of the earth, the more important are those differences that remain
within heights of less than a thousand feet above the sea. Elevations
of a dozen yards were of the greatest importance on the battlefields
of Leipzig, Waterloo, and Metz. The significance of the little rise in
the land of Gavre, near Ghent, lies in the fact that even at times of
flood a foundation for a bridge will remain firm upon it. The slightest
elevation in the lowland cities of Germany and Russia offers such a
contrast in altitude to its surroundings that a fortress, a cathedral,
or a kremlin is erected upon it. The two ridges that extend through the
plains of North Germany are not only very prominent in the landscape,
but also in history. Owing to their thick forests, their lakes and
marshes, and small populations, they are peculiarly like barriers; and
the breaches in them are of importance to the geography both of war and
of commerce. The battles fought against Sweden and Poland, round about
the points where the Oder and the Vistula cross these regions, are to
be counted among the most decisive struggles in the history of Prussia.
[Sidenote: Nature at Waterloo]
Wherever there are no differences in level, a substitute is sought in
water. In such cases wide rivers or numerous lakes and marshes form
the most effective obstacles, boundaries, and strongholds. Finally
the plains approach the sea and are submerged by it; and here lowland
countries find a support safer than that of the mountains, and richer
in political results. North Germany is supported by the sea; South
Germany by mountains. Which boundary is the more definite, the more
capable of development, politically and economically? Political
superiority is ever connected with the protection and support of the
sea.
The influences of vegetation upon historical movements are often more
important than those of the earth-formation itself. Wherever extensive
lowland regions are overgrown with grass, we always find mobile nomadic
races that, with their large herds and warlike organisations, are
great causes of disturbance in the development of neighbouring lands.
Since the form of vegetable growth which covers grass steppes and
prairies is dependent on climate, it follows that nomadism is prevalent
throughout the entire northern sub-temperate zone, where such grass is
abundant--from the western border of Sahara to Gobi. Nomadic races of
historical significance are even to be seen in the New World--for
example, the Gauchos of the Pampas, and the Llaneros of Venezuela.
[Illustration: THE GREATEST PLATEAU IN THE WORLD: ITS PEOPLE, AND ITS
INFLUENCE IN HISTORY
This is a typical scene of life in Central Asia, the greatest
plateau in the world, whose people, the direct product of the
climate and the soil, inhabiting little worlds of their own on the
heights, have exercised an enormous influence in separating the
great coast nations of the east, west, and south from one another.
]
[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN PASS: A NATURAL FACTOR OF VAST IMPORTANCE IN
HISTORY
Mountain passes have been of great importance in history. The
Romans established their military colonies in the neighbourhood of
passes, and there are political territories practically founded on
mountain passes. This is a picture of an entrance to the famous
Bolan Pass, through which, and through the Khyber Pass, lie the
shortest overland routes from Persia to India.
]
[Illustration: NOMADIC PEOPLES OF THE NEW WORLD
Wherever there are vast lowland countries covered with grass,
nomadic peoples are found moving from place to place with their
herds. There are many such peoples in the Old World and a few in
the New World, notable among the latter being the Gauchos of the
Pampas, types of whom are here seen.
]
In comparison with plains and prairies, forests are decided hindrances
to historical movements. Peoples are separated from one another by
strips of woodland; the state and the civilisation of the Incas ceased
at the fringe of primeval forest of the east Andes. Thickly-wooded
mountains present the most pronounced difficulties to historical
movements. The appearance of the oldest large states and centres of
culture on the borders of steppes, in the naturally thinly-wooded
districts at the mouths of rivers, and on diluvial plains, seems
natural enough to us when we think of the difficulties presented by
life in a forest glade to men who had only stone implements and fire at
their command.
A description of the difficulties encountered during Stanley’s one
hundred and fifty-seven days’ journey through the primeval woods of
Central Africa gives us a very clear conception of what are termed
“hindrances” to historical movements. The early history of Sweden has
been characterised as a struggle with the forest; and this description
is valid for every forest country. The forest divides nations from each
other; it allows only small tribes to unite, and creates but small
states, or, at the most, loosely bound confederations. It is only where
a great river system forms natural roads, as in the regions of the
Amazon and the Congo, that great forest districts may be rapidly united
to form a state. In other cases settlements in forest clearings and
road-breaking precede political control.
In this way the Chinese conquered the races of the western half of
Formosa in two hundred years; in the eastern half the land is still
under forest and the natives have also retained their independence.
