Chapter I: Indo-European (4)

That, in the event, the revolutions of 1848 left the territorial settlement of Vienna intact, was due in the main to the marvellous resisting power of the Habsburg monarchy, the strength of which lay in the traditional loyalty of the army and the traditional policy of balancing race against race within the empire. The triumph of democracy in Germany was made possible only by the temporary collapse of the Habsburg power, a collapse due to the universality and apparent unanimity of the onslaught upon it. But it was soon clear that the unanimity was more apparent than real. The victory of the democratic forces had been too easy, too seemingly overwhelming; the establishment of the constitutional principle in the main centres of autocracy seemed to make common action against the powers of reaction of secondary importance, and free play was allowed to the racial and national antagonisms that had been present from the first. The battle of German, as well as of Italian, liberty was being fought out on the plains of Lombardy; yet the German democrats, whether in Vienna or Frankfort, hailed the victories of the veteran Radetzky as triumphs of Germanism. In Bohemia the revolution was wrecked on the rivalry of German and Czech; and when the Hungarians drew the sword against Austria, the imperial government was reinforced by the hatred of the southern Slavs for their Magyar task-masters.

Victory of the conservative forces.

Thus, from the chaos of warring races, the old order began slowly to reappear. So early as the 15th of June 1848 Prince Windischgraetz had restored order in Prague and received the thanks of the Frankfort parliament; on the 25th of July Radetzky's victory at Custozza set free the imperialist army in Italy; on the 4th of September Jellachich, ban of Croatia, invaded Hungary in the name of the united empire; on the 1st of November Windischgraetz entered democratic Vienna. The alliance of the army and the Slav races had won the victory over German democracy. The combating of Hungarian nationalism proved a longer and a harder task; but the Austrian victory of Kapolna (February 26-27, 1849) encouraged Schwarzenberg to dissolve the rump of the _Reichsrath_ at Kremsier and proclaim a new constitution for the whole empire, including Hungary. The Magyar victories that followed issued in the proclamation, on the 14th of April, of the independence of Hungary. But though the Austrian arms had not been strong enough to crush the Hungarian revolt, they had proved at least the vitality of the conservative principle. The emperor Nicholas I. of Russia had watched in disgusted silence the weak spirit of concession with which the revolutions had been everywhere met; so long as the sovereigns seemed to forget their divine mission he had held rigorously aloof, and had only broken silence to congratulate Windischgraetz on his capture of Vienna and Schwarzenberg on his reassertion of vigorous principles. Now, however, that Divine Right was in arms against the forces of disorder, he was prepared to listen to the prayer of the emperor Francis Joseph for assistance against the Hungarian rebels. The engagements of 1833 were remembered; and in the brotherly spirit of the Holy Alliance, Hungary was subdued by Russian armies and handed over, without _quid pro quo_, to her legitimate king.

Prussia and Austria. Convention of Olmuetz, 1850.

Goergei's capitulation of Vilagos (August 14, 1849) cleared the ground for the complete restoration of the system destroyed by the March revolutions of the year before. The refusal of Frederick William IV. of Prussia to accept the imperial crown (April 21,1849) had already advertised the failure of the constitutional and unionist movement in Germany; and Prussia, her military prestige restored, stood once more face to face with Austria in rivalry for the hegemony of Germany. In the diplomatic contest that followed Prussia was worsted, her claims to an independent supremacy in the north were defeated, and the convention of Olmuetz (November 29, 1850) restored the _status quo_ of the Confederation as established in 1815.

Napoleon III. and Europe.

Rise of socialism.

"The Napoleonic Idea."

Within three years of the great upheaval of 1848 the forces of revolution seemed everywhere to have been subdued, the states system of Europe to have been re-established on the basis of the treaties of Vienna. In reality, however, this restoration was only on the surface; the cracks in the structure of the European system had--to use Bismarck's phrase applied to another occasion--only been "papered over"; and soon ominous rents revealed the fact that the forces that had threatened it with sudden ruin were still at work. One fateful breach in the treaties had, indeed, been accepted as beyond repair; when the dust of the revolutionary turmoil was at length laid a Bonaparte was once more firmly seated on the throne of France. The emperor Nicholas, watching from the calm of Russia, had realized all that the recognition of this fact would involve; he had proposed to set in motion the somewhat rusty machinery of the Grand Alliance, but the other autocratic powers were in no case to support a legitimist crusade, and when Napoleon in 1852 assumed the title of emperor, all Europe recognized his right to do so, even Nicholas being fain to content himself with refusing to treat the _parvenu_ monarch as his "brother," and to admit his style of "third" Napoleon, which seemed to imply a dynastic claim. Napoleon, indeed, was accepted by the powers, as he was welcomed by the French people, as the "saviour of society" from the newly revealed perils of the social revolution. For new and ominous forces had made their appearance since the revolution of 1830 had established the middle classes in power. The industrial development had proceeded in the west of Europe with astonishing rapidity, with its resulting concentration of vast populations in factories and factory cities; and this "proletariat," excluded from any voice in the government, and exposed in accordance with the prevailing economic theories of doctrinaire Liberalism to the horrors of unrestricted competition, had begun to organize itself in a movement, of which the catchword was "the right to work" and the banner the red flag of the socialist commune. The reign of Charles X. had been the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the principle of legitimacy; that of Louis Philippe had discredited for ever government based solely on the _bourgeoisie_; the socialistic experiments of 1848 in Paris had collapsed amid the anarchy and bloodshed of the June days. At this opportune moment Louis Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed to the French people the "Napoleonic Idea" as conceived by himself. The great Napoleon had been the incarnation of the Revolution, had "sprung armed from the Revolution, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter"; he had ruled because to him the people, by whom the Revolution had been made, had delegated the duty of representing, protecting and guiding it. Of this idea Louis Napoleon conceived himself to be the heir; and when by a double plebiscite the French nation had established him in supreme power, first as president for life (1851), then as emperor (1852), he was able to claim that he represented the people in a far more immediate sense than could be asserted of the chance majority of any representative assembly.

