How Good Political Boundaries may be Bad Commercially.— It is important to realize clearly that the political effects produced by geographical conditions may be good while the commercial effects may be decidedly bad. For example, politically a country is fortunate if its boundaries are sharply defined by high mountains and are not easily crossed. Commercially such boundaries are unfortunate, for they hamper transportation and trade. India and China illustrate the matter. They are separated by the great barrier of the Hima layas and various other mountain ranges. This has been an advan tage politically because it has prevented wars. It has been a great disadvantage commercially, however, for it has almost prevented commerce. It has also prohibited the interchange of ideas and has thus hampered the progress of civilization.
Why Artificial Boundaries are a Disadvantage.—Wherever in ternational boundaries fail to coincide with natural barriers, trouble is apt to ensue. For example, the southern boundary of the United States is marked in part by the Rio Grande, but farther west it traverses the open plateau. Even the Rio Grande loses its value as a barrier in dry weather, for then it can easily be forded at many points. The rest of the boundary is marked Only by pillars set so that one can be seen from the other. Only in a few sections is it followed by a high barbed-wire fence built in order to prevent cattle from straying or being driven across the boundary in defiance of the customs regulations. When Mexico is in commotion, as frequently happens, there is nothing aside from a shallow river or an occasional fence to prevent armed raiders from crossing into the United States. In 1916 a notorious raid of this kind occurred at Columbus, New Mexico. American civilians and soldiers were killed by Mexican bandits. American troops were sent into Mexico and stayed for months, and war between the two countries was averted only with great difficulty. All this would never have happened if the two countries had been separated by a boundary which is also an effective barrier.
Unfortified Boundaries.—The only effective method of avoid ing trouble along an international boundary where there is no natural barrier is that which prevails on the northern border of the United States. From the Great Lakes westward our northern boundary runs across plains, mountains, and rivers with no regard to natural features of relief. It is as easy to pass from one country to the other as to travel within the limits of either country. Fortunately because of the friendship growing out of similarity in race, language, and ideals, Canada and the United States have agreed that neither will ever for tify the boundary or make any preparation for military activity along its course, nor will either power have warships upon the Great Lakes.
This agreement is rigidly carried out, yet frequently small disturbances occur because evil doers cross from one side to the other. During the Civil War, for example, Canadian sympathizers with the Southern Confederacy tried to organize an armed expedition to cross from Canada into the Northern States. Half a century later, during the early part of the Great War, German sympathizers from the United States crossed the boundary and tried to injure Canada by blowing up the Welland Canal and the international bridge across the Saint Croix River.
Sweden and Norway furnish another example of unfortified bound aries. They have agreed that a strip within 15 kilometers on either side of the international boundary shall form a "buffer zone" where neither power will erect fortifications. The same sort of agreement has been entered into between Siam and Burmah.
How Germany's Frontiers Helped Bring on the Great War.— Among the world's great nations Germany has politically the most unfortunate boundaries. An understanding of them helps to explain some of the causes of the Great War. The really bad sections of Germany's boundaries are on the east and west. The eastern bound ary crosses a featureless plain, while the Dutch boundary on the west is of the same kind. The pre-war boundary toward Belgium and France lay mostly in a region of low hills easily traversed. Com mercially such boundaries would be good were it not that they gave Germany the mouths of the Niemen and Vistula Rivers which nat urally belong to Russia, and cut Germany off from the mouth of her most important river, the Rhine, where the chief German seaport would naturally be located.
The indefinite character of her eastern and western boundaries was one reason why Germany encroached on her neighbors. In the eighteenth century she annexed part of Poland, and in the nineteenth took Alsace-Lorraine from France. France naturally wanted to recover Alsace-Lorraine, for in that region the majority of the people are French in race and in sympathies. Except along the Vosges Mountains in southern Alsace there are no physical boundaries to sepaiate it from France any more than from Germany. There fore both countries felt obliged to provide military defenses along Germany's western boundary. In the same way on the east Russia and Germany were not physically separated. Before the Great War they had no agreement like that between the United States and Canada. Moreover such an agreement is difficult because the two countries differ greatly not only in language and habits, but in ideals and purposes. Each has constantly been afraid of encroachment by the other.