Two Chancellors Part 5

The very day on which he signed this equivocal transaction at Gastein, M. de Bismarck wrote his wife a short note as follows: "For several days I have not found a moment of leisure to write you. Count Blome is again here, and we are doing our best to preserve peace and stop up the crevices of the building. Day before yesterday I devoted an entire day to hunting. I think that I wrote you that I returned disgusted from my first expedition; this time I at least killed a roe, but I saw nothing else during the three hours that I devoted without cessation to experiments on all sorts of insects, and the noisy activity of the cascade below me drew from my heart the cry: '_Little brook, leave there thy murmur._'[51] After all, it was a very good shot made across the precipice. The animal, killed instantly, fell with its four feet in the air from a height of several church steeples into the torrent at my feet." After all, he no more missed the shot than when he slew, in order that he might no longer be the cherished candidate of the _Bund_, the poor Augustenburg, and made the little Duchy of Lauenberg fall into the Prussian game-bag! This fact of the chase and of diplomacy even had an extraordinary reecho in Germany, in France, and even as far as Lord Russell, who experienced the shock. The princ.i.p.al secretary of state insisted on the honor of a.s.sociating himself with M. Drouyn de Lhuys in a very eloquent protest against the arrangements made at Gastein, and the iron-clad squadron of England, which had not appeared in the Baltic since the war of Denmark, came this time at least to pay a courteous visit to the French fleet at Cherbourg. There, however, the demonstration of the two Powers of the East limited itself; M. de Bismarck could enjoy in peace his triumph and the t.i.tle of count which the fortunate campaign of 1865 brought him.

Is it admissible to depart from the gravity of history to describe still another incident of Gastein, a little _genre_ picture of manners which was much talked of at this epoch, and even became the object of confidential explanations between the president of the Prussian council and a devoted friend, all extremely devout? And why not, since the letter of M. de Bismarck to M. Andre (de Roman) concerning Mlle. Pauline Lucca is one of the most curious pages of his familiar correspondence, if it throws light in a very picturesque manner on that vast and bald forehead on which the hand of King William had just placed the coronet of a count. Well, in the midst of those political negotiations and the deer hunts, M. de Bismarck found time at Gastein to be photographed in a romantic att.i.tude with Mlle. Lucca, first _cantatrice_ of the royal opera at Berlin. The photographs caused a certain scandal on the banks of the Spree; the leaders of _the party of the cross_ were especially moved at the thermal license which the former Levite of the tabernacle, the fervent disciple of MM. Stahl and de Gerlach, took. M. Andre (de Roman) was perfectly willing to accept the _role_ of Nathan in the Bible, and, in a sermon written in entire confidence, he did not limit himself to talking of the Bethsabea of the opera; he also spoke some well-chosen words touching the reparation by arms which the first minister of Prussia had but lately wished to impose on the good Doctor Virchow, the very learned and very peaceful discoverer of _trichina_. M.

Andre found that that was not the conduct of a true Christian; he did not conceal that his old friends sighed at not seeing their Eliakim a.s.sist at divine service, and even began to be rather uneasy at the state of his soul. It was to such a sermon that M. de Bismarck replied by the confidential letter which follows, and which a lucky indiscretion has since given to the public, a letter a.s.suredly very characteristic, and which makes one think once more of Cromwell, whose memory has been so often called forth in the course of this study:--