Economic revolution in Europe.

It was clear that, sooner or later, Napoleon III. would prove a disturbing force in Europe. His title to rule was that he represented France; it followed therefore that he must be hostile to "the treaties," by which the traditional aspirations of France, e.g. for her "natural boundaries" of Rhine, Alps and Pyrenees, were restrained. He reigned as "emperor of the French"; it followed that he represented that principle of nationality which the treaties ignored. He could not afford--as Metternich had said of Ferdinand of Naples--"to treat his throne as an arm-chair"; and any activity he might display would be almost certainly at the expense of the established order. At the outset, indeed, it was his policy to pose as its custodian. To conciliate the French clericals he supported the pope against the Italian Liberals; but otherwise he proclaimed aloud his devotion to the arts of peace. A period of rapid material expansion succeeded the unrest of the revolutionary years; engineers and men of science were quickly producing a change in all the material conditions of life, greater than could have been effected by any political revolution; especially the face of Europe was gradually being covered with a network of railways, which it was hoped would draw the European nations not only materially but morally closer together. The first universal exhibition, opened under the auspices of the prince consort at London in 1851, was intended to advertise and consecrate the dawn of a new era of international peace and goodwill. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham, once hailed as the "bright Koh-i-nur of the West," remains the dismal monument of a hope so soon to be belied by the hard logic of events. For no period since 1815 has been so occupied with wars and the rumours of war as the twenty years that followed the opening of this great temple of peace.

The Crimean War.

Congress of Paris, 1856.

One question, that of the ultimate destination of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which threatened the tranquillity of the West, was temporarily settled by the conference of London in 1852 (see SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION). But about the same time anxious watchers noticed on the political horizon in the East a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, that threatened a serious storm. At first this was no more than a quarrel between Greek and Latin monks about the custody of certain holy places and things in Palestine. It soon, however, became clear that behind these insignificant combatants loomed the figures of the emperors of Russia and France. The motives that induced Napoleon to take up the cause of the rights of the Latin church in this matter were partly political, partly personal. He resented the tsar's attitude towards himself; he wished to gain the firm support of the clergy for his throne; he desired to win prestige for himself and his dynasty by reasserting the traditional influence of France in the Ottoman empire. The events that led up to the Crimean War, and those of the war itself, are told elsewhere (see CRIMEAN WAR). Great Britain had been drawn into the war by her traditional policy of preserving the Ottoman empire as a barrier against the advance of Russia to the Mediterranean and the consequent danger to the British empire in India. It is now generally conceded that, so far as these objects were concerned, the war was a tragic mistake. The hopes that were built on the capacity of Turkey to reform itself were disappointed; the restrictions imposed upon Russia were repudiated at the first opportunity, during the Franco-German War in 1870; and the results of the Russo-Turkish War of 1876 have shown that a far more effective barrier against Russia than the weakened Ottoman empire has been furnished by the young and vigorous national states of the Balkan Peninsula. None the less, the treaty of Paris (1856), by which the war was closed, marks an important epoch in the diplomatic history of Europe; and it is impossible to say that the blood spilled in the Crimea was wholly wasted. At the time the main success of the allied powers seemed to be in the thrusting back of Russia from the Danube by the cession of Bessarabia, the extinction of Russian sea-power in the Black Sea, the formal repudiation of the tsar's claim to a special right of interference in Turkey. But the true significance of the work of the congress of Paris lies in the impetus given by it to the development of an effective international law. The concert of Europe was consecrated anew by the solemn admission of the Ottoman empire to an equality of _status_ with the European powers and the declaration of the collective obligations of Europe towards it. The congress, moreover, acted in some sort as the legislative body of Europe; it established the principle of the free navigation of the Danube and of the right of all nations to carry their commerce into the Black Sea; by a declaration, signed by all the powers present, it abolished the practice of granting letters of marque to privateers in war time. The question was even discussed of establishing some sanction by which the rules of international law agreed upon should be enforced upon recalcitrant states; and, though nothing was settled, a _voeu_ to this effect was entered upon the protocol. The congress of Paris thus set a precedent more hopeful than those of the congresses held earlier in the century, because the issues were not confused by the supposed necessity for upholding "legitimacy" at all costs; it was a stage in the progress from the ideals of the Grand Alliance to those of the Hague Conference.

