II.
There is nothing more curious than the language used by the minister of Prussia to the ambassador of France at those first conversations in Moravia! M. de Bismarck began by renewing the fantasies of Biarritz, and it was the very opposite of a Tilsit who appeared to form plans at the head-quarters at Brünn: the son of Frederick William III., conquered at Jena, seemed to wish to offer to the nephew of Napoleon I. to share the world with him, to share it to the detriment of Russia and England! "He endeavored to prove to me," wrote M. Benedetti on the 15th July, "that the reverses of Austria allowed France and Prussia to modify their territorial situation, and to solve at the present time the greater part of the difficulties which will continue to menace the peace of Europe. I reminded him that treaties existed, and that the war which he desired to prevent would be the first result of such a policy. M. de Bismarck answered me, that I misunderstood, that France and Prussia, united and resolved to remodel their respective frontiers by binding one another by solemn engagements, were henceforward in a position to regulate together these questions, without fear of meeting an armed resistanceeither on the part of England or on the part of Russia." In other words,—and these words were likewise employed in the report of M. Benedetti,—the Prussian minister believed that "he could free himself from the obligationto submit to the control of Europe," thanks to a separate agreement with France. As to the means to bring about this precious agreement, it was perfectly simple: France had only to seek its fortune along the Meuse and the Escaut. "I do not tell your excellency anything new," wrote M. Benedetti to his chief, some days after, from Nikolsburg, in announcing to him that M. de Bismarck was of the opinion "that we should seek compensation in Belgium, and that he offered to act in concert with us." He did not, however, utterly repel the idea of giving France its share on the Rhine, not, for instance, in the Prussian territories, where it would be difficult to persuade King William to renounce any portion of his possession; "but something could perhaps be found in the Palatinate," that is, in Bavaria. He was always "much more Prussian than German," and reasonable terms could be made with the Walhalla.
The French government fell into the trap which was thus set, and it then aided Prussia infreeing itself from all control of Europe, in working at these preliminaries of Nikolsburg, signed the 26th July, and which sealed the exclusion of Austria from Germany, and constituted a confederation of the North, under the hegemony of the Hohenzollern. This grave attack on public right and the equilibrium of the world once conceded, and the war virtually ended, one began to talk of compensations. In a letter addressed to M. de Goltz, and dated from Vichy the 3d August, M. Drouyn de Lhuys declared that the emperor, his august master, "had not wished to complicate the difficulties of a work ofEuropean interestin treatingprematurelywith Prussia" on territorial questions; but the moment seemed finally come to consider these questions, all the more as they were preparing to obtain large annexations north of the Main. "The king," M. de Bismarck had written to M. de Goltz the 10th July,—"the king cares less for the constitution of a political northern confederation, andabove all desires annexations; he would rather abdicate than return without an important territorial acquisition."[82]In fact, besides the Duchies of the Elbe, the abandonment of which had been stipulated at Nikolsburg, Prussia still wished to absorb the free cities, Cassel, Hanover, even Saxony, and at the Tuileries they hoped to measure the French demands according to the number of souls and of square leagues that William the Conqueror should demand for himself. "The great war for German nationality," which the popular Cæsar had recommended at Biarritz, turned in a measure into "this human cattle market," so blamed at the congress of Vienna, at the "execrated" treaties of 1815,—and how is it possible not to acknowledge that France played arôlethere unworthy of itself? It was for it to deny at once the new and the old right, the principle of national will as well as that of the legitimacy of princes; it wished, moreover, to realize an illicit gain and a paltry sum on the occasion of a great universal calamity, and, to speak with the English humorist, to profit by the eruption of Vesuvius to boil an egg! M. de Bismarck uttered at this moment a cruelmot, but which was not entirely unmerited."France," said he to a former minister of the Germanic Confederation,—"Francefollows a Trinkgeld policy(la France fait une politique de pour-boire)."
A letter written by M. Rouher on the 6th August, 1866, and since found among the papers of the Tuileries,[83]makes us see the strange illusions which the French government then cherished, and the ambassador of Prussia at Paris did his best to sustain. "M. de Goltz finds our pretension legitimate in principle," wrote the minister of state; "he considers that satisfaction ought to be given to the only wish of our country to constitute between France and Prussiaa necessary and fruitful alliance." The embarrassment is solely to determine the sum of the demands that should be put forward. "The empress would demand much or nothing, in order not to compromise our final pretensions." As for M. Rouher, he thinks that "public opinion would havefoodanddirection, if to-morrow we could say officially, Prussia consents that we retake the frontiers of 1814, and thus efface the consequences of Waterloo." Let it be well understood, the minister of state does not admit "that this rectification would serve as a receipt for the future!" "Without doubt,new facts must develop in order that new pretensions arise, but these facts will certainly be developed. Germany is only in the first of those numerous oscillations which it will undergo before finding its new position. Let us be more ready, in the future, to better profit by events; opportunities will not be wanting. The States south of the Main, especially, will be, in a few years from now, an apple of discord or a matter for a compromise. M. de Goltz does not dissimulate at present the covetousness as regards this group of confederates." Thus, at the very moment that they boasted of "saving" the States of the South, of establishing on the other side of the Rhine a new political combination which the minister of state was soon to adorn with the famous name ofthree fragments, and to declare, marvelously reassuring for France, they already waited for an opportunity to abandon this combination, and to traffic for it "at a reasonable price!"
