rose in 
 1809 against the Bavarian rule imposed on them by 
 Napoleon. In that case so much must turn upon the 
 configuration of every mile of ground, which will of course 
 vary indefinitely, that very little generalization is possible. 
 Very much greater advantage will obviously be derived from 
 thorough knowledge of the ground in mountainous than in 
 level country, whether that belongs to native inhabitants or 
 to troops specially trained. A marked instance of the 
 former is unfortunately familiar to us in the Transvaal. In 
 that extremely diflficult and broken region, armed bodies of 
 Boers repeatedly evaded pursuit and surprised English 
 detachments, through their knowledge of the ground 
 enabling them to move by night or in any weather, which 
 their enemies necessarily could not do. An instance of the 
 
 GEORGE H
 
 98 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 latter is to be found in the admirable work done by the 
 native guides on the north-west frontier of India. 
 
 Paradoxical as it may sound, thoroughly mountainous 
 country in one respect approximates closely, for military 
 purposes, to open plain. Exceptional importance in both 
 attaches to roads. The flatter a plain is, the more likely it 
 is that there will be marshy ground, through which a 
 properly made road is essential, as conducting perhaps to 
 the only spots where rivers can be crossed. Similarly, in 
 really mountainous country the existence of a road will 
 determine the direction in which advance can be made. 
 Probably in both cases troops can move, with more or less 
 difficulty, without roads ; it is perfectly possible that the 
 route adopted for a given mountain road is merely one of 
 several that might have been selected. The existence, 
 however, of a properly constructed road makes so great 
 a difference that it practically will be used even for troops ; 
 and for their i7npedvnetita there can hardly be any option. 
 A general defending a mountain ridge might well hesitate 
 to destroy the one road across it, so long as he intended 
 any defence at all. So long as the road was available, he 
 might feel certain that he could concentrate his energies on 
 holding it : if it had ceased to exist, his assailants would 
 be left to the resources of nature, and might advance by any 
 line that was naturally feasible. In ordinary country, where 
 there are neither large marshy tracts, nor difficult hills, 
 troops can much more easily move in the open, away from 
 roads, always assuming that the fields are not thickly 
 enclosed, as is mostly the case in England. For its heavy 
 train an army must everywhere depend on roads, but the 
 more the actual troops can dispense with them the faster an 
 advance can be made. 
 
 Thoroughly mountainous regions, that can become the 
 theatre of war, are however rare, almost as rare as feature- 
 Jess plains. For the most obvious reasons, military opera-
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 99 
 
 tions are commonly conducted in what may be called 
 average country — with probably a fair admixture of hill and 
 dale, with the land at any rate high enough in general 
 above the streams not to be converted into swamp. Such 
 land is the fittest in all respects for human occupation, and 
 therefore contains a maximum of population, and the 
 largest share of the points which an invader would naturally 
 aim at. We may take it that most campaigns are conducted 
 in country of this type, more or less level without being 
 a dead flat, more or less fringed or intersected by hills and 
 mountains without being filled with them, and certainly 
 traversed by a fair number of streams large and small, which 
 may run at any angle to the line of operations. About 
 campaigns in country o-f this description it is possible to 
 generalize, and discover in what ways geography will 
 commonly affect the operations of war. Inferences from 
 them may be little applicable to extremes of mountain or 
 of plain : but the tatter, being exceptional, will very prob- 
 ably present each its own problems for solution, and 
 experience derived from one will be relevant only in the 
 vaguest way to another. 
 
 The last two pieces of warfare carried out by English 
 troops are cases in point. In the Khartum campaign the 
 advance was made up the Nile and across desert, the general 
 making his own road as he moved, and accumulating on it 
 almost unlimited supplies. It would be a very dubious 
 inference from the perfect success of that expedition, to 
 imagine that the same thing would be feasible in European 
 warfare. In the Soudan there was no choice of method, and 
 the enemy waited to be attacked : a civilized enemy would 
 certainly not allow time for a process so elaborate. The 
 theatre of war in south Africa, besides being very exten- 
 sive, is generally mountainous, and exceptional in its 
 mountain formation. It is a country in which mounted 
 troops have especial advantages, in which also innumerable 
 
 H 2
 
 loo GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 defensive positions can be found. It would however be 
 very hazardous to infer from south African experience that 
 the whole future of war was with mounted troops, or that the 
 Boer tactics could be successfully adopted on the European 
 plain. 
 
 The general modes in which geographical considerations 
 govern the conduct of war may perhaps be best seen if we 
 start from the alphabet of the art of war, from the primary 
 distinction between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the 
 art of conducting a campaign — of so moving armies as to 
 obtain advantages over the enemy without fighting, and 
 to encounter him on favourable conditions when battles 
 have to be fought. Tactics is the art of fighting, of so 
 using troops as to have the best chance of defeating the 
 enemy. Both strategy and tactics are in some sense two- 
 fold, for attack and for defence : the two are clearly separable 
 in theory, even though practically there are few campaigns 
 in which one side is altogether on the defensive through- 
 out. 
 
 When one nation attacks another, the assailant will from 
 the nature of the case have some object in view, for which 
 invasion across the common frontier will be the first step. 
 (Nations which have no common frontier can of course only 
 engage in maritime warfare, or in invading expeditions 
 carried over sea, which are irrelevant for the present purpose.) 
 Many considerations other than geographical may determine 
 the object to be aimed at : for instance, it may be thought 
 expedient to occupy immediately a piece of territory that is 
 in dispute between the parties, or a province that is dis- 
 affected to the enemy. In general, however, the object will 
 be to strike at the enemy's capital, or other vital point which 
 he must defend, and thus to bring about a decisive battle. 
 Given that such is the object, the plan of campaign will be 
 determined almost entirely by the geography. In this is of 
 course comprehended much that is the result of human
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR loi 
 
 action, the situation of towns, especially of fortresses, and 
 the lie of roads, which includes the bridges or fords by which 
 they cross rivers. In a fairly level country these will be the 
 points of chief importance : the hills will probably signify 
 but little strategically, though tactically they may be of 
 great value to the defending side, in furnishing advantageous 
 positions in which to await attack. 
 
 The strategy of the defence must for the sake of clearness 
 be spoken of first. Even though the initiative is with the 
 other side, the plan of the assailant cannot be formed except 
 in reference to the fortresses and other defences of the 
 country invaded. The defending army takes up whatever 
 position is dictated by the circumstances of the case, military 
 or political. Very probably, until the invader moves, it is 
 widely dispersed so as to cover the whole of the assailable 
 frontier, but prepared to concentrate as soon as his plan is dis- 
 closed. Certainly, it will be intended to concentrate in such 
 a manner as, with or without the aid of fortresses, to bar the 
 enemy's way to whatever are deemed vital points. The way 
 may be barred in more than one fashion, if the geographical 
 conditions permit. The obvious method is to await attack 
 in a position directly closing the enemy's road ; but it is also 
 possible, by means of a fortress or perhaps of natural features 
 of the country, to take up a position flanking the enemy's 
 line of invasion. He must, unless he is overwhelmingly the 
 stronger, turn aside to attack, under penalty of exposing 
 himself most dangerously. It is, however, comparatively 
 rarely that a position can be found rendering this method 
 safe for the defending side, which will naturally be in most 
 cases the w'eaker. 
 
 The extent of the initiative which the invader possesses 
 is thus greatly limited. If there are two or three main 
 routes by which he can cross the frontier, one or more 
 may be rendered ineligible by geographical facts, or by the 
 defences organized beforehand. Assuming, however, that
 
 ioa GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 there is a choice, from the moment he has made it his 
 initiative amounts to httle more than fixing his rate of 
 advance. That is to say, strategically he must choose once 
 for all, and thenceforward is committed to maintaining his 
 line of communication, and to advancing in the direction 
 which the enemy's retreat, if he does retreat, leaves open. 
 Tactically, of course, he adopts what method he thinks fit for 
 manoeuvring the enemy out of a formidable position, or, if 
 necessary, attacking him in it. One or two concrete instances 
 will render these somewhat vague and general considerations 
 more intelligible : all of them are taken from the Napoleonic 
 wars. 
 
 When Napoleon resolved to attack Austria in 1805, the 
 Austrian army, for political reasons, occupied Ulm, very 
 far in advance of the frontier of Austria proper. This was 
 a grand opportunity for Napoleon, who could dispose of 
 enormously superior forces. Marching his army to the 
 Danube by carefully combined movements, he succeeded 
 in surrounding the Austrians at Ulm, and forcing them to 
 surrender, after which the direct road to Vienna lay open. 
 Had the disparity of force not existed, Napoleon must still 
 have begun by attacking Ulm : he could not have risked 
 invading Austria by any other routC; with a considerable 
 army based on a fortress ready to take him in flank or rear. 
 The geographical position of Ulm determined absolutely how 
 the aggressive campaign was to be conducted: Napoleon, 
 doubtless, could hardly have wished it otherwise ; but so in 
 fact it was. 
 
 In 1815 the English and Prussian armies in Belgium, 
 though superior, were for political reasons standing on the 
 defensive. They therefore were spread out along nearly the 
 whole frontier, until Napoleon disclosed his plan of attack. 
 Even in that generally level country, thickly populated and 
 with many roads, there were but few lines, practically only 
 two, by which Napoleon could invade Belgium. Wellington
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 103 
 
 and Bliicher expected him, on the whole, by the route that 
 he actually selected, which was that giving him the best 
 chance of success. They could not, however, take for 
 granted that he would adopt it, and concentrate accordingly, 
 without offering him a dangerous opening by the other route. 
 The allies were therefore obliged to keep their forces more or 
 less dispersed till the French attack began ; and critics say 
 that Wellington, at least, was unduly slow in concentrating. 
 This, however, is a detail : the essential fact is that in the 
 absence of fortresses, or natural features, to limit Napoleon's 
 movements, he had a real choice of plans, and his enemies 
 had to wait for his initiative. 
 
 When Napoleon invaded Russia in 181 2, there were only 
 two routes available : one through Prussia, crossing the 
 frontier at Kowno and leading to Vilna, the other through 
 Poland leading to Minsk. There were many other roads by 
 which troops might and did march ; but these two alone were 
 fit for the vast transport of a large army. For many reasons 
 the northern one was best suited for Napoleon's purpose, 
 and he in fact adopted it for the bulk of his huge forces. 
 The Russians could not put into the field, at the outset, much 
 more than half his strength. They were bound for political 
 reasons to occupy the frontier province as long as possible. 
 Therefore they were also bound to retreat a long distance, 
 before they could even concentrate, as soon as the invasion 
 began. They had no fortresses worthy of the name which 
 were concerned in the war, and fortresses would have been 
 of little use had they existed. Napoleon with his great 
 superiority of numbers could have spared troops to blockade 
 them, and still combat the Russian armies on more than 
 equal terms : and in that vast plain any place could be 
 turned. The only essential thing for the invader was the 
 use for his trains, not necessarily for his soldiers, of the main 
 road he had selected. 
 
 Napoleon's belief at the outset was that if he could gain
 
 I04 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 one great victory the Tzar would submit. His objective 
 therefore was not the capital, but the main Russian army ; 
 consequently he had to follow it wherever it might retreat. 
 As a matter of fact the Russians, misjudging their true 
 policy, had constructed a great intrenched camp at Drissa, 
 low down the Dwina, and to it their largest army retired 
 from about Vilna. Perceiving their mistake just in time, 
 and finding that the second army, which had been guard- 
 ing the frontier opposite Poland, was pushed so far south- 
 eastwards that it could not reach Drissa, the first army 
 abandoned Drissa, and marched up the Dwina to Vitepsk 
 and thence to Smolensk, where the second army came in. 
 Napoleon followed them all the way, without ever bringing 
 them to a decisive action. Thus the geographical conditions 
 practically transferred the initiative to the Russians, given 
 that the invader was bent on fighting a great battle. They 
 had only to continue retreating in the direction that suited 
 them, and he must needs conform to their movements. 
 
 Another consideration which frequently governs the 
 strategy of the defence is the position of rivers. No 
 condition can be more favourable for prolonged resistance 
 to invasion than the existence of a series of rivers cutting 
 across the invader's natural line of advance. Each of them 
 in succession protects the front of the defending army : the 
 crossing of each in face of opposition presents a new problem 
 for the enemy to solve. Permanent bridges can be destroyed, 
 and though the enemy may construct new ones, this is a work 
 of some difficulty in case of resistance. The tributaries which 
 flow down in succession from the Alps into the Po, make of 
 north Italy an ideal theatre of war from this point of view, 
 provided that the combatants are facing east and west, as 
 was the case many times over. The roughly parallel courses 
 of the Oder, the Elbe, and the Weser have served in a similar 
 manner, though less noticeably and less frequently. Perhaps 
 the most remarkable instance of the importance of a river
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 105 
 
 crossing the path of an army is furnished by the Berezina. 
 Napoleon, retreating from Moscow, had only that one river 
 over which to force a passage. It is not too much to say 
 that, but for misunderstanding and mismanagement on the 
 part of the Russians, he must have failed utterly and been 
 compelled to surrender. Even as it was, the relics of his 
 army escaped as a mere mob of fugitives. 
 
 Rivers, whatever their direction, are of course likely to be 
 important factors in the strategy of a campaign ; but their 
 effect varies indefinitely with the varying plans or strength of 
 the combatants. Wars fought in the same region, between 
 combatants who have the same frontier and the same general 
 objects, will necessarily bear some little resemblance to one 
 another. But unless rivers directly cross the combatant's 
 line of operations, the resemblance is likely to be very slight. 
 In 1809, as in 1805, Napoleon attacked the Austrians in 
 the upper Danube basin, and in both cases he entered 
 Vienna in triumph ; but beyond that main fact there is little 
 similarity between the two campaigns. 
 
 Circumstances varying so greatly, it is only possible 
 to point out in a very general way the mode in which 
 rivers affect a campaign. Several cases may however be 
 mentioned. 
 
 I. An army moving up and down the course of a large 
 river will have its flank very effectually protected, if it can 
 move within a fairly short distance of the river. The enemy 
 can only cross by bridges, that is to say only at known places 
 if he has them in his possession, or by constructing bridges 
 for himself, which cannot be done in a moment. Hence 
 a sudden and unexpected flank attack is virtually impossible. 
 Many wars exemplify the value of such protection : the most 
 noteworthy instance is perhaps that furnished by Napoleon's 
 defence of France in 18 14; but it is at the same time the 
 most complicated, because he was resisting two separate 
 armies converging towards Paris.
 
 io6 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 2. Crossing a river in face of a reasonably strong enemy 
 always involves serious risk, though less in modern times, 
 when such a movement can be covered with long-range 
 artillery, than in the days when fighting was mostly hand to 
 hand. In 1297, a large English army was sent across the 
 Forth at Stirling by a single bridge, to attack Wallace 
 posted on the hills beyond. Wallace was therefore given 
 the opportunity of charging down, when part of his enemies 
 had crossed the bridge, and could not be supported by the 
 remainder, and inflicting on them a severe defeat. Napoleon 
 in 1809, after failing to force a passage of the Danube at 
 Aspern, waited until he had accumulated so many bridges 
 that his troops could cross almost as freely as if no arm of 
 the river had intervened. Thus he could not only bring his 
 army in adequate concentration on to the field of Wagram : 
 he also had full means of retreat in case the battle had gone 
 against him, 
 
 3. It is proverbially dangerous to fight a battle with 
 a river in rear. This self-evident truth need only be 
 illustrated by the battle of Friedland, which was a crushing 
 defeat for the Russians solely because Napoleon succeeded 
 in cutting them off from the bridge in rear of their left, and 
 so drove them against the river which they had crossed to 
 attack him. A river, as has been said above, is a valuable 
 protection to the flank of an army, whether on the march or 
 in battle position. Circumstances, however, may arise such 
 as to convert this protection into a cause of destruction. 
 The Lancastrian army at Towton, having its left flank 
 turned, was driven headlong into the river Cock, on which 
 its right flank had rested. The French position at Blenheim 
 was behind a small stream running about at right angles into 
 the Danube. When Marlborough had broken through the 
 French centre, the whole of their right was entrapped between 
 his victorious troops and the Danube, and had to surrender 
 or perish.
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 107 
 
 Ranges of mountains or of hills affect a campaign in 
 a somewhat similar manner. Their influence as frontiers 
 has been already discussed : a few words only need be 
 added as to the differences between them and rivers, 
 regarded as obstacles to the movement of an army, or 
 protection to its flank. 
 
 1. A range of hills that has to be crossed presents always 
 the same amount of obstacle, unless a belligerent holds it 
 long enough, and deems it w^orth while, to construct new 
 roads — a very improbable contingency, though he will naturally 
 repair damage done to roads by his retreating enemy. It 
 is much more feasible to lay additional pontoon bridges 
 over a river, so as to minimize its interference as an obstacle. 
 
 2. A range of hills, if taken as a line of defence, will 
 naturally be used in the opposite way to a river. A defending 
 army will take post not behind it, but on the slope or the 
 summit, so as to compel the enemy to attack uphill, as 
 Wellington, for instance, did at Busaco. Such a position has 
 disadvantages, one of which is that little or nothing can in 
 general be screened from the enemy's observation. This, of 
 course, applies to a hill or mountain range of some height, 
 not to mere rising ground, which is an almost essential 
 condition for a defensive position. 
 
 3. Mountains or hills screen the flank of a moving army 
 from observation as well as from attack, unless the enemy 
 succeeds, as is on the average probable, in reaching the top 
 of the range and reconnoitring beyond. The movement 
 of Surrey's troops, when he marched round to intercept 
 James IV of Scotland encamped at Flodden, was made 
 behind mere rising ground beyond a little river passable 
 at many places, but it was not discovered by the Scots 
 until too late. As protection to the flank of a stationary 
 army, hills are effectual unless the enemy can establish 
 himself on them, as he will naturally try to do. In that 
 case they become a source of weakness, not of strength :
 
 io8 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 this, however, belongs to the department of tactics rather 
 than of strategy. 
 
 When we come to deah'ng with tactics, geography — or, as 
 it may be more appropriately called in this connexion, 
 topography — enters into everything. Here again so much 
 turns on detail, which is literally infinite in its variety, that 
 only a few generalizations are possible, to which may be 
 added two or three illustrations of the vitally important 
 influence that may be exerted by topographical details. 
 
 1. The flatter a country is, the more difficult it is to 
 discover an advantageous position for battle, that is to say, 
 a position which gives the defender assistance in meeting 
 a direct attack in front, and also such protection as will 
 prevent his flanks from being readily turned. After 
 Napoleon had reached Smolensk in 1812, the campaign 
 resolved ' itself into a retreat of a single army by the 
 straight route to Moscow, followed by the invaders. The 
 Russians, who intended to stand at bay sooner or later, 
 retired on and on till their general could find a fairly 
 good position. It was mainly the lack of such features 
 in the topography that prevented the battle, which in fact 
 took place at Borodino, from being fought much further 
 west. For the same reason. Napoleon could easily have 
 turned the Russian position at Borodino: he fought because 
 he desired to do so, not because he could not advance 
 without a battle. 
 
 2. What is, or is not, a favourable position is a matter 
 depending entirely on the state of the art of war, on the 
 character and range of the missiles in use, on the equipment 
 of the troops, infantry or cavalry, that engage at close 
 quarters. Harold's position at Hastings was excellent for 
 its day, but it would have been quickly rendered untenable 
 
 ^ This, of course, refers only to Napoleon's immediate army and 
 immediate antagonists, and le.'ives out of sight the operations on the 
 very distant flanks.
 
 GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 109 
 
 by a cannonade from the higher ground opposite. The 
 latest developments in war, the vastly increased range of 
 artillery and rifle fire, and smokeless powder, give great 
 advantage to the defence, provided that the country is of 
 such formation that suitable positions can be found. In 
 flat country, especially if there be many enclosures, these 
 improvements tend to render war more difficult and un- 
 certain than ever, though this is partially counteracted by 
 one of the latest of all military devices, the use of balloons 
 for reconnoitring. 
 
 3. The importance in war of small topographical details 
 may be illustrated from almost every campaign, or even 
 battle. The following are specimens, selected more or less 
 at random, for the possible variety is so great that none can 
 be fairly called types. When the allies attacked Napoleon 
 at Dresden in 181 3, they very naturally pushed their left 
 down towards the Elbe, so as to cut Napoleon's line of 
 communication with France. Unfortunately their staff did 
 not know, doubtless the maps in use did not indicate, 
 a long and deep ravine, with sides so precipitous as to 
 be totally impassable by troops. The consequence was 
 that the left, when it had descended to the plain, was cut 
 off from the rest by this ravine of Plauen, could not be 
 reinforced, and was destroyed by the French. That is to 
 say, this detail of the ground converted into a serious defeat 
 what otherwise would have been no more than a failure to 
 make much impression on Napoleon's defence. 
 
 Again, the battle of Maloyaroslavetz, which is often quoted 
 as the turning-point of Napoleon's career, depended entirely 
 on a fact of topography. When Napoleon was beginning his 
 retreat from Moscow, he attempted to take a south-westerly 
 direction, instead of following the straight route back. The 
 Russian commander who first discovered this movement, 
 and realized that it was essential to intercept it, saw that 
 this could be done at Maloyaroslavetz, and nowhere else.
 
 no GEOGRAPHY IN WAR 
 
 The advanced guard of the French had already occupied 
 that village when it v(ras attacked by the Russians. 
 Reinforcements could only come over a single bridge, 
 reached by a short slope commanded by Russian artillery. 
 After a long and murderous struggle the French succeeded 
 in driving off their immediate assailants, which compelled 
 the withdrawal of the artillery: but by that time the whole 
 Russian army was at hand, and the French were strategically 
 defeated. In other words, all turned on the fact that the 
 river to the north of the actual scene of combat flowed at 
 the bottom of a deep trough. 
 
 An illustration, on a still smaller geographical scale, 
 occurs in the last stage of the same retreat. Every gun 
 and every waggon which the French had preserved so far 
 had to be abandoned close to Vilna, because they could 
 not be dragged up a trumpery little hill, the ground being 
 frozen. Similarly, at Busaco, the existence of a small 
 hollow, scooped out of the face of the slope which the 
 French had to ascend, enabled Crawfurd's division to 
 surprise with crushing effect the main French attack. 
 
 So vital indeed is geography, in full detail, to an under- 
 standing of war, that readers of military history need 
 a special warning that maps, unless on the largest scale, 
 may easily mislead them. Small variations of height, such 
 as would hardly be shown on a map unless it were 
 elaborately contoured, may have immense importance, as 
 in the instances already cited. Again, on a map- there will 
 often be nothing to show the character of roads, whether 
 they be well-constructed highways, or mere tracks. To 
 quote one of the most famous, and most important, cases 
 in point, critics are perhaps entitled to assert, from the 
 map alone, that Grouchy could have saved Napoleon by 
 ' marching to the cannon ' of Waterloo. In reality, the 
 ground being such as it was, with no made roads available, 
 no exertions could have brought Grouchy to the field in time.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 [The two maps inserted in this chapter are identical so far as the 
 physical features indicated are concerned. 
 
 In the first of them, Europe, so much of it as is shown, is divided 
 according to the watersheds into the sections named in the text at 
 p. II 8. Such parts of the boundaries between these sections as are 
 formed by real mountain chains are marked with a thick line : those parts 
 which are formed by considerable hills, scarcely rising to mountains 
 are marked with a thin line : those parts which in nature are barely 
 perceptible, or are purely conventional, are dotted. In two places, 
 between Russia and the plain of north Germany, and between Russia 
 and the lower Danube basin, no boundary is marked at all. In the 
 former case any line that might be selected, such as the almost 
 nominal watershed between the Oder and Vistula, would mean nothino-. 
 In the latter case the accident that the Pruth (lows into the delta of 
 the Danube makes it impossible to draw a boundary line at all. 
 
 The second map gives the political divisions of Europe at the present 
 time. Those parts of the political frontiers which coincide with water- 
 sheds, as shown in the other map, are marked with a continuous line ; 
 the remainder are dotted. 
 
 It can thus be seen at a glance to what extent the present political 
 frontiers correspond with those which physical geography tends to 
 suggest. 
 
 It has seemed expedient, for the sake of having the majis on a larger 
 scale, to omit the portions of Europe north of the Baltic, and also the 
 east of Russia. The sea forms the frontiers of all the northern lands, 
 so that there are no watersheds to delineate for the purposes of this 
 chapter; and the east of Russia is on the extreme edge of Europe, which 
 alone is under consideration.] 
 
 This work does not pretend to attempt the impossible 
 task of describing all the influence exerted by geographical
 
 112 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 conditions on human history. All it professes to do is to 
 indicate the modes in which that influence works, with 
 sufficient illustrations from actual history. For this pur- 
 pose it is unnecessary to look far beyond the limits of 
 Europe, of which the geography has been longest known. 
 After all, it is on this stage that the greater part of the 
 drama of history has been performed : and that history 
 is known more continuously, and in fuller detail, than 
 anything earlier. Vast as the interest is of the past of 
 Egypt, and Assyria, and Judaea, we have not the materials 
 to construct more than an outline narrative of events, 
 rarely full enough to justify inferences on such matters 
 as geography is concerned with. It may therefore suffice 
 if we consider the map of Europe, as partitioned on physical 
 principles, and then go on to compare this with the general 
 distribution of races and languages, and with the existing 
 political divisions. 
 
 The method most commonly adopted in describing a por- 
 tion of the earth's surface, from the point of view of physical 
 geography, is to take the river basins as units, the water- 
 sheds between them being the boundaries. This is 
 thoroughly suitable for historical purposes : a river basin, 
 as we have seen, tends to be occupied by a single race, 
 a chain of mountains tends to be a barrier between races. 
 At the same time, it must not be regarded as too important : 
 some watersheds are barely perceptible, nearly all fail to 
 keep races totally apart. Nor, of course, is it reasonable 
 to make a distinct unit of each separate river basin, at any 
 rate for historical purposes. Many are far too small : others 
 are divided through a great part of their length by very 
 slight watersheds. Nearly all rivers, as they approach the 
 sea, flow through a certain distance of plain, and it becomes 
 almost accidental whether two rivers unite, in which case 
 one technically becomes a tributary of the other, or com- 
 plete their course apart. No useful purpose in relation
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 113 
 
 to history could possibly be served, for instance, by treating 
 the basins of the Tyne and the Wear as distinct units. No 
 barriers that a traveller could discern separate, in the vast 
 Russian plain, the streams that flow to the Black Sea from 
 those that form the Volga and drain into the Caspian, or 
 from those flowing into the Baltic. Still less is the boundary 
 marked between, for instance, the Niemen and Dwina, or 
 the Dniepr and Dniestr, which flow to the same sea. The 
 Rhine and the Meuse unite in their common delta, the Po 
 and the Adige do not. It would be obviously absurd, from 
 the historical point of view, to attach any importance to 
 cases like these. 
 
 The result is that, in dividing up Europe on physical 
 principles into a series of sections, which shall have also 
 some historical significance, one must finish off" much 
 of the delimitation arbitrarily. The sea-coasts alone are 
 unmistakable. The mountain chains form excellent and 
 obvious boundaries so far as they go, but they dwindle 
 away to nothing in most cases before reaching the coast, 
 or in some other way fail to furnish complete boundary 
 lines. Like the bones in a skeleton, they do not quite 
 reach the external surface, but they nevertheless furnish 
 the solid framework for a map of the whole. 
 
 The British islands are the only section of Europe about 
 whose natural boundaries there can be no question even 
 of detail. The Spanish peninsula in the extreme south- 
 west is almost as clearly defined by means of the chain 
 of the Pyrenees, which forms its one land frontier. The 
 Italian peninsula is similarly marked off by the Alps, 
 though the conformation of the mountain chain prevents 
 the frontier from being fully defined at either extremity. 
 The Scandinavian peninsula is for practical purposes 
 equally separate, though its hne of junction with the 
 Continent, in the far north, is marked by no natural 
 feature. The Balkans run across the easternmost of the 
 
 GEORGE I
 
 114 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 three great Mediterranean peninsulas, and form a fairly 
 clear boundary line between the southern or maritime 
 portion and that which belongs to the Danube basin. 
 The rest of Europe, however, the trunk to which these 
 peninsulas may be regarded as limbs, is considerably less 
 easy to partition in a similar manner, for the reasons 
 already suggested. 
 
 The basins of the rivers flowing out of France to the 
 English Channel and the Atlantic, the Seine, the Loire 
 and the Garonne, form one natural section, of which the 
 eastern boundary is clearly marked. A line drawn from 
 Cape Grisnez, where the straits of Dover are narrowest, 
 south-eastwards to the northern end of the Argonne hills, 
 and thence in a southerly direction along the crest of the 
 Argonne, Cote d'Or, and Cevennes, separates this region 
 from the basins of the Rhine and Rhone. This is also 
 roughly the eastern frontier of mediaeval France, except 
 that most part of the small basin ' of the Scheldt, north- 
 east of this line drawn from Cape Grisnez, was under the 
 suzerainty of France till the sixteenth century. In some 
 parts, especially north and east of the Seine basin, the 
 watershed consists merely of high ground ; in others there 
 are well-marked ranges of hills, some of which are not 
 unworthy to be called mountains. Between the Cevennes, 
 the highest and the southernmost of these, and the Pyrenees 
 there is a wide gap, where nature draws no frontier. Nowhere, 
 however, are these hills high enough or rugged enough to 
 form a really serious barrier, and in most places they are 
 no barrier at all. As a matter of fact, France has extended 
 beyond them everywhere. Indeed^ it would not be difficult 
 
 ' The boundary might have been drawn east of the Scheldt, with 
 rather less physical propriety, but with no practical difference. On the 
 west of the Scheldt the watershed is clearly traceable, though never 
 rising to serious hills ; on the east the Scheldt basin merges in the delta 
 of the Rhine and Meuse.
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 115 
 
 to arrange French history since the thirteenth century, when 
 the process began, and therewith much of European history, 
 as a record of the eastward expansion of France across these 
 h'mits. 
 
 Between the Cevennes, with their northern continuations, 
 and the western portion of the Alps is the basin of the 
 Rhone, a well-marked unit from the point of view of 
 physical geography, and in the early Middle Ages politi- 
 cally one\ as the kingdom of Aries or Burgundy. The 
 northern boundary, which separates it from the Rhine, is 
 in most of its length very clearly defined by the Bernese 
 Alps and the northern part of the Jura. 
 
 The western boundary of the Rhine basin has already 
 been given by implication ; it is the line of high ground (it 
 is scarcely anywhere more) from which the Seine and its 
 affluents descend. The Rhine and its first tributaries rise 
 in the central Alps, draining some sixty miles of their 
 northern face. A spur, running northwards from the 
 main chain, separates the Rhine from the Inn and other 
 tributaries of the Danube. This, gradually dwindling into 
 mere hills, circles round the lake of Constance, and con- 
 nects with the otherwise isolated mass of hill country called 
 the Black Forest. In the eastern edge of the Black Forest 
 rises the Danube, and close along its northern bank there 
 is a chain of considerable hills, sometimes known as the 
 Swabian Alps, which extends as far as the western corner 
 of Bohemia. North of this is the basin of the Main, the 
 chief eastern tributary of the Rhine. Another chain of 
 hills running, at first north-westwards, from the same 
 corner of Bohemia, separates the Main basin from the 
 Weser and Elbe, and extends nearly to the right bank of 
 the Rhine. 
 
 East of the lower Rhine begins the great plain of north 
 
 * The frontiers of this kingdom and of the Rhone basin were not 
 identical, but they did not differ seriously. 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 Germany, traversed from south to north by successive 
 rivers. At neither end has it any definite boundary. The 
 watershed between the Rhine and the first independent 
 river which flows parallel to it into the North Sea can 
 of course be traced, but it is imperceptible on any but 
 maps of the largest scale. Similarly on the east the plain 
 extends unbroken to the Ural mountains. There is no 
 physical reason why Germany should be made to end, 
 and Russia begin, at any particular line. The existing 
 frontier is, and any frontier in that 'quarter must be, the 
 result of purely historical causes. 
 
 It has been said above that the hills forming the northern 
 watershed of the upper Danube lie near the river as far as 
 the western corner of Bohemia. The Danube passes at the 
 southern corner through a magnified defile between the hills 
 that enclose Bohemia and one of the eastern spurs of the 
 Alps, giving a character of definitely marked separation 
 to the upper Danube basin. Bohemia is in fact the key to 
 the physical geography of all Europe north of the Alps. 
 Roughly square in form, it has its angles towards the four 
 principal points of the compass ; and each of its sides is 
 formed by a well-defined chain of mountains or hills, with 
 only a single outlet for the whole of its river drainage. 
 This outlet is at the northern angle, where the Elbe emerges 
 on to the German plain. The principle most in favour with 
 physical geographers, that of dividing up the earth's surface 
 by the watersheds, would therefore make Bohemia belong 
 to northern Europe. As a matter of history, it has always 
 been closely connected with the regions to the soulth and 
 east, and for good geographical reasons. The two northern 
 sides of the square are real mountains, not rising to the 
 level of perpetual snow, but sufficiently lofty and rugged 
 to constitute definite obstacles to intercourse. And the 
 defile through which the Elbe passes is not wide enough 
 to neutralize the separating effect of the mountains on
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 117 
 
 either hand. The other two faces cae, on the contrary, 
 mere hills, through which roads can readily pass, especially 
 the Mahrenwald on the south-east. 
 
 A short line of hills connects the Riesengebirge, on 
 the north-east of Bohemia, with the Carpathians, the most 
 important mountain chain north of the Alps. The Carpa- 
 thians start from near the Danube, some way east of 
 Bohemia, and form more than a semi-circle, enclosing the 
 Hungarian plain, and returning to the Danube again where 
 it makes its final bend to the eastwards. The head of the 
 Danube basin is, as has been said, separated from the upper 
 Rhine by a spur from the Alps. That chain ceases to be 
 single a little further east. The southernmost branch runs 
 down the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and connects with 
 the Balkan mountains. Between the other ranges, which 
 spread out like a fan, rise the various tributaries that join 
 the Danube on its southern bank, several of them uniting 
 first into a single river. The whole of the Danube-land 
 forms, of course, a single division of Europe,, if we adopt 
 the watersheds as the natural lines of partition : but it 
 is in no way fitted to be a separate political unit, and 
 nas in fact never been such. 
 
 The largest of the sections into which Europe is divided 
 physically is conveniently called by the name of Russia. 
 P>om the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the coast of the 
 North Sea to the Ural mountains, extends a virtually 
 unbroken plain. The western portion of this is north 
 Germany, as already described, with no natural feature to 
 mark it off from the larger portion on the east. Otherwise 
 the boundaries of this vast region are, except in two or three 
 places, very clearly defined by nature. The Arctic Ocean 
 and Baltic form its northern limit, with an arbitrary line 
 across Lapland from sea to sea. The Ural mountains lie 
 on the east, 'with a gap between them and the Caspian. 
 The chain of the Caucasus runs across from the Caspian to
 
 ii8 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 the Black Sea. Finally the Carpathians divide Russia from 
 the Danube basin, though here again there is a gap between 
 the easternmost point of the curve described by the 
 Carpathians and the Black Sea. 
 
 It thus appears that physical geography would divide 
 Europe into the following sections : — 
 
 I. Spain. 2. Gaul'. 3. The British isles. 4. Rhone- 
 land. 5. Rhine-land. 6. Italy. 7. Balkan-land. 8. Danube- 
 land. 9. North Germany. 10. Russia. 11. Scandinavia. 
 To these may with advantage be appended, 12. Bohemia, 
 as easily distinguishable from 8 and 9, between which it is 
 enclosed. It must however be borne in mind that the 
 boundaries between several of these sections are not strongly 
 marked by nature, and in a few instances are purely 
 arbitrary. In the former class is nearly the whole eastern 
 frontier of 2, a considerable part of that between 8 and 9, 
 and small portions of others. In the latter class are the 
 eastern and in some sense also the western frontier of north 
 Germany. 
 
 It is of course not meant to be suggested that the fore- 
 going division is in all respects such as ought to be adopted 
 politically. Historically speaking, other considerations, 
 which come within the province of geography, though they 
 do not exclusively belong to it, determine the boundaries of 
 nations as much as the lines of the watersheds. Given 
 races have in fact come to occupy given districts, the limits 
 of which have been determined largely by physical facts, 
 but partly also by influences which cannot be called geo- 
 graphical, such as the comparative energy exhibited by races 
 
 ^ This name is not perfectly apt, as Gaul in the Roman sense included 
 more; but France has a much more definite meaning in modern ears. 
 Nor is there any more inconvenience in using the term as a name for a 
 well-marked geographical ar^a somewhat less than the historical Gaul, 
 than in using, as all the world does, the name Italy for a geographical 
 area far larger than the oriijinal historical Italv.
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 119 
 
 which found themselves contiguous. It is unnecessary for 
 geographical purposes to enter into questions as to how 
 or w^hy one race prevailed over another, even if it were 
 easier than is in fact the case to discern the reasons why. 
 But distinctions of race and language play so important 
 a part in determining national frontiers, and generally in 
 governing the whole course of history, that it is necessary 
 to take a general survey of their distribution. 
 
 A preliminary question arises, which it is easier to ask 
 than to answer, as to what is meant by race. Anthropologists 
 have of late years laid great stress on the shape of the skull, 
 and this is certainly the characteristic most readily observed 
 in the remains unearthed from primitive burying-places. 
 Colour is partially a result of climate, but only partially. 
 Evidence of colour however is for obvious reasons little 
 available ; even the descriptions given of their barbarian 
 neighbours by writers of civilized antiquity lack precision at 
 best, and inspire little confidence in those who realize how 
 vague were the terms denoting colour current in the ancient 
 world. Language might seem a test ; there is never a doubt 
 as to the group, philologically speaking, to which a given 
 tongue belongs. Historically however many peoples have 
 changed their language, voluntarily or under coercion : and 
 it would be a contradiction to say that they thereby changed 
 their race. 
 
 The evidence available as to the inhabitants of Europe 
 before the dawn of authentic history is not very extensive, 
 proportionately to the length of time during which it is 
 judged, from the earliest remains, that man has existed upon 
 the earth. It seems sufficient to support the presumption — 
 from the nature of the case it can never amount to certainty 
 — that traces have been found of all the races that have 
 dwelt in Europe. For historical purposes the matter is not 
 of great importance : if we can designate the peoples which 
 inhabited the various regions at the period when some
 
 120 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 definite knowledge begins, and can trace their subsequent 
 movements, questions as to their ethnical affinities, however 
 interesting, are not vital for the comprehension of history. 
 
 It has been very truly said that for races to remain 
 separate a large amount of space is requisite. How the 
 divergences in shape of skull and other physical features, 
 or in type of language, were originally brought about, 
 cannot be ascertained, and conjecture on the subject is little 
 better than wasted labour. So long as population was 
 very sparse, separate races, however they originated, might 
 very easily remain apart. As soon however as numbers 
 have grown somewhat, so that tribes come to be in more or 
 less close contact, instead of being surrounded by large 
 unpeopled lands, intermixture of race begins. Slave raids 
 perhaps come first, but actual conquests soon follow. Men 
 and women belonging to alien stocks begin to live side by 
 side, and as soon as the repulsion towards all strangers, 
 which seems to have been a general instinct with primitive 
 man, has worn away, the two peoples blend. In historical 
 times, individuals betake themselves for all manner of 
 reasons to foreign lands, sometimes in large numbers, and 
 are readily absorbed into the population. Thus in the 
 modern world there is no such thing as a really pure race, 
 at any rate among civilized mankind. What are called 
 characteristics of race in features, colour, &c., are un- 
 doubtedly observable still. In a rough and general way 
 it is true that a given race inhabits a given locality ; but 
 probably in the regions which are said to be most exclusively 
 occupied by a particular race, there is not a single individual 
 of literally unmixed descent. Fortunately for mankind, 
 mixed races seem to be the strongest, mentally at any rate, 
 and probably physically also. 
 
 History and geography are not therefore compelled, or 
 even tempted, to take no account of race. With all the 
 vagueness resulting from uncertainty and confusion of
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 121 
 
 theory, and from actual admixture, race is a real thing of 
 which history must take cognizance. It is however per- 
 missible, if not necessary, in view of this vagueness, to lay 
 stress upon language, which cannot in itself mislead, though 
 the human beings speaking a given language may not be all 
 of one descent. It is historically correct to speak of the 
 Celtic race, for instance, as denoting all the peoples who 
 talked the same or kindred languages, without inquiring 
 whether they all had the same shape of skull. 
 
 The Old Testament affords ample evidence that the Jews 
 absorbed foreigners, and that they did not consider them- 
 selves to be thereby destroying the separateness of the 
 nation, to which they jealously clung. The fiction of 
 adoption, which plays no small part in Roman law, reconciles 
 the real fact of admixture of race with the theory that it 
 is kept pure. Enough is discernible of conquests and 
 immigrations, in ages of which no regular history exists, 
 to make it certain that a considerable mixture must have 
 taken place, practically everywhere, before the peoples from 
 whom the modern world has been developed emerged into 
 the light of history. The centuries that have since elapsed 
 have continued the process of admixture, and yet racial 
 types can be easily discerned still. History need not 
 hesitate to accept as facts the various so-called races which 
 are found inhabiting the world at a given period. If 
 anthropology can class them, and disclose their affinities 
 from a much more dim and distant past, so much the 
 better : but it is not essential to history. 
 
 For the sake of clearness, it is best to begin with the 
 state of things in the palmy days of the Roman empire, 
 and this for more than one reason. So little is known of 
 the lands outside the }^Iedilerranean basin, which came to be 
 included in the empire, before the date of their conquest, 
 that only the most general statements can be made : any- 
 thing more detailed must rest more or less on conjecture.
 
 122 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 Moreover the Roman dominion itself exercised a potent 
 influence, both in transforming the language of many of its 
 subjects, and generally in civilizing them, which meant 
 fixing them in permanent habitations and putting an end 
 to any nomad tendencies. The greater part also of the 
 movements of peoples in the subsequent ages were rather 
 conquests than migrations. The Teuton tribes that overran 
 western and southern Europe added doubtless a new 
 element to the population, but it was everywhere a minority 
 which was eventually absorbed, adopting the language of 
 the conquered. New ideas they doubtless brought in : 
 feudalism, if not entirely Teutonic, was so partially, and 
 representative institutions, with the other political ideas that 
 had not descended from classical antiquity, grew up altogether 
 among the Germanic peoples. These things however are 
 not geographical. 
 
 The land frontier of the Roman empire in Europe may 
 be taken, for the purpose of a general view of the geography, 
 to have been the Rhine and the Danube. It is true that 
 the Romans pushed a little way beyond the Rhine above 
 the confluence of the Moselle, and also beyond the upper 
 Danube about as far down as Ratisbon, covering this strip 
 of territory with a defensive wall, after the fashion adopted 
 by them in Britain to hold off the Picts : but this made no 
 practical difference. A civflized state aiming at no further 
 advance, and desiring only a frontier conveniently defensible 
 against the barbarians beyond, the Romans deliberately 
 selected the line of the great rivers, and except at the angle 
 between them adhered to it. A river, however broad and 
 deep, is no great obstacle to uncivilized tribes, provided 
 that they have progressed so far as to construct boats, and 
 that their movements are unopposed. It is obviously 
 impossible however for such a people to cross a river in 
 face of resistance from a disciplined army. 
 
