tone, in the council of ministers before 1866. It was not till later,
after Sadowa and the affair at Luxemburg, that he at times seemed to
yield to the "party of action" in his views concerning Belgium, without,
however, ever giving his full acquiescence.
[56] Dispatch of M. Nigra of the 8th August, 1865. La Marmora, p. 45.
[57] Dispatch of General Govone of the 17th March, 1866. La Marmora, p.
90.
[58] It was on his return from Biarritz that M. de Bismarck said to the
Chevalier Nigra, these significant words: "If Italy did not exist, it
would have to be invented." La Marmora, p. 59.
[59] Dispatch of General Govone, of the 6th April, 1866. La Marmora, p.
139.
[60] _Est aliquid delirii in omni magno ingenio._--BOERHAAVE.
[61] At the moment when hostilities commenced; dispatch of M. de Barral
of the 15th June, 1866. La Marmora, p. 332.
[62] Dispatch of General Govone of the 2d April, 1866. La Marmora, p.
131.
[63] Dispatches of General Govone of the 2d April and 22d May 1866. La
Marmora, pp. 131 and 245.
[64] George Hesekiel, iii. p. 271.
[65] _E la vipera avra morsicato il ciarlatano._ Dispatch of General
Govone of the 15th March, 1866. La Marmora, p. 88.
[66] It was the Queen Augusta who affirmed it in a letter to the Emperor
of Austria, saying that on this matter she had received the word of
honor of her royal spouse. See the curious dispatch of M. Nigra of the
12th June, 1866, as well as the telegram of General La Marmora of the
same day. La Marmora, pp. 305 and 310.
[67] After the death of the great Italian agitator, the journals of
Florence published his letters to M. de Bismarck during the years
1868-1869. In case of a war between France and Germany, Mazzini suggests
the plan of overthrowing Victor Emmanuel, if this latter allied himself
with the Emperor Napoleon III.
[68] It is necessary to observe that the strategical part of the note of
d'Usedom was an _almost literal_ copy of an article of Mazzini published
in the _Dovere_ of Genoa, the 26th May, 1866.
[69] See the notes of M. d'Usedom of the 12th and 17th June, as well as
the dispatch of Count de Barral of the 15th June. La Marmora, pp. 316,
331, 345-348.
[70] In a dispatch of the 1st March, 1866, M. Nigra informs General La
Marmora that, conformably with his authorization, he endeavored to
broach the question of the exchange of the Danubian Principalities for
Venetia. He showed the advantages which this solution would have for
France and England, who would thus see the two programmes of the wars of
the Crimea and Italy peacefully accomplished. The minister adds that the
Emperor Napoleon III. was _struck with this idea_. La Marmora, p. 119.
[71] Dispatch of General Govone of the 3d June, 1866. La Marmora, p.
275.
[72] Telegrams of Count de Barral of the 7th April and the 1st June,
1866. La Marmora, pp. 141 and 266.
[73] Telegram of M. de Launay, from St. Petersburg, of the 1st June,
1866. La Marmora, p. 266. One can see in the same work with what
_empressement_ M. de Bismarck used this opinion of the Russian
chancellor, and transmitted it by telegraph to the different cabinets.
[74] Telegrams of M. de Barral. La Marmora, pp. 248 and 294.
[75] Benedetti, _Ma Mission en Prusse_, pp. 99 and 254.
IV.
THE ECLIPSE OF EUROPE.
I.
