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Title: History of Modern Europe 1792-1878

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    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b>
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<br>
<br>
<hr class="full">
<table width="80%" summary="Bookspace" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><br>

<br>

<h2>HISTORY</h2>
<p class="c2">OF</p>
<p class="c2">MODERN EUROPE</p>
<p class="c2">1792-1878<br>
</p>
<p class="c2"><br>
</p>
<hr class="c1">
<p class="c2"><br>
</p>
<br>

<p class="c2">BY</p>
<p class="c2">C. A. FYFFE, M.A.</p>
<p class="c2">Barrister-at-Law; Fellow of University College,
Oxford;<br>
 Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society</p>
<br>

<p class="c2">POPULAR EDITION</p>
<p class="c2">With Maps</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>

<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<br>

<p><a name="cp1">&nbsp;</a><a href="#p1">PREFACE.</a></p>
<p><a name="cp2">&nbsp;</a><a href="#p2">PREFACE TO THE FIRST
EDITION.</a></p>
<p><a name="cp3">&nbsp;</a><a href="#p3">PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
OF THE FIRST VOLUME.</a></p>
<p><a name="cp4">&nbsp;</a><a href="#p4">PREFACE TO THE SECOND
VOLUME.</a></p>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>

<div class="c3"><a name="Tn">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Transcribers_Note">Transcriber's Note</a><br>
<br>
</div>
<hr class="c1">
<br>

<p><a name="c1">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I.</a></p>
<p>FRANCE AND GERMANY AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR.</p>
<p>Outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1792-Its immediate
causes- Declaration of Pillnitz made and withdrawn-Agitation of
the Priests and Emigrants-War Policy of the Gironde-Provocations
offered to France by the Powers-State of Central Europe in
1792-The Holy Roman Empire-Austria- Rule of the Hapsburgs-The
Reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II.-Policy of Leopold
II.-Government and Foreign Policy of Francis II.-Prussia-
Government of Frederick William II.-Social Condition of
Prussia-Secondary States of Germany-Ecclesiastical States-Free
Cities-Knights-Weakness of Germany</p>
<p><a name="c2">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II.</a></p>
<p>THE WAR, DOWN TO THE TREATIES OF BASLE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE DIRECTORY.</p>
<p>French and Austrian Armies on the Flemish Frontier-Prussia
enters the War-Brunswick invades France-His
Proclamation-Insurrection of Aug. 10 at Paris-Massacres of
September-Character of the War-Brunswick, checked at Valmy,
retreats-The War becomes a Crusade of France-Neighbours of
France-Custine enters Mainz-Dumouriez conquers the Austrian
Netherlands- Nice and Savoy annexed-Decree of the Convention
against all Governments- Execution of Louis XVI.-War with
England, followed by war with the Mediterranean States-Condition
of England-English Parties, how affected by the Revolution-The
Gironde and the Mountain-Austria recovers the Netherlands-The
Allies invade France-La Vend&eacute;e-Revolutionary System of
1793-Errors of the Allies-New French Commanders and Democratic
Army-Victories of Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegru-Prussia
withdrawing from the War-Polish Affairs-Austria abandons the
Netherlands-Treaties of Basle-France in 1795-Insurrection of 13
Vend&eacute;miaire-Constitution of 1795-The Directory-Effect of
the Revolution on the Spirit of Europe up to 1795</p>
<a name="c3">&nbsp;</a>
<p><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III.</a></p>
<p>ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS: TREATY OF CAMPO FORMIO.</p>
<p>Triple attack on Austria-Moreau, Jourdan-Bonaparte in
Italy-Condition of the Italian States-Professions and real
intentions of Bonaparte and the Directory-Battle of
Montenotte-Armistice with Sardinia-Campaign in Lombardy-Treatment
of the Pope, Naples, Tuscany-Siege of Mantua- Castiglione-Moreau
and Jourdan in Germany-Their retreat-Secret Treaty with
Prussia-Negotiations with England-Cispadane Republic-Rise of the
idea of Italian Independence-Battles of Arcola and Rivoli-Peace
with the Pope at Tolentino-Venice-Preliminaries of Leoben-The
French in Venice-The French take the Ionian Islands and give
Venice to Austria-Genoa-Coup d'&eacute;tat of 17 Fructidor in
Paris-Treaty of Campo Formio-Victories of England at
Sea-Bonaparte's project against Egypt</p>
<a name="c4">&nbsp;</a>
<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">CHAPTER IV.</a></p>
<p>FROM THE CONGRESS OF RASTADT TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
CONSULATE.</p>
<p>Congress of Rastadt-The Rhenish Provinces ceded-Ecclesiastical
States of Germany suppressed-French Intervention in
Switzerland-Helvetic Republic-The French invade the Papal
States-Roman Republic-Expedition to Egypt-Battle of the
Nile-Coalition of 1798-Ferdinand of Naples enters Rome-Mack's
defeats-French enter Naples-Parthenopean Republic-War with
Austria and Russia-Battle of Stockach-Murder of the French Envoys
at Rastadt-Campaign in Lombardy-Reign of Terror at
Naples-Austrian designs upon Italy-Suvaroff and the
Austrians-Campaign in Switzerland-Campaign in Holland-Bonaparte
returns from Egypt-Coup d'&eacute;tat of 18 Brumaire-
Constitution of 1799-System of Bonaparte in France-Its effect on
the influence of France abroad</p>
<p><a name="c5">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">CHAPTER V.</a></p>
<p>FROM MARENGO TO THE RUPTURE OF THE PEACE OF AMIENS.</p>
<p>Overtures of Bonaparte to Austria and England-The War
continues-Massena besieged in Genoa-Moreau invades Southern
Germany-Bonaparte crosses the St. Bernard, and descends in the
rear of the Austrians-Battle of Marengo-Austrians retire behind
the Mincio-Treaty between England and Austria-Austria continues
the War-Battle of Hohenlinden-Peace of Lun&eacute;ville-War
between England and the Northern Maritime League-Battle of
Copenhagen-Murder of Paul-End of the Maritime War-English Army
enters Egypt-French defeated at Alexandria-They capitulate at
Cairo and Alexandria-Preliminaries of Peace between England and
France signed at London, followed by Peace of Amiens-Pitt's Irish
Policy and his retirement-Debates on the Peace-Aggressions of
Bonaparte during the Continental Peace-Holland, Italy,
Switzerland-Settlement of Germany under French and Russian
influence-Suppression of Ecclesiastical States and Free
Cities-Its effects-Stein-France under the Consulate-The Civil
Code-The Concordat</p>
<p><a name="c6">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">CHAPTER VI.</a></p>
<p>THE EMPIRE, TO THE PEACE OF PRESBURG.</p>
<p>England claims Malta-War renewed-Bonaparte occupies Hanover,
and blockades the Elbe-Remonstrances of Prussia-Cadoudal's
Plot-Murder of the Duke of Enghien-Napoleon Emperor-Coalition of
1805-Prussia holds aloof-State of Austria-Failure of Napoleon's
Attempt to gain Naval Superiority in the Channel-Campaign in
Western Germany- Capitulation of Ulm-Trafalgar-Treaty of Potsdam
between Prussia and the Allies-The French enter Vienna-Haugwitz
sent to Napoleon with Prussian Ultimatum-Battle of
Austerlitz-Haugwitz signs a Treaty of Alliance with
Napoleon-Peace-Treaty of Presburg-End of the Holy Roman
Empire-Naples given to Joseph Bonaparte-Battle of Maida-The
Napoleonic Empire and Dynasty-Federation of the Rhine-State of
Germany-Possibility of maintaining the Empire of 1806</p>
<p><a name="c7">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">CHAPTER VII.</a></p>
<p>DEATH OF PITT, TO THE PEACE OF TILSIT.</p>
<p>Death of Pitt-Ministry of Fox and Grenville-Napoleon forces
Prussia into war with England, and then offers Hanover to
England-Prussia resolves on war with Napoleon-State of
Prussia-Decline of the Army-Southern Germany with
Napoleon-Austria neutral-England and Russia about to help
Prussia, but not immediately-Campaign of 1806-Battles of Jena and
Auerst&auml;dt-Ruin of the Prussian Army-Capitulation of
Fortresses-Demands of Napoleon-The War continues-Berlin
Decree-Exclusion of English goods from the Continent-Russia
enters the war-Campaign in Poland and East Prussia-Eylau-Treaty
of Bartenstein-Friedland-Interview at Tilsit-Alliance of Napoleon
and Alexander-Secret Articles-English expedition to Denmark-The
French enter Portugal-Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit-Stein's
Edict of Emancipation-The Prussian Peasant-Reform of the Prussian
Army, and creation of Municipalities-Stein's other projects of
Reform, which are not carried out</p>
<p><a name="c8">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">CHAPTER
VIII.</a></p>
<p>SPAIN, TO THE FALL OF SARAGOSSA.</p>
<p>Spain in 1806-Napoleon uses the quarrel between Ferdinand and
Godoy-He affects to be Ferdinand's Protector-Dupont's Army enters
Spain-Murat in Spain-Charles abdicates-Ferdinand King-Savary
brings Ferdinand to Bayonne-Napoleon makes both Charles and
Ferdinand resign-Spirit of the Spanish Nation-Contrast with
Germany-Rising of all Spain-The Notables at Bayonne-Campaign of
1808-Capitulation of Baylen-Wellesley lands in
Portugal-Vimieiro-Convention of Cintra-Effect of the Spanish
Rising on Europe-War Party in Prussia-Napoleon and Alexander at
Erfurt-Stein resigns, and is proscribed-Napoleon in Spain-Spanish
Misgovernment- Campaign on the Ebro-Campaign of Sir John
Moore-Corunna-Napoleon leaves Spain-Siege of Saragossa-Successes
of the French</p>
<p><a name="c9">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">CHAPTER IX.</a></p>
<p>WAR OF 1809: THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE-SPAIN, TO THE BATTLE OF
SALAMANCA.</p>
<p>Austria preparing for war-The war to be one on behalf of the
German Nation-Patriotic movement in Prussia-Expected Insurrection
in North Germany-Plans of Campaign-Austrian Manifesto to the
Germans-Rising of the Tyrolese-Defeats of the Archduke Charles in
Bavaria-French in Vienna-Attempts of D&ouml;rnberg and
Schill-Battle of Aspern-Second passage of the Danube-Battle of
Wagram-Armistice of Znaim-Austria waiting for Events-Wellesley in
Spain-He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats-Expedition
against Antwerp fails-Austria makes Peace-Treaty of Vienna-Real
Effects of the War of 1809-Austria after 1809-Metternich-
Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise-Severance of Napoleon and
Alexander-Napoleon annexes the Papal States, Holland, Le Valais,
and the North German Coast-The Napoleonic Empire: its benefits
and wrongs-The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial
System-War with Russia imminent-Wellington in Portugal; Lines of
Torres Vedras; Massena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat-Soult in
Andalusia-Wellington's Campaign of 1811-Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo
and Badajoz-Salamanca</p>
<p><a name="c10">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">CHAPTER X.</a></p>
<p>RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, TO THE TREATY OF KALISCH.</p>
<p>War approaching between France and Russia-Policy of
Prussia-Hardenberg's Ministry-Prussia forced into Alliance with
Napoleon-Austrian Alliance- Napoleon's Preparations-He enters
Russia-Alexander and Bernadotte-Plan of Russians to fight a
battle at Drissa frustrated-They retreat on Witepsk-Sufferings of
the French-French enter Smolensko-Battle of Borodino-Evacuation
of Moscow-Moscow fired-The Retreat from Moscow- French at
Smolensko-Advance of Russian Armies from North and South-Battle
of Krasnoi-Passage of the Beresina-The French reach the
Niemen-York's Convention with the Russians-The Czar and
Stein-Russian Army enters Prussia-Stein raises East
Prussia-Treaty of Kalisch-Prussia declares War-Enthusiasm of the
Nation-Idea of German Unity-The Landwehr</p>
<p><a name="c11">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">CHAPTER XI.</a></p>
<p>WAR OF LIBERATION, TO THE PEACE OF PARIS.</p>
<p>The War of Liberation-Bl&uuml;cher crosses the Elbe-Battle of
L&uuml;tzen-The Allies retreat to Silesia-Battle of
Bautzen-Armistice-Napoleon intends to intimidate Austria-Mistaken
as to the Forces of Austria-Metternich's Policy-Treaty of
Reichenbach-Austria offers its Mediation-Congress of
Prague-Austria enters the War-Armies and Plans of Napoleon and
the Allies-Campaign of August-Battles of Dresden, Grosbeeren, the
Katzbach, and Kulm-Effect of these Actions-Battle of
Dennewitz-German Policy of Austria favourable to the Princes of
the Rhenish Confederacy-Frustrated hopes of German Unity-Battle
of Leipzig-The Allies reach the Rhine- Offers of Peace at
Frankfort-Plan of Invasion of France-Backwardness of Austria-The
Allies enter France-Campaign of 1814-Congress of
Ch&acirc;tillon-Napoleon moves to the rear of the Allies-The
Allies advance on Paris-Capitulation of Paris-Entry of the
Allies-Dethronement of Napoleon-Restoration of the Bourbons-The
Charta-Treaty of Paris- Territorial effects of the War,
1792-1814-Every Power except France had gained-France relatively
weaker in Europe-Summary of the permanent effects of this period
on Europe</p>
<p>END OF VOL. I. (ORIGINAL EDITION).</p>
<br>

<p><a name="c12">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">CHAPTER XII.</a></p>
<p>THE RESTORATION.</p>
<p>The Restoration of 1814-Norway-Naples-Westphalia-Spain-The
Spanish Constitution overthrown: victory of the
clergy-Restoration in France-The Charta-Encroachments of the
nobles and clergy-Growing hostility to the Bourbons-Congress of
Vienna-Talleyrand and the Four Powers-The Polish question-The
Saxon question-Theory of Legitimacy-Secret alliance against
Russia and Prussia-Compromise-The Rhenish Provinces-Napoleon
leaves Elba and lands in France-His declarations-Napoleon at
Grenoble, at Lyons, at Paris-The Congress of Vienna unites Europe
against France-Murat's action in Italy-The Acte Additionnel-The
Champ de Mai-Napoleon takes up the offensive-Battles of Ligny,
Quatre Bras, Waterloo-Affairs at Paris-Napoleon sent to St.
Helena-Wellington and Fouch&eacute;-Arguments on the proposed
cession of French territory-Treaty of Holy Alliance-Second Treaty
of Paris-Conclusion of the work of the Congress of
Vienna-Federation of Germany-Estimate of the Congress of Vienna
and of the Treaties of 1815-The Slave Trade</p>
<p><a name="c13">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">CHAPTER
XIII.</a></p>
<p>THE PROGRESS OF REACTION.</p>
<p>Concert of Europe after 1815-Spirit of the Foreign Policy of
Alexander, of Metternich, and of the English
Ministry-Metternich's action in Italy, England's in Sicily and
Spain-The Reaction in France-Richelieu and the New
Chamber-Execution of Ney-Imprisonments and persecutions-Conduct
of the Ultra-Royalists in Parliament-Contests on the Electoral
Bill and the Budget-The Chamber prorogued-Affair of
Grenoble-Dissolution of the Chamber-Electoral Law and Financial
Settlement of 1817-Character of the first years of peace in
Europe generally-Promise of a Constitution in Prussia-Hardenberg
opposed by the partisans of autocracy and privilege-Schmalz'
Pamphlet-Delay of Constitutional Reform in Germany at large-The
Wartburg Festival-Progress of Reaction-The Czar now inclines to
repression-Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle-Evacuation of
France-Growing influence of Metternich in Europe-His action on
Prussia-Murder of Kotzebue-The Carlsbad Conference and measures
of repression in Germany-Richelieu and Decazes-Murder of the Duke
of Berry-Progress of the reaction in France-General causes of the
victory of reaction in Europe</p>
<p><a name="c14">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p>
<p>THE MEDITERRANEAN MOVEMENTS OF 1820.</p>
<p>Movements in the Mediterranean States beginning in 1820-Spain
from 1814 to 1820-The South American Colonies-The Army at Cadiz:
Action of Quiroga and Riego-Movement at Corunna-Ferdinand accepts
the Constitution of 1812-Naples from 1815 to 1820-The
Court-party, the Muratists, the Carbonari-The Spanish
Constitution proclaimed at Naples-Constitutional movement in
Portugal-Alexander's proposal with regard to Spain-The Conference
and Declaration of Troppau-Protest of England-Conference of
Laibach-The Austrians invade Naples and restore absolute
Monarchy-Insurrection in Piedmont, which fails-Spain from 1820 to
1822-Death of Castlereagh-The Congress of Verona-Policy of
England-The French invade Spain-Restoration of absolute Monarchy,
and violence of the reaction-England prohibits the conquest of
the Spanish Colonies by France, and subsequently recognises their
independence- Affairs in Portugal-Canning sends troops to
Lisbon-The Policy of Canning-Estimate of his place in the history
of Europe</p>
<p><a name="c15">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">CHAPTER XV.</a></p>
<p>GREECE AND EASTERN AFFAIRS.</p>
<p>Condition of Greece: its Races and Institutions-The Greek
Church -Communal System-The &AElig;g&aelig;an Islands-The
Phanariots-Greek intellectual revival: Koraes-Beginning of Greek
National Movement; Contact of Greece with the French Revolution
and Napoleon-The Het&aelig;ria Philike-Hypsilanti's Attempt in
the Danubian Provinces: its failure-Revolt of the Morea:
Massacres: Execution of Gregorius, and Terrorism at
Constantinople -Attitude of Russia, Austria, and
England-Extension of the Revolt: Affairs at Hydra-The Greek
Leaders-Fall of Tripolitza-The Massacre of Chios-Failure of the
Turks in the Campaign of 1822-Dissensions of the Greeks-Mahmud
calls upon Mehemet Ali for Aid-Ibrahim conquers Crete and invades
the Murea-Siege of Missolonghi-Philhellenism in Europe-Russian
proposal for Intervention-Conspiracies in Russia: Death of
Alexander: Accession of Nicholas-Military Insurrection at St.
Petersburg- Anglo-Russian Protocol-Treaty between England,
Russia, and France-Death of Canning-Navarino-War between Russia
and Turkey-Campaigns of 1828 and 1829-Treaty of
Adrianople-Capodistrias President of Greece-Leopold accepts and
then declines the Greek Crown-Murder of Capodistrias-Otho, King
of Greece</p>
<p><a name="c16">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI.">CHAPTER XVI.</a></p>
<p>THE MOVEMENTS OF 1830.</p>
<p>France before 1830-Reign of Charles X.-Ministry of
Martignac-Ministry of Polignac-The Duke of Orleans-War in
Algiers-The July Ordinances- Revolution of July-Louis Philippe
King-Nature and effects of the July Revolution-Affairs in
Belgium-The Belgian Revolution-The Great Powers-Intervention, and
establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium-Affairs of
Poland-Insurrection at Warsaw-War between Russia and
Poland-Overthrow of the Poles: End of the Polish
Constitution-Affairs of Italy- Insurrection in the Papal
States-France and Austria-Austrian Intervention-Ancona occupied
by the French-Affairs of Germany-Prussia; the
Zollverein-Brunswick, Hanover, Saxony-The Palatinate-Reaction in
Germany-The exiles in Switzerland: Incursion into
Savoy-Dispersion of the Exiles-France under Louis Philippe:
Successive risings-Period of Parliamentary activity-England after
1830: The Reform Bill</p>
<p><a name="c17">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII.">CHAPTER
XVII.</a></p>
<p>SPANISH AND EASTERN AFFAIRS.</p>
<p>France and England after 1830-Affairs of Portugal-Don
Miguel-Don Pedro invades Portugal-Ferdinand of Spain-The
Pragmatic Sanction-Death of Ferdinand: Regency of Christina-The
Constitution-Quadruple Alliance-Miguel and Carlos expelled from
Portugal-Carlos enters Spain-The Basque Provinces-Carlist War:
Zumalacarregui-The Spanish Government seeks French assistance,
which is refused-Constitution of 1837-End of the War-Regency of
Espartero-Isabella Queen-Affairs of the Ottoman Empire-Ibrahim
invades Syria; his victories-Rivalry of France and Russia at
Constantinople-Peace of Kutaya and Treaty of Unkiar
Skelessi-Effect of this Treaty-France and Mehemet Ali-Commerce of
the Levant-Second War between Mehemet and the Porte-Ottoman
disasters-The Policy of the Great Powers-Quadruple Treaty without
France-Ibrahim expelled from Syria-Final Settlement-Turkey after
1840-Attempted reforms of Reschid Pasha</p>
<p><a name="c18">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII.">CHAPTER
XVIII.</a></p>
<p>EUROPE BEFORE 1848.</p>
<p>Europe during the Thirty-years' Peace-Italy and
Austria-Mazzini-The House of Savoy-Gioberti-Election of Pius
IX.-Reforms expected- Revolution at Palermo-Agitation in Northern
Italy-Lombardy-State of the Austrian Empire-Growth of Hungarian
national spirit-The Magyars and Slavs-Transylvania-Parties among
the Magyars-Kossuth-The Slavic national movements in Austria-The
government enters on reforms in Hungary-Policy of the
Opposition-The Rural system of Austria- Insurrection in Galicia:
the nobles and the peasants-Agrarian edict-Public opinion in
Vienna-Prussia-Accession and character of King Frederick William
IV.-Convocation of the United Diet-Its debates and
dissolution-France-The Spanish Marriages-Reform
movement-Socialism-Revolution of February-End of the Orleanist
Monarchy</p>
<p>END OF VOL. II. (ORIGINAL EDITION).</p>
<br>

<p><a name="c19">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX.">CHAPTER XIX.</a></p>
<p>THE MARCH REVOLUTION, 1848.</p>
<p>Europe in 1789 and in 1848-Agitation in Western Germany before
and after the Revolution at Paris-Austria and Hungary-The March
Revolution at Vienna-Flight of Metternich-The Hungarian
Diet-Hungary wins its independence-Bohemian movement-Autonomy
promised to Bohemia- Insurrection of Lombardy-Of Venice-Piedmont
makes war on Austria-A general Italian war against Austria
imminent-The March Days at Berlin-Frederick William IV.-A
National Assembly promised- Schleswig-Holstein-Insurrection in
Holstein-War between Germany and Denmark-The German
Ante-Parliament-Republican Rising in Baden-Meeting of the German
National Assembly at Frankfort-Europe generally in March,
1848-The French Provisional Government-The National Workshops-The
Government and the Red Republicans-French National Assembly-Riot
of May 15-Measures against the National Workshops-The Four Days
of June-Cavaignac-Louis Napoleon-He is elected to the
Assembly-Elected President</p>
<p><a name="c20">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XX.">CHAPTER XX.</a></p>
<p>THE PERIOD OF CONFLICT, DOWN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
SECOND FRENCH EMPIRE.</p>
<p>Austria and Italy-Vienna from March to May-Flight of the
Emperor -Bohemian National Movement-Windischgr&auml;tz subdues
Prague-Campaign around Verona-Papal Allocution-Naples in
May-Negotiations as to Lombardy- Reconquest of Venetia-Battle of
Custozza-The Austrians enter Milan-Austrian Court and Hungary-The
Serbs in Southern Hungary-Serb Congress at
Carlowitz-Jellacic-Affairs of Croatia-Jellacic, the Court and the
Hungarian Movement-Murder of Lamberg-Manifesto of October 3-
Vienna on October 6-The Emperor at Olm&uuml;tz-Windischgr&auml;tz
conquers Vienna-The Parliament at Kremsier-Schwarzenberg
Minister-Ferdinand abdicates-Dissolution of the Kremsier
Parliament-Unitary Edict-Hungary -The Roumanians in
Transylvania-The Austrian Army occupies Pesth- Hungarian
Government at Debreczin-The Austrians driven out of
Hungary-Declaration of Hungarian Independence-Russian
Intervention-The Hungarian Summer Campaign-Capitulation of
Vilagos-Italy-Murder of Rossi-Tuscany-The March Campaign in
Lombardy-Novara-Abdication of Charles Albert-Victor
Emmanuel-Restoration in Tuscany-French Intervention in
Rome-Defeat of Oudinot-Oudinot and Lesseps-The French enter
Rome-The Restored Pontifical Government-Fall of Venice-Ferdinand
reconquers Sicily-Germany-The National Assembly at Frankfort-The
Armistice of Malm&ouml;-Berlin from April to September-The
Prussian Army-Last Days of the Prussian Parliament-Prussian
Constitution granted by Edict-The German National Assembly and
Austria-Frederick William IV. elected Emperor-He refuses the
Crown-End of the National Assembly- Prussia attempts to form a
separate Union-The Union Parliament at Erfurt-Action of
Austria-Hesse-Cassel-The Diet of Frankfort
restored-Olm&uuml;tz-Schleswig-Holstein-Germany after
1849-Austria after 1851-France after 1848-Louis Napoleon-The
October Message-Law Limiting the Franchise-Louis Napoleon and the
Army-Proposed Revision of the Constitution-The Coup
d'Etat-Napoleon III. Emperor</p>
<a name="c21">&nbsp;</a>
<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI.">CHAPTER XXI.</a></p>
<p>THE CRIMEAN WAR.</p>
<p>England and France in 1851-Russia under Nicholas-The Hungarian
Refugees-Dispute between France and Russia on the Holy
Places-Nicholas and the British Ambassador-Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe-Menschikoff's Mission-Russian troops enter the Danubian
Principalities-Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet-Movements of the
Fleets-The Vienna Note-The Fleets pass the Dardanelles-Turkish
Squadron destroyed at Sinope-Declaration of War-Policy of
Austria-Policy of Prussia-The Western Powers and the European
Concert-Siege of Silistria-The Principalities evacuated- Further
objects of the Western Powers-Invasion of the Crimea-Battle of
the Alma-The Flank March-Balaclava-Inkermann-Winter in the
Crimea-Death of Nicholas-Conference of Vienna-Austria-Progress of
the Siege-Plans of Napoleon III.-Canrobert and
P&eacute;lissier-Unsuccessful Assault-Battle of the
Tchernaya-Capture of the Malakoff-Fall of Sebastopol-Fall of
Kars-Negotiations for Peace-The Conference of Paris-Treaty of
Paris-The Danubian Principalities-Continued discord in the
Ottoman Empire-Revision of the Treaty of Paris in 1871</p>
<p><a name="c22">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII.">CHAPTER
XXII.</a></p>
<p>THE CREATION OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM.</p>
<p>Piedmont after 1849-Ministry of Azeglio-Cavour Prime
Minister-Designs of Cavour-His Crimean Policy-Cavour at the
Conference of Paris-Cavour and Napoleon III.-The Meeting at
Plombi&egrave;res-Preparations in Italy-Treaty of January,
1859-Attempts at Mediation-Austrian Ultimatum-Campaign of
1859-Magenta-Movement in Central Italy-Solferino-Napoleon and
Prussia-Interview of Villafranca-Cavour resigns-Peace of
Z&uuml;rich-Central Italy after Villafranca-The Proposed
Congress-"The Pope and the Congress"-Cavour resumes office-Cavour
and Napoleon-Union of the Duchies and the Romagna with
Piedmont-Savoy and Nice added to France-Cavour on this
cession-European opinion-Naples-Sicily-Garibaldi lands at
Marsala-Capture of Palermo-The Neapolitans evacuate Sicily-Cavour
and the Party of Action-Cavour's Policy as to Naples-Garibaldi on
the mainland-Persano and Villamarina at Naples-Garibaldi at
Naples-The Piedmontese Army enters Umbria and the Marches-Fall of
Ancona-Garibaldi and Cavour-The Armies on the Volturno-Fall of
Gaeta-Cavour's Policy with regard to Rome and Venice-Death of
Cavour-The Free Church in the Free State</p>
<p><a name="c23">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII.">CHAPTER
XXIII.</a></p>
<p>GERMAN ASCENDENCY WON BY PRUSSIA.</p>
<p>Germany after 1858-The Regency in
Prussia-Army-reorganisation-King William I.-Conflict between the
Crown and the Parliament-Bismarck-The struggle continued-Austria
from 1859-The October Diploma-Resistance of Hungary-The
Reichsrath-Russia under Alexander II.-Liberation of the
Serfs-Poland-The Insurrection of 1863-Agrarian measures in
Poland- Schleswig-Holstein-Death of Frederick VII.-Plans of
Bismarck-Campaign in Schleswig-Conference of London-Treaty of
Vienna-England and Napoleon III.-Prussia and Austria-Convention
of Gastein-Italy-Alliance of Prussia with Italy-Proposals for a
Congress fail-War between Austria and Prussia-Napoleon
III.-K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz-Custozza-Mediation of Napoleon -Treaty
of Prague-South Germany-Projects for compensation to
France-Austria and Hungary-De&aacute;k-Establishment of the Dual
System in Austria-Hungary</p>
<p><a name="c24">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV.">CHAPTER
XXIV.</a></p>
<p>THE WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY.</p>
<p>Napoleon III.-The Mexican Expedition-Withdrawal of the French
and death of Maximilian-The Luxemburg Question-Exasperation in
France against Prussia-Austria-Italy-Mentana-Germany after
1866-The Spanish Candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern-French
declaration-Benedetti and King William-Withdrawal of Leopold and
demand for guarantees-The telegram from Ems-War-Expected
Alliances of France-Austria-Italy-Prussian plans-The French
army-Causes of French inferiority-Weissenburg-W&ouml;rth-
Spicheren-Borny-Mars-la-Tour-Gravelotte-Sedan-The Republic
proclaimed at Paris-Favre and Bismarck-Siege of Paris-Gambetta at
Tours-The Army of the Loire-Fall of Metz-Fighting at
Orleans-Sortie of Champigny-The Armies of the North, of the
Loire, of the East-Bourbaki's ruin- Capitulation of Paris and
Armistice-Preliminaries of Peace-Germany- Establishment of the
German Empire-The Commune of Paris-Second Siege- Effects of the
war as to Russia and Italy-Rome</p>
<p><a name="c25">&nbsp;</a><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV.">CHAPTER XXV.</a></p>
<p>EASTERN AFFAIRS.</p>
<p>France after 1871-Alliance of the Three Emperors-Revolt of
Herzegovina- The Andr&aacute;ssy Note-Murder of the Consuls at
Salonika-The Berlin Memorandum-Rejected by England-Abdul Aziz
deposed-Massacres in Bulgaria-Servia and Montenegro declare
War-Opinion in England-Disraeli- Meeting of Emperors at
Reichstadt-Servian Campaign-Declaration of the Czar-Conference at
Constantinople-Its Failure-The London Protocol- Russia declares
War-Advance on the Balkans-Osman at Plevna-Second Attack on
Plevna-The Shipka Pass-Roumania-Third Attack on Plevna-Todleben-
Fall of Plevna-Passage of the Balkans-Armistice-England-The Fleet
passes the Dardanelles-Treaty of San Stefano-England and
Russia-Secret Agreement-Convention with Turkey-Congress of
Berlin-Treaty of Berlin-Bulgaria</p>
<br>

<p>MAPS.</p>
<p>EUROPEAN STATES IN 1792</p>
<p>CENTRAL EUROPE IN 1812</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>

<h2>MODERN EUROPE.</h2>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="p1">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#cp1">PREFACE.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>In acceding to the Publishers' request for a re-issue of the
"History of Modern Europe," in the form of a popular edition, I
feel that I am only fulfilling what would have been the wish of
the Author himself. A few manuscript corrections and additions
found in his own copy of the work have been adopted in the
present edition; in general, however, my attention in revising
each sheet for the press has been devoted to securing an accurate
reproduction of the text and notes as they appeared in the
previous editions in three volumes. I trust that in this cheaper
and more portable form the work will prove, both to the student
and the general reader, even more widely acceptable than
heretofore.</p>
<p>HENRIETTA F. A. FYFFE.</p>
<p>London, November, 1895.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="p2">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#cp2">PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>The object of this work is to show how the States of Europe
have gained the form and character which they possess at the
present moment. The outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1792,
terminating a period which now appears far removed from us, and
setting in motion forces which have in our own day produced a
united Germany and a united Italy, forms the natural
starting-point of a history of the present century. I have
endeavoured to tell a simple story, believing that a narrative in
which facts are chosen for their significance, and exhibited in
their real connection, may be made to convey as true an
impression as a fuller history in which the writer is not forced
by the necessity of concentration to exercise the same rigour
towards himself and his materials. The second volume of the work
will bring the reader down to the year 1848: the third, down to
the present time.</p>
<p>London, 1880.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="p3">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#cp3">PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE FIRST
VOLUME.</a> <a name="FNanchor1">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></h2>
<br>

<p>In revising this volume for the second edition I have occupied
myself mainly with two sources of information-the unpublished
Records of the English Foreign Office, and the published works
which have during recent years resulted from the investigation of
the Archives of Vienna. The English Records from 1792 to 1814,
for access to which I have to express my thanks to Lord
Granville, form a body of firsthand authority of extraordinary
richness, compass, and interest. They include the whole
correspondence between the representatives of Great Britain at
Foreign Courts and the English Foreign Office; a certain number
of private communications between Ministers and these
representatives; a quantity of reports from consuls, agents, and
"informants" of every description; and in addition to these the
military reports, often admirably vivid and full of matter, sent
by the British officers attached to the head-quarters of our
Allies in most of the campaigns from 1792 to 1814. It is
impossible that any one person should go through the whole of
this material, which it took the Diplomatic Service a quarter of
a century to write. I have endeavoured to master the
correspondence from each quarter of Europe which, for the time
being, had a preponderance in political or military interest,
leaving it when its importance became obviously subordinate to
that of others; and although I have no doubt left untouched much
that would repay investigation, I trust that the narrative has
gained in accuracy from a labour which was not a light one, and
that the few short extracts which space has permitted me to throw
into the notes may serve to bring the reader nearer to events. At
some future time I hope to publish a selection from the most
important documents of this period. It is strange that our
learned Societies, so appreciative of every distant and trivial
chronicle of the Middle Ages, should ignore the records of a time
of such surpassing interest, and one in which England played so
great a part. No just conception can be formed of the difference
between English statesmanship and that of the Continental Courts
in integrity, truthfulness, and public spirit, until the mass of
diplomatic correspondence preserved at London has been studied;
nor, until this has been done, can anything like an adequate
biography of Pitt be written.</p>
<p>The second and less important group of authorities with which
I have busied myself during the work of revision comprises the
works of H&uuml;ffer, Vivenot, Beer, Helfert, and others, based
on Austrian documents, along with the Austrian documents and
letters that have been published by Vivenot. The last-named
writer is himself a partizan, but the material which he has given
to the world is most valuable. The mystery in which the Austrian
Government until lately enveloped all its actions caused some of
these to be described as worse than they really were; and I
believe that in the First Edition I under-estimated the bias of
Prussian and North-German writers. Where I have seen reasons to
alter any statements, I have done so without reserve, as it
appears to me childish for any one who attempts to write history
to cling to an opinion after the balance of evidence seems to be
against it. The publication of the second volume of this work has
been delayed by the revision of the first; but I hope that it
will appear before many months more. I must express my
obligations to Mr. Oscar Browning, a fellow-labourer in the same
field, who not only furnished me with various corrections, but
placed his own lectures at my disposal; and to Mr. Alfred
Kingston, whose unfailing kindness and courtesy make so great a
difference to those whose work lies in the department of the
Record Office which is under his care.</p>
<p>London, 1883.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>

<h2><a name="p4"> </a><a href="#cp4">PREFACE TO THE SECOND
VOLUME</a><a name="FNanchor2">.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></h2>
<br>

<p>In writing this volume I have not had the advantage of
consulting the English Foreign Office Records for a later period
than the end of 1815. A rule not found necessary at Berlin and
some other foreign capitals still closes to historical inquirers
the English documents of the last seventy years. Restrictions are
no doubt necessary in the case of transactions of recent date,
but the period of seventy years is surely unnecessarily long.
Public interests could not be prejudiced, nor could individuals
be even remotely affected, by the freest examination of the
papers of 1820 or 1830.</p>
<p>The London documents of 1814-1815 are of various degrees of
interest and importance. Those relating to the Congress of Vienna
are somewhat disappointing. Taken all together, they add less to
our knowledge on the one or two points still requiring
elucidation than the recently-published correspondence of
Talleyrand with Louis XVIII. The despatches from Italy are on the
other hand of great value, proving, what I believe was not
established before, that the Secret Treaty of 1815, whereby
Austria gained a legal right to prevent any departure from
absolute Government at Naples, was communicated to the British
Ministry and received its sanction. This sanction explains the
obscure and embarrassed language of Castlereagh in 1820, which in
its turn gave rise to the belief in Italy that England was more
deeply committed to Austria than it actually was, and probably
occasioned the forgery of the pretended Treaty of July 27, 1813,
exposed in vol. i. of this work, p. 538, 2nd edit. <a name=
"FNanchor3">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> The
papers from France and Spain are also interesting, though not
establishing any new conclusions.</p>
<p>While regretting that I have not been able to use the London
archives later than 1815, I believe that it is nevertheless
possible, without recourse to unpublished papers, to write the
history of the succeeding thirty years with substantial
correctness. There exist in a published form, apart from
documents printed officially, masses of first-hand material of
undoubtedly authentic character, such as the great English
collection known by the somewhat misleading name of Wellington
Despatches, New Series; or again, the collection printed as an
appendix to Prokesch von Osten's History of the Greek Rebellion,
or the many volumes of Gentz' Correspondence belonging to the
period about 1820, when Gentz was really at the centre of
affairs. The Metternich papers, interesting as far as they go,
are a mere selection. The omissions are glaring, and scarcely
accidental. Many minor collections bearing on particular events
might be named, such as those in Guizot's M&eacute;moires.
Frequent references will show my obligation to the German series
of historical works constituting the Leipzig Staatengeschichte,
as well as to French authors who, like Viel-Castel, have worked
with original sources of information before them. There exist in
English literature singularly few works on this period of
Continental history.</p>
<p>A greater publicity was introduced into political affairs on
the Continent by the establishment of Parliamentary Government in
France in 1815, and even by the attempts made to introduce it in
other States. In England we have always had freedom of
discussion, but the amount of information made public by the
executive in recent times has been enormously greater than it was
at the end of the last century. The only documents published at
the outbreak of the war of 1793 were, so far as I can ascertain,
the well-known letters of Chauvelin and Lord Grenville. During
the twenty years' struggle with France next to nothing was known
of the diplomatic transactions between England and the
Continental Powers. But from the time of the Reform Bill onwards
the amount of information given to the public has been constantly
increasing, and the reader of Parliamentary Papers in our own day
is likely to complain of diffusiveness rather than of reticence.
Nevertheless the perusal of published papers can never be quite
the same thing as an examination of the originals; and the writer
who first has access to the English archives after 1815 will have
an advantage over those who have gone before him.</p>
<p>The completion of this volume has been delayed by almost every
circumstance adverse to historical study and production,
including a severe Parliamentary contest. I trust, however, that
no trace of partisanship or unrest appears in the work, which I
have valued for the sake of the mental discipline which it
demanded. With quieter times the third volume will, I trust,
advance more rapidly.</p>
<p>LONDON, October, 1886.</p>
<p>NOTE.-The third volume was published in 1889.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_I.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c1">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1792-Its immediate
causes- Declaration of Pillnitz made and withdrawn-Agitation of
the Priests and Emigrants-War Policy of the Gironde-Provocations
offered to France by the Powers-State of Central Europe in
1792-The Holy Roman Empire- Austria-Rule of the Hapsburgs-The
Reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II.-Policy of Leopold
II.-Government and Foreign Policy of Francis
II.-Prussia-Government of Frederick William II.-Social condition
or Prussia-Secondary States of Germany-Ecclesiastical States-Free
Cities-Knights-Weakness of Germany</p>
<br>

<p>On the morning of the 19th of April, 1792, after weeks of
stormy agitation in Paris, the Ministers of Louis XVI. brought
down a letter from the King to the Legislative Assembly of
France. The letter was brief but significant. It announced that
the King intended to appear in the Hall of Assembly at noon on
the following day. Though the letter did not disclose the object
of the King's visit, it was known that Louis had given way to the
pressure of his Ministry and the national cry for war, and that a
declaration of war against Austria was the measure which the King
was about to propose in person to the Assembly. On the morrow the
public thronged the hall; the Assembly broke off its debate at
midday in order to be in readiness for the King. Louis entered
the hall in the midst of deep silence, and seated himself beside
the President in the chair which was now substituted for the
throne of France. At the King's bidding General Dumouriez,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, read a report to the Assembly upon
the relations of France to foreign Powers. The report contained a
long series of charges against Austria, and concluded with the
recommendation of war. When Dumouriez ceased reading Louis rose,
and in a low voice declared that he himself and the whole of the
Ministry accepted the report read to the Assembly; that he had
used every effort to maintain peace, and in vain; and that he was
now come, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, to
propose that the Assembly declare war against the Austrian
Sovereign. It was not three months since Louis himself had
supplicated the Courts of Europe for armed aid against his own
subjects. The words which he now uttered were put in his mouth by
men whom he hated, but could not resist: the very outburst of
applause that followed them only proved the fatal antagonism that
existed between the nation and the King. After the President of
the Assembly had made a short answer, Louis retired from the
hall. The Assembly itself broke up, to commence its debate on the
King's proposal after an interval of some hours. When the House
re-assembled in the evening, those few courageous men who argued
on grounds of national interest and justice against the passion
of the moment could scarcely obtain a hearing. An appeal for a
second day's discussion was rejected; the debate abruptly closed;
and the declaration of war was carried against seven dissentient
votes. It was a decision big with consequences for France and for
the world. From that day began the struggle between Revolutionary
France and the established order of Europe. A period opened in
which almost every State on the Continent gained some new
character from the aggressions of France, from the laws and
political changes introduced by the conqueror, or from the
awakening of new forces of national life in the crisis of
successful resistance or of humiliation. It is my intention to
trace the great lines of European history from that time to the
present, briefly sketching the condition of some of the principal
States at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, and endeavouring
to distinguish, amid scenes of ever-shifting incident, the steps
by which the Europe of 1792 has become the Europe of today.</p>
<p>[First threats of foreign Courts against France, 1791.]</p>
<p>The first two years of the Revolution had ended without
bringing France into collision with foreign Powers. This was not
due to any goodwill that the Courts of Europe bore to the French
people, or to want of effort on the part of the French
aristocracy to raise the armies of Europe against their own
country. The National Assembly, which met in 1789, had cut at the
roots of the power of the Crown; it had deprived the nobility of
their privilees, and laid its hand upon the revenues of the
Church. The brothers of King Louis XVI., with a host of nobles
too impatient to pursue a course of steady political opposition
at home, quitted France, and wearied foreign Courts with their
appeals for armed assistance. The absolute monarchs of the
Continent gave them a warm and even ostentatious welcome; but
they confined their support to words and tokens of distinction,
and until the summer of 1791 the Revolution was not seriously
threatened with the interference of the stranger. The flight of
King Louis from Paris in June, 1791, followed by his capture and
his strict confinement within the Tuileries, gave rise to the
first definite project of foreign intervention. <a name=
"FNanchor4">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> Louis
had fled from his capital and from the National Assembly; he
returned, the hostage of a populace already familiar with outrage
and bloodshed. For a moment the exasperation of Paris brought the
Royal Family into real jeopardy. The Emperor Leopold, brother of
Marie Antoinette, trembled for the safety of his unhappy sister,
and addressed a letter to the European Courts from Padua, on the
6th of July, proposing that the Powers should unite to preserve
the Royal Family of France from popular violence. Six weeks later
the Emperor and King Frederick William II. of Prussia met at
Pillnitz, in Saxony. A declaration was published by the two
Sovereigns, stating that they considered the position of the King
of France to be matter of European concern, and that, in the
event of all the other great Powers consenting to a joint action,
they were prepared to supply an armed force to operate on the
French frontier.</p>
<p>[Declaration of Pillnitz withdrawn.]</p>
<p>Had the National Assembly instantly declared war on Leopold
and Frederick William, its action would have been justified by
every rule of international law. The Assembly did not, however,
declare war, and for a good reason. It was known at Paris that
the manifesto was no more than a device of the Emperor's to
intimidate the enemies of the Royal Family. Leopold, when he
pledged himself to join a coalition of all the Powers, was in
fact aware that England would be no party to any such coalition.
He was determined to do nothing that would force him into war;
and it did not occur to him that French politicians would
understand the emptiness of his threats as well as he did
himself. Yet this turned out to be the case; and whatever
indignation the manifesto of Pillnitz excited in the mass of the
French people, it was received with more derision than alarm by
the men who were cognisant of the affairs of Europe. All the
politicians of the National Assembly knew that Prussia and
Austria had lately been on the verge of war with one another upon
the Eastern question; they even underrated the effect of the
French revolution in appeasing the existing enmities of the great
Powers. No important party in France regarded the Declaration of
Pillnitz as a possible reason for hostilities; and the challenge
given to France was soon publicly withdrawn. It was withdrawn
when Louis XVI., by accepting the Constitution made by the
National Assembly, placed himself, in the sight of Europe, in the
position of a free agent. On the 14th September, 1791, the King,
by a solemn public oath, identified his will with that of the
nation. It was known in Paris that he had been urged by the
emigrants to refuse his assent, and to plunge the nation into
civil war by an open breach with the Assembly. The frankness with
which Louis pledged himself to the Constitution, the seeming
sincerity of his patriotism, again turned the tide of public
opinion in his favour. His flight was forgiven; the restrictions
placed upon his personal liberty were relaxed. Louis seemed to be
once more reconciled with France, and France was relieved from
the ban of Europe. The Emperor announced that the circumstances
which had provoked the Declaration of Pillnitz no longer existed,
and that the Powers, though prepared to revive the League if
future occasion should arise, suspended all joint action in
reference to the internal affairs of France.</p>
<p>[Priests and emigrants keep France in agitation.]</p>
<p>The National Assembly, which, in two years, had carried France
so far towards the goal of political and social freedom, now
declared its work ended. In the mass of the nation there was
little desire for further change. The grievances which pressed
most heavily upon the common course of men's lives-unfair
taxation, exclusion from public employment, monopolies among the
townspeople, and the feudal dues which consumed the produce of
the peasant-had been swept away. It was less by any general
demand for further reform than by the antagonisms already kindled
in the Revolution that France was forced into a new series of
violent changes. The King himself was not sincerely at one with
the nation; in everything that most keenly touched his conscience
he had unwillingly accepted the work of the Assembly. The Church
and the noblesse were bent on undoing what had already been done.
Without interfering with doctrine or ritual, the National
Assembly had re-organised the ecclesiastical system of France,
and had enforced that supremacy of the State over the priesthood
to which, throughout the eighteenth century, the Governments of
Catholic Europe had been steadily tending. The Civil Constitution
of the Clergy, which was created by the National Assembly in
1790, transformed the priesthood from a society of landowners
into a body of salaried officers of the State, and gave to the
laity the election of their bishops and ministers. The change,
carried out in this extreme form, threw the whole body of bishops
and a great part of the lower clergy into revolt. Their interests
were hurt by the sale of the Church lands; their consciences were
wounded by the system of popular election, which was condemned by
the Pope. In half the pulpits of France the principles of the
Revolution were anathematised, and the vengeance of heaven
denounced against the purchasers of the secularised Church lands.
Beyond the frontier the emigrant nobles, who might have tempered
the Revolution by combining with the many liberal men of their
order who remained at home, gathered in arms, and sought the help
of foreigners against a nation in which they could see nothing
but rebellious dependents of their own. The head-quarters of the
emigrants were at Coblentz in the dominions of the Elector of
Tr&egrave;ves. They formed themselves into regiments, numbering
in all some few thousands, and occupied themselves with
extravagant schemes of vengeance against all Frenchmen who had
taken part in the destruction of the privileges of their
caste.</p>
<p>[Legislative Assembly. Oct. 1791.]</p>
<p>[War policy of the Gironde.]</p>
<p>Had the elections which followed the dissolution of the
National Assembly sent to the Legislature a body of men bent only
on maintaining the advantages already won, it would have been no
easy task to preserve the peace of France in the presence of the
secret or open hostility of the Court, the Church, and the
emigrants. But the trial was not made. The leading spirits among
the new representatives were not men of compromise. In the
Legislative Body which met in 1791 there were all the passions of
the Assembly of 1789, without any of the experience which that
Assembly had gained. A decree, memorable among the achievements
of political folly, had prohibited members of the late Chamber
from seeking re-election. The new Legislature was composed of men
whose political creed had been drawn almost wholly from literary
sources; the most dangerous theorists of the former Assembly were
released from Parliamentary restraints, and installed, like
Robespierre, as the orators of the clubs. Within the Chamber
itself the defenders of the Monarchy and of the Constitution
which had just been given to France were far outmatched by the
party of advance. The most conspicuous of the new deputies formed
the group named after the district of the Gironde, where several
of their leaders had been elected. The orator Vergniaud,
pre-eminent among companions of singular eloquence, the
philosopher Condorcet, the veteran journalist Brissot, gave to
this party an ascendancy in the Chamber and an influence in the
country the more dangerous because it appeared to belong to men
elevated above the ordinary regions of political strife. Without
the fixed design of turning the monarchy into a republic, the
orators of the Gironde sought to carry the revolutionary movement
over the barrier erected against it in the Constitution of 1791.
From the moment of the opening of the Assembly it was clear that
the Girondins intended to precipitate the conflict between the
Court and the nation by devoting all the wealth of their
eloquence to the subjects which divided France the most. To
Brissot and the men who furnished the ideas of the party, it
would have seemed a calamity that the Constitution of 1791, with
its respect for the prerogative of the Crown and its tolerance of
medi&aelig;val superstition, should fairly get underway. In spite
of Robespierre's prediction that war would give France a strong
sovereign in the place of a weak one, the Girondins persuaded
themselves that the best means of diminishing or overthrowing
monarchical power in France was a war with the sovereigns of
Europe; and henceforward they laboured for war with scarcely any
disguise. <a name="FNanchor5">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Notes of Kaunitz, Dec. 21, Feb. 17.]</p>
<p>Nor were occasions wanting, if war was needful for France. The
protection which the Elector of Tr&egrave;ves gave to the
emigrant army at Coblentz was so flagrant a violation of
international law that the Gironde had the support of the whole
nation when they called upon the King to demand the dispersal of
the emigrants in the most peremptory form. National feeling was
keenly excited by debates in which the military preparations of
the emigrants and the encouragement given to them by foreign
princes were denounced with all the energy of southern eloquence.
On the 13th of December Louis declared to the Electors of
Tr&egrave;ves and Mainz that he would treat them as enemies
unless the armaments within their territories were dispersed by
January 15th; and at the same time he called upon the Emperor
Leopold, as head of the Germanic body, to use his influence in
bringing the Electors to reason. The demands of France were not
resisted. On the 16th January, 1792, Louis informed the Assembly
that the emigrants had been expelled from the electorates, and
acknowledged the good offices of Leopold in effecting this
result. The substantial cause of war seemed to have disappeared;
but another had arisen in its place. In a note of December 21st
the Austrian Minister Kaunitz used expressions which implied that
a league of the Powers was still in existence against France.
Nothing could have come more opportunely for the war-party in the
Assembly. Brissot cried for an immediate declaration of war, and
appealed to the French nation to vindicate its honour by an
attack both upon the emigrants and upon their imperial protector.
The issue depended upon the relative power of the Crown and the
Opposition. Leopold saw that war was inevitable unless the
Constitutional party, which was still in office, rallied for one
last effort, and gained a decisive victory over its antagonists.
In the hope of turning public opinion against the Gironde, he
permitted Kaunitz to send a despatch to Paris which loaded the
leaders of the war-party with abuse, and exhorted the French
nation to deliver itself from men who would bring upon it the
hostility of Europe. (Feb. 17.) <a name="FNanchor6">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> The despatch gave singular proof
of the inability of the cleverest sovereign and the most
experienced minister of the age to distinguish between the fears
of a timid cabinet and the impulses of an excited nation.
Leopold's vituperations might have had the intended effect if
they had been addressed to the Margrave of Baden or the Doge of
Venice; addressed to the French nation and its popular Assembly
in the height of civil conflict, they were as oil poured upon the
flames. Leopold ruined the party which he meant to reinforce; he
threw the nation into the arms of those whom he attacked. His
despatch was received in the Assembly with alternate murmurs and
bursts of laughter; in the clubs it excited a wild outburst of
rage. The exchange of diplomatic notes continued for a few weeks
more; but the real answer of France to Austria was the
"Marseillaise," composed at Strasburg almost simultaneously with
Kaunitz' attack upon the Jacobins. The sudden death of the
Emperor on March 1st produced no pause in the controversy.
Delessart, the Foreign Minister of Louis, was thrust from office,
and replaced by Dumouriez, the representative of the
war-party.</p>
<p>[War declared, April 20th, 1792.]</p>
<p>Expostulation took a sharper tone; old subjects of complaint
were revived; and the armies on each side were already pressing
towards the frontier when the unhappy Louis was brought down to
the Assembly by his Ministers, and compelled to propose the
declaration of war.</p>
<p>[Pretended grounds of war.]</p>
<p>[Expectation of foreign attack real among the French people;
not real among the French politicians.]</p>
<p>It is seldom that the professed grounds correspond with the
real motives of a war; nor was this the case in 1792. The
ultimatum of the Austrian Government demanded that compensation
should be made to certain German nobles whose feudal rights over
their peasantry had been abolished in Alsace; that the Pope
should be indemnified for Avignon and the Venaissin, which had
been taken from him by France; and that a Government should be
established at Paris capable of affording the Powers of Europe
security against the spread of democratic agitation. No one
supposed the first two grievances to be a serious ground for
hostilities. The rights of the German nobles in Alsace over their
villagers were no doubt protected by the treaties which ceded
those districts to France; but every politician in Europe would
have laughed at a Government which allowed the feudal system to
survive in a corner of its dominions out of respect for a
settlement a century and a half old: nor had the Assembly refused
to these foreign seigneurs a compensation claimed in vain by King
Louis for the nobles of France. As to the annexation of Avignon
and the Venaissin, a power which, like Austria, had joined in
dismembering Poland, and had just made an unsuccessful attempt to
dismember Turkey, could not gravely reproach France for
incorporating a district which lay actually within it, and whose
inhabitants, or a great portion of them, were anxious to become
citizens of France. The third demand, the establishment of such a
government as Austria should deem satisfactory, was one which no
high-spirited people could be expected to entertain. Nor was
this, in fact, expected by Austria. Leopold had no desire to
attack France, but he had used threats, and would not submit to
the humiliation of renouncing them. He would not have begun a war
for the purpose of delivering the French Crown; but, when he
found that he was himself certain to be attacked, he accepted a
war with the Revolution without regret. On the other side, when
the Gironde denounced the league of the Kings, they exaggerated a
far-off danger for the ends of their domestic policy. The
Sovereigns of the Continent had indeed made no secret of their
hatred to the Revolution. Catherine of Russia had exhorted every
Court in Europe to make war; Gustavus of Sweden was surprised by
a violent death in the midst of preparations against France;
Spain, Naples, and Sardinia were ready to follow leaders stronger
than themselves. But the statesmen of the French Assembly well
understood the interval that separates hostile feeling from
actual attack; and the unsubstantial nature of the danger to
France, whether from the northern or the southern Powers, was
proved by the very fact that Austria, the hereditary enemy of
France, and the country of the hated Marie Antoinette, was
treated as the main enemy. Nevertheless, the Courts had done
enough to excite the anger of millions of French people who knew
of their menaces, and not of their hesitations and reserves. The
man who composed the "Marseillaise" was no maker of
cunningly-devised fables; the crowds who first sang it never
doubted the reality of the dangers which the orators of the
Assembly denounced. The Courts of Europe had heaped up the fuel;
the Girondins applied the torch. The mass of the French nation
had little means of appreciating what passed in Europe; they took
their facts from their leaders, who considered it no very serious
thing to plunge a nation into war for the furtherance of internal
liberty. Events were soon to pass their own stern and mocking
sentence upon the wisdom of the Girondin statesmanship.</p>
<p>[Germany follows Austria into the war.]</p>
<p>[State of Germany.]</p>
<p>After voting the Declaration of War the French Assembly
accepted a manifesto, drawn up by Condorcet, renouncing in the
name of the French people all intention of conquest. The
manifesto expressed what was sincerely felt by men like
Condorcet, to whom the Revolution was still too sacred a cause to
be stained with the vulgar lust of aggrandisement. But the actual
course of the war was determined less by the intentions with
which the French began it than by the political condition of the
States which bordered upon the French frontier. The war was
primarily a war with Austria, but the Sovereign of Austria was
also the head of Germany. The German Ecclesiastical Princes who
ruled in the Rhenish provinces had been the most zealous
protectors of the emigrants; it was impossible that they should
now find shelter in neutrality. Prussia had made an alliance with
the Emperor against France; other German States followed in the
wake of one or other of the great Powers. If France proved
stronger than its enemy, there were governments besides that of
Austria which would have to take their account with the
Revolution. Nor indeed was Austria the power most exposed to
violent change. The mass of its territory lay far from France; at
the most, it risked the loss of Lombardy and the Netherlands.
Germany at large was the real area threatened by the war, and
never was a political community less fitted to resist attack than
Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. It was in the
divisions of the German people, and in the rivalries of the two
leading German governments, that France found its surest support
throughout the Revolutionary war, and its keenest stimulus to
conquest. It will throw light upon the sudden changes that now
began to break over Europe if we pause to make a brief survey of
the state of Germany at the outbreak of the war, to note the
character and policy of its reigning sovereigns, and to cast a
glance over the circumstances which had brought the central
district of Europe into its actual condition.</p>
<p>[Since 1648, all the German States independent of the
Emperor.]</p>
<p>[Holy Roman Empire.]</p>
<p>Germany at large still preserved the medi&aelig;val name and
forms of the Holy Roman Empire. The members of this so-called
Empire were, however, a multitude of independent States; and the
chief of these States, Austria, combined with its German
provinces a large territory which did not even in name form part
of the Germanic body. The motley of the Empire was made up by
governments of every degree of strength and weakness. Austria and
Prussia possessed both political traditions and resources raising
them to the rank of great European Powers; but the sovereignties
of the second order, such as Saxony and Bavaria, had neither the
security of strength nor the free energy often seen in small
political communities; whilst in the remaining petty States of
Germany, some hundreds in number, all public life had long passed
out of mind in a drowsy routine of official benevolence or
oppression. In theory there still existed a united Germanic body;
in reality Germany was composed of two great monarchies in
embittered rivalry with one another, and of a multitude of
independent principalities and cities whose membership in the
Empire involved little beyond a liability to be dragged into the
quarrels of their more powerful neighbours. A German national
feeling did not exist, because no combination existed uniting the
interests of all Germany. The names and forms of political union
had come down from a remote past, and formed a grotesque
anachronism amid the realities of the eighteenth century. The
head of the Germanic body held office not by hereditary right,
but as the elected successor of Charlemagne and the Roman
C&aelig;sars. Since the fifteenth century the imperial dignity
had rested with the Austrian House of Hapsburg; but, with the
exception of Charles V., no sovereign of that House had commanded
forces adequate to the creation of a united German state, and the
opportunity which then offered itself was allowed to pass away.
The Reformation severed Northern Germany from the Catholic
monarchy of the south. The Thirty Years' War, terminating in the
middle of the seventeenth century, secured the existence of
Protestantism on the Continent of Europe, but it secured it at
the cost of Germany, which was left exhausted and disintegrated.
By the Treaty of Westphalia, A.D. 1648, the independence of every
member of the Empire was recognised, and the central authority
was henceforth a mere shadow. The Diet of the Empire, where the
representatives of the Electors, of the Princes, and of the Free
Cities, met in the order of the Middle Ages, sank into a Heralds'
College, occupied with questions of title and precedence; affairs
of real importance were transacted by envoys from Court to Court.
For purposes of war the Empire was divided into Circles, each
Circle supplying in theory a contingent of troops; but this
military organisation existed only in letter. The greater and the
intermediate States regulated their armaments, as they did their
policy, without regard to the Diet of Ratisbon; the contingents
of the smaller sovereignties and free cities were in every degree
of inefficiency, corruption, and disorder; and in spite of the
courage of the German soldier, it could make little difference in
a European war whether a regiment which had its captain appointed
by the city of Gm&uuml;nd, its lieutenant by the Abbess of
Rotenm&uuml;nster, and its ensign by the Abbot of Gegenbach, did
or did not take the field with numbers fifty per cent. below its
statutory <a name="FNanchor7">contingent.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> How loose was the connection
subsisting between the members of the Empire, how slow and
cumbrous its constitutional machinery, was strikingly proved
after the first inroads of the French into Germany in 1792, when
the Diet deliberated for four weeks before calling out the forces
of the Empire, and for five months before declaring war.</p>
<p>[Austria.]</p>
<p>[Catholic policy of the Hapsburgs.]</p>
<p>The defence of Germany rested in fact with the armies of
Austria and Prussia. The Austrian House of Hapsburg held the
imperial title, and gathered around it the sovereigns of the less
progressive German States. While the Protestant communities of
Northern Germany identified their interests with those of the
rising Prussian Monarchy, religious sympathy and the tradition of
ages attached the minor Catholic Courts to the political system
of Vienna. Austria gained something by its patronage; it was,
however, no real member of the German family. Its interests were
not the interests of Germany; its power, great and enduring as it
proved, was not based mainly upon German elements, nor used
mainly for German ends. The title of the Austrian monarch gave
the best idea of the singular variety of races and nationalities
which owed their political union only to their submission to a
common head. In the shorter form of state the reigning Hapsburg
was described as King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Slavonia, and
Galicia; Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Transylvania; Duke of
Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; and Princely Count of Hapsburg
and Tyrol. At the outbreak of the war of 1792 the dominions of
the House of Austria included the Southern Netherlands and the
Duchy of Milan, in addition to the great bulk of the territory
which it still governs. Eleven distinct languages were spoken in
the Austrian monarchy, with countless varieties of dialects. Of
the elements of the population the Slavic was far the largest,
numbering about ten millions, against five million Germans and
three million Magyars; but neither numerical strength nor
national objects of desire coloured the policy of a family which
looked indifferently upon all its subject races as instruments
for its own aggrandisement. Milan and the Netherlands had come
into the possession of Austria since the beginning of the
eighteenth century, but the destiny of the old dominions of the
Hapsburg House had been fixed for many generations in the course
of the Thirty Years' War. In that struggle, as it affected
Austria, the conflict of the ancient and the reformed faith had
become a conflict between the Monarchy, allied with the Church,
and every element of national life and independence, allied with
the Reformation. Protestantism, then dominant in almost all the
Hapsburg territories, was not put down without extinguishing the
political liberties of Austrian Germany, the national life of
Bohemia, the spirit and ambition of the Hungarian nobles. The
detestable desire of the Emperor Ferdinand, "Rather a desert than
a country full of heretics," was only too well fulfilled in the
subsequent history of his dominions. In the German provinces,
except the Tyrol, the old Parliaments, and with them all trace of
liberty, disappeared; in Bohemia the national Protestant nobility
lost their estates, or retained them only at the price of
abandoning the religion, the language, and the feelings of their
race, until the country of Huss passed out of the sight of
civilised Europe, and Bohemia represented no more than a blank,
unnoticed mass of tillers of the soil. In Hungary, where the
nation was not so completely crushed in the Thirty Years' War,
and Protestantism survived, the wholesale executions in 1686,
ordered by the Tribunal known as the "Slaughter-house of
Eperies," illustrated the traditional policy of the Monarchy
towards the spirit of national independence. Two powers alone
were allowed to subsist in the Austrian dominions, the power of
the Crown and the power of the Priesthood; and, inasmuch as no
real national unity could exist among the subject races, the
unity of a blind devotion to the Catholic Church was enforced
over the greater part of the Monarchy by all the authority of the
State.</p>
<p>[Reforms of Maria Theresa, 1740-1780.]</p>
<p>Under the pressure of this soulless despotism the mind of man
seemed to lose all its finer powers. The seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, in which no decade passed in England and
France without the production of some literary masterpiece, some
scientific discovery, or some advance in political reasoning, are
marked by no single illustrious Austrian name, except that of
Haydn the musician. When, after three generations of torpor
succeeding the Thirty Years' War, the mind of North Germany awoke
again in Winckelmann and Lessing, and a widely-diffused education
gave to the middle class some compensation for the absence of all
political freedom, no trace of this revival appeared in Austria.
The noble hunted and slept; the serf toiled heavily on; where a
school existed, the Jesuit taught his schoolboys ecclesiastical
Latin, and sent them away unable to read their mother-tongue. To
this dull and impenetrable society the beginnings of improvement
could only be brought by military disaster. The loss of Silesia
in the first years of Maria Theresa disturbed the slumbers of the
Government, and reform began. Although the old provincial
Assemblies, except in Hungary and the Netherlands, had long lost
all real power, the Crown had never attempted to create a uniform
system of administration: the collection of taxes, the enlistment
of recruits, was still the business of the feudal landowners of
each district. How such an antiquated order was likely to fare in
the presence of an energetic enemy was clearly enough shown in
the first attack made upon Austria by Frederick the Great. As the
basis of a better military organisation, and in the hope of
arousing a stronger national interest among her subjects, Theresa
introduced some of the offices of a centralised monarchy, at the
same time that she improved the condition of the serf, and
substituted a German education and German schoolmasters for those
of the Jesuits. The peasant, hitherto in many parts of the
monarchy attached to the soil, was now made free to quit his
lord's land, and was secured from ejectment so long as he
fulfilled his duty of labouring for the lord on a fixed number of
days in the year. Beyond this Theresa's reform did not extend.
She had no desire to abolish the feudal character of country
life; she neither wished to temper the sway of Catholicism, nor
to extinguish those provincial forms which gave to the nobles
within their own districts a shadow of political independence.
Herself conservative in feeling, attached to aristocracy, and
personally devout, Theresa consented only to such change as was
recommended by her trusted counsellors, and asked no more than
she was able to obtain by the charm of her own queenly
character.</p>
<p>[Joseph II., 1780-1790.]</p>
<p>With the accession of her son Joseph II. in 1780 a new era
began for Austria. The work deferred by Theresa was then taken up
by a monarch whose conceptions of social and religious reform
left little for the boldest innovators of France ten years later
to add. There is no doubt that the creation of a great military
force for enterprises of foreign conquest was an end always
present in Joseph's mind, and that the thirst for uncontrolled
despotic power never left him; but by the side of these coarser
elements there was in Joseph's nature something of the true fire
of the man who lives for ideas. Passionately desirous of
elevating every class of his subjects at the same time that he
ignored all their habits and wishes, Joseph attempted to
transform the motley and priest-ridden collection of nations over
whom he ruled into a single homogeneous body, organised after the
model of France and Prussia, worshipping in the spirit of a
tolerant and enlightened Christianity, animated in its relations
of class to class by the humane philosophy of the eighteenth
century. In the first year of his reign Joseph abolished every
jurisdiction that did not directly emanate from the Crown, and
scattered an army of officials from Ostend to the Dniester to
conduct the entire public business of his dominions under the
immediate direction of the central authority at Vienna. In
succeeding years edict followed edict, dissolving monasteries,
forbidding Church festivals and pilgrimages, securing the
protection of the State to every form of Christian worship,
abolishing the exemption from land-tax and the monopoly of public
offices enjoyed by the nobility, transforming the Universities
from dens of monkish ignorance into schools of secular learning,
converting the peasant's personal service into a rent-charge, and
giving him in the officer of the Crown a protector and an arbiter
in all his dealings with his lord. Noble and enlightened in his
aims, Joseph, like every other reformer of the eighteenth
century, underrated the force which the past exerts over the
present; he could see nothing but prejudice and unreason in the
attachment to provincial custom or time-honoured opinion; he knew
nothing of that moral law which limits the success of revolutions
by the conditions which precede them. What was worst united with
what was best in resistance to his reforms. The bigots of the
University of Louvain, who still held out against the discoveries
of Newton, excited the mob to insurrection against Joseph, as the
enemy of religion; the Magyar landowners in Hungary resisted a
system which extinguished the last vestiges of their national
independence at the same time that it destroyed the harsh
dominion which they themselves exercised over their peasantry.
Joseph alternated between concession and the extreme of
autocratic violence. At one moment he resolved to sweep away
every local right that fettered the exercise of his power; then,
after throwing the Netherlands into successful revolt, and
forcing Hungary to the verge of armed resistance, he revoked his
unconstitutional ordinances (January 28, 1790), and restored all
the institutions of the Hungarian monarchy which existed at the
date of his accession.</p>
<p>[Leopold II., 1790-1792.]</p>
<p>A month later, death removed Joseph from his struggle and his
sorrows. His successor, Leopold II., found the monarchy involved
as Russia's ally in an attack upon Turkey; threatened by the
Northern League of Prussia, England, and Holland; exhausted in
finance; weakened by the revolt of the Netherlands; and
distracted in every province by the conflict of the ancient and
the modern system of government, and the assertion of new social
rights that seemed to have been created only in order to be
extinguished. The recovery of Belgium and the conclusion of peace
with Turkey were effected under circumstances that brought the
adroit and guarded statesmanship of Leopold into just credit. His
settlement of the conflict between the Crown and the Provinces,
between the Church and education, between the noble and the serf,
marked the line in which, for better or for worse, Austrian
policy was to run for sixty years. Provincial rights, the
privileges of orders and corporate bodies, Leopold restored; the
personal sovereignty of his house he maintained unimpaired. In
the more liberal part of Joseph's legislation, the emancipation
of learning from clerical control, the suppression of unjust
privilege in taxation, the abolition of the feudal services of
the peasant, Leopold was willing to make concessions to the
Church and the aristocracy; to the spirit of national
independence which his predecessor's aggression had excited in
Bohemia as well as in Hungary, he made no concession beyond the
restoration of certain cherished forms. An attempt of the Magyar
nobles to affix conditions to their acknowledgment of Leopold as
King of Hungary was defeated; and, by creating new offices at
Vienna for the affairs of Illyria and Transylvania, and making
them independent of the Hungarian Diet, Leopold showed that the
Crown possessed an instrument against the dominant Magyar race in
the Slavic and Romanic elements of the Hungarian Kingdom. <a
name="FNanchor8">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> On
the other hand, Leopold consented to restore to the Church its
control over the higher education, and to throw back the burden
of taxation upon land not occupied by noble owners. He gave new
rigour to the censorship of the press; but the gain was not to
the Church, to which the censorship had formerly belonged, but to
the Government, which now employed it as an instrument of State.
In the great question of the emancipation of the serf Leopold was
confronted by a more resolute and powerful body of nobility in
Hungary than existed in any other province. The right of the lord
to fetter the peasant to the soil and to control his marriage
Leopold refused to restore in any part of his dominions; but,
while in parts of Bohemia he succeeded in maintaining the right
given by Joseph to the peasant to commute his personal service
for a money payment, in Hungary he was compelled to fall back
upon the system of Theresa, and to leave the final settlement of
the question to the Diet. Twenty years later the statesman who
emancipated the peasants of Prussia observed that Hungary was the
only part of the Austrian dominions in which the peasant was not
in a better condition than his fellows in North Germany; <a name=
"FNanchor9">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> and so
torpid was the humanity of the Diet that until the year 1835 the
prison and the flogging-board continued to form a part of every
Hungarian manor.</p>
<p>[Death of Leopold, March 1, 1792.]</p>
<p>[Francis II., 1792.]</p>
<p>Of the self-sacrificing ardour of Joseph there was no trace in
Leopold's character; yet his political aims were not low. During
twenty-four years' government of Tuscany he had proved himself
almost an ideal ruler in the pursuit of peace, of religious
enlightenment, and of the material improvement of his little
sovereignty. Raised to the Austrian throne, the compromise which
he effected with the Church and the aristocracy resulted more
from a supposed political necessity than from his own
inclination. So long as Leopold lived, Austria would not have
wanted an intelligence capable of surveying the entire field of
public business, nor a will capable of imposing unity of action
upon the servants of State. To the misfortune of Europe no less
than of his own dominions, Leopold was carried off by sickness at
the moment when the Revolutionary War broke out. An uneasy
reaction against Joseph's reforms and a well-grounded dread of
the national movements in Hungary and the Netherlands were
already the principal forces in the official world at Vienna; in
addition to these came the new terror of the armed proselytism of
the Revolution. The successor of Leopold, Francis II., was a
sickly prince, in whose homely and unimaginative mind the great
enterprises of Joseph, amidst which he had been brought up,
excited only aversion. Amongst the men who surrounded him,
routine and the dread of change made an end of the higher forms
of public life. The Government openly declared that all change
should cease so long as the war lasted; even the pressing
question of the peasant's relation to his lord was allowed to
remain unsettled by the Hungarian Diet, lest the spirit of
national independence should find expression in its debates. Over
the whole internal administration of Austria the torpor of the
days before Theresa seemed to be returning. Its foreign policy,
however, bore no trace of this timorous, conservative spirit.
Joseph, as restless abroad as at home, had shared the ambition of
the Russian Empress Catherine, and troubled Europe with his
designs upon Turkey, Venice, and Bavaria. These and similar
schemes of territorial extension continued to fill the minds of
Austrian courtiers and ambassadors. Shortly after the outbreak of
war with France the aged minister Kaunitz, who had been at the
head of the Foreign Office during three reigns, retired from
power. In spite of the first partition of Poland, made in
combination with Russia and Prussia in 1772, and in spite of
subsequent attempts of Joseph against Turkey and Bavaria, the
policy of Kaunitz had not been one of mere adventure and shifting
attack. He had on the whole remained true to the principle of
alliance with France and antagonism to Prussia; and when the
revolution brought war within sight, he desired to limit the
object of the war to the restoration of monarchical government in
France. The conditions under which the young Emperor and the King
of Prussia agreed to turn the war to purposes of territorial
aggrandisement caused Kaunitz, with a true sense of the fatal
import of this policy, to surrender the power which he had held
for forty years. It was secretly agreed between the two courts
that Prussia should recoup itself for its expenses against France
by seizing part of Poland. On behalf of Austria it was demanded
that the Emperor should annex Bavaria, giving Belgium to the
Elector as compensation. Both these schemes violated what Kaunitz
held to be sound policy. He believed that the interests of
Austria required the consolidation rather than the destruction of
Poland; and he declared the exchange of the Netherlands for
Bavaria to be, in the actual state of affairs, impracticable. <a
name="FNanchor10">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a>
Had the coalition of 1792 been framed on the principles advocated
by Kaunitz, though Austria might not have effected the
restoration of monarchial power in France, the alliance would not
have disgracefully shattered on the crimes and infamies attending
the second partition of Poland.</p>
<p>From the moment when Kaunitz retired from office, territorial
extension became the great object of the Austrian Court. To
prudent statesmen the scattered provinces and varied population
of the Austrian State would have suggested that Austria had more
to lose than any European Power; to the men of 1792 it appeared
that she had more to gain. The Netherlands might be increased
with a strip of French Flanders; Bavaria, Poland, and Italy were
all weak neighbours, who might be made to enrich Austria in their
turn. A sort of magical virtue was attached to the acquisition of
territory. If so many square miles and so many head of population
were gained, whether of alien or kindred race, mutinous or
friendly, the end of all statesmanship was realised, and the
heaviest sacrifice of life and industry repaid. Austria affected
to act as the centre of a defensive alliance, and to fight for
the common purpose of giving a Government to France which would
respect the rights of its neighbours. In reality, its own
military operations were too often controlled, and an effective
common warfare frustrated, at one moment by a design upon French
Flanders, at another by the course of Polish or Bavarian
intrigue, at another by the hope of conquests in Italy. Of all
the interests which centred in the head of the House of Hapsburg,
the least befriended at Vienna was the interest of the Empire and
of Germany.</p>
<p>[Prussia.]</p>
<p>Nor, if Austria was found wanting, had Germany any permanent
safeguard in the rival Protestant State. Prussia, the second
great German Power and the ancient enemy of Austria, had been
raised to an influence in Europe quite out of proportion to its
scanty resources by the genius of Frederick the Great and the
earlier Princes of the House of Hohenzollern. Its population was
not one-third of that of France or Austria; its wealth was
perhaps not superior to that of the Republic of Venice. That a
State so poor in men and money should play the part of one of the
great Powers of Europe was possible only so long as an energetic
ruler watched every movement of that complicated machinery which
formed both army and nation after the prince's own type.
Frederick gave his subjects a just administration of the law; he
taught them productive industries; he sought to bring education
to their doors <a name="FNanchor11">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a>; but he required that the
citizen should account himself before all the servant of the
State. Every Prussian either worked in the great official
hierarchy or looked up to it as the providence which was to
direct all his actions and supply all his judgments. The burden
of taxation imposed by the support of an army relatively three
times as great as that of any other Power was wonderfully
lightened by Frederick's economy: far more serious than the
tobacco-monopoly and the forage-requisitions, at which
Frederick's subjects grumbled during his life-time, was the
danger that a nation which had only attained political greatness
by its obedience to a rigorous administration should fall into
political helplessness, when the clear purpose and
all-controlling care of its ruler no longer animated a system
which, without him, was only a pedantic routine. What in England
we are accustomed to consider as the very substance of national
life,-the mass of political interest and opinion, diffused in
some degree amongst all classes, at once the support and the
judge of the servants of the State,-had in Prussia no existence.
Frederick's subjects obeyed and trusted their Monarch; there were
probably not five hundred persons outside the public service who
had any political opinions of their own. Prussia did not possess
even the form of a national representation; and, although certain
provincial assemblies continued to meet, they met only to receive
the instructions of the Crown-officers of their district. In the
absence of all public criticism, the old age of Frederick must in
itself have endangered the efficiency of the military system
which had raised Prussia to its sudden <a name=
"FNanchor12">eminence.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> The impulse of Frederick's
successor was sufficient to reverse the whole system of Prussian
foreign policy, and to plunge the country in alliance with
Austria into a speculative and unnecessary war.</p>
<p>[Frederick William II., 1786.]</p>
<p>[Alliance with Austria against France, Feb., 1792.]</p>
<p>On the death of Frederick in 1786, the crown passed to
Frederick William II., his nephew. Frederick William was a man of
common type, showy and pleasure-loving, interested in public
affairs, but incapable of acting on any fixed principle. His
mistresses gave the tone to political society. A knot of
courtiers intrigued against one another for the management of the
King; and the policy of Prussia veered from point to point as one
unsteady impulse gave place to another. In countries less
dependent than Prussia upon the personal activity of the monarch,
Frederick William's faults might have been neutralised by able
Ministers; in Prussia the weakness of the King was the decline of
the State. The whole fabric of national greatness had been built
up by the royal power; the quality of the public service, apart
from which the nation was politically non-existent, was the
quality of its head. When in the palace profusion and intrigue
took the place of Frederick the Great's unflagging labour, the
old uprightness, industry, and precision which had been the pride
of Prussian administration fell out of fashion everywhere. Yet
the frivolity of the Court was a less active cause of military
decline than the abandonment of the first principles of Prussian
policy. <a name="FNanchor13">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> If any political sentiment
existed in the nation, it was the sentiment of antagonism to
Austria. The patriotism of the army, with all the traditions of
the great King, turned wholly in this direction. When, out of
sympathy with the Bourbon family and the emigrant French nobles,
Frederick William allied himself with Austria (Feb. 1792), and
threw himself into the arms of his ancient enemy in order to
attack a nation which had not wronged him, he made an end of all
zealous obedience amongst his servants. Brunswick, the Prussian
Commander-in-Chief, hated the French emigrants as much as he did
the Revolution; and even the generals who did not originally
share Brunswick's dislike to the war recovered their old jealousy
of Austria after the first defeat, and exerted themselves only to
get quit of the war at the first moment that Prussia could retire
from it without disgrace. The very enterprise in which Austria
had consented that the Court of Berlin should seek its reward-the
seizure of a part of Poland-proved fatal to the coalition. The
Empress Catherine was already laying her hand for the second time
upon this unfortunate country. It was easy for the opponents of
the Austrian alliance who surrounded King Frederick William to
contrast the barren effort of a war against France with the cheap
and certain advantages to be won by annexation, in concert with
Russia, of Polish territory. To pursue one of these objects with
vigour it was necessary to relinquish the other. Prussia was not
rich enough to maintain armies both on the Vistula and the Rhine.
Nor, in the opinion of its rulers, was it rich enough to be very
tender of its honour or very loyal towards its allies. <a name=
"FNanchor14">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Social system of Prussia.]</p>
<p>In the institutions of Prussia two opposite systems existed
side by side, exhibiting in the strongest form a contrast which
in a less degree was present in most Continental States. The
political independence of the nobility had long been crushed; the
King's Government busied itself with every detail of town and
village administration; yet along with this rigorous development
of the modern doctrine of the unity and the authority of the
State there existed a social order more truly archaic than that
of the Middle Ages at their better epochs. The inhabitants of
Prussia were divided into the three classes of nobles, burghers,
and peasants, each confined to its own stated occupations, and
not marrying outside its own order. The soil of the country bore
the same distinction; peasant's land could not be owned by a
burgher; burgher's land could not be owned by a noble. No
occupation was lawful for the noble, who was usually no more than
a poor gentleman, but the service of the Crown; the peasant, even
where free, might not practise the handicraft of a burgher. But
the mass of the peasantry in the country east of the Elbe were
serfs attached to the soil; and the noble, who was not permitted
to exercise the slightest influence upon the government of his
country, inherited along with his manor a jurisdiction and
police-control over all who were settled within it. Frederick had
allowed serfage to continue because it gave him in each manorial
lord a task-master whom he could employ in his own service.
System and obedience were the sources of his power; and if there
existed among his subjects one class trained to command and
another trained to obey, it was so much the easier for him to
force the country into the habits of industry which he required
of it. In the same spirit, Frederick officered his army only with
men of the noble caste. They brought with them the habit of
command ready-formed; the peasants who ploughed and threshed at
their orders were not likely to disobey them in the presence of
the enemy. It was possible that such a system should produce
great results so long as Frederick was there to guard against its
abuses; Frederick gone, the degradation of servitude, the
insolence of caste, was what remained. When the army of France,
led by men who had worked with their fathers in the fields,
hunted a King of Prussia amidst his capitulating grandees from
the centre to the verge of his dominions, it was seen what was
the permanent value of a system which recognised in the nature of
the poor no capacity but one for hereditary subjection. The
French peasant, plundered as he was by the State, and vexed as he
was with feudal services, knew no such bondage as that of the
Prussian serf, who might not leave the spot where he was born;
only in scattered districts in the border-provinces had serfage
survived in France. It is significant of the difference in
self-respect existing in the peasantry of the two countries that
the custom of striking the common soldier, universal in Germany,
was in France no more than an abuse, practised by the admirers of
Frederick, and condemned by the better officers themselves.</p>
<p>[Minor States of Germany.]</p>
<p>[Ecclesiastical States.]</p>
<p>In all the secondary States of Germany the government was an
absolute monarchy; though, here and there, as in W&uuml;rtemberg,
the shadow of the old Assembly of the Estates survived; and in
Hanover the absence of the Elector, King George III., placed
power in the hands of a group of nobles who ruled in his name.
Society everywhere rested on a sharp division of classes similar
in kind to that of Prussia; the condition of the peasant ranging
from one of serfage, as it existed in <a name=
"FNanchor15">Mecklenburg,</a><a href=
"#Footnote_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> to one of comparative freedom
and comfort in parts of the southern and western States. The
sovereigns differed widely in the enlightenment or selfishness of
their rule; but, on the whole, the character of government had
changed for the better of late years; and, especially in the
Protestant States, efforts to improve the condition of the people
were not wanting. Frederick the Great had in fact created a new
standard of monarchy in Germany. Forty years earlier, Versailles,
with its unfeeling splendours, its glorification of the personal
indulgence of the monarch, had been the ideal which, with a due
sense of their own inferiority, the German princes had done their
best to imitate. To be a sovereign was to cover acres of ground
with state apartments, to lavish the revenues of the country upon
a troop of mistresses and adventurers, to patronise the arts, to
collect with the same complacency the masterpieces of ancient
painting that adorn the Dresden Gallery, or an array of valuables
scarcely more interesting than the chests of treasure that were
paid for them. In the ecclesiastical States, headed by the
Electorates of Mainz, Tr&egrave;ves, and Cologne, the
affectations of a distinctive Christian or spiritual character
had long been abandoned. The prince-bishop and canons, who were
nobles appointed from some other province, lived after the gay
fashion of the time, at the expense of a land in which they had
no interest extending beyond their own lifetime. The only feature
distinguishing the ecclesiastical residence from that of one of
the minor secular princes was that the parade of state was
performed by monks in the cathedral instead of by soldiers on the
drill-ground, and that even the pretence of married life was
wanting among the flaunting harpies who frequented a celibate
Court. Yet even on the Rhine and on the Moselle the influence of
the great King of Prussia had begun to make itself felt. The
intense and penetrating industry of Frederick was not within the
reach of every petty sovereign who might envy its results; but
the better spirit of the time was seen under some of the
ecclesiastical princes in the encouragement of schools, the
improvement of the roads, and a retrenchment in courtly
expenditure. That deeply-seated moral disease which resulted from
centuries of priestly rule was not to be so lightly shaken off.
In a district where Nature most bountifully rewards the industry
of man, twenty-four out of every hundred of the population were
monks, nuns, or beggars. <a name="FNanchor16">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Petty States. Free Cities. Knights.]</p>
<p>Two hundred petty principalities, amongst which Weimar, the
home of Goethe, stood out in the brightest relief from the level
of princely routine and self-indulgence; fifty imperial cities,
in most of which the once vigorous organism of civic life had
shrivelled to the type of the English rotten borough, did not
exhaust the divisions of Germany. Several hundred Knights of the
Empire, owing no allegiance except to the Emperor, exercised,
each over a domain averaging from three to four hundred
inhabitants, all the rights of sovereignty, with the exception of
the right to make war and treaties. The districts in which this
order survived were scattered over the Catholic States of the
south-west of Germany, where the knights maintained their
prerogatives by federations among themselves and by the support
of the Emperor, to whom they granted sums of money. There were
instances in which this union of the rights of the sovereign and
the landlord was turned to good account; but the knight's land
was usually the scene of such poverty and degradation that the
traveller needed no guide to inform him when he entered it. Its
wretched tracks interrupted the great lines of communication
between the Rhine and further Germany; its hovels were the refuge
of all the criminals and vagabonds of the surrounding country;
for no police existed but the bailiffs of the knight, and the
only jurisdiction was that of the lawyer whom the knight brought
over from the nearest town. Nor was the disadvantage only on the
side of those who were thus governed. The knight himself, even if
he cherished some traditional reverence for the shadow of the
Empire, was in the position of a man who belongs to no real
country. If his sons desired any more active career than that of
annuitants upon the family domains, they could obtain it only by
seeking employment at one or other of the greater Courts, and by
identifying themselves with the interests of a land which they
entered as strangers.</p>
<p>Such was in outline the condition of Germany at the moment
when it was brought into collision with the new and unknown
forces of the French Revolution. A system of small States, which
in the past of Greece and Italy had produced the finest types of
energy and genius, had in Germany resulted in the extinction of
all vigorous life, and in the ascendancy of all that was
stagnant, little, and corrupt. If political disorganisation, the
decay of public spirit, and the absence of a national idea, are
the signs of impending downfall, Germany was ripe for foreign
conquest. The obsolete and dilapidated fabric of the Empire had
for a century past been sustained only by the European tradition
of the Balance of Power, or by the absence of serious attack from
without. Austria once overpowered, the Empire was ready to fall
to pieces by itself: and where, among the princes or the people
of Germany, were the elements that gave hope of its renovation in
any better form of national life?</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_II.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c2">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>French and Austrian armies on the Flemish frontier-Prussia
enters the war-Brunswick invades France-His
Proclamation-Insurrection of Aug. 10 at Paris-Massacres of
September-Character of the war-Brunswick, checked at Valmy,
retreats-The War becomes a Crusade of France-Neighbours of
France-Custine enters Mainz-Dumouriez conquers the Austrian
Netherlands -Nice and Savoy annexed-Decree of the Convention
against all Governments -Execution of Louis XVI.-War with
England, followed by war with the Mediterranean States-Condition
of England-English Parties, how affected by the Revolution-The
Gironde and the Mountain-Austria recovers the Netherlands-The
Allies invade France-La Vend&eacute;e-Revolutionary System of
1793-Errors of the Allies-New French Commanders and Democratic
Army- Victories of Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegru-Prussia
withdrawing from the War -Polish Affairs-Austria abandons the
Netherlands-Treaties of Basle-France in 1795-Insurrection of 13
Vend&eacute;miaire-Constitution of 1795-The Directory-Effect of
the Revolution on the spirit of Europe up to 1795.</p>
<br>

<p>[Fighting on Flemish frontier, April, 1792.]</p>
<p>[Prussian army invades France, July, 1792. Proclamation.]</p>
<p>The war between France and Austria opened in April, 1792, on
the Flemish frontier. The first encounters were discreditable to
the French soldiery, who took to flight and murdered one of their
generals. The discouragement with which the nation heard of these
reverses deepened into sullen indignation against the Court, as
weeks and months passed by, and the forces lay idle on the
frontier or met the enemy only in trifling skirmishes which left
both sides where they were before. If at this crisis of the
Revolution, with all the patriotism, all the bravery, all the
military genius of France burning for service, the Government
conducted the war with results scarcely distinguishable from
those of a parade, the suggestion of treason on the part of the
Court was only too likely to be entertained. The internal
difficulties of the country were increasing. The Assembly had
determined to banish from France the priests who rejected the new
ecclesiastical system, and the King had placed his veto upon
their decree. He had refused to permit the formation of a camp of
volunteers in the neighbourhood of Paris. He had dismissed the
popular Ministry forced upon him by the Gironde. A tumult on the
20th of June, in which the mob forced their way into the
Tuileries, showed the nature of the attack impending upon the
monarchy if Louis continued to oppose himself to the demands of
the nation; but the lesson was lost upon the King. Louis was as
little able to nerve himself for an armed conflict with the
populace as to reconcile his conscience to the Ecclesiastical
Decrees, and he surrendered himself to a pious inertia at a
moment when the alarm of foreign invasion doubled revolutionary
passion all over France. Prussia, in pursuance of a treaty made
in February, united its forces to those of Austria. Forty
thousand Prussian troops, under the Duke of Brunswick, the best
of Frederick's surviving generals, advanced along the Moselle.
From Belgium and the upper Rhine two Austrian armies converged
upon the line of invasion; and the emigrant nobles were given
their place among the forces of the Allies.</p>
<p>On the 25th of July the Duke of Brunswick, in the name of the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, issued a proclamation to the
French people, which, but for the difference between violent
words and violent deeds, would have left little to be complained
of in the cruelties that henceforward stained the popular cause.
In this manifesto, after declaring that the Allies entered France
in order to deliver Louis from captivity, and that members of the
National Guard fighting against the invaders would be punished as
rebels against their king, the Sovereigns addressed themselves to
the city of Paris and to the representatives of the French
nation:-"The city of Paris and its inhabitants are warned to
submit without delay to their King; to set that Prince at entire
liberty, and to show to him and to all the Royal Family the
inviolability and respect which the law of nature and of nations
imposes on subjects towards their Sovereigns. Their Imperial and
Royal Majesties will hold all the members of the National
Assembly, of the Municipality, and of the National Guard of Paris
responsible for all events with their heads, before military
tribunals, without hope of pardon. They further declare that, if
the Tuileries be forced or insulted, or the least violence
offered to the King, the Queen, or the Royal Family, and if
provision be not at once made for their safety and liberty, they
will inflict a memorable vengeance, by delivering up the city of
Paris to military execution and total overthrow, and the rebels
guilty of such crimes to the punishment they have merited." <a
name="FNanchor17">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Insurrection August 10, 1792.]</p>
<p>This challenge was not necessary to determine the fate of
Louis. Since the capture of the Bastille in the first days of the
Revolution the National Government had with difficulty supported
itself against the populace of the capital; and, even before the
foreigner threatened Paris with fire and sword, Paris had learnt
to look for the will of France within itself. As the columns of
Brunswick advanced across the north-eastern frontier, Danton and
the leaders of the city-democracy marshalled their army of the
poor and the desperate to overthrow that monarchy whose cause the
invader had made his own. The Republic which had floated so long
in the thoughts of the Girondins was won in a single day by the
populace of Paris, amid the roar of cannons and the flash of
bayonets. On the 10th of August Danton let loose the armed mob
upon the Tuileries. Louis quitted the Palace without giving
orders to the guard either to fight or to retire; but the guard
were ignorant that their master desired them to offer no
resistance, and one hundred and sixty of the mob were shot down
before an order reached the troops to abandon the Palace. The
cruelties which followed the victory of the people indicated the
fate in store for those whom the invader came to protect. It is
doubtful whether the foreign Courts would have made any serious
attempt to undo the social changes effected by the Revolution in
France; but no one supposed that those thousands of self-exiled
nobles who now returned behind the guns of Brunswick had returned
in order to take their places peacefully in the new social order.
In their own imagination, as much as in that of the people, they
returned with fire and sword to repossess themselves of rights of
which they had been despoiled, and to take vengeance upon the men
who were responsible for the changes made in France since <a
name="FNanchor18">1789.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> In the midst of a panic little
justified by the real military situation, Danton inflamed the
nation with his own passionate courage and resolution; he
unhappily also thought it necessary to a successful national
defence that the reactionary party at Paris should be paralysed
by a terrible example. The prisons were filled with persons
suspected of hostility to the national cause, and in the first
days of September many hundreds of these unfortunate persons were
massacred by gangs of assassins paid by a committee of the
Municipality. Danton did not disguise his approval of the act. He
had made up his mind that the work of the Revolution could only
be saved by striking terror into its enemies, and by preventing
the Royalists from co-operating with the invader. But the
multitudes who flocked to the standards of 1792 carried with them
the patriotism of Danton unstained by his guilt. Right or wrong
in its origin, the war was now unquestionably a just one on the
part of France, a war against a privileged class attempting to
recover by force the unjust advantages that they had not been
able to maintain, a war against the foreigner in defence of the
right of the nation to deal with its own government. Since the
great religious wars there had been no cause so rooted in the
hearts, so close to the lives of those who fought for it. Every
soldier who joined the armies of France in 1792 joined of his own
free will. No conscription dragged the peasant to the frontier.
Men left their homes in order that the fruit of the poor man's
labour should be his own, in order that the children of France
should inherit some better birthright than exaction and want, in
order that the late-won sense of human right should not be swept
from the earth by the arms of privilege and caste. It was a time
of high-wrought hope, of generous and pathetic self-sacrifice; a
time that left a deep and indelible impression upon those who
judged it as eye-witnesses. Years afterwards the poet Wordsworth,
then alienated from France and cold in the cause of liberty,
could not recall without tears the memories of 1792. <a name=
"FNanchor19">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Brunswick checked at Valmy, Sept. 20.]</p>
<p>[Retreat of Brunswick.]</p>
<p>The defence of France rested on General Dumouriez. The
fortresses of Longwy and Verdun, covering the passage of the
Meuse, had fallen after the briefest resistance; the troops that
could be collected before Brunswick's approach were too few to
meet the enemy in the open field. Happily for France the slow
advance of the Prussian general permitted Dumouriez to occupy the
difficult country of the Argonne, where, while waiting for his
reinforcements, he was able for some time to hold the invaders in
check. At length Brunswick made his way past the defile which
Dumouriez had chosen for his first line of defence; but it was
only to find the French posted in such strength on his flank that
any further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance
was to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on
the 20th of September, Brunswick directed his artillery against
the hills of Valmy, where the French left was encamped. The
cannonade continued for some hours, but it was followed by no
general attack. The firmness of the French under Brunswick's fire
made it clear that they would not be displaced without an
obstinate battle; and, disappointed of victory, the King of
Prussia began to listen to proposals of peace sent to him by
Dumouriez. <a name="FNanchor20">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> A week spent in negotiation
served only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the
scarcity and sickness within the German camp. Dissensions broke
out between the Prussian and Austrian commanders; a retreat was
ordered; and to the astonishment of Europe the veteran forces of
Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and unknown
generals of the Revolution, powerless to delay for a single month
the evacuation of France and the restoration of the fortresses
which they had captured.</p>
<p>[The Convention meets. Proclaims Republic, Sept. 21.]</p>
<p>[The war becomes a crusade of democracy.]</p>
<p>In the meantime the Legislative Assembly had decreed its own
dissolution in consequence of the overthrow of the monarchy on
August both, and had ordered the election of representatives to
frame a constitution for France. The elections were held in the
crisis of invasion, in the height of national indignation against
the alliance of the aristocracy with the foreigner, and, in some
districts, under the influence of men who had not shrunk from
ordering the massacres in the prisons. At such a moment a
Constitutional Royalist had scarcely more chance of election than
a detected spy from the enemy's camp. The Girondins, who had been
the party of extremes in the Legislative Assembly, were the party
of moderation and order in the Convention. By their side there
were returned men whose whole being seemed to be compounded out
of the forces of conflict, men who, sometimes without conscious
depravity, carried into political and social struggles that
direct, unquestioning employment of force which has ordinarily
been reserved for war or for the diffusion of religious
doctrines. The moral differences that separated this party from
the Gironde were at once conspicuous: the political creed of the
two parties appeared at first to be much the same. Monarchy was
abolished, and France declared a Republic (Sept. 21). Office
continued in the hands of the Gironde; but the vehement,
uncompromising spirit of their rivals, the so-called party of the
Mountain, quickly made itself felt in all the relations of France
to foreign Powers. The intention of conquest might still be
disavowed, as it had been five months before; but were the
converts to liberty to be denied the right of uniting themselves
to the French people by their own free will? When the armies of
the Republic had swept its assailants from the border-provinces
that gave them entrance into France, were those provinces to be
handed back to a government of priests and nobles? The scruples
which had condemned all annexation of territory vanished in that
orgy of patriotism which followed the expulsion of the invader
and the discovery that the Revolution was already a power in
other lands than France. The nation that had to fight the battle
of European freedom must appeal to the spirit of freedom wherever
it would answer the call: the conflict with sovereigns must be
maintained by arming their subjects against them in every land.
In this conception of the universal alliance of the nations, the
Governments with which France was not yet at war were scarcely
distinguished from those which had pronounced against her. The
frontier-lines traced by an obsolete diplomacy, the artificial
guarantees of treaties, were of little account against the living
and inalienable sovereignty of the people. To men inflamed with
the passions of 1792 an argument of international law scarcely
conveyed more meaning than to Peter the Hermit. Among the
statesmen of other lands, who had no intention of abandoning all
the principles recognised as the public right of Europe, the
language now used by France could only be understood as the
avowal of indiscriminate aggression.</p>
<p>[The neighbors of France.]</p>
<p>The Revolution had displayed itself in France as a force of
union as well as of division. It had driven the nobles across the
frontier; it had torn the clergy from their altars; but it had
reconciled sullen Corsica; and by abolishing feudal rights it had
made France the real fatherland of the Teutonic peasant in Alsace
and Lorraine. It was now about to prove its attractive power in
foreign lands. At the close of the last century the nationalities
of Europe were far less consolidated than they are at present;
only on the Spanish and the Swiss frontier had France a neighbour
that could be called a nation. On the north, what is now the
kingdom of Belgium was in 1792 a collection of provinces subject
to the House of Austria. The German population both of the
districts west of the Rhine and of those opposite to Alsace was
parcelled out among a number of petty principalities. Savoy,
though west of the chain of the Alps and French in speech, formed
part of the kingdom of Piedmont, which was itself severed by
history and by national character from the other States of
Northern Italy. Along the entire frontier, from Dunkirk to the
Maritime Alps, France nowhere touched a strong, united, and
independent people; and along this entire frontier, except in the
country opposite Alsace, the armed proselytism of the French
Revolution proved a greater force than the influences on which
the existing order of things depended. In the Low Countries, in
the Principalities of the Rhine, in Switzerland, in Savoy, in
Piedmont itself, the doctrines of the Revolution were welcomed by
a more or less numerous class, and the armies of France appeared,
though but for a moment, as the missionaries of liberty and right
rather than as an invading enemy.</p>
<p>[Custine enters Mainz, Oct. 20.]</p>
<p>No sooner had Brunswick been brought to a stand by Dumouriez
at Valmy than a French division under Custine crossed the
Alsatian frontier and advanced upon Spires, where Brunswick had
left large stores of war. The garrison was defeated in an
encounter outside the town; Spires and Worms surrendered to
Custine. In the neighbouring fortress of Mainz, the key to
Western Germany, Custine's advance was watched by a republican
party among the inhabitants, from whom the French general learnt
that he had only to appear before the city to become its master.
Brunswick had indeed apprehended the failure of his invasion of
France, but he had never given a thought to the defence of
Germany; and, although the King of Prussia had been warned of the
defenceless state of Mainz, no steps had been taken beyond the
payment of a sum of money for the repair of the fortifications,
which money the Archbishop expended in the purchase of a wood
belonging to himself and the erection of a timber patchwork. On
news arriving of the capture of Spires, the Archbishop fled,
leaving the administration to the Dean, the Chancellor, and the
Commandant. The Chancellor made a speech, calling upon his
"beloved brethren" the citizens to defend themselves to the last
extremity, and daily announced the overthrow of Dumouriez and the
approaching entry of the Allies into Paris, until Custine's
soldiers actually came into sight. <a name="FNanchor21">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> Then a council of war
declared the city to be untenable; and before Custine had brought
up a single siege-gun the garrison capitulated, and the French
were welcomed into Mainz by the partisans of the Republic (Oct.
20). With the French arms came the French organisation of
liberty. A club was formed on the model of the Jacobin Club of
Paris; existing officers and distinctions of rank were abolished;
and although the mass of the inhabitants held aloof, a Republic
was finally proclaimed, and incorporated with the Republic of
France.</p>
<p>[Dumouriez invades the Netherlands.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Jemappes, Nov. 6.]</p>
<p>The success of Custine's raid into Germany did not divert the
Convention from the design of attacking Austria in the
Netherlands, which Dumouriez had from the first pressed upon the
Government. It was not three years since the Netherlands had been
in revolt against the Emperor Joseph. In its origin the revolt
was a reactionary movement of the clerical party against Joseph's
reforms; but there soon sprang up ambitions and hopes at variance
with the first impulses of the insurrection; and by the side of
monks and monopolists a national party came into existence,
proclaiming the sovereignty of the people, and imitating all the
movements of the French Revolution. During the brief suspension
of Austrian rule the popular and the reactionary parties attacked
one another; and on the restoration of Leopold's authority in
1791 the democratic leaders, with a large body of their
followers, took refuge beyond the frontier, looking forward to
the outbreak of war between Austria and France. Their partisans
formed a French connection in the interior of the country; and by
some strange illusion, the priests themselves and the close
corporations which had been attacked by Joseph supposed that
their interests would be respected by Revolutionary France. <a
name="FNanchor22">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a>
Thus the ground was everywhere prepared for a French invasion.
Dumouriez crossed the frontier. The border fortresses no longer
existed; and after a single battle won by the French at Jemappes
on the 6th of November, <a name="FNanchor23">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> the Austrians, finding the
population universally hostile, abandoned the Netherlands without
a struggle.</p>
<p>[Nice and Savoy annexed.]</p>
<p>[Decree of Dec. 15.]</p>
<p>The victory of Jemappes, the first pitched battle won by the
Republic, excited an outburst of revolutionary fervour in the
Convention which deeply affected the relations of France to Great
Britain, hitherto a neutral spectator of the war. A manifesto was
published declaring that the French nation offered its alliance
to all peoples who wished to recover their freedom, and charging
the generals of the Republic to give their protection to all
persons who might suffer in the cause of liberty (Nov. 19). A
week later Savoy and Nice were annexed to France, the population
of Savoy having declared in favour of France and Sardinia. On the
15th of December the Convention proclaimed that social and
political revolution was henceforth to accompany every movement
of its armies on foreign soil. "In every country that shall be
occupied by the armies of the French Republic"-such was the
substance of the Decree of December 15th-"the generals shall
announce the abolition of all existing authorities; of nobility,
of serfage, of every feudal right and every monopoly; they shall
proclaim the sovereignty of the people, and convoke the
inhabitants in assemblies to form a provisional Government, to
which no officer of a former Government, no noble, nor any member
of the former privileged corporations shall be eligible. They
shall place under the charge of the French Republic all property
belonging to the Sovereign or his adherents, and the property of
every civil or religious corporation. The French nation will
treat as enemies any people which, refusing liberty and equality,
desires to preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make
any accommodation with them."</p>
<p>[England arms.]</p>
<p>[The Schelde.]</p>
<p>[Execution of Louis XVI., Jan. 21, 1793.]</p>
<p>This singular announcement of a new crusade caused the
Government of Great Britain to arm. Although the decree of the
Convention related only to States with which France was at war,
the Convention had in fact formed connections with the English
revolutionary societies; and the French Minister of Marine
informed his sailors that they were about to carry fifty thousand
caps of liberty to their English brethren. No prudent statesman
would treat a mere series of threats against all existing
authorities as ground for war; but the acts of the French
Government showed that it intended to carry into effect the
violent interference in the affairs of other nations announced in
its manifestoes. Its agents were stirring up dissatisfaction in
every State; and although the annexation of Savoy and the
occupation of the Netherlands might be treated as incidental to
the conflict with Austria and Sardinia, in which Great Britain
had pledged itself to neutrality, other acts of the Convention
were certainly infringements of the rights of allies of England.
A series of European treaties, oppressive according to our own
ideas, but in keeping with the ideas of that age, prohibited the
navigation of the River Schelde, on which Antwerp is situated, in
order that the commerce of the North Sea might flow exclusively
into Dutch ports. On the conquest of Belgium the French
Government gave orders to Dumouriez to send a flotilla down the
river, and to declare Antwerp an open port in right of the law of
nature, which treaties cannot abrogate. Whatever the folly of
commercial restraints, the navigation of the Schelde was a
question between the Antwerpers and the Dutch, and one in which
France had no direct concern. The incident, though trivial, was
viewed in England as one among many proofs of the intention of
the French to interfere with the affairs of neighbouring States
at their pleasure. In ordinary times it would not have been easy
to excite much interest in England on behalf of a Dutch monopoly;
but the feeling of this country towards the French Revolution had
been converted into a passionate hatred by the massacres of
September, and by the open alliance between the Convention and
the Revolutionary societies in England itself. Pitt indeed, whom
the Parisians imagined to be their most malignant enemy, laboured
against the swelling national passion, and hoped against all hope
for peace. Not only was Pitt guiltless of the desire to add this
country to the enemies of France, but he earnestly desired to
reconcile France with Austria, in order that the Western States,
whose embroilment left Eastern Europe at the mercy of Catherine
of Russia, might unite to save both Poland and Turkey from
falling into the hands of a Power whose steady aggression
threatened Europe more seriously than all the noisy and outspoken
excitement of the French Convention. Pitt, moreover, viewed with
deep disapproval the secret designs of Austria and Prussia. <a
name="FNanchor24">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a>
If the French executive would have given any assurance that the
Netherlands should not be annexed, or if the French ambassador,
Chauvelin, who was connected with English plotters, had been
superseded by a trustworthy negotiator, it is probable that peace
might have been preserved. But when, on the execution of King
Louis (Jan. 21, 1793), Chauvelin was expelled from England as a
suspected alien, war became a question of days. <a name=
"FNanchor25">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Holland and Mediterranean States enter the war.]</p>
<p>[War with England, Feb. 1st, 1793.]</p>
<p>Points of technical right figured in the complaints of both
sides; but the real ground of war was perfectly understood.
France considered itself entitled to advance the Revolution and
the Rights of Man wherever its own arms or popular insurrection
gave it the command. England denied the right of any Power to
annul the political system of Europe at its pleasure. No more
serious, no more sufficient, ground of war ever existed between
two nations; yet the event proved that, with the highest
justification for war, the highest wisdom would yet have chosen
peace. England's entry into the war converted it from an affair
of two or three campaigns into a struggle of twenty years,
resulting in more violent convulsions, more widespread misery,
and more atrocious crimes, than in all probability would have
resulted even from the temporary triumph of the revolutionary
cause in 1793. But in both nations political passion welcomed
impending calamity; and the declaration of war by the Convention
on February 1st only anticipated the desire of the English
people. Great Britain once committed to the struggle, Pitt spared
neither money nor intimidation in his efforts to unite all Europe
against France. Holland was included with England in the French
declaration of war. The Mediterranean States felt that the navy
of England was nearer to them than the armies of Austria and
Prussia; and before the end of the summer of 1793, Spain,
Portugal, Naples, Tuscany, and the Papal States had joined the
Coalition.</p>
<p>[French wrongly think England inclined to revolution.]</p>
<p>The Jacobins of Paris had formed a wrong estimate of the
political condition of England. At the outbreak of the war they
believed that England itself was on the verge of revolution. They
mistook the undoubted discontent of a portion of the middle and
lower classes, which showed itself in the cry for parliamentary
reform, for a general sentiment of hatred towards existing
institutions, like that which in France had swept away the old
order at a single blow. The Convention received the addresses of
English Radical societies, and imagined that the abuses of the
parliamentary system under George III. had alienated the whole
nation. What they had found in Belgium and in Savoy-a people
thankful to receive the Rights of Man from the soldiers of the
Revolution-they expected to find among the dissenting
congregations of London and the factory-hands of Sheffield. The
singular attraction exercised by each class in England upon the
one below it, as well as the indifference of the nation generally
to all ideals, was little understood in France, although the
Revolutions of the two countries bore this contrast on their
face. A month after the fall of the Bastille, the whole system of
class-privilege and monopoly had vanished from French law;
fifteen years of the English Commonwealth had left the structure
of English society what it had been at the beginning. But
political observation vanished in the delirium of 1793; and the
French only discovered, when it was too late, that in Great
Britain the Revolution had fallen upon an enemy of unparalleled
stubbornness and inexhaustible strength.</p>
<p>[The Whigs not democratic.]</p>
<p>[Political condition of England.]</p>
<p>In the first Assembly of the Revolution it was usual to speak
of the English as free men whom the French ought to imitate; in
the Convention it was usual to speak of them as slaves whom the
French ought to deliver. The institutions of England bore in fact
a very different aspect when compared with the absolute monarchy
of the Bourbons and when compared with the democracy of 1793.
Frenchmen who had lived under the government of a Court which
made laws by edict and possessed the right to imprison by
letters-patent looked with respect upon the Parliament of
England, its trial by jury, and its freedom of the press. The men
who had sent a king to prison and confiscated the estates of a
great part of the aristocracy could only feel compassion for a
land where three-fourths of the national representatives were
nominees of the Crown or of wealthy peers. Nor, in spite of the
personal sympathy of Fox with the French revolutionary movement,
was there any real affinity between the English Whig party and
that which now ruled in the Convention. The event which fixed the
character of English liberty during the eighteenth century, the
Revolution of 1688, had nothing democratic in its nature. That
revolution was directed against a system of Roman Catholic
despotism; it gave political power not to the mass of the nation,
which had no desire and no capacity to exercise it, but to a
group of noble families and their retainers, who, during the
reigns of the first two Georges, added all the patronage and
influence of the Crown to their social and constitutional weight
in the country. The domestic history of England since the
accession of George III. had turned chiefly upon the obstinate
struggle of this monarch to deliver himself from all dependence
upon party. The divisions of the Whigs, their jealousies, but,
above all, their real alienation from the mass of the people
whose rights they professed to defend, ultimately gave the King
the victory, when, after twenty years of errors, be found in the
younger Pitt a Minister capable of uniting the interests of the
Crown with the ablest and most patriotic liberal statesmanship.
Bribes, threats, and every species of base influence had been
employed by King George to break up the great Coalition of 1783,
which united all sections of the Whigs against him under the
Ministry of Fox and North; but the real support of Pitt, whom the
King placed in office with a minority in the House of Commons,
was the temper of the nation itself, wearied with the
exclusiveness, the corruption, and the party-spirit of the Whigs,
and willing to believe that a popular Minister, even if he had
entered upon power unconstitutionally, might do more for the
country than the constitutional proprietors of the rotten
boroughs.</p>
<p>[Pitt Minister, 1783.]</p>
<p>[Effect of French Revolution on English Parties.]</p>
<p>From 1783 down to the outbreak of the French Revolution, Pitt,
as a Tory Minister confronted by a Whig Opposition, governed
England on more liberal principles than any statesman who had
held power during the eighteenth century. These years were the
last of the party-system of England in its original form. The
French Revolution made an end of that old distinction in which
the Tory was known as the upholder of Crown-prerogative and the
Whig as the supporter of a constitutional oligarchy of great
families. It created that new political antagonism in which,
whether under the names of Whig and Tory, or of Liberal and
Conservative, two great parties have contended, one for a series
of beneficial changes, the other for the preservation of the
existing order. The convulsions of France and the dread of
revolutionary agitation in England transformed both Pitt and the
Whigs by whom he was opposed. Pitt sacrificed his schemes of
peaceful progress to foreign war and domestic repression, and set
his face against the reform of Parliament which he had once
himself proposed. The Whigs broke up into two sections, led
respectively by Burke and by Fox, the one denouncing the violence
of the Revolution, and ultimately uniting itself with Pitt; the
other friendly to the Revolution, in spite of its excesses, as
the cause of civil and religious liberty, and identifying itself,
under the healthy influence of parliamentary defeat and
disappointment, with the defence of popular rights in England and
the advocacy of enlightened reform.</p>
<p>[Burke's "Reflections," Oct. 1790.]</p>
<p>[Most of the Whigs support Pitt against France.]</p>
<p>The obliteration of the old dividing-line in English politics
may be said to date from the day when the ancient friendship of
Burke and Fox was bitterly severed by the former in the House of
Commons (May 6, 1791). The charter of the modern Conservative
party was that appeal to the nation which Burke had already
published, in the autumn of 1790, under the title of "Reflections
on the French Revolution." In this survey of the political forces
which he saw in action around him, the great Whig writer, who in
past times had so passionately defended the liberties of America
and the constitutional tradition of the English Parliament
against the aggression of George III., attacked the Revolution as
a system of violence and caprice more formidable to freedom than
the tyranny of any Crown. He proved that the politicians and
societies of England who had given it their sympathy had given
their sympathy to measures and to theories opposed to every
principle of 1688. Above all, he laid bare that agency of riot
and destructiveness which, even within the first few months of
the Revolution, filled him with presentiment of the calamities
about to fall upon France. Burke's treatise was no dispassionate
inquiry into the condition of a neighbouring state: it was a
denunciation of Jacobinism as fierce and as little qualified by
political charity as were the maledictions of the Hebrew prophets
upon their idolatrous neighbours; and it was intended, like
these, to excite his own countrymen against innovations among
themselves. It completely succeeded. It expressed, and it
heightened, the alarm arising among the Liberal section of the
propertied class, at first well inclined to the Revolution; and,
although the Whigs of the House of Commons pronounced in favour
of Fox upon his first rupture with Burke, the tide of public
feeling, rising higher with every new outrage of the Revolution,
soon invaded the legislature, and carried the bulk of the Whig
party to the side of the Minister, leaving to Fox and his few
faithful adherents the task of maintaining an unheeded protest
against the blind passions of war, and the increasing rigour with
which Pitt repressed every symptom of popular disaffection.</p>
<p>[The Gironde and the Mountain in the Convention.]</p>
<p>[The Gironde and the Commune of Paris.]</p>
<p>The character of violence which Burke traced and condemned in
the earliest acts of the Revolution displayed itself in a much
stronger light after the overthrow of the Monarchy by the
insurrection of August 10th. That event was the work of men who
commanded the Parisian democracy, not the work of orators and
party-leaders in the Assembly. The Girondins had not hesitated to
treat the victory as their own, by placing the great offices of
State, with one exception, in the hands of their leaders; they
instantly found that the real sovereignty lay elsewhere. The
Council of the Commune, or Municipality, of Paris, whose members
had seized their post at the moment of the insurrection, was the
only administrative body that possessed the power to enforce its
commands; in the Ministries of State one will alone made itself
felt, that of Danton, whom the Girondins had unwillingly admitted
to office along with themselves. The massacres of September threw
into full light the powerlessness of the expiring Assembly. For
five successive days it was unable to check the massacres; it was
unable to bring to justice the men who had planned them, and who
called upon the rest of France to follow their example. With the
meeting of the Convention, however, the Girondins, who now
regarded themselves as the legitimate government, and forgot that
they owed office to an insurrection, expected to reduce the
capital to submission. They commanded an overwhelming majority in
the new chamber; they were supported by the middle class in all
the great cities of France. The party of the Mountain embraced at
first only the deputies of Paris, and a group of determined men
who admitted no criticism on the measures which the democracy of
Paris had thought necessary for the Revolution. In the Convention
they were the assailed, not the assailants. Without waiting to
secure themselves by an armed force, the orators of the Gironde
attempted to crush both the Municipality and the deputies who
ruled at the Clubs. They reproached the Municipality with the
murders of September; they accused Robespierre of aiming at the
Dictatorship. It was under the pressure of these attacks that the
party of the Mountain gathered its strength within the
Convention, and that the populace of Paris transferred to the
Gironde the passionate hatred which it had hitherto borne to the
King and the aristocracy. The gulf that lay between the people
and those who had imagined themselves to be its leaders burst
into view. The Girondins saw with dismay that the thousands of
hungry workmen whose victory had placed them in power had fought
for something more tangible than Republican phrases from Tacitus
and Plutarch. On one side was a handful of orators and writers,
steeped in the rhetoric and the commonplace of ancient Rome, and
totally strange to the real duties of government; on the other
side the populace of Paris, such as centuries of despotism,
privilege, and priestcraft had made it: sanguinary, unjust,
vindictive; convulsed since the outbreak of the Revolution with
every passion that sways men in the mass; taught no conception of
progress but the overthrow of authority, and acquainted with no
title to power but that which was bestowed by itself. If the
Girondins were to remain in power, they could do so only by
drawing an army from the departments, or by identifying
themselves with the multitude. They declined to take either
course. Their audience was in the Assembly alone; their support
in the distant provinces. Paris, daily more violent, listened to
men of another stamp. The Municipality defied the Government; the
Mountain answered the threats and invectives of the majority in
the Assembly by displays of popular menace and tumult. In the
eyes of the common people, who after so many changes of
government found themselves more famished and more destitute than
ever, the Gironde was now but the last of a succession of
tyrannies; its statesmen but impostors who stood between the
people and the enjoyment of their liberty.</p>
<p>Among the leaders of the Mountain, Danton aimed at the
creation of a central Revolutionary Government, armed with
absolute powers for the prosecution of the war; and he attacked
the Girondins only when they themselves had rejected his support.
Robespierre, himself the author of little beyond destruction, was
the idol of those whom Rousseau's writings had filled with the
idea of a direct exercise of sovereignty by the people. It was in
the trial of the King that the Gironde first confessed its
submission to the democracy of Paris. The Girondins in their
hearts desired to save the King; they voted for his death with
the hope of maintaining their influence in Paris, and of clearing
themselves from the charge of lukewarmness in the cause of the
Revolution. But the sacrifice was as vain as it was
dishonourable. The populace and the party of the Mountain took
the act in its true character, as an acknowledgment of their own
victory. A series of measures was brought forward providing for
the poorer classes at the expense of the wealthy. The Gironde,
now forced to become the defenders of property, encountered the
fatal charge of deserting the cause of the people; and from this
time nothing but successful foreign warfare could have saved
their party from ruin.</p>
<p>[Defeat and treason of Dumouriez, March, 1793.]</p>
<p>Instead of success came inaction, disaster, and treason. The
army of Flanders lay idle during January and February for want of
provisions and materials of war; and no sooner had Dumouriez
opened the campaign against Holland than he was recalled by
intelligence that the Austrians had fallen upon his lieutenant,
Miranda, at Maestricht, and driven the French army before them.
Dumouriez returned, in order to fight a pitched battle before
Brussels. He attacked the Austrians at Neerwinden (March 18), and
suffered a repulse inconsiderable in itself, but sufficient to
demoralise an army composed in great part of recruits and
National Guards. <a name="FNanchor26">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> His defeat laid Flanders open
to the Austrians; but Dumouriez intended that it should inflict
upon the Republic a far heavier blow. Since the execution of the
King, he had been at open enmity with the Jacobins. He now
proposed to the Austrian commander to unite with him in an attack
upon the Convention, and in re-establishing monarchy in France.
The first pledge of Dumouriez's treason was the surrender of
three commissioners sent by the Convention to his camp; the
second was to have been the surrender of the fortress of
Cond&eacute;. But Dumouriez had overrated his influence with the
army. Plainer minds than his own knew how to deal with a general
who intrigues with the foreigner. Dumouriez's orders were
disregarded; his movements watched; and he fled to the Austrian
lines under the fire of his own soldiers. About thirty officers
and eight hundred men passed with him to the enemy.</p>
<p>[Defeats on the North and East. Revolt of La Vend&eacute;e,
March, 1793.]</p>
<p>[The Commune crushes the Gironde, June 2.]</p>
<p>The defeat and treason of Dumouriez brought the army of
Austria over the northern frontier. Almost at the same moment
Custine was overpowered in the Palatinate; and the conquests of
the previous autumn, with the exception of Mainz, were lost as
rapidly as they had been won. Custine fell back upon the lines of
Weissenburg, leaving the defence of Mainz to a garrison of 17,000
men, which, alone among the Republican armies, now maintained its
reputation. In France itself civil war broke out. The peasants of
La Vend&eacute;e, a district destitute of large towns, and
scarcely touched either by the evils which had produced the
Revolution or by the hopes which animated the rest of France, had
seen with anger the expulsion of the parish priests who refused
to take the oath to the Constitution. A levy of 300,000 men,
which was ordered by the Convention in February, 1793, threw into
revolt the simple Vendeans, who cared for nothing outside their
own parishes, and preferred to fight against their countrymen
rather than to quit their homes. The priests and the Royalists
fanned these village outbreaks into a religious war of the most
serious character. Though poorly armed, and accustomed to return
to their homes as soon as fighting was over, the Vendean
peasantry proved themselves a formidable soldiery in the moment
of attack, and cut to pieces the half-disciplined battalions
which the Government sent against them. On the north, France was
now assailed by the English as well as by the Austrians. The
Allies laid siege to Cond&eacute; and Valenciennes, and drove the
French army back in disorder at Famars. Each defeat was a blow
dealt to the Government of the Gironde at Paris. With foreign and
civil war adding disaster to disaster, with the general to whom
the Gironde had entrusted the defence of the Republic openly
betraying it to its enemies, the fury of the capital was easily
excited against the party charged with all the misfortunes of
France. A threatening movement of the middle classes in
resistance to a forced loan precipitated the struggle. The
Girondins were accused of arresting the armies of the Republic in
the midst of their conquests, of throwing the frontier open to
the foreigner, and of kindling the civil war of La Vend&eacute;e.
On the 31st of May a raging mob invaded the Convention. Two days
later the representatives of France were surrounded by the armed
forces of the Commune; the twenty-four leading members of the
Gironde were placed under arrest, and the victory of the Mountain
was completed. <a name="FNanchor27">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Civil War. The Committee of Public Safety.]</p>
<p>The situation of France, which was serious before, now became
desperate; for the Girondins, escaping from their arrest, called
the departments to arms against Paris. Normandy, Bordeaux,
Marseilles, Lyons, rose in insurrection against the tyranny of
the Mountain, and the Royalists of the south and west threw
themselves into a civil war which they hoped to turn to their own
advantage. But a form of government had now arisen in France well
fitted to cope with extraordinary perils. It was a form of
government in which there was little trace of the constitutional
tendencies of 1789, one that had come into being as the stress of
conflict threw into the background the earlier hopes and efforts
of the Revolution. In the two earlier Assemblies it had been a
fixed principle that the representatives of the people were to
control the Government, but were not to assume executive powers
themselves. After the overthrow of Monarchy on the 10th August,
the Ministers, though still nominally possessed of powers
distinct from the representative body, began to be checked by
Committees of the Convention appointed for various branches of
the public service; and in March, 1793, in order to meet the
increasing difficulties of the war, a Committee of Public Safety
was appointed, charged with the duty of exercising a general
surveillance over the administration. In this Committee, however,
as in all the others, the Gironde were in the majority; and the
twenty-four members who composed it were too numerous a body to
act with effect. The growing ascendancy of the Mountain produced
that concentration of force which the times required. The
Committee was reduced in April to nine members, and in this form
it ultimately became the supreme central power. It was not until
after the revolt of Lyons that the Committee, exchanging Danton's
influence for that of Robespierre, adopted the principle of
Terror which has made the memory of their rule one of the most
sinister in history. Their authority steadily increased. The
members divided among themselves the great branches of
government. One directed the army, another the navy, another
foreign affairs; the signature of three members practically gave
to any measure the force of law, for the Convention accepted and
voted their reports as a matter of course.</p>
<p>[Commissioners of the Convention]</p>
<p>Whilst the Committee gave orders as the supreme executive,
eighty of the most energetic of the Mountain spread themselves
over France, in parties of two and three, with the title of
Commissioners of the Convention, and with powers over-riding
those of all the local authorities. They were originally
appointed for the purpose of hastening on the levy ordered by the
Convention in March, but their powers were gradually extended
over the whole range of administration. Their will was absolute,
their authority supreme. Where the councillors of the Departments
or the municipal officers were good Jacobins, the Commissioners
availed themselves of local machinery; where they suspected their
principles, they sent them to the scaffold, and enforced their
own orders by whatever means were readiest. They censured and
dismissed the generals; one of them even directed the movements
of a fleet at sea. What was lost by waste and confusion and by
the interference of the Commissioners in military movements was
more than counterbalanced by the vigour which they threw into all
the preparations of war, and by the unity of purpose which, at
the price of unsparing bloodshed, they communicated to every
group where Frenchmen met together.</p>
<p>[Local revolutionary system of 1793]</p>
<p>But no individual energy could have sustained these
dictatorships without the support of a popular organisation. All
over France a system of revolutionary government sprang up, which
superseded all existing institutions just as the authority of the
Commissioners of the Convention superseded all existing local
powers. The local revolutionary administration consisted of a
Committee, a Club, and a Tribunal. <a name="FNanchor28">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> In each of 21,000
communes a committee of twelve was elected by the people, and
entrusted by the Convention, as the Terror gained ground, with
boundless powers of arrest and imprisonment. Popular excitement
was sustained by clubs, where the peasants and labourers
assembled at the close of their day's work, and applauded the
victories or denounced the enemies of the Revolution. A Tribunal
with swift procedure and powers of life and death sat in each of
the largest towns, and judged the prisoners who were sent to it
by the committees of the neighbouring district. Such was the
government of 1793-an executive of uncontrolled power drawn from
the members of a single Assembly, and itself brought into
immediate contact with the poorest of the people in their
assemblies and clubs. The balance of interests which creates a
constitutional system, the security of life, liberty, and
property, which is the essence of every recognised social order,
did not now exist in France. One public purpose, the defence of
the Revolution, became the law before which all others lost their
force. Treating all France like a town in a state of siege, the
Government took upon itself the duty of providing support for the
poorest classes by enactments controlling the sale and possession
of the necessaries of life.</p>
<p>[Law of the Maximum]</p>
<p>The price of corn and other necessaries was fixed; and, when
the traders and producers consequently ceased to bring their
goods to market, the Commissioners of the Convention were
empowered to make requisition of a certain quantity of corn for
every acre of ground. Property was thus placed at the disposal of
the men who already exercised absolute political power. "The
state of France," said Burke, "is perfectly simple. It consists
of but two descriptions, the oppressors and the oppressed." It is
in vain that the attempt has been made to extenuate the atrocious
and senseless cruelties of this time by extolling the great
legislative projects of the Convention, or pleading the dire
necessity of a land attacked on every side by the foreigner, and
rent with civil war. The more that is known of the Reign of
Terror, the more hateful, the meaner and more disgusting is the
picture unveiled. France was saved not by the brutalities, but by
the energy, of the faction that ruled it. It is scarcely too much
to say that the cause of European progress would have been less
injured by the military overthrow of the Republic, by the
severance of the border provinces from France and the restoration
of some shadow of the ancient <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, than by the
traditions of horror which for the next fifty years were
inseparably associated in men's minds with the victory of the
people over established power.</p>
<p>[French disasters, March-Sept., 1793.]</p>
<p>The Revolutionary organisation did not reach its full vigour
till the autumn of 1793, when the prospects of France were at
their worst. Custine, who was brought up from Alsace to take
command of the Army of the North, found it so demoralised that he
was unable to attempt the relief of the fortresses which were now
besieged by the Allies. Cond&eacute; surrendered to the Austrians
on the 10th of July; Valenciennes capitulated to the Duke of York
a fortnight later. In the east the fortune of war was no better.
An attack made on the Prussian army besieging Mainz totally
failed; and on the 23rd of July this great fortress, which had
been besieged since the middle of April, passed back into the
hands of the Germans. On every side the Republic seemed to be
sinking before its enemies. Its frontier defences had fallen
before the victorious Austrians and English; Brunswick was ready
to advance upon Alsace from conquered Mainz; Lyons and Toulon
were in revolt; La Vend&eacute;e had proved the grave of the
forces sent to subdue it. It was in this crisis of misfortune
that the Convention placed the entire male population of France
between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five at the disposal of
the Government, and turned the whole country into one great camp
and arsenal of war. Nor was there wanting a mind equal to the
task of giving order to this vast material. The appointment of
Carnot, an officer of engineers, to a seat on the Committee of
Public Safety placed the military administration of France in the
hands of a man who, as an organiser, if not as a strategist, was
soon to prove himself without equal in Europe.</p>
<p>[The Allies seek each their separate ends.]</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it was to the dissensions and to the bad policy
of the Allies more than to the energy of its own Government that
France owed its safety. The object for which the Allies professed
to be carrying on the war, the establishment of a pacific
Government in France, was subordinated to schemes of
aggrandisement, known as the acquisition of just indemnities.
While Prussia, bent chiefly on preventing the Emperor from
gaining Bavaria in exchange for Belgium, kept its own army
inactive on the Rhine, <a name="FNanchor29">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> Austria, with the full
approval of Pitt's Cabinet, claimed annexations in Northern
France, as well as Alsace, and treated the conquered town of
Cond&eacute; as Austrian territory. <a name="FNanchor30">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> Henceforward all the
operations of the northern army were directed to the acquisition
of frontier territory, not to the pursuit and overthrow of the
Republican forces. The war was openly converted from a war of
defence into a war of spoliation. It was a change which mocked
the disinterested professions with which the Allies had taken up
arms; in its military results it was absolutely ruinous. In face
of the immense levies which promised the French certain victory
in a long war, the only hope for the Allies lay in a rapid march
to Paris; they preferred the extreme of division and delay. No
sooner had the advance of their united armies driven Custine from
his stronghold at Famars, than the English commander led off his
forces to besiege Dunkirk, while the Austrians, under Prince
Coburg, proceeded to invest Cambray and Le Quesnoy. The line of
the invaders thus extended from the Channel to Brunswick's posts
at Landau, on the border of Alsace; the main armies were out of
reach of one another, and their strength was diminished by the
corps detached to keep up their communications. The French held
the inner circle; and the advantage which this gave them was well
understood by Carnot, who now inspired the measures of the
Committee. In steadiness and precision the French recruits were
no match for the trained armies of Germany; but the supply of
them was inexhaustible, and Carnot knew that when they were
thrown in sufficient masses upon the enemy their courage and
enthusiasm would make amends for their inexperience. The
successes of the Allies, unbroken from February to August, now
began to alternate with defeats; the flood of invasion was first
slowly and obstinately repelled, then swept away before a
victorious advance.</p>
<p>[York driven from Dunkirk Sept. 8.]</p>
<p>It was on the British commander that the first blow was
struck. The forces that could be detached from the French
Northern army were not sufficient to drive York from before
Dunkirk; but on the Moselle there were troops engaged in watching
an enemy who was not likely to advance; and the Committee did not
hesitate to leave this side of France open to the Prussians in
order to deal a decisive stroke in the north. Before the movement
was noticed by the enemy, Carnot had transported 30,000 men from
Metz to the English Channel; and in the first week of September
the German corps covering York was assailed by General Houchard
with numbers double its own. The Germans were driven back upon
Dunkirk; York only saved his own army from destruction by hastily
raising the siege and abandoning his heavy artillery. The victory
of the French, however, was ill followed up. Houchard was sent
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and he paid with his life for
his mistakes. Custine had already perished, unjustly condemned
for the loss of Mainz and Valenciennes.</p>
<p>[Commands given to men of the people.]</p>
<p>[Jourdan's victory at Wattignies, Oct 15.]</p>
<p>It was no unimportant change for France when the successors of
Custine and Houchard received their commands from the Committee
of Public Safety. The levelling principle of the Reign of Terror
left its effect on France through its operation in the army, and
through this almost alone. Its executions produced only horror
and reaction; its confiscations were soon reversed; but the
creation of a thoroughly democratic army, the work of the men who
overthrew the Gironde, gave the most powerful and abiding impulse
to social equality in France. The first generals of the
Revolution had been officers of the old army, men, with a few
exceptions, of noble birth, who, like Custine, had enrolled
themselves on the popular side when most of their companions
quitted the country. These generals were connected with the
politicians of the Gironde, and were involved in its fall. The
victory of the Mountain brought men of another type into command.
Almost all the leaders appointed by the Committee of Public
Safety were soldiers who had served in the ranks. In the levies
of 1792 and 1793 the officers of the newly-formed battalions were
chosen by the recruits themselves. Patriotism, energy of
character, acquaintance with warfare, instantly brought men into
prominence. Soldiers of the old army, like Massena, who had
reached middle life with their knapsacks on their backs; lawyers,
like the Breton Moreau; waiters at inns, like Murat, found
themselves at the head of their battalions, and knew that Carnot
was ever watching for genius and ability to call it to the
highest commands. With a million of men under arms, there were
many in whom great natural gifts supplied the want of
professional training. It was also inevitable that at the outset
command should sometimes fall into the hands of mere busy
politicians; but the character of the generals steadily rose as
the Committee gained the ascendancy over a knot of demagogues who
held the War Ministry during the summer of 1793; and by the end
of the year there was scarcely one officer in high command who
had not proved himself worthy of his post. In the investigation
into Houchard's conduct at Dunkirk, Carnot learnt that the
victory had in fact been won by Jourdan, one of the generals of
division. Jourdan had begun life as a common soldier fifteen
years before. Discharged at the end of the American War, he had
set up a draper's shop in Limoges, his native town. He joined the
army a second time on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, and
the men of his battalion elected him captain. His ability was
noticed; he was made successively general of brigade and general
of division; and, upon the dismissal of Houchard, Carnot summoned
him to the command of the Army of the North. The Austrians were
now engaged in the investment of Maubeuge. On the 15th of October
Jourdan attacked and defeated their covering army at Wattignies.
His victory forced the Austrians to raise the siege, and brought
the campaign to an end for the winter.</p>
<p>[Lyons, Toulon, La Vend&eacute;e, conquered Oct.-Dec.
1793.]</p>
<p>Thus successful on the northern frontier, the Republic carried
on war against its internal enemies without pause and without
mercy. Lyons surrendered in October; its citizens were
slaughtered by hundreds in cold blood. Toulon had thrown itself
into the hands of the English, and proclaimed King Louis XVII. It
was besieged by land; but the operations produced no effect until
Napoleon Bonaparte, captain of artillery, planned the capture of
a ridge from which the cannon of the besiegers would command the
English fleet in the harbour. Hood, the British admiral, now
found his position hopeless. He took several thousands of the
inhabitants on board his ships, and put out to sea, blowing up
the French ships which he left in the harbour. Hood had received
the fleet from the Royalists in trust for their King; its
destruction gave England command of the Mediterranean and freed
Naples from fear of attack; and Hood thought too little of the
consequences which his act would bring down upon those of the
inhabitants of Toulon whom he left behind. <a name=
"FNanchor31">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a></p>
<p>The horrors that followed the entry of the Republican army
into the city did not prevent Pitt from including among the
subjects of congratulation in the King's Speech of 1794 "the
circumstances attending the evacuation of Toulon." It was perhaps
fortunate for the Royalists in other parts of France that they
failed to receive the assistance of England. Help was promised to
the Vendeans, but it arrived too late. The appearance of Kleber
at the head of the army which had defended Mainz had already
turned the scale. Brave as they were, the Vendeans could not long
resist trained armies. The war of pitched battles ended on the
Loire with the year 1793. It was succeeded by a war of merciless
and systematic destruction on the one side, and of ambush and
surprises on the other.</p>
<p>[Prussia withdrawing from the war on account of Polish
affairs.]</p>
<p>At home the foes of the Republic were sinking; its invaders
were too much at discord with one another to threaten it any
longer with serious danger. Prussia was in fact withdrawing from
the war. It has been seen that when King Frederick William and
the Emperor concerted the autumn campaign of 1792, the
understanding was formed that Prussia, in return for its efforts
against France, should be allowed to seize part of western
Poland, if the Empress Catherine should give her consent. With
this prospect before it, the thoughts of the Prussian Government
had been from the first busied more with Poland, where it hoped
to enter into possession, than with France, where it had only to
fight Austria's battles. Negotiations on the Polish question had
been actively carried on between Berlin and St. Petersburg during
the first months of the war; and in January, 1793, the Empress
Catherine had concluded a Treaty of Partition with King Frederick
William, in virtue of which a Prussian army under General
Mollendorf immediately entered western Poland. It was thought
good policy to keep the terms of this treaty secret from Austria,
as it granted a much larger portion of Poland to Prussia than
Austria was willing that it should receive. Two months passed
before the Austrian Sovereign learnt how he had been treated by
his ally. He then denounced the treaty, and assumed so
threatening an attitude that the Prussians thought it necessary
to fortify the territory that they had seized. <a name=
"FNanchor32">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> The
Ministers who had been outwitted by the Court of Berlin were
dismissed; Baron Thugut, who from the first had prophesied
nothing but evil of the Prussian alliance, was called to power.
The history of this statesman, who for the next eight years
directed the war-policy of Austria, and filled a part in Europe
subordinate only to those of Pitt and Bonaparte, has until a
recent date been drawn chiefly from the representations of his
enemies. Humbly born, scornful and inaccessible, Thugut was
detested by the Viennese aristocracy; the French emigrants hated
and maligned him on account of his indifference to their cause;
the public opinion of Austria held him responsible for
unparalleled military disasters; Prussian generals and
ambassadors, whose reports have formed the basis of Prussian
histories, pictured him as a Satanic antagonist. It was long
believed of Thugut that while ambassador at Constantinople he had
sold the Austrian cypher to the French; that in 1794 he prevented
his master's armies from winning victories because he had
speculated in the French funds; and that in 1799 he occasioned
the murder of the French envoys at Rastadt, in order to recover
documents incriminating himself. Better sources of information
are now opened, and a statesman, jealous, bitter, and
over-reaching, but not without great qualities of character,
stands in the place of the legendary criminal. It is indeed clear
that Thugut's hatred of Prussia amounted almost to mania; it is
also clear that his designs of aggression, formed in the school
of the Emperor Joseph, were fatally in conflict with the
defensive principles which Europe ought to have opposed to the
aggressions of France. Evidence exists that during the eight
years of Thugut's ministry he entertained, together or
successively, projects for the annexation of French Flanders,
Bavaria, Alsace, part of Poland, Venice and Dalmatia, Salzburg,
the Papal Legations, the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, and Bosnia;
and to this list Tuscany and Savoy ought probably to be added.
But the charges brought against Thugut of underhand dealings with
France, and of the willing abandonment of German interests in
return for compensation to Austria in Italy, rest on insufficient
ground. Though, like every other politician at Vienna and Berlin,
he viewed German affairs not as a matter of nationality but in
subordination to the general interests of his own Court, Thugut
appears to have been, of all the Continental statesmen of that
time, the steadiest enemy of French aggression, and to have
offered the longest resistance to a peace that was purchased by
the cession of German soil. <a name="FNanchor33">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Victories of Hoche and Pichegru at W&ouml;rth and
Weissenburg, Dec. 23, 26.]</p>
<p>Nevertheless, from the moment when Thugut was called to power
the alliance between Austria and Prussia was doomed. Others might
perhaps have averted a rupture; Thugut made no attempt to do so.
The siege of Mainz was the last serious operation of war which
the Prussian army performed. The mission of an Austrian envoy,
Lehrbach, to the Prussian camp in August, 1793, and his
negotiations on the Polish and the Bavarian questions, only
widened the breach between the two Courts. It was known that the
Austrians were encouraging the Polish Diet to refuse the cession
of the provinces occupied by Prussia; and the advisers of King
Frederick William in consequence recommended him to quit the
Rhine, and to place himself at the head of an army in Poland. At
the headquarters of the Allies, between Mainz and the Alsatian
frontier, all was dissension and intrigue. The impetuosity of the
Austrian general, Wurmser, who advanced upon Alsace without
consulting the King, was construed as a studied insult. On the
29th of September, after informing the allied Courts that Prussia
would henceforth take only a subordinate part in the war, King
Frederick William quitted the army, leaving orders with the Duke
of Brunswick to fight no great battle. It was in vain that
Wurmser stormed the lines of Weissenburg (Oct. 13), and
victoriously pushed forward into Alsace. The hopes of a Royalist
insurrection in Strasburg proved illusory. The German sympathies
shown by a portion of the upper and middle classes of Alsace only
brought down upon them a bloody vengeance at the hands of St.
Just, commissioner of the Convention. The peasantry, partly from
hatred of the feudal burdens of the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>,
partly from fear of St. Just and the guillotine, thronged to the
French camp. In place of the beaten generals came Hoche and
Pichegru: Hoche, lately a common soldier in the Guards, earning
by a humble industry little sums for the purchase of books, now,
at the age of twenty-six, a commander more than a match for the
wrangling veterans of Germany; Pichegru, six years older, also a
man sprung from the people, once a teacher in the military school
of Brienne, afterwards a private of artillery in the American
War. A series of harassing encounters took place during December.
At length, with St. Just cheering on the Alsatian peasants in the
hottest of the fire, these generals victoriously carried the
Austrian positions at W&ouml;rth and at Weissenburg (Dec. 23,
26). The Austrian commander declared his army to be utterly
ruined; and Brunswick, who had abstained from rendering his ally
any real assistance, found himself a second time back upon the
Rhine. <a name="FNanchor34">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Pitt's bargain with Prussia, April, 1794.]</p>
<p>[Revolt of Kosciusko. April, 1794.]</p>
<p>[M&ouml;llendorf refuses to help in Flanders.]</p>
<p>The virtual retirement of Prussia from the Coalition was no
secret to the French Government: amongst the Allies it was viewed
in various lights. The Empress Catherine, who had counted on
seeing her troublesome Prussian friend engaged with her detested
French enemy, taunted the King of Prussia with the loss of his
personal honour. Austria, conscious of the antagonism between
Prussian and Austrian interests and of the hollow character of
the Coalition, would concede nothing to keep Prussia in arms.
Pitt alone was willing to make a sacrifice, in order to prevent
the rupture of the alliance. The King of Prussia was ready to
continue the struggle with France if his expenses were paid, but
not otherwise. Accordingly, after Austria had refused to
contribute the small sum which Pitt asked, a bargain was struck
between Lord Malmesbury and the Prussian Minister Haugwitz, by
which Great Britain undertook to furnish a subsidy, provided that
60,000 Prussian troops, under General M&ouml;llendorf, were
placed at the disposal of the Maritime Powers. <a name=
"FNanchor35">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> It
was Pitt's intention that the troops which he subsidised should
be massed with Austrian and English forces for the defence of
Belgium: the Prussian Ministry, availing themselves of an
ambiguous expression in the treaty, insisted on keeping them
inactive upon the Upper Rhine. M&ouml;llendorf wished to guard
Mainz: other men of influence longed to abandon the alliance with
Austria, and to employ the whole of Prussia's force in Poland. At
the moment when Haugwitz was contracting to place
M&ouml;llendorf's army at Pitt's disposal, Poland had risen in
revolt under Kosciusko, and the Russian garrison which occupied
Warsaw had been overpowered and cut to pieces. Catherine called
upon the King of Prussia for assistance; but it was not so much a
desire to rescue the Empress from a momentary danger that excited
the Prussian Cabinet as the belief that her vengeance would now
make an absolute end of what remained of the Polish kingdom. The
prey was doomed; the wisdom of Prussia was to be the first to
seize and drag it to the ground. So large a prospect offered
itself to the Power that should crush Poland during the brief
paralysis of the Russian arms, that, on the first news of the
outbreak, the King's advisers urged him instantly to make peace
with France and to throw his whole strength into the Polish
struggle. Frederick William could not reconcile himself to making
peace with the Jacobins; but he ordered an army to march upon
Warsaw, and shortly afterwards placed himself at its head (May,
1794). When the King, who was the only politician in Prussia who
took an interest in the French war, thus publicly acknowledged
the higher importance of the Polish campaign, his generals upon
the Rhine made it their only object to do nothing which it was
possible to leave undone without actually forfeiting the British
subsidy. Instead of fighting, M&ouml;llendorf spent his time in
urging other people to make peace. It was in vain that Malmesbury
argued that the very object of Pitt's bargain was to keep the
French out of the Netherlands: M&ouml;llendorf had made up his
mind that the army should not be committed to the orders of Pitt
and the Austrians. He continued in the Palatinate, alleging that
any movement of the Prussian army towards the north would give
the French admittance to southern Germany. Pitt's hope of
defending the Netherlands now rested on the energy and on the
sincerity of the Austrian Cabinet, and on this alone.</p>
<p>[Battles on the Sambre, May-June, 1794.]</p>
<p>After breaking up from winter quarters in the spring of 1794,
the Austrian and English allied forces had successfully laid
siege to Landrecies, and defeated the enemy in its neighbourhood.
<a name="FNanchor36">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> Their advance, however, was
checked by a movement of the French Army of the North, now
commanded by Pichegru, towards the Flemish coast. York and the
English troops were exposed to the attack, and suffered a defeat
at Turcoing. The decision of the campaign lay, however, not in
the west of Flanders, but at the other end of the Allies'
position, at Charleroi on the Sambre, where a French victory
would either force the Austrians to fall back eastwards, leaving
York to his fate, or sever their communications with Germany.
This became evident to the French Government; and in May the
Commissioners of the Convention forced the generals on the Sambre
to fight a series of battles, in which the French repeatedly
succeeded in crossing the Sambre, and were repeatedly driven back
again. The fate of the Netherlands depended, however, on
something beside victory or defeat on the Sambre. The Emperor had
come with Baron Thugut to Belgium in the hope of imparting
greater unity and energy to the allied forces, but his presence
proved useless. Among the Austrian generals and diplomatists
there were several who desired to withdraw from the contest in
the Netherlands, and to follow the example of Prussia in Poland.
The action of the army was paralysed by intrigues. "Every one,"
wrote Thugut, "does exactly as he pleases: there is absolute
anarchy and disorder." <a name="FNanchor37">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> At the beginning of June the
Emperor quitted the army; the combats on the Sambre were taken up
by Jourdan and 50,000 fresh troops brought from the army of the
Moselle; and on the 26th of June the French defeated Coburg at
Fleurus, as he advanced to the relief of Charleroi, unconscious
that Charleroi had surrendered on the day before. Even now the
defence of Belgium was not hopeless; but after one council of war
had declared in favour of fighting, a second determined on a
retreat. It was in vain that the representatives of England
appealed to the good faith and military honour of Austria. Namur
and Louvain were abandoned; the French pressed onwards; and
before the end of July the Austrian army had fallen back behind
the Meuse. York, forsaken by the allies, retired northwards
before the superior forces of Pichegru, who entered Antwerp and
made himself master of the whole of the Netherlands up to the
Dutch frontier. <a name="FNanchor38">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a></p>
<p>[England disappointed by the Allies.]</p>
<p>Such was the result of Great Britain's well-meant effort to
assist the two great military Powers to defend Europe against the
Revolution. To the aim of the English Minister, the defence of
existing rights against democratic aggression, most of the public
men alike of Austria and Prussia were now absolutely indifferent.
They were willing to let the French seize and revolutionise any
territory they pleased, provided that they themselves obtained
their equivalent in Poland. England was in fact in the position
of a man who sets out to attack a highway robber, and offers each
of his arms to a pickpocket. The motives and conduct of these
politicians were justly enough described by the English statesmen
and generals who were brought into closest contact with them. In
the councils of Prussia, Malmesbury declared that he could find
no quality but "great and shabby art and cunning; ill-will,
jealousy, and every sort of dirty passion." From the head
quarters of M&ouml;llendorf he wrote to a member of Pitt's
Cabinet: "Here I have to do with knavery and dotage.... If we
listened only to our feelings, it would be difficult to keep any
measure with Prussia. We must consider it an alliance with the
Algerians, whom it is no disgrace to pay, or any impeachment of
good sense to be cheated by." To the Austrian commander the Duke
of York addressed himself with royal plainness: "Your Serene
Highness, the British nation, whose public opinion is not to be
despised, will consider that it has been bought and sold." <a
name="FNanchor39">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p>
<p>[French reach the Rhine, Oct., 1794.]</p>
<p>[Pichegru conquers Holland, Dec., 1794.]</p>
<p>The sorry concert lasted for a few months longer. Coburg, the
Austrian commander, was dismissed at the peremptory demand of
Great Britain; his successor, Clerfayt, after losing a battle on
the Ourthe, offered no further resistance to the advance of the
Republican army, and the campaign ended in the capture of Cologne
by the French, and the disappearance of the Austrians behind the
Rhine. The Prussian subsidies granted by England resulted in some
useless engagements between M&ouml;llendorf's corps in the
Palatinate and a French army double its size, followed by the
retreat of the Prussians into Mainz. It only remained for Great
Britain to attempt to keep the French out of Holland. The defence
of the Dutch, after everything south of the river Waal had been
lost, Pitt determined to entrust to abler hands than those of the
Duke of York; but the presence of one high-born blunderer more or
less made little difference in a series of operations conceived
in indifference and perversity. Clerfayt would not, or could not,
obey the Emperor's orders and succour his ally. City after city
in Holland welcomed the French. The very elements seemed to
declare for the Republic. Pichegru's army marched in safety over
the frozen rivers; and, when the conquest of the land was
completed, his cavalry crowned the campaign by the capture of the
Dutch fleet in the midst of the ice-bound waters of the Texel.
The British regiments, cut off from home, made their way eastward
through the snow towards the Hanoverian frontier, in a state of
prostrate misery which is compared by an eye-witness of both
events to that of the French on their retreat in 1813 after the
battle of Leipzig. <a name="FNanchor40">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Treaties of Basle with Prussia, April 5, and Spain, July 22,
1795.]</p>
<p>The first act of the struggle between France and the
Monarchies of Europe was concluded. The result of three years of
war was that Belgium, Nice, and Savoy had been added to the
territory of the Republic, and that French armies were in
possession of Holland, and the whole of Germany west of the
Rhine. In Spain and in Piedmont the mountain-passes and some
extent of country had been won. Even on the seas, in spite of the
destruction of the fleet at Toulon, and of a heavy defeat by Lord
Howe off Ushant on the 1st of June, 1794, the strength of France
was still formidable; and the losses which she inflicted on the
commercial marine of her enemies exceeded those which she herself
sustained. England, which had captured most of the French West
Indian Islands, was the only Power that had wrested anything from
the Republic. The dream of suppressing the Revolution by force of
arms had vanished away; and the States which had entered upon the
contest in levity, in fanaticism, or at the bidding of more
powerful allies, found it necessary to make peace upon such terms
as they could obtain. Holland, in which a strong Republican party
had always maintained connection with France, abolished the rule
of its Stadtholder, and placed its resources at the disposal of
its conquerors. Sardinia entered upon abortive negotiations.
Spain, in return for peace, ceded to the Republic the Spanish
half of St. Domingo (July 22, 1795). Prussia concluded a Treaty
at Basle (April 5), which marked and perpetuated the division of
Germany by providing that, although the Empire as a body was
still at war with France, the benefit of Prussia's neutrality
should extend to all German States north of a certain line. A
secret article stipulated that, upon the conclusion of a general
peace, if the Empire should cede to France the principalities
west of the Rhine, Prussia should cede its own territory lying in
that district, and receive compensation elsewhere. <a name=
"FNanchor41">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Austria and England continue the war, 1795.]</p>
<p>Humiliating such a peace certainly was; yet it would probably
have been the happiest issue for Europe had every Power been
forced to accept its conditions. The territory gained by France
was not much more than the very principle of the Balance of Power
would have entitled it to demand, at a moment when Russia,
victorious over the Polish rebellion, was proceeding to make the
final partition of Poland among the three Eastern Monarchies;
and, with all its faults, the France of 1795 would have offered
to Europe the example of a great free State, such as the growth
of the military spirit made impossible after the first of
Napoleon's campaigns. But the dark future was withdrawn from the
view of those British statesmen who most keenly felt the evils of
the present; and England, resolutely set against the course of
French aggression, still found in Austria an ally willing to
continue the struggle. The financial help of Great Britain, the
Russian offer of a large share in the spoils of Poland,
stimulated the flagging energy of the Emperor's government.
Orders were sent to Clerfayt to advance from the Rhine at
whatever risk, in order to withdraw the troops of the Republic
from the west of France, where England was about to land a body
of Royalists. Clerfayt, however, disobeyed his instructions, and
remained inactive till the autumn. He then defeated a French army
pushing beyond the Rhine, and drove back the besiegers of Mainz;
but the British expedition had already failed, and the time was
passed when Clerfayt's successes might have produced a decisive
result. <a name="FNanchor42">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_42"><sup>[42]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Landing at Quiberon, June 27, 1795.]</p>
<p>[France in 1795.]</p>
<p>A new Government was now entering upon power in France. The
Reign of Terror had ended in July, 1794, with the life of
Robespierre. The men by whom Robespierre was overthrown were
Terrorists more cruel and less earnest than himself, who attacked
him only in order to save their own lives, and without the least
intention of restoring a constitutional Government to France. An
overwhelming national reaction forced them, however, to represent
themselves as the party of clemency. The reaction was indeed a
simple outburst of human feeling rather than a change in
political opinion. Among the victims of the Terror the great
majority had been men of the lower or middle class, who, except
in La Vend&eacute;e and Brittany, were as little friendly to the
old <i>r&eacute;gime</i> as their executioners. Every class in
France, with the exception of the starving city mobs, longed for
security, and the quiet routine of life. After the disorders of
the Republic a monarchical government naturally seemed to many
the best guarantee of peace; but the monarchy so contemplated was
the liberal monarchy of 1791, not the ancient Court, with its
accessories of a landed Church and privileged noblesse. Religion
was still a power in France; but the peasant, with all his
superstition and all his desire for order, was perfectly free
from any delusions about the good old times. He liked to see his
children baptised; but he had no desire to see the priest's
tithe-collector back in his barn: he shuddered at the summary
marketing of Conventional Commissioners; but he had no wish to
resume his labours on the fields of his late seigneur. To be a
Monarchist in 1795, among the shopkeepers of Paris or the farmers
of Normandy, meant no more than to wish for a political system
capable of subsisting for twelve months together, and resting on
some other basis than forced loans and compulsory sales of
property. But among the men of the Convention, who had abolished
monarchy and passed sentence of death upon the King, the
restoration of the Crown seemed the bitterest condemnation of all
that the Convention had done for France, and a sentence of
outlawry against themselves. If the will of the nation was for
the moment in favour of a restored monarchy, the Convention
determined that its will must be overpowered by force or thwarted
by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin
mob of Paris and by the Royalist middle class, the Government
played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort
of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a
decisive victory over Royalists and foreigners combined. On the
27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old
nobility of France at the Bay of Quiberon in southern Brittany.
It was only to give one last fatal proof of their incapacity that
these unhappy men appeared once more on French soil. Within three
weeks after their landing, in a region where for years together
the peasantry, led by their landlords, baffled the best generals
of the Republic, this invading army of the nobles, supported by
the fleet, the arms, and the money of England, was brought to
utter ruin by the discord of its own leaders. Before the nobles
had settled who was to command and who was to obey, General Hoche
surprised their fort, beat them back to the edge of the peninsula
where they had landed, and captured all who were not killed
fighting or rescued by English boats (July 20). The Commissioner
Tallien, in order to purge himself from the just suspicion of
Royalist intrigues, caused six hundred prisoners to be shot in
cold blood. <a name="FNanchor43">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_43"><sup>[43]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Project of Constitution, 1795.]</p>
<p>At the moment when the emigrant army reached France, the
Convention was engaged in discussing the political system which
was to succeed its own rule. A week earlier, the Committee
appointed to draw up a new constitution for France had presented
its report. The main object of the new constitution in its
original form was to secure France against a recurrence of those
evils which it had suffered since 1792. The calamities of the
last three years were ascribed to the sovereignty of a single
Assembly. A vote of the Convention had established the
Revolutionary Tribunal, proscribed the Girondins, and placed
France at the mercy of eighty individuals selected by the
Convention from itself. The legislators of 1795 desired a
guarantee that no party, however determined, should thus destroy
its enemies by a single law, and unite supreme legislative and
executive power in its own hands. With the object of dividing
authority, the executive was, in the new draft-constitution, made
independent of the legislature, and the legislature itself was
broken up into two chambers. A Directory of five members, chosen
by the Assemblies, but not responsible except under actual
impeachment, was to conduct the administration, without the right
of proposing laws; a Chamber of five hundred was to submit laws
to the approval of a Council of two hundred and fifty Ancients,
or men of middle life; but neither of these bodies was to
exercise any influence upon the actual government. One director
and a third part of each of the legislative bodies were to retire
every year. <a name="FNanchor44">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_44"><sup>[44]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Constitution of 1795. Insurrection of Vend&eacute;miaire,
Oct. 4.]</p>
<p>The project thus outlined met with general approval, and
gained even that of the Royalists, who believed that a popular
election would place them in a majority in the two new
Assemblies. Such an event was, however, in the eyes of the
Convention, the one fatal possibility that must be averted at
every cost. In the midst of the debates upon the
draft-constitution there arrived the news of Hoche's victory at
Quiberon. The Convention gained courage to add a clause providing
that two-thirds of the new deputies should be appointed from
among its own members, thus rendering a Royalist majority in the
Chambers impossible. With this condition attached to it, the
Constitution was laid before the country. The provinces accepted
it; the Royalist middle class of Paris rose in insurrection, and
marched against the Convention in the Tuileries. Their revolt was
foreseen; the defence of the Convention was entrusted to General
Bonaparte, who met the attack of the Parisians in a style unknown
in the warfare of the capital. Bonaparte's command of trained
artillery secured him victory; but the struggle of the 4th of
October (13 Vend&eacute;miaire) was the severest that took place
in Paris during the Revolution, and the loss of life in fighting
greater than on the day that overthrew the Monarchy.</p>
<p>[The Directory, Oct., 1795.]</p>
<p>The new Government of France now entered into power. Members
of the Convention formed two-thirds of the new legislative
bodies; the one-third which the country was permitted to elect
consisted chiefly of men of moderate or Royalist opinions. The
five persons who were chosen Directors were all Conventionalists
who had voted for the death of the King; Carnot, however, who had
won the victories without sharing in the cruelties of the Reign
of Terror, was the only member of the late Committee of Public
Safety who was placed in power. In spite of the striking homage
paid to the great act of regicide in the election of the five
Directors, the establishment of the Directory was accepted by
Europe as the close of revolutionary disorder. The return of
constitutional rule in France was marked by a declaration on the
part of the King of England of his willingness to treat for
peace. A gentler spirit seemed to have arisen in the Republic.
Although the laws against the emigrants and non-juring priests
were still unrepealed, the exiles began to return unmolested to
their homes. Life resumed something of its old aspect in the
capital. The rich and the gay consoled themselves with costlier
luxury for all the austerities of the Reign of Terror. The
labouring classes, now harmless and disarmed, were sharply taught
that they must be content with such improvement in their lot as
the progress of society might bring.</p>
<p>[What was new to Europe in the Revolution.]</p>
<p>[Absolute governments of 18th century engaged in reforms.]</p>
<p>At the close of this first period of the Revolutionary War we
may pause to make an estimate of the new influences which the
French Revolution had brought into Europe, and of the effects
which had thus far resulted from them. The opinion current among
the French people themselves, that the Revolution gave birth to
the modern life not of France only but of the Western Continent
generally, is true of one great set of facts; it is untrue of
another. There were conceptions in France in 1789 which made
France a real contrast to most of the Continental monarchies;
there were others which it shared in common with them. The ideas
of social, legal, and ecclesiastical reform which were realised
in 1789 were not peculiar to France; what was peculiar to France
was the idea that these reforms were to be effected by the nation
itself. In other countries reforms had been initiated by
Governments, and forced upon an unwilling people. Innovation
sprang from the Crown; its agents were the servants of the State.
A distinct class of improvements, many of them identical with the
changes made by the Revolution in France, attracted the attention
in a greater or less degree of almost all the Western Courts of
the eighteenth century. The creation of a simple and regular
administrative system; the reform of the clergy; the emancipation
of the Church from the jurisdiction of the Pope, and of all
orders in the State from the jurisdiction of the Church; the
amelioration of the lot of the peasant; the introduction of codes
of law abolishing both the cruelties and the confusion of ancient
practice,-all these were purposes more or less familiar to the
absolute sovereigns of the eighteenth century, whom the French so
summarily described as benighted tyrants. It was in Austria,
Prussia, and Tuscany that the civilising energy of the Crown had
been seen in its strongest form, but even the Governments of
Naples and Spain had caught the spirit of change. The religious
tolerance which Joseph gave to Austria, the rejection of Papal
authority and the abolition of the punishment of death which
Leopold effected in Tuscany, were bolder efforts of the same
political rationalism which in Spain minimised the powers of the
Inquisition and in Naples attempted to found a system of public
education. In all this, however, there was no trace of the action
of the people, or of any sense that a nation ought to raise
itself above a state of tutelage. Men of ideas called upon
Governments to impose better institutions upon the people, not
upon the people to wrest them from the Governments.</p>
<p>[In France, the nation itself acted.]</p>
<p>In France alone a view of public affairs had grown up which
impelled the nation to create its reforms for itself. If the
substance of many of the French revolutionary changes coincided
with the objects of Austrian or of Tuscan reform, there was
nothing similar in their method. In other countries reform sprang
from the command of an enlightened ruler; in France it started
with the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and aimed at the
creation of local authority to be exercised by the citizens
themselves. The source of this difference lay partly in the
influence of England and America upon French opinion, but much
more in the existence within France of a numerous and energetic
middle class, enriched by commerce, and keenly interested in all
the speculation and literary activity of the age. This was a
class that both understood the wrongs which the other classes
inflicted or suffered, and felt itself capable of redressing
them. For the flogged and over-driven peasant in Naples or
Hungary no ally existed but the Crown. In most of those poor and
backward States which made up monarchical Europe, the fraction of
the inhabitants which neither enjoyed privilege nor stood in
bondage to it was too small to think of forcing itself into
power. The nobles sought to preserve their feudal rights: the
Crown sought to reduce them; the nation, elsewhere than in
France, did not intervene and lay hands upon power for itself,
because the nation was nothing but the four mutually exclusive
classes of the landlords who commanded, the peasants who served,
the priests who idled, and the soldiers who fought. France
differed from all the other monarchies of the Continent in
possessing a public which blended all classes and was dominated
by none; a public comprehending thousands of men who were
familiar with the great interests of society, and who, whether
noble or not noble, possessed the wealth and the intelligence
that made them rightly desire a share in power.</p>
<p>[Movements against governments outside France.]</p>
<p>Liberty, the right of the nation to govern itself, seemed at
the outset to be the great principle of the Revolution. The
French people themselves believed the question at issue to be
mainly between authority and popular right; the rest of Europe
saw the Revolution under the same aspect. Hence, in those
countries where the example of France produced political
movements, the effect was in the first instance to excite
agitation against the Government, whatever might be the form of
the latter. In England the agitation was one of the middle class
against the aristocratic parliamentary system; in Hungary, it was
an agitation of the nobles against the Crown; on the Rhine it was
an agitation of the commercial classes against ecclesiastical
rule. But in every case in which the reforming movement was not
supported by the presence of French armies, the terrors which
succeeded the first sanguine hopes of the Revolution struck the
leaders of these movements with revulsion and despair, and
converted even the better Governments into engines of reaction.
In France itself it was seen that the desire for liberty among an
enlightened class could not suddenly transform the habits of a
nation accustomed to accept everything from authority. Privilege
was destroyed, equality was advanced; but instead of
self-government the Revolution brought France the most absolute
rule it had ever known. It was not that the Revolution had swept
by, leaving things where they were before: it had in fact
accomplished most of those great changes which lay the foundation
of a sound social life: but the faculty of self-government, the
first condition of any lasting political liberty, remained to be
slowly won.</p>
<p>[Reaction.]</p>
<p>Outside France reaction set in without the benefit of previous
change. At London, Vienna, Naples, and Madrid, Governments gave
up all other objects in order to devote themselves to the
suppression of Jacobinism. Pitt, whose noble aims had been the
extinction of the slave-trade, the reform of Parliament, and the
advance of national intercourse by free trade, surrendered
himself to men whose thoughts centred upon informers, Gagging
Acts, and constructive treasons, and who opposed all legislation
upon the slave-trade because slaves had been freed by the
Jacobins of the Convention. State trials and imprisonments became
the order of the day; but the reaction in England at least
stopped short of the scaffold. At Vienna and Naples fear was more
cruel. The men who either were, or affected to be, in such fear
of revolution that they discovered a Jacobinical allegory in
Mozart's last opera, <a name="FNanchor45">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> did not spare life when the
threads of anything like a real conspiracy were placed in their
hands. At Vienna terror was employed to crush the constitutional
opposition of Hungary to the Austrian Court. In Naples a long
reign of cruelty and oppression began with the creation of a
secret tribunal to investigate charges of conspiracy made by
informers. In Mainz, the Archbishop occupied the last years of
his government, after his restoration in 1793, with a series of
brutal punishments and tyrannical precautions.</p>
<p>These were but instances of the effect which the first epoch
of the Revolution produced upon the old European States. After a
momentary stimulus to freedom it threw the nations themselves
into reaction and apathy; it totally changed the spirit of the
better governments, attaching to all liberal ideas the stigma of
Revolution, and identifying the work of authority with resistance
to every kind of reform. There were States in which this change,
the first effect of the Revolution, was also its only one; States
whose history, as in the case of England, is for a whole
generation the history of political progress unnaturally checked
and thrown out of its course. There were others, and these the
more numerous, where the first stimulus and the first reaction
were soon forgotten in new and penetrating changes produced by
the successive victories of France. The nature of these changes,
even more than the warfare which introduced them, gives its
interest to the period on which we are about to enter.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_III.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c3">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Triple attack on Austria-Moreau, Jourdan-Bonaparte in
Italy-Condition of the Italian States-Professions and real
intentions of Bonaparte and the Directory-Battle of
Montenotte-Armistice with Sardinia-Campaign in Lombardy-Treatment
of the Pope, Naples, Tuscany-Siege of Mantua- Castiglione, Moreau
and Jourdan in Germany Their retreat-Secret Treaty with
Prussia-Negotiations with England-Cispadane Republic-Rise of the
idea of Italian Independence-Battles of Arcola and Rivoli-Peace
with the Pope at Tolentino-Venice-Preliminaries of Leoben-The
French in Venice-The French take the Ionian Islands and give
Venice to Austria-Genoa-Coup d'&eacute;tat of 17 Fructidor in
Paris-Treaty of Campo Formio-Victories of England at
sea-Bonaparte's project against Egypt.</p>
<br>