 The Romans had ample motive for extending their sway
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 123 
 
 to the Danube, and not being content with the barrier of 
 the Alps, in the fact that for centuries Italy had been liable 
 to invasion by the wild tribes whose movements beyond 
 the mountain chains could not be watched. Moreover 
 Caesar in his conquest of Gaul had found himself involved 
 with the Helvetii and other peoples dwelling north of the 
 central Alps. West of the Rhine there was no great 
 mountain range to serve as an alternative frontier. Never- 
 theless the Roman rule left comparatively little traces 
 behind in the region between the Danube and the Alps, or 
 on the left bank of the Rhine. There are towns which 
 bear Roman names, and something of the Roman municipal 
 institutions survived. To what extent the Roman language 
 ever was current in these frontier districts, beyond the 
 actual towns, we have no adequate data forjudging. All that 
 we can say for certain is that, not very long after the fall of 
 the Western empire, these districts were inhabited by peoples 
 probably altogether Teutonic in race, and certainly speaking 
 a German tongue. 
 
 West of the Roman provinces along the left bank of the 
 Rhine, which bore the significant titles of Germania Superior 
 and Inferior, nearly the whole of Gaul, as well as of Spain, 
 adopted the Roman language. Ethnologists differ as to the 
 amount of non-Celtic elements in the population which 
 Caesar subdued. There was certainly some Teutonic 
 admixture on the east and north-east, though it may be 
 difficult to determine with certainty how far into Roman 
 Gaul it extended. There was certainly in the south another 
 element, or perhaps two, probably pre-Celtic. The bulk, 
 however, of the country to which the name of Gaul is 
 given above for geographical convenience, the region whose 
 rivers drain into the Atlantic and English Channel, was 
 Celtic in race, and permanently adopted the language of 
 their conquerors. The only district in Gaul where a Celtic 
 tongue lingers is in the remote peninsula of Brittany, into
 
 124 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 which, from its geographical position, the Roman influence 
 would naturally have penetrated most slowly. Even here 
 it is doubtful whether the assimilation by Rome was not 
 completed : some ethnologists hold that Brittany owes its 
 name, its language, and its distinctiveness of race, to 
 Celtic fugitives escaping from the Saxon conquest of 
 Britdlin. 
 
 The case of Spain is somewhat similar. Ethnologists 
 do not find the available evidence sufficient to decide with 
 certainty whether the Iberians, who were undoubtedly the 
 chief race in Spain, were or were not akin to the Celts. 
 The extent and importance of the race which alone can be 
 said definitely to survive, the men whose descendants still 
 dwell in the western Pyrenees and speak the admittedly 
 pre- Aryan Basque language, are also a matter of conjecture. 
 At both ends of the Pyrenees the races dwelling on the 
 south side seem to have spread northwards into Gaul : 
 there is a little district in the south-western corner of 
 France where Basque is still current. Generally speaking, 
 however, in Spain, as in Gaul, the native peoples adopted 
 the Latin language and civilization. 
 
 In Britain the evidence of language is clearer. The 
 whole population was practically Celtic, of the Cymric 
 branch in the portions which the Romans subdued, of 
 the Gaelic in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland that 
 remained independent. Whatever prior inhabitants there 
 may have been, they had blended peacefully with the Celts. 
 The Roman occupation was not long enough or thorough 
 enough to impose the Latin language on the people of 
 Britain, though many Roman place-names survive, and 
 Latin words were adopted into the Cymric language. 
 
 Beyond the Rhine and Danube, Teuton tribes were the 
 immediate neighbours of the Roman empire, kindred of 
 the inhabitants of the Roman provinces beyond the Alps 
 and on the western bank of the Rhine. Roman armies
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 125 
 
 had penetrated among them, once at least with some 
 success : but the great defeat of Varus in a. d. 9 had 
 caused Augustus to lay down the rule, to which his 
 successors on the whole adhered, that conquest further 
 into Germany had better not be attempted. How far the 
 Teutons extended, we cannot closely determine. The 
 Slavs had followed them out of central Asia and entered 
 eastern Europe : they apparently occupied the Russian 
 plain, but there is nothing to show exactly how far their 
 tribes extended along the Baltic. The Carpathians may 
 be taken as indicating the limit beyond which the Slavs 
 did not pass, till the movement of the Teuton tribes, falling 
 upon the enfeebled Roman empire, left room for them in 
 central Europe. 
 
 It is needless to trace in any detail the movements of the 
 Teutonic peoples, who introduced a new element into the 
 dying civilization of Roman Europe. Suevi and Visigoths, 
 Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards, they were all of the same 
 kin. Some of them were already subjects of the empire, 
 and filled the ranks of its armies. They knew its weakness 
 and were tempted by its wealth. Naturally Italy was the 
 chief centre of attraction : and most of the Teutonic races 
 found their way into Italy at some time or another. The 
 Ostrogoths under the great Theodoric set up a regular 
 kingdom, which fell before the revived energies of the 
 Eastern empire under Justinian. Then it was the turn 
 of the Lombards, who again were conquered by the Franks, 
 invited by the Popes. Long before this the Franks had 
 overrun Gaul, except the south-west, where the Visigoths 
 had already established themselves, and a great part of the 
 lower Rhine-land. The Suevi and Visigoths occupied 
 Spain, the Burgundians the Rhone basin. All alike came 
 in as a conquering minority, bringing with them their own 
 laws and customs. All alike were impressed by the superior 
 civilization with which most of them had already some
 
 126 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 acquaintance, and gradually blended with their new subjects. 
 They learned Christianity, though much trouble arose out 
 of some of them adopting the Arian form of it. Most of 
 them learned the Latin language, or such debased form 
 of it as was vernacular in the provinces of the now extinct 
 empire. 
 
 Slav tribes moved into the regions left vacant by the 
 migration of the Teutons southwards and westwards. 
 Bohemia and the second Danube basin were filled by 
 them. How far they advanced into what is now Germany 
 is not quite certain : Slav place-names not far east of the 
 Rhine indicate, unless there is error in the identification of 
 them, at least a temporary occupation. For practical 
 purposes, however, they retained no hold west of Bohemia ; 
 and they were driven back along the Baltic at a somewhat 
 later date. The name of mark (boundary), given to Branden- 
 burg and other districts between the Elbe and Oder, long 
 survived as reminiscences of the machinery found necessary, 
 in the days when Germany was first organized, to expel and 
 hold at bay the comparatively barbarous Slavs. 
 
 The migrations of the Teutons, and of the Slavs in their 
 rear, were confused and complicated by the great Hunnish 
 inroad ; but as they had begun before the Huns appeared 
 on the scene, so they were continued after these formidable 
 enemies had passed away. The devastating flood of savages, 
 who under Attila threatened to submerge European civiliza- 
 tion altogether, ebbed away without leaving behind any 
 deposit of totally alien inhabitants. They destroyed much, 
 and they broke up more : for they contributed towards 
 driving the Teutons upon the Western empire, and they 
 apparently helped to carry Slavs, whom they had subjected 
 and uprooted, down into the regions north and east of the 
 Adriatic. It is even suggested that pressure from the Huns 
 set the Angles and Saxons upon migrating to Britain. Other- 
 wise no account need be taken of them here; and it becomes
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 127 
 
 unnecessary to approach the disputed question of their race 
 affinities. Certain it is that they were Turanian, if that 
 word is still allowed to have any connotation. That is to 
 say, they were connected in race, though possibly very 
 remotely, with the Avars who invaded south-eastern Europe 
 in the sixth century and like the Huns disappeared as a 
 people, and with the Mongols of the thirteenth century, the 
 last utter barbarians to devastate a large portion of Europe 
 and vanish again. 
 
 Similarly, the Moors who conquered Spain, and were 
 ultimately expelled, made no permanent impression. The 
 monuments of their art are among the greatest treasures of 
 Spain : some Arabic place-names have survived, and there 
 are words of Arabic origin in the Spanish language, just as 
 there must be some admixture of Moorish blood. Sub- 
 stantially, however, Spain is in race and language what the 
 Moors found it, though common subjection to alien masters 
 may well have hastened the fusion of the conquering Visigoths 
 with the romanized Iberians. 
 
 In Britain alone the invading Teutons did not find a 
 thoroughly romanized population ; and they themselves 
 were more completely untouched by Roman influences than 
 any of their kindred. They occupied the southern and 
 eastern parts of the island, exterminating or expelling 
 thence the Celtic inhabitants ; but they left the Celts in 
 possession of the north and west. 
 
 Thus we find that, when the Teutonic migration has 
 ended, Spain, Gaul (in the narrow sense), Italy, the Rhone- 
 land, remain Roman in language, and in institutions also, 
 except so far as the dominant Teutons had overruled them. 
 The Rhine-land and the upper Danube, and the western 
 part of north Germany, remain Teutonic in speech as in 
 race, and the greater part of Celtic Britain has become 
 Teuton also. In Scandinavia nothing has occurred to 
 disturb the previous state of things.: the people are
 
 128 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 Teutonic, though possibly not of the nearest kindred to 
 the Germans. The Balkan peninsula is growing more and 
 more Greek in language and in sentiment, a process which 
 became more marked and more rapid after the temporary 
 dominions of the Eastern empire in Italy had been lost 
 again. Finally, Slav races are in possession of the rest of 
 Europe, except where the Finns remain isolated and of no 
 historical account. 
 
 Two modifications, and two only, of the general distribu- 
 tion of races and languages have occurred since, if we except 
 the gradual regaining of ground eastward by the Germans, 
 which has already been referred to. The Magyar came out 
 of central Asia, as the Huns had done before them, estab- 
 lished their head quarters like them in the lower Danube 
 basin, and like them spread terror and devastation further 
 west. Instead however of disappearing like the Huns, they 
 turned Christians and settled down to a permanent occupa- 
 tion of the land now called Hungary, reducing to subjection 
 its Slav inhabitants. Later still the Ottoman Turks, kindred 
 in origin to the Magyar, conquered piecemeal the relics of 
 the Eastern empire, and established themselves a§ masters 
 over the Greek and Slav peoples of the Balkan peninsula. 
 The peculiarity about the Turks, due mainly to their 
 religion, is that they never have blended with their sub- 
 jects. Christians and Turks live side by side, but remain 
 separate ; it is quite impossible to draw geographical 
 frontiers dividing Greeks, Bulgarians, and Turks with any- 
 thing like accuracy. 
 
 If we now compare the modern map with the physical 
 divisions of Europe, and with the general distribution of 
 races and languages, we shall be in a position to understand 
 the extent and nature of the influence exerted by geography 
 on the modern delimitations. 
 
 I. The natural frontier of Spain is now the political one : 
 but within the peninsula there is the separate kingdom of
 
 'I^Y^'^ajJurfwuL^ iqo
 
 EUEOPE - PHYSICAIi 
 
 ■B.Yi'^twiJwsiun*) m 
 
 m
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 129 
 
 Portugal, indistinguishable from Spain in race, differing from 
 it no more in language than sundry provinces of Spain differ 
 from one another, and owing its political distinctness to 
 historical causes only, 
 
 2. Modern France includes not only the whole of what 
 is above called Gaul, but also most part of Rhone-land, and 
 a strip along the western edge of Rhine-land. 
 
 3. The British isles form, as nature prescribes, a single 
 political unit. 
 
 4. The upper part of the basins of both Rhone and Rhine 
 are united to form Switzerland, which also includes a small 
 portion of geographical Italy. 
 
 5. The lower end of the Rhine basin is occupied by the 
 two small states of Belgium and Holland. 
 
 6. Geographical Italy is politically one, save that both 
 Switzerland and Austria encroach somewhat beyond the 
 natural frontier on the north. 
 
 7. The Balkan-land contains two kingdoms, Greece in 
 the south-west, with a land frontier entirely political, and the 
 remains of the Ottoman monarchy, besides the little state 
 of Montenegro. The principality of Bulgaria, which is 
 practically but not formally independent of the Sultan, has 
 territory on the south as well as on the north side of the 
 Balkans. 
 
 8. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy includes the major 
 part of the Danube basin, and also Bohemia. 
 
 9. The region of the lower Danube, that included between 
 the Balkans and the southern part of the great curve of 
 the Carpathians, contains the three small states of Servia, 
 Roumania, and Bulgaria (mentioned just above). 
 
 10. Germany includes — 
 
 (a) the Rhine-land from the lake of Constance down- 
 wards, except the strip belonging to France, and Belgium 
 and Holland at its lower end ; 
 
 {^) some portion of the upper Danube basin, i.e. as far 
 
 GEORGK K
 
 130 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 
 
 south as the Hne of mountains between the Danube and its 
 tributary the Inn, and as far eastwards as the junction of the 
 Inn with the main river ; 
 
 (c) the plain between the North Sea and Baltic and the 
 central line of heights, out of which flow in succession 
 the Ems, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. On the east 
 Germany extends far along the Baltic coast, while the 
 Polish provinces of Russia project westwards between 
 this German territory (Prussia proper) and the Carpathians. 
 The peninsula of Jutland, which projects northwards at the 
 north-western corner of the plain, closing the mouth of the 
 Baltic, belongs to the separate kingdom of Denmark. 
 
 11. The Scandinavian peninsula is entirely occupied by 
 the two kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, united under one 
 crown. 
 
 12. Russia comprises all the great plain of which the 
 limits have already been mentioned, with the exception 
 that Austria possesses one province, her share in the parti- 
 tion of Poland, on the Russian side of the Carpathians. 
 The fact that Russia has extended her sway far over Asia, 
 across the Caucasus as well as beyond the Ural mountains 
 and the Caspian, need not here be taken into account. 
 
 It will thus be seen to how large an extent the modern 
 political divisions correspond with what geography would 
 prescribe. To say that this is solely due to geographical 
 influences would be historically false : there are too many 
 and too obvious exceptions, though they are chiefly on 
 a small scale, little more than deviations in detail from 
 the ideal boundaries. Roughly speaking, and without 
 taking heed to exceptions, the British islands, Spain, Italy, 
 Russia, Sweden and Norway have the frontiers dictated by 
 physical facts. France is similarly bounded except on the 
 east and north-east, and there the boundary line approxi- 
 mates more or less to divisions of race and language. Between 
 Germany and Russia the boundary marked by no physical
 
 OUTLINES OF EUROPE 131 
 
 features, is again in fair accord with the other distinctions of 
 which geography takes cognizance. Between Germany and 
 Austria alone can it be described as entirely arbitrary. 
 
 The tendency of the last century has been towards the 
 accretion of great nations, defined in some conformity with 
 geographical principles. It is possible that the future may 
 see further absorption of small states by larger ones — a thing 
 for many reasons sincerely to be deprecated. But if this 
 should take place, it will inevitably cause the political 
 frontiers to coincide even more closely than at present 
 with the ideal frontiers suggested by geography. 
 
 K 2
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 The history of the British islands has been affected to an 
 exceptional extent by geography — 
 
 1. (chief in importance) by their position on the globe — 
 
 2. by their physical structure — 
 
 3. (in modern times only) by their mineral products. 
 Foremost among their geographical advantages is the 
 
 benefit derived from the Gulf Stream. Thanks to it, the 
 British islands enjoy a climate far milder and more equable 
 than most countries in the same latitude. London is in the 
 same isothermal line with New York, which is 10° further 
 south, and with Peking, which is 12° degrees further. Liver- 
 pool is almost in the same latitude with Danzig, and Glas- 
 gow with Riga. Where would be the trade of a country 
 destined by position to be maritime, if the surrounding seas 
 were ice-bound during half the year ? 
 
 England lies at the north-western corner of Europe, its 
 south-eastern angle within a few miles of the Continent, the 
 distance widening along the south coast, and still more 
 along the east coast, and the broad Atlantic lying outside 
 the islands to the north and west. The straits of Dover at 
 their narrowest are far too wide to be crossed by people not 
 yet civilized enough to construct and manage large and strong 
 boats. Hence it is not surprising that no remains of abso- 
 lutely primitive man have as yet been found in the British
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 133 
 
 islands \ On the other hand, the white cliffs of Dover are 
 plainly visible from the opposite side of the straits, extend- 
 ing far enough to show that they belong to something larger 
 than a mere islet. The British coast was near enough to 
 tempt the adventurous, and to offer a welcome refuge to 
 fugitives from the hostility of their stronger neighbours. 
 In one way or another the islands came to be inhabited, 
 not only Britain but Ireland, though nothing obviously can 
 be determined about dates. The two islands are named 
 by Aristotle ; and long before his time Herodotus mentions 
 them as the source from which the Phoenicians procured 
 tin, which was worked by the inhabitants. Except however 
 these casual notices nothing is known of Britain until the 
 epoch of the Roman conquest. At the time of Caesar's 
 first invasion the island was already fairly well peopled by 
 tribes mainly, if not entirely, Celtic'", though not all of the 
 same branch of that race — that is to say akin to their 
 nearest neighbours on the continent of Europe, and carry- 
 ing on some little intercourse with them. No sort of 
 national unity existed : the coalitions of tribes to resist 
 Roman conquest were but partial and temporary. The 
 
 * It is of course imaginable that individuals may have been carried 
 across by accident, and have formed the nucleus of a population. It is 
 also possible that there were men in England before the straits of Dover 
 were formed ; but we have as yet no knowledge requiring us to assume 
 the truth of any such hypothesis. 
 
 * Ethnologists tend to support the opinion, which Tacitus mentions, 
 that the Silures in south Wales were not Celtic but Iberian ; and 
 apparently the same race survived in the west of Ireland. There is 
 however no evidence how they came there, and at most they formed but 
 a small exception. The name of the Belgae, a tribe found in southern 
 Britain as well as in noith-eastern Gaul, suggests the possibility that 
 some of the Britons were of Teutonic origin. The Gallic Belgae seem 
 to have been Teutons, or of mixed race ; but this proves nothing 
 definitely as to their namesakes. Moreover we know the names only in 
 their Latin versions, and it is possible that the real names were acci- 
 dentally similar, and not identical in origin, .
 
 134 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 Romans ruled Britain much as we rule India, as a distant 
 dependency : very few of the dominant race made it their 
 permanent home. Nevertheless there are marked traces of 
 the insularity of Britain long before the Roman occupation 
 came to an end. More than one Roman ruler acted with 
 an independence which he would probably never have 
 exhibited as a proconsul in Gaul or Spain. 
 
 During several centuries after the withdrawal of the 
 Romans, Britain was almost as much exposed to invasions 
 and raids as if there had been no protecting sea. The 
 Angles and Saxons met with little effectual resistance. 
 The Northmen, who ravaged all coasts alike, insular and 
 continental, made a permanent settlement on the east side 
 of the islands. The Norman invasion succeeded, partly at 
 least because England was not really united, in spite of 
 having been long under a single king. Nevertheless, during 
 all the period before the Norman conquest, England 
 remained conspicuously aloof from the rest of Europe. 
 There was a fair amount of intercourse, for commercial 
 and other purposes ; but the movements which profoundly 
 affected continental Europe had little influence on this side 
 of the Channel— a result to which the Channel itself mainly 
 contributed. The establishment of the Western empire 
 merely suggested to the Anglo-Saxon kings titles by which 
 they could assert at once their own independence of the 
 representative of Caesar, and their claim to rule their own 
 little separate world. The supremacy of the Pope was 
 recognized, as befitted a people who had received their 
 Christianity from Rome, but the church in England went 
 her own way. The accession of the Norman dynasty, 
 possessing great territories on the Continent, necessarily 
 brought England into closer touch with the rest of the 
 western world : but this only made the effect of her insular 
 position more remarkable., After the Conquest, as before 
 it, England was mixed up in the affairs of the Continent as
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 135 
 
 much and as little as her rulers chose. Nay more, the 
 separateness of England told upon her kings, aliens as they 
 were in blood, making them identify themselves more and 
 more with their island realm. Two centuries after the 
 Conquest, Edward I, Norman or French by every strain of 
 descent except that his ancestor in the fifth generation had 
 married the Anglo-Scottish Matilda, was English to the 
 backbone, and devoted his energies to the insular task of 
 uniting Britain. 
 
 Other causes besides insular separateness no doubt con- 
 tributed to preserve and develop in England the old 
 Teutonic institutions, little affected by the feudalism of the 
 Continent. The wisdom of William I and of Henry II was 
 necessary to build up on this foundation a system which 
 welded England into a coherent nation, centuries before 
 any nation worthy of the name existed on the Continent. 
 
 One of the measures most strongly tending towards 
 national consolidation was dictated to Henry II by the 
 insularity of England. The feudal principle, that vassals 
 should in person serve the king in war for a fixed term of 
 forty days, was unworkable when the royal summons called 
 English vassals to serve on the Continent ; the whole time 
 might be expended in waiting for a wind favourable to 
 crossing the Channel. Hence Henry introduced the system 
 of scutage, of commuting personal service for money, with 
 which the king could pay soldiers who might be engaged for 
 any period necessary. It is easy to see how this tended to 
 diminish the armed strength of the nobles, and to exalt the 
 power of the crown, the representative of centralized national 
 existence. Nor did much time elapse before conspicuous 
 proof was given that the measures tending towards unity 
 had borne fruit. Only in insular England could there have 
 been seen the spectacle of all orders and classes uniting to 
 extort from. John the great Charter. Nowhere else could 
 have been seen the national spirit which, almost as much
 
 136 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 as the tactics of the long-bow, her national weapon, gave 
 England her first great triumphs on the battlefield. 
 
 The value of the ' silver streak,' as a defence for England 
 against her enemies, scarcely needs demonstration in words. 
 An island state cannot be invaded without all the elaborate 
 preparations necessary for conducting a military expedition 
 across the sea. Such a state is therefore absolutely free 
 from sudden attack ; and if she has been able to develop 
 considerable maritime strength, such as England has for 
 some centuries possessed, the task of invading becomes 
 indefinitely difficult and hazardous. Apart however from 
 this, an insular nation has some priceless advantages. Her 
 frontiers are fixed by nature beyond all possibility of ques- 
 tion. There can be no quarrels with neighbours arising out 
 of disputes or encroachments on the common frontier. 
 There can be no temptation on either side to aggression for 
 the sake of obtaining a coveted bit of territory, or a more 
 defensible boundary line. An insular nation has obviously 
 to face the same difficulties which are involved in the inva- 
 sion of an island, when making a military attack on another 
 state, and is therefore altogether dependent on naval strength 
 for effective aggression. This however is a very slight 
 drawback to set against the security enjoyed through being 
 'compassed by the inviolate sea.' 
 
 Illustrations of these principles abound in English history. 
 Since the Norman conquest, which was only rendered 
 feasible by a great combination of circumstances favourable 
 to the invader, no real invasion has taken place. Foreign 
 troops have landed several times, but either they have made 
 mere raids of no importance, or they have come on English 
 invitation to take part in English civil conflict. The Dutch 
 who landed with William of Orange merely served to render 
 irresistible the progress of the deliverer whom nearly all the 
 nation was ready to welcome. The French who came to 
 assist John's revolted subjects might have seen an equally
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 137 
 
 easy transfer of the crown, but for the fortunate accident of 
 John's death. Even in Ireland, only partially conquered or 
 seething with rebellion, Spanish and French invaders could 
 effect nothing. Louis XIV's projected invasion, to be made 
 in support of an expelled legitimate king of England, whom 
 a large section of the people regarded as still their rightful 
 sovereign, collapsed utterly after the naval battle of La 
 Hogue. Napoleon at the height of his power never ven- 
 tured the stroke, which if successful would have made him 
 master of the world. On the other hand England has 
 carried on many wars beyond sea, most of which illustrate 
 in one way or another the special conditions under which 
 an island realm fights. These however have no relation to 
 the geography of the British isles, and have been treated in 
 another connexion. 
 
 The physical structure of Britain is of most importance 
 in the second stage of its history, the period of the Anglo- 
 Saxon conquest. If a line be drawn from the mouth of the 
 Tees to the mouth of the Severn, and thence continued to 
 the south coast, it will be found that it roughly divides the 
 island into plain and hill regions. The country to the south 
 and east of such a line is fairly level and almost everywhere 
 fertile, exception being made for the fens and forests, which 
 remained in primitive wildness till long after the Saxon 
 conquest had been completed. On the other side of the 
 line the country is mainly hilly, with a large proportion 
 of land unfit for cultivation, at any rate until the growth of 
 population rendered it worth while to utilize comparatively 
 poor soil. Moreover, the greater the distance from the 
 straits of Dover, the more uniformly hilly does the country 
 become. Hence when the Angles and Saxons effected 
 a lodgement in Britain, they gradually expelled the Celts 
 from all the south and east ; but the hill regions of 
 the west and north formed a refuge for the Celts, all 
 the more effective because it was less attractive to the
 
 138 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 invaders, as well as more difficult to penetrate in face of 
 resistance. 
 
 Unless the, testimony of language is to be ignored, the 
 same thing must have happened before, at the time of 
 the Celtic immigration. If, as is at least possible, the 
 islands were previously peopled by the Iberian race, they 
 must have been driven by the Celts into the western regions, 
 for it is there only that traces of them are believed to be 
 recognizable. Moreover, the same process is more clearly 
 discernible as between different sections of the Celts. 
 Apparently the first settlements were made by tribes 
 belonging to the Gaelic branch of the race, who retired 
 into Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, as the Cymric 
 tribes came treading on their heels. The latter all sub- 
 mitted to Roman rule, nominally if not completely : the 
 former, protected by St. George's Channel and by the 
 wildness of their mountains, retained their independence 
 throughout the Roman period, and proved a scourge to 
 their less warlike kinsmen when the protection of the 
 Roman legions was withdrawn. 
 
 The Teutonic immigration was in itself largely governed 
 by the geographical conditions. The first lodgement was 
 made by the Jutes in Kent, the portion of the island 
 nearest to the Continent. Successive swarms followed, 
 of Saxons along the south coast, of Angles on the east 
 coast northwards from the Thames : and geographical con- 
 ditions may almost be said to have determined the fate 
 of them all. Sussex, the earliest Saxon kingdom, being 
 separated from Kent by Romney marsh, and shut in on 
 the north by the vast forest of the Andredesweald, never 
 included more than a strip of sea-coast. Its isolation is 
 typified by the foct that heathenism is said to have survived 
 in Sussex when extinct everywhere else. The Angles of 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, coalescing into one kingdom, were 
 cut off from any advance westwards by the deep inlet of
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 139 
 
 the fens, though they were open southwards to the little 
 Saxon kingdom of Essex, which they ultimately absorbed. 
 The West Saxons, beginning their inroad by Southampton 
 Water, slowly spread northwards and westwards. On them 
 devolved the largest share of the fighting against the Britons, 
 whom they gradually drove across the Severn into Wales, or 
 down into the hilly country of the south-west, then known 
 as West Wales. On the northern section of the east coast 
 the Angles had an easier task in taking possession of the 
 whole strip of country between the Pennine hills and the sea, 
 from the Humber on the south to the Forth on the north, 
 ultimately forming a single kingdom of Northumbria. Finally, 
 more Angles, landing in Lincolnshire, or making their way 
 up the rivers which flow into the Wash and up the southern 
 tributaries of the- Humber, gradually occupied the centre 
 of the island. Here again it was a geographical obstacle, 
 the existence of the great forests then clothing much of the 
 country, that long delayed the establishment of the single 
 kingdom of Mercia. This latest formed of the so-called 
 Heptarchy ultimately extended itself to very nearly the 
 present frontier of Wales, including Chester and the im- 
 mediate basin of the Severn, which had been for a time 
 occupied by the West Saxons. 
 
 It will be seen by reference to a map of England under 
 the Heptarchy, that the Angles and Saxons occupied but 
 little beyond the line from the Tees to the Severn above 
 referred to. From the open country they expelled their 
 predecessors more or less completely. Opinions differ as 
 to whether any appreciable number of the Celtic population 
 remained, but at any rate they were merely as slaves. All 
 the south-eastern section of the island was peopled sub- 
 stantially by Angles and Saxons ; all the western hill 
 country remained exclusively Celtic. And the evidence 
 seems to show that in Somerset and in the Severn basin, 
 the borderlands to the districts of Welsh independence,
 
 I40 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 there was a considerable mixture of population, the Saxons 
 having conquered, but not exterminated or driven out, the 
 prior inhabitants. This, it has been said, was because 
 conversion to Christianity rendered them less ferocious ; 
 but it was obviously likely to happen for geographical 
 reasons. 
 
 AVhen at length the kings of Wessex had united all 
 Anglo-Saxon England under their sceptre, the fusion of 
 Angles and Saxons ought to have been easily accom- 
 plished. There was no geographical obstacle beyond the 
 lack of facilities for intercourse, such as then hardly existed 
 anywhere ; they were very nearly akin in race, little dis- 
 tinguishable in language and institutions. The fusion was 
 however indefinitely delayed by the advent of the Danes, 
 who, beginning with mere pirate raids, became more and 
 more permanent invaders. At first they landed anywhere, 
 but gradually confined themselves to the east coast, where 
 the fens gave access for their vessels of light draught to the 
 very heart of the island. The country into which the Danes 
 intruded themselves was, roughly speaking, that occupied 
 by the Angles. Community of race soon did its natural 
 work, and a fairly complete fusion of Angles and Danes 
 seems to have resulted, the Saxons remaining more or less 
 aloof. As at the beginning, so at the end of this period, 
 the fens played their two-fold part. Hereward, the last 
 leader to resist the Norman conquest, held out in the 
 Ely fens, as Alfred had held out against the Danes, when 
 his fortunes were at the lowest, in the isle of Athelney. 
 It was through the fens that Sweyn of Denmark might 
 have brought in assistance to his kindred, if he had not 
 thought better of it. Charles Kingsley very appropriately 
 closes his novel of Heretvard with a chapter entitled ' How 
 Deeping Fen was drained.' 
 
 The clearing away of. fens and forests went on more 
 slowly than the fusion of all the English races under
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 141 
 
 common subjection to the Normans, aliens in speech and 
 customs, though originally of the same stock. How far 
 that community of blood operated to fuse Normans and 
 English, shut up in the same island, how far that result 
 was due to both races feeling that they were united by the 
 accident of being ruled by alien Angevins, how far the 
 administrative measures of Henry II did the work, is 
 a matter of conjecture. Certainly all the various peoples 
 that had established themselves in England were fairly 
 blended together in sentiment, if not in blood, when they 
 stood up against Henry II's son as a united nation. 
 
 The kings of Wessex, when their supremacy over the 
 rest of Teutonic England was definitely acknowledged, 
 began to claim, and in a shadowy way exercised, a supre- 
 macy over the whole island. The only effective extension 
 of their territory was however through the complete con- 
 quest of West Wales, and of most part of the strip of land 
 west of the Pennine hills, while on the other hand they 
 lost the northern portion of Northumbria. Their Norman 
 successors made a long step towards the conquest of Wales 
 by building castles at intervals round the coast, on the 
 comparatively level ground between the wild hills and 
 the sea. They continued also the claim to titular supre- 
 macy over the northern portion of the island, besides 
 beginning the conquest of Ireland. 
 
 Nature would seem to mark out Britain for the seat 
 of a single nation, though three centuries elapsed before 
 the task which Edward I just failed to accomplish was 
 finally completed. If however the island is to be divided 
 into a northern and a southern realm, geography indicates 
 three different lines that might naturally serve as a frontier, 
 all of which have some historical importance. These three 
 are : — 
 
 1. The line joining the deep inlets of the Humber and 
 Mersey.
 
 142 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 2. The still shorter line joining the firths of Forth and 
 Clyde. 
 
 3. Intermediate but not parallel, the line of the Cheviot 
 hills. 
 
 The first of these apparently served as the boundary 
 between two of the Roman administrative provinces, and 
 was also, roughly, the frontier between Mercia and North- 
 umbria. If the kingdom of Northumbria, then foremost 
 in power, and on the whole in civilization also, had given 
 in its ecclesiastical adherence to lona rather than Canterbury 
 at the eventful synod of Whitby, it might very easily have 
 followed that the island should be divided into two tolerably 
 equal kingdoms, with consequences probably diasastrous, 
 in retarding the progress of both and delaying indefinitely 
 the peaceful union of the whole. 
 
 The line from the Forth to the Clyde marks the limit 
 of Roman occupation, and was protected by the wall of 
 Antoninus against the incursions of the wild tribes to the 
 north. The original Scotland lay to the north of this line, 
 being in fact the Highlands only. If the Scottish kings had 
 never extended their dominions further, it may safely be 
 assumed that Scotland, like Wales, would have been con- 
 quered at a comparatively early date, and united to England. 
 
 It would be out of place to enter into the disputed 
 question as to when, and under what conditions, these 
 kings obtained possession of what is now called the low- 
 lands of Scotland. Suffice it that they did acquire both 
 the Cymric kingdom of Strathclyde, the country between 
 the Clyde and the Solway, and also the northern portion 
 of Angle Northumbria. Both of these were more really 
 dependent on the English crown than Scotland proper, 
 over which there was at most a merely formal superiority. 
 Claims to the modern counties of Northumberland and 
 Cumberland, put forward by the Scottish kings, were suc- 
 cessfully resisted by England. The first result was that
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 143 
 
 the frontier was permanently fixed at the Cheviot hills, 
 which from the point of view of purely physical geography 
 is the most appropriate dividing line between north and 
 south. The second result was that the Scottish kings 
 came to identify themselves more and more with their 
 Angle province, as being the most civilized, as well as the 
 most fertile, portion of their realm. Into that province, which 
 was in some sense under English supremacy, Normans 
 penetrated after the Conquest, and gradually became a very 
 important section of the Scottish nobility. The third result 
 was an ever open dispute between the two crowns, which 
 culminated under Edward I in a definite claim by him 
 of full feudal overlordship, more than he was properly 
 entitled to, and an equally definite and equally exaggerated 
 claim on the part of Scotland to full independence. The 
 result of Edward's premature attempt to unite the whole 
 island was that after a long struggle Scottish independence 
 was established, and also that Scottish patriotism became 
 bitterly hostile to England. Happily the tendency towards 
 union in course of time prevailed over the mischievous, 
 though perfectly intelligible, alienation ; and England, with 
 the strength of Scotland added to, instead of subtracted 
 from, her own, became one of the great powers of Europe, 
 Another point in the geography of the British islands is 
 of great historical importance — Ireland, the smaller and 
 much the poorer of the two, lies outside Britain, separated 
 from it by an arm of the sea which in places is no wider 
 than the straits of Dover. The dividing sea has doubtless 
 contributed to keeping the people of Ireland much more 
 apart from England in sentiment and character than the 
 Scots. This is however of trifling weight, compared to the 
 relative position of the two islands. Ireland is too small 
 and too poor to serve as the home of an independent 
 nation in the modern world. If Ireland had lain nearest to 
 the Continent, it might have fallen under the control of
 
 144 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 France as easily as under England : at any rate it would 
 have served as a bone of contention between the two. 
 Situated as it is, Ireland could not but become politically 
 united, in some shape or form, to the greater island. That 
 there exists in fact so much hostility to England among the 
 Irish people, is an unfortunate illustration of the power 
 which sentiment can exert, to override the natural tendencies 
 due to geographical and other considerations. 
 
 Before the discovery of America the situation of England 
 at the extremity of the known world was not favourable for 
 maritime commerce. The best market for the chief 
 English product, wool, was as it happened close at hand in 
 Flanders. The luxuries of the east came more easily from 
 the markets of Bruges and Ghent, in exchange for English 
 wool, than fetched in English ships by what was then a long 
 and perilous voyage to the Mediterranean. Maritime the 
 English always were, by virtue of their insular position, and 
 no doubt also of their Viking blood. During the Middle 
 Ages taken as a whole, England was by far the most real 
 naval power outside the Mediterranean. A fantastic 
 evidence of this was the claim, seriously maintained till late 
 in the seventeenth century, to dominion over the seas 
 around the British islands. It was a claim hard to enforce 
 and useless for practical purposes, and merely led to trouble : 
 but it could never have been made unless England had 
 been accustomed to naval strength, and was by no means 
 preposterous when Spain was claiming the whole world 
 west of a given meridian of longitude by virtue of an award 
 from the Pope, and all east of it, outside Europe, when she 
 temporarily annexed Portugal. 
 
 Commercial greatness came later, after the discoveries of 
 Columbus and Vasco de Gama had paved the way for the 
 world-wide ocean commerce of our own age. It came 
 slowly, not without prolonged rivalry with the Dutch, who 
 had been earlier in the field, and possessed much the same
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 145 
 
 qualities, but who had the disadvantage of being a 
 continental state, exposed to attack by land. It has often 
 been pointed out that if the globe be so divided into 
 hemispheres as to put the maximum of land into one and 
 the maximum of sea into the other, London stands near 
 the centre of the land hemisphere, yet with free access by 
 sea to all parts of the world. Amsterdam obviously possesses 
 very much the same advantages, save the invaluable security 
 of being insular. 
 
 Neither geographical position nor the maritime aptitude 
 of her people would however have given England her 
 commercial supremacy, but for another consideration also 
 geographical. England is fortunate in possessing vast 
 mines of coal and iron in close proximity. When the 
 working of these began in earnest, and extensive manu- 
 factures were consequently set on foot, the tide rose more 
 rapidly than ever, and the preponderance of her maritime 
 commerce was rendered complete by her undisputed naval 
 supremacy during the wars of the French Revolution. 
 
 Another result of the same development of mineral wealth 
 was a great shifting of the balance of population in England 
 from south to north. For many centuries the line above 
 taken as roughly dividing the plain from the hill region was 
 also, as was natural, the boundary between the wealthier, 
 more thickly populated and more progressive portion of 
 England, and the poorer, scantier, and more backward 
 portion. In the two chief civil conflicts of English history, 
 the Wars of the Roses and the Great Rebellion, the 
 geographical boundary between parties was roughly the 
 same. And though in neither case was the party division 
 purely geographical, yet in both victory remained with the 
 side which was predominant in the south-east. Within the 
 last century and a half this is greatly changed. Most of 
 the coal and iron, though not all, is found north and west 
 of the above line, and therefore the great increase of 
 
 GEORGE L
 
 146 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 population consequent on industrial prosperity has been 
 mainly in the northern counties. 
 
 In order to trace adequately the influence of geography 
 on English history, it is necessary to enter a little more 
 into detail. The natural features which are of historical 
 importance may be noticed in order from the south. 
 
 1. The existence of the Isle of ^Vight makes of Ports- 
 mouth and Southampton a pair of harbours easily protected 
 against hostile attack, and possessing a double entrance or 
 exit, east and west of the island, of immense value while 
 ships were still dependent on the wind. 
 
 2. The length and depth of the Thames estuary has made 
 London accessible to ships of very great size : it is also far 
 enough inland to be fairly well situated for a capital. The 
 French theorists, who defend the persistent ambition of 
 France to extend her territories to the Rhine, argue that 
 Paris is dangerously near the frontier, and that therefore 
 aggrandizement eastward is mere self-defence. A fortiori 
 such writers would hold that London was a most unsuitable 
 site for a capital. It has, however, stood the great practical 
 test, and has in fact won its way to the foremost place 
 against the competition of other cities ofificially favoured. 
 York was the Roman administrative centre. Winchester 
 was the original chief town of Wessex, and became the 
 capital when the kings of Wessex at length made themselves 
 supreme over all England. The later Anglo-Saxon kings 
 did not always hold the meetings of the Witenagemot at the 
 same place, but there was a distinct tendency towards 
 regarding London as being formally, what it was practically, 
 the chief city of the realm. This is typified in Edward the 
 Confessor's foundation of Westminster Abbey, the national 
 sanctuary of the English people, if any such exists. Since 
 the Norman conquest there has been no doubt about 
 London being the capital. Administration, law, commerce, 
 everything has gradually centred there ; and modern facility
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 147 
 
 of communication renders its exact distance from other 
 places a matter of minor importance. At the same time, it 
 is clear that the rise of the northern towns in wealth and 
 population has deprived London of some of the over- 
 whelming influence which it formerly exerted in the country. 
 3. The Severn makes an extremely deep inlet on the 
 western side of the island, making land communication 
 between Wales and the Devon peninsula very long and 
 circuitous. Hence Gloucester, the lowest point at which 
 the Severn could be bridged (until quite recently), has been 
 a place of permanent importance in the military history of 
 England. In the last campaign of the Wars of the Roses, 
 Margaret of Anjou landed at Weymouth to support Warwick, 
 who had chosen the Humber as bringing him nearest to his 
 own possessions, and had advanced thence on London. 
 Hearing of Warwick's defeat and death at Barnet, the 
 queen and her advisers thought that their only hope was to 
 make their way into Wales, which was strongly Lancastrian. 
 Accordingly they marched northwards, while Edward IV 
 moved from London to encounter them. Had Gloucester 
 not been held by an adequate Yorkist garrison, Margaret 
 could have reached Wales and prolonged the war. As she 
 was obliged to push further north in order to cross the 
 Severn, she was overtaken by Edward before she could 
 cross the Avon at Tewkesbury, and her defeat there was final. 
 Similarly in the Great Rebellion, Gloucester, garrisoned for 
 the Parliament, kept apart Wales, the king's unfailing 
 recruiting-ground, and the south-west, where also the 
 royalist cause was preponderant. So important was this 
 felt to be that in 1643, when the king's cause was in 
 the ascendant, Charles preferred besieging Gloucester to 
 marching on London, the head quarters of his enemies. 
 They also felt its importance, and made an exceptional 
 effort to raise the siege, the success of which is not 
 unreasonably regarded as the turning-point of the war. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 4. The Cheviots form along the Border a barrier by no 
 means impassable, but high and continuous enough prac- 
 tically to force communication, friendly or hostile, between 
 England and Scotland to pass through one or other of the 
 gaps between the extremities of the Cheviots and the sea. 
 Carlisle stands in the western gap, Berwick in the eastern 
 and more important one. Hence the possession of Berwick 
 was frequently and obstinately contested between the rival 
 kingdoms, with the singular result that to this day it 
 technically forms part of neither. It is not, however, the 
 Cheviots only that define the two gates. North of them 
 hills occupy a great part of Lothian, but leave a broad strip 
 along the eastern coast, forming an easy route to Edinburgh. 
 Hence at Dunbar, where this strip is narrowest, were fought 
 two important battles. The earlier, in 1296, gave Scotland 
 for the moment into the hands of Edward I. By Cromwell's 
 great victory in 1650, Scotland was wellnigh conquered for 
 the P'.nglish Commonwealth. From the western end of the 
 Cheviots the Pennine hills run southwards, forming a fairly 
 continuous chain as far south as Derbyshire. These again 
 are penetrable without great difficulty, especially in the 
 southern portion ; but still they formed a very real barrier 
 between Angle and Celt, and obviously determine for a long 
 distance the course of the main routes from England into 
 Scotland. The space between the Pennines and the Irish 
 Sea is not great : it is partly covered by hills stretching out 
 towards the outlying group in the Cumbrian peninsula. 
 Hence it offers a route far less convenient for military pur- 
 poses than that on the east coast. Nevertheless, it has 
 served four times for Scottish invasions of England, all of 
 them in behalf of the Stuarts. Two ended ignominiously 
 at Preston, where the estuary of the Ribble runs nearly up 
 to the hills. One led Charles II to his crushing defeat at 
 AVorcester. On the fourth occasion alone, when the young 
 Pretender reached Derbyshire, was the invader able to effect
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 149 
 
 an orderly retreat into Scotland. Not even the usually ill- 
 advised partisans of the Stuarts would, however, have been 
 likely to select this route as geographically preferable. It 
 was chosen because they calculated, far too confidently as it 
 turned out, on finding Lancashire and Cheshire favourable 
 to the Stuart cause. 
 
