Emperor Nicholas, had come to visit the sovereign of France after the
peace of Paris, and since his return had quarreled with the sultan, in
consequence of which the _Algesiras_ and _L'Impetueuse_ appeared before
Ragusa. French vessels in the waters of the Orient to menace Turkey, to
the great mortification of England and Austria, to the great rejoicings
of Russia, all this scarcely two years after the war in the Crimea! The
sight was surely not wanting in originality, and prepared the world for
a series of surprises. At about the same time, Servia expelled Prince
Alexander Kara Georgevitch, and recalled to the throne the old Miloch
Obrenovitch. The Porte protested, England and Austria joined in this
protest; but, thanks to the combined efforts of Russia and France, they
ended by acknowledging the right of the national Servian assembly, whose
principal grievance against the dethroned prince was his having shown
too much sympathy for the allies in the war of 1853! The question of the
Danubian Principalities presented an aspect serious, and also _piquant_.
France and Russia had begged at the congress of Paris for the complete
union of Moldavia and Wallachia; the other Powers were opposed to it,
and, weary of war, they had agreed to accept a combination which
completely assimilated the administration in the two countries, while
maintaining their separation. It was, as later in Italy, the project of
confederation opposed to that of unity; but then there was also given on
the banks of the Danube the first example of that national strategy,
which was soon to show itself on a larger scale in Tuscany and Emelia.
The twofold election of Prince Couza was in truth the first trial of
that popular diplomacy, which later, in Italian affairs, took pleasure
in so often confounding the combinations of high plenipotentiaries and
high contracting parties, and proclaimed in the face of the world a deed
accomplished by the suffrage of the nation. The popular votes annulling
the arrangements of diplomacy, and the understanding of France and
Russia to respect these votes, these are the two salient traits of the
policy in the years 1856-1859, a policy which the liberal opinion of
Europe received with favor without being too much astonished at such a
concordance of views between the cabinets of the Tuileries and St.
Petersburg on this very ground of the Orient, still warm with the
bullets of the war; on this ground, from which Russia should have been,
in the opinion of the allies of 1853, completely shut out, and where she
now regained influence and a footing, modestly it is true, and under the
protecting shadow of France.
At last the Italian complications came, and the government of the czar
increased the testimonials of his good relations with the cabinet of the
Tuileries. "Our relations with France are _cordial_," replied Prince
Gortchakof to Lord Napier, charged by his government with sounding the
disposition of Russia in such grave matters. England then made earnest
efforts to prevent the war in Italy from breaking out. Lord Cowley, sent
with a certain flourish on a mission to Vienna, exerted himself to
discover the possible bases of an accommodation, and the cabinet of St.
James already flattered itself with the hope of having quelled the
tempest, when Prince Gortchakof suddenly proposed a _congress_, and
pronounced that fatal word which then, as so often since, was only the
signal for a rupture. A congress! A treaty of peace before any
hostility, the glory of the triumph without the peril of victory,--that
was the eternal _hysteron-proteron_ of the Napoleonic ideology, that was
the chimera pursued by the dreamer of Ham in the question of the Papacy,
in the question of Poland, and of Denmark; and up to the catastrophe of
1870, after the declaration of war, it is curious to see Prince
Gortchakof first suggest a remedy which imperial France was yet to
recommend so often for all the chronic evils of Europe.[30] The chief of
the English government, the old Earl of Derby, complained bitterly of
the horrible trick which the proposition emanating from St. Petersburg
had played him, and there has never been any doubt in England but that
it was brought about by a telegram sent from Paris. Not less serviceable
for France did the Russian vice-chancellor show himself in his circular
of the 27th May, 1859, when he endeavored to calm the warlike ardor of
the secondary States of Germany, and it was in this celebrated dispatch
that he made the judicious demonstration as well as the merited praise
of the "combination purely and exclusively defensive" of the _Bund_, a
salutary combination which permitted the localization of a war become
inevitable, "in place of generalizing it and giving to the struggle a
character and proportions which escape all human foresight."
Napoleon III. descended to the plains of Lombardy; Austria was
vanquished at Magenta and Solferino, and Russia could enjoy its first
revenge on the ungrateful Hapsburg, who had "betrayed" it before
Sebastopol. The year after, in consequence of the annexation of Savoy,
Lord Russell made the solemn declaration to the parliament that his
country "should not separate itself from the rest of the nations of
Europe; that it should always be ready to act with the different states,
if it did not wish to dread to-day such an annexation, and to-morrow to
hear another spoken of." That was the funeral oration of the
Anglo-French alliance: four years after the war of the Crimea, France
had lost one and then the other of its two great allies in the crisis of
the Orient, and Russia did not care to complain. It did not protest
against the annexation of Savoy; it even declared that it only saw in it
a "regular transaction;" but it profited by the moment to make its
reentry into European politics, and bring back on the tapis the question
... of the Ottoman empire! The 4th May, 1860, Prince Gortchakof
convoked in his cabinet the ambassadors of the great Powers in order to
examine with them the "dolorous and precarious" position of the
Christians in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria, and soon a circular of
the vice-chancellor (20th May) insisted on the reunion of a conference
in order to alter the stipulations established by the treaty of Paris.
"The time of illusions is passed," Alexander Mikhailovitch wrote in this
circular; "all hesitation every adjournment will bring grave
inconvenience," and he even seized upon the recent liberation of Italy
as an argument for the future independence of the populations who
awakened all his solicitude: "the events accomplished in the east of
Europe have resounded in all the Orient _like an encouragement and like
a hope_!" Thus, scarcely four years after the treaty of Paris, Russia
began anew to speak to the world of the "sick man," and to do it, it did
not shelter itself, as in the conferences and commissions of 1856-1859,
under the protection and language of France; it went all alone, and took
the initiative in the debate!
This was not enough: in that year alone, 1860, the cabinet of St.
Petersburg regained almost all the ground lost since the war of the
Crimea; that was a year of peculiar fortune for Russia, for it was a
year of universal distrust of France. The acquisition of Savoy, the
strange and profoundly immoral spectacle which the negotiations of this
treaty of Zurich offered, torn up even before being signed, the
Piedmontese annexations in Italy, the expedition of Garibaldi to Sicily,
the "new right" of which the official journals in France spoke, and the
famous pamphlet on the "Pope and Congress," had caused the alarm and
awakened in the highest degree the uneasiness of Europe. Lord Palmerston
declared "that he would only be willing to give his hand to a former
ally in holding the other on the buckler of defense," and he armed his
_volunteers_. Switzerland was violently agitated; the _National-Verein_
swore to die for the defense of the Rhine, and even those honest and
peaceful Belgians affirmed in an address to the king that "if their
independence was menaced, they would submit to the most severe trials."
Above these popular frights the cabals of the sovereigns were agitated;
the German princes united at Baden, and the emperor of the French
thought it opportune to surprise them in a measure in the midst of their
deliberations by making that "rapid voyage" from which the "Moniteur"
promised "very happy results." "Nothing was wanting but the spontaneity
of a proceeding so significant," added the official journal, "to put an
end to this unanimous concert of malicious rumors and false estimations.
In truth, the emperor, in explaining frankly to the sovereigns united at
Baden how his policy never conflicted with right and justice, carried to
minds equally distinguished and equally exempt from prejudices, the
conviction which does not fail to be inspired by a true sentiment
expressed with loyalty." It appeared, however, that the conviction had
not worked completely on the prejudices, for, at the close of the
reunion of Baden, there was another at Toeplitz, between the Emperor of
Austria and the Prince Regent of Prussia, where they agreed on a third
which was to be held at Warsaw with the Emperor of Russia,--and the
czar accepted the _rendezvous_.
"It is not a coalition, it is a reconciliation which I am going to make
at Warsaw," declared the Emperor Alexander II. to the French ambassador,
the Duke of Montebello, whose government was naturally much agitated by
the turn affairs were taking. In truth, conciliating expressions were
not wanting in the dispatch by which Prince Gortchakof "invited the
French government to let him know in what measure it thought that it
would be able to second the efforts which Russia was making to prevent
_the crisis with which Europe was menaced_;" but, however polite these
forms were, they did not hide a necessity for explanation. The cabinet
of the Tuileries replied by a memorandum in which it gave, above all,
"the categoric engagement not to give any support to Piedmont in case
that Austria should be attacked in Venetia." The cabinets of Vienna and
Berlin made their remarks on several points of the French memorandum,
and addressed them ... to the Russian vice-chancellor, who transmitted
them to Paris, with the request for new explanations more explicit and
more reassuring. Sum total, no positive result came from this meeting of
the three sovereigns of the North, who had for a moment caused very
grave apprehensions in France. This was because the Emperor Alexander
had gone to Warsaw only in a particular interest; he did not wish to
make a coalition nor a reconciliation there; he simply wished to show
his influence: to give a demonstration of his power. He was flattered at
seeing these sovereigns, these German princes, coming to the former
capital of Poland to deliberate there on the general situation, and to
receive the word of command: that recalled the good days of the Emperor
Nicholas. On the other side, Russia was very much pleased at making
France feel the whole price of its friendship, at making it understand
that its services had now a much greater value, perhaps even their
tariff. The clever productions which emanated successively in these
years 1856-1860 from the chancellor's office at St. Petersburg,
indicated in a very plastic manner the continually ascending advance of
Russia since the peace of Paris. In the first of these celebrated
circulars, it declared "that it did not sulk, but meditated;" in the
second, on the occasion of the Italian complications, it already emerged
"from the reserve which it had imposed on itself since the war of the
Crimea." After the annexation of Savoy "its conscience warned it of
being any longer silent on the unhappy state of the Christians in the
Orient, etc." At last, in the month of October, 1860, it was the
mouth-piece of the general interests of Europe, the intermediary which
demanded explanations from the cabinets of the Tuileries. A modest
_protege_ of France, and full of "reserves" until the war in Italy, it
ascends in 1859 to the rank of a "precious friend," to become after the
interview of Warsaw the important and almost indispensable ally,--an
ally very resolute in not accepting a secondary _role_, in guarding its
position of marked influence, in taking for itself a large part in the
great combinations of the future.
