However strong the specially Austrian traditions may be, the Germans (in Austria-Hungary) stand under the alluring influence of the splendour and power of the great German Empire. The Italians long to join Italy; the Slovenians, Croatians and Servians dream of the establishment of a great southern Slav Empire; the Roumanians are drawn toward the independent kingdom of Roumania. The Hungarians alone (Magyars) are possessed of no dreams of disintegration; their past, present and future binds them to their present home; and they are consequently the firmest pillar in the monarchy of the Hapsburg. He further says that the Magyar nation stands between the Germanic and Slav worlds “like an insulator between two opposing electric currents.” This is of course a bit of special pleading, and we fancy the Austrian would hotly disclaim any leaning toward Germany; but it is interesting as showing how the matter appears to the Hungarian mind. The Dual Monarchy is split into numerous small territories, each with its own history and its own importance. There are no less than eleven languages in this polyglot country, and over all rules the one German-speaking monarch. Part of the Tyrol, one of the best known of the European playgrounds, lies in Austria, but part is in Italy. Bosnia and Herzegovina, the latest acquisitions, do not seem, geographically speaking, to belong to Austria at all, yet they are now included in her territory. Dalmatia, with its Italian population, is another outlying district, and it is vitally important because of its sea-coast. The smaller districts of Carinthia, Carniola, and Moravia lie northward, and above them again is Bohemia, once a kingdom by itself, with a stirring history. North of Hungary is the huge and little known Galicia, not to be confounded with Galicia in the north-west corner of Spain, though the name is spelt precisely in the same way. To the east of Hungary is Transylvania, and south of it Slavonia and Croatia. Still we have only named the best-known divisions. The whole comprises an immense area; a line drawn round it runs to over 5000 miles and encloses a territory larger than that of any other European country except Russia. One quarter of the population is German, another quarter Magyar (or Hungarian) and Roumanian, whilst the remaining half is made up of Italians together with Slavs, namely Poles, Croatians, Czechs, Slovaks. The Magyars, a wild and interesting gipsy race, live in the centre of Hungary, more or less, while the Slavs, of the same blood as the Servians, are ringed round to the north and south, and outside them again on the German side come the Germans. How did such diverse elements come to be included in one empire?