The Recollections Of Alexis De Tocqueville Part 18

The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United Germany would prove in his way. Lamoriciere, in one of his private letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary candour and arrogance:

"If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man were found, if that armed ma.s.s developed into a menace, it would then become your affair and mine."

But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord irresistibly returning to its old const.i.tution and to the old anarchy of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet with the same fate.

It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides suppressed and ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that, like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for the reason that, he had re-established order. The princes who had adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when, after defeating the Hungarians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September 1849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage suddenly failed him, as I expected, and he returned to his old part.

The German Const.i.tution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all that remains of feudal inst.i.tutions: their ruin, consummated by the nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the other, the perpetuity of ground-rents, baronial t.i.thes, forced labour, rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which const.i.tuted a great part of the riches of the n.o.bility, remained abolished.[22] The Kings were restored, but the aristocracies did not recover from the blow that had been struck them.[23]

[22: Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, 10 October 1849.--Despatch from M. Lefebre at Munich, 23 July 1849.]

[23: I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and Prussia would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each case within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in the instructions which I gave to one of our amba.s.sadors to Germany on the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had taken place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as were all my more important despatches. I read as follows:

"I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old European society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms it does not change in character, and that all the old powers are, to a greater or lesser extent, threatened with modification or destruction. But I am inclined to believe that the next event will be the strengthening of authority throughout Europe. It would not be impossible that, under the pressure of a common instinct of defence or under the common influence of recent occurrences, Russia should be willing and able to bring about harmony between North and South Germany and to reconcile Austria and Prussia, and that all this great movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens.

Consider the situation from this point of view, and give me an account of your observations."]

Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great danger.

Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara.

Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her fortunes did not authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont, moreover, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her newly-acquired const.i.tutional inst.i.tutions, which brought her closer to us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were had to arms.

I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name of France, between the two parties, addressing to both of them the language which I thought most likely to convince them. I observed to Austria how urgent it was that the general peace of Europe should be a.s.sured by this particular peace, and I exerted myself to point out to her what was excessive in her demands. To Piedmont I indicated the points on which it seemed to me that honour and interest would permit her to give way. I applied myself especially to giving her Government in advance clear and precise ideas as to what it might expect from us, so that it should have no excuse to entertain, or to pretend to have entertained, any dangerous illusions[24]. I will not go into details of the conditions under discussion, which are without interest to-day; I will content myself with saying that at the end they seemed prepared to come to an understanding, and that any further delay was due merely to a question of money. This was the condition of affairs, and Austria a.s.sured us through her Amba.s.sador in Paris of her conciliatory dispositions; I already looked upon peace as concluded, when I unexpectedly learned that the Austrian Plenipotentiary had suddenly changed his att.i.tude and his language, had delivered on the 19th of July a very serious ultimatum, couched in exceedingly harsh terms, and had only given four days in which to reply to it. At the end of these four days the armistice was to be raised and the war resumed. Already Marshal Radetzky was concentrating his army and preparing to enter upon a fresh campaign.

This news, so contrary to the pacific a.s.surances which we had received, was to me a great source of surprise and indignation. Demands so exorbitant, delivered in such arrogant and violent terms, seemed to announce that peace was not Austria's only object, but that she aimed rather at the independence of Piedmont and perhaps at her representative inst.i.tutions; for so long as liberty shows itself in the smallest fraction of Italy, Austria feels ill at ease in all the rest.

[24: Despatch of the 4th of July 1849 to M. de Boislecomte:

"The conditions laid down for Piedmont by His Majesty the Emperor of Austria are no doubt severe; but, nevertheless, they do not affect the integrity of the territory of the Kingdom nor her honour. They neither take away the strength which she should preserve, nor the just influence which she is called upon to exercise over the general policy of Europe and in particular over the affairs of Italy. The treaty which she is asked to sign is a vexatious one, no doubt; but it is not a disastrous one; and, after the fate of arms has been decided, it does not exceed what was naturally to be feared.

"France has not neglected, and will not neglect, any effort to obtain a mitigation of this proposal; she will persist in her endeavours to obtain from the Austrian Government the modifications which she considers in keeping not only with the interests of Piedmont but with the easy and lasting maintenance of the general peace; and to attain this result, she will employ all the means supplied to diplomacy: but she will not go beyond this. She does not think that, within the limits of the question and the degree to which the interests of Piedmont are involved, it would be opportune to do more.

