The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.)

"After the fatal year 1866, the Empire was in a state of decadence."--L. GREGOIRE, Histoire de France.

The irony of history is nowhere more manifest than in the curious destiny which called a Napoleon III. to the place once occupied by Napoleon I., and at the very time when the national movements, unwittingly called to vigorous life by the great warrior, were attaining to the full strength of manhood. Napoleon III. was in many ways a well-meaning dreamer, who, unluckily for himself, allowed his dreams to encroach on his waking moments. In truth, his sluggish but very persistent mind never saw quite clearly where dreams must give way to realities; or, as M. de Falloux phrased it, "He does not know the difference between dreaming and thinking[7]." Thus his policy showed an odd mixture of generous haziness and belated practicality.

Long study of his uncle's policy showed him, rightly enough, that it erred in trampling down the feeling of nationality in Germany and elsewhere. The nephew resolved to avoid this mistake and to pose as the champion of the oppressed and divided peoples of Italy, Germany, Poland, and the Balkan Peninsula--a programme that promised to appeal to the ideal aspirations of the French, to embarrass the dynasties that had overthrown the first Napoleon, and to yield substantial gains for his nephew. Certainly it did so in the case of Italy; his championship of the Roumanians also helped on the making of that interesting Principality (1861) and gained the goodwill of Russia; but he speedily forfeited this by his wholly ineffective efforts on behalf of the Poles in 1863. His great mistakes, however, were committed in and after the year 1863, when he plunged into Mexican politics with the chimerical aim of founding a Roman Catholic Empire in Central America, and favoured the rise of Prussia in connection with the Schleswig-Holstein question. By the former of these he locked up no small part of his army in Mexico when he greatly needed it on the Rhine; by the latter he helped on the rise of the vigorous North German Power.

As we have seen, he secretly advised Prussia to take both Schleswig and Holstein, thereby announcing his wish for the effective union of Germans with the one great State composed almost solely of Germans. "I shall always be consistent in my conduct," he said. "If I have fought for the independence of Italy, if I have lifted up my voice for Polish nationality, I cannot have other sentiments in Germany, or obey other principles." This declaration bespoke the doctrinaire rather than the statesman. Untaught by the clamour which French Chauvinists and ardent Catholics had raised against his armed support of the Italian national cause in 1859, he now proposed to further the aggrandisement of the Protestant North German Power which had sought to partition France in 1815.

The clamour aroused by his leanings towards Prussia in 1864-66 was naturally far more violent, in proportion as the interests of France were more closely at stake. Prussia held the Rhine Province; and French patriots, who clung to the doctrine of the "natural frontiers"--the Ocean, Pyrenees, Alps, and Rhine--looked on her as the natural enemy. They pointed out that millions of Frenchmen had shed their blood in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars to win and to keep the Rhine boundary; and their most eloquent spokesman, M. Thiers, who had devoted his historical gifts to glorifying those great days, passionately declaimed against the policy of helping on the growth of the hereditary foe.

We have already seen the results of this strife between the pro-Prussian foibles of the Emperor and the eager prejudices of Frenchmen, whose love of oppressed and divided nations grew in proportion to their distance from France, and changed to suspicion or hatred in the case of her neighbours. In 1866, under the breath of ministerial arguments and oratorical onslaughts Napoleon III.'s policy weakly wavered, thereby giving to Bismarck's statecraft a decisive triumph all along the line. In vain did he in the latter part of that year remind the Prussian statesman of his earlier promises (always discreetly vague) of compensation for France, and throw out diplomatic feelers for Belgium, or at any rate Luxemburg[8]. In vain did M. Thiers declare in the Chamber of Deputies that France, while recognising accomplished facts in Germany, ought "firmly to declare that we will not allow them to go further" (March 14, 1867). Bismarck replied to this challenge of the French orator by publishing five days later the hitherto secret military alliances concluded with the South German States in August 1866. Thenceforth France knew that a war with Prussia would be war with a united Germany.

In the following year the Zollverein, or German Customs' Union (which had been gradually growing since 1833), took a definitely national form in a Customs' Parliament which assembled in April 1868, thus unifying Germany for purposes of trade as well as those of war. This sharp rebuff came at a time when Napoleon's throne was tottering from the utter collapse of his Mexican expedition; when, too, he more than ever needed popular support in France for the beginnings of a more constitutional rule. Early in 1867 he sought to buy Luxemburg from Holland. This action aroused a storm of wrath in Prussia, which had the right to garrison Luxemburg; but the question was patched up by a Conference of the Powers at London, the Duchy being declared neutral territory under the guarantee of Europe; the fortifications of its capital were also to be demolished, and the Prussian garrison withdrawn. This success for French diplomacy was repeated in Italy, where the French troops supporting the Pope crushed the efforts of Garibaldi and his irregulars to capture Rome, at the sanguinary fight of Mentana (November 3, 1867). The official despatch, stating that the new French rifle, the chassep?t, "had done wonders," spread jubilation through France and a sharp anti-Gallic sentiment throughout Italy.

And while Italy heaved with longings for her natural capital, popular feelings in France and North Germany made steadily for war.

Before entering upon the final stages of the dispute, it may be well to take a bird's-eye view of the condition of the chief Powers in so far as it explains their attitude towards the great struggle.

The condition of French politics was strangely complex. The Emperor had always professed that he was the elect of France, and would ultimately crown his political edifice with the corner-stone of constitutional liberty. Had he done so in the successful years 1855-61, possibly his dynasty might have taken root. He deferred action, however, until the darker years that came after 1866. In 1868 greater freedom was allowed to the Press and in the case of public meetings. The General Election of the spring of 1869 showed large gains to the Opposition, and decided the Emperor to grant to the Corps Législatif the right of initiating laws concurrently with himself, and he declared that Ministers should be responsible to it (September 1869).

These and a few other changes marked the transition from autocracy to the "Liberal Empire." One of the champions of constitutional principles, M. Emile Ollivier, formed a Cabinet to give effect to the new policy, and the Emperor, deeming the time ripe for consolidating his power on a democratic basis, consulted the country in a plébiscite, or mass vote, primarily as to their judgment on the recent changes, but implicitly as to their confidence in the imperial system as a whole. His skill in joining together two topics that were really distinct, gained him a tactical victory. More than 7,350,000 affirmative votes were given, as against 1,572,000 negatives; while 1,900,000 voters registered no vote. This success at the polls emboldened the supporters of the Empire; and very many of them, especially, it is thought, the Empress Eugénie, believed that only one thing remained in order to place the Napoleonic dynasty on a lasting basis--that was, a successful war.

Champions of autocracy pointed out that the growth of Radicalism coincided with the period of military failures and diplomatic slights. Let Napoleon III., they said in effect, imitate the policy of his uncle, who, as long as he dazzled France by triumphs, could afford to laugh at the efforts of constitution-mongers. The big towns might prate of liberty; but what France wanted was glory and strong government. Such were their pleas: there was much in the past history of France to support them. The responsible advisers of the Emperor determined to take a stronger tone in foreign affairs, while the out-and-out Bonapartists jealously looked for any signs of official weakness so that they might undermine the Ollivier Ministry and hark back to absolutism. When two great parties in a State make national prestige a catchword of the political game, peace cannot be secure: that was the position of France in the early part of 1870[9].

The eve of the Franco-German War was a time of great importance for the United Kingdom. The Reform Bill of 1867 gave a great accession of power to the Liberal Party; and the General Election of November 1868 speedily led to the resignation of the Disraeli Cabinet and the accession of the Gladstone Ministry to power. This portended change in other directions than home affairs. The tradition of a spirited foreign policy died with Lord Palmerston in 1865. With the entry of John Bright to the new Cabinet peace at all costs became the dominant note of British statesmanship. There was much to be said in favour of this. England needed a time of rest in order to cope with the discontent of Ireland and the problems brought about by the growth of democracy and commercialism in the larger island. The disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland (July 1869), the Irish Land Act (August 1870), and the Education Act of 1870, showed the preoccupation of the Ministry for home affairs; while the readiness with which, a little later, they complied with all the wishes of the United States in the "Alabama" case, equally proclaimed their pacific intentions. England, which in 1860 had exercised so powerful an influence on the Italian national question, was for five years a factor of small account in European affairs. Far from pleasing the combatants, our neutrality annoyed both of them. The French accused England of "deserting" Napoleon III. in his time of need--a charge that has lately been revived by M. Hanotaux. To this it is only needful to reply that the French Emperor entered into alliance with us at the time of the Crimean War merely for his own objects, and allowed all friendly feeling to be ended by French threats of an invasion of England in 1858 and his shabby treatment of Italy in the matter of Savoy and Nice a year later. On his side, Bismarck also complained that our feeling for the German cause went no further than "theoretical sympathy," and that "during the war England never compromised herself so far in our favour as to endanger her friendship with France. On the contrary." These vague and enigmatic charges at bottom only express the annoyance of the combatants at their failure to draw neutrals into the strife[10].

The traditions of the United States, of course, forbade their intervention in the Franco-Prussian dispute. By an article of their political creed termed the Monroe Doctrine, they asserted their resolve not to interfere in European affairs and to prevent the interference of any strictly European State in those of the New World. It was on this rather vague doctrine that they cried "hands off" from Mexico to the French Emperor; and the abandonment of his protégé, the so-called Emperor Maximilian, by French troops, brought about the death of that unhappy prince and a sensible decline in the prestige of his patron (June 1867).

Russia likewise remembered Napoleon III.'s championship of the Poles in 1863, which, however Platonic in its nature, caused the Czar some embarrassment. Moreover, King William of Prussia had soothed the Czar's feelings, ruffled by the dethroning of three German dynasties in 1866, by a skilful reply which alluded to his (King William's) desire to be of service to Russian interests elsewhere--a hint which the diplomatists of St. Petersburg remembered in 1870 to some effect.

For the rest, the Czar Alexander II. (1855-81) and his Ministers were still absorbed in the internal policy of reform, which in the sixties freed the serfs and gave Russia new judicial and local institutions, doomed to be swept away in the reaction following the murder of that enlightened ruler. The Russian Government therefore pledged itself to neutrality, but in a sense favourable to Prussia. The Czar ascribed the Crimean War to the ambition of Napoleon III., and remembered the friendship of Prussia at that time, as also in the Polish Revolt of 1863[11]. Bismarck's policy now brought its reward.

The neutrality of Russia is always a matter of the utmost moment for the Central Powers in any war on their western frontiers. Their efforts against Revolutionary France in 1792-94 failed chiefly because of the ambiguous attitude of the Czarina Catherine II.; and the collapse of Frederick William IV.'s policy in 1848-51 was due to the hostility of his eastern neighbour. In fact, the removal of anxiety about her open frontier on the east was now worth a quarter of a million of men to Prussia.

But the Czar's neutrality was in one matter distinctly friendly to his uncle, King William of Prussia. It is an open secret that unmistakable hints went from St. Petersburg to Vienna to the effect that, if Austria drew the sword for Napoleon III. she would have to reckon with an irruption of the Russians into her open Galician frontier. Probably this accounts for the conduct of the Hapsburg Power, which otherwise is inexplicable. A war of revenge against Prussia seemed to be the natural step to take. True, the Emperor Francis Joseph had small cause to like Napoleon III. The loss of Lombardy in 1859 still rankled in the breast of every patriotic Austrian; and the suspicions which that enigmatical ruler managed to arouse, prevented any definite agreement resulting from the meeting of the two sovereigns at Salzburg in 1867.

The relations of France and Austria were still in the same uncertain state before the War of 1870. The foreign policy of Austria was in the hands of Count Beust, a bitter foe of Prussia; but after the concession of constitutional rule to Hungary by the compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867, the Dual Monarchy urgently needed rest, especially as its army was undergoing many changes. The Chancellor's action was therefore clogged on all sides. Nevertheless, when the Luxemburg affair of 1867 brought France and Prussia near to war, Napoleon began to make advances to the Court of Vienna. How far they went is not known. Beust has asserted in his correspondence with the French Foreign Minister, the Duc de Gramont (formerly ambassador at Vienna), that they never were more than discussions, and that they ended in 1869 without any written agreement. The sole understanding was to the effect that the policy of both States should be friendly and pacific, Austria reserving the right to remain neutral if France were compelled to make war. The two Empires further promised not to make any engagement with a third Power without informing the other.

This statement is not very convincing. States do not usually bind themselves in the way just described, unless they have some advantageous agreement with the Power which has the first claim on their alliance. It is noteworthy, however, that the Duc de Gramont, in the correspondence alluded to above, admits that, as Ambassador and as Foreign Minister of France, he never had to claim the support of Austria in the war with Prussia[12].

How are we to reconcile these statements with the undoubted fact that the Emperor Napoleon certainly expected help from Austria and also from Italy? The solution of the riddle seems to be that Napoleon, as also Francis Joseph and Victor Emmanuel, kept their Foreign Ministers in the dark on many questions of high policy, which they transacted either by private letters among themselves, or through military men who had their confidence. The French and Italian sovereigns certainly employed these methods, the latter because he was far more French in sympathy than his Ministers.