"DEAR ANDRe,[52]--Although my time is very much restricted, I cannot, however, refuse to reply to a summons addressed to me by an upright heart, and in the name of Christ. I am profoundly pained at scandalizing Christians who have faith, but I have the certainty that it is an inevitable circ.u.mstance in my position. I will not yet speak of the parties who are necessarily opposed to me in politics, and who not the less count in their midst a great number of Christians, who have far preceded me in the way of salvation, and with whom, nevertheless, I am obliged to be in conflict on account of matters which, in my estimation as well as theirs, are terrestrial; I appeal only to what you yourself said: 'That nothing that is omitted or committed in the elevated regions remains hidden.' Where is the man who, in a similar situation, would not cause scandal, rightly or wrongly? I will grant you much more still, for your expression 'does not remain hidden' is not exact. Would to G.o.d that apart from the sin the world knows I had not upon my soul others which remain unknown, and for which I can only hope for pardon in my faith in the blood of Christ! As a statesman, I even think that I use far too much consideration; according to my idea I am rather cowardly, and that perhaps because it is not so easy in the questions which come before me to arrive always at that clearness at the bottom of which confidence in G.o.d exists. He who reproaches me with being a political man without conscience, wrongs me; he should first commence by himself testing his conscience on the field of battle. As regards the matter of Virchow, I have long since pa.s.sed the age in which, on similar questions, one seeks counsel from flesh and blood. If I expose my life for a cause, I do it not only in this faith which I have fortified by a long and painful combat, but also by fervent and humble prayer before G.o.d; this faith, the word of man cannot shake, not even the word of a friend in the Lord, and of a servant of the church. It is not true that I have never attended a church. For just seven months, I have been either absent from Berlin or ill; who then can have made the observation on my negligence? I willingly agree that it has often happened, much less for want of time than for considerations of health, especially in the winter; I am always ready to give more detailed explanations to all those who consider it their vocation to be my judges in this matter: as for you, you will believe me without other details of medicine. As to the Lucca photograph, you would probably judge less severely, if you knew to what chance it owes its origin. Besides, Mlle. Lucca, although a _cantatrice_, is a lady whom the world has never, any more than it has me, reproached with illicit relations. Nevertheless, I would have certainly taken care to keep away from the gla.s.s pointed at us, if I had in a tranquil moment reflected on the scandal which so many faithful friends would find in this jest. You see by the details into which I enter that I consider your letter as well meant, and that I do not dream in any way of placing myself above the judgment of those who share with me the same faith; but I expect from your friends.h.i.+p and from your Christian knowledge which you commend to others, in future circ.u.mstances, more indulgence and charity in their judgments: all of us have need of them. I am of the great number of sinners to whom the glory of G.o.d is wanting; I do not hope the less with them that in His mercy, He will not withdraw from me the staff of the humble faith by the aid of which I seek to find my way in the midst of the doubts and dangers of my position; this confidence, however, should not render me deaf to the reproaches of friends, nor impatient at proud and harsh judgments."

Let us lock up the hair s.h.i.+rt with the discipline; let us only think of the diplomat in tunic and helmet, of the "iron count" (_der eiserne Graf_), as his people soon called him, and let us look at the disposition of France towards him at the moment when, after having left the rugged valley of Gastein, he prepared to visit the delightful region of Biarritz, to salute, interrogate, divine, and ... cast down the sphinx!

In the councils of the empire the debates had become from day to day sharper between the ancients and the moderns, between those zealous for the new right and the partisans of a more circ.u.mspect and traditional policy, in proportion as the Austro-Prussian conflict had grown more bitter and aggravated. The ardent ones would have willingly concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. They showed the irresistible movement which was drawing Germany towards unity, and the advantages which France would reap by favoring this evolution in place of opposing it, by attaching to itself by the ties of an eternal recognition the Piedmont of Germany, as it had already done with that of the peninsula. Pa.s.sionate friends of Italy, and still more violent adversaries of Austria, this bulwark of the reaction, of legitimacy and of temporal power, they cherished in the kingdom of Frederick the Great the incontestable representative of civilization, and trembled at seeing it going toward certain defeat in an unequal contest with the _Kaiserliks_. To hear them, the united action of France, Italy, and Prussia was not too much to preserve the cause of progress and to place Europe on new and immovable bases. Why, however, should not Belgium be the legitimate recompense of the French efforts in favor of Germany, as Savoy had been in consequence of the const.i.tution of the kingdom of Italy, and how decline a combination in which each of the three nations representing _par excellence_ modern ideas on the Continent was called to complete its respective unity?

Very different was in this respect the sentiment of the "ancients," the statesmen of the old school, of a whole political group of which M.

