THE NORTH SLESWIC QUESTION 297
tion over the enforced presence within the confines of the empire of large non-German, antagonistic elements. These, according to the German theory, ought to be grateful for the opportunity afforded them of becoming sharers in the reflected glories of Germany's great past and greater future. If they were foolish enough to stand in their own light by refusing to fuse, they must be crushed.
As the Danes in North Sleswic showed not the slightest sign of gratitude nor of inclination to yield, "crush" from now on became the watchword of the local Prussian authorities, inspired from headquarters at Berlin.
Of that which characterizes a nation and distinguishes it from any other, language is at once a principal constituent and the truest expression. Two peoples may originally speak the same tongue ; they may be closely allied racially, occupying adjoining territories ; or the one may be an offshoot of the other. Under the influence of different climatic, economic, and social condi- tions, modifications of speech will gradually appear, which in time may develop into a distinct idiom. Germany and Holland, Denmark and Sweden, are examples of the first class ; England, in relation to her colonies and to the United States, of the latter. On the other hand, two or more separate languages, belonging to ethnically separate groups welded into a political unit, may be used side by side, on terms of the fullest equality, within the limits of one, even small, state, the community of inter- ests being a bond sufficiently strong to hold the heterogeneous elements together. Austria-Hungary, or, still better, Belgium, may serve as an illustration of this type. But a conquered nation, or part of a nation, possessing a culture essentially dif- ferent from that of its oppressor, cannot abandon its language and hope to retain its national individuality. Its language is the bulwark, the very corner-stone, of its civilization, the life-blood of its existence as a people. That dead, its struggle for survival is hopeless. The conqueror who, by fair means or foul, succeeds in imposing his language upon a defeated population has more than half won his game.
In North Sleswic both victor and vanquished realized from
