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CHAPTER XXVI.

POLISH REVOLUTION AND WAR, FROM ITS COMMENCEMENT IN NOVEMBER 1830, TO ITS TERMINATION IN SEPTEMBER 1831.

XXVI.

1830.

1.

Terrible

wars which have ever prevailed between

Asia.

SURVIVING all the changes of time, of religion, of CHAP. empire, and of dynasty, one great contest has in every age of the world divided mankind. It is the war of Asia and Europe-the strife of the descendants of Shem with the sons of Japhet. All other contests sink into insignificance in comparison. The nations of Europe and Asia have had many and bloody wars among each Europe and other, but they have been as nothing compared to those terrible strifes which in different ages have in a manner precipitated one hemisphere upon the other. This enduring warfare has alternately pierced each hemisphere to the heart it brought the arms of Alexander to Babylon, and those of England to Cabool; it conducted the Saracens to Tours, and Attila to Chalons. In one age it induced the disasters of Julian, in another the Moscow retreat; it led to the fall of Rome and Constantinople ; it precipitated Europe upon Asia during the Crusades, and Asia upon Europe during the fervour of Mahommedan conquest. Cæsar was preparing an expedition against the Parthians when he was assassinated; Napoleon perished from attempting one against Russia. The Goths, who overturned the Roman empire, appeared first as suppliants on the Lower Danube, and they were them

XXVI.

1830.

selves impelled by a human wave which rose on the CHAP. frontiers of China. It is the East, not the North, which in every age has threatened Europe; it is in the tableland of Tartary that the greatest conquerors of mankind have been bred. The chief heroes whose exploits form the theme of history or song, have in different ages signalised themselves in the immortal contest against these ruthless barbarians. Achilles, Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Pompey, Marius, Belisarius, Constantine Paleologus, Charles Martel, Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, John Hunniades, Scanderbeg, John Sobieski, Don John of Austria, Prince Eugene, Charles XII., Lord Clive, Lord Lake, Napoleon, have in successive ages carried it on. It has been sung in one age by Homer, in another by Tasso; it has awakened at one period the powers of Herodotus, in another those of Gibbon. It began with the siege of Troy, but it will not end with that of Sebastopol.

2.

this per

strife.

It is owing to the different characters of the races of men who have peopled the two continents that this strife Causes of has been so long continued and terrible. Though all pro- petual fane history, not less than Holy Writ, teaches us that the human race originally sprung from one family in the centre of the eastern continent, yet the descendants of Adam who sojourned in Asia were essentially different from those who wandered to Europe. Nor was this surprising we see differences as great in the same household every day around us. It was the difference of character which rendered their seats different the Asiatics remained at home, because they were submissive; the Europeans wandered abroad, because they were turbulent. Authority was as necessary to the one as it was distasteful to the other. So essentially was this the distinctive character of the two races, and the original cause of their separation, that it characterised the opposite sides in the very first ages of their existence. Priam governed the tributary states of Troy with the authority

XXVI.

1830.

Opposite sources of

their strength and weakness.

CHAP. of a sultan; but the Grecian host elected the King of men to rule them. It was composed of many different independent bodies; and the first epic in the world narrates the wrath of one of its chieftains, and the woes his insubordination brought upon the children of Hellas.* The first great strife recorded in authentic history was between the forces of the great king and the coalesced troops of the European republics; and the same character has distinguished the opposite sides to this day. Athens and Lacedemon were the prototypes of France and England; Thermopyle of Inkermann, Cyrus of Nicholas. So early did Nature affix one character upon the different races of men, and so indelible is the impress of her hand. From this original diversity in the character of the two great dominant races of men has arisen a difference not less remarkable in the sources of their strength and the means of their resistance. Unity renders Asia formidable; diversity has constituted the strength of Europe. Multitudes of slaves, impelled by one impulse, obeying one direction, follow the standards of the Eastern sultan; crowds of freemen, actuated by opposite passions, often torn by discordant interests, form the phalanxes of Western liberty. The strength of Asia consists mainly in the unity of power and administration which, in the hands of an able and energetic monarch, can be perseveringly directed to one object; that of Europe is found in the resources which the energy of freemen furnishes to the state, and the courage with which, when danger arrives, it is repelled. The weakness of the despotic dynasties of Asia is to be found in their entire dependence on the vigour and capacity of the ruling Μηνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω 'Αχιλήος Οὐλομένην, ἡ μυρί' Αχαιοῖς ἄλγέ ἔθηκε· Πολλὰς δ' ιφθίμους ψυχὰς ἄϊδι προΐαψεν Ηρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεύχε κύνεσσιν Οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι—Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή, Ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ερίσαντε 'Ατρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος Αχιλλεύς.”

