The first proposition laid before the Conference was that submitted by Bernstorff, the Prussian envoy, to the effect that Schleswig-Holstein should receive complete independence, the question whether King Christian or some other prince should be sovereign of the new State being reserved for future settlement. To this the Danish envoys replied that even on the condition of personal union with Denmark through the Crown they could not a.s.sent to the grant of complete independence to the Duchies. Raising their demand in consequence of this refusal, and declaring that the war had made an end of the obligations subsisting under the London Treaty of 1852, the two German Powers then demanded that Schleswig-Holstein should be completely separated from Denmark and formed into a single State under Frederick of Augustenburg, who in the eyes of Germany possessed the best claim to the succession. Lord Russell, while denying that the acts or defaults of Denmark could liberate Austria and Prussia from their engagements made with other Powers in the Treaty of London, admitted that no satisfactory result was likely to arise from the continued union of the Duchies with Denmark, and suggested that King Christian should make an absolute cession of Holstein and of the southern part of Schleswig, retaining the remainder in full sovereignty. The frontier-line he proposed to draw at the River Schlei. To this principle of part.i.tion both Denmark and the German Powers a.s.sented, but it proved impossible to reach an agreement on the frontier-line. Bernstorff, who had at first required nearly all Schleswig, abated his demands, and would have accepted a line drawn westward from Flensburg, so leaving to Denmark at least half the province, including the important position of Duppel. The terms thus offered to Denmark were not unfavourable. Holstein it did not expect, and could scarcely desire, to retain; and the territory which would have been taken from it in Schleswig under this arrangement included few districts that were not really German. But the Government of Copenhagen, misled by the support given to it at the Conference by England and Russia--a support which was one of words only--refused to cede anything north of the town of Schleswig. Even when in the last resort Lord Russell proposed that the frontier-line should be settled by arbitration the Danish Government held fast to its refusal, and for the sake of a few miles of territory plunged once more into a struggle which, if it was not to kindle a European war of vast dimensions, could end only in the ruin of the Danes. The expected help failed them. Attacked and overthrown in the island of Alsen, the German flag carried to the northern extremity of their mainland, they were compelled to make peace on their enemies' terms. Hostilities were brought to a close by the signature of Preliminaries on the 1st of August; and by the Treaty of Vienna, concluded on the 30th of October, 1864, King Christian ceded his rights in the whole of Schleswig-Holstein to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia jointly, and undertook to recognise whatever dispositions they might make of those provinces.

[Great Britain and Napoleon III.]

The British Government throughout this conflict had played a sorry part, at one moment threatening the Germans, at another using language towards the Danes which might well be taken to indicate an intention of lending them armed support. To some extent the errors of the Cabinet were due to the relation which existed between Great Britain and Napoleon III. It had up to this time been considered both at London and at Paris that the Allies of the Crimea had still certain common interests in Europe; and in the unsuccessful intervention at St. Petersburg on behalf of Poland in 1863 the British and French Governments had at first gone hand in hand. But behind every step openly taken by Napoleon III. there was some half-formed design for promoting the interests of his dynasty or extending the frontiers of France; and if England had consented to support the diplomatic concert at St. Petersburg by measures of force, it would have found itself engaged in a war in which other ends than those relating to Poland would have been the foremost. Towards the close of the year 1863 Napoleon had proposed that a European Congress should a.s.semble, in order to regulate not only the affairs of Poland but all those European questions which remained unsettled. This proposal had been abruptly declined by the English Government; and when in the course of the Danish war Lord Palmerston showed an inclination to take up arms if France would do the same, Napoleon was probably not sorry to have the opportunity of repaying England for its rejection of his own overtures in the previous year. He had moreover hopes of obtaining from Prussia an extension of the French frontier either in Belgium or towards the Rhine. [517] In reply to overtures from London, Napoleon stated that the cause of Schleswig-Holstein to some extent represented the principle of nationality, to which France was friendly, and that of all wars in which France could engage a war with Germany would be the least desirable. England accordingly, if it took up arms for the Danes, would have been compelled to enter the war alone; and although at a later time, when the war was over and the victors were about to divide the spoil, the British and French fleets ostentatiously combined in manoeuvres at Cherbourg, this show of union deceived no one, least of all the resolute and well-informed director of affairs at Berlin. To force, and force alone, would Bismarck have yielded. Palmerston, now sinking into old age, permitted Lord Russell to parody his own fierce language of twenty years back; but all the world, except the Danes, knew that the fangs and the claws were drawn, and that British foreign policy had become for the time a thing of snarls and grimaces.

[Intentions of Bismarck as to Schleswig-Holstein.]

Bismarck had not at first determined actually to annex Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia. He would have been content to leave it under the nominal sovereignty of Frederick of Augustenburg if that prince would have placed the entire military and naval resources of Schleswig-Holstein under the control of the Government of Berlin, and have accepted on behalf of his Duchies conditions which Bismarck considered indispensable to German union under Prussian leadership. In the harbour of Kiel it was not difficult to recognise the natural headquarters of a future German fleet; the narrow strip of land projecting between the two seas naturally suggested the formation of a ca.n.a.l connecting the Baltic with the German Ocean, and such a work could only belong to Germany at large or to its leading Power. Moreover, as a frontier district, Schleswig-Holstein was peculiarly exposed to foreign attack; certain strategical positions necessary for its defence must therefore be handed over to its protector.

