THE WAR OF 1859--VILLAFRANCA
On the whole it can be safely assumed that Napoleon's hark back was
real, and was not a move "pour mieux sauter." He was not pleased at
the cool reception given in Italy to a pamphlet known to have been
inspired by him, in which the old scheme was revived of a federation
of Italian States under the presidency of the Pope. The Empress was
against war--it was said "for fear of a reverse." Perhaps she thought
already what she said when flying from Paris in 1870: "En France il ne
faut pas être malheureux." But more than this fear, anxiety for the
head of the Church made her anti-Italian, and, with her, the whole
clerical party. Nor was this the limit of the opposition which the
proposed war of liberation encountered. Though France did not know of
the secret treaty, she knew enough to understand by this time where
she was being led, and with singular unanimity she protested. When
such different persons as Guizot; Lamartine, and Proudhon pronounced
against a free Italy,--when no one except the Paris workman showed
the slightest enthusiasm for the war,--it is hardly surprising if
Napoleon, seized with alarm for his dynasty, was glad of any plausible
excuse for a retreat. Such an excuse was forthcoming in the Russian
proposal of a Congress, which was warmly seconded by England. Austria
accepted the proposal subject to two conditions: the previous
disarmament of Piedmont, and its exclusion from the Congress. The
bearing of the French Ministry became almost insulting; the Emperor,
said Walewski, was not going to rush into a war to favour Sardinia's
ambition; everything would be peaceably settled by the Congress, in
which Piedmont had not the smallest right to take part. None of the
usual private hints came from the Tuileries to counteract the effect
of these words.
Cavour was plunged in blank despair. He wrote to Napoleon that they
would be driven to some desperate act, which was answered by a call to
Paris; but his interviews with the Emperor only increased his fears.
He threatened the king's abdication and his own retirement. He would
go to America and publish all his correspondence with Napoleon. He
alone was responsible for the course his country had taken, the
pledges it had given, the engagements already performed (by which he
meant the consent wrenched from the king to the Princess Clotilde's
marriage). The responsibility would be crushing if he became guilty
before God and man of the disasters which menaced his king and his
country.
The English Government now proposed that all the Italian States should
be admitted to the Congress, and that Austria as well as Piedmont
should he invited to disarm. On April 17 Cavour sent a note agreeing
to this plan. It was a tremendous risk; but it was the only way to
prevent Piedmont from being deserted and left to its fate. If Austria
also consented, all was lost: there would be peace. Could the gods be
trusted to make her mad? Cavour's nervous organisation was strained at
a tension that nearly snapped the cord. It is believed that he was on
the brink of suicide. On April 19 he shut himself up in his room and
gave orders that no one should be admitted. On being told of this, his
faithful friend, Castelli, who was one of the few persons not afraid
of him, rushed to the Palazzo Cavour, where his worst fears were
confirmed by the old major-domo, who said, "The Count is alone in his
room; he has burnt many papers; he told us to let no one pass; but for
heaven's sake, go in and see him at whatever cost." When he went in,
Castelli saw a litter of torn-up papers; others were burning on the
hearth. He said that he knew no one was to pass and that was why he
had come. Cavour stared at him in silence. Then he went on, "Must I
believe that Count Cavour will desert the camp on the eve of battle;
that he will abandon us all?" And, unhinged by excitement and by his
great affection for the man, he burst into tears. Cavour walked round
the room looking like one distraught. Then he stopped opposite to
Castelli and embraced him, saying, "Be tranquil; we will face it all
together," Castelli went out to reassure those who had brought him
the alarming news. Neither he nor Cavour afterwards alluded to this
strange scene.
At the very moment that Cavour thought he had lost the game, he had
won it. On the same day, April 19, Count Buol,--somewhat, it is said,
against his better judgment, but yielding to the Emperor, who again
yielded to the military party,--sent off a contemptuous rejoinder to
the English proposals. Ignoring all suggestions, the Austrian Minister
said that _they would themselves call upon Piedmont to disarm_. Here,
then, was the famous _acte d'agression_. Napoleon could not escape
now.
The fact that this happened simultaneously with Sardinia's submission
to the will of Europe was a wonderful piece of luck, which, as Massimo
d'Azeglio said, could happen only once in a century. When the Austrian
Government took the irrevocable step, it did not know yet that the
whole onus of breaking the peace would fall upon it. Nor, it must be
remembered, did it know the test of the treaty between France and
Sardinia, and in view of the French Emperor's recent conduct it may
well have become convinced that no treaty at all existed. Hence it is
probable that Austria flattered herself that she would only have to
deal with weak Sardinia.
