THE RESETTLEMENT OF EUROPE
When Napoleon had been finally chained down, under the ward of the
British Government, on the rock of St. Helena, the Emperors of Russia
and Austria and the King of Prussia made a compact, which was called
the Holy Alliance, with the principal and excellent object of
maintaining peace. It is not easy to estimate how far it succeeded
in that good aim, because we cannot be sure how many wars were
checked by the existence of the alliance. Probably we ought to give
it credit for some negative results of this kind which do not make
any show in the story.
It had one curious effect, at all events. The Spanish settlements in
South America had taken advantage of the distracted condition of
Europe to declare their independence of the mother country. Spain
appealed to the Holy Alliance to help her in regaining them, and the
Alliance received the appeal favourably. But, before anything came
of it, the United States put forward a famous declaration, known as
the Monroe Doctrine, saying that they would not tolerate any
interference, or any further colonisation, by any European Power, in
either of the American Continents. Even so, Spain and the Holy
Alliance might possibly have proceeded with their project had Great
Britain favoured it. But Great Britain, on the contrary, was found
to be not at all in its favour--for one thing her {196} own
experience in attempting to bring American colonists under a home
Government which they disliked had not been encouraging--so the idea
of putting pressure on the Spaniards in South America was at once and
finally abandoned. It could not have been undertaken with any
prospect of success if two nations so dominant at sea as Great
Britain and the United States were opposed to it.
This Holy Alliance was formed between the three most powerful and
most despotic rulers in Europe. Its essential idea was to maintain
peace and order, but, as was evident from this very design of
forcibly helping Spain to bring back her South American sheep into
the home fold, it was peace and order according to the ideas of these
despotic rulers. That is to say, that its ideals were in no accord
with the spirit of freedom which had been let loose by the French
Revolution, and was still working throughout the world, although for
the moment it had lost some of its vitality because of the alarm
excited by the extreme violence of that Revolution.
Both the allied Emperors had within their boundaries peoples over
whom they held a sovereignty by force, and much against the will of
the governed. The Russian great bear had his paw on a prostrate, but
always protesting, Poland. The Austrian double-headed eagle had
occasion to be on watchful guard in two directions, both east and
south-west. The rulers of all the States of Italy held their
governments virtually under Austrian direction, and by none, except
perhaps the Pope, whom she had been influential in restoring to his
Papal States, was she beloved.
[Sidenote: Austro-Hungarian War]
But she had more cause for anxious watchfulness on the east. In
course of the gradual relaxing of the Turk's grip on Europe, that
Oriental power had been forced to relinquish Hungary to Austria at
the end of the nineteenth century. The population of Hungary {197}
was mixed, but by far the largest blend in the mixture was of people
of Magyar race, which had affinity with the Finns, the natives of
Finland. The language and the chief men were Magyar. They never
blended kindly with the Germanic Austrians, and were jealous in
maintaining their own national identity. In 1833 they obtained the
concession that the debates in their own Parliament might be
conducted in the Magyar language. But there was ever this constant
friction, the Austrian Crown trying to reduce the Hungarians to more
complete dependence and the Hungarians constantly striving for more
freedom. Finally war blazed out, from all this smouldering trouble,
just before the middle of the century, when the Austrian Emperor
abdicated in favour of Francis Joseph, his nephew, and the Hungarians
refused to recognise the nephew as their king.
The Magyar orator and statesman, Kossuth, was the great figure in
this gallant effort of the Hungarians for their liberty. In the
early period of the struggle the Hungarians gained victories, and
there was a moment when it seems that, had they pushed forward, they
might have taken Vienna itself, Austria's capital city. But they did
not so push on. The Austrian armies were reinforced, and then
Austria called in the help of her friend in the Holy Alliance,
Russia. That was a combination against which the Hungarians could
not well be successful. Their revolt was put down with cruel
severity. For the time being they gave up the idea of independence,
though their sense of a nationality distinct from that of their
conquerors remained as vivid as ever.
