The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 26

The Franco-Russian _entente_ ripened into an alliance in the year 1895.

So, at least, we may judge from the reference to Russia as "notre allie"

by the Prime Minister, M. Ribot, in the debate of June 10, 1895.

Nicholas II., at the time of his visit to Paris in 1896, proclaimed his close friendship with the Republic; and during the return visit of President Faure to Cronstadt and St. Petersburg he gave an even more significant sign that the two nations were united by something more than sentiment and what Carlyle would have called the cash-nexus. On board the French warship _Pothuau_ he referred in his farewell speech to the "nations amies et alliees" (August 26, 1897).

The treaty has never been made public, but a version of it appeared in the _Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung_ of September 21, 1901, and in the Paris paper, _La Liberte_ five days later. Mr. Henry Norman gives the following summary of the information there unofficially communicated.

After stating that the treaty contains no direct reference to Germany, he proceeds: "It declares that if either nation is attacked, the other will come to its a.s.sistance with the whole of its military and naval forces, and that peace shall only be concluded in concert and by agreement between the two. No other _casus belli_ is mentioned, no term is fixed to the duration of the treaty, and the whole instrument consists of only a few clauses[273]."

[Footnote 273: H. Norman, M.P., _All the Russias_, p. 390 (Heinemann, 1902). See the articles on the alliance as it affects Anglo-French relations by M. de Pressense in the _Nineteenth Century_ for February and November 1896; also Mr. Spenser Wilkinson's _The Nation's Awakening_, ch. v.]

Obviously France and Russia cannot help one another with all their forces unless the common foe were Germany, or the Triple Alliance as a whole. In that case alone would such a clause be operative. The pressure of France and Russia on the flanks of the German Empire would be terrible; and it is inconceivable that Germany would attack France, knowing that such action would bring the weight of Russia upon her weakest frontier. It is, however, conceivable that the three central allies might deem the strain of an armed peace to be unendurable and attack France or Russia. To such an attack the Dual Alliance would oppose about equal forces, though now hampered by the weakening of the Empire in the Far East.

Another account, also unofficial and discreetly vague, was given to the world by a diplomatist at the time when the Armenian outrages had for a time quickened the dull conscience of Christendom[274]. a.s.suming that the Sick Man of the East was at the point of death, the anonymous writer hinted at the profitable results obtainable by the Continental States if, leaving England out of count, they arranged the Eastern Question _a l'aimable_ among themselves. The Dual Alliance, he averred, would not meet the needs of the situation; for it did not contemplate the part.i.tion of Turkey or a general war in the East.

[Footnote 274: _L'Alliance Franco-russe devant la Crise Orientale_, par un Diplomate etranger. (Paris, Plon. 1897).]

Both parties [France and Russia] have examined the course to be taken in the case of aggression by one or more members of the Triple Alliance; an understanding has been arrived at on the great lines of general policy; but of necessity they did not go further. If the Russian Government could not undertake to place its sword at the service of France with a view to a revision of the Treaty of Frankfurt--a demand, moreover, which France did not make--it cannot claim that France should mobilise her forces to permit it to extend its territory in Europe or in Asia. They know that very well on the banks of the Neva.

To this interesting statement we may add that France and Russia have been at variance on the Eastern Question. Thus, when, in order to press her rightful claims on the Sultan, France determined to coerce him by the seizure of Mitylene, if need be, the Czar's Government is known to have discountenanced this drastic proceeding. Speaking generally, it is open to conjecture whether the Dual Alliance refers to other than European questions. This may be inferred from the following fact. On the announcement of the Anglo-j.a.panese compact early in 1902, by which England agreed to intervene in the Far Eastern Question if another Power helped Russia against j.a.pan, the Governments of St. Petersburg and Paris framed a somewhat similar convention whereby France definitely agreed to take action if Russia were confronted by j.a.pan and a European or American Power in these quarters. No such compact would have been needed if the Franco-Russian alliance had referred to the problems of the Far East.

Another "disclosure" of the early part of 1904 is also noteworthy. The Paris _Figaro_ published official doc.u.ments purporting to prove that the Czar Nicholas II., on being sounded by the French Government at the time of the Fashoda incident, declared his readiness to abide by his engagements in case France took action against Great Britain. The _Figaro_ used this as an argument in favour of France actively supporting Russia against j.a.pan, if an appeal came from St. Petersburg.

This contention would now meet with little support in France. The events of the Russo-j.a.panese War and the ma.s.sacre of workmen in St. Petersburg on January 22, 1905, have visibly strained Franco-Russian relations.

