Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century Moldavia and Wallachia the two 'Danubian Provinces' now united in the kingdom of Rumania were placed in charge of Greek officials with the rank of voivode or prince, and with practically sovereign power within their delegated dominions.
Archaeologically, they all belong to the Bronze Age; they seem, further, to be the work of a race distinct from any previous dwellers in North Italy, which had probably just moved south from the Danubian plains. At some time or other this race had dwelt in lake-villages.
The Caucasian lines furnished her, in 1828, with 30,000 men; Poland with 100,000; the two countries require now an army of observation and occupation of 200,000 men; the Danubian principalities absorb again 50,000.
In several of the Swiss cantons they form from four to five per cent of the population. In Rhenish Prussia, and in the Danubian provinces of Austria, the number is still greater; in Styria, many villages of four or five thousand inhabitants not having a single man capable of bearing arms.
Meanwhile Prussia and Austria united in a league, offensive and defensive, to expel the Russians from the Danubian provinces, which filled the mind of Nicholas with more grief than anger; for he had counted on the neutrality of Austria and Prussia, as he had on the neutrality of England. It was his misfortune to believe what he wished, rather than face facts.
This 'balance of power' is in reality the hinge on which the whole question turns. But if that is so important as to be worth a sanguinary war, why did you not go to war with France when she seized upon Algiers? That was a portion of Turkey not quite so distinct, it is true, as are the Danubian Principalities; but still Turkey had sovereign rights over Algiers.
Hypsilantis played for a general revolt of the Ruman population in the Danubian Principalities and a declaration of war against Turkey on the part of Russia. But the Rumans had no desire to assist the Greek bureaucrats who oppressed them, and the Tsar Alexander had been converted by the experiences of 1812-13 to a pacifistic respect for the status quo.
The treaties of 1774 and 1792 gave to the Russians the privilege of navigating the Black Sea, and indirectly placed under the protectorate of Russia the territories of Moldavia and Wallachia, provinces of Turkey, called the Danubian principalities, whose inhabitants were chiefly of the Greek faith.
In the Danubian principalities he would rise at once to a position of superiority. The cessation of German immigration would be undoubtedly a loss to America, but its diversion to the south-east would be a great gain to Europe. It would settle, perhaps, for ever, the grave question of race-supremacy it would enable Austria to become a really German power, and Vienna a really German city.
But with a ministry halting between two opinions, and the people demanding it, England "drifted into war" with Russia. July 2, 1853, the Russian troops crossed the Pruth and occupied the Danubian Principalities which had been by treaty, in 1849, evacuated by Turkey and Russia, and declared by both powers neutral territory between them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking