was certainly one of the strangest and most painful that history has
known. Two great Powers, jealous of one another, and even destined to
soon fight in mortal combat for the spoils torn from their victim,--two
great Powers, at once incited and cried down by a whole league of
princes and peoples of Germany, attacked a feeble state, but
nevertheless an old and glorious monarchy, and one whose existence was
proclaimed by all the cabinets to be necessary to the balance of
nations; they attacked it under the most futile pretext, in the name of
a cause which the very chief of the coalition had formerly qualified as
"eminently iniquitous, frivolous, disastrous, and revolutionary." It
was, moreover, to punish King Christian IX. for his disobedience to the
_Bund_ that Prussia and Austria had charged themselves with this work of
"justice;" and this work they inaugurated with a formal declaration of
their own disobedience to the same _Bund_; they acted "as proxies for
Germany," and entire Germany protested against the usurpation of the
mandate! All these monstrous things Europe saw and let pass, this same
Europe which, in 1848 at the time of the first German aggression against
the Scandinavian monarchy, had not failed in its duty, and had fulfilled
it nobly in spite of the great revolutionary tempest which might have
served it as an excuse. The Powers were then unanimous in defending the
weak against the oppressor; the Emperor Nicholas was in accord on this
point with the Republic of General Cavaignac, and it was only the
diplomats improvised by the "surprise" of February who had not shown at
this time a sufficient knowledge of the conditions necessary for the
equilibrium of the world. It has been reserved for the most tried
statesmen, for chancellors grown old in the tradition and respect for
treaties, for the representatives of regular and strong monarchies, to
allow the consummation of a revolutionary work which the Bastide and
Petetin would have thought their duty not to admit![47] Without doubt it
is, above all, England who will bear before posterity the shame of the
ruin of Denmark, for she it was who had taken in hand the cause of the
Scandinavian kingdom, who had counseled, guided, reprimanded up to the
last day, and who had solemnly declared _that in the moment of danger it
(Denmark) should not fight alone_; it would, however, be unjust to
pretend to completely exonerate the rest of the European Powers. More
than one thoughtful and honest mind assigned at that time to this
dismemberment of a monarchy in the nineteenth century all the import
that another dismemberment had had in the preceding century, and foresaw
from it with anxiety great overturnings and formidable catastrophes in
the future. The _naifs_, or, to speak with M. de Bismarck, the
_profane_, could alone believe the game finished after this first stroke
dealt to the right of nations, after this first exploit also of the
marvelous "instrument" which the Prussian government had employed so
many years and so much time to "perfect."
The cannon of Missunde was for the cavalier of the Mark what the cannon
of Toulon had formerly been for a certain officer of Corsica, and this
short campaign of the Duchies revealed many things to the future
conqueror of Europe. He learned there that legitimate rights, sacred
treaties, stipulated minutes, the sworn faith and many other
old-fashioned things reputed inassailable were much more feeble and
decaying than the poor fortresses erected by the Danes in the preceding
ages, and, if Moltke and Roon made in this war a perfectly satisfactory
trial of their needle gun, he could for his part prove the precious,
unalterable qualities of his own instrument. It must be plainly said
that during the whole of this expedition against Denmark, Prince
Gortchakof did not cease to favor the Prussian minister by all means, to
tender him with ardor, and very often privately, a helping hand at each
new difficulty. His aid was absolute and the more efficacious since it
took the appearance of a busy neutrality in search of a pacific
arrangement. It was thus that he aided the president of the council at
Berlin in forcing into the stubborn head of Lord Russell the equally
specious and pleasing reasoning, that the occupation of Holstein by the
federal troops would become a title of validity in the hands of the new
King of Denmark. "M. de Bismarck told me," Sir A. Buchanan wrote on the
28th November, "that a federal execution would prevent any revolutionary
movement in Holstein, and would be at the same time to a certain degree
an _indirect recognition_ of King Christian IX. as Duke of Holstein on
the part of the Diet of Frankfort. His excellency affirmed that the
alarming state of Germany forced him to proceed at once to the
execution; but he could not or would not explain to me how such an
execution could be a recognition of the sovereignty of King Christian,
and could avoid the appearance of an occupation." Three days afterwards,
the 1st December, Lord Napier wrote on his part from St. Petersburg:
"The language of Prince Gortchakof makes me believe that he is
persuaded that M. de Bismarck has _moderate views_ in this question. The
vice-chancellor is disposed to consider a federal execution, if it is
well conducted, as a _preservative measure_. In his opinion, the federal
