A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15948, 19 June 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

BY TOHtTXGA. ►A nrxDREn years ago the Belgian sun rising on Waterloo fought and won, on Napoleon scampering Pariswanl to seo what more could be done to keep his Emperorship from going to pieces, on Europe waiting anxiously to know its fate. The fate of Europe was already s?t, but the peoples still knew it not. They wondered, as we wonder to-day, how long the struggle would last and "hat would be tho end of it. And at VI aterloo tho unburiod dead who had saved Europe lay where they had fallen and those who lived sobbed like little children as they stood bare-headed on the giound of the unconquerable squares. And beyond Waterloo, in the rear of the routed French jogged the Prussians, led by the cynical Blucher, whoso purpose was to catch Napoleon and to hang him and whose subsequent impression of London was, " What a city to sack!" A hundred years havo gone—the Prussian is our enemy and the Frenchman our friend— hut London is still " the city to sack 1 ' in the Prussian mind, and we pay toll today for the dominating Prussian instinct. .Much has been said of the assistance gnen by Prussia in the overthrow of Napoleon, but more might be said of tH vicious influence excited by Prussia upon the European reaction against Napoleonism. The French Empire had drawn its strength from the democratic energies of the French Revolution, energies which tho military and administrative genius of Napoleon had diverted to aggression and twisted to tho service of tyranny. Napoleon was not a Frenchman, neither by birth nor tongue nor inheritance. He was as foreign as it is possible for a trench citizen to be in Francis or a British citizen to be in New Zealand. He was Italian and Corsican, by birth, descent, and mother-tongue. He never wrote French correctly; lie always spoke 11 encli like a Corsiean; he always thought as a foreigner. lie was a great military genius who found his opportunity in a time of stupendous international tumult, Ha nearly conquered Europe and he temporarily ruined France in doing it. When he was imprisoned at St. Helena and the danger of a renewal of strife thus ended, Prussia promptly set to work to weed out democracy from Europe, organising for this purpose what is known as the "Holy Alliance." This "Holy Alliance" was more dangerous and more evil than Napoleonism, for it was the organising of a wicked and. vicious system, whereas Napoleonism, after all, depended upon a single man.

. 'J ll6 strength and weakness of Napoleonism were both displayed in the two French " Empires." Napoleon I. and Napoleon ill.—Napoleon 11. is a mere figment—were both adventurers, but the former had genius and the latter only egotism. The first Napoleon was a very great and a' very capable man, tireless, competent and resourceful, who would certainly, as at his best, be worth a million men to France to-day, particularly if he were to fall like Nelson in the moment, of victory. The second Napoleon was a very petty and 1 ' very incompetent person, who was "Napoleonic in name only, being quite Kaiserlike in his contempt for his, own honour, and in abject unscrupulousness, and like, nobody but himself in unqualified incompetence. Ho married a Spanish ' adventuress, whoso only. claim to - democratic sympathy is in the -'fact- that foreign courts generally refnsed to. accept her. This precious pair completed the ruin of France, commenced by the first Napoleon, played into the ' hands of Bismarck, and were finally driven with ignominy froni the land which had been tricked' by a. pretender and betrayed by a crime. In all the political history of tho world there is no more contemptible and dishonourable intrigue than that by which the Second French Empire was erected upon the ruins of a trusting Republic. In all the history of nations there is no more worthy and honourable doing than that by which Republican France—the France we know and respect and trust—rose like a phoenix from the glowing ashes of her most ruinous war. Since she got rid of tho Napoleons, France has never looked back. Since she accepted the Prussians, Germany has never looked forward.

A hundred years ago Napoleon was broken but France was not racked and plundered. The Rhine remained her eastern frontier. No indemnity was exacted. In every way she was generously treated. It was loft for Prussia to plunder her in '70-'7l, to take her provinces and| to extort her wealth, after a war which we now know to have been deliberately engineered and prepared by. Bismarck. That this was possible tor Prussia was largely due to the work of the Holy Alliance by which democracy had been checked throughout Europe and stifled to death in Germany itselt. This Holy Alliance was Prussia's gift to Europe after Waterloo. Had it not been for Britain this . Holy Alliance might have overawed the world and have made the triumph of Germany in this present war a foregone conclusion.

What was won at Waterloo, a hundred years ago, was the release 'of Europe and civilisation from an insolent and intolerable military tyranny. The same reward of victory awaits uq in our war against Germany to-day. Then, as now, the struggle was tremendous and the price of victory was heavy, but now, as then, the alternative to victory is not to be considered possible. Indeed, the alternative is as much worse to-day as German methods are worse than French methods ever were. An invasion of Britain ofl New Zealand by the hordes that have invaded Belgium and Northern France would bo worse than an invasion by Boxersfor the Chinese would not understand, as Germans understand, how to inflict upon Europeans the crowning humiliations. It was because Napoleonism was so bad that even his genius could not crush Europe. It is because Kaiserism is so very much worse that all the strength of Germany cannot save it from the defeat that laid Napoleonism low. There are two pictures of Waterloo that always stand vividly before all Britishers —the picture of the battlefield with its hard held Ilugoumont and the castlesquares against which grape volleyed and horsemen charged from dawn till dusk; and the picture of the hastening messenger who pot first, to London with the news. In the first picture men die steadily and gladly so that Britain may live free and the world be wide to their people; just as men die steadily and gladly for us now in Flanders and if* France and in far Gallipoli. In the other selfish greed and alien indifferenoo plan to take advantage, through the stock market, of national fears and international agony; as perchance some do to-day for whom hemp is not spun and for whom, no hangman waits. Vc' it was better then to be a nameless ">ero, dying in the squares against which Napoleonism wore itself away, dying to „avo others and to injure none, than a pinchbeck millionaire whose sordid foresight tvould some day wake the silly admiration of\ those whose only god is Gold. And it is better today to die in the front of battle, to that) the horrors of German war may be unknown to British homes and the curse of German barbarism lifted from the world, than to make money out of war-nrices or to sit comfortably at home while tho bugles call to wrir,