This is seen in the following speech of M. Anatole France on February 1, 1905, with respect to his interview with the Premier, M. Combes:--

At the beginning of this war I had heard it said very vaguely that there existed between France and Russia firm and fast engagements, and that, if Russia came to blows with a second Power, France would have to intervene. I asked M. Combes, then Prime Minister, whether anything of the kind existed. M.

Combes thought it due to his position not to give a precise answer; but he declared to me in the clearest way that so long as he was Minister we need not fear that our sailors and our soldiers would be sent to j.a.pan. My own opinion is that this folly is not to be apprehended under any Ministry. (_The Times_. February 3.)

At present, then, everything tends to show that the Franco-Russian alliance refers solely to European questions and is merely a defensive agreement in view of a possible attack from one or more members of the Triple Alliance. Seeing that the purely defensive character of the latter has always been emphasised, doubts are very naturally expressed in many quarters as to the use of these alliances. The only tangible advantage gained by any one of the five Powers is that Russia has had greater facilities for raising loans in France and in securing her hold on Manchuria. On the other hand, Frenchmen complain that the alliance has entailed an immense financial responsibility, which is dearly bought by the cessation of those irritating frontier incidents of the Schnaebele type which they had to put up with from Bismarck in the days of their isolation[275].

[Footnote 275: See an article by Jules Simon in the _Contemporary Review_, May 1894.]

Italy also questions the wisdom of her alliance with the Central Powers which brings no obvious return except in the form of slightly enhanced consideration from her Latin sister. In cultured circles on both sides of the Maritime Alps there is a strong feeling that the present international situation violates racial instincts and tradition; and, as we have already seen, Italy's att.i.tude towards France is far different now from what it was in 1882. It is now practically certain that Italians would not allow the King's Government to fight France in the interests of the Central Powers. Their feelings are quite natural. What have Italians in common with Austrians and Prussians? Little more, we may reply, than French republicans with the subjects of the Czar. In truth both of these alliances rest, not on whole-hearted regard or affection, but on fear and on the compulsion which it exerts.

To this fact we may, perhaps, largely attribute the _malaise_ of Europe.

The Greek philosopher Empedocles looked on the world as the product of two all-pervading forces, love and hate, acting on blind matter: love brought cognate particles together and held them in union; hate or repulsion kept asunder the unlike or hostile elements. We may use the terms of this old cosmogony in reference to existing political conditions, and a.s.sert that these two elemental principles have drawn Europe apart into two hostile ma.s.ses; with this difference, that the allies for the most part are held together, not so much by mutual regard as by hatred of their opposites. From this somewhat sweeping statement we must mark off one exception. There were two allies who came together with the ease which betokens a certain amount of affinity. Thanks to the statesmanlike moderation of Bismarck after Koniggratz, Austria willingly entered into a close compact with her former rival. At least that was the feeling among the Germans and Magyars of the Dual Monarchy. The Austro-German alliance, it may be predicted, will hold good while the Dual Monarchy exists in its present form; but even in that case fear of Russia is the one great binding force where so much else is centrifugal.

If ever the Empire of the Czar should lose its prestige, possibly the two Central Powers would drift apart.

Although there are signs of weakness in both alliances, they will doubtless remain standing as long as the need which called them into being remains. Despite all the efforts made on both sides, the military and naval resources of the two great leagues are approximately equal. In one respect, and in one alone, Europe has benefited from these well-matched efforts. The uneasy truce that has been dignified by the name of peace since the year 1878 results ultimately from the fact that war will involve the conflict of enormous citizen armies of nearly equal strength.

So it has come to this, that in an age when the very conception of Christendom has vanished, and ideal principles have been well-nigh crushed out of life by the pressure of material needs, peace again depends on the once-derided principle of the balance of power. That it should be so is distressing to all who looked to see mankind win its way to a higher level of thought on international affairs. The level of thought in these matters could scarcely be lower than it has been since the Armenian ma.s.sacres. The collective conscience of Europe is as torpid as it was in the eighteenth century, when weak States were crushed or part.i.tioned, and armed strength came to be the only guarantee of safety.