<p>[Armies of Italy, the Danube, and the Main, 1796.]</p>
<p>With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of
European history passes to a new scene. Hitherto the progress of
French victory had been in the direction of the Rhine: the
advance of the army of the Pyrenees had been cut short by the
conclusion of peace with Spain; the army of Italy had achieved
little beyond some obscure successes in the mountains. It was the
appointment of Napoleon Bonaparte to the command of the latter
force, in the spring of 1796, that first centred the fortunes of
the Republic in the land beyond the Alps. Freed from Prussia by
the Treaty of Basle, the Directory was now able to withdraw its
attention from Holland and from the Lower Rhine, and to throw its
whole force into the struggle with Austria. By the advice of
Bonaparte a threefold movement was undertaken against Vienna, by
way of Lombardy, by the valley of the Danube, and by the valley
of the Main. General Jourdan, in command of the army that had
conquered the Netherlands, was ordered to enter Germany by
Frankfort; Moreau crossed the Rhine at Strasburg: Bonaparte
himself, drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from
Nice, faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the
slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of
Genoa. The country in which he was about to operate was familiar
to Bonaparte from service there in 1794; his own descent and
language gave him singular advantages in any enterprise
undertaken in Italy. Bonaparte was no Italian at heart; but he
knew at least enough of the Italian nature to work upon its
better impulses, and to attach its hopes, so long as he needed
the support of Italian opinion, to his own career of victory.</p>
<p>[Condition of Italy.]</p>
<p>Three centuries separated the Italy of that day from the
bright and vigorous Italy which, in the glow of its Republican
freedom, had given so much to Northern Europe in art, in letters,
and in the charm of life. A long epoch of subjection to despotic
or foreign rule, of commercial inaction, of decline in mind and
character, had made the Italians of no account among the
political forces of Europe. Down to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
in 1748 their provinces were bartered between the Bourbons and
the Hapsburgs; and although the settlement of that date left no
part of Italy, except the Duchy of Milan, incorporated in a
foreign empire, yet the crown of Naples was vested in a younger
branch of the Spanish Bourbons, and the marriage of Maria Theresa
with the Archduke Francis made Tuscany an appanage of the House
of Austria. Venice and Genoa retained their independence and
their republican government, but little of their ancient spirit.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Austrian influence was
dominant throughout the peninsula, Marie Caroline, the Queen and
the ruler of Ferdinand of Naples, being the sister of the Emperor
Leopold and Marie Antoinette. With the exception of Piedmont,
which preserved a strong military sentiment and the tradition of
an active and patriotic policy, the Italian States were either,
like Venice and Genoa, anxious to keep themselves out of danger
by seeming to hear and see nothing that passed around them, or
governed by families in the closest connection with the great
reigning Houses of the Continent. Neither in Italy itself, nor in
the general course of European affairs during the Napoleonic
period, was anything determined by the sentiment of the Italian
people. The peasantry at times fought against the French with
energy; but no strong impulse, like that of the Spaniards,
enlisted the upper class of Italians either on the side of
Napoleon or on that of his enemies. Acquiescence and submission
had become the habit of the race; the sense of national unity and
worth, the personal pride which makes the absence of liberty an
intolerable wrong, only entered the Italian character at a later
date.</p>
<p>[Revival after 1740.]</p>
<p>Yet, in spite of its political nullity, Italy was not in a
state of decline. Its worst days had ended before the middle of
the eighteenth century. The fifty years preceding the French
Revolution, if they had brought nothing of the spirit of liberty,
had in all other respects been years of progress and revival. In
Lombardy the government of Maria Theresa and Joseph awoke life
and motion after ages of Spanish torpor and misrule. Traditions
of local activity revived; the communes were encouraged in their
works of irrigation and rural improvement; a singular liberality
towards public opinion and the press made the Austrian
possessions the centre of the intellectual movement of Italy. In
the south, progress began on the day when the last foreign
Viceroy disappeared from Naples (1735), and King Charles III.,
though a member of the Spanish House, entered upon the government
of the two Sicilies as an independent kingdom. Venice and the
Papal States alone seemed to be untouched by the spirit of
material and social improvement, so active in the rest of Italy
before the interest in political life had come into being.</p>
<p>Nor was the age without its intellectual distinction. If the
literature of Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century
had little that recalled the inspiration of its splendid youth,
it showed at least a return to seriousness and an interest in
important things. The political economists of Lombardy were
scarcely behind those of England; the work of the Milanese
Beccaria on "Crimes and Punishments" stimulated the reform of
criminal law in every country in Europe; an intelligent and
increasing attention to problems of agriculture, commerce, and
education took the place of the fatuous gallantries and insipid
criticism which had hitherto made up the life of Italians of
birth and culture. One man of genius, Vittorio Alfieri, the
creator of Italian tragedy, idealised both in prose and verse a
type of rugged independence and resistance to tyrannical power.
Alfieri was neither a man of political judgment himself nor the
representative of any real political current in Italy; but the
lesson which he taught to the Italians, the lesson of respect for
themselves and their country, was the one which Italy most of all
required to learn; and the appearance of this manly and energetic
spirit in its literature gave hope that the Italian nation would
not long be content to remain without political being.</p>
<p>[Social condition.]</p>
<p>[Tuscany.]</p>
<p>Italy, to the outside world, meant little more than the ruins
of the Roman Forum, the galleries of Florence, the paradise of
Capri and the Neapolitan coast; the singular variety in its local
conditions of life gained little attention from the foreigner.
There were districts in Italy where the social order was almost
of a Polish type of barbarism; there were others where the rich
and the poor lived perhaps under a happier relation than in any
other country in Europe. The difference depended chiefly upon the
extent to which municipal life had in past time superseded the
feudal order under which the territorial lord was the judge and
the ruler of his own domain. In Tuscany the city had done the
most in absorbing the landed nobility; in Naples and Sicily it
had done the least. When, during the middle ages, the Republic of
Florence forced the feudal lords who surrounded it to enter its
walls as citizens, in some cases it deprived them of all
authority, in others it permitted them to retain a jurisdiction
over their peasants; but even in these instances the sovereignty
of the city deprived the feudal relation of most of its harshness
and force. After the loss of Florentine liberty, the Medici,
aping the custom of older monarchies, conferred the title of
marquis and count upon men who preferred servitude to freedom,
and accompanied the grant of rank with one of hereditary local
authority; but the new institutions took no deep hold on country
life, and the legislation of the first Archduke of the House of
Lorraine (1749) left the landed aristocracy in the position of
mere country gentlemen. <a name="FNanchor46">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> Estates were not very large:
the prevalent agricultural system was, as it still is, that of
the <i>mezzeria</i>, a partnership between the landlord and
tenant; the tenant holding by custom in perpetuity, and sharing
the produce with the landlord, who supplied a part of the stock
and materials for farming. In Tuscany the conditions of the
<i>mezzeria</i> were extremely favourable to the tenant; and if a
cheerful country life under a mild and enlightened government
were all that a State need desire, Tuscany enjoyed rare
happiness.</p>
<p>[Naples and Sicily.]</p>
<p>[Piedmont.]</p>
<p>Far different was the condition of Sicily and Naples. Here the
growth of city life had never affected the rough sovereignty
which the barons exercised over great tracts of country withdrawn
from the civilised world. When Charles III. ascended the throne
in 1735, he found whole provinces in which there was absolutely
no administration of justice on the part of the State. The feudal
rights of the nobility were in the last degree oppressive, the
barbarism of the people was in many districts extreme. Out of two
thousand six hundred towns and villages in the kingdom, there
were only fifty that were not subject to feudal authority. In the
manor of San Gennaro di Palma, fifteen miles from Naples, even
down to the year 1786 the officers of the baron were the only
persons who lived in houses; the peasants, two thousand in
number, slept among the corn-ricks. <a name="FNanchor47">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> Charles, during his
tenure of the Neapolitan crown, from 1735 to 1759, and the
Ministers Tanucci and Caraccioli under his feeble successor
Ferdinand IV., enforced the authority of the State in justice and
administration, and abolished some of the most oppressive feudal
rights of the nobility; but their legislation, though bold and
even revolutionary according to an English standard, could not in
the course of two generations transform a social system based
upon centuries of misgovernment and disorder. At the outbreak of
the French Revolution the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was, as it
still in a less degree is, a land of extreme inequalities of
wealth and poverty, a land where great estates wasted in the
hands of oppressive or indolent owners, and the peasantry,
untrained either by remunerative industry or by a just and
regular enforcement of the law, found no better guide than a
savage and fanatical priesthood. Over the rest of Italy the
conditions of life varied through all degrees between the Tuscan
and the Neapolitan type. Piedmont, in military spirit and
patriotism far superior to the other Italian States, was socially
one of the most backward of all. It was a land of priests,
nobles, and soldiers, where a gloomy routine and the repression
of all originality of thought and character drove the most gifted
of its children, like the poet Alfieri, to seek a home on some
more liberal soil.</p>
<p>[Professions and real intentions of the Directory and
Bonaparte, 1796.]</p>
<p>During the first years of the Revolution, an attempt had been
made by French enthusiasts to extend the Revolution into Italy by
means of associations in the principal towns; but it met with no
great success. A certain liberal movement arose among the young
men of the upper classes at Naples, where, under the influence of
Queen Marie Caroline, the Government had now become reactionary;
and in Turin and several of the Lombard cities the French were
not without partisans; but no general disaffection like that of
Savoy existed east of the Alps. The agitation of 1789 and 1792
had passed by without bringing either liberty or national
independence to the Italians. When Bonaparte received his
command, that fervour of Republican passion which, in the midst
of violence and wrong, had seldom been wanting in the first
leaders of the Revolutionary War, had died out in France. The
politicians who survived the Reign of Terror and gained office in
the Directory repeated the old phrases about the Rights of Man
and the Liberation of the Peoples only as a mode of cajolery.
Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the restorer of
Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose of using Italy
as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury of France. His
correspondence with the Directory exposes with brazen frankness
this well-considered system of pillage and deceit, in which the
general and the Government were cordially at one. On the further
question, how France should dispose of any territory that might
be conquered in Northern Italy, Bonaparte and the Directory had
formed no understanding, and their purposes were in fact at
variance. The Directory wished to conquer Lombardy in order to
hand it back to Austria in return for the Netherlands; Bonaparte
had at least formed the conception that an Italian State was
possible, and he intended to convert either Austrian Lombardy
itself, or some other portion of Northern Italy, into a Republic,
serving as a military outwork for France.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte separates the Austrian and Sardinian Armies, April,
1796.]</p>
<p>[Armistice and peace with Sardinia.]</p>
<p>The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the mountains
above the coast-road connecting Nice and Genoa. Bonaparte's own
army numbered 40,000 men; the force opposed to it consisted of
38,000 Austrians, under Beaulieu, and a smaller Sardinian army,
so placed upon the Piedmontese Apennines as to block the passes
from the coast-road into Piedmont, and to threaten the rear of
the French if they advanced eastward against Genoa. The
Piedmontese army drew its supplies from Turin, the Austrian from
Mantua; to sever the two armies was to force them on to lines of
retreat conducting them farther and farther apart from one
another. Bonaparte foresaw the effect which such a separation of
the two armies would produce upon the Sardinian Government. For
four days he reiterated his attacks at Montenotte and Millesimo,
until he had forced his own army into a position in the centre of
the Allies; then, leaving a small force to watch the Austrians,
he threw the mass of his troops upon the Piedmontese, and drove
them back to within thirty miles of Turin. The terror-stricken
Government, anticipating an outbreak in the capital itself,
accepted an armistice from Bonaparte at Cherasco (April 28), and
handed over to the French the fortresses of Coni, Ceva, and
Tortona, which command the entrances of Italy. It was an unworthy
capitulation for Turin could not have been taken before the
Austrians returned in force; but Bonaparte had justly calculated
the effect of his victory; and the armistice, which was soon
followed by a treaty of peace between France and Sardinia, ceding
Savoy to the Republic, left him free to follow the Austrians,
untroubled by the existence of some of the strongest fortresses
of Europe behind him.</p>
<p>[Bridge of Lodi, May 10.]</p>
<p>In the negotiations with Sardinia Bonaparte demanded the
surrender of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his
passage over the river Po. Having thus led the Austrian Beaulieu
to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly moved
eastward along the southern bank of the river, and crossed at
Piacenza, fifty miles below the spot where Beaulieu was awaiting
him. It was an admirable movement. The Austrian general, with the
enemy threatening his communications, had to abandon Milan and
all the country west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the
Adda. Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th of May attacked the
Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at the
head of his Grenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to the
Austrians that they could risk no second engagement, and retired
upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio. <a name=
"FNanchor48">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_48"><sup>[48]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bonaparte in Milan. Extortions.]</p>
<p>Bonaparte now made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15).
The splendour of his victories and his warm expressions of
friendship for Italy excited the enthusiasm of a population not
hitherto hostile to Austrian rule. A new political movement
began. With the French army there came all the partisans of the
French Republic who had been expelled from other parts of Italy.
Uniting with the small revolutionary element already existing in
Milan, they began to form a new public opinion by means of
journals and patriotic meetings. It was of the utmost importance
to Bonaparte that a Republican party should be organised among
the better classes in the towns of Lombardy; for the depredations
of the French army exasperated the peasants, and Bonaparte's own
measures were by no means of a character to win him unmixed
goodwill. The instructions which he received from the Directory
were extremely simple. "Leave nothing in Italy," they wrote to
him on the day of his entry into Milan, "which will be useful to
us, and which the political situation will allow you to remove."
If Bonaparte had felt any doubt as to the meaning of such an
order, the pillage of works of art in Belgium and Holland in
preceding years would have shown him that it was meant to be
literally interpreted. Accordingly, in return for the gift of
liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to their deliverers
twenty million francs, and a selection from the paintings in
their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma and Modena, in
return for an armistice, were required to hand over forty of
their best pictures, and a sum of money proportioned to their
revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople paid their contributions
with good grace: the peasantry of Lombardy, whose cattle were
seized in order to supply an army that marched without any stores
of its own, rose in arms, and threw themselves into Pavia,
killing all the French soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt
was instantly suppressed, and the town of Pavia given up to
pillage. In deference to the Liberal party of Italy, the movement
was described as a conspiracy of priests and nobles.</p>
<p>[Venice.]</p>
<p>[Battle on the Mincio, May 29.]</p>
<p>The way into Central Italy now lay open before Bonaparte. Rome
and Naples were in no condition to offer resistance; but with
true military judgment the French general declined to move
against this feeble prey until the army of Austria, already
crippled, was completely driven out of the field. Instead of
crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against the Austrian
positions upon the Mincio. It suited him to violate the
neutrality of the adjacent Venetian territory by seizing the town
of Brescia. His example was followed by Beaulieu, who occupied
Peschiera, at the foot of the Lake of Garda, and thus held the
Mincio along its whole course from the lake to Mantua. A battle
was fought and lost by the Austrians half-way between the lake
and the fortress. Beaulieu's strength was exhausted; he could
meet the enemy no more in the field, and led his army out of
Italy into the Tyrol, leaving Mantua to be invested by the
French. The first care of the conqueror was to make Venice pay
for the crime of possessing territory intervening between the
eastern and western extremes of the Austrian district. Bonaparte
affected to believe that the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to
occupy Peschiera before he seized upon Brescia himself. He
uttered terrifying threats to the envoys who came from Venice to
excuse an imaginary crime. He was determined to extort money from
the Venetian Republic; he also needed a pretext for occupying
Verona, and for any future wrongs. "I have purposely devised this
rupture," he wrote to the Directory (June 7th), "in case you
should wish to obtain five or six millions of francs from Venice.
If you have more decided intentions, I think it would be well to
keep up the quarrel." The intention referred to was the
disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice to Austria in return
for the cession of the Netherlands, a measure based on plans
familiar to Thugut as early as the year 1793. <a name=
"FNanchor49">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_49"><sup>[49]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Armistice with Naples, June 6.]</p>
<p>[Armistice with the Pope, June 23.]</p>
<p>The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and
Bonaparte was now free to deal with southern Italy. He advanced
into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal Legate from
Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples, who had lately called heaven and
earth to witness the fury of his zeal against an accursed horde
of regicides, thought it prudent to stay Bonaparte's hand, at
least until the Austrians were in a condition to renew the war in
Lombardy. He asked for a suspension of hostilities against his
own kingdom. The fleet and the sea-board of Naples gave it
importance in the struggle between France and England, and
Bonaparte granted the king an armistice on easy terms. The Pope,
in order to gain a few months' truce, had to permit the
occupation of Ferrara, Ravenna, and Ancona, and to recognise the
necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of his
conquerors by a gift of twenty million francs, five hundred
manuscripts, a hundred pictures, and the busts of Marcus and
Lucius Brutus. The rule of the Pope was unpopular in Bologna, and
a Senate which Bonaparte placed in power, pending the formation
of a popular Government gladly took the oath of fidelity to the
French Republic. Tuscany was the only State that remained to be
dealt with. Tuscany had indeed made peace with the Republic a
year before, but the ships and cargoes of the English merchants
at Leghorn were surely fair prey; and, with the pretence of
punishing insults offered by the English to the French flag,
Bonaparte descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that
was not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn,
the French declined to quit it. By way of adjusting the relations
of the Grand Duke, the English seized his harbour of Porto
Ferraio, in the island of Elba.</p>
<p>[Battles of Lonato and Castiglione, July, Aug., 1796.]</p>
<p>Mantua was meanwhile invested, and thither, after his brief
incursion into Central Italy, Bonaparte returned. Towards the end
of July an Austrian relieving army, nearly double the strength of
Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into three
corps: one, under Quosdanovich, advanced by the road on the west
of Lake Garda; the others, under Wurmser, the commander-in-chief,
by the roads between the lake and the river Adige. The peril of
the French was extreme; their outlying divisions were defeated
and driven in; Bonaparte could only hope to save himself by
collecting all his forces at the foot of the lake, and striking
at one or other of the Austrian armies before they effected their
junction on the Mincio. He instantly broke up the siege of
Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On
the 30th of July, Quosdanovich was attacked and checked at
Lonato, on the west of the Lake of Garda. Wurmser, unaware of his
colleague's repulse, entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out,
expecting to envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French
were ready for his approach. Wurmser was stopped and defeated at
Castiglione, while the western Austrian divisions were still held
in check at Lonato. The junction of the Austrian armies had
become impossible. In five days the skill of Bonaparte and the
unsparing exertions of his soldiery had more than retrieved all
that appeared to have been lost. <a name="FNanchor50">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> The Austrians retired
into the Tyrol, beaten and dispirited, and leaving 15,000
prisoners in the hands of the enemy.</p>
<p>Bonaparte now prepared to force his way into Germany by the
Adige, in fulfilment of the original plan of the campaign. In the
first days of September he again routed the Austrians, and gained
possession of Roveredo and Trent. Wurmser hereupon attempted to
shut the French up in the mountains by a movement southwards;
but, while he operated with insufficient forces between the
Brenta and the Adige, he was cut off from Germany, and only
escaped capture by throwing himself into Mantua with the
shattered remnant of his army. The road into Germany through the
Tyrol now lay open; but in the midst of his victories Bonaparte
learnt that the northern armies of Moreau and Jourdan, with which
he had intended to co-operate in an attack upon Vienna, were in
full retreat.</p>
<p>[Invasion of Germany by Moureau and Jourdan, June-Oct.
1796.]</p>
<p>[The Archduke Charles overpowers Jourdan.]</p>
<p>Moreau's advance into the valley of the Danube had, during the
months of July and August, been attended with unbroken military
and political success. The Archduke Charles, who was entrusted
with the defence of the Empire, found himself unable to bring two
armies into the field capable of resisting those of Moreau and
Jourdan separately, and he therefore determined to fall back
before Moreau towards Nuremberg, ordering Wartensleben, who
commanded the troops facing Jourdan on the Main, to retreat in
the same direction, in order that the two armies might throw
their collected force upon Jourdan while still at some distance
north of Moreau. <a name="FNanchor51">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> The design of the Archduke
succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the French for six
weeks, and showed how worthless was the military constitution of
the Empire, and how little the Germans had to expect from one
another. After every skirmish won by Moreau some neighbouring
State abandoned the common defence and hastened to make its terms
with the invader. On the 17th of July the Duke of W&uuml;rtemberg
purchased an armistice at the price of four million francs; a
week later Baden gained the French general's protection in return
for immense supplies of food and stores. The troops of the
Swabian Circle of the Empire, who were ridiculed as "harlequins"
by the more martial Austrians, dispersed to their homes; and no
sooner had Moreau entered Bavaria than the Bavarian contingent in
its turn withdrew from the Archduke. Some consideration was shown
by Moreau's soldiery to those districts which had paid tribute to
their general; but in the region of the Main, Jourdan's army
plundered without distinction and without mercy. They sacked the
churches, they maltreated the children, they robbed the very
beggars of their pence. Before the Archduke Charles was ready to
strike, the peasantry of this country, whom their governments
were afraid to arm, had begun effective reprisals of their own.
At length the retreating movement of the Austrians stopped.
Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions from
Moreau, Charles turned suddenly northwards from Neuburg on the
[***] August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked Jourdan at
this place with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was defeated
and driven back in confusion towards the Rhine. The issue of the
campaign was decided before Moreau heard of his colleague's
danger. It only remained for him to save his own army by a
skilful retreat. Jourdan's soldiers, returning through districts
which they had devastated, suffered heavier losses from the
vengeance of the peasantry than from the army that pursued them.
By the autumn of 1796 no Frenchman remained beyond the Rhine. The
campaign had restored the military spirit of Austria and given
Germany a general in whom soldiers could trust; but it had also
shown how willing were the Governments of the minor States to
become the vassals of a foreigner, how little was wanting to
convert the western half of the Empire into a dependency of
France.</p>
<p>[Secret Treaty with Prussia, Aug. 5.]</p>
<p>With each change in the fortunes of the campaign of 1796 the
diplomacy of the Continent had changed its tone. When Moreau won
his first victories, the Court of Prussia, yielding to the
pressure of the Directory, substituted for the conditional
clauses of the Treaty of Basle a definite agreement to the
cession of the left bank of the Rhine, and a stipulation that
Prussia should be compensated for her own loss by the annexation
of the Bishopric of M&uuml;nster. Prussia could not itself cede
provinces of the Empire: it could only agree to their cession. In
this treaty, however, Prussia definitely renounced the integrity
of the Empire, and accepted the system known as the
Secularisation of Ecclesiastical States, the first step towards
an entire reconstruction of Germany. <a name="FNanchor52">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_52"><sup>[52]</sup></a> The engagement was kept
secret both from the Emperor and from the ecclesiastical princes.
In their negotiations with Austria the Directory were less
successful. Although the long series of Austrian disasters had
raised a general outcry against Thugut's persistence in the war,
the resolute spirit of the Minister never bent; and the ultimate
victory of the Archduke Charles more than restored his influence
over the Emperor. Austria refused to enter into any negotiation
not conducted in common with England, and the Directory were for
the present foiled in their attempts to isolate England from the
Continental Powers. It was not that Thugut either hoped or cared
for that restoration of Austrian rule in the Netherlands which
was the first object of England's Continental policy. The
abandonment of the Netherlands by France was, however, in his
opinion necessary for Austria, as a step towards the acquisition
of Bavaria, which was still the cherished hope of the Viennese
Government. It was in vain that the Directory suggested that
Austria should annex Bavaria without offering Belgium or any
other compensation to its ruler. Thugut could hardly be induced
to listen to the French overtures. He had received the promise of
immediate help from the Empress Catherine; he was convinced that
the Republic, already anxious for peace, might by one sustained
effort be forced to abandon all its conquests; and this was the
object for which, in the winter of 1796, army after army was
hurled against the positions where Bonaparte kept his guard on
the north of the still unconquered Mantua. <a name=
"FNanchor53">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_53"><sup>[53]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Malmesbury sent to Paris, Oct., 1796.]</p>
<p>In England itself the victory of the Archduke Charles raised
expectations of peace. The war had become unpopular through the
loss of trade with France, Spain, and Holland, and petitions for
peace daily reached Parliament. Pitt so far yielded to the
prevalent feeling as to enter into negotiations with the
Directory, and despatched Lord Malmesbury to Paris; but the
condition upon which Pitt insisted, the restoration of the
Netherlands to Austria, rendered agreement hopeless; and as soon
as Pitt's terms were known to the Directory, Malmesbury was
ordered to leave Paris. Nevertheless, the negotiation was not a
mere feint on Pitt's part. He was possessed by a fixed idea that
the resources of France were exhausted, and that, in spite of the
conquest of Lombardy and the Rhine, the Republic must feel itself
too weak to continue the war. Amid the disorders of Revolutionary
finance, and exaggerated reports of suffering and distress, Pitt
failed to recognise the enormous increase of production resulting
from the changes which had given the peasant full property in his
land and labour, and thrown vast quantities of half-waste domain
into the busy hands of middling and small proprietors. <a name=
"FNanchor54">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_54"><sup>[54]</sup></a></p>
<p>Whatever were the resources of France before the Revolution,
they were now probably more than doubled. Pitt's belief in the
economic ruin of France, the only ground on which he could
imagine that the Directory would give up Belgium without fighting
for it, was wholly erroneous, and the French Government would
have acted strangely if they had listened to his demand.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte creates a Cispadane Republic, Oct., 1796.]</p>
<p>Nevertheless, though the Directory would not hear of
surrendering Belgium, they were anxious to conclude peace with
Austria, and unwilling to enter into any engagements in the
conquered provinces of Italy which might render peace with
Austria more difficult. They had instructed Bonaparte to stir up
the Italians against their Governments, but this was done with
the object of paralysing the Governments, not of emancipating the
peoples. They looked with dislike upon any scheme of Italian
reconstruction which should bind France to the support of
newly-formed Italian States. Here, however, the scruples of the
Directory and the ambition of Bonaparte were in direct conflict.
Bonaparte intended to create a political system in Italy which
should bear the stamp of his own mind and require his own strong
hand to support it. In one of his despatches to the Directory he
suggested the formation of a client Republic out of the Duchy of
Modena, where revolutionary movements had broken out. Before it
was possible for the Government to answer him, he published a
decree, declaring the population of Modena and Reggio under the
protection of the French army, and deposing all the officers of
the Duke (Oct. 4). When, some days later, the answer of the
Directory arrived, it cautioned Bonaparte against disturbing the
existing order of the Italian States. Bonaparte replied by
uniting to Modena the Papal provinces of Bologna and Ferrara, and
by giving to the State which he had thus created the title of the
Cispadane Republic. <a name="FNanchor55">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_55"><sup>[55]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Idea of free Italy.]</p>
<p>The event was no insignificant one. It is from this time that
the idea of Italian independence, though foreign to the great
mass of the nation, may be said to have taken birth as one of
those political hopes which wane and recede, but do not again
leave the world. A class of men who had turned with dislike from
the earlier agitation of French Republicans in Italy rightly
judged the continued victories of Bonaparte over the Austrians to
be the beginning of a series of great changes, and now joined the
revolutionary movement in the hope of winning from the overthrow
of the old Powers some real form of national independence. In its
origin the French party may have been composed of hirelings and
enthusiasts. This ceased to be the case when, after the passage
of the Mincio, Bonaparte entered the Papal States. Among the
citizens of Bologna in particular there were men of weight and
intelligence who aimed at free constitutional government, and
checked in some degree the more numerous popular party which
merely repeated the phrases of French democracy. Bonaparte's own
language and action excited the brightest hopes. At Modena he
harangued the citizens upon the mischief of Italy's divisions,
and exhorted them to unite with their brethren whom he had freed
from the Pope. A Congress was held at Modena on the 16th of
October. The representatives of Modena, Reggio, Bologna, and
Ferrara declared themselves united in a Republic under the
protection of France. They abolished feudal nobility, decreed a
national levy, and summoned a General Assembly to meet at Reggio
two months later, in order to create the Constitution of the new
Cispadane Republic. It was in the Congress of Modena, and in the
subsequent Assembly of Reggio (Dec. 23), that the idea of Italian
unity and independence first awoke the enthusiasm of any
considerable body of men. With what degree of sincerity Bonaparte
himself acted may be judged from the circumstance that, while he
harangued the Cispadanes on the necessity of Italian union, he
imprisoned the Milanese who attempted to excite a popular
movement for the purpose of extending this union to themselves.
Peace was not yet made with Austria, and it was uncertain to what
account Milan might best be turned.</p>
<p>[Rivoli, Jan. 14, 15, 1797.]</p>
<p>[Arcola, Nov. 15-17.]</p>
<p>Mantua still held out, and in November the relieving
operations of the Austrians were renewed. Two armies, commanded
by Allvintzy and Davidovich, descended the valleys of the Adige
and the Piave, offering to Bonaparte, whose centre was at Verona,
a new opportunity of crushing his enemy in detail. Allvintzy,
coming from the Piave, brought the French into extreme danger in
a three days' battle at Arcola, but was at last forced to retreat
with heavy loss. Davidovich, who had been successful on the
Adige, retired on learning the overthrow of his colleague. Two
months more passed, and the Austrians for the third time appeared
on the Adige. A feint made below Verona nearly succeeded in
drawing Bonaparte away from Rivoli, between the Adige and Lake
Garda, where Allvintzy and his main army were about to make the
assault; but the strength of Allvintzy's force was discovered
before it was too late, and by throwing his divisions from point
to point with extraordinary rapidity, Bonaparte at length
overwhelmed the Austrians in every quarter of the battle-field.
This was their last effort. The surrender of Mantua on the 2nd
February, 1797, completed the French conquest of Austrian
Lombardy. <a name="FNanchor56">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_56"><sup>[56]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Peace of Tolentino, Feb. 19, 1797.]</p>
<p>The Pope now found himself left to settle his account with the
invaders, against whom, even after the armistice, he had never
ceased to intrigue. <a name="FNanchor57">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> His despatches to Vienna fell
into the hands of Bonaparte, who declared the truce broken, and a
second time invaded the Papal territory. A show of resistance was
made by the Roman troops; but the country was in fact at the
mercy of Bonaparte, who advanced as far as Tolentino, thirty
miles south of Ancona. Here the Pope tendered his submission. If
the Roman Court had never appeared to be in a more desperate
condition, it had never found a more moderate or a more politic
conqueror. Bonaparte was as free from any sentiment of Christian
piety as Nero or Diocletian; but he respected the power of the
Papacy over men's minds, and he understood the immense advantage
which any Government of France supported by the priesthood would
possess over those who had to struggle with its hostility. In his
negotiations with the Papal envoys he deplored the violence of
the French Executive, and consoled the Church with the promise of
his own protection and sympathy. The terms of peace which he
granted, although they greatly diminished the ecclesiastical
territory were in fact more favourable than the Pope had any
right to expect. Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna, which had
been occupied in virtue of the armistice, were now ceded by the
Papacy. But conditions affecting the exercise of the spiritual
power which had been proposed by the Directory were withdrawn;
and, beyond a provision for certain payments in money, nothing of
importance was added to the stipulations of the armistice.</p>
<p>The last days of the Venetian Republic were now at hand. It
was in vain that Venice had maintained its neutrality when all
the rest of Italy joined the enemies of France; its refusal of a
French alliance was made an unpardonable crime. So long as the
war with Austria lasted, Bonaparte exhausted the Venetian
territory with requisitions: when peace came within view, it was
necessary that he should have some pretext for seizing it or
handing it over to the enemy. In fulfilment of his own design of
keeping a quarrel open, he had subjected the Government to every
insult and wrong likely to goad it into an act of war. When at
length Venice armed for the purpose of protecting its neutrality,
the organs of the invader called upon the inhabitants of the
Venetian mainland to rise against the oligarchy, and to throw in
their lot with the liberated province of Milan. A French alliance
was once more urged upon Venice by Bonaparte: it was refused, and
the outbreak which the French had prepared instantly followed.
Bergamo and Brescia, where French garrisons deprived the Venetian
Government of all power of defence, rose in revolt, and renounced
all connection with Venice. The Senate begged Bonaparte to
withdraw the French garrisons; its entreaties drew nothing from
him but repeated demands for the acceptance of the French
alliance, which was only another name for subjection. Little as
the Venetians suspected it, the only doubt now present to
Bonaparte was whether he should add the provinces of Venetia to
his own Cispadane Republic or hand them over to Austria in
exchange for other cessions which France required.</p>
<p>[Preliminaries of Leoben, April 18.]</p>
<p>Austria could defend itself in Italy no longer. Before the end
of March the mountain-passes into Carinthia were carried by
Bonaparte. His army drove the enemy before it along the road to
Vienna, until both pursuers and pursued were within eighty miles
of the capital. At Leoben, on the 7th of April, Austrian
commander asked for a suspension of arms. It was granted, and
negotiations for peace commenced. <a name="FNanchor58">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> Bonaparte offered the
Venetian provinces, but not the city of Venice, to the Emperor.
On the 18th of April preliminaries of peace were signed at
Leoben, by which, in return for the Netherlands and for Lombardy
west of the river Oglio, Bonaparte secretly agreed to hand over
to Austria the whole of the territory of Venice upon the mainland
east of the Oglio, in addition to its Adriatic provinces of
Istria and Dalmatia. To disguise the act of spoliation, it was
pretended that Bologna and Ferrara should be offered to Venice in
return. <a name="FNanchor59">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p>
<p>[French enter Venice.]</p>
<p>But worse was yet to come. While Bonaparte was in conference
at Leoben, an outbreak took place at Verona, and three hundred
French soldiers, including the sick in the hospital, perished by
popular violence. The Venetian Senate despatched envoys to
Bonaparte to express their grief and to offer satisfaction; in
the midst of the negotiations intelligence arrived that the
commander of a Venetian fort had fired upon a French vessel and
killed some of the crew. Bonaparte drove the envoys from his
presence, declaring that he could not treat with men whose hands
were dripping with French blood. A declaration of war was
published, charging the Senate with the design of repeating the
Sicilian Vespers, and the panic which it was Bonaparte's object
to inspire instantly followed. The Government threw themselves
upon his mercy. Bonaparte pretended that he desired no more than
to establish a popular government in Venice in the place of the
oligarchy. His terms were accepted. The Senate consented to
abrogate the ancient Constitution of the Republic, and to
introduce a French garrison into Venice. On the 12th of May the
Grand Council voted its own dissolution. Peace was concluded. The
public articles of the treaty declared that there should be
friendship between the French and the Venetian Republics; that
the sovereignty of Venice should reside in the body of the
citizens; and that the French garrison should retire so soon as
the new Government announced that it had no further need of its
support. Secret articles stipulated for a money payment, and for
the usual surrender of works of art; an indefinite expression
relating to an exchange of territory was intended to cover the
surrender of the Venetian mainland, and the union of Bologna and
Ferrara with what remained of Venice. The friendship and alliance
of France, which Bonaparte had been so anxious to bestow on
Venice, were now to bear their fruit. "I shall do everything in
my power," he wrote to the new Government of Venice, "to give you
proof of the great desire I have to see your liberty take root,
and to see this unhappy Italy, freed from the rule of the
stranger, at length take its place with glory on the scene of the
world, and resume, among the great nations, the rank to which
nature, destiny, and its own position call it." This was for
Venice; for the French Directory Bonaparte had a very different
tale. "I had several motives," he wrote (May 19), "in concluding
the treaty:-to enter the city without difficulty; to have the
arsenal and all else in our possession, in order to take from it
whatever we needed, under pretext of the secret articles; ... to
evade the odium attaching to the Preliminaries of Leoben; to
furnish pretexts for them, and to facilitate their
execution."</p>
<p>[French seize Ionian islands.]</p>
<p>[Venice to be given to Austria.]</p>
<p>As the first fruits of the Venetian alliance, Bonaparte seized
upon Corfu and the other Ionian Islands. "You will start," he
wrote to General Gentili, "as quickly and as secretly as
possible, and take possession of all the Venetian establishments
in the Levant.... If the inhabitants should be inclined for
independence, you should flatter their tastes, and in all your
proclamations you should not fail to allude to Greece, Athens,
and Sparta." This was to be the French share in the spoil. Yet
even now, though stripped of its islands, its coasts, and its
ancient Italian territory, Venice might still have remained a
prominent city in Italy. It was sacrificed in order to gain the
Rhenish Provinces for France. Bonaparte had returned to the
neighbourhood of Milan, and received the Austrian envoy, De
Gallo, at the villa of Montebello. Wresting a forced meaning from
the Preliminaries of Leoben, Bonaparte claimed the frontier of
the Rhine, offering to Austria not only the territory of Venice
upon the mainland, but the city of Venice itself. De Gallo
yielded. Whatever causes subsequently prolonged the negotiation,
no trace of honour or pity in Bonaparte led him even to feign a
reluctance to betray Venice. "We have to-day had our first
conference on the definitive treaty," he wrote to the Directory,
on the night of the 26th of May, "and have agreed to present the
following propositions: the line of the Rhine for France;
Salzburg, Passau for the Emperor; ... the maintenance of the
Germanic Body; ... Venice for the Emperor. Venice," he continued,
"which has been in decadence since the discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope and the rise of Trieste and Ancona, can scarcely
survive the blows we have just struck. With a cowardly and
helpless population in no way fit for liberty, without territory
and without rivers, it is but natural that she should go to those
to whom we give the mainland." Thus was Italy to be freed from
foreign intervention; and thus was Venice to be regenerated by
the friendship of France!</p>
<p>[Genoa.]</p>
<p>In comparison with the fate preparing for Venice, the
sister-republic of Genoa met with generous treatment. A
revolutionary movement, long prepared by the French envoy,
overthrew the ancient oligarchical Government; but democratic
opinion and French sympathies did not extend below the middle
classes of the population; and, after the Government had
abandoned its own cause, the charcoal-burners and dock-labourers
rose in its defence, and attacked the French party with the cry
of "Viva Maria," and with figures of the Virgin fastened to their
hats, in the place where their opponents wore the French
tricolour. Religious fanaticism won the day; the old Government
was restored, and a number of Frenchmen who had taken part in the
conflict were thrown into prison. The imprisonment of the
Frenchmen gave Bonaparte a pretext for intervention. He
disclaimed all desire to alter the Government, and demanded only
the liberation of his countrymen and the arrest of the enemies of
France. But the overthrow of the oligarchy had been long arranged
with Faypoult, the French envoy; and Genoa received a democratic
constitution which place the friends of France in power (June
5).</p>
<p>[France in 1797.]</p>
<p>While Bonaparte, holding Court in the Villa of Montebello,
continued to negotiate with Austria upon the basis of the
Preliminaries of Leoben, events took place in France which
offered him an opportunity of interfering directly in the
government of the Republic. The elections which were to replace
one-third of the members of the Legislature took place in the
spring of 1797. The feeling of the country was now much the same
as it had been in 1795, when a large Royalist element was
returned for those seats in the Councils which the Convention had
not reserved for its own members. France desired a more equitable
and a more tolerant rule. The Directory had indeed allowed the
sanguinary laws against non-juring priests and returning
emigrants to remain unenforced; but the spirit and traditions of
official Jacobinism were still active in the Government. The
Directors themselves were all regicides; the execution of the
King was still celebrated by a national <i>f&ecirc;te</i>;
offices, great and small, were held by men who had risen in the
Revolution; the whole of the old gentry of France was excluded
from participation in public life. It was against this
revolutionary class-rule, against a system which placed the
country as much at the mercy of a few directors and generals as
it had been at the mercy of the Conventional Committee, that the
elections of 1797 were a protest. Along with certain Bourbonist
conspirators, a large majority of men were returned who, though
described as Royalists, were in fact moderate Constitutionalists,
and desired only to undo that part of the Revolution which
excluded whole classes of the nation from public life. <a name=
"FNanchor60">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_60"><sup>[60]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Opposition to the Directory.]</p>
<p>Such a party in the legislative body naturally took the
character of an Opposition to the more violent section of the
Directory. The Director retiring in 1797 was replaced by the
Constitutionalist Barth&eacute;lemy, negotiator of the treaty of
Basle; Carnot, who continued in office, took part with the
Opposition, justly fearing that the rule of the Directory would
soon amount to nothing more than the rule of Bonaparte himself.
The first debates in the new Chamber arose upon the laws relating
to emigrants; the next, upon Bonaparte's usurpation of sovereign
power in Italy. On the 23rd of June a motion for information on
the affairs of Venice and Genoa was brought forward in the
Council of Five Hundred. Dumolard, the mover, complained of the
secrecy of Bonaparte's action, of the contempt shown by him to
the Assembly, of his tyrannical and un-republican interference
with the institutions of friendly States. No resolution was
adopted by the Assembly; but the mere fact that the Assembly had
listened to a hostile criticism of his own actions was sufficient
ground in Bonaparte's eyes to charge it with Royalism and with
treason. Three of the Directors, Barras, Rewbell, and
Lar&eacute;veill&egrave;re, had already formed the project of
overpowering the Assembly by force. Bonaparte's own interests led
him to offer them his support. If the Constitutional party gained
power, there was an end to his own unshackled rule in Italy; if
the Bourbonists succeeded, a different class of men would hold
all the honours of the State. However feeble the Government of
the Directory, its continuance secured his own present
ascendency, and left him the hope of gaining supreme power when
the public could tolerate the Directory no longer.</p>
<p>[Coup d'&eacute;tat, 17 Fructidor (Sept. 3).]</p>
<p>The fate of the Assembly was sealed. On the anniversary of the
capture of the Bastille, Bonaparte issued a proclamation to his
army declaring the Republic to be threatened by Royalist
intrigues. A banquet was held, and the officers and soldiers of
every division signed addresses to the Directory full of threats
and fury against conspiring aristocrats. "Indignation is at its
height in the army," wrote Bonaparte to the Government; "the
soldiers are asking with loud cries whether they are to be
rewarded by assassination on their return home, as it appears all
patriots are to be so dealt with. The peril is increasing every
day, and I think, citizen Directors, you must decide to act one
way or other." The Directors had no difficulty in deciding after
such an exhortation as this; but, as soon as Bonaparte had worked
up their courage, he withdrew into the background, and sent
General Augereau, a blustering Jacobin, to Paris, to risk the
failure or bear the odium of the crime. Augereau received the
military command of the capital; the air was filled with rumours
of an impending blow; but neither the majority in the Councils
nor the two threatened Directors, Carnot and Barth&eacute;lemy,
knew how to take measures of defence. On the night of the 3rd
September (17 Fructidor) the troops of Augereau surrounded the
Tuileries. Barth&eacute;lemy was seized at the Luxembourg; Carnot
fled for his life; the members of the Councils, marching in
procession to the Tuileries early the next morning, were arrested
or dispersed by the soldiers. Later in the day a minority of the
Councils was assembled to ratify the measures determined upon by
Augereau and the three Directors. Fifty members of the
Legislature, and the writers, proprietors, and editors of
forty-two journals, were sentenced to exile; the elections of
forty-eight departments were annulled; the laws against priests
and emigrants were renewed; and the Directory was empowered to
suppress all journals at its pleasure. This coup d'&eacute;tat
was described as the suppression of a Royalist conspiracy. It was
this, but it was something more. It was the suppression of all
Constitutional government, and all but the last step to the
despotism of the chief of the army.</p>
<p>[Peace signed with Austria, Oct. 17.]</p>
<p>The effect of the movement was instantly felt in the
negotiations with Austria and with England. Lord Malmesbury was
now again in France, treating for peace with fair hopes of
success, since the Preliminaries of Leoben had removed England's
opposition to the cession of the Netherlands, the discomfiture of
the moderate party in the Councils brought his mission to an
abrupt end. Austria, on the other hand, had prolonged its
negotiations because Bonaparte claimed Mantua and the Rhenish
Provinces in addition to the cessions agreed upon at Leoben.
Count Ludwig Cobenzl, Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg, who
had protected his master's interests only too well in the last
partition of Poland, was now at the head of the plenipotentiaries
in Italy, endeavouring to bring Bonaparte back to the terms fixed
in the Preliminaries, or to gain additional territory for Austria
in Italy. The Jacobin victory at Paris depressed the Austrians as
much as it elated the French leader. Bonaparte was resolved on
concluding a peace that should be all his own, and this was only
possible by anticipating an invasion of Germany, about to be
undertaken by Augereau at the head of the Army of the Rhine. It
was to this personal ambition of Bonaparte that Venice was
sacrificed. The Directors were willing that Austria should
receive part of the Venetian territory: they forbade the proposed
cession of Venice itself. Within a few weeks more, the advance of
the Army of the Rhine would have enabled France to dictate its
own terms; but no consideration either for France or for Italy
could induce Bonaparte to share the glory of the Peace with
another. On the 17th of October he signed the final treaty of
Campo Formio, which gave France the frontier of the Rhine, and
made both the Venetian territory beyond the Adige and Venice
itself the property of the Emperor. For a moment it seemed that
the Treaty might be repudiated at Vienna as well as at Paris.
Thugut protested against it, because it surrendered Mantua and
the Rhenish Provinces without gaining for Austria the Papal
Legations; and he drew up the ratification only at the absolute
command of the Emperor. The Directory, on the other hand,
condemned the cession of Venice. But their fear of Bonaparte and
their own bad conscience left them impotent accessories of his
treachery; and the French nation at large was too delighted with
the peace to resent its baser conditions. <a name=
"FNanchor61">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_61"><sup>[61]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Treaty of Campo Formio, Oct. 17.]</p>
<p>By the public articles of the Treaty of Campo Formio, the
Emperor ceded to France the Austrian possessions in Lombardy and
in the Netherlands, and agreed to the establishment of a
Cisalpine Republic, formed out of Austrian Lombardy, the Venetian
territory west of the Adige, and the districts hitherto composing
the new Cispadane State. France took the Ionian Islands, Austria
the City of Venice, with Istria and Dalmatia, and the Venetian
mainland east of the Adige. For the conclusion of peace between
France and the Holy Roman Empire, it was agreed that a Congress
should meet at Rastadt; but a secret article provided that the
Emperor should use his efforts to gain for France the whole left
bank of the Rhine, except a tract including the Prussian Duchies
of Cleve and Guelders. With humorous duplicity the French
Government, which had promised Prussia the Bishopric of
M&uuml;nster in return for this very district, now pledged itself
to Austria that Prussia should receive no extension whatever, and
affected to exclude the Prussian Duchies from the Rhenish
territory which was to be made over to France. Austria was
promised the independent Bishopric of Salzburg, and that portion
of Bavaria which lies between the Inn and the Salza. The secular
princes dispossessed in the Rhenish Provinces were to be
compensated in the interior of the Empire by a scheme framed in
concert with France.</p>
<p>[Austria sacrifices Germany.]</p>
<p>The immense advantages which the Treaty of Campo Formio gave
to France-its extension over the Netherlands and the Rhenish
Provinces, and the virtual annexation of Lombardy, Modena, and
the Papal Legations under the form of a client republic-were not
out of proportion to its splendid military successes. Far
otherwise was it with Austria. With the exception of the
Archduke's campaign of 1796, the warfare of the last three years
had brought Austria nothing but a series of disasters; yet
Austria gained by the Treaty of Campo Formio as much as it lost.
In the place of the distant Netherlands and of Milan it gained,
in Venice and Dalmatia, a territory touching its own, nearly
equal to the Netherlands and Milan together in population, and so
situated as to enable Austria to become one of the naval Powers
of the Mediterranean. The price which Austria paid was the
abandonment of Germany, a matter which, in spite of Thugut's
protests, disturbed the Court of Vienna as little as the betrayal
of Venice disturbed Bonaparte. The Rhenish Provinces were
surrendered to the stranger; German districts were to be handed
over to compensate the ejected Sovereigns of Holland and of
Modena; the internal condition and order of the Empire were to be
superseded by one framed not for the purpose of benefiting
Germany, but for the purpose of extending the influence of
France.</p>
<p>[Policy of Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>As defenders of Germany, both Prussia and Austria had been
found wanting. The latter Power seemed to have reaped in Italy
the reward of its firmness in prolonging the war. Bonaparte
ridiculed the men who, in the earlier spirit of the Revolution,
desired to found a freer political system in Europe upon the
ruins of Austria's power. "I have not drawn my support in Italy,"
he wrote to Talleyrand (Oct. 7), "from the love of the peoples
for liberty and equality, or at least but a very feeble support.
The real support of the army of Italy has been its own
discipline, ... above all, our promptitude in repressing
malcontents and punishing those who declared against us. This is
history; what I say in my proclamations and speeches is a
romance.... If we return to the foreign policy of 1793, we shall
do so knowing that a different policy has brought us success, and
that we have no longer the great masses of 1793 to enrol in our
armies, nor the support of an enthusiasm which has its day and
does not return." Austria might well, for the present, be left in
some strength, and France was fortunate to have so dangerous an
enemy off her hands. England required the whole forces of the
Republic. "The present situation," wrote Bonaparte, after the
Peace of Campo Formio, "offers us a good chance. We must set all
our strength upon the sea; we must destroy England; and the
Continent is at our feet."</p>
<p>[Battles of St. Vincent, Feb. 14, 1797, and Camperdown, Oct.
6.]</p>
<p>It had been the natural hope of the earlier Republicans that
the Spanish and the Dutch navies, if they could be brought to the
side of France, would make France superior to Great Britain as a
maritime Power. The conquest of Holland had been planned by
Carnot as the first step towards an invasion of England. For a
while these plans seemed to be approaching their fulfilment,
Holland was won; Spain first made peace, and then entered into
alliance with the Directory (Aug. 1796). But each increase in the
naval forces of the Republic only gave the admirals of Great
Britain new material to destroy. The Spanish fleet was beaten by
Jarvis off St. Vincent; even the mutiny of the British squadrons
at Spithead and the Nore, in the spring and summer of 1797,
caused no change in the naval situation in the North Sea. Duncan,
who was blockading the Dutch fleet in the Texel when his own
squadron joined the mutineers, continued the blockade with one
ship beside his own, signalling all the while as if the whole
fleet were at his back; until the misused seamen, who had lately
turned their guns upon the Thames, returned to the admiral, and
earned his forgiveness by destroying the Dutch at Camperdown as
soon as they ventured out of shelter.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte about to invade Egypt.]</p>
<p>It is doubtful whether at any time after his return from Italy
Bonaparte seriously entertained the project of invading England.
The plan was at any rate soon abandoned, and the preparations,
which caused great alarm in the English coast-towns, were
continued only for the purpose of disguising Bonaparte's real
design of an attack upon Egypt. From the beginning of his career
Bonaparte's thoughts had turned towards the vast and undefended
East. While still little known, he had asked the French
Government to send him to Constantinople to organise the Turkish
army; as soon as Venice fell into his hands, he had seized the
Ionian Islands as the base for a future conquest of the Levant.
Every engagement that confirmed the superiority of England upon
the western seas gave additional reason for attacking her where
her power was most precarious, in the East. Bonaparte knew that
Alexander had conquered the country of the Indus by a land-march
from the Mediterranean, and this was perhaps all the information
which he possessed regarding the approaches to India; but it was
enough to fix his mind upon the conquest of Egypt and Syria, as
the first step towards the destruction of the Asiatic Empire of
England. Mingled with the design upon India was a dream of
overthrowing the Mohammedan Government of Turkey, and attacking
Austria from the East with an army drawn from the liberated
Christian races of the Ottoman Empire. The very vagueness of a
scheme of Eastern conquest made it the more attractive to
Bonaparte's genius and ambition. Nor was there any inclination on
the part of the Government to detain the general at home. The
Directory, little concerned with the real merits or dangers of
the enterprise, consented to Bonaparte's project of an attack
upon Egypt, thankful for any opportunity of loosening the grasp
which was now closing so firmly upon themselves.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_IV.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c4">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Congress of Rastadt-The Rhenish Provinces ceded-Ecclesiastical
States of Germany suppressed-French intervention in
Switzerland-Helvetic Republic- The French invade the Papal
States-Roman Republic-Expedition to Egypt- Battle of the
Nile-Coalition of 1798-Ferdinand of Naples enters Rome-Mack's
defeats-French enter Naples-Parthenopean Republic-War with
Austria and Russia-Battle of Stockach-Murder of the French Envoys
at Rastadt-Campaign in Lombardy-Reign of Terror at
Naples-Austrian designs upon Italy-Suvaroff and the
Austrians-Campaign in Switzerland-Campaign in Holland-Bonaparte
returns from Egypt-Coup d'&eacute;tat of 18 Brumaire-
Constitution of 1799-System of Bonaparte in France-Its effect on
the influence of France abroad.</p>
<br>

<p>[Congress of Rastadt, Nov. 1797.]</p>
<p>The public articles of the Treaty of Campo Formio contained
only the terms which had been agreed upon by France and Austria
in relation to Italy and the Netherlands: the conditions of peace
between France and the Germanic Body, which had been secretly
arranged between France and the two leading Powers, were referred
by a diplomatic fiction to a Congress that was to assemble at
Rastadt. Accordingly, after Prussia and Austria had each signed
an agreement abandoning the Rhenish Provinces, the Congress was
duly summoned. As if in mockery of his helpless countrymen, the
Emperor informed the members of the Diet that "in unshaken
fidelity to the great principle of the unity and indivisibility
of the German Empire, they were to maintain the common interests
of the Fatherland with noble conscientiousness and German
steadfastness; and so, united with their imperial head, to
promote a just and lasting peace, founded upon the basis of the
integrity of the Empire and of its Constitution." <a name=
"FNanchor62">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_62"><sup>[62]</sup></a> Thus
the Congress was convoked upon the pretence of preserving what
the two greater States had determined to sacrifice; while its
real object, the suppression of the ecclesiastical principalities
and the curtailment of Bavaria, was studiously put out of
sight.</p>
<p>[Rivalry of the Germans.]</p>
<p>The Congress was composed of two French envoys, of the
representatives of Prussia and Austria, and of a committee,
numbering with their secretaries seventy-four persons, appointed
by the Diet of Ratisbon. But the recognised negotiators formed
only a small part of the diplomatists who flocked to Rastadt in
the hope of picking up something from the wreck of the Empire.
Every petty German sovereign, even communities which possessed no
political rights at all, thought it necessary to have an agent on
the spot, in order to filch, if possible, some trifling advantage
from a neighbour, or to catch the first rumour of a proposed
annexation. It was the saturnalia of the whole tribe of
busybodies and intriguers who passed in Germany for men of state.
They spied upon one another; they bribed the secretaries and
doorkeepers, they bribed the very cooks and coachmen, of the two
omnipotent French envoys. Of the national humiliation of Germany,
of the dishonour attaching to the loss of entire provinces and
the reorganisation of what remained at the bidding of the
stranger, there seems to have been no sense in the political
circles of the day. The collapse of the Empire was viewed rather
as a subject of merriment. A gaiety of life and language
prevailed, impossible among men who did not consider themselves
as the spectators of a comedy. Cobenzl, the chief Austrian
plenipotentiary, took his travels in a fly, because his mistress,
the <i>citoyenne</i> Hyacinthe, had decamped with all his
carriages and horses. A witty but profane pamphlet was
circulated, in which the impending sacrifice of the Empire was
described in language borrowed from the Gospel narrative, Prussia
taking the part of Judas Iscariot, Austria that of Pontius
Pilate, the Congress itself being the chief priests and Pharisees
assembling that they may take the Holy Roman Empire by craft,
while the army of the Empire figures as the "multitude who smote
upon their breasts and departed." In the utter absence of any
German pride or patriotism the French envoys not only obtained
the territory that they required, but successfully embroiled the
two leading Powers with one another, and accustomed the minor
States to look to France for their own promotion at the cost of
their neighbours. The contradictory pledges which the French
Government had given to Austria and to Prussia caused it no
embarrassment. To deceive one of the two powers was to win the
gratitude of the other; and the Directory determined to fulfil
its engagement to Prussia at the expense of the bishoprics, and
to ignore what it had promised to Austria at the expense of
Bavaria.</p>
<p>[Rhenish Provinces.]</p>
<p>[Ecclesiastical States suppressed.]</p>
<p>A momentary difficulty arose upon the opening of the Congress,
when it appeared that, misled by the Emperor's protestations, the
Diet had only empowered its Committee to treat upon the basis of
the integrity of the Empire (Dec. 9). The French declined to
negotiate until the Committee had procured full powers: and the
prospects of the integrity of the Empire were made clear enough a
few days later by the entry of the French into Mainz, and the
formal organisation of the Rhenish Provinces as four French
Departments. In due course a decree of the Diet arrived,
empowering the Committee to negotiate at their discretion: and
for some weeks after the inhabitants of the Rhenish Provinces had
been subjected to the laws, the magistracy, and the taxation of
France, the Committee deliberated upon the proposal for their
cession with as much minuteness and as much impartiality as if it
had been a point of speculative philosophy. At length the French
put an end to the tedious trifling, and proceeded to the question
of compensation for the dispossessed lay Princes. This they
proposed to effect by means of the disestablishment, or
secularisation, of ecclesiastical States in the interior of
Germany. Prussia eagerly supported the French proposal, both with
a view to the annexation of the great Bishopric of M&uuml;nster,
and from ancient hostility to the ecclesiastical States as
instruments and allies of Catholic Austria. The Emperor opposed
the destruction of his faithful dependents; the ecclesiastical
princes themselves raised a bitter outcry, and demonstrated that
the fall of their order would unloose the keystone of the
political system of Europe; but they found few friends. If
Prussia coveted the great spoils of M&uuml;nster, the minor
sovereigns, as a rule, wore just as eager for the convents and
abbeys that broke the continuity of their own territories: only
the feeblest of all the members of the Empire, the counts, the
knights, and the cities, felt a respectful sympathy for their
ecclesiastical neighbours, and foresaw that in a system of
annexation their own turn would come next. The principle of
secularisation was accepted by the Congress without much
difficulty, all the energy of debate being reserved for the
discussion of details: arrangements which were to transfer a few
miles of ground and half a dozen custom-houses from some bankrupt
ecclesiastic to some French-bought duke excited more interest in
Germany than the loss of the Rhenish Provinces, and the
subjection of a tenth part of the German nation to a foreign
rule.</p>
<p>[Austria determines on war, 1798.]</p>
<p>One more question was unexpectedly presented to the Congress.
After proclaiming for six years that the Rhine was the natural
boundary of France, the French Government discovered that a river
cannot be a military frontier at all. Of what service, urged the
French plenipotentiaries, were Strasburg and Mainz, so long as
they were commanded by the guns on the opposite bank? If the
Rhine was to be of any use to France, France must be put in
possession of the fortresses of Kehl and Castel upon the German
side. Outrageous as such a demand appears, it found supporters
among the venal politicians of the smaller Courts, and furnished
the Committee with material for arguments that extended over four
months. But the policy of Austria was now taking a direction that
rendered the resolutions of the Congress of very little
importance. It had become clear that France was inclining to an
alliance with Prussia, and that the Bavarian annexations promised
to Austria by the secret articles of Campo Formio were to be
withheld. Once convinced, by the failure of a private negotiation
in Alsace, that the French would neither be content with their
gains of 1797, nor permit Austria to extend its territory in
Italy, Thugut determined upon a renewal of the war. <a name=
"FNanchor63">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_63"><sup>[63]</sup></a> In
spite of a powerful opposition at Court, Thugut's stubborn will
still controlled the fortune of Austria: and the aggressions of
the French Republic in Switzerland and the Papal States, at the
moment when it was dictating terms of peace to the Empire, gave
only too much cause for the formation of a new European
league.</p>
<p>[French intervention in Switzerland.]</p>
<p>At the close of the last century there was no country where
the spirit of Republican freedom was so strong, or where the
conditions of life were so level, as in Switzerland; its
inhabitants, however, were far from enjoying complete political
equality. There were districts which stood in the relation of
subject dependencies to one or other of the ruling cantons: the
Pays de Vaud was governed by an officer from Berne; the valley of
the Ticino belonged to Uri; and in most of the sovereign cantons
themselves authority was vested in a close circle of patrician
families. Thus, although Switzerland was free from the more
oppressive distinctions of caste, and the Governments, even where
not democratic, were usually just and temperate, a sufficiently
large class was excluded from political rights to give scope to
an agitation which received its impulse from Paris. It was indeed
among communities advanced in comfort and intelligence, and
divided from those who governed them by no great barrier of
wealth and prestige, that the doctrines of the Revolution found a
circulation which they could never gain among the hereditary
serfs of Prussia or the priest-ridden peasantry of the Roman
States. As early as the year 1792 a French army had entered the
territory of Geneva, in order to co-operate with the democratic
party in the city. The movement was, however, checked by the
resolute action of the Bernese Senate; and the relations of
France to the Federal Government had subsequently been kept upon
a friendly footing by the good sense of Barth&eacute;lemy, the
French ambassador at Berne, and the discretion with which the
Swiss Government avoided every occasion of offence. On the
conquest of Northern Italy, Bonaparte was brought into direct
connection with Swiss affairs by a reference of certain points in
dispute to his authority as arbitrator. Bonaparte solved the
difficulty by annexing the district of the Valteline to the
Cisalpine Republic; and from that time he continued in
communication with the Swiss democratic leaders on the subject of
a French intervention in Switzerland, the real purpose of which
was to secure the treasure of Berne, and to organise a
government, like that of Holland and the Cisalpine Republic, in
immediate dependence upon France.</p>
<p>[Helvetic Republic, April 12.]</p>
<p>[War between France and Swiss Federation, June, 1798.]</p>
<p>At length the moment for armed interference arrived. On the
15th December, 1797, a French force entered the Bishopric of
Basle, and gave the signal for insurrection in the Pays de Vaud.
The Senate of Berne summoned the Diet of the Confederacy to
provide for the common defence: the oath of federation was
renewed, and a decree was passed calling out the Federal army. It
was now announced by the French that they would support the
Vaudois revolutionary party, if attacked. The Bernese troops,
however, advanced; and the bearer of a flag of truce having been
accidentally killed, war was declared between the French Republic
and the Government of Berne. Democratic movements immediately
followed in the northern and western cantons; the Bernese
Government attempted to negotiate with the French invaders, but
discovered that no terms would be accepted short of the entire
destruction of the existing Federal Constitution. Hostilities
commenced; and the Bernese troops, supported by contingents from
most of the other cantons, offered a brave but ineffectual
resistance to the advance of the French, who entered the Federal
capital on the 6th of March, 1798. The treasure of Berne,
amounting to about &pound;800,000, accumulated by ages of thrift
and good management, was seized in order to provide for
Bonaparte's next campaign, and for a host of voracious soldiers
and contractors. A system of robbery and extortion, more
shameless even than that practised in Italy, was put in force
against the cantonal governments, against the monasteries, and
against private individuals. In compensation for the material
losses inflicted upon the country, the new Helvetic Republic, one
and indivisible, was proclaimed at Aarau. It conferred an
equality of political rights upon all natives of Switzerland, and
substituted for the ancient varieties of cantonal sovereignty a
single national government, composed, like that of France, of a
Directory and two Councils of Legislature.</p>
<p>The towns and districts which had been hitherto excluded from
a share in government welcomed a change which seemed to place
them on a level with their former superiors: the mountain-cantons
fought with traditional heroism in defence of the liberties which
they had inherited from their fathers; but they were compelled,
one after another, to submit to the overwhelming force of France,
and to accept the new constitution. Yet, even now, when peace
seemed to have been restored, and the whole purpose of France
attained, the tyranny and violence of the invaders exhausted the
endurance of a spirited people. The magistrates of the Republic
were expelled from office at the word of a French Commission;
hostages were seized; at length an oath of allegiance to the new
order was required as a condition for the evacuation of
Switzerland by the French army. Revolt broke out in Unterwalden,
and a handful of peasants met the French army at the village of
Stanz, near the eastern shore of the Lake of Lucerne (Sept. 8).
There for three days they fought with unyielding courage. Their
resistance inflamed the French to a cruel vengeance; slaughtered
families and burning villages renewed, in this so-called crusade
of liberty, the savagery of ancient war.</p>
<p>[French intrigues in Rome.]</p>
<p>Intrigues at Rome paved the way for a French intervention in
the affairs of the Papal States, coincident in time with the
invasion of Switzerland. The residence of the French ambassador
at Rome, Joseph Bonaparte, was the centre of a democratic
agitation. The men who moved about him were in great part
strangers from the north of Italy, but they found adherents in
the middle and professional classes in Rome itself, although the
mass of the poor people, as well as the numerous body whose
salaries or profits depended upon ecclesiastical expenditure,
were devoted to the priests and the Papacy. In anticipation of
disturbances, the Government ordered companies of soldiers to
patrol the city. A collision occurred on the 28th December, 1797,
between the patrols and a band of revolutionists, who, being
roughly handled by the populace as well as by the soldiers, made
their way for protection to the courtyard of the Palazzo Corsini,
where Joseph Bonaparte resided. Here, in the midst of a confused
struggle, General Duphot, a member of the Embassy, was shot by a
Papal soldier. <a name="FNanchor64">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_64"><sup>[64]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Berthier enters Rome, Feb. 10, 1798.]</p>
<p>[Roman Republic, Feb. 15, 1798.]</p>
<p>The French had now the pretext against the Papal Government
which they desired. Joseph Bonaparte instantly left the city, and
orders were sent to Berthier, chief of the staff in northern
Italy, to march upon Rome. Berthier advanced amid the
acclamations of the towns and the curses of the peasantry, and
entered Rome on the 10th of February, 1798. Events had produced
in the capital a much stronger inclination towards change than
existed on the approach of Bonaparte a year before. The treaty of
Tolentino had shaken the prestige of Papal authority; the loss of
so many well-known works of art, the imposition of new and
unpopular taxes, had excited as much hatred against the defeated
government as against the extortionate conquerors; even among the
clergy and their retainers the sale of a portion of the
Church-lands and the curtailment of the old Papal splendours had
produced alienation and discontent. There existed too within the
Italian Church itself a reforming party, lately headed by Ricci,
bishop of Pistoia, which claimed a higher degree of independence
for the clergy, and condemned the assumption of universal
authority by the Roman See. The ill-judged exercise of the Pope's
temporal power during the last six years had gained many converts
to the opinion that the head of the Church would best perform his
office if emancipated from a worldly sovereignty, and restored to
his original position of the first among the bishops. Thus, on
its approach to Rome, the Republican army found the city ripe for
revolution. On the 15th of February an excited multitude
assembled in the Forum, and, after planting the tree of liberty
in front of the Capitol, renounced the authority of the Pope, and
declared that the Roman people constituted itself a free
Republic. The resolution was conveyed to Berthier, who recognised
the Roman Commonwealth, and made a procession through the city
with the solemnity of an ancient triumph. The Pope shut himself
up in the Vatican. His Swiss guard was removed, and replaced by
one composed of French soldiers, at whose hands the Pontiff, now
in his eighty-first year, suffered unworthy insults. He was then
required to renounce his temporal power, and, upon his refusal,
was removed to Tuscany, and afterwards beyond the Alps to
Valence, where in 1799 he died, attended by a solitary
ecclesiastic.</p>
<p>In the liberated capital a course of spoliation began, more
thorough and systematic than any that the French had yet
effected. The riches of Rome brought all the brokers and
contractors of Paris to the spot. The museums, the Papal
residence, and the palaces of many of the nobility were robbed of
every article that could be moved; the very fixtures were cut
away, when worth the carriage. On the first meeting of the
National Institute in the Vatican it was found that the doors had
lost their locks; and when, by order of the French, masses were
celebrated in the churches in expiation of the death of Duphot,
the patrols who were placed at the gates to preserve order rushed
in and seized the sacred vessels. Yet the general robbery was far
less the work of the army than of the agents and contractors sent
by the Government. In the midst of endless peculation the
soldiers were in want of their pay and their food. A sense of the
dishonour done to France arose at length in the subordinate ranks
of the army; and General Massena, who succeeded Berthier, was
forced to quit his command in consequence of the protests of the
soldiery against a system to which Massena had conspicuously
given his personal sanction. It remained to embody the recovered
liberties of Rome in a Republican Constitution, which was, as a
matter of course, a reproduction of the French Directory and
Councils of Legislature, under the practical control of the
French general in command. What Rome had given to the Revolution
in the fashion of classical expressions was now more than repaid.
The Directors were styled Consuls; the divisions of the
Legislature were known as the Senate and the Tribunate; the
Pr&aelig;torship and the Qu&aelig;storship were recalled to life
in the Courts of Justice. That the new era might not want its
classical memorial, a medal was struck, with the image and
superscription of Roman heroism, to "Berthier, the restorer of
the city," and to "Gaul, the salvation of the human race."</p>
<p>[Expedition to Egypt, May, 1798.]</p>
<p>It was in the midst of these enterprises in Switzerland and
Central Italy that the Directory assembled the forces which
Bonaparte was to lead to the East. The port of Expedition to
embarkation was Toulon; and there, on the 9th of May, 1798,
Bonaparte took the command of the most formidable armament that
had ever left the French shores. Great Britain was still but
feebly represented in the Mediterranean, a detachment from St.
Vincent's fleet at Cadiz, placed under the command of Nelson,
being the sole British force in these waters. Heavy
reinforcements were at hand; but in the meantime Nelson had been
driven by stress of weather from his watch upon Toulon. On the
19th of May the French armament put out to sea, its destination
being still kept secret from the soldiers themselves. It appeared
before Malta on the 16th of June. By the treachery of the knights
Bonaparte was put in possession of this stronghold, which he
could not even have attempted to besiege. After a short delay the
voyage was resumed, and the fleet reached Alexandria without
having fallen in with the English, who had now received their
reinforcements. The landing was safely effected, and Alexandria
fell at the first assault. After five days the army advanced upon
Cairo. At the foot of the Pyramids the Mameluke cavalry vainly
threw themselves upon Bonaparte's soldiers. They were repulsed
with enormous loss on their own side and scarcely any on that of
the French. Their camp was stormed; Cairo was occupied; and there
no longer existed a force in Egypt capable of offering any
serious resistance to the invaders.</p>
<p>[Battle of the Nile, Aug. 1.]</p>
<p>But the fortune which had brought Bonaparte's army safe into
the Egyptian capital was destined to be purchased by the utter
destruction of his fleet. Nelson had passed the French in the
night, when, after much perplexity, he decided on sailing in the
direction of Egypt. Arriving at Alexandria before his prey, he
had hurried off in an imaginary pursuit to Rhodes and Crete. At
length he received information which led him to visit Alexandria
a second time. He found the French fleet, numbering thirteen
ships of the line and four frigates, at anchor in Aboukir Bay. <a
name="FNanchor65">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_65"><sup>[65]</sup></a>
His own fleet was slightly inferior in men and guns, but he
entered battle with a presentiment of the completeness of his
victory. Other naval battles have been fought with larger forces;
no destruction was ever so complete as that of the Battle of the
Nile (August 1). Two ships of the line and two frigates, out of
the seventeen sail that met Nelson, alone escaped from his hands.
Of eleven thousand officers and men, nine thousand were taken
prisoners, or perished in the engagement. The army of Bonaparte
was cut off from all hope of support or return; the Republic was
deprived of communication with its best troops and its greatest
general.</p>
<p>[Coalition of 1798.]</p>
<p>A coalition was now gathering against France superior to that
of 1793 in the support of Russia and the Ottoman Empire, although
Spain was now on the side of the Republic, and Prussia, in spite
of the warnings of the last two years, refused to stir from its
neutrality. The death of the Empress Catherine, and the accession
of Paul, had caused a most serious change in the prospects of
Europe. Hitherto the policy of the Russian Court had been to
embroil the Western Powers with one another, and to confine its
efforts against the French Republic to promises and assurances;
with Paul, after an interval of total reaction, the professions
became realities. <a name="FNanchor66">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_66"><sup>[66]</sup></a> No monarch entered so
cordially into Pitt's schemes for a renewal of the European
league; no ally had joined the English minister with a sincerity
so like his own. On the part of the Ottoman Government, the
pretences of friendship with which Bonaparte disguised the
occupation of Egypt were taken at their real worth. War was
declared by the Porte; and a series of negotiations, carried on
during the autumn of 1798, united Russia, England, Turkey, and
Naples in engagements of mutual support against the French
Republic.</p>
<p>[Nelson at Naples, Sept., 1798.]</p>
<p>A Russian army set out on its long march towards the Adriatic:
the levies of Austria prepared for a campaign in the spring of
1799; but to the English Government every moment that elapsed
before actual hostilities was so much time given to
uncertainties; and the man who had won the Battle of the Nile
ridiculed the precaution which had hitherto suffered the French
to spread their intrigues through Italy, and closed the ports of
Sicily and Naples to his own most urgent needs. Towards the end
of September, Nelson appeared in the Bay of Naples, and was
received with a delirium that recalled the most effusive scenes
in the French Revolution. <a name="FNanchor67">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_67"><sup>[67]</sup></a> In the city of Naples, as in
the kingdom generally, the poorest classes were the fiercest
enemies of reform, and the steady allies of the Queen and the
priesthood against that section of the better-educated classes
which had begun to hope for liberty. The system of espionage and
persecution with which the sister of Marie Antoinette avenged
upon her own subjects the sufferings of her kindred had grown
more oppressive with every new victory of the Revolution. In the
summer of 1798 there were men languishing for the fifth year in
prison, whose offences had never been investigated, and whose
relatives were not allowed to know whether they were dead or
alive. A mode of expression, a fashion of dress, the word of an
informer, consigned innocent persons to the dungeon, with the
possibility of torture. In the midst of this tyranny of
suspicion, in the midst of a corruption which made the naval and
military forces of the kingdom worse than useless, King Ferdinand
and his satellites were unwearied in their theatrical invocations
of the Virgin and St. Januarius against the assailants of divine
right and the conquerors of Rome. A Court cowardly almost beyond
the example of Courts, a police that had trained every Neapolitan
to look upon his neighbour as a traitor, an administration that
had turned one of the hardiest races in Europe into soldiers of
notorious and disgraceful cowardice-such were the allies whom
Nelson, ill-fitted for politics by his sailor-like inexperience
and facile vanity, heroic in his tenderness and fidelity, in an
evil hour encouraged to believe themselves invincible because
they possessed his own support. On the 14th of November, 1798,
King Ferdinand published a proclamation, which, without declaring
war on the French, announced that the King intended to occupy the
Papal States and restore the Papal government. The manifesto
disclaimed all intention of conquest, and offered a free pardon
to all compromised persons. Ten days later the Neapolitan army
crossed the frontier, led by the Austrian general, Mack, who
passed among his admirers for the greatest soldier in Europe. <a
name="FNanchor68">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_68"><sup>[68]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Ferdinand enters Rome, Nov. 29.]</p>
<p>The mass of the French troops, about twelve thousand in
number, lay in the neighbourhood of Ancona; Rome and the
intermediate stations were held by small detachments. Had Mack
pushed forward towards the Upper Tiber, his inroad, even if it
failed to crush the separated wings of the French army, must have
forced them to retreat; but, instead of moving with all his
strength through Central Italy, Mack led the bulk of his army
upon Rome, where there was no French force capable of making a
stand, and sent weak isolated columns towards the east of the
peninsula, where the French were strong enough to make a good
defence. On the approach of the Neapolitans to Rome, Championnet,
the French commander, evacuated the city, leaving a garrison in
the Castle of St. Angelo, and fell back on Civita Castellana,
thirty miles north of the capital. The King of Naples entered
Rome on the 29th November. The restoration of religion was
celebrated by the erection of an immense cross in the place of
the tree of liberty, by the immersion of several Jews in the
Tiber, by the execution of a number of compromised persons whose
pardon the King had promised, and by a threat to shoot one of the
sick French soldiers in the hospital for every shot fired by the
guns of St. Angelo. <a name="FNanchor69">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_69"><sup>[69]</sup></a> Intelligence was despatched to
the exiled Pontiff of the discomfiture of his enemies. "By help
of the divine grace," wrote King Ferdinand, "and of the most
miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with our army entered
the sacred city of Rome, so lately profaned by the impious, who
now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross and of my arms.
Leave then, your Holiness, your too modest abode, and on the
wings of cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend
upon the Vatican, to purify it by your sacred presence." A letter
to the King of Piedmont, who had already been exhorted by
Ferdinand to encourage his peasants to assassinate French
soldiers, informed him that "the Neapolitans, guided by General
Mack, had sounded the hour of death to the French, and proclaimed
to Europe, from the summit of the Capitol, that the time of the
Kings had come."</p>
<p>[Mack defeated by Championnet, Dec. 6-13.]</p>
<p>The despatches to Piedmont fell into the hands of the enemy,
and the usual modes of locomotion would scarcely have brought
Pope Pius to Rome in time to witness the exit of his deliverer.
Ferdinand's rhapsodies were cut short by the news that his
columns advancing into the centre and east of the Papal States
had all been beaten or captured. Mack, at the head of the main
army, now advanced to avenge the defeat upon the French at Civita
Castellana and Terni. But his dispositions were as unskilful as
ever: wherever his troops encountered the enemy they were put to
the rout; and, as he had neglected to fortify or secure a single
position upon his line of march, his defeat by a handful of
French soldiers on the north of Rome involved the loss of the
country almost up to the gates of Naples. On the first rumour of
Mack's reverses the Republican party at Rome declared for France.
King Ferdinand fled; Championnet re-entered Rome, and, after a
few days' delay, advanced into Neapolitan territory. Here,
however, he found himself attacked by an enemy more formidable
than the army which had been organised to expel the French from
Italy. The Neapolitan peasantry, who, in soldiers' uniform and
under the orders of Mack, could scarcely be brought within sight
of the French, fought with courage when an appeal to their
religious passions collected them in brigand-like bands under
leaders of their own. Divisions of Championnet's army sustained
severe losses; they succeeded, however, in effecting their
junction upon the Volturno; and the stronghold of Gaeta, being
defended by regular soldiers and not by brigands, surrendered to
the French at the first summons.</p>
<p>[French enter Naples, Jan. 23, 1799.]</p>
<p>Mack was now concentrating his troops in an entrenched camp
before Capua. The whole country was rising against the invaders;
and, in spite of lost battles and abandoned fortresses, the
Neapolitan Government if it had possessed a spark of courage,
might still have overthrown the French army, which numbered only
18,000 men. But the panic and suspicion which the Government had
fostered among its subjects were now avenged upon itself. The cry
of treachery was raised on every side. The Court dreaded a
Republican rising; the priests and the populace accused the Court
of conspiracy with the French; Mack protested that the soldiers
were resolved to be beaten; the soldiers swore that they were
betrayed by Mack. On the night of the 21st of December, the Royal
Family secretly went on board Nelson's ship the <i>Vanguard</i>,
and after a short interval they set sail for Palermo, leaving the
capital in charge of Prince Pignatelli, a courtier whom no one
was willing to obey. <a name="FNanchor70">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_70"><sup>[70]</sup></a> Order was, however, maintained
by a civic guard enrolled by the Municipality, until it became
known that Mack and Pignatelli had concluded an armistice with
the French, and surrendered Capua and the neighbouring towns.
Then the populace broke into wild uproar. The prisons were thrown
open; and with the arms taken from the arsenal the lazzaroni
formed themselves into a tumultuous army, along with thousands of
desperate men let loose from the gaols and the galleys. The
priests, hearing that negotiations for peace were opened, raised
the cry of treason anew; and, with the watchword of the Queen,
"All the gentlemen are Jacobins; only the people are faithful,"
they hounded on the mob to riot and murder. On the morning of
January 15th hordes of lazzaroni issued from the gates to throw
themselves upon the French, who were now about nine miles from
the city; others dragged the guns down from the forts to defend
the streets. The Republican party, however, and that considerable
body among the upper class which was made Republican by the chaos
into which the Court, with its allies, the priests, and the
populace, had thrown Naples, kept up communication with
Championnet, and looked forward to the entrance of the French as
the only means of averting destruction and massacre. By a
stratagem carried out on the night of the 20th they gained
possession of the fort of St. Elmo, while the French were already
engaged in a bloody assault upon the suburbs. On the 23rd
Championnet ordered the attack to be renewed. The conspirators
within St. Elmo hoisted the French flag and turned their guns
upon the populace; the fortress of the Carmine was stormed by the
French; and, before the last struggle for life and death
commenced in the centre of the city, the leaders of the lazzaroni
listened to words of friendship which Championnet addressed to
them in their own language, and, with the incoherence of a
half-savage race, escorted his soldiers with cries of joy to the
Church of St. Januarius, which Championnet promised to respect
and protect.</p>
<p>[Parthenopean Republic.]</p>
<p>Championnet used his victory with a discretion and forbearance
rare amongst French conquerors. He humoured the superstition of
the populace; he encouraged the political hopes of the
enlightened. A vehement revulsion of feeling against the fugitive
Court and in favour of Republican government followed the
creation of a National Council by the French general, and his
ironical homage to the patron saint. The Kingdom of Naples was
converted into the Parthenopean Republic. New laws, new
institutions, discussed in a representative assembly, excited
hopes and interests unknown in Naples before. But the inevitable
incidents of a French occupation, extortion and impoverishment,
with all their bitter effects on the mind of the people, were not
long delayed. In every country district the priests were exciting
insurrection. The agents of the new Government, men with no
experience in public affairs, carried confusion wherever they
went. Civil war broke out in fifty different places; and the
barbarity of native leaders of insurrection, like Fra Diavolo,
was only too well requited by the French columns which traversed
the districts in revolt.</p>
<p>[War with Austria and Russia, March, 1799.]</p>
<p>The time was ill chosen by the French Government for an
extension of the area of combat to southern Italy. Already the
first division of the Russian army, led by Suvaroff, had reached
Moravia, and the Court of Vienna was only awaiting its own moment
for declaring war. So far were the newly-established Governments
in Rome and Naples from being able to assist the French upon the
Adige, that the French had to send troops to Rome and Naples to
support the new Governments. The force which the French could
place upon the frontier was inferior to that which two years of
preparation had given to Austria: the Russians, who were expected
to arrive in Lombardy in April, approached with the confidence of
men who had given to the French none of their recent triumphs.
Nor among the leaders was personal superiority any longer
markedly on the side of the French, as in the war of the First
Coalition. Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles were a fair match
for any of the Republican generals, except Bonaparte, who was
absent in Egypt. The executive of France had deeply declined.
Carnot was in exile; the work of organisation which he had
pursued with such energy and disinterestedness flagged under his
mediocre and corrupt successors. Skilful generals and brave
soldiers were never wanting to the Republic; but no single
controlling will, no storm of national passion, inspired the
Government with the force which it had possessed under the
Convention, and which returned to it under Napoleon.</p>
<p>A new character was given to the war now breaking out by the
inclusion of Switzerland in the area of combat. In the war of the
First Coalition, Switzerland had been neutral territory; but the
events of 1798 had left the French in possession of all
Switzerland west of the Rhine, and an Austrian force subsequently
occupied the Grisons. The line separating the combatants now ran
without a break from Mainz to the Adriatic. The French armies
were in continuous communication with one another, and the
movements of each could be modified according to the requirements
of the rest. On the other hand, a disaster sustained at any one
point of the line endangered every other point; for no neutral
territory intervened, as in 1796, to check a lateral movement of
the enemy, and to protect the communications of a French army in
Lombardy from a victorious Austrian force in southern Germany.
The importance of the Swiss passes in this relation was
understood and even overrated by the French Government; and an
energy was thrown into their mountain warfare which might have
produced greater results upon the plains.</p>
<p>[The Archduke Charles defeats Jourdan at Stockach, March,
25.]</p>
<p>Three armies formed the order of battle on either side.
Jourdan held the French command upon the Rhine; Massena in
Switzerland; Scherer, the least capable of the Republican
generals, on the Adige. On the side of the Allies, the Archduke
Charles commanded in southern Germany; in Lombardy the Austrians
were led by Kray, pending the arrival of Suvaroff and his corps;
in Switzerland the command was given to Hotze, a Swiss officer
who had gained some distinction in foreign service. It was the
design of the French to push their centre under Massena through
the mountains into the Tyrol, and by a combined attack of the
central and the southern army to destroy the Austrians upon the
upper Adige, while Jourdan, also in communication with the
centre, drove the Archduke down the Danube upon Vienna. Early in
March the campaign opened. Massena assailed the Austrian
positions east of the head-waters of the Rhine, and forced back
the enemy into the heart of the Orisons. Jourdan crossed the
Rhine at Strasburg, and passed the Black Forest with 40,000 men.
His orders were to attack the Archduke Charles, whatever the
Archduke's superiority of force. The French and the Austrian
armies met at Stockach, near the head of the Lake of Constance
(March 25). Overwhelming numbers gave the Archduke a complete
victory. Jourdan was not only stopped in his advance, but forced
to retreat beyond the Rhine. Whatever might be the fortune of the
armies of Switzerland and Italy, all hope of an advance upon
Vienna by the Danube was at an end.</p>
<p>[Murder of the French envoys at Rastadt, April 28.]</p>
<p>Freed from the invader's presence, the Austrians now spread
themselves over Baden, up to the gates of Rastadt, where, in
spite of the war between France and Austria, the envoys of the
minor German States still continued their conferences with the
French agents. On the 28th of April the French envoys, now three
in number, were required by the Austrians to depart within
twenty-four hours. An escort, for which they applied, was
refused. Scarcely had their carriages passed through the city
gates when they were attacked by a squadron of Austrian hussars.
Two of French envoys the French envoys were murdered; the third
left for dead. Whether this frightful violation of international
law was the mere outrage of a drunken soldiery, as it was
represented to be by the Austrian Government; whether it was to
any extent occasioned by superior civil orders, or connected with
French emigrants living in the neighbourhood, remains unknown.
Investigations begun by the Archduke Charles were stopped by the
Cabinet, in order that a more public inquiry might be held by the
Diet. This inquiry, however, never took place. In the year 1804
all papers relating to the Archduke's investigation were removed
by the Government from the military archives. They have never
since been discovered. <a name="FNanchor71">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_71"><sup>[71]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Magnano, April 5.]</p>
<p>The outburst of wrath with which the French people learnt the
fate of their envoys would have cost Austria dear if Austria had
now been the losing party in the war; but, for the present,
everything seemed to turn against the Republic. Jourdan had
scarcely been overthrown in Germany before a ruinous defeat at
Magnano, on the Adige, drove back the army of Italy to within a
few miles of Milan; while Massena, deprived of the fruit of his
own victories by the disasters of his colleagues, had to abandon
the eastern half of Switzerland, and to retire upon the line of
the river Limnat, Lucerne, and the Gothard. Charles now moved
from Germany into Switzerland. Massena fixed his centre at
Z&uuml;rich, and awaited the Archduke's assault. For five weeks
Charles remained inactive: at length, on the 4th of June, he gave
battle. After two days' struggle against greatly superior forces,
Massena was compelled to evacuate Z&uuml;rich. He retreated,
however, no farther than to the ridge of the Uetliberg, a few
miles west of the city; and here, fortifying his new position, he
held obstinately on, while the Austrians established themselves
in the central passes of Switzerland, and disaster after disaster
seemed to be annihilating the French arms in Italy.</p>
<p>[Suvaroff's Campaign in Lombardy, April-June.]</p>
<p>Suvaroff, at the head of 17,000 Russians, had arrived in
Lombardy in the middle of April. His first battle was fought, and
his first victory won, at the passage of the Adda on the 25th of
April. It was followed by the surrender of Milan and the
dissolution of the Cisalpine Republic. Moreau, who now held the
French command, fell back upon Alessandria, intending to cover
both Genoa and Turin; but a sudden movement of Suvaroff brought
the Russians into the Sardinian capital before it was even known
to be in jeopardy. The French general, cut off from the roads
over the Alps, threw himself upon the Apennines above Genoa, and
waited for the army which had occupied Naples, and which, under
the command of Macdonald, was now hurrying to his support,
gathering with it on its march the troops that lay scattered on
the south of the Po. Macdonald moved swiftly through central
Italy, and crossed the Apennines above Pistoia in the beginning
of June. His arrival at Modena with 20,000 men threatened to turn
the balance in favour of the French. Suvaroff, aware of his
danger, collected all the troops within reach with the utmost
despatch, and pushed eastwards to meet Macdonald on the Trebbia.
Moreau descended from the Apennines in the same direction; but he
had underrated the swiftness of the Russian general; and, before
he had advanced over half the distance, Macdonald was attacked by
Suvaroff on the Trebbia, and overthrown in three days of the most
desperate fighting that had been seen in the war (June 18). <a
name="FNanchor72">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_72"><sup>[72]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Naples.]</p>
<p>All southern Italy now rose against the Governments
established by the French. Cardinal Ruffo, with a band of
fanatical peasants, known as the Army of the Faith, made himself
master of Apulia and Calabria amid scenes of savage cruelty, and
appeared before Naples, where the lazzaroni were ready to unite
with the hordes of the Faithful in murder and pillage. Confident
of support within the city, and assisted by some English and
Russian vessels in the harbour, Ruffo attacked the suburbs of
Naples on the morning of the 13th of June. Massacre and outrage
continued within and without the city for five days. On the
morning of the 19th, the Cardinal proposed a suspension of arms.
It was accepted by the Republicans, who were in possession of the
forts. Negotiations followed. On the 23rd conditions of peace
were signed by Ruffo on behalf of the King of Naples, and by the
representatives of Great Britain and of Russia in guarantee for
their faithful execution. It was agreed that the Republican
garrison should march out with the honours of war; that their
persons and property should be respected; that those who might
prefer to leave the country should be conveyed to Toulon on
neutral vessels; and that all who remained at home should be free
from molestation.</p>
<p>[Reign of Terror.]</p>
<p>The garrison did not leave the forts that night. On the
following morning, while they were embarking on board the
polaccas which were to take them to Toulon, Nelson's fleet
appeared in the Bay of Naples. Nelson declared that in treating
with rebels Cardinal Ruffo had disobeyed the King's orders, and
he pronounced the capitulation null and void. The polaccas, with
the Republicans crowded on board, were attached to the sterns of
the English ships, pending the arrival of King Ferdinand. On the
29th of June, Admiral Caracciolo, who had taken office under the
new Government, and on its fall had attempted to escape in
disguise, was brought a captive before Nelson. Nelson ordered him
to be tried by a Neapolitan court-martial, and, in spite of his
old age, his rank, and his long service to the State, caused him
to be hanged from a Neapolitan ship's yard-arm, and his body to
be thrown into the sea. Some days later, King Ferdinand arrived
from Palermo, and Nelson now handed over all his prisoners to the
Bourbon authorities. A reign of terror followed. Innumerable
persons were thrown into prison. Courts-martial, or commissions
administering any law that pleased themselves, sent the flower of
the Neapolitan nation to the scaffold. Above a hundred sentences
of death were carried out in Naples itself: confiscation, exile,
and imprisonment struck down thousands of families. It was
peculiar to the Neapolitan proscriptions that a Government with
the names of religion and right incessantly upon its lips
selected for extermination both among men and women those who
were most distinguished in character, in science, and in letters,
whilst it chose for promotion and enrichment those who were known
for deeds of savage violence. The part borne by Nelson in this
work of death has left a stain on his glory which time cannot
efface. <a name="FNanchor73">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_73"><sup>[73]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Austrian designs in Italy.]</p>
<p>[New plan of the War.]</p>
<p>It was on the advance of the Army of Naples under Macdonald
that the French rested their last hope of recovering Lombardy.
The battle of the Trebbia scattered this hope to the winds, and
left it only too doubtful whether France could be saved from
invasion. Suvaroff himself was eager to fall upon Moreau before
Macdonald could rally from his defeat, and to drive him westwards
along the coast-road into France. It was a moment when the
fortune of the Republic hung in the scales. Had Suvaroff been
permitted to follow his own counsels, France would probably have
seen the remnant of her Italian armies totally destroyed, and the
Russians advancing upon Lyons or Marseilles. The Republic was
saved, as it had been in 1793, by the dissensions of its enemies.
It was not only for the purpose of resisting French aggression
that Austria had renewed the war, but for the purpose of
extending its own dominion in Italy. These designs were concealed
from Russia; they were partially made known by Thugut to the
British Ambassador, under the most stringent obligation to
secrecy. On the 17th of August, 1799, Lord Minto acquainted his
Government with the intentions of the Austrian Court. "The
Emperor proposes to retain Piedmont, and to take all that part of
Savoy which is important in a military view. I have no doubt of
his intention to keep Nice also, if he gets it, which will make
the Var his boundary with France. The whole territory of the
Genoese Republic seems to be an object of serious speculation ...
The Papal Legations will, I am persuaded, be retained by the
Emperor ... I am not yet master of the designs on Tuscany." <a
name="FNanchor74">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_74"><sup>[74]</sup></a>
This was the sense in which Austria understood the phrase of
defending the rights of Europe against French aggression. It was
not, however, for this that the Czar had sent his army from
beyond the Carpathians. Since the opening of the campaign
Suvaroff had been in perpetual conflict with the military Council
of Vienna. <a name="FNanchor75">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_75"><sup>[75]</sup></a> Suvaroff was bent upon a
ceaseless pursuit of the enemy; the Austrian Council insisted
upon the reduction of fortresses. What at first appeared as a
mere difference of military opinion appeared in its true
political character when the allied troops entered Piedmont. The
Czar desired with his whole soul to crush the men of the
Revolution, and to restore the governments which France had
overthrown. As soon as his troops entered Turin, Suvaroff
proclaimed the restoration of the House of Savoy, and summoned
all Sardinian officers to fight for their King. He was
interrupted by a letter from Vienna requiring him to leave
political affairs in the hands of the Viennese Ministry. <a name=
"FNanchor76">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_76"><sup>[76]</sup></a> The
Russians had already done as much in Italy as the Austrian
Cabinet desired them to do, and the first wish of Thugut was now
to free himself from his troublesome ally. Suvaroff raged against
the Austrian Government in every despatch, and tendered his
resignation. His complaints inclined the Czar to accept a new
military scheme, which was supported by the English Government in
the hope of terminating the contention between Suvaroff and the
Austrian Council. It was agreed at St. Petersburg that, as soon
as the French armies were destroyed, the reduction of the Italian
fortresses should be left exclusively to the Austrians; and that
Suvaroff, uniting with a new Russian army now not far distant,
should complete the conquest of Switzerland, and then invade
France by the Jura, supported on his right by the Archduke
Charles. An attack was to be made at the same time upon Holland
by a combined British and Russian force.</p>
<p>If executed in its original form, this design would have
thrown a formidable army upon France at the side of Franche
Comt&eacute;, where it is least protected by fortresses. But at
the last moment an alteration in the plan was made at Vienna. The
prospect of an Anglo-Russian victory in Holland again fixed the
thoughts of the Austrian Minister upon Belgium, which had been so
lightly abandoned five years before, and which Thugut now hoped
to re-occupy and to barter for Bavaria or some other territory.
"The Emperor," he wrote, "cannot turn a deaf ear to the appeal of
his subjects. He cannot consent that the Netherlands shall be
disposed of without his own concurrence." <a name=
"FNanchor77">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> The
effect of this perverse and mischievous resolution was that the
Archduke Charles received orders to send the greater part of his
army from Switzerland to the Lower Rhine, and to leave only
25,000 men to support the new Russian division which, under
General Korsakoff, was approaching from the north to meet
Suvaroff. The Archduke, as soon as the new instructions reached
him, was filled with the presentiment of disaster, and warned his
Government that in the general displacement of forces an
opportunity would be given to Massena, who was still above
Z&uuml;rich, to strike a fatal blow. Every despatch that passed
between Vienna and St. Petersburg now increased the Czar's
suspicion of Austria. The Pope and the King of Naples were
convinced that Thugut had the same design upon their own
territories which had been shown in his treatment of Piedmont. <a
name="FNanchor78">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_78"><sup>[78]</sup></a>
They appealed to the Czar for protection. The Czar proposed a
European Congress, at which the Powers might learn one another's
real intentions. The proposal was not accepted by Austria; but,
while disclaiming all desire to despoil the King of Sardinia, the
Pope, or the King of Naples, Thugut admitted that Austria claimed
an improvement of its Italian frontier, in other words, the
annexation of a portion of Piedmont, and of the northern part of
the Roman States. The Czar replied that he had taken up arms in
order to check one aggressive Government, and that he should not
permit another to take its place.</p>
<p>[Battle of Novi, Aug. 15.]</p>
<p>For the moment, however, the allied forces continued to
co-operate in Italy against the French army on the Apennines
covering Genoa. This army had received reinforcements, and was
now placed under the command of Joubert, one of the youngest and
most spirited of the Republican generals. Joubert determined to
attack the Russians before the fall of Mantua should add the
besieging army to Suvaroff's forces in the field. But the
information which he received from Lombardy misled him. In the
second week of August he was still unaware that Mantua had fallen
a fortnight before. He descended from the mountains to attack
Suvaroff at Tortona, with a force about equal to Suvaroff's own.
On reaching Novi he learnt that the army of Mantua was also
before him (Aug. 15). It was too late to retreat; Joubert could
only give to his men the example of Republican spirit and
devotion. Suvaroff himself, with Kray, the conqueror of Mantua,
began the attack: the onset of a second Austrian corps, at the
moment when the strength of the Russians was failing, decided the
day. Joubert did not live to witness the close of a defeat which
cost France eleven thousand men. <a name="FNanchor79">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_79"><sup>[79]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Suvaroff goes into Switzerland.]</p>
<p>The allied Governments had so framed their plans that the most
overwhelming victory could produce no result. Instead of entering
France, Suvaroff was compelled to turn back into Switzerland,
while the Austrians continued to besiege the fortresses of
Piedmont. In Switzerland Suvaroff had to meet an enemy who was
forewarned of his approach, and who had employed every resource
of military skill and daring to prevent the union of the two
Russian armies now advancing from the south and the north. Before
Suvaroff could leave Italy, a series of admirably-planned attacks
had given Massena the whole network of the central Alpine passes,
and closed every avenue of communication between Suvaroff and the
army with which he hoped to co-operate. The folly of the Austrian
Cabinet seconded the French general's exertions. No sooner had
Korsakoff and the new Russian division reached Schaffhausen than
the Archduke Charles, forced by his orders from Vienna, turned
northwards (Sept. 3), leaving the Russians with no support but
Hotze's corps, which was scattered over six cantons. <a name=
"FNanchor80">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_80"><sup>[80]</sup></a>
Korsakoff advanced to Z&uuml;rich; Massena remained in his old
position on the Uetliberg. It was now that Suvaroff began his
march into the Alps, sorely harassed and delayed by the want of
the mountain-teams which the Austrians had promised him, and
filled with the apprehension that Korsakoff would suffer some
irreparable disaster before his own arrival.</p>
<p>[Second Battle of Z&uuml;rich, Sept. 26.]</p>
<p>Two roads lead from the Italian lakes to central Switzerland;
one, starting from the head of Lago Maggiore and crossing the
Gothard, ends on the shore of Lake Lucerne; the other, crossing
the Spl&uuml;gen, runs from the Lake of Como to Reichenau, in the
valley of the Rhine. The Gothard in 1799 was not practicable for
cannon; it was chosen by Suvaroff, however, for his own advance,
with the object of falling upon Massena's rear with the utmost
possible speed. He left Bellinzona on the 21st of September,
fought his way in a desperate fashion through the French outposts
that guarded the defiles of the Gothard, and arrived at Altorf
near the Lake of Lucerne. Here it was discovered that the
westward road by which Suvaroff meant to strike upon the enemy's
communications had no existence. Abandoning this design, Suvaroff
made straight for the district where his colleague was encamped,
by a shepherd's path leading north-eastwards across heights of
7,000 feet to the valley of the Muotta. Over this desolate region
the Russians made their way; and the resolution which brought
them as far as the Muotta would have brought them past every
other obstacle to the spot where they were to meet their
countrymen. But the hour was past. While Suvaroff was still
struggling in the mountains, Massena advanced against
Z&uuml;rich, put Korsakoff's army to total rout, and drove it,
with the loss of all its baggage and of a great part of its
artillery, outside the area of hostilities.</p>
<p>[Retreat of Suvaroff.]</p>
<p>The first rumours of the catastrophe reached Suvaroff on the
Muotta; he still pushed on eastwards, and, though almost without
ammunition, overthrew a corps commanded by Massena in person, and
cleared the road over the Pragel at the point of the bayonet,
arriving in Glarus on the 1st of October. Here the full extent of
Korsakoff's disaster was made known to him. To advance or to fall
back was ruin. It only remained for Suvaroff's army to make its
escape across a wild and snow-covered mountain-tract into the
valley of the Rhine, where the river flows below the northern
heights of the Grisons. This exploit crowned a campaign which
filled Europe with astonishment. The Alpine traveller of to-day
turns with some distrust from narratives which characterise with
every epithet of horror and dismay scenes which are the delight
of our age; but the retreat of Suvaroff's army, a starving,
footsore multitude, over what was then an untrodden wilderness of
rock, and through fresh-fallen autumn snow two feet deep, had
little in common with the boldest feats of Alpine hardihood. <a
name="FNanchor81">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_81"><sup>[81]</sup></a>
It was achieved with loss and suffering; it brought the army from
a position of the utmost danger into one of security; but it was
followed by no renewed attack. Proposals for a combination
between Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles resulted only in mutual
taunts and menaces. The co-operation of Russia in the war was at
an end. The French remained masters of the whole of the Swiss
territory that they had lost since the beginning of the
campaign.</p>
<p>[British and Russian expedition against Holland Aug.
1799.]</p>
<p>In the summer months of 1799 the Czar had relieved his
irritation against Austria by framing in concert with the British
Cabinet the plan for a joint expedition against Holland. It was
agreed that 25,000 English and 17,000 Russian troops, brought
from the Baltic in British ships, should attack the French in the
Batavian Republic, and raise an insurrection on behalf of the
exiled Stadtholder. Throughout July the Kentish coast-towns were
alive with the bustle of war; and on the 13th of August the first
English division, numbering 12,000 men, set sail from Deal under
the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby. After tossing off the Dutch
coast for a fortnight, the troops landed at the promontory of the
Helder. A Dutch corps was defeated on the sand-hills, and the
English captured the fort of the Helder, commanding the Texel
anchorage. Immediately afterwards a movement in favour of the
Stadtholder broke out among the officers of the Dutch fleet. The
captains hoisted the Orange flag, and brought their ships over to
the English.</p>
<p>This was the first and the last result of the expedition. The
Russian contingent and a second English division reached Holland
in the middle of September, and with them came the Duke of York,
who now took the command out of the hands of Abercromby. On the
other side reinforcements daily arrived from France, until the
enemy's troops, led by General Brune, were equal in strength to
the invaders. A battle fought at Alkmaar on the 19th of September
gave the Allies some partial successes and no permanent
advantage; and on the 3rd of October the Duke of York gained one
of those so-called victories which result in the retreat of the
conquerors. Never were there so many good reasons for a bad
conclusion. The Russians moved too fast or too slow; the ditches
set at nought the rules of strategy; it was discovered that the
climate of Holland was unfavourable to health, and that the Dutch
had not the slightest inclination to get back their Stadtholder.
The result of a series of mischances, every one of which would
have been foreseen by an average midshipman in Nelson's fleet, or
an average sergeant in Massena's army, was that York had to
purchase a retreat for the allied forces at a price equivalent to
an unconditional surrender. He was allowed to re-embark on
consideration that Great Britain restored to the French 8,000
French and Dutch prisoners, and handed over in perfect repair all
the military works which our own soldiers had erected at the
Helder. Bitter complaints were raised among the Russian officers
against York's conduct of the expedition. He was accused of
sacrificing the Russian regiments in battle, and of courting a
general defeat in order not to expose his own men. The accusation
was groundless. Where York was, treachery or bad faith was
superfluous. York in command, the feeblest enemy became
invincible. Incompetence among the hereditary chiefs of the
English army had become part of the order of nature. The
Ministry, when taxed with failure, obstinately shut their eyes to
the true cause of the disaster. Parliament was reminded that
defeat was the most probable conclusion of any military
operations that we might undertake, and that England ought not to
expect success when Prussia and Austria had so long met only with
misfortune. Under the command of Nelson, English sailors were
indeed manifesting that kind of superiority to the seamen of
other nations which the hunter possesses over his prey; yet this
gave no reason why foresight and daring should count for anything
ashore. If the nation wished to see its soldiers undefeated, it
must keep them at home to defend their country. Even among the
Opposition no voice was raised to protest against the system
which sacrificed English life and military honour to the dignity
of the Royal Family. The collapse of the Anglo-Russian expedition
was viewed with more equanimity in England than in Russia. The
Czar dismissed his unfortunate generals. York returned home, to
run horses at Newmarket, to job commissions with his mistress,
and to earn his column at St. James's Park.</p>
<p>[Unpopularity of the Directory.]</p>
<p>[Plans of Si&eacute;y&egrave;s 1799.]</p>
<p>It was at this moment, when the tide of military success was
already turning in favour of the Republic, that the revolution
took place which made Bonaparte absolute ruler of France. Since
the attack of the Government upon the Royalists in Fructidor,
1797, the Directory and the factions had come no nearer to a
system of mutual concession, or to a peaceful acquiescence in the
will of a parliamentary majority. The Directory, assailed both by
the extreme Jacobins and by the Constitutionalists, was still
strong enough to crush each party in its turn. The elections of
1798, which strengthened the Jacobins, were annulled with as
little scruple as the Royalist elections in the preceding year;
it was only when defeat in Germany and Italy had brought the
Government into universal discredit that the Constitutionalist
party, fortified by the return of a large majority in the
elections of 1799, dared to turn the attack upon the Directors
themselves. The excitement of foreign conquest had hitherto
shielded the abuses of Government from criticism; but when Italy
was lost, when generals and soldiers found themselves without
pay, without clothes, without reinforcements, one general outcry
arose against the Directory, and the nation resolved to have done
with a Government whose outrages and extortions had led to
nothing but military ruin. The disasters of France in the spring
of 1799, which resulted from the failure of the Government to
raise the armies to their proper strength, were not in reality
connected with the defects of the Constitution. They were caused
in part by the shameless jobbery of individual members of the
Administration, in part by the absence of any agency, like that
of the Conventional Commissioners of 1793, to enforce the control
of the central Government over the local authorities, left
isolated and independent by the changes of 1789. Faults enough
belonged, however, to the existing political order; and the
Constitutionalists, who now for the second time found themselves
with a majority in the Councils, were not disposed to prolong a
system which from the first had turned their majorities into
derision. A party grew up around the Abb&eacute;
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s intent upon some change which should give
France a government really representing its best elements. What
the change was to be few could say; but it was known that
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s, who had taken a leading part in 1789, and
had condemned the Constitution of 1795 from the moment when it
was sketched, had elaborated a scheme which he considered exempt
from every error that had vitiated its predecessors. As the first
step to reform, Si&eacute;y&egrave;s himself was elected to a
Directorship then falling vacant. Barras attached himself to
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s; the three remaining Directors, who were
Jacobins and popular in Paris, were forced to surrender their
seats. Si&eacute;y&egrave;s now only needed a soldier to carry
out his plans. His first thought had turned on Joubert, but
Joubert was killed at Novi. Moreau scrupled to raise his hand
against the law; Bernadotte, a general distinguished both in war
and in administration, declined to play a secondary part. Nor in
fact was the support of Si&eacute;y&egrave;s indispensable to any
popular and ambitious soldier who was prepared to attack the
Government. Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and his friends offered the
alliance of a party weighty in character and antecedents; but
there were other well-known names and powerful interests at the
command of an enterprising leader, and all France awaited the
downfall of a Government whose action had resulted only in
disorder at home and defeat abroad.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte returns from Egypt, Oct., 1799.]</p>
<p>Such was the political situation when, in the summer of 1799,
Bonaparte, baffled in an attack upon the Syrian fortress of St.
Jean d'Acre, returned to Egypt, and received the first tidings
from Europe which had reached him since the outbreak of the war.
He saw that his opportunity had arrived. He determined to leave
his army, whose ultimate failure was inevitable, and to offer to
France in his own person that sovereignty of genius and strength
for which the whole nation was longing. On the 7th of October a
despatch from Bonaparte was read in the Council of Five Hundred,
announcing a victory over the Turks at Aboukir. It brought the
first news that had been received for many months from the army
of Egypt; it excited an outburst of joyous enthusiasm for the
general and the army whom a hated Government was believed to have
sent into exile; it recalled that succession of victories which
had been unchecked by a single defeat, and that Peace which had
given France a dominion wider than any that her Kings had won.
While every thought was turned upon Bonaparte, the French nation
suddenly heard that Bonaparte himself had landed on the coast of
Provence. "I was sitting that day," says B&eacute;ranger in his
autobiography, "in our reading-room with thirty or forty other
persons. Suddenly the news was brought in that Bonaparte had
returned from Egypt. At the words, every man in the room started
to his feet and burst into one long shout of joy." The emotion
portrayed by B&eacute;ranger was that of the whole of France.
Almost everything that now darkens the early fame of Bonaparte
was then unknown. His falsities, his cold, unpitying heart were
familiar only to accomplices and distant sufferers; even his most
flagrant wrongs, such as the destruction of Venice, were excused
by a political necessity, or disguised as acts of righteous
chastisement. The hopes, the imagination of France saw in
Bonaparte the young, unsullied, irresistible hero of the
Republic. His fame had risen throughout a crisis which had
destroyed all confidence in others. The stale placemen of the
factions sank into insignificance by his side; even sincere
Republicans, who feared the rule of a soldier, confessed that it
is not always given to a nation to choose the mode of its own
deliverance. From the moment that Bonaparte landed at
Fr&eacute;jus, he was master of France.</p>
<p>[Conspiracy of Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>Si&eacute;y&egrave;s saw that Bonaparte, and no one else, was
the man through whom he could overthrow the existing
Constitution. <a name="FNanchor82">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_82"><sup>[82]</sup></a> So little sympathy existed,
however, between Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and the soldier to whom he
now offered his support, that Bonaparte only accepted
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s' project after satisfying himself that
neither Barras nor Bernadotte would help him to supreme power.
Once convinced of this, Bonaparte closed with
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s' offers. It was agreed that
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and his friend Ducos should resign their
Directorships, and that the three remaining Directors should be
driven from office. The Assemblies, or any part of them
favourable to the plot, were to appoint a Triumvirate composed of
Bonaparte, Si&eacute;y&egrave;s, and Ducos, for the purpose of
drawing up a new Constitution. In the new Constitution it was
understood, though without any definite arrangement, that
Bonaparte and Si&eacute;y&egrave;s were to be the leading
figures. The Council of Ancients was in great part in league with
the conspirators: the only obstacle likely to hinder the success
of the plot was a rising of the Parisian populace. As a
precaution against attack, it was determined to transfer the
meeting of the Councils to St. Cloud. Bonaparte had secured the
support of almost all the generals and troops in Paris. His
brother Lucien, now President of the Council of Five Hundred,
hoped to paralyse the action of his own Assembly, in which the
conspirators were in the minority.</p>
<p>[Coup d'&eacute;tat, 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9), 1799.]</p>
<p>Early on the morning of the 9th of November (18 Brumaire), a
crowd of generals and officers met before Bonaparte's house. At
the same moment a portion of the Council of Ancients assembled,
and passed a decree which adjourned the session to St. Cloud, and
conferred on Bonaparte the command over all the troops in Paris.
The decree was carried to Bonaparte's house and read to the
military throng, who acknowledged it by brandishing their swords.
Bonaparte then ordered the troops to their posts, received the
resignation of Barras, and arrested the two remaining Directors
in the Luxembourg. During the night there was great agitation in
Paris. The arrest of the two Directors and the display of
military force revealed the true nature of the conspiracy, and
excited men to resistance who had hitherto seen no great cause
for alarm. The Councils met at St. Cloud at two on the next day.
The Ancients were ready for what was coming; the Five Hundred
refused to listen to Bonaparte's accomplices, and took the oath
of fidelity to the Constitution. Bonaparte himself entered the
Council of Ancients, and in violent, confused language declared
that he had come to save the Republic from unseen dangers. He
then left the Assembly, and entered the Chamber of the Five
Hundred, escorted by armed grenadiers. A roar of indignation
greeted the appearance of the bayonets. The members rushed in a
mass upon Bonaparte, and drove him out of the hall. His brother
now left the President's chair and joined the soldiers outside,
whom he harangued in the character of President of the Assembly.
The soldiers, hitherto wavering, were assured by Lucien's civil
authority and his treacherous eloquence. The drums beat; the word
of command was given; and the last free representatives of France
struggled through doorways and windows before the levelled and
advancing bayonets.</p>
<p>[Si&eacute;y&egrave;s' plan of Constitution.]</p>
<p>The Constitution which Si&eacute;y&egrave;s hoped now to
impose upon France had been elaborated by its author at the close
of the Reign of Terror. Designed at that epoch, it bore the trace
of all those apprehensions which gave shape to the Constitution
of 1795. The statutory outrages of 1793, the Royalist reaction
shown in the events of Vend&eacute;miaire, were the perils from
which both Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and the legislators of 1795
endeavoured to guard the future of France. It had become clear
that a popular election might at any moment return a royalist
majority to the Assembly: the Constitution of 1795 averted this
danger by prolonging the power of the Conventionalists;
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s overcame it by extinguishing popular
election altogether. He gave to the nation no right but that of
selecting half a million persons who should be eligible to
offices in the Communes, and who should themselves elect a
smaller body of fifty thousand, eligible to offices in the
Departments. The fifty thousand were in their turn to choose five
thousand, who should be eligible to places in the Government and
the Legislature. The actual appointments were to be made,
however, not by the electors, but by the Executive. With the
irrational multitude thus deprived of the power to bring back its
old oppressors, priests, royalists, and nobles might safely do
their worst. By way of still further precaution,
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s proposed that every Frenchman who had been
elected to the Legislature since 1789 should be inscribed for ten
years among the privileged five thousand.</p>
<p>Such were the safeguards provided against a Bourbonist
reaction. To guard against a recurrence of those evils which
France had suffered from the precipitate votes of a single
Assembly, Si&eacute;y&egrave;s broke up the legislature into as
many chambers as there are stages in the passing of a law. The
first chamber, or Council of State, was to give shape to measures
suggested by the Executive; a second chamber, known as the
Tribunate, was to discuss the measures so framed, and ascertain
the objections to which they were liable; the third chamber,
known as the Legislative Body, was to decide in silence for or
against the measures, after hearing an argument between
representatives of the Council and of the Tribunate. As a last
impregnable bulwark against Jacobins and Bourbonists alike,
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s created a Senate whose members should hold
office for life, and be empowered to annul every law in which the
Chambers might infringe upon the Constitution.</p>
<p>It only remained to invent an Executive. In the other parts of
his Constitution, Si&eacute;y&egrave;s had borrowed from Rome,
from Greece, and from Venice; in his Executive he improved upon
the political theories of Great Britain. He proposed that the
Government should consist of two Consuls and a Great Elector; the
Elector, like an English king, appointing and dismissing the
Consuls, but taking no active part in the administration himself.
The Consuls were to be respectively restricted to the affairs of
peace and of war. Grotesque under every aspect, the Constitution
of Si&eacute;y&egrave;s was really calculated to effect in all
points but one the end which he had in view. His object was to
terminate the convulsions of France by depriving every element in
the State of the power to create sudden change. The members of
his body politic, a Council that could only draft, a Tribunate
that could only discuss, a Legislature that could only vote, Yes
or No, were impotent for mischief; and the nation itself ceased
to have a political existence as soon as it had selected its
half-million notables.</p>
<p>[Si&eacute;y&egrave;s and Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>So far, nothing could have better suited the views of
Bonaparte; and up to this point Bonaparte quietly accepted
Si&eacute;y&egrave;s' plan. But the general had his own scheme
for what was to follow. Si&eacute;y&egrave;s might apportion the
act of deliberation among debating societies and dumb juries to
the full extent of his own ingenuity; but the moment that he
applied his disintegrating method to the Executive, Bonaparte
swept away the flimsy reasoner, and set in the midst of his
edifice of shadows the reality of an absolute personal rule. The
phantom Elector, and the Consuls who were to be the Elector's
tenants-at-will, corresponded very little to the power which
France desired to see at its head. "Was there ever anything so
ridiculous?" cried Bonaparte. "What man of spirit could accept
such a post?" It was in vain that Si&eacute;y&egrave;s had so
nicely set the balance. His theories gave to France only the
pageants which disguised the extinction of the nation beneath a
single will: the frame of executive government which the country
received in 1799 was that which Bonaparte deduced from the
conception of an absolute central power. The First Consul summed
up all executive authority in his own person. By his side there
were set two colleagues whose only function was to advise. A
Council of State placed the highest skill and experience in
France at the disposal of the chief magistrate, without
infringing upon his sovereignty. All offices, both in the
Ministries of State and in the provinces, were filled by the
nominees of the First Consul. No law could be proposed but at his
desire.</p>
<p>[Contrast of the Institutions of 1791 and 1799.]</p>
<p>[Centralisation of 1799.]</p>
<p>The institutions given to France by the National Assembly of
1789 and those given to it in the Consulate exhibited a direct
contrast seldom found outside the region of abstract terms. Local
customs, survivals of earlier law, such as soften the difference
between England and the various democracies of the United States,
had no place in the sharp-cut types in which the political order
of France was recast in 1791 and 1799. The Constituent Assembly
had cleared the field before it began to reconstruct. Its
reconstruction was based upon the Rights of Man, identified with
the principle of local self-government by popular election. It
deduced a system of communal administration so completely
independent that France was described by foreign critics as
partitioned into 40,000 republics; and the criticism was
justified when, in 1793, it was found necessary to create a new
central Government, and to send commissioners from the capital
into the provinces. In the Constitution of 1791, judges, bishops,
officers of the National Guard, were all alike subjected to
popular election; the Minister of War could scarcely move a
regiment from one village to another without the leave of the
mayor of the commune. In the Constitution of 1799 all authority
was derived from the head of the State. A system of
centralisation came into force with which France under her kings
had nothing to compare. All that had once served as a check upon
monarchical power, the legal Parliaments, the Provincial Estates
of Brittany and Languedoc, the rights of lay and ecclesiastical
corporations, had vanished away. In the place of the motley of
privileges that had tempered the Bourbon monarchy, in the place
of the popular Assemblies of the Revolution, there sprang up a
series of magistracies as regular and as absolute as the orders
of military rank. <a name="FNanchor83">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_83"><sup>[83]</sup></a> Where, under the Constitution
of 1791, a body of local representatives had met to conduct the
business of the Department, there was now a Pr&eacute;fet,
appointed by the First Consul, absolute, like the First Consul
himself, and assisted only by the advice of a nominated council,
which met for one fortnight in the year. In subordination to the
Pr&eacute;fet, an officer and similar council transacted the
local business of the Arrondissement. Even the 40,000 Maires with
their communal councils were all appointed directly or indirectly
by the Chief of the State. There existed in France no authority
that could repair a village bridge, or light the streets of a
town, but such as owed its appointment to the central Government.
Nor was the power of the First Consul limited to the
administration. With the exception of the lowest and the highest
members of the judicature, he nominated all judges, and
transferred them at his pleasure to inferior or superior
posts.</p>
<p>Such was the system which, based to a great extent upon the
preferences of the French people, fixed even more deeply in the
national character the willingness to depend upon an omnipresent,
all-directing power. Through its rational order, its regularity,
its command of the highest science and experience, this system of
government could not fail to confer great and rapid benefits upon
the country. It has usually been viewed by the French themselves
as one of the finest creations of political wisdom. In comparison
with the self-government which then and long afterwards existed
in England, the centralisation of France had all the superiority
of progress and intelligence over torpor and self-contradiction.
Yet a heavy, an incalculable price is paid by every nation which
for the sake of administrative efficiency abandons its local
liberties, and all that is bound up with their enjoyment. No
practice in the exercise of public right armed a later generation
of Frenchmen against the audacity of a common usurper: no
immortality of youth secured the institutions framed by Napoleon
against the weakness and corruption which at some period
undermine all despotisms. The historian who has exhausted every
term of praise upon the political system of the Consulate lived
to declare, as Chief of the State himself, that the first need of
France was the decentralisation of power. <a name=
"FNanchor84">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_84"><sup>[84]</sup></a></p>
<p>[State policy of Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>After ten years of disquiet, it was impossible that any
Government could be more welcome to the French nation than one
which proclaimed itself the representative, not of party or of
opinion, but of France itself. No section of the nation had won a
triumph in the establishment of the Consulate; no section had
suffered a defeat. In his own elevation Bonaparte announced the
close of civil conflict. A Government had arisen which summoned
all to its service which would employ all, reward all, reconcile
all. The earliest measures of the First Consul exhibited the
policy of reconciliation by which he hoped to rally the whole of
France to his side. The law of hostages, under which hundreds of
families were confined in retaliation for local Royalist
disturbances, was repealed, and Bonaparte himself went to
announce their liberty to the prisoners in the Temple. Great
numbers of names were struck off the list of the emigrants, and
the road to pardon was subsequently opened to all who had not
actually served against their country. In the selection of his
officers of State, Bonaparte showed the same desire to win men of
all parties. Cambac&eacute;r&egrave;s, a regicide, was made
Second Consul; Lebrun, an old official of Louis XVI., became his
colleague. In the Ministries, in the Senate, and in the Council
of State the nation saw men of proved ability chosen from all
callings in life and from all political ranks. No Government of
France had counted among its members so many names eminent for
capacity and experience. One quality alone was indispensable, a
readiness to serve and to obey. In that intellectual greatness
which made the combination of all the forces of France a familiar
thought in Bonaparte's mind, there was none of the moral
generosity which could pardon opposition to himself, or tolerate
energy acting under other auspices than his own. He desired to
see authority in the best hands; he sought talent and promoted
it, but on the understanding that it took its direction from
himself. Outside this limit ability was his enemy, not his
friend; and what could not be caressed or promoted was treated
with tyrannical injustice. While Bonaparte boasted of the career
that he had thrown open to talent, he suppressed the whole of the
independent journalism of Paris, and banished Mme. de Stael,
whose guests continued to converse, when they might not write,
about liberty. Equally partial, equally calculated, was
Bonaparte's indulgence towards the ancient enemies of the
Revolution, the Royalists and the priests. He felt nothing of the
old hatred of Paris towards the Vendean noble and the
superstitious Breton; he offered his friendship to the stubborn
Breton race, whose loyalty and piety he appreciated as good
qualities in subjects; but failing their submission, he
instructed his generals in the west of France to burn down their
villages, and to set a price upon the heads of their chiefs.
Justice, tolerance, good faith, were things which had no being
for Bonaparte outside the circle of his instruments and
allies.</p>
<p>[France ceases to excite democracy abroad, but promotes
equality under monarchical systems.]</p>
<p>[Effect of Bonaparte's autocracy outside France.]</p>
<p>In the foreign relations of France it was not possible for the
most unscrupulous will to carry aggression farther than it had
been already carried; yet the elevation of Bonaparte deeply
affected the fortunes of all those States whose lot depended upon
France. It was not only that a mind accustomed to regard all
human things as objects for its own disposal now directed an
irresistible military force, but from the day when France
submitted to Bonaparte, the political changes accompanying the
advance of the French armies took a different character. Belgium
and Holland, the Rhine Provinces, the Cisalpine, the Roman, and
the Parthenopean Republics, had all received, under whatever
circumstances of wrong, at least the forms of popular
sovereignty. The reality of power may have belonged to French
generals and commissioners; but, however insincerely uttered, the
call to freedom excited hopes and aspirations which were not
insincere themselves. The Italian festivals of emancipation, the
trees of liberty, the rhetoric of patriotic assemblies, had
betrayed little enough of the instinct for self-government; but
they marked a separation from the past; and the period between
the years 1796 and 1799 was in fact the birth-time of those hopes
which have since been realised in the freedom and the unity of
Italy. So long as France had her own tumultuous assemblies, her
elections in the village and in the county-town, it was
impossible for her to form republics beyond the Alps without
introducing at least some germ of republican organisation and
spirit. But when all power was concentrated in a single man, when
the spoken and the written word became an offence against the
State, when the commotion of the old municipalities was succeeded
by the silence and the discipline of a body of clerks working
round their chief, then the advance of French influence ceased to
mean the support of popular forces against the Governments. The
form which Bonaparte had given to France was the form which he
intended for the clients of France. Hence in those communities
which directly received the impress of the Consulate, as in
Bavaria and the minor German States, authority, instead of being
overthrown, was greatly strengthened. Bonaparte carried beyond
the Rhine that portion of the spirit of the Revolution which he
accepted at home, the suppression of privilege, the extinction of
feudal rights, the reduction of all ranks to equality before the
law, and the admission of all to the public service. But this
levelling of the social order in the client-states of France, and
the establishment of system and unity in the place of obsolete
privilege, cleared the way not for the supremacy of the people,
but for the supremacy of the Crown. The power which was taken
away from corporations, from knights, and from ecclesiastics, was
given, not to a popular Representative, but to Cabinet Ministers
and officials ranged after the model of the official hierarchy of
France. What the French had in the first epoch of their
Revolution endeavoured to impart to Europe-the spirit of liberty
and self-government-they had now renounced themselves. The belief
in popular right, which made the difference between the changes
of 1789 and those attempted by the Emperor Joseph, sank in the
storms of the Revolution.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte legislates in the spirit of the reforming monarchs
of the 18th century.]</p>
<p>Yet the statesmanship of Bonaparte, if it repelled the liberal
and disinterested sentiment of 1789, was no mere cunning of a
Corsican soldier, or exploit of medi&aelig;val genius born
outside its age. Subject to the fullest gratification of his own
most despotic or most malignant impulse, Bonaparte carried into
his creations the ideas upon which the greatest European
innovators before the French Revolution had based their work.
What Frederick and Joseph had accomplished, or failed to
accomplish, was realised in Western Germany when its Sovereigns
became the clients of the First Consul. Bonaparte was no child of
the French Revolution; he was the last and the greatest of the
autocratic legislators who worked in an unfree age. Under his
rule France lost what had seemed to be most its own; it most
powerfully advanced the forms of progress common to itself and
the rest of Europe. Bonaparte raised no population to liberty: in
extinguishing privilege and abolishing the legal distinctions of
birth, in levelling all personal and corporate authority beneath
the single rule of the State, he prepared the way for a rational
freedom, when, at a later day, the Government of the State should
itself become the representative of the nation's will.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_V.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c5">CHAPTER V.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Overtures of Bonaparte to Austria and England-The War
continues-Massena besieged in Genoa-Moreau invades Southern
Germany-Bonaparte crosses the St. Bernard, and descends in the
rear of the Austrians-Battle of Marengo-Austrians retire behind
the Mincio-Treaty between England and Austria-Austria continues
the War-Battle of Hohenlinden-Peace of Lun&eacute;ville-War
between England and the Northern Maritime League-Battle of
Copenhagen-Murder of Paul-End of the Maritime War-English Army
enters Egypt-French defeated at Alexandria-They capitulate at
Cairo and Alexandria-Preliminaries of Peace between England and
France signed at London, followed by Peace of Amiens-Pitt's Irish
Policy and his retirement-Debates on the Peace-Aggressions of
Bonaparte during the Continental Peace-Holland, Italy,
Switzerland-Settlement of Germany under French and Russian
influence-Suppression of Ecclesiastical States and Free
Cities-Its effects-Stein-France under the Consulate-The Civil
Code-The Concordat.</p>
<br>

