All political authority was in the hands of turbulent nobles who quarrelled among themselves, who were always inclined to submit the questions at issue to the arbitrament of arms, and who did not scruple to invite foreign powers to intervene on their behalf.
Considering the vastness of the stat interests involved, there is much cause for satisfaction in the fact that these differences have been settled by peaceful arbitrament rather than by that recourse to force which has so often marked the delimitation of rights and territory on other continents.