How naïve to think that after Sadowa and Nikolsburg, the ruin of Austria consummated, Germany completely subjected, all intervention of Europe checked, and the military weakness of France proclaimed to all the winds,[84]that one would find Prussia accessible to those arrangements which it had not wished to make before its immense victories, at the moment of its greatest perplexities, and in the midst of the anguish of a crisis which all the worldagreed in proclaiming perilous in the extreme! Even on the 8th June, on the eve of the war, M. Benedetti thus summed up the state of public opinion in Prussia in regard to France: "The apprehensions which we inspire everywhere in Germany still exist, and they will awaken unanimously and violently at the least sign which would allow our intention of enlarging our boundaries towards the East to be guessed. The king, like the most humble of his subjects, would not bear at this moment the suggestion of the probability of a sacrifice on the Rhine. The crown prince, so profoundly convinced of the dangers of the policy of which he is the witness, declared, not long ago, to one of my colleagues, with extreme vivacity, that he preferred war to cession, if it was only the little county of Glatz."[85]And it was the same diplomat who had so appreciated the situation before the campaign of Bohemia, it was this same ambassador who now took upon himself to present to M. de Bismarck the demands of the cabinet of the Tuileries, who even submitted to him on the 5th August a project for a secret treaty, implying the abandonment to France of all the left bank of the Rhine, without excepting the great fortress of Mayence! "Inview of the important acquisitions which the peace assures to the Prussian government," said M. Benedetti, "I was of the opinion that a territorial remodeling would hereafter be necessary for our security; I have instigated nothing, I have still less guaranteed the success; I have only allowed myself to hope for it, provided that our language were firm and our attitude resolute." Was firmness wanting, or was too much of it shown? In any case, M. de Bismarck asserts that he replied in a tone which certainly showed no irresolution. "Very well," he replied to the pressing entreaties of the ambassador, "then we will have war. But let his majesty well observe, that such a war could become in certain eventualitiesawar with a revolution, and that in presence of revolutionary dangers, the German dynasties would prove to be much more firmly established than that of Napoleon."[86]
That was not, however, the last remark of the Prussian minister. Perfectly decided not to admit the discussion on the subject of the Rhine, he took care, nevertheless, not to completely discourage the French ambassador, and to continue a game with him which later, in his circular of the 29th July, 1870, he called by the name, unknown until then in the diplomatic dictionary, ofdilatory negotiations. He spoke of his liking for Napoleon III., of his great ambition to solve in concert with him the important problems of the future. "Prussia needs an alliance with a great Power;" that was his inmost conviction; he did not cease to preach it to theking his august master,—and what alliance more desirable, in a point of view of progress and of civilization, than that with the French empire? He thus returned to his recent effusions of Brünn and Nikolsburg; he insinuated "thatother arrangementscould be made which would satisfy the respective interests of the two countries,"[87]and he strengthened M. Benedetti in his design to return to Paris and to expose the situation.
At Paris the conflict of Powers was carried on with vigor between the minister of foreign affairs and the ambassador of Prussia, M. de Goltz, ably seconded by theparty of action, to which the arrival of M. Benedetti (11th August) brought considerable support. M. Drouyn de Lhuys was not at all surprised at thePrussian ingratitude, as M. Benedetti had expressed it in one of his last dispatches,[88]but,by a logic which escapes us, he did not the less rejoice at seeing the French demands at last stated, "They can be taken up again in good time." He had no doubt of the use that they would soon make on the banks of the Spree of the project of the treaty of the 5th August! He hoped, besides, that the final refusal given at Berlin would cause the ardent promoters of dangerous intrigues to reflect that it would prevent certain engagements for the future which he apprehended above all. M. de Goltz suddenly told him that he had come to an agreement with the emperor concerning the annexations to be effected by William I. in Northern Germany, and a letter addressed the 12th August by the chief of state to the Marquis de La Valette cut short all controversy with Prussia. "It results from my conversation with Benedetti," wrote Napoleon III. to the minister of the interior, "that we will have all Germany against us for a small profit; it is important not to let public opinion be mistaken on this point." The misfortune was only that the imperial government allowed itself at this moment to be misled on a very dangerous point, and that Belgium became for it, from that time, the object of a negotiation as deceptive as fatal, and from which later, at the beginning of the war of 1870, it in vain endeavored to elude the crushing responsibility.
That M. de Bismarck was, from the beginning, the great tempter of the imperial government, and the tempter repulsed even for a long time, in these shadowy projects concerning the country of theMeuse and the Escaut, is a truth which to-day cannot be doubted, the authentic documents published lately suffice to convince the most incredulous mind. It was not only in his conversations with General Govone that the president of the Prussian council indicated on several occasions, and very clearly, Belgium and certain parts of Switzerland as the most proper territories to "indemnify France:" long before the spring of the year 1866, even long before the interview of Biarritz, M. de Bismarck had tried tosell the bear-skin, as Napoleon III. said to him one day. General La Marmora, who understood it a long time, adds that "the bear was neither in the Alps nor in the Carpathians; he was very well (stava benone) and he neither wished to die nor to be caged up."[89]Such suggestions were, without doubt, of a nature to startle theparty of actionin the councils of the empire, they were, however, eagerly received by it; but scornfully checked, up to that point, by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, treated as "projects of brigandage" by the chief of the state, they had to await that hour ofpatriotic anguishwhich marked the arrival of Benedetti, to be at last taken into serious consideration.
Certainly the ambassador of France at the court of Berlin had, in this year 1866, a very difficult and painful situation, we had almost said a pathetic one. He had worked with ardor, with passion, to bring about thisconnubioof Italy and Prussia, which seemed to him to be an immense good fortune for the imperial policy, a brilliant victory gained overthe old order of things to the profit of the "new right" and Napoleonic ideas. In the fear, very well founded besides, of seeing this work miscarry and Prussia draw back, if one spoke to it of eventual compensations and preventive engagements, he had not ceased to dissuade his government from any attempt of this kind, and to lay stress upon the fierce, intractable, and suspicious patriotism of the House of Hohenzollern, even to the point of being sometimes suspected at the Hotel of the Quai d'Orsay of somewhat exaggerating the colors, and of making a certain devil blacker and more German than he really was. The work had at last succeeded; succeeded beyond all expectations; succeeded in inspiring fear, in suddenly convincing M. Benedetti "that a territorial remodeling was henceforth necessary to the security of France." This remodeling he had flattered himself for a moment with having obtained on the Rhine: "He had not guaranteed the success, but he had allowed himself tohopefor it." Refused with firmness, if not with pride, "and having taken the measure of Prussian ingratitude," he was nevertheless soon given to hope what the minister of William I. had insinuated to him, "that other proper arrangements could be made to satisfy the respective interests of the two countries," and he had grasped at the expedient which was thus pictured before his eyes, with so much the more feverish energy as he saw in it a new triumph for the modern right and the principles dear to his party. Anxious to repair the consequences of a policy to which for his part he had contributed more than any other to make it successful; recognizing, however, thedifficulties, if not the impossibility, for the court of Berlin to cede any portion of the German soil, and always convinced of the sincere desire of M. de Bismarck "to indemnify France,"[90]at this decisive hour he made himself, at the side of Napoleon III., the interpreter of the ideas which he had gathered from the head-quarters at Brünn, and pleaded with warmth for this necessary and fruitful alliance with Prussia, which, extolled for a long time by the Palais Royal, had recently deluded even the well balanced mind of M. Rouher.