 The main historical route between England and Scotland 
 is that now followed by the Great Northern Railway and its 
 continuations. Crossing the Trent at Newark, it passes up 
 the broad Ouse valley, in the centre of which stands York, 
 having on the left a series of spurs from the Pennines. 
 These enclose the Yorkshire dales, and the streams which 
 descend from them unite to form the Yorkshire Ouse. 
 Further north the route crosses the Tees at Darlington and 
 the Wear at Durham, both at some distance from the sea, 
 to Newcastle at the mouth of the Tyne. Thenceforward it 
 follows the coast all the way to Berwick, and indeed to 
 Edinburgh. Many places along this route mark the dis- 
 astrous termination of Scottish invasions of England. At 
 Northallerton, at the upper end of the Ouse valley, David I 
 of Scotland received a sharp lesson against interfering in 
 English domestic quarrels. This, however, did not deter 
 his grandson from invading England to help the revolted 
 vassals of Henry II, and falling into that king's hands at 
 Alnwick. At Halidon Hill in 1333, a Scottish army, 
 attempting to raise the siege of Berwick, was badly defeated 
 by tactics very similar to those which, thirteen years later, 
 won for Edward III his great victory of Crecy. At Nevill's 
 Cross, close to Durham, another David, trying a diversion 
 in favour of the French who had just lost Crecy, was 
 defeated and taken prisoner. At Plodden, almost within 
 sight of Berwick, James IV and his army were destroyed in 
 attempting the last invasion which was prompted by friend- 
 ship with France. Finally, in 1644, a Scottish army in 
 conjunction with the forces of the Parliament was besieging
 
 I50 THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
 
 York, when Rupert came north to relieve it. The siege was 
 raised, but the resulting battle of Marston Moor gave York 
 and the whole north of England over to the Parliament. 
 
 5. The proximity of Ireland to the south-west of Scotland 
 facilitated, if it did not occasion, the crossing over of the 
 Scots into the regions hitherto occupied by the Picts only. 
 By the same route came somewhat later the Irish monks, 
 who established their head quarters at lona, and thence sent 
 out the missionaries who converted the northern half of 
 Britain to Christianity. 
 
 6. The two deep inlets of the Forth and Clyde very 
 nearly cut Scotland in half. Hence all military movements 
 tend to centre round Stirling, which more or less commands 
 the isthmus, for it is little more, between the two rivers. 
 When Wallace, in 1297, raised Scotland against Edward I, 
 his victory of Cambuskenneth, which gave him temporary 
 control of the country, was fought on the banks of the Forth 
 just outside Stirling. The defeat which in the next year 
 closed his career was incurred at Falkirk, not many miles 
 off. One of the young Pretender's battles was also fought 
 near Falkirk, and one of Montrose's still nearer to Stirling 
 in another direction. Most significant of all is Brace's 
 great victory at Bannockburn. So long as Stirling Castle 
 was held for the English, he could not feel that he was 
 secure in his kingdom, and he therefore made great efforts 
 to reduce it. Edward IPs expedition was made specifically 
 to relieve Stirling, was defeated almost in sight of the 
 castle, and by its failure virtually established Scottish 
 independence.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 It would be a gross exaggeration to attribute to geo- 
 graphical advantages the great part which France has 
 always played in modern Europe. Much is certainly due 
 to the qualities of the French people, and to a series of 
 capable rulers, much also to the fortune which gave France 
 the start as a strong and centralized despotism, at the time 
 when the princes of Europe were all becoming despotic and 
 striving after personal or dynastic aggrandizement. Never- 
 theless, the geographical conditions are such as to give 
 France many advantages in her rivalry with other European 
 nations. The soil of France is, on the whole, more fertile 
 than that of any of her neighbours ; and her mineral wealth, 
 though not remarkable, is far from insignificant. Her 
 position on the globe is the most favourable of any nation 
 in Europe, except England with her insular security. Her 
 northern shores are washed by that narrow sea which is 
 incomparably the greatest highway of the world's commerce, 
 now that commerce has become world-wide. Her western 
 coast is open to the Atlantic ; and on the south-east she 
 touches the Mediterranean. She has an adequate supply 
 of good harbours, and an extensive system of navigable 
 rivers, of considerable value for inland trade. On the south 
 and south-east she has mountain frontiers, affording ample 
 protection, but not sufficing to bar, though they necessarily 
 somewhat impede, peaceful intercourse and military aggres-
 
 152 FRANCE 
 
 sion. Her frontiers on the east and north-east interpose no 
 barrier against her flooding Europe with ideas or with armies. 
 If we look at modern history as a whole, France has taken 
 full advantage of her landward opportunities. Her favour- 
 able maritime position she has utilized to a far smaller 
 extent, at any rate for commercial purposes : her fighting 
 navy is, and usually has been in modern times, second only 
 to the English. 
 
 The France of to-day comprises the whole of the region 
 named Gaul in a previous chapter for convenience of nomen- 
 clature, the greater part of the Rhone-land, and a strip on 
 the western edge of the Rhine-land. It is in the latter 
 portion only that she has not a frontier which is well marked, 
 in accord with differences of nationality, and reasonably 
 adjusted to the rights and interests both of France and of 
 her neighbours. And even the conventional frontier of the 
 north-east is as fair to all parties, all things considered, as 
 any other line in that quarter which diplomacy might select, 
 there being in fact no natural feature of sufficient definite- 
 ness to serve as a real barrier, anywhere near the line where 
 Celt and Teuton are in contact north of the Vosges. 
 Nevertheless, French ambition tends to regard it as a per- 
 petual grievance that the political area of France does not 
 extend much further. 
 
 'The region franca ise,^ says Lavallee, 'which the ancients 
 called Gaul, is bounded on the east by the Rhine, from its 
 mouths to its source, and by the Alps from the St. Gotthard 
 to the Mediterranean.' There is no claim to 'natural 
 frontiers' which has been put forward more persistently 
 than this; few, if any, which are less tenable, as has been 
 said in another chapter. Historically, the whole of this 
 region was never called by a single name, nor had the word 
 ' Gaul' to the Romans any national significance, while its geo- 
 graphical meaning varied greatly. Caesar at the beginning 
 of his Commentaries truly says that Gaul was then divided
 
 FRANCE 153 
 
 into three parts, inhabited by peoples differing in laws, 
 customs, and language. . Whether the limits assigned by 
 him to each people were accurate is, at least, doubtful. 
 The Iberi, who, according to Caesar, dwelt south of the 
 Garonne, extended further north at a later date, if not then. 
 The frontier between the Celts and the Belgae, who were 
 presumably, but not certainly, Teuton, or possibly of mixed 
 race, must be drawn further to the north and east than the 
 Marne. Substantially, however, Caesar's account is correct 
 as to three very different peoples inhabiting the bulk of the 
 region ; while he certainly does not include in Gaul the 
 Helvetii, who occupied modern Switzerland, nearly the whole 
 of which is reckoned by M. Lavallee as in his regiofi francaise. 
 Rome subdued Iberians, Celts, and Belgae alike, and 
 introduced her own language and institutions, pretty com- 
 pletely among the two former, partially among the Belgae. 
 Conformity to the laws and speech of foreign conquerors 
 was a step, but only a step, towards ultimate fusion. 
 Nothing approaching a Gallic nation was ever built up : 
 when the Western empire perished, the invading Teutonic 
 peoples conquered with little regard to Roman administra- 
 tive provinces, but, as it happened, in some relation to the 
 physical divisions. What is now called France has no 
 connexion pohtically with Roman (Jaul : it is essentially 
 a modern growth, beginning to be real with the election 
 of Hugh Capet, and only gradually forming a nationality, 
 to which no small part of the inhabitants of M. Lavallee's 
 region francaise have always been entirely alien, and at 
 most times strongly antagonistic. 
 
 The region above named Gaul, that comprising all the 
 country from which rivers flow into the Atlantic or the 
 English Channel, is the part of the country which was 
 thoroughly romanized, and this in fact became the first 
 historical France. The Frankish conquerors extended 
 across the whole northern half of Roman Gaul, holding at
 
 154 FRANCE 
 
 the same time much German land to the east of it. When, 
 after a short time, their kingdom tended to be broken in 
 half, the frontier line between Neustria and Austrasia cor- 
 responded pretty closely with the watershed between the 
 Seine and Rhine river systems. Similarly, to the south of 
 the Franks, the Visigoths in Aquitaine and the Burgundians 
 in the Rhone basin were separated about the line of the 
 Cevennes. Charlemagne's empire comprised all that is 
 now France, and much besides ; but so far as it had a basis 
 of nationality it was Teuton, and the Celts of Gaul remained 
 a subject race. It was at the partition between the grand- 
 sons of Charlemagne that the first step was taken towards 
 the creation of modern France. The share of Charles, the 
 youngest, was the fully romanized Gaul, extending in places 
 a little east of the Cevennes-Cote d'Or-Argonne watershed, 
 and it was over this region that Hugh Capet, after a century 
 and a half, was chosen to reign. 
 
 The importance of Hugh Capet's election lies first in the 
 fresh start made by a new race of kings, without the German 
 affinities and imperial traditions of the Carolingian house. 
 Almost more important is the fact that Paris, the centre of 
 Hugh's own immediate domain, became the capital of the 
 titular kingdom. Central it is not : French writers com- 
 plain that Paris is dangerously near the eastern frontier, 
 even now that France extends far beyond what Hugh Capet 
 in theory reigned over ; but it is, at any rate, far more 
 central than Laon, the capital of his predecessors, and it is 
 in most respects excellently situated. 
 
 Feudalism had done its disintegrating work in most parts 
 of what had been the Carolingian empire. Hugh Capet 
 had a titular suzerainty over a multitude of vassals, some 
 more powerful than himself. It was the task of his house 
 to convert this into real sovereignty ; and this had been 
 fairly accomplished, with the one great exception of 
 Aquitaine, when St. Louis died, less than three centuries
 
 FRANCE 155 
 
 after the coronation of Hugh. Incidentally, moreover, the 
 kings of Paris had in the same period fought out another 
 conflict even more important to geographical unification, 
 between the langue d'oc and the langue d'oil. 
 
 The boundaries suggested by physical geography, it 
 cannot be too often affirmed, affect the destinies of man- 
 kind but slightly unless they are real barriers. None such 
 exist between the France of Hugh Capet's successors and 
 the regions to the eastward, exxept so far as the Cevennes 
 may be regarded as, at any rate, an obstacle. On the other 
 hand no physical frontier of more than nominal character 
 separates the region of the Garonne from the region of the 
 Loire. Difference of race, however, did exist, the Garonne 
 being Iberian and the Loire Celtic, though both had been 
 saturated by Roman influences, and conquered by Teuton 
 invaders, akin though distinct. How far this difference of 
 race tended to produce a divergence in other respects can 
 hardly be estimated : probably, the geographical fact that 
 there is a wide gap between the Pyrenees and the southern 
 end of the Cevennes had at least equal influence. At any 
 rate, in the age w^hen the modern Romance languages were 
 coming into existence, through the corruption of Latin in the 
 vernacular speech of separate regions, the language which 
 formed itself in northern France was very different from that 
 which simultaneously grew up in the south. And the south of 
 the realm of France developed the same language as the region 
 of the lower Rhone, or possibly borrowed it. The divergence 
 in language between north and south was accompanied 
 by equally marked differences in literature and ideas, in 
 civilization generally. The south, as was natural, was in 
 more or less close touch with Italy, the north rather with 
 Germany. It was the good fortune of the kings of Paris 
 that the whole south never became even as much consoli- 
 dated as the. north, before circumstances gave them the 
 opportunity of crushing for ever the separate civilization of
 
 156 FRANCE 
 
 the south. The counts of Toulouse, seated on the upper 
 Garonne, extended their feudal superiority to the Mediter- 
 ranean : if their dominions had been combined with Aqui- 
 taine, their technical vassalage to Paris, which sat very 
 lightly upon them, might well have been repudiated 
 altogether. It was a further stroke of good fortune that 
 the counts of Toulouse gave the Popes a pretext for 
 proclaiming a crusade against them, which was furnished 
 mainly by the chivalry of northern France. The Albigen- 
 sian crusade is chiefly known as the most atrocious of 
 religious wars : it deserves to be also remembered as a 
 great step in the unification of France. 
 
 After the Albigensian war began the series of piecemeal 
 annexations in the Rhone-land, which only ended when 
 Napoleon III took Savoy in i860. In the break-up of 
 Charlemagne's empire a separate kingdom had been formed, 
 roughly ' corresponding to the Rhone-land, which was 
 called Burgundy after the Teutonic tribe which had over- 
 run that section of the Roman empire, and had later been 
 conquered by the Franks. This kingdom, after a separate 
 existence of a century and a half, fell to the emperor 
 Conrad II, and was thenceforth regarded as a fourth crown 
 belonging to the emperor. With so distant a sovereign, the 
 Rhone-land was especially liable to the fate of being divided 
 up among a number of feudal princes virtually independent. 
 Provence, the sea-coast district, was for a time united to 
 Catalonia, and then to Aragon ; and after many vicissitudes 
 of no geographical significance, was left by the last duke to 
 I.ouis XI of France, the son of his father's sister. 
 
 The dominions over which the counts of Toulouse were 
 
 p ^ It is worth noting that the kingdom of Burgundy extended beyond 
 ' the Alps, so as to include the Val d'Aosta. The Little St. Bernard 
 pass, the earliest established road across the Alps, no doubt assisted 
 this extension beyond the natural frontier, which in its turn facilitated 
 the spread of the French language into Piedmont, and the ultimate 
 union of Savoy and Piedmont under the same prince.
 
 FRANCE 157 
 
 either direct rulers or suzerains filled the gap between the 
 Cevennes and the Pyrenees, and these were the first to 
 fall into the hands of the French kings. Other sections 
 of the Rhone-land shared the same fate : the Empire was 
 in no condition to defend its shadowy rights at so great 
 a distance, especially when the annexations were made with 
 the good-will of rulers, or people, or both. When once the 
 possibility of a separate Provengal nationality had been 
 destroyed, affinities of race and language were all favour- 
 able to union with France ; and when the process had 
 once begun, geography would naturally encourage going 
 on as far as the Alps. French ambition in fact made 
 many attempts to obtain a footing beyond them, which 
 happily for the peace of Europe had never more than 
 temporary success. 
 
 The consolidation of France within its original limits was 
 not completed till long after she had begun to encroach 
 on the Rhone basin. Many circumstances aided the stead) 
 policy of the kings, foremost among them the uninterrupted 
 succession of son to father for over three centuries, which 
 gave the crown a definitely hereditary character. The 
 geographical distribution of the great fiefs was favourable 
 to the kings' ambition : Paris lay nearly in the centre of 
 them, so that their owners could not very easily unite 
 against the king. One combination alone was so dangerous 
 that it was a matter of life and death for the monarchy 
 to break it up — the union of Normandy, Anjou, and 
 Aquitaine in the hands of Henry II of England. It had 
 been bad enough when the Norsemen settled down on 
 the northern coast, and established their duchy across the 
 Seine, the great highway of northern France. The Norman 
 dukes had however been, on the whole, friendly to the 
 kings at Paris until after their conquest of England, when 
 they began tx) overshadow their suzerains. The marriage 
 of Henry I's daughter to the count of Anjou, and of their
 
 158 FRANCE 
 
 son to the heiress of Aquitaine, put into the possession of 
 Henry II nearly the whole coast of France, and fully half 
 of the territories then under French sovereignty. For- 
 tunately for France, Henry H had scruples about bearing 
 arms against his suzerain, and cherished schemes for gaining 
 the French crown for his house by peaceful means, schemes 
 that, happily for both France and England, were frustrated 
 by his eldest son's death. Fortunately also, John's crimes 
 gave the French king a pretext for declaring his fiefs 
 forfeited, and his supineness allowed Anjou and Normandy 
 to be wrested from him without a struggle. 
 
 The only geographical point connected with this period, 
 which has a definite military interest, is in connexion with 
 this French conquest of Normandy. Richard Coeur de 
 Lion, foreseeing the probability of a French attack on the 
 duchy, had built the fortress of Chateau Gaillard, admirably 
 situated and excellently constructed, according to the 
 methods of warfare then in vogue, to control the Seine 
 valley above Rouen. If John had made a real effort to 
 defend Chateau Gaillard, it would have saved Normandy 
 for him ; but even a masterpiece of military skill, as Chateau 
 Gaillard was for its age, needs competent defence. As it 
 was, John let his brother's great work fall into the enemy's 
 hands, and with it the duchy. 
 
 When the thirteenth century ended, the effective domi- 
 nions of the kings of France comprised most of the 
 region assigned to Charles the Bald on the partition of 
 Charlemagne's empire, save the south-west, still held by 
 the kings of England. The opportunity of acquiring this 
 also arose out of the first breach in the direct succession 
 from Hugh Capet. Edward III, incensed at the persistent 
 hostility of the first king of the new dynasty, set up a rival 
 claim to the French crown ; and the long wars which 
 ensued ended in the loss of his French provinces. Edward 
 was, paradoxical as it may sound, defending the provincial
 
 FRANCE 
 
 159 
 
 independence of Aquitaine, which had never been under 
 the immediate authority of the king of France, feudal 
 superior though he was. Edward and his son were how- 
 ever, what Henry II had not been, foreigners in the eyes 
 of the people of Aquitaine. They felt themselves nearer 
 to France than to England, all the more now that the king 
 of France ruled Languedoc. Original difference of race 
 counted for little beside similarity of language and institu- 
 tions, and geographical proximity unbroken by any natural 
 barriers. They easily acquiesced in French domination ; 
 and in the second stage of the Hundred Years' war, when 
 Henry V seemed likely to subdue all France, furnished 
 steady support to the native king. The influence of 
 difference of race, however, dies out but slowly. It was 
 in the south-west that Protestantism found most support : 
 the resistance of the Huguenots there to Richelieu was due 
 to regard for their local liberties, as well as to fears for 
 their freedom of worship. Even to this day the Gascon 
 is recognized, in all French literature, as a very distinct type 
 from the Parisian. 
 
 The course of the Hundred Years' war was not affected 
 by the geography to a greater extent than all campaigns 
 must be. Difficulty in seizing a passage across the Somme 
 was felt both by Edward III before Crecy and by Henry V 
 before Agincourt, though the campaigns, in spite of much 
 superficial resemblance, were fundamentally different in 
 design and conduct. The Black Prince's raid into the 
 heart of France inevitably gave the king the opportunity of 
 intercepting his return to Bordeaux ; and though king John 
 only partially achieved this, he succeeded in bringing about 
 the decisive battle of Poitiers, which ended in his own total 
 defeat and capture. The siege of Orleans, relieved by Joan 
 of Arc, is often declared to have had great geographical 
 importance. Orleans, it is said, was the key of the south : 
 the possession of it was essential to further conquest by the
 
 i6o FRANCE 
 
 English, who already dominated the north. A glance at 
 the map will show that it is truer to say that Orleans, 
 situated at the northernmost point of the great curve of the 
 Loire, threatened the heart of the English possessions. In 
 truth, however, the importance of the siege was accidental : 
 the somewhat unexpectedly prolonged resistance of the 
 town gave Joan of Arc her opportunity, and her success 
 was important, not so much as a military achievement, as in 
 the domain of patriotic sentiment. 
 
 The Hundred Years' war is the stock instance for 
 proving that a nation cannot be conquered if it is willing to 
 pay the cost of resistance. This is doubtless true within 
 limits — true, that is to say, provided that there is not too 
 great disparity between the parties, and that the invaded 
 country, through its size or its natural ruggedness or both, 
 is practically impossible for the invader to occupy throughout. 
 The Hundred Years' war is, however, not exactly a case in 
 point. The English were not, strictly speaking, fighting to 
 conquer France, but to enforce their king's claim to another 
 kingdom. The French, who had in the exercise of their 
 full right chosen a king whose title rested on a principle of 
 succession different from that which Edward IH invoked, 
 ' had their patriotic feelings far more strongly roused than 
 their enemies. England in the fourteenth century was 
 probably richer than France, certainly possessed more 
 national coherence, and was, thanks to the long-bow, defi- 
 nitely superior on the battlefield. Nevertheless it was 
 a task beyond the strength of the English, even with the 
 advantage of a footing in the south-west of France, to hold 
 down a land much larger than their own, if the French 
 kept up a diffused and obstinate resistance. The country 
 was not like the Transvaal, exceptionally rough and intri- 
 cate, so as to give special value to the natives' familiarity 
 with the topography. But it was thickly sown with castles 
 large and small, every one of which, in French hands, was
 
 FRANCE i6i 
 
 a centre of hostilities, while in English hands they were 
 a perpetual mark for attack unless fully garrisoned. More- 
 over, everything that came from England had to be conveyed 
 over sea, which necessarily limited the supply of men, and 
 perhaps of other things. The ultimate result was to give 
 France a much more thorough sense of national unity than 
 she had ever had before, though purchased at the price of 
 subjection to a virtually despotic monarchy ; and to relieve 
 England, at the cost of some humiliation, of the dangerous 
 heritage of the Plantagenets. 
 
 France was thus, before the end of the fifteenth century, 
 consolidated within the Hmits of Hugh Capet's realm, with 
 small exceptions, of which Brittany, soon united to the 
 crown by the marriage of Francis I with the heiress, was the 
 most important. The duchy of Burgundy had just fallen 
 in to the crown for the second time by the death of Charles 
 the Bold, and Louis XI did not repeat the mistake of his 
 ancestor John in granting out the duchy afresh. France 
 had also, before the close of the Middle Ages, made great 
 progress in acquiring by various means the region of the 
 lower Rhone. The rounding off of her Rhone territories 
 by the conquest of the Saone basin was not achieved till 
 late in the seventeenth ce^'tury, though the way had been 
 prepared since the end of the thirteenth. The watershed 
 between the Seine and Rhone basins, though clearly enough 
 marked, is no real barrier. Nor was it in fact ever the 
 exact frontier of mediaeval France. The duchy of Burgundy, 
 reckoned from the first as feudally vassal to France, always 
 extended across the Cote d'Or : its very capital, Dijon, is 
 situated on the Rhone side of it. Nothing was more 
 natural, geographically, than that a close connexion should 
 grow up between the duchy and the county of Burgundy, 
 which occupied the rest of the Saone basin. The latter, 
 though technically part of the Empire, was too far off to 
 have any real connexion with it. Language and race 
 
 GEORGE ]\I
 
 i62 FRANCE 
 
 attracted it rather towards France than towards Germany. 
 Duchy and county came by intermarriage under the same 
 ruler, though they separated again, the rules of inheritance 
 being different. It is more than probable that if the 
 heritage of Charles the Bold, other than his French duchy, 
 had fallen into less powerful hands than those of the 
 Hapsburgs, Franche Comte, the free county of Burgundy ', 
 would have been absorbed by France long before the 
 peace of Nimeguen. 
 
 The extension of France into the Rhine-land was begun 
 in the sixteenth century, continued in the seventeenth, and 
 completed in the eighteenth, if we leave out of sight the 
 ephemeral annexations made during the wars arising out of 
 the French Revolution. In the nineteenth Germany won 
 back by force of arms a large portion of what France had 
 acquired. These changes are, however, best treated in 
 relation to the Rhine-land as a whole. 
 
 The frontier separating France from western Switzerland, 
 the only section of the Rhone-land that she has not 
 absorbed, is formed by the Jura, with a short arbitrary 
 line drawn across to the Alps from the southern end of 
 that chain. North of the Jura is again an opening, com- 
 monly known as the gap of Belfort, beyond which begins 
 the line of the Vosges. These mountains are entirely 
 included in the Rhine basin, their western slope being 
 drained by its tributary, the Moselle. Nevertheless, the 
 Vosges form a more reasonable frontier line than the 
 Argonne hills further to the west, which are the watershed 
 between the Seine and Rhine basins. They correspond 
 much more nearly to the boundary line between the French 
 
 ^ I have seen it gravely argued in print that the name ' Franche 
 Comte ' proves that this province naturally belongs to France. A 
 grosser case of supporting by ridiculous arguments a contention not 
 unreasonable in itself, can hardly be found. It is worth quoting as an 
 instance of the crimes that can be committed in the name of geography 
 or of etymology.
 
 FRANCE 163 
 
 and German languages, which fairly represents also the 
 boundary between races, so far as that can be definitely 
 drawn. Like the Jura, the Vosges are easily penetrable 
 by roads, and therefore by armies, though they furnish 
 a definite obstacle. Like the Jura, also, they are quite 
 high and continuous enough to act as a real dividing line, 
 keeping apart the peoples on the opposite sides, but by no 
 means isolating them entirely. 
 
 From near the northern end of the Vosges, the frontier 
 between France and Germany is purely arbitrary, fixed 
 by the resolution of Prussia, in her hour of triumph, to 
 obtain possession of Metz for military reasons. Lorraine 
 had long been partly French in speech, and partly German ; 
 but it cannot be truly said that this consideration, if worth 
 anything, guided the amount of territory in that province 
 which France was required to cede. The frontier between 
 France and Belgium is still more arbitrary, for it does not 
 even approach to coinciding with a division of languages. 
 It represents the resultant of Louis XIV's conquests, of the 
 diplomatic struggles in the peace negotiations that followed 
 his wars, and of certain modifications similarly ensuing on 
 the wars of the French Revolution. 
 
 Geography has greatly aided France in her gradual ex- 
 tension eastwards : it has been equally favourable to her 
 internal development. France is not, like Spain, cut up by 
 mountain ranges, impeding the intercourse of the regions 
 lying between them, and retarding their political union. 
 Her compact shape tends to prevent various parts of the 
 country from being as strange to one another as are Naples 
 and Piedmont. Her system of navigable rivers greatly 
 facilitated internal trade in former ages, though in the 
 modern world their importance has diminished. A de- 
 scription of the geography of France might indeed properly 
 start from the four great rivers, each of course with its 
 affluents. Their basins are, however, so slightly divided 
 
 u 2
 
 1 64 FRANCE 
 
 from one another that little in French history turns on the 
 natural features of the country. Napoleon's defence of 
 France in 1814 is in some sense an exception. That 
 remarkable campaign is always quoted for the skilful use 
 made by Napoleon of the converging courses of the Seine 
 and its tributaries. Having two hostile armies to resist, he 
 utilized from time to time one or other of the rivers to protect 
 him against one enemy while he struck at the other. The 
 interest of these operations is almost too technical for most 
 readers : Sir Edward Hamley very reasonably calls them an 
 illustration of ' the most complex problem which a theatre 
 of war can present.' Moreover, it can hardly be said that 
 the geography involved had any real effect on the history of 
 France. Napoleon was perhaps able to make more effective 
 use of his central position and undivided authority, than 
 if the rivers had furnished a series of parallel lines for him 
 to defend successively ; but this only availed to retard some- 
 what the inevitable end. 
 
 Brittany is the only section of France of which the history 
 has been separately influenced by its geography. That 
 peninsula exhibits the one marked deviation from the 
 otherwise compact shape of the country as a whole. The 
 -Breton peninsula has accordingly been always remote from 
 the general life of France. Whether the Romans failed 
 to assimilate it, or whether non-romanized Celts came back 
 thither from beyond the Channel, is disputable. Certain it 
 is that a Celtic language still survives in Brittany, and that 
 the people retain a distinct character. They still, to a large 
 extent, preserve the ideas and traditions of the past, from 
 which France as a whole has departed — legitimism in politics 
 and exclusive devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 The towns of France, like those of other countries, owed 
 their growth very largely to geographical considerations. 
 Their rise to some political importance, as in Germany, 
 was due mainly to the deliberate policy of the kings in the
 
 FRANCE 165 
 
 days when they were feudal suzerains with little real power. 
 Some of them have already been cited as instances of 
 different classes of towns. Exact geographical position of 
 towns has not however counted for much in French history. 
 The most important exception is perhaps Rochelle, which 
 became the Huguenot head quarters, and as such was 
 besieged when Richelieu resolved to destroy the semi- 
 independence enjoyed by the Huguenots. Then the isle 
 of Rhe, which secures Rochelle as a port, gave a con- 
 venient landing-place for Buckingham's expedition in 
 support of the Huguenots. 
 
 The importance of Paris becoming definitely the capital 
 of France, when Hugh Capet was elected to the throne, 
 has already been mentioned. Yet it was not the geo- 
 graphical position of Paris, admirable as that is, which made 
 the difference. Many other towns, Orleans for instance, 
 or Bourges, would at that juncture have served equally 
 well. The essential condition was that the new capital 
 should be thoroughly French, sufficiently far away from 
 the Teuton frontier. The influence exerted by Paris over 
 France as a whole is, and has been for some centuries, 
 enormous. Not even London has been so completely the 
 heart of a nation, and no other European capital is com- 
 parable even to London. This pre-eminence however is 
 not really geographical, not so much so as in the case of 
 London. The site was suitable for a capital, and in the 
 capital the despotism of Richelieu and Louis XIV com- 
 pelled everything to centre, with consequences which they 
 certainly did not foresee. Whether it has been good for 
 France, all things taken into account, that Paris should 
 absorb so much of the national life, may well be doubted : 
 but certainly the fact is unique in modern history.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 The points in the geography of the Spanish peninsula 
 which are of historical importance are those most obviously 
 visible on the map. Spain has sometimes been called ' the 
 land of contrasts ' ; and certainly it would be hard to find 
 a country in which some geographical influences had told 
 so much on its history, while others were so visibly 
 ineffective. 
 
 I. It has a land frontier as definite as any country in the 
 world, in the chain of the Pyrenees. If nature can be said 
 to have marked off any portion of the earth's surface as 
 the home of a single nation, it has so marked off Spain. 
 It was called by a single name in the days of Hannibal, 
 and probably very long before. It was one under the 
 Roman empire for several centuries ; yet it has never been 
 one since, except by force during some sixty years. The 
 little kingdom of Portugal, originally one of several which 
 formed themselves as the Christians gradually rose against 
 Moorish dominion, has resisted the attraction which united 
 all the rest, and even successfully reasserted its indepen- 
 dence after having been for a time annexed to Spain. 
 Moreover, in defiance of all geographical propriety it lies 
 across two of the chief Spanish rivers, and has practically 
 no frontiers that are not arbitrary. The fact that these 
 rivers are not navigable within Spain, and that the Spaniards 
 are not instinctively commercial, makes this interposition
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 167 
 
 of Portugal less injurious to Spain than it otherwise would 
 have been. Nevertheless, Portugal is, to the eyes of 
 geography, a standing anomaly. 
 
 Marked as is the northern frontier of Spain, and practi- 
 cally impassable except at the extremities, the political 
 boundary rarely coincided with it until comparatively 
 recently. The kingdom of the Visigoths extended along 
 the coast as far as the Rhone. The Spanish march, which 
 formed part of Charlemagne's empire, extended along the 
 whole southern face of the Pyrenees, though the western 
 portion appears to have been soon lost. The kings of 
 Aragon acquired, by marriage and otherwise, considerable 
 dominions in Languedoc ; and though in 125S all claim 
 to most of these was surrendered in return for the abandon- 
 ment by the French king of his pretensions to overlordship 
 south of the Pyrenees, it was not until 1659 that Roussillon, 
 the small triangular province abutting on the Mediterranean, 
 was finally ceded to Louis XIV. Navarre, at the other 
 end of the Pyrenees, acquired lands in the south-western 
 corner of France early in the thirteenth century. From 
 that time onwards a series of marriages connected Navarre 
 more and more closely with France, Finally, by a strange 
 anomaly, the titular king of Navarre succeeded to the 
 French throne, and thereby united to France the fiefs 
 north of the Pyrenees, nearly a century after the real, 
 Spanish, Navarre had been annexed by Ferdinand the 
 Catholic. Since the treaty of the Pyrenees the frontier 
 between France and Spain has been the natural one, 
 though Napoleon, possibly in order to imitate Charlemagne 
 in one more particular, contemplated in 1810-1 the annexa- 
 tion to France of the provinces along the Pyrenees. 
 
 2. The land frontier extends along less than half of the 
 north of Spain, the western part being sea-coast. Thus 
 the gate between France and Spain, at the south-eastern 
 corner of the Bay of Biscay, is far east of the centre of
 
 i68 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 the country. Bayonne, the French fortress guarding the 
 western end of the frontier, is very much nearer to Madrid 
 than Perpignan, which corresponds to it at the eastern end, 
 and is not farther from Paris. Hence, though both routes 
 suffice for the passage of armies, and for commercial inter- 
 course, the western one is for historical purposes the main 
 entrance. By that way was poured into southern France 
 the flood of Mohammedans whose progress was arrested 
 by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours. In the passes of 
 that neighbourhood occurred the conflicts with the Moors 
 during the reign of Charlemagne, which form the historical 
 basis for the romances of Roland and the paladins. 
 Through that gate passed the still more destructive flood 
 of French soldiers whom Napoleon poured into Spain. 
 During the Peninsular war all communication between the 
 main French armies and the head quarters of Napoleon 
 in Paris went that way — reinforcements and supplies 
 wanted in Spain, invalids and prisoners sent back, and 
 dispatches going in both directions. Thus the task of 
 the Spanish guerrilla bands in intercepting letters, rescuing 
 prisoners, and generally harassing the invaders, was greatly 
 facilitated, because everything was bound to travel by the 
 one route. There were French armies in the north-east 
 of Spain, which were on the whole successful, and pushed 
 their conquests far down the coast. These operations, 
 however, were of slight importance to the total result of the 
 war, just because they were carried on in a corner. It did 
 not really affect Wellington that the French took Valencia. 
 When he had beaten the main army at Vittoria and forced 
 it back into France, he was not deterred from following 
 it because Suchet had still a fairly formidable army in the 
 north-east of Spain. The south-western corner of France 
 is indeed very defensible : the Bidassoa, which is for 
 some miles the actual frontier, and the Nive and Nivelle 
 north of it, form lines convenient to be held by an army
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 169 
 
 on the defensive; and Soult was able in 18 13 to compel 
 Wellington to expend much time, and a good many men, 
 in forcing them one after the other. They form however 
 no barrier against peaceful intercourse, though as the total 
 volume of Spanish trade is not great, and is most of it sea- 
 borne, the commerce into and out of Spain by land is of 
 little importance. 
 
 3. The Spanish peninsula is effectively cut up by a series 
 of mountain chains ; and these hindrances to free inter- 
 course have had their natural influence on the history. 
 The Pyrenees are continued along the southern shore of 
 the Bay of Biscay, leaving but a strip between them and 
 the sea. After some distance they fan out, so that Galicia, 
 the north-western corner of the peninsula, is more or less 
 mountainous all over. The Ebro, rising some distance 
 west of the entrance into France, drains the southern face 
 of the Pyrenees, and flows into the Mediterranean. South 
 of the Ebro, the Douro flows westwards, there being no 
 very marked barrier between the two rivers in their upper 
 course. Below the Douro a chain of mountains runs 
 almost across the peninsula. Different portions bear dif- 
 ferent names, but the whole may be conveniently called by 
 the name of the highest part, the Sierra de Guadarrama. 
 Roughly parallel, at some distance to the south, is the still 
 higher Sierra Morena. South of the Sierra de Guadarrama 
 is the Tagus valley, while the Guadiana flows along the 
 north of the Sierra Morena. These two rivers are further 
 separated by a shorter and less important chain, while 
 other mountains not very far from the east coast connect 
 the two Sierras. South of the Sierra Morena is the fertile 
 basin of the Guadalquivir, which, like the other great rivers, 
 except the Ebro, flows westwards. Finally, along the south 
 coast runs the Sierra Nevada, by far the loftiest range in 
 Spain. 
 
 None ©f these mountain ranges, except the Sierra Nevada,
 
 I70 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 which is too close to the coast to be historically important, 
 presents anything like an impassable barrier. They can be 
 crossed almost anywhere, even in winter. They form how- 
 ever very serious obstacles to the movements of armies, 
 and to free intercourse of all kinds. Moreover, all the 
 centre of Spain is high above the sea, and, on the whole, 
 arid and barren. This constitutes a further impediment to 
 military operations, since armies must be supplied from 
 a distance over difficult routes, very little food being pro- 
 curable in the country except in a few localities. The 
 importance of this obviously increases with the size of 
 armies, as was amply shown in the Peninsular war. 
 
 4. The geographical features of Portugal, especially on 
 the eastern frontier, also require some notice, because of 
 their, importance during the Peninsular war. The extreme 
 north, beyond the Douro, is mountainous, and hardly 
 distinguishable geographically from the adjacent portion of 
 Spain, though the river Minho marks part of the frontier. 
 The Douro during its course through Spain flows always 
 westwards. Where it turns to the south-west it becomes 
 the frontier between Spain and Portugal for about fifty 
 miles : thence it flows again westwards across Portugal to 
 the sea at Oporto. South of the Douro the frontier runs 
 due south for nearly 200 miles, marked by no strong natural 
 features, except that for a short distance it follows the Tagus, 
 till it reaches the Guadiana. This river having flowed 
 westward through Spain turns south near Badajos, and 
 serves as the frontier nearly all the way thence to the sea, 
 passing close to the western end of the Sierra Morena. 
 Thus there are three main lines of communication between 
 Spain and Portugal, corresponding to the three great rivers. 
 The valley of the Tagus is however narrow, and in other 
 ways ill suited for military movements. Hence the other 
 two are practically of more importance, and on each the 
 frontier is guarded by a pair of fortresses. Badajos is on
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 171 
 
 the Spanish side of the Guadiana, just where it becomes 
 the frontier, with Elvas a few miles off in Portugal. Ciudad 
 Rodrigo stands on the Agueda, a southern tributary of the 
 Douro in Spain : Almeida is close to the Coa, a parallel 
 tributary in Portugal. The other point to be noted is that 
 the range of the Sierra de Guadarrama is extended far into 
 Portugal, under the name of Serra da Estrella. It runs 
 to the south-west for some eighty miles, and then terminates, 
 leaving a broad strip of plain between it and the sea. Thus 
 an invader of Portugal by way of the Douro basin, if he is 
 aiming at the capital, has to choose between crossing the 
 mountains into the basin of the Tagus, and moving on 
 the north-west side of the Estrella, which is drained by the 
 river Mondego. 
 
 It would be unreasonable to attribute to the dividing 
 influence of the mountain chains the formation of the 
 various separate kingdoms which filled the Peninsula in the 
 Middle Ages. The Moorish invasion from the south had 
 indeed been prevented from being complete by the western 
 Pyrenees. The Christians maintained their independence 
 there against the Moors, just as their ancestors had long 
 done against the Romans. The Asturias, never conquered, 
 was the nucleus of what gradually grew into the Spanish 
 monarchy ; but the small kingdoms which one by one 
 established themselves in the north were in accordance 
 with the political tendencies of the age, not yet ripe for 
 great nations. 
 
 Geographical influences can, of course, be traced in many 
 circumstances of the long struggle which ended in the 
 expulsion of the Moors. Aragon, when once united to 
 Catalonia, mostly limited its energies to the region outside 
 the mountains which join the eastern ends of the Guadar- 
 rama and Morena chains. Castile, formed by aggregation 
 of the small kingdoms of the north-west, had its limit at 
 the Sierra de Guadarrama. Then it conquered the centre
 
 172 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 of Spain, and the Sierra Morena became for a time the 
 northern hmit of the Moorish power. Nor did the union 
 of Aragon and Castile by the marriage of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella work easily, in spite of the ability and general 
 success of those sovereigns. Indeed the separate feelings 
 not of those peoples only, but of other parts of what in 
 some sense was a single monarchy, notably Catalonia, were 
 aptly symbolized in the official title of the realm — 'las 
 Espafias,' not ' la Esparia ' — little as this was intended. 
 
 The war of the Spanish succession illustrates in a very 
 marked way the tendency of portions of Spain to political 
 separateness, in spite of their having been united for over 
 two centuries under one crown. Castile, and the provinces 
 which had a long and permanent connexion with Castile, 
 having declared for the French candidate, Aragon, Valencia, 
 and Catalonia declared for the Austrian, apparently for no 
 stronger reason than opposition to Castile. The European 
 war involved much greater issues than which of two princes 
 should reign over Spain, and was fought out on other fields. 
 The military operations within Spain were conducted with 
 small armies, on no coherent plans, and often with little 
 skill. Hence they are not worth following out : the signifi- 
 cance of the geography can be much better seen in the 
 Peninsular war, where it is not too much to say that geo- 
 graphical considerations dictated Wellington's whole plan 
 of operations, and rendered feasible a task that in a level 
 country would have been impossible. 
 
 It would be manifestly unreasonable to ascribe to geo- 
 graphical causes only the singular state of political feeling 
 exhibited in Spain, when Napoleon substituted his puppet 
 brother for the lawful king. Misgovernment, dating back 
 to the forcible overthrow by Charles V of constitutional 
 liberties in the several kingdoms, backwardness, intellectual 
 as well as industrial, had tended to prevent the growth of 
 any true national life, though the geography had doubtless
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 173 
 
 helped to retard progress. There was, ia one sense, an 
 intense national pride ; every inhabitant of Spain felt himself 
 insulted by having an upstart foreigner placed on the throne 
 by foreign arms. The injury was common to all ; but it would 
 perhaps be no exaggeration to say that they felt it as Cas- 
 tilians, or Catalonians, or Asturians, rather than as Spaniards. 
 A popular rising in Madrid did indeed give the signal for 
 revolt everywhere, but it was merely the signal : the country 
 was not really obeying an impulse from the capital, and was 
 entirely uninfluenced by the fact that the French were able 
 again to master Madrid. The little province of the Asturias, 
 on its own separate account, declared war on Napoleon, 
 and sent to England to negotiate for an alliance. Almost 
 equally significant movements took place elsewhere. A self- 
 appointed junta did indeed profess to govern Spain, but it 
 was little more than a pretence. The various provinces 
 resisted, usually with undaunted courage but miserable 
 lack of skill ; but each cared little, perhaps knew little, 
 how the common cause fared in other localities. It was 
 largely the fact that Spain was, so to speak, a low political 
 organism, which made it impossible to conquer, while easy 
 for the French to overrun. Victory in the lield was easy, 
 because the Spaniards lacked every requisite for military 
 success, but victory led to nothing, for there were no vital 
 points. Spain alone could probably never have expelled 
 the French : for this the English assistance was necessary, 
 which, in marked contrast to the incoherent struggles of 
 the Spaniards, was conducted on a single definite plan, 
 formed and worked by a single brain, and based on the 
 peculiar conditions aff'orded by the geography. 
 
 The first intervention of England in the Peninsula was 
 to send a force to Portugal in 1808, which, as a consequence 
 of the victory of Vimiero, expelled the French from Portugal. 
 From that time till the last stage of the war, Lisbon was 
 continuously occupied by English troops, more or fewer.
 
 174 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 and became the permanent base of operations for Welling- 
 ton's army. Political reasons were doubtless predominant 
 in inducing the English government to make Lisbon the 
 starting-point for their efforts to liberate the Peninsula from 
 Napoleon, and not Cadiz. Portugal was an ancient ally, 
 almost a dependant, of England, and therefore deserved 
 the first consideration. The royal family had fled to Brazil, 
 and therefore it seemed comparatively easy, more so than 
 it proved in practice, virtually to control the governm.ent of 
 the country. Wellington did in fact succeed in obtaining 
 supreme military authority in Portugal, though his difficulties 
 as to supplies, &c., were endless. The Spanish generals 
 proved absolutely worthless in co-operation, and their troops 
 were of no service to Wellington till the last stage, when 
 they had come directly under his command. Thus the 
 political choice of Lisbon as a base was fully justified by 
 the event. The military reasons for preferring Lisbon to 
 Cadiz as a base were however at least equally strong, though 
 they may not in fact have weighed as heavily. A glance 
 at the map. is sufficient to prove this. Wellington at 
 Lisbon was on the flank of the French, who were trying to 
 hold down all Spain. His advance into the heart of the 
 peninsula would threaten to cut off all the French in the 
 south from communication with France, except by a huge 
 detour along the east coast. If he had made a similar 
 advance from Cadiz, he could only have pushed the enemy 
 back towards their base, while he would by every march 
 be lengthening the distance from his own. The actual 
 town of Cadiz was indeed easier to defend than Lisbon. 
 Situated on an island, it is impregnable when held by 
 a power that commands the sea. Lisbon, situated on 
 a strip of land between the estuary of the Tagus and the 
 sea, was not out of reach of hostile guns on the other bank 
 of the river, but could be protected on this side by the 
 English men-of-war. It needed the elaborate lines of
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 175 
 
 Torres Vedras, drawn across the whole tongue of land, 
 to protect it against attack by land. When however these 
 had been constructed, Lisbon was as safe as Cadiz, and in 
 every other respect better suited for the English base. 
 
