Part 13 (1/2)
The fate of the conquest remained to be decided upon. Bismarck settled it, after a pretence of investigation, by concluding that the rights of King Christian over the duchies were far superior to those of the duke of Augstenburg, who had a hereditary claim, and that as Prussia and Austria had won them from the king by conquest, they had become the lawful owners. An agreement was made in which Holstein was a.s.signed to Austria and Schleswig to Prussia, and for the time the question seemed settled.
BISMARCK'S WIDER VIEWS
This was far from being the case. Bismarck held views of far more expanded scope. He wanted to exclude Austria from the German confederation, and to do so desired war with that country as the only practical means of gaining his ends. In 1865 he made the significant remark that a single battle in Bohemia would decide everything and that Prussia would win that battle. A remark like this was indicative of the purpose entertained and the events soon to follow.
In such a war, however, it was important to secure the neutrality of France. The alert Prussian statesman had already a.s.sured himself of that of Russia. To gain France to his side he held an interview with Napoleon III at Biarritz in October, 1865. The cunning diplomat offered the emperor an alliance with a view to the extension of Prussia and Italy, by means of which France would take Belgium. Napoleon saw very clearly that the offer was chimerical, but he believed that Prussia if fighting alone would be rapidly crushed, and that the alliance of Italy would aid him in protracting the war, thus enabling him to intervene as a peacemaker and to impose a vast rearrangement of territory, the most essential provision of which would be the exchange of Venetia for Silesia. Whatever Napoleon's views, Bismarck saw that he was safe from any interference on the part of France, and returned with the fixed design of driving Austria to the wall.
WAR FORCED ON AUSTRIA
He found the desired pretext in the Holstein question and the far more serious one of reforming the federal government. On January 24, 1866, he reproached the Austrian government with favoring in Holstein the pretensions of the Duke of Augustenburg. The grievance soon became envenomed by complaints and ulterior measures. In April Bismarck denounced the so-called offensive measures which Austria was taking in Bohemia and which, in short, were only precautionary. Yet at the same time he himself was signing with Italy a treaty, concluded for three months, by virtue of which Victor Emmanuel was to declare war against Austria as soon as Prussia itself had done so.
Bismarck, now invited to lay the Austrian-Prussian dispute before the diet, answered by asking that an a.s.sembly elected by universal suffrage be called to discuss the question of federal reform. And when Austria offered to disarm in Bohemia if Prussia would do so on its part, Bismarck demanded, in addition, disarmament in Venetia, a condition he knew to be unacceptable.
On May 7, 1866, he declared he would not accept the diet's intervention in the duchies question, and on the 8th ordered the mobilization of the Prussian army.
Napoleon III at this juncture proposed the holding of a congress for settling the duchies question and that of federal reform.
Thiers had warned him in vain, in an admirable speech delivered on May 3d, that France had everything to lose by aiding in bringing about the unity of Germany. The emperor obstinately persisted, proposing to tear up those treaties of 1815 which, two years before, he had childishly declared to be no longer in existence. His proposition of a congress, however, failed through the refusal of Austria and the petty states to take part in it.
He next signed with Austria a secret treaty by which the latter promised to cede Venetia after its first victory and on condition of being indemnified at Prussia's expense. By a strange inconsistency the French emperor proposed at the same time to make Prussia more h.o.m.ogeneous in the north.
Bismarck acted in a far clearer manner than the French emperor.
On June 5th, General von Gablenz, the Austrian governor of Holstein, convened the states of that country, Austria declaring that the object of this measure was to enable the federal diet to settle the question. A German force under General Manteuffel at once invaded the duchy and, having far superior forces at his disposal, took possession of it. On the 10th, Prussia asked the different German States to accept a new const.i.tution based on the exclusion of Austria, the election of a parliament by universal suffrage, the creation of a strong federal power and a common army. The diet answered by voting the federal execution against Prussia. Thereupon the Prussian envoy, Savigny, withdrew, declaring that his sovereign ceased to recognize the Confederation.
Events proved how correctly Bismarck had judged in his confidence in Prussia's military strength. The Prussian forces amounted to 330,000 men, who were to be aided in the south by 240,000 Italians. Austria had 335,000 troops and its German allies 146,000. Generally the last named had little zeal.
The Austrian government acted slowly, while its adversary vigorously a.s.sumed the offensive. On June 16th, after an unavailing notice, the Prussian troops invaded Saxony and occupied it without resistance, the Saxon army withdrawing to Bohemia. The same was the case in Hesse, whose grand duke was taken prisoner, while his army joined the Bavarians. Still less fortunate was the king of Hanover, who did not even save his army, which also retreating towards the south, was surrounded and obliged to capitulate at Langensalza (June 29th).
In the south the Prussian General Vogel von Falkenstein, who had but 57,000 men against over 100,000, took advantage of the fact that his adversaries had separated into two ma.s.ses, the one at Frankfort, and the other at Meiningen, to beat them separately, the Bavarians at Kissingen (July 10th) and the Prince of Hesse, commanding the other army, at Aschaffenurg (July 14th). On the 16th the Prussians entered Frankfort, which they overwhelmed with requisitions and contributions. General Manteuffel, Falkenstein's successor, then drove the federal armies from the line of the Tauber, where they had united, back to Wurzburg. On the 28th an armistice was concluded.
