Heroes of Modern Europe Part 14

Garibaldi was chosen by the people of Nice for the new Chamber of 1860, for they hoped that he would make an effort to save his native town.

He had some idea of raising a revolution against French rule, but decided to free Sicily as a mightier enterprise. Victor Emmanuel completed the sacrifice which gave "the cradle of his race" to the foreigner. He was reconciled to the cession at length because he believed that Italy had gained much already.

Cavour did not openly approve of the attack which Garibaldi was preparing to make upon the Bourbon's sovereignty. Many said that he did his best to frustrate the plans of the soldier because there was hostility between them. Garibaldi could not forgive the cession of Nice to which the statesmen had, ere this, a.s.sented. He was bitter in his feeling toward Victor Emmanuel's minister, but he was loyal to Victor Emmanuel. His band of volunteers, known as the Thousand, marched in the King's name, and the chief refused to enrol those whose Republican sentiments made them dislike the idea of Italian unity.

"Italy and Victor Emmanuel," {204} the cry of the Hunters of the Alps, was the avowed object of his enterprise.

Garibaldi sailed amid intense excitement, proudly promising "a new and glorious jewel" to the King of Sardinia, if the venture were successful. The standard of revolt had already been raised by Rosaline Pilo, the handsome Sicilian n.o.ble, whose whole life had been devoted to the cause of country. The insurgents awaited Garibaldi with a feverish desire for success against the Neapolitan army, which numbered 150,000 men. They knew that the leader brought only few soldiers but that they were picked men. Strange stories had been told of Garibaldi's success in warfare, being due to supernatural intervention. The prayers of his beautiful old peasant-mother were said to have prevailed till her death, when her spirit came to hold converse with the hero before battle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Meeting of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi (Pietro Aldi)]

The Red-s.h.i.+rts landed at Marsala, a thousand strong, packed into merchant vessels by a patriotic owner. Garibaldi led them to the mountain city of Salemi, which had opposed the Bourbon dynasty warmly.

There he proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel, soon to be ruler of all Italy. Peasants joined the Thousand, armed with rusty pistols and clad in picturesque goat-skins. They were received with honour by the chief, who was pleased to see that Sicily was bent on freedom. A Franciscan friar threw himself upon his knees before the mighty leader and asked to join the expedition. "Come with us, you will be our Ugo Ba.s.si," Garibaldi said, remembering with a pang the defence of Rome and the fate of the defenders.

At Palermo, the capital of Sicily, the Neapolitan soldiers were awaiting the arrival of the Thousand. They ventured to attack first, being very strong in {205} numbers. The bravest might have feared to oppose the royal troops with such a disadvantage, but Garibaldi held firm when there were murmurs of surrender. "Here we _die_," he said, and the great miracle was accomplished. "Yesterday we fought and conquered," the chief wrote to the almost despairing Pilo. The two forces joined and Pilo fell, struck by a bullet. It was May 27th when Garibaldi entered the gates of Palermo.

The bells were hammered by the inhabitants, delighted to welcome the brave Thousand to their city. There was still a fierce struggle within the walls, and the Neapolitan fleet bombarded the town. An armistice was granted on May 30th, for the Royalists needed food and did not realize that Garibaldi's ammunition was exhausted. He refused to submit to any humiliating terms that might be offered to Palermo. He threatened to renew hostilities if the enemy still thought of them.

All declared for war, though they knew how such a war must have ended.

It was by the Royalists' act that the evacuation of the city was concluded.

The Revolution had succeeded elsewhere, and for the last time the Bourbon flag was hoisted in Sicilian waters. The conquest of Sicily had occupied but a few days. The Dictator proceeded thence to the south of Italy and advanced on the Neapolitan kingdom.

Victor Emmanuel would have checked the hero of Palermo, and Cavour was thoroughly uneasy. No official consent had been given for this daring act of aggression, and foreign powers wrote letters of protest, while King Francis II, the successor of Ferdinand, held out such bribes as fifty million francs and the Neapolitan navy to aid in liberating Venice. France induced the King of Sardinia to make an effort to restrain the {206} popular soldier. Garibaldi promised Victor Emmanuel to obey him when he had made him King of Italy.

At Volturno the decisive battle was fought on the first day of October 1860, the birthday of King Francis. "Victory all along the line" was the message sent by Garibaldi to Naples after ten hours' fighting.