As far back as the year 1868, Victor Emmanuel made overtures to Napoleon with a view to alliance, the chief aim of which, from his standpoint, was to secure the evacuation of Rome by the French troops, and the gain of the Eternal City for the national cause. Prince Napoleon lent his support to this scheme, and from an article written by him we know that the two sovereigns discussed the matter almost entirely by means of confidential letters[13]. These discussions went on up to the month of June 1869. Francis Joseph, on hearing of them, urged the French Emperor to satisfy Italy, and thus pave the way for an alliance between the three Powers against Prussia. Nothing definite came of the affair, and chiefly, it would seem, owing to the influence of the Empress Eugénie and the French clerics. She is said to have remarked: "Better the Prussians in Paris than the Italian troops in Rome." The diplomatic situation therefore remained vague, though in the second week of July 1870, the Emperor again took up the threads which, with greater firmness and foresight, he might have woven into a firm design.

The understanding between the three Powers advanced only in regard to military preparations. The Austrian Archduke Albrecht, the victor of Custoza, burned to avenge the defeat of K?niggr?tz, and with this aim in view visited Paris in February to March 1870. He then proposed to Napoleon an invasion of North Germany by the armies of France, Austria, and Italy. The French Emperor developed the plan by more specific overtures which he made in the month of June; but his Ministers were so far in the dark as to these military proposals that they were then suggesting the reduction of the French army by 10,000 men, while Ollivier, the Prime Minister, on June 30 declared to the French Chamber that peace had never been better assured[14].

And yet on that same day General Lebrun, aide-de-camp to the Emperor, was drawing up at Paris a confidential report of the mission with which he had lately been entrusted to the Austrian military authorities. From that report we take the following particulars. On arriving at Vienna, he had three private interviews with the Archduke Albrecht, and set before him the desirability of a joint invasion of North Germany in the autumn of that year. To this the Archduke demurred, on the ground that such a campaign ought to begin in the spring if the full fruits of victory were to be gathered in before the short days came. Austria and Italy, he said, could not place adequate forces in the field in less than six weeks owing to lack of railways[15].

Developing his own views, the Archduke then suggested that it would be desirable for France to undertake the war against North Germany not later than the middle of March 1871, Austria and Italy at the same time beginning their mobilisations, though not declaring war until their armies were ready at the end of six weeks. Two French armies should in the meantime cross the Rhine in order to sever the South Germans from the Confederation of the North, one of them marching towards Nuremberg, where it would be joined by the western army of Austria and the Italian forces sent through Tyrol. The other Austrian army would then invade Saxony or Lusatia in order to strike at Berlin. He estimated the forces of the States hostile to Prussia as follows:--

Men. Horses. Cannon.

France 309,000 35,000 972

Austria (exclusive of reserve) 360,000 27,000 1128

Italy 68,000 5000 180

Denmark 260,000 (?) 2000 72

He thus reckoned the forces of the two German Confederations:--

Men. Horses. Cannon.

North 377,000 48,000 1284

South 97,000 10,000 288

but the support of the latter might be hoped for. Lebrun again urged the desirability of a campaign in the autumn, but the Archduke repeated that it must begin in the spring. In that condition, as in his earlier statement that France must declare war first, while her allies prepared for war, we may discern a deep-rooted distrust of Napoleon III.

On June 14 the Archduke introduced Lebrun to the Emperor Francis Joseph, who informed him that he wanted peace; but, he added, "if I make war, I must be forced to it." In case of war Prussia might exploit the national German sentiment existing in South Germany and Austria. He concluded with these words, "But if the Emperor Napoleon, compelled to accept or to declare war, came with his armies into South Germany, not as an enemy but as a liberator, I should be forced on my side to declare that I [would] make common cause with him. In the eyes of my people I could do no other than join my armies to those of France. That is what I pray you to say for me to the Emperor Napoleon; I hope that he will see, as I do, my situation both in home and foreign affairs." Such was the report which Lebrun drew up for Napoleon III. on June 30. It certainly led that sovereign to believe in the probability of Austrian help in the spring of 1871, but not before that time.

The question now arises whether Bismarck was aware of these proposals. If warlike counsels prevailed at Vienna, it is probable that some preparations would be made, and the secret may have leaked out in this way, or possibly through the Hungarian administration. In any case, Bismarck knew that the Austrian chancellor, Count Beust, thirsted for revenge for the events of 1866[16]. If he heard any whispers of an approaching league against Prussia, he would naturally see the advantage of pressing on war at once, before Austria and Italy were ready to enter the lists. Probably in this fact will be found one explanation of the origin of the Franco-German War.

Before adverting to the proximate cause of the rupture, we may note that Beust's despatch of July 11, 1870, to Prince Metternich, Austrian ambassador at Paris, displayed genuine fear lest France should rush blindly into war with Prussia; and he charged Metternich tactfully to warn the French Government against such a course of action, which would "be contrary to all that we have agreed upon. . . . Even if we wished, we could not suddenly equip a respectably large force. . . . Our services are gained to a certain extent [by France]; but we shall not go further unless events carry us on; and we do not dream of plunging into war because it might suit France to do so."

Again, however, the military men seem to have pushed on the diplomatists. The Archduke Albrecht and Count Vitzthum went to Paris charged with some promises of support to France in case of war. Thereafter, Count Beust gave the assurance at Vienna that the Austrians would be "faithful to our engagements, as they have been recorded in the letters exchanged last year between the two sovereigns. We consider the cause of France as ours, and we will contribute to the success of her arms to the utmost of our power[17]."

In the midst of this maze of cross-purposes this much is clear: that both Emperors had gone to work behind the backs of their Ministers, and that the military chiefs of France and Austria brought their States to the brink of war while their Ministers and diplomatists were unaware of the nearness of danger.

As we have seen, King Victor Emmanuel II. longed to draw the sword for Napoleon III., whose help to Italy in 1859-60 he so curiously overrated. Fortunately for Italy, his Ministers took a more practical view of the situation; but probably they too would have made common cause with France had they received a definite promise of the withdrawal of French troops from Rome and the satisfaction of Italian desires for the Eternal City as the national capital. This promise, even after the outbreak of war, the French Emperor declined to give, though his cousin, Prince Napoleon, urged him vehemently to give way on that point[18].

In truth, the Emperor could not well give way. An Oecumenical Council sat at Rome from December 1869 to July 1870; its Ultramontane tendencies were throughout strongly marked, as against the "Old Catholic" views; and it was a foregone conclusion that the Council would vote the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope in matters of religion--as it did on the day before France declared war against Prussia. How, then, could the Emperor, the "eldest son of the Church," as French monarchs have proudly styled themselves, bargain away Rome to the Italian Government, already stained by sacrilege, when this crowning aureole of grace was about to encircle the visible Head of the Church? There was no escape from the dilemma. Either Napoleon must go into war with shouts of "Judas" hurled at him by all pious Roman Catholics; or he must try his fortunes without the much-coveted help of Austria and Italy. He chose the latter alternative, largely, it would seem, owing to the influence of his vehemently Catholic Empress[19]. After the first defeats he sought to open negotiations, but then it was too late. Prince Napoleon went to Florence and arrived there on August 20; but his utmost efforts failed to move the Italian Cabinet from neutrality.

Even this brief survey of international relations shows that Napoleon III. was a source of weakness to France. Having seized on power by perfidious means, he throughout his whole reign strove to dazzle the French by a series of adventures, which indeed pleased the Parisians for the time, but at the cost of lasting distrust among the Powers. Generous in his aims, he at first befriended the German and Italian national movements, but forfeited all the fruits of those actions by his pettifogging conduct about Savoy and Nice, the Rhineland and Belgium; while his final efforts to please French clericals and Chauvinists[20] by supporting the Pope at Rome, lost him the support of States that might have retrieved the earlier blunders. In brief, by helping on the nationalists of North Germany and Italy he offended French public opinion; and his belated and spasmodic efforts to regain popularity at home aroused against him the distrust of all the Powers. Their feelings about him may be summarised in the mot of a diplomatist, "Scratch the Emperor and you will find the political refugee."

How different were the careers of Napoleon III. and of Bismarck! By resolutely keeping before him the national aim, and that only, the Prussian statesman had reduced the tangle of German affairs to simplicity and now made ready for the crowning work of all. In his Reminiscences he avows his belief, as early as 1866, "that a war with France would succeed the war with Austria lay in the logic of history"; and again, "I did not doubt that a Franco-German War must take place before the construction of a United Germany could take place[21]." War would doubtless have broken out in 1867 over the Luxemburg question, had he not seen the need of delay for strengthening the bonds of union with South Germany and assuring the increase of the armies of the Fatherland by the adoption of Prussian methods; or, as he phrased it, "each year's postponement of the war would add 100,000 trained soldiers to our army[22]." In 1870 little was to be gained by delay. In fact, the unionist movement in Germany then showed ominous signs of slackening. In the South the Parliaments opposed any further approach to union with the North; and the voting of the military budget in the North for that year was likely to lead to strong opposition in the interests of the overtaxed people. A war might solve the unionist problem which was insoluble in time of peace; and a casus belli was at hand.

Early in July 1870, the news leaked out that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern was the officially accepted candidate for the throne of Spain, left vacant since the revolution which drove Queen Isabella into exile in 1868[23]. At once a thrill of rage shot through France; and the Duc de Gramont, Foreign Minister of the new Ollivier Ministry, gave expression to the prevailing feeling in his answer to a question on the subject in the Chamber of Deputies (July 6):--

We do not think that respect for the rights of a neighbouring people [Spain] obliges us to allow an alien Power [Prussia], by placing one of its princes on the throne of Charles V., to succeed in upsetting to our disadvantage the present equilibrium of forces in Europe, and imperil the interests and honour of France. We have the firm hope that this eventuality will not be realised. To hinder it, we count both on the wisdom of the German people and on the friendship of the Spanish people. If that should not be so, strong in your support and in that of the nation, we shall know how to fulfil our duty without hesitation and without weakness[24].

The opening phrases were inaccurate. The prince in question was Prince Leopold of the Swabian and Roman Catholic branch of the Hohenzollern family, who, as the Duc de Gramont knew, could by no possibility recall the days when Charles V. reigned as Emperor in Germany and monarch in Spain. This misstatement showed the intention of the French Ministry to throw down the glove to Prussia--as is also clear from this statement in Gramont's despatch of July 10 to Benedetti: "If the King will not advise the Prince of Hohenzollern to withdraw, well, it is war forthwith, and in a few days we are at the Rhine[25]."

Nevertheless, those who were behind the scenes had just cause for anger against Bismarck. The revelations of Benedetti, French ambassador at Berlin, as well as the Memoirs of the King of Roumania (brother to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern) leave no doubt that the candidature of the latter was privately and unofficially mooted in 1868, and again in the spring of 1869 through a Prussian diplomatist, Werthern, and that it met with no encouragement whatever from the Prussian monarch or the prince himself. But early in 1870 it was renewed in an official manner by the provisional Government of Spain, and (as seems certain) at the instigation of Bismarck, who, in May-June, succeeded in overcoming the reluctance of the prince and of King William. Bismarck even sought to hurry the matter through the Spanish Cortes so as to commit Spain to the plan; but this failed owing to the misinterpretation of a ciphered telegram from Berlin at Madrid[26].

Such was the state of the case when the affair became known to the Ollivier Ministry. Though not aware, seemingly, of all these details, Napoleon's advisers were justified in treating the matter, not as a private affair between the Hohenzollerns and Spain (as Germans then maintained it was) but as an attempt of the Prussian Government to place on the Spanish throne a prince who could not but be friendly to the North German Power. In fact, the French saw in it a challenge to war; and putting together all the facts as now known, we must pronounce that they were almost certainly right. Bismarck undoubtedly wanted war; and it is impossible to think that he did not intend to use this candidature as a means of exasperating the French. The man who afterwards declared that, at the beginning of the Danish disputes in 1863, he made up his mind to have Schleswig-Holstein for Prussia[27], certainly saw in the Hohenzollern candidature a step towards a Prusso-Spanish alliance or a war with France that might cement German unity.

In any case, that was the outcome of events. The French papers at once declaimed against the candidature in a way that aroused no less passion on the other side of the Rhine. For a brief space, however, matters seemed to be smoothed over by the calm good sense of the Prussian monarch and his nephew. The King was then at Ems, taking the waters, when Benedetti, the French ambassador, waited on him and pressed him most urgently to request Prince Leopold to withdraw from the candidature to the Spanish Crown. This the King declined to do in the way that was pointed out to him, rightly considering that such a course would play into the hands of the French by lowering his own dignity and the prestige of Prussia. Moreover, he, rather illogically, held the whole matter to be primarily one that affected the Hohenzollern family and Spain. The young prince, however, on hearing of the drift of events, solved the problem by declaring his intention not to accept the Crown of Spain (July 12). The action was spontaneous, emanating from Prince Leopold and his father Prince Antony, not from the Prussian monarch, though, on hearing of their decision, he informed Benedetti that he entirely approved it.

If the French Government had really wished for peace, it would have let the matter end there. But it did not do so. The extreme Bonapartists--plus royalistes que le roi--all along wished to gain prestige for their sovereign by inflicting an open humiliation on King William and through him on Prussia. They were angry that he had evaded the snare, and now brought pressure to bear on the Ministry, especially the Duc de Gramont, so that at 7 P.M. of that same day (July 12) he sent a telegram to Benedetti at Ems directing him to see King William and press him to declare that he "would not again authorise this candidature." The Minister added: "The effervescence of spirits [at Paris] is such that we do not know whether we shall succeed in mastering it." This was true. Paris was almost beside herself. As M. Sorel says: "The warm July evening drove into the streets a populace greedy of shows and excitements, whose imagination was spoiled by the custom of political quackery, for whom war was but a drama and history a romance[28]." Such was the impulse which led to Gramont's new demand, and it was made in spite of the remonstrances of the British ambassador, Lord Lyons.

