Part II.

procedure which may sometimes snatch a remedy beyond the reach of law. Nevertheless it must be admitted that in the case of intervention, as in that of revolution, its essence is illegality, and its justification is its success. Of all things at once the most unjustifiable and the most impolitic is an unsuccessful intervention" (h). Chateaubriand, in a celebrated speech in the French Chamber, asserted that "no government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another government, except in the case where the security and immediate interests of the first government are compromised "(i). It seems impossible to lay down any distinct rules with regard to intervention. As stated in the text, the subject belongs to politics rather than to public law. It cannot be distinctly stated what combination of circumstances menaces the security of any State, or tends to disturb the balance of power, and what does not. Statesmen must be guided by the knowledge they possess of the intentions of other countries, and by what they deem necessary for the security of their own, and in the present condition of Europe there seems little probability of any rules regarding intervention being attended to, even if they could be satisfactorily drawn up (k).

Each member of the great society of nations being entirely independent of every other, and living in what has been called a state of nature in respect to others, acknowledging no common sovereign, arbiter, or judge; the law which prevails between nations being deficient in those external sanctions by which the laws of civil society are enforced among individuals; and the performance of the duties of international law being compelled by moral sanctions only, by fear on the part of nations of provoking general hostility, and incurring its probable evils in case they should violate this law; an apprehension of the possible consequences of the undue aggrandisement of any one nation upon the independence and the safety of others, has induced the States of modern Europe to observe, with systematic vigilance, every material disturbance in the equilibrium of their respective forces. This preventive policy has been the pretext of the most bloody and destructive wars waged in modern times, some of which have certainly origi

(h) Letters of Historicus, p. 41.

(i) See Halleck, p. 86; Alison, Hist. of Europe, ch. 12, § 41; Moniteur, 15th Feb. 1823; Manning, Law of

Nations, p. 98; Amari, Nouvel exposé du principe de non-intervention; Revue de Droit Int. 1873, p. 352.

(k) See Calvo, vol. i. bk. iii.

Reformation.

nated in well-founded apprehensions of peril to the Chap. I. independence of weaker States, but the greater part have been founded upon insufficient reasons, disguising the real motives by which princes and cabinets have been influenced. Wherever the spirit of encroachment has really threatened the general security, it has commonly broken out in such overt acts as not only plainly indicated the ambitious purpose, but also furnished substantive grounds in themselves sufficient to justify a resort to arms by other nations. Such were the grounds Wars of the of the confederacies created, and the wars undertaken to check the aggrandisement of Spain and the house of Austria, under Charles V. and his successors;-an object finally accomplished by the treaty of Westphalia, which so long constituted the written public law of Europe. The long and violent struggle between the religious parties engendered by the Reformation in Germany, spread throughout Europe, and became closely connected with political interests and ambition. The great Catholic and Protestant powers mutually protected the adherents of their own faith in the bosom of rival States. The repeated interference of Austria and Spain in favour of the Catholic faction in France, Germany, and England, and of the Protestant powers to protect their persecuted brethren in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, gave a peculiar colouring to the political transactions of the age. This was still more heightened by the conduct of Catholic France under the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, in sustaining, by a singular refinement of policy, the Protestant princes and people of Germany against the house of Austria, while she was persecuting with unrelenting severity her own subjects of the reformed faith. The balance of power adjusted by the peace of Westphalia was once more disturbed by the ambition of Louis XIV., which compelled the Protestant States of Europe to unite with the house of Austria against the encroachments of France herself, and induced the allies to patronise the English Revolution of 1688, whilst the French monarch interfered to

Part II. support the pretensions of the Stuarts.

§ 64. Wars of the French Revolution.

These great transactions furnished numerous examples of interference by the European States in the affairs of each other, where the interest and security of the interfering powers were supposed to be seriously affected by the domestic transactions of other nations, which can hardly be referred to any fixed and definite principle of international law, or furnish a general rule fit to be observed in other apparently analogous cases (7).