Assuredly the desultory, undecisive, and eternally contradictory policy
of the Emperor Napoleon III. played into the hands of Russia. But it is
just to acknowledge that Prince Gortchakof allowed no chance of fortune
to escape, and that without creating the events, he understood admirably
how to profit by them. The superiority of the statesman always reveals
itself by the measure which he preserves in his "cordiality" and even in
his vengeance, by the foreseeing mind which he does not cease to
preserve even in the midst of the allurements of success. It is not
doubtful for instance that the warnings of Russia after the battle of
Solferino, the fears which it then suddenly expressed of not being able
longer to restrain Germany in its ardor to go to the rescue of Austria,
contributed greatly to the hasty peace of Villafranca, and, however
fatal this event was as regards the interests of France and even of
Austria, one cannot deny that Russia accomplished its purpose perfectly.
In fact, the complete execution of the programme "of the Alps to the
Adriatic" would have probably given an entirely different turn to the
Italian affairs, would certainly have rendered possible in the future a
sincere reconciliation between France and Austria, while the half drawn
solution by the peace of Villafranca, leaving all the questions in
suspense, could only embitter the relations of the two belligerents, and
render the friendship of Russia more precious to France. On the other
side, this campaign of Lombardy, while giving satisfaction to the
Muscovite hatred sprung from the war of the Orient, was still far from
destroying one of the fundamental elements of the traditional policy of
the czars as regards Germany. In spite of the loss of Milan, Austria
preserved its position intact in the centre of Europe, was a balance for
Prussia, and the interview of Warsaw proved that the Russian influence
among the Germanic States had certainly not decreased.
Not less circumspect and skillful did the Russian vice-chancellor show
himself in not compromising too far in his connivances with the Emperor
Napoleon III. during these years 1856-1860, certain general principles
of preservation which had made the greatness and strength of the reign
of Nicholas. Without doubt, in Servia, in the Danubian Principalities,
Alexander Mikhailovitch was not of a vigorous orthodoxy, and allowed
popular votes to annul there the arrangements stipulated by the
treaties; but in comparison with those countries of the Orient Russia
has always allowed itself many political licenses. In the affairs of the
Occident, on the contrary, Prince Gortchakof took care to remain as far
as possible in the traditions and not to overturn too much in the "new
right." He let the journals and periodicals of Moscow and St. Petersburg
plume themselves at their ease on what Russia boldly contributed to the
deliverance of the peoples and to the triumph of nationalities; for
himself, in the documents dated at his office, he refrained carefully
from all these neologisms and persevered in the terminology consecrated
by the old diplomatic language. In these documents he had not spoken at
all of the national aspirations nor of the popular votes, when Milan and
Savoy changed masters; in the eyes of the Russian vice-chancellor, all
these were simply facts of war, "regular transactions." Still less did
he care to make the revolutionary propaganda abroad and to associate
himself in the commerce of exportation which, according to a malicious
remark of those days, Napoleon III. had undertaken with liberal ideas.
He declined categorically all participation in the remonstrances
addressed to the King of Naples, and declared in his circular of the 22d
September, 1856, "that to wish to obtain from a sovereign concessions as
to the internal government of his states in a comminatory manner or by
menacing demonstrations, was to substitute one's self violently on one's
own authority, to govern in his place, and to proclaim without disguise
the right of the strong over the weak." Lastly, in his famous note to
Prince Gagarine of the 10th October, 1860, he took up the Sardinian
government roundly for its conduct in Emilia, Tuscany, the Duchies of
Parma and Modena, and strongly opposed the deposal of these princes and
the annexations of those provinces, which six years later he was to
tolerate, even favor in Germany. "It is no longer," he said in the
dispatch to Prince Gagarine, "a question of Italian interests, but of
general interests, common to all governments, it is a question which is
directly connected with those eternal laws without which, neither order,
peace, nor security can exist in Europe." Finally, he sneered at those
Jenners of politics who recommend the vaccination of anarchy to remove
from it its pernicious character, and who pretend to remove the arms
from the demagogy in appropriating to themselves its baggage; "the
necessity in which the Sardinian government pretends to be situated in
combating anarchy does not justify it, since _it only moves with the
revolution to recover by it its heritage_." In a word, the Russian
vice-chancellor profited with prodigious dexterity by the good
disposition of France and still more by its errors, without ever
sacrificing the will, the decorum, and the principles of his own
government to it. He made use of the Emperor Napoleon III. without using
him too much, and above all without ever subjecting himself to an order
of ideas in which Russia could find any deception. For the good of
Russia, for the happiness of Europe, it would have been desirable for
Prince Gortchakof to have observed later, in his intimacy with Prussia,
a little of that care and that intelligent egotism which he gave proof
of in such a superior manner in his intimacy with France. "To love,
there must be two," said the great theologian of the Middle Ages on the
subject that those centuries of faith called divine love, the relations
of the human soul with its heavenly Creator. The precept is assuredly
much more to be recommended in the much less mystical relations between
the powers of the earth, and the Russian vice-chancellor did not forget
it during that first period of his ministry, during those years of
"cordiality" with the cabinet of the Tuileries. It was only during the
second period that the heart of Alexander Mikhailovitch began to control
the right of the state, and that the love for M. de Bismarck proved to
be stronger than the world, stronger even than Russia and its interests.