This rising, and its suppression, occurred in the years 1848 and
1849. By the year 1866 a rift had appeared in the Alliance so-called
Holy; and Austria was actually at war with Prussia. The war arose
out of a work of spoliation done by the two allies two years {198}
before, when they had combined to take the provinces of
Schleswig-Holstein from under the rule of Denmark. The population of
those provinces was in part Scandinavian and in part Germanic, so
that they were divided in their political desires, some of the people
favouring union with Denmark and others wishing to be taken into the
Confederation of German States. On their own part they were claiming
their independence of the Danish rule. There was therefore a certain
excuse for the action of these two Holy Allies; but now, when they
had done the act of robbery, they quarrelled over the division of the
spoils. Prussia claimed to take both Schleswig and Holstein under
her own dominance. Austria said that she should at least be given
one of them for her share. The result was the outbreak of that which
has been called the Seven Weeks' War, in which Prussia was completely
victorious.
And in this brief campaign there were Hungarian legions fighting on
the side of Prussia against Austria, their own sovereign. That,
however, did not imply that Austria's sovereignty was weakened, and
in the following year, that is, in 1867, Francis Joseph the Austrian
Emperor, was formally crowned King of Hungary at Buda-Pesth, the
Hungarian capital.
In this way Austria and Hungary came to stand in a curious position
towards one another. They were two kingdoms under the same ruler--a
double kingdom.
Another outcome of that Schleswig-Holstein conflict and of the Seven
Weeks' War was that the Confederation of the German States was
reconstituted. The old single confederation was broken up into a
North German Confederation, of which Prussia was the head, and a
South German Confederation, the river Maine being taken as the
boundary between them. Austria stood apart politically, though
geographically belonging to the Southern group.
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In spite of her defeat then, Austria maintained her old dominance
over Hungary, but she did not succeed in maintaining for long the far
less definite dominance which the European Powers had assigned to
her, at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, over the various
States of Italy.
Italy was later than any other land of Europe in settling down into
the national boundaries which remained without any break of
importance until the Great War. We may indeed say that the very idea
of Italy as a single nation had scarcely existed before the year 1830
or thereabouts. Men did not regard Italy as a unit; but thought of
Tuscany, of Venice, of the Papal States, of the Kingdom of Naples,
and so on.
[Sidenote: The Young Italy Party]
But the year 1831 was epoch-making, as we say, for Italy, because it
was the year in which the great Italian patriot Mazzini began to gain
men's attention. He formed what was styled the "Young Italy" party,
of which the leading idea might be called, according to a phrase now
in common use, "Italy for the Italians." He had this good ground to
work on, that the people of Italy, speaking of the country as we know
it to-day, were for the most part of the same stock and, with certain
local differences, spoke the same language.
Mazzini then, and his "Young Italy" party, went working and speaking
to inspire the people with their own views. Already there was a
widespread hatred of the Austrians, which made these views
acceptable. In 1846 a Pope of liberal tendencies came to the papal
throne and accorded his subjects a measure of freedom which gave
offence and alarm to the Austrians. They sent an army to subvert
these popular measures, and on that there was a general rush to arms
on part of the peoples of Central and Northern Italy.
For a while all went in favour of the Italian arms, but the Austrians
brought reinforcements, the tide {200} of Italian success was stayed,
was driven back; by the middle of the century all was as before the
rising--except that a keen national spirit had been aroused in the
Italian people.
For a while it could not find expression. But in the year 1859 it at
length found outlet by the help of a neighbour who had not usually
played the part of Italy's friend in our story. Already, ten years
before, the French had taken a hand in the internal struggles of
Italy. They had captured Rome, when its citizens had declared for a
republic and had driven out their Pope; and had restored the Pope to
the sovereignty of his Papal States.
But in the interval strange things had been happening in France. The
Bourbon who was brought back to the French throne at the end of the
Napoleonic wars, and his younger brother who succeeded him, ruled not
much more wisely than their fathers. Bitter experience had taught
them nothing. In 1830 the mob of Paris rose against the king, forced
him to flee for his life, and elected his relative, Louis Philippe,
of the younger, the Orleans, branch, king in his stead. He was
acceptable to the people as the son of that Philippe who had been,
entitled Philippe "Egalité," because he took the side of the people
in the early days of the French Revolution.
Louis Philippe ruled France from 1830 to 1848, and then his
government also gave offence. Again, there was a rising of the
people of Paris, supported by the old soldiers of the National Guard,
which the king had unwisely disbanded. Again the rising was
successful, and now it was no longer a king of any kind that the vote
of the people called to govern them. They declared for a republic,
and as President they elected one of the deputies to the Assembly.