The same remarks will apply to the more recent, but not less important events growing out of the French Revolution. They furnish a strong admonition against attempting to reduce to a rule, and to incorporate into the code of nations, a principle so indefinite and so peculiarly liable to abuse, in its practical application. The successive coalitions formed by the great European monarchies against France subsequent to her first revolution of 1789, were avowedly designed to check the progress of her revolutionary principles and the extension of her military power. Such was the principle of intervention in the internal affairs of France, avowed by the Allied Courts, and by the publicists who sustained their cause. France, on her side, relying on the independence of nations, contended for non-intervention as a right. The efforts of these coalitions ultimately rethe five great sulted in the formation of an alliance, intended to be permanent, between the four great powers of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain, to which France subsequently acceded, at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, constituting a sort of superintending authority in these powers over the international affairs of Europe, the precise extent and objects of which were never very accurately defined. As interpreted by those of the contracting powers, who were also the original parties to the compact called the Holy Alliance, this union was intended to form a perpetual system of intervention among the European States, adapted to prevent any

Alliance of

European

powers.

(1) Wheaton, Hist. Law of Nations, Pt. I. §§ 2, 3, pp. 80—88.

such change in the internal forms of their respective Chap. I. governments, as might endanger the existence of the monarchical institutions which had been re-established under the legitimate dynasties of their respective reigning houses. This general right of interference was sometimes defined so as to be applicable to every case of popular revolution, where the change in the form of government did not proceed from the voluntary concession of the reigning sovereign, or was not confirmed by his sanction, given under such circumstances as to remove all doubt of his having freely consented. At others, it was extended to every revolutionary movement pronounced by these powers to endanger, in its consequences, immediate or remote, the social order of Europe, or the particular safety of neighbouring States.

The events which followed the Congress of Aix-laChapelle prove the inefficacy of all the attempts that have been made to establish a general and invariable principle on the subject of intervention. It is, in fact, impossible to lay down an absolute rule on this subject; and every rule that wants that quality must necessarily be vague, and subject to the abuses to which human passions will give rise, in its practical application.

Troppau and

$ 65. The measures adopted by Austria, Russia, and Prussia, Congress of at the Congress of Troppau and Laybach, in respect to of Laybach. the Neapolitan Revolution of 1820, were founded upon principles adapted to give the great Powers of the European continent a perpetual pretext for interfering in the internal concerns of its different States. The British government expressly dissented from these principles, not only upon the ground of their being, if reciprocally acted on, contrary to the fundamental laws of Great Britain, but such as could not safely be admitted as part of a system of international law. In the circular despatch, addressed on this occasion to all its diplomatic agents, it was stated that, though no government could be more prepared than the British government was to uphold the right of any State or States to interfere, where their own immediate security

Part II.

$ 66. Congress of Verona.

or essential interests are seriously endangered by the internal transactions of another State, it regarded the assumption of such a right as only to be justified by the strongest necessity, and to be limited and regulated thereby; and did not admit that it could receive a general and indiscriminate application to all revolutionary movements, without reference to their immediate bearing upon some particular State or States, or that it could be made, prospectively, the basis of an alliance. The British government regarded its exercise as an exception to general principles of the greatest value and importance, and as one that only properly grows out of the special circumstances of the case; but it at the same time considered, that exceptions of this description never can, without the utmost danger, be so far reduced to rule, as to be incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of States, or into the institutes of the Law of Nations (m). The British government also declined being a party to the proceedings of the Congress held at Verona, in 1822, which ultimately led to an armed interference by France, under the sanction of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, in the internal affairs of Spain, and the overthrow of the Spanish Constitution of the Cortes. The British government disclaimed for itself, and denied to other powers, the right of requiring any changes in the internal institutions of independent States, with the menace of hostile attack in case of refusal. It did not consider the Spanish Revolution as affording a case of that direct and imminent danger to the safety and interest of other States, which might justify a forcible interference. The original alliance between Great Britain and the other principal European powers, was specifically designed for the re-conquest and liberation of the European continent from the military dominion of France; and having subverted that dominion, it took the state of possession, as established by the peace,

(m) Lord Castlereagh's Circular Despatch, Jan. 19, 1821. Annual Register, vol. lxii. Part II. p. 737.