In the little _salon_ of the house Jesse, situated on the Rue de
Provence at Versailles, in the first of the sad month of November, 1870,
sat by the side of the fire two illustrious speakers, whose movements
Europe in suspense watched with the most intense anxiety. Leaning his
elbow on a writing table, on which "two bottles with candles in their
necks did service as lights,"[76] M. de Bismarck had asked M. Thiers for
permission to smoke a cigar, while he rested from the negotiations
pursued during the whole day concerning the armistice and the peace, and
entered into a conversation full of _abandon_ and gossip on the events
of the war. Among other things he related that the Emperor Napoleon
III., having retired to a little garden after the capitulation of Sedan,
grew pale at seeing him arrive armed with two pistols in his belt: "He
thought me capable of an action in bad taste." One would scarcely be
deceived in supposing that the man who since the attack of Blind had
not ceased to show a very nervous solicitude for his person,[77]
attributed here in this circumstance, and surely very ungenerously, to
the unhappy monarch sentiments which were far from his mind. However
that may be, the Prussian minister took pleasure during whole hours in
the reminiscences and stories in which he showed all his brilliancy of
mind; and on his part M. Thiers, scarcely returned from that journey of
forty days, during which he had twice crossed Europe and negotiated with
so many sovereigns and ministers, was not behind hand with _piquant_
anecdotes and ingenious ideas. He thought, however, that it was
necessary to recall, after some time, the serious matters which brought
him to the head-quarters; but M. de Bismarck,--this "savage full of
genius," as the French statesman soon called him in his effusions at the
bishop's palace at Orleans,--seemed to wish to prolong as much as
possible a delightful chat, and, taking the hand of M. Thiers, he cried
out, "Allow me, I beg of you; allow me, it is so pleasant to be a little
while with civilization!" The _civilization_, allowed at last to plead
his cause anew, did not the less find the old "iron count" in the
affable and fluent talker of a few moments before: the arts had
decidedly in no respect softened the political manners of the _savage_.
Then M. Thiers remembered the favorable disposition which he had found
in Russia, and he thought it useful to make the most of it in a moment
so critical. During his sojourn at St. Petersburg, he had addressed to
the delegation of Tours a telegraphic dispatch singularly hopeful. "He
had every cause," he said, "to be very much satisfied with his reception
by the emperor, the imperial family, Prince Gortchakof, and the other
dignitaries as well as with that of Russian society in general. The
emperor and his chancellor had expressed themselves warmly against the
exorbitant conditions of peace laid down by Prussia; they had declared
that Russia would never give its consent to conditions which were not
equitable; that, in consequence, the consent of the other Powers would
likewise be wanting; the exactions of Prussia would only be from the
effect of force, and would not rest on any sanction."[78] Without
entering into such developments, M. Thiers spoke this time in general
terms of the marks of solicitude which "his friend Prince Gortchakof"
had given him, and ended by stating that Russia had become alarmed and
irritated. At these words, M. de Bismarck got up and rang: "Bring the
portfolio that contains the papers of Russia." The portfolio having been
brought, "Read," said he; "here are thirty letters from St. Petersburg."
M. Thiers did not fail to profit by the permission: he read, he
understood, and he was disabused.
Yet, it would not have been difficult for the illustrious historian of
the Consulate and the Empire to have spared himself this cruel
deception, to have avoided, also, more than one false step in his rapid
course across Europe, if he had only wished to consult competent men or
even paid them the least attention. M. de Beust, for instance, was
perfectly able to enlighten him on the real relations between Russia and
Prussia; but it was especially M. Benedetti who could have told him the
precise and already old date of the understanding agreed upon by the two
courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg in view of a war with France, as
well as the very extraordinary circumstances which had accompanied this
understanding. Let us briefly recall here those circumstances,
endeavoring to free them as much as possible from certain obscurities
with which the interested parties continue to surround them, and let us
return once more to the day after Sadowa, to the public or secret
transactions which followed this dreadful day. The greater part of the
political combinations which were to be so fatal to France in the war of
1870, were contrived and consolidated during that equally gloomy and
turbulent period, during the two months of July and August of the year
1866.