That Prussia should have united its forces with Austria in order to win for the Schleswig-Holsteiners the power of governing themselves as they pleased, must have seemed to Bismarck a supposition in the highest degree preposterous. He had taken up the cause of the Duchies not in the interest of the inhabitants but in the interest of Germany; and by Germany he understood Germany centred at Berlin and ruled by the House of Hohenzollern. If therefore the Augustenburg prince was not prepared to accept his throne on these terms, there was no room for him, and the provinces must be incorporated with Prussia itself. That Austria would not without compensation permit the Duchies thus to fall directly or indirectly under Prussian sway was of course well known to Bismarck; but so far was this from causing him any hesitation in his policy, that from the first he had discerned in the Schleswig-Holstein question a favourable pretext for the war which was to drive Austria out of Germany.

[Relations of Prussia and Austria, Dec., 1854-Aug., 1865.]

[Convention of Gastein, Aug. 14, 1865.]

Peace with Denmark was scarcely concluded when, at the bidding of Prussia, reluctantly supported by Austria, the Saxon and Hanoverian troops which had entered Holstein as the mandatories of the Federal Diet were compelled to leave the country. A Provisional Government was established under the direction of an Austrian and a Prussian Commissioner. Bismarck had met the Prince of Augustenburg at Berlin some months before, and had formed an unfavourable opinion of the policy likely to be adopted by him towards Prussia. All Germany, however, was in favour of the Prince's claims, and at the Conference of London these claims had been supported by the Prussian envoy himself. In order to give some appearance of formal legality to his own action, Bismarck had to obtain from the Crown-jurists of Prussia a decision that King Christian IX. had, contrary to the general opinion of Germany, been the lawful inheritor of Schleswig-Holstein, and that the Prince of Augustenburg had therefore no rights whatever in the Duchies. As the claims of Christian had been transferred by the Treaty of Vienna to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia jointly, it rested with them to decide who should be Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and under what conditions.

Bismarck announced at Vienna on the 22nd of February, 1865, the terms on which he was willing that Schleswig-Holstein should be conferred by the two sovereigns upon Frederick of Augustenburg. He required, in addition to community of finance, postal system, and railways, that Prussian law, including the obligation to military service, should be introduced into the Duchies; that their regiments should take the oath of fidelity to the King of Prussia, and that their princ.i.p.al military positions should be held by Prussian troops. These conditions would have made Schleswig-Holstein in all but name a part of the Prussian State: they were rejected both by the Court of Vienna and by Prince Frederick himself, and the population of Schleswig-Holstein almost unanimously declared against them. Both Austria and the Federal Diet now supported the Schleswig-Holsteiners in what appeared to be a struggle on behalf of their independence against Prussian domination; and when the Prussian Commissioner in Schleswig-Holstein expelled the most prominent of the adherents of Augustenburg, his Austrian colleague published a protest declaring the act to be one of lawless violence. It seemed that the outbreak of war between the two rival Powers could not long be delayed; but Bismarck had on this occasion moved too rapidly for his master, and considerations relating to the other European Powers made it advisable to postpone the rupture for some months. An agreement was patched up at Gastein by which, pending an ultimate settlement, the government of the two provinces was divided between their masters, Austria taking the administration of Holstein, Prussia that of Schleswig, while the little district of Lauenburg on the south was made over to King William in full sovereignty. An actual conflict between the representatives of the two rival governments at their joint headquarters in Schleswig-Holstein was thus averted; peace was made possible at least for some months longer; and the interval was granted to Bismarck which was still required for the education of his Sovereign in the policy of blood and iron, and for the completion of his own arrangements with the enemies of Austria outside Germany. [518]

[Bismarck at Biarritz, Sept., 1865.]

The natural ally of Prussia was Italy; but without the sanction of Napoleon III. it would have been difficult to engage Italy in a new war. Bismarck had therefore to gain at least the pa.s.sive concurrence of the French Emperor in the union of Italy and Prussia against Austria. He visited Napoleon at Biarritz in September, 1865, and returned with the object of his journey achieved. The negotiation of Biarritz, if truthfully recorded, would probably give the key to much of the European history of the next five years. As at Plombieres, the French Emperor acted without his Ministers, and what he asked he asked without a witness. That Bismarck actually promised to Napoleon III. either Belgium or any part of the Rhenish Provinces in case of the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of Prussia has been denied by him, and is not in itself probable. But there are understandings which prove to be understandings on one side only; politeness may be misinterpreted; and the world would have found Count Bismarck unendurable if at every friendly meeting he had been guilty of the frankness with which he informed the Austrian Government that its centre of action must be transferred from Vienna to Pesth. That Napoleon was now scheming for an extension of France on the north-east is certain; that Bismarck treated such rectification of the frontier as a matter for arrangement is hardly to be doubted; and if without a distinct and written agreement Napoleon was content to base his action on the belief that Bismarck would not withhold from him his reward, this only proved how great was the disparity between the aims which the French ruler allowed himself to cherish and his mastery of the arts by which alone such aims were to be realised. Napoleon desired to see Italy placed in possession of Venice; he probably believed at this time that Austria would be no unequal match for Prussia and Italy together, and that the natural result of a well-balanced struggle would be not only The completion of Italian union but the purchase of French neutrality or mediation by the cession of German territory west of the Rhine. It was no part of the duty of Count Bismarck to chill Napoleon's fancies or to teach him political wisdom. The Prussian statesman may have left Biarritz with the conviction that an attack on Germany would sooner or later follow the disappointment of those hopes which he had flattered and intended to mock; but for the present he had removed one dangerous obstacle from his path, and the way lay free before him to an Italian alliance if Italy itself should choose to combine with him in war.