Let it be well understood, there was no question of immediate action, of which, indeed, the military situation of the country allowed no thought; the question was simply of an agreement and a solidarity to be established for future eventualities, for the time more or less distant, but inevitable, when Prussia should think of crowning its work, of freeing the Main, of extending its rule from the Baltic to the Alps,—this question was ofboldly taking stand on the ground of nationalities! "If France boldly takes its stand on the ground of nationalities," said a curious note found among the papers of the Tuileries, and which incontestably sums up the ideas of the party of action at this epoch,[91]"it is necessary to establish now that there exists no Belgian nationality,and to fix this essential point with Prussia. As the cabinet of Berlin seemed to be, on the other hand, disposed to enter with France into arrangements which would suit France, there would be time to negotiate a secret act which should bind the two parties. Without pretending that this act was a perfectly sure guarantee, it would have the double advantage of compromising Prussia, and would be for it a gage of the sincerity of the policy or of the intentions of the Emperor.... To be certain of finding at Berlin a confidence which is necessary for the maintenance of an intimate understanding, we must try to dissipate the apprehensions which have always been entertained, which have been reawakened, and even overexcited by our last communications. This result cannot be obtained by words; an act is necessary, and one which will regulate the ulterior lot of Belgium in concert with Prussia, in proving at Berlin that the emperor seeks elsewhere than on the Rhine the extension necessary for France since the events of which Germany was the theatre. We must at least have a relative certainty that the Prussian government will not oppose our aggrandizement in the North."
III.
It was with the mission of negotiating asecret act, binding the two parties in the sense indicated by the note which we have just given, that M. Benedetti left Paris towards the end of the month of August. The act was to provide for an offensive and defensive alliance between the two states, and, in exchange for the recognition of thechanges already accomplished or still to be accomplished in Germany, to assure to Napoleon III. the diplomatic aid of Prussia for the acquisition of Luxemburg, and itsarmedaid at the moment when France should judge it opportune to annex Belgium. Immediately on his arrival at his post the French ambassador went resolutely to work: he carried on the negotiationwithout the knowledge of his immediate chief, and only referred to the emperor and the minister of state.[92]He begged thepresident of the council of Prussia to regard the propositions of the 5th August, those relative to the left bank of the Rhine, as null and void, as a joke of M. Drouyn de Lhuys during the sickness of his august master, and submitted to him a new project in five articles concerning Belgium. It matters little that the ambassador of France had with him the minute of it which he had written in the cabinet of the Prussian minister, at his request, and, "in some measure at his dictation;" it is certain that Benedetti acted according to the instructions from Paris,[93]and that M. de Bismarck on his part did not decline such overtures. He had even made observations on some of the terms employed in the draft, and insisted on introducing several changes in the text. The project thus amended was sent to Paris, and returned anew to Berlin with rectifications made by the emperor and M. Rouher. On the banks of theSeine, in the councils of the small number initiated in the secret, they were full of expectation and cheerfulness; they debated the question of the successor of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and the opinions were divided between M. La Valette and M. Benedetti; they exchanged ideas which were soon expressed in a sadly celebrated document, and they rejoiced at seeing "the treaties of 1815 destroyed, the coalition of the three Powers of the North broken, and Prussia made sufficiently independent and sufficiently compact to ignore its former traditions."[94]All of a sudden a discouraging dispatch from the ambassador of France at the court of Berlin (29th August) troubled their minds, and they had again some apprehensions on the subject of the "necessary and fruitful alliance" which they flattered themselves with having established.
The conferences had continued up to the last days of the month of August, and M. de Bismarck had lent himself with good grace to thedilatory negotiations. In the mean time, the peace of Prague, the definite peace with Austria, was signed (26th August); the States of the South had adhered one after the other to the stipulations of Nikolsburg, and solemnly recognized the confederation of the North, as well as the territorial acquisitions of Prussia. The secret act concerning Belgium was in the hands of the minister of William I., and only needed to be fairly copied and signed, but at this moment M. Benedetti suddenly met with strange inconceivable distrusts which did not fail to wound him deeply. M. deBismarck hesitated, spoke to him of his fears "that the Emperor Napoleon would wish to make use of such a negotiation to create suspicion between Prussia and England." The stupefaction of the French ambassador was extreme. "What degree of confidence can we on our side accord to those open to such suspicions?" he asked in his dispatch of the 29th August.[95]The proceeding seemed to him unjustifiable, and, in order not to be tempted to qualify it, he judged it opportune "to go for a fortnight to Carlsbad where he would hold himself ready to return to Berlin on receipt of the first telegram which M. de Bismarck should address to him." Slightly moved at this circumstance, the court of the Tuileries was not the less obstinate in believing in thesecret actwhich was preparing at Berlin; it dismissed M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and long before the arrival of his successor from Constantinople, M. de Moustier, they hastened to publish that famous circular of the 16th September, which bore the signature of the minister of the interior, M. de La Valette, and was one more pledge given to the conqueror of Sadowa. The manifest praised the theory of combinations and affirmed that "Prussia, enlarged, free henceforth from any solidarity, would assure the independence of Germany;" as to the most secret hopes, scarcely an allusion was made to them: "France can only desire territorial aggrandizements which do not alter its powerful cohesion." Nothing happened, however, and M. Benedetti waited in vainunder the elms and the beautiful firs of Carlsbad: M. de Bismarck gave no sign of life. He had gone to Varzin, from whence he did not return until the month of December. Thedilatory negotiationshad borne all their fruit in the month of August, and the French government would have been too happy if all those shadowy intrigues had remained for it only a simple deception: they became its chastisement.