Holding this firm and deliberate opinion, she does not hesitate to give utterance to it. To allow, even by her silence, a belief to gain ground in extreme resolutions that have not been taken; to suggest hopes that we are not certain of wis.h.i.+ng to realize; to urge indirectly by words to a line of action which we should not think ourselves justified in supporting by our acts; in a word, to engage others without engaging ourselves, or unconsciously to engage ourselves more deeply than we think or than we mean: that would be, on the part of either the Government or of private individuals, a line of conduct which seems to me neither prudent nor honourable.

"You can rely, Sir, that so long as I occupy the post in which the President's confidence has placed me, the Government of the Republic shall incur no such reproach; it will announce nothing that it will not be prepared to carry out; it will make no promises that it is not resolved to keep; and it will consider it as much a point of honour to declare beforehand what it is not ready to do as to execute promptly and with vigour that which it has said it would do.

"You will be good enough to read this despatch to M.

d'Azeglio."]

I at once came to the conclusion that we must at no price allow so near a neighbour to be oppressed, deliver a territory which touched our frontiers to the Austrian armies, or permit political liberty to be abolished in the only country in which, since 1848, it had showed itself moderate. I thought, moreover, that Austria's mode of procedure towards us showed either an intention to deceive us or else a desire to try how far our toleration would go, or, as is commonly said, to sound us.

I saw that this was one of those extreme circ.u.mstances, which I had faced beforehand, where it became my duty to risk not only my portfolio (which, to tell the truth, was not risking much) but the fortunes of France. I proceeded to the Council and explained the state of affairs.

The President and all my colleagues were unanimous in thinking that I ought to act. Orders were immediately telegraphed to concentrate the Army of Lyons at the foot of the Alps, and so soon as I returned home, I myself wrote (for the flaccid style of diplomacy was not suited to the circ.u.mstances) the following letter:[25]

"Should the Austrian Government persist in the unreasonable demands mentioned in your telegram of yesterday, and, abandoning the limits of diplomatic discussion, throw up the armistice and undertake, as it says it will, to go and dictate peace at Turin, Piedmont can be a.s.sured that we should not desert her. The situation would no longer be the same as that in which she placed itself before the battle of Novara, when she spontaneously resumed her arms and renewed the war against our advice. This time it would be Austria which would herself take the initiative unprovoked; the nature of her demands and the violence of her proceedings would give us reason to believe that she is not acting solely with a view to peace, but that she is threatening the integrity of Piedmontese territory or, at the very least, the independence of the Sardinian Government.

"We will not allow such designs as these to be accomplished at our gates. If, under these conditions, Piedmont is attacked, we will defend her."

[25: Letter to M. de Boislecomte, 25 July 1849.]

I moreover thought it my duty to send for the Austrian representative (a little diplomatist very like a fox in appearance as well as in nature), and, convinced that, in the att.i.tude we were taking up, hastiness was identical with prudence, I took advantage of the fact that I could not as yet be expected to have become familiar with habits of diplomatic reserve, to express to him our surprise and our dissatisfaction in terms so rude that he since admitted to me that he had never been so received in his life.

Before the despatch of which I have quoted a few lines had reached Turin, the two Powers had come to an agreement. They had come to terms on the question of money, which was arranged practically on the conditions that had been previously suggested by ourselves. The Austrian Government had only desired to precipitate the negociations by frightening the other side; it made very little difficulty about the conditions.

Prince Schwarzenberg sent me all sorts of explanations and excuses, and peace was definitely signed on the 6th of August, a peace hardly hoped for by Piedmont after so many mistakes and misfortunes, since it a.s.sured her more advantages than she had at first ventured to demand.

This affair threw into great relief the habits of English, and particularly of Palmerstonian, diplomacy: the feature is worth quoting.

Since the commencement of the negociation, the British Government had never ceased to show great animosity against Austria, and loudly to encourage the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions which she sought to force upon them. My first care, after taking the resolutions I have described, was to communicate them to England, and to endeavour to persuade her to take up the same line of conduct. I therefore sent a copy of my despatch to Drouyn de Lhuys, who was then Amba.s.sador in London, and instructed him to show it to Lord Palmerston, and to discover that minister's intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied:[26]

"While I was informing Lord Palmerston of your resolutions and of the instructions you had sent M. de Boislecomte, he listened with every sign of eager a.s.sent; but when I said, 'You see, my lord, how far we wish to go; can you tell me how far you will go yourself?'

