Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/173

Rh elements, the Romance and the Teutonic. As far as the two chief nations, Britain and France, are concerned, there is and can be in modern times no question of conquest of the one by the other. The Channel lies between them. Away back in the Middle Ages it is true that for three centuries French Knights ruled England, and that for another century the English tried to rule France. But those relations ended for good when Queen Mary lost Calais. The great wars between the two countries in the eighteenth century were waged primarily to prevent the French Monarchy from dominating the Continent of Europe. For the rest, they were wars of colonial and commercial rivalry. So far, also, as the Teutonic element along the Rhine is concerned, there was certainly in the past no very deep-seated hostility to the French. The Alsatians, though German by speech, became—it is one of the great facts of history operative to this day—French in heart. Even what is now the Rhine province of Prussia accepted, as we have seen, the Code Napoleon.

In East Europe there are also two principal elements, the Teutonic and the Slavonic, but no equilibrium has been established between them as between the Romance and Teutonic elements of West Europe. The key to the