conflicts by which Bismarck established the union of North Germany and
its primacy in Europe. Morier detested the means by which this end was
achieved, but he had consistently maintained that this union ought to
be, and could only be, achieved by Prussia, and he remained true to his
beliefs. It is a great tribute to his intellectual force that he was
able to control his personal sympathies and antipathies, and to judge
passing events with reference to the past and the future. He had liked
the statesmen whom he had met at Vienna, and he recognized their good
faith in the difficult negotiations of 1865. But for the good of Europe,
he thought the Austrian Government should now look eastwards. It could
not do double work at Vienna and at Frankfort. The impotence of the
Frankfort Diet could be cured only by the North Germans, and the
aspirations of good patriots, from Baden to the Baltic, had been for
long directed towards Prussia. But it was no easy task to make people in
England realize the justice of this view or the certainty that Prussia
was strong enough to carry through the work. Led by _The Times_, the
British Press had grown accustomed to use a contemptuous tone towards
Prussia; and when in the decisive hour this could no longer be
maintained, and British sentiment, as is its nature, declared for
Austria as the beaten side, this sentiment was attributed at Berlin to
the basest envy. Relations between the two peoples steadily grew worse
during these years, despite the efforts of Morier and other friends of
peace.
The Franco-German war brought even greater bitterness between Prussia
and Great Britain. The neutrality, which the latter power observed, was
misunderstood in both camps; and the position of a British diplomat
abroad became really unpleasant. Morier in particular, as a marked man,
knew that he was subject to spying and misrepresentation, but this did
not deter him from doing his duty and more than his duty. He took
measures to safeguard those dependent on him, in case Hesse came into
the theatre of war. He organized medical aid for the wounded on both
sides. He took a journey in September into Alsace and Lorraine to
ascertain the feeling of the inhabitants, that he might give the best
possible advice to his Government if the cession of these districts
became a European question. He came to the conclusion that Alsace was
not a homogeneous unit--that language, religion, and sentiment varied in
different districts, and that it was desirable to work for a compromise.
But Bismarck was determined in 1870, as in 1866, that the settlement
should remain in his own hands and that no European congress should
spoil his plans. Morier found that he was being talked of at Berlin as
'the enemy of Prussia', and atrocious calumnies were circulated. One of
these was revived some years later when Bismarck wished to discredit
him, and Bismarckian journals accused him of having betrayed to Marshal
Bazaine military secrets which he discovered in Hesse. Morier obtained
from the Marshal a letter which clearly refuted the charge, and he gave
it the widest publicity. The plot recoiled on its author, and Morier was
spoken of in France as 'le grand ambassadeur qui a roulé Bismarck'. Yet
all the while, with his wife a strong partisan of France, with six
cousins fighting in the French Army, with his friends in England only
too ready to quarrel with him for his supposed pro-German sentiments, he
was appealing for fair judgement, for reason, for a wise policy which
should soften the bitterness of the settlement between victors and
vanquished. Facts must be recognized, he pleaded, and the French claim
for peculiar consideration and their traditional _amour propre_ must not
be allowed to prolong the miseries of war. At the same time Morier did
not close his eyes to the danger arising from the overwhelming victories
of the German armies. No one saw more clearly the deterioration which
was taking place in German character, or depicted it in more trenchant
terms. But it was his business to work for the future and not to let
sentiment bring fresh disasters upon Europe.
Apart from this critical period, life at Darmstadt bored him
considerably. His presence there was valued highly by Queen Victoria,
one of whose daughters had married the Grand Duke; but Morier felt
himself to be in a backwater, far from the main stream of European
politics, and society there was dull. So he welcomed in 1871 his
transference first to Stuttgart, and a few months later to Munich, the
capital of the second state in the new Empire and a great centre of
literary culture. Here lived Dr. Döllinger, historian and divine, a man
suspected at Rome for his liberal Catholicism even before his definite
severance from the Roman Church, but honoured everywhere else for the
width and depth of his knowledge. With him Morier enjoyed many
conversations on Church councils and other subjects which interested
them both; and in 1874, lured by the prospect of such society, Gladstone
paid him a visit of ten days. Morier did not admire Gladstone's conduct
of foreign policy, but he was open-minded enough to recognize his great
gifts and to enjoy his company, and he writes home with enthusiasm about
his conversational powers. A still more welcome visitor in 1873 was
Jowett, his old Oxford friend, who never lost his place in Morier's
affections.
Among these delights he retained his vigilance in political matters, and
there was often need for it, since the German Government was now
developing that habit of 'rattling its sword', and threatening its
neighbours with war, which disquieted Europe for another forty years.
