audacious statecraft and of the overmastering will of Bismarck; the nation,
except through its valour on the battle-field, ceases to influence the
shaping of its own fortunes. What the German people desired in 1864 was
that Schleswig-Holstein should be attached, under a ruler of its own, to
the German Federation as it then existed; what Bismarck intended was that
Schleswig-Holstein, itself incorporated more or less directly with Prussia,
should be made the means of the destruction of the existing Federal system
and of the expulsion of Austria from Germany. That another petty State,
bound to Prussia by no closer tie than its other neighbours, should be
added to the troop among whom Austria found its vassals and its
instruments, would have been in Bismarck's eyes no gain but actual
detriment to Germany. The German people desired one course of action;
Bismarck had determined on something totally different; and with matchless
resolution and skill he bore down all opposition of people and of Courts,
and forced a reluctant nation to the goal which he had himself chosen for
it. The first point of conflict was the apparent recognition by Bismarck of
the rights of King Christian IX. as lawful sovereign in the Duchies as well
as in the rest of the Danish State. By the Treaty of London Prussia had
indeed pledged itself to this recognition; but the German Federation had
been no party to the Treaty, and under the pressure of a vehement national
agitation Bavaria and the minor States one after another recognised
Frederick of Augustenburg as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. Bismarck was
accused alike by the Prussian Parliament and by the popular voice of
Germany at large of betraying German interests to Denmark, of abusing
Prussia's position as a Great Power, of inciting the nation to civil war.
In vain he declared that, while surrendering no iota of German rights, the
Government of Berlin must recognise those treaty-obligations with which its
own legal title to a voice in the affairs of Schleswig was intimately bound
up, and that the King of Prussia, not a multitude of irresponsible and
ill-informed citizens, must be the judge of the measures by which German
interests were to be effectually protected. His words made no single
convert either in the Prussian Parliament or in the Federal Diet. At
Frankfort the proposal made by the two leading Powers that King Christian
should be required to annul the November Constitution, and that in case of
his refusal Schleswig also should be occupied, was rejected, as involving
an acknowledgment of the title of Christian as reigning sovereign. At
Berlin the Lower Chamber refused the supplies which Bismarck demanded for
operations in the Duchies, and formally resolved to resist his policy by
every means at its command. But the resistance of Parliament and of Diet
were alike in vain. By a masterpiece of diplomacy Bismarck had secured the
support and co-operation of Austria in his own immediate Danish policy,
though but a few months before he had incurred the bitter hatred of the
Court of Vienna by frustrating its plans for a reorganisation of Germany by
a Congress of princes at Frankfort, and had frankly declared to the
Austrian ambassador at Berlin that if Austria did not transfer its
political centre to Pesth and leave to Prussia free scope in Germany, it
would find Prussia on the side of its enemies in the next war in which it
might be engaged. [515] But the democratic and impassioned character of the
agitation in the minor States in favour of the Schleswig-Holsteiners and
their Augustenburg pretender had enabled Bismarck to represent this
movement to the Austrian Government as a revolutionary one, and by a
dexterous appeal to the memories of 1848 to awe the Emperor's advisers into
direct concert with the Court of Berlin, as the representative of
monarchical order, in dealing with a problem otherwise too likely to be
solved by revolutionary methods and revolutionary forces. Count Rechberg,
the Foreign Minister at Vienna, was lured into a policy which, after
drawing upon Austria a full share of the odium of Bismarck's Danish plans,
after forfeiting for it the goodwill of the minor States with which it
might have kept Prussia in check, and exposing it to the risk of a European
war, was to confer upon its rival the whole profit of the joint enterprise,
and to furnish a pretext for the struggle by which Austria was to be
expelled alike from Germany and from what remained to it of Italy. But of
the nature of the toils into which he was now taking the first fatal and
irrevocable step Count Rechberg appears to have had no suspicion. A seeming
cordiality united the Austrian and Prussian Governments in the policy of
defiance to the will of all the rest of Germany and to the demands of their
own subjects. It was to no purpose that the Federal Diet vetoed the
proposed summons to King Christian and the proposed occupation of
Schleswig. Austria and Prussia delivered an ultimatum at Copenhagen
demanding the repeal of the November Constitution; and on its rejection
their troops entered Schleswig, not as the mandatories of the German
Federation, but as the instruments of two independent and allied Powers.
(Feb. 1, 1864.)
[Campaign in Schleswig. Feb.-April, 1864.]
Against the overwhelming forces by which they were thus attacked the Danes
could only make a brave but ineffectual resistance. Their first line of
defence was the Danewerke, a fortification extending east and west towards
the sea from the town of Schleswig. Prince Frederick Charles, who commanded
the Prussian right, was repulsed in an attack upon the easternmost part of
this work at Missunde; the Austrians, however, carried some positions in
the centre which commanded the defenders' lines, and the Danes fell back
upon the fortified post of Düppel, covering the narrow channel which
separates the island of Alsen from the mainland. Here for some weeks they
held the Prussians in check, while the Austrians, continuing the march
northwards, entered Jutland. At length, on the 18th of April, after several
hours of heavy bombardment, the lines of Düppel were taken by storm and the
defenders driven across the channel into Alsen. Unable to pursue the enemy
across this narrow strip of sea, the Prussians joined their allies in
Jutland, and occupied the whole of the Danish mainland as far as the Lüm
Fiord. The war, however, was not to be terminated without an attempt on the
part of the neutral Powers to arrive at a settlement by diplomacy. A
Conference was opened at London on the 20th of April, and after three weeks
of negotiation the belligerents were induced to accept an armistice. As the
troops of the German Federation, though unconcerned in the military
operations of the two Great Powers, were in possession of Holstein, the
Federal Government was invited to take part in the Conference. It was
represented by Count Beust, Prime Minister of Saxony, a politician who was
soon to rise to much greater eminence; but in consequence of the diplomatic
union of Prussia and Austria the views entertained by the Governments of
the secondary German States had now no real bearing on the course of
events, and Count Beust's earliest appearance on the great European stage
was without result, except in its influence on his own career. [516]
[Conference of London. April, 1864.]
The first proposition laid before the Conference was that submitted by
Bernstorff, the Prussian envoy, to the effect that Schleswig-Holstein
should receive complete independence, the question whether King Christian
or some other prince should be sovereign of the new State being reserved
for future settlement. To this the Danish envoys replied that even on the
condition of personal union with Denmark through the Crown they could not
assent to the grant of complete independence to the Duchies. Raising their
demand in consequence of this refusal, and declaring that the war had made
an end of the obligations subsisting under the London Treaty of 1852, the
two German Powers then demanded that Schleswig-Holstein should be
completely separated from Denmark and formed into a single State under
Frederick of Augustenburg, who in the eyes of Germany possessed the best
claim to the succession. Lord Russell, while denying that the acts or
defaults of Denmark could liberate Austria and Prussia from their
engagements made with other Powers in the Treaty of London, admitted that
no satisfactory result was likely to arise from the continued union of the
Duchies with Denmark, and suggested that King Christian should make an
absolute cession of Holstein and of the southern part of Schleswig,
retaining the remainder in full sovereignty. The frontier-line he proposed
to draw at the River Schlei. To this principle of partition both Denmark
and the German Powers assented, but it proved impossible to reach an
agreement on the frontier-line. Bernstorff, who had at first required
nearly all Schleswig, abated his demands, and would have accepted a line
drawn westward from Flensburg, so leaving to Denmark at least half the
province, including the important position of Düppel. The terms thus
offered to Denmark were not unfavourable. Holstein it did not expect, and
could scarcely desire, to retain; and the territory which would have been
taken from it in Schleswig under this arrangement included few districts
that were not really German. But the Government of Copenhagen, misled by
the support given to it at the Conference by England and Russia--a support
which was one of words only--refused to cede anything north of the town of
Schleswig. Even when in the last resort Lord Russell proposed that the
frontier-line should be settled by arbitration the Danish Government held
fast to its refusal, and for the sake of a few miles of territory plunged
once more into a struggle which, if it was not to kindle a European war of
vast dimensions, could end only in the ruin of the Danes. The expected help
failed them. Attacked and overthrown in the island of Alsen, the German
flag carried to the northern extremity of their mainland, they were
compelled to make peace on their enemies' terms. Hostilities were brought
to a close by the signature of Preliminaries on the 1st of August; and by
the Treaty of Vienna, concluded on the 30th of October, 1864, King
Christian ceded his rights in the whole of Schleswig-Holstein to the
sovereigns of Austria and Prussia jointly, and undertook to recognise
whatever dispositions they might make of those provinces.
