The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1916. THE COURSE OF EVENTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 85, 16 March 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1916. THE COURSE OF EVENTS.

Discussing the “consolation of history” the Lyttelton Times says it is strange how inevitably the course of events drives us back to history I in spite of the hasty thinkers who 1 assure us that history affords no parallel for the tempest wo are Hying through. “That, of course,” the Times continues, “is paradox or platitude—platitude, if it means that never before since the days of the ‘creatures of the prime that tore each other in the slime,’ were such vast multitudes engaged in war, armies on such a colossal scale, or a mechanism of destruction at once so complex and so ultra-scientific; paradox, and very cheap paradox at that, if it implies that the issues at stake today are spiritually other than they were, when ‘the Man of Destiny’ set out “to break this sorry scheme of things entire,” and failed in his benevolent purpose of remoulding it ‘nearer to his heart’s desire.' How near he came to effecting that disastrous reconstruction, which must have banished freedom from the Eu-j ropean world, is writ large in the pages of history. That in fact, is wily history, now more than ever, is so consoling. A map of Europe in the year 1810 shows France running in one bold sweep from the Pyrenees to liubeck, on the Baltic. Belgium,' Holland, and the Duchy of Oldenburg, mere ‘spoils of French rivers, , have ceased to exist. Half of Northern Italy is administrated by France is, indeed, incorporated in trance.; The rest of the peninsula, grouped into two dependent kingdoms, owns the suzerainty of France. Carmthia, Carniola, Croatia and Dalmatia, non styled the Illyrian Province, arc France beyond the Adriatic. Ihe Swiss Republic is under French. P at "j ronage. Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Mecklenburg, and a congeries of German duchies and principalities j and bishoprics, not forgetting the kingdom of Hanover, lumped together as Jerome’s new kingdom oi Westphalia, make up the Coniedera-1 tion of the Rhine, and supply troops to Napoleon’s armies. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw, nominally annexed to Saxony, dominates a Prussia

reduced to the slenderest proportions, ami with its leading fortresses held by French troops, and an Austria I recently crushed at Wagram, and cut off from any outlet to the sea. Russia is the ally of France; Sweden has bowed to French dictation. A French king has even been imposed on Spain. Yet five years later, 'when the bubble is pricked and the nightmare ended, France has shrunk once more into the limits of 1789. It is worth remembering, too, that in the year 1810 Britain stood alone, sole champion of the liberties of Europe, alone and with no Empire at her hack, but a new and hostile nation across the seas in the seats of her first colonies. She is championing the liberties of Europe again to-day, hut of a free Europe that fights in its own quarrel, and disdains to how to the will of the pinchbeck Napoleon of Potsdam.”