Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · July 23, 1867

THE EPOCH OF TROUBLES.

“The nations were angry,” said the prophet, as looking down through the course of time, he saw the characteristics of its closing hours presented in distinct and striking outline before him. That period of anger we believe commenced with the remarkable revolutions of 1848; and the following article from the “British Quarterly” corroborates our application. By the revolutions of that year, says the able writer, was “inaugurated a new period of international conflict.” Since that time, the “dilemmas of kings,” the “perplexity of the nations,” and the threatening aspect of political combinations, have furnished fruitful themes for accurate observers of passing events. We can but be thankful for signs of the approaching consummation, though those signs are scenes of trouble. The writer says:—

Europe has entered upon a new epoch of troubles. The long peace which followed the downfall of Napoleon the First has been gradually giving way, and now appears to have absolutely terminated. The revolutions which convulsed the continent in 1848 inaugurated a new period of international conflicts; and though the principle which animated these revolutions was temporarily forced into abeyance, it has been growing in strength, and is now the shaping power, the formative cause of events. The Russian war of 1854–6 next disturbed the general tranquillity, forcing England, for a brief space, to abandon her dreams of peace, and interrupting her long enjoyment of a career of purely industrial enterprise. The Italian war of 1859 aroused her still more, and at once awoke all the leading Powers of Europe to a sense of impending dangers. Since then, every country has armed. A well-founded sentiment of increasing troubles passed like an electric shock throughout Europe. Everywhere, statesmen and people alike began to perceive the magnitude of the mine which underlay the existing fabric of power in Europe, as well as the masked conspirator who, ere long, would put the match to it for the purposes of his own ambition. At present, the dread substance of this general foreboding—the realization of this ominous fear—is beginning to take shape under our own eyes. The spark of war has been lighted, and he will be a bold man who will foretell when it will be definitively extinguished. The period of convulsion which now appears to be opening, may be interrupted more than once by a peace which is but a truce, but it is hard to believe that it will terminate until all Europe has been thrown into the crucible, and has re-appeared with a new and more stable form of territorial power. Nothing can better show the overwhelming tendency of events toward war than the fact that the very Powers which have given the signal and occasion for convulsions, are those which hitherto, and in their normal condition, are most desirous of peace. Neither Austria nor Prussia had any reason to desire war, nor any wish to engage in it. They have been hurried into it by the pressure of events which they would fain have resisted, and which they still struggle against. The whole condition of Europe has grown unstable, and new aspirations are predominant, which the governments can not control. This is the most serious aspect of the case—the one which renders almost desperate any hope for a continuance, or early resumption, of pacific relations among the Powers of Europe. The motive power is now in the hands, not of governments, but of peoples; and nothing will suffice to stay the course of those national passions until they have led to open conflict. Not till they have measured their strength, and found in the stern school of war what is attainable and what is not—not till then will the old condition of stable tranquillity return. This is the one spectacle which presents itself—a continent seething with warring passions and aspirations, which threaten to make chaos of its present fabric of power.

Not less striking is the other spectacle which meets the observant eye—a monarch sitting calmly by, watching the gathering storm, and ready, by deliberate preparation, to turn the raging of the nations to his own advantage. He is neither on the one side nor on the other. He supports each as best suits his purpose for the hour, and as readily abandons it, for a like reason, to support the other. At present he smiles grimly in his cabinet at the Tuileries, to see his neighbors quarreling. He has helped, too, in his own dexterous way, and as a “friendly bystander,” to set them by the ears; and he will take good care that they do not make up matters until he has reaped a substantial profit out of their quarrel.

