blond children of Arminius, far from finding there a "spur and support,"
the Prussian minister only met with repugnance and imprecations. All the
Napoleonic ideology was necessary to see in the conflict which was
preparing "the great war for German nationality," all the blindness of
the authoritative and democratic press in France was necessary to
assimilate the enterprise of M. de Bismarck on the other side of the
Rhine to the work of Cavour in the peninsula. The German nationality was
neither oppressed nor threatened from any quarter; none of the States of
the _Bund_ groaned under a foreign dominion; the ruling houses in
Hanover, Saxony, Wuertemberg, Bavaria, etc., were indigenous, antique and
glorious, popular and liberal dynasties; the larger part of these
countries enjoyed a constitutional and parliamentary system unknown at
Berlin; the cities of Frankfort, Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen were even
republics! To-day, when success has obscured the conscience and even the
memory of contemporary generations, and when a sad philosophy of history
is always on the point of justifying the present by falsifying the past,
one is prepared to recognize the "providential," irresistible movement
which drew Germany towards Prussian unity, and to almost call with M. de
Bismarck the campaign of 1866 "a simple misunderstanding." The truth is
that this campaign was a civil war, a fratricidal combat, and it was not
only the Prussian people which repudiated the thought and even cursed
its author on the eve of Sadowa. On the eve of Sadowa, the principal
cities of the kingdom, Cologne, Magdeburg, Stittin, Minden, etc., sent
addresses to the sovereign in favor of peace and against "a baleful
policy of the cabinet," the great corporation of merchants of
Koenigsberg, the city of Kant, even decided to no longer celebrate the
king's birthday. On his arrival at Berlin, General Govone wrote: "Not
only the upper classes, but even the middle classes are against or
unfavorable to the war. This aversion shows itself in the popular
journals; there is no hatred of Austria. More than that, although the
chamber has neither great prestige nor great popularity, the debates
still create adversaries for Count de Bismarck." Two months later, and
at the approach of hostilities, he wrote: "Unfortunately the public mind
in Prussia does not awaken in a perceptible manner, even face to face
with a situation so decisive, so vital for the country."[63]
It is true that none of these obstacles were of a nature to disturb the
president of the council at Berlin in his resolutions, nor to retard the
course which was traced out. On the contrary there were quite other
difficulties and falterings against which he stumbled in the court
itself, with the old fogies of Potsdam, especially with his sovereign,
and in many a circumstance the "iron count" could well say, like a
certain cardinal, "that the cabinet of the king and his _petit-coucher_
embarrassed him more than all Europe." In spite of the faith of William
I. in his "mission from above," in spite of the equally strong
resolution to preserve at any price his good port of Kiel, he did not
the less look upon an open conflict with the Emperor of Austria, an act
of hostility declared against this German sovereign who bore the
venerated name of Hapsburg, as the last of extremities, and he did not
wish to have recourse to it until after having exhausted all the means
of an amiable settlement. For the extreme case, and in opposition to
Napoleon III., he also greatly preferred the little war for the Duchies
to "the great war for German nationality;" but what he disliked above
all things, was the idea of a compact with Italy, a veritable compact,
offensive and defensive, in place of a "generic" treaty with a vague
declaration of _alliance and friendship_, and only destined, as one had
persuaded him from the first, to make Austria reflect and bring it to an
adjustment. He, the loyal Hohenzollern, to make war on a Hapsburg on
joint and equal terms with a _Welche_,--he, the Lord's anointed, the old
combatant of the holy alliance, to become the brother in arms of a
Victor Emmanuel, that representative of revolution, that usurper who had
overthrown so many legitimate princes, besieged and dethroned his own
nephew, and made Garibaldi in a red shirt sit near him, in the coach of
the king!
The faltering and compunctions on this point were very sincere.
Notwithstanding what has been said, nothing less than the marvelous art
of M. de Bismarck was necessary to triumph in the end over these
"syncopes" of the mission, to operate on these tumors of the conscience.
