Part 13 (2/2)
Bismarck said to them, ”lost another battle to claim a province more?” On August 10th the preliminaries of peace were signed on that side. The final treaty, that of Vienna, was concluded on October 3, 1866.
GERMANY AFTER 1866
Prussia, now master of Germany, annexed Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, Na.s.sau and the city of Frankfort, which increased its population by four and a half millions. The rest of the northern states as far as the Main were to form under its direction the Confederation of Northern Germany (proclaimed July 1, 1867), with a const.i.tution exactly the same as that of the German empire of today. As for the southern states, they remained independent, but signed military agreements which connected them with Prussia.
Napoleon III tried in vain to obtain a compensation for that enormous increase of power. To the first overtures which he made to this end (he wanted the Palatinate) Bismarck answered with a flat refusal and a threat of war. He added, however, that he would consent to an enlargement of France from Belgium, a project which he was afterwards careful to mention as coming from the Paris cabinet.
Bismarck had succeeded in humbling Austria and reducing its importance among the great Powers of Europe, and had expanded Prussia alike on the north and south and made it decisively the ruling nation in Central Europe. As we have seen, it had concluded military agreements with the states of southern Germany. It held them also in another manner, namely, by means of the Zollverein, signed anew on June 4, 1867. But it was as yet far from having brought about a peaceful realization of unity.
The southern states, not merely the sovereigns only, but the peoples as well, had always shown little taste for Prussian leaders.h.i.+p, and after 1866 this feeling was very visible. It was for that reason that Bismarck had need of a war against France to strengthen his position. Union against the foreigner was the cement with which he hoped to complete political unity. Such a war came near breaking out in 1867 in relation to Luxembourg.
Napoleon III keenly desired to have at least that country as compensation for Prussia's aggrandizements, and the king of Holland was disposed to cede his rights for a consideration. But Bismarck, after having secretly approved of the bargain, officially declared his opposition to it. Napoleon, hampered at one and the same time by the Paris Exposition of that year and by the bad condition of his army, was too happy to escape from embarra.s.sment, since it was evident that the Prussians were not willing to evacuate the fortress of Luxembourg, by obtaining with the aid of the other Powers that the little duchy be declared neutral and the walls of its capital destroyed.
In spite of this arrangement, it remained certain to everybody that a conflict would break out in a short time between France and Prussia. We have seen what reasons Bismarck had for the methods pursued by him and those projected. Napoleon III's government, justly censured by opinion for the weakness which it had shown in 1866 and constantly losing its authority, was destined to fall into the first trap its adversary would set for it. What this trap was and the momentous events to which it led will be described in the next chapter.
Chapter XI. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
Birth of the German Empire and the French Republic
Causes of Hostile Relations - Discontent in France - War with Prussia Declared - Self-Deception of the French - First Meeting of the Armies - The Stronghold of Metz - Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte - Napoleon III at Sedan - The Emperor a Captive; France a Republic - Bismarck Refuses Intervention - Fall of the Fortresses - Paris is Besieged - Defiant Spirit of the French - The Struggle Continued - Operations Before Paris - Fighting in the South - The War at an End
In 1866 the war between the two great powers of Germany, in which most of the smaller powers were concerned, led to more decided measures, in the absorption by Prussia of the weaker states, the formation of a North German League among the remaining states of the north, and the offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia of the south German states. By the treaty of peace with Austria, that power was excluded from the German League, and Prussia remained the dominant power in Germany. A const.i.tution for the League was adopted in 1867, providing for a Diet, or legislative council of the League, elected by the direct votes of the people, and an army, which was to be under the command of the Prussian king and subject to the military laws of Prussia. Each state in the League bound itself to supply a specified sum for the support of the army.
Here was a union with a backbone - an army and a budget - and Bismarck had done more in the five years of his ministry in forming a united Germany than his predecessors had done in fifty years. But the idea of union and alliance between kindred states was then widely in the air. Such a union had been practically completed in Italy, and Hungary in 1867 regained her ancient rights, which had been taken from her in 1849, being given a separate government, with Francis Joseph, the emperor of Austria,
as its king. It was natural that the common blood of the Germans should lead them to a political confederation, and equally natural that Prussia, which so overshadowed the smaller states in strength, should be the leading element in the alliance.
Yet, though Prussia had concluded military agreements with the states of southern Germany and held them also by means of the Zollverein, this was far from bringing about a peaceful realization of unity. The southern states, not merely the sovereigns only, but the peoples, have always had little taste for Prussian leaders.h.i.+p, and after 1866 this feeling was very visible. For this reason Bismarck felt it important to instigate a war against France. Union against the foreigner was to complete political unity. This subject has been dealt with in the preceding chapter, and we need here merely to repeat that warlike sentiments were in the air in 1867, in regard to the desire of Napoleon III to add to his empire the little duchy of Luxembourg and Bismarck's opposition to this desire. France was not then in a favorable condition for war, and the matter was finally settled by declaring Luxembourg a neutral state and ordering the walls around its capital to be destroyed.
