A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 56

[Italy and Austria.]

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

[Isolation of France.]

At the beginning of 1870 the Emperor Napoleon was therefore without any more definite a.s.surance of support in a war with Prussia than the promise of the Austrian Sovereign that he would a.s.sist France if attacked by Prussia and Russia together, and that he would treat the interests of France as his own. By withdrawing his protection from Rome Napoleon had undoubtedly a fair chance of building up this shadowy and remote engagement into a defensive alliance with both Austria and Italy. But perfect clearness and resolution of purpose, as well as the steady avoidance of all quarrels on mere incidents, were absolutely indispensable to the creation and the employment of such a league against the Power which alone it could have in view; and Prussia had now little reason to fear any such exercise of statesmanship on the part of Napoleon. The solution of the Roman question, in other words the withdrawal of the French garrison from Roman territory, could proceed only from some stronger stimulus than the declining force of Napoleon's own intelligence and will could now supply.

This fatal problem baffled his attempts to gain alliances; and yet the isolation of France was but half acknowledged, but half understood; and a host of rash, vainglorious spirits impatiently awaited the hour that should call them to their revenge on Prussia for the triumphs in which it had not permitted France to share.

[Germany, 1867-1870.]

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

[The Spanish candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern.]

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

Since the autumn of 1868 the throne of Spain had been vacant in consequence of a revolution in which General Prim had been the leading actor. It was not easy to discover a successor for the Bourbon Isabella; and after other candidatures had been vainly projected it occurred to Prim and his friends early in 1869 that a suitable candidate might be found in Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, whose elder brother had been made Prince of Roumania, and whose father, Prince Antony, had been Prime Minister of Prussia in 1859. The House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was so distantly related to the reigning family of Prussia that the name alone preserved the memory of the connection; and in actual blood-relationship Prince Leopold was much more nearly allied to the French Houses of Murat and Beauharnais.

But the Sigmaringen family was distinctly Prussian by interest and a.s.sociation, and its chief, Antony, had not only been at the head of the Prussian Administration himself, but had, it is said, been the first to suggest the appointment of Bismarck to the same office. The candidature of a Hohenzollern might reasonably be viewed in France as an attempt to connect Prussia politically with Spain; and with so much reserve was this candidature at the first handled at Berlin that, in answer to inquiries made by Benedetti in the spring of 1869, the Secretary of State who represented Count Bismarck stated on his word of honour that the candidature had never been suggested. The affair was from first to last ostensibly treated at Berlin as one with which the Prussian Government was wholly unconcerned, and in which King William was interested only as head of the family to which Prince Leopold belonged. For twelve months after Benedetti's inquiries it appeared as if the project had been entirely abandoned; it was, however, revived in the spring of 1870, and on the 3rd of July the announcement was made at Paris that Prince Leopold had consented to accept the Crown of Spain if the Cortes should confirm his election.

[French Declaration, July 6.]

At once there broke out in the French Press a storm of indignation against Prussia. The organs of the Government took the lead in exciting public opinion. On the 6th of July the Duke of Gramont, Foreign Minister, declared to the Legislative Body that the attempt of a Foreign Power to place one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V. imperilled the interests and the honour of France, and that, if such a contingency were realised, the Government would fulfil its duty without hesitation and without weakness.

The violent and unsparing language of this declaration, which had been drawn up at a Council of Ministers under the Emperor's presidency, proved that the Cabinet had determined either to humiliate Prussia or to take vengeance by arms. It was at once seen by foreign diplomatists, who during the preceding days had been disposed to a.s.sist in removing a reasonable subject of complaint, how little was the chance of any peaceable settlement after such a public challenge had been issued to Prussia in the Emperor's name. One means of averting war alone seemed possible, the voluntary renunciation by Prince Leopold of the offered Crown. To obtain this renunciation became the task of those who, unlike the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, were anxious to preserve peace.

[Ollivier's Ministry.]

