CAPITALS IN WAR TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 208, 31 August 1918, Page 13

CAPITALS IN WAR TIME.

The occupation of Pctrograd by the Germane would add a notable chapter to the history of the vicissitudes of capitals (cays the Londou '"Observer"). Though a much newer town, Petrograd shares with London tbc • distinction among the chief capitals of Europe of having been inviolate from the foot of the invader throughout the modern era. It was already the seat of government when Napoleon captured Moscow in 1812, but never at any time does he seem to have contemplated a march on St. Petersburg. It was Napoleon, of course, who was the great over-runner of capitals. His armies were the last rto occupy Berlin (1806), Vienna (1809), Rome (1808), Madrid (1808), and Lisbon (1807); the last of those to be liberated was Rome, which was not restored to the Pope till the peace of 1814. We were ourselves the last invaders of Copenhagen, which surrendered to Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart after a three days' bombardment in 1807. Berne is hardly a parallel case, for though it yielded to the French in 1798, it did not become the capital of Switzerland tiil 184 S. Of Constantinople, secure behind the Boephorus and the Dardanelles, the Turks have remained in undisputed possession since they captured it in 1453. During the present war, Brussels. Belgrade, Cettinje, and Bucharest have been in succession occupied by the Germans —none of the four being an adequate consolation for the failure to reach Paris in 1914. Till the siege of 1871 that capital had been one of tlic most fortunate, for it had been immune from foreign occupation since the days of our own Henry VI.