ORAC,
You are perfectly right about "Uncle Joe".We are still 100+ years behind France and its revolution. But Harry was mentioning times after absolute monarchy ended in Britain. And at that time the tsar regime in Russia was rather soft and very tolerant to various religions.
As to the main topic, I am not sure the "European Army" will work well. NATO is operational only due to the US. Without "Uncle Sam" it will be a mess.