Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln, a History This area is divided into fifteen empires, kingdoms, or states, omitting the petty states of eastern Europe, which are separated from each other by differences of race, creed, and language. Their commerce is obstructed among themselves by as many different sys tems of duties upon imports as there are states. The natural outlet for the crowded population of central Europe might be in southern Russia and in the fertile sections of Asiatic Turkey, were the relations of these several states to the eastern country the same as those of the Eastern States of this country to those of the West. There is land enough, and to spare; but the armies of Europe are sustained in or der to prevent this very expansion of the peo ple and the misgovernment of the Turk, which renders Asia Minor almost a howling wilder ness, is protected by the mutual jealousies of these very states, which are thus being de stroyed by their own standing armies. As war becomes more scientific, it becomes more costly. Victory rests not only on pow der and iron, but yet more on bread and beef. It may have been the German sausage by which France was beaten, quite as much as the German rifle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.