Central Europe . andby absorption of subjugated national elements. A severecrisis was caused in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesby the Turkish invasion, which seemed as if it would gaina firm foothold. But as soon as it had been reconqueredby the Austrian forces Hungary recovered itself, and thenational spirit of the Magyars increased rapidly. Since1866 they have obtained an independence which they useenergetically to strengthen their own nationality at theexpense of the other races belonging to the empire, THE PEOPLES 141 although they form not an absolute, but only a relativemajority.
Central Europe . andby absorption of subjugated national elements. A severecrisis was caused in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesby the Turkish invasion, which seemed as if it would gaina firm foothold. But as soon as it had been reconqueredby the Austrian forces Hungary recovered itself, and thenational spirit of the Magyars increased rapidly. Since1866 they have obtained an independence which they useenergetically to strengthen their own nationality at theexpense of the other races belonging to the empire, THE PEOPLES 141 although they form not an absolute, but only a relativemajority. In no other state of Europe has the govern-ment been so successful, and in no other except Russiaso unscrupulous, in the means by which it has tried toforce upon the other elements of the population the lan-guage of the dominant majority. In Hungary the fact stands out most clearly that thepresent conception of nationality is dominated by thetoken of language and has little to do with descent. The 0ermans e^ ws^-fes- RumaniansFlG. 25.—Diagram to show Nationalities. movements of population have everywhere brought togetherracial elements of so widely differing origin that very fewdistricts can claim to have kept a population which isthe almost unmingled offspring of a single race. It ispossible that the Jews come nearest to being able toclaim the distinction of pure blood. From the westerndistricts of the Mediterranean, over which they had becomescattered during the Roman Empire, they came eastwardwith western civilisation. At present the belt occupied i42 CENTRAL EUROPE most thickly by them lies on the eastern frontier ofCentral Europe. From Moldavia, through EasternHungary, the Bukovina, and Galicia, to Russian Poland,stretches a connected tract in which ten to fifteen percent, of the population consists of Jews. Here they areestablished as a nation, having their own tongue, a dialectof German with Jewish words and terms, and their owndress. In the Vistula government
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