The CHAP. fro between the Euxine and the Mediterranean. The preambles of the Treaties of 1840 and 1841 recognised the expediency of maintaining the Sultan's dominion, but there was nothing in the articles of either of those treaties which engaged the contracting parties to defend the empire from foreign invasion. I. CHAPTER II. II. CHAP. THE supreme Law or Usage which forms the safeguard of Europe is not in a state so perfect and The Usage symmetrical that the elucidation of it will bring any ease or comfort to a mind accustomed to crave for which tends to protect the weak against the strong. well-defined rules of conduct. It is a rough and wild-grown system, and its observance can only be enforced by opinion, and by the belief that it truly coincides with the interests of every Power which is called upon to obey it; but practically, it has been made to achieve a fair portion of that security which sanguine men might hope to see resulting from the adoption of an international code. Perhaps under a system ideally formed for the safety of nations and for the peace of the world, a wrong done to one State would be instantly treated as a wrong done to all. But in the actual state of the world there is no such bond between nations. It is true that the law of nations does not stint the right of executing justice, and that any Power may either remonstrate against a wrong done to another State great or small, or may endeavour, if so it chooses, to prevent or redress the wrong by force of arms; but the duties of States II. in this respect are very far from being co-extensive CHAP. with their rights. In Europe, all States except the five great Powers are exempt from the duty of watching over the general safety; and even a State which is one of the five great Powers is not practically under an obligation to sustain the cause of justice unless its perception of the wrong is reinforced by a sense of its own interests. Moreover, no State, unless it be combating for its very life, can be expected to engage in a war without a fair prospect of success. But when the three circumstances are present-when a wrong is being done against any State great or small, when that wrong in its present or ulterior consequences happens to be injurious to one of the five great Powers, and, finally, when the great Power so injured is competent to wage war with fair hopes-then Europe is accustomed to expect that the great Power which is sustaining the hurt will be enlivened by the smart of the wound, and for its own sake, as well as for the public weal, will be ready to come forward in arms, or to labour for the formation of such leagues as may be needed for upholding the cause of justice. If a Power fails in this duty to itself and to Europe, it suddenly becomes lowered in the opinion of mankind; and happily there is no historic lesson more true than that which teaches all rulers that a moral degradation of this sort is speedily followed by disasters of such a kind as to be capable of being expressed in arithmetic, and of being in that way made clear to even the narrowest understanding. The principle II. CHAP. on which the safeguard rests will not be acknowledged by all, but those who will disown it can be designated beforehand. There are many who cannot make out how society can justly be harsh upon a man for being tame under insult or injury; and the same class of moralists will encounter a like difficulty in their endeavour to understand the cogency and the worth of this Usage. Instance of a wrong to which the Usage did not apply. Instance in which the Usage was appli cable and was disobeyed. Perhaps the limit to which the Usage is subject may be best shown by first giving an example of circumstances in which it fails to take practical effect. When the Republic of Cracow was abolished by an arrangement concerted between Russia and Austria, a clear wrong was done, and France and England protested against it; but it could hardly be said that their interests were grievously affected by the change, and therefore it was not the opinion of Europe that the Western Powers had been guilty of a great dereliction of duty because on this account they declined to go to war. But as an example of circumstances in which tame acquiescence would be clearly a breach of the great Usage and a defection from the cause of nations, one may cite the conduct of Prussia in 1805; for when the First Napoleon suddenly came to a rupture with Austria, and broke up from his camp at Boulogne and poured his armies into Germany, advancing upon Ulm and finally upon Vienna itself, all men saw that it was not only for the interest of Europe at large, but also for the interest of Prussia herself, that she should come forward to prevent the catastrophe. She hung II. back and stood still whilst Austria succumbed; but CHAP. acting thus, Prussia incurred the ill opinion of Europe; and the ruin which follows degradation did not at all lag, for in the very next year Bonaparte was issuing his decrees from Berlin, and the Prussians were yielding up their provinces and their strong places to France, and handing over their stores of gold and silver, and of food and clothing, to cruel French intendants, and French soldiery were quartered upon them at their hearths. A brave and warlike people had been brought down into this abyss because their rulers had shrunk from taking up arms in obedience to the great Usage; and Europe set it down and remembered that Prussia's dereliction of duty in 1805 was followed by shame and ruin in the autumn of 1806. in which was faith But if the wars of 1805 and 1806 supplied a Instances signal instance of this kind of defection and of its the Usage speedy chastisement, they also furnished examples fully of loyal obedience to the great Usage. From the obeyed.. rupture of the peace of Amiens to the summer of 1805, Bonaparte was at peace with the Continent and at war with this country. During that interval of more than two years he bent his whole energy, and devoted the vast resources at his command, to the one object of invading and crushing England. It was against the interest of Europe that England should be ruined, but more especially it was for the interest of Austria that this disaster should be By averted, because the great empire of the Danube is so situate that its interests are more closely iden Austria. |