Preponderance of France.

Napoleon and Italy. War of 1859.

Napoleon and Germany

The conclusion of the Crimean War left the emperor Napoleon the most influential personage in Europe; and Paris, the seat of the congress, became also the centre of the diplomatic world. Russia had been bled almost to death by the war; Austria was discredited and isolated owing to the dubious part she had played in it; Prussia had not recovered from the humiliation of Olmuetz; Great Britain was soon plunged into the critical struggle of the Indian Mutiny. The time was obviously opportune for the realization of some of the aspirations implied in the Napoleonic idea. The opportunity came from the side of Italy. By sending Sardinian troops to fight in a quarrel not their own, alongside the Allies in the Crimea, Cavour had purchased for Piedmont the right to be heard in the councils of the powers--a right of which he had made use at the Paris congress to denounce before all Europe the Austrian misrule in Italy. The Italian unionists were at one with Napoleon in desiring to overset "the treaties"; and the Franco-Italian alliance which, in 1859, drove the Austrians out of Lombardy and established the nucleus of the Italian kingdom was the beginning of a process which, within twelve years, was to change the balance of Europe. It was ominous of the future that it was largely the menace of Prussian intervention that persuaded Napoleon to conclude the armistice of Villafranca (July 11, 1859), which, contrary to his agreement with Victor Emmanuel, left Venice to the Austrians. In spite of the peace of Zuerich (November 10), indeed, the union of Italy continued during the succeeding years, and Savoy and Nice were the reward of the French emperor's connivance (see ITALY). France thus once more gained her "natural frontier" of the Alps; the question was whether she would be able to regain her other natural frontier on the Rhine. The times were not unpropitious for an enterprise which was undoubtedly one of the main objects of Napoleon's policy. The European concert had ceased to exist as an effective force; the treaties had been violated with impunity; in Germany, where the tension between the two great powers had not been eased by Prussia's dubious attitude during the war, there was little prospect of a united opposition to French aggression, and the conditions seemed highly favourable for reviving the traditional policy of exploiting German disunion for the aggrandizement of France. Prussia was arming, but her armaments were directed not against Napoleon but against Austria, and the beginning of the reign of William I., who had become regent in 1858 and king in 1861, pointed to the development of a situation in which the French emperor would once again become the arbiter of Germany. On the 29th of March 1862 Prussia signed a commercial treaty with France on a basis that involved the exclusion of Austria from the Zollverein, and replied to the protests of the court of Vienna by recognizing the new kingdom of Italy. In September of the same year King William placed the supreme direction of Prussian policy in the hands of Otto von Bismarck, whose views on the exclusion of Austria from Germany were known to all the world.

Decline of Napoleon's influence.

The outcome of the Polish insurrection of 1863, however, again altered the aspect of things, and in a direction unfavourable to France (see POLAND: _History_). Napoleon had been forced by French public opinion to come forward as the protector of the Poles; but the spectacle of a Bonaparte posing as the champion of "the treaties" was not impressive; his brave words were not translated into action; and he only succeeded in offending Russia by his protests and alienating Great Britain by his tergiversations. The proffered intervention of Austria, France and Great Britain was rejected in a note of Prince Gorchakov to Baron Brunnow, the Russian ambassador in London (July 1, 1863); no action followed; and the last effort to put forward the treaties of Vienna as the common law of Europe ended in a fiasco. British ministers, who had been made to look somewhat ridiculous, henceforth began to be chary of active intervention in continental affairs; Austria and France were alike discredited and isolated. Prussia which, under Bismarck's auspices, had aided Russia in suppressing the Poles (convention of February 8, 1863) alone emerged from the crisis with increased prestige. Bismarck, indeed, was too wary to accept the tsar's suggestion of an offensive alliance and an immediate combined attack on Austria and France; but in the coming struggle for the hegemony of Germany he was assured at least of Russia's neutrality.

Rivalry of Prussia and Austria. Schleswig-Holstein question.

Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Prussia supreme in Germany.

The final act in this long rivalry began with the opening up of the Schleswig-Holstein question on the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark and the accession of the "protocol-king" Christian IX. (November 15, 1863). The German claim to the Elbe duchies, the Danish claim to at least Schleswig as an integral part of the northern kingdom, were but subordinate issues of questions far more fateful, the developments of which once more illustrated the hopeless enfeeblement of the idea of the European concert. In the struggle for the possession of the duchies the general sentiment of Germany was on one side, that of Europe on the other. By the protocol of 1852 the duchies had been treated as an integral part of Denmark, and France and Great Britain, as signatory powers, alike protested against the action of Austria and Prussia in asserting the German claim by force of arms. But, as in the case of Poland, protests were not followed by action; Napoleon in the end contented himself with proposing his favourite "Napoleonic idea" of a plebiscite, to discover the wishes of the populations concerned; Palmerston, who realized some of the important issues involved, allowed his warlike attitude, under exalted influences, to evaporate in words. Thus Great Britain earned the lasting resentment of Germans, without succeeding in preventing the establishment of German sea-power in the Baltic. For the Prussian war-harbour of Kiel and the Kiel Canal were in Bismarck's mind from the outset. Throughout he intended to make the duchies a part of Prussia and to use the whole question as a means for the solution of that of Germany. The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 grew inevitably out of the Dano-German War of 1864; and the treaty of Prague (Aug. 23, 1866), which excluded Austria from Germany and established the North German Confederation under the headship of Prussia, not only absorbed into Prussia the North German states which had sided with Austria, but by the annexation to her of Schleswig and Holstein laid the foundations of German power in the North Sea, and of German rivalry with England in the future.