[Great Britain and Napoleon III.]
The British Government throughout this conflict had played a sorry part, at
one moment threatening the Germans, at another using language towards the
Danes which might well be taken to indicate an intention of lending them
armed support. To some extent the errors of the Cabinet were due to the
relation which existed between Great Britain and Napoleon III. It had up to
this time been considered both at London and at Paris that the Allies of
the Crimea had still certain common interests in Europe; and in the
unsuccessful intervention at St. Petersburg on behalf of Poland in 1863 the
British and French Governments had at first gone hand in hand. But behind
every step openly taken by Napoleon III. there was some half-formed design
for promoting the interests of his dynasty or extending the frontiers of
France; and if England had consented to support the diplomatic concert at
St. Petersburg by measures of force, it would have found itself engaged in
a war in which other ends than those relating to Poland would have been the
foremost. Towards the close of the year 1863 Napoleon had proposed that a
European Congress should assemble, in order to regulate not only the
affairs of Poland but all those European questions which remained
unsettled. This proposal had been abruptly declined by the English
Government; and when in the course of the Danish war Lord Palmerston showed
an inclination to take up arms if France would do the same, Napoleon was
probably not sorry to have the opportunity of repaying England for its
rejection of his own overtures in the previous year. He had moreover hopes
of obtaining from Prussia an extension of the French frontier either in
Belgium or towards the Rhine. [517] In reply to overtures from London,
Napoleon stated that the cause of Schleswig-Holstein to some extent
represented the principle of nationality, to which France was friendly, and
that of all wars in which France could engage a war with Germany would be
the least desirable. England accordingly, if it took up arms for the Danes,
would have been compelled to enter the war alone; and although at a later
time, when the war was over and the victors were about to divide the spoil,
the British and French fleets ostentatiously combined in manoeuvres at
Cherbourg, this show of union deceived no one, least of all the resolute
and well-informed director of affairs at Berlin. To force, and force alone,
would Bismarck have yielded. Palmerston, now sinking into old age,
permitted Lord Russell to parody his own fierce language of twenty years
back; but all the world, except the Danes, knew that the fangs and the
claws were drawn, and that British foreign policy had become for the time a
thing of snarls and grimaces.
[Intentions of Bismarck as to Schleswig-Holstein.]
Bismarck had not at first determined actually to annex Schleswig-Holstein
to Prussia. He would have been content to leave it under the nominal
sovereignty of Frederick of Augustenburg if that prince would have placed
the entire military and naval resources of Schleswig-Holstein under the
control of the Government of Berlin, and have accepted on behalf of his
Duchies conditions which Bismarck considered indispensable to German
union under Prussian leadership. In the harbour of Kiel it was not
difficult to recognise the natural headquarters of a future German fleet;
the narrow strip of land projecting between the two seas naturally
suggested the formation of a canal connecting the Baltic with the German
Ocean, and such a work could only belong to Germany at large or to its
leading Power. Moreover, as a frontier district, Schleswig-Holstein was
peculiarly exposed to foreign attack; certain strategical positions
necessary for its defence must therefore be handed over to its protector.
That Prussia should have united its forces with Austria in order to win
for the Schleswig-Holsteiners the power of governing themselves as they
pleased, must have seemed to Bismarck a supposition in the highest degree
preposterous. He had taken up the cause of the Duchies not in the
interest of the inhabitants but in the interest of Germany; and by
Germany he understood Germany centred at Berlin and ruled by the House of
Hohenzollern. If therefore the Augustenburg prince was not prepared to
accept his throne on these terms, there was no room for him, and the
provinces must be incorporated with Prussia itself. That Austria would
not without compensation permit the Duchies thus to fall directly or
indirectly under Prussian sway was of course well known to Bismarck; but
so far was this from causing him any hesitation in his policy, that from
the first he had discerned in the Schleswig-Holstein question a favourable
pretext for the war which was to drive Austria out of Germany.
[Relations of Prussia and Austria, Dec., 1854-Aug., 1865.]
[Convention of Gastein, Aug. 14, 1865.]
Peace with Denmark was scarcely concluded when, at the bidding of Prussia,
reluctantly supported by Austria, the Saxon and Hanoverian troops which had
entered Holstein as the mandatories of the Federal Diet were compelled to
leave the country. A Provisional Government was established under the
direction of an Austrian and a Prussian Commissioner. Bismarck had met the
Prince of Augustenburg at Berlin some months before, and had formed an
unfavourable opinion of the policy likely to be adopted by him towards
Prussia. All Germany, however, was in favour of the Prince's claims, and at
the Conference of London these claims had been supported by the Prussian
envoy himself. In order to give some appearance of formal legality to his
own action, Bismarck had to obtain from the Crown-jurists of Prussia a
decision that King Christian IX. had, contrary to the general opinion of
Germany, been the lawful inheritor of Schleswig-Holstein, and that the
Prince of Augustenburg had therefore no rights whatever in the Duchies. As
the claims of Christian had been transferred by the Treaty of Vienna to the
sovereigns of Austria and Prussia jointly, it rested with them to decide
who should be Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and under what conditions.
Bismarck announced at Vienna on the 22nd of February, 1865, the terms on
which he was willing that Schleswig-Holstein should be conferred by the two
sovereigns upon Frederick of Augustenburg. He required, in addition to
community of finance, postal system, and railways, that Prussian law,
including the obligation to military service, should be introduced into the
Duchies; that their regiments should take the oath of fidelity to the King
of Prussia, and that their principal military positions should be held by
Prussian troops. These conditions would have made Schleswig-Holstein in all
but name a part of the Prussian State: they were rejected both by the Court
of Vienna and by Prince Frederick himself, and the population of
Schleswig-Holstein almost unanimously declared against them. Both Austria
and the Federal Diet now supported the Schleswig-Holsteiners in what
appeared to be a struggle on behalf of their independence against Prussian
domination; and when the Prussian Commissioner in Schleswig-Holstein
expelled the most prominent of the adherents of Augustenburg, his Austrian
colleague published a protest declaring the act to be one of lawless
violence. It seemed that the outbreak of war between the two rival Powers
could not long be delayed; but Bismarck had on this occasion moved too
rapidly for his master, and considerations relating to the other European
Powers made it advisable to postpone the rupture for some months. An
agreement was patched up at Gastein by which, pending an ultimate
settlement, the government of the two provinces was divided between their
masters, Austria taking the administration of Holstein, Prussia that of
Schleswig, while the little district of Lauenburg on the south was made
over to King William in full sovereignty. An actual conflict between the
representatives of the two rival governments at their joint headquarters in
Schleswig-Holstein was thus averted; peace was made possible at least for
some months longer; and the interval was granted to Bismarck which was
still required for the education of his Sovereign in the policy of blood
and iron, and for the completion of his own arrangements with the enemies
of Austria outside Germany. [518]
[Bismarck at Biarritz, Sept., 1865.]