"None of the questions which touch us can be solved without the consent
of France," the Emperor Napoleon III. had declared the 11th June, 1866,
in a solemn document produced before the legislative body; and among
those questions any "modification of the map of Europe to the exclusive
profit of a great Power" was naturally placed in the first rank. But,
using that equally immense as unhoped-for victory of the 3d July, 1866,
Prussia intended changing the map to its exclusive profit. In place of
"maintaining for Austria its great position in Germany," as the imperial
letter of the 11th June had demanded, Prussia demanded that the empire
of the Hapsburg should be totally excluded from the Germanic
Confederation; in place of according to the secondary States "a more
important _role_, a more powerful organization," it aspired to the
complete hegemony over all Germany, and furthermore wished to complete
large annexations in the countries occupied by its troops. In fomenting
this war which was to end in such unforeseen results, the imperial
policy had above all pursued two ends,--the affranchisement of Venice,
and the equitable settlement of affairs in Germany. Venice was ceded,
ceded even before the commencement of hostilities, and in accepting this
cession, in announcing in the "Moniteur" this "important event" after
the great disaster of General Benedeck, the Emperor Napoleon, in the
judgment of his minister of foreign affairs, was the more bound not to
allow Austria and its allies to be overwhelmed as it concerned the vital
interests of France itself. The minister demanded, in consequence, his
august master to convoke the legislative body, to send to the frontier
of the East an army of observation of 80,000 men whom Marshal Randon
would bring together very quickly, and to declare to Prussia that they
would occupy the left bank of the Rhine, if it was not moderate in its
demands towards the vanquished, and if it realized territorial
acquisitions of a nature to destroy the equilibrium of Europe.
Assuredly, after the terrible experiences of the year 1870, these very
legitimate doubts as to the efficaciousness of the measures proposed by
M. Drouyn de Lhuys in the month of July, 1866, can be raised; it is
nevertheless well to remember that the prestige of France was still
great and almost intact; that in a week Austria could bring back from
Italy 120,000 or 130,000 soldiers still fresh from the victory of
Custozza, and that the troops of General Moltke already began to
experience the natural consequences of the whole war, although
fortunate. "Prussia is victorious," wrote the ambassador of France at
the court of Vienna, "but it is exhausted. From the Rhine to Berlin
there are not 15,000 men to be met with. You can be master of the
situation by means of a simple military demonstration, and you can do it
in all security, for Prussia is incapable at this moment of accepting a
war with France. Let the emperor make a simple military demonstration,
and he will be astonished at the facility with which he will become,
without striking a blow, arbiter and master of the situation." In the
confidential letters addressed by M. de Bismarck to his wife during this
campaign, there are some traces of anxiety which at this moment assailed
his mind, especially of his efforts to talk sense to the overexcited,
"to the good people who do not see farther than their noses, _and swim
at their ease on the foaming wave of the phrase_." Six days after
Sadowa, on the way to Vienna, he wrote from Hohenmauth: "Do you still
remember, my heart, that we passed by here nineteen years ago, in going
from Prague to Vienna? No mirror then showed us the future, neither did
it in 1852, when I crossed this iron line with the good Lynar!... As for
us, all is well, and we will have a peace which is worth something, if
we do not exaggerate our demands and do not think that we have conquered
the world. Unfortunately we are as quick to get drunk as to despair, and
I have the unthankful task of pouring water in the foaming wine, and to
show that _we are not alone in Europe_ and that we have three
neighbors." Lastly, in his celebrated speech of the 16th January, 1874,
in the Reichstag, the chancellor of Germany, in speaking of those
decisive days, made the important avowal, that, "if France had then had
only a few available troops, a small body of French troops would have
sufficed to make quite a respectable army by joining the numerous corps
of South Germany, which on their part could furnish excellent materials
whose organization alone was defective. Such an army _would have first
placed us in the prime necessity of covering Berlin, and of abandoning
all our successes in Austria_." Let us add to that that Germany was
still effervescent against the "fratricidal" policy of Prussia, that the
proceedings and the exactions of Generals Vogel de Falkenstein and
Manteuffel had exasperated the minds of all on the banks of the Main:
there was a single instant, very fleeting also, it is true, when the
appearance of the French on the Rhine would not have wounded the
Teutonic susceptibilities, would have even been saluted with joy!