<p>[Overtures of Bonaparte to Austria and to England, 1799.]</p>
<p>The establishment of the Consulate gave France peace from the
strife of parties. Peace from foreign warfare was not less
desired by the nation; and although the First Consul himself was
restlessly planning the next campaign, it belonged to his policy
to represent himself as the mediator between France and Europe.
Discarding the usual diplomatic forms, Bonaparte addressed
letters in his own name to the Emperor Francis and to King George
III., deploring the miseries inflicted by war upon nations
naturally allied, and declaring his personal anxiety to enter
upon negotiations for peace. The reply of Austria which was
courteously worded, produced an offer on the part of Bonaparte to
treat for peace upon the basis of the Treaty of Campo Formio.
Such a proposal was the best evidence of Bonaparte's real
intentions. Austria had re-conquered Lombardy, and driven the
armies of the Republic from the Adige to within a few miles of
Nice. To propose a peace which should merely restore the
situation existing at the beginning of the war was pure irony.
The Austrian Government accordingly declared itself unable to
treat without the concurrence of its allies. The answer of
England to the overtures of the First Consul was rough and
defiant. It recounted the causes of war and distrust which
precluded England from negotiating with a revolutionary
Government; and, though not insisting on the restoration of the
Bourbons as a condition of peace, it stated that no guarantee for
the sincerity and good behaviour of France would be so acceptable
to Great Britain as the recall of the ancient family. <a name=
"FNanchor85">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_85"><sup>[85]</sup></a></p>
<p>Few State papers have been distinguished by worse faults of
judgment than this English manifesto. It was intended to
recommend the Bourbons to France as a means of procuring peace:
it enabled Bonaparte to represent England as violently
interfering with the rights of the French people, and the
Bourbons as seeking their restoration at the hand of the enemy of
their country. The answer made to Pitt's Government from Paris
was such as one high-spirited nation which had recently expelled
its rulers might address to another that had expelled its rulers
a century before. France, it was said, had as good a right to
dismiss an incapable dynasty as Great Britain. If Talleyrand's
reply failed to convince King George that before restoring the
Bourbons he ought to surrender his own throne to the Stuarts, it
succeeded in transferring attention from the wrongs inflicted by
France to the pretensions advanced by England. That it affected
the actual course of events there is no reason to believe. The
French Government was well acquainted with the real grounds of
war possessed by England, in spite of the errors by which the
British Cabinet weakened the statement of its cause. What the
mass of the French people now thought, or did not think, had
become a matter of very little importance.</p>
<p>[Situation of the Armies.]</p>
<p>[Moreau invades South Germany, April, 1800.]</p>
<p>The war continued. Winter and the early spring of 1800 passed
in France amidst vigorous but concealed preparations for the
campaign which was to drive the Austrians from Italy. In Piedmont
the Austrians spent months in inaction, which might have given
them Genoa and completed the conquest of Italy before Bonaparte's
army could take the field. It was not until the beginning of
April that Melas, their general, assailed the French positions on
the Genoese Apennines; a fortnight more was spent in mountain
warfare before Massena, who now held the French command, found
himself shut up in Genoa and blockaded by land and sea. The army
which Bonaparte was about to lead into Italy lay in between Dijon
and Geneva, awaiting the arrival of the First Consul. On the
Rhine, from Strasburg to Schaffhausen, a force of 100,000 men was
ready to cross into Germany under the command of Moreau, who was
charged with the task of pushing the Austrians back from the
Upper Danube, and so rendering any attack through Switzerland
upon the communications of Bonaparte's Italian force impossible.
Moreau's army was the first to move. An Austrian force, not
inferior to Moreau's own, lay within the bend of the Rhine that
covers Baden and W&uuml;rtemberg. Moreau crossed the Rhine at
various points, and by a succession of ingenious manoeuvres led
his adversary, Kray, to occupy all the roads through the Black
Forest except those by which the northern divisions of the French
were actually passing. A series of engagements, conspicuous for
the skill of the French general and the courage of the defeated
Austrians, gave Moreau possession of the country south of the
Danube as far as Ulm, where Kray took refuge in his entrenched
camp. Beyond this point Moreau's instructions forbade him to
advance. His task was fulfilled by the severance of the Austrian
army from the roads into Italy.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte crosses the Alps, May, 1800.]</p>
<p>Bonaparte's own army was now in motion. Its destination was
still secret; its very existence was doubted by the Austrian
generals. On the 8th of May the First Consul himself arrived at
Geneva, and assumed the command. The campaign upon which this
army was now entering was designed by Bonaparte to surpass
everything that Europe had hitherto seen most striking in war.
The feats of Massena and Suvaroff in the Alps had filled his
imagination with mountain warfare. A victory over nature more
imposing than theirs might, in the present position of the
Austrian forces in Lombardy, be made the prelude to a victory in
the field without a parallel in its effects upon the enemy.
Instead of relieving Genoa by an advance along the coast-road,
Bonaparte intended to march across the Alps and to descend in the
rear of the Austrians. A single defeat would then cut the
Austrians off from their communications with Mantua, and result
either in the capitulation of their army or in the evacuation of
the whole of the country that they had won, Bonaparte led his
army into the mountains. The pass of the Great St. Bernard,
though not a carriage-road, offered little difficulty to a
commander supplied with every resource of engineering material
and skill; and by this road the army crossed the Alps. The
cannons were taken from their carriages and dragged up the
mountain in hollowed trees; thousands of mules transported the
ammunition and supplies; workshops for repairs were established
on either slope of the mountain; and in the Monastery of St.
Bernard there were stores collected sufficient to feed the
soldiers as they reached the summit during six successive days
(May 15-20). The passage of the St. Bernard was a triumph of
organisation, foresight, and good management; as a military
exploit it involved none of the danger, none of the suffering,
none of the hazard, which gave such interest to the campaign of
Massena and Suvaroff.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte cuts off the Austrian army from Eastern
Lombardy.]</p>
<p>Bonaparte had rightly calculated upon the unreadiness of his
enemy. The advanced guard of the French army poured down the
valley of the Dora-Baltea upon the scanty Austrian detachments at
Ivrea and Chiusella, before Melas, who had in vain been warned of
the departure of the French from Geneva, arrived with a few
thousand men at Turin to dispute the entrance into Italy. Melas
himself, on the opening of the campaign, had followed a French
division to Nice, leaving General Ott in charge of the army
investing Genoa. On reaching Turin he discovered the full extent
of his peril, and sent orders to Ott to raise the siege of Genoa
and to join him with every regiment that he could collect. Ott,
however, was unwilling to abandon the prey at this moment falling
into his grasp. He remained stationary till the 5th of June, when
Massena, reduced to the most cruel extremities by famine, was
forced to surrender Genoa to the besiegers. But his obstinate
endurance had the full effect of a battle won. Ott's delay
rendered Melas powerless to hinder the movements of Bonaparte,
when, instead of marching upon Genoa, as both French and
Austrians expected him to do, he turned eastward, and thrust his
army between the Austrians and their own fortresses. Bonaparte
himself entered Milan (June 2); Lannes and Murat were sent to
seize the bridges over the Po and the Adda. The Austrian
detachment guarding Piacenza was overpowered; the communications
of Melas with the country north of the Powere completely severed.
Nothing remained for the Austrian commander but to break through
the French or to make his escape to Genoa.</p>
<p>[Battle of Marengo, June 14, 1800.]</p>
<p>[Conditions of Armistice.]</p>
<p>The French centre was now at Stradella, half-way between
Piacenza and Alessandria. Melas was at length joined by Ott at
Alessandria, but so scattered were the Austrian forces, that out
of 80,000 men Melas had not more than 33,000 at his command.
Bonaparte's forces were equal in number; his only fear was that
Melas might use his last line of retreat, and escape to Genoa
without an engagement. The Austrian general, however, who had
shared with Suvaroff the triumph over Joubert at Novi, resolved
to stake everything upon a pitched battle. He awaited Bonaparte's
approach at Alessandria. On the 12th of June Bonaparte advanced
westward from Stradella. His anxiety lest Melas might be escaping
from his hands increased with every hour of the march that
brought him no tidings of the enemy; and on the 13th, when his
advanced guard had come almost up to the walls of Alessandria
without seeing an enemy, he could bear the suspense no longer,
and ordered Desaix to march southward towards Novi and hold the
road to Genoa. Desaix led off his division. Early the next
morning the whole army of Melas issued from Alessandria, and
threw itself upon the weakened line of the French at Marengo. The
attack carried everything before it: at the end of seven hours'
fighting, Melas, exhausted by his personal exertions, returned
into Alessandria, and sent out tidings of a complete victory. It
was at this moment that Desaix, who had turned at the sound of
the cannon, appeared on the field, and declared that, although
one battle had been lost, another might be won. A sudden
cavalry-charge struck panic into the Austrians, who believed the
battle ended and the foe overthrown. Whole brigades threw down
their arms and fled; and ere the day closed a mass of fugitives,
cavalry and infantry, thronging over the marshes of the Bormida,
was all that remained of the victorious Austrian centre. The
suddenness of the disaster, the desperate position of the army,
cut off from its communications, overthrew the mind of Melas, and
he agreed to an armistice more fatal than an unconditional
surrender. The Austrians retired behind the Mincio, and abandoned
to the French every fortress in Northern Italy that lay west of
that river. A single battle had produced the result of a campaign
of victories and sieges. Marengo was the most brilliant in
conception of all Bonaparte's triumphs. If in its execution the
genius of the great commander had for a moment failed him, no
mention of the long hours of peril and confusion was allowed to
obscure the splendour of Bonaparte's victory. Every document was
altered or suppressed which contained a report of the real facts
of the battle. The descriptions given to the French nation
claimed only new homage to the First Consul's invincible genius
and power. <a name="FNanchor86">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_86"><sup>[86]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Austria continues the war.]</p>
<p>At Vienna the military situation was viewed more calmly than
in Melas' camp. The conditions of the armistice were generally
condemned, and any sudden change in the policy of Austria was
prevented by a treaty with England, binding Austria, in return
for British subsidies, and for a secret promise of part of
Piedmont, to make no separate peace with France before the end of
February, 1801. This treaty was signed a few hours before the
arrival of the news of Marengo. It was the work of Thugut, who
still maintained his influence over the Emperor, in spite of
growing unpopularity and almost universal opposition. Public
opinion, however, forced the Emperor at least to take steps for
ascertaining the French terms of peace. An envoy was sent to
Paris; and, as there could be no peace without the consent of
England, conferences were held with the object of establishing a
naval armistice between England and France. England, however,
refused the concessions demanded by the First Consul; and the
negotiations were broken off in September. But this interval of
three months had weakened the authority of the Minister and
stimulated the intrigues which at every great crisis paralysed
the action of Austria. At length, while Thugut was receiving the
subsidies of Great Britain and arranging for the most vigorous
prosecution of the war, the Emperor, concealing the transaction
from his Minister, purchased a new armistice by the surrender of
the fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt to Moreau's army. <a name=
"FNanchor87">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_87"><sup>[87]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Hohenlinden, Dec. 3, 1800.]</p>
<p>A letter written by Thugut after a council held on the 25th of
September gives some indication of the stormy scene which then
passed in the Emperor's presence. Thugut tendered his
resignation, which was accepted; and Lehrbach, the author of the
new armistice, was placed in office. But the reproaches of the
British ambassador forced the weak Emperor to rescind this
appointment on the day after it had been published to the world.
There was no one in Vienna capable of filling the vacant post;
and after a short interval the old Minister resumed the duties of
his office, without, however, openly resuming the title. The
remainder of the armistice was employed in strengthening the
force opposed to Moreau, who now received orders to advance upon
Vienna. The Archduke John, a royal strategist of eighteen, was
furnished with a plan for surrounding the French army and cutting
it off from its communications. Moreau lay upon the Isar; the
Austrians held the line of the Inn. On the termination of the
armistice the Austrians advanced and made some devious marches in
pursuance of the Archduke's enterprise, until a general
confusion, attributed to the weather, caused them to abandon
their manoeuvres and move straight against the enemy. On the 3rd
of December the Austrians plunged into the snow-blocked roads of
the Forest of Hohenlinden, believing that they had nothing near
them but the rear-guard of a retiring French division. Moreau
waited until they had reached the heart of the forest, and then
fell upon them with his whole force in front, in flank, and in
the rear. The defeat of the Austrians was overwhelming. What
remained of the war was rather a chase than a struggle. Moreau
successively crossed the Inn, the Salza, and the Traun; and on
December 25th the Emperor, seeing that no effort of Pitt could
keep Moreau out of Vienna, accepted an armistice at Steyer, and
agreed to treat for peace without reference to Great Britain.</p>
<p>[Peace of Lun&eacute;ville, Feb. 9, 1801.]</p>
<p>Defeats on the Mincio, announced during the following days,
increased the necessity for peace. Thugut was finally removed
from power. Some resistance was offered to the conditions
proposed by Bonaparte, but these were directed more to the
establishment of French influence in Germany than to the
humiliation of the House of Hapsburg. Little was taken from
Austria but what she had surrendered at Campo Formio. It was not
by the cession of Italian or Slavonic provinces that the
Government of Vienna paid for Marengo and Hohenlinden, but at the
cost of that divided German race whose misfortune it was to have
for its head a sovereign whose interests in the Empire and in
Germany were among the least of all his interests. The Peace of
Lun&eacute;ville, <a name="FNanchor88">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_88"><sup>[88]</sup></a> concluded between France and
the Emperor on the 9th of February, 1801, without even a
reference to the Diet of the Empire, placed the minor States of
Germany at the mercy of the French Republic. It left to the House
of Hapsburg the Venetian territory which it had gained in 1797;
it required no reduction of the Hapsburg influence in Italy
beyond the abdication of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; but it ceded
to France, without the disguises of 1797, the German provinces
west of the Rhine, and it formally bound the Empire to compensate
the dispossessed lay Sovereigns in such a manner as should be
approved by France. The French Republic was thus made arbiter, as
a matter of right, in the rearrangement of the maimed and
shattered Empire. Even the Grand Duke of Tuscany, like his
predecessor in ejection, the Duke of Modena, was to receive some
portion of the German race for his subjects, in compensation for
the Italians taken from him. To such a pass had political
disunion brought a nation which at that time could show the
greatest names in Europe in letters, in science, and in art.</p>
<p>[Peace with Naples.]</p>
<p>[Russia turns against England.]</p>
<p>[Northern Maritime League, Dec., 1800.]</p>
<p>Austria having succumbed, the Court of Naples, which had been
the first of the Allies to declare war, was left at the mercy of
Bonaparte. Its cruelties and tyranny called for severe
punishment; but the intercession of the Czar kept the Bourbons
upon the throne, and Naples received peace upon no harder
condition than the exclusion of English vessels from its ports.
England was now left alone in its struggle with the French
Republic. Nor was it any longer to be a struggle only against
France and its dependencies. The rigour with which the English
Government had used its superiority at sea, combined with the
folly which it had shown in the Anglo-Russian attack upon
Holland, raised against it a Maritime League under the leadership
of a Power which England had offended as a neutral and
exasperated as an ally. Since the pitiful Dutch campaign, the
Czar had transferred to Great Britain the hatred which he had
hitherto borne to France. The occasion was skilfully used by
Bonaparte, to whom, as a soldier, the Czar felt less repugnance
than to the Government of advocates and contractors which he had
attacked in 1799. The First Consul restored without ransom
several thousands of Russian prisoners, for whom the Austrians
and the English had refused to give up Frenchmen in exchange, and
followed up this advance by proposing that the guardianship of
Malta, which was now blockaded by the English, should be given to
the Czar. Paul had caused himself to be made Grand Master of the
Maltese Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His vanity was touched by
Bonaparte's proposal, and a friendly relation was established
between the French and Russian Governments. England, on the other
hand, refused to place Malta under Russian guardianship, either
before or after its surrender. This completed the breach between
the Courts of London and St. Petersburg. The Czar seized all the
English vessels in his ports and imprisoned their crews (Sept.
9). A difference of long standing existed between England and the
Northern Maritime Powers, which was capable at any moment of
being made a cause of war. The rights exercised over neutral
vessels by English ships in time of hostilities, though good in
international law, were so oppressive that, at the time of the
American rebellion, the Northern Powers had formed a league,
known as the Armed Neutrality, for the purpose of resisting by
force the interference of the English with neutral merchantmen
upon the high seas. Since the outbreak of war with France,
English vessels had again pushed the rights of belligerents to
extremes. The Armed Neutrality of 1780 was accordingly revived
under the auspices of the Czar. The League was signed on the 16th
of December, 1800, by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Some days
later Prussia gave in its adhesion. <a name="FNanchor89">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_89"><sup>[89]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Points at issue.]</p>
<p>The points at issue between Great Britain and the Neutrals
were such as arise between a great naval Power intent upon
ruining its adversary and that larger part of the world which
remains at peace and desires to carry on its trade with as little
obstruction as possible. It was admitted on all sides that a
belligerent may search a neutral vessel in order to ascertain
that it is not conveying contraband of war, and that a neutral
vessel, attempting to enter a blockaded port, renders itself
liable to forfeiture; but beyond these two points everything was
in dispute. A Danish ship conveys a cargo of wine from a Bordeaux
merchant to his agent in New York. Is the wine liable to be
seized in the mid-Atlantic by an English cruiser, to the
destruction of the Danish carrying-trade, or is the Danish flag
to protect French property from a Power whose naval superiority
makes capture upon the high seas its principal means of offence?
England announces that a French port is in a state of blockade.
Is a Swedish vessel, stopped while making for the port in
question, to be considered a lawful prize, when, if it had
reached the port, it would as a matter of fact have found no real
blockade in existence? A Russian cargo of hemp, pitch, and timber
is intercepted by an English vessel on its way to an open port in
France. Is the staple produce of the Russian Empire to lose its
market as contraband of war? Or is an English man-of-war to allow
material to pass into France, without which the repair of French
vessels of war would be impossible?</p>
<p>[War between England and the Northern Maritime Powers, Jan.,
1801.]</p>
<p>These were the questions raised as often as a firm of
shipowners in a neutral country saw their vessel come back into
port cleared of its cargo, or heard that it was lying in the
Thames awaiting the judgment of the Admiralty Court. Great
Britain claimed the right to seize all French property, in
whatever vessel it might be sailing, and to confiscate, as
contraband of war, not only muskets, gunpowder, and cannon, but
wheat, on which the provisioning of armies depended, and hemp,
pitch, iron, and timber, out of which the navies of her adversary
were formed. The Neutrals, on the other hand, demanded that a
neutral flag should give safe passage to all goods on board, not
being contraband of war; that the presence of a vessel of State
as convoy should exempt merchantmen from search; that no port
should be considered in a state of blockade unless a competent
blockading force was actually in front of it; and that contraband
of war should include no other stores than those directly
available for battle. Considerations of reason and equity may be
urged in support of every possible theory of the rights of
belligerents and neutrals; but the theory of every nation has, as
a matter of fact, been that which at the time accorded with its
own interests. When a long era of peace had familiarised Great
Britain with the idea that in the future struggles of Europe it
was more likely to be a spectator than a belligerent, Great
Britain accepted the Neutrals' theory of international law at the
Congress of Paris in 1856; but in 1801, when the lot of England
seemed to be eternal warfare, any limitation of the rights of a
belligerent appeared to every English jurist to contradict the
first principles of reason. Better to add a general maritime war
to the existing difficulties of the country than to abandon the
exercise of its naval superiority in crippling the commerce of an
adversary. The Declaration of armed Neutrality, announcing the
intention of the Allied Powers to resist the seizure of French
goods on board their own merchantmen, was treated in this country
as a declaration of war. The Government laid an embargo upon all
vessels of the allied neutrals lying in English ports (Jan. 14th,
1801), and issued a swarm of privateers against the trading ships
making for the Baltic. Negotiations failed to lower the demands
of either side, and England prepared to deal with the navies of
Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia.</p>
<p>[Battle of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801.]</p>
<p>At the moment, the concentrated naval strength of England made
it more than a match for its adversaries. A fleet of seventeen
ships of the line sailed from Yarmouth on the 12th of March,
under the command of Parker and Nelson, with orders to coerce the
Danes and to prevent the junction of the confederate navies. The
fleet reached the Sound. The Swedish batteries commanding the
Sound failed to open fire. Nelson kept to the eastern side of the
channel, and brought his ships safely past the storm of shot
poured upon them from the Danish guns at Elsinore. He appeared
before Copenhagen at mid-day on the 30th of March. Preparations
for resistance were made by the Danes with extraordinary spirit
and resolution. The whole population of Copenhagen volunteered
for service on the ships, the forts, and the floating batteries.
Two days were spent by the English in exploring the shallows of
the channel; on the morning of the 2nd of April Nelson led his
ships into action in front of the harbour. Three ran aground; the
Danish fire from land and sea was so violent that after some
hours Admiral Parker, who watched the engagement from the
mid-channel, gave the signal of recall. Nelson laughed at the
signal, and continued the battle. In another hour the six Danish
men-of-war and the whole of the floating batteries were disabled
or sunk. The English themselves had suffered most severely from a
resistance more skilful and more determined than anything that
they had experienced from the French, and Nelson gladly offered a
truce as soon as his own victory was assured. The truce was
followed by negotiation, and the negotiation by an armistice for
fourteen weeks, a term which Nelson considered sufficient to
enable him to visit and to overthrow the navies of Sweden and
Russia.</p>
<p>[Murder of Paul, March 23.]</p>
<p>[Peace between England and the Northern Powers.]</p>
<p>But an event had already occurred more momentous in its
bearing upon the Northern Confederacy than the battle of
Copenhagen itself. On the night of the 23rd of March the Czar of
Russia was assassinated in his palace. Paul's tyrannical
violence, and his caprice verging upon insanity, had exhausted
the patience of a court acquainted with no mode of remonstrance
but homicide. Blood-stained hands brought to the Grand Duke
Alexander the crown which he had consented to receive after a
pacific abdication. Alexander immediately reversed the policy of
his father, and sent friendly communications both to the
Government at London and to the commander of the British fleet in
the Baltic. The maintenance of commerce with England was in fact
more important to Russia than the protection of its carrying
trade. Nelson's attack was averted. A compromise was made between
the two Governments, which saved Russia's interests, without
depriving England of its chief rights against France. The
principles of the Armed Neutrality were abandoned by the
Government of St. Petersburg in so far as they related to the
protection of an enemy's goods by the neutral flag. Great Britain
continued to seize French merchandise on board whatever craft it
might be found; but it was stipulated that the presence of a ship
of war should exempt neutral vessels from search by privateers,
and that no port should be considered as in a state of blockade
unless a reasonable blockading force was actually in front of it.
The articles condemned as contraband were so limited as not to
include the flax, hemp, and timber, on whose export the commerce
of Russia depended. With these concessions the Czar was easily
brought to declare Russia again neutral. The minor Powers of the
Baltic followed the example of St. Petersburg; and the naval
confederacy which had threatened to turn the balance in the
conflict between England and the French Republic left its only
trace in the undeserved suffering of Denmark.</p>
<p>[Affairs in Egypt.]</p>
<p>Eight years of warfare had left France unassailable in Western
Europe, and England in command of every sea. No Continental
armies could any longer be raised by British subsidies: the
navies of the Baltic, with which Bonaparte had hoped to meet
England on the seas, lay at peace in their ports. Egypt was now
the only arena remaining where French and English combatants
could meet, and the dissolution of the Northern Confederacy had
determined the fate of Egypt by leaving England in undisputed
command of the approach to Egypt by sea. The French army, vainly
expecting reinforcements, and attacked by the Turks from the
east, was caught in a trap. Soon after the departure of Bonaparte
from Alexandria, his successor, General Kleber, had addressed a
report to the Directory, describing the miserable condition of
the force which Bonaparte had chosen to abandon. The report was
intercepted by the English, and the Government immediately
determined to accept no capitulation which did not surrender the
whole of the French army as prisoners of war. An order to this
effect was sent to the Mediterranean. Before, however, the order
reached Sir Sidney Smith, the English admiral cooperating with
the Turks, an agreement had been already signed by him at El
Arish, granting Kleber's army a free return to France (Feb. 24,
1800). After Kleber, in fulfilment of the conditions of the
treaty, had withdrawn his troops from certain positions, Sir
Sidney Smith found himself compelled to inform the French General
that in the negotiations of El Arish he had exceeded his powers,
and that the British Government insisted upon the surrender of
the French forces. Kleber replied by instantly giving battle to
the Turks at Heliopolis, and putting to the rout an army six
times as numerous as his own. The position of the French seemed
to be growing stronger in Egypt, and the prospect of a Turkish
re-conquest more doubtful, when the dagger of a fanatic robbed
the French of their able chief, and transferred the command to
General Menou, one of the very few French officers of marked
incapacity who held command at any time during the war. The
British Government, as soon as it learnt what had taken place
between Kleber and Sir Sidney Smith, declared itself willing to
be bound by the convention of El Arish. The offer was, however,
rejected by the French. It was clear that the Turks could never
end the war by themselves; and the British Ministry at last came
to understand that Egypt must be re-conquered by English
arms.</p>
<p>[English army lands in Egypt, March, 1801.]</p>
<p>[French capitulate at Cairo, June 27, 1801.]</p>
<p>[And at Alexandria, Aug. 30.]</p>
<p>On the 8th of March, 1801, a corps of 17,000 men, led by Sir
Ralph Abercromby, landed at Aboukir Bay. According to the plan of
the British Government, Abercromby's attack was to be supported
by a Turkish corps from Syria, and by an Anglo-Indian division
brought from Ceylon to Kosseir, on the Red Sea. The Turks and the
Indian troops were, however, behind their time, and Abercromby
opened the campaign alone. Menou had still 27,000 troops at his
disposal. Had he moved up with the whole of his army from Cairo,
he might have destroyed the English immediately after their
landing. Instead of doing so, he allowed weak isolated
detachments of the French to sink before superior numbers. The
English had already gained confidence of victory when Menou
advanced in some force in order to give battle in front of
Alexandria. The decisive engagement took place on the 21st of
March. The French were completely defeated. Menou, however, still
refused to concentrate his forces; and in the course of a few
weeks 13,000 French troops which had been left behind at Cairo
were cut off from communication with the rest of the army. A
series of attempts made by Admiral Ganteaume to land
reinforcements from France ended fruitlessly. Towards the end of
June the arrival of a Turkish force enabled the English to
surround the French in Cairo. The circuit of the works was too
large to be successfully defended; on the other hand, the English
were without the heavy artillery necessary for a siege. Under
these circumstances the terms which had originally been offered
at El Arish were again proposed to General Belliard for himself
and the army of Cairo. They were accepted, and Cairo was
surrendered to the English on condition that the garrison should
be conveyed back to France (June 27). Soon after the capitulation
General Baird reached Lower Egypt with an Anglo-Indian division.
Menou with the remainder of the French army was now shut up in
Alexandria. His forts and outworks were successively carried; his
flotilla was destroyed; and when all hope of support from France
had been abandoned, the army of Alexandria, which formed the
remnant of the troops with which Bonaparte had won his earliest
victories in Italy, found itself compelled to surrender the last
stronghold of the French in Egypt (Aug. 30). It was the first
important success which had been gained by English soldiers over
the troops of the Republic; the first campaign in which English
generalship had permitted the army to show itself in its true
quality.</p>
<p>[Negotiations for peace.]</p>
<p>[Preliminaries of London, Oct. 1, 1801.]</p>
<p>[Peace of Amiens, March 27, 1802.]</p>
<p>Peace was now at hand. Soon after the Treaty of
Lun&eacute;ville had withdrawn Austria from the war, unofficial
negotiations had begun between the Governments of Great Britain
and France. The object with which Pitt had entered upon the war,
the maintenance of the old European system against the aggression
of France, was now seen to be one which England must abandon.
England had borne its share in the defence of the Continent. If
the Continental Powers could no longer resist the ascendancy of a
single State, England could not struggle for the Balance of Power
alone. The negotiations of 1801 had little in common with those
of 1796. Belgium, which had been the burden of all Pitt's earlier
despatches, no longer figured as an object of contention. The
frontier of the Rhine, with the virtual possession of Holland and
Northern Italy, under the title of the Batavian, Ligurian, and
Cisalpine Republics, was tacitly conceded to France. In place of
the restoration of the Netherlands, the negotiators of 1801
argued about the disposal of Egypt, of Malta, and of the colonies
which Great Britain had conquered from France and its allies.
Events decided the fate of Egypt. The restoration of Malta to the
Knights of St. John was strenuously demanded by France, and not
refused by England. It was in relation to the colonial claims of
France that the two Governments found it most difficult to agree.
Great Britain, which had lost no territory itself, had conquered
nearly all the Asiatic and Atlantic colonies of the French
Republic and of its Dutch and Spanish allies. In return for the
restoration of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Guiana, Trinidad,
and various East and West Indian settlements, France had nothing
to offer to Great Britain but peace. If peace, however, was to be
made, the only possible settlement was by means of a compromise;
and it was finally agreed that England should retain Ceylon and
Trinidad, and restore the rest of the colonies which it had taken
from France, Spain, and Holland. Preliminaries of peace embodying
these conditions were signed at London on the 1st of October,
1801. Hostilities ceased; but an interval of several months
between the preliminary agreement and the conclusion of the final
treaty was employed by Bonaparte in new usurpations upon the
Continent, to which he forced the British Government to lend a
kind of sanction in the continuance of the negotiations. The
Government, though discontented, was unwilling to treat these
acts as new occasions of war. The conferences were at length
brought to a close, and the definitive treaty between France and
Great Britain was signed at Amiens on the 27th of March, 1802. <a
name="FNanchor90">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_90"><sup>[90]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Pitt's retirement. Its cause.]</p>
<p>[Union of Ireland and Great Britain, 1800.]</p>
<p>The Minister who, since the first outbreak of war, had so
resolutely struggled for the freedom of Europe, was no longer in
power when Great Britain entered into negotiations with the First
Consul. In the same week that Austria signed the Peace of
Lun&eacute;ville, Pitt had retired from office. The catastrophe
which dissolved his last Continental alliance may possibly have
disposed Pitt to make way for men who could treat for peace with
a better grace than himself, but the immediate cause of his
retirement was an affair of internal policy. Among the few
important domestic measures which Pitt had not sacrificed to
foreign warfare was a project for the Legislative Union of Great
Britain and Ireland. Ireland had up to this time possessed a
Parliament nominally independent of that of Great Britain. Its
population, however, was too much divided to create a really
national government; and, even if the internal conditions of the
country had been better, the practical sovereignty of Great
Britain must at that time have prevented the Parliament of Dublin
from being more than an agency of ministerial corruption. It was
the desire of Pitt to give to Ireland, in the place of a
fictitious independence, that real participation in the political
life of Great Britain which has more than recompensed Scotland
and Wales for the loss of separate nationality. As an earnest of
legislative justice, Pitt gave hopes to the leaders of the Irish
Catholic party that the disabilities which excluded Roman
Catholics from the House of Commons and from many offices in the
public service would be no longer maintained. On this
understanding the Catholics of Ireland abstained from offering to
Pitt's project a resistance which would probably have led to its
failure. A majority of members in the Protestant Parliament of
Dublin accepted the price which the Ministry offered for their
votes. A series of resolutions in favour of the Legislative Union
of the two countries was transmitted to England in the spring of
1800; the English Parliament passed the Act of Union in the same
summer; and the first United Parliament of Great Britain and
Ireland assembled in London at the beginning of the year
1801.</p>
<p>[Pitt desires to emancipate the Catholics.]</p>
<p>[Pitt resigns Feb. 1801.]</p>
<p>[Addington Minister.]</p>
<p>Pitt now prepared to fulfil his virtual promise to the Irish
Catholics. A measure obliterating the ancient lines of civil and
religious enmity, and calling to public life a class hitherto
treated as alien and hostile to the State, would have been in
true consonance with all that was best in Pitt's own
statesmanship. But the ignorant bigotry of King George III. was
excited against him by men who hated every act of justice or
tolerance to Roman Catholics; and it proved of greater force than
the genius of the Minister. The old threat of the King's personal
enmity was publicly addressed to Pitt's colleague, Dundas, when
the proposal for Catholic emancipation was under discussion in
the Cabinet; and, with a just regard for his own dignity, Pitt
withdrew from office (Feb. 5, 1801), unable to influence a
Sovereign who believed his soul to be staked on the letter of the
Coronation Oath. The ablest members of Pitt's government,
Grenville, Dundas, and Windham, retired with their leader.
Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons, became Prime
Minister, with colleagues as undistinguished as himself. It was
under the government of Addington that the negotiations were
begun which resulted in the signature of Preliminaries of Peace
in October 1801.</p>
<p>[The Peace of 1801.]</p>
<p>Pitt himself supported the new Ministry in their policy of
peace; Grenville, lately Pitt's Foreign Minister, unsparingly
condemned both the cession of the conquered colonies and the
policy of granting France peace on any terms whatever. Viewed by
the light of our own knowledge of events, the Peace of 1801
appears no more than an unprofitable break in an inevitable war;
and perhaps even then the signs of Bonaparte's ambition justified
those who, like Grenville, urged the nation to give no truce to
France, and to trust to Bonaparte's own injustice to raise us up
allies upon the Continent. But, for the moment, peace seemed at
least worth a trial. The modes of prosecuting a war of offence
were exhausted; the cost of the national defence remained the
same. There were no more navies to destroy, no more colonies to
seize; the sole means of injuring the enemy was by blockading his
ports, and depriving him of his maritime commerce. On the other
hand, the possibility of a French invasion required the
maintenance of an enormous army and militia in England, and
prevented any great reduction in the expenses of the war, which
had already added two hundred millions to the National Debt.
Nothing was lost by making peace, except certain colonies and
military positions which few were anxious to retain. The argument
that England could at any moment recover what she now surrendered
was indeed a far sounder one than most of those which went to
prove that the positions in question were of no real service. Yet
even on the latter point there was no want of high authority. It
was Nelson himself who assured the House of Lords that neither
Malta nor the Cape of Good Hope could ever be of importance to
Great Britain. <a name="FNanchor91">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_91"><sup>[91]</sup></a> In the face of such testimony,
the men who lamented that England should allow the adversary to
recover any lost ground in the midst of a struggle for life or
death, passed for obstinate fanatics. The Legislature reflected
the general feeling of the nation; and the policy of the
Government was confirmed in the Lords and the Commons by
majorities of ten to one.</p>
<p>[Aggressions of Bonaparte during the Continental peace.]</p>
<p>[Holland, Sept., 1801.]</p>
<p>Although the Ministry of Addington had acted with energy both
in Egypt and in the Baltic, it was generally felt that Pitt's
retirement marked the surrender of that resolute policy which had
guided England since 1793. When once the Preliminaries of Peace
had been signed in London, Bonaparte rightly judged that
Addington would waive many just causes of complaint, rather than
break off the negotiations which were to convert the
Preliminaries into a definitive treaty. Accordingly, in his
instructions to Joseph Bonaparte, who represented France at the
conferences held at Amiens, the First Consul wrote, through
Talleyrand, as follows:-"You are forbidden to entertain any
proposition relating to the King of Sardinia, or to the
Stadtholder, or to the internal affairs of Batavia, of Helvetia,
or the Republic of Italy. None of these subjects have anything to
do with the discussions of England." The list of subjects
excluded from the consideration of England was the list of
aggressions by which Bonaparte intended to fill up the interval
of Continental peace. In the Treaty of Lun&eacute;ville, the
independence of the newly-established republics in Holland,
Switzerland, and Italy had been recognised by France. The
restoration of Piedmont to the House of Savoy had been the
condition on which the Czar made peace. But on every one of these
points the engagements of France were made only to be broken. So
far from bringing independence to the client-republics of France,
the peace of Lun&eacute;ville was but the introduction to a
series of changes which brought these States directly into the
hands of the First Consul. The establishment of absolute
government in France itself entailed a corresponding change in
each of its dependencies, and the creation of an executive which
should accept the First Consul's orders with as little question
as the Prefect of a French department. Holland received its new
constitution while France was still at war with England. The
existing Government and Legislature of the Batavian Republic were
dissolved (Sept., 1801), and replaced by a council of twelve
persons, each holding the office of President in turn for a
period of three months, and by a legislature of thirty-five,
which met only for a few days in the year. The power given to the
new President during his office was enough, and not more than
enough, to make him an effective servant: a three-months'
Minister and an Assembly that met and parted at the word of
command were not likely to enter into serious rivalry with the
First Consul. The Dutch peaceably accepted the constitution thus
forced upon them; they possessed no means of resistance, and
their affairs excited but little interest upon the Continent.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte made President of the Italian Republic, Jan.,
1802.]</p>
<p>[Piedmont annexed to France, Sept., 1802.]</p>
<p>Far more striking was the revolution next effected by the
First Consul. In obedience to orders sent from Paris to the
Legislature of the Cisalpine Republic, a body of four hundred and
fifty Italian representatives crossed the Alps in the middle of
winter in order to meet the First Consul at Lyons, and to
deliberate upon a constitution for the Cisalpine Republic. The
constitution had, as a matter of fact, been drawn up by
Talleyrand, and sent to the Legislature at Milan some months
before. But it was not for the sake of Italy that its
representatives were collected at Lyons, in the presence of the
First Consul, with every circumstance of national solemnity. It
was the most striking homage which Bonaparte could exact from a
foreign race in the face of all France; it was the testimony that
other lands besides France desired Bonaparte to be their
sovereign. When all the minor offices in the new Cisalpine
Constitution had been filled, the Italians learnt that the real
object of the convocation was to place the sceptre in Bonaparte's
hands. They accepted the part which they found themselves forced
to play, and offered to the First Consul the presidency of the
Cisalpine State (Jan. 25, 1802). Unlike the French Consulate, the
chief magistracy in the new Cisalpine Constitution might be
prolonged beyond the term of ten years. Bonaparte had practically
won the Crown of Lombardy; and he had given to France the example
of a submission more unqualified than its own. A single phrase
rewarded the people who had thus placed themselves in his hands.
The Cisalpine Republic was allowed to assume the name of Italian
Republic. The new title indicated the national hopes which had
sprung up in Italy during the past ten years; it indicated no
real desire on the part of Bonaparte to form either a free or a
united Italian nation. In the Cisalpine State itself, although a
good administration and the extinction of feudal privileges made
Bonaparte's government acceptable, patriots who asked for freedom
ran the risk of exile or imprisonment. What further influence was
exercised by France upon Italian soil was not employed for the
consolidation of Italy. Tuscany was bestowed by Bonaparte upon
the Spanish Prince of Parma, and controlled by agents of the
First Consul. Piedmont, which had long been governed by French
generals, was at length definitely annexed to France.</p>
<p>[Intervention in Switzerland.]</p>
<p>[Bonaparte Mediator of the Helvetic League, Oct. 4, 1802.]</p>
<p>Switzerland had not, like the Cisalpine Republic, derived its
liberty from the victories of French armies, nor could Bonaparte
claim the presidency of the Helvetic State under the title of its
founder. The struggles of the Swiss parties, however, placed the
country at the mercy of France. Since the expulsion of the
Austrians by Massena in 1799, the antagonism between the
Democrats of the town and the Federalists of the Forest Cantons
had broken out afresh. A French army still occupied Switzerland;
the Minister of the First Consul received instructions to
interfere with all parties and consolidate none. In the autumn of
1801, the Federalists were permitted to dissolve the central
Helvetic Government, which had been created by the Directory in
1798. One change followed another, until, on the 19th of May,
1802, a second Constitution was proclaimed, based, like that of
1798, on centralising and democratic principles, and almost
extinguishing the old local independence of the members of the
Swiss League. No sooner had French partisans created this
Constitution, which could only be maintained by force against the
hostility of Berne and the Forest Cantons, than the French army
quitted Switzerland. Civil war instantly broke out, and in the
course of a few weeks the Government established by the French
had lost all Switzerland except the Pays de Vaud. This was the
crisis for which Bonaparte had been waiting. On the 4th of
October a proclamation appeared at Lausanne, announcing that the
First Consul had accepted the office of Mediator of the Helvetic
League. A French army entered Switzerland. Fifty-six deputies
from the cantons were summoned to Paris; and, in the beginning of
1803, a new Constitution, which left the central Government
powerless in the hands of France and reduced the national
sovereignty to cantonal self-administration, placed Switzerland
on a level with the Batavian and the Cisalpine dependencies of
Bonaparte. The Rhone Valley, with the mountains crossed by the
new road over the Simplon, was converted into a separate republic
under the title of La Valais. The new chief magistrate of the
Helvetic Confederacy entered upon his office with a pension paid
out of Bonaparte's secret police fund.</p>
<p>[Settlement of Germany.]</p>
<p>Such was the nature of the independence which the Peace of
Lun&eacute;ville gave to Holland, to Northern Italy, and to
Switzerland. The re-organisation of Germany, which was provided
for by the same treaty, affected larger interests, and left more
permanent traces upon European history. In the provinces ceded to
France lay the territory of the ancient ecclesiastical princes of
the empire, the Electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Tr&egrave;ves;
but, besides these spiritual sovereigns, a variety of secular
potentates, ranging from the Elector Palatine, with 600,000
subjects, to the Prince of Wiedrunkel, with a single village,
owned territory upon the left bank of the Rhine; and for the
dispossessed lay princes new territories had now to be formed by
the destruction of other ecclesiastical States in the interior of
Germany. Affairs returned to the state in which they had stood in
1798, and the comedy of Rastadt was renewed at the point where it
had been broken off: the only difference was that the French
statesmen who controlled the partition of ecclesiastical Germany
now remained in Paris, instead of coming to the Rhine, to run the
risk of being murdered by Austrian hussars. Scarcely was the
Treaty of Lun&eacute;ville signed when the whole company of
intriguers who had touted at Rastadt posted off to the French
capital with their maps and their money-bags, the keener for the
work when it became known that by common consent the Free Cities
of the Empire were now to be thrown into the spoil. Talleyrand
and his confidant Mathieu had no occasion to ask for bribes, or
to manoeuvre for the position of arbiters in Germany. They were
overwhelmed with importunities. Solemn diplomatists of the old
school toiled up four flights of stairs to the office of the
needy secretary, or danced attendance at the parties of the witty
Minister. They hugged Talleyrand's poodle; they vied with one
another in gaining a smile from the child whom he brought up at
his house. <a name="FNanchor92">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_92"><sup>[92]</sup></a> The shrewder of them fortified
their attentions with solid bargains, and made it their principal
care not to be outbidden at the auction. Thus the game was kept
up as long as there was a bishopric or a city in the market.</p>
<p>This was the real process of the German re-organisation. A
pretended one was meanwhile enacted by the Diet of Ratisbon. The
Diet deliberated during the whole of the summer of 1801 without
arriving at a single resolution. Not even the sudden change of
Russian policy that followed the death of the Emperor Paul and
deprived Bonaparte of the support of the Northern Maritime
League, could stimulate the German Powers to united action. The
old antagonism of Austria and Prussia paralysed the Diet. Austria
sought a German indemnity for the dethroned Grand Duke of
Tuscany; Prussia aimed at extending its influence into Southern
Germany by the annexation of W&uuml;rzburg and Bamberg. Thus the
summer of 1801 was lost in interminable debate, until Bonaparte
regained the influence over Russia which he had held before the
death of Paul, and finally set himself free from all check and
restraint by concluding peace with England.</p>
<p>[German policy of Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>No part of Bonaparte's diplomacy was more ably conceived or
more likely to result in a permanent empire than that which
affected the secondary States of Germany. The rivalry of Austria
and Prussia, the dread of Austrian aggression felt in Bavaria,
the grotesque ambition of the petty sovereigns of Baden and
W&uuml;rtemburg, were all understood and turned to account in the
policy which from this time shaped the French protectorate beyond
the Rhine. Bonaparte intended to give to Prussia such an increase
of territory upon the Baltic as should counterbalance the power
of Austria; and for this purpose he was willing to sacrifice
Hanover or Mecklenburg: but he forbade Prussia's extension to the
south. Austria, so far from gaining new territory in Bavaria, was
to be deprived of its own outlying possessions in Western
Germany, and excluded from all influence in this region. Bavaria,
dependent upon French protection against Austria, was to be
greatly strengthened. Baden and W&uuml;rtemberg, enriched by the
spoil of little sovereignties, of Bishoprics and Free Cities,
were to look to France for further elevation and aggrandisement.
Thus, while two rival Powers balanced one another upon the Baltic
and the Lower Danube, the sovereigns of central and western
Germany, owing everything to the Power that had humbled Austria,
would find in submission to France the best security for their
own gains, and the best protection against their more powerful
neighbours.</p>
<p>[Treaty between France and Russia for joint action in Germany,
Oct. 11, 1801.]</p>
<p>One condition alone could have frustrated a policy agreeable
to so many interests, namely, the existence of a national
sentiment among the Germans themselves. But the peoples of
Germany cared as little about a Fatherland as their princes. To
the Hessian and the Bavarian at the centre of the Empire, Germany
was scarcely more than it was to the Swiss or the Dutch, who had
left the Empire centuries before. The inhabitants of the Rhenish
Provinces had murmured for a while at the extortionate rule of
the Directory; but their severance from Germany and their
incorporation with a foreign race touched no fibre of patriotic
regret; and after the establishment of a better order of things
under the Consulate the annexation to France appears to have
become highly popular. <a name="FNanchor93">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_93"><sup>[93]</sup></a> Among a race whose members
could thus be actually conquered and annexed without doing
violence to their feelings Bonaparte had no difficulty in finding
willing allies. While the Diet dragged on its debates upon the
settlement of the Empire, the minor States pursued their
bargainings with the French Government; and on the 14th of
August, 1801, Bavaria signed the first of those treaties which
made the First Consul the patron of Western Germany. Two months
later a secret treaty between France and Russia admitted the new
Czar, Alexander, to a share in the reorganisation of the Empire.
The Governments of Paris and St. Petersburg pledged themselves to
united action for the purpose of maintaining an equilibrium
between Austria and Prussia; and the Czar further stipulated for
the advancement of his own relatives, the Sovereigns of Bavaria,
Baden, and W&uuml;rtemberg. The relationship of these petty
princes to the Russian family enabled Bonaparte to present to the
Czar, as a graceful concession, the very measure which most
vitally advanced his own power in Germany. Alexander's
intervention made resistance on the part of Austria hopeless. One
after another the German Sovereigns settled with their patrons
for a share in the spoil; and on the 3rd of June, 1802, a secret
agreement between France and Russia embodied the whole of these
arrangements, and disposed of almost all the Free Cities and the
entire ecclesiastical territory of the Empire.</p>
<p>[Diet of Ratisbon accepts French Scheme.]</p>
<p>[End of German Ecclesiastical States and forty-five Free
Cities, March, 1803.]</p>
<p>When everything had thus been settled by the foreigners, a
Committee, to which the Diet of Ratisbon had referred the work of
re-organisation, began its sessions, assisted by a French and a
Russian representative. The Scheme which had been agreed upon
between France and Russia was produced entire; and in spite of
the anger and the threats of Austria it passed the Committee with
no greater delay than was inseparable from everything connected
with German affairs. The Committee presented the Scheme to the
Diet: the Diet only agitated itself as to the means of passing
the Scheme without violating those formalities which were the
breath of its life. The proposed destruction of all the
Ecclesiastical States, and of forty-five out of the fifty Free
Cities, would extinguish a third part of the members of the Diet
itself. If these unfortunate bodies were permitted to vote upon
the measure, their votes might result in its rejection: if
unsummoned, their absence would impair the validity of the
resolution. By a masterpiece of conscientious pedantry it was
agreed that the doomed prelates and cities should be duly called
to vote in their turn, and that upon the mention each name the
answer "absent" should be returned by an officer. Thus, faithful
to its formalities, the Empire voted the destruction of its
ancient Constitution; and the sovereignties of the Ecclesiastics
and Free Cities, which had lasted for so many centuries, vanished
from Europe (March, 1803). <a name="FNanchor94">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_94"><sup>[94]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Effect on Germany.]</p>
<p>The loss was small indeed. The internal condition of the
priest-ruled districts was generally wretched; heavy ignorance,
beggary, and intolerance reduced life to a gross and dismal
inertia. Except in their patronage of music, the ecclesiastical
princes had perhaps rendered no single service to Germany. The
Free Cities, as a rule, were sunk in debt; the management of
their affairs had become the perquisite of a few lawyers and
privileged families. For Germany, as a nation, the destruction of
these petty sovereignties was not only an advantage but an
absolute necessity. The order by which they were superseded was
not devised in the interest of Germany itself; yet even in the
arrangements imposed by the foreigner Germany gained centres from
which the institutions of modern political life entered into
regions where no public authority had yet been known beyond the
court of the bishop or the feudal officers of the manor. <a name=
"FNanchor95">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_95"><sup>[95]</sup></a>
Through the suppression of the Ecclesiastical States a Protestant
majority was produced in the Diet. The change bore witness to the
decline of Austrian and of Catholic energy during the past
century; it scarcely indicated the future supremacy of the
Protestant rival of Austria; for the real interests of Germany
were but faintly imaged in the Diet, and the leadership of the
race was still open to the Power which should most sincerely
identify itself with the German nation. The first result of the
changed character of the Diet was the confiscation of all landed
property held by religious or charitable bodies, even where these
had never advanced the slightest claim to political independence.
The Diet declared the whole of the land held in Germany by pious
foundations to be at the disposal of the Governments for purposes
of religion, of education, and of financial relief. The more
needy courts immediately seized so welcome an opportunity of
increasing their revenues. Germany lost nothing by the
dissolution of some hundreds of monasteries; the suppression of
hospitals and the impoverishment of Universities was a doubtful
benefit. Through the destruction of the Ecclesiastical States and
the confiscation of Church lands, the support of an army of
priests was thrown upon the public revenues. The Elector of
Cologne, who had been an indifferent civil ruler, became a very
prosperous clergyman on &pound;20,000 a year. All the members of
the annexed or disendowed establishments, down to the acolytes
and the sacristans, were credited with annuities equal in value
to what they had lost. But in the confusion caused by war the
means to satisfy these claims was not always forthcoming; and the
ecclesiastical revolution, so beneficial on the whole to the
public interest, was not effected without much severe and
undeserved individual suffering.</p>
<p>[Governments in Germany become more absolute and more
regular.]</p>
<p>[Bavaria. Reforms of Montgelas.]</p>
<p>[Suppression of the Knights.]</p>
<p>The movement of 1803 put an end to an order of things more
curious as a survival of the mixed religious and political form
of the Holy Roman Empire than important in the actual state of
Europe. The temporal power now lost by the Church in Germany had
been held in such sluggish hands that its effect was hardly
visible except in a denser prejudice and an idler life than
prevailed under other Governments. The first consequence of its
downfall was that a great part of Germany which had hitherto had
no political organisation at all gained the benefit of a regular
system of taxation, of police, of civil and of criminal justice.
If harsh and despotic, the Governments which rose to power at the
expense of the Church were usually not wanting in the love of
order and uniformity. Officers of the State administered a fixed
law where custom and privilege had hitherto been the only rule.
Appointments ceased to be bought or inherited; trades and
professions were thrown open; the peasant was relieved of his
heaviest feudal burdens. Among the newly consolidated States,
Bavaria was the one where the reforming impulse of the time took
the strongest form. A new dynasty, springing from the west of the
Rhine, brought something of the spirit of French liberalism into
a country hitherto unsurpassed in Western Europe for its
ignorance and bigotry. <a name="FNanchor96">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_96"><sup>[96]</sup></a> The Minister Montgelas, a
politician of French enlightenment, entered upon the same crusade
against feudal and ecclesiastical disorder which Joseph had
inaugurated in Austria twenty years before. His measures for
subjecting the clergy to the law, and for depriving the Church of
its control over education, were almost identical with those
which in 1790 had led to the revolt of Belgium; and the Bavarian
landowners now unconsciously reproduced all the medi&aelig;val
platitudes of the University of Louvain. Montgelas organised and
levelled with a remorseless common sense. Among his victims there
was a class which had escaped destruction in the recent changes.
The Knights of the Empire, with their village jurisdictions, were
still legally existent; but to Montgelas such a class appeared a
mere absurdity, and he sent his soldiers to disperse their courts
and to seize their tolls. Loud lamentation assailed the Emperor
at Vienna. If the dethroned bishops had bewailed the approaching
extinction of Christianity in Europe, the knights just as
convincingly deplored the end of chivalry. Knightly honour, now
being swept from the earth, was proved to be the true soul of
German nationality, the invisible support of the Imperial throne.
For a moment the intervention of the Emperor forced Montgelas to
withdraw his grasp from the sacred rents and turnpikes; but the
threatening storm passed over, and the example of Bavaria was
gradually followed by the neighbouring Courts.</p>
<p>[Stein and the Duke of Nassau.]</p>
<p>[Stein's attack on the Minor Princes.]</p>
<p>It was to the weak and unpatriotic princes who were enriched
by the French that the knights fell victims. Among the knights
thus despoiled by the Duke of Nassau was the Ritter vom Stein, a
nobleman who had entered the Prussian service in the reign of
Frederick the Great, and who had lately been placed in high
office in the newly-acquired province of M&uuml;nster. Stein was
thoroughly familiar with the advantages of systematic government;
the loss of his native parochial jurisdiction was not a serious
one to a man who had become a power in Prussia; and although
domestic pride had its share in Stein's resentment, the protest
now published by him against the aggressions of the Duke of
Nassau sounded a different note from that of his order generally.
That a score of farmers should pay their dues and take off their
hats to the officer of the Duke of Nassau instead of to the
bailiff of the Ritter vom Stein was not a matter to excite deep
feeling in Europe; but that the consolidation of Germany should
be worked out in the interest of French hirelings instead of in
the interests of the German people was justly treated by Stein as
a subject for patriotic anger. In his letter <a name=
"FNanchor97">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_97"><sup>[97]</sup></a> to
the Duke of Nassau, Stein reproached his own despoiler and the
whole tribe of petty princes with that treason to German
interests which had won them the protection of the foreigner. He
argued that the knights were a far less important obstacle to
German unity than those very princes to whom the knights were
sacrificed; and he invoked that distant day which should give to
Germany a real national unity, over knights and princes alike,
under the leadership of a single patriotic sovereign. Stein's
appeal found little response among his contemporaries. Like a
sober man among drunkards, he seemed to be scarcely rational. The
simple conception of a nation sacrificing its internal rivalries
in order to avert foreign rule was folly to the politicians who
had all their lives long been outwitting one another at Vienna or
Berlin, or who had just become persons of consequence in Europe
through the patronage of Bonaparte. Yet, if years of intolerable
suffering were necessary before any large party in Germany rose
to the idea of German union, the ground had now at least been
broken. In the changes that followed the Peace of
Lun&eacute;ville the fixity and routine of Germany received its
death-blow. In all but name the Empire had ceased to exist.
Change and re-constitution in one form or another had become
familiar to all men's minds; and one real statesman at the least
was already beginning to learn the lesson which later events were
to teach to the rest of the German race.</p>
<p>[France, 1801-1804.]</p>
<p>[Civil Code.]</p>
<p>Four years of peace separated the Treaty of Lun&eacute;ville
from the next outbreak of war between France and any Continental
Power. They were years of extension of French influence in every
neighbouring State; in France itself, years of the consolidation
of Bonaparte's power, and of the decline of everything that
checked his personal rule. The legislative bodies sank into the
insignificance for which they had been designed; everything that
was suffered to wear the appearance of strength owed its vigour
to the personal support of the First Consul. Among the
institutions which date from this period, two, equally associated
with the name of Napoleon, have taken a prominent place in
history, the Civil Code and the Concordat. Since the middle of
the eighteenth century the codification of law had been pursued
with more or less success by almost every Government in Europe.
In France the Constituent Assembly of 1789 had ordered the
statutes, by which it superseded the old variety of local
customs, to be thus cast into a systematic form. A Committee of
the Convention had completed the draft of a Civil Code. The
Directory had in its turn appointed a Commission; but the project
still remained unfulfilled when the Directory was driven from
power. Bonaparte instinctively threw himself into a task so
congenial to his own systematising spirit, and stimulated the
efforts of the best jurists in France by his personal interest
and pride in the work of legislation. A Commission of lawyers,
appointed by the First Consul, presented the successive chapters
of a Civil Code to the Council of State. In the discussions in
the Council of State Bonaparte himself took an active, though not
always a beneficial, part. The draft of each chapter, as it left
the Council of State, was submitted, as a project of Law, to the
Tribunate and to the Legislative Body. For a moment the free
expression of opinion in the Tribunate caused Bonaparte to
suspend his work in impatient jealousy. The Tribunate, however,
was soon brought to silence; and in March, 1804, France received
the Code which has formed from that time to the present the basis
of its civil rights.</p>
<p>[Napoleon as a legislator.]</p>
<p>When Napoleon declared that he desired his fame to rest upon
the Civil Code, he showed his appreciation of the power which
names exercise over mankind. It is probable that a majority of
the inhabitants of Western Europe believe that Napoleon actually
invented the laws which bear his name. As a matter of fact, the
substance of these laws was fixed by the successive Assemblies of
the Revolution; and, in the final revision which produced the
Civil Code, Napoleon appears to have originated neither more nor
less than several of the members of his Council whose names have
long been forgotten. He is unquestionably entitled to the honour
of a great legislator, not, however, as one who, like Solon or
like Mahomet, himself created a new body of law, but as one who
most vigorously pursued the work of consolidating and
popularising law by the help of all the skilled and scientific
minds whose resources were at his command. Though faulty in
parts, the Civil Code, through its conciseness, its simplicity,
and its justice, enabled Napoleon to carry a new and incomparably
better social order into every country that became part of his
Empire. Four other Codes, appearing at intervals from the year
1804 to the year 1810, embodied, in a corresponding form, the Law
of Commerce, the Criminal Law, and the Rules of Civil and of
Criminal Process. <a name="FNanchor98">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_98"><sup>[98]</sup></a> The whole remains a monument
of the legal energy of the period which began in 1789, and of the
sagacity with which Napoleon associated with his own rule all the
science and the reforming zeal of the jurists of his day.</p>
<p>[The Concordat.]</p>
<p>[The Concordat destroys the Free Church.]</p>
<p>Far more distinctively the work of Napoleon's own mind was the
reconciliation with the Church of Rome effected by the Concordat.
It was a restoration of religion similar to that restoration of
political order which made the public service the engine of a
single will. The bishops and priests, whose appointment the
Concordat transferred from their congregations to the Government,
were as much instruments of the First Consul as his prefects and
his gendarmes. The spiritual wants of the public, the craving of
the poor for religious consolation, were made the pretext for
introducing the new theological police. But the situation of the
Catholic Church was in reality no worse in France at the
commencement of the Consulate than its present situation in
Ireland. The Republic had indeed subjected the non-juring priests
to the heaviest penalties, but the exercise of Christian worship,
which, even in the Reign of Terror, had only been interrupted by
local and individual fanaticism, had long recovered the
protection of the law, services in the open air being alone
prohibited. <a name="FNanchor99">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_99"><sup>[99]</sup></a> Since 1795 the local
authorities had been compelled to admit the religious societies
of their district to the use of church-buildings. Though the coup
d'&eacute;tat of Fructidor, 1797, renewed the persecution of
non-juring priests, it in no way checked the activity of the
Constitutional Church, now free from all connection with the
Civil Government. While the non-juring priests, exiled as
political offenders, or theatrically adoring the sacred elements
in the woods, pretended that the age of the martyrs had returned
to France, a Constitutional Church, ministering in 4,000
parishes, unprivileged but unharassed by the State, supplied the
nation with an earnest and respectable body of clergy. <a name=
"FNanchor100">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_100"><sup>[100]</sup></a>
But in the eyes of the First Consul everything left to voluntary
association was so much lost to the central power. In the order
of nature, peasants must obey priests, priests must obey bishops,
and bishops must obey the First Consul. An alliance with the Pope
offered to Bonaparte the means of supplanting the popular
organisation of the Constitutional Church by an imposing
hierarchy, rigid in its orthodoxy and unquestioning in its
devotion to himself. In return for the consecration of his own
rule, Bonaparte did not shrink from inviting the Pope to an
exercise of authority such as the Holy See had never even claimed
in France. The whole of the existing French Bishops, both the
exiled non-jurors and those of the Constitutional Church, were
summoned to resign their Sees into the hands of the Pope; against
all who refused to do so sentence of deposition was pronounced by
the Pontiff, without a word heard in defence, or the shadow of a
fault alleged. The Sees were re-organised, and filled up by
nominees of the First Consul. The position of the great body of
the clergy was substantially altered in its relation to the
Bishops. Episcopal power was made despotic, like all other power
in France: thousands of the clergy, hitherto secure in their
livings, were placed at the disposal of their bishop, and
rendered liable to be transferred at the pleasure of their
superior from place to place. The Constitutional Church vanished,
but religion appeared to be honoured by becoming part of the
State.</p>
<p>[Results in Ultramontanism.]</p>
<p>In its immediate action, the Napoleonic Church served the
purpose for which it was intended. For some few years the clergy
unflaggingly preached, prayed, and catechised to the glory of
their restorer. In the greater cycle of religious change, the
Concordat of Bonaparte appears in another light. However little
appreciated at the time, it was the greatest, the most critical,
victory which the Roman See has ever gained over the more
enlightened and the more national elements in the Catholic
Church. It converted the Catholicism of France from a faith
already far more independent than that of F&eacute;n&eacute;lon
and Bossuet into the Catholicism which in our own day has
outstripped the bigotry of Spain and Austria in welcoming the
dogma of Papal infallibility. The lower clergy, condemned by the
State to an intolerable subjection, soon found their only hope in
an appeal to Rome, and instinctively worked as the emissaries of
the Roman See. The Bishops, who owed their office to an
unprecedented exercise of Papal power and to the destruction of
religious independence in France, were not the men who could
maintain a struggle with the Papacy for the ancient Gallican
liberties. In the resistance to the Papacy which had been
maintained by the Continental Churches in a greater or less
degree during the eighteenth century, France had on the whole
taken the most effective part; but, from the time when the
Concordat dissolved both the ancient and the revolutionary Church
system of France, the Gallican tradition of the past became as
powerless among the French clergy as the philosophical liberalism
of the Revolution.</p>
<p>[So do the German changes.]</p>
<p>In Germany the destruction of the temporal power of the Church
tended equally to Ultramontanism. An archbishop of Cologne who
governed half a million subjects was less likely to prostrate
himself before the Papal Chair than an archbishop of Cologne who
was only one among a regiment of churchmen. The spiritual
Electors and Princes who lost their dominions in 1801 had
understood by the interests of their order something more
tangible than a body of doctrines. When not hostile to the
Papacy, they had usually treated it with indifference. The
conception of a Catholic society exposed to persecution at the
hands of the State on account of its devotion to Rome was one
which had never entered the mind of German ecclesiastics in the
eighteenth century. Without the changes effected in Germany by
the Treaty of Lun&eacute;ville, without the Concordat of
Bonaparte, Catholic orthodoxy would never have become identical
with Ultramontanism. In this respect the opening years of the
present century mark a turning-point in the relation of the
Church to modern life. Already, in place of the old monarchical
Governments, friendly on the whole to the Catholic Church, events
were preparing the way for that changed order with which the
century seems destined to close-an emancipated France, a free
Italy, a secular, state-disciplined Germany, and the Church in
conspiracy against them all.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_VI.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c6">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>England claims Malta-War renewed-Bonaparte occupies Hanover,
and blockades the Elbe-Remonstrances of Prussia-Cadoudal's
Plot-Murder of the Duke of Enghien-Napoleon Emperor-Coalition of
1805-Prussia holds aloof-State of Austria-Failure of Napoleon's
attempt to gain naval superiority in the Channel-Campaign in
Western Germany-Capitulation of Ulm-Trafalgar-Treaty of Potsdam
between Prussia and the Allies-The French enter Vienna-Haugwitz
sent to Napoleon with Prussian Ultimatum- Battle of
Austerlitz-Haugwitz signs a Treaty of Alliance with
Napoleon-Peace-Treaty of Presburg-End of the Holy Roman Empire-
Naples given to Joseph Bonaparte-Battle of Maida-The Napoleonic
Empire and Dynasty-Federation of the Rhine-State of
Germany-Possibility of maintaining the Empire of 1806.</p>
<br>

<p>[England prepares for war, Nov., 1802.]</p>
<p>[England claims Malta.]</p>
<p>War was renewed between France and Great Britain in the spring
of 1803. Addington's Government, in their desire for peace, had
borne with Bonaparte's aggressions during all the months of
negotiation at Amiens; they had met his complaints against the
abuse of the English press by prosecuting his Royalist libellers;
throughout the Session of 1802 they had upheld the possibility of
peace against the attacks of their parliamentary opponents. The
invasion of Switzerland in the autumn of 1802, following the
annexation of Piedmont, forced the Ministry to alter its tone.
The King's Speech at the meeting of Parliament in November
declared that the changes in operation on the Continent demanded
measures of security on the part of Great Britain. The naval and
military forces of the country were restored to a war-footing;
the evacuation of Malta by Great Britain, which had hitherto been
delayed chiefly through a misunderstanding with Russia, was no
longer treated as a matter of certainty. While the English
Government still wavered, a challenge was thrown down by the
First Consul which forced them into decided action. The
<i>Moniteur</i> published on the 13th of January, 1803, a report
upon Egypt by Colonel Sebastiani, pointing in the plainest terms
to the renewal of French attacks upon the East. The British
Government demanded explanations, and declared that until
satisfaction was given upon this point they should retain
possession of Malta. Malta was in fact appropriated by Great
Britain as an equivalent for the Continental territory added to
France since the end of the war. <a name="FNanchor101">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_101"><sup>[101]</sup></a></p>
<p>[War, May, 1803.]</p>
<p>It would have been better policy if, some months earlier,
Bonaparte had been required to withdraw from Piedmont or from
Switzerland, under pain of hostilities with England. Great
Britain had as little technical right to retain Malta as
Bonaparte had to annex Piedmont. The desire for peace had,
however, led Addington's Government to remain inactive until
Bonaparte's aggressions had become accomplished facts. It was now
too late to attempt to undo them: England could only treat the
settlement of Amiens as superseded, and claim compensation on its
own side. Malta was the position most necessary to Great Britain,
in order to prevent Bonaparte from carrying out projects in Egypt
and Greece of which the Government had evidence independent of
Sebastiani's report. The value of Malta, so lately denied by
Nelson, was now fully understood both in France and England. No
sooner had the English Ministry avowed its intention of retaining
the island than the First Consul declared himself compelled to
take up arms in behalf of the faith of treaties. Ignoring his own
violations of treaty-rights in Italy and Switzerland, Bonaparte
declared the retention of Malta by Great Britain to be an outrage
against all Europe. He assailed the British Ambassador with the
utmost fury at a reception held at the Tuileries on the 13th of
March; and, after a correspondence of two months, which probably
marked his sense of the power and obstinacy of his enemy, the
conflict was renewed which was now to continue without a break
until Bonaparte was driven from his throne.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte and Hanover.]</p>
<p>So long as England was without Continental allies its warfare
was limited to the seizure of colonies and the blockade of ports:
on the part of France nothing could be effected against the
island Power except by actual invasion. There was, however, among
the communities of Germany one which, in the arguments of a
conqueror, might be treated as a dependency of England, and made
to suffer for its connection with the British Crown. Hanover had
hitherto by common agreement been dissociated from the wars in
which its Elector engaged as King of England; even the personal
presence of King George II. at the battle of Dettingen had been
held no ground for violating its neutrality. Bonaparte, however,
was untroubled by precedents in a case where he had so much to
gain. Apart from its value as a possible object of exchange in
the next treaty with England, Hanover would serve as a means of
influencing Prussia: it was also worth so many millions in cash
through the requisitions which might be imposed upon its
inhabitants. The only scruple felt by Bonaparte in attacking
Hanover arose from the possibility of a forcible resistance on
the part of Prussia to the appearance of a French army in North
Germany. Accordingly, before the invasion began, General Duroc
was sent to Berlin to inform the King of the First Consul's
intentions, and to soothe any irritation that might be felt at
the Prussian Court by assurances of friendship and respect.</p>
<p>[Prussia and Hanover.]</p>
<p>It was a moment of the most critical importance to Prussia.
Prussia was the recognised guardian of Northern Germany; every
consideration of interest and of honour required that its
Government should forbid the proposed occupation of Hanover-if
necessary, at the risk of actual war. Hanover in the hands of
France meant the extinction of German independence up to the
frontiers of the Prussian State. If, as it was held at Berlin,
the cause of Great Britain was an unjust one, and if the
connection of Hanover with the British Crown was for the future
to make that province a scapegoat for the offences of England,
the wisest course for Prussia would have been to deliver Hanover
at once from its French and from its English enemies by occupying
it with its own forces. The Foreign Minister, Count Haugwitz,
appears to have recommended this step, but his counsels were
overruled. King Frederick William III., who had succeeded his
father in 1797, was a conscientious but a timid and spiritless
being. Public affairs were in the hands of his private advisers,
of whom the most influential were the so-called
cabinet-secretaries, Lombard and Beyme, men credulously anxious
for the goodwill of France, and perversely blind to the native
force and worth which still existed in the Prussian Monarchy. <a
name="FNanchor102">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_102"><sup>[102]</sup></a> Instead of declaring the
entry of the French into Hanover to be absolutely incompatible
with the safety of the other North German States, King Frederick
William endeavoured to avert it by diplomacy. He tendered his
mediation to the British Government upon condition of the
evacuation of Malta; and, when this proposal was bluntly
rejected, he offered to the First Consul his personal security
that Hanover should pay a sum of money in order to be spared the
intended invasion.</p>
<p>[French enter Hanover, May, 1803.]</p>
<p>[Oppression in Hanover, 1803-1805.]</p>
<p>Such a proposal marked the depth to which Prussian
statemanship had sunk; it failed to affect the First Consul in
the slightest degree. While negotiations were still proceeding, a
French division, commanded by General Mortier, entered Hanover
(May, 1803). The Hanoverian army was lost through the follies of
the civil Government; the Duke of Cambridge, commander of one of
its divisions, less ingenious than his brother the Duke of York
in finding excuses for capitulation, resigned his commission, and
fled to England, along with many brave soldiers, who subsequently
found in the army of Great Britain the opportunity for honourable
service which was denied to them at home. Hanover passed into the
possession of France, and for two years the miseries of French
occupation were felt to the full. Extortion consumed the homely
wealth of the country; the games and meetings of the people were
prohibited; French spies violated the confidences of private
life; law was administered by foreign soldiers; the press existed
only for the purpose of French proselytism. It was in Hanover
that the bitterness of that oppression was first felt which
subsequently roused all North Germany against a foreign master,
and forced upon the race the long-forgotten claims of patriotism
and honour.</p>
<p>[French blockade the Elbe.]</p>
<p>[Vain remonstrance of Prussia.]</p>
<p>Bonaparte had justly calculated upon the inaction of the
Prussian Government when he gave the order to General Mortier to
enter Hanover; his next step proved the growth of his confidence
in Prussia's impassivity. A French force was despatched to
Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, in order to stop the commerce
of Great Britain with the interior of Germany. The British
Government immediately informed the Court of Berlin that it
should blockade the Elbe and the Weser against the ships of all
nations unless the French soldiers withdrew from the Elbe. As the
linen trade of Silesia and other branches of Prussian industry
depended upon the free navigation of the Elbe, the threatened
reprisals of the British Government raised very serious questions
for Prussia. It was France, not England, that had first violated
the neutrality of the river highway; and the King of Prussia now
felt himself compelled to demand assurances Bonaparte that the
interests of Germany should suffer no further injury at his
hands. A letter was written by the King to the First Consul, and
entrusted to the cabinet-secretary, Lombard, who carried it to
Napoleon at Brussels (July, 1803). Lombard, the son of French
parents who had settled at Berlin in the reign of Frederick the
Great, had risen from a humble station through his skill in
expression in the two languages that were native to him; and the
accomplishments which would have made him a good clerk or a
successful journalist made him in the eyes of Frederick William a
counsellor for kings. The history of his mission to Brussels
gives curious evidence both of the fascination exercised by
Napoleon over common minds, and of the political helplessness
which in Prussia could now be mistaken for the quality of a
statesman. Lombard failed to obtain from Napoleon any guarantee
or security whatever; yet he wrote back in terms of the utmost
delight upon the success of his mission. Napoleon had infatuated
him by the mere exercise of his personal charm. "What I cannot
describe," said Lombard, in his report to the King relating his
interview with the First Consul, <a name="FNanchor103">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_103"><sup>[103]</sup></a> "is the tone of
goodness and noble frankness with which he expressed his
reverence for your Majesty's rights, and asked for that
confidence from your Majesty which he so well deserves." "I only
wish," he cried at the close of Napoleon's address, "that I could
convey to the King, my master, every one of your words and the
tone in which they are uttered; he would then, I am sure, feel a
double joy at the justice with which you have always been treated
at his hands." Lombard's colleagues at Berlin were perhaps not
stronger men than the envoy himself, but they were at least
beyond the range of Napoleon's voice and glance, and they
received this rhapsody with coldness. They complained that no
single concession had been made by the First Consul upon the
points raised by the King. Cuxhaven continued in French hands;
the British inexorably blockaded the Germans upon their own
neutral waters; and the cautious statecraft of Prussia proved as
valueless to Germany as the obstinate, speculating warfare of
Austria.</p>
<p>[Alexander displeased.]</p>
<p>There was, however, a Power which watched the advance of
French dominion into Northern Germany with less complaisance than
the Germans themselves. The Czar of Russia had gradually come to
understand the part allotted to him by Bonaparte since the Peace
of Lun&eacute;ville, and was no longer inclined to serve as the
instrument of French ambition. Bonaparte's occupation of Hanover
changed the attitude of Alexander into one of coldness and
distrust. Alexander saw and lamented the help which he himself
had given to Bonaparte in Germany: events that now took place in
France itself, as well as the progress of French intrigues in
Turkey, <a name="FNanchor104">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_104"><sup>[104]</sup></a> threw him into the arms of
Bonaparte's enemies, and prepared the way for a new European
coalition.</p>
<p>[Bonaparte about to become Emperor.]</p>
<p>[Murder of the Duke of Enghien, March 20, 1804.]</p>
<p>The First Bonaparte Consul had determined to assume the
dignity of Emperor. The renewal of war with England excited a new
outburst of enthusiasm for his person; nothing was wanting to
place the crown on his head but the discovery of a plot against
his life. Such a plot had been long and carefully followed by the
police. A Breton gentleman, Georges Cadoudal, had formed the
design of attacking the First Consul in the streets of Paris in
the midst of his guards. Cadoudal and his fellow-conspirators,
including General Pichegru, were traced by the police from the
coast of Normandy to Paris: an unsuccessful attempt was made to
lure the Count of Artois, and other royal patrons of the
conspiracy, from Great Britain. When all the conspirators who
could be enticed to France were collected within the capital, the
police, who had watched every stage of the movement, began to
make arrests. Moreau, the last Republican soldier of France, was
charged with complicity in the plot. Pichegru and Cadoudal were
thrown into prison, there to await their doom; Moreau, who
probably wished for the overthrow of the Consular Government, but
had no part in the design against Bonaparte's life, <a name=
"FNanchor105">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_105"><sup>[105]</sup></a>
was kept under arrest and loaded with official calumny. One
sacrifice more remained to be made, in place of the Bourbon
d'Artois, who baffled the police of the First Consul beyond the
seas. In the territory of Baden, twelve miles from the French
frontier, there lived a prince of the exiled house, the Duke of
Enghien, a soldier under the first Coalition against France, now
a harmless dependent on the bounty of England. French spies
surrounded him; his excursions into the mountains gave rise to a
suspicion that he was concerned in Pichegru's plot. This was
enough to mark him for destruction. Bonaparte gave orders that he
should be seized, brought to Paris, and executed. On the 15th of
March, 1804, a troop of French soldiers crossed the Rhine and
arrested the Duke in his own house at Ettenheim. They arrived
with him at Paris on the 20th. He was taken to the fort of
Vincennes without entering the city. On that same night a
commission of six colonels sat in judgment upon the prisoner,
whose grave was already dug, and pronounced sentence of death
without hearing a word of evidence. At daybreak the Duke was led
out and shot.</p>
<p>[Napoleon Emperor, May 18, 1804.]</p>
<p>If some barbaric instinct made the slaughter of his
predecessor's kindred in Bonaparte's own eyes the omen of a
successful usurpation, it was not so with Europe generally. One
universal sense of horror passed over the Continent. The Court of
Russia put on mourning; even the Diet of Ratisbon showed signs of
human passion at the indignity done to Germany by the seizure of
the Duke of Enghien on German soil. Austria kept silent, but
watched the signs of coming war. France alone showed no pity.
Before the Duke of Enghien had been dead a week, the Senate
besought Napoleon to give to France the security of a hereditary
throne. Prefects, bishops, mayors, and councils with one voice
repeated the official prayer. A resolution in favour of imperial
rule was brought forward in the Tribunate, and passed, after a
noble and solitary protest on the part of Carnot. A decree of the
Senate embodied the terms of the new Constitution; and on the
18th of May, without waiting for the sanction of a national vote,
Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor of the French.</p>
<p>[Title of Emperor of Austria, Aug., 1804.]</p>
<p>In France itself the change was one more of the name than of
the substance of power. Napoleon could not be vested with a more
absolute authority than he already possessed; but the forms of
republican equality vanished; and although the real social
equality given to France by the Revolution was beyond reach of
change, the nation had to put up with a bastard Court and a
fictitious aristocracy of Corsican princes, Terrorist
excellencies, and Jacobin dukes. The new dynasty was recognised
at Vienna and Berlin: on the part of Austria it received the
compliment of an imitation. Three months after the assumption of
the Imperial title by Napoleon, the Emperor Francis (Emperor in
Germany, but King in Hungary and Bohemia) assumed the title of
Emperor of all his Austrian dominions. The true reason for this
act was the virtual dissolution of the Germanic system by the
Peace of Lun&eacute;ville, and the probability that the old
Imperial dignity, if preserved in name, would soon be transferred
to some client of Napoleon or to Napoleon himself. Such an
apprehension was, however, not one that could be confessed to
Europe. Instead of the ruin of Germany, the grandeur of Austria
was made the ostensible ground of change. In language which
seemed to be borrowed from the scriptural history of
Nebuchadnezzar, the Emperor Francis declared that, although no
possible addition could be made to his own personal dignity, as
Roman Emperor, yet the ancient glory of the Austrian House, the
grandeur of the principalities and kingdoms which were united
under its dominion, required that the Sovereigns of Austria
should hold a title equal to that of the greatest European
throne. A general war against Napoleon was already being proposed
by the Court of St. Petersburg; but for the present the Corsican
and the Hapsburg C&aelig;sar exchanged their hypocritical
congratulations. <a name="FNanchor106">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_106"><sup>[106]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Pitt again Minister, May, 1804.]</p>
<p>[Coalition of 1805.]</p>
<p>Almost at the same time that Bonaparte ascended the throne,
Pitt returned to power in Great Britain. He was summoned by the
general distrust felt in Addington's Ministry, and by the belief
that no statesman but himself could rally the Powers of Europe
against the common enemy. Pitt was not long in framing with
Russia the plan of a third Coalition. The Czar broke off
diplomatic intercourse with Napoleon in September, 1804, and
induced the Court of Vienna to pledge itself to resist any
further extension of French power. Sweden entered into
engagements with Great Britain. On the opening of Parliament at
the beginning of 1805, King George III. announced that an
understanding existed between Great Britain and Russia, and asked
in general terms for a provision for Continental subsidies. In
April, a treaty was signed at St. Petersburg by the
representatives of Russia and Great Britain, far more
comprehensive and more serious in its provisions than any which
had yet united the Powers against France. <a name=
"FNanchor107">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_107"><sup>[107]</sup></a>
Russia and England bound themselves to direct their efforts to
the formation of a European League capable of placing five
hundred thousand men in the field. Great Britain undertook to
furnish subsidies to every member of the League; no peace was to
be concluded with France but by common consent; conquests made by
any of the belligerents were to remain unappropriated until the
general peace; and at the termination of the war a Congress was
to fix certain disputed points of international right, and to
establish a federative European system for their maintenance and
enforcement. As the immediate objects of the League, the treaty
specified the expulsion of the French from Holland, Switzerland,
Italy, and Northern Germany; the re-establishment of the King of
Sardinia in Piedmont, with an increase of territory; and the
creation of a solid barrier against any future usurpations of
France. The last expression signified the union of Holland and
part of Belgium under the House of Orange. In this respect, as in
the provision for a common disposal of conquests and for the
settlement of European affairs by a Congress, the Anglo-Russian
Treaty of 1805 defined the policy actually carried out in 1814.
Other territorial changes now suggested by Pitt, including the
annexation of the Rhenish Provinces to the Prussian Monarchy,
were not embodied in the treaty, but became from this time
understood possibilities.</p>
<p>[Policy of Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Prussia neutral.]</p>
<p>England and Russia had, however, some difficulty in securing
allies. Although in violation of his promises to Austria,
Napoleon had accepted the title of King of Italy from the Senate
of the Italian Republic, and had crowned himself with the Iron
Crown of Lombardy (March, 1805), the Ministers at Vienna would
have preferred peace, if that had been possible; and their master
reluctantly consented to a war against Napoleon when war in some
form or other seemed inevitable. The policy of Prussia was
doubtful. For two years past Napoleon had made every effort to
induce Prussia to enter into alliance with himself. After the
invasion of Hanover he had doubled his attentions to the Court of
Berlin, and had spared nothing in the way of promises and
assurances of friendship to win the King over to his side. The
neutrality of Prussia was of no great service to France: its
support would have been of priceless value, rendering any attack
upon France by Russia or Austria almost impossible, and thus
enabling Napoleon to throw his whole strength into the combat
with Great Britain. In the spring of 1804, the King of Prussia,
uncertain of the friendship of the Czar, and still unconvinced of
the vanity of Napoleon's professions, had inclined to a defensive
alliance with France. The news of the murder of the Duke of
Enghien, arriving almost simultaneously with a message of
goodwill from St. Petersburg, led him to abandon this project of
alliance, but caused no breach with Napoleon. Frederick William
adhered to the temporising policy which Prussia had followed
since 1795, and the Foreign Minister, Haugwitz, who had
recommended bolder measures, withdrew for a time from the Court.
<a name="FNanchor108">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_108"><sup>[108]</sup></a> Baron Hardenberg, who had
already acted as his deputy, stepped into his place. Hardenberg,
the negotiator of the peace of Basle, had for the last ten years
advocated a system of neutrality. A politician quick to grasp new
social and political ideas, he was without that insight into the
real forces at work in Europe which, in spite of errors in
detail, made the political aims of Pitt, and of many far inferior
men, substantially just and correct. So late as the end of the
year 1804, Hardenberg not only failed to recognise the dangers to
which Prussia was exposed from Napoleon's ambition, but conceived
it to be still possible for Prussia to avert war between France
and the Allied Powers by maintaining a good understanding with
all parties alike. Hardenberg's neutrality excited the wrath of
the Russian Cabinet. While Metternich, the Austrian ambassador at
Berlin, cautiously felt his way, the Czar proposed in the last
resort to force Prussia to take up arms. A few months more
passed; and, when hostilities were on the point of breaking out,
Hanover was definitely offered to Prussia by Napoleon as the
price of an alliance. Hardenberg, still believing that it lay
within the power of Prussia, by means of a French alliance, both
to curb Napoleon and to prevent a European war, urged the King to
close with the offer of the French Emperor. <a name=
"FNanchor109">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_109"><sup>[109]</sup></a>
But the King shrank from a decision which involved the
possibility of immediate war. The offer of Hanover was rejected,
and Prussia connected itself neither with Napoleon nor his
enemies.</p>
<p>[State of Austria. The army.]</p>
<p>Pitt, the author of the Coalition of 1805, had formed the most
sanguine estimate of the armaments of his allies. Austria was
said to have entered upon a new era since the peace of
Lun&eacute;ville, and to have turned to the best account all the
disasters of its former campaigns. There had indeed been no want
of fine professions from Vienna, but Pitt knew little of the real
state of affairs. The Archduke Charles had been placed at the
head of the military administration, and entrusted with
extraordinary powers; but the whole force of routine and
corruption was ranged against him. He was deceived by his
subordinates; and after three years of reorganisation he resigned
his post, confessing that he left the army no nearer efficiency
than it was before. Charles was replaced at the War Office by
General Mack. Within six months this bustling charlatan imagined
himself to have effected the reorganisation of which the Archduke
<a name="FNanchor110">despaired,</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_110"><sup>[110]</sup></a> while he had in fact only
introduced new confusion into an army already hampered beyond any
in Europe by its variety of races and languages.</p>
<p>[Political condition of Austria.]</p>
<p>If the military reforms of Austria were delusive, its
political reforms were still more so. The Emperor had indeed
consented to unite the Ministers, who had hitherto worked
independently, in a Council of State; but here reform stopped.
Cobenzl, who was now First Minister, understood nothing but
diplomacy. Men continued in office whose presence was an
insuperable bar to any intelligent action: even in that
mechanical routine which, in the eyes of the Emperor Francis,
constituted the life of the State, everything was antiquated and
self-contradictory. In all that affected the mental life of the
people the years that followed the peace of Lun&eacute;ville were
distinctly retrograde. Education was placed more than ever in the
hands of the priests; the censorship of the press was given to
the police; a commission was charged with the examination of all
the books printed during the reign of the Emperor Joseph, and
above two thousand works, which had come into being during that
brief period of Austrian liberalism, were suppressed and
destroyed. Trade regulations were issued which combined the
extravagance of the French Reign of Terror with the ignorance of
the Middle Ages. All the grain in the country was ordered to be
sold before a certain date, and the Jews were prohibited from
carrying on the corn-trade for a year. Such were the reforms
described by Pitt in the English Parliament as having effected
the regeneration of Austria. Nearer home things were judged in a
truer light. Mack's paper-regiments, the helplessness and
unreality of the whole system of Austrian officialism, were
correctly appreciated by the men who had been most in earnest
during the last war. Even Thugut now thought a contest hopeless.
The Archduke Charles argued to the end for peace, and entered
upon the war with the presentiment of defeat and ruin.</p>
<p>[Plans of campaign, 1805.]</p>
<p>The plans of the Allies for the campaign of 1805 covered an
immense field. <a name="FNanchor111">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_111"><sup>[111]</sup></a> It was intended that one
Austrian army should operate in Lombardy under the Archduke
Charles, while a second, under General Mack, entered Bavaria, and
there awaited the arrival of the Russians, who were to unite with
it in invading France: British and Russian contingents were to
combine with the King of Sweden in Pomerania, and with the King
of Naples in Southern Italy. At the head-quarters of the Allies
an impression prevailed that Napoleon was unprepared for war. It
was even believed that his character had lost something of its
energy under the influence of an Imperial Court. Never was there
a more fatal illusion. The forces of France had never been so
overwhelming; the plans of Napoleon had never been worked out
with greater minuteness and certainty. From Hanover to Strasburg
masses of troops had been collected upon the frontier in
readiness for the order to march; and, before the campaign
opened, the magnificent army of Boulogne, which had been
collected for the invasion of England, was thrown into the scale
against Austria.</p>
<p>[Failure of Napoleon's naval designs against England.]</p>
<p>[Nelson and Villeneuve, April-June, 1805.]</p>
<p>Events had occurred at sea which frustrated Napoleon's plan
for an attack upon Great Britain. This attack, which in 1797 had
been but lightly threatened, had, upon the renewal of war with
England in 1803, become the object of Napoleon's most serious
efforts. An army was concentrated at Boulogne sufficient to
overwhelm the military forces of England, if once it could reach
the opposite shore. Napoleon's thoughts were centred on a plan
for obtaining the naval superiority in the Channel, if only for
the few hours which it would take to transport the army from
Boulogne to the English coast. It was his design to lure Nelson
to the other side of the Atlantic by a feigned expedition against
the West Indies, and, during the absence of the English admiral,
to unite all the fleets at present lying blockaded in the French
ports, as a cover for the invading armament. Admiral Villeneuve
was ordered to sail to Martinique, and, after there meeting with
some other ships, to re-cross the Atlantic with all possible
speed, and liberate the fleets blockaded in Ferrol, Brest, and
Rochefort. The junction of the fleets would give Napoleon a force
of fifty sail in the British Channel, a force more than
sufficient to overpower all the squadrons which Great Britain
could possibly collect for the defence of its shores. Such a
design exhibited all the power of combination which marked
Napoleon's greatest triumphs; but it required of an indifferent
marine the precision and swiftness of movement which belonged to
the land-forces of France; it assumed in the seamen of Great
Britain the same absence of resource which Napoleon had found
among the soldiers of the Continent. In the present instance,
however, Napoleon had to deal with a man as far superior to all
the admirals of France as Napoleon himself was to the generals of
Austria and Prussia. Villeneuve set sail for the West Indies in
the spring of 1805, and succeeded in drawing Nelson after him;
but, before he could re-cross the Atlantic, Nelson, incessantly
pursuing the French squadron in the West-Indian seas, and at
length discovering its departure homewards at Antigua (June 13),
had warned the English Government of Villeneuve's movement by a
message sent in the swiftest of the English brigs. <a name=
"FNanchor112">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_112"><sup>[112]</sup></a>
The Government, within twenty-four hours of receiving Nelson's
message, sent orders to Sir Robert Calder instantly to raise the
blockades of Ferrol and Rochefort, and to wait for Villeneuve off
Cape Finisterre. Here Villeneuve met the English fleet (July 22).
He was worsted in a partial engagement, and retired into the
harbour of Ferrol. The pressing orders of Napoleon forced the
French admiral, after some delay, to attempt that movement on
Brest and Rochefort on which the whole plan of the invasion of
England depended. But Villeneuve was no longer in a condition to
meet the English force assembled against him. He put back without
fighting, and retired to Cadiz. All hope of carrying out the
attack upon England was lost.</p>
<p>[March of French armies on Bavaria, Sept.]</p>
<p>It only remained for Napoleon to avenge himself upon Austria
through the army which was baulked of its English prey. On the
1st of September, when the Austrians were now on the point of
crossing the Inn, the camp of Boulogne was broken up. The army
turned eastwards, and distributed itself over all the roads
leading from the Channel to the Rhine and the Upper Danube. Far
on the north-east the army of Hanover, commanded by Bernadotte,
moved as its left wing, and converged upon a point in Southern
Germany half-way between the frontiers of France and Austria. In
the fables that long disguised the true character of every action
of Napoleon, the admirable order of march now given to the French
armies appears as the inspiration of a moment, due to the rebound
of Napoleon's genius after learning the frustration of all his
naval plans. In reality, the employment of the "Army of England"
against a Continental coalition had always been an alternative
present to Napoleon's mind; and it was threateningly mentioned in
his letters at a time when Villeneuve's failure was still
unknown.</p>
<p>[Austrians invade Bavaria, Sept. 8.]</p>
<p>The only advantage which the Allies derived from the
remoteness of the Channel army was that Austria was able to
occupy Bavaria without resistance. General Mack, who was charged
with this operation, crossed the Inn on the 8th of September. The
Elector of Bavaria was known to be secretly hostile to the
Coalition. The design of preventing his union with the French was
a correct one; but in the actual situation of the allied armies
it was one that could not be executed without great risk. The
preparations of Russia required more time than was allowed for
them; no Russian troops could reach the Inn before the end of
October; and, in consequence, the entire force operating in
Western Germany did not exceed seventy thousand men. Any doubts,
however, as to the prudence of an advance through Bavaria were
silenced by the assurance that Napoleon had to bring the bulk of
his army from the British Channel. <a name="FNanchor113">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_113"><sup>[113]</sup></a> In ignorance of the
real movements of the French, Mack pushed on to the western limit
of Bavaria, and reached the river Iller, the border of
W&uuml;rtemberg, where he intended to stand on the defensive
until the arrival of the Russians.</p>
<p>[Mack at Ulm, October.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Ulm, Oct. 17.]</p>
<p>Here, in the first days of October, he became aware of the
presence of French troops, not only in front but to the east of
his own position. With some misgiving as to the situation of the
enemy, Mack nevertheless refused to fall back from Ulm. Another
week revealed the true state of affairs. Before the Russians were
anywhere near Bavaria, the vanguard of Napoleon's Army of the
Channel and the Army of Hanover had crossed North-Western
Germany, and seized the roads by which Mack had advanced from
Vienna. Every hour that Mack remained in Ulm brought new
divisions of the French into the Bavarian towns and villages
behind him. Escape was only possible by a retreat into the Tyrol,
or by breaking through the French line while it was yet
incompletely formed. Resolute action might still have saved the
Austrian army; but the only energy that was shown was shown in
opposition to the general. The Archduke Ferdinand, who was the
titular commander-in-chief, cut his way through the French with
part of the cavalry; Mack remained in Ulm, and the iron circle
closed around him. At the last moment, after the hopelessness of
the situation had become clear even to himself, Mack was seized
by an illusion that some great disaster had befallen the French
in their rear, and that in the course of a few days Napoleon
would be in full retreat. "Let no man utter the word
'Surrender'"-he proclaimed in an order of October 15th-"the enemy
is in the most fearful straits; it is impossible that he can
continue more than a few days in the neighbourhood. If provisions
run short, we have three thousand horses to nourish us." "I
myself," continued the general, "will be the first to eat
horseflesh." Two days later the inevitable capitulation took
place; and Mack with 25,000 men, fell into the hands of the enemy
without striking a blow. A still greater number of the Austrians
outside Ulm surrendered in detachments. <a name=
"FNanchor114">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_114"><sup>[114]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Trafalgar, Oct. 21.]</p>
<p>[Effects.]</p>
<p>All France read with wonder Napoleon's bulletins describing
the capture of an entire army and the approaching presentation of
forty Austrian standards to the Senate at Paris. No imperial
rhetoric acquainted the nation with an event which, within four
days of the capitulation of Ulm, inflicted a heavier blow on
France than Napoleon himself had ever dealt to any adversary. On
the 21st of October Nelson's crowning victory of Trafalgar, won
over Villeneuve venturing out from Cadiz, annihilated the
combined fleets of France and Spain. Nelson fell in the moment of
his triumph; but the work which his last hours had achieved was
one to which years prolonged in glory could have added nothing.
He had made an end of the power of France upon the sea. Trafalgar
was not only the greatest naval victory, it was the greatest and
most momentous victory won either by land or by sea during the
whole of the Revolutionary War. No victory, and no series of
victories, of Napoleon produced the same effect upon Europe.
Austria was in arms within five years of Marengo, and within four
years of Austerlitz; Prussia was ready to retrieve the losses of
Jena in 1813; a generation passed after Trafalgar before France
again seriously threatened England at sea. The prospect of
crushing the British navy, so long as England had the means to
equip a navy, vanished: Napoleon henceforth set his hopes on
exhausting England's resources by compelling every State on the
Continent to exclude her commerce. Trafalgar forced him to impose
his yoke upon all Europe, or to abandon the hope of conquering
Great Britain. If national love and pride have idealised in our
great sailor a character which, with its Homeric force and
freshness, combined something of the violence and the self-love
of the heroes of a rude age, the common estimate of Nelson's work
in history is not beyond the truth. So long as France possessed a
navy, Nelson sustained the spirit of England by his victories;
his last triumph left England in such a position that no means
remained to injure her but those which must result in the
ultimate deliverance of the Continent.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Potsdam, Nov. 3.]</p>
<p>[Violation of Prussian territory.]</p>
<p>The consequences of Trafalgar lay in the future; the military
situation in Germany after Mack's catastrophe was such that
nothing could keep the army of Napoleon out of Vienna. In the
sudden awakening of Europe to its danger, one solitary gleam of
hope appeared in the attitude of the Prussian Court. Napoleon had
not scrupled, in his anxiety for the arrival of the Army of
Hanover, to order Bernadotte, its commander, to march through the
Prussian territory of Anspach, which lay on his direct route
towards Ulm. It was subsequently alleged by the Allies that
Bernadotte's violation of Prussian neutrality had actually saved
him from arriving too late to prevent Mack's escape; but, apart
from all imaginary grounds of reproach, the insult offered to
Prussia by Napoleon was sufficient to incline even Frederick
William to decided action. Some weeks earlier the approach of
Russian forces to his frontier had led Frederick William to arm;
the French had now more than carried out what the Russians had
only suggested. When the outrage was made known to the King of
Prussia, that cold and reserved monarch displayed an emotion
which those who surrounded him had seldom witnessed. <a name=
"FNanchor115">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_115"><sup>[115]</sup></a>
The Czar was forthwith offered a free passage for his armies
through Silesia; and, before the news of Mack's capitulation
reached the Russian frontier, Alexander himself was on the way to
Berlin. The result of the deliberations of the two monarchs was
the Treaty of Potsdam, signed on November 3rd. By this treaty
Prussia undertook to demand from Napoleon an indemnity for the
King of Piedmont, and the evacuation of Germany, Switzerland, and
Holland: failing Napoleon's acceptance of Prussia's mediation
upon these terms, Prussia engaged to take the field with 180,000
men.</p>
<p>[French enter Vienna, Nov. 13.]</p>
<p>Napoleon was now close upon Vienna. A few days after the
capitulation of Ulm thirty thousand Russians, commanded by
General Kutusoff, had reached Bavaria; but Mack's disaster
rendered it impossible to defend the line of the Inn, and the
last detachments of the Allies disappeared as soon as Napoleon's
vanguard approached the river. The French pushed forth in
overpowering strength upon the capital. Kutusoff and the weakened
Austrian army could neither defend Vienna nor meet the invader in
the field. It was resolved to abandon the city, and to unite the
retreating forces on the northern side of the Danube with a
second Russian army now entering Moravia. On the 7th of November
the Court quitted Vienna. Six days later the French entered the
capital, and by an audacious stratagem of Murat's gained
possession of the bridge connecting the city with the north bank
of the Danube, at the moment when the Austrian gunners were about
to blow it into the air. <a name="FNanchor116">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_116"><sup>[116]</sup></a> The capture of this bridge
deprived the allied army of the last object protecting it from
Napoleon's pursuit. Vienna remained in the possession of the
French. All the resources of a great capital were now added to
the means of the conqueror; and Napoleon prepared to follow his
retreating adversary beyond the Danube, and to annihilate him
before he could reach his supports.</p>
<p>[The Allies and Napoleon in Moravia, Nov.]</p>
<p>The retreat of the Russian army into Moravia was conducted
with great skill by General Kutusoff, who retorted upon Murat the
stratagem practised at the bridge of Vienna, and by means of a
pretended armistice effected his junction with the newly-arrived
Russian corps between Olm&uuml;tz and Br&uuml;nn. Napoleon's
anger at the escape of his prey was shown in the bitterness of
his attacks upon Murat. The junction of the allied armies in
Moravia had in fact most seriously altered the prospects of the
war. For the first time since the opening of the campaign, the
Allies had concentrated a force superior in numbers to anything
that Napoleon could bring against it. It was impossible for
Napoleon, while compelled to protect himself on the Italian side,
to lead more than 70,000 men into Moravia. The Allies had now
80,000 in camp, with the prospect of receiving heavy
reinforcements. The war, which lately seemed to be at its close,
might now, in the hands of a skilful general, be but beginning.
Although the lines of Napoleon's communication with France were
well guarded, his position in the heart of Europe exposed him to
many perils; the Archduke Charles had defeated Massena at
Caldiero on the Adige, and was hastening northwards; above all,
the army of Prussia was preparing to enter the field. Every mile
that Napoleon advanced into Moravia increased the strain upon his
resources; every day that postponed the decision of the campaign
brought new strength to his enemies. Merely to keep the French in
their camp until a Prussian force was ready to assail their
communications seemed enough to ensure the Allies victory; and
such was the counsel of Kutusoff, who made war in the temper of
the wariest diplomatist. But the scarcity of provisions was
telling upon the discipline of the army, and the Czar was eager
for battle. <a name="FNanchor117">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_117"><sup>[117]</sup></a> The Emperor Francis gave way
to the ardour of his allies. Weyrother, the Austrian chief of the
staff, drew up the most scientific plans for a great victory that
had ever been seen even at the Austrian head-quarters; and
towards the end of November it was agreed by the two Emperors
that the allied army should march right round Napoleon's position
near Br&uuml;nn, and fight a battle with the object of cutting
off his retreat upon Vienna.</p>
<p>[Haugwitz comes with Prussian demands to Napoleon, Nov.
28.]</p>
<p>[Haugwitz goes away to Vienna.]</p>
<p>It was in the days immediately preceding the intended battle,
and after Napoleon had divined the plans of his enemy, that Count
Haugwitz, bearing the demands of the Cabinet of Berlin, reached
the French camp at Br&uuml;nn. <a name="FNanchor118">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_118"><sup>[118]</sup></a> Napoleon had already heard
something of the Treaty of Potsdam, and was aware that Haugwitz
had started from Berlin. He had no intention of making any of
those concessions which Prussia required; at the same time it was
of vital importance to him to avoid the issue of a declaration of
war by Prussia, which would nerve both Austria and Russia to the
last extremities. He therefore resolved to prevent Haugwitz by
every possible method from delivering his ultimatum, until a
decisive victory over the allied armies should have entirely
changed the political situation. The Prussian envoy himself
played into Napoleon's hands. Haugwitz had obtained a disgraceful
permission from his sovereign to submit to all Napoleon's wishes,
if, before his arrival, Austria should be separately treating for
peace; and he had an excuse for delay in the fact that the
military preparations of Prussia were not capable of being
completed before the middle of December. He passed twelve days on
the journey from Berlin, and presented himself before Napoleon on
the 28th of November. The Emperor, after a long conversation,
requested that he would proceed to Vienna and transact business
with Talleyrand. He was weak enough to permit himself to be
removed to a distance with his ultimatum to Napoleon undelivered.
When next the Prussian Government heard of their envoy, he was
sauntering in Talleyrand's drawing-rooms at Vienna, with the
cordon of the French Legion of Honour on his breast, exchanging
civilities with officials who politely declined to enter upon any
question of business.</p>
<p>[Austerlitz, Dec. 2.]</p>
<p>[Armistice, Dec. 4.]</p>
<p>Haugwitz once removed to Vienna, and the Allies thus deprived
of the certainty that Prussia would take the field, Napoleon
trusted that a single great defeat would suffice to break up the
Coalition. The movements of the Allies were exactly those which
he expected and desired. He chose his own positions between
Br&uuml;nn and Austerlitz in the full confidence of victory; and
on the morning of the 2nd of December, when the mists disappeared
before a bright wintry sun, he saw with the utmost delight that
the Russian columns were moving round him in a vast arc, in
execution of the turning-movement of which he had forewarned his
own army on the day before. Napoleon waited until the foremost
columns were stretched far in advance of their supports; then,
throwing Soult's division upon the gap left in the centre of the
allied line, he cut the army into halves, and crushed its severed
divisions at every point along the whole line of attack. The
Allies, although they outnumbered Napoleon, believed themselves
to be overpowered by an army double their own size. The
incoherence of the allied movements was as marked as the unity
and effectiveness of those of the French. It was alleged in the
army that Kutusoff, the commander-in-chief, had fallen asleep
while the Austrian Weyrother was expounding his plans for the
battle; a truer explanation of the palpable errors in the allied
generalship was that the Russian commander had been forced by the
Czar to carry out a plan of which he disapproved. The destruction
in the ranks of the Allies was enormous, for the Russians fought
with the same obstinacy as at the Trebbia and at Novi. Austria
had lost a second army in addition to its capital; and the one
condition which could have steeled its Government against all
thoughts of peace-the certainty of an immediate Prussian attack
upon Napoleon-had vanished with the silent disappearance of the
Prussian envoy. Two days after the battle, the Emperor Francis
met his conqueror in the open field, and accepted an armistice,
which involved the withdrawal of the Russian army from his
dominions.</p>
<p>[Haugwitz signs Treaty with Napoleon, Dec. 15.]</p>
<p>Yet even now the Czar sent appeals to Berlin for help, and the
negotiation begun by Austria would possibly have been broken off
if help had been given. But the Cabinet of Frederick William had
itself determined to evade its engagements; and as soon as the
news of Austerlitz reached Vienna, Haugwitz had gone over heart
and soul to the conqueror. While negotiations for peace were
carried on between France and Austria, a parallel negotiation was
carried on with the envoy of Prussia; and even before the Emperor
Francis gave way to the conqueror's demands, Haugwitz signed a
treaty with Napoleon at Sch&ouml;nbrunn, by which Prussia,
instead of attacking Napoleon, entered into an alliance with him,
and received from him in return the dominion of Hanover (December
15, 1805). <a name="FNanchor119">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_119"><sup>[119]</sup></a> Had Prussia been the
defeated power at Austerlitz, the Treaty of Sch&ouml;nbrunn could
not have more completely reversed the policy to which King
Frederick William had pledged himself six weeks before. While
Haugwitz was making his pact with Napoleon, Hardenberg had been
arranging with an English envoy for the combination of English
and Russian forces in Northern Germany. <a name=
"FNanchor120">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_120"><sup>[120]</sup></a></p>
<p>There were some among the King's advisers who declared that
the treaty must be repudiated, and the envoy disgraced. But the
catastrophe of Austerlitz, and the knowledge that the Government
of Vienna was entering upon a separate negotiation, had damped
the courage of the men in power. The conduct of Haugwitz was
first excused, then supported, then admired. The Duke of
Brunswick disgraced himself by representing to the French
Ambassador in Berlin that the whole course of Prussian policy
since the beginning of the campaign had been an elaborate piece
of dissimulation in the interest of France. The leaders of the
patriotic party in the army found themselves without influence or
following; the mass of the nation looked on with the same stupid
unconcern with which it had viewed every event of the last twenty
years. The King finally decided that the treaty by which Haugwitz
had thrown the obligations of his country to the winds should be
ratified, with certain modifications, including one that should
nominally reserve to King George III. a voice in the disposal of
Hanover. <a name="FNanchor121">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_121"><sup>[121]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Treaty of Presburg, Dec. 27.]</p>
<p>[End of the Holy Roman Empire, Aug. 6, 1806.]</p>
<p>Ten days after the departure of the Prussian envoy from
Vienna, peace was concluded between France and Austria by the
Treaty of Presburg <a name="FNanchor122">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_122"><sup>[122]</sup></a> (December 27). At the
outbreak of the war Napoleon had declared to his army that he
would not again spare Austria, as he had spared her at Campo
Formio and at Lun&eacute;ville; and he kept his word. The Peace
of Presburg left the Austrian State in a condition very different
from that in which it had emerged from the two previous wars. The
Treaty of Campo Formio had only deprived Austria of Belgium in
order to replace it by Venice; the Settlement of Lun&eacute;ville
had only substituted French for Austrian influence in Western
Germany: the Treaty that followed the battle of Austerlitz
wrested from the House of Hapsburg two of its most important
provinces, and cut it off at once from Italy, from Switzerland,
and from the Rhine. Venetia was ceded to Napoleon's kingdom of
Italy; the Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria; the outlying districts
belonging to Austria in Western Germany were ceded to Baden and
to W&uuml;rtemberg. Austria lost 28,000 square miles of territory
and 3,000,000 inhabitants. The Emperor recognised the sovereignty
and independence of Bavaria, Baden, and W&uuml;rtemberg, and
renounced all rights over those countries as head of the Germanic
Body. The Electors of Bavaria and W&uuml;rtemberg, along with a
large increase of territory, received the title of King. The
constitution of the Empire ceased to exist even in name. It only
remained for its chief, the successor of the Roman C&aelig;sars,
to abandon his title at Napoleon's bidding; and on the 6th of
August, 1806, an Act, published by Francis II. at Vienna, made an
end of the outworn and dishonoured fiction of a Holy Roman
Empire.</p>
<p>[Naples given to Joseph Bonaparte.]</p>
<p>Though Russia had not made peace with Napoleon, the European
Coalition was at an end. Now, as in 1801, the defeat of the
Austrian armies left the Neapolitan Monarchy to settle its
account with the conqueror. Naples had struck no blow; but it was
only through the delays of the Allies that the Neapolitan army
had not united with an English and a Russian force in an attack
upon Lombardy. What had been pardoned in 1801 was now avenged
upon the Bourbon despot of Naples and his Austrian Queen, who
from the first had shown such bitter enmity to France. Assuming
the character of a judge over the sovereigns of Europe, Napoleon
pronounced from Vienna that the House of Naples had ceased to
reign (Dec. 27, 1805). The sentence was immediately carried into
execution. Ferdinand fled, as he had fled in 1798, to place
himself under the protection of the navy of Great Britain. The
vacant throne was given by Napoleon to his own brother, Joseph
Bonaparte. Ferdinand, with the help of the English fleet,
maintained himself in Sicily. A thread of sea two miles broad was
sufficient barrier against the Power which had subdued half the
Continent; and no attempt was made either by Napoleon or his
brother to gain a footing beyond the Straits of Messina. In
Southern Italy the same fanatical movements took place among the
peasantry as in the previous period of French occupation. When
the armies of Austria and Russia were crushed, and the continent
lay at the mercy of France, Great Britain imagined that it could
effect something against Napoleon in a corner of Italy, with the
help of some ferocious villagers. A British force, landing near
Maida, on the Calabrian coast, in the summer of 1806, had the
satisfaction of defeating the French at the point of the bayonet,
of exciting a horde of priests and brigands to fruitless
barbarities, and of abandoning them to their well-merited
chastisement.</p>
<p>[Battle of Maida, July 6, 1806.]</p>
<p>[The Empire. Napoleonic dynasty and titles.]</p>
<p>The elevation of Napoleon's brother Joseph to the throne of
Naples was the first of a series of appointments now made by
Napoleon in the character of Emperor of the West. He began to
style himself the new Charlemagne; his thoughts and his language
were filled with pictures of universal sovereignty; his
authority, as a military despot who had crushed his neighbours,
became strangely confused in his own mind with that half-sacred
right of the C&aelig;sars from which the Middle Ages derived all
subordinate forms of power. He began to treat the government of
the different countries of Western Europe as a function to be
exercised by delegation from himself. Even the territorial grants
which under the Feudal System accompanied military or civil
office were now revived and the commander of a French army-corps
or the chief of the French Foreign Office became the titular lord
of some obscure Italian principality. <a name=
"FNanchor123">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_123"><sup>[123]</sup></a>
Napoleon's own family were to reign in many lands, as the
Bourbons and the Hapsburgs had reigned before them, but in strict
dependence on their head. Joseph Bonaparte had not long been
installed at Naples when his brother Louis was compelled to
accept the Crown of Holland. Jerome, for whom no kingdom was at
present vacant, was forced to renounce his American wife, in
order that he might marry the daughter of the King of
W&uuml;rtemberg. Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais, Napoleon's step-son,
held the office of Viceroy of Italy; Murat, who had married
Napoleon's sister, had the German Duchy of Berg. Bernadotte,
Talleyrand, and Berthier found themselves suzerains of districts
whose names were almost unknown to them. Out of the revenues of
Northern Italy a yearly sum was reserved as an endowment for the
generals whom the Emperor chose to raise to princely honours.</p>
<p>[Federation of the Rhine.]</p>
<p>More statesmanlike, more practical than Napoleon's dynastic
policy, was his organisation of Western Germany under its native
princes as a dependency of France. The object at which all French
politicians had aimed since the outbreak of the Revolutionary
War, the exclusion of both Austria and Prussia from influence in
Western Germany, was now completely attained. The triumph of
French statesmanship, the consummation of two centuries of German
discord, was seen in the Act of Federation subscribed by the
Western German Sovereigns in the summer of 1806. By this Act the
Kings of Bavaria and W&uuml;rtemberg, the Elector of Baden, and
thirteen minor princes, united themselves, in the League known as
the Rhenish Confederacy, under the protection of the French
Emperor, and undertook to furnish contingents, amounting to
63,000 men, in all wars in which the French Empire should engage.
Their connection with the ancient Germanic Body was completely
severed; the very town in which the Diet of the Empire had held
its meetings was annexed by one of the members of the
Confederacy. The Confederacy itself, with a population of
8,000,000, became for all purposes of war and foreign policy a
part of France. Its armies were organised by French officers; its
frontiers were fortified by French engineers; its treaties were
made for it at Paris. In the domestic changes which took place
within these States the work of consolidation begun in 1801 was
carried forward with increased vigour. Scores of tiny
principalities which had escaped dissolution in the earlier
movement were now absorbed by their stronger neighbours.
Governments became more energetic, more orderly, more ambitious.
The princes who made themselves the vassals of Napoleon assumed a
more despotic power over their own subjects. Old constitutional
forms which had imposed some check on the will of the sovereign,
like the Estates of W&uuml;rtemberg, were contemptuously
suppressed; the careless, ineffective routine of the last age
gave place to a system of rigorous precision throughout the
public services. Military service was enforced in countries
hitherto free from it. The burdens of the people became greater,
but they were more fairly distributed. The taxes were more
equally levied; justice was made more regular and more simple. A
career both in the army and the offices of Government was opened
to a people to whom the very conception of public life had
hitherto been unknown.</p>
<p>[No national unity in Germany.]</p>
<p>The establishment of German unity in our own day after a
victorious struggle with France renders it difficult to imagine
the voluntary submission of a great part of the race to a French
sovereign, or to excuse a policy which, like that of 1806,
appears the opposite of everything honourable and patriotic. But
what seems strange now was not strange then. No expression more
truly describes the conditions of that period than one of the
great German poet who was himself so little of a patriot.
"Germany," said Goethe, "is not a nation." Germany had indeed the
unity of race; but all that truly constitutes a nation, the sense
of common interest, a common history, pride, and desire, Germany
did not possess at all. Bavaria, the strongest of the western
States, attached itself to France from a well-grounded fear of
Austrian aggression. To be conquered by Austria was just as much
conquest for Bavaria as to be conquered by any other Power; it
was no step to German unity, but a step in the aggrandisement of
the House of Hapsburg. The interests of the Austrian House were
not the interests of Germany any more than they were the
interests of Croatia, or of Venice, or of Hungary. Nor, on the
other hand, had Prussia yet shown a form of political life
sufficiently attractive to lead the southern States to desire to
unite with it. Frederick's genius had indeed made him the hero of
Germany, but his military system was harsh and tyrannical. In the
actual condition of Austria and Prussia, it is doubtful whether
the population of the minor States would have been happier united
to these Powers than under their own Governments. Conquest in any
case was impossible, and there was nothing to stimulate to
voluntary union. It followed that the smaller States were
destined to remain without a nationality, until the violence of
some foreign Power rendered weakness an intolerable evil, and
forced upon the better minds of Germany the thought of a common
Fatherland.</p>
<p>[What German unity desirable.]</p>
<p>The necessity of German unity is no self-evident political
truth. Holland and Switzerland in past centuries detached
themselves from the Empire, and became independent States, with
the highest advantage to themselves. Identity of blood is no more
conclusive reason for political union between Holstein and the
Tyrol than between Great Britain and the United States of
America. The conditions which determine both the true area and
the true quality of German unity are, in fact, something more
complex than an ethnological law or an outburst of patriotic
indignation against the French. Where local circumstances
rendered it possible for a German district, after detaching
itself from the race, to maintain a real national life and defend
itself from foreign conquest, there it was perhaps better that
the connection with Germany should be severed; where, as in the
great majority of minor States, independence resulted only in
military helplessness and internal stagnation, there it was
better that independence should give place to German unity. But
the conditions of any tolerable unity were not present so long as
Austria was the leading Power. Less was imperilled in the future
of the German people by the submission of the western States to
France than would have been lost by their permanent incorporation
under Austria.</p>
<p>[The Empire of 1806 might have been permanent.]</p>
<p>[Limits of a possible Napoleonic Empire.]</p>
<p>With the establishment of the Rhenish Confederacy and the
conquest of Naples, Napoleon's empire reached, but did not
overpass, the limits within which the sovereignty of France might
probably have been long maintained. It has been usual to draw the
line between the sound statesmanship and the hazardous
enterprises of Napoleon at the Peace of Lun&eacute;ville: a
juster appreciation of the condition of Western Europe would
perhaps include within the range of a practical, though
mischievous, ideal the whole of the political changes which
immediately followed the war of 1805, and which extended
Napoleon's dominion to the Inn and to the Straits of Messina.
Italy and Germany were not then what they have since become. The
districts that lay between the Rhine and the Inn were not more
hostile to the foreigner than those Rhenish Provinces which so
readily accepted their union with France. The more enterprising
minds in Italy found that the Napoleonic rule, with all its
faults, was superior to anything that Italy had known in recent
times. If we may judge from the feeling with which Napoleon was
regarded in Germany down to the middle of the year 1806, and in
Italy down to a much later date, the Empire then founded might
have been permanently upheld, if Napoleon had abstained from
attacking other States. No comparison can be made between the
attractive power exercised by the social equality of France, its
military glory, and its good administration, and the slow and
feeble process of assimilation which went on within the dominions
of Austria; yet Austria succeeded in uniting a greater variety of
races than France sought to unite in 1806. The limits of a
possible France were indeed fixed, and fixed more firmly than by
any geographical line, in the history and national character of
two other peoples. France could not permanently overpower
Prussia, and it could not permanently overpower Spain. But within
a boundary-line drawn roughly from the mouth of the Elbe to the
head of the Adriatic, that union of national sentiment and
material force which checks the formation of empires did not
exist. The true turning-point in Napoleon's career was the moment
when he passed beyond the policy which had planned the Federation
of the Rhine, and roused by his oppression the one State which
was still capable of giving a national life to Germany.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_VII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c7">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Death of Pitt-Ministry of Fox and Grenville-Napoleon forces
Prussia into War with England, and then offers Hanover to
England-Prussia resolves on War with Napoleon-State of
Prussia-Decline of the Army-Southern Germany with
Napoleon-Austria Neutral-England and Russia about to help
Prussia, but not immediately-Campaign of 1806-Battles of Jena and
Auerst&auml;dt-Ruin of the Prussian Army-Capitulation of
Fortresses-Demands of Napoleon-The War continues-Berlin
Decree-Exclusion of English Goods from the Continent-Russia
enters the War-Campaign in Poland and East Prussia-Eylau-Treaty
of Bartenstein-Friedland-Interview at Tilsit-Alliance of Napoleon
and Alexander-Secret Articles-English Expedition to Denmark-The
French enter Portugal-Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit-Stein's
Edict of Emancipation-The Prussian Peasant-Reform of the Prussian
Army, and Creation of Municipalities-Stein's other Projects of
Reform, which are not carried out.</p>
<br>

<p>[Death of Pitt, Jan. 23rd, 1806.]</p>
<p>[Coalition Ministry of Fox and Grenville.]</p>
<p>Six weeks after the tidings of Austerlitz reached Great
Britain, the statesman who had been the soul of every European
coalition against France was carried to the grave. <a name=
"FNanchor124">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_124"><sup>[124]</sup></a>
Pitt passed away at a moment of the deepest gloom. His victories
at sea appeared to have effected nothing; his combinations on
land had ended in disaster and ruin. If during Pitt's lifetime a
just sense of the greatness and patriotism of all his aims
condoned the innumerable faults of his military administration,
that personal ascendancy which might have disarmed criticism even
after the disaster of Austerlitz belonged to no other member of
his Ministry. His colleagues felt their position to be hopeless.
Though the King attempted to set one of Pitt's subordinates in
the vacant place, the prospects of Europe were too dark, the
situation of the country too serious, to allow a Ministry to be
formed upon the ordinary principles of party-organisation or in
accordance with the personal preferences of the monarch. The
nation called for the union of the ablest men of all parties in
the work of government; and, in spite of the life-long hatred of
King George to Mr. Fox, a Ministry entered upon office framed by
Fox and Grenville conjointly; Fox taking the post of Foreign
Secretary, with a leading influence in the Cabinet, and yielding
to Grenville the title of Premier. Addington received a place in
the Ministry, and carried with him the support of a section of
the Tory party, which was willing to countenance a policy of
peace.</p>
<p>[Napoleon hopes to intimidate Fox through Prussia.]</p>
<p>Fox had from the first given his whole sympathy to the French
Revolution, as the cause of freedom. He had ascribed the
calamities of Europe to the intervention of foreign Powers in
favour of the Bourbon monarchy: he had palliated the aggressions
of the French Republic as the consequences of unjust and
unprovoked attack: even the extinction of liberty in France
itself had not wholly destroyed his faith in the honour and the
generosity of the soldier of the Revolution. In the brief
interval of peace which in 1802 opened the Continent to English
travellers, Fox had been the guest of the First Consul. His
personal feeling towards the French Government had in it nothing
of that proud and suspicious hatred which made negotiation so
difficult while Pitt continued in power. It was believed at
Paris, and with good reason, that the first object of Fox on
entering upon office would be the restoration of peace. Napoleon
adopted his own plan in view of the change likely to arise in the
spirit of the British Cabinet. It was his habit, wherever he saw
signs of concession, to apply more violent means of intimidation.
In the present instance he determined to work upon the pacific
leanings of Fox by adding Prussia to the forces arrayed against
Great Britain. Prussia, isolated and discredited since the battle
of Austerlitz, might first be driven into hostilities with
England, and then be made to furnish the very satisfaction
demanded by England as the primary condition of peace.</p>
<p>[The King of Prussia wishes to disguise the cession of
Hanover.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon forces Prussia into war with England, March,
1806.]</p>
<p>At the moment when Napoleon heard of Pitt's death, he was
expecting the arrival of Count Haugwitz at Paris for the purpose
of obtaining some modification in the treaty which he had signed
on behalf of Prussia after the battle of Austerlitz. The
principal feature in that treaty had been the grant of Hanover to
Prussia by the French Emperor in return for its alliance. This
was the point which above all others excited King Frederick
William's fears and scruples. He desired to retain Hanover, but
he also desired to derive his title rather from its English owner
than from its French invader. It was the object of Haugwitz'
visit to Paris to obtain an alteration in the terms of the treaty
which should make the Prussian occupation of Hanover appear to be
merely provisional, and reserve to the King of England at least a
nominal voice in its ultimate transfer. In full confidence that
Napoleon would agree to such a change, the King of Prussia had
concealed the fact of its cession to himself by Napoleon, and
published an untruthful proclamation, stating that, in the
interests of the Hanoverian people themselves, a treaty had been
signed and ratified by the French and Prussian Governments, in
virtue of which Hanover was placed under the protection of the
King of Prussia until peace should be concluded between Great
Britain and France. The British Government received assurances of
Prussia's respect for the rights of King George III.: the bitter
truth that the treaty between France and Prussia contained no
single word reserving the rights of the Elector, and that the
very idea of qualifying the absolute cession of Hanover was an
afterthought, lay hidden in the conscience of the Prussian
Cabinet. Never had a Government more completely placed itself at
the mercy of a pitiless enemy. Count Haugwitz, on reaching Paris,
was received by Napoleon with a storm of invective against the
supposed partisans of England at the Prussian Court. Napoleon
declared that the ill faith of Prussia had made an end even of
that miserable pact which had been extorted after Austerlitz, and
insisted that King Frederick William should openly defy Great
Britain by closing the ports of Northern Germany to British
vessels, and by declaring himself endowed by Napoleon with
Hanover in virtue of Napoleon's own right of conquest. Haugwitz
signed a second and more humiliating treaty embodying these
conditions; and the Prussian Government, now brought into the
depths of contempt, but unready for immediate war, executed the
orders of its master. <a name="FNanchor125">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_125"><sup>[125]</sup></a> A proclamation, stating that
Prussia had received the absolute dominion of Hanover from its
conqueror Napoleon, gave the lie to the earlier announcements of
King Frederick William. A decree was published excluding the
ships of England from the ports of Prussia and from those of
Hanover itself (March 28, 1806). It was promptly answered by the
seizure of four hundred Prussian vessels in British harbours, and
by the total extinction of Prussian maritime commerce by British
privateers. <a name="FNanchor126">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_126"><sup>[126]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Napoleon negotiates with Fox. Offers Hanover to England.]</p>
<p>Scarcely was Prussia committed to this ruinous conflict with
Great Britain, when Napoleon opened negotiations for peace with
Mr. Fox's Government. The first condition required by Great
Britain was the restitution of Hanover to King George III. It was
unhesitatingly granted by Napoleon. <a name="FNanchor127">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_127"><sup>[127]</sup></a> Thus was Prussia to be
mocked of its prey, after it had been robbed of all its honour.
For the present, however, no rumour of this part of the
negotiation reached Berlin. The negotiation itself, which dragged
on through several months, turned chiefly upon the future
ownership of Sicily. Napoleon had in the first instance agreed
that Sicily should be left in the hands of Ferdinand of Naples,
who had never been expelled from it by the French. Finding,
however, that the Russian envoy d'Oubril, who had been sent to
Paris with indefinite instructions by the Emperor Alexander, was
willing to separate the cause of Russia from that of England, and
to sign a separate peace, Napoleon retracted his promise relating
to Sicily, and demanded that this island should be ceded to his
brother Joseph. D'Oubril signed Preliminaries on behalf of Russia
on the 20th of July, and left the English negotiator to obtain
what terms he could. Fox had been willing to recognise the order
of things established by Napoleon on the Italian mainland; he
would even have ceded Sicily, if Russia had urged this in a joint
negotiation; but he was too good a statesman to be cheated out of
Sicily by a mere trick. He recalled the English envoy from Paris,
and waited for the judgment of the Czar upon the conduct of his
own representative. The Czar disavowed d'Oubril's negotiations,
and repudiated the treaty which he brought back to St.
Petersburg. Napoleon had thus completely overreached himself,
and, instead of severing Great Britain and Russia by separate
agreements, had only irritated and displeased them both. The
negotiations went no further; their importance lay only in the
effect which they produced upon Prussia, when Napoleon's offer of
Hanover to Great Britain became known at Berlin.</p>
<p>[Prussia learns of Napoleon's offer of Hanover to England,
Aug. 7.]</p>
<p>[Prussia determines on war.]</p>
<p>From the time when Haugwitz' second treaty placed his master
at Napoleon's feet, Prussia had been subjected to an unbroken
series of insults and wrongs. Murat, as Duke of Berg, had seized
upon territory allotted to Prussia in the distribution of the
ecclesiastical lands; the establishment of a North German
Confederacy under Prussian leadership was suggested by Napoleon
himself, only to be summarily forbidden as soon as Prussia
attempted to carry the proposal into execution. There was
scarcely a courtier in Berlin who did not feel that the yoke of
the French had become past endurance; even Haugwitz himself now
considered war as a question of time. The patriotic party in the
capital and the younger officers of the army bitterly denounced
the dishonoured Government, and urged the King to strike for the
credit of his country. <a name="FNanchor128">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_128"><sup>[128]</sup></a> In the midst of this
deepening agitation, a despatch arrived from Lucchesini, the
Prussian Ambassador at Paris (August 7), relating the offer of
Hanover made by Napoleon to the British Government. For nearly
three months Lucchesini had caught no glimpse of the negotiations
between Great Britain and France; suddenly, on entering into
conversation with the English envoy at a dinner-party, he learnt
the blow which Napoleon had intended to deal to Prussia.
Lucchesini instantly communicated with the Court of Berlin; but
his despatch was opened by Talleyrand's agents before it left
Paris, and the French Government was thus placed on its guard
against the sudden explosion of Prussian wrath. Lucchesini's
despatch had indeed all the importance that Talleyrand attributed
to it. It brought that spasmodic access of resolution to the
irresolute King which Bernadotte's violation of his territory had
brought in the year before. The whole Prussian army was ordered
to prepare for war; Brunswick was summoned to form plans of a
campaign; and appeals for help were sent to Vienna, to St.
Petersburg, and even to the hostile Court of London.</p>
<p>[Condition of Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Ministers not in the King's Cabinet.]</p>
<p>The condition of Prussia at this critical moment was one which
filled with the deepest alarm those few patriotic statesmen who
were not blinded by national vanity or by slavery to routine. The
foreign policy of Prussia in 1805, miserable as it was, had been
but a single manifestation of the helplessness, the moral
deadness that ran through every part of its official and public
life. Early in the year 1806 a paper was drawn up by Stein, <a
name="FNanchor129">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_129"><sup>[129]</sup></a> exposing, in language seldom
used by a statesman, the character of the men by whom Frederick
William was surrounded, and declaring that nothing but a speedy
change of system could save the Prussian State from utter
downfall and ruin. Two measures of immediate necessity were
specified by Stein, the establishment of a responsible council of
Ministers, and the removal of Haugwitz and all his friends from
power. In the existing system of government the Ministers were
not the monarch's confidential advisers. The Ministers performed
their work in isolation from one another; the Cabinet, or
confidential council of the King, was composed of persons holding
no public function, and free from all public responsibility. No
guarantee existed that the policy of the country would be the
same for two days together. The Ministers were often unaware of
the turn that affairs had taken in the Cabinet; and the history
of Haugwitz' mission to Austerlitz showed that an individual
might commit the State to engagements the very opposite of those
which he was sent to contract. The first necessity for Prussia
was a responsible governing council: with such a council, formed
from the heads of the actual Administration, the reform of the
army and of the other branches of the public service, which was
absolutely hopeless under the present system, might be attended
with some chance of success.</p>
<p>[State of the Prussian Army.]</p>
<p>[Higher officers.]</p>
<p>The army of Prussia, at an epoch when the conscription and the
genius of Napoleon had revolutionised the art of war, was nothing
but the army of Frederick the Great grown twenty years older. <a
name="FNanchor130">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_130"><sup>[130]</sup></a> It was obvious to all the
world that its commissariat and marching-regulations belonged to
a time when weeks were allowed for movements now reckoned by
days; but there were circumstances less conspicuous from the
outside which had paralysed the very spirit of soldiership, and
prepared the way for a military collapse in which defeats in the
field were the least dishonourable event. Old age had rendered
the majority of the higher officers totally unfit for military
service. In that barrack-like routine of officialism which passed
in Prussia for the wisdom of government, the upper ranks of the
army formed a species of administrative corps in time of peace,
and received for their civil employment double the pay that they
could earn in actual war. Aged men, with the rank of majors,
colonels, and generals, mouldered in the offices of country
towns, and murmured at the very mention of a war, which would
deprive them of half their salaries. Except in the case of
certain princes, who were placed in high rank while young, and of
a few vigorous patriarchs like Bl&uuml;cher, all the energy and
military spirit of the army was to be found in men who had not
passed the grade of captain. The higher officers were, on an
average, nearly double the age of French officers of
corresponding <a name="FNanchor131">rank.</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_131"><sup>[131]</sup></a> Of the twenty-four
lieutenant-generals, eighteen were over sixty; the younger ones,
with a single exception, were princes. Five out of the seven
commanders of infantry were over seventy; even the sixteen
cavalry generals included only two who had not reached
sixty-five. These were the men who, when the armies of Prussia
were beaten in the field, surrendered its fortresses with as
little concern as if they had been receiving the French on a
visit of ceremony. Their vanity was as lamentable as their
faint-heartedness. "The army of his Majesty," said General
R&uuml;chel on parade, "possesses several generals equal to
Bonaparte." Faults of another character belonged to the
generation which had grown up since Frederick. The arrogance and
licentiousness of the younger officers was such that their ruin
on the field of Jena caused positive joy to a great part of the
middle classes of Prussia. But, however hateful their manners,
and however rash their self-confidence, the vices of these
younger men had no direct connection with the disasters of 1806.
The gallants who sharpened their swords on the window-sill of the
French Ambassador received a bitter lesson from the plebeian
troopers of Murat; but they showed courage in disaster, and
subsequently gave to their country many officers of ability and
honour.</p>
<p>[Common soldiers.]</p>
<p>What was bad in the higher grades of the army was not
retrieved by any excellence on the part of the private soldier.
The Prussian army was recruited in part from foreigners, but
chiefly from Prussian serfs, who were compelled to serve. Men
remained with their regiments till old age; the rough character
of the soldiers and the frequency of crimes and desertions
occasioned the use of brutal punishments, which made the military
service an object of horror to the better part of the middle and
lower classes. The soldiers themselves, who could be flogged and
drilled into high military perfection by a great general like
Frederick, felt a surly indifference to their present
taskmasters, and were ready to desert in masses to their homes as
soon as a defeat broke up the regimental muster and roll-call. A
proposal made in the previous year to introduce that system of
general service which has since made Prussia so great a military
power was rejected by a committee of generals, on the ground that
it "would convert the most formidable army of Europe into a
militia." But whether Prussia entered the war with a militia or a
regular army, under the men who held command in 1806 it could
have met with but one fate. Neither soldiery nor fortresses could
have saved a kingdom whose generals knew only how to
capitulate.</p>
<p>[Southern Germany. Execution of Palm, Aug. 26.]</p>
<p>All southern Germany was still in Napoleon's hands. As the
probability of a war with Prussia became greater and greater,
Napoleon had tightened his grasp upon the Confederate States.
Publications originating among the patriotic circles of Austria
were beginning to appeal to the German people to unite against a
foreign oppressor. An anonymous pamphlet, entitled "Germany in
its Deep Humiliation," was sold by various booksellers in
Bavaria, among others by Palm, a citizen of Nuremberg. There is
no evidence that Palm was even acquainted with the contents of
the pamphlet; but as in the case of the Duke of Enghien, two
years before, Napoleon had required a victim to terrify the House
of Bourbon, so now he required a victim to terrify those who
among the German people might be inclined to listen to the call
of patriotism. Palm was not too obscure for the new Charlemagne.
The innocent and unoffending man, innocent even of the honourable
crime of attempting to save his country, was dragged before a
tribunal of French soldiers, and executed within twenty-four
hours, in pursuance of the imperative orders of Napoleon (August
26). The murder was an unnecessary one, for the Bavarians and the
W&uuml;rtembergers were in fact content with the yoke they bore;
its only effect was to arouse among a patient and home-loving
class the doubt whether the German citizen and his family might
not after all have some interest in the preservation of national
independence.</p>
<p>[Austria neutral. England and Russia can give Prussia no
prompt help.]</p>
<p>When, several years later, the oppressions of Napoleon had
given to a great part of the German race at least the transient
nobleness of a real patriotism, the story of Palm's death was one
of those that kindled the bitterest sense of wrong: at the time,
it exercised no influence upon the course of political events.
Southern Germany remained passive, and supplied Napoleon with a
reserve of soldiers: Prussia had to look elsewhere for allies.
Its prospects of receiving support were good, if the war should
prove a protracted one, but not otherwise. Austria, crippled by
the disasters of 1805, could only hope to renew the struggle if
victory should declare against Napoleon. In other quarters help
might be promised, but it could not be given at the time and at
the place where it was needed. The Czar proffered the whole
forces of his Empire; King George III. forgave the despoilers of
his patrimony when he found that they really intended to fight
the French; but the troops of Alexander lay far in the East, and
the action of England in any Continental war was certain to be
dilatory and ineffective. Prussia was exposed to the first shock
of the war alone. In the existing situation of the French armies,
a blow unusually swift and crushing might well be expected by all
who understood Napoleon's warfare.</p>
<p>[Situation of the French and Prussian armies, Sept.,
1806.]</p>
<p>[French on the Main.]</p>
<p>[Prussians on the Saale.]</p>
<p>A hundred and seventy thousand French soldiers, with
contingents from the Rhenish Confederate States, lay between the
Main and the Inn. The last weeks of peace, in which the Prussian
Government imagined themselves to be deceiving the enemy while
they pushed forward their own preparations, were employed by
Napoleon in quietly concentrating this vast force upon the Main
(September, 1806). Napoleon himself appeared to be absorbed in
friendly negotiations with General Knobelsdorff, the new Prussian
Ambassador at Paris. In order to lull Napoleon's suspicions,
Haugwitz had recalled Lucchesini from Paris, and intentionally
deceived his successor as to the real designs of the Prussian
Cabinet. Knobelsdorff confidentially informed the Emperor that
Prussia was not serious in its preparations for war. Napoleon,
caring very little whether Prussia intended to fight or not,
continued at Paris in the appearance of the greatest calm, while
his lieutenants in Southern Germany executed those unobserved
movements which were to collect the entire army upon the Upper
Main. In the meantime the advisers of King Frederick William
supposed themselves to have made everything ready for a vigorous
offensive. Divisions of the Prussian army, numbering nearly
130,000 men, were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Jena, on
the Saale. The bolder spirits in the military council pressed for
an immediate advance through the Thuringian Forest, and for an
attack upon what were supposed to be the scattered detachments of
the French in Bavaria. Military pride and all the traditions of
the Great Frederick impelled Prussia to take the offensive rather
than to wait for the enemy upon the strong line of the Elbe.
Political motives pointed in the same direction, for the support
of Saxony was doubtful if once the French were permitted to
approach Dresden.</p>
<p>[Confusion of the Prussians.]</p>
<p>On the 23rd of September King Frederick William arrived at the
head-quarters of the army, which were now at Naumburg, on the
Saale. But his presence brought no controlling mind to the
direction of affairs. Councils of war held on the two succeeding
days only revealed the discord and the irresolution of the
military leaders of Prussia. Brunswick, the commander-in-chief,
sketched the boldest plans, and shrank from the responsibility of
executing them. Hohenlohe, who commanded the left wing, lost no
opportunity of opposing his superior; the suggestions of officers
of real ability, like Scharnhorst, chief of the staff, fell
unnoticed among the wrangling of pedants and partisans.
Brunswick, himself a man of great intelligence though of little
resolution, saw the true quality of the men who surrounded him.
"R&uuml;chel," he cried, "is a tin trumpet, M&ouml;llendorf a
dotard, Kalkreuth a cunning trickster. The generals of division
are a set of stupid journeymen. Are these the people with whom
one can make war on Napoleon? No. The best service that I could
render to the King would be to persuade him to keep the peace."
<a name="FNanchor132">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_132"><sup>[132]</sup></a> It was ultimately decided,
after two days of argument, that the army should advance through
the Thuringian Forest, while feints on the right and left
deceived the French as to its real direction. The diplomatists,
however, who were mad enough to think that an ultimatum which
they had just despatched to Paris would bring Napoleon on to his
knees, insisted that the opening of hostilities should be
deferred till the 8th of October, when the term of grace which
they had given to Napoleon would expire.</p>
<p>[Prussians at Erfurt, Oct. 4.]</p>
<p>A few days after this decision had been formed, intelligence
arrived at head-quarters that Napoleon himself was upon the
Rhine. Before the ultimatum reached the hands of General
Knobelsdorff in Paris, Napoleon had quitted the capital, and the
astonished Ambassador could only send the ultimatum in pursuit of
him after he had gone to place himself at the head of 200,000
men. The news that Napoleon was actually in Mainz confounded the
diplomatists in the Prussian camp, and produced an order for an
immediate advance. This was the wisest as well as the boldest
determination that had yet been formed; and an instant assault
upon the French divisions on the Main might perhaps even now have
given the Prussian army the superiority in the first encounter.
But some fatal excuse was always at hand to justify Brunswick in
receding from his resolutions. A positive assurance was brought
into camp by Lucchesini that Napoleon had laid his plans for
remaining on the defensive on the south of the Thuringian Forest.
If this were true, there might yet be time to improve the plan of
the campaign; and on the 4th of October, when every hour was of
priceless value, the forward march was arrested, and a new series
of deliberations began at the head-quarters at Erfurt. In the
council held on the 4th of October, a total change in the plan of
operations was urged by Hohenlohe's staff. They contended, and
rightly, that it was the design of Napoleon to pass the Prussian
army on the east by the valley of the Saale, and to cut it off
from the roads to the Elbe. The delay in Brunswick's movements
had in fact brought the French within striking distance of the
Prussian communications. Hohenlohe urged the King to draw back
the army from Erfurt to the Saale, or even to the east of it, in
order to cover the roads to Leipzig and the Elbe. His theory of
Napoleon's movements, which was the correct one, was adopted by
the council, and the advance into the Thuringian Forest was
abandoned; but instead of immediately marching eastwards with the
whole army, the generals wasted two more days in hesitations and
half-measures. At length it was agreed that Hohenlohe should take
post at Jena, and that the mass of the army should fall back to
Weimar, with the object of striking a blow at some undetermined
point on the line of Napoleon's advance.</p>
<p>[Encounter at Saalfeld, Oct. 10.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon defeats Hohenlohe at Jena, Oct. 14.]</p>
<p>[Davoust defeats Brunswick at Auerst&auml;dt, Oct. 14.]</p>
<p>[Ruin of the Prussian Army.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, who had just received the Prussian ultimatum with
unbounded ridicule and contempt, was now moving along the roads
that lead from Bamberg and Baireuth to the Upper Saale. On the
10th of October, as the division of Lannes was approaching
Saalfeld, it was attacked by Prince Louis Ferdinand at the head
of Hohenlohe's advanced guard. The attack was made against
Hohenlohe's orders. It resulted in the total rout of the Prussian
force. Though the numbers engaged were small, the loss of
magazines and artillery, and the death of Prince Louis Ferdinand,
the hero of the war-party, gave to this first repulse the moral
effect of a great military disaster. Hohenlohe's troops at Jena
were seized with panic; numbers of men threw away their arms and
dispersed; the drivers of artillery-waggons and provision-carts
cut the traces and rode off with their horses. Brunswick,
however, and the main body of the army, were now at Weimar, close
at hand; and if Brunswick had decided to fight a great battle at
Jena, the Prussians might have brought nearly 90,000 men into
action. But the plans of the irresolute commander were again
changed. It was resolved to fall back upon Magdeburg and the
Elbe. Brunswick himself moved northwards to Naumburg; Hohenlohe
was ordered to hold the French in check at Jena until this
movement was completed. Napoleon reached Jena. He had no
intelligence of Brunswick's retreat, and imagined the mass of the
Prussian army to be gathered round Hohenlohe, on the plateau
before him. He sent Davoust, with a corps 27,000 strong, to
outflank the enemy by a march in the direction of Naumburg, and
himself prepared to make the attack in front with 90,000 men, a
force more than double Hohenlohe's real army. The attack was made
on the 14th of October. Hohenlohe's army was dashed to pieces by
Napoleon, and fled in wild disorder. Davoust's weak corps, which
had not expected to meet with any important forces until it fell
upon Hohenlohe's flank, found itself in the presence of
Brunswick's main army, when it arrived at Auerst&auml;dt, a few
miles to the north. Fortune had given to the Prussian commander
an extraordinary chance of retrieving what strategy had lost. A
battle conducted with common military skill would not only have
destroyed Davoust, but have secured, at least for the larger
portion of the Prussian forces, a safe retreat to Leipzig or the
Elbe. The French general, availing himself of steep and broken
ground, defeated numbers nearly double his own through the
confusion of his adversary, who sent up detachment after
detachment instead of throwing himself upon Davoust with his
entire strength. The fighting was as furious on the Prussian side
as its conduct was unskilful. King Frederick William, who led the
earlier cavalry charges, had two horses killed under him.
Brunswick was mortally wounded. Many of the other generals were
killed or disabled. There remained, however, a sufficient number
of unbroken regiments to preserve some order in the retreat until
the army came into contact with the remnant of Hohenlohe's
forces, flying for their lives before the cavalry of Murat. Then
all hope was lost. The fugitive mass struck panic and confusion
into the retreating columns; and with the exception of a few
regiments which gathered round well-known leaders, the soldiers
threw away their arms and spread over the country in headlong
rout. There was no line of retreat, and no rallying-point. The
disaster of a single day made an end of the Prussian army as a
force capable of meeting the enemy in the field. A great part of
the troops was captured by the pursuing enemy during the next few
days. The regiments which preserved their coherence were too weak
to make any attempt to check Napoleon's advance, and could only
hope to save themselves by escaping to the fortresses on the
Oder.</p>
<p>[Haugwitz and Lord Morpeth.]</p>
<p>[Retreat and surrender of Hohenlohe.]</p>
<p>Two days before the battle of Jena, an English envoy, Lord
Morpeth, had arrived at the head-quarters of the King of Prussia,
claiming the restoration of Hanover, and bearing an offer of the
friendship and support of Great Britain. At the moment when the
Prussian monarchy was on the point of being hurled to the ground,
its Government might have been thought likely to welcome any
security that it should not be abandoned in its utmost need.
Haugwitz, however, was at head-quarters, dictating lying
bulletins, and perplexing the generals with ridiculous arguments
of policy until the French actually opened fire. When the English
envoy made known his arrival, he found that no one would transact
business with him. Haugwitz had determined to evade all
negotiations until the battle had been fought. He was unwilling
to part with Hanover, and he hoped that a victory over Napoleon
would enable him to meet Lord Morpeth with a bolder countenance
on the following day. When that day arrived, Ministers and
diplomatists were flying headlong over the country. The King made
his escape to Weimar, and wrote to Napoleon, begging for an
armistice; but the armistice was refused, and the pursuit of the
broken army was followed up without a moment's pause. The capital
offered no safe halting-place; and Frederick William only rested
when he had arrived at Graudenz, upon the Vistula. Hohenlohe's
poor remnant of an army passed the Elbe at Magdeburg, and took
the road for Stettin, at the mouth of the Oder, leaving Berlin to
its fate. The retreat was badly conducted; alternate halts and
strained marches discouraged the best of the soldiers. As the men
passed their native villages they abandoned the famishing and
broken-spirited columns; and at the end of a fortnight's
disasters Prince Hohenlohe surrendered to his pursuers at
Prenzlau with his main body, now numbering only 10,000 men (Oct.
28).</p>
<p>[Bl&uuml;cher at L&uuml;beck.]</p>
<p>Bl&uuml;cher, who had shown the utmost energy and fortitude
after the catastrophe of Jena, was moving in the rear of
Hohenlohe with a considerable force which his courage had
gathered around him. On learning of Hohenlohe's capitulation, he
instantly reversed his line of march, and made for the Hanoverian
fortress of Hameln, in order to continue the war in the rear of
the French. Overwhelming forces, however, cut off his retreat to
the Elbe; he was hemmed in on the east and on the west; and
nothing remained for him but to throw himself into the neutral
town of L&uuml;beck, and fight until food and ammunition failed
him. The French were at his heels. The magistrates of L&uuml;beck
prayed that their city might not be made into a battle-field, but
in vain; Bl&uuml;cher refused to move into the open country. The
town was stormed by the French, and put to the sack. Bl&uuml;cher
was driven out, desperately fighting, and pent in between the
Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering
numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the
7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done
everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the
midst of overwhelming calamity.</p>
<p>[Napoleon at Berlin, Oct. 27.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Prussian fortresses.]</p>
<p>The honour of entering the Prussian capital was given by
Napoleon to Davoust, whose victory at Auerst&auml;dt had in fact
far surpassed his own. Davoust entered Berlin without resistance
on the 25th of October; Napoleon himself went to Potsdam, and
carried off the sword and the scarf that lay upon the grave of
Frederick the Great. Two days after Davoust, the Emperor made his
own triumphal entry into the capital. He assumed the part of the
protector of the people against the aristocracy, ordering the
formation of a municipal body and of a civic guard for the city
of Berlin. The military aristocracy he treated with the bitterest
hatred and contempt. "I will make that noblesse," he cried, "so
poor that they shall beg their bread." The disaster of Jena had
indeed fearfully punished the insolence with which the officers
of the army had treated the rest of the nation. The Guards were
marched past the windows of the citizens of Berlin, a miserable
troop of captives; soldiers of rank who remained in the city had
to attend upon the French Emperor to receive his orders. But
calamity was only beginning. The overthrow of Jena had been
caused by faults of generalship, and cast no stain upon the
courage of the officers; the surrender of the Prussian
fortresses, which began on the day when the French entered
Berlin, attached the utmost personal disgrace to their
commanders. Even after the destruction of the army in the field,
Prussia's situation would not have been hopeless if the
commanders of fortresses had acted on the ordinary rules of
military duty. Magdeburg and the strongholds upon the Oder were
sufficiently armed and provisioned to detain the entire French
army, and to give time to the King to collect upon the Vistula a
force as numerous as that which he had lost. But whatever is
weakest in human nature-old age, fear, and credulity-seemed to
have been placed at the head of Prussia's defences. The very
object for which fortresses exist was forgotten; and the fact
that one army had been beaten in the field was made a reason for
permitting the enemy to forestall the organisation of another.
Spandau surrendered on the 25th of October, Stettin on the 29th.
These were places of no great strength; but the next fortress to
capitulate, K&uuml;strin on the Oder, was in full order for a
long siege. It was surrendered by the older officers, amidst the
curses of the subalterns and the common soldiers: the
artillerymen had to be dragged from their guns by force.
Magdeburg, with a garrison of 24,000 men and enormous supplies,
fell before a French force not numerous enough to beleaguer it
(Nov. 8).</p>
<p>[Napoleon's demands.]</p>
<p>Neither Napoleon himself nor any one else in Europe could have
foreseen such conduct on the part of the Prussian commanders. The
unexpected series of capitulations made him demand totally
different terms of peace from those which he had offered after
the battle of Jena. A week after the victory, Napoleon had
demanded, as the price of peace, the cession of Prussia's
territory west of the Elbe, with the exception of the town of
Magdeburg, and the withdrawal of Prussia from the affairs of
Germany. These terms were communicated to King Frederick William;
he accepted them, and sent Lucchesini to Berlin to negotiate for
peace upon this basis. Lucchesini had scarcely reached the
capital when the tidings arrived of Hohenlohe's capitulation,
followed by the surrender of Stettin and K&uuml;strin. The
Prussian envoy now sought in vain to procure Napoleon's
ratification of the terms which he had himself proposed. No word
of peace could be obtained: an armistice was all that the Emperor
would grant, and the terms on which the armistice was offered
rose with each new disaster to the Prussian arms. On the fall of
Magdeburg becoming known, Napoleon demanded that the troops of
Prussia should retire behind the Vistula, and surrender every
fortress that they still retained, with the single exception of
K&ouml;nigsberg. Much as Prussia had lost, it would have cost
Napoleon a second campaign to make himself master of what he now
asked; but to such a depth had the Prussian Government sunk, that
Lucchesini actually signed a convention at Charlottenburg
(November 16), surrendering to Napoleon, in return for an
armistice, the entire list of uncaptured fortresses, including
Dantzig and Thorn on the Lower Vistula, Breslau, with the rest of
the untouched defences of Silesia, Warsaw and Praga in Prussian
Poland, and Colberg upon the Pomeranian <a name=
"FNanchor133">coast.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_133"><sup>[133]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Frederick William continues the war.]</p>
<p>The treaty, however, required the King's ratification.
Frederick William, timorous as he was, hesitated to confirm an
agreement which ousted him from his dominions as completely as if
the last soldier of Prussia had gone into captivity. The
patriotic party, headed by Stein, pleaded for the honour of the
country against the miserable Cabinet which now sought to
complete its work of ruin. Assurances of support arrived from St.
Petersburg. The King determined to reject the treaty, and to
continue the war to the last extremity. Haugwitz hereupon
tendered his resignation, and terminated a political career
disastrous beyond any recorded in modern times. For a moment, it
seemed as if the real interests of the country were at length to
be recognised in the appointment of Stein to one of the three
principal offices of State. But the King still remained blind to
the necessity of unity in the government, and angrily dismissed
Stein when he refused to hold the Ministry if representatives of
the old Cabinet and of the peace-party were to have places beside
him. The King's act was ill calculated to serve the interests of
Prussia, either at home or abroad. Stein was the one Minister on
whom the patriotic party of Prussia and the Governments of Europe
could rely with perfect confidence. <a name="FNanchor134">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_134"><sup>[134]</sup></a> His dismissal at this
crisis proved the incurable poverty of Frederick William's mental
nature; it also proved that, so long as any hope remained of
saving the Prussian State by the help of the Czar of Russia, the
patriotic party had little chance of creating a responsible
government at home.</p>
<p>[Napoleon at Berlin.]</p>
<p>[The Berlin decree against English commerce, Nov. 21,
1806.]</p>
<p>Throughout the month of November French armies overran
Northern Germany: Napoleon himself remained at Berlin, and laid
the foundations of a political system corresponding to that which
he had imposed upon Southern Germany after the victory of
Austerlitz. The Houses of Brunswick and Hesse-Cassel were
deposed, in order to create a new client-kingdom of Westphalia;
Saxony, with Weimar and four other duchies, entered the
Confederation of the Rhine. A measure more widely affecting the
Continent of Europe dated from the last days of the Emperor's
residence at the Prussian capital. On the 21st of November, 1806,
a decree was published at Berlin prohibiting the inhabitants of
the entire European territory allied with France from carrying on
any commerce with Great Britain, or admitting any merchandise
that had been produced in Great Britain or in its colonies. <a
name="FNanchor135">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_135"><sup>[135]</sup></a> The line of coast thus
closed to the shipping and the produce of the British Empire
included everything from the Vistula to the southern point of
Dalmatia, with the exception of Denmark and Portugal and the
Austrian port of Trieste. All property belonging to English
subjects, all merchandise of British origin, whoever might be the
owner, was ordered to be confiscated: no vessel that had even
touched at a British port was permitted to enter a Continental
harbour. It was the fixed purpose of Napoleon to exhaust Great
Britain, since he could not destroy its navies, or, according to
his own expression, to conquer England upon the Continent. All
that was most harsh and unjust in the operation of the Berlin
Decree fell, however, more upon Napoleon's own subjects than upon
Great Britain. The exclusion of British ships from the harbours
of the allies of France was no more than the exercise of a common
right in war; even the seizure of the property of Englishmen,
though a violation of international law, bore at least an analogy
to the seizure of French property at sea; but the confiscation of
the merchandise of German and Dutch traders, after it had lain
for weeks in their own warehouses, solely because it had been
produced in the British Empire, was an act of flagrant and odious
oppression. The first result of the Berlin Decree was to fill the
trading towns of North Germany with French revenue-officers and
inquisitors. Peaceable tradesmen began to understand the import
of the battle of Jena when French gendarmes threw their stock
into the common furnace, or dragged them to prison for possessing
a hogshead of Jamaica sugar or a bale of Leeds cloth. The
merchants who possessed a large quantity of English or colonial
wares were the heaviest sufferers by Napoleon's commercial
policy: the public found the markets supplied by American and
Danish traders, until, at a later period, the British Government
adopted reprisals, and prevented the ships of neutrals from
entering any port from which English vessels were excluded. Then
every cottage felt the stress of the war. But if the full
consequences of the Berlin Decree were delayed until the
retaliation of Great Britain reached the dimensions of Napoleon's
own tyranny, the Decree itself marked on the part of Napoleon the
assumption of a power in conflict with the needs and habits of
European life. Like most of the schemes of Napoleon subsequent to
the victories of 1806, it transgressed the limits of practical
statesmanship, and displayed an ambition no longer raised above
mere tyranny by its harmony with forms of progress and with the
better tendencies of the age.</p>
<p>[Napoleon and the Poles.]</p>
<p>Immediately after signing the Berlin Decree, Napoleon quitted
the Prussian capital (Nov. 25). The first act of the war had now
closed. The Prussian State was overthrown; its territory as far
as the Vistula lay at the mercy of the invader; its King was a
fugitive at K&ouml;nigsberg, at the eastern extremity of his
dominions. The second act of the war began with the rejection of
the armistice which had been signed by Lucchesini, and with the
entry of Russia into the field against Napoleon. The scene of
hostilities was henceforward in Prussian Poland and in the Baltic
Province lying between the lower Vistula and the Russian
frontier. Napoleon entered Poland, as he had entered Italy ten
years before, with the pretence of restoring liberty to an
enslaved people. Kosciusko's name was fraudulently attached to a
proclamation summoning the Polish nation to arms; and although
Kosciusko himself declined to place any trust in the betrayer of
Venice, thousands of his countrymen flocked to Napoleon's
standard, or anticipated his arrival by capturing and expelling
the Prussian detachments scattered through their country.
Promises of the restoration of Polish independence were given by
Napoleon in abundance; but the cause of Poland was the last to
attract the sympathy of a man who considered the sacrifice of the
weak to the strong to be the first principle of all good policy.
To have attempted the restoration of Polish independence would
have been to make permanent enemies of Russia and Prussia for the
sake of an ally weaker than either of them. The project was not
at this time seriously entertained by Napoleon. He had no motive
to face a work of such enormous difficulty as the creation of a
solid political order among the most unpractical race in Europe.
He was glad to enrol the Polish nobles among his soldiers; he
knew the value of their enthusiasm, and took pains to excite it;
but, when the battle was over, it was with Russia, not Poland,
that France had to settle; and no better fate remained, even for
the Prussian provinces of Poland, than in part to be formed into
a client-state, in part to be surrendered as a means of
accommodation with the Czar.</p>
<p>[Campaign in Poland against Russia, Dec., 1806.]</p>
<p>The armies of Russia were at some distance from the Vistula
when, in November, 1806, Napoleon entered Polish territory. Their
movements were slow, their numbers insufficient. At the moment
when all the forces of the Empire were required for the struggle
against Napoleon, troops were being sent into Moldavia against
the Sultan. Nor were the Russian commanders anxious to save what
still remained of the Prussian kingdom. The disasters of Prussia,
like those of Austria at the beginning of the campaign of 1805,
excited less sympathy than contempt; and the inclination of the
Czar's generals was rather to carry on the war upon the frontier
of their own country than to commit themselves to a distant
campaign with a despised ally. Lestocq, who commanded the remnant
of the Prussian army upon the Vistula, was therefore directed to
abandon his position at Thorn and to move eastwards. The French
crossed the Vistula higher up the river; and by the middle of
December the armies of France and Russia lay opposite to one
another in the neighbourhood of Pultusk, upon the Ukra and the
Narew. The first encounter, though not of a decisive character,
resulted in the retreat of the Russians. Heavy rains and
fathomless mud checked the pursuit. War seemed almost impossible
in such a country and such a climate; and Napoleon ordered his
troops to take up their winter quarters along the Vistula,
believing that nothing more could be attempted on either side
before the spring.</p>
<p>[Eylau, Feb. 8, 1807.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon and Bennigsen in East Prussia.]</p>
<p>But the command of the Russian forces was now transferred from
the aged and half-mad <a name="FNanchor136">Kamenski,</a><a href=
"#Footnote_136"><sup>[136]</sup></a> who had opened the campaign,
to a general better qualified to cope with Napoleon. Bennigsen,
the new commander-in-chief, was an active and daring soldier.
Though a German by birth, his soldiership was of that dogged and
resolute order which suits the character of Russian troops; and,
in the mid-winter of 1806, Napoleon found beyond the Vistula such
an enemy as he had never encountered in Western Europe. Bennigsen
conceived the design of surprising the extreme left of the French
line, where Ney's division lay stretched towards the Baltic, far
to the north-east of Napoleon's main body. Forest and marsh
concealed the movement of the Russian troops, and both Ney and
Bernadotte narrowly escaped destruction. Napoleon now broke up
his winter quarters, and marched in great force against Bennigsen
in the district between K&ouml;nigsberg and the mouth of the
Vistula. Bennigsen manoeuvred and retired until his troops
clamoured for battle. He then took up a position at Eylau, and
waited for the attack of the French. The battle of Eylau, fought
in the midst of snowstorms on the 8th of February, 1807, was
unlike anything that Napoleon had ever yet seen. His columns
threw themselves in vain upon the Russian infantry. Augereau's
corps was totally destroyed in the beginning of the battle. The
Russians pressed upon the ground where Napoleon himself stood;
and, although the superiority of the Emperor's tactics at length
turned the scale, and the French began a forward movement, their
advance was stopped by the arrival of Lestocq and a body of
13,000 Prussians. At the close of the engagement 30,000 men lay
wounded or dead in the snow; the positions of the armies remained
what they had been in the morning. Bennigsen's lieutenants urged
him to renew the combat on the next day; but the confusion of the
Russian army was such that the French, in spite of their losses
and discouragement, would probably have gained the victory in a
second battle; <a name="FNanchor137">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_137"><sup>[137]</sup></a> and the Russian commander
determined to fall back towards K&ouml;nigsberg, content with
having disabled the enemy and given Napoleon such a check as he
had never received before. Napoleon, who had announced his
intention of entering K&ouml;nigsberg in triumph, fell back upon
the river Passarge, and awaited the arrival of
reinforcements.</p>
<p>[Sieges of Dantzig and Colberg, March, 1807.]</p>
<p>[Inaction of England.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Grenville's Ministry, March 24, 1807.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Barrenstein between Russia, Prussia, England, and
Sweden. April, 1807.]</p>
<p>The warfare of the next few months was confined to the
reduction of the Prussian fortresses which had not yet fallen
into the hands of the French. Dantzig surrendered after a long
and difficult siege; the little town of Colberg upon the
Pomeranian coast prolonged a defence as honourable to its
inhabitants as to the military leaders. Two soldiers of
singularly different character, each destined to play a
conspicuous part in coming years, first distinguished themselves
in the defence of Colberg. Gneisenau, a scientific soldier of the
highest order, the future guide of Bl&uuml;cher's victorious
campaigns, commanded the garrison; Schill, a cavalry officer of
adventurous daring, gathered round him a troop of hardy riders,
and harassed the French with an audacity as perplexing to his
military superiors as to the enemy. The citizens, led by their
burgomaster, threw themselves into the work of defence with a
vigour in striking contrast to the general apathy of the Prussian
people; and up to the end of the war Colberg remained uncaptured.
Obscure as Colberg was, its defence might have given a new turn
to the war if the Government of Great Britain had listened to the
entreaties of the Emperor Alexander, and despatched a force to
the Baltic to threaten the communications of Napoleon. The task
was not a difficult one for a Power which could find troops, as
England now did, to send to Constantinople, to Alexandria, and to
Buenos Ayres; but military judgment was more than ever wanting to
the British Cabinet. Fox had died at the beginning of the war;
his successors in Grenville's Ministry, though they possessed a
sound theory of foreign policy, <a name="FNanchor138">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_138"><sup>[138]</sup></a> were not fortunate in
its application, nor were they prompt enough in giving financial
help to their allies. Suddenly, however, King George quarrelled
with his Ministers upon the ancient question of Catholic
Disabilities, and drove them from office (March 24). The country
sided with the King. A Ministry came into power, composed of the
old supporters of Pitt, men, with the exception of Canning and
Castlereagh, of narrow views and poor capacity, headed by the
Duke of Portland, who, in 1793, had given his name to the section
of the Whig party which joined Pitt. The foreign policy of the
new Cabinet, which concealed its total lack of all other
statesmanship, returned to the lines laid down by Pitt in 1805.
Negotiations were opened with Russia for the despatch of an
English army to the Baltic; arms and money were promised to the
Prussian King. For a moment it seemed as if the Powers of Europe
had never been united in so cordial a league. The Czar embraced
the King of Prussia in the midst of his soldiers, and declared
with tears that the two should stand or fall together. The Treaty
of Bartenstein, signed in April 1807 pledged the Courts of St.
Petersburg, Stockholm, and Berlin to a joint prosecution of the
war, and the common conclusion of peace. Great Britain joined the
pact, and prepared to fulfil its part in the conflict upon the
Baltic. But the task was a difficult one, for Grenville's
Ministry had dispersed the fleet of transports; and, although
Canning determined upon the Baltic expedition in April, two
months passed before the fleet was ready to sail.</p>
<p>[Summer campaign in East Prussia, 1807.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Friedland.]</p>
<p>In the meantime army upon army was moving to the support of
Napoleon, from France, from Spain, from Holland, and from
Southern Germany. The fortresses of the Elbe and the Oder, which
ought to have been his barrier, had become his base of
operations; and so enormous were the forces at his command, that,
after manning every stronghold in Central Europe, he was able at
the beginning of June to bring 140,000 men into the field beyond
the Vistula. The Russians had also received reinforcements, but
Bennigsen's army was still weaker than that of the enemy. It was
Bennigsen, nevertheless, who began the attack; and now, as in the
winter campaign, he attempted to surprise and crush the northern
corps of Ney. The same general movement of the French army
followed as in January. The Russian commander, outnumbered by the
French, retired to his fortified camp at Heilsberg. After
sustaining a bloody repulse in an attack upon this position,
Napoleon drew Bennigsen from his lair by marching straight upon
K&ouml;nigsberg. Bennigsen supposed himself to be in time to deal
with an isolated corps; he found himself face to face with the
whole forces of the enemy at Friedland, accepted battle, and was
unable to save his army from a severe and decisive defeat (June
14). The victory of Friedland brought the French into
K&ouml;nigsberg. Bennigsen retired behind the Niemen; and on the
19th of June an armistice closed the operations of the hostile
forces upon the frontiers of Russia. <a name="FNanchor139">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_139"><sup>[139]</sup></a></p>
<p>The situation of Bennigsen's army was by no means desperate.
His men had not been surrounded; they had lost scarcely any
prisoners; they felt no fear of the French. But the general
exaggerated the seriousness of his defeat. Like most of his
officers, he was weary of the war, and felt no sympathy with the
motives which led the Emperor to fight for the common cause of
Europe. The politicians who surrounded Alexander urged him to
withdraw Russia from a conflict in which she had nothing to gain.
The Emperor wavered. The tardiness of Great Britain, the
continued neutrality of Austria, cast a doubt upon the wisdom of
his own disinterestedness; and he determined to meet Napoleon,
and ascertain the terms on which Russia might be reconciled to
the master of half the Continent.</p>
<p>[Interview of Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit, June 25.]</p>
<p>On the 25th of June the two sovereigns met one another on the
raft of Tilsit, in the midstream of the river Niemen. The
conversation, which is alleged to have been opened by Alexander
with an expression of hatred towards England, was heard by no one
but the speakers. But whatever the eagerness or the reluctance of
the Russian monarch to sever himself from Great Britain, the
purpose of Napoleon was effected. Alexander surrendered himself
to the addresses of a conqueror who seemed to ask for nothing and
to offer everything. The negotiations were prolonged; the
relations of the two monarchs became more and more intimate; and
the issue of the struggle for life or death was that Russia
accepted the whole scheme of Napoleonic conquest, and took its
place by the side of the despoiler in return for its share of the
prey. It was in vain that the King of Prussia had rejected
Napoleon's offers after the battle of Eylau, in fidelity to his
engagements towards his ally. Promises, treaties, and pity were
alike cast to the winds. The unfortunate Frederick William
received no more embraces; the friend with whom he was to stand
or fall bargained away the larger half of his dominions to
Napoleon, and even rectified the Russian frontier at his expense.
Prussia's continued existence in any shape whatever was described
as a concession made by Napoleon to Alexander. By the public
articles of the Treaties of Tilsit, signed by France, Russia, and
Prussia in the first week of July, the King of Prussia ceded to
Napoleon the whole of his dominions west of the Elbe, and the
entire territory which Prussia had gained in the three partitions
of Poland, with the exception of a district upon the Lower
Vistula connecting Pomerania with Eastern Prussia. Out of the
ceded territory on the west of the Elbe a Kingdom of Westphalia
was created for Napoleon's brother Jerome; the Polish provinces
of Prussia, with the exception of a strip made over to Alexander,
were formed into the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw, and presented to
Napoleon's vassal, the King of Saxony. Russia recognised the
Napoleonic client-states in Italy, Holland, and Germany. The Czar
undertook to offer his mediation in the conflict between France
and Great Britain; a secret article provided that, in the event
of Great Britain and France being at war on the ensuing 1st of
December, Prussia should declare war against Great Britain.</p>
<p>[Secret Treaty of Alliance.]</p>
<p>[Conspiracy of the two Emperors.]</p>
<p>Such were the stipulations contained in the formal Treaties of
Peace between the three Powers. These, however, contained but a
small part of the terms agreed upon between the masters of the
east and of the west. A secret Treaty of Alliance, distinct from
the Treaty of Peace, was also signed by Napoleon and Alexander.
In the conversations which won over the Czar to the cause of
France, Napoleon had offered to Alexander the spoils of Sweden
and the Ottoman Empire. Finland and the Danubian provinces were
not too high a price for the support of a Power whose arms could
paralyse Austria and Prussia. In return for the promise of this
extension of his Empire, Alexander undertook, in the event of
Great Britain refusing terms of peace dictated by himself, to
unite his arms to those of Napoleon, and to force the neutral
maritime Powers, Denmark and Portugal, to take part in the
struggle against England. The annexation of Moldavia and
Wallachia to the Russian Empire was provided for under the form
of a French mediation. In the event of the Porte declining this
mediation, Napoleon undertook to assist Russia to liberate all
the European territory subject to the yoke of the Sultan, with
the exception of Roumelia and Constantinople. A partition of the
liberated territory between France and Russia, as well as the
establishment of the Napoleonic house in Spain, probably formed
the subject rather of a verbal understanding than of any written
agreement. <a name="FNanchor140">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_140"><sup>[140]</sup></a></p>
<p>Such was this vast and threatening scheme, conceived by the
man whose whole career had been one consistent struggle for
personal domination, accepted by the man who among the rulers of
the Continent had hitherto shown the greatest power of acting for
a European end, and of interesting himself in a cause not
directly his own. In the imagination of Napoleon, the national
forces of the western continent had now ceased to exist. Austria
excepted, there was no State upon the mainland whose army and
navy were not prospectively in the hands of himself and his new
ally. The commerce of Great Britain, already excluded from the
greater part of Europe, was now to be shut out from all the rest;
the armies which had hitherto fought under British subsidies for
the independence of Europe, the navies which had preserved their
existence by neutrality or by friendship with England, were soon
to be thrown without distinction against that last foe. If even
at this moment an English statesman who had learnt the secret
agreement of Tilsit might have looked without fear to the future
of his country, it was not from any imperfection in the structure
of Continental tyranny. The fleets of Denmark and Portugal might
be of little real avail against English seamen; the homes of the
English people might still be as secure from foreign invasion as
when Nelson guarded the seas; but it was not from any vestige of
political honour surviving in the Emperor Alexander. Where
Alexander's action was of decisive importance, in his mediation
between France and Prussia, he threw himself without scruple on
to the side of oppression. It lay within his power to gain terms
of peace for Prussia as lenient as those which Austria had gained
at Campo Formio and at Lun&eacute;ville: he sacrificed Prussia,
as he allied himself against the last upholders of national
independence in Europe, in order that he might himself receive
Finland and the Danubian Provinces.</p>
<p>[English expedition against Denmark, July, 1807.]</p>
<p>Two days before the signature of the Treaty of Tilsit the
British troops which had once been so anxiously expected by the
Czar landed in the island of R&uuml;gen. The struggle in which
they were intended to take their part was over. Sweden alone
remained in arms; and even the Quixotic pugnacity of King
Gustavus was unable to save Stralsund from a speedy capitulation.
But the troops of Great Britain were not destined to return
without striking a blow. The negotiations between Napoleon and
Alexander had scarcely begun, when secret intelligence of their
purport was sent to the British Government. <a name=
"FNanchor141">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_141"><sup>[141]</sup></a> It
became known in London that the fleet of Denmark was to be seized
by Napoleon, and forced to fight against Great Britain. Canning
and his colleagues acted with the promptitude that seldom failed
the British Government when it could effect its object by the
fleet alone. They determined to anticipate Napoleon's violation
of Danish neutrality, and to seize upon the navy which would
otherwise be seized by France and Russia.</p>
<p>[Bombardment of Copenhagen, Sept. 2.]</p>
<p>On the 28th of July a fleet with 20,000 men on board set sail
from the British coast. The troops landed in Denmark in the
middle of August, and united with the corps which had already
been despatched to R&uuml;gen. The Danish Government was summoned
to place its navy in the hands of Great Britain, in order that it
might remain as a deposit in some British port until the
conclusion of peace. While demanding this sacrifice of Danish
neutrality, England undertook to protect the Danish nation and
colonies from the hostility of Napoleon, and to place at the
disposal of its Government every means of naval and military
defence. Failing the surrender of the fleet, the English declared
that they would bombard Copenhagen. The reply given to this
summons was such as might be expected from a courageous nation
exasperated against Great Britain by its harsh treatment of
neutral ships of commerce, and inclined to submit to the despot
of the Continent rather than to the tyrants of the seas.
Negotiations proved fruitless, and on the 2nd of September the
English opened fire on Copenhagen. For three days and nights the
city underwent a bombardment of cruel efficiency. Eighteen
hundred houses were levelled, the town was set on fire in several
places, and a large number of the inhabitants lost their lives.
At length the commander found himself compelled to capitulate.
The fleet was handed over to Great Britain, with all the stores
in the arsenal of Copenhagen. It was brought to England, no
longer under the terms of a friendly neutrality, but as a prize
of war.</p>
<p>The captors themselves were ashamed of their spoil. England
received an armament which had been taken from a people who were
not our enemies, and by an attack which was not war, with more
misgiving than applause. In Europe the seemingly unprovoked
assault upon a weak neutral State excited the utmost indignation.
The British Ministry, who were prevented from making public the
evidence which they had received of the intention of the two
Emperors, were believed to have invented the story of the Secret
Treaty. The Danish Government denied that Napoleon had demanded
their co-operation; Napoleon and Alexander themselves assumed the
air of indignant astonishment. But the facts alleged by Canning
and his colleagues were correct. The conspiracy of the two
Emperors was no fiction. The only question still remaining
open-and this is indeed an essential one-relates to the
engagements entered into by the Danish Government itself.
Napoleon in his correspondence of this date alludes to certain
promises made to him by the Court of Denmark, but he also
complains that these promises had not been fulfilled; and the
context of the letter renders it almost certain that, whatever
may have been demanded by Napoleon, nothing more was promised by
Denmark than that its ports should be closed to English vessels.
<a name="FNanchor142">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_142"><sup>[142]</sup></a> Had the British Cabinet
possessed evidence of the determination of the Danish Government
to transfer its fleet to Napoleon without resistance, the attack
upon Denmark, considered as virtually an act of war, would not
have been unjust. But beyond an alleged expression of Napoleon at
Tilsit, no such evidence was even stated to have reached London;
and the undoubted conspiracy of the Emperors against Danish
neutrality was no sufficient ground for an action on the part of
Great Britain which went so far beyond the mere frustration of
their designs. The surrender of the Danish fleet demanded by
England would have been an unqualified act of war on the part of
Denmark against Napoleon; it was no mere guarantee for a
continued neutrality. Nor had the British Government the last
excuse of an urgent and overwhelming necessity. Nineteen Danish
men-of-war would not have turned the scale against England. The
memory of Trafalgar might well have given a British Ministry
courage to meet its enemies by the ordinary methods of war. Had
the forces of Denmark been far larger than they actually were,
the peril of Great Britain was not so extreme as to excuse the
wrong done to mankind by an example encouraging all future
belligerents to anticipate one another in forcing each neutral
state to take part with themselves.</p>
<p>[Napoleon's demands upon Portugal.]</p>
<p>The fleet which Napoleon had meant to turn against this
country now lay safe within Portsmouth harbour. Denmark, in
bitter resentment, declared war against Great Britain, and
rendered some service to the Continental League by the attacks of
its privateers upon British merchant-vessels in the Baltic. The
second neutral Power whose fate had been decided by the two
Emperors at Tilsit received the summons of Napoleon a few days
before the attack on Copenhagen. The Regent of Portugal himself
informed the British Government that he had been required by
Napoleon to close his ports to British vessels, to declare war on
England, and to confiscate all British property within his
dominions. Placed between a Power which could strip him of his
dominions on land, and one which could despoil him of everything
he possessed beyond the sea, the Regent determined to maintain
his ancient friendship with Great Britain, and to submit to
Napoleon only in so far as the English Government would excuse
him, as acting under coercion. Although a nominal state of war
arose between Portugal and England, the Regent really acted in
the interest of England, and followed the advice of the British
Cabinet up to the end.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Fontainebleau between France and Spain for the
partition of Portugal, Oct. 27.]</p>
<p>The end was soon to come. The demands of Napoleon, arbitrary
and oppressive as they were, by no means expressed his full
intentions towards Portugal. He had determined to seize upon this
country, and to employ it as a means for extending his own
dominion over the whole of the Spanish Peninsula. An army-corps,
under the command of Junot, had been already placed in the
Pyrenees. On the 12th of October Napoleon received the answer of
the Regent of Portugal, consenting to declare war upon England,
and only rejecting the dishonourable order to confiscate all
English property. This single act of resistance was sufficient
for Napoleon's purpose. He immediately recalled his ambassador
from Lisbon, and gave orders to Junot to cross the frontier, and
march upon Portugal. The King of Spain, who was to be Napoleon's
next victim, was for the moment employed as his accomplice. A
treaty was concluded at Fontainebleau between Napoleon and King
Charles IV. for the partition of Portugal (Oct. 27). <a name=
"FNanchor143">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_143"><sup>[143]</sup></a> In
return for the cession of the kingdom of Etruria, which was still
nominally governed by a member of the Spanish house, the King of
Spain was promised half the Portuguese colonies, along with the
title of Emperor of the Indies; the northern provinces of
Portugal were reserved for the infant King of Etruria, its
southern provinces for Godoy, Minister of Charles IV.; the
central districts were to remain in the hands of France, and to
be employed as a means of regaining the Spanish colonies from
England upon the conclusion of a general peace.</p>
<p>[Junot invades Portugal, Nov., 1807.]</p>
<p>[Flight of the House of Braganza.]</p>
<p>Not one of these provisions was intended to be carried into
effect. The conquest of Portugal was but a part of the conquest
of the whole peninsula. But neither the Spanish Court nor the
Spanish people suspected Napoleon's design. Junot advanced
without resistance through the intervening Spanish territory, and
pushed forward upon Lisbon with the utmost haste. The speed at
which Napoleon's orders forced him to march reduced his army to
utter prostration, and the least resistance would have resulted
in its ruin. But the Court of Lisbon had determined to quit a
country which they could not hope to defend against the master of
the Continent. Already in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the House of Braganza had been familiar with the
project of transferring the seat of their Government to Brazil;
and now, with the approval of Great Britain, the Regent resolved
to maintain the independence of his family by flight across the
Atlantic. As Junot's troops approached the capital, the servants
of the palace hastily stowed the royal property on ship-board. On
the 29th of November, when the French were now close at hand, the
squadron which bore the House of Braganza to its colonial home
dropped down the Tagus, saluted by the cannon of the English
fleet that lay in the same river. Junot entered the capital a few
hours later, and placed himself at the head of the Government
without encountering any opposition. The occupation of Portugal
was described by Napoleon as a reprisal for the bombardment of
Copenhagen. It excited but little attention in Europe; and even
at the Spanish Court the only feeling was one of satisfaction at
the approaching aggrandisement of the Bourbon monarchy. The full
significance of Napoleon's intervention in the affairs of the
Peninsula was not discovered until some months were passed.</p>
<p>[Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit.]</p>
<p>[Stein Minister, Oct. 5, 1807.]</p>
<p>Portugal and Denmark had felt the consequences of the peace
made at Tilsit. Less, however, depended upon the fate of the
Danish fleet and the Portuguese Royal Family than upon the fate
of Prussia, the most cruelly wronged of all the victims
sacrificed by Alexander's ambition. The unfortunate Prussian
State, reduced to half its former extent, devastated and
impoverished by war, and burdened with the support of a French
army, found in the crisis of its ruin the beginning of a worthier
national life. Napoleon, in his own vindictive jealousy,
unwittingly brought to the head of the Prussian Government the
ablest and most patriotic statesman of the Continent. Since the
spring of 1807 Baron Hardenberg had again been the leading
Minister of Prussia, and it was to his counsel that the King's
honourable rejection of a separate peace after the battle of
Eylau was due. Napoleon could not permit this Minister, whom he
had already branded as a partisan of Great Britain, to remain in
power; he insisted upon Hardenberg's dismissal, and recommended
the King of Prussia to summon Stein, who was as yet known to
Napoleon only as a skilful financier, likely to succeed in
raising the money which the French intended to extort.</p>
<p>[Edict of Emancipation, Oct. 9, 1807.]</p>
<p>Stein entered upon office on the 5th of October, 1807, with
almost dictatorial power. The need of the most radical changes in
the public services, as well as in the social order of the
Prussian State, had been brought home to all enlightened men by
the disasters of the war; and a commission, which included among
its members the historian Niebuhr, had already sketched large
measures of reform before Hardenberg quitted office. Stein's
appointment brought to the head of the State a man immeasurably
superior to Hardenberg in the energy necessary for the execution
of great changes, and gave to those who were the most sincerely
engaged in civil or military reform a leader unrivalled in
patriotic zeal, in boldness, and in purity of character. The
first great legislative measure of Stein was the abolition of
serfage, and of all the legal distinctions which fixed within the
limits of their caste the noble, the citizen, and the peasant. In
setting his name to the edict <a name="FNanchor144">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_144"><sup>[144]</sup></a> which, on the 9th of
October, 1807, made an end of the medi&aelig;val framework of
Prussian society, Stein was indeed but consummating a change
which the progress of neighbouring States must have forced upon
Prussia, whoever held its government. The Decree was framed upon
the report of Hardenberg's Commission, and was published by Stein
within six days after his own entry upon office. Great as were
the changes involved in this edict of emancipation, it contained
no more than was necessary to bring Prussia up to the level of
the least advanced of the western Continental States. In Austria
pure serfage had been abolished by Maria Theresa thirty years
before; it vanished, along with most of the legal distinctions of
class, wherever the victories of France carried a new political
order; even the misused peasantry of Poland had been freed from
their degrading yoke within the borders of the newly-founded
Duchy of Warsaw. If Prussia was not to renounce its partnership
in European progress and range itself with its barbarous eastern
neighbour, that order which fettered the peasant to the soil, and
limited every Prussian to the hereditary occupations of his class
could no longer be maintained. It is not as an achievement of
individual genius, but as the most vivid expression of the
differences between the old and the new Europe, that the first
measure of Stein deserves a closer examination.</p>
<p>[The Prussian peasant before and after the Edict of Oct.
9.]</p>
<p>The Edict of October 9, 1807, extinguished all personal
servitude; it permitted the noble, the citizen, and the peasant
to follow any calling; it abolished the rule which prevented land
held by a member of one class from passing into the hands of
another class; it empowered families to free their estates from
entail. Taken together, these enactments substitute the free
disposition of labour and property for the outworn doctrine which
Prussia had inherited from the feudal ages, that what a man is
born that he shall live and die. The extinction of serfage,
though not the most prominent provision of the Edict, was the one
whose effects were the soonest felt. In the greater part of
Prussia the marks of serfage, as distinct from payments and
services amounting to a kind of rent, were the obligation of the
peasant to remain on his holding, and the right of the lord to
take the peasant's children as unpaid servants into his house. A
general relation of obedience and command existed, as between an
hereditary subject and master, although the lord could neither
exact an arbitrary amount of labour nor inflict the cruel
punishments which had been common in Poland and Hungary. What the
villein was in England in the thirteenth century, that the serf
was in Prussia in the year 1806; and the change which in England
gradually elevated the villein into the free copyholder was that
change which, so many centuries later, the Prussian legislator
effected by one great measure. Stein made the Prussian peasant
what the English copyholder had become at the accession of Henry
VII., and what the French peasant had been before 1789, a free
person, but one bound to render fixed dues and service to the
lord of the manor in virtue of the occupation of his land. These
feudal dues and services, which the French peasant, accustomed
for centuries before the Revolution to consider himself as the
full proprietor of the land, treated as a mere grievance and
abuse, Stein considered to be the best form in which the joint
interest of the lord and the peasant could be maintained. It was
reserved for Hardenberg, four years later, to free the peasant
from all obligations towards his lord, and to place him in
unshackled proprietorship of two-thirds of his former holding,
the lord receiving the remaining one-third in compensation for
the loss of feudal dues. Neither Stein nor Hardenberg interfered
with the right of the lord to act as judge and police-magistrate
within the limits of his manor; and the hereditary legal
jurisdiction, which was abolished in Scotland in 1747, and in
France in 1789, continued unchanged in Prussia down to the year
1848.</p>
<p>[Relative position of the peasant in Prussia and England.]</p>
<p>The history of Agrarian Reform upon the Continent shows how
vast was the interval of time by which some of the greatest
social changes in England had anticipated the corresponding
changes in almost all other nations. But if the Prussian peasant
at the beginning of this century remained in the servile
condition which had passed out of mind in Great Britain before
the Reformation, the early prosperity of the peasant in England
was dearly purchased by a subsequent decline which has made his
present lot far inferior to that of the children or grandchildren
of the Prussian serf. However heavy the load of the Prussian
serf, his holding was at least protected by law from absorption
into the domain of his lord. Before sufficient capital had been
amassed in Prussia to render landed property an object of
competition, the forced military service of Frederick had made it
a rule of State that the farmsteads of the peasant class must
remain undiminished in number, at whatever violence to the laws
of the market or the desires of great landlords. No process was
permitted to take place corresponding to that by which in
England, after the villein had become the free copyholder, the
lord, with or without technical legal right, terminated the
copyhold tenure of his retainer, and made the land as much his
own exclusive property as the chairs and tables in his house. In
Prussia, if the law kept the peasant on the land, it also kept
the land for the peasant. Economic conditions, in the absence of
such control in England, worked against the class of small
holders. Their early enfranchisement in fact contributed to their
extinction. It would perhaps have been better for the English
labouring class to remain bound by a semi-servile tie to their
land, than to gain a free holding which the law, siding with the
landlord, treated as terminable at the expiration of particular
lives, and which the increasing capital of the rich made its
favourite prey. It is little profit to the landless, resourceless
English labourer to know that his ancestor was a yeoman when the
Prussian was a serf. Long as the bondage of the peasant on the
mainland endured, prosperity came at last. The conditions which
once distinguished agricultural England from the Continent are
now reversed. Nowhere on the Continent is there a labouring class
so stripped and despoiled of all interest in the soil, so
sedulously excluded from all possibilities of proprietorship, as
in England. In England alone the absence of internal revolution
and foreign pressure has preserved a class whom a life spent in
toil leaves as bare and dependent as when it began, and to whom
the only boon which their country can offer is the education
which may lead them to quit it.</p>
<p>[Reform of Prussian Army.]</p>
<p>[Short service.]</p>
<p>Besides the commission which had drafted the Edict of
Emancipation, Stein found a military commission engaged on a plan
for the reorganisation of the Prussian army. The existing system
forced the peasant to serve in the ranks for twenty years, and
drew the officers from the nobility, leaving the inhabitants of
towns without either the duty or the right to enter the army at
all. Since the battle of Jena, no one doubted that the principle
of universal liability to military service must be introduced
into Prussia; on the other hand, the very disasters of the State
rendered it impossible to maintain an army on anything
approaching to its former scale. With half its territory torn
from it, and the remainder devastated by war, Prussia could
barely afford to keep 40,000 soldiers in arms. Such were the
conditions laid before the men who were charged with the
construction of a new Prussian military system. Their
conclusions, imperfect in themselves, and but partially carried
out in the succeeding years, have nevertheless been the basis of
the latest military organisation of Prussia and of Europe
generally. The problem was solved by the adoption of a short
period of service and the rapid drafting of the trained conscript
into a reserve-force. Scharnhorst, President of the Military
Commission, to whom more than to any one man Prussia owed its
military revival, proposed to maintain an Active Army of 40,000
men; a Reserve, into which soldiers should pass after short
service in the active army; a Landwehr, to be employed only for
the internal defence of the country; and a Landsturm, or general
arming of the population, for a species of guerilla warfare.
Scharnhorst's project was warmly supported by Stein, who held a
seat and a vote on the Military Commission; and the system of
short service, with a Reserve, was immediately brought into
action, though on a very limited scale. The remainder of the
scheme had to wait for the assistance of events. The principle of
universal military obligation was first proclaimed in the war of
1813, when also the Landwehr was first enrolled.</p>
<p>[Stein's plans of political reform.]</p>
<p>[Design for a Parliament, for Municipalities, and District
boards.]</p>
<p>The reorganisation of the Prussian military system and the
emancipation of the peasant, though promoted by Stein's accession
to power, did not originate in Stein himself; the distinctive
work of Stein was a great scheme of political reform. Had Stein
remained longer in power, he would have given to Prussia at least
the beginnings of constitutional government. Events drove him
from office when but a small part of his project was carried into
effect; but the project itself was great and comprehensive. He
designed to give Prussia a Parliament, and to establish a system
of self-government in its towns and country districts. Stein had
visited England in his youth. The history and the literature of
England interested him beyond those of any other country; and he
had learnt from England that the partnership of the nation in the
work of government, so far from weakening authority, animates it
with a force which no despotic system can long preserve. Almost
every important State-paper written by Stein denounces the apathy
of the civil population of Prussia, and attributes it to their
exclusion from all exercise of public duties. He declared that
the nation must be raised from its torpor by the establishment of
representative government and the creation of free local
institutions in town and country. Stein was no friend of
democracy. Like every other Prussian statesman he took for
granted the exercise of a vigorous monarchical power at the
centre of the State; but around the permanent executive he
desired to gather the Council of the Nation, checking at least
the caprices of Cabinet-rule, and making the opinion of the
people felt by the monarch. Stein's Parliament would have been a
far weaker body than the English House of Commons, but it was at
least not intended to be a mockery, like those legislative bodies
which Napoleon and his clients erected as the disguise of
despotism. The transaction of local business in the towns and
country districts, which had hitherto belonged to officials of
the Crown, Stein desired to transfer in part to bodies elected by
the inhabitants themselves. The functions allotted to the new
municipal bodies illustrated the modest and cautious nature of
Stein's attempt in the direction of self-government, including no
more than the care of the poor, the superintendence of schools,
and the maintenance of streets and public buildings. Finance
remained partly, police wholly, in the hands of the central
Government. Equally limited were the powers which Stein proposed
to entrust to the district councils elected by the rural
population. In comparison with the self-government of England or
America, the self-government which Stein would have introduced
into Prussia was of the most elementary character; yet his policy
stood out in striking contrast to that which in every
client-state of Napoleon was now crushing out the last elements
of local independence under a rigid official centralisation.</p>
<p>[Municipal reform alone carried out.]</p>
<p>Stein was indeed unable to transform Prussia as he desired. Of
the legislative, the municipal, and the district reforms which he
had sketched, the municipal reform was the only one which he had
time to carry out before being driven from power; and for forty
years the municipal institutions created by Stein were the only
fragment of liberty which Prussia enjoyed. A vehement opposition
to reform was excited among the landowners, and supported by a
powerful party at the Court. Stein was detested by the nobles
whose peasants he had emancipated, and by the Berlin aristocracy,
which for the last ten years had maintained the policy of
friendship with France, and now declared the only safety of the
Prussian State to lie in unconditional submission to Napoleon.
The fire of patriotism, of energy, of self-sacrifice, which
burned in Stein made him no representative of the Prussian
governing classes of his time. It was not long before the
landowners, who deemed him a Jacobin, and the friends of the
French, who called him a madman, had the satisfaction of seeing
the Minister sent into banishment by order of Napoleon himself
(Dec., 1808). Stein left the greater part of his work
uncompleted, but he had not laboured in vain. The years of his
ministry in 1807 and 1808 were the years that gathered together
everything that was worthiest in Prussia in the dawn of a
national revival, and prepared the way for that great movement in
which, after an interval of the deepest gloom, Stein was himself
to light the nation to its victory.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_VIII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Spain in 1806-Napoleon uses the quarrel between Ferdinand and
Godoy-He affects to be Ferdinand's protector-Dupont's army enters
Spain-Murat in Spain-Charles abdicates-Ferdinand King-Savary
brings Ferdinand to Bayonne-Napoleon makes both Charles and
Ferdinand resign-Spirit of the Spanish Nation-Contrast with
Germany-Rising of all Spain-The Notables at Bayonne-Campaign of
1808-Capitulation of Baylen-Wellesley lands in
Portugal-Vimieiro-Convention of Cintra-Effect of the Spanish
Rising on Europe-War Party in Prussia-Napoleon and Alexander at
Erfurt-Stein resigns, and is proscribed-Napoleon in Spain-Spanish
Misgovernment- Campaign on the Ebro-Campaign of Sir John
Moore-Corunna-Napoleon leaves Spain-Siege of Saragossa-Successes
of the French.</p>
<br>

