The European Revolutions of 1848 seemed to 'bring to a focus the two great principles of the first half of the 19th century — nationality and democracy — which had been produced by the combined action of the French and Indus trial Revolutions, and for the moment gave promise of making possible the dream of the European liberals that a political order might be created which would give full recognition to both of these aspirations. The enthusiasm thus stirred among the nationalists and demo crats in Europe during these momentous years has been eloquently set forth by Mr. Bryce: "So the sympathy, both of America and of Britain, or at least of British Liberals (among whom was then to he found a great majority of the men of liLait and leadine went out when, in 1848, the crash of the O• 'cans Mon archy in France had shaken m, European thrones, to the Italian revolutionaries, to the Polish revolutionaries, to the Czechs in Bo hemia, to the Magyars in Hungary, who, under the illustrious Kossuth, were fighting in 1849 for their national rights against Hapsburg tyranny, to the German patriots who were try ing to liberalize Prussia and the smaller king doms, and bring all Germans under one free constitutional Government. Men hoped that so soon as each people, delivered from a foreign yoke, became masters of their own destinies, all would go well for the world. The two sacred principles of Liberty and Nationality would, like twin guardian-angels, lead it into the paths of tranquil happiness, a Mazzinian paradise of moral dignity and liberty, a Cobdenian para dise of commercial prosperity and international peace.° But the tragic sequence of events in 1848-49 proved that nationality and democracy could then scarcely co-operate in harmony; national jealousy and particularism weakened the cause of democracy and ultimately led to the temporary downfall of both before political reactionaries and anti-national imperialists. The liberals of 1848 believed that when tem pered with democracy nationality would be di vested of its chauvinistic and aggressive quali ties and would insure the coming of perpetual peace, but, as Professor Blakeslee has made clear, neither history nor theory can justify this view: "During the past century the great democracies have been making war, threatening war, and preparing for war, much of the time against each other. Their history shows clearly enough that if their neighbors had also been democratic this change alone would not have prevented wars. Nor is the outlook for the future encouraging. Democratic nations are still willing to fight to defend their national interests and policies; they demand their due share of over-sea trade, concessions and colo nies—if they are a commercial or expansionist people—no less insistently because they are democratic. But the interests and policies of one nation conflict with those of another; what one democracy regards as a due share of over sea trade, concessions, and colonies is an undue share to its rival. Each democracy becomes an excited partisan of its own view, ready to hack it by force of arms; and the natural re sult is, as it always has been, wars and rumors of wars. There are enough conflicts in na tional policies to-day to lead to a dozen future conflicts, even if all the world should be demo cratic. There is Japan's insistence upon con trolling China; our own Monroe Doctrine, when interpreted in a domineering or selfish spirit; England's Persian Gulf policy; the anti-oriental policy of the United States and the British self-governing colonies; the expansionist policy of all the Balkan states,: and the Entente policy, formulated at the Paris Conference, of dis criminating against the trade of the Central Powers after the present war shall be over. Unless present conditions are changed, the democratic nations of the world, with their conflicting interests, would find it difficult to maintain world peace, for the next century, even if they wished to maintain it. History, present conditions, and the logic of the situ ation show that democracy alone will never make the world safe. It is only by a definite concert of states that we may secure a reason able promise of obtaining a permanent inter national peace and of becoming a non-mili taristic world." The following discussion will show that the more perfect recognition and realization of nationality has as yet achieved even less than democracy to produce the politi cal millennium; rather it has seemingly merited Lord Acton's indictment that "there is no prin ciple of change, no phase of political specula tion conceivable which is more comprehensive, more subversive, more arbitrary than nation ality. Its course will be marked with material as well as moral ruin, in order that a new invention may prevail over the works of God and the interests of mankind.° The 19th century witnessed the belated com pletion of national unification in two major European states—Germany and Italy—through the efforts of Bismarck and Cavour in the dec ade and a half following 1855. These states men, in deep sympathy with the national aspi rations of their countrymen, gathered together under their leadership the various forces work ing in this direction and succeeded in giving concrete and effective expression to the gen erally diffused impulse to political unification. In a very real sense they may be regarded as having carried to completion the forces and tendencies first aroused in their respective states by the reactions to the French Revolu tion and the Napoleonic conquests and states manship. Not only were the patriotic tenden cies, at the head of which they put themselves, originally set in action by the Revolution and Napoleon, but also the main obstacle to na tional unification which had to be overcome in both states was the antagonism of that invet erate and implacable enemy of Napoleon and the "French Ideas° — the anachronistic empire of the Hapsburgs and Metternich. The work
of Cavour and Bismarck marked a significant stage in that incessant warfare against the mediaeval imperial concepts and practices which had begun at Westphalia in 1648, was carried on at Utrecht and in the creation of the Con federation of the Rhine, and finally ended in the utter collapse of that obsolete and oppress ive political structure in the autumn of 1918, as a result of the growth of national senti ment among its subject peoples and the blow to its military prestige by the collapse which marked the close of the °War of the Nations.' Force, chicanery, duplicity and intrigue were employed about equally by both Cavour and Bismarck in achieving their justifiable ambi tions, but the resulting political systems cre ated were widely different. °Blood and iron* and Realpolitik were used by Cavour merely as a means to the end of creating a liberal and pacific state and a parliamentary govern ment, while with Bismarck they became ends in themselves and were used to repel the very liberalism and democracy which Cavour had established. The temporary vindication of brute force and autocracy in Germany, as a result of the success of Bismarck from 1862 to 1871, gave them tremendous prestige in the newly-formed empire and served to give color to the subsequent history of Germany and the world.
