Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/287

Rh was claimed and exercised under false and dangerous pretexts. The duke of Wellington, who represented this country at the Congress of Verona, under instructions framed by Lord Castlereagh, was the first to declare that England could be no party to such an application of the theory of the alliance, and that this country preferred isolation to any such system of combined policy. That was the germ of the modern doctrine of non-intervention. But as long as the Treaties of Vienna lasted, it was our duty and our right to endeavour to support their authority, and to vindicate the rights established by a compact to which this country was a party. We declined in 1852 to join with Prussia in enforcing the declaration made by the allied powers in 1815, which excluded any member of the family of Bonaparte from the throne of France ; but we sought, in conjunction with France, to protest against the annihilation of the kingdom of Poland, the incorporation of Cracow, the admission of non-German provinces into the confederation, and the invasion of Schleswig ; and we op posed the annexation of Savoy and Nice to France, but alone and without effect. The compact of Vienna was gradually set aside and violated in the course of years by those who were most interested in maintaining it ; and when the Emperor Napoleon III. proposed, in 1863, a new congress for the purpose of revising and re-establish ing the balance of power in Europe, under the name of an International Council, England refused to be a party to the negotiation, and rejected the scheme. Lord Russell replied, &quot; There being no supreme authority in such an assembly to enforce the decision of the majority, the con gress would probably separate, leaving many of its mem bers on worse terms with each other than they had been before.&quot; This was the last attempt made to bring the authority of a congress, representing the collective authority of Europe, to bear on questions affecting the general peace. When this point was reached it was apparent that the whole theory of the confederated system in Europe had become, for a time at least, obsolete ; that the treaties and mutual guarantees on which that system rested had lost their power ; and that there was no controlling force to resist the ambitious or warlike designs of any state capable of giving effect to them. The Italian campaign of 1859 had considerably altered the condition of Southern Europe, and weakened Austria. Possibly, Prussia, in withholding her assistance at that time from her federal ally, foresaw in the defeat of Austria an event favourable to her own future pretensions. At any rate, for the first time, a war seriously affecting the balance of power was begun and ended by the two principal belligerents alone, and even the price paid by the house of Sardinia for the services of France the cession of Savoy and Nice was tacitly acquiesced in by Europe. Twenty years before, it would have been thought impossible that the doctrine of non-intervention should have acquired so great an ascendency. But the consequences of this novel state of affairs soon became manifest in the increasing disintegration of Europe. No state could have a greater claim than Denmark to the protection of the principles of the balance of power, for, as late as 1852, all the great powers had pledged themselves by treaty to maintain the integrity of her dominions, the unity of the monarchy, and the order of succession to the crown which was then established. Yet in 1864 the German powers proceeded to what was termed a Federal Execution against her ; Holstein, Lauenberg, and, eventu ally, Schleswig were torn from her by Prussia, Austria acting a subordinate part. England in vain appealed by her diplomacy to the terms of the agreement of 1852, but France and Russia stood aloof, and the greatest injustice the world had witnessed since the partition of Poland was consummated. As every event in political life is closely connected, Prussia now proceeded to ally herself with the crown of Italy against Austria, and to execute her grand design of the overthrow of the Germanic Confederation and the expulsion of Austria from that body, which had been regarded as the centre of gravity of the European system. As long as that body subsisted, war was impossible between its respective members, and France was incapable of attacking their united forces. The success of Prussia in the campaign of 1866 was rapid and complete, and Austria ceased to form part of the Germanic Confedera tion. The power of Prussia was further increased by the military conventions, which gave her the absolute com mand over the armies of the minor German states. This was undoubtedly the severest blow which had yet been inflicted on the balance of power in Europe ; and the Emperor Napoleon III., who had recently given vent to his dissatisfaction with the treaties of 1815, now found himself confronted by an enemy infinitely more powerful and dan gerous. The results of Sadowa were as fatal to the influence and security of France as if she herself had lost a campaign. The French nation, however, failed to under stand the magnitude of the danger, though they were irritated by the approach of it. War was, on more than one occasion, on the point of breaking out ; and at length France plunged into it with a recklessness and incapacity only to be equalled by the tremendous calamities that war caused her to endure. Again, no third state was drawn by political considerations into the conflict. The terms of peace were settled between the vanquished and the con querors without reference to the general interests of other nations ; and no attempt has been made to place these arrangements under the sanction of the public law of Europe. Russia took advantage of the agitated condition of Western Europe to abrogate, by her own will and pleasure, an important stipulation of the Treaty of Peace of 1856, and Europe again submitted to this breach of covenant. The general result is that, at the present time, the military power of the German empire far sm-passes that of any other state, and could only be resisted by a gene ral combination of all the rest. The balance of power, as it was understood fifty years ago, and down to a more recent time, has been totally destroyed ; no alliances can be said to exist between any of the great powers, but each of them follows a distinct course of policy, free from any engagements to the rest, except on some isolated points : the minor states can appeal to no certain engagement or fixed general principle for protection, except, perhaps, as far as the neutrality of Switzerland and Belgium is con cerned ; and for the last two centuries there has not been a time at which all confidence in public engagements and common principles of international law has been so griev ously shaken. Where the reign of law ends, the reign of force begins, and we trace the inevitable consequence of this dissolution of legal international ties in the enormous augmentation of military establishments, which is the curse and the disgrace of the present age. Every state appears to feel that its security depends on arming the whole virile population, and maintaining in what is called a state of peace all the burdens of a complete armament ; indeed, in the most barbarous ages and the most sanguinary wars there were, doubtless, fewer men under arms, and less money was spent in arming them, than at the present day. We have shown in the preceding observations that we do not retain the faith of our forefathers in the balance of power. It is impossible to equalise the strength of nations. It is impossible to regulate or control the growth and de velopment of their forces, which depend not on territorial possessions alone, but on their industry, their credit, their natural resources, and their internal institutions. It is 