The existence of small states, with their many obstacles to political
and economic growth, still continues in forest regions alone; and the
roaming hordes of hunters inhabiting them belong to the simplest forms
of human societies.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE MAKING OF THE NATIONS--II
Professor FREDERICK RATZEL]
LAND AND WATER AND THE GREATNESS OF PEOPLES
Since man is a creature capable only of life on land, bodies of water
must at one time have been the greatest obstacles to his diffusion.
Thus the original family of human beings could have inhabited only one
portion of the earth, to which it was restricted by impassable barriers
of water. We know that in early geological times the division of the
earth’s surface into land and water was subject to the same general
laws as to-day; therefore such a portion of the earth could not have
been more than a part of the total land in existence--a larger or
smaller world-island.
[Sidenote: Early Man’s Greatest Invention]
The first step beyond the bounds of this island was the first step
towards the conquest of the whole earth by man. The first raft was
therefore the most important contrivance that man could have invented.
It not only signified the beginning of the acquisition of all parts of
the earth to their very farthest limits, but also--and this is far more
important--the potentiality for all possibilities of divergence and
temporary separation offered by our planet. It brought with it escape
from the development that always turns back upon itself, travelling in
a circle, and the progress that constantly consumes itself--factors
inseparable from life confined within a small area; it led to the
creation of fruitful contrasts and differences, and to wholesome
competition--in short, to the beginning of the evolution of races and
peoples. Looked at from this point of view, even the discovery of
Prometheus has been of less moment to the progress of mankind than that
of the inventor who first joined logs together into a raft and set out
on a voyage of discovery to the nearest islet.
[Sidenote: Why the Sea is Important]
From the time of this first step onward, the development of the human
race was so intimately connected with the uninhabitable water that
one of its most powerful incentives lay in the struggle with the sea.
And so little have we advanced from this condition that the stoutest
race of the present day is one that from a narrow island commands the
ocean. England’s strength is a proof of the tremendous importance of
the sea as a factor of political power and of civilisation. But not
to exaggerate the significance of the ocean, we may at the same time
remember that it consists in the fact that, by means of the sea, open
highways are presented from land to land. Command of the sea is a
source of greatness to nations, for it facilitates dominion over the
land.
By reason of its consistency the water is an important agent of
levelling and equalising effects. As we perceive this in Nature, so
do we also in history. A race familiar with the sea in one place is
familiar with it in all regions. The Normans off the coast of Finland,
and the Spaniards in the Pacific, found the same green, surging
element, moved by the same tides, subject to the same laws. The ocean
has an equalising effect upon the coasts even; the dunes of Agadir and
of the harbour at Vera Cruz awaken memories of home in the mind of the
sailor from Hela. The diffusion of the sea over three-quarters of the
earth’s surface must also be taken into account. Thus the influence
of the ocean in rendering men familiar with different parts of the
world is far greater than that of the land. From the ocean comes a
constant unifying influence which ever tends to reduce the disuniting
effect of the separation of land from land. As yet no attempt to extend
boundaries beyond the land out over the sea has been followed by
lasting success.
[Sidenote: No Nation can Possess the Sea]
[Sidenote: The Sea’s Unifying Influence]
No nation can or ever will possess the sea. Carthage and Tarentum
wished to forbid Italian vessels the passage of the Lacinian capes by
treaty; the Venetians desired dominion over the Adriatic to be granted
them by the Pope; Denmark and Sweden strove for a dominion over the
Baltic Sea; but all this is against the very nature of the sea; it is
one and indivisible. Only near by the coast, within the three-mile
limit of international law, and in landlocked bays, may it be ruled as
land is ruled. The claims of the Americans concerning the sovereignty
of Behring Sea have never been recognised, and England can retain
dominion over the Irish Sea only by means of her naval power. The ocean
has a unifying influence on the land, even when this influence consists
only in the same ends to be attained being placed before different
nations. During a time of the greatest disunion, German cities that lay
far enough from one another were united by Baltic interests. The union
of scattered land-forces prepared the way for the opening up of wider
horizons to England in the sixteenth century in the same manner as for
Italy and Germany in the nineteenth.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE ISLAND THAT RULES THE SEA
The command of the sea is the source of national greatness, as it
facilitates dominion over land. England from a narrow island dominates
the sea. The tiny part of white in the Eastern Hemisphere on this page
shows how relatively insignificant Great Britain is to the vast world
of waters where her shipping is supreme.]
Sea power is far more closely connected with traffic than is land
power; in fact, the foundation of sea power is trade and commerce. It
is, however, more than mere commercial power and monopoly of trade.
