The processes of nationalization in Europe are of two kinds; on the one
hand we see smaller nationalities being compounded into larger units; on
the other we see large nationalities being disintegrated. We see fusion
taking place and we see disruption. Which is Nature's method? All the
great nationalities of Europe have been built up by fusion--Italy,
Spain, France, Great Britain, and Germany. As the last named is the most
recent and most clearly understood case of fusion we may glance at the
means by which it was accomplished. The nationalities and separate
states which were united to form the German Empire were derived from at
least three stocks, each of which show well-differentiated physical
characters. These human stocks were united by a common tongue. By war
and conquest the empire surrounded itself--isolated itself--by a ring of
enemies. The Germans carried their frontiers beyond the limits of their
speech and set out to make Danes, Frenchmen, and Poles members of their
own nationality. They sought to strengthen their national frontiers by
tariff barricades. They linked themselves together by the multiplication
of means of rapid transit and fostered the growth of a national or
tribal spirit by active, persistent, and widespread tribal propaganda.
The tribal spirit, which is an innate quality of every people, was
roused to such a pitch that in the crisis of war the national or tribal
bonds held; sixty millions of people acted as if they were members of a
Highland clan. Even defeat, if it has loosened, has not broken the
national bonds which were forged by the governing classes of Germany.
In all these processes of national fusion, as in the formation of all
trusts in the modern commercial world, the anthropologist observes that
the operation commences from above and works downwards through the mass
of the people. The governing class plays upon and fans into flame the
tribal embers of the popular mind. It is altogether a different process
which brings about the disruption of a nationality. Disruption has
nothing to do with race; the nearer the blood relationship between two
adjacent peoples the more likely is disruption to occur. We can find no
better illustration of this truth than when we cross the Baltic from
Germany to Scandinavia. The people of Norway and Sweden are of the same
racial composition; they have many interests in common; union should
have given strength. Yet after a partnership which lasted for less than
a century, they agreed to separate. In this case the movement came from
below; a tribal feeling which swept through the people of Norway
compelled a disruption. All the natural inherited forces in a people
tend towards disruption. Only when reason takes the helm can these
natural disruptive forces be overcome and the process of fusion be
effected.