[Italy, 1862-65.]

Since the death of Cavour the Italian Government had made no real progress towards the attainment of the national aims, the acquisition of Rome and Venice. Garibaldi, impatient of delay, had in 1862 landed again in Sicily and summoned his followers to march with him upon Rome. But the enterprise was resolutely condemned by Victor Emmanuel, and when Garibaldi crossed to the mainland he found the King's troops in front of him at Aspromonte.

There was an exchange of shots, and Garibaldi fell wounded. He was treated with something of the distinction shown to a royal prisoner, and when his wound was healed he was released from captivity. His enterprise, however, and the indiscreet comments on it made by Rattazzi, who was now in power, strengthened the friends of the Papacy at the Tuileries, and resulted in the fall of the Italian Minister. His successor, Minghetti, deemed it necessary to arrive at some temporary understanding with Napoleon on the Roman question. The presence of French troops at Rome offended national feeling, and made any attempt at conciliation between the Papal Court and the Italian Government hopeless. In order to procure the removal of this foreign garrison Minghetti was willing to enter into engagements which seemed almost to imply the renunciation of the claim on Rome. By a Convention made in September, 1864, the Italian Government undertook not to attack the territory of the Pope, and to oppose by force every attack made upon it from without. Napoleon on his part engaged to withdraw his troops gradually from Rome as the Pope should organise his own army, and to complete the evacuation within two years. It was, however, stipulated in an Article which was intended to be kept secret, that the capital of Italy should be changed, the meaning of this stipulation being that Florence should receive the dignity which by the common consent of Italy ought to have been transferred from Turin to Rome and to Rome alone. The publication of this Article, which was followed by riots in Turin, caused the immediate fall of Minghetti's Cabinet. He was succeeded in office by General La Marmora, under whom the negotiations with Prussia were begun which, after long uncertainty, resulted in the alliance of 1866 and in the final expulsion of Austria from Italy. [519]

[La Marmora.]

[Govone at Berlin, March, 1866.]

[Treaty of April 8, 1856.]

Bismarck from the beginning of his Ministry appears to have looked forward to the combination of Italy and Prussia against the common enemy; but his plans ripened slowly. In the spring of 1865, when affairs seemed to be reaching a crisis in Schleswig-Holstein, the first serious overtures were made by the Prussian amba.s.sador at Florence. La Marmora answered that any definite proposition would receive the careful attention of the Italian Government, but that Italy would not permit itself to be made a mere instrument in Prussia's hands for the intimidation of Austria. Such caution was both natural and necessary on the part of the Italian Minister; and his reserve seemed to be more than justified when, a few months later, the Treaty of Gastein restored Austria and Prussia to relations of friendship.

La Marmora might now well consider himself released from all obligations towards the Court of Berlin: and, entering on a new line of policy, he sent an envoy to Vienna to ascertain if the Emperor would amicably cede Venetia to Italy in return for the payment of a very large sum of money and the a.s.sumption by Italy of part of the Austrian national debt. Had this transaction been effected, it would probably have changed the course of European history; the Emperor, however, declined to bargain away any part of his dominions, and so threw Italy once more into the camp of his great enemy. In the meantime the disputes about Schleswig-Holstein broke out afresh. Bismarck renewed his efforts at Florence in the spring of 1866, with the result that General Govone was sent to Berlin in order to discuss with the Prussian Minister the political and military conditions of an alliance. But instead of proposing immediate action, Bismarck stated to Govone that the question of Schleswig-Holstein was insufficient to justify a great war in the eyes of Europe, and that a better cause must be put forward, namely, the reform of the Federal system of Germany. Once more the subtle Italians believed that Bismarck's anxiety for a war with Austria was feigned, and that he sought their friendship only as a means of extorting from the Court of Vienna its consent to Prussia's annexation of the Danish Duchies. There was an apparent effort on the part of the Prussian statesman to avoid entering into any engagement which involved immediate action; the truth being that Bismarck was still in conflict with the pacific influences which surrounded the King, and uncertain from day to day whether his master would really follow him in the policy of war. He sought therefore to make the joint resort to arms dependent on some future act, such as the summoning of a German Parliament, from which the King of Prussia could not recede if once he should go so far. But the Italians, apparently not penetrating the real secret of Bismarck's hesitation, would be satisfied with no such indeterminate engagement; they pressed for action within a limited time; and in the end, after Austria had taken steps which went far to overcome the last scruples of King William, Bismarck consented to fix three months as the limit beyond which the obligation of Italy to accompany Prussia into war should not extend. On the 8th of April a Treaty of offensive and defensive alliance was signed. It was agreed that if the King of Prussia should within three months take up arms for the reform of the Federal system of Germany, Italy would immediately after the outbreak of hostilities declare war upon Austria. Both Powers were to engage in the war with their whole force, and peace was not to be made but by common consent, such consent not to be withheld after Austria should have agreed to cede Venetia to Italy and territory with an equal population to Prussia.