<p>[Spanish affairs, 1793-1806.]</p>
<p>[Spain in 1806.]</p>
<p>Spain, which had played so insignificant a part throughout the
Revolutionary War, was now about to become the theatre of events
that opened a new world of hope to Europe. Its King, the Bourbon
Charles IV., was more weak and more pitiful than any sovereign of
the age. Power belonged to the Queen and to her paramour Godoy,
who for the last fourteen years had so conducted the affairs of
the country that every change in its policy had brought with it
new disaster. In the war of the First Coalition Spain had joined
the Allies, and French armies had crossed the Pyrenees. In 1796
Spain entered the service of France, and lost the battle of St.
Vincent. At the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon surrendered its colony
Trinidad to England; on the renewal of the war he again forced it
into hostilities with Great Britain, and brought upon it the
disaster of Trafalgar. This unbroken humiliation of the Spanish
arms, combined with intolerable oppression and impoverishment at
home, raised so bitter an outcry against Godoy's government, that
foreign observers, who underrated the loyalty of the Spanish
people, believed the country to be on the verge of revolution. At
the Court itself the Crown Prince Ferdinand, under the influence
of his Neapolitan wife, headed a party in opposition to Godoy and
the supporters of French dominion. Godoy, insecure at home, threw
himself the more unreservedly into the arms of Napoleon, who
bestowed upon him a contemptuous patronage, and flattered him
with the promise of an independent principality in Portugal.
Izquierdo, Godoy's agent at Paris, received proposals from
Napoleon which were concealed from the Spanish Ambassador; and
during the first months of 1806 Napoleon possessed no more
devoted servant than the man who virtually held the government of
Spain.</p>
<p>[Spain intends to join Prussia in 1806.]</p>
<p>The opening of negotiations between Napoleon and Fox's
Ministry in May, 1806, first shook this relation of confidence
and obedience. Peace between France and England involved the
abandonment on the part of Napoleon of any attack upon Portugal;
and Napoleon now began to meet Godoy's inquiries after his
Portuguese principality with an ominous silence. The next
intelligence received was that the Spanish Balearic Islands had
been offered by Napoleon to Great Britain, with the view of
providing an indemnity for Ferdinand of Naples, if he should give
up Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte (July, 1806.) This contemptuous
appropriation of Spanish territory, without even the pretence of
consulting the Spanish Government, excited scarcely less anger at
Madrid than the corresponding proposal with regard to Hanover
excited at Berlin. The Court began to meditate a change of
policy, and watched the events which were leading Prussia to arm
for the war of 1806. A few weeks more passed, and news arrived
that Buenos Ayres, the capital of Spanish South America, had
fallen into the hands of the English. This disaster produced the
deepest impression, for the loss of Buenos Ayres was believed,
and with good reason, to be but the prelude to the loss of the
entire American empire of Spain. Continuance of the war with
England was certain ruin; alliance with the enemies of Napoleon
was at least not hopeless, now that Prussia was on the point of
throwing its army into the scale against France. An agent was
despatched by the Spanish Government to London (Sept., 1806);
and, upon the commencement of hostilities by Prussia, a
proclamation was issued by Godoy, which, without naming any
actual enemy, summoned the Spanish people to prepare for a war on
behalf of their country.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Fontainebleau, Oct., 1807.]</p>
<p>Scarcely had the manifesto been read by the Spaniards when the
Prussian army was annihilated at Jena. The dream of resistance to
Napoleon vanished away; the only anxiety of the Spanish
Government was to escape from the consequences of its untimely
daring. Godoy hastened to explain that his martial proclamation
had been directed not against the Emperor of the French, but
against the Emperor of Morocco. Napoleon professed himself
satisfied with this palpable absurdity: it appeared as if the
events of the last few months had left no trace on his mind.
Immediately after the Peace of Tilsit he resumed his negotiations
with Godoy upon the old friendly footing, and brought them to a
conclusion in the Treaty of Fontainebleau (Oct., 1807), which
provided for the invasion of Portugal by a French and a Spanish
army, and for its division into principalities, one of which was
to be conferred upon Godoy himself. The occupation of Portugal
was duly effected, and Godoy looked forward to the speedy
retirement of the French from the province which was to be his
portion of the spoil.</p>
<p>[Napoleon uses the enmity of Ferdinand against Godoy.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon about to intervene as protector of Ferdinand.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, however, had other ends in view. Spain, not
Portugal, was the true prize. Napoleon had gradually formed the
determination of taking Spain into his own hands, and the
dissensions of the Court itself enabled him to appear upon the
scene as the judge to whom all parties appealed. The Crown Prince
Ferdinand had long been at open enmity with Godoy and his own
mother. So long as Ferdinand's Neapolitan wife was alive, her
influence made the Crown Prince the centre of the party hostile
to France; but after her death in 1806, at a time when Godoy
himself inclined to join Napoleon's enemies, Ferdinand took up a
new position, and allied himself with the French Ambassador, at
whose instigation he wrote to Napoleon, soliciting the hand of a
princess of the Napoleonic <a name="FNanchor145">House.</a> <a
href="#Footnote_145"><sup>[145]</sup></a> Godoy, though unaware
of the letter, discovered that Ferdinand was engaged in some
intrigue. King Charles was made to believe that his son had
entered into a conspiracy to dethrone him. The Prince was placed
under arrest, and on the 30th of October, 1807, a royal
proclamation appeared at Madrid, announcing that Ferdinand had
been detected in a conspiracy against his parents, and that he
was about to be brought to justice along with his accomplices.
King Charles at the same time wrote a letter to Napoleon, of
whose connection with Ferdinand he had not the slightest
suspicion, stating that he intended to exclude the Crown Prince
from the succession to the throne of Spain. No sooner had
Napoleon received the communication from the simple King than he
saw himself in possession of the pretext for intervention which
he had so long desired. The most pressing orders were given for
the concentration of troops on the Spanish frontier; Napoleon
appeared to be on the point of entering Spain as the defender of
the hereditary rights of Ferdinand. The opportunity, however,
proved less favourable than Napoleon had expected. The Crown
Prince, overcome by his fears, begged forgiveness of his father,
and disclosed the negotiations which had taken place between
himself and the French Ambassador. Godoy, dismayed at finding
Napoleon's hand in what he had supposed to be a mere
palace-intrigue, abandoned all thought of proceeding further
against the Crown Prince; and a manifesto announced that
Ferdinand was restored to the favour of his father. Napoleon now
countermanded the order which he had given for the despatch of
the Rhenish troops to the Pyrenees, and contented himself with
directing General Dupont, the commander of an army-corps
nominally destined for Portugal, to cross the Spanish frontier
and advance as far as Vittoria.</p>
<p>[Dupont enters Spain, Dec., 1807.]</p>
<p>[French welcomed in Spain as Ferdinand's protectors.]</p>
<p>Dupont's troops entered Spain in the last days of the year
1807, and were received with acclamations. It was universally
believed that Napoleon had espoused the cause of Ferdinand, and
intended to deliver the Spanish nation from the detested rule of
Godoy. Since the open attack made upon Ferdinand in the
publication of the pretended conspiracy, the Crown Prince, who
was personally as contemptible as any of his enemies, had become
the idol of the people. For years past the hatred of the nation
towards Godoy and the Queen had been constantly deepening, and
the very reforms which Godoy effected in the hope of attaching to
himself the more enlightened classes only served to complete his
unpopularity with the fanatical mass of the nation. The French,
who gradually entered the Peninsula to the number of 80,000, and
who described themselves as the protectors of Ferdinand and of
the true Catholic faith, were able to spread themselves over the
northern provinces without exciting suspicion. It was only when
their commanders, by a series of tricks worthy of American
savages, obtained possession of the frontier citadels and
fortresses, that the wiser part of the nation began to entertain
some doubt as to the real purpose of their ally. At the Court
itself and among the enemies of Ferdinand the advance of the
French roused the utmost alarm. King Charles wrote to Napoleon in
the tone of ancient friendship; but the answer he received was
threatening and mysterious. The utterances which the Emperor let
fall in the presence of persons likely to report them at Madrid
were even more alarming, and were intended to terrify the Court
into the resolution to take flight from Madrid. The capital once
abandoned by the King, Napoleon judged that he might safely take
everything into his own hands on the pretence of restoring to
Spain the government which it had lost.</p>
<p>[Murat sent to Spain, Feb., 1808.]</p>
<p>[Charles IV. abdicates, March 17, 1808.]</p>
<p>On the 20th of February, 1808, Murat was ordered to quit Paris
in order to assume the command in Spain. Not a word was said by
Napoleon to him before his departure. His instructions first
reached him at Bayonne; they were of a military nature, and gave
no indication of the ultimate political object of his mission.
Murat entered Spain on the 1st of March, knowing no more than
that he was ordered to reassure all parties and to commit himself
to none, but with full confidence that he himself was intended by
Napoleon to be the successor of the Bourbon dynasty. It was now
that the Spanish Court, expecting the appearance of the French
army in Madrid, resolved upon that flight which Napoleon
considered so necessary to his own success. The project was not
kept a secret. It passed from Godoy to the Ministers of State,
and from them to the friends of Ferdinand. The populace of Madrid
was inflamed by the report that Godoy was about to carry the King
to a distance, in order to prolong the misgovernment which the
French had determined to overthrow. A tumultuous crowd marched
from the capital to Aranjuez, the residence of the Court. On the
evening of the 17th of March, the palace of Godoy was stormed by
the mob. Godoy himself was seized, and carried to the barracks
amid the blows and curses of the populace. The terrified King,
who already saw before him the fate of his cousin, Louis XVI.,
first published a decree depriving Godoy of all his dignities,
and then abdicated in favour of his son. On the 19th of March
Ferdinand was proclaimed King.</p>
<p>[French enter Madrid, March 23.]</p>
<p>Such was the unexpected intelligence that met Murat as he
approached Madrid. The dissensions of the Court, which were to
supply his ground of intervention, had been terminated by the
Spaniards themselves: in the place of a despised dotard and a
menaced favourite, Spain had gained a youthful sovereign around
whom all classes of the nation rallied with the utmost
enthusiasm. Murat's position became a very difficult one; but he
supplied what was wanting in his instructions by the craft of a
man bent upon creating a vacancy in his own favour. He sent his
aide-de-camp, Monthieu, to visit the dethroned sovereign, and
obtained a protest from King Charles IV., declaring his
abdication to have been extorted from him by force, and
consequently to be null and void. This document Murat kept
secret; but he carefully abstained from doing anything which
might involve a recognition of Ferdinand's title. On the 23rd of
March the French troops entered Madrid. Nothing had as yet become
known to the public that indicated an altered policy on the part
of the French; and the soldiers of Murat, as the supposed friends
of Ferdinand, met with as friendly a reception in Madrid as in
the other towns of Spain. On the following day Ferdinand himself
made his solemn entry into the capital, amid wild demonstrations
of an almost barbaric loyalty.</p>
<p>[Savary brings Ferdinand to Bayonne, April, 1808.]</p>
<p>In the tumult of popular joy it was noticed that Murat's
troops continued their exercises without the least regard to the
pageant that so deeply stirred the hearts of the Spaniards.
Suspicions were aroused; the enthusiasm of the people for the
French soldiers began to change into irritation and ill-will. The
end of the long drama of deceit was in fact now close at hand. On
the 4th of April General Savary arrived at Madrid with
instructions independent of those given to Murat. He was charged
to entice the new Spanish sovereign from his capital, and to
bring him, either as a dupe or as a prisoner, on to French soil.
The task was not a difficult one. Savary pretended that Napoleon
had actually entered Spain, and that he only required an
assurance of Ferdinand's continued friendship before recognising
him as the legitimate successor of Charles IV. Ferdinand, he
added, could show no greater mark of cordiality to his patron
than by advancing to meet him on the road. Snared by these hopes,
Ferdinand set out from Madrid, in company with Savary and some of
his own foolish confidants. On reaching Burgos, the party found
no signs of the Emperor. They continued their journey to
Vittoria. Here Ferdinand's suspicions were aroused, and he
declined to proceed farther. Savary hastened to Bayonne to report
the delay to Napoleon. He returned with a letter which overcame
Ferdinand's scruples and induced him to cross the Pyrenees, in
spite of the prayers of statesmen and the loyal violence of the
simple inhabitants of the district. At Bayonne Ferdinand was
visited by Napoleon, but not a word was spoken on the object of
his journey. In the afternoon the Emperor received Ferdinand and
his suite at a neighbouring ch&acirc;teau, but preserved the same
ominous silence. When the other guests departed, the Canon
Escoiquiz, a member of Ferdinand's retinue, was detained, and
learned from Napoleon's own lips the fate in store for the
Bourbon Monarchy. Savary returned to Bayonne with Ferdinand, and
informed the Prince that he must renounce the crown of Spain. <a
name="FNanchor146">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_146"><sup>[146]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Charles and Ferdinand surrender their rights to
Napoleon.]</p>
<p>[Attack on the French in Madrid, May 2.]</p>
<p>For some days Ferdinand held out against Napoleon's demands
with a stubbornness not often shown by him in the course of his
mean and hypocritical career. He was assailed not only by
Napoleon but by those whose fall had been his own rise; for Godoy
was sent to Bayonne by Murat, and the old King and Queen hurried
after their son in order to witness his humiliation. Ferdinand's
parents attacked him with an indecency that astonished even
Napoleon himself; but the Prince maintained his refusal until
news arrived from Madrid which terrified him into submission. The
irritation of the capital had culminated in an armed conflict
between the populace and the French troops. On an attempt being
made by Murat to remove the remaining members of the royal family
from the palace, the capital had broken into open insurrection,
and wherever French soldiers were found alone or in small bodies
they were massacred. (May 2.) Some hundreds of the French
perished; but the victory of Murat was speedy, and his vengeance
ruthless. The insurgents were driven into the great central
square of the city, and cut down by repeated charges of cavalry.
When all resistance was over, numbers of the citizens were shot
in cold blood. Such was the intelligence which reached Bayonne in
the midst of Napoleon's struggle with Ferdinand. There was no
further need of argument. Ferdinand was informed that if he
withheld his resignation for twenty-four hours longer he would be
treated as a rebel. He yielded; and for a couple of country
houses and two life-annuities the crown of Spain and the Indies
was renounced in favour of Napoleon by father and son.</p>
<p>[National spirit of the Spaniards.]</p>
<p>The crown had indeed been won without a battle. That there
remained a Spanish nation ready to fight to the death for its
independence was not a circumstance which Napoleon had taken into
account. His experience had as yet taught him of no force but
that of Governments and armies. In the larger States, or groups
of States, which had hitherto been the spoil of France, the sense
of nationality scarcely existed. Italy had felt it no disgrace to
pass under the rule of Napoleon. The Germans on both sides of the
Rhine knew of a fatherland only as an arena of the keenest
jealousies. In Prussia and in Austria the bond of citizenship was
far less the love of country than the habit of obedience to
government. England and Russia, where patriotism existed in the
sense in which it existed in Spain, had as yet been untouched by
French armies. Judging from the action of the Germans and the
Italians, Napoleon might well suppose that in settling with the
Spanish Government he had also settled with the Spanish people,
or, at the worst, that his troops might have to fight some
fanatical peasants, like those who resisted the expulsion of the
Bourbons from Naples. But the Spanish nation was no mosaic of
political curiosities like the Holy Roman Empire, and no divided
and oblivious family like the population of Italy. Spain, as a
single nation united under its King, had once played the foremost
part in Europe: when its grandeur departed, its pride had
remained behind: the Spaniard, in all his torpor and
impoverishment, retained the impulse of honour, the spirited
self-respect, which periods of national greatness leave behind
them among a race capable of cherishing their memory. Nor had
those influences of a common European culture, which directly
opposed themselves to patriotism in Germany, affected the
home-bred energy of Spain. The temper of mind which could find
satisfaction in the revival of a form of Greek art when
Napoleon's cavalry were scouring Germany, or which could inquire
whether mankind would not profit by the removal of the barriers
between nations, was unknown among the Spanish people. Their
feeling towards a foreign invader was less distant from that of
African savages than from that of the civilised and literary
nations which had fallen so easy a prey to the French.
Government, if it had degenerated into everything that was
contemptible, had at least failed to reduce the people to the
passive helplessness which resulted from the perfection of
uniformity in Prussia. Provincial institutions, though corrupted,
were not extinguished; provincial attachments and prejudices
existed in unbounded strength. Like the passion of the Spaniard
for his native district, his passion for Spain was of a blind and
furious character. Enlightened conviction, though not altogether
absent, had small place in the Spanish war of defence. Religious
fanaticism, hatred of the foreigner, delight in physical
barbarity, played their full part by the side of nobler elements
in the struggle for national independence.</p>
<p>[Rising of Spain, May, 1808.]</p>
<p>The captivity of Ferdinand, and the conflict of Murat's troops
with the inhabitants of Madrid, had become known in the Spanish
cities before the middle of May. On the 20th of the same month
the <i>Gaceta</i> announced the abdication of the Bourbon family.
Nothing more was wanting to throw Spain into tumult. The same
irresistible impulse seized provinces and cities separated by the
whole breadth of the Peninsula. Without communication, and
without the guidance of any central authority, the Spanish people
in every part of the kingdom armed themselves against the
usurper. Carthagena rose on the 22nd. Valencia forced its
magistrates to proclaim King Ferdinand on the 23rd. Two days
later the mountain-district of Asturias, with a population of
half a million, formally declared war on Napoleon, and despatched
envoys to Great Britain to ask for assistance. On the 26th,
Santander and Seville, on opposite sides of the Peninsula, joined
the national movement. Corunna, Badajoz, and Granada declared
themselves on the Feast of St. Ferdinand, the 30th of May. Thus
within a week the entire country was in arms, except in those
districts where the presence of French troops rendered revolt
impossible. The action of the insurgents was everywhere the same.
They seized upon the arms and munitions of war collected in the
magazines, and forced the magistrates or commanders of towns to
place themselves at their head. Where the latter resisted, or
were suspected of treachery to the national cause, they were in
many cases put to death. Committees of Government were formed in
the principal cities, and as many armies came into being as there
were independent centres of the insurrection.</p>
<p>[Joseph Bonaparte made King.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon's Assembly at Bayonne, June, 1808.]</p>
<p>Napoleon was in the meantime collecting a body of prelates and
grandees at Bayonne, under the pretence of consulting the
representatives of the Spanish nation. Half the members of the
intended Assembly received a personal summons from the Emperor;
the other half were ordered to be chosen by popular election.
When the order, however, was issued from Bayonne, the country was
already in full revolt. Elections were held only in the districts
occupied by the French, and not more than twenty representatives
so elected proceeded to Bayonne. The remainder of the Assembly,
which numbered in all ninety-one persons, was composed of
courtiers who had accompanied the Royal Family across the
Pyrenees, and of any Spaniards of distinction upon whom the
French could lay their hands. Joseph Bonaparte was brought from
Naples to receive the crown of Spain. <a name=
"FNanchor147">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_147"><sup>[147]</sup></a> On
the 15th of June the Assembly of the Notables was opened. Its
discussions followed the order prescribed by Napoleon on all
similar occasions. Articles disguising a central absolute power
with some pretence of national representation were laid before
the Assembly, and adopted without criticism. Except in the
privileges accorded to the Church, little indicated that the
Constitution of Bayonne was intended for the Spanish rather than
for any other nation. Its political forms were as valuable or as
valueless as those which Napoleon had given to his other client
States; its principles of social order were those which even now
despotism could not dissever from French supremacy-the abolition
of feudal services, equality of taxation, admission of all ranks
to public employment. Titles of nobility were preserved, the
privileges of nobility abolished. One genuine act of homage was
rendered to the national character. The Catholic religion was
declared to be the only one permitted in Spain.</p>
<p>[Attempts of Napoleon to suppress the Spanish rising.]</p>
<p>While Napoleon was thus emancipating the peasants from the
nobles, and reconciling his supremacy with the claims of the
Church, peasants and townspeople were flocking to arms at the
call of the priests, who so little appreciated the orthodoxy of
their patron as to identify him in their manifestos with Calvin,
with the Antichrist, and with Apollyon. <a name=
"FNanchor148">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_148"><sup>[148]</sup></a>
The Emperor underrated the military efficiency of the national
revolt, and contented himself with sending his lieutenants to
repress it, while he himself, expecting a speedy report of
victory, remained in Bayonne. Divisions of the French army moved
in all directions against the insurgents. Dupont was ordered to
march upon Seville from the capital, Moncey upon Valencia;
Marshal Bessi&egrave;res took command of a force intended to
disperse the main army of the Spaniards, which threatened the
roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid. The first encounters were all
favourable to the practised French troops; yet the objects which
Napoleon set before his generals were not achieved. Moncey failed
to reduce Valencia; Dupont found himself outnumbered on passing
the Sierra Morena, and had to retrace his steps and halt at
Andujar, where the road to Madrid leaves the valley of the
Guadalquivir. Without sustaining any severe loss, the French
divisions were disheartened by exhausting and resultless marches;
the Spaniards gained new confidence on each successive day which
passed without inflicting upon them a defeat. At length, however,
the commanders of the northern army were forced by Marshal
Bessi&egrave;res to fight a pitched battle at Rio Seco, on the
west of Valladolid (July 13th). Bessi&egrave;res won a complete
victory, and gained the lavish praises of his master for a battle
which, according to Napoleon's own conception, ended the Spanish
war by securing the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid.</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Baylen, July 19.]</p>
<p>[Dupont in Andalusia.]</p>
<p>Never had Napoleon so gravely mistaken the true character of a
campaign. The vitality of the Spanish insurrection lay not in the
support of the capital, which had never passed out of the hands
of the French, but in the very independence of the several
provincial movements. Unlike Vienna and Berlin, Madrid might be
held by the French without the loss being felt by their
adversary; Cadiz, Corunna, Lisbon, were equally serviceable bases
for the insurrection. The victory of Marshal Bessi&egrave;res in
the north preserved the communication between France and Madrid,
and it did nothing more. It failed to restore the balance of
military force in the south of Spain, or to affect the operations
of the Spanish troops which were now closing round Dupont upon
the Guadalquivir. On the 15th of July Dupont was attacked at
Andujar by greatly superior forces. His lieutenant, Vedel,
knowing the Spaniards to be engaged in a turning movement, made a
long march northwards in order to guard the line of retreat. In
his absence the position of Baylen, immediately in Dupont's rear,
was seized by the Spanish general Reding. Dupont discovered
himself to be surrounded. He divided his army into two columns,
and moved on the night of the 18th from Andujar towards Baylen,
in the hope of overpowering Reding's division. At daybreak on the
19th the positions of Reding were attacked by the French. The
struggle continued until mid-day, though the French soldiers sank
exhausted with thirst and with the burning heat. At length the
sound of cannon was heard in the rear. Castanos, the Spanish
general commanding at Andujar, had discovered Dupont's retreat,
and pressed behind him with troops fresh and unwearied by
conflict. Further resistance was hopeless. Dupont had to
negotiate for a surrender. He consented to deliver up Vedel's
division as well as his own, although Vedel's troops were in
possession of the road to Madrid, the Spanish commander
promising, on this condition, that the captives should not be
retained as prisoners of war in Spain, but be permitted to return
by sea to their native country. The entire army of Andalusia,
numbering 23,000 men, thus passed into the hands of an enemy whom
Napoleon had not believed to possess a military existence.
Dupont's anxiety to save something for France only aggravated the
extent of the calamity; for the Junta of Seville declined to
ratify the terms of the capitulation, and the prisoners, with the
exception of the superior officers, were sent to the galleys at
Cadiz. The victorious Spaniards pushed forwards upon Madrid. King
Joseph, who had entered the city only a week before, had to fly
from his capital. The whole of the French troops in Spain were
compelled to retire to a defensive position upon the Ebro.</p>
<p>[Wellesley lands in Portugal, Aug. 1, 1808.]</p>
<p>[Vimeiro, Aug. 21.]</p>
<p>[Convention of Cintra, Aug. 30.]</p>
<p>The disaster of Baylen did not come alone. Napoleon's attack
upon Portugal had brought him within the striking-range of Great
Britain. On the 1st of August an English army, commanded by Sir
Arthur Wellesley, landed on the Portuguese coast at the mouth of
the Mondego. Junot, the first invader of the Peninsula, was still
at Lisbon; his forces in occupation of Portugal numbered nearly
30,000 men, but they were widely dispersed, and he was unable to
bring more than 13,000 men into the field against the 16,000 with
whom Wellesley moved upon Lisbon. Junot advanced to meet the
invader. A battle was fought at Vimieiro, thirty miles north of
Lisbon, on the 21st of August. The victory was gained by the
British; and had the first advantage been followed up, Junot's
army would scarcely have escaped capture. But the command had
passed out of Wellesley's hands. His superior officer, Sir Harry
Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle
ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of
operations at a moment when the enemy seemed to be within his
grasp. Junot made the best use of his reprieve. He entered into
negotiations for the evacuation of Portugal, and obtained the
most favourable terms in the Convention of Cintra, signed on the
30th of August. The French army was permitted to return to France
with its arms and baggage. Wellesley, who had strongly condemned
the inaction of his superior officers after the battle of the
21st, agreed with them that, after the enemy had once been
permitted to escape, the evacuation of Portugal was the best
result which the English could obtain. <a name=
"FNanchor149">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_149"><sup>[149]</sup></a>
Junot's troops were accordingly conveyed to French ports at the
expense of the British Government, to the great displeasure of
the public, who expected to see the marshal and his army brought
prisoners into Portsmouth. The English were as ill-humoured with
their victory as the French with their defeat. When on the point
of sending Junot to a court-martial for his capitulation,
Napoleon learnt that the British Government had ordered its own
generals to be brought to trial for permitting the enemy to
escape them.</p>
<p>[Effect of Spanish rising on Europe.]</p>
<p>[War-party in Austria and Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon and Prussia.]</p>
<p>If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England,
the tidings of the successful uprising of the Spanish people
against Napoleon, and of Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, created
the deepest impression in every country of Europe that still
entertained the thought of resistance to France. The first great
disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been inflicted by a
nation without a government, without a policy, without a plan
beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the
foreigner. What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect,
the patriotism and energy of a single people deserted by its
rulers seemed about to accomplish. The victory of the regular
troops at Baylen was but a part of that great national movement
in which every isolated outbreak had had its share in dividing
and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of untrained
popular levies to resist practised troops might be exaggerated in
the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish
rising; but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by
the spirit of popular resentment and determination was one upon
which mistake was impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the
politicians of Austria and Prussia, and explained the
powerlessness of those Coalitions in which the wars had always
been the affair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of the
people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against
Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a
national movement like that of Spain sprang up among the German
race. "I do not see," wrote Bl&uuml;cher some time afterwards,
"why we should not think ourselves as good as the Spaniards." The
best men in the Austrian and Prussian Governments began to look
forward to the kindling of popular spirit as the surest means for
combating the tyranny of Napoleon. Military preparations were
pushed forward in Austria with unprecedented energy and on a
scale rivalling that of France itself. In Prussia the party of
Stein determined upon a renewal of the war, and decided to risk
the extinction of the Prussian State rather than submit to the
extortions by which Napoleon was completing the ruin of their
country. It was among the patriots of Northern Germany that the
course of the Spanish struggle excited the deepest emotion, and
gave rise to the most resolute purpose of striking for European
liberty.</p>
<p>Since the nominal restoration of peace between France and
Prussia by the cession of half the Prussian kingdom, not a month
had passed without the infliction of some gross injustice upon
the conquered nation. The evacuation of the country had in the
first instance been made conditional upon the payment of certain
requisitions in arrear. While the amount of this sum was being
settled, all Prussia, except K&ouml;nigsberg, remained in the
hands of the French, and 157,000 French soldiers lived at free
quarters upon the unfortunate inhabitants. At the end of the year
1807 King Frederick William was informed that, besides paying to
Napoleon 60,000,000 francs in money, and ceding domain lands of
the same value, he must continue to support 40,000 French troops
in five garrison-towns upon the Oder. Such was the dismay caused
by this announcement, that Stein quitted K&ouml;nigsberg, now the
seat of government, and passed three months at the head-quarters
of the French at Berlin, endeavouring to frame some settlement
less disastrous to his country. Count Daru, Napoleon's
administrator in Prussia, treated the Minister with respect, and
accepted his proposal for the evacuation of Prussian territory on
payment of a fixed sum to the French. But the agreement required
Napoleon's ratification, and for this Stein waited in vain. <a
name="FNanchor150">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_150"><sup>[150]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Stein urges war.]</p>
<p>[Demands of Napoleon, Sept., 1808.]</p>
<p>Month after month dragged on, and Napoleon made no reply. At
length the victories of the Spanish insurrection in the summer of
1808 forced the Emperor to draw in his troops from beyond the
Elbe. He placed a bold front upon his necessities, and demanded
from the Prussian Government, as the price of evacuation, a still
larger sum than that which had been named in the previous winter:
he insisted that the Prussian army should be limited to 40,000
men, and the formation of the Landwehr abandoned; and he required
the support of a Prussian corps of 16,000 men, in the event of
hostilities breaking out between France and Austria. Not even on
these conditions was Prussia offered the complete evacuation of
her territory. Napoleon still insisted on holding the three
principal fortresses on the Oder with a garrison of 10,000 men.
Such was the treaty proposed to the Prussian Court (September,
1808) at a time when every soldierly spirit thrilled with the
tidings from Spain, and every statesman was convinced by the
events of the last few months that Napoleon's treaties were but
stages in a progression of wrongs. Stein and Scharnhorst urged
the King to arm the nation for a struggle as desperate as that of
Spain, and to delay only until Napoleon himself was busied in the
warfare of the Peninsula. Continued submission was ruin; revolt
was at least not hopeless. However forlorn the condition of
Prussia, its alliances were of the most formidable character.
Austria was arming without disguise; Great Britain had intervened
in the warfare of the Peninsula with an efficiency hitherto
unknown in its military operations; Spain, on the estimate of
Napoleon himself, required an army of 200,000 men. Since the
beginning of the Spanish insurrection Stein had occupied himself
with the organisation of a general outbreak throughout Northern
Germany. Rightly or wrongly, he believed the train to be now
laid, and encouraged the King of Prussia to count upon the
support of a popular insurrection against the French in all the
territories which they had taken from Prussia, from Hanover, and
from Hesse.</p>
<p>[Stein resigns, Nov. 24. Proscribed by Napoleon.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon and Alexander meet at Erfurt, Oct. 7, 1808.]</p>
<p>In one point alone Stein was completely misinformed. He
believed that Alexander, in spite of the Treaty of Tilsit, would
not be unwilling to see the storm burst upon Napoleon, and that
in the event of another general war the forces of Russia would
more probably be employed against France than in its favour. The
illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the accomplice of
Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Principalities, Alexander
was willing to hold central Europe in check while Napoleon
crushed the Spaniards, and to stifle every bolder impulse in the
simple King of Prussia. Napoleon himself dreaded the general
explosion of Europe before Spain was conquered, and drew closer
to his Russian ally. Difficulties that had been placed in the way
of the Russian annexation of Roumania vanished. The Czar and the
Emperor determined to display to all Europe the intimacy of their
union by a festal meeting at Erfurt in the midst of their victims
and their dependents. The whole tribe of vassal German sovereigns
was summoned to the meeting-place; representatives attended from
the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. On the 7th of October Napoleon
and Alexander made their entry into Erfurt. Pageants and
festivities required the attendance of the crowned and titled
rabble for several days; but the only serious business was the
settlement of a treaty confirming the alliance of France and
Russia, and the notification of the Czar to the envoy of the King
of Prussia that his master must accept the terms demanded by
Napoleon, and relinquish the idea of a struggle with France. <a
name="FNanchor151">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_151"><sup>[151]</sup></a> Count Goltz, the Prussian
envoy, unwillingly signed the treaty which gave Prussia but a
partial evacuation at so dear a cost, and wrote to the King that
no course now remained for him but to abandon himself to
unreserved dependence upon France, and to permit Stein and the
patriotic party to retire from the direction of the State. Unless
the King could summon up courage to declare war in defiance of
Alexander, there was, in fact, no alternative left open to him.
Napoleon had discovered Stein's plans for raising an insurrection
in Germany several weeks before, and had given vent to the most
furious outburst of wrath against Stein in the presence of the
Prussian Ambassador at Erfurt. If the great struggle on which
Stein's whole heart and soul were set was to be relinquished, if
Spain was to be crushed before Prussia moved an arm, and Austria
was to be left to fight its inevitable battle alone, then the
presence of Stein at the head of the Prussian State was only a
snare to Europe, a peril to Prussia, and a misery to himself.
Stein asked for and received his dismissal. (Nov. 24, 1808.)</p>
<p>Stein's retirement averted the wrath of Napoleon from the King
of Prussia; but the whole malignity of that Corsican nature broke
out against the high-spirited patriot as soon as fresh victories
had released Napoleon from the ill-endured necessity of
self-control. On the 16th of December, when Madrid had again
passed into the possession of the French, an imperial order
appeared, which gave the measure of Napoleon's hatred of the
fallen Minister. Stein was denounced as the enemy of the Empire;
his property was confiscated; he was ordered to be seized by the
troops of the Emperor or his allies wherever they could lay their
hands upon him. As in the days of Roman tyranny, the west of
Europe could now afford no asylum to the enemies of the Emperor.
Russia and Austria remained the only refuge of the exile. Stein
escaped into Bohemia; and, as the crowning humiliation of the
Prussian State, its police were forced to pursue as a criminal
the statesman whose fortitude had still made it possible in the
darkest days for Prussian patriots not to despair of their
country.</p>
<p>[Misgovernment of the Spanish Junta.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon goes to Spain, Nov., 1808.]</p>
<p>Central Europe secured by the negotiations with Alexander at
Erfurt, Napoleon was now able to place himself at the head of the
French forces in Spain without fear of any immediate attack from
the side of Germany. Since the victory of Baylen the Spaniards
had made little progress either towards good government or
towards a good military administration. The provincial Juntas had
consented to subordinate themselves to a central committee chosen
from among their own members; but this new supreme authority,
which held its meetings at Aranjuez, proved one of the worst
governments that even Spain itself had ever endured. It numbered
thirty persons, twenty-eight of whom were priests, nobles, or <a
name="FNanchor152">officials.</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_152"><sup>[152]</sup></a> Its qualities were those
engrained in Spanish official life. In legislation it attempted
absolutely nothing but the restoration of the Inquisition and the
protection of Church lands; its administration was confined to a
foolish interference with the better generals, and the
acquisition of enormous supplies of war from Great Britain, which
were either stolen by contractors or allowed to fall into the
hands of the French. While the members of the Junta discussed the
titles of honour which were to attach to them collectively and
individually, and voted themselves salaries equal to those of
Napoleon's generals, the armies fell into a state of destitution
which scarcely any but Spanish troops would have been capable of
enduring. The energy of the humbler classes alone prolonged the
military existence of the insurrection; the Government organised
nothing, comprehended nothing. Its part in the national movement
was confined to a system of begging and boasting, which
demoralised the Spaniards, and bewildered the agents and generals
of England who first attempted the difficult task of assisting
the Spaniards to help themselves. When the approach of army after
army, the levies of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Italy, in
addition to Napoleon's own veteran troops of Austerlitz and Jena,
gave to the rest of the world some idea of the enormous force
which Napoleon was about to throw on to Spain, the Spanish
Government could form no better design than to repeat the
movement of Baylen against Napoleon himself on the banks of the
Ebro.</p>
<p>[Napoleon enters Madrid, Dec. 4.]</p>
<p>[Campaign on the Ebro, Nov., 1808.]</p>
<p>The Emperor for the first time crossed the Pyrenees in the
beginning of November, 1808. The victory of the Spaniards in the
summer had forced the invaders to retire into the district
between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and the Ebro now formed the
dividing-line between the hostile armies. It was the intention of
Napoleon to roll back the extremes of the Spanish line to the
east and the west, and, breaking through its centre, to move
straight upon Burgos and Madrid. The Spaniards, for their part,
were not content to act upon the defensive. When Napoleon arrived
at Vittoria on the 5th of November, the left wing of the Spanish
army under General Blake had already received orders to move
eastwards from the upper waters of the Ebro, and to cut the
French off from their communication with the Pyrenees. The
movement was exactly that which Napoleon desired; for in
executing it, Blake had only to march far enough eastwards to
find himself completely surrounded by French divisions. A
premature movement of the French generals themselves alone saved
Blake from total destruction. He was attacked and defeated at
Espinosa, on the upper Ebro, before he had advanced far enough to
lose his line of retreat (Nov. 10); and, after suffering great
losses, he succeeded in leading off a remnant of his army into
the mountains of Asturias. In the centre, Soult drove the enemy
before him, and captured Burgos. Of the army which was to have
cleared Spain of the French, nothing now remained but a corps on
the right at Tudela, commanded by Palafox. The destruction of
this body was committed by the Emperor to Lannes and Ney. Ney was
ordered to take a long march southwards in order to cut off the
retreat of the Spaniards; he found it impossible, however, to
execute his march within the time prescribed; and Palafox, beaten
by Lannes at Tudela, made good his retreat into Saragossa. A
series of accidents had thus saved the divisions of the Spanish
army from actual capture, but there no longer existed a force
capable of meeting the enemy in the field. Napoleon moved forward
from Burgos upon Madrid. The rest of his march was a triumph. The
batteries defending the mountain-pass of Somo Sierra were
captured by a charge of Polish cavalry; and the capital itself
surrendered, after a short artillery fire, on the 4th of
December, four weeks after the opening of the campaign.</p>
<p>[Campaign of Sir John Moore.]</p>
<p>An English army was slowly and painfully making its way
towards the Ebro at the time when Napoleon broke in pieces the
Spanish line of defence. On the 14th of October Sir John Moore
had assumed the command of 20,000 British troops at Lisbon. He
was instructed to march to the neighbourhood of Burgos, and to
co-operate with the Spanish generals upon the Ebro. According to
the habit of the English, no allowance was made for the movements
of the enemy while their own were under consideration; and the
mountain-country which Moore had to traverse placed additional
obstacles in the way of an expedition at least a month too late
in its starting. Moore believed it to be impossible to carry his
artillery over the direct road from Lisbon to Salamanca, and sent
it round by way of Madrid, while he himself advanced through
Ciudad Rodrigo, reaching Salamanca on the 13th of November. Here,
while still waiting for his artillery, rumours reached him of the
destruction of Blake's army at Espinosa, and of the fall of
Burgos. Later came the report of Palafox's overthrow at Tudela.
Yet even now Moore could get no trustworthy information from the
Spanish authorities. He remained for some time in suspense, and
finally determined to retreat into Portugal. Orders were sent to
Sir David Baird, who was approaching with reinforcements from
Corunna, to turn back towards the northern coast. Scarcely had
Moore formed this decision, when despatches arrived from Frere,
the British agent at Madrid, stating that the Spaniards were
about to defend the capital to the last extremity, and that Moore
would be responsible for the ruin of Spain and the disgrace of
England if he failed to advance to its relief. To the great joy
of his soldiers, Moore gave orders for a forward march. The army
advanced upon Valladolid, with the view of attacking the French
upon their line of communication, while the siege of the capital
engaged them in front. Baird was again ordered southwards. It was
not until the 14th of December, ten days after Madrid had passed
into the hands of the French, that Moore received intelligence of
its fall. Neither the Spanish Government nor the British agent
who had caused Moore to advance took the trouble to inform him of
the surrender of the capital; he learnt it from an intercepted
French despatch. From the same despatch Moore learnt that to the
north of him, at Saldanha, on the river Carrion, there lay a
comparatively small French force under the command of Soult. The
information was enough for Moore, heart-sick at the mockery to
which his army had been subjected, and burning for decisive
action. He turned northwards, and marched against Soult, in the
hope of surprising him before the news of his danger could reach
Napoleon in the capital.</p>
<p>[Napoleon marches against Moore, Dec. 19.]</p>
<p>[Retreat of the English.]</p>
<p>[Corunna, Jan. 16, 1809.]</p>
<p>On the 19th of December a report reached Madrid that Moore had
suspended his retreat on Portugal. Napoleon instantly divined the
actual movement of the English, and hurried from Madrid against
Moore at the head of 40,000 men. Moore had met Baird on the 20th
at Mayorga; on the 23rd the united British divisions reached
Sahagun, scarcely a day's march from Soult at Saldanha. Here the
English commander learnt that Napoleon himself was on his track.
Escape was a question of hours. Napoleon had pushed across the
Guadarama mountains in forced marches through snow and storm. Had
his vanguard been able to seize the bridge over the river Esla at
Benavente before the English crossed it, Moore would have been
cut off from all possibility of escape. The English reached the
river first and blew up the bridge. This rescued them from
immediate danger. The defence of the river gave Moore's army a
start which rendered the superiority of Napoleon's numbers of
little effect. For a while Napoleon followed Moore towards the
northern coast. On the 1st of January, 1809, he wrote an order
which showed that he looked upon Moore's escape as now
inevitable, and on the next day he quitted the army, leaving to
his marshals the honour of toiling after Moore to the coast, and
of seizing some thousands of frozen or drunken British
stragglers. Moore himself pushed on towards Corunna with a
rapidity which was dearly paid for by the demoralisation of his
army. The sufferings and the excesses of the troops were
frightful; only the rear-guard, which had to face the enemy,
preserved soldierly order. At length Moore found it necessary to
halt and take up position, in order to restore the discipline of
his army. He turned upon Soult at Lugo, and offered battle for
two successive days; but the French general declined an
engagement; and Moore, satisfied with having recruited his
troops, continued his march upon Corunna. Soult still followed.
On January 11th the English army reached the sea; but the ships
which were to convey them back to England were nowhere to be
seen. A battle was inevitable, and Moore drew up his troops,
14,000 in number, on a range of low hills outside the town to
await the attack of the French. On the 16th, when the fleet had
now come into harbour, Soult gave battle. The French were
defeated at every point of their attack. Moore fell at the moment
of his victory, conscious that the army which he had so bravely
led had nothing more to fear. The embarkation was effected that
night; on the next day the fleet put out to sea.</p>
<p>[Siege of Saragossa, Dec., 1808.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon leaves Spain, Jan 19, 1809.]</p>
<p>Napoleon quitted Spain on the 19th of January, 1809, leaving
his brother Joseph again in possession of the capital, and an
army of 300,000 men under the best generals of France engaged
with the remnants of a defeated force which had never reached
half that number. No brilliant victories remained to be won; no
enemy remained in the field important enough to require the
presence of Napoleon. Difficulties of transit and the hostility
of the people might render the subjugation of Spain a slower
process than the subjugation of Prussia or Italy; but, to all
appearance, the ultimate success of the Emperor's plans was
certain, and the worst that lay before his lieutenants was a
series of wearisome and obscure exertions against an
inconsiderable foe. Yet, before the Emperor had been many weeks
in Paris, a report reached him from Marshal Lannes which told of
some strange form of military capacity among the people whose
armies were so contemptible in the field. The city of Saragossa,
after successfully resisting its besiegers in the summer of 1808,
had been a second time invested after the defeats of the Spanish
armies upon the Ebro. <a name="FNanchor153">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_153"><sup>[153]</sup></a> The besiegers themselves
were suffering from extreme scarcity when, on the 22nd of
January, 1809, Lannes took up the command. Lannes immediately
called up all the troops within reach, and pressed the battering
operations with the utmost vigour. On the 29th, the walls of
Saragossa were stormed in four different places.</p>
<p>[Defeats of the Spaniards, March, 1809.]</p>
<p>According to all ordinary precedents of war, the French were
now in possession of the city. But the besiegers found that their
real work was only beginning. The streets were trenched and
barricaded; every dwelling was converted into a fortress; for
twenty days the French were forced to besiege house by house. In
the centre of the town the popular leaders erected a gallows, and
there they hanged every one who flinched from meeting the enemy.
Disease was added to the horrors of warfare. In the cellars,
where the women and children crowded in filth and darkness, a
malignant pestilence broke out, which, at the beginning of
February, raised the deaths to five hundred a day. The dead
bodies were unburied; in that poisoned atmosphere the slightest
wound produced mortification and death. At length the powers of
the defenders sank. A fourth part of the town had been won by the
French; of the townspeople and peasants who were within the walls
at the beginning of the siege, it is said that thirty thousand
had perished; the remainder could only prolong their defence to
fall in a few days more before disease or the enemy. Even now
there were members of the Junta who wished to fight as long as a
man remained, but they were outnumbered. On the 20th of February
what was left of Saragossa capitulated. Its resistance gave to
the bravest of Napoleon's soldiers an impression of horror and
dismay new even to men who had passed through seventeen years of
revolutionary warfare, but it failed to retard Napoleon's armies
in the conquest of Spain. No attempt was made to relieve the
heroic or ferocious city. Everywhere the tide of French conquest
appeared to be steadily making its advance. Soult invaded
Portugal; in combination with him, two armies moved from Madrid
upon the southern and the south-western provinces of Spain.
Oporto fell on the 28th of March; in the same week the Spanish
forces covering the south were decisively beaten at Ciudad Real
and at Medellin upon the line of the Guadiana. The hopes of
Europe fell. Spain itself could expect no second Saragossa. It
appeared as if the complete subjugation of the Peninsula could
now only be delayed by the mistakes of the French generals
themselves, and by the untimely removal of that controlling will
which had hitherto made every movement a step forward in
conquest.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_IX.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c9">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Austria preparing for war-The war to be one on behalf of the
German Nation-Patriotic Movement in Prussia-Expected Insurrection
in North Germany-Plans of Campaign-Austrian Manifesto to the
Germans-Rising of the Tyrolese-Defeats of the Archduke Charles in
Bavaria-French in Vienna-Attempts of D&ouml;rnberg and
Schill-Battle of Aspern-Second Passage of the Danube-Battle of
Wagram-Armistice of Znaim-Austria waiting for events-Wellesley in
Spain-He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats-Expedition
against Antwerp fails-Austria makes Peace-Treaty of Vienna-Real
Effects of the War of 1809-Austria after 1809-Metternich-
Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise-Severance of Napoleon and
Alexander-Napoleon annexes the Papal States, Holland, La Valais,
and the North German Coast-The Napoleonic Empire: Its Benefits
and Wrongs-The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial
System-War with Russia imminent-Wellington in Portugal: Lines of
Torres Vedras; Massena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat-Soult in
Andalusia-Wellington's Campaign of 1810-Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo
and Badajoz-Salamanca.</p>
<br>

<p>[Austria preparing for war, 1808-9.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, quitting Spain in the third week of January, 1809,
travelled to Paris with the utmost haste. He believed Austria to
be on the point of declaring war; and on the very day of his
arrival at the capital he called out the contingents of the
Rhenish Federation. In the course of the next few weeks, however,
he formed the opinion that Austria would either decline
hostilities altogether, or at least find it impossible to declare
war before the middle of May. For once the efforts of Austria
outstripped the calculations of her enemy. Count Stadion, the
earnest and enlightened statesman who had held power in Austria
since the Peace of Presburg, had steadily prepared for a renewal
of the struggle with France. He was convinced that Napoleon would
soon enter upon new enterprises of conquest, and still farther
extend his empire at the expense of Austria, unless attacked
before Spain had fallen under his dominion. Metternich, now
Austrian Ambassador at Paris, reported that Napoleon was
intending to divide Turkey as soon as he had conquered Spain;
and, although he advised delay, he agreed with the Cabinet at
Vienna that Austria must sooner or later strike in self-defence.
<a name="FNanchor154">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_154"><sup>[154]</sup></a> Stadion, more sanguine, was
only prevented from declaring war in 1808 by the counsels of the
Archduke Charles and of other generals who were engaged in
bringing the immense mass of new levies into military formation.
Charles himself attached little value to the patriotic enthusiasm
which, since the outbreak of the Spanish insurrection, had sprung
up in the German provinces of Austria. He saw the approach of war
with more apprehension than pleasure; but, however faint his own
hopes, he laboured earnestly in creating for Austria a force far
superior to anything that she had possessed before, and infused
into the mass of the army that confident and patriotic spirit
which he saw in others rather than felt in himself. By the
beginning of March, 1809, Austria had 260,000 men ready to take
the field.</p>
<p>[The war of 1809 to be a war for Germany.]</p>
<p>The war now breaking out was to be a war for the German
nation, as the struggle of the Spaniards had been a struggle for
Spain. The animated appeals of the Emperor's generals formed a
singular contrast to the silence with which the Austrian Cabinet
had hitherto entered into its wars. The Hapsburg sovereign now
stood before the world less as the inheritor of an ancient empire
and the representative of the Balance of Power than as the
disinterested champion of the German race. On the part of the
Emperor himself the language of devotion for Germany was scarcely
more than ironical. Francis belonged to an age and to a system in
which the idea of nationality had no existence; and, like other
sovereigns, he regarded his possessions as a sort of superior
property which ought to be defended by obedient domestic dogs
against marauding foreign wolves. The same personal view of
public affairs had hitherto satisfied the Austrians. It had been
enough for them to be addressed as the dutiful children of a wise
and affectionate father. The Emperor spoke the familiar Viennese
dialect; he was as homely in his notions and his prejudices as
any beerseller in his dominions; his subjects might see him at
almost any hour of the day or night; and out of the somewhat
tough material of his character popular imagination had no
difficulty in framing an idol of parental geniality and wisdom.
Fifteen years of failure and mismanagement had, however, impaired
the beauty of the domestic fiction; and although old-fashioned
Austrians, like Haydn, the composer of the Austrian Hymn, were
ready to go down to the grave invoking a blessing on their
gracious master, the Emperor himself and his confidants were
shrewd enough to see that the newly-excited sense of German
patriotism would put them in possession of a force which they
could hardly evoke by the old methods.</p>
<p>[Austrian Parties.]</p>
<p>One element of reality lay in the professions which were not
for the most part meant very seriously. There was probably now no
statesman in Austria who any longer felt a jealousy of the power
of Prussia. With Count Stadion and his few real supporters the
restoration of Germany was a genuine and deeply-cherished desire;
with the majority of Austrian politicians the interests of
Austria herself seemed at least for the present to require the
liberation of North Germany. Thus the impassioned appeals of the
Archduke Charles to all men of German race to rise against their
foreign oppressor, and against their native princes who betrayed
the interests of the Fatherland, gained the sanction of a Court
hitherto very little inclined to form an alliance with popular
agitation. If the chaotic disorder of the Austrian Government had
been better understood in Europe, less importance would have been
attached to this sudden change in its tone. No one in the higher
ranks at Vienna was bound by the action of his colleagues. The
Emperor, though industrious, had not the capacity to enforce any
coherent system of government. His brothers caballed one against
another, and against the persons who figured as responsible
ministers. State-papers were brought by soldiers to the Emperor
for his signature without the knowledge of his advisers. The very
manifestos which seemed to herald a new era for Germany owed most
of their vigour to the literary men who were entrusted with their
composition. <a name="FNanchor155">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_155"><sup>[155]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Patriotic movement in Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Governing classes in South Germany on the side of
Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The answer likely to be rendered by Germany to the appeal of
Austria was uncertain. In the Rhenish Federation there were
undoubted signs of discontent with French rule among the common
people; but the official classes were universally on the side of
Napoleon, who had given them their posts and their salaries;
while the troops, and especially the officers, who remembered the
time when they had been mocked by the Austrians as "harlequins"
and "nose-bags," were won by the kindness of the great conqueror,
who organised them under the hands of his own generals, and gave
them the companionship of his own victorious legions. Little
could be expected from districts where to the mass of the
population the old r&eacute;gime of German independence had meant
nothing more than attendance at the manor-court of a knight, or
the occasional spectacle of a ducal wedding, or a deferred
interest in the droning jobbery of some hereditary
town-councillor. In Northern Germany there was far more prospect
of a national insurrection. There the spirit of Stein and of
those who had worked with him was making itself felt, in spite of
the fall of the Minister. Scharnhorst's reforms had made the
Prussian army a school of patriotism, and the work of statesmen
and soldiers was promoted by men who spoke to the feelings and
the intelligence of the nation. Literature lost its indifference
to nationality and to home. The philosopher Fichte, the poet
Arndt, the theologian Schleiermacher pressed the claims of
Germany and of the manlier virtues upon a middle class singularly
open to literary influences, singularly wanting in the experience
and the impulses of active public life. <a name=
"FNanchor156">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_156"><sup>[156]</sup></a> In
the Kingdom of Westphalia preparations for an insurrection
against the French were made by officers who had served in the
Prussian and the Hessian armies. In Prussia itself, by the side
of many nobler agencies, the newly-founded Masonic society of the
Tugendbund, or League of Virtue, made the cause of the Fatherland
popular among thousands to whom it was an agreeable novelty to
belong to any society at all. No spontaneous, irresistible
uprising, like that which Europe had seen in the Spanish
Peninsula, was to be expected among the unimpulsive population of
the North German plains; but the military circles of Prussia were
generally in favour of war, and an insurrection of the population
west of the Elbe was not improbable in the event of Napoleon's
army being defeated by Austria in the field. King Frederick
William, too timid to resolve upon war himself, too timid even to
look with satisfaction upon the bold attitude of Austria, had
every reason for striking, if once the balance should incline
against Napoleon: even against his own inclination it was
possible that the ardour of his soldiers might force him into
war.</p>
<p>[Plans of campaign.]</p>
<p>So strong were the hopes of a general rising in Northern
Germany, that the Austrian Government to some extent based its
plans for the campaign on this event. In the ordinary course of
hostilities between France and Austria the line of operations in
Germany is the valley of the Danube; but in preparing for the war
of 1809 the Austrian Government massed its forces in the
north-west of Bohemia, with the object of throwing them directly
upon Central Germany. The French troops which were now evacuating
Prussia were still on their way westwards at the time when
Austria was ready to open the campaign. Davoust, with about
60,000 men, was in Northern Bavaria, separated by a great
distance from the nearest French divisions in Baden and on the
Rhine. By a sudden incursion of the main army of Austria across
the Bohemian mountains, followed by an uprising in Northern
Germany, Davoust and his scattered detachments could hardly
escape destruction. Such was the original plan of the campaign,
and it was probably a wise one in the present exceptional
superiority of the Austrian preparations over those of France.
For the first time since the creation of the Consulate it
appeared as if the opening advantages of the war must inevitably
be upon the side of the enemies of France. Napoleon had
underrated both the energy and the resources of his adversary. By
the middle of March, when the Austrians were ready to descend
upon Davoust from Bohemia, Napoleon's first troops had hardly
crossed the Rhine. Fortunately for the French commander, the
Austrian Government, at the moment of delivering its well-planned
blow, was seized with fear at its own boldness. Recollections of
Hohenlinden and Ulm filled anxious minds with the thought that
the valley of the Danube was insufficiently defended; and on the
20th of March, when the army was on the point of breaking into
Northern Bavaria, orders were given to divert the line of march
to the south, and to enter the Rhenish Confederacy by the roads
of the Danube and the Inn. Thus the fruit of so much energy, and
of the enemy's rare neglectfulness, was sacrificed at the last
moment. It was not until the 9th of April that the Austrian
movement southward was completed, and that the army lay upon the
line of the Inn, ready to attack Napoleon in the territory of his
principal German ally.</p>
<p>[Austrian manifesto to the Germans.]</p>
<p>The proclamations now published by the Emperor and the
Archduke bore striking testimony to the influence of the Spanish
insurrection in exciting the sense of national right, and
awakening the Governments of Europe to the force which this
placed in their hands. For the first time in history a manifesto
was addressed "to the German nation." The contrast drawn in the
Archduke's address to his army between the Spanish patriots dying
in the defence of their country, and the German
vassal-contingents dragged by Napoleon into Spain to deprive a
gallant nation of its freedom, was one of the most just and the
most telling that tyranny has ever given to the leaders of a
righteous cause. <a name="FNanchor157">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_157"><sup>[157]</sup></a> The Emperor's address "to
the German nation" breathed the same spirit. It was not difficult
for the politicians of the Rhenish Federation to ridicule the
sudden enthusiasm for liberty and nationality shown by a
Government which up to the present time had dreaded nothing so
much as the excitement of popular movements; but, however
unconcernedly the Emperor and the old school of Austrian
statesmen might adopt patriotic phrases which they had no
intention to remember when the struggle was over, such language
was a reality in the effect which it produced upon the thousands
who, both in Austria and other parts of Germany, now for the
first time heard the summons to unite in defence of a common
Fatherland.</p>
<p>[Austrians invade Bavaria, April 9, 1809.]</p>
<p>[Rising of the Tyrol, April, 1809.]</p>
<p>[Its causes religious.]</p>
<p>The leading divisions of the Archduke's army crossed the Inn
on the 9th of April. Besides the forces intended for the invasion
of Bavaria, which numbered 170,000 men, the Austrian Government
had formed two smaller armies, with which the Princes Ferdinand
and John were to take up the offensive in the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw and in Northern Italy. On every side Austria was first in
the field; but even before its regular forces could encounter the
enemy, a popular outbreak of the kind that the Government had
invoked wrested from the French the whole of an important
province. While the army crossed the Inn, the Tyrolese people
rose, and overpowered the French and Bavarian detachments
stationed in their country. The Tyrol had been taken from Austria
at the Peace of Presburg, and attached to Napoleon's vassal
kingdom of Bavaria. In geographical position and in relationship
of blood the Tyrolese were as closely connected with the
Bavarians as with the Austrians; and the annexation would
probably have caused no lasting discontent if the Bavarian
Government had condescended to take some account of the character
of its new subjects. Under the rule of Austria the Tyrolese had
enjoyed many privileges. They were exempt from military service,
except in their own militia; they paid few taxes; they possessed
forms of self-government which were at least popular enough to be
regretted after they had been lost. The people adored their
bishops and clergy. Nowhere could the Church exhibit a more
winning example of unbroken accord between a simple people and a
Catholic Crown. Protestantism and the unholy activities of reason
had never brought trouble into the land. The people believed
exactly what the priests told them, and delighted in the
innumerable holidays provided by the Church. They had so little
cupidity that no bribe could induce a Tyrolese peasant to inform
the French of any movement; they had so little intelligence that,
when their own courage and stout-heartedness had won their first
battle, they persuaded one another that they had been led by a
Saint on a white horse. Grievances of a substantial character
were not wanting under the new Bavarian rule; but it was less the
increased taxation and the enforcement of military service that
exasperated the people than the attacks made by the Government
upon the property and rights of the Church. Montgelas, the
reforming Bavarian minister, treated the Tyrolese bishops with as
little ceremony as the Swabian knights. The State laid claim to
all advowsons; and upon the refusal of the bishops to give up
their patronage, the bishops themselves were banished and their
revenues sequestrated. A passion for uniformity and common sense
prompted the Government to revive the Emperor Joseph's edicts
against pilgrimages and Church holidays. It became a
police-offence to shut up a shop on a saint's day, or to wear a
gay dress at a festival. Bavarian soldiers closed the churches at
the end of a prescribed number of masses. At a sale of Church
property, ordered by the Government, some of the sacred vessels
were permitted to fall into the hands of the Jews.</p>
<p>These were the wrongs that fired the simple Tyrolese. They
could have borne the visits of the tax-gatherer and the lists of
conscription; they could not bear that their priests should be
overruled, or that their observances should be limited to those
sufficient for ordinary Catholics. Yet, with all its aspect of
unreason, the question in the Tyrol was also part of that larger
question whether Napoleon's pleasure should be the rule of
European life, or nations should have some voice in the disposal
of their own affairs. The Tyrolese were not more superstitious,
and they were certainty much less cruel, than the Spaniards. They
fought for ecclesiastical absurdities; but their cause was also
the cause of national right, and the admiration which their
courage excited in Europe was well deserved.</p>
<p>[Tyrolese expel Bavarians and French, April 1809.]</p>
<p>Early in the year 1809 the Archduke John had met the leaders
of the Tyrolese peasantry, and planned the first movements of a
national insurrection. As soon as the Austrian army crossed the
Inn, the peasants thronged to their appointed meeting-places.
Scattered detachments of the Bavarians were surrounded, and on
the 12th of April the main body of the Tyrolese, numbering about
15,000 men, advanced upon Innsbruck. The town was invested; the
Bavarian garrison, consisting of 3,000 regular troops, found
itself forced to surrender after a severe engagement. On the next
morning a French column, on the march from Italy to the Danube,
approached Innsbruck, totally unaware of the events of the
preceding day. The Tyrolese closed behind it as it advanced. It
was not until the column was close to the town that its
commander, General Brisson, discovered that Innsbruck had fallen
into an enemy's hands. Retreat was impossible; ammunition was
wanting for a battle; and Brisson had no choice but to surrender
to the peasants, who had already proved more than a match for the
Bavarian regular troops. The Tyrolese had done their work without
the help of a single Austrian regiment. In five days the weak
fabric of Bavarian rule had been thrown to the ground. The French
only maintained themselves in the lower valley of the Adige: and
before the end of April their last positions at Trent and
Roveredo were evacuated, and no foreign soldier remained on
Tyrolese soil.</p>
<p>[Campaign of Archduke Charles in Bavaria.]</p>
<p>The operations of the Austrian commanders upon the Inn formed
a melancholy contrast to the activity of the mountaineers. In
spite of the delay of three weeks in opening the campaign,
Davoust had still not effected his junction with the French
troops in Southern Bavaria, and a rapid movement of the Austrians
might even now have overwhelmed his isolated divisions at
Ratisbon. Napoleon himself had remained in Paris till the last
moment, instructing Berthier, the chief of the staff, to
concentrate the vanguard at Ratisbon, if by the 15th of April the
enemy had not crossed the Inn, but to draw back to the line of
the Lech if the enemy crossed the Inn before that <a name=
"FNanchor158">day.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_158"><sup>[158]</sup></a> The Archduke entered Bavaria
on the 9th; but, instead of retiring to the Lech, Berthier
allowed the army to be scattered over an area sixty miles broad,
from Ratisbon to points above Augsburg. Davoust lay at Ratisbon,
a certain prey if the Archduke pushed forwards with vigour and
thrust his army between the northern and the southern positions
of the French. But nothing could change the sluggishness of the
Austrian march. The Archduke was six days in moving from the Inn
to the Isar; and before the order was given for an advance upon
Ratisbon, Napoleon himself had arrived at Donauw&ouml;rth, and
taken the command out of the hands of his feeble lieutenant.</p>
<p>[Napoleon restores superiority of French, April 18, 19.]</p>
<p>It needed all the Emperor's energy to snatch victory from the
enemy's grasp. Davoust was bidden to fall back from Ratisbon to
Neustadt; the most pressing orders were sent to Massena, who
commanded the right at Augsburg, to push forward to the
north-east in the direction of his colleague, before the
Austrians could throw the mass of their forces upon Davoust's
weak corps. Both generals understood the urgency of the command.
Davoust set out from Ratisbon on the morning of the 19th. He was
attacked by the Archduke, but so feebly and irresolutely that,
with all their superiority in numbers, the Austrians failed to
overpower the enemy at any one point. Massena, immediately after
receiving his orders, hurried from Augsburg north-eastwards,
while Napoleon himself advanced into the mid-space between the
two generals, and brought the right and left wings of the French
army into communication with one another. In two days after the
Emperor's arrival all the advantages of the Austrians were gone:
the French, so lately exposed to destruction, formed a
concentrated mass in the presence of a scattered enemy. The issue
of the campaign was decided by the movements of these two days.
Napoleon was again at the head of 150,000 men; the Archduke,
already baulked in his first attack upon Davoust, was seized with
unworthy terror when he found that Napoleon himself was before
him, and resigned himself to anticipations of ruin.</p>
<p>[Austrian defeats at Landshut and Eggm&uuml;hl, April 22.]</p>
<p>[French enter Vienna, May 13.]</p>
<p>A series of manoeuvres and engagements in the finest style of
Napoleonic warfare filled the next three days with French
victories and Austrian disasters. On April the 20th the long line
of the Archduke's army was cut in halves by an attack at
Abensberg. The left was driven across the Isar at Landshut; the
right, commanded by the Archduke himself, was overpowered at
Eggm&uuml;hl on the 22nd, and forced northwards. The unbroken
mass of the French army now thrust itself between the two
defeated wings of the enemy. The only road remaining open to the
Archduke was that through Ratisbon to the north of the Danube. In
five days, although no engagement of the first order had taken
place between the French and Austrian armies, Charles had lost
60,000 men; the mass of his army was retreating into Bohemia, and
the road to Vienna lay scarcely less open than after Mack's
capitulation at Ulm four years before. A desperate battle fought
against the advancing French at Edelsberg by the weak divisions
that had remained on the south of the Danube, proved that the
disasters of the campaign were due to the faults of the general,
not to the men whom he commanded. But whatever hopes of ultimate
success might still be based on the gallant temper of the army,
it was impossible to prevent the fall of the capital. The French,
leaving the Archduke on the north of the Danube, pressed forwards
along the direct route from the Inn to Vienna. The capital was
bombarded and occupied. On the 13th of May Napoleon again took up
his quarters in the palace of the Austrian monarchs where he had
signed the Peace of 1806. The divisions which had fallen back
before him along the southern road crossed the Danube at Vienna,
and joined the Archduke on the bank of the river opposite the
capital.</p>
<p>[Attempts of D&ouml;rnberg and Schill in Northern Germany,
April, 1809.]</p>
<p>The disasters of the Bavarian campaign involved the sacrifice
of all that had resulted from Austrian victories elsewhere, and
of all that might have been won by a general insurrection in
Northern Germany. In Poland and in Italy the war had opened
favourably for Austria. Warsaw had been seized; Eugene
Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, had been defeated by the
Archduke John at Sacile, in Venetia; but it was impossible to
pursue these advantages when the capital itself was on the point
of falling into the hands of the enemy. The invading armies
halted, and ere long the Archduke John commenced his retreat into
the mountains. In Northern Germany no popular uprising could be
expected when once Austria had been defeated. The only movements
that took place were undertaken by soldiers, and undertaken
before the disasters in Bavaria became known. The leaders in this
military conspiracy were D&ouml;rnberg, an officer in the service
of King Jerome of Westphalia, and Schill, the Prussian cavalry
leader who had so brilliantly distinguished himself in the
defence of Colberg. D&ouml;rnberg had taken service under Jerome
with the design of raising Jerome's own army against him. It had
been agreed by the conspirators that at the same moment
D&ouml;rnberg should raise the Hessian standard in Westphalia,
and Schill, marching from Berlin with any part of the Prussian
army that would follow him, should proclaim war against the
French in defiance of the Prussian Government. D&ouml;rnberg had
made sure of the support of his own regiment; but at the last
moment the plot was discovered, and he was transferred to the
command of a body of men upon whom he could not rely. He placed
himself at the head of a band of peasants, and raised the
standard of insurrection. King Jerome's troops met the
solicitations of their countrymen with a volley of bullets.
D&ouml;rnberg fled for his life; and the revolt ended on the day
after it had begun (April 23). Schill, unconscious of
D&ouml;rnberg's ruin, and deceived by reports of Austrian
victories upon the Danube, led out his regiment from Berlin as if
for a day's manoeuvring, and then summoned his men to follow him
in raising a national insurrection against Napoleon. The soldiers
answered Schill's eloquent words with shouts of applause; the
march was continued westwards, and Schill crossed the Elbe,
intending to fall upon the communications of Napoleon's army,
already, as he believed, staggering under the blows delivered by
the Archduke in the valley of the Danube.</p>
<p>[Schill at Stralsund, May 23.]</p>
<p>On reaching Halle, Schill learnt of the overthrow of the
Archduke and of D&ouml;rnberg's ruin in Westphalia. All hope of
success in the enterprise on which he had quitted Berlin was
dashed to the ground. The possibility of raising a popular
insurrection vanished. Schill, however, had gone too far to
recede; and even now it was not too late to join the armies of
Napoleon's enemies. Schill might move into Bohemia, or to some
point on the northern coast where he would be within reach of
English vessels. But in any case quick and steady decision was
necessary; and this Schill could not attain. Though brave even to
recklessness, and gifted with qualities which made him the idol
of the public, Schill lacked the disinterestedness and
self-mastery which calm the judgment in time of trial. The sudden
ruin of his hopes left him without a plan. He wasted day after
day in purposeless marches, while the enemy collected a force to
overwhelm him. His influence over his men became impaired; the
denunciations of the Prussian Government prevented other soldiers
from joining him. At length Schill determined to recross the
Elbe, and to throw himself into the coast town of Stralsund, in
Swedish Pomerania. He marched through Mecklenburg, and suddenly
appeared before Stralsund at moment when the French cannoneers in
garrison were firing a salvo in honour of Napoleon's entry into
Vienna. A hand-to-hand fight gave Schill possession of the town,
with all its stores. For a moment it seemed as if Stralsund might
become a second Saragossa; but the French were at hand before it
was possible to create works of defence. Schill had but eighteen
hundred men, half of whom were cavalry; he understood nothing of
military science, and would listen to no counsels. A week after
his entry into Stralsund the town was stormed by a force four
times more numerous than its defenders. Capitulation was no word
for the man who had dared to make a private war upon Napoleon;
Schill could only set the example of an heroic death. <a name=
"FNanchor159">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_159"><sup>[159]</sup></a>
The officers who were not so fortunate as to fall with their
leader were shot in cold blood, after trial by a French
court-martial. Six hundred common soldiers who surrendered were
sent to the galleys of Toulon to sicken among French thieves and
murderers. The cruelty of the conqueror, the heroism of the
conquered, gave to Schill's ill-planned venture the importance of
a great act of patriotic martyrdom. Another example had been
given of self-sacrifice in the just cause. Schill's faults were
forgotten; his memory deepened the passion with which all the
braver spirits of Germany now looked for the day of reckoning
with their oppressor. <a name="FNanchor160">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_160"><sup>[160]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Napoleon crosses the Danube, May 20.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Aspern, May 21, 22.]</p>
<p>Napoleon had finished the first act of the war of 1809 by the
occupation of Vienna; but no peace was possible until the
Austrian army, which lay upon the opposite bank of the river, had
been attacked and beaten. Four miles below Vienna the Danube is
divided into two streams by the island of Lobau: the southern
stream is the main channel of the river, the northern is only a
hundred and fifty yards broad. It was here that Napoleon
determined to make the passage. The broad arm of the Danube,
sheltered by the island from the enemy's fire, was easily bridged
by boats; the passage from the island to the northern bank,
though liable to be disputed by the Austrians, was facilitated by
the narrowing of the stream. On the 18th of May, Napoleon,
supposing himself to have made good the connection between the
island and the southern bank, began to bridge the northern arm of
the river. His movements were observed by the enemy, but no
opposition was offered. On the 20th a body of 40,000 French
crossed to the northern bank, and occupied the villages of Aspern
and Essling. This was the movement for which the Archduke
Charles, who had now 80,000 men under arms, had been waiting.
Early on the 21st a mass of heavily-laden barges was let loose by
the Austrians above the island. The waters of the Danube were
swollen by the melting of the snows, and at midday the bridges of
the French over the broad arm of the river were swept away. A
little later, dense Austrian columns were seen advancing upon the
villages of Aspern and Essling, where the French, cut off from
their supports, had to meet an overpowering enemy in front, with
an impassable river in their rear. The attack began at four in
the afternoon; when night fell the French had been driven out of
Aspern, though they still held the Austrians at bay in their
other position at Essling. During the night the long bridges were
repaired; forty thousand additional troops moved across the
island to the northern bank of the Danube; and the engagement was
renewed, now between equal numbers, on the following morning.
Five times the village of Aspern was lost and won. In the midst
of the struggle the long bridges were again carried away. Unable
to break the enemy, unable to bring up any new forces from
Vienna, Napoleon ordered a retreat. The army was slowly withdrawn
into the island of Lobau. There for the next two days it lay
without food and without ammunition, severed from Vienna, and
exposed to certain destruction if the Archduke could have thrown
his army across the narrow arm of the river and renewed the
engagement. But the Austrians were in no condition to follow up
their victory. Their losses were enormous; their stores were
exhausted. The moments in which a single stroke might have
overthrown the whole fabric of Napoleon's power were spent in
forced inaction. By the third day after the battle of Aspern the
communications between the island and the mainland were restored,
and Napoleon's energy had brought the army out of immediate
danger.</p>
<p>[Effect on Europe.]</p>
<p>[Brunswick invades Saxony.]</p>
<p>Nevertheless, although the worst was averted, and the French
now lay secure in their island fortress, the defeat of Aspern
changed the position of Napoleon in the eyes of all Europe. The
belief in his invincibility was destroyed; he had suffered a
defeat in person, at the head of his finest troops, from an enemy
little superior in strength to himself. The disasters of the
Austrians in the opening of the campaign were forgotten;
everywhere the hopes of resistance woke into new life. Prussian
statesmen urged their King to promise his support if Austria
should gain one more victory. Other enemies were ready to fall
upon Napoleon without waiting for this condition. England
collected an immense armament destined for an attack upon some
point of the northern coast. Germany, lately mute and nerveless,
gave threatening signs. The Duke of Brunswick, driven from his
inheritance after his father's death at Jena, invaded the
dominions of Napoleon's vassal, the King of Saxony, and expelled
him from his capital. Popular insurrections broke out in
W&uuml;rtemberg and in Westphalia, and proved the rising force of
national feeling even in districts where the cause of Germany
lately seemed so hopelessly lost.</p>
<p>[Napoleon's preparations for the second passage of the Danube,
June.]</p>
<p>[French cross the Danube, July 4.]</p>
<p>But Napoleon concerned himself little with these remoter
enemies. Every energy of his mind was bent to the one great issue
on which victory depended, the passage of the Danube. His chances
of success were still good, if the French troops watching the
enemy between Vienna and the Adriatic could be brought up in time
for the final struggle. The Archduke Charles was in no hurry for
a battle, believing that every hour increased the probability of
an attack upon Napoleon by England or Prussia, or insurgent
Germany. Never was the difference between Napoleon and his ablest
adversaries more strikingly displayed than in the work which was
accomplished by him during this same interval. He had determined
that in the next battle his army should march across the Danube
as safely and as rapidly as it could march along the streets of
Vienna. Two solid bridges were built on piles across the broad
arm of the river; no less than six bridges of rafts were made
ready to be thrown across the narrow arm when the moment arrived
for the attack. By the end of June all the outlying divisions of
the French army had gathered to the great rallying-point; a
hundred and eighty thousand men were in the island, or ready to
enter it; every movement, every position to be occupied by each
member of this vast mass in its passage and advance, was fixed
down to the minutest details. Napoleon had decided to cross from
the eastern, not from the northern side of the island, and thus
to pass outside the fortifications which the Archduke had erected
on the former battlefield. Towards midnight on the 4th of July,
in the midst of a violent storm, the six bridges were
successively swung across the river. The artillery opened fire.
One army corps after another, each drawn up opposite to its own
bridge, marched to the northern shore, and by sunrise nearly the
whole of Napoleon's force deployed on the left bank of the
Danube. The river had been converted into a great highway; the
fortifications which had been erected by the Archduke were turned
by the eastward direction of the passage. All that remained for
the Austrian commander was to fight a pitched battle on ground
that was now at least thoroughly familiar to him. Charles had
taken up a good position on the hills that look over the village
of Wagram. Here, with 130,000 men, he awaited the attack of the
French. The first attack was made in the afternoon after the
crossing of the river. It failed; and the French army lay
stretched during the night between the river and the hills, while
the Archduke prepared to descend upon their left on the morrow,
and to force himself between the enemy and the bridges behind
them.</p>
<p>[Battle of Wagram, July 5, 6.]</p>
<p>[Armistice of Zuaim, July 12.]</p>
<p>Early on the morning of the 6th the two largest armies that
had ever been brought face to face in Europe began their
onslaught. Spectators from the steeples of Vienna saw the fire of
the French little by little receding on their left, and dense
masses of the Austrians pressing on towards the bridges, on whose
safety the existence of the French army depended. But ere long
the forward movement stopped. Napoleon had thrown an overpowering
force against the Austrian centre, and the Archduke found himself
compelled to recall his victorious divisions and defend his own
threatened line. Gradually the superior numbers of the French
forced the enemy back. The Archduke John, who had been ordered up
from Presburg, failed to appear on the field; and at two o'clock
Charles ordered a retreat. The order of the Austrians was
unbroken; they had captured more prisoners than they had lost;
their retreat was covered by so powerful an artillery that the
French could make no pursuit. The victory was no doubt
Napoleon's, but it was a victory that had nothing in common with
Jena and Austerlitz. Nothing was lost by the Austrians at Wagram
but their positions and the reputation of their general. The army
was still in fighting-order, with the fortresses of Bohemia
behind it. Whether Austria would continue the war depended on the
action of the other European Powers. If Great Britain
successfully landed an armament in Northern Germany or dealt any
overwhelming blow in Spain, if Prussia declared war on Napoleon,
Austria might fight on. If the other Powers failed, Austria, must
make peace. The armistice of Zuaim, concluded on the 12th of
July, was recognised on all sides as a mere device to gain time.
There was a pause in the great struggle in the central Continent.
Its renewal or its termination depended upon the issue of events
at a distance.</p>
<p>[Wellesley invades Spain, June, 1809.]</p>
<p>[Talavera, July 27.]</p>
<p>[Wellesley retreats to Portugal.]</p>
<p>For the moment the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon the
British army in Spain. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who took command at
Lisbon in the spring, had driven Soult out of Oporto, and was
advancing by the valley of the Tagus upon the Spanish capital.
Some appearance of additional strength was given to him by the
support of a Spanish army under the command of General Cuesta.
Wellesley's march had, however, been delayed by the neglect and
bad faith of the Spanish Government, and time had been given to
Soult to collect a large force in the neighbourhood of Salamanca,
ready either to fall upon Wellesley from the north, or to unite
with another French army which lay at Talavera, if its commander,
Victor, had the wisdom to postpone an engagement. The English
general knew nothing of Soult's presence on his flank: he
continued his march towards Madrid along the valley of the Tagus,
and finally drew up for battle at Talavera, when Victor, after
retreating before Cuesta to some distance, hunted back his
Spanish pursuer to the point from which he had <a name=
"FNanchor161">started.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_161"><sup>[161]</sup></a> The first attack was made by
Victor upon the English positions at evening on the 27th of July.
Next morning the assault was renewed, and the battle became
general. Wellesley gained a complete victory, but the English
themselves suffered heavily, and the army remained in its
position. Within the next few days Soult was discovered to be
descending from the mountains between Salamanca and the Tagus. A
force superior to Wellesley's own threatened to close upon him
from the rear, and to hem him in between two fires. The
sacrifices of Talavera proved to have been made in vain.
Wellesley had no choice but to abandon his advance upon the
Spanish capital, and to fall back upon Portugal by the roads
south of the Tagus. In spite of the defeat of Victor, the French
were the winners of the campaign. Madrid was still secure; the
fabric of French rule in the Spanish Peninsula was still
unshaken. The tidings of Wellesley's retreat reached Napoleon and
the Austrian negotiators, damping the hopes of Austria, and
easing Napoleon's fears. Austria's continuance of the war now
depended upon the success or failure of the long-expected descent
of an English army upon the northern coast of Europe.</p>
<p>Three months before the Austrian Government declared war upon
Napoleon, it had acquainted Great Britain with its own plans, and
urged the Cabinet to dispatch an English force to Northern
Germany. Such a force, landing at the time of the battle of
Aspern, would certainly have aroused both Prussia and the country
between the Elbe and the Maine. But the difference between a
movement executed in time and one executed weeks and months too
late was still unknown at the English War Office. The Ministry
did not even begin their preparations till the middle of June,
and then they determined, in pursuance of a plan made some years
earlier, to attack the French fleet and docks at Antwerp, and to
ignore that patriotic movement in Northern Germany from which
they had so much to hope.</p>
<p>[British Expedition against Antwerp, July, 1809.]</p>
<p>[Total failure.]</p>
<p>On the 28th of July, two months after the battle of Aspern and
three weeks after the battle of Wagram, a fleet of thirty-seven
ships of the line, with innumerable transports and gunboats, set
sail from Dover for the Schelde. Forty thousand troops were on
board; the commander of the expedition was the Earl of Chatham, a
court-favourite in whom Nature avenged herself upon Great Britain
for what she had given to this country in his father and his
younger brother. The troops were landed on the island of
Walcheren. Instead of pushing forward to Antwerp with all
possible haste, and surprising it before any preparations could
be made for its defence, Lord Chatham placed half his army on the
banks of various canals, and with the other half proceeded to
invest Flushing. On the 16th of August this unfortunate town
surrendered, after a bombardment that had reduced it to a mass of
ruins. During the next ten days the English commander advanced
about as many miles, and then discovered that for all prospect of
taking Antwerp he might as well have remained in England. Whilst
Chatham was groping about in Walcheren, the fortifications of
Antwerp were restored, the fleet carried up the river, and a mass
of troops collected sufficient to defend the town against a
regular siege. Defeat stared the English in the face. At the end
of August the general recommended the Government to recall the
expedition, only leaving a force of 15,000 soldiers to occupy the
marshes of Walcheren. Chatham's recommendations were accepted;
and on a spot so notoriously pestiferous that Napoleon had
refused to permit a single French soldier to serve there on
garrison duty, <a name="FNanchor162">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_162"><sup>[162]</sup></a> an English army-corps, which
might at least have earned the same honour as Schill and
Brunswick in Northern Germany, was left to perish of fever and
ague. When two thousand soldiers were in their graves, the rest
were recalled to England.</p>
<p>[Austria makes peace.]</p>
<p>Great Britain had failed to weaken or to alarm Napoleon; the
King of Prussia made no movement on behalf of the losing cause;
and the Austrian Government unwillingly found itself compelled to
accept conditions of peace. It was not so much a deficiency in
its forces as the universal distrust of its generals that made it
impossible for Austria to continue the war. The soldiers had
fought as bravely as the French, but in vain. "If we had a
million soldiers," it was said, "we must make peace; for we have
no one to command them." Count Stadion, who was for carrying on
the war to the bitter end, despaired of throwing his own
energetic courage into the men who surrounded the Emperor, and
withdrew from public affairs. For week after week the Emperor
fluctuated between the acceptance of Napoleon's hard conditions
and the renewal of a struggle which was likely to involve his own
dethronement as well as the total conquest of the Austrian State.
At length Napoleon's demands were presented in the form of an
ultimatum. In his distress the Emperor's thoughts turned towards
the Minister who, eight years before, had been so strong, so
resolute, when all around him wavered. Thugut, now seventy-six
years old, was living in retirement. The Emperor sent one of his
generals to ask his opinion on peace or war. "I thought to find
him," reported the general, "broken in mind and body; but the
fire of his spirit is in its full force." Thugut's reply did
honour to his foresight: "Make peace at any price. The existence
of the Austrian monarchy is at stake: the dissolution of the
French Empire is not far off." On the 14th of October the Emperor
Francis accepted his conqueror's terms, and signed conditions of
peace. <a name="FNanchor163">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_163"><sup>[163]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Peace of Vienna, Oct. 14, 1809.]</p>
<p>[Real effects of the war of 1809.]</p>
<p>The Treaty of Vienna, the last which Napoleon signed as a
conqueror, took from the Austrian Empire 50,000 square miles of
territory and more than 4,000,000 inhabitants. Salzburg, with
part of Upper Austria, was ceded to Bavaria; Western Galicia, the
territory gained by Austria in the final partition of Poland, was
transferred to the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw; part of Carinthia, with
the whole of the country lying between the Adriatic and the Save
as far as the frontier of Bosnia, was annexed to Napoleon's own
Empire, under the title of the Illyrian Provinces. Austria was
cut off from the sea, and the dominion of Napoleon extended
without a break to the borders of Turkey. Bavaria and Saxony, the
outposts of French sovereignty in Central Europe, were enriched
at the expense of the Power which had called Germany to arms;
Austria, which at the beginning of the Revolutionary War had
owned territory upon the Rhine and exercised a predominating
influence over all Italy, seemed now to be finally excluded both
from Germany and the Mediterranean. Yet, however striking the
change of frontier which gave to Napoleon continuous dominion
from the Straits of Calais to the border of Bosnia, the victories
of France in 1809 brought in their train none of those great
moral changes which had hitherto made each French conquest a
stage in European progress. The campaign of 1796 had aroused the
hope of national independence in Italy; the settlements of 1801
and 1806 had put an end to Feudalism in Western Germany; the
victories of 1809 originated nothing but a change of frontier
such as the next war might obliterate and undo. All that was
permanent in the effects of the year 1809 was due, not to any new
creations of Napoleon, but to the spirit of resistance which
France had at length excited in Europe. The revolt of the Tyrol,
the exploits of Brunswick and Schill, gave a stimulus to German
patriotism which survived the defeat of Austria. Austria itself,
though overpowered, had inflicted a deadly injury upon Napoleon,
by withdrawing him from Spain at the moment when he might have
completed its conquest, and by enabling Wellesley to gain a
footing in the Peninsula. Napoleon appeared to have gathered a
richer spoil from the victories of 1809 than from any of his
previous wars; in reality he had never surrounded himself with so
many dangers. Russia was alienated by the annexation of West
Galicia to the Polish Grand Duchy of Warsaw; Northern Germany had
profited by the examples of courage and patriotism shown so
largely in 1809 on behalf of the Fatherland; Spain, supported by
Wellesley's army, was still far from submission. The old
indifference which had smoothed the way for the earlier French
conquests was no longer the characteristic of Europe. The
estrangement of Russia, the growth of national spirit in Germany
and in Spain, involved a danger to Napoleon's power which far
outweighed the visible results of his victory.</p>
<p>[Austria and the Tyrol.]</p>
<p>Austria itself could only acquiesce in defeat: nor perhaps
would the permanent interests of Europe have been promoted by its
success. The championship of Germany which it assumed at the
beginning of the war would no doubt have resulted in the
temporary establishment of some form of German union under
Austrian leadership, if the event of the war had been different;
but the sovereign of Hungary and Croatia could never be the true
head of the German people; and the conduct of the Austrian
Government after the peace of 1809 gave little reason to regret
its failure to revive a Teutonic Empire. No portion of the
Emperor's subjects had fought for him with such determined
loyalty as the Tyrolese. After having been the first to throw off
the yoke of the stranger, they had again and again freed their
country when Napoleon's generals supposed all resistance
overcome; and in return for their efforts the Emperor had
solemnly assured them that he would never accept a peace which
did not restore them to his Empire. If fair dealing was due
anywhere it was due from the Court of Austria to the Tyrolese.
Yet the only reward of the simple courage of these mountaineers
was that the war-party at head-quarters recklessly employed them
as a means of prolonging, hostilities after the armistice of
Znaim, and that up to the moment when peace was signed they were
left in the belief that the Emperor meant to keep his promise,
Austria, however, could not ruin herself to please the Tyrolese.
Circumstances were changed; and the phrases of patriotism which
had excited so much rejoicing at the beginning of the war were
now fallen out of fashion at Vienna. Nothing more was heard about
the rights of nations and the deliverance of Germany. Austria had
made a great venture and failed; and the Government rather
resumed than abandoned its normal attitude in turning its back
upon the professions of 1809.</p>
<p>[Austrian policy after 1809.]</p>
<p>[Metternich.]</p>
<p>Henceforward the policy of Austria was one of calculation,
untinged by national sympathies. France had been a cruel enemy;
yet if there was a prospect of winning something for Austria by a
French alliance, considerations of sentiment could not be allowed
to stand in the way. A statesman who, like Count Stadion, had
identified the interests of Austria with the liberation of
Germany, was no fitting helmsman for the State in the shifting
course that now lay before it. A diplomatist was called to power
who had hitherto by Napoleon's own desire represented the
Austrian State at Paris. Count Metternich, the new Chief
Minister, was the son of a Rhenish nobleman who had held high
office under the Austrian crown. His youth had been passed at
Coblentz, and his character and tastes were those which in the
eighteenth century had marked the court-circles of the little
Rhenish Principalities, French in their outer life, unconscious
of the instinct of nationality, polished and seductive in that
personal management which passed for the highest type of
statesmanship. Metternich had been ambassador at Dresden and at
Berlin before he went to Paris. Napoleon had requested that he
might be transferred to the Court of the Tuileries, on account of
the marked personal courtesy shown by Metternich to the French
ambassador at Berlin during the war between France and Austria in
1805. Metternich carried with him all the friendliness of
personal intercourse which Napoleon expected in him, but he also
carried with him a calm and penetrating self-possession, and the
conviction that Napoleon would give Europe no rest until his
power was greatly diminished. He served Austria well at Paris,
and in the negotiations for peace which followed the battle of
Wagram he took a leading part. After the disasters of 1809, when
war was impossible and isolation ruin, no statesman could so well
serve Austria as one who had never confessed himself the enemy of
any Power; and, with the full approval of Napoleon, the late
Ambassador at Paris was placed at the head of the Austrian
State.</p>
<p>[Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise, 1810.]</p>
<p>[Severance of Napoleon and Alexander.]</p>
<p>Metternich's first undertaking gave singular evidence of the
flexibility of system which was henceforward to guard Austria's
interests. Before the grass had grown over the graves at Wagram,
the Emperor Francis was persuaded to give his daughter in
marriage to Napoleon. For some time past Napoleon had determined
on divorcing Josephine and allying himself to one of the reigning
houses of the Continent. His first advances were made at St.
Petersburg; but the Czar hesitated to form a connection which his
subjects would view as a dishonour; and the opportunity was
seized by the less fastidious Austrians as soon as the fancies of
the imperial suitor turned towards Vienna. The Emperor Francis,
who had been bullied by Napoleon upon the field of Austerlitz,
ridiculed and insulted in every proclamation issued during the
late campaign, gave up his daughter for what was called the good
of his people, and reconciled himself to a son-in-law who had
taken so many provinces for his dowry. Peace had not been
proclaimed four months when the treaty was signed which united
the House of Bonaparte to the family of Marie Antoinette. The
Archduke Charles represented Napoleon in the espousals; the
Archbishop of Vienna anointed the bride with the same sacred oil
with which he had consecrated the banners of 1809; the servile
press which narrated the wedding festivities found no space to
mention that the Emperor's bravest subject, the Tyrolese leader
Hofer, was executed by Napoleon as a brigand in the interval
between the contract and the celebration of the marriage. Old
Austrian families, members of the only aristocracy upon the
Continent that still possessed political weight and a political
tradition, lamented the Emperor's consent to a union which their
prejudices called a mis-alliance, and their consciences an
adultery; but the object of Metternich was attained. The
friendship between France and Russia, which had inflicted so much
evil on the Continent since the Peace of Tilsit, was dissolved;
the sword of Napoleon was turned away from Austria for at least
some years; the restoration of the lost provinces of the Hapsburg
seemed not impossible, now that Napoleon and Alexander were left
face to face in Europe, and the alliance of Austria had become so
important to the power which had hitherto enriched itself at
Austria's expense.</p>
<p>[Napoleon annexes Papal States, May, 1809.]</p>
<p>Napoleon crowned his new bride, and felt himself at length the
equal of the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons. Except in Spain, his
arms were no longer resisted upon the Continent, and the period
immediately succeeding the Peace of Vienna was that which brought
the Napoleonic Empire to its widest bounds. Already, in the pride
of the first victories of 1809, Napoleon had completed his
aggressions upon the Papal sovereignty by declaring the
Ecclesiastical States to be united to the French Empire (May 17,
1809). The Pope retorted upon his despoiler with a Bull of
Excommunication; but the spiritual terrors were among the least
formidable of those then active in Europe, and the sanctity of
the Pontiff did not prevent Napoleon's soldiers from arresting
him in the Quirinal, and carrying him as a prisoner to Savona.
Here Pius VII., was detained for the next three years. The Roman
States received the laws and the civil organisation of <a name=
"FNanchor164">France.</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_164"><sup>[164]</sup></a> Bishops and clergy who
refused the oath of fidelity to Napoleon were imprisoned or
exiled; the monasteries and convents were dissolved; the
cardinals and great officers, along with the archives and the
whole apparatus of ecclesiastical rule, were carried to Paris. In
relation to the future of European Catholicism, the breach
between Napoleon and Pius VII., was a more important event than
was understood at the time; its immediate and visible result was
that there was one sovereign the fewer in Europe, and one more
province opened to the French conscription.</p>
<p>[Napoleon annexes, Holland, July, 1810.]</p>
<p>The next of Napoleon's vassals who lost his throne was the
King of Holland. Like Joseph in Spain, and like Murat in Naples,
Louis Bonaparte had made an honest effort to govern for the
benefit of his subjects. He had endeavoured to lighten the
burdens which Napoleon laid upon the Dutch nation, already
deprived of its colonies, its commerce, and its independence; and
every plea which Louis had made for his subjects had been treated
by Napoleon as a breach of duty towards himself. The offence of
the unfortunate King of Holland became unpardonable when he
neglected to enforce the orders of Napoleon against the admission
of English goods. Louis was summoned to Paris, and compelled to
sign a treaty, ceding part of his dominions and placing his
custom-houses in the hands of French officers. He returned to
Holland, but affairs grew worse and worse. French troops overran
the country; Napoleon's letters were each more menacing than the
last; and at length Louis fled from his dominions (July 1, 1810),
and delivered himself from a royalty which had proved the most
intolerable kind of servitude. A week later Holland was
incorporated with the French Empire.</p>
<p>[Annexation of Le Valais, and of the North German coast.]</p>
<p>Two more annexations followed before the end of the year. The
Republic of the Valais was declared to have neglected the duty
imposed upon it of repairing the road over the Simplon, and
forfeited its independence. The North German coast district,
comprising the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, and part of the Kingdom of
Westphalia, was annexed to the French Empire, with the alleged
object of more effectually shutting out British goods from the
ports of the Elbe and the Weser. Hamburg, however, and most of
the territory now incorporated with France, had been occupied by
French troops ever since the war of 1806, and the legal change in
its position scarcely made its subjection more complete. Had the
history of this annexation been written by men of the
peasant-class, it would probably have been described in terms of
unmixed thankfulness and praise. In the Decree introducing the
French principle of the free tenure of land, thirty-six distinct
forms of feudal service are enumerated, as abolished without
compensation. <a name="FNanchor165">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_165"><sup>[165]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Extent of Napoleon's Empire and Dependencies, 1810.]</p>
<p>Napoleon's dominion had now reached its widest bounds. The
frontier of the Empire began at L&uuml;beck on the Baltic,
touched the Rhine at Wesel, and followed the river and the Jura
mountains to the foot of the Lake of Geneva; then, crossing the
Alps above the source of the Rhone, it ran with the rivers Sesia
and Po to a point nearly opposite Mantua, mounted to the
watershed of the Apennines, and descended to the Mediterranean at
Terracina. The late Ecclesiastical States were formed into the
two Departments of the Tiber and of Trasimene; Tuscany, also
divided into French Departments, and represented in the French
Legislative Body, gave the title of Archduchess and the
ceremonial of a Court to Napoleon's sister Eliza; the Kingdom of
Italy, formed by Lombardy, Venice, and the country east of the
Apennines as far south as Ascoli, belonged to Napoleon himself,
but was not constitutionally united with the French Empire. On
the east of the Adriatic the Illyrian Provinces extended
Napoleon's rule to the borders of Bosnia and Montenegro. Outside
the frontier of this great Empire an order of feudatories ruled
in Italy, in Germany, and in Poland. Murat, King of Naples, and
the client-princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, holding all
Germany up to the frontiers of Prussia and Austria, as well as
the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw, were nominally sovereigns within their
own dominions; but they held their dignities at Napoleon's
pleasure, and the population and revenues of their States were at
his service.</p>
<p>[Benefits of Napoleon's rule.]</p>
<p>[Wrongs of Napoleon's rule.]</p>
<p>[Commercial blockade.]</p>
<p>The close of the year 1810 saw the last changes effected which
Europe was destined to receive at the hands of Napoleon. The
fabric of his sovereignty was raised upon the ruins of all that
was obsolete and forceless upon the western Continent; the
benefits as well as the wrongs or his supremacy were now seen in
their widest operation. All Italy, the northern districts of
Germany which were incorporated with the Empire, and a great part
of the Confederate Territory of the Rhine, received in the Code
Napoleon a law which, to an extent hitherto unknown in Europe,
brought social justice into the daily affairs of life. The
privileges of the noble, the feudal burdens of the peasant, the
monopolies of the guilds, passed away, in most instances for
ever. The comfort and improvement of mankind were vindicated as
the true aim of property by the abolition of the devices which
convert the soil into an instrument of family pride, and by the
enforcement of a fair division of inheritances among the children
of the possessor. Legal process, both civil and criminal, was
brought within the comprehension of ordinary citizens, and
submitted to the test of publicity. These were among the fruits
of an earlier enlightenment which Napoleon's supremacy bestowed
upon a great part of Europe. The price which was paid for them
was the suppression of every vestige of liberty, the
conscription, and the Continental blockade. On the whole, the
yoke was patiently borne. The Italians and the Germans of the
Rhenish Confederacy cared little what Government they obeyed;
their recruits who were sent to be killed by the Austrians or the
Spaniards felt it no especial hardship to fight Napoleon's
battles. More galling was the pressure of Napoleon's commercial
system and of the agencies by which he attempted to enforce it.
In the hope of ruining the trade of Great Britain, Napoleon
spared no severity against the owners of anything that had
touched British hands, and deprived the Continent of its entire
supply of colonial produce, with the exception of such as was
imported at enormous charges by traders licensed by himself. The
possession of English goods became a capital offence. In the
great trading towns a system of permanent terrorism was put in
force against the merchants. Soldiers ransacked their houses;
their letters were opened; spies dogged their steps. It was in
Hamburg, where Davoust exercised a sort of independent
sovereignty, that the violence and injustice of the Napoleonic
commercial system was seen in its most repulsive form; in the
greater part of the Empire it was felt more in the general
decline of trade and in a multitude of annoying privations than
in acts of obtrusive cruelty. <a name="FNanchor166">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_166"><sup>[166]</sup></a> The French were themselves
compelled to extract sugar from beetroot, and to substitute
chicory for coffee; the Germans, less favoured by nature, and
less rapid in adaptation, thirsted and sulked. Even in such
torpid communities as Saxony political discontent was at length
engendered by bodily discomfort. Men who were proof against all
the patriotic exaltation of Stein and Fichte felt that there must
be something wrong in a system which sent up the price of coffee
to five shillings a pound, and reduced the tobacconist to
exclusive dependence upon the market-gardener.</p>
<p>[The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's commercial system, Dec.,
1810.]</p>
<p>[France and Russia preparing for war, 1811.]</p>
<p>It was not, however, by its effects upon Napoleon's German
vassals that the Continental system contributed to the fall of
its author. Whatever the discontent of these communities, they
obeyed Napoleon as long as he was victorious, and abandoned him
only when his cause was lost. Its real political importance lay
in the hostility which it excited between France and Russia. The
Czar, who had attached himself to Napoleon's commercial system at
the Peace of Tilsit, withdrew from it in the year succeeding the
Peace of Vienna. The trade of the Russian Empire had been ruined
by the closure of its ports to British vessels and British goods.
Napoleon had broken his promise to Russia by adding West Galicia
to the Polish Duchy of Warsaw; and the Czar refused to sacrifice
the wealth of his subjects any longer in the interest of an
insincere ally. At the end of the year 1810 an order was
published at St. Petersburg, opening the harbours of Russia to
all ships bearing a neutral flag, and imposing a duty upon many
of the products of France. This edict was scarcely less than a
direct challenge to the French Emperor. Napoleon exaggerated the
effect of his Continental prohibitions upon English traffic. He
imagined that the command of the European coast-line, and nothing
short of this, would enable him to exhaust his enemy; and he was
prepared to risk a war with Russia rather than permit it to
frustrate his long-cherished hopes. Already in the Austrian
marriage Napoleon had marked the severance of his interests from
those of Alexander. An attempted compromise upon the affairs of
Poland produced only new alienation and distrust; an open affront
was offered to Alexander in the annexation of the Duchy of
Oldenburg, whose sovereign was a member of his own family. The
last event was immediately followed by the publication of the new
Russian tariff. In the spring of 1811 Napoleon had determined
upon war. With Spain still unsubdued, he had no motive to hurry
on hostilities; Alexander on his part was still less ready for
action; and the forms of diplomatic intercourse were in
consequence maintained for some time longer at Paris and St.
Petersburg. But the true nature of the situation was shown by the
immense levies that were ordered both in France and Russia; and
the rest of the year was spent in preparations for the campaign
which was destined to decide the fate of Europe.</p>
<p>[Affairs in Spain and Portugal, 1809-1812.]</p>
<p>[Lines of Torres Vedras, 1809-1810.]</p>
<p>We have seen that during the period of more than two years
that elapsed between the Peace of Vienna and the outbreak of war
with Russia, Napoleon had no enemy in arms upon the Continent
except in the Spanish Peninsula. Had the Emperor himself taken up
the command in Spain, he would probably within a few months have
crushed both the Spanish armies and their English ally. A fatal
error in judgment made him willing to look on from a distance
whilst his generals engaged with this last foe. The disputes with
the Pope and the King of Holland might well have been adjourned
for another year; but Napoleon felt no suspicions that the
conquest of the Spanish Peninsula was too difficult a task for
his marshals; nor perhaps would it have been so if Wellington had
been like any of the generals whom Napoleon had himself
encountered. The French forces in the Peninsula numbered over
300,000 men: in spite of the victory of Talavera, the English had
been forced to retreat into Portugal. But the warfare of
Wellington was a different thing from that even of the best
Austrian or Russian commanders. From the time of the retreat from
Talavera he had foreseen that Portugal would be invaded by an
army far outnumbering his own; and he planned a scheme of defence
as original, as strongly marked with true military insight, as
Napoleon's own most daring schemes of attack. Behind Lisbon a
rugged mountainous tract stretches from the Tagus to the sea:
here, while the English army wintered in the neighbourhood of
Almeida, Wellington employed thousands of Portuguese labourers in
turning the promontory into one vast fortress. No rumour of the
operation was allowed to reach the enemy. A double series of
fortifications, known as the Lines of Torres Vedras, followed the
mountain-bastion on the north of Lisbon, and left no single point
open between the Tagus and the sea. This was the barrier to which
Wellington meant in the last resort to draw his assailants,
whilst the country was swept of everything that might sustain an
invading army, and the irregular troops of Portugal closed in
upon its rear. <a name="FNanchor167">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_167"><sup>[167]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Retreat of Massena, 1810-11.]</p>
<p>[Massena's campaign against Wellington, 1810.]</p>
<p>In June, 1810, Marshal Massena, who had won the highest
distinction at Aspern and Wagram, arrived in Spain, and took up
the command of the army destined for the conquest of Portugal.
Ciudad Rodrigo was invested: Wellington, too weak to effect its
relief, too wise to jeopardise his army for the sake of Spanish
praise, lay motionless while this great fortress fell into the
hands of the invader. In September, the French, 70,000 strong,
entered Portugal. Wellington retreated down the valley of the
Mondego, devastating the country. At length he halted at Busaco
and gave battle (September 27). The French were defeated; the
victory gave the Portuguese full confidence in the English
leader; but other roads were open to the invader, and Wellington
continued his retreat. Massena followed, and heard for the first
time of the fortifications of Torres Vedras when he was within
five days' march of them. On nearing the mountain-barrier,
Massena searched in vain for an unprotected point. Fifty thousand
English and Portuguese regular troops, besides a multitude of
Portuguese militia, were collected behind the lines; with the
present number of the French an assault was hopeless. Massena
waited for reinforcements. It was with the utmost difficulty that
he could keep his army from starving; at length, when the country
was utterly exhausted, he commenced his retreat (Nov. 14).
Wellington descended from the heights, but his marching force was
still too weak to risk a pitched battle. Massena halted and took
post at Santarem, on the Tagus. Here, and in the neighbouring
valley of the Zezere, he maintained himself during the winter.
But in March, 1811, reinforcements arrived from England:
Wellington moved forward against his enemy, and the retreat of
the French began in real earnest. Massena made his way
northwards, hard pressed by the English, and devastating the
country with merciless severity in order to retard pursuit. Fire
and ruin marked the track of the retreating army; but such were
the sufferings of the French themselves, both during the invasion
and the retreat, that when Massena re-entered Spain, after a
campaign in which only one pitched battle had been fought, his
loss exceeded 30,000 men.</p>
<p>[Soult conquers Spain as far as Cadiz.]</p>
<p>[Wellington's campaign of 1811.]</p>
<p>Other French armies, in spite of a most destructive guerilla
warfare, were in the meantime completing the conquest of the
south and the east of Spain. Soult captured Seville, and began to
lay siege to Cadiz. Here, at the end of 1810, an order reached
him from Napoleon to move to the support of Massena. Leaving
Victor in command at Cadiz, Soult marched northwards, routed the
Spaniards, and conquered the fortress of Badajoz, commanding the
southern road into Portugal. Massena, however, was already in
retreat, and Soult's own advance was cut short by intelligence
that Graham, the English general in Cadiz, had broken out upon
the besiegers and inflicted a heavy defeat. Soult returned to
Cadiz and resumed the blockade. Wellington, thus freed from
danger of attack from the south, and believing Massena to be
thoroughly disabled, considered that the time had come for a
forward movement into Spain. It was necessary for him to capture
the fortresses of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo on the northern
road, and to secure his own communications with Portugal by
wresting back Badajoz from the French. He left a small force to
besiege Almeida, and moved to Elvas to make arrangements with
Beresford for the siege of Badajoz. But before the English
commander had deemed it possible, the energy of Massena had
restored his troops to efficiency; and the two armies of Massena
and Soult were now ready to assail the English on the north and
the south. Massena marched against the corps investing Almeida.
Wellington hastened back to meet him, and fought a battle at
Fuentes d'Onoro. The French were defeated; Almeida passed into
the hands of the English. In the south, Soult advanced to the
relief of Badajoz. He was overthrown by Beresford in the bloody
engagement of Albuera (May 16th); but his junction with the army
of the north, which was now transferred from Massena to Marmont,
forced the English to raise the siege; and Wellington, after
audaciously offering battle to the combined French armies,
retired within the Portuguese frontier, and marched northwards
with the design of laying siege to Ciudad Rodrigo. Again
outnumbered by the French, he was compelled to retire to
cantonments on the Coa.</p>
<p>[Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, Jan. 19, 1812.]</p>
<p>[Capture of Badajoz, April 6.]</p>
<p>Throughout the autumn months, which were spent in forced
inaction, Wellington held patiently to his belief that the French
would be unable to keep their armies long united, on account of
the scarcity of food. His calculations were correct, and at the
close of the year 1811 the English were again superior in the
field. Wellington moved against Ciudad Rodrigo, and took it by
storm on the 19th of January, 1812. The road into Spain was
opened; it only remained to secure Portugal itself by the capture
of Badajoz. Wellington crossed the Tagus on the 8th of March, and
completed the investment of Badajoz ten days later. It was
necessary to gain possession of the city, at whatever cost,
before Soult could advance to its relief. On the night of the 6th
of April Wellington gave orders for the assault. The fury of the
attack, the ferocity of the English soldiers in the moment of
their victory, have made the storm of Badajoz conspicuous amongst
the most terrible events of war. But the purpose of Wellington
was effected; the base of the English army in Portugal was
secured from all possibility of attack; and at the moment when
Napoleon was summoning his veteran regiments from beyond the
Pyrenees for the invasion of Russia, the English commander,
master of the frontier fortresses of Spain, was preparing to
overwhelm the weakened armies in the Peninsula, and to drive the
French from Madrid.</p>
<p>[Wellington invades Spain, June 1812.]</p>
<p>[Salamanca, July 22.]</p>
<p>[Wellington retires to Portugal.]</p>
<p>It was in the summer of 1812, when Napoleon was now upon the
point of opening the Russian campaign, that Wellington advanced
against Marmont's positions in the north of Spain and the French
lines of communication with the capital. Marmont fell back and
allowed Wellington to pass Salamanca; but on reaching the Douro
he turned upon his adversary, and by a succession of swift and
skilful marches brought the English into some danger of losing
their communications with Portugal. Wellington himself now
retreated as far as Salamanca, and there gave battle (July 22). A
decisive victory freed the English army from its peril, and
annihilated all the advantages gained by Marmont's strategy and
speed. The French were so heavily defeated that they had to fall
back on Burgos. Wellington marched upon Madrid. At his approach
King Joseph fled from the capital, and ordered Soult to evacuate
Andalusia, and to meet him at Valencia, on the eastern coast.
Wellington entered Madrid amidst the wild rejoicing of the
Spaniards, and then turned northwards to complete the destruction
of the army which he had beaten at Salamanca. But the hour of his
final success was not yet come. His advance upon Madrid, though
wise as a political measure, had given the French northern army
time to rally. He was checked by the obstinate defence of Burgos;
and finding the French strengthened by the very abandonment of
territory which his victory had forced upon them, he retired to
Portugal, giving to King Joseph a few months' more precarious
enjoyment of his vassal-sovereignty before his final and
irrevocable overthrow.</p>
<p>[The war excites a constitutional movement in Spain.]</p>
<p>In Spain itself the struggle of the nation for its
independence had produced a political revolution as little
foreseen by the Spaniards as by Napoleon himself when the
conflict began. When, in 1808, the people had taken up arms for
its native dynasty, the voices of those who demanded a reform in
the abuses of the Bourbon government had scarcely been heard amid
the tumult of loyal enthusiasm for Ferdinand. There existed,
however, a group of liberally-minded men in Spain; and as soon as
the invasion of the French and the subsequent successes of the
Spaniards had overthrown both the old repressive system of the
Bourbons and that which Napoleon attempted to put in its place,
the opinions of these men, hitherto scarcely known outside the
circle of their own acquaintances, suddenly became a power in the
country through the liberation of the press. Jovellanos, an
upright and large-minded statesman, who had suffered a long
imprisonment in the last reign in consequence of his labours in
the cause of progress, now represented in the Central Junta the
party of constitutional reform. The Junta itself acted with but
little insight or sincerity. A majority of its members neither
desired nor understood the great changes in government which
Jovellanos advocated; yet the Junta itself was an irregular and
revolutionary body, and was forced to appeal to the nation in
order to hold its ground against the old legal Councils of the
monarchy, which possessed not only a better formal right, but all
the habits of authority. The victories of Napoleon at the end of
1808, and the threatening attitude both of the old official
bodies and of the new provincial governments which had sprung up
in every part of the kingdom, extorted from the Junta in the
spring of 1809 a declaration in favour of the assembling of the
Cortes, or National Parliament, in the following year. Once made,
the declaration could not be nullified or withdrawn. It was in
vain that the Junta, alarmed at the progress of popular opinions,
restored the censorship of the press, and attempted to suppress
the liberal journals. The current of political agitation swept
steadily on; and before the end of the year 1809 the conflict of
parties, which Spain was henceforward to experience in common
with the other Mediterranean States, had fairly begun. <a name=
"FNanchor168">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_168"><sup>[168]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Spanish Liberals in 1809 and 1810.]</p>
<p>The Spanish Liberals of 1809 made the same attack upon
despotic power, and upheld the same theories of popular right, as
the leaders of the French nation twenty years before. Against
them was ranged the whole force of Spanish officialism, soon to
be supported by the overwhelming power of the clergy. In the
outset, however, the Liberals carefully avoided infringing on the
prerogatives of the Church. Thus accommodating its policy to the
Catholic spirit of the nation, the party of reform gathered
strength throughout the year 1809, as disaster after disaster
excited the wrath of the people against both the past and the
present holders of power. It was determined by the Junta that the
Cortes should assemble on the 1st of March, 1810. According to
the ancient usage of Spain, each of the Three Estates, the
Clergy, the Nobles, and the Commons, would have been represented
in the Cortes by a separate assembly. The opponents of reform
pressed for the maintenance of this medi&aelig;val order, the
Liberals declared for a single Chamber; the Junta, guided by
Jovellanos, adopted a middle course, and decided that the higher
clergy and nobles should be jointly represented by one Chamber,
the Commons by a second. Writs of election had already been
issued, when the Junta, driven to Cadiz by the advance of the
French armies, and assailed alike by Liberals, by reactionists,
and by city mobs, ended its ineffective career, and resigned its
powers into the hands of a Regency composed of five persons (Jan.
30, 1810). Had the Regency immediately taken steps to assemble
the Cortes, Spain would probably have been content with the
moderate reforms which two Chambers, formed according to the
plans of Jovellanos, would have been likely to sanction. The
Regency, however, preferred to keep power in its own hands and
ignored the promise which the Junta had given to the nation. Its
policy of obstruction, which was continued for months after the
time when the Cortes ought to have assembled, threw the Liberal
party into the hands of men of extremes, and prepared the way for
revolution instead of reform. It was only when the report reached
Spain that Ferdinand was about to marry the daughter of King
Joseph, and to accept the succession to the Spanish crown from
the usurper himself, that the Regency consented to convoke the
Cortes. But it was now no longer possible to create an Upper
House to serve as a check upon the popular Assembly. A single
Chamber was elected, and elected in great part within the walls
of Cadiz itself; for the representatives of districts where the
presence of French soldiery rendered election impossible were
chosen by refugees from those districts within Cadiz, amid the
tumults of political passion which stir a great city in time of
war and revolution.</p>
<p>[Constitution made by the Cortes, 1812.]</p>
<p>On the 24th of September, 1810, the Cortes opened. Its first
act was to declare the sovereignty of the people, its next act to
declare the freedom of the Press. In every debate a spirit of
bitter hatred towards the old system of government and of deep
distrust towards Ferdinand himself revealed itself in the
speeches of the Liberal deputies, although no one in the Assembly
dared to avow the least want of loyalty towards the exiled House.
The Liberals knew how passionate was the love of the Spanish
people for their Prince; but they resolved that, if Ferdinand
returned to his throne, he should return without the power to
revive the old abuses of Bourbon rule. In this spirit the
Assembly proceeded to frame a Constitution for Spain. The Crown
was treated as the antagonist and corrupter of the people; its
administrative powers were jealously reduced; it was confronted
by an Assembly to be elected every two years, and the members of
this Assembly were prohibited both from holding office under the
Crown, and from presenting themselves for re-election at the end
of their two years' service. To a Representative Body thus
excluded from all possibility of gaining any practical
acquaintance with public affairs was entrusted not only the right
of making laws, but the control of every branch of government.
The executive was reduced to a mere cypher.</p>
<p>[The Clergy against the Constitution.]</p>
<p>Such was the Constitution which, under the fire of the French
artillery now encompassing Cadiz, the Cortes of Spain proclaimed
in the spring of the year 1812. Its principles had excited the
most vehement opposition within the Assembly itself; by the
nation, or at least that part of it which was in communication
with Cadiz, it appeared to be received with enthusiasm. The
Liberals, who had triumphed over their opponents in the debates
in the Assembly, believed that their own victory was the victory
of the Spanish people over the forces of despotism. But before
the first rejoicings were over, ominous signs appeared of the
strength of the opposite party, and of the incapacity of the
Liberals themselves to form any effective Government. The
fanaticism of the clergy was excited by a law partly ratifying
the suppression of monasteries begun by Joseph Bonaparte; the
enactments of the Cortes regarding the censorship of religious
writings threw the Church into open revolt. In declaring the
freedom of the Press, the Cortes had expressly guarded themselves
against extending this freedom to religious discussion; the
clergy now demanded the restoration of the powers of the
Inquisition, which had been in abeyance since the beginning of
the war. The Cortes were willing to grant to the Bishops the
right of condemning any writing as heretical, and they were
willing to enforce by means of the ordinary tribunals the law
which declared the Catholic religion to be the only one permitted
in Spain; but they declined to restore the jurisdiction of the
Holy Office (Feb., 1813). Without this engine for the suppression
of all mental independence the priesthood of Spain conceived its
cause to be lost. The anathema of the Church went out against the
new order. Uniting with the partisans of absolutism, whom
Wellington, provoked by the extravagances of the Liberals, now
took under his protection, the clergy excited an ignorant people
against its own emancipators, and awaited the time when the
return of Ferdinand, and a combination of all the interests
hostile to reform, should overthrow the Constitution which the
Liberals fondly imagined to have given freedom to Spain.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_X.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c10">CHAPTER X.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>War approaching between France and Russia-Policy of
Prussia-Hardenberg's Ministry-Prussia forced into Alliance with
Napoleon-Austrian Alliance- Napoleon's Preparations-He enters
Russia-Alexander and Bernadotte-Plan of the Russians to fight a
Battle at Drissa frustrated-They retreat on Witepsk-Sufferings of
the French-French enter Smolensko-Battle of Borodino-Evacuation
of Moscow-Moscow fired-The Retreat from Moscow-The French at
Smolensko-Advance of Russian Armies from North and South- Battle
of Krasnoi-Passage of the Beresina-The French reach the Niemen-
York's Convention with the Russians-The Czar and Stein-Russian
Army enters Prussia-Stein raises East Prussia-Treaty of
Kalisch-Prussia declares War-Enthusiasm of the Nation-Idea of
German Unity-The Landwehr.</p>
<br>

<p>[Austria and Prussia in 1811.]</p>
<p>[Hardenberg's Ministry.]</p>
<p>War between France and Russia was known to be imminent as
early as the spring of 1811. The approach of the conflict was
watched with the deepest anxiety by the two States of central
Europe which still retained some degree of independence. The
Governments of Berlin and Vienna had been drawn together by
misfortune. The same ultimate deliverance formed the secret hope
of both; but their danger was too great to permit them to combine
in open resistance to Napoleon's will. In spite of a tacit
understanding between the two powers, each was compelled for the
present to accept the conditions necessary to secure its own
existence. The situation of Prussia in especial was one of the
utmost danger. Its territory lay directly between the French
Empire and Russia; its fortresses were in the hands of Napoleon,
its resources were certain to be seized by one or other of the
hostile armies. Neutrality was impossible, however much desired
by Prussia itself; and the only question to be decided by the
Government was whether Prussia should enter the war as the ally
of France or of Russia. Had the party of Stein been in power,
Prussia would have taken arms against Napoleon at every risk.
Stein, however, was in exile his friends, though strong in the
army, were not masters of the Government; the foreign policy of
the country was directed by a statesman who trusted more to time
and prudent management than to desperate resolves. Hardenberg had
been recalled to office in 1810, and permitted to resume the
great measures of civil reform which had been broken off two
years before. The machinery of Government was reconstructed upon
principles that had been laid down by Stein; agrarian reform was
carried still farther by the abolition of peasant's service, and
the partition of peasant's land between the occupant and his
lord; an experiment, though a very ill-managed one, was made in
the forms of constitutional Government by the convocation of
three successive assemblies of the Notables. On the part of the
privileged orders Hardenberg encountered the most bitter
opposition; his own love of absolute power prevented him from
winning popular confidence by any real approach towards a
Representative System. Nor was the foreign policy of the Minister
of a character to excite enthusiasm. A true patriot at heart, he
seemed at times to be destitute of patriotism, when he was in
fact only destitute of the power to reveal his real motives.</p>
<p>[Hardenburg's foreign policy, 1811.]</p>
<p>Convinced that Prussia could not remain neutral in the coming
war, and believing some relief from its present burdens to be
absolutely necessary, Hardenberg determined in the first instance
to offer Prussia's support to Napoleon, demanding in return for
it a reduction of the payments still due to France, and the
removal of the limits imposed upon the Prussian army. <a name=
"FNanchor169">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_169"><sup>[169]</sup></a>
The offer of the Prussian alliance reached Napoleon in the spring
of 1811: he maintained an obstinate silence. While the Prussian
envoy at Paris vainly waited for an audience, masses of troops
advanced from the Rhine towards the Prussian frontier, and the
French garrisons on the Oder were raised far beyond their
stipulated strength. In July the envoy returned from Paris,
announcing that Napoleon declined even to enter upon a discussion
of the terms proposed by Hardenberg. King Frederick William now
wrote to the Czar, proposing an alliance between Prussia and
Russia. It was not long before the report of Hardenberg's
military preparations reached Paris. Napoleon announced that if
they were not immediately suspended he should order Davoust to
march on Berlin; and he presented a counter-proposition for a
Prussian alliance, which was in fact one of unqualified
submission. The Government had to decide between accepting a
treaty which placed Prussia among Napoleon's vassals, or certain
war. Hardenberg, expecting favourable news from St. Petersburg,
pronounced in favour of war; but the Czar, though anxious for the
support of Prussia, had determined on a defensive plan of
operations, and declared that he could send no troops beyond the
Russian frontier.</p>
<p>[Prussia accepts alliance with Napoleon Feb, 1812.]</p>
<p>Prussia was thus left to face Napoleon alone. Hardenberg
shrank from the responsibility of proclaiming a war for life or
death, and a treaty was signed which added the people of
Frederick the Great to that inglorious crowd which fought at
Napoleon's orders against whatever remained of independence and
nationality in Europe. <a name="FNanchor170">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_170"><sup>[170]</sup></a> (Feb. 24th, 1812.) Prussia
undertook to supply Napoleon with 20,000 men for the impending
campaign, and to raise no levies and to give no orders to its
troops without Napoleon's consent. Such was the bitter
termination of all those patriotic hopes and efforts which had
carried Prussia through its darkest days. Hardenberg himself
might make a merit of bending before the storm, and of preserving
for Prussia the means of striking when the time should come; but
the simpler instincts of the patriotic party felt his submission
to be the very surrender of national existence. Stein in his
exile denounced the Minister with unsparing bitterness.
Scharnhorst resigned his post; many of the best officers in the
Prussian army quitted the service of King Frederick William in
order to join the Russians in the last struggle for European
liberty.</p>
<p>[Alliance of Austria with Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The alliance which Napoleon pressed upon Austria was not of
the same humiliating character as that which Prussia was forced
to accept. Both Metternich and the Emperor Francis would have
preferred to remain neutral, for the country was suffering from a
fearful State-bankruptcy, and the Government had been compelled
to reduce its paper money, in which all debts and salaries were
payable, to a fifth of its nominal value. Napoleon, however,
insisted on Austria's co-operation. The family-relations of the
two Emperors pointed to a close alliance, and the reward which
Napoleon held out to Austria, the restoration of the Illyrian
provinces, was one of the utmost value. Nor was the Austrian
contingent to be treated, like the Prussian, as a mere French
army-corps. Its operations were to be separate from those of the
French, and its command was to be held by an Austrian general,
subordinate only to Napoleon himself. On these terms Metternich
was not unwilling to enter the campaign. He satisfied his
scruples by inventing a strange diplomatic form in which Austria
was still described as a neutral, although she took part in the
war, <a name="FNanchor171">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_171"><sup>[171]</sup></a> and felt as little
compunction in uniting with France as in explaining to the Courts
of St. Petersburg and Berlin that the union was a hypocritical
one. The Sovereign who was about to be attacked by Napoleon, and
the Sovereigns who sent their troops to Napoleon's support,
perfectly well understood one another's position. The Prussian
corps, watched and outnumbered by the French, might have to fight
the Russians because they could not help it; the Austrians,
directed by their own commander, would do no serious harm to the
Russians so long as the Russians did no harm to them. Should the
Czar succeed in giving a good account of his adversary, he would
have no difficulty in coming to a settlement with his adversary's
forced allies.</p>
<p>[Preparations of Napoleon for invasion of Russia.]</p>
<p>The Treaties which gave to Napoleon the hollow support of
Austria and Prussia were signed early in the year 1812. During
the next three months all Northern Germany was covered with
enormous masses of troops and waggon-trains, on their way from
the Rhine to the Vistula. No expedition had ever been organised
on anything approaching to the scale of the invasion of Russia.
In all the wars of the French since 1793 the enemy's country had
furnished their armies with supplies, and the generals had
trusted to their own exertions for everything but guns and
ammunition. Such a method could not, however, be followed in an
invasion of Russia. The country beyond the Niemen was no
well-stocked garden, like Lombardy or Bavaria. Provisions for a
mass of 450,000 men, with all the means of transport for carrying
them far into Russia, had to be collected at Dantzig and the
fortresses of the Vistula. No mercy was shown to the unfortunate
countries whose position now made them Napoleon's harvest-field
and storehouse. Prussia was forced to supplement its military
assistance with colossal grants of supplies. The whole of
Napoleon's troops upon the march through Germany lived at the
expense of the towns and villages through which they passed; in
Westphalia such was the ruin caused by military requisitions that
King Jerome wrote to Napoleon, warning him to fear the despair of
men who had nothing more to lose. <a name="FNanchor172">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_172"><sup>[172]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Napoleon crosses Russian frontier, June, 1812.]</p>
<p>[Alexander and Bernadotte.]</p>
<p>At length the vast stores were collected, and the invading
army reached the Vistula. Napoleon himself quitted Paris on the
9th of May, and received the homage of the Austrian and Prussian
Sovereigns at Dresden. The eastward movement of the army
continued. The Polish and East Prussian districts which had been
the scene of the combats of 1807 were again traversed by French
columns. On the 23rd of June the order was given to cross the
Niemen and enter Russian territory. Out of 600,000 troops whom
Napoleon had organised for this campaign, 450,000 were actually
upon the frontier. Of these, 380,000 formed the central army,
under Napoleon's own command, at Kowno, on the Niemen; to the
north, at Tilsit, there was formed a corps of 32,000, which
included the contingent furnished by Prussia; the Austrians,
under Schwarzenburg, with a small French division, lay to the
south, on the borders of Galicia. Against the main army of
Napoleon, the real invading force, the Russians could only bring
up 150,000 men. These were formed into the First and Second
Armies of the West. The First, or Northern Army, with which the
Czar himself was present, numbered about 100,000, under the
command of Barclay de Tolly; the Second Army, half that strength,
was led by Prince Bagration. In Southern Poland and on the Lower
Niemen the French auxiliary corps were faced by weak divisions.
In all, the Russians had only 220,000 men to oppose to more than
double that number of the enemy. The principal reinforcements
which they had to expect were from the armies hitherto engaged
with the Turks upon the Danube. Alexander found it necessary to
make peace with the Porte at the cost of a part of the spoils of
Tilsit. The Danubian provinces, with the exception of Bessarabia,
were restored to the Sultan, in order that Russia might withdraw
its forces from the south. Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden,
who was threatened with the loss of his own dominions in the
event of Napoleon's victory, concluded an alliance with the Czar.
In return for the co-operation of a Swedish army, Alexander
undertook, with an indifference to national right worthy of
Napoleon himself, to wrest Norway from Denmark, and to annex it
to the Swedish crown.</p>
<p>[Russians intend to fight at Drissa.]</p>
<p>[Russian armies severed, and retreat on Witepsk.]</p>
<p>The head-quarters of the Russian army were at Wilna when
Napoleon crossed the Niemen. It was unknown whether the French
intended to advance upon Moscow or upon St. Petersburg; nor had
any systematic plan of the campaign been adopted by the Czar. The
idea of falling back before the enemy was indeed familiar in
Russia since the war between Peter the Great and Charles XII. of
Sweden, and there was no want of good counsel in favour of a
defensive warfare; <a name="FNanchor173">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_173"><sup>[173]</sup></a> but neither the Czar nor any
one of his generals understood the simple theory of a retreat in
which no battles at all should be fought. The most that was
understood by a defensive system was the occupation of an
entrenched position for battle, and a retreat to a second line of
entrenchments before the engagement was repeated. The actual
course of the campaign was no result of a profound design; it
resulted from the disagreements of the general's plans, and the
frustration of them all. It was intended in the first instance to
fight a battle at Drissa, on the river Dwina. In this position,
which was supposed to cover the roads both to Moscow and St.
Petersburg, a great entrenched camp had been formed, and here the
Russian army was to make its first stand against Napoleon.
Accordingly, as soon as the French crossed the Niemen, both
Barclay and Bagration were ordered by the Czar to fall back upon
Drissa. But the movements of the French army were too rapid for
the Russian commanders to effect their junction. Bagration, who
lay at some distance to the south, was cut off from his
colleague, and forced to retreat along the eastern road towards
Witepsk. Barclay reached Drissa in safety, but he knew himself to
be unable to hold it alone against 300,000 men. He evacuated the
lines without waiting for the approach of the French, and fell
back in the direction taken by the second army. The first
movement of defence had thus failed, and the Czar now quitted the
camp, leaving to Barclay the command of the whole Russian
forces.</p>
<p>[Collapse of the French transport.]</p>
<p>[Barclay and Bagration unite at Smolensko, Aug. 3.]</p>
<p>Napoleon entered Wilna, the capital of Russian Poland, on the
28th of June. The last Russian detachments had only left it a few
hours before; but the French were in no condition for immediate
pursuit. Before the army reached the Niemen the unparalleled
difficulties of the campaign had become only too clear. The vast
waggon-trains broke down on the highways. The stores were
abundant, but the animals which had to transport them died of
exhaustion. No human genius, no perfection of foresight and care,
could have achieved the enormous task which Napoleon had
undertaken. In spite of a year's preparations the French suffered
from hunger and thirst from the moment that they set foot on
Russian soil. Thirty thousand stragglers had left the army before
it reached Wilna; twenty-five thousand sick were in the
hospitals; the transports were at an unknown distance in the
rear. At the end of six days' march from the Niemen, Napoleon
found himself compelled to halt for nearly three weeks. The army
did not leave Wilna till the 16th of July, when Barclay had
already evacuated the camp at Drissa. When at length a march
became possible, Napoleon moved upon the Upper Dwina, hoping to
intercept Barclay upon the road to Witepsk; but difficulties of
transport again brought him to a halt, and the Russian commander
reached Witepsk before his adversary. Here Barclay drew up for
battle, supposing Bagration's army to be but a short distance to
the south. In the course of the night intelligence arrived that
Bagration's army was nowhere near the rallying-point, but had
been driven back towards Smolensko. Barclay immediately gave up
the thought of fighting a battle, and took the road to Smolensko
himself, leaving his watch-fires burning. His movement was
unperceived by the French; the retreat was made in good order;
and the two severed Russian armies at length effected their
junction at a point three hundred miles distant from the
frontier.</p>
<p>[The French waste away.]</p>
<p>[French enter Smolensko, Aug. 18.]</p>
<p>[Barclay superseded by Kutusoff.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, disappointed of battle, entered Witepsk on the
evening after the Russians had abandoned it (July 28). Barclay's
escape was, for the French, a disaster of the first magnitude,
since it extinguished all hope of crushing the larger of the two
Russian armies by overwhelming numbers in one great and decisive
engagement. The march of the French during the last twelve days
showed at what cost every further step must be made. Since
quitting Wilna the 50,000 sick and stragglers had risen to
100,000. Fever and disease struck down whole regiments. The
provisioning of the army was beyond all human power. Of the
200,000 men who still remained, it might almost be calculated in
how many weeks the last would perish. So fearful was the prospect
that Napoleon himself thought of abandoning any further advance
until the next year, and of permitting the army to enter into
winter-quarters upon the Dwina. But the conviction that all
Russian resistance would end with the capture of Moscow hurried
him on. The army left Witepsk on the 13th of August, and followed
the Russians to Smolensko. Here the entire Russian army clamoured
for battle. Barclay stood alone in perceiving the necessity for
retreat. The generals caballed against him; the soldiers were on
the point of mutiny; the Czar himself wrote to express his
impatience for an attack upon the French. Barclay nevertheless
persisted in his resolution to abandon Smolensko. He so far
yielded to the army as to permit the rearguard to engage in a
bloody struggle with the French when they assaulted the town; but
the evacuation was completed under cover of night; and when the
French made their entrance into Smolensko on the next morning
they found it deserted and in rums. The surrender of Smolensko
was the last sacrifice that Barclay could extort from Russian
pride. He no longer opposed the universal cry for battle, and the
retreat was continued only with the intention of halting at the
first strong position. Barclay himself was surveying a
battleground when he heard that the command had been taken out of
his hands. The Czar had been forced by national indignation at
the loss of Smolensko to remove this able soldier, who was a
Livonian by birth, and to transfer the command to Kutusotff, a
thorough Russian, whom a life-time spent in victories over the
Turk had made, in spite of his defeat at Austerlitz, the idol of
the nation.</p>
<p>[The French advance from Smolensko.]</p>
<p>When Kutusoff reached the camp, the prolonged miseries of the
French advance had already reduced the invaders to the number of
the army opposed to them. As far as Smolensko the French had at
least not suffered from the hostility of the population, who were
Poles, not Russians; but on reaching Smolensko they entered a
country where every peasant was a fanatical enemy. The villages
were burnt down by their inhabitants, the corn destroyed, and the
cattle driven into the woods. Every day's march onward from
Smolensko cost the French three thousand men. On reaching the
river Moskwa in the first week of September, a hundred and
seventy-five thousand out of Napoleon's three hundred and eighty
thousand soldiers were in the hospitals, or missing, or dead.
About sixty thousand guarded the line of march. The Russians, on
the other hand, had received reinforcements which covered their
losses at Smolensko; and although detachments had been sent to
support the army of Riga, Kutusoff was still able to place over
one hundred thousand men in the field.</p>
<p>[Battle of Borodino, Sept. 7.]</p>
<p>[Evacuation of Moscow. French enter Moscow, Sept. 14.]</p>
<p>On the 5th of September the Russian army drew up for battle at
Borodino, on the Moskwa, seventy miles west of the capital. At
early morning on the 7th the French advanced to the attack. The
battle was, in proportion to its numbers, the most sanguinary of
modern times. Forty thousand French, thirty thousand Russians
were struck down. At the close of the day the French were in
possession of the enemy's ground, but the Russians, unbroken in
their order, had only retreated to a second line of defence. Both
sides claimed the victory; neither had won it. It was no
catastrophe such as Napoleon required for the decision of the
war, it was no triumph sufficient to save Russia from the
necessity of abandoning its capital. Kutusoff had sustained too
heavy a loss to face the French beneath the walls of Moscow.
Peace was no nearer for the 70,000 men who had been killed or
wounded in the fight. The French steadily advanced; the Russians
retreated to Moscow, and evacuated the capital when their
generals decided that they could not encounter the French
assault. The Holy City was left undefended before the invader.
But the departure of the army was the smallest part of the
evacuation. The inhabitants, partly of their own free will,
partly under the compulsion of the Governor, abandoned the city
in a mass. No gloomy or excited crowd, as at Vienna and Berlin,
thronged the streets to witness the entrance of the great
conqueror, when on the 14th of September Napoleon took possession
of Moscow. His troops marched through silent and deserted
streets. In the solitude of the Kremlin Napoleon received the
homage of a few foreigners, who alone could be collected by his
servants to tender to him the submission of the city.</p>
<p>[Moscow fired.]</p>
<p>But the worst was yet to come. On the night after Napoleon's
entry, fires broke out in different parts of Moscow. They were
ascribed at first to accident; but when on the next day the
French saw the flames gaining ground in every direction, and
found that all the means for extinguishing fire had been removed
from the city, they understood the doom to which Moscow had been
devoted by its own defenders. Count Rostopchin, the governor, had
determined on the destruction of Moscow without the knowledge of
the Czar. The doors of the prisons were thrown open. Rostopchin
gave the signal by setting fire to his own palace, and let loose
his bands of incendiaries over the city. For five days the flames
rose and fell; and when, on the evening of the 20th, the last
fires ceased, three-fourths of Moscow lay in ruins.</p>
<p>[Napoleon at Moscow, Sept. 14-Oct. 19.]</p>
<p>Such was the prize for which Napoleon had sacrificed 200,000
men, and engulfed the weak remnant of his army six hundred miles
deep in an enemy's country. Throughout all the terrors of the
advance Napoleon had held fast to the belief that Alexander's
resistance would end with the fall of his capital. The events
that accompanied the entry of the French into Moscow shook his
confidence; yet even now Napoleon could not believe that the Czar
remained firm against all thoughts of peace. His experience in
all earlier wars had given him confidence in the power of one
conspicuous disaster to unhinge the resolution of kings. His
trust in the deepening impression made by the fall of Moscow was
fostered by negotiations begun by Kutusoff for the very purpose
of delaying the French retreat. For five weeks Napoleon remained
at Moscow as if spell-bound, unable to convince himself of his
powerlessness to break Alexander's determination, unable to face
a retreat which would display to all Europe the failure of his
arms and the termination of his career of victory. At length the
approach of winter forced him to action. It was impossible to
provision the army at Moscow during the winter months, even if
there had been nothing to fear from the enemy. Even the mocking
overtures of Kutusoff had ceased. The frightful reality could no
longer be concealed. On the 19th of October the order for retreat
was given. It was not the destruction of Moscow, but the
departure of its inhabitants, that had brought the conqueror to
ruin. Above two thousand houses were still standing; but whether
the buildings remained or perished made little difference; the
whole value of the capital to Napoleon was lost when the
inhabitants, whom he could have forced to procure supplies for
his army, disappeared. Vienna and Berlin had been of such
incalculable service to Napoleon because the whole native
administration placed itself under his orders, and every rich and
important citizen became a hostage for the activity of the rest.
When the French gained Moscow, they gained nothing beyond the
supplies which were at that moment in the city. All was lost to
Napoleon when the class who in other capitals had been his
instruments fled at his approach. The conflagration of Moscow
acted upon all Europe as a signal of inextinguishable national
hatred; as a military operation, it neither accelerated the
retreat of Napoleon nor added to the miseries which his army had
to undergo.</p>
<p>[Napoleon leaves Moscow, Oct. 19.]</p>
<p>[Forced to retreat by the same road.]</p>
<p>The French forces which quitted Moscow in October numbered
about 100,000 men. Reinforcements had come in during the
occupation of the city, and the health of the soldiers had been
in some degree restored by a month's rest. Everything now
depended upon gaining a line of retreat where food could be
found. Though but a fourth part of the army which entered Russia
in the summer, the army which left Moscow was still large enough
to protect itself against the enemy, if allowed to retreat
through a fresh country; if forced back upon the devastated line
of its advance it was impossible for it to escape destruction.
Napoleon therefore determined to make for Kaluga, on the south of
Moscow, and to endeavour to gain a road to Smolensko far distant
from that by which he had come. The army moved from Moscow in a
southern direction. But its route had been foreseen by Kutusoff.
At the end of four days' march it was met by a Russian corps at
Jaroslavitz. A bloody struggle left the French in possession of
the road: they continued their advance; but it was only to find
that Kutusoff, with his full strength, had occupied a line of
heights farther south, and barred the way to Kaluga. The effort
of an assault was beyond the powers of the French. Napoleon
surveyed the enemy's position, and recognised the fatal necessity
of abandoning the march southwards and returning to the wasted
road by which he had advanced. The meaning of the backward
movement was quickly understood by the army. From the moment of
quitting Jaroslavitz, disorder and despair increased with every
march. Thirty thousand men were lost upon the road before a
pursuer appeared in sight. When, on the 2nd of November, the army
reached Wiazma, it numbered no more than 65,000 men.</p>
<p>[Kutusoff follows by parallel road.]</p>
<p>Kutusoff was unadventurous in pursuit. The necessity of moving
his army along a parallel road south of the French, in order to
avoid starvation, diminished the opportunities for attack; but
the general himself disliked risking his forces, and preferred to
see the enemy's destruction effected by the elements. At Wiazma,
where, on the 3rd of November, the French were for the first time
attacked in force, Kutusoff's own delay alone saved them from
total ruin. In spite of heavy loss the French kept possession of
the road, and secured their retreat to Smolensko, where stores of
food had been accumulated, and where other and less exhausted
French troops were at hand.</p>
<p>[Frost, Nov. 6.]</p>
<p>[French reach Smolensko, Nov. 9.]</p>
<p>Up to the 6th of November the weather had been sunny and dry.
On the 6th the long-delayed terrors of Russian winter broke upon
the pursuers and the pursued. Snow darkened the air and hid the
last traces of vegetation from the starving cavalry trains. The
temperature sank at times to forty degrees of frost. Death came,
sometimes in the unfelt release from misery, sometimes in
horrible forms of mutilation and disease. Both armies were
exposed to the same sufferings; but the Russians had at least
such succour as their countrymen could give; where the French
sank, they died. The order of war disappeared under conditions
which made life itself the accident of a meal or of a place by
the camp-fire. Though most of the French soldiery continued to
carry their arms, the Guard alone kept its separate formation;
the other regiments marched in confused masses. From the 9th to
the 13th of November these starving bands arrived one after
another at Smolensko, expecting that here their sufferings would
end. But the organisation for distributing the stores accumulated
in Smolensko no longer existed. The perishing crowds were left to
find shelter where they could; sacks of corn were thrown to them
for food.</p>
<p>[Russian armies from north and south attempt to cut off French
retreat.]</p>
<p>[Krasnoi, Nov. 17.]</p>
<p>It was impossible for Napoleon to give his wearied soldiers
rest, for new Russian armies were advancing from the north and
the south to cut off their retreat. From the Danube and from the
Baltic Sea troops were pressing forward to their meeting-point
upon the rear of the invader. Witgenstein, moving southwards at
the head of the army of the Dwina, had overpowered the French
corps stationed upon that river, and made himself master of
Witepsk. The army of Bucharest, which had been toiling northwards
ever since the beginning of August, had advanced to within a few
days' march of its meeting-point with the army of the Dwina upon
the line of Napoleon's communications. Before Napoleon reached
Smolensko he sent orders to Victor, who was at Smolensko with
some reserves, to march against Witgenstein and drive him back
upon the Dwina. Victor set out on his mission. During the short
halt of Napoleon in Smolensko, Kutusoff pushed forward to the
west of the French, and took post at Krasnoi, thirty miles
farther along the road by which Napoleon had to pass. The retreat
of the French seemed to be actually cut off. Had the Russian
general dared to face Napoleon and his Guards, he might have held
the French in check until the arrival of the two auxiliary armies
from the north and south enabled him to capture Napoleon and his
entire force. Kutusoff, however, preferred a partial and certain
victory to a struggle with Napoleon for life or death. He
permitted Napoleon and the Guard to pass by unattacked, and then
fell upon the hinder divisions of the French army. (Nov. 17.)
These unfortunate troops were successively cut to pieces.
Twenty-six thousand were made prisoners. Ney, with a part of the
rear-guard, only escaped by crossing the Dnieper on the ice. Of
the army that had quitted Moscow there now remained but 10,000
combatants and 20,000 followers. Kutusoff himself was brought to
such a state of exhaustion that he could carry the pursuit no
further, and entered into quarters upon the Dnieper.</p>
<p>[Victor joins Napoleon.]</p>
<p>[Passage of the Beresina, Nov. 28th.]</p>
<p>It was a few days after the battle at Krasnoi that the
divisions of Victor, coming from the direction of the Dwina,
suddenly encountered the remnant of Napoleon's army. Though aware
that Napoleon was in retreat, they knew nothing of the calamities
that had befallen him, and were struck with amazement when, in
the middle of a forest, they met with what seemed more like a
miserable troop of captives than an army upon the march. Victor's
soldiers of a mere auxiliary corps found themselves more than
double the effective strength of the whole army of Moscow. Their
arrival again placed Napoleon at the head of 30,000 disciplined
troops, and gave the French a gleam of victory in the last and
seemingly most hopeless struggle in the campaign. Admiral
Tchitchagoff, in command of the army marching from the Danube,
had at length reached the line of Napoleon's retreat, and
established himself at Borisov, where the road through Poland
crosses the river Beresina. The bridge was destroyed by the
Russians, and Tchitchagoff opened communication with
Witgenstein's army, which lay only a few miles to the north. It
appeared as if the retreat of the French was now finally
intercepted, and the surrender of Napoleon inevitable. Yet even
in this hopeless situation the military skill and daring of the
French worked with something of its ancient power. The army
reached the Beresina; Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing the enemy
from the real point of passage; bridges were thrown across the
river, and after desperate fighting a great part of the army made
good its footing upon the western bank (Nov. 28). But the losses
even among the effective troops were enormous. The fate of the
miserable crowd that followed them, torn by the cannon-fire of
the Russians, and precipitated into the river by the breaking of
one of the bridges, has made the passage of the Beresina a
synonym for the utmost degree of human woe.</p>
<p>[French reach the Niemen, Dec. 13.]</p>
<p>This was the last engagement fought by the army. The Guards
still preserved their order: Marshal Ney still found soldiers
capable of turning upon the pursuer with his own steady and
unflagging courage; but the bulk of the army struggled forward in
confused crowds, harassed by the Cossacks, and laying down their
arms by thousands before the enemy. The frost, which had broken
up on the 19th, returned on the 30th of November with even
greater severity. Twenty thousand fresh troops which joined the
army between the Beresina and Wilna scarcely arrested the process
of dissolution. On the 3rd of December Napoleon quitted the army.
Wilna itself was abandoned with all its stores; and when at
length the fugitives reached the Niemen, they numbered little
more than twenty thousand. Here, six months earlier, three
hundred and eighty thousand men had crossed with Napoleon. A
hundred thousand more had joined the army in the course of its
retreat. Of all this host, not the twentieth part reached the
Prussian frontier. A hundred and seventy thousand remained
prisoners in the hands of the Russians; a greater number had
perished. Of the twenty thousand men who now beheld the Niemen,
probably not seven thousand had crossed with Napoleon. In the
presence of a catastrophe so overwhelming and so unparalleled the
Russian generals might well be content with their own share in
the work of destruction. Yet the event proved that Kutusoff had
done ill in sparing the extremest effort to capture or annihilate
his foe. Not only was Napoleon's own escape the pledge of
continued war, but the remnant that escaped with him possessed a
military value out of all proportion to its insignificant
numbers. The best of the army were the last to succumb. Out of
those few thousands who endured to the end, a very large
proportion were veteran officers, who immediately took their
place at the head of Napoleon's newly-raised armies, and gave to
them a military efficiency soon to be bitterly proved by Europe
on many a German battle-field.</p>
<p>[York's convention with the Russians, Dec. 30.]</p>
<p>[York and the Prussian contingent at Riga.]</p>
<p>Four hundred thousand men were lost to a conqueror who could
still stake the lives of half a million more. The material power
of Napoleon, though largely, was not fatally diminished by the
Russian campaign; it was through its moral effect, first proved
in the action of Prussia, that the retreat from Moscow created a
new order of things in Europe. The Prussian contingent, commanded
by General von York, lay in front of Riga, where it formed part
of the French subsidiary army-corps led by Marshal Macdonald.
Early in November the Russian governor of Riga addressed himself
to York, assuring him that Napoleon was ruined, and soliciting
York himself to take up arms against Macdonald. <a name=
"FNanchor174">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_174"><sup>[174]</sup></a>
York had no evidence, beyond the word of the Russian commander,
of the extent of Napoleon's losses; and even if the facts were as
stated, it was by no means clear that the Czar might not be
inclined to take vengeance on Prussia on account of its alliance
with Napoleon. York returned a guarded answer to the Russian, and
sent an officer to Wilna to ascertain the real state of the
French army. On the 8th of December the officer returned, and
described what he had himself seen. Soon afterwards the Russian
commandant produced a letter from the Czar, declaring his
intention to deal with Prussia as a friend, not as an enemy. On
these points all doubt was removed; York's decision was thrown
upon himself. York was a rigid soldier of the old Prussian type,
dominated by the idea of military duty. The act to which the
Russian commander invited him, and which the younger officers
were ready to hail as the liberation of Prussia, might be branded
by his sovereign as desertion and treason. Whatever scruples and
perplexity might be felt in such a situation by a loyal and
obedient soldier were felt by York. He nevertheless chose the
course which seemed to be for his country's good; and having
chosen it, he accepted all the consequences which it involved. On
the 30th of December a convention was signed at Tauroggen, which,
under the guise of a truce, practically withdrew the Prussian
army from Napoleon, and gave the Russians possession of
K&ouml;nigsberg. The momentous character of the act was
recognised by Napoleon as soon as the news reached Paris. York's
force was the strongest military body upon the Russian frontier;
united with Macdonald, it would have forced the Russian pursuit
to stop at the Niemen; abandoning Napoleon, it brought his
enemies on to the Vistula, and threatened incalculable danger by
its example to all the rest of Germany. For the moment, however,
Napoleon could count upon the spiritless obedience of King
Frederick William. In the midst of the French regiments that
garrisoned Berlin, the King wrote orders pronouncing York's
convention null and void, and ordering York himself to be tried
by court-martial. The news reached the loyal soldier: he received
it with grief, but maintained his resolution to act for his
country's good. "With bleeding heart," he wrote, "I burst the
bond of obedience, and carry on the war upon my own
responsibility. The army desires war with France; the nation
desires it; the King himself desires it, but his will is not
free. The army must make his will free."</p>
<p>[The Czar and Stein.]</p>
<p>[Alexander enters Prussia, Jan., 1813.]</p>
<p>York's act was nothing less than the turning-point in Prussian
history. Another Prussian, at this great crisis of Europe, played
as great, though not so conspicuous, a part. Before the outbreak
of the Russian war, the Czar had requested the exile Stein to
come to St. Petersburg to aid him with his counsels during the
struggle with Napoleon. Stein gladly accepted the call; and
throughout the campaign he encouraged the Czar in the resolute
resistance which the Russian nation itself required of its
Government. So long as French soldiers remained on Russian soil,
there was indeed little need for a foreigner to stimulate the
Czar's energies; but when the pursuit had gloriously ended on the
Niemen, the case became very different. Kutusoff and the generals
were disinclined to carry the war into Germany. The Russian army
had itself lost three-fourths of its numbers; Russian honour was
satisfied; the liberation of Western Europe might be left to
Western Europe itself. Among the politicians who surrounded
Alexander, there were a considerable number, including the first
minister Romanzoff, who still believed in the good policy of a
French alliance. These were the influences with which Stein had
to contend, when the question arose whether Russia should rest
satisfied with its own victories, or summon all Europe to unite
in overthrowing Napoleon's tyranny. No record remains of the
stages by which Alexander's mind rose to the clear and firm
conception of a single European interest against Napoleon;
indications exist that it was Stein's personal influence which
most largely affected his decision. Even in the darkest moments
of the war, when the forces of Russia seemed wholly incapable of
checking Napoleon's advance, Stein had never abandoned his scheme
for raising the German nation against Napoleon. The confidence
with which he had assured Alexander of ultimate victory over the
invader had been thoroughly justified; the triumph which he had
predicted had come with a rapidity and completeness even
surpassing his hopes. For a moment Alexander identified himself
with the statesman who, in the midst of Germany's humiliation,
had been so resolute, so far-sighted, so aspiring. <a name=
"FNanchor175">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_175"><sup>[175]</sup></a>
The minister of the peace-party was dismissed: Alexander ordered
his troops to advance into Prussia, and charged Stein himself to
assume the government of the Prussian districts occupied by
Russian armies. Stein's mission was to arm the Landwehr, and to
gather all the resources of the country for war against France;
his powers were to continue until some definite arrangement
should be made between the King of Prussia and the Czar.</p>
<p>[Stein's commission from Alexander.]</p>
<p>[Province of East Prussia arms, Jan., 1813.]</p>
<p>Armed with this commission from a foreign sovereign, Stein
appeared at K&ouml;nigsberg on the 22nd of January, 1813, and
published an order requiring the governor of the province of East
Prussia to convoke an assembly for the purpose of arming the
people. Stein would have desired York to appear as President of
the Assembly; but York, like most of the Prussian officials, was
alarmed and indignant at Stein's assumption of power in Prussia
as the representative of the Russian Czar, and hesitated to
connect himself with so revolutionary a measure as the arming of
the people. It was only upon condition that Stein himself should
not appear in the Assembly that York consented to recognise its
powers. The Assembly met. York entered the house, and spoke a few
soul-stirring words. His undisguised declaration of war with
France was received with enthusiastic cheers. A plan for the
formation of a Landwehr, based on Scharnhorst's plans of 1808,
was laid before the Assembly, and accepted. Forty thousand men
were called to arms in a province which included nothing west of
the Vistula. The nation itself had begun the war, and left its
Government no choice but to follow. Stein's task was fulfilled;
and he retired to the quarters of Alexander, unwilling to mar by
the appearance of foreign intervention the work to which the
Prussian nation had now committed itself beyond power of recall.
It was the fortune of the Prussian State, while its King
dissembled before the French in Berlin, to possess a soldier
brave enough to emancipate its army, and a citizen bold enough to
usurp the government of its provinces. Frederick William forgave
York his intrepidity; Stein's action was never forgiven by the
timid and jealous sovereign whose subjects he had summoned to arm
themselves for their country's deliverance.</p>
<p>[Policy of Hardenberg.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Kalisch, Feb. 27.]</p>
<p>The Government of Berlin, which since the beginning of the
Revolutionary War had neither been able to fight, nor to deceive,
nor to be honest, was at length forced by circumstances into a
certain effectiveness in all three forms of action. In the
interval between the first tidings of Napoleon's disasters and
the announcement of York's convention with the Russians,
Hardenberg had been assuring Napoleon of his devotion, and
collecting troops which he carefully prevented from joining him.
<a name="FNanchor176">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_176"><sup>[176]</sup></a> The desire of the King was
to gain concessions without taking part in the war either against
Napoleon or on his side. When, however, the balance turned more
decidedly against Napoleon, he grew bolder; and the news of
York's defection, though it seriously embarrassed the Cabinet for
the moment, practically decided it in favour of war with France.
The messenger who was sent to remove York from his command
received private instructions to fall into the hands of the
Russians, and to inform the Czar that, if his troops advanced as
far as the Oder, King Frederick William would be ready to
conclude an alliance. Every post that arrived from East Prussia
strengthened the warlike resolutions of the Government. At length
the King ventured on the decisive step of quitting Berlin and
placing himself at Breslau (Jan. 25). At Berlin he was in the
power of the French; at Breslau he was within easy reach of
Alexander. The significance of the journey could not be mistaken:
it was immediately followed by open preparation for war with
France. On February 3rd there appeared an edict inviting
volunteers to enrol themselves: a week later all exemptions from
military service were abolished, and the entire male population
of Prussia between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four was
declared liable to serve. General Knesebeck was sent to the
headquarters of the Czar, which were now between Warsaw and
Kalisch, to conclude a treaty of alliance. Knesebeck demanded
securities for the restoration to Prussia of all the Polish
territory which it had possessed before 1806; the Czar, unwilling
either to grant this condition or to lose the Prussian alliance,
kept Knesebeck at his quarters, and sent Stein with a Russian
plenipotentiary to Breslau to conclude the treaty with Hardenberg
himself. Stein and Hardenberg met at Breslau on the 26th of
February. Hardenberg accepted the Czar's terms, and the treaty,
known as the Treaty of Kalisch, <a name="FNanchor177">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_177"><sup>[177]</sup></a> was signed on the
following day. By this treaty, without guaranteeing the
restoration of Prussian Poland, Russia undertook not to lay down
its arms until the Prussian State as a whole was restored to the
area and strength which it had possessed before 1806. For this
purpose annexations were promised in Northern Germany. With
regard to Poland, Russia promised no more than to permit Prussia
to retain what it had received in 1772, together with a strip of
territory to connect this district with Silesia. The meaning of
the agreement was that Prussia should abandon to Russia the
greater part of its late Polish provinces, and receive an
equivalent German territory in its stead. The Treaty of Kalisch
virtually surrendered to the Czar all that Prussia had gained in
the partitions of Poland made in 1793 and in 1795. The sacrifice
was deemed a most severe one by every Prussian politician, and
was accepted only as a less evil than the loss of Russia's
friendship, and a renewed submission to Napoleon. No single
statesman, not even Stein himself, appears to have understood
that in exchanging its Polish conquests for German annexations,
in turning to the German west instead of to the alien Slavonic
east, Prussia was in fact taking the very step which made it the
possible head of a future united Germany.</p>
<p>[French retreat to the Elbe.]</p>
<p>War was still undeclared upon Napoleon by King Frederick
William, but throughout the month of February the light cavalry
of the Russians pushed forward unhindered through Prussian
territory towards the Oder, and crowds of volunteers, marching
through Berlin on their way to the camps in Silesia, gave the
French clear signs of the storm that was about to burst upon <a
name="FNanchor178">them.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_178"><sup>[178]</sup></a> The remnant of Napoleon's
army, now commanded by Eugene Beauharnais, had fallen back step
by step to the Oder. Here, resting on the fortresses, it might
probably have checked the Russian advance; but the heart of
Eugene failed; the line of the Oder was abandoned, and the
retreat continued to Berlin and the Elbe. The Cossacks followed.
On the 20th of February they actually entered Berlin and fought
with the French in the streets. The French garrison was far
superior in force; but the appearance of the Cossacks caused such
a ferment that, although the alliance between France and Prussia
was still in nominal existence, the French troops expected to be
cut to pieces by the people. For some days they continued to
bivouac in the streets, and as soon as it became known that a
regular Russian force had reached the Oder, Eugene determined to
evacuate Berlin. On the 4th of March the last French soldier
quitted the Prussian capital. The Cossacks rode through the town
as the French left it, and fought with their rear-guard. Some
days later Witgenstein appeared with Russian infantry. On March
17th York made his triumphal entry at the head of his corps,
himself cold and rigid in the midst of tumultuous outbursts of
patriotic joy.</p>
<p>[King of Prussia declares war March 17.]</p>
<p>It was on this same day that King Frederick William issued his
proclamation to the Prussian people, declaring that war had begun
with France, and summoning the nation to enter upon the struggle
as one that must end either in victory or in total destruction.
The proclamation was such as became a monarch conscious that his
own faint-heartedness had been the principal cause of Prussia's
humiliation. It was simple and unboastful, admitting that the
King had made every effort to preserve the French alliance, and
ascribing the necessity for war to the intolerable wrongs
inflicted by Napoleon in spite of Prussia's fulfilment of its
treaty-obligations. The appeal to the great memories of Prussia's
earlier sovereigns, and to the example of Russia, Spain, and all
countries which in present or in earlier times had fought for
their independence against a stronger foe, was worthy of the
truthful and modest tone in which the King spoke of the
misfortunes of Prussia under his own rule.</p>
<p>[Spirit of the Prussian nation.]</p>
<p>[Idea of Germany unity.]</p>
<p>But no exhortations were necessary to fire the spirit of the
Prussian people. Seven years of suffering and humiliation had
done their work. The old apathy of all classes had vanished under
the pressure of a bitter sense of wrong. If among the Court party
of Berlin and the Conservative landowners there existed a secret
dread of the awakening of popular forces, the suspicion could not
be now avowed. A movement as penetrating and as universal as that
which France had experienced in 1792 swept through the Prussian
State. It had required the experience of years of wretchedness,
the intrusion of the French soldier upon the peace of the family,
the sight of the homestead swept bare of its stock to supply the
invaders of Russia, the memory of Schill's companions shot in
cold blood for the cause of the Fatherland, before the Prussian
nation caught that flame which had spontaneously burst out in
France, in Spain, and in Russia at the first shock of foreign
aggression. But the passion of the Prussian people, if it had
taken long to kindle, was deep, steadfast, and rational. It was
undisgraced by the frenzies of 1792, or by the religious
fanaticism of the Spanish war of liberation; where religion
entered into the struggle, it heightened the spirit of
self-sacrifice rather than that of hatred to the enemy. Nor was
it a thing of small moment to the future of Europe that in every
leading mind the cause of Prussia was identified with the cause
of the whole German race. The actual condition of Germany
warranted no such conclusion, for Saxony, Bavaria, and the whole
of the Rhenish Federation still followed Napoleon: but the spirit
and the ideas which became a living force when at length the
contest with Napoleon broke out were those of men like Stein, who
in the depths of Germany's humiliation had created the bright and
noble image of a common Fatherland. It was no more given to Stein
to see his hopes fulfilled than it was given to Mirabeau to
establish constitutional liberty in France, or to the Italian
patriots of 1797 to create a united Italy. A group of States
where kings like Frederick William and Francis, ministers like
Hardenberg and Metternich, governed millions of people totally
destitute of political instincts and training, was not to be
suddenly transformed into a free nation by the genius of an
individual or the patriotism of a single epoch. But if the work
of German union was one which, even in the barren form of
military empire, required the efforts of two more generations,
the ideals of 1813 were no transient and ineffective fancy. Time
was on the side of those who called the Prussian monarchy the
true centre round which Germany could gather. If in the sequel
Prussia was slow to recognise its own opportunities, the fault
was less with patriots who hoped too much than with kings and
ministers who dared too little.</p>
<p>[Formation of the Landwehr.]</p>
<p>For the moment, the measures of the Prussian Government were
worthy of the spirit shown by the nation. Scharnhorst's military
system had given Prussia 100,000 trained soldiers ready to join
the existing army of 45,000. The scheme for the formation of a
Landwehr, though not yet carried into effect, needed only to
receive the sanction of the King. On the same day that Frederick
William issued his proclamation to the people, he decreed the
formation of the Landwehr and the Landsturm. The latter force,
which was intended in case of necessity to imitate the peasant
warfare of Spain and La Vend&eacute;e, had no occasion to act:
the Landwehr, though its arming was delayed by the poverty and
exhaustion of the country, gradually became a most formidable
reserve, and sent its battalions to fight by the side of the
regulars in some of the greatest engagements in the war. It was
the want of arms and money, not of willing soldiers, that
prevented Prussia from instantly attacking Napoleon with 200,000
men. The conscription was scarcely needed from the immense number
of volunteers who joined the ranks. Though the completion of the
Prussian armaments required some months more, Prussia did not
need to stand upon the defensive. An army of 50,000 men was ready
to cross the Elbe immediately on the arrival of the Russians, and
to open the next campaign in the territory of Napoleon's allies
of the Rhenish Federation.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XI.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c11">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>The War of Liberation-Bl&uuml;cher crosses the Elbe-Battle of
L&uuml;tzen-The Allies retreat to Silesia-Battle of
Bautzen-Armistice-Napoleon intends to intimidate Austria-Mistaken
as to the Forces of Austria-Metternich's Policy-Treaty of
Reichenbach-Austria offers its Mediation-Congress of
Prague-Austria enters the War-Armies and Plans of Napoleon and
the Allies-Campaign of August-Battles of Dresden, Grosbeeren, the
Katzbach, and Kulm-Effect of these Actions-Battle of
Dennewitz-German Policy of Austria favourable to the Princes of
the Rhenish Confederacy-Frustrated Hopes of German Unity-Battle
of Leipzig-The Allies reach the Rhine- Offers of Peace at
Frankfort-Plan of Invasion of France-Backwardness of Austria-The
Allies enter France-Campaign of 1814-Congress of Ch&acirc;tillon-
Napoleon moves to the rear of the Allies-The Allies advance on
Paris- Capitulation of Paris-Entry of the Allies-Dethronement of
Napoleon- Restoration of the Bourbons-The Charta-Treaty of
Paris-Territorial Effects of the War, 1792-1814-Every Power
except France had gained-France relatively weaker in
Europe-Summary of the Permanent Effects of this Period on
Europe.</p>
<br>