M. de Benedetti had, however, pretended to know his man, to havefollowedhim for fifteen years! He had followed him in any case during the negotiations of the spring which brought about the treaty between Prussia and Italy; he had then contemplated the magnificent tilt between theviperand thecharlatan, and himself very judiciously judged a situation in which the plenipotentiaries of the two countries had surpassed one another in miracles of the true Punic faith. "M. de Bismarck and General Govone distrusted and still distrust one another," M. Benedetti wrote in his dispatch of the 27th of March, 1866. "It is feared at Florence that, finding itself in possession ofan act which places Italy in a certain degree at its discretion, Prussia will make known the stipulations of it at Vienna and will persuade the Austrian cabinet, by intimidation, to peacefully make the coveted concessions. At Berlin, they fear that Italy, if they promised to negotiate on these bases, will directly inform Austria before concluding any treaty, and will thus try to obtain from it the abandonment of Venice." After a similar experiencein anima vili, how could M. Benedetti have left on the table of the president of the council of Berlin his compromising autograph on the subject of Belgium,an act which in a certain degree placed France at the mercy of Prussia? How could he be astonished at seeing his interlocutor "open to certain suspicion," and did he not on the contrary make the same calculations for his own account and profit? It was, however, very foolish to suppose that M. de Bismarck had the will to do unto others that which he declared he did not wish others to do unto him! And the ambassador of France would have scarcely been wrong in crediting this charitable thought to his interlocutor, however unevangelical, for the amusing or rather the sad part of the affair,—the true humor of all this imbroglio, as the Bardolph of Shakspere would say,—is that the cavalier of the Mark had already executed precisely the manœuvre, indifferently chivalric surely, of which he pretended to suspect Napoleon III., and that the thing was done at the moment when he demanded if they had nothing in their hands and pockets. They had left in his hands two very secret and dangerous documents, the two plans of the treaties on the Rhine and Belgium,[96]and he took care not to avail himself of them immediately at the expense of the interested parties, whom he had every interest to attach to himself.
The preliminaries of Nikolsburg, the reader will remember, had stipulated that the States of the South should remain outside of the new confederation directed by Prussia, and that they should form among themselves a restricted union. That was the great success obtained by the French mediation, the salutary combination of thethree fragments, much more favorable to the interests of France, according to its opinion, than that of the formerBund, the ill-omened creation of 1815. It is true that among the persons initiated in the secret of Benedetti's mission, "this group of confederates" was only regarded as "a matter of business for a reasonable profit;" in waiting, however, they "saved" the South, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys honestly exerted himself, in this month of August, 1866, to aid the unhappy plenipotentiaries of Bavaria, of Würtemberg, of Hesse, etc., who had gone to seek a definite peace at Berlin. M. de Bismarck had first frightened them by his fiscal and territorial demands; they had invoked and obtained the support of the emperor, and in the Tuileries they flattered themselves with having in truth persuaded the minister of William I. to more equitable sentiments. Still, on the 24th August, M. Drouyn de Lhuys wrote to his agent in Bavaria: "I am happy to think that our last step has not been without influence on the result of a negotiation which is ending in a more satisfactory manner than the cabinet of Munich had at first thought possible;" and it was not only M. Benedetti who took to himself in this matter the credit of playing the finerôleof moderator.[97]The truth is, that if M. deBismarck ended by becoming more moderate and even amicable towards the Southern States, he had very different motives than the desire of being agreeable to the cabinet of the Tuileries. He had simply shown to "the group of confederates" the project of the treaty of the 5th August; he had made them see that the French government, at the same time when it seemed to protect, sought to extend itself together with Prussia at their expense, and demanded portions of the Palatinate and of Hesse. In place of demanding from them the sacrifices which they feared, the minister of William I. offered to defend them against the "hereditary enemy." There was no hesitation: the States of the South surrendered, and Prussia concluded with them (from the 17th to the 23d August)secrettreaties of offensive and defensive alliance. The contracting parties guaranteed reciprocally the integrity of their respective territories, and the States of the South engaged to place, in case of war, all their military forces at the disposal of the King of Prussia. The "matter of business," on which M. Rouher had counted, was henceforward out of the market; the line of the Main found itself free before it had been traced on the official map of Europe, and from the month of August, 1866, M. de Bismarck could count on the armed coöperation of all Germany.[98]
The military conventions with the States of the South were kept rigorously secret for a long time, and it was not till the spring of the following year that M. de Bismarck found it convenient to givethem a crafty publicity in reply to the speech of the minister of state on thethree fragments. Up to that time M. Benedetti had been ignorant of them, like other mortals, but he had shown himself more clear-sighted as regards another very grave event, contemporary with these conventions concluded with the South, and he recognized from the beginning the ominous bearing of the mission of General Manteuffel to St. Petersburg in the month of August, 1866. It must not be forgotten that at the bottom of the "new policy" which during this month they were flattering themselves with having inaugurated at the Tuileries by a cordial understanding with the court of Berlin, a Russian problem was agitating. Would the monarchy of Brandenburg, "rendered sufficiently independent and sufficiently compact to loosen itself from its traditions, free henceforward from all solidarity," decide to break its secular and hitherto unrelaxed ties with the empire of the czars? That was the true and vital question of the future. "Prussia must have an alliance with a great Power," the minister of William I. did not cease to reiterate at this epoch; but, as Austria was destroyed, and England had long since condemned itself to widowhood, only France and Russia remained, between whom the lucky conqueror of Sadowa had then the position of the Don Juan of Mozart, between Doña Anna and Doña Elvira. Surprised in the darkness, imposed upon in a moment of deplorable misunderstanding, the proud and passionate Doña Anna occasionally cast glances of defiance andvenganza, oftener, alas! looks still ardent from the last embrace, and betraying the secretflame, which even said very plainly, that she would go still farther, provided there was reparation, provided that a marriage followed, if it was only a clandestine marriage. Russia was Doña Elvira, the former, thelegitimateally a little vexed at recent neglect, even very gravely injured in family interests, but always loving, always fascinated, and only waiting for a kind word to forget all and to throw herself into the arms of the fickle one. We only speak briefly of Zerline, of Italy, a cunning and lively soubrette, intruding herself everywhere, in love, she also, the poor little thing, with the irresistible seducer, and often treated very cavalierly, happy, nevertheless, to be pinched privately, and to say that she also was "protected by a great lord."