[520]

[Bismarck and Austria, Aug., 1865-April, 1866.]

Eight months had now pa.s.sed since the signature of the Convention of Gastem. The experiment of an understanding with Austria, which King William had deemed necessary, had been made, and it had failed; or rather, as Bismarck expressed himself in a candid moment, it had succeeded, inasmuch as it had cured the King of his scruples and raised him to the proper point of indignation against the Austrian Court. The agents in effecting this happy result had been the Prince of Augustenburg, the population of Holstein, and the Liberal party throughout Germany at large. In Schleswig, which the Convention of Gastein had handed over to Prussia, General Manteuffel, a son of the Minister of 1850, had summarily put a stop to every expression of public opinion, and had threatened to imprison the Prince if he came within his reach; in Holstein the Austrian Government had permitted, if it had not encouraged, the inhabitants to agitate in favour of the Pretender, and had allowed a ma.s.s-meeting to be held at Altona on the 23rd of January, where cheers were raised for Augustenburg, and the summoning of the Estates of Schleswig-Holstein was demanded. This was enough to enable Bismarck to denounce the conduct of Austria as an alliance with revolution. He demanded explanations from the Government of Vienna, and the Emperor declined to render an account of his actions. Warlike preparations now began, and on the 16th of March the Austrian Government announced that it should refer the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein to the Federal Diet. This was a clear departure from the terms of the Convention of Gastein, and from the agreement made between Austria and Prussia before entering into the Danish war in 1864 that the Schleswig-Holstein question should be settled by the two Powers independently of the German Federation.

King William was deeply moved by such a breach of good faith; tears filled his eyes when he spoke of the conduct of the Austrian Emperor; and though pacific influences were still active around him he now began to fall in more cordially with the warlike policy of his Minister. The question at issue between Prussia and Austria expanded from the mere disposal of the Duchies to the reconst.i.tution of the Federal system of Germany. In a note laid before the Governments of all the Minor States Bismarck declared that the time had come when Germany must receive a new and more effective organisation, and inquired how far Prussia could count on the support of allies if it should be attacked by Austria or forced into war. It was immediately after this re-opening of the whole problem of Federal reform in Germany that the draft of the Treaty with Italy was brought to its final shape by Bismarck and the Italian envoy, and sent to the Ministry at Florence for its approval.

[Austria offers Venice, May 5.]

Bismarck had now to make the best use of the three months' delay that was granted to him. On the day after the acceptance of the Treaty by the Italian Government, the Prussian representative at the Diet of Frankfort handed in a proposal for the summoning of a German Parliament, to be elected by universal suffrage. Coming from the Minister who had made Parliamentary government a mockery in Prussia, this proposal was scarcely considered as serious. Bavaria, as the chief of the secondary States, had already expressed its willingness to enter upon the discussion of Federal reform, but it asked that the two leading Powers should in the meantime undertake not to attack one another. Austria at once acceded to this request, and so forced Bismarck into giving a similar a.s.surance. Promises of disarmament were then exchanged; but as Austria declined to stay the collection of its forces in Venetia against Italy, Bismarck was able to charge his adversary with insincerity in the negotiation, and preparations for war were resumed on both sides. Other difficulties, however, now came into view. The Treaty between Prussia and Italy had been made known to the Court of Vienna by Napoleon, whose advice La Marmora had sought before its conclusion, and the Austrian Emperor had thus become aware of his danger.

He now determined to sacrifice Venetia if Italy's neutrality could be so secured. On the 5th of May the Italian amba.s.sador at Paris, Count Nigra, was informed by Napoleon that Austria had offered to cede Venetia to him on behalf of Victor Emmanuel if France and Italy would not prevent Austria from indemnifying itself at Prussia's expense in Silesia. Without a war, at the price of mere inaction, Italy was offered all that it could gain by a struggle which was likely to be a desperate one, and which might end in disaster. La Marmora was in sore perplexity. Though he had formed a juster estimate of the capacity of the Prussian army than any other statesman or soldier in Europe, he was thoroughly suspicious of the intentions of the Prussian Government; and in sanctioning the alliance of the previous month he had done so half expecting that Bismarck would through the prestige of this alliance gain for Prussia its own objects without entering into war, and then leave Italy to reckon with Austria as best it might. He would gladly have abandoned the alliance and have accepted Austria's offer if Italy could have done this without disgrace. But the sense of honour was sufficiently strong to carry him past this temptation. He declined the offer made through Paris, and continued the armaments of Italy, though still with a secret hope that European diplomacy might find the means of realising the purpose of his country without war. [521]

[Proposals for a Congress.]