<p>[Napoleon in 1813.]</p>
<p>The first three months of the year 1813 were spent by Napoleon
in vigorous preparation for a campaign in Northern Germany.
Immediately after receiving the news of York's convention with
the Russians he had ordered a levy of 350,000 men. It was in vain
that Frederick William and Hardenberg affected to disavow the
general as a traitor; Napoleon divined the national character of
York's act, and laid his account for a war against the combined
forces of Prussia and Russia. In spite of the catastrophe of the
last campaign, Napoleon was still stronger than his enemies.
Italy and the Rhenish Federation had never wavered in their
allegiance; Austria, though a cold ally, had at least shown no
signs of hostility. The resources of an empire of forty million
inhabitants were still at Napoleon's command. It was in the youth
and inexperience of the new soldiers, and in the scarcity of good
officers, <a name="FNanchor179">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_179"><sup>[179]</sup></a> that the losses of the
previous year showed their most visible effect. Lads of
seventeen, commanded in great part by officers who had never been
through a campaign, took the place of the soldiers who had fought
at Friedland and Wagram. They were as brave as their
predecessors, but they failed in bodily strength and endurance.
Against them came the remnant of the men who had pursued Napoleon
from Moscow, and a Prussian army which was but the vanguard of an
armed nation. Nevertheless, Napoleon had no cause to expect
defeat, provided that Austria remained on his side. Though the
Prussian nation entered upon the conflict in the most determined
spirit, a war on the Elbe against Russia and Prussia combined was
a less desperate venture than a war with Russia alone beyond the
Niemen.</p>
<p>[Bl&uuml;cher crosses the Elbe, March, 1813.]</p>
<p>When King Frederick William published his declaration of war
(March 17), the army of Eug&egrave;ne had already fallen back as
far west as Magdeburg, leaving garrisons in most of the
fortresses between the Elbe and the Russian frontier. Napoleon
was massing troops on the Main, and preparing for an advance in
force, when the Prussians, commanded by Bl&uuml;cher, and some
weak divisions of the Russian army, pushed forward to the Elbe.
On the 18th of March the Cossacks appeared in the suburbs of
Dresden, on the right bank of the river. Davoust, who was in
command of the French garrison, blew up two arches of the bridge,
and retired to Magdeburg: Bl&uuml;cher soon afterwards entered
Dresden, and called upon the Saxon nation to rise against
Napoleon. But he spoke to deaf ears. The common people were
indifferent; the officials waited to see which side would
conquer. Bl&uuml;cher could scarcely obtain provisions for his
army; he passed on westwards, and came into the neighbourhood of
Leipzig. Here he found himself forced to halt, and to wait for
his allies. Though a detachment of the Russian army under
Witgenstein had already crossed the Elbe, the main army, with
Kutusoff, was still lingering at Kalisch on the Polish frontier,
where it had arrived six weeks before. As yet the Prussians had
only 50,000 men ready for action; until the Russians came up, it
was unsafe to advance far beyond the Elbe. Bl&uuml;cher counted
every moment lost that kept him from battle: the Russian
commander-in-chief, sated with glory and sinking beneath the
infirmities of a veteran, could scarcely be induced to sign an
order of march. At length Kutusoff's illness placed the command
in younger hands. His strength failed him during the march from
Poland; he was left dying in Silesia; and on the 24th of April
the Czar and the King of Prussia led forward his veteran troops
into Dresden.</p>
<p>[Napoleon enters Dresden, May 14.]</p>
<p>[Battle of L&uuml;tzen, May 2.]</p>
<p>Napoleon was now known to be approaching with considerable
force by the roads of the Saale. A pitched battle west of the
Elbe was necessary before the Allies could hope to win over any
of the States of the Rhenish Confederacy; the flat country beyond
Leipzig offered the best possible field for cavalry, in which the
Allies were strong and Napoleon extremely deficient. It was
accordingly determined to unite all the divisions of the army
with Bl&uuml;cher on the west of Leipzig, and to attack the
French as soon as they descended from the hilly country of the
Saale, and began their march across the Saxon plain. The Allies
took post at L&uuml;tzen: the French advanced, and at midday on
the 2nd of May the battle of L&uuml;tzen began. Till evening,
victory inclined to the Allies. The Prussian soldiery fought with
the utmost spirit; for the first time in Napoleon's campaigns,
the French infantry proved weaker than an enemy when fighting
against them in equal numbers. But the generalship of Napoleon
turned the scale. Seventy thousand of the French were thrown upon
fifty thousand of the Allies; the battle was fought in village
streets and gardens, where cavalry were useless; and at the close
of the day, though the losses on each side were equal, the Allies
were forced from the positions which they had gained. Such a
result was equivalent to a lost battle. Napoleon's junction with
the army of Eug&egrave;ne at Magdeburg was now inevitable, unless
a second engagement was fought and won. No course remained to the
Allies but to stake everything upon a renewed attack, or to
retire behind the Elbe and meet the reinforcements assembling in
Silesia. King Frederick William declared for a second battle; <a
name="FNanchor180">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_180"><sup>[180]</sup></a> he was over-ruled, and the
retreat commenced. Napoleon entered Dresden on May 14th. No
attempt was made by the Allies to hold the line of the Elbe; all
the sanguine hopes with which Bl&uuml;cher and his comrades had
advanced to attack Napoleon within the borders of the Rhenish
Confederacy were dashed to the ground. The Fatherland remained
divided against itself. Saxony and the rest of the vassal States
were secured to France by the victory of L&uuml;tzen; the
liberation of Germany was only to be wrought by prolonged and
obstinate warfare, and by the wholesale sacrifice of Prussian
life.</p>
<p>[Armistice, June 4.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Bautzen, May 21.]</p>
<p>It was with deep disappointment, but not with any wavering of
purpose, that the allied generals fell back before Napoleon
towards the Silesian fortresses. The Prussian troops which had
hitherto taken part in the war were not the third part of those
which the Government was arming; new Russian divisions were on
the march from Poland. As the Allies moved eastwards from the
Elbe, both their own forces and those of Napoleon gathered
strength. The retreat stopped at Bautzen, on the river Spree; and
here, on the 19th of May, 90,000 of the Allies and the same
number of the French drew up in order of battle. The Allies held
a long, broken chain of hills behind the river, and the ground
lying between these hills and the village of Bautzen. On the 20th
the French began the attack, and won the passage of the river. In
spite of the approach of Ney with 40,000 more troops, the Czar
and the King of Prussia determined to continue the battle on the
following day. The struggle of the 21st was of the same obstinate
and indecisive character as that at L&uuml;tzen. Twenty-five
thousand French had been killed or wounded before the day was
over, but the bad generalship of the Allies had again given
Napoleon the victory. The Prussian and Russian commanders were
all at variance; Alexander, who had to decide in their
contentions, possessed no real military faculty. It was not for
want of brave fighting and steadfastness before the enemy that
Bautzen was lost. The Allies retreated in perfect order, and
without the loss of a single gun. Napoleon followed, forcing his
wearied regiments to ceaseless exertion, in the hope of ruining
by pursuit an enemy whom he could not overthrow in battle. In a
few more days the discord of the allied generals and the
sufferings of the troops would probably have made them unable to
resist Napoleon's army, weakened as it was. But the conqueror
himself halted in the moment of victory. On the 4th of June an
armistice of seven weeks arrested the pursuit, and brought the
first act of the War of Liberation to a close.</p>
<p>[Napoleon and Austria.]</p>
<p>Napoleon's motive for granting this interval to his enemies,
the most fatal step in his whole career, has been vaguely sought
among the general reasons for military delay; as a matter of
fact, Napoleon was thinking neither of the condition of his own
army nor of that of the Allies when he broke off hostilities, but
of the probable action of the Court of Vienna. <a name=
"FNanchor181">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_181"><sup>[181]</sup></a> "I
shall grant a truce," he wrote to the Viceroy of Italy (June 2,
1813), "on account of the armaments of Austria, and in order to
gain time to bring up the Italian army to Laibach to threaten
Vienna." Austria had indeed resolved to regain, either by war or
negotiation, the provinces which it had lost in 1809. It was now
preparing to offer its mediation, but it was also preparing to
join the Allies in case Napoleon rejected its demands. Metternich
was anxious to attain his object, if possible, without war. The
Austrian State was bankrupt; its army had greatly deteriorated
since 1809; Metternich himself dreaded both the ambition of
Russia and what he considered the revolutionary schemes of the
German patriots. It was his object not to drive Napoleon from his
throne, but to establish a European system in which neither
France nor Russia should be absolutely dominant. Soon after the
retreat from Moscow the Cabinet of Vienna had informed Napoleon,
though in the most friendly terms, that Austria could not longer
remain in the position of a dependent ally. <a name=
"FNanchor182">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_182"><sup>[182]</sup></a>
Metternich stated, and not insincerely, that by certain
concessions Napoleon might still count on Austria's friendship;
but at the same time he negotiated with the allied Powers, and
encouraged them to believe that Austria would, under certain
circumstances, strike on their behalf. The course of the campaign
of May was singularly favourable to Metternich's policy. Napoleon
had not won a decided victory; the Allies, on the other hand,
were so far from success that Austria could set almost any price
it pleased upon its alliance. By the beginning of June it had
become a settled matter in the Austrian Cabinet that Napoleon
must be made to resign the Illyrian Provinces conquered in 1809
and the districts of North Germany annexed in 1810; but it was
still the hope of the Government to obtain this result by
peaceful means. Napoleon saw that Austria was about to change its
attitude, but he had by no means penetrated the real intentions
of Metternich. He credited the Viennese Government with a
stronger sentiment of hostility towards himself than it actually
possessed; at the same time he failed to appreciate the fixed and
settled character of its purpose. He believed that the action of
Austria would depend simply upon the means which he possessed to
intimidate it; that, if the army of Italy were absent, Austria
would attack him; that, on the other hand, if he could gain time
to bring the army of Italy into Carniola, Austria would keep the
peace. It was with this belief, and solely for the purpose of
bringing up a force to menace Austria, that Napoleon stayed his
hand against the Prussian and Russian armies after the battle of
Bautzen, and gave time for the gathering of the immense forces
which were destined to effect his destruction.</p>
<p>[Metternich offers Austria's mediation.]</p>
<p>Immediately after the conclusion of the armistice of June 4th,
Metternich invited Napoleon to accept Austria's mediation for a
general peace. The settlement which Metternich contemplated was a
very different one from that on which Stein and the Prussian
patriots had set their hopes. Austria was willing to leave to
Napoleon the whole of Italy and Holland, the frontier of the
Rhine, and the Protectorate of Western Germany: all that was
required by Metternich, as arbiter of Europe, was the restoration
of the provinces taken from Austria after the war of 1809, the
reinstatement of Prussia in Western Poland, and the abandonment
by France of the North-German district annexed in 1810. But to
Napoleon the greater or less extent of the concessions asked by
Austria was a matter of no moment. He was determined to make no
concessions at all, and he entered into negotiations only for the
purpose of disguising from Austria the real object with which he
had granted the armistice. While Napoleon affected to be weighing
the proposals of Austria, he was in fact calculating the number
of marches which would place the Italian army on the Austrian
frontier; this once effected, he expected to hear nothing more of
Metternich's demands.</p>
<p>[Napoleon deceived as to the forces of Austria.]</p>
<p>It was a game of deceit; but there was no one who was so
thoroughly deceived as Napoleon himself. By some extraordinary
miscalculation on the part of his secret agents, he was led to
believe that the forces of [***] whole force of Austria, both in
the north and the south, amounted to only 100,000 men, <a name=
"FNanchor183">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_183"><sup>[183]</sup></a>
and it was on this estimate that he had formed his plans of
intimidation. In reality Austria had double that number of men
ready to take the field. By degrees Napoleon saw reason to
suspect himself in error. On the 11th of July he wrote to his
Foreign Minister, Maret, bitterly reproaching him with the
failure of the secret service to gain any trustworthy
information. It was not too late to accept Metternich's terms.
Yet even now, when the design of intimidating Austria had proved
an utter delusion, and Napoleon was convinced that Austria would
fight, and fight with very powerful forces, his pride and his
invincible belief in his own superiority prevented him from
drawing back. He made an attempt to enter upon a separate
negotiation with Russia, and, when this failed, he resolved to
face the conflict with the whole of Europe.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Reichenbach, June 27.]</p>
<p>There was no longer any uncertainty among Napoleon's enemies.
On the 27th of June, Austria had signed a treaty at Reichenbach,
pledging itself to join the allied Powers in the event of
Napoleon rejecting the conditions to be proposed by Austria as
mediator; and the conditions so to be proposed were fixed by the
same treaty. They were the following:-The suppression of the
Duchy of Warsaw; the restoration to Austria of the Illyrian
Provinces; and the surrender by Napoleon of the North-German
district annexed to his Empire in 1810. Terms more hostile to
France than these Austria declined to embody in its mediation.
The Elbe might still sever Prussia from its German provinces lost
in 1807; Napoleon might still retain, as chief of the Rhenish
Confederacy, his sovereignty over the greater part of the German
race.</p>
<p>[Austria enters the war, Aug. 10.]</p>
<p>[Congress of Prague, July 15-Aug. 10.]</p>
<p>From the moment when these conditions were fixed, there was
nothing which the Prussian generals so much dreaded as that
Napoleon might accept them, and so rob the Allies of the chance
of crushing him by means of Austria's support. But their fears
were groundless. The counsels of Napoleon were exactly those
which his worst enemies would have desired him to adopt. War, and
nothing but war, was his fixed resolve. He affected to entertain
Austria's propositions, and sent his envoy Caulaincourt to a
Congress which Austria summoned at Prague; but it was only for
the purpose of gaining a few more weeks of preparation. The
Congress met; the armistice was prolonged to the 10th of August.
Caulaincourt, however, was given no power to close with Austria's
demands. He was ignorant that he had only been sent to Prague in
order to gain time. He saw the storm gathering: unable to believe
that Napoleon intended to fight all Europe rather than make the
concessions demanded of him, he imagined that his master still
felt some doubt whether Austria and the other Powers meant to
adhere to their word. As the day drew nigh which closed the
armistice and the period given for a reply to Austria's
ultimatum, Caulaincourt implored Napoleon not to deceive himself
with hopes that Austria would draw back. Napoleon had no such
hope; he knew well that Austria would declare war, and he
accepted the issue. Caulaincourt heard nothing more. At midnight
on the 10th of August the Congress declared itself dissolved.
Before the dawn of the next morning the army in Silesia saw the
blaze of the beacon-fires which told that negotiation was at an
end, and that Austria was entering the war on the side of the
Allies. <a name="FNanchor184">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_184"><sup>[184]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Armies of Napoleon and the Allies.]</p>
<p>Seven days' notice was necessary before the commencement of
actual hostilities. Napoleon, himself stationed at Dresden, held
all the lower course of the Elbe; and his generals had long had
orders to be ready to march on the morning of the 18th. Forces
had come up from all parts of the Empire, raising the French army
at the front to 300,000 men; but, for the first time in
Napoleon's career, his enemies had won from a pause in war
results even surpassing his own. The strength of the Prussian and
Russian armies was now enormously different from what it had been
at L&uuml;tzen and Bautzen. The Prussian Landwehr, then a
weaponless and ill-clad militia drilling in the villages, was now
fully armed, and in great part at the front. New Russian
divisions had reached Silesia. Austria took the field with a
force as numerous as that which had checked Napoleon in 1809. At
the close of the armistice, 350,000 men actually faced the French
positions upon the Elbe; 300,000 more were on the march, or
watching the German fortresses and the frontier of Italy. The
allied troops operating against Napoleon were divided into three
armies. In the north, between Wittenberg and Berlin, Bernadotte
commanded 60,000 Russians and Prussians, in addition to his own
Swedish contingent. Bl&uuml;cher was placed at the head of
100,000 Russians and Prussians in Silesia. The Austrians remained
undivided, and formed, together with some Russian and Prussian
divisions, the great army of Bohemia, 200,000 strong, under the
command of Schwarzenberg. The plan of the campaign had been
agreed upon by the Allies soon after the Treaty of Reichenbach
had been made with Austria. It was a sound, though not a daring
one.</p>
<p>[Plan of the Allies.]</p>
<p>The three armies, now forming an arc from Wittenberg to the
north of Bohemia, were to converge upon the line of Napoleon's
communications behind Dresden; if separately attacked, their
generals were to avoid all hazardous engagements, and to
manoeuvre so as to weary the enemy and preserve their own general
relations, as far as possible, unchanged. Bl&uuml;cher, as the
most exposed, was expected to content himself the longest with
the defensive; the great army of Bohemia, after securing the
mountain-passes between Bohemia and Saxony, might safely turn
Napoleon's position at Dresden, and so draw the two weaker armies
towards it for one vast and combined engagement in the plain of
Leipzig.</p>
<p>[Napoleon's plan of attack.]</p>
<p>In outline, the plan of the Allies was that which Napoleon
expected them to adopt. His own design was to anticipate it by an
offensive of extraordinary suddenness and effect. Hostilities
could not begin before the morning of the 18th of August; by the
21st or the 22nd, Napoleon calculated that he should have
captured Berlin. Oudinot, who was at Wittenberg with 80,000 men,
had received orders to advance upon the Prussian capital at the
moment that the armistice expired, and to force it, if necessary
by bombardment, into immediate surrender. The effect of this
blow, as Napoleon supposed, would be to disperse the entire
reserve-force of the Prussian monarchy, and paralyse the action
of its army in the field. While Oudinot marched on Berlin,
Bl&uuml;cher was to be attacked in Silesia, and prevented from
rendering any assistance either on the north or on the south. The
mass of Napoleon's forces, centred at Dresden, and keeping watch
upon the movements of the army of Bohemia, would either fight a
great battle, or, if the Allies made a false movement, march
straight upon Prague, the centre of Austria's supplies, and reach
it before the enemy. All the daring imagination of Napoleon's
earlier campaigns displayed itself in such a project, which, if
successful, would have terminated the war within ten days; but
this imagination was no longer, as in those earlier campaigns,
identical with insight into real possibilities. The success of
Napoleon's plan involved the surprise or total defeat of
Bernadotte before Berlin, the disablement of Bl&uuml;cher, and a
victory, or a strategical success equivalent to a victory, over
the vast army of the south. It demanded of a soldiery, inferior
to the enemy in numerical strength, the personal superiority
which had belonged to the men of Jena and Austerlitz, when in
fact the French regiments of conscripts had ceased to be a match
for equal numbers of the enemy. But no experience could alter
Napoleon's fixed belief in the fatuity of all warfare except his
own. After the havoc of Borodino, after the even struggles of
L&uuml;tzen and Bautzen, he still reasoned as if he had before
him the armies of Brunswick and Mack. His plan assumed the
certainty of success in each of its parts; for the failure of a
single operation hazarded all the rest, by requiring the transfer
of reinforcements from armies already too weak for the tasks
assigned to them. Nevertheless, the utmost that Napoleon would
acknowledge was that the execution of his design needed energy.
He still underrated the force which Austria had brought into the
field against him. Though ignorant of the real position and
strength of the army in Bohemia, and compelled to wait for the
enemy's movements before striking on this side, he already in
imagination saw the war decided by the fall of the Prussian
capital.</p>
<p>[Triple movement, Aug. 18-26.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Dresden, Aug. 26, 27.]</p>
<p>[Battles of Grossbeeren, Aug. 23, and the Katzbach, Aug.
26.]</p>
<p>On the 18th of August the forward movement began. Oudinot
advanced from Wittenberg towards Berlin; Napoleon himself hurried
into Silesia, intending to deal Bl&uuml;cher one heavy blow, and
instantly to return and place himself before Schwarzenberg. On
the 21st, and following days, the Prussian general was attacked
and driven eastwards. Napoleon committed the pursuit to
Macdonald, and hastened back to Dresden, already threatened by
the advance of the Austrians from Bohemia. Schwarzenberg and the
allied sovereigns, as soon as they heard that Napoleon had gone
to seek Bl&uuml;cher in Silesia, had in fact abandoned their
cautious plans, and determined to make an assault upon Dresden
with the Bohemian army alone. But it was in vain that they tried
to surprise Napoleon. He was back at Dresden on the 25th, and
ready for the attack. Never were Napoleon's hopes higher than on
this day. His success in Silesia had filled him with confidence.
He imagined Oudinot to be already in Berlin; and the advance of
Schwarzenberg against Dresden gave him the very opportunity which
he desired for crushing the Bohemian army in one great battle,
before it could draw support either from Bl&uuml;cher or from
Bernadotte. Another Austerlitz seemed to be at hand. Napoleon
wrote to Paris that he should be in Prague before the enemy; and,
while he completed his defences in front of Dresden, he ordered
Vandamme, with 40,000 men, to cross the Elbe at K&ouml;nigstein,
and force his way south-westwards on to the roads into Bohemia,
in the rear of the Great Army, in order to destroy its magazines
and menace its line of retreat on Prague. On August 26th
Schwarzenberg's host assailed the positions of Napoleon on the
slopes and gardens outside Dresden. Austrians, Russians, and
Prussians all took part in the attack. Moreau, the victor of
Hohenlinden, stood by the side of the Emperor Alexander, whom he
had come to help against his own countrymen. He lived only to
witness one of the last and greatest victories of France. The
attack was everywhere repelled: the Austrian divisions were not
only beaten, but disgraced and overthrown. At the end of two
days' fighting the Allies were in full retreat, leaving 20,000
prisoners in the hands of Napoleon. It was a moment when the
hearts of the bravest sank, and when hope itself might well
vanish, as the rumour passed through the Prussian regiments that
Metternich was again in friendly communication with Napoleon. But
in the midst of Napoleon's triumph intelligence arrived which
robbed it of all its worth. Oudinot, instead of conquering
Berlin, had been defeated by the Prussians of Bernadotte's army
at Grossbeeren (Aug. 23), and driven back upon the Elbe.
Bl&uuml;cher had turned upon Macdonald in Silesia, and completely
overthrown his army on the river Katzbach, at the very moment
when the Allies were making their assault upon Dresden. It was
vain to think of a march upon Prague, or of the annihilation of
the Austrians, when on the north and the east Napoleon's troops
were meeting with nothing but disaster. The divisions which had
been intended to support Vandamme's movement from K&ouml;nigstein
upon the rear of the Great Army were retained in the
neighbourhood of Dresden, in order to be within reach of the
points where their aid might be needed. Vandamme, ignorant of his
isolation, was left with scarcely 40,000 men to encounter the
Great Army in its retreat.</p>
<p>[Battle of Kulm, Aug. 29, 30.]</p>
<p>He threw himself upon a Russian corps at Kulm, in the Bohemian
mountains, on the morning of the 29th. The Russians, at first few
in number, held their ground during the day; in the night, and
after the battle had recommenced on the morrow, vast masses of
the allied troops poured in. The French fought desperately, but
were overwhelmed. Vandamme himself was made prisoner, with 10,000
of his men. The whole of the stores and most of the cannon of his
army remained in the enemy's hands.</p>
<p>[Effect of the twelve days, Aug. 18-30.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Dennewitz, Sept. 6.]</p>
<p>The victory at Kulm secured the Bohemian army from pursuit,
and almost extinguished the effects of its defeat at Dresden.
Thanks to the successes of Bl&uuml;cher and of Bernadotte's
Prussian generals, which prevented Napoleon from throwing all his
forces on to the rear of the Great Army, Schwarzenberg's rash
attack had proved of no worse significance than an unsuccessful
raid. The Austrians were again in the situation assigned to them
in the original plan of the campaign, and capable of resuming
their advance into the interior of Saxony: Bl&uuml;cher and the
northern commanders had not only escaped separate destruction,
but won great victories over the French: Napoleon, weakened by
the loss of 100,000 men, remained exactly where he had been at
the beginning of the campaign. Had the triple movement by which
he meant to overwhelm his adversaries been capable of execution,
it would now have been fully executed. The balance, however, had
turned against Napoleon; and the twelve days from the 18th to the
29th of August, though marked by no catastrophe like Leipzig or
Waterloo, were in fact the decisive period in the struggle of
Europe against Napoleon. The attack by which he intended to
prevent the junction of the three armies had been made, and had
failed. Nothing now remained for him but to repeat the same
movements with a discouraged force against an emboldened enemy,
or to quit the line of the Elbe, and prepare for one vast and
decisive encounter with all three armies combined. Napoleon drove
from his mind the thought of failure; he ordered Ney to take
command of Oudinot's army, and to lead it again, in increased
strength, upon Berlin; he himself hastened to Macdonald's beaten
troops in Silesia, and rallied them for a new assault upon
Bl&uuml;cher. All was in vain. Ney, advancing on Berlin, was met
by the Prussian general Billow at Dennewitz, and totally routed
(Sept. 6): Bl&uuml;cher, finding that Napoleon himself was before
him, skilfully avoided battle, and forced his adversary to waste
in fruitless marches the brief interval which he had [***] from
his watch on Schwarzenberg. Each conflict with the enemy, each
vain and exhausting march, told that the superiority had passed
from the French to their foes, and that Napoleon's retreat was
now only a matter of time. "These creatures have learnt
something," said Napoleon in the bitterness of his heart, as he
saw the columns of Bl&uuml;cher manoeuvring out of his grasp.
Ney's report of his own overthrow at Dennewitz sounded like an
omen of the ruin of Waterloo. "I have been totally defeated," he
wrote, "and do not yet know whether my army has re-assembled. The
spirit of the generals and officers is shattered. To command in
such conditions is but half to command. I had rather be a common
grenadier."</p>
<p>[Metternich.]</p>
<p>[German policy of Stein and of Austria.]</p>
<p>The accession of Austria had turned the scale in favour of the
Allies; it rested only with the allied generals themselves to
terminate the warfare round Dresden, and to lead their armies
into the heart of Saxony. For a while the course of the war
flagged, and military interests gave place to political. It was
in the interval between the first great battles and the final
advance on Leipzig that the future of Germany was fixed by the
three allied Powers. In the excitement of the last twelve months
little thought had been given, except by Stein and his friends,
to the political form to be set in the place of the Napoleonic
Federation of the Rhine. Stein, in the midst of the Russian
campaign, had hoped for a universal rising of the German people
against Napoleon, and had proposed the dethronement of all the
German princes who supported his cause. His policy had received
the general approval of Alexander, and, on the entrance of the
Russian army into Germany, a manifesto had been issued appealing
to the whole German nation, and warning the vassals of Napoleon
that they could only save themselves by submission. <a name=
"FNanchor185">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_185"><sup>[185]</sup></a> A
committee had been appointed by the allied sovereigns, under the
presidency of Stein himself, to administer the revenues of all
Confederate territory that should be occupied by the allied
armies. Whether the reigning Houses should be actually expelled
might remain in uncertainty; but it was the fixed hope of Stein
and his friends that those princes who were permitted to retain
their thrones would be permitted to retain them only as officers
in a great German Empire, without sovereign rights either over
their own subjects or in relation to foreign States. The Kings of
Bavaria and W&uuml;rtemberg had gained their titles and much of
their despotic power at home from Napoleon; their independence of
the Head of Germany had made them nothing more than the
instruments of a foreign conqueror. Under whatever form the
central authority might be revived, Stein desired that it should
be the true and only sovereign Power in Germany, a Power to which
every German might appeal against the oppression of a minor
Government, and in which the whole nation should find its
representative before the rest of Europe. In the face of such a
central authority, whether an elected Parliament or an Imperial
Council, the minor princes could at best retain but a fragment of
their powers; and such was the theory accepted at the allied
head-quarters down to the time when Austria proffered its
mediation and support. Then everything changed. The views of the
Austrian Government upon the future system of Germany were in
direct opposition to those of Stein's party. Metternich dreaded
the thought of popular agitation, and looked upon Stein, with his
idea of a National Parliament and his plans for dethroning the
Rhenish princes, as little better than the Jacobins of 1792. The
offer of a restored imperial dignity in Germany was declined by
the Emperor of Austria at the instance of his Minister. With
characteristic sense of present difficulties, and blindness to
the great forces which really contained their solution,
Metternich argued that the minor princes would only be driven
into the arms of the foreigner by the establishment of any
supreme German Power. They would probably desert Napoleon if the
Allies guaranteed to them everything that they at present
possessed; they would be freed from all future temptation to
attach themselves to France if Austria contented itself with a
diplomatic influence and with the ties of a well-constructed
system of treaties. In spite of the influence of Stein with the
Emperor Alexander, Metternich's views prevailed. Austria had so
deliberately kept itself in balance during the first part of the
year 1813, that the Allies were now willing to concede
everything, both in this matter and in others, in return for its
support. Nothing more was heard of the dethronement of the
Confederate princes, or even of the limitation of their powers.
It was agreed by the Treaty of Teplitz, signed by Prussia,
Russia, and Austria on September 9th, that every State of the
Rhenish Confederacy should be placed in a position of absolute
independence. Negotiations were opened with the King of Bavaria,
whose army had steadily fought on the side of Napoleon in every
campaign since 1806. Instead of being outlawed as a criminal, he
was welcomed as an ally. The Treaty of Ried, signed on the 3rd of
October, guaranteed to the King of Bavaria, in return for his
desertion of Napoleon, full sovereign rights, and the whole of
the territory which he had received from Napoleon, except the
Tyrol and the Austrian district on the Inn. What had been
accorded to the King of Bavaria could not be refused to the rest
of Napoleon's vassals who were willing to make their peace with
the Allies in time. Germany was thus left at the mercy of a score
of petty Cabinets. It was seen by the patriotic party in Prussia
at what price the alliance of Austria had been purchased. Austria
had indeed made it possible to conquer Napoleon, but it had also
made an end of all prospect of the union of the German
nation.</p>
<p>[Allies cross the Elbe, Oct. 3.]</p>
<p>Till the last days of September the position of the hostile
armies round Dresden remained little changed, Napoleon
unweariedly repeated his attacks, now on one side, now on
another, but without result. The Allies on their part seemed
rooted to the soil. Bernadotte, balanced between the desire to
obtain Norway from the Allies and a foolish hope of being called
to the throne of France, was bent on doing the French as little
harm as possible; Schwarzenberg, himself an indifferent general,
was distracted by the councillors of all the three monarchs;
Bl&uuml;cher alone pressed for decided and rapid action. At
length the Prussian commander gained permission to march
northwards, and unite his army with Bernadotte's in a forward
movement across the Elbe. The long-expected Russian reserves, led
by Bennigsen, reached the Bohemian mountains; and at the
beginning of October the operation began which was to collect the
whole of the allied forces in the plain of Leipzig. Bl&uuml;cher
forced the passage of the Elbe at Wartenburg. It was not until
Napoleon learnt that the army of Silesia had actually crossed the
river that he finally quitted Dresden. Then, hastening
northwards, he threw himself upon the Prussian general; but
Bl&uuml;cher again avoided battle, as he had done in Silesia; and
on the 7th of October his army united with Bernadotte's, which
had crossed the Elbe two days before.</p>
<p>The enemy was closing in upon Napoleon. Obstinately as he had
held on to the line of the Elbe, he could hold on no longer. In
the frustration of all his hopes there flashed across his mind
the wild project of a march eastwards to the Oder, and the
gathering of all the besieged garrisons for a campaign in which
the enemy should stand between himself and France; but the dream
lasted only long enough to gain a record. Napoleon ventured no
more than to send a corps back to the Elbe to threaten Berlin, in
the hope of tempting Bl&uuml;cher and Bernadotte to abandon the
advance which they had now begun in co-operation with the great
army of Schwarzenberg. From the 10th to the 14th of October,
Napoleon [***] at D&uuml;ben, between Dresden and Leipzig,
restlessly expecting to hear of Bl&uuml;cher's or Bernadotte's
retreat. The only definite information that he could gain was
that Schwarzenberg was pressing on towards the west. At length he
fell back to Leipzig, believing that Bl&uuml;cher, but not
Bernadotte, was advancing to meet Schwarzenberg and take part in
a great engagement. As he entered Leipzig on October 14th the
cannon of Schwarzenberg was heard on the south.</p>
<p>[Battle of Leipzig. Oct 16-19.]</p>
<p>Napoleon drew up for battle. The number of his troops in
position around the city was 170,000: about 15,000 others lay
within call. He placed Marmont and Ney on the north of Leipzig at
the village of M&ouml;ckern, to meet the expected onslaught of
Bl&uuml;cher; and himself, with the great mass of his army, took
post on the south, facing Schwarzenberg. On the morning of the
16th, Schwarzenberg began the attack. His numbers did not exceed
150,000, for the greater part of the Russian army was a march in
the rear. The battle was an even one. The Austrians failed to
gain ground: with one more army-corps Napoleon saw that he could
overpower the enemy. He was still without intelligence of
Bl&uuml;cher's actual appearance in the north; and in the rash
hope that Bl&uuml;cher's coming might be delayed, he sent orders
to Ney and Marmont to leave their positions and hurry to the
south to throw themselves upon Schwarzenberg. Ney obeyed.
Marmont, when the order reached him, was actually receiving
Bl&uuml;cher's first fire. He determined to remain and defend the
village of M&ouml;ckern, though left without support. York,
commanding the vanguard of Bl&uuml;cher's army, assailed him with
the utmost fury. A third part of the troops engaged on each side
were killed or wounded before the day closed; but in the end the
victory of the Prussians was complete. It was the only triumph
won by the Allies on this first day of the battle, but it turned
the scale against Napoleon. Marmont's corps was destroyed; Ney,
divided between Napoleon and Marmont, had rendered no effective
help to either. Schwarzenberg, saved from a great disaster,
needed only to wait for Bernadotte and the Russian reserves, and
to renew the battle with an additional force of 100,000 men.</p>
<p>[Storm of Leipzig, 19th. French retreat.]</p>
<p>[Battle of the 18th.]</p>
<p>In the course of the night Napoleon sent proposals for peace.
It was in the vain hope of receiving some friendly answer from
his father-in-law, the Austrian Emperor, that he delayed making
his retreat during the next day, while it might still have been
unmolested. No answer was returned to his letter. In the evening
of the 17th, Bennigsen's army reached the field of battle. Next
morning began that vast and decisive encounter known in the
language of Germany as "the battle of the nations," the greatest
battle in all authentic history, the culmination of all the
military effort of the Napoleonic age. Not less than 300,000 men
fought on the side of the Allies; Napoleon's own forces numbered
170,000. The battle raged all round Leipzig, except on the west,
where no attempt was made to interpose between Napoleon and the
line of his retreat. As in the first engagement, the decisive
successes were those of Bl&uuml;cher, now tardily aided by
Bernadotte, on the north; Schwarzenberg's divisions, on the south
side of the town, fought steadily, but without gaining much
ground. But there was no longer any doubt as to the issue of the
struggle. If Napoleon could not break the Allies in the first
engagement, he had no chance against them now when they had been
joined by 100,000 more men. The storm of attack grew wilder and
wilder: there were no new forces to call up for the defence.
Before the day was half over Napoleon drew in his outer line, and
began to make dispositions for a retreat from Leipzig. At evening
long trains of wounded from the hospitals passed through the
western gates of the city along the road towards the Rhine. In
the darkness of night the whole army was withdrawn from its
positions, and dense masses poured into the town, until every
street was blocked with confused and impenetrable crowds of
cavalry and infantry. The leading divisions moved out of the
gates before sunrise. As the throng lessened, some degree of
order was restored, and the troops which Napoleon intended to
cover the retreat took their places under the walls of Leipzig.
The Allies advanced to the storm on the morning of the 19th. The
French were driven into the town; the victorious enemy pressed on
towards the rear of the retreating columns. In the midst of the
struggle an explosion was heard above the roar of the battle. The
bridge over the Elster, the only outlet from Leipzig to the west,
had been blown up by -the mistake of a French soldier before the
rear-guard began to cross. The mass of fugitives, driven from the
streets of the town, found before them an impassable river. Some
swam to the opposite bank or perished in attempting to do so; the
rest, to the number of 15,000, laid down their arms. This was the
end of the battle. Napoleon had lost in the three days 40,000
killed and wounded, 260 guns, and 30,000 prisoners. The killed
and wounded of the Allies reached the enormous sum of 54,000.</p>
<p>[Conditions of peace offered to Napoleon at Frankfort, Nov.
9th.]</p>
<p>[Allies follow Napoleon to the Rhine.]</p>
<p>The campaign was at an end. Napoleon led off a large army, but
one that was in no condition to turn upon its pursuers. At each
stage in the retreat thousands of fever-stricken wretches were
left to terrify even the pursuing army with the dread of their
infection. It was only when the French found the road to
Frankfort blocked at Hanau by a Bavarian force that they rallied
to the order of battle. The Bavarians were cut to pieces; the
road was opened; and, a fortnight after the Battle of Leipzig,
Napoleon, with the remnant of his great army, re-crossed the
Rhine. Behind him the fabric of his Empire fell to the ground.
Jerome fled from Westphalia; <a name="FNanchor186">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_186"><sup>[186]</sup></a> the princes of the Rhenish
Confederacy came one after another to make their peace with the
Allies; B&uuml;low, with the army which had conquered Ney at
Dennewitz, marched through the north of Germany to the
deliverance of Holland. Three days after Napoleon had crossed the
Rhine the Czar reached Frankfort; and here, on the 7th of
November, a military council was held, in which Bl&uuml;cher and
Gneisenau, against almost all the other generals, advocated an
immediate invasion of France. The soldiers, however, had time to
re-consider their opinions, for, on the 9th, it was decided by
the representatives of the Powers to send an offer of peace to
Napoleon, and the operations of the war were suspended by common
consent. The condition on which peace was offered to Napoleon was
the surrender of the conquests of France beyond the Alps and the
Rhine. The Allies were still willing to permit the Emperor to
retain Belgium, Savoy, and the Rhenish Provinces; they declined,
however, to enter into any negotiation until Napoleon had
accepted this basis of peace; and they demanded a distinct reply
before the end of the month of November.</p>
<p>[Offer of peace withdrawn, Dec. 1.]</p>
<p>[Plan of invasion of France.]</p>
<p>[Allies enter France, Jan., 1814.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, who had now arrived in Paris, and saw around him all
the signs of power, returned indefinite answers. The month ended
without the reply which the Allies required; and on the 1st of
December the offer of peace was declared to be withdrawn. It was
still undecided whether the war should take the form of an actual
invasion of France. The memory of Brunswick's campaign of 1792,
and of the disasters of the first coalition in 1793, even now
exercised a powerful influence over men's minds. Austria was
unwilling to drive Napoleon to extremities, or to give to Russia
and Prussia the increased influence which they would gain in
Europe from the total overthrow of Napoleon's power. It was
ultimately determined that the allied armies should enter France,
but that the Austrians, instead of crossing the north-eastern
frontier, should make a d&eacute;tour by Switzerland, and gain
the plateau of Langres in Champagne, from which the rivers Seine,
Marne, and Aube, with the roads following their valleys, descend
in the direction of the capital. The plateau of Langres was said
to be of such strategical importance that its occupation by an
invader would immediately force Napoleon to make peace. As a
matter of fact, the plateau was of no strategical importance
whatever; but the Austrians desired to occupy it, partly with the
view of guarding against any attack from the direction of Italy
and Lyons, partly from their want of the heavy artillery
necessary for besieging the fortresses farther north, <a name=
"FNanchor187">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_187"><sup>[187]</sup></a>
and from a just appreciation of the dangers of a campaign
conducted in a hostile country intersected by several rivers.
Anything was welcomed by Metternich that seemed likely to avert,
or even to postpone, a struggle with Napoleon for life or death.
Bl&uuml;cher correctly judged the march through Switzerland to be
mere procrastination. He was himself permitted to take the
straight road into France, though his movements were retarded in
order to keep pace with the cautious steps of Schwarzenberg. On
the last day of the year 1813 the Prussian general crossed the
Rhine near Coblentz; on the 18th of January, 1814, the Austrian
army, having advanced from Switzerland by Belfort and Vesoul,
reached its halting-place on the plateau of Langres. Here the
march stopped; and here it was expected that terms of peace would
be proposed by Napoleon.</p>
<p>[Wellington entering France from the south.]</p>
<p>It was not on the eastern side alone that the invader was now
entering France. Wellington had passed the Pyrenees. His last
victorious march into the north of Spain began on the day when
the Prussian and Russian armies were defeated by Napoleon at
Bautzen (May 21, 1813). During the armistice of Dresden, a week
before Austria signed the treaty which fixed the conditions of
its armed mediation, he had gained an overwhelming triumph at
Vittoria over King Joseph and the French army, as it retreated
with all the spoils gathered in five years' occupation of Spain
(June 21). A series of bloody engagements had given the English
the passes of the Pyrenees in those same days of August and
September that saw the allied armies close around Napoleon at
Dresden; and when, after the catastrophe of Leipzig, the wreck of
Napoleon's host was retreating beyond the Rhine, Soult, the
defender of the Pyrenees, was driven by the British general from
his entrenchments on the Nivelle, and forced back under the walls
of Bayonne.</p>
<p>[French armies unable to hold the frontier.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon's plan of defence.]</p>
<p>Twenty years had passed since, in the tempestuous morn of the
Revolution, Hoche swept the armies of the first coalition across
the Alsatian frontier. Since then, French soldiers had visited
every capital, and watered every soil with their blood; but no
foreign soldier had set foot on French soil. Now the cruel goads
of Napoleon's military glory had spent the nation's strength, and
the force no longer existed which could bar the way to its
gathered enemies. The armies placed upon the eastern frontier had
to fall back before an enemy five times more numerous than
themselves. Napoleon had not expected that the Allies would enter
France before the spring. With three months given him for
organisation, he could have made the frontier-armies strong
enough to maintain their actual positions; the winter advance of
the Allies compelled him to abandon the border districts of
France, and to concentrate his defence in Champagne, between the
Marne, the Seine, and the Aube. This district was one which
offered extraordinary advantages to a great general acting
against an irresolute and ill-commanded enemy. By holding the
bridges over the three rivers, and drawing his own supplies along
the central road from Paris to Arcis-sur-Aube, Napoleon could
securely throw the bulk of his forces from one side to the other
against the flank of the Allies, while his own movements were
covered by the rivers, which could not be passed except at the
bridges. A capable commander at the head of the Allies would have
employed the same river-strategy against Napoleon himself, after
conquering one or two points of passage by main force; but
Napoleon had nothing of the kind to fear from Schwarzenberg; and
if the Austrian head-quarters continued to control the movements
of the allied armies, it was even now doubtful whether the
campaign would close at Paris or on the Rhine.</p>
<p>[Campaign of 1814.]</p>
<p>For some days after the arrival of the monarchs and
diplomatists at Langres (Jan. 22), Metternich and the more
timorous among the generals opposed any further advance into
France, and argued that the army had already gained all it needed
by the occupation of the border provinces. It was only upon the
threat of the Czar to continue the war by himself that the
Austrians consented to move forward upon Paris. After several
days had been lost in discussion, the advance from Langres was
begun. Orders were given to Bl&uuml;cher, who had pushed back the
French divisions commanded by Marmont and Mortier, and who was
now near St. Dizier on the Marne, to meet the Great Army at
Brienne. This was the situation of the Allies when, on the 25th
of January, Napoleon left Paris, and placed himself at
Ch&acirc;lons on the Marne, at the head of his left wing, having
his right at Troyes and at Arcis, guarding the bridges over the
Seine and the Aube. Napoleon knew that Bl&uuml;cher was moving
towards the Austrians; he hoped to hold the Prussian general in
check at St. Dizier, and to throw himself upon the heads of
Schwarzenberg's columns as they moved towards the Aube.
Bl&uuml;cher, however, had already passed St. Dizier when
Napoleon reached it. Napoleon pursued, and overtook the Prussians
at Brienne. After an indecisive battle, Bl&uuml;cher fell back
towards Schwarzenberg. The allied armies effected their junction,
and Bl&uuml;cher, now supported by the Austrians, turned and
marched down the right bank of the Aube to meet Napoleon.
Napoleon, though far outnumbered, accepted battle. He was
attacked at La Rothi&egrave;re close above Brienne, and defeated
with heavy loss (Feb. 1). A vigorous pursuit would probably have
ended the war; but the Austrians held back. Schwarzenberg
believed peace to be already gained, and condemned all further
action as useless waste of life. In spite of the protests of the
Emperor Alexander, he allowed Napoleon to retire unmolested.
Schwarzenberg's inaction was no mere error in military judgment.
There was a direct conflict between the Czar and the Austrian
Cabinet as to the end to be obtained by the war. Alexander
already insisted on the dethronement of Napoleon; the Austrian
Government would have been content to leave Napoleon in power if
he would accept a peace giving France no worse a frontier than it
had possessed in 1791. Castlereagh, who had come from England,
and Hardenberg were as yet inclined to support Metternich's
policy, although the whole Prussian army, the public opinion of
Great Britain, and the counsels of Stein and all the bolder
Prussian statesmen, were on the side of the Czar. <a name=
"FNanchor188">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_188"><sup>[188]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Congress of Ch&acirc;tillon, Feb. 5-9.]</p>
<p>Already the influence of the peace-party was so far in the
ascendant that negotiations had been opened with Napoleon.
Representatives of all the Powers assembled at Ch&acirc;tillon,
in Burgundy; and there, towards the end of January, Caulaincourt
appeared on behalf of France. The first sitting took place on the
5th of February; on the following day Caulaincourt received full
powers from Napoleon to conclude peace. The Allies laid down as
the condition of peace the limitation of France to the frontiers
of 1791. Had Caulaincourt dared to conclude peace instantly on
these terms, Napoleon would have retained his throne; but he was
aware that Napoleon had only granted him full powers in
consequence of the disastrous battle of La Rothi&egrave;re, and
he feared to be disavowed by his master as soon as the army had
escaped from danger. Instead of simply accepting the Allies'
offer, he raised questions as to the future of Italy and Germany.
The moment was lost; on the 9th of February the Czar recalled his
envoy from Ch&acirc;tillon, and the sittings of the Congress were
broken off.</p>
<p>[Defeats of Bl&uuml;cher on the Marne Feb. 10-14.]</p>
<p>[Montereau, Feb 18.]</p>
<p>[Austrians fall back towards Langres.]</p>
<p>Schwarzenberg was now slowly and unwillingly moving forwards
along the Seine towards Troyes. Bl&uuml;cher was permitted to
return to the Marne, and to advance upon Paris by an independent
line of march. He crossed the country between the Aube and the
Marne, and joined some divisions which he had left behind him on
the latter river. But his dispositions were outrageously
careless: his troops were scattered over a space of sixty miles
from Ch&acirc;lons westward, as if he had no enemy to guard
against except the weak divisions commanded by Mortier and
Marmont, which had uniformly fallen back before his advance.
Suddenly Napoleon himself appeared at the centre of the long
Prussian line at Champaubert. He had hastened northwards in
pursuit of Bl&uuml;cher with 30,000 men, as soon as Schwarzenberg
entered Troyes; and on February 10th a weak Russian corps that
lay in the centre of Bl&uuml;cher's column was overwhelmed before
it was known the Emperor had left the Seine. Then, turning
leftwards, Napoleon overthrew the Prussian vanguard at
Montmirail, and two days later attacked and defeated Bl&uuml;cher
himself, who was bringing up the remainder of his troops in total
ignorance of the enemy with whom he had to deal. In four days
Bl&uuml;cher's army, which numbered 70,000 men, had thrice been
defeated in detail by a force of 30,000. Bl&uuml;cher was
compelled to fall back upon Ch&acirc;lons; Napoleon instantly
returned to the support of Oudinot's division, which he had left
in front of Schwarzenberg. In order to relieve Bl&uuml;cher, the
Austrians had pushed forward on the Seine beyond Montereau.
Within three days after the battle with Bl&uuml;cher, Napoleon
was back upon the Seine, and attacking the heads of the Austrian
column. On the 18th of February he gained so decisive a victory
at Montereau that Schwarzenberg abandoned the advance, and fell
back upon Troyes, sending word to Bl&uuml;cher to come southwards
again and help him to fight a great battle. Bl&uuml;cher moved
off with admirable energy, and came into the neighbourhood of
Troyes within a week after his defeats upon the Marne. But the
design of fighting a great battle was given up. The
disinclination of the Austrians to vigorous action was too strong
to be overcome; and it was finally determined that Schwarzenberg
should fall back almost to the plateau of Langres, leaving
Bl&uuml;cher to unite with the troops of B&uuml;low which had
conquered Holland, and to operate on the enemy's flank and
rear.</p>
<p>[Congress of Ch&acirc;tillon resumed, Feb. 17-March 15.]</p>
<p>The effect of Napoleon's sudden victories on the Marne was
instantly seen in the councils of the allied sovereigns.
Alexander, who had withdrawn his envoy from Ch&acirc;tillon,
could no longer hold out against negotiations with Napoleon. He
restored the powers of his envoy, and the Congress re-assembled.
But Napoleon already saw himself in imagination driving the
invaders beyond the Rhine, and sent orders to Caulaincourt to
insist upon the terms proposed at Frankfort, which left to France
both the Rhenish Provinces and Belgium. At the same time he
attempted to open a private negotiation with his father-in-law
the Emperor of Austria, and to detach him from the cause of the
Allies. The attempt failed; the demands now made by Caulaincourt
overcame even the peaceful inclinations of the Austrian Minister;
and on the 1st of March the Allies signed a new treaty at
Chaumont, pledging themselves to conclude no peace with Napoleon
that did not restore the frontier of 1791, and to maintain a
defensive alliance against France for a period of twenty years.
<a name="FNanchor189">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_189"><sup>[189]</sup></a> Caulaincourt continued for
another fortnight at Ch&acirc;tillon, instructed by Napoleon to
prolong the negotiations, but forbidden to accept the only
conditions which the Allies were willing to grant.</p>
<p>[Napoleon follows Bl&uuml;cher to the north. Battle of Laon,
March 10.]</p>
<p>Bl&uuml;cher was now on his way northwards to join the
so-called army of Bernadotte upon the Aisne. Since the Battle of
Leipzig, Bernadotte himself had taken no part in the movements of
the army nominally under his command. The Netherlands had been
conquered by B&uuml;low and the Russian general Winzingerode, and
these officers were now pushing southwards in order to take part
with Bl&uuml;cher in a movement against Paris. Napoleon
calculated that the fortress of Soissons would bar the way to the
northern army, and enable him to attack and crush Bl&uuml;cher
before he could effect a junction with his colleagues. He set out
in pursuit of the Prussians, still hoping for a second series of
victories like those he had won upon the Marne. But the cowardice
of the commander of Soissons ruined his chances of success. The
fortress surrendered to the Russians at the first summons.
Bl&uuml;cher met the advanced guard of the northern army upon the
Aisne on the 4th of March, and continued his march towards Laon
for the purpose of uniting with its divisions which lay in the
rear. The French followed, but the only advantage gained by
Napoleon was a victory over a detached Russian corps at Craonne.
Marmont was defeated with heavy loss by a sally of Bl&uuml;cher
from his strong position on the hill of Laon (March 10); and the
Emperor himself, unable to restore the fortune of the battle,
fell back upon Soissons, and thence marched southward to throw
himself again upon the line of the southern army.</p>
<p>[Napoleon marches to the rear of the Allies, March 23.]</p>
<p>[The Allies advance on Paris.]</p>
<p>Schwarzenberg had once more begun to move forward on the news
of Bl&uuml;cher's victory at Laon. His troops were so widely
dispersed that Napoleon might even now have cut the line in
halves had he known Schwarzenberg's real position. But he made a
d&eacute;tour in order to meet Oudinot's corps, and gave the
Austrians time to concentrate at Arcis-sur-Aube. Here, on the
20th of March, Napoleon found himself in face of an army of
100,000 men. His own army was less than a third of that number;
yet with unalterable contempt for the enemy he risked another
battle. No decided issue was reached in the first day's fighting,
and Napoleon remained in position, expecting that Schwarzenberg
would retreat during the night. But on the morrow the Austrians
were still fronting him. Schwarzenberg had at length learnt his
own real superiority, and resolved to assist the enemy no longer
by a wretched system of retreat. A single act of firmness on the
part of the Austrian commander showed Napoleon that the war of
battles was at an end. He abandoned all hope of resisting the
invaders in front: it only remained for him to throw himself on
to their rear, and, in company with the frontier-garrisons and
the army of Lyons, to attack their communications with Germany.
The plan was no unreasonable one, if Paris could either have
sustained a siege or have fallen into the enemy's hands without
terminating the war. But the Allies rightly judged that
Napoleon's power would be extinct from the moment that Paris
submitted. They received the intelligence of the Emperor's march
to the east, and declined to follow him. The armies of
Schwarzenberg and Bl&uuml;cher approached one another, and moved
together on Paris. It was at Vitry, on March 27th, that Napoleon
first discovered that the troops which had appeared to be
following his eastward movement were but a detachment of cavalry,
and that the allied armies were in full march upon the capital.
He instantly called up every division within reach, and pushed
forward by forced marches for the Seine, hoping to fall upon
Schwarzenberg's rear before the allied vanguard could reach
Paris. But at each hour of the march it became more evident that
the enemy was far in advance. For two days Napoleon urged his men
forward; at length, unable to bear the intolerable suspense, he
quitted the army on the morning of the 30th, and drove forward at
the utmost speed along the road through Fontainebleau to the
capital. As day sank, he met reports of a battle already begun.
When he reached the village of Fromenteau, fifteen miles from
Paris, at ten o'clock at night, he heard that Paris had actually
surrendered.</p>
<p>[Attack on Paris, March 30.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Marmont.]</p>
<p>[Allies enter Paris, March 31.]</p>
<p>The Allies had pressed forward without taking any notice of
Napoleon's movements, and at early morning on the 30th they had
opened the attack on the north-eastern heights of Paris. Marmont,
with the fragments of a beaten army and some weak divisions of
the National Guard, had but 35,000 men to oppose to three times
that number of the enemy. The Government had taken no steps to
arm the people, or to prolong resistance after the outside line
of defence was lost, although the erection of barricades would
have held the Allies in check until Napoleon arrived with his
army. While Marmont fought in the outer suburbs, masses of the
people were drawn up on Montmartre, expecting the Emperor's
appearance, and the spectacle of a great and decisive battle. But
the firing in the outskirts stopped soon after noon: it was
announced that Marmont had capitulated. The report struck the
people with stupor and fury. They had vainly been demanding arms
since early morning; and even after the capitulation unsigned
papers were handed about by men of the working classes,
advocating further resistance. <a name="FNanchor190">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_190"><sup>[190]</sup></a> But the people no longer
knew how to follow leaders of its own. Napoleon had trained
France to look only to himself: his absence left the masses, who
were still eager to fight for France, helpless in the presence of
the conqueror: there were enemies enough of the Government among
the richer classes to make the entry of the foreigner into Paris
a scene of actual joy and exultation. To such an extent had the
spirit of caste and the malignant delight in Napoleon's ruin
overpowered the love of France among the party of the old
noblesse, that upon the entry of the allied forces into Paris on
the 31st of March hundreds of aristocratic women kissed the
hands, or the very boots and horses, of the leaders of the train,
and cheered the Cossacks who escorted a band of French prisoners,
bleeding and exhausted, through the streets.</p>
<p>[Napoleon dethroned, April 2.]</p>
<p>Napoleon's reign was indeed at an end. Since the rupture of
the Congress of Ch&acirc;tillon on the 18th of March, the Allies
had determined to make his dethronement a condition of peace. As
the end approached, it was seen that no successor was possible
but the chief of the House of Bourbon, although Austria would
perhaps have consented to the establishment of a Regency under
the Empress Marie Louise, and the Czar had for a time entertained
the project of placing Bernadotte at the head of the French
State. Immediately after the entry into Paris it was determined
to raise the exile Louis XVIII. to the throne. The politicians of
the Empire who followed Talleyrand were not unwilling to unite
with the conquerors, and with the small party of Royalist
noblesse, in recalling the Bourbon dynasty. Alexander, who was
the real master of the situation, rightly judged Talleyrand to be
the man most capable of enlisting the public opinion of France on
the side of the new order. He took up his abode at Talleyrand's
house, and employed this dexterous statesman as the advocate both
of the policy of the Allies, and of the principles of
constitutional liberty, which at this time Alexander himself
sincerely befriended. A Provisional Government was appointed
under Talleyrand's leadership. On the 2nd of April the Senate
proclaimed the dethronement of Napoleon. On the 6th it published
a Constitution, and recalled the House of Bourbon.</p>
<p>Louis XVIII. was still in England: his brother, the Count of
Artois, had joined the invaders in France and assumed the title
of Lieutenant of the Kingdom; but the influence of Alexander was
necessary to force this obstinate and unteachable man into
anything like a constitutional position. The Provisional
Government invited the Count to take up the administration until
the King's arrival, in virtue of a decree of the Senate. D'Artois
declined to recognise the Senate's competency, and claimed the
Lieutenancy of the Kingdom as his brother's representative. The
Senate refusing to admit the Count's divine right, some unmeaning
words were exchanged when d'Artois entered Paris; and the
Provisional Government, disregarding the claims of the Royal
Lieutenant, continued in the full exercise of its powers. At
length the Czar insisted that d'Artois should give way. The
decree of the Senate was accordingly accepted by him at the
Tuileries on the 14th of April; the Provisional Government
retired, and a Council of State was formed, in which Talleyrand
still continued to exercise the real powers of government. In the
address made by d'Artois on this occasion, he stated that
although the King had not empowered him to accept the
Constitution made by the Senate on the 6th of April, he
entertained no doubt that the King would accept the principles
embodied in that Constitution, which were those of Representative
Government, of the freedom of the press, and of the
responsibility of ministers. A week after d'Artois' declaration,
Louis XVIII. arrived in France.</p>
<p>[Louis XVIII. and the Czar.]</p>
<p>[Louis XVIII. enters Paris, May 3.]</p>
<p>Louis XVIII., though capable of adapting himself in practice
to a constitutional system, had never permitted himself to
question the divine right of the House of Bourbon to sovereign
power. The exiles who surrounded him were slow to understand the
needs of the time. They recommended the King to reject the
Constitution. Louis made an ambiguous answer when the Legislative
Body met him at Compi&egrave;gne and invited an expression of the
royal policy. It was again necessary for the Czar to interfere,
and to explain to the King that France could no longer be an
absolute monarchy. Louis, however, was a better arguer than the
Count of Artois. He reasoned as a man whom the sovereigns of
Europe had felt it their duty to restore without any request from
himself. If the Senate of Napoleon, he urged, had the right to
give France a Constitution, he himself ought never to have been
brought from his peaceful English home. He was willing to grant a
free Constitution to his people in exercise of his own royal
rights, but he could not recognise one created by the servants of
an usurper. Alexander was but half satisfied with the liberal
professions of Louis: he did not, however, insist on his
acceptance of the Constitution drawn up by the Senate, but he
informed him that until the promises made by d'Artois were
confirmed by a royal proclamation, there would be no entry into
Paris. The King at length signed a proclamation written by
Talleyrand, and made his festal entry into the capital on the 3rd
of May.</p>
<p>[Feeling of Paris.]</p>
<p>The promises of Louis himself, the unbroken courtesy and
friendliness shown by the Allies to Paris since their victory a
month before, had almost extinguished the popular feeling of
hostility towards a dynasty which owed its recall to the
overthrow of French armies. The foreign leaders themselves had
begun to excite a certain admiration and interest. Alexander was
considered, and with good reason, as a generous enemy; the
simplicity of the King of Prussia, his misfortunes, his
well-remembered gallantry at the Battle of Jena, gained him
general sympathy. It needed but little on the part of the
returning Bourbons to convert the interest and curiosity of Paris
into affection. The cort&egrave;ge which entered the capital with
Louis XVIII. brought back, in a singular motley of obsolete and
of foreign costumes, the bearers of many unforgotten names. The
look of the King himself, as he drove through Paris, pleased the
people. The childless father of the murdered Duke of Enghien
gained the pitying attention of those few who knew the face of a
man twenty-five years an exile. But there was one among the
members of the returning families whom every heart in Paris went
out to meet. The daughter of Louis XVI., who had shared the
captivity of her parents and of her brother, the sole survivor of
her deeply-wronged house, now returned as Duchess of
Angoul&ecirc;me. The uniquely mournful history of her girlhood,
and her subsequent marriage with her cousin, the son of the Count
of Artois, made her the natural object of a warmer sympathy than
could attach to either of the brothers of Louis XVI. But
adversity had imprinted its lines too deeply upon the features
and the disposition of this joyless woman for a moment's light to
return. Her voice and her aspect repelled the affection which
thousands were eager to offer to her. Before the close of the
first days of the restored monarchy, it was felt that the
Bourbons had brought back no single person among them who was
capable of winning the French nation's love.</p>
<p>[Napoleon sent to Elba.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The recall of the ancient line had been allowed to appear to
the world as the work of France itself; Napoleon's fate could
only be fixed by his conquerors. After the fall of Paris,
Napoleon remained at Fontainebleau awaiting events. The soldiers
and the younger officers of his army were still ready to fight
for him; the marshals, however, were utterly weary, and
determined that France should no longer suffer for the sake of a
single man. They informed Napoleon that he must abdicate.
Yielding to their pressure, Napoleon, on the 3rd of April, drew
up an act of abdication in favour of his infant son, and sent it
by Caulaincourt to the allied sovereigns at Paris. The document
was rejected by the Allies; Caulaincourt returned with the
intelligence that Napoleon must renounce the throne for himself
and all his family. For a moment the Emperor thought of renewing
the war; but the marshals refused their aid more resolutely than
before, and, on the 6th of April, Napoleon signed an
unconditional surrender of the throne for himself and his heirs.
He was permitted by the Allies to retain the unmeaning title of
Emperor, and to carry with him a body-guard and a considerable
revenue to the island of Elba, henceforward to be his
principality and his prison. The choice of this island, within
easy reach of France and Italy, and too extensive to be guarded
without a large fleet, was due to Alexander's ill-judged
generosity towards Napoleon, and to a promise made to Marmont
that the liberty of the Emperor should be respected. Alexander
was not left without warning of the probable effects of his
leniency. Sir Charles Stewart, military representative of Great
Britain at the allied head-quarters, urged both his own and the
allied Governments to substitute some more distant island for
Elba, if they desired to save Europe from a renewed Napoleonic
war, and France from the misery of a second invasion. The Allies,
though not without misgivings, adhered to their original plan,
and left it to time to justify the predictions of their
adviser.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Paris, May 30.]</p>
<p>It was well known what would be the terms of peace, now that
Napoleon was removed from the throne. The Allies had no intention
of depriving France of any of the territory that it had held
before 1792: the conclusion of a definitive Treaty was only
postponed until the Constitution, which Alexander required King
Louis XVIII. to grant, had been drawn up by a royal commission
and approved by the King. On the 27th of May the draft of this
Constitution, known as the Charta, was laid before the King, and
sanctioned by him; on the 30th, the Treaty of Paris was signed by
the representatives of France and of all the great Powers. <a
name="FNanchor191">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_191"><sup>[191]</sup></a> France, surrendering all its
conquests, accepted the frontier of the 1st of January, 1792,
with a slight addition of territory on the side of Savoy and at
points on its northern and eastern border. It paid no indemnity.
It was permitted to retain all the works of art accumulated by
twenty years of rapine, except the trophies carried from the
Brandenburg Gate of Berlin and the spoils of the Library of
Vienna. It received back nearly all the colonies which had been
taken from it by Great Britain. By the clauses of the Treaty
disposing of the territory that had formed the Empire and the
dependencies of Napoleon, Holland was restored to the House of
Orange, with the provision that its territory should be largely
increased; Switzerland was declared independent; it was
stipulated that Italy, with the exception of the Austrian
Provinces, should consist of independent States, and that Germany
should remain distributed among a multitude of sovereigns,
independent, but united by a Federal tie. The navigation of the
Rhine was thrown open. By a special agreement with Great Britain
the French Government undertook to unite its efforts to those of
England in procuring the suppression of the Slave-trade by all
the Powers, and pledged itself to abolish the Slave-trade among
French subjects within five years at the latest. For the
settlement of all European questions not included in the Treaty
of Paris it was agreed that a Congress of the Powers should,
within two months, assemble at Vienna. These were the public
articles of the Treaty of Paris. Secret clauses provided that the
Allies-that is, the Allies independently of France-should control
the distributions of territory to be made at the Congress; that
Austria should receive Venetia and all Northern Italy as far as
the Ticino; that Genoa should be given to the King of Sardinia;
and that the Southern Netherlands should be united into a single
kingdom with Holland, and thus form a solid bulwark against
France on the north. No mention was made of Naples, whose
sovereign, Murat, had abandoned Napoleon and allied himself with
Austria, but without fulfilling in good faith the engagements
into which he had entered against his former master. A nominal
friend of the Allies, he knew that he had played a double game,
and that his sovereignty, though not yet threatened, was
insecure. <a name="FNanchor192">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_192"><sup>[192]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Territorial arrangements of 1814.]</p>
<p>Much yet remained to be settled by the Congress at Vienna, but
in the Treaty of Paris two at least of the great Powers saw the
objects attained for which they had straggled so persistently
through all the earlier years of the war, and which at a later
time had appeared to pass almost out of the range of possibility.
England saw the Netherlands once more converted into a barrier
against France, and Antwerp held by friendly hands. Austria
reaped the full reward of its cool and well-balanced diplomacy
during the crisis of 1813, in the annexation of an Italian
territory that made it the real mistress of the Peninsula.
Castlereagh and every other English politician felt that Europe
had done itself small honour in handing Venice back to the
Hapsburg; but this had been the condition exacted by Metternich
at Prague before he consented to throw the sword of Austria into
the trembling scale; <a name="FNanchor193">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_193"><sup>[193]</sup></a> and the Republican
traditions both of Venice and of Genoa counted for little among
the statesmen of 1814, in comparison with the divine right of a
Duke of Modena or a Prince of Hesse Cassel. <a name=
"FNanchor194">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_194"><sup>[194]</sup></a>
France itself, though stripped of the dominion won by twenty
years of warfare, was permitted to retain, for the benefit of a
restored line of kings, the whole of its ancient territory, and
the spoil of all the galleries and museums of Western Europe. It
would have been no unnatural wrong if the conquerors of 1814 had
dealt with the soil of France as France had dealt with other
lands; it would have been an act of bare justice to restore to
its rightful owners the pillage that had been brought to Paris,
and to recover from the French treasury a part of the enormous
sums which Napoleon had extorted from conquered States. But the
Courts were too well satisfied with their victory to enter into a
strict account upon secondary matters; and a prudent regard on
the part of the Allies to the prospects of the House of Bourbon
saved France from experiencing what it had inflicted upon
others.</p>
<p>[All the Powers except France gained territory by the war,
1792-1814.]</p>
<p>The policy which now restored to France the frontier of 1792
was viewed with a very different feeling in France and in all
other countries. Europe looked with a kind of wonder upon its own
generosity; France forgot the unparalleled provocations which it
had offered to mankind, and only remembered that Belgium and the
Rhenish Provinces had formed part of the Republic and the Empire
for nearly twenty years. These early conquests of the Republic,
which no one had attempted to wrest from France since 1795, had
undoubtedly been the equivalent for which, in the days of the
Directory, Austria had been permitted to extend itself in Italy,
and Prussia in Germany. In the opinion of men who sincerely
condemned Napoleon's distant conquests, the territory between
France and the Rhine was no more than France might legitimately
demand, as a counterpoise to the vast accessions falling to one
or other of the Continental Powers out of the territory of
Poland, Venice, and the body of suppressed States in Germany.
Poland, excluding the districts taken from it before 1792,
contained a population twice as great as that of Belgium and the
Rhenish Provinces together: Venice carried with it, in addition
to a commanding province on the Italian mainland, the Eastern
Adriatic Coast as far as Ragusa. If it were true that the
proportionate increase of power formed the only solid principle
of European policy, France sustained a grievous injury in
receiving back the limits of 1791, when every other State on the
Continent was permitted to retain the territory, or an equivalent
for the territory, which it had gained in the great changes that
took place between 1791 and 1814. But in fact there had never
been a time during the last hundred and fifty years when France,
under an energetic Government, had not possessed a force
threatening to all its neighbours. France, reduced to its ancient
limits, was still the equal, and far more than the equal, of any
of the Continental Powers, with all that they had gained during
the Revolutionary War. It remained the first of European nations,
though no longer, as in the eighteenth century, the one great
nation of the western continent. Its efforts after universal
empire had aroused other nations into life. Had the course of
French conquest ceased before Napoleon grasped power, France
would have retained its frontier of the Rhine, and long have
exercised an unbounded influence over both Germany and Italy,
through the incomparably juster and brighter social life which
the Revolution, combined with all that France had inherited from
the past, enabled it to display to those countries. Napoleon, in
the attempt to impose his rule upon all Europe, created a power
in Germany whose military future was to be not less solid than
that of France itself, and left to Europe, in the accord of his
enemies, a firmer security against French attack than any that
the efforts of statesmen had ever framed.</p>
<p>[Permanent effect on Europe of period 1792-1814.]</p>
<p>[National sense excited in Germany and Italy.]</p>
<p>The league of the older monarchies had proved stronger in the
end than the genius and the ambition of a single man. But if, in
the service of Napoleon, France had exhausted its wealth, sunk
its fleets, and sacrificed a million lives, only that it might
lose all its earlier conquests, and resume limits which it had
outgrown before Napoleon held his first command, it was not thus
with the work which, for or against itself, France had effected
in Europe during the movements of the last twenty years. In the
course of the epoch now ending the whole of the Continent up to
the frontiers of Austria and Russia had gained the two fruitful
ideas of nationality and political freedom. There were now two
nations in Europe where before there had been but aggregates of
artificial States. Germany and Italy were no longer mere
geographical expressions: in both countries, though in a very
unequal degree, the newly-aroused sense of nationality had
brought with it the claim for unity and independence. In Germany,
Prussia had set a great example, and was hereafter to reap its
reward; in Italy there had been no State and no statesman to take
the lead either in throwing off Napoleon's rule, or in forcing
him, as the price of support, to give to his Italian kingdom a
really national government. Failing to act for itself, the
population of all Italy, except Naples, was parcelled out between
Austria and the ancient dynasties; but the old days of passive
submission to the foreigner were gone for ever, and time was to
show whether those were the dreamers who thought of a united
Italy, or those who thought that Metternich's statesmanship had
for ever settled the fate of Venice and of Milan.</p>
<p>[Desire for political liberty.]</p>
<p>The second legacy of the Revolutionary epoch, the idea of
constitutional freedom, which in 1789 had been as much wanting in
Spain, where national spirit was the strongest, as in those
German States where it was the weakest, had been excited in Italy
by the events of 1796 and 1798, in Spain by the disappearance of
the Bourbon king and the self-directed struggle of the nation
against the invader; in Prussia it had been introduced by the
Government itself when Stein was at the head of the State. "It is
impossible," wrote Lord Castlereagh in the spring of 1814, "not
to perceive a great moral change coming on in Europe, and that
the principles of freedom are in full operation." <a name=
"FNanchor195">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_195"><sup>[195]</sup></a>
There was in fact scarcely a Court in Europe which was not now
declaring its intention to frame a Constitution. The professions
might be lightly made; the desire and the capacity for
self-government might still be limited to a narrower class than
the friends of liberty imagined; but the seed was sown, and a
movement had begun which was to gather strength during the next
thirty years of European history, while one revolution after
another proved that Governments could no longer with safety
disregard the rights of their subjects.</p>
<p>[Social changes.]</p>
<p>Lastly, in all the territory that had formed Napoleon's Empire
and dependencies, and also in Prussia, legal changes had been
made in the rights and relations of the different classes of
society, so important as almost to create a new type of social
life. Within the Empire itself the Code Napol&eacute;on,
conferring upon the subjects of France the benefits which the
French had already won for themselves, had superseded a society
resting on class-privilege, on feudal service, and on the
despotism of custom, by a society resting on equality before the
law, on freedom of contract, and on the unshackled ownership and
enjoyment of land, whether the holder possessed an acre or a
league. The principles of the French Code, if not the Code
itself, had been introduced into Napoleon's kingdom of Italy,
into Naples, and into almost all the German dependencies of
France. In Prussia the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg had been
directed, though less boldly, towards the same end; and when,
after 1814, the Rhenish Provinces were annexed to Prussia by the
Congress of Vienna, the Government was wise enough and liberal
enough to leave these districts in the enjoyment of the laws
which France had given them, and not to risk a comparison between
even the best Prussian legislation and the Code Napoleon. In
other territory now severed from France and restored to German or
Italian princes, attempts were not wanting to obliterate the new
order and to re-introduce the burdens and confusions of the old
regime. But these reactions, even where unopposed for a time,
were too much in conflict with the spirit of the age to gain more
than a temporary and precarious success. The people had begun to
know good and evil: examples of a free social order were too
close at hand to render it possible for any part of the western
continent to relapse for any very long period into the condition
of the eighteenth century.</p>
<p>[Limits.]</p>
<p>It was indeed within a distinct limit that the Revolutionary
epoch effected its work of political and social change. Neither
England nor Austria received the slightest impulse to progress.
England, on the contrary, suspended almost all internal
improvement during the course of the war; the domestic policy of
the Austrian Court, so energetic in the reign immediately
preceding the Revolution, became for the next twenty years,
except where it was a policy of repression, a policy of pure
vacancy and inaction. But in all other States of Western Europe
the period which reached its close with Napoleon's fall left deep
and lasting traces behind it. Like other great epochs of change,
it bore its own peculiar character. It was not, like the
Renaissance and the Reformation, a time when new worlds of faith
and knowledge transformed the whole scope and conception of human
life; it was not, like our own age, a time when scientific
discovery and increased means of communication silently altered
the physical conditions of existence; it was a time of changes
directly political in their nature, and directly effected by the
political agencies of legislation and of war. In the perspective
of history the Napoleonic age will take its true place among
other, and perhaps greater, epochs. Its elements of mere violence
and disturbance will fill less space in the eyes of mankind; its
permanent creations, more. As an epoch of purely political
energy, concentrating the work of generations within the compass
of twenty five years, it will perhaps scarcely find a
parallel.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c12">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>The Restoration of 1814-Norway-Naples-Westphalia-Spain-The
Spanish Constitution overthrown: Victory of the
Clergy-Restoration in France-The Charta-Encroachments of the
Nobles and Clergy-Growing Hostility to the Bourbons-Congress of
Vienna-Talleyrand and the Four Powers-The Polish Question-The
Saxon Question-Theory of Legitimacy-Secret Alliance against
Russia and Prussia-Compromise-The Rhenish Provinces-Napoleon
leaves Elba and lands in France-His Declarations-Napoleon at
Grenoble, at Lyon, at Paris-The Congress of Vienna unites Europe
against France-Murat's Action in Italy-The Acte Additionnel-The
Champ de Mai-Napoleon takes up the offensive-Battles of Ligny,
Quatre Bras, Waterloo-Affairs at Paris-Napoleon sent to St.
Helena-Wellington and Fouch&eacute;-Arguments on the proposed
Cession of French Territory-Treaty of Holy Alliance-Second Treaty
of Paris-Conclusion of the Work of the Congress of Vienna-
Federation of Germany-Estimate of the Congress of Vienna and of
the Treaties of 1815-The Slave Trade.</p>
<br>

<p>Of all the events which, in the more recent history of
mankind, have struck the minds of nations with awe, and appeared
to reveal in its direct operation a power overruling the highest
human effort, there is none equal in grandeur and terror to the
annihilation of Napoleon's army in the invasion of Russia. It was
natural that a generation which had seen State after State
overthrown, and each new violation of right followed by an
apparent consolidation of the conqueror's strength, should view
in the catastrophe of 1812 the hand of Providence visibly
outstretched for the deliverance of Europe. <a name=
"FNanchor196">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_196"><sup>[196]</sup></a>
Since that time many years have passed. Perils which then seemed
to envelop the future of mankind now appear in part illusory;
sacrifices then counted cheap have proved of heavy cost. The
history of the two last generations shows that not everything was
lost to Europe in passing subjection to a usurper, nor everything
gained by the victory of his opponents. It is now not easy to
suppress the doubt whether the permanent interests of mankind
would not have been best served by Napoleon's success in 1812.
His empire had already attained dimensions that rendered its
ultimate disruption certain: less depended upon the postponement
or the acceleration of its downfall than on the order of things
ready to take its place. The victory of Napoleon in 1812 would
have been followed by the establishment of a Polish kingdom in
the provinces taken from Russia. From no generosity in the
conqueror, from no sympathy on his part with a fallen people, but
from the necessities of his political situation, Poland must have
been so organised as to render it the bulwark of French supremacy
in the East. The serf would have been emancipated. The just
hatred of the peasant to the noble, which made the partition of
1772 easy, and has proved fatal to every Polish uprising from
that time to the present, would have been appeased by an agrarian
reform executed with Napoleon's own unrivalled energy and
intelligence, and ushered in with brighter hopes than have at any
time in the history of Poland lit the dark shades of
peasant-life. The motives which in 1807 had led Napoleon to stay
his hand, and to content himself with half-measures of
emancipation in the Duchy of Warsaw <a name="FNanchor197">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_197"><sup>[197]</sup></a>, could have had no
place after 1812, when Russia remained by his side, a mutilated
but inexorable enemy, ever on the watch to turn to its own
advantage the first murmurs of popular discontent beyond the
border. Political independence, the heritage of the Polish noble,
might have been withheld, but the blessing of landed independence
would have been bestowed on the mass of the Polish people. In the
course of some years this restored kingdom, though governed by a
member of the house of Bonaparte, would probably have gained
sufficient internal strength to survive the downfall of
Napoleon's Empire or his own decease. England, Austria, and
Turkey would have found it no impossible task to prevent its
absorption by Alexander at the re-settlement of Europe, if indeed
the collapse of Russia had not been followed by the overthrow of
the Porte, and the establishment of a Greek, a Bulgarian, and a
Roumanian Kingdom under the supremacy of France. By the side of
the three absolute monarchs of Central and Eastern Europe there
would have remained, upon Napoleon's downfall, at least one
people in possession of the tradition of liberty: and from the
example of Poland, raised from the deep but not incurable
degradation of its social life, the rulers of Russia might have
gained courage to emancipate the serf, without waiting for the
lapse of another half-century and the occurrence of a second
ruinous war. To compare a possible sequence of events with the
real course of history, to estimate the good lost and evil got
through events which at the time seemed to vindicate the moral
governance of the world, is no idle exercise of the imagination.
It may serve to give caution to the judgment: it may guard us
against an arbitrary and fanciful interpretation of the actual.
The generation which witnessed the fall of Napoleon is not the
only one which has seen Providence in the fulfilment of its own
desire, and in the storm-cloud of nature and history has traced
with too sanguine gaze the sacred lineaments of human equity and
love.</p>
<p>[Settlement of 1814.]</p>
<p>[Norway.]</p>
<p>[Naples.]</p>
<p>The Empire of Napoleon had indeed passed away. The conquests
won by the first soldiers of the Republic were lost to France
along with all the latest spoils of its Emperor; but the
restoration which was effected in 1814 was no restoration of the
political order which had existed on the Continent before the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The Powers which had
overthrown Napoleon had been partakers, each in its own season,
in the system of aggrandisement which had obliterated the old
frontiers of Europe. Russia had gained Finland, Bessarabia, and
the greater part of Poland; Austria had won Venice, Dalmatia, and
Salzburg; Prussia had received between the years 1792 and 1806 an
extension of territory in Poland and Northern Germany that more
than doubled its area. It was now no part of the policy of the
victorious Courts to reinstate the governments which they had
themselves dispossessed: the settlement of 1814, in so far as it
deserved the name of a restoration, was confined to the territory
taken from Napoleon and from princes of his house. Here, though
the claims of Republics and Ecclesiastical Princes were
forgotten, the titles of the old dynasties were freely
recognised. In France itself, in the Spanish Peninsula, in
Holland, Westphalia, Piedmont, and Tuscany, the banished houses
resumed their sovereignty. It cost the Allies nothing to restore
these countries to their hereditary rulers, and it enabled them
to describe the work of 1814 in general terms as the restoration
of lawful government and national independence. But the claims of
legitimacy, as well as of national right, were, as a matter of
fact, only remembered where there existed no motive to disregard
them; where they conflicted with arrangements of policy, they
received small consideration. Norway, which formed part of the
Danish monarchy, had been promised by Alexander to Bernadotte,
Crown Prince of Sweden, in 1812, in return for his support
against Napoleon, and the bargain had been ratified by the
Allies. As soon as Napoleon was overthrown, Bernadotte claimed
his reward. It was in vain that the Norwegians, abandoned by
their king, declared themselves independent, and protested
against being handed over like a flock of sheep by the liberators
of Europe. The Allies held to their contract; a British fleet was
sent to assist Bernadotte in overpowering his new subjects, and
after a brief resistance the Norwegians found themselves
compelled to submit to their fate <a name=
"FNanchor198">(April-Aug., 1814).</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_198"><sup>[198]</sup></a> At the other extremity of
Europe a second of Napoleon's generals still held his throne
among the restored legitimate monarchs. Murat, King of Naples,
had forsaken Napoleon in time to make peace and alliance with
Austria. Great Britain, though entering into a military
convention, had not been a party to this treaty; and it had
declared that its own subsequent support of Murat would depend
upon the condition that he should honourably exert himself in
Italy against Napoleon's forces. This condition Murat had not
fulfilled. The British Government was, however, but gradually
supplied with proofs of his treachery; nor was Lord Liverpool,
the Prime Minister, inclined to raise new difficulties at Vienna
by pressing the claim of Ferdinand of Sicily to his territories
on the mainland. <a name="FNanchor199">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_199"><sup>[199]</sup></a> Talleyrand, on behalf of the
restored Bourbons of Paris, intended to throw all his strength
into a diplomatic attack upon Murat before the end of the
Congress; but for the present Murat's chances seemed to be
superior to those of his rival. Southern Italy thus continued in
the hands of a soldier of fortune, who, unlike Bernadotte, was
secretly the friend of Napoleon, and ready to support him in any
attempt to regain his throne.</p>
<p>[Restoration in Westphalia.]</p>
<p>The engagement of the Allies towards Bernadotte, added to the
stipulations of the Peace of Paris, left little to be decided by
the Congress of Vienna beyond the fate of Poland, Saxony, and
Naples, and the form of political union to be established in
Germany. It had been agreed that the Congress should assemble
within two months after the signature of the Peace of Paris: this
interval, however, proved to be insufficient, and the autumn had
set in before the first diplomatists arrived at Vienna, and began
the conferences which preceded the formal opening of the
Congress. In the meantime a singular spectacle was offered to
Europe by the Courts whose restoration was the subject of so much
official thanksgiving. Before King Louis XVIII. returned to
Paris, the exiled dynasties had regained their thrones in
Northern Germany and in Spain. The process of reaction had begun
in Hanover and in Hesse as soon as the battle of Leipzig had
dissolved the Kingdom of Westphalia and driven Napoleon across
the Rhine. Hanover indeed did not enjoy the bodily presence of
its Sovereign: its character was oligarchical, and the reaction
here was more the affair of the privileged classes than of the
Government. In Hesse a prince returned who was the very
embodiment of divine right, a prince who had sturdily fought
against French demagogues in 1792, and over whose stubborn,
despotic nature the revolutions of a whole generation and the
loss of his own dominions since the battle of Jena had passed
without leaving a trace. The Elector was seventy years old when,
at the end of the year 1813, his faithful subjects dragged his
carriage in triumph into the streets of Cassel. On the day after
his arrival he gave orders that the Hessian soldiery who had been
sent on furlough after the battle of Jena should present
themselves, every man in the garrison-town where he had stood on
the 1st of November, 1806. A few weeks later all the reforms of
the last seven years were swept away together. The Code Napoleon
ceased to be the law of the land; the old oppressive distinctions
of caste, with the special courts for the privileged orders, came
again into force, in defiance of the spirit of the age. The
feudal burdens of the peasantry were revived, the purchasers of
State-lands compelled to relinquish the land without receiving
back any of their purchase-money. The decimal coinage was driven
out of the country. The old system of taxation, with its
iniquitous exemptions, was renewed. All promotions, all grants of
rank made by Jerome's Government were annulled: every officer,
every public servant resumed the station which he had occupied on
the 1st of November, 1806. The very pigtails and powder of the
common soldier under the old regime were <a name=
"FNanchor200">revived.</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_200"><sup>[200]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Restoration in Spain.]</p>
<p>The Hessians and their neighbours in North-Western Germany had
from of old been treated with very little ceremony by their
rulers; and if they welcomed back a family which had been
accustomed to hire them out at so much a head to fight against
the Hindoos or by the side of the North American Indians, it only
proved that they preferred their native taskmasters to Jerome
Bonaparte and his French crew of revellers and usurers. The next
scene in the European reaction was a far more mournful one.
Ferdinand of Spain had no sooner re-crossed the Pyrenees in the
spring of 1814, than, convinced of his power by the transports of
popular enthusiasm that attended his progress through Northern
Spain, he determined to overthrow the Constitution of 1812, and
to re-establish the absolute monarchy which had existed before
the war. The courtiers and ecclesiastics who gathered round the
King dispelled any scruples that he might have felt in lifting
his hand against a settlement accepted by the nation. They
represented to him that the Cortes of 1812-which, whatever their
faults, had been recognised as the legitimate Government of Spain
by both England and Russia-consisted of a handful of desperate
men, collected from the streets of Cadiz, who had taken upon
themselves to insult the Crown, to rob the Church, and to imperil
the existence of the Catholic Faith. On the entry of the King
into Valencia, the cathedral clergy expressed the wishes of their
order in the address of homage which they offered to Ferdinand.
"We beg your Majesty," their spokesman concluded, "to take the
most vigorous measures for the restoration of the Inquisition,
and of the ecclesiastical system that existed in Spain before
your Majesty's departure." "These," replied the King, "are my own
wishes, and I will not rest until they are fulfilled." <a name=
"FNanchor201">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_201"><sup>[201]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Spanish Constitution overthrown.]</p>
<p>The victory of the clergy was soon declared. On the 11th of
May the King issued a manifesto at Valencia, proclaiming the
Constitution of 1812 and every decree of the Cortes null and
void, and denouncing the penalties of high treason against
everyone who should defend the Constitution by act, word, or
writing. A variety of promises, made only to be broken,
accompanied this assertion of the rights of the Crown. The King
pledged himself to summon new Cortes as soon as public order
should be restored, to submit the expenditure to the control of
the nation, and to maintain inviolate the security of person and
property. It was a significant comment upon Ferdinand's
professions of Liberalism that on the very day on which the
proclamation was issued the censorship of the Press was restored.
But the King had not miscalculated his power over the Spanish
people. The same storm of wild, unreasoning loyalty which had
followed Ferdinand's reappearance in Spain followed the overthrow
of the Constitution. The mass of the Spaniards were ignorant of
the very meaning of political liberty: they adored the King as a
savage adores his fetish: their passions were at the call of a
priesthood as brutish and unscrupulous as that which in 1798 had
excited the Lazzaroni of Naples against the Republicans of
Southern Italy. No sooner had Ferdinand set the example, by
arresting thirty of the most distinguished of the Liberals, than
tumults broke out in every part of the country against
Constitutionalist magistrates and citizens. Mobs, headed by
priests bearing the standard of the Inquisition, destroyed the
tablets erected in honour of the Constitution of 1812, and burned
Liberal writings in bonfires in the market-places. The prisons
were filled with men who, but a short time before, had been the
objects of popular adulation.</p>
<p>[The clergy in power.]</p>
<p>Whatever pledges of allegiance had been given to the
Constitution of 1812, it was clear that this Constitution had no
real hold on the nation, and that Ferdinand fulfilled the wish of
the majority of Spaniards in overthrowing it. A wise and
energetic sovereign would perhaps have allowed himself to use
this outburst of religious fanaticism for the purpose of
substituting some better order for the imprudent arrangements of
1812. Ferdinand, an ignorant, hypocritical buffoon, with no more
notion of political justice or generosity than the beasts of the
field, could only substitute for the fallen Cortes a government
by palace-favourites and confessors. It was in vain, that the
representatives of Great Britain urged the King to fulfil his
constitutional promises, and to liberate the persons who had
unjustly been thrown into prison. <a name="FNanchor202">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_202"><sup>[202]</sup></a> The clergy were masters
of Spain and of the King: their influence daily outweighed even
that of Ferdinand's own Ministers, when, under the pressure of
financial necessity, the Ministers began to offer some resistance
to the exorbitant demands of the priesthood. On the 23rd of May
the King signed an edict restoring all monasteries throughout
Spain, and reinstating them in their lands. On the 24th of June
the clergy were declared exempt from taxation. On the 21st of
July the Church won its crowning triumph in the re-establishment
of the Inquisition. In the meantime the army was left without
pay, in some places actually without food. The country was at the
mercy of bands of guerillas, who, since the disappearance of the
enemy, had turned into common brigands, and preyed upon their own
countrymen. Commerce was extinct; agriculture abandoned;
innumerable villages were lying in ruins; the population was
barbarised by the savage warfare with which for years past it had
avenged its own sufferings upon the invader. Of all the countries
of Europe, Spain was the one in which the events of the
Revolutionary epoch seemed to have left an effect most nearly
approaching to unmixed evil.</p>
<p>[Restoration in France.]</p>
<p>In comparison with the reaction in the Spanish Peninsula the
reaction in France was sober and dignified. Louis XVIII. was at
least a scholar and a man of the world. In the old days, among
companions whose names were now almost forgotten, he had revelled
in Voltaire and dallied with the fashionable Liberalism of the
time. In his exile he had played the king with some dignity; he
was even believed to have learnt some political wisdom by his six
years' residence in England. If he had not <a name=
"FNanchor203">character,</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_203"><sup>[203]</sup></a> he had at least some tact
and some sense of humour; and if not a profound philosopher, he
was at least an accomplished epicurean. He hated the zealotry of
his brother, the Count of Artois. He was more inclined to quiz
the emigrants than to sacrifice anything on their behalf; and the
whole bent of his mind made him but an insincere ally of the
priesthood, who indeed could hardly expect to enjoy such an orgy
in France as their brethren were celebrating in Spain. The King,
however, was unable to impart his own indifference to the
emigrants who returned with him, nor had he imagination enough to
identify himself, as King of France, with the military glories of
the nation and with the democratic army that had won them. Louis
held high notions of the royal prerogative: this would not in
itself have prevented him from being a successful ruler, if he
had been capable of governing in the interest of the nation at
large. There were few Republicans remaining in France; the
centralised institutions of the Empire remained in full vigour;
and although the last months of Napoleon's rule had excited among
the educated classes a strong spirit of constitutional
opposition, an able and patriotic Bourbon accepting his new
position, and wielding power for the benefit of the people and
not of a class, might perhaps have exercised an authority not
much inferior to that possessed by the Crown before 1789. But
Louis, though rational, was inexperienced and supine. He was
ready enough to admit into his Ministry and to retain in
administrative posts throughout the country men who had served
under Napoleon; but when the emigrants and the nobles, led by the
Count of Artois, pushed themselves to the front of the public
service, and treated the restoration of the Bourbons as the
victory of their own order, the King offered but a faint
resistance, and allowed the narrowest class-interests to
discredit a monarchy whose own better traditions identified it
not with an aristocracy but with the State.</p>
<p>[The Charta.]</p>
<p>The Constitution promulgated by King Louis XVIII. on the 4th
of June, 1814, and known as the Charta, <a name=
"FNanchor204">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_204"><sup>[204]</sup></a>
was well received by the French nation. Though far less liberal
than the Constitution accepted by Louis XVI. in 1791, it gave to
the French a measure of representative government to which they
had been strangers under Napoleon. It created two legislative
chambers, the Upper House consisting of peers who were nominated
by the Crown at its pleasure, whether for life-peerages or
hereditary dignity; the Lower House formed by national election,
but by election restricted by so high a property-qualification <a
name="FNanchor205">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_205"><sup>[205]</sup></a> that not one person in two
hundred possessed a vote. The Crown reserved to itself the sole
power of proposing laws. In spite of this serious limitation of
the competence of the two houses, the Lower Chamber possessed, in
its right of refusing taxes and of discussing and rejecting all
measures laid before it, a reality of power such as no
representative body had possessed in France since the beginning
of the Consulate. The Napoleonic nobility was placed on an
equality with the old noblesse of France, though neither enjoyed,
as nobles, anything more than a titular distinction. <a name=
"FNanchor206">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_206"><sup>[206]</sup></a>
Purchasers of landed property sold by the State since the
beginning of the Revolution were guaranteed in their possessions.
The principles of religious freedom, of equality before the law,
and of the admissibility of all classes to public employment,
which had taken such deep root during the Republic and the
Empire, were declared to form part of the public law of France;
and by the side of these deeply-cherished rights the Charta of
King Louis XVIII. placed, though in a qualified form, the
long-forgotten principle of the freedom of the Press.</p>
<p>[Encroachments of Nobles.]</p>
<p>Under such a Constitution there was little room for the old
noblesse to arrogate to itself any legal superiority over the
mass of the French nation. What was wanting in law might,
however, in the opinion of the Count of Artois and his friends,
be effected by administration. Of all the institutions of France
the most thoroughly national and the most thoroughly democratic
was the army; it was accordingly against the army that the
noblesse directed its first efforts. Financial difficulties made
a large reduction in the forces necessary. Fourteen thousand
officers and sergeants were accordingly dismissed on half-pay;
but no sooner had this measure of economy been effected than a
multitude of emigrants who had served against the Republic in the
army of the Prince of Cond&eacute; or in La Vend&eacute;e were
rewarded with all degrees of military rank. Naval officers who
had quitted the service of France and entered that of its enemies
were reinstated with the rank which they had held in foreign
navies. <a name="FNanchor207">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_207"><sup>[207]</sup></a> The tricolor, under which
every battle of France had been fought from Jemappes to
Montmartre, was superseded by the white flag of the House of
Bourbon, under which no living soldier had marched to victory.
General Dupont, known only by his capitulation at Baylen in 1808,
was appointed Minister of War. The Imperial Guard was removed
from service at the Palace, and the so-called Military Household
of the old Bourbon monarchy revived, with the privileges and the
insignia belonging to the period before 1775. Young nobles who
had never seen a shot fired crowded into this favoured corps,
where the musketeer and the trooper held the rank and the pay of
a lieutenant in the army. While in every village of France some
battered soldier of Napoleon cursed the Government that had
driven him from his comrades, the Court revived at Paris all the
details of military ceremonial that could be gathered from old
almanacks, from the records of court-tailors, and from the
memories of decayed gallants. As if to convince the public that
nothing had happened during the last twenty-two years, the aged
Marquis de Chansenets, who had been Governor of the Tuileries on
the 10th of August, 1792, and had then escaped by hiding among
the bodies of the dead, <a name="FNanchor208">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_208"><sup>[208]</sup></a> resumed his place at the
head of the officers of the Palace.</p>
<p>[Encroachments of the clergy.]</p>
<p>[Growing hostility to the Bourbons.]</p>
<p>These were but petty triumphs for the emigrants and nobles,
but they were sufficient to make the restored monarchy unpopular.
Equally injurious was their behaviour in insulting the families
of Napoleon's generals, in persecuting men who had taken part in
the great movement of 1789, and in intimidating the
peasant-owners of land that had been confiscated and sold by the
State. Nor were the priesthood backward in discrediting the
Government of Louis XVIII. in the service of their own order. It
might be vain to think of recovering the Churchlands, or of
introducing the Inquisition into France, but the Court might at
least be brought to invest itself with the odour of sanctity, and
the parish-priest might be made as formidable a person within his
own village as the mayor or the agent of the police-minister.
Louis XVIII. was himself sceptical and self-indulgent. This,
however, did not prevent him from publishing a letter to the
Bishops placing his kingdom under the especial protection of the
Virgin Mary, and from escorting the image of the patron-saint
through the streets of Paris in a procession in which Marshal
Soult and other regenerate Jacobins of the Court braved the
ridicule of the populace by acting as candle-bearers. Another
sign of the King's submission to the clergy was the publication
of an edict which forbade buying and selling on Sundays and
festivals.</p>
<p>Whatever the benefits of a freely-observed day of rest, this
enactment, which was not submitted to the Chambers, passed for an
arrogant piece of interference on the part of the clergy with
national habits; and while it caused no inconvenience to the
rich, it inflicted substantial loss upon a numerous and voluble
class of petty traders. The wrongs done to the French nation by
the priests and emigrants who rose to power in 1814 were indeed
the merest trifle in comparison with the wrongs which it had
uncomplainingly borne at the hands of Napoleon. But the glory of
the Empire, the strength and genius of its absolute rule, were
gone. In its place there was a family which had been dissociated
from France during twenty years, which had returned only to ally
itself with an unpopular and dreaded caste, and to prove that
even the unexpected warmth with which it had been welcomed home
could not prevent it from becoming, at the end of a few months,
utterly alien and uninteresting. The indifference of the nation
would not have endangered the Bourbon monarchy if the army had
been won over by the King. But here the Court had excited the
bitterest enmity. The accord which for a moment had seemed
possible even to Republicans of the type of Carnot had vanished
at a touch. <a name="FNanchor209">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_209"><sup>[209]</sup></a> Rumours of military
conspiracies grew stronger with every month. Wellington, now
British Ambassador at Paris, warned his Government of the changed
feeling of the capital, of the gatherings of disbanded officers,
of possible attacks upon the Tuileries. "The truth is," he wrote,
"that the King of France without the army is no King." Wellington
saw the more immediate danger: <a name="FNanchor210">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_210"><sup>[210]</sup></a> he failed to see the depth
and universality of the movement passing over France, which
before the end of the year 1814 had destroyed the hold of the
Bourbon monarchy except in those provinces where it had always
found support, and prepared the nation at large to welcome back
the ruler who so lately seemed to have fallen for ever.</p>
<p>[Congress of Vienna, Sept., 1814.]</p>
<p>Paris and Madrid divided for some months after the conclusion
of peace the attention of the political world. At the end of
September the centre of European interest passed to Vienna. The
great council of the Powers, so long delayed, was at length
assembled. The Czar of Russia, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark,
Bavaria, and W&uuml;rtemberg, and nearly all the statesmen of
eminence in Europe, gathered round the Emperor Francis and his
Minister, Metternich, to whom by common consent the presidency of
the Congress was offered. Lord Castlereagh represented England,
and Talleyrand France. Rasumoffsky and other Russian diplomatists
acted under the immediate directions of their master, who on some
occasions even entered into personal correspondence with the
Ministers of the other Powers. Hardenberg stood in a somewhat
freer relation to King Frederick William; Stein was present, but
without official place. The subordinate envoys and attaches of
the greater Courts, added to a host of petty princes and the
representatives who came from the minor Powers, or from
communities which had ceased to possess any political existence
at all, crowded Vienna. In order to relieve the antagonisms which
had already come too clearly into view, Metternich determined to
entertain his visitors in the most magnificent fashion; and
although the Austrian State was bankrupt, and in some districts
the people were severely suffering, a sum of about &pound;10,000
a day was for some time devoted to this purpose. The splendour
and the gaieties of Metternich were emulated by his guests; and
the guardians of Europe enjoyed or endured for months together a
succession of f&ecirc;tes, banquets, dances, and excursions,
varied, through the zeal of Talleyrand to ingratiate himself with
his new master, by a Mass of great solemnity on the anniversary
of the execution of Louis XVI. <a name="FNanchor211">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_211"><sup>[211]</sup></a> One incident lights the
faded and insipid record of vanished pageants and defunct
gallantries. Beethoven was in Vienna. The Government placed the
great Assembly-rooms at his disposal, and enabled the composer to
gratify a harmless humour by sending invitations in his own name
to each of the Sovereigns and grandees then in Vienna. Much
personal homage, some substantial kindness from these gaudy
creatures of the hour, made the period of the Congress a bright
page in that wayward and afflicted life whose poverty has
enriched mankind with such immortal gifts.</p>
<p>[Talleyrand and the four Powers.]</p>
<p>The Congress had need of its distractions, for the
difficulties which faced it were so great that, even after the
arrival of the Sovereigns, it was found necessary to postpone the
opening of the regular sittings until November. By the secret
articles of the Peace of Paris, the Allies had reserved to
themselves the disposal of all vacant territory, although their
conclusions required to be formally sanctioned by the Congress at
large. The Ministers of Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia
accordingly determined at the outset to decide upon all
territorial questions among themselves, and only after their
decisions were completely formed to submit them to France and the
other Powers. <a name="FNanchor212">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_212"><sup>[212]</sup></a> Talleyrand, on hearing of
this arrangement, protested that France itself was now one of the
Allies, and demanded that the whole body of European States
should at once meet in open Congress. The four Courts held to
their determination, and began their preliminary sittings without
Talleyrand. But the French statesman had, under the form of a
paradox, really stated the true political situation. The greater
Powers were so deeply divided in their aims that their old bond
of common interest, the interest of union against France, was now
less powerful than the impulse that made them seek the support of
France against one another. Two men had come to the Congress with
a definite aim: Alexander had resolved to gain the Duchy of
Warsaw, and to form it, with or without some part of Russian
Poland, into a Polish kingdom, attached to his own crown:
Talleyrand had determined, either on the question of Poland, or
on the question of Saxony, which arose out of it, to break allied
Europe into halves, and to range France by the side of two of the
great Powers against the two others. The course of events
favoured for a while the design of the Minister: Talleyrand
himself prosecuted his plan with an ability which, but for the
untimely return of Napoleon from Elba, would have left France,
without a war, the arbiter and the leading Power of Europe.</p>
<p>[Polish question.]</p>
<p>Since the Russian victories of 1812, the Emperor Alexander had
made no secret of his intention to restore a Polish Kingdom and a
Polish nationality. <a name="FNanchor213">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_213"><sup>[213]</sup></a> Like many other designs of
this prince, the project combined a keen desire for personal
glorification with a real generosity of feeling. Alexander was
thoroughly sincere in his wish not only to make the Poles again a
people, but to give them a Parliament and a free Constitution.
The King of Poland, however, was to be no independent prince, but
Alexander himself: although the Duchy of Warsaw, the chief if not
the sole component of the proposed new kingdom, had belonged to
Austria and Prussia after the last partition of Poland, and
extended into the heart of the Prussian monarchy. Alexander
insisted on his anxiety to atone for the crime of Catherine in
dismembering Poland: the atonement, however, was to be made at
the sole cost of those whom Catherine had allowed to share the
booty. Among the other Governments, the Ministry of Great Britain
would gladly have seen a Polish State established in a really
independent form; <a name="FNanchor214">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_214"><sup>[214]</sup></a> failing this, it desired
that the Duchy of Warsaw should be divided, as formerly, between
Austria and Prussia. Metternich was anxious that the fortress of
Cracow, at any rate, should not fall into the hands of the Czar.
Stein and Hardenberg, and even Alexander's own Russian
counsellors, earnestly opposed the Czar's project, not only on
account of the claims of Prussia on Warsaw, but from dread of the
agitation likely to be produced by a Polish Parliament among all
Poles outside the new State. King Frederick William, however, was
unaccustomed to dispute the wishes of his ally; and the Czar's
offer of Saxony in substitution for Warsaw gave to the Prussian
Ministers, who were more in earnest than their master, at least
the prospect of receiving a valuable equivalent for what they
might surrender.</p>
<p>[Saxon question.]</p>
<p>By the Treaty of Kalisch, made when Prussia united its arms
with those of Russia against Napoleon (Feb. 27th, 1813), the Czar
had undertaken to restore the Prussian monarchy to an extent
equal to that which it had possessed in 1805. It was known before
the opening of the Congress that the Czar proposed to do this by
handing over to King Frederick William the whole of Saxony, whose
Sovereign, unlike his colleagues in the Rhenish Confederacy, had
supported Napoleon up to his final overthrow at Leipzig. Since
that time the King of Saxony had been held a prisoner, and his
dominions had been occupied by the Allies. The Saxon question had
thus already gained the attention of all the European
Governments, and each of the Ministers now at Vienna brought with
him some more or less distinct view upon the subject.
Castlereagh, who was instructed to foster the union of Prussia
and Austria against Alexander's threatening ambition, was willing
that Prussia should annex Saxony if in return it would assist him
in keeping Russia out of Warsaw: <a name="FNanchor215">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_215"><sup>[215]</sup></a> Metternich disliked the
annexation, but offered no serious objection, provided that in
Western Germany Prussia would keep to the north of the Main:
Talleyrand alone made the defence of the King of Saxony the very
centre of his policy, and subordinated all other aims to this.
His instructions, like those of Castlereagh, gave priority to the
Polish question; <a name="FNanchor216">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_216"><sup>[216]</sup></a> but Talleyrand saw that
Saxony, not Poland, was the lever by which he could throw half of
Europe on to the side of France; and before the four Allied
Courts had come to any single conclusion, the French statesman
had succeeded, on what at first passed for a subordinate point,
in breaking up their concert.</p>
<p>[Talleyrand's action on Saxony.]</p>
<p>For a while the Ministers of Austria, Prussia, and England
appeared to be acting in harmony; and throughout the month of
October all three endeavoured to shake the purpose of Alexander
regarding Warsaw. <a name="FNanchor217">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_217"><sup>[217]</sup></a> Talleyrand, however, foresaw
that the efforts of Prussia in this direction would not last very
long, and he wrote to Louis XVIII. asking for his permission to
make a definite offer of armed assistance to Austria in case of
need. Events took the turn which Talleyrand expected. Early in
November the King of Prussia completely yielded to Alexander, and
ordered Hardenberg to withdraw his opposition to the Russian
project. Metternich thus found himself abandoned on the Polish
question by Prussia; and at the same moment the answer of King
Louis XVIII. arrived, and enabled Talleyrand to assure the
Austrian Minister that, if resistance to Russia and Prussia
should become necessary, he might count on the support of a
French army. Metternich now completely changed his position on
the Saxon question, and wrote to Hardenberg (Dec. 10) stating
that, inasmuch as Prussia had chosen to sacrifice Warsaw, the
Emperor Francis absolutely forbade the annexation of more than a
fifth part of the kingdom of Saxony. Castlereagh, disgusted with
the obstinacy of Russia and the subserviency of King Frederick
William, forgave Talleyrand for not supporting him earlier, and
cordially entered into this new plan for thwarting the Northern
Powers. The leading member of the late Rhenish Confederacy, the
King of Bavaria, threw himself with eagerness into the struggle
against Prussia and against German unity. In proportion as Stein
and the patriots of 1813 urged the claims of German nationality
under Prussian leadership against the forfeited rights of a Court
which had always served on Napoleon's side, the politicians of
the Rhenish Confederacy declaimed against the ambition and the
Jacobinism of Prussia, and called upon Europe to defend the
united principles of hereditary right and of national
independence in the person of the King of Saxony.</p>
<p>[Theory of Legitimacy.]</p>
<p>Talleyrand's object was attained. He had isolated Russia and
Prussia, and had drawn to his own side not only England and
Austria but the whole body of the minor German States. Nothing
was wanting but a phrase, or an idea, which should consecrate the
new league in the opinion of Europe as a league of principle, and
bind the Allies, in matters still remaining open, to the support
of the interests of the House of Bourbon. Talleyrand had made his
theory ready. In notes to Castlereagh and <a name=
"FNanchor218">Metternich,</a><a href=
"#Footnote_218"><sup>[218]</sup></a> he declared that the whole
drama of the last twenty years had been one great struggle
between revolution and established right, a struggle at first
between Republicanism and Monarchy, afterwards between usurping
dynasties and legitimate dynasties. The overthrow of Napoleon had
been the victory of the principle of legitimacy; the task of
England and Austria was now to extend the work of restitution to
all Europe, and to defend the principle against new threatened
aggressions. In the note to Castlereagh, Talleyrand added a
practical corollary. "To finish the revolution, the principle of
legitimacy must triumph without exception. The kingdom of Saxony
must be preserved; the kingdom of Naples must return to its
legitimate king."</p>
<p>[Alliance against Russia and Prussia, Jan. 3, 1815.]</p>
<p>As an historical summary of the Napoleonic wars, Talleyrand's
doctrine was baseless. No one but Pitt had cared about the fate
of the Bourbons; no one would have hesitated to make peace with
Napoleon, if Napoleon would have accepted terms of peace. The
manifesto was not, however, intended to meet a scientific
criticism. In the English Foreign Office it was correctly
described as a piece of drollery; and Metternich was too familiar
with the language of principles himself to attach much meaning to
it in the mouth of anyone else. Talleyrand, however, kept a grave
countenance. With inimitable composure the old Minister of the
Directory wrote to Louis XVIII. lamenting that Castlereagh did
not appear to care much about the principle of legitimacy, and in
fact did not quite comprehend it; <a name="FNanchor219">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_219"><sup>[219]</sup></a> and he added his fear
that this moral dimness on the part of the English Minister arose
from the dealing of his countrymen with Tippoo Sahib. But for
Europe at large,-for the English Liberal party, who looked upon
the Saxons and the Prussians as two distinct nations, and for the
Tories, who forgot that Napoleon had made the Elector of Saxony a
king; for the Emperor of Austria, who had no wish to see the
Prussian frontier brought nearer to Prague; above all, for the
minor German courts who dreaded every approach towards German
unity,-Talleyrand's watchword was the best that could have been
invented. His counsel prospered. On the 3rd of January, 1815,
after a rash threat of war uttered by Hardenberg, a secret treaty
<a name="FNanchor220">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_220"><sup>[220]</sup></a> was signed by the
representatives of France, England, and Austria, pledging these
Powers to take the field, if necessary, against Russia and
Prussia in defence of the principles of the Peace of Paris. The
plan of the campaign was drawn up, the number of the forces
fixed. Bavaria had already armed; Piedmont, Hanover, and even the
Ottoman Porte, were named as future members of the alliance.</p>
<p>[Compromise on Polish and Saxon questions.]</p>
<p>[Prussia gains Rhenish Provinces.]</p>
<p>It would perhaps be unfair to the French Minister to believe
that he actually desired to kindle a war on this gigantic scale.
Talleyrand had not, like Napoleon, a love for war for its own
sake. His object was rather to raise France from its position as
a conquered and isolated Power; to surround it with allies; to
make the House of Bourbon the representatives of a policy
interesting to a great part of Europe; and, having thus undone
the worst results of Napoleon's rule, to trust to some future
complication for the recovery of Belgium and the frontier of the
Rhine. Nor was Talleyrand's German policy adopted solely as the
instrument of a passing intrigue. He appears to have had a true
sense of the capacity of Prussia to transform Germany into a
great military nation; and the policy of alliance with Austria
and protection of the minor States which he pursued in 1814 was
that which he had advocated throughout his career. The conclusion
of the secret treaty of January 3rd marked the definite success
of his plans. France was forthwith admitted into the council
hitherto known as that of the Four Courts, and from this time its
influence visibly affected the action of Russia and Prussia,
reports of the secret treaty having reached the Czar immediately
after its signature. <a name="FNanchor221">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_221"><sup>[221]</sup></a> The spirit of compromise now
began to animate the Congress. Alexander had already won a
virtual decision in his favour on the Polish question, but he
abated something of his claims, and while gaining the lion's
share of the Duchy of Warsaw, he ultimately consented that
Cracow, which threatened the Austrian frontier, should be formed
into an independent Republic, and that Prussia should receive the
fortresses of Dantzic and Thorn on the Vistula, with the district
lying between Thorn and the border of <a name=
"FNanchor222">Silesia.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_222"><sup>[222]</sup></a> This was little for
Alexander to abandon; on the Saxon question the allies of
Talleyrand gained most that they demanded. The King of Saxony was
restored to his throne, and permitted to retain Dresden and about
half of his dominions. Prussia received the remainder. In lieu of
a further expansion in Saxony, Prussia was awarded territory on
the left bank of the Rhine, which, with its recovered Westphalian
provinces, restored the monarchy to an area and population equal
to that which it had possessed in 1805. But the dominion given to
Prussia beyond the Rhine, though considered at the time to be a
poor equivalent for the second half of Saxony, was in reality a
gift of far greater value. It made Prussia, in defence of its own
soil, the guardian and bulwark of Germany against France. It
brought an element into the life of the State in striking
contrast with the aristocratic and Protestant type predominant in
the older Prussian provinces,-a Catholic population, liberal in
its political opinions, and habituated by twenty years' union
with France to the democratic tendencies of French social life.
It gave to Prussia something more in common with Bavaria and the
South, and qualified it, as it had not been qualified before, for
its future task of uniting Germany under its own leadership.</p>
<p>[Napoleon leaves Elba, Feb. 26.]</p>
<p>[Lands in France, March 1.]</p>
<p>The Polish and Saxon difficulties, which had threatened the
peace of Europe, were virtually settled before the end of the
month of January. Early in February Lord Castlereagh left Vienna,
to give an account of his labours and to justify his policy
before the English House of Commons. His place at the Congress
was taken by the Duke of Wellington. There remained the question
of Naples, the formation of a Federal Constitution for Germany,
and several matters of minor political importance, none of which
endangered the good understanding of the Powers. Suddenly the
action of the Congress was interrupted by the most startling
intelligence. On the night of March 6th Metternich was roused
from sleep to receive a despatch informing him that Napoleon had
quitted Elba. The news had taken eight days to reach Vienna.
Napoleon had set sail on the 26th of February. In the silence of
his exile he had watched the progress of events in France: he had
convinced himself of the strength of the popular reaction against
the priests and emigrants; and the latest intelligence which he
had received from Vienna led him to believe that the Congress
itself was on the point of breaking up. There was at least some
chance of success in an attempt to regain his throne; and, the
decision once formed, Napoleon executed it with characteristic
audacity and despatch. Talleyrand, on hearing that Napoleon had
left Elba, declared that he would only cross into Italy and there
raise the standard of Italian independence: instead of doing
this, Napoleon made straight for France, with the whole of his
guard, eleven hundred in number, embarked on a little flotilla of
seven ships. The voyage lasted three days: no French or English
vessels capable of offering resistance met the squadron. On the
1st of March Napoleon landed at the bay of Jouan, three miles to
the west of Antibes. A detachment of his guards called upon the
commandant of Antibes to deliver up the town to the Emperor; the
commandant refused, and the troops bivouacked that evening, with
Napoleon among them, in the olive-woods by the shore of the
Mediterranean.</p>
<p>[Moves on Grenoble.]</p>
<p>[Troops at La Mure.]</p>
<p>Before daybreak began the march that was to end in Paris.
Instead of following the coast road of Provence, which would have
brought him to Toulon and Marseilles, where most of the
population were fiercely Royalist, <a name="FNanchor223">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_223"><sup>[223]</sup></a> and where Massena and
other great officers might have offered resistance, Napoleon
struck northwards into the mountains, intending to descend upon
Lyons by way of Grenoble. There were few troops in this district,
and no generals capable of influencing them. The peasantry of
Dauphine were in great part holders of land that had been taken
from the Church and the nobles: they were exasperated against the
Bourbons, and, like the peasantry of France generally, they
identified the glory of the country which they loved with the
name and the person of Napoleon. As the little band penetrated
into the mountains the villagers thronged around them, and by
offering their carts and horses enabled Napoleon to march
continuously over steep and snowy roads at the rate of forty
miles a day. No troops appeared to dispute these mountain
passages: it was not until the close of the fifth day's march
that Napoleon's mounted guard, pressing on in front of the
marching column, encountered, in the village of La Mure, twenty
miles south of Grenoble, a regiment of infantry wearing the white
cockade of the House of Bourbon. The two bodies of troops mingled
and conversed in the street: the officer commanding the royal
infantry fearing the effect on his men, led them back on the road
towards Grenoble. Napoleon's lancers also retired, and the night
passed without further communication. At noon on the following
day the lancers, again advancing towards Grenoble, found the
infantry drawn up to defend the road. They called out that
Napoleon was at hand, and begged the infantry not to fire.
Presently Napoleon's column came in sight; one of his
<i>aides-de-camp</i> rode to the front of the royal troops,
addressed them, and pointed out Napoleon. The regiment was
already wavering, the officer commanding had already given the
order of retreat, when the men saw their Emperor advancing
towards them. They saw his face, they heard his voice: in another
moment the ranks were broken, and the soldiers were pressing with
shouts and tears round the leader whom nature had created with
such transcendent capacity for evil, and endowed with such
surpassing power of attracting love.</p>
<p>[Enters Grenoble, March 7.]</p>
<p>[Declaration of his purpose.]</p>
<p>Everything was decided by this first encounter. "In six days,"
said Napoleon, "we shall be in the Tuileries." The next pledge of
victory came swiftly. Colonel Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re, commander
of the 7th Regiment of the Line, had openly declared for Napoleon
in Grenoble, and appeared on the road at the head of his men a
few hours after the meeting at La Mure. Napoleon reached Grenoble
the same evening. The town had been in tumult all day. The
Pr&eacute;fet fled: the general in command sent part of his
troops away, and closed the gates. On Napoleon's approach the
population thronged the ramparts with torches; the gates were
burst open; Napoleon was borne through the town in triumph by a
wild and intermingled crowd of soldiers and workpeople. The whole
mass of the poorer classes of the town welcomed him with
enthusiasm: the middle classes, though hostile to the Church and
the Bourbons, saw too clearly the dangers to France involved in
Napoleon's return to feel the same joy. <a name=
"FNanchor224">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_224"><sup>[224]</sup></a>
They remained in the background, neither welcoming Napoleon nor
interfering with the welcome offered him by others. Thus the
night passed. On the morning of the next day Napoleon received
the magistrates and principal inhabitants of the town, and
addressed them in terms which formed the substance of every
subsequent declaration of his policy. "He had come," he said, "to
save France from the outrages of the returning nobles; to secure
to the peasant the possession of his land; to uphold the rights
won in 1789 against a minority which sought to re-establish the
privileges of caste and the feudal burdens of the last century.
France had made trial of the Bourbons: it had done well to do so;
but the experiment had failed. The Bourbon monarchy had proved
incapable of detaching itself from its worst supports, the
priests and nobles: only the dynasty which owed its throne to the
Revolution could maintain the social work of the Revolution. As
for himself, he had learnt wisdom by misfortune. He renounced
conquest. He should give France peace without and liberty within.
He accepted the Treaty of Paris and the frontiers of 1792. Freed
from the necessities which had forced him in earlier days to
found a military Empire, he recognised and bowed to the desire of
the French nation for constitutional government. He should
henceforth govern only as a constitutional sovereign, and seek
only to leave a constitutional crown to his son."</p>
<p>[Feeling of the various classes.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon enters Lyons, March 10.]</p>
<p>This language was excellently chosen. It satisfied the
peasants and the workmen, who wished to see the nobles crushed,
and it showed at least a comprehension of the feelings uppermost
in the minds of the wealthier and more educated middle classes,
the longing for peace, and the aspiration towards political
liberty. It was also calculated to temper the unwelcome
impression that an exiled ruler was being forced upon France by
the soldiery. The military movement was indeed overwhelmingly
decisive, yet the popular movement was scarcely less so. The
Royalists were furious, but impotent to act; thoughtful men in
all classes held back, with sad apprehensions of returning war
and calamity; <a name="FNanchor225">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_225"><sup>[225]</sup></a> but from the time when
Napoleon left Grenoble, the nation at large was on his side.
There was nowhere an effective centre of resistance. The
Pr&eacute;fets and other civil officers appointed under the
Empire still for the most part held their posts; they knew
themselves to be threatened by the Bourbonist reaction, but they
had not yet been displaced; their professions of loyalty to Louis
XVIII. were forced, their instincts of obedience to their old
master, even if they wished to have done with him, profound. From
this class, whose cowardice and servility find too many parallels
in history, <a name="FNanchor226">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_226"><sup>[226]</sup></a> Napoleon had little to fear.
Among the marshals and higher officers charged with the defence
of the monarchy, those who sincerely desired to serve the
Bourbons found themselves powerless in the midst of their troops.
Macdonald, who commanded at Lyons, had to fly from his men, in
order to escape being made a prisoner. The Count of Artois, who
had come to join him, discovered that the only service he could
render to the cause of his family was to take himself out of
sight. Napoleon entered Lyons on the 10th of March, and now
formally resumed his rank and functions as Emperor. His first
edicts renewed that appeal to the ideas and passions of the
Revolution which had been the key-note of every one of his public
utterances since leaving Elba. Treating the episode of Bourbon
restoration as null and void, the edicts of Lyons expelled from
France every emigrant who had returned without the permission of
the Republic or the Emperor; they drove from the army the whole
mass of officers intruded by the Government of Louis XVIII.; they
invalidated every appointment and every dismissal made in the
magistracy since the 1st of April, 1814; and, reverting to the
law of the Constituent Assembly of 1789, abolished all nobility
except that which had been conferred by the Emperor himself.</p>
<p>[Marshal Ney.]</p>
<p>[The Chambers in Paris.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon enters Paris, March 20.]</p>
<p>From this time all was over. Marshal Ney, who had set out from
Paris protesting that Napoleon deserved to be confined in an iron
cage, <a name="FNanchor227">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_227"><sup>[227]</sup></a> found, when at some distance
from Lyons, that the nation and army were on the side of the
Emperor, and proclaimed his own adherence to him in an address to
his troops. The two Chambers of Legislature, which had been
prorogued, were summoned by King Louis XVIII. as soon as the news
of Napoleon's landing reached the capital. The Chambers met on
the 13th of March. The constitutionalist party, though they had
opposed various measures of King Louis' Government as
reactionary, were sincerely loyal to the Charta, and hastened, in
the cause of constitutional liberty, to offer to the King their
cordial support in resisting Bonaparte's military despotism. The
King came down to the Legislative Chamber, and, in a scene
concerted with his brother, the Count of Artois, made, with great
dramatic effect, a declaration of fidelity to the Constitution.
Lafayette and the chiefs of the Parliamentary Liberals hoped to
raise a sufficient force from the National Guard of Paris to hold
Napoleon in check. The project, however, came to nought. The
National Guard, which represented the middle classes of Paris,
was decidedly in favour of the Charta and Constitutional
Government; but it had no leaders, no fighting-organisation, and
no military spirit. The regular troops who were sent out against
Napoleon mounted the tricolor as soon as they were out of sight
of Paris, and joined their comrades. The courtiers passed from
threats to consternation and helplessness. On the night of March
19th King Louis fled from the Tuileries. Napoleon entered the
capital the next evening, welcomed with acclamations by the
soldiers and populace, but not with that general rejoicing which
had met him at Lyons, and at many of the smaller towns through
which he had passed.</p>
<p>[Congress of Vienna outlaws Napoleon.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon's preparations for defence.]</p>
<p>France was won: Europe remained behind. On the 13th of March
the Ministers of all the Great Powers, assembled at Vienna,
published a manifesto denouncing Napoleon Bonaparte as the common
enemy of mankind, and declaring him an outlaw. The whole
political structure which had been reared with so much skill by
Talleyrand vanished away. France was again alone, with all Europe
combined against it. Affairs reverted to the position in which
they had stood in the month of March, 1814, when the Treaty of
Chaumont was signed, which bound the Powers to sustain their
armed concert against France, if necessary, for a period of
twenty years. That treaty was now formally renewed. <a name=
"FNanchor228">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_228"><sup>[228]</sup></a>
The four great Powers undertook to employ their whole available
resources against Bonaparte until he should be absolutely unable
to create disturbance, and each pledged itself to keep
permanently in the field a force of at least a hundred and fifty
thousand men. The presence of the Duke of Wellington at Vienna
enabled the Allies to decide without delay upon the general plan
for their invasion of France. It was resolved to group the allied
troops in three masses; one, composed of the English and the
Prussians under Wellington and Bl&uuml;cher, to enter France by
the Netherlands; the two others, commanded by the Czar and Prince
Schwarzenberg, to advance from the middle and upper Rhine.
Nowhere was there the least sign of political indecision. The
couriers sent by Napoleon with messages of amity to the various
Courts were turned back at the frontiers with their despatches
undelivered. It was in vain for the Emperor to attempt to keep up
any illusion that peace was possible. After a brief interval he
himself acquainted France with the true resolution of his
enemies. The most strenuous efforts were made for defence. The
old soldiers were called from their homes. Factories of arms and
ammunition began their hurried work in the principal towns. The
Emperor organised with an energy and a command of detail never
surpassed at any period of his life; the nature of the situation
lent a new character to his genius, and evoked in the
organisation of systematic defence all that imagination and
resource which had dazzled the world in his schemes of invasion
and surprise. Nor, as hitherto, was the nation to be the mere
spectator of his exploits. The population of France, its National
Guard, its <i>lev&eacute;e en masse</i>, as well as its armies
and its Emperor, was to drive the foreigner from French soil.
Every operation of defensive warfare, from the accumulation of
artillery round the capital to the gathering of forest-guards and
free-shooters in the thickets of the Vosges and the Ardennes,
occupied in its turn the thoughts of Napoleon. <a name=
"FNanchor229">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_229"><sup>[229]</sup></a>
Had France shared his resolution or his madness, had the Allies
found at the outset no chief superior to their Austrian leader in
1814, the war on which they were now about to enter would have
been one of immense difficulty and risk, its ultimate issue
perhaps doubtful.</p>
<p>[Campaign and fall of Murat, April, 1815]</p>
<p>Before Napoleon or his adversaries were ready to move,
hostilities broke out in Italy. Murat, King of Naples, had during
the winter of 1814 been represented at Vienna by an envoy: he was
aware of the efforts made by Talleyrand to expel him from his
throne, and knew that the Government of Great Britain, convinced
of his own treachery during the pretended combination with the
Allies in 1814, now inclined to act with France. <a name=
"FNanchor230">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_230"><sup>[230]</sup></a>
The instinct of self-preservation led him to risk everything in
raising the standard of Italian independence, rather than await
the loss of his kingdom; and the return of Napoleon precipitated
his fall. At the moment when Napoleon was about to leave Elba,
Murat, who knew his intention, asked the permission of Austria to
move a body of troops through Northern Italy for the alleged
purpose of attacking the French Bourbons, who were preparing to
restore his rival, Ferdinand. Austria declared that it should
treat the entry either of French or of Neapolitan troops into
Northern Italy as an act of war. Murat, as soon as Napoleon's
landing in France became known, protested to the Allies that he
intended to remain faithful to them, but he also sent assurances
of friendship to Napoleon, and forthwith invaded the Papal
States. He acted without waiting for Napoleon's instructions, and
probably with the intention of winning all Italy for himself even
if Napoleon should victoriously re-establish his Empire. On the
10th of April, Austria declared war against him. Murat pressed
forward and entered Bologna, now openly proclaiming the unity and
independence of Italy. The feeling of the towns and of the
educated classes generally seemed to be in his favour, but no
national rising took place. After some indecisive encounters with
the Austrians, Murat retreated. As he fell back towards the
Neapolitan frontier, his troops melted away. The enterprise ended
in swift and total ruin; and on the 22nd of May an English and
Austrian force took possession of the city of Naples in the name
of King Ferdinand. Murat, leaving his family behind him, fled to
France, and sought in vain to gain a place by the side of
Napoleon in his last great struggle, and to retrieve as a soldier
the honour which he had lost as a king. <a name=
"FNanchor231">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_231"><sup>[231]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Acte Additionnel, April 23, 1815.]</p>
<p>In the midst of his preparations for war with all Europe,
Napoleon found it necessary to give some satisfaction to that
desire for liberty which was again so strong in France. He would
gladly have deferred all political change until victory over the
foreigner had restored his own undisputed ascendency over men's
minds; he was resolved at any rate not to be harassed by a
Constituent Assembly, like that of 1789, at the moment of his
greatest peril; and the action of King Louis XVIII. in granting
liberty by Charta gave him a precedent for creating a
Constitution by an Edict supplementary to the existing laws of
the Empire. Among the Liberal politicians who had declared for
King Louis XVIII. while Napoleon was approaching Paris, one of
the most eminent was Benjamin Constant, who had published an
article attacking the Emperor with great severity on the very day
when he entered the capital. Napoleon now invited Constant to the
Tuileries, assured him that he no longer either desired or
considered it possible to maintain an absolute rule in France,
and requested Constant himself to undertake the task of drawing
up a Constitution. Constant, believing the Emperor to be in some
degree sincere, accepted the proposals made to him, and, at the
cost of some personal consistency, entered upon the work, in
which Napoleon by no means allowed him entire freedom. <a name=
"FNanchor232">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_232"><sup>[232]</sup></a>
The result of Constant's labours was the Decree known as the Acte
Additionnel of 1815. The leading provisions of this Act resembled
those of the Charta: both professed to establish a representative
Government and the responsibility of Ministers; both contained
the usual phrases guaranteeing freedom of religion and security
of person and property. The principal differences were that the
Chamber of Peers was now made wholly hereditary, and that the
Emperor absolutely refused to admit the clause of the Charta
abolishing confiscation as a penalty for political offences. On
the other hand, Constant definitely extinguished the censorship
of the Press, and provided some real guarantee for the free
expression of opinion by enacting that Press-offences should be
judged only in the ordinary Jury-courts. Constant was sanguine
enough to believe that the document which he had composed would
reduce Napoleon to the condition of a constitutional king. As a
Liberal statesman, he pressed the Emperor to submit the scheme to
a Representative Assembly, where it could be examined and
amended. This Napoleon refused to do, preferring to resort to the
fiction of a Pl&eacute;biscite for the purpose of procuring some
kind of national sanction for his Edict. The Act was published on
the 23rd of April, 1815. Voting lists were then opened in all the
Departments, and the population of France, most of whom were
unable to read or write, were invited to answer Yes or No to the
question whether they approved of Napoleon's plan for giving his
subjects Parliamentary government.</p>
<p>[The Chambers summoned for June.]</p>
<p>There would have been no difficulty in obtaining some millions
of votes for any absurdity that the Emperor might be pleased to
lay before the French people; but among the educated minority who
had political theories of their own, the publication of this
reform by Edict produced the worst possible impression. No
stronger evidence, it was said, could have been given of the
Emperor's insincerity than the dictatorial form in which he
affected to bestow liberty upon France. Scarcely a voice was
raised in favour of the new Constitution. The measure had in fact
failed of its effect. Napoleon's object was to excite an
enthusiasm that should lead the entire nation, the educated
classes as well as the peasantry, to rally round him in a
struggle with the foreigner for life or death: he found, on the
contrary, that he had actually injured his cause. The hostility
of public opinion was so serious that Napoleon judged it wise to
make advances to the Liberal party, and sent his brother Joseph
to Lafayette, to ascertain on what terms he might gain his
support. <a name="FNanchor233">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_233"><sup>[233]</sup></a> Lafayette, strongly
condemning the form of the Acte Additionnel, stated that the
Emperor could only restore public confidence by immediately
convoking the Chambers. This was exactly what Napoleon desired to
avoid, until he had defeated the English and Prussians; nor in
fact had the vote of the nation accepting the new Constitution
yet been given. But the urgency of the need overcame the
Emperor's inclinations and the forms of law. Lafayette's demand
was granted: orders were issued for an immediate election, and
the meeting of the Chambers fixed for the beginning of June, a
few days earlier than the probable departure of the Emperor to
open hostilities on the northern frontier.</p>
<p>[Elections.]</p>
<p>Lafayette's counsel had been given in sincerity, but Napoleon
gained little by following it. The nation at large had nothing of
the faith in the elections which was felt by Lafayette and his
friends. In some places not a single person appeared at the poll:
in most, the candidates were elected by a few scores of voters.
The Royalists absented themselves on principle: the population
generally thought only of the coming war, and let the professed
politicians conduct the business of the day by themselves. Among
the deputies chosen there were several who had sat in the earlier
Assemblies of the Revolution; and, mingled with placemen and
soldiers of the Empire, a considerable body of men whose known
object was to reduce Napoleon's power. One interest alone was
unrepresented-that of the Bourbon family, which so lately seemed
to have been called to the task of uniting the old and the new
France around itself.</p>
<p>[Champ de Mai.]</p>
<p>Napoleon, troubling himself little about the elections,
laboured incessantly at his preparations for war, and by the end
of May two hundred thousand men were ready to take the field. The
delay of the Allies, though necessary, enabled their adversary to
take up the offensive. It was the intention of the Emperor to
leave a comparatively small force to watch the eastern frontier,
and himself, at the head of a hundred and twenty-five thousand
men, to fall upon Wellington and Bl&uuml;cher in the Netherlands,
and crush them before they could unite their forces. With this
object the greater part of the army was gradually massed on the
northern roads at points between Paris, Lille, and Maubeuge. Two
acts of State remained to be performed by the Emperor before he
quitted the capital; the inauguration of the new Constitution and
the opening of the Chambers of Legislature. The first, which had
been fixed for the 26th of May, and announced as a revival of the
old Frankish Champ de Mai, was postponed till the beginning of
the following month. On the 1st of June the solemnity was
performed with extraordinary pomp and splendour, on that same
Champ de Mars where, twenty-five years before, the grandest and
most affecting of all the festivals of the Revolution, the Act of
Federation, had been celebrated by King Louis XVI. and his
people. Deputations from each of the constituencies of France,
from the army, and from every public body, surrounded the Emperor
in a great amphitheatre enclosed at the southern end of the
plain: outside there were ranged twenty thousand soldiers of the
Guard and other regiments; and behind them spread the dense crowd
of Paris. When the total of the votes given in the
Pl&eacute;biscite had been summed up and declared, the Emperor
took the oath to the Constitution, and delivered one of his
masterpieces of political rhetoric. The great officers of State
took the oath in their turn: mass was celebrated, and Napoleon,
leaving the enclosed space, then presented their standards to the
soldiery in the Champ de Mars, addressing some brief,
soul-stirring word to each regiment as it passed. The spectacle
was magnificent, but except among the soldiers themselves a sense
of sadness and disappointment passed over the whole assembly. The
speech of the Emperor showed that he was still the despot at
heart: the applause was forced: all was felt to be ridiculous,
all unreal. <a name="FNanchor234">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_234"><sup>[234]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Plan of Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The opening of the Legislative Chambers took place a few days
later, and on the night of the 11th of June Napoleon started for
the northern frontier. The situation of the forces opposed to him
in this his last campaign strikingly resembled that which had
given him his first Italian victory in 1796. Then the Austrians
and Sardinians, resting on opposite bases, covered the approaches
to the Sardinian capital, and invited the assailant to break
through their centre and drive the two defeated wings along
diverging and severed paths of retreat. Now the English and the
Prussians covered Brussels, the English resting westward on
Ostend, the Prussians eastward on Cologne, and barely joining
hands in the middle of a series of posts nearly eighty miles
long. The Emperor followed the strategy of 1796. He determined to
enter Belgium by the central road of Charleroi, and to throw his
main force upon Bl&uuml;cher, whose retreat, if once he should be
severed from his colleague, would carry him eastwards towards
Li&egrave;ge, and place him outside the area of hostilities round
Brussels. Bl&uuml;cher driven eastwards, Napoleon believed that
he might not only push the English commander out of Brussels, but
possibly, by a movement westwards, intercept him from the sea and
cut off his communication with Great Britain. <a name=
"FNanchor235">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_235"><sup>[235]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Situation of the armies.]</p>
<p>On the night of the 13th of June, the French army, numbering a
hundred and twenty-nine thousand men, had completed its
concentration, and lay gathered round Beaumont and Philippeville.
Wellington was at Brussels; his troops, which consisted of
thirty-five thousand English and about sixty thousand Dutch,
Germans, and <a name="FNanchor236">Belgians,</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_236"><sup>[236]</sup></a> guarded the country west of
the Charleroi road as far as Oudenarde on the Scheldt.
Bl&uuml;cher's headquarters were at Namur; he had a hundred and
twenty thousand Prussians under his command, who were posted
between Charleroi, Namur, and Li&egrave;ge. Both the English and
Prussian generals were aware that very large French forces had
been brought close to the frontier, but Wellington imagined
Napoleon to be still in Paris, and believed that the war would be
opened by a forward movement of Prince Schwarzenberg into Alsace.
It was also his fixed conviction that if Napoleon entered Belgium
he would throw himself not upon the Allied centre, but upon the
extreme right of the English towards the sea. <a name=
"FNanchor237">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_237"><sup>[237]</sup></a> In
the course of the 14th, the Prussian outposts reported that the
French were massed round Beaumont: later in the same day there
were clear signs of an advance upon Charleroi. Early next morning
the attack on Charleroi began. The Prussians were driven out of
it, and retreated in the direction of Ligny, whither Bl&uuml;cher
now brought up all the forces within his reach. It was unknown to
Wellington until the afternoon of the 15th that the French had
made any movement whatever: on receiving the news of their
advance, he ordered a concentrating movement of all his forces
eastward, in order to cover the road to Brussels and to
co-operate with the Prussian general. A small division of the
British army took post at Quatre Bras that night, and on the
morning of the 16th Wellington himself rode to Ligny, and
promised his assistance to Bl&uuml;cher, whose troops were
already drawn up and awaiting the attack of the French.</p>
<p>[Ligny, June 16.]</p>
<p>But the march of the invader was too rapid for the English to
reach the field of battle. Already, on returning to Quatre Bras
in the afternoon, Wellington found his own troops hotly engaged.
Napoleon had sent Ney along the road to Brussels to hold the
English in check and, if possible, to enter the capital, while he
himself, with seventy thousand men, attacked Bl&uuml;cher. The
Prussian general had succeeded in bringing up a force superior in
number to his assailants; but the French army, which consisted in
a great part of veterans recalled to the ranks, was of finer
quality than any that Napoleon had led since the campaign of
Moscow, and it was in vain that Bl&uuml;cher and his soldiers met
them with all the gallantry and even more than the fury of 1813.
There was murderous hand-to-hand fighting in the villages where
the Prussians had taken up their position: now the defenders, now
the assailants gave way: but at last the Prussians, with a loss
of thirteen thousand men, withdrew from the combat, and left the
battlefield in possession of the enemy. If the conquerors had
followed up the pursuit that night, the cause of the Allies would
have been ruined. The effort of battle had, however, been too
great, or the estimate which Napoleon made of his adversary's
rallying power was too low. He seems to have assumed that
Bl&uuml;cher must necessarily retreat eastwards towards Namur;
while in reality the Prussian was straining every nerve to escape
northwards, and to restore his severed communication with his
ally.</p>
<p>[Quatre Bras, June 16.]</p>
<p>At Quatre Bras the issue of the day was unfavourable to the
French. Ney missed his opportunity of seizing this important
point before it was occupied by the British in any force; and
when the battle began the British infantry-squares unflinchingly
bore the attack of Ney's cavalry, and drove them back again and
again with their volleys, until successive reinforcements had
made the numbers on both sides even. At the close of the day the
French marshal, baffled and disheartened, drew back his troops to
their original position. The army-corps of General d'Erlon, which
Napoleon had placed between himself and Ney in order that it
might act wherever there was the greatest need, was first
withdrawn from Ney to assist at Ligny, and then, as it was
entering into action at Ligny, recalled to Quatre Bras, where it
arrived only after the battle was over. Its presence in either
field would probably have altered the issue of the campaign.</p>
<p>[Prussian movement.]</p>
<p>Bl&uuml;cher, on the night of the 16th, lay disabled and
almost senseless; his lieutenant, Gneisenau, not only saved the
army, but repaired, and more than repaired, all its losses by a
memorable movement northwards that brought the Prussians again
into communication with the British. Napoleon, after an
unexplained inaction during the night of the 16th and the morning
of the 17th, committed the pursuit of the Prussians to Marshal
Grouchy, ordering him never to let the enemy out of his sight;
but Bl&uuml;cher and Gneisenau had already made their escape, and
had concentrated so large a body in the neighbourhood of Wavre,
that Grouchy could not now have prevented a force superior to his
own from uniting with the English, even if he had known the exact
movements of each of the three armies, and, with a true
presentiment of his master's danger, had attempted to rejoin him
on the morrow.</p>
<p>Wellington, who had both anticipated that Bl&uuml;cher would
be beaten at Ligny, and assured himself that the Prussian would
make good his retreat northwards, moved on the 17th from Quatre
Bras to Waterloo, now followed by Napoleon and the mass of the
French army. At Waterloo he drew up for battle, trusting to the
promise of the gallant Prussian that he would advance in that
direction on the following day. Bl&uuml;cher, in so doing,
exposed himself to the risk of having his communications severed
and half his army captured, if Napoleon should either change the
direction of his main attack and bend eastwards, or should crush
Wellington before the arrival of the Prussians, and seize the
road from Brussels to Louvain with a victorious force. Such
considerations would have driven a commander like Schwarzenberg
back to Li&egrave;ge, but they were thrown to the winds by
Bl&uuml;cher and Gneisenau. In just reliance on his colleague's
energy, Wellington, with thirty thousand English and forty
thousand Dutch, Germans, and Belgians, awaited the attack of
Napoleon, at the head of seventy-four thousand veteran soldiers.
The English position extended two miles along the brow of a
gentle slope of cornfields, and crossed at right angles the great
road from Charleroi to Brussels; the ch&acirc;teau of Hugomont,
some way down the slope on the right, and the farmhouse of La
Haye Sainte, on the high-road in front of the left centre, served
as fortified outposts. The French formed on the opposite and
corresponding slope; the country was so open that, but for the
heavy rain on the evening of the 17th, artillery could have moved
over almost any part of the field with perfect freedom.</p>
<p>[Waterloo, June 18.]</p>
<p>At eleven o'clock on Sunday, the 18th of June, the battle
began. Napoleon, unconscious of the gathering of the Prussians on
his right, and unacquainted with the obstinacy of English troops,
believed the victory already thrown into his hands by
Wellington's hardihood. His plan was to burst through the left of
the English line near La Haye Sainte, and thus to drive
Wellington westwards and place the whole French army between its
two defeated enemies. The first movement was an assault on the
buildings of Hugomont, made for the purpose of diverting
Wellington from the true point of attack. The English commander
sent detachments to this outpost sufficient to defend it, but no
more. After two hours' indecisive fighting and a heavy cannonade,
Ney ordered D'Erlon's corps forward to the great onslaught on the
centre and left. As the French column pressed up the slope,
General Picton charged at the head of a brigade. The English
leader was among the first to fall, but his men drove the enemy
back, and at the same time the Scots Greys, sweeping down from
the left, cut right through both the French infantry and their
cavalry supports, and, charging far up the opposite slope,
reached and disabled forty of Ney's guns, before they were in
their turn overpowered and driven back by the French dragoons.
The English lost heavily, but the onslaught of the enemy had
totally failed, and thousands of prisoners remained behind. There
was a pause in the infantry combat; and again the artillery of
Napoleon battered the English centre, while Ney marshalled fresh
troops for a new and greater effort. About two o'clock the attack
was renewed on the left. La Haye Sainte was carried, and vast
masses of cavalry pressed up the English slope, and rode over the
plateau to the very front of the English line. Wellington sent no
cavalry to meet them, but trusted, and trusted justly, to the
patience and endurance of the infantry themselves, who, hour
after hour, held their ground, unmoved by the rush of the enemy's
horse and the terrible spectacle of havoc and death in their own
ranks; for all through the afternoon the artillery of Napoleon
poured its fire wherever the line was left open, or the assault
of the French cavalry rolled back.</p>
<p>At last the approach of the Prussians visibly told. Napoleon
had seen their vanguard early in the day, and had detached Count
Lobau with seven thousand men to hold them in check; but the
little Prussian corps gradually swelled to an army, and as the
day wore on it was found necessary to reinforce Count Lobau with
some of the finest divisions of the French infantry. Still
reports came in of new Prussian columns approaching. At six
o'clock Napoleon prepared to throw his utmost strength into one
grand final attack upon the British, and to sweep them away
before the battle became general with their allies. Two columns
of the Imperial Guard, supported by every available regiment,
moved from the right and left towards the English centre. The
column on the right, unchecked by the storm of Wellington's
cannon-shot from front and flank, pushed to the very ridge of the
British slope, and came within forty yards of the cross-road
where the English Guard lay hidden. Then Wellington gave the
order to fire. The French recoiled; the English advanced at the
charge, and drove the enemy down the hill, returning themselves
for a while to their own position. The left column of the French
Guard attacked with equal bravery, and met with the same fate.
Then, while the French were seeking to re-form at the bottom of
the hill, Wellington commanded a general advance. The whole line
of the British infantry and cavalry swept down into the valley;
before them the baffled and sorely-stricken host of the enemy
broke into a confused mass; only the battalions of the old Guard,
which had halted in the rear of the attacking columns, remained
firm together. Bl&uuml;cher, from the east, dealt the death-blow,
and, pressing on to the road by which the French were escaping,
turned the defeat into utter ruin and dispersion. The pursuit,
which Wellington's troops were too exhausted to attempt, was
carried on throughout the night by the Prussian cavalry with
memorable ardour and terrible success. Before the morning the
French army was no more than a rabble of fugitives.</p>
<p>[Napoleon at Paris.]</p>
<p>[Allies enter Paris, July 7.]</p>
<p>Napoleon fled to Philippeville, and made some ineffectual
attempts both there and at Laon to fix a rallying point for his
vanished forces. From Laon he hastened to Paris, which he reached
at sunrise on the 21st. His bulletin describing the defeat of
Waterloo was read to the Chambers on the same morning. The Lower
House immediately declared against the Emperor, and demanded his
abdication. Unless Napoleon seized the dictatorship his cause was
lost. Carnot and Lucien Bonaparte urged him to dismiss the
Chambers and to stake all on his own strong will; but they found
no support among the Emperor's counsellors. On the next day
Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son. But it was in vain that
he attempted to impose an absent successor upon France, and to
maintain his own Ministers in power. It was equally in vain that
Carnot, filled with the memories of 1793, called upon the
Assembly to continue the war and to provide for the defence of
Paris. A Provisional Government entered upon office. Days were
spent in inaction and debate while the Allies advanced through
France. On the 28th of June, the Prussians appeared on the north
of the capital; and, as the English followed, they moved to the
south of the Seine, out of the range of the fortifications with
which Napoleon had covered the side of St. Denis and Montmartre.
Davoust, with almost all the generals in Paris, declared defence
to be impossible. On the 3rd of July, a capitulation was signed.
The remnants of the French army were required to withdraw beyond
the Loire. The Provisional Government dissolved itself; the
Allied troops entered the capital and on the following day the
Members of the Chamber of Deputies, on arriving at their Hall of
Assembly, found the gates closed, and a detachment of soldiers in
possession. France was not, even as a matter of form, consulted
as to its future government. Louis XVIII. was summarily restored
to his throne. Napoleon, who had gone to Rochefort with the
intention of sailing to the United States, lingered at Rochefort
until escape was no longer possible, and then embarked on the
British ship <i>Bellerophon</i>, commending himself, as a second
Themistocles, to the generosity of the Prince Regent of England.
He who had declared that the lives of a million men were nothing
to him <a name="FNanchor238">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_238"><sup>[238]</sup></a> trusted to the folly or the
impotence of the English nation to provide him with some
agreeable asylum until he could again break loose and deluge
Europe with blood. But the lesson of 1814 had been learnt. Some
island in the ocean far beyond the equator formed the only prison
for a man whom no European sovereign could venture to guard, and
whom no fortress-walls could have withdrawn from the attention of
mankind. Napoleon was conveyed to St. Helena. There, until at the
end of six years death removed him, he experienced some trifling
share of the human misery that he had despised.</p>
<p>[Wellington and Fouch&eacute;.]</p>
<p>Victory had come so swiftly that the Allied Governments were
unprepared with terms of peace. The Czar and the Emperor of
Austria were still at Heidelberg when the battle of Waterloo was
fought; they had advanced no further than Nancy when the news
reached them that Paris had surrendered. Both now hastened to the
capital, where Wellington was already exercising the authority to
which his extraordinary successes as well as his great political
superiority over all the representatives of the Allies then
present, entitled him. Before the entry of the English and
Prussian troops into Paris he had persuaded Louis XVIII. to sever
himself from the party of reaction by calling to office the
regicide Fouch&eacute;, head of the existing Provisional
Government. Fouch&eacute; had been guilty of the most atrocious
crimes at Lyons in 1793; he had done some of the worst work of
each succeeding government in France; and, after returning to his
old place as Napoleon's Minister of Police during the Hundred
Days, he had intrigued as early as possible for the restoration
of Louis XVIII., if indeed he had not held treasonable
communication with the enemy during the campaign. His sole claim
to power was that every gendarme and every informer in France had
at some time acted as his agent, and that, as a regicide in
office, he might possibly reconcile Jacobins and Bonapartists to
the second return of the Bourbon family. Such was the man whom,
in association with Talleyrand, the Duke of Wellington found
himself compelled to propose as Minister to Louis XVIII. The
appointment, it was said, was humiliating, but it was necessary;
and with the approval of the Count of Artois the King invited
this blood-stained eavesdropper to an interview and placed him in
office. Need subdued the scruples of the courtiers: it could not
subdue the resentment of that grief-hardened daughter of Louis
XVI. whom Napoleon termed the only man of her family. The Duchess
of Angoul&ecirc;me might have forgiven the Jacobin Fouch&eacute;
the massacres at Lyons: she refused to speak to a Minister whom
she termed one of the murderers of her father.</p>
<p>[Disagreement on terms of peace.]</p>
<p>Fouch&eacute; had entered into a private negotiation with
Wellington while the English were on the outskirts of Paris, and
while the authorised envoys of the Assembly were engaged
elsewhere. Wellington's motive for recommending him to the King
was the indifference or hostility felt by some of the Allies to
Louis XVIII. personally, which led the Duke to believe that if
Louis did not regain his throne before the arrival of the
sovereigns he might never regain it at all. <a name=
"FNanchor239">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_239"><sup>[239]</sup></a>
Fouch&eacute; was the one man who could at that moment throw open
the road to the Tuileries. If his overtures were rejected, he
might either permit Carnot to offer some desperate resistance
outside Paris, or might retire himself with the army and the
Assembly beyond the Loire, and there set up a Republican
Government. With Fouch&eacute; and Talleyrand united in office
under Louis XVIII., there was no fear either of a continuance of
the war or of the suggestion of a change of dynasty on the part
of any of the Allies. By means of the Duke's independent action
Louis XVIII. was already in possession when the Czar arrived at
Paris, and nothing now prevented the definite conclusion of peace
but the disagreement of the Allies themselves as to the terms to
be exacted. Prussia, which had suffered so bitterly from
Napoleon, demanded that Europe should not a second time deceive
itself with the hollow guarantee of a Bourbon restoration, but
should gain a real security for peace by detaching Alsace and
Lorraine, as well as a line of northern fortresses, from the
French monarchy. Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister of England,
stated it to be the prevailing opinion in this country that
France might fairly be stripped of the principal conquests made
by Louis XIV.; but he added that if Napoleon, who was then at
large, should become a prisoner, England would waive a permanent
cession of territory, on condition that France should be occupied
by foreign armies until it had, at its own cost, restored the
barrier-fortresses of the Netherlands. <a name=
"FNanchor240">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_240"><sup>[240]</sup></a>
Metternich for a while held much the same language as the
Prussian Minister: Alexander alone declared from the first
against any reduction of the territory of France, and appealed to
the declarations of the Powers that the sole object of the war
was the destruction of Napoleon and the maintenance of the order
established by the Peace of Paris.</p>
<p>[Arguments for and against cessions.]</p>
<p>[Prussia isolated.]</p>
<p>[Second Treaty of Paris, Nov. 20.]</p>
<p>The arguments for and against the severance of the
border-provinces from France were drawn at great length by
diplomatists, but all that was essential in them was capable of
being very briefly put. On the one side, it was urged by Stein
and Hardenberg that the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 with
an undiminished territory had not prevented France from placing
itself at the end of a few months under the rule of the military
despot whose life was one series of attacks on his neighbours:
that the expectation of long-continued peace, under whatever
dynasty, was a vain one so long as the French possessed a chain
of fortresses enabling them at any moment to throw large armies
into Germany or the Netherlands: and finally, that inasmuch as
Germany, and not England or Russia, was exposed to these
irruptions, Germany had the first right to have its interests
consulted in providing for the public security. On the other
side, it was argued by the Emperor Alexander, and with far
greater force by the Duke of Wellington, <a name=
"FNanchor241">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_241"><sup>[241]</sup></a>
that the position of the Bourbons would be absolutely hopeless if
their restoration, besides being the work of foreign armies, was
accompanied by the loss of French provinces: that the French
nation, although it had submitted to Napoleon, had not as a
matter of fact offered the resistance to the Allies which it was
perfectly capable of offering: and that the danger of any new
aggressive or revolutionary movement might be effectually averted
by keeping part of France occupied by the Allied forces until the
nation had settled down into tranquillity under an efficient
government. Notes embodying these arguments were exchanged
between the Ministers of the great Powers during the months of
July and August. The British Cabinet, which had at first inclined
to the Prussian view, accepted the calm judgment of Wellington,
and transferred itself to the side of the Czar. Metternich went
with the majority. Hardenberg, thus left alone, abandoned point
after point in his demands, and consented at last that France
should cede little more than the border-strips which had been
added by the Peace of 1814 to its frontier of 1791.
Chamb&eacute;ry and the rest of French Savoy, Landau and
Saarlouis on the German side, Philippeville and some other posts
on the Belgian frontier, were fixed upon as the territory to be
surrendered. The resolution of the Allied Governments was made
known to Louis XVIII. towards the end of September. Negotiation
on details dragged on for two months more, while France itself
underwent a change of Ministry; and the definitive Treaty of
Peace, known as the second Treaty of Paris, was not signed until
November the 20th. France escaped without substantial loss of
territory; it was, however, compelled to pay indemnities
amounting in all to about &pound;40,000,000; to consent to the
occupation of its northern provinces by an Allied force of
150,000 men for a period not exceeding five years; and to defray
the cost of this occupation out of its own revenues. The works of
art taken from other nations, which the Allies had allowed France
to retain in 1814, had already been restored to their rightful
owners. No act of the conquerors in 1815 excited more bitter or
more unreasonable complaint.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Holy Alliance, Sept. 26.]</p>
<p>It was in the interval between the entry of the Allies into
Paris and the definitive conclusion of peace that a treaty was
signed which has gained a celebrity in singular contrast with its
real insignificance, the Treaty of Holy Alliance. Since the
terrible events of 1812 the Czar's mind had taken a strongly
religious tinge. His private life continued loose as before; his
devotion was both very well satisfied with itself and a prey to
mysticism and imposture in others; but, if alloyed with many
weaknesses, it was at least sincere, and, like Alexander's other
feelings, it naturally sought expression in forms which seemed
theatrical to stronger natures. Alexander had rendered many
public acts of homage to religion in the intervals of diplomatic
and military success in the year 1814; and after the second
capture of Paris he drew up a profession of religious and
political faith, embodying, as he thought, those high principles
by which the Sovereigns of Europe, delivered from the iniquities
of Napoleon, were henceforth to maintain the reign of peace and
righteousness on <a name="FNanchor242">earth.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_242"><sup>[242]</sup></a> This document, which
resembled the pledge of a religious brotherhood, formed the draft
of the Treaty of the Holy Alliance. The engagement, as one
binding on the conscience, was for the consideration of the
Sovereigns alone, not of their Ministers; and in presenting it to
the Emperor Francis and King Frederick William, the Czar is said
to have acted with an air of great mystery. The King of Prussia,
a pious man, signed the treaty in seriousness; the Emperor of
Austria, who possessed a matter-of-fact humour, said that if the
paper related to doctrines of religion, he must refer it to his
confessor, if to secrets of State, to Prince Metternich. What the
confessor may have thought of the Czar's political evangel is not
known: the opinion delivered by the Minister was not a
sympathetic one. "It is verbiage," said Metternich; and his
master, though unwillingly, signed the treaty. With England the
case was still worse. As the Prince Regent was not in Paris,
Alexander had to confide the articles of the Holy Alliance to
Lord Castlereagh. Of all things in the world the most
incomprehensible to Castlereagh was religious enthusiasm. "The
fact is," he wrote home to the English Premier, "that the
Emperor's mind is not completely sound." <a name=
"FNanchor243">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_243"><sup>[243]</sup></a>
Apart, however, from the Czar's sanity or insanity, it was
impossible for the Prince Regent, or for any person except the
responsible Minister, to sign a treaty, whether it meant anything
or nothing, in the name of Great Britain. Castlereagh was in
great perplexity. On the one hand, he feared to wound a powerful
ally; on the other, he dared not violate the forms of the
Constitution. A compromise was invented. The Treaty of the Holy
Alliance was not graced with the name of the Prince Regent, but
the Czar received a letter declaring that his principles had the
personal approval of this great authority on religion and
morality. The Kings of Naples and Sardinia were the next to
subscribe, and in due time the names of the witty glutton, Louis
XVIII., and of the abject Ferdinand of Spain were added. Two
potentates alone received no invitation from the Czar to enter
the League: the Pope, because he possessed too much authority
within the Christian Church, and the Sultan, because he possessed
none at all.</p>
<p>[Treaty between the Four Powers, Nov. 20.]</p>
<p>Such was the history of the Treaty of Holy Alliance, of which,
it may be safely said, no single person connected with it, except
the Czar and the King of Prussia, thought without a smile. The
common belief that this Treaty formed the basis of a great
monarchical combination against Liberal principles is erroneous;
for, in the first place, no such combination existed before the
year 1818; and, in the second place, the Czar, who was the author
of the Treaty, was at this time the zealous friend of Liberalism
both in his own and in other countries. The concert of the Powers
was indeed provided for by articles signed on the same day as the
Peace of Paris; but this concert, which, unlike the Holy
Alliance, included England, was directed towards the perpetual
exclusion of Napoleon from power, and the maintenance of the
established Government in France. The Allies pledged themselves
to act in union if revolution or usurpation should again convulse
France and endanger the repose of other States, and undertook to
resist with their whole force any attack that might be made upon
the army of occupation. The federative unity which for a moment
Europe seemed to have gained from the struggle against Napoleon,
and the belief existing in some quarters in its long continuance,
were strikingly shown in the last article of this Quadruple
Treaty, which provided that, after the holding of a Congress at
the end of three or more years, the Sovereigns or Ministers of
all the four great Powers should renew their meetings at fixed
intervals, for the purpose of consulting upon their common
interests, and considering the measures best fitted to secure the
repose and prosperity of nations, and the continuance of the
peace of Europe. <a name="FNanchor244">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_244"><sup>[244]</sup></a></p>
<p>[German Federation.]</p>
<p>Thus terminated, certainly without any undue severity, yet not
without some loss to the conquered nation, the work of 1815 in
France. In the meantime the Congress of Vienna, though
interrupted by the renewal of war, had resumed and completed its
labours. One subject of the first importance remained unsettled
when Napoleon returned, the federal organisation of Germany. This
work had been referred by the Powers in the autumn of 1814 to a
purely German committee, composed of the representatives of
Austria and Prussia and of three of the Minor States; but the
first meetings of the committee only showed how difficult was the
problem, and how little the inclination in most quarters to solve
it. The objects with which statesmen like Stein demanded an
effective federation were thoroughly plain and practical. They
sought, in the first place, that Germany should be rendered
capable of defending itself against the foreigner; and in the
second place, that the subjects of the minor princes, who had
been made absolute rulers by Napoleon, should now be guaranteed
against despotic oppression. To secure Germany from being again
conquered by France, it was necessary that the members of the
League, great and small, should abandon something of their
separate sovereignty, and create a central authority with the
sole right of making war and alliances. To protect the subjects
of the minor princes from the abuse of power, it was necessary
that certain definite civil rights and a measure of
representative government should be assured by Federal Law to the
inhabitants of every German State, and enforced by the central
authority on the appeal of subjects against their Sovereigns.
There was a moment when some such form of German union had seemed
to be close at hand, the moment when Prussia began its final
struggle with Napoleon, and the commander of the Czar's army
threatened the German vassals of France with the loss of their
thrones (Feb., 1813). But even then no statesman had satisfied
himself how Prussia and Austria were to unite in submission to a
Federal Government; and from the time when Austria made terms
with the vassal princes little hope of establishing a really
effective authority at the centre of Germany remained. Stein, at
the Congress of Vienna, once more proposed to restore the title
and the long-vanished powers of the Emperor; but he found no
inclination on the part of Metternich to promote his schemes for
German unity, while some of the minor princes flatly refused to
abandon any fraction of their sovereignty over their own
subjects. The difficulties in the way of establishing a Federal
State were great, perhaps insuperable; the statesmen anxious for
it few in number; the interests opposed to it all but universal.
Stein saw that the work was intended to be unsubstantial, and
withdrew himself from it before its completion. The Act of
Federation, <a name="FNanchor245">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_245"><sup>[245]</sup></a> which was signed on the 8th
of June, created a Federal Diet, forbade the members of the
League to enter into alliances against the common interest, and
declared that in each State, Constitutions should be established.
But it left the various Sovereigns virtually independent of the
League; it gave the nomination of members of the Diet to the
Governments absolutely, without a vestige of popular election;
and it contained no provision for enforcing in any individual
State, whose ruler might choose to disregard it, the principle of
constitutional rule. Whether the Federation would in any degree
have protected Germany in case of attack by France or Russia is
matter for conjecture, since a long period of peace followed the
year 1815; but so far was it from securing liberty to the Minor
States, that in the hands of Metternich the Diet, impotent for
every other purpose, became an instrument for the persecution of
liberal opinion and for the suppression of the freedom of the
press.</p>
<p>[Final Act of the Congress, June 10.]</p>
<p>German affairs, as usual, were the last to be settled at the
Congress; when these were at length disposed of, the Congress
embodied the entire mass of its resolutions in one great Final
Act <a name="FNanchor246">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_246"><sup>[246]</sup></a> of a hundred and twenty-one
articles, which was signed a few days before the battle of
Waterloo was fought. This Act, together with the second Treaty of
Paris, formed the public law with which Europe emerged from the
warfare of a quarter of a century, and entered upon a period
which proved, even more than it was expected to prove, one of
long-lasting peace. Standing on the boundary-line between two
ages, the legislation of Vienna forms a landmark in history. The
provisions of the Congress have sometimes been criticised as if
that body had been an assemblage of philosophers, bent only on
advancing the course of human progress, and endowed with the
power of subduing the selfish impulses of every Government in
Europe. As a matter of fact the Congress was an arena where
national and dynastic interests struggled for satisfaction by
every means short of actual war. To inquire whether the Congress
accomplished all that it was possible to accomplish for Europe is
to inquire whether Governments at that moment forgot all their
own ambitions and opportunities, and thought only of the welfare
of mankind. Russia would not have given up Poland without war;
Austria would not have given up Lombardy and Venice without war.
The only measures of 1814-15 in which the common interest was
really the dominant motive were those adopted either with the
view of strengthening the States immediately exposed to attack by
France, or in the hope of sparing France itself the occasion for
new conflicts. The union of Holland and Belgium, and the
annexation of the Genoese Republic to Sardinia, were the means
adopted for the former end; for the latter, the relinquishment of
all claims to Alsace and Lorraine. These were the measures in
which the statesmen of 1814-15 acted with their hands free, and
by these their foresight may fairly be judged. Of the union of
Belgium to Holland it is not too much to say that, although
planned by Pitt, and treasured by every succeeding Ministry as
one of his wisest schemes, it was wholly useless and inexpedient.
The tranquillity of Western Europe was preserved during fifteen
years, not by yoking together discordant nationalities, but by
the general desire to avoid war; and as soon as France seriously
demanded the liberation of Belgium from Holland, it had to be
granted. Nor can it be believed that the addition of the hostile
and discontented population of Genoa to the kingdom of Piedmont
would have saved that monarchy from invasion if war had again
arisen. The annexation of Genoa was indeed fruitful of results,
but not of results which Pitt and his successors had anticipated.
It was intended to strengthen the House of Savoy for the purpose
of resistance to France: <a name="FNanchor247">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_247"><sup>[247]</sup></a> it did strengthen the House
of Savoy, but as the champion of Italy against Austria. It was
intended to withdraw the busy trading city Genoa from the
influences of French democracy: in reality it brought a strong
element of innovation into the Piedmontese State itself, giving,
on the one hand, a bolder and more national spirit to its
Government, and, on the other hand, elevating to the ideal of a
united Italy those who, like the Genoese Mazzini, were now no
longer born to be the citizens of a free Republic. In sacrificing
the ancient liberty of Genoa, the Congress itself unwittingly
began the series of changes which was to refute the famous saying
of Metternich, that Italy was but a geographical expression.</p>
<p>[Alsace and Lorraine.]</p>
<p>But if the policy of 1814-15 in the affairs of Belgium and
Piedmont only proves how little an average collection of
statesmen can see into the future, the policy which, in spite of
Waterloo, left France in possession of an undiminished territory,
does no discredit to the foresight, as it certainly does the
highest honour to the justice and forbearance of Wellington,
whose counsels then turned the scale. The wisdom of the
resolution has indeed been frequently impugned. German statesmen
held then, and have held ever since, that the opportunity of
disarming France once for all of its weapons of attack was
wantonly thrown away. Hardenberg, when his arguments for
annexation of the frontier-fortresses were set aside, predicted
that streams of blood would hereafter flow for the conquest of
Alsace and Lorraine, <a name="FNanchor248">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_248"><sup>[248]</sup></a> and his prediction has been
fulfilled. Yet no one perhaps would have been more astonished
than Hardenberg himself, could he have known that fifty-five
years of peace between France and Prussia would precede the next
great struggle. When the same period of peace shall have followed
the acquisition of Metz and Strasburg by Prussia, it will be time
to condemn the settlement of 1815 as containing the germ of
future wars; till then, the effects of that settlement in
maintaining peace are entitled to recognition. It is impossible
to deny that the Allies, in leaving to France the whole of its
territory in 1815, avoided inflicting the most galling of all
tokens of defeat upon a spirited and still most powerful nation.
The loss of Belgium and the frontier of the Rhine was keenly
enough felt for thirty years to come, and made no insignificant
part of the French people ready at any moment to rush into war;
how much greater the power of the war-cry, how hopeless the task
of restraint, if to the other motives for war there had been
added the liberation of two of the most valued provinces of
France. Without this the danger was great enough. Thrice at least
in the next thirty years the balance seemed to be turning against
the continuance of peace. An offensive alliance between France
and Russia was within view when the Bourbon monarchy fell; the
first years of Louis Philippe all but saw the revolutionary party
plunge France into war for Belgium and for Italy; ten years later
the dismissal of a Ministry alone prevented the outbreak of
hostilities on the distant affairs of Syria. Had Alsace and
Lorraine at this time been in the hands of disunited Germany, it
is hard to believe that the Bourbon dynasty would not have
averted, or sought to avert, its fall by a popular war, or that
the victory of Louis Philippe over the war-party, difficult even
when there was no French soil to reconquer, would have been
possible. The time indeed came when a new Bonaparte turned to
enterprises of aggression the resources which Europe had left
unimpaired to his country; but to assume that the cessions
proposed in 1815 would have made France unable to move, with or
without allies, half a century afterwards, is to make a confident
guess in a doubtful matter; and, with Germany in the condition in
which it remained after 1815, it is at least as likely that the
annexation of Alsace and Lorraine would have led to the early
reconquest of the Rhenish provinces by France, or to a war
between Austria and Prussia, as that it would have prolonged the
period of European peace beyond that distant limit which it
actually reached.</p>
<p>[English efforts at the Congress to abolish the
slave-trade.]</p>
<p>Among the subjects which were pressed upon the Congress of
Vienna there was one in which the pursuit of national interests
and calculations of policy bore no part, the abolition of the
African slave-trade. The British people, who, after twenty years
of combat in the cause of Europe, had earned so good a right to
ask something of their allies, probably attached a deeper
importance to this question than to any in the whole range of
European affairs, with the single exception of the personal
overthrow of Napoleon. Since the triumph of Wiberforce's cause in
the Parliament of 1807, and the extinction of English
slave-traffic, the anger with which the nation viewed this
detestable cruelty, too long tolerated by itself, had become more
and more vehement and widespread. By the year 1814 the utterances
of public opinion were so loud and urgent that the Government,
though free from enthusiasm itself, was forced to place the
international prohibition of the slave-trade in the front rank of
its demands. There were politicians on the Continent credulous
enough to believe that this outcry of the heart and the
conscience of the nation was but a piece of commercial hypocrisy.
Talleyrand, with far different insight, but not with more
sympathy, spoke of the state of the English people as one of
frenzy. <a name="FNanchor249">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_249"><sup>[249]</sup></a> Something had already been
effected at foreign courts. Sweden had been led to prohibit
slave-traffic in 1813, Holland in the following year. Portugal
had been restrained by treaty from trading north of the line.
France had pledged itself in the first Treaty of Paris to abolish
the commerce within five years. Spain alone remained unfettered,
and it was indeed intolerable that the English slavers should
have been forced to abandon their execrable gains only that they
should fall into the hands of the subjects of King Ferdinand. It
might be true that the Spanish colonies required a larger supply
of slaves than they possessed; but Spain had at any rate not the
excuse that it was asked to surrender an old and profitable
branch of commerce. It was solely through the abolition of the
English slave-trade that Spain possessed any slave-trade
whatever. Before the year 1807 no Spanish ship had been seen on
the coast of Africa for a century, except one in 1798 fitted out
by Godoy. <a name="FNanchor250">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_250"><sup>[250]</sup></a> As for the French trade,
that had been extinguished by the capture of Senegal and Goree;
and along the two thousand miles of coast from Cape Blanco to
Cape Formosa a legitimate commerce with the natives was gradually
springing up in place of the desolating traffic in flesh and
blood. It was hoped by the English people that Castlereagh would
succeed in obtaining a universal and immediate prohibition of the
slave-trade by all the Powers assembled at Vienna. The Minister
was not wanting in perseverance, but he failed to achieve this
result. France, while claiming a short delay elsewhere, professed
itself willing, like Portugal, to abolish at once the traffic
north of the line; but the Government on which England had
perhaps the greatest claim, that of Spain, absolutely refused to
accept this restriction, or to bind itself to a final prohibition
before the end of eight years. Castlereagh then proposed that a
Council of Ambassadors at London and Paris should be charged with
the international duty of expediting the close of the
slave-trade; the measure which he had in view being the
punishment of slave-dealing States by a general exclusion of
their exports. Against this Spain and Portugal made a formal
protest, treating the threat as almost equivalent to one of war.
The project dropped, and the Minister of England had to content
himself with obtaining from the Congress a solemn condemnation of
the slave-trade, as contrary to the principles of civilisation
and human right (Feb., 1815).</p>
<p>The work was carried a step further by Napoleon's return from
Elba. Napoleon understood the impatience of the English people,
and believed that he could make no higher bid for its friendship
than by abandoning the reserves made by Talleyrand at the
Congress, and abolishing the French slave-trade at once and for
all. This was accomplished; and the Bourbon ally of England, on
his second restoration could not undo what had been done by the
usurper. Spain and Portugal alone continued to pursue-the former
country without restriction, the latter on the south of the
line-a commerce branded by the united voice of Europe as
infamous. The Governments of these countries alleged in their
justification that Great Britain itself had resisted the passing
of the prohibitory law until its colonies were far better
supplied with slaves than those of its rivals now were. This was
true, but it was not the whole truth. The whole truth was not
known, the sincerity of English feeling was not appreciated,
until, twenty years later, the nation devoted a part of its
wealth to release the slave from servitude, and the English race
from the reproach of slave holding. Judged by the West Indian
Emancipation of 1833, the Spanish appeal to English history
sounds almost ludicrous. But the remembrance of the long years
throughout which the advocates of justice encountered opposition
in England should temper the severity of our condemnation of the
countries which still defended a bad interest. The light broke
late upon ourselves: the darkness that still lingered elsewhere
had too long been our own.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XIII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Concert of Europe after 1815-Spirit of the Foreign Policy of
Alexander, of Metternich, and of the English
Ministry-Metternich's action in Italy, England's in Sicily and
Spain-The Reaction in France-Richelieu and the New
Chamber-Execution of Ney-Imprisonments and persecutions-Conduct
of the Ultra-Royalists in Parliament-Contests on the Electoral
Bill and the Budget-The Chamber prorogued-Affair of
Grenoble-Dissolution of the Chamber-Electoral Law and Financial
Settlement of 1817-Character of the first years of peace in
Europe generally-Promise of a Constitution in Prussia-Hardenberg
opposed by the partisans of autocracy and privilege-Schmalz's
Pamphlet-Delay of Constitutional Reform in Germany at large-The
Wartburg Festival-Progress of Reaction-The Czar now inclines to
repression-Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle-Evacuation of
France-Growing influence of Metternich in Europe-His action on
Prussia-Murder of Kotzebue-The Carlsbad Conference and measures
of repression in Germany-Richelieu and Decazes-Murder of the Duke
of Berry-Progress of the reaction in France-General causes of the
victory of reaction in Europe.</p>
<br>

