In his book on the Congres de Vienne the Abbé de Pradt justly 
accuses that dancing Congress, as it was called by the Prince de 
Ligne, of having laid the foundation of Russian supremacy in 
Europe and given its sanction thereto.” 

“Thus,” he exclaims, “it happens that the European war of independence 

against France terminates with the subjection of Europe to Russia. It was not worth 
while to fatigue oneself so much for such a result.” * 

The war against France being at the same time a war against the 
Revolution, an Anti-Jacobin war, naturally led to a transfer of 
influence from the West to the East, from France to Russia. The 
Vienna Congress was the natural offspring of the Anti-Jacobin 
War, the Treaty of Vienna the legitimate product of the Vienna 
Congress, and Russian supremacy the natural child of the Treaty 
of Vienna. The crowd of English, French and German writers 
cannot therefore be allowed to throw all the blame upon Prussia, 
because Frederick William III, by his blind devotion to the 
Emperor Alexander and the categorical orders he gave his 
Embassadors to side with Russia in al] important questions, 
thwarted that infamous triumvirate, Castlereagh, Metternich and 
Talleyrand, in their deep-laid schemes to erect safe territorial 
barriers against Russian encroachments?” and thus ward off the 
unpleasant but inevitable consequences of the system they had so 
zealously imposed upon the Continent. Even to such an un- 
scrupulous conclave it was not given to falsify the logic of events. 

* Dominique Dufour de Pradt, Du Congrés de Vienne, t. I, p. 262.— Ed. 

Russia’s preponderance in Europe being inseparable from the 
Treaty of Vienna, any war against that power not proclaiming at 
the outset the abolition of the Treaty, cannot but prove a mere 
tissue of shams, delusions and collusions. Now, the present war is 
undertaken with a view not to supersede but rather to consolidate 
the Treaty of Vienna by the introduction, in a supplementary way, 
of Turkey into the protocols of 1815. Then it is expected the 
conservative millennium will dawn and the aggregate force of the 
Governments be allowed to direct itself exclusively to the 
“tranquilization” of the European mind. From the following 
remarkable passages translated from the Prussian Marshal 
Knesebeck’s pamphlet “relating to the equilibrium of Europe, 
composed at the meeting of the Vienna Congress,” * it will be seen 
that even at the epoch of that Congress, the principal actors were 
fully aware of the maintenance of Turkey being as much 
interwoven with “the system” as the partition of Poland.°”’ 

“The Turks in Europe! What harm have the Turks done to you? They are a 
powerful and honest people; quiet for centuries among themselves, if you leave 
them undisturbed, confidence may be placed in them. Have they ever deceived 
you? Are they not sincere and frank in their policy? Brave and warlike indeed; but 
this is wholesome and good for more reasons than one. They are the best bulwark 
against the encroachment of the Asiatic surplus population, and just because they 
have a footing in Europe they ward off every encroachment. If they were driven 
away, they themselves would encroach. Just imagine them away. What would 
happen? Either Russia or Austria would get possession of those entire countries, or 
a separate Greek State would be founded there. Do you wish to make Russia still 
more powerful? to draw down on this side also the colossus on your own heads? 
Are you not yet content that it has advanced its stride from the Volga to the 
Niemen, from the Niemen to the Vistula, and will now probably extend it as far as 
the Warthar And if this be not the case, do you wish to turn the power of Austria 
in the direction of Asia, and to make it by that means weak or indifferent to the 
maintenance of its central position to the encroachments from the West? Recall to 
yourselves the position of the past times of John Sobieski, of Eugéne of Savoy, and 
of Montecuccult. In what way did France at first gain dominion in Germany, but 
because the power of Austria was of necessity constantly engaged in opposing the 
encroachments of Asia? Do you wish to restore this state of things, and to increase 
it still more by bringing it nearer Asia? 

“A separate Grecian” or Byzantine “State is, therefore, to be founded! Would 
this ameliorate the condition of Europe? In the state of torpidity into which that 
people” (the Greeks) “have sunk, would not Europe, on the contrary, be obliged to be 
continually under arms to protect itself against the returning Turks? Would not 
Greece become merely a Russian colony, in consequence of the influence which 
Russia would possess over this State through religion, commerce and interest? 
Rather let the Turks alone where they are, and do not arouse the restless power 

a K. F. Knesebeck, Denkschrift, betreffend die Gleichgewichts-Lage Europa’s, beim 
Zusammentrute des Wiener Congresses verfasst. The excerpts quoted below (with 
omissions and explanatory addenda) are from pp. 11-14.— Ed. 