"There is my doctor!" said the old monarch of Prussia one day to a
Russian princess who congratulated him on his good health, pointing to
his first minister.[64] The difficulty of _gaining over the king_, of
triumphing over his _superstitions_, over the _old ideas_, over his
_legitimist scruples_,--these words were continually on the lips of M.
de Bismarck in the confidential interviews of the spring of 1866, which
the valuable reports of General Govone have so fortunately preserved for
posterity. Assuredly, in studying those reports, as well as the other
dispatches which M. le Marquis La Marmora wished very much to deliver to
the public, one can enjoy the spectacle of a comedy in five different
acts, all doing little honor to human nature; one can ask who bears away
the palm in duplicity of language, and in _aes triplex_ of the forehead,
the grandsons of Machiavelli or the heirs of the Teutonic order; one can
admire there how, to use an ingenuous expression of the Italian
negotiator, the Southern _viper_ attempts to _bite the charlatan_ of the
North, and the charlatan puts his foot on the viper.[65] What, however,
is the most curious and the most instructive in these documents is the
quantity of matters which the president of the Prussian council
succeeded in this short space of some months in teaching his august
master, a still greater quantity than he had made him forget. Without
doubt, one of the most remarkable of these forgetfulnesses is a certain
_word of honor_ given in _June_, 1866, by a very august personage to the
Emperor Francis Joseph, _that there was no treaty signed with
Italy_,[66] when that treaty, a treaty of offensive and defensive
alliance in good and due form, already counted at this moment two months
of existence, which had been signed at Berlin the 8th April by the
respective plenipotentiaries, ratified by the King of Italy at Florence
on the 14th, and then ratified on the 20th by the King of Prussia at
Berlin.
By the side of official Italy, the minister of William I. had taken care
to equally attach discontented Italy, which murmured in the shallows of
the young monarchy, and General La Marmora complains on several
occasions, in his interesting book, "of the intimate and cordial
relations which the minister of Prussia at Florence, Count d'Usedom,
entertained with some members of the party of action," and whose
untoward advice it followed only too often. On his part, the consul of
Prussia at Bucharest held in hand (February, 1866) the thread of a
conspiracy which was to bring about the fall of the Prince Couza, and
make a considerable difference in the action of the government at
Berlin. "Liberalism is childishness which it is easy to bring to reason;
but revolution is a force of which it is necessary to know how to avail
one's self," the cavalier of the Mark one day said at Paris, and he did
not delay to prove the two truths of his aphorism. It is known that his
relations with Mazzini were kept up a long time even after Sadowa,[67]
and the engagements contracted in 1866 towards Prussia by the Magyar
chiefs have since influenced, influence still at the present time, and
much more than is generally thought, the external policy of the empire
of the Hapsburg. It was also in the conventicles of the men of the
European revolution where the fantastic plan of campaign was worked out,
which M. d'Usedom wished to force on General La Marmora in his famous
dispatch of the 17th June;[68] in it he recommended making war
thoroughly, to overturn the quadrilateral, to march along the Adriatic,
to penetrate into Hungary, which would at once rise at the name of
Garibaldi: "we will thus strike Austria, not at the extremities, but at
the heart!" As to the endeavor to form, under the orders of the refugee
General Klapka, a legion composed of deserters from the Austrian army,
the president of the Prussian council greatly wished to affirm before
the chambers of Berlin, in his celebrated speech of the 16th January,
1874, that he had _rejected with energy all those projects at the
beginning of the war_. "It was not until after the battle of Sadowa, at
the moment when the Emperor Napoleon III., by a telegraphic dispatch,
had caused the possibility of his intervention to be seen,--it was not
till then, and as an act of legitimate defense, that I did not order but
only tolerated the formation of this Hungarian legion." Unfortunately,
the dates are not quite in accord with the declarations of the present
chancellor of Germany. The battle of Sadowa was fought the 3d July; but
on the 12th June, M. de Bismarck let the Italian government know that it
had definitely accepted the aid of the Sclavic and Hungarian
defections,[69] and it is established by evidence that, long before
Sadowa, even before any beginning of war, the Prussian government had
had recourse to a means which, according to the chancellor's own
expressions, "would excite to revolt and treason the Magyar and
Dalmatian regiments of the Austrian army." Let us not forget, however,
that, while treating with Mazzini and M. Klapka, the minister of William
I. was not sparing in denouncing to Europe the Jacobin spirit of the
House of Hapsburg: "The king, our august master," said a Prussian
dispatch of the 26th January, 1866, "is grievously affected at seeing in
the Duchies of the Elbe, and under the aegis of the Austrian eagle,
revolutionary tendencies, hostile to all thrones. If at Vienna they
believe that they can tranquilly assist in this transformation of a race
distinguished up to the present time by its conservative sentiments into
a hot-bed of revolutionary agitations, we cannot do it for our part, and
we are decided not to do it."
