BALANCE OF POWEE, is the system by which greater states are withheld from ab sorbing smaller ones. Vattel, in 'Law of Nations,) thus defines it: 4By this balance is to be understood such a disposition of things, as that no one potentate or state shall be able air. solutely to predominate and prescribe to the others." The system of the balance of power is entirely the outgrowth of the modern politi cal system of Europe, as it began to shape itself in the 15th century; not that it was entirely un lcnown to the ancients before the irresistible progress of Roman arms put any idea of balance out of the question, but these early efforts after the balance of power were not sustained for a sufficiently long period, from generation t,o generation, from century to century. They were too transitory and casual to entitle them to be elevated into a system. They must be regarded as approaches and tentatives, interesting, but in the end fugitive and unsuccessful. During the latest centuries of the Middle Ages, the kings of France and the emperors of Germany were too much engaged in their domestic struggles with their great vassals to spare the concert trated attention and energy upon international affairs necessary to originate and sustain a sys tem of balance in Osnstian Europe. In Italy, then so far in advance of the rest of Europe ut intellectual, social, and political development, the princes, podestas and republics of that penin sula, frosn an early period of the 15th century, had built up the institution of an equilibrium for their mutual regulation. But this was too local and on too small a scale to be deemed the parent of our modern system. Not until Louis XI of France had repressed the dulces of Bur gundy and Brittany; not until Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon had united ahnost the whole of modem Spain under his sway; not until Maximilian in Germany and Henry VII in England and Ireland had consolidated the monarchical authority, was the time ripe for the application of this idea The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France, and his claim to the kingdom of Naples, in 1494 gave rise to the first great European combination of other wise hostile powers for the repression of the ambition of one. Almost all the Italian state. Maximilian, the German Emperor, and Ferdi nand of Aragon, suspended their animosities, and drove the French out of Italy. The Em peror Charles V of Germany, Spain, Burgundy. the Netherlands, and a vast transatlantic empire 1519-56, caused the jealousy of Europe. Francis I of France actually went so far as to ally himself with the Sultan, Solyman the Magnifi cent, against Charles. The Turlcs at one end of Europe, the kings of France and England at the other, and the opposition of the Protestant prince.s in the centre, prevented Charles from realizing his ambitious schemes. The misfor tunes of Philip II, the son of Charles V, in the Dutch Netherlands and in the expeditions against England and the English power in Ire land, effectually dissipated the fears Europe entertained concerning the overgrown power of the Spanish branch of the house of Hapsburg. The idea of a European equilibrium had now become sufficiently definite for Henry IV of France to propose to Elizabeth of England, at the commencement of the 17th century, a scheme for a federative congress, whose pur pose it should be to maintain the peace of Europe in the same manner as the great powers did until recently. The idea was impracticable in those days, and was entirely abandoned, even as a project, on-the assassination of that liberal and high-minded prince. The next potentate whose power gave general alartn and caused a coalition against lum in the general interest was the Etnperor Ferdinand II of Germany (reigned 1619-37). Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, appealing to the Protestant princes of Germany, subsidized by Richelieu, the French minister, and supplied with men by England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, achieved the task of humbling the power of the house of Austria. After the death of Gustavus, Oxenstiern of Sweden and Richelieu of France together forced %Span the German Emperor the celebrated Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which relieved Europe from the fear of the house of Austria, and put an end to the Thirty Years' War. The next general danger came from France. The invasion by Louis of the Dutch Netherlands (1672) brought about a coalition of Holland, the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Brandenburg and the King of Spain, against the French King. William, Prince of Orange, was the hero of this war; but the Peace of Nimeguen (1678) sealed the supremacy of Louis XIV. The will of the King of Spain
nominating the second son of the French Dau phin as lus successor (1700), thus putting the powerful monarchies of France and Spain into the same hands and utterly destroying the European equilibrium, created the grand alliance and the war of the Spanish succession, The Emperor of Germany, the Duice of Savoy, the King of England, and the States-General of the United Provinces, united in this grand al liance. The King of Portugal afterward joined the anti-French confederacy. Maribor ough and Prince Eugene of Savoy were the great military leaders in behalf of the balance of power. The Peace of Utrecht (1713), by which the union of the French and Spanish crowns was prevented, and the territorial con quests of France almost wholly surrendered, re-established the influence of the equilibrium doctrine, and secured Europe from danger on this side until the era of the French republic. The Empress Elizabeth wa.s the first Russian potentate who took part in wars in which she had only. a remote general interest. Prussia and Russia celebrated their entry into the rank of first-class powers by dealing the most ter rible blow to the balance of power which it has ever suffered. The first partition of Poland (1771-72) is admitted by every writer on this subject to be at war with the fundamental prin ciples on which the equilibrium rests. The achievement of American independence (1783), though not generally reckoned by European writers as belonging to the history of the inter national balance, may well be included therein, inasmuch as it put a check to the growth of British colonial power and British naval pre ponderance. At the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), it was the leading wish of Lord Castlereagh, the British plentpotentiary, to re store the kingdom of Poland as included in the European equilibrium, in which he was sec onded by Metternich for Austria and Talleyrand for the French legitimate sovereign, but opposed by the representatives of the Russian and Prus sian monarchies. The return of Napoleon from Elba put an end to this difference, and in the renewed conferences after the battle of Waterloo, the western powers did not insist upon the point. From 1815 to 1853, the world was substantially preserved from any war of importance by the five great powers who then presided over the destinies of Europe, namely, France, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia. In 1853, the invasion of the trans Danubian provinces of the Turkish empire by a Russian army was declared by a congress of the great powers at Vienna to be a breadi of the political equilibrium. In this declaration France, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia agreed. An Anglo-French alliance was made (1854) to repel the aggression, and the confederation of Turkey, Great Britain and France was rein forced by the King of Sardinia in the spring of the year 1855. After a war of three campaigns, the Treaty of Paris was signed (30 March 1856), by which Russia abandoned her claims, and the principle of the balance of power was anew vindicated. The Congress of Berlin in 1878, acting in the interests of the balance of power, deprived Russia of many benefits gained through the Treaty of San Stefano. Within a generation, the principle of nationalism has arisen in opposition to that of the balance of power. This is exhibited in United Italy, United Germany and the spread of the Pan-Slavism in Russia, but as a set-off to this may be men tioned the extension of European influence in Asia and Africa as regards colonization and trade. Thus the balance of power has become a world question and such nations as Germany and Italy are desirous of acquiring colonies to balance the colonial possessions of Russia and England. The sudden rise to power of the Slavic race as a result of the Balkan War in 1912-13 threatened seriously to complicate European policies regarding the maintenance of the balance of power, but when the disagree ment among the Balkan States resulted in war among themselves the fears of a Slavic pre ponderance were seen to have been unwar ranted. Numerous international conferences and congresses have been called for the pur pose of maintaining the balance of power and these gatherings have set up and removed rulers, have decided boundary controversies, have settled political relations and have passed upon questions of international justice, often without even requesting the attendance or con sulting the wishes of those most affected by their action. Consult Lawrence, T. J., (Inter nationd Law) (1910) Phillimore R., (Inter national Law) (1879-43) • Westl&e, J., (In ternational Law) (Pt. I, 1908).