The natural ally of Prussia was Italy; but without the sanction of Napoleon
III. it would have been difficult to engage Italy in a new war. Bismarck
had therefore to gain at least the passive concurrence of the French
Emperor in the union of Italy and Prussia against Austria. He visited
Napoleon at Biarritz in September, 1865, and returned with the object of
his journey achieved. The negotiation of Biarritz, if truthfully recorded,
would probably give the key to much of the European history of the next
five years. As at Plombières, the French Emperor acted without his
Ministers, and what he asked he asked without a witness. That Bismarck
actually promised to Napoleon III. either Belgium or any part of the
Rhenish Provinces in case of the aggrandisement of Prussia has been denied
by him, and is not in itself probable. But there are understandings which
prove to be understandings on one side only; politeness may be
misinterpreted; and the world would have found Count Bismarck unendurable
if at every friendly meeting he had been guilty of the frankness with which
he informed the Austrian Government that its centre of action must be
transferred from Vienna to Pesth. That Napoleon was now scheming for an
extension of France on the north-east is certain; that Bismarck treated
such rectification of the frontier as a matter for arrangement is hardly to
be doubted; and if without a distinct and written agreement Napoleon was
content to base his action on the belief that Bismarck would not withhold
from him his reward, this only proved how great was the disparity between
the aims which the French ruler allowed himself to cherish and his mastery
of the arts by which alone such aims were to be realised. Napoleon desired
to see Italy placed in possession of Venice; he probably believed at this
time that Austria would be no unequal match for Prussia and Italy together,
and that the natural result of a well-balanced struggle would be not only
the completion of Italian union but the purchase of French neutrality or
mediation by the cession of German territory west of the Rhine. It was no
part of the duty of Count Bismarck to chill Napoleon's fancies or to teach
him political wisdom. The Prussian statesman may have left Biarritz with
the conviction that an attack on Germany would sooner or later follow the
disappointment of those hopes which he had flattered and intended to mock;
but for the present he had removed one dangerous obstacle from his path,
and the way lay free before him to an Italian alliance if Italy itself
should choose to combine with him in war.
[Italy, 1862-65.]
Since the death of Cavour the Italian Government had made no real progress
towards the attainment of the national aims, the acquisition of Rome and
Venice. Garibaldi, impatient of delay, had in 1862 landed again in Sicily
and summoned his followers to march with him upon Rome. But the enterprise
was resolutely condemned by Victor Emmanuel, and when Garibaldi crossed to
the mainland he found the King's troops in front of him at Aspromonte.
There was an exchange of shots, and Garibaldi fell wounded. He was treated
with something of the distinction shown to a royal prisoner, and when his
wound was healed he was released from captivity. His enterprise, however,
and the indiscreet comments on it made by Rattazzi, who was now in power,
strengthened the friends of the Papacy at the Tuileries, and resulted in
the fall of the Italian Minister. His successor, Minghetti, deemed it
necessary to arrive at some temporary understanding with Napoleon on the
Roman question. The presence of French troops at Rome offended national
feeling, and made any attempt at conciliation between the Papal Court and
the Italian Government hopeless. In order to procure the removal of this
foreign garrison Minghetti was willing to enter into engagements which
seemed almost to imply the renunciation of the claim on Rome. By a
Convention made in September, 1864, the Italian Government undertook not to
attack the territory of the Pope, and to oppose by force every attack made
upon it from without. Napoleon on his part engaged to withdraw his troops
gradually from Rome as the Pope should organise his own army, and to
complete the evacuation within two years. It was, however, stipulated in an
Article which was intended to be kept secret, that the capital of Italy
should be changed, the meaning of this stipulation being that Florence
should receive the dignity which by the common consent of Italy ought to
have been transferred from Turin to Rome and to Rome alone. The publication
of this Article, which was followed by riots in Turin, caused the immediate
fall of Minghetti's Cabinet. He was succeeded in office by General La
Marmora, under whom the negotiations with Prussia were begun which, after
long uncertainty, resulted in the alliance of 1866 and in the final
expulsion of Austria from Italy. [519]
[La Marmora.]
[Govone at Berlin, March, 1866.]
[Treaty of April 8, 1856.]
Bismarck from the beginning of his Ministry appears to have looked forward
to the combination of Italy and Prussia against the common enemy; but his
plans ripened slowly. In the spring of 1865, when affairs seemed to be
reaching a crisis in Schleswig-Holstein, the first serious overtures were
made by the Prussian ambassador at Florence. La Marmora answered that any
definite proposition would receive the careful attention of the Italian
Government, but that Italy would not permit itself to be made a mere
instrument in Prussia's hands for the intimidation of Austria. Such caution
was both natural and necessary on the part of the Italian Minister; and his
reserve seemed to be more than justified when, a few months later, the
Treaty of Gastein restored Austria and Prussia to relations of friendship.
La Marmora might now well consider himself released from all obligations
towards the Court of Berlin: and, entering on a new line of policy, he sent
an envoy to Vienna to ascertain if the Emperor would amicably cede Venetia
to Italy in return for the payment of a very large sum of money and the
assumption by Italy of part of the Austrian national debt. Had this
transaction been effected, it would probably have changed the course of
European history; the Emperor, however, declined to bargain away any part
of his dominions, and so threw Italy once more into the camp of his great
enemy. In the meantime the disputes about Schleswig-Holstein broke out
afresh. Bismarck renewed his efforts at Florence in the spring of 1866,
with the result that General Govone was sent to Berlin in order to discuss
with the Prussian Minister the political and military conditions of an
alliance. But instead of proposing immediate action, Bismarck stated to
Govone that the question of Schleswig-Holstein was insufficient to justify
a great war in the eyes of Europe, and that a better cause must be put
forward, namely, the reform of the Federal system of Germany. Once more the
subtle Italians believed that Bismarck's anxiety for a war with Austria was
feigned, and that he sought their friendship only as a means of extorting
from the Court of Vienna its consent to Prussia's annexation of the Danish
Duchies. There was an apparent effort on the part of the Prussian statesman
to avoid entering into any engagement which involved immediate action; the
truth being that Bismarck was still in conflict with the pacific influences
which surrounded the King, and uncertain from day to day whether his master
would really follow him in the policy of war. He sought therefore to make
the joint resort to arms dependent on some future act, such as the
summoning of a German Parliament, from which the King of Prussia could not
recede if once he should go so far. But the Italians, apparently not
penetrating the real secret of Bismarck's hesitation, would be satisfied
with no such indeterminate engagement; they pressed for action within a
limited time; and in the end, after Austria had taken steps which went far
to overcome the last scruples of King William, Bismarck consented to fix
three months as the limit beyond which the obligation of Italy to accompany
Prussia into war should not extend. On the 8th of April a Treaty of
offensive and defensive alliance was signed. It was agreed that if the King
of Prussia should within three months take up arms for the reform of the
Federal system of Germany, Italy would immediately after the outbreak of
hostilities declare war upon Austria. Both Powers were to engage in the
war with their whole force, and peace was not to be made but by common
consent, such consent not to be withheld after Austria should have agreed
to cede Venetia to Italy and territory with an equal population to Prussia.