Drouyn de Lhuys was in the cabinet the most authorized and clearsighted, if not the firmest. First casting aside all desire for Belgium, as a certain cause of a formidable conflict with England, they a.s.serted the absolute impossibility of finding for France a compensation, however small it might be, in proportion to the injury which the unification of Germany would cause it. Without misunderstanding the Germanic aspirations for a federal reform, for a more h.o.m.ogeneous and united const.i.tution, they asked what obligation France was under to hasten such a work, and if in any case it were not more desirable that such a transformation should be accomplished by the enlightened and pacific cla.s.ses, by the federal diet, even by Austria,--always respecting acquired rights and particular sovereignties,--rather than by a power peculiarly military, bureaucratic, and centralistic? Was not that also the almost general wish of the other side of the Rhine, of the dynasties as well as of the chambers, of the princes as well as of the peoples, and had not the pretension of Prussia, among others, of confiscating for its own profit the conquest of Denmark aroused the consciences of all of them? Only the press of France and Italy which persisted in speaking of "the Piedmontese mission" of the Hohenzollern; on the banks of the Main and Elbe, every one rejected this pretended mission, and even the _National-Verein_, brought into contempt some time before while demanding "a united Germany with a Prussian point," did not the less repudiate M. de Bismarck, and declared him unworthy of taking in hand so holy a cause. As to the danger of seeing Prussia succ.u.mb in the conflict, and thus render the Hapsburg all powerful in Germany, there was a very simple means of preventing such an eventuality, that was to refuse the government of Berlin any aid in the enterprise which it meditated. However bold in truth M. de Bismarck was, it was not doubtful that he would never dare to defy Austria and its allies of the _Bund_ in the face of a formal veto of France, which at the same time would take from him all hope of aid from Italy.[53] The plan to follow in such events seemed then as clearly indicated as singularly easy. Without mixing directly in German affairs, without wounding at all the Teutonic susceptibilities, one could oppose an insuperable barrier to Prussian ambition; one had only to maintain the _statu quo_. Such a policy would inevitably have the warm support of England, and would encourage the resistance of Austria and the secondary States. Without doubt, the Venetian question would be thus warded off; but, besides that, the peace of Europe and the greatness of France were well worth "the pearl of the Adriatic;" it was not forbidden to have great hopes for the city of lagoons from the progress of time, and from the good relations preserved and augmented between France and Austria.

Generally silent in the midst of these contradictory debates, loving, moreover, to plan beneath the pa.s.sions and agitations of his surrounding counselors in the serenity of a calm and meditative intelligence, the Emperor Napoleon III. slowly ripened a project which seemed to him to sufficiently take into consideration the different arguments of the two sides, and which, moreover, well answered the recommendation made by him at about the same time to his minister of foreign affairs, _inertia sapientia_! Italy naturally was of more real interest to him than to M.

Drouyn de Lhuys; that was a pa.s.sion, perhaps indeed a youthful contract, and it was even so with the Empress Eugenie, who had become ardent for the affranchis.e.m.e.nt of Venice since the entry of M. de La Valette to the ministry, also since the day when M. the Cavalier Nigra had turned some couplets full of graceful allusions to a gondola which she had had made for the lake of Fontainbleau. Not less inveterate, but much more fatal, was Louis Napoleon's liking for the country of Blucher and Scharnhorst; the "great destinies" of the monarchy of Brandenburg in Germany formed one of the articles of his cosmopolitan faith. "_The geographical position of Prussia is badly defined!_" as he cried out the following year, at a solemn moment, and in a doc.u.ment too much forgotten.[54] He certainly did not intend to destroy the empire of Hapsburg, and allow the Hohenzollern to rule from the Sound to the Adriatic, as such a course would have readily recognized the _intransigeans_ and the know-nothings of the principle of nationality. A strong appreciator of logic in the affairs of states, and in that (in that alone, perhaps!) truly French spirit, the former prisoner of Ham would have willingly constructed an essentially Protestant Prussia opposed to a traditionally Catholic Austria in the centre of Germany, leaving for the secondary States an intermediary and fluctuating situation in a religious as well as in a political point of view. An augmented and rounded Prussia on the Elbe and the Baltic, and thus rendered "stronger and more h.o.m.ogeneous in the North," seemed to him a useful combination, almost indispensable, counterbalancing Russia, and it was perfectly just that in exchange for new and vast Protestant territories, which it would acquire, the monarchy of Frederick II. should lose Silesia, a Catholic country and former patrimony of Hapsburg, that it should also renounce the Catholic provinces of the Rhine, situated too far outside of its natural orbit. "One would thus maintain for Austria its great position in Germany," above all its position as a great Catholic state, and the return of Silesia would be for the Emperor Francis Joseph an ample compensation for the Venetian province which he would cede to King Victor Emmanuel. For the secondary States of the Confederation, one would mediatize for their profit several of the little unimportant princes; one would add to them, perhaps, as a new member of the _Bund_, a new State composed entirely of Rhenish provinces taken from Prussia; one would a.s.sure for them, in any case, "a closer union, a more powerful organization, a more important _role_," which the great leaders of the party of Wurzburg, the advocates of the _triad_, MM. de Beust, de Pfordten, and de Dalwigk, did not cease to demand. A curious fact, in these vast projects which embraced the world and which tended to determine and to satisfy the "legitimate wants" of Italy, Prussia, Austria, the Germanic Confederation, the only obscure question, and never decided in the mind of the French sovereign, was that of the compensations which, in the presence of this universal alteration, he could claim for his own country. He did not dare to touch the problem of Belgium; it would be, he declared very honestly, "an act of brigandage."[55] Neither did he deceive himself on the impossibility of annexing important Germanic territories; generally he stopped at the idea of a simple rectification of frontiers on the side of the Saar and the Palatinate, and of the neutralization of the German line of fortresses on the Rhine. Even reduced to these modest proportions, the end did not seem to him to be less worthy of being ardently pursued, in view of the very great and moral satisfaction France would find in the achievement of its work in Italy, and in the rational ordering of affairs in Germany.