The Chamber of Deputies was convoked on April 23 to confer plenary
powers on the king. Many deputies were so overcome that they wept.
Just as the President of the Chamber announced the vote, a scrap of
paper was handed to Cavour, on which were written the words in pencil:
"They are here; I have seen them." It was from a person whom he had
instructed to inform him instantly when the bearers of the Austrian
Ultimatum arrived. They were come; angels of light could not have been
more welcome! Cavour went hastily out, while the House broke into
deafening cries of "Long live the king!" He said to the friend who
brought the message, "I am leaving the last sitting of the last
Piedmontese Chamber." The next would represent the kingdom of Italy.
The Sardinian army to be placed on a peace-footing, the volunteers
to be dismissed, an answer of "Yes" or "No" required within three
days--these were the terms of the Ultimatum. If the answer were not
fully satisfactory His Majesty would resort to force. Cavour replied
that Piedmont had given its adhesion to the proposals made by England
with the approval of France, Prussia and Russia, and had nothing more
to say. No one who saw the statesman's radiant face would have guessed
that less than a week before he had passed through so frightful a
mental crisis. He took leave of Baron von Kellersberg with graceful
courtesy, and then, turning to those present, he said, "We have made
history; now let us go to dinner."
The French Ambassador at Vienna notified to Count Buol that his
sovereign would consider the crossing of the frontier by the Austrian
troops equivalent to a declaration of war.
Lord Malmesbury was so favourably impressed by Sardinia's docility and
so furious with the Austrian _coup de tête_ that he became in those
days quite ardently Italian, which he assured Massimo d'Azeglio was
his natural state of mind; and such it may have been, since cabinet
ministers are constantly employed in upholding, especially in foreign
affairs, what they most dislike. He hoped to stop the runaway Austrian
steed by proposing mediation in lieu of a Congress; but the result
was only to delay the outbreak of the war for a week, much to the
disadvantage of the Austrians, as it gave the French time to arrive
and the Piedmontese to flood the country by means of the canals of
irrigation, thus preventing a dash at Turin, probably the best chance
for Austria. Baron von Kellersberg and his companion, during their
brief visit, had done nothing but pity "this fine town so soon to
be given over to the horrors of war." Their solicitude proved
superfluous.
For the present the statesman's task was ended. He had procured for
his country a favourable opportunity for entering upon an inevitable
struggle. When Napoleon said to Cavour on landing at Genoa, "Your
plans are being realised," he was unconsciously forestalling the
verdict of posterity. The reason that he was standing there was
because Cavour had so willed it. In spite of the Emperor's fits of
Italian sympathy and the various circumstances which impelled him
towards helping Italy, he would not have taken the final resolution
had not some one saved him the trouble by taking it for him. As a
French student of history has lately said, in 1859, as in 1849,
there was a Hamlet in the case; but Paris, not Turin, was his abode.
Napoleon needed and perhaps desired to be precipitated. Look at it how
we may, it must be allowed that he was doing a very grave thing: he
was embarking on a war of no palpable necessity against the sentiment,
as the Empress wrote to Count Arese, of his own country. A stronger
man than he might have hesitated.
The natural discernment of the Italian masses enlightened them as to
the magnitude of Cavour's part in the play, even in the hour when the
interest seemed transferred to the battlefield, and when an emperor
and a king moved among them as liberators. At Milan, after the victory
of Magenta had opened its gates, the most permanent enthusiasm
gathered round the short, stout, undistinguished figure in plain
clothes and spectacles--the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the
pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said
good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just
like the tenor who leads the prima donna forward to receive applause.
Success followed success, and this to the popular imagination is the
all-and-all of war. Milan was freed, though the battle of Magenta was
not unlike a drawn one; Lombardy was won, though the fight for the
heights of Solferino could hardly have resulted as it did if the
Austrians had not blundered into keeping a large part of their forces
inactive. Would the same fortune be with the allies to the end?