[520]
[Bismarck and Austria, Aug., 1865-April, 1866.]
Eight months had now passed since the signature of the Convention of
Gastem. The experiment of an understanding with Austria, which King William
had deemed necessary, had been made, and it had failed; or rather, as
Bismarck expressed himself in a candid moment, it had succeeded, inasmuch
as it had cured the King of his scruples and raised him to the proper point
of indignation against the Austrian Court. The agents in effecting this
happy result had been the Prince of Augustenburg, the population of
Holstein, and the Liberal party throughout Germany at large. In Schleswig,
which the Convention of Gastein had handed over to Prussia, General
Manteuffel, a son of the Minister of 1850, had summarily put a stop to
every expression of public opinion, and had threatened to imprison the
Prince if he came within his reach; in Holstein the Austrian Government had
permitted, if it had not encouraged, the inhabitants to agitate in favour
of the Pretender, and had allowed a mass-meeting to be held at Altona on
the 23rd of January, where cheers were raised for Augustenburg, and the
summoning of the Estates of Schleswig-Holstein was demanded. This was
enough to enable Bismarck to denounce the conduct of Austria as an alliance
with revolution. He demanded explanations from the Government of Vienna,
and the Emperor declined to render an account of his actions. Warlike
preparations now began, and on the 16th of March the Austrian Government
announced that it should refer the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein to the
Federal Diet. This was a clear departure from the terms of the Convention
of Gastein, and from the agreement made between Austria and Prussia before
entering into the Danish war in 1864 that the Schleswig-Holstein question
should be settled by the two Powers independently of the German Federation.
King William was deeply moved by such a breach of good faith; tears filled
his eyes when he spoke of the conduct of the Austrian Emperor; and though
pacific influences were still active around him he now began to fall in
more cordially with the warlike policy of his Minister. The question at
issue between Prussia and Austria expanded from the mere disposal of the
Duchies to the reconstitution of the Federal system of Germany. In a note
laid before the Governments of all the Minor States Bismarck declared that
the time had come when Germany must receive a new and more effective
organisation, and inquired how far Prussia could count on the support of
allies if it should be attacked by Austria or forced into war. It was
immediately after this re-opening of the whole problem of Federal reform in
Germany that the draft of the Treaty with Italy was brought to its final
shape by Bismarck and the Italian envoy, and sent to the Ministry at
Florence for its approval.
[Austria offers Venice, May 5.]
Bismarck had now to make the best use of the three months' delay that was
granted to him. On the day after the acceptance of the Treaty by the
Italian Government, the Prussian representative at the Diet of Frankfort
handed in a proposal for the summoning of a German Parliament, to be
elected by universal suffrage. Coming from the Minister who had made
Parliamentary government a mockery in Prussia, this proposal was scarcely
considered as serious. Bavaria, as the chief of the secondary States, had
already expressed its willingness to enter upon the discussion of Federal
reform, but it asked that the two leading Powers should in the meantime
undertake not to attack one another. Austria at once acceded to this
request, and so forced Bismarck into giving a similar assurance. Promises
of disarmament were then exchanged; but as Austria declined to stay the
collection of its forces in Venetia against Italy, Bismarck was able to
charge his adversary with insincerity in the negotiation, and preparations
for war were resumed on both sides. Other difficulties, however, now came
into view. The Treaty between Prussia and Italy had been made known to the
Court of Vienna by Napoleon, whose advice La Marmora had sought before its
conclusion, and the Austrian Emperor had thus become aware of his danger.
He now determined to sacrifice Venetia if Italy's neutrality could be so
secured. On the 5th of May the Italian ambassador at Paris, Count Nigra,
was informed by Napoleon that Austria had offered to cede Venetia to him on
behalf of Victor Emmanuel if France and Italy would not prevent Austria
from indemnifying itself at Prussia's expense in Silesia. Without a war, at
the price of mere inaction, Italy was offered all that it could gain by a
struggle which was likely to be a desperate one, and which might end in
disaster. La Marmora was in sore perplexity. Though he had formed a juster
estimate of the capacity of the Prussian army than any other statesman or
soldier in Europe, he was thoroughly suspicious of the intentions of the
Prussian Government; and in sanctioning the alliance of the previous month
he had done so half expecting that Bismarck would through the prestige of
this alliance gain for Prussia its own objects without entering into war,
and then leave Italy to reckon with Austria as best it might. He would
gladly have abandoned the alliance and have accepted Austria's offer if
Italy could have done this without disgrace. But the sense of honour was
sufficiently strong to carry him past this temptation. He declined the
offer made through Paris, and continued the armaments of Italy, though
still with a secret hope that European diplomacy might find the means of
realising the purpose of his country without war. [521]
[Proposals for a Congress.]
The neutral Powers were now, with various objects, bestirring themselves in
favour of a European Congress. Napoleon believed the time to be come when
the Treaties of 1815 might be finally obliterated by the joint act of
Europe. He was himself ready to join Prussia with three hundred thousand
men if the King would transfer the Rhenish Provinces to France. Demands,
direct and indirect, were made on Count Bismarck on behalf of the Tuileries
for cessions of territory of greater or less extent. These demands were
neither granted nor refused. Bismarck procrastinated; he spoke of the
obstinacy of the King his master; he inquired whether parts of Belgium or
Switzerland would not better assimilate with France than a German province;
he put off the Emperor's representatives by the assurance that he could
more conveniently arrange these matters with the Emperor when he should
himself visit Paris. On the 28th of May invitations to a Congress were
issued by France, England, and Russia jointly, the objects of the Congress
being defined as the settlement of the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein, of
the differences between Austria and Italy, and of the reform of the Federal
Constitution of Germany, in so far as these affected Europe at large. The
invitation was accepted by Prussia and by Italy; it was accepted by Austria
only under the condition that no arrangement should be discussed which
should give an increase of territory or power to one of the States invited
to the Congress. This subtly-worded condition would not indeed have
excluded the equal aggrandisement of all. It would not have rendered the
cession of Venetia to Italy or the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to
Prussia impossible; but it would either have involved the surrender of the
former Papal territory by Italy in order that Victor Emmanuel's dominions
should receive no increase, or, in the alternative, it would have entitled
Austria to claim Silesia as its own equivalent for the augmentation of the
Italian Kingdom. Such reservations would have rendered any efforts of the
Powers to preserve peace useless, and they were accepted as tantamount to a
refusal on the part of Austria to attend the Congress. Simultaneously with
its answer to the neutral Powers, Austria called upon the Federal Diet to
take the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein into its own hands, and convoked the
Holstein Estates. Bismarck thereupon declared the Convention of Gastein to
be at an end, and ordered General Manteuffel to lead his troops into
Holstein. The Austrian commander, protesting that he yielded only to
superior force, withdrew through Altona into Hanover. Austria at once
demanded and obtained from the Diet of Frankfort the mobilisation of the
whole of the Federal armies. The representative of Prussia, declaring that
this act of the Diet had made an end of the existing Federal union, handed
in the plan of his Government for the reorganisation of Germany, and
quitted Frankfort. Diplomatic relations between Austria and Prussia were
broken off on the 12th of June, and on the 15th Count Bismarck demanded of
the sovereigns of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel, that they should on
that very day put a stop to their military preparations and accept the
Prussian scheme of Federal reform. Negative answers being given, Prussian
troops immediately marched into these territories, and war began. Weimar,
Mecklenburg, and other petty States in the north took part with Prussia:
all the rest of Germany joined Austria. [522]
[German Opinion.]