Viewing that demand in the clearer light of the present time, we must say that it was not unreasonable in itself; but it was presented in so insistent a way that King William declined to entertain it. Again Gramont pressed Benedetti to urge the matter; but the utmost that the King would do was to state: "He gives his approbation entirely and without reserve to the withdrawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern: he cannot do more." He refused to see the ambassador further on this subject; but on setting out to return to Berlin--a step necessitated by the growing excitement throughout Germany--he took leave of Benedetti with perfect cordiality (July 14). The ambassador thereupon returned to Paris.

Meanwhile, however, Bismarck had given the last flick to the restive courses of the Press on both sides of the Rhine. In his Reminiscences he has described his depression of spirits on hearing the news of the withdrawal of Prince Leopold's candidature and of his nearly formed resolve to resign as a protest against so tame a retreat before French demands. But while Moltke, Roon, and he were dining together, a telegram reached him from the King at Ems, dated July 13, 3.50 P.M., which gave him leave to inform the ambassadors and the Press of the present state of affairs. Bismarck saw his chance. The telegram could be cut down so as to give a more resolute look to the whole affair. And, after gaining Moltke's assurance that everything was ready for war, he proceeded to condense it. The facts here can only be understood by a comparison of the two versions. We therefore give the original as sent to Bismarck by Abeken, Secretary to the Foreign Office, who was then at Ems:--

His Majesty writes to me: "Count Benedetti spoke to me on

the promenade, in order to demand from me, finally in a very

importunate manner, that I should authorise him to telegraph at

once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my

consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I

refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possible

to undertake engagements of this kind à tout jamais. Naturally I

told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier

informed about Paris and Madrid than myself, he could see clearly

that my Government once more had no hand in the matter." His

Majesty has since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty

having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from the

Prince, has decided, with reference to the above demand, upon the

representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive

Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an

aide-de-camp: "That his Majesty had now received from the

Prince confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already

received from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the

ambassador." His Majesty leaves it to your Excellency whether

Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once

communicated both to our ambassadors and to the Press.

Bismarck cut this down to the following:--

After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of

Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the Imperial

Government of France by the Royal Government of Spain, the

French ambassador at Ems further demanded of his Majesty, the

King, that he would authorise him to telegraph to Paris that his

Majesty, the King, bound himself for all future time never again

to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their

candidature. His Majesty, the King, thereupon decided not to

receive the French ambassador again, and sent to tell him through

the aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to

communicate to the ambassador.

Efforts have been made to represent Bismarck's "editing" of the Ems telegram as the decisive step leading to war; and in his closing years, when seized with the morbid desire of a partly discredited statesman to exaggerate his influence on events, he himself sought to perpetuate this version. He claims that the telegram, as it came from Ems, described the incident there "as a fragment of a negotiation still pending, and to be continued at Berlin." This claim is quite untenable. A careful perusal of the original despatch from Ems shows that the negotiation, far from being "still pending," was clearly described as having been closed on that matter. That Benedetti so regarded it is proved by his returning at once to Paris. If it could have been "continued at Berlin," he most certainly would have proceeded thither. Finally, the words in the original as to the King refusing Benedetti "somewhat sternly" were omitted, and very properly omitted, by Bismarck in his abbreviated version. Had he included those words, he might have claimed to be the final cause of the War of 1870. As it is, his claim must be set aside as the offspring of senile vanity. His version of the original Ems despatch did not contain a single offensive word, neither did it alter any statement. Abeken also admitted that his original telegram was far too long, and that Bismarck was quite justified in abbreviating it as he did[29].

If we pay attention, not to the present more complete knowledge of the whole affair, but to the imperfect information then open to the German public, war was the natural result of the second and very urgent demand that came from Paris. The Duc de Gramont in dispatching it must have known that he was playing a desperate game. Either Prussia would give way and France would score a diplomatic triumph over a hated rival; or Prussia would fight. The friends of peace in France thought matters hopeless when that demand was sent in so insistent a manner. As soon as Gladstone heard of the second demand of the Ollivier Ministry, he wrote to Lord Granville, then Foreign Minister: "It is our duty to represent the immense responsibility which will rest upon France, if she does not at once accept as satisfactory and conclusive the withdrawal of the candidature of Prince Leopold[30]."

On the other hand, we must note that the conduct of the German Press at this crisis was certainly provocative of war. The morning on which Bismarck's telegram appeared in the official North German Gazette, saw a host of violent articles against France, and gleeful accounts of imaginary insults inflicted by the King on Benedetti. All this was to be expected after the taunts of cowardice freely levelled by the Parisian papers against Prussia for the last two days; but whether Bismarck directly inspired the many sensational versions of the Ems affair that appeared in North German papers on July 14 is not yet proven.

However that may be, the French Government looked on the refusal of its last demand, the publication of Bismarck's telegram, and the insults of the German Press as a casus belli. The details of the sitting of the Emperor's Council at 10 P.M. on July 14, at which it was decided to call out the French reserves, are not yet known. Ollivier was not present. There had been a few hours of wavering on this question; but the tone of the Parisian evening papers--it was the French national day--the loud cries of the rabble for war, and their smashing the windows of the Prussian embassy, seem to have convinced the Emperor and his advisers that to draw back now would involve the fall of the dynasty. Report has uniformly pointed to the Empress as pressing these ideas on her consort, and the account which the Duc de Gramont later on gave to Lord Malmesbury of her words at that momentous Council-meeting support popular rumour. It is as follows:--

Before the final resolve to declare war the Emperor, Empress, and Ministers went to St. Cloud. After some discussion Gramont told me that the Empress, a high-spirited and impressionable woman, made a strong and most excited address, declaring that "war was inevitable if the honour of France was to be sustained." She was immediately followed by Marshal Leboeuf, who, in the most violent tone, threw down his portfolio and swore that if war was not declared he would give it up and renounce his military rank. The Emperor gave way, and Gramont went straight to the Chamber to announce the fatal news[31].

On the morrow (July 15) the Chamber of Deputies appointed a Commission, which hastily examined the diplomatic documents and reported in a sense favourable to the Ollivier Ministry, The subsequent debate made strongly for a rupture; and it is important to note that Ollivier and Gramont based the demand for warlike preparations on the fact that King William had refused to see the French ambassador, and held that that alone was a sufficient insult. In vain did Thiers protest against the war as inopportune, and demand to see all the necessary documents. The Chamber passed the war supplies by 246 votes to 10; and Thiers had his windows broken. Late on that night Gramont set aside a last attempt of Lord Granville to offer the mediation of England in the cause of peace, on the ground that this would be to the harm of France--"unless means were found to stop the rapid mobilisation of the Prussian armies which were approaching our frontier[32]." In this connection it is needful to state that the order for mobilising the North German troops was not given by the King of Prussia until late on July 15, when the war votes of the French Chambers were known at Berlin.

Benedetti, in his review of the whole question, passes the following very noteworthy and sensible verdict: "It was public opinion which forced the [French] Government to draw the sword, and by an irresistible onset dictated its resolutions[33]." This is certainly true for the public opinion of Paris, though not of France as a whole. The rural districts which form the real strength of France nearly always cling to peace. It is significant that the Prefects of French Departments reported that only 16 declared in favour of war, while 37 were in doubt on the matter, and 34 accepted war with regret. This is what might be expected from a people which in the Provinces is marked by prudence and thrift.

In truth, the people of modern Europe have settled down to a life of peaceful industry, in which war is the most hateful of evils. On the other hand, the massing of mankind in great cities, where thought is superficial and feelings can quickly be stirred by a sensation-mongering Press, has undoubtedly helped to feed political passions and national hatred. A rural population is not deeply stirred by stories of slights to ambassadors. The peasant of Brittany had no active dislike for the peasant of Brandenburg. Each only asked to be left to till his fields in peace and safety. But the crowds on the Parisian boulevards and in Unter den Linden took (and seemingly always will take) a very different view of life. To them the news of the humiliation of the rival beyond the Rhine was the greatest and therefore the most welcome of sensations; and, unfortunately, the papers which pandered to their habits set the tone of thought for no small part of France and Germany and exerted on national policy an influence out of all proportion to its real weight.

The story of the Franco-German dispute is one of national jealousy carefully fanned for four years by newspaper editors and popular speakers until a spark sufficed to set Western Europe in a blaze. The spark was the Hohenzollern candidature, which would have fallen harmless had not the tinder been prepared since K?niggratz by journalists at Paris and Berlin. The resulting conflagration may justly be described as due partly to national friction and partly to the supposed interests of the Napoleonic dynasty, but also to the heat engendered by a sensational Press.

It is well that one of the chief dangers to the peace of the modern world should be clearly recognised. The centralisation of governments and of population may have its advantages; but over against them we must set grave drawbacks; among those of a political kind the worst are the growth of nervousness and excitability, and the craving for sensation--qualities which undoubtedly tend to embitter national jealousies at all times, and in the last case to drive weak dynasties or Cabinets on to war. Certainly Bismarck's clever shifts to bring about a rupture in 1870 would have failed had not the atmosphere both at Paris and Berlin been charged with electricity[34].

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872, by Sir M.E. Grant Duff, vol. i. p. 120.

[8] In 1867 Bismarck's promises went so far as the framing of a secret compact with France, one article of which stated that Prussia would not object to the annexation of Belgium by France. The agreement was first published by the Times on July 25, 1870, Bismarck then divulging the secret so as to inflame public opinion against France.

[9] See Ollivier's great work, L'Empire libéral, for full details of this time.

[10] Hanotaux, Contemporary France, vol. i. p. 9 (Eng. ed.); Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 61. The popular Prussian view about England found expression in the comic paper Kladderdatsch:--

Deutschland beziehe billige Sympathien

Und Frankreich theures Kriegsmateriel.

[11] See Sir H. Rumbold's Recollections of a Diplomatist (First Series), vol. ii. p. 292, for the Czar's hostility to France in 1870.

[12] Memoirs of Count Beust, vol. ii. pp. 358-359 (Appendix D, Eng. edit.).

[13] Revue des deux Mondes for April 1, 1878.

[14] Seignobos, A Political History of Contemporary Europe, vol. ii. pp. 806-807 (Eng. edit.). Oncken, Zeitalter des Kaisers Wilhelm (vol. i. pp. 720-740), tries to prove that there was a deep conspiracy against Prussia. I am not convinced by his evidence.

[15] Souvenirs militaires, by General B.L.J. Lebrun (Paris 1895), pp. 95-148.

[16] Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 58.

[17] Memoirs of Count Beust, vol. ii. p. 359. The Present Position of European Politics p. 366 (1887). By the author of Greater Britain.

[18] See the Rev. des deux Mondes for April 1, 1878, and "Chronique" of the Revue d'Histoire diplomatique for 1905, p. 298; also W.H. Stillman, The Union of Italy, 1815-1895, p. 348.

[19] For the relations of France to the Vatican, see Histoire du second Empire, by M. De la Gorce, vol. vi. (Paris, 1903); also Histoire Contemporaine (i.e. of France in 1869-1875), by M. Samuel Denis, 4 vols. The Empress Eugénie once said that she was "deux fois Catholique," as a Spaniard and as French Empress. (Sir M.K. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872, vol. i. p. 125.)

[20] Chauvinist is a term corresponding to our "Jingo." It is derived from a man named Chauvin, who lauded Napoleon I. and French glory to the skies.

[21] Bismarck, Reminiscences, vol. ii. pp. 41, 57 (Eng. edit.).

[22] Ib. p. 58.

[23] The ex-queen Isabella died in Paris in April 1904.

[24] Sorel, Hist. diplomatique de la Guerre Franco-Allemande, vol. i. p. 77.

[25] Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, p.34. This work contains the French despatches on the whole affair.

[26] In a recent work, Kaiser Wilhelm und die Begründung des Reichs, 1866-1871, Dr. Lorenz tries to absolve Bismarck from complicity in these intrigues, but without success. See Reminiscences of the King of Roumania (edited by S. Whitman), pp. 70, 86-87, 92-95; also Headlam's Bismarck, p. 327.

[27] Busch, Our Chancellor, vol. i. p. 367.

[28] Sorel, Hist. diplomatique de la Guerre Franco-Allemande, vol. i. chap. iv.; also for the tone of the French Press, Giraudeau, La Vérité sur la Campagne de 1870, pp. 46-60.

Ollivier tried to persuade Sir M.E. Grant Duff (Notes from a Diary, 1873-1881, vol. i. p. 45) that the French demand to King William was quite friendly and natural.

[29] Heinrich Abeken, by Hedwig Abeken, p. 375. Bismarck's successor in the chancellory, Count Caprivi, set matters in their true light in a speech in the Reichstag shortly after the publication of Bismarck's Reminiscences.

I dissent from the views expressed by the well-informed reviewer of Ollivier's L'Empire libéral (vol. viii.) in the Times of May 27, 1904, who pins his faith to an interview of Bismarck with Lord Loftus on July 13, 1870. Bismarck, of course wanted war; but so did Gramont, and I hold that the latter brought it about.

[30] J. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 328.