The neutral Powers were now, with various objects, bestirring themselves in favour of a European Congress. Napoleon believed the time to be come when the Treaties of 1815 might be finally obliterated by the joint act of Europe. He was himself ready to join Prussia with three hundred thousand men if the King would transfer the Rhenish Provinces to France. Demands, direct and indirect, were made on Count Bismarck on behalf of the Tuileries for cessions of territory of greater or less extent. These demands were neither granted nor refused. Bismarck procrastinated; he spoke of the obstinacy of the King his master; he inquired whether parts of Belgium or Switzerland would not better a.s.similate with France than a German province; he put off the Emperor's representatives by the a.s.surance that he could more conveniently arrange these matters with the Emperor when he should himself visit Paris. On the 28th of May invitations to a Congress were issued by France, England, and Russia jointly, the objects of the Congress being defined as the settlement of the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein, of the differences between Austria and Italy, and of the reform of the Federal Const.i.tution of Germany, in so far as these affected Europe at large. The invitation was accepted by Prussia and by Italy; it was accepted by Austria only under the condition that no arrangement should be discussed which should give an increase of territory or power to one of the States invited to the Congress. This subtly-worded condition would not indeed have excluded the equal aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of all. It would not have rendered the cession of Venetia to Italy or the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia impossible; but it would either have involved the surrender of the former Papal territory by Italy in order that Victor Emmanuel's dominions should receive no increase, or, in the alternative, it would have ent.i.tled Austria to claim Silesia as its own equivalent for the augmentation of the Italian Kingdom. Such reservations would have rendered any efforts of the Powers to preserve peace useless, and they were accepted as tantamount to a refusal on the part of Austria to attend the Congress. Simultaneously with its answer to the neutral Powers, Austria called upon the Federal Diet to take the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein into its own hands, and convoked the Holstein Estates. Bismarck thereupon declared the Convention of Gastein to be at an end, and ordered General Manteuffel to lead his troops into Holstein. The Austrian commander, protesting that he yielded only to superior force, withdrew through Altona into Hanover. Austria at once demanded and obtained from the Diet of Frankfort the mobilisation of the whole of the Federal armies. The representative of Prussia, declaring that this act of the Diet had made an end of the existing Federal union, handed in the plan of his Government for the reorganisation of Germany, and quitted Frankfort. Diplomatic relations between Austria and Prussia were broken off on the 12th of June, and on the 15th Count Bismarck demanded of the sovereigns of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel, that they should on that very day put a stop to their military preparations and accept the Prussian scheme of Federal reform. Negative answers being given, Prussian troops immediately marched into these territories, and war began. Weimar, Mecklenburg, and other petty States in the north took part with Prussia: all the rest of Germany joined Austria. [522]

[German Opinion.]

The goal of Bismarck's desire, the end which he had steadily set before himself since entering upon his Ministry, was attained; and, if his calculations as to the strength of the Prussian army were not at fault, Austria was at length to be expelled from the German Federation by force of arms. But the process by which Bismarck had worked up to this result had ranged against him the almost unanimous opinion of Germany outside the military circles of Prussia itself. His final demand for the summoning of a German Parliament was taken as mere comedy. The guiding star of his policy had hitherto been the dynastic interest of the House of Hohenzollern; and now, when the Germans were to be plunged into war with one another, it seemed as if the real object of the struggle was no more than the annexation of the Danish Duchies and some other coveted territory to the Prussian Kingdom. The voice of protest and condemnation rose loud from every organ of public opinion. Even in Prussia itself the instances were few where any spontaneous support was tendered to the Government. The Parliament of Berlin, struggling up to the end against the all-powerful Minister, had seen its members prosecuted for speeches made within its own walls, and had at last been prorogued in order that its insubordination might not hamper the Crown in the moment of danger. But the mere disappearance of Parliament could not conceal the intensity of ill-will which the Minister and his policy had excited. The author of a fratricidal war of Germans against Germans was in the eyes of many the greatest of all criminals; and on the 7th of May an attempt was made by a young fanatic to take Bismarck's life in the streets of Berlin. The Minister owed the preservation of his life to the feebleness of his a.s.sailant's weapon and to his own vigorous arm. But the imminence of the danger affected King William far more than Bismarck himself. It spoke to his simple mind of supernatural protection and aid; it stilled his doubts; and confirmed him in the belief that Prussia was in this crisis the instrument for working out the Almighty's will.

[Napoleon III.]

A few days before the outbreak of hostilities the Emperor Napoleon gave publicity to his own view of the European situation. He attributed the coming war to three causes: to the faulty geographical limits of the Prussian State, to the desire for a better Federal system in Germany, and to the necessity felt by the Italian nation for securing its independence.

