An interval of peace—Beginnings of trouble with Prussia—Habsburg
pride precedes a Habsburg fall—Refusal to sell Venetia to
Italy—Italy joins Prussia—The war of 1866—The disaster of
Sadowa—Benedek’s failure—Shameful treatment of Benedek by the
Empire—Vain attempts to conciliate him—His widow’s comments.
Between 1859 and 1866 Francis Joseph had a seven years’ respite in
which to solve his problems; but 1866 found them still unsolved.
At home he had advanced a little way towards Liberalism, and then
withdrawn; abroad, he had let himself become entangled in the net
spread by Bismarck. Nor can the two mistakes be separated; for it was
largely because he had failed to conciliate his subjects that he could
not face his enemies. The fact that the Hungarians were still sullen
made it comparatively easy for Prussia to turn Austria out of the
German Confederation.
Space forbids one to say more of the difficulty between Austria and
Prussia than that it was the difficulty which arises when two men
have to ride the same horse, and both of them want to ride in front.
It was brought to a head by dissensions over the settlement of that
complicated Schleswig-Holstein question concerning which a British
statesman once remarked that only two men had ever understood it, and
that one of the two was dead and the other in a lunatic asylum. An
agreement on the question, concluded at a personal interview between
Francis Joseph and the King of Prussia, was described by Bismarck as
“no better than a piece of sticking plaster”; and no doubt Bismarck
made it his business to see that the sticking-plaster did not stick. He
first secured French neutrality at a famous interview at Biarritz; and
then he proceeded to negotiate with Italy.
Here again we see an instructive example of Habsburg pride preceding a
Habsburg fall. Italy had recently proposed to buy Venetia from Austria.
Francis Joseph, knowing that the Venetians loathed him to a man, had
nevertheless replied, in a scornful communication, that Austria’s
military honour and dignity as a first-class Power required him to
retain them as his subjects:—
“She would be unaffected by an offer of money or by any kind of moral
pressure. She could only abandon the territory of her own free will
in the event, not specially desired by her, of a war which terminated
gloriously for Austrian arms, and facilitated the extension of the
Austrian Empire in the direction of Germany.”
In one and the same despatch, that is to say, Austria insulted
Italy, and invited Italy to help her in despoiling Prussia. That was
a rash temptation of Providence; and the result of it was that an
Italian envoy went to Berlin to negotiate a treaty. Then Austria was
frightened, and offered to eat her words and cede Venetia, if only
Italy would leave her free to deal separately with Prussia. It was a
tardy and clumsy piece of suppleness, and it did not answer. Victor
Emmanuel liked fighting, had promised to fight, and fought.
We all know what happened: how the defeat of the Italians at Custozza
by the Archduke Albert was more than counterbalanced by the defeat of
the Austrians at Sadowa; and how Austria had to accept her humiliation,
submit to be turned out of the German Federation, and surrender
Venetia to Italy, after a _plébiscite_ had been taken to ascertain
those “wishes of the population” which Francis Joseph had so haughtily
refused to recognise. The figures give eloquent evidence of the
feelings of alien races towards Austrian rule. They were as follows:
For annexation 640,000
Against 40
———————
Majority for 639,960
———————
The result, one may be sure, would have been pretty much the same if
a _plébiscite_ had been taken in the Trentino, and South Tyrol. There
also Austrian rule was unsympathetic; and that sore still remains
open, with the result that, though Austria and Italy are now nominally
allied, they are very far from being friends, and Italy still awaits
her chance of responding to the lamentations which continue to
reach her from the Purgatory of the Unredeemed. We shall see what we
shall see in this connection when Austria is next embarrassed; but
meanwhile we must return to Francis Joseph’s part in this great drama
of 1866. His sphere of action was not the battlefield, but the council
chamber; but there his prestige was felt, even in the hour of his
discomfiture. Europe was still, to some extent, a family party in which
the sentiment prevailed that Kings and Emperors must not be too hard
on each other; and German Europe, at any rate, was still fascinated
by the spectacle of the magnificent façade of the House of Habsburg,
and reluctant to damage it in the spirit of Goths and Vandals. Even
Bismarck’s “realistic politics” had to allow for that sentiment; and
it was a sentiment of which Francis Joseph, on his part, instinctively
perceived the value. His perception of it is the solid fact at the back
of the strange story of his shameful behaviour towards General Benedek:
a story in which he figures as the Jesuit convinced that the end
justifies the means and that individuals must be sacrificed ruthlessly
to the interests of the Order.
