So complicated and specious as was the strategy planned by the Emperor of the French, there is no doubt that M. de Bismarck penetrated it from the beginning, that he divined it, foresaw it in some way, even before it was completely fixed in the mind of its author, and we have on this subject a most striking proof. In the month of August, 1865, at the time when the first conferences were held between the two governments of Prussia and Italy against Austria, which were soon to interrupt the brusque conclusion of the armistice of Gastein, M. Nigra wrote to General La Marmora, being evidently inspired by the observations of his Prussian colleague at Paris, Count Goltz: "The cabinet of Berlin would not wish that, war once declared and begun, France should come, like the Neptune of Virgil, to dictate peace, lay down conditions, or convoke a congress at Paris."[56]Thus all is foreseen in those few lines written long before Biarritz, all up to that congress which a Napoleon III. would naturally not fail to extol one day or another, and which he in fact was to advance in the month of May, 1866. "The difficulty consists, then," continues M. Nigra in his dispatch, "in obtainingfrom France a promise of absolute neutrality. Will, or can, the Emperor Napoleon make this promise?Will he give it in writing as Prussia wishes it?" This promise ofabsoluteneutrality M. de Bismarck certainly did not obtain at Biarritz (October, 1865), still less was there a question of any engagementin writing; but he learned there from august lips that Italy was right in wishing to "complete its unity," that it should not fail to profit by the first favorable occasion,—that France, for its part, was resolved to respect Germany, not to contradict on the other side of the Rhine the "national aspirations." Unless the map of Europe was to be modified to its detriment, France would preserve the neutrality, and this neutrality would not be other than "favorable" to a combination in which the interests of Italy were engaged. It is allowable to recall a reminiscence which is like a fragment of the conversations of Biarritz in this curious declaration, made six months afterwards by the president of the council of Prussia to General Govone,[57]"that apart from the profit which he might find in it, and with noregard for principles, the Emperor of the French would sooner approve the great war for the German nationality than the war for the Duchies of the Elbe!"
What, during his sojourn at Biarritz, could hardly have escaped a sagacious observer like M. de Bismarck, was the hold which his profound attachment for the country of Cavour and Manin had on the mind of Louis Napoleon; there was the key to the position,the real word of the Sphinx, and that certainty acquired, compensated in the eyes of the Prussian minister for many still disquieting doubts, made him pass over many a reticence of the august, taciturn man.[58]For certain reasons, he could even congratulate himself on the reserve which he preserved towards him, on the care which he took to avoid a discussion in detail; that released him on his part from any precise engagement, from any premature offer; it allowed him to confine himself to generalities, to make fantastic journeys over spaces and centuries,—and he neglected nothing. He spoke of Belgium and a part of Switzerland as the necessary and legitimate complement of French unity,—of the common action of France and Germany for the cause of progress and humanity,—of a future accord between Paris, Berlin, and Florence, even London and Washington, to conduct the destinies of Europe, to regulate those of the entire world, to lead, for instance, Russia to its real vocation in Asia and Austria to its civilizing mission on the Danube. How many times was seen on this henceforward historical coast of the Gulf of Biscay, the Emperor Napoleon slowly walking and leaning on the arm of Prosper Mérimée, while the president of the Prussian council followed him at a respectful distance, haranguing, gesticulating, and generally receiving for reply only a dull and slightly incredulous look, and how the thought remains to-day sadly fixed on this strange group of the romantic Cæsar, the romancingCesarean and the terrible realist who, very obsequious at this moment towards his imperial host, four years later was to harshly assign him the prison of Wilhelmshoehe! From time to time Napoleon III. caused the author of "Colomba" to understand by a furtive pressure of the arm how amusing he found this diplomat with the futile imagination, this representative of a more than problematical Power, who so cleverly dismembered Europe and distributed the kingdoms. "He is crazy!" he even whispered one day in the ear of his companion; but, before recriminating a remark so cruelly expiated since, one can well recall the following passage of a dispatch which General Govone wrote the year after: "In speaking to me of Count Bismarck, M. Benedetti told me that he was, so to speak, amaniacaldiplomat,"[59]and M. Benedetti took care to add that he had long known his man, that he had "followed" him for nearly fifteen years!