The worst crisis came in 1875, when Morier heard on good authority that
the military clique at Berlin were gaining ground, and seemed likely to
persuade the Emperor William to force on a second war, expressly to
prevent France recovering its strength. In general the credit for
checking this sinister move is given to the Tsar; but English influences
played a large part in the matter. Morier managed to catch the Crown
Prince on his way south to Italy and had a long talk with him in the
railway train. The Crown Prince was known to be a true lover of peace,
but capable of being hoodwinked by Bismarck; once convinced that the
danger was real (and he trusted Morier as he trusted no German in his
entourage), he returned to Berlin and threw all his weight into the
scale of peace. Queen Victoria also wrote from London; and, in face of a
possible coalition against them, the Germans decided that it was wisest
to abstain from all aggression.
A new period opened in his life when he left German courts, never to
return officially, and became the responsible head of Her Majesty's
Legation at the Portuguese Court. His five years spent at Lisbon cannot
be counted as one of his most fruitful periods, despite 'the large
settlement of African affairs', which Lord Granville tells us that
Morier had suggested to his predecessors in Whitehall. For the big
schemes which he planned he could get no continuous backing at home,
either in political or commercial circles. For the petty routine England
hardly needed a man of such outstanding ability. Of necessity his work
consisted often in tedious investigation of claims advanced by
individual Englishmen, whether they were suffering from money losses or
from summary procedure at the hands of the Portuguese police. Of the
diplomatic questions which arose many proved to be shadowy and unreal.
Something could be done, even in remote Portugal, to improve
Anglo-Russian relations by a minister who had friends in so many
European capitals. The politics of Pio Nono and the Papal Curia often
find an echo in his correspondence. Here, too, as elsewhere, the
intrigues of Germany had to be watched, though Morier was sensible
enough to discriminate between the deliberate policy of Bismarck and the
manoeuvres of those whom he 'allowed to do what they liked and say what
they liked--or rather to do what they thought _he_ would like done, and
say what they thought _he_ would like said--and then suddenly sent them
about their business to ponder in poverty and disgrace on the mutability
of human affairs'. In a passage like this Morier's letters show that he
could distinguish between a lion and his jackals, between 'policy' and
'intrigue'.
Had it not been for Germany and German suggestions, Portuguese
politicians would perhaps have been free from the fears which loomed
darkest on their horizon--the fears of an 'Iberian policy' which Spain
was supposed to be pursuing. In reality the leading men at Madrid knew
that they had little to gain by letting loose the superior Spanish army
against Portugal and trying to form the whole peninsula into a single
state. Morier, at any rate, made it clear that England would throw the
whole weight of her power against such treatment of her oldest ally. But
alarmist politicians were perpetually harping on this string, and
Morier, in a letter written in 1876, compares them to 'children telling
ghost-stories to one another who have got frightened at the sound of
their own voices, and mistake the rattling of a mouse behind the
wainscot for the tramping of legions on the march'.
To Morier it seemed that the important part of his work concerned South
Africa, in which, at the time, Portugal and Great Britain were the
European powers most interested. It was in 1877 that Sir Theophilus
Shepstone annexed the Transvaal, and many people, in Europe and Africa,
were talking as if this must lead to the expropriation of the Portuguese
at Delagoa Bay. Morier himself was as far as possible from the
imperialism which would ride rough-shod over a weaker neighbour. In
fact, he pleaded strongly for British approval of the pride which
Portugal felt in her traditions and of her desire to cling to what she
had preserved from the past. Once break this down, he said, and we
should see Portuguese dominions put up for auction, and England might
not always prove to be the highest bidder. Friendly co-operation, joint
development of railways, and commercial treaties commended themselves
better to his judgement, and he was prepared to spend a large part even
of his holidays in England in working out the details of such treaties.
He studied the people among whom he was, and did his best to lead them
gently towards reforms, whether of the slave-trade or other abuses, on
lines which could win their sympathy. He appealed to his own Foreign
Office to abstain from too many lectures, and to make the most of cases
in which the Portuguese showed promise of better things. 'This diet of
cold gruel', he says in 1878, 'must be occasionally supplemented by a
cup of generous wine, or all intimacy must die out.' Again in 1880, he
asks for a K.C.M.G. to be awarded to a Governor-General of Mozambique,
who had done his best to observe English wishes in checking the
slave-trade. 'Perpetual admonition', he says, 'and no sugar plums is bad
policy'--a maxim too often neglected when our philanthropy outruns our
discretion.