The goal of Bismarck's desire, the end which he had steadily set before
himself since entering upon his Ministry, was attained; and, if his
calculations as to the strength of the Prussian army were not at fault,
Austria was at length to be expelled from the German Federation by force of
arms. But the process by which Bismarck had worked up to this result had
ranged against him the almost unanimous opinion of Germany outside the
military circles of Prussia itself. His final demand for the summoning of a
German Parliament was taken as mere comedy. The guiding star of his policy
had hitherto been the dynastic interest of the House of Hohenzollern; and
now, when the Germans were to be plunged into war with one another, it
seemed as if the real object of the struggle was no more than the
annexation of the Danish Duchies and some other coveted territory to the
Prussian Kingdom. The voice of protest and condemnation rose loud from
every organ of public opinion. Even in Prussia itself the instances were
few where any spontaneous support was tendered to the Government. The
Parliament of Berlin, struggling up to the end against the all-powerful
Minister, had seen its members prosecuted for speeches made within its own
walls, and had at last been prorogued in order that its insubordination
might not hamper the Crown in the moment of danger. But the mere
disappearance of Parliament could not conceal the intensity of ill-will
which the Minister and his policy had excited. The author of a fratricidal
war of Germans against Germans was in the eyes of many the greatest of all
criminals; and on the 7th of May an attempt was made by a young fanatic to
take Bismarck's life in the streets of Berlin. The Minister owed the
preservation of his life to the feebleness of his assailant's weapon and to
his own vigorous arm. But the imminence of the danger affected King William
far more than Bismarck himself. It spoke to his simple mind of supernatural
protection and aid; it stilled his doubts; and confirmed him in the belief
that Prussia was in this crisis the instrument for working out the
Almighty's will.
[Napoleon III.]
A few days before the outbreak of hostilities the Emperor Napoleon gave
publicity to his own view of the European situation. He attributed the
coming war to three causes: to the faulty geographical limits of the
Prussian State, to the desire for a better Federal system in Germany, and
to the necessity felt by the Italian nation for securing its independence.
These needs would, he conceived, be met by a territorial rearrangement in
the north of Germany consolidating and augmenting the Prussian Kingdom; by
the creation of a more effective Federal union between the secondary German
States; and finally, by the incorporation of Venetia with Italy, Austria's
position in Germany remaining unimpaired. Only in the event of the map of
Europe being altered to the exclusive advantage of one Great Power would
France require an extension of frontier. Its interests lay in the
preservation of the equilibrium of Europe, and in the maintenance of the
Italian Kingdom. These had already been secured by arrangements which would
not require France to draw the sword; a watchful but unselfish neutrality
was the policy which its Government had determined to pursue. Napoleon had
in fact lost all control over events, and all chance of gaining the Rhenish
Provinces, from the time when he permitted Italy to enter into the Prussian
alliance without any stipulation that France should at its option be
admitted as a third member of the coalition. He could not ally himself with
Austria against his own creation, the Italian Kingdom; on the other hand,
he had no means of extorting cessions from Prussia when once Prussia was
sure of an ally who could bring two hundred thousand men into the field.
His diplomacy had been successful in so far as it had assured Venetia to
Italy whether Prussia should be victorious or overthrown, but as regarded
France it had landed him in absolute powerlessness. He was unable to act on
one side; he was not wanted on the other. Neutrality had become a matter
not of choice but of necessity; and until the course of military events
should have produced some new situation in Europe, France might well be
watchful, but it could scarcely gain much credit for its disinterested
part. [523]
[Hanover and Hesse-Cassel conquered.]
[The Bohemian Campaign, June 26-July 3.]
[Battle of Königgrätz, July 3.]
Assured against an attack from the side of the Rhine, Bismarck was able to
throw the mass of the Prussian forces southwards against Austria, leaving
in the north only the modest contingent which was necessary to overcome the
resistance of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. Through the precipitancy of a
Prussian general, who struck without waiting for his colleagues, the
Hanoverians gained a victory at Langensalza on the 27th of June; but other
Prussian regiments arrived on the field a few hours later, and the
Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate on the next day. The King made his
escape to Austria; the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, less fortunate, was made a
prisoner of war. Northern Germany was thus speedily reduced to submission,
and any danger of a diversion in favour of Austria in this quarter
disappeared. In Saxony no attempt was made to bar the way to the advancing
Prussians. Dresden was occupied without resistance, but the Saxon army
marched southwards in good time, and joined the Austrians in Bohemia. The
Prussian forces, about two hundred and fifty thousand strong, now gathered
on the Saxon and Silesian frontier, covering the line from Pirna to
Landshut. They were composed of three armies: the first, or central, army
under Prince Frederick Charles, a nephew of the King; the second, or
Silesian, army under the Crown Prince; the westernmost, known as the army
of the Elbe, under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld. Against these were
ranged about an equal number of Austrians, led by Benedek, a general who
had gained great distinction in the Hungarian and the Italian campaigns. It
had at first been thought probable that Benedek, whose forces lay about
Olmütz, would invade Southern Silesia, and the Prussian line had therefore
been extended far to the east. Soon, however, it appeared that the
Austrians were unable to take up the offensive, and Benedek moved westwards
into Bohemia. The Prussian line was now shortened, and orders were given to
the three armies to cross the Bohemian frontier and converge in the
direction of the town of Gitschin. General Moltke, the chief of the staff,
directed their operations from Berlin by telegraph. The combined advance of
the three armies was executed with extraordinary precision; and in a series
of hard-fought combats extending from the 26th to the 29th of June the
Austrians were driven back upon their centre, and effective communication
was established between the three invading bodies. On the 30th the King of
Prussia, with General Moltke and Count Bismarck, left Berlin; on the 2nd of
July they were at headquarters at Gitschin. It had been Benedek's design to
leave a small force to hold the Silesian army in check, and to throw the
mass of his army westwards upon Prince Frederick Charles and overwhelm him
before he could receive help from his colleagues. This design had been
baffled by the energy of the Crown Prince's attack, and by the superiority
of the Prussians in generalship, in the discipline of their troops, and in
the weapon they carried; for though the Austrians had witnessed in the
Danish campaign the effects of the Prussian breech-loading rifle, they had
not thought it necessary to adopt a similar arm. Benedek, though no great
battle had yet been fought, saw that the campaign was lost, and wrote to
the Emperor on the 1st of July recommending him to make peace, for
otherwise a catastrophe was inevitable. He then concentrated his army on
high ground a few miles west of Königgrätz, and prepared for a defensive
battle on the grandest scale. In spite of the losses of the past week he
could still bring about two hundred thousand men into action. The three
Prussian armies were now near enough to one another to combine in their
attack, and on the night of July 2nd the King sent orders to the three
commanders to move against Benedek before daybreak. Prince Frederick
Charles, advancing through the village of Sadowa, was the first in the
field. For hours his divisions sustained an unequal struggle against the
assembled strength of the Austrians. Midday passed; the defenders now
pressed down upon their assailants; and preparations for a retreat had been
begun, when the long-expected message arrived that the Crown Prince was
close at hand. The onslaught of the army of Silesia on Benedek's right,
which was accompanied by the arrival of Herwarth at the other end of the
field of battle, at once decided the day. It was with difficulty that the
Austrian commander prevented the enemy from seizing the positions which
would have cut off his retreat. He retired eastwards across the Elbe with a
loss of eighteen thousand killed and wounded and twenty-four thousand
prisoners. His army was ruined; and ten days after the Prussians had
crossed the frontier the war was practically at an end. [524]
[Battle of Custozza, June 24.]
