Attitude of Austria in the Franco-German War—Proposed alliance of
France, Italy, and Austria against Prussia—General Türr’s interview
with Francis Joseph—Victor Emmanuel’s conditions—The bargain
concluded—The French plan of campaign drafted by the Archduke
Albert—Beust’s letter to Richard Metternich—Reasons why the Austrian
promises were not fulfilled.
What was Austria doing in 1870? What did she mean to do? What did she
promise to do? Was there a sudden right-about face? And, if so, why?
Those are our problems, and the solution of them is supposed to be
one of the secrets of the political _coulisses_. Doors and windows
have been opened here and there, however, affording peeps at the
mystery; and enough can be seen to make it clear that, just as Austria
astonished the world with her ingratitude in 1854, so, if the full
truth had been made known, she would have astonished the world with her
perfidy in 1870.
There is, of course, an official Austrian version of the events:
that any promises made were contingent upon conditions which were
not fulfilled. There is also an official French version: that France
was lured on, and treacherously left in the lurch. By no means all
the documents bearing on the matter have been made public,—there may
still be surprises in store for us; but future revelations are likely
to throw light upon motives rather than facts. This much, at any rate,
is certain: that an Austrian Archduke—Archduke Albert, the victor of
Custozza—drafted the French plan of campaign against Prussia for the
French War Office, on the assumption that Austria would take part in
that campaign, and that the Austrian pledge of assistance was only
withdrawn at the eleventh hour.
Now let us go back and note the circumstances and atmosphere in which
the plot was laid.
Long before the Franco-Prussian War came, the feeling that it was
bound to come was in the air. It was understood that Prussia, having
fought Austria for the hegemony of Germany, would fight France for
the hegemony of Europe. What the pretext would be was doubtful, but
it was certain that a pretext would be found. The quarrel about
Luxembourg was a symptom of a deeply-seated rivalry. Napoleon foresaw
the peril, and determined to anticipate it by forming an irresistible
Triple Alliance with Italy and Austria for his partners. The story of
that alliance—and of its failure—can be pieced together from the
“indiscretions” of various persons charged with the negotiations.
It was in 1869 that Napoleon began to negotiate with both Victor
Emmanuel and Francis Joseph; and Francis Joseph and Victor Emmanuel,
either simultaneously or soon afterwards, entered into negotiations
with each other. The actual phrase Triple Alliance occurs in this
connection in a letter from Victor Emmanuel to Napoleon, first printed
in the _Giornale d’Italia_. This is the essential passage:—
“I cannot possibly refuse to give my adherence to the idea of a Triple
Alliance between France, Austria, and Italy; for the union of these
Powers will present a strong barrier against unjust pretensions, and
so help to establish the peace of Europe on a more solid basis.”
Peace, of course, is always the ostensible object of alliances of the
kind. It is very seldom their real object; and it was not in this
case. Victor Emmanuel desired as little as Napoleon to limit it in
that way. What was at the back of Victor Emmanuel’s mind appears from
his negotiations with Francis Joseph—negotiations which he entrusted
to General Türr, a Hungarian officer in the Italian service. General
Türr is one of those who have been indiscreet. He eventually told the
correspondent of a German newspaper what had passed between him and
Francis Joseph, and how, after reviewing the subject in its general
aspects, he went into details from the Italian point of view, and
raised the inevitable question of Italia Irredenta:—
“I mentioned the Trentino to Francis Joseph, and he interrupted me.
“‘Ah!’ he objected, ‘it is always I who am expected to give something
up.’
“‘Naturally,’ I replied. ‘But it is also clearly understood that your
Majesty will obtain compensation for the surrender in some other
quarter.’”
It was a proposal by which Francis Joseph might very well have been
tempted, especially as he had not yet realised that the future of
Austria was in the Balkans. We have already seen him hinting that he
might be able to give up Venetia if he could obtain “an extension of
the Empire in the direction of Germany”; and the same bribe might very
well have induced him to part with the Trentino. Of course, too, the
memory of Sadowa rankled; and, with the French and the Italians for his
allies, he could hardly fail to avenge that humiliation. The chance of
thus playing off his various enemies against each other was not one to
be scoffed at.
He did not scoff at it, but the three-cornered bargain was too
intricate to be settled in a hurry. In particular, Victor Emmanuel was
in no hurry, but was hanging back in order to make conditions with
France as well as with Austria. With him, the position of the Pope was
the obstacle. He wanted the Pope’s temporal dominions in order that
he might fix his capital at Rome; and the Pope was protected in those
temporal dominions by French bayonets. Victor Emmanuel, therefore,
stipulated that the French troops should be withdrawn from Rome.
Napoleon himself was willing enough to withdraw them, but the
Clericals, with the Empress Eugénie at their head, objected. He was
afraid of the Clericals; and so the negotiations hung fire. When he
did recall his troops, because he wanted them in the field, it was too
late. Victor Emmanuel had heard the news of the French defeat at Wörth,
and he uttered the memorable words:—
“The poor Emperor! I am very sorry for him; but I have had a narrow
escape.”
Even so, however, Victor Emmanuel would have signed the proposed treaty
if his Ministers would have let him, as he told the German Emperor
frankly when he met him in 1873:—
“Your Majesty knows, no doubt, that if it had not been for these
gentlemen (Minghetti and Visconti-Venosta) I should have declared war
on you in 1870.”