Such being the situation in this decisive month, the ambassador of France to the court of Berlin experienced a violent shock in learning one day of the sudden departure for St. Petersburg of General Manteuffel, the general-diplomat, more diplomat than general, the confidant,par excellence, of King William, and always the man for private missions. "I have asked M. de Bismarck," M. Benedetti hastened to write to Paris, "what I should think of this mission, confided to a general commanding troops in the campaign. After having pretended that he thought he had informed me of it, M. de Bismarck assured me that he had told M. de Goltz, in order that he might instruct you." Strictly speaking, one finds it natural that the king wished to plead before his imperial nephew the extenuating circumstances of a painful situation, which forced him to takethe goods and the crowns of several very near relations of the House of Romanoff; but the French ambassador was above all struck by the circumstance that the journey of M. de Manteuffel had been decided the day after he had delivered his project of the treaty. "I asked the president of the council," he continues in the same dispatch, "if this general officer had been informed of our overture; he answered that he had had no occasion to make him a party to it, but that he could not guarantee to me that the king had not told him the substance. I should add, as I have told you by telegraph, that I gave a copy of our project to M. de Bismarck on Sunday morning, and that General Manteuffel, who had scarcely removed his head-quarters to Frankfort, was called to Berlin in the following night." Towards the end of the month of August, when M. de Bismarck for the first time showed his hesitation in signing the secret act concerning Belgium, M. Benedetti wrote, in a letter to M. Rouher, concerning the mission that M. de Manteuffel continued to fill at St. Petersburg. "They have elsewhere obtained assurances which dispense with our aid," said he; "if they decline our alliance, it is because they are already provided, or on the eve of being."[99]
General Manteuffel remained several weeks at St. Petersburg; he stayed there long enough to dissipate a certain sadness caused by the recent misfortunes of the Houses of Hanover, Cassel, Nassau, etc., all allied by blood to the imperial family of Russia, also long enough to communicate such projectsand show autographs by which they had treacherously endeavored to turn the Hohenzollern from his loyal, unalterable affection for his relative of the North. Thanks to all these proceedings, and all these attentions, the good harmony between the two courts became greater than ever; they easily explained the past, and arranged for the future, and the ambassador of France at the court of Berlin was not deceived in designating, from this moment, the "bear," whose skin the general-diplomat had gone to sell on the banks of the Neva. To speak in the words of the Marquis La Marmora, it was a bear of the Balkans, which had not been well for a long time, and which the Emperor Nicholas had declaredsicktwenty years before. One will see in the sequel that Alexander Mikhaïlovitch did not the less miss the deer at the general hunt in 1870, that he scarcely succeeded in getting for himself a handful of hair well fitted to adorn his helmet; that takes nothing from the merit of the perspicacity which the unfortunate negotiator of thesecretact concerning Belgium had given proof of on this occasion. M. Benedetti early foresaw the desolating truth, which, for M. Thiers, was not visible until very late, at the bottom of thisRussian boxwhich M. de Bismarck allowed him one evening, at Versailles, to rummage with a liberality which was certainly not free from malice.
In endeavoring, after the great disaster of the campaign of Bohemia, to obtain from Prussia compensations first on the Rhine, then on the Meuse, the Emperor Napoleon III., in those months of July and August, 1866, had only facilitated for M. deBismarck the two great political combinations which were since, in 1870, of such prodigious use: the armed coöperation of the Southern States, and the moral aid of Russia in case of a war with France. The chief fault, however, of the Napoleonic policy the day after Sadowa, was to have so well served Prussia in its desire to escape from all control on the part of Europe, and to have given its sanction from the very first to such an immense derangement of the equilibrium of the world, without the cause being brought before the areopagus of nations. This forgetfulness of the duties towards the great Christian family of states was only too quickly and too cruelly avenged, alas! and Prince Gortchakof, in 1870, only followed a recent and lamentable example in allowing France and Germany to decide their quarrel in the lists, in hindering all common action of the Powers, all European concert. "I see no Europe!" cried M. de Beust, in 1870, in a celebrated dispatch, and no one thought of disputing this dolorous affirmation. A few only observed with sadness that the eclipse had already lasted several years, that it dated from the preliminaries of Nikolsburg and from the treaty of Prague.
I.
"They have provided themselves elsewhere," the French ambassador at the court of William I. sadly wrote, in the last days of the month of August, 1866, on seeing Prussia so brusquely break off thedilatory negotiationsconcerning Belgium; and it is just to add that he has never since ceased to clearly appreciate the situation, and to keep his country constantly on its guard as regards the confidential harmony and absolute agreement between the two courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg after the mission of General Manteuffel. If he nevertheless endeavored for some time to obtain a compensation for his country,—a very modest one, it is true, and consonant with the new fortune of France,—if, during the first months of the year 1867, he particularly flattered himself with obtaining from the kindness of M. de Bismarck the permission to buy Luxemburg from the King of Holland, if he even once went so far, during a hasty journey to Paris, as to affirm, in a confidential conversation, that he already had the fortress of Alzette "in his pocket," it was not that he thought it possible to return to the beautiful dream of the head-quarters of Brünn, and to effect that "necessary and fruitfulalliance with Prussia" with which at a certain moment some sanguine minds on the banks of the Seine had been deluded. He was only persuaded that the conqueror of Sadowa would not envy France this paltry atonement of Luxemburg, that he would even find it worth while to "indemnify" the Emperor Napoleon III. so cheaply, so that, in the words of the poet, "the lion would only gape before such a little morsel." The lion roared, however, shook his mane with fury, and signified harshly that it had done forever with anypolitique de pour-boire. But even this only confirmed M. Benedetti in the opinion that they had provided themselves elsewhere, and that henceforward they were on the verge of great trouble. He thought rightly that M. de Bismarck must be very sure of the support, in any case, of his former colleague of Frankfort, to refuse to France even this moderate prize (aubaine), and to give it on this occasion "the measure of its ingratitude."