 Another point of almost equal importance was, that an 
 army invading Spain from the side of Portugal had not 
 to cross mountain chains. The great rivers flowing west- 
 wards, the obvious line of advance lay up one of them, in 
 which case the ranges separating the river basins would 
 serve rather as flank protections than as obstacles. 
 
 The general purpose of Wellington's operations was 
 dictated to him by the leading political fact of the time. 
 Napoleon's enormous power was based on force, and was 
 exercised with gross tyranny outside France. Sooner or 
 later the nations of Europe would combine against him, 
 and would be inspirited to do so all the sooner if the 
 war were kept alive in the Peninsula, draining his resources, 
 and proving his armies not irresistible. It was the one 
 field where English troops could be freely and effectively 
 used against him : but England could not spare unlimited 
 men for the purpose, and therefore Wellington must be 
 cautious, running no avoidable risks until the tide turned 
 in his favour. Everything in his plan of campaign beyond 
 this fundamental condition was based on the geography. 
 The main points, as we have seen, were these : — 
 
 1. Lisbon formed a base of operations which could be 
 rendered unassailable. To it England, having command of 
 the sea, could send men and supplies without hindrance ; 
 from it, in case of need, Wellington could safely embark his 
 army. 
 
 2. Being on the flank of Spain, he was in a position to 
 threaten the enemy in an effective direction. 
 
 3. Spain being cut up by mountains, and in much of the 
 centre barren and thinly populated, the enemy's armies 
 could only move slowly and with difficulty. Large masses
 
 176 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 could nowhere, except in Andalusia, be kept concentrated, 
 for lack of subsistence ; and Wellington could have no 
 motive for entering Andalusia. 
 
 4. The distances between the French armies were great, 
 and communication between them slow and uncertain, by 
 reason of the natural difficulties of the country and lack 
 of roads, besides the guerrilla activity of the Spaniards. 
 Wellington could therefore be certain that nothing like 
 accurate co-operation between hostile forces advancing from 
 different quarters was to be apprehended. 
 
 5. There were three lines by which armies could pass 
 between Portugal and Spain — those of the Douro, the 
 Tagus, and the Guadiana. The central one was ill suited 
 for the movement of a large army, being narrow and 
 barren. On each of the others a pair of fortresses guarded 
 the frontier. Unless at least one were in the hands of the 
 enemy, invasion of Portugal by that line was scarcely 
 feasible ; and in the Douro region they were so situated 
 that it was practically necessary for the invader to hold 
 both. 
 
 Wellington's attitude being essentially defensive, his first 
 business was to prepare all available means for holding 
 out in Portugal. He knew that overwhelming numbers 
 could theoretically be brought against him ; but he knew 
 also that large armies could not possibly be held together 
 long, and that, consequently, delaying their advance would 
 be almost equivalent to defeating them. He could see, 
 also, that an army invading Portugal must enter by way of 
 the Douro. Supplied, and in some sense directed, from 
 France, it would add enormously to the length and diffi- 
 culty of its communications if it attempted any other 
 route. Even if the French had been undisputed masters 
 of the south of Spain, this objection would have held good 
 to some extent ; but, in fact, Spanish resistance in Andalusia 
 was never quelled : indeed in i8og, at the beginning of
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 177 
 
 the war, there were no French south of the Sierra Morena. 
 Any attack therefore by way of the Guadiana could only 
 be subsidiary ; but the prospect of such an attack could 
 not be ignored. The opportunity for aggressive move- 
 ments, that should shake the French hold on Spain, 
 might, or might not, offer themselves ; when they did, 
 Wellington would be in a favourable position for availing 
 himself of them. 
 
 When Wellington landed in April, 1809, Marshal Soult 
 was at Oporto with an army, occupying the north of 
 Portugal, and theatening to advance southwards. It was 
 important for many reasons to clear the country as far as 
 possible of the enemy. He therefore immediately marched 
 on Oporto, audaciously forced the passage of the Douro in 
 face of Soult's army, and compelled him to retreat hastily 
 over the mountains northwards. He could now organize 
 the Portuguese soldiery, who only needed training and good 
 leaders to become valuable troops, and could prepare the 
 fortifications destined to protect Lisbon. For this purpose 
 he selected the heights of Torres Vedras, which run across 
 from the Tagus to the sea some twenty-five miles from 
 Lisbon. These at once furnished a suitable position for 
 defensive works, and enclosed ample space for Wellington's 
 army in case of need. A similar line was prepared some 
 miles further to the south, but was never in fact needed. 
 
 Unaware as yet of the untrustworthiness of the Spanish 
 junta and generals, he attempted an invasion of Spain by 
 way of the Tagus valley in co-operation with the Spanish 
 armies. The move was premature, the co-operation illu- 
 sory, and he was compelled to return into Portugal by 
 French forces threatening to cut off his retreat. His 
 victory of Talavera, the greatest yet won over a French 
 army since Napoleon had become master of France, had 
 immense effect in encouraging the British government and 
 nation : otherwise all that he gained was experience, which 
 
 GEORGE N
 
 178 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 
 
 told him never again to co-operate with independent Spanish 
 armies, and not to select the Tagus basin for a future 
 advance into Spain. 
 
 What Wellington anticipated came to pass in 18 10. 
 Napoleon placed Massena at the head of an army far 
 superior to Wellington's, and ordered him to drive the 
 English into the sea. Wellington awaited him in the 
 Douro region, and looked on while Massena besieged first 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, which was still in Spanish hands, and 
 then Almeida. Meanwhile he took measures, by breaking 
 up roads and bridges, to render it very difficult for Massena 
 to cross the mountains into the Tagus valley. He thus 
 practically secured that the French advance would be 
 by the line of the Mondego, and was able to call in the 
 detachment which he had left to guard the Tagus approach 
 to Lisbon, in time for the battle of Busaco. This action, 
 fought in order to check the demoralizing effect of continued 
 retreat on the Portuguese troops, and not on them only, 
 affords an admirable illustration of the difference which 
 good topographical knowledge makes in w^ar. Wellington 
 held a very strong position, which seemingly closed the 
 way against Massena, and being attacked in it inflicted 
 on the enemy a murderous repulse, with comparatively 
 little loss to himself. All the while Massena, if he had 
 known it in time, could have turned the position, though 
 not so as to endanger Wellington's further retreat. By the 
 time that the English army had been pushed back to 
 Torres Vedras, it was nearly winter, and Massena, who saw 
 that it was hopeless to assault the lines, was helpless to do 
 anything. When spring returned he had no alternative, in 
 default of very great reinforcements which did not appear, 
 but to retreat by the way he had come. Wellington fol- 
 lowed him, and it being important to his security to regain 
 one of the protecting fortresses, fought the battle of Fuentes 
 d'Ofioro to cover the siege of Almeida. The battle was
 
 THE SPANISH PENINSULA 179 
 
 drawn, but for Wellington not to have been beaten was to 
 gain his end. Meanwhile a subsidiary attack from the side 
 of Andalusia had resulted in Badajos falling into the hands 
 of the French, and remaining so, though they achieved no 
 more, thanks to their defeat at Albuera. 
 
 With the year 18 12, the tide turned in Wellington's 
 favour, in consequence of Napoleon's Russian expedition. 
 The geographical conditions now required Wellington, if he 
 wished to assume the offensive, to capture the border 
 fortresses. Almeida and Elvas were already in his hands ; 
 he besieged and stormed first Ciudad Rodrigo, and then 
 Badajos, calculating with accuracy how much the flooded 
 rivers would interfere with the march of the French 
 armies that might try to raise the siege of Badajos, or retake 
 Ciudad Rodrigo. He could not limit himself to one, 
 because that would be to inform the enemy by which 
 route he intended to enter Spain. He never however 
 seems to have doubted that the Douro basin offered the 
 greatest advantages, as leading straight on the main route 
 from France to Madrid. Invasion in that quarter resulted 
 in the victory of" Salamanca, which opened the way to 
 Madrid, and caused the French to evacuate the whole 
 of the south. They were still numerous enough to compel 
 him once more to retreat into Portugal ; but the next 
 spring, issuing once more by the Douro, he drove them 
 out of the Peninsula. 
 
 N 2
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ITALY 
 
 Italy is perhaps the country which best of all illustrates 
 the worthlessness of historical inferences drawn from geo- 
 graphical facts hastily and without qualification. At the 
 same time its history, properly understood, displays very 
 aptly both the effects of geography, and also the modes in 
 which other influences overrule geographical ones. 
 
 From the first glance at the map it would seem as if Italy 
 were specially and pre-eminently destined to be the seat of 
 empire. Holding the central position in the Mediterranean, 
 and possessing a great length of coast, with an adequate 
 supply of harbours, she has the geographical requisites for 
 a great naval power. Ringed round on the land side by the 
 Alps, she would seem to be effectually protected against 
 attack, provided that her own military resources are not 
 utterly contemptible. Though the Appennines occupy no 
 small portion of the land, the soil of other portions is 
 exceptionally fertile : and the climate allows of a great 
 variety of productions. Thus Italy is naturally capable of 
 sustaining a fairly large population, though not a dense one: 
 under the Roman empire the vast population of the capital, 
 who were mostly non-producers, was fed with foreign corn. 
 Mineral wealth she does not possess in any abundance, and 
 therefore cannot advantageously maintain great manufactures; 
 but this does not appear on the face of the map. 
 
 A little more careful study shows however that the chain
 
 ITALY i8i 
 
 of the Alps is by no means so valuable a defence as (say) 
 the Pyrenees to Spain. Moreover, though the maritime 
 frontier of Italy is unmistakable, the geographical structure 
 of the peninsula involves some drawbacks to national 
 strength and unity, which are amply exemplified in the 
 course of history. 
 
 Italy, it may be objected, was in fact the seat of empire 
 for centuries, of the only empire which has ever included 
 the whole civilized world of its epoch : if what has been 
 can hardly recur, nevertheless Italy must be well suited by 
 nature for political greatness, else the Roman empire could 
 not have grown up there. Very little reading of history 
 will however suffice to show that it was Rome which made 
 Italy the seat of empire, not Italian geographical advantages. 
 The genius of the Romans for war and government was 
 doubtless aided to some slight extent by the central position 
 of Italy ; and the Latins, Samnites, and other peoples which 
 Rome absorbed into her system, were more or less of kindred 
 race, and imbibed the Roman spirit. Nevertheless it was 
 the city, not the sea-and-mountain-girdled peninsula, that 
 made herself mistress of the Mediterranean basin, and of 
 much beyond it. Rome indeed succeeded too rapidly for 
 Italy to have a chance of such consolidation as might have 
 associated all Italy with the nascent empire. Rome was 
 already mistress of nearly every country bordering on the 
 Mediterranean, before the people of central Italy were 
 admitted to Roman citizenship. Her dominion had extended 
 much further before the franchise, now of little worth, was 
 extended to all Italians. Valuable as were the legacies of 
 Rome to her subjects, in systematic law and municipal 
 institutions, she did nothing, and could be expected to do 
 nothing, towards the moulding of nations. When the 
 Roman empire at length broke to pieces, and not till then, 
 the way was opened for the gradual evolution, out of the 
 fragments, of nations in the modern sense ; and Italy
 
 i82 ITALY 
 
 was the country in which the process took longest to 
 complete. 
 
 Indeed it is no paradox to say that the memory of the 
 empire, whose centre was situated in Italy, militated greatly 
 against Italy becoming a nation. The bishops of Rome 
 owed their primacy in western Christendom to having their 
 seat in the imperial city, from which the Caesars had 
 migrated to Constantinople. In the dark ages of confu- 
 sion, while the Byzantine emperors still retained nominal 
 dominion, but little practical authority, over Italy, as over 
 other remnants of the former universal empire, the Popes 
 easily acquired their first territories. Thenceforth it was 
 their settled policy to extend those territories, and render 
 them virtually, and at last technically, independent of any 
 emperor, eastern or western. Hence they were the active 
 enemies of every power that seemed likely to dominate or 
 to unite Italy. They called in the Franks against the 
 Lombards : they leaned on the Normans of Sicily for 
 support against the Germans who threatened to make the 
 Western empire a reality: they called in the French against 
 the latest Hohenstaufen, who had a chance of becoming 
 sovereigns of the whole peninsula. Since Italian unity 
 began to be more than an aspiration, they have been its 
 irreconcilable enemies. The steady policy of the Popes has 
 done much during many centuries to keep Italy fragmentary; 
 but in so doing they have been greatly aided by geography. 
 
 Moreover the political traditions which survived the 
 undisguised despotism of the later empire were largely of 
 municipal self-government. The Italians, like their kindred 
 the Greeks, developed as their political unit the single city 
 with its adjacent territory. They might be ruled by kings 
 or under some republican forms : they might form federa- 
 tions : one city might become strong enough to subdue 
 some of its neighbours. In all cases, however, their ideal 
 of a civilized political community was one independent city.
 
 ITALY 183 
 
 The geographical formation of Greece greatly fovoured the 
 growth of such a system of small separate states, that of 
 Italy in a less degree, but still to some extent. Anyhow the 
 ideas and institutions belonging to them lived through the 
 empire, and were practically the only ones surviving among 
 the Italians after its fall. Through them became possible 
 the greatness of Florence, and of the other city republics 
 whose palmy days ended with the close of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 ' Italy,' said the Austrian Metternich contemptuously, 
 while the map of Europe was being rearranged after the fall 
 of I^apoleon, ' Italy is a geographical expression.' In his 
 day it had never been anything more : indeed it had for 
 centuries been much less, being merely a name given to 
 a portion of the peninsula, divided by no marked geo- 
 graphical boundary from the rest. It was not until thirty 
 years ago that Italy became a real political unit, with 
 frontiers corresponding in some sense, though by no means 
 exactly, to those which physical geography would prescribe. 
 Those frontiers are obviously the sea, and the chain of the 
 Alps, which separates the peninsula from the rest of Europe. 
 About the sea nothing need be said : the mountains how- 
 ever are much less simple. 
 
 The chain of the Alps does not start from the sea-coast 
 on one side, returning to it again on the other, like the 
 Pyrenees dividing France and Spain. Nor is it, like the 
 Pyrenees, practically impassable, alike for commercial 
 intercourse and for military aggression, except at the 
 extremities. The Alps at their western end are continuous 
 with the mountain chain which runs the whole length of the 
 peninsula : thus there is an entrance into Italy, though 
 a narrow one, without crossing the mountains at all. On 
 the eastern side the opposite is the case: the mountains are 
 continued down the eastern coast of the Adriatic. They 
 are however in this part much lower, so that passage across
 
 1 84 ITALY 
 
 them has always been easy. Thus at neither end of the 
 mountain frontier is there anything so definite as the two 
 gates into Spain at the ends of the Pyrenees. Moreover in 
 the main chain of the Alps there are a certain number of 
 comparatively low passes. These are numerous enough to 
 make Italy fairly accessible from the north and north-west, 
 and yet few enough to attract attention to all. The Alpine 
 passes and the history connected with them form the subject 
 of a separate chapter ; all that need be noted here is the 
 fact of their existence. 
 
 The geography of Italy is best understood by starting 
 from the southern extremity. All this part of the peninsula 
 is more or less filled with mountains, which become a con- 
 tinuous chain in about the latitude of Rome, being there 
 near the east coast. The chain follows, roughly speaking, 
 the direction of the coast, which trends north-westwards to 
 about north of Rome. Here the coast begins to run north- 
 wards, while the mountains cross the peninsula in a direction 
 a little north of west, till they reach the west coast not far 
 from Genoa. Thence they follow the coast line for many 
 miles, leaving very little space between their base and the 
 sea. Ultimately they recede gradually from the coast, and 
 turn northwards, forming a high and definite barrier between 
 the head of the Po and the lower valley of the Rhone. 
 
 The chain being continuous, the point at which it should 
 cease to bear the name of Appennines, and be called the 
 Alps, has to be determined arbitrarily, and geographers are 
 not agreed on the subject. The furthest point eastward 
 which could be selected is the Bocchetta pass (2,549 feet) 
 due north of Genoa ^. The furthest point to the west that 
 could reasonably be taken is the Col di Tenda, situated just 
 where the chain makes its great bend to the northwards. 
 The latter is on the whole the fittest, on grounds both of 
 
 ' This is the direct route, from Genoa into the basin of the Po, 
 though a contiguous pass has been used for the railway.
 
 ITALY 185 
 
 physical geography and of history. The mountains between 
 these two passes, a distance of about seventy miles, are grassy 
 rather than rocky, that is to say like in character to the 
 Appennines ; whereas from the Col di Tenda begins a series 
 of rock and snow-peaks, with a much higher average eleva- 
 tion, belonging naturally to the Alps. Moreover the strip 
 of coast between these mountains and the sea is inhabited 
 by Italians : and the present frontier between France and 
 Italy runs from the sea up to very near the Col di Tenda, 
 and thence follows approximately the watershed of the 
 Alps '. Napoleon, it is true, took as the point of division 
 between Alps and Appennines the pass behind Savona, 
 about halfway between the Bocchetta and the Col di Tenda, 
 and sundry French and Italian writers have followed him. 
 Napoleon's own practice however tells against his theory : 
 his first independent campaign in 1796 began by moving up 
 to this pass, and among the mountains to right and left of 
 it. It is obvious that military operations in this region are 
 more than likely to involve practically the whole distance 
 from Genoa to the Var, and therefore it is unnatural, 
 rather than convenient, to give separate names to two parts 
 of a chain which has to be treated as a whole for military 
 attack and defence. 
 
 From the Col di Tenda the general direction of the 
 Alpine chain is northwards as far as Mont Blanc, a distance 
 of about 135 miles. Separate sections of the chain are 
 called by separate names, the dividing points being taken 
 at well-known passes ; but this is merely for convenience 
 
 ^ An amusing illustration of the mode in which frontiers are made to 
 diverge for trifling reasons from the lines that physical geography would 
 prescribe, is furnished by the piece of frontier between France and Italy. 
 When the county of Nice was ceded to France in i860, King Victor 
 Emanuel was allowed to retain little bits of territory beyond the water- 
 shed, that were valuable for the sake of the chamois hunting which was 
 his favourite sport, while there were other, equally insignificant, French 
 encroachments on the Piedmontese side of the watershed.
 
 1 86 ITALY 
 
 of description, and involves no geographical principle. 
 Mont Blanc (15,778 feet), the highest peak in the Alps, 
 forms appropriately the corner at which the chain makes 
 its great bend. Thence its direction is substantially east- 
 wards, and again sections bear separate names. 
 
 Across the whole north of the Italian peninsula the main 
 chain of the Alps forms a well-marked frontier, though as 
 a matter of fact both Switzerland and Austria possess con- 
 siderable districts south of the watershed. Not far from 
 the longitude of Venice, the Alps separate into several 
 diverging ranges, something like an outstretched hand. 
 The southernmost of these, that which separates the valleys 
 of the Drave and Save, tributaries of the Danube, from the 
 rivers flowing into the Adriatic, must be regarded as the 
 frontier of geographical Italy. 
 
 At both ends alike, a short line drawn from the crest of 
 the mountains to the sea practically must complete the 
 political frontier, and geography in its purely physical aspect 
 cannot be invoked to determine what line is the most 
 appropriate. Considerations of race and language may be 
 adduced to support the claim of political Italy to a maximum 
 of extension at both points. The practical importance of 
 not having territories that it would be impossible to defend 
 tells the other way, at any rate on the Adriatic. On the 
 western side, the cession of the county of Nice in i860 
 transferred to France a district which was mainly Italian 
 in language, if not in race ; and it was exacted by Napo- 
 leon III under circumstances which made all but zealous 
 partisans of France regard it as injustice. On the other 
 hand the mountains approach considerably nearer to the 
 sea at the present frontier than further west, thus greatly 
 shortening the arbitrary line. So again the eastern coast of 
 the Adriatic for some distance is mainly inhabited by 
 Italians ; but such a strip of territory, if politically united 
 to Italy, would obviously not be defensible against Austria.
 
 ITALY 187 
 
 Nor could Austria be reasonably expected to endure total 
 exclusion from access to the sea. On the whole therefore 
 the present boundary lines from the Alps to the sea may be 
 considered as fairly satisfying the complicated conditions 
 which determine a political frontier. 
 
 The Appennines separate the plain of the Po from 
 peninsular Italy, as distinctly as the Alps separate it from 
 central Europe. They are no actual barrier to intercourse, 
 being nowhere impassable. Nevertheless they do form 
 a natural boundary though political divisions have by no 
 means always followed the natural line. This is indicated 
 by the established nomenclature : the name of Lombardy 
 has been used in current language for the whole Po basin, 
 or for the whole less the region of the upper Po, though it 
 has never been the recognized appellation of a political 
 division of anything like corresponding extent. The name 
 of Tuscany has always been applied to the region between 
 the Appennines and the western sea, though its southern 
 frontier is not definitely marked by nature. In the ages 
 when the Italian city republics were flourishing, we see that 
 the Lombard and the Tuscan cities tend to form as it were 
 distinct political systems : their special enmities and special 
 alliances tend to be limited to neighbours on their own side 
 of the Appennines, even while all are belonging to one or 
 other of the great factions of Guelf and Ghibelline. 
 
 The river Po flows much nearer to the Appennines than to 
 the Alps, especially in the middle part of its course. Thus it 
 is on the north bank that there is ample room for military 
 operations : it is the exception when armies move on the 
 south bank, except to carry out some subsidiary purpose. 
 Since the close of the Middle Ages the plain of the Po has 
 been a standing battle-ground between France and Austria, 
 the one entering Italy over the western Alps, the other 
 over the eastern. Consequently the line of advance has 
 been parallel with the course of the Po ; and its northern
 
 1 88 ITALY 
 
 tributaries, joining it more or less at right angles, have 
 furnished lines behind which armies stood on the defensive. 
 The more important of these, taken in order from the west, 
 are (i) the Sesia, which enters the Po some forty miles east 
 of Turin. Very near the junction is Casale, a fortress that 
 figures largely in the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. (2) The Ticino, which flows out of Lago Mag- 
 giore. On its banks, a few miles from the Po, is Pavia, 
 a town of some importance since the days of the Roman 
 republic. (3) The Adda, which drains the lake of Como. 
 (4) The Mincio, flowing out of the lake of Garda. This 
 river has the fortress of Peschiera at its exit from the lake, 
 and Mantua, the most important of all Lombard fortresses 
 in modern history, close to its junction with the Po. Two 
 other rivers, the Oglio and the Chiese, descend into the Po 
 between the Adda and the Mincio, but they have not in 
 fact proved of military importance. (5) The Adige, down 
 which is the main route out of Germany. This river does 
 not actually join the Po, but turns eastward and flows 
 parallel with it into the Adriatic ; for military operations 
 however it must be reckoned with the other rivers which 
 flow southwards out of the Alps. Just where the Adige 
 emerges from the mountains stands Verona, now the chief 
 fortress in northern Italy. The famous quadrilateral, within 
 which an army has an almost unassailable position if 
 they are duly fortified and garrisoned, consists of Verona, 
 Legnago, a small place lower down the Adige, with 
 Peschiera and Mantua on the Mincio. 
 
 The southern tributaries of the Po are of course 
 comparatively small, and offer no great obstacle to armies 
 except when in flood. The banks of one of them only, 
 the Trebbia, which joins the Po just above Piacenza, have 
 been the scene of important battles, fought under condi- 
 tions totally different from those of the normal campaigns 
 of Italian history.
 
 ITALY 189 
 
 The shape of the Italian peninsula has always been said 
 to be unfavourable to national unity. It is extremely long 
 in proportion to its width, the length being fully four times 
 the greatest distance straight across from sea to sea. And 
 this narrowness is increased by the Appennines, which run 
 down the peninsula, splitting it into two unequal strips. 
 That the separation thus created is real, at least to the 
 imagination, is whimsically evidenced by the fact that 
 the Italian railways are divided, contrary to all conveni- 
 ence, into the Adriatic system and the Tyrrhenian system. 
 A practical weakness of a very real kind results to the 
 kingdom of Italy from this conformation. The amount 
 of coast to be defended in case of war is enormous, in 
 proportion to the total surface of the country, and the 
 distances over which troops would have to be concentrated 
 to repel attack are therefore also great. Unless her fleet 
 were as strong as that of any possible enemy, Italy could 
 hardly spare a man for land warfare. 
 
 A glance at the map shows also that the peninsula trends 
 greatly to the eastwards. Rome is in the same longitude 
 as Venice, Otranto six degrees further east. The peninsular 
 portion of Italy grows as it were out of the lower half of the 
 Lombard plain. This fact is not without its historical im- 
 portance, for it acted unfavourably to the French chance 
 of dominating the peninsula. If France and Austria were 
 contending in the plain of the Po, it is obvious that Austria 
 would retain free access to central and southern Italy if she 
 could maintain an equilibrium on the Adige, and could 
 isolate any French army in the south if she were able to 
 drive her enemy back to Piedmont. France on the other 
 hand could not extend effective control over the peninsular 
 portion of Italy, unless she had complete military superiority 
 in the north. 
 
 The frontier of the former kingdom of Naples is marked 
 by no distinct natural features, yet it remained virtually
 
 I90 ITALY 
 
 unaltered from the first establishment of the kingdom until 
 its disappearance in i860. The Norman adventurers won 
 it by the sword, but were greatly helped in retaining it by 
 their agreeing to hold it as a fief from the Pope, who chose 
 to assert a claim to suzerainty which had not a shadow of 
 right in its favour, but was convenient as a stepping-stone 
 to wider territorial supremacy. Northwards the kings of 
 Naples could not advance, without encroaching on the 
 territories of the Church, and in the later Middle Ages, 
 when the Papacy was little save one of the five principal 
 states included in Italy, the Popes were on the average quite 
 as strong as Naples. The coasts of southern Italy were 
 largely colonized by Greeks, who found there a people alien 
 to the genuine Italians, who may perhaps have entered the 
 peninsula by sea. Hence in the future kingdom of Naples, 
 which included a considerable region inhabited by Oscan 
 tribes more or less akin to the Latins, there was a great 
 admixture of races from early times. Thus grew up a people 
 differing in many ways from their northern neighbours, 
 though divided from them by no barrier. Nor need it 
 be doubted that the comparative narrowness of the frontier 
 along which they were in contact assisted the other influences 
 which have prevented a fusion. 
 
 Geography has obviously had great influence on Italian 
 history. The number and position of the Alpine passes, 
 the separateness of the Po basin, the long narrow form of 
 the peninsula with its backbone of Appennines —all these 
 things have been at work throughout. So also however the 
 political influences already referred to, the early ideal of 
 separate city republics and the anti-national policy of the 
 Papacy, have operated during many centuries. All that we 
 can say is that the history exhibits phenomena which accord 
 perfectly with the geographical facts. The country con- 
 tinued all through the Middle Ages to be occupied by 
 a number of small separate states, all the more jealously
 
 ITALY 191 
 
 hostile to each other because of their close proximity, and 
 with a further disease of deadly feud arising out of the 
 rival claims of Pope and Emperor, for which Italy served 
 as a battle-ground. The country was rich in natural 
 advantages of many kinds, and in the accumulation of 
 wealth implied in its having been in the van of European 
 civilization for nearly 2,000 years. It was also, as the seat 
 of the Papacy, better known to foreigners than probably 
 any other land. The people were too highly civilized to be 
 warlike, too keen in their rivalries to coalesce against foreign 
 intrusion. Warfare became the business chiefly of hired 
 condottieri, and largely for this very reason nearly all the 
 city republics came into the power of tyrants^ whose selfish 
 ambition perpetuated strife. Pan-Italian patriotism, if one 
 may coin such a phrase, doubtless existed here and there : 
 it may be traced in the policy of Pope Julius II, possibly 
 in Caesar Borgia, and it was definitely taught by Machiavelli. 
 Yet the unscrupulous ambition of the soldier-statesmen was 
 far too conspicuous to allow any such dreams to attract 
 others : it would be no great consolation to those whom 
 they robbed or oppressed to be told that it w^as done for 
 the furtherance of Italian unity. And Machiavelli's shame- 
 less advocacy of any means, however atrocious, for attaining 
 political ends_, was sufficient to obscure, at least, the fact 
 that his aims were patriotic. Thus when foreign princes 
 inherited claims on portions of Italy, there w^as no force 
 in Italy itself capable of repelling them. Rather did the 
 nearest enemies of the states immediately threatened 
 welcome foreign assistance against them. The Alpine 
 passes lay open to French and Germans, and the sea 
 was open to the Spaniards when once they had established 
 a fooling. Domination in Italy became the prize for which 
 foreigners contended on Italian soil. And so it continued 
 
 ^ In the Greek, not in the modern sense of the word ; many of them 
 were enlightened ruleis as times went.
 
 192 ITALY 
 
 to be until our own day. The very title of kingdom of 
 Italy ^ is barely forty years old, and the consolidation which 
 made the name a reality is more recent still. 
 
 The conformation of the Po valley, with its tributaries, is 
 the geographical fact which has most frequently influenced 
 military events in Italy, at least in modern history. It was, 
 as has been pointed out, an inevitable battle-ground between 
 France and Austria, under the political conditions prevailing 
 from the close of the Middle Ages till recently. A couple 
 of instances will suffice to show how inevitably the tide of 
 war ebbs and flows from one to another of the northern 
 affluents of the Po. In 1796, when Napoleon forced himself 
 between the Sardinians and Austrians on the Appennines, 
 the latter naturally retreated eastwards. After reducing Sar- 
 dinia to submission. Napoleon turned against the Austrians, 
 who had complied with routine and taken up a position 
 behind the Ticino. He however departed from routine, 
 descended the right bank of the Po and seized a passage 
 at Piacenza, thus turning the line of the Ticino. The 
 Austrians had to retire behind the Adda, and on the 
 French forcing a passage of that river at Lodi, made no 
 attempt to stand anywhere east of the Mincio. Venice at 
 that time possessed Lombardy as far westwards as the 
 Adda, save the territory of Mantua, which was Austrian ; 
 and the Austrians had by treaty right of access to Mantua. 
 The republic, fallen very low in energy and military strength, 
 asked for nothing better than neutrality : Napoleon however 
 contemptuously violated her neutrality, and the Austrians 
 had to follow his example. The advantage in strength, as 
 well as in skill, was now with Napoleon, and without serious 
 fighting he succeeded in driving the enemy up into Tyrol, 
 and seized Verona in defiance of Venetian protest. The 
 
 ^ Napoleon no doubt called himself king of Italy, but it was a mere 
 name ; more than half of geographical Italy was annexed to France, or 
 partitioned out among Napoleon's kin.
 
 ITALY 193 
 
 Austrians had left a garrison in Mantua, which from its 
 position environed by marshes was scarcely assailable, though 
 like every fortress it was reducible by famine. 
 
 Thenceforward the campaign took a different character. 
 The two armies are no longer facing east and west, divided 
 by a tributary of the Po. Napoleon is in possession of the 
 plain : the enemy must attack him by descending out of 
 the Adige valley, and they can use any or all of several 
 routes \ The primary object of the Austrians is to relieve 
 Mantua : the French cannot feel themselves masters of 
 Lombardy till they have taken it. The Austrian strategy 
 is generally blamed as unskilful, because they divided up 
 their forces so greatly that they were nowhere strong enough 
 to achieve much. At any rate their operations illustrate 
 the advantages of having several routes by which to advance, 
 when the enemy cannot tell by which to expect attack. The 
 first attempt was made by Marshal Wurmser, whose army 
 descended to the plain in three divisions, west of the lake 
 of Garda, immediately east of it, and by the Adige valley. 
 Napoleon could only concentrate, raising the siege of 
 Mantua. By so doing he was able to beat the three 
 sections of the Austrian army in succession, but mean- 
 while Mantua had been re-supplied. A month later 
 Napoleon thought fit to assume the offensive, and fought 
 his way to Trent. Wurmser, taking advantage of the 
 French being engaged in the Adige valley, crossed the pass 
 eastwards from Trent to the head of the Brenta, and so had 
 the way open to Mantua. Napoleon retrieved his mistake 
 by following Wurmser, who turned to fight near Bassano, 
 and being beaten had no choice but to force his way into 
 Mantua. The second attempt therefore, like the first, ended 
 in disaster to the Austrians, qualified by the garrison of 
 Mantua being heavily reinforced. 
 
 Later in October, General Alvinzi tried again : this time 
 ^ These routes are given in the next chapter ; see pp. 207-8. 
 
 GEORGE O
 
 194 ITALY 
 
 the bulk of the army descended on Bassano, while a minor 
 force pushed the French down the Adige. Napoleon 
 encountered Alvinzi at Bassano, and had the best of a 
 rather undecided battle there, but thought it necessary to 
 retreat on hearing of the defeat of his lieutenant in the 
 Adige valley. Alvinzi advanced westwards to near Verona, 
 but was not able to seize that city and join hands with the 
 Austrians coming down the direct road. He defeated 
 Napoleon's first attack on his position at Caldiero, and 
 though in the desperate fighting known as the battle of 
 Areola, in which Napoleon aimed at turning his left, the 
 French were on the whole victorious, Alvinzi might have 
 held his ground but for the hesitation of his government. 
 Alvinzi's second attempt, in January 1797, was geographi- 
 cally the converse of the first. His main army came down 
 between the lake of Garda and the Adige, while a detach- 
 ment moved via Bassano. The former was decisively 
 defeated at Rivoli, after a battle which at one time looked 
 like an Austrian victory, and Napoleon was just in time 
 to prevent the other force from reaching Mantua, which 
 soon afterwards capitulated. It required all Napoleon's 
 skill, aided by sundry strokes of good luck, to foil all these 
 successive attacks, facilitated and yet limited as they were 
 by the various routes out of the mountains. 
 
 In 1799 the state of things was reversed : the French and 
 Austrians at the beginning of the campaign faced each other 
 on the Adige. Kray won a considerable battle at Magnano, 
 and drove the French back to the Adda. There Suvorov, 
 who had come into Italy just afterwards, defeated them 
 again at Cassano, and ultimately drove them completely 
 out of the basin of the Po ; Moreau, who had succeeded 
 to the command of the French, taking post along the 
 Appennines as the Austrians had done at the beginning of 
 1796. Meanwhile Macdonald, who commanded the French 
 army that was upholding an ephemeral republic in Naples,
 
 ITALY 195 
 
 had begun to retreat northwards on hearing the news of 
 Magnano. It is obvious from the map that his communica- 
 tion with France, imperilled by the first defeat in Lombardy, 
 hung on a thread when Moreau had fallen back to the 
 Appennines. The most prudent course would have been 
 for Moreau and Macdonald to unite south of the Appennines, 
 and together attack the enemy in Piedmont or Lombardy. 
 That which promised best if successful, but might entail 
 great disaster, was for Macdonald to cross the mountains 
 to the lower Po and attack Suvorov's rear, while Moreau 
 faced him in front. The latter course was adopted ; 
 Macdonald, crossing to Bologna, moved westwards up the 
 right bank of the Po. Suvorov met the danger promptly 
 by concentrating his army and meeting Macdonald on the 
 Trebbia. Here as the result of three days' hard fighting 
 Macdonald was defeated, but escaped back across the 
 Appennines, and the Austrians as the final result of the 
 campaign remained in possession of the whole plain of 
 the Po. 
 
 On the banks of the Trebbia occurred also Hannibal's 
 first victory over a Roman army. The circumstances were 
 of course entirely different. The great Carthaginian had 
 just crossed the Alps, and after a slight encounter, in which 
 one of the Roman consuls was wounded, found himself 
 face to face with the other at the head of a considerable 
 army. The Roman's business was to defeat Hannibal if 
 possible, in which case his position would be desperate — at 
 any rate, to prevent his further advance. The position on 
 the Trebbia ^ enabled Sempronius to cover his lines of com- 
 munication over the Appennines on Rome, and might have 
 
 ^ Livy, who is the only authority giving any details, places Sempro- 
 nius on the left bank of the Trebbia, and Hannibal on the other, cutting 
 him off from Rome ; but this is inconsistent with what Livy himself 
 records as happening after the battle, and may therefore be set down as 
 one of the mistakes of that picturesque but ungeographical writer. 
 
 O 2
 
 196 ITALY 
 
 served to hold the enemy altogether in check. He was 
 however enticed by Hannibal into an attack under very 
 unfavourable conditions, and suffered a severe defeat. The 
 interest of Hannibal's other great victories is topographical 
 rather than geographical : indeed the topography of Cannae 
 presents an interesting problem, of which the solution is 
 hardly certain. 
 
 The majority of the chief towns of Italy owe their impor- 
 tance very largely to their geographical position, while one 
 or two are conspicuous exceptions to the general rule that 
 geographical considerations mainly determine which seats of 
 human habitation shall grow to importance. It was inevit- 
 able that a large maritime town should grow up somewhere 
 on the strip of coast between the Appennines and the 
 western sea, which alone gives access to Italy without the 
 necessity of crossing a mountain chain. That Genoa should 
 be the place was decided by the two facts that it possesses 
 a pretty good harbour, and that the easiest route across the 
 Appennines into the basin of the Po starts from thence. 
 Similarly Turin is on the upper Po, and is where nearly all 
 the routes across the western Alps converge. As such it be- 
 came a considerable town under the Roman empire, and in 
 modern times it was the natural capital of Piedmont. For 
 a united Italy separated from France by the frontier of the 
 western Alps, one might reasonably expect that Turin would 
 be the centre of military defence. It was a military post of 
 great importance in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, when the princes of Piedmont, being also dukes of 
 Savoy, held both sides of the Alps for some distance, and 
 sided alternately with France and with Austria. It is 
 a marked illustration of the difificulty of defending a moun- 
 tain frontier which, like the western Alps, has several 
 reasonably easy routes across it, that the Italian government 
 do not make Turin a great fortress. Presumably it is too 
 near to the frontier, in view of these geographical conditions
 
 ITALY 197 
 
 and of the permanent military superiority of France. In 
 case of a French invasion, which must be successful at some 
 point or other, Turin might without much difficulty be 
 taken in rear by the invaders, and in that case the resources 
 accumulated there would be lost for active warfare. Ales- 
 san'dria, situated where the Bocchetta route from Genoa 
 and the sea descends into the basin of the Po, was founded 
 as a Guelf stronghold in a region then largely Ghibelline \ 
 It stands on the Tanaro, one of the streams which may be 
 said rather to form the Po by their union than to be tribu- 
 tary to it, and is near enough to the main course of the river 
 to command it. Assuming that Piedmont is to be defended 
 against France under modern conditions of warfare, it is the 
 best available position for a great fortress and military 
 centre. It was almost under the walls of Alessandria that 
 the battle of Marengo was fought. A French garrison 
 had been holding out desperately in Genoa, and Napo- 
 leon, having brought an army into Italy over the Great 
 St. Bernard, and having entered Milan, moved westwards. 
 Alessandria was the natural position for an Austrian army 
 to take up, which held Piedmont, and wished to prevent the 
 siege of Genoa being raised. 
 
 Pavia, near the junction of the Po and Ticino, was a 
 place of great importance while Italy was cut up into city 
 republics and other small states, but it has been of compara- 
 tively little account since the process of consolidation in 
 Italy began. With the change in the political conditions 
 its geographical position ceased to signify, and the place 
 never had any other special advantages. Milan, on the 
 contrary, has rather grown relatively to the neighbouring 
 Lombard cities, and it is not easy to assign any other cause 
 for this than what may be called the strictly conservative 
 one. When a thing has once been solidly established, it 
 
 ' It is called .after Pope Alexander III, the implacable enemy of the 
 emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
 
 198 ITALY 
 
 tends to continue by mere vis i?iertiae. When roads have 
 been made to a town, and it has become a recognized 
 centre of trade and other communication, it has good 
 opportunities for strengthening its influence. And this 
 especially holds good when a town has become, as Milan 
 became, a capital even on a small scale. Otherwise Milan 
 is very far from having any geographical advantages ; it is 
 indeed the most marked of all exceptions to the general rule 
 that cities seldom rise to importance unless situated near 
 the sea or on a fairly large river. Standing as it does in the 
 midst of an open plain, it had obviously no means of 
 defence save artificial ones, and in fact the walls of Milan 
 were a very important factor in the wars that arose out of 
 the question whether the mediaeval Emperors should be 
 effective masters, or only nominal suzerains, over the 
 Lombard cities. Of Mantua and Verona, which derived 
 their importance largely from their position on the Mincio 
 and Adige respectively, enough has been said already. 
 
 No very obvious reason can be assigned why Aquileia, 
 situated some twenty miles inland from the head of the 
 Adriatic, should have become the chief town of that region 
 under the Roman empire. Venice, on the contrary, which 
 practically succeeded to the place of Aquileia when destroyed 
 by Attila, owed everything at the beginning to its being 
 a safe refuge among the lagoons. Goths and Huns could 
 not easily reach it, and in its humble condition did not 
 probably care to try. As it grew in wealth it gradually 
 extended its trade, and with trade its maritime power. The 
 government of Venice was habitually prudent and sagacious, 
 making the best of its opportunities, but it was geography 
 which made Venice great. Situated at the head of the 
 Adriatic, with reasonably easy land-routes away from it to 
 east and north and north-west, it was the natural emporium 
 for commerce between the east and Europe, if that com- 
 merce was sea-borne. And the lagoons protected Venice
 
 ITALY 199 
 
 in her golden days, as in her humble beginnings, from 
 hostile neighbours on the land side, until the fatal ambition 
 seized on the republic of herself owning territories on the 
 mainland. Thenceforth Venice was vulnerable, and owed 
 her continuance of power rather to skilful policy, and to 
 her potential enemies having other objects in view, than to 
 her geographical position. One way or another, she con- 
 tinued to exist as an independent city republic, but to sink 
 lower and lower in corruption, until she perished ignomi- 
 niously, not daring to strike a blow in her own defence. 
 
 Of Bologna nothing need be said save that it stands on 
 the northern side of a frequented pass across the Appen- 
 nines. Florence is an instance of other factors outweighing 
 geography. Pisa, situated on the same river, but much 
 nearer the sea, ought geographically to have surpassed 
 Florence, which has no advantages of position over scores 
 of other Italian cities, not even defensibility. It was the 
 energy of the Florentine people which raised their city to 
 the front rank, foremost among Italian republics in political 
 eminence as well as in arts and letters. 
 
 More than one of the famous seven hills of Rome were 
 doubtless originally the sites of hill forts, the commonest 
 of all origins for primitive towns, and these separate settle- 
 ments coalesced into one, as is indicated in the early Roman 
 legends. When this had once taken place, the situation 
 was eminently favourable for the growth of Rome to impor- 
 tance among the small town communities of that age. 
 Rome stood near the meeting-point of several races, and 
 thus was a convenient centre of trade. Moreover it was 
 obviously possible for Rome to play off one against the 
 other, and so steadily increase in strength ; and it requires 
 no forced interpretation of the early and admittedly more or 
 less fabulous history to discern that this in fact took place. 
 Nor can it be doubted that the central position of Rome in 
 Italy and in the Mediterranean assisted her rise to universal
 
 200 ITALY 
 
 empire, even though that rise was mainly due to other 
 causes. From the modern point of view however, in a 
 kingdom of Italy extending approximately to its natural 
 limits but possessing no external dominion, Rome has 
 hardly any geographical advantages. It is because of the 
 traditions of empire, not from natural selection, that Rome 
 is the capital of a kingdom in which she is not the greatest 
 town, apart from sentiment. 
 