There had been grave fears expressed by Cavour that the army would march on Rome and expel the French after this conclusion. But the King was advancing toward the south of Italy to prevent any move which would provoke France, and Garibaldi, marching north, dismounted from his horse when he met the Piedmontese, and walking up to Victor Emmanuel, hailed him King of Italy. Naples and Sicily, with Umbria and the Marches, decided in favour of a united sceptre under the House of Savoy. It was Garibaldi's proclamation to the people which urged them to receive the new King with peace and affection. "No more political colours, no more parties, no more discords," he hoped there would be from the 7th of November, 1860. It was on that day that the king-maker and the King together entered Naples. Garibaldi refused all the honours which his sword had won, and left for his island-home at Caprera, a poor man still, but one whose name could stir all Europe.

The Italian kingdom was proclaimed by the new Parliament which met in February 1861, at Turin. All parts of Italy were represented save Rome and Venice, and King Victor Emmanuel II entered on his reign as ruler of Italy "by the Grace of G.o.d and the will of the nation."

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Chapter XVIII

The Third Napoleon

Italy was free, but Italy was not yet united as patriots such as Garibaldi had hoped that it might be. Venice and Rome must be added to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel before he could boast that he held beneath his sway all Italy between the Alps and Adriatic.

Rome, the dream of heroes, was in the power of a Pope who had to be maintained in his authority by a garrison of the French. Napoleon III clung to his alliance with the Catholic Church, and refused to withdraw his troops and leave his Papal ally defenceless, for he cared nothing about the views of Italian dreamers who longed that the Eternal City should be free.

There was romance in the life-story of this French Emperor upon whose support so many allies had come to depend. He was the son of Louis Buonaparte and Hortense Beauharnais, who was the daughter of the Empress Josephine. During the reign of Louis Philippe, this nephew of the great usurper had spent his time in dreary exile, living in London for the most part, and concealing a character of much ambition beneath a moody silent manner. He visited France in 1840 and tried to gain the throne, but was unsuccessful, for he was committed to the fortress of Ham, a state prison. He escaped in the disguise of a workman, and made a second {208} attempt to stir the mob of Paris to revolution in the year 1848, when Europe was restless with fierce discontent. The King fled for his life, and a Republic was formed again with Louis Napoleon as President, but this did not satisfy a descendant of the great Buonaparte. He managed by the help of the army to gain the Imperial crown, never worn by the second Napoleon, who died when he was still too young to show whether he possessed the characteristics of his family. Henceforth Napoleon III of France could no longer be regarded as a mere adventurer. The Pope had come to depend on French troops for his authority, and the Italians had to pay a heavy price for French arms in their struggle against Austria.

Paris renewed its gaiety when Napoleon married his beautiful Spanish wife, Eugenie, who had royal pride though she was not of royal birth.

There were hunting parties again, when the huntsmen wore brave green and scarlet instead of the Bourbon blue and silver; there were court fetes, which made the entertainments of Louis Philippe, the honest Citizen-King, seem very dull in retrospect. The Spanish Empress longed to rival the fame of Marie Antoinette, the Austrian wife of Louis XVI who had followed that King to the scaffold. Like Marie Antoinette, she was censured for extravagances, the marriage being unpopular with all cla.s.ses. The bourgeoisie or middle cla.s.s refused to accept the Emperor's plea that it was better to mate with a foreigner of ordinary rank than to attempt to aggrandize the new empire by union with the daughter of some despotic king.

Yet France amused herself eagerly at the famous fetes and hunts of Compiegne, while the third Napoleon craftily began to develop his scheme for obtaining {209} influence in Europe that should make him as great a man as the Corsican whom all had dreaded. The Emperor's insignificant appearance deceived many of his compeers, who were inclined to look on him as a ruler who would be content to take a subordinate place in international affairs. He dressed in odd, startling colours, and moved awkwardly; his eyes were strangely impenetrable, and he seemed listless and indifferent, even when he was meditating some subtle plan with which to startle Europe.

Dark stories were told of the part Napoleon played in the Crimean War, when Turkey demanded help against Russia, which was crippling her army and her fleet. Many suspected that the French Emperor used England as his catspaw, and saw that the English troops bore the brunt of all the terrible disasters which befell the invaders of the south of Russia.

Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman were victories ever memorable, because the heroes of those battles had to fight against more sinister foes than the Russian troops they defeated in the field. Stores of food and clothes were delayed too long before they reached the exhausted soldiers, and there was suspicion of unjust favour shown to the French soldiers when their English allies sought a healthy camping-ground.

The war ended in 1855 with the fall of Sebastopol, and it was notable afterwards that the Napoleonic splendour increased vastly, that the sham royalty seemed resolved to entertain the royal visitors who had once looked askance at him.

France began to believe that no further Revolution could disturb the Second Empire, which was secure in pride at least. Yet Austria was crushed by Prussia at the great battle of Sadowa in 1866, and the Prussian state was advancing rapidly under the government of {210} a capable minister and king. There were few Frenchmen who had realized the importance of King Wilhelm's act when he summoned Herr Otto von Bismarck from his Pomeranian estates to be his chief political adviser.

The fast increasing strength of the Prussian forces did not sufficiently impress Napoleon, who had embarked on a foolish expedition to Mexico to place an Austrian archduke on the throne, once held by the ancient Montezumas. The news of Sadowa wrung "a cry of agony" from his court of the Tuileries, where everyone had confidently expected the victory of Austria. Napoleon might have arbitrated between the two countries, but he let the golden opportunity slip by in one of those half-sullen pa.s.sive moods which came upon him when he felt the depression of his bodily weakness. Prussia began to lay the foundation of German unity, excluding Austria from her territory.

Napoleon handed over Venice to Italy when it was ceded to him at the close of the Austrian war, and Garibaldi followed up this cession by an attempt on Rome, which he resolved should be the capital of Italy. He defeated the Papal troops at Monte Rotondo, which commanded Rome on the north, but he was defeated by French troops at the battle of Mentana.

The repulse of the Italian hero increased the national dislike of French interference, but Napoleon only consented to evacuate Rome in 1870 when he had need of all his soldiers to carry out his boast that he would "chastise the insolence of the King of Prussia."

The Franco-Prussian War arose nominally from the quarrel about the throne of Spain, to which a prince of the Hohenzollern house had put in a claim, first obtaining permission from Wilhelm I to accept the dignity. This prince, Leopold, was not a member of the Prussian {211} royal family, but he was a Prussian subject and a distant kinsman of the Kaiser. It was quite natural, therefore, that he should ask the royal sanction for his act and quite natural that Wilhelm should give it his approval if Spain made the offer of the crown.

Napoleon sought some cause of difference with Prussia, because Bismarck had refused to help him to win Belgium and Luxemburg in 1869. He was jealous of this new military power, for his own fame was far outstripped by the feats of arms accomplished by the forces of General von Moltke, the Prussian general. He thought that war against his rival might help him to regain the admiration of the French. They were humiliated by the failure of the Mexican design and saw fresh danger for their country in Italian unity and the new confederation of North Germany.

Napoleon, racked by disease, might have checked his own ambition if his Empress had not been too eager for a war. He was misled by Marshal Leboeuf into fancying that his own army was efficient enough to undertake any military campaign. He allowed his Cabinet to demand from Wilhelm I that Prince Leopold's claim to the Spanish crown, which had been withdrawn, should never be renewed by the sanction of Prussia at least. The unreasonable demand was refused, and France declared war in July 1870, eighteen years after the new empire had risen on the ruins of the Republic of the French.

The other European powers would not enter this war, though England offered to mediate between the rival powers. France and Prussia had to test the strength of their armies without allies, and neither thought how terrible the cost would be of that long national jealousy.

Napoleon took the field himself, leaving Eugenie as {212} Regent of the French, and the King of Prussia led his own army with General Von Moltke and General Von Roon in command.

The French army invaded South Germany, but had to retreat in disorder after the battle of Worth. The battle of Sedan on September 1st, 1870, brought the war to a conclusion, the French being routed and forced to lay down their arms. Napoleon had fought with courage, but was obliged to surrender his sword to Wilhelm I upon the battlefield. He declared that he gave up his person only, but France herself was forced to yield after the capitulation of Metz, which had resisted Prussia stoutly.

The Empress had fled to England and the Emperor had been deposed.

France was once more a Republic when the siege of Paris was begun.

The citizens showed strange insensibility to the danger that they ran, for they a.s.serted that the Germans dared not invest the town.