The name of that deputy was Louis Napoleon, and he was nephew of the
great Emperor. Twice he had made attempts {201} to seize the
government by force, but each time with so little success as to seem
merely ridiculous.
From the moment of his election he began to have difficulties with
the Assembly. Its members still seem to have regarded their
President as a man of small account, an adventurer, trading on the
reputation of his name, who twice had made himself a laughing stock.
Then, on a certain night in 1851, he sent soldiers to the houses of
the leaders who opposed him in the Assembly. The soldiers took the
surprised statesmen from their beds and threw them into prisons. The
next morning Paris awoke to find its walls placarded with the
announcement that the Assembly was dissolved and that Paris was under
martial law.
[Sidenote: Napoleon III]
The people were reconciled to the surprising stroke by the right of
universal suffrage--every man of age to have a vote--being restored
to them. There was an attempt at a counter-stroke; but after some
hundreds had been shot down, as by that "whiff of grapeshot" with
which this Napoleon's uncle had dispersed the Paris mob years before,
all further trouble ceased. Yet another change in the constitution
of the government appointed Louis Napoleon ruler of France for ten
years. Less than a year later he was proclaimed Emperor of the
French with the style of Napoleon III.; for the title of Napoleon II.
had been given to the son of Napoleon I. who had died without ever
reigning as Emperor.
There had been many adventures in the new Emperor's life. In his
young days he had served with the Italian revolutionists against the
Papal States, and had thus a rather personal interest in the Young
Italy movement of Mazzini. It is certain too, and very natural, that
he felt the influence of his name, and the tradition of his uncle's
glory. The very fact that he had followed that uncle to the imperial
throne would strengthen that influence. In obedience to it he was
{202} impelled to lead France to further adventures, in some small
imitation of that uncle's grandiose schemes. Moreover, his hold on
the throne was none too secure: the more distraction he could find
abroad for the restless spirit of the people, the less risk there was
of disturbances to shake him from the throne at home.
Some such blend of motives seems to have driven him to be constantly
seeking occasions to put his armies in the field. He found such
occasion first against Russia--against Russia, and in support of the
Turk!
It was a curious reversal of all that seems right and natural, though
already we have seen the Turk strangely and occasionally allied with
one Christian power against another. But generally we have found the
Turk regarded as the common foe against whom all Christendom must
combine. The truth is that the Turk was no longer at this time the
power to be dreaded that he had been. He had for long been standing
on the defensive in Europe, trying, but on the whole rather failing,
to hold what he had won.
And on the other hand Russia, now the Turk's principal foe, had
become so powerful that all Europe was afraid of her, afraid of her
upsetting that "balance of power" in Europe of which we now begin to
hear a good deal. In particular, she was reaching down to get
Constantinople for her port; and France, and other nations of Europe,
conceived it their business to see that she did not get it, with all
the increase of power that it would bring her.
[Sidenote: The Crimean War]
To that opinion Napoleon III., a man of character and abilities which
have puzzled all historians, but certainly a man of much astuteness,
had brought opinion in Great Britain. Great Britain was beginning,
on her own account, to fear the Russian push down towards the
northern bounds of her Indian possessions. And so now, that is to
say, most particularly in 1854, {203} we see another reversal,
another happening rather different from all that the story has been
wont to show us. For we see now those old enemies, England and
France, in friendly alliance together, partners in the very fruitless
enterprise known as the Crimean War. It was fought with much
bloodshed and misery and cost to all three nations involved, and
ended in a barren victory for the English and French.
Possibly it did check the Russians in their movement towards
Constantinople, possibly it did something to maintain that much
desired balance of power; but of positive result there was little or
even none.
Nor did the Crimean War put a final end to the troubles between
Russia and Turkey. Russia, as the great Slav power, was sure to find
herself opposed to Turkey, who ruled over the Slavs in portions of
the Balkans. There was war between them again, thirty years later,
in 1877, but yet again its result solved no problems.
Shortly after the conclusion of his Crimean enterprise the Emperor
went adventuring again--on the adventure at which I have already
hinted--and this time, it must be admitted, with a far more evident
mark set upon the world's story as its outcome. For in 1859, in
conjunction with the Sardinian army, we find him helping the
Italians, inspired by their new sense of nationality, to express
their hatred for the domination of Austria. Again following the
footsteps of his great uncle, he defeated the Austrians in two
successive battles in the North of Italy, and drove them out of
Lombardy.