Cavour does not appear to have asked the question. He watched the war
with no misgivings. It was to him a supreme satisfaction that the
Sardinian army, which he had worked so hard to prepare, did Italy
credit. He took a personal pride in the romantic exploits of the
volunteers, though for political reasons he carefully concealed that
he had been the first to think of placing them in the field. He made
an indefatigable minister of war (having taken the office when La
Marmora went to the front). The work was heavy; the problem of finding
even bread enough for the allied armies was not a simple one. On one
occasion the French Commissariat asked for a hundred thousand rations
to make sure of receiving fifty thousand; the officer in charge was
surprised to see one hundred and twenty thousand punctually arrive
on the day named. Cavour's thoughts were not, however, only with the
troops in Lombardy. The whole country was in a ferment, and instead of
accelerating events the question now was to keep pace with them.
When Ferdinand II died, and a young king, the son of a princess of the
House of Savoy, ascended the throne, Cavour invited him to join in
the war with Austria. The invitation has been blamed as insincere and
unpatriotic, but the best Neapolitans seconded it. Poerio said he was
willing to go back to prison if King Francis would send his army
to help Piedmont. Faithful to his primary object of expelling the
Austrians, Cavour would have taken for an ally any one who had troops
to give. Moreover, an alliance between Naples and Sardinia meant the
final shelving of a scheme which had caused him anxiety, off and on,
for many years: that of a Muratist restoration. Though he had always
recognised that, were it accepted by the Neapolitans themselves, it
would be impossible for him to oppose it, he understood that to place
a Murat on the throne of Naples would be to move in the old vicious
circle by substituting one foreign influence for another. There is no
doubt that the idea was attractive to Napoleon. One of his first cares
after he became Emperor had been to find an accomplished Neapolitan
tutor for the young sons of Prince Murat. About the time of the Paris
Congress emissaries were actively working on behalf of the French
pretender in the kingdom of Naples. The propaganda was in abeyance
during the war, because Russia made it a condition of her neutrality
that the king of Naples should be let alone, but the simple fact that
Napoleon had undertaken to liberate Italy was a splendid advertisement
of the claims of his cousin. These considerations tended to make
Cavour hold out his hand to the young Bourbon king. There is much
evidence to show that the first impulse of Francis was to take it, but
the counter influences around him were too strong. When he refused, he
sealed his own doom, though the time for the crisis was not yet come.
In Central Italy the crisis came at once. This had been foreseen by
Cavour all along. At Plombières he made no secret of his expectation
that the defeat of the Austrians would entail the immediate union of
Parma, Modena, and Romagna, with Piedmont. Napoleon did not then seem
to object. To him Cavour did not speak of Tuscany, but he expected
that there, too, the actual government would be overthrown; what
he doubted was what would happen after. Many well-informed persons
thought that the Grand Duke, who would have maintained the
constitution of 1848 but for the threats of Austria, would seize the
first opportunity of restoring it. Fortunately Leopold II. looked
beneath the surface: he saw that an Austrian prince in Italy was
henceforth an anachronism. The indignities which he suffered when his
Italian patriotism--possibly quite sincere--caused him to be disowned
by his relations were not forgotten. He had no heart for a bold
stroke, and the exhortations of the English Government to remain
neutral were hardly needed. If he wavered, it was only for a moment;
nor did he care to place his son in the false position he declined for
himself. The Grand Duke left Florence, openly, at two o'clock on April
27, 1859, carrying with him the personal good wishes of all. The
chief boulder in the path of Italian unity was gone, but for reasons
internal and external much would have to be done before Tuscany became
the corner-stone of New Italy. The Tuscans clung to their autonomy.
Though Victor Emmanuel was invited to assume the protectorate, it was
explained that this was only meant to last during the war. The French
Emperor thought that there was an opening for a new kingdom of Etruria
with Prince Napoleon at the head. All sorts of intrigues were set
afoot by all the great powers except England to re-erect Tuscany as a
dam to stem the flood of unity midway. Cavour was determined to defeat
them. It was against his rule to discuss remote events. He once said
to a novice in public life, "If you want to be a politician, for
mercy's sake do not look more than a week ahead." Every time, however,
that there arose a present chance of making another step towards
unity, Cavour was eagerly impatient to profit by it. He now strove
with all the energy he possessed to procure the immediate annexation
of Tuscany to Piedmont. The object was good, but what he did not see
was, that the slightest appearance of wishing to "rush" Tuscany would
so offend the municipal pride and intellectual exclusiveness of the
polished Tuscans, that the seeds would be laid of a powerful and,
perhaps, fatal reaction. It was at this critical juncture that Baron
Bettino Ricasoli began his year of autocracy. His programme was:
neither fusions nor annexations, but union of the Italian peoples
under the constitutional sceptre of Victor Emmanuel. It was Tuscany's
business, he said, to make the new kingdom of Italy. He looked upon
himself as providentially appointed to carry that business into
effect. He was called Minister of the Interior, and he was, in fact,
dictator. When any one tried to overawe him, his answer was that he
had existed for twelve centuries. He had not wished for foreign help,
and he was not afraid of foreign threats. He often disagreed with
Cavour, and he was the only man who never gave in to him. When
Ricasoli took office he and the republican baker, Dolfi, who was
his invaluable auxiliary, were possibly the only two thorough-going
unionists-at-all-costs in Tuscany; when he resigned it twelve months
later there was not a partisan of autonomy left in the province. This
was the work of the "Iron Baron."
