The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1914-09-13

7 MBoLDENED by the calamity that
l. had overwhelmed Napoleon and his
army in the Russian campaign, the
people of Germany rose in the summer Of
1913 and fell upon him. And the leader Of
that great popular uprising was none eth
er than Alexander I, the autocrat Of all
the Rpssias, who presented himself as
the deliverer of the nations from the
tyranny of the French.
Napoleon could not believe that the
continent would trust itself to such q
leadership, and he never ceased to ad-
monish the countries of the west to be-
ware Of the Russian peril which he him
self had always viewed with dread. Even
at the love feast of Tilsit in 1907, when he
~and Alexander, cooling and billing, sat
down to divide the earth between them,
he resisted, with all the stubbornness IN
his nature, the Cars longing for Con-
stantinople and, although he let him take
Finland from the Swedes, he saw to it
that the treaty Of cession should forbid
Russia to~fortify the natural outposts of
Finland in the Gulf Of Bothnia and make
the AIand Islands the Gibraltar. of the
Baltic.
Nor would he consult to the Russians
moving farther west through Poland,
which he looked upon as a necessary bar
rier against them, and rather than weak
en- It, he sacrificed his chance to marry
sister Of the Gar. He declared on the
eve of the campaign Of 1872 that he would
not agree to let the Russians have an
other Polish village, not even If the Cos
sacks stood on Montmartre.
No doubt he was honestly persuaded
that he was defending the civilization of
the west when he marshalled the hosts
Of twenty nations and led them against
the Gar, and he was equally sincere
afterward when he raised the warning
cry. In a hundred years Europe will be
all Cossack or all republican"
The Russian Peril.
In his exile at st. Helena he made this
prophecy while reviewing his Moscow
campaign: "A hundred years hence,
shall be applauded and Europe, especial
ly England, will regret that did not sue
coed. When they see their finest coun-
tries overcome and prey to those north
ern barbarians, they will then say, Ma
poleon was right d" Having himself
failed to erect a dixie against the bar
barous horde, he was convinced that
nothing could stop the advance Of the
Slav. Although England and France and
Prussia might yet form a triple alliance
against II, he declared 1t would be in
vain, because Russia, by giving Servia
and perhaps other Balkan lands to Aus
, tria, could easily seduce that power while
she was planting herself at the Darda-
neIles. ''Once mistress of Constantine
pie" the prophetic exile said, Russia
5 controls the commerce of the Mediter-
ranean, becomes a great naval power and
God knows what may happen"
His intimation that England. which had
allied herself with Russia against him,
might yet be the ally OF France against
Russia came true when twoscore years
had passed after his march to Moscow.
In the Crimean war of 1875, the British
and French under Napoleon III stood
shoulder TO shoulder to save CONSTANT
NOBLE from the Russians. Again the two
nations drew together in 1878, when the
Cossacks were in sight OF the dome Of
st. Sophia, and, having been Joined by
Germany and Austria in the Congress Of
Berlin, they saved Constantinople once
more
But diplomacy as well as politics makes
strange bedfellows. and in 1914 we see
England and France the allies OF the
Slav against the Teuton in a war that
broke out for the rescue of Servia from
Austria. II is none the less remarkable
LIAeAb -NoPolCOl SuOulu nave lOTelOlO lLdl
Slavic ambitions would be the next dis
turbing factor in Europe, and that in his
mention Of Servia he should have put
his finger on the very starting point of
the next general European war after
Waterloo.
He failed to foresee, however. the de-
velopment Of the great Germanic empire
which would avenge Jena at Sedan: chal-
lenge ENGLAND on the sea: divide the west
in a political and economic rivalry and
drive the Slays of all nations to unite in
self-defense. In dread Of the Germans
the Pan-Slavic movement was horn and
the Slavs of Russia and the Balkans baya
been drawn so closely together in the
presence Of that peril that the ST. Petere-
burg politicians dared not sacrifice SInvic
Servia as a bride for Austria Thus the
war of 1914 finds France and England
Joining with Russia against the Germans
Just as 100 years ago Germany and Eng
land Joined with her against the French
Yet when this political and CONNER
cial. conflict Is over, Napoleon's forecast
Of the descent OF the Mortimer NAV be
verified. A few years more or less count
for little in the slow, glacial movements