<p>[Concert of Europe regarding France.]</p>
<p>For nearly twenty years the career of Bonaparte had given to
European history the unity of interest which belongs to a single
life. This unity does not immediately disappear on the
disappearance of his mighty figure. The Powers of Europe had been
too closely involved in the common struggle, their interests were
too deeply concerned in the maintenance of the newly-established
order, for the thoughts of Governments to be withdrawn from
foreign affairs, and the currents of national policy to fall at
once apart into separate channels. The Allied forces continued to
occupy France with Wellington as commander-in-chief; the defence
of the Bourbon monarchy had been declared the cause of Europe at
large; the conditions under which the numbers of the army of
occupation might be reduced, or the period of occupation
shortened, remained to be fixed by the Allies themselves. France
thus formed the object of a common European deliberation; nor was
the concert of the Powers without its peculiar organ. An
International Council was created at Paris, consisting of the
Ambassadors of the four great Courts. The forms of a coalition
were, for the first time, preserved after the conclusion of
peace. Communications were addressed to the Government of Louis
XVIII., in the name of all the Powers together. The Council of
Ambassadors met at regular intervals, and not only transacted
business relating to the army of occupation and the payment of
indemnities, but discussed the domestic policy of the French
Government, and the situation of parties or the signs of
political opinion in the Assembly and the nation.</p>
<p>[Action of the Powers outside France.]</p>
<p>In thus watching over the restored Bourbon monarchy, the
Courts of Europe were doing no more than they had bound
themselves to do by treaty. Paris, however, was not the only
field for a busy diplomacy. In most of the minor capitals of
Europe each of the Great Powers had its own supposed interests to
pursue, or its own principles of government to inculcate. An age
of transition seemed to have begun. Constitutions had been
promised in many States, and created in some; in Spain and in
Sicily they had reached the third stage, that of suppression. It
was not likely that the statesmen who had succeeded to Napoleon's
power in Europe should hold themselves entirely aloof from the
affairs of their weaker neighbours, least of all when a
neighbouring agitation might endanger themselves. In one respect
the intentions of the British, the Austrian, and the Russian
Governments were identical, and continued to be so, namely, in
the determination to countenance no revolutionary movement.
Revolution, owing to the experience of 1793, had come to be
regarded as synonymous with aggressive warfare. Jacobins,
anarchists, disturbers of the public peace, were only different
names for one and the same class of international criminals, who
were indeed indigenous to France, but might equally endanger the
peace of mankind in other countries. Against these fomenters of
mischief all the Courts were at one.</p>
<p>[Alexander.]</p>
<p>Here, however, agreement ceased. It was admitted that between
revolutionary disturbance and the enjoyment of constitutional
liberty a wide interval existed, and the statesmen of the leading
Powers held by no means the same views as to the true relation
between nations and their rulers. The most liberal in theory
among the Sovereigns of 1815 was the Emperor Alexander. Already,
in the summer of 1815, he had declared the Duchy of Warsaw to be
restored to independence and nationality, under the title of the
Kingdom of Poland; and before the end of the year he had granted
it a Constitution, which created certain representative
assemblies, and provided the new kingdom with an army and an
administration of its own, into which no person not a Pole could
enter. The promised introduction of Parliamentary life into
Poland was but the first of a series of reforms dimly planned by
Alexander, which was to culminate in the bestowal of a
Constitution upon Russia itself, and the emancipation of the
serf. <a name="FNanchor251">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_251"><sup>[251]</sup></a> Animated by hopes like these
for his own people, hopes which, while they lasted, were not
merely sincere but ardent, Alexander was also friendly to the
cause of constitutional government in other countries. Ambition
mingled with disinterested impulses in the foreign policy of the
Czar. It was impossible that Alexander should forget the league
into which England and Austria had so lately entered against him.
He was anxious to keep France on his side; he was not inclined to
forego the satisfaction of weakening Austria by supporting
national hopes in Italy; <a name="FNanchor252">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_252"><sup>[252]</sup></a> and he hoped to create some
counterpoise to England's maritime power by allying Russia with a
strengthened and better-administered Spain. Agents of the Czar
abounded in Italy and in Germany, but in no capital was the
Ambassador of Russia more active than in Madrid. General
Tatistcheff, who was appointed to this post in 1814, became the
terror of all his colleagues and of the Cabinet of London from
his extraordinary activity in intrigue; but in relation to the
internal affairs of Spain his influence was beneficial; and it
was frequently directed towards the support of reforming
Ministers, whom King Ferdinand, if free from foreign pressure,
would speedily have sacrificed to the pleasure of his favourites
and confessors.</p>
<p>[Metternich.]</p>
<p>[Metternich's policy in Germany.]</p>
<p>[In Italy.]</p>
<p>In the eyes of Prince Metternich, the all-powerful Minister of
Austria, Alexander was little better than a Jacobin. The Austrian
State, though its frontiers had been five times changed since
1792, had continued in a remarkable degree free from the impulse
to internal change. The Emperor Francis was the personification
of resistance to progress; the Minister owed his unrivalled
position not more to his own skilful statesmanship in the great
crisis of 1813 than to a genuine accord with the feelings of his
master. If Francis was not a man of intellect, Metternich was
certainly a man of character; and for a considerable period they
succeeded in impressing the stamp of their own strongly-marked
Austrian policy upon Europe. The force of their influence sprang
from no remote source; it was due mainly to a steady intolerance
of all principles not their own. Metternich described his system
with equal simplicity and precision as an attempt neither to
innovate nor to go back to the past, but to keep things as they
were. In the old Austrian dominions this was not difficult to do,
for things had no tendency to move and remained fixed of
themselves; <a name="FNanchor253">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_253"><sup>[253]</sup></a> but on the outside, both on
the north and on the south, ideas were at work which, according
to Metternich, ought never to have entered the world, but, having
unfortunately gained admittance, made it the task of Governments
to resist their influence by all available means. Stein and the
leaders of the Prussian War of Liberation had agitated Germany
with hopes of national unity, of Parliaments, and of the
impulsion of the executive powers of State by public opinion.
Against these northern innovators, Metternich had already won an
important victory in the formation of the Federal Constitution.
The weakness and timidity of the King of Prussia made it probable
that, although he was now promising his subjects a Constitution,
he might at no distant date be led to unite with other German
Governments in a system of repression, and in placing Liberalism
under the ban of the Diet. In Italy, according to the
conservative statesman, the same dangers existed and the same
remedies were required. Austria, through the acquisition of
Venice, now possessed four times as large a territory beyond the
Alps as it had possessed before 1792; but the population was no
longer the quiescent and contented folk that it had been in the
days of Maria Theresa. Napoleon's kingdom and army of Italy had
taught the people warfare, and given them political aims and a
more masculine spirit. Metternich's own generals had promised the
Italians independence when they entered the country in 1814;
Murat's raid a year later had actually been undertaken in the
name of Italian unity. These were disagreeable incidents, and
signs were not wanting of the existence of a revolutionary spirit
in the Italian provinces of Austria, especially among the
officers who had served under Napoleon. Metternich was perfectly
clear as to the duties of his Government. The Italians might have
a Viceroy to keep Court at Milan, a body of native officials to
conduct their minor affairs, and a mock Congregation or Council,
without any rights, powers, or functions whatever; if this did
not satisfy them, they were a rebellious people, and government
must be conducted by means of spies, police, and the dungeons of
the <a name="FNanchor254">Spielberg.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_254"><sup>[254]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Scheme of an Austrian Protectorate over Italy.]</p>
<p>On this system, backed by great military force, there was
nothing to fear from the malcontents of Lombardy and Venice: it
remained for Metternich to extend the same security to the rest
of the peninsula, and by a series of treaties to effect the
double end of exterminating constitutional government and of
establishing an Austrian Protectorate over the entire country,
from the Alps to the Sicilian Straits. The design was so
ambitious that Metternich had not dared to disclose it at the
Congress of Vienna; it was in fact a direct violation of the
Treaty of Paris, and of the resolution of the Congress, that
Italy, outside the possessions of Austria, should consist of
independent States. The first Sovereign over whom the net was
cast was Ferdinand of Naples. On the 15th of June, 1815,
immediately after the overthrow of Murat, King Ferdinand signed a
Treaty of Alliance with Austria, which contained a secret clause,
pledging the King to introduce no change into his recovered
kingdom inconsistent with its own old monarchical principles, or
with the principles which had been adopted by the Emperor of
Austria for the government of his Italian provinces. <a name=
"FNanchor255">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_255"><sup>[255]</sup></a>
Ferdinand, two years before, had been compelled by Great Britain
to grant Sicily a Constitution, and was at this very moment
promising one to Naples. The Sicilian Constitution was now
tacitly condemned; the Neapolitans were duped. By a further
secret clause, the two contracting Sovereigns undertook to
communicate to one another everything that should come to their
knowledge affecting the security and tranquillity of the Italian
peninsula; in other words, the spies and the police of Ferdinand
were now added to Metternich's staff in Lombardy. Tuscany,
Modena, and Parma entered into much the same condition of
vassalage; but the scheme for a universal federation of Italy
under Austria's leadership failed through the resistance of
Piedmont and of the Pope. Pius VII. resented the attempts of
Austria, begun in 1797 and repeated at the Congress of Vienna, to
deprive the Holy See of Bologna and Ravenna. The King of
Sardinia, though pressed by England to accept Metternich's offer
of alliance, maintained with great decision the independence of
his country, and found in the support of the Czar a more potent
argument than any that he could have drawn from treaties. <a
name="FNanchor256">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_256"><sup>[256]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Spirit of England's foreign policy.]</p>
<p>The part played by the British Government at this epoch has
been severely judged not only by the later opinion of England
itself, but by the historical writers of almost every nation in
Europe. It is perhaps fortunate for the fame of Pitt that he did
not live to witness the accomplishment of the work in which he
had laboured for thirteen years. The glory of a just and
courageous struggle against Napoleon's tyranny remains with Pitt;
the opprobrium of a settlement hostile to liberty has fallen on
his successors. Yet there is no good ground for believing that
Pitt would have attached a higher value to the rights or
inclinations of individual communities than his successors did in
re-adjusting the balance of power; on the contrary, he himself
first proposed to destroy the Republic of Genoa, and to place
Catholic Belgium under the Protestant Crown of Holland; nor was
any principle dearer to him than that of aggrandising the House
of Austria as a counterpoise to the power of France. <a name=
"FNanchor257">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_257"><sup>[257]</sup></a>
The Ministry of 1815 was indeed but too faithfully walking in the
path into which Pitt had been driven by the King and the nation
in 1793. Resistance to France had become the one absorbing care,
the beginning and end of English statesmanship. Government at
home had sunk to a narrow and unfeeling opposition to the
attempts made from time to time to humanise the mass of the
people, to reform an atrocious criminal law, to mitigate the
civil wrongs inflicted in the name and the interest of a
State-religion. No one in the Cabinet doubted that authority, as
such, must be wiser than inexperienced popular desire, least of
all the statesman who now, in conjunction with the Duke of
Wellington, controlled the policy of Great Britain upon the
Continent. Lord Castlereagh had no sympathy with cruelty or
oppression in Continental rulers; he had just as little belief in
the value of free institutions to their subjects. <a name=
"FNanchor258">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_258"><sup>[258]</sup></a>
The nature of his influence, which has been drawn sometimes in
too dark colours, may be fairly gathered from the course of
action which he followed in regard to Sicily and to Spain.</p>
<p>[In Sicily.]</p>
<p>In Sicily the representative of Great Britain, Lord William
Bentinck, had forced King Ferdinand, who could not have
maintained himself for an hour without the arms and money of
England, to establish in 1813 a Parliament framed on the model of
our own. The Parliament had not proved a wise or a capable body,
but its faults were certainly not equal to those of King
Ferdinand, and its re-construction under England's auspices would
have been an affair of no great difficulty. Ferdinand, however,
had always detested free institutions, and as soon as he regained
the throne of Naples he determined to have done with the Sicilian
Parliament. A correspondence on the intended change took place
between Lord Castlereagh and A'Court, the Ambassador who had now
succeeded Lord William Bentinck. <a name="FNanchor259">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_259"><sup>[259]</sup></a> That the British
Government, which had protected the Sicilian Crown against
Napoleon at the height of his power, could have protected the
Sicilian Constitution against King Ferdinand's edicts without
detaching a single man-of-war's boat, is not open to doubt.
Castlereagh, however, who for years past had been paying,
stimulating, or rebuking every Government in Europe, and who had
actually sent the British fleet to make the Norwegians submit to
Bernadotte, now suddenly adopted the principle of
non-intervention, and declared that, so long as Ferdinand did not
persecute the Sicilians who at the invitation of England had
taken part in political life, or reduce the privileges of Sicily
below those which had existed prior to 1813, Great Britain would
not interfere with his action. These stipulations were inserted
in order to satisfy the House of Commons, and to avert the charge
that England had not only abandoned the Sicilian Constitution,
but consented to a change which left the Sicilians in a worse
condition than if England had never intervened in their affairs.
Lord Castlereagh shut his eyes to the confession involved, that
he was leaving the Sicilians to a ruler who, but for such
restraint, might be expected to destroy every vestige of public
right, and to take the same bloody and unscrupulous revenge upon
his subjects which he had taken when Nelson restored him to power
in 1799.</p>
<p>[Action of England in Spain.]</p>
<p>The action of the British Government in Spain showed an equal
readiness to commit the future to the wisdom of Courts. Lord
Castlereagh was made acquainted with the Spanish Ferdinand's
design of abolishing the Constitution on his return in the year
1814. "So far," he replied, "as the mere existence of the
Constitution is at stake, it is impossible to believe that any
change tranquilly effected can well be worse." <a name=
"FNanchor260">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_260"><sup>[260]</sup></a> In
this case the interposition of England would perhaps not have
availed against a reactionary clergy and nation: Castlereagh,
was, moreover, deceived by Ferdinand's professions that he had no
desire to restore absolute government. He credited the King with
the same kind of moderation which had led Louis XVIII. to accept
the Charta in France, and looked forward to the maintenance of a
constitutional r&eacute;gime, though under conditions more
favourable to the executive power and to the influence of the
great landed proprietors and <a name="FNanchor261">clergy.</a><a
href="#Footnote_261"><sup>[261]</sup></a> Events soon proved what
value was to be attached to the word of the King; the flood of
reaction and vengeance broke over the country; and from this time
the British Government, half confessing and half excusing
Ferdinand's misdeeds, exerted itself to check the outrages of
despotism, and to mitigate the lot of those who were now its
victims. In the interest of the restored monarchies themselves,
as much as from a regard to the public opinion of Great Britain,
the Ambassadors of England urged moderation upon all the Bourbon
Courts. This, however, was also done by Metternich, who neither
took pleasure in cruelty, nor desired to see new revolutions
produced by the extravagances of priests and emigrants. It was
not altogether without cause that the belief arose that there was
little to choose, in reference to the constitutional liberties of
other States, between the sentiments of Austria and those of the
Ministers of free England. A difference, however, did exist.
Metternich actually prohibited the Sovereigns over whom his
influence extended from granting their subjects liberty: England,
believing the Sovereigns to be more liberal than they were, did
not interfere to preserve constitutions from destruction.</p>
<p>[Outrages of the Royalists in the south of France,
June-August.]</p>
<p>Such was the general character of the influence now exercised
by the three leading Powers of Europe. Prussia, which had neither
a fleet like England, an Italian connection like Austria, nor an
ambitious Sovereign like Russia, concerned itself little with
distant States, and limited its direct action to the affairs of
France, in which it possessed a substantial interest, inasmuch as
the indemnities due from Louis XVIII. had yet to be paid. The
possibility of recovering these sums depended upon the
maintenance of peace and order in France; and from the first it
was recognised by every Government in Europe that the principal
danger to peace and order arose from the conduct of the Count of
Artois and his friends, the party of reaction. The
counterrevolutionary movement began in mere riot and outrage. No
sooner had the news of the battle of Waterloo reached the south
of France than the Royalist mob of Marseilles drove the garrison
out of the town, and attacked the quarter inhabited by the
Mameluke families whom Napoleon had brought from Egypt. Thirteen
of these unfortunate persons, and about as many Bonapartist
citizens, were murdered. <a name="FNanchor262">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_262"><sup>[262]</sup></a> A few weeks later Nismes was
given over to anarchy and pillage. Religious fanaticism here
stimulated the passion of political revenge. The middle class in
Nismes itself and a portion of the surrounding population were
Protestant, and had hailed Napoleon's return from Elba as a
deliverance from the ascendancy of priests, and from the
threatened revival of the persecutions which they had suffered
under the old Bourbon monarchy. The Catholics, who were much more
numerous, included the lowest class in the town, the larger
landed proprietors of the district, and above half of the
peasantry. Bands of volunteers had been formed by the Duke of
Angoul&ecirc;me at the beginning of the Hundred Days, in the hope
of sustaining a civil war against Napoleon. After capitulating to
the Emperor's generals, some companies had been attacked by
villagers and hunted down like wild beasts. The bands now
reassembled and entered Nismes. The garrison, after firing upon
them, were forced to give up their arms, and in this defenceless
state a considerable number of the soldiers were shot down (July
17). On the next day the leaders of the armed mob began to use
their victory. For several weeks murder and outrage, deliberately
planned and publicly announced, kept not only Nismes itself, but
a wide extent of the surrounding country in constant terror. The
Government acted slowly and feebly; the local authorities were
intimidated; and, in spite of the remonstrances of Wellington and
the Russian Ambassador, security was not restored until the
Allies took the matter into their own hands, and a detachment of
Austrian troops occupied the Department of the Gard. Other
districts in the south of France witnessed the same outbreaks of
Royalist ferocity. Avignon was disgraced by the murder of Marshal
Brune, conqueror of the Russians and English in the Dutch
campaign of 1799, an honest soldier, who after suffering
Napoleon's neglect in the time of prosperity, had undertaken the
heavy task of governing Marseilles during the Hundred Days. At
Toulouse, General Ramel, himself a Royalist, was mortally wounded
by a band of assassins, and savagely mutilated while lying
disabled and expiring.</p>
<p>[Elections of 1815.]</p>
<p>Crimes like these were the counterpart of the September
massacres of 1792; and the terrorism exercised by the Royalists
in 1815 has been compared, as a whole, with the Republican Reign
of Terror twenty-two years earlier. But the comparison does
little credit to the historical sense of those who suggested it.
The barbarities of 1815 were strictly local: shocking as they
were, they scarcely amounted in all to an average day's work of
Carrier or Fouch&eacute; in 1794; and the action of the
established Government, though culpably weak, was not itself
criminal. A second and more dangerous stage of reaction began,
however, when the work of popular vengeance closed. Elections for
a new Chamber of Deputies were held at the end of August. The
Liberals and the adherents of Napoleon, paralysed by the
disasters of France and the invaders' presence, gave up all as
lost: the Ministers of Louis XVIII. abstained from the usual
electoral manoeuvres, Talleyrand through carelessness,
Fouch&eacute; from a desire to see parties evenly balanced: the
ultra-Royalists alone had extended their organisation over
France, and threw themselves into the contest with the utmost
passion and energy. Numerically weak, they had the immense forces
of the local administration on their side. The Pr&eacute;fets had
gone over heart and soul to the cause of the Count of Artois, who
indeed represented to them that he was acting under the King's
own directions. The result was that an Assembly was elected to
which France has seen only one parallel since, namely in the
Parliament of 1871, elected when invaders again occupied the
country, and the despotism of a second Bonaparte had ended in the
same immeasurable calamity. The bulk of the candidates returned
were country gentlemen whose names had never been heard of in
public life since 1789, men who had resigned themselves to
inaction and obscurity under the Republic and the Empire, and
whose one political idea was to reverse the injuries done by the
Revolution to their caste and to their Church. They were
Royalists because a Bourbon monarchy alone could satisfy their
claims: they called themselves ultra-Royalists, but they were so
only in the sense that they required the monarchy to recognise no
ally but themselves. They had already shown before Napoleon's
return that their real chief was the Count of Artois, not the
King; in what form their ultra-Royalism would exhibit itself in
case the King should not submit to be their instrument remained
to be proved.</p>
<p>[Fall of Talleyrand and Fouch&eacute;.]</p>
<p>[Richelieu's Ministry, Sept., 1815.]</p>
<p>The first result of the elections was the downfall of
Talleyrand's Liberal Ministry. The Count of Artois and the
courtiers, who had been glad enough to secure Fouch&eacute;'s
services while their own triumph was doubtful, now joined in the
outcry of the country gentlemen again this monster of iniquity.
Talleyrand promptly disencumbered himself of his old friend, and
prepared to meet the new Parliament as an ultra-Royalist; but in
the eyes of the victorious party Talleyrand himself, the married
priest and the reputed accomplice in the murder of the Duke of
Enghien, was little better than his regicide colleague; and
before the Assembly met he was forced to retire from power.</p>
<p>[Richelieu's Ministry, Sept. 1815.]</p>
<p>His successor, the Duc de Richelieu, was recommended to Louis
XVIII. by the Czar. Richelieu had quitted France early in the
Revolution, and, unlike most of the emigrants, had played a
distinguished part in the country which gave him refuge. Winning
his first laurels in the siege of Ismail under Suvaroff, he had
subsequently been made Governor of the Euxine provinces of
Russia, and the flourishing town of Odessa had sprung up under
his rule. His reputation as an administrator was high; his
personal character singularly noble and disinterested. Though the
English Government looked at first with apprehension upon a
Minister so closely connected with the Czar of Russia,
Richelieu's honesty and truthfulness soon gained him the respect
of every foreign Court. His relation to Alexander proved of great
service to France in lightening the burden of the army of
occupation; his equity, his acquaintance with the real ends of
monarchical government, made him, though no lover of liberty, a
valuable Minister in face of an Assembly which represented
nothing but the passions and the ideas of a reactionary class.
But Richelieu had been too long absent from France to grasp the
details of administration with a steady hand. The men, the
parties of 1815, were new to him: it is said that he was not
acquainted by sight with most of his colleagues when he appointed
them to their posts. The Ministry in consequence was not at unity
within itself. Some of its members, like Decazes, were more
liberal than their chief; others, like Clarke and Vaublanc, old
servants of Napoleon now turned ultra-Royalists, were eager to
make themselves the instruments of the Count of Artois, and to
carry into the work of government the enthusiasm of revenge which
had already found voice in the elections.</p>
<p>[Violence of the Chamber of 1815.]</p>
<p>The session opened on the 7th of October. Twenty-nine of the
peers, who had joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, were
excluded from the House, and replaced by adherents of the
Bourbons; nevertheless the peers as a body opposed themselves to
extreme reaction, and, in spite of Chateaubriand's sanguinary
harangues, supported the moderate policy of Richelieu against the
majority of the Lower House. The first demand of the Chamber of
Deputies was for retribution upon <a name=
"FNanchor263">traitors;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_263"><sup>[263]</sup></a> their first conflict with
the Government of Louis XVIII. arose upon the measures which were
brought forward by the Ministry for the preservation of public
security and the punishment of seditious acts. The Ministers were
attacked, not because their measures were too severe, but because
they were not severe enough. While taking power to imprison all
suspected persons without trial, or to expel them from their
homes, Decazes, the Police-Minister, proposed to punish
incitements to sedition by fines and terms of imprisonment
varying according to the gravity of the offence. So mild a
penalty excited the wrath of men whose fathers and brothers had
perished on the guillotine. Some cried out for death, others for
banishment to Cayenne. When it was pointed out that the
infliction of capital punishment for the mere attempt at sedition
would place this on a level with armed rebellion, it was answered
that a distinction might be maintained by adding in the latter
case the ancient punishment of parricide, the amputation of the
hand. Extravagances like this belonged rather to the individuals
than to a party; but the vehemence of the Chamber forced the
Government to submit to a revision of its measure. Transportation
to Cayenne, but not death, was ultimately included among the
penalties for seditious acts. The Minister of Justice, M.
Barb&eacute;-Marbois, who had himself been transported to Cayenne
by the Jacobins in 1797, was able to satisfy the Chamber from his
own experience that they were not erring on the side of mercy. <a
name="FNanchor264">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_264"><sup>[264]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Ney executed, Dec. 7.]</p>
<p>It was in the midst of these heated debates that Marshal Ney
was brought to trial for high treason. A so-called Edict of
Amnesty had been published by the King on the 24th of July,
containing the names of nineteen persons who were to be tried by
courts-martial on capital charges, and of thirty-eight others who
were to be either exiled or brought to justice, as the Chamber
might determine. Ney was included in the first category.
Opportunities for escape had been given to him by the Government,
as indeed they had to almost every other person on the list. King
Louis XVIII. well understood that his Government was not likely
to be permanently strengthened by the execution of some of the
most distinguished men in France; the emigrants, however, and
especially the Duchess of Angoul&ecirc;me, were merciless, and
the English Government acted a deplorable part. "One can never
feel that the King is secure on his throne," wrote Lord
Liverpool, "until he has dared to spill traitors' blood." It is
not that many examples would be necessary; but the daring to make
a few will alone manifest any strength in the Government. <a
name="FNanchor265">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_265"><sup>[265]</sup></a> Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re had
already been executed. On the 9th of November Ney was brought
before a court-martial, at which Castlereagh and his wife had the
bad taste to be present. The court-martial, headed by Ney's old
comrade Jourdan, declared itself incompetent to judge a peer of
France accused of high treason, <a name="FNanchor266">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_266"><sup>[266]</sup></a> Ney was accordingly
tried before the House of Peers. The verdict was a foregone
conclusion, and indeed the legal guilt of the Marshal could
hardly be denied. Had the men who sat in judgment upon him been a
body of Vendean peasants who had braved fire and sword for the
Bourbon cause, the sentence of death might have been pronounced
with pure, though stern lips: it remains a deep disgrace to
France that among the peers who voted not only for Ney's
condemnation but for his death, there were some who had
themselves accepted office and pay from Napoleon during the
Hundred Days. A word from Wellington would still have saved the
Marshal's life, but in interceding for Ney the Duke would have
placed himself in direct opposition to the action of his own
Government. When the Premier had dug the grave, it was not for
Wellington to rescue the prisoner. It is permissible to hope that
he, who had so vehemently reproached Bl&uuml;cher for his
intention to put Napoleon to death if he should fall into his
hands, would have asked clemency for Ney had he considered
himself at liberty to obey the promptings of his own nature. The
responsibility for Marshal Ney's death rests, more than upon any
other individual, upon Lord Liverpool.</p>
<p>On the 7th of December the sentence was executed. Ney was shot
at early morning in an unfrequented spot, and the Government
congratulated itself that it had escaped the dangers of a popular
demonstration and heard the last of a disagreeable business.
Never was there a greater mistake. No crime committed in the
Reign of Terror attached a deeper popular opprobrium to its
authors than the execution of Ney did to the Bourbon family. The
victim, a brave but rough half-German <a name=
"FNanchor267">soldier,</a><a href=
"#Footnote_267"><sup>[267]</sup></a> rose in popular legend
almost to the height of the Emperor himself. His heroism in the
retreat from Moscow became, and with justice, a more glorious
memory than Davoust's victory at Jena or Moreau's at Hohenlinden.
Side by side with the thought that the Bourbons had been brought
back by foreign arms, the remembrance sank deep into the heart of
the French people that this family had put to death "the bravest
of the brave." It would have been no common good fortune for
Louis XVIII. to have pardoned or visited with light punishment a
great soldier whose political feebleness had led him to an act of
treason, condoned by the nation at large. Exile would not have
made the transgressor a martyr. But the common sense of mankind
condemns Ney's execution: the public opinion of France has never
forgiven it.</p>
<p>[Amnesty Bill, Dec 8.]</p>
<p>On the day after the great example was made, Richelieu brought
forward the Amnesty Bill of the Government in the House of
Representatives. The King, while claiming full right of pardon,
desired that the Chamber should be associated with him in its
exercise, and submitted a project of law securing from
prosecution all persons not included in the list published on
July 24th. Measures of a very different character had already
been introduced under the same title into the Chamber. Though the
initiative in legislation belonged by virtue of the Charta to the
Crown, resolutions might be moved by members in the shape of
petition or address, and under this form the leaders of the
majority had drawn up schemes for the wholesale proscription of
Napoleon's adherents. It was proposed by M. la Bourdonnaye to
bring to trial all the great civil and military officers who,
during the Hundred Days, had constituted the Government of the
usurper; all generals, pr&eacute;fets, and commanders of
garrisons, who had obeyed Napoleon before a certain day, to be
named by the Assembly; and all voters for the death of Louis XVI.
who had recognised Napoleon by signing the Acte Additionnel. The
language in which these prosecutions were urged was the echo of
that which had justified the bloodshed of 1793; its violence was
due partly to the fancy that Napoleon's return was no sudden and
unexpected act, but the work of a set of conspirators in high
places, who were still plotting the overthrow of the <a name=
"FNanchor268">monarchy.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_268"><sup>[268]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Persecution of suspected persons over all France.]</p>
<p>It was in vain that Richelieu intervened with the expression
of the King's own wishes, and recalled the example of forgiveness
shown in the testament of Louis XVI. The committee which was
appointed to report on the projects of amnesty brought up a
scheme little different from that of La Bourdonnaye, and added to
it the iniquitous proposal that civil actions should be brought
against all condemned persons for the damages sustained by the
State through Napoleon's return. This was to make a mock of the
clause in the Charta which abolished confiscation. The report of
the committee caused the utmost dismay both in France itself and
among the representatives of foreign Powers at Paris. The
conflict between the men of reaction and the Government had
openly broken out; Richelieu's Ministry, the guarantee of peace,
seemed to be on the point of falling. On the 2nd of January,
1816, the Chamber proceeded to discuss the Bill of the Government
and the amendments of the committee. The debate lasted four days;
it was only by the repeated use of the King's own name that the
Ministers succeeded in gaining a majority of nine votes against
the two principal categories of exception appended to the amnesty
by their opponents. The proposal to restore confiscation under
the form of civil actions was rejected by a much greater
majority, but on the vote affecting the regicides the Government
was defeated. This indeed was considered of no great moment.
Richelieu, content with having averted measures which would have
exposed several hundred persons to death, exile, or pecuniary
ruin, consented to banish from France the regicides who had
acknowledged Napoleon, along with the thirty-eight persons named
in the second list of July 24th. Among other well-known men,
Carnot, who had rendered such great services to his country, went
to die in exile. Of the seventeen companions of Ney and
Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re in the first list of July 24th, most had
escaped from France; one alone suffered death. <a name=
"FNanchor269">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_269"><sup>[269]</sup></a>
But the persons originally excluded from the amnesty and the
regicides exiled by the Assembly formed but a small part of those
on whom the vengeance of the Royalists fell; for it was provided
that the amnesty-law should apply to no one against whom
proceedings had been taken before the formal promulgation of the
law. The prisons were already crowded with accused persons, who
thus remained exposed to punishment; and after the law had
actually passed the Chamber, telegraph-signals were sent over the
country by Clarke, the Minister of War, ordering the immediate
accusation of several others. One distinguished soldier at least,
General Travot, was sentenced to death on proceedings thus
instituted between the passing and the promulgation of the law of
<a name="FNanchor270">amnesty.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_270"><sup>[270]</sup></a> Executions, however, were
not numerous except in the south of France, but an enormous
number of persons were imprisoned or driven from their homes,
some by judgment of the law-courts, some by the exercise of the
powers conferred on the administration by the law of Public
Security. <a name="FNanchor271">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_271"><sup>[271]</sup></a> The central government
indeed had less part in this species of persecution than the
Pr&eacute;fets and other local authorities, though within their
own departments Clarke and Vaublanc set an example which others
were not slow to follow. Royalist committees were formed all over
the country, and assumed the same kind of irregular control over
the officials of their districts as had been practised by the
Jacobin committees of 1793. Thousands of persons employed in all
grades of the public service, in schools and colleges as well as
in the civil administration, in the law-courts as well as in the
army and navy, were dismissed from their posts. The new-comers
were professed agents of the reaction; those who were permitted
to retain their offices strove to outdo their colleagues in their
renegade zeal for the new order. It was seen again, as it had
been seen under the Republic and under the Empire, that if virtue
has limits, servility has none. The same men who had hunted down
the peasant for sheltering his children from Napoleon's
conscription now hunted down those who were stigmatised as
Bonapartists. The clergy threw in their lot with the victorious
party, and denounced to the magistrates their parishioners who
treated them with disrespect. <a name="FNanchor272">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_272"><sup>[272]</sup></a> Darker pages exist in French
history than the reaction of 1815, none more contemptible. It is
the deepest condemnation of the violence of the Republic and the
despotism of the Empire that the generation formed by it should
have produced the class who could exhibit, and the public who
could tolerate, the prodigies of baseness which attended the
second Bourbon restoration.</p>
<p>[The reactionists adopt Parliamentary theory.]</p>
<p>Within the Chamber of Deputies the Ultra-Royalist majority had
gained Parliamentary experience in the debates on the Amnesty
Bill and the Law of Public Security: their own policy now took a
definite shape, and to outbursts of passion there succeeded the
attempt to realise ideas. Hatred of the Revolution and all its
works was still the dominant impulse of the Assembly; but
whatever may have been the earlier desire of the Ultra-Royalist
noblesse, it was no longer their intention to restore the
political system that existed before 1789. They would in that
case have desired to restore absolute monarchy, and to surrender
the power which seemed at length to have fallen into the hands of
their own class. With Artois on the throne this might have been
possible, for Artois, though heir to the crown, was still what he
had been in his youth, the chief of a party: with Louis XVIII.
and Richelieu at the head of the State, the Ultra-Royalists
became the adversaries of royal prerogative and the champions of
the rights of Parliament. Before the Revolution the noblesse had
possessed privileges; it had not possessed political power. The
Constitution of 1814 had unexpectedly given it, under
representative forms, the influence denied to it under the old
monarchy. New political vistas opened; and the men who had
hitherto made St. Louis and Henry IV. the subject of their
declamations, now sought to extend the rights of Parliament to
the utmost, and to perpetuate in succeeding assemblies the rule
of the present majority. An electoral law favourable to the great
landed proprietors was the first necessity. This indeed was but a
means to an end; another and a greater end might be attained
directly, the restoration of a landed Church, and of the civil
and social ascendancy of the clergy.</p>
<p>[Ecclesiastical schemes of the reaction.]</p>
<p>It had been admitted by King Louis XVIII. that the clause in
the Charta relating to elections required modification, and on
this point the Ultra-Royalists in the Chamber were content to
wait for the proposals of the Government. In their ecclesiastical
policy they did not maintain the same reserve. Resolutions in
favour of the State-Church were discussed in the form of
petitions to be presented to the Crown. It was proposed to make
the clergy, as they had been before the Revolution, the sole
keepers of registers of birth and marriage; to double the annual
payment made to them by the State; to permit property of all
kinds to be acquired by the Church by gift or will; to restore
all Church lands not yet sold by the State; and, finally, to
abolish the University of France, and to place all schools and
colleges throughout the country under the control of the Bishops.
One central postulate not only passed the Chamber, but was
accepted by the Government and became law. Divorce was absolutely
abolished; and for two generations after 1816 no possible
aggravation of wrong sufficed in France to release either husband
or wife from the mockery of a marriage-tie. The power to accept
donations or legacies was granted to the clergy, subject,
however, in every case to the approval of the Crown. The
allowance made to them out of the revenues of the State was
increased by the amount of certain pensions as they should fall
in, a concession which fell very far short of the demands of the
Chamber. In all, the advantages won for the Church were scarcely
proportioned to the zeal displayed in its cause. The most
important question, the disposal of the unsold Church lands,
remained to be determined when the Chamber should enter upon the
discussion of the Budget.</p>
<p>[Electoral Bill, Dec. 18, 1815.]</p>
<p>The Electoral Bill of the Government, from which the
Ultra-Royalists expected so much, was introduced at the end of
the year 1815. It showed in a singular manner the confusion of
ideas existing within the Ministry as to the nature of the
Parliamentary liberty now supposed to belong to France. The
ex-pr&eacute;fet Vaublanc, to whom the framing of the measure was
entrusted, though he imagined himself purged from the traditions
of Napoleonism, could conceive of no relation between the
executive and the legislative power but that which exists between
a substance and its shadow. It never entered his mind that the
representative institutions granted by the Charta were intended
to bring an independent force to bear upon the Government, or
that the nation should be treated as more than a fringe round the
compact and lasting body of the administration. The language in
which Vaublanc introduced his measure was grotesquely candid.
Montesquieu, he said, had pointed out that powers must be
subordinate; therefore the electoral power must be controlled by
the King's Government. <a name="FNanchor273">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_273"><sup>[273]</sup></a> By the side of the electors
in the Canton and the Department there was accordingly placed, in
the Ministerial scheme, an array of officials numerous enough to
carry the elections, if indeed they did not actually outnumber
the private voters. The franchise was confined to the sixty
richest persons in each Canton: these, with the officials of the
district, were to elect the voters of the Department, who, with a
similar contingent of officials, were to choose the Deputies.
Re-affirming the principle laid down in the Constitution of 1795
and repeated in the Charta, Vaublanc proposed that a fifth part
of the Assembly should retire each year.</p>
<p>[Counter-project of Vill&egrave;le.]</p>
<p>If the Minister had intended to give the Ultra-Royalists the
best possible means of exalting the peculiar policy of their
class into something like a real defence of liberty, he could not
have framed a more fitting measure. The creation of constituent
bodies out of mayors, crown-advocates, and justices of the peace,
was described, and with truth, as a mere Napoleonic juggle. The
limitation of the franchise to a fixed number of rich persons was
condemned as illiberal and contrary to the spirit of the Charta:
the system of yearly renovation by fifths, which threatened to
curtail the reign of the present majority, was attributed to the
dread of any complete expression of public opinion. It was
evident that the Bill of the Government would either be rejected
or altered in such a manner as to give it a totally different
character. In the Committee of the Chamber which undertook the
task of drawing up amendments, the influence was first felt of a
man who was soon to become the chief and guiding spirit of the
Ultra-Royalist party. M. de Vill&egrave;le, spokesman of the
Committee, had in his youth been an officer in the navy of Louis
XVI. On the dethronement of the King he had quitted the service,
and settled in the Isle of Bourbon, where he gained some wealth
and an acquaintance with details of business and finance rare
among the French landed gentry. Returning to France under the
Empire, he took up his abode near Toulouse, his native place, and
was made Mayor of that city on Napoleon's second downfall.
Vill&egrave;le's politics gained a strong and original colour
from his personal experience and the character of the province in
which he lived. The south was the only part of France known to
him. There the reactionary movement of 1815 had been a really
popular one, and the chief difficulty of the Government, at the
end of the Hundred Days, had been to protect the Bonapartists
from violence. Vill&egrave;le believed that throughout France the
wealthier men among the peasantry were as ready to follow the
priests and nobles as they were in Provence and La Vend&eacute;e.
His conception of the government of the future was the rule of a
landed aristocracy, resting, in its struggle against monarchical
centralisation and against the Liberalism of the middle class, on
the conservative and religious instincts of the peasantry.
Instead of excluding popular forces, Vill&egrave;le welcomed them
as allies. He proposed to lower the franchise to one-sixth of the
sum named in the Charta, and, while retaining a system of
double-election, to give a vote in the primary assemblies to
every Frenchman paying annual taxes to the amount of fifty
francs. In constituencies so large as to include all the more
substantial peasantry, while sufficiently limited to exclude the
ill-paid populace in towns, Vill&egrave;le believed that the
Church and the noblesse would on the whole control the elections.
In the interest of the present majority he rejected the system of
renovation by fifths proposed by the Government, and demanded
that the present Chamber should continue unchanged until its
dissolution, and the succeeding Chamber be elected entire.</p>
<p>[Result of debates on Electoral Bill.]</p>
<p>Vill&egrave;le's scheme, if carried, would in all probability
have failed at the first trial. The districts in which the
reaction of 1815 was popular were not so large as he supposed: in
the greater part of France the peasantry would not have obeyed
the nobles except under intimidation. This was suspected by the
majority, in spite of the confident language in which they spoke
of the will of the nation as identical with their own.
Vill&egrave;le's boldness alarmed them: they anticipated that
these great constituencies of peasants, if really left masters of
the elections, would be more likely to return a body of Jacobins
and Bonapartists than one of hereditary landlords. It was not
necessary, however, to sacrifice the well-sounding principle of a
low franchise, for the democratic vote at the first stage of the
elections might effectively be neutralised by putting the second
stage into the hands of the chief proprietors. The Assembly had
in fact only to imitate the example of the Government, and to
appoint a body of persons who should vote, as of right, by the
side of the electors chosen in the primary assemblies. The
Government in its own interest had designated a troop of
officials as electors: the Assembly, on the contrary, resolved
that in the Electoral College of each Department, numbering in
all about 150 persons, the fifty principal landowners of the
Department should be entitled to vote, whether they had been
nominated by the primary constituencies or not. Modified by this
proviso, the project of Vill&egrave;le passed the Assembly. The
Government saw that under the disguise of a series of amendments
a measure directly antagonistic to their own had been carried.
The franchise had been altered; the real control of the elections
placed in the hands of the very party which was now in open
opposition to the King and his Ministers. No compromise was
possible between the law proposed by the Government and that
passed by the Assembly. The Government appealed to the Chamber of
Peers. The Peers threw out the amendments of the Lower House. A
provisional measure was then introduced by Richelieu for the sake
of providing France with at least some temporary rule for the
conduct of elections. It failed; and the constitutional
legislation of the country came to a dead-lock, while the
Government and the Assembly stood face to face, and it became
evident that one or the other must fall. The Ministers of the
Great Powers at Paris, who watched over the restored dynasty,
debated whether or not they should recommend the King to resort
to the extreme measure of a dissolution.</p>
<p>[Contest on the Budget.]</p>
<p>[The Chambers prorogued, April 29.]</p>
<p>The Electoral Bill was not the only object of conflict between
Richelieu's Ministry and the Chamber, nor indeed the principal
one. The Budget excited fiercer passions, and raised greater
issues. It was for no mere scheme of finance that the Government
had to fight, but against a violation of public faith which would
have left France insolvent and creditless in the face of the
Powers who still held its territory in pledge. The debt incurred
by the nation since 1813 was still unfunded. That part of it
which had been raised before the summer of 1814 had been secured
by law upon the unsold forests formerly belonging to the Church,
and upon the Communal lands which Napoleon had made the property
of the State: the remainder, which included the loans made during
the Hundred Days, had no specified security. It was now proposed
by the Government to place the whole of the unfunded debt upon
the same level, and to provide for its payment by selling the
so-called Church forests. The project excited the bitterest
opposition on the side of the Count of Artois and his friends. If
there was one object which the clerical and reactionary party
pursued with religious fervour, it was the restoration of the
Church lands: if there was one class which they had no scruple in
impoverishing, it was the class that had lent money to Napoleon.
Instead of paying the debts of the State, the Committee of the
Chamber proposed to repeal the law of September, 1814, which
pledged the Church forests, and to compel both the earlier and
the later holders of the unfunded debt to accept stock in
satisfaction of their claims, though the stock was worth less
than two-thirds of its nominal value. The resolution was in fact
one for the repudiation of a third part of the unfunded debt.
Richelieu, seeing in what fashion his measure was about to be
transformed, determined upon withdrawing it altogether: the
majority in the Chamber, intent on executing its own policy and
that of the Count of Artois, refused to recognise the withdrawal.
Such a step was at once an insult and a usurpation of power. So
great was the scandal and alarm caused by the scenes in the
Chamber, that the Duke of Wellington, at the instance of the
Ambassadors, presented a note to King Louis XVIII. requiring him
in plain terms to put a stop to the machinations of his brother.
<a name="FNanchor274">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_274"><sup>[274]</sup></a> The interference of the
foreigner provoked the Ultra-Royalists, and failed to excite
energetic action on the part of King Louis, who dreaded the sour
countenance of the Duchess of Angoul&ecirc;me more than he did
Wellington's reproofs. In the end the question of a settlement of
the unfunded debt was allowed to remain open. The Government was
unable to carry the sale of the Church forests, the Chamber did
not succeed in its project of confiscation. The Budget for the
year, greatly altered in the interest of the landed proprietors,
was at length brought into shape. A resolution of the Lower House
restoring the unsold forests to the Church was ignored by the
Crown; and the Government, having obtained the means of carrying
on the public services, gladly abstained from further
legislation, and on the 29th of April ended the turmoil which
surrounded it by proroguing the Chambers.</p>
<p>[Rising at Grenoble, May 6th. Executions.]</p>
<p>It was hoped that with the close of the Session the system of
imprisonment and surveillance which prevailed in the Departments
would be brought to an end. Vaublanc, the Minister of coercion,
was removed from office. But the troubles of France were not yet
over. On the 6th of May, a rising of peasants took place at
Grenoble. According to the report of General Donnadieu, commander
of the garrison, which brought the news to the Government, the
revolt had only been put down after the most desperate fighting.
"The corpses of the King's enemies," said the General in his
despatch, "cover all the roads for a league round Grenoble." <a
name="FNanchor275">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_275"><sup>[275]</sup></a> It was soon known that
twenty-four prisoners had been condemned to death by
court-martial, and sixteen of these actually executed: the
court-martial recommended the other eight to the clemency of the
Government. But the despatches of Donnadieu had thrown the
Cabinet into a panic. Decazes, the most liberal of the Ministers,
himself signed the hasty order requiring the remaining prisoners
to be put to death. They perished; and when it was too late the
Government learnt that Donnadieu's narrative was a mass of the
grossest exaggerations, and that the affair which he had
represented as an insurrection of the whole Department was
conducted by about 300 peasants, half of whom were unarmed. The
violence and illegality with which the General proceeded to
establish a r&eacute;gime of military law soon brought him into
collision with the Government. He became the hero of the
Ultra-Royalists; but the Ministry, which was unwilling to make a
public confession that it had needlessly put eight persons to
death, had to bear the odium of an act of cruelty for which
Donnadieu was really responsible. The part into which Decazes had
been entrapped probably strengthened the determination of this
Minister, who was now gaining great influence over the King, to
strike with energy against the Ultra-Royalist faction. From this
time he steadily led the King towards the only measure which
could free the country from the rule of the Count of Artois and
the reactionists-the dissolution of Parliament.</p>
<p>[Decazes.]</p>
<p>[Dissolution of the Chamber, Sept. 5, 1816.]</p>
<p>Louis XVIII. depended much on the society of some personal
favourite. Decazes was young and an agreeable companion; his
business as Police-Minister gave him the opportunity of amusing
the King with anecdotes and gossip much more congenial to the old
man's taste than discussions on finance or constitutional law.
Louis came to regard Decazes almost as a son, and gratified his
own studious inclination by teaching him English. The Minister's
enemies said that he won the King's heart by taking private
lessons from some obscure Briton, and attributing his
extraordinary progress to the skill of his royal master. But
Decazes had a more effective retort than witticism. He opened the
letters of the Ultra-Royalists and laid them before the King.
Louis found that these loyal subjects jested upon his
infirmities, called him a dupe in the hands of Jacobins, and
grumbled at him for so long delaying the happy hour when Artois
should ascend the throne. Humorous as Louis was, he was not
altogether pleased to read that he "ought either to open his eyes
or to close them for ever." At the same time the reports of
Decazes' local agents proved that the Ultra-Royalist party were
in reality weak in numbers and unpopular throughout the greater
part of the country. The project of a dissolution was laid before
the Ministers and some of the King's confidants. Though the
Ambassadors were not consulted on the measure, it was certain
that they would not resist it. No word of the Ministerial plot
reached the rival camp of Artois. The King gained courage, and on
the 5th of September signed the Ordonnance which appealed from
the Parliament to the nation, and, to the anger and consternation
of the Ultra-Royalists, made an end of the intractable Chamber a
few weeks before the time which had been fixed for its
re-assembling.</p>
<p>[Electoral law, 1817.]</p>
<p>France was well rid of a body of men who had been elected at a
moment of despair, and who would either have prolonged the
occupation of the country by foreign armies, or have plunged the
nation into civil war. The elections which followed were
favourable to the Government. The questions fruitlessly agitated
in the Assembly of 1815 were settled to the satisfaction of the
public in the new Parliament. An electoral law was passed, which,
while it retained the high franchise fixed by the Charta, and the
rule of renewing the Chamber by fifths, gave life and value to
the representative system by making the elections direct. Though
the constituent body of all France scarcely numbered under this
arrangement a hundred thousand persons, it was extensive enough
to contain a majority hostile to the reactionary policy of the
Church and the noblesse. The men who had made wealth by banking,
commerce, or manufactures, the so-called higher bourgeoisie,
greatly exceeded in number the larger landed proprietors; and
although they were not usually democratic in their opinions, they
were liberal, and keenly attached to the modern as against the
old institutions of France, inasmuch as their industrial
interests and their own personal importance depended upon the
maintenance of the victory won in 1789 against aristocratic
privilege and monopoly. So strong was the hostility between the
civic middle class and the landed noblesse, that the
Ultra-Royalists in the Chamber sought, as they had done in the
year before, to extend the franchise to the peasantry, in the
hope of overpowering wealth with numbers. The electoral law,
however, passed both Houses in the form in which it had been
drawn up by the Government. Though deemed narrow and oligarchical
by the next generation, it was considered, and with justice, as a
great victory won by liberalism at the time. The middle class of
Great Britain had to wait for fifteen years before it obtained
anything like the weight in the representation given to the
middle class of France by the law of 1817.</p>
<p>[Establishment of financial credit.]</p>
<p>Not many of the persons who had been imprisoned under the
provisional acts of the last year now remained in confinement. It
was considered necessary to prolong the Laws of Public Security,
and they were re-enacted, but under a much softened form. It
remained for the new Chamber to restore the financial credit of
the country by making some equitable arrangement for securing the
capital and paying the interest of the unfunded debt. Projects of
repudiation now gained no hearing. Richelieu consented to make an
annual allowance to the Church, equivalent to the rental of the
Church forests; but the forests themselves were made security for
the debt, and the power of sale was granted to the Government.
Pending such repayment of the capital, the holders of unfunded
debt received stock, calculated at its real, not at its titular,
value. The effect of this measure was at once evident. The
Government was enabled to enter into negotiations for a loan,
which promised it the means of paying the indemnities due to the
foreign Powers. On this payment depended the possibility of
withdrawing the army of occupation. Though Wellington at first
offered some resistance, thirty thousand men were removed in the
spring of 1817; and the Czar allowed Richelieu to hope that, if
no further difficulties should arise, the complete evacuation of
French territory might take place in the following year.</p>
<p>[Character of the years 1816-18.]</p>
<p>Thus the dangers with which reactionary passion had threatened
France appeared to be passing away. The partial renovation of the
Chamber which took place in the autumn of 1817 still further
strengthened the Ministry of Richelieu and weakened the
Ultra-Royalist opposition. A few more months passed, and before
the third anniversary of Waterloo, the Czar was ready to advise
the entire withdrawal of foreign armies from France. An
invitation was issued to the Powers to meet in Conference at
Aix-la-Chapelle. There was no longer any doubt that the five
years' occupation, contemplated when the second Treaty of Paris
was made, would be abandoned. The good will of Alexander, the
friendliness of his Ambassador, Pozzo di Borgo, who, as a native
of Corsica, had himself been a French subject, and who now
aspired to become Minister of France, were powerful influences in
favour of Louis XVIII. and his kingdom; much, however, of the
speedy restoration of confidence was due to the temperate rule of
Richelieu. The nation itself, far from suffering from Napoleon's
fall, regained something of the spontaneous energy so rich in
1789, so wanting at a later period. The cloud of military
disaster lifted; new mental and political life began; and under
the dynasty forced back by foreign arms France awoke to an
activity unknown to it while its chief gave laws to Europe.
Parliamentary debate offered the means of legal opposition to
those who bore no friendship to the Court: conspiracy, though it
alarmed at the moment, had become the resort only of the obscure
and the powerless. Groups of able men were gathering around
recognised leaders, or uniting in defence of a common political
creed. The Press, dumb under Napoleon except for purposes of
sycophancy, gradually became a power in the land. Even the
dishonest eloquence of Chateaubriand, enforcing the principles of
legal and constitutional liberty on behalf of a party which would
fain have used every weapon of despotism in its own interest,
proved that the leaden weight that had so long crushed thought
and expression existed no more.</p>
<p>[Prussia after 1815.]</p>
<p>[Edict promising a Constitution, May 22, 1815.]</p>
<p>But if the years between 1815 and 1819 were in France years of
hope and progress, it was not so with Europe generally. In
England they were years of almost unparalleled suffering and
discontent; in Italy the rule of Austria grew more and more
anti-national; in Prussia, though a vigorous local and financial
administration hastened the recovery of the impoverished land,
the hopes of liberty declined beneath the reviving energy of the
nobles and the resistance of the friends of absolutism. When
Stein had summoned the Prussian people to take up arms for their
Fatherland, he had believed that neither Frederick William nor
Alexander would allow Prussia to remain without free institutions
after the battle was won. The keener spirits in the War of
Liberation had scarcely distinguished between the cause of
national independence and that of internal liberty. They returned
from the battlefields of Saxony and France, knowing that the
Prussian nation had unsparingly offered up life and wealth at the
call of patriotism, and believing that a patriot-king would
rejoice to crown his triumph by inaugurating German freedom. For
a while the hope seemed near fulfilment. On the 22nd of May,
1815, Frederick William published an ordinance, declaring that a
Representation of the People should be established. <a name=
"FNanchor276">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_276"><sup>[276]</sup></a>
For this end the King stated that the existing Provincial Estates
should be re-organised, and new ones founded where none existed,
and that out of the Provincial Estates the Assembly of
Representatives of the country should be chosen. It was added
that a commission would be appointed, to organise under
Hardenberg's presidency the system of representation, and to draw
up a written Constitution. The right of discussing all
legislative measures affecting person or property was promised to
the Assembly. Though foreign affairs seemed to be directly
excluded from parliamentary debate, and the language of the Edict
suggested that the representative body would only have a
consultative voice, without the power either of originating or of
rejecting laws, these reservations only showed the caution
natural on the part of a Government divesting itself for the
first time of absolute power. Guarded as it was, the scheme laid
down by the King would hardly have displeased the men who had
done the most to make constitutional rule in Prussia
possible.</p>
<p>[Resistance of feudal and autocratic parties.]</p>
<p>But the promise of Frederick William was destined to remain
unfulfilled. It was no good omen for Prussia that Stein, who had
rendered such glorious services to his country and to all Europe,
was suffered to retire from public life. The old court-party at
Berlin, politicians who had been forced to make way for more
popular men, landowners who had never pardoned the liberation of
the serf, all the interests of absolutism and class-privilege
which had disappeared for a moment in the great struggle for
national existence, gradually re-asserted their influence over
the King, and undermined the authority of Hardenberg, himself
sinking into old age amid circumstances of private life that left
to old age little of its honour. To decide even in principle upon
the basis to be given to the new Prussian Constitution would have
taxed all the foresight and all the constructive skill of the
most experienced statesman; for by the side of the ancient
dominion of the Hohenzollerns there were now the Rhenish and the
Saxon Provinces, alien in spirit and of doubtful loyalty, in
addition to Polish territory and smaller German districts
acquired at intervals between 1792 and 1815. Hardenberg was right
in endeavouring to link the Constitution with something that had
come down from the past; but the decision that the General
Assembly should be formed out of the Provincial Estates was
probably an injudicious one; for these Estates, in their present
form, were mainly corporations of nobles, and the spirit which
animated them was at once the spirit of class-privilege and of an
intensely strong localism. Hardenberg had not only occasioned an
unnecessary delay by basing the representative system upon a
reform of the Provincial Estates, but had exposed himself to
sharp attacks from these very bodies, to whom nothing was more
odious than the absorption of their own dignity by a General
Assembly. It became evident that the process of forming a
Constitution would be a tedious one; and in the meantime the
opponents of the popular movement opened their attack upon the
men and the ideas whose influence in the war of Liberation
appeared to have made so great a break between the German present
and the past.</p>
<p>[Schmalz's pamphlet, 1815.]</p>
<p>The first public utterance of the reaction was a pamphlet
issued in July, 1815, by Schmalz, a jurist of some eminence, and
brother-in-law of Scharnhorst, the re-organiser of the army.
Schmalz, contradicting a statement which attributed to him a
highly honourable part in the patriotic movement of 1808,
attacked the Tugendbund, and other political associations dating
from that epoch, in language of extreme violence. In the stiff
and peremptory manner of the old Prussian bureaucracy, he denied
that popular enthusiasm had anything whatever to do with the
victory of 1813, <a name="FNanchor277">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_277"><sup>[277]</sup></a> attributing the recovery of
the nation firstly to its submission to the French alliance in
1812, and secondly to the quiet sense of duty with which, when
the time came, it took up arms in obedience to the King. Then,
passing on to the present aims of the political societies, he
accused them of intending to overthrow all established
governments, and to force unity upon Germany by means of
revolution, murder, and pillage. Stein was not mentioned by name,
but the warning was given to men of eminence who encouraged
Jacobinical societies, that in such combinations the giants end
by serving the dwarfs. Schmalz's pamphlet, which was written with
a strength and terseness of style very unusual in Germany, made a
deep impression, and excited great indignation in Liberal
circles. It was answered, among other writers, by Niebuhr; and
the controversy thickened until King Frederick William, in the
interest of public tranquillity, ordered that no more should be
said on either side. It was in accordance with Prussian feeling
that the King should thus interfere to stop the quarrels of his
subjects. There would have been nothing unseemly in an act of
impartial repression. But the King made it impossible to regard
his act as of this character. Without consulting Hardenberg, he
conferred a decoration upon the author of the controversy.
Far-sighted men saw the true bearing of the act. They warned
Hardenberg that, if he passed over this slight, he would soon
have to pass over others more serious, and urged him to insist
upon the removal of the counsellors on whose advice the King had
acted. <a name="FNanchor278">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_278"><sup>[278]</sup></a> But the Minister disliked
painful measures. He probably believed that no influence could
ever supplant his own with the King, and looked too lightly upon
the growth of a body of opponents, who, whether in open or in
concealed hostility to himself, were bent upon hindering the
fulfilment of the constitutional reforms which he had at
heart.</p>
<p>[The promised Constitutions delayed in Germany.]</p>
<p>In the Edict of the 22nd of May, 1815, the King had ordered
that the work of framing a Constitution should be begun in the
following September. Delays, however, arose; and when the
commission was at length appointed, its leading members were
directed to travel over the country in order to collect opinions
upon the form of representation required. Two years passed before
even this preliminary operation began. In the meantime very
little progress had been made towards the establishment of
constitutional government in Germany at large. One prince alone,
the Grand Duke of Weimar, already eminent in Europe from his
connection with Goethe and Schiller, loyally accepted the idea of
a free State, and brought representative institutions into actual
working. In Hesse, the Elector summoned the Estates, only to
dismiss them with contumely when they resisted his extortions. In
most of the minor States contests or negotiations took place
between the Sovereigns and the ancient Orders, which led to
little or no result. The Federal Diet, which ought to have
applied itself to the determination of certain principles of
public right common to all Germany, remained inactive. Though
hope had not yet fallen, a sense of discontent arose, especially
among the literary class which had shown such enthusiasm in the
War of Liberation. It was characteristic of Germany that the
demand for free government came not from a group of soldiers, as
in Spain, not from merchants and men of business, as in England,
but from professors and students, and from journalists, who were
but professors in another form. The middle class generally were
indifferent: the higher nobility, and the knights who had lost
their semi-independence in 1803, sought for the restoration of
privileges which were really incompatible with any
State-government whatever. The advocacy of constitutional rule
and of German unity was left, in default of Prussian initiative,
to the ardent spirits of the Universities and the Press, who
naturally exhibited in the treatment of political problems more
fluency than knowledge, and more zeal than discretion. Jena, in
the dominion of the Duke of Weimar, became, on account of the
freedom of printing which existed there, the centre of the new
Liberal journalism. Its University took the lead in the
Teutonising movement which had been inaugurated by Fichte twelve
years before in the days of Germany's humiliation, and which had
now received so vigorous an impulse from the victory won over the
foreigner.</p>
<p>[The Wartburg Festival, Oct., 1817.]</p>
<p>On the 18th of October, 1817, the students of Jena, with
deputations from all the Protestant Universities of Germany, held
a festival at Eisenach, to celebrate the double anniversary of
the Reformation and of the battle of Leipzig. Five hundred young
patriots, among them scholars who had been decorated for bravery
at Waterloo, bound their brows with oak-leaves, and assembled
within the venerable hall of Luther's Wartburg Castle; sang,
prayed, preached, and were preached to; dined; drank to German
liberty, the jewel of life, to Dr. Martin Luther, the man of God,
and to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar; then descended to Eisenach,
fraternised with the Landsturm in the market-place, and attended
divine service in the parish church without mishap. In the
evening they edified the townspeople with gymnastics, which were
now the recognised symbol of German vigour, and lighted a great
bonfire on the hill opposite the castle. Throughout the official
part of the ceremony a reverential spirit prevailed; a few rash
words were, however, uttered against promise-breaking kings, and
some of the hardier spirits took advantage of the bonfire to
consign to the flames, in imitation of Luther's dealing with the
Pope's Bull, a quantity of what they deemed un-German and
illiberal writings. Among these was Schmalz's pamphlet. They also
burnt a soldier's strait-jacket, a pigtail, and a corporal's
cane, emblems of the military brutalism of past times which were
now being revived in Westphalia. <a name="FNanchor279">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_279"><sup>[279]</sup></a> Insignificant as the
whole affair was, it excited a singular alarm not only in Germany
but at foreign Courts. Richelieu wrote from Paris to inquire
whether revolution was breaking out. The King of Prussia sent
Hardenberg to Weimar to make investigations on the spot.
Metternich, who saw conspiracy and revolution everywhere and in
everything, congratulated himself that his less sagacious
neighbours were at length awakening to their danger. The first
result of the Wartburg scandal was that the Duke of Weimar had to
curtail the liberties of his subjects. Its further effects became
only too evident as time went on. It left behind it throughout
Germany the impression that there were forces of disorder at work
in the Press and in the Universities which must be crushed at all
cost by the firm hand of Government; and it deepened the anxiety
with which King Frederick William was already regarding the
promises of liberty which he had made to the Prussian people two
years before.</p>
<p>[Alexander in 1818.]</p>
<p>Twelve months passed between the Wartburg festival and the
beginning of the Conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle. In the interval
a more important person than the King of Prussia went over to the
side of reaction. Up to the summer of 1818, the Czar appeared to
have abated nothing of his zeal for constitutional government. In
the spring of that year, he summoned the Polish Diet; addressed
them in a speech so enthusiastic as to alarm not only the Court
of Vienna but all his own counsellors; and stated in the clearest
possible language his intention of extending the benefits of a
representative system to the whole Russian Empire. <a name=
"FNanchor280">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_280"><sup>[280]</sup></a> At
the close of the brief session he thanked the Polish Deputies for
their boldness in throwing out a measure proposed by himself.
Alexander's popular rhetoric at Warsaw might perhaps be not
incompatible with a settled purpose to permit no encroachment on
authority either there or elsewhere; but the change in his tone
was so great when he appeared at Aix-la-Chapelle a few months
afterwards, that some strange and sudden cause has been thought
necessary to explain it. It is said that during the Czar's
residence at Moscow, in June, 1818, the revelation was made to
him of the existence of a mass of secret societies in the army,
whose aim was the overthrow of his own Government. Alexander's
father had died by the hands of murderers: his own temperament,
sanguine and emotional, would make the effects of such a
discovery, in the midst of all his benevolent hopes for Russia,
poignant to the last degree. It is not inconsistent either with
his character or with earlier events in his personal history that
the Czar should have yielded to a single shock of feeling, and
have changed in a moment from the liberator to the despot. But
the evidence of what passed in his mind is wanting. Hearsay,
conjecture, gossip, abound; <a name="FNanchor281">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_281"><sup>[281]</sup></a> the one man who could have
told all has left no word. This only is certain, that from the
close of the year 1818, the future, hitherto bright with dreams
of peaceful progress, became in Alexander's view a battle-field
between the forces of order and anarchy. The task imposed by
Providence on himself and other kings was no longer to spread
knowledge and liberty among mankind, but to defend existing
authority, and even authority that was oppressive and
un-Christian, against the madness that was known as popular
right.</p>
<p>[Conferences of Aix-la-Chapelle, Oct., 1818.]</p>
<p>[France evacuated.]</p>
<p>[Proposed Quintuple Alliance.]</p>
<p>[Canning.]</p>
<p>At the end of September, 1818, the Sovereigns or Ministers of
the Great Powers assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the
Conferences began. The first question to be decided was whether
the Allied Army might safely be withdrawn from France; the
second, in what form the concert of Europe should hereafter be
maintained. On the first question there was no disagreement: the
evacuation of France was resolved upon and promptly executed. The
second question was a more difficult one. Richelieu, on behalf of
King Louis XVIII., represented that France now stood on the same
footing as any other European Power, and proposed that the
Quadruple Alliance of 1815 should be converted into a genuine
European federation by adding France to it as a fifth member. The
plan had been communicated to the English Government, and would
probably have received its assent but for the strong opposition
raised by Canning within the Cabinet. Canning took a gloomy but a
true view of the proposed concert of the Powers. He foresaw that
it would really amount to a combination of governments against
liberty. Therefore, while recognising the existing engagements of
this country, he urged that England ought to join in no
combination except that to which it had already pledged itself,
namely, the combination made with the definite object of
resisting French disturbance. To combine with three Powers to
prevent Napoleon or the Jacobins from again becoming masters of
France was a reasonable act of policy: to combine with all the
Great Powers of Europe against nothing in particular was to place
the country on the side of governments against peoples, and to
involve England in any enterprise of repression which the Courts
might think fit to undertake. Canning's warning opened the eyes
of his colleagues to the view which was likely to be taken of
such a general alliance by Parliament and by public opinion. Lord
Castlereagh was forbidden to make this country a party to any
abstract union of Governments. In memorable words the Prime
Minister described the true grounds for the decision: "We must
recollect in the whole of this business, and ought to make our
Allies feel, that the general and European discussion of these
questions will be in the British Parliament." <a name=
"FNanchor282">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_282"><sup>[282]</sup></a>
Fear of the rising voice of the nation, no longer forced by
military necessities to sanction every measure of its rulers,
compelled Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh to take account of
scruples which were not their own. On the same grounds, while the
Ministry agreed that Continental difficulties which might
hereafter arise ought to be settled by a friendly discussion
among the Great Powers, it declined to elevate this occasional
deliberation into a system, and to assent to the periodical
meeting of a Congress. Peace might or might not be promoted by
the frequent gatherings of Sovereigns and statesmen; but a
council so formed, if permanent in its nature, would necessarily
extinguish the independence of every minor State, and hand over
the government of all Europe to the Great Courts, if only they
could agree with one another.</p>
<p>[Declarations and Secret Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.]</p>
<p>It was the refusal of England to enter into a general league
that determined the form in which the results of the Conference
of 1818 were embodied. In the first place the Quadruple Alliance
against French revolution was renewed, and with such seriousness
that the military centres were fixed, at which, in case of any
outbreak, the troops of each of the Great Powers should assemble.
<a name="FNanchor283">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_283"><sup>[283]</sup></a> This Treaty, however, was
kept secret, in order not to add to the difficulties of
Richelieu. The published documents breathed another spirit. <a
name="FNanchor284">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_284"><sup>[284]</sup></a> Without announcing an actual
alliance with King Louis XVIII., the Courts, including England,
declared that through the restoration of legitimate and
constitutional monarchy France had regained its place in the
councils of Europe, and that it would hereafter co-operate in
maintaining the general peace. For this end meetings of the
sovereigns or their ministers might be necessary; such meetings
would, however, be arranged by the ordinary modes of negotiation,
nor would the affairs of any minor State be discussed by the
Great Powers, except at the direct invitation of that State,
whose representatives would then be admitted to the sittings. In
these guarded words the intention of forming a permanent and
organised Court of Control over Europe was disclaimed. A
manifesto, addressed to the world at large, declared that the
sovereigns of the five great States had no other object in their
union than the maintenance of peace on the basis of existing
treaties. They had formed no new political combinations; their
rule was the observance of international law; their object the
prosperity and moral welfare of their subjects.</p>
<p>[Repressive tone of the Conference.]</p>
<p>[Metternich and Austrian principles henceforth dominant.]</p>
<p>The earnestness with which the statesmen of 1818, while
accepting the conditions laid down by England, persevered in the
project of a joint regulation of European affairs may suggest the
question whether the plan which they had at heart would not in
truth have operated to the benefit of mankind. The answer is,
that the value of any International Council depends firstly on
the intelligence which it is likely to possess, and secondly on
the degree in which it is really representative. Experience
proved that the Congresses which followed 1818 possessed but a
limited intelligence, and that they represented nothing at all
but authority. The meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle was itself the
turning-point in the constitutional history of Europe. Though no
open declaration was made against constitutional forms, every
Sovereign and every minister who attended the Conference left it
with the resolution to draw the reins of government tighter. A
note of alarm had been sounded. Conspiracies in Belgium, an
attempt on the life of Wellington, rumours of a plot to rescue
Napoleon from St. Helena, combined with the outcry against the
German Universities and the whispered tales from Moscow in
filling the minds of statesmen with apprehensions. The change
which had taken place in Alexander himself was of the most
serious moment. Up to this time Metternich, the leader of
European Conservatism, had felt that in the Czar there were
sympathies with Liberalism and enlightenment which made the
future of Europe doubtful. <a name="FNanchor285">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_285"><sup>[285]</sup></a> To check the dissolution of
existing power, to suppress all tendency to change, was the
habitual object of Austria, and the Czar was the one person who
had seemed likely to prevent the principles of Austria from
becoming the law of Europe. Elsewhere Metternich had little to
fear in the way of opposition. Hardenberg, broken in health and
ill-supported by his King, had ceased to be a power. Yielding to
the apprehensions of Frederick William, perhaps with the hope of
dispelling them at some future time, he took his place among the
alarmists of the day, and suffered the German policy of Prussia,
to which so great a future lay open a few years before, to become
the mere reflex of Austrian inaction and repression. <a name=
"FNanchor286">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_286"><sup>[286]</sup></a>
England, so long as it was represented on the Continent by
Castlereagh and Wellington, scarcely counted for anything on the
side of liberty. The sudden change in Alexander removed the one
check that stood in Austria's way; and from this time Metternich
exercised an authority in Europe such as few statesmen have ever
possessed. His influence, overborne by that of the Czar during
1814 and 1815, struck root at the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle,
maintained itself unimpaired during five eventful years, and sank
only when the death of Lord Castlereagh allowed the real voice of
England once more to be heard, and Canning, too late to forbid
the work of repression in Italy and in Spain, inaugurated, after
an interval of forced neutrality, that worthier concert which
established the independence of Greece.</p>
<p>[Metternich's advice to Prussia, 1818.]</p>
<p>If it is the mark of a clever statesman to know where to press
and where to give way, Metternich certainly proved himself one in
1818. Before the end of the Conference he delivered to Hardenberg
and to the King of Prussia two papers containing a complete set
of recommendations for the management of Prussian affairs. The
contents of these documents were singular enough: it is still
more singular that they form the history of what actually took
place in Prussia during the succeeding years. Starting with the
assumption that the party of revolution had found its lever in
the promise of King Frederick William to create a Representative
System, Metternich demonstrated in polite language to the very
men who had made this promise, that any central Representation
would inevitably overthrow the Prussian State; pointed out that
the King's dominions consisted of seven Provinces; and
recommended Frederick William to fulfil his promise only by
giving to each Province a Diet for the discussion of its own
local concerns. Having thus warned the King against creating a
National Parliament, like that which had thrown France into
revolution in 1789, Metternich exhibited the specific dangers of
the moment and the means of overcoming them. These dangers were
Universities, Gymnastic establishments, and the Press. "The
revolutionists," he said, "despairing of effecting their aim
themselves, have formed the settled plan of educating the next
generation for revolution. The Gymnastic establishment is a
preparatory school for University disorders. The University
seizes the youth as he leaves boyhood, and gives him a
revolutionary training. This mischief is common to all Germany,
and must be checked by joint action of the Governments. Gymnasia,
on the contrary, were invented at Berlin, and spring from Berlin.
For these, palliative measures are no longer sufficient. It has
become a duty of State for the King of Prussia to destroy the
evil. The whole institution in every shape must be closed and
uprooted." With regard to the abuse of the Press, Metternich
contented himself with saying that a difference ought to be made
between substantial books and mere pamphlets or journals; and
that the regulation of the Press throughout Germany at large
could only be effected by an agreement between Austria and
Prussia. <a name="FNanchor287">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_287"><sup>[287]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Stourdza's pamphlet.]</p>
<p>With a million men under arms, the Sovereigns who had
overthrown Napoleon trembled because thirty or forty journalists
and professors pitched their rhetoric rather too high, and
because wise heads did not grow upon schoolboys' shoulders. The
Emperor Francis, whose imagination had failed to rise to the
glories of the Holy Alliance, alone seems to have had some
suspicion of the absurdity of the present alarms. <a name=
"FNanchor288">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_288"><sup>[288]</sup></a>
The Czar distinguished himself by his zeal against the lecturers
who were turning the world upside down. As if Metternich had not
frightened the Congress enough already, the Czar distributed at
Aix-la-Chapelle a pamphlet published by one Stourdza, a
Moldavian, which described Germany as on the brink of revolution,
and enumerated half a score of mortal disorders which racked that
unfortunate country. The chief of all was the vicious system of
the Universities, which instead of duly developing the vessel of
the Christian State from the cradle of Moses, <a name=
"FNanchor289">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_289"><sup>[289]</sup></a>
brought up young men to be despisers of law and instruments of a
licentious Press. The ingenious Moldavian, whose expressions in
some places bear a singular resemblance to those of Alexander,
while in others they are actually identical with reflections of
Metternich's not then published, went on to enlighten the German
Governments as to the best means of rescuing their subjects from
their perilous condition. Certain fiscal and administrative
changes were briefly suggested, but the main reform urged was
exactly that propounded by Metternich, the enforcement of a
better discipline and of a more rigidly-prescribed course of
study at the Universities, along with the supervision of all
journals and periodical literature.</p>
<p>[The murder of Kotzebue, March 23, 1819.]</p>
<p>Stourdza's pamphlet, in which loose reasoning was accompanied
by the coarsest invective, would have gained little attention if
it had depended on its own merits or on the reputation of its
author: it became a different matter when it was known to
represent the views of the Czar. A vehement but natural outcry
arose at the Universities against this interference of the
foreigner with German domestic affairs. National independence, it
seemed, had been won in the deadly struggle against France only
in order that internal liberty, the promised fruit of this
independence, should be sacrificed at the bidding of Russia. The
Czar himself was out of reach: the vengeance of outraged
patriotism fell upon an insignificant person who had the
misfortune to be regarded as his principal agent. A dramatic
author then famous, now forgotten, August Kotzebue, held the
office of Russian agent in Central Germany, and conducted a
newspaper whose object was to throw ridicule on the national
movement of the day, and especially on those associations of
students where German enthusiasm reached its climax. Many
circumstances embittered popular feeling against this man, and
caused him to be regarded less as a legitimate enemy than as a
traitor and an apostate. Kotzebue had himself been a student at
Jena, and at one time had turned liberal sentiments to practical
account in his plays. Literary jealousies and wounded vanity had
subsequently alienated him from his country, and made him the
willing and acrid hireling of a foreign Court. The reports which,
as Russian agent, he sent to St. Petersburg were doubtless as
offensive as the attacks on the Universities which he published
in his journal; but it was an extravagant compliment to the man
to imagine that he was the real author of the Czar's desertion
from Liberalism to reaction. This, however, was the common
belief, and it cost Kotzebue dear. A student from Erlangen, Carl
Sand, who had accompanied the standard at the Wartburg festival,
formed the silent resolve of sacrificing his own life in order to
punish the enemy of his country. Sand was a man of pure and
devout, though ill-balanced character. His earlier life marked
him as one whose whole being was absorbed by what he considered a
divine call. He thought of the Greeks who, even in their fallen
estate, had so often died to free their country from Turkish
oppression, and formed the deplorable conclusion that by
murdering a decayed dramatist he could strike some great blow
against the powers of evil. <a name="FNanchor290">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_290"><sup>[290]</sup></a> He sought the unfortunate
Kotzebue in the midst of his family, stabbed him to the heart,
and then turned his weapon against himself. Recovering from his
wounds, he was condemned to death, and perished, after a year's
interval, on the scaffold, calling God to witness that he died
for Germany to be free.</p>
<p>[Action of Metternich.]</p>
<p>The effects of Sand's act were very great, and their real
nature was at once recognised. Hardenberg, the moment that he
heard of Kotzebue's death, exclaimed that a Prussian Constitution
had now become impossible. Metternich, who had thought the Czar
mad because he desired to found a peaceful alliance of Sovereigns
on religious principles, was not likely to make allowance for a
kind of piety that sent young rebels over the country on missions
of murder. The Austrian statesman was in Rome when the news of
Kotzebue's assassination reached him. He saw that the time had
come for united action throughout Germany, and, without making
any public utterance, drew up a scheme of repressive measures,
and sent out proposals for a gathering of the Ministers of all
the principal German Courts. In the summer he travelled slowly
northwards, met the King of Prussia at Teplitz, in Bohemia, and
shortly afterwards opened the intended Conference of Ministers in
the neighbouring town of Carlsbad. A number of innocent persons
had already, at his instigation, been arrested in Prussia and
other States, under circumstances deeply discreditable to
Government. Private papers were seized, and garbled extracts from
them published in official prints as proof of guilt. <a name=
"FNanchor291">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_291"><sup>[291]</sup></a>
"By the help of God," Metternich wrote, "I hope to defeat the
German Revolution, just as I vanquished the conqueror of the
world. The revolutionists thought me far away, because I was five
hundred leagues off. They deceived themselves; I have been in the
midst of them, and now I am striking my blows." <a name=
"FNanchor292">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_292"><sup>[292]</sup></a>
Metternich's plan was to enforce throughout Germany, by means of
legislation in the Federal Diet, the principle which he had
already privately commended to the King of Prussia. There were
two distinct objects of policy before him: the first, to prevent
the formation in any German State of an assembly representing the
whole community, like the English House of Commons or the French
Chamber of Deputies; the second, to establish a general system of
censorship over the Press and over the Universities, and to
create a central authority, vested, as the representative of the
Diet, with inquisitorial powers.</p>
<p>[The South-Western States become constitutional as Prussia
relapses.]</p>
<p>[Bavarian Constitution, May 26, 1818.]</p>
<p>The first of these objects, the prevention of general
assemblies, had been rendered more difficult by recent acts of
the Governments of Bavaria and Baden. A singular change had taken
place in the relation between Prussia and the Minor States which
had formerly constituted the Federation of the Rhine. When, at
the Congress of Vienna, Prussian statesmen had endeavoured to
limit the arbitrary rule of petty sovereigns by charging the Diet
with the protection of constitutional right over all Germany, the
Kings of Bavaria and W&uuml;rtemberg had stoutly refused to part
with sovereign power. To submit to a law of liberty, as it then
seemed, was to lose their own separate existence, and to reduce
themselves to dependence upon the Jacobins of Berlin. This
apprehension governed the policy of the Minor Courts from 1813 to
1815. But since that time events had taken an unexpected turn.
Prussia, which once threatened to excite popular movement over
all Germany in its own interest, had now accepted Metternich's
guidance, and made its representative in the Diet the mouthpiece
of Austrian interest and policy. It was no longer from Berlin but
from Vienna that the separate existence of the Minor States was
threatened. The two great Courts were uniting against the
independence of their weaker neighbours. The danger of any
popular invasion of kingly rights in the name of German unity had
passed away, and the safety of the lesser sovereigns seemed now
to lie not in resisting the spirit of constitutional reform but
in appealing to it. In proportion as Prussia abandoned itself to
Metternich's direction, the Governments of the South-Western
States familiarised themselves with the idea of a popular
representation; and at the very time when the conservative
programme was being drawn up for the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle,
the King of Bavaria published a Constitution. Baden followed
after a short interval, and in each of these States, although the
Legislature was divided into two Chambers, the representation
established was not merely provincial, according to Metternich's
plan, or wholly on the principle of separate Estates or Orders,
as before the Revolution, but to some extent on the type of
England and France, where the Lower Chamber, in theory,
represented the public at large. This was enough to make
Metternich condemn the new Constitutions as radically bad and
revolutionary. <a name="FNanchor293">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_293"><sup>[293]</sup></a> He was, however, conscious
of the difficulty of making a direct attack upon them. This task
he reserved for a later time. His policy at present was to obtain
a declaration from the Diet which should prevent any other
Government within the League from following in the same path;
while, by means of Press-laws, supervision of the Universities,
and a central commission of inquiry, he expected to make the
position of rebellious professors and agitators so desperate that
the forces of disorder, themselves not deeply rooted in German
nature, would presently disappear.</p>
<p>[Conference of Carlsbad, Aug., 1819.]</p>
<p>The Conference of Ministers at Carlsbad, which in the memory
of the German people is justly associated with the suppression of
their liberty for an entire generation, began and ended in the
month of August, 1819. Though attended by the representatives of
eight German Governments, it did little more than register the
conclusions which Metternich had already formed. <a name=
"FNanchor294">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_294"><sup>[294]</sup></a>
The zeal with which the envoy of Prussia supported every
repressive measure made it useless for the Ministers of the Minor
Courts to offer an open opposition. Nothing more was required
than that the Diet should formally sanction the propositions thus
privately accepted by all the leading Ministers. On the 20th of
September this sanction was given. The Diet, which had sat for
three years without framing a single useful law, ratified all
Metternich's oppressive enactments in as many hours. It was
ordered that in every State within the Federation the Government
should take measures for preventing the publication of any
journal or pamphlet except after licence given, and each
Government was declared responsible to the Federation at large
for any objectionable writing published within its own territory.
The Sovereigns were required to appoint civil commissioners at
the Universities, whose duty it should be to enforce public order
and to give a salutary direction to the teaching of the
professors. They were also required to dismiss all professors who
should overstep the bounds of their duty, and such dismissed
persons were prohibited from being employed in any other State.
It was enacted that within fifteen days of the passing of the
decree an extraordinary Commission should assemble at Mainz to
investigate the origin and extent of the secret revolutionary
societies which threatened the safety of the Federation. The
Commission was empowered to examine and, if necessary, to arrest
any subject of any German State. All law-courts and other
authorities were required to furnish it with information and with
documents, and to undertake all inquiries which the Commission
might order. The Commission, however, was not a law-court itself:
its duty was to report to the Diet, which would then create such
judicial machinery as might be necessary. <a name=
"FNanchor295">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_295"><sup>[295]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Supplementary Act of Vienna, June, 1820.]</p>
<p>These measures were of an exceptional, and purported to be of
a temporary, character. There were, however, other articles which
Metternich intended to raise to the rank of organic laws, and to
incorporate with the Act of 1815, which formed the basis of the
German Federation. The conferences of Ministers were accordingly
resumed after a short interval, but at Vienna instead of at
Carlsbad. They lasted for several months, a stronger opposition
being now made by the Minor States than before. A second body of
federal law was at length drawn up, and accepted by the Diet on
the 8th of June, 1820. <a name="FNanchor296">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_296"><sup>[296]</sup></a> The most important of its
provisions was that which related to the Constitutions admissible
within the German League. It was declared that in every State,
with the exception of the four free cities, supreme power resided
in the Sovereign and in him alone, and that no Constitution might
do more than bind the Sovereign to co-operate with the Estates in
certain definite acts of government. <a name="FNanchor297">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_297"><sup>[297]</sup></a></p>
<p>In cases where a Government either appealed for help against
rebellious subjects, or was notoriously unable to exert
authority, the Diet charged itself with the duty of maintaining
public order.</p>
<p>[The reaction in Prussia.]</p>
<p>From this time whatever liberty existed in Germany was to be
found in the Minor States, in Bavaria and Baden, and in
W&uuml;rtemberg, which received a Constitution a few days before
the enrolment of the decrees of Carlsbad. In Prussia the reaction
carried everything before it. Humboldt, the best and most liberal
of the Ministers, resigned, protesting in vain against the
ignominious part which the King had determined to play. He was
followed by those of his colleagues whose principles were dearer
to them than their places. Hardenberg remained in office, a dying
man, isolated, neglected, thwarted; clinging to some last hope of
redeeming his promises to the Prussian people, yet jealous of all
who could have given him true aid; dishonouring by tenacity of
place a career associated with so much of his country's glory,
and ennobled in earlier days by so much fortitude in time of
evil. There gathered around the King a body of men who could see
in the great patriotic efforts and reforms of the last decade
nothing but an encroachment of demagogues on the rights of power.
They were willing that Prussia should receive its orders from
Metternich and serve a foreign Court in the work of repression,
rather than that it should take its place at the head of all
Germany on the condition of becoming a free and constitutional
State. <a name="FNanchor298">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_298"><sup>[298]</sup></a> The stigma of disloyalty was
attached to all who had kindled popular enthusiasm in 1808 and
1812. To have served the nation was to have sinned against the
Government. Stein was protected by his great name from attack,
but not from calumny. His friend Arndt, whose songs and addresses
had so powerfully moved the heart of Germany during the War of
Liberation, was subjected to repeated legal process, and,
although unconvicted of any offence, was suspended from the
exercise of his professorship for twenty years. Other persons,
whose fault at the most was to have worked for German unity, were
brought before special tribunals, and after long trial either
refused a public acquittal or sentenced to actual imprisonment.
Free teaching, free discussion, ceased. The barrier of authority
closed every avenue of political thought. Everywhere the agent of
the State prescribed an orthodox opinion, and took note of those
who raised a dissentient voice.</p>
<p>[The Commission at Mainz.]</p>
<p>The pretext made at Carlsbad for this crusade against liberty,
which was more energetically carried out in Prussia than
elsewhere, was the existence of a conspiracy or agitation for the
overthrow of Governments and of the present constitution of the
German League. It was stated that proofs existed of the intention
to establish by force a Republic one and indivisible, like that
of France in 1793. But the very Commission which was instituted
by the Carlsbad Ministers to investigate the origin and nature of
this conspiracy disproved its existence. The Commission assembled
at Mainz, examined several hundred persons and many thousand
documents, and after two years' labour delivered a report to the
Diet. The report went back to the time of Fichte's lectures and
the formation of the Tugendbund in 1808, traced the progress of
all the students' associations and other patriotic societies from
that time to 1820; and, while exhibiting in the worst possible
light the aims and conduct of the advocates of German unity,
acknowledged that scarcely a single proof had been discovered of
treasonable practice, and that the loyalty of the mass of the
people was itself a sufficient guarantee against the impulses of
the evil-minded. <a name="FNanchor299">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_299"><sup>[299]</sup></a> Such was the impression of
triviality and imposture produced at the Diet by this report,
that the representatives of several States proposed that the
Commission should forthwith be dissolved as useless and
unnecessary. This, however, could not be tolerated by Metternich
and his new disciples. The Commission was allowed to continue in
existence, and with it the regime of silence and repression. The
measures which had been accepted at Carlsbad as temporary and
provisional became more and more a part of the habitual system of
government. Prosecutions succeeded one another; letters were
opened; spies attended the lectures of professors and the
meetings of students; the newspapers were everywhere prohibited
from discussing German affairs. In a country where there were so
many printers and so many readers journalism could not altogether
expire. It was still permissible to give the news and to offer an
opinion about foreign lands: and for years to come the Germans,
like beggars regaling themselves with the scents from rich men's
kitchens, <a name="FNanchor300">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_300"><sup>[300]</sup></a> followed every stage of the
political struggles that were agitating France, England, and
Spain, while they were not allowed to express a desire or to
formulate a grievance of their own.</p>
<p>[Prussian Provincial Estates, June, 1823.]</p>
<p>[Redeeming features of Prussian absolutism.]</p>
<p>In the year 1822 Hardenberg died. All hope of a fulfilment of
the promises made in Prussia in 1815 had already become extinct.
Not many months after the Minister's death, King Frederick
William established the Provincial Estates which had been
recommended to him by Metternich, and announced that the creation
of a central representative system would be postponed until such
time as the King should think fit to introduce it. This meant
that the project was finally abandoned; and Prussia in
consequence remained without a Parliament until the Revolution of
1848 was at the door. The Provincial Estates, with which the King
affected to temper absolute rule, met only once in three years.
Their function was to express an opinion upon local matters when
consulted by the Government: their enemies said that they were
aristocratic and did harm, their partizans could not pretend that
they did much good. In the bitterness of spirit with which, at a
later time, the friends of liberty denounced the betrayal of the
cause of freedom by the Prussian Court, a darker colour has
perhaps been introduced into the history of this period than
really belongs to it. The wrongs sustained by the Prussian nation
have been compared to those inflicted by the despotism of Spain.
But, however contemptible the timidity of King Frederick William,
however odious the ingratitude shown to the truest friends of
King and people, the Government of 1819 is not correctly
represented in such a parallel. To identify the thousand
varieties of wrong under the common name of oppression, is to
mistake words for things, and to miss the characteristic features
which distinguish nations from one another. The greatest evils
which a Government can inflict upon its subjects are probably
religious persecution, wasteful taxation, and the denial of
justice in the daily affairs of life. None of these were present
in Prussia during the darkest days of reaction. The hand of
oppression fell heavily on some of the best and some of the most
enlightened men; it violated interests so precious as those of
free criticism and free discussion of public affairs; but the
great mass of the action of Government was never on the side of
evil. The ordinary course of justice was still pure, the
administration conscientious and thrifty. The system of popular
education, which for the first time placed Prussia in advance of
Saxony and other German States, dates from these years of warfare
against liberty. A reactionary despotism built the schools and
framed the laws whose reproduction in free England half a century
later is justly regarded as the chief of all the liberal measures
of our day. So strong, so lasting, was that vital tradition which
made monarchy in Prussia an instrument for the execution of great
public ends.</p>
<p>[A new Liberalism grows up in Germany after 1820.]</p>
<p>[Interest in France.]</p>
<p>But the old harmony between rulers and subjects in Germany
perished in the system of coercion which Metternich established
in 1819. Patient as the Germans were, loyal as they had proved
themselves to Frederick William and to worse princes through good
and evil, the galling disappointment of noble hopes, the
silencing of the Press, the dissolution of societies,- calumnies,
expulsions, prosecutions,-embittered many an honest mind against
authority. The Commission of Mainz did not find conspirators, but
it made them. As years went by, and all the means of legitimately
working for the improvement of German public life were one after
another extinguished, men of ardent character thought of more
violent methods. Secret societies, such as Metternich had
imagined, came into actual being. <a name="FNanchor301">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_301"><sup>[301]</sup></a> And among those who
neither sank into apathy and despair nor enrolled themselves
against existing power, a new body of ideas supplanted the old
loyal belief in the regeneration of Germany by its princes. The
Parliamentary struggles of France, the revolutionary movements in
Italy and in Spain which began at this epoch, drew the
imagination away from that pictured restoration of a free
Teutonic past which had proved so barren of result, and set in
its place the idea of a modern universal or European Liberalism.
The hatred against France, especially among the younger men,
disappeared. A distinction was made between the tyrant Napoleon
and the people who were now giving to the rest of the Continent
the example of a free and animated public life, and illuminating
the age with a political literature so systematic and so
ingenious that it seemed almost like a political philosophy. The
debates in the French Assembly, the writings of French
publicists, became the school of the Germans. Paris regained in
foreign eyes something of the interest that it had possessed in
1789. Each victory or defeat of the French popular cause awoke
the joy or the sorrow of German Liberals, to whom all was blank
at home: and when at length the throne of the Bourbons fell, the
signal for deliverance seemed to have sounded in many a city
beyond the Rhine.</p>
<p>[France after 1818.]</p>
<p>[Richelieu resigns, Dec., 1818. Decazes keeps power.]</p>
<p>We have seen that in Central Europe the balance between
liberty and reaction, wavering in 1815, definitely fell to the
side of reaction at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. It remains
to trace the course of events which in France itself suspended
the peaceful progress of the nation, and threw power for some
years into the hands of a faction which belonged to the past. The
measures carried by Decazes in 1817, which gave so much
satisfaction to the French, were by no means viewed with the same
approval either at London or at Vienna. The two principal of
these were the Electoral Law, and a plan of military
reorganisation which brought back great numbers of Napoleon's old
officers and soldiers to the army. Richelieu, though responsible
as the head of the Ministry, felt very grave fears as to the
results of this legislation. He had already become anxious and
distressed when the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle met; and the
events which took place in France during his absence, as well as
the communications which passed between himself and the foreign
Ministers, convinced him that a change of internal policy was
necessary. The busy mind of Metternich had already been scheming
against French Liberalism. Alarmed at the energy shown by
Decazes, the Austrian statesman had formed the design of
reconciling Artois and the Ultra-Royalists to the King's
Government; and he now urged Richelieu, if his old opponents
could be brought to reason, to place himself at the head of a
coalition of all the conservative elements in the State. <a name=
"FNanchor302">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_302"><sup>[302]</sup></a>
While the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle was sitting, the partial
elections for the year 1818, the second under the new Electoral
Law, took place. Among the deputies returned there were some who
passed for determined enemies of the Bourbon restoration,
especially Lafayette, whose name was so closely associated with
the humiliations of the Court in 1789. Richelieu received the
news with dismay, and on his return to Paris took steps which
ended in the dismissal of Decazes, and the offer of a seat in the
Cabinet to Vill&egrave;le, the Ultra-Royalist leader. But the
attempted combination failed. Richelieu accordingly withdrew from
office; and a new Ministry was formed, of which Decazes, who had
proved himself more powerful than his assailants, was the real
though not the nominal chief.</p>
<p>[Election of Gr&eacute;goire, Sept., 1819.]</p>
<p>The victory of the young and popular statesman was seen with
extreme displeasure by all the foreign Courts, nor was his
success an enduring one. For awhile the current of Liberal
opinion in France and the favour of King Louis XVIII. enabled
Decazes to hold his own against the combinations of his opponents
and the ill-will of all the most powerful men in Europe. An
attack made on the Electoral Law by the Upper House was defeated
by the creation of sixty new Peers, among whom there were several
who had been expelled in 1815. But the forces of Liberalism soon
passed beyond the Minister's own control, and his steady
dependence upon Louis XVIII. now raised against him as resolute
an opposition among the enemies of the House of Bourbon as among
the Ultra-Royalists. In the elections of 1819 the candidates of
the Ministry were beaten by men of more pronounced opinions.
Among the new members there was one whose victory caused great
astonishment and alarm. The ex-bishop Gr&eacute;goire, one of the
authors of the destruction of the old French Church in 1790, and
mover of the resolution which established the Republic in 1792,
was brought forward from his retirement and elected Deputy by the
town of Grenoble. To understand the panic caused by this election
we must recall, not the events of the Revolution, but the legends
of them which were current in 1819. The history of
Gr&eacute;goire by no means justifies the outcry which was raised
against him; his real actions, however, formed the smallest part
of the things that were alleged or believed by his enemies. It
was said he had applauded the execution of King Louis XVI., when
he had in fact protested against it: <a name="FNanchor303">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_303"><sup>[303]</sup></a> his courageous
adherence to the character of a Christian priest throughout the
worst days of the Convention, his labours in organising the
Constitutional Church when the choice lay between that and
national atheism, were nothing, or worse than nothing, in the
eyes of men who felt themselves to be the despoiled heirs of that
rich and aristocratic landed society, called the Feudal Church,
which Gr&eacute;goire had been so active in breaking up.
Unluckily for himself, Gr&eacute;goire, though humane in action,
had not abstained from the rhodomontades against kings in general
which were the fashion in 1793. Louis XVIII., forgetting that he
had himself lately made the regicide Fouch&eacute; a Minister,
interpreted Gr&eacute;goire's election by the people of Grenoble,
to which the Ultra-Royalists had cunningly contributed, as a
threat against the Bourbon family. He showed the displeasure
usual with him when any slight was offered to his personal
dignity, and drew nearer to his brother Artois and the
Ultra-Royalists, whom he had hitherto shunned as his favourite
Minister's worst enemies. Decazes, true to his character as the
King's friend, now confessed that he had gone too far in the
legislation of 1817, and that the Electoral Law, under which such
a monster as Gr&eacute;goire could gain a seat, required to be
altered. A project of law was sketched, designed to restore the
preponderance in the constituencies to the landed aristocracy.
Gr&eacute;goire's election was itself invalidated; and the
Ministers who refused to follow Decazes in his new policy of
compromise were dismissed from their posts.</p>
<p>[Murder of the Duke of Berry, Feb. 13, 1820.]</p>
<p>[Reaction sets in.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Decazes. Richelieu Minister, Feb., 1820.]</p>
<p>A few months more passed, and an event occurred which might
have driven a stronger Government than that of Louis XVIII. into
excesses of reaction. The heirs to the Crown next in succession
to the Count of Artois were his two sons, the Dukes of
Angoul&ecirc;me and Berry. Angoul&ecirc;me was childless; the
Duke of Berry was the sole hope of the elder Bourbon line, which,
if he should die without a son, would, as a reigning house,
become extinct, the Crown of France not descending to a female.
<a name="FNanchor304">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_304"><sup>[304]</sup></a> The circumstance which made
Berry's life so dear to Royalists made his destruction the
all-absorbing purpose of an obscure fanatic, who abhorred the
Bourbon family as the lasting symbol of the foreigner's victory
over France. Louvel, a working man, had followed Napoleon to
exile in Elba. After returning to his country he had dogged the
footsteps of the Bourbon princes for years together, waiting for
the chance of murder. On the night of the 13th of February, 1820,
he seized the Duke of Berry as he was leaving the Opera House,
and plunged a knife into his breast. The Duke lingered for some
hours, and expired early the next morning in the presence of King
Louis XVIII., the Princes, and all the Ministers. Terrible as the
act was, it was the act of a single resolute mind: no human being
had known of Louvel's intention. But it was impossible that
political passion should await the quiet investigation of a
law-court. No murder ever produced a stronger outburst of
indignation among the governing classes, or was more skilfully
turned to the advantage of party. The Liberals felt that their
cause was lost. While fanatical Ultra-Royalists, abandoning
themselves to a credulity worthy of the Reign of Terror, accused
Decazes himself of complicity with the assassin, their leaders
fixed upon the policy which was to be imposed on the King. It was
in vain that Decazes brought forward his reactionary Electoral
Law, and proposed to invest the officers of State with arbitrary
powers of arrest and to re-establish the censorship of the Press.
The Count of Artois insisted upon the dismissal of the Minister,
as the only consolation which could be given to him for the
murder of his son The King yielded; and, as an Ultra-Royalist
administration was not yet possible, Richelieu unwillingly
returned to office, assured by Artois that his friends had no
other desire than to support his own firm and temperate rule.</p>
<p>[Progress of the reaction in France.]</p>
<p>[Ultra-Royalist Ministry, Dec., 1821.]</p>
<p>[The Congregation.]</p>
<p>Returning to power under such circumstances, Richelieu became,
in spite of himself, the Minister of reaction. The Press was
fettered, the legal safeguards of personal liberty were
suspended, the electoral system was transformed by a measure
which gave a double vote to men of large property. So violent
were the passions which this retrograde march of Government
excited, that for a moment Paris seemed to be on the verge of
revolution. Tumultuous scenes occurred in the streets; but the
troops, on whom everything depended, obeyed the orders given to
them, and the danger passed away. The first elections under the
new system reduced the Liberal party to impotence, and brought
back to the Chamber a number of men who had sat in the
reactionary Parliament of 1816. Vill&egrave;le and other
Ultra-Royalists were invited to join Richelieu's Cabinet. For
awhile it seemed as if the passions of Church and aristocracy
might submit to the curb of a practical statesmanship, friendly,
if not devoted, to their own interests. But restraint was soon
cast aside. The Count of Artois saw the road to power open, and
broke his promise of supporting the Minister who had taken office
at his request. Censured and thwarted in the Chamber of Deputies,
Richelieu confessed that he had undertaken a hopeless task, and
bade farewell to public life. King Louis, now nearing the grave,
could struggle no longer against the brother who was waiting to
ascend his throne. The next Ministry was nominated not by the
King but by Artois. Around Vill&egrave;le, the real head of the
Cabinet, there was placed a body of men who represented not the
new France, or even that small portion of it which was called to
exercise the active rights of citizenship, but the social
principles of a past age, and that Catholic or Ultramontane
revival which was now freshening the surface but not stirring the
depths of the great mass of French religious indifference. A
religious society known as the Congregation, which had struck its
first roots under the storm of Republican persecution, and grown
up during the Empire, a solitary yet unobserved rallying-place
for Catholic opponents of Napoleon's despotism, now expanded into
a great organism of government. The highest in blood and in
office sought membership in it: its patronage raised ambitious
men to the stations they desired, its hostility made itself felt
against the small as well as against the great. The spirit which
now gained the ascendancy in French government was clerical even
more than it was aristocratic. It was monarchical too, but rather
from dislike to the secularist tone of Liberalism and from trust
in the orthodoxy of the Count of Artois than from any fixed
belief in absolutist principles. There might be good reason to
oppose King Louis XVIII.; but what priest, what noble, could
doubt the divine right of a prince who was ready to compensate
the impoverished emigrants out of the public funds, and to commit
the whole system of public education to the hands of the
clergy?</p>
<p>[Bourbon rule before and after 1821.]</p>
<p>In the middle class of France, which from this time began to
feel itself in opposition to the Bourbon Government, there had
been no moral change corresponding to that which made so great a
difference between the governing authority of 1819 and that of
1822. Public opinion, though strongly affected, was not converted
into something permanently unlike itself by the murder of the
Duke of Berry. The courtiers, the devotees, the great ladies, who
had laid a bold hand upon power, had not the nation on their
side, although for a while the nation bore their sway
submissively. But the fate of the Bourbon monarchy was in fact
decided when Artois and his confidants became its
representatives. France might have forgotten that the Bourbons
owed their throne to foreign victories; it could not be governed
in perpetuity by what was called the <i>Parti Pr&ecirc;tre</i>.
Twenty years taken from the burden of age borne by Louis XVIII.,
twenty years of power given to Decazes, might have prolonged the
rule of the restored family perhaps for some generations. If
military pride found small satisfaction in the contrast between
the Napoleonic age and that which immediately succeeded it, there
were enough parents who valued the blood of their children, there
were enough speakers and writers who valued the liberty of
discussion, enough capitalists who valued quiet times, for the
new order to be recognised as no unhopeful one. France has indeed
seldom had a better government than it possessed between 1816 and
1820, nor could an equal period be readily named during which the
French nation, as a whole, enjoyed greater happiness.</p>
<p>[General causes of the victory of reaction in Europe.]</p>
<p>Political reaction had reached its full tide in Europe
generally about five years after the end of the great war. The
phenomena were by no means the same in all countries, nor were
the accidents of personal influence without a large share in the
determination of events: yet, underlying all differences, we may
trace the operation of certain great causes which were not
limited by the boundaries of individual States. The classes in
which any fixed belief in constitutional government existed were
nowhere very large; outside the circle of state officials there
was scarcely any one who had had experience in the conduct of
public affairs. In some countries, as in Russia and Prussia, the
conception of progress towards self-government had belonged in
the first instance to the holders of power: it had exercised the
imagination of a Czar, or appealed to the understanding of a
Prussian Minister, eager, in the extremity of ruin, to develop
every element of worth and manliness existing within his nation.
The cooling of a warm fancy, the disappearance of external
dangers, the very agitation which arose when the idea of liberty
passed from the rulers to their subjects, sufficed to check the
course of reform. And by the side of the Kings and Ministers who
for a moment had attached themselves to constitutional theories
there stood the old privileged orders, or what remained of them,
the true party of reaction, eager to fan the first misgivings and
alarms of Sovereigns, and to arrest a development more
prejudicial to their own power and importance than to the dignity
and security of the Crown. Further, there existed throughout
Europe the fatal and ineradicable tradition of the convulsions of
the first Revolution, and of the horrors of 1793. No votary of
absolutism, no halting and disquieted friend of freedom, could
ever be at a loss for images of woe in presaging the results of
popular sovereignty; and the action of one or two infatuated
assassins owed its wide influence on Europe chiefly to the
ancient name and memory of Jacobinism.</p>
<p>There was also in the very fact that Europe had been restored
to peace by the united efforts of all the governments something
adverse to the success of a constitutional or a Liberal party in
any State. Constitutional systems had indeed been much praised at
the Congress of Vienna; but the group of men who actually
controlled Europe in 1815, and who during the five succeeding
years continued in correspondence and in close personal
intercourse with one another, had, with one exception, passed
their lives in the atmosphere of absolute government, and learnt
to regard the conduct of all great affairs as the business of a
small number of very eminent individuals. Castlereagh, the one
Minister of a constitutional State, belonged to a party which, to
a degree almost unequalled in Europe, identified political duty
with the principle of hostility to change. It is indeed in the
correspondence of the English Minister himself, and in relation
to subjects of purely domestic government in England, that the
community of thought which now existed between all the leading
statesmen of Europe finds its most singular exhibition. Both
Metternich and Hardenberg took as much interest in the
suppression of Lancashire Radicalism, and in the measures of
coercion which the British Government thought it necessary to
pass in the year 1819, as in the chastisement of rebellious
pamphleteers upon the Rhine, and in the dissolution of the
students' clubs at Jena. It was indeed no very great matter for
the English people, who were now close upon an era of reform,
that Castlereagh received the congratulations of Vienna and
Berlin for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act and the right of
public meeting, <a name="FNanchor305">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_305"><sup>[305]</sup></a> or that Metternich believed
that no one but himself knew the real import of the shouts with
which the London mob greeted Sir Francis Burdett. <a name=
"FNanchor306">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_306"><sup>[306]</sup></a>
Neither the impending reform of the English Criminal Law nor the
emancipation of Irish Catholics resulted from the enlightenment
of foreign Courts, or could be hindered by their indifference.
But on the Continent of Europe the progress towards
constitutional freedom was indeed likely to be a slow and a
chequered one when the Ministers of absolutism formed so close
and intimate a band, when the nations contained within them such
small bodies of men in any degree versed in public affairs, and
when the institutions on which it was proposed to base the
liberty of the future were so destitute of that strength which
springs from connection with the past.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XIV.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Movements in the Mediterranean States beginning in 1820-Spain
from 1814 to 1820-The South American Colonies-The Army at Cadiz:
Action of Quiroga and Riego-Movement at Corunna-Ferdinand accepts
the Constitution of 1812-Naples from 1815 to 1820-The
Court-party, the Muratists, the Carbonari-The Spanish
Constitution proclaimed at Naples-Constitutional movement in
Portugal-Alexander's proposal with regard to Spain-The Conference
and Declaration of Troppau-Protest of England-Conference of
Laibach-The Austrians invade Naples and restore absolute
Monarchy- Insurrection in Piedmont, which fails-Spain from 1820
to 1822-Death of Castlereagh-The Congress of Verona-Policy of
England-The French invade Spain-Restoration of absolute Monarchy,
and violence of the reaction- England prohibits the conquest of
the Spanish Colonies by France, and subsequently recognises their
independence-Affairs in Portugal-Canning sends troops to
Lisbon-The Policy of Canning-Estimate of his place in the history
of Europe.</p>
<br>