In the other three states, where the first shock to the power of
Austria overturned the Government, there were no such complicated
questions as in Tuscany. Parma and Modena returned to their allegiance
of 1848, and in Romagna those who were not in favour of an Italian
kingdom were not autonomists but republicans, who were willing to
sacrifice their own ideal to unity. The revolution in the States of
the Church was foiled at Ancona, and put down with much bloodshed at
Perugia: it is curious to speculate what would have been the result
if it had spread to the gates of Rome, as without this check it would
have done. Cavour sent L.C. Farini to Modena, and Massimo d'Azeglio to
Bologna, to take over what was called the "protectorate," and special
commissioners were also appointed at Parma and Florence, but at
Florence the real ruler was Ricasoli.
On July 5 Cavour told Kossuth that European diplomacy was very anxious
to patch up a worthless peace, but still he had no fears. He did
not guess that they were on the verge of seeing realised Mazzini's
prophecy of six months before: "You will be in the camp in some corner
of Lombardy when the peace which betrays Venice will be signed
without your knowledge." In proportion as Cavour had placed faith in
Napoleon's promises, so great was his revulsion of feeling when he
learnt that on July 6 General Fleury went to the Emperor of Austria's
headquarters at Verona with proposals for a suspension of hostilities.
The passionate nature which was generally kept under such rigorous
control that few suspected its existence for once asserted itself
unrestrained. Those around Cavour were in apprehension for his life
and his reason. In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, it
is probable that Napoleon's resolution, though not unpremeditated,
was of recent date. When he entered Milan, he seems to have really
contemplated pushing the war beyond the Mincio; there is proof,
however, that he was thinking of peace the day before the battle of
Solferino, which disposes of the semi-official story that he changed
his mind under the impression left on him by the scene of carnage
after that battle. Between the beginning and the end of June, reasons
of no sentimental kind accumulated to make him pause. Events in
Central Italy had gone farther than he looked for, and his private map
of the kingdom of Upper Italy was growing smaller every day. Why
was this? He cannot have been seized with a warm interest in the
unattractive despotism of the Duke of Modena, or the chronic anarchy
kept down by Austrian bayonets at Bologna. But it was becoming
apparent that if Modena and Romagna were joined to the new Italian
kingdom, Tuscany would come too, and this Napoleon had not expected
and did not want. He was clever enough to see that with Tuscany the
unity of Italy was made. A great political genius would have said,
So be it! Never was there worse policy than that of helping to free
Italy, and then deliberately rooting out gratitude from her heart.
Whatever Napoleon thought himself, he was alarmed by the news from
France; the Empress and the clerical party were in despair at the
revolution in the Roman States, and the country was indignant at the
prospect of an Italy strong enough to have a voice of her own in the
councils of Europe.
Besides all this, there was still graver news from Germany. Six
Prussian army corps were ready to move for the Rhine frontier. The
history of Prussian policy in 1859 has not yet been fully written out,
but the gaps in the narrative are closing up. That policy was directed
by the Prince Begent, and it gives the measure of the success which
would have attended subsequent efforts if the day had not arrived when
he surrendered himself body and soul into the hands of a greater man.
So much for the present German Emperor's theory that the men in the
councils of his grandfather only executed great things because they
did their master's will. It is true that William I. aimed at the same
end as that which Count Bismarck had already in view, and which he
was destined to achieve--the ousting of Austria from Germany, as a
preliminary to sublimer doings. But while the Prince Regent would not
fight Austria, and hoped to get rid of her by political conjuring, the
future Chancellor comprehended that the problem could only be settled
by the argument _ferro et igni_. Bismarck's policy in 1859 would have
been neutrality, with a certain leaning towards Napoleon. This advice,
given by every post from St. Petersburg to Berlin, caused him to be
accused of selling his soul to the devil, on which he dryly remarked
that, if it were so, the devil was Teutonic, not Gallic.
