confidence in the victory of Prussia; he told M. Thiers more than one
_piquant_ detail on this subject. Deposition of M. Thiers before the
commission of inquiry, p. 12. In an interview, towards the end of July,
with a political personage whom he knew to be in relation with Napoleon
III., he even let these words fall: "Tell the Emperor of the French to
be moderate." Valfrey, vol. i. 79.
[129] The _Golos_, quoted in the dispatch of Mr. Schuyler, 27th August.
[130] A. Sorel, _Diplomatic History_, vol. i. p. 254. Let us quote the
passage from another dispatch of M. de Beust, dated the 29th September,
and destined for London: "Let us not fear to say it: what to-day serves
powerfully to prolong the conflict to the extreme horrors of a war of
extermination, is, on one side illusions and false hopes, on the other
indifference and contempt for Europe, spectator of the combat."
[131] A. Sorel, _Diplomatic History_, vol. i. p. 402.
[132] Report of Sir A. Buchanan of the 17th October.
[133] It was only the simple recommendation of an armistice, with no
other design of influencing what might be the conditions of peace, that
Prince Gortchakof declined to make common cause. M. d'Oubril, his
minister at Berlin, found himself at the last moment without
instructions on this subject. "It is singular enough," wrote Lord
Loftus, on the 26th October, "that Russia, after having in many
circumstances, proved its desire for peace, thus stands aside and
prefers isolated to common action."
[134] Dispatch of Prince Gortchakof to Baron Brunnow at London, November
20, 1870.
[135] Dispatch of Mr. Joy Morris of the 2d September, quoted above.
[136] See the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st February, 1868 ("The
Diplomacy and the Principles of the French Revolution," by M. le Prince
Albert de Broglie).
[137] Note to Prince Gagarine at Turin, 10th October, 1860.
[138] Speech on the 1st August, in the House of Commons.
VI.
TEN YEARS OF ASSOCIATION.
On the 9th January, 1873, Napoleon III. passed sadly away from the land
of exile at Chiselhurst, and a short time after, the 27th March, William
I. entered on the sixty-sixth year of a life in which assuredly the most
extraordinary favors of fortune have not been wanting. Germany
celebrated the _fete_ of its new emperor with transports of joy, the
more noisy and sincere since the monarch had waited for this anniversary
to ratify a last convention with the government of Versailles, a
convention which assured the anticipated payment of the fifth milliard
of the French ransom, and the very early return of the troops of
occupation from the other side of the Vosges. The great accounts with
_the hereditary enemy_ thus definitely settled, the conqueror of Sedan
thought, on his part, of acquitting himself of a little debt of the
heart: he resolved to carry to the Emperor Alexander II. the expression
of his lively gratitude for the loyal aid which he had lent him during a
memorable period of trials and combats. Long foreseen, from time to time
announced and put off, the journey to St. Petersburg was at length
undertaken at the beginning of pleasant weather, and M. de Bismarck took
care to state precisely on this occasion the date as well as the
character of the close association of interests established between
Russia and Prussia, and which became so fatal to the Occident. "The
commonalty of views,"--thus the official organ of the German chancellor
expressed itself,[139]--"which brought about the alliance of Prussia and
Russia in 1863, at the time of the Polish insurrection, was the point of
departure for this present policy of the two states, which, on the
occasion of the great events of the last years, has affirmed its power.
Since the attitude of Russia in the question of Schleswig-Holstein, up
to the important proofs of sympathy given to Germany by the Emperor
Alexander during the last war, all has concurred to render this alliance
still more firm."