[Napoleon's mediation, July 5.]
[Preliminaries of Nicolsburg, July 26.]
[Treaty of Prague, Aug. 23.]
The disaster of Königgrätz was too great to be neutralised by the success
of the Austrian forces in Italy. La Marmora, who had given up his place at
the head of the Government in order to take command of the army, crossed
the Mincio at the head of a hundred and twenty thousand men, but was
defeated by inferior numbers on the fatal ground of Custozza, and compelled
to fall back on the Oglio. This gleam of success, which was followed by a
naval victory at Lissa off the Istrian coast, made it easier for the
Austrian Emperor to face the sacrifices that were now inevitable.
Immediately after the battle of Königgrätz he invoked the mediation of
Napoleon III., and ceded Venetia to him on behalf of Italy. Napoleon at
once tendered his good offices to the belligerents, and proposed an
armistice. His mediation was accepted in principle by the King or Prussia,
who expressed his willingness also to grant an armistice as soon as
preliminaries of peace were recognised by the Austrian Court. In the
meantime, while negotiations passed between all four Governments, the
Prussians pushed forward until their outposts came within sight of Vienna.
If in pursuance of General Moltke's plan the Italian generals had thrown a
corps north-eastwards from the head of the Adriatic, and so struck at the
very heart of the Austrian monarchy, it is possible that the victors of
Königgrätz might have imposed their own terms without regard to Napoleon's
mediation, and, while adding the Italian Tyrol to Victor Emmanuel's
dominions, have completed the union of Germany under the House of
Hohenzollern at one stroke. But with Hungary still intact, and the Italian
army paralysed by the dissensions of its commanders, prudence bade the
great statesman of Berlin content himself with the advantages which he
could reap without prolongation of the war, and without the risk of
throwing Napoleon into the enemy's camp. He had at first required, as
conditions of peace, that Prussia should be left free to annex Saxony,
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and other North German territory; that Austria
should wholly withdraw from German affairs; and that all Germany, less the
Austrian Provinces, should be united in a Federation under Prussian
leadership. To gain the assent of Napoleon to these terms, Bismarck hinted
that France might by accord with Prussia annex Belgium. Napoleon, however,
refused to agree to the extension of Prussia's ascendency over all Germany,
and presented a counter-project which was in its turn rejected by Bismarck.
It was finally settled that Prussia should not be prevented from annexing
Hanover, Nassau, and Hesse-Cassel, as conquered territory that lay between
its own Rhenish Provinces and the rest of the kingdom; that Austria should
completely withdraw from German affairs; that Germany north of the Main,
together with Saxony, should be included in a Federation under Prussian
leadership; and that for the States south of the Main there should be
reserved the right of entering into some kind of national bond with the
Northern League. Austria escaped without loss of any of its non-Italian
territory; it also succeeded in preserving the existence of Saxony, which,
as in 1815, the Prussian Government had been most anxious to annex.
Napoleon, in confining the Prussian Federation to the north of the Main,
and in securing by a formal stipulation in the Treaty the independence of
the Southern States, imagined himself to have broken Germany into halves,
and to have laid the foundation of a South German League which should look
to France as its protector. On the other hand, Bismarck by his annexation
of Hanover and neighbouring districts had added a population of four
millions to the Prussian Kingdom, and given it a continuous territory; he
had forced Austria out of the German system; he had gained its sanction to
the Federal union of all Germany north of the Main, and had at least kept
the way open for the later extension of this union to the Southern States.
Preliminaries of peace embodying these conditions and recognising Prussia's
sovereignty in Schleswig-Holstein were signed at Nicolsburg on the 26th of
July, and formed the basis of the definitive Treaty of Peace which was
concluded at Prague on the 23rd of August. An illusory clause, added at the
instance of Napoleon, provided that if the population of the northern
districts of Schleswig should by a free vote express the wish to be united
with Denmark, these districts should be ceded to the Danish Kingdom. [525]
[The South German States.]
[Secret Treaties of the Southern States with Prussia.]
Bavaria and the south-western allies of Austria, though their military
action was of an ineffective character, continued in arms for some weeks
after the battle of Königgrätz and the suspension of hostilities arranged
at Nicolsburg did not come into operation on their behalf till the 2nd of
August. Before that date their forces were dispersed and their power of
resistance broken by the Prussian generals Falckenstein and Manteuffel in a
series of unimportant engagements and intricate manoeuvres. The City of
Frankfort, against which Bismarck seems to have borne some personal hatred,
was treated for a while by the conquerors with extraordinary and most
impolitic harshness; in other respects the action of the Prussian
Government towards these conquered States was not such as to render future
union and friendship difficult. All the South German Governments, with the
single exception of Baden, appealed to the Emperor Napoleon for assistance
in the negotiations which they had opened at Berlin. But at the very moment
when this request was made and granted Napoleon was himself demanding from
Bismarck the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate and of the Hessian
districts west of the Rhine. Bismarck had only to acquaint the King of
Bavaria and the South German Ministers with the designs of their French
protector in order to reconcile them to his own chastening, but not
unfriendly, hand. The grandeur of a united Fatherland flashed upon minds
hitherto impenetrable by any national ideal when it became known that
Napoleon was bargaining for Oppenheim and Kaiserslautern. Not only were the
insignificant questions as to the war-indemnities to be paid to Prussia and
the frontier villages to be exchanged promptly settled, but by a series of
secret Treaties all the South German States entered into an offensive and
defensive alliance with the Prussian King, and engaged in case of war to
place their entire forces at his disposal and under his command. The
diplomacy of Napoleon III. had in the end effected for Bismarck almost more
than his earlier intervention had frustrated, for it had made the South
German Courts the allies of Prussia not through conquest or mere compulsion
but out of regard for their own interests. [526] It was said by the
opponents of the Imperial Government in France, and scarcely with
exaggeration, that every error which it was possible to commit had, in the
course of the year 1866, been committed by Napoleon III. One crime, one act
of madness, remained open to the Emperor's critics, to lash him and France
into a conflict with the Power whose union he had not been able to prevent.
[Projects of compensation for France.]