 The Greek cities round the coast of south Italy, founded 
 at an early date before the Italian towns properly so called 
 had begun to rise, developed a mushroom growth of 
 material prosperity, and perished, partly at least through the 
 luxury and corruption engendered of their wealth. One 
 alone of the Greek cities remains a large place, there being 
 no apparent reason why it should have done so. Geography 
 at least fails to explain why Naples survived the rest, or 
 why it should have been more than twice as populous as 
 any other Italian city, until very recent times. The estab- 
 lishment of Rome as the capital of united Italy has naturally 
 led to the concentration of much national business there, 
 and therefore to a great increase of its population. Yet in 
 spite of this Rome still is considerably behind Naples in the 
 number of its inhabitants.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE ALPINE PASSES AND THEIR HISTORY 
 
 The chief reason why the history of Italy has diverged so 
 widely from what its geography at first sight would suggest 
 as probable, is the existence of the Alpine passes. There 
 are of course many hundreds of what a mountaineer calls 
 passes, depressions over which a properly equipped party 
 can make their way. The vast majority of these are 
 naturally of no practical importance. Armies cannot use 
 them : traffic over them is impossible. At the utmost some 
 of them may serve, as in the Pyrenees, for a smuggling 
 trade, but even this disappears when the profits of 
 smuggling cease to be great. There are however an 
 appreciable number of gaps in the chain, by which there 
 was never any real difficulty for travellers on foot or with 
 laden animals, over which in modern times good carriage 
 roads have been made. These gaps occur at fairly long 
 intervals, and in all parts of the Alps : a brief mention of the 
 more important among them is necessary if we would see 
 how they have affected history. 
 
 The Alps begin and the Appennines end, as has been 
 said in the last chapter, at the Col di Tenda (6,158 feet\ 
 which is nearly in a straight line between Nice and Turin. 
 This pass is easier than some of the more frequented passes 
 to the north of it ; but it is obviously valuable only for local 
 traffic. The commerce of Marseilles with Italy would 
 naturally be carried on by sea ; and for inland trade
 
 202 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 between France and Italy the Col di Tenda would be 
 absurdly circuitous. Nor is its position more suitable for 
 military purposes, unless under exceptional conditions such 
 as prevailed in 1796 and 1800, when any of the routes 
 from the coast into the basin of the Po might have come 
 into the operations. A French invasion of Italy could not 
 select a more inconvenient route : an Italian invasion of 
 France by the Col di Tenda would lead only into an 
 isolated corner. Hence it is no wonder that it has in fact 
 very little historical importance. 
 
 The maritime Alps are considered to extend from the 
 Col di Tenda to the Col de I'Argentiere (6,545 feet). This 
 is partly open to the same objections as the last named 
 pass, since it leads into the valley of the Durance, which 
 joins the Rhone very low down ; but it is exceptionally easy 
 in its slopes, an advantage which may have led to its being 
 adopted by armies that otherwise might have been directed 
 by other routes. The most notable historical use of the 
 Col de I'Argentiere was when Francis I invaded Italy in 
 15 15, passes to the north being held by the enemy. 
 
 In the midst of the Cottian Alps, the next section of the 
 chain, is the pass of Mont Gen^vre (6,083 feet). This leads 
 to the head of the Durance valley, and therefore, like the 
 Argentiere, is circuitous as a route into France generally. 
 It was the first pass over which a Roman road was made, 
 as was not unnatural, seeing that the Roman power in Gaul 
 began with the occupation of the coast district, which still 
 recalls in its name of Provence the memory of the Roman 
 conquest. The Mont Genevre was superseded in the 
 Middle Ages by the next pass to the north, the Mont Cenis, 
 but has at times been used for armies, and is now fortified 
 on both sides more elaborately than its importance and 
 military convenience would seem to require. 
 
 The pass of Mont Cenis (6,893 feet), which is regarded as 
 the limit between the Cottian and Graian Alps, follows for
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 203 
 
 some fifty miles from Turin the same course as the Mont 
 Gen^vre. Thence the route crosses the mountains more 
 to the north, and leads into the valley of the Arc, a tributary 
 of the Isere. It is obvious that this is a much more direct 
 line of communication towards the heart of France than 
 any of the passes to the south. The Romans apparently 
 knew of the Mont Cenis, or some other passage close at 
 hand, but made no use of it. Indeed they cannot be 
 supposed to have known more than its bare existence, for 
 they made a road over the much longer and rather loftier 
 pass of the Little St. Bernard in order to reach the Isere. 
 When and why the Mont Cenis came to be more appre- 
 ciated does not fully appear, but from an early date in the 
 Middle Ages it became the principal route for traffic of all 
 kinds across the western Alps. The tunnel which now 
 pierces them does not go under the Mont Cenis, a slightly 
 different line making the actual tunnel much shorter ; but 
 it is generally known by its name, and with good reason, 
 since the line of the new railway is, except for a few miles, 
 the same as that of the old road. The most striking 
 historical use of the pass was by the emperor Henry IV, 
 who was obliged, all the direct routes from Germany into 
 Italy being barred by his enemies, to make the long circuit 
 by Mont Cenis in order to go to his humiliation at Canossa. 
 
 The Romans, as has been mentioned above, used the 
 pass of the Little St. Bernard (7,179 feet), which is con- 
 sidered to divide the Graian from the Pennine Alps. This 
 pass leads directly to the head of the Isere, but instead of 
 starting from Turin, like all other passes of the western 
 Alps, it follows the Val d'Aosta, which opens on the Italian 
 plain some distance east of Turin. Like the Mont Genevre, 
 it lost its practical importance after the Mont Cenis came 
 into general use, and it has scarcely ever been employed for 
 military purposes. 
 
 From Mont Blanc, the Pennine Alps run eastwards for
 
 204 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 some seventy miles to the Simplon pass (6,628 feet), which is 
 the main route from Italy into the upper valley of the Rhone, 
 and is being pierced for a railway tunnel. Parts of the 
 route are too difficult for it to have been of much practical 
 use until the carriage road was made by order of Napoleon, 
 whose motive is shown in the inquiry he more than once 
 uttered — le cano?i quand passera-t-il le Simplon ? Napoleon 
 was doubtless led to construct this road by his experience 
 in 1800 of the loftier though naturally easier pass of the 
 Great St. Bernard (8,111 feet). This was a main route in 
 the Middle Ages for pilgrims and other travellers bound for 
 Rome from north-western Europe, for whom it was plainly 
 more direct than the Mont Cenis. Being so high, it is more 
 dangerous in winter than the other frequented passes, and 
 consequently was the first on which a monastic hospice was 
 established for the succour of travellers. On the Italian 
 side it leads into the Val d'Aosta, like its namesake, while 
 the Simplon leads down upon Lago Maggiore, and so 
 almost directly to Milan. It is obvious that one or other 
 of these passes must needs be employed if an army is to 
 move between Italy and the western regions of Switzerland. 
 The only military use of the St. Bernard, however, which is 
 of historical importance was for Napoleon's passage in 1800 : 
 and the military history of both that and the Simplon was 
 happily closed on Napoleon's fall, by the permanent neutral- 
 ization of Switzerland. 
 
 All the passes, of which mention has been made so far, 
 lead from Italy into the Rhone-land — either to the portion 
 of the river above the lake of Geneva, where its course is 
 westerly, or to tributaries which join the Rhone in its 
 southerly course below Lyons. All too except the Simplon 
 diverge nearly from a common centre at Turin, and furnish 
 complete reason for the permanent importance of that city 
 in the military history of north Italy. The remainder of 
 the Alpine passes lead to the Rhine or to the Danube, and
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 205 
 
 their history is naturally concerned chiefly with the relations 
 of Germany to Italy. 
 
 Most important of all conmiercially is the St. Gotthard 
 (6,936 feet), now penetrated by a railway. From this pass 
 the direct descent on the Italian side is by the valley of the 
 Ticino to the head of Lago Maggiore. It thus served the 
 Swiss of canton Uri, immediately north of the mountains, 
 as a way of access to the Italian territories conquered by 
 them in the fifteenth century, which now form part of the 
 Swiss confederation 'as canton Ticino. Northwards from 
 the St. Gotthard the Reuss flows through the heart of 
 Switzerland into the Rhine above Basle, thus forming the 
 natural route between Italy and the Rhine-land. The 
 most noted military use of this pass was when Suvorov in 
 1799 forced his way across it, only to find that he could not 
 advance beyond the head of the lake of Lucerne \ 
 
 Like the Rhone, the chief stream of the Rhine rises near 
 the St. Gotthard, flows parallel to the main chain for some 
 distance, and then turning away from the mountains, forms 
 a great lake before flowing seaward. There are three 
 passes from Italy into this trough of the upper Rhine, the 
 Lukmanier (6,289 feet), only recently provided with a road 
 and of no historical account, the Bernardino (6,769 feet) 
 from the Ticino valley, and the Spliigen (6,945 feet) from the 
 head of the lake of Como. The two latter routes unite on 
 the northern side, and descend upon Chur by the extra- 
 ordinary defile of the Via Mala. This alone is sufficient to 
 account for these passes not figuring conspicuously in 
 history. 
 
 The Spliigen is not the only pass across the Alps from 
 the head of the lake of Como. At Chiavenna, whence the 
 valley leading to the Spliigen runs northwards, the Val 
 Bregaglia runs to the north-east, and from near the head of 
 it the Septimer pass (7,582 feet) crosses to another branch 
 ^ A fuller account of Suvorov's remarkable march is given in chap. xv.
 
 2o6 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 of the Rhine. This, though considerably higher, presents 
 less natural difificulties than the Spliigen, and was used in 
 the days of the Roman empire, and very probably earlier 
 still. The Romans, however, after their conquest of all that 
 region in the reign of Augustus, made a great road to Chur, 
 their head quarters on the upper Rhine, by a more circuitous 
 though safer route. 
 
 At the upper end of Val Bregaglia the Maloja pass 
 (5,942 feet) leads to the head waters of the Inn. Thus the 
 Piz Lunghino to the north of it may be considered the 
 central point of the river and mountain system of Europe, 
 since from it, and from it alone, water flows to the North 
 Sea via the Rhine, to the Black Sea by the Inn and 
 Danube, and to the Adriatic by the Po. Not many miles 
 down the Inn valley, the slope of which is for a long 
 distance very gentle, the Julier pass (7,503 feet) crosses the 
 mountains to the north. The name of this pass was of 
 course attached to it when the Roman road was made, but 
 it is reasonably supposed to have been used in earlier times. 
 The topographical conditions keep it singularly free from 
 snow, and it is therefore invaluable for winter trafific. None 
 of these passes are however of much historical importance. 
 All through modern history the Swiss confederation tended 
 to preserve its neutrality in European wars, and the little 
 Graubiinden, which occupied the whole of the upper Rhine 
 basin and extended across to the head of the Inn, were in 
 constant alliance with Switzerland, though they were only 
 formally incorporated with it in 1798. Thus the whole 
 northern face of the Alps, from the head of the Rhone to 
 some way down the Inn, has been for some centuries 
 practically closed to armies, except in 1 799-1800, and is 
 likely to remain so. 
 
 The main chain of the Alps is considered to be that on 
 the south side of the Inn. Parallel to it on the south is the 
 long Valtelline, which is drained by the Adda into the lake
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 207 
 
 of Como. There are several high passes out of this valley 
 northwards to the Inn, but none of them requiring historical 
 mention. At the head of the Valtelline two lofty passes 
 lead to the head waters of the Adige, whence the way is 
 easy to the Inn valley, just below where that river quits 
 what is now Switzerland. These passes, though not over 
 the main chain, had at one juncture a very real historical 
 importance. Over one of them, the Stelvio (9,177 feet), is 
 now carried the highest carriage road in Europe. 
 
 The easiest and lowest of all the great Alpine passes is 
 the Brenner, which connects the Inn with the Adige. From 
 the actual source of the latter there is the pass just referred 
 to, only 4,596 feet in height, and very easy and gentle in its 
 slopes, except that it reaches the Inn just above a formidable 
 defile. Some seventy miles shorter, however, and at least 
 equally easy is the route which follows the Eisack, the 
 tributary that joins the Adige at Botzen. This leads to 
 the Brenner (4,588 feet), the only pass across the Alps 
 over which a railway exists and can be used in winter, 
 and so down to Innsbruck. It is evident from the map 
 that this is the natural line of communication between 
 Germany and Italy, As such it was throughout the Middle 
 Ages the route by which the Emperors habitually entered 
 Italy, whether coming with armies to encounter their unruly 
 nominal subjects in the Lombard cities, or for a peaceful 
 coronation progress. 
 
 Between Botzen and the plain there are a variety of 
 routes. The shortest follows the course of the Adige till 
 it emerges on the plain at Verona : this accounts for the 
 supreme importance which the Emperors attached to having 
 that city on their side. Not quite so easy, but more con- 
 venient for communication towards Venice, is a route from 
 Trent eastwards over to the head of the river Brenta, and so 
 to the plain at Bassano. The head of the lake of Garda is 
 also readily accessible by diverging westwards from the
 
 2o8 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 Adige valley at more than one point. All these variations 
 of the direct route figure in the campaign of 1796, when 
 the Austrians made repeated attempts to regain their hold 
 on Lombardy. 
 
 There is also a more circuitous route, or rather pair 
 of routes, more to the westwards. Between Botzen and 
 Trent a lateral valley, called the Val di Sole, joins the 
 Adige from the west. At the head of this valley the Tonale 
 pass (6,483 feet) leads into Val Camonica, and so down to 
 the small lake of Iseo and to Brescia. In early times 
 it was the practice, for some reason not discoverable, to 
 use another route through Val di Sole, in preference 
 to descending the Adige. This is a pass over the ridge 
 bounding Val di Sole on the south, to the head of Val 
 Rendena, down which flows the stream that expands into 
 the lake of Garda. Tradition asserts that Charlemagne 
 in one of his progresses founded the church in the highest 
 large village of Val Rendena, and there are other traces 
 of similar use of it. The ordinary peaceful traffic was 
 great enough, Val Rendena being very fertile, to make it 
 worth while to establish a hospice at the top for the shelter 
 of travellers : but the detour is so great for the passage of 
 an army between Germany and the Italian plain that no 
 commander would have taken it unless of necessity, when 
 once the topography was understood. 
 
 Not far east of the Brenner the Alps cease to form 
 a single chain, their altitude also becoming less. To 
 reach the Danube in a northerly direction from the head 
 of the Adriatic it is necessary to cross two or three diverging 
 ridges. The passes over these are however neither few 
 nor difficult. Hence little or nothing turns on their exact 
 position ; generally speaking, they allow fairly easy access 
 to Italy from the east and north-east. The mountains are 
 no longer barriers : they are obstacles, but not very serious 
 ones. When Napoleon in 1797 compelled the Austrians
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 209 
 
 to evacuate Italy, their retreat over some of these passes 
 was conducted after the ordinary fashion of a retreat which 
 is actively pressed by the enemy. They tried to hold the 
 French off when a favourable position presented itself: 
 otherwise they retired steadily and rapidly, and were 
 followed with equal steadiness. There was no trace of 
 the serious losses and disorganization which inevitably 
 occur when a beaten army has to cross in haste a real 
 mountain barrier, none of the relief which such an army 
 experiences when it has succeeded in placing that barrier 
 between itself and the pursuers. 
 
 It should now be clear why the Alps, though the greatest 
 mountains in Europe, have never availed to preserve Italy 
 from invasion. For many miles at a time they are for 
 practical purposes inaccessible. Then comes a gap, or 
 more than one gap close together, over which it is com- 
 paratively easy to pass. These gradually become known ; 
 entrance into Italy is feasible at these points, and at these 
 only. Many causes conspire to make the use of the Alpine 
 passes, for military purposes, almost entirely one-sided. 
 Invaders pour into Italy, whether migrating tribes or 
 civilized armies ; but Italy has never been politically in 
 a condition in which she should send out armies across 
 the Alps, except when Rome was mistress of whole regions 
 beyond them ; and migrating tribes were too well off to 
 wish to quit Italian soil. Peaceful traffic of course has 
 been in both directions : all through the Middle Ages there 
 was the flux and reflux of pilgrims and others frequenting 
 Rome when she was the one ecclesiastical centre, and half 
 the business of life was controlled by the Church. After 
 the Italian cities had almost monopolized the trade of the 
 Mediterranean, there was much commercial 'raffic over the 
 Alps so long as their pre-eminence lasted. On the whole, 
 however, the Alps have operated, as they were bound to ope- 
 rate, in diminishing the volume of peaceful communication :
 
 210 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 it was only valuable goods that would bear the cost of a 
 toilsome journey over them. 
 
 It remains to note the historical instances which show 
 how insufficient a defence against invasion the Alps have 
 proved. There are traces of many peoples having inhabited 
 Italy in pre-historic times, of whom little beyond their names 
 is known. Some may have entered the south of the penin- 
 sula by sea : it is probable that the Ligurians came in along 
 the coast at the north-western corner. There seems no 
 reason to doubt that the Latins, if for convenience one 
 may use that name for all Italian peoples known to be 
 of the same Aryan stock, entered from the north-east. 
 Their predecessors, whether Aryan or not, are historically 
 mere shadows : conjecture about them is easy, but scarcely 
 capable of verification. The Etruscans, who present the 
 most interesting and the least soluble problem of all, 
 were doubtless once a great people. They probably con- 
 tributed much to Roman civilization, but still they vanished. 
 It was the Latins, whatever they assimilated from outside, 
 who became the dominant race, and gradually built up the 
 Roman empire. 
 
 The affinities of language and ideas between Greeks and 
 Latins are so close as to leave no doubt that they formed 
 parts of the same wave of population spreading over Europe 
 from the east. Parting from their kindred probably some- 
 where in the region of the lower Danube, the Latins crossed 
 the south-eastern branch, or branches, of the Alps, which 
 are comparatively low and easy to traverse, to the head of 
 the Adriatic, and so spread down the peninsula. The 
 position of the territories once occupied by the Etruscans, 
 Tuscany and much of the Po basin, seems to imply that 
 they followed the Latins rather than preceded them, and 
 traces of them are supposed to show that they came in 
 from the north, through what are called the Rhaetian Alps. 
 More confidently it can be affirmed that the Gallic tribes,
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 211 
 
 who by the end of the fifth century B.C. had spread over 
 the whole plain of the Po, came over the western Alps, 
 though it is of course impossible to guess by what routes. 
 Strong in numbers and undisciplined valour, they threatened 
 to overrun the whole peninsula, but were beaten back by 
 the organized strength of Rome and her allies. They con- 
 tinued to form the bulk of the population north of the 
 Appennines, even after Rome had in some sense conquered 
 them in the interval between the first and second Punic 
 wars, and were no small support to Hannibal, after he 
 had crossed from the land of their kindred beyond the 
 Alps into Cisalpine Gaul — the name of Italy was not yet 
 extended to the plain of the Po. 
 
 The most remarkable historical event connected with 
 the passes of the Alps is certainly the passage of Hannibal ; 
 and much critical energy has been expended in trying to 
 determine his route, without further success than showing 
 that he must certainly have crossed by some pass south 
 of Mont Blanc. The Col de I'Argentiere may be taken as 
 the most southerly route possible, the Little St. Bernard 
 as the most northerly ; but within those limits certainty 
 is impossible. It is perfectly reasonable to have an opinion, 
 and even to hold it strongly, but no fair-minded man can 
 say that the question is settled. The balance of opinion 
 has inclined now to one, now to another, of the four passes 
 across the western Alps already described. Those who 
 confined their attention to the authorities, without much 
 personal knowledge of the ground, tended on the whole 
 to believe in one of the pair of passes from the Isere. 
 The mountaineers, laying stress on the natural features, 
 believe in the passes from the Durance. Any conclusion 
 involves explaining away some of the detailed statements 
 made by Polybius and Livy, through whom alone are 
 known to us any details at all. This is not unnatural, 
 seeing how vague and uncertain, in comparison to modern 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 standards, was the geographical knowledge then pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 Hannibal, coming from distant Carthage, had of course 
 to rely upon guidance from the Gauls : he obviously knew 
 before starting that the Alps were passable, but there is no 
 indication that he had any knowledge either of the diffi- 
 culties of the task, or that there was any choice of routes. 
 Given the circumstances of his march, it was obviously 
 his interest to take the shortest way from the mouth of 
 the Rhone. On the other hand he was obliged to go some 
 distance up the river, seeing that he had resolved not to 
 attack the Romans and attempt to force his way along the 
 coast. It is certain, for the latter reason, that he did not 
 march straight up the Durance or its tributary the Ubaye : 
 it is certain, from the time his journey took, that he did 
 not go the whole way up the Isere or the Arc. He must 
 certainly have been led by his Gallic guides over some 
 intervening hills, to reach the foot of any pass. Geographical 
 probabilities of the large kind, and also the topographical 
 details of the possible passes, lead alike to the conclusion 
 that Hannibal crossed from the Durance basin, the Col 
 de I'Argenti^re being rather more probable than the Mont 
 Genevre. All that he knew himself was doubtless that his 
 guides undertook to take him across into Cisalpine Gaul. 
 
 The conduct of Scipio, the Roman general commanding 
 against Hannibal, also tends to show that Roman knowledge 
 of the Alpine passes was slight. Scipio, when he found 
 that the Carthaginians had marched up the Rhone, took 
 for granted that they were going to cross the Alps, and 
 removed his army by sea to Italy, in order to meet the 
 enemy in the plain of the Po. Scipio was not wanting 
 in capacity, as this prompt action shows. It is no unfair 
 conjecture that if he had possessed any definite knowledge 
 of the Alpine valleys, he would have landed at Genoa, and 
 posted himself at Turin, in order to encounter Hannibal
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 213 
 
 before he could reach the open plains, where the famous 
 African cavalry would have free scope. If however he 
 knew that there were various routes, but had only con- 
 fused and imperfect information about them, the course 
 which he adopted, of waiting on the Ticino, was obviously 
 right. 
 
 The historical importance of Hannibal's feat is not how- 
 ever concerned with the determination of his exact route. 
 It was a revelation to the world that an army, as dis- 
 tinguished from a mere horde — that an army with all its 
 ivipeditnenta could be conveyed across a great mountain 
 range. Nor was it long before his example was followed. 
 His brother Hasdrubal led an army into Italy ten years 
 later, apparently by one of the passes from the Isere, with 
 unexpected ease and speed. 
 
 A century afterwards occurred another invasion of Italy, 
 which illustrates the difficulty of defending a mountain 
 frontier such as the Alps. The Romans were by that 
 time effectively masters of the whole Po basin, as well as 
 of Provence ; geographical Italy was also politically united 
 under one government. They were aware that the hordes 
 of barbarians, known to history as the Cimbri and Teutones, 
 were on the move for Italy. These formidable enemies 
 had either trampled over, or won to their side, the tribes 
 beyond the Alps, both in the Rhone-land and in the 
 modern Switzerland, They apparently formed a scheme, 
 highly advanced for their stage of civilization, of entering 
 Italy by two widely distant entrances, and joining forces 
 on the Po. The Romans were informed of their purpose, 
 and sent one consul to Provence, while the other waited 
 on the Adige. Unfortunately our authorities are so brief 
 that they give no hint as to the route by which the Cimbri 
 entered Italy ; all we know is that the consul Catulus failed 
 to stop them,, and that they moved westwards up the north 
 bank of the Po to meet their kindred. Fortunately Marius
 
 214 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 had destroyed the Teutones in Provence, and was in time 
 to join his colleague, and crush the Cimbri also, not far 
 from the Ticino. One may conjecture that the St. Gotthard 
 pass was unknown at the time, or the Cimbri, who were 
 guided by their Helvetian allies, would not have gone so 
 far to the eastwards as they did ; though whether they 
 crossed from the head of the Rhine, or made the still 
 longer circuit by the Inn and Adige, we cannot even guess. 
 
 As the Roman empire extended to its ultimate limits in 
 Europe, the Alps became no longer a frontier. Naturally 
 therefore centuries elapsed before they again figured in 
 history. In the convulsions which followed the death of 
 Nero, two candidates for the imperial throne successively 
 entered north Italy, one from the west, the other from the 
 east. Each in turn defeated the rival in possession on the 
 Lombard plain, and as it happened on the same battlefield, 
 but in neither case was there any defence of the mountain 
 passes. In the break up of the Western empire, the Teuton 
 tribes seem to have entered Italy as they pleased : the Alps 
 might as well not have existed. Throughout the Middle 
 Ages, the regions on both sides of the Alps were divided up 
 into so many small states (if the word can be reasonably 
 applied), all virtually independent, and all formally included 
 in the Empire, that the mountains continued to be of little 
 political importance. If the Emperor had to expect oppo- 
 sition on one route, he could take another : practically his 
 communications with Italy lay chiefly over the Brenner and 
 its variations. From western Europe the usual routes were, 
 as has been said, the Great St. Bernard and the Mont Cenis ; 
 but nothing historically turned on this fact, travel over the 
 Alps being substantially that of private persons, largely on 
 business connected with the Church. 
 
 Before the close of the Middle Ages several political 
 changes had occurred, ^vhich greatly affected the historical 
 use of the Alpine passes.
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 215 
 
 1. Venice had extended her territories far inland, and 
 thus commanded the Itahan exit of all the passes as far as 
 the lake of Garda, 
 
 2. The duchy of Milan, by similar extension, held the 
 southern face of the Alps from Garda to beyond the Ticino. 
 
 3. The Swiss confederation had been formed, and itself 
 or through its allies the Graubiinden occupied the northern 
 slopes of the Alps, from about its present eastern frontier 
 nearly to Mont Blanc. 
 
 4. The dukes of Savoy, on the French side of the 
 western Alps, possessed also Piedmont, the upper basin of 
 the Po, on the Italian side. 
 
 The inheritance of Milan, which was doomed to vanish 
 as an independent state, was a chief bone of contention 
 between Charles V and France. The Swiss as a nation 
 aimed at neutrality, though Swiss mercenaries were to be 
 hired at a price. Hence the battle-ground in Lombardy 
 had to be reached by France, if possible through Savoy : 
 if not, there was only the circuitous route which Francis I 
 employed, by the Col de I'Argenti^re. It was truly said 
 that the duke of Savoy's geographical position rendered it 
 impossible for him to be an honest man. The dukes were 
 very advantageously situated, provided that they were pre- 
 pared to run great temporary risks, and that their policy 
 was sufficiently unscrupulous. France was always willing to 
 pay high for their alliance, as Opening the door into Italy, 
 and their matrimonial connexions were mostly with France. 
 Similarly the Hapsburgs were ready to reward them if they 
 sided against France. Obviously their dominions on one 
 side of the Alps were liable to be overrun, if the fortune of 
 war went against the cause they espoused : at the same 
 time they were in that case fairly safe in their lands on the 
 other side : and when peace was made, their allies were 
 generally desirous of protecting their interests, for the sake 
 of future contingencies. This risky game was played for
 
 2i6 THE ALPINE PASSES 
 
 centuries, with considerable vicissitudes, but on the whole 
 with great good fortune. The French made repeated at- 
 tempts to establish themselves in possession of fortresses 
 on the Piedmontese side of the Alps, but never with 
 permanent success. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century the duke of Savoy blossomed out into a king of 
 Sardinia, and in the nineteenth became king of Italy. One 
 scarcely sees how Italy could have been united without the 
 house of Savoy to take the lead ; and the house of Savoy 
 owes its greatness to its command during many centuries of 
 the passes of the western Alps. 
 
 Venice, commanding the eastern end of the Alpine chain, 
 adopted a policy resembling rather that of Switzerland than 
 that of Savoy. Strong enough to have her neutrality 
 respected, having neither the strength nor the ambition to 
 play an active part, she closed the direct access to the 
 Italian plain against the Hapsburgs. During a great part 
 of the sixteenth century, there was access from Tyrol to the 
 duchy of Milan by way of the Tonale pass. When Venice 
 extended her sway over Brescia and Bergamo, this route 
 also led into Venetian territory, and was consequently closed 
 to the Austrians. Hence arose one of the most singular 
 episodes of the great European conflict, of which what is 
 commonly called the Thirty Years' war was the German 
 portion. At that time the Valtelline was in the power of 
 the Graubiinden on the other side of the Alps, Italian- 
 speaking Catholics ruled by German-speaking Protestants, 
 and naturally uneasy under the yoke. The Hapsburgs 
 stirred up a revolt of the Valtelline people, in the hope of 
 gaining thereby practical control of the valley, which would 
 open the only feasible line of communication between 
 Austrian Tyrol and the Spanish duchy of Milan, so long 
 as Venice on the east and Switzerland en the west were 
 closing all other routes. Thanks to the intervention of 
 France the attempt failed : but it is a curious illustration of
 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 217 
 
 the far-reaching influence of such geographical considera- 
 tions, to find France making it a cardinal object of policy 
 to recover for the Graubiinden their control over this distant 
 Italian valley. 
 
 The historical significance of the Alpine passes at a later 
 date, during the wars of the French Revolution, has been 
 dwelt on in another chapter, since the military operations 
 across them form portions of a war which included a great 
 part of Europe. It may be noted in conclusion that there 
 has scarcely ever been any attempt to defend any portion of 
 the Alpine chain, as a frontier permanent or temporary. 
 The reasons for this lie mainly in the political circumstances 
 of Italy, which has never till lately been a nation united 
 within the Alps, and having them for a frontier. Nor is it 
 probable, in view of the existing political conditions in 
 Europe, that a war between Italy and one of her neighbours 
 will furnish an object-lesson as to the defensibility of a 
 frontier such as the Alps afford, with sundry well-marked 
 gaps in an otherwise insurmountable barrier.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SWITZERLAND 
 
 Switzerland is, from almost every point of view, more 
 anomalous than any other state now subsisting ; and yet it 
 is conspicuously to the advantage of the world that the 
 anomaly should continue. If we take the divisions of 
 Europe according to the main watersheds, which commend 
 themselves to physical geography as the most intelligible 
 and the most permanent, Switzerland comprises the heads 
 of the Rhine and of the Rhone, besides the extreme upper 
 end of the Inn basin, and a considerable encroachment 
 on geographical Italy. It has no language, no race of its 
 own. German is the tongue of the majority, but the 
 French-speaking minority is large, and Italian prevails in 
 one canton. Besides these, Romansch is spoken in a 
 large district, a language containing elements which perplex 
 philologists, though all are agreed that its foundation is 
 Latin. Its races are equally various, possibly even more 
 so ; for some believe that they can trace in the extreme 
 east the relics of a people otherwise utterly lost. The 
 Etruscans played a great part in Italy during the ages 
 which saw the first dawn of history ; they disappeared 
 thence entirely, and there are reasons, faint perhaps but 
 not altogether fanciful, for thinking that they retired over 
 the Rhaetian Alps. In religion again the Swiss are not 
 very unequally divided between Roman Catholic and 
 Protestant. Thus the country possesses no unity what-
 
 SWITZERLAND 219 
 
 ever in any of those things which are usually taken to form 
 the basis of a nationality. 
 
 Its history presents an equal number of anomalies. The 
 confederation began through small communities of peasants, 
 dwelling in the mountain region round the lake of Lucerne, 
 combining to resist the oppression of the Hapsburgs. 
 Imperial cities, desirous of securing virtual independence, 
 leagued themselves with the forest cantons, and so gradually 
 the confederation spread. It acted as a sovereign power, 
 developed a system of tactics which made Swiss pikemen 
 for a century and a half the most formidable foot soldiers 
 on the Continent, defeated Charles the Bold, interfered in 
 Italian affairs, and finally saw its military greatness shattered 
 at Marignano. All this time the Swiss were formally 
 included in the Empire, and never denied their theoretic 
 subordination to its head. It was not until three centuries 
 and a half had elapsed since the beginning of the con- 
 federation, that its separate independence was recognized 
 at the peace of Westphalia. 
 
 The original cantons were all situated in the region 
 drained by the Aar and its affluents into the Rhine below 
 the lake of Constance, and the confederation was altogether 
 German. A similar but much smaller league, or rather 
 cluster of tiny leagues, formed itself in the upper valley 
 of the Rhine itself, including all the districts in which 
 Romansch is spoken. This remained for centuries in 
 close alliance with the Swiss confederation, and ultimately 
 was formally united to it as canton Graubiinden. The 
 extension into French-speaking regions was begun by 
 canton Berne making conquests on its own account ; and 
 Uri similarly conquered the Italian district south of the 
 St. Gotthard pass. Finally, as part of the resettlement of 
 Europe after the wars of the French Revolution, the Swiss 
 confederation was placed on its present footing. It now 
 includes the former free city of Geneva, the former Prussian
 
 220 SWITZERLAND 
 
 principality of Neuchatel, the territories formerly subject to 
 Berne and Uri, all as free and equal cantons of the con- 
 federation. 
 
 Switzerland, having thus formed itself in defiance of 
 geographical principles, was recognized by collective Europe 
 as a valuable member of the body politic. Its affairs had 
 on the whole been conducted with a prudence and patriot- 
 ism sufficient to justify a greater anomaly, but it was for 
 their own sake that the powers of Europe placed the 
 independence of Switzerland on a secure basis, by declaring 
 it permanently neutral under their collective guarantee. 
 It was recognized as being for the general good that the 
 centre of the mountain system of Europe should be 
 occupied by a small state, which should have nothing 
 to do with the troubles of the greater powers surrounding 
 it. The independent existence of Switzerland curtails the 
 length of frontier along which France and Germany are in 
 contact, and holds Austria and France, continual enemies 
 in former times, entirely aloof from one another. In the 
 same way, it shortens the common frontier between France 
 and Italy, besides interposing itself between Germany and 
 Italy. The difference made in war by the neutrality of 
 Switzerland has been pointed out in another chapter, with 
 reference to the campaigns of 1796 and 1799-1800. A 
 further illustration was given in 18 14, when the allies after 
 Leipsic invaded France. Switzerland had been to all 
 intents and purposes part of Napoleon's dominions, though 
 technically a separate republic under his protection. It 
 had been a recruiting ground for his armies, and the allies, 
 in no way bound to respect its colourable neutrality, found 
 Basle a convenient base for one of their lines of invasion. 
 In 1870 both parties to the war carefully respected Swiss 
 neutrality : indeed the last forlorn hope of France was 
 shattered by Bourbaki's army being driven against the 
 Swiss frontier, and being compelled to choose between
 
 SWITZERLAND 221 
 
 surrender to the enemy, and taking refuge as quasi-prisoners 
 on neutral soil. 
 
 The Swiss have throughout their history shown themselves 
 equal to the requirements of their very peculiar position. 
 The sentiment of nationality began to grow up in the days 
 when the confederation was still homogeneous, but it 
 flourishes equally in the later accretions, in spite of all 
 the discordances already pointed out. Neutrality was their 
 policy long before it became formally incumbent on them, 
 as w-as natural in their geographical position ; but it was, 
 and is, neutrality ready to make itself respected by force 
 in case of need. Theorists who are impressed by the 
 formidable defences along the Franco-German frontier 
 sometimes say that, in the next war, the belligerents will 
 have to begin by ignoring the neutrality of Belgium, or 
 Switzerland, or both. It may be doubted whether either 
 would care to enlist on the side of the enemy a people 
 which is well organized for defence, and has maintained 
 so long a sturdy spirit of national independence. 
 
 Given that a separate state was to be constituted out of 
 the heterogeneous materials which make up Switzerland, its 
 frontiers are in most parts satisfactory and well marked. 
 On the south, the main chain of the Alps divides it from 
 Italy, except where canton Ticino descends to the lakes 
 of Maggiore and Lugano. Nor does it much matter, on 
 the assumption that the raisoii d'etre of Switzerland is to 
 keep neutral the central fastness of the Alps, whether this 
 district remains Swiss or not. No danger results to Italy, 
 nothing but the sentimental grievance that certain people, 
 Italian in race and speech, remain separate from political 
 Italy. They themselves are Swiss in national feeling, and 
 desirous of remaining so : the loss of them would not in 
 itself endanger Switzerland at all seriously, but the general 
 interest is certainly best consulted by leaving Switzerland 
 undisturbed.
 
 222 SWITZERLAND 
 
 On the north-west the range of the Jura forms a good 
 frontier line towards France, so far as it extends. The 
 Hne drawn across from the southern end of the Jura to 
 the main chain of the Alps is necessarily arbitrary. None 
 could be selected which would be a real military barrier 
 against French aggression ; the only defence of Switzerland, 
 beyond her own patriotic spirit, is the European guarantee, 
 which obviously would apply to any line. No other frontier 
 would make a better, or worse, severance of races. It is 
 perhaps a pity that, when Napoleon III annexed Savoy, 
 the arrangement of 1815 was ignored by which the districts 
 immediately south of the lake of Geneva, if ever alienated 
 from the house of Savoy, were to be transferred to Switzer- 
 land. In that case the frontier would have run from the 
 Jura to Mont Blanc, which would have been more 
 symmetrical. It cannot however be said that Switzerland 
 is much worse off, or that any one suffers except the 
 travellers in Switzerland, who find that they have to cross 
 a frontier in order to visit Chamonix and Mont Blanc. 
 
 On the north, the great angle of the Rhine at Basle 
 comes very near to the north-eastern end of the Jura. The 
 long westward reach of that river forms, under modern 
 conditions, a reasonable frontier towards Germany, though 
 there are scraps of Swiss territory beyond it. At the north- 
 east corner of Switzerland is the lake of Constance, formed 
 by the Rhine, once in the centre of Swabia, and still 
 surrounded on all sides by men of German race and 
 language. It is a marked instance of the extent to which 
 political influences can override geography, that this lake, 
 fitted by nature to facilitate communication between kindred 
 and fellow citizens, should now be bordered by territories 
 of five separate governments. Baden, Wurtemberg, and 
 Bavaria all touch its northern shores ; Austria is at the 
 eastern end, and Switzerland lies all along it on the south. 
 
 The eastern frontier of Switzerland is purely arbitrary,
 
 SWITZERLAND 223 
 
 from the geographical point of view. In such a moun- 
 tainous region, bits of the frontier are naturally marked 
 by spurs of the Alps, but there is nothing like a continuous 
 physical line of demarcation. No reasons, other than his- 
 torical, can be given for its being situated where it is, 
 though in the course of centuries the characters of the 
 kindred peoples, living side by side in Switzerland and 
 Tyrol, have diverged greatly. Nor would it be easy to 
 invent a frontier which should be obviously better, even if 
 the inhabitants were left out of account. Towards Austria, 
 as well as towards France, Switzerland must have her 
 boundary left arbitrary ; and, if past history be any guide, 
 she has nothing to fear from her eastern neighbour. 
 
 The interest of Swiss military history, so far as the 
 fighting was done by the Swiss themselves, is not geo- 
 graphical, scarcely even topographical. It lies in the tactics 
 which enabled the Swiss pikemen to defeat the chivalry of 
 Leopold of Austria and Charles of Burgundy. And the 
 difference made to a general European war, by Switzerland 
 being or not being neutral, has been sufficiently dwelt on 
 elsewhere. There is however one episode of the campaign 
 of 1799, which aptly illustrates the peculiar conditions affect- 
 ing warfare in a mountain country. After the Austrians 
 and Russians had expelled the French from the plain of 
 the Po, Suvorov was instructed to cross the Alps and attack 
 the French in Switzerland. Massena had for months been 
 occupying a position on the hills west of the lake of 
 Zurich, from which the enemy in his front was unable to 
 dislodge him, though he was not strong enough to drive 
 them altogether out of Switzerland, and had no great 
 motive for trying to do so. 
 
 There had been fighting in the mountain region of which 
 the St, Gotthard pass may be taken as the centre, in the 
 month of August, with the result that the French, after for 
 the moment entirely driving the Austrians over the Alps,
 
 22+ SWITZERLAND 
 
 had lost again a little of the ground they had gained. In 
 this miniature campaign, fought out, as was inevitable, 
 mainly with infantry, little turned on the geography. The 
 French plans for attack were of course largely based on the 
 mutual relations of the Alpine passes, but the mountains 
 nowhere proved barriers. They doubtless impeded the 
 march of troops, but little attempt was made to utilize 
 them for defensive positions : nor indeed could they be 
 very effective with mere musketry of short range. 
 
 When Suvorov entered Switzerland, he fought his way 
 over the St. Gotthard with infantry : the pass was not 
 practicable for artillery, which had to be sent into the 
 Rhine valley at Chur by way of the Bernardino pass. It is 
 obvious from the map that Suvorov, descending into 
 Switzerland by the valley of the Reuss, might dangerously 
 threaten Massena's flank, whereas from Chur he would 
 only come up in rear of the allied army that was facing 
 Massena. The peculiarity of mountain country however 
 neutralized this prima facie presumption. The St. Gotthard 
 leads to the lake of Lucerne, along whose precipitous 
 shores no road existed. The ordinary peaceful traffic was 
 entirely carried on by water, and Massena had naturally 
 taken care to withdraw all boats from the upper end of 
 the lake. Direct advance being thus rendered impossible, 
 Suvorov directed his troops over the Kinzig pass (6,791 ft.) 
 to his right, in order to reach Schwyz. There being merely 
 a foot-path over a fairly high ridge, the Russians were 
 spread over many miles of ground ; and the comparatively 
 small force which Massena could spare for the purpose 
 sufficed to keep them cooped up in the narrow valley, in 
 which their numbers could not be utilized. Suvorov, in no 
 way daunted, crossed a similar but lower pass (5,062 ft.) 
 into the valley opening on Glarus, only to encounter 
 a similar check. He had now no resource but to retreat 
 into the valley of the Rhine, and the first snows had by this
 
 SWITZERLAND 225 
 
 time fallen on the mountains. The Panixer pass (7,907 ft.) 
 is not in itself difficult, but the track was hidden by the 
 snow, the French kept up a pursuit, and the Russians lost 
 heavily before they could make good their escape. No 
 such series of passes has probably ever been crossed by 
 a regular army. The lesson deducible is not, however, that 
 mountains of moderate height cannot be passed by troops 
 without prohibitive losses. Rather it is that an inferior 
 force has a good opportunity of preventing a larger one 
 from emerging out of a narrow valley to open country. 
 Suvorov at each stage of his adventure had more than one 
 pass available, nor did the difficulties of the mountain 
 routes do more than hinder him, until the snow had fallen. 
 The cause of his defeat, such as it was, was inability, in 
 consequence of the topographical conditions, to bring his 
 superior numbers effectively into action \ 
 
 The towns of Switzerland, like those of other countries, 
 have grown up in places dictated by geography. Chur is 
 situated where the Rhine emerges into more open country, 
 just below the junction of its several branches. It was, as 
 its name (Curia) suggests, the head quarters of Roman 
 government in that region, Zurich, Lucerne, Geneva, are 
 all situated where rivers emerge from lakes. The site of 
 Berne, on high ground, more than half encircled by the 
 river Aar, was admirably suited for primitive defence. 
 Basle is not only at the great angle of the Rhine, but also 
 in the sort of wide defile between the northern end of the 
 Jura and the southern extremity of the Black Forest hills. 
 It is probable enough that the defensible position of Berne 
 
 * Alison's account of this episode is one of the most absurd bits of 
 military history ever written. Partly from total lack of comprehen- 
 sion of what mountain country is like, partly from a habit of using the 
 strongest epithets without care as to their appropriateness, he gives 
 a description which would be exaggerated if applied to the highest 
 glacier passes in the Alps. 
 