By a sort of historical fiction which confounds the reason not a little,
but which a sovereign will imposes on acts and even public monuments in
Russia, the campaign of 1870 did not cease to be exalted in the official
spheres of the empire of the czars as the continuation of the work of
1814, as the final episode of "that great epoch when the united armies
of Russia and Prussia fought for a sacred cause which was common to them
both."[140] At the Kremlin, in the splendid hall consecrated by the
Emperor Nicholas to the military glories of the country, and which is
the _arc de l'Etoile_ of Holy Russia, the foreign tourist is astonished
to see glittering now in letters of gold on the marble the names of
Moltke, of Roon, and other captains of Germany who shone in the last war
against France.[141] And the conqueror of Sedan might imagine that he
was still in the midst of his subjects in traversing in 1873 the vast
Muscovite plains: from the frontier to the Gulf of Finland the journey
was an uninterrupted succession of triumphs and ovations. At each depot
where the imperial train stopped a guard of honor was in waiting, and
played the German national song; the czar came to meet his august guest
to Gatchina, and the 27th April the two sovereigns entered the capital
of Peter the Great. The skies were gloomy and cold, and the sun refused
to lighten "the city of wet streets and dry hearts," as one of its poets
has called it; but human industry did all that was possible to supply
the place of nature, and make amends for the irreparable outrage of the
climate. "All the green-houses of the capital, without excepting those
of the imperial gardens," says an eye-witness,[142] "were literally
devastated to improvise around the gates and windows a spring which,
retarded in our North, only arrived with summer," and the rich carpets
suspended from the ledges or stretched along the edifices gave to the
boreal city the joyous aspect of the city of lagoons. "The perspective
of Izmailovsky, the perspective of Voznessensky, the Grande-Morskaia,
formed a sort of continuous alley of draperies of the Russian, German,
and Prussian colors. On a great number of balconies, one saw in the
midst of the verdure and the flowers the busts of the two monarchs
crowned with laurel. The facade of the great stable Preobrajensky was
ornamented with a number of standards surrounding a colossal cross of
that military order of Saint George of which his majesty the Emperor
William is the oldest knight and the only grand ribbon." The crowd
pressed close to the passage of the guests from Berlin; the unreserved
Prince de Bismarck and the taciturn Count de Moltke especially attracted
the eyes of the spectators.
For twelve days there was an endless succession of reviews, parades,
tatoos, illuminations, balls, _raouts_, banquets, concerts, and gala
representations. Among the latter, the chroniclers mention the two
splendid ballets of the "Roi Candaule" and "Don Quixotte." The people
had also their part in the rejoicings, especially on the evening of the
29th April, at the gigantic festival of the Place du Palais. The two
sovereigns were present at the immense balcony concert above the piazza
of the castle. "On their arrival, five electric suns all at once lighted
the square with such intensity that one could distinguish the features
of all the spectators, and the orchestra struck up the national Prussian
hymn. The total number of musicians was 1,550, in addition to 600
trumpets and 350 drums. After the hymn the "March of King Frederick
William III." was played; then came a whole series of military marches,
the "March of Steinmetz," the "Watch on the Rhine," the "March of the
Garde of 1808," to the music of which the Russian regiments returned to
St. Petersburg after the campaign of Eylau, and the "March of Paris,"
which the allied armies heard in olden times at the time of their
triumphal entry into the capital of France. The military prayer, "God is
great in Zion," also produced an immense effect." One can hardly explain
how, in the midst of music entirely consecrated to the gods Mars and
Vulcan, the sweet romance of Weber, entitled "The Praise of Tears,"
could be introduced, unless it was a discreet homage rendered to the
well known sensibility of the old Hohenzollern, and of which many
speeches, letters, or telegrams bear in history authentic traces. This
easily impressionable character of the sovereign of Germany was visible
as far as was necessary at St. Petersburg; it showed itself especially
at the moment when the two monarchs made their adieux in the imperial
_salons_ of the depot of Gatchina. In order not to succumb to his
emotion, William I. had to leave the _salon_ brusquely; his head bent
forward, his features contracted, he went out with hasty steps and
reached the car _without turning round_.
