Chapter XXIV (1)

Napoleon III.--The Mexican Expedition--Withdrawal of the French and death of Maximilian--The Luxemburg Question--Exasperation in France against Prussia--Austria--Italy--Mentana--Germany after 1866--The Spanish candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern--French declaration--Benedetti and King William--Withdrawal of Leopold and demand for guarantees--The telegram from Ems--War--Expected Alliances of France--Austria--Italy-- Prussian plans--The French army--Causes of French inferiority-- Weissenburg--Wörth--Spicheren--Borny--Mars-la-Tour--Gravelotte--Sedan-- The Republic proclaimed at Paris--Favre and Bismarck--Siege of Paris--Gambetta at Tours--The Army of the Loire--Fall of Metz--Fighting at Orleans--Sortie of Champigny--The Armies of the North, of the Loire, of the East--Bourbaki's ruin--Capitulation of Paris and Armistice-- Preliminaries of Peace--Germany--Establishment of the German Empire--The Commune of Paris--Second siege--Effects of the war as to Russia and Italy--Rome.

[Napoleon III.]

The reputation of Napoleon III. was perhaps at its height at the end of the first ten years of his reign. His victories over Russia and Austria had flattered the military pride of France; the flowing tide of commercial prosperity bore witness, as it seemed, to the blessings of a government at once firm and enlightened; the reconstruction of Paris dazzled a generation accustomed to the mean and dingy aspect of London and other capitals before 1850, and scarcely conscious of the presence or absence of real beauty and dignity where it saw spaciousness and brilliance. The political faults of Napoleon, the shiftiness and incoherence of his designs, his want of grasp on reality, his absolute personal nullity as an administrator, were known to some few, but they had not been displayed to the world at large. He had done some great things, he had conspicuously failed in nothing. Had his reign ended before 1863, he would probably have left behind him in popular memory the name of a great ruler. But from this time his fortune paled. The repulse of his intervention on behalf of Poland in 1863 by the Russian Court, his petulant or miscalculating inaction during the Danish War of the following year, showed those to be mistaken who had imagined that the Emperor must always exercise a controlling power in Europe. During the events which formed the first stage in the consolidation of Germany his policy was a succession of errors. Simultaneously with the miscarriage of his European schemes, an enterprise which he had undertaken beyond the Atlantic, and which seriously weakened his resources at a time when concentrated strength alone could tell on European affairs, ended in tragedy and disgrace.

[The Mexican Project.]

There were in Napoleon III., as a man of State, two personalities, two mental existences, which blended but ill with one another. There was the contemplator of great human forces, the intelligent, if not deeply penetrative, reader of the signs of the times, the brooder through long years of imprisonment and exile, the child of Europe, to whom Germany, Italy, and England had all in turn been nearer than his own country; and there was the crowned adventurer, bound by his name and position to gain for France something that it did not possess, and to regard the greatness of every other nation as an impediment to the ascendency of his own. Napoleon correctly judged the principle of nationality to be the dominant force in the immediate future of Europe. He saw in Italy and in Germany races whose internal divisions alone had prevented them from being the formidable rivals of France, and yet he assisted the one nation to effect its union, and was not indisposed, within certain limits, to promote the consolidation of the other. That the acquisition of Nice and Savoy, and even of the Rhenish Provinces, could not in itself make up to France for the establishment of two great nations on its immediate frontiers Napoleon must have well understood: he sought to carry the principle of agglomeration a stage farther in the interests of France itself, and to form some moral, if not political, union of the Latin nations, which should embrace under his own ascendency communities beyond the Atlantic as well as those of the Old World. It was with this design that in the year 1862 he made the financial misdemeanours of Mexico the pretext for an expedition to that country, the object of which was to subvert the native Republican Government, and to place the Hapsburg Maximilian, as a vassal prince, on its throne. England and Spain had at first agreed to unite with France in enforcing the claims of the European creditors of Mexico; but as soon as Napoleon had made public his real intentions these Powers withdrew their forces, and the Emperor was left free to carry out his plans alone.

[The Mexican Expedition, 1862-1865.]

[Napoleon compelled to withdraw, 1866-7.]

[Fall and Death of Maximilian.]

The design of Napoleon to establish French influence in Mexico was connected with his attempt to break up the United States by establishing the independence of the Southern Confederacy, then in rebellion, through the mediation of the Great Powers of Europe. So long as the Civil War in the United States lasted, it seemed likely that Napoleon's enterprise in Mexico would be successful. Maximilian was placed upon the throne, and the Republican leader, Juarez, was driven into the extreme north of the country. But with the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy and the restoration of peace in the United States in 1865 the prospect totally changed. The Government of Washington refused to acknowledge any authority in Mexico but that of Juarez, and informed Napoleon in courteous terms that his troops must be withdrawn. Napoleon had bound himself by Treaty to keep twenty-five thousand men in Mexico for the protection of Maximilian. He was, however, unable to defy the order of the United States. Early in 1866 he acquainted Maximilian with the necessities of the situation, and with the approaching removal of the force which alone had placed him and could sustain him on the throne. The unfortunate prince sent his consort, the daughter of the King of the Belgians, to Europe to plead against this act of desertion; but her efforts were vain, and her reason sank under the just presentiment of her husband's ruin. The utmost on which Napoleon could venture was the postponement of the recall of his troops till the spring of 1867. He urged Maximilian to abdicate before it was too late; but the prince refused to dissociate himself from his counsellors who still implored him to remain. Meanwhile the Juarists pressed back towards the capital from north and south. As the French detachments were withdrawn towards the coast the entire country fell into their hands. The last French soldiers quitted Mexico at the beginning of March, 1867, and on the 15th of May, Maximilian, still lingering at Queretaro, was made prisoner by the Republicans. He had himself while in power ordered that the partisans of Juarez should be treated not as soldiers but as brigands, and that when captured they should be tried by court-martial and executed within twenty-four hours. The same severity was applied to himself. He was sentenced to death and shot at Queretaro on the 19th of June.