These needs would, he conceived, be met by a territorial rearrangement in the north of Germany consolidating and augmenting the Prussian Kingdom; by the creation of a more effective Federal union between the secondary German States; and finally, by the incorporation of Venetia with Italy, Austria's position in Germany remaining unimpaired. Only in the event of the map of Europe being altered to the exclusive advantage of one Great Power would France require an extension of frontier. Its interests lay in the preservation of the equilibrium of Europe, and in the maintenance of the Italian Kingdom. These had already been secured by arrangements which would not require France to draw the sword; a watchful but unselfish neutrality was the policy which its Government had determined to pursue. Napoleon had in fact lost all control over events, and all chance of gaining the Rhenish Provinces, from the time when he permitted Italy to enter into the Prussian alliance without any stipulation that France should at its option be admitted as a third member of the coalition. He could not ally himself with Austria against his own creation, the Italian Kingdom; on the other hand, he had no means of extorting cessions from Prussia when once Prussia was sure of an ally who could bring two hundred thousand men into the field.

His diplomacy had been successful in so far as it had a.s.sured Venetia to Italy whether Prussia should be victorious or overthrown, but as regarded France it had landed him in absolute powerlessness. He was unable to act on one side; he was not wanted on the other. Neutrality had become a matter not of choice but of necessity; and until the course of military events should have produced some new situation in Europe, France might well be watchful, but it could scarcely gain much credit for its disinterested part. [523]

[Hanover and Hesse-Ca.s.sel conquered.]

[The Bohemian Campaign, June 26-July 3.]

[Battle of Koniggratz, July 3.]

a.s.sured against an attack from the side of the Rhine, Bismarck was able to throw the ma.s.s of the Prussian forces southwards against Austria, leaving in the north only the modest contingent which was necessary to overcome the resistance of Hanover and Hesse-Ca.s.sel. Through the precipitancy of a Prussian general, who struck without waiting for his colleagues, the Hanoverians gained a victory at Langensalza on the 27th of June; but other Prussian regiments arrived on the field a few hours later, and the Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate on the next day. The King made his escape to Austria; the Elector of Hesse-Ca.s.sel, less fortunate, was made a prisoner of war. Northern Germany was thus speedily reduced to submission, and any danger of a diversion in favour of Austria in this quarter disappeared. In Saxony no attempt was made to bar the way to the advancing Prussians. Dresden was occupied without resistance, but the Saxon army marched southwards in good time, and joined the Austrians in Bohemia. The Prussian forces, about two hundred and fifty thousand strong, now gathered on the Saxon and Silesian frontier, covering the line from Pirna to Landshut. They were composed of three armies: the first, or central, army under Prince Frederick Charles, a nephew of the King; the second, or Silesian, army under the Crown Prince; the westernmost, known as the army of the Elbe, under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld. Against these were ranged about an equal number of Austrians, led by Benedek, a general who had gained great distinction in the Hungarian and the Italian campaigns. It had at first been thought probable that Benedek, whose forces lay about Olmutz, would invade Southern Silesia, and the Prussian line had therefore been extended far to the east. Soon, however, it appeared that the Austrians were unable to take up the offensive, and Benedek moved westwards into Bohemia. The Prussian line was now shortened, and orders were given to the three armies to cross the Bohemian frontier and converge in the direction of the town of Gitschin. General Moltke, the chief of the staff, directed their operations from Berlin by telegraph. The combined advance of the three armies was executed with extraordinary precision; and in a series of hard-fought combats extending from the 26th to the 29th of June the Austrians were driven back upon their centre, and effective communication was established between the three invading bodies. On the 30th the King of Prussia, with General Moltke and Count Bismarck, left Berlin; on the 2nd of July they were at headquarters at Gitschin. It had been Benedek's design to leave a small force to hold the Silesian army in check, and to throw the ma.s.s of his army westwards upon Prince Frederick Charles and overwhelm him before he could receive help from his colleagues. This design had been baffled by the energy of the Crown Prince's attack, and by the superiority of the Prussians in generalship, in the discipline of their troops, and in the weapon they carried; for though the Austrians had witnessed in the Danish campaign the effects of the Prussian breech-loading rifle, they had not thought it necessary to adopt a similar arm. Benedek, though no great battle had yet been fought, saw that the campaign was lost, and wrote to the Emperor on the 1st of July recommending him to make peace, for otherwise a catastrophe was inevitable. He then concentrated his army on high ground a few miles west of Koniggratz, and prepared for a defensive battle on the grandest scale. In spite of the losses of the past week he could still bring about two hundred thousand men into action. The three Prussian armies were now near enough to one another to combine in their attack, and on the night of July 2nd the King sent orders to the three commanders to move against Benedek before daybreak. Prince Frederick Charles, advancing through the village of Sadowa, was the first in the field. For hours his divisions sustained an unequal struggle against the a.s.sembled strength of the Austrians. Midday pa.s.sed; the defenders now pressed down upon their a.s.sailants; and preparations for a retreat had been begun, when the long-expected message arrived that the Crown Prince was close at hand. The onslaught of the army of Silesia on Benedek's right, which was accompanied by the arrival of Herwarth at the other end of the field of battle, at once decided the day. It was with difficulty that the Austrian commander prevented the enemy from seizing the positions which would have cut off his retreat. He retired eastwards across the Elbe with a loss of eighteen thousand killed and wounded and twenty-four thousand prisoners. His army was ruined; and ten days after the Prussians had crossed the frontier the war was practically at an end. [524]

[Battle of Custozza, June 24.]