[31] This version has, I believe, not been refuted. Still, I must look on it with suspicion. No Minister, who had done so much to stir up the war-feeling, ought to have made any such confession--least of all against a lady, who could not answer it. M. Seignobos in his Political History of Contemporary Europe, vol. i. chap. vi. p. 184 (Eng edit.) says of Gramont: "He it was who embroiled France in the war with Prussia." In the course of the parliamentary inquiry of 1872 Gramont convicted himself and his Cabinet of folly in 1870 by using these words: "Je crois pouvoir déclarer que si on avait eu un doute, un seule doute, sur notre aptitude à la guerre, on e?t immédiatement arrêté la négociation" (Enquête parlementaire, I. vol. i. p. 108).

[32] Quoted by Sorel, op. cit. vol. i. p. 196.

[33] Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, p. 411.

[34] Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern died at Berlin on June 8, 1905. He was born in 1835, and in 1861 married the Infanta of Portugal.

* * *

"The Chief of the General Staff had his eye fixed from the first upon the capture of the enemy's capital, the possession of which is of more importance in France than in other countries. . . . It is a delusion to believe that a plan of war may be laid for a prolonged period and carried out in every point."--VON MOLTKE, The Franco-German War.

In olden times, before the invention of long-range arms of precision, warfare was decided mainly by individual bravery and strength. In the modern world victory has inclined more and more to that side which carefully prepares beforehand to throw a force, superior alike in armament and numbers, against the vitals of its enemy. Assuming that the combatants are fairly equal in physical qualities--and the spread of liberty has undoubtedly lessened the great differences that once were observable in this respect among European peoples--war becomes largely an affair of preliminary organisation. That is to say, it is now a matter of brain rather than muscle. Writers of the school of Carlyle may protest that all modern warfare is tame when compared with the splendidly rampant animalism of the Homeric fights. In the interests of Humanity it is to be hoped that the change will go on until war becomes wholly scientific and utterly unattractive. Meanwhile, the soldier-caste, the politician, and the tax-payer have to face the fact that the fortunes of war are very largely decided by humdrum costly preparations in time of peace.

The last chapter set forth the causes that led to war in 1870. That event found Germany fully prepared. The lessons of the campaign of 1866 had not been lost upon the Prussian General Staff. The artillery was improved alike in matériel and in drill-tactics, Napoleon I.'s plan of bringing massed batteries to bear on decisive points being developed with Prussian thoroughness. The cavalry learnt to scout effectively and act as "the eyes and ears of an army," as well as to charge in brigades on a wavering foe. Universal military service had been compulsory in Prussia since 1813; but the organisation of territorial army corps now received fuller development, so that each part of Prussia, including, too, most of the North German Confederation, had its own small army complete in all arms, and reinforced from the Reserve, and, at need, from the Landwehr[35]. By virtue of the military conventions of 1866, the other German States adopted a similar system, save that while Prussians served for three years (with few exceptions in the case of successful examinees), the South Germans served with the colours for a shorter period. Those conventions also secured uniformity, or harmony, in the railway arrangements for the transport of troops.

The General Staff of the North German Army had used these advantages to the utmost, by preparing a most complete plan of mobilisation--so complete, in fact, that the myriad orders had only to be drawn from their pigeon-holes and dated in the last hours of July 15. Forthwith the whole of the vast machinery started in swift but smooth working. Reservists speedily appeared at their regimental dep?ts, there found their equipment, and speedily brought their regiments up to the war footing; trains were ready, timed according to an elaborate plan, to carry them Rhinewards; provisions and stores were sent forward, ohne Hast, ohne Rast, as the Germans say; and so perfect were the plans on rail, river, and road, that none of those blocks occurred which frequently upset the plans of the French. Thus, by dint of plodding preparation, a group of federal States gained a decisive advantage over a centralised Empire which left too many things to be arranged in the last few hours.

Herein lies the true significance of the War of 1870. All Governments that were not content to jog along in the old military ruts saw the need of careful organisation, including the eventual control of all needful means of transport; and all that were wise hastened to adapt their system to the new order of things, which aimed at assuring the swift orderly movement of great masses of men by all the resources of mechanical science. Most of the civilised States soon responded to the new needs of the age; but a few (among them Great Britain) were content to make one or two superficial changes and slightly increase the number of troops, while leaving the all-important matter of organisation almost untouched; and that, too, despite the vivid contrast which every one could see between the machine-like regularity of the German mobilisation and the chaos that reigned on the French side.

Outwardly, the French army appeared to be beyond the reach of criticism. The troops had in large measure seen active service in the various wars whereby Napoleon III. fulfilled his promise of 1852--"The Empire is peace"; and their successes in the Crimea, Lombardy, Syria, and China, everywhere in fact but Mexico, filled them with warlike pride. Armed with the chassep?t, a newer and better rifle than the needle-gun, while their artillery (admittedly rather weak) was strengthened by the mitrailleuse, they claimed to be the best in the world, and burned to measure swords with the upstart forces of Prussia.

Sketch Map Of The District Between Metz And The Rhine.

But there was a sombre reverse to this bright side. All thinking Frenchmen, including the Emperor, were aware of grave defects--the lack of training of the officers[36], and the want of adaptability in the General Staff, which had little of that practical knowledge that the German Staff secured by periods of service with the troops. Add to this the leaven of republicanism working strongly in the army as in the State, and producing distrust between officers and men; above all, the lack of men and materials; and the outlook was not reassuring to those who knew the whole truth. Inclusive of the levies of the year 1869, which were not quite ready for active service, France would have by August 1, 1870, as many as 567,000 men in her regular army; but of these colonial, garrison, and other duties claimed as many as 230,000--a figure which seems designed to include the troops that existed only on paper. Not only the personnel but the matériel came far below what was expected. General Leboeuf, the War Minister, ventured to declare that all was ready even to the last button on the gaiters; but his boast at once rang false when at scores of military dep?ts neither gaiters, boots, nor uniforms were ready for the reservists who needed them.

Even where the organisation worked at its best, that best was slow and confused. There were no territorial army corps in time of peace; and the lack of this organisation led to a grievous waste of time and energy. Regiments were frequently far away from the dep?ts which contained the reservists' equipment; and when these had found their equipment, they often wandered widely before finding their regiments on the way to the frontier. One general officer hunted about on the frontier for a command which did not exist. As a result of this lack of organisation, and of that control over the railways which the Germans had methodically enforced, France lost the many advantages which her compact territory and excellent railway system ought to have ensured over her more straggling and poorer rival.

The loss of time was as fatal as it was singular under the rule of a Napoleon whose uncle had so often shattered his foes by swift movements of troops. In 1870 Napoleonic France had nothing but speed and dash on which to count. Numbers were against her. In 1869 Marshal Leboeuf had done away with the Garde Mobile, a sort of militia which had involved only fifteen days' drill in the year; and the Garde Nationale of the towns was less fit for campaigning than the re-formed Mobiles proved to be later on in the war. Thus France had no reserves: everything rested on the 330,000 men struggling towards the frontiers. It is doubtful whether there were more than 220,000 men in the first line by August 6, with some 50,000 more in reserve at Metz, etc.

Against them Germany could at once put into the field 460,000 infantry, 56,000 cavalry, with 1584 cannon; and she could raise these forces to some 1,180,000 men by calling out all the reserves and Landwehr. These last were men who had served their time and had not, as a rule, lost their soldierly qualities in civil life. Nearly 400,000 highly trained troops were ready to invade France early in August.

In view of these facts it seems incredible that Ollivier, the French Prime Minister, could have publicly stated that he entered on war with a light heart. Doubtless, Ministers counted on help from Austria or Italy, perhaps from both; but, as it proved, they judged too hastily. As was stated in Chapter I. of this work, Austria was not likely to move as long as Russia favoured the cause of Prussia; for any threatening pressure of the Muscovites on the open flank of the Hapsburg States, Galicia, has sufficed to keep them from embarking on a campaign in the West. In this case, the statesmen of Vienna are said to have known by July 20 that Russia would quietly help Prussia; she informed the Hapsburg Government that any increase in its armaments would be met by a corresponding increase in those of Russia. The meaning of such a hint was clear; and Austria decided not to seek revenge for K?niggr?tz unless the French triumph proved to be overwhelming. As for Italy, her alliance with France alone was very improbable for the reasons previously stated.

Another will o' the wisp which flitted before the ardent Bonapartists who pushed on the Emperor to war, was that the South German States would forsake the North and range their troops under the French eagles, as they had done in the years 1805-12. The first plan of campaign drawn up at Paris aimed at driving a solid wedge of French troops between the two Confederations and inducing or compelling the South to join France; it was hoped that Saxony would follow. As a matter of fact, very many of the South Germans and Saxons disliked Prussian supremacy; Catholic Bavaria looked askance at the growing power of Protestant Prussia. Würtemberg was Protestant, but far too democratic to wish for the control of the cast-iron bureaucrats of Berlin. The same was even more true of Saxony, where hostility to Prussia was a deep-rooted tradition; some of the Saxon troops on leaving their towns even shouted Napoleon soll leben[37]. It is therefore quite possible that, had France struck quickly at the valleys of the Neckar and Main, she might have reduced the South German States to neutrality. Alliance perhaps was out of the question save under overwhelming compulsion; for France had alienated the Bavarian and Hessian Governments by her claims in 1866, and the South German people by her recent offensive treatment of the Hohenzollern candidature. It is, however, safe to assert that if Napoleon I. had ordered French affairs he would have swept the South Germans into his net a month after the outbreak of war, as he had done in 1805. But Nature had not bestowed warlike gifts on the nephew, who took command of the French army at Metz at the close of July 1870. His feeble health, alternating with periods of severe pain, took from him all that buoyancy which lends life to an army and vigour to the headquarters; and his Chief of Staff, Leboeuf, did not make good the lack of these qualities in the nominal chief.

All the initiative and vigour were on the east of the Rhine. The spread of the national principle to Central and South Germany had recently met with several checks; but the diplomatic blunders of the French Government, the threats of their Press that the Napoleonic troops would repeat the wonders of 1805; above all, admiration of the dignified conduct of King William under what were thought to be gratuitous insults from France, began to kindle the flame of German patriotism even in the particularists of the South. The news that the deservedly popular Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederick William, would command the army now mustering in the Palatinate, largely composed of South Germans, sent a thrill of joy through those States. Taught by the folly of her stay-at-home strategy in 1866, Bavaria readily sent her large contingent beyond the Rhine; and all danger of a French irruption into South Germany was ended by the speedy massing of the Third German Army, some 200,000 strong in all, on the north of Alsace. For the French to cross the Rhine at Speyer, or even at Kehl, in front of a greatly superior army (though as yet they knew not its actual strength) was clearly impossible; and in the closing hours of July the French headquarters fell back on other plans, which, speaking generally, were to defend the French frontier from the Moselle to the Rhine by striking at the advanced German troops. At least, that seems to be the most natural explanation of the sudden and rather flurried changes then made.

It was wise to hide this change to a strategic defensive by assuming a tactical offensive; and on August 2 two divisions of Frossard's corps attacked and drove back the advanced troops of the Second German Army from Saarbrücken. The affair was unimportant: it could lead to nothing, unless the French had the means of following up the success. This they had not; and the advance of the First and Second German Armies, commanded by General Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles, was soon to deprive them of this position.

Meanwhile the Germans were making ready a weighty enterprise. The muster of the huge Third Army to the north of Alsace enabled their General Staff to fix August 4 for a general advance against that frontier. It fell to this army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederick William, to strike the first great blow. Early on August 4 a strong Bavarian division advanced against the small fortified town of Weissenburg, which lies deep down in the valley of the Lauter, surrounded by lofty hills. There it surprised a weak French division, the vanguard of MacMahon's army, commanded by General Abel Douay, whose scouts had found no trace of the advancing enemy. About 10 A.M. Douay fell, mortally wounded; another German division, working round the town to the east, carried the strong position of the Geisberg; and these combined efforts, frontal and on the flank, forced the French hastily to retreat westwards over the hills to W?rth, after losing more than 2000 men.

The news of this reverse and of the large German forces ready to pour into the north of Alsace led the Emperor to order the 7th French corps at Belfort, and the 5th in and around Bitsch, to send reinforcements to MacMahon, whose main force held the steep and wooded hills between the villages of W?rth, Fr?schweiler, and Reichshofen. The line of railway between Strassburg and Bitsch touches Reichshofen; but, for some reason that has never been satisfactorily explained, MacMahon was able to draw up only one division from the side of Strassburg and Belfort, and not one from Bitsch, which was within an easy march. The fact seems to be that de Failly, in command at Bitsch, was a prey to conflicting orders from Metz, and therefore failed to bring up the 5th corps as he should have done. MacMahon's cavalry was also very defective in scouting, and he knew nothing as to the strength of the forces rapidly drawing near from Weissenburg and the east.

Certainly his position at W?rth was very strong. The French lines were ranged along the steep wooded slope running north and south, with buttress-like projections, intersected by gullies, the whole leading up to a plateau on which stand the village

Plan of the Battle of W?rth.

of Fr?schweiler and the hamlet of Elsasshausen. Behind is the wood called the Grosser Wald, while the hamlet is flanked on the south and in front by an outlying wood, the Niederwald. Behind the Grosser Wald the ground sinks away to the valley in which runs the Bitsch-Reichshofen railway. In front of MacMahon's position lay the village of W?rth, deep in the valley of the Sauerbach. The invader would therefore have to carry this village or cross the stream, and press up the long open slopes on which were ranged the French troops and batteries with all the advantages of cover and elevation on their side. A poor general, having forces smaller than those of his enemy, might hope to hold such a position. But there was one great defect. Owing to de Failly's absence MacMahon had not enough men to hold the whole of the position marked out by Nature for defence.