At the close of this volume we shall glance at some of the influences which the Tantalus toil of the European nations has exerted on the life of our age. It is not for nothing that hundreds of millions of men are ever striving to provide the sinews of war, and that rulers keep those sinews in a state of tension. The result is felt in all the other organs of the body politic. Certainly the governing cla.s.ses of the Continent must be suffering from atrophy of the humorous instinct if they fail to note the practical nullity of the efforts which they and their subjects have long put forth. Perhaps some statistical satirist of the twentieth century will a.s.sess the economy of the process which requires nearly twelve millions of soldiers for the maintenance of peace in the most enlightened quarter of the globe.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In the _Echo de Paris_ of July 3, 1905, the Comte de Nion published doc.u.ments which further prove the importance of the services rendered by Great Britain to France at the time of the war scare of May 1875. They confirm the account as given in this chapter, but add a few more details. See, too, corroborative evidence in the _Times_ for July 4, 1905.

NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION

It has been stated, apparently on good authority, that the informal conversations which went on during the Congress of Berlin between the plenipotentiaries of the Powers (see _ante_, p. 328) furnished Italy with an a.s.surance that, in the event of France expanding in North Africa, Italy should find "compensation" in Tripoli. Apparently this explains her recent action there (October 1911).

CHAPTER XIII

THE CENTRAL ASIAN QUESTION

"The Germans have reached their day, the English their mid-day, the French their afternoon, the Italians their evening, the Spanish their night; but the Slavs stand on the threshold of the morning."--MADAME NOVIKOFF ("O.K.")--_The Friends and Foes of Russia_.

The years 1879-85 which witnessed the conclusion of the various questions opened up by the Treaty of Berlin and the formation of the Triple Alliance mark the end of a momentous period in European history.

The quarter of a century which followed the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 in Northern Italy will always stand out as one of the most momentous epochs in State-building that the world has ever seen. Italy, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Turkey, a.s.sumed their present form. The Christians of the Balkan Peninsula made greater strides towards liberty than they had taken in the previous century. Finally, the new diplomatic grouping of the Powers helped to endow these changes with a permanence which was altogether wanting to the fitful efforts of the period 1815-59. That earlier period was one of feverish impulse and picturesque failure; the two later decades were characterised by stern organisation and prosaic success.

It generally happens to nations as to individuals that a period devoted to recovery from internal disorders is followed by a time of great productive and expansive power. The introspective epoch gives place to one of practical achievement. Faust gives up his barren speculations and feels his way from thought to action. From "In the beginning was the Word" he wins his way onward through "the Thought" and "the Might,"

until he rewrites the dictum "In the beginning was the Deed." That is the change which came over Germany and Europe in the years 1850-80. The age of the theorisers of the _Vor-Parlament_ at Frankfurt gave place to the age of Bismarck. The ideals of Mazzini paled in the garish noonday of the monarchical triumph at Rome.

Alas! too, the age of great achievement, that of the years 1859-85, makes way for a period characterised by satiety, torpor, and an indefinable _malaise_. Europe rests from the generous struggles of the past, and settles down uneasily into a time of veiled hostility and armed peace. Having framed their State systems and covering alliances, the nations no longer give heed to const.i.tutions, rights of man, or duties of man; they plunge into commercialism, and search for new markets. Their att.i.tude now is that of Ancient Pistol when he exclaims

"The world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open."

In Europe itself there is little to chronicle in the years 1885-1900, which are singularly dull in regard to political achievement. No popular movement (not even those of the distressed Cretans and Armenians) has aroused enough sympathy to bring it to the goal. The reason for this fact seems to be that the human race, like the individual, is subject to certain alternating moods which may be termed the enthusiastic and the practical; and that, during the latter phase, the material needs of life are so far exalted at the expense of the higher impulses that small struggling communities receive not a t.i.the of the sympathy which they would have aroused in more generous times.

The fact need not beget despair. On the contrary, it should inspire the belief that, when the fit pa.s.ses away, the healthier, n.o.bler mood will once more come; and then the world will pulsate with new life, making wholesome use of the wealth previously stored up but not a.s.similated. It is significant that Gervinus, writing in 1853, spoke of that epoch as showing signs of disenchantment and exhaustion in the political sphere.

In reality he was but six years removed from the beginning of an age of constructive activity the like of which has never been seen.

Further, we may point out that the ebb in the tide of human affairs which set in about the year 1885 was due to specific causes operating with varied force on different peoples. First in point of time, at the close of the year 1879, came the decision of Bismarck and of the German Reichstag to abandon the cause of Free Trade in favour of a narrow commercial nationalism. Next came the murder of the Czar Alexander II.

(March 1881), and the grinding down of the reformers and of all alien elements by his stern successor. Thus, the national impulse, which had helped on that of democracy in the previous generation, now lent its strength to the cause of economic, religious, and political reaction in the two greatest of European States.