At the same time with the affair of Luxemburg, the events in Crete showed in their turn to the cabinets of Vienna and the Tuileries how far Prince Gortchakof was already pledged to M. de Bismarck, and how resolved to sacrifice to his friendship with Prussia the most brilliant prospects. Whoever reads attentively the curious exchange of notes which the troubles of Crete had caused, will see that, during the entire epoch from the month of November, 1866, to the month of March, 1867, the two governments of Austria and France had sought to sound the designs of the court of St. Petersburg, and to make very significant advances to it. The insurrection ofthe Candiots, one will remember, in the autumn of 1866, surprised and moved Europe, scarcely recovered from the violent shock of Sadowa. Immoderately exaggerated by the journalists, who were more or less interested, after having excited lively sympathy in Russia, the insurrection ended by seriously occupying the attention of the chancellors, and seemed for a moment destined to bring before the cabinets the whole question of the Orient in its appallingensemble. Certain cabinets did not even seem greatly dismayed at the contingency: instead of conforming with the constant traditions of diplomacy in the Ottoman affairs, instead of quelling the disturbance and lessening as much as possible its proportions and bearings, M. de Moustier thought that he ought "to find means to pacify the Orient," and busied himself "in convoking a sort ofconsultation of doctorsto learn the opinion of each one concerning the remedy to be applied to the evil."[100]Still more astonishing was the language used by the government of Vienna, by the Power which up to that time and always had contented itself with sustaining Turkeyper fas et nefas, without demanding anything from it, no more for the immediate subjects of the sultan than for the tributary provinces. Resolutely breaking with these habits of the past, M. de Beust, who had at this time just undertaken the direction of affairs in Austria, wrote on the 10th November, 1866, to his ambassador at Paris that, while desiring to preserve the throne of the sultan, "Austria could not refuse its sympathies and its support in a certaindegree to the Christian peoples of Turkey who have at times just demands to make, and who are connected with some of the peoples of the Austrian empire by close ties of blood and religion." Questioned some days later (28th November) by the envoy of Russia at the court of Vienna, the Austrian minister did not hesitate to reply that he was disposed to favor amongst the Christians of the Orient "the development of their autonomy and the establishment of a limited self-government by a bond of vassalage." Lastly, in a remarkable dispatch addressed to Prince Metternich and dated the 1st January, 1867, M. de Beust proposed "a revision of the treaty of Paris of the 30th March, 1856, and subsequent acts," announcing in advance his desire to make over, in the arrangement to intervene, the greater part to Russia. He had no trouble in showing that "the remedies through which they had sought, in the course of the last few years, to maintain thestatu quoin the Orient, had shown themselves insufficient to subdue the difficulties which grew with each day." "The physiognomy of the Orient taken as a whole," continued the dispatch, "shows itself to-day under an essentially different aspect from that which it had in 1856, and the stipulations of that epoch, exceeded as they are on more than one important point by after events, no longer answer to the necessities of the actual situation." In a word, M. de Beust looked to nothing less than to a joint intervention of the European Powers in the affairs of Turkey, without concealing that in such a situation, "there would be an opportunity to take into consideration, in a fitting degree, the naturalrôlewhich the commonalty of religiousinstitutions would secure for Russia in the Orient," and clearly showing the necessity of relieving the empire of the czars of the onerous conditions which were imposed upon it in the Black Sea, "in order to secure for himself by a conciliating attitude the sincere coöperation of this Power in the questions of the Levant."
It was truly a bold plan; it did not even fail to violently shock the French feelings. Was it not in truth to erase with a single stroke a past of ten years, to lose all the fruit of the Crimean war? They had some repugnance in avowing to themselves that the treaty of 1856 had not existed for a long time, alas! since the day when the French government had broken by its gratuitous kindness towards Russia this cluster of the three great Occidental Powers which alone could assure its efficacious execution. Since then the act had gradually become void, had been violated in the majority of the stipulations; and the conference of Paris, charged nominally with watching over the observance of the treaty, was always restricted, as the Austrian dispatch observed, "in giving its sanction to facts accomplished outside of its sphere of action, and which were not in harmony with the agreements placed under its protection." However, on the day after Sadowa, Prince Gortchakof did not fail to seize the first opportunity to begin to prepare the epitaph of the treaty of Paris. "Our august master," said the Russian chancellor in a document dated the 20th August, 1866, and marked by fine irony,—"our august master does not intend to insist on the general engagements of the treatieswhich have no value except by reason of the accord existing between the great Powers in order to make them respected, and which to-day have received, bythe want of this joint will, too frequent and too severe blows not to be renderedinvalid." It was exactly thiscollective willwhich M. de Beust expected to revive and strengthen in projecting the revision of the act of 1856. According to his opinion, the treaty of Paris had not attained its purpose, which was to insure the entireness and the vitality of the Ottoman empire. On one side the Occidental Powers have imposed on Russia on the banks of the Euxine a restriction of its rights of sovereignty which a great empire could not definitely accept, and from which sooner or later it would seek to free itself. On the other side, and as regards the Christian population of the Levant, they contented themselves with promulgating a firman promising reforms, and leaving Turkey to itself, instead of reserving for Europe the right to watch over the Ottoman government with a gentle but continued vigilance, so that it should fulfill its duties toward the rajahs, and by a wise and honest administration become independent and strong. The treaty of Paris had only, thought the Austrian minister, given to Russia what the Crimean war ought to have refused it above all,—the monopoly of influence over the rajahs; this monopoly it continued to exercise as in the past, in a hidden manner, it is true, but so much the more dangerously as it recognized no competition. M. de Beust wished to reëstablish the competition, or rather he wished to establish a general agreement "to make the Christian populations of the sultanthe debtors of all Europe, in giving them, by the care ofall the guaranteeing courts, autonomous institutions according to the diversity of religions and races,"[101]and he hesitated the less to make to this vast conception the sacrifice of the article of the treaty of Paris touching the neutralization of the Black Sea which Austria had combated from the beginning, and to which it had only given its adherence at the last moment to humor the Occidental Powers and put an end to the Crimean war, the events of which had since demonstrated its complete inefficacy. It was under the influence of the disaster of Sinopa that France and England had hoped to restrain the naval forces of the czar in the Euxine. They had thus thought to shelter Constantinople from a blow from the Russian hand; but on this point, as on so many others, the physiognomy of the Orient had essentially changed. Russia no longer meditated acoup de main: it advanced more slowly, but much more surely, towards its goal. The pacification of the Caucasus[102]the irremediable weakness of the Porte and the daily increasing discontent of the rajahs, as impatient of the Turkish yoke as they were devoted to their sole protector, the czar, were worth to it all the vessels of the Black Sea. "However, have they really freed Constantinople from all danger on that side?" asked the Austrian minister."Supposing that Russia decides to construct vessels in the Sea of Asoph, will war be declared to hinder it?" And the cabinet of Vienna concluded by these characteristic words: "The question ofamour-propreshould not be decisive in view of the immense interests which are at stake to-day." In fact, they could not insist too much on this truth: the clause on the subject of the Euxine had been for a long time only a "question ofamour-propre" between the Occidental Powers and Russia; nor could one deny that M. de Beust saw far and justly in his dispatch of the 1st January, 1867. On the day after Sadowa, he sought to reconstitute Europe, to regain it, if we are allowed to express ourselves thus, and he knew how to fix the price of it.
