olitical slogan of Hungary, "To the sea, Magyars!" has
borne fruit in the Adriatic harbor of Fiume, which is to-day the pride
of the nation and in no small degree a basis for its hope of autonomy.
The history of Montenegro took on a new phase when from its mountain
seclusion it recently secured the short strip of seaboard which it had
won and lost so often. Such peripheral holdings are the lungs through
which states breathe.

[Sidenote: Reaction between center and periphery.]

History and the study of race distribution reveal a mass of facts which
represent the contrast and reaction between interior and periphery. The
marginal lands of Asia, from northern Japan, where climatic conditions
first make historical development possible, around the whole fringe of
islands, peninsulas and border lowlands to the Aegean coast of Asia
Minor, present a picture of culture and progress as compared with the
high, mountain-rimmed core of the continent, condemned by its remoteness
and inaccessibility to eternal retardation. Europe shows the same
contrast, though in less pronounced form. Its ragged periphery, all the
way from the Balkan Gibraltar at Constantinople to the far northern
projections of Scandinavia and Finland, shows the value of a seaward
outlook both in culture and climate. Germany beyond the Elbe and Austria
beyond the Danube begin to feel the shadow of the continental mass
behind them; and from their eastern borders on through Russia the
benumbing influence of a central location grows, till beyond the Volga
the climatic, economic, social and political conditions of Asia prevail.
Africa is all core: contour and relief have combined to reduce its
periphery to a narrow coastal hem, offering at best a few vantage points
for exploitation to the great maritime merchant peoples of the world.
Egypt, embedded in an endless stretch of desert like a jewel in its
matrix, was powerless to shake off the influence of its continental
environment. Its location was predominantly central; its culture bore
the stamp of isolation and finally of arrested development. Australia,
the classic ground of retardation, where only shades of savagery can be
distinguished, offered the natives of its northern coast some faint
stimuli in the visits of Malay seamen from the nearby Sunda Islands; but
its central tribes, shielded by geographic segregation from external
influences, have retained the most primitive customs and beliefs.[253]

Expanding Europe