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Show WHEN THE MAP OF EUROPE WAS CHANGED. Going back 100 years, a writer for the Geographic society, tells of the conflict then raging in Europe in which the nations now at war were then in a mighty struggle. "Then, It was Kurope Great Britain. Brit-ain. Prussia, Austria and Russia against France and Napoleon. Then. Ins now, the vast armies of the allies al-lies were maKtng ready for a spring campaign of invasion, and, much as Is the ease today, the fields within present Belgium were first choice for a war theatre. Moreover, a century of politics and diplomacy have made lUtle change in the questions about uhich wars are waged in Kurope. One important difference was that the Europe of April 1. 1S15, had about progressed, through a score of years of trouble to a state of dissatisfied, peaceful exhaustion. ."Napoleon made his Waterloo campaign cam-paign in the spring of 1S1". and. by July 18 it had been decided in favor of the allies. "During the great emperor's banishment banish-ment to T .11 .-rs f h t had brought about his abdication and m whose bauds the settlement of Eu rope's troubles lay. placed the work of reorganizing boundaries, the remaking re-making of the map, before a congress, which was called at Vienna in September, Sep-tember, 1814. The efforts of this congress con-gress became an indefinite series of moves for Impossible bargains, and its deliberations had almost resulted in war among the bargainers, when Napoleon returned from Elba, and began be-gan his march on Paris .March 1 1816. Thus stimulated, the congress hastened with Itfl task, and, by June 9, the "Final Act," embodying the treaties of Vienna, was signed. "The map of Europe on April I, 1815, then, was as indeterminate a thing as is that map today. France had been crowded back within the borders of Roman Gaul. Her boundaries bound-aries were the Pyrenees in the south, Piedmont. Savoy, Switzerland and Baden, on the west, and the Nether lands and Prussia on the northeast. It was the France of Louis XV, the Prance of before the revolution; and it had lost the Netherlands, a great .-c-nion of central Germany, and a strip of coastal Germany, which Napoleon Na-poleon had Included in the empire But, on April 1, the little corporal was planning to defeat the armies of England. Prussia, Russia and Austria in detail, and to re-establish bis im perial France. "While the congress In Vienna had not reached final action in its work, the boundaries of the new German confederation had practically been decided. de-cided. The new confederation In eluded all of German Europe, with the exclusion of the Netherlands and Denmark Austria was given the presidency pres-idency of the federal diet. The former for-mer Grand Duchy of Warsaw was made a constitutional kingdom under the Russian crown, and the congress confirmed Russia's possession of Fin- iand. which it had conquered from Sweden In 1305. Swedish Pomeranla was ceded to Prussia. The modern German empire, with th exclusion of Austria and the addition of the province of Schleswlg. Gorman Po-laad, Po-laad, a-nd Alaace-LorraJno. is defined by the boundaries placed by the Vienna Vien-na congress to the German confederation. confed-eration. "Thus the tentative rearrangement of a post-Napoleon Europe stood through April, while the emperor of i he French was rcverlsbly engaged in raising and equipping armies with which to meet his enveloping enemies ene-mies It was only by his remarkable enterprise that lie was able to get together an arm of 360. 000 by Junel In the meantime, an Austrian army of 210,000 had been assembled upon the Rhino frontier, and a Russian army cf 150 000 was moving up to co-oper-ste with the Austrians. Another Austrian Aus-trian force menaced from the southeast, south-east, and the Prussian and English armies were concentrated in Bel-Rium. Bel-Rium. Napoleon began his final sf rr.t rrlr mnvai on .Tune 6 "Since the overthrow or Napoleon and the work of the congress or Vienna, the changes in Europe have been those making toward the unlfi-cntion unlfi-cntion of like peoples, thus the two rrrat changes were the establishment of the German empire and of thr kingdom of Italy Italy was formed by the congress of Vienna as a crazy quilt of small states, largely under the dominance of Austria. France i found herself within her historic I boundaries, with the excitable unquiet of democratic leaven. Russia emerged j as an equal member of the European concert of powers, and Great Britain began her career as the undisputed mistress of the seas ' Turkey, having kept her hand out of the international pie. got through With a whole bide, although Russia sought to have the Turkish question brought before the congress Holland V a I oii firmed in the possession of Belgium; and Sweden was rompensat ed for her lors of Finland by having Norway given to her. Denmark lost! the continental end of her territory to the Germans." |