In this new period of war, upon which Europe seems to have entered, the forces at work will in the main be wholly different from any which have given rise to great wars in the past. Of the many causes of conflict which have been in operation in past times, some are now, happily, antiquated and robbed of their power; and all of them, we trust, will ere long disappear from the arena of Europe. In old times, the caprice of kings, a personal affront offered by one monarch to another, frequently led to hostilities, in which the belligerent nations had no possible interest. Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi. At other times, war has arisen simply from a difference in the interpretation of international law, without either party being desirous to provoke a conflict—as was the case in the war between England and America in 1812–14. These have been small wars, and are easily appeased. A more formidable cause of international conflict is the ambition of despotic monarchs of great power and ability—as exemplified by the long wars produced by the ambition of Louis XIV and Napoleon I. All of these three causes of conflict may be regarded as accidents. But there is another class of wars which have their root in the hearts and passions of nations. These are—wars of Independence, wars of Religion, wars of Nationality. The first of this class may seem to run into the third; but in reality they belong to different stages in the life of nations, and, though they have some features in common, may be distinguished with sufficient clearness. Wars of independence may be waged by empires which include the most incongruous nationalities—as Austria under Maria Theresa, and during the long war against the ambition of Napoleon I.; and they may also be waged by one section of the same race against another—as the wars between England and her American colonies, between Spain and her American colonies, and now between the Northern and Southern sections of the United States. Contests of nationality are the growth of our own times. Since the migration and intermingling of peoples which produced and followed the downfall of the vast fabric of the Western Roman empire, the most remarkable wars of Europe have been the Crusades, with their sequel—the wars to arrest the progress of the victorious Ottomans; the wars of the Reformation; the wars with the Grande Monarque of France; and again, a century afterward, with the warlike genius and soaring ambition of the great Corsican. In none of these did the principle of nationality play any distinctive part. It was hardly even thought of as a distinct power. Kingdoms were held to be only real existences; nationalities were of no account. Kingdoms were extended or contracted, as the chances of war determined; but it mattered not about the population of the provinces thus gained or lost. Their wishes were never taken into account. Nor, to speak the truth, did the population of such provinces, in these times, care much to which kingdom they belonged. Even in 1815, when Europe was arranged anew on the basis of political expediency, and when there was a considerable shifting to and fro of the old landmarks, not a voice of complaint, save from the sturdy Norwegians, was raised by any people against the decrees of the congress. Nothing is more common nowadays than to hear the settlement of Europe made by the Congress of Vienna, denounced as alike wicked and absurd. But such a view of the matter is exceedingly unjust. The ablest heads in Europe were there met in conclave, and they made the best arrangement which was possible in the temper and circumstances of the time.

Italy had been broken into fragments for centuries; the spirit of nationality was extinct; and, judging from the experience of the past, the only practical question in regard to her northern provinces, was, whether they should be under the dominion of Austria or of France. Nor was the case of Poland overlooked. It produced the most stormy discussions of any; England and Austria warmly advocating the restoration of Poland to her old independence, while Russia and Prussia as strenuously resisted the proposal. Rather than encounter the calamities of another European war, a compromise was established as a separate kingdom, under the rule of the czars. This portion of the settlement of 1815 was felt to be unsatisfactory even by the contracting powers; but no better course was open to their adoption. Each had fought and suffered; they had seen all Europe converted into one vast battlefield; and they must not merely be excused, but approved, for shrinking from a renewal of the war, and contenting themselves with making the best settlement which they found it in their power to establish. All the great treaties by which peace has been restored to Europe have been the result of compromises; and the treaties of Vienna were as efficacious for attaining their object—the resettlement of Europe after a long period of war and convulsions—as any which could have been framed at that time.

But every settlement becomes antiquated in the course of time; and the settlement of 1815 now shares the fate of all its predecessors. During the half century that has since elapsed, the condition of Europe has wholly changed. During that time, the right of nations to choose their own form of government—which was the animating principle of the first French revolution, as it had been of the English revolution more than a century before—has become widely recognized; it has been acted upon since 1815, alike in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, while Austria and Prussia have become constitutional Powers. The adoption of this principle, however, has in no material way affected the settlement of Vienna, which related only to the territorial limits of kingdoms, and which left each people to do as it pleased, so long as it did not violate those established limits. The principle which is demolishing the treaties of 1815 is not that of the revolution of 1789, but one of later growth, and one of which France, during her Revolutionary war, was a flagrant violator. It is the principle of nationality—the right of nations to throw off a foreign yoke, and unite with other sections (if there be any) of the same nationality. The separation of Greece from the rule of the Turks, and of Belgium from Holland, were the first movements of this kind; and the latter of these events constituted the first violation of the territorial settlement effected by the treaties of 1815. But it was not till 1848 that the new principle manifested itself in formidable proportions; and from that hour it became evident that the settlement of Vienna was becoming antiquated, inapplicable to the condition of the times, and would gradually give way before the action of the new power. Simultaneously with the revolutionary convulsions of 1848–9, a member of the proscribed Bonaparte family rose to the head of affairs in France, to whom the treaties of 1815 were a hateful memento of his uncle’s downfall, and who resolved to compass their overthrow, and effect a new settlement of Europe, in which France should be aggrandised at the expense of her neighbors. He saw that the treaties of 1815 were doomed—that they would crumble to pieces, whatever efforts might be made to uphold them; and his skill has consisted simply in expediting their decay, and in turning the attendant convulsions to his own advantage. The process of disintegration is so far advanced that he can now afford to lower, if not wholly throw off, the mask, and to proclaim the nullity of the hated treaties. In his speech on the opening of the French chambers on the 5th of November, he said plainly, “The treaties of 1815 have ceased to exist.” Simultaneously he addressed a letter to each of the governments of Europe, making the same statement in a milder form, and inviting the Powers to a congress, at which a new settlement might be effected. The project