troops, acting according to judicious instructions, will assure order
and maintain the necessary distinction between the legislative and the
dynastic question." "_I despoil, then I recognize!_" said M. de Bismarck
by a logic belonging to him alone,[48] but which Prince Gortchakof
shared at this moment, and which the two friends soon tried to apply
also to Schleswig, after the chief of the foreign office had resigned
himself to it in Holstein. "This morning the Russian vice-chancellor
suggested to me," again wrote Lord Napier from St. Petersburg under date
of the 11th January, "that one should bind Denmark to _admit_ the
occupation of Schleswig by the forces of Austria and Prussia under title
of a _guarantee_ given to these two Powers as regards the German
population of the Duchy." Thus the state papers and the documents
communicated to the _Rigsraad_ continue to instruct and edify us; one
does not find there a single insinuation or "suggestion" sent from the
banks of the Spree against Denmark which was not at once reverberated on
the banks of the Neva. And yet Denmark has always been the friend and
the _protege_ of the empire of the czars! More than any other Power in
the world, Russia was interested in preserving the liberty of the
Baltic, in not letting the port of Kiel fall into the hands of Germany;
more than any other Power, also, it was interested in remembering that
Courland and Livonia talked German much more purely and harmoniously
than Schleswig! Lastly, it was certainly the cause of the revolution
against that of legitimate sovereignty which was engaged in this debate
on the Eider; the old Nesselrode had declared so in a celebrated
circular, and what would the Emperor Nicholas have said of such
complacency for revolution on the part of a Russian chancellor?
Alexander Mikhailovitch will yet cause the astonishment of history by
the immensity of his gratitude towards M. de Bismarck.
II.
Thus was inaugurated, concerning Poland and Denmark, that common action
of the two ministers of Russia and Prussia, which was to continue for so
many years, and have such a considerable, such a disastrous influence on
the affairs of the Continent. With this year 1863 the second period of
the ministry of Prince Gortchakof commences, his second _term_, which
was assuredly much less open to discussion. To the French "cordiality,"
properly dosed and taken in fact as a tonic, which had prevailed till
then, the Prussian friendship, undeniably too passionate and too
absorbing, succeeded. In fact, in this second period, Alexander
Mikhailovitch no longer preserved that calm and reserved mind, and that
intelligent egotism which made his fortune at the time of his intimacy
with the Emperor Napoleon III.; he embraced all the opinions, every
cause of his formidable friend at Berlin, unfortunately without
possessing his astonishing flexibility of mind, his marvelous art of
turning and twisting. Nothing, for instance, equals the address with
which M. de Bismarck can, if necessary, forget a disagreeable past, and,
above all, be unable to remember his wrong-doings toward others; in
fact, he has a charming euphemism, he calls them _misunderstandings_.
More than once, from the height of the tribune, he has adorned with this
name his long and outrageous conflict against parliament which he
sustained up to the war of 1866 against Austria (a little
misunderstanding which cost 40,000 men their lives!). And how can one
help admiring the affection, the enthusiasm, which he has inspired in
that excellent Lord Russell, certainly the statesman whom he ridiculed
and ill-treated the most in 1863, during the Danish contention? As for
his Polish quarrels with the Eastern Powers in the same year (1863), he
was the more ready to forget them as those very Powers felt that a great
act of folly had been committed. He dictated to King William a most
polite reply, full of tender souvenirs of Compiegne, in answer to the
letter of Napoleon III. concerning the congress, and toward the end of
the year he was already in touching accord with the cabinet of the
Tuileries concerning the treaty of London, a treaty which guaranteed the
entireness of the Danish monarchy, and which a circular of M. Drouyn de
Lhuys now qualified as an _impotent work_! As regards Austria, he soon
granted it full indulgence for its Polish error in the spring, and even
forgave the very reprehensible enterprise which it attempted in the
month of August at Frankfort, on _the day of the princes_. In the month
of November he had already made it his companion and accomplice in the
wars of the Duchies. Prince Gortchakof appeared in a very different
light; he was never willing to pardon France and Austria for their
intermeddling in the affairs of Poland, and remained immovable to every
attempt at reconciliation. He knew no intimacy except with the cabinet
of Berlin, and his former colleague of Frankfort became his only
confidant and ally. The famous aphorism of 1856 then underwent an
important modification; beginning with 1863, the Russian chancellor
began to sulk while continuing to _meditate_, and the Achaeans have paid
dearly for this spite of Achilles. The "sulks" of Alexander
Mikhailovitch have been almost as fatal for Europe as the dreams of
Napoleon III.