Conscious of its strength, the Prussian Crown Prince ordered the leaders of his vanguard not to bring on a general engagement on August 6, when the invading army had not at hand its full striking strength[38]. But orders failed to hold in the ardour of the Germans under the attacks of the French. Affairs of outposts along the Sauerbach early on that morning brought on a serious fight, which up to noon went against the invaders. At that time the Crown Prince galloped to the front, and ordered an attack with all available forces. The fighting, hitherto fierce but spasmodic between division and division, was now fed by a steady stream of German reinforcements, until 87,000 of the invaders sought to wrest from MacMahon the heights, with their woods and villages, which he had but 54,000 to defend. The superiority of numbers soon made itself felt. Pursuant to the Crown Prince's orders, parts of two Bavarian corps began to work their way (but with one strangely long interval of inaction) through the wood to the north of the French left wing; on the Prussian 11th corps fell the severer task of winning their way up the slopes south of W?rth, and thence up to the Niederwald and Elsasshausen. When these woods were won, the 5th corps was to make its frontal attack from W?rth against Fr?schweiler. Despite the desperate efforts of the French and their Turco regiments, and a splendid but hopeless charge of two regiments of Cuirassiers and one of Lancers against the German infantry, the Niederwald and Elsasshausen were won; and about four o'clock the sustained fire of fifteen German batteries against Fr?schweiler enabled the 5th corps to struggle up that deadly glacis in spite of desperate charges by the defenders.

Throughout the day the French showed their usual dash and devotion, some regiments being cut to pieces rather than retire. But by five o'clock the defence was outflanked on the two wings and crushed at the centre; human nature could stand no more after eight hours' fighting; and after a final despairing effort of the French Cuirassiers all their line gave way in a general rout down the slopes to Reichshofen and towards Saverne. Apart from the Würtembergers held in reserve, few of the Germans were in a condition to press the pursuit. Nevertheless the fruits of victory were very great: 10,000 Frenchmen lay dead or wounded; 6000 unwounded prisoners were taken, with 28 cannon and 5 mitrailleuses. Above all, MacMahon's fine army was utterly broken, and made no attempt to defend any of the positions on the north of the Vosges. Not even a tunnel was there blown up to delay the advance of the Germans. Hastily gathering up the 5th corps from Bitsch--the corps which ought to have been at W?rth--that gallant but unfortunate general struck out to the south-west for the great camp at Chalons. The triumph, however, cost the Germans dear. As many as 10,600 men were killed or wounded, the 5th Prussian corps alone losing more than half that number. Their cavalry failed to keep touch with the retreating French.

On that same day (August 6) a disaster scarcely less serious overtook the French 2nd corps, which had been holding Saarbrücken. Convinced that that post was too advanced and too weak in presence of the foremost divisions of the First and Second German Armies now advancing rapidly against it, General Frossard drew back his vanguard some mile and a half to the line of steep hills between Spicheren and Forbach, just within the French frontier. This retreat, as it seemed, tempted General Kameke to attack with a single division, as he was justified in doing in order to find the direction and strength of the retiring force. The attack, when pushed home, showed that the French were bent on making a stand on their commanding heights; and an onset on the Rothe Berg was stoutly beaten off about noon.

But now the speedy advance and intelligent co-operation of other German columns was instrumental in turning an inconsiderable repulse into an important victory. General G?ben was not far off, and marching towards the firing, sent to offer his help with the 8th corps. General von Alvensleben, also, with the 3rd corps had reached Neunkirchen when the sound of firing near Saarbrücken led him to push on for that place with the utmost speed. He entrained part of his corps and brought it up in time to strengthen the attack on the Rothe Berg and other heights nearer to Forbach. Each battalion as it arrived was hurled forward, and General von Fran?ois, charging with his regiment, gained a lodgment half-way up the broken slope of the Rothe Berg, which was stoutly maintained even when he fell mortally wounded. Elsewhere the onsets were repelled by the French, who, despite their smaller numbers, kept up a sturdy resistance on the line of hills in the woods behind, and in the iron-works in front of Forbach. Even when the Germans carried the top of the Rothe Berg, their ranks were riddled by a cross fire; but by incredible exertions they managed to bring guns to the summit and retaliate with effect[39].

This, together with the outflanking movement which their increasing numbers enabled them to carry out against the French left wing at Forbach, decided the day; and Frossard's corps fell back shattered towards the corps of Bazaine. It is noteworthy that this was but nine or ten miles to the rear. Bazaine had ordered three divisions to march towards the firing: one made for a wrong point and returned; the others made half-hearted efforts, and thus left Frossard to be overborne by numbers. The result of these disjointed movements was that both Frossard and Bazaine hurriedly retired towards Metz, while the First and Second German Armies now gathered up all their strength with the aim of shutting up the French in that fortress. To this end the First Army made for Colombey, east of Metz, while the leading part of the Second Army purposed to cross the Moselle south of Metz, and circle round that stronghold on the west.

It is now time to turn to the French headquarters. These two crushing defeats on a single day utterly dashed Napoleon's plan of a spirited defence of the north-east frontier, until such time as the levies of 1869 should be ready, or Austria and Italy should draw the sword. On July 26 the Austrian ambassador assured the French Ministry that Austria was pushing on her preparations. Victor Emmanuel was with difficulty restrained by his Ministers from openly taking the side of France. On the night of August 6 he received telegraphic news of the Battles of W?rth and Forbach, whereupon he exclaimed, "Poor Emperor! I pity him, but I have had a lucky escape." Austria also drew back, and thus left France face to face with the naked truth that she stood alone and unready before a united and triumphant Germany, able to pour treble her own forces through the open portals of Lorraine and northern Alsace.

Napoleon III., to do him justice, had never cherished the wild dreams that haunted the minds of his consort and of the frothy "Mamelukes" lately in favour at Court; still less did the "silent man of destiny" indulge in the idle boasts that had helped to alienate the sympathy of Europe and to weld together Germany to withstand the blows of a second Napoleonic invasion. The nephew knew full well that he was not the Great Napoleon--he knew it before Victor Hugo in spiteful verse vainly sought to dub him the Little. True, his statesmanship proved to be mere dreamy philosophising about nationalities; his administrative powers, small at the best, were ever clogged by his too generous desire to reward his fellow-conspirators of the coup d'état of 1851; and his gifts for war were scarcely greater than those of the other Napoléonides, Joseph and Jerome. Nevertheless the reverses of his early life had strengthened that fund of quiet stoicism, that energy to resist if not to dare, which formed the backbone of an otherwise somewhat weak, shadowy, and uninspiring character. And now, in the rapid fall of his fortunes, the greatest adventurer of the nineteenth century showed to the full those qualities of toughness and dignified reserve which for twenty years had puzzled and imposed on that lively emotional people. By the side of the downcast braggarts of the Court and the unstrung screamers of the Parisian Press, his mien had something of the heroic. Tout peut se rétablir--"All may yet be set right"--such was the vague but dignified phrase in which he summarised the results of August 6 to his people.

The military situation now required a prompt retirement beyond the Moselle. The southerly line of retreat, which MacMahon and de Failly had been driven to take, forbade the hope of their junction with the main army at Metz in time to oppose a united front to the enemy. And it was soon known that their flight could not be stayed at Nancy or even at Toul. During the agony of suspense as to their movements and those of their German pursuers, the Emperor daily changed his plans. First, he and Leboeuf planned a retreat beyond the Moselle and Meuse; next, political considerations bade them stand firm on the banks of the Nied, some twelve miles east of Metz; and when this position seemed unsafe, they ended the marchings and counter-marchings of their troops by taking up a position at Colombey, nearer to Metz.

Meanwhile at Paris the Chamber of Deputies had overthrown the Ollivier Ministry, and the Empress-Regent installed in office Count Palikao. There was a general outcry against Leboeuf, and on the 12th the Emperor resigned the command to Marshal Bazaine (Lebrun now acting as Chief of Staff), with the injunction to retreat westwards to Verdun. For the Emperor to order such a retreat in his own name was thought to be inopportune. Bazaine was a convenient scapegoat, and he himself knew it. Had he thrown an army corps into Metz and obeyed the Emperor's orders by retreating on Verdun, things would certainly have gone better than was now to be the case. In his printed defence Bazaine has urged that the army had not enough provisions for the march, and, further, that the outlying forts of Metz were not yet ready to withstand a siege--a circumstance which, if true, partly explains Bazaine's reluctance to leave the "virgin city[40]." Napoleon III. quitted it early on the 16th: he and his escort were the last Frenchmen to get free of that death-trap for many a week.

While Metz exercised this fatal fascination over the protecting army, the First and Second German Armies were striding westwards to envelop both the city and its guardians. Moltke's aim was to hold as many of the French to the neighbourhood of the fortress, while his left wing swung round it on the south. The result was the battle of Colombey on the east of Metz (August 14). It was a stubborn fight, costing the Germans some 5000 men, while the French with smaller losses finally withdrew under the eastern walls of Metz. But that heavy loss meant a great ultimate gain to Germany. The vacillations of Bazaine, whose strategy was far more faulty than that of Napoleon III. had been, together with the delay caused by the defiling of a great part of the army through the narrow streets of Metz, gave the Germans an opportunity such as had not occurred since the year 1805, when Napoleon I. shut up an Austrian army in Ulm.

The man who now saw the splendid chance of which Fortune vouchsafed a glimpse, was Lieutenant-General von Alvensleben, Commander of the 3rd corps, whose activity and resource had so largely contributed to the victory of Spicheren-Forbach. Though the orders of his Commander-in-Chief, Prince Frederick Charles, forbade an advance until the situation in front was more fully known, the General heard enough to convince himself that a rapid advance southwards to and over the Moselle might enable him to intercept the French retreat on Verdun, which might now be looked on as certain. Reporting his conviction to his chief as also to the royal headquarters, he struck out with all speed on the 15th, quietly threw a bridge over the river, and sent on his advanced guard as far as Pagny, near Gorze, while all his corps, about 33,000 strong, crossed the river about midnight. Soon after dawn, he pushed on towards Gorze, knowing by this time that the other corps of the Second Army were following him, while the 7th and 8th corps of the First Army were about to cross the river nearly opposite that town.

This bold movement, which would have drawn on him sharp censure in case of overthrow, was more than justifiable seeing the discouraged state of the French troops, the supreme need of finding their line of retreat, and the splendid results that must follow on the interception of that retreat. The operations of war must always be attended with risk, and the great commander is he whose knowledge of the principles of strategy enables him quickly to see when the final gain warrants the running of risks, and how they may be met with the least likelihood of disaster.

Alvensleben's advance was in accordance with Moltke's general plan of operations; but that corps-leader, finding the French to be in force between him and Metz, determined to attack them in order to delay their retreat. The result was the battle of August 16, variously known as Vionville, Rezonville, or Mars-la-Tour--a battle that defies brief description, inasmuch as it represented the effort of the Third, or Brandenburg, corps, with little help at first from others, to hold its ground against the onsets of two French corps. Early in the fight Bazaine galloped up, but he did not bring forward the masses in his rear, probably because he feared to be cut off from Metz. Even so, all through the forenoon, it seemed that the gathering forces of the French must break through the thin lines audaciously thrust into that almost open plain on the flank of their line of march. But Alvensleben and his men held their ground with a dogged will that nothing could shatter. In one sense their audacity saved them. Bazaine for a long time could not believe that a single corps would throw itself against one of the two roads by which his great army was about to retreat. He believed that the northern road might also be in danger, and therefore did not launch at Alvensleben the solid masses that must have swept him back towards the Meuse. At noon four battalions of the German 10th corps struggled up from the south and took their share of the hitherto unequal fight.

But the crisis of the fight came a little later. It was marked by one of the most daring and effective strokes ever dealt in modern warfare. At 2 o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them--that was impossible--but to delay their advance and weaken their impact. Only half of the brave horsemen returned from that ride of death, but they gained their end.

The mad charge drove deep into the French array about Rezonville, and gave their leaders pause in the belief that it was but the first of a series of systematic attacks on the French left. System rather than dash was supposed to characterise German tactics; and the daring of their enemies for once made the French too methodical. Bazaine scarcely brought the 3rd corps and the Guard into action at all, but kept them in reserve. As the afternoon sun waned, the whole weight of the German 10th corps was thrown into the fight about Vionville, and the vanguards of the 8th and 9th came up from Gorze to threaten the French left. Fearing that he might be cut off from Metz on the south--a fear which had unaccountably haunted him all the day--Bazaine continued to feed that part of his lines; and thus Alvensleben was able to hold the positions near the southern road to Verdun, which he had seized in the morning. The day closed with a great cavalry combat on the German left wing in which the French had to give way. Darkness alone put an end to the deadly strife. Little more than two German corps had sufficed to stay the march of an army which potentially numbered in all more than 170,000 men.

On both sides the losses were enormous, namely, some 16,000 killed and wounded. No cannon, standards, or prisoners were taken; but on that day the army of Prince Frederick Charles practically captured the whole of Bazaine's army. The statement may seem overdrawn, but it is none the less true. The advance of other German troops on that night made Bazaine's escape from Metz far more difficult than before, and very early on the morrow he drew back his lines through Gravelotte to a strong position nearer Metz. Thus, a battle, which in a tactical sense seemed to be inconclusive, became, when viewed in the light of strategy, the most decisive of the war. Had Bazaine used even the forces which he had in the field ready to hand he must have overborne Alvensleben; and the arrival of 170,000 good troops at Verdun or Chalons would have changed the whole course of the war. The campaign would probably have followed the course of the many campaigns waged in the valleys of the Meuse and Marne; and Metz, held by a garrison of suitable size, might have defied the efforts of a large besieging army for fully six months. These conjectures are not fanciful. The duration of the food supply of a garrison cut off from the outside world varies inversely with the size of that garrison. The experiences of armies invading and defending the East of France also show with general accuracy what might have been expected if the rules of sound strategy had been observed. It was the actual course of events which transcended experience and set all probabilities at defiance.

