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TWO CHANCELLORS:
Prince Gortchakof and Prince Bismarck.
by
JULIAN KLACZKO.
Translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes by
Frank P. Ward.
[Illustration]
New York:
Published by Hurd and Houghton.
Cambridge: The Riverside Press.
1876.
Copyright,
by Frank P. Ward.
1876.
Riverside, Cambridge:
Stereotyped and Printed by
H. O. Houghton and Company.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In the year 1866 Carlyle said: "The only man appointed by God to be His
viceregent here on earth in these days, and knowing he was so appointed
and bent with his whole soul on doing, and able to do God's work," is M.
de Bismarck. If this be true, then M. de Bismarck has found a most
valuable ally and colleague in the present Premier of Russia. It is of
these two men, Prince Bismarck, and Prince Gortchakof, the Chancellor of
Germany, and the Chancellor of all the Russias, that this book treats.
The author is M. Julian Klaczko, a Polish refugee, a man of cosmopolitan
habits, an accomplished and able writer, thoroughly acquainted with the
contemporaneous history of Europe, prejudiced against Prussia, an ardent
friend of Austria, and devoted to a conservative and monarchical form of
government. He was always the friend of Poland. In 1863 he defended
Denmark in a series of able papers, which came out in the "Revue des
deux Mondes," under the title of "Studies of Contemporaneous Diplomacy."
After the battle of Sadowa, he appeared as the friend of Austria in a
work entitled, "The Preliminaries of Sadowa." Count de Beust summoned
him to Vienna, and attached him to the Foreign Office. Klaczko was then
elected Deputy in the Polish province of Galicia. After 1870 he resigned
his posts and returned to France.
In the "Two Chancellors" he has given a condensed but graphic review of
the diplomatic history of Europe from 1855 to 1871, and a sketch of the
lives of Prince Bismarck and Prince Gortchakof, the two most eminent men
of the day. He also seeks to prove that the "disaster" of Sadowa,
followed by the still greater one of Sedan, was brought about by the
blind devotion of Prince Gortchakof to Prince Bismarck, aided largely,
it is true, by the "inconceivable vacillations and hallucinations of
Napoleon III., the Dreamer of Ham." In a word, he seeks to establish
that the prodigious events of the last ten years are due to a conspiracy
between Russia and Prussia. This is a one-sided, partial view, but is
presented with such power as will almost persuade the reader that such
may have been the case. According to Klaczko's theories, Prussia has
grasped the substance and Russia the shadow, and the old chancellor of
the great empire of the North has been the dupe of his pupil of Berlin.
The great changes which will undoubtedly soon take place in the East,
make M. Klaczko's views as to the past and present relations between
Germany and Russia of marked interest, and the student of
contemporaneous history will find in the "Two Chancellors,"
notwithstanding the peculiar views and strong prejudices of the writer,
one of the most instructive as well as interesting works that have
appeared for many years. It has been issued in book form in Paris, and
widely circulated in Russia, where it has caused a profound sensation.
In the translation I have endeavored to reproduce as justly as possible
the words of M. Klaczko, whose style, though strong and forcible, is at
times somewhat involved. With these few words in regard to the
importance of the subject and the character of the author, I leave to
the judgment of the reader the account of the momentous events which may
be truly said to have changed the political face of Europe.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.
THE MISSIONS OF PRINCE GORTCHAKOF AND THE DEBUTS
OF M. DE BISMARCK 1
II.
A NATIONAL MINISTER AND A FAULT-FINDING DIPLOMAT
AT ST. PETERSBURG 75
III.
UNITED ACTION 122
IV.
THE ECLIPSE OF EUROPE 188
V.
ORIENT AND OCCIDENT 227
VI.
TEN YEARS OF ASSOCIATION 287
APPENDIX 311
TWO CHANCELLORS.
I.
THE MISSIONS OF PRINCE GORTCHAKOF AND THE DEBUTS OF M. DE BISMARCK.
The good old Plutarch, in commencing his long and charming series of
Parallels with the account of the lives of Theseus and Romulus,
experiences some difficulty in justifying such an association of the two
heroes; he can find in them only very vague traits of resemblance, and
these by no means striking. "To strength they both joined great powers
of mind, both carried off women by violence, and the one as well as the
other was not exempted from domestic miseries; indeed, toward the end of
their lives they both aroused the hatred of their fellow-citizens."[1]
Without doubt a writer of our day, wishing to give a comparative study
of the two most prominent figures of contemporaneous politics, the
chancellors of Russia and Germany, would only mislead in giving
prominence to such points of resemblance. The association in this case
is justifiable, for it suggests itself to every contemplative mind, to
whoever has meditated on the events of the last fifteen or twenty years.
The modern Plutarch who would undertake to write the lives of these two
illustrious men, could, as it seems to us, easily resist the temptation
of searching too deeply for, or forcing analogies in a subject where
similarities abound and are so striking. Perhaps he would rather have to
guard against necessary and tiresome repetitions in presence of a
commonalty of ideas and of a harmony of action such as history has
rarely known in two ministers guiding two different empires.
