Chapter XXV (2)

When a victorious army is, without the intervention of some external Power, checked in its work of conquest by the negotiation of an armistice, it is invariably made a condition that positions shall be handed over to it which it does not at the moment occupy, but which it might reasonably expect to have conquered within a certain date, had hostilities not been suspended. The armistice granted to Austria by Napoleon after the battle of Marengo involved the evacuation of the whole of Upper Italy; the armistice which Bismarck offered to the French Government of Defence at the beginning of the siege of Paris would have involved the surrender of Strasburg and of Toul. In demanding that the line of demarcation should be carried almost up to the walls of Constantinople the Russians were asking for no more than would certainly have been within their hands had hostilities been prolonged for a few weeks, or even days. Deeply as the conditions of the armistice agitated the English people, it was not in these conditions, but in the conditions of the peace which was to follow, that the true cause of contention between England and Russia, if cause there was, had to be found. Nevertheless, the approach of the Russians to Gallipoli and the lines of Tchataldja, followed, as it was, by the despatch of the British fleet to Constantinople, brought Russia and Great Britain within a hair's breadth of war. It was in vain that Lord Derby described the fleet as sent only for the protection of the lives and property of British subjects. Gortschakoff, who was superior in amenities of this kind, replied that the Russian Government had exactly the same end in view, with the distinction that its protection would be extended to all Christians. Should the British fleet appear at the Bosphorus, Russian troops would, in the fulfilment of a common duty of humanity, enter Constantinople. Yielding to this threat, Lord Beaconsfield bade the fleet halt at a convenient point in the Sea of Marmora. On both sides preparations were made for immediate action. The guns on our ships stood charged for battle; the Russians strewed the shallows with torpedoes. Had a Russian soldier appeared on the heights of Gallipoli, had an Englishman landed on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, war would at once have broken out. But after some weeks of extreme danger the perils of mere contiguity passed away, and the decision between peace and war was transferred from the accidents of tent and quarter deck to the deliberations of statesmen assembled in Congress.

[Treaty of San Stefano, Mar. 3.]

The bases of Peace which were made the condition of the armistice granted at Adrianople formed with little alteration the substance of the Treaty signed by Russia and Turkey at San Stefano, a village on the Sea of Marmora, on the 3rd of March. By this Treaty the Porte recognised the independence of Servia, Montenegro, and Roumania, and made considerable cessions of territory to the two former States. Bulgaria was constituted an autonomous tributary Principality, with a Christian Government and a national militia. Its frontier, which was made so extensive as to include the greater part of European Turkey, was defined as beginning near Midia on the Black Sea, not sixty miles from the Bosphorus; passing thence westwards just to the north of Adrianople; descending to the Ægæan Sea, and following the coast as far as the Thracian Chersonese; then passing inland westwards, so as barely to exclude Salonika; running on to the border of Albania within fifty miles of the Adriatic, and from this point following the Albanian border up to the new Servian frontier. The Prince of Bulgaria was to be freely elected by the population, and confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the Powers; a system of administration was to be drawn up by an Assembly of Bulgarian notables; and the introduction of the new system into Bulgaria with the superintendence of its working was to be entrusted for two years to a Russian Commissioner. Until the native militia was organised, Russian troops, not exceeding fifty thousand in number, were to occupy the country; this occupation, however, was to be limited to a term approximating to two years. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the proposals laid before the Porte at the first sitting of the Conference of 1876 were to be immediately introduced, subject to such modifications as might be agreed upon between Turkey, Russia, and Austria. The Porte undertook to apply scrupulously in Crete the Organic Law which had been drawn up in 1868, taking into account the previously expressed wishes of the native population. An analogous law, adapted to local requirements, was, after being communicated to the Czar, to be introduced into Epirus, Thessaly, and the other parts of Turkey in Europe for which a special constitution was not provided by the Treaty. Commissions, in which the native population was to be largely represented, were in each province to be entrusted with the task of elaborating the details of the new organisation. In Armenia the Sultan undertook to carry into effect without further delay the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements, and to guarantee the security of the Armenians from Kurds and Circassians. As an indemnity for the losses and expenses of the war the Porte admitted itself to be indebted to Russia in the sum of fourteen hundred million roubles; but in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan, and in consideration of the financial embarrassments of Turkey, the Czar consented to accept in substitution for the greater part of this sum the cession of the Dobrudscha in Europe, and of the districts of Ardahan, Kars, Batoum, and Bayazid in Asia. As to the balance of three hundred million roubles left due to Russia, the mode of payment or guarantee was to be settled by an understanding between the two Governments. The Dobrudscha was to be given by the Czar to Roumania in exchange for Bessarabia, which this State was to transfer to Russia. The complete evacuation of Turkey in Europe was to take place within three months, that of Turkey in Asia within six months, from the conclusion of peace. [554]

[Congress proposed.]

[Opposite purposes of Russia and England.]