Is it not necessary in fact to be a littlemaniacal, to have that "little grain of folly" which Molière attributes to all great men, and which Boerhaave believes he finds in every great genius,[60]to launch the monarchy of Brandenburg into an adventure so eminently perilous as that of 1866? The minister of William I. remarked correctly, however, at Paris, that he would perhaps meet a second Olmütz, and his biographers quote a characteristic speech of his, "that death on the scaffold is under certain circumstances neither the most dishonorable nor the worstof deaths." In a diplomatic point of view, his only assurance was the profound love of Napoleon III. for the Italian cause, and after as before Biarritz the "Neptune of Virgil" arose, always menacing, free to pronounce hisquos ego: the war once declared and begun, France could always dictate peace, lay down the conditions or convoke a congress. The whole point, then, was not to allow the benevolent neutrality of Napoleon III. the time to work those infallible changes; all that was necessary was to act quickly and well, to strike a blow at the beginning which should dictate peace to Vienna and respect to Paris; victory was only possible at this price! But, however, there has always been luck and misfortune in the affairs of this world,—"the all powerful God is capricious," according to the singular expression of M. de Bismarck at one of the most solemn moments,[61]—how far could one count on an army formed only a few years before, and which, as well as its chiefs, had never gone through a great campaign? An extraordinary circumstance in truth, and one which will never cease to be an astonishing fact in history, of the two eminent men who took upon themselves more especially the terrible responsibility of commencing the combat, neither of them had had a superior command, or had made his name illustrious on a historical field of battle! Before 1864, the only campaign in which General Moltke had ever assisted was that of Syria between the Turks and the Egyptians; in 1864 he had borne arms against his own country in that invasion of Denmarkwhich was certainly not calculated to produce Turennes and Bonapartes. General de Roon had formed a part in 1832 of a "corps of observation" which watched the French besieging Antwerp, and had only distinguished himself since by books of military geography. "After all that we have heard said of these officers," General Govone wrote from Berlin on the 2d April, 1866, "the army is not enthusiastic for the war against Austria; there is rather in its ranks sympathy for the Austrian army. I know well that the war, once declared, the army will be electrified, and will do its duty bravely; but it is neither a spur nor a support for the policy which Count de Bismarck wishes to make prevail."[62]
As to public opinion in Germany, as to the national sentiment of the 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 theBundgroaned under a foreign dominion; the ruling houses in Hanover, Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria, etc., were indigenous, antique and glorious, popularand 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 facewith 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 hispetit-coucherembarrassed 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 ofalliance 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 aWelche,—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 ofgaining over the king, of triumphing over hissuperstitions, over theold ideas, over hislegitimist 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 inæs triplexof the forehead, the grandsons of Machiavelli or the heirs of the Teutonic order; one can admire there how, to use an ingenuous expression of theItalian negotiator, the Southernviperattempts tobite the charlatanof 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 certainword of honorgiven inJune, 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," andwhose 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 hadrejected 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 ægis 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 throughefforts 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 spokefor the first timeof 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 ofthe French government an active coöperation 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 projectedconference 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 allscruples. "His majesty," Count de Barral telegraphed even on the 23d May from Berlin, "was very muchmovedat 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 returnviaVienna 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 ofFrench 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 theconstant securityin 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 congressto 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 Mikhaïlovitch did not envy the young laurels of his former colleague of Frankfort, become Chancellorof 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.
I.
In the littlesalonof the house Jessé, 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 ofabandonand 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 attackof 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 withpiquantanecdotes 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!" Thecivilization, allowed at last to plead his cause anew, did not the less find the old "iron count" in the affable andfluent talker of a few moments before: the arts had decidedly in no respect softened the political manners of thesavage. 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 importantrôle, 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 thelegislative 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, especiallyof 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 thatwe are not alone in Europeand 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 armywould 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 onthe 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 nowyou 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 thesang froidwhich 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. Theparty of actionin the councils of the empire would then have had a good chance to praise Prussia as the powerful agent ofcivilization 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 himcarte blanchein 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 thelicenseallowed 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 thePalais Royalwas 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 anecessary and fruitfulalliance 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 thevæ victison 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 Würtemberg, 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 givesit. I regret that you do not believe me disinterested in the question, and that you do not see the fatal danger ofapowerful Germany andapowerful Italy. Thedynastyis 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 certainlyhave 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 Mikhaïlovitch had not yet sufficiently cast aside the old Adam, theattachéof 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 Houseof 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 themotof 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 Mikhaïlovitch; 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 theprestige, 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. deBismarck French mediation, and to "sound" him on the advantages that in justice he could scarcely fail to accord to the ardent mediator.