It is not, the reader may be well assured, a work of this sort which the
author has undertaken in the following pages. We have only given the
mere sketch of a picture which, to be even in a slight degree full and
satisfactory, would have required much larger proportions, and above all
a much more skillful hand. Without pretending to present here new and
unpublished materials, or indeed to reunite all those which are already
known, we have simply chosen a few, and tried to assort and arrange them
so as to afford a better perspective. We have been obliged to renounce
the wish to give to the different parts an equality of design and depth
of coloring, and we have not even bound ourselves to follow a very
regular and methodical course in this narration. Before a subject so
vast and presenting so many shades and shadows, we have thought that it
was permissible, that it was indeed occasionally useful, to vary the
points of observation and to present it in different aspects.
I.
Like the Odoiefski, the Obolenski, the Dolgorouki, and many aristocratic
families on the banks of the Moscova and the Neva, the Gortchakof also
pride themselves on their descent from the Rourik; to speak more
plainly, they claim to trace their origin from one of the sons of
Michael, Grand Duke of Tchernigof, put to death towards the middle of
the thirteenth century by the Mongolians of Batou Khan, since proclaimed
martyr of the faith, exalted, indeed, among the saints of the Orthodox
Church. One meets, nevertheless, with but few illustrious bearers of the
name of Gortchakof in the gloomy and exciting annals of old Russia. In
the epoch which preceded the accession of the Romanof, there lived a
certain Peter Ivanovitch Gortchakof, the unfortunate commander of
Smolenski, who surrendered this celebrated place to the Poles after two
years of energetic and desperate resistance. He was taken to Warsaw, and
there, in 1611, with the Czar Vassili, the two princes Schouyski,
Sehine, and a number of powerful _boiars_, he was forced to take part in
the famous "_cortege_ of captives" which the grand constable Zolkiweski
presented one day--_honorificentissime_, says the chronicle of the
times--to the king and the senate of the most serene republic. It was
only in the second half of the last century, under the reign of
Catherine II., that a Prince Ivan Gortchakof succeeded (thanks
especially to his marriage with a sister of the opulent and courageous
Souvorof) in again raising the glory of his old house, which has never
since ceased to distinguish itself in the different branches of state
service, principally in the career of arms. The France of to-day has
preserved the memory of two Princes Gortchakof, two old soldiers of
Borodino who distinguished themselves during the war of the Orient. The
one commanded the left wing of the Russian troops at the battles of
Alma and Inkermann; the other, Prince Michael, was the generalissimo of
the armies of the czar in the Crimea, and rendered his name imperishable
by the heroic defense of Sebastopol. Afterwards he governed the Kingdom
of Poland as lieutenant of the emperor, and became therefore (strange
example of the vicissitudes of history!) the supreme representative of a
harsh, foreign government in this same city of Warsaw, where one of his
ancestors had formerly figured in a memorable procession of the
vanquished. However, if this circumstance ever occurred to Prince
Michael, he drew therefrom none but suggestions worthy of his character;
he governed the conquered country with moderation and benevolence, and
left behind him the fame of a man as just in civil administration as he
was intrepid in war.
The cousin of Prince Michael and present chancellor of the empire,
Alexander Mikhailovitch Gortchakof, was born in 1798, and was educated
in that lyceum of Zarkoe-Zeloe which has its distinct place in the
pedagogic history of Russia. Founded by Catherine II. as a model
educational establishment for the aristocratic youth of the empire, the
lyceum shone with great _eclat_ under the reign of Alexander I.,
although the Rollin and the Pestalozzi would certainly have had more
than one reservation to make with respect to a college which only
moulded its scholars for the world, and thought the vigorous classical
studies a burden too heavy to carry into the ethereal spheres of
pleasures and elegance. Almost all the professors of the establishment
were foreigners, men marked with the stamp of the eighteenth century,
acute minds, slightly frivolous, and above all disciples of Voltaire.
The most eminent among them, the professor of French literature, he who
initiated the future chancellor into the language of Voltaire, of which
he so well knew the subtleties, was a Genevese, who, under the
inoffensive name of M. de Boudry, concealed another of a terrible
significance. M. de Boudry was the brother of Marat, that "_sinistre
conventionnel_."[2] The Empress Catherine, in order "to end a scandal,"
had forced this patronymic change on M. Marat, without, however,
succeeding in making him change his opinions, which always remained
"Jacobin." He died in final impenitence, cherishing an openly avowed
admiration for _the friend of the people_, unjustly calumniated. From
this education of very doubtful value, the young Gortchakof succeeded in
extracting a strong and useful substance. He left Zarkoe-Zeloe with
various and solid acquirements; a surprising matter, he was even a good
Latinist, and this last fact has remained a cause of amazement to his
fellow-scholars as well as to the generations who followed. It is
certain, however, that the chancellor could quote Horace with about the
same appropriateness as Louis XVIII. of sainted memory. One of his best
known dispatches ingeniously borrows from Suetonius an eloquent passage
on the distinction to be established between liberty and anarchy.