In spite of all egoism, greed, and violence there remains one great
characteristic peculiar to maritime Powers, spared even by Punic faith
and Venetian covetousness. Even the neighbourhood of the ocean is
characterised by its vast natural features; rivers broaden as they
approach the sea, great bays lie within the coasts, and, though the
latter may be flat, the horizon lines of their low dune landscapes are
broad. The horizons of maritime races are also broad. Whether it be the
hope of profit from commerce or of gain from piracy that lures men
forth, many a ship has returned to port bearing with it inestimable
benefits to mankind; for the greatest maritime discoveries have not
been mere explorations of new seas, but of new lands and peoples. Such
discoveries as these have contributed most to the broadening of the
historical horizon. Even political questions expand, assume a larger
character, and often become less acute, when they emerge from the
narrow limits of continental constraint upon the free and open coasts.
This is true even of the Eastern Question, to the solution of which
definite steps were taken upon the Mediterranean when it seemed to have
come to a deadlock in the Balkan peninsula.
[Sidenote: Short-lived Nations of the Sea]
[Sidenote: The Fall of Maritime Nations]
The ocean is no passive element to maritime races. By deriving power
from the sea they become subject to the sea. The more strength they
draw from the ocean, the less firm becomes their footing upon the
land. Finally, their power no longer remains rooted in the land,
but grows to resemble that of a fleet resting upon the waves; it
may with but small expenditure of effort extend its influence over
an enormously wide area, but it may also be swept away by the first
storm. As yet all maritime nations have been short-lived; their rise
has been swift, often surprisingly so; but they have never remained
long at the zenith of prosperity, and, as a rule, their decay has been
as rapid as their elevation to power. The cause of the fall of all
maritime nations has been the smallness of their basis, their foreign
possessions, widely separated from one another and difficult to defend,
and their dependence upon these foreign possessions. In many cases
the over-balancing of political by economic interests, the neglect
of materials for defence, and effeminacy resulting from commercial
prosperity, have also contributed to their destruction.
[Illustration: MAN’S FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH
The most momentous event in the early history of man was the
launching of the first raft. That moment was instinct with all the
mighty conquests and discoveries yet to be accomplished over seas;
and even the discovery of fire, says Professor Ratzel, has been of
less moment to the progress of mankind than that of the inventor
who first joined logs together into a raft and set out on a voyage
of discovery to the nearest islet.
]
Special combinations of characteristics arising from the geographical
positions of oceans, continents, and islands are connected with the
broad features common to oceanic continuity. These characteristics
are reflected from the sea back to the land, and there give rise to
historical groups. The historical significance of such groups is
expressed in their names even--Mediterranean World, Baltic Nations,
Atlantic Powers, and Pacific Sphere of Civilisation. They are
primarily the results of commerce and exchange, and of the furthering,
correlating influences of all coasts and islands. When they united all
peninsulas, islands, and coasts of the Mediterranean into one state the
Romans merely set a political crown upon the civilised community that
had developed round about, and by means of, this sea.
[Sidenote: Uniqueness of the Mediterranean]
And if we wish rightly to estimate the significance of Roman expansion
from a Central European point of view, we may express our conception
very shortly--the diffusion of Mediterranean culture over Western and
Central Europe. It was at the same time a widening of the horizon of a
landlocked sea to that of the open ocean. The Atlantic Ocean succeeded
to the Mediterranean Sea. The Americans and the Russians, and the
Japanese, repeating their words, maintain that in the same manner the
Pacific must succeed to the Atlantic; but they forget the peculiar
features of the Mediterranean, especially its conditions of area. It is
no more probable that such a compact, isolated development will occur
again than that the history of Athens will repeat itself on the Korean
peninsula or at Shantung. The greater the ocean, the farther is it
removed from the isolated sea. It was not the Atlantic that succeeded
to the Mediterranean, but the broad world-ocean that succeeded to the
narrow basin called the Mediterranean Sea. There have always been
differences between the various divisions of the main sea; and these
variations will ever continue to be prominent, although constantly
tending to become less and less so.
[Sidenote: The vast Potentialities of the Pacific]
The Pacific will always remain by far the greatest ocean, including,
as it does, forty-five per cent. of the total area of water. Owing to
its great breadth, the Pacific routes are from three to four times as
long as those of the Atlantic. The Pacific widens toward the south;
and Australia and Oceania lie in the opening, thus furnishing the
Pacific with its most striking peculiarity--a third continent situated
in the Southern Hemisphere, together with the richest series of island
formations on earth. Whatever the Pacific may contribute to history,
it will be a contribution to the annals of the Southern Hemisphere;
and if a great independent history develop in the antipodes, it will
have the Southern Pacific, bounded by Australia, South America, New
Zealand, and Oceania, for its sphere of action. The area of the
Atlantic Ocean is but half that of the Pacific. Nor is it for this
reason alone that in comparison with the latter it is an inland rather
than a world sea; for, owing to its narrowness between the Old and the
New Worlds, the branches it puts forth, and the islands and peninsulas
that it touches, it shortens the routes from one coast to the other.
