New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-12-29

dock With an Introduction by Johh E r
Iomo pp xxxi-421. Houghton' Mimis w.
The author of this volume has not attempted
history. but. as he says, his book "purports to be
r,ore,v running narrative introducing the great
leaders and noting the great commissions OF
,wenfv-one wears Of contemporaneous European
history Such work possesses both advantages
and drawbacks There can be no doubt that a
brdseye view Of the events OF the important
period treated is full Of interest and excitement,
and that when the events are marshalled with the
graphic skill and picturesque talent here eN-
hibited. they appear to bear out the optimistic
conclusions reached by Mr. Fiske In his intro
duction On the other hand it is liable to be
overlooked, in the fascination OF so stirring
narrative that scarcely any of the changes which
have passed over Europe since 1850 can be re-
garded as permanent; that many of them have
opened up new problems, the solution of which
must be attended with grave dangers; and that
time enough has not elapsed TO justify confidence
i'm the stability of those new conditions which
seem TO make most for progress and development.
Mr. Murdoch has no doubt enhanced the symmetry
Of his panoramic view by bringing it no further
down than the conclusion of the Franco-German
war. The years since then have not been marked
by any great commissions, but they have been
rife with preparations and developments pointing
much more probably 10 tremendous European
conflict involving tne destiny Vi al thc SicaO
Powers, than to such an abandonment Of war as
can alone guarantee the steady advance OF the
peoples concerned.
recent writer has referred to the splendid
French Exhibition of the present year as show
ing the pacific bent of at least one nation. Such
indications undoubtedly speak highly for the
peaceful growth of France, but they cannot safely
be accepted guarantees for the continuance OF
peace. Whoever doubts this may be invited TO
look back 10 1867, when another great exhibit
ton was held in Paris, and when precisely the
same deductions drawn by sanguine OBJ
servers concerning the significance of the event
Yet in $40 France plunged into mighty war,
and altogether against her interests, since she
was not prepared for the undertaking. Louis
Napoleon may have been forced into that fatal
contest, and dynastic considerations certainly
counted greatly in its inception. To-day there
is a Republic in the place of the Empire, and
Republic which, Notwithstanding hindrances,
seems to be in a fail. way to consolidation. But
to-day France is prepared for war, and that in
itself is always great temptation, while there is
the new danger that Germany may think it the
part of wisdom to precipitate what must be the
final struggle, before her old enemy has grown
stronger and more formidable still Perhaps the
attitude of Russia is even now the main obstacle
TO such a German programme, and who tell
whether that attitude will be maintained? Be
sides the Franco-German quarrel, which is always
smoulderng, there half dozen great ques-
lions. any one of which is capable Of setting
Europe by the ears and history shows that it is
usually the event least expected which starts
such a movement In 1870 the whole world APP
peared pledged to peace. There was not cloud
on the horizon the size of mans hand. All
the dipomatists had taken vacation. The
astutest observers suspected danger week
before the Leopold incident. At present all
Europe is an armed camp Never were such
ornaments collected before. Military and naval
development has the first attention throughout
the Continent. If this state of things points TO a
period of peaceful progress in the near future it
will assuredly be for the first time in human
history.
Mr. Murdoch, however, has escaped the neces-
sity of facing the darker indications by closing
his narrative in 1871, and he has thus secured
canvas upon which the impressive occurrences
of the preceding twenty years are made TO assume
more hopeful significance than the actual facts
warrant. 1t must be admitted that the story
constitutes a readable, even engrossng volume,
and it also suggests to a republican reader the
practical failure of the European peoples to obtain
for themselves release from those dynastic wars
which have for ages been the curse of the CONT
nent. The rise of Prussia the decline of Austria :;
the episode of the Second Empire, the Crimean
War; with the humiliation of Russia the develop
ment of Italian unity through the mastery tactics
of Cavour; the wrecking of Austra's military
prestige in the seven weeks campaign and finally
the Franco German war, with its immense and
far-reachng implications, crowd this period with
events of colossal import The Emperor Of the
French appears, balancing the need of national
distraction from home affairs against the fear of
revolution consequent upon military disaster. Mr..
Murdoch is even more indugent to the Emperor's
imagined warlike genius. Surely it was sufficiently
proved that he had no military talent skill but
that whenever he interfered with the operations
of his generals he did harm. At Solferino, as
Mr. Murdoch himself shows the Emperor quite
lost his head and did not know whether he was
victor or vanquished; and even when the truth
became clear that the AustTians were defeated, he
had no idea what dispositions TO make. AS TO the
treaty of Villa Franco, the initial mystery has
not yet been cleared from that affair, and 1t is
possible that the vacilating policy which gave
up all the advantages of the campaign at The
critical juncture was really effect of the physical
disease which already beginning TO numb
the Emperor's faculties and to cloud his Judgment
That his mind counted for little or nothing in
the war with Germany is obvious, but IL has
not been so generally realized that the state of
his body had very much TO do with his incapacity.
Personally he dreaded the war. Possibly he knew
how deceptive was the pretence of full prepare
ton for it. Having been goaded to it, he
acted like man in dream from Saarbruck to
Sedan, and the haggard figure that passed away
from the battle smoke TO the seclusion of Will
helmshohe retained scarcely anything of the man
who planned and carried out the coup d'etat
Had he been himself he would not have de-
ihar ataIV IRAN or IL Ito
by refusing 10 evacuate Rome, nor would he
have yielded as he did to the sinister clerical
influence which was pushing him off his throne
He was mentally broken before the war began
and he contributed nothing to it but the spectacle
of an impotence which in a better man might
have been pathetic but in him reused only the
scnrn and derision of the world which had On