It had from the first been admitted by the Russian Government that questions affecting the interests of Europe at large could not be settled by a Treaty between Russia and Turkey alone, but must form the subject of European agreement. Early in February the Emperor of Austria had proposed that a European Conference should assemble at his own capital. It was subsequently agreed that Berlin, instead of Vienna, should be the place of meeting, and instead of a Conference a Congress should be held, that is, an international assembly of the most solemn form, in which each of the Powers is represented not merely by an ambassador or an envoy, but by its leading Ministers. But the question at once arose whether there existed in the mind of the Russian Government a distinction between parts of the Treaty of San Stefano bearing on the interests of Europe generally and parts which affected no States but Russia and Turkey; and whether, in this case, Russia was willing that Europe should be the judge of the distinction, or, on the contrary, claimed for itself the right of withholding portions of the Treaty from the cognisance of the European Court. In accepting the principle of a Congress, Lord Derby on behalf of Great Britain made it a condition that every article of the Treaty without exception should be laid before the Congress, not necessarily as requiring the concurrence of the Powers, but in order that the Powers themselves might in each case decide whether their concurrence was necessary or not. To this demand Prince Gortschakoff offered the most strenuous resistance, claiming for Russia the liberty of accepting, or not accepting, the discussion of any question that might be raised. It would clearly have been in the power of the Russian Government, had this condition been granted, to exclude from the consideration of Europe precisely those matters which in the opinion of other States were most essentially of European import. Phrases of conciliation were suggested; but no ingenuity of language could shade over the difference of purpose which separated the rival Powers. Every day the chances of the meeting of the Congress seemed to be diminishing, the approach of war between Russia and Great Britain more unmistakable. Lord Beaconsfield called out the Reserves and summoned troops from India; even the project of seizing a port in Asia Minor in case the Sultan should fall under Russian influence was discussed in the Cabinet. Unable to reconcile himself to these vigorous measures, Lord Derby, who had long been at variance with the Premier, now finally withdrew from the Cabinet (March 28). He was succeeded in his office by the Marquis of Salisbury, whose comparison of his relative and predecessor to Titus Oates revived the interest of the diplomatic world in a now forgotten period of English history.

[Circular of April 1.]

The new Foreign Secretary had not been many days in office when a Circular, despatched to all the Foreign Courts, summed up the objections of Great Britain to the Treaty of San Stefano. It was pointed out that a strong Slavic State would be created under the control of Russia, possessing important harbours upon the shores of the Black Sea and the Archipelago, and giving to Russia a preponderating influence over political and commercial relations on both those seas; that a large Greek population would be merged in a dominant Slavic majority; that by the extension of Bulgaria to the Archipelago the Albanian and Greek provinces left to the Sultan would be severed from Constantinople; that the annexation of Bessarabia and of Batoum would make the will of the Russian Government dominant over all the vicinity of the Black Sea; that the acquisition of the strongholds of Armenia would place the population of that province under the immediate influence of the Power that held these strongholds, while through the cession of Bayazid the European trade from Trebizond to Persia would become liable to be arrested by the prohibitory barriers of the Russian commercial system. Finally, by the stipulation for an indemnity which it was beyond the power of Turkey to discharge, and by the reference of the mode of payment or guarantee to a later settlement, Russia had placed it in its power either to extort yet larger cessions of territory, or to force Turkey into engagements subordinating its policy in all things to that of St. Petersburg.

[Count Schouvaloff.]

[Secret agreement, May 30th.]

[Convention with Turkey, June 4.]

[Cyprus.]

It was the object of Lord Salisbury to show that the effects of the Treaty of San Stefano, taken in a mass, threatened the peace and the interests of Europe, and therefore, whatever might be advanced for or against individual stipulations of the Treaty, that the Treaty as a whole, and not clauses selected by one Power, must be submitted to the Congress if the examination was not to prove illusory. This was a just line of argument. Nevertheless it was natural to suppose that some parts of the Treaty must be more distasteful than others to Great Britain; and Count Schouvaloff, who was sincerely desirous of peace, applied himself to the task of discovering with what concessions Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet would be satisfied. He found that if Russia would consent to modifications of the Treaty in Congress excluding Bulgaria from the Ægæan Sea, reducing its area on the south and west, dividing it into two provinces, and restoring the Balkans to the Sultan as a military frontier, giving back Bayazid to the Turks, and granting to other Powers besides Russia a voice in the organisation of Epirus, Thessaly, and the other Christian provinces of the Porte, England might be induced to accept without essential change the other provisions of San Stefano. On the 7th of May Count Schouvaloff quitted London for St. Petersburg, in order to lay before the Czar the results of his communications with the Cabinet, and to acquaint him with the state of public opinion in England. On his journey hung the issues of peace or war. Backed by the counsels of the German Emperor, Schouvaloff succeeded in his mission. The Czar determined not to risk the great results already secured by insisting on the points contested, and Schouvaloff returned to London authorised to conclude a pact with the British Government on the general basis which had been laid down. On the 30th of May a secret agreement, in which the above were the principal points, was signed, and the meeting of the Congress for the examination of the entire Treaty of San Stefano was now assured. But it was not without the deepest anxiety and regret that Lord Beaconsfield consented to the annexation of Batoum and the Armenian fortresses. He obtained indeed an assurance in the secret agreement with Schouvaloff that the Russian frontier should be no more extended on the side of Turkey in Asia; but his policy did not stop short here. By a Convention made with the Sultan on the 4th of June, Great Britain engaged, in the event of any further aggression by Russia upon the Asiatic territories of the Sultan, to defend these territories by force of arms. The Sultan in return promised to introduce the necessary reforms, to be agreed upon by the two Powers, for the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte in these territories, and further assigned the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England. It was stipulated by a humorous after-clause that if Russia should restore to Turkey its Armenian conquests, Cyprus would be evacuated by England, and the Convention itself should be at an end. [555]

[Congress of Berlin, June 13-July 13.]

[Treaty of Berlin, July 13.]