Next to his classical attainments, that part of his youth which the
chancellor loves especially to recall is that he was the fellow-scholar,
and that he remained the friend, of the great national poet, Pouchkine,
a fact more to his honor inasmuch as this friendship has brought with
it embarrassments at certain times. When, by the order of the Emperor
Alexander I., in consequence of an offensive ode, which one is not now
known, the young singer of "Rouslan" and "Loudmila" was confined in an
obscure village in the far interior of Russia, only two of his former
comrades at the lyceum had the courage to go to see and offer him their
condolence, and one of these intrepid youths was Prince Gortchakof. One
finds in the work of Pouchkine some verses written in a lively and
playful style, and which only derive their interest from the name of
Alexander Mikhailovitch, to whom they are addressed. In one of these
juvenile pieces, Pouchkine wishes his friend "to have Cupid as an
inseparable companion as far as the banks of the Styx, and to go to
sleep on the bosom of Helen in the very boat of Charon." Thoughtless
wishes, which human malignity would surely not have failed to carry out
in the end, if very fortunately the chancellor had not been able to
preserve his old days from every deceitful seduction, and to avoid even
the appearance of an arctic Ruy Gomez. The inspiration of the poet was
happier another time, when, speaking of their different vocations, he
predicts for Alexander Mikhailovitch a splendid destiny, and calls him
"the beloved child of fortune."
Fortune was nevertheless slow to recognize its child, and to give him
the lot which he merited. Having early entered the department of foreign
affairs, being attached to the _suite_ of M. de Nesselrode at the time
of the Congresses of Laybach and Verona, Prince Gortchakof had already
long passed that period which Dante calls the _mezzo del cammin di
vita_; and even when very near his fiftieth year, was still only a
minister plenipotentiary at a little court in Germany. A fortunate event
at last came to commend him to the kindness of his master, and to render
him distinguished in those diplomatic circles, in those regions "free
from tears, but filled with sighs," which in the language of diplomacy
are called the secondary posts.
In a moment of paternal weakness, the Emperor Nicholas had one day
consented to the union of his daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie, with
the Duke of Leuchtenberg, "the son of a Beauharnais, a Catholic officer
in the service of the King of Bavaria," as was whispered with sadness in
the intimate circles of the winter palace. Nicholas was not the man to
retract his given word, but not the less did he feel the sting of what
his surrounding court did not cease to call a _mesalliance_; and the
bitterness increased when none of the foreign members of the imperial
family came to take part in the brilliant festivities which preceded or
followed the nuptial ceremony. Ill-luck would have it that soon
afterwards a first cousin of the new imperial son-in-law and daughter of
the ex-King Jerome married a Russian grown rich in trade, a prince in
the valley of the Arno but scarcely a gentleman on the banks of the
Neva,--a disagreeable accident, and which, according to the amazed
courtiers, made the autocrat of all the Russias _the relation of one of
his subjects_! It became necessary to efface all these unpleasant
impressions, and to take, by a brilliant alliance, an incontestable
revenge for so many vexations. It was hoped for a moment to be able to
marry the Grand Duchess Alexandra to an arch-duke of Austria, but it was
necessary to fall back on a prince of Darmstadt; for the Grand Duchess
Olga, the most beautiful and the most beloved of the emperor's
daughters, had been chosen by the only prince royal then unengaged, the
presumptive heir to the throne of Wuertemberg, of the old and illustrious
house of Suabia.