When Morier was promoted in 1881 to Madrid, he used the same tact and
geniality to lighten the burden of his task. No seasoned diplomatist
took the politics of Madrid too seriously. Though the political stage
was bigger, it was often filled by actors as petty and grasping as those
of Lisbon. The distribution to their own friends of the 'loaves and
fishes' was, as Morier says, the one steady aim of all aspirants to
power; and measures of reform, much needed in education, in commerce, in
law, were doomed to sterility by the factiousness of the men who should
have carried them out. In the absence of principles Morier had to study
the strife of parties, and his correspondence gives us lively pictures
of the eloquent Castelar, the champion of a visionary Republic, the
harsh, domineering Romero y Robledo, at once the mainstay and the terror
of his Conservative colleagues, and the cold, egotistic Liberal leader
Sagasta, whose shrewdness in the manipulation of votes had always to be
reckoned with. The constitution given in 1876 had entirely failed to
establish Parliament on a democratic basis. For this the bureaucracy was
responsible. The Home Office abused its powers shamelessly, and by the
votes of its functionaries, and of those who hoped to receive its
favours, it could always secure a big majority for the Government of
the moment. For the three years which Morier spent at Madrid, he
recounts surprising instances of the reversal of electoral verdicts
within a short space of time.
The King was popular and deserved to be so, for his personal qualities
of courage, intelligence, and public spirit; but his position was never
secure. There was a bad tradition by which at intervals the army
asserted its power and upset the constitution. Some intriguing general
issued a _pronunciamiento_, the troops revolted, and the Central
Government at Madrid, having no effective force and no moral ascendancy,
gave way. Parliament had little stability. Cabinets rose and vanished
again; the same eloquent but empty speeches were made, and the same
abuses remained unchanged.
But before now a spark from Spain had set the Continent ablaze. The past
had bequeathed some questions which, awkwardly handled, might cause
explosions elsewhere, and it was well to know the character of those who
had the key to the powder magazine. More than once Morier was approached
on the delicate question of the admission of Spain to the council of the
Great Powers. In Egypt, where so many foreign interests were involved,
and where Great Britain suffered, in the 'eighties, from so many
diplomatic intrigues, Spain might easily find an opening for her
ambitions. She might advance the plea that the Suez Canal was the direct
route to her colonies in the Philippines. Germany, for ulterior ends,
was encouraging Spanish pretensions; but, to the British, Spain with its
illiberal spirit scarcely seemed likely to prove a helpful
fellow-worker. Morier had to try to convince Spanish ministers that
Great Britain was their truer friend while refusing them what they asked
for; and in such interviews he had to know his men and to touch the
right chord in appealing to their prejudices or their patriotism. The
English tenure of Gibraltar was also a perpetual offence to Spanish
pride. Irresponsible journalists loved to expatiate on it when they had
no more spicy subject to handle. On this, as on all questions affecting
prestige only, Morier was tactful and patient. When they should come
within the range of practical politics, he could take a different tone.
But he knew that more serious dangers were arising in Morocco, where the
weakness of the Sultan's rule was tempting European powers to intervene,
and he laboured to maintain peace and goodwill not only between his own
country and Spain, but also between Spain and France. The common
accusation that the English are not 'good Europeans' was pre-eminently
untrue in his case. He realized that the interests of all were bound up
together, and used his influence, which soon became considerable, to
remove all occasions of bitterness in the European family, being fully
aware that at Berlin there was another active intelligence working by
hidden channels to keep open every festering sore.
Morier was fertile in expedients when ministers consulted him, as we see
notably on the occasion of King Alfonso's tour in 1883. Before the King
started, the newspapers had been writing of it as a 'visit to Berlin',
though it was intended to be a compliment to the heads of various
states. To allay the sensitiveness of the French, Morier suggested to
the Foreign Secretary that the King should make a point of visiting
France first; but, owing to the ineptitude of President Grévy, this
suggestion was rendered impracticable. When the King did visit Paris,
after a sojourn at Berlin, where he received the usual compliment of
being made titular colonel of a Prussian regiment, a terrible scene
ensued by which Morier's sagacity was justified. The King was greeted
with cries of 'à bas le Colonel d'Uhlans', and was hissed as he passed
along the streets; only his personal tact and restraint saved the two
Governments from an undignified squabble. He was able to give a lesson
in deportment to his hosts and also to satisfy the resentful pride of
his fellow-countrymen. The whole episode shows how individuals can
control events when the masses can only become excited; kings and
diplomats may still be the best mechanics to handle the complicated
machinery on which peace or war depends. Alfonso XII died in November
1885, soon after Morier's departure for another post, but not before he
had testified to the high esteem in which our Minister had been held in
Spain.
From Madrid he might have passed to Berlin. The British Government had
only one man fit to replace Lord Ampthill (Lord Odo Russell), who died
in 1884. Inquiries were made in Berlin whether it was possible to employ
Morier's great knowledge at the centre of European gravity, but Bismarck
made it quite clear that such an appointment would be displeasing to his
sovereign. It was believed by a friend and admirer of both men that, if
Bismarck and Morier could have come to know one another, mutual respect
and liking would have followed; but magnanimity towards an old enemy, or
one whom he had ever believed to be such, was not a Bismarckian trait,
and it is more probable that all Morier's efforts would have been
thwarted by misrepresentation and malignity.