In a different direction, France exerted itself on its part to accede to the views of the cabinet of St. Petersburg in concentrating its efforts principally on the question of the hour, on this Candian insurrection, of which public opinion in Russia had so ardently espoused the cause. M. de Moustier proposed to Prince Gortchakof "an understanding on the eventualities which might arise in the Orient," and, after having already spoken of a "consultation of doctors," in a dispatch addressed to the ambassador of France at Constantinople (7th December, 1866) he even pronounced the words "heroic remedies." By this always medical euphemism, one understood, at Paris, the annexation of the isle of Crete to Greece, "the only possible issue," Prince Gortchakof had affirmed, the 16th November, 1866, "if the Powers will leave expedients and palliatives, which up to the present time have only increasedfor the future the present difficulties." The marriage of the young King of the Greeks, George I., with the Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna, was then a decided matter, and at the Tuileries one demanded nothing better than to make the isle of Crete the "dowry" of the Russian princess. In fact they would not have felt any inconvenience, it seems, in increasing this dowry with Epirus and Thessaly: that was going very far, much farther even than could be desired by Russia, which had no interest in "allowing such an extension of Greece that it might become a powerful state."[103]It was the reconciliation between France and Russia that gave birth to the plan of a common proceeding to demand of the Turkish government the realization of the internal reforms, and the cession of Crete, disguised under the proposition of a plebiscite, a proceeding which was effectively realized in the month of March, 1867, and to which Austria, Prussia, and Italy rallied. Without doubt there was still a great deal of vagueness, and above all of desultoriness in the situation which began to take a form at this moment, and it was to be regretted that France and Austria had not previously agreed to be of one mind on the nature of the offers which they intended to make to Russia; but the offers were very real and very great, we cannot deny that; and it only depended on the successor of Count Nesselrode to arrange, to adjust, and to turn them to the profit andthe glory of his august master. England could not oppose serious obstacles to the joint will of France, Russia, and Austria, in the affairs of the Levant; it was already resigned, and certainly the fruit which Prince Gortchakof saw ripening in the spring of 1867, although not having all the attraction of forbidden fruit, was nevertheless good and savory, very different from that which, four years later, he was to pick up in the ashes of Sedan.
It is true that the governments of France and Austria did not mean to make a gratuitous gift; it was understood that, in exchange for these very large concessions in the Orient, they should obtain the support of the cabinet of St. Petersburg in the menacing complications of the Occident, and many circumstances seemed to plead in favor of such a combination. After all, and exclusive of the vengeance taken on "the ungrateful" empire of the Hapsburg, Russia could not greatly rejoice at the work of M. de Bismarck. Without mentioning several relations of the imperial family whom the Hohenzollern dethroned and despoiled with firmness tempered with a few tears, there was in general in the proceedings and principles inaugurated on the Elbe and the Main a strong revolutionary taint which could hardly please a court which did not cease to protect the shadow of Nicholas. The gravest, however, was that the victory of Sadowa had just brusquely disturbed and even threatened to ruin entirely the secular system of the Russian policy in regard to the affairs of Germany.
In fact, since Peter the Great, especially since Catherine II., Russia had always labored to obtain apreponderant influence among the different German courts: its czars have more than once acted with a high hand and used high words in the Teutonic troubles. "The Romanof enjoys with us a birthright acknowledged by his brothers, our sovereigns of theBund," a celebrated publicist of the other side of the Rhine exclaimed with bitterness one day, and the attitude of the secondary States during the Crimean war truly did not weaken the justice of this expression. But it was this work of several reigns, and of a thought hitherto immutable, that Russia saw placed in question by the foreseen results of the campaign of Bohemia. The North of Germany was already escaping its influence, and the "naïf" ones alone could deceive themselves on the fortune reserved for the South in a very near future. "From the month of September, 1866, the cabinet of Berlin had, in a circular which was designedly made public, claimed for the confederation of the North and the States of the South alone, to the exclusion of all the other Powers, without excepting Austria, the right to bind their relations as closely as they wished, thus giving to Article IV. of the treaty of Prague, an interpretation of which it did not admit. In the speeches which he had delivered at the opening of the Prussian chambers and of the Northern parliament, the king himself, while addressing themto Germany, to the brotherly peoples, to the country which the Alps and the Baltic bound, had given utterance to allusions which made, according to the expression of the official journals, the hearts of all patriots tremble."[104]On his part, M. de Bismarck hadcried out in the midst of the same parliament, using these gambling terms which are so common in his language and so characteristic of his temperament: "Our stake has become greater in consequence of our victories; we have now more to lose, but the game is still far from being completely won!" By means of a combined and resolute action of Europe; the absorption of all Germany by Prussia was only a question of time and of management; Russia, even less than France, would find its reward in it. France only saw uniting in a more compact and menacing body a confederation of kingdoms and principalities which already before had been either hostile, or at least opposed to it. Russia, on the contrary, lost an entire league of states, whose fidelity and devotion had never wavered, who formed for it a sort of continuousenceinteon the side of an occasionally unsympathetic Occident; in their place was to arise a formidable Power, restless and invading from the very start, called sooner or later by the necessity of history, by the fatality of race, to represent and to oppose the Germanic to the Sclavic idea. At every other epoch of the empire of the czars, in the good old time of Count Nesselrode, for instance,—when, in place of a policy of spite and propaganda on the banks of the Neva, they maintained a policy of conservation and equilibrium,—the conduct of a Russian chancellor in such an occurrence would not have been doubtful: a coalition of Russia, of France, and of Austria would have been formed on the day after Sadowa for the safety of Europe, and it is not saying too much to affirm that, in the spring of the year 1867, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch held in his hands the destinies of the world.
