Condition of Europe

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 11, 1856

Condition of Europe.

To any one who really sees Europe as it actually is at this hour, the spectacle is a sad one. To him who forgets that God rules all, from evil still evoking good, it is a hopeless one. Are we really at the close of war, or only at the beginning of one still greater? Take up the newspapers—those Arguses, whose eyes travel to and fro on the face of earth—and what do we read of?

First come voices of trouble from the East. Troubles in Arabia—fifty thousand rebels at Mecca swearing that the Sultan has forsworn the Prophet; troubles in Syria—wild men at Nabulous rising because there is no one to keep them down; troubles in Bagdad, smouldering troubles in Smyrna and other places in Anatolia, where the charter we wrung from the Porte is only setting Turk and Christian the faster by the ears; perfect anarchy in Greece—neither men nor goods safe beyond three miles from the coast, where French troops patrol—and the people fiercer than ever against the Ottomans, and more than ever frantic to kiss the feet of the Czar, and subject themselves to an iron despotism which is probably marked out by Providence as the sole effectual cure of Hellenic madness. So much for Turkey, which, our rulers tell us, we have rescued and made strong. Is there a single whole place in it from head to foot? But "we have checked the southward progress of Russia." For the moment. But why those cries for help from the Caucasus, that marshaling of Chruleff's host, those plans now preparing in the bureaus of St. Petersburg for new forts on the east side of the Black Sea, and a war-navy on the Caspian?

Turkey disintegrating, and Russia adhering to her "hereditary policy"—this is but one scene of the diorama. Take another phase of the troubles. Were there ever before so many "armies of occupation" in Europe? Austrians in the Principalities, British and French in Turkey and Greece, French and Austrians in Italy, all most generously keeping the peace in other people's territories—the wrong men in the right place!

The sight of those various white, blue and red-coated soldiers in alien countries is a significant proof of the disjointed state of affairs. It is like the sight of dragoons in a mob, telling of troubles. Italy is specially the seat of troubles and the object of apprehensions. Geologically the most volcanic of European countries, she is so now also politically. The damp dungeons of Naples teem with victims, and King Bomba overawes his people by means of brigands and lazzaroni. French bayonets around the Vatican alone ward off a new Roman Republic and a second flight of the Pope to Gaeta. Austria overpassing her own frontiers, has corps of occupation alike in Parma and the Legations, where they rule like demons—and in her own Italian territories there prevails only a milder form of the same reign of terror.

Radetzky writes to Vienna that either his master must say No at once to the Remonstrances of the Western Powers and Sardinia, or he will resign. Indeed, in the present combustible state of the peninsula, can Austria recede without evoking the flames? It is a duel between Austria and Sardinia, contesting the supremacy of Italy. Sardinia demands—publicly in the face of Europe demands—that the cords which bind Italy shall be slackened. If Austria yield, the Star of Piedmont rises higher on the horizon, and all eyes turn to it. The light of hope will grow stronger all over the peninsula, and the slackening of her cords will only make galled Italy pant more furiously to be free.

But what a spectacle for modern Europe! Italy and Greece, the heirs of the classic empires, the descendants of the ancient world—both mad and miserable—raving and chafing with a fury unintelligible to northern races! Why, the very soldiers of our Italian Legion at Malta are growing delirious—have been shouting and stabbing "for liberty" in a place where there is nothing but batteries and oranges—and would doubtless throw themselves into the sea to swim for Sicily, if they could carry their arms with them.

Is this peace? Cross the Alps and look northward. Poland groaning, and at times hoping, but securely manacled, and perhaps about to be offered by her master a political sop. Hungary, bleeding at the heart, but with no hope on the earth, save in the utter crumbling of the Hapsburgh throne, which would only bring a Muscovite instead of an Austrian bondage. These we count not at present. They figure largely in the speculations of superficial observers, but it is not by them that the troubled sleep of Europe will first be broken; indeed it seems to us their day cannot come at all until Germany and Italy have first gone through the fire, and come out greatly changed. But Germany is troubled, and will probably be into the furnace sooner than most people imagine.

Destitute of the mad impulses of the South, less demonstrative even than the French, the Germans do not give tongue much before they act—but there are symptoms that the tranquility of Central Europe is anything but secure. The policy of the governments towards the people has become most reactionary—in many respects there is less freedom now than there was before 1848—and even in the "free republic of Hamburg, the most cruel measures of oppression are put in force against the press.

The Germans are a slow-moving race, and if they had even a promise of better things coming, they would wait on, smoking their pipes and drinking their beer, with true Teutonic phlegm, for another generation. But at present they have not even a promise of better things—the nobility, worse than the throne, seem only bent upon pushing things backward toward feudalism; and the consequence is, that were revolution to commence in serious form, either at Paris or in Italy, Germany would speedily catch the flame.

In France itself tranquility is only secure so long as the firm hand of Napoleon III holds the reins. While he lives France will not throw its rider. But his death would resolve all into chaos; and Bourbonists, Republicans and Socialists would be struggling together in the dread maelstrom. For such a convulsion there can be but one issue. Order must be re-established; but around whom is the nation to rally? Suppose Napoleon III gone, what Saul is there over-topping all the rest by head and shoulders? What name is there but one that is known beyond the limits of Paris and a few leading towns?

Such, it appears to us, is the essential condition of the leading States of the Continent. Troubled they are all of them. Never was the political state of Europe so full of quicksands. "Distress of nations and perplexity"—such is the exact aspect of the times. One cannot take a bold step any way without plunging into abysses which the future only can fathom. Not to speak of the evidently transition state of the Spanish peninsula, Turkey is disintegrating. Italy is on the eve of exploding; even Germany is not safe; and a crisis in any one of these quarters may set Europe by the ears. Liberalism and Despotism are for the moment strangely interwoven. France threatens the press of Belgium—Austria similarly threatens Sardinia, and crushes Italy. Sardinia menaces despotic Austria—England sympathizes with freedom everywhere, but does not act. France dreads an outbreak in Italy, and stands balancing between Austria and Sardinia, yet at the same time is not disinclined to intervene to check Espartero and democracy in Spain.—Blackwood.