did not meet with much encouragement.

The King of Italy, indeed, and one or two lesser Powers, accepted the proposal without reservation; but by far the greater number, including the great Powers, made their acceptance conditional upon a satisfactory explanation from the emperor of the precise objects for which the congress was to assemble. When this explanation was given, the British government at once declined to take part in the congress, in a dispatch which pointed out very clearly the impracticability of the proposal. In the first place, the Powers most affected by the questions which were proposed for discussion would refuse to take part in the congress; and, in the second place, if it were possible to bring them together, the only mode of compelling the minority to submit to the decision of the majority would be by having recourse to hostilities. On these grounds the British government wisely declined to accept the emperor’s proposal; and there can be no doubt that, in taking this step, they merely anticipated the replies which would have been given by the other great Powers. The proposed congress, accordingly, fell to the ground. It is impossible to think that so sagacious a man as Napoleon III really believed that such a proposal would be accepted; but it is not difficult to divine the motives which induced him to make it. It was a triumph for peace to proclaim aloud that the treaties of 1815—mementos of Waterloo—were at an end; and yet to do so as if the proclamation were not a defiance to the other powers, but an invitation to draw closer the bonds of peace. Moreover, the congress might have afforded the means of forming a system of alliances, of obvious advantage to the emperor. Indeed, the fundamental principle of the emperor’s policy is never to allow himself to be isolated—never to engage in war without having first secured an amount of moral and material support sufficient to enable him to attain his object, or at least render all but impossible a fatal disaster. And in any event, the proposal for a congress, whether wholly unsuccessful or not, would redound to his credit as a lover of peace and as a far-seeing statesman. Troubles were coming—that was evident; nor had he any desire that they should not come. But when they came, he could say,—is he not already saying?—“I warned you of this: I proposed the only course by which war might be avoided; you rejected that proposal—and now on your heads be the responsibility of all that may happen.”

Any monarch who proclaims that the treaties of 1815 have ceased to exist must either be a fool—which assuredly the Emperor of the French is not—or else he must have an object in producing the downfall of those treaties. The only effect of making such an announcement in so public a manner must be, to weaken the power of those treaties still more. It was an encouragement to all the governments or parties in Europe who long for their overthrow, and it announced very plainly to those parties that it was not from the Emperor of the French that they will encounter opposition. Nevertheless, the statement itself was not very far from the truth. The treaties nominally exist, in their more important provisions; but they are no longer operative. Treaties are operative only as long as the leading Powers are resolved to uphold them. Twenty years ago, the Powers were thus resolved; and any glaring infraction of those treaties would have been at once met by a combined movement on the part of the other Powers to resist it. There is no such community of sentiment or action now. An utter disregard of treaties prevails everywhere. No Power will take up arms on their behalf. No Power will come to the assistance of a neighbor who, in defiance of those treaties, is attacked. This, as we have said, is partly owing to the new and dislocating forces which have recently come into play, which are as perplexing as menacing. Each government sees that the principle of nationality must, to some extent, be recognized; and each is willing that its neighbor should suffer from the new principle, while resolved to oppose it in its own territories. The fabric is falling, and the isolated action of the governments, each bent only on securing its own interests, hastens the downfall. In 1815, the Powers of Europe, taught by bitter experience, saw that the only means of preserving peace was for each to abrogate its schemes of ambition, and unite together to uphold the settlement which has been made.

