This western outpost of the great Eurasian landmass gave birth to the Enlightenment, which led to the Industrial Revolution, which has resulted in what we now see around us every day.
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The climate, fed by the Gulf Stream, blessed the region with the right amount of rainfall to cultivate crops on a large scale, and the right type of soil for them to flourish in. This allowed for population growth in an area in which, for most, work was possible year-round, even in the height of summer. Winter actually adds a bonus, with temperatures warm enough to work in but cold enough to kill off many of the germs, which to this day plague huge parts of the rest of the world.
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Western Europe has no real deserts, the frozen wastes are confined to a few areas in the far north, and earthquakes, volcanoes, and massive flooding are rare. The rivers are long, flat, navigable, and made for trade. As they empty into a variety of seas and oceans, they flow into coastlines that are—west, north, and south—abundant in natural harbors.
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The various tribes of the Iberian Peninsula, for example, prevented from expanding north into France by the presence of the Pyrenees, gradually came together, over thousands of years, to form Spain and Portugal—and even Spain is not an entirely united country, with Catalonia increasingly vocal about wanting its independence. France has also been formed by natural barriers, framed as it is by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Europe’s major rivers do not meet (unless you count the Sava, which drains into the Danube in Belgrade). This partly explains why there are so many countries in what is a relatively small space. Because they do not connect, most of the rivers act, at some point, as boundaries, and each is a sphere of economic influence in its own right; this gave rise to at least one major urban development on the banks of each river, some of which in turn became capital cities.
Europe’s second longest river, the Danube (1,771 miles), is a case in point. It rises in Germany’s Black Forest and flows south on its way to the Black Sea. In all, the Danube basin affects eighteen countries and forms natural borders along the way, including those of Slovakia and Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, Serbia and Romania, and Romania and Bulgaria. More than two thousand years ago it was one of the borders of the Roman Empire, which in turn helped it to become one of the great trading routes of medieval times and gave rise to the present capital cities of Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Belgrade. It also formed the natural border of two subsequent empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman.
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The countries of northern Europe have been richer than those of the south for several centuries. The north industrialized earlier than the south and so has been more economically successful. As many of the northern countries comprise the heartland of Western Europe, their trade links were easier to maintain, and one wealthy neighbor could trade with another—whereas the Spanish, for example, either had to cross the Pyrenees to trade, or look to the limited markets of Portugal and North Africa.
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There are also unprovable theories that the domination of Catholicism in the south has held it back, whereas the Protestant work ethic propelled the northern countries to greater heights. Each time I visit the Bavarian city of Munich, I reflect on this theory, and while driving past the gleaming temples of the headquarters of BMW, Allianz, and Siemens I have cause to doubt it. In Germany, 34 percent of the population is Catholic, and Bavaria itself is predominantly Catholic, yet their religious predilections do not appear to have influenced either their progress or their insistence that Greeks work harder and pay more taxes.
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France is the only European country to be both a northern and southern power. It contains the largest expanse of fertile land in Western Europe, and many of its rivers connect with one another; one flows west all the way to the Atlantic (the Seine), another south to the Mediterranean (the Rhône). These factors, together with France’s relative flatness, were suitable for the unification of regions, and—especially from the time of Napoleon—centralization of power.
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The south of Italy, for example, is still well behind the north in terms of development, and although it has been a unified state (including Venice and Rome) since 1871, the strains of the rift between north and south are greater now than they have been since before the Second World War. The heavy industry, tourism, and financial centers of the north have long meant a higher standard of living there, leading to the formation of political parties agitating for cutting state subsidies to the south, or even breaking away from it.
Spain is also struggling, and has always struggled because of its geography. Its narrow coastal plains have poor soil, and access to markets is hindered internally by its short rivers and the Meseta Central, a highland plateau surrounded by mountain ranges, some of which cut through it. Trade with Western Europe is further hampered by the Pyrenees, and any markets to its south on the other side of the Mediterranean are in developing countries with limited income. It was left behind after the Second World War, as under the Franco dictatorship it was politically frozen out of much of modern Europe. Franco died in 1975 and the newly democratic Spain joined the EU in 1986. By the 1990s, it had begun to catch up with the rest of Western Europe, but its inherent geographical and financial weaknesses continue to hold it back and have intensified the problems of overspending and loose central fiscal control. It has been among the countries hit worst by the 2008 economic crisis.