The plan was not easily executed. The good Suabian people had little
liking for it. A Russian marriage made it tremble for its constitutional
liberties; and what was a graver matter, the old King William of
Wuertemberg, a good, liberal sovereign, but obstinate in all things,
showed himself rather reluctant, and at his own pleasure retarded the
negotiation. Other objections came from other sides still; but the
Russian minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart, the old fellow-scholar of
Pouchkine, knew how to overcome them all with consummate skill. By aid
of art and address, he was able to establish the Grand Duchess Olga in
the royal family of Wuertemberg. The joy of the Emperor Nicholas was
great and unreserved, and the winter palace sang the panegyrics of the
wonderful diplomat. After such a success, Prince Gortchakof could well
demand to be promoted in his career, having approached nearer by several
strides towards that embassy of Vienna which was considered as the
supreme goal of ambition. He did nothing of this sort, however, and
showed an admirable patience,--the patience of the patriarch Jacob with
Laban, son of Nahor. To the four years which he had already passed at
Stuttgart, Alexander Mikhailovitch declared himself ready to add another
term more prolonged if it were necessary. He promised the empress-mother
to remain indefinitely by the side of the Grand Duchess Olga, to aid her
as a guide and counselor in a foreign country and in the midst of
surroundings entirely new to her. Barren as the soil might be, he did
not despair of growing there under this ray of beauty and of grace,
which came directly from the great boreal sun; and in truth he kept this
post at Stuttgart for eight more long years. _Tenues grandia conamur!_
However, any point of observation is good for one who understands how to
adjust his glass and question the stars. The resident minister at
Stuttgart had extensive information and found means of informing his
government of many things quite outside the limits of the horizon of the
little kingdom of Wuertemberg. Soon the year 1848 came with its terrible
catastrophes, with its great revolutionary earthquakes which added to
the experience of the most experienced, which lightened with a sudden
glimmer the ignorant depths of human nature, and, in the words of
Milton, lightened the darkness. Such a lesson of history was not without
profit, one can well believe, to the former scholar of Zarkoe-Zeloe. The
_salons_ and the cabinets for a long time had had no secrets from him;
he now knew those of the forum and of the cross-roads. The vicinity of
Frankfort, seat of the famous parliament, permitted him to study closely
and fully the German agitation of this memorable epoch; he understood
beforehand the phases, by turns _naive_, burlesque, and odious, and was
able to predict in good time the unfailing miscarriage of a revolution,
the subdued billows of which foamed for a day even in the streets of
Stuttgart, ordinarily so peaceful.
It was in the month of April, 1849. Preceding by twenty years the great
work of 1870, the parliament of Frankfort had just formed a German
Empire to the exclusion of Austria, and offered the crown to the King of
Prussia, Frederick William IV. The King of Prussia hesitated, and ended
by declining; the other German princes were still less willing to assent
to a decree which implied their abdication; but this was by no means the
plan of the German demagogy. It suddenly fell enthusiastically in love
with this constitution, which on the very eve before it had denounced as
reactionary, fatal to the liberties of the people, and designed to
impose by force the Prussian vassalage decreed at Frankfort on different
sovereigns of Germany. In Wuertemberg, the chamber of deputies voted a
pressing, imperious address in order to draw from the king the
recognition of the Emperor Frederick William IV. The monarch replied by
a refusal. The riot thundered on the public square, and the members of
the court were forced to seek refuge at Ludwigsburg, fleeing from an
enraged capital. "I will not submit to the House of Hohenzollern," the
old King William of Wuertemberg had said to the deputation of the
chamber. "I owe it to my people and to myself. It is not for myself that
I speak thus; I have but very few years to live. My duty to my country,
my House, my family, forces this course of action on me." Alexander
Mikhailovitch, touched by these agitating scenes, by this pathetic
protestation of the father-in-law of Olga, "for the House, for the
family of Wuertemberg," assuredly had then but little expectation that
one day, as Chancellor of the Russian Empire, he would become the most
useful auxiliary, the firmest aid of an aggressive, audacious policy,
destined to realize in every particular the plan of the rioters of
Stuttgart, and to make Queen Olga the vassal of Hohenzollern.
This was, however, nothing but the noisy prologue of a drama yet far
distant, and the year 1850 could indeed rejoice at seeing disappear in
Germany the very last traces of an agitation which had done nothing but
astonish Europe, instead of illuminating and warning it. Towards the end
of this year, 1850, the German Confederacy was established anew under
the terms of the ancient treaty of Vienna. The _Bundestag_ again
commenced its peaceable deliberations, and Prince Gortchakof was quite
naturally appointed to represent the Russian Government at the Diet of
Frankfort. Alexander Mikhailovitch henceforth had his marked place in a
great centre of political affairs, where the personal merit of the
minister borrowed a peculiar _eclat_ from the extraordinary fortune
which the latest events had created for his august master. Russian
influence, at all times very considerable with the ruling houses of
Germany, had grown prodigiously, having reached its zenith, one will
remember, after the disorders of February. Alone remaining sheltered
from the revolutionary tempest which had swept over almost all the
States of the Continent, the empire of the czars appeared to be at that
time the firmest stronghold of the principles of order and conservatism.
"Humiliate yourselves, nations, God is with us!" said the Emperor
Nicholas in a celebrated proclamation; and without being too much
offended at language which made God in a manner the accessory to a great
human boast, monarchical Europe had only acclamations for a prince who,
after all, worked with a remarkable disinterestedness for the
reestablishment of the legitimate authorities, and for the maintenance
of the equilibrium of the world.