"Sire," said to the Emperor Napoleon III. one of the most eminent
ministers of the Germanic Confederation,--"sire, a simple military
demonstration on your part can save Europe, and Germany will also
preserve an eternal recollection of it. If you let this moment pass, _in
four years from now_ you will be forced to make war against Prussia, and
then you will have all Germany against you."
But the fright caused by the prodigious victories of Prussia was too
great in the Tuileries to allow the preservation of the _sang froid_
which the circumstances so imperiously demanded. The needle gun was also
a revelation which, by turns, exalted or depreciated beyond measure by
authorities reputed competent, contributed not a little to increase the
perplexities springing up on all sides; lastly, doubts arose even as to
the possibility of getting together the 80,000 men of whom the minister
of war spoke. The fatal expedition to Mexico had swallowed up almost all
the arms, and almost all the troops of France! They were forced to make
the strange avowal that they had desired with ardor, favored, provoked
the greatest European complications without even asking if, at the
critical and foreseen moment of the rupture of the equilibrium of the
world, they would be in a condition to make even a simple military
demonstration. The _party of action_ in the councils of the empire would
then have had a good chance to praise Prussia as the powerful agent of
civilization and progress, to rise against the tendencies, always
Austrian, of the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, and to recommend more than
ever an alliance with M. de Bismarck: it was necessary to give him
_carte blanche_ in Germany, and to complete French unity in acquiring
Belgium. M. Drouyn de Lhuys did not take the trouble to demonstrate the
inanity, the temerity of such suggestions, and he asked, not without
bitterness, how France, which they declared incapable of placing on foot
even a corps of observation on the Rhine, would be strong enough to
attack Antwerp, provoke England, and end by probably arraying against
itself all the Powers of Europe, among whom Prussia would not be the
last? He was not behind hand in recriminations; he showed the officious
and culpable zeal which had been used in order to incite war, the
consequences of which he, for his part, had never ceased to dread, as
they had taken care to place no limit to the _license_ allowed to one of
the parties, the most redoubtable, the most skillful, and from which it
was most essential to take sureties in advance. On the side from which
it was never threatened, it had neglected no precaution; in case of the
victory of Austria, Venetia would have nevertheless been acquired by
Italy. "In my opinion," ingenuously added the minister, "in a French
point of view it is a bad result; but the emperor insisted on it, above
all, and I have procured it for him." It was certainly the least that
could be asked, he thought, that they should allow him to obtain, on the
other hand, compensations, _French this time_, which alone could justify
before the nation the kindnesses shown to Prussia.
The debates were long and very violent for several days, and different
influences worked in the most opposite directions. The party of the
_Palais Royal_ was not the only one, however, to preach the abandonment
of the conqueror of Sadowa; in a certain measure it found its adherents
among statesmen the most moderate in their opinions, and ordinarily the
most calm in their judgments. M. Rouher was one of the first to oppose
any armed demonstration on the Eastern frontier, and soon we even hear
him speak of a _necessary and fruitful_ alliance between France and
Prussia! "Austria," thought another important member of the privy
council, "only inspires to-day that interest, so near to indifference,
which one feels for the strong become weak through their fault, not
having foreseen or prepared themselves. _Up to the present time, all is
for the best!_"[79] While M. Magne thus pronounced the _vae victis_ on
the empire of the Hapsburg,--without thinking that four years later,
alas! Europe would use almost the same expressions in regard to France
itself,--an august woman, a sister of the King of Wuertemberg, and a near
relative of the imperial family of France, used different language. "You
cherish strange illusions," said she; "your prestige has diminished more
in these last two weeks than during the whole duration of your reign.