The Congress of Berlin, at which the Premier himself and Lord Salisbury represented Great Britain, opened on the 13th of June. Though the compromise between England and Russia had been settled in general terms, the arrangement of details opened such a series of difficulties that the Congress seemed more than once on the point of breaking up. It was mainly due to the perseverance and wisdom of Prince Bismarck, who transferred the discussion of the most crucial points from the Congress to private meetings of his guests, and who himself acted as conciliator when Gortschakoff folded up his maps or Lord Beaconsfield ordered a special train, that the work was at length achieved. The Treaty of Berlin, signed on the 13th of July, confined Bulgaria, as an autonomous Principality, to the country north of the Balkans, and diminished the authority which, pending the establishment of its definitive system of government, would by the Treaty of San Stefano have belonged to a Russian commissioner. The portion of Bulgaria south of the Balkans, but extending no farther west than the valley of the Maritza, and no farther south than Mount Rhodope, was formed into a Province of East Roumelia, to remain subject to the direct political and military authority of the Sultan, under conditions of administrative autonomy. The Sultan was declared to possess the right of erecting fortifications both on the coast and on the land-frontier of this province, and of maintaining troops there. Alike in Bulgaria and in Eastern Roumelia the period of occupation by Russian troops was limited to nine months. Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to Austria, to be occupied and administered by that Power. The cessions of territory made to Servia and Montenegro in the Treaty of San Stefano were modified with the object of interposing a broader strip between these two States; Bayazid was omitted from the ceded districts in Asia, and the Czar declared it his intention to erect Batoum into a free port, essentially commercial. At the instance of France the provisions relating to the Greek Provinces of Turkey were superseded by a vote in favour of the cession of part of these Provinces to the Hellenic Kingdom. The Sultan was recommended to cede Thessaly and part of Epirus to Greece, the Powers reserving to themselves the right of offering their mediation to facilitate the negotiations. In other respects the provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano were confirmed without substantial change.

[Comparison of the two Treaties.]

Lord Beaconsfield returned to London, bringing, as he said, peace with honour. It was claimed, in the despatch to our Ambassadors which accompanied the publication of the Treaty of Berlin, that in this Treaty the cardinal objections raised by the British Government to the Treaty of San Stefano had found an entire remedy. "Bulgaria," wrote Lord Salisbury, "is now confined to the river-barrier of the Danube, and consequently has not only ceased to possess any harbour on the Archipelago, but is removed by more than a hundred miles from the neighbourhood of that sea. On the Euxine the important port of Bourgas has been restored to the Government of Turkey; and Bulgaria retains less than half the sea-board originally assigned to it, and possesses no other port except the roadstead of Varna, which can hardly be used for any but commercial purposes. The replacement under Turkish rule of Bourgas and the southern half of the sea-board on the Euxine, and the strictly commercial character assigned to Batoum, have largely obviated the menace to the liberty of the Black Sea. The political outposts of Russian power have been pushed back to the region beyond the Balkans; the Sultan's dominions have been provided with a defensible frontier." It was in short the contention of the English Government that while Russia, in the pretended emancipation of a great part of European Turkey by the Treaty of San Stefano, had but acquired a new dependency, England, by insisting on the division of Bulgaria, had baffled this plan and restored to Turkey an effective military dominion over all the country south of the Balkans. That Lord Beaconsfield did well in severing Macedonia from the Slavic State of Bulgaria there is little reason to doubt; that, having so severed it, he did ill in leaving it without a European guarantee for good government, every successive year made more plain; the wisdom of his treatment of Bulgaria itself must, in the light of subsequent events, remain matter for controversy. It may fairly be said that in dealing with Bulgaria English statesmen were, on the whole, dealing with the unknown. Nevertheless, had guidance been accepted from the history of the other Balkan States, analogies were not altogether wanting or altogether remote. During the present century three Christian States had been formed out of what had been Ottoman territory: Servia, Greece, and Roumania. Not one of these had become a Russian Province, or had failed to develop and maintain a distinct national existence. In Servia an attempt had been made to retain for the Porte the right of keeping troops in garrison. This attempt had proved a mistake. So long as the right was exercised it had simply been a source of danger and disquiet, and it had finally been abandoned by the Porte itself. In the case of Greece, Russia, with a view to its own interests, had originally proposed that the country should be divided into four autonomous provinces tributary to the Sultan: against this the Greeks had protested, and Canning had successfully supported their protest. Even the appointment of an ex-Minister of St. Petersburg, Capodistrias, as first President of Greece in 1827 had failed to bring the liberated country under Russian influence; and in the course of the half-century which had since elapsed it had become one of the commonplaces of politics, accepted by every school in every country of Western Europe, that the Powers had committed a great error in 1833 in not extending to far larger dimensions the Greek Kingdom which they then established. In the case of Roumania, the British Government had, out of fear of Russia, insisted in 1856 that the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia should remain separate: the result was that the inhabitants in defiance of England effected their union, and that after a few years had passed there was not a single politician in England who regarded their union otherwise than with satisfaction. If history taught anything in the solution of the Eastern question, it taught that the effort to reserve for the Sultan a military existence in countries which had passed from under his general control was futile, and that the best barrier against Russian influence was to be found not in the division but in the strengthening and consolidation of the States rescued from Ottoman dominions.

