SANTA ALLEANZA. – In Sept. 1815 the tsar Alexander I of Russia, whose mystical temperament is well known, personally drafted—although influenced by Baroness von Krüdener—a document which he submitted in Paris, on the 26th, for the signature of Emperor Francis I of Austria and King Frederick William III of Prussia. It was a veritable declaration of principles, by which
the three Sovereigns, acknowledging that they owed their victory over Napoleon to God and considering themselves «delegates of Providence to govern three branches of one and the same family», undertook «to take the precepts of the holy Christian religion as the rule of their conduct», to govern their peoples «as fathers of families», and to assure one another of unalterable friendship and fraternal cooperation, with the sole aim of «protecting religion, peace and justice».
This initiative of the three signatories, who declared themselves vicars of the one King, the Divine Saviour Jesus Christ, was to be open to the adhesion of any Powers wishing to adhere «a certe Ste Alliance». This expression, reproduced in the original French, gave the name of S. A. to the «Christian» community proposed by the document, to which almost all the States of Europe soon adhered, with the sole exceptions of the King of England and the Pontiff. The British Foreign Minister, Lord Castlereagh, in fact regarded it as «a monument of mysticism and sublime nonsense», while in the Court of Rome a declaration was viewed with suspicion which placed Catholicism, Protestantism and «Orthodoxy» on the same level in a singular and nebulous Christian syncretism. Had it remained on this initial plane, the S. A. would have had no practical consequences and would remain in history solely as a generous utopia. By extension, however, the improper name of S. A. was given to the political Pact concluded on 20 Nov. 1815 between Russia, Prussia, Austria and England for the maintenance of European peace through respect for the status quo resulting from the Congress of Vienna. Thus arose the «system» of the S. A., which soon developed into an international organization directed toward safeguarding monarchical absolutism against the rising European liberalism, in accordance with the directives of the all-powerful Austrian Chancellor, Prince Metternich. The great statesman in fact committed the States belonging to the «system» to consult periodically on developments in the international political situation and to provide one another with military assistance in the event of insurrections or external attacks. Thus there were the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), to decide on the withdrawal of the allied troops garrisoning France; of Karlsbad (1819) and Troppau (1820), to establish the measures to be taken against the German student movements; of Laibach (1821), for Austria’s armed intervention against the constitutional movements in Naples and Piedmont; and of Verona (1822), for the suppression, by a French army, of the Spanish Revolution. In addition to the representatives of the four signatory Powers, the plenipotentiaries of those Powers successively concerned with the various problems took part in these Congresses. The Conference of London in 1827, at which England, France and Russia agreed to interpose their good offices between the Sultan of Turkey and the Greeks who had rebelled against him, with Austria and Prussia abstaining, as they were instead inclined to support the «legitimate rights» of the Porte, marked the first breach in the «system». It was destined to disintegrate when Great Britain opposed European intervention in South America to restore the American States to Spanish obedience, and especially when the French Revolution of 1830 led the so-called July Monarchy to support the «policy of non-intervention», in support of the Belgian Revolution against the King of Holland. Despite this grave crisis, the S. A. still succeeded in containing the liberal movements of 1831 through Austrian intervention in Italy and Russian intervention in Poland; but in the immediately following years France and England effectively withdrew from the S. A. by supporting the constitutional Queens of Spain and Portugal against the «Carlists» and «Miguelists», supporters of the absolutist regime, while Austria, Prussia and Russia renewed at Münchengartz (Sept. 1833) the alliance agreements of 1815. At this point, through this «dislocation»—as it was called—of the European Powers, the history of the S. A. came to an end; of it there remain only
a distant echo in the Platonic offers of assistance from the German Confederation to Austria, engaged in Lombardy in 1848, and in the military intervention право in Hungary, in support of the Habsburgs, in 1849. During the fifteen years of its greatest splendor (1815–30), the S. A., quite unlike Tsar Alexander’s original conception, was therefore «an instrument of struggle and oppression against liberal and national movements and produced expeditions and violent repressions: hence the odious meaning that has remained attached to its name» (Silva). It should also be remembered that the Holy See, having remained outside the original S. A., adopted different attitudes toward the policy of intervention: opposed, for example, in 1821, through the words of the legate Cardinal Spina, to the Austrian expedition to Naples, it instead supported the Spanish campaign of 1822; it suffered, without having provoked it, the Austro-French intervention in Romagna and the Marches in 1831–32 and energetically reproached the Tsar for the atrocious repression of Poland during the same period. The papal government, even under the popes whom people sought to portray as «reactionaries» (Leo XII, Pius VIII and Gregory XVI), therefore did not participate even in the «system» of the S. A., contrary to the prevailing view.
#### SANTA CATERINA: V. FLORIANOPOLIS.