II.
While Prince Gortchakof thus reaped the fruits of his "French" policy,
among which that of vengeance on Austria was surely not the least sweet
or pleasant, his former colleague of Frankfort, having become
representative of Prussia at the court of Russia, was consumed at his
side by the languishing fever of a man of action trammeled by foolish
probity. He had arrived at St. Petersburg in the spring of the year
1859, three months after the famous birthday reception given to M. de
Huebner by the Emperor Napoleon III.; the Italian complications were
about to break out, and the Russian vice-chancellor lent himself to all
those diplomatic tricks which, according to the desire of the cabinet of
the Tuileries, would drive the Emperor Francis Joseph to a declaration
of war. The new plenipotentiary of Prussia at the court of St.
Petersburg had not a moment of doubt concerning the bearing which his
government should observe in circumstances so propitious. It was from
this time (12th May, 1859) that his confidential dispatch to M. de
Schleinitz dates, in which he recommends the rupture with the _Bund_,
the radical proceeding by sword and fire, _ferro et igne_. In the
preceding year, during a journey to Paris, he had occasion to have an
interview with the Emperor of the French, and to recognize his good will
toward Prussia, and the unqualified wishes which were expressed in the
Tuileries for the greatness and the prosperity of the country of
Frederick II. and of Bluecher. In the month of November of that same year
1858, Napoleon III. had charged the Marquis Pepoli, then _en route_ for
Berlin, to represent to the Hohenzollern all the advantages which he
would find in a rupture with Austria: "In Germany," the Emperor of the
French had said, "Austria represents the past, Prussia represents the
future; in linking itself to Austria, Prussia condemns itself to
immobility; it cannot be thus contented; it is called to a higher
fortune; it should accomplish in Germany the great destinies which await
it, and which Germany awaits from it."[31] Thus thought the future
prisoner of Wilhelmshoehe on the eve of Magenta and Solferino, and "his
excellency the lieutenant" certainly found no objections in such a
magnificent programme. But those good ministers of the _new era_ at
Berlin unfortunately had not the slightest notion of the "new right,"
and up to the prince regent himself, they did not cease to speak of
conquests purely _moral_. They even asked one another at Potsdam if they
should not assist Austria, and whether they did not have federal
obligations towards the Emperor Francis Joseph! The Samson of the Mark
strove in vain against the ties which the "Philistines of the Spree"
imposed on him, and the war in Italy became his Dalila: in fact, it was
from this epoch that the renowned boldness of the present chancellor of
Germany dates.
It is interesting to study, in the confidential letters to Malvina, the
state of mind of M. de Bismarck during these years 1859-1860. At the
commencement of hostilities, and evidently despairing of seeing his
government adopt the line of conduct which he had not ceased to
recommend, he left his post, went to Moscow to visit the Kremlin, passed
an agreeable day in a villa, so much more agreeable "when one has the
feeling of being sheltered from the telegraph." The news of a great
battle fought in Lombardy (Magenta) caused him, nevertheless, to return
to St. Petersburg. "Perhaps there will be something for the diplomats to
do." At St. Petersburg, he learns of the strange desire at Berlin of
interceding for Austria, of mobilizing the federal armies, and from it
he conceived the greatest apprehensions for his country. He became ill.
A very grave case of hepatitis endangered his life seriously. "They
covered my body with innumerable cupping glasses large as saucers, with
mustard poultices and quantities of blisters, and I was already half way
to a better world when I began to convince my doctors that my nerves
were disordered by eight years of griefs and excitement without
intermission (the eight years of Frankfort!), and that by continuing to
weaken me, they would lead me into typhoid fever or imbecility. My good
constitution ended by conquering, thanks, above all, to several dozen
bottles of good wine."