“One cannot expect much of a man who has been educated by the Jesuits,”
said the late Prince Consort, summing him up with curt scorn; and there
will be no pleasant disappointment of expectations in the story which
is to follow.
* * * * *
The interest of the Order, in this instance, meant the interest of
the dynasty: whatever happened to Austria, the House of Habsburg
must not suffer. Francis Joseph did not enter upon the struggle in a
spirit of blind confidence: the Prussians, he knew, were armed with
the new needle-gun, which might work surprising wonders. Defeat was
possible; and if defeat occurred, a scapegoat would be wanted. Francis
Joseph, as a young soldier, had been ready to take risks, and had
gallantly assured Radetzky that “Austria had no lack of Archdukes.”
But Francis Joseph in his maturity did not want it to be possible for
anyone to say that an Archduke had led the Austrian army to disaster,
lest his subjects should lose their illusions about his House, and the
revolutionary spirit should revive.
His best general was the Archduke Albert; and he dared not risk him in
conflict with Von Moltke. That Archduke had played an odious part, not
yet forgotten, in the street fighting at Vienna. His men might follow
him with reluctance; his defeat would disgust Austria with the dynasty
itself; and the interest of the dynasty was, in Francis Joseph’s view,
“the thing.” So the Archduke was given a comparatively easy task in
Italy, and the really difficult work in Bohemia was forced upon General
Benedek, who knew that he was unfit for it, and said so. He was too
old, he pleaded; he did not know the country in which he would have to
fight. As the Prussian General von Schlictling afterwards put it:—
“His experience was like that of a pilot who has all his life guided
small boats over the shallows and by the rocks of his native bay with
unsurpassable skill and knowledge of the locality, and has now for the
first time to take a warship of the first class across strange seas
and through cyclones of which he has no experience.”
It was a perilous, and almost a hopeless attempt; but Francis Joseph
insisted upon his making it. He wanted to be sure, in case of disaster,
of a scapegoat, who could be sent out into the wilderness, leaving
the honour and dignity of the Habsburgs intact. So he sent Benedek a
message through Adjutant-General Count Crenneville, begging him to
accept the command as a personal favour, saying that, if he refused
it, and the war turned out badly, his own abdication would probably
be forced upon him. “In such circumstances,” wrote Benedek, “I should
have acted very wrongly if I had refused the command”; and no doubt the
dictates of discipline did necessitate his acceptance of it.
So Benedek marched to Sadowa: the battle which hit Austria as hard as
Sedan was afterwards to hit France. His losses there were 7 flags, 160
guns, 4,861 killed, 13,920 wounded, and about 20,000 prisoners. He
was “broken like an old sword,” and there was nothing for him to say,
except:—
“How could we face the Prussians? They are men of study, and we have
learned little.”
Or rather, though there was a good deal more which he might have
said, he was persuaded not to say it either before the Military Court
which reviewed his conduct, or elsewhere. As Adjutant-General Count
Crenneville had been sent to him before, so the Archduke Albert was
sent to him now, at Graetz, in Styria, whither he had retired after
being deprived of his command. He was asked to give a written promise
that he would not publish any of the correspondence which had passed
between himself and his generals or himself and the Emperor, or
publicly vindicate himself in any way. He gave that promise; and the
proceedings begun against him were suspended. But then—we come to
Francis Joseph’s perfidy.
Francis Joseph wanted a scapegoat badly; and he paid Benedek the
compliment of believing him to be a more honourable man than himself.
He acted indirectly instead of directly—semi-officially instead of
officially; hitting at the man who was down, and had promised to make
no attempt to rise, by means of an article in the _Wiener Zeitung_.
The article began by stating that there was no law in Austria which
punished incompetence; and it continued:—
“For the rest, the loss of the confidence of his imperial master, the
destruction of his military reputation before the world of to-day and
of the future, the recognition of the immeasurable misfortune that,
under his command, has befallen the army, and, through its defect,
has befallen the whole monarchy, must be a heavier penalty for the
high-minded man that Benedek always was, than any punishment that
could have come upon him by the continuation of legal proceedings.”