CAUSES OF HOSTILE RELATIONS
In spite of this settlement, it remained certain to everybody that a conflict would break out in a short time between France and Prussia. We have seen what reasons Bismarck had for such a war. Napoleon III's government, justly censured by opinion for the weakness which it had shown in 1866, was eager to retrieve the fault it had then committed. Yet the weakness of the administration continued and prevented it from adopting the indispensable military measures that it should have done. The enemies of power were declaiming against standing armies, which they declared useless. The government deputies were afraid to dissatisfy their const.i.tuents by aggravating the burdens of the service. Marshal Niel, minister of war, tried indeed to adopt measures with a view to the seemingly inevitable conflict. He caused to be elaborated a plan of campaign, a system of transportation by railway, an arrangement for the chief places of the east to be armed with rifled cannon. But the Chamber grudged him the appropriations for the increase of the army, asking him if ”he wished to make France a vast barracks.” ”Take care,” he answered the opposition, ”lest you make it a vast cemetery.”
Accordingly, when the mobile national guard had been created, made up of all the young men who had not been drawn by lot, organization was given to it only on paper, and it was never drilled. Leboeuf, who succeeded Niel in August, 1869, abandoned, moreover, most of his predecessor's plans. He even neglected to do anything towards carrying out on the eastern frontier any of the works of defense already recommended as urgent by the generals of the restoration.
And thus time pa.s.sed on until the eventful year 1870. By that year Prussia had completed its work among the north German states and was ready for the issue of hostilities, if this should be necessary. On the other hand, Napoleon, who had found his prestige in France from various causes decreasing, felt obliged in 1870 to depart from his policy of personal rule and give that country a const.i.tutional government. This proposal was submitted to a vote of the people and was sustained by an immense majority.
He also took occasion to state that ”peace was never more a.s.sured than at the present time.” This a.s.surance gave satisfaction to the world, yet it was a false one, for war was probably at that moment a.s.sured.
DISCONTENT IN FRANCE
There were alarming signs in France. The opposition to Napoleonism was steadily gaining power. A bad harvest was threatened - a serious source of discontent. The parliament was discussing the reversal of the sentence of banishment against the Orleans family. These indications of a change in public sentiment appeared to call for some act that would aid in restoring the popularity of the emperor. And of all the acts that could be devised a national war seemed the most promising. If the Rhine frontier, which every Frenchman regarded as the natural boundary of the empire, could be regained by the arms of the nation, discontent and opposition would vanish, the name of Napoleon would win back its old prestige, and the reign of Bonapartism would be firmly established.
Acts speak louder than words, and the acts of Napoleon were not in accord with his a.s.surances of peace. Extensive military preparations began, and the forces of the empire were strengthened by land and sea, while great trust was placed in a new weapon, of murderous powers, called the Mitrailleuse, the predecessor of the machine gun, and capable of discharging twenty-five b.a.l.l.s at once.
CAUSES OF HOSTILE RELATIONS
On the other hand, there were abundant indications of discontent in Germany, where a variety of parties inveighed against the rapacious policy of Prussia, and where Bismarck had sown a deep crop of hate. It was believed in France that the minor states would not support Prussia in a war. In Austria the defeat of 1866 rankled, and hostilities against Prussia on the part of France seemed certain to win sympathy and support in that composite empire. Colonel Stoffel, the French military envoy at Berlin, declared that Prussia would be found abundantly prepared for a struggle; but his warnings went unheeded in the French Cabinet, and the warlike preparations continued.
Napoleon did not have to go far for an excuse for the war upon which he was resolved. One was prepared for him in that potent source of trouble, the succession to the throne of Spain. In that country there had for years been no end of trouble, revolts, Carlist risings, wars and rumors of wars. The government of Queen Isabella, with its endless intrigues, plots and alternation of despotism and anarchy, and the p.r.o.nounced immorality of the queen, had become so distasteful to the people that finally, after several years of revolts and armed risings, she was driven from her throne by a revolution, and for a time Spain was without a monarch and was ruled on the republican principles.
But this arrangement did not prove satisfactory. The party in opposition looked around for a king, and negotiations began with a distant relative of the Prussian royal family, Leopold of Hohenzollern. Prince Leopold accepted the offer, and informed the king of Prussia of his decision.
The news of this event caused great excitement in Paris, and the Prussian government was advised of the painful feeling to which the incident had given rise. The answer from Berlin that the Prussian government had no concern in the matter, and that Prince Leopold was free to act on his own account, did not allay the excitement. The demand for war grew violent and clamorous, the voices of the feeble opposition in the Chambers were drowned, and the journalists and war partisans were confident of a short and glorious campaign and a triumphant march to Berlin.
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