p. 110 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 28, 1868

Europe in Arms.

NAPOLEON’S protestations of peace have little influence upon the real feeling of the European world. To speak plainly, he has become so notorious a liar or so false a prophet that his declarations of peace are generally interpreted into declarations of war. Bismarck’s simple announcement that war between Prussia and France was a phantom, was accepted at once as decisive on that point. But the army of France is being vastly enlarged by its new organization. It is to be raised to an effective force of 800,000 men, the term of service is increased from seven to nine years, and the conscripts in the reserve corps only to be allowed to marry during the last three years’ service; as married men are considered worthless for soldiers in France. With the national guard, the standing army of France will consist of 1,200,000 men. Italy has a permanent army of 900,000; with the national guard and volunteers, 1,800,000. Austria, independently of her national guard, has 1,200,000, though a reduction is talked of. Russia had nearly a million and a half, and Prussia can put into the field in forty-eight hours’ notice, almost as many.

This is a terrible drain on the resources of any country. Each of these nations has a permanent army equal to, and in some cases larger, than the whole force raised by the Northern States during the four years of the rebellion. Of course, there are some equivalents for this in the fact that the modern science of war in Europe, with its well-disciplined and well-equipped armies does not prolong the contest; the result is quickly achieved, as in Italy in 1859, in Austria in 1866. But for all that, these “effective” forces are, as M. Javal remarked in the legislative body, “the ruin of Europe.” Rouher, Napoleon’s Minister, announced in the debate on the military bill that he, too, ardently desired the hour of disarmament to arrive; but, Mon Dieu! what can we do? one can imagine him saying with a French shrug of the shoulders. There is Russia and Prussia, Austria and Italy, each with hundreds of thousands of men all in arms, and “we can not in this matter give way to sentiment.” So the army is to be reorganized.

France has always maintained strict military discipline as an element of progress. We have seen somewhere, recently, a remark from Michelet, that the French was “a nation of barbarians civilized by conscription,”—that is, ideas of duty and obedience could be impressed upon the mind of the masses only through the military service. De Quincey, in his essay on “Charlemagne,” says that that monarch “found the universal people, patrician and plebeian, chieftain and vassal, with the left foot in the stirrup; Napoleon the First, in an age when the use of artillery was first understood, found every man standing to his gun.” The same writer, in a fine burst of British vanity that almost perverts his praise into the keenest satire, says: “The British nation is by original constitution of mind and by a long enjoyment of liberty, a far nobler people than the French. And hence we see the reason and necessity that the French should, with a view to something like a final balance in the effect, be trained to a nobler profession. Compensations are everywhere produced or encouraged by nature or Providence; and a nobler discipline in the one nation is doubtless some equilibrium to a nobler nature in the other.” There is, undoubtedly, some truth in this way of putting it, though, when it is recollected that the army and navy of England by no means consist of a few train-band companies and an occasional man-of-war, the enthusiasm of the essayist is not so well sustained. None of the great nations of Europe dares to reduce its defenses against the aggressions and selfishness of the others. As Rouher thought, in the case of France, to declare that 300,000 Frenchmen could successfully oppose a foreign force of four times that number, is to show great reliance on the courage and solidity of the troops. And so, all distrusting their own strength and fearing that of the others, never “rest arms” from one year to another.