Questions for Review Does the Zimmermann note show that the German government understood conditions in Mexico and the United States? Why did the Zimmermann note have so strong an effect upon American public opinion? What were the steps by which the United States was forced into war? Why did not Holland and Denmark declare war on Germany also? What was the main difference between the English blockade of Germany and the German submarine war on England? Was the German government responsible for the acts of its agents in this country? What is the Monroe Doctrine? Why could not the Imperial Government of Germany be trusted? How was this war different for the United States from any previous conflict? What was the greatest obstacle to peace? Chapter XXIV. Europe as it Should Be Natural boundaries of nations in Europe.—Peoples outside of the nations with whom they belong.—The mixture of peoples in Austria-Hungary, and Russia.—The British Isles.—The Balkan states.—Recent changes in the map.—The wrongs done by mighty nations upon their weak neighbors bring no happiness. We have several times shown you, in the course of this little history, maps drawn by kings and marked off by diplomacy and through bloodshed. Let us now examine a map of Europe divided according to the race and language of its various peoples. It often happens that the boundaries set by nature, like seas, high mountains, and broad rivers, divide one people from another. It is natural that the people of Italy, for instance, hemmed in by the Alps to the north and by the water on all other sides, should grow to be like each other and come to talk a common language. In the same way, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, Great Britain, and Switzerland have boundaries largely set by nature. On this account, it is not surprising that the map of “Europe as it should be” which unites people of the same blood under the same government, agrees rather closely in some places with the map of Europe as it is. The boundaries of the kingdom of Spain and those of the kingdom of Portugal fit pretty closely the countries inhabited by Spanish and Portuguese peoples. There are a few Italians in France, also a few Walloons and Flemish. Otherwise France is largely a unit. Some of the French people are found in Switzerland and others in that part of the German Empire which was taken away from France after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.