The parts that were played at this crisis by the individuals who most influenced the Emperor Napoleon are still but imperfectly known; but there is no doubt that from the beginning to the end the Duke of Gramont, with short intermissions, pressed with insane ardour for war. The Ministry now in office had been called to their places in January, 1870, after the Emperor had made certain changes in the const.i.tution in a Liberal direction, and had professed to transfer the responsibility of power from himself to a body of advisers possessing the confidence of the Chamber.

Ollivier, formerly one of the leaders of the Opposition, had accepted the Presidency of the Cabinet. His colleagues were for the most part men new to official life, and little able to hold their own against such representatives of unreformed Imperialism as the Duke of Gramont and the War-Minister Leboeuf who sat beside them. Ollivier himself was one of the few politicians in France who understood that his countrymen must be content to see German unity established whether they liked it or not. He was entirely averse from war with Prussia on the question which had now arisen; but the fear that public opinion would sweep away a Liberal Ministry which hesitated to go all lengths in patriotic extravagance led him to sacrifice his own better judgment, and to accept the responsibility for a policy which in his heart he disapproved. Gramont's rash hand was given free play. Instructions were sent to Benedetti to seek the King of Prussia at Ems, where he was taking the waters, and to demand from him, as the only means of averting war, that he should order the Hohenzollern Prince to revoke his acceptance of the Crown. "We are in great haste,"

Gramont added, "for we must gain the start in case of an unsatisfactory reply, and commence the movement of troops by Sat.u.r.day in order to enter upon the campaign in a fortnight. Be on your guard against an answer merely leaving the Prince of Hohenzollern to his fate, and disclaiming on the part of the King any interest in his future." [535]

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

Benedetti's first interview with the King was on the 9th of July. He informed the King of the emotion that had been caused in France by the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince; he dwelt on the value to both countries of the friendly relation between France and Prussia; and, while studiously avoiding language that might wound or irritate the King, he explained to him the requirements of the Government at Paris. The King had learnt beforehand what would be the substance of Benedetti's communication.

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

[Leopold withdraws, July 12.]

[Guarantee against renewal demanded.]

[Benedetti and the King, July 13.]

Nevertheless Benedetti's advice was not without its influence on the Emperor and his Ministers. Napoleon, himself wavering from hour to hour, now inclined to the peace-party, and during the 11th there was a pause in the military preparations that had been begun. On the 12th the efforts of disinterested Governments, probably also the suggestions of the King of Prussia himself, produced their effects. A telegram was received at Madrid from Prince Antony stating that his son's candidature was withdrawn. A few hours later Ollivier announced the news in the Legislative Chamber at Paris, and exchanged congratulations with the friends of peace, who considered that the matter was now at an end. But this pacific conclusion little suited either the war-party or the Bonapartists of the old type, who grudged to a Const.i.tutional Ministry so substantial a diplomatic success.

They at once declared that the retirement of Prince Leopold was a secondary matter, and that the real question was what guarantees had been received from Prussia against a renewal of the candidature. Gramont himself, in an interview with the Prussian Amba.s.sador, Baron Werther, sketched a letter which he proposed that King William should send to the Emperor, stating that in sanctioning the candidature of Prince Leopold he had not intended to offend the French, and that in a.s.sociating himself with the Prince's withdrawal he desired that all misunderstandings should be at an end between the two Governments. The despatch of Baron Werther conveying this proposition appears to have deeply offended King William, whom it reached about midday on the 13th. Benedetti had that morning met the King on the promenade at Ems, and had received from him the promise that as soon as the letter which was still on its way from Sigmaringen should arrive he would send for the Amba.s.sador in order that he might communicate its contents at Paris. The letter arrived; but Baron Werther's despatch from Paris had arrived before it; and instead of summoning Benedetti as he had promised, the King sent one of his aides-de-camp to him with a message that a written communication had been received from Prince Leopold confirming his withdrawal, and that the matter was now at an end. Benedetti desired the aide-de-camp to inform the King that he was compelled by his instructions to ask for a guarantee against a renewal of the candidature. The aide-de-camp did as he was requested, and brought back a message that the King gave his entire approbation to the withdrawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern, but that he could do no more. Benedetti begged for an audience with His Majesty. The King replied that he was compelled to decline entering into further negotiation, and that he had said his last word. Though the King thus refused any further discussion, perfect courtesy was observed on both sides; and on the following morning the King and the Amba.s.sador, who were both leaving Ems, took leave of one another at the railway station with the usual marks of respect.

