The State of Europe

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1867

The State of Europe.

The two great questions which are at present engaging the attention of the European statesmen are slowly but steadily approaching their final solution. In Turkey, the resistance of the Christian population to the brutish despotism of the Turks, has, since the beginning of the new year, largely gained in dimension and strength. It is no longer Crete alone which is in arms. The smaller islands in the Mediterranean have followed the example set by their larger sister, and united to chase the Turks from the sea. The province of Thessaly, which borders upon Greece, is likewise in full insurrection, and furnishes a convenient rendezvous for the great number of Greek youth who can no longer restrain their warlike patriotism. In Greece, the people, with an astonishing unanimity, are bringing an irresistible pressure to bear upon the Government in behalf of an open support of their kindred and co-religionists in the Turkish provinces. The schemes of the Servians in Northern Turkey, who

are the most warlike of all the Christian tribes, and who constitute the bulk of the population in the Provinces of Servia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro, are still more ominous than the movement of the Greeks in the South, and the impending outbreak in Bosnia, may, therefore, give to the Turks, in a few weeks, more trouble than the Cretan insurrection has done during the past eight months. Russia is quietly but firmly maturing her policy for the rapidly-approaching crisis, while England and France irresolutely confine themselves to a declaration that they will not interfere as long as Russia remains neutral. A European Conference, which is now much talked of, would be no more successful than was the late London Conference for the settlement of the Schleswig-Holstein difficulty. According to present appearances, the establishment of one or two Christian empires upon the ruins of the Mohammedan power in European Turkey is an event not far remote.

In Rome, the people are quietly awaiting the call of the “Committee of Action.” That this call will ere long be issued, and that it will be complied with by nearly the whole population of the Papal dominions, cannot be doubted. The Papal Government, in the meanwhile, by new acts of intolerance against the foreign Protestant residents, and by its obstinate refusal to manifest a conciliatory spirit toward the Government of Italy, notwithstanding all the advances made by the latter, seems to be anxious to destroy the last remainder of sympathy that may yet be felt with it as a temporal power.

Germany is preparing for the meeting of the first North German Parliament. We have, as yet, no official accounts of the proceedings of the Plenipotentiaries assembled in Berlin. What has become known of the Prussian draft of a new German Constitution, meets with considerable opposition, but at the same time the conviction prevails generally that more or less unpopular provisions will hardly weaken the impulse which the meeting of a Parliament, elected by universal suffrage, will give to the national unity movement. The idea of a South German Confederation has been altogether abandoned, and with Baden and Bavaria looking avowedly toward a confederative re-union with Prussia, Wertemberg alone can not stay out.

The embarrassments of the Austrian Government are in nowise lessened. The Hungarian Diet, has, by an almost unanimous vote, adopted a declaration against the new military law of Austria, and the breach between Hungary and Austria is therefore as wide as ever. The new Reichsrath, which the Government has ordered to be elected and to be convoked within a few weeks, will only tend to make the conflict more apparent, for the differences between the several nationalities are still greater than those between the Government of Austria and the Magyars. Though trouble may not be so imminent as in Turkey and Rome, it is fully as sure to come at the proper time.

France has sent out the last vessel of the squadron that is to bring back the expeditionary force from Mexico. It appears to be certain that the Government will so far yield to the popular dissatisfaction with the new plan for re-organizing the army as to introduce important modifications. There is a strong current of popular opinion that the military force of France is ample for defensive purposes, and that it cannot be made sufficiently powerful for aggression.

The Fenian movement in Ireland is for the present entirely suppressed. The reform agitation in England, on the other hand, is gaining strength, though it appears doubtful whether it will soon lead to any practical result.—N. Y. Tribune.