In fact, it is just to acknowledge that in these troubled years of
1848-50, the autocrat of the North used his influence, as also his
sword, only to strengthen the tottering thrones and to enforce respect
for the treaties. He effectively protected Denmark, towards which from
this epoch the rapacious hand of Germany was stretched, and he was the
most ardent in calling a meeting of the Powers, which ended by snatching
from the Germans the coveted prey. He interposed directly in Hungary,
and with his military forces helped put down a formidable insurrection
there, which had shaken to its foundations the ancient empire of
Hapsburg, undermined at the same time by intestine troubles and an
aggressive war which the kingdom of Piedmont had twice stirred up
against it. Little favoring by his principles and interests this united
Germany, "of which the first thought was a thought of unjust extension,
the first cry a cry of war,"[3] he later used all his power in bringing
about the reestablishment pure and simple, of the German Confederation
on the same basis as prior to 1848. The bonds of relationship and of
friendship which united him to the court of Berlin were never strong
enough to make him abandon for a single instant the cause of the
sovereignty of princes, and of the independence of the States; and in
spite of the sincere affection which he bore "his brother-in-law, the
poet," he neither spared the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., the
evacuation of the Duchies, nor the hard conditions of Olmuetz. Defender
of European right on the Eider and the Main, of monarchical right on the
Theiss and Danube, peacemaker for Germany, and, so to say, wholesale
dealer in justice for Europe, Nicholas had at this moment a true
greatness, an immense _prestige_, well merited on the whole, and which
allowed no reflection on the agents charged with representing away from
home a policy of which no one dared contest the immovable firmness and
the perfect justice.
The Emperor Nicholas, in accrediting Prince Gortchakof to the German
Confederation, in an autograph letter dated 11th November, 1850,
recognized in the reunion of the Diet of Frankfort "a pledge for the
maintenance of the general peace," and thus characterized by an able and
judicious act, the honorable and salutary mission of this Diet in
ordering matters created by the treaties of 1815. However legitimate the
grievances of the liberal Germans were against the internal policy of
the _Bund_[4] and its tendencies, little favorable to the development
of the constitutional _regime_, yet one cannot deny that, according to
the European point of view, and with regard to the equilibrium and the
general peace of the world, this was a marvelous conception, well fitted
to preserve the independence of the States and to hinder any deep
perturbation in the bosom of the Christian family. The chimerical and
mercantile minds of the times, the leading men of Manchester and the
rich publicists, with at least "one idea a day," imagined that this was
the moment to declare "war to war," to force a universal disarmament, to
abolish military slavery; and to this effect they convoked noisy
congresses of peace in different parts of the world. They had, indeed,
in a day of _naivete_, convoked one at Frankfort, without suspecting
that by their side, and in this very _Bundestag_ of such modest
appearance, had sat for a long time a true and permanent congress of
peace,--a congress which would do as much good as possible, and which,
moreover, would have the advantage of not being ridiculous.
Placed in the very centre of Europe, separating by its large and
immovable body the great military powers which form the border, so to
speak, of our old continent,--a power neutral by necessity and almost by
law over those great plains, where in former times the destinies of
empires were decided,--the German Confederation formed an _ensemble_ of
States sufficiently coherent and compact to repulse any shock from
abroad, yet not strong enough to become aggressive itself and to menace
the security of its neighbors. Many years later, and when chancellor of
the empire, Prince Gortchakof, in a celebrated circular, rendered homage
to this beneficial combination of the _Bund_, "a combination purely and
exclusively defensive," which permitted the localization of a war,
become inevitable, "instead of generalizing it and of giving to the
struggle a character and proportions beyond all human calculation, and
which in any case would pile up ruins and cause torrents of blood to
flow."[5]
In truth, if in this long half century which intervened between the
Congress of Vienna and the ill-omened battle of Sadowa, the frontiers of
the States have changed so little in spite of so many and so great
changes in their political complexion; if the revolution of July, the
campaign of Belgium, and even the wars of the Crimea and Italy have been
carried on without noticeably disturbing the balance of the nations, or
injuring them in their independence, we are specially indebted to this
_Bundestag_ so unappreciated, which by its very existence, by its
position, and the wheelwork of its completed mechanism, prevented any
conflict from becoming a general conflagration. It is doubtful whether
the cause of humanity and civilization, or the very cause which the
chancellor of Russia more specially represents with such facility and
_eclat_, have gained in any considerable degree in seeing this old
"combination" replaced in our time by another, more simple, it is true,
but, perhaps, also much less calculated to restore confidence.
While acquitting himself zealously of the duties of his office in
connection with the Germanic Confederation, Alexander Mikhailovitch
continued to occupy the post of minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart.
He held it to be a matter of honor to fulfill to the end his
confidential and intimate mission by the side of the Grand Duchess Olga.
He divided his time between the free city on the Main, the seat of the
_Bund_, and the little capital on the banks of the Neckar, where a warm
and kind interest always greeted him. At Frankfort he took especial
pleasure in the society of his Prussian colleague, a young lieutenant in
the _Landwehr_,[6] an entire novice in the diplomatic career, although
marked out for such a prodigious destiny. There had been settled here
for many years a great Russian celebrity, a poet, who was at the same
time an influential courtier, and who could not be overlooked by a
diplomat with a love for intellectual enjoyments, and who had been a
school-fellow of Pouchkine. The good and mild Vassili Joukofski had
certainly none of the genius of Pouchkine, nor his independent and
ardent character. More properly a facile versifier and an ingenious
translator than a creative and original mind, with a nature rather
effeminate and contemplative, the formerly renowned author of "Ondine"
had early made his peace with the official society which the despotic
will of Nicholas had created, and had always sunned himself in the rays
of imperial favor.