It was in the midst of such dark intrigues, and of negotiations more or
less regular, of preparations for war and a continual exchange of notes,
of parliamentary conflicts and of almost continual daily combats with
the "old fogies" of the court, that the first six months of the year
1866 passed for the president of the council at Berlin, and rarely has a
statesman lived through a more troubled or disturbed period. The waves
of events first cast him ashore, then threw him back again, and seemed
to remove him farther than ever from his goal. The revolution in
Roumania, and the election of Prince Hohenzollern by the people of
Bucharest, was, for instance, a great stroke of fortune, for this
incident brusquely shut a door through which, in the opinion of more
than one politician at that time, the Venetian question might have
resulted in peace,[70] and it was through efforts of the French, who
had contributed to the installation of the young Prussian prince on the
banks of the Danube! However, immediately after, M. de Bismarck was
again aroused from his security by vague rumors of conferences between
Austria and France, touching the city of Saint Mark. He, at least,
profited by them to persuade the king to sign the secret treaty of the
8th April with the government of Florence; but soon the offer of
disarming, made by the cabinet of Vienna, the debates in the midst of
the legislative body, and the manifestations of public opinion in
France, more and more favorable to the cause of peace, produced a
despairing lull, and again gave courage to the numerous partisans of
Austria at the court of William I. The Emperor Napoleon III. then
rendered to the Prussian minister the signal service of again putting in
motion the great political machine which began to slacken. He made the
speech of Auxerre (6th May), and defied, with scorn, the treaties of
1815. That did not, however, prevent him from immediately baffling all
the plans of M. de Bismarck, by the sudden proposition of a congress,
and, at this new occurrence, which seemed to compromise everything, the
president of the council at Berlin spoke _for the first time_ of
compensations for France. "I am much less German than Prussian," he said
to General Govone; "I would not have any difficulty in ceding to France
the whole country comprised between the Rhine and Mosel, but the king
would have very grave scruples."[71] Let it be well understood, he would
in return demand of the French government an active cooperation in the
war. But what did not enter at all into the views of Napoleon III. was,
that the state of opinion in France did not even permit it to be thought
of. In the interim, he learned that new negotiations had just been
entered on between Austria and France concerning Venice, and that on the
other side the king was making, without his knowledge, propositions to
the Emperor Francis Joseph for an amicable arrangement: William I.
always preferred the little question of the Duchies to the great war for
the German nationality! One can surmise what must have been at this
moment the state of mind of the minister who, for so many months,
complained before the Count de Barral, Italian plenipotentiary at
Berlin, of being betrayed by his agents at London, at Florence, and at
Paris. Moreover, he considered his life in danger since an attack made
on his person the 7th May; he was not without uneasiness about his
sojourn at Paris during the congress in which he was going to take part,
and which he dreaded for so many other reasons. "He does not go out
unaccompanied," wrote the Count de Barral, the 1st June, "and agents of
French police will come as far as the frontier to follow him during the
whole journey."[72]
The journey did not take place, as is known; Prussia, in the words of M.
d'Usedom, was "rescued from the congress," and Prince Gortchakof
contributed largely to this work of salvation. Always a ready friend, he
was the first to think that the projected conference had no "practical
aim" with the reservations which Austria wished to bring to it,[73] and
thus gave the signal for the general overthrow. From that time M. de
Bismarck set himself to "work on the mind of his royal master," and he
ended by freeing him from all _scruples_. "His majesty," Count de Barral
telegraphed even on the 23d May from Berlin, "was very much _moved_ at
the situation, of which he spoke with great tears in his eyes." Two
weeks later, the 8th June, the king wept no longer, but "he still had in
his voice something sad, indicating clearly the decision of a resigned
man, who believed that he could not act differently. His majesty told me
that he had full confidence in the justice of his cause. I have a clear
conscience," he added, with a moved air, and placing his hand on his
heart; "for a long time I have been accused of wishing war for ambitious
views, but now the whole world knows who is the aggressor."[74]
"I will return _via_ Vienna or Munich, or I will charge with the last
squadron, which will never return," M. de Bismarck said to a foreign
ambassador, at the moment of leaving Berlin for the head-quarters, the
30th June, 1866. Two days later he was already at Jitschin, on the field
still smoking from a great battle which had just been fought there. "I
have just arrived," he wrote to his wife from Jitschin; "the ground is
still heaped up with corpses, horses, and arms. Our victories are much
greater than we thought.... Send me some French romances to read, but
not more than one at a time. May God keep you!" This was written the 2d
July, 1866; the next day the battle of Sadowa was fought; the next day
Germany was at the feet of this singular lover of _French romances_; and
the Emperor Napoleon III. was sadly awakened from his own romance, from
his long humanitarian dream. Like the Titania of the "Midsummer Night's
Dream," imperial France saw all at once that, in a state of
inconceivable hallucination, she had caressed a monster.