[Napoleon's mediation, July 5.]

[Preliminaries of Nicolsburg, July 26.]

[Treaty of Prague, Aug. 23.]

The disaster of Koniggratz was too great to be neutralised by the success of the Austrian forces in Italy. La Marmora, who had given up his place at the head of the Government in order to take command of the army, crossed the Mincio at the head of a hundred and twenty thousand men, but was defeated by inferior numbers on the fatal ground of Custozza, and compelled to fall back on the Oglio. This gleam of success, which was followed by a naval victory at Lissa off the Istrian coast, made it easier for the Austrian Emperor to face the sacrifices that were now inevitable.

Immediately after the battle of Koniggratz he invoked the mediation of Napoleon III., and ceded Venetia to him on behalf of Italy. Napoleon at once tendered his good offices to the belligerents, and proposed an armistice. His mediation was accepted in principle by the King or Prussia, who expressed his willingness also to grant an armistice as soon as preliminaries of peace were recognised by the Austrian Court. In the meantime, while negotiations pa.s.sed between all four Governments, the Prussians pushed forward until their outposts came within sight of Vienna.

If in pursuance of General Moltke's plan the Italian generals had thrown a corps north-eastwards from the head of the Adriatic, and so struck at the very heart of the Austrian monarchy, it is possible that the victors of Koniggratz might have imposed their own terms without regard to Napoleon's mediation, and, while adding the Italian Tyrol to Victor Emmanuel's dominions, have completed the union of Germany under the House of Hohenzollern at one stroke. But with Hungary still intact, and the Italian army paralysed by the dissensions of its commanders, prudence bade the great statesman of Berlin content himself with the advantages which he could reap without prolongation of the war, and without the risk of throwing Napoleon into the enemy's camp. He had at first required, as conditions of peace, that Prussia should be left free to annex Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and other North German territory; that Austria should wholly withdraw from German affairs; and that all Germany, less the Austrian Provinces, should be united in a Federation under Prussian leadership. To gain the a.s.sent of Napoleon to these terms, Bismarck hinted that France might by accord with Prussia annex Belgium. Napoleon, however, refused to agree to the extension of Prussia's ascendency over all Germany, and presented a counter-project which was in its turn rejected by Bismarck.

It was finally settled that Prussia should not be prevented from annexing Hanover, Na.s.sau, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel, as conquered territory that lay between its own Rhenish Provinces and the rest of the kingdom; that Austria should completely withdraw from German affairs; that Germany north of the Main, together with Saxony, should be included in a Federation under Prussian leadership; and that for the States south of the Main there should be reserved the right of entering into some kind of national bond with the Northern League. Austria escaped without loss of any of its non-Italian territory; it also succeeded in preserving the existence of Saxony, which, as in 1815, the Prussian Government had been most anxious to annex.

Napoleon, in confining the Prussian Federation to the north of the Main, and in securing by a formal stipulation in the Treaty the independence of the Southern States, imagined himself to have broken Germany into halves, and to have laid the foundation of a South German League which should look to France as its protector. On the other hand, Bismarck by his annexation of Hanover and neighbouring districts had added a population of four millions to the Prussian Kingdom, and given it a continuous territory; he had forced Austria out of the German system; he had gained its sanction to the Federal union of all Germany north of the Main, and had at least kept the way open for the later extension of this union to the Southern States.

Preliminaries of peace embodying these conditions and recognising Prussia's sovereignty in Schleswig-Holstein were signed at Nicolsburg on the 26th of July, and formed the basis of the definitive Treaty of Peace which was concluded at Prague on the 23rd of August. An illusory clause, added at the instance of Napoleon, provided that if the population of the northern districts of Schleswig should by a free vote express the wish to be united with Denmark, these districts should be ceded to the Danish Kingdom. [525]

[The South German States.]

[Secret Treaties of the Southern States with Prussia.]

Bavaria and the south-western allies of Austria, though their military action was of an ineffective character, continued in arms for some weeks after the battle of Koniggratz and the suspension of hostilities arranged at Nicolsburg did not come into operation on their behalf till the 2nd of August. Before that date their forces were dispersed and their power of resistance broken by the Prussian generals Falckenstein and Manteuffel in a series of unimportant engagements and intricate manoeuvres. The City of Frankfort, against which Bismarck seems to have borne some personal hatred, was treated for a while by the conquerors with extraordinary and most impolitic harshness; in other respects the action of the Prussian Government towards these conquered States was not such as to render future union and friendship difficult. All the South German Governments, with the single exception of Baden, appealed to the Emperor Napoleon for a.s.sistance in the negotiations which they had opened at Berlin. But at the very moment when this request was made and granted Napoleon was himself demanding from Bismarck the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate and of the Hessian districts west of the Rhine. Bismarck had only to acquaint the King of Bavaria and the South German Ministers with the designs of their French protector in order to reconcile them to his own chastening, but not unfriendly, hand. The grandeur of a united Fatherland flashed upon minds. .h.i.therto impenetrable by any national ideal when it became known that Napoleon was bargaining for Oppenheim and Kaiserslautern. Not only were the insignificant questions as to the war-indemnities to be paid to Prussia and the frontier villages to be exchanged promptly settled, but by a series of secret Treaties all the South German States entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Prussian King, and engaged in case of war to place their entire forces at his disposal and under his command. The diplomacy of Napoleon III. had in the end effected for Bismarck almost more than his earlier intervention had frustrated, for it had made the South German Courts the allies of Prussia not through conquest or mere compulsion but out of regard for their own interests. [526] It was said by the opponents of the Imperial Government in France, and scarcely with exaggeration, that every error which it was possible to commit had, in the course of the year 1866, been committed by Napoleon III. One crime, one act of madness, remained open to the Emperor's critics, to lash him and France into a conflict with the Power whose union he had not been able to prevent.