[Decline of Napoleon's reputation.]

Thus ended the attempt of Napoleon III. to establish the influence of France and of his dynasty beyond the seas. The doom of Maximilian excited the compassion of Europe; a deep, irreparable wound was inflicted on the reputation of the man who had tempted him to his treacherous throne, who had guaranteed him protection, and at the bidding of a superior power had abandoned him to his ruin. From this time, though the outward splendour of the Empire was undiminished, there remained scarcely anything of the personal prestige which Napoleon had once enjoyed in so rich a measure. He was no longer in the eyes of Europe or of his own country the profound, self-contained statesman in whose brain lay the secret of coming events; he was rather the gambler whom fortune was preparing to desert, the usurper trembling for the future of his dynasty and his crown. Premature old age and a harassing bodily ailment began to incapacitate him for personal exertion. He sought to loosen the reins in which his despotism held France, and to make a compromise with public opinion which was now declaring against him. And although his own cooler judgment set little store by any addition of frontier strips of alien territory to France, and he would probably have been best pleased to pass the remainder of his reign in undisturbed inaction, he deemed it necessary, after failure in Mexico had become inevitable, to seek some satisfaction in Europe for the injured pride of his country. He entered into negotiations with the King of Holland for the cession of Luxemburg, and had gained his assent, when rumours of the transaction reached the North German Press, and the project passed from out the control of diplomatists and became an affair of rival nations.

[The Luxemburg question, Feb.-May, 1867.]

Luxemburg, which was an independent Duchy ruled by the King of Holland, had until 1866 formed a part of the German Federation; and although Bismarck had not attempted to include it in his own North German Union, Prussia retained by the Treaties of 1815 a right to garrison the fortress of Luxemburg, and its troops were actually there in possession. The proposed transfer of the Duchy to France excited an outburst of patriotic resentment in the Federal Parliament at Berlin. The population of Luxemburg was indeed not wholly German, and it had shown the strongest disinclination to enter the North German league; but the connection of the Duchy with Germany in the past was close enough to explain the indignation roused by Napoleon's project among politicians who little suspected that during the previous year Bismarck himself had cordially recommended this annexation, and that up to the last moment he had been privy to the Emperor's plan. The Prussian Minister, though he did not affect to share the emotion of his countrymen, stated that his policy in regard to Luxemburg must be influenced by the opinion of the Federal Parliament, and he shortly afterwards caused it to be understood at Paris that the annexation of the Duchy to France was impossible. As a warning to France he had already published the Treaties of alliance between Prussia and the South German States, which had been made at the close of the war of 1866, but had hitherto been kept secret. [530] Other powers now began to tender their good offices. Count Beust, on behalf of Austria, suggested that Luxemburg should be united to Belgium, which in its turn should cede a small district to France. This arrangement, which would have been accepted at Berlin, and which, by soothing the irritation produced in France by Prussia's successes, would possibly have averted the war of 1870, was frustrated by the refusal of the King of Belgium to part with any of his territory--Napoleon, disclaiming all desire for territorial extension, now asked only for the withdrawal of the Prussian garrison from Luxemburg; but it was known that he was determined to enforce this demand by arms. The Russian Government proposed that the question should be settled by a Conference of the Powers at London. This proposal was accepted under certain conditions by France and Prussia, and the Conference assembled on the 7th of May. Its deliberations were completed in four days, and the results were summed up in the Treaty of London signed on the 11th. By this Treaty the Duchy of Luxemburg was declared neutral territory under the collective guarantee of the Powers. Prussia withdrew its garrison, and the King of Holland, who continued to be sovereign of the Duchy, undertook to demolish the fortifications of Luxemburg, and to maintain it in the future as an open town. [531]

[Exasperation in France against Prussia.]