But “these gentlemen” had only held Victor Emmanuel back because they
were themselves held back by the counsels of the Austrian Cabinet. “Too
late!” was their verdict; for they, too, had heard of Wörth. But if
they drew back when Victor Emmanuel was willing to go on, they could
also be reproached for having pledged themselves more deeply than he:
a piece of secret history which those who held the secret have only
recently revealed.
The essential “new fact” is that already set forth in this chapter:
that on the eve of the declaration of war the Archduke Albert,
whose success at Custozza had gained him the reputation of a great
strategist, was sent to Paris by Francis Joseph to concert a joint plan
of campaign against Prussia. He conferred there with Lebœuf, Lebrun,
Frossard, Jarras, and other leading French soldiers, and Lebrun was
sent off to pursue the negotiations at Vienna.
France, it transpired in the course of the discussions, was much
readier to take the field than either of her allies. She claimed to
be able to mobilise in a fortnight, whereas it was admitted that it
would take both Austria and Italy about six weeks to mobilise. The
Archduke proposed, therefore, that the three Powers should begin their
mobilisation simultaneously, but that Austria, instead of declaring war
before she was ready, should affect neutrality while concentrating two
army corps at Pilsen and Olmütz. Lebrun did not altogether like the
arrangement. He smelt a rat, and suspected a disposition on the part
of the Austrians to wait and see which way the cat would jump. Still,
there was something to be said for it; for it could be no advantage to
France that her ally should be crushed while in the act of mobilising.
So a formal agreement between France and Austria was concluded on June
13th, 1870.
That was the occasion on which the Archduke Albert drafted the plan
of campaign: not merely a general scheme of joint action between the
two Powers, but a detailed plan of campaign for the distribution and
employment of the French army. His draft still lies in the archives of
the French War Office, though naturally it is not shown to everyone;
and the plan itself conforms in almost every particular to the plan
which Napoleon adopted. The criticism passed on it by the few military
experts who have since reviewed it is this: that it was an excellent
plan on paper—excellent on the assumption that the French generals
could direct the enemy’s movements as well as their own, but that it
was composed without regard to the actual conditions of the case,
allowing nothing for independent Prussian initiative, and therefore
was, on the whole, a bad plan.
The premature attack on Saarbrücken—the first skirmish of the
war—was undertaken in accordance with the plan. It was a good move
on the assumption that the French were ready to follow it up; but
they were not ready to follow it up, and therefore it was a bad move.
The failure to follow it up was as fatal in the diplomatic as in the
military sense, for it gave point to the Archduke Albert’s report that
the French army did not seem to him as strong as he had been led to
expect. It served, consequently, as a starting-point for hesitations;
but Austria was nevertheless committed, though she drew back from her
commitments; and the Archduke’s visit to Paris and his proceedings
there give special point to Grammont’s grandiloquent words, addressed
on July 15th to the Finance Commission, which he had kept waiting:—
“If I have kept the members of the Commission waiting, my excuse
is that I had with me, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the
Austrian Ambassador and the Italian Minister. I am confident that the
Commission will not require me to say any more.”
Grammont, when he spoke thus, believed, and had reason to believe, that
the proposed Triple Alliance was a real thing. The Austrian contention
is that he had mistaken courteous expressions of sympathy for specific
pledges; but that view can hardly be maintained in the face of the
facts disclosed as to the Archduke Albert’s mission; and other
correspondence which has been published is equally at variance with it.
Only two days after his speech to the Finance Commission, Grammont
wrote a request to Austria for the help promised. He asked that 70,000
or 80,000 Italian troops should be allowed to march through Austria to
Bavaria, and that Austria should herself send 150,000 men to Bohemia.
If that were done, he said, the peace would be signed in Berlin, and
the memories of 1866 would be effaced. But everything depended upon
promptitude:—
“Never again” (Grammont concluded) “will such an opportunity present
itself. Never again will you obtain such effective support. Never will
France be so strong as she is to-day, or better armed and equipped, or
animated by a more intense enthusiasm.”
Whereto Beust replied in a letter addressed to Count Richard
Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador, in Paris:—
“Be so good as to assure the Emperor and his Ministers once again
that, faithful to the engagements defined in the letters exchanged
by the two Sovereigns at the end of last year, we consider the cause
of France our own, and shall contribute in every way possible to the
success of French arms. Our neutrality is only a means towards the
true end of our policy: the sole means of completing our armaments
without exposing ourselves to a premature attack on the part of
Prussia or Russia.”
“Or Russia”: those are the words which hold the key to the position.
Austria, acting in conjunction with France and Italy, had no reason to
be afraid of Prussia; but if Russia should side with Prussia, she might
have a good deal to be afraid of. Count Nigra has specifically stated
that Russia intimated her intention of doing so, and that it was by
that intimation that the Triple Alliance was brought to nothing. Its
collapse, it must be added, was a triumph not only for Prussia, but
also for Hungary. Up to the last hour Austria was willing to take the
risks, but Hungary declined them. An extension of the Austrian Empire
in the direction of Germany was the last thing which the Hungarians
desired, for its result would obviously be to increase German, at
the expense of Magyar, influence in the dual monarchy. Moreover, the
Hungarians, owing to their geographical position, had more to fear than
the Austrians from a Russian invasion.
So Andrássy argued, putting his foot down, and Francis Joseph gave way
to him. Our chapter, therefore, concludes with the ironical spectacle
of Francis Joseph reversing his foreign policy and breaking his word
to a friendly Power in deference to the wishes of a rebel whom he had
hanged in effigy: a spectacle which we may view as a humiliation or a
proof of sagacious flexibility, as we prefer.