However, if during this sojourn of the Prussian guests on the banks of
the Neva all the honors were for the uncle of the czar, the curiosity of
the public, panting and almost feverish, willingly turned, one may be
sure, to the extraordinary minister whose uniform of the white
curassiers set off his imposing stature--to this chancellor of Germany
who, in the short space of a lustrum, had founded an empire on the ruins
of two others. One had not had time to forget at St. Petersburg the
grumbling diplomat, who from 1859 to 1862 astonished and amused the
Russian society by his slanders against his own court, by his
pleasantries on the "old fogies of Potsdam" and the "Philistines of the
Spree," and who occasionally repeated the famous _mot_ of M.
Prudhomme--the _mot_: "_If I were the government!_"--he who was to laugh
at it the first. He was the government at this time, he was even the
master of Europe; and his star had dimmed the star of a Hapsburg, of a
Napoleon! The subject gave rise to more than one touching
reconciliation, to many a _piquant_ reminiscence, and there was room
also for futile remarks for the _plerisque vana mirantibus_ of which the
immortal historian speaks in presence of any prodigious change of
fortune. In presence of the man of the five milliards, the great ladies
at the winter palace remembered a certain ambassadress ten years before,
who one day boldly declared that she could not pay forty silver roubles
for early asparagus, who another day avowed in all candor that she owed
her new diamond ear-rings only to the exchange of a valuable snuff-box,
an old gift of the Prince of Darmstadt.[143] The ambassadress was the
wife of Prince de Bismarck, then baron, prince to-day, a good prince
too, and having lost nothing of his former affability. He was easy,
playful, earnest, as at the time of his mission in Russia; he inquired
for friends, acquaintances, small or great people whom he had known
formerly, and seemed to renew relations and conversations as if
interrupted only yesterday. The statesman disappeared entirely, to show
only the courtier and the man of the world, and it was only in his
relations with Prince Gortchakof, a sagacious observer tells us, that
he laid aside the foreign minister, and only appeared as the companion,
almost as the compatriot. He showed him the deference of an affectionate
friend towards his elder,--of a disciple towards the master, said the
flatterers, without thinking of evil, without thinking, above all, on
the _discipulus supra magistrum_ of whom Alexander Mikhailovitch, a good
Latinist himself, perhaps thought.
They often appeared thus in public, at numerous _fetes_ and receptions,
side by side, the one towering above the crowd with his strongly-marked
head, the other also easily recognizable by his fine, _spirituel_, and
rather sharp features. According to that ingenious court etiquette of
which the good Homer has given the first precept, in making Diomede and
Glaucus exchange their brilliant armor, the Russian minister wore the
insignia of the black Eagle of Prussia, and the Prussian minister the
insignia of St. Andrew of Russia,--and this exchange of ribbons
involuntarily recalled the commonalty of ties which had for so long
united these illustrious diplomats. Such a cordial, unalterable
understanding between two statesmen directing two different empires, was
assuredly a rare phenomenon, well calculated to excite attention, and
which, during the pompous solemnities of St. Petersburg, did not cease,
in fact, to occupy reflective minds. They sought in vain in the past for
the example of a harmony of action as constant and glowing: certain
political friendships celebrated in history, those among others of
Choiseul and Kaunitz, of Dubois and Stanhope, or yet of Mazarin and
Cromwell, were only evoked an instant to be immediately recognized as
deceptive souvenirs, apparent analogies only. No one, however,
disregarded the considerable, decisive influence which the accord
between the two chancellors has had on the recent destinies of Europe;
nor did any one doubt the prodigious benefit which M. de Bismarck has
been able to draw from this juncture in his bold enterprises: the
opinions began to differ only when there was a question of settling the
accounts of Russia, of fixing well the profits brought to the empire of
the czars by this association of ten years, the most turbulent ten years
which the Continent has known since the day of Waterloo.