During his long and pleasant career as poet at the court, he had not
been without dignities and honors. He, however, had a mission much more
important and honorable; he was charged with directing the education of
the heir-presumptive, Alexander, the present emperor, and of his brother
the Grand Duke Constantine. Joukofski devoted himself to this task with
intelligence and ardor, and retained the affection of his two august
pupils to the end of his life. A proof of this fact is the
correspondence which ensued and which he still maintained with them
while at Frankfort. These letters were published quite recently. After
having finished the education of the grand dukes, he made a voyage of
pleasure in Germany. At Duesseldorf he found a companion for life, much
younger than himself, but sharing all his tastes, even his charming
weaknesses. He finally selected a home on the banks of the Main, at
Frankfort.
Thus, as it happens to more than one of his compatriots, Joukofski,
living entirely in a foreign country, and being indeed manifestly
unwilling to return to his native land, considered the Occident
miserably sunken and corrupted, and hoped only in "holy Russia" for the
renovation and safety of a world overrun and possessed by the demon of
revolution. The events of February only served to confirm him in these
gloomy visions and to plunge him more and more into an uneasy mysticism,
at times even irritating, but more often inoffensive and not devoid of a
certain unhealthy charm. The campaign of Hungary caused a momentary
diversion in his sad thoughts, and filled him with joy. It was not so
much the glory with which the Russian army covered itself which pleased
his mind; it was not even the triumph attained by the Russian sword, the
sword of St. Michael, over "the impure beast:" his prayers, his hopes
went far beyond. He hoped--thus he wrote to his imperial pupil that the
great czar would profit by the power which God had given him and would
"solve a problem on which the crusades had stranded;" that is to say,
that he should drive the infidel from Byzantium, and liberate the holy
land. Mme. Joukofski, although born a Protestant, felt in unison with
her melancholy husband. Her soul had need of a "principle of authority,"
which failed her in the reformed confession, and which she sought one
day in the Orthodox Church, to the great joy of the poet, without,
however, being able to find there perfect rest.
Sometimes in the _salon_ of the Joukofski the conversations were
strangely varied and _bizarre_, on literature, politics, the glorious
destinies of holy Russia, the inanity of modern civilization, the
necessity of "a new eruption of Christianity," and on many matters
invisible and "ineffable." Occasionally there fell into the midst of
this _salon_, like a fantastic apparition, like a ghost from the world
of spirits, a genius original and powerful in a very different way, but
also tormented and troubled differently from the good court poet and
former preceptor of the grand dukes. After having unveiled the hideous
sores of Russian society with a vigorous, implacable hand, after having
presented to his nation, in "Les Ames Mortes" and in "L'Inspecteur," a
picture whose vices were appalling with truth and life, Nicholas Gogol
suddenly gave up in despair civilization, progress, and liberty, and
betaking himself to adore that which he had burned, valued nothing but
barbarian Muscovy, saw no salvation but in despotism, thought himself in
a state of "unpardonable" sin, and went in search of divine pity which
always fled from him. Shortly afterwards he went from St. Petersburg to
Rome, then to Jerusalem, then to Paris, everywhere seeking appeasement
for his lacerated soul. Then he came from time to time to Joukofski, and
passed whole weeks in his house, exhorting his friends to prayer, to
repentance, and to contemplation of the divine mysteries. There were
discussions without end, without a truce, on the "heathens of the
Occident," on "a crusade," which was drawing near, on the redemption of
sinful humanity by a race not yet defiled, and which had kept its faith.
At several revivals the physicians were forced to interfere to put an
end to a connection not without peril. One day Gogol was found, having
died of inanition, prostrate before the holy images, in the adoration of
which he had lost all thought of himself.... May we be pardoned for this
short digression. It makes us acquainted with the state of the minds of
a certain Russian society towards the end of the reign of Nicholas, and
adds a curious stroke to the picture of the origins of the war in the
Orient. One delights, however, to think of Alexander Mikhailovitch in
this _salon_ of the Joukofski, on an evening for instance, during such
an intellectual conflict with the poor Gogol. The diplomat, equally
cultivated and skeptical, was certainly made to recognize the bright and
brilliant flashes which furrowed those driving clouds in a great,
disordered mind; and he was made to unravel more than one strong and
thrilling thought from the midst of those strange ramblings concerning
an imminent crusade and the near deliverance of Zion.