 GEORGE Q
 
 226 SWITZERLAND 
 
 aided its rise to importance. Basle was a natural place to 
 select as the meeting-place for a great council of the Church, 
 partly because it was in a conveniently central and accessible 
 situation, partly also because it was well situated politically. 
 Technically within the Empire, it was practically indepen- 
 dent of it, and therefore not under the dominion of any 
 of the mutually jealous kingdoms of Christendom. Zurich 
 and Geneva were important in the era of the Reformation, 
 not for any geographical reason, but because Zwingli and 
 Calvin dwelt in them. Their political position, however, 
 doubtless gave the rival reformers much greater scope than 
 if they had been immediate subjects of the emperor or the 
 king of France. Nor is the modern industrial importance 
 of Zurich, and other Swiss towns, based on any special 
 natural advantages, such as mineral wealth. They are the 
 result of the energy of an industrious and well-governed 
 people, secure in the blessing of permanent peace.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 The history of the Rhine-land contains a series of 
 attempts to override the most ordinary geographical con- 
 siderations. The boundary between states may be rationally 
 determined in several ways, by a solid physical barrier 
 between them, such as the Pyrenees, by the dividing line 
 between races and languages, by respect for one another's j 
 military power. A state without defensible frontiers, without 
 a solid basis of separate nationality, can only subsist by 
 virtue of very special circumstances, and on condition that 
 it is strong enough to protect itself against attack, or that 
 its neighbours are too weak for aggression. The attempts 
 made to establish in the Rhine-land a state neither French 
 nor German naturally courted failure, though one for the 
 moment seemed to approach success. 
 
 The boundaries of the Rhine basin are scarcely anywhere 
 such as to constitute real barriers extending for any 
 distance. The actual head of it is formed by the main 
 chain of the Alps, but in those sixty miles there are four 
 passes now crossed by carriage roads. The Bernese chain 
 separates the heads of the Rhine and Rhone, but this 
 forms an absolute bar to intercourse only for about forty 
 miles ; and there are two passes, where it joins the main 
 chain, which could always be traversed on foot, though 
 it is only within a very few years that wheeled vehicles have 
 been able to cross them. There are similar passes across 
 the western end of the Bernese Alps, where they cease to 
 be continuously snowy, and the chain presently sinks away 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 to nothing, leaving a broad strip of open country, which 
 relatively may be called plain, between it and the Jura. 
 The latter chain, though definite enough, and high enough 
 to be an obstacle to intercourse, is nowhere a barrier against 
 those who have sufficient motive for passing it. Under 
 these geographical conditions, it was natural that the history 
 of the two regions should not be altogether separate. Nor 
 is it any wonder that the boundary between the Romance 
 language of the Rhone-land and the Teutonic speech of 
 the Rhine, should not coincide accurately with the water- 
 shed between Rhine and Rhone, in the country lying 
 immediately under the Jura. 
 
 Of the boundary between the Rhine and the Seine basins 
 enough has been said in a previous chapter, where stress is 
 laid on the fact that it nowhere forms a barrier, in few 
 places even a serious obstacle. On the eastern side, 
 though the watershed between the heads of the Rhine and 
 the Danube is well marked and tolerably lofty, it is by no 
 means impassable, and sinks to a mere line of small hills 
 north-east of the lake of Constance. The mountains, if 
 they deserve the name, which separate the upper Danube 
 from the Main, the great eastern tributary of the Rhine, 
 are scarcely more formidable than those which divide 
 the Rhine and Seine. Nor are those which separate the 
 Main from the Weser and Elbe more serious as obstacles. 
 Further north, there is nothing to mark off the Rhine 
 delta from the Scheldt on the west, or from the broad 
 plain on the east, across which the other German rivers 
 flow to the North Sea. 
 
 The Rhine-land is thus utterly unsuited to form a separate 
 political unit, so far as having defensible frontier goes ; and 
 it is moreover, as the map shows, of extremely inconvenient 
 shape for such a purpose. As a matter of fact, it has never 
 even approached separateness in the matter of race and 
 language. Ever since history began. Teutons have occupied
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 229 
 
 both banks of the Rhine from the Alps to the sea, and 
 all the country to the immediate east of the Rhine basin. 
 The French language has penetrated some way into the 
 Rhine basin on the west, though it would be hazardous to 
 affirm that the French-speaking people of the upper Meuse, 
 or of part of Belgium, were, or were not, French in race. 
 
 Charlemagne's empire may be looked at from two points 
 of view, as the Frankish kingdom to which several more 
 or less alien peoples are subject, or as the revival of the 
 Roman empire of the west with considerable variations. 
 For the former Aachen was not an unnatural capital, though 
 not in the ideal position. For the latter, authority so 
 centred in the emperor's person that it mattered little 
 where the capital was situated : in theory, so far as theory 
 existed, the dominion of the emperor was universal, not 
 national. During the reigns of both Charlemagne and his 
 successor, the emperor's sons were from time to time set 
 to rule over some portion of the empire — Aquitaine, 
 Bavaria, Italy. These divisions corresponded more or less, 
 in fact, to different nationalities, if so modern a word may 
 be employed ; but this was dictated by convenience, and 
 was not intended, or supposed, to infringe the unity of the 
 whole. It was merely acting on a method common 
 enough in the true Roman empire, at any rate from 
 Diocletian's time onwards. 
 
 The partition between the grandsons of Charlemagne in 
 843 was, as has been said above, the first step towards 
 the separate nationality of France. Less definitely it 
 pointed the way also towards a German nationality. The 
 Rhine-land also then began its unfortunate history as 
 a bone of contention between the two. The map, however, 
 would suggest that this was rather an administrative arrange- 
 ment than a partition meant to be permanent. The 
 portion taken by Lothar, the eldest, was, besides Italy and 
 the Rhone-land, a strip down the whole left bank of the
 
 230 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 Rhine. As Lothar kept the imperial title, and the strip 
 contained Aachen, Charlemagne's capital, the arrangement 
 looks as if Lothar were to retain some kind of supremacy 
 over the whole, with Italy as the theoretic seat of empire, 
 and other territory such as would keep his brothers from 
 collision. 
 
 No arrangement, however, in that age was likely to last. 
 After Lothar's death, the whole of Charlemagne's empire 
 went again and again into the melting-pot. The Rhone- 
 land set up for itself as the kingdom of Aries or of 
 Burgundy. The Rhine territories held by Lothar, and 
 called by his name, there being no geographical or tribal 
 name appropriate, split presently into two duchies. The 
 upper one, to which the name of Lorraine has always 
 attached, retained its identity till the eighteenth century, 
 though not its integrity. The lower duchy broke into 
 pieces, and lost its name, but its fragments are nearly all 
 included in the modern Belgium. Both upper and lower 
 Lorraine were, however, always regarded as included 
 in the Empire, after the Empire had become definitely 
 attached to the German crown. 
 
 The whole right bank of the Rhine was split up into 
 small principalities, practically independent but technically 
 vassal, such as in the feudal ages existed throughout the 
 regions once governed by Charlemagne, and beyond them. 
 All of these were integral parts of Germany, as were also 
 considerable districts on the left bank. Those lying in the 
 Rhine delta and near the coast of the North Sea, though 
 nominally parts of the Empire, were nearly as independent 
 of it as Provence and Savoy. United by all the laws which 
 geography recognizes, by language and race as well as position, 
 they tended towards political union, though the habit of 
 partitioning a dead prince's territories among his sons more 
 or less neutralized this tendency. With their destinies were 
 associated the similar provinces on the left of the Rhine,
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 231 
 
 both the fragments of lower Lorraine, and Flanders, and 
 other countries under the suzerainty of France, geographical 
 juxtaposition proving stronger than the repulsive force of 
 divergence in language, in relation to some at least. There 
 was nothing in the circumstances to hinder the accumula- 
 tion of all these territories under a single ruler, whatever 
 might prove to be the difficulties of amalgamating them 
 into a single state. 
 
 The fifteenth -century attempt to establish a middle 
 kingdom between France and Germany was within measur- 
 able distance of succeeding. It had in its favour at that 
 juncture the exceptional wealth and prosperity of the 
 Netherland cities, and the extreme feebleness of the Empire. 
 Nevertheless it failed, as a scheme might be expected to 
 fail which set at naught the natural tendencies of mankind 
 to ally themselves with their kindred, but not without 
 leaving consequences, partly evil and partly good, that 
 endure to this day. 
 
 The opportunity was afforded through King John of 
 France giving the duchy of Burgundy, after it had fallen 
 in to the crown, to his son Philip. The new duke and his 
 successors, partly by marriage with heiresses, and partly by 
 purchase direct or indirect, accumulated a vast number of 
 provinces. The whole of the Rhine delta and of the 
 Scheldt basin was added to the duchy and county of 
 Burgundy. The last duke, Charles the Bold, tried to buy 
 up the rights of the Hapsburgs not only in Alsace, but in 
 the Breisgau and other parts of Swabia, and to seize 
 Lorraine, which separated his southern from his northern 
 possessions. His methods were ill-judged, and his arch- 
 enemy unscrupulous ; he failed ignominiously, defeated by 
 the Swiss, and betrayed by his own followers. After his 
 death Lorraine resumed its normal independence, its 
 princes becoming more and more absorbed in France, 
 through their marriage alliances and their consequent
 
 232 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 French possessions. Alsace remained under the formal 
 sway of the Hapsburgs for nearly two centuries longer, 
 though there were several free imperial cities situated 
 within it. The other provinces passed also to the Haps- 
 burgs through the marriage of Charles' heiress to the 
 emperor Maximilian. 
 
 It is said with perfect truth that the position of Charles 
 the Bold, as vassal to France for part of his dominions, 
 and to the Empire for the rest, was embarrassing and 
 unreasonable. It was perfectly natural that he should 
 desire to escape from it, and to make himself an indepen- 
 dent king. Geographically, however, his position was 
 utterly untenable. His subjects spoke partly French and 
 partly German, or dialects derived from those languages, 
 and the linguistic boundaries did not coincide with the 
 limits of feudal suzerainty ; and they were as little 
 homogeneous in race as in language. Even if he could 
 have overcome these difficulties, as might perhaps have 
 been done with time, he possessed, geographically, either 
 too much or too little. A kingdom stretching the whole 
 length of the Rhine from Basle to the sea, with the whole 
 left side of the basin, and a fair extension on the right, 
 might conceivably have been established, though geography 
 was against it at every point. A kingdom consisting of 
 the Rhine delta, liberally interpreted so as to include the 
 Scheldt basin, would have been compact and wealthy, if 
 small, and might have succeeded well : the Dutch made 
 themselves a very considerable power in the seventeenth 
 century with less than half of it. Charles the Bold could 
 not be expected to limit himself to the latter, and to 
 acquire the former was impossible under the circumstances. 
 He inevitably wasted his strength in striving after an ideal 
 which was unattainable in face of the hostilities he aroused, 
 not the least important of his foes being geographical 
 common sense.
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 233 
 
 The Netherlands might have become a powerful kingdom 
 if Mary of Burgundy had married an ideal hero, a man 
 combining the great gifts of Caesar and Cromwell, of 
 Washington and Napoleon, without the faults of any. 
 Its frontiers must needs have been artificial, but not more so 
 than those of Prussia, which has succeeded greatly. It had 
 immense maritime advantages, and the foremost commerce 
 then subsisting. Divergences of race and language were 
 not greater than have been successfully overcome elsewhere. 
 Absorption in the vast Hapsburg dominions w-as however 
 fatal. Neither Charles V nor his son understood anything 
 but absolute power ; they ignored the constitutional rights 
 of the separate provinces, theoretically still separate states, 
 and provoked rebellion. As a matter of fact also, Charles V 
 added to the Burgundian inheritance Gelderland, and other 
 provinces on the right bank of the lower Rhine, which 
 had never been included in Lorraine. These took part 
 more or less heartily with Holland and Zealand in the 
 struggle against Philip II, and ultimately formed part of 
 the independent Netherlands. Thus the last acquisitions 
 of Charles V tended to weaken, rather than to strengthen, 
 the Hapsburgs' position in the Rhine delta. 
 
 The long war of independence was distinguished by more 
 than one feature dependent on the peculiar conditions of the 
 country — an alluvial delta, much of it below high tide 
 level, and intersected by many channels and waterways. 
 Thus the Hollanders were able, as a last desperate resource, 
 to drown much of the land by cutting the dykes, and so 
 enlist the sea against the enemy, when they seemed within 
 measurable distance of complete success. Hence too the 
 'beggars of the sea' were both active and influential in 
 the war : it was they, as well as contrary winds, who made 
 it impossible for the prince of Parma to play the part 
 allotted to him in the great world-crisis of the Spanish 
 Armada. The war too, ending as it did, caused the ruin of
 
 234 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 Antwerp as a port, a ruin only being retrieved in our own 
 day. The treaty which acknowledged the independence 
 of the Netherlands gave them also full command of the 
 mouth of the Scheldt, which they employed to starve 
 Antwerp for the benefit of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. 
 
 The issue, however, was decided not by the physical 
 features, but largely by race — by the greater tenacity of the 
 men of the northern provinces in defending their liberties, 
 political and religious, while the southern provinces gave 
 way. In the result the former became a separate state, with 
 an unworkable constitution arising out of causes not geo- 
 graphical, and with one geographical peculiarity which 
 makes the united Netherlands unique, at any rate in 
 modern history. Not even Athens was so dependent on 
 the sea, and Athens did not begin as a maritime community. 
 The Netherlands owed their independence largely to the 
 sea, to the commercial wealth which enabled them to 
 sustain the contest, no less than to their opportunities in 
 maritime warfare. From the first they could hardly have 
 fed their population without the sea. So long as they had 
 great naval strength, they could be a European power, 
 weighty out of all proportion to their territory ; when that 
 waned, they rapidly sank to insignificance. 
 
 The Netherland provinces that remained under the 
 Hapsburg sway became, as a result of the war of indepen- 
 dence, more of a geographical anomaly than ever. The 
 conglomeration of separate territories that formed the Bur- 
 gundian inheritance had been, at any rate, preponderatingly 
 Teutonic in race and speech, though some few among 
 them were wholly or partially French, and the Burgundian 
 dukes had been themselves of French blood. Since, how- 
 ever, Holland and its confederates were altogether Teutonic, 
 the remainder after their separation was left not very 
 unequally divided. One anomaly had been got rid of 
 by Charles V, who ceded his claims upon the duchy of
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 235 
 
 Burgundy, such as they were, in return for the king of 
 France's renunciation of his technical suzerainty over the 
 Flemish provinces. The more practical difficulty however 
 remained. Belgium, to anticipate somewhat in using that 
 phrase, had no homogeneity whatever except in religion. 
 The lesser half of the country spoke French, or a dialect 
 of French, which may perhaps be taken as the best available 
 evidence of their race affinities ; and as this part adjoined 
 political France it invited conquest whenever that monarchy 
 was strong enough for effective aggression. The Teutonic 
 remainder was safe, under the existing conditions, from 
 any similar risk of absorption in Germany ; but the Dutch 
 had every motive for desiring to reunite to themselves 
 whatever could be obtained. Moreover, Belgium was all 
 the time under foreign rulers, who, whatever their original 
 descent, became year by year more and more thoroughly 
 Spanish in feeling and interest. It was no wonder that 
 Louis XIV was able to conquer piecemeal a broad slice 
 adjoining his own dominions, or that the Dutch annexed 
 north Brabant. It was politics, and not geography, which 
 kept Belgium during the eighteenth century subject to the 
 Hapsburgs, but now to Austria instead of Spain. The 
 arrangement made by the European powers after the fall of 
 Napoleon, whereby Holland and Belgium were reunited 
 into a single kingdom, was geographically somewhat more 
 rational, but it had other and stronger forces against it. 
 The French language had gained ground in Belgium, and 
 with it French sympathies. The Dutch were detested there 
 for various reasons, good and bad, and Europe did not care 
 to insist on the maintenance of the union. The result 
 was the establishment of a separate Belgian kingdom, as 
 anomalous as ever in containing two races and two 
 languages, but perceptibly tending towards France. The 
 permanent neutralization of Belgium, by general European 
 agreement, deprives the powers of a well-used battle-ground,
 
 236 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 and in particular it limits very materially the length of 
 frontier along which France and Germany can come into 
 collision. 
 
 The expansion of France into the Rhine-land had begun 
 long before the establishment of the Dutch republic. The 
 beginning of the European wars which arose out of the 
 Reformation was marked by a French attack on Lorraine, 
 which resulted in the acquisition of the three bishoprics 
 carved out of the middle of the duchy, including the great 
 fortress of Metz. The dukes of Lorraine became more 
 helpless than ever, dispossessed in almost every European 
 war, and then reinstated for another precarious term. 
 Ultimately, in the eighteenth century, the duchy was extin- 
 guished by one of those treaties which consulted the selfish 
 ambition of great princes and the personal interests of small 
 ones, but took no heed of geography. The duke was 
 * compensated ' by being pitchforked into Tuscany, where 
 the line of the Medici had just died out, and France 
 annexed the relics of the duchy. The inhabitants probably 
 gained by the change ; they were largely French already, 
 and became more so in sympathies as time went on. From 
 the physical point of view no frontier line was obviously 
 preferable to any other : the fortress of Metz, which makes 
 so much difference to the military situation, is after all an 
 artificial creation. None the less the French annexation 
 of Lorraine perpetuated a geographical anomaly, though 
 changing its character. Previously there had been people 
 really French, in language and perhaps in race, subjects of 
 a principality included in the German empire, though the 
 tie had been long ignored. After it there were Germans in 
 all respects who had been made subjects of France. The 
 German conquest of 1870 made the political frontier corre- 
 spond much more nearly to the division of races and 
 languages, though entirely against the wish of the people, 
 who had in the interval been incorporated in France.
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 237 
 
 It is instructive to compare the fate of Lorraine with 
 that of Savoy, that is to say with the composite state over 
 which the dukes of Savoy ruled. Both were divided in 
 language, and more or less in race : both were situated 
 between two great and often hostile powers : both were to 
 a certain extent, in the person of their princes, attracted 
 towards France. Yet Lorraine was, so to speak, squeezed 
 to death between France and Germany, while the house of 
 Savoy throve on the vicissitudes of several centuries, and 
 ultimately became sovereigns of united Italy. The astute 
 policy of the dukes of Savoy counted for something ; but the 
 main reason for the contrast between Lorraine and Savoy is 
 geographical. It has been pointed out, in a former chapter, 
 how the Alps between Savoy and Piedmont helped the 
 fortunes of those princes. Lorraine had no such backbone : 
 it lay completely open to France, and Germany had no 
 particular motive for defending it ; for it can hardly be 
 said that Metz, in French hands, constituted a menace to 
 Germany, however the case may be now that it has reverted 
 to German hands. 
 
 The acquisition of Alsace by France marks the end of 
 the period of religious wars, as the seizure of the three 
 bishoprics marks the beginning. It was a piece of sheer 
 undisguised conquest, without any excuse of nationality or 
 of a personal convention between any Alsatian ruler and 
 France. Richelieu simply took advantage of the distrac- 
 tions of Germany to lay hands on a German province, 
 separated from France by the definite barrier of the Vosges 
 — a province essentially German ever since the Allemanni 
 invaded the Roman empire, and Protestant in addition. 
 Louis XIV completed the robbery, and indeed improved on 
 the method. During a period of general peace he seized 
 Strassburg and other places — which, though situated within 
 Alsace, were politically independent of it — and the Empire 
 was not strong enough to resent the outrage. Nevertheless,
 
 238 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 so great was the assimilating power of France, that Alsace, 
 while remaining German in language and Protestant in 
 creed, became thoroughly French in sentiment. Whatever 
 may be said of Lorraine, the Germans, when they recon- 
 quered Alsace in 1870, recovered a thoroughly German 
 land ; but they also recovered one that strongly disliked 
 the transfer. 
 
 No region in Europe is richer in historic towns than the 
 Rhine-land, but there are only a few concerning which geo- 
 graphy has much to say. Those included in the modern 
 Switzerland have already been mentioned in chapter xv ; 
 but of these Basle alone has European importance. First 
 on the northward course of the Rhine, after its great bend 
 at Basle, comes Strassburg. While Alsace was in French 
 hands it was a perpetual menace to Germany, as it gave 
 the French a secure base for crossing the Rhine. Now 
 that it belongs once more to Germany, it has become more 
 of a fortress than ever. Theoretically, it ought not to be 
 a menace to France, for the well-marked frontier chain of 
 the Vosges lies some way to the west. Practically, how- 
 ever, there is no denying that the possession of so vast 
 a fortified camp would greatly facilitate a German attack 
 on France. 
 
 The position of Mainz, where the Main flows into the 
 Rhine, is obviously marked out by nature for an important 
 town ; and such it has been ever since Roman days, 
 becoming in the Middle Ages the seat of the primate of 
 Germany, first in rank, though perhaps not in political 
 power, of the many prince-bishoprics included among the 
 states of the Empire. Coblenz, at the confluence of the 
 Moselle, has similar advantages of site and of Roman 
 tradition, though it has never been equally important. 
 Greatest of all Rhine cities is Cologne, situated considerably 
 lower down, where the Rhine has left the hills behind and 
 is approaching its delta. Like Mainz the seat of an electorT
 
 THE RHINE-LAND 239 
 
 archbishop, with dominions of greater extent, Cologne far 
 surpassed it in extent of trade and consequent population. 
 Like Mainz and Coblenz, Cologne has become in com- 
 paratively modern times a great fortress. The three 
 constitute the second line of defence for Germany against 
 France ; though Cologne, almost cut off from France by 
 Belgium, seems out of reach so long as Belgian neutrality 
 is preserved. 
 
 Circumstances have made Metz the only town in the 
 valley of the Moselle which has military importance. 
 Luxemburg, with a position which until modern times was 
 considerably stronger, has been neutralized and dismantled — 
 not without reason, for it would have been hardly tenable 
 against long range artillery. It is probable enough that 
 other points on the Moselle might have furnished sites as 
 satisfactory as Metz for the purpose of a fortress ; but there 
 Metz was, an ancient town of some little consequence, and 
 it has become perhaps the strongest place of its type in 
 existence. In German hands it is a standing menace to 
 France, considerably more dangerous than Strassburg ever 
 was to Germany, because an advance from Metz would 
 have only the comparatively insignificant obstacle of the 
 Argonne to pass, before being within reach of the heart 
 of France. 
 
 The site of Aachen, the Carolingian capital, was deter- 
 mined by its springs of mineral water, the use of which 
 dates back to Roman times. Not having the advantage of 
 standing on a great artery of commerce, it was completely 
 distanced by its neighbour Cologne, in spite of the prestige 
 given by its association with Charlemagne, and by its 
 continuing to be the crowning place of his German suc- 
 cessors. It owes such importance as it still retains, mainly 
 to the same cause which led to its original foundation. 
 
 The cities of the Rhine delta, which must be taken to 
 include the Scheldt, are many, though the greatness of
 
 240 THE RHINE-LAND 
 
 some among them has long declined. Ghent and Bruges 
 owed their mediaeval pre-eminence largely to causes in some 
 sense geographical. They grew up within the territories of 
 a not very powerful count, himself the vassal of a distant 
 overlord, in times when walls were stronger than the means 
 of attack. And they were the nearest cities to England, 
 never without importance as a market, and were thus able 
 almost to monopolize the English wool, which was then 
 grown for exportation and not for manufacture at home. 
 Submission to the Spanish yoke, in the long war of Dutch 
 independence, consummated their ruin ; but it had been 
 begun by the discovery of America, and the consequent 
 revolution in commerce. 
 
 Antwerp and Rotterdam are types of seaport towns 
 situated far up a navigable river, out of reach of purely 
 maritime attack, and rendered far more readily accessible 
 by the introduction of steam power. * Antwerp,' said 
 Napoleon, 'is a pistol pointed at the heart of England'; 
 and he did his best to create a fleet there, in the hope of 
 some day carrying out the threat. The steady policy of 
 England had supported for more than a century the treaty 
 right of the Dutch to control the Scheldt navigation, 
 Holland being, during most of the time, an ally of England. 
 How far this was due to foolish commercial jealousy, how 
 far to the belief that Antwerp, situated just opposite the 
 mouth of the Thames, might be dangerous in hostile hands, 
 we need not inquire. When it came at length into the 
 possession of the arch-enemy of England, the pistol could 
 never be made to go off, though the fact that Napoleon 
 was loading it caused England to undertake what proved 
 to be the most ignominious failure in her history, the 
 Walcheren expedition of 1809.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE BALTIC REGION 
 
 It is convenient to treat together all the lands from 
 which rivers drain into the Baltic, and to include that 
 portion of the north German plain which abuts on the 
 North Sea. There is, as has been said, no physical barrier 
 anywhere between the Ural mountains and the straits 
 of Dover. Thus the movements of tribes in the migratory 
 stage were only governed by geography to a small extent ; 
 they must pass between the Baltic and the Carpathians, 
 but otherwise they could move quite freely. Of those 
 movements in earlier times we know only the results. After 
 the Christian era the only migrations in this region are the 
 advance of the Slavs along the southern side of the Baltic, 
 as the Teutons moved upon the Roman empire, and the 
 subsequent ebb of the Slavs as the Germans reconquered 
 their old seats. 
 
 Of the geography of the lands north of the Baltic little 
 need be said from the historical point of view. The great 
 Scandinavian peninsula, which separates the Baltic from 
 the northern ocean, has always, since history began, been 
 inhabited by a branch of the Teutonic race. There is no 
 evidence that these Scandinavian peoples were strongly 
 differentiated from the other Teutons by anything except 
 geographical opportunities. In fact, their most marked 
 characteristic, aptitude for the sea, was shared by the 
 Frisians and others along the North Sea about, and west of, 
 the entrance to the Baltic. Perhaps other Teutons under 
 
 GEORGE R.
 
 242 THE BALTIC REGION 
 
 the same conditions might have developed the same 
 qualities. Certain it is that the Norsemen, to use the 
 general name under which they became the terror of 
 Europe in the ninth century, had every geographical in- 
 ducement to develop maritime aptitudes. Their land has 
 a rigorous climate, so that it is incapable of supplying 
 a large population, or of giving even a small one anything 
 beyond the necessaries of life. There is no exit from it 
 except by sea, and the coast is seamed with fjords affording 
 excellent harbourage, especially for the small vessels which 
 alone they could build. No wonder that they became 
 maritime, first as mere pirates, then sending off the swarms 
 that forced themselves into various countries of Europe. 
 Such opportunities ceased as time went on, and the 
 Scandinavians had to be content with their own land, but 
 their maritime habits continued. At this day the com- 
 mercial navy of Norway is out of all proportion to the 
 natural resources of the country, while many of its sailors 
 also serve under the British flag. 
 
 The backbone of mountains that runs down the Scan- 
 dinavian peninsula ought to be a backbone only, and not 
 a dividing line. The snow fields are an impediment to 
 intercourse, but hardly a barrier, not much more so than 
 mere distance in that cold and thinly peopled land. There 
 is no difference of race perceptible between Sweden, east 
 of the mountains, and Norway, west of them, nor indeed 
 between these and Denmark, south of the entrance to the 
 Baltic. In the earlier Middle Ages the time was not come 
 for nations on the large scale ; and it was natural that 
 in Scandinavia, as elsewhere, small kingdoms should be 
 established, and that there should be hostilities between 
 them. There, as earlier in England, these hostilities were 
 mixed up with conflict between Christianity and the dying 
 heathenism. There, as in England, a tendency to union 
 showed itself — union even actually accomplished for a short
 
 THE BALTIC REGION 243 
 
 time, but broken to pieces again. Antagonisms due to 
 many causes overcame geography, and what might have 
 proved a very powerful nation was never consoHdated. 
 Scandinavia, with its complete command of the mouth of 
 the Baltic, and consequent control over the Baltic trade, 
 might well have become a great power, in spite of climatic 
 drawbacks. Denmark, indeed, went some way towards it, 
 retaining territories north of the straits, and keeping 
 supremacy over Norway. But the Danish princes acquired 
 German lands, which really weakened them by entangling 
 them in German politics, and the persistent hostility of 
 Sweden proved fatal. When Sweden at the close of the 
 Napoleonic wars acquired Norway, as the price of her 
 effective support to the general cause of Europe, Denmark 
 definitely sank into a minor power. Norway, however, 
 resented the transfer ; centuries of enmity have been more 
 effectual than every possible geographical motive for union. 
 Differences in political ideas and institutions, instead of 
 being smoothed away, as took place between England and 
 Scotland, have become more acute with time ; Norway and 
 Sweden, though under the same crown, are as far as ever 
 from forming a united nation. The Scandinavian peoples, 
 in fact, furnish a marked illustration of the principle already 
 insisted on, that generalizations in the sphere of geography 
 merely indicate tendencies, not rules. It is perfectly 
 reasonable to lay it down that people akin in race, in 
 language, in religion, will be likely to coalesce politically, 
 if it is geographically possible. Yet here are three peoples 
 very closely related in all three respects, who have never 
 been able to coalesce, in spite of geography and of their 
 own obvious interests. Indeed, the only pair which have 
 ever worked well together are those which, geographically, 
 stand most apart. 
 
 The Baltic has often been called the northern Mediter- 
 ranean. In some sense it played the same part, in the 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE BALTIC REGION 
 
 ages before the discovery of America, of connecting the 
 peoples that dwelt on its shores, at any rate in trade. The 
 commercial activity and importance of the Hansa in the 
 later Middle Ages can scarcely be overstated, though its 
 leagues embraced many towns outside the Baltic. Climate 
 was of course unfavourable ; trade is carried on at great 
 disadvantage in a sea ice-bound during nearly half the 
 year, and is liable to be mulcted by the necessity of passing 
 through a very narrow entrance, easily commanded from 
 the shore, if it extends outside. The importance of the 
 Baltic was bound to diminish as commerce became world- 
 wide ; but for a time that very extension tended, not indeed 
 to the advantage of the Hansa trading towns, but to an 
 increased demand for Baltic produce. First Holland, and 
 then England, developed a need of Baltic timber and other 
 articles of naval construction. Down to the period of 
 European peace that followed the fall of Napoleon, the 
 affairs of the Baltic never ceased to furnish an important 
 factor in English foreign policy. 
 
 Finland is a country whose history has been entirely 
 dominated by one geographical fact. Its extremely severe 
 climate, uncompensated by any such advantage as great 
 mineral wealth, has always kept its population sparse and 
 poof. Its remoteness also has kept it greatly isolated. 
 Hence it has no independent history ; it was conquered by 
 Sweden in the twelfth century, having till then remained 
 heathen, and after being a bone of contention between 
 Sweden and Russia during the eighteenth century, finally 
 passed to the latter. And yet conditions exist such as 
 ought to make Finland a separate nation, if only the climate 
 had allowed it to develop sufficient strength to stand alone. 
 The Finns are totally distinct ethnically ; they are survivors 
 from a race that dwelt in Europe before Celt or Teuton had 
 appeared on the scene, a race that so far as is known was 
 aboriginal. Despite their history of subjection to foreign
 
 THE BALTIC REGION 245 
 
 powers, the sentiment of nationality is strong among them, 
 and they resent being more or less forcibly russified. 
 Geography would certainly declare that Finland belongs 
 rather to Russia than to Sweden, if it cannot be inde- 
 pendent : from the latter it is completely divided by the 
 sea, while there is nothing but an arbitrary line of frontier 
 between it and northern Russia. Geography, however, 
 does not say a word in favour of the attempt to destroy the 
 Finnish nationality. 
 
 The vast Russian plain offered something more than 
 facilities for the Mongol hordes that poured themselves into 
 Europe in the thirteenth century : nor was there any 
 geographical reason — none could exist in that featureless 
 expanse — why they remained in possession of no more 
 and no less than they did occupy, the south-eastern portion 
 reaching to the Caucasus and the Caspian. Similarly 
 there was no geographical obstacle to Russia, when her 
 national strength had been organized, gradually recovering 
 this region, until the Circassians turned to bay in the 
 mountainous valleys north of the Caucasus, and by their 
 aid resisted conquest for many years. 
 
 Slavonic states grew up in the remainder of the great 
 plain, the fluctuations of whose history do not depend 
 on geography. Ultimately they coalesced into two, Poland 
 on the west, which had absorbed Lithuania, and Russia. 
 Long before this the Slavs, who in earlier times had ex- 
 tended to the Elbe, had been pushed back, bit by bit, to 
 beyond the Oder, while Teutonic conquest, and rule over 
 a subject Slav population, extended further still. I'oland, 
 with its back, so to speak, to the Carpathians, had an 
 entirely arbitrary frontier as towards Russia, which occupied 
 all the north and east. Causes rather political than geo- 
 graphical brought about the ruin of Poland. The province 
 of Prussia along the Baltic, which had been a Polish fief, 
 passed to the electors of Brandenburg, and presently
 
 246 THE BALTIC REGION 
 
 became independent of Poland altogether. Russia con- 
 quered piecemeal on the east, like Louis XIV in the 
 Netherlands, there being in both cases no geographical 
 protection to the weaker party. The final absorption of 
 Poland by her neighbours made things worse, instead of 
 better, from the geographical point of view. The Russian 
 portion projects westwards like a blunt wedge between 
 Prussia and Austria, so that in case of war between Russia 
 and either, there would probably be very pretty illustrations 
 of what technical military writers call forming front to 
 a flank. The other, and worse, geographical anomaly 
 arises from the fact that Austria, unable efficiently to 
 support the independence of a Poland that could not 
 defend itself, was not ashamed to share in the spoliation. 
 Her part being Galicia, which lies along the north-eastern 
 face of the Carpathians, she is in possession of a province 
 which would be extremely difficult to defend against Russia, 
 as it lies beyond her natural mountain rampart. 
 
 Russia would seem at first sight to offer a spectacle the 
 reverse of what Scandinavia exhibits. There is a strong 
 sentiment of nationality, in spite of marked divergences in 
 race and religion ; and that sentiment is undoubtedly Slav. 
 There is a great mass of Mohammedan Tartars in the 
 south, there are German-speaking Protestants along the 
 Baltic coast, and there are Finns alien in everything. In 
 a country, however, which is both despotically governed 
 and backward in education and facilities of communication, 
 it is difficult even to guess at the real nature of public 
 feeling. The process of russification is too recent, and 
 has been carried on too much by force, to justify the 
 belief that it is thorough, even allowing for known excep- 
 tions. Curiously enough, the most conspicuous disaffection 
 is in Slavonic Poland, where religion alone forms a barrier, 
 apart from the reminiscences of past national independence 
 and Russian oppression.
 
 THE BALTIC REGION 247 
 
 The dominating motive of Russian policy, ever since 
 under Peter the Great she began to be strong enough to 
 pursue a pohcy, has been the desire of territorial aggran- 
 dizement. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that this 
 has been forced upon her by geography. A country without 
 access to the sea, except on a small strip of coast ice- 
 bound in winter, had every motive for pressing forward 
 towards more open waters. The acquisition of Livonia, 
 and later of Finland, though not unimportant, only gave 
 her more of the same Baltic shores. Expansion south- 
 wards offered a better prospect, and Russia reached the 
 Black Sea before the end of the eighteenth century. The 
 narrow entrance to that sea is, however, entirely in the 
 hands of the Turks, and Europe has repeatedly prevented 
 Russia from dispossessing the Sultan and seating herself 
 at Constantinople. The aggressiveness of Russian policy 
 in the far east, and in Persia, is traceable, more or less 
 completely, to the climate of the Baltic and the peculiar 
 formation of the exit from the Black Sea. 
 
 The history of the north German plain is not separable 
 from that of the Rhine-land and of the upper Danube 
 basin, because geographically there are no barriers between 
 them. The central watershed of Europe, between the 
 rivers flowing to the north and the Danube, is indeed 
 a real dividing line for a considerable distance. The 
 Carpathians, though not impenetrable, are true mountains, 
 and so are two of the ranges that bound Bohemia, though 
 by a geographical freak it is the two on the north, between 
 which the Elbe carries the whole river drainage of the 
 country, and not the two that physically constitute the 
 watershed. West of Bohemia, however, the hills form no 
 serious obstacles, neither those separating the Main from 
 the Danube, nor those between the Main and the northern 
 plain. Geographically, there was no reason why the 
 Teutons should not occupy, as in fact they did, the upper
 
 248 THE BALTIC REGION 
 
 Danube as well as the basins of the Rhine and Weser and 
 Elbe. Geographically, there was no reason why, at the 
 first partition of Charlemagne's empire, the share of Louis 
 the German should have had the western boundary actually 
 assigned to it. Rather there was reason for the German 
 kingdom extending further to the westward, so as to take 
 in Teutonic lands which were at the first partition assigned 
 to Lothar. 
 
 There is a certain geographical propriety about the four 
 national duchies of Germany in the next age. Swabia 
 corresponds pretty well to the upper Rhine, Franconia to 
 the basin of the Main, Bavaria to the upper Danube, and 
 Saxony to the plain from the Elbe westwards, while 
 Lotharingia, which came to be regarded as a fifth, was on 
 the lower Rhine, though scarcely including anything on 
 the right bank. Separate national sentiment existed, at 
 any rate for a time, in these regions, notably in Bavaria 
 and Saxony. It was only by accident, however, and not 
 through geographical influence, that the frontiers between 
 them anywhere corresponded accurately with watersheds, 
 and in no great length of time they ceased to be of any 
 account whatever. 
 
 The history of a level country like north Germany is 
 not likely to be very deeply affected by geography. There, 
 as everywhere, the course of campaigns is liable to be 
 greatly influenced by the position of rivers, and of the 
 places where they can be crossed. The influence of the 
 Elbe, and in a less degree of the Oder, in this respect is 
 too obvious to need illustration. Towns again, there as 
 elsewhere, grew up on sites that were pointed out by 
 geography, chiefly on the rivers. That the towns grew 
 rapidly in political and general importance in the tenth 
 century was due not so much to geography as to the 
 deliberate policy of the Saxon emperors. The only city, 
 perhaps, which deserves special mention is Dresden,
 
 THE BALTIC REGION 249 
 
 situated on the Elbe, just below where it emerges from the 
 defile of the Bohemian mountains. It thus becomes of 
 vastly increased military importance, as the campaign of 
 1S13 testified. 
 
 In a flat country frontiers between states, large or small, 
 are bound to be more or less arbitrary, and they therefore 
 can be shifted easily, as the power of rival neighbours or 
 their military fortune varies. Geography rarely afforded 
 any protection ; what people had to depend on was them- 
 selves. Indeed, it would not be very far-fetched to derive 
 the present unity and military strength of Germany from 
 the very lack of defensible frontiers. The kingdom of 
 Prussia, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter, 
 could hardly have maintained itself at its foundation, cer- 
 tainly could not have waxed in strength, without a large 
 and effective army. That army saved the state when 
 attacked on all sides by superior enemies in the Seven 
 Years' war. It must be admitted, however, that the central 
 position between the Elbe and Oder, utilized to the utmost 
 by the genius of Frederick the Great, did much to render 
 this success possible. Geographical defencelessness con- 
 tributed somewhat, no doubt, towards prostrating Prussia 
 before Napoleon, but it was again the sense that safety could 
 be looked for only through military efficiency that renovated 
 the Prussian army. It was that army sedulously improved, 
 and wielded by a greater genius even than Frederick, which 
 gradually united all Germany under Prussian headship.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 The Danube plays a most important part in European 
 history, greater even than the Rhine. Its valley was the 
 main highway by which successive peoples entered Europe 
 from the east. It formed along most of its length the 
 frontier of the Roman empire, deliberately selected and 
 maintained. Everywhere on the right bank there are 
 traces of Roman rule, practically nowhere on the left bank, 
 the name of the kingdom of Roumania marking connexion 
 only with the new Rome at Constantinople. They are, 
 however, merely traces : whether the subjects of Rome 
 between the Alps and the upper Danube were Teutons or 
 not, the region became entirely Teutonic in the fall of the 
 Western empire, if language and institutions be any test of 
 race. Beyond the Alps the Teutons passed as conquerors, 
 but not to form the bulk of the population. Substantially 
 the Alpine chain, where it separates the Danube basin from 
 Italy, is the limit of the Teutonic race. 
 
 The watershed bounding the Danube on the north has 
 been sufficiently described in chapter ix. As far down as 
 the great bend to the southwards at the western end of 
 the Carpathians, it leaves but little space on the left bank. 
 And though they curve far away round the Hungarian 
 plain, the Carpathians return to the river again below its 
 final turn eastwards. On the south side, on the contrary, 
 the watershed is everywhere far from the main stream of 
 the Danube; but the Alpine chain, which forms it, branches
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 251 
 
 out to the northwards, fiUing up much of the country 
 between the various ):ributaries of the Danube. All these 
 mountain ranges are, structurally, spurs from the main 
 chain ; some approach very near to the Danube, and some 
 do not ; and more than one is of historical importance. 
 The well-marked ridge bounding the Inn valley on the 
 north sinks away to nothing before reaching the Danube ; 
 but it very clearly separates from the Inn what is some- 
 times called the Bavarian plain, the elevated table-land 
 across which the Iller, the Lech, and the Isar flow north- 
 wards into the Danube. In the earlier Middle Ages this 
 range had little significance ; but after the break-up of the 
 national German duchies, it became and has continued the 
 frontier between Bavaria and Tyrol. 
 
 It must be confessed that the present political frontier 
 has little geographical propriety. If all the Danube basin, 
 at any rate so far down as Presburg, had been consolidated 
 into a single power, Tyrol, the Inn basin, would have 
 formed a natural and obvious part of its dominions. The 
 arrangement by which Tyrol is pushed out westwards as 
 a wedge between Germany and the Alps certainly lacks 
 symmetry. Napoleon's transfer of Tyrol to Bavaria, though 
 dictated entirely by his own selfish interests, had from this 
 point of view something to recommend it. He calculated, 
 however, without the Tyrolese, whose hereditary devotion 
 to the house of Austria was invincible ; and the Haps- 
 burgs had duly appreciated and cultivated their attach- 
 ment, partly no doubt from sentiment, partly also because 
 of the value of Tyrol in giving access to Italy while they had 
 important interests in that country. The Tyrolese rising of 
 1809 is sometimes quoted as an instance of mountaineers, 
 aided by their mountains which form a refuge, holding 
 out against foreign conquest. In truth, however, the case 
 was very different : it was not that the Alps of Tyrol pro- 
 vided almost unassailable fastnesses, such as the Highlands
 
 252 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 afforded to the Picts against both Romans and Angles, such 
 as the Asturias afforded to some portion of the Spaniards 
 when the Moors overran Spain. The Tyrolese assumed 
 the offensive after a period of submission to treaty^ fought 
 their enemies in the open, and only derived incidental 
 assistance on one or two occasions from the mountains, 
 when the imprudence of the French entangled them in 
 a defile. Moreover, the country was open to French inva- 
 sion on all sides. As a military achievement the temporary 
 success of the Tyrolese is all the more remarkable, in that 
 it owed comparatively little to the mountains. 
 
 The mountains which bound the Inn valley on the 
 south push out a spur so far towards the north-east that 
 they leave a comparatively narrow space between their 
 extremity and the hills on the south-western side of 
 Bohemia. From just below Passau, where the Inn joins 
 the Danube, there is what may be called a defile of some 
 forty miles in length, through which the Danube passes 
 into its second basin, of which Vienna is the centre. The 
 second basin has a somewhat wider extent on the north 
 side, since it includes Moravia, which lies between the 
 Carpathians curving down to Presburg and the south- 
 eastern frontier of Bohemia. Moreover the latter, though 
 part of the watershed between the Danube and the Baltic, 
 consists of mere high ground, so that practically, though 
 not theoretically, Bohemia belongs rather to the second 
 basin of the Danube than to north Germany. On the 
 south side the last spur of the eastern Alps comes down 
 nearly opposite the Carpathians, fairly marking off the 
 second basin from the great Hungarian plain. The latter 
 must be taken to include the basins of the lower tributaries 
 of the Danube, the Drave and Mur, and the Save, which 
 successively enter the main river near Belgrade, and to 
 be bounded by the ridge which, running northwards from 
 the Balkans, leaves between itself and the southern point
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 253 
 
 of the Carpathians the narrow defile known as the Iron 
 Gates. Below them the Danube flows through a level plain, 
 bounded on the south by the distant Balkans, on the north 
 by the gradually receding Carpathians, till it falls into the 
 Black Sea. 
 