This Napoleonic policy regarding the affairs of Germany, at once
reasonable and chimerical, ingenious and ingenuous, which he sincerely
thought would work good, and which only accumulated disasters and ruin,
seemed like a dream, a real _summer night's dream_. One day they had a
sublime vision at the Tuileries: Italy was completed in its unity,
Austria reexalted, Prussia rendered more homogeneous, Germany more
satisfied, Europe regenerated, and France consolidated and glorious. All
this only depended on a single hypothesis, but a hypothesis which did
not exist, on a battle fought and won by the brave _Kaiserliks_ always
inured against this Prussian _Landwehr_ which for half a century had not
smelt powder, and it was on this frail skiff, on this "nut-shell," as
the Puck of Midsummer Night's Dream had said, that the fortune of Caesar
and that of France was embarked! In fact, at this moment, all the world
believed in the incomparable military superiority of Austria over its
bold rival in Germany; no one admitted the possibility of a Prussian
victory, still less a victory as decisive, as startling as that at
Sadowa. "That was," M. Rouher said later, in a memorable session of the
legislative body,--"that was an event which Austria, which France, which
the military man, which the simple citizen had all considered as
unlikely; for there was an universal presumption that Austria would be
victorious and that Prussia would pay, and pay dearly, the price of its
imprudence." This presumption, very real and universal at that time,
remained the sole excuse of Napoleon III. before history, for that
lamentable phantasmagoria which was announced to the world by the speech
of Auxerre in the month of May, 1866, but whose origin goes back as far
as the convention of September and the first journey of M. de Bismarck
to France after his campaign in Denmark in the autumn of 1864.[49]
"I have at least one superiority over my conqueror," the Emperor of
Austria, Francis I., said to M. de Talleyrand, the negotiator of the
peace of Presburg, with a dignity not without keenness; "I can reenter
my capital after such a disaster, while it would be difficult for your
master, in spite of all his genius, to do the same thing in a similar
situation." This curious _mot_ displayed in a striking manner the
profound, incurable vice of all Caesarism. No more than the conqueror of
Austerlitz, could Napoleon III. accept a check; he was obliged _to do
great things_, condemned to success and prestige. Soon after the
misadventures and the miscalculations in the affairs of Poland, of
Denmark, and of the congress, he was forced to look out for a revenge,
he cast his glances from north to south, "struck an attitude" by means
of the convention of September, which seemed to be the preface of a new
and great work. He was isolated in Europe, incensed against England,
very much embarrassed in regard to Russia, more than cool with Austria,
and it was with a certain inward trepidation that one saw M. de Bismarck
hasten to France (October, 1864) at the first news of the convention
concluded with the cabinet of Turin. Evidently "something was to be done
for Italy;" without rancor, as without prejudices, the president of the
Prussian council came to renew the conversations broken off two years
before at the time of his short mission to Paris.
