garian plains.
This line at one point extends to within a few miles of the Hungarian
capital of Bupapest.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLIV

THE BALKANS-COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES

This survey of the fighting ground in eastern Europe brings us
now to the "cockpit of the war." From a military point of view, as
well as from the political, the Balkan theatre is of equal importance
with other big fronts in Europe. It is the gateway to the Orient
for central Europe. Here the armies engaged are numbered only by
the hundred thousands, none reach a million. But from the point of
view of human interest and political intrigue it is by far the most
picturesque. Here the hatred between the combatants is most bitter;
indeed so bitter that when it burst into flame a mad whirlwind of
passion swept over half the world. For here the great conflagration
began.

A map of the Balkan Peninsula is almost, on the face of it, a full
explanation of the causes of the war. The military campaigns, studied
in connection with their physical environment, explain all the
diplomatic intrigues of the past fifty years, for they are the intrigues
themselves translated into action.

Geographically speaking, the Balkan nations are those situated in
the big peninsula of southern Europe which lies below the Danube
River and the northern border of Montenegro. Some authorities,
however, include Rumania, and others even bring in Austria's Slavic
provinces, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The most noticeable feature of this vast war-ridden region is its
mountains. Those same Carpathian Mountains, which form the natural
boundary between the land of the Magyars and the Russian plains,
take a sudden turn westward at the Rumanian frontier, then sweep
around in a great semicircle, forming a shape resembling a scythe,
the handle of which reaches up into Poland, the blade curling around
within the Balkan Peninsula. Behind the handle, and above the upper
part of the blade, stretch the broad plains of Hungary, through
which flows the great Danube, the largest river in Europe next
to the Russian Volga--a river which flowed with blood during the
Great War. Just in the middle of the back of the blade this great
river bursts through the mountain chain, swirling through the famous
Iron Gate into the great basin within the curved blade. On the south
of its farther course to the Black Sea lie the plains of northern
Bulgaria.

The curving chain of mountai