Of the politicians of France, those who even affected to regard the aggrandisement of Prussia and the union of Northern Germany with indifference or satisfaction were a small minority. Among these was the Emperor, who, after his attempts to gain a Rhenish Province had been baffled, sought to prove in an elaborate State-paper that France had won more than it had lost by the extinction of the German Federation as established in 1815, and by the dissolution of the tie that had bound Austria and Prussia together as members of this body. The events of 1866 had, he contended, broken up a system devised in evil days for the purpose of uniting Central Europe against France, and had restored to the Continent the freedom of alliances; in other words, they had made it possible for the South German States to connect themselves with France. If this illusion was really entertained by the Emperor, it was rudely dispelled by the discovery of the Treaties between Prussia and the Southern States and by their publication in the spring of 1867. But this revelation was not necessary to determine the attitude of the great majority of those who passed for the representatives of independent political opinion in France. The Ministers indeed were still compelled to imitate the Emperor's optimism, and a few enlightened men among the Opposition understood that France must be content to see the Germans effect their national unity; but the great body of unofficial politicians, to whatever party they belonged, joined in the bitter outcry raised at once against the aggressive Government of Prussia and the feeble administration at Paris, which had not found the means to prevent, or had actually facilitated, Prussia's successes. Thiers, who more than any one man had by his writings popularised the Napoleonic legend and accustomed the French to consider themselves entitled to a monopoly of national greatness on the Rhine, was the severest critic of the Emperor, the most zealous denouncer of the work which Bismarck had effected. It was only with too much reason that the Prussian Government looked forward to an attack by France at some earlier or later time as almost certain, and pressed forward the military organisation which was to give to Germany an army of unheard-of efficiency and strength.

[France and Prussia after 1867.]

There appears to be no evidence that Napoleon III. himself desired to attack Prussia so long as that Power should strictly observe the stipulations of the Treaty of Prague which provided for the independence of the South German States. But the current of events irresistibly impelled Germany to unity. The very Treaty which made the river Main the limit of the North German Confederacy reserved for the Southern States the right of attaching themselves to those of the North by some kind of national tie. Unless the French Emperor was resolved to acquiesce in the gradual development of this federal unity until, as regarded the foreigner, the North and the South of Germany should be a single body, he could have no confident hope of lasting peace. To have thus anticipated and accepted the future, to have removed once and for all the sleepless fears of Prussia by the frank recognition of its right to give all Germany effective Union, would have been an act too great and too wise in reality, too weak and self-renouncing in appearance, for any chief of a rival nation. Napoleon did not take this course; on the other hand, not desiring to attack Prussia while it remained within the limits of the Treaty of Prague, he refrained from seeking alliances with the object of immediate and aggressive action. The diplomacy of the Emperor during the period from 1866 to 1870 is indeed still but imperfectly known; but it would appear that his efforts were directed only to the formation of alliances with the view of eventual action when Prussia should have passed the limits which the Emperor himself or public opinion in Paris should, as interpreter of the Treaty of Prague, impose upon this Power in its dealings with the South German States.

[Negotiations with Austria, 1868-69.]

The Governments to which Napoleon could look for some degree of support were those of Austria and Italy. Count Beust, now Chancellor of the Austrian Monarchy, was a bitter enemy to Prussia, and a rash and adventurous politician, to whom the very circumstance of his sudden elevation from the petty sphere of Saxon politics gave a certain levity and unconstraint in the handling of great affairs. He cherished the idea of recovering Austria's ascendency in Germany, and was disposed to repel the extension of Russian influence westwards by boldly encouraging the Poles to seek for the satisfaction of their national hopes in Galicia under the Hapsburg Crown. To Count Beust France was the most natural of all allies. On the other hand, the very system which Beust had helped to establish in Hungary raised serious obstacles against the adoption of his own policy. Andrássy, the Hungarian Minister, while sharing Beust's hostility to Russia, declared that his countrymen had no interest in restoring Austria's German connection, and were in fact better without it. In these circumstances the negotiations of the French and the Austrian Emperor were conducted by a private correspondence. The interchange of letters continued during the years 1868 and 1869, and resulted in a promise made by Napoleon to support Austria if it should be attacked by Prussia, while the Emperor Francis Joseph promised to assist France if it should be attacked by Prussia and Russia together. No Treaty was made, but a general assurance was exchanged between the two Emperors that they would pursue a common policy and treat one another's interests as their own. With the view of forming a closer understanding the Archduke Albrecht visited Paris in February, 1870, and a French general was sent to Vienna to arrange the plan of campaign in case of war with Prussia. In such a war, if undertaken by the two Powers, it was hoped that Italy would join. [532]

[Italy after 1866.]

[Mentana, Nov. 3, 1867.]

The alliance of 1866 between Prussia and Italy had left behind it in each of these States more of rancour than of good-will. La Marmora had from the beginning to the end been unfortunate in his relations with Berlin. He had entered into the alliance with suspicion; he would gladly have seen Venetia given to Italy by a European Congress without war; and when hostilities broke out, he had disregarded and resented what he considered an attempt of the Prussian Government to dictate to him the military measures to be pursued. On the other hand, the Prussians charged the Italian Government with having deliberately held back its troops after the battle of Custozza in pursuance of arrangements made between Napoleon and the Austrian Emperor on the voluntary cession of Venice, and with having endangered or minimised Prussia's success by enabling the Austrians to throw a great part of their Italian forces northwards. There was nothing of that comradeship between the Italian and the Prussian armies which is acquired on the field of battle. The personal sympathies of Victor Emmanuel were strongly on the side of the French Emperor; and when, at the close of the year 1866, the French garrison was withdrawn from Rome in pursuance of the convention made in September, 1864, it seemed probable that France and Italy might soon unite in a close alliance. But in the following year the attempts of the Garibaldians to overthrow the Papal Government, now left without its foreign defenders, embroiled Napoleon and the Italian people. Napoleon was unable to defy the clerical party in France; he adopted the language of menace in his communications with the Italian Cabinet; and when, in the autumn of 1867, the Garibaldians actually invaded the Roman States, he despatched a body of French troops under General Failly to act in support of those of the Pope. An encounter took place at Mentana on November 3rd, in which the Garibaldians, after defeating the Papal forces, were put to the rout by General Failly. The occupation of Civita Vecchia was renewed, and in the course of the debates raised at Paris on the Italian policy of the Government, the Prime Minister, M. Rouher, stated, with the most passionate emphasis that, come what might, Italy should never possess itself of Rome. "Never," he cried, "will France tolerate such an outrage on its honour and its dignity." [533]

[Napoleon and Italy after Mentana.]