The Prince Regent tried to prevent the Diet from going to war,
because, in a federal war, Prussia's ruler would only figure as
general of the armies of the confederation--which meant of Austria.
His plan was to let Austria get into very bad difficulties, and then
come forward singly to save her. By means of this "armed mediation" he
would be able afterwards to dictate what terms he chose to the much
indebted Austrian Emperor. It looked well on paper, but the armistice
of Villafranca spoilt everything. The Emperor Francis Joseph did not
wish to be "saved." This, and only this, can explain his readiness to
make peace when, from a military point of view, his situation was far
from desperate. No one knew this better than Napoleon. Before the
allied armies lay the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral, so much easier
to get into than to get out of. The limelight of victory could
not hide from those who knew the facts the complete deficiency of
organisation and discipline which the war had revealed in the French
army. According to Prince Napoleon, the men considered their head
and their generals incapable, and had lost all confidence in them.
Nevertheless they fought well; no troops ever fought better than the
French when storming the heights of Solferino, but on the very day
after that battle, when the Austrians were miles away in full retreat,
an extraordinary, though little known, incident occurred. On a report
spreading from the French outposts that the enemy was upon them, there
was an universal _sauve qui peut_--officers, men, sick and sound,
gendarmes, infantry, cavalry, artillery trains--in one word, every one
made off. What would be the effect of a single defeat on such an army?
It must always appear strange that none of these things struck Cavour.
He only saw the immense, immeasurable disappointment. When he rushed
to the king's headquarters near Desenzano, it was to advise him to
refuse Lombardy and abdicate, or to continue the war by himself.
Cavour had never loved the king, or done justice to his statesmanlike
qualities; a bitter scene took place between them, which Victor
Emmanuel closed abruptly. Afterwards he met Prince Napoleon, who
replied to his reproaches, "_Mais enfin_, do you want us to sacrifice
France and our dynasty to you?"
At that juncture it was the king, not the minister, to whom the task
of pilot fell. Cut to the heart as he was, he kept his temper. He
signed the preliminaries "pour ce qui me concerne," and, as on
the morrow of Novara, he prepared to wait. The terms on which the
armistice was granted seemed like a nightmare: Venice abandoned;
Tuscany, Romagna, Modena, to be handed back to their former masters;
the Pope to be made honorary president of a confederation in which
Austria was to have a place. Cavour stood before Italy responsible for
the war, and when he said to M. Pietri in the presence of Kossuth,
"Your Emperor has dishonoured me--yes, dishonoured!" he meant the
words in their most literal sense. But the white heat of his passion
burnt out the dishonour, and Cavour, foiled and furious, was the most
popular man in the country. His grief was so genuine that even his
enemies could not call its sincerity in question. In three days he
appeared to have grown ten years older. His first thought was to go
and get killed at Bologna, if, as was expected, there was fighting
there. Then, as always happened with him, he was calmed by the idea of
action: "I will take Solaro de la Margherita by one hand and Mazzini
by the other; I will become a conspirator, a revolutionist, but this
treaty shall not be carried out." When he said this, he had resigned
office; he was simply a private citizen, but all the consciousness of
his power had returned to him. Some delay occurred in forming a new
ministry. Count Arese was first called, but his position as a personal
friend of the Emperor disqualified him for the task. Rattazzi
succeeded better, but during the interregnum of eight or nine days
Cavour was obliged to carry on the Government, and it thus devolved on
him to communicate the official order to the Special Commissioners to
abandon their posts. He accompanied the order by a private telegram
telling them to stay where they were, and work with all their might
for an Italian solution. Farini telegraphed from Modena that if the
Duke, "trusting to conventions of which he knew nothing," were to
attempt to return, he should treat him as an enemy to the king and
country. Cavour's answer ran: "The minister is dead; the friend
applauds your decision." Aurelio Saffi well said that "in these
supreme moments you would have called Cavour a follower of Mazzini."
The world often thinks that a man is changed when he is revealing what
he really is for the first time. It suited Cavour's purpose to appear
cool and calculating, but patriotism was as much a passion with him as
with any of the great men who worked for Italian emancipation.