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

[War decided at Paris, July 14.]

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

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

[Initial forces of either side.]

[Expected Alliances of France.]

[Austria preparing.]

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

[France, Austria, and Italy.]

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

[Prussian Plans.]

Preparations for a war with France had long occupied the general staff at Berlin. Before the winter of 1868 a memoir had been drawn up by General Moltke, containing plans for the concentration of the whole of the German forces, for the formation of each of the armies to be employed, and the positions to be occupied at the outset by each corps. On the basis of this memoir the arrangements for the transport of each corps from its depot to the frontier had subsequently been worked out in such minute detail that when, on the 16th of July, King William gave the order for mobilisation, nothing remained but to insert in the railway time-tables and marching-orders the day on which the movement was to commence. This minuteness of detail extended, however, only to that part of Moltke's plan which related to the a.s.sembling and first placing of the troops. The events of the campaign could not thus be arranged and tabulated beforehand; only the general object and design could be laid down. That the French would throw themselves with great rapidity upon Southern Germany was considered probable. The armies of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria were too weak, the military centres of the North were too far distant, for effective resistance to be made in this quarter to the first blows of the invader.

Moltke therefore recommended that the Southern troops should withdraw from their own States and move northwards to join those of Prussia in the Palatinate or on the Middle Rhine, so that the entire forces of Germany should be thrown upon the flank or rear of the invader; while, in the event of the French not thus taking the offensive, France itself was to be invaded by the collective strength of Germany along the line from Saarbrucken to Landau, and its armies were to be cut off from their communications with Paris by vigorous movements of the invader in a northerly direction. [539]

[German mobilisation.]

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

[The French Army.]

The French Emperor was aware of the numerical inferiority of his army to that of Prussia; he hoped, however, by extreme rapidity of movement to penetrate Southern Germany before the Prussian army could a.s.semble, and so, while forcing the Southern Governments to neutrality, to meet on the Upper Danube the a.s.sisting forces of Italy and Austria. It was his design to concentrate a hundred and fifty thousand men at Metz, a hundred thousand at Strasburg, and with these armies united to cross the Rhine into Baden; while a third army, which was to a.s.semble at Chalons, protected the north-eastern frontier against an advance of the Prussians. A few days after the declaration of war, while the German corps were still at their depots in the interior, considerable forces were ma.s.sed round Metz and Strasburg. All Europe listened for the rush of the invader and the first swift notes of triumph from a French army beyond the Rhine; but week after week pa.s.sed, and the silence was still unbroken. Stories, incredible to those who first heard them, yet perfectly true, reached the German frontier-stations of actual famine at the advanced posts of the enemy, and of French soldiers made prisoners while digging in potato-fields to keep themselves alive. That Napoleon was less ready than had been antic.i.p.ated became clear to all the world; but none yet imagined the revelations which each successive day was bringing at the headquarters of the French armies.

Absence of whole regiments that figured in the official order of battle, defective transport, stores missing or congested, made it impossible even to attempt the inroad into Southern Germany within the date up to which it had any prospect of success. The design was abandoned, yet not in time to prevent the troops that were hurrying from the interior from being sent backwards and forwards according as the authorities had, or had not, heard of the change of plan. Napoleon saw that a Prussian force was gathering on the Middle Rhine which it would be madness to leave on his flank; he ordered his own commanders to operate on the corresponding line of the Lauter and the Saar, and despatched isolated divisions to the very frontier, still uncertain whether even in this direction he would be able to act on the offensive, or whether nothing now remained to him but to resist the invasion of France by a superior enemy. Ollivier had stated in the a.s.sembly that he and his colleagues entered upon the war with a light heart; he might have added that they entered upon it with bandaged eyes.