He added nothing to the truth; he only affirmed that his alliance with
the Hapsburg in the war against Denmark had been a simple incident, and
he allowed to be clearly seen his desire to keep for Prussia the
countries recently conquered on the Elbe in the name of the Germanic
Confederation. For the rest, he only varied the ancient theme on the
inevitable imminent duel between Berlin and Vienna, on the advantages
which Italy might gather from it, on the advantage that would accrue to
France, having Prussia, with a better defined and firmer outline, as its
natural, unfailing ally in all the questions of _civilization_ and
_progress_. Such expressions, coming from a minister who had shown his
character in the campaign of the Duchies, now met an auditory much more
attentive than that of 1862. Without yet taking him for a perfectly
_serious_ man, they began to recognize in him the qualities of a useful
man, of a man of the future, whom Italy should cultivate with care, whom
France, for its part, should watch carefully, encourage, and manage. The
leaders of the imperial democracy, Prince Napoleon first of all, showed
themselves especially taken with the prospectives which were opened to
them. A distinguished member of this group, a diplomat reputed to be
acute above all, and whose name even allied him to the Italian cause,
was sought out in his retreat and placed at the head of the mission at
Berlin, elevated now to an embassy. Another member of the "party of
action," equally unattached for some time, a former ambassador at Rome,
was not long in being recalled into the councils of the empire: by the
side of M. Rouher, he was destined to form there a useful counterpoise
to the slightly "antiquated" ideas of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Finally, on
the other side of the Alps, at Turin, a general, well known for his
"Prussomania," had taken in hand the direction of political affairs on
the 23d September. Each of these personages,--M. Benedetti, M. de La
Valette, General La Marmora,--will have his _role_ and his day in the
great drama of 1866.
At this time, however, in the autumn of 1864, no plan was fixed or even
discussed: one had only come as yet to simple confidences, to vague and
fleeting conversations, to that which, in diplomatic language, one had
not even dared to call an exchange of ideas; but the impression which
the Prussian minister obtained from this rapid journey to France was
sufficiently encouraging for him soon to launch that circular of the
24th December, 1864, which became the point of departure for his action
against Austria. It was in this circular, in fact, that M. de Bismarck
broached for the first time the question of the countries of the Elbe,
which he well knew to be a question of war. Six months before, in the
peremptory declaration made the 28th May, 1864, in the midst of the
conference of London, Austria and Prussia had demanded the "reunion of
the Duchies of Schleswig and of Holstein in a single state under the
sovereignty of the hereditary Prince of Augustenburg," and the cabinet
of Berlin took care to add then that this prince had, "in the eyes of
Germany, _the greatest right_ to the succession; that his recognition by
the _Bund_ was consequently assured, and that, moreover, he would
reunite the _indubitable suffrages_ of the great majority of the
population of this country." Quite different were the sentiments of the
Prussian minister towards the end of the same year, some time after his
return from Paris. In a circular dispatch addressed to the German
courts, the president of the council of Berlin declared now (24th
December, 1864) that grave doubts assailed his mind touching the titles
of the Duke of Augustenburg, that several serious competitors, such as
the Princes of Oldenburg and Hesse, had arisen in the interval;[50]
that in the midst of such multiplied and such confused claims he was
perplexed; that his conscience was not sufficiently enlightened on this
point of right; that he felt the need of meditating and of "consulting
the legists!"
The world knows the magnificent decree which the "legists"--the syndics
of the crown--did not delay in pronouncing, as well as the conclusions
which the scrupulous minister conscientiously drew from them. There were
judges at Berlin, and they proved it in overruling all parties, in
declaring them all badly grounded in their pretensions: Hesse,
Oldenburg, Brandenburg, Sonderburg, Augustenburg, none of them had the
right of succession to Schleswig-Holstein. The King of Denmark alone had
the titles! But as the King of Denmark had been forced by the war to
abandon the provinces of the Elbe to the sovereigns of Prussia and
Austria, M. de Bismarck concluded therefrom that the two monarchs could
dispose of their "property" as they wished, without any intervention of
the _Bund_, and he demanded of the Emperor Francis Joseph the cession of
his part of the conquest for ready cash. The Prussian minister made
this impudent demand in an arrogant dispatch, full of menaces, dated the
11th July, 1865, from Carlsbad, from the very place where the old King
William had come to enjoy the Austrian hospitality during the season.
The alarm was great for some weeks. M. de Bismarck made no mystery of
the negotiations which he entered upon with Italy; he said to M. de
Gramont "that far from dreading the war, he desired it by all means;"
some days after, he even declared to M. de Pfordten, president of the
council of Bavaria, "that Austria could not sustain a campaign, that it
would suffice to strike a single blow, to fight a single and great
battle from the side of Silesia to obtain satisfaction of the Hapsburg."