[Italy and Austria.]

The affair of Mentana, the insolent and heartless language in which General Failly announced his success, the reoccupation of Roman territory by French troops, and the declaration made by M. Rouher in the French Assembly, created wide and deep anger in Italy, and made an end for the time of all possibility of a French alliance. Napoleon was indeed, as regarded Italy, in an evil case. By abandoning Rome he would have turned against himself and his dynasty the whole clerical interest in France, whose confidence he had already to some extent forfeited by his policy in 1860; on the other hand, it was vain for him to hope for the friendship of Italy whilst he continued to bar the way to the fulfilment of the universal national desire. With the view of arriving at some compromise he proposed a European Conference on the Roman question; but this was resisted above all by Count Bismarck, whose interest it was to keep the sore open; and neither England nor Russia showed any anxiety to help the Pope's protector out of his difficulties. Napoleon sought by a correspondence with Victor Emmanuel during 1868 and 1869 to pave the way for a defensive alliance; but Victor Emmanuel was in reality as well as in name a constitutional king, and probably could not, even if he had desired, have committed Italy to engagements disapproved by the Ministry and Parliament. It was made clear to Napoleon that the evacuation of the Papal States must precede any treaty of alliance between France and Italy. Whether the Italian Government would have been content with a return to the conditions of the September Convention, or whether it made the actual possession of Rome the price of a treaty-engagement, is uncertain; but inasmuch as Napoleon was not at present prepared to evacuate Civita Vecchia, he could aim at nothing more than some eventual concert when the existing difficulties should have been removed. The Court of Vienna now became the intermediary between the two Powers who had united against it in 1859. Count Beust was free from the associations which had made any approach to friendship with the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel impossible for his predecessors. He entered into negotiations at Florence, which resulted in the conclusion of an agreement between the Austrian and the Italian Governments that they would act together and guarantee one another's territories in the event of a war between France and Prussia. This agreement was made with the assent of the Emperor Napoleon, and was understood to be preparatory to an accord with France itself; but it was limited to a defensive character, and it implied that any eventual concert with France must be arranged by the two Powers in combination with one another. [534]

[Isolation of France.]

At the beginning of 1870 the Emperor Napoleon was therefore without any more definite assurance of support in a war with Prussia than the promise of the Austrian Sovereign that he would assist France if attacked by Prussia and Russia together, and that he would treat the interests of France as his own. By withdrawing his protection from Rome Napoleon had undoubtedly a fair chance of building up this shadowy and remote engagement into a defensive alliance with both Austria and Italy. But perfect clearness and resolution of purpose, as well as the steady avoidance of all quarrels on mere incidents, were absolutely indispensable to the creation and the employment of such a league against the Power which alone it could have in view; and Prussia had now little reason to fear any such exercise of statesmanship on the part of Napoleon. The solution of the Roman question, in other words the withdrawal of the French garrison from Roman territory, could proceed only from some stronger stimulus than the declining force of Napoleon's own intelligence and will could now supply. This fatal problem baffled his attempts to gain alliances; and yet the isolation of France was but half acknowledged, but half understood; and a host of rash, vainglorious spirits impatiently awaited the hour that should call them to their revenge on Prussia for the triumphs in which it had not permitted France to share.

[Germany, 1867-1870.]

Meanwhile on the other side Count Bismarck advanced with what was most essential in his relations with the States of Southern Germany--the completion of the Treaties of Alliance by conventions assimilating the military systems of these States to that of Prussia. A Customs-Parliament was established for the whole of Germany, which, it was hoped, would be the precursor of a National Assembly uniting the North and the South of the Main. But in spite of this military and commercial approximation, the progress towards union was neither so rapid nor so smooth as the patriots of the North could desire. There was much in the harshness and self-assertion of the Prussian character that repelled the less disciplined communities of the South. Ultramontanism was strong in Bavaria; and throughout the minor States the most advanced of the Liberals were opposed to a closer union with Berlin, from dislike of its absolutist traditions and the heavy hand of its Government. Thus the tendency known as Particularism was supported in Bavaria and Würtemberg by classes of the population who in most respects were in antagonism to one another; nor could the memories of the campaign of 1866 and the old regard for Austria be obliterated in a day. Bismarck did not unduly press on the work of consolidation. He marked and estimated the force of the obstacles which too rapid a development of his national policy would encounter. It is possible that he may even have seen indications that religious and other influences might imperil the military union which he had already established, and that he may not have been unwilling to call to his aid, as the surest of all preparatives for national union, the event which he had long believed to be inevitable at some time or other in the future, a war with France.

