An empire which takes in the central part of Europe. The main highways between the north and south and the east and west of Europe pass through it. It is in closer touch with most of the leading nations of Europe than any other country; for it is bordered by Russia, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, and is within a day's sail, across the North Sea, of Great Britain. Besides the land boundaries formed by the seven countries above mentioned, it has a sea frontage of 1200 miles on the North and Baltic seas....one third of the entire frontier.

Colonies

The colonies and dependencies of the German Empire comprise German East Africa, German Southwest Africa, Kamerun, Togo, part of New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelm's Land), the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, the Ladrones (Marianne Islands), the Marshall Islands, part of the Samoan Islands, and Kiao-chau (on the Chinese coast). The total area is estimated at a little over 1,000,000 square miles, and the population at about 12,000,000. The German colonial system is that of a pure absolutism administered through a centralized bureaucracy. Neither the natives nor the white inhabitants of the colonies have any voice in the fiscal or political administration of the territories. The laws for the colonies are framed by the Imperial Parliament, and German citizens residing in the colonies enjoy the same civil rights as in the mother country. The natives are not regarded as German citizens, but are allowed to acquire citizenship by naturalization in accordance with the general laws regulating such procedure.

Non-German Inhabitants of the Empire

The non-German inhabitants of the Empire exceed 4,000,000 including Poles, Czechs, Wends, Lithuanians, French, Danes, Dutch, Frisians, etc. The most numerous are the Poles (about 3,000,000), who are found exclusively in the east and northeast of Prussia (mainly in Posen and Silesia); the Czechs are found in Silesia, about Oppeln and Breslau; the Wends in Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony; the Lithuanians in East Prussia; the French in Alsace-Lorraine; the Danes in Schleswig. The Poles are prominent as a hostile element in the Empire. Although the Jews (570,000) are scattered over every part of Germany, they are most numerous in the Prussian territories. There were less than 500,000 foreigners residing in Germany at the end of the century; nearly half of them were citizens of Austria-Hungary.

Language

The area of the German language is not identical either with that of the German stock or that of the German Empire. Thus, in the larger part of Eastern Germany (the country east of the rivers Elbe and Saale), the German-speaking population is, as far as the race is concerned, largely of Slavic, or, in some cases, Baltic origin. In this region the boundary between Slavs and Germans has been subjected in course of time to various changes. At the earliest historic period Eastern Germany was held by Germanic tribes. Later on, probably in the sixth century, the inroad of the Slavs began, who by the middle of the eighth century had succeeded in crowding the Germans back even beyond the left banks of the Elbe and Saale. From the time of Charlemagne to the present date the Slavonization of the East has been followed by its Germanization, or rather re-Germanization. It is only by many of the geographical names (including such familiar names as Pomerania, Silesia, Berlin, Danzig, Dresden, Leipzig, etc.) that the former extent of the Slavic settlements in Germany may still be traced.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, when in 1772, 1793 and 1795 under Frederick the Great and his successor, Frederick William II.---the Kingdom of Poland was divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia, a new lot of Slavic inhabitants, and this time mostly of Polish extraction, fell to Prussia. (which already possessed a large Polish population in Silesia) as its share in the partition; with the result that at present Polish is the mother tongue of about one-tenth of the whole population of Prussia.

Of the 56,000,000 inhabitants of the German Empire returned in the census of 1900, upward of 4,200,000 were entered as speaking foreign languages. Of this number, nearly 3,330,000 were Poles (including Kassubs and Mazurs), 107,000 Czechs and Moravians, 93,000 Wends, 106,000 Lithuanians, nearly 224,000 French, 141,000 Danes, 80,000 Dutch, 66,000 Italians, and 20,000 Frisians.

Russia, too, has a German element of some importance. There are many German settlements in the Southern Russian provinces, one of them, founded in 1768 (between Kamyshin and Volsk on the Volga), consisting of 173 villages, and covering an area not much smaller than that of the Kingdom of Saxony. German has, moreover, from the thirteenth century on been the language of the educated classes in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire (i.e. in Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia). As regards the numerical strength of the German element, the latest accessible statistics are those of 1883, in which they are reckoned as forming 1.5 percent. of the population of European Russia.

Outside of Europe the largest number of Germans is found in the United States, whose German-born population amounts to about 3,000,000. For the city of New York alone the census of 1900 gives the German-born population as 322,343. In addition to these we have the "Pennsylvania Germans" or "Pennsylvania Dutch," whose dialect is still the vernacular of many districts in the State of Pennsylvania. An exact count of the Pennsylvania Germans has apparently never been made. Their number is by no means identical with that of the Pennsylvanians of German descent. There is a large German population in Brazil and Argentina, as well as in Canada and other parts of the British Empire, and there are many Germans scattered in all parts of the world.

Emigration

Germany has always sent out a considerable number of people willing to seek their fortune beyond the seas. During the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century Russia took great pains to attract German emigrants by granting them various privileges, giving them large tracts of land, and advancing pecuniary aid during the first years of settlement. In the nineteenth century the United States served as the chief field for the ambitious German who did not find room for advancement at home. During that century it is estimated that over 6,000,000 people emigrated from Germany. The high-water mark in the tide of emigration was reached in 1881, when nearly 221,000 Germans left the Fatherland; since that year the number has steadily diminished, as is shown by the following figures:

The fluctuations observable are the result of increasing or decreasing prosperity at home or abroad. Nearly 90 per cent. of all the emigrants go to the United States, less than 5 per cent. to Brazil, Argentina, and other American countries, and the remainder to Australia, Africa, and Asia. There was a great drop in the emigration to the United States in the years 1893 and 1894 as a result of the commercial depression in the United States in those years.