Political Agitations in Europe.
YEARS ago, some of the statesmen of Europe called Turkey “the sick man,” and from that day to this his condition has not essentially improved. The Turk has been an anomaly in Europe, and has maintained his position, not by any vitality of his own, but rather because moves elsewhere on the great chess-board of Europe absorbed the attention of the nations. If he has not had a direct influence, the indirect has been potential, and has caused numerous complications whose effects have been felt far and wide, massing armies and hurling embattled legions against each other on many an ensanguined field. The Turk has seemed to have an important office to perform, being one of the forces employed by what the first Napoleon was wont to call “destiny,” a force mysteriously moving the world and evoking progress and civilization. Its office is not yet fulfilled. In the horoscope of the European future, Turkey appears as one of the active agencies. A few weeks since the events which happened in Central Europe, culminating in the utter humiliation of Austria and the exaltation of Prussia, making the latter power the pivot around which United Germany should revolve, betokened peace, and a general disarmament of all the nations of Europe, except, perhaps, England, who is a cipher in foreign matters, and has internal warring elements, which seem to be as much as her decrepitude can bear. But it is not so to be. France is gathering her bristling legions, and preparations are making to increase her army to 1,100,000 disciplined men, and her navy, which she has been building up as rapidly as possible, is still to be increased in power. The reflex influence of this will be to compel Russia and Prussia to follow suit. Russia can put into the field 1,500,000 men; and Prussia at least 1,000,000 more, well disciplined and possessed of all those elements which give an army strength and power. Austria, having succumbed and sunk to a third rate power, with a depleted treasury and a people disheartened, will, probably, as an economic necessity, disband her armies, and comparatively have but a handful in hand. Italy is loaded with debt, and would like to reduce her expenditures by reducing her armies, but may forego her earnest desires and still keep her armies organized for any contingency. France, under the present Emperor, who is as wily as a Jesuit, will force these measures upon the other nations, which never will consent to be left at her mercy. Thus, in all probability, will fade the vision of peace which arose when Prussia dictated terms at the gates of Vienna. The “sick man” is again the cause. The Eastern Question looms up in a not far off future. When Greece, a little more than a third of a century ago, threw off the Turkish yoke, and after a most heroic struggle, by the intervention of England, France, and Russia, assumed an independent existence, the seeds of revolution were left to germinate, by suffering Thessaly, Albania, and a number of islands in the Grecian Archipelago, among them Candia or Crete, to still remain under Turkish domination. All these naturally should have contributed to form a part of the new kingdom. Now the smoldering embers have broken into flame, and a revolution has opened. The Cretans have defied the Turkish power and are seeking an emancipation. Others in similar circumstances were adding fuel to the flame, and perhaps to-day all these minor States are in arms to resist a foreign yoke and tyranny. The time has been opportunely chosen; Turkey is bankrupt and has troubles in Lebanon, Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria. Greece also is in a position to stir still more fiercely the fires of discontent. Her interest is in detaching the Archipelago; for the moment that is done, the islands become an integral part of the kingdom, and by so much add to her strength. It is this prospective complication, therefore, which will hold the nations in an attitude of war. The Treaty of 1856, at the close of what is known as the Crimean war, virtually shut Russia out of the Black Sea. She now, doubtless, hopes to wipe that out and179gain a foothold which will one day be a marching point for Constantinople, a city which the Czars have long wished to possess. Another significant fact is, that a sister of the King of Greece is about to wed the Czar’s eldest son, a measure which tends to fraternize the relations between the Monarch and the King, and bring them into closer relations and sympathies. Europe evidently is looking eastward, and events foreshadow that the regions of the Bosphorus are ere long to be the theatre of movements, vast in their consequences, far-reaching in their effects.—Sel.