FRONTIERS AND BOUNDARIES 79
"Enchevetrement des paysages, opposition des genres de
vie, traditions differentes dans le labeur: voila, a premiere
vue? les raisons d'etre des contrastes, que la geographic
accuse, rnais que Thistoire amenuise.5*1
Human adjustment to these borderland features has resulted
in the establishment of independent political entities at the
northern and southern ends of this frontier region, but in its
south-central section France and Germany come into direct
contact, and their rivalry has caused repeated changes in the
location of their common boundary.
Here satisfactory adjustment has obviously not been
achieved, as is well shown in the history of Alsace. The evidence
of place-names and the language of the majority of Alsatians
reveal close ties with Germany, which are reinforced by
economic links with that country by the great highways of
the Rhine and its valley but, as Ancel pointed out,2 its
"spiritual affinities'' are with French civilization. Linguistically,
economically and culturally, it is therefore a marginal zone,
subject to influences from East and West, and of necessity
its people are torn by conflicting loyalties.
Conditions of human existence are not easy in these and
similar marchlands. The ever-present possibility of boundary
changes with their associated upheavals in political allegiance
are inimical to both security and peaceful development, and
seldom have the wishes of the inhabitants been consulted when
decisions wrere made in the allocation of their territory. Indeed,
the general rule has been that boundaries have been imposed
in these frontier lands according to the success or failure of
neighbouring States in their expansionist activities, and
because such "settlements" are rarely mutually acceptable
they tend to exacerbate conditions which are already difficult.
Particularly is this so when intensive propaganda campaigns
are conducted with a view to convincing the frontier peoples
that their best interests lie in association with the State, which
has temporarily succeeded in incorporating their land, because
they stimulate "revisionist" claims by the State which, rightly
or wrongly, considers the disputed territory as terra irredenta.
1 op. tit., p. 9.
» Ofi.cit., p. 51.