It was of course open to English statesmen in 1878 to believe that all that had hitherto passed in the Balkan Peninsula had no bearing upon the problems of the hour, and that, whatever might have been the case with Greece, Servia, and Roumania, Bulgaria stood on a completely different footing, and called for the application of principles not based on the experience of the past but on the divinations of superior minds. Should the history of succeeding years bear out this view, should the Balkans become a true military frontier for Turkey, should Northern Bulgaria sink to the condition of a Russian dependency, and Eastern Roumelia, in severance from its enslaved kin, abandon itself to a thriving ease behind the garrisons of the reforming Ottoman, Lord Beaconsfield will have deserved the fame of a statesman whose intuitions, undimmed by the mists of experience, penetrated the secret of the future, and shaped, because they discerned, the destiny of nations. It will be the task of later historians to measure the exact period after the Congress of Berlin at which the process indicated by Lord Beaconsfield came into visible operation; it is the misfortune of those whose view is limited by a single decade to have to record that in every particular, with the single exception of the severance of Macedonia from the Slavonic Principality, Lord Beaconsfield's ideas, purposes and anticipations, in so far as they related to Eastern Europe, have hitherto been contradicted by events. What happened in Greece, Servia, and Roumania has happened in Bulgaria. Experience, thrown to the winds by English Ministers in 1878, has justified those who listened to its voice. There exists no such thing as a Turkish fortress on the Balkans; Bourgas no more belongs to the Sultan than Athens or Belgrade; no Turkish soldier has been able to set foot within the territory whose very name, Eastern Roumelia, was to stamp it as Turkish dominion. National independence, a living force in Greece, in Servia, in Roumania, has proved its power in Bulgaria too. The efforts of Russia to establish its influence over a people liberated by its arms have been repelled with unexpected firmness. Like the divided members of Roumania, the divided members of Bulgaria have effected their union. In this union, in the growing material and moral force of the Bulgarian State, Western Europe sees a power wholly favourable to its own hopes for the future of the East, wholly adverse to the extension of Russian rule: and it has been reserved for Lord Beaconsfield's colleague at the Congress of Berlin, regardless of the fact that Bulgaria north of the Balkans, not the southern Province, created that vigorous military and political organisation which was the precursor of national union, to explain that in dividing Bulgaria into two portions the English Ministers of 1878 intended to promote its ultimate unity, and that in subjecting the southern half to the Sultan's rule they laid the foundation for its ultimate independence.

[1] Chapters I. to XI. of this Edition.

[2] Chapters XII. to XVIII. of this Edition.

[3] Page 362 of this Edition.

[4] Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn der Revolutionskriege, p. 90. Vivenot, Quellen zur Geschichte der Kaiserpolitik Oesterreichs, i. 185, 208.

[5] Von Sybel, Geschichte der Revolutionszeit, i. 289.

[6] Vivenot, Quellen, i. 372. Buchez et Roux, xiii. 340, xiv. 24.

[7] Häusser, Deutsche Geschichte, i. 88. Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht, i. 78.

[8] Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs, i. 46.

[9] Pertz, Leben Stein, ii. 402. Paget, Travels in Hungary, i. 131.

[10] Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn, p. 256. Vivenot, Quellen, i. 133, 165. The acquisition of Bavaria was declared by the Austrian Cabinet to be the _summum bonum_ of the monarchy.

[11] Biedermann, Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert, iv. 1144.

[12] Carlyle, Friedrich, vi. 667.

[13] Häusser, i. 197. Hardenberg (Ranke), i. 139. Von Sybel, i. 272.

[14] "The connection with the House of Austria and the present undertaking continue to be very unpopular. It is openly said that one half of the treasure was uselessly spent at Reichenbach, and that the other half will be spent on the present occasion, and that the sovereign will be reduced to his former level of Margrave of Brandenburg." Eden, from Berlin; June 19, 1792. Records: Prussia, vol. 151. "He (Möllendorf) reprobated the alliance with Austria, condemning the present interference in the affairs of France as ruinous, and censuring as undignified and contrary to the most important interests of this country the leaving Russia sole arbitress of the fate of Poland. He, however, said, what every Prussian without any exception of party will say, that this country can never acquiesce in the establishment of a good government in Poland, since in a short time it would rise to a very decided superiority," _Id._, July 17. Mr. Cobden's theory that the partition of Poland was effected in the interest of good government must have caused some surprise at Berlin.

[15] The condition of Mecklenburg is thus described in a letter written by Stein during a journey in 1802:--"I found the aspect of the country as cheerless as its misty northern sky; great estates, much of them in pasture or fallow; an extremely thin population; the entire labouring class under the yoke of serfage; stretches of land attached to solitary ill-built farmhouses; in short, a monotony, a dead stillness, spreading over the whole country, an absence of life and activity that quite overcame my spirits. The home of the Mecklenburg noble, who weighs like a load on his peasants instead of improving their condition, gives me the idea of the den of some wild beast, who devastates even thing about him, and surrounds himself with the silence of the grave." Pertz, Leben Stein, i. 192. For a more cheerful description of Münster, see _id._, i. 241.

[16] Perthes, Staatsleben, p. 116. Rigby, Letters from France, p. 215.

[17] Buchez et Roux, xvi. 279. One of the originals of this declaration, handed to the British ambassador, is in the London Records: Prussia, vol. 151.