According to the ideas of some, there was only advantage and gain for
the people of Rourik, in the situation created by the immense events of
Sadowa and Sedan. They showed the humiliating treaty of 1856 torn up,
Austria punished for its "treason" at the time of the Crimean war,
France sunken and weakened, England a resigned spectator of the progress
of General Kaufman at Bokhara, and Russia recovering its ancient
prestige, tasting in all quiet the vengeance, that pleasure of the gods
and of the great favorites of the gods like Alexander Mikhailovitch. Is
there not in truth, was said, a marvelous fortune, an imposing unity in
the career of this minister who, at the conference of Vienna, had sworn
to take revenge for the abasement of his country, and who has so well
kept his word? Is there not a grand Nemesis in the successive
chastisement of these proud "allies" who, in 1853, had undertaken the
defense of the crescent against the cross of St. Andrew, who, ten years
later, had dared to raise the question of Poland? At the present time
Austria and France are rivals in flattering, obsequious conduct before
the so decried "barbarian of the North," England solicits of him a
_modus vivendi_ in central Asia; and this enviable and glorious position
Russia has obtained without conflict, without sacrifices, only by
_meditating_, developing its interior prosperity, and letting its
neighbor act alone, its secular, tried friend, whose devotion has never
been doubted. It is only just that Prussia should reap the fruits of its
valor and its fidelity, and the well known sentiments of the Emperor
William towards the czar, the family ties which have so long united the
two courts; lastly, the destinies, so distinct and yet so connected, of
the two states, are certain gages of a future, permanent, and immovable
understanding. How many times has Prussia solemnly declared that it has
no interest in the Oriental question. The day when the question of the
succession of the Osmanli arises, the Hohenzollern will prove his
gratitude to the Romanof. The little jealousies and the little rivalries
have had their day, like the little states and the little artifices of
influence and of the balance of power: the future is for a rational
policy based on the nature of things, the reality of geography, the
homogeneity of races; and this policy assigns to Russia and Germany
their respective _roles_ and corollaries. In point of view of general
principles, we can only rejoice that the sceptre of the Occident has
escaped a turbulent, volcanic nation now making Jacobin, now
ultramontane propaganda, but always revolutionary, to pass into the
hands of a well-ordered, hierarchical, and disciplined state, as it is.
Lastly, Sadowa and Sedan were Protestant victories over the first two
Catholic Powers, and the contest in which M. de Bismarck engaged against
the Roman Curia is only the logical consequence of this great fact of
history; but without even sharing certain ideas, widely spread however,
of a possible fusion of the Protestant and Orthodox beliefs, it is not
for the church of Photius, in any case, to take umbrage at the mortal
blow given to the Vatican.
To such justifications, in which neither convincing arguments nor sharp
touches were wanting, those dissenting opposed objections inspired by a
patriotism equally sincere, but much less hopeful. Also admiring the
facility and promptitude with which Russia has arisen from its great
disaster of the Crimea, they pretended only that this great result had
been obtained long before the advent of M. de Bismarck, long before any
association with him, and that from the year 1860 the empire of the
Rourik had retaken the great position which it deserved in Europe, when
the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and so many of the princes of
Germany had come to salute the czar at Warsaw, to recognize his moral
supremity, and that Napoleon III. on his part sought his friendship and
accepted his arbitration. The great ability with which Prince Gortchakof
used the "French cordiality" for the good of Russia, without giving up
any essential interests, and without compromising the conservative and
traditional principles of his government, always remained one of his
greatest claims to the gratitude of his country, and it would have been
desirable had he preserved the same moderation, the same reserve, later
in this intimacy with Prussia, which on the occasion of the Polish
insurrection had replaced the former understanding with the Tuileries.
The successor of Nesselrode exaggerated, without doubt, the bearing and
the danger of the famous _remonstrances_ on the subject of Poland, as
well as the nature of the services, very selfish as a whole, which his
friend of Berlin then rendered him; in any case, that was certainly not
a reason to pout at Europe after the affair had turned out to the
striking advantage of the Russian government, to pout at it during long
years, to wish no other ally than Prussia, and to persist, in respect to
this last Power, in the constant policy of let-go, let-do, and let-take.