[The Spanish candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern.]

[Leopold accepts the Spanish Crown, July 3, 1870.]

Since the autumn of 1868 the throne of Spain had been vacant in consequence of a revolution in which General Prim had been the leading actor. It was not easy to discover a successor for the Bourbon Isabella; and after other candidatures had been vainly projected it occurred to Prim and his friends early in 1869 that a suitable candidate might be found in Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, whose elder brother had been made Prince of Roumania, and whose father, Prince Antony, had been Prime Minister of Prussia in 1859. The House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was so distantly related to the reigning family of Prussia that the name alone preserved the memory of the connection; and in actual blood-relationship Prince Leopold was much more nearly allied to the French Houses of Murat and Beauharnais. But the Sigmaringen family was distinctly Prussian by interest and association, and its chief, Antony, had not only been at the head of the Prussian Administration himself, but had, it is said, been the first to suggest the appointment of Bismarck to the same office. The candidature of a Hohenzollern might reasonably be viewed in France as an attempt to connect Prussia politically with Spain; and with so much reserve was this candidature at the first handled at Berlin that, in answer to inquiries made by Benedetti in the spring of 1869, the Secretary of State who represented Count Bismarck stated on his word of honour that the candidature had never been suggested. The affair was from first to last ostensibly treated at Berlin as one with which the Prussian Government was wholly unconcerned, and in which King William was interested only as head of the family to which Prince Leopold belonged. For twelve months after Benedetti's inquiries it appeared as if the project had been entirely abandoned; it was, however, revived in the spring of 1870, and on the 3rd of July the announcement was made at Paris that Prince Leopold had consented to accept the Crown of Spain if the Cortes should confirm his election.

[French Declaration, July 6.]

At once there broke out in the French Press a storm of indignation against Prussia. The organs of the Government took the lead in exciting public opinion. On the 6th of July the Duke of Gramont, Foreign Minister, declared to the Legislative Body that the attempt of a Foreign Power to place one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V. imperilled the interests and the honour of France, and that, if such a contingency were realised, the Government would fulfil its duty without hesitation and without weakness. The violent and unsparing language of this declaration, which had been drawn up at a Council of Ministers under the Emperor's presidency, proved that the Cabinet had determined either to humiliate Prussia or to take vengeance by arms. It was at once seen by foreign diplomatists, who during the preceding days had been disposed to assist in removing a reasonable subject of complaint, how little was the chance of any peaceable settlement after such a public challenge had been issued to Prussia in the Emperor's name. One means of averting war alone seemed possible, the voluntary renunciation by Prince Leopold of the offered Crown. To obtain this renunciation became the task of those who, unlike the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, were anxious to preserve peace.

[Ollivier's Ministry.]

The parts that were played at this crisis by the individuals who most influenced the Emperor Napoleon are still but imperfectly known; but there is no doubt that from the beginning to the end the Duke of Gramont, with short intermissions, pressed with insane ardour for war. The Ministry now in office had been called to their places in January, 1870, after the Emperor had made certain changes in the constitution in a Liberal direction, and had professed to transfer the responsibility of power from himself to a body of advisers possessing the confidence of the Chamber. Ollivier, formerly one of the leaders of the Opposition, had accepted the Presidency of the Cabinet. His colleagues were for the most part men new to official life, and little able to hold their own against such representatives of unreformed Imperialism as the Duke of Gramont and the War-Minister Leboeuf who sat beside them. Ollivier himself was one of the few politicians in France who understood that his countrymen must be content to see German unity established whether they liked it or not. He was entirely averse from war with Prussia on the question which had now arisen; but the fear that public opinion would sweep away a Liberal Ministry which hesitated to go all lengths in patriotic extravagance led him to sacrifice his own better judgment, and to accept the responsibility for a policy which in his heart he disapproved. Gramont's rash hand was given free play. Instructions were sent to Benedetti to seek the King of Prussia at Ems, where he was taking the waters, and to demand from him, as the only means of averting war, that he should order the Hohenzollern Prince to revoke his acceptance of the Crown. "We are in great haste," Gramont added, "for we must gain the start in case of an unsatisfactory reply, and commence the movement of troops by Saturday in order to enter upon the campaign in a fortnight. Be on your guard against an answer merely leaving the Prince of Hohenzollern to his fate, and disclaiming on the part of the King any interest in his future." [535]

[Benedetti and King William at Ems, July 9-14.]

Benedetti's first interview with the King was on the 9th of July. He informed the King of the emotion that had been caused in France by the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince; he dwelt on the value to both countries of the friendly relation between France and Prussia; and, while studiously avoiding language that might wound or irritate the King, he explained to him the requirements of the Government at Paris. The King had learnt beforehand what would be the substance of Benedetti's communication. He had probably been surprised and grieved at the serious consequences which Prince Leopold's action had produced in France; and although he had determined not to submit to dictation from Paris or to order Leopold to abandon his candidature, he had already, as it seems, taken steps likely to render the preservation of peace more probable. At the end of a conversation with the Ambassador, in which he asserted his complete independence as head of the family of Hohenzollern, he informed Benedetti that he had entered into communication with Leopold and his father, and that he expected shortly to receive a despatch from Sigmaringen. Benedetti rightly judged that the King, while positively refusing to meet Gramont's demands, was yet desirous of finding some peaceable way out of the difficulty; and the report of this interview which he sent to Paris was really a plea in favour of good sense and moderation. But Gramont was little disposed to accept such counsels. "I tell you plainly," he wrote to Benedetti on the next day, "public opinion is on fire, and will leave us behind it. We must begin; we wait only for your despatch to call up the three hundred thousand men who are waiting the summons. Write, telegraph, something definite. If the King will not counsel the Prince of Hohenzollern to resign, well, it is immediate war, and in a few days we are on the Rhine."

