LINGUISTIC AREAS IN EUROPE — DOMINIAN. 429 



on into Russian territory until Suwalki is reached. The eastern 

 frontier begins at this point and is prolonged southward, according 

 to Slav authorities, through Augustow, Bielostock, Surash, Bielsk, 

 Sarnaki, and Krasnostaw.^ 



The struggle for predominance between Poles and Germans along 

 Poland's western boundary is fully nine centuries old. In the sixth 

 century Slavonic tribes had become widely distributed between the 

 Oder and Elbe in the course of westerly expansions which correspond 

 to south and west migrations of Teutonic peoples.^ The beginning 

 of the present millennium witnessed the inception of a slow and 

 powerful Germanic drive directed toward the east. Repeated Ger- 

 man aggressions brought about the earliest union of all Polish 

 tribes into one nation at the beginning of the eleventh century. It 

 proved, however, of little avail before the fighting prowess of the 

 knights of the Teutonic Order who, by the first half of the thirteenth 

 century, had succeeded in adding all Wend territory to Teutonic 

 dominions. This early and northern phase of the "Drang nach 

 Osten " brought the Germans to the coast of the Gulf of Finland. 

 Their advance was rendered possible in part by the presence of 

 Tatar hordes menacing southern Poland. Teutonic progress was 

 also facilitated by the condition of defenselessness which character- 

 izes an open plain. Between the Oder and the Vistula the slightly 

 undulating lowland is continuous and devoid of barriers to com- 

 munication which the interposition of uplifted or uninhabitable 

 stretches of territory might have provided. 



Polish history has been affected both favorably and adversely by 

 this lack of natural bulwarks. The one-time extension of Polish 

 sovereignty to the coasts of the Baltic and Black Seas or to within 

 50 miles of Berlin and the central plateau of Russia was a result of 

 easy travel in a plain. This advantage was more than offset by the 

 evident facility with which alien races were able to swarm back into 

 the vast, featureless expanse forming Polish territory. The very 

 dismemberment of the country is in part the result of the inability 

 of the Poles to resort to the protection of a natural fortress, where a 

 stand against oppressing foes might have been made. 



Poland's easterly expansion, with its prolonged and finally dis- 

 astrous conflict with Russia, began after the battle of Grunwald in 

 1410. Although the Poles then inflicted a decisive defeat on the 

 German knights, the western Provinces they had lost could not be 

 regained. In this eastern field the basin of the Dnieper merged 

 without abrupt transition into that of the Vistula, just as the basin 



1 Niederle, loc. cit., p. 73, but cf. H. Praesent, Russiscli Polen, etc. Petermanns Mitt., 

 vol. 60. Dec, 1914, p. 257. 



2A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peoples, University Press, Cambridge, 1912, p. 48. 



