The greatest story in the world, period 3 (of 3)

by Horace G. Hutchinson

And the rewards of these conquests, both East and West, were confirmed to Britain by that Peace of Paris which terminated the Seven Years' War.

CHAPTER X
HOW THE UNITED STATES WON INDEPENDENCE

We have come to a moment in our story at which the events which modified it most importantly occurred, not in Europe at all, but in that new West which was still British. Before considering them, however, it will be well to gather up some loose ends of the European story.

There had been some rearrangement of territory, in the year 1767, between Denmark and Sweden, by which most of what we may see on modern maps marked as Schleswig-Holstein was given over to Denmark in exchange for the Duchy of Oldenburg; but a rearrangement of far more importance was that which is known as the first partition of Poland in 1772. It was a mutual arrangement, between the three strong powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to dismember and embody as parts of themselves such pieces of Polish territory as lay most neighbourly to their own boundaries.

The Seven Years' War had been in large measure brought about by a rather similar design against Prussia and Poland seems to have been one of the consenting parties, if not an active partaker, in that proposed robbery. Now a robbery yet more audacious was not only proposed but actually perpetrated upon her. She was powerless to resist; though there had been a time when she was a great power and Russia was scarcely heard of, Austria no more than the boundary buffer state between the Teuton and the Slav, and Prussia of no account whatever in the story. This first partition was followed by a second and yet a third rather more than twenty years afterwards. By that latest division she was almost wholly swallowed up in Russia and ceased to exist as an independent State until her comparatively recent resuscitation.

Expansion of Russia

On whatever side we now look of the boundaries of Russia we see them continuously extending. Her armies defeat the Tartars eastward, the Turks southward; she destroys a large Turkish fleet; she gains the extensive region called White Russia, and the Crimea, and sends conquering armies into the Balkan States, where the Bulgarian Slavs are establishing themselves ever more firmly as an independent nation. Largely it is by reason of the growing power of Russia that the Turks, are more and more compelled to fight for their existence and for their hold on even a part of their wide conquests in Europe. They are no longer fighting to extend them. And at the same time, that is to say, in 1768, Egypt, under the Mamelukes, throws off the domination of the Ottomans. Originally these Mamelukes themselves were Turkish—a bodyguard of Turkish slaves enrolled for the protection of the Egyptian rulers. They had revolted and seized the government soon after the reign of Saladin. And it is worthy of note that in the midst of all the fighting which goes on in and around the Balkans between Venetians, Turks, Russians, and others, the little mountain State of Montenegro always retains her independence. Though often attacked, she is never subdued. Her story may remind us of those valiant and invincible Swiss, for doubtless it is because of the mountainous character of the two countries alike, giving the defence such a great advantage over the attack, that the heroic defenders of both kept their homeland free against enemies whose numbers were many times greater than their own.

Now, turning to the far western side of the stage, the leading feature of the drama is that the British had established themselves as the great power in America. They had little to fear now from the French. And the reason why that fact is of such vast importance in the story is that, had it not been for that freedom from the French menace, the independence of the United States could not possibly have been won as, and at the time when, it was won. We may regard that independence as a good thing or a bad thing for the world: we may think it better for the world that there should be this great free nation in the West, not united by any political ties with Europe; or we may, on the contrary, deem that the peace and prosperity of man would be better served if the United States belonged to that confederation of States which we call the British Empire—although "Empire" is rather a misleading name for it. The voice of the Anglo-Saxon communities would certainly speak even more forcibly than it does in the world's counsels if there were such union and such unity.