Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/150

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Italy through, the annexation of the Genoese republic to the Piedmont kingdom; the enlargement of Switzerland by three cantons taken from France; the taking of Norway from Denmark and its bestowal upon Sweden; the absorption of what was left of Poland by Russia—and some other reparceling of territory in an arbitrary sense which has nevertheless for the most part endured. There is scarcely a political articulation in Europe to-day which does not date from Waterloo; new tendencies still operate which had their inception then!

Indirectly the consequences were momentous. The aggrandizement of Prussia prepared the way for the unification of Germany and the gradual atrophy of Austria as a German state. As I have said, the enlargement of Piedmont foretokened a united Italy, and built up another power which has contributed to the enforced shrinkage of Austria. The two great con-