Lord Palmerston at once replied, 'The British Government, whose interest in this business is not equal to yours, will not lend the Piedmontese Government more than a diplomatic a.s.sistance and a moral support."

[26: Despatches of the 25th and 26th of June 1849.]

Is not this characteristic? England, protected against the revolutionary sickness of nations by the wisdom of her laws and the strength of her ancient customs, and against the anger of princes by her power and her isolation in the midst of us, is always pleased to play the part of the advocate of liberty and justice in the internal affairs of the Continent. She likes to censure and even to insult the strong, to justify and encourage the weak; but it seems that she does not care to go further than to a.s.sume virtuous airs and discuss honourable theories.

Should her _proteges_ come to need her, she offers her moral support.

I add, in order to finish the subject, that these tactics succeeded remarkably well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone had defended them, and that we had very nearly abandoned them. She remained very popular in Turin, and France very much suspected. For nations are like men, they love still more that which flatters their pa.s.sions than that which serves their interests.

Hardly had we emerged from this bad pa.s.s, before we fell into a worse one. We had witnessed with fear and regret what was happening in Hungary. The misfortunes of this unlucky people excited our sympathies.

The intervention of the Russians, which for a time subordinated Austria to the Tsar, and caused the hand of the latter to be more and more active in the management of the general affairs of Europe, was not calculated to please us. But all these events happened beyond our reach, and we were helpless.

"I need not tell you," I wrote in the instructions I sent Lamoriciere, "with what keen and melancholy interest we follow events in Hungary. Unfortunately, for the present, we can only take a pa.s.sive part in this question. The letter and spirit of the treaties open out to us no right of intervention. Besides, our distance from the seat of war must impose upon us, in the present state of our affairs and of those of Europe, a certain reserve.

Since we are not able to speak or act to good purpose, it is due to our dignity not to display, in respect to this question, any sterile excitement or impotent good-feeling. Our duty with regard to Hungarian events is to limit ourselves to carefully observing what happens and seeking to discover what is likely to take place."

Overwhelmed by numbers, the Hungarians were either conquered or surrendering, and their princ.i.p.al leaders, as well as a certain number of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube at the end of August, and threw themselves into the arms of the Turks at Widdin. From there, the two princ.i.p.al ones, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote to our Amba.s.sador in Constantinople.[27] The habits and peculiarities of mind of these two men were betrayed in their letters. The soldier's was short and simple; the lawyer-orator's long and ornate. I remember one of his phrases, among others, in which he said, "As a good Christian, I have chosen the unspeakable sorrow of exile rather than the peacefulness of death." Both ended by asking for the protection of France.

[27: Letters of the 22nd and 24th of August 1849.]

While the outlaws were imploring our aid, the Austrian and Russian Amba.s.sadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they might be given up. Austria based her demand upon the treaty of Belgrade, which in no way established her right; and Russia hers upon the treaty of Kanardji (10 July 1774), of which the meaning, to say the least of it, was very obscure. But at bottom they neither of them appealed to an international right, but to a better known and more practical right, that of the strongest. This was made clear by their acts and their language. The two emba.s.sies declared from the commencement that it was a question of peace or war. Without consenting to discuss the matter, they insisted upon a reply of yes or no, and declared that if this reply was in the negative, they would at once cease all diplomatic relations with Turkey.

To this exhibition of violence, the Turkish ministers replied, with gentleness, that Turkey was a neutral country; that the law of nations forbade them to hand over outlaws who had taken refuge on their territory; and that the Austrians and Russians had often quoted the same law against them when Mussulman rebels had sought an asylum in Hungary, Transylvania or Bessarabia. They modestly submitted that what was permitted on the left bank of the Danube seemed as though it should also be permitted on the right bank. They ended by protesting that what they were asked to do was opposed to their honour and their religion, that they would gladly undertake to keep the refugees under restraint and place them where they could do no mischief, but that they could never consent to deliver them to the executioner.

