THE OLDEST NATION OF EUROPE 



405 



consciousness and national feeling which 

 made the Hundred Years' War possible, 

 which gave the English the assistance for 

 nearly a century of one-half of France. 

 The lack of racial cohesion and any- 

 thing approaching national sympathy and 

 consciousness in Germany allowed the 

 French and the Swedes to ravage that 

 unhappy land for more than a decade in 

 the seventeenth century, after all the 

 German disputes had been settled. A 

 German nation, in the modern sense of 

 the word, existent in 1630 would have 

 made at least the later phases of the 

 Thirty Years' War an impossibility. The 

 continued absence of these qualities in 

 the eighteenth century were exactly the 

 conditions prerequisite to the aggressions 

 of Louis XIV and of Napoleon. The 

 work of Stein and Scharnhorst in arous- 

 ing and forming national consciousness 

 along racial lines had immediate results 

 of consequence. The spirit which they 

 created was the real power behind 

 Bliicher at Waterloo. 



UNITY OF ACTION AND A CONSISTENT 



POLICY FOR ce;nturii:s 



The real secret, then, of English pre- 

 dominance has been her territorial unity, 

 her racial unity, her national conscious- 

 ness, her political experience — all of them 

 realities in the sixteenth century to an 

 extent and a degree which it is doubtful 

 that they attained in any other European 

 State for more than two centuries later. 

 England stepped into the European arena 

 as a unit, of whose unity her own rulers 

 and those of other countries were con- 

 scious. Whatever force she possessed 

 her rulers knew that they could direct as 

 they deemed necessary. LTnity of action, 

 a consistent policy followed out carefully 

 by generations of statesmen, became pos- 

 sible, and its importance is difficult to 

 overestimate. Somehow or other the 

 English have left upon the tangled web 

 of European diplomacy the impress of 

 consistency, singleness of purpose, and 

 (if there be such a quality in diplomacy) 

 of honesty. The Englishman's word has 

 been his bond, not only in commercial 

 transactions between individuals, but in 

 the courts of nations. Time has proved 

 the faithfulness of Ensrland to her allies. 



Her promise of aid and support has al- 

 ways meant a promise impervious to the 

 promises, threats, or cajoleries of her 

 enemies. It is this consistency, this firm- 

 ness of purpose, this consciousness of 

 England's essential honesty, of her hon- 

 orable observance of her promises, that 

 has made her the arbiter of Europe and 

 has given her voice such weight in the 

 deliberations of nations. 



"^ENGLAND OVER ALL," HAS BFKN THE 

 MOTTO FOR CENTURIES 



Her early attainment of territorial and 

 racial unity made it impossible for others 

 to use successfully against her the sort 

 of weapons that she employed with such 

 telling effect against them. In the six- 

 teenth century Elizabeth and her states- 

 men faced perhaps the worst crisis in 

 English history. It seemed as if all Eu- 

 rope were about to unite against her ; if 

 not on one pretext, then on another. 

 There seemed to be two or three possible 

 combinations, any of which would be 

 powerful enough to conquer her; and it 

 was indeed highly doubtful whether Eng- 

 land could withstand, single-handed, the 

 assault of Spain alone. 



Elizabeth fought the battle in Europe, 

 not at home. The Dutch revolt, which 

 she sedulously nursed and aided, struck 

 Spain a deadly, crippling blow. In 

 France the strength of the Huguenots 

 gave Elizabeth powerful assistance and 

 diverted the energies of the French 

 crown at critical moments. 



What made these foreign victories de- 

 cisive for the safety of England was the 

 inability of her enemies to use the same 

 weapons against her. The Spanish and 

 the French tried to stimulate revolts in 

 Ireland and invasions from Scotland ; in 

 England they subsidized the Catholic 

 party and fomented rebellion. All went 

 well in all these parties until it became 

 clear that they were to choose between 

 the disabilities and difficulties they al- 

 ready chafed under and relief bought at 

 the price of a foreign invasion and pos- 

 sibly of a foreign sovereign. The Scotch 

 nobles preferred an English alliance to 

 a French or Spanish alliance, which 

 promised much more glittering rewards. 

 The English Catholics, when the sailing 



