ABSTRACT
The cry for equality of states originated in the cravings for recognition which animated their rulers. It is far older than the egalitarian philosophies which heralded the advent of democracy. For these rulers, who looked upon the State as their personal patrimony, passionately desired to be the equals of other “state proprietors.” Their properties should have the same extension, the same population and the same resources as those of their more favoured rivals; if possible, their financial means and their military establishments should be such as to overawe them. They were frequently dissatisfied with the power and wealth they owned and wished to improve their possessions as well as their positions. They schemed, intrigued, intermarried, and made war for purposes of aggrandizement. They needed strength to do so, but in order to get it they had to expand. Expansion depended on power, but power depended on expansion, and was frequently identified with prestige. Thus princes built royal palaces to vie with Versailles, although they did not care to inhabit them and could not afford to maintain their regal splendour except by squandering their resources. They ran their court life on lines laid down by the “great king,” though it may have bored them to desperation. They raised armies which they dared not use and built navies which they did not need. Often enough this striving for greater power led them into policies which did not serve the true interests of their countries. They paid great attention to appearances and equal rank in the princely hierarchy; their ambitions were fired by the hope of outdistancing their equals and of attaining equality with their superiors. These strivings and rivalries underlay the struggles in Italy in the days of the Renaissance; and they account partly for the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire. But these yearnings for equal rank were not restricted to petty Italian city despots who aimed at turning their sway over a tiny municipality into world domination, nor to German counts who wanted to become emperors, but never got beyond being grand-dukes and kings, if not by right divine, at least by the grace of Napoleon. The outbreak of the Crimean War may have been speeded up by such sentiments. Nicholas I, Emperor by grace divine, deliberately refused equality of standing to Napoleon III, the upstart Emperor, representing a plebiscitarian revolution; he would not call him “mon cher frere,” but only “mon bon ami” thereby causing a great deal of resentment.