And while so many events were taking place on the world's stage, great,
marvelous, and terrible events, Russia continued to sulk and meditate;
it meditated in the perpetual adoration of Prussia. One seeks in vain
for a trace of its action in the events which, nevertheless, concerned
in so high a degree its interests, its family alliances, its secular
traditions. "Since I have been in Russia," wrote M. Benedetti to his
chief in the spring of the year 1866, "let me mention that I have always
remarked, not without surprise, the indifference with which the cabinet
of St. Petersburg seems to me, from the beginning, to watch the
pretensions of Prussia and the eventuality of a conflict between the two
great Germanic Powers; and what I have not been less struck with is the
_constant security_ in which I have found M. de Bismarck as to the
attitude and the intentions of the Empire of the North." Russia was
silent in 1865 during the crisis of Gastein; in the month of May, 1866,
it only accepted the invitation to the congress to make them despair
and to discourage the other Powers from it; it was absent from the
deliberations of Nikolsburg and of Prague; it left to France the care of
making efforts for the South of Germany, for Saxony; it even left it the
honor of stipulating a clause in favor of unhappy Denmark, the country
of the future empress! One moment, it is true, M. d'Oubril, the Russian
ambassador at Berlin, a diplomat of the old school, had shown himself
very much alarmed at the victories and conquests of the Hohenzollern; he
was ordered in all haste to St. Petersburg, and "returned from there in
a few weeks entirely reassured, and affecting a satisfaction which was
not disturbed a single instant either by the reverses of the German
princes allied with the House of Russia, or by the developments which
Prussia made in its military power."[75] Prince Gortchakof did not
sacrifice to the old idols of the right of nations and of the balance of
power; he did not share certain prejudices touching the "solidarity
which should exist among all the conservative interests;" and he had too
lofty a soul to be jealous of a good neighbor. Moreover, had he not too
"vanquished Europe," three years previously, in the memorable campaign
of Poland? Some august personages, some princesses and grand duchesses,
had said in vain, with the women of the Bible, that Saul killed his
thousands, but David tens of thousands; they had in vain showed their
despoiled relations and their confiscated patrimonies; Alexander
Mikhailovitch did not envy the young laurels of his former colleague of
Frankfort, become Chancellor of the Confederation of the North. He
rejoiced in seeing Austria severely punished and France well mortified;
for the rest, he thought that nothing was changed, and that there was
only one more great chancellor in this century.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] See the celebrated circular dispatch of M. de Bismarck of the 24th
January, 1863, in which he gives an account of the curious interviews
which he had with the ambassador of Austria, Count Karolyi, in the last
months of the year 1862, soon after his accession to power.
[40] "Why, then, should not representative institutions be accorded at
the same time to the kingdom of Poland and to the empire of
Russia?"--Dispatch of Lord John Russell to Lord Napier, 10th April,
1863.
[41] "This _connivance_ of Austria was not the least remarkable event in
the history of this insurrection."--Confidential dispatch of M. de
Tengoborski to M. d'Oubril, 4th February, 1863.
[42] "The Polish insurrection, on which its duration impressed a
national character," the Emperor Napoleon III. said in his speech of the
5th November, 1863.
[43] "On former occasions, M. de Bismarck always spoke to me of the
probability that the Russian army would be too weak to suppress the
insurrection."--Dispatch of Sir A. Buchanan, 21st February, 1863. He
uses the same language to the Austrian minister, Count Kavolyi. On his
part, the director of the diplomatic chancellor's office of the Grand
Duke Constantine wrote on the 4th of February, at the first news of the
envoy of the Prussian generals for the conclusion of a military
convention: "While recognizing the courtesy of the mission of these
gentlemen, we cannot give an exact account of what has influenced it.
There is no _pericolo_ (_sic!_) _in mora_, and we have no need of it for
the cooperation of foreign troops.... The Prussian government paints the
Devil much blacker than he really is."--Confidential dispatch of M. de
Tengoborski to M. d'Oubril, Russian minister at Berlin.
[44] The German papers at this time published this interview after the
narration of M. Behrend, who did not deny it. See, among others, the
_Cologne Gazette_ of the 22d February, 1863.
[45] Dispatch of M. Buchanan of the 17th October, 1863. Inclosure.