[Leopold withdraws, July 12.]

[Guarantee against renewal demanded.]

[Benedetti and the King, July 13.]

Nevertheless Benedetti's advice was not without its influence on the Emperor and his Ministers. Napoleon, himself wavering from hour to hour, now inclined to the peace-party, and during the 11th there was a pause in the military preparations that had been begun. On the 12th the efforts of disinterested Governments, probably also the suggestions of the King of Prussia himself, produced their effects. A telegram was received at Madrid from Prince Antony stating that his son's candidature was withdrawn. A few hours later Ollivier announced the news in the Legislative Chamber at Paris, and exchanged congratulations with the friends of peace, who considered that the matter was now at an end. But this pacific conclusion little suited either the war-party or the Bonapartists of the old type, who grudged to a Constitutional Ministry so substantial a diplomatic success. They at once declared that the retirement of Prince Leopold was a secondary matter, and that the real question was what guarantees had been received from Prussia against a renewal of the candidature. Gramont himself, in an interview with the Prussian Ambassador, Baron Werther, sketched a letter which he proposed that King William should send to the Emperor, stating that in sanctioning the candidature of Prince Leopold he had not intended to offend the French, and that in associating himself with the Prince's withdrawal he desired that all misunderstandings should be at an end between the two Governments. The despatch of Baron Werther conveying this proposition appears to have deeply offended King William, whom it reached about midday on the 13th. Benedetti had that morning met the King on the promenade at Ems, and had received from him the promise that as soon as the letter which was still on its way from Sigmaringen should arrive he would send for the Ambassador in order that he might communicate its contents at Paris. The letter arrived; but Baron Werther's despatch from Paris had arrived before it; and instead of summoning Benedetti as he had promised, the King sent one of his aides-de-camp to him with a message that a written communication had been received from Prince Leopold confirming his withdrawal, and that the matter was now at an end. Benedetti desired the aide-de-camp to inform the King that he was compelled by his instructions to ask for a guarantee against a renewal of the candidature. The aide-de-camp did as he was requested, and brought back a message that the King gave his entire approbation to the withdrawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern, but that he could do no more. Benedetti begged for an audience with His Majesty. The King replied that he was compelled to decline entering into further negotiation, and that he had said his last word. Though the King thus refused any further discussion, perfect courtesy was observed on both sides; and on the following morning the King and the Ambassador, who were both leaving Ems, took leave of one another at the railway station with the usual marks of respect.

[Publication of the telegram from Ems, July 13.]

[War decided at Paris, July 14.]

That the guarantee which the French Government had resolved to demand would not be given was now perfectly certain; yet, with the candidature of Prince Leopold fairly extinguished, it was still possible that the cooler heads at Paris might carry the day, and that the Government would stop short of declaring war on a point on which the unanimous judgment of the other Powers declared it to be in the wrong. But Count Bismarck was determined not to let the French escape lightly from the quarrel. He had to do with an enemy who by his own folly had come to the brink of an aggressive war, and, far from facilitating his retreat, it was Bismarck's policy to lure him over the precipice. Not many hours after the last message had passed between King William and Benedetti, a telegram was officially published at Berlin, stating, in terms so brief as to convey the impression of an actual insult, that the King had refused to see the French Ambassador, and had informed him by an aide-de-camp that he had nothing more to communicate to him. This telegram was sent to the representatives of Prussia at most of the European Courts, and to its agents in every German capital. Narratives instantly gained currency, and were not contradicted by the Prussian Government, that Benedetti had forced himself upon the King on the promenade at Ems, and that in the presence of a large company the King had turned his back upon the Ambassador. The publication of the alleged telegram from Ems became known in Paris on the 14th. On that day the Council of Ministers met three times. At the first meeting the advocates of peace were still in the majority; in the afternoon, as the news from Berlin and the fictions describing the insult offered to the French Ambassador spread abroad, the agitation in Paris deepened, and the Council decided upon calling up the Reserves; yet the Emperor himself seemed still disposed for peace. It was in the interval between the second and the third meeting of the Council, between the hours of six and ten in the evening, that Napoleon finally gave way before the threats and importunities of the war-party. The Empress, fanatically anxious for the overthrow of a great Protestant Power, passionately eager for the military glory which alone could insure the Crown to her son, won the triumph which she was so bitterly to rue. At the third meeting of the Council, held shortly before midnight, the vote was given for war.

