Chapter 24

Europe as it Should Be

Natural boundaries of nations in Europe.—Peoples outside of the nations with whom they belong.—The mixture of peoples in Austria-Hungary, and Russia.—The British Isles.—The Balkan states.—Recent changes in the map.—The wrongs done by mighty nations upon their weak neighbors bring no happiness.

We have several times shown you, in the course of this little history, maps drawn by kings and marked off by diplomacy and through bloodshed. Let us now examine a map of Europe divided according to the race and language of its various peoples. It often happens that the boundaries set by nature, like seas, high mountains, and broad rivers, divide one people from another. It is natural that the people of Italy, for instance, hemmed in by the Alps to the north and by the water on all other sides, should grow to be like each other and come to talk a common language.

In the same way, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, Great Britain, and Switzerland have boundaries largely set by nature. On this account, it is not surprising that the map of “Europe as it should be” which unites people of the same blood under the same government, agrees rather closely in some places with the map of Europe as it is.

The boundaries of the kingdom of Spain and those of the kingdom of Portugal fit pretty closely the countries inhabited by Spanish and Portuguese peoples.

There are a few Italians in France, also a few Walloons and Flemish. Otherwise France is largely a unit. Some of the French people are found in Switzerland and others in that part of the German Empire which was taken away from France after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

The Danes are not all living in Denmark. A great many of them inhabit the two provinces of Schleswig and Holstein which were torn away from Denmark by Prussia in 1864. The high mountains of the Scandinavian peninsula separate the Norwegians from the Swedes about as well as they divide the countries geographically.

The Hollanders make a nation by themselves, but part of the northwestern corner of the German Empire is also peopled by Dutch. The territory around Aix-La-Chapelle, although part of the German Empire, is inhabited by Walloons, a Celtic people who speak a sort of French. Belgium, small as it is, contains two different types of population, the Walloons and the Flemish.

The German Empire does not include all of the Germans. A great many of these are to be found in Austria proper, Styria (sty̆′rĭȧ), and the northern Tyrol (ty̆′rol) (western counties of the Austrian Empire), as well as in the eastern half of Switzerland and the edges of Bohemia. Germans are also to be found in parts of Hungary; and in the Baltic provinces of Russia there are over two million of them.

All of the Italians are not in the kingdom of Italy. The Island of Corsica, which belongs to France, is inhabited by Italians. The province of Trentino (trĕn ti′nō) (the southern half of the Austrian Tyrol) is inhabited almost entirely by Italians, as is also Istria, which includes the cities of Trieste, Pola, and Fiume. Certain islands off the coast of Dalmatia are also largely Italian in their population.

The republic of Switzerland is inhabited by French, Italians, and Germans. Besides the languages of these three nations, a fourth tongue is spoken there. In the valleys of the southeastern corner of Switzerland are found people who talk a corruption of the old Latin, which they call Romaunsch or Romansh.

Austria-Hungary, as has already been said, is a jumble of languages and nationalities. This empire includes nearly a million Italians in its southwestern corner, and three million Roumanians in Transylvania. It has as its subjects in Bosnia and Herzegovina several million Serbians. In Slavonia (slȧ vō′nĭ ȧ), Croatia (crō a′tia), and Dalmatia (dăl mā tia), it has two or three million Slavs, who are closely related to the Serbians. In the north, its government rules over several million Czechs (chĕcks) (Bohemians and Moravians) who strongly desire to have a country of their own. It controls also two million Slovaks, cousins of the Czechs, who also would like their independence. In the county of Carniola (car ni ō′lȧ), there are one and a half million Slovenes, another Slavic people belonging either by themselves or with their cousins, the Croatians and Serbs.

The German Empire includes several hundred thousand Frenchmen, who want to get back under French control, a million or two Danes, who want once more to belong to Denmark, and several million Poles, who desire to see their country again united.

Russia rules over a mixture of peoples almost as numerous as those composing Austria-Hungary. The Russians themselves are not one people. The Red Russians or Ruthenians are quite different from the people of Little Russia, and they in turn are different from the people of Great Russia, to the north. The Baltic provinces are peopled, not by Russians, but by two million Germans, an equal number of Letts and a somewhat greater number of Lithuanians. North of Riga are to be found the Esthonians, cousins of the Finns. North-west of Petrograd lies Finland, whose people, with the Esthonians, do not belong to the Indo-European family, and who would dearly love to have a separate government of their own.

You have already been told in Chapter V that the country of the English, if limited by race, does not include Wales, Cornwall, or the north of Scotland, but instead takes in the north-eastern part of Ireland and the southern half of the former Scottish kingdom.

Turning to the Balkan states, we find our hardest task, for the reason that peoples of different nationalities are hopelessly mixed and jumbled. There are Turks and Greeks mixed in with the Roumanians and Bulgarians in the Dobrudja. Parts of southern Serbia and portions of Grecian Macedonia are inhabited by people of Bulgarian descent. Transylvania, with the exception of the two little mixture islands mentioned before is inhabited by Roumanians. The southern half of the Austrian province of Bukowina also ought to be part of Roumania, as should the greater part of the Russian state of Bessarabia. Whereas Roumania now has a population of 7,000,000, there are between five and six million of her people who live outside her present boundaries.

The shores and islands of the Aegean Sea should belong to Greece. Greek people have inhabited them for thousands of years. The Albanians are a separate people, while Montenegro and Bosnia should be joined to Serbia.

Turn back to previous maps of Europe in this volume and you will see that most of the changes that have been made of late years are bringing boundaries nearer where they should be. You will also note that wherever there have been recent changes contrary to this plan, they have always resulted in more bloodshed. The partition of Poland, the annexation of Schleswig, Alsace, and Lorraine to Germany, the division of Bulgarian Macedonia between Serbia and Greece, and the seizure of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria are good examples.

Questions for Review

What countries of Europe have fairly well-marked natural boundaries?

Who are the Walloons?

Who are the Romansh people?

To what other people are the Esthonians related?