[18] The accounts of the emigrants sent to England by Lord Elgin, envoy at Brussels, and Sir J. Murray, our military attaché with Brunswick's army (in Records: Flanders, vol. 221) are instructive: "The conduct of the army under the Princes of France is universally reprobated. Their appearance in dress, in attendants, in preparations, is ridiculous. As an instance, however trivial, it may be mentioned that on one of the waggons was written _Toilette de Monsieur_. The spirit of vengeance, however, which they discover on every occasion is far more serious. Wherever they have passed, they have exercised acts of cruelty, in banishing and severely punishing those persons who, though probably culpable, had yet been left untouched by the Prussian commanders. To such an extent has this been carried that the commander at Verdun would not suffer any Frenchman (emigrant) to pass a night in the town without a special permission." Sept. 21. After the failure of the campaign, Elgin writes of the emigrants: "They everywhere added to the cruelties for some of which several hussars had been executed: carried to its extent the vengeance threatened in the Duke of Brunswick's Declaration, in burning whole villages where a shot was fired on them: and on the other hand by their self-sufficiency, want of subordination and personal disrespect, have drawn upon themselves the contempt of the combined armies." Oct. 6. So late as 1796, the exile Louis XVIII. declared his intention to restore the "property and rights" (i.e. tithes, feudal dues, etc.) of the nobles and clergy, and to punish the men who had "committed offences." See Letter to Pichegru, May 4, 1796, in Manuscrit Inédit de Louis XVIII., p. 464.

[19] Wordsworth, Prelude, book ix.

[20] The correspondence is in Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn, p. 371. Such was the famine in the Prussian camp that Dumouriez sent the King of Prussia twelve loaves, twelve pounds of coffee, and twelve pounds of sugar. The official account of the campaign is in the _Berlinische Zeitung_ of Oct. 11, 1792.

[21] Forster, Werke, vi. 386.

[22] "The very night the news of the late Emperor's (Leopold's) death arrived here (Brussels), inflammatory advertisements and invitations to arm were distributed." One culprit "belonged to the Choir of St. Gudule: he chose the middle of the day, and in the presence of many people posted up a paper in the church, exhorting to a general insurrection. The remainder of this strange production was the description of a vision he pretended to have seen, representing the soul of the late emperor on its way to join that of Joseph, already suffering in the other world." Col. Gardiner, March 20, 1792. Records: Flanders, vol. 220.

[23] Elgin, from Brussels, Nov. 6. "A brisk cannonade has been heard this whole forenoon in the direction of Mons. It is at this moment somewhat diminished, though not at an end" Nov. 7. "Several messengers have arrived from camp in the course of the night, but all the Ministers (I have seen them all) deny having received one word of detail.... Couriers have been sent this night in every direction to call in all the detachments on the frontiers.... The Government is making every arrangement for quitting Brussels: their papers are already prepared, their carriages ready." ... Then a PS. "A cannonade is distinctly heard again.... All the emigrants now here are removing with the utmost haste." Nov. 9th. "The confusion throughout the country is extreme. The roads are covered with emigrants, and persons of these provinces flying from the French armies," Records: Flanders, vol. 222.

[24] In Nov. 1792, Grenville ordered the English envoys at Vienna and Berlin to discover, if possible, the real designs of aggrandisement held by those Courts. Mr. Straton, at Vienna, got wind of the agreement against Poland. "I requested Count Philip Cobenzl" (the Austrian Minister) "that he would have the goodness to open himself confidentially to me on the precise object which the two allied Courts might have in contemplation. This, however, the Count was by no means disposed to do; on the contrary, he went round the compass of evasion in order to avoid a direct answer. But determined as I was to push the Austrian Minister, I heaped question on question, until I forced him to say, blushing, and with evident signs of embarrassment, 'Count Stadion' (Ambassador at London) 'will be able to satisfy the curiosity of the British Minister, to whatever point it may be directed.'" Jan. 20, 1793. Records: Austria, vol. 32. Stadion accordingly informed Lord Grenville of the Polish and Bavarian plans. Grenville expressed his concern and regret at the aggression on Poland, and gave reasons against the Bavarian exchange. To our envoy with the King of Prussia Grenville wrote: "It may possibly be the intention of the Courts to adopt a plan of indemnifying themselves for the expense of the war by fresh acquisitions in Poland, and carrying into execution a new partition of that country. You will not fail to explain in the most distinct and pointed manner his Majesty's entire disapprobation of such a plan, and his determination on no account to concur in any measures which may tend to the completion of a design so unjust in itself." Jan. 4, 1793. Records: Army in Germany, vol. 437. At Vienna Cobenzl declared, Feb. 9, that Austria could not now "even manifest a wish to oppose the projects of Prussia in Poland, as in that case his Prussian Majesty would probably withdraw his assistance from the French war; nay, perhaps even enter into an alliance with that nation and invade Bohemia." Records: Austria, vol. 32.

[25] Auckland, ii. 464. Papers presented to Parliament, 1793. Mr. Oscar Browning, in _Fortnightly Review_, Feb., 1883.

[26] Von Sybel, ii. 259. Thugut, Vertrauliche Briefe, i. 17. Letters from Brussels, 23rd March in Records: Flanders, vol. 222. "The Huzars are in motion all round, so that we hope to have them here to-morrow. Most of the French troops who arrived last, and which are mostly peasants armed with pikes, are returning home, besides a great number of their volunteers." 24th March. "At this moment we hear the cannon. The French have just had it cry'd in the town that all the tailors who are making coats for the army must bring them made or unmade, and be paid directly.... They beat the drums to drown the report of the cannon.... You have not a conception of the confusion in the town.... This moment passed four Austrians with their heads cut to pieces, and one with his eye poked out. The French are retiring by the Porte d'Anderlecht." Ostend, April 4th. "This day, before two of the clock, twenty-five Austrian huzars enter'd the town while the inhabitants were employed burning the tree of liberty."

[27] Mortimer-Ternaux, vii. 412.

[28] Berriat-St.-Prix, La Justice Révolutionnaire, introd.