The battle of Gravelotte, or St. Privat, on the 18th completed the work so hardily begun by the 3rd German corps on the 16th. The need of driving back Bazaine's army upon Metz was pressing, and his inaction on the 17th gave time for nearly all the forces of the First and Second German Armies to be brought up to the German positions, some nine miles west of Metz, though one corps was left to the east of that fortress to hinder any attempt of the French to break out on that side. Bazaine, however, massed his great army on the west along a ridge stretching north and south, and presenting, especially in the southern half, steep slopes to the assailants. It also sloped away to the rear, thus enabling the defenders (as was the case with Wellington at Waterloo) secretly to reinforce any part of the line. On the French left wing, too, the slopes curved inward, thus giving the defenders ample advantage against any flanking movements on that side. On the north, between Amanvillers and Ste. Marie-aux-Chênes, the defence had fewer strong points except those villages, the Jaumont Wood, and the gradual slope of the ground away to the little River Orne, which formed an open glacis. Bazaine massed his reserves on the plateau of Plappeville and to the rear of his left wing; but this cardinal fault in his dispositions--due to his haunting fear of being cut off from Metz--was long hidden by the woods and slopes in the rear of his centre. The position here and on the French left was very strong, and at several parts so far concealed the troops that up to 11 A.M. the advancing Germans were in doubt whether the French would not seek to break away towards the north-west. That so great an army would remain merely on the defensive, a course so repugnant to the ardour of the French nature and the traditions of their army, entered into the thoughts of few.

Yet such was the case. The solution of the riddle is to be found in Bazaine's despatch of August 17 to the Minister of War: "We are going to put forth every effort to make good our supplies of all kinds in order to resume our march in two days if that is possible[41]." That the army was badly hampered by lack of stores is certain; but to postpone even for a single day the march to Verdun by the northern road--that by way of Briey--was fatal. Possibly, however, he hoped to deal the Germans so serious a blow, if they attacked him on the 18th, as to lighten the heavy task of cutting his way out on the 19th.

If so, he nearly succeeded. The Germans were quite taken aback by the extent and strength of his lines. Their intention was to outflank his right wing, which was believed to stretch no further north than Amanvillers; but the rather premature advance of Manstein's 9th corps soon drew a deadly fire from that village and the heights on either side, which crushed the artillery of that corps. Soon the Prussian Guards and the 12th corps began to suffer from the fire poured in from the trenches that crowned the hill. On the German right, General Steinmetz, instead of waiting for the hoped-for flank attack on the north to take effect, sent the columns of the First Army to almost certain death in the defile in front of Gravelotte, and he persisted in these costly efforts even when the strength of the French position on that side was patent to all. For this the tough old soldier met with severe censure and ultimate disgrace. In his defence, however, it may be urged that when a great battle is raging with doubtful fortunes, the duty of a commander on the attacking side is to busy the enemy at as many points as possible, so that the final blow may be dealt with telling effect on a vital point where he cannot be adequately reinforced; and the bull-dog tactics of Steinmetz in front of Gravelotte, which cost the assailants many thousands of men, at any rate served to keep the French reserves on that side, and thereby weaken the support available for a more important point at the crisis of the fight. It so happened, too, that the action of Steinmetz strengthened the strange misconception of Bazaine that the Germans were striving to cut him off from Metz on the south.

The real aim of the Germans was exactly the contrary, namely, to pin his whole army to Metz by swinging round their right flank on the villages of St. Privat and Raucourt. Having some 40,000 men under Canrobert in and between these villages, whose solid buildings gave the defence the best of cover, Bazaine had latterly taken little thought for that part of his lines, though it was dangerously far removed from his reserves. These he kept on the south, under the misconception which clung to him here as at Rezonville.

The mistake was to prove fatal. As we have said, the German plan was to turn the French right wing in the more open country on the north. To this end the Prussian Guards and the Saxons, after driving the French outposts from Ste. Marie-aux-Chênes, brought all their strength to the task of crushing the French at their chief stronghold on the right, St. Privat. The struggle of the Prussian Guards up the open slope between that village and Amanvillers left them a mere shadow of their splendid array; but the efforts of the German artillery cost the defenders dear: by seven o'clock St. Privat was in flames, and as the Saxons (the 12th corps), wheeling round from the north after a long flank-march, closed in on the outlying village of Raucourt, Canrobert saw that the day was lost unless he received prompt aid from the Imperial Guard. Bourbaki, however, brought up only some 3000 of these choice troops, and that too late to save St. Privat from the persistent fury of the German onset.

As dusk fell over the scene of carnage the French right fell back in some disorder, even from part of Amanvillers. Farther south, they held their ground. On the whole they had dealt to their foes a loss of 20,159 men, or nearly a tenth of their total. Of the French forces engaged, some 150,000 in number, 7853 were killed and wounded, and 4419 were taken prisoners. The disproportion in the losses shows the toughness of the French defence and the (in part) unskilful character of the German attack. On this latter point the recently published Journals of Field-Marshal Count von Blumenthal supply some piquant details. He describes the indignation of King William at the wastefulness of the German tactics at Gravelotte: "He complained bitterly that the officers of the higher grades appeared to have forgotten all that had been so carefully taught them at manoeuvres, and had apparently all lost their heads." The same authority supplies what may be in part an explanation of this in his comment, written shortly before Gravelotte, that he believed there might not be another battle in the whole war--a remark which savours of presumption and folly. Gravelotte, therefore, cannot be considered as wholly creditable to the victors. Still, the result was that some 180,000 French troops were shut up within the outworks of Metz[42].

NOTE THE SECOND EDITION

With reference to M. Ollivier's statement (quoted on p. 55) that he entered on war with a light heart, it should be added that he has since explained his meaning to have been that the cause of France was just, that of Prussia unjust.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] By the Prussian law of November 9, 1867, soldiers had to serve three years with the colours, four in the reserve, and five in the Landwehr. Three new army corps (9th, 10th, and 11th) were formed in the newly annexed or confederated lands, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Saxony, etc. (Maurice, The Franco-German War, 1900).

[36] M. de la Gorce in his Histoire du second Empire, vol. vi., tells how the French officers scouted study of the art of war, while most of them looked on favouritism as the only means of promotion. The warnings of Colonel Stoffel, French Military Attaché at Berlin, were passed over, as those of "a Prussomane, whom Bismarck had fascinated."

[37] I.e. "Long live Napoleon." The author had this from an Englishman who was then living in Saxony.

[38] See von Blumenthal's Journals, p. 87 (Eng. edit.): "The battle which I had expected to take place on the 7th, and for which I had prepared a good scheme for turning the enemy's right flank, came on of itself to-day."

[39] For these details about the fighting at the Rothe Berg I am largely indebted to my friend, Mr. Bernard Pares, M.A., who has made a careful study of the ground there, as also at W?rth and Sedan.

[40] Bazaine gave this excuse in his Rapport sommaire sur les Opérations de l'Armée du Rhin; but as a staff-officer pointed out in his incisive Réponse, this reason must have been equally cogent when Napoleon (August 12) ordered him to retreat; and he was still bound to obey the Emperor's orders.

[41] Bazaine, Rapport sommaire, etc. The sentence quoted above is decisive. The defence which Bazaine and his few defenders later on put forward, as well as the attacks of his foes, are of course mixed up with theories evolved after the event.

[42] For fuller details of these battles the student should consult the two great works on the subject--the Staff Histories of the war, issued by the French and German General Staffs; Bazaine, L'Armée du Rhin, and Episodes de la Guerre; General Blumenthal's Journals; Aus drei Kriegen, by Gen. von Lignitz; Maurice, The Franco-German War; Hooper, The Campaign of Sedan; the War Correspondence of the Times and the Daily News, published in book form.

* * *

"Nothing is more rash and contrary to the principles of war than to make a flank-march before an army in position, especially when this army occupies heights before which it is necessary to defile."--NAPOLEON I.

The success of the German operations to the south and west of Metz virtually decided the whole of the campaign. The Germans could now draw on their vast reserves ever coming on from the Rhine, throw an iron ring around that fortress, and thereby deprive France of her only great force of regular troops. The throwing up of field-works and barricades went on with such speed that the blockading forces were able in a few days to detach a strong column towards Chalons-sur-Marne in order to help the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia. That army in the meantime was in pursuit of MacMahon by way of Nancy, and strained every nerve so as to be able to strike at the southern railway lines out of Paris. It was, however, diverted to the north-west by events soon to be described.

The German force detached from the neighbourhood of Metz consisted of the Prussian Guards, the 4th and 12th corps, and two cavalry divisions. This army, known as the Army of the Meuse, was placed under the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony. Its aim was, in common with the Third German Army (that of the Crown Prince of Prussia), to strike at MacMahon before he received reinforcements. The screen of cavalry which preceded the Army of the Meuse passed that river on the 22nd, when the bulk of the forces of the Crown Prince of Prussia crossed not many miles farther to the south. The two armies swept on westwards within easy distance of one another; and on the 23rd their cavalry gleaned news of priceless value, namely, that MacMahon's army had left Chalons. On the next day the great camp was found deserted.

In fact, MacMahon had undertaken a task of terrible difficulty. On taking over the command at Chalons, where Napoleon III. arrived from Metz on the 16th, he found hopeless disorder not only among his own beaten troops, but among many of the newcomers; the worst were the Garde Mobile, many regiments of whom greeted the Emperor with shouts of à Paris. To meet the Germans in the open plains of Champagne with forces so incoherent and dispirited was sheer madness; and a council of war on the 17th came to the conclusion to fall back on the capital and operate within its outer forts--a step which might enable the army to regain confidence, repress any rising in the capital, and perhaps inflict checks on the Germans, until the provinces rose en masse against the invaders. But at this very time the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry at Paris came to an exactly contrary decision, on the ground that the return of the Emperor with MacMahon's army would look like personal cowardice and a mean desertion of Bazaine at Metz. The Empress was for fighting à outrance, and her Government issued orders for a national rising and the enrolling of bodies of irregulars, or francs-tireurs, to harass the Germans[43].

Their decision was telegraphed to Napoleon III. at Chalons. Against his own better judgment the Emperor yielded to political considerations--that mill-stone around the neck of the French army in 1870--and decided to strike out to the north with MacMahon's army, and by way of Montmédy stretch a hand to Bazaine, who, on his side, was expected to make for that rendezvous. On the 21st, therefore, they marched to Reims. There the Emperor received a despatch which Bazaine had been able to get through the enemies' lines on the 19th, stating that the Germans were making their way in on Metz, but that he (Bazaine) hoped to break away towards Montmédy and so join MacMahon's army. (This, it will be observed, was after Gravelotte had been lost.) Napoleon III. thereupon replied: "Received yours of the 19th at Reims; am going towards Montmédy; shall be on the Aisne the day after to-morrow, and there will act according to circumstances to come to your aid." Bazaine did not receive this message until August 30, and then made only two weak efforts to break out on the north (August 31-September 1). The Marshal's action in sending that message must be pronounced one of the most fatal in the whole war. It led the Emperor and MacMahon to a false belief as to the position at Metz, and furnished a potent argument to the Empress and Palikao at Paris to urge a march towards Montmédy at all costs.

Doubtfully MacMahon led his straggling array from Reims in a north-easterly direction towards Stenay on the Meuse. Rain checked his progress, and dispirited the troops; but on the 27th August, while about half-way between the Aisne and the Meuse, his outposts touched those of the enemy. They were, in fact, those of the Prussian Crown Prince, whose army was about to cross the northern roads over the Argonne, the line of hills that saw the French stem the Prussian invasion in 1792. Far different was the state of affairs now. National enthusiasm, organisation, enterprise--all were on the side of the invaders. As has been pointed out, their horsemen found out on the 23rd that the Chalons camp was deserted; on the next day their scouts found out from a Parisian newspaper that MacMahon was at Reims; and, on the day following, newspaper tidings that had come round by way of London revealed the secret that MacMahon was striving to reach Bazaine.

How it came about that this news escaped the eye of the censor has not been explained. If it was the work of an English journalist, that does not absolve the official censorship from the charge of gross carelessness in leaving even a loophole for the transmission of important secrets. Newspaper correspondents, of course, are the natural enemies of Governments in time of war; and the experience of the year 1870 shows that the fate of Empires may depend on the efficacy of the arrangements for controlling them. As a proof of the superiority of the German organisation, or of the higher patriotism of their newspapers, we may mention that no tidings of urgent importance leaked out through the German Press. This may have been due to a solemn declaration made by German newspaper editors and correspondents that they would never reveal such secrets; but, from what we know of the fierce competition of newspapers for priority of news, it is reasonable to suppose that the German Government took very good care that none came in their way.

