The Congress of Vienna 61
ousies and rivalries which separated the thirteen colonies to
see that an even greater experiment in union might easily
have failed. If William of Orange, proud heir of a thrice
distinguished name, had been more wise and tactful, if there
had been enough political wisdom to devise a looser form of
union in which the two peoples might have had the real
strength of union without the galling shackles of complete
amalgamation, even the great differences in history and in
racial sympathy between the two peoples might well have
been overcome to the lasting good of all. To-day we should
certainly be living in a very different world.
In one other case the congress united dissimilar peoples,
when it gave Norway to Sweden in return for Finland, which
Bernadotte had yielded to Alexander as far back as 1812.
This case was somewhat different from the union of Belgium
and Holland, for each of the two had its own national his-
tory and traditions and the economic interests of the two
peoples were certainly more distinct; but even with all these
disadvantages, the union endured under a looser form than
the one attempted for Belgium and Holland until our own
day.
In arranging the Belgian line with the new Prussian terri-
tories on the Rhine, the chief idea was to secure a frontier
as straight and easily defended as possible, a policy which
was certainly carried out very successfully, as a glance at the
map will show. This is significant as a test of the contention
which was made in 1914 that Germany had to invade Bel-
gium for fear of being invaded herself. Every foot of her
western frontier north of Switzerland has been selected
within a hundred years by Prussia herself, and with military
considerations specifically in mind. After the Germans are
driven out of Belgium and northern France by allied armies,