Part 20 (1/2)
On June 14, Prussia sent a telegraphic summons to Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and Saxony, demanding them to reduce their armies to the peace establishment, and to concur with Prussia respecting the Germanic confederation; and that if they did not send their consent within twelve hours, war would be declared. The states did not reply, Prussia declared war, and on the 16th invaded their territories. The occupation and disarmament of Hanover and Hesse were necessary to Prussia for a free communication with her Rhenish provinces, and she effected her purpose by means of well-planned combinations, so that in the course of a few days these states were overrun by Prussian troops, and their sovereigns expelled.
The rapid progress of events, and the Prussian declaration of war, had taken Hanover by surprise. Her army was not yet mobilized; Austria had evacuated Holstein, or she could have looked to her for support. To attempt to defend the capital was hopeless; so King George, suffering from blindness, moved with his army to Gottingen, with a view of joining the Bavarians. Prussia entered by the north, and, a.s.sisted by her navy on the Elbe, was by the 22d in possession of the whole of Hanover. Closed round on all sides by the Prussians, una.s.sisted by Prince Charles of Bavaria, Gotha having declared for Prussia, the king of Hanover, with his little army, crossed the frontier of his kingdom, and at Langensalza, fifteen miles north of Gotha, encountered the Prussians, and remained master of the battlefield. But victory was of little avail; surrounded by 40,000 Prussians, the king was forced to capitulate. The arms and military stores were handed over to the enemy, and the king and his soldiers allowed to depart. Thus, through the supineness of Prince Charles of Bavaria, a whole army was made captive, and Hanover erased from the roll of independent states.
More fortunate than his neighbor, the elector of Hesse-Ca.s.sel saved his army, though not his territory, from the invader. His troops retired toward the Maine, where they secured a communication with the federal army at Frankfort. The elector remained in Hesse, and was sent a state prisoner to the Prussian fortress of Stettin, on the Oder. The Prussians overran his territory, declaring they were not at war against ”peoples, but against governments.”
Two bodies of Prussian troops entered Saxony--the First Army and the Army of the Elbe--and the Saxon army retired into Bohemia to effect a junction with the Austrians. On the 20th, Leipzig was seized, and the whole of Saxony was in undisturbed possession of the Prussians; Prince Frederick Charles issuing a most stringent order that private property should be respected, and every regard shown to the comfort of the inhabitants. His order was strictly observed, and every measure taken to prevent the miseries attendant on the occupation of a country by a foreign army.
The invasion of Saxony brought immediately open war between Prussia and Austria, and on the 23d the Prussian army crossed the Bohemian frontier--only a week since it had entered Saxony. It is needless here to detail the battles which immediately followed; suffice it to say, the Prussians were victorious in all--at Podoll, where the needle-gun did such terrible work; Munchengratz, which gave them the whole line of the Iser; Trautenan, Gitschen, and others. On the 1st of July, the king of Prussia arrived from Berlin and took the supreme command of the army. The following day brought news from the crown prince that he was hastening from Silesia with the Second Army, whereby the whole of the Prussian forces would be concentrated. On the 3d of July was fought the decisive battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as it is sometimes called, from the village of that name, a cl.u.s.ter of pine-wood cottages, enclosed by orchards, with a wood-crowned hill at the back, which was fiercely disputed by the contending parties.
On that day, General von Benedek had taken his position with the Austrian army in front of the frontier fortress of Koniggratz, on the right bank of the Elbe, about fifty-five miles east of Prague, to oppose the pa.s.sage of the crown prince from Silesia. In his front lay the marshy stream of Bistritz, upon which Sadowa and a few other villages are situated. At half-past seven in the morning the battle began, and continued with great slaughter without any marked advantage on either side till the arrival of the crown prince decided, like the advance of Blucher at Waterloo, the fortune of the day. The Austrians were completely routed, and fled across the Elbe to save the capital.
They lost 40,000 men in this sanguinary conflict, the Prussians 10,000. The forces in the field were 200,000 Austrians and Saxons, and 260,000 Prussians.
Immediately after her crus.h.i.+ng defeat, Austria surrendered Venetia to France, and the Emperor Napoleon at once accepted the gift and gave it over to Victor Emmanuel.