Meanwhile, under the popular leader Garibaldi, the southern part of
the peninsula had been won for the Italian people in 1860. An
Italian Parliament, so called for the first time, was summoned, and
the King of Sardinia elected King of Italy, though not yet with a
kingship over the whole of what we now call Italy. {204} There were,
still outstanding, Venice and the Papal States. As the price of her
help, France received the Sardinian provinces of Savoy and Nice.
[Illustration: GARIBALDI.]
In 1866, however, this new Italy took the side of Prussia against
Austria in their fight over Schleswig-Holstein. Both on land and sea
the Italians were defeated, but no doubt they kept employed some of
the Austrian force which, but for Italy's help, might have been used
against Prussia, and as the recompense that help Italy was given
Venice and the Venetian territory at the end of the Seven Weeks' War.
{205}
Garibaldi with his followers defeated the Papal troops, and entered
Rome in the following year, but the French, again appearing as the
Pope's friend, stepped in, recaptured Rome for the Pope, and forced
Garibaldi and his army to surrender. It was largely due to
Garibaldi's gallant efforts, nevertheless, that the Papal States were
shortly afterwards finally incorporated into the kingdom of Italy,
and in the following year, that is, in 1871, Rome became the capital
of the kingdom and the seat of Government. The temporal power of the
Pope was at an end; the national unity of Italy was virtually
complete.
France, at that moment, had little enough attention to spare for
affairs other than her own. Trouble had arisen between Napoleon III.
and the King of Prussia, leader of that Northern Confederation of
German States which Bismarck had firmly welded together, over the
succession to the Spanish throne. Save for that Franco-German
trouble, Spain, since her great days, has made little mark on the
Greatest Story. As we have already seen before, so now again, she
played her own part, cut off from the main stage behind the barrier
formed by the Pyrenees. It was a troubled drama. One king and then
another was tried and found wanting. An experiment with a republican
form of government had even less success. A solution was found in
going back to a representative of the old royal family in 1875; and
his successor is on the throne of Spain to-day.
[Sidenote: Franco-German War]
As to that Franco-German war which resulted in 1870 from the dispute
over the Spanish succession, it is still debated whether its actual
outbreak was due to the ambition and machinations of Bismarck and the
military spirit in Prussia or to the restlessness and ambition of
Napoleon. Certain it is that he was very ready to take offence with
Prussia which had already baulked him in a design of purchasing from
Holland {206} the Duchy of Luxemburg. That project had to be
abandoned, and Luxemburg remained a Grand Duchy attached to the
throne of Holland, until 1890, when a queen came to the Dutch Crown
and Luxemburg passed under the Salic Law to the eldest male of the
same family. Napoleon had expected that he would be helped, in the
fight against Prussia, by Austria and also by the Southern
Confederation of the States of Germany. But he had under-estimated
the skill with which Bismarck held all the Teutonic States together.
Neither of these came to his assistance when he declared war. And
within a very short time after that declaration it became equally
certain that he had wholly under-estimated the power and the
readiness for action of the Prussian fighting machine.
In the course of a few weeks consistently disastrous for France, two
of her principal armies laid down their arms, and at Sedan the
Emperor himself was taken prisoner. Paris was besieged, and yielded
under stress of famine early in 1871. Peace was made on the terms
that France should pay a money indemnity and should give up to
Germany Alsace and Lorraine. There was the usual anarchical
interlude of the Commune, when the mob obtained temporary possession
of Paris; and finally a republican form of government was adopted
which still endures. Those provinces which Germany thus took from
France remained under German rule until given back to her at the end
of the Great War.
One result of the war of 1870 to 1871 was that the domination of
Prussia over the rest of the German States was yet more firmly
established. The Southern, as well as the Northern, were brought
into one group, and the King of Prussia assumed the supremacy over
all with the title of German Emperor.
[Sidenote: Norway and Sweden]
That severance of Alsace and Lorraine from France was the last change
of really large importance made in {207} the map of Europe during the
nineteenth century. It was almost the latest made before the Great
War. In Scandinavia there was a later rearrangement, where Norway,
who had for a long while chafed under her union with Sweden and
desired freedom and recognition as a separate nation, attained her
aim in 1905.
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