THE WAR IN ITALY
The Italians had been less successful. Archduke Albert, who commanded in Venetia, had only 70,000 men, but they were Croatian Slavs, that is, Austria's best troops. Confronting him, Victor Emmanuel commanded 124,000 men on the Chiese and Cialdini 80,000 in the neighborhood of Ferrara. They proved unable to act together. Cialdini let himself be kept in check by a mere handful of troops, while the Austrian archduke attacked the Italian royal army at Custozza. Serious errors in tactics and panic in an Italian brigade, which fled before three platoons of lancers that had the audacity to charge it, gave victory to the Austrians.
Cialdini had remained behind the Po. Garibaldi, who had undertaken with 36,000 men, to conquer the Trent region, defended by only 13,000 regulars and 4,000 militia under General von Kuhn, found himself not only repulsed in every attack, but, had it not been for the evacuation of Venetia, his adversary would have pursued him on Italian territory. The important events which took place at sea have been described in the preceding chapter.
AUSTRIA'S SIGNAL DEFEAT OF SADOWA
It was not on these events that the outcome of the war was to depend, but on the victory or defeat of the chief Austrian army.
The forces of the two Powers on the Silesian and Saxon frontier were almost equal; but the Austrian commander-in-chief, Benedek, brave and brilliant as a division leader, proved unequal to his present task. He dallied in Moravia until June 16th, while the Prussians entered Bohemia in two separate ma.s.ses, one on each side of the Riesen Gebirge. Benedek wavered and blundered. He sent only 60,000 men against 150,000 under Prince Frederick Charles, and they suffered four defeats in as many days (June 26-29th). At the same time he had made the same mistake in regard to the Prince Royal, who won in over half a dozen skirmishes.
During the following night, June 29-30th, the second Prussian army reached the Elbe.
Benedek's incapacity was now completely demonstrated. He telegraphed to the emperor to make peace at any cost, and retreated on Olmutz. Then he changed his mind and decided to fight, seeking to throw the blame for his own errors on his subordinates. The battle-field chosen by him was near the village of Sadowa, and here his army, though sadly demoralized, fought with much bravery. The Austrians, whom their general had notified of the imminent battle only in the middle of the night, had fortified the slopes and villages as best they could. At eight in the morning Frederick Charles began the attack by crossing the Bistritz. Benedek's center resisted, but the right and left wings lost ground. At half past eleven the Prussians were losing ground and seemed ready to retreat. At this critical moment the army of the Prince Royal appeared, coming from the north.
The second and sixth Austrian corps, obliged to confront the new troops with a flank march under the fire of the Prussian artillery, could not hold out long, and about three o'clock the strongest Austrian position was lost. It was necessary at any cost to regain it, but all efforts failed against their own intrenchments, defended by the captors with desperate energy. At half past four retreat became necessary. Half of the Austrian army escaped without much difficulty; but the rest, three army corps, driven towards the Elbe by the entire victorious army, would have been annihilated but for the devotedness of the cavalry and the artillerymen. These formed successive fire lines, and continuing to shoot until the muzzles of their guns were reached, saving the infantry from destruction through dint of dying at their posts. Despite this diversion it was a frightful rout, which cost the vanquished 40,000 men and 187 pieces of artillery. The Prussians lost only 10,000 dead and wounded.
THE TREATY OF PRAGUE
The Austrians tried to fall back on Vienna, but only three corps out of eight reached there, as the Prussian army by a rapid march had forced the others to seek refuge at Presburg. On July 18th the Prussian armies were concentrated on the Russbach. Archduke Albert, recalled from Italy, had taken command of the troops covering Vienna, but the internal condition of the empire, where Hungary was in agitation, was too disquieting for it to be possible, without aid, to continue the war. This aid Napoleon III could and should have furnished. The French army had suffered from the expedition to Mexico. Yet it would have been possible to put a hundred thousand men on foot immediately, and later on, Bismarck acknowledged that this would have sufficed to change the result. But Napoleon III was ill and swayed between opposing influences. Prince Napoleon, whom he heeded very much, was decidedly in favor of Prussia. Accordingly, no step was taken but an offer of mediation. Then he had the weakness, in spite of his minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, to consent to the annexations which Prussia wished to bring about in northern Germany. He asked, however, that Austria lose only Venetia, but it was precisely Bismarck's will that had, and not without difficulty, persuaded King William that he must not, by territorial demands, compromise the alliance which he afterwards realized.
On July 26th the peace preliminaries of Nikolsburg were signed.
Austria paid a considerable indemnity, abandoned its former position in Germany, acknowledged the extension of Prussian authority to the line of the Main and the annexations which Prussia would deem it to its purpose to make. The three Danish duchies were likewise abandoned. It was stipulated only that the inhabitants of northern Schleswig should be consulted as to their wish to be restored or not to Denmark, which was never done. The definitive treaty was signed on August 25th at Prague. As for Italy, Francis Joseph had ceded Venetia to Napoleon III, who was to transmit it to Victor Emmanuel, but the Italians protested loudly against the idea of being satisfied with so little. They wanted in addition at least the Trent country. ”Have you, then,”