In other lands that vital force frittered itself away in the frothy rhetoric of Deroulede and the futile prancings of Boulanger, in the gibberings of _Italia Irredenta_, or in the noisy obstruction of Czechs and Parnellites in the Parliaments of Vienna and London. Everything proclaimed that the national principle had spent its force and could now merely turn and wobble until it came to rest.

A curious series of events also served to discredit the party of progress in the const.i.tutional States. Italian politics during the ascendancy of Depretis, Mancini, and Crispi became on the one side a mere scramble for power, on the other a nervous edging away from the gulf of bankruptcy ever yawning in front. France, too, was slow to habituate herself to parliamentary inst.i.tutions, and her history in the years 1887 to 1893 is largely that of a succession of political scandals and screechy recriminations, from the time of the Grevy-Wilson affair to the loathsome end of the Panama Company. In the United Kingdom the wheels of progress lurched along heavily after the year 1886, when Gladstone made his sudden strategic turn towards the following of Parnell. Thus it came about that the parties of progress found themselves almost helpless or even discredited; and the young giant of Democracy suddenly stooped and shrivelled as if with premature decay.

The causes of this seeming paralysis were not merely political and dynamic: they were also ethical. The fervour of religious faith was waning under the breath of a remorseless criticism and dogmatic materialism. Already, under their influence, the teachers of the earlier age, Carlyle, Tennyson, and Browning, had lost their joyousness and spontaneity; and the characteristic thinkers of the new age were chiefly remarkable for the arid formalism with which they preached the gospel of salvation for the strong and d.a.m.nation to the weak. The results of the new creed were not long in showing themselves in the political sphere.

If the survival of the fittest were the last word of philosophy, where was the need to struggle on behalf of the weak and oppressed? In that case, it might be better to leave them to the following clutch of the new scientific devil; while those who had charged through to the head of the rout enjoyed themselves with utmost abandon. Such was, and is, the deduction from the new gospel (crude enough, doubtless, in many respects), which has finally petrified in the lordly egotism of Nietzche and in the unlovely outlines of one or two up-to-date Utopias.

These fashions will have their day. Meanwhile it is the duty of the historian to note that self-sacrifice and heroism have a hard struggle for life in an age which for a time exalted Herbert Spencer to the highest pinnacle of greatness, which still riots in the calculating selfishness of Nietzsche and raves about Omar Khayyam.

Seeing, then, that the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe were almost barren of great formative movements such as had enn.o.bled the previous decades, we may well leave that over-governed, over-drilled continent weltering in its riches and discontent, its militarism and moral weakness, in order to survey events further afield which carried on the State-building process to lands as yet chaotic or ill-organised. There, at least, we may chronicle some advance, hampered though it has been by the moral languor or laxity that has warped the action of Europeans in their new spheres.

The transference of human interest from European history to that of Asia and Africa is certainly one of the distinguishing features of the years in question. The scene of great events shifts from the Rhine and the Danube to the Oxus and the Nile. The affairs of Rome, Alsace, and Bulgaria being settled for the present, the pa.s.sions of great nations centre on Herat and Candahar, Alexandria and Khartum, the Cameroons, Zanzibar, and Johannesburg, Port Arthur and Korea. The United States, after recovering from the Civil War and completing their work of internal development, enter the lists as a colonising Power, and drive forth Spain from two of her historic possessions. Strife becomes keen over the islands of the Pacific. Australia seeks to lay hands on New Guinea, and the European Powers enter into hot discussions over Madagascar, the Carolines, Samoa, and many other isles.

In short, these years saw a repet.i.tion of the colonial strifes that marked the latter half of the eighteenth century. Just as Europe, after solving the questions arising out of the religious wars, betook itself to marketing in the waste lands over the seas, so too, when the impulses arising from the incoming of the principles of democracy and nationality had worn themselves out, the commercial and colonial motive again came uppermost. And, as in the eighteenth century, so too after 1880 there was at hand an economic incentive spurring on the Powers to annexation of new lands. France had recurred to protective tariffs in 1870.

Germany, under Bismarck, followed suit ten years later; and all the continental Powers in turn, oppressed by armaments and girt around with hostile tariffs, turned instinctively to the unclaimed territories oversea as life-saving annexes for their own overstocked industrial centres.

It will be convenient to begin the recital of extra-European events by considering the expansion of Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia.

There, it is true, the commercial motive is less prominent than that of political rivalry; and the foregoing remarks apply rather to the recent history of Africa than to that of Central Asia. But, as the plan of this work is to some extent chronological, it seems better to deal first with events which had their beginning further back than those which relate to the part.i.tion of Africa.