Moreover, that which, in the situation in which he was engaged, especially flattered his instincts, generous at bottom and vaguely humanitarian, was that he hoped to reap considerable advantages for his own country, for the entire universe, without any necessity of drawing the sword, without spilling a drop of blood, "by moral force only," by the ascendancy of the name of France. He was resolved to "remain in a watchful neutrality," not to leave it except in the extreme case of the too complete victories of one of the belligerents menacing "the overthrow of the equilibrium and the modification of the map of Europe for the benefit of a single Power." He proclaimed it very loudly, on all occasions, and gloried in such "disinterested" policy,--a very strange policy, however, and which, according to the very judicious _mot_ of Prince Napoleon, declared itself in advance _hostile to the conqueror_.

"You have changed the address of your letter," said with fine raillery the conqueror of Austerlitz to the Prussian envoy who brought him the congratulations of his sovereign; the nephew of Napoleon I. acted in such a manner that he could not change the address, alienating in advance the still unknown conqueror. It is true that he believed he knew him, that, with all the world, he saw him in the Emperor of Austria, and that he counted on making with him preventive arrangements. Moreover, even should the army of William I. show itself much superior to the general opinion one had of it,--and, more perspicacious in that than his followers, he fully admitted such an eventuality,--still he only saw in this case a long and fatiguing conflict which would exhaust the two parties and would allow him more easily to intervene as judge of the combat and as protector of the right. He thus hoped, in any case, at his time and at his convenience, to be able to p.r.o.nounce a word of peace, of equity, and of equilibrium, and he was convinced that "this word would be heard." It was important for the moment that Prussia should begin the combat, and to decide it in its favor it would be necessary for it to procure the alliance of Italy. It was also necessary to carefully avoid with the court of Berlin an untimely debate on the combinations and compensations to come; the least insistence on this delicate point might wound the patriotic feelings of William I., cool his warlike ardor, destroy in the embryo a world of great things, _novus rerum ordo_! It was better to ask nothing, to promise nothing, to compromise nothing.

Moreover, what use in demanding notes of a bankrupt, taking sureties from one whose fate seemed so little a.s.sured, and whom, according to all probabilities, one would soon have to protect, to defend against too hard conditions which its Austrian conqueror would wish to impose on it?

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 obtaining from 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 of _absolute_ neutrality M. de Bismarck certainly did not obtain at Biarritz (October, 1865), still less was there a question of any engagement _in writing_; but he learned there from august lips that Italy was right in wis.h.i.+ng 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 no _regard 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ces 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 Merimee, 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 Caesar, the romancing Cesarean and the terrible realist who, very obsequious at this moment towards his imperial host, four years later was to harshly a.s.sign 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 pa.s.sage 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, a _maniacal_ diplomat,"[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 little _maniacal_, to have that "little grain of folly" which Moliere 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 Olmutz, and his biographers quote a characteristic speech of his, "that death on the scaffold is under certain circ.u.mstances neither the most dishonorable nor the worst of deaths." In a diplomatic point of view, his only a.s.surance 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 p.r.o.nounce his _quos 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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstance in truth, and one which will never cease to be an astonis.h.i.+ng 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 ill.u.s.trious on a historical field of battle! Before 1864, the only campaign in which General Moltke had ever a.s.sisted was that of Syria between the Turks and the Egyptians; in 1864 he had borne arms against his own country in that invasion of Denmark which 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 a.s.similate 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 the _Bund_ groaned under a foreign dominion; the ruling houses in Hanover, Saxony, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, etc., were indigenous, antique and glorious, popular and liberal dynasties; the larger part of these countries enjoyed a const.i.tutional 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 princ.i.p.al cities of the kingdom, Cologne, Magdeburg, St.i.ttin, 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 cla.s.ses, but even the middle cla.s.ses 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 face with 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 circ.u.mstance the "iron count" could well say, like a certain cardinal, "that the cabinet of the king and his _pet.i.t-coucher_ embarra.s.sed 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 of _alliance and friends.h.i.+p_, 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 a _Welche_,--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 s.h.i.+rt 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 of _gaining over the king_, of triumphing over his _superst.i.tions_, over the _old ideas_, over his _legitimist 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. a.s.suredly, 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 in _aes triplex_ of the forehead, the grandsons of Machiavelli or the heirs of the Teutonic order; one can admire there how, to use an ingenuous expression of the Italian negotiator, the Southern _viper_ attempts to _bite the charlatan_ of the North, and the charlatan puts his foot on the viper.[65] What, however, is the most curious and the most instructive in these doc.u.ments is the quant.i.ty of matters which the president of the Prussian council succeeded in this short s.p.a.ce of some months in teaching his august master, a still greater quant.i.ty than he had made him forget. Without doubt, one of the most remarkable of these forgetfulnesses is a certain _word of honor_ given in _June_, 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," and whose 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 had _rejected 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 aegis of the Austrian eagle, revolutionary tendencies, hostile to all thrones. If at Vienna they believe that they can tranquilly a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sed 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 through efforts 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 spoke _for the first time_ of 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 of the French government an active cooperation 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 projected conference 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 all _scruples_. "His majesty," Count de Barral telegraphed even on the 23d May from Berlin, "was very much _moved_ at 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 wis.h.i.+ng war for ambitious views, but now the whole world knows who is the aggressor."[74]