As a result of the excellent scouting of their cavalry and of the slipshod Press arrangements of the French Government, the German Army of the Meuse, on the 26th, took a general turn towards the north-west. This movement brought its outposts near to the southernmost divisions of MacMahon, and sent through that Marshal's staff the foreboding thrill felt by the commander of an unseaworthy craft at the oncoming of the first gust of a cyclone. He saw the madness of holding on his present course and issued orders for a retreat to Mézières, a fortress on the Meuse below Sedan. Once more, however, the Palikao Ministry intervened to forbid this salutary move--the only way out of imminent danger--and ordered him to march to the relief of Bazaine. At this crisis Napoleon III. showed the good sense which seemed to have deserted the French politicians: he advised the Marshal not to obey this order if he thought it dangerous. Nevertheless, MacMahon decided to yield to the supposed interests of the dynasty, which the Emperor was ready to sacrifice to the higher claims of the safety of France. Their r?les were thus curiously reversed. The Emperor reasoned as a sound patriot and a good strategist. MacMahon must have felt the same promptings, but obedience to the Empress and the Ministry, or chivalrous regard for Bazaine, overcame his scruples. He decided to plod on towards the Meuse.

The Germans were now on the alert to entrap this army that exposed its flank in a long line of march near to the Belgian frontier. Their ubiquitous horsemen captured French despatches which showed them the intended moves in MacMahon's desperate game; Moltke hurried up every available division; and the elder of the two Alvenslebens had the honour of surprising de Failly's corps amidst the woods of the Ardennes near Beaumont, as they were in the midst of a meal. The French rallied and offered a brisk defence, but finally fell back in confusion northwards on Mouzon, with the loss of 2000 prisoners and 42 guns (August 30).

This mishap, the lack of provisions, and the fatigue and demoralisation of his troops, caused MacMahon on the 31st to fall back on Sedan, a little town in the valley of the Meuse. It is surrounded by ramparts planned by the great Vauban, but, being commanded by wooded heights, it no longer has the importance that it possessed before the age of long-range guns of precision. The chief strength of the position for defence lay in the deep loop of the river below the town, the dense Garenne Wood to the north-east, and the hollow formed by the Givonne brook on the east, with the important village of Bazeilles. It is therefore not surprising that von Moltke, on seeing the French forces concentrating in this hollow, remarked to von Blumenthal, Chief of the Staff: "Now we have them in a trap; to-morrow we must cross over the Meuse early in the morning."

The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st, to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd, make their escape by way of Mézières. Possibly they might have done so on that night, and certainly they could have reached the Belgian frontier, only some six miles distant, and there laid down their arms to the Belgian troops whom the resourceful Bismarck had set on the qui vive. To remain quiet even for a day in Sedan was to court disaster; yet passivity characterised the French headquarters and the whole army on that afternoon and evening. True, MacMahon gave orders for the bridge over the Meuse at Donchéry to be blown up, but the engine-driver who took the engineers charged with this important task, lost his nerve when German shells whizzed about his engine, and drove off before the powder and tools could be deposited. A second party, sent later on, found that bridge in the possession of the enemy. On the east side, above Sedan, the Bavarians seized the railway bridge south of Bazeilles, driving off the French who sought to blow it up[44].

Over the Donchéry bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off escape on the west and north-west. Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, von der Tann's Bavarians had begun the fight. Pressing in on Bazeilles so as to hinder the retreat of the enemy (as had been so effectively done at Colombey, on the east of Metz), they at first surprised the sleeping French, but quickly drew on themselves a sharp and sustained counter-attack from the marines attached to the 12th French corps.

In order to understand the persistent vigour of the French on this side, we must note the decisions formed by their headquarters on August 31 and early on September 1. At a council of war held on the afternoon of the 31st no decision

Plan of the Battle of Sedan.

was reached, probably because the exhaustion of the 5th and 7th corps and the attack of the Bavarians on the 12th corps at Bazeilles rendered any decided movement very difficult. The general conclusion was that the army must have some repose; and Germans afterwards found on the battlefield a French order--"Rest to-day for the whole army." But already on the 30th an officer had come from Paris determined to restore the morale of the army and break through towards Bazaine. This was General de Wimpffen, who had gained distinction in previous wars, and, coming lately from Algeria to Paris, was there appointed to supersede de Failly in command of the 5th corps. Nor was this all. The Palikao Ministry apparently had some doubts as to MacMahon's energy, and feared that the Emperor himself hampered the operations. De Wimpffen therefore received an unofficial mandate to infuse vigour into the counsels at headquarters, and was entrusted with a secret written order to take over the supreme command if anything were to happen to MacMahon. On taking command of the 5th corps on the 30th, de Wimpffen found it demoralised by the hurried retreat through Mouzon; but neither this fact nor the exhaustion of the whole army abated the determination of this stalwart soldier to break through towards Metz.

Early on September 1 the positions held by the French formed, roughly speaking, a triangle resting on the right bank of the Meuse from, near Bazeilles to Sedan and Glaire. Damming operations and the heavy rains of previous days had spread the river over the low-lying meadows, thus rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for an enemy to cross under fire; but this same fact lessened the space by which the French could endeavour to break through. Accordingly they deployed their forces almost wholly along the inner slopes of the Givonne brook and of the smaller stream that flows from the high land about Illy down to the village of Floing and thence to the Meuse. The heights of Illy, crowned by the Calvaire, formed the apex of the French position, while Floing and Bazeilles formed the other corners of what was in many respects good fighting-ground. Their strength was about 120,000 men, though many of these were disabled or almost helpless from fatigue; that of the Germans was greater on the whole, but three of their corps could not reach the scene of action before 1 P.M. owing to the heaviness of the roads[45]. At first, then, the French had a superiority of force and a far more compact position, as will be seen by the accompanying plan.

We now resume the account of the battle. The fighting in and around Bazeilles speedily led to one very important result. At 6 A.M. a splinter of a shell fired by the assailants from the hills north-east of that village, severely wounded Marshal MacMahon as he watched the conflict from a point in front of the village of Balan. Thereupon he named General Ducrot as his successor, passing over the claims of two generals senior to him. Ducrot, realising the seriousness of the position, prepared to draw off the troops towards the Calvaire of Illy preparatory to a retreat on Mézières by way of St. Menges. The news of this impending retreat, which must be conducted under the hot fire of the Germans now threatening the line of the Givonne, cut de Wimpffen to the quick. He knew that the Crown Prince held a force to the south-west of Sedan, ready to fall on the flank of any force that sought to break away to Mézières; and a temporary success of his own 5th corps against the Saxons in la Moncelle strengthened his prepossession in favour of a combined move eastwards towards Carignan and Metz. Accordingly, about nine o'clock he produced the secret order empowering him to succeed MacMahon should the latter be incapacitated. Ducrot at once yielded to the ministerial ukase; the Emperor sought to intervene in favour of Ducrot, only to be waved aside by the confident de Wimpffen; and thus the long conflict between MacMahon and the Palikao Ministry ended in victory for the latter--and disaster for France[46].

In hazarding this last statement we do not mean to imply that a retreat on Mézières would then have saved the whole army. It might, however, have enabled part of it to break through either to Mézières or the Belgian boundary; and it is possible that Ducrot had the latter objective in view when he ordered the concentration at Illy. In any case, that move was now countermanded in favour of a desperate attack on the eastern assailants. It need hardly be said that the result of these vacillations was deplorable, unsteadying the defenders, and giving the assailants time to bring up troops and cannon, and thereby strengthen their grip on every important point. Especially valuable was the approach of the 2nd Bavarian corps; setting out from Raucourt at 4 A.M. it reached the hills south of Sedan about 9, and its artillery posted near Frénois began a terrible fire on the town and the French troops near it.

About the same time the Second Division of the Saxons reinforced their hard-pressed comrades to the north of la Moncelle, where, on de Wimpffen's orders, the French were making a strong forward move. The opportune arrival of these new German troops saved their artillery, which had been doing splendid service. The French were driven back across the Givonne with heavy loss, and the massed battery of 100 guns crushed all further efforts at advance on this side. Meanwhile at Bazeilles the marines had worthily upheld the honour of the French arms. Despite the terrible artillery fire now concentrated on the village, they pushed the German footmen back, but never quite drove them out. These, when reinforced, renewed the fight with equal obstinacy; the inhabitants themselves joined in with whatever weapons fury suggested to them and as that merciless strife swayed to and fro amidst the roar of artillery, the crash of walls, and the hiss of flame, war was seen in all its naked ferocity.

Yet here again, as at all points, the defence was gradually overborne by the superiority of the German artillery. About eleven o'clock the French, despite their superhuman efforts, were outflanked by the Bavarians and Saxons on the north of the village. Even then, when the regulars fell back, some of the inhabitants went on with their mad resistance; a great part of the village was now in flames, but whether they were kindled by the Germans, or by the retiring French so as to delay the victors, has never been cleared up. In either case, several of the inhabitants perished in the flames; and it is admitted that the Bavarians burnt some of the villagers for firing on them from the windows[47].

In the defence of Bazeilles the French infantry showed its usual courage and tenacity. Elsewhere the weary and dispirited columns were speedily becoming demoralised under the terrific artillery fire which the Germans poured in from many points of vantage. The Prussian Guards coming up from Villers Cernay about 10 A.M. planted their formidable batteries so as to sweep the Bois de Garenne and the ground about the Calvaire d'Illy from the eastward; and about that time the guns of the 5th and 11th German corps, that had early crossed the Meuse below Sedan, were brought to bear on the west front of that part of the French position. The apex of the defenders' triangle was thus severely searched by some 200 guns; and their discharges, soon supported by the fire of skirmishers and volleys from the troops, broke all forward movements of the French on that side. On the south and south-east as many cannon swept the French lines, but from a greater distance.

Up to nearly noon there seemed some chance of the French bursting through on the north, and some of them did escape. Yet no well-sustained effort took place on that side, apparently because, even after the loss of Bazeilles at eleven o'clock, de Wimpffen clung to the belief that he could cut his way out towards Carignan, if not by Bazeilles, then perhaps by some other way, as Daigny or la Moncelle. The reasoning by which he convinced himself is hard to follow; for the only road to Carignan on that side runs through Bazeilles. Perhaps we ought to say that he did not reason, but was haunted by one fixed notion; and the history of war from the time of the Roman Varro down to the age of the Austrian Mack and the French de Wimpffen shows that men whose brains work in grooves and take no account of what is on the right hand and the left, are not fit to command armies; they only yield easy triumphs to the great masters of warfare--Hannibal, Napoleon the Great, and von Moltke.

De Wimpffen, we say, paid little heed to the remonstrances of Generals Douay and Ducrot at leaving the northern apex and the north-western front of the defence to be crushed by weight of metal and of numbers. He rode off towards Balan, near which village the former defenders of Bazeilles were making a gallant and partly successful stand, and no reinforcements were sent to the hills on the north. The villages of Illy and Floing were lost; then the French columns gave ground even up the higher ground behind them, so great was the pressure of the German converging advance. Worst of all, skulkers began to hurry from the ranks and seek shelter in the woods, or even under the ramparts of Sedan far in the rear. The French gunners still plied their guns with steady devotion, though hopelessly outmatched at all points, but it was clear that only a great forward dash could save the day. Ducrot therefore ordered General Margueritte with three choice cavalry regiments (Chasseurs d'Afrique) and several squadrons of Lancers to charge the advancing lines. Moving forward from the northern edge of the Bois de Garenne to judge his ground, Margueritte fell mortally wounded. De Bauffremont took his place, and those brave horsemen swept forward on a task as hopeless as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, or that of the French Cuirassiers at W?rth[48]. Their conduct was as glorious; but the terrible power of the modern rifle was once more revealed. The pounding of distant batteries they could brave; disordered but defiant they swept on towards the German lines, but when the German infantry opened fire almost at pistol range, rank after rank of the horsemen went down as grass before the scythe. Here and there small bands of horsemen charged the footmen on the flank, even in a few cases on their rear, it is said; but the charge, though bravely renewed, did little except to delay the German triumph and retrieve the honour of France.

By about two o'clock the French cavalry was practically disabled, and there now remained no Imperial Guard, as at Waterloo, to shed some rays of glory over the disaster. Meanwhile, however, de Wimpffen had resolved to make one more effort. Gathering about him a few of the best infantry battalions in and about Sedan, he besought the Emperor to join him in cutting a way out towards the east. The Emperor sent no answer to this appeal; he judged that too much blood had already been needlessly shed. Still, de Wimpffen persisted in his mad endeavour. Bursting upon the Bavarians in the village of Balan, he drove them back for a space until his men, disordered by the rush, fell before the stubborn rally of the Bavarians and Saxons. With the collapse of this effort and the cutting up of the French cavalry behind Floing, the last frail barriers to the enemy's advance gave way. The roads to Sedan were now thronged with masses of fugitives, whose struggles to pass the drawbridges into the little fortress resembled an African battue; for King William and his Staff, in order to hurry on the inevitable surrender, bade the 200 or more pieces on the southern heights play upon the town. Still de Wimpffen refused to surrender, and, despite the orders of his sovereign, continued the hopeless struggle. At length, to stay the frightful carnage, the Emperor himself ordered the white flag to be hoisted[49]. A German officer went down to arrange preliminaries, and to his astonishment was ushered into the presence of the Emperor. The German Staff had no knowledge of his whereabouts. On hearing the news, King William, who throughout the day sat on horseback at the top of the slope behind Frénois, said to his son, the Crown Prince: "This is indeed a great success; and I thank thee that thou hast contributed to it." He gave his hand to his son, who kissed it, and then, in turn, to Moltke and to Bismarck, who kissed it also. In a short time, the French General Reille brought to the King the following autograph letter:--

MONSIEUR MON FRèRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu'à remettre mon épée entre les mains de Votre Majesté.--Je suis de Votre Majesté le bon Frère

NAPOLéON.