Nevertheless, Parisians drilled and armed with vigour as Prussian sh.e.l.ls burst outside the walls and the clang of bells replaced the sounds of mirth that were habitual to Paris. Theatres were closed, to the dismay of the frivolous, whom no alarm of war would turn from their ordinary pursuits. The Opera House became a barracks, for the camps could not hold the crowds that flocked there from the provinces.

Still many ridiculed the idea of investment by the Prussian troops, and householders did not prepare for the famine that came on them unawares.

People supped in gaily-lighted cafes and took their substantial meals without thought of the morrow. There were fewer women in the streets and the workmen carried rifles, but the shops were still attractive in their wares. The fear of spies occupied men's thoughts rather than {213} the fear of hunger--a foreign accent was suspicious enough to cause arrest! There were few Englishmen in the capital, but those few ran the risk of being mistaken for Prussians, since the lower cla.s.ses did not distinguish between foreigners.

Paris was invested on September 19th, 1870, and the citizens had experienced terrible want. In October Wilhelm established his headquarters at Versailles, part of the French Government going to Tours. Gambetta, the new minister, made every effort to secure help for France. He departed from Paris in a balloon, and carrier pigeons were sent in the same way to take news to the provinces and bring back offers of a.s.sistance. Strange expedients for food had been proposed already, and all supplies were very dear. Horseflesh was declared to be nutritious, and scientists demonstrated the valuable properties of gelatine. Housewives pored over cookery-books to seek for ways of using what material they had when beef and b.u.t.ter failed. A learned professor taught them how to grow salads and asparagus on the balconies in front of windows. The seed-shops were stormed by enthusiasts who took kindly to this new idea.

Gambetta's ascent in the balloon relieved anxiety for a time, because every Parisian expected that help would come. But soon gas could not be spared to inflate balloons and st.u.r.dy messengers were in request who dared brave the Prussian lines. Sheep-dogs were sent out as carriers after several attempts had been frustrated, but the Prussian sentries seized the animals, and pigeons were soon the only means of communication with the provinces.

The Parisians clamoured for the theatres to be opened, though they felt the pangs of hunger now. They {214} retorted readily when there was some speech of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Their city was not yet on fire, they said, and Napoleon, the Nero of the catastrophe, could not fiddle because he had no ear for music! The Cirque National was opened on October 23rd, though fuel was running short and the cold weather would soon come.

In winter prices rose for food that the fastidious had rejected earlier in the siege. A rat cost a franc, and eggs were sold at 80 francs the dozen. Beef and mutton had disappeared entirely from the stalls, and b.u.t.ter reached the price of fifty francs the demi-kilogramme. The poor suffered horrible privations, and many children died from the effect of bread soaked in wine, for milk was a ridiculous price. Nevertheless, four hundred marriages were celebrated, and Paris did not talk of surrender to their Prussian foes.

Through October and November poultry shops displayed an occasional goose or pigeon, but the sight of a turkey caused a crowd to collect, and everyone envied those who could afford to purchase rabbits even though they paid no less than 50 francs. Soon dogs and cats were rarely seen in Paris, and bear's flesh was sold and eaten with avidity.

At Christmas and New Year very few shops displayed the usual gifts, for German toys were not popular at the festive season and the children of the siege talked mournfully of their "New Year's Day without the New Year's gifts."

Sh.e.l.ls crashed into houses in January of 1871, an event most startling to Parisians, who had expected a formal summons to surrender before such acts took place. After the first shock of surprise there was no shriek of fear. Capitulation was negotiated on January 26th, not on account of this new danger, but {215} because there was no longer bread for the citizens to buy.

Gambetta resisted to the last, but his dictators.h.i.+p was ended, and a National a.s.sembly at Bordeaux elected M. Thiers their president. By the treaty of Frankfort, signed in May 1871, France ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia, together with the forts of Metz, Longwy and Thionville. She had also to pay a war indemnity of 200,000,000 pounds sterling. By the exertions of Bismarck, the imperial crown was placed upon the head of Wilhelm I, and the conqueror of France was hailed as Emperor of United Germany in the Great Hall of Mirrors at Versailles by representatives of the leading European states. The German troops were withdrawn from Paris, where civil war raged for some six weeks, the great buildings of the city being burned to the ground.

Europe was satisfied that united Germany should take the place of Imperial France, whose policy had been purely personal and selfish since its first foundation in 1852. The fall of Napoleon III caused little regret at any court, for he had all the unscrupulous ambition of his mighty predecessor, without the genius of the First Napoleon.

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Chapter XIX