But that settlement has become so obsolete, and is so obviously doomed, that community of action has ceased: no Power comes forward to maintain the settlement in its entirety, and each of them thinks only how to save or aggrandize itself in the break-up which is approaching. At the same time it must be said, that the Emperor of the French himself is a great cause of the existing dissension and dilemma. But for the ambitious projects which he is known to entertain, England and France might, at this moment, be in close and cordial alliance. The alliance formed between the two Powers in order to resist the ambition of Russia in 1854–6, might be equally efficacious to solve many of the European difficulties at the present hour. But how can England ally herself with a monarch whose ambition is now notorious, and who never makes war without some secret purpose of aggrandizing France by additions of territory? In 1854, England, Austria, and France were anxious to support the cause of Poland: what was it that nullified all their efforts? Simply this, that both England and Austria were aware that if they made war upon Russia, in alliance with France, Napoleon would turn the war to his own selfish purposes, and would seize the Rhenish provinces of Germany as a “compensation” for his services. The same truth was equally well known to Russia; and hence the Russian government could afford to disregard the vehement protests of the three powers, knowing that their co-operation would inevitably stop short of war. *

The Eastern Question threatens to grow wider, and assume the character of a general war. Italy has been arming for the last three months; France is getting ready her iron-clad fleet; the Poles are preparing for a general movement, which is to include Posen and Galicia as well as the Russian provinces—nay, even Hungary and the Danubian provinces—in order to co-operate with the expected attack of Italy and France. On the other side, Prussia, Austria, Russia, taking note of the impending danger, are combining preparations to resist it. If the British government were to renew the Anglo-French alliance, war would be rendered inevitable, and a shock of nations would ensue such as Europe has not yet witnessed. Whether any policy on the part of our government will suffice to avert a European war is more than doubtful, but we feel assured that if our government make a new league with the Emperor of the French for carrying on hostilities, the result will be disastrous to ourselves. Such a league, it is true, may yet be forced upon England by the pressure of events; but at best it will be an evil hardly inferior to that which it is designed to remedy. Were we to join with France in such a crusade, we should soon find that we had no control over the movements and issue of the conflict; we should find that the objects for which we fought were wholly disregarded, and that Napoleon would not only turn the war to the aggrandizement of France, but would end it by making friends, at our expense, with some of the very powers with which we, in alliance with him, had gone to war. We profoundly sympathize with the cause of freedom and nationality in Europe, but we demur to taking part in a war in which these words are invoked merely as a cover for selfish ambition. We have a deep-rooted and amply justified distrust of the French emperor. In the event of war he will make tools (if he can) of the Italians, and leave them in the lurch. He may fight for Poland, and he will willingly aggrandize her at the expense of Germany, but he will end by making peace with Russia. And finally, if he draws the sword for Denmark, it will only be in order that he may seize and annex the provinces of the Rhine. We trust that a general war may be avoided, but we trust still more that England will not take part in it in alliance with an ambitious despot, who plays fast and loose with every Power, and who, supremely regardful of his own interests, seeks to close every war in a manner which is more satisfactory to his antagonists than to his allies.

Europe has entered upon a transition period certain to be fraught with momentous changes; and before that period is far advanced we shall see the system of alliances (which many persons imagine to be exploded) arising on a still grander scale than Europe has witnessed. During that period, too, Europe will cast off the slough of selfishness which now deadens the hearts of nations and paralyzes the policy of governments. Governments have duties as well as interests; yet of late every one of them is bent on shirking its duties. Governments, in shaping their policy, do not inquire what is right, but what will pay. How long, then, will the present system of established rights continue to be recognized? Europe is a common- wealth, where peace and order should be maintained by the conjoined action or balanced influence of the great Powers. At present there is no such restraining force; no alliances, no conjoined action, no common watching over the public weal. The result of this will soon be apparent. Convulsion and temporary chaos will break in upon Europe. The fabric of power, which confesses itself antiquated by the fact of its impotency, is ready to perish, and will pass away, giving place to one based upon the new facts, not on the old traditions. We look forward to the future with anxiety, but without fear. It is by cycles and changes such as these that Providence keeps alive the generous emotions of mankind, while carrying on the work of material progress. A level reach of material prosperity, when wealth and intellect accumulate, and the nobler passions grow benumbed, is ever succeeded in human history by rapids of war and convulsion, in which higher and sterner developments of national life are attained, and selfishness is purged out of men’s hearts by the fires of suffering.