"I will return _via_ Vienna or Munich, or I will charge with the last squadron, which will never return," M. de Bismarck said to a foreign amba.s.sador, 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 G.o.d 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 of _French romances_; and the Emperor Napoleon III. was sadly awakened from his own romance, from his long humanitarian dream. Like the t.i.tania 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 the _constant security_ in which I have found M. de Bismarck as to the att.i.tude 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 congress to 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 amba.s.sador 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 rea.s.sured, 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 d.u.c.h.esses, 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 Mikhalovitch did not envy the young laurels of his former colleague of Frankfort, become Chancellor of 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] See the celebrated circular dispatch of M. de Bismarck of the 24th January, 1863, in which he gives an account of the curious interviews which he had with the amba.s.sador of Austria, Count Karolyi, in the last months of the year 1862, soon after his accession to power.

[40] "Why, then, should not representative inst.i.tutions be accorded at the same time to the kingdom of Poland and to the empire of Russia?"--Dispatch of Lord John Russell to Lord Napier, 10th April, 1863.

[41] "This _connivance_ of Austria was not the least remarkable event in the history of this insurrection."--Confidential dispatch of M. de Tengoborski to M. d'Oubril, 4th February, 1863.

[42] "The Polish insurrection, on which its duration impressed a national character," the Emperor Napoleon III. said in his speech of the 5th November, 1863.

[43] "On former occasions, M. de Bismarck always spoke to me of the probability that the Russian army would be too weak to suppress the insurrection."--Dispatch of Sir A. Buchanan, 21st February, 1863. He uses the same language to the Austrian minister, Count Kavolyi. On his part, the director of the diplomatic chancellor's office of the Grand Duke Constantine wrote on the 4th of February, at the first news of the envoy of the Prussian generals for the conclusion of a military convention: "While recognizing the courtesy of the mission of these gentlemen, we cannot give an exact account of what has influenced it.

There is no _pericolo_ (_sic!_) _in mora_, and we have no need of it for the cooperation of foreign troops.... The Prussian government paints the Devil much blacker than he really is."--Confidential dispatch of M. de Tengoborski to M. d'Oubril, Russian minister at Berlin.

[44] The German papers at this time published this interview after the narration of M. Behrend, who did not deny it. See, among others, the _Cologne Gazette_ of the 22d February, 1863.

[45] Dispatch of M. Buchanan of the 17th October, 1863. Inclosure.

Minute of conversation between M. de Bismarck and Sir A. Buchanan.