<p>[The Mediterranean movements, beginning in 1820.]</p>
<p>When the guardians of Europe, at the end of the first three
years of peace, scanned from their council-chamber at
Aix-la-Chapelle that goodly heritage which, under Providence,
their own parental care was henceforth to guard against the
assaults of malice and revolution, they had fixed their gaze
chiefly on France, Germany, and the Netherlands, as the regions
most threatened by the spirit of change. The forecast was not an
accurate one. In each of these countries Government proved during
the succeeding years to be much more than a match for its real or
imaginary foes: it was in the Mediterranean States, which had
excited comparatively little anxiety, that the first successful
attack was made upon established power. Three movements arose
successively in the three southern peninsulas, at the time when
Metternich was enjoying the silence which he had imposed upon
Germany, and the Ultra-Royalists of France were making good the
advantage which the crime of an individual and the imprudence of
a party had thrown into their hands. In Spain and in Italy a body
of soldiers rose on behalf of constitutional government: in
Greece a nation rose against the rule of the foreigner. In all
three countries the issue of these movements was, after a longer
or shorter interval, determined by the Northern Powers. All three
movements were at first treated as identical in their character,
and all alike condemned as the work of Jacobinism. But the course
of events, and a change of persons in the government of one great
State, brought about a truer view of the nature of the struggle
in Greece. The ultimate action of Europe in the affairs of that
country was different from its action in the affairs of Italy and
Spain. It is now only remembered as an instance of political
recklessness or stupidity that a conflict of race against race
and of religion against religion should for a while have been
confused by some of the leading Ministers of Europe with the
attempt of a party to make the form of domestic government more
liberal. The Hellenic rising had indeed no feature in common with
the revolutions of Naples and Cadiz; and, although in order of
time the opening of the Greek movement long preceded the close of
the Spanish movement, the historian, who has neither the
politician's motive for making a confusion, nor the protection of
his excuse of ignorance, must in this case neglect the accidents
of chronology, and treat the two as altogether apart.</p>
<p>[Spain between 1814 and 1820.]</p>
<p>King Ferdinand of Spain, after overthrowing the Constitution
which he found in existence on his return to his country, had
conducted himself as if his object had been to show to what
lengths a legitimate monarch might abuse the fidelity of his
subjects and defy the public opinion of Europe. The leaders of
the Cortes, whom he had arrested in 1814, after being declared
innocent by one tribunal after another were sentenced to long
terms of imprisonment by an arbitrary decree of the King, without
even the pretence of judicial forms. Men who had been conspicuous
in the struggle of the nation against Napoleon were neglected or
disgraced; many of the highest posts were filled by politicians
who had played a double part, or had even served under the
invader. Priests and courtiers intrigued for influence over the
King; even when a capable Minister was placed in power through
the pressure of the ambassadors, and the King's name was set to
edicts of administrative reform, these edicts were made a dead
letter by the powerful band who lived upon the corruption of the
public service. Nothing was sacred except the interest of the
clergy; this, however, was enough to keep the rural population on
the King's side. The peasant, who knew that his house would not
now be burnt by the French, and who heard that true religion had
at length triumphed over its enemies, understood, and cared to
understand, nothing more. Rumours of kingly misgovernment and
oppression scarcely reached his ears. Ferdinand was still the
child of Spain and of the Church; his return had been the return
of peace; his rule was the victory of the Catholic faith.</p>
<p>[The nation satisfied: the officers discontented.]</p>
<p>But the acquiescence of the mass of the people was not shared
by the officers of the army and the educated classes in the
towns. The overthrow of the Constitution was from the first
condemned by soldiers who had won distinction under the
government of the Cortes; and a series of military rebellion,
though isolated and on the smallest scale, showed that the course
on which Ferdinand had entered was not altogether free from
danger. The attempts of General Mina in 1814, and of Porlier and
Lacy in succeeding years, to raise the soldiery on behalf of the
Constitution, failed, through the indifference of the soldiery
themselves, and the power which the priesthood exercised in
garrison-towns. Discontent made its way in the army by slow
degrees; and the ultimate declaration of a military party against
the existing Government was due at least as much to Ferdinand's
absurd system of favouritism, and to the wretched condition into
which the army had been thrown, as to an attachment to the memory
or the principles of constitutional rule. Misgovernment made the
treasury bankrupt; soldiers and sailors received no pay for years
together; and the hatred with which the Spanish people had now
come to regard military service is curiously shown by an order of
the Government that all the beggars in Madrid and other great
towns should be seized on a certain night (July 23, 1816), and
enrolled in the army. <a name="FNanchor307">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_307"><sup>[307]</sup></a> But the very beggars were
more than a match for Ferdinand's administration. They heard of
the fate in store for them, and mysteriously disappeared, so
frustrating a measure by which it had been calculated that Spain
would gain sixty thousand warriors.</p>
<p>[Struggle of Spain with its colonies, 1810-1820.]</p>
<p>The military revolution which at length broke out in the year
1820 was closely connected with the struggle for independence now
being made by the American colonies of Spain; and in its turn it
affected the course of this struggle and its final result. The
colonies had refused to accept the rule either of Joseph
Bonaparte or of the Cortes of Cadiz when their legitimate
sovereign was dispossessed by Napoleon. While acting for the most
part in Ferdinand's name, they had engaged in a struggle with the
National Government of Spain. They had tasted independence; and
although after the restoration of Ferdinand they would probably
have recognised the rights of the Spanish Crown if certain
concessions had been made, they were not disposed to return to
the condition of inferiority in which they had been held during
the last century, or to submit to rulers who proved themselves as
cruel and vindictive in moments of victory as they were incapable
of understanding the needs of the time. The struggle accordingly
continued. Regiment after regiment was sent from Spain, to perish
of fever, of forced marches, or on the field. The Government of
King Ferdinand, despairing of its own resources, looked around
for help among the European Powers. England would have lent its
mediation, and possibly even armed assistance, if the Court of
Madrid would have granted a reasonable amount of freedom to the
colonies, and have opened their ports to British commerce. This,
however, was not in accordance with the views of Ferdinand's
advisers. Strange as it may appear, the Spanish Government
demanded that the alliance of Sovereigns, which had been framed
for the purpose of resisting the principle of rebellion and
disorder in Europe, should intervene against its revolted
subjects on the other side of the Atlantic, and it implied that
England, if acting at all, should act as the instrument of the
Alliance. <a name="FNanchor308">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_308"><sup>[308]</sup></a> Encouragement was given to
the design by the Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. Whether a
continent claimed its independence, or a German schoolboy wore a
forbidden ribbon in his cap, the chiefs of the Holy Alliance now
assumed the frown of offended Providence, and prepared to
interpose their own superior power and wisdom to save a misguided
world from the consequences of its own folly. Alexander had
indeed for a time hoped that the means of subduing the colonies
might be supplied by himself; and in his zeal to supplant England
in the good graces of Ferdinand he sold the King a fleet of war
on very moderate terms. To the scandal of Europe the ships, when
they reached Cadiz, turned out to be thoroughly rotten and
unseaworthy. As it was certain that the Czar's fleet and the
Spanish soldiers, however holy their mission, would all go to the
bottom together as soon as they encountered the waves of the
Atlantic, the expedition was postponed, and the affairs of
America were brought before the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Envoys of Russia and France submitted a paper, in which,
anticipating the storm-warnings of more recent times, they
described the dangers to which monarchical Europe would be
exposed from the growth of a federation of republics in America;
and they suggested that Wellington, as "the man of Europe,"
should go to Madrid, to preside over a negotiation between the
Court of Spain and all the ambassadors with reference to the
terms to be offered to the Transatlantic States. <a name=
"FNanchor309">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_309"><sup>[309]</sup></a>
England, however, in spite of Lord Castlereagh's dread of
revolutionary contagion, adhered to the principles which it had
already laid down; and as the counsellors of King Ferdinand
declined to change their policy, Spain was left to subdue its
colonies by itself.</p>
<p>[Conspiracy in the Army of Cadiz.]</p>
<p>It was in the army assembled at Cadiz for embarkation in the
summer of 1819 that the conspiracy against Ferdinand's Government
found its leaders. Secret societies had now spread themselves
over the principal Spanish towns, and looked to the soldiery on
the coast for the signal of revolt. Abisbal, commander at Cadiz,
intending to make himself safe against all contingencies,
encouraged for awhile the plots of the discontented officers:
then, foreseeing the failure of the movement, he arrested the
principal men by a stratagem, and went off to Madrid, to reveal
the conspiracy to the Court and to take credit for saving the
King's crown (July, 1819). <a name="FNanchor310">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_310"><sup>[310]</sup></a> If the army could have been
immediately despatched to America, the danger would possibly have
passed away. This, however, was prevented by an outbreak of
yellow fever, which made it necessary to send the troops into
cantonments for several months. The conspirators gained time to
renew their plans. The common soldiers, who had hitherto been
faithful to the Government, heard in their own squalor and
inaction the fearful stories of the few sick and wounded who
returned from beyond the seas, and learnt to regard the order of
embarkation as a sentence of death. Several battalions were won
over to the cause of constitutional liberty by their commanders.
The leaders imprisoned a few months before were again in
communication with their followers. After the treachery of
Abisbal, it was agreed to carry out the revolt without the
assistance of generals or grandees. The leaders chosen were two
colonels, Quiroga and Riego, of whom the former was in nominal
confinement in a monastery near Medina Sidonia, twenty miles east
of Cadiz, while Riego was stationed at Cabezas, a few marches
distant on the great road to Seville. The first day of the year
1820 was fixed for the insurrection. It was determined that Riego
should descend upon the head-quarters, which were at Arcos, and
arrest the generals before they could hear anything of the
movement, while Quiroga, moving from the east, gathered up the
battalions stationed on the road, and threw himself into Cadiz,
there to await his colleague's approach.</p>
<p>[Action of Quiroga and Riego, Jan. 1820.]</p>
<p>The first step in the enterprise proved successful. Riego,
proclaiming the Constitution of 1812, surprised the headquarters,
seized the generals, and rallied several companies to his
standard. Quiroga, however, though he gained possession of San
Fernando, at the eastern end of the peninsula of Leon, on which
Cadiz is situated, failed to make his entrance into Cadiz. The
commandant, hearing of the capture of the head-quarters, had
closed the city gates, and arrested the principal inhabitants
whom he suspected of being concerned in the plot. The troops
within the town showed no sign of mutiny. Riego, when he arrived
at the peninsula of Leon, found that only five thousand men in
all had joined the good cause, while Cadiz, with a considerable
garrison and fortifications of great strength, stood hostile
before him. He accordingly set off with a small force to visit
and win over the other regiments which were lying in the
neighbouring towns and villages. The commanders, however, while
not venturing to attack the mutineers, drew off their troops to a
distance, and prevented them from entering into any communication
with Riego. The adventurous soldier, leaving Quiroga in the
peninsula of Leon, then marched into the interior of Andalusia
(January 27), endeavouring to raise the inhabitants of the towns.
But the small numbers of his band, and the knowledge that Cadiz
and the greater part of the army still held by the Government,
prevented the inhabitants from joining the insurrection, even
where they received Riego with kindness and supplied the wants of
his soldiers. During week after week the little column traversed
the country, now cut off from retreat, exhausted by forced
marches in drenching rain, and harassed by far stronger forces
sent in pursuit. The last town that Riego entered was Cordova.
The enemy was close behind him. No halt was possible. He led his
band, now numbering only two hundred men, into the mountains, and
there bade them disperse (March 11).</p>
<p>[Corunna proclaims the Constitution Feb. 20.]</p>
<p>[Abisbal's defection March 4.]</p>
<p>With Quiroga lying inactive in the peninsula of Leon and Riego
hunted from village to village, it seemed as if the insurrection
which they had begun could only end in the ruin of its leaders.
But the movement had in fact effected its object. While the
courtiers around King Ferdinand, unwarned by the news from Cadiz,
continued their intrigues against one another, the rumour of
rebellion spread over the country. If no great success had been
achieved by the rebels, it was also certain that no great blow
had been struck by the Government. The example of bold action had
been set; the shock given at one end of the peninsula was felt at
the other; and a fortnight before Riego's band dispersed, the
garrison and the citizens of Corunna together declared for the
Constitution (February 20). From Corunna the revolutionary
movement spread to Ferrol and to all the other coast-towns of
Galicia. The news reached Madrid, terrifying the Government, and
exciting the spirit of insurrection in the capital itself. The
King summoned a council of the leading men around him. The wisest
of them advised him to publish a moderate Constitution, and, by
convoking a Parliament immediately, to stay the movement, which
would otherwise result in the restoration of the Assembly and the
Constitution of 1812. They also urged the King to abolish the
Inquisition forthwith. Ferdinand's brother, Don Carlos, the head
of the clerical party, succeeded in preventing both measures.
Though the generals in all quarters of Spain wrote that they
could not answer for the troops, there were still hopes of
keeping down the country by force of arms. Abisbal, who was at
Madrid, was ordered to move with reinforcements towards the army
in the south. He set out, protesting to the King that he knew the
way to deal with rebels. When he reached Oca&ntilde;a he
proclaimed the Constitution himself (March 4).</p>
<p>[Ferdinand accepts the Constitution 1812, March 9.]</p>
<p>It was now clear that the cause of absolute monarchy was lost.
The ferment in Madrid increased. On the night of the 6th of March
all the great bodies of State assembled for council in the King's
palace, and early on the 7th Ferdinand published a proclamation,
stating that he had determined to summon the Cortes immediately.
This declaration satisfied no one, for the Cortes designed by the
King might be the mere revival of a medi&aelig;val form, and the
history of 1814 showed how little value was to be attached to
Ferdinand's promises. Crowds gathered in the great squares of
Madrid, crying for the Constitution of 1812. The statement of the
Minister of War that the Guard was on the point of joining the
people now overcame even the resistance of Don Carlos and the
confessors; and after a day wasted in dispute, Ferdinand
announced to his people that he was ready to take the oath to the
Constitution which they desired. The next day was given up to
public rejoicings; the book of the Constitution was carried in
procession through the city with the honours paid to the Holy
Sacrament, and all political prisoners were set at liberty. The
prison of the Inquisition was sacked, the instruments of torture
broken in pieces. On the 9th the leaders of the agitation took
steps to make the King fulfil his promise. A mob invaded the
court and threshold of the palace. At their demand the municipal
council of 1814 was restored; its members were sent, in company
with six deputies chosen by the populace, to receive the pledges
of the King. Ferdinand, all smiles and bows, while he looked
forward to the day when force or intrigue should make him again
absolute master of Spain, and enable him to take vengeance upon
the men who were humiliating, him, took the oath of fidelity to
the Constitution of 1812. <a name="FNanchor311">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_311"><sup>[311]</sup></a> New Ministers were
immediately called to office, and a provisional Junta was placed
by their side as the representative of the public until the new
Cortes should be duly elected.</p>
<p>[Condition of Naples, 1815-1820.]</p>
<p>Tidings of the Spanish revolution passed rapidly over Europe,
disquieting the courts and everywhere reviving the hopes of the
friends of popular right. Before four months had passed, the
constitutional movement begun in Cadiz was taken up in Southern
Italy. The kingdom of Naples was one of those States which had
profited the most by French conquest. During the nine years that
its crown was held by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, the laws and
institutions which accompanied Napoleon's supremacy had rudely
broken up the ancient fixity of confusions which passed for
government, and had aroused no insignificant forces of new social
life. The feudal tenure of land, and with it something of the
feudal structure of society, had passed away: the monasteries had
been dissolved; the French civil code, and a criminal code based
upon that of France, had taken the place of a thousand
conflicting customs and jurisdictions; taxation had been made, if
not light, yet equitable and simple; justice was regular, and the
same for baron and peasant; brigandage had been extinguished;
and, for the first time in many centuries, the presence of a
rational and uniform administration was felt over all the south
of Italy. Nor on the restoration of King Ferdinand had any
reaction been permitted to take place like that which in a moment
destroyed the work of reform in Spain and in Westphalia. England
and Austria insisted that there should be neither vengeance nor
counterrevolution. Queen Marie Caroline, the principal agent in
the cruelties of 1799, was dead; Ferdinand himself was old and
indolent, and willing to leave affairs in the hands of Ministers
more intelligent than himself. Hence the laws and the
administrative system of Murat remained on the whole unchanged.
<a name="FNanchor312">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_312"><sup>[312]</sup></a> As in France, a Bourbon
Sovereign placed himself at the head of a political order
fashioned by Napoleon and the Revolution. Where changes in the
law were made, or acts of State revoked, it was for the most part
in consequence of an understanding with the Holy See. Thus, while
no attempt was made to eject the purchasers of Church-lands, the
lands not actually sold were given back to the Church; a
considerable number of monasteries were restored; education was
allowed to fall again into the hands of the clergy; the Jesuits
were recalled, and the Church regained its jurisdiction in
marriage-causes, as well as the right of suppressing writings at
variance with the Catholic faith.</p>
<p>[Hostility between the Court party and the Muratists.]</p>
<p>But the legal and recognised changes which followed
Ferdinand's return by no means expressed the whole change in the
operation of government. If there were not two conflicting
systems at work, there were two conflicting bodies of partisans
in the State. Like the emigrants who returned with Louis XVIII.,
a multitude of Neapolitans, high and low, who had either
accompanied the King in his exile to Sicily or fought for him on
the mainland in 1799 and 1806, now expected their reward. In
their interest the efficiency of the public service was
sacrificed and the course of justice perverted. Men who had
committed notorious crimes escaped punishment if they had been
numbered among the King's friends; the generals and officials who
had served under Murat, though not removed from their posts, were
treated with discourtesy and suspicion. It was in the army most
of all that the antagonism of the two parties was felt. A medal
was struck for service in Sicily, and every year spent there in
inaction was reckoned as two in computing seniority. Thus the
younger officers of Murat found their way blocked by a troop of
idlers, and at the same time their prospects suffered from the
honest attempts made by Ministers to reduce the military
expenditure. Discontent existed in every rank. The generals were
familiar with the idea of political change, for during the last
years of Murat's reign they had themselves thought of compelling
him to grant a Constitution: the younger officers and the
sergeants were in great part members of the secret society of the
Carbonari, which in the course of the last few years had grown
with the weakness of the Government, and had now become the
principal power in the Neapolitan kingdom.</p>
<p>[The Carbonari.]</p>
<p>The origin of this society, which derived its name and its
symbolism from the trade of the charcoal-burner, as Freemasonry
from that of the builder, is uncertain. Whether its first aim was
resistance to Bourbon tyranny after 1799, or the expulsion of the
French and Austrians from Italy, in the year 1814 it was actively
working for constitutional government in opposition to Murat, and
receiving encouragement from Sicily, where Ferdinand was then
playing the part of constitutional King. The maintenance of
absolute government by the restored Bourbon Court severed the
bond which for a time existed between legitimate monarchy and
conspiracy; and the lodges of the Carbonari, now extending
themselves over the country with great rapidity, became so many
centres of agitation against despotic rule. By the year 1819 it
was reckoned that one person out of every twenty-five in the
kingdom of Naples had joined the society. Its members were drawn
from all classes, most numerously perhaps from the middle class
in the towns; but even priests had been initiated, and there was
no branch of the public service that had not Carbonari in its
ranks. The Government, apprehending danger from the extension of
the sect, tried to counteract it by founding a rival society of
Calderari, or Braziers, in which every miscreant who before 1815
had murdered and robbed in the name of King Ferdinand and the
Catholic faith received a welcome. But though the number of such
persons was not small, the growth of this fraternity remained far
behind that of its model; and the chief result of the competition
was that intrigue and mystery gained a greater charm than ever
for the Italians, and that all confidence in Government perished,
under the sense that there was a hidden power in the land which
was only awaiting the due moment to put forth its strength in
revolutionary action.</p>
<p>[Morelli's movement, July 2, 1820.]</p>
<p>After the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution, an
outbreak in the kingdom of Naples had become inevitable. The
Carbonari of Salerno, where the sect had its headquarters, had
intended to rise at the beginning of June; their action, however,
was postponed for some months, and it was anticipated by the
daring movement of a few sergeants belonging to a cavalry
regiment stationed at Nola, and of a lieutenant, named Morelli,
whom they had persuaded to place himself at their head. Leading
out a squadron of a hundred and fifty men in the direction of
Avellino on the morning of July 2nd, Morelli proclaimed the
Constitution. One of the soldiers alone left the band; force or
persuasion kept others to the Standard, though they disapproved
of the enterprise. The inhabitants of the populous places that
lie between Nola and Avellino welcomed the squadron, or at least
offered it no opposition: the officer commanding at Avellino came
himself to meet Morelli, and promised him assistance. The band
encamped that night in a village; on the next day they entered
Avellino, where the troops and townspeople, headed by the bishop
and officers, declared in their favour. From Avellino the news of
the movement spread quickly over the surrounding country. The
Carbonari were everywhere prepared for revolt; and before the
Government had taken a single step in its own defence, the
Constitution had been joyfully and peacefully accepted, not only
by the people but by the militia and the regular troops,
throughout the greater part of the district that lies to the east
of Naples.</p>
<p>[Affairs at Naples, July 2-7.]</p>
<p>The King was on board ship in the bay, when, in the afternoon
of July 2nd, intelligence came of Morelli's revolt at Nola.
Nothing was done by the Ministry on that day, although Morelli
and his band might have been captured in a few hours if any
resolute officer, with a few trustworthy troops, had been sent
against them. On the next morning, when the garrison of Avellino
had already joined the mutineers, and taken up a strong position
commanding the road from Naples, General Carrascosa was sent, not
to reduce the insurgents-for no troops were given to him-but to
pardon, to bribe, and to coax them into <a name=
"FNanchor313">submission.</a> <a href=
"#Footnote_313"><sup>[313]</sup></a> Carrascosa failed to effect
any good; other generals, who, during the following days,
attempted to attack the mutineers, found that their troops would
not follow them, and that the feeling of opposition to the
Government, though it nowhere broke into lawlessness, was
universal in the army as well as the nation. If the people
generally understood little of politics, they had learnt enough
to dislike arbitrary taxation and the power of arbitrary arrest.
Not a single hand or voice was anywhere raised in defence of
absolutism. Escaping from Naples, where he was watched by the
Government, General Pepe, who was at once the chief man among the
Carbonari and military commandant of the province in which
Avellino lies, went to place himself at the head of the
revolution. Naples itself had hitherto remained quiet, but on the
night of July 6th a deputation from the Carbonari informed the
King that they could no longer preserve tranquillity in the city
unless a Constitution was granted. The King, without waiting for
morning, published an edict declaring that a Constitution should
be drawn up within eight days; immediately afterwards he
appointed a new Ministry, and, feigning illness, committed the
exercise of royal authority to his son, the Duke of Calabria.</p>
<p>[Ferdinand takes the Oath to the Spanish Constitution, July
13.]</p>
<p>Ferdinand's action was taken by the people as a stratagem. He
had employed the device of a temporary abdication some years
before in cajoling the Sicilians; and the delay of eight days
seemed unnecessary to ardent souls who knew that a Spanish
Constitution was in existence and did not know of its defects in
practice. There was also on the side of the Carbonari the telling
argument that Ferdinand, as a possible successor to his nephew,
the childless King of Spain, actually had signed the Spanish
Constitution in order to preserve his own contingent rights to
that crown. What Ferdinand had accepted as Infante of Spain he
might well accept as King of Naples. The cry was therefore for
the immediate proclamation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812.
The court yielded, and the Duke of Calabria, as viceroy,
published an edict making this Constitution the law of the
kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But the tumult continued, for deceit
was still feared, until the edict appeared again, signed by the
King himself. Then all was rejoicing. Pepe, at the head of a
large body of troops, militia and Carbonari, made a triumphal
entry into the city, and, in company with Morelli and other
leaders of the military rebellion, was hypocritically thanked by
the Viceroy for his services to the nation. On the 13th of July
the King, a hale but venerable-looking man of seventy, took the
oath to the Constitution before the altar in the royal chapel.
The form of words had been written out for him; but Ferdinand was
fond of theatrical acts of religion, and did not content himself
with reading certain solemn phrases. Raising his eyes to the
crucifix above the altar, he uttered aloud a prayer that if the
oath was not sincerely taken the vengeance of God might fall upon
his head. Then, after blessing and embracing his sons, the
venerable monarch wrote to the Emperor of Austria, protesting
that all that he did was done under constraint, and that his
obligations were null and void. <a name="FNanchor314">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_314"><sup>[314]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Affairs in Portugal, 1807-1820.]</p>
<p>A month more passed, and in a third kingdom absolute
government fell before the combined action of soldiers and
people. The Court of Lisbon had migrated to Brazil in 1807, when
the troops of Napoleon first appeared upon the Tagus, and
Portugal had since then been governed by a Regency, acting in the
name of the absent Sovereign. The events of the Peninsular War
had reduced Portugal almost to the condition of a dependency of
Great Britain. Marshal Beresford, the English commander-in-chief
of its army, kept his post when the war was over, and with him
there remained a great number of English officers who had led the
Portuguese regiments in Wellington's campaigns. The presence of
these English soldiers was unwelcome, and commercial rivalry
embittered the natural feeling of impatience towards an ally who
remained as master rather than guest. Up to the year 1807 the
entire trade with Brazil had been confined by law to Portuguese
merchants; when, however, the Court had established itself beyond
the Atlantic, it had opened the ports of Brazil to British ships,
in return for the assistance given by our own country against
Napoleon. Both England and Brazil profited by the new commerce,
but the Portuguese traders, who had of old had the monopoly, were
ruined. The change in the seat of government was in fact seen to
be nothing less than a reversal of the old relations between the
European country and its colony. Hitherto Brazil had been
governed in the interests of Portugal; but with a Sovereign fixed
at Rio Janeiro, it was almost inevitable that Portugal should be
governed in the interests of Brazil. Declining trade, the misery
and impoverishment resulting from a long war, resentment against
a Court which could not be induced to return to the kingdom and
against a foreigner who could not be induced to quit it, filled
the army and all classes in the nation with discontent.
Conspiracies were discovered as early as 1817, and the
conspirators punished with all the barbarous ferocity of the
Middle Ages. Beresford, who had not sufficient tact to prevent
the execution of a sentence ordering twelve persons to be
strangled, beheaded, and then burnt in the streets of Lisbon,
found, during the two succeeding years, that the state of the
country was becoming worse and worse. In the spring of 1820, when
the Spanish revolution had made some change in the neighbouring
kingdom, either for good or evil, inevitable, Beresford set out
for Rio Janeiro, intending to acquaint the King with the real
condition of affairs, and to use his personal efforts in
hastening the return of the Court to Lisbon. Before he could
recross the Atlantic, the Government which he left behind him at
Lisbon had fallen.</p>
<p>[Revolution at Oporto, August 1820.]</p>
<p>The grievances of the Portuguese army made it the natural
centre of disaffection, but the military conspirators had their
friends among all classes. On the 24th of August, 1820, the
signal of revolt was given at Oporto. Priests and magistrates, as
well as the town-population, united with officers of the army in
declaring against the Regency, and in establishing a provisional
Junta, charged with the duty of carrying on the government in the
name of the King until the Cortes should assemble and frame a
Constitution. No resistance was offered by any of the civil or
military authorities at Oporto. The Junta entered upon its
functions, and began by dismissing all English officers, and
making up the arrears of pay due to the soldiers. As soon as the
news of the revolt reached Lisbon, the Regency itself volunteered
to summon the Cortes, and attempted to conciliate the remainder
of the army by imitating the measures of the Junta of Oporto. <a
name="FNanchor315">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_315"><sup>[315]</sup></a> The troops, however,
declined to act against their comrades, and on the 15th of
September the Regency was deposed, and a provisional Junta
installed in the capital. Beresford, who now returned from
Brazil, was forbidden to set foot on Portuguese soil. The two
rival governing-committees of Lisbon and Oporto coalesced; and
after an interval of confusion the elections to the Cortes were
held, resulting in the return of a body of men whose loyalty to
the Crown was not impaired by their hostility to the Regency. The
King, when the first tidings of the constitutional movement
reached Brazil, gave a qualified consent to the summoning of the
Cortes which was announced by the Regency, and promised to return
to Europe. Beresford, continuing his voyage to England without
landing at Lisbon, found that the Government of this country had
no disposition to interfere with the domestic affairs of its
ally.</p>
<p>[Alexander proposes joint action with regard to Spain, April,
1820.]</p>
<p>It was the boast of the Spanish and Italian Liberals that the
revolutions effected in 1820 were undisgraced by the scenes of
outrage which had followed the capture of the Bastille and the
overthrow of French absolutism thirty years before. <a name=
"FNanchor316">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_316"><sup>[316]</sup></a>
The gentler character of these southern movements proved,
however, no extenuation in the eyes of the leading statesmen of
Europe: on the contrary, the declaration of soldiers in favour of
a Constitution seemed in some quarters more ominous of evil than
any excess of popular violence. The alarm was first sounded at
St. Petersburg. As soon as the Czar heard of Riego's proceedings
at Cadiz, he began to meditate intervention; and when it was
known that Ferdinand had been forced to accept the Constitution
of 1812, he ordered his ambassadors to propose that all the Great
Powers, acting through their Ministers at Paris, should address a
remonstrance to the representative of Spain, requiring the Cortes
to disavow the crime of the 8th of March, by which they had been
called into being, and to offer a pledge of obedience to their
King by enacting the most rigorous laws against sedition and
revolt. <a name="FNanchor317">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_317"><sup>[317]</sup></a> In that case, and in that
alone, the Czar desired to add, would the Powers maintain their
relations of confidence and amity with Spain.</p>
<p>[England prevents joint diplomatic intervention.]</p>
<p>This Russian proposal was viewed with some suspicion at
Vienna; it was answered with a direct and energetic negative from
London. Canning was still in the Ministry. The words with which
in 1818 he had protested against a league between England and
autocracy were still ringing in the ears of his colleagues. Lord
Liverpool's Government knew itself to be unpopular in the
country; every consideration of policy as well as of
self-interest bade it resist the beginnings of an intervention
which, if confined to words, was certain to be useless, and, if
supported by action, was likely to end in that alliance between
France and Russia which had been the nightmare of English
statesmen ever since 1814, and in a second occupation of Spain by
the very generals whom Wellington had spent so many years in
dislodging. Castlereagh replied to the Czar's note in terms which
made it clear that England would never give its sanction to a
collective interference with Spain. <a name="FNanchor318">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_318"><sup>[318]</sup></a> Richelieu, the nominal
head of the French Government, felt too little confidence in his
position to act without the concurrence of Great Britain; and the
crusade of absolutism against Spanish liberty was in consequence
postponed until the victory of the Ultra-Royalists at Paris was
complete, and the overthrow of Richelieu had brought to the head
of the French State a group of men who felt no scruple in
entering upon an aggressive war.</p>
<p>[Naples and the Great Powers.]</p>
<p>[Austria.]</p>
<p>[England admits Austrian but not joint intervention.]</p>
<p>But the shelter of circumstances which for a while protected
Spain from the foreigner did not extend to Italy, when in its
turn the Neapolitan revolution called a northern enemy into the
field. Though the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was in itself much
less important than Spain, the established order of the Continent
was more directly threatened by a change in its government. No
European State was exposed to the same danger from a revolution
in Madrid as Austria from a revolution in Naples. The Czar had
invoked the action of the Courts against Spain, not because his
own dominions were in peril, but because the principle of
monarchical right was violated: with Austria the danger pressed
nearer home. The establishment of constitutional liberty in
Naples was almost certain to be followed by an insurrection in
the Papal States and a national uprising in the Venetian
provinces; and among all the bad results of Austria's false
position in Italy, one of the worst was that in self-defence it
was bound to resist every step made towards political liberty
beyond its own frontier. The dismay with which Metternich heard
of the collapse of absolute government at Naples <a name=
"FNanchor319">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_319"><sup>[319]</sup></a>
was understood and even shared by the English Ministry, who at
this moment were deprived of their best guide by Canning's
withdrawal. Austria, in peace just as much as in war, had
uniformly been held to be the natural ally of England against the
two aggressive Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. It seemed
perfectly right and natural to Lord Castlereagh that Austria,
when its own interests were endangered by the establishment of
popular sovereignty at Naples, should intervene to restore King
Ferdinand's power; the more so as the secret treaty of 1815, by
which Metternich had bound this sovereign to maintain absolute
monarchy, had been communicated to the ambassador of Great
Britain, and had received his approval. But the right to
intervene in Italy belonged, according to Lord Castlereagh, to
Austria alone. The Sovereigns of Europe had no more claim, as a
body, to interfere with Naples than they had to interfere with
Spain. Therefore, while the English Government sanctioned and
even desired the intervention of Austria, as a State acting in
protection of its own interests against revolution in a
neighbouring country, it refused to sanction any joint
intervention of the European Powers, and declared itself opposed
to the meeting of a Congress where any such intervention might be
discussed. <a name="FNanchor320">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_320"><sup>[320]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Conference at Troppau, Oct. 1820.]</p>
<p>Had Metternich been free to follow his own impulses, he would
have thrown an army into Southern Italy as soon as soldiers and
stores could be collected, and have made an end of King
Ferdinand's troubles forthwith. It was, however, impossible for
him to disregard the wishes of the Czar, and to abandon all at
once the system of corporate action, which was supposed to have
done such great things for Europe. <a name="FNanchor321">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_321"><sup>[321]</sup></a> A meeting of sovereigns
and Ministers was accordingly arranged, and at the end of October
the Emperor of Austria received the Czar and King Frederick
William in the little town of Troppau, in Moravia. France had
itself first recommended the summoning of a Congress to deal with
Neapolitan affairs, and it was believed for a while that England
would be isolated in its resistance to a joint intervention. But
before the Congress assembled, the firm language of the English
Ministry had drawn Richelieu over to its side; <a name=
"FNanchor322">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_322"><sup>[322]</sup></a>
and although one of the two French envoys made himself the agent
of the Ultra-Royalist faction, it was not possible for him to
unite his country with the three Eastern Courts. France, through
the weakness of its Government and the dissension between its
representatives, counted for nothing at the Congress. England
sent its ambassador from Vienna, but with instructions to act as
an observer and little more; and in consequence the meeting at
Troppau resolved itself into a gathering of the three Eastern
autocrats and their Ministers. As Prussia had ceased to have any
independent foreign policy whatever, Metternich needed only to
make certain of the support of the Czar in order to range on his
side the entire force of eastern and central Europe in the
restoration of Neapolitan despotism.</p>
<p>[Contest between Metternich and Capodistrias.]</p>
<p>[Circular of Troppau, Dec. 8, 1820.]</p>
<p>[The principle of intervention laid down by three Courts.]</p>
<p>The plan of the Austrian statesman was not, however, to be
realised without some effort. Alexander had watched with jealousy
Metternich's recent assumption of a dictatorship over the minor
German Courts; he had never admitted Austria's right to dominate
in Italy; and even now some vestiges of his old attachment to
liberal theories made him look for a better solution of the
Neapolitan problem than in that restoration of despotism pure and
simple which Austria desired. While condemning every attempt of a
people to establish its own liberties, Alexander still believed
that in some countries sovereigns would do well to make their
subjects a grant of what he called sage and liberal institutions.
It would have pleased him best if the Neapolitans could have been
induced by peaceful means to abandon their Constitution, and to
accept in return certain chartered rights as a gift from their
King; and the concurrence of the two Western Powers might in this
case possibly have been regained. This project of a compromise,
by which Ferdinand would have been freed from his secret
engagement with Austria, was exactly what Metternich desired to
frustrate. He found himself matched, and not for the first time,
against a statesman who was even more subtle than himself. This
was Count Capodistrias, a Greek who from a private position had
risen to be Foreign Minister of Russia, and was destined to
become the first sovereign, in reality if not in title, of his
native land. Capodistrias, the sympathetic partner of the Czar's
earlier hopes, had not travelled so fast as his master along the
reactionary road. He still represented what had been the Italian
policy of Alexander some years before, and sought to prevent the
re-establishment of absolute rule at Naples, at least by the
armed intervention of Austria. Metternich's first object was to
discredit the Minister in the eyes of his sovereign. It is said
that he touched the Czar's keenest fears in a conversation
relating to a mutiny that had just taken place among the troops
at St. Petersburg, and so in one private interview cut the ground
from under Capodistrias' feet; he also humoured the Czar by
reviving that monarch's own favourite scheme for a mutual
guarantee of all the Powers against revolution in any part of
Europe. Alexander had proposed in 1818 that the Courts should
declare resistance to authority in any country to be a violation
of European peace, entitling the Allied Powers, if they should
think fit, to suppress it by force of arms. This doctrine, which
would have empowered the Czar to throw the armies of a coalition
upon London if the Reform Bill had been carried by force, had
hitherto failed to gain international acceptance owing to the
opposition of Great Britain. It was now formally accepted by
Austria and Prussia. Alexander saw the federative system of
European monarchy, with its principle of collective intervention,
recognised as an established fact by at least three of the great
Powers; <a name="FNanchor323">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_323"><sup>[323]</sup></a> and in return he permitted
Metternich to lay down the lines which, in the case of Naples,
this intervention should follow. It was determined to invite King
Ferdinand to meet his brother-sovereigns at Laibach, in the
Austrian province of Carniola, and through him to address a
summons to the Neapolitan people, requiring them, in the name of
the three Powers, and under threat of invasion, to abandon their
Constitution. This determination was announced, as a settled
matter, to the envoys of England and France; and a circular was
issued from Troppau by the three Powers to all the Courts of
Europe (Dec. 8), embodying the doctrine of federative
intervention, and expressing a hope that England and France would
approve its immediate application in the case of Naples. <a name=
"FNanchor324">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_324"><sup>[324]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Protest of England.]</p>
<p>There was no ground whatever for this hope with regard to
England. On the contrary, in proportion as the three Courts
strengthened their union and insisted on their claim to joint
jurisdiction over Europe, they drove England away from them. Lord
Castlereagh had at first promised the moral support of this
country to Austria in its enterprise against Naples; but when
this enterprise ceased to be the affair of Austria alone, and
became part of the police-system of the three despotisms, it was
no longer possible for the English Government to view it with
approval or even with silence. The promise of a moral support was
withdrawn: England declared that it stood strictly neutral with
regard to Naples, and protested against the doctrine contained in
the Troppau circular, that a change of government in any State
gave the Allied Powers the right to intervene. <a name=
"FNanchor325">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_325"><sup>[325]</sup></a></p>
<p>France made no such protest; but it was still hoped at Paris
that an Austrian invasion of Southern Italy, so irritating to
French pride, might be averted. King Louis XVIII. endeavoured,
but in vain, to act the part of mediator, and to reconcile the
Neapolitan House of Bourbon at once with its own subjects and
with the Northern Powers.</p>
<p>[Conference at Laibach, Jan., 1821.]</p>
<p>The summons went out from the Congress to King Ferdinand to
appear at Laibach. It found him enjoying all the popularity of a
constitutional King, surrounded by Ministers who had governed
under Murat, exchanging compliments with a democratic Parliament,
lavishing distinctions upon the men who had overthrown his
authority, and swearing to everything that was set before him. As
the Constitution prohibited the King from leaving the country
without the consent of the Legislature, it was necessary for
Ferdinand to communicate to Parliament the invitation which he
had received from the Powers, and to take a vote of the Assembly
on the subject of his journey. Ferdinand's Ministers possessed
some political experience; they recognised that it would be
impossible to maintain the existing Constitution against the
hostility of three great States, and hoped that the Parliament
would consent to Ferdinand's departure on condition that he
pledged himself to uphold certain specified principles of free
government. A message to the Assembly was accordingly made
public, in which the King expressed his desire to mediate with
the Powers on this basis. But the Ministers had not reckoned with
the passions of the people. As soon as it became known that
Ferdinand was about to set out, the leaders of the Carbonari
mustered their bands. A host of violent men streamed into Naples
from the surrounding country. The Parliament was intimidated, and
Ferdinand was prohibited from leaving Naples until he had sworn
to maintain the Constitution actually in force, that, namely,
which Naples had borrowed from Spain. Ferdinand, whose only
object was to escape from the country as quickly as possible,
took the oath with his usual effusions of patriotism. He then set
out for Leghorn, intending to cross from thence into Northern
Italy. No sooner had he reached the Tuscan port than he addressed
a letter to each of the five principal sovereigns of Europe,
declaring that his last acts were just as much null and void as
all his earlier ones. He made no attempt to justify, or to
excuse, or even to explain his conduct; nor is there the least
reason to suppose that he considered the perjuries of a prince to
require a justification. "These sorry protests," wrote the
secretary of the Congress of Troppau, "will happily remain
secret. No Cabinet will be anxious to draw them from the
sepulchre of its archives. Till then there is not much harm
done."</p>
<p>[Ferdinand at Laibach.]</p>
<p>[Demands of the Allies on Naples.]</p>
<p>Ferdinand reached Laibach, where the Czar rewarded him for the
fatigues of his journey by a present of some Russian bears. His
arrival was peculiarly agreeable to Metternich, whose intentions
corresponded exactly with his own; and the fact that he had been
compelled to swear to maintain the Spanish Constitution at Naples
acted favourably for the Austrian Minister, inasmuch as it
enabled him to say to all the world that negotiation was now out
of the question. <a name="FNanchor326">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_326"><sup>[326]</sup></a> Capodistrias, brought face
to face with failure, twisted about, according to his rival's
expression, like a devil in holy water, but all in vain. It was
decided that Ferdinand should be restored as absolute monarch by
an Austrian army, and that, whether the Neapolitans resisted or
submitted, their country should be occupied by Austrian troops
for some years to come. The only difficulty remaining was to vest
King Ferdinand's conduct in some respectable disguise.
Capodistrias, when nothing else was to be gained, offered to
invent an entire correspondence, in which Ferdinand should
proudly uphold the Constitution to which he had sworn, and
protest against the determination of the Powers to force the
sceptre of absolutism back into his hand. <a name=
"FNanchor327">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_327"><sup>[327]</sup></a>
This device, however, was thought too transparent. A letter was
sent in the King's name to his son, the Duke of Calabria, stating
that he had found the three Powers determined not to tolerate an
order of things sprung from revolution; that submission alone
would avert war; but that even in case of submission certain
securities for order, meaning the occupation of the country by an
Austrian army, would be exacted. The letter concluded with the
usual promises of reform and good government. It reached Naples
on the 9th of February, 1821. No answer was either expected or
desired. On the 6th the order had been given to the Austrian army
to cross the Po.</p>
<p>[State of Naples and Sicily.]</p>
<p>[The Austrians enter Naples, March 24, 1821.]</p>
<p>[Third Neapolitan restoration.]</p>
<p>There was little reason to fear any serious resistance on the
part of the Neapolitans. The administration of the State was
thoroughly disorganised; the agitation of the secret societies
had destroyed all spirit of obedience among the soldiers; a great
part of the army was absent in Sicily, keeping guard over a
people who, under wiser management, might have doubled the force
which Naples now opposed to the invader. When the despotic
government of Ferdinand was overthrown, the island of Sicily, or
that part of it which was represented by Palermo, had claimed the
separate political existence which it had possessed between 1806
and 1815, offering to remain united to Naples in the person of
the sovereign, but demanding a National Parliament and a National
Constitution of its own. The revolutionary Ministers of Naples
had, however, no more sympathy with the wishes of the Sicilians
than the Spanish Liberals of 1812 had with those of the American
Colonists. They required the islanders to accept the same rights
and duties as any other province of the Neapolitan kingdom, and,
on their refusal, sent over a considerable force and laid siege
to <a name="FNanchor328">Palermo.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_328"><sup>[328]</sup></a> The contest soon ended in
the submission of the Sicilians, but it was found necessary to
keep twelve thousand troops on the island in order to prevent a
new revolt. The whole regular army of Naples numbered little more
than forty thousand; and although bodies of Carbonari and of the
so-called Militia set out to join the colours of General Pepe and
to fight for liberty, they remained for the most part a
disorderly mob, without either arms or discipline. The invading
army of Austria, fifty thousand strong, not only possessed an
immense superiority in organisation and military spirit, but
actually outnumbered the forces of the defence. At the first
encounter, which took place at Rieti, in the Papal States, the
Neapolitans were put to the rout. Their army melted away, as it
had in Murat's campaign in 1815. Nothing was heard among officers
and men but accusations of treachery; not a single strong point
was defended; and on the 24th of March the Austrians made their
entry into Naples. Ferdinand, halting at Florence, sent on before
him the worst instruments of his former despotism. It was indeed
impossible for these men to renew, under Austrian protection, the
scenes of reckless bloodshed which had followed the restoration
of 1799; and a great number of compromised persons had already
been provided with the means of escape. But the hand of vengeance
was not easily stayed. Courts-martial and commissions of judges
began in all parts of the kingdom to sentence to imprisonment and
death. An attempted insurrection in Sicily and some desperate
acts of rebellion in Southern Italy cost the principal actors
their lives; and when an amnesty was at length proclaimed, an
exception was made against those who were now called the
deserters, and who were lately called the Sacred Band, of Nola,
that is to say, the soldiers who had first risen for the
Constitution. Morelli, who had received the Viceroy's treacherous
thanks for his conduct, was executed, along with one of his
companions; the rest were sent in chains to labour among felons.
Hundreds of persons were left lying, condemned or uncondemned, in
prison; others, in spite of the amnesty, were driven from their
native land; and that great, long-lasting stream of fugitives now
began to pour into England, which, in the early memories of many
who are not yet old, has associated the name of Italian with the
image of an exile and a sufferer.</p>
<p>[Insurrection in Piedmont, March 10.]</p>
<p>There was a moment in the campaign of Austria against Naples
when the invading army was threatened with the most serious
danger. An insurrection broke out in Piedmont, and the troops of
that country attempted to unite with the patriotic party of
Lombardy in a movement which would have thrown all Northern Italy
upon the rear of the Austrians. In the first excess of alarm, the
Czar ordered a hundred thousand Russians to cross the Galician
frontier, and to march in the direction of the Adriatic. It
proved unnecessary, however, to continue this advance. The
Piedmontese army was divided against itself; part proclaimed the
Spanish Constitution, and, on the abdication of the King, called
upon his cousin, the Regent, Charles Albert of Carignano, to
march against the Austrians; part adhered to the rightful heir,
the King's brother, Charles Felix, who was absent at Modena, and
who, with an honesty in strong contrast to the frauds of the
Neapolitan Court, refused to temporise with rebels, or to make
any compromise with the Constitution. The scruples of the Prince
of Carignano, after he had gone some way with the military party
of action, paralysed the movement of Northern Italy. Unsupported
by Piedmontese troops, the conspirators of Milan failed to raise
any open insurrection. Austrian soldiers thronged westwards from
the Venetian fortresses, and entered Piedmont itself; the
collapse of the Neapolitan army destroyed the hopes of the
bravest patriots; and the only result of the Piedmontese movement
was that the grasp of Austria closed more tightly on its subject
provinces, while the martyrs of Italian freedom passed out of the
sight of the world, out of the range of all human communication,
buried for years to come in the silent, unvisited prison of the
North. <a name="FNanchor329">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_329"><sup>[329]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The French Ultra Royalists urging attack on Spain.]</p>
<p>Thus the victory of absolutism was completed, and the law was
laid down to Europe that a people seeking its liberties elsewhere
than in the grace and spontaneous generosity of its legitimate
sovereign became a fit object of attack for the armies of the
three Great Powers. It will be seen in a later chapter how
Metternich persuaded the Czar to include under the anathema
issued by the Congress of Laibach (May, 1821) <a name=
"FNanchor330">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_330"><sup>[330]</sup></a>
the outbreak of the Greeks, which at this moment began, and how
Lord Castlereagh supported the Austrian Minister in denying to
these rebels against the Sultan all right or claim to the
consideration of Europe. Spain was for the present left
unmolested; but the military operations of 1821 prepared the way
for a similar crusade against that country by occasioning the
downfall of Richelieu's Ministry, and throwing the government of
France entirely into the hands of the Ultra-Royalists. All
parties in the French Chamber, whether they condemned or approved
the suppression of Neapolitan liberty, censured a policy which
had kept France in inaction, and made Austria supreme in Italy.
The Ultra-Royalists profited by the general discontent to
overthrow the Minister whom they had promised to support (Dec.,
1821); and from this time a war with Spain, conducted either by
France alone or in combination with the three Eastern Powers,
became the dearest hope of the rank and file of the dominant
faction. Vill&egrave;le, their nominal chief, remained what he
had been before, a statesman among fanatics, and desired to
maintain the attitude of observation as long as this should be
possible. A body of troops had been stationed on the southern
frontier in 1820 to prevent all intercourse with the Spanish
districts afflicted with the yellow fever. This epidemic had
passed away, but the number of the troops was now raised to a
hundred thousand. It was, however, the hope of Vill&egrave;le
that hostilities might be averted unless the Spaniards should
themselves provoke a combat, or, by resorting to extreme measures
against King Ferdinand, should compel Louis XVIII. to intervene
on behalf of his kinsman. The more violent section of the French
Cabinet, represented by Montmorency, the Foreign Minister, called
for an immediate march on Madrid, or proposed to delay operations
only until France should secure the support of the other
Continental Powers.</p>
<p>[Spain from 1820 to 1822.]</p>
<p>[Ferdinand plots with the Serviles against the
Constitution.]</p>
<p>The condition of Spain in the year 1822 gave ample
encouragement to those who longed to employ the arms of France in
the royalist cause. The hopes of peaceful reform, which for the
first few months after the revolution had been shared even by
foreign politicians at Madrid, had long vanished. In the moment
of popular victory Ferdinand had brought the leaders of the
Cortes from their prisons and placed them in office. These men
showed a dignified forgetfulness of the injuries which they had
suffered. Misfortune had calmed their impetuosity, and taught
them more of the real condition of the Spanish people. They
entered upon their task with seriousness and good faith, and
would have proved the best friends of constitutional monarchy if
Ferdinand had had the least intention of co-operating with them
loyally. But they found themselves encountered from the first by
a double enemy. The clergy, who had overthrown the Constitution
six years before, intrigued or openly declared against it as soon
as it was revived; the more violent of the Liberals, with Riego
at their head, abandoned themselves to extravagances like those
of the club-orators of Paris in 1791, and did their best to make
any peaceable administration impossible. After combating these
anarchists, or Exaltados, with some success, the Ministry was
forced to call in their aid, when, at the instigation of the
Papal Nuncio, the King placed his veto upon a law dissolving most
of the monasteries <a name="FNanchor331">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_331"><sup>[331]</sup></a> (Oct., 1820). Ferdinand now
openly combined with the enemies of the Constitution, and
attempted to transfer the command of the army to one of his own
agents. The plot failed; the Ministry sent the alarm over the
whole country, and Ferdinand stood convicted before his people as
a conspirator against the Constitution which he had sworn to
defend. The agitation of the clubs, which the Ministry had
hitherto suppressed, broke out anew. A storm of accusations
assailed Ferdinand himself. He was compelled at the end of the
year 1820 to banish from Madrid most of the persons who had been
his confidants; and although his dethronement was not yet
proposed, he had already become, far more than Louis XVI. of
France under similar conditions, the recognised enemy of the
revolution, and the suspected patron of every treason against the
nation.</p>
<p>[The Ministry between the Exaltados and Serviles, 1821.]</p>
<p>[Attempted coup d'&eacute;tat, July 6, 1822.]</p>
<p>[Royalists revolt in the north.]</p>
<p>The attack of the despotic Courts on Naples in the spring of
1821 heightened the fury of parties in Spain, encouraging the
Serviles, or Absolutists, in their plots, and forcing the
Ministry to yield to the cry for more violent measures against
the enemies of the Constitution. In the south of Spain the
Exaltados gained possession of the principal military and civil
commands, and openly refused obedience to the central
administration when it attempted to interfere with their action
Seville, Carthagena, and Cadiz acted as if they were independent
Republics and even spoke of separation from Spain. Defied by its
own subordinates in the provinces, and unable to look to the King
for any sincere support, the moderate governing party lost all
hold upon the nation. In the Cortes elected in 1822 the Exaltados
formed the majority, and Riego was appointed President. Ferdinand
now began to concert measures of action with the French
Ultra-Royalists. The Serviles, led by priests, and supported by
French money, broke into open rebellion in the north. When the
session of the Cortes ended, the King attempted to overthrow his
enemies by military force. Three battalions of the Royal Guard,
which had been withdrawn from Madrid, received secret orders to
march upon the capital (July 6, 1822), where Ferdinand was
expected to place himself at their head. They were, however, met
and defeated in the streets by other regiments, and Ferdinand,
vainly attempting to dissociate himself from the action of his
partisans, found his crown, if not his life, in peril. He wrote
to Louis XVIII. that he was a prisoner. Though the French King
gave nothing more than good counsel, the Ultra-Royalists in the
French Cabinet and in the army now strained every nerve to
accelerate a war between the two countries. The Spanish
Absolutists seized the town of Seo d'Urgel, and there set up a
provisional government. Civil war spread over the northern
provinces. The Ministry, which was now formed of Riego's friends,
demanded and obtained from the Cortes dictatorial powers like
those which the French Committee of Public Safety had wielded in
1793, but with far other result. Spain found no Danton, no
Carnot, at this crisis, when the very highest powers of intellect
and will would have been necessary to arouse and to arm a people
far less disposed to fight for liberty than the French were in
1793. One man alone, General Mina, checked and overthrew the
rebel leaders of the north with an activity superior to their
own. The Government, boastful and violent in its measures,
effected scarcely anything in the organisation of a national
force, or in preparing the means of resistance against those
foreign armies with whose attack the country was now plainly
threatened.</p>
<p>[England and the Congress of 1822.]</p>
<p>When the Congress of Laibach broke up in the spring of 1821.
its members determined to renew their meeting in the following
year, in order to decide whether the Austrian army might then be
withdrawn from Naples, and to discuss other questions affecting
their common interests. The progress of the Greek insurrection
and a growing strife between Russia and Turkey had since then
thrown all Italian difficulties into the shade. The Eastern
question stood in the front rank of European politics; next in
importance came the affairs of Spain. It was certain that these,
far more than the occupation of Naples, would supply the real
business of the Congress of 1822. England had a far greater
interest in both questions than in the Italian negotiations of
the two previous years. It was felt that the system of abstention
which England had then followed could be pursued no longer, and
that the country must be represented not by some casual and
wandering diplomatist, but by its leading Minister, Lord
Castlereagh. The intentions of the other Powers in regard to
Spain were matter of doubt; it was the fixed policy of Great
Britain to leave the Spanish revolution in Europe to run its own
course, and to persuade the other Powers to do the same. But the
difficulties connected with Spain did not stop at the Spanish
frontier. The South American colonies had now in great part
secured their independence. They had developed a trade with Great
Britain which made it impossible for this country to ignore their
flag and the decisions of their law courts. The British
navigation-laws had already been modified by Parliament in favour
of their shipping; and although it was no business of the English
Government to grant a formal title to communities which had made
themselves free, the practical recognition of the American States
by the appointment of diplomatic agents could in several cases
not be justly delayed. Therefore, without interfering with any
colonies which were still fighting or still negotiating with
Spain, the British Minister proposed to inform the Allied
cabinets of the intention of this country to accredit agents to
some of the South American Republics, and to recommend to them
the adoption of a similar policy.</p>
<p>[Death of Castlereagh, Aug. 12, 1822.]</p>
<p>Such was the tenour of the instructions which, a few weeks
before his expected departure for the Continent, Castlereagh drew
up for his own guidance, and submitted to the Cabinet and the
King. <a name="FNanchor332">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_332"><sup>[332]</sup></a> Had he lived to fulfil the
mission with which he was charged, the recognition of the South
American Republics, which adds so bright a ray to the fame of
Canning, would probably have been the work of the man who, more
than any other, is associated in popular belief with the
traditions of a hated and outworn system of oppression. Two more
years of life, two more years of change in the relations of
England to the Continent, would have given Castlereagh a
different figure in the history both of Greece and of America. No
English statesman in modern times has been so severely judged.
Circumstances, down to the close of his career, withheld from
Castlereagh the opportunities which fell to his successor; ties
from which others were free made it hard for him to accelerate
the breach with the Allies of 1814. Antagonists showed
Castlereagh no mercy, no justice. The man whom Byron disgraced
himself by ridiculing after his death possessed in a rich measure
the qualities which, in private life, attract esteem and love.
His public life, if tainted in earlier days by the low political
morality of the time, rose high above that of every Continental
statesman of similar rank, with the single exception of Stein.
The best testimony to his integrity is the irritation which it
caused to Talleyrand. <a name="FNanchor333">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_333"><sup>[333]</sup></a> If the consciousness of
labour unflaggingly pursued in the public cause, and animated on
the whole by a pure and earnest purpose, could have calmed the
distress of a breaking mind, the decline of Castlereagh's days
might have been one of peace. His countrymen would have
recognised that, if blind to the rights of nations, Castlereagh
had set to foreign rulers the example of truth and good faith.
But the burden of his life was too heavy to bear. Mists of
despondency obscured the outlines of the real world, and struck
chill into his heart. Death, self-invoked, brought relief to the
over-wrought brain, and laid Castlereagh, with all his cares, in
everlasting sleep.</p>
<p>[Canning Foreign Secretary. Wellington deputed to the
Congress, Sept., 1822.]</p>
<p>[Congress of Verona, Oct., 1822.]</p>
<p>The vacant post was filled by Canning, by far the most gifted
of the band of statesmen who had begun their public life in the
school of Pitt. Wellington undertook to represent England at the
Congress of 1822, which was now about to open at Vienna. His
departure was, however, delayed for several weeks, and the
preliminary meeting, at which it had been intended to transact
all business not relating to Italy, was almost over before his
arrival. Wellington accordingly travelled on to Verona, where
Italian affairs were to be dealt with; and the Italian
Conference, which the British Government had not intended to
recognise, thus became the real Congress of 1822. Anxious as Lord
Castlereagh had been on the question of foreign interference with
Spain, he hardly understood the imminence of the danger. In
passing through Paris, Wellington learnt for the first time that
a French or European invasion of Spain would be the foremost
object of discussion among the Powers; and on reaching Verona he
made the unwelcome discovery that the Czar was bent upon sending
a Russian army to take part, as the mandatary of Europe, in
overthrowing the Spanish Constitution. Alexander's desire was to
obtain a joint declaration from the Congress like that which had
been issued against Naples by the three Courts at Troppau, but
one even more formidable, since France might be expected in the
present case to give its concurrence, which had been withheld
before. France indeed occupied, according to the absolutist
theory of the day, the same position in regard to a Jacobin Spain
as Austria in regard to a Jacobin Naples, and might perhaps claim
to play the leading military part in the crusade of repression.
But the work was likely to be a much more difficult one than that
of 1821. The French troops, said the Czar, were not trustworthy;
and there was a party in France which might take advantage of the
war to proclaim the second Napoleon or the Republic. King Louis
XVIII. could not therefore be allowed to grapple with Spain
alone. It was necessary that the principal force employed by the
alliance should be one whose loyalty and military qualities were
above suspicion: the generals who had marched from Moscow to
Paris were not likely to fail beyond the Pyrenees: and a campaign
of the Russian army in Western Europe promised to relieve the
Czar of some of the discontent of his soldiers, who had been
turned back after entering Galicia in the previous year, and who
had not been allowed to assist their fellow-believers in Greece
in their struggle against the Sultan. <a name=
"FNanchor334">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_334"><sup>[334]</sup></a></p>
<p>[No joint declaration by made by the Congress against
Spain.]</p>
<p>Wellington had ascertained, while in Paris, that King Louis
XVIII. and Vill&egrave;le were determined under no circumstances
to give Russian troops a passage through France. His knowledge of
this fact enabled him to speak with some confidence to Alexander.
It was the earnest desire of the English Government to avert war,
and its first object was therefore to prevent the Congress, as a
body, from sending an ultimatum to Spain. If all the Powers
united in a declaration like that of Troppau, war was inevitable;
if France were left to settle its own disputes with its
neighbour, English mediation might possibly preserve peace. The
statement of Wellington, that England would rather sever itself
from the great alliance than consent to a joint declaration
against Spain, had no doubt its effect in preventing such a
declaration being proposed; but a still weightier reason against
it was the direct contradiction between the intentions of the
French Government and those of the Czar. If the Czar was
determined to be the soldier of Europe, while on the other hand
King Louis absolutely denied him a passage through France, it was
impossible that the Congress should threaten Spain with a
collective attack. No great expenditure of diplomacy was
therefore necessary to prevent the summary framing of a decree
against Spain like that which had been framed against Naples two
years before. In the first despatches which he sent back to
England Wellington expressed his belief that the deliberations of
the Powers would end in a decision to leave the Spaniards to
themselves.</p>
<p>[Course of the negotiation against Spain.]</p>
<p>But the danger was only averted in appearance. The impulse to
war was too strong among the French Ultra-Royalists for the
Congress to keep silence on Spanish affairs. Vill&egrave;le
indeed still hoped for peace, and, unlike other members of his
Cabinet, he desired that, if war should arise, France should
maintain entire freedom of action, and enter upon the struggle as
an independent Power, not as the instrument of the European
concert. This did not prevent him, however, from desiring to
ascertain what assistance would be forthcoming, if France should
be hard pressed by its enemy. Instructions were given to the
French envoys at Verona to sound the Allies on this question. <a
name="FNanchor335">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_335"><sup>[335]</sup></a> It was out of the inquiry so
suggested that a negotiation sprang which virtually combined all
Europe against Spain. The envoy Montmorency, acting in the spirit
of the war party, demanded of all the Powers whether, in the
event of France withdrawing its ambassador from Madrid, they
would do the same, and whether, in case of war, France would
receive their moral and material support. Wellington in his reply
protested against the framing of hypothetical cases; the other
envoys answered Montmorency's questions in the affirmative. The
next step was taken by Metternich, who urged that certain
definite acts of the Spanish people or Government ought to be
specified as rendering war obligatory on France and its allies,
and also that, with a view of strengthening the Royalist party in
Spain, notes ought to be presented by all the ambassadors at
Madrid, demanding a change in the Constitution. This proposal was
in its turn submitted to Wellington and rejected by him. It was
accepted by the other plenipotentiaries, and the acts of the
Spanish people were specified on which war should necessarily
follow. These were, the commission of any act of violence against
a member of the royal family, the deposition of the King, or an
attempt to change the dynasty. A secret clause was added to the
second part of the agreement, to the effect that if the Spanish
Government made no satisfactory answer to the notes requiring a
change in the Constitution, all the ambassadors should be
immediately withdrawn. A draft of the notes to be presented was
sketched; and Montmorency, who thought that he had probably gone
too far in his stipulations, returned to Paris to submit the
drafts to the King before handing them over to the ambassadors at
Paris for transmission to Madrid.</p>
<p>[Vill&egrave;le and Montmorency.]</p>
<p>[Speech of Louis XVIII., Jan. 27, 1823.]</p>
<p>It was with great dissatisfaction that Vill&egrave;le saw how
his colleague had committed France to the direction of the three
Eastern Powers. There was no likelihood that the Spanish
Government would make the least concession of the kind required,
and in that case France stood pledged, if the action of
Montmorency was ratified, to withdraw its ambassador from Madrid
at once. Vill&egrave;le accordingly addressed himself to the
ambassadors at Paris, asking that the despatch of the notes might
be postponed. No notice was taken of his request: the notes were
despatched forthwith. Roused by this slight, Vill&egrave;le
appealed to the King not to submit to the dictation of foreign
Courts. Louis XVIII. declared in his favour against all the rest
of the Cabinet, and Montmorency had to retire from office. But
the decision of the King meant that he disapproved of the
negotiations of Verona as shackling the movements of France, not
that he had freed himself from the influence of the war-party.
Chateaubriand, the most reckless agitator for hostilities, was
appointed Foreign Minister. The mediation of Great Britain was
rejected; <a name="FNanchor336">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_336"><sup>[336]</sup></a> and in his speech at the
opening of the Chambers of 1823, King Louis himself virtually
published the declaration of war.</p>
<p>[England in 1823.]</p>
<p>[French invasion of Spain, April, 1823.]</p>
<p>The ambassadors of the three Eastern Courts had already
presented their notes at Madrid demanding a change in the
Constitution; and, after receiving a high-spirited answer from
the Ministers, they had quitted the country. Canning, while using
every diplomatic effort to prevent an unjust war, had made it
clear to the Spaniards that England could not render them armed
assistance. The reasons against such an intervention were indeed
overwhelming. Russia, Austria, and Prussia would have taken the
field rather than have permitted the Spanish Constitution to
triumph; and although, if leagued with Spain in a really national
defence like that of 1808, Great Britain might perhaps have
protected the Peninsula against all the Powers of Europe
combined, it was far otherwise when the cause at stake was one to
which a majority of the Spanish nation had shown itself to be
indifferent, and against which the northern provinces had
actually taken up arms. The Government and the Cortes were
therefore left to defend themselves as best they could against
their enemies. They displayed their weakness by enacting laws of
extreme severity against deserters, and by retiring, along with
the recalcitrant King, from Madrid to Seville. On the 7th of
April the French troops, led by the Duke of Angoul&ecirc;me,
crossed the frontier. The priests and a great part of the
peasantry welcomed them as deliverers: the forces opposed to them
fell back without striking a blow. As the invader advanced
towards the capital, gangs of royalists, often led by monks,
spread such terror and devastation over the northern provinces
that the presence of foreign troops became the only safeguard for
the peaceable inhabitants. <a name="FNanchor337">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_337"><sup>[337]</sup></a> Madrid itself was threatened
by the corps of a freebooter named Bessi&egrave;res. The
commandant sent his surrender to the French while they were still
at some distance, begging them to advance as quickly as possible
in order to save the city from pillage. The message had scarcely
been sent when Bessi&egrave;res and his bandits appeared in the
suburbs. The governor drove them back, and kept the royalist mob
within the city at bay for four days more. On the 23rd of May the
advance-guard of the French army entered the capital.</p>
<p>[Angoul&ecirc;me and the Regency, and the ambassadors.]</p>
<p>It had been the desire of King Louis XVIII. and
Angoul&ecirc;me to save Spain from the violence of royalist and
priestly fanaticism. On reaching Madrid, Angoul&ecirc;me intended
to appoint a provisional, government himself; he was, however,
compelled by orders from Paris to leave the election in the hands
of the Council of Castille, and a Regency came into power whose
first acts showed in what spirit the victory of the French was to
be used. Edicts were issued declaring all the acts of the Cortes
affecting the monastic orders to be null and void, dismissing all
officials appointed since March 7, 1820, and subjecting to
examination those who, then being in office, had not resigned
their posts. <a name="FNanchor338">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_338"><sup>[338]</sup></a> The arrival of the
ambassadors of the three Eastern Powers encouraged the Regency in
their antagonism to the French commander. It was believed that
the Cabinet of Paris was unwilling to restore King Ferdinand as
an absolute monarch, and intended to obtain from him the grant of
institutions resembling those of the French Charta. Any such
limitation of absolute power was, however, an object of horror to
the three despotic Courts. Their ambassadors formed themselves
into a council with the express object of resisting the supposed
policy of Angoul&ecirc;me. The Regency grew bolder, and gave the
signal for general retribution upon the Liberals by publishing an
order depriving all persons who had served in the voluntary
militia since March, 1820, of their offices, pensions, and
titles. The work inaugurated in the capital was carried much
further in the provinces. The friends of the Constitution, and
even soldiers who were protected by their capitulation with the
French, were thrown into prison by the new local authorities. The
violence of the reaction reached such a height that
Angoul&ecirc;me, now on the march to Cadiz, was compelled to
publish an ordinance forbidding arrests to be made without the
consent of a French commanding officer, and ordering his generals
to release the persons who had been arbitrarily imprisoned. The
council of ambassadors, blind in their jealousy of France to the
danger of an uncontrolled restoration, drew up a protest against
his ordinance, and desired that the officers of the Regency
should be left to work their will.</p>
<p>[The Cortes at Cadiz.]</p>
<p>[Ferdinand liberated, Oct. 1.]</p>
<p>After spending some weeks in idle debates at Seville, the
Cortes had been compelled by the appearance of the French on the
Sierra Morena to retire to Cadiz. As King Ferdinand refused to
accompany them, he was declared temporarily insane, and forced to
make the journey (June 12). Angoul&ecirc;me, following the French
vanguard after a considerable interval, appeared before Cadiz in
August, and sent a note to King Ferdinand, recommending him to
publish an amnesty, and to promise the restoration of the
medi&aelig;val Cortes. It was hoped that the terms suggested in
this note might be accepted by the Government in Cadiz as a basis
of peace, and so render an attack upon the city unnecessary. The
Ministry, however, returned a defiant answer in the King's name.
The siege of Cadiz accordingly began in earnest. On the 30th of
August the fort of the Trocadero was stormed; three weeks later
the city was bombarded. In reply to all proposals for negotiation
Angoul&ecirc;me stated that he could only treat when King
Ferdinand was within his own lines. There was not the least hope
of prolonging the defence of Cadiz with success, for the combat
was dying out even in those few districts of Spain where the
constitutional troops had fought with energy. Ferdinand himself
pretended that he bore no grudge against his Ministers, and that
the Liberals had nothing to fear from his release. On the 30th of
September he signed, as if with great satisfaction, an absolute
and universal amnesty. <a name="FNanchor339">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_339"><sup>[339]</sup></a> On the following day he was
conveyed with his family across the bay to Angoul&ecirc;me's
head-quarters.</p>
<p>[Violence of the Restoration.]</p>
<p>The war was over: the real results of the French invasion now
came into sight. Ferdinand had not been twelve hours in the
French camp when, surrounded by monks and royalist desperadoes,
he published a proclamation invalidating every act of the
constitutional Government of the last three years, on the ground
that his sanction had been given under constraint. The same
proclamation ratified the acts of the Regency of Madrid. As the
Regency of Madrid had declared all persons concerned in the
removal of the King to Cadiz to be liable to the penalties of
high treason, Ferdinand had in fact ratified a sentence of death
against several of the men from whom he had just parted in
friendship. <a name="FNanchor340">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_340"><sup>[340]</sup></a> Many of these victims of the
King's perfidy were sent into safety by the French. But
Angoul&ecirc;me was powerless to influence Ferdinand's policy and
conduct. Don Saez, the King's confessor, was made First Secretary
of State. On the 4th of October an edict was issued banishing for
ever from Madrid, and from the country fifty miles round it,
every person who during the last three years had sat in the
Cortes, or who had been a Minister, counsellor of State, judge,
commander, official in any public office, magistrate, or officer
in the so-called voluntary militia. It was ordered that
throughout Spain a solemn service should be celebrated in
expiation of the insults offered to the Holy Sacrament; that
missions should be sent over the land to combat the pernicious
and heretical doctrines associated with the late outbreak, and
that the bishops should relegate to monasteries of the strictest
observance the priests who had acted as the agents of an impious
faction. <a name="FNanchor341">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_341"><sup>[341]</sup></a> Thus the war of revenge was
openly declared against the defeated party. It was in vain that
Angoul&ecirc;me indignantly reproached the King, and that the
ambassadors of the three Eastern Courts pressed him to draw up at
least some kind of amnesty. Ferdinand travelled slowly towards
Madrid, saying that he could take no such step until he reached
the capital. On the 7th of November, Riego was hanged. Thousands
of persons were thrown into prison, or compelled to fly from the
country. Except where order was preserved by the French, life and
property were at the mercy of royalist mobs and the priests who
led them; and although the influence of the Russian statesman
Pozzo di Borgo at length brought a respectable Ministry into
office, this only roused the fury of the clerical party, and led
to a cry for the deposition of the King, and for the elevation of
his more fanatical brother, Don Carlos, to the throne. Military
commissions were instituted at the beginning of 1824 for the
trial of accused persons, and a pretended amnesty, published six
months later, included in its fifteen classes of exception the
participators in almost every act of the revolution. Ordinance
followed upon ordinance, multiplying the acts punishable with
death, and exterminating the literature which was believed to be
the source of all religious and social heterodoxy. Every movement
of life was watched by the police; every expression of political
opinion was made high treason. Young men were shot for being
freemasons; women were sent to prison for ten years for
possessing a portrait of Riego. The relation of the restored
Government to its subjects was in fact that which belonged to a
state of civil war. Insurrections arose among the fanatics who
were now taking the name of the Carlist or Apostolic party, as
well as among a despairing remnant of the Constitutionalists.
After a feeble outbreak of the latter at Tarifa, a hundred and
twelve persons were put to death by the military commissions
within eighteen days. <a name="FNanchor342">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_342"><sup>[342]</sup></a> It was not until the summer
of 1825 that the jurisdiction of these tribunals and the Reign of
Terror ended.</p>
<p>[England prohibits the conquest of Spanish colonies by France
or its allies.]</p>
<p>[England recognises the independence of the colonies.
1824-5.]</p>
<p>France had won a cheap and inglorious victory. The three
Eastern Courts had seen their principle of absolutism triumph at
the cost of everything that makes government morally better than
anarchy. One consolation remained for those who felt that there
was little hope for freedom on the Continent of Europe. The
crusade against Spanish liberty had put an end for ever to the
possibility of a joint conquest of Spanish America in the
interest of despotism. The attitude of England was no longer what
it had been in 1818. When the Czar had proposed at the Congress
of Aix-la-Chapelle that the allied monarchs should suppress the
republican principle beyond the seas, Castlereagh had only stated
that England could bear no part in such an enterprise; he had not
said that England would effectually prevent others from
attempting it. This was the resolution by which Canning, isolated
and baffled by the conspiracy of Verona, proved that England
could still do something to protect its own interest and the
interests of mankind against a league of autocrats. There is
indeed little doubt that the independence of the Spanish colonies
would have been recognised by Great Britain soon after the war of
1823, whoever might have been our Minister for Foreign Affairs,
but this recognition was a different matter in the hands of
Canning from what it would have been in the hands of his
predecessor. The contrast between the two men was one of spirit
rather than of avowed rules of action. Where Castlereagh offered
apologies to the Continental sovereigns, Canning uttered defiance
<a name="FNanchor343">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_343"><sup>[343]</sup></a> The treaties of 1815, which
connected England so closely with the foreign courts, were no
work of his; though he sought not to repudiate them, he delighted
to show that in spite of them England has still its own policy,
its own sympathies, its own traditions. In face of the council of
kings and its assumption of universal jurisdiction, he publicly
described himself as an enthusiast for the independence of
nations. If others saw little evidence that France intended to
recompense itself for its services to Ferdinand by appropriating
some of his rebellious colonies, Canning was quick to lay hold of
every suspicious circumstance. At the beginning of the war of
1823 he gave a formal warning to the ambassador of Louis XVIII.
that France would not be permitted to bring any of these
provinces under its dominion, whether by conquest or cession. <a
name="FNanchor344">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_344"><sup>[344]</sup></a> When the war was over, he
rejected the invitation of Ferdinand's Government to take part in
a conference at Paris, where the affairs of South America were to
be laid before the Allied Powers. <a name="FNanchor345">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_345"><sup>[345]</sup></a> What these Powers might
or might not think on the subject of America was now a matter of
indifference, for the policy of England was fixed, and it was
useless to debate upon a conclusion that could not be altered.
British consular agents were appointed in most of the colonies
before the close of the year 1823; and after some interval the
independence of Buenos Ayres, Colombia, and Mexico were formally
recognised by the conclusion of commercial treaties. "I called
the New World into existence," cried Canning, when reproached
with permitting the French occupation of Spain, "in order to
redress the balance of the Old." The boast, famous in our
Parliamentary history, has left an erroneous impression of the
part really played by Canning at this crisis. He did not call the
New World into existence; he did not even assist it in winning
independence, as France had assisted the United States fifty
years before; but when this independence had been won, he threw
over it the aegis of Great Britain, declaring that no other
European Power should reimpose the yoke which Spain had not been
able to maintain.</p>
<p>[Affairs in Portugal.]</p>
<p>[Constitution granted by Petro, May, 1826.]</p>
<p>The overthrow of the Spanish Constitution by foreign arms led
to a series of events in Portugal which forced England to a more
direct intervention in the Peninsula than had yet been necessary,
and heightened the conflict that had sprung up between its policy
and that of Continental absolutism. The same parties and the same
passions, political and religious, existed in Portugal as in
Spain, and the enemies of the Constitution found the same support
at foreign Courts. The King of Portugal, John VI., was a weak but
not ill-meaning man; his wife, who was a sister of Ferdinand of
Spain, and his son Don Miguel were the chiefs of the conspiracy
against the Cortes. In June, 1823, a military revolt, arranged by
Miguel, brought the existing form of government to an end: the
King promised, however, when dissolving the Cortes, that a
Constitution should be bestowed by himself upon Portugal; and he
seems to have intended to keep his word. The ambassadors of
France and Austria were, however, busy in throwing hindrances in
the way, and Don Miguel prepared to use violence to prevent his
father from making any concession to the Liberals. King John, in
fear for his life, applied to England for troops; Canning
declined to land soldiers at Lisbon, but sent a squadron, with
orders to give the King protection. The winter of 1823 was passed
in intrigues; in May, 1824, Miguel arrested the Ministers and
surrounded the King's palace with troops. After several days of
confusion King John made his escape to the British ships, and
Miguel, who was alternately cowardly and audacious, then made his
submission, and was ordered to leave the country. King John died
in the spring of 1826 without having granted a Constitution.
Pedro, his eldest son, had already been made Emperor of Brazil;
and, as it was impossible that Portugal and Brazil could again be
united, it was arranged that Pedro's daughter, when of sufficient
age, should marry her uncle Miguel, and so save Portugal from the
danger of a contested succession. Before renouncing the crown of
Portugal, Pedro granted a Constitution to that country. A Regency
had already been appointed by King John, in which neither the
Queen-dowager nor Miguel was included.</p>
<p>[Desertion of Portuguese soldiery, 1826.]</p>
<p>[Spain permits the deserters to attack Portugal.]</p>
<p>[Canning sends troops to Lisbon, Dec., 1826.]</p>
<p>Miguel had gone to Vienna. Although a sort of Caliban in
character and understanding, this Prince met with the welcome due
to a kinsman of the Imperial house, and to a representative of
the good cause of absolutism. He was received by Metternich with
great interest, and his fortunes were taken under the protection
of the Austrian Court. In due time, it was hoped this savage and
ignorant churl would do yeoman's service to Austrian principles
in the Peninsula. But the Regency and the new Constitution of
Portugal had not to wait for the tardy operation of Metternich's
covert hostility. The soldiery who had risen at Miguel's bidding
in 1823 now proclaimed him King, and deserted to Spanish soil.
Within the Spanish frontier they were received by Ferdinand's
representatives with open arms. The demands made by the
Portuguese ambassador at Madrid for their dispersion and for the
surrender of their weapons were evaded. The cause of these armed
bands on the frontier became the cause of the Clerical and
Ultra-Royalist party over all Europe. Money was sent to them from
France and Austria. They were joined by troops of Spanish
Carlists or Apostolicals; they were fed, clothed, and organised,
if not by the Spanish Government itself, at least by those over
whose action the Spanish Government exercised control. <a name=
"FNanchor346">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_346"><sup>[346]</sup></a>
Thus raised to considerable military strength, they made
incursions into Portugal, and at last attempted a regular
invasion. The Regency of Lisbon, justly treating these outrages
as the act of the Spanish Government, and appealing to the
treaties which bound Great Britain to defend Portugal against
foreign attack, demanded the assistance of this country. More was
involved in the action taken by Canning than a possible contest
with Spain; the seriousness of the danger lay in the fact that
Spain was still occupied by French armies, and that a war with
Spain might, and probably would, involve a war with France, if
not with other Continental Powers. But the English Ministry
waited only for the confirmation of the alleged facts by their
own ambassador. The treaty-rights of Portugal were undoubted; the
temper of the English Parliament and nation, strained to the
utmost by the events of the last three years, was such that a war
against Ferdinand and against the destroyers of Spanish liberty
would have caused more rejoicing than alarm. Nine days after the
formal demand of the Portuguese arrived, four days after their
complaint was substantiated by the report of our ambassador,
Canning announced to the House of Commons that British troops
were actually on the way to Lisbon. In words that alarmed many of
his own party, and roused the bitter indignation of every
Continental Court, Canning warned those whose acts threatened to
force England into war, that the war, if war arose, would be a
war of opinion, and that England, however earnestly she might
endeavour to avoid it, could not avoid seeing ranked under her
banner all the restless and discontented of any nation with which
she might come into conflict. As for the Portuguese Constitution
which formed the real object of the Spanish attack, it had not,
Canning said, been given at the instance of Great Britain, but he
prayed that Heaven might prosper it. It was impossible to doubt
that a Minister who spoke thus, and who, even under expressions
of regret, hinted at any alliance with the revolutionary elements
in France and Spain, was formidably in earnest. The words and the
action of Canning produced the effect which he desired. The
Government of Ferdinand discovered the means of checking the
activity of the Apostolicals: the presence of the British troops
at Lisbon enabled the Portuguese Regency to throw all its forces
upon the invaders and to drive them from the country. They were
disbanded when they re-crossed the Spanish frontier; the French
Court loudly condemned their immoral enterprise; and the
Constitution of Portugal seemed, at least for the moment, to have
triumphed over its open and its secret enemies.</p>
<p>[The policy of Canning.]</p>
<p>The tone of the English Government had indeed changed since
the time when Metternich could express a public hope that the
three Eastern Powers would have the approval of this country in
their attack upon the Constitution of Naples. In 1820 such a
profession might perhaps have passed for a mistake; in 1826 it
would have been a palpable absurdity. Both in England and on the
Continent it was felt that the difference between the earlier and
the later spirit of our policy was summed up in the contrast
between Canning and Castlereagh. It has become an article of
historical faith that Castlereagh's melancholy death brought one
period of our foreign policy to a close and inaugurated another:
it has been said that Canning liberated England from its
Continental connexions; it has even been claimed for him that he
performed for Europe no less a task than the dissolution of the
Holy <a name="FNanchor347">Alliance.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_347"><sup>[347]</sup></a> The figure of Canning is
indeed one that will for ever fill a great space in European
history; and the more that is known of the opposition which he
encountered both from his sovereign and from his great rival
Wellington, the greater must be our admiration for his clear,
strong mind, and for the conquering force of his character. But
the legend which represents English policy as taking an
absolutely new departure in 1822 does not correspond to the truth
of history. Canning was a member of the Cabinet from 1816 to
1820; it is a poor compliment to him to suppose that he either
exercised no influence upon his colleagues or acquiesced in a
policy of which he disapproved; and the history of the Congress
of Aix-la-Chapelle proves that his counsels had even at that time
gained the ascendant. The admission made by Castlereagh in 1820,
after Canning had left the Cabinet, that Austria, as a
neighbouring and endangered State, had a right to suppress the
revolutionary constitution of Naples, would probably not have
gained Canning's assent; in all other points, the action of our
Government at Troppau and Laibach might have been his own.
Canning loved to speak of his system as one of neutrality, and of
non-interference in that struggle between the principles of
despotism and of democracy which seemed to be spreading over
Europe. He avowed his sympathy for Spain as the object of an
unjust and unprovoked war, but he most solemnly warned the
Spaniards not to expect English assistance. He prayed that the
Constitution of Portugal might prosper, but he expressly
disclaimed all connection with its origin, and defended Portugal
not because it was a Constitutional State, but because England
was bound by treaties to defend it against foreign invasion. The
arguments against intervention on behalf of Spain which Canning
addressed to the English sympathisers with that country might
have been uttered by Castlereagh; the denial of the right of
foreign Powers to attack the Spanish Constitution, with which
Castlereagh headed his own instructions for Verona, might have
been written by Canning.</p>
<p>[Canning and the European concert.]</p>
<p>The statements that Canning withdrew England from the
Continental system, and that he dissolved the Holy Alliance,
cannot be accepted without large correction. The general
relations existing between the Great Powers were based, not on
the ridiculous and obsolete treaty of Holy Alliance, but on the
Acts which were signed at the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle. The
first of these was the secret Quadruple Treaty which bound
England and the three Eastern Powers to attack France in case a
revolution in that country should endanger the peace of Europe;
the second was the general declaration of all the five Powers
that they would act in amity and take counsel with one another.
From the first of these alliances Canning certainly did not
withdraw England. He would perhaps have done so in 1823 if the
Quadruple Treaty had bound England to maintain the House of
Bourbon on the French throne; but it had been expressly stated
that the deposition of the Bourbons would not necessarily and in
itself be considered by England as endangering the peace of
Europe. This treaty remained in full force up to Canning's death;
and if a revolutionary army had marched from Paris upon Antwerp,
he would certainly have claimed the assistance of the three
Eastern Powers. With respect to the general concert of Europe,
established or confirmed by the declaration of Aix-la-Chapelle,
this had always been one of varying extent and solidity. Both
France and England had held themselves aloof at Troppau. The
federative action was strongest and most mischievous not before
but after the death of Castlereagh, and in the period that
followed the Congress of Verona; for though the war against Spain
was conducted by France alone, the three Eastern Powers had
virtually made themselves responsible for the success of the
enterprise, and it was the influence of their ambassadors at
Paris and Madrid which prevented any restrictions from being
imposed upon Ferdinand's restored sovereignty.</p>
<p>Canning is invested with a spurious glory when it is said that
his action in Spain and in Portugal broke up the league of the
Continental Courts. Canning indeed shaped the policy of our own
country with equal independence and wisdom, but the political
centre of Europe was at this time not London but Vienna. The
keystone of the European fabric was the union of Austria and
Russia, and this union was endangered, not by anything that could
take place in the Spanish Peninsula, but by the conflicting
interests of these two great States in regard to the Ottoman
Empire. From the moment when the Treaty of Paris was signed,
every Austrian politician fixed his gaze upon the roads leading
to the Lower Danube, and anxiously noted the signs of coming war,
or of continued peace, between Russia and the Porte. <a name=
"FNanchor348">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_348"><sup>[348]</sup></a> It
was the triumph of Metternich to have diverted the Czar's
thoughts during the succeeding years from his grievances against
Turkey, and to have baffled the Russian diplomatists and generals
who, like Capodistrias, sought to spur on their master to
enterprises of Eastern conquest. At the Congress of Verona the
shifting and incoherent manoeuvres of Austrian statecraft can
indeed only be understood on the supposition that Metternich was
thinking all the time less of Spain than of Turkey, and
struggling at whatever cost to maintain that personal influence
over Alexander which had hitherto prevented the outbreak of war
in the East. But the antagonism so long suppressed broke out at
last. The progress of the Greek insurrection brought Austria and
Russia not indeed into war, but into the most embittered
hostility with one another. It was on this rock that the ungainly
craft which men called the Holy Alliance at length struck and
went to pieces. Canning played his part well in the question of
the East, but he did not create this question. There were forces
at work which, without his intervention, would probably have made
an end of the despotic amities of 1815. It is not necessary to
the title of a great statesman that he should have called into
being the elements which make a new political order possible; it
is sufficient praise that he should have known how to turn them
to account.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XV.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c15">CHAPTER XV.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Condition of Greece: its Races and Institutions-The Greek
Church-Communal System-The &AElig;g&aelig;an Islands-The
Phanariots-Greek Intellectual Revival; Koraes-Beginning of Greek
National Movement; Contact of Greece with the French Revolution
and Napoleon-The Het&aelig;ria Philike-Hypsilanti's Attempt in
the Danubian Provinces; its Failure-Revolt of the Morea:
Massacres: Execution of Gregorius, and Terrorism at
Constantinople-Attitude of Russia, Austria, and England-Extension
of the Revolt: Affairs at Hydra-The Greek Leaders-Fall of
Tripolitza-The Massacre of Chios- Failure of the Turks in the
Campaign of 1822-Dissensions of the Greeks-Mahmud calls upon
Mehemet Ali for Aid-Ibrahim conquers Crete and invades the
Morea-Siege of Missolonghi-Philhellenism in Europe-Russian
Proposal for Intervention-Conspiracies in Russia: Death of
Alexander: Accession of Nicholas-Military Insurrection at St.
Petersburg- Anglo-Russian Protocol-Treaty between England,
Russia, and France-Death of Canning-Navarino-War between Russia
and Turkey-Campaigns of 1828 and 1829-Treaty of
Adrianople-Capodistrias President of Greece-Leopold accepts and
then declines the Greek Crown-Murder of Capodistrias-Otho, King
of Greece.</p>
<br>

<p>[Greece in the Napoleonic age.]</p>
<p>Of the Christian races which at the beginning of the third
decade of this century peopled the European provinces of the
Ottoman Empire, the Greek was that which had been least visibly
affected by the political and military events of the Napoleonic
age. Servia, after a long struggle, had in the year 1817 gained
local autonomy under its own princes, although Turkish troops
still garrisoned its fortresses, and the sovereignty of the
Sultan was acknowledged by the payment of tribute. The Romanic
districts, Wallachia and Moldavia, which, in the famous interview
of Tilsit, Napoleon had bidden the Czar to make his own, were
restored by Russia to the Porte in the Treaty of Bucharest in
1812, but under conditions which virtually established a Russian
protectorate. Greece, with the exception of the Ionian Islands,
had neither been the scene of any military operations, nor formed
the subject of any treaty. Yet the age of the French Revolution
and of the Napoleonic wars had silently wrought in the Greek
nation the last of a great series of changes which fitted it to
take its place among the free peoples of Europe. The signs were
there from which those who could read the future might have
gathered that the political resurrection of Greece was near at
hand. There were some who, with equal insight and patriotism,
sought during this period to lay the intellectual foundation for
that national independence which they foresaw that their children
would win with the sword.</p>
<p>[Greece in the eighteenth century.]</p>
<p>The forward movement of the Greek nation may be said, in
general terms, to have become visible during the first half of
the eighteenth century. Serfage had then disappeared; the peasant
was either a free-holder, or a farmer paying a rent in kind for
his land. In the gradual and unobserved emancipation of the
labouring class the first condition of national revival had
already been fulfilled. The peasantry had been formed which, when
the conflict with the Turk broke out, bore the brunt of the long
struggle. In comparison with the Prussian serf, the Greek
cultivator at the beginning of the eighteenth century was an
independent man: in comparison with the English labourer, he was
well fed and well housed. The evils to which the Greek population
was exposed, wherever Greeks and Turks lived together, were those
which brutalised or degraded the Christian races in every Ottoman
province. There was no redress for injury inflicted by a
Mohammedan official or neighbour. If a wealthy Turk murdered a
Greek in the fields, burnt down his house, and outraged his
family, there was no court where the offender could be brought to
justice. The term by which the Turk described his Christian
neighbour was "our rayah," that is, "our subject." A Mohammedan
landowner might terrorise the entire population around him, carry
off the women, flog and imprison the men, and yet feel that he
had committed no offence against the law; for no law existed but
the Koran, and no Turkish court of justice but that of the Kadi,
where the complaint of the Christian passed for nothing.</p>
<p>This was the monstrous relation that existed between the
dominant and the subject nationalities, not in Greece only, but
in every part of the Ottoman Empire where Mohammedans and
Christians inhabited the same districts. The second great and
general evil was the extortion practised by the tax-gatherers,
and this fell upon the poorer Mohammedans equally with the
Christians, except in regard to the poll-tax, or haratsch, the
badge of servitude, which was levied on Christians alone. All
land paid tithe to the State; and until the tax-gatherer had paid
his visit it was not permitted to the peasant to cut the ripe
crop. This rule enabled the tax-gatherer, whether a Mohammedan or
a Christian, to inflict ruin upon those who did not bribe himself
or his masters; for by merely postponing his visit he could
destroy the value of the harvest. Round this central institution
of tyranny and waste, there gathered, except in the districts
protected by municipal privileges, every form of corruption
natural to a society where the State heard no appeals, and made
no inquiry into the processes employed by those to whom it sold
the taxes. What was possible in the way of extortion was best
seen in the phenomenon of well-built villages being left
tenantless, and the population of rich districts dying out in a
time of peace, without pestilence, without insurrection, without
any greater wrong on the part of the Sultan's government than
that normal indifference which permitted the existence of a
community to depend upon the moderation or the caprice of the
individual possessors of force.</p>
<p>[Origin of modern Greece Byzantine, not classic.]</p>
<p>[Slavonic and Albanian elements.]</p>
<p>Such was the framework, or, as it may be said, the common-law
of the mixed Turkish and Christian society of the Ottoman Empire.
On this background we have now to trace the social and political
features which stood out in Greek life, which preserved the race
from losing its separate nationality, and which made the ultimate
recovery of its independence possible. In the first outburst of
sympathy and delight with which every generous heart in western
Europe hailed the standard of Hellenic freedom upraised in 1821,
the twenty centuries which separated the Greece of literature
from the Greece of to-day were strangely forgotten. The
imagination went straight back to Socrates and Leonidas, and
pictured in the islander or the hillsman who rose against Mahmud
II. the counterpart of those glorious beings who gave to Europe
the ideals of intellectual energy, of plastic beauty, and of
poetic truth. The illusion was a happy one, if it excited on
behalf of a brave people an interest which Servia or Montenegro
might have failed to gain; but it led to a reaction when
disappointments came; it gave inordinate importance to the
question of the physical descent of the Greeks; and it produced a
false impression of the causes which had led up to the war of
independence, and of the qualities, the habits, the bonds of
union, which exercised the greatest power over the nation. These
were, to a great extent, unlike anything existing in the ancient
world; they had originated in Byzantine, not in classic Greece;
and where the scenes of old Hellenic history appeared to be
repeating themselves, it was due more to the continuing influence
of the same seas and the same mountains than to the survival of
any political fragments of the past. The Greek population had
received a strong Slavonic infusion many centuries before. More
recently, Albanian settlers had expelled the inhabitants from
certain districts both in the mainland and in the Morea. Attica,
Boeotia, Corinth, and Argolis were at the outbreak of the war of
independence peopled in the main by a race of Albanian descent,
who still used, along with some Greek, the Albanian <a name=
"FNanchor349">language.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_349"><sup>[349]</sup></a> The sense of a separate
nationality was, however, weak among these settlers, who, unlike
some small Albanian communities in the west of the Morea, were
Christians, not Mohammedans. Neighbourhood, commerce, identity of
religion and similarity of local institutions were turning these
Albanians into Greeks; and no community of pure Hellenic descent
played a greater part in the national war, or exhibited more of
the maritime energy and daring which we associate peculiarly with
the Hellenic name, than the islanders of Hydra and Spetza, who
had crossed from the Albanian parts of the Morea and taken
possession of these desert rocks not a hundred years before. The
same phenomenon of an assimilation of Greeks and Albanians was
seen in southern Epirus, the border-ground between the two races.
The Suliotes, Albanian mountaineers, whose military exploits form
one of the most extraordinary chapters in history, showed signs
of Greek influences before the Greek war of independence began,
and in this war they made no distinction between the Greek cause
and their own. Even the rule of the ferocious Ali Pasha at Janina
had been favourable to the extension of Greek civilisation in
Epirus. Under this Mohammedan tyrant Janina contained more
schools than Athens. The Greek population of the district
increased; and in the sense of a common religious antagonism to
the Mohammedan, the Greek and the Albanian Christians in Epirus
forgot their difference of race.</p>
<p>[The Greek Church.]</p>
<p>[Lower clergy.]</p>
<p>[The Patriarch an imperial functionary.]</p>
<p>[The Bishops civil magistrates.]</p>
<p>The central element in modern Greek life was the religious
profession of the Orthodox Eastern Church. Where, as in parts of
Crete, the Greek adopted Mohammedanism, all the other elements of
his nationality together did not prevent him from amalgamating
with the Turk. The sound and popular forces of the Church
belonged to the lower clergy, who, unlike the priests of the
Roman Church, were married and shared the life of the people. If
ignorant and bigoted, they were nevertheless the real guardians
of national spirit; and if their creed was a superstition rather
than a religion, it at least kept the Greeks in a wholesome
antagonism to the superstition of their masters. The higher
clergy stood in many respects in a different position. The
Patriarch of Constantinople was a great officer of the Porte. His
dignities and his civil jurisdiction had been restored and even
enlarged by the Mohammedan conquerors of the Greek Empire, with
the express object of employing the Church as a means of securing
obedience to themselves: and it was quite in keeping with the
history of this great office that, when the Greek national
insurrection at last broke out, the Patriarch Gregorius IV.
should have consented, though unwillingly, to launch the curse of
the Church against it. The Patriarch gained his office by
purchase, or through intrigues at the Divan; he paid an enormous
annual backsheesh for it; and he was liable to be murdered or
deposed as soon as his Mussulman patrons lost favour with the
Sultan, or a higher bid was made for his office by a rival
ecclesiastic. To satisfy the claims of the Palace the Patriarch
was compelled to be an extortioner himself. The bishoprics in
their turn were sold in his ante-chambers, and the Bishops made
up the purchase-money by fleecing their clergy. But in spite of a
deserved reputation for venality, the Bishops in Greece exercised
very great influence, both as ecclesiastics and as civil
magistrates. Whether their jurisdiction in lawsuits between
Christians arose from the custom of referring disputes to their
arbitration or was expressly granted to them by the Sultan, they
virtually displaced in all Greek communities the court of the
Kadi, and afforded the merchant or the farmer a tribunal where
his own law was administered in his own language. Even a
Mohammedan in dispute with a Christian would sometimes consent to
bring the matter before the Bishops' Court rather than enforce
his right to obtain the dilatory and capricious decision of an
Ottoman judge.</p>
<p>[Communal organisation.]</p>
<p>[The Morea.]</p>
<p>The condition of the Greeks living in the country that now
forms the Hellenic Kingdom and in the &AElig;g&aelig;an Islands
exhibited strong local contrasts. It was, however, common to all
that, while the Turk held the powers of State in his hand, the
details of local administration in each district were left to the
inhabitants, the Turk caring nothing about these matters so long
as the due amount of taxes was paid and the due supply of sailors
provided. The apportionment of taxes among households and
villages seems to have been the germ of self-government from
which several types of municipal organisation, some of them of
great importance in the history of the Greek nation, developed.
In the Paschalik of the Morea the taxes were usually farmed by
the Voivodes, or Beys, the Turkish governors of the twenty-three
provinces into which the Morea was divided. But in each village
or township the inhabitants elected officers called Proestoi,
who, besides collecting the taxes and managing the affairs of
their own communities, met in a district-assembly, and there
determined what share of the district-taxation each community
should bear. One Greek officer, called Primate, and one
Mohammedan, called Ayan, were elected to represent the district,
and to take part in the council of the Pasha of the Morea, who
resided at Tripolitza. <a name="FNanchor350">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_350"><sup>[350]</sup></a> The Primates exercised
considerable power. Created originally by the Porte to expedite
the collection of the revenue, they became a Greek aristocracy.
They were indeed an aristocracy of no very noble kind. Agents of
a tyrannical master, they shared the vices of the tyrant and of
the slave. Often farmers of the taxes themselves, obsequious and
intriguing in the palace of the Pasha at Tripolitza, grasping and
despotic in their native districts, they were described as a
species of Christian Turk. But whatever their vices, they saved
the Greeks from being left without leaders. They formed a class
accustomed to act in common, conversant with details of
administration, and especially with the machinery for collecting
and distributing supplies. It was this financial experience of
the Primates of the Morea which gave to the rebellion of the
Greeks what little unity of organisation it exhibited in its
earliest stage.</p>
<p>[Northern Greece. The Armatoli and the Klephts.]</p>
<p>On the north of the Gulf of Corinth the features of the
communal system were less distinct than in the Morea. There was,
however, in the mountain-country of &AElig;tolia and Pindus a
rough military organisation which had done great service to
Greece in keeping alive the national spirit and habits of
personal independence. The Turks had found a local militia
established in this wild region at the time of their conquest,
and had not interfered with it for some centuries. The Armatoli,
or native soldiery, recruited from peasants, shepherds, and
muleteers, kept Mohammedan influences at a distance, until, in
the eighteenth century, the Sultans made it a fixed rule of
policy to diminish their numbers and to reduce the power of their
captains. Before 1820 the Armatoli had become comparatively few
and weak; but as they declined, bands of Klephts, or brigands,
grew in importance; and the mountaineer who was no longer allowed
to practise arms as a guardian of order, enlisted himself among
the robbers. Like the freebooters of our own northern border,
these brigands became the heroes of song. Though they plundered
the Greek as well as the Mohammedan, the national spirit approved
their exploits. It was, no doubt, something, that the physical
energy of the marauder and the habit of encountering danger
should not be wholly on the side of the Turk and the Albanian.
But the influence of the Klephts in sustaining Greek nationality
has been overrated. They had but recently become numerous, and
the earlier organisation of the northern Armatoli was that to
which the sound and vigorous character of the Greek peasantry in
these regions, the finest part of the Greek race on the mainland,
was really due. <a name="FNanchor351">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_351"><sup>[351]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The &AElig;g&aelig;an Islands.]</p>
<p>[Chios.]</p>
<p>In the islands of the &AElig;g&aelig;an the condition of the
Greeks was on the whole happy and prosperous. Some of these
islands had no Turkish population; in others the caprice of a
Sultana, the goodwill of the Capitan Pasha who governed the
Archipelago, or the judicious offer of a sum of money when money
was wanted by the Porte, had so lightened the burden of Ottoman
sovereignty, that the Greek island-community possessed more
liberty than was to be found in any part of Europe, except
Switzerland. The taxes payable to the central government,
including the haratsch or poll-tax levied on all Christians, had
often been commuted for a fixed sum, which was raised without the
interposition of the Turkish tax-gatherer. In Hydra, Spetza, and
Psara, the so-called nautical islands, the supremacy of the Turk
was felt only in the obligation to furnish sailors to the Ottoman
navy, and in the payment of a tribute of about &pound;100 per
annum. The government of these three islands was entirely in the
hands of the inhabitants. In Chios, though a considerable
Mussulman population existed by the side of the Greek, there was
every sign of peace and prosperity. Each island bore its own
peculiar social character, and had its municipal institutions of
more or less value. The Hydriote was quarrelsome, turbulent,
quick to use the knife, but outspoken, honest in dealing, and an
excellent sailor. The picture of Chian life, as drawn even by
those who have judged the Greeks most severely, is one of
singular beauty and interest; the picture of a self-governing
society in which the family trained the citizen in its own bosom,
and in which, while commerce enriched all, the industry of the
poor within their homes and in their gardens was refined by the
practice of an art. The skill which gave its value to the
embroidery and to the dyes of Chios was exercised by those who
also worked the hand-loom and cultivated the mastic and the rose.
The taste and the labour of man requited nature's gifts of sky,
soil, and sea; and in the pursuit of occupations which
stimulated, not deadened, the faculties of the worker, idleness
and intemperance were alike unknown. <a name="FNanchor352">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_352"><sup>[352]</sup></a> How bright a scene of
industry, when compared with the grime and squalor of the English
factory-town, where the human and the inanimate machine grind out
their yearly mountains of iron-ware and calico, in order that the
employer may vie with his neighbours in soulless ostentation, and
the workman consume his millions upon millions in drink.</p>
<p>[The Greeks have ecclesiastical power in other Turkish
provinces.]</p>
<p>The territory where the Greeks formed the great majority of
the population included, beyond the boundaries of the present
Hellenic Kingdom, the islands adjacent to the coast of Asia
Minor, Crete, and the Chalcidic peninsula in Macedonia. But the
activity of the race was not confined within these limits. If the
Greek was a subject in his own country, he was master in the
lands of some of his neighbours. A Greek might exercise power
over other Christian subjects of the Porte either as an
ecclesiastic, or as the delegate of the Sultan in certain fixed
branches of the administration. The authority of the Patriarch of
Constantinople was recognised over the whole of the European
provinces of Turkey, except Servia. The Bishops in all these
provinces were Greeks; the services of the Church were conducted
in the Greek tongue; the revenues of the greater part of the
Church-lands, and the fees of all the ecclesiastical courts, went
into Greek pockets. In things religious, and in that wide range
of civil affairs which in communities belonging to the Eastern
Church appertains to the higher religious office, the Greeks had
in fact regained the ascendancy which they had possessed under
the Byzantine Empire. The dream of the Churchman was not the
creation of an independent kingdom of Greece, but the restoration
of the Eastern Empire under Greek supremacy. When it was seen
that the Slav and the Rouman came to the Greek for law, for
commercial training, for religious teaching, and looked to the
Patriarch of Constantinople as the ultimate judge of all
disputes, it was natural that the belief should arise that, when
the Turk passed away, the Greek would step into his place. But
the influence of the Greeks, great as it appeared to be, did not
in reality reach below the surface, except in Epirus. The bishops
were felt to be foreigners and extortioners. There was no real
process of assimilation at work, either in Bulgaria or in the
Danubian Provinces. The slow and plodding Bulgarian peasant, too
stupid for the Greek to think of him as a rival, preserved his
own unchanging tastes and nationality, sang to his children the
songs which he had learnt from his parents, and forgot the Greek
which he had heard in the Church when he re-entered his home. <a
name="FNanchor353">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_353"><sup>[353]</sup></a> In Roumania, the only
feeling towards the Greek intruder was one of intense hatred.</p>
<p>[The Phanariot officials of the Porte.]</p>
<p>[Greek Hospodars.]</p>
<p>Four great offices of the Ottoman Empire were always held by
Greeks. These were the offices of <a name=
"FNanchor354">Dragoman,</a><a href=
"#Footnote_354"><sup>[354]</sup></a> or Secretary, of the Porte,
Dragoman of the Fleet, and the governorships, called
Hospodariates, of Wallachia and Moldavia. The varied business of
the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the administration of its
revenues, the conduct of its law-courts, had drawn a multitude of
pushing and well-educated Greeks to the quarter of Constantinople
called the Phanar, in which the palace of the Patriarch is
situated. Merchants and professional men inhabited the same
district. These Greeks of the capital, the so-called Phanariots,
gradually made their way into the Ottoman administration as
Turkish energy declined, and the conquering race found that it
could no longer dispense with the weapons of calculation and
diplomacy. The Treaty of Carlowitz, made in 1699, after the
unsuccessful war in which the Turks laid siege to Vienna, was
negotiated on behalf of the Porte by Alexander Maurokordatos, a
Chian by birth, who had become physician to the Sultan and was
virtually the Foreign Minister of Turkey. His sons, Nicholas and
Constantine, were made Hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia early
in the eighteenth century; and from this time forward, until the
outbreak of the Greek insurrection, the governorships of the
Roumanian provinces were entrusted to Phanariot families. The
result was that a troop of Greek adventurers passed to the north
of the Danube, and seized upon every office of profit in these
unfortunate lands. There were indeed individuals among the
Hospodars, especially among the Maurokordati, who rendered good
service to their Roumanian subjects; but on the whole the
Phanariot rule was grasping, dishonest, and cruel. <a name=
"FNanchor355">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_355"><sup>[355]</sup></a>
Its importance in relation to Greece was not that it Hellenised
the Danubian countries, for that it signally failed to do; but
that it raised the standard of Greek education, and enlarged the
range of Greek thought, by opening a political and administrative
career to ambitious men. The connection of the Phanariots with
education was indeed an exceedingly close one. Alexander
Maurokordatos was the ardent and generous founder of schools for
the instruction of his countrymen in Constantinople as well as in
other cities, and for the improvement of the existing language of
Greece. His example was freely followed throughout the eighteenth
century. It is, indeed, one of the best features in the Greek
character that the owner of wealth has so often been, and still
so often is, the promoter of the culture of his race. As in
Germany in the last century, and in Hungary and Bohemia at a more
recent date, the national revival of Greece was preceded by a
striking revival of interest in the national language.</p>
<p>[Greek intellectual movement in the eighteenth century.]</p>
<p>The knowledge of ancient Greek was never wholly lost among the
priesthood, but it had become useless. Nothing was read but the
ecclesiastic commonplace of a pedantic age; and in the schools
kept by the clergy before the eighteenth century the ancient
language was taught only as a means of imparting divinity. The
educational movement promoted by men like Maurokordatos had a
double end; it revived the knowledge of the great age of Greece
through its literature, and it taught the Greek to regard the
speech which he actually used not as a mere barbarous patois
which each district had made for itself, but as a language
different indeed from that of the ancient world, yet governed by
its own laws, and capable of performing the same functions as any
other modern tongue. It was now that the Greek learnt to call
himself Hellen, the name of his forefathers, instead of Romaios,
a Roman. As the new schools grew up and the old ones were
renovated or transformed, education ceased to be merely literary.
In the second half of the eighteenth century science returned in
a humble form to the land that had given it birth, and the range
of instruction was widened by men who had studied law, physics,
and moral philosophy at foreign Universities. Something of the
liberal spirit of the inquirers of Western Europe arose among the
best Greek teachers. Though no attack was made upon the doctrines
of the Church, and no direct attack was made upon the authority
of the Sultan, the duty of religious toleration was proclaimed in
a land where bigotry had hitherto reigned supreme, and the
political freedom of ancient Greece was held up as a glorious
ideal to a less happy age. Some of the higher clergy and of the
Phanariot instruments of Turkish rule took fright at the
independent spirit of the new learning, and for a while it seemed
as if the intellectual as well as the political progress of
Greece might be endangered by ecclesiastical ill-will. But the
attachment of the Greek people to the Church was so strong and so
universal that, although satire might be directed against the
Bishops, a breach with the Church formed no part of the design of
any patriot. The antagonism between episcopal and national
feeling, strongest about the end of the eighteenth century,
declined during succeeding years, and had almost disappeared
before the outbreak of the war of liberation.</p>
<p>[Koraes, 1748-1833.]</p>
<p>[The language of Modern Greece.]</p>
<p>The greatest scholar of modern Greece was also one of its
greatest patriots. Koraes, known as the legislator of the Greek
language, was born in 1748, of Chian parents settled at Smyrna.
The love of learning, combined with an extreme independence of
character, made residence insupportable to him in a land where
the Turk was always within sight, and where few opportunities
existed for gaining wide knowledge. His parents permitted him to
spend some years at Amsterdam, where a branch of their business
was established. Recalled to Smyrna at the age of thirty, Koraes
almost abandoned human society. The hand of a beautiful heiress
could not tempt him from the austere and solitary life of the
scholar; and quitting his home, he passed through the medical
school of Montpellier, and settled at Paris. He was here when the
French Revolution began. The inspiration of that time gave to his
vast learning and inborn energy a directly patriotic aim. For
forty years Koraes pursued the work of serving Greece by the
means open to the scholar. The political writings in which he
addressed the Greeks themselves or appealed to foreigners in
favour of Greece, admirable as they are, do not form the basis of
his fame. The peculiar task of Koraes was to give to the reviving
Greek nation the national literature and the form of expression
which every civilised people reckons among its most cherished
bonds of unity. Master, down to the minutest details, of the
entire range of Greek writings, and of the history of the Greek
language from classical times down to our own century, Koraes was
able to select the Hellenic authors, Christian as well as Pagan,
whose works were best suited for his countrymen in their actual
condition, and to illustrate them as no one could who had not
himself been born and bred among Greeks. This was one side of
Koraes' literary task. The other was to direct the language of
the future Hellenic kingdom into its true course. Classical
writing was still understood by the educated in Greece, but the
spoken language of the people was something widely different.
Turkish and Albanian influences had barbarised the vocabulary;
centuries of ignorance had given play to every natural
irregularity of local dialect. When the restoration of Greek
independence came within view, there were some who proposed to
revive artificially each form used in the ancient language, and
thus, without any real blending, to add the old to the new:
others, seeing this to be impossible, desired that the common
idiom, corrupt as it was, should be accepted as a literary
language. Koraes chose the middle and the rational path. Taking
the best written Greek of the day as his material, he recommended
that the forms of classical Greek, where they were not wholly
obsolete, should be fixed in the grammar of the language. While
ridiculing the attempt to restore modes of expression which, even
in the written language, had wholly passed out of use, he
proposed to expunge all words that were in fact not Greek at all,
but foreign, and to replace them by terms formed according to the
natural laws of the language. The Greek, therefore, which Koraes
desired to see his countrymen recognise as their language, and
which he himself used in his writings, was the written Greek of
the most cultivated persons of his time, purged of its foreign
elements, and methodised by a constant reference to a classical
model, which, however, it was not to imitate pedantically. The
correctness of this theory has been proved by its complete
success. The patois which, if it had been recognised as the
language of the Greek kingdom, would now have made Herodotus and
Plato foreign authors in Athens, is indeed still preserved in
familiar conversation, but it is little used in writing and not
taught in schools. A language year by year more closely
approximating in its forms to that of classical Greece unites the
Greeks both with their past and among themselves, and serves as
the instrument of a widening Hellenic civilization in the Eastern
Mediterranean. The political object of Koraes has been completely
attained. No people in Europe is now prouder of its native
tongue, or turns it to better account in education, than his
countrymen. In literature, the renovated language has still its
work before it. The lyric poetry that has been written in Greece
since the time of Koraes is not wanting, if a foreigner may
express an opinion, in tenderness and grace The writer who shall
ennoble Greek prose with the energy and directness of the ancient
style has yet to arise <a name="FNanchor356">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_356"><sup>[356]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Development of Greek commerce, 1750-1820.]</p>
<p>[The Treaty of Kainardji, 1774.]</p>
<p>The intellectual advance of the Greeks in the eighteenth
century was closely connected with the development of their
commerce, and this in its turn was connected with events in the
greater cycle of European history. A period of comparative peace
and order in the Levantine waters, following the final expulsion
of the Venetians from the Morea in 1718, gave play to the natural
aptitude of the Greek islanders for coasting-trade. Then ships,
still small and unfit to venture on long voyages, plied between
the harbours in the &AElig;g&aelig;an and in the Black Sea, and
brought profit to their owners in spite of the imposition of
burdens from which not only many of the Mussulman subjects of the
Sultan, but foreign nations protected by commercial treaties,
were free. It was at this epoch, after Venice had lost its
commercial supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, that Russia
began to exercise a direct influence upon the fortunes of Greece.
The Empress Catherine had formed the design of conquering
Constantinople, and intended, under the title of Protectress of
the Christian Church, to use the Greeks as her allies. In the war
which broke out between Russia and Turkey in 1768, a Russian
expeditionary force landed in the Morea, and the Greeks were
persuaded to take up arms. The Moreotes themselves paid dearly
for the trust which they had placed in the orthodox Empress. They
were virtually abandoned to the vengeance of their oppressors;
but to Greece at large the conditions on which peace was made
proved of immense benefit. The Treaty of Kainardji, signed in
1774, gave Russia the express right to make representations at
Constantinople on behalf of the Christian inhabitants of the
Danubian provinces; it also bound the Sultan to observe certain
conditions in his treatment of the Greek islanders. Out of these
clauses, Russian diplomacy constructed a general right of
interference on behalf of any Christian subjects of the Porte.
The Treaty also opened the Black Sea to Russian ships of
commerce, and conferred upon Russia the commercial privileges of
the most favoured <a name="FNanchor357">nation.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_357"><sup>[357]</sup></a> The result of this compact
was a very remarkable one. The Russian Government permitted
hundreds of Greek shipowners to hoist its own flag, and so
changed the footing of Greek merchantmen in every port of the
Ottoman Empire. The burdens which had placed the Greek trader at
a disadvantage, when compared with the Mohammedan, vanished. A
host of Russian consular agents, often Greeks themselves, was
scattered over the Levant. Eager for opportunities of attaching
the Greeks to their Russian patrons, quick to make their
newly-won power felt by the Turks, these men extracted a definite
meaning from the clauses of the Treaty of Kainardji, by which the
Porte had bound itself to observe the rights of its Christian
subjects. The sense of security in the course of their business,
no less than the emancipation from commercial fetters, gave an
immense impulse to Greek traders. Their ships were enlarged;
voyages, hitherto limited to the Levant, were extended to England
and even to America; and a considerable armament of cannon was
placed on board each ship for defence against the attack of
Algerian pirates.</p>
<p>[Foundation of Odessa, 1792.]</p>
<p>[Death of Rhegas, 1798.]</p>
<p>[Influence of the French Revolution on Greece.]</p>
<p>Before the end of the eighteenth century another war between
Turkey and Russia, resulting in the cession of the district of
Oczakoff on the northern shore of the Black Sea, made the Greeks
both carriers and vendors of the corn-export of Southern Russia.
The city of Odessa was founded on the ceded territory. The
merchants who raised it to its sudden prosperity were not
Russians but Greeks; and in the course of a single generation
many a Greek trading-house, which had hitherto deemed the sum of
&pound;3,000 to be a large capital, rose to an opulence little
behind that of the great London firms. Profiting by the
neutrality of Turkey or its alliance with England during a great
part of the revolutionary war, the Greeks succeeded to much of
the Mediterranean trade that was lost by France and its
dependencies. The increasing intelligence of the people was shown
in the fact that foreigners were no longer employed by Greek
merchants as their travelling agents in distant countries; there
were countrymen enough of their own who could negotiate with an
Englishman or a Dane in his own language. The richest Greeks were
no doubt those of Odessa and Salonica, not of Hellas proper; but
even the little islands of Hydra and Spetza, the refuge of the
Moreotes whom Catherine had forsaken in 1770, now became
communities of no small wealth and spirit. Psara, which was
purely Greek, formed with these Albanian colonies the nucleus of
an &AElig;g&aelig;an naval Power. The Ottoman Government, cowed
by its recent defeats, and perhaps glad to see the means of
increasing its resources, made no attempt to check the growth of
the Hellenic armed marine. Under the very eyes of the Sultan, the
Hydriote and Psarian captains, men as venturesome as the
sea-kings of ancient Greece, accumulated the artillery which was
hereafter to hold its own against many an Ottoman man-of-war, and
to sweep the Turkish merchantmen from the &AElig;g&aelig;an.
Eighteen years before the Greek insurrection broke out, Koraes,
calling the attention of Western Europe to the progress made by
his country, wrote the following significant words:-"If the
Ottoman Government could have foreseen that the Greeks would
create a merchant-navy, composed of several hundred vessels, most
of them regularly armed, it would have crushed the movement at
its commencement. It is impossible to calculate the effects which
may result from the creation of this marine, or the influence
which it may exert both upon the destiny of the oppressed nation
and upon that of its oppressors." <a name="FNanchor358">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_358"><sup>[358]</sup></a> Like its classic
sisterland in the Mediterranean, Greece was stirred by the
far-sounding voices of the French Revolution. The Declaration of
the Rights of Man, the revival of a supposed antique
Republicanism, the victories of Hoche and Bonaparte, successively
kindled the enthusiasm of a race already restless under the
Turkish yoke. France drew to itself some of the hopes that had
hitherto been fixed entirely upon Russia. Images and ideas of
classic freedom invaded the domain where the Church had hitherto
been all in all; the very sailors began to call their boats by
the names of Spartan and Athenian heroes, as well as by those of
saints and martyrs. In 1797 Venice fell, and Bonaparte seized its
Greek possessions, the Ionian Islands. There was something of the
forms of liberation in the establishment of French rule; the
inhabitants of Zante were at least permitted to make a bonfire of
the stately wigs worn by their Venetian masters. Great changes
seemed to be near at hand. It was not yet understood that France
fought for empire, not for justice; and the man who, above all
others, represented the early spirit of the revolution among the
Greeks, the poet Rhegas, looked to Bonaparte to give the signal
for the rising of the whole of the Christian populations subject
to Mohammedan rule. Rhegas, if he was not a wise politician, was
a thoroughly brave man, and he was able to serve his country as a
martyr. While engaged in Austria in conspiracies against the
Sultan's Government, and probably in intrigues with Bernadotte,
French ambassador at Vienna, he was arrested by the agents of
Thugut, and handed over to the Turks. He was put to death at
Belgrade, with five of his companions, in May, 1798. The songs of
Rhegas soon passed through every household in Greece. They were a
precious treasure to his countrymen, and they have immortalised
his name as a patriot. But the work which he had begun languished
for a time after his death. The series of events which followed
Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt extinguished the hope of the
liberation of Greece by the French Republic. Among the higher
Greek clergy the alliance with the godless followers of Voltaire
was seen with no favourable eye. The Porte was even able to find
a Christian Patriarch to set his name to a pastoral, warning the
faithful against the sin of rebellion, and reminding them that,
while Satan was creating the Lutherans and Calvinists, the
infinite mercy of God had raised up the Ottoman Power in order
that the Orthodox Church might be preserved pure from the
heresies of the West. <a name="FNanchor359">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_359"><sup>[359]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Ionian Islands. 1798-1815.]</p>
<p>[Ali Pasha, 1798-1821.]</p>
<p>From the year 1798 down to the Peace of Paris, Greece was more
affected by the vicissitudes of the Ionian Islands and by the
growth of dominion of Ali Pasha in Albania than by the earlier
revolutionary ideas. France was deprived of its spoils by the
combined Turkish and Russian fleets in the coalition of 1799, and
the Ionian Islands were made into a Republic under the protection
of the Czar and the Sultan. It was in the native administration
of Corfu that the career of Capodistrias began. At the peace of
Tilsit the Czar gave these islands back to Napoleon, and
Capodistrias, whose ability had gained general attention,
accepted an invitation to enter the Russian service. The islands
were then successively beleaguered and conquered by the English,
with the exception of Corfu; and after the fall of Napoleon they
became a British dependency. Thus the three greatest Powers of
Europe were during the first years of this century in constant
rivalry on the east of the Adriatic, and a host of Greeks, some
fugitives, some adventurers, found employment among their armed
forces. The most famous chieftain in the war of liberation,
Theodore Kolokotrones, a Klepht of the Morea, was for some years
major of a Greek regiment in the pay of England. In the meantime
Ali Pasha, on the neighbouring mainland, neither rested himself
nor allowed any of his neighbours to rest. The Suliotes,
vanquished after years of heroic defence, migrated in a body to
the Ionian Islands in 1804. Every Klepht and Armatole of the
Epirote border had fought at some time either for Ali or against
him; for in the extension of his violent and crafty rule Ali was
a friend to-day and an enemy to-morrow alike to Greek, Turk, and
Albanian. When his power was at its height, Ali's court at Janina
was as much Greek as it was Mohammedan: soldiers, merchants,
professors, all, as it was said, with a longer or a shorter rope
round their necks, played their part in the society of the
Epirote capital. <a name="FNanchor360">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_360"><sup>[360]</sup></a> Among the officers of Ali's
army there were some who were soon to be the military rivals of
Kolokotrones in the Greek insurrection: Ali's physician, Dr.
Kolettes, was gaining an experience and an influence among these
men which afterwards placed him at the head of the Government.
For good or for evil, it was felt that the establishment of a
virtually independent kingdom of Albania must deeply affect the
fate of Greece; and when at length Ali openly defied the Sultan,
and Turkish armies closed round his castle at Janina, the
conflict between the Porte and its most powerful vassal gave the
Greeks the signal to strike for their own independence.</p>
<p>[The Het&aelig;ria Philike.]</p>
<p>The secret society, which under the name of Het&aelig;ria
Philike, or association of friends, inaugurated the rebellion of
Greece, was founded in 1814, after it had become clear that the
Congress of Vienna would take no steps on behalf of the Christian
subjects of the Porte. The founders of this society were traders
of Odessa, and its earliest members seem to have been drawn more
from the Greeks in Russia and in the Danubian provinces than from
those of Greece Proper. The object of the conspiracy was the
expulsion of the Turk from Europe, and the re-establishment of a
Greek Eastern Empire. It was pretended by the council of
directors that the Emperor Alexander had secretly joined them;
and the ingenious fiction was circulated that a society for the
preservation of Greek antiquities, for which Capodistrias had
gained the patronage of the Czar and other eminent men at the
Congress of Vienna, was in fact this political association in
disguise. The real chiefs of the conspiracy always spoke of
themselves as acting under the instructions of a nameless
superior power. They were as little troubled by scruple in thus
deceiving their followers as they were in planning a general
massacre of the Turks, and in murdering their own agents when
they wished to have them out of the way. The ultimate design of
the Het&aelig;ria was an unsound one, and its operations were
based upon an imposture; but in exciting the Greeks against
Turkish rule, and in inspiring confidence in its own resources
and authority, it was completely successful. In the course of six
years every Greek of note, both in Greece itself and in the
adjacent countries, had joined the association. The Turkish
Government had received warnings of the danger which threatened
it, but disregarded them until revolt was on the point of
breaking out. The very improvement in the condition of the
Christians, the absence of any crying oppression or outrage in
Greece during late years, probably lulled the anxieties of Sultan
Mahmud, who, terrible as he afterwards proved himself, had not
hitherto been without sympathy for the Rayah. But the history of
France, no less than the history of Greece, shows that it is not
the excess, but the sense, of wrong that produces revolution. A
people may be so crushed by oppression as to suffer all
conceivable misery with patience. It is when the pulse has again
begun to beat strong, when the eye is fixed no longer on the
ground, and the knowledge of good and evil again burns in the
heart, that the right and the duty of resistance is felt.</p>
<p>[Capodistrias and Hypsilanti.]</p>
<p>Early in 1820 the ferment in Greece had become so general that
the chiefs of the Het&aelig;ria were compelled to seek at St.
Petersburg for the Russian leader who had as yet existed only in
their imagination. There was no dispute as to the person to whom
the task of restoring the Eastern Empire rightfully belonged.
Capodistrias, at once a Greek and Foreign Minister of Russia,
stood in the front rank of European statesmen; he was known to
love the Greek cause; he was believed to possess the strong
personal affection of the Emperor Alexander. The deputies of the
Het&aelig;ria besought him to place himself at its head.
Capodistrias, however, knew better than any other man the force
of those influences which would dissuade the Czar from assisting
Greece. He had himself published a pamphlet in the preceding year
recommending his countrymen to take no rash step; and, apart from
all personal considerations, he probably believed that he could
serve Greece better as Minister of Russia than by connecting
himself with any dangerous enterprise. He rejected the offers of
the Het&aelig;rists, who then turned to a soldier of some
distinction in the Russian army, Prince Alexander Hypsilanti, a
Greek exile, whose grandfather, after governing Wallachia as
Hospodar, had been put to death by the Turks for complicity with
the designs of Rhegas. It is said that Capodistrias encouraged
Hypsilanti to attempt the task which he had himself declined, and
that he allowed him to believe that if Greece once rose in arms
the assistance of Russia could not long be withheld. <a name=
"FNanchor361">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_361"><sup>[361]</sup></a>
Hypsilanti, sacrificing his hopes of the recovery of a great
private fortune through the intercession of the Czar at
Constantinople, placed himself at the head of the Het&aelig;ria,
and entered upon a career, for which, with the exception of
personal courage proved in the campaigns against Napoleon, he
seems to have possessed no single qualification.</p>
<p>[The Her&aelig;rist plan.]</p>
<p>In October, 1820, the leading Het&aelig;rists met in council
at Ismail to decide whether the insurrection against the Turk
should begin in Greece itself or in the Danubian provinces. Most
of the Greek officers in the service of Sutsos, the Hospodar of
Moldavia, were ready to join the revolt. With the exception of a
few companies serving as police, there were no Turkish soldiers
north of the Danube, the Sultan having bound himself by the
Treaty of Bucharest to send no troops into the Principalities
without the Czar's consent. It does not appear that the
Het&aelig;rists had yet formed any calculation as to the probable
action of the Roumanian people: they had certainly no reason to
believe that this race bore good-will to the Greeks, or that it
would make any effort to place a Greek upon the Sultan's throne.
The conspirators at Ismail were so far on the right track that
they decided that the outbreak should begin, not on the Danube,
but in Peloponnesus. Hypsilanti, however, full of the belief that
Russia would support him, reversed this conclusion, and
determined to raise his standard in Moldavia. <a name=
"FNanchor362">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_362"><sup>[362]</sup></a>
And now for the first time some account was taken of the
Roumanian population. It was known that the mass of the people
groaned under the feudal oppression of the Boyards, or
landowners, and that the Boyards themselves detested the
government of the Greek Hospodars. A plan found favour among
Hypsilanti's advisers that the Wallachian peasantry should first
be called to arms by a native leader for the redress of their own
grievances, and that the Greeks should then step in and take
control of the insurrectionary movement. Theodor Wladimiresco, a
Roumanian who had served in the Russian army, was ready to raise
the standard of revolt among his countrymen. It did not occur to
the Het&aelig;rists that Wladimiresco might have a purpose of his
own, or that the Roumanian population might prefer to see the
Greek adventure fail. No sovereign by divine right had a firmer
belief in his prerogative within his own dominions than
Hypsilanti in his power to command or outwit Roumanians, Slavs,
and all other Christian subjects of the Sultan.</p>
<p>[Hypsilanti in Roumania March, 1821.]</p>
<p>The feint of a native rising was planned and executed. In
February, 1821, while Hypsilanti waited on the Russian frontier,
Wladimiresco proclaimed the abolition of feudal services, and
marched with a horde of peasants upon Bucharest. On the 16th of
March the Het&aelig;rists began their own insurrection by a deed
of blood that disgraced the Christian cause. Karavias, a
conspirator commanding the Greek troops of the Hospodar at
Galatz, let loose his soldiers and murdered every Turk who could
be hunted down. Hypsilanti crossed the Pruth next day, and
appeared at Jassy with a few hundred followers. A proclamation
was published in which the Prince called upon all Christian
subjects of the Porte to rise, and declared that a great European
Power, meaning Russia, supported him in his enterprise. Sutsos,
the Hospodar, at once handed over all the apparatus of
government, and supplied the insurgents with a large sum of
money. Two thousand armed men, some of them regular troops,
gathered round Hypsilanti at Jassy. The roads to the Danube lay
open before him; the resources of Moldavia were at his disposal;
and had he at once thrown a force into Galatz and Ibraila, he
might perhaps have made it difficult for Turkish troops to gain a
footing on the north of the Danube.</p>
<p>[The Czar disavows the movement.]</p>
<p>But the incapacity of the leader became evident from the
moment when he began his enterprise. He loitered for a week at
Jassy, holding court and conferring titles, and then, setting out
for Bucharest, wasted three weeks more upon the road. In the
meantime the news of the insurrection, and of the fraudulent use
that had been made of his own name, reached the Czar, who was now
engaged at the Congress of Laibach. Alexander was at this moment
abandoning himself heart and soul to Metternich's reactionary
influence, and ordering his generals to make ready a hundred
thousand men to put down the revolution in Piedmont. He received
with dismay a letter from Hypsilanti invoking his aid in a rising
which was first described in the phrases of the Holy Alliance as
the result of a divine inspiration, and then exhibited as a
master-work of secret societies and widespread conspiracy. A
stern answer was sent back. Hypsilanti was dismissed from the
Russian service; he was ordered to lay down his arms, and a
manifesto was published by the Russian Consul at Jassy declaring
that the Czar repudiated and condemned the enterprise with which
his name had been connected. The Patriarch of Constantinople,
helpless in the presence of Sultan Mahmud, now issued a ban of
excommunication against the leader and all his followers. Some
weeks later the Congress of Laibach officially branded the Greek
revolt as a work of the same anarchical spirit which had produced
the revolutions of Italy and Spain. <a name="FNanchor363">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_363"><sup>[363]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The enterprise fails.]</p>
<p>The disavowal of the Het&aelig;rist enterprise by the Czar was
fatal to its success. Hypsilanti, indeed, put on a bold
countenance and pretended that the public utterances of the
Russian Court were a mere blind, and in contradiction to the
private instructions given him by the Czar; but no one believed
him. The Roumanians, when they knew that aid was not coming from
Russia, held aloof, or treated insurgents as enemies. Turkish
troops crossed the Danube, and Hypsilanti fell back from
Bucharest towards the Austrian frontier. Wladimiresco followed
him, not however to assist him in his struggle, but to cut off
his retreat and to betray him to the enemy. It was in vain that
the bravest of Hypsilanti's followers, Georgakis, a Greek from
Olympus, sought the Wallachian at his own headquarters, exposed
his treason to the Het&aelig;rist officers who surrounded him,
and carried him, a doomed man, to the Greek camp. Wladimiresco's
death was soon avenged. The Turks advanced. Hypsilanti was
defeated in a series of encounters, and fled ignobly from his
followers, to seek a refuge, and to find a prison, in Austria.
Bands of his soldiers, forsaken by their leader, sold their lives
dearly in a hopeless struggle. At Skuleni, on the Pruth, a troop
of four hundred men refused to cross to Russian soil until they
had given battle to the enemy. Standing at bay, they met the
onslaught of ten times their number of pursuers. Georgakis, who
had sworn that he would never fall alive into the enemy's hands,
kept his word. Surrounded by Turkish troops in the tower of a
monastery, he threw open the doors for those of his comrades who
could to escape, and then setting fire to a chest of powder,
perished in the explosion, together with his assailants.</p>
<p>[Revolt of Morea, April 2, 1891.]</p>
<p>The Het&aelig;rist invasion of the Principalities had ended in
total failure, and with it there passed away for ever the dream
of re-establishing the Eastern Empire under Greek ascendancy. But
while this enterprise, planned in vain reliance upon foreign aid
and in blind assumption of leadership over an alien race,
collapsed through the indifference of a people to whom the Greeks
were known only as oppressors, that genuine uprising of the Greek
nation, which, in spite of the nullity of its leaders, in spite
of the crimes, the disunion, the perversity of a race awaking
from centuries of servitude, was to add one more to the free
peoples of Europe, broke out in the real home of the Hellenes, in
the Morea and the islands of the &AElig;g&aelig;an. Soon after
Hypsilanti's appearance in Moldavia the Turkish governor of the
Morea, anticipating a general rebellion of the Greeks, had
summoned the Primates of his province to Tripolitza, with the
view of seizing them as hostages. The Primates of the northern
district set out, but halted on their way, debating whether they
should raise the standard of insurrection or wait for events.
While they lingered irresolutely at Kalavryta the decision passed
out of their hands, and the people rose throughout the Morea. The
revolt of the Moreot Greeks against their oppressors was from the
first, and with set purpose, a war of extermination. "The Turk,"
they sang in their war-songs, "shall live no longer, neither in
Morea nor in the whole earth." This terrible resolution was,
during the first weeks of the revolt, carried into literal
effect. The Turks who did not fly from their country-houses to
the towns where there were garrisons or citadels to defend them,
were attacked and murdered with their entire families, men, women
and children. This was the first act of the revolution; and
within a few weeks after the 2nd of April, on which the first
outbreaks occurred, the open country was swept clear of its
Ottoman population, which had numbered about 25,000, and the
residue of the lately dominant race was collected within the
walls of Patras, Tripolitza, and other towns, which the Greeks
forthwith began to beleaguer. <a name="FNanchor364">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_364"><sup>[364]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Terrorism at Constantinople.]</p>
<p>[Execution of the Patriarch, April 22.]</p>
<p>The news of the revolt of the Morea and of the massacre of
Mohammedans reached Constantinople, striking terror into the
politicians of the Turkish capital, and rousing the Sultan Mahmud
to a vengeance tiger-like in its ferocity, but deliberate and
calculated like every bloody deed of this resolute and able
sovereign. Reprisals had already been made upon the Greeks at
Constantinople for the acts of Hypsilanti, and a number of
innocent persons had been put to death by the executioner, but no
general attack upon the Christians had been suggested, nor had
the work of punishment passed out of the hands of the government
itself. Now, however, the fury of the Mohammedan populace was let
loose upon the infidel. The Sultan called upon his subjects to
arm themselves in defence of their faith. Executions were
redoubled; soldiers and mobs devastated Greek settlements on the
Bosphorus; and on the most sacred day of the Greek Church a blow
was struck which sent a thrill over Eastern Europe. The Patriarch
of Constantinople had celebrated the service which ushers in the
dawn of Easter Sunday, when he was summoned by the Dragoman of
the Porte to appear before a Synod hastily assembled. There an
order of the Sultan was read declaring Gregorius IV. a traitor,
and degrading him from his office. The Synod was commanded to
elect his successor. It did so. While the new Archbishop was
receiving his investiture, Gregorius was led out, and was hanged,
still wearing his sacred robes, at the gate of his palace. His
body remained during Easter Sunday and the two following days at
the place of execution. It was then given to the Jews to be
insulted, dragged through the streets, and cast into the sea. The
Archbishops of Adrianople, Salonica, and Tirnovo suffered death
on the same Easter Sunday. The body of Gregorius, floating in the
waves, was picked up by a Greek ship and carried to Odessa.
Brought, as it was believed, by a miracle to Christian soil, the
relics of the Patriarch received at the hands of the Russian
government the funeral honours of a martyr. Gregorius had no
doubt had dealings with the Het&aelig;rists; but he was put to
death untried; and whatever may have been the real extent of his
offence, he was executed not for this but in order to strike
terror into the Sultan's Christian subjects.</p>
<p>[Massacre of Christians, April-October.]</p>
<p>[Effect on Russia.]</p>
<p>[Russian ambassador leaves Constantinople, July 27.]</p>
<p>During the succeeding months, in Asia Minor as well as in
Macedonia and at Constantinople itself, there were wholesale
massacres of the Christians, and the churches of the Greeks were
pillaged or destroyed by their enemies, both Jews and Turks.
Smyrna, Adrianople, and Salonica, in so far as these towns were
Greek, were put to the sack; thousands of the inhabitants were
slain by the armed mobs who held command, or were sold into
slavery. It was only the fear of a war with Russia which at
length forced Sultan Mahmud to stop these deeds of outrage and to
restore some of the conditions of civilised life in the part of
his dominions which was not in revolt. The Russian army and
nation would have avenged the execution of the Patriarch by
immediate war if popular instincts had governed its ruler.
Strogonoff, the ambassador at Constantinople, at once proposed to
the envoys of the other Powers to unite in calling up war-ships
for the protection of the Christians. Joint action was, however,
declined by Lord Strangford, the representative of England, and
the Porte was encouraged by the attitude of this politician to
treat the threats of Strogonoff with indifference. There was an
interval during which the destiny of a great part of Eastern
Europe depended upon the fluctuations of a single infirm will.
The Czar had thoroughly identified himself while at Laibach with
the principles and the policy of European conservatism, and had
assented to the declaration in which Metternich placed the Greek
rebellion, together with the Spanish and Italian insurrections,
under the ban of Europe. Returning to St. Petersburg, Alexander,
in spite of the veil that intercepts from every sovereign the
real thoughts and utterances of his people, found himself within
the range of widely different influences. Russian passions were
not roused by what might pass in Italy or Spain. The Russian
priest, the soldier, the peasant understood nothing of theories
of federal intervention, and of the connection between Neapolitan
despotism and the treaties of 1815: but his blood boiled when he
heard that the chief priest of his Church had been murdered by
the Sultan, and that a handful of his brethren were fighting for
their faith unhelped. Alexander felt to some extent the throb of
national spirit. There had been a time in his life when a single
hour of strong emotion or of overpowering persuasion had made him
renounce every obligation and unite with Napoleon against his own
allies; and there were those who in 1821 believed that the Czar
would as suddenly break loose from his engagements with
Metternich and throw himself, with a fanatical army and nation,
into a crusade against the Turk. Sultan Mahmud had himself given
to the Russian party of action a ground for denouncing him in the
name of Russian honour and interests independently of all that
related to Greece. In order to prevent the escape of suspected
persons, the Porte had ordered Russian vessels to be searched at
Constantinople, and it had forced all corn-ships coming from the
Euxine to discharge their cargoes at the Bosphorus, under the
apprehension that the corn-supplies of the capital would be cut
off by Greek vessels in command of the &AElig;g&aelig;an.
Further, Russia had by treaty the right to insist that the
Danubian Principalities should be governed by their civil
authorities, the Hospodars, and not by Turkish Pashas,
insurrection in Wallachia had been put down, but the rule of
Hospodars had not been restored; Turkish generals, at the head of
their forces, still administered their provinces under military
law. On all these points Russia had at least the semblance of
grievances of its own. The outrages which shocked all Europe were
not the only wrong which Russian pride called upon the Czar to
redress. The influence of Capodistrias revived at St. Petersburg.
A despatch was sent to Constantinople declaring that the Porte
had begun a war for life or death with the Christian religion,
and that its continued existence among the Powers of Europe must
depend upon its undertaking to restore the churches which had
been destroyed, to guarantee the inviolability of Christian
worship in the future, and to discriminate in its punishments
between the innocent and the guilty. Presenting ultimatum from
his master, Strogonoff, in accordance with his instructions,
demanded a written answer within eight days. No such answer came.
On the 27th of July the ambassador quitted Constantinople. War
seemed to be on the point of breaking out.</p>
<p>[Eastern policy of Austria.]</p>
<p>The capital where these events were watched with the greatest
apprehension was Vienna. The fortunes of the Ottoman Empire have
always been most intimately connected with those of Austria; and
although the long struggle of the House of Hapsburg with Napoleon
and its wars in recent times with Prussia and with Italy have
made the western aspect of Austrian policy more prominent and
more familiar than its eastern one, the eastern interests of the
monarchy have always been at least as important in the eyes of
its actual rulers. Before the year 1720 Austria, not Russia, was
the great enemy of Turkey and the aggressive Power of the east of
Europe. After 1780 the Emperor Joseph had united with Catherine
of Russia in a plan for dividing the Sultan's dominions in
Europe, and actually waged a war for this purpose. In 1795 the
alliance, with the same object, had been prospectively revived by
Thugut; in 1809, after the Treaty of Tilsit, Metternich had
determined in the last resort to combine with Napoleon and
Alexander in dismembering Turkey, if all diplomatic means should
fail to prevent a joint attack on the Porte by France and Russia.
But this resolution had been adopted by Metternich only as a
matter of necessity, and in view of a combination which
threatened to reduce Austria to the position of a vassal State.
Metternich's own definite and consistent policy after 1814 was
the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire. His statesmanship was, as
a rule, governed by fear; and his fear of Alexander was second
only to his old fear of Napoleon. Times were changed since Joseph
and Thugut could hope to enter upon a game of aggression with
Russia upon equal terms. The Austrian army had been beaten in
every battle that it had fought during nearly twenty years.
Province after province had been severed from it, without, except
in the Tyrol, raising a hand in its support; and when in 1821 the
Minister compared Austria's actual Empire and position in Europe,
won and maintained in great part by his own diplomacy, with the
ruin to which a series of wars had brought it ten years before,
he might well thank Heaven that international Congresses were
still so much in favour with the Courts, and tremble at the clash
of arms which from the remote Morea threatened to call Napoleon's
northern conquerors once more into the field <a name=
"FNanchor365">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_365"><sup>[365]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Eastern policy of England.]</p>
<p>England was not, like Austria, exposed to actual danger by the
advance of Russia towards the &AElig;g&aelig;an; but the growth
of Russian power had been viewed with alarm by English
politicians since 1788, when Pitt had formed a triple alliance
with Prussia and Holland for the purpose of defending the Porte
against the attacks of Catherine and Joseph. The interest of
Great Britain in the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire had not
been laid down as a principle before that date, nor was it then
acknowledged by the Whig party. It was asserted by Pitt from
considerations relating to the European balance of power, not, as
in our own times, with a direct reference to England's position
in India. The course of events from 1792 to 1807 made England and
Russia for awhile natural allies; but this friendship was turned
into hostility by the Treaty of Tilsit; and although after a few
years Alexander was again fighting for the same cause as Great
Britain, and the public opinion of this country enthusiastically
hailed the issue of the Moscow campaign, English statesmen never
forgot the interview upon the Niemen, and never, in the brightest
moments of victory, regarded Alexander without some secret
misgivings. During the campaign of 1814 in France, Castlereagh's
willingness to negotiate with Bonaparte was due in great part to
the fear that Alexander's high-wrought resolutions would collapse
before Napoleon could be thoroughly crushed, and that reaction
would carry him into a worse peace than that which he then
disdained. <a name="FNanchor366">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_366"><sup>[366]</sup></a> The negotiations at the
Congress of Vienna brought Great Britain and Russia, as it has
been seen, into an antagonism which threatened to end in the
resort to arms; and the tension which then and for some time
afterwards existed between the two governments led English
Ministers to speak, certainly in exaggerated and misleading
language, of the mutual hostility of the English and the Russian
nations. From 1815 to 1821 the Czar had been jealously watched.
It had been rumoured over and over again that he was preparing to
invade the Ottoman Empire; and when the rebellion of the Greeks
broke out, the one thought of Castlereagh and his colleagues was
that Russia must be prevented from throwing itself into the fray,
and that the interests of Great Britain required that the
authority of the Sultan should as soon as possible be restored
throughout his dominions.</p>
<p>[Fears of new period of warfare.]</p>
<p>[Metternich and the Greeks.]</p>
<p>Both at London therefore and at Vienna the rebellion of Greece
was viewed by governments only as an unfortunate disturbance
which was likely to excite war between Russia and its neighbours,
and to imperil the peace of Europe at large. It may seem strange
that the spectacle of a nation rising to assert its independence
should not even have aroused the question whether its claims
deserved to be considered. But to do justice at least to the
English Ministers of 1821, it must be remembered how terrible,
how overpowering, were the memories left by the twenty years of
European war that had closed in 1815, and at how vast a cost to
mankind the regeneration of Greece would have been effected, if,
as then seemed probable, it had ranged the Great Powers again in
arms against one another, and re-kindled the spirit of military
aggression which for a whole generation had made Europe the prey
of rival coalitions. It is impossible to read the letter in which
Castlereagh pleaded with the Czar to sacrifice his own glory and
popularity to the preservation of European peace, without
perceiving in what profound earnestness the English statesman
sought to avert the renewal of an epoch of conflict, and how much
the apprehension of coming calamity predominated in his own mind
over the mere jealousy of an extension of Russian power. <a name=
"FNanchor367">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_367"><sup>[367]</sup></a> If
Castlereagh had no thought for Greece itself, it was because the
larger interests of Europe wholly absorbed him, and because he
lacked the imagination and the insight to conceive of a better
adjustment of European affairs under the widening recognition of
national rights. The Minister of Austria, to whom at this crisis
Castlereagh looked as his natural ally, had no doubt the same
dread of a renewed convulsion of Europe, but in his case it was
mingled with considerations of a much narrower kind. It is not
correct to say that Metternich was indifferent to the Greek
cause; he actually hated it, because it gave a stimulus to the
liberal movement of Germany. In his empty and pedantic philosophy
of human action, Metternich linked together every form of
national aspiration and unrest as something presumptuous and
wanton. He understood nothing of the debt that mankind owes to
the spirit of freedom. He was just as ready to dogmatise upon the
wickedness of the English Reform Bill as he was to trace the hand
of Capodistrias in every tumult in Servia or the Morea: and even
if there had been no fear of Russian aggression in the
background, he would instinctively have condemned the Greek
revolt when he saw that the light-headed professors in the German
Universities were beginning to agitate in its favour, and that
the recalcitrant minor Courts regarded it with some degree of
sympathy.</p>
<p>[Alexander adheres to policy of peace.]</p>
<p>[Capdostrias retires, Aug 1822.]</p>
<p>The policy of Metternich in the Eastern Question had for its
object the maintenance of the existing order of things; and as it
was certain that some satisfaction or other must be given to
Russian pride, Metternich's counsel was that the grievances of
the Czar which were specifically Russian should be clearly
distinguished from questions relating to the independence of
Greece; and that on the former the Porte should be recommended to
agree with its adversary quickly, the good offices of Europe
being employed within given limits on the Czar's behalf; so that,
the Russian causes of complaint being removed, Alexander might
without loss of honour leave the Greeks to be subdued, and resume
the diplomatic relations with Constantinople which had been so
perilously severed by Strogonoff's departure. It remained for the
Czar to decide whether, as head of Russia and protector of the
Christians of the East, he would solve the Eastern Question by
his own sword, or whether, constant to the principle and ideal of
international action to which he had devoted himself since 1815,
he would commit his cause to the joint mediation of Europe, and
accept such solution of the problem as his allies might attain.
In the latter case it was clear that no blow would be struck on
behalf of Greece. For a year or more the balance wavered; at
length the note of triumph sounded in the Austrian Cabinet.
Capodistrias, the representative of the Greek cause at St.
Petersburg, rightly measured the force of the opposing impulses
in the Czar's mind. He saw that Alexander, interested as he was
in Italy and Spain, would never break with that federation of the
Courts which he had himself created, nor shake off the influences
of legitimism which had dominated him since the Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle. Submitting when contention had become hopeless,
and anticipating his inevitable fall by a voluntary retirement
from public affairs, Capodistrias, still high in credit and
reputation, quitted St. Petersburg under the form leave of
absence, and withdrew to Geneva, there to await events, and to
enjoy the distinction of a patriot whom love for Greece had
constrained to abandon one of the most splendid positions in
Europe. Grave, melancholy, and austere, as one who suffered with
his country, Capodistrias remained in private life till the
vanquished cause had become the victorious one, and the liberated
Greek nation called him to place himself at its head.</p>
<p>[Extension of the Greek revolt.]</p>
<p>[Central Greece.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Ali Pasha, Feb., 1822.]</p>
<p>[Chalcidice.]</p>
<p>An international diplomatic campaign of vast activity and
duration began in the year 1821, but the contest of arms was
left, as Metternich desired, to the Greeks and the Turks alone.
The first act of the war was the insurrection of the Morea: the
second was the extension of this insurrection over parts of
Continental Greece and the Archipelago, and its summary
extinction by the Turk in certain districts, which in consequence
remained for the future outside the area of hostilities, and so
were not ultimately included in the Hellenic Kingdom. Central
Greece, that is, the country lying immediately north of the
Corinthian Gulf, broke into revolt a few weeks later than the
Morea. The rising against the Mohammedans was distinguished by
the same merciless spirit: the men were generally massacred; the
women, if not killed, were for the most part sold into slavery;
and when, after an interval of three years, Lord Byron came to
Missolonghi, he found that a miserable band of twenty-three
captive women formed the sole remnant of the Turkish population
of that town. Thessaly, with some exceptions, remained passive,
and its inaction was of the utmost service to the Turkish cause;
for Ali Pasha in Epirus was now being besieged by the Sultan's
armies, and if Thessaly had risen in the rear of these troops,
they could scarcely have escaped destruction. Khurshid, the
Ottoman commander conducting the siege of Janina, held firmly to
his task, in spite of the danger which threatened his
communications, and in spite of the circumstance that his whole
household had fallen into the hands of the Moreot insurgents. His
tenacity saved the border-provinces for the Ottoman Empire. No
combination was effected between Ali and the Greeks, and at the
beginning of 1822 the Albanian chieftain lost both his stronghold
and his life. In the remoter district of Chalcidice, on the
Macedonian coast, where the promontory of Athos and the two
parallel peninsulas run out into the &AElig;g&aelig;an, and a
Greek population, clearly severed from the Slavic inhabitants of
the mainland, maintained its own communal and religious
organisation, the national revolt broke out under Het&aelig;rist
leaders. The monks of Mount Athos, like their neighbours, took up
arms. But there was little sympathy between the privileged chiefs
of these abbeys and the desperate men who had come to head the
revolt. The struggle was soon abandoned; and, partly by force of
arms, partly by negotiation, the authority of the Sultan was
restored without much difficulty throughout this region.</p>
<p>[The &AElig;g&aelig;an Islands.]</p>
<p>The settlements of the &AElig;g&aelig;an which first raised
the flag of Greek independence were the so-called Nautical
Islands, Hydra, Spetza, and Psara, where the absence of a Turkish
population and the enjoyment of a century of self-government had
allowed the bold qualities of an energetic maritime race to grow
to their full vigour. Hydra and Spetza were close to the Greek
coast, Psara was on the farther side of the archipelago, almost
within view of Asia Minor; so that in joining the insurrection
its inhabitants showed great heroism, for they were exposed to
the first attack of any Turkish force that could maintain itself
for a few hours at sea, and the whole adjacent mainland was the
recruiting-ground of the Sultan. At Hydra the revolt against the
Ottoman was connected with the internal struggles of the little
community, and these in their turn were connected with the great
economical changes of Europe which, at the opposite end of the
continent, and in a widely different society, led to the
enactment of the English Corn Laws, and to the strife of classes
which resulted from them. During Napoleon's wars the
carrying-trade of most nations had become extinct; little corn
reached England, and few besides Greek ships navigated the Euxine
and Mediterranean. When peace opened the markets and the ports of
all nations, just as the renewed importation of foreign corn
threatened to lower the profits of English farmers and the rents
of English landlords, so the reviving freedom of navigation made
an end of the monopoly of the Hydriote and Psarian merchantmen.
The shipowners formed an oligarchy in Hydra; the captains and
crews of their ships, though they shared the profits of each
voyage, were excluded from any share in the government of the
island. Failure of trade, want and inactivity, hence led to a
political opposition. The shipowners, wealthy and privileged men,
had no inclination to break with the Turk; the captains and
sailors, who had now nothing to lose, declared for Greek
independence. There was a struggle in which for awhile nothing
but the commonest impulses of need and rapacity came into play;
but the greater cause proved its power: Hydra threw in its lot
with Greece; and although private greed and ill-faith, as well as
great cruelty, too often disgraced both the Hydriote crews and
those of the other islands, the nucleus of a naval force was now
formed which made the achievement of Greek independence possible.
The three islands which led the way were soon followed by the
wealthier and more populous Samos and by the greater part of the
Archipelago. Crete, inhabited by a mixed Greek and Turkish
population, also took up arms, and was for years to come the
scene of a bloody and destructive warfare.</p>
<p>[The Greek leaders.]</p>
<p>Within the Morea the first shock of the revolt had made the
Greeks masters of everything outside the fortified towns. The
reduction of these places was at once undertaken by the
insurgents. Tripolitza, lately the seat of the Turkish
government, was the centre of operations, and in the
neighbourhood of this town the first provisional government of
the Greeks, called the Senate of Kaltesti, was established.
Demetrius Hypsilanti, a brother of the Het&aelig;rist leader,
whose failure in Roumania was not yet known, landed in the Morea
and claimed supreme power. He was tumultuously welcomed by the
peasant-soldiers, though the Primates, who had hitherto held
undisputed sway, bore him no good will. Two other men became
prominent at this time as leaders in the Greek war of liberation.
These were Maurokordatos, a descendant of the Hospodars of
Wallachia-a politician superior to all his rivals in knowledge
and breadth of view, but wanting in the faculty of action
required by the times-and Kolokotrones, a type of the rough
fighting Klepht; a mere savage in attainments, scarcely able to
read or write, cunning, grossly avaricious and faithless,
incapable of appreciating either military or moral discipline,
but a born soldier in his own irregular way, and a hero among
peasants as ignorant as himself. There was yet another, who, if
his character had been equal to his station, would have been
placed at the head of the government of the Morea. This was
Petrobei, chief of the family of Mauromichalis, ruler of the
rugged district of Maina, in the south-west of Peloponnesus,
where the Turk had never established more than nominal
sovereignty. A jovial, princely person, exercising among his
clansmen a mild Homeric sway, Petrobei, surrounded by his nine
vigorous sons, was the most picturesque figure in Greece. But he
had no genius for great things. A sovereignty, which in other
hands might have expanded to national dominion, remained with
Petrobei a mere ornament and curiosity; and the power of the
deeply-rooted clan-spirit of the Maina only made itself felt
when, at a later period, the organisation of a united Hellenic
State demanded its sacrifice.</p>
<p>[Fall of Tripolitza, Oct. 5, 1821.]</p>
<p>Anarchy, egotism, and ill-faith disgraced the Greek
insurrection from its beginning to its close. There were, indeed,
some men of unblemished honour among the leaders, and the
peasantry in the ranks fought with the most determined courage
year after year; but the action of most of those who figured as
representatives of the people brought discredit upon the national
cause. Their first successes were accompanied by gross treachery
and cruelty. Had the Greek leaders been Bourbon kings, nurtured
in all the sanctities of divine right, instead of tax-gatherers
and cattle-lifters, truants from the wild school of Turkish
violence and deceit, they could not have perjured themselves with
lighter hearts. On the surrender of Navarino, in August, 1821,
after a formal capitulation providing for the safety of its
Turkish inhabitants, men, women, and children were
indiscriminately massacred. The capture of Tripolitza, which took
place two months later, was changed from a peaceful triumph into
a scene of frightful slaughter by the avarice of individual
chiefs, who, while negotiations were pending, made their way into
the town, and bargained with rich inhabitants to give them
protection in return for their money and jewels. The soldiery,
who had undergone the labours of the siege for six months, saw
that their reward was being pilfered from them. Defying all
orders, and in the absence of Demetrius Hypsilanti, the
commander-in-chief, they rushed upon the fortifications of
Tripolitza, and carried them by storm. A general massacre of the
inhabitants followed. For three days the work of carnage was
continued in the streets and houses, until few out of a
population of many thousands remained living. According to the
testimony of Kolokotrones himself, the roads were so choked with
the dead, that as he rode from the gateway to the citadel his
horse's hoofs never touched the ground. <a name=
"FNanchor368">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_368"><sup>[368]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Massacre of Chios, April-June, 1822.]</p>
<p>In the opening scenes of the Greek insurrection the barbarity
of Christians and of Ottomans was perhaps on a level. The Greek
revenged himself with the ferocity of the slave who breaks his
fetters; the Turk resorted to wholesale massacre and
extermination as the normal means of government in troubled
times. And as experience has shown that the savagery of the
European yields in one generation to the influences of civilised
rule, while the Turk remains as inhuman to-day as he was under
Mahmud II., so the history of 1822 proved that the most devilish
passions of the Greek were in the end but a poor match for
disciplined Turkish prowess in the work of butchery. It was no
easy matter for the Sultan to requite himself for the sack of
Tripolitza upon Kolokotrones and his victorious soldiers; but
there was a peaceful and inoffensive population elsewhere, which
offered all the conditions for free, unstinted, and unimperilled
vengeance which the Turk desires. A body of Samian troops had
landed in Chios, and endeavoured, but with little success, to
excite the inhabitants to revolt, the absence of the Greek fleet
rendering them an almost certain prey to the Sultan's troops on
the mainland. The Samian leader nevertheless refused to abandon
the enterprise, and laid siege to the citadel, in which there was
a Turkish garrison. Before this fortress could be reduced, a
relieving army of seven thousand Turks, with hosts of fanatical
volunteers, landed on the island. The Samians fled; the miserable
population of Chios was given up to massacre. For week after week
the soldiery and the roving hordes of Ottomans slew, pillaged,
and sold into slavery at their pleasure. In parts of the island
where the inhabitants took refuge in the monasteries, they were
slaughtered by thousands together; others, tempted back to their
homes by the promulgation of an amnesty, perished family by
family. The lot of those who were spared was almost more pitiable
than of those who died. The slave-markets of Egypt and Tunis were
glutted with Chian captives. The gentleness, the culture, the
moral worth of the Chian community made its fate the more
tragical. No district in Europe had exhibited a civilisation more
free from the vices of its type: on no community had there fallen
in modern times so terrible a catastrophe. The estimates of the
destruction of life at Chios are loosely framed; among the lowest
is that which sets the number of the slain and the enslaved at
thirty thousand. The island, lately thronging with life and
activity, became a thinly-populated place. After a long period of
depression and the slow return of some fraction of its former
prosperity, convulsions of nature have in our own day again made
Chios a ruin. A new life may arise when the Turk is no longer
master of its shores, but the old history of Chios is closed for
ever.</p>
<p>[Exploit of Kanaris, June 18th, 1822.]</p>
<p>The impression made upon public opinion in Europe by the
massacre of 1822 was a deep and lasting one, although it caused
no immediate change in the action of Governments. The general
feeling of sympathy for the Greeks and hatred for the Turks,
which ultimately forced the Governments to take up a different
policy, was intensified by a brilliant deed of daring by which a
Greek captain avenged the Chians upon their devastor, and by the
unexpected success gained by the insurgents on the mainland
against powerful armies of the Sultan. The Greek executive, which
was now headed by Maurokordatos, had been guilty of gross neglect
in not sending over the fleet in time to prevent the Turks from
landing in Chios. When once this landing had been effected, the
ships which afterwards arrived were powerless to prevent the
massacre, and nothing could be attempted except against the
Turkish fleet itself. The instrument of destruction employed by
the Greeks was the fire-ship, which had been used with success
against the Turk in these same waters in the war of 1770. The
sacred month of the Ramazan was closing, and on the night of June
18, Kara Ali, the Turkish commander, celebrated the festival of
Bairam with above a thousand men on board his flag-ship. The
vessel was illuminated with coloured lanterns. In the midst of
the festivities, Constantine Kanaris, a Psarian captain, brought
his fire-ship unobserved right up to the Turkish man-of-war, and
drove his bowsprit firmly into one of her portholes; then, after
setting fire to the combustibles, he stepped quietly into a
row-boat, and made away. A breeze was blowing, and in a moment
the Turkish crew were enveloped in a mass of flames. The powder
on board exploded; the boats were sunk; and the vessel, with its
doomed crew, burned to the water-edge, its companions sheering
off to save themselves from the shower of blazing fragments that
fell all around. Kara Ali was killed by a broken mast; a few of
his men saved their lives by swimming or were picked up by
rescuers; the rest perished. Such was the consternation caused by
the deed of Kanaris, that the Ottoman fleet forthwith quitted the
&AElig;g&aelig;an waters, and took refuge under the guns of the
Dardanelles. Kanaris, unknown before, became from this exploit a
famous man in Europe. It was to no stroke of fortune or mere
audacity that he owed his success, but to the finest combination
of nerve and nautical skill. His feat, which others were
constantly attempting, but with little success, to imitate, was
repeated by him in the same year. He was the most brilliant of
Greek seamen, a simple and modest hero; and after his splendid
achievements in the war of liberation, he served his country well
in a political career. Down to his death in a hale old age, he
was with justice the idol and pride of the Greek nation.</p>
<p>[Double invasion of Greece 1822.]</p>
<p>[Destruction of the Pilhellenes near Arta, July 16.]</p>
<p>[Unsuccessful siege of Missolonghi, Nov., 1822.]</p>
<p>The fall of the Albanian rebel, Ali Pasha, in the spring of
1822 made it possible for Sultan Mahmud, who had hitherto been
crippled by the resistance of Janina, to throw his whole
land-force against the Hellenic revolt; and the Greeks of the
mainland, who had as yet had to deal only with scattered
detachments or isolated garrisons, now found themselves exposed
to the attack of two powerful armies. Kurshid, the conqueror of
Ali Pasha, took up his headquarters at Larissa in Thessaly, and
from this base the two invading armies marched southwards on
diverging lines. The first, under Omer Brionis, was ordered to
make its way through Southern Epirus to the western entrance of
the Corinthian Gulf, and there to cross into the Morea; the
second, under Dramali, to reduce Central Greece, and enter the
Morea by the isthmus of Corinth; the conquest of Tripolitza and
the relief of the Turkish coast-fortresses which were still
uncaptured being the ultimate end to be accomplished by the two
armies in combination with one another and with the Ottoman
fleet. Not less than fifty thousand men were under the orders of
the Turkish commanders, the division of Dramali being by far the
larger of the two. Against this formidable enemy the Greeks
possessed poor means of defence, nor were their prospects
improved when Maurokordatos, the President, determined to take a
military command, and to place himself at the head of the troops
in Western Greece. There were indeed urgent reasons for striking
with all possible force in this quarter. The Suliotes, after
seventeen years of exile in Corfu, had returned to their
mountains, and were now making common cause with Greece. They
were both the military outwork of the insurrection, and the
political link between the Hellenes and the Christian communities
of Albania, whose action might become of decisive importance in
the struggle against the Turks. Maurokordatos rightly judged the
relief of Suli to be the first and most pressing duty of the
Government. Under a capable leader this effort would not have
been beyond the power of the Greeks; directed by a politician who
knew nothing of military affairs, it was perilous in the highest
degree. Maurokordatos, taking the command out of abler hands,
pushed his troops forward to the neighbourhood of Arta,
mismanaged everything, and after committing a most important post
to Botzares, an Albanian chieftain of doubtful fidelity, left two
small regiments exposed to the attack of the Turks in mass. One
of these regiments, called the corps of Philhellenes, was
composed of foreign officers who had volunteered to serve in the
Greek cause as common soldiers. Its discipline was far superior
to anything that existed among the Greeks themselves; and at its
head were men who had fought in Napoleon's campaigns. But this
corps, which might have become the nucleus of a regular army, was
sacrificed to the incapacity of the general and the treachery of
his confederate. Betrayed and abandoned by the Albanian, the
Philhellenes met the attack of the Turks gallantly, and almost
all perished. Maurokordatos and the remnant of the Greek troops
now retired to Missolonghi. The Suliotes, left to their own
resources, were once more compelled to quit their mountain home,
and to take refuge in Corfu. Their resistance, however, delayed
the Turks for some months, and it was not until the beginning of
November that the army of Omer Brionis, after conquering the
intermediate territory, appeared in front of Missolonghi. Here
the presence of Maurokordatos produced a better effect than in
the field. He declared that he would never leave the town as long
as a man remained to fight the Turks. Defences were erected, and
the besiegers kept at bay for two months. On the 6th of January,
1823, Brionis ordered an assault. It was beaten back with heavy
loss; and the Ottoman commander, hopeless of maintaining his
position throughout the winter, abandoned his artillery, and
retired into the interior of the country. <a name=
"FNanchor369">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_369"><sup>[369]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Dramali passes the Isthmus of Corinth, July 1822.]</p>
<p>[His retreat and destruction, Aug., 1822.]</p>
<p>In the meantime Dramali had advanced from Thessaly with
twenty-four thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry, the most
formidable armament that had been seen in Greece since the final
struggle between the Turks and Venetians in 1715. At the terror
of his approach all hopes of resistance vanished. He marched
through Boeotia and Attica, devastating the country, and reached
the isthmus of Corinth in July, 1822. The mountain passes were
abandoned by the Greeks; the Government, whose seat was at Argos,
dispersed; and Dramali moved on to Nauplia, where the Turkish
garrison was on the point of surrendering to the Greeks. The
entrance to the Morea had been won; the very shadow of a Greek
government had disappeared, and the definite suppression of the
revolt seemed now to be close at hand. But two fatal errors of
the enemy saved the Greek cause. Dramali neglected to garrison
the passes through which he had advanced; and the commander of
the Ottoman fleet, which ought to have met the land-force at
Nauplia, disobeyed his instructions and sailed on to Patras. Two
Greeks, at this crisis of their country's history, proved
themselves equal to the call of events. Demetrius Hypsilanti, now
President of the Legislature, refused to fly with his colleagues,
and threw himself, with a few hundred men, into the Acropolis of
Argos. Kolokotrones, hastening to Tripolitza, called out every
man capable of bearing arms, and hurried back to Argos, where the
Turks were still held at bay by the defenders of the citadel.
Dramali could no longer think of marching into the interior of
the Morea. The gallantry of Demetrius had given time for the
assemblage of a considerable force, and the Ottoman general now
discovered the ruinous effect of his neglect to garrison the
passes in his rear. These were seized by Kolokotrones. The
summer-drought threatened the Turkish army with famine; the fleet
which would have rendered them independent of land-supplies was a
hundred miles away; and Dramali, who had lately seen all Greece
at his feet, now found himself compelled to force his way back
through the enemy to the isthmus of Corinth. The measures taken
by Kolokotrones to intercept his retreat were skilfully planned,
and had they been adequately executed not a man of the Ottoman
army would have escaped. It was only through the disorder and the
cupidity of the Greeks themselves that a portion of Dramali's
force succeeded in cutting its way back to Corinth. Baggage was
plundered while the retreating enemy ought to have been
annihilated, and divisions which ought to have co-operated in the
main attack sought trifling successes of their own. But the
losses and the demoralisation of the Turkish army were as ruinous
to it as total destruction. Dramali himself fell ill and died;
and the remnant of his troops which had escaped from the enemy's
hands perished in the neighbourhood of Corinth from sickness and
want.</p>
<p>[Greek Civil Wars, 1824.]</p>
<p>The decisive events of 1822 opened the eyes of European
Governments to the real character of the Greek national rising,
and to the probability of its ultimate success. The forces of
Turkey were exhausted for the moment, and during the succeeding
year no military operations could be undertaken by the Sultan on
anything like the same scale. It would perhaps have been better
for the Greeks themselves if the struggle had been more
continuously sustained. Nothing but foreign pressure could give
unity to the efforts of a race distracted by so many local
rivalries, and so many personal ambitions and animosities.
Scarcely was the extremity of danger passed when civil war began
among the Greeks themselves. Kolokotrones set himself up in
opposition to the Legislature, and seized on some of the strong
places in the Morea. This first outbreak of the so-called
military party against the civil authorities was, however, of no
great importance. The Primates of the Morea took part with the
representatives of the islands and of Central Greece against the
disturber of the peace, and an accommodation was soon arranged.
Konduriottes, a rich ship-owner of Hydra, was made President,
with Kolettes, a politician of great influence in Central Greece,
as his Minister. But in place of the earlier antagonism between
soldier and civilian, a new and more dangerous antagonism, that
of district against district, now threatened the existence of
Greece. The tendency of the new government to sacrifice
everything to the interest of the islands at once became evident.
Konduriottes was a thoroughly incompetent man, and made himself
ridiculous by appointing his friends, the Hydriote sea-captains,
to the highest military and civil posts. Rebellion again broke
out, and Kolokotrones was joined by his old antagonists, the
Primates of the Morea. A serious struggle ensued, and the
government, which was really conducted by Kolettes, displayed an
energy that surprised both its friends and its foes. The Morea
was invaded by a powerful force from Hydra. No mercy was shown to
the districts which supported the rebels. Kolokotrones was
thoroughly defeated, and compelled to give himself up to the
Government. He was carried to Hydra and thrown into prison, where
he remained until new peril again rendered his services
indispensable to Greece.</p>
<p>[Mahmud calls for the help of Egypt.]</p>
<p>After the destruction of Dramali's army and the failure of the
Ottoman navy to effect any result whatever, the Sultan appears to
have conceived a doubt whether the subjugation of Greece might
not in fact be a task beyond his own unaided power. Even if the
mainland were conquered, it was certain that the Turkish fleet
could never reduce the islands, nor prevent the passage of
supplies and reinforcements from these to the ports of the Morea.
Strenuous as Mahmud had hitherto shown himself in crushing his
vassals who, like Ali Pasha, attempted to establish an authority
independent of the central government, he now found himself
compelled to apply to the most dangerous of them all for
assistance. Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, had risen to power in
the disturbed time that followed the expulsion of Napoleon's
forces from Egypt. His fleet was more powerful than that of
Turkey. He had organised an army composed of Arabs, negroes, and
fellahs, and had introduced into it, by means of French officers,
the military system and discipline of Europe. The same reform had
been attempted in Turkey seventeen years before by Mahmud's
predecessor, Selim III., but it had been successfully resisted by
the soldiery of Constantinople, and Selim had paid for his
innovations with his life. Mahmud, silent and tenacious, had long
been planning the destruction of the Janissaries, the mutinous
and degraded representatives of a once irresistible force, who
would now neither fight themselves nor permit their rulers to
organise any more effective body of troops in their stead. It is
possible that the Sultan may have believed that a victory won
over the enemies of Islam by the re-modelled forces of Egypt
would facilitate the execution of his own plans of military
reform; it is also possible that he may not have been unwilling
to see his vassal's resources dissipated by a distant and
hazardous enterprise. Not without some profound conviction of the
urgency of the present need, not without some sinister
calculation as to the means of dealing with an eventual rival in
the future, was the offer of aggrandisement-if we may judge from
the whole tenor of Sultan Mahmud's career and policy-made to the
Pasha of Egypt by his jealous and far-seeing master. The Pasha
was invited to assume the supreme command of the Ottoman forces
by land and sea, and was promised the island of Crete in return
for his co-operation against the Hellenic revolt. Messages to
this effect reached Alexandria at the beginning of 1824. Mehemet,
whose ambition had no limits, welcomed the proposals of his
sovereign with ardour, and, while declining the command for
himself, accepted it on behalf of Ibrahim, his adopted son.</p>
<p>[Turkish-Egyptian plans.]</p>
<p>[Egyptians conquer Crete, April, 1824.]</p>
<p>[Destruction of Psara, July, 1824.]</p>
<p>The most vigorous preparations for war were now made at
Alexandria. The army was raised to 90,000 men, and new ships were
added to the navy from English dockyards. A scheme was framed for
the combined operation of the Egyptian and the Turkish forces
which appeared to render the ultimate conquest of Greece certain.
It was agreed that the island of Crete, which is not sixty miles
distant from the southern extremity of the Morea, should be
occupied by Ibrahim, and employed as his place of arms; that
simultaneous or joint attacks should then be made upon the
principal islands of the &AElig;g&aelig;an; and that after the
capture of these strongholds and the destruction of the maritime
resources of the Greeks, Ibrahim's troops should pass over the
narrow sea between Crete and the Morea, and complete their work
by the reduction of the mainland, thus left destitute of all
chance of succour from without. Crete, like Sicily, is a natural
stepping-stone between Europe and Africa; and when once the
assistance of Egypt was invoked by the Sultan, it was obvious
that Crete became the position which above all others it was
necessary for the Greeks to watch and to defend. But the wretched
Government of Konduriottes was occupied with its domestic
struggles. The appeal of the Cretans for protection remained
unanswered, and in the spring of 1824 a strong Egyptian force
landed on this island, captured its fortresses, and suppressed
the resistance of the inhabitants with the most frightful
cruelty. The base of operations had been won, and the combined
attacks of the Egyptian and Turkish fleets upon the smaller
islands followed. Casos, about thirty miles east of Crete, was
surprised by the Egyptians, and its population exterminated.
Psara was selected for the attack of the Turkish fleet. Since the
beginning of the insurrection the Psariotes had been the scourge
and terror of the Ottoman coasts. The services that they had
rendered in the Greek navy had been priceless; and if there was
one spot of Greek soil which ought to have been protected as long
as a single boat's crew remained afloat, it was the little rock
of Psara. Yet, in spite of repeated warnings, the Greek
Government allowed the Turkish fleet to pass the Dardanelles
unobserved, and some clumsy feints were enough to blind it to the
real object of an expedition whose aim was known to all Europe.
There were ample means for succouring the islanders, as
subsequent events proved; but when the Turkish admiral, Khosrew,
with 10,000 men on board, appeared before Psara, the Greek fleet
was far away. The Psariotes themselves were over-confident. They
trusted to their batteries on land, and believed their rocks to
be impregnable. They were soon undeceived. While a corps of
Albanians scaled the cliffs behind the town, the Turks gained a
footing in front, and overwhelmed their gallant enemy by weight
of numbers. No mercy was asked or given. Eight thousand of the
Psarians were slain or carried away as slaves. Not more than
one-third of the population succeeded in escaping to the
neighbouring islands. <a name="FNanchor370">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_370"><sup>[370]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Greek successes off the coast of Asia Minor, September,
1824.]</p>
<p>[Ibrahim reaches Crete. December, 1824.]</p>
<p>The first part of the Turko-Egyptian plan had thus been
successfully accomplished, and if Khosrew had attacked Samos
immediately after his first victory, this island would probably
have fallen before help could arrive. But, like other Turkish
commanders, Khosrew loved intervals of repose, and he now sailed
off to Mytilene to celebrate the festival of Bairam. In the
meantime the catastrophe of Psara had aroused the Hydriote
Government to a sense of its danger. A strong fleet was sent
across the &AElig;g&aelig;an, and adequate measures were taken to
defend Samos both by land and sea. The Turkish fleet was attacked
with some success, and though Ibrahim with the Egyptian
contingent now reached the coast of Asia Minor, the Greeks proved
themselves superior to their adversaries combined. The operations
of the Mussulman commanders led to no result; they were harassed
and terrified by the Greek fireships; and when at length all hope
of a joint conquest of Samos had been abandoned, and Ibrahim set
sail for Crete to carry out his own final enterprise alone, he
was met on the high seas by the Greeks, and driven back to the
coast of Asia Minor. During the autumn of 1824 the disasters of
the preceding months were to some extent retrieved, and the
situation of the Egyptian fleet would have become one of some
peril if the Greeks had maintained their guard throughout the
winter. But they underrated the energy of Ibrahim, and
surrendered themselves to the belief that he would not repeat the
attempt to reach Crete until the following spring. Careless, or
deluded by false information, they returned to Hydra, and left
the seas unwatched. Ibrahim saw his opportunity, and, setting
sail for Crete at the beginning of December, he reached it
without falling in with the enemy.</p>
<p>[Ibrahim in the Morea, Feb., 1825.]</p>
<p>The snowy heights of Taygetus are visible on a clear winter's
day from the Cretan coast; yet, with their enemy actually in view
of them, the Greeks neglected to guard the passage to the Morea.
On the 22nd of February, 1825, Ibrahim crossed the sea unopposed
and landed five thousand men at Modon. He was even able to return
to Crete and bring over a second contingent of superior strength
before any steps were taken to hinder his movements. The fate of
the mainland was now settled. Ibrahim marched from Modon upon
Navarino, defeated the Greek forces on the way, and captured the
garrison placed in the Island of Sphakteria-the scene of the
first famous surrender of the Spartans-before the Greek fleet
could arrive to relieve it. The forts of Navarino then
capitulated, and Ibrahim pushed on his victorious march towards
the centre of the Morea. It was in vain that the old chief
Kolokotrones was brought from his prison at Hydra to take supreme
command. The conqueror of Dramali was unable to resist the
onslaught of Ibrahim's regiments, recruited from the fierce races
of the Soudan, and fighting with the same arms and under the same
discipline as the best troops in Europe. Kolokotrones was driven
back through Tripolitza, and retired as the Russians had retired
from Moscow, leaving a deserted capital behind him. Ibrahim gave
his troops no rest; he hurried onwards against Nauplia, and on
the 24th of June reached the summit of the mountain-pass that
looks down upon the Argolic Gulf. "Ah, little island," he cried,
as he saw the rock of Hydra stretched below him, "how long wilt
thou escape me?" At Nauplia itself the Egyptian commander rode up
to the very gates and scanned the defences, which he hoped to
carry at the first assault. Here, however, a check awaited him.
In the midst of general flight and panic, Demetrius Hypsilanti
was again the undaunted soldier. He threw himself with some few
hundreds of men into the mills of Lerna, and there beat back
Ibrahim's vanguard when it attempted to carry this post by storm.
The Egyptian recognised that with men like these in front of him
Nauplia could be reduced only by a regular siege. He retired for
a while upon Tripolitza, and thence sent out his harrying
columns, slaughtering and devastating in every direction. It
seemed to be his design not merely to exhaust the resources of
his enemy but to render the Morea a desert, and to exterminate
its population. In the very birthplace of European civilisation,
it was said, this savage, who had already been nominated Pasha of
the Morea, intended to extinguish the European race and name, and
to found for himself upon the ashes of Greece a new barbaric
state composed of African negroes and fellaheen. That such design
had actually been formed was denied by the Turkish government in
answer to official inquiries, and its existence was not capable
of proof. But the brutality of one age is the stupidity of the
next, and Ibrahim's violence recoiled upon himself. Nothing in
the whole struggle between the Sultan and the Greeks gave so
irresistible an argument to the Philhellenes throughout Europe,
or so directly overcame the scruples of Governments in regard to
an armed intervention in favour of Greece, as Ibrahim's alleged
policy of extermination and re-settlement. The days were past
when Europe could permit its weakest member to be torn from it
and added to the Mohammedan world.</p>
<p>[Siege of Missolongi, April, 1825-April, 1826.]</p>
<p>One episode of the deepest tragic interest yet remained in the
Turko-Hellenic conflict before the Powers of Europe stepped in
and struck with weapons stronger than those which had fallen from
dying hands. The town of Missolonghi was now beleaguered by the
Turks, who had invaded Western Greece while Ibrahim was
overrunning the Morea. Missolonghi had already once been besieged
without success; and, as in the case of Saragossa, the first
deliverance appears to have inspired the townspeople with the
resolution, maintained even more heroically at Missolonghi than
at the Spanish city, to die rather than capitulate. From the time
when Reschid, the Turkish commander, opened the second attack by
land and sea in the spring of 1825, the garrison and the
inhabitants met every movement of the enemy with the most
obstinate resistance. It was in vain that Reschid broke through
the defences with his artillery, and threw mass after mass upon
the breaches which he made. For month after month the assaults of
the Turks were uniformly repelled, until at length the arrival of
a Hydriote squadron forced the Turkish fleet to retire from its
position, and made the situation of Reschid himself one of
considerable danger. And now, as winter approached, and the
guerilla bands in the rear of the besiegers grew more and more
active, the Egyptian army with its leader was called from the
Morea to carry out the task in which the Turks had failed. The
Hydriote sea-captains had departed, believing their presence to
be no longer needed; and although they subsequently returned for
a short time, their services were grudgingly rendered and
ineffective. Ibrahim, settling down to his work at the beginning
of 1826, conducted his operations with the utmost vigour,
boasting that he would accomplish in fourteen days what the Turks
could not effect in nine months. But his veteran soldiers were
thoroughly defeated when they met the Greeks hand to hand; and
the Egyptian, furious with his enemy, his allies, and his own
officers, confessed that Missolonghi could only be taken by
blockade. He now ordered a fleet of flat-bottomed boats to be
constructed and launched upon the lagoons that lie between
Missolonghi and the open sea. Missolonghi was thus completely
surrounded; and when the Greek admirals appeared for the last
time and endeavoured to force an entrance through the shallows,
they found the besieger in full command of waters inaccessible to
themselves, and after one unsuccessful effort abandoned
Missolonghi to its fate. In the third week of April, 1826,
exactly a year after the commencement of the siege, the supply of
food was exhausted. The resolution, long made, that the entire
population, men, women, and children, should fall by the enemy's
sword rather than surrender, was now actually carried out. On the
night of the 22nd of April all the Missolonghiots, with the
exception of those whom age, exhaustion, or illness made unable
to leave their homes, were drawn up in bands at the city gates,
the women armed and dressed as men, the children carrying
pistols. Preceded by a body of soldiers, they crossed the moat
under Turkish fire. The attack of the vanguard carried everything
before it, and a way was cut through the Turkish lines. But at
this moment some cry of confusion was mistaken by those who were
still on the bridges for an order to retreat. A portion of the
non-combatants returned into the town, and with them the
rearguard of the military escort. The leading divisions, however,
continued their march forward, and would have escaped with the
loss of some of the women and children, had not treachery already
made the Turkish commander acquainted with the routes which they
intended to follow. They had cleared the Turkish camp, and were
expecting to meet the bands of Greek armatoli, who had promised
to fall upon the enemy's rear, when, instead of friends, they
encountered troop after troop of Ottoman cavalry and of Albanians
placed in ambush along the road between Missolonghi and the
mountains. Here, exhausted and surprised, they were cut down
without mercy, and out of a body numbering several thousand not
more than fifteen hundred men, with a few women and children,
ultimately reached places of safety. Missolonghi itself was
entered by the Turks during the sortie. The soldiers who had
fallen back during the confusion on the bridges, proved that they
had not acted from cowardice. They fought unflinchingly to the
last, and three bands, establishing themselves in the three
powder magazines of the town, set fire to them when surrounded by
the Turks, and perished in the explosion Some thousands of women
and children were captured around and within the town, or
wandering on the mountains; but the Turks had few other
prisoners. The men were dead or free.</p>
<p>[Fall of the Acropolis of Athens, June 5, 1827.]</p>
<p>From Missolonghi the tide of Ottoman conquest rolled eastward,
and the Acropolis of Athens was in its turn the object of a long
and arduous siege. The Government, which now held scarcely any
territory on the mainland except Nauplia, where it was itself
threatened by Ibrahim, made the most vigorous efforts to prevent
the Acropolis from falling into Reschid's hands. All, however,
was in vain. The English officers, Church and Cochrane, who were
now placed at the head of the military and naval forces of
Greece, failed ignominiously in the attacks which they made on
Reschid's besieging army; and the garrison capitulated on June 5,
1827. But the time was past when the liberation of Greece could
be prevented by any Ottoman victory. The heroic defence of the
Missolonghiots had achieved its end. Greece had fought long
enough to enlist the Powers of Europe on its side; and in the
same month that Missolonghi fell the policy of non-intervention
was definitely abandoned by those Governments which were best
able to carry their intentions into effect. If the struggle had
ended during the first three years of the insurrection, no hand
would have been raised to prevent the restoration of the Sultan's
rule. Russia then lay as if spell-bound beneath the diplomacy of
the Holy Alliance; and although in the second year of the war the
death of Castlereagh and the accession of Canning to power had
given Greece a powerful friend instead of a powerful foe within
the British Ministry, it was long before England stirred from its
neutrality. Canning indeed made no secret of his sympathies for
Greece, and of his desire to give the weaker belligerent such
help as a neutral might afford; but when he took up office the
time had not come when intervention would have been useful or
possible. Changes in the policy of other great Powers and in the
situation of the belligerents themselves were, he considered,
necessary before the influence of England could be successfully
employed in establishing peace in the East.</p>
<p>[First Russian project of joint intervention, 12 Jan.,
1824.]</p>
<p>A vigorous movement of public opinion in favour of Greece made
itself felt throughout Western Europe as the struggle continued;
and the vivid and romantic interest excited over the whole
civilised world by the death of Lord Byron in 1823, among the
people whom he had come to free, probably served the Greek cause
better than all that Byron could have achieved had his life been
prolonged. In France and England, where public opinion had great
influence on the action of the Government, as well as in Germany,
where it had none whatever, societies were formed for assisting
the Greeks with arms, stores, and money. The first proposal,
however, for a joint intervention in favour of Greece came from
St. Petersburg. The undisguised good-will of Canning towards the
insurgents led the Czar's Government to anticipate that England
itself might soon assume that championship of the Greek cause
which Russia, at the bidding of Metternich and of Canning's
predecessor, had up to that time declined. If the Greeks were to
be befriended, it was intolerable that others should play the
part of the patron. Accordingly, on the 12th of January, 1824, a
note was submitted in the Czar's name to all the Courts of
Europe, containing a plan for a settlement of the Greek question,
which it was proposed that the great Powers of Europe should
enforce upon Turkey either by means of an armed demonstration or
by the threat of breaking off all diplomatic relations. According
to this scheme, Greece, apart from the islands, was to be divided
into three Principalities, each tributary to the Sultan and
garrisoned by Turkish troops, but in other respects autonomous,
like the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The islands
were to retain their municipal organisation as before. In one
respect this scheme was superior to all that have succeeded it,
for it included in the territory of the Greeks both Crete and
Epirus; in all other respects it was framed in the interest of
Russia alone. Its object was simply to create a second group of
provinces, like those on the Danube, which should afford Russia a
constant opportunity for interfering with the Ottoman Empire, and
which at the same time should prevent the Greeks from
establishing an independent and self-supporting State. The design
cannot be called insidious, for its object was so palpable that
not a single politician in Europe was deceived by it; and a very
simple ruse of Metternich's was enough to draw from the Russian
Government an explicit declaration against the independence of
Greece, which was described by the Czar as a mere chimera. But of
all the parties concerned, the Greeks themselves were loudest in
denounciation of the Russian plan. Their Government sent a
protest against it to London, and was assured by Canning in reply
that the support of this country should never be given to any
scheme for disposing of the Greeks without their own consent.
Elsewhere the Czar's note was received with expressions of
politeness due to a Court which it might be dangerous to
contradict; and a series of conferences was opened at St.
Petersburg for the purpose of discussing propositions which no
one intended to carry into execution. Though Canning ordered the
British ambassador at St. Petersburg to dissociate himself from
these proceedings, the conferences dragged on, with long
adjournments, from the spring of 1824 to the summer of the
following year. <a name="FNanchor371">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_371"><sup>[371]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Discontent and conspiracies in Russia.]</p>
<p>In the meantime a strong spirit of discontent was rising in
the Russian army and nation. The religious feeling no less than
the pride of the people was deeply wounded by Alexander's refusal
to aid the Greeks in their struggle, and by the pitiful results
of his attempted diplomatic concert. Alone among the European
nations the Russians understood the ecclesiastical character of
the Greek insurrection, and owed nothing of their sympathy with
it to the spell of classical literature and art. It is
characteristic of the strength of the religious element in the
political views of the Russian people, that the floods of the
Neva which overwhelmed St. Petersburg in the winter of 1825
should have been regarded as a sign of divine anger at the Czar's
inaction in the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross. But
other causes of discontent were not wanting in Russia. Though
Alexander had forgotten his promises to introduce constitutional
rule, there were many, especially in the army, who had not done
so. Officers who served in the invasion of France in 1815, and in
the three years' occupation which followed it, returned from
Western Europe with ideas of social progress and of
constitutional rights which they could never have gathered in
their own country. And when the bright hopes which had been
excited by the recognition of these same ideas by the Czar passed
away, and Russia settled down into the routine of despotism and
corruption, the old unquestioning loyalty of the army was no
longer proof against the workings of the revolutionary spirit. In
a land where legal means of opposition to government and of the
initiation of reform were wholly wanting, discontent was forced
into its most dangerous form, that of military conspiracy. The
army was honeycombed with secret societies. Both in the north and
in the south of Russia men of influence worked among the younger
officers, and gained a strong body of adherents to their design
of establishing a constitution by force. The southern army
contained the most resolute and daring conspirators. These men
had definitely abandoned the hope of effecting any public reform
as long as Alexander lived, and they determined to sacrifice the
sovereign, as his father and others before him had been
sacrificed, to the political necessities of the time. If the
evidence subsequently given by those implicated in the conspiracy
is worthy of credit, a definite plan had been formed for the
assassination of the Czar in the presence of his troops at one of
the great reviews intended to be held in the south of Russia in
the autumn of 1825. On the death of the monarch a provisional
government was at once to be established, and a constitution
proclaimed.</p>
<p>[Death of the Czar, Dec. 1, 1825.]</p>
<p>Alexander, aware of the rising indignation of his people, and
irritated beyond endurance by the failure of his diplomatic
efforts, had dissolved the St. Petersburg Conferences in August,
1825, and declared that Russia would henceforth act according to
its own discretion. He quitted St. Petersburg and travelled to
the Black Sea, accompanied by some of the leaders of the
war-party. Here, plunged in a profound melancholy, conscious that
all his early hopes had only served to surround him with
conspirators, and that his sacrifice of Russia's military
interests to international peace had only rendered his country
impotent before all Europe, he still hesitated to make the final
determination between peace and war. A certain mystery hung over
his movements, his acts, and his intentions. Suddenly, while all
Europe waited for the signal that should end the interval of
suspense, the news was sent out from a lonely port on the Black
Sea that the Czar was dead. Alexander, still under fifty years of
age, had welcomed the illness which carried him from a world of
cares, and closed a career in which anguish and disappointment
had succeeded to such intoxicating glory and such unbounded hope.
Young as he still was for one who had reigned twenty-four years,
Alexander was of all men the most life-weary. Power, pleasure,
excitement, had lavished on him hours of such existence as none
but Napoleon among all his contemporaries had enjoyed. They had
left him nothing but the solace of religious resignation, and the
belief that a Power higher than his own might yet fulfil the
purposes in which he himself had failed. Ever in the midst of
great acts and great events, he had missed greatness himself.
Where he had been best was exactly where men inferior to himself
considered him to have been worst-in his hopes; and these hopes
he had himself abandoned and renounced. Strength, insight, unity
of purpose, the qualities which enable men to mould events,
appeared in him but momentarily or in semblance. For want of them
the large and fair horizon of his earlier years was first
obscured and then wholly blotted out from his view, till in the
end nothing but his pietism and his generosity distinguished him
from the politicians of repression whose instrument he had
become.</p>
<p>[Military insurrection at St. Petersburg, Dec 26, 1825.]</p>
<p>The sudden death of Alexander threw the Russian Court into the
greatest confusion, for it was not known who was to succeed him.
The heir to the throne was his brother Constantine, an ignorant
and brutal savage, who had just sufficient sense not to desire to
be Czar of Russia, though he considered himself good enough to
tyrannise over the Poles. Constantine had renounced his right to
the crown some years before, but the renunciation had not been
made public, nor had the Grand Duke Nicholas, Constantine's
younger brother, been made aware that the succession was
irrevocably fixed upon himself. Accordingly, when the news of
Alexander's death reached St. Petersburg, and the document
embodying Constantine's abdication was brought from the archives
by the officials to whose keeping it had been entrusted, Nicholas
refused to acknowledge it as binding, and caused the troops to
take the oath of allegiance to Constantine, who was then at
Warsaw. Constantine, on the other hand, proclaimed his brother
emperor. An interregnum of three weeks followed, during which
messages passed between Warsaw and St. Petersburg, Nicholas
positively refusing to accept the crown unless by his elder
brother's direct command. This at length arrived, and on the 26th
of December Nicholas assumed the rank of sovereign. But the
interval of uncertainty had been turned to good account by the
conspirators at St. Petersburg. The oath already taken by the
soldiers to Constantine enabled the officers who were concerned
in the plot to denounce Nicholas as a usurper, and to disguise
their real designs under the cloak of loyalty to the legitimate
Czar. Ignorant of the very meaning of a constitution, the common
soldiers mutinied because they were told to do so; and it is said
that they shouted the word Constitution, believing it to be the
name of Constantine's wife. When summoned to take the oath to
Nicholas, the Moscow Regiment refused it, and marched off to the
place in front of the Senate House, where it formed square, and
repulsed an attack made upon it by the Cavalry of the Guard.
Companies from other regiments now joined the mutineers, and
symptoms of insurrection began to show themselves among the civil
population. Nicholas himself did not display the energy of
character which distinguished him through all his later life; on
the contrary, his attitude was for some time rather that of
resignation than of self-confidence. Whether some doubt as to the
justice of his cause haunted him, or a trial like that to which
he was now exposed was necessary to bring to its full strength
the iron quality of his nature, it is certain that the conduct of
the new Czar during these critical hours gave to those around him
little indication of the indomitable will which was hence forth
to govern Russia. Though the great mass of the army remained
obedient, it was but slowly brought up to the scene of revolt.
Officers of high rank were sent to harangue the insurgents, and
one of these, General Miloradovitsch, a veteran of the Napoleonic
campaigns, was mortally wounded while endeavouring to make
himself heard. It was not until evening that the artillery was
ordered into action, and the command given by the Czar to fire
grape-shot among the insurgents. The effect was decisive. The
mutineers fled before a fire which they were unable to return,
and within a few minutes the insurrection was over. It had
possessed no chief of any military capacity; its leaders were
missing at the moment when a forward march or an attack on the
palace of the Czar might have given them the victory; and among
the soldiers at large there was not the least desire to take part
in any movement against the established system of Russia. The
only effect left by the conspiracy within Russia itself was seen
in the rigorous and uncompromising severity with which Nicholas
henceforward enforced the principle of autocratic rule. The
illusions of the previous reign were at an end. A man with the
education and the ideas of a drill-sergeant and the religious
assurance of a Covenanter was on the throne; rebellion had done
its worst against him; and woe to those who in future should
deviate a hair's breadth from their duty of implicit obedience to
the sovereign's all-sufficing power. <a name="FNanchor372">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_372"><sup>[372]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Anglo-Russian Protocol, April 4, 1826.]</p>
<p>It has been stated, and with some probability of truth, that
the military insurrection of 1825 disposed the new Czar to a more
vigorous policy abroad. The conspirators, when on their trial,
declared it to have been their intention to throw the army at
once into an attack upon the Turks; and in so doing they would
certainly have had the feeling of the nation on their side.
Nicholas himself had little or no sympathy for the Greeks. They
were a democratic people, and the freedom which they sought to
gain was nothing but anarchy. "Do not speak of the Greeks," he
said to the representative of a foreign power, "I call them the
rebels." Nevertheless, little as Nicholas wished to serve the
Greek democracy, both inclination and policy urged him to make an
end of his predecessor's faint-hearted system of negotiation, and
to bring the struggle in the East to a summary close. Canning had
already, in conversation with the Russian ambassador at London,
discussed a possible change of policy on the part of the two
rival Courts. He now saw that time had come for establishing new
relations between Great Britain and Russia, and for attempting
that co-operation in the East which he had held to be
impracticable during Alexander's reign. The Duke of Wellington
was sent to St. Petersburg, nominally to offer the usual
congratulations to the new sovereign, in reality to dissuade him
from going to war, and to propose either the separate
intervention of England or a joint intervention by England and
Russia on behalf of Greece. The mission was successful. It was in
vain that Metternich endeavoured to entangle the new Czar in the
diplomatic web that had so long held his predecessor. The spell
of the Holy Alliance was broken. Nicholas looked on the past
influence of Austria on the Eastern Question only with
resentment; he would hear of no more conferences of ambassadors;
and on the 4th of April, 1826, a Protocol was signed at St.
Petersburg, by which Great Britain and Russia fixed the
conditions under which the mediation of the former Power was to
be tendered to the Porte. Greece was to remain tributary to the
Sultan; it was, however, to be governed by its own elected
authorities, and to be completely independent in its commercial
relations. The policy known in our own day as that of
bag-and-baggage expulsion was to be carried out in a far more
extended sense than that in which it has been advocated by more
recent champions of the subject races of the East; the Protocol
of 1826 stipulating for the removal not only of Turkish officials
but of the entire surviving Turkish population of Greece. All
property belonging to the Turks, whether on the continent or in
the islands, was to be purchased by the Greeks. <a name=
"FNanchor373">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_373"><sup>[373]</sup></a></p>
<p>Thus was the first step taken in the negotiations which ended
in the establishment of Hellenic independence. The Protocol,
which had been secretly signed, was submitted after some interval
to the other Courts of Europe. At Vienna it was received with the
utmost disgust. Metternich had at first declared the union of
England and Russia to be an impossibility. When this union was
actually established, no language was sufficiently strong to
express his mortification and his spite. At one moment he
declared that Canning was a revolutionist who had entrapped the
young and inexperienced Czar into an alliance with European
radicalism; at another, that England had made itself the
cat's-paw of Russian ambition. Not till now, he protested, could
Europe understand what it had lost in Castlereagh. Nor did
Metternich confine himself to lamentations. While his
representatives at Paris and Berlin spared no effort to excite
the suspicion of those Courts against the Anglo-Russian project
of intervention, the Austrian ambassador at London worked upon
King George's personal hostility to Canning, and conspired
against the Minister with that important section of the English
aristocracy which was still influenced by the traditional regard
for Austria. Berlin, however, was the only field where
Metternich's diplomacy still held its own. King Frederick William
had not yet had time to acquire the habit of submission to the
young Czar Nicholas, and was therefore saved the pain of deciding
which of two masters he should obey. In spite of his own sympathy
for the Greeks, he declined to connect Prussia with the proposed
joint-intervention, and remained passive, justifying this course
by the absence of any material interests of Prussia in the East.
Being neither a neighbour of the Ottoman Empire nor a maritime
Power, Prussia had in fact no direct means of making its
influence felt.</p>
<p>[Treaty between England, Russia and France, July, 1827.]</p>
<p>France, on whose action much more depended, was now governed
wholly in the interests of the Legitimist party. Louis XVIII. had
died in 1824, and the Count of Artois had succeeded to the
throne, under the title of Charles X. The principles of the
Legitimists would logically have made them defenders of the
hereditary rights of the Sultan against his rebellious subjects;
but the Sultan, unlike Ferdinand of Spain, was not a Bourbon nor
even a Christian; and in a case where the legitimate prince was
an infidel and the rebels were Christians, the conscience of the
most pious Legitimist might well recoil from the perilous task of
deciding between the divine rights of the Crown and the divine
rights of the Church, and choose, in so painful an emergency, the
simpler course of gratifying the national love of action. There
existed, both among Liberals and among Ultramontanes, a real
sympathy for Greece, and this interest was almost the only one in
which all French political sections felt that they had something
in common. Liberals rejoiced in the prospect of making a new free
State in Europe; Catholics, like Charles X. himself, remembered
Saint Louis and the Crusades; diplomatists understood the extreme
importance of the impending breach between Austria and Russia,
and of the opportunity of allying France with the latter Power.
Thus the natural and disinterested impulse of the greater part of
the public coincided exactly with the dictates of a far-seeing
policy; and the Government, in spite of its Legitimist principles
and of some assurances given to Metternich in person when he
visited Paris in 1825, determined to accept the policy of the
Anglo-Russian intervention in the East, and to participate in the
active measures about to be taken by the two Powers. The Protocol
of St. Petersburg formed the basis of a definitive treaty which
was signed at London in July, 1827. By this act England, Russia,
and France undertook to put an end to the conflict in the East,
which, through the injury done to the commerce of all nations,
had become a matter of European concern. The contending parties
were to be summoned to accept the mediation of the Powers and to
consent to an armistice. Greece was to be made autonomous, under
the paramount sovereignty of the Sultan; the Mohammedan
population of the Greek provinces was, as in the Protocol of St.
Petersburg, to be entirely removed; and the Greeks were to enter
upon possession of all Turkish property within their limits,
paying an indemnity to the former owners. Each of the three
contracting Governments pledged itself to seek no increase of
territory in the East, and no special commercial advantages. In
the secret articles of the treaty provisions were made for the
case of the rejection by the Turks of the proposed offer of
mediation. Should the armistice not be granted within one month,
the Powers agreed that they would announce to each belligerent
their intention to prevent further encounters, and that they
would take the necessary steps for enforcing this declaration,
without, however, taking part in hostilities themselves.
Instructions in conformity with the Treaty were to be sent to the
Admirals commanding the Mediterranean squadrons of the three
Powers. <a name="FNanchor374">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_374"><sup>[374]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Death of Canning, August, 1827.]</p>
<p>[Policy of Canning.]</p>
<p>Scarcely was the Treaty of London signed when Canning died. He
had definitely broken from the policy of his predecessors, that
policy which, for the sake of guarding against Russia's advance,
had condemned the Christian races of the East to 1827. eternal
subjection to the Turk, and bound up Great Britain with the
Austrian system of resistance to the very principle and name of
national independence. Canning was no blind friend to Russia. As
keenly as any of his adversaries he appreciated the importance of
England's interests in the East; of all English statesmen of that
time he would have been the last to submit to any diminution of
England's just influence or power. But, unlike his predecessors,
he saw that there were great forces at work which, whether with
England's concurrence or in spite of it, would accomplish that
revolution in the East for which the time was now come; and he
was statesman enough not to acquiesce in the belief that the
welfare of England was in permanent and necessary antagonism to
the moral interests of mankind and the better spirit of the age.
Therefore, instead of attempting to maintain the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire, or holding aloof and resorting to threats and
armaments while Russia accomplished the liberation of Greece by
itself, he united with Russia in this work, and relied on
concerted action as the best preventive against the undue
extension of Russia's influence in the East. In committing
England to armed intervention, Canning no doubt hoped that the
settlement of the Greek question arranged by the Powers would be
peacefully accepted by the Sultan, and that a separate war
between Russia and the Porte, on this or any other issue, would
be averted. Neither of these hopes was realised. The
joint-intervention had to be enforced by arms, and no sooner had
the Allies struck their common blow than a war between Turkey and
Russia followed. How far the course of events might have been
modified had Canning's life not been cut short it is impossible
to say; but whether his statesmanship might or might not have
averted war on the Danube, the balance of results proved his
policy to have been the right one. Greece was established as an
independent State, to supply in the future a valuable element of
resistance to Slavic preponderance in the Levant; and the
encounter between Russia and Turkey, so long dreaded, produced
none of those disastrous effects which had been anticipated from
it. On the relative value of Canning's statesmanship as compared
with that of his predecessors, the mind of England and of Europe
has long been made up. He stands among those who have given to
this country its claim to the respect of mankind. His monument,
as well as his justification, is the existence of national
freedom in the East; and when half a century later a British
Government reverted to the principle of nonintervention, as it
had been understood by Castlereagh, and declined to enter into
any effective co-operation with Russia for the emancipation of
Bulgaria, even then, when the precedent of Canning's action in
1827 stood in direct and glaring contradiction to the policy of
the hour, no effective attempt was made by the leaders of the
party to which Canning had belonged to impugn his authority, or
to explain away his example. It might indeed be alleged that
Canning had not explicitly resolved on the application of force;
but those who could maintain that Canning would, like Wellington,
have used the language of apology and regret when Turkish
obstinacy had made it impossible to effect the object of his
intervention by any other means, had indeed read the history of
Canning's career in vain. <a name="FNanchor375">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_375"><sup>[375]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Intervention of the Admirals, Sept., 1827.]</p>
<p>The death of Canning, which brought his rival, the Duke of
Wellington, after a short interval to the head of affairs, caused
at the moment no avowed change in the execution of his plans. In
accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of London the
mediation of the allied Powers was at once tendered to the
belligerents, and an armistice demanded. The armistice was
accepted by the Greeks; it was contemptuously refused by the
Turks. In consequence of this refusal the state of war continued,
as it would have been absurd to ask the Greeks to sit still and
be massacred because the enemy declined to lay down his arms. The
Turk being the party resisting the mediation agreed upon, it
became necessary to deprive him of the power of continuing
hostilities. Heavy reinforcements had just arrived from Egypt,
and an expedition was on the point of sailing from Navarino, the
gathering place of Ibrahim's forces, against Hydra, the capture
of which would have definitely made an end of the Greek
insurrection. Admiral Codrington, the commander of the British
fleet, and the French Admiral De Rigny, were now off the coast of
Greece. They addressed themselves to Ibrahim, and required from
him a promise that he would make no movement until further orders
should arrive from Constantinople. Ibrahim made this promise
verbally on the 25th of September. A few days later, however,
Ibrahim learnt that while he himself was compelled to be
inactive, the Greeks, continuing hostilities as they were
entitled to do, had won a brilliant naval victory under Captain
Hastings within the Gulf of Corinth. Unable to control his anger,
he sailed out from the harbour of Navarino, and made for Patras.
Codrington, who had stationed his fleet at Zante, heard of the
movement, and at once threw himself across the track of the
Egyptian, whom he compelled to turn back by an energetic threat
to sink his fleet. Had the French and Russian contingents been at
hand, Codrington would have taken advantage of Ibrahim's sortie
to cut him off from all Greek harbours, and to force him to
return direct to Alexandria, thus peaceably accomplishing the
object of the intervention. This, however, to the misfortune of
Ibrahim's seamen, the English admiral could not do alone. Ibrahim
re-entered Navarino, and there found the orders of the Sultan for
which it had been agreed that he should wait. These orders were
dictated by true Turkish infatuation. They bade Ibrahim continue
the subjugation of the Morea with the utmost vigour, and promised
him the assistance of Reschid Pasha, his rival in the siege of
Missolonghi. Ibrahim, perfectly reckless of the consequences, now
sent out his devastating columns again. No life, and nothing that
could support life, was spared. Not only were the crops ravaged,
but the fruit-trees, which are the permanent support of the
country, were cut down at the roots. Clouds of fire and smoke
from burning villages showed the English officers who approached
the coast in what spirit the Turk met their proposals for a
pacification. "It is supposed that if Ibrahim remained in
Greece," wrote Captain Hamilton, "more than a third of its
inhabitants would die of absolute starvation."</p>
<p>[Battle of Navarino, Oct. 20th, 1827.]</p>
<p>It became necessary to act quickly, the more so as the season
was far advanced, and a winter blockade of Ibrahim's fleet was
impossible. A message was sent to the Egyptian head-quarters,
requiring that hostilities should cease, that the Morea should be
evacuated, and the Turko-Egyptian fleet return to Constantinople
and Alexandria. In answer to this message there came back a
statement that Ibrahim had left Navarino for the interior of the
country, and that it was not known where to find him. Nothing now
remained for the admirals but to make their presence felt. On the
18th of October it was resolved that the English, French, and
Russian fleets, which were now united, should enter the harbour
of Navarino in battle order. The movement was called a
demonstration, and in so far as the admirals had not actually
determined upon making an attack, it was not directly a hostile
measure; but every gun was ready to open fire, and it was well
understood that any act of resistance on the part of the opposite
fleet would result in hostilities. Codrington, as senior officer,
took command of the allied squadron, and the instructions which
he gave to his colleagues for the event of a general engagement
concluded with Nelson's words, that no captain could do very
wrong who placed his ship alongside that of an enemy.</p>
<p>Thus, ready to strike hard, the English admiral sailed into
the harbour of Navarino at noon on October 20, followed by the
French and the Russians. The allied fleet advanced to within
pistol-shot of the Ottoman ships and there anchored. A little to
the windward of the position assigned to the English corvette
<i>Dartmouth</i> there lay a Turkish fire-ship. A request was
made that this dangerous vessel might be removed to a safer
distance; it was refused, and a boat's crew was then sent to cut
its cable. The boat was received with musketry fire. This was
answered by the <i>Dartmouth</i> and by a French ship, and the
battle soon became general. Codrington, still desirous to avoid
bloodshed, sent his pilot to Moharem Bey, who commanded in
Ibrahim's absence, proposing to withhold fire on both sides.
Moharem replied with cannon-shot, killing the pilot and striking
Codrington's own vessel. This exhausted the patience of the
English admiral, who forthwith made his adversary a mere wreck.
The entire fleets on both sides were now engaged. The Turks had a
superiority of eight hundred guns, and fought with courage. For
four hours the battle raged at close quarters in the land-locked
harbour, while twenty thousand of Ibrahim's soldiers watched from
the surrounding hills the struggle in which they could take no
part. But the result of the combat was never for a moment
doubtful. The confusion and bad discipline of the Turkish fleet
made it an easy prey. Vessel after vessel was sunk or blown to
pieces, and before evening fell the work of the allies was done.
When Ibrahim returned from his journey on the following day he
found the harbour of Navarino strewed with wrecks and dead
bodies. Four thousand of his seamen had fallen; the fleet which
was to have accomplished the reduction of Hydra was utterly <a
name="FNanchor376">ruined.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_376"><sup>[376]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Inaction of England after Navarino.]</p>
<p>Over all Greece it was at once felt that the nation was saved.
The intervention of the Powers had been sudden and decisive
beyond the most sanguine hopes; and though this intervention
might be intended to establish something less than the complete
independence of Greece, the violence of the first collision bade
fair to carry the work far beyond the bounds originally assigned
to it. The attitude of the Porte after the news of the battle of
Navarino reached Constantinople was exactly that which its worst
enemies might have desired. So far from abating anything in its
resistance to the mediation of the three Powers, it declared the
attack made upon its navy to be a crime and an outrage, and
claimed satisfaction for it from the ambassadors of the Allied
Powers. Arguments proved useless, and the united demand for an
armistice with the Greeks having been finally and contemptuously
refused, the ambassadors, in accordance with their instructions,
quitted the Turkish capital (Dec. 8). Had Canning been still
living, it is probable that the first blow of Navarino would have
been immediately followed by the measures necessary to make the
Sultan submit to the Treaty of London, and that the forces of
Great Britain would have been applied with sufficient vigour to
render any isolated action on the part of Russia both unnecessary
and impossible. But at this critical moment a paralysis fell over
the English Government. Canning's policy was so much his own, he
had dragged his colleagues so forcibly with him in spite of
themselves, that when his place was left empty no one had the
courage either to fulfil or to reverse his intentions, and the
men who succeeded him acted as if they were trespassers in the
fortress which Canning had taken by storm. The very ground on
which Wellington, no less than Canning, had justified the
agreement made with Russia in 1826 was the necessity of
preventing Russia from acting alone; and when Russian and Turkish
ships had actually fought at Navarino, and war was all but
formally declared, it became more imperative than ever that Great
Britain should keep the most vigorous hold upon its rival, and by
steady, consistent pressure let it be known to both Turks and
Russians that the terms of the Treaty of London and no others
must be enforced. To retire from action immediately after dealing
the Sultan one dire, irrevocable blow, without following up this
stroke or attaining the end agreed upon-to leave Russia to take
up the armed compulsion where England had dropped it, and to win
from its crippled adversary the gains of a private and isolated
war-was surely the weakest of all possible policies that could
have been adopted. Yet this was the policy followed by English
Ministers during that interval of transition and incoherence that
passed between Canning's death and the introduction of the Reform
Bill.</p>
<p>[War between Russia and Turkey, April, 1828.]</p>
<p>By the Russian Government nothing was more ardently desired
than a contest with Turkey, in which England and France, after
they had destroyed the Turkish fleet, should be mere on-lookers,
debarred by the folly of the Porte itself from prohibiting or
controlling hostilities between it and its neighbour. There might
indeed be some want of a pretext for war, since all the points of
contention between Russia and Turkey other than those relating to
Greece had been finally settled in Russia's favour by a Treaty
signed at Akerman in October, 1826. But the spirit of infatuation
had seized the Sultan, or a secret hope that the Western Powers
would in the last resort throw over the Court of St. Petersburg
led him to hurry on hostilities by a direct challenge to Russia.
A proclamation which reads like the work of some frantic dervish,
though said to have been composed by Mahmud himself, called the
Mussulman world to arms. Russia was denounced as the instigator
of the Greek rebellion, and the arch-enemy of Islam. The Treaty
of Akerman was declared to have been extorted by compulsion and
to have been signed only for the purpose of gaining time. "Russia
has imparted its own madness to the other Powers and persuaded
them to make an alliance to free the Rayah from his Ottoman
master. But the Turk does not count his enemies. The law forbids
the people of Islam to permit any injury to be done to their
religion; and if all the unbelievers together unite against them,
they will enter on the war as a sacred duty, and trust in God for
protection." This proclamation was followed by a levy of troops
and the expulsion of most of the Christian residents in
Constantinople. Russia needed no other pretext. The fanatical
outburst of the Sultan was treated by the Court of St. Petersburg
as if it had been the deliberate expression of some civilised
Power, and was answered on the 26th of April, 1828, by a
declaration of war. In order to soften the effect of this step
and to reap the full benefit of its subsisting relations with
France and England, Russia gave a provisional undertaking to
confine its operations as a belligerent to the mainland and the
Black Sea, and within the Mediterranean to act still as one of
the allied neutrals under the terms of the Treaty of London.</p>
<p>[Military condition of Turkey.]</p>
<p>The moment seized by Russia for the declaration of war was one
singularly favourable to itself and unfortunate for its
adversary. Not only had the Turkish fleet been destroyed by the
neutrals, but the old Turkish force of the Janissaries had been
destroyed by its own master, and the new-modelled regiments which
were to replace it had not yet been organised. The Sultan had
determined in 1826 to postpone his long-planned military reform
no longer, and to stake everything on one bold stroke against the
Janissaries. Troops enough were brought up from the other side of
the Bosphorus to make Mahmud certain of victory. The Janissaries
were summoned to contribute a proportion of their number to the
regiments about to be formed on the European pattern; and when
they proudly refused to do so and raised the standard of open
rebellion they were cut to pieces and exterminated by Mahmud's
Anatolian soldiers in the midst of Constantinople. <a name=
"FNanchor377">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_377"><sup>[377]</sup></a>
The principal difficulty in the way of a reform of the Turkish
army was thus removed and the work of reorganisation was
earnestly taken in hand; but before there was time to complete it
the enemy entered the field. Mahmud had to meet the attack of
Russia with an army greatly diminished in number, and confused by
the admixture of European and Turkish discipline. The resources
of the empire were exhausted by the long struggle with Greece,
and, above all, the destruction of the Janissaries had left
behind it an exasperation which made the Sultan believe that
rebellion might at any moment break out in his own capital.
Nevertheless, in spite of its inherent weakness and of all the
disadvantages under which it entered into war, Turkey succeeded
in prolonging its resistance through two campaigns, and might,
with better counsels, have tried the fortune of a third.</p>
<p>[Military condition of Russia.]</p>
<p>The actual military resources of Russia were in 1828 much
below what they were believed to be by all Europe. The
destruction of Napoleon's army in 1812 and the subsequent
exploits of Alexander in the campaigns which ended in the capture
of Paris had left behind them an impression of Russian energy and
power which was far from corresponding with the reality, and
which, though disturbed by the events of 1828, had by no means
vanished at the time of the Crimean War. The courage and patience
of the Russian soldier were certainly not over-rated; but the
progress supposed to have been made in Russian military
organisation since the campaign of 1799, when it was regarded in
England and Austria as little above that of savages, was for the
most part imaginary. The proofs of a radically bad system-scanty
numbers, failing supplies, immense sickness-were never more
conspicuous than in 1828. Though Russia had been preparing for
war for at least seven years, scarcely seventy thousand soldiers
could be collected on the Pruth. The general was Wittgenstein,
one of the heroes of 1812, but now a veteran past effective work.
Nicholas came to the camp to make things worse by headstrong
interference. The best Russian officer, Paskiewitsch, was put in
command of the forces about to operate in Asia Minor, and there,
thrown on his own resources and free to create a system of his
own, he achieved results in strong contrast to the failure of the
Russian arms on the Danube.</p>
<p>[Campaign of 1828.]</p>
<p>In entering on the campaign of 1828, it was necessary for the
Czar to avoid giving any unnecessary causes of anxiety to
Austria, which had already made unsuccessful attempts to form a
coalition against him. The line of operations was therefore
removed as far as possible from the Austrian frontier; and after
the Roumanian principalities had been peacefully occupied, the
Danube was crossed at a short distance above the point where its
mouths divide (June 7). The Turks had no intention of meeting the
enemy in a pitched battle; they confined themselves to the
defence of fortresses, the form of warfare to which, since the
decline of the military art in Turkey, the patience and
abstemiousness of the race best fit them. Ibraila and Silistria
on the Danube, Varna and Shumla in the neighbourhood of the
Balkans, were their principal strongholds; of these Ibraila was
at once besieged by a considerable force, while Silistria was
watched by a weak contingent, and the vanguard of the Russian
army pushed on through the Dobrudscha towards the Black Sea,
where, with the capture of the minor coast-towns, it expected to
enter into communication with the fleet. The first few weeks of
the campaign were marked by considerable successes. Ibraila
capitulated on the 18th of June, and the military posts in the
Dobrudscha fell one after another into the hands of the invaders,
who met with no effective resistance in this district. But their
serious work was only now beginning. The Russian army, in spite
of its weakness, was divided into three parts, occupied severally
in front of Silistria, Shumla, and Varna. At Shumla the mass of
the Turkish army, under Omer Brionis, was concentrated. The force
brought against it by the invader was inadequate to its task, and
the attempts which were made to lure the Turkish army from its
entrenched camp into the open field proved unsuccessful. The
difficulties of the siege proved so great that Wittgenstein after
a while proposed to abandon offensive operations at this point,
and to leave a mere corps of observation before the enemy until
Varna should have fallen. This, however, was forbidden by the
Czar. As the Russians wasted away before Shumla with sickness and
fatigue, the Turks gained strength, and on the 24th of September
Omer broke out from his entrenchments and moved eastwards to the
relief of Varna. Nicholas again over-ruled his generals, and
ordered his cousin, Prince Eugene of W&uuml;rtemberg, to attack
the advancing Ottomans with the troops then actually at his
disposal. Eugene did so, and suffered a severe defeat. A vigorous
movement of the Turks would probably have made an end of the
campaign, but Omer held back at the critical moment, and on the
10th of October Varna surrendered. This, however, was the only
conquest made by the Russians. The season was too far advanced
for them either to cross the Balkans or to push forward
operations against the uncaptured fortresses. Shumla and
Silistria remained in the hands of their defenders, and the
Russians, after suffering enormous losses in proportion to the
smallness of their numbers, withdrew to Varna and the Danube, to
resume the campaign in the spring of the following year. <a name=
"FNanchor378">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_378"><sup>[378]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Campaign of 1829.]</p>
<p>The spirits of the Turks and of their European friends were
raised by the unexpected failure of the Czar's arms. Metternich
resumed his efforts to form a coalition, and tempted French
Ministers with the prospect of recovering the Rhenish provinces,
but in vain. The Sultan began negotiations, but broke them off
when he found that the events of the campaign had made no
difference in the enemy's tone. The prestige of Russia was in
fact at stake, and Nicholas would probably have faced a war with
Austria and Turkey combined rather than have made peace without
restoring the much-diminished reputation of his troops. The
winter was therefore spent in bringing up distant reserves.
Wittgenstein was removed from his command; the Czar withdrew from
military operations in which he had done nothing but mischief;
and Diebitsch, a Prussian by birth and training, was placed at
the head of the army, untrammelled by the sovereign presence or
counsels which had hampered his predecessor. The intention of the
new commander was to cross the Balkans as soon as Silistria
should have fallen, without waiting for the capture of Shumla. In
pursuance of this design the fleet was despatched early in the
spring of 1829 to seize a port beyond the mountain-range.
Diebitsch then placed a corps in front of Silistria, and made his
preparations for the southward march; but before any progress had
been made in the siege the Turks themselves took the field.
Reschid Pasha, now Grand Vizier, moved eastwards from Shumla at
the beginning of May against the weak Russian contingent that
still lay in winter quarters between that place and Varna. The
superiority of his force promised him an easy victory; but after
winning some unimportant successes, and advancing to a
considerable distance from his stronghold, he allowed himself to
be held at bay until Diebitsch, with the army of the Danube, was
ready to fall upon his rear. The errors of the Turks had given to
the Russian commander, who hastened across Bulgaria on hearing of
his colleague's peril, the choice of destroying their army, or of
seizing Shumla by a <i>coup-de-main</i>. Diebitsch determined
upon attacking his enemy in the open field, and on the 10th of
June Reschid's army, attempting to regain the roads to Shumla,
was put to total rout at Kulewtscha. A fortnight later Silistria
surrendered, and Diebitsch, reinforced by the troops that had
besieged that fortress, was now able to commence his march across
the Balkans.</p>
<p>[Crossing of the Balkans, July, 1829.]</p>
<p>Rumour magnified into hundreds of thousands the scanty columns
which for the first time carried the Russian flag over the Balkan
range. Resistance everywhere collapsed. The mountains were
crossed without difficulty, and on the 19th of August the
invaders appeared before Adrianople, which immediately
surrendered. Putting on the boldest countenance in order to
conceal his real weakness, Diebitsch now struck out right and
left, and sent detachments both to the Euxine and the Aegean
coast. The fleet co-operated with him, and the ports of the Black
Sea, almost as far south as the Bosphorus, fell into the
invaders' hands. The centre of the army began to march upon
Constantinople. If the Sultan had known the real numbers of the
force which threatened his capital, a force not exceeding twenty
thousand men, he would probably have recognised that his
assailant's position was a more dangerous one than his own.
Diebitsch had advanced into the heart of the enemy's country with
a mere handful of men. Sickness was daily thinning his ranks; his
troops were dispersed over a wide area from sea to sea; and the
warlike tribes of Albania threatened to fall upon his
communications from the west. For a moment the Sultan spoke of
fighting upon the walls of Constantinople; but the fear of
rebellion within his own capital, the discovery of conspiracies,
and the disasters sustained by his arms in Asia, where Kars and
Erzeroum had fallen into the enemy's hands, soon led him to make
overtures of peace and to accept the moderate terms which the
Russian Government, aware of its own difficulties, was willing to
grant. It would have been folly for the Czar to stimulate the
growing suspicion of England and to court the attack of Austria
by prolonging hostilities; and although King Charles X. and the
French Cabinet, reverting to the ideas of Tilsit, proposed a
partition of the Ottoman Empire, and a general re-arrangement of
the map of Europe which would have given Belgium and the
Palatinate to France, the plan was originated too late to produce
any effect. <a name="FNanchor379">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_379"><sup>[379]</sup></a> Russia had everything to
lose and nothing to gain by a European war. It had reduced Turkey
to submission, and might fairly hope to maintain its ascendency
at Constantinople during coming years without making any of those
great territorial changes which would have given its rivals a
pretext for intervening on the Sultan's behalf. Under the guise
of a generous forbearance the Czar extricated himself from a
dangerous position with credit and advantage. As much had been
won as could be maintained without hazard; and on the 14th of
September peace was concluded in Adrianople.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Adrianople, Sept. 14, 1829.]</p>
<p>The Treaty of Adrianople gave Russia a slight increase of
territory in Asia, incorporating with the Czar's dominions the
ports of Anapa and Poti on the eastern coast of the Black Sea;
but its most important provisions were those which confirmed and
extended the Protectorate exercised by the Czar over the Danubian
Principalities, and guaranteed the commercial rights of Russian
subjects throughout the Ottoman Empire both by land and sea. In
order more effectively to exclude the Sultan's influence from
Wallachia and Moldavia, the office of Hospodar, hitherto tenable
for seven years, was now made an appointment for life, and the
Sultan specifically engaged to permit no interference on the part
of his neighbouring Pashas with the affairs of these provinces.
No fortified point was to be retained by the Turks on the left
bank of the Danube; no Mussulman was to be permitted to reside
within the Principalities; and those possessing landed estates
there were to sell them within eighteen months. The Porte pledged
itself never again to detain Russian ships of commerce coming
from the Black Sea, and acknowledged that such an act would
amount to an infraction of treaties justifying Russia in having
recourse to reprisals. The Straits of Constantinople and the
Dardanelles were declared free and open to the merchant ships of
all Powers at peace with the Porte, upon the same conditions
which were stipulated for vessels under the Russian flag. The
same freedom of trade and navigation was recognised within the
Black Sea. All treaties and conventions hitherto concluded
between Turkey and Russia were recognised as in force, except in
so far as modified by the present agreement. The Porte further
gave its adhesion to the Treaty of London relating to Greece, and
to an Act entered into by the Allied Powers in March, 1829, for
regulating the Greek frontier. An indemnity in money was declared
to be owing to Russia; and as the amount of this remained to be
fixed by mutual agreement, the means were still left open to the
Russian Government for exercising a gentle pressure at
Constantinople, or for rewarding the compliance of the conquered.
<a name="FNanchor380">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_380"><sup>[380]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Capodistrias elected President of Greece, April, 1827.]</p>
<p>The war between Turkey and Russia, while it left the European
frontier between the belligerents unchanged, exercised a two-fold
influence upon the settlement of Greece. On the one hand, by
exciting the fears and suspicions of Great Britain, it caused the
Government of our own country, under the Duke of Wellington, to
insist on the limitation of the Greek State to the narrowest
possible area; <a name="FNanchor381">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_381"><sup>[381]</sup></a> on the other hand, by
reducing Turkey itself almost to the condition of a Russian
dependency, it led to the abandonment of the desire to maintain
the Sultan's supremacy in any form over the emancipated
provinces, and resulted in the establishment of an absolutely
independent Hellenic kingdom. An important change had taken place
within Greece itself just at the time when the allied Powers
determined upon intervention. The parts of the local leaders were
played out, and in April, 1827, Capodistrias, ex-Minister of
Russia, was elected President for seven years. Capodistrias
accepted the call. He was then, as he had been throughout the
insurrection, at a distance from Greece; and before making his
way thither, he visited the principal Courts of Europe, with the
view of ascertaining what moral or financial support he should be
likely to receive from them. His interview with the Czar Nicholas
led to a clear statement by that sovereign of the conditions
which he expected Capodistrias, in return for Russia's continued
friendship, to fulfil. Greece was to be rescued from revolution:
in other words, personal was to be substituted for popular
government. The State was to remain tributary to the Sultan: that
is, in both Greece and Turkey the door was to be kept open for
Russia's interference. Whether Capodistrias had any intention of
fulfilling the latter condition is doubtful. His love for Greece
and his own personal ambition prevented his regard for Russia,
strong though this might be, from making him the mere instrument
of the Court of St. Petersburg; and while outwardly acquiescing
in the Czar's decision that Greece should remain a tributary
State, he probably resolved from the first to aim at establishing
its complete independence. With regard to the Czar's demand that
the system of local self-government should be superseded within
Greece itself by one of autocratic rule, Capodistrias was in
harmony with his patron. He had been the Minister of a
centralised despotism himself. His experience was wholly that of
the official of an absolute sovereign; and although Capodistrias
had represented the more liberal tendencies of the Russian Court
when it was a question of arguing against Metternich about the
complete or the partial restoration of despotic rule in Italy, he
had no real acquaintance and no real sympathy with the action of
free institutions, and moved in the same circle of ideas as the
autocratic reformers of the eighteenth century, of whom Joseph
II. was the type. <a name="FNanchor382">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_382"><sup>[382]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Protocols of Nov., 1828, and March, 1829.]</p>
<p>The Turks were still masters of the Morea when Capodistrias
reached Greece. The battle of Navarino had not caused Ibrahim to
relax his hold upon the fortresses, and it was deemed necessary
by the Allies to send a French army-corps to dislodge him from
his position. This expeditionary force, under General Maison,
landed in Greece in the summer of 1828, and Ibrahim, not wishing
to fight to the bitter end, contented himself with burning
Tripolitza to the ground and sowing it with salt, and then
withdrew. The war between Turkey and Russia had now begun.
Capodistrias assisted the Russian fleet in blockading the
Dardanelles, and thereby gained for himself the marked ill-will
of the British Government. At a conference held in London by the
representatives of France, England, and Russia, in November,
1828, it was resolved that the operations of the Allies should be
limited to the Morea and the islands. Capodistrias, in
consequence of this decision, took the most vigorous measures for
continuing the war against Turkey. What the allies refused to
guarantee must be won by force of arms; and during the winter of
1829, while Russia pressed upon Turkey from the Danube,
Capodistrias succeeded in reconquering Missolonghi and the whole
tract of country immediately to the north of the Gulf of Corinth.
The Porte, in prolonging its resistance after the November
conference, played as usual into its enemy's hands. The
negotiations at London were resumed in a spirit somewhat more
favourable to Greece, and a Protocol was signed on the 22nd of
March, 1829, extending the northern frontier of Greece up to a
line drawn from the Gulf of Arta to the Gulf of Volo. Greece,
according to this Protocol, was still to remain under the
Sultan's suzerainty: its ruler was to be a hereditary prince
belonging to one of the reigning European families, but not to
any of the three allied Courts. <a name="FNanchor383">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_383"><sup>[383]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Leopold accepts the Greek Crown, Feb., 1830.]</p>
<p>The mediation of Great Britain was now offered to the Porte
upon the terms thus laid down, and for the fourteenth time its
mediation was rejected. But the end was near at hand. Diebitsch
crossed the Balkans, and it was in vain that the Sultan then
proposed the terms which he had scouted in November. The Treaty
of Adrianople enforced the decisions of the March Protocol.
Greece escaped from a limitation of its frontier, which would
have left both Athens and Missolonghi Turkish territory. The
principle of the admission of the provinces north of the Gulf of
Corinth within the Hellenic State was established, and nothing
remained for the friends of the Porte but to cut down to the
narrowest possible area the district which had been loosely
indicated in the London Protocol. While Russia, satisfied with
its own successes against the Ottoman Empire and anxious to play
the part of patron of the conquered, ceased to interest itself in
Greece, the Government of Great Britain contested every inch of
territory proposed to be ceded to the new State, and finally
induced the Powers to agree upon a boundary-line which did not
even in letter fulfil the conditions of the treaty. Northern
Acarnania and part of &AElig;tolia were severed from Greece, and
the frontier was drawn from the mouth of the river Achelous to a
spot near Thermopylae. On the other hand, as Russian influence
now appeared to be firmly established and likely to remain
paramount at Constantinople, the Western Powers had no motive to
maintain the Sultan's supremacy over Greece. This was accordingly
by common consent abandoned; and the Hellenic Kingdom, confined
within miserably narrow limits on the mainland, and including
neither Crete nor Samos among its islands, was ultimately offered
in full sovereignty to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower
of Charlotte, daughter of George IV. After some negotiations, in
which Leopold vainly asked for a better frontier, he accepted the
Greek crown on the 11th of February, 1830.</p>
<p>[Government of Capodistrias.]</p>
<p>In the meantime, Capodistrias was struggling hard to govern
and to organise according to his own conceptions a land in which
every element of anarchy, ruin, and confusion appeared to be
arrayed against the restoration of civilised life. The country
was devastated, depopulated, and in some places utterly
barbarised. Out of a population of little more than a million, it
was reckoned that three hundred thousand had perished during the
conflict with the Turk. The whole fabric of political and social
order had to be erected anew; and, difficult as this task would
have been for the wisest ruler, it was rendered much more
difficult by the conflict between Capodistrias' own ideal and the
character of the people among whom he had to work. Communal or
local self-government lay at the very root of Greek nationality.
In many different forms this intense provincialism had maintained
itself unimpaired up to the end of the war, in spite of national
assemblies and national armaments. The Hydriote ship-owners, the
Primates of the Morea, the guerilla leaders of the north, had
each a type of life and a body of institutions as distinct as the
dialects which they spoke or the saints whom they cherished in
their local sanctuaries. If antagonistic in some respects to
national unity, this vigorous local life had nevertheless been a
source of national energy while Greece had still its independence
to win; and now that national independence was won, it might well
have been made the basis of a popular and effective system of
self-government. But to Capodistrias, as to greater men of that
age, the unity of the State meant the uniformity of all its
parts; and, shutting his eyes to all the obstacles in his path,
he set himself to create an administrative system as rigorously
centralised as that which France had received from Napoleon.
Conscious of his own intellectual superiority over his
countrymen, conscious of his own integrity and of the sacrifice
of all his personal wealth in his country's service, he put no
measure on his expressions of scorn for the freebooters and
peculators whom he believed to make up the Greek official world,
and he both acted and spoke as if, in the literal sense of the
words, all who ever came before him were thieves and robbers. The
peasants of the mainland, who had suffered scarcely less from
Klephts and Primates than from Turks, welcomed Capodistrias'
levelling despotism, and to the end his name was popular among
them; but among the classes which had supplied the leaders in the
long struggle for independence, and especially among the
ship-owners of the Archipelago, who felt the contempt expressed
by Capodistrias for their seven years' efforts to be grossly
unjust, a spirit of opposition arose which soon made it evident
that Capodistrias would need better instruments than those which
he had around him to carry out his task of remodelling
Greece.</p>
<p>[Leopold renounces the crown, May, 1830.]</p>
<p>It was in the midst of this growing antagonism that the news
reached Capodistrias that Leopold of Saxe-Coburg had been
appointed King of Greece. The resolution made by the Powers in
March, 1829, that the sovereign of Greece should belong to some
reigning house, had perhaps not wholly destroyed the hopes of
Capodistrias that he might become Prince or Hospodar of Greece
himself. There were difficulties in the way of filling the
throne, and these difficulties, after the appointment of Leopold,
Capodistrias certainly did not seek to lessen. His subtlety, his
command of the indirect methods of effecting a purpose, were so
great and so habitual to him that there was little chance of his
taking any overt step for preventing Leopold's accession to the
crown; there appears, however, to be evidence that he repressed
the indications of assent which the Greeks attempted to offer to
Leopold; and a series of letters written by him to that prince
was probably intended, though in the most guarded language, to
give Leopold the impression that the task which awaited him was a
hopeless one. Leopold himself, at the very time when he accepted
the crown, was wavering in his purpose. He saw with perfect
clearness that the territory granted to the Greek State was too
small to secure either its peace or its independence. The
severance of Acarnania and Northern &AElig;tolia meant the
abandonment of the most energetic part of the Greek inland
population, and a probable state of incessant warfare upon the
northern frontier; the relinquishment of Crete meant that Greece,
bankrupt as it was, must maintain a navy to protect the south
coast of the Morea from Turkish attack. These considerations had
been urged upon the Powers by Leopold before he accepted the
crown, and he had been induced for the moment to withdraw them.
But he had never fully acquiesced in the arrangements imposed
upon him: he remained irresolute for some months; and at last,
whether led to this decision by the letters of Capodistrias or by
some other influences, he declared the conditions under which he
was called upon to rule Greece to be intolerable, and renounced
the crown (May, 1830). <a name="FNanchor384">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_384"><sup>[384]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Government and death of Capodistrias.]</p>
<p>Capodistrias thus found himself delivered from his rival, and
again face to face with the task to which duty or ambition called
him. The candidature of Leopold had embittered the relations
between Capodistrias and all who confronted him in Greece, for it
gave him the means of measuring their hostility to himself by the
fervour of their addresses to this unknown foreigner. A dark
shadow fell over his government. As difficulties thickened and
resistance grew everywhere more determined, the President showed
himself harsher and less scrupulous in the choice of his means.
The men about him were untrustworthy; to crush them, he filled
the offices of government with relatives and creatures of his own
who were at once tyrannous and incapable. Thwarted and checked,
he met opposition by imprisonment and measures of violence,
suspended the law-courts, and introduced the espionage and the
police-system of St. Petersburg. At length armed rebellion broke
out, and while Miaoulis, the Hydriote admiral, blew up the best
ships of the Greek navy to prevent them falling into the
President's hands, the wild district of Maina, which had never
admitted the Turkish tax-gatherer, refused to pay taxes to the
Hellenic State. The revolt was summarily quelled by Capodistrias,
and several members of the family of Mauromichalis, including the
chief Petrobei, formerly feudal ruler of Maina, were arrested.
Some personal insult, imaginary or real, was moreover offered by
Capodistrias to this fallen foe, after the aged mother of
Petrobei, who had lost sixty-four kinsmen in the war against the
Turks, had begged for his release. The vendetta of the Maina was
aroused. A son and a nephew of Petrobei laid wait for the
President, and as he entered the Church of St. Spiridion at
Nauplia on the 9th of October, 1831, a pistol-shot and a blow
from a yataghan laid him dead on the ground. He had been warned
that his life was sought, but had refused to make any change in
his habits, or to allow himself to be attended by a guard.</p>
<p>[Otho King of Greece, Feb. 1, 1833.]</p>
<p>The death of Capodistrias excited sympathies and regrets which
to a great extent silenced criticism upon his government, and
which have made his name one of those most honoured by the Greek
nation. His fall threw the country into anarchy. An attempt was
made by his brother Augustine to retain autocratic power, but the
result was universal dissension and the interference of the
foreigner. At length the Powers united in finding a second
sovereign for Greece, and brought the weary scene of disorder to
a close. Prince Otho of Bavaria was sent to reign at Athens, and
with him there came a group of Bavarian officials to whom the
Courts of Europe persuaded themselves that the future of Greece
might be safely entrusted. A frontier somewhat better than that
which had been offered to Leopold was granted to the new
sovereign, but neither Crete, Thessaly, nor Epirus was included
within his kingdom. Thus hemmed in within intolerably narrow
limits, while burdened with the expenses of an independent state,
alike unable to meet the calls upon its national exchequer and to
exclude the intrigues of foreign Courts, Greece offered during
the next generation little that justified the hopes that had been
raised as to its future. But the belief of mankind in the
invigorating power of national independence is not wholly vain,
nor, even under the most hostile conditions, will the efforts of
a liberated people fail to attract the hope and the envy of those
branches of its race which still remain in subjection. Poor and
inglorious as the Greek kingdom was, it excited the restless
longings not only of Greeks under Turkish bondage, but of the
prosperous Ionian Islands under English rule; and in 1864 the
first step in the expansion of the Hellenic kingdom was
accomplished by the transfer of these islands from Great Britain
to Greece. Our own day has seen Greece further strengthened and
enriched by the annexation of Thessaly. The commercial and
educational development of the kingdom is now as vigorous as that
of any State in Europe: in agriculture and in manufacturing
industry it still lingers far behind. Following the example of
Cavour and the Sardinian statesmen who judged no cost too great
in preparing for Italian union, the rulers of Greece burden the
national finances with the support of an army and navy excessive
in comparison both with the resources and with the present
requirements of the State. To the ideal of a great political
future the material progress of the land has been largely
sacrificed. Whether, in the re-adjustment of frontiers which must
follow upon the gradual extrusion of the Turk from Eastern
Europe, Greece will gain from its expenditure advantages
proportionate to the undoubted evils which it has involved, the
future alone can decide.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XVI.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>France before 1830-Reign of Charles X.-Ministry of
Martignac-Ministry of Polignac-The Duke of Orleans-War in
Algiers-The July Ordinances- Revolution of July-Louis Philippe
King-Nature and Effects of the July Revolution-Affairs in
Belgium-The Belgian Revolution-The Great Powers-Intervention, and
Establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium-Affairs of
Poland-Insurrection at Warsaw-War between Russia and
Poland-Overthrow of the Poles: End of the Polish
Constitution-Affairs of Italy- Insurrection in the Papal
States-France and Austria-Austrian Intervention-Ancona occupied
by the French-Affairs of Germany-Prussia; the
Zollverein-Brunswick, Hanover, Saxony-The Palatinate-Reaction in
Germany-Exiles in Switzerland; Incursion into Savoy-Dispersion of
the Exiles-France under Louis Philippe: Successive Risings-Period
of Parliamentary Activity-England after 1830: The Reform
Bill.</p>
<br>