Instead he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he took up his duties as
Ambassador in November 1885. Here he had to deal with bigger problems.
The affray at Penjdeh, when the Russians attacked an Afgh[=a]n outpost
and forcibly occupied the ground, had, after convulsing Europe, been
settled by Mr. Gladstone's Government. Feeling did not subside for some
years, but for the moment Asiatic questions were not so serious as the
conflict of interests in the Balkan peninsula. The principality of
Bulgaria created by the Congress of Berlin was the focus of the 'Eastern
question'--that is, the question whether Russia, Austria, or a united
Europe led by the Western powers, was to preside over the dissolution of
Turkey. Bulgaria certainly owed its existence to Russian bayonets; in
her cause Russian lives had been freely given; and this formed a real
bond between the two nations, more lasting than the effect of Mr.
Gladstone's speeches, to which English sentimentalists attached such
importance. But the Bulgarians have often shown an obstinate tendency to
go their own way, and their politicians were loath to be kept in Russian
leading-strings. Their last act, in 1885, had been to annex the Turkish
province of Eastern Roumelia without asking the consent of the Tsar. At
the moment they could safely flout the Sultan of Turkey, their nominal
suzerain; but diplomatists doubted whether they could, with equal
safety, ignore the Treaty of Berlin and the wishes of their Russian
protector. The path was full of pitfalls. The Austrian Government was on
the watch to embarrass its great Slavonic rival; English statesmen were
too anxious to humour Liberal sentiment as expressed at popular
meetings; Russian agents on the spot committed indiscretions; Russian
opinion at home suspected that Bulgaria was receiving encouragement
elsewhere, and the air was full of rumours of war.
Across this unquiet stage may be seen to pass, in the lively letters
which Morier sent home, the figures of potential and actual princes of
Bulgaria, of whom only two deserve mention to-day. The first, Alexander
of Battenberg, member of a family which enjoyed Queen Victoria's special
favour, had been put forward at the Berlin Congress, and justified his
choice in 1885 by repelling the Serbian Army and winning a victory at
Slivnitza. He had won the attachment of his subjects but had incurred
the hatred of the Tsar, and the tone of his speeches in 1886 offended
Russian sentiment. Two years after Slivnitza, in face of intrigues and
violence, he abandoned the contest and abdicated. The second is
Ferdinand of Coburg, whose tortuous career, begun in 1887, only ended
with the collapse of the Central Powers in 1918. He was put forward by
Austria and supported by Stambuloff, the dictatorial chief of the
Bulgarian ministry. For years the Russian Government refused to
recognize him, and it was not till 1896 that he came to heel, at the
bidding of Prince Lobanoff, and made public submission to the Tsar. But,
first and last, he was only an astute adventurer of no little vanity and
of colossal egotism, and such sympathies as he had for others beside
himself went to Austria-Hungary, where he owned landed property, and had
served in the army. He was also displeasing to orthodox Russia as a
Roman Catholic, and in Morier's letters we see clearly the mistrust and
contempt which Russians felt for him.
With an autocrat like Alexander III, secretive and obstinate, these
personal questions became very serious. Ambitious generals might
anticipate his wishes, Russian regiments might be on the march before
the Ministers knew anything, and Europe might awake to find itself over
the edge of the precipice.
Morier's own attitude can best be judged from the letters which he
exchanged with Sir William White, our able ambassador to the Porte, who
was frankly anti-Russian in his views. At first he put his trust in
strict observance of the Treaty of Berlin, and wished that Prince
Alexander would consent to restore the _status quo ante_ (i.e. before
the change in Eastern Roumelia); but although a stout upholder of
treaties, he admitted as a second basis for settlement 'les voeux des
populations', on which the modern practice of plebiscites is founded.
The peasants of Eastern Roumelia were clearly glad to transfer their
allegiance from the Sultan to the Prince. Also the successes achieved by
Prince Alexander in so soon welding together Bulgaria and Eastern
Roumelia had to be recognized as altering the situation. In fact,
Morier's position was nearer to that of 1919 than to the old traditions
in vogue a century earlier, and would commend itself to most English
Liberals. But, as an ambassador paid to watch over British interests, he
was guided by expediency rather than by sentiment. These interests, he
was convinced, were more vitally affected in Central Asia than in the
Balkans. He believed that, if British statesmen would recognize Russia's
peculiar position in Bulgaria, the advance of Russian outposts towards
India might be stayed, and the two great powers might work together all
along the line. But, to effect this, national jealousies must be allayed
and an understanding established. Morier had to interpret at St.
Petersburg speeches of English politicians, which often sounded more
offensive there than in London: he also had to watch and report to
London the unofficial doings and sayings of the aggressive Pan-Slavist
party, who might at any moment undermine the Ministry.