In reality, he only wished to sound the ground and to make a careful
examination. At this moment he was not yet sufficiently sure of the
disposition of the Emperor Napoleon to dare to risk the great cast; he
also wanted time to persuade the pious Hohenzollern to pronounce the
"God wills it!" of a fratricidal war. He had to content himself with
that convention of Gastein (14th August, 1865) which was only a
provisional arrangement, yet the first breach made in the rights of the
_Bund_, and like an indirect consecration of the conclusions which he
had pretended, to draw from the decree pronounced by the famous syndics
of the crown.
The very day on which he signed this equivocal transaction at Gastein,
M. de Bismarck wrote his wife a short note as follows: "For several days
I have not found a moment of leisure to write you. Count Blome is again
here, and we are doing our best to preserve peace and stop up the
crevices of the building. Day before yesterday I devoted an entire day
to hunting. I think that I wrote you that I returned disgusted from my
first expedition; this time I at least killed a roe, but I saw nothing
else during the three hours that I devoted without cessation to
experiments on all sorts of insects, and the noisy activity of the
cascade below me drew from my heart the cry: '_Little brook, leave there
thy murmur._'[51] After all, it was a very good shot made across the
precipice. The animal, killed instantly, fell with its four feet in the
air from a height of several church steeples into the torrent at my
feet." After all, he no more missed the shot than when he slew, in order
that he might no longer be the cherished candidate of the _Bund_, the
poor Augustenburg, and made the little Duchy of Lauenberg fall into the
Prussian game-bag! This fact of the chase and of diplomacy even had an
extraordinary reecho in Germany, in France, and even as far as Lord
Russell, who experienced the shock. The principal secretary of state
insisted on the honor of associating himself with M. Drouyn de Lhuys in
a very eloquent protest against the arrangements made at Gastein, and
the iron-clad squadron of England, which had not appeared in the Baltic
since the war of Denmark, came this time at least to pay a courteous
visit to the French fleet at Cherbourg. There, however, the
demonstration of the two Powers of the East limited itself; M. de
Bismarck could enjoy in peace his triumph and the title of count which
the fortunate campaign of 1865 brought him.
Is it admissible to depart from the gravity of history to describe still
another incident of Gastein, a little _genre_ picture of manners which
was much talked of at this epoch, and even became the object of
confidential explanations between the president of the Prussian council
and a devoted friend, all extremely devout? And why not, since the
letter of M. de Bismarck to M. Andre (de Roman) concerning Mlle. Pauline
Lucca is one of the most curious pages of his familiar correspondence,
if it throws light in a very picturesque manner on that vast and bald
forehead on which the hand of King William had just placed the coronet
of a count. Well, in the midst of those political negotiations and the
deer hunts, M. de Bismarck found time at Gastein to be photographed in a
romantic attitude with Mlle. Lucca, first _cantatrice_ of the royal
opera at Berlin. The photographs caused a certain scandal on the banks
of the Spree; the leaders of _the party of the cross_ were especially
moved at the thermal license which the former Levite of the tabernacle,
the fervent disciple of MM. Stahl and de Gerlach, took. M. Andre (de
Roman) was perfectly willing to accept the _role_ of Nathan in the
Bible, and, in a sermon written in entire confidence, he did not limit
himself to talking of the Bethsabea of the opera; he also spoke some
well-chosen words touching the reparation by arms which the first
minister of Prussia had but lately wished to impose on the good Doctor
Virchow, the very learned and very peaceful discoverer of _trichina_. M.
Andre found that that was not the conduct of a true Christian; he did
not conceal that his old friends sighed at not seeing their Eliakim
assist at divine service, and even began to be rather uneasy at the
state of his soul. It was to such a sermon that M. de Bismarck replied
by the confidential letter which follows, and which a lucky indiscretion
has since given to the public, a letter assuredly very characteristic,
and which makes one think once more of Cromwell, whose memory has been
so often called forth in the course of this study:--