SéDAN, le 1er Septembre, 1870.

The King named von Moltke to arrange the terms and then rode away to a village farther south, it being arranged, probably at Bismarck's suggestion, that he should not see the Emperor until all was settled. Meanwhile de Wimpffen and other French generals, in conference with von Moltke, Bismarck, and Blumenthal, at the village of Donchéry, sought to gain easy terms by appealing to their generosity and by arguing that this would end the war and earn the gratitude of France. To all appeals for permission to let the captive army go to Algeria, or to lay down its arms in Belgium, the Germans were deaf,--Bismarck at length plainly saying that the French were an envious and jealous people on whose gratitude it would be idle to count. De Wimpffen then threatened to renew the fight rather than surrender, to which von Moltke grimly assented, but Bismarck again interposed to bring about a prolongation of the truce. Early on the morrow, Napoleon himself drove out to Donchéry in the hope of seeing the King. The Bismarckian Boswell has given us a glimpse of him as he then appeared: "The look in his light grey eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived too fast." [In his case, we may remark, this was induced by the painful disease which never left him all through the campaign, and carried him off three years later.] "He wore his cap a little on the right, to which side his head also inclined. His short legs were out of proportion to the long upper body. His whole appearance was a little unsoldier-like. The man looked too soft--I might say too spongy--for the uniform he wore."

Bismarck, the stalwart Teuton who had wrecked his policy at all points, met him at Donchéry and foiled his wish to see the King, declaring this to be impossible until the terms of the capitulation were settled. The Emperor then had a conversation with the Chancellor in a little cottage belonging to a weaver. Seating themselves on two rush-bottomed chairs beside the one deal table, they conversed on the greatest affairs of State. The Emperor said he had not sought this war--"he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion. I replied" (wrote Bismarck) "that neither had any one with us wished for war--the King least of all[50]." Napoleon then pleaded for generous terms, but admitted that he, as a prisoner, could not fix them; they must be arranged with de Wimpffen. About ten o'clock the latter agreed to an unconditional surrender for the rank and file of the French army, but those officers who bound themselves by their word of honour (in writing) not to fight again during the present war were to be set free. Napoleon then had an interview with the King. What transpired is not known, but when the Emperor came out "his eyes" (wrote Bismarck) "were full of tears."

The fallen monarch accepted the King's offer of the castle of Wilhelmsh?he near Cassel for his residence up to the end of the war; it was the abode on which Jerome Bonaparte had spent millions of thalers, wrung from Westphalian burghers, during his brief sovereignty in 1807-1813. Thither his nephew set out two days after the catastrophe of Sedan. And this, as it seems, was the end of a dynasty whose rise to power dated from the thrilling events of the Bridge of Lodi, Arcola, Rivoli, and the Pyramids. The French losses on September 1 were about 3000 killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 prisoners. On the next day there surrendered 83,000 prisoners by virtue of the capitulation, along with 419 field-pieces and 139 cannon of the fortress. Some 3000 had escaped, through the gap in the German lines on the north-east, to the Belgian frontier, and there laid down their arms.

The news of this unparalleled disaster began to leak out at Paris late on the 2nd; on the morrow, when details were known, crowds thronged into the streets shouting "Down with the Empire! Long live the Republic!" Power still remained with the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry. All must admit that the Empress Eugénie did what was possible in this hopeless position. She appealed to that charming literary man, M. Prosper Mérimée, to go to his friend, M. Thiers (at whom we shall glance presently), and beg him to form a Ministry that would save the Empire for the young Prince Imperial. M. Thiers politely but firmly refused to give a helping hand to the dynasty which he looked on as the author of his country's ruin.

On that day the Empress also summoned the Chambers--the Senate and the Corps Législatif--a vain expedient, for in times of crisis the French look to a man, not to Chambers. The Empire had no man at hand. General Trochu, Governor of Paris, was suspected of being a Republican--at any rate he let matters take their course. On the 4th, vast crowds filled the streets; a rush was made to the Chamber, where various compromises were being discussed; the doors were forced, and amid wild excitement a proposal to dethrone the Napoleonic dynasty was put. Two Republican deputies, Gambetta and Jules Favre, declared that the H?tel de Ville was the fit place to declare the Republic. There, accordingly, it was proclaimed, the deputies for the city of Paris taking office as the Government of National Defence. They were just in time to prevent Socialists like Blanqui, Flourens, and Henri Rochefort from installing the "Commune" in power. The Empress and the Prince Imperial at once fled, and, apart from a protest by the Senate, no voice was raised in defence of the Empire. Jules Favre who took up the burden of Foreign Affairs in the new Government of National Defence was able to say in his circular note of September 6 that "the Revolution of September 4 took place without the shedding of a drop of blood or the loss of liberty to a single person[51]."

That fact shows the unreality of Bonapartist rule in France. At bottom Napoleon III.'s ascendancy was due to several causes, that told against possible rivals rather than directly in his favour. Hatred of the socialists, whose rash political experiments had led to the bloody days of street fighting in Paris in June 1848, counted for much. Added to this was the unpopularity of the House of Orleans after the sordid and uninteresting rule of Louis Philippe (1830-48). The antiquated royalism of the Elder or Legitimist branch of that ill-starred dynasty made it equally an impossibility. Louis Napoleon promised to do what his predecessors, Monarchical and Republican, had signally failed to do, namely, to reconcile the claims of liberty and order at home and uphold the prestige of France abroad. For the first ten years the glamour of his name, the skill with which he promoted the material prosperity of France, and the successes of his early wars, promised to build up a lasting power. But then came the days of failing health and tottering prestige--of financial scandals, of the Mexican blunder, of the humiliation before the rising power of Prussia. To retrieve matters he toyed with democracy in France, and finally allowed his Ministers to throw down a challenge to Prussia; for, in the words of a French historian, the conditions on which he held power "condemned him to be brilliant[52]."

Failing at Sedan, he lost all; and he knew it. His reign, in fact, was one long disaster for France. The canker of moral corruption began to weaken her public life when the creatures of whom he made use in the coup d'état of 1851 crept into place and power. The flashy sensationalism of his policy, setting the tone for Parisian society, was fatal to the honest unseen drudgery which builds up a solid edifice alike in public and in private life. Even the better qualities of his nature told against ultimate success. As has been shown, his vague but generous ideas on Nationality drew French policy away from the paths of obvious self-interest after the year 1864, and gave an easy victory to the keen and objective statecraft of Bismarck. That he loved France as sincerely as he believed in the power of the Bonapartist tradition to help her, can scarcely admit of doubt. His conduct during the war of 1870 showed him to be disinterested, while his vision was clearer than that of the Generals about him. But in the field of high policy, as in the moral events that make or mar a nation's life, his influence told heavily against the welfare of France; and he must have carried into exile the consciousness that his complex nature and ill-matched strivings had but served to bring his dynasty and his country to an unexampled overthrow.

* * *

It may be well to notice here an event of world-wide importance, which came as a sequel to the military collapse of France. Italians had always looked to the day when Rome would be the national capital. The great Napoleon during his time of exile at St. Helena had uttered the prophetic words: "Italy isolated between her natural limits is destined to form a great and powerful nation. . . . Rome will without doubt be chosen by the Italians as their capital." The political and economic needs of the present, coinciding herein with the voice of tradition, always so strong in Italian hearts, pointed imperiously to Rome as the only possible centre of national life.

As was pointed out in the Introduction, Pius IX. after the years of revolution, 1848-49, felt the need of French troops in his capital, and his harsh and reactionary policy (or rather, that of his masterful Secretary of State, Antonelli) before long completely alienated the feelings of his subjects.

After the master-mind of Cavour was removed by death, (June 1861), the patriots struggled desperately, but in vain, to rid Rome of the presence of foreign troops and win her for the national cause. Garibaldi's raids of 1862 and 1867 were foiled, the one by Italian, the other by French troops; and the latter case, which led to the sharp fight of Mentana, effaced any feelings of gratitude to Napoleon III. for his earlier help, which survived after his appropriation of Savoy and Nice. Thus matters remained in 1867-70, the Pope relying on the support of French bayonets to coerce his own subjects. Clearly this was a state of things which could not continue. The first great shock must always bring down a political edifice which rests not on its own foundations, but on external buttresses. These were suddenly withdrawn by the war of 1870. Early in August, Napoleon ordered all his troops to leave the Papal States; and the downfall of his power a month later absolved Victor Emmanuel from the claims of gratitude which he still felt towards his ally of 1859.

At once the forward wing of the Italian national party took action in a way that either forced, or more probably encouraged, Victor Emmanuel's Government to step in under the pretext of preventing the creation of a Roman Republic. The King invited Pius IX. to assent to the peaceful occupation of Rome by the royal troops, and on receiving the expected refusal, moved forward 35,000 soldiers. The resistance of the 11,000 Papal troops proved to be mainly a matter of form. The wall near the Porta Pia soon crumbled before the Italian cannon, and after a brief struggle at the breach, the white flag was hoisted at the bidding of the Pope (Sept. 20).

Thus fell the temporal power of the Papacy. The event aroused comparatively little notice in that year of marvels, but its results have been momentous. At the time there was a general sense of relief, if not of joy, in Italy, that the national movement had reached its goal, albeit in so tame and uninspiring a manner. Rome had long been a prey to political reaction, accompanied by police supervision of the most exasperating kind. The plébiscite as to the future government gave 133,681 votes for Victor Emmanuel's rule, and only 1507 negative votes[53].

Now, for the first time since the days of Napoleon I. and of the short-lived Republic for which Mazzini and Garibaldi worked and fought so nobly in 1849, the Eternal City began to experience the benefits of progressive rule. The royal government soon proved to be very far from perfect. Favouritism, the multiplication of sinecures, municipal corruption, and the prosaic inroads of builders and speculators, soon helped to mar the work of political reconstruction, and began to arouse a certain amount of regret for the more picturesque times of the Papal rule. A sentimental reaction of this kind is certain to occur in all cases of political change, especially in a city where tradition and emotion so long held sway.

The consciences of the faithful were also troubled when the fiat of the Pope went forth excommunicating the robber-king and all his chief abettors in the work of sacrilege. Sons of the Church throughout Italy were bidden to hold no intercourse with the interlopers and to take no part in elections to the Italian Parliament which thenceforth met in Rome. The schism between the Vatican and the King's Court and Government was never to be bridged over; and even to-day it constitutes one of the most perplexing problems of Italy.

Despite the fact that Rome and Italy gained little of that mental and moral stimulus which might have resulted from the completion of the national movement solely by the action of the people themselves, the fact nevertheless remains that Rome needed Italy and Italy needed Rome. The disappointment loudly expressed by idealists, sentimentalists, and reactionaries must not blind us to the fact that the Italians, and above all the Romans, have benefited by the advent of unity, political freedom, and civic responsibility. It may well be that, in acting as the leader of a constitutional people, the Eternal City will little by little develop higher gifts than those nurtured under Papal tutelage, and perhaps as beneficent to Humanity as those which, in the ancient world, bestowed laws on Europe.

As Mazzini always insisted, political progress, to be sound, must be based ultimately on moral progress. It is of its very nature slow, and is therefore apt to escape the eyes of the moralist or cynic who dwells on the untoward signs of the present. But the Rome for which Mazzini and his compatriots yearned and struggled can hardly fail ultimately to rise to the height of her ancient traditions and of that noble prophecy of Dante: "There is the seat of empire. There never was, and there never will be, a people endowed with such capacity to acquire command, with more vigour to maintain it, and more gentleness in its exercise, than the Italian nation, and especially the Holy Roman people." The lines with which Mr. Swinburne closed his "Dedication" of Songs before Sunrise to Joseph Mazzini are worthy of finding a place side by side with the words of the mediaeval seer:--

Yea, even she as at first,

Yea, she alone and none other,

Shall cast down, shall build up, shall bring home,

Slake earth's hunger and thirst,

Lighten, and lead as a mother;

First name of the world's names, Rome.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] See General Lebrun's Guerre de 1870: Bazailles-Sedan, for an account of his corps of MacMahon's army.

In view of the events of the late Boer War, it is worth noting that the Germans never acknowledged the francs-tireurs as soldiers, and forthwith issued an order ending with the words, "They are amenable to martial law and liable to be sentenced to death" (Maurice, Franco-German War, p. 215).

[44] Moltke, The Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 114. Hooper, The Campaign of Sedan, p. 296.

[45] Maurice, The Franco-German War, p. 235.

[46] See Lebrun's Guerre de 1870: Bazeilles-Sédan, for these disputes.

[47] M. Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 114.

[48] Lebrun (op. cit. pp. 126-127; also Appendix D) maintains that de Bauffremont then led the charge, de Gallifet leading only the 3rd Chasseurs d'Afrique.

[49] Lebrun, op. cit. pp. 130 et seq. for the disputes about surrender.

[50] Busch, Bismarck on the Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 109. Contrast this statement with his later efforts (Reminiscences, vol. ii. pp. 95-100) to prove that he helped to bring on war.

[51] Gabriel Hanotaux, Contemporary France, vol. i. p. 14 (Eng. edit.)

[52] Said in 1852 by an eminent Frenchman to our countryman, Nassau Senior (Journals, ii. ad fin).

[53] Countess Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy, p. 411.

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