the central portion of Barbary, known as Algeria, and by encouraging her to extend her dominion eastward into Tunis and westward into Morocco, Bismarck brought her interests into conflict with those of Italy and Spain. In East Europe there was a somewhat similar rivalry between Russia and Austria in respect of the Balkan Peninsula, but here the effort of Bismarck was to hold his two allies together. Therefore, after making the Dual Alliance with Austria in 1878, Bismarck negotiated his secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. He desired a solid East Europe under Prussian control, but a divided West Europe.
The events which we have thus briefly called to mind are no mere past and dead history. They show the fundamental opposition between East and West Europe, an opposition which becomes of world-significance when we remember that the line through Germany which History indicates as the frontier between East and West is the very line which we have on other grounds taken as demarking the Heartland in the strategical sense from the Coastland.
In West Europe there are two principal