This was in general the profound misfortune of the fifteen or twenty
last years,--thought these enlightened patriots,--that rancor and bad
humor had played such a great _role_ in the grave affairs of the world:
sad sentiments surely, and from which the present chancellor of Germany
has alone been able to preserve himself! It was through anger at the
conduct of the cabinet of St. Petersburg in the Italian question, that
Austria took under its protection the insurgents of Poland; it was
through bad humor towards England in the question of the congress that
Napoleon III. abandoned the cause of Denmark, and Alexander
Mikhailovitch yielded to such motives more than to any others; he was
the first to practice this "policy of spite" with his imaginary
grievances against Austria in the war of the Orient, as he was also not
the last to cherish a certain "_policy de pour-boire_" with his _league
of the neutrals_ which hindered any concerted action of the Powers.
What happy opportunities for the preservation of Europe, for the glory
of his nation and the splendor of his august master, has not the Russian
chancellor let pass through love for Prussia: in the spring of 1867,
when France and Austria offered him such large concessions in the
Orient; in the autumn of 1870, when England and Austria solicited him to
take the initiative in the work of peace! What illusions also in that
belief, that Prince Gortchakof has sacrificed nothing during those ten
years of association with his formidable colleague! Was the port of
Kiel, the key of the Baltic, delivered into the hands of the Germans,
nothing? Was that nothing, the dismemberment of the Danish monarchy, the
country of the future empress? Was the vassalage of Queen Olga nothing?
The overturning and spoliation of so many reigning families allied by
blood to the House of Romanof, the loss of the independence of these
secondary States always so devoted and so faithful to Russia? Lastly,
was this profound overturning of the ancient European equilibrium, and
the unmeasured, gigantic aggrandizement of a neighboring Power, nothing?
"Greatness is a relative thing, and a country can be diminished, while
remaining the same, when new forces accumulate around it."[144] These
words, which Napoleon III. heard on the day after Sadowa, Russia could
well apply to itself, since the day of Sedan, for assuredly no one would
wish to pretend that the abolition of Article III. of the treaty of
Paris is the equivalent of the forces accumulated by Prussia in the
centre of Europe. As to the _hopes_ in the Orient, they are very
contingent, like every speculation of heritage: the _sick man_ has
already so many times deceived the expectations of his doctors, one can
no longer count the mortal crises which should have carried him off, and
perhaps it is not Russia that should complain of this prolongation of
the agony. It is still a question in truth if Russia is now in a
position to take care of the succession, if it is sufficiently supplied
with implements for such a vast establishment; if, in a word, it has all
its military and financial strength, as well as all the administrative
_personnel_ indispensable to advantageously occupy the domains as
various as extended. It cannot take possession of European provinces
like the countries along the Amour and Syr-Daria; it runs the risk of
finding more than one ungovernable Poland among those peoples of the
Danube and the Balkan; and the unity of the law, the uniformity of the
_svod_, will not be so easy to establish in the countries where, side by
side, the most incongruous institutions have flourished from the
_regime_ of the cimeter to that of the parliament. Will not the
transformation of Turkey transform, however, in turn the Muscovite
people, and will not history on this occasion be careful to repeat the
great and pathetic lessons of _Graecia capta_? Will Russia still be
Russia the day when it rules the Oriental peninsula, and can an empire
bathed by the blue waves of the Bosphorus preserve its capital on the
icy banks of Finland? Grave and obscure problems before which it is
allowable to stop, to conceive apprehensions and doubts. What is not
doubtful, on the contrary, is that at the destined hour Prussia will
make its conditions and will stipulate its compensations. It will not be
a debt of gratitude which it will think of paying then, it will be a new
bargain which it will make. Will it demand as the price of its consent,
Holland, Jutland, or the German territories of Austria? the frontier of
the Vistula, or the provinces of the Baltic?