Prior to the battle of Königgrätz, it would seem that all the suggestions
of the French Emperor relating to the acquisition of Belgium were made to
the Prussian Government through secret agents, and that they were actually
unknown, or known by mere hearsay, to Benedetti, the French Ambassador at
Berlin. According to Prince Bismarck, these overtures had begun as early as
1862, when he was himself Ambassador at Paris, and were then made verbally
and in private notes to himself; they were the secret of Napoleon's
neutrality during the Danish war; and were renewed through relatives and
confidential agents of the Emperor when the struggle with Austria was seen
to be approaching. The ignorance in which Count Benedetti was kept of his
master's private diplomacy may to some extent explain the extraordinary
contradictions between the accounts given by this Minister and by Prince
Bismarck of the negotiations that passed between them in the period
following the campaign of 1866, after Benedetti had himself been charged to
present the demands of the French Government. In June, while the Ambassador
was still, as it would seem, in ignorance of what was passing behind his
back, he had informed the French Ministry that Bismarck, anxious for the
preservation of French neutrality, had hinted at the compensations that
might be made to France if Prussia should meet with great success in the
coming war. According to the report of the Ambassador, made at the time,
Count Bismarck stated that he would rather withdraw from public life than
cede the Rhenish Provinces with Cologne and Bonn, but that he believed it
would be possible to gain the King's ultimate consent to the cession of the
Prussian district of Trèves on the Upper Moselle, which district, together
with Luxemburg or parts of Belgium and Switzerland, would give France an
adequate improvement of its frontier. The Ambassador added in his report,
by way of comment, that Count Bismarck was the only man in the kingdom who
was disposed to make any cession of Prussian territory whatever, and that a
unanimous and violent revulsion against France would be excited by the
slightest indication of any intention on the part of the French Government
to extend its frontiers towards the Rhine. He concluded his report with the
statement that, after hearing Count Bismarck's suggestions, he had brought
the discussion to a summary close, not wishing to leave the Prussian
Minister under the impression that any scheme involving the seizure of
Belgian or Swiss territory had the slightest chance of being seriously
considered at Paris. (June 4-8.)
[Demand for Rhenish territory, July 25-Aug. 7, 1866.]
[The Belgian project, Aug. 16-30.]
Benedetti probably wrote these last words in full sincerity. Seven weeks
later, after the settlement of the Preliminaries at Nicolsburg, he was
ordered to demand the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate, of the portion of
Hesse-Darmstadt west of the Rhine, including Mainz, and of the strip of
Prussian territory on the Saar which had been left to France in 1814 but
taken from it in 1815. According to the statement of Prince Bismarck, which
would seem to be exaggerated, this demand was made by Benedetti as an
ultimatum and with direct threats of war, which were answered by Bismarck
in language of equal violence. In any case the demand was unconditionally
refused, and Benedetti travelled to Paris in order to describe what had
passed at the Prussian headquarters. His report made such an impression on
the Emperor that the demand for cessions on the Rhine was at once
abandoned, and the Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, who had been disposed
to enforce this by arms, was compelled to quit office. Benedetti returned
to Berlin, and now there took place that negotiation relating to Belgium on
which not only the narratives of the persons immediately concerned, but the
documents written at the time, leave so much that is strange and
unexplained. According to Benedetti, Count Bismarck was keenly anxious to
extend the German Federation to the South of the Main, and desired with
this object an intimate union with at least one Great Power. He sought in
the first instance the support of France, and offered in return to
facilitate the seizure of Belgium. The negotiation, according to Benedetti,
failed because the Emperor Napoleon required that the fortresses in
Southern Germany should be held by the troops of the respective States to
which they belonged, while at the same time General Manteuffel, who had
been sent from Berlin on a special mission to St. Petersburg, succeeded in
effecting so intimate a union with Russia that alliance with France became
unnecessary. According to the counter-statement of Prince Bismarck, the
plan now proposed originated entirely with the French Ambassador, and was
merely a repetition of proposals which had been made by Napoleon during the
preceding four years, and which were subsequently renewed at intervals by
secret agents almost down to the outbreak of the war of 1870. Prince
Bismarck has stated that he dallied with these proposals only because a
direct refusal might at any moment have caused the outbreak of war between
France and Prussia, a catastrophe which up to the end he sought to avert.
In any case the negotiation with Benedetti led to no conclusion, and was
broken off by the departure of both statesmen from Berlin in the beginning
of autumn. [527]
[Prussia and North Germany after the war.]
The war of 1866 had been brought to an end with extraordinary rapidity; its
results were solid and imposing. Venice, perplexed no longer by its
Republican traditions or by doubts of the patriotism of the House of Savoy,
prepared to welcome King Victor Emmanuel; Bismarck, returning from the
battle-field of Königgrätz, found his earlier unpopularity forgotten in the
flood of national enthusiasm which his achievements and those of the army
had evoked. A new epoch had begun; the antagonisms of the past were out of
date; nobler work now stood before the Prussian people and its rulers than
the perpetuation of a barren struggle between Crown and Parliament. By none
was the severance from the past more openly expressed than by Bismarck
himself; by none was it more bitterly felt than by the old Conservative
party in Prussia, who had hitherto regarded the Minister as their own
representative. In drawing up the Constitution of the North German
Federation, Bismarck remained true to the principle which he had laid down
at Frankfort before the war, that the German people must be represented by
a Parliament elected directly by the people themselves. In the
incorporation of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel and the Danish Duchies with Prussia,
he saw that it would be impossible to win the new populations to a loyal
union with Prussia if the King's Government continued to recognise no
friends but the landed aristocracy and the army. He frankly declared that
the action of the Cabinet in raising taxes without the consent of
Parliament had been illegal, and asked for an Act of Indemnity. The
Parliament of Berlin understood and welcomed the message of reconciliation.
It heartily forgave the past, and on its own initiative added the name of
Bismarck to those for whose services to the State the King asked a
recompense. The Progressist party, which had constituted the majority in
the last Parliament, gave place to a new combination known as the National
Liberal party, which, while adhering to the Progressist creed in domestic
affairs, gave its allegiance to the Foreign and the German policy of the
Minister. Within this party many able men who in Hanover and the other
annexed territories had been the leaders of opposition to their own
Governments now found a larger scope and a greater political career. More
than one of the colleagues of Bismarck who had been appointed to their
offices in the years of conflict were allowed to pass into retirement, and
their places were filled by men in sympathy with the National Liberals.
With the expansion of Prussia and the establishment of its leadership in a
German Federal union, the ruler of Prussia seemed himself to expand from
the instrument of a military monarchy to the representative of a great
nation.
[Hungary and Austria, 1865.]
To Austria the battle of Königgrätz brought a settlement of the conflict
between the Crown and Hungary. The Constitution of February, 1861,
hopefully as it had worked during its first years, had in the end fallen
before the steady refusal of the Magyars to recognise the authority of a
single Parliament for the whole Monarchy. Within the Reichsrath itself the
example of Hungary told as a disintegrating force; the Poles, the Czechs
seceded from the Assembly; the Minister, Schmerling, lost his authority,
and was forced to resign in the summer of 1865. Soon afterwards an edict of
the Emperor suspended the Constitution. Count Belcredi, who took office in
Schmerling's place, attempted to arrive at an understanding with the Magyar
leaders. The Hungarian Diet was convoked, and was opened by the King in
person before the end of the year. Francis Joseph announced his abandonment
of the principle that Hungary had forfeited its ancient rights by
rebellion, and asked in return that the Diet should not insist upon
regarding the laws of 1848 as still in force. Whatever might be the formal
validity of those laws, it was, he urged, impossible that they should be
brought into operation unaltered. For the common affairs of the two halves
of the Monarchy there must be some common authority. It rested with the
Diet to arrive at the necessary understanding with the Sovereign on this
point, and to place on a satisfactory footing the relations of Hungary to
Transylvania and Croatia. As soon as an accord should have been reached on
these subjects, Francis Joseph stated that he would complete his
reconciliation with the Magyars by being crowned King of Hungary.
[Deák.]
In the Assembly to which these words were addressed the majority was
composed of men of moderate opinions, under the leadership of Francis Deák.