In it there is more of a merging of land and sea than a separation;
and to-day it is chiefly a European-American ocean. The Indian Ocean
is both geographically and historically but half an ocean. Even though
important parts of it may be situated north of the equator, it is too
much enclosed to the north; it widens to the south, and thus belongs to
the Southern Hemisphere.
[Illustration: A STORM SUCH AS MAY SWEEP AWAY A NATION’S POWER
All maritime nations, says Professor Ratzel, have been short-lived.
The more strength they draw from the ocean the less firm becomes
their footing upon the land, and their power grows to resemble that
of a fleet resting upon the waves; it may extend its influence over
an enormous area, but it may also be swept away by a single storm.
]
[Sidenote: The Coast the Threshold of the Land]
The great oceans open up broad areas for historical movements, and
through their instrumentality peoples are enabled to spread from
coast to coast in all directions; the inland seas, on the contrary,
cause the political life of the nations bordering upon them to be
concentrated within a limited area. The Mediterranean will ever remain
a focus towards which the interests of almost all European Powers
concentrate. It has, moreover, become one of the world’s highways
since the completion of the Suez Canal. The Baltic somewhat resembles
the Mediterranean; but it would be saying too much to look upon its
position as other than subordinate to that of the greater sea. The area
of the Baltic is but one-seventh that of the Mediterranean; and it is
lacking in the unique intercontinental situation of the latter. In many
respects it resembles the Black Sea rather than the Mediterranean,
especially by reason of its eastern relations.
Originally the coast was the threshold of the sea; but as soon as
maritime races developed it became the threshold of the land. In
addition it is a margin, a fringe in which the peculiarities of sea
and land are combined; and for this very reason sea-coasts have a
historical value greatly disproportionate to their area, especially as
they constitute the best of all boundaries for the nations that possess
them. Here harbours are situated, fortresses, and the most densely
populated of cities. Owing to their close connection with the sea, the
inhabitants of coasts acquire characteristics which distinguish them
from all other peoples. Even if of the same nationality as their inland
neighbours--as, for example, the Greeks of Thrace and of Asia Minor and
the Malays of many of the East Indian islands--their foreign traffic
nevertheless impresses certain traits and features upon them which in
the case of the Low Countries led almost to political disruption.
[Sidenote: Living and Dead Coasts]
A coast is more favoured than an interior in all things relating to
commerce and traffic; yet neither may enjoy permanent life alone
without the other. The French departments of the Weser and of the Elbe
were among the most ephemeral of the political results achieved by the
short-lived Napoleonic era. With the sea at their backs it is easy for
the inhabitants of a coast to become detached from their nation, and
but a simple matter for them to spread over other coasts. Ever since
the time of the Phœnicians there have been numerous colonists of coasts
and founders of coast states. The Normans are most typical in European
history. The expansion of coast colonies towards the interior is one
of the most striking features of recent African development. Thus
coasts are to be looked at from within as well as from without. To many
races--such as Hottentots and Australians--the coast is dead compared
with the interior; for Germany the coast has been politically dead for
centuries. A river-mouth is best suited to carrying the influences of
the coast inland.
All ancient historians supposed that the Mediterranean Sea, with
its many bays, peninsulas, and islands, schooled the Phœnicians in
seamanship. This, however, is not so. Nautical skill is transmitted
from one people to another, as may be seen from some of the most
obvious cases in modern history. No maritime people has become great
through its own coast alone. It is not the coast of Maine, with its
numerous inlets and bays, that has produced the best seamen, but the
coast of Massachusetts, naturally unfavourable for the most part;
and it has produced the best seamen for the reason that the inland
districts bounded by it are far more productive and furthering to
commerce than are the interior regions of Maine.
[Sidenote: The Place of the Coast in History]
Nature has forced races to take to the sea only in such countries as
Norway and Greece, where the strips of coast are narrow and the inland
territory poor. In order to have political influence it is sufficient
to have one foot on the sea-coast. Aigues-Mortes, with its swampy
environment, was sufficient to extend France to the Mediterranean
during the reign of St. Louis; Fiume sufficed for Hungary. Forbidding
desert coasts have had a peculiarly retarding effect on historical
development. It was necessary to rediscover the Australian mainland,
to touch at more favourable points, one hundred and thirty years after
the time of Tasman; thus the history of the settlement of Australia by
Europeans originated, not with him, but with Cook.