 The history of the Danube region corresponds very 
 closely to this conformation. Up its channel the move- 
 ments of migrating peoples flow steadily and as it were 
 naturally, guided by the geographical structure, but not 
 altogether controlled by it. When the Teutons have settled 
 down after their epoch of conquering migration, after the 
 Hun deluge has risen to its height and ebbed away again, 
 Teutons are found in full possession of the highest basin 
 of the Danube, but not confined by it. They are equally in 
 occupation beyond the nominal boundary of the Swabian 
 Alps on the north, and beyond the Black Forest at the western 
 extremity. Indeed the frontier between Swabia and Bavaria 
 corresponds pretty nearly to the Lech, a tributary flowing 
 north into the Danube, and ignores the watershed between 
 the head of the Danube and the upper Rhine. Between 
 Bavaria and Franconia, on the other hand, the frontier 
 is fairly represented by the northern watershed. To the 
 southward there are points enough where the Alpine chain 
 can be passed, and the Teuton domination extends far 
 beyond it. Bavaria, as well as Italy, obeyed Theodoric the 
 Ostrogoth. Teutonic occupation, however, goes but a little 
 way beyond the crest of the Alps. The present limit of 
 the German language to the south of the Brenner, the 
 easiest pass, is v/ell within the mountain region, though 
 south of the watershed. 
 
 The Slavs at the same epoch occupy the second and 
 third basins, not merely the immediate valley of the main 
 river, but also the valleys down which flow its southern 
 tributaries. The Magyar somewhat later pour westwards 
 up the Danube, and after being decisively defeated and
 
 254 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 thrust back out of the upper basin, settle down in the 
 third or Hungarian basin. Austria begins as an eastern 
 frontier district of the Bavarian duchy, organized as a defence 
 against the Magyar, pushing through the broad Passau- 
 Linz defile, and occupying gradually the whole of the small 
 second basin. At the close of the Middle Ages the upper 
 valleys of the Drave and Save, which belong to the third 
 basin, all of them that can reasonably be called part of the 
 Alpine region, are under Austrian dominion, though the 
 bulk of the population remain Slav. Otherwise the Germans 
 do not extend beyond the second basin, though by way 
 of compensation they have pushed across the slight moun- 
 tain barrier to the head of the Adriatic, and possess Trieste. 
 
 The Hungarian kingdom, politically Magyar, but with 
 a subject majority of the prior Slav inhabitants, is confined 
 on the north and east by the watershed of the Carpathians, 
 but extends its supremacy over Croatia, the Slav region 
 of the lower Save and Drave basins, and even across the 
 south-eastern Alps to the Adriatic. The natural desire for 
 an outlet to the sea, growing more urgent in course of time, 
 as the world becomes more peaceful and commerce more 
 important, overcomes the prima facie tendency to accept 
 a mountain chain as frontier. 
 
 On the other side of Hungary geography vindicates 
 itself. The Carpathians, which bound the whole north 
 and east of the Hungarian plain, and return close along 
 the lower Danube, curl round on themselves, almost 
 enclosing Transylvania. This mountain barrier, though 
 not quite continuous, and by no means impassable, has 
 yet in fact served greatly to isolate the region within it. 
 A considerable German colony maintains itself in part. 
 The Slav people of another part are easily distinguishable 
 in character. Politically also Transylvania was able to 
 maintain a virtual independence during the stormy period 
 in which Hungary was being fought for by Hapsburgs and
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 -OD 
 
 Ottomans. Its sovereign even aspired to snatch the prize 
 from both, and to re-estabhsh Hungary as a separate 
 kingdom for himself. 
 
 Belgrade, situated on the Danube a little way above the 
 Iron Gates, and within a little distance of the junctions 
 with its last great tributaries, was for centuries the most 
 important fortified place in south-eastern Europe. Its 
 capture by Sultan Solyman in 15 21 was the signal that 
 the Ottoman power had burst the barriers which had 
 hitherto confined it, so far as Europe was concerned, to 
 the Balkan peninsula. Within a very few years the great 
 victory of Mohacs gave Hungary over to the Ottomans. 
 It is remarkable how their advance was controlled by 
 the geographical conditions. Like a rising flood, the 
 Ottomans submerge the Hungarian plain, extending to 
 the Carpathians on the right of their advance, and up 
 to the mountain land on the left. When at its highest, 
 the tide has risen beyond the third Danube basin, and 
 is lapping round Vienna. Repulsed from before the 
 Hapsburg capital, the Ottoman flood ebbs back till it 
 leaves a little of Hungary no longer submerged. Presburg, 
 situated in the neck joining the second and third basins, 
 becomes for a century and a half not exactly a border 
 fortress, but practically equivalent to one. In the seven- 
 teenth century the energies of the house of Othman 
 declined, and the Hapsburgs began to reconquer. A last 
 convulsive effort brought the Ottoman armies again round 
 Vienna, only to incur a crushing defeat at the hands of 
 John Sobieski, king of Poland, the timely ally of Austria. 
 In a few years more the Hungarian basin was finally quit 
 of the Ottomans, and the success of the Hapsburgs is 
 marked as decisive by the recapture of Belgrade, though 
 they did not permanently retain it. 
 
 It was pointed out in chapter ix that Bohemia, though 
 belonging on the watershed principle to north Germany,
 
 256 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 historically belongs rather to the Danube region, for the 
 geographical reason that its south-eastern frontier is only 
 nominal, while on the north there are real mountain 
 chains. Moravia, the triangle of land between Bohemia 
 and the western Carpathians, which drains into the Danube 
 near Vienna by the single river March, at an early date 
 became closely connected with Bohemia, like itself popu- 
 lated by Slavs ever since the great Teuton migration. 
 
 The same geographical fact is emphasized by the ever- 
 recurring connexion between Bohemia and more distant 
 Danube lands. In the thirteenth century, when the 
 German empire was at its weakest, Ottocar, king of 
 Bohemia, bade fair to establish a great power in the very 
 centre of Europe, essentially Slav. His defeat and death 
 at the hands of Rudolf of Hapsburg did much more than 
 found the great fortunes of Rudolf's house. It made the 
 second basin of the Danube finally German, and connected 
 Bohemia positively, and not merely nominally, with the 
 Empire. For the moment it isolated Bohemia once more, 
 but personal union with Hungary, more than once renewed 
 and broken again, became gradually more and more natural. 
 The death of king Louis of Hungary and Bohemia on the 
 disastrous field of Mohacs, leaving no representative of 
 the old line except his sister, the wife of Ferdinand of 
 Hapsburg, definitely laid the foundation of the modern 
 Austrian power. 
 
 Heterogeneous as it is in the races and languages it 
 includes, and still more in constitutional machinery, the 
 Austro-Hungarian monarchy is by no means an anomaly 
 on the map. It comprises all the Danube region except 
 the immediate upper basin of the great river itself, which 
 after all is more clearly divided from the Inn than from 
 the Main, down to where the Danube turns eastwards 
 parallel to the Balkans. It includes Bohemia, which is 
 as it were the converse' of Bavaria, historically but not
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 257 
 
 technically belonging to the Danube region. In two 
 places only, if we ignore details, does it pass beyond its 
 natural boundaries : it possesses the strip of Adriatic coast 
 beyond the mountains — an acquisition vital to Austria and 
 not tenable by any other power — and Galicia beyond the 
 Carpathians, which is a real anomaly and source of weak- 
 ness. That there are various and mutually jealous races 
 within the monarchy is a misfortune : that some of them 
 have kindred outside the frontiers may prove a worse 
 evil eventually. Meanwhile, Austria affords one more 
 illustration of the readiness with which peoples may over- 
 pass rational dividing features that are not barriers. 
 
 The military history of the Danube region corresponds, 
 as is natural, with the geographical conditions. The great 
 river flows through it from west to east, and most of the 
 aggressive movements, both migrations of peoples and 
 organized invasions, are from the eastwards, or are driven 
 back in the opposite direction. Moreover, the Danube 
 down to Presburg runs near to the northern boundary, 
 leaving a comparatively wide space on the south, traversed 
 by a series of tributaries, being in this respect the exact 
 converse of the Po. Accordingly, the great battle which 
 checked the onward progress of the Hungarians was fought 
 on the Lech : the less conspicuous but equally significant 
 encounter which stopped the Mongols of the thirteenth 
 century took place near the eastern frontier of Austria 
 proper. After the Hungarians have become Christian, 
 they are inevitably the foremost defence of Christendom 
 against the Ottoman Turks. On the Hungarian plain, 
 usually within no great distance of the Danube, were fought 
 the battles which brought Ottoman conquests up to the 
 gates of Vienna, and drove them ultimately back to the 
 Balkan peninsula. 
 
 When the conditions have changed entirely, and aggres- 
 sion in central Europe comes habitually from France, the 
 
 GEORGE S
 
 258 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 first conflict is naturally for access to the head of the 
 Danube valley. For it is Austria which is the permanent 
 enemy of France ; and therefore attack is directed primarily 
 against her, though the fact that her sovereign was also 
 Emperor usually brought the other German states into the 
 fray. The Hapsburgs, moreover, possessed territories 
 geographically unconnected with Austria, relics of their 
 mediaeval beginnings as princes in Swabia, which lay 
 specially open to French attack. Alsace, beyond the 
 Rhine, having been conquered, France had henceforth 
 ■only to cross that river, for which she possessed in Strass- 
 burg and other fortresses the certain means, to be face to 
 face with Austria in the Black Forest. Accordingly, cam- 
 paigns which concerned the Danube region began by the 
 French forcing their way through the Black Forest hills. Re- 
 peatedly France found an ally in Bavaria, which obviously 
 made the task easier ; in any case, the lines of defence, for 
 whichever combatant needed them, were best furnished by 
 the tributaries of the Danube. 
 
 Occasionally, the fact that there is nothing like a mili- 
 tary barrier between the upper Danube and the Main 
 received practical illustration in war. Marlborough reached 
 the course of the Danube from the north, and interfered 
 between the advancing French and Vienna, though, by 
 way of an exception, his great victory of Blenheim was won 
 on the northern bank. Napoleon similarly surrounded 
 Ulm with his armies in 1805. The same geographical 
 condition rendered possible the masterly strategy of the 
 archduke Charles in 1796. Two French armies invaded 
 Germany that year — one in the Main region, the other 
 across from the Rhine to the head of the Danube, con- 
 verging gradually towards each other. Unable to with- 
 stand both effectually, he retreated until his two enemies 
 -were near enough together. Then, trusting to their lack 
 ;pf ready communication in a hostile country, he left a
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 259 
 
 small force to watch Moreau on the Danube, while he 
 assailed Jourdan on the Main with superior force, and drove 
 him out of Germany. That task accomplished, he could 
 return across the hills west of Bohemia into the Danube 
 basin, and compel Moreau in his turn to retreat. 
 
 Several of the cities in the Danube region are worthy of 
 special notice for geographical reasons, though of many 
 there is no more to be said than that they have grown up 
 on the river or its tributaries, the exact situation being 
 fixed by accident, or perhaps by small topographical 
 details. Highest up on the main stream is Ulm, which in 
 the Middle Ages competed with Augsburg as a commer- 
 cial centre, but is best known as a fortress. Its position, 
 commanding roads through the hills of the Black Forest 
 and of the Swabian Alps, is eminently suitable for both 
 purposes. Its military history seemed to have terminated 
 with the territorial changes resulting in the fall of Napo- 
 leon, soon after the most famous incident in its history. 
 It has, however, been refortified since 1870, as a defence 
 to south Germany in case of a successful attack by France 
 on Alsace and the Rhine. 
 
 Ratisbon was the point at the eastern end, as Coblenz 
 was at the western, of the line of frontier which the 
 Roman empire carried beyond the Rhine and Danube. 
 Doubtless it was selected as the site for a Roman town 
 because there the small river Regen (whence its proper 
 German name, Regensburg) falls into the Danube. Though 
 never of the highest importance, it has always been a con- 
 siderable city, and during the last centuries of the Holy 
 Roman empire was the permanent seat of the diet. It 
 was chosen doubtless for that purpose as being outside the 
 immediate dominions of the Hapsburgs, then permanently 
 in possession of the imperial crown, yet conveniently near 
 to them, and not unreasonably far from being central to 
 Germany as a whole. 
 
 s 2
 
 26o THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 Augsburg^ another city of Roman origin, owed all its 
 greatness to commerce. Accessible easily from the lake of 
 Constance, and so from the passes out of Italy to the 
 head of the Rhine, it is also reached, over no very trouble- 
 some mountains, from the valley of the Inn, to which lead 
 other passes from Italy. Hence it was well suited to be an 
 emporium for Italian trade with central Europe. Situated 
 in the open plain of the Lech, its immediate position 
 doubtless determined by a tributary there falling in, it 
 readily drew to itself the trade from the east up the Danube 
 valley, and therefore also from the north. The wealth of 
 the Augsburg merchant princes, and the wide range of their 
 commercial influence, was at the close of the Middle Ages 
 proverbial. The great maritime discoveries greatly reduced 
 its relative importance, as did the conflicts arising out of 
 the Reformation, -which culminated in the Thirty Years' 
 war. Augsburg, however, still retains some traces of its 
 former character as an emporium. A stranger, if one could 
 be placed in Augsburg without any clue to where he was, 
 need not be entirely incredulous if told that he was in an 
 Italian town. This certainly could not be said of Nurem- 
 berg, the old commercial rival of Augsburg, not very 
 far off", but beyond the hills that separate the Danube from 
 the Main. 
 f Munich, the modern capital of Bavaria, owes its im- 
 portance to history, not to geography. Like Berlin, it has 
 no advantages of site ; but it became the seat of one of 
 the small principalities which happened to accrete other 
 dominions. Like Berlin also, though in even greater degree, 
 it owes much to the perseverance of its princes, who have 
 adorned it with many great buildings, and many treasures 
 of art. Innsbruck, on the other hand, is marked out by 
 nature as the seat of a considerable town. At that point 
 the Brenner route, the most convenient of all Alpine passes, 
 all things considered, reaches the Inn valley, which is
 
 THE DANUBE BASIN 261 
 
 henceforward fairly broad till it joins the Danube. Nor has 
 one far to go up the Inn to arrive at easy routes towards the 
 head of the Danube, across what are known as the Bavarian 
 highlands. 
 
 Vienna is the only town in the second basin which 
 requires separate mention ; and perhaps no city in Europe 
 owes more to geography. Originally one of many Roman 
 frontier towns, it never rose to importance until it became 
 the centre of the German ' march ' pushed eastwards 
 towards Hungary, and interposed between Slavonic Bohemia 
 and Moravia, and the Alpine duchies of Styria and Carin- 
 thia, almost equally Slavonic. As the fortunes of the 
 Hapsburgs gradually rose, Vienna became the centre of 
 their great accumulation of territories, and for this its 
 position was eminently suitable. Not merely is it on the 
 Danube, with open communication east and west, and well 
 situated also for communication to the southwards — it is 
 also within easy reach of Bohemia, across the insignificant 
 line of the Mahrenwald. To it also naturally descends the 
 obvious route between northern and southern Europe 
 which crosses from the Oder to the March, between the 
 north-western point of the Carpathians and the Bohemian 
 mountains. No wonder that several military events of 
 decisive importance have occurred within sight from the 
 steeple of St. Stephen's church, if not from the walls of 
 Vienna. Rudolf of Hapsburg's victory, which gave Austria 
 back to the Germans ; the discomfiture and retreat of 
 Solyman's besieging army ; John Sobieski's victory, which 
 finally drove back the Ottomans ; Napoleon's victory of 
 Wagram, which placed him at the zenith of his greatness — 
 all took place close to Vienna ; and the field of Austerlitz is 
 not very far off. 
 
 The Hungarian capital dwarfs all other cities in the 
 wide expanse of the third basin. Buda, perched on a hill 
 immediately overhanging the Danube, possessed a con-
 
 262 THE DANUBE BASIN 
 
 veniently defensible site, and it became the head quarters of 
 the Magyar kings. Pest began as a commercial appendage 
 on the opposite bank, there being very little room on the 
 Buda side between the hill now crowned by the royal 
 palace, and the river which is the necessary highway of 
 trade. In later times the patriotism of the Hungarian 
 people has expressed itself in the creation of the stately 
 modern city, and in works intended to protect it against 
 inundations, such as nearly destroyed Pest some seventy 
 years ago.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 Many of the forms of influence exerted in history by 
 geographical facts work on so large a scale that it is scarcely 
 possible to discuss them in relation to a single country. 
 The whole map of Europe comes under view if we attempt 
 to follow out such influences in a great war, and there is no 
 European war in which they cannot be traced. It will 
 probably suffice to dwell on the illustrations derivable from 
 the wars of the French Revolution, which are at once the 
 most familiar and the widest in geographical range of any 
 that Europe has seen. 
 
 Napoleon's first operation at the head of a French army, 
 in April, 1796, is justly regarded as a masterpiece; though 
 the difficulty of the task he set himself seems to have been 
 exaggerated, like many of his achievements, by himself and 
 his admirers. He attacked the allied Austrian and Sar- 
 dinian armies posted along the crest of the Appennines, 
 forced them apart more by skilful manoeuvring than hard 
 fighting, and then, turning on the weaker of the two hostile 
 powers, compelled Sardinia to sue for peace, before fol- 
 lowing up the Austrians. Military writers use this campaign 
 of Montenotte as an illustration of the weakness involved 
 in two armies acting together which have divergent bases. 
 If the enemy can attack them successfully at their point 
 of junction, each tends to retreat towards its base, for fear 
 of having its supplies cut off, and therefore away from the
 
 264 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 other. The enemy, who is necessarily stronger than either 
 singly, has the opportunity of crushing one, while holding 
 the other in check. This is what Napoleon aimed at doing 
 in the Waterloo campaign, and thought he had achieved by 
 his victory at Ligny ; but he was then foiled by the persistence 
 of the allied generals in holding together. The Montenotte 
 success, however, meant something much greater than sepa- 
 rating his two antagonists, so as to deal with them singly, 
 as will appear from the map. At the beginning of 1796, 
 the army of which Napoleon took command was in a posi- 
 tion combining almost every geographical disadvantage. 
 It lay along the strip of coast between the Mediterranean 
 and the Appennines, stretching eastwards from the south- 
 eastern corner of France. It was therefore at a maximum 
 distance from its resources, and was also liable to have no 
 room to retreat if assailed by superior forces. Nor was this 
 all : England being much stronger than France at sea, the 
 whole coast-line was exposed to naval attack. On the other 
 hand, the king of Sardinia was obliged after Montenotte to 
 submit to conditions of peace which gave the French free 
 access through his dominions to Lombardy. As a matter 
 of fact, Piedmont was thenceforth virtually subject to France, 
 and was before long formally annexed ; but even without 
 this, the advantage acquired by Napoleon's success was 
 enormous. The French were able to use the straightest 
 and easiest route into Italy, instead of the most circuitous 
 and difficult to protect, and therefore to make their bid 
 for domination in north Italy under the most favourable 
 conditions. 
 
 The rest of Napoleon's campaign in 1796 was purely 
 local, and therefore belongs to the geography of Italy. 
 The conflict was entirely isolated, because neutral Switzer- 
 land lay between the French army in north Italy and those 
 on the Rhine. The only effect which operations in either 
 theatre of war could have on the other, was if pressure in
 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 265 
 
 one quarter had so drained the resources of either belh'gerent 
 as to weaken him in the other. As a matter of fact, the 
 campaign in Italy, though not without vicissitudes, ended 
 very much to the advantage of the French. In Germany, 
 on the contrary, two French armies penetrated deeply into 
 the heart of the country, and were driven out again by the 
 skilful strategy of the archduke Charles, so that the French 
 had made a great effort and failed. 
 
 The geographical conditions had widely altered when the 
 next European war broke out. The French had in the inter- 
 val overrun Switzerland, and could treat Swiss territory as 
 their own, at any rate for campaigning purposes. Thus, 
 in 1799, France was facing her enemies on the whole line 
 from the North Sea to the south of Italy, where a new- 
 fangled republic was kept in existence in Naples by French 
 arms. The French were swept out of Italy by Kray and 
 Suvorov, and were foiled in such attempts as they made to 
 penetrate into Germany; but Massena held his ground 
 successfully in Switzerland, and thus saved France from 
 invasion. The campaign as a whole was, it is true, mis- 
 managed by the allies ; but nevertheless the effect of there 
 being one large theatre of operations, instead of two small 
 separate ones, was perceptible throughout. 
 
 At the end of 1799 Napoleon made himself master of 
 France; the scheme of campaign for 1800 was therefore 
 formed by him. It has been extolled with every imaginable 
 superlative as a prodigy of skill ; and the passage of the 
 Great St. Bernard, in particular, has been described as an 
 exceptional feat. As a matter of fact his plan was risky, 
 and only succeeded by great good fortune. The events 
 of the year are none the less highly interesting, as showing 
 how the structure of the region involved suggests and 
 controls operations of war. 
 
 At the beginning of 1800, as four years earlier, the 
 Austrians were on the Appennines, the French merely
 
 266 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 holding the strip of coast as far as Genoa. The rival 
 powers also faced each other along the Rhine from Basle 
 downwards. The difference lay in the French holding 
 Switzerland, which gave them the opportunity of entering 
 the upper basin of the Po from the north, as well as 
 from the south and west. The direct route for a French 
 attack on Austria, as is obvious from the map, is across the 
 upper Rhine, always assuming that south-western Germany 
 is involved in the war. The hill region of the Black Forest, 
 filling up the triangular space which the Rhine encloses, 
 flowing west from the lake of Constance and turning north 
 at Basle, is the only physical obstacle to French advance. 
 If they can penetrate to the head of the Danube the way 
 lies open to Vienna. It is easy to see how greatly the task 
 of forcing the Black Forest barrier was facilitated by the 
 French occupation of Switzerland. They could turn the 
 Black Forest altogether if they crossed the Rhine just below 
 the lake, although the disadvantage of a more circuitous 
 line of communication might possibly have balanced the 
 gain. At any rate, they had an additional length of river 
 on which to threaten attack, and thus to distract the enemy 
 more effectually, and make it easier to force a passage at 
 the point finally selected. 
 
 The Austrians, anxious to secure their hold on Italy, and 
 blind to the possibility of attack through Switzerland, opened 
 the campaign by besieging Genoa, the capture of which 
 would open communication for them with the English fleet. 
 At the same time they occupied the Black Forest with an 
 adequate army, but formed no plan of aggressive operations 
 in that quarter. Napoleon doubtless saw, as plainly in 1800 
 as later, that the only effective line for attacking Austria 
 was towards the Danube. General Moreau, his one rival 
 in military reputation, was however in command of the 
 French army on the Rhine. Napoleon, newly made First 
 Consul, could neither displace Moreau nor allow him the
 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 267 
 
 credit of conquering Austria, if that were to be achieved. 
 He therefore formed a plan by which Moreau was to force 
 the Austrians out of the Black Forest and advance to the head 
 of the Danube valley, but to rest content with that measure of 
 success. Meanwhile the army on the Riviera, including 
 the besieged garrison of Genoa, was to hold its ground 
 as best it could, while he himself led another army across 
 the Great St. Bernard into north Italy. In this way he 
 would come between the Austrian army in Piedmont and 
 its base, and would, if victorious, have it at his mercy. On 
 the other hand, he would, if defeated, have very great diffi- 
 culty in escaping over the Alps. 
 
 At that date there existed no good carriage road across 
 the Alps, though rough cart tracks had been made over 
 several of the passes. The Great St. Bernard, though the 
 highest of these, is perhaps the easiest, apart from elabo- 
 rately constructed roads or tunnels, and its position is also 
 the most convenient for Napoleon's purpose in 1800. To 
 take an army over it, entirely unopposed, was a simple 
 matter, though involving time and labour. As a military 
 feat it is not comparable to what Suvorov had achieved 
 in the previous autumn, nor to Macdonald's passage of the 
 Spliigen in December of the same year. It is only because 
 of the absurd fashion of lauding to the skies everything 
 done by Napoleon, that it has been supposed to rival 
 Hannibal's famous march. Napoleon was far too good 
 a general not to use an easy route when it was available, 
 though he was not above exaggerating his own performances. 
 
 Reports, skilfully propagated by Napoleon's orders, had 
 misled the Austrians into supposing that the army he 
 was going to lead into Italy only existed on paper. Hence 
 their commander in Italy was unprepared for its emergence 
 from the Val d'Aosta in his rear. Nevertheless he was 
 nearly saved from the surprise by an apparently trifling 
 obstacle to the French. Low down in the Val d'Aosta,
 
 268 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 where it happens to narrow, is an eminence nearly closing 
 the valley, crowned by a small fort. This was held by 
 400 Austrians only, but their guns commanded the road, 
 and the walls were strong enough to defy field artillery. 
 Mountain paths rendered it possible for infantry to get 
 past the place, but only slowly and with difficulty : these 
 paths were unfit for horses, and quite impossible for guns. 
 After some delay the French soldiers managed to drag 
 guns up the mountain slopes to a height from which they 
 commanded the interior of the fort, which crippled the 
 defence : and they were then able to convey guns at night 
 along the road under the walls, though not without some 
 loss. If the fort had happened to be so constructed that 
 the road went through it, not a gun or supply wagon could 
 have passed till the fort was taken. And if the slopes had 
 been a little steeper, or if field guns had been as clumsy as 
 in earlier days, it would have taken an indefinite time to 
 overcome the resistance of the fort, quite long enough to 
 allow the main Austrian army to be prepared to meet 
 Napoleon. No better illustration can be found of the 
 momentous effect which a small geographical obstacle may 
 produce in war. 
 
 The battle of Marengo, which followed, was very near 
 being a ruinous defeat for Napoleon, and was converted 
 into a victory by two of his generals acting without orders \ 
 into a conquest by the inertness of the Austrian general, 
 never very capable, and then eighty years of age. It was 
 however a reconquest of Lombardy only : not until Moreau 
 in the Danube basin was set free to move, at the termina- 
 tion of a long and ineffectual armistice, and win a great 
 victory at Hohenlinden, did Austria acknowledge herself 
 
 ^ Napoleon would no doubt have ordered both Dessaix and Kellerman 
 to act as they did, had he had the opportunity ; but as a matter of fact 
 they acted, and were under the circumstances right to act, on their own 
 responsibility.
 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 269 
 
 beaten. The vast difference between a successful attack 
 directed at the heart of a state, and any amount of success 
 in a non-vital region, could not be more aptly illustrated. 
 Nor was Napoleon himself blind to the fact. Though 
 personal policy obviously made it his cue to glorify Marengo 
 and say as little as possible about Hohenlinden, in his 
 subsequent wars with Austria he went straight for the 
 Danube valley. 
 
 Twice in his career, in 1805 and in 1809, Napoleon 
 entered Vienna at the head of a victorious army. In 1805 
 the Austrians had taken up a position at Ulm, imprudently 
 far in advance of their own frontier, in the hope of keeping 
 true to the German cause the small states of the south-west, 
 whose princes had a traditional leaning towards France out 
 of jealousy of the head of the Empire. Napoleon brought 
 overwhelming forces to bear on this army, captured or 
 destroyed nearly the whole of it \ and had no difficulty in 
 reaching Vienna. In 1809 the Confederation of the Rhine 
 had been formed, and all the south German states were 
 dependent allies of Napoleon. Hence the first encounter 
 was further east, in the sort of loop enclosed by the Danube 
 and the lower course of its tributary the Inn. Napoleon's 
 brilliant strategy, in what is kncrwn as the battle of the Five 
 Days, entirely discomfited the Austrians, and again the way 
 lay open to Vienna. In 1805 he was able to seize the 
 great bridge over the Danube, and consequently was free to 
 cross the river and meet the enemy in Moravia, where he 
 won the overwhelming victory of Austerlitz. In 1809 the 
 bridge had been destroyed : he was foiled in his attempt to 
 
 ' Napoleon's march on Ulm is often described as a marvellous effort 
 of genius, and a striking instance of the importance of geography in a 
 campaign. In truth it was neither : there was no geographical obstacle 
 to overcome, no resistance to be expected. Any competent staff officer 
 could have worked out the problem by what roads a large army could 
 best move fromnear the North Sea to the upper Danube.
 
 270 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 force a passage of the Danube at Aspern, and had to spend 
 many weeks in preparations before he could resume the 
 attempt and win a less decisive, but still sufficient, victory 
 at Wagram. Outside the Danube basin the campaigns are 
 very similar, and illustrate the permanence of geographical 
 conditions in war. In both cases the French and Austrians 
 fought also in north Italy : in both cases the Austrians, 
 though able to hold their ground in the subordinate theatre 
 of war, were compelled to give way by the great defeats in 
 the Danube valley. In both cases Prussia, situated on 
 Napoleon's flank when he had advanced to Vienna, was in 
 a position to intervene against him with decisive effect, but 
 in neither case could she muster up courage to do so. 
 
 When Napoleon resolved to attack Russia in 1812, 
 geographical considerations, it is not too much to say, 
 determined the action of every power concerned. The 
 Tzar made up his mind to stand strictly on the defensive, 
 partly no doubt in order to make it clear that this war was 
 an act of wanton aggression on Napoleon's part, but also 
 because he realized that if the Russian armies could not 
 arrest the tide of invasion, the size of the country would 
 prove an effectual defence, provided that the nation held 
 out. Napoleon was master of the Continent as far east as 
 the line of the Adriatic, except in the Peninsula. Between 
 his virtual dominions and the Russian frontier lay two 
 states still nominally independent. He could not reach 
 Russia except across their territory — practically it must be 
 through Prussia, for within the Russian frontier bordering 
 on Austria lay the region of the Pinsk marshes, presenting 
 for hundreds of miles a barrier against the movement of 
 armies. Thus if his route lay through Prussia, Austria was 
 on his flank : he could not possibly invade Russia, unless 
 assured that Austria would not prove hostile. The two 
 German powers were in a very awkward position. Both had 
 suffered grievously at Napoleon's hands, in military defeats
 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 271 
 
 and losses of territory, and hated him accordingly. Both 
 saw that if they took part with Russia they would for 
 obvious geographical reasons have to bear the brunt of 
 Napoleon's attack. And as they were suspicious that 
 Russia might leave them in the lurch, and make peace 
 with Napoleon at their expense, as had happened before, 
 Austria at least would not run the risk. Prussia, indeed, 
 being in the more desperate position, would have done so 
 if promised full support from Russia ; but the Tzar had 
 made up his mind to take no aggressive step whatever. 
 Probably, if assured that both Austria and Prussia would 
 co-operate in earnest, he would readily have accepted the 
 opportunity of fighting out the war on their territories. But 
 Austria would not, and Prussian assistance alone was not in 
 his judgement worth the sacrifice of the advantages resulting 
 from a purely defensive attitude. Austria and Prussia were 
 therefore obliged to side with Napoleon, and to furnish 
 contingents to his armies : but the difference in their 
 geographical position was the main reason why they fared 
 differently. Prussia could have been instantly overrun by 
 Napoleon's troops, and was therefore helpless : for he would 
 have spared no severity in order to obtain full control of 
 Prussian territory for the passage of his armies. Austria, 
 besides being somewhat stronger, was not on Napoleon's 
 route, but could threaten his flank. He could have over- 
 whelmed her by force, but it was cheaper to treat her with 
 some consideration so as to secure himself against her 
 hostility ; and Metternich knew how to make good use of 
 the opportunity. 
 
 When the invasion actually began, geographical con- 
 siderations were still paramount. It is a total mistake to 
 suppose that the Russians had formed a subtle plan of 
 luring Napoleon to his ruin by retreating continually before 
 him : still less did they calculate that the cold would destroy 
 his army. They would have fought near the frontier in the
 
 272 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 
 
 natural way had it been possible; but the Tzar's expecta- 
 tions were doubly deceived. Napoleon's numbers proved 
 far greater, his own immediately available forces proved 
 considerably less, than his information led him to calculate 
 on. Hence there was no alternative but prompt and 
 continued retreat. Napoleon's one object was to bring on 
 a great battle, which would as he believed be decisive. He 
 thus practically lost the initiative, and could only follow the 
 enemy, whose line of retreat was naturally towards the 
 centre of the empire. In that boundless plain there were no 
 defensive positions that could not be turned, no strategic 
 points which it was vital to retain. Not until the Russians 
 were within seventy miles of Moscow did they turn to bay 
 at Borodino. By that time Napoleon had penetrated 
 nearly 500 miles into Russia, and had expended three 
 quarters of his enormous army in losses of all kinds, in 
 guarding his long line of communications, and through the 
 necessity of detaching large forces to face subsidiary Russian 
 armies to north and south. The troops still under his 
 immediate command were not much stronger than his 
 immediate opponents, and the victory was very dearly 
 purchased and not decisive. In fact it was disguised defeat ; 
 it opened the road to Moscow, but it left Napoleon no 
 strength to go further. He owed his total ruin to his own 
 obstinacy, to clinging to the belief that the Tzar would sue 
 for peace, and thereby leaving time for Russian reinforce- 
 ments to come in and for the winter to draw near. The 
 failure of his expedition was however complete, though, if he 
 had quitted Moscow at once, he might have saved the relics 
 of it ; and under the geographical conditions failure was 
 inevitable from the first unless the Tzar's courage gave 
 way. Any one knowing what we know now of the relative 
 numbers, and of the resolute temper of the Russian nation, 
 might have predicted the course of the campaign, the 
 measure of success the invader would attain, and, if he had
 
 THEATRES OF EUROPEAN WAR 273 
 
 also known Napoleon's character, the thoroughness of his 
 overthrow. 
 
 In the next year the geographical position of Austria was 
 again of vital importance. Prussia had risen as one man to 
 join the advancing Russians. Austria was not yet ready to 
 take the field with effect, perhaps was not quite sure where her 
 true interest lay. At any rate she remained ostentatiously 
 neutral, while the spring campaign of 1813 was fought out 
 in north Germany, resulting in considerable success for 
 Napoleon. Then Austria joined the allies, and her position 
 on the flank of both parties made her intervention all the 
 weightier. Napoleon struggled hard, relying on his own 
 genius and the probable lack of concert among his enemies. 
 He even won a great victory at Dresden, which was mainly 
 due to an advantage given him by the topography \ but it 
 proved hardly a temporary relief. If when Austria entered 
 the field against him he had recognized that his position in 
 Saxony was untenable, and retired towards the Rhine, he 
 would have had a good chance, in spite of the superior 
 numbers of his enemies. As it was, he gathered his whole 
 strength to Leipsic, on which the hostile armies converged, 
 and sustained a crushing defeat. 
 
 ' This is described at p. 109.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 
 
 The Mediterranean Sea was well fitted to be the cradle 
 of civilization. The inhabitants of more northern climes 
 have in fact outstripped, during recent centuries, the 
 peoples round its shores ; and there is a widespread belief 
 that the less genial climate is on the whole more favourable 
 to human progress. The greater his needs, it is thought, 
 the more man will exert himself, provided that the natural 
 conditions are not rigorous enough to stunt him intellectu- 
 ally, or physically, or both. It may be that this generaliza- 
 tion is based on too scanty materials ; it may be that it is 
 true only on the condition which in fact has existed, that 
 the northern peoples are specially fitted to develop and 
 carry forward civilization which perhaps they could not 
 have originated. At any rate all the essential elements in 
 our modern life, religion and government, arts and sciences, 
 philosophy and poetry, did begin on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, 
 
 The peculiar shape of the inland sea obviously facilitated 
 human intercourse round its coasts, in ages when it was 
 a risk for vessels to venture out of sight of land. Between 
 Asia Minor and the easternmost of the three European 
 peninsulas the sea is thickly studded with islands : it was 
 easy for Ionia to be as Greek as Hellas. Between the 
 Greek and Italian peninsulas the Adriatic forms a long
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 275 
 
 narrow gulf, which could be crossed even by ships that 
 must be beached at night. The great projection on the 
 African shore, near the angle of which stood Carthage, 
 comes very near to Sicily, itself separated by the narrowest 
 of straits from Italy. The Mediterranean is thus divided 
 into two basins ; and though the western one is less broken 
 in outline, it has in its midst the two large islands of Corsica 
 and Sardinia. Finally, the entrance by the straits of 
 Gibraltar, though wide enough for maritime convenience, 
 excludes the great waves of the Atlantic : the storms of the 
 Mediterranean, though occasionally fierce, are of home 
 production and usually brief. 
 
 The northern coast of Africa has a wide strip of cultivable 
 land, some of it very fertile, beyond which lies the desert. 
 In the days when the Mediterranean was a Roman lake, 
 north Africa flourished greatly, but it has never recovered 
 from the devastation that began with the break-up of the 
 Empire, and was continued through the Arab conquest 
 which severed it entirely from Christendom. It possesses 
 neither the civilized population, nor perhaps the depth of 
 really habitable territory, which might render a state of the 
 modern type possible there. France has within compara- 
 tively recent years established her dominion over a large 
 section of north Africa, and this is obviously of some value 
 to France, as improving her maritime position in the 
 western Mediterranean. Very little progress has however 
 been made in really bringing the country once more within 
 the European pale : Algeria is still an Arab land, though 
 with a thick veneer of French civilization. 
 
 Carthage in earlier times was a great power, and its 
 admirable position, just where the two basins of the 
 Mediterranean meet, gave it every advantage, ample in ages 
 when a single city with its appendages was the commonest 
 type of independent political unit. Geographical situation 
 made it easy for Carthage, assuming that she possessed the 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 
 
 requisite energy, to dominate the western Mediterranean 
 with her fleets, to found colonies in Spain hitherto outside 
 the pale of civilization, and to establish, not without severe 
 conflict against Greek rivals, a preponderating influence in 
 Sicily. That she was worsted by Rome in a struggle on 
 which was staked, though the combatants knew it not, the 
 leadership of the civilized world, was d^ue rather to other 
 causes than to geography, except so far as Rome had the 
 support of kindred peoples in Italy, while Carthage had 
 little to correspond. 
 
 Egypt is of course to be excepted from this general 
 account of north Africa. It is even more completely 
 dependent on geography, but in another manner. The 
 Nile, as has been truly said, constitutes Egypt. Outside 
 the space fertilized by the Nile flood there is mere desert : 
 within it is the seat of what apparently was the oldest of 
 civilizations. There is no other instance of a country so 
 entirely the creature of a single geographical condition. 
 The Ganges is the main artery of Bengal, the Yang-tse- 
 kiang of central China, the Danube of the Austrian 
 monarchy ; .but none of them possess a fraction of the 
 relative importance of the Nile. Egypt has also its access 
 to the Red Sea, and thereby to the distant east : and it has 
 a way by land into western Asia, though the desert character 
 of the soil interposes a serious obstacle to military aggres- 
 sion in either direction. These things are however trifling 
 in comparison to the Nile, without which there would have 
 been no Egypt to trade or to make war. 
 
 From time immemorial Asia and Africa (to use these 
 words in their modern sense, so as to include the entire 
 continents) have been considered to meet on the isthmus 
 of Suez, and Europe and Asia to be separated by the 
 waters leading to the Black Sea. Nor could geography select 
 more appropriate boundaries, all things considered. As a 
 matter of historical fact, however, Asia Minor has been much
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 277 
 
 more concerned with the Mediterranean than with the rest 
 of Asia ; and the same holds good, though to a less degree, 
 of Syria. The mountains which, beginning in the Taurus, 
 stretch north-eastwards across to Armenia, and the fact that 
 the Black Sea gives maritime access from the north of Asia 
 Minor to the Mediterranean, are largely accountable for this 
 separateness, by no means continuous or complete, yet 
 holding good during a great part of history. So also the 
 desert between the broad and fertile strip of Syrian coast 
 and the Mesopotamian rivers, tended to force Syria into 
 connexion with Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean 
 generally. It was a definite step downwards, a virtual 
 renunciation of any claim to be a great power within the 
 European sphere, when the Abbassides removed the seat of 
 the Khalifate from Damascus to Bagdad. 
 
 Italy and the other European countries touching the 
 Mediterranean have been discussed in previous chapters. 
 It remains to say something of the easternmost of the three 
 great peninsulas. The method which has been adopted, of 
 dividing up Europe according to the marked watersheds, 
 includes the northern portion of the peninsula, above the 
 Balkan chain, in the Danube region. The Balkans, however, 
 though they can only be turned at the eastern end, where 
 the narrowness of the gap between the hills and the Black 
 Sea gives importance to Varna, can be readily crossed, as 
 all history shows. They are an obstacle, across which it 
 costs much for an army to force a passage in face of real 
 resistance, as the campaign of 1877 bore witness. At the 
 same time they are just the sort of mountain chain which a 
 skilful assailant can make sure of forcing. The possible 
 routes across it are so many that adequate defence of all is 
 out of the question, unless with a total of forces far greater 
 than the enemy can bring into the field. The Russians in 
 1877 pretty easily seized the first pass that they made 
 for; it was mainly their mismanagement, and consequent
 
 278 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 
 
 heavy losses elsewhere, that so long delayed their further 
 advance. 
 
 The Balkans proved their reality as an obstacle, and their 
 inefificiency as a barrier, during several centuries of the 
 history of the Eastern empire. When the real Bulgarians, 
 a race probably Turkish, made their first appearance in 
 Europe, they established a kingdom on the lower Danube, 
 with the prior Slav inhabitants as subjects. Against them 
 the Eastern empire was able to hold the line of the Balkans, 
 and found no difficulty, when its energies revived at a later 
 date, in crossing the mountains to reconquer its former 
 territories, though these were again lost a century later. 
 As the final result, the lands north of the Balkans retained 
 the Bulgarian name, though the Bulgarian people had been 
 utterly swamped in the multitude of their Slav subjects, had 
 adopted a Slavonic tongue, and rank to this day as Slavs in 
 national sentiment. 
 
 The history of the Balkan peninsula is in most respects 
 what geography would render probable. The mountains 
 running down the west coast have repeatedly served as 
 shelter, and not to one race only. The little city republic 
 of Ragusa, originally of Greek foundation, lived on into the 
 nineteenth century. The Albanians held out long against 
 the conquering Ottomans. The Slavs of Montenegro 
 managed to preserve their practical independence through 
 the zenith of the Ottoman power, until in our own day it 
 has been formally recognized. The land being open on 
 the north-east, successive floods of invaders entered it from 
 the regions north of the Black Sea, sometimes crossing the 
 Balkans and sometimes not. The Slav immigration into 
 Greece in the early Middle Ages bade fair to supplant the 
 Greeks altogether ; but the tide ebbed again, and Greek 
 national sentiment revived as strong as ever, though it is 
 doubtful what proportion of the present inhabitants can be 
 correctly described as of Greek race. The Ottomans alone
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 279 
 
 came across from Asia Minor in the height of their 
 conquering vigour, and rapidly extended their sway far 
 beyond the Balkans. It is intelligible, in view of the total 
 dissimilarity between the Turks and their subjects in 
 language, religion and customs, that the ordinary anticipa- 
 tion, that the two would gradually fuse, should not have 
 been verified. The remarkable thing is that Greeks and 
 Bulgarians, alike in many respects, and especially in common 
 subjection to alien masters, should have remained obstinately 
 separate. In the dominions still left to the Sultan, the 
 majority of the inhabitants are probably Greek, but their 
 villages are mixed up with Turkish and Bulgarian villages. 
 They live in juxtaposition, so that geographical lines 
 cannot be drawn, marking out one section of the country 
 as Greek, another as Bulgarian, and another as Turkish ; 
 but there is no tendency to union. Like oil and water, 
 they fail to blend, however much they are artificially 
 mixed. 
 