Thus compelled to make his choice, Prince Gortchakof was unwilling to decline the French and Austrian advances in the question of the Orient; on the contrary, he hastened to echo them loudly, and sometimes even rose on this occasion to a lyricism not often heard in the chancellors' offices. He was charmed with the new minister of Austria, and filled all the country with a rather forced enthusiasm. "M. de Beust," he wrote to his ambassador in London, "inaugurates a new era in the policy of Austria, an era of large and elevated views; he is the first statesman of this country and of our epoch who courageously endeavors to leave the ground of petty rivalries." As regards France, he endeavored especially to indicate plainly that the initiative came from it, and "while begging the Emperor Napoleon III. to recall the interviews which the Emperor Alexander had had with him at Stuttgart" (in 1860), he seemed to wish to assign to the present conferences an extraordinary character of gravity and generality. "His imperial majesty," continued the Russian chancellor, in his dispatch of the 16th November, 1866, to M. de Budberg, "has received with satisfaction the overtures which M. le Marquis de Moustier has made us in view of an understanding between the French cabinet and ours on the eventualities which might arise in the Orient. The general principles which the French minister of foreign affairs has propounded, the assurances which he has given us, have in the eyes of our august master a very especial value, since they emanate from the direct thought of the Emperor Napoleon, and since it was by the express order of his majesty that M. le Marquisde Moustier has broached these questions." The animation and spirits of Alexander Mikhaïlovitch increase daily: he even ended by talking Latin and by confounding the poor Turkish envoy with a classical quotation. "Here," he wrote in the month of February, 1867, "is what I have said to Comnenos-Bey: the isle of Crete is lost to you; after six months of such a bitter struggle, reconciliation is no longer possible. Even admitting that you succeeded in reestablishing there for some time the authority of the sultan, it would only be on a heap of ruins and a mountain of corpses. Tacitus long ago told us of the danger there is in this reign of silence which succeeds devastation:Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."
Unfortunately it did not take long to see that while holding out hopes to France and Austria for the success of their Oriental movement, and even endeavoring to compromise them in this direction as much as possible,[105]the Russian chancellor was extremely careful to maintain his intimate accord with his former colleague of Frankfort, and not to oppose him in his ideas in the affairs of the Occident. Very ardent for the cause of the plebiscite in Crete, he showed on the contrary an absolute indifference on the subject of an analogous cause on the Eider, otherwise legitimate, however, guaranteed by solemntreaties,[106]and which interested to such a high degree the noble and unfortunate country of the future empress. He preserved a not less significant silence as regarded the publication made in the month of March, 1867, by M. de Bismarck, of the conventions with the Southern States, conventions which bound to Prussia the military forces of Germany, and abolished, in fact, "the international independent situation" which the preliminaries of Nikolsburg had stipulated for Bavaria and Würtemberg.[107]Alexander Mikhaïlovitch held Würtemberg as cheaply as Denmark, the throne of Queen Olga, as the cradle of the Princess Dagmar. In the mean time the affair of Luxemburg arose, and the French government could measure the degree of benevolence with which it had succeeded in inspiring the cabinet of St. Petersburg by its "heroic remedies" as regards Turkey. The Russian chancellor was surely right and very sincere in his desire for peace, but he had not for the position of France the regards which England itself thought just to show it; he seemed, above all, engaged in not giving umbrage to his illustrious friend of Berlin. While also glorifying M. de Beust for his "courageous endeavor to havedone with petty rivalries," the Russian government did not fail to encourage at the same time, in the most dangerous and provoking manner, the violent Sclavic opposition in the empire of the Hapsburg by means of that famouscongressof Moscow, of which we shall speak later. Other deceptions still, less known to the public, but not less sharp, probably added to all these disappointments, for Austria as well as France did not delay in making their retreat from this shifting ground of the Orient and joining in with England in thenceforward firmly maintaining the rights of the sultan. The "consultation of doctors" had a final end, and the legendarysick manwas none the worse for it; but all was then decided for the terrible eventualities of the future.
"There exists an understanding between St. Petersburg and Berlin," M. Benedetti again avowed in the year after (5th January, 1868), while speaking of the so often mentioned mission of General Manteuffel as the point of departure of this agreement which did not cease to harass him. "Was it not, in fact, from this moment," he asked, "that the two courts indicate more plainly their policy, Russia in the Orient and in the Sclavic Provinces of Austria, Prussia in Germany, without even a cloud arising between them? Firmly united on all questions, they have, each for itself, pursued their designs with a confidence which proves that they have stipulated mutual guarantees." And the ambassador adds that this conviction begins to impress itself on many minds, especially on Lord Loftus, his English colleague, for a long time very incredulous on this matter. "His manner of seeing is sensibly modified, and he is not less persuadedthan other members of the diplomatic corps that final arrangements had been made between the two governments of King William and the Emperor Alexander. I have, for my part, found the permanent demonstration of it, if I may so express myself, in the firmly fixed resolution, which has never changed, of the cabinet of Berlin, to inaugurate German unity for its own especial benefit, without allowing itself to be moved for an instant by the possibility of a conflict with France. I have also seen the proof of it in the care with which M. de Bismarck avoids explaining himself on the question of the Orient. When one asks him, he replies that he never reads the correspondence of the ministers of the king at Constantinople; and your excellency will not have forgotten with what complaisance he has always lent himself to the views of Prince Gortchakof." M. Benedetti also notices "the new impulse given since last summer to thePan-Sclavicpropaganda;" he shows very clearly the vast designs and far-reaching hopes of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, in its connivance with Prussia, and gives a higher and juster idea in general of the Russian policy at this epoch than certain ill-advised panegyrists of our day, who, to prove that Prince Gortchakof has filled hisrôleas completely as possible, and with all desirable success, can devise nothing better than to lessen and depreciate this part.