[Projects of compensation for France.]

Prior to the battle of Koniggratz, it would seem that all the suggestions of the French Emperor relating to the acquisition of Belgium were made to the Prussian Government through secret agents, and that they were actually unknown, or known by mere hearsay, to Benedetti, the French Amba.s.sador at Berlin. According to Prince Bismarck, these overtures had begun as early as 1862, when he was himself Amba.s.sador at Paris, and were then made verbally and in private notes to himself; they were the secret of Napoleon's neutrality during the Danish war; and were renewed through relatives and confidential agents of the Emperor when the struggle with Austria was seen to be approaching. The ignorance in which Count Benedetti was kept of his master's private diplomacy may to some extent explain the extraordinary contradictions between the accounts given by this Minister and by Prince Bismarck of the negotiations that pa.s.sed between them in the period following the campaign of 1866, after Benedetti had himself been charged to present the demands of the French Government. In June, while the Amba.s.sador was still, as it would seem, in ignorance of what was pa.s.sing behind his back, he had informed the French Ministry that Bismarck, anxious for the preservation of French neutrality, had hinted at the compensations that might be made to France if Prussia should meet with great success in the coming war. According to the report of the Amba.s.sador, made at the time, Count Bismarck stated that he would rather withdraw from public life than cede the Rhenish Provinces with Cologne and Bonn, but that he believed it would be possible to gain the King's ultimate consent to the cession of the Prussian district of Treves on the Upper Moselle, which district, together with Luxemburg or parts of Belgium and Switzerland, would give France an adequate improvement of its frontier. The Amba.s.sador added in his report, by way of comment, that Count Bismarck was the only man in the kingdom who was disposed to make any cession of Prussian territory whatever, and that a unanimous and violent revulsion against France would be excited by the slightest indication of any intention on the part of the French Government to extend its frontiers towards the Rhine. He concluded his report with the statement that, after hearing Count Bismarck's suggestions, he had brought the discussion to a summary close, not wishing to leave the Prussian Minister under the impression that any scheme involving the seizure of Belgian or Swiss territory had the slightest chance of being seriously considered at Paris. (June 4-8.)

[Demand for Rhenish territory, July 25-Aug. 7, 1866.]

[The Belgian project, Aug. 16-30.]

Benedetti probably wrote these last words in full sincerity. Seven weeks later, after the settlement of the Preliminaries at Nicolsburg, he was ordered to demand the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate, of the portion of Hesse-Darmstadt west of the Rhine, including Mainz, and of the strip of Prussian territory on the Saar which had been left to France in 1814 but taken from it in 1815. According to the statement of Prince Bismarck, which would seem to be exaggerated, this demand was made by Benedetti as an ultimatum and with direct threats of war, which were answered by Bismarck in language of equal violence. In any case the demand was unconditionally refused, and Benedetti travelled to Paris in order to describe what had pa.s.sed at the Prussian headquarters. His report made such an impression on the Emperor that the demand for cessions on the Rhine was at once abandoned, and the Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, who had been disposed to enforce this by arms, was compelled to quit office. Benedetti returned to Berlin, and now there took place that negotiation relating to Belgium on which not only the narratives of the persons immediately concerned, but the doc.u.ments written at the time, leave so much that is strange and unexplained. According to Benedetti, Count Bismarck was keenly anxious to extend the German Federation to the South of the Main, and desired with this object an intimate union with at least one Great Power. He sought in the first instance the support of France, and offered in return to facilitate the seizure of Belgium. The negotiation, according to Benedetti, failed because the Emperor Napoleon required that the fortresses in Southern Germany should be held by the troops of the respective States to which they belonged, while at the same time General Manteuffel, who had been sent from Berlin on a special mission to St. Petersburg, succeeded in effecting so intimate a union with Russia that alliance with France became unnecessary. According to the counter-statement of Prince Bismarck, the plan now proposed originated entirely with the French Amba.s.sador, and was merely a repet.i.tion of proposals which had been made by Napoleon during the preceding four years, and which were subsequently renewed at intervals by secret agents almost down to the outbreak of the war of 1870. Prince Bismarck has stated that he dallied with these proposals only because a direct refusal might at any moment have caused the outbreak of war between France and Prussia, a catastrophe which up to the end he sought to avert.

In any case the negotiation with Benedetti led to no conclusion, and was broken off by the departure of both statesmen from Berlin in the beginning of autumn. [527]