Minute of conversation between M. de Bismarck and Sir A. Buchanan.
[46] Seeking an issue, however dishonorable to the campaign so foolishly
undertaken, the chief of the foreign office had decided towards the end
of September (after the speech of Blairgowrie) to declare the Emperor
Alexander _deprived of his rights over Poland_, "for not having
fulfilled the conditions in virtue of which Russia obtained this kingdom
in 1815." France was to make an analogous declaration, but M. Drouyn de
Lhuys, become prudent, and with reason would not send his note until
after that of England had reached Prince Gortchakof. Lord Russell then
wrote his dispatch; it was read at the council, approved by Lord
Palmerston, and a copy of it was given to the minister of foreign
affairs of France. Lord Napier had already been advised to inform Prince
Gortchakof of an "important communication" which he would soon have the
honor to transmit to him, and the Duke of Montebello was also instructed
by the French government to support his colleague of Great Britain in
his solemn declaration; already the debated document had left for its
destination, and was on its way to St. Petersburg, ... when suddenly, and
to the unspeakable astonishment of the persons initiated, a telegram
brusquely stopped in Germany the bearer of the note; another telegram
informed Lord Napier that no further attention should be given to the
"important communication." For during the interval Count Bernstorff had
read at the foreign office a Prussian dispatch in which M. de Bismarck
advised the principal secretary of state to take care how he
proceeded,--for, if the czar were declared deprived of his rights over
Poland for his violation of the treaty of Vienna, the German governments
could also declare on their part the King of Denmark deprived of his
sovereignty over the Duchies of the Elbe for not having fulfilled all
the engagements of the treaty of London. Lord John Russell recalled the
courier and tore up the note.--_Vide_ in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of
the 1st January, 1865, "Two Negotiations of Contemporaneous Diplomacy;
M. de Bismarck and the Northern Alliance."
[47] "In 1848 Denmark had demanded the protection of France; M. Bastide,
then minister of foreign affairs under the republic, took its part
warmly, and there was even an idea of sending 10,000 men to assist the
Danes in the defense of their country."--Dispatch of Lord Cowley of the
13th February, 1864. See also the curious dispatches of M. Petetin, then
envoy of the republic at Hanover.
[48] The official journals of Berlin have renewed this reasoning in
their recent discussions on the laws of guarantee accorded to the Holy
See. The Pope, they argue, cannot be treated as a sovereign, as
reprisals cannot be exercised against him by seizing his states.
[49] See the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st October, 1868, _Les
Preliminaires de Sadowa_, as well as the instructive work of General La
Marmora, _Un po piu di luce_, Firenze, 1873.
[50] It is not useless to mention, _en passant_, the circumstances in
the midst of which these new candidatures were produced. Summoned by the
conference of London to present his pretensions, M. de Bismarck (28th
May, 1864) could not do otherwise than to follow Austria, and to
pronounce himself for the Duke of Augustenburg. The 2d June, at the
reunion succeeding the conference (the telegraph had had time to work),
the Russian plenipotentiary declared unexpectedly that the emperor, his
august master, "desiring to facilitate as far as he could the
arrangements to be concluded," had ceded his eventual rights, as chief
of the House Holstein-Gottorp, to his relative, ... the Grand Duke of
Oldenburg! The 18th June, another relative of the Emperor Alexander II.,
Prince Frederick William of Hesse, also asserted his rights to the
succession at the conference of London. This is an example of the
numerous and discreet services which Prince Gortchakof knew how to
render to his friend of Berlin in the sad campaign of the Duchies.
[51] Verse of a German song.
[52] We have taken care to preserve in the translation the character of
edifying obscurity which distinguishes the original.
[53] "What can one say now, if France had shown itself opposed to these
proceedings (the treaty of Italy with Prussia), we could not run the
risk of finding ourselves face to face with an Austro-Franco alliance.
Prussia was as solicitous as we, perhaps even more, with the attitude
which France would take in case of a war of Prussia and Italy against
Austria."--La Marmora, _Un po piu di luce_, p. 80. Three days before the
signing of the secret treaty with Italy, M. de Bismarck said to General
Govone: "_All this, let it be well understood, if France wishes it, for,
if she shows ill will, then nothing can be done._"--Dispatch of General
Govone to General de la Marmora of the 5th April, 1866. _Ibid._ p. 139.
[54] Letter of the emperor to M. Drouyn de Lhuys of the 11th June, 1866.
It is from this letter, solemnly presented to the legislative body, that
the quotations which follow are taken.