Napoleon and Prussia.

More immediate were the effects of the campaign of Koeniggraetz on France. The rapid and overwhelming victory of Prussia overthrew all the calculations of Napoleon, who had looked to intervening as arbiter between exhausted combatants. The sudden menace of the new German power alarmed him, and he sought to secure the Rhine frontier for France, by negotiations with Prussia, in the form of "compensations" at the expense of the South German states. He succeeded only in placing a fresh weapon in Bismarck's hands. The communication of the French overtures to the South German courts was enough to throw them into the arms of Prussia; and treaties of offensive and defensive alliance were signed in August 1866 between Prussia and Wuerttemberg (3rd), Baden (17th), and Bavaria (22nd), by which the king of Prussia was to receive the supreme command of the allied armies in time of war. In vain Napoleon tried to retrieve his damaged prestige by securing compensation elsewhere. His proposal that the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, which had not been included in the new German Confederation, should fall to France by agreement with Prussia was no more successful than his other demands for "compensation." Luxemburg was declared a neutral state by the convention of London in 1867 (see LUXEMBURG), and the French proposal, published by Bismarck in _The Times_ at the outset of the war of 1870, only damaged the French emperor's cause in the eyes of Europe.

Meanwhile public feeling in France had become seriously excited by this sudden menace of a hostile power on her eastern frontier, and this excitement was raised to fever heat when it became known that the vacant throne of Spain had been offered to and accepted by a prince of the house of Hohenzollern. Napoleon's policy had become hopelessly discredited by the successive fiascos in Poland, Mexico and Germany, and even the establishment of a liberal constitution in 1869 could not avail to restore confidence in him. He knew the risk he ran in challenging a conflict with a power whose military efficiency had been so strikingly displayed; but by refusing to do so, in the excited state of public feeling, he would have risked his throne. He reckoned on the traditional jealously of the South German states for Prussia and their traditional friendship with France; he was assured, too, of the support of Austria, in the event of a victorious opening of the campaign. On the other hand Bismarck was bent on war, which, in accordance with his policy of "blood and iron," he believed to be the sole effective means of binding the heterogeneous elements of Germany into a coherent whole. The device of the "Ems telegrams" (see BISMARCK) was sufficient to end the hesitations of Napoleon by giving an irresistible volume to the cry of the war party in France; and on the 19th of July the French emperor's declaration of war was handed in at Berlin.

The Franco-German War, 1870-1871.

The new German Empire.

The story of the struggle that followed is told elsewhere (see FRANCO-GERMAN WAR). The hopes that Napoleon had based on the action of the South German courts was belied; and the first crushing German victories (Weissenburg, August 4, and Woerth, August 6) not only removed all chance of Austrian co-operation but brought down with a crash the imposing facade of the Second Empire. On the 2nd of September Napoleon surrendered, with his army, at Sedan; and two days later the Empire was overthrown and a provisional republican government set up at Paris. On the 19th Paris itself was invested and, after a heroic defence, capitulated on the 28th of January 1871. On the 18th of January, at the palace of Versailles, William I., king of Prussia, was proclaimed German emperor. On the 26th of February were signed the preliminaries of peace, by which France agreed to cede to the German empire Alsace (except Belfort and its territory) and German Lorraine, with Metz and Thionville (Diedenhofen), and to pay a war indemnity of five milliards of francs (L200,000,000) in three years, to be secured by the occupation of French territory. The definitive treaty was signed at Frankfort-on-Main on the 10th of May 1871.

Dual system in Austria-Hungary.

Union of Italy.

The most important outcome of the events which culminated in the Franco-German War and its result was the establishment of a powerful German empire, which was destined to dominate the continent for years to come, and the expansive ambitions of which remain pregnant with menace for the future. So great an overturn, however, involved other changes in the territorial system, which may be briefly summarized. The most notable of these was the reconstruction of the Austrian monarchy as a result of the war of 1866. By the treaty of Vienna (October 3, 1866) between Austria and Italy, Austria recognized the Italian kingdom and ceded to it the city and territory of Venice, thus surrendering the traditional claim of the Habsburgs to domination in Italy. This was followed in 1867 by the establishment of the Dual Monarchy in the Habsburg dominions under the auspices of Bismarck's rival, Count Beust,--Francis Joseph being crowned king of Hungary, and a separate constitution being established for Hungary and the _Cis-Leithan_ dominions of the Austrian emperor (see AUSTRIA: _History_). In Italy, meanwhile, the unification of the kingdom had continued after the conclusion of the war of 1859 by the treaty of Zuerich. In 1860 Tuscany, Parma and Modena were united to the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel, at the cost of the cession of Nice and Savoy to Napoleon. In May of the same year Garibaldi and his "Thousand" landed in Sicily, which he reduced by the end of June; in August he crossed to the mainland, and the capitulation of Francis II. of the Two Sicilies at Gaeta on the 13th of February 1861 ended the Bourbon kingdom in southern Italy. On the 17th of March Victor Emmanuel II. was proclaimed king of United Italy. This title, as mentioned above, was recognized by Austria in 1866, when Italy was increased by the cession of Venice. Finally, Rome, which had been preserved to the papacy by Napoleon's troops, was on their withdrawal occupied by the Italians on the 20th of September 1870. Thus the temporal power of the popes came to an end; and the unification of Italy was completed (see ITALY: History).

