THE STRATEGICAL GEOGRAPHY OP EUROPE. 187 
another Russian force advancing from Roumania into Transylvania, 
from the resources of Carinthia, and, if the Triple Alliance was worth more 
than paper, from Italy. On the other hand, East Prussia is a formidable 
threat to the Russians in Poland. With strong fortresses in front of a 
Russian advance at Posen and on the Oder, and others of a formid¬ 
able character at Konigsberg, Dantzig, and Thorn, if the Germans, 
either alone or in conjunction with England, had the command of the 
sea they would be even worse than a sword of Damocles hanging over 
the line of the:Muscovites at every step Westwards from Bresc-Litewski. 
But for the Russians to cut off the Germans East of the Vistula from the 
rest of Germany would be easier from a merely strategic point of view 
than for the Germans to cut off the Russians in Poland from the rest of 
their colossal Empire. From Thorn to Dantzig is a narrow base as 
compared with theirs. Alone it would appear as if Germany must 
bow before Russia if the latter were well organized. No fortresses, not 
even the line of the Oder, not the pools and lakes which abound 
between that river and Elbe could save them. It is true that all this 
land is inhospitable, uninviting, full of every kind of petty obstacle, 
and traversed by great rivers—all this is of no avail against the strength 
of armed myriads ; nothing except mighty mountains effectually closes 
the path of armies, and even these can be traversed at well-known 
defiles. How otherwise would the Macedonians have penetrated to the 
Indus and the Visigoths have overwhelmed the Iberian Peninsula, or 
the Cossacks have twice in this century occupied quarters at Adrianople ? 
On men and not on mountains or rivers or fortresses depends the fate 
of nations. Did not Napoleon in 1806-1807 traverse at his will the 
whole district from the Maine along the Saal across the Elbe, the Oder, 
the Vistula, the Pasarge, the Alle, the Pregel in spite of all bogs and 
morasses and forts. Why ? because he had the genius and the force 
wherewith to beat his enemies in the field. His glory waned and his 
genius was appalled amid the gloom and snows and solitudes and those 
horrors of the vast Scythian desert, more dread than even Dante’s or 
Milton’s imagination could body forth. Then in turn the victors followed 
him across the same rivers and further still across the Weser and Rhine, 
the Meuse, the Aisne and the Marne to Paris itself. Thus, then, if 
Germany is to be saved it will be by brains and courage, and not by 
topography or walls ; though at every march the invader must be pre¬ 
pared to reckon, and to cope, with these and to suffer tremendous losses 
as their consequence. 
But if Austria joined Germany, the posture of affairs would be 
seriously affected. I trust you will take it that here we are not poli¬ 
ticians, or taking sides in any way, we are merely looking at maps and 
remembering history. Were the Eastern Europeans to try to conquer 
the West, and Napoleon prophesied that they most assuredly would, 
they have to solve the difficulty of how to deal with the populations 
that are protected by the several branches of the Carpathians and of the 
mountains that encircle Bohemia. Here are natural fortresses on a 
gigantic scale with few possible entrances, dangerous to pass, and deadly 
to carry. A series of impracticable transverse obstacles complicated 
with all manner of rivers and morasses, most assuredly “ dens and 
shades of death,” that is if any attempt were made to push through 
them. Parallel obstacles and screens for the enemy of the very 
worst kind against attempts to pass North or South of them. To turn 
the tables by an invasion of Russia from Transylvania would not be much 
