The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1918-11-23

claimed on his return from Berlir
accomplished these things: It. es.
tranged Russia and Germany, since
Bismarck suppored Vienna against
Petrograd, and this estrangement lee
to the Franco-Russian Alliance Il
estranged Italy and France, and
Italy entered the Triple Alliance. i
| did equal injustice to all the Balkan
4 states and made the later Balkan
wars inevitable. It sacrificed Serbia
J to Austria, R1Inania to Russia, Bull
garia to British concern about Con
stantinople. It gave the Turk forty
years more in which to massacre an6
destroy. Ie preserved the Eastern
question unsettled; it did nothing
justly, and the question Of the rights
Of nations had no bearing in the
Berlin congress. It was a shameless
bargain counter, in which all the
the small peoples with two purposes
in mind: To avoid war among
| themselves and to acquire such prof
it's as they could take home with
| peace assured. ---~~
The Real PARALLEL;
But it is to the Congress Of Vienna
S4&SSb "S A4OSI luIh 1L IIIS pEOSGuL IlIAG
to find any real parallel for the new
Versailles gathering, for that was the
last effort Of Europe to liquidate a
general war. At Vienna the conquer
ors Of Napoleon gathered to abolish
the peril which the ideas Of the
French Revolution held for all sover-
eigns and all autocracies. With re-
spect to France, on the military and
territorial side, NapoIsor's conduerors
made peace promptly in a Treaty of
Paris, sSigned g. little more than a
month after the first abdication of
F'ontainebleau France lost her con-
quests and was restored to the from
tiers Of 1889, in the main, but the in
tegTity Of the old France was main
tained against the Prussian effort to
seize Alsace-Lorraine. It was not
with any desire to save France that
her conQuerors dealt. with her in a
moderate spirit; it was merely to
make possible the restoration of a
Bourbon King and thus enlist France
in the general crusade against liberal
ideas-against the spirit Of the
French Revolution.
Having disposed OF France, the re-
presentatives Of Eiussia, Britain. Aus
tria. and Prussia undertook to restore
the world which had been swept away
by the revolution. The partition OF
Poland was finally consummated.
Prussia, Russia and Austria took
their several shares. Italy was again
turned over to its old plunderers:
Austria was reestablished in Venice,
the Bourbons in Naples; Belgium
was turned over to Holland; every
where the rights and the wishes of
races were disregarded. Napoleon,
returning from Elba. announced that
the Congress of Venice was dissolved,
but Waterloo, following fast upon the
adjournment OF this congress, en-
abled its determination to stand.
Consequences More Evil.
The consequences of this settle
ment were even more evil than those
of the later Berlin gathering. The
Bourbon restoration lasted in France
but fifteen years. Belgium promptly
broke away from Holland; Italy, un-
der the leadership of Sardinia, began
her half-century of struggle for lib
erty and unity. Poland again and
again revolted. All Europe was swept
in 1S4S. by. a new rising to restore the
lost liberties of the revolution era.
The rfYa1ries OF Austria and OF Prus-
sia led to the war of 1856.
When they had written the agree
ments of Vienna the allied sovereigns
united in a Holy Alliance directed
against liberal ideas and calculated to
restrain France, the natural home of
revolution. The consequences of this
deliberate programme are seen with
clarity only now, when Prussia, Rus
sia and Austria have fallen into ruins.
The Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs and
the HohenZollerns, who framed the
document of Vienna, are gone-in
SA1 t.
republican, Europe is unbound. Yet
this liberation has taken a. full CEN
tury; only now is Poland rising from
the servitude imposed more than a
century ago; only now is Italy re-
deeming the last Of her Latin breth-
rem from Austrian chains.
The purposes expressed in the Con-
gress of Vienna, the principles estab-
lished there, were soon repudiated by
France; they were never formally ac-
cepted by the. British, who, seeking
protection against new French men
aces, consented rather than agreed
to the decisions. They were banished
from Italy within half a century, but
they prevailed in Russia, in Austria
and in Germany to the very hour
were revealed again in the Congress
Of Berlin, where Britain was again
harnessed 10 the chariot of reaction,
this time through fear OF Russia and
France, newly beaten and YnrtiIated,
was helpless. For a full century,
therefore, the evil done at Vienna has
endured and It's inevitable harvest
has been the World war.
Different Settlement,
The Peace Of Utrecht, a century
earlier, was a different order OF set
flement. 1t terminated war be-
tween kings rather than between ma
tions. It ended the effort OF Louis
XIV to dominate the whole continent,
No question of liberalism was in any
mind; the. single purpose was to
preserve the victory achieved, to in
sure Europe against new French ag-
gressions. Unlike the conditions ex
listing now and existing in the time
of the congress of Vienna, there was
no military decision in advance of