Another significant outcome of the collapse of France was the denunciation by Russia of the "Black Sea" clauses of the treaty of Paris of 1856, an action rendered possible by the _entente_ between the governments of Berlin and St Petersburg. In the note addressed to the signatory powers announcing that Russia no longer felt herself bound by the clauses of the treaty limiting her sovereign rights in the Black Sea, Prince Gorchakov wrote: "It would be difficult to affirm that the written law founded on the respect for treaties, as the basis of public right and rule of the relations of states, has preserved the same moral sanction as in former times." The action of Russia was, in fact, a practical illustration of Bismarck's _dicta_ that "_rebus sic stantibus_ is involved in all treaties that require performance" (_Mem_. ii. 280), and that "_ultro posse nemo obligatur_ holds good in spite of all treaty obligations whatsoever, nor can any treaty guarantee the discharge of obligations when the private interest of those who lie under them no longer reinforces the text" (ib. ii. 270). Great Britain did her best to counteract a doctrine so subversive of international confidence. For a moment at least a diplomatic breach with Russia seemed inevitable. At Bismarck's suggestion, however, a conference was held at London to arrange the affair. There was, in the circumstances, no chance of forcing Russia to recede from her position; but in order "to reconcile facts with principles" the conference on the 17th of January 1871 agreed on a formula announcing that "contracting powers can only rid themselves of their treaty engagements by an understanding with their co-signatories." Thus the principle of the European concert was saved. But, for the time at least, it seemed that the triumph of Bismarck's diplomacy had re-established

... the simple plan
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.

Beust was not far wrong when he exclaimed, "Je ne vois plus de l'Europe!" (W. A. P.)

By the Franco-German War of 1870-71 and the creation of the German empire the political condition of Europe was profoundly changed. Germany became for a time the leading power on the continent of Europe, and German statesmanship had to devise means for preventing, until the new edifice was thoroughly consolidated, the formation of a hostile coalition of jealous rivals. The first thing to be done in this direction was to secure the support of Russia and Austria to the new order of things.

Russian policy towards Germany.

With regard to Russia there was little cause for apprehension. She had aided Bismarck to carry out his audacious schemes in the past, and there was no reason to suppose that she would change her policy in the immediate future. The _rapprochement_ dated from the Polish insurrection of 1863, when the governments of France and England, yielding to popular excitement, made strong diplomatic representations to Russia in favour of the Poles, whereas Bismarck not only refused to join in the diplomatic campaign, but made a convention with the cabinet of St Petersburg by which the Russian and German military authorities on the frontiers should aid each other in suppressing the disturbances. From that time the friendship ripened steadily. The relations between the two powers were not, it is true, always without a cloud. More than once the bold designs of Bismarck caused uneasiness and dissatisfaction in St Petersburg, especially during the Schleswig-Holstein complications of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian conflict of 1866; but the wily statesman of Berlin, partly by argument and partly by dexterously manipulating the mutual trust and affection between the two sovereigns, always succeeded in having his own way without producing a rupture, so that during the Franco-German War of 1870-71 Russia maintained an extremely benevolent neutrality, and prevented Austria and Italy from taking part in the struggle. So benevolent was the neutrality that the emperor William at the end of the campaign felt constrained to write to the tsar that he owed to His Majesty the happy issue of the campaign and would never forget the fact. Having thus helped to create the German empire, Alexander II. was not likely to take an active part in destroying it, and Bismarck could look forward confidently to a long continuance of the cordial relations between the two courts.

Austrian relations with Germany.