 The southern portion of the Balkan peninsula, which is 
 now the kingdom of Greece, corresponds fairly well to the 
 Greece of classical antiquity. The whole country is moun- 
 tainous, so that the fertile districts are small, and more or 
 less isolated from one another. It is obvious that this 
 favoured the Greek tendency towards separate city states, 
 though in view of all the facts we cannot assume that the 
 geographical conditions originated this tendency. We find 
 independent cities on the Boeotian plain and on the open 
 coast of Asia Minor, united, if at all beyond mere alliance, 
 in forced subjection to one of their number. Whether 
 caused by the geographical conditions or not, this one fact 
 dominates the history of Greece throughout its palmy days. 
 The separate city life developed an amount of energy which 
 almost conceals the smallness of the country, and of the 
 total population involved, great though that must have been 
 in proportion to the number of cultivable square miles.
 
 28o THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 
 
 After the Macedonian conquest the Greek character changed. 
 Under a long continuance of foreign rule, the Greeks 
 developed other qualities : their influence remained great in 
 arts and literature, but not in arms. Though after the fall 
 of the Western empire the Greek language became gradually 
 preponderant in the Eastern, it was on the whole not the 
 Greeks who fought and ruled. The sentiment of nationality, 
 such as there was, identified itself with Rome, and had its 
 seat in Constantinople, a cosmopolitan city, not in Athens. 
 Thus for every reason there is very little in Greek history 
 that calls for comment from the geographical point of view, 
 with one remarkable exception. The most splendid incident 
 in Greek military annals, the defence of Thermopylae ^ 
 against the Persians, depended entirely on a geographical 
 condition now changed. The famous pass between Mount 
 Oeta and the sea, which gave the only convenient road into 
 southern Greece, has now been extended by the receding 
 of the sea to a plain some two miles wide. 
 
 The sea of course played a very important part both in 
 the development and in the expansion of the Greeks. 
 Concerning the previous race, if indeed it was distinct, of 
 which recent discoveries give intimation, we know nothing 
 but what archaeology can tell. Nor again is there anything, 
 beyond inferences from similar sources of information, to 
 determine the extent and nature of the Greek debt to 
 Egypt and to Phoenicia. The legend of Cadmus, for 
 instance, may merely clothe the truth, or may distort, or 
 even totally misrepresent it. There could easily be, and in 
 fact there was, much maritime intercourse about the eastern 
 Mediterranean. It was at the very dawn of authentic 
 
 ^ I am quite aware that modern scepticism tends to disbelieve the 
 accuracy of the story of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans ; but 
 the legend, if it be such, could not have arisen unless some stand had 
 been made at Thermopylae, which would now be impossible without 
 great numbers.
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN. 281 
 
 history that the Greeks were beginning to found colonies 
 also westwards. They were planted thickly on the Italian 
 side of the Adriatic, round the coasts of Sicily, in one 
 small portion of north Africa, and for a little way up the 
 west coast of Italy. Whether they were unable to establish 
 themselves in face of the Etruscan, and later of the 
 Carthaginian power, or whether they would not venture on 
 more and more distant enterprises, certain it is that Greek 
 settlements did not extend beyond Naples. The one 
 exception, Marseilles, was founded under very special cir- 
 cumstances, by men who had lost all at home, and who 
 were regarded as doing an unusually daring thing. 
 
 The three great islands of the western Mediterranean all 
 belong to Italy by geographical position, as well as on the 
 whole by affinities of race and language. Of these Sardinia 
 was an early possession of Rome, and has ever since been 
 in one way or another closely connected with the mainland 
 of Italy, though Napoleon III did make a discreditable 
 attempt, happily unsuccessful, to procure the island for 
 France. Corsica, equally Italian in affinities, had a similar 
 history to Sardinia until in the eighteenth century it was 
 annexed by France. 
 
 The third great island, Sicily, though the nearest to Italy, 
 has had in fact the most distinct history, and to this its 
 geographical position has greatly contributed. Situated in 
 the very centre of the Mediterranean, it has been a tempting 
 prize to almost every people that has from time to time 
 been strong in Mediterranean waters. Greeks or Cartha- 
 ginians colonized nearly the whole of its coasts : both alike 
 fell under the dominion of Rome. The Saracens got a 
 footing there : a Norman adventurer made himself master 
 of the whole island, and his successor inherited the other 
 Norman acquisitions in south Italy. Then Sicily fell into 
 the hands of the king of Aragon, ultimately becoming part 
 of the Spanish empire, whence it returned, as a result of
 
 282 THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN 
 
 diplomatic arrangement, to its natural connexion with south 
 Italy. The connexion is however obvious and natural 
 only from the physical point of view, and to a certain 
 extent in language. The successive settlement of foreign 
 races on the island has made of the Sicilians a very mixed 
 race, having but little affinity to the real Italians in blood 
 or in ideas.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 The history of America covers but a short period, and 
 the political conditions have been peculiar. It furnishes 
 very few instances, similar to those afforded in abundance 
 by European history, of the influence of geography on the 
 political destinies of nations. Though the whole of South 
 America, except the European settlements in Guiana, is 
 partitioned among independent nations, they are all of one 
 type ; and their turbulent annals record no events of the 
 slightest interest from the geographical point of view. The 
 same holds good of the southern portion of North America : 
 the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have mingled 
 with the natives, and have formed states like their southern 
 neighbours, with a similar veneer of modern civilization 
 largely due to immigrants from Europe, and a similar sub- 
 stratum of comparative barbarism. The United States 
 were saved by the triumph of the North in the war of 
 secession from breaking up into separate nations, so that 
 a single government rules the whole centre of the continent 
 from ocean to ocean. Similarly the whole of America 
 north of the United States is occupied by the single 
 dominion of Canada, loyal to the British crown, but in 
 other respects an independent nation. The frontier 
 between the two is in most of its length absolutely con- 
 ventional, but happily there have been no wars upon it. 
 
 The geography of North America to some extent accounts 
 for the fact that two great nations now occupy the whole of 
 it, north of the comparatively narrow portion which tapers
 
 284 AMERICA 
 
 down to the isthmus of Panama. The Rocky mountains, 
 which form the watershed between the Atlantic and Pacific, 
 run close to the western side of the continent. East of 
 them is one boundless plain, not of course altogether flat, 
 but containing no chain of mountains long or high enough 
 to form a definite barrier. Even the Alleghanies are easily 
 crossed, and sink away into the plain at each end. Thus 
 when the white men, having settled along the Atlantic 
 coast, began to push their way westward, they encountered 
 no geographical obstacles. The question as to which of the 
 European peoples should dominate America was fought out 
 before the great expansion began. English colonies occupied 
 all the central part of the coast, but had not extended far 
 beyond the Alleghanies when they revolted and became a 
 separate nation, soon afterwards absorbing the French colony 
 on the northern shore of the gulf of Mexico. England 
 meanwhile had conquered the French colony of Canada, 
 then limited to the lower part of the St. Lawrence basin. 
 This district is still mainly French in race and language ; 
 but the vast regions to the westward, from the eastern end 
 of the great lakes to the Pacific, know no tongue but English, 
 and comparatively few immigrants of other races. In the 
 United States there has been a much greater admixture ; but 
 the whole ' population, save for the Irish element, is sub- 
 stantially Teutonic, with English for the universal language. 
 Thus two contiguous peoples, closely akin in race and in 
 all that race implies, were in the same position : they had 
 before them the prospect of indefinite expansion, at the cost 
 of getting rid of the aborigines, thinly scattered over the 
 whole area, whom they were neither able nor desirous to 
 convert into slaves. Before both alike the red men dis- 
 appeared : they were incapable of assimilating civilization, 
 
 ^ The negro element in the United States, large as it is, may be 
 ignored : the black men count for nothing in the gradual supplanting of 
 the red men by the white.
 
 AMERICA 285 
 
 and have in great measure died out, there having been prac- 
 tically no admixture of races. The analogy is very close 
 with many of the movements of pre-historic man, when new- 
 comers expropriated the old inhabitants, driving them out or 
 destroying them, but enslaving or otherwise absorbing only a 
 few. Civilized man works by different means, and with less 
 definite intention to destroy ; but the result is the same. In 
 Spanish America we have a modern instance of the other type 
 of conquest, the more common one within times even vaguely 
 historic. The European conquerors made the natives 
 their subjects, more or less their slaves ; but they came merely 
 as conquerors, not as settlers. They brought with them 
 comparatively few women of their own race, and in process 
 of no long time they blended with the natives, to whom, as was 
 natural, they imparted their laws and language. The result 
 has been less successful than the fusion of (for instance) the 
 conquering Franks with the romanized Celts of Gaul. 
 
 The most important event in American history since the 
 discovery by Columbus, at any rate the most far reaching 
 in its consequences, depends essentially on geography. In 
 the middle of the eighteenth century the English colonies 
 occupied the east coast, from near the mouth of the St. 
 Lawrence downwards, and part of the north shore of the 
 gulf of Mexico. The French colony of Louisiana held the 
 mouth of the Mississippi, and the French colony of Canada 
 extended some way up the St. Lawrence. They formed 
 a plan for making these separate possessions join hands 
 behind the back, as it were, of the Enghsh colonies, which 
 at that time had not extended much further westwards than 
 the line indicated by the Alleghany mountains. The Ohio 
 rises not far from the eastern end of the great lakes, and 
 drains the western slope of the Alleghanies. The French 
 established trading posts, which were also forts, down the 
 course of this river, that flows at an acute angle to the 
 Mississippi,- the source of which is near the western end of
 
 286 AMERICA 
 
 the chain of lakes. This was a matter of life and death to 
 the English colonies, and a war began which ended in the 
 conquest of Canada, and the extinction of all chance that 
 the New World should be dominated by France. Pitts- 
 burg, on the Ohio, the city which has taken the place of the 
 French Fort Duquesne, still recalls the name of the great 
 minister who steered England through the Seven Years' 
 war. Delivered from hostile neighbours on the north, the 
 English colonies were free to revolt against what they deemed 
 the oppression of the mother-country. Once independent 
 they expanded rapidly westwards, as at a rather later date did 
 Canada, which remained subject to the British crown. Thus 
 it is no great exaggeration to say that the whole destiny 
 of North America turned upon the opportunity given to 
 the French, by the lie of the Ohio river, to threaten the 
 safety of the British colonies along the Atlantic coast. 
 
 Geography, if we use the word in its wider sense, so as to 
 include influences of climate and the like, is largely respon- 
 sible for the presence in the United States of the negro 
 element. The cotton, which is the chief natural product of 
 the southern states, like the sugar of the West Indies, could 
 not in that climate be cultivated by white labour. The 
 aboriginal inhabitants had no aptitude for industry, and the 
 momentous step was taken of importing negroes from 
 Africa. In that age it was inevitable that they should be 
 slaves, and a great burden of wrong and trouble was thereby 
 accumulated. Conjecture is fruitless as to what might 
 to-day have been the condition of the American negroes if 
 they had from the first been free immigrants ; but it is fairly 
 certain that without them the regions round the gulf of 
 Mexico would have remained practically without inhabitants. 
 
 Thanks to the geographical conditions the United States 
 hold a position in the world which is entirely unique, largely 
 but not altogether to their advantage. With no neighbour 
 except Canada, the nation has little need of defence : its
 
 AMERICA 287 
 
 resources are not drained like those of the states of the 
 European continent, in order to maintain a maximum of 
 mihtary force. It can only engage in war by crossing the 
 ocean, or by attacking Canada ; in other words the chances 
 of its becoming involved in war are immensely diminished. 
 Its vast extent of territory gives it a wide range of natural 
 products, and therefore makes it less dependent than any 
 other on importation from abroad. The Americans, as has 
 been often remarked, can try a system of thorough-going 
 protection with less immediate detriment to their comfort 
 than any other people. On the other hand this same wide 
 range of territory intensifies the opposition of interests and 
 parties within the nation. The negro problem, so urgent to 
 the south, does not affect the west. The commercial 
 relations of the Pacific coast are different from those of the 
 Atlantic. The farmers of the west are apt to think that the 
 manufacturers of the east are economically their enemies. 
 Such antagonisms may of course exist in any country ; but 
 the greater its extent, the more inevitable, and in a sense 
 the more justifiable they become. 
 
 North America, largely through the geographical con- 
 ditions already mentioned, has been able to show the world 
 the first specimens of two new phenomena, one of which 
 remains unique. The earlier English colonies were allowed 
 by the mother-country to manage their own affairs, subject 
 to control in certain respects. Having a new land to them- 
 selves, with no subject population to complicate things 
 (except the negroes, who being slaves counted for nothing 
 politically), they developed a social system of their own, 
 largely based on the materials in law, religion, and habits of 
 thought, which they had brought with them, but modified to 
 suit the new conditions. It was the first time in history 
 that civilized men had had such an opportunity, except the 
 Greek colonists who founded cities in Sicily and elsewhere. 
 The control of the mother-country, slight as it was, was
 
 288 AMERICA 
 
 injurious to the colonies, being worked for the supposed 
 commercial advantage of England, and led to their revolt. 
 Since gaining their independence, the United States have 
 developed what must be called a new nationality. Hostility 
 to England was naturally a strong feeling at the beginning, 
 but geography has done more. The sense of their unique 
 position, of being separated by the broad Atlantic from the 
 other civilized nations, and of having indefinite room for 
 expansion, has been the chief intellectual element. Climate 
 possibly has contributed something. At any rate the world 
 has been enriched during the nineteenth century by the 
 establishment of a new and vigorous nation, with a strong 
 and separate character of its own, in spite of its identity in 
 language with England, and close affinity in other respects. 
 Great Britain learned a political lesson from the loss of 
 her American colonies, and learned also that the economic 
 theories were unsound, on which were based the measures 
 that had induced the Americans to revolt. Hence she has 
 allowed Canada full self-government, and the same thing 
 has happened in Australasia, where also the white settlers 
 found the aborigines vanish before them. The result is 
 that the British empire contradicts what has hitherto been 
 an axiom of political geography, that a state which was not 
 enclosed in a ring-fence was in a position of serious weak- 
 ness, and might be expected to use every effort to make its 
 territories conterminous. Steam and the electric telegraph 
 have done something by facilitating communications ; but 
 the knowledge that the slight control which England still 
 exercises will never be used for her own separate benefit 
 has done more. Without indulging in any predictions as 
 to the future, we may safely cite the present relations 
 between Great Britain and her colonies, as showing how 
 completely political inferences drawn from geography may 
 be falsified by the introduction of a new condition into the 
 problem.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aachen, 229, 239. 
 
 Aden, 87. 
 
 Adriatic coast (Austrian), 68, 1S6, 
 
 ^57- 
 Africa (North), 275. 
 
 — (South), 79, 97, 160. 
 Aigues Mortes, 46. 
 Albigensian War, 156. 
 Alessandria, 197. 
 Alexander the Great, 88. 
 Alexandria, 47. 
 Alfred, King, 29, 140. 
 Algeria, 275. 
 
 Alison criticized, 225 note. 
 Alps- 
 Italian frontier, 22-3, 113, 
 
 183-4, 186. 
 Mont Blanc, 186, 222. 
 Passes, 184-5, 201-8, 211-12, 
 215-16, 223-5, 267. 
 Alsace — 
 
 French claims to, 59 ttote, 70- 
 71 ; French conquest of, 67, 
 237-8, 258. 
 German nationality of, 31, 66-7, 
 
 71- 
 Hapsburg rule of, 231-2. 
 America (North) — 
 
 Canada. See that title. 
 French colonies, 284-6. 
 United States. See that title. 
 
 — (South), 283. 
 Angles, 138, 140. 
 Anjou, 157-8. 
 Antwerp, 234, 240. 
 Appennines, 187, 189. 
 Aquileia, 198. 
 Aquitaine, 154, 157-9. 
 Aragon, 78, 156, 167, 171-2, 281, 
 Aries, 230. 
 
 Asturias, 171, 173. 
 Augsburg, 260. 
 
 Austria {for districts and towns, 
 see their titles) — 
 Adriatic possessions of, 68, 186- 
 7> 257. 
 
 GEORGE 
 
 Austria {continued) — 
 Extent of, 129. 
 French relations with, 73, 21^, 
 
 258. 
 Frontiers of, 131, 251-3. 
 Napoleon's campaigns against, 
 
 30, 102, 106, 208-9, 258 ; 
 
 attitude towards Napoleon 
 
 (1812), 270-73. 
 Polish possessions of, 246, 257. 
 Avars, 127. 
 
 Balkan Mountains, 114, 277-8. 
 — Peninsula, 128 {for districts 
 
 and towns, see their titles). 
 Basle, 220, 225-6. 
 Basque, 124. 
 Bavaria, 58, 248, 258. 
 Bayonne, 168. 
 Belfort, 43. 
 Belgae, 133 note'^. 
 Belgium {for towns, see their 
 titles)— 
 
 European battle-field, 72-3. 
 
 Heterogeneity of, 235. 
 
 Napoleon's campaign in (1815), 
 102. 
 
 Neutrality of, 33, 221, 235. 
 
 Spanish tyranny over, 77. 
 Belgrade, 48, 255. 
 Berezina, 105. 
 Berlin, 46, 260. 
 Berne, 48, 225. 
 Berwick, 148. 
 
 Blenheim, battle of, 106, 25S. 
 Bocchetta Pass, 184. 
 Boers, 79, 97. 
 Bohemia — 
 
 Boii inhabitants of, 58. 
 
 History of, 256. 
 
 National sentiment of, 68. 
 
 Situation of, 116, 252, 255. 
 
 Slav occupation of, 126,256. 
 Bologna, 199. 
 
 Borodino, battle of, 108, 272. 
 Boundaries. See Frontiers.
 
 290 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brenner Pass, 207, 214, 260. 
 Bristol, 40. 
 British Columbia, 2. 
 Brittany — 
 
 Celtic language of, 123, 164. 
 
 Maritime aptitude of, 79. 
 
 Separateness of, 164. 
 
 Union of, to France, 161. 
 Bruges, 240. 
 Buda, 261-2. 
 Bulgaria, 129, 278-9. 
 Burgundy — 
 
 Duchy and County, 161-2, 231. 
 
 Extent of, originally, 58, 115 
 and }ioie, 156 and note. 
 
 French acquisition of, 234-5. 
 
 Kingdom, foundation of, 230, 
 
 Netherlands subject to, 77. 
 Busaco, battle of, 107, no, 178. 
 
 Cadiz, 41, 174. 
 Calcutta, 49. 
 Canada — 
 
 Constitution of, 288. 
 
 Southern frontier of, 31, 283. 
 Capitals, 46-9. 
 Carcassonne, 41. 
 Carpathians — 
 
 Conformation of, 250, 254, 
 
 Immigrations into Europe 
 divided by, 4. 
 
 Slavs bounded by, 125. 
 Carthage — 
 
 Maritime greatness of, 41, 75, 
 81, 83, 275. 
 
 Ruin of, 18, 45. 
 
 "War with Rome, 91, 195-6, 
 211-13, 276. 
 Castile, 171-2. 
 Catalonia, 171-2. 
 Celts- 
 Brittany inhabited by, 123, 164. 
 
 Cymric — western migrations of, 
 54; in Wales, 60; later in 
 Great Britain than Gaelic, 138. 
 
 Distribution of, 55. 
 
 Expulsion of, by Teutons, 127, 
 
 137. 139- 
 
 Gaelic — western migrations of, 
 54 ; in Ireland and Scotch 
 Highlands, 124; earlier in 
 Great Britain than Cymric, 
 138. 
 
 Loire, on the, 155. 
 
 Charlemagne, partition of empire 
 of, 154, 156, 158, 229-30, 
 248 ; Spanish march subject 
 to, 167 ; Val Rendena church 
 founded by, 208 ; nature of 
 empire of, 229. 
 
 Charles I, 147. 
 
 — II, 148. 
 
 Chateau Gaillard, 158. 
 
 Chur, 225. 
 
 Cimbri, 213-14. 
 
 City-states — 
 
 Greek development of, 14, 183, 
 
 279. 
 Italian development of, 40, 182, 
 190. 
 
 Coaling stations, 86-7. 
 
 Coblenz, 238. 
 
 Col de I'Argentiere, 202, 211-12, 
 215. 
 
 Col di Tenda, 184-5, ^°^- 
 
 Cologne, 238-9. 
 
 Columbus, 62, 78, 144. 
 
 Commerce, sea power in connexion 
 with, 80. 
 
 Constance, Lake of, 222. 
 
 Constantinople — 
 Character of, 280. 
 Commercial prosperity of, 82. 
 Site of, 39, 47-8. 
 
 Copenhagen, 48. 
 
 Corsica, 281. 
 
 Cortes, 78. 
 
 Cromwell, 148. 
 
 Crusades, 83. 
 
 Danes in Britain, 29, 140. 
 Danube — 
 
 Basin of, 28, 117, 250-62. 
 
 Napoleon delayed by, 30, ic6, 
 269. 
 
 Roman Empire bounded by, 
 122. 
 David I of Scotland, 149. 
 Defence, strategy of, loi seq. 
 Denmark — 
 
 Copenhagen, 48. 
 
 Fleet of, seized bj' Great 
 Britain, 92. 
 
 Scandinavian affinities of, 242-3. 
 Dominica Island, 60. 
 Dresden, 109, 24S, 273. 
 Dunbar, battles at, 148.
 
 INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Edward I, 135, 143, 148. 
 
 — 11, 150. 
 
 — Ill, 149, 158-60. 
 
 — IV, 147. 
 Egypt, 99, 276. 
 
 England {for districts and toiuns, 
 see their titles, and see also 
 Great Britain) — 
 Fens in, 140. 
 National spirit of, 135. 
 Natural divisions of, 137. 
 Population, distribution of, 145. 
 Scotch frontiers of, 141-3. 
 Etruscans, 210. 
 
 Europe {for countries, see their 
 titles)— 
 Battle-fields of, 72-3, 187, 192, 
 
 215. 263-73- 
 Political map of, 12S-30. 
 Watershed division of, 1 14-18. 
 
 Feudalism, 14, 122. 
 
 Finns, 128, 244-5, 247. 
 
 Flodden, battle of, 107, 149. 
 
 Florence, 199. 
 
 Fortresses, frontiers defended by, 
 
 32-5- 
 France (^for districts and towns, 
 
 see their titles) — 
 African possessions of, 275. 
 Alsaceclaimedby, 59«^A3,70-7i; 
 
 conquered by, 67, 237-8, 258. 
 American colonies of, 284-6. 
 Austrian relations with, 73, 215, 
 
 258. 
 British invasion of, discussed, 90. 
 Consolidation of, 49, 161, 165. 
 Corsica annexed by, 281. 
 Expansive policy of, 70, 73, 1 15, 
 
 i57> 236-7- 
 Extent of, 129, 154. 
 Frontiers of, 22-3, 32-5, 130, 
 
 151-2, 162 ; 'natural frontier ' 
 
 claimed by, 59 note, 70-71, 
 
 146, 152. 
 Geographical advantages of,i5i, 
 
 163. 
 Italian subjugation not easy to, 
 
 189. 
 Napoleon's defence of (1S14), 
 
 105. 
 Salic law adopted by, 59. 
 Teutonic names in north-east of, 
 
 ^6. 
 
 Franche Comte, 29, 162 and note. 
 Franconia, 58, 248. 
 Franks, 58-9, 125, 153-4. 
 Friedland, battle of, 106. 
 Frontiers — 
 
 Artificial and arbitrary, 29, 31, 
 131, 227, 249, 251. 
 
 Asiatic continental, 276. 
 
 Austrian, 251-3. 
 
 Canadian, 31, 283. 
 
 Defences of, 32-5. 
 
 European, 113 seq. 
 
 French, 22-3, 32-5, 130, 151-2, 
 162. 
 
 Italian, 22-3, 113, 183, 185 and 
 note, 186. 
 
 Mountains as, 20-28, 227. 
 
 'Natural frontier' claims, 59 
 note, 69-71, 129, 146, 152. 
 
 Origins of, 12. 
 
 Portuguese, 170. 
 
 Rhine-land not possessed of, 2 2 8. 
 
 Rivers as, 28-31. 
 
 Roman Empire, of, 122. 
 
 Sea as, 20. 
 
 Spanish, 113. 
 
 Swiss, 221-3. 
 
 Galicia, 246, 257. 
 
 Gaul, 118 and note, 123, 152. 
 
 Gelderland, 233. 
 
 Geneva, 226. 
 
 Genoa — 
 
 Maritime power of, 76, 83, 196. 
 Siege of, 266. 
 Germany {for districts and towns, 
 see their titles)— 
 Alsace akin to, 31, 66-7, 71. 
 Extent of, 129-30. 
 Frontiers of (French^ 32-5, 130; 
 (Russian), 116-17, 130-31; 
 (Austrian), 131, 251. 
 Kiel Canal, 15. 
 Militarism of, 36-7. 
 Names for, 59. 
 Ghent, 240. 
 Gloucester, 147. 
 Graublinden, 206, 215-17, 219. 
 Great Britain {for districts and 
 towns, see their titles. See 
 also England, Ireland, Scot- 
 land, Wales) — 
 American settlements of, 2S4-6. 
 
 U 2
 
 292 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Great Britain {contiiuted) — 
 Colonies of, 288. 
 Consolidation of, 135. 
 Danish invasions of, 140. 
 Dutch rivalry with, 83, 144. 
 French invasion of, discussed, 90. 
 Frontier of, 113, 136. 
 Geographical advantages of, 146. 
 Great Northern Railway, 149. 
 Insularity of, 75, 134-5. 
 Mineral wealth of, 145. 
 Position of, advantageous, 83, 
 132-3; previously disadvan- 
 tageous, 144. 
 Sea power of, 75, 83, 87, 89-91, 
 
 144-5- 
 Walcheren expedition, 240. 
 Wool trade of, 240. 
 Great St. Bernard Pass, 204, 214, 
 
 267. 
 Greece — 
 
 Balkan peninsula under influence 
 
 of, 128. 
 Characteristics of, 279-80. 
 City-states developed in, 14, 40, 
 
 183, 279. 
 Colonies of, 281. 
 National sentiment of, 27S, 280. 
 Syracusan expedition, 91. 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines, 187, 197. 
 Gulf Stream, 132. 
 
 Hannibal, 195-6, 211-13. 
 Hansa, 244. 
 Hapsburgs — 
 
 Charles the Bold's possessions 
 acquired by, 162, 231-5. 
 
 French hostility to, 73, 258. 
 
 Ottoman conflicts of, 254-5. 
 
 Rudolfs achievements for, 256, 
 261. 
 
 Savoy favoured by, 215. 
 
 Swiss intrigues of, 216 ; Swiss 
 hostility to, 219. 
 
 Tyrolese devotion to, 74, 251. 
 Havre, 40. 
 Health resorts, 43-4. 
 Henry H, 135, 141, 149, 157-9. 
 
 -V, 159- 
 
 Heptarchy, 139. 
 
 Hereford Mappa Mundi, 5-6. 
 
 Herodotus cited, 3, 133. 
 
 Hohenlinden, battle of, 268. 
 
 Holland- 
 Belgium's connexion with, 235. 
 
 British rivalry with, 83, 144. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope occupied 
 by, 86. 
 
 Sea power of, 10, 75-7, 83. 
 
 War of Independence, 77, 233-4. 
 Hugh Capet, 154. 
 Huguenots, 159, 165. 
 Hundred Years' War, 94, 160. 
 Hungary — 
 
 Limits of, 254. 
 
 National sentiment of, 68. 
 
 Ottoman conflicts of, 255, 257. 
 Huns, 126-7. 
 
 Iberians — 
 
 Distribution of, in Spain, 124, 
 127; in Britain, 133, 138; in 
 France, 155. 
 Origin of, 55. 
 India — 
 
 Climate of capital of, 49. 
 Mountain warfare in, 97. 
 North-west frontier of, 25-7. 
 Innsbruck, 260. 
 Ireland — 
 
 Gaelic Celts in, 124, 138. 
 Missionary monks from, 150. 
 National sentiment of, 67-8. 
 Union of, with England, dis- 
 cussed, 144. 
 Italia ii'}-edenta, 68. 
 Italy {fo7' districts, towns, ^c, 
 see their titles^ — 
 Frontiers of, 22-3, 113, 183-5 
 and note, 186 ; ' natural fron- 
 tier' claim, 129. 
 Geographical disadvantages of, 
 
 189-90. 
 Metternich's view of, 183. 
 National sentiment of, 68. 
 Unity of, opposed by Papacy, 
 182 ; hindered by geography, 
 189. 
 
 James IV of Scotland, 149. 
 
 Jews, 76, 121. 
 
 Joan of Arc, 159-60. 
 
 John, King, 135,158- 
 
 Julier Pass, 206. 
 
 Jura Mountains, 162-3, 222, 228. 
 
 Jutes, 138.
 
 INDEX 
 
 293 
 
 Kiel Canal, 15. 
 
 Languages — 
 Basque, 124. 
 Celtic (in Brittany), 123, 164; 
 
 Cymric, 67, 124. 
 Langue (Toe, 155. 
 Nationality not necessarily de- 
 termined by, 65-6, 119; 
 national claims based on, 68, 
 70 ; races best classified by, 
 121. 
 Roman, 127. 
 Romansch, 218-19, 
 Teutonic — English, 65 ; Dutch, 
 69 ; German, 123, 127. 
 Languedoc, 155, 159, 167. 
 Latins, 210. 
 Lavallee cited, 152. 
 Liberty, mountains and sea in 
 
 regard to, 74-5. 
 Lisbon, 48, 173-5. 
 Little St. Bernard Pass, 203, 211. 
 Lombards, 58, 125. 
 Lombardy — 
 
 City-states of, 187. 
 European battle-field, 73, 215. 
 Origin of name, 58. 
 London — 
 
 Climate of, 132. 
 Site of, originally high, 38 ; 
 advantageous for a capital, 46, 
 146. 
 Lorraine — 
 
 French annexation of, 236. 
 History of, 230-31. 
 Savoy compared with, 237. 
 Louis XIV— 
 
 England, invasion of, planned 
 
 by, 137- 
 Netherland conquest attempted 
 by> 73. 163. 
 
 Paris made all-important by, 165. 
 Roussillon ceded to, 167. 
 Strassburg seized by, 237. 
 Luxemburg, 239. 
 
 Machiavelli, 191. 
 Madrid, 46, 49. 
 Magalhaens, 60, 78. 
 Magna Charta, 135. 
 Magyar, 28, 128, 253-4. 
 Mainz, 238. 
 Maloja Pass, 206. 
 
 Maloyaroslavetz, battle of, 109. 
 
 Malta, 68, 87. 
 
 Mantua, 188, 192-4. 
 
 Marengo, battle of, 197, 268 and 
 
 no/e. 
 Margaret of Anjou, 147. 
 Marlborough, Danube campaign 
 
 of, 258. 
 Marseilles, 40, 83. 
 Massena, in the Spanish peninsula, 
 17S ; in the Alps, 223-4,265. 
 Mauritius, 86. 
 Mediterranean Sea, 274-5. 
 Metz, 34, 43, 236, 239. 
 Mexico, 286. 
 Milan, 197-8, 215. 
 Militarism, 36-7. 
 Mohacs, battle of, 255-6. 
 Moltke. Von, 17-18. 
 Mongols, 14, 54, 127, 245, 257. 
 Mont Blanc, 186, 222. 
 Mont Cenis Pass, 202-3, 214- 
 Mont Genevre, 202, 212. 
 Montenegro, 278. 
 Moore, Sir J., 92. 
 Moors. See under Spain. 
 Moravia, 256. 
 
 Moreau, Gen., 194-5, 266-8. 
 Moscow, site of, 46. 
 Mountains — 
 
 Character of inhabitants of, 74. 
 
 Military importance of, 21-3, 
 25-7,107. 
 Mountbenjerlaw, 52 ttote. 
 Munich, 260. 
 
 Names, transformation of, 53-4. 
 Naples, 189-90, 200. 
 Napoleon — 
 
 Austrian campaign of (1797), 
 
 20S-9; (1805), 102, 258; 
 
 (1S09), 30, 106. 
 
 Belgian campaign of (i8i5),io2. 
 
 Dresden victory of (1813), 109, 
 
 273- 
 French campaign of (1814), iS, 
 
 105, 164. 
 Italian campaign of (1796), 192- 
 
 4, 263-4; (1800), 267-9. 
 Russian campaign of (181 2), 
 
 15, 103-6, 108-10, 270-72. 
 Sea power of, deficient, 91. 
 Spanish campaign of (1808), 92.
 
 294 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Nationality, meaning of term, 
 
 64-6. 
 Navarre, 167. 
 
 Netherlands. See Belgium. 
 Neutral territories — 
 Belgium, 221, 235. 
 Regulations regarding, 84, 86. 
 Switzerland, 204, 206, 220-21. 
 Venice, 192, 216. 
 Nile, 276. 
 Normandy, 157-8. 
 Normans — in Wales, 141 ; in 
 Scotland, 143 ; in Naples, 
 190 ; in Sicily, 281. 
 Norsemen — 
 
 Distribution of, in France, 66 ; 
 in the Mediterranean, 82 ; in 
 Britain, 134. 
 Maritime ability of, 79, 242. 
 Northumbria, 139, 141-2. 
 Norway — 
 
 Maritime aptitude of, 242-3. 
 Teutonic race in, 127-8, 241. 
 
 Old Sarum, 41. 
 Orleans, siege of, 159. 
 Ostrogoths, 125, 253. 
 Ottoman Turks — 
 
 Black Sea entrance controlled 
 by, 247. 
 
 Hungary conquered by, 255. 
 
 Montenegro independent of, 278. 
 
 Separateness of, 128, 279. 
 
 Timur's victory over, 90. 
 
 Papacy — 
 
 Assignments of territory by, 2, 
 144. 
 
 English attitude towards, 134. 
 
 Franks summoned by, 125. 
 
 Importance of, 209. 
 
 Italian unity opposed by, 182, 
 190. 
 
 Territorial acquisitions of, 182, 
 190. 
 Paris — 
 
 Influence of, 165. 
 
 Origin of name, 57. 
 
 Site of, 46, 146, 154. 
 Pavia, 197. 
 Pest, 262. 
 Phoenicians, 76, 81, 133. 
 
 Piedmont — 
 
 Commercial importance pre- 
 dicted for, 45. 
 French influence in, 156 note; 
 
 French annexation of, 264. 
 Political importance of, 196-7, 
 215. 
 Pisa, 199. 
 Pizarro, 78. 
 Po— ' 
 
 Plain of, a battle-ground, 73, 
 
 187, 192, 215. 
 Tributaries of, 188, 192. 
 Poland- 
 Partition of, 66, 130, 245-6. 
 Prussia a fief of, 245. 
 Portugal — 
 
 Frontier and position of, 166-7, 
 
 170. 
 Lisbon, 48, 173-5. 
 Papal assignments to, 2. 
 Sea power of, 78. 
 Separateness of, 129. 
 Wellington's operations in, 173. 
 Presburg, 255. 
 Provence, 156, 202. 
 Prussia — 
 
 Military distinction of, 36-7, 
 
 249. 
 Napoleon, attitude towards, 
 270-72. 
 Pyrenees, 168. 
 
 Quebec, 93-4. 
 Quetta, 26-7. 
 
 Race — 
 
 Admixture of, 65, 120-21. 
 
 Character of, 7. 
 
 Maritime aptitudenot determined 
 
 by, 79- 
 Meaning of term, 55, 119. 
 Ragusa, 278. 
 Railways, 16-17. 
 Ratisbon (Regensburg), 259. 
 Red Sea trade route, 81-2. 
 Rhe, Isle of, 92, 165. 
 Rhine basin, 115, 228, 230. 
 Rhone-land, 115, 156. 
 Richard Cceur de Lion, 158. 
 Richelieu, 159, 165, 237.
 
 INDEX 
 
 295 
 
 Rivers — 
 
 Convenience of, as routes, 11, 
 13. 28. 
 
 Frontiers formed by, 28-31. 
 
 Military importance of, 29-31, 
 104-6. 
 
 Towns situated on, 3S-40. 
 Roads — 
 
 Military importance of, 27, 84, 
 96, 98, no. 
 
 Peaceful influence of, 14. 
 Rochelle, 165. 
 Romagna, 57. 
 Roman Empire — 
 
 Frontiers of, 122-3. 
 
 Gallic conquests of, 153. 
 
 Names derived from, 56-7. 
 
 Trade under, 81. 
 Romansch language, 218-19. 
 Rome (Ancient) — 
 
 Adoption practised by, 121. 
 
 City, power of, 181. 
 
 Foreign corn imported by, 18, 
 180. 
 
 Hill-fort origin of, 39, 199. 
 
 Sea power of, 91. 
 
 Servian Wall of, 41. 
 — (Modern), 47, 200. (^For Pa- 
 pacy, see that title.) 
 Roumania, 57. 
 Roussillon, 167. 
 
 Russia {for districts and towns, see 
 their titles) — 
 
 Expansive policy of, 247. 
 
 Finland dominated by, 244-5, 
 247. 
 
 German frontier of, 116-17, 
 
 130-31- 
 
 Napoleon's invasion of, 15, 96, 
 
 103-6, 108-10, 270-72. 
 National sentiment of, 246. 
 Pan-Slavonic claims of, 68. 
 Poland acquired by, 246. 
 
 St. Gotthard Pass, 205, 223-4. 
 
 St. Helena, 86. 
 
 Salisbury, 41. 
 
 Saracens, 82, 28 1. 
 
 Sardinia, 91, 216, 263-4, 281. 
 
 Savoy — 
 
 Dukes of, 196, 215-16. 
 
 Lorraine compared with, 237. 
 
 Napoleon Ill's annexation of, 
 222. 
 
 Saxons, 138. 
 Saxony, 248. 
 Scandinavia — 
 
 Frontier of, 113. 
 
 Maritime aptitude of, 241-3. 
 
 Teutonic race in, 127-8, 241. 
 Scotland {Jor towns, see their 
 titles) — 
 
 Frontier of, 141-3. 
 
 Gaelic Celts in Highlands of, 
 
 124, 138. 
 
 National sentiment of, 67. 
 
 Union of, with England, I43. 
 Scutage, 135. 
 Sebastopol, 92-3. 
 Seljuk Turks, 18, 57. 
 Septimer Pass, 205. 
 Sicily, 91, 2S1-2. 
 Silures, 133 note-. 
 Simplon Pass, 204. 
 Singapore, 87. 
 Slavs — 
 
 Bohemia occupied by, 126, 
 256. 
 
 Westward migrations of, 4,55-6, 
 
 125, 241. 
 Soudan campaign, 99. 
 
 Spain {for districts, towns, Cs'c, 
 
 see their titles) — 
 American War (189S), 86. 
 Decline of, 36, 172-3. 
 Frontiers of, 113. 
 Maritime aptitude lacking in, 
 
 77-8. 
 Moore's operations in (1808), 
 
 92. 
 Moors, conquest by, 127 ; revolt 
 
 against, 166; conflicts with, 
 
 16S, 171. 
 Mountain system of, 169. 
 Papal assignments to, 2, 144. 
 Roads and railways of, deficient, 
 
 .15- 
 Visigoths in, 125, 127. 
 Spliigen Pass, 205, 267. 
 Stelvio Pass, 207. 
 Stirling, 106, 150. 
 Strassburg, 34, 237-8, 258. 
 Strategy, definition of, 100. 
 Suez Canal, 15, 83. 
 Suleiman Mountains, 25. 
 Suvorov, 194-5, 205, 223-5, 265, 
 
 267. 
 Swabia, 248.
 
 296 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sweden {see also Scandinavia) 
 
 Finland conquered by, 244. 
 Switzerland {for districts and 
 towns, see their titles) — 
 Anomalous position of, 218-19. 
 Extent of, 129. 
 Frontiers of, 221-3. 
 Military prowess of, 219, 223. 
 Napoleon's use of (1799), 265-6. 
 National sentiment of, 67. 
 Neutrality of, 33, 204, 206, 
 
 220-21. 
 Origin of Confederation, 2 1 5, 2 1 9. 
 Syria, 277. 
 
 Tactics, definition of, 100. 
 
 Tartars, 54. 
 
 Taylor, Canon Isaac, cited, 50, 
 
 52 note. 
 Teutones, 21 3-1 4. 
 Teutons — 
 
 Distribution of, in France, 56 ; 
 in Italy, 125, 214 ; in Britain, 
 127, 137-9; ifi the Danube 
 basin, 250, 253. 
 Names derived from, 55-6. 
 Westward migrations of, 4, 54. 
 Thermopylae, 280 and note. 
 Thirty Years' War, 216, 260. 
 Ticino, 68, 205, 221. 
 Tonale Pass, 208, 216. 
 Torres Vedras, 177-8. 
 Toulouse, Counts of, 1 56. 
 Towns — 
 
 Capitals, 46-9. 
 
 Defensibility an early requisite, 
 
 38-42. 
 Health resorts, 43-4. 
 Hill sites, 38. 
 Industrial, 44. 
 Meaning of word, 53. 
 River sites, 39. 
 Towton, battle of, 106. 
 Transvaal, 79, 97, 160. 
 Transylvania, 254. 
 Trebbia, battle of, 195 and note. 
 Triple Alliance, 89. 
 Turin, 23, 57, 196-7. 
 Turks. See Ottoman and Seljuk. 
 Tuscany, 187. 
 Tyrol, 74, 97, 223, 251-2. 
 
 Ulm, 102, 258-9, 269 and note. 
 United States — 
 
 Canadian frontier of, 31, 283. 
 
 Development of, 284-8. 
 
 Independence, War of, 94, 286. 
 
 Names in, 60-61. 
 
 Negroes in, 284, 286-7. 
 
 Spanish War (1898), 86. 
 Uri, 205, 219. 
 
 Valtelline, 206-7, 216. 
 Vasco de Gama, 78, 144. 
 Venice — 
 
 Decadence of, 192, 199. 
 
 Government of, 75. 
 
 Inland possessions of, 199, 215, 
 
 Neutrality of, 192, 216. 
 
 Sea power of, 76, 83, 198. 
 
 Site of, 39, 198. 
 Verona, 188, 192, 207. 
 Vienna — 
 
 Congress at, 16. 
 
 Napoleon's triumphs in, 105, 269. 
 
 Site of, 46, 261. 
 Visigoths — in Italy, 125 ; in Spain, 
 127, 167 ; in Aquitaine, 154. 
 Vosges Mountains, 162-3. 
 
 Walcheren expedition, 240. 
 Wales — 
 
 Cymric Celts in, 60. 
 
 Meaning of name, 59. 
 
 National sentiment of, 67. 
 
 Wessex kings' subjugation of, 
 141. 
 Washington. 48. 
 Waterloo campaign, 73, 93. 
 Watershed division of Europe, 
 
 114-18. 
 Wellington — 
 
 Belgium, tactics in, 93, 103. 
 
 Peninsula, strategy in, 92, 173- 
 9 ; tactics, 107, 178. 
 Wessex, 141, 146. 
 Westminster Abbey, 146. 
 Winchester, 146. 
 Wolfe, Gen., 93-4. 
 
 Zurich, 226. 
 Zuyder Zee, 10.
 
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