THE EUROPEAN CLOUD. T HERE is not a rift visible in
the cloud that hangs over all Europe. We have no wish to play the part of alarmists, but it is foolish to close our eyes to the accumulating signs that serious dangers, dangers to England as well as to peace, may be close at hand. The instinct which forces all civilised men to stand, as it were, in hushed awe and pain around the Emperor Frederick's dying bed, springs from no mere emotion of natural pity for a fate at once so melancholy and so grand. The world feels that emotion keenly, has felt it through all the weary disputes of the doctors and the sickening accounts of Palace jealousy and intrigue ; but it feels also the first thrills of an overmastering fear. With the monarch who faces death so calmly—glad, as he avows, to be rid of a life choked with unrealised hopes—there passes away the loftiest barrier now standing between us and a European conflagration. His successor, young, inex- perienced, and military, cannot venture on those great combinations, those immense and far-reaching compromises by which alone the great war could be permanently averted, perhaps will not even wish to avert it. He may not attack, though we should fear for his resolution if he were insulted ; but he will stand waiting, fully armed, and con- fident that, in the last resort, the strength of Germany will suffice to win any field. He is, by the judgment of every man who knows him, a fighting Hohenzollern; and every student of history recognises what that descrip- tion means. He confides in Prince Bismarck ; and Prince Bismarck, though he sincerely desires peace, palpably does not believe in it, and does not consider such a peace as we have much worth having. His own time is drawing near, and it is not in human nature, after such a career as his, not to believe that, as the storm will arrive, it had better arrive while he is still strong enough to be the helmsman. On the West, we see France rushing, in a passion of hope and fear, to fling herself at the feet of a military dictator who believes himself a "Man of Destiny," and knows only too well that he can found his power only upon victory ; a man, too, whose head must be partially turned by the most sudden and most mysterious civil success recorded in history. Can a man who has done nothing believe himself an accident, when France, the land of scepticism, criticism, and ridicule, flings herself weeping with admiration at his feet, and im- plores of him to rule her ? Can any German soldier believe France peaceful, when, without a provocation or a reason, in sheer impatience of her position, she courts the horrible chances of revolution rather than live longer without a military dictator. General Boulanger's success menaces peace more than any frontier quarrel ; and just as he mounts the Dictator's chair, a Hohenzollern of the older and fiercer type takes his seat on the German throne. To the East, Russia is alarmed yet hopeful, alarmed at the new Emperor, hopeful of the new Dictator, marching soldiers from every province always to the West, melting away by able intrigue the small resisting forces on her road to her unchanging end. Her agents, unless all reports are false—and some of them may be, for there are signs of panic—are displaying revolutionary energy throughout the Balkan, offering everywhere the terrible bribe which so seldom fails, and which Russia only among civilised States dare offer to neighbouring populations. In Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, if the peasants will but assist her, they may have the land. It is hardly in Slav nature to refuse such an offer, and when the great columns commence their march, we shall find that from Jassy to Constantinople the small Governments are paralysed, and that the Hapsburgs must fight alone, or make a rush for a share of the spoil. It is under such circumstances that the spring is rapidly passing into summer, and that the grass without which the huge masses of Russian and Austrian cavalry cannot easily move, is growing ready for the scythe. No wonder that Mr. Goschen, who knows Europe as well as England, warns his countrymen, in mercantile phrase, to "keep up their in- surances," that diplomatists look everywhere anxious, that the world listens with strained ears for every whisper from Berlin. Unless the situation changes, we may be within six weeks of that most awful of calamities, a general European war.
That England will be immediately drawn in, we have not much fear. General Boulanger's personal hatreds do not greatly matter, for personal hatreds disappear under the pressure of great responsibilities. He can invade England as a victor much more easily than as an adventurer, with Ger- many on his flank. His people are sighing for "revenge," not for a long maritime war ; they are wild to secure an ally, so wild that peasant rumour makes the General himself of Russian descent, and their only possible ally cannot employ her masses against us. General Boulanger must, we conceive, strike first at the League of Peace, and we shall have time in every contingency, excepting only one. If Prince Bismarck succeeds, as we believe he hopes to succeed, in buying Russia off, the new French Government may shrink from a duel with Germany alone, or Germany plus Italy and Spain, and may think that a great victory on the Nile would bring enough of glory to soothe away the fever of humiliation raging in French minds. In that event, England would be in danger, and that event, though not probable, is possible enough to make thorough and earnest preparation the first duty of this Government. We are not on the side of war in the very least. We hold it to be the path of wisdom to keep out of a struggle which will involve not armies but races, and bring forces into the field with which we can cope only by the help of allies who will demand their price. If we must fight, let us fight at the end ; but that is no reason why we should not be prepared, with all ships in commission, the arsenals full, and every plan ready and understood by our great officers. We can be struck in Egypt easily, in Malta more easily, in Belgium most easily of all; and it is only the part of prudence to be ready for the worst possibilities. They may never happen, in our history rarely do happen ; but in Europe just now, the one idea ruling is that force is a remedy for all things, and we who are rich should be strong.
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