You allow the weak to be destroyed, you let the insolence and brutality
of your nearest neighbor grow beyond measure; you accept a gift, and you
do not even know how to address a kind word to him who gives it. I
regret that you do not believe me disinterested in the question, and
that you do not see the fatal danger of _a_ powerful Germany and _a_
powerful Italy. The _dynasty_ is menaced, and it will suffer the
consequences. Do not believe that the misfortune which overwhelms me in
the disaster of my country makes me unjust or distrustful. Venice ceded,
it would be necessary to succor Austria, to march to the Rhine, impose
your conditions! To let Austria be slaughtered is more than a crime, it
is an error!" Error or crime, the decision on this point had been
already reached, before this warm appeal from the Queen of Holland
reached the Tuileries.[80] Napoleon III. was very ill at this epoch,
struggling against the first advances of a cruel disease which never
forsook him,--in consequence less than ever inclined to vigorous
resolutions; and, on the 10th July, after a grand council of ministers
held at Paris in presence of the emperor, the Prince de Metternich was
obliged to telegraph to Vienna that France would only interfere in the
conflict through its diplomats.
Yet there was something more efficacious, more loyal in any case, in
trying only a vain isolated mediation, full of perilous reticence and
selfish calculations: that was simply to agree on a harmony of action
among the Powers on a question certainly eminently "European," and which
interested the equilibrium of the world in so high a degree. A word from
France in the sense indicated "would certainly have been listened to,"
to borrow an expression from the imperial letter of the 11th June, for
it was Prince Gortchakof himself who spoke at this moment of the
necessity of a general congress.[81] Threatened with the first and
violent commotion caused by the sudden undermining of Austria at the
sight of so many relations and cousins of his august master menaced with
spoliation and ruin, the Russian chancellor had in truth given this true
description of the situation. So devoted as he was to his former
colleague of Frankfort, so fascinated by his genius, Alexander
Mikhailovitch had not yet sufficiently cast aside the old Adam, the
_attache_ of the suite of Count Nesselrode at the reunions of Laybach
and Verona, to admit in a trice that such a considerable transformation
of the public right could be effected without the knowledge of Europe
and without its consent. Why did the cabinet of the Tuileries not
appreciate the solution offered by the Russian chancellor? Why did it
not try to provoke a concerted action of the Powers in view of an
overturning so menacing for the balance of the states? Why did it not
see that in treating separately with M. de Bismarck it only made the
game for the conqueror? In spite of all his triumphs, even in spite of
all his audacity, the Prussian minister would have been slightly
embarrassed in asking before the areopagus of the Powers for the almost
complete abolition of the treaties of 1815, the dethronement of the old
House of the Guelphs, or the expulsion of the empire of the Hapsburg
from the bosom of Germany; and one will see in the sequel the cleverness
which he used in escaping from such a necessity and in making France an
accomplice in the eclipse of Europe. Strange fatality of the Napoleonic
ideology! The dreamer of Ham had passed all his reign in proposing
congresses, in invoking them at the most inopportune moments, under the
least propitious circumstances, and he neglected to apply this panacea,
so celebrated and recommended, on the only occasion where it was
demanded by good sense and good right, in the only crisis in which it
could become useful and salutary! The not less surprising good luck of
the minister of William I., who was "saved from the congress," according
to the _mot_ of Count d'Usedom, and saved on two occasions in the space
of some weeks: in the month of June, thanks to the kindness of Prince
Gortchakof, and in the month of July, thanks to the infatuation of
France! They were not ignorant at the Tuileries of the desire manifested
in a moment of happy inspiration by Alexander Mikhailovitch; but the
treaties of 1815 had been so eloquently "cursed" in the speech of
Auxerre, they had announced with so much noise the "important event" of
Venice and had illuminated Paris! As always, they clung to the
_prestige_, to the glory of appearing as the "Neptune of Virgil," in the
eyes of the profane, and they hoped more than ever to obtain some good
God-send by again obliging the "Piedmont of Germany." Consequently M.
Benedetti received the order to present himself at the head-quarters in
Moravia, to offer to M. de Bismarck French mediation, and to "sound"
him on the advantages that in justice he could scarcely fail to accord
to the ardent mediator.
II.