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Iliad, i. 1-7.

XXVI.

1830.

sovereign, and the destruction of the national resources CHAP. by the oppression or venality of subordinate governors. The weakness of the free states of Europe arises mainly from the impossibility of giving habits of foresight to the ruling multitudes, and their invincible repugnance to present burdens in order to avert future disaster. If it were possible to give to the energy of Europe the foresight of Asia, or develop, under the despotism of the East, the energy of the West, the state enjoying even for a brief period the effects of such a combination would obtain the empire of the world. This accordingly is what happened to Rome in ancient and British India in modern times. But universal dominion, except under peculiar circumstances, and for a very brief period, is not part of the system of Nature; and to eschew it, the gifts of power are variously distributed to its various offspring.

4.

effects of the con

the Byzan

by the

of the par

tition of

Poland.

Two great sins one of omission, and one of commission-have been committed by the states of Europe Disastrous in modern times, and it is from their combined effect that the extreme difficulty of the Eastern Question, and the quest of perils with which it is now environed, have arisen. The tine Empire sin of omission was allowing the Byzantine Empire to be Turks, and overrun by the Turks in the fifteenth century-the sin of commission, the partition of Poland in the nineteenth. It is under the effects of both that we are now labouring; for they broke down the barrier of Europe against Asia, and converted the outworks of freedom against despotism into the outworks of despotism against freedom. It is historically certain, but not generally known, that the balance between the Christians and Turks hung even a few years before the taking of Constantinople in 1454, and that a very slight support from the Western powers would have enabled the former to drive the latter back into Asia. In 1446, when John Hunniades, with his noble Hungarians on the Danube, and Scanderbeg in Epirus, with heroic constancy made head

VOL. IV.

2 Q

XXVI.

1830.

CHAP. against the Osmanlis, Constantinople was still in the hands of the Greek emperors; all the fortresses on the Danube had been wrested from the Turks; Macedonia and the western provinces were in arms for the Cross; and twenty thousand auxiliary troops from France or England would have enabled Hunniades, in the decisive battle of Varna, to have for ever expelled the ruthless invaders from the soil of Europe. But the Western powers, divided by separate interests, or incapable of just foresight, did nothing: the Pope in vain endeavoured to form an efficient league of Christendom against the Mahommedans; the strength of Europe held back, that of Asia was brought to the very front by the genius of Mahomet II.; Constantinople was taken, the Greek empire overthrown, and a chasm made in the defences of Europe against Asia, which all the efforts of later times have been scarcely able to repair.1

1 Lamar

tine, Hist. de la Tur

quie, iii. 90, 120;

Von Ham

mer, Hist.

de Turcs,

v. 124, 145.

5.

rope in the

Poland.

The sin of commission has been still greater, for it was Sin of Eu- done from baser and more guilty motives, and it was partition of obviously attended by a more formidable and lasting danger. The partition of Poland was not the work merely of Muscovite strength or ambition, great as they were the frontier powers of Europe concurred in it; and Austria, in particular, which had been indebted to Polish valour for deliverance from the sabres of the Osmanlis, requited her gallant deliverers by joining in their destruction, and receiving a share of their possessions as a reward of her ingratitude. To say that this partition was a flagrant violation of the law of nations, a shameless instance of national ingratitude, and unparalleled even in the annals of Christian atrocity, is to express only what has since been the unanimous opinion of mankind. It is of more importance to observe what lasting political effects this great measure of spoliation has had on the subsequent balance of power in Europe, and how completely the justice of the Divine administration has been vindicated by the results, espe

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