<p>When the Congress of Vienna re-arranged the map of Europe
after Napoleon's fall, Lord Castlereagh expressed the opinion
that no prudent statesman would forecast a duration of more than
seven years for any settlement that might then be made. At the
end of a period twice as long the Treaties of 1815 were still the
public law of Europe. The grave had peacefully closed over
Napoleon; the revolutionary forces of France had given no sign of
returning life. As the Bourbon monarchy struck root, and the
elements of opposition grew daily weaker in France, the perils
that lately filled all minds appeared to grow obsolete, and the
very Power against which the anti-revolutionary treaties of 1815
had been directed took its place, as of natural right, by the
side of Austria and Russia in the struggle against revolution.
The attack of Louis XVIII. upon the Spanish Constitutionalists
marked the complete reconciliation of France with the Continental
dynasties which had combined against it in 1815; and from this
time the Treaties of Chaumont and Aix-la-Chapelle, though their
provisions might be still unchallenged, ceased to represent the
actual relations existing between the Powers. There was no longer
a moral union of the Courts against a supposed French
revolutionary State; on the contrary, when Eastern affairs
reached their crisis, Russia detached itself from its Hapsburg
ally, and definitely allied itself with France. If after the
Peace of Adrianople any one Power stood isolated, it was Austria;
and if Europe was threatened by renewed aggression, it was not
under revolutionary leaders or with revolutionary watchwords, but
as the result of an alliance between Charles X. and the Czar of
Russia. After the Bourbon Cabinet had resolved to seek an
extension of French territory at whatever sacrifice of the
balance of power in the East, Europe could hardly expect that the
Court of St. Petersburg would long reject the advantages offered
to it. The frontiers of 1815 seemed likely to be obliterated by
an enterprise which would bring Russia to the Danube and France
to the Rhine. From this danger the settlement of 1815 was saved
by the course of events that took place within France itself. The
Revolution of 1830, insignificant in its immediate effects upon
the French people, largely influenced the governments and the
nations of Europe; and while within certain narrow limits it gave
a stimulus to constitutional liberty, its more general result was
to revive the union of the three Eastern Courts which had broken
down in 1826, and to reunite the principal members of the Holy
Alliance by the sense of a common interest against the Liberalism
of the West.</p>
<p>[Government of Charles X., 1824-1827.]</p>
<p>In the person of Charles X. reaction and clericalism had
ascended the French throne. The minister, Vill&egrave;le, who had
won power in 1820 as the representative of the Ultra-Royalists,
had indeed learnt wisdom while in office, and down to the death
of Louis XVIII. in 1824 he had kept in check the more violent
section of his party. But he now retained his post only at the
price of compliance with the Court, and gave the authority of his
name to measures which his own judgment condemned. It was
characteristic of Charles X. and of the reactionaries around him
that out of trifling matters they provoked more exasperation than
a prudent Government would have aroused by changes of infinitely
greater importance. Thus in a sacrilege-law which was introduced
in 1825 they disgusted all reasonable men by attempting to revive
the barbarous medi&aelig;val punishment of amputation of the
hand; and in a measure conferring some fractional rights upon the
eldest son in cases of intestacy they alarmed the whole nation by
a preamble declaring the French principle of the equal division
of inheritances to be incompatible with monarchy. Coming from a
Government which had thus already forfeited public confidence, a
law granting the emigrants a compensation of &pound;40,000,000
for their estates which had been confiscated during the
Revolution excited the strongest opposition, although, apart from
questions of equity, it benefited the nation by for ever setting
at rest all doubt as to the title of the purchasers of the
confiscated lands. The financial operations by which, in order to
provide the vast sum allotted to the emigrants, the national debt
was converted from a five per cent, to a three per cent, stock,
alienated all stockholders and especially the powerful bankers of
Paris. But more than any single legislative act, the alliance of
the Government with the priestly order, and the encouragement
given by it to monastic corporations, whose existence in France
was contrary to law, offended the nation. The Jesuits were
indicted before the law-courts by Montlosier, himself a Royalist
and a member of the old noblesse. A vehement controversy sprang
up between the ecclesiastics and their opponents, in which the
Court was not spared. The Government, which had lately repealed
the law of censorship, now restored it by edict. The climax of
its unpopularity was reached; its hold upon the Chamber was gone,
and the very measure by which Vill&egrave;le, when at the height
of his power, had endeavoured to give permanence to his
administration, proved its ruin. He had abolished the system of
partial renovation, by which one-fifth of the Chamber of Deputies
was annually returned, and substituted for it the English system
of septennial Parliaments with general elections. In 1827 King
Charles, believing his Ministers to be stronger in the country
than in the Chamber, exercised his prerogative of dissolution.
The result was the total defeat of the Government, and the return
of an assembly in which the Liberal opposition outnumbered the
partisans of the Court by three to one. Vill&egrave;le's Ministry
now resigned. King Charles, unwilling to choose his successor
from the Parliamentary majority, thought for a moment of violent
resistance, but subsequently adopted other counsels, and, without
sincerely intending to bow to the national will, called to office
the Vicomte de Martignac, a member of the right centre, and the
representative of a policy of conciliation and moderate reform
(January 2, 1828).</p>
<p>[Ministry of Martignac, 1828-29.]</p>
<p>[Polignac Minister, Aug. 9, 1829.]</p>
<p>It was not the fault of this Minister that the last chance of
union between the French nation and the elder Bourbon line was
thrown away. Martignac brought forward a measure of
decentralisation conferring upon the local authorities powers
which, though limited, were larger than they had possessed at any
time since the foundation of the Consulate; and he appealed to
the Liberal sections of the Chamber to assist him in winning an
instalment of self-government which France might well have
accepted with satisfaction. But the spirit of opposition within
the Assembly was too strong for a coalition of moderate men, and
the Liberals made the success of Martignac's plan impossible by
insisting on concessions which the Minister was unable to grant.
The reactionists were ready to combine with their opponents. King
Charles himself was in secret antagonism to his Minister, and
watched with malicious joy his failure to control the majority in
the Chamber. Instead of throwing all his influence on to the side
of Martignac, and rallying all doubtful forces by the pronounced
support of the Crown, he welcomed Martignac's defeat as a proof
of the uselessness of all concessions, and dismissed the Minister
from office, declaring that the course of events had fulfilled
his own belief in the impossibility of governing in accord with a
Parliament. The names of the Ministers who were now called to
power excited anxiety and alarm not only in France but throughout
the political circles of Europe. They were the names of men known
as the most violent and embittered partisans of reaction; men
whose presence in the councils of the King could mean nothing but
a direct attack upon the existing Parliamentary system of France.
At the head was Jules Polignac, then French ambassador at London,
a man half-crazed with religious delusions, who had suffered a
long imprisonment for his share in Cadoudal's attempt to kill
Napoleon, and on his return to France in 1814 had refused to
swear to the Charta because it granted religious freedom to
non-Catholics. Among the subordinate members of the Ministry were
General Bourmont, who had deserted to the English at Waterloo,
and La Bourdonnaye, the champion of the reactionary Terrorists in
1816. <a name="FNanchor385">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_385"><sup>[385]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Prospects in 1830. The Orleanists.]</p>
<p>The Ministry having been appointed immediately after the close
of the session of 1829, an interval of several months passed
before they were brought face to face with the Chambers. During
this interval the prospect of a conflict with the Crown became
familiar to the public mind, though no general impression existed
that an actual change of dynasty was close at hand. The
Bonapartists were without a leader, Napoleon's son, their natural
head, being in the power of the Austrian Court; the Republicans
were neither numerous nor well organised, and the fatal memories
of 1793 still weighed upon the nation; the great body of those
who contemplated resistance to King Charles X. looked only to a
Parliamentary struggle, or, in the last resort, to the refusal of
payment of taxes in case of a breach of the Constitution. There
was, however, a small and dexterous group of politicians which,
at a distance from all the old parties, schemed for the
dethronement of the reigning branch of the House of Bourbon, and
for the elevation of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to the
throne. The chief of this intrigue was Talleyrand. Slighted and
thwarted by the Court, the old diplomatist watched for the signs
of a falling Government, and when the familiar omens met his view
he turned to the quarter from which its successor was most likely
to arise. Louis Philippe stood high in credit with all circles of
Parliamentary Liberals. His history had been a strange and
eventful one. He was the son of that Orleans who, after calling
himself &Eacute;galit&eacute;, and voting for the death of his
cousin, Louis XVI., had himself perished during the Reign of
Terror. Young Louis Philippe had been a member of the Jacobin
Club, and had fought for the Republic at Jemappes. Then, exiled
and reduced to penury, he had earned his bread by teaching
mathematics in Switzerland, and had been a wanderer in the new as
well as in the old world. After awhile his fortunes brightened. A
marriage with the daughter of Ferdinand of Sicily restored him to
those relations with the reigning houses of Europe which had been
forfeited by his father, and inspired him with the hope of
gaining a crown. During Napoleon's invasion of Spain he had
caballed with politicians in that country who were inclined to
accept a substitute for their absent sovereign; at another time
he had entertained hopes of being made king of the Ionian
Islands. After the peace of Paris, when the allied sovereigns and
their ministers visited England, Louis Philippe was sent over by
his father-in-law to intrigue among them against Murat, and in
pursuance of this object he made himself acquainted not only with
every foreign statesman then in London but with every leading
English politician. He afterwards settled in France, and was
reinstated in the vast possessions of the House of Orleans,
which, though confiscated, had not for the most part been sold
during the Revolution. His position at Paris under Louis XVIII.
and Charles X. was a peculiar one. Without taking any direct part
in politics or entering into any avowed opposition to the Court,
he made his home, the Palais Royale, a gathering-place for all
that was most distinguished in the new political and literary
society of the capital; and while the Tuileries affected the pomp
and the ceremoniousness of the old regime, the Duke of Orleans
moved with the familiarity of a citizen among citizens. He was a
clever, ready, sensible man, equal, as it seemed, to any
practical task likely to come in his way, but in reality void of
any deep insight, of any far-reaching aspiration, of any profound
conviction. His affectation of a straightforward middle-class
geniality covered a decided tendency towards intrigue and a
strong love of personal power. Later events indeed gave rise to
the belief that, while professing the utmost loyalty to Charles
X., Louis Philippe had been scheming to oust him from his throne;
but the evidence really points the other way, and indicates that,
whatever secret hopes may have suggested themselves to the Duke,
his strongest sentiment during the Revolution of 1830 was the
fear of being driven into exile himself, and of losing his
possessions. He was not indeed of a chivalrous nature; but when
the Crown came in his way, he was guilty of no worse offence than
some shabby evasions of promises.</p>
<p>[Meeting and Prorogation of the Chambers, March, 1830.]</p>
<p>Early in March, 1830, the French Chambers assembled after
their recess. The speech of King Charles at the opening of the
session was resolute and even threatening. It was answered by an
address from the Lower House, requesting him to dismiss his
Ministers. The deputation which presented this address was
received by the King in a style that left no doubt as to his
intentions, and on the following day the Chambers were prorogued
for six months. It was known that they would not be permitted to
meet again, and preparations for a renewed general election were
at once made with the utmost vigour by both parties throughout
France. The Court unsparingly applied all the means of pressure
familiar to French governments; it moreover expected to influence
public opinion by some striking success in arms or in diplomacy
abroad. The negotiations with Russia for the acquisition of
Belgium were still before the Cabinet, and a quarrel with the Dey
of Algiers gave Polignac the opportunity of beginning a war of
conquest in Africa. General Bourmont left the War Office, to wipe
out the infamy still attaching to his name by a campaign against
the Arabs; and the Government trusted that, even in the event of
defeat at the elections, the nation at large would at the most
critical moment be rallied to its side by an announcement of the
capture of Algiers.</p>
<p>[Polignac's project.]</p>
<p>While the dissolution of Parliament was impending, Polignac
laid before the King a memorial expressing his own views on the
courses open to Government in case of the elections proving
adverse. The Charta contained a clause which, in loose and
ill-chosen language, declared it to be the function of the King
"to make the regulations and ordinances necessary for the
execution of the laws and for the security of the State." These
words, which no doubt referred to the exercise of the King's
normal and constitutional powers, were interpreted by Polignac as
authorising the King to suspend the Constitution itself, if the
Representative Assembly should be at variance with the King's
Ministers. Polignac in fact entertained the same view of the
relation between executive and deliberative bodies as those
Jacobin directors who made the <i>coup-d'&eacute;tat</i> of
Fructidor, 1797; and the measures which he ultimately adopted
were, though in a softened form, those adopted by Barras and
Lar&eacute;veill&egrave;re after the Royalist elections in the
sixth year of the Republic. To suspend the Constitution was not,
he suggested, to violate the Charta, for the Charta empowered the
sovereign to issue the ordinances necessary for the security of
the State; and who but the sovereign and his advisers could be
the judges of this necessity? This was simple enough; there was
nevertheless among Polignac's colleagues some doubt both as to
the wisdom and as to the legality of his plans. King Charles who,
with all his bigotry, was anxious not to violate the letter of
the Charta, brooded long over the clause which defined the
sovereign's powers. At length he persuaded himself that his
Minister's interpretation was the correct one, accepted the
resignation of the dissentients within the Cabinet, and gave his
sanction to the course which Polignac recommended. <a name=
"FNanchor386">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_386"><sup>[386]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Elections of 1830.]</p>
<p>The result of the general election, which took place in June,
surpassed all the hopes of the Opposition and all the fears of
the Court. The entire body of Deputies which had voted the
obnoxious address to the Crown in March was returned, and the
partisans of Government lost in addition fifty seats. The
Cabinet, which had not up to this time resolved upon the details
of its action, now deliberated upon several projects submitted to
it, and, after rejecting all plans that might have led to a
compromise, determined to declare the elections null and void, to
silence the press, and to supersede the existing electoral system
by one that should secure the mastery of the Government both at
the polling-booths and in the Chamber itself. All this was to be
done by Royal Edict, and before the meeting of the new
Parliament. The date fixed for the opening of the Chambers had
been placed as late as possible in order to give time to General
Bourmont to win the victory in Africa from which the Court
expected to reap so rich a harvest of prestige. On the 9th of
July news arrived that Algiers had fallen. The announcement,
which was everywhere made with the utmost pomp, fell flat on the
country. The conflict between the Court and the nation absorbed
all minds, and the rapturous congratulations of Bishops and
Prefects scarcely misled even the blind <i>c&ocirc;terie</i> of
the Tuileries. Public opinion was no doubt with the Opposition;
King Charles, however, had no belief that the populace of Paris,
which alone was to be dreaded as a fighting body, would take up
arms on behalf of the middle-class voters and journalists against
whom his Ordinances were to be directed. The populace neither
read nor voted: why should it concern itself with constitutional
law? Or why, in a matter that related only to the King and the
Bourgeoisie, should it not take part with the King against this
new and bastard aristocracy which lived on others' labour?
Politicians who could not fight were troublesome only when they
were permitted to speak and to write. There was force enough at
the King's command to close the gates of the Chamber of Deputies,
and to break up the printing-presses of the journals; and if King
Louis XVI. had at last fallen by the hands of men of violence, it
was only because he had made concessions at first to orators and
politicians. Therefore, without dreaming that an armed struggle
would be the immediate result of their action, King Charles and
Polignac determined to prevent the meeting of the Chamber, and to
publish, a week before the date fixed for its opening, the Edicts
which were to silence the brawl of faction and to vindicate
monarchical government in France.</p>
<p>[The Ordinances, July 26, 1830.]</p>
<p>Accordingly, on the 26th of July, a series of Ordinances
appeared in the <i>Moniteur</i>, signed by the King and
counter-signed by the Ministers. The first Ordinance forbade the
publication of any journal without royal permission; the second
dissolved the Chamber of Deputies; the third raised the
property-qualification of voters, established a system of
double-election, altered the duration of Parliaments, and
re-enacted the obsolete clause of the Charta confining the
initiative in all legislation to the Government. Other Ordinances
convoked a Chamber to be elected under the new rules, and called
to the Council of State a number of the most notorious
Ultra-Royalists and fanatics in France. Taken together, the
Ordinances left scarcely anything standing of the Constitutional
and Parliamentary system of the day. The blow fell first on the
press, and the first step in resistance was taken by the
journalists of Paris, who, under the leadership of the young
Thiers, editor of the <i>National</i>, published a protest
declaring that they would treat the Ordinances as illegal, and
calling upon the Chambers and nation to join in this resistance.
For a while the journalists seemed likely to stand alone. Paris
at large remained quiet, and a body of the recently elected
Deputies, to whom the journalists appealed as representatives of
the nation, proved themselves incapable of any action or decision
whatsoever. It was not from these timid politicians, but from a
body of obscure Republicans, that the impulse proceeded which
overthrew the Bourbon throne. Unrepresented in Parliament and
unrepresented in the press, there were a few active men who had
handed down the traditions of 1792, and who, in sympathy with the
Carbonari and other conspirators abroad, had during recent years
founded secret societies in Paris, and enlisted in the Republican
cause a certain number of workmen, of students, and of youths of
the middle classes. While the journalists discussed legal means
of resistance, and the Deputies awaited events, the Republican
leaders met and determined upon armed revolt. They were assisted,
probably without direct concert, by the printing firms and other
employers of labour, who, in view of the general suspension of
the newspapers, closed their establishments on the morning of
July 27, and turned their workmen into the streets.</p>
<p>[July 27.]</p>
<p>[July 28.]</p>
<p>Thus on the day after the appearance of the Edicts the aspect
of Paris changed. Crowds gathered, and revolutionary cries were
raised. Marmont, who was suddenly ordered to take command of the
troops, placed them around the Tuileries, and captured two
barricades which were erected in the neighbourhood; but the
populace was not yet armed, and no serious conflict took place.
In the evening Lafayette reached Paris, and the revolution had
now a real, though not an avowed, leader. A body of his adherents
met during the night at the office of the <i>National</i>, and,
in spite of Thiers' resistance, decided upon a general
insurrection. Thiers himself, who desired nothing but a legal and
Parliamentary attack upon Charles X., quitted Paris to await
events. The men who had out-voted him placed themselves in
communication with all the district committees of Paris, and
began the actual work of revolt by distributing arms. On the
morning of Wednesday, July 28th, the first armed bands attacked
and captured the arsenals and several private depots of weapons
and ammunition. Barricades were erected everywhere. The
insurgents swelled from hundreds to thousands, and, converging on
the old rallying-point of the Commune of Paris, they seized the
H&ocirc;tel de Ville, and hoisted the tricolor flag on its roof.
Marmont wrote to the King, declaring the position to be most
serious, and advising concession; he then put his troops in
motion, and succeeded, after a severe conflict, in capturing
several points of vantage, and in expelling the rebels from the
H&ocirc;tel de Ville.</p>
<p>[July 29.]</p>
<p>In the meantime the Deputies, who were assembled at the house
of one of their number in pursuance of an agreement made on the
previous day, gained sufficient courage to adopt a protest
declaring that in spite of the Ordinances they were still the
legal representatives of the nation. They moreover sent a
deputation to Marmont, begging him to put a stop to the fighting,
and offering their assistance in restoring order if the King
would withdraw his Edicts. Marmont replied that he could do
nothing without the King's command, but he despatched a second
letter to St. Cloud, urging compliance. The only answer which he
received was a command to concentrate his troops and to act in
masses. The result of this was that the positions which had been
won by hard fighting were abandoned before evening, and that the
troops, famished and exhausted, were marched back through the
streets of Paris to the Tuileries. On the march some fraternised
with the people, others were surrounded and disarmed. All eastern
Paris now fell into the hands of the insurgents; the
middle-class, as in 1789 and 1792, remained inactive, and allowed
the contest to be decided by the populace and the soldiery.
Messages from the capital constantly reached St. Cloud, but the
King so little understood his danger and so confidently reckoned
on the victory of the troops in the Tuileries that he played
whist as usual during the evening; and when the Duc de Mortemart,
French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, arrived at nightfall, and
pressed for an audience, the King refused to receive him until
the next morning. When morning came, the march of the insurgents
against the Tuileries began. Position after position fell into
their hands. The regiments stationed in the Place Vend&ocirc;me
abandoned their commander, and marched off to place themselves at
the disposal of the Deputies. Marmont ordered the Swiss Guard,
which had hitherto defended the Louvre, to replace them; and in
doing so he left the Louvre for a moment without any garrison.
The insurgents saw the building empty, and rushed into it. From
the windows they commanded the Court of the Tuileries, where the
troops in reserve were posted; and soon after mid-day all was
over. A few isolated battalions fought and perished, but the mass
of the soldiery with their commander fell back upon the Place de
la Concorde, and then evacuated Paris. <a name=
"FNanchor387">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_387"><sup>[387]</sup></a></p>
<p>The Duke of Orleans was all this time in hiding. He had been
warned that the Court intended to arrest him, and, whether from
fear of the Court or of the populace, he had secreted himself at
a hunting-lodge in his woods, allowing none but his wife and his
sister to know where he was concealed. His partisans, of whom the
rich and popular banker, Laffitte, was the most influential among
the Deputies, were watching for an opportunity to bring forward
his name; but their chances of success seemed slight. The
Deputies at large wished only for the withdrawal of the
Ordinances, and were wholly averse from a change of dynasty. It
was only through the obstinacy of King Charles himself, and as
the result of a series of accidents, that the Crown passed from
the elder Bourbon line. King Charles would not hear of
withdrawing the Ordinances until the Tuileries had actually
fallen; he then gave way and charged the Duc de Mortemart to form
a new Ministry, drawn from the ranks of the Opposition. But
instead of formally repealing the Edicts by a public Decree, he
sent two messengers to Paris to communicate his change of purpose
to the Deputies by word of mouth. The messengers betook
themselves to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, where a municipal
committee under Lafayette had been installed; and, when they
could produce no written authority for their statements, they
were referred by this committee to the general body of Deputies,
which was now sitting at Laffitte's house. The Deputies also
demanded a written guarantee. Laffitte and Thiers spoke in favour
of the Duke of Orleans, but the Assembly at large was still
willing to negotiate with Charles X., and only required the
presence of the Duc de Mortemart himself, and a copy of the
Decree repealing the Ordinances.</p>
<p>[July 30.]</p>
<p>It was now near midnight. The messengers returned to St.
Cloud, and were not permitted to deliver their intelligence until
the King awoke next morning. Charles then signed the necessary
document, and Mortemart set out for Paris; but the night's delay
had given the Orleanists time to act, and before the King was up
Thiers had placarded the streets of Paris with a proclamation
extolling Orleans as the prince devoted to the cause of the
Revolution, as the soldier of Jemappes, and the only
constitutional King now possible. Some hours after this manifesto
had appeared the Deputies again assembled at Laffitte's house,
and waited for the appearance of Mortemart. But they waited in
vain. Mortemart's carriage was stopped on the road from St.
Cloud, and he was compelled to make his way on foot by a long
circuit and across a score of barricades. When he approached
Laffitte's house, half dead with heat and fatigue, he found that
the Deputies had adjourned to the Palais Bourbon, and, instead of
following them, he ended his journey at the Luxemburg, where the
Peers were assembled. His absence was turned to good account by
the Orleanists. At the morning session the proposition was openly
made to call Louis Philippe to power; and when the Deputies
reassembled in the afternoon and the Minister still failed to
present himself, it was resolved to send a body of Peers and
Deputies to Louis Philippe to invite him to come to Paris and to
assume the office of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. No
opposition was offered to this proposal in the House of Peers,
and a deputation accordingly set out to search for Louis Philippe
at his country house at Neuilly. The prince was not to be found;
but his sister, who received the deputation, undertook that he
should duly appear in Paris. She then communicated with her
brother in his hiding-place, and induced him, in spite of the
resistance of his wife, to set out for the capital. He arrived at
the Palais Royale late on the night of the 30th. Early the next
morning he received a deputation from the Assembly, and accepted
the powers which they offered him. A proclamation was then
published, announcing to the Parisians that in order to save the
country from anarchy and civil war the Duke of Orleans had
assumed the office of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.</p>
<p>[The H&ocirc;tel de Ville.]</p>
<p>But there existed another authority in Paris beside the
Assembly of Representatives, and one that was not altogether
disposed to permit Louis Philippe and his satellites to reap the
fruits of the people's victory. Lafayette and the Municipal
Committee, which occupied the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, had
transformed themselves into a provisional government, and sat
surrounded by the armed mob which had captured the Tuileries two
days before. No single person who had fought in the streets had
risked his life for the sake of making Louis Philippe king; in so
far as the Parisians had fought for any definite political idea,
they had fought for the Republic. It was necessary to reconcile
both the populace and the provisional government to the
assumption of power by the new Regent; and with this object Louis
Philippe himself proceeded to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville,
accompanied by an escort of Deputies and Peers. It was a
hazardous moment when he entered the crowd on the Place de
Gr&egrave;ve; but Louis Philippe's readiness of speech stood him
in good stead, and he made his way unhurt through the throng into
the building, where Lafayette received him. Compliments and
promises were showered upon this veteran of 1789, who presently
appeared on a balcony and embraced Louis Philippe, while the
Prince grasped the tricolor flag, the flag which had not waved in
Paris since 1815. The spectacle was successful. The multitude
shouted applause; and the few determined men who still doubted
the sincerity of a Bourbon and demanded the proclamation of the
Republic were put off with the promise of an ultimate appeal to
the French people.</p>
<p>[Charles X.]</p>
<p>In the meantime Charles X. had withdrawn to Rambouillet,
accompanied by the members of his family and by a considerable
body of troops. Here the news reached him that Orleans had
accepted from the Chambers the office of Lieutenant-General. It
was a severe blow to the old king, who, while others doubted of
Louis Philippe's loyalty, had still maintained his trust in this
prince's fidelity. For a moment he thought of retiring beyond the
Loire and risking a civil war; but the troops now began to
disperse, and Charles, recognising that his cause was hopeless,
abdicated together with the Dauphin in favour of his grandson the
young Chambord, then called Duc de Bordeaux. He wrote to Louis
Philippe, appointing him, as if on his own initiative,
Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and required him to proclaim
Henry V. king, and to undertake the government during the new
sovereign's minority. It is doubtful whether Louis Philippe had
at this time formed any distinct resolve, and whether his answer
to Charles X. was inspired by mere good nature or by conscious
falsehood; for while replying officially that he would lay the
king's letter before the Chambers, he privately wrote to Charles
X. that he would retain his new office only until he could safely
place the Duc de Bordeaux upon the throne. Having thus soothed
the old man's pride, Louis Philippe requested him to hasten his
departure from the neighbourhood of Paris; and when Charles
ignored the message, he sent out some bands of the National Guard
to terrify him into flight. This device succeeded, and the royal
family, still preserving the melancholy ceremonial of a court,
moved slowly through France towards the western coast. At
Cherbourg they took ship and crossed to England, where they were
received as private persons. Among the British nation at large
the exiled Bourbons excited but little sympathy. They were,
however, permitted to take up their abode in the palace of
Holyrood, and here Charles X. resided for two years. But neither
the climate nor the society of the Scottish capital offered any
attraction to the old and failing chief of a fallen dynasty. He
sought a more congenial shelter in Austria, and died at Goritz in
November, 1836.</p>
<p>[Louis Philippe made King, Aug. 7.]</p>
<p>The first public notice of the abdication of King Charles was
given by Louis Philippe in the Chamber of Deputies, which was
convoked by him, as Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, on the 3rd
of August. In addressing the Deputies, Louis Philippe stated that
he had received a letter containing the abdication both of the
King and of the Dauphin, but he uttered no single word regarding
the Duc de Bordeaux, in whose favour both his grandfather and his
uncle had renounced their rights. Had Louis Philippe mentioned
that the abdications were in fact conditional, and had he
declared himself protector of the Duc de Bordeaux during his
minority, there is little doubt that the legitimate heir would
have been peaceably accepted both by the Chamber and by Paris.
Louis Philippe himself had up to this time done nothing that was
inconsistent with the assumption of a mere Regency; the Chamber
had not desired a change of dynasty; and, with the exception of
Lafayette, the men who had actually made the Revolution bore as
little goodwill to an Orleanist as to a Bourbon monarchy. But
from the time when Louis Philippe passed over in silence the
claims of the grandson of Charles X., his own accession to the
throne became inevitable. It was left to an obscure Deputy to
propose that the crown should be offered to Louis Philippe,
accompanied by certain conditions couched in the form of
modifications of the Charta. The proposal was carried in the
Chamber on the 7th of August, and the whole body of
representatives marched to the Palais Royale to acquaint the
prince with its resolution. Louis Philippe, after some
conventional expressions of regret, declared that he could not
resist the call of his country. When the Lower Chamber had thus
disposed of the crown, the House of Peers, which had proved
itself a nullity throughout the crisis, adopted the same
resolution, and tendered its congratulations in a similar
fashion. Two days later Louis Philippe took the oath to the
Charta as modified by the Assembly, and was proclaimed King of
the French.</p>
<p>[Nature of the Revolution of 1830.]</p>
<p>Thus ended a revolution, which, though greeted with enthusiasm
at the time, has lost much of its splendour and importance in the
later judgment of mankind. In comparison with the Revolution of
1789, the movement which overthrew the Bourbons in 1830 was a
mere flutter on the surface. It was unconnected with any great
change in men's ideas, and it left no great social or legislative
changes behind it. Occasioned by a breach of the constitution on
the part of the Executive Government, it resulted mainly in the
transfer of administrative power from one set of politicians to
another: the alterations which it introduced into the
constitution itself were of no great importance. France neither
had an absolute Government before 1830, nor had it a popular
Government afterwards. Instead of a representative of divine
right, attended by guards of nobles and counselled by Jesuit
confessors, there was now a citizen-king, who walked about the
streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm and sent his sons
to the public schools, but who had at heart as keen a devotion to
dynastic interests as either of his predecessors, and a much
greater capacity for personal rule. The bonds which kept the
entire local administration of France in dependence upon the
central authority were not loosened; officialism remained as
strong as ever; the franchise was still limited to a mere
fraction of the nation. On the other hand, within the
administration itself the change wrought by the July Revolution
was real and lasting. It extinguished the political power of the
clerical interest. Not only were the Bishops removed from the
House of Peers, but throughout all departments of Government the
influence of the clergy, which had been so strong under Charles
X., vanished away. The State took a distinctly secular colour.
The system of public education was regulated with such
police-like exclusiveness that priests who insisted upon opening
schools of their own for Catholic teaching were enabled to figure
as champions of civil liberty and of freedom of opinion against
despotic power. The noblesse lost whatever political influence it
had regained during the Restoration. The few surviving Regicides
who had been banished in 1815 were recalled to France, among them
the terrorist Barr&egrave;re, who was once more returned to the
Assembly. But the real winners in the Revolution of 1830 were not
the men of extremes, but the middle-class of France. This was the
class which Louis Philippe truly represented; and the force which
for eighteen years kept Louis Philippe on the throne was the
middle-class force of the National Guard of Paris. Against this
sober, prosaic, unimaginative power there struggled the hot and
restless spirit which had been let loose by the overthrow of the
Bourbon dynasty, and which, fired at once with the political
ideal of a Republic, with dreams of the regeneration of Europe by
French armies, and with the growing antagonism between the
labouring class and the owners of property, threatened for awhile
to overthrow the newly-constituted monarchy in France, and to
plunge Europe into war. The return of the tricolor flag, the
long-silenced strains of the Republic and the Empire, the sense
of victory with which men on the popular side witnessed the
expulsion of the dynasty which had been forced upon France after
Waterloo, revived that half-romantic military ardour which had
undertaken the liberation of Europe in 1792. France appeared once
more in the eyes of enthusiasts as the deliverer of nations. The
realities of the past epoch of French military aggression, its
robberies, its corruption, the execrations of its victims, were
forgotten; and when one people after another took up the shout of
liberty that was raised in Paris, and insurrections broke out in
every quarter of Europe, it was with difficulty that Louis
Philippe and the few men of caution about him could prevent the
French nation from rushing into war.</p>
<p>[Affairs in Belgium.]</p>
<p>The State first affected by the events of July was the kingdom
of the Netherlands. The creation of this kingdom, in which the
Belgian provinces formerly subject to Austria were united with
Holland to serve as an effective barrier against French
aggression on the north, had been one of Pitt's most cherished
schemes, and it had been carried into effect ten years after his
death by the Congress of Vienna. National and religious
incongruities had been little considered by the statesmen of that
day, and at the very moment of union the Catholic bishops of
Belgium had protested against a constitution which gave equal
toleration to all religions under the rule of a Protestant King.
The Belgians had been uninterruptedly united with France for the
twenty years preceding 1814; the French language was not only the
language of their literature, but the spoken language of the
upper classes; and though the Flemish portion of the population
was nearly related to the Dutch, this element had not then
asserted itself with the distinctness and energy which it has
since developed. The antagonism between the northern and the
southern Netherlands, though not insuperable, was sufficiently
great to make a harmonious union between the two countries a work
of difficulty, and the Government of The Hague had not taken the
right course to conciliate its opponents. The Belgians, though
more numerous, were represented by fewer members in the National
Assembly than the Dutch. Offices were filled by strangers from
Holland; finance was governed by a regard for Dutch interests;
and the Dutch language was made the official language for the
whole kingdom. But the chief grievances were undoubtedly
connected with the claims of the clerical party in Belgium to a
monopoly of spiritual power and the exclusive control of
education. The one really irreconcilable enemy of the Protestant
House of Orange was the Church; and the governing impulse in the
conflicts which preceded the dissolution of the kingdom of the
Netherlands in 1830 sprang from the same clerical interest which
had thrown Belgium into revolt against the Emperor Joseph forty
years before. There was again seen the same strange phenomenon of
a combination between the Church and a popular or even
revolutionary party. For the sake of an alliance against a
constitution distasteful to both, the clergy of Belgium accepted
the democratic principles of the political Opposition, and the
Opposition consented for a while to desist from their attacks
upon the Papacy. The contract was faithfully observed on both
sides until the object for which it was made was attained. <a
name="FNanchor388">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_388"><sup>[388]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Belgian Revolution, August, 1830.]</p>
<p>For some months before the Revolution of July, 1830, the
antagonism between the Belgians and their Government had been so
violent that no great shock from outside was necessary to produce
an outbreak. The convulsions of Paris were at once felt at
Brussels, and on the 25th of August the performance of a
revolutionary opera in that city gave the signal for the
commencement of insurrection. From the capital the rebellion
spread from town to town throughout the southern Netherlands. The
King summoned the Estates General, and agreed to the
establishment of an administration for Belgium separate from that
of Holland: but the storm was not allayed; and the appearance of
a body of Dutch troops at Brussels was sufficient to dispel the
expectation of a peaceful settlement. Barricades were erected; a
conflict took place in the streets; and the troops, unable to
carry the city by assault, retired to the outskirts and kept up a
desultory attack for several days. They then withdrew, and a
provisional government, which was immediately established,
declared the independence of Belgium. For a moment there appeared
some possibility that the Crown Prince of Holland, who had from
the first assumed the part of mediator, might be accepted as
sovereign of the newly-formed State; but the growing violence of
the insurrection, the activity of French emissaries and
volunteers, and the bombardment of Antwerp by the Dutch soldiers
who garrisoned its citadel, made an end of all such hopes.
Belgium had won its independence, and its connection with the
House of Orange could be re-established only by force of
arms.</p>
<p>[France and the Belgian Revolution.]</p>
<p>[France and England.]</p>
<p>The accomplishment of this revolution in one of the smallest
Continental States threatened to involve all Europe in war.
Though not actually effected under the auspices of a French army,
it was undoubtedly to some extent effected in alliance with the
French revolutionary party. It broke up a kingdom established by
the European Treaties of 1814; and it was so closely connected
with the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy as to be scarcely
distinguishable from those cases in which the European Powers had
pledged themselves to call their armies into the field. Louis
Philippe, however, had been recognised by most of the European
Courts as the only possible alternative to a French Republic; and
a general disposition existed to second any sincere effort that
should be made by him to prevent the French nation from rushing
into war. This was especially the case with England; and it was
to England that Louis Philippe turned for co-operation in the
settlement of the Belgian question. Louis Philippe himself had
every possible reason for desiring to keep the peace. If war
broke out, France would be opposed to all the Continental Powers
together. Success was in the last degree improbable; it could
only be hoped for by a revival of the revolutionary methods and
propaganda of 1793; and failure, even for a moment, would
certainly cost him his throne, and possibly his life. His
interest no less than his temperament made him the strenuous,
though concealed, opponent of the war-party in the Assembly; and
he found in the old diplomatist who had served alike under the
Bourbons, the Republic, and the Empire, an ally thoroughly
capable of pursuing his own wise though unpopular policy of
friendship and co-operation with England. Talleyrand, while
others were crying for a revenge for Waterloo, saw that the first
necessity for France was to rescue it from its isolation; and as
at the Congress of Vienna he had detached Austria and England
from the two northern Courts, so now, before attempting to gain
any extension of territory, he sought to make France safe against
the hostility of the Continent by allying it with at least one
great Power. Russia had become an enemy instead of a friend. The
expulsion of the Bourbons had given mortal offence to the Czar
Nicholas, and neither Austria nor Prussia was likely to enter
into close relations with a Government founded upon revolution.
England alone seemed a possible ally, and it was to England that
the French statesman of peace turned in the Belgian crisis.
Talleyrand, now nearly eighty years old, came as ambassador to
London, where he had served in 1792. He addressed himself to
Wellington and to the new King, William IV., assuring them that,
under the Government of Louis Philippe, France would not seek to
use the Belgian revolution for its own aggrandisement; and, with
his old aptness in the invention of general principles to suit a
particular case, he laid down the principle of non-intervention
as one that ought for the future to govern the policy of Europe.
His efforts were successful. So complete an understanding was
established between France and England on the Belgian question,
that all fear of an armed intervention of the Eastern Courts on
behalf of the King of Holland, which would have rendered a war
with France inevitable, passed away. The regulation of Belgian
affairs was submitted to a Conference at London. Hostilities were
stopped, and the independence of the new kingdom was recognised
in principle by the Conference before the end of the year. A
Protocol defining the frontiers of Belgium and Holland, and
apportioning to each State its share in the national debt, was
signed by the representatives of the Powers in January, 1831. <a
name="FNanchor389">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_389"><sup>[389]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Leopold elected King, June 4.]</p>
<p>Thus far, a crisis which threatened the peace of Europe had
been surmounted with unexpected ease. But the first stage of the
difficulty alone was passed; it still remained for the Powers to
provide a king for Belgium, and to gain the consent of the Dutch
and Belgian Governments to the territorial arrangements drawn up
for them. The Belgians themselves, with whom a connection with
France was popular, were disposed to elect as their sovereign the
Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe; and although Louis
Philippe officially refused his sanction to this scheme, which in
the eyes of all Europe would have turned Belgium into a French
dependency, he privately encouraged its prosecution after a
Bonapartist candidate, the son of Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais, had
appeared in the field. The result was that the Duc de Nemours was
elected king on the 3rd of February, 1831. Against this
appointment the Conference of the Powers at London had already
pronounced its veto, and the British Government let it be
understood that it would resist any such extension of French
influence by force. Louis Philippe now finally refused the crown
for his son, and, the Bonapartist candidate being withdrawn, the
two rival Powers agreed in recommending Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, on the understanding that, if elected King of
Belgium, he should marry a daughter of Louis Philippe. The
Belgians fell in with the advice given them, and elected Leopold
on the 4th of June. He accepted the crown, subject to the
condition that the London Conference should modify in favour of
Belgium some of the provisions relating to the frontiers and to
the finances of the new State which had been laid down by the
Conference, and which the Belgian Government had hitherto refused
to accept.</p>
<p>[Settlement of the Belgian frontier.]</p>
<p>The difficulty of arranging the Belgian frontier arose
principally from the position of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.
This territory, though subject to Austria before the French
Revolution, had always been treated as distinct from the body of
the Austrian Netherlands. When, at the peace of 1814, it was
given to the King of Holland in substitution for the ancient
possessions of his family at Nassau, its old character as a
member of the German federal union was restored to it, so that
the King of Holland in respect of this portion of his dominions
became a German prince, and the fortress of Luxemburg, the
strongest in Europe after Gibraltar, was liable to occupation by
German troops. The population of the Duchy had, however, joined
the Belgians in their revolt, and, with the exception of the
fortress itself, the territory had passed into possession of the
Belgian Government. In spite of this actual overthrow of Dutch
rule, the Conference of London had attached such preponderating
importance to the military and international relations of
Luxemburg that it had excluded the whole of the Duchy from the
new Belgian State, and declared it still to form part of the
dominions of the King of Holland. The first demand of Leopold was
for the reversal or modification of this decision, and the Powers
so far gave way as to substitute for the declaration of January a
series of articles, in which the question of Luxemburg was
reserved for future settlement. The King of Holland had assented
to the January declaration; on hearing of its abandonment, he
took up arms, and threw fifty thousand men into Belgium. Leopold
appealed to France for assistance, and a French army immediately
crossed the frontier. The Dutch now withdrew, and the French in
their turn were recalled, after Leopold had signed a treaty
undertaking to raze the fortifications of five towns on his
southern border. The Conference again took up its work, and
produced a third scheme, in which the territory of Luxemburg was
divided between Holland and Belgium. This was accepted by
Belgium, and rejected by Holland. The consequence was that a
treaty was made between Leopold and the Powers; and at the
beginning of 1832 the kingdom of Belgium, as defined by the third
award of the Conference, was recognised by all the Courts, Lord
Palmerston on behalf of England resolutely refusing to France
even the slightest addition of territory, on the ground that, if
annexations once began, all security for the continuance of peace
would be at an end. On this wise and firm policy the concert of
Europe in the establishment of the Belgian kingdom was
successfully maintained; and it only remained for the Western
Powers to overcome the resistance of the King of Holland, who
still held the citadel of Antwerp and declined to listen either
to reason or authority. A French army corps was charged with the
task of besieging the citadel; an English fleet blockaded the
river Scheldt. After a severe bombardment the citadel
surrendered. Hostilities ceased, and negotiations for a
definitive settlement recommenced. As, however, the Belgians were
in actual occupation of all Luxemburg with the exception of the
fortress, they had no motive to accelerate a settlement which
would deprive them of part of their existing possessions; on the
other hand, the King of Holland held back through mere obstinacy.
Thus the provisional state of affairs was prolonged for year
after year, and it was not until April, 1839, that the final
Treaty of Peace between Belgium and Holland was executed.</p>
<p>[Affairs of Poland.]</p>
<p>The consent of the Eastern Powers to the overthrow of the
kingdom of the United Netherlands, and to the establishment of a
State based upon a revolutionary movement, would probably have
been harder to gain if in the autumn of 1830 Russia had been free
to act with all its strength. But at this moment an outbreak took
place in Poland, which required the concentration of all the
Czar's forces within his own border. The conflict was rather a
war of one armed nation against another than the insurrection of
a people against its government. Poland-that is to say, the
territory which had formerly constituted the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw-had, by the treaties of 1814, been established as a
separate kingdom, subject to the Czar of Russia, but not forming
part of the Russian Empire. It possessed an administration and an
army of its own, and the meetings of its Diet gave to it a
species of parliamentary government to which there was nothing
analogous within Russia proper. During the reign of Alexander the
constitutional system of Poland had, on the whole, been
respected; and although the real supremacy of an absolute monarch
at St. Petersburg had caused the Diet to act as a body in
opposition to the Russian Government, the personal connection
existing between Alexander and the Poles had prevented any overt
rebellion during his own life-time. But with the accession of
Nicholas all such individual sympathy passed away, and the hard
realities of the actual relation between Poland and the Court of
Russia came into full view. In the conspiracies of 1825 a great
number of Poles were implicated. Eight of these persons, after a
preliminary inquiry, were placed on trial before the Senate at
Warsaw, which, in spite of strong evidence of their guilt,
acquitted them. Pending the decision, Nicholas declined to
convoke the Diet: he also stationed Russian troops in Poland, and
violated the constitution by placing Russians in all branches of
the administration. Even without these grievances the hostility
of the mass of the Polish noblesse to Russia would probably have
led sooner or later to insurrection. The peasantry, ignorant and
degraded, were but instruments in the hands of their territorial
masters. In so far as Poland had rights of self-government, these
rights belonged almost exclusively to the nobles, or landed
proprietors, a class so numerous that they have usually been
mistaken in Western Europe for the Polish nation itself. The
so-called emancipation of the serfs, effected by Napoleon after
wresting the Grand Duchy of Warsaw from Prussia in 1807, had done
little for the mass of the population; for, while abolishing the
legal condition of servitude, Napoleon had given the peasant no
vestige of proprietorship in his holding, and had consequently
left him as much at the mercy of his landlord as he was before.
The name of freedom appears in fact to have worked actual injury
to the peasant; for in the enjoyment of a pretended power of free
contract he was left without that protection of the officers of
State which, under the Prussian regime from 1795 to 1807, had
shielded him from the tyranny of his lord. It has been the fatal,
the irremediable bane of Poland that its noblesse, until too
late, saw no country, no right, no law, outside itself. The very
measures of interference on the part of the Czar which this caste
resented as unconstitutional were in part directed against the
abuse of its own privileges; and although in 1830 a section of
the nobles had learnt the secret of their country's fall, and
were prepared to give the serf the real emancipation of
proprietorship, no universal impulse worked in this direction,
nor could the wrong of ages be undone in the tumult of war and
revolution.</p>
<p>[Insurrection at Warsaw, Nov. 29.]</p>
<p>A sharp distinction existed between the narrow circle of the
highest aristocracy of Poland and the mass of the poor and
warlike noblesse. The former, represented by men like
Czartoryski, the friend of Alexander I. and ex-Minister of
Russia, understood the hopelessness of any immediate struggle
with the superior power, and advocated the politic development of
such national institutions as were given to Poland by the
constitution of 1815, institutions which were certainly
sufficient to preserve Poland from absorption by Russia, and to
keep alive the idea of the ultimate establishment of its
independence. It was among the lesser nobility, among the
subordinate officers of the army and the population of Warsaw
itself, who jointly formed the so-called democratic party, that
the spirit of revolt was strongest. Plans for an outbreak had
been made during the Turkish war of 1828; but unhappily this
opportunity, which might have been used with fatal effect against
Russia, was neglected, and it was left for the French Revolution
of 1830 to kindle an untimely and ineffective flame. The memory
of Napoleon's campaigns and the wild voices of French democracy
filled the patriots at Warsaw with vain hopes of a military union
with western Liberalism, and overpowered the counsels of men who
understood the state of Europe better. Revolt broke out on the
29th of November, 1830. The Polish regiments in Warsaw joined the
insurrection, and the Russian troops, under the Grand Duke
Constantine, withdrew from the capital, where their leader had
narrowly escaped with his life. <a name="FNanchor390">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_390"><sup>[390]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Attempted negotiation with the Czar.]</p>
<p>The Government of Poland had up to this time been in the hands
of a Council nominated by the Czar as King of Poland, and
controlled by instructions from a secretary at St. Petersburg.
The chief of the Council was Lubecki, a Pole devoted to the
Emperor Nicholas. On the victory of the insurrection at Warsaw,
the Council was dissolved and a provisional Government installed.
Though the revolt was the work of the so-called democratic party,
the influence of the old governing families of the highest
aristocracy was still so great that power was by common consent
placed in their hands. Czartoryski became president, and the
policy adopted by himself and his colleagues was that of friendly
negotiation with Russia. The insurrection of November was treated
not as the beginning of a national revolt, but as a mere
disturbance occasioned by unconstitutional acts of the
Government. So little did the committee understand the character
of the Emperor Nicholas, as to imagine that after the expulsion
of his soldiers and the overthrow of his Ministers at Warsaw he
would peaceably make the concessions required of him, and
undertake for the future faithfully to observe the Polish
constitution. Lubecki and a second official were sent to St.
Petersburg to present these demands, and further (though this was
not seriously intended) to ask that the constitution should be
introduced into all the Russian provinces which had once formed
part of the Polish State. The reception given to the envoys at
the frontier was of an ominous character. They were required to
describe themselves as officers about to present a report to the
Czar, inasmuch as no representatives of rebels in arms could be
received into Russia. Lubecki appears now to have shaken the dust
of Poland off his feet; his colleague pursued his mission, and
was admitted to the Czar's presence. Nicholas, while expressing
himself in language of injured tenderness, and disclaiming all
desire to punish the innocent with the guilty, let it be
understood that Poland had but two alternatives, unconditional
submission or annihilation. The messenger who in the meanwhile
carried back to Warsaw the first despatches of the envoy reported
that the roads were already filled with Russian regiments moving
on their prey.</p>
<p>[Diebitsch invades Poland, Feb. 1831.]</p>
<p>Six weeks of precious time were lost through the illusion of
the Polish Government that an accommodation with the Emperor
Nicholas was possible. Had the insurrection at Warsaw been
instantly followed by a general levy and the invasion of
Lithuania, the resources of this large province might possibly
have been thrown into the scale against Russia. Though the mass
of the Lithuanian population, in spite or several centuries of
union with Poland, had never been assimilated to the dominant
race, and remained in language and creed more nearly allied to
the Russians than the Poles, the nobles formed an integral part
of the Polish nation, and possessed sufficient power over their
serfs to drive them into the field to fight for they knew not
what. The Russian garrisons in Lithuania were not strong, and
might easily have been overpowered by a sudden attack. When once
the population of Warsaw had risen in arms against Nicholas, the
only possibility of success lay in the extension of the revolt
over the whole of the semi-Polish provinces, and in a general
call to arms. But beside other considerations which disinclined
the higher aristocracy at Warsaw to extreme measures, they were
influenced by a belief that the Powers of Europe might intervene
on behalf of the constitution of the Polish kingdom as
established by the treaty of Vienna; while, if the struggle
passed beyond the borders of that kingdom, it would become a
revolutionary movement to which no Court could lend its support.
It was not until the envoy returned from St. Petersburg bearing
the answer of the Emperor Nicholas that the democratic party
carried all before it, and all hopes of a peaceful compromise
vanished away. The Diet then passed a resolution declaring that
the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown, and
preparations began for a struggle for life or death with Russia.
But the first moments when Russia stood unguarded and unready had
been lost beyond recall. Troops had thronged westwards into
Lithuania; the garrisons in the fortresses had been raised to
their full strength; and in February, 1831, Diebitsch took up the
offensive, and crossed the Polish frontier with a hundred and
twenty thousand men.</p>
<p>[Campaign in Poland, 1831.]</p>
<p>[Capture of Warsaw, Sept. 8, 1831.]</p>
<p>The Polish army, though far inferior in numbers to the enemy
which it had to meet, was no contemptible foe. Among its officers
there were many who had served in Napoleon's campaigns; it
possessed, however, no general habituated to independent command;
and the spirit of insubordination and self-will, which had
wrought so much ruin in Poland, was still ready to break out when
defeat had impaired the authority of the nominal chiefs. In the
first encounters the advancing Russian army was gallantly met;
and, although the Poles were forced to fall back upon Warsaw, the
losses sustained by Diebitsch were so serious that he had to stay
his operations and to wait for reinforcements. In March the Poles
took up the offensive and surprised several isolated divisions of
the enemy; their general, however, failed to push his advantages
with the necessary energy and swiftness; the junction of the
Russians was at length effected, and on the 26th of May the Poles
were defeated after obstinate resistance in a pitched battle at
Ostrolenka. Cholera now broke out in the Russian camp. Both
Diebitsch and the Grand Duke Constantine were carried off in the
midst of the campaign, and some months more were added to the
struggle of Poland, hopeless as this had now become. Incursions
were made into Lithuania and Podolia, but without result.
Paskiewitch, the conqueror of Kars, was called up to take the
post left vacant by the death of his rival. New masses of Russian
troops came in place of those who had perished in battle and in
the hospitals; and while the Governments of Western Europe lifted
no hand on behalf of Polish independence, Prussia, alarmed lest
the revolt should spread into its own Polish provinces, assisted
the operations of the Russian general by supplying stores and
munition of war. Blow after blow fell upon the Polish cause.
Warsaw itself became the prey of disorder, intrigue, and
treachery; and at length the Russian army made its entrance into
the capital, and the last soldiers of Poland laid down their
arms, or crossed into Prussian or Austrian territory. The revolt
had been rashly and unwisely begun: its results were fatal and
lamentable. The constitution of Poland was abolished; it ceased
to be a separate kingdom, and became a province of the Russian
Empire. Its defenders were exiles over the face of Europe or
forgotten in Siberia. All that might have been won by the gradual
development of its constitutional liberties without breach with
the Czar's sovereignty was sacrificed. The future of Poland, like
that of Russia itself, now depended on the enlightenment and
courage of the Imperial Government, and on that alone. The very
existence of a Polish nationality and language seemed for a while
to be threatened by the measures of repression that followed the
victory of 1831: and if it be true that Russian autocracy has at
length done for the Polish peasants what their native masters
during centuries of ascendency refused to do, this emancipation
would probably not have come the later for the preservation of
some relics of political independence, nor would it have had the
less value if unaccompanied by the proscription of so great a
part of that class which had once been held to constitute the
Polish nation. <a name="FNanchor391">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_391"><sup>[391]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Insurrection in the Papal States, Feb., 1831.]</p>
<p>During the conflict on the banks of the Vistula, the attitude
of the Austrian Government had been one of watchful neutrality.
Its own Polish territory was not seriously menaced with
disturbance, for in a great part of Galicia the population, being
of Ruthenian stock and belonging to the Greek Church, had nothing
in common with the Polish and Catholic noblesse of their
province, and looked back upon the days of Polish dominion as a
time of suffering and wrong. Austria's danger in any period of
European convulsion lay as yet rather on the side of Italy than
on the East, and the vigour of its policy in that quarter
contrasted with the equanimity with which it watched the struggle
of its Slavic neighbours. Since the suppression of the Neapolitan
constitutional movement in 1821, the Carbonari and other secret
societies of Italy had lost nothing of their activity. Their
head-quarters had been removed from Southern Italy to the Papal
States, and the numerous Italian exiles in France and elsewhere
kept up a busy communication at once with French revolutionary
leaders like Lafayette and with the enemies of the established
governments in Italy itself. The death of Pope Pius VIII., on
November 30, 1830, and the consequent paralysis of authority
within the Ecclesiastical States, came at an opportune moment;
assurances of support arrived from Paris; and the Italian leaders
resolved upon a general insurrection throughout the minor
Principalities on the 5th of February, 1831. Anticipating the
signal, Menotti, chief of a band of patriots at Modena, who
appears to have been lured on by the Grand Duke himself,
assembled his partisans on February 3. He was overpowered and
imprisoned; but the outbreak of the insurrection in Bologna, and
its rapid extension over the northern part of the Papal States,
soon caused the Grand Duke to fly to Austrian territory, carrying
his prisoner Menotti with him, whom he subsequently put to death.
The new Pope, Gregory XVI., had scarcely been elected when the
report reached him that Bologna had declared the temporal power
of the Papacy to be at an end. Uncertain of the character of the
revolt, he despatched Cardinal Benvenuti northwards, to employ
conciliation or force as occasion might require. The Legate fell
into the hands of the insurgents; the revolt spread southwards;
and Gregory, now hopeless of subduing it by the forces at his own
command, called upon Austria for assistance. <a name=
"FNanchor392">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_392"><sup>[392]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Attitude of France.]</p>
<p>The principle which, since the Revolution of July, the
government of France had repeatedly laid down as the future basis
of European politics was that of non-intervention. It had
disclaimed any purpose of interfering with the affairs of its
neighbours, and had required in return that no foreign
intervention should take place in districts which, like Belgium
and Savoy, adjoined its own frontier. But there existed no real
unity of purpose in the councils of Louis Philippe. The Ministry
had one voice for the representatives of foreign powers, another
for the Chamber of Deputies, and another for Lafayette and the
bands of exiles and conspirators who were under his protection.
The head of the government at the beginning of 1831 was Laffitte,
a weak politician, dominated by revolutionary sympathies and
phrases, but incapable of any sustained or resolute action, and
equally incapable of resisting Louis Philippe after the King had
concluded his performance of popular leader, and assumed his real
character as the wary and self-seeking chief of a reigning house.
Whether the actual course of French policy would be governed by
the passions of the streets or by the timorousness of Louis
Philippe was from day to day a matter of conjecture. The official
answer given to the inquiries of the Austrian ambassador as to
the intentions of France in case of an Austrian intervention in
Italy was, that such intervention might be tolerated in Parma and
Modena, which belonged to sovereigns immediately connected with
the Hapsburgs, but that if it was extended to the Papal States
war with France would be probable, and if extended to Piedmont,
certain. On this reply Metternich, who saw Austria's own dominion
in Italy once more menaced by the success of an insurrectionary
movement, had to form his decision. He could count on the support
of Russia in case of war; he knew well the fears of Louis
Philippe, and knew that he could work on these fears both by
pointing to the presence of the young Louis Bonaparte and his
brother with the Italian insurgents as evidence of the
Bonapartist character of the movement, and by hinting that in the
last resort he might himself let loose upon France Napoleon's
son, the Duke of Reichstadt. now growing to manhood at Vienna,
before whom Louis Philippe's throne would have collapsed as
speedily as that of Louis XVIII. in 1814. Where weakness existed,
Metternich was quick to divine it and to take advantage of it. He
rightly gauged Louis Philippe. Taking at their true value the
threats of the French Government, he declared that it was better
for Austria to fall, if necessary, by war than by revolution;
and, resolving at all hazards to suppress the Roman insurrection,
he gave orders to the Austrian troops to enter the Papal
States.</p>
<p>[Austrians suppress Roman revolt, March, 1831.]</p>
<p>[Casimir Perier, March, 1831.]</p>
<p>The military resistance which the insurgents could offer to
the advance of the Pope's Austrian deliverers was insignificant,
and order was soon restored. But all Europe expected the outbreak
of war between Austria and France. The French ambassador at
Constantinople had gone so far as to offer the Sultan an
offensive and defensive alliance, and to urge him to make
preparations for an attack upon both Austria and Russia on their
southern frontiers. A despatch from the ambassador reached Paris
describing the warlike overtures he had made to the Porte. Louis
Philippe saw that if this despatch reached the hands of Laffitte
and the war party in the Council of Ministers the preservation of
peace would be almost impossible. In concert with Sebastiani, the
Foreign Minister, he concealed the despatch from Laffitte. The
Premier discovered the trick that had been played upon him, and
tendered his resignation. It was gladly accepted by Louis
Philippe. Laffitte quitted office, begging pardon of God and man
for the part that he had taken in raising Louis Philippe to the
throne. His successor was Casimir Perier, a man of very different
mould; resolute, clear-headed, and immovably true to his word; a
constitutional statesman of the strictest type, intolerant of any
species of disorder, and a despiser of popular movements, but
equally proof against royal intrigues, and as keen to maintain
the constitutional system of France against the Court on one side
and the populace on the other as he was to earn for France the
respect of foreign powers by the abandonment of a policy of
adventure, and the steady adherence to the principles of
international obligation which he had laid down. Under his firm
hand the intrigues of the French Government with foreign
revolutionists ceased; it was felt throughout Europe that peace
was still possible, and that if war was undertaken by France it
would be undertaken only under conditions which would make any
moral union of all the great Powers against France impossible.
The Austrian expedition into the Papal States had already begun,
and the revolutionary Government had been suppressed; the most
therefore that Casimir Perier could demand was that the
evacuation of the occupied territory should take place as soon as
possible, and that Austria should add its voice to that of the
other Powers in urging the Papal Government to reform its abuses.
Both demands were granted. For the first time Austria appeared as
the advocate of something like a constitutional system. A
Conference held at Rome agreed upon a scheme of reforms to be
recommended to the Pope; the prospects of peace grew daily
fairer; and in July, 1831, the last Austrian soldiers quitted the
Ecclesiastical States. <a name="FNanchor393">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_393"><sup>[393]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Second Austrian intervention, Jan., 1832.]</p>
<p>[French occupy Ancona, February, 1832.]</p>
<p>It now remained to be seen whether Pope Gregory and his
cardinals had the intelligence and good-will necessary for
carrying out the reforms on the promise of which France had
abstained from active intervention. If any such hopes existed
they were doomed to speedy disappointment. The apparatus of
priestly maladministration was restored in all its ancient
deformity. An amnesty which had been promised by the Legate
Benvenuti was disregarded, and the Pope set himself to strengthen
his authority by enlisting new bands of ruffians and adventurers
under the standard of St. Peter. Again insurrection broke out,
and again at the Pope's request the Austrians crossed the
frontier (January, 1832). Though their appearance was fatal to
the cause of liberty, they were actually welcomed as protectors
in towns which had been exposed to the tender mercies of the
Papal condottieri. There was no disorder, no severity, where the
Austrian commandants held sway; but their mere presence in
central Italy was a threat to European peace; and Casimir Perier
was not the man to permit Austria to dominate in Italy at its
will. Without waiting for negotiations, he despatched a French
force to Ancona, and seized this town before the Austrians could
approach it. The rival Powers were now face to face in Italy; but
Perier had no intention of forcing on war if his opponent was
still willing to keep the peace. Austria accepted the situation,
and made no attempt to expel the French from the position they
had seized. Casimir Perier, now on his death-bed, defended the
step that he had taken against the remonstrances of ambassadors
and against the protests of the Pope, and declared the presence
of the French at Ancona to be no incentive to rebellion, but the
mere assertion of the rights of a Power which had as good a claim
to be in central Italy as Austria itself. Had his life been
prolonged, he would probably have insisted upon the execution of
the reforms which the Powers had urged upon the Papal government,
and have made the occupation of Ancona an effectual means for
reaching this end. But with his death the wrongs of the Italians
themselves and the question of a reformed government in the Papal
States gradually passed out of sight. France and Austria
jealously watched one another on the debatable land; the
occupation became a mere incident of the balance of power, and
was prolonged for year after year, until, in 1838, the Austrians
having finally withdrawn all their troops, the French peacefully
handed over the citadel of Ancona to the Holy See.</p>
<p>[Prussia in 1830.]</p>
<p>[The Zollverein, 1828-1836.]</p>
<p>The arena in which we have next to follow the effects of the
July Revolution, in action and counter-action, is Germany. It has
been seen that in the southern German States an element of
representative government, if weak, yet not wholly ineffective,
had come into being soon after 1815, and had survived the
reactionary measures initiated by the conference of Ministers at
Carlsbad. In Prussia the promises of King Frederick William to
his people had never been fulfilled. Years had passed since
exaggerated rumours of conspiracy had served as an excuse for
withholding the Constitution. Hardenberg had long been dead; the
foreign policy of the country had taken a freer tone; the rigours
of the police-system had departed; but the nation remained as
completely excluded from any share in the government as it had
been before Napoleon's fall. It had in fact become clear that
during the lifetime of King Frederick William things must be
allowed to remain in their existing condition; and the affection
of the people for their sovereign, who had been so long and so
closely united with Prussia in its sufferings and in its glories,
caused a general willingness to postpone the demand for
constitutional reform until the succeeding reign. The substantial
merits of the administration might moreover have reconciled a
less submissive people than the Prussians to the absolute
government under which they lived. Under a wise and enlightened
financial policy the country was becoming visibly richer.
Obstacles to commercial development were removed, communications
opened; and finally, by a series of treaties with the
neighbouring German States, the foundations were laid for that
Customs-Union which, under the name of the Zollverein, ultimately
embraced almost the whole of non-Austrian Germany. As one
Principality after another attached itself to the Prussian
system, the products of the various regions of Germany, hitherto
blocked by the frontier dues of each petty State, moved freely
through the land, while the costs attending the taxation of
foreign imports, now concentrated upon the external line of
frontier, were enormously diminished. Patient, sagacious, and
even liberal in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours,
Prussia silently connected with itself through the ties of
financial union States which had hitherto looked to Austria as
their natural head. The semblance of political union was
carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were
nevertheless present in the growing community of material
interests. The reputation of the Prussian Government, no less
than the welfare of the Prussian people, was advanced by each
successive step in the extension of the Zollverein; and although
the earlier stages alone had been passed in the years before
1830, enough had already been done to affect public opinion; and
the general sense of material progress combined with other
influences to close Prussia to the revolutionary tendencies of
that year.</p>
<p>[Insurrections in Brunswick and Cassel.]</p>
<p>[Constitutions in Hanover and Saxony, 1830-1833.]</p>
<p>There were, however, other States in northern Germany which
had all the defects of Prussian autocracy without any of its
redeeming qualities. In Brunswick and in Hesse Cassel despotism
existed in its most contemptible form; the violence of a
half-crazy youth in the one case, and the caprices of an
obstinate dotard in the other, rendering authority a mere
nuisance to those who were subject to it. Here accordingly
revolution broke out. The threatened princes had made themselves
too generally obnoxious or ridiculous for any hand to be raised
in their defence. Their disappearance excited no more than the
inevitable lament from Metternich; and in both States systems of
representative government were introduced by their successors. In
Hanover and in Saxony agitation also began in favour of
Parliamentary rule. The disturbance that arose was not of a
serious character, and it was met by the Courts in a conciliatory
spirit. Constitutions were granted, the liberty of the Press
extended, and trial by jury established. On the whole, the
movement of 1830, as it affected northern Germany, was rationally
directed and salutary in its results. Changes of real value were
accomplished with a sparing employment of revolutionary means,
and, in the more important cases, through the friendly
co-operation of the sovereigns with their subjects. It was not
the fault of those who had asked for the same degree of liberty
in northern Germany which the south already possessed, that
Germany at large again experienced the miseries of reaction and
repression which had afflicted it ten years before.</p>
<p>[Movement in the Palatinate.]</p>
<p>Like Belgium and the Rhenish Provinces, the Bavarian
Palatinate had for twenty years been incorporated with France.
Its inhabitants had grown accustomed to the French law and French
institutions, and had caught something of the political animation
which returned to France after Napoleon's fall. Accordingly when
the government of Munich, alarmed by the July Revolution, showed
an inclination towards repressive measures, the Palatinate,
severed from the rest of the Bavarian monarchy and in immediate
contact with France, became the focus of a revolutionary
agitation. The Press had already attained some activity and some
influence in this province; and although the leaders of the party
of progress were still to a great extent Professors, they had so
far advanced upon the patriots of 1818 as to understand that the
liberation of the German people was not to be effected by the
lecturers and the scholars of the Universities. The design had
been formed of enlisting all classes of the public on the side of
reform, both by the dissemination of political literature and by
the establishment of societies not limited, as in 1818, to
academic circles, but embracing traders as well as soldiers and
professional men. Even the peasant was to be reached and
instructed in his interests as a citizen. It was thought that
much might be effected by associating together all the
Oppositions in the numerous German Parliaments; but a more
striking feature of the revolutionary movement which began in the
Palatinate, and one strongly distinguishing it from the earlier
agitation of Jena and Erfurt, was its cosmopolitan character.
France in its triumph and Poland in its death-struggle excited
equal interest and sympathy. In each the cause of European
liberty appeared to be at stake. The Polish banner was saluted in
the Palatinate by the side of that of united Germany; and from
that time forward in almost every revolutionary movement of
Europe, down to the insurrection of the Commune of Paris in 1871,
Polish exiles have been active both in the organisation of revolt
and in the field.</p>
<p>[Reaction in Germany.]</p>
<p>Until the fall of Warsaw, in September, 1831, the German
governments, uncertain of the course which events might take in
Europe, had shown a certain willingness to meet the complaints of
their subjects, and had in especial relaxed the supervision
exercised over the press. The fall of Warsaw, which quieted so
many alarms, and made the Emperor Nicholas once more a power
outside his own dominions, inaugurated a period of reaction in
Germany. The Diet began the campaign against democracy by
suppressing various liberal newspapers, and amongst them the
principal journal of the Palatinate. It was against this movement
of regression that the agitation in the Palatinate and elsewhere
was now directed. A festival, or demonstration, was held at the
Castle of Hambach, near Zweibr&uuml;cken, at which a body of
enthusiasts called upon the German people to unite against their
oppressors, and some even urged an immediate appeal to arms (May
27, 1832). Similar meetings, though on a smaller scale, were held
in other parts of Germany. Wild words abounded, and the
connection of the German revolutionists with that body of
opponents of all established governments which had its
council-chamber at Paris and its head in Lafayette was openly
avowed. Weak and insignificant as the German demagogues were,
their extravagance gave to Metternich and to the Diet sufficient
pretext for revising the reactionary measures of 1819. Once more
the subordination of all representative bodies to the sovereign's
authority was laid down by the Diet as a binding principle for
every German state. The refusal of taxes by any legislature was
declared to be an act of rebellion which would be met by the
armed intervention of the central Powers. All political meetings
and associations were forbidden; the Press was silenced; the
introduction of German books printed abroad was prohibited, and
the Universities were again placed under the watch of the police
(July, 1832). <a name="FNanchor394">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_394"><sup>[394]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Attempt at Frankfort, April, 1833.]</p>
<p>If among the minor sovereigns of Germany there were some who,
as in Baden, sincerely desired the development of free
institutions, the authority exercised by Metternich and his
adherents in reaction bore down all the resistance that these
courts could offer, and the hand of despotism fell everywhere
heavily upon the party of political progress. The majority of
German Liberals, not yet prepared for recourse to revolutionary
measures, submitted to the pressure of the times, and disclaimed
all sympathy with illegal acts; a minority, recognising that
nothing was now to be gained by constitutional means, entered
into conspiracies, and determined to liberate Germany by force.
One insignificant group, relying upon the armed co-operation of
Polish bands in France, and deceived by promises of support from
some W&uuml;rtemberg soldiers, actually rose in insurrection at
Frankfort. A guard-house was seized, and a few soldiers captured;
but the citizens of Frankfort stood aloof, and order was soon
restored (April, 1833). It was not to be expected that the
reactionary courts should fail to draw full advantage from this
ill-timed outbreak of their enemies. Prussian troops marched into
Frankfort, and Metternich had no difficulty in carrying through
the Diet a decree establishing a commission to superintend and to
report upon the proceedings instituted against political
offenders throughout Germany. For several years these
investigations continued, and the campaign against the opponents
of government was carried on with various degrees of rigour in
the different states. About two thousand persons altogether were
brought to trial: in Prussia thirty-nine sentences of death were
pronounced, but not executed. In the struggle against revolution
the forces of monarchy had definitely won the victory. Germany
again experienced, as it had in 1819, that the federal
institutions which were to have given it unity existed only for
the purposes of repression. The breach between the nation and its
rulers, in spite of the apparent failure of the democratic party,
remained far deeper and wider than it had been before; and
although Metternich, victor once more over the growing
restlessness of the age, slumbered on for another decade in
fancied security, the last of his triumphs had now been won, and
the next uprising proved how blind was that boasted statesmanship
which deemed the sources of danger exhausted when once its
symptoms had been driven beneath the surface.</p>
<p>[Conspirators and exiles.]</p>
<p>[Dispersion of the Swiss exiles, 1834.]</p>
<p>In half the states of Europe there were now bodies of
exasperated, uncompromising men, who devoted their lives to
plotting against governments, and who formed, in their community
of interest and purpose, a sort of obverse of the Holy Alliance,
a federation of kings' enemies, a league of principle and creed,
in which liberty and human right stood towards established rule
as light to darkness. As the grasp of authority closed everywhere
more tightly upon its baffled foes, more and more of these men
passed into exile. Among them was the Genoese Mazzini, who, after
suffering imprisonment in 1831, withdrew to Marseilles, and
there, in combination with various secret societies, planned an
incursion into the Italian province of Savoy. It was at first
intended that this enterprise should be executed simultaneously
with the German rising at Frankfort. Delays, however, arose, and
it was not until the beginning of the following year that the
little army, which numbered more Poles than Italians, was ready
for its task. The incursion was made from Geneva in February,
1834, and ended disastrously. <a name="FNanchor395">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_395"><sup>[395]</sup></a> Mazzini returned to
Switzerland, where hundreds of exiles, secure under the shelter
of the Republic, devised schemes of attack upon the despots of
Europe, and even rioted in honour of freedom in the streets of
the Swiss cities which protected them. The effect of the
revolutionary movement of the time in consolidating the alliance
of the three Eastern Powers, so rudely broken by the Greek War of
Liberation, now came clearly into view. The sovereigns of Russia
and Austria had met at M&uuml;nchengr&auml;tz in Bohemia in the
previous autumn, and, in concert with Prussia, had resolved upon
common principles of action if their intervention should be
required against disturbers of order. Notes were now addressed
from every quarter to the Swiss Government, requiring the
expulsion of all persons concerned in enterprises against the
peace of neighbouring States. Some resistance to this demand was
made by individual cantons; but the extravagance of many of the
refugees themselves alienated popular sympathy, and the greater
part of them were forced to quit Switzerland and to seek shelter
in England or in America. With the dispersion of the central band
of exiles the open alliance which had existed between the
revolutionists of Europe gradually passed away. The brotherhood
of the kings had proved a stern reality, the brotherhood of the
peoples a delusive vision. Mazzini indeed, who up to this time
had scarcely emerged from the rabble of revolutionary leaders,
was yet to prove how deeply the genius, the elevation, the
fervour of one man struggling against the powers of the world may
influence the history of his age; but the fire that purified the
fine gold charred and consumed the baser elements; and of those
who had hoped the most after 1830, many now sank into despair, or
gave up their lives to mere restless agitation and intrigue.</p>
<p>[Difficulties of Louis Philippe.]</p>
<p>[Insurrections, 1832-1834.]</p>
<p>[Repressive Laws, Sept., 1835.]</p>
<p>It was in France that the revolutionary movement was longest
maintained. During the first year of Louis Philippe's rule the
opposition to his government was inspired not so much by
Republicanism as by a wild and inconsiderate sympathy with the
peoples who were fighting for liberty elsewhere, and by a
headstrong impulse to take up arms on their behalf. The famous
decree of the Convention in 1792, which promised the assistance
of France to every nation in revolt against its rulers, was in
fact the true expression of what was felt by a great part of the
French nation in 1831; and in the eyes of these enthusiasts it
was the unpardonable offence of Louis Philippe against the honour
of France that he allowed Poland and Italy to succumb without
drawing his sword against their conquerors. That France would
have had to fight the three Eastern Powers combined, if it had
allied itself with those in revolt against any one of the three,
passed for nothing among the clamorous minority in the Chamber
and among the orators of Paris. The pacific policy of Casimir
Perier was misunderstood; it passed for mere poltroonery, when in
fact it was the only policy that could save France from a
recurrence of the calamities of 1815. There were other causes for
the growing unpopularity of the King and of his Ministers, but
the first was their policy of peace. As the attacks of his
opponents became more and more bitter, the government of Casimir
Perier took more and more of a repressive character.
Disappointment at the small results produced in France itself by
the Revolution of July worked powerfully in men's minds. The
forces that had been set in motion against Charles X. were not to
be laid at rest at the bidding of those who had profited by them,
and a Republican party gradually took definite shape and
organisation. Tumult succeeded tumult. In the summer of 1832 the
funeral of General Lamarque, a popular soldier, gave the signal
for insurrection at Paris. There was severe fighting in the
streets; the National Guard, however, proved true to the king,
and shared with the army in the honours of its victory.
Repressive measures and an unbroken series of prosecutions
against seditious writers followed this first armed attack upon
the established government. The bitterness of the Opposition, the
discontent of the working classes, far surpassed anything that
had been known under Charles X. The whole country was agitated by
revolutionary societies and revolutionary propaganda. Disputes
between masters and workmen, which, in consequence of the growth
of French manufacturing industry, now became both frequent and
important, began to take a political colour. Polish and Italian
exiles connected their own designs with attacks to be made upon
the French Government from within; and at length, in April, 1834,
after the passing of a law against trades-unions, the working
classes of Lyons, who were on strike against their employers,
were induced to rise in revolt. After several days' fighting the
insurrection was suppressed. Simultaneous outbreaks took place at
St. Etienne, Grenoble, and many other places in the south and
centre of France; and on a report of the success of the
insurgents reaching Paris, the Republic was proclaimed and
barricades were erected. Again civil war raged in the streets,
and again the forces of Government gained the victory. A year
more passed, during which the investigations into the late revolt
and the trial of a host of prisoners served rather to agitate
than to reassure the public mind; and in the summer of 1835 an
attempt was made upon the life of the King so terrible and
destructive in its effects as to amount to a public calamity. An
infernal machine composed of a hundred gun-barrels was fired by a
Corsican named Fieschi, as the King with a large suite was riding
through the streets of Paris on the anniversary of the Revolution
of July. Fourteen persons were killed on the spot, among whom was
Mortier, one of the oldest of the marshals of France; many others
were fatally or severely injured. The King, however, with his
three sons, escaped unhurt, and the repressive laws that followed
this outrage marked the close of open revolutionary agitation in
France. Whether in consequence of the stringency of the new laws,
or of the exhaustion of a party discredited in public estimation
by the crimes of a few of its members and the recklessness of
many more, the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe now
seemed to have finally vanquished its opponents. Repeated
attempts were made on the life of the King, but they possessed
for the most part little political significance. Order was
welcome to the nation at large; and though in the growth of a
socialistic theory and creed of life which dates from this epoch
there lay a danger to Governments greater than any purely
political, Socialism was as yet the affair of thinkers rather
than of active workers either in the industrial or in the
Parliamentary world. The Government had beaten its enemies
outside the Chamber. Within the Chamber, the parties of extremes
ceased to exercise any real influence. Groups were formed, and
rival leaders played against one another for office; but they
were separated by no far-reaching differences of aim, and by no
real antagonism of constitutional principle. During the
succeeding years of Louis Philippe's reign there was little
visible on the surface but the normal rivalry of parties under a
constitutional monarchy. The middle-class retained its monopoly
of power: authority, centralised as before, maintained its old
prestige in France, and softened opposition by judicious gifts of
office and emolument. Revolutionary passion seemed to have died
away: and the triumphs or reverses of party-leaders in the
Chamber of Deputies succeeded to the harassing and doubtful
conflict between Government and insurrection.</p>
<p>[The English Reform movement.]</p>
<p>The near coincidence in time between the French Revolution of
1830 and the passing of the English Reform Bill is apt to suggest
to those who look for the operation of wide general causes in
history that the English Reform movement should be viewed as a
part of the great current of political change which then
traversed the continent of Europe. But on a closer examination
this view is scarcely borne out by facts, and the coincidence of
the two epochs of change appears to be little more than
accidental. The general unity that runs through the history of
the more advanced continental states is indeed stronger than
appears to a superficial reader of history; but this
correspondence of tendency does not always embrace England; on
the contrary, the conditions peculiar to England usually
preponderate over those common to England and other countries,
exhibiting at times more of contrast than of similarity, as in
the case of the Napoleonic epoch, when the causes which drew
together the western half of the continent operated powerfully to
exclude our own country from the current influences of the time,
and made the England of 1815, in opinion, in religion, and in
taste much more insular than the England of 1780. The revolution
which overthrew Charles X. did no doubt encourage and stimulate
the party of Reform in Great Britain; but, unlike the Belgian,
the German, and the Italian movements, the English Reform
movement would unquestionably have run the same course and
achieved the same results even if the revolt against the
ordinances of Charles X. had been successfully repressed, and the
Bourbon monarchy had maintained itself in increased strength and
reputation. A Reform of Parliament had been acknowledged to be
necessary forty years before. Pitt had actually proposed it in
1785, and but for the outbreak of the French Revolution would
probably have carried it into effect before the close of the last
century. The development of English manufacturing industry which
took place between 1790 and 1830, accompanied by the rapid growth
of towns and the enrichment of the urban middle class, rendered
the design of Pitt, which would have transferred the
representation of the decayed boroughs to the counties alone,
obsolete, and made the claims of the new centres of population
too strong to be resisted. In theory the representative system of
the country was completely transformed; but never was a measure
which seemed to open the way to such boundless possibilities of
change so thoroughly safe and so thoroughly conservative. In
spite of the increased influence won by the wealthy part of the
commercial classes, the House of Commons continued to be drawn
mainly from the territorial aristocracy. Cabinet after Cabinet
was formed with scarcely a single member included in it who was
not himself a man of title, or closely connected with the
nobility: the social influence of rank was not diminished; and
although such measures as the Reform of Municipal Corporations
attested the increased energy of the Legislature, no party in the
House of Commons was weaker than that which supported the
democratic demands for the Ballot and for Triennial Parliaments,
nor was the repeal of the Corn Laws seriously considered until
famine had made it inevitable. That the widespread misery which
existed in England after 1832, as the result of the excessive
increase of our population and the failure alike of law and of
philanthropy to keep pace with the exigencies of a vast
industrial growth, should have been so quietly borne, proves how
great was the success of the Reform Bill as a measure of
conciliation between Government and people. But the crowning
justification of the changes made in 1832, and the complete and
final answer to those who had opposed them as revolutionary, was
not afforded until 1848, when, in the midst of European
convulsion, the monarchy and the constitution of England remained
unshaken. Bold as the legislation of Lord Grey appeared to men
who had been brought up amidst the reactionary influences
dominant in England since 1793, the Reform Bill belongs not to
the class of great creative measures which have inaugurated new
periods in the life of nations, but to the class of those which,
while least affecting the general order of society, have most
contributed to political stability and to the avoidance of
revolutionary change.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XVII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>France and England after 1830-Affairs of Portugal-Don
Miguel-Don Pedro invades Portugal-Ferdinand of Spain-The
Pragmatic Sanction-Death of Ferdinand: Regency of Christina-The
Constitution-Quadruple Alliance- Miguel and Carlos expelled from
Portugal-Carlos enters Spain-The Basque Provinces-Carlist War:
Zumalacarregui-The Spanish Government seeks French assistance,
which is refused-Constitution of 1837-End of the War-Regency of
Espartero-Isabella Queen-Affairs of the Ottoman Empire-Ibrahim
invades Syria; his victories-Rivalry of France and Russia at
Constantinople-Peace of Kutaya and Treaty of Unkiar
Skelessi-Effect of this Treaty-France and Mehemet Ali-Commerce of
the Levant-Second War between Mehemet and the Porte-Ottoman
disasters-The Policy of the Great Powers-Quadruple Treaty without
France-Ibrahim expelled from Syria-Final Settlement-Turkey after
1840-Attempted reforms of Reschid Pasha.</p>
<br>

<p>[France and England after 1830.]</p>
<p>Alliances of opinion usually cover the pursuit on one or both
sides of some definite interest; and to this rule the alliance
which appeared to be springing up between France and England
after the changes of 1830 was no exception. In the popular view,
the bond of union between the two States was a common attachment
to principles of liberty; and on the part of the Whig statesmen
who now governed England this sympathy with free constitutional
systems abroad was certainly a powerful force: but other motives
than mere community of sentiment combined to draw the two
Governments together, and in the case of France these immediate
interests greatly outweighed any abstract preference for a
constitutional ally. Louis Philippe had an avowed and obstinate
enemy in the Czar of Russia, who had been his predecessor's
friend: the Court of Vienna tolerated usurpers only where worse
mischief would follow from attacking them; Prussia had no motive
for abandoning the connexions which it had maintained since 1815.
As the union between the three Eastern Courts grew closer in
consequence of the outbreak of revolution beyond the borders of
France, a good understanding with Great Britain became more and
more obviously the right policy for Louis Philippe; on the other
hand, the friendship of France seemed likely to secure England
from falling back into that isolated position which it had
occupied when the Holy Alliance laid down the law to Europe, and
averted the danger to which the Ottoman Empire, as well as the
peace of the world, had been exposed by the combination of French
with Russian schemes of aggrandizement. If Canning, left without
an ally in Europe, had called the new world into existence to
redress the balance of the old, his Whig successors might well
look with some satisfaction on that shifting of the weights which
had brought over one of the Great Powers to the