[46] Seeking an issue, however dishonorable to the campaign so foolishly undertaken, the chief of the foreign office had decided towards the end of September (after the speech of Blairgowrie) to declare the Emperor Alexander _deprived of his rights over Poland_, "for not having fulfilled the conditions in virtue of which Russia obtained this kingdom in 1815." France was to make an a.n.a.logous declaration, but M. Drouyn de Lhuys, become prudent, and with reason would not send his note until after that of England had reached Prince Gortchakof. Lord Russell then wrote his dispatch; it was read at the council, approved by Lord Palmerston, and a copy of it was given to the minister of foreign affairs of France. Lord Napier had already been advised to inform Prince Gortchakof of an "important communication" which he would soon have the honor to transmit to him, and the Duke of Montebello was also instructed by the French government to support his colleague of Great Britain in his solemn declaration; already the debated doc.u.ment had left for its destination, and was on its way to St. Petersburg, ... when suddenly, and to the unspeakable astonishment of the persons initiated, a telegram brusquely stopped in Germany the bearer of the note; another telegram informed Lord Napier that no further attention should be given to the "important communication." For during the interval Count Bernstorff had read at the foreign office a Prussian dispatch in which M. de Bismarck advised the princ.i.p.al secretary of state to take care how he proceeded,--for, if the czar were declared deprived of his rights over Poland for his violation of the treaty of Vienna, the German governments could also declare on their part the King of Denmark deprived of his sovereignty over the Duchies of the Elbe for not having fulfilled all the engagements of the treaty of London. Lord John Russell recalled the courier and tore up the note.--_Vide_ in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st January, 1865, "Two Negotiations of Contemporaneous Diplomacy; M. de Bismarck and the Northern Alliance."

[47] "In 1848 Denmark had demanded the protection of France; M. Bastide, then minister of foreign affairs under the republic, took its part warmly, and there was even an idea of sending 10,000 men to a.s.sist the Danes in the defense of their country."--Dispatch of Lord Cowley of the 13th February, 1864. See also the curious dispatches of M. Petetin, then envoy of the republic at Hanover.

[48] The official journals of Berlin have renewed this reasoning in their recent discussions on the laws of guarantee accorded to the Holy See. The Pope, they argue, cannot be treated as a sovereign, as reprisals cannot be exercised against him by seizing his states.

[49] See the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st October, 1868, _Les Preliminaires de Sadowa_, as well as the instructive work of General La Marmora, _Un po piu di luce_, Firenze, 1873.

[50] It is not useless to mention, _en pa.s.sant_, the circ.u.mstances in the midst of which these new candidatures were produced. Summoned by the conference of London to present his pretensions, M. de Bismarck (28th May, 1864) could not do otherwise than to follow Austria, and to p.r.o.nounce himself for the Duke of Augustenburg. The 2d June, at the reunion succeeding the conference (the telegraph had had time to work), the Russian plenipotentiary declared unexpectedly that the emperor, his august master, "desiring to facilitate as far as he could the arrangements to be concluded," had ceded his eventual rights, as chief of the House Holstein-Gottorp, to his relative, ... the Grand Duke of Oldenburg! The 18th June, another relative of the Emperor Alexander II., Prince Frederick William of Hesse, also a.s.serted his rights to the succession at the conference of London. This is an example of the numerous and discreet services which Prince Gortchakof knew how to render to his friend of Berlin in the sad campaign of the Duchies.

[51] Verse of a German song.

[52] We have taken care to preserve in the translation the character of edifying obscurity which distinguishes the original.

[53] "What can one say now, if France had shown itself opposed to these proceedings (the treaty of Italy with Prussia), we could not run the risk of finding ourselves face to face with an Austro-Franco alliance.

Prussia was as solicitous as we, perhaps even more, with the att.i.tude which France would take in case of a war of Prussia and Italy against Austria."--La Marmora, _Un po piu di luce_, p. 80. Three days before the signing of the secret treaty with Italy, M. de Bismarck said to General Govone: "_All this, let it be well understood, if France wishes it, for, if she shows ill will, then nothing can be done._"--Dispatch of General Govone to General de la Marmora of the 5th April, 1866. _Ibid._ p. 139.

[54] Letter of the emperor to M. Drouyn de Lhuys of the 11th June, 1866.

It is from this letter, solemnly presented to the legislative body, that the quotations which follow are taken.

[55] He used this expression more than once, and in a very convincing tone, in the council of ministers before 1866. It was not till later, after Sadowa and the affair at Luxemburg, that he at times seemed to yield to the "party of action" in his views concerning Belgium, without, however, ever giving his full acquiescence.

[56] Dispatch of M. Nigra of the 8th August, 1865. La Marmora, p. 45.

[57] Dispatch of General Govone of the 17th March, 1866. La Marmora, p.

90.

[58] It was on his return from Biarritz that M. de Bismarck said to the Chevalier Nigra, these significant words: "If Italy did not exist, it would have to be invented." La Marmora, p. 59.