On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony. By these arrangements, Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and Frankfort became provinces of Prussia, as well as the long-disputed duchies of Denmark. All the German states north of the Maine concluded a treaty, offensive and defensive, for the maintenance of the security of their states.
Prussia increased her territory by 32,000 square miles and her population 4,000,000; and in October, 1866, the whole of northern Germany was united into a Confederation.
This Confederation, known as the North German, possessed a common parliament elected by universal suffrage, in which each state was represented according to its population. The first or const.i.tuent parliament met early in 1867, and adopted, with a few modifications, the const.i.tution proposed by Count Bismarck. The new elections then took place, and the first regular North German parliament met in September, 1867. According to this const.i.tution, there was to be a common army and fleet, under the sole command of Prussia; a common diplomatic representation abroad, of necessity little else than Prussian; and to Prussia also was intrusted the management of the posts and telegraphs in the Confederation.
The Southern German states which up to this point had not joined the Bund, were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Lichtenstein, with a joint area of 43,990 square miles, and a total population (1866) of 8,524,460. But, though these states were not formally members of the Bund, they were so practically, for they were bound to Prussia by treaties of alliance offensive and defensive, so that in the event of a war the king of Prussia would have at his disposal an armed force of upward of 1,100,000 men.
During the next few years the North German Confederation was employed in consolidating and strengthening itself, and in trying to induce the southern states to join the league. The Zollverein was remodelled and extended, until by the year 1868 every part of Germany was a member of it, with the exception of the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and a small part of Baden. This paved the way for the formal entrance of the southern states into the confederation; but they still hung back, though the ideal of a united Germany was gradually growing in force and favor.
Meanwhile the terms of the treaty of Prague, together with the complete removal of alien powers from Italy, had wrought a radical change in the political relations of the European States. Excluded from Germany, the dominions of Austria still extended to the verge of Venetia and the Lombard plains, but her future lay eastward and her centre of gravity had been removed to Buda-Pesth. In the South German courts, no doubt, there was a bias toward Vienna, and a dislike of Prussia; yet both the leaning and the repugnance were counterbalanced by a deeper dread of France rooted in the people by the vivid memories of repeated and cruel invasions. Russia, somewhat alarmed by the rapid success of King William, had been soothed by diplomatic rea.s.surances, the tenor of which is not positively known, although a series of subsequent events more than justified the inference made at that time, that promises, bearing on the czar's Eastern designs, were tendered and accepted as a valuable consideration for the coveted boon of benevolent neutrality, if not something more substantial. Like Russia, France had lost nothing by the campaign of 1866; her territories were intact; her ruler had mediated between Austria and Prussia; and he had the honor of protecting the pope, who, as a spiritual and temporal prince, was still in possession of Rome and restricted territorial domains. But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866 the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with Bismarck a game of diplomatic chess.
In that he erred profoundly. As early as the first week in August, 1866, M. Benedetti, the French amba.s.sador to the court of Berlin, was instructed to claim the left bank of the Rhine as far as and including Mainz. Bismarck replied that ”the true interest of France is not to obtain an insignificant increase of territory, but to aid Germany in const.i.tuting herself after a fas.h.i.+on which will be most favorable to all concerned.” Delphos could not have been more oracular. But Napoleon III. could not or would not heed. A week later Benedetti was instructed to submit a regular scale of concessions--the frontiers of 1814 and the annexation of Belgium, or Luxemburg and Belgium, Benedetti received the most courteous attention and nothing more. This was irritating. The French had been accustomed for more than two hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies, either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids, victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action, the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour, if such choice were allowed.
Then presently the opportunity occurred. On July 4, 1870, the throne of Spain was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The fact created the greatest excitement in France. Threatening speeches were made. On July 18 Prince Leopold declined the offer. On the morrow Benedetti was instructed to demand a guarantee that any future offer of the kind would be refused. The king of Prussia would not listen to the proposition. The French minister, through whom the demand had been transmitted, then asked for his pa.s.sports. War was imminent.
At the prospect Paris grew mad with enthusiasm. Crowds a.s.sembled in the streets, shouting ”Down with Prussia!” ”Long live France!” ”To the Rhine!” ”To Berlin!” The papers abounded with inflammatory appeals, and, after the impulsive French fas.h.i.+on, glorified beforehand the easy triumphs that were to be won over the Prussians. Men told one another that they would be across the Rhine in a week, and at Berlin in a fortnight. The excitement in Prussia was not less than that in France.