The Ministers seem actually not to have taken the trouble to exchange explanations with one another. Leboeuf, the War-Minister, had taken it for granted that Gramont had made arrangements with Austria which would compel the Prussians to keep a large part of their forces in the interior.

Gramont, in forcing on the quarrel with Prussia, and in his negotiations with Austria, had taken it for granted that Leboeuf could win a series of victories at the outset in Southern Germany. The Emperor, to whom alone the entire data of the military and the diplomatic services of France were open, was incapable of exertion or scrutiny, purposeless, distracted with pain, half-imbecile.

[Causes of French military inferiority.]

That the Imperial military administration was rotten to the core the terrible events of the next few weeks sufficiently showed. Men were in high place whose antecedents would have shamed the better kind of brigand. The deficiencies of the army were made worse by the diversion of public funds to private necessities; the looseness, the vulgar splendour, the base standards of judgment of the Imperial Court infected each branch of the public services of France, and worked perhaps not least on those who were in military command. But the catastrophe of 1870 seemed to those who witnessed it to tell of more than the vileness of an administration; in England, not less than in Germany, voices of influence spoke of the doom that had overtaken the depravity of a sunken nation; of the triumph of simple manliness, of G.o.dfearing virtue itself, in the victories of the German army. There may have been truth in this; yet it would require a nice moral discernment to appraise the exact degeneracy of the French of 1870 from the French of 1854 who humbled Russia, or from the French of 1859 who triumphed at Solferino; and it would need a very comprehensive acquaintance with the lower forms of human pleasure to judge in what degree the sinfulness of Paris exceeds the sinfulness of Berlin. Had the French been as strict a race as the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae, as devout as the Tyrolese who perished at Koniggratz, it is quite certain that, with the numbers which took the field against Germany in 1870, with Napoleon III. at the head of affairs, and the actual generals of 1870 in command, the armies of France could not have escaped destruction.

[Cause of German Success.]

The main cause of the disparity of France and Germany in 1870 was in truth that Prussia had had from 1862 to 1866 a Government so strong as to be able to force upon its subjects its own gigantic scheme of military organisation in defiance of the votes of Parliament and of the national will. In 1866 Prussia, with a population of nineteen millions, brought actually into the field three hundred and fifty thousand men, or one in fifty-four of its inhabitants. There was no other government in Europe, with the possible exception of Russia, which could have imposed upon its subjects, without risking its own existence, so vast a burden of military service as that implied in this strength of the fighting army. Napoleon III. at the height of his power could not have done so; and when after Koniggratz he endeavoured to raise the forces of France to an equality with those of the rival Power by a system which would have brought about one in seventy of the population into the field, his own nominees in the Legislative Body, under pressure of public opinion, so weakened the scheme that the effective numbers of the army remained little more than they were before. The true parallel to the German victories of 1870 is to be found in the victories of the French Committee of Public Safety in 1794 and in those of the first Napoleon. A government so powerful as to bend the entire resources of the State to military ends will, whether it is one of democracy run mad, or of a crowned soldier of fortune, or of an ancient monarchy throwing new vigour into its traditional system and policy, crush in the moment of impact communities of equal or greater resources in which a variety of rival influences limit and control the central power and subordinate military to other interests. It was so in the triumphs of the Reign of Terror over the First Coalition; it was so in the triumphs of King William over Austria and France. But the parallel between the founders of German unity and the organisers of victory after 1793 extends no farther than to the sources of their success. Aggression and adventure have not been the sequels of the war of 1870. The vast armaments of Prussia were created in order to establish German union under the House of Hohenzollern, and they have been employed for no other object. It is the triumph of statesmanship, and it has been the glory of Prince Bismarck, after thus reaping the fruit of a well-timed homage to the G.o.d of Battles, to know how to quit his shrine.