In Germany this decision had been expected; yet it made a deep impression not only on the German people but on Europe at large that, when the declaration of war was submitted to the French Legislative Body in the form of a demand for supplies, no single voice was raised to condemn the war for its criminality and injustice: the arguments which were urged against it by M. Thiers and others were that the Government had fixed upon a bad cause, and that the occasion was inopportune. Whether the majority of the Assembly really desired war is even now matter of doubt. But the clamour of a hundred madmen within its walls, the ravings of journalists and incendiaries, who at such a time are to the true expression of public opinion what the Spanish Inquisition was to the Christian religion, paralysed the will and the understanding of less infatuated men. Ten votes alone were given in the Assembly against the grant demanded for war; to Europe at large it went out that the crime and the madness was that of France as a nation. Yet Ollivier and many of his colleagues up to the last moment disapproved of the war, and consented to it only because they believed that the nation would otherwise rush into hostilities under a reactionary Ministry who would serve France worse than themselves. They found when it was too late that the supposed national impulse, which they had thought irresistible, was but the outcry of a noisy minority. The reports of their own officers informed them that in sixteen alone out of the eighty-seven Departments of France was the war popular. In the other seventy-one it was accepted either with hesitation or regret. [536]

[Initial forces of either side.]

[Expected Alliances of France.]

[Austria preparing.]

How vast were the forces which the North German Confederation could bring into the field was well known to Napoleon's Government. Benedetti had kept his employers thoroughly informed of the progress of the North German military organisation; he had warned them that the South German States would most certainly act with the North against a foreign assailant; he had described with great accuracy and great penetration the nature of the tie that existed between Berlin and St. Petersburg, a tie which was close enough to secure for Prussia the goodwill, and in certain contingencies the armed support, of Russia, while it was loose enough not to involve Prussia in any Muscovite enterprise that would bring upon it the hostility of England and Austria. The utmost force which the French military administration reckoned on placing in the field at the beginning of the campaign was two hundred and fifty thousand men, to be raised at the end of three weeks by about fifty thousand more. The Prussians, even without reckoning on any assistance from Southern Germany, and after allowing for three army-corps that might be needed to watch Austria and Denmark, could begin the campaign with three hundred and thirty thousand. Army to army, the French thus stood according to the reckoning of their own War Office outnumbered at the outset; but Leboeuf, the War-Minister, imagined that the Foreign Office had made sure of alliances, and that a great part of the Prussian Army would not be free to act on the western frontier. Napoleon had in fact pushed forward his negotiations with Austria and Italy from the time that war became imminent. Count Beust, while clearly laying it down that Austria was not bound to follow France into a war made at its own pleasure, nevertheless felt some anxiety lest France and Prussia should settle their differences at Austria's expense; moreover from the victory of Napoleon, assisted in any degree by himself, he could fairly hope for the restoration of Austria's ascendency in Germany and the undoing of the work of 1866. It was determined at a Council held at Vienna on the 18th of July that Austria should for the present be neutral if Russia should not enter the war on the side of Prussia; but this neutrality was nothing more than a stage towards alliance with France if at the end of a certain brief period the army of Napoleon should have penetrated into Southern Germany. In a private despatch to the Austrian Ambassador at Paris Count Beust pointed out that the immediate participation of Austria in the war would bring Russia into the field on King William's side. "To keep Russia neutral," he wrote, "till the season is sufficiently advanced to prevent the concentration of its troops must be at present our object; but this neutrality is nothing more than a means for arriving at the real end of our policy, the only means for completing our preparations without exposing ourselves to premature attack by Prussia or Russia." He added that Austria had already entered into a negotiation with Italy with a view to the armed mediation of the two Powers, and strongly recommended the Emperor to place the Italians in possession of Rome. [537]

[France, Austria, and Italy.]

Negotiations were now pressed forward between Paris, Florence, and Vienna, for the conclusion of a triple alliance. Of the course taken by these negotiations contradictory accounts are given by the persons concerned in them. According to Prince Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel demanded possession of Rome and this was refused to him by the French Emperor, in consequence of which the project of alliance failed. According to the Duke of Gramont, no more was demanded by Italy than the return to the conditions of the September Convention; this was agreed to by the Emperor, and it was in pursuance of this agreement that the Papal States were evacuated by their French garrison on the 2nd of August. Throughout the last fortnight of July, after war had actually been declared, there was, if the statement of Gramont is to be trusted, a continuous interchange of notes, projects, and telegrams between the three Governments. The difficulties raised by Italy and Austria were speedily removed, and though some weeks were needed by these Powers for their military preparations, Napoleon was definitely assured of their armed support in case of his preliminary success. It was agreed that Austria and Italy, assuming at the first the position of armed neutrality, should jointly present an ultimatum to Prussia in September demanding the exact performance of the Treaty of Prague, and, failing its compliance with this summons in the sense understood by its enemies, that the two Powers would immediately declare war, their armies taking the field at latest on the 15th of September. That Russia would in that case assist Prussia was well known; but it would seem that Count Beust feared little from his northern enemy in an autumn campaign. The draft of the Treaty between Italy and Austria had actually, according to Gramont's statement, been accepted by the two latter Powers, and received its last amendments in a negotiation between the Emperor Napoleon and an Italian envoy, Count Vimercati, at Metz. Vimercati reached Florence with the amended draft on the 4th of August, and it was expected that the Treaty would be signed on the following day. When that day came it saw the forces of the French Empire dashed to pieces. [538]

[Prussian Plans.]