In addition to these larger national states which have appeared upon the European map since 1815, a number of smaller nations have attained in part, at least, to statehood. Greece attained independence in 1829; Belgium gained its independence in 1830 and its neutral ization in 1839; Luxemburg became an inde pendent neutralized state in 1867; Serbia, Rumania and Montenegro were recognized as states in 1878; Norway separated from Sweden in 1905; Bulgaria took advantage of the Euro pean confusion and tension of 1908 to declare her complete freedom from Turkey; and in 1913 Austria perversely created the independent Albanian state to block Serbia from an outlet to the sea. But in spite of this considerable addition to the °family of nations• in Europe national aspirations were by no means satisfieti by 1914. Not only did the political map fail to coincide with the national boundaries in the case of every one of the European national states created during the 19th century, but there were great historic nations like the Poles, the Irish, the Czechs of Bohemia and the Finns which were denied any independent political existence. Had the psychology of peoples been the same in 1914 that it was a century and a half before, this condition of incomplete na tional independence would have produced no very great problem, for potential nations as distinct in race, language and historical tradi tions as they were at the beginning of the 20th century had long lived without complaint when subjected to the oppression of alien peoples. But the perfection of the dynastic national state, the psychological contagion generated by the French Revolution, the defense-reactions pro duced by the Napoleonic conquests, the effect of the democracy brought into being by the Industrial Revolution, and their net result in arousing the quiescent "herd-instinct* and in giving it a nation-wide field of operation made any attempt to deny national aspirations a forlorn hope. A boisterous and intolerant chauvinism had developed in the greater states of Europe which inevitably reacted upon the "repressed nations* and aroused similar senti ments and ambitions there. This tendency was powerfully forwarded by the attempt of the great national states to crush out by persecu tion the national aspirations of the subject nations within their boundaries. Germany op pressed the Poles; Russia the Finns, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles and Ruthenians; Austria the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Serbs; Hungary the Rumanians, the Ruthenians and the Croats; and Turkey portions of most Balkan nations and the embryonic nations of Asia Minor. Further, these lesser or °oppressed* nations fol lowed the example of the greater states in arousing an interest in national history and literature and thereby stimulated their hopes for independence by centering attention upon the past glory of their peoples, be it as remote as classical times or the early Middle Ages. Nothing could thwart this force — not even the oldest monarchy in Europe nor the mightiest military state which the world has yet seen. The general nature of the friction and dis satisfaction felt in the Europe of 1914 over the failure of the political divisions to coincide with the national groupings has been admirably summarized by Professor Hazen in the fol lowing synoptic outline: "1. Dissatisfaction in Germany on the part of a. The people of Alsace-Lorraine; b. The Poles of Eastern Prussia; c. The Danes of Northern Schleswig. 2. Dissatisfaction in Denmark over a. The position of the Danes in North ern Schleswig.
3. Dissatisfaction in Austria-Hungary on the part of a. The Czecho-Slovaks; b. The Rumanians of Eastern Hungary; 3. Dissatisfaction in Austria-Hungary on the port of — Continued c. The South- or d. The Italians of the Trentino, Istria, and Trieste.
4. Dissatisfaction in France over a. Alsace-Lorraine.
5. Dissatisfaction in Italy over a. Italian Irredenta—Trentino, Istria, Trieste.