Who would have thought it? It was these mystics, these men laboring
under hallucinations, who had the true presentiment and saw the signs of
the times! While Joukofski composed his "Commentary on Holy Russia," and
Gogol mortified himself before the _icones_, the Emperor Nicholas
revolved in his mind the great thought of a crusade, and prepared in the
most profound secrecy the mission of Prince Menchikof. The fact that the
monarch who had done so much for preserving the peace and equilibrium of
Europe had suddenly decided to throw such a fire-brand of war in the
midst of the continent scarcely consolidated, while on the other hand
the autocrat had awaited precisely this epoch of relative calm and of
the reestablishment of general order to announce his designs, in place
of executing them boldly some years before during the revolutionary
tempest which paralyzed almost all the Powers, his armies being already
in the very heart of Hungary and commanding the banks of the
Danube,--these facts will be for the impartial historian an evident
proof of the good faith with which the czar undertook his fatal
campaign, of the mystical blindness which guided his spirit at this
time, and of the profound conviction which he had of the justice of his
cause. Did Prince Gortchakof partake in the same measure of the
illusions of his master? We doubt whether he did. We believe that, like
the Kisselef, the Meyendorf, the Brunnow, and all the distinguished
diplomats of Russia, without excepting the chancellor of the empire, the
old Count Nesselrode, he was conscious of the great error toward which a
proud prince, who allowed no objections and understood being "his own
minister of foreign affairs," was tending. That naturally did not
prevent the Russian representative to the German Confederation from
fulfilling his duty with all the zeal which circumstances so critical
made necessary, and from placing the various resources of his mind at
the service of his country in the sphere of action which was reserved
for him.
Events did not make it of much importance. In the _Bundestag_ were
concentrated not only all the efforts of the secondary States of the
confederation, but there also were formed or conceived the projects,
the preparations, and even the desires of the two principal German
powers, the assistance of which Russia on the one side and France and
England on the other, were equally concerned in obtaining. Prince
Gortchakof could not complain of the turn affairs took in Germany.
Frederick William IV. was faithful against every temptation. The czar
could count in any case on "his brother-in-law, the poet;" and Alexander
Mikhailovitch found an equally firm support in his colleague of Prussia,
the young officer of the _Landwehr_. The cabinet of Berlin consented
from time to time to join in the representations which the allies sent
to St. Petersburg, to sign in concert with them the same note, or one
analogous or concordant. But it did not take long to see that it only
did this to retard their movements, and to deter them from any energetic
resolution. At decisive moments it stopped short, hesitated, and
pretended to preserve "_la main libre_" (_free Hand_). The other members
of the _Bund_ were much more sympathetic and more frankly won over to
the Russian policy. They did not think the demands of the czar against
Turkey at all exorbitant, and troubled themselves very little about the
preservation of the "sick man." They likewise desired to preserve "_la
main libre_," closed their ranks in the famous conferences of Bamberg,
and were at times all ready to draw their swords. In truth, Alexander
Mikhailovitch showed in the sequel, in the fatal year 1866, very little
gratitude, very little distributive justice, for these poor secondary
States, so devoted, so serviceable, so immovably attached at the time of
the Oriental crisis.
While at London and at Paris vehement comments were made in the
celebrated dispatches of Sir Hamilton Seymour, and the ambitious
projects of Russia were denounced there, at Hanover, at Dresden, at
Munich, at Stuttgart, at Cassel, nothing but censure was heard against
the proceedings of the allies and their "usurpations." At Berlin they
groaned all the more at seeing Christian monarchies undertake so
ardently the defense of the Crescent. A single Germanic power, however,
at that time the largest it is true, maintained a different attitude; a
single one thought the cause of the allies just, seemed, indeed, at
moments to be inclined to make common cause with them; and that power
was Austria,--Austria, but lately succored by the Russian arms; saved by
the strong and generous hand of the czar on the very brink of the abyss;
"saved" by him from sudden dissolution. The astonishment, the
stupefaction, the exasperation of the Emperor Nicholas knew no bounds.
The entire Russian nation shared his sentiments,--Alexander
Mikhailovitch like every patriotic Muscovite. "The immense ingratitude
of Austria" became even then the unanimous cry,--the _siboleth_ of every
political faith in the vast empire of the North; and so it has remained
even to our days.
It is necessary to lay stress upon this sentiment born in Russia in
consequence of the Oriental conflict, and to discuss the real causes for
it; for this sentiment has produced incalculable effects. It has
contributed largely to the recent catastrophes; it has dictated more
than one extreme resolution to the cabinet of St. Petersburg; it has
made it abandon its venerable traditions,--its principles, consecrated
by the experience of generations and seemingly immovable, having become,
in a certain sense, the _arcana imperii_ of the descendants of Peter the
Great. To sum up, it has governed the general policy of the successor of
Nesselrode during the last twenty years.