The second part of the German chancellor's programme, the permanent conciliation of Austria, was not so easily carried out. Austria had been the great sufferer, more perhaps even than France, from Bismarck's aggressive policy. For generations she had resisted strenuously and successfully the efforts of the Hohenzollerns to play the leading part in Germany, and she had always considered her own influence in Germany as essential to the maintenance of her position as a first-class power. By the disastrous campaign of 1866 and the consequent treaty of Prague, Austria had been formally excluded from all direct influence in German affairs. With these events still fresh in his recollection, the emperor Francis Joseph could hardly be expected to support the new empire created by his rival at Austria's expense, and it was known that on the eve of the Franco-German War he had been negotiating with the French government for a combined attack on Prussia. To an ordinary statesman the task of permanently conciliating such a power might well have seemed hopeless, but Bismarck did not shrink from it, and even before the signature of the treaty of Prague he had prepared the way for attaining his object. "With regard to Austria," he himself explained on one occasion, "I had two courses open to me after her defeat, either to destroy her entirely or to respect her integrity and prepare for our future reconciliation when the fire of revenge had died out. I chose the latter course, because the former would have been the greatest possible act of folly. Supposing that Austria had disappeared, consider the consequences." He then described very graphically those probable consequences, and drew the conclusion: "for the sake of our own life Austria must live. I had no hesitation, therefore, and ever since 1866 my constant effort has been to stitch up the great torn texture and to re-establish amicable relations with our ancient associate of the Confederation." For this purpose he tried to soothe Austrian susceptibilities, and suggested confidentially that compensation for the losses of territory, influence and prestige in Italy and Germany might be found in south-eastern Europe, especially by the acquisition of Bosnia and Herzegovina; but so long as his rival Count Beust was minister for foreign affairs in Vienna, and Austria had the prospect of being able to recover her lost position by the assistance of Russia and France, these efforts had no success. It was only when Prince Gorchakov had declined Count Beust's advances, which took the form of suggesting the abolition of the Black Sea clauses of the treaty of Paris, and when France had been paralysed for some years by her war with Germany, that a _rapprochement_ between the cabinets of Vienna and Berlin became possible. Bismarck lost no time in making advances. From the German headquarters at Versailles he sent a despatch to Vienna suggesting the establishing of more cordial relations between the two countries, and Count Beust replied in an equally amicable tone. The emperor Francis Joseph, finding himself isolated, had evidently accepted the inevitable with his customary resignation, and abandoned his dreams of again playing the leading part in Germany. As a further proof of the change in his disposition and aims he replaced Count Beust by Count Andrassy, who was a personal friend of Bismarck, and who wished, as a Hungarian, to see Austria liberated from her German entanglement, and he consented to pay a visit to Berlin for the purpose of drawing still closer the relations between the two governments.

The Dreikaiserbund.

Bismarck was delighted at this turn of affairs, but he advanced with his usual caution. He gave it to be clearly understood that improvement in his relations with Vienna must not disturb the long-established friendship with St Petersburg. The tsar, on hearing privately of the intended meeting, gave a hint to Prince Reuss, the German ambassador, that he expected an invitation, and was invited accordingly. The meeting of the three sovereigns took place at Berlin at the end of August 1872. The three ministers, Prince Bismarck, Prince Gorchakov and Count Andrassy, held daily conferences, on the basis that the chief aim in view should be the maintenance of peace in Europe, and that in all important international affairs the three powers should consult with each other and act in concert. As a result of three days' consultation the Three Emperor's League was founded, without any formal treaty being signed. In this way the danger of a powerful coalition being formed against the young German empire was averted, for in the event of a conflict with France, Germany could count on at least the benevolent neutrality of Russia and Austria, and from the other powers she had nothing to fear. What ulterior designs Bismarck may have had in forming the league, or "Alliance" as it is often called, must be to some extent a matter of conjecture, but we shall probably not be far wrong in adopting the view of a competent Russian authority, who defines the policy of the German chancellor thus: "To make Austria accept definitively her deposition as a Germanic power, to put her in perpetual conflict with Russia in the Balkan Peninsula, and to found on that irreconcilable rivalry the hegemony of Germany."

For more than two years there was an outward appearance of extreme cordiality between the three powers. They acted together diplomatically, and on all suitable occasions the three allied monarchs exchanged visits and sent each other congratulations and good wishes. There was, however, from the beginning very little genuine confidence between them. Before the breaking up of the conferences at Berlin, Alexander II. and his chancellor had conversations with the French ambassador, in which they not only showed that they had suspicions of future aggressive designs on the part of Germany, but also gave an assurance that so long as France fulfilled her engagements to Germany she had nothing to fear. A few months later, when the emperor William paid his return visit to the tsar in St Petersburg, a defensive convention was concluded by the two monarchs behind the back of their Austrian ally. Without knowing anything about the existence of this convention, the Austrian ally did not feel comfortable in his new position. In Vienna the old anti-Prussian feeling was still strong. The so-called party of the archdukes and the military resisted the policy of Andrassy, and sought to establish closer relations with Russia, so that German support might be unnecessary, but as Bismarck has himself testified, "Russia did not yet respond. The wound caused by the conduct of Austria during the Crimean War was not yet healed. Andrassy made himself very popular in the court society of St Petersburg during his visit there with his imperial master, but the traditional suspicion of Austrian policy remained." Altogether, the new league was not a happy family. So long as all the members of it were content to accept the _status quo_, the latent germs of dissension remained hidden from the outside world, but as soon as the temporary state of political quietude was replaced by a certain amount of activity and initiative, they forced their way to the surface. No one of the three powers regarded the _status quo_ as a satisfactory permanent arrangement. In Berlin much anxiety was caused by the rapid financial and military recovery of France, and voices were heard suggesting that a new campaign and a bigger war indemnity might be necessary before the recuperation was complete. In St Petersburg there was a determination to take advantage of any good opportunity for recovering the portion of Bessarabia ceded by the treaty of Paris, and thereby removing the last tangible results of the Crimean War. In Vienna there was a desire to obtain in the Balkan Peninsula, in accordance with the suggestion of Bismarck, compensation for the losses in Italy and Germany. Thus each of the members of the league was hatching secretly a little aggressive scheme for its own benefit, and the danger for the rest of Europe lay in the possibility of their reconciling their schemes so far as to admit of an agreement for action in common. Fortunately for the onlookers there were important conflicting interests, and the task of reconciling them was extremely difficult, as the subsequent course of events proved.

