fe.
The old principles of the European state-system, and the old principles
that inspired the vast contentions of ages, lingered but they seemed to
have grown decrepit. Divine right of kings, providential pre-eminence of
dynasties, balance of power, sovereign independence of the papacy,--these
and the other accredited catchwords of history were giving place to the
vague, indefinable, shifting, but most potent and inspiring doctrine of
Nationality. On no statesman of this time did that fiery doctrine with all
its tributaries gain more commanding hold than on Mr. Gladstone. "Of the
various and important incidents," he writes in a memorandum, dated
Braemar, July 16, 1892, "which associated me almost unawares with foreign
affairs in Greece (1850), in the Neapolitan kingdom (1851), and in the
Balkan peninsula and the Turkish empire (1853), I will only say that they
all contributed to forward the action of those home causes more continuous
in their operation, which, without in any way effacing my old sense of
reverence for the past, determined for me my place in the present and my
direction towards the future."

I

(M1) At the opening of the seventh decade of the century--ten years of such
moment for our western world--the relations of the European states with one
another had fallen into chaos. The perilous distractions of 1859-62 were
the prelude to conflicts that after strange and mighty events at Sadowa,
Venice, Rome, Sedan, Versailles, came to their close in 1871. The first
breach in the ramparts of European order set up by the kings after
Waterloo, was the independence of Greece in 1829. Then followed the
transformation of the power of the Turk over Roumanians and Serbs from
despotism to suzerainty. In 1830 Paris overthrew monarchy by divine right;
Belgium cut herself asunder from the supremacy of the Dutch; then Italians
and Poles strove hard but in vain to shake off the yoke of Austria and of
Russia. In 1848 revolts of race against alien dominion broke out afresh in
Italy and Hungary. The rise of the French empire, bringing with it the
principle or idiosyncrasy of its new ruler, carried this movement of race
into its full ascendant. Treaties were confronted by the doctrine of
Nationality. What called itself Order quaked before something that for
lack of a better name was called the Revolution. Reason of State was
eclipsed by the Rights of Peoples. Such was the spirit of the new time.

The end of the Crimean war