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Much of the Greek coastline comprises steep cliffs and there are few coastal plains for agriculture. Inland are more steep cliffs, rivers that will not allow transportation, and few wide, fertile valleys. What agricultural land there is is of high quality; the problem is that there is too little of it to allow Greece to become a major agricultural exporter, or to develop more than a handful of major urban areas containing highly educated, highly skilled, and technologically advanced populations. Its situation is further exacerbated by its location, with Athens positioned at the tip of a peninsula, almost cut off from land trade with Europe. It is reliant on the Aegean Sea for access to maritime trade in the region—but across that sea lies Turkey, a large potential enemy.
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It didn’t take long for people in Germany to point out that they were working until sixty-five but paying taxes that were going to Greece so that people could retire at fifty-five. They then asked “Why?” And the answer, “In sickness and in health,” was unsatisfactory.
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The trauma of two world wars, followed by seven decades of peace and then the collapse of the Soviet Union persuaded many people that Western Europe was a “post-conflict” region.
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The corridor of the North European Plain is at its narrowest between Poland’s Baltic coast in the north and the beginning of the Carpathian Mountains in the south. This is where, from a Russian military perspective, the best defensive line could be placed or, from an attacker’s viewpoint, the place at which its forces would be squeezed together before breaking out toward Russia.
The Poles have seen it both ways, as armies have swept east and west across it, frequently changing borders. If you take The Times Atlas of European History and flick through the pages quickly as if it were a flip book, you see Poland emerge circa 1000 CE, then continually change shape, disappear, and reappear until assuming its present form in the late twentieth century.
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In 1999, Poland joined NATO, extending the Alliance’s reach four hundred miles closer to Moscow. By then, several other former Warsaw Pact countries were also members of the Alliance, and in 1999 Moscow watched helplessly as NATO went to war with its ally, Serbia. In the 1990s, Russia was in no position to push back, but after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, Putin stepped in on the front foot and came out swinging.
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Denmark is already a NATO member, and the recent resurgence of Russia has caused a debate in Sweden over whether it is time to abandon the neutrality of two centuries and join the Alliance. In 2013, Russian jets staged a mock bombing run on Sweden in the middle of the night. The Swedish defense system appears to have been asleep, failing to scramble any jets, and it was the Danish air force that took to the skies to shepherd the Russians away. Despite that, the majority of Swedes remain against NATO membership, but the debate is ongoing, informed by Moscow’s statement that it would be forced to “respond” if either Sweden or Finland were to join the Alliance.
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What is now the EU was set up so that France and Germany could hug each other so tightly in a loving embrace that neither would be able to get an arm free with which to punch the other. It has worked brilliantly and created a huge geographical space now encompassing the biggest economy in the world.
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The Germans were involved in the machinations that overthrew Ukraine’s President Yanukovych in 2014 and they were sharply critical of Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea. However, mindful of the gas pipelines, Berlin was noticeably more restrained in its criticism and support for sanctions than, for example, the UK, which is far less reliant on Russian energy.
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Geographically, the Brits are in a good place. Good farmland, decent rivers, excellent access to the seas and their fish stocks, close enough to the European continent to trade, and yet protected by dint of being an island race—there have been times when the UK gave thanks for its geography as wars and revolutions swept over its neighbors.
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There is a theory that the relative security of the UK over the past few hundred years is why it has experienced more freedom and less despotism than the countries across the channel. The theory goes that there were fewer requirements for “strong men” or dictators, which, starting with the Magna Carta (1215) and then the Provisions of Oxford (1258), led to forms of democracy years ahead of other countries.
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Its location still grants it certain strategic advantages, one of which is the GIUK gap. This is a choke point in the world’s sea-lanes—it is hardly as important as the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca, but it has traditionally given the UK an advantage in the North Atlantic.
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The GIUK is one of many reasons why London flew into a panic in 2014 when, briefly, the vote on Scottish independence looked as if it might result in a yes. The loss of power in the North Sea and North Atlantic would have been a strategic blow to and a massive dent in the prestige of whatever was left of the UK.
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Prejudice against immigrants always rises during times of economic recession such as recently suffered in Europe, and the effects have been seen across the continent and have resulted in the rise of right-wing political parties, all of which militate against pan-nationalism and thus weaken the fabric of the EU. A stark example came in early 2016 when for the first time in half a century, Sweden began checking the documents of travelers from Denmark. This was a direct response to the waves of refugees and migrants flowing into northern Europe from the wider Middle East and the ISIS attacks on Paris in December 2015. The idea of the EU’s “Schengen Area,” a border-free area composed of twenty-six countries, has taken some heavy blows with different countries, at different times, reintroducing border controls on the grounds of security.