"The young Sultan," our amba.s.sador wrote to me, "replied yesterday to the Austrian Envoy that, while denouncing what the Hungarian rebels had done, he could now only regard them as unhappy men seeking to escape death, and that humanity forbade him to surrender them. Rechid Pasha, on his part, the Grand Vizier," added our Minister, "said to me, 'I shall be proud if I am driven from power for this;' and he added, with an air of deep concern, 'In our religion, every man who asks for mercy is bound to obtain it.'"

This was talking like civilized people and Christians. The Amba.s.sadors were content to reply like real Turks, saying that they must give up the fugitives or undergo the consequences of a rupture which would probably lead to war. The Mussulman population itself took fire; it approved of and supported its Government; and the Mufti came to thank our Amba.s.sador for the support he had given to the cause of humanity and good law.

From the commencement of the discussion, the Divan had addressed itself to the Amba.s.sadors of France and England. It appealed to public opinion in the two great countries which they represented, asked their advice, and besought their help in the event of the Northern Powers executing their threats. The Amba.s.sadors at once replied that in their opinion Austria and Russia were exceeding their rights; and they encouraged the Turkish Government in its resistance.

In the meanwhile, arrived at Constantinople an aide-de-camp of the Tsar. He brought a letter which that Prince had taken the pains to write to the Sultan with his own hand, asking for the extradition of the Poles who had served six months before in the Hungarian war against the Russian army. This step seems a very strange one when one does not see through the particular reasons which influenced the Tsar under the circ.u.mstance. The following extract from a letter of Lamoriciere's describes them with great sagacity, and shows to what extent public opinion is dreaded at that end of Europe, where one would think that it was neither an organ nor a power:

"The Hungarian war, as you know," he wrote,[28] "was embarked upon to sustain Austria, who is hated as a people and not respected as a government; and it was very unpopular. It brought in nothing, and cost eighty-four millions of francs. The Russians hoped to bring back Bem, Dembinski, and the other Poles to Poland, as the price of the sacrifices of the campaign. Especially in the army, there reigned a veritable fury against these men. The people and soldiers were mad with longing for this satisfaction of their somewhat barbaric national pride. The Emperor, in spite of his omnipotence, is obliged to attach great value to the spirit of the ma.s.ses upon whom he leans, and who const.i.tute his real force. It is not simply a question of individual self-love: the national sentiment of the country and the army is at stake."

[28: Despatches of the 11th and 25th of October 1849.]

These were, no doubt, the considerations which prompted the Tsar to take the dangerous step I have mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his letter, but obtained nothing. He left forthwith, haughtily refusing a second audience, which was offered him to take his leave; and the Russian and Austrian Amba.s.sadors officially declared that all diplomatic relations had ceased between their masters and the Divan.

The latter acted, in these critical circ.u.mstances, with a firmness and propriety of bearing which would have done honour to the most experienced cabinets of Europe. At the same time that the Sultan refused to comply with the demands, or rather the orders, of the two Emperors, he wrote to the Tsar to tell him that he would not discuss with him the question of right raised by the interpretation of the treaties, but that he appealed to his friends.h.i.+p and to his honour, begging him to take it in good part that the Turkish Government refused to take a measure which would ruin it in the eyes of the world. He offered, moreover, once more, himself to place the refugees in a position in which they should be harmless. Abdul Medjid sent one of the wisest and cleverest men in his Empire, Fuad Effendi, to take this letter to St Petersburg. A similar letter was written to Vienna, but this was to be handed to the Emperor of Austria by the Turkish Envoy at that Court, thus very visibly marking the difference in the value attached to the consent of the two Sovereigns. This news reached me at the end of September. My first care was to communicate it to England. At the same time[29] I wrote a private letter to our Amba.s.sador, in which I said:

"The conduct of England, who is more interested in this affair than we are, and less exposed in the conflict that may arise from it, must needs have a great influence upon our own. The English Cabinet must be asked clearly and categorically to state _how far_ it is prepared to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they want us to a.s.sist them, they must dot their i's. It is possible that, in that case, we shall be found to be very determined; otherwise, not. It is also very important that you should ascertain the opinions produced by these events upon the Tories of all shades; for with a government conducted on the parliamentary system, and consequently variable, the support of the party in power is not always a sufficient guarantee."