In the face of these two postulates, the true national groupings have discovered their power and have already begun to appear in real form, as it were, through the artificial political boundaries which divided or suppressed them. Any one, the Germans as much as the rest, proposing to reconstruct Europe must most certainly take account of such realities, and must deal with the many national groups of Europe as the stones out of which the new building is to be erected. But the particular way in which those stones may be used, the combinations into which they may be grouped, the main influences which are to impose themselves upon particular great agglomerations of new nationalities are the whole issue of the debate, and form the whole subject of this war. The German Empire and its Ally, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy--that is, the reigning house of Hapsburg-Lorraine--wants the re-arrangement to take a certain form which would leave the German speech and culture and tradition the predominating thing in Europe, and probably in the whole world. The Allies, upon the other hand, are fighting for a less simple idea. They are fighting for the double conception of: (_a_) Retaining the existing independence of certain national groups. (_b_) Erecting other independent or partly independent groups, the existence of which and the general influence of which shall restrict German and in particular Prussian power. This dual conception the Allies rightly term the preservation and the extension of national liberties in Europe. Now before we can comprehend either what the Germans are striving for or what the Allies are striving for, we must make a catalogue of those national groups which are at the foundation of the whole business. In making that catalogue we must remember what it is that creates a national group. [Illustration: MAP I. THE MAIN TRUE NATIONAL FRONTIERS OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE (excluding the South, which is exterior to this war) The Slavs Roman in Religion. True National Frontiers. 1, 2, 3, 4.--Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland. National groupings have discovered their power and have already begun to appear in real form through the artificial political boundaries which divided or suppressed them. Anyone proposing to reconstruct Europe must most certainly take account of such realities, and must deal with the many national groups of Europe as the stones out of which the new building is to be erected.] What makes a nation is _corporate tradition_. The strongest element in this is an historic memory. A nation which can point to having enjoyed a national existence in the past is much more firmly seated in its ambition to retain or to recover its independence than one which has never had such historic existence.