360 AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR EUROPE. 



from 182 1 to 1832, was a European question bristling with compli- 

 cations that threatened a great European war, but it was apprehended, 

 and finally solved by the intervention of the Allied Powers, and 

 Greece won her independence ; and its Sovereignty was guaranteed 

 by the Treaty of London, 7th May, 1832. 



The Revolution in Belgium and Holland against the union of the 

 two States under the rule of the Royal House of Nassau and 

 Orange, was arrested by the action of the Allied Powers, and finally 

 by the Treaty of London, of 1839, Belgium and Holland won their 

 separate independence, guaranteed in their sovereignty by the 

 concert of Europe. 



The Revolution in Egypt of Mehemet Ali in 1839, against the 

 Suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey would undoubtedly have led to 

 serious consequences but for the intervention of the Great Powers, 

 and to their concerted action, and the subsequent European Con- 

 gress which assembled in London, in 1840, a general European War 

 was probably averted. 



Numerous, indeed, are the instances that might be cited to prove 

 the contrary, wherein the laissez defaire doctrine of the neutral and 

 powerful states in Europe, has on critical occasions prevailed, it 

 may have been from weakness, or pusillanimity, or from a divergence 

 of opinion, and policy, but still, failed, to arrest the course of political 

 events, drifting, and sometimes driving the ligitant nations into the 

 dire calamity of war, that ultima ratio regum, the last appeal of kings. 



The Crimean War of 1854-5 ; the Dano-Prussian War of 1864 ; 

 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866; — which was the sequence of 

 the latter — the Franco-German War of 1870-1 ; and the Russo- 

 Turkish War of 1876-77, all of which have left bitter memories 

 behind them, that are so difficult to efface, one and all might have 

 been averted, had the Allied Powers of Europe been unanimous and 

 firm, had there been no wavering on the part of one, sometimes 

 more than one, of the most powerful and influential of the European 

 Alliance for peace. 



Whether, in the future, this Alliance of the Six Great Powers in 

 Europe — England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy — 

 can, in face of the deplorable divisions that have of late unmis- 

 ■takeably sundered them, be again realised, time and events only can 

 reveal ; but, of one thing, we may be certain that, without this Alliance, 

 without the concerted agreement and action of United Europe, and 

 of the statesmen who direct the policy of the most powerful states. 