The people, with scarcely an exception, declared their readiness for war, and seemed to find a pleasure in the opportunity now presented for settling old quarrels. Like the people of Paris, the Prussians shouted ”To the Rhine!” The French cry of ”To Berlin!” had its counterpart in the German e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of ”To Paris!”
Perhaps a sentence spoken by M. Guyot Montpayroux best ill.u.s.trates the predominant feeling. ”Prussia,” he said, ”has forgotten the France of Jena, and the fact must be recalled to her memory.” Thus was war declared on the night of July 15. Thiers, who desired a war with Prussia ”at the proper time,” has left on record his judgment that the hour then selected was ”detestably ill-chosen.” Yet even he and Gambetta were both anxious that ”satisfaction” should be obtained for Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the prince imperial, said, ”This child will never reign unless we repair the misfortunes of Sadowa.” Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which the imperial policy revolved; it exercised a spell scarcely less powerful and disastrous upon monarchists like Thiers and republicans like Gambetta. Long foreseen, the dread shock, like all grave calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon reflective minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they shared in the natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were also the privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a grand scale--the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the field, and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat or victory.
The French field army, called at the outset the ”Army of the Rhine,”
consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations.
The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon, called after its inventor the Cha.s.sepot. The Cha.s.sepot was a weapon in all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.
Since the Crimean and Austrian wars, while the armies of the other European states had advanced in efficiency, the French army had deteriorated. The reason was that favoritism rather than merit had been made the road to court favor. The officers who had pointed to the training of the Prussian soldiers, as indicating the necessity for the adoption of similar modes for the French army, had been laughed at and left in the cold. The consequence was, that for ten years prior to the war of 1870, the French army had received instruction only of the most superficial character. It had been considered sufficient if the soldiers were brought to the point of making a good show on the parade ground. Little more had been required of them. Field training and musketry training had been alike neglected. The officers had ceased to study, and the government had taken no pains to instruct them. What was more vicious still, the alienation between officers and men, which had been noticed even in the war of 1859, had widened. The officers generally had ceased to take the smallest interest in the comfort of the men in camp or in quarters. These matters were left to the non-commissioned officers. Needless to add, they were not always properly attended to. It may be added that the system of drill was so devised as to give no play to the reasoning powers of the officer. He was a machine and nothing more.
Of the artillery of the French army it has to be said, that it was far inferior to that of the Germans, and known to be so by the French war department. In the matter of reserves, France had comparatively nothing.
Far different were the composition and the state of preparation of the Prussian army; far different, also, those of her German allies; far higher the qualities of their general officers; far superior the discipline and morale of their troops; far more ready, in every single particular, to begin a war; far more thoroughly provided to carry that war to a successful issue.
The German infantry had been thoroughly organized on a system which gave to every officer the necessity of exercising independent action, and to the men the faculty of understanding the object of the manoeuvre directed. Its cavalry had been specially instructed in duties of reconnoissance, of insuring repose for the infantry, of collecting intelligence, of concealing the march of armies, of acting as a completer of victory, or as a s.h.i.+eld in case of defeat. It had profited greatly by the lessons it had learned in the war of 1866.
The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of the French.
Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it will be described in the pages that follow. In mere numbers, the king of Prussia had a great advantage over his enemy. For, while without any a.s.sistance from South Germany, and after allowing for three army corps which might be necessary to watch Austria and Denmark, he could begin the campaign with a force of 350,000 men, he was certain of the a.s.sistance of Southern Germany, and confident that, unless the French should obtain considerable successes at the outset, neither Austria nor Denmark would stir a hand to aid them.
To counterbalance this superiority of numbers the French emperor had cherished a vague hope that, in a war against Prussia, he might possibly count upon the ancient friends.h.i.+p for France of Bavaria and Saxony, and to a still greater extent upon Austria and Italy. With regard to Bavaria and Saxony he was speedily undeceived. Moreover, contrary to expectation, other German states decided to support Prussia and placed their armies, which were eventually commanded by the crown prince, at the disposal of King William. With regard to Austria and Italy, Colonel Malleson in a work on this subject,[1] to which we are much indebted, states that their co-operation was made dependent on the initial successes of the French troops. Colonel Malleson adds: