The Winning of the West, Volume One | Page 6

Boonsboro and Vincennes. Based on a map by G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York and London.]

THE WINNING OF THE WEST.

CHAPTER I
.
THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES.
During the past three centuries the spread of the English-speaking
peoples over the world's waste spaces has been not only the most
striking feature in the world's history, but also the event of all others
most far-reaching in its effects and its importance.
The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his writings, lest they should
remain forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relatively
unimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents. The
Common Law which Coke jealously upheld in the southern half of a
single European island, is now the law of the land throughout the vast
regions of Australasia, and of America north of the Rio Grande. The
names of the plays that Shakespeare wrote are household words in the
mouths of mighty nations, whose wide domains were to him more
unreal than the realm of Prester John. Over half the descendants of their
fellow countrymen of that day now dwell in lands which, when these
three Englishmen were born, held not a single white inhabitant; the race
which, when they were in their prime, was hemmed in between the
North and the Irish seas, to-day holds sway over worlds, whose endless
coasts are washed by the waves of the three great oceans.
There have been many other races that at one time or another had their
great periods of race expansion--as distinguished from mere
conquest,--but there has never been another whose expansion has been
either so broad or so rapid.
At one time, many centuries ago, it seemed as if the Germanic peoples,
like their Celtic foes and neighbors, would be absorbed into the
all-conquering Roman power, and, merging their identity in that of the
victors, would accept their law, their speech, and their habits of thought.

But this danger vanished forever on the day of the slaughter by the
Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of Varus were broken by the rush
of Hermann's wild warriors.
Two or three hundred years later the Germans, no longer on the
defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering
and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark
woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their force
spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt
along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From the Volga to
the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every land in turn bowed
to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin. Rome and
Novgorod, the imperial city of Italy as well as the squalid capital of
Muscovy, acknowledged the sway of kings of Teutonic or
Scandinavian blood.
In most cases, however, the victorious invaders merely intruded
themselves among the original and far more numerous owners of the
land, ruled over them, and were absorbed by them. This happened to
both Teuton and Scandinavian; to the descendants of Alaric, as well as
to the children of Rurik. The Dane in Ireland became a Celt; the Goth
of the Iberian peninsula became a Spaniard; Frank and Norwegian alike
were merged into the mass of Romance-speaking Gauls, who
themselves finally grew to be called by the names of their masters.
Thus it came about that though the German tribes conquered Europe
they did not extend the limits of Germany nor the sway of the German
race. On the contrary, they strengthened the hands of the rivals of the
people from whom they sprang. They gave rulers--kaisers, kings,
barons, and knights--to all the lands they overran; here and there they
imposed their own names on kingdoms and principalities--as in France,
Normandy, Burgundy, and Lombardy; they grafted the feudal system
on the Roman jurisprudence, and interpolated a few Teutonic words in
the Latin dialects of the peoples they had conquered; but, hopelessly
outnumbered, they were soon lost in the mass of their subjects, and
adopted from them their laws, their culture, and their language. As a
result, the mixed races of the south--the Latin nations as they are
sometimes called--strengthened by the infusion of northern blood,
sprang anew into vigorous life, and became for the time being the
leaders of the European world.

There was but one land whereof the winning made a lasting addition to
Germanic soil; but this land was destined to be of more importance in
the future of the Germanic peoples than all their continental
possessions, original and acquired, put together. The day when the
keels of the low-Dutch sea-thieves first grated on the British coast was
big with the doom of many nations. There sprang up in conquered
southern Britain,