Eccentricities of Politics 285 

while it reposes. ‘But,’ exclaims a well-meaning philanthropist, ‘men are maltreated 
there. The most beautiful part of the world, including the ancient Athens and 
Sparta, is inhabited by barbarians!’ 

“It may be all true, my friend: men there are at present, or until lately were, 
strangled; but they are bastinadoed, beaten, scourged, and sold in other parts. 
Before you change anything, think whether you could also better at the same 
moment; whether the bastinado and the rod, with Greek perfidy, would be easier 
to bear than the silk cord and a firman” with the Turks. “Do away first with 
those things, and with the slave trade in Europe, and console yourself about 
the uncivilization of the Turk; his uncivilization has power, his faith gives courage, 
and we require strength and courage to be able to watch tranquilly the Muscovite 
pushing himself on as far as the Wartha. 

“The Turks are then to be maintained, but the Poles as a nation are to sink! 
Yes, it cannot be otherwise. 

“Whatever has strength to stand, endures; where all is rotten, it must perish. 
And so it is. Let any one ask himself what would be the result if the Polish nation 
were maintained independent in its natural character. Drunkenness, gluttony, 
servility, contempt for all that is better and for every other people, contemptuous 
derision of all order and custom, extravagance, dissoluteness, venality, cunning, 
treachery, immorality from the palace to the cottage; that is the element in which 
the Pole exists. For this he sings his songs, plays on his fiddle and guitar, kisses his 
mistress and drinks out of her shoe, draws his sword, strokes his moustaches, 
mounts his horse, marches to battle with Dumouriez and Bonaparte or anybody 
else on earth, delights in excessive brandy and punch, fights with friend and foe, 
ill-treats his wife and his serf, sells his property, goes abroad, disturbs half the 
world, and swears by Kosciuszko and Poniatowski Poland shall not die as sure as he 
is a Pole. 

“Here you behold what you would support when you say Poland shall be 
restored. 

“Is such a nation worthy to exist? Is such a people fit for a Constitution? A 
Constitution presupposes an idea of order, [...] for it does nothing but regulate, 
and points out to each member of the community the place to which he belongs, 
for which reason it determines the ranks of which the State is to be composed, and 
to each rank its place, condition, order, rights and duties, as well as the course of 
the State machine and the principal traits of its government. What! Rule a people 
when no one will have order? A Polish King (Stefan Batory) once exclaimed: 
‘Poles—not order—you know none; not government—you respect none; to a 
mere chance you owe your continued existence!’ 

“And thus it is still. Disorder, immorality, is the Poles’ element. No; let this 
people undergo the bastinado. Providence wills it. Heaven knows what is profitable 
for mankind. 

“For the present, therefore, no more Poles!” 

Old Marshal Knesebeck’s views are then to be realized by the 
present war—a war undertaken for the extension and consolida- 
tion of the Vienna Treaty of 1815. During the whole period of the 
Restoration and the Monarchy of July there was the delusion 
afloat in France that Napoleonism meant the abolition of the 
Treaty of Vienna, which had placed Europe under the official 
tutelage of Russia, and France under the “surveillance publique” of 
Europe. Now the present imitator of his uncle, haunted by the 

inexorable irony of his fatal position, is proving to the world that 
Napoleonism means war, not to emancipate France from, but to 
subject Turkey to, the Treaty of Vienna. War in the interest of the 
Treaty of Vienna and under the pretext of checking the power of 
Russia! 

This is the true “Idée Napoléonienne,”’* as interpreted by the 
resurrection-man at Paris. The English being the proud allies of 
the second Napoleon, feel themselves, of course, authorized to 
deal with the sayings of the old Napoleon as his nephew does with 
his ideas. We are then not to be astonished at reading in a recent 
English author (Dunlop)” that Napoleon foretold that the next 
struggle with Russia would involve the great question of whether 
Europe should be “Constitutional or Cossack.” Before the days of 
the Lower Empire* Napoleon was supposed to have said 
“Republican or Cossack.”* However, the world lives and learns. 

— And it is for failing to appreciate the glories of the Treaty of 
Vienna and of the European “system” based upon it, that the 
Tribune is charged with infidelity to the cause of human rights 
and of Freedom! 

a 

Written on June 19, 1855 Reproduced from the newspaper 

Tribune, No. 4437, July 10, 1855 as a 
leading article