Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/19

Rh the race lost land, freedom, language, race institutions, primitive ideas, and that aboriginal philosophy which all races have without exception, no matter what be their color or what territory they occupy.

North Germany from the Elbe eastward is Germanized Slav territory; the struggle to conquer the region between the Elbe and the Oder lasted till the end of the twelfth century, the process of Germanizing lasted during centuries afterward. Those of the Slav leaders in this region who were of use in managing the people and were willing to associate themselves with the invaders retained their positions and became German. The present ducal houses of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin are of this kind, Slav in origin.

After the fall of those Slavs between the Elbe and the Oder the German (Roman) Empire and Poland stood face to face.

Omitting details for which there is no space here it suffices to state that the early leaders of the Poles saw at once the supreme need in their own case of separating religion from other questions. The first historic ruler of Poland, Miezko I., 963-992, married a Bohemian princess and introduced Christianity himself. He forestalled the Germans and deprived them of the apostolic part of their aggressive movement, and one great excuse for conquest.

Being Christianized the Poles maintained themselves against the Germans, but as they were Christian they felt obliged to extend Christianity to places embraced within their territory or connected with it.

Along the Baltic from the Vistula to the Niemen lived the Prussians, a division of the Lithuanian stock. The Lithuanians are not exactly Slavs, but they are much nearer to the Slavs than to any other people, and are among the most interesting members of the great Aryan race. In their language are preserved verbal