Assuredly Russia had the right to count on the recognition of Austria
after the signal and incontestable service which it had rendered her in
1849. The armies which the czar then sent to the succor of the tottering
empire of Hapsburg contributed powerfully to suppress a fatal, menacing
insurrection there; and if it is true that in order to obtain this
succor it was sufficient to recall to the Czar Nicholas a word given
long before in a moment of confidential intimacy, the action does not
become the less meritorious, and does so much the more honor to the
heart of the autocrat.[7] It would be difficult to deny that this
intervention in Hungary had not a generous and chivalric character which
astonished the contemporaries and the clever. The clever ones, the
statesmen, who, at this troubled epoch of Europe, had still preserved
enough liberal spirit to cast their eyes toward the Danube,--Lord
Palmerston among others,--remained for a long time incredulous, and
endeavored to divine the reward paid for the aid that was lent. Should
not the czar retain Galicia as a recompense for his assistance? Would he
not procure some positive assurance from the side of the Principalities?
was asked in the offices of Downing Street. Nothing of the sort
happened, however. The Russians left Austria without a reward, as they
had entered it without an _arriere-pensee_, and the troops of Paskevitch
evacuated the country of the Carpathians unladen with booty. A young and
ardent orator in the Prussian chambers, with the name (as yet but little
known) de Bismarck,--the same who fifteen years later was to project
striking a _coup au coeur_ and arming the legions of Klapka,--admired at
this moment the brilliant action of the czar, and only expressed the
patriotic regret that this magnanimous _role_ had not fallen to his own
country, to Prussia. It was for Prussia to bring assistance to its elder
brother in Germany, to "its former comrade in arms."[8] But it is
allowable to suppose that, even with a king as loyal and poetic as
Frederick William IV., affairs would have been conducted much less
handsomely than with the barbarian of the North, and that similar aid
from Prussia would have cost the empire of Hapsburg a part of Silesia or
a part of its influence on the Main.
Shall we say, then, that in intervening in Hungary the Emperor of Russia
acted from pure chivalry and platonic friendship, that he had no thought
of personal interest and the good of his empire? Certainly not; and the
czar had too much loyalty not to avow it frankly. He intervened in
Hungary, not only as the friend of the Hapsburg, not only as the
defender of the cause of order against cosmopolitan revolution; the most
powerful motive in deciding him was the presence in the Hungarian army
of Polish generals and officers, who intended to carry the war into the
countries subjected to Russian rule. In his manifest of the 8th May,
1849, Nicholas expressed himself as follows: "The insurrection sustained
by the influence of _our traitors from Poland_, of the year 1831, has
given to the Hungarian revolt an extension more and more _menacing_....
His majesty, the Emperor of Austria, has invited us to assist against
_the common enemy_.... We have ordered our army under way to quell the
revolt, and to destroy the audacious anarchists, _who equally menace the
tranquillity of our provinces_." The language was clear and frank, as
was fitting for a sovereign preserving the consciousness of his dignity.
This sovereign intended to render himself a service as well as his ally.
He was going to stifle in his neighbors' territory an incendiary fire
which threatened to harm his own domains; and in the act of intervening,
let it be well understood, he at the same time acted in
self-preservation.
Well! it seems according to all justice that the gratitude should
correspond to the service rendered, and that the law of preservation,
the supreme law of nature, should have equal force for the party under
obligations as for the benefactor. There is no policy in the world, were
it even taken from Holy Writ which could advise voluntary servitude;
there is no doctrine, however sublime one wishes to imagine it, which,
among the duties of the confession, recommends suicide. Now, it was
nothing less than absolute subjection, the ruin of its personality as a
great European State, which the Russians demanded of Austria in
demanding its assent to their pretensions against the Orient. By
geography, by the spirit of races, by religion, the Russian enterprises
would strike a mortal blow at the empire of the Hapsburg, if this empire
allowed them to triumph. A Danubian power, Austria should take care that
the Lower Danube remained neutral, and that it should not fall into the
hands of a powerful neighbor, who would then become master of this great
river. A Sclavic power in its Oriental provinces, it ought to guard
against being placed in immediate contact with an empire pan-Sclavic by
tradition and by fatality, and it could not wish it to be planted in the
Principalities, in Bosnia and Herzegovania. A Catholic power, it was
forbidden to recognize the influence and the protectorate which the
orthodox czar claimed over the Christians of the Grecian rite, of whom
it counted several millions among its subjects. "My conduct in the
question of the Orient! Why it is written on a map?" said Count Buol, to
his brother-in-law, M. de Meyendorf, the Russian ambassador. He added
that it was also written in history. "I have made no innovation. I have
only inherited the political legacy of M. de Metternich."
In fact, in a previous crisis, at the time of the Hellenic insurrection
and the war of 1828, the grand chancellor of the court and of the empire
had defended this principle of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire with
a firmness which nothing could disturb. During eight years he had
defended it, braving the storm alone, not allowing himself to be
discouraged either by the unpopularity then attaching to the Turkish
cause or by the desertion of France. Why should the Russians hope that
Austria would now desert this principle so vital for her, that she would
desert it at the very moment when it commenced to triumph over the
indifference of the Occident, and counted France and England among its
most earnest champions?