[The frontier, Aug. 2.]

[Saarbrucken, Aug 2.]

[Weissenburg, Aug 4.]

[Battle of Worth, Aug. 6.]

At the end of July, twelve days after the formal declaration of war, the gathering forces of the Germans, over three hundred and eighty thousand strong, were still some distance behind the Lauter and the Saar. Napoleon, apparently without any clear design, had placed certain bodies of troops actually on the frontier at Forbach, Weissenburg, and elsewhere, while other troops, raising the whole number to about two hundred and fifty thousand, lay round Metz and Strasburg, and at points between these and the most advanced positions. The reconnoitring of the small German detachments on the frontier was conducted with extreme energy: the French appear to have made no reconnaissances at all, for when they determined at last to discover what was facing them at Saarbrucken, they advanced with twenty-five thousand men against one-tenth of that number. On the 2nd of August Frossard's corps from Forbach moved upon Saarbrucken with the Emperor in person. The garrison was driven out, and the town bombarded, but even now the reconnaissance was not continued beyond the bridge across the Saar which divides the two parts of the town. Forty-eight hours later the alignment of the German forces in their invading order was completed, and all was ready for an offensive campaign. The central army, commanded by Prince Frederick Charles, spreading east and west behind Saarbrucken, touched on its right the northern army commanded by General Steinmetz, on its left the southern army commanded by the Crown Prince, which covered the frontier of the Palatinate, and included the troops of Bavaria and Wurtemberg. The general direction of the three armies was thus from northwest to south-east. As the line of invasion was to be nearly due west, it was necessary that the first step forwards should be made by the army of the Crown Prince in order to bring it more nearly to a level with the northern corps in the march into France. On the 4th of August the Crown Prince crossed the Alsatian frontier and moved against Weissenburg. The French General Douay, who was posted here with about twelve thousand men, was neither reinforced nor bidden to retire. His troops met the attack of an enemy many times more numerous with great courage; but the struggle was a hopeless one, and after several hours of severe fighting the Germans were masters of the field. Douay fell in the battle; his troops frustrated an attempt made to cut off their retreat, and fell back southwards towards the corps of McMahon, which lay about ten miles behind them. The Crown Prince marched on in search of his enemy, McMahon, who could collect only forty-five thousand men, desired to retreat until he could gain some support; but the Emperor, tormented by fears of the political consequences of the invasion, insisted upon his giving battle. He drew up on the hills about Worth, almost on the spot where in 1793 Hoche had overthrown the armies of the First Coalition. On the 6th of August the leading divisions of the Crown Prince, about a hundred thousand strong, were within striking distance. The superiority of the Germans in numbers was so great that McMahon's army might apparently have been captured or destroyed with far less loss than actually took place if time had been given for the movements which the Crown Prince's staff had in view, and for the employment of his full strength. But the impetuosity of divisional leaders on the morning of the 6th brought on a general engagement. The resistance of the French was of the most determined character. With one more army-corps--and the corps of General Failly was expected to arrive on the field--it seemed as if the Germans might yet be beaten back. But each hour brought additional forces into action in the attack, while the French commander looked in vain for the reinforcements that could save him from ruin. At length, when the last desperate charges of the Cuira.s.siers had shattered against the fire of cannon and needle-guns, and the village of Froschwiller, the centre of the French position, had been stormed house by house, the entire army broke and fled in disorder. Nine thousand prisoners, thirty-three cannon, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Germans had lost ten thousand men, but they had utterly destroyed McMahon's army as an organised force. Its remnant disappeared from the scene of warfare, escaping by the western roads in the direction of Chalons, where first it was restored to some degree of order. The Crown Prince, leaving troops behind him to beleaguer the smaller Alsatian fortresses, marched on untroubled through the northern Vosges, and descended into the open country about Luneville and Nancy, unfortified towns which could offer no resistance to the pa.s.sage of an enemy.

[Spicheren, Aug. 6.]