The storm-cloud of 1875.

Russia and Germany divided.

The first of the three powers to move was Germany. In February 1875 M. de Radowitz was despatched to St Petersburg on a secret mission in order to discover whether, in the event of hostilities between Germany and France, Russia would undertake to maintain a neutral attitude as she had done in 1870-1871; in that case Germany might be relied on to co-operate with her in her great designs in the East. Prince Gorchakov did not take the bait with the alacrity that was expected. Having overcome in some measure his hatred of Austria, which had distorted for so many years his political vision, he had come to understand that it was not for the interests of his own country to have as neighbour a powerful united Germany instead of a weak confederation of small states, and he now perceived that it would be a grave error of policy to allow Germany to destroy still more to her own advantage the balance of power in Europe by permanently weakening France. No doubt he desired to recover the lost portion of Bessarabia and to raise Russian prestige in the East, but he did not wish to run the risk of exciting a great European war, and he believed that what he desired might be effected without war by the diplomatic skill which had warded off European intervention during the Polish troubles of 1863, and had recovered for Russia her freedom of action in the Black Sea during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. In reply, therefore, to M. de Radowitz's inquiries and suggestions, he declared that the Russian court fostered no ambitious designs in the East or in the West, and desired only peace and the maintenance of the _status quo_, with possibly an amelioration in the miserable condition of the Christian subjects of the sultan. This rebuff did not suffice to dispel the gathering storm. The warlike agitation in the German inspired press continued, and the French government became thoroughly alarmed. General Leflo, the French ambassador in St Petersburg, was instructed to sound the Russian government on the subject. Prince Gorchakov willingly assured him that Russia would do all in her power to incline the Berlin cabinet to moderation and peace, and that the emperor would take advantage of his forthcoming visit to Berlin to influence the emperor William in this sense. A few days later General Leflo received similar assurances from the emperor himself, and about the same time the British government volunteered to work likewise in the cause of peace. Representations were accordingly made by both governments during the tsar's visit to Berlin, and both the emperor William and his chancellor declared that there was no intention of attacking France. The danger of war, which the well-informed German press believed to be "in sight," was thus averted, but the incident sowed the seeds of future troubles, by awakening in Bismarck a bitter personal resentment against his Russian colleague. By certain incautious remarks to those around him, and still more by a circular to the representatives of Russia abroad, dated Berlin and beginning with the words _maintenant la paix est assuree_, Gorchakov seemed to take to himself the credit of having checkmated Bismarck and saved Europe from a great war. Bismarck resented bitterly this conduct on the part of his old friend, and told him frankly that he would have reason to regret it. In the Russian official world it is generally believed that he took his revenge in the Russo-Turkish War and the congress of Berlin. However this may be, he has himself explained that "the first cause of coldness" was the above incident, "when Gorchakov, aided by Decazes, wanted to play at my expense the part of a saviour of France, to represent me as the enemy of European peace, and to procure for himself a triumphant _quos ego_ to arrest by a word and shatter my dark designs!" In any case the incident marks the beginning of a new phase in the relations of the three powers; henceforth Bismarck can no longer count on the unqualified support of Russia, and in controlling the Russo-Austrian rivalry in south-eastern Europe, while professing to be impartial, he will lean to the side of Count Andrassy rather than to that of Prince Gorchakov. He is careful, however, not to carry this tendency so far as to produce a _rapprochement_ between Russia and France. The danger of a Franco-Russian alliance hostile to Germany is already appearing on the political horizon, but it is only a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

Austro-Russian agreement, 1876.

The next move in the aggressive game was made by Austria, with the connivance of Russia. During the summer of 1875 an insurrection of the Christian Slavs in Herzegovina, which received support from the neighbouring principalities of Montenegro and Servia, was fostered by the Austrian authorities and encouraged by the Russian consuls on the Adriatic coast. A European concert was formed for the purpose of settling the disturbance by means of local administrative reforms, but the efforts of the powers failed, because the insurgents hoped to obtain complete liberation from Turkish rule; and in the beginning of July, with a view to promoting this solution, Servia and Montenegro declared war against the Porte. Thereupon Russia began to show her hand more openly. The government allowed volunteers to be recruited in Moscow and St Petersburg, and the Russian general Chernayev, who had distinguished himself in Central Asia, was appointed to the command of the Servian army. When the ball had thus been set rolling, the two powers chiefly concerned considered that the time had come for embodying the result of their informal confidential pourparlers in a secret agreement, which is known as the convention of Reichstadt, because it was signed at a meeting of the two emperors in the little Bohemian town of that name. It bore the date of the 8th of July 1876--exactly a week after Servia and Montenegro had declared war--and it contained the following stipulations: (1) That so long as the struggle which had just begun remained undecided, the two sovereigns should refrain from interference, and that in the event of the principalities being defeated, any modification of the territorial or political _status quo ante_ to their detriment should be prevented; (2) that in the event of the principalities proving victorious, and territorial changes taking place, Austria should claim compensation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Russia should demand the restitution of the portion of Bessarabia which she had lost by the Crimean War; (3) that in the event of the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the two powers should act together to create autonomous principalities in European Turkey, to unite Thessaly and Crete to Greece, and to proclaim Constantinople a free town. The contracting parties evidently expected that the two principalities would be victorious in their struggle with the Porte, and that the compensations mentioned would be secured without a great European war. Their expectations were disappointed. Montenegro made a brave stand against superior forces, but before five months had passed Servia was at the mercy of the Turkish army, and Russia had to come to the assistance of her protege. A Russian ultimatum stopped the advance of the Turks on Belgrade, and an armistice, subsequently transformed into a peace, was signed.