Deák had drawn up the programme of the Hungarian Liberals in the election
of 1847. He had at that time appeared to be marked out by his rare
political capacity and the simple manliness of his character for a great,
if not the greatest, part in the work that then lay before his country. But
the violence of revolutionary methods was alien to his temperament. After
serving in Batthyány's Ministry, he withdrew from public life on the
outbreak of war with Austria, and remained in retirement during the
dictatorship of Kossuth and the struggle of 1849. As a loyal friend to the
Hapsburg dynasty, and a clear-sighted judge of the possibilities of the
time, he stood apart while Kossuth dethroned the Sovereign and proclaimed
Hungarian independence. Of the patriotism and the disinterestedness of Deák
there was never the shadow of a doubt; a distinct political faith severed
him from the leaders whose enterprise ended in the catastrophe which he had
foreseen, and preserved for Hungary one statesman who could, without
renouncing his own past and without inflicting humiliation on the
Sovereign, stand as the mediator between Hungary and Austria when the time
for reconciliation should arrive. Deák was little disposed to abate
anything of what he considered the just demands of his country. It was
under his leadership that the Diet had in 1861 refused to accept the
Constitution which established a single Parliament for the whole Monarchy.
The legislative independence of Hungary he was determined at all costs to
preserve intact; rather than surrender this he had been willing in 1861 to
see negotiations broken off and military rule restored. But when Francis
Joseph, wearied of the sixteen years' struggle, appealed once more to
Hungary for union and friendship, there was no man more earnestly desirous
to reconcile the Sovereign with the nation, and to smooth down the
opposition to the King's proposals which arose within the Diet itself, than
Deák.
[Scheme of Hungarian Committee, June 25, 1866.]
Under his influence a committee was appointed to frame the necessary basis
of negotiation. On the 25th of June, 1866, the Committee gave in its
report. It declared against any Parliamentary union with the Cis-Leithan
half of the Monarchy, but consented to the establishment of common
Ministries for War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, and recommended that the
Budget necessary for these joint Ministries should be settled by
Delegations from the Hungarian Diet and from the western Reichsrath. [528]
The Delegations, it was proposed, should meet separately, and communicate
their views to one another by writing. Only when agreement should not have
been thus attained were the Delegations to unite in a single body, in which
case the decision was to rest with an absolute majority of votes.
[Negotiations with Hungary after Königgrätz.]
[Federalism or Dualism.]
[Settlement by Beust.]
[Francis Joseph's Coronation, June 8, 1867.]
The debates of the Diet on the proposals of King Francis Joseph had been
long and anxious; it was not until the moment when the war with Prussia was
breaking out that the Committee presented its report. The Diet was now
prorogued, but immediately after the battle of Königgrätz the Hungarian
leaders were called to Vienna, and negotiations were pushed forward on the
lines laid down by the Committee. It was a matter of no small moment to the
Court of Vienna that while bodies of Hungarian exiles had been preparing to
attack the Empire both from the side of Silesia and of Venice, Deák and his
friends had loyally abstained from any communication with the foreign
enemies of the House of Hapsburg. That Hungary would now gain almost
complete independence was certain; the question was not so much whether
there should be an independent Parliament and Ministry at Pesth as whether
there should not be a similarly independent Parliament and Ministry in each
of the territories of the Crown, the Austrian Sovereign becoming the head
of a Federation instead of the chief of a single or a dual State. Count
Belcredi, the Minister at Vienna, was disposed towards such a Federal
system; he was, however, now confronted within the Cabinet by a rival who
represented a different policy. After making peace with Prussia, the
Emperor called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Count Beust, who had
hitherto been at the head of the Saxon Government, and who had been the
representative of the German Federation at the London Conference of 1864.
Beust, while ready to grant the Hungarians their independence, advocated
the retention of the existing Reichsrath and of a single Ministry for all
the Cis-Leithan parts of the Monarchy. His plan, which pointed to the
maintenance of German ascendency in the western provinces, and which deeply
offended the Czechs and the Slavic populations, was accepted by the
Emperor: Belcredi withdrew from office, and Beust was charged, as President
of the Cabinet, with the completion of the settlement with Hungary (Feb. 7,
1867). Deák had hitherto left the chief ostensible part in the negotiations
to Count Andrássy, one of the younger patriots of 1848, who had been
condemned to be hanged, and had lived a refugee during the next ten years.
He now came to Vienna himself, and in the course of a few days removed the
last remaining difficulties. The King gratefully charged him with the
formation of the Hungarian Ministry under the restored Constitution, but
Deák declined alike all office, honours, and rewards, and Andrássy, who had
actually been hanged in effigy, was placed at the head of the Government.
The Diet, which had reassembled shortly before the end of 1866, greeted the
national Ministry with enthusiasm. Alterations in the laws of 1848 proposed
in accordance with the agreement made at Vienna, and establishing the three
common Ministries with the system of Delegations for common affairs, were
carried by large majorities. [529] The abdication of Ferdinand, which
throughout the struggle of 1849 Hungary had declined to recognise, was now
acknowledged as valid, and on the 8th of June, 1867, Francis Joseph was
crowned King of Hungary amid the acclamations of Pesth. The gift of money
which is made to each Hungarian monarch on his coronation Francis Joseph by
a happy impulse distributed among the families of those who had fallen in
fighting against him in 1849. A universal amnesty was proclaimed, no
condition being imposed on the return of the exiles but that they should
acknowledge the existing Constitution. Kossuth alone refused to return to
his country so long as a Hapsburg should be its King, and proudly clung to
ideas which were already those of the past.
[Hungary since 1867.]
The victory of the Magyars was indeed but too complete. Not only were Beust
and the representatives of the western half of the Monarchy so overmatched
by the Hungarian negotiators that in the distribution of the financial
burdens of the Empire Hungary escaped with far too small a share, but in
the more important problem of the relation of the Slavic and Roumanian
populations of the Hungarian Kingdom to the dominant race no adequate steps
were taken for the protection of these subject nationalities. That Croatia
and Transylvania should be reunited with Hungary if the Emperor and the
Magyars were ever to be reconciled was inevitable; and in the case of
Croatia certain conditions were no doubt imposed, and certain local rights
guaranteed. But on the whole the non-Magyar peoples in Hungary were handed
over to the discretion of the ruling race. The demand of Bismarck that the
centre of gravity of the Austrian States should be transferred from Vienna
to Pesth had indeed been brought to pass. While in the western half of the
Monarchy the central authority, still represented by a single Parliament,
seemed in the succeeding years to be altogether losing its cohesive power,
and the political life of Austria became a series of distracting
complications, in Hungary the Magyar Government resolutely set itself to
the task of moulding into one the nationalities over which it ruled.
Uniting the characteristic faults with the great qualities of a race marked
out by Nature and ancient habit for domination over more numerous but less
aggressive neighbours, the Magyars have steadily sought to the best of
their power to obliterate the distinctions which make Hungary in reality
not one but several nations. They have held the Slavic and the Roumanian
population within their borders with an iron grasp, but they have not
gained their affection. The memory of the Russian intervention in 1849 and
of the part then played by Serbs, by Croats and Roumanians in crushing
Magyar independence has blinded the victors to the just claims of these
races both within and without the Hungarian kingdom, and attached their
sympathy to the hateful and outworn empire of the Turk. But the
individuality of peoples is not to be blotted out in a day; nor, with all
its striking advance in wealth, in civilisation, and in military power, has
the Magyar State been able to free itself from the insecurity arising from
the presence of independent communities on its immediate frontiers
belonging to the same race as those whose language and nationality it seeks
to repress.