[29] "The King of Prussia has been educated in the persuasion that the execution of that exchange involves the ruin of his family, and he is the more sore about it that by the qualified consent which he has given to its taking place he has precluded himself from opposing it by arms. Accordingly, every idle story which arrives from Munich which tends to revive this apprehension makes an impression which I am unable, at the first moment, to efface." Lord Yarmouth, from the Prussian camp, Aug. 12, 1793, Records: Army in Germany, 437. "Marquis Lucchesini, the effectual director, is desirous of avoiding every expense and every exertion of the troops; of leaving the whole burden of the war on Austria and the other combined Powers; and of seeing difficulties multiply in the arrangements which the Court of Vienna may wish to form I do not perceive any object beyond this; no desire of diminishing the power of France; no system or feeling for crushing the opinions, the doctrines, of that country." Elgin, May 17. Records: Flanders, vol. 223.

[30] Auckland, iii. 24. Thugut, Vertrauliche Briefe, i. 13. Grenville to Eden, Sept. 7th, 1793, Records: Austria, vol. 34: a most important historical document, setting out the principles of alliance between England and Austria. Austria, if it will abandon the Bavarian exchange, may claim annexations on the border of the Netherlands, in Alsace and Lorraine, and in the intermediate parts of the frontier of France. England's indemnity "must be looked for in the foreign settlements and colonies of France.... His Majesty has an interest in seeing the House of Austria strengthen itself by acquisitions on the French frontier. The Emperor must see with pleasure the relative increase of the naval and commercial resources of this country beyond those of France." In the face of this paper, it cannot be maintained that the war of 1793 was, after the first few months, purely defensive on England's part; though no doubt Pitt's notion of an indemnity was fair and modest in comparison with the schemes and acts of his enemy.

[31] The first mention of Bonaparte's name in any British document occurs in an account of the army of Toulon sent to London in Dec. 1793 by a spy. "Les capitaines d'artillérie, élévé dans cet état, connoissent leur service et ont tous du talens. Ils préféroient l'employer pour une meilleure cause.... Le sixtèrne, nommé Bonaparte, trés republicain, a été tué sous les murs de Toulon." Records: France, vol. 599. Austria undertook to send 5,000 troops from Lombardy to defend Toulon, but broke its engagement. "You will wait on M. Thugut (the Austrian Minister) and claim in the most peremptory terms the performance of this engagement. It would be very offensive to his Majesty that a request made so repeatedly on his part should be neglected; but it is infinitely more so to see that, when this country is straining every nerve for the common cause, a body of troops for the want of which Toulon may possibly at this moment be lost, have remained inactive at Milan. You will admit of no further excuses." Grenville to Eden, Nov. 24, 1793. Thugut's written answer was, "The Emperor gave the order of march at a moment when the town of Toulon had no garrison. Its preservation then seemed matter of pressing necessity, but now all inquietude on this score has happily disappeared. The troops of different nations already assembled at Toulon put the place out of all danger." Records: Austria, vol. 35.

[32] Häusser, i. 482. "La Prusse," wrote Thugut at this time, "parviendra au moyen de son alliance à nous faire plus de mal qu'elle ne nous a fait par les guerres les plus sanglantes." Briefe, i. 12, 15. Thugut even proposed that England should encourage the Poles to resist. Eden, April 15; Records: Austria, vol. 33.

[33] The English Government found that Thugut was from the first indifferent to their own aim, the restoration of the Bourbons, or establishment of some orderly government in France. In so far as he concerned himself with the internal affairs of France, he hoped rather for continued dissension, as facilitating the annexation of French territory by Austria. "Qu'on profite de ce conflit des partis en France pour tâcher de se rendre mâitre des forteresses, afin de faire la loi au parti qui aura prévalu, et l'obliger d'acheter la paix et la protection de l'empereur, en lui cedant telle partie de ses conquêtes que S.M. jugera de sa covenance." Briefe, i. 13.

[34] The despatches of Lord Yarmouth from the Prussian and Austrian headquarters, from July 17 to Nov. 22, 1793, give a lively picture both of the military operations and of the political intrigues of this period. They are accompanied by the MS. journal of the Austrian army from Sept. 15 to Dec. 14, each copy apparently with Wurmser's autograph, and by the original letter of the Prussian Minister, Lucchesini, to Lord Yarmouth, announcing the withdrawal of Prussia from the war, "M. de Lucchesini read it to me very hastily, and seemed almost ashamed of a part of its contents." Records: Army in Germany, vols. 437, 438, 439.

[35] Hardenberg (Ranke), i. 181, Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht, i. 10.

[36] Elgin reports after this engagement, May 1st, 1794--"The French army appears to continue much what it has hitherto been, vigorous and persevering where (as in villages and woods) the local advantages are of a nature to supply the defects of military science; weak and helpless beyond belief where cavalry can act, and manoeuvres are possible.... The magazines of the army are stored, and the provisions regularly given out to the troops, and good in quality. Indeed, it is singular to observe in all the villages where we have been forward forage, etc., in plenty, and all the country cultivated as usual. The inhabitants, however, have retired with the French army; and to that degree that the tract we have lately taken possession of is absolutely deserted.... The execution of Danton has produced no greater effect in the army than other executions, and we have found many papers on those who fell in the late actions treating it with ridicule, and as a source of joy." Records: Flanders, 226. "I am in hopes to hear from you on the subject of the French prisoners, as to where I am to apply for the money I advance for their subsistence. They are a great number of them almost naked, some entirely so. It is absolutely shocking to humanity to see them. I would purchase some coarse clothing for those that are in the worst state, but know not how far I should be authorised. They are mostly old men and boys." Consul Harward, at Ostend, March 4th, _id_.