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH IN 1866.]
One can imagine Benedek’s anger at this black treachery; but he did
not allow it to sting him into the retractation of his pledged word.
He maintained to the end the attitude of an honourable man whom a
dishonourable Emperor had tricked; and he bore contumely in silence. It
was only in his will that he spoke out; but then he gave full vent to
the indignation which he had so long suppressed. This is his last word
on the matter:—
“That the Austrian Government, having in its hand my promise of
silence (given to the Archduke Albert on November 19, 1866) and
believing in the honourableness of my promise, should publish this
strange article, in which my whole past was ignored, and that this
Government article, which it is impossible to qualify, was conceived
in the presidential chancellery of the General Staff, corrected
and improved by Field-Marshal Lieutenant Baron John, Field-Marshal
Archduke Albert and others, and finally published by order of the
Government in all its peculiar features—all this surpasses my ideas
of right, decency, and propriety. I suffered it in silence, and I have
now, for seven years, borne my hard lot as a soldier with philosophy
and self-denial. I take credit to myself that, in spite of it all, I
feel no anger against anybody and am not soured. I am at peace with
myself and the whole world and have a clear conscience; but it has
cost me all my poetic feeling for soldiering. I should like to be
borne to my grave with the utmost simplicity and without any military
honours. A plain stone, or an iron cross, without any epitaph, must be
put over my grave.”
Meanwhile Benedek refused ever again to put on his uniform, and lived
as a lodger in a boarding-house at Graetz. Francis Joseph did not
like it—it was a reflection on him, especially after Von Moltke had
complimented Benedek as a commander of courage and merit; but all the
overtures which Francis Joseph’s pride permitted him to make were met
in a spirit of sullen resentment. When the Archduke Albert was directed
to write to Benedek as to an “old campaigner and a brother-in-arms,”
he replied “with cold respect.” The Crown Prince Rudolph was then
directed to write to him; but he neither asked for an audience, as he
was expected to do, nor even answered the letter, merely permitting
the Crown Prince’s military tutor to fabricate and carry a message,
thanking the Emperor “for the graceful way in which he has remembered
me.”
“I am an isolated man” (he then said). “I need no external honour,
and I feel that my internal honour is unstained. In this matter I
acknowledge no earthly judge.”
Not long afterwards he died of cancer of the larynx; and even then
the memory of the wrong lingered. This is what his widow wrote to
her nephew in reference to the letters of condolence which she had
received:—
“Bismarck’s letter, written throughout with his own hand, was the only
one from a high personage which touched me; the telegrams from the
Emperor and the Archduke left me very cold. When the Emperor sent the
Crown Prince to us in 1873 as an apostle of conciliation, Benedek had
suffered so much during the seven years that he refused everything and
begged that they would not disturb the repose he had at last attained.
The Emperor, always generous, had at least the goodness to ask if
there was nothing he could do for me. He is generous. I thanked him
sincerely: I need nothing.”
So the story ends; and it has been necessary to tell it at some length
because of the luminous light which it throws on Francis Joseph’s
character. Some historians have spoken of it as an isolated stain upon
an otherwise blameless personality; but it is, in fact, of a piece
with the whole personality, though the occasions which have called
for such disagreeable manifestations of the personality have happily
been rare. Francis Joseph was always able to give his equals, and has
gradually learnt to be able to give his inferiors, the impression that
he is genial affability incarnate. It is not natural to him to be mean
or paltry—he very much prefers to be splendid. But there is, and has
always been, at the bottom of his mind, a certain confusion of thought.
If he has not mistaken himself for God, at least he has mistaken the
interests of the House of Habsburg for that Higher Law to which the
ordinary laws of honour and morality which bind ordinary men must be
subordinated.
In the case under review the interests of the House of Habsburg needed
a scapegoat; and therefore Benedek had to go out into the wilderness.
He did not go out of his own accord; he was not driven
out; he was tricked out by false pretences, and then pointed at with
the finger of scorn. His widow’s letter, which we have just read, reads
like a quiet, measured echo of Countess Karolyi’s curse, to the various
fulfilments of which we shall come in the course of a few chapters. If
she had less reason than Countess Karolyi to curse Francis Joseph, at
least she had reason enough.