Preparations for a war with France had long occupied the general staff at Berlin. Before the winter of 1868 a memoir had been drawn up by General Moltke, containing plans for the concentration of the whole of the German forces, for the formation of each of the armies to be employed, and the positions to be occupied at the outset by each corps. On the basis of this memoir the arrangements for the transport of each corps from its depôt to the frontier had subsequently been worked out in such minute detail that when, on the 16th of July, King William gave the order for mobilisation, nothing remained but to insert in the railway time-tables and marching-orders the day on which the movement was to commence. This minuteness of detail extended, however, only to that part of Moltke's plan which related to the assembling and first placing of the troops. The events of the campaign could not thus be arranged and tabulated beforehand; only the general object and design could be laid down. That the French would throw themselves with great rapidity upon Southern Germany was considered probable. The armies of Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria were too weak, the military centres of the North were too far distant, for effective resistance to be made in this quarter to the first blows of the invader. Moltke therefore recommended that the Southern troops should withdraw from their own States and move northwards to join those of Prussia in the Palatinate or on the Middle Rhine, so that the entire forces of Germany should be thrown upon the flank or rear of the invader; while, in the event of the French not thus taking the offensive, France itself was to be invaded by the collective strength of Germany along the line from Saarbrücken to Landau, and its armies were to be cut off from their communications with Paris by vigorous movements of the invader in a northerly direction. [539]

[German mobilisation.]

The military organisation of Germany is based on the division of the country into districts, each of which furnishes at its own depôt a small but complete army. The nucleus of each such corps exists in time of peace, with its own independent artillery, stores, and material of war. On the order for mobilisation being given, every man liable to military service, but not actually serving, joins the regiment to which he locally belongs, and in a given number of days each corps is ready to take the field in full strength. The completion of each corps at its own depôt is the first stage in the preparation for a campaign. Not till this is effected does the movement of troops towards the frontier begin. The time necessary for the first act of preparation was, like that to be occupied in transport, accurately determined by the Prussian War Office. It resulted from General Moltke's calculations that, the order of mobilisation having been given on the 16th of July, the entire army with which it was intended to begin the campaign would be collected and in position ready to cross the frontier on the 4th of August, if the French should not have taken up the offensive before that day. But as it was apprehended that part at least of the French army would be thrown into Germany before that date, the westward movement of the German troops stopped short at a considerable distance from the border, in order that the troops first arriving might not be exposed to the attack of a superior force before their supports should be at hand. On the actual frontier there was placed only the handful of men required for reconnoitring, and for checking the enemy during the few hours that would be necessary to guard against the effect of a surprise.

[The French Army.]

The French Emperor was aware of the numerical inferiority of his army to that of Prussia; he hoped, however, by extreme rapidity of movement to penetrate Southern Germany before the Prussian army could assemble, and so, while forcing the Southern Governments to neutrality, to meet on the Upper Danube the assisting forces of Italy and Austria. It was his design to concentrate a hundred and fifty thousand men at Metz, a hundred thousand at Strasburg, and with these armies united to cross the Rhine into Baden; while a third army, which was to assemble at Châlons, protected the north-eastern frontier against an advance of the Prussians. A few days after the declaration of war, while the German corps were still at their depôts in the interior, considerable forces were massed round Metz and Strasburg. All Europe listened for the rush of the invader and the first swift notes of triumph from a French army beyond the Rhine; but week after week passed, and the silence was still unbroken. Stories, incredible to those who first heard them, yet perfectly true, reached the German frontier-stations of actual famine at the advanced posts of the enemy, and of French soldiers made prisoners while digging in potato-fields to keep themselves alive. That Napoleon was less ready than had been anticipated became clear to all the world; but none yet imagined the revelations which each successive day was bringing at the headquarters of the French armies. Absence of whole regiments that figured in the official order of battle, defective transport, stores missing or congested, made it impossible even to attempt the inroad into Southern Germany within the date up to which it had any prospect of success. The design was abandoned, yet not in time to prevent the troops that were hurrying from the interior from being sent backwards and forwards according as the authorities had, or had not, heard of the change of plan. Napoleon saw that a Prussian force was gathering on the Middle Rhine which it would be madness to leave on his flank; he ordered his own commanders to operate on the corresponding line of the Lauter and the Saar, and despatched isolated divisions to the very frontier, still uncertain whether even in this direction he would be able to act on the offensive, or whether nothing now remained to him but to resist the invasion of France by a superior enemy. Ollivier had stated in the Assembly that he and his colleagues entered upon the war with a light heart; he might have added that they entered upon it with bandaged eyes. The Ministers seem actually not to have taken the trouble to exchange explanations with one another. Leboeuf, the War-Minister, had taken it for granted that Gramont had made arrangements with Austria which would compel the Prussians to keep a large part of their forces in the interior. Gramont, in forcing on the quarrel with Prussia, and in his negotiations with Austria, had taken it for granted that Leboeuf could win a series of victories at the outset in Southern Germany. The Emperor, to whom alone the entire data of the military and the diplomatic services of France were open, was incapable of exertion or scrutiny, purposeless, distracted with pain, half-imbecile.

[Causes of French military inferiority.]