[37] These events are the subject of controversy. See Hüffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 62 Von Sybel, iii. 138. Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 38. The old belief, defended by Von Sybel, was that Thugut himself had determined upon the evacuation of Belgium, and treacherously deprived Coburg of forces for its defence. But, apart from other evidence, the tone of exasperation that runs through Thugut's private letters is irreconcilable with this theory. Lord Elgin, whose reports are used by Von Sybel, no doubt believed that Thugut was playing false; but he was a bad judge, being in the hands of Thugut's opponents, especially General Mack, whom he glorifies in the most absurd way. The other English envoy in Belgium, Lord Yarmouth, reported in favour of Thugut's good faith in this matter, and against military intriguers. Records: Army in Germany, vol. 440. A letter of Prince Waldeck's in Thugut, i. 387, and a conversation between Mack and Sir Morton Eden, on Feb. 3rd, 1797, reported by the latter in Records: Austria, vol. 48, appear to fix the responsibility for the evacuation of Belgium on these two generals, Waldeck and Mack, and on the Emperor's confidential military adviser, Rollin.

[38] "Should the French come they will find this town perfectly empty. Except my own, I do not think there are three houses in Ostend with a bed in them. So general a panic I never witnessed." June 30th.--"To remain here alone would be a wanton sacrifice. God knows 'tis an awful stroke to me to leave a place just as I began to be comfortably settled." Consul Harward: Records: Army in Germany, vol. 440. "All the English are arrested in Ostend; the men are confined in the Capuchin convent, and the women in the Convent des Soeurs Blancs. All the Flamands from the age of 17 to 32 are forced to go for soldiers. At Bruges the French issued an order for 800 men to present themselves. Thirty only came, in consequence of which they rang a bell on the Grand Place, and the inhabitants thinking that it was some ordinance, quitted their houses to hear it, when they were surrounded by the French soldiers, and upwards of 1,000 men secured, gentle and simple, who were all immediately set to work on the canals." Mr. W. Poppleton, Flushing, Sept. 4. Records: Flanders, vol. 227.

[39] Malmesbury, ii. 125. Von Sybel, iii. 168. Grenville made Coburg's dismissal a _sine qua non_ of the continuance of English co-operation. Instructions to Lord Spencer, July 19, 1794. Records: Austria, 36. But for the Austrian complaints against the English, see Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 50.

[40] Schlosser, xv. 203: borne out by the Narrative of an Officer, printed in Annual Register, 1795, p. 143.

[41] Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht, iii. 59, 512. Martens, Recueil des Traités, vi. 45, 52. Hardenberg, i. 287. Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 32. "Le Roi de Prusse," wrote the Empress Catherine, "est une méchante bête et un grand cochon." Prussia made no attempt to deliver the unhappy son of Louis XVI. from his captivity.

[42] The British Government had formed the most sanguine estimate of the strength of the Royalist movement in France. "I cannot let your servant return without troubling you with these few lines to conjure you to use every possible effort to give life and vigour to the Austrian Government at this critical moment. Strongly as I have spoken in my despatch of the present state of France, I have said much less than my information, drawn from various quarters, and applying to almost every part of France, would fairly warrant. We can never hope that the circumstances, as far as they regard the state of France, can be more favourable than they now are. For God's sake enforce these points with all the earnestness which I am sure you will feel upon them." Grenville to Eden, April 17, 1795; Records: Austria, vol. 41. After the failure of the expedition, the British Government made the grave charge against Thugut that while he was officially sending Clerfayt pressing orders to advance, he secretly told him to do nothing. "It is in vain to reason with the Austrian Ministers on the folly and ill faith of a system which they have been under the necessity of concealing from you, and which they will probably endeavour to disguise" Grenville to Eden, Oct., 1795; _id_., vol. 43. This charge, repeated by historians, is disproved by Thugut's private letters. Briefe, i. 221, _seq_. No one more bitterly resented Clerfayt's inaction.

[43] The documents relating to the expedition to Quiberon, with several letters of D'Artois, Charette, and the Vendean leaders, are in Records: France, vol. 600.

[44] Von Sybel, iii. 537. Buchez et Roux, xxxvi. 485.

[45] For the police interpretation of the _Zauberflöte_, see Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs, vol. i. p. 49.

[46] Zobi, Storia Civile della Toscana, i. 284.

[47] Galanti, Descrizione delle Sicilie, 1786, i. 279. He adds, "The Samnites and the Lucanians could not have shown so horrible a spectacle, because they had no feudal laws." Galanti's book gives perhaps the best idea of the immense task faced by monarchy in the eighteenth century in its struggle against what he justly calls "gli orrori del governo feudale." Nothing but a study of these details of actual life described by eye-witnesses can convey an adequate impression of the completeness and the misery of the feudal order in the more backward countries of Europe till far down in the eighteenth century. There is a good anonymous account of Sicily in 1810 in Castlereagh, 8, 217.

[48] Correspondance de Napoleon, i. 260. Botta, lib. vi. Despatches of Col. Graham, British attaché with the Austrian army, in Records: Italian States, vol. 57. These most interesting letters, which begin on May 19, show the discord and suspicion prevalent from the first in the Austrian army. "Beaulieu has not met with cordial co-operation from his own generals, still less from the Piedmontese. He accuses them of having chosen to be beat in order to bring about a peace promised in January last." "Beaulieu was more violent than ever against his generals who have occasioned the failure of his plans. He said nine of them were cowards. I believe some of them are ill-affected to the cause." June 15.--"Many of the officers comfort themselves with thinking that defeat must force peace, and others express themselves in terms of despair." July 25,--Beaulieu told Graham that if Bonaparte had pushed on after the battle of Lodi, he might have gone straight into Mantua. The preparations for defence were made later.