Bulgarian Question.

Russia and Austria had now to choose between abandoning their schemes and adopting some other course of action, and unforeseen incidents contributed towards making them select the latter alternative. In June 1876 an attempt at insurrection in Bulgaria had been repressed with savage brutality by the Turks, and the details, as they became known some weeks later, produced much indignation all over Europe. In England the excitement, fanned by the eloquence of Gladstone, became intense, and compelled the Disraeli cabinet to take part, very reluctantly, in a diplomatic campaign, with the object of imposing radical reforms on Turkey. In Russia the excitement and indignation were equally great, and the tsar gradually formed the resolution that if the powers would not act collectively and energetically, so as to compel the Porte to yield, he would undertake the work single-handed. This resolution he announced publicly in a speech delivered at Moscow on the 10th of November 1876. The powers did not like the idea of separate Russian action, and in order to prevent it they agreed to hold a conference in Constantinople for the purpose of inducing the Porte to introduce the requisite reforms. The Porte was at that moment under the influence of popular patriotic excitement which made it indisposed to accept orders, or even well-meant advice, from governments more or less hostile to it, and the inconsiderate mode of procedure suggested by General Ignatiev, and adopted by the other delegates, made it still more unconciliatory. At the first plenary sitting of the conference the proceedings were disturbed by the sound of artillery, and the Turkish representative explained that the salvo was in honour of the new Ottoman constitution, which was being promulgated by the sultan. The inference suggested was that as Turkey had spontaneously entered on the path of liberal and constitutional reform for all Ottoman subjects, it became superfluous and absurd to talk of small reforms for particular provinces, such as the conference was about to propose. The deliberations continued, but finally the Porte refused to accept what the plenipotentiaries considered an irreducible minimum, and the conference broke up without obtaining any practical result. The tsar's Moscow declaration about employing single-handed the requisite coercive measures now came to be fulfilled.

San Stefano.

In order to make a successful aggressive move on Turkey, Russia had first of all to secure her rear and flank by an arrangement with her two allies. In Berlin she encountered no difficulties. Bismarck had no objection to seeing Russia weaken herself in a struggle with Turkey, provided she did not upset the balance of power in south-eastern Europe, and he felt confident that he could prevent by diplomatic means any such catastrophe. He was inclined, therefore, to encourage rather than restrain the bellicose tendencies of St Petersburg. In Vienna the task of coming to a definite arrangement was much more difficult, and it was only after protracted and laborious negotiations that a convention was concluded on the 15th of January 1877, and formally signed three months later. It was a development of the agreement of Reichstadt, modified according to the changes in the situation, but retaining the essential principle that in the event of the territorial status quo being altered, Russia should recover the lost portion of Bessarabia, and Austria should get Bosnia and a part of Herzegovina. Having made these preliminary arrangements, Russia began the campaign simultaneously in Europe and Asia Minor, and after many reverses and enormous sacrifices of blood and treasure, she succeeded in imposing on the Turks the "preliminary peace" of San Stefano (3rd March 1878). That peace was negotiated with very little consideration for the interests of the other powers, and as soon as the terms of it became known in Vienna and London there was an outburst of indignation. In negotiating the treaty General Ignatiev had ignored the wishes of Austria, and had even, according to the contention of Andrassy, infringed the convention signed at the beginning of the war. However this may be, the peace of San Stefano brought to the surface the latent conflict of interests between the two empires. Russia's aim was to create a big Bulgaria under the influence of St Petersburg, and to emancipate Servia and Montenegro as far as possible from Austrian influence, whereas Austria objected to the creation of any large Slav state in the Balkan Peninsula, and insisted on maintaining her influence at Belgrade and Tsetigne (Cetinje). In vain Prince Gorchakov endeavoured to conciliate Austria and to extract from Count Andrassy a clear statement of the terms he would accept. Count Andrassy was in no hurry to extricate Russia from her difficulties, and suggested that the whole question should be submitted to a European congress. The suggestion was endorsed by Great Britain, which likewise objected to the San Stefano arrangements, and Bismarck declined to bring any pressure to bear on the cabinet of Vienna.

Berlin Congress.

Cyprus Convention.