[49] Thugut, Briefe i. 107. A correspondence on this subject was carried on in cypher between Thugut and Ludwig Cobenzl, Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg in 1793-4. During Thugut's absence in Belgium, June, 1794, Cobenzl sent a duplicate despatch, not in cypher, to Vienna. Old Prince Kaunitz, the ex-minister, heard that a courier had arrived from St Petersburg, and demanded the despatch at the Foreign Office "like a dictator." It was given to him. "Ainsi," says Thugut, "adieu au secret qui depuis un an a été conservé avec tant de soins!"

[50] Wurmser's reports are in Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 477. Graham's daily despatches from the Austrian head-quarters give a vivid picture of these operations, and of the sudden change from exultation to despair. Aug. 1.--"I have the honour to inform your lordship that the siege of Mantua is raised, the French having retreated last night with the utmost precipitation." Aug. 2.--"The Austrians are in possession of all the French mortars and cannon, amounting to about 140, with 190,000 shells and bombs; the loss of the Imperial army is inconsiderable." Aug. 5.--"The rout of this day has sadly changed the state of affairs. There are no accounts of General Quosdanovich." Aug. 9.--"Our loss in men and cannon was much greater than was imagined. I had no idea of the possibility of the extent of such misfortunes as have overwhelmed us" Aug. 17.--"It is scarcely possible to describe the state of disorder and discouragement that prevails in the army. Were I free from apprehension, about the fate of my letter" (he had lost his baggage and his cypher in it), "I should despair of finding language adequate to convey a just idea of the discontent of the officers with General Wurmser. From generals to subalterns the universal language is 'qu'il faut faire la paix, car nous ne savons pas faire la guerre.'" Aug. 18.--"Not only the commander-in-chief, but the greatest number of the generals are objects of contempt and ridicule." Aug. 27.--"I do not exaggerate when I say that I have met with instances of down-right dotage." "It was in general orders that wine should be distributed to the men previous to the attack of the 29th. There was some difficulty in getting it up to Monte Baldo. General Bayolitzy observed that 'it did not signify, for the men might get the value in money afterwards.' The men marched at six in the evening without it, to attack at daybreak, and received four kreutzers afterwards. This is a fact I can attest. In action I saw officers sent on urgent messages going at a foot's pace: they say that their horses are half starved, and that they cannot afford to kill them."

[51] Grundsätze (Archduke Charles), ii. 202. Bulletins in Wiener Zeitung, June-Oct., 1796.

[52] Martens, vi. 59.

[53] This seems to me to be the probable truth about Austria's policy in 1796, of which opposite views will be found in Häusser, vol. ii. ch. 1-3, and in Hüffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 142. Thugut professed in 1793 to have given up the project of the Bavarian exchange in deference to England. He admitted, however, soon afterwards, that he had again been pressing the King of Prussia to consent to it, but said that this was a ruse, intended to make Prussia consent to Austria's annexing a large piece of France instead. Eden, Sept., 1793; Records: Austria, vol. 34. The incident shows the difficulty of getting at the truth in diplomacy.

[54] Yet the Government had had warning of this in a series of striking reports sent by one of Lord Elgin's spies during the Reign of Terror. "Jamais la France ne fut cultivée comme elle l'est. Il n'y a pas un arpent qui ne soit ensemencé, sauf dans les lieux où opèrent les armées belligérantes. Cette culture universelle a été forcée par les Directrices là où on ne la faisait pas volontairement." June 8, 1794; Records: Flanders, vol. 226. Elgin had established a line of spies from Paris to the Belgian frontier. Every one of these persons was arrested by the Revolutionary authorities. Elgin then fell in with the writer of the above, whose name is concealed, and placed him on the Swiss frontier. He was evidently a person thoroughly familiar with both civil and military administration. He appears to have talked to every Frenchman who entered Switzerland; and his reports contain far the best information that readied England during the Reign of Terror, contradicting the Royalists, who said that the war was only kept up by terrorism. He warned the English Government that the French nation in a mass was on the side of the Revolution, and declared that the downfall of Robespierre and the terrorists would make no difference in the prosecution of the war. The Government seems to have paid no attention to his reports, if indeed they were ever read.

[55] Correspondance de Napoleon, ii. 28. Thugut, about this time, formed the plan of annexing Bologna and Ferrara to Austria, and said that if this result could be achieved, the French attack upon the Papal States would be no bad matter. See the instructions to Allvintzy, in Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 511, which also contain the first Austrian orders to imprison Italian innovators, the beginning of Austria's later Italian policy.

[56] Wurmser had orders to break out southwards into the Papal States. "These orders he (Thugut) knew had reached the Marshal, but they were also known to the enemy, as a cadet of Strasoldo's regiment, who was carrying the duplicate, had been taken prisoner, and having been seen to swallow a ball of wax, in which the order was wrapped up, he was immediately put to death and the paper taken out of his stomach." Eden, Jan., 1797; Records: Austria, vol. 48. Colonel Graham, who had been shut up in Mantua since Sept. 10, escaped on Dec 17, and restored communication between Wurmser and Allvintzy. He was present at the battle of Rivoli, which is described in his despatches.

[57] "We expect every hour to hear of the entry of the Neapolitan troops and the declaration of a religious war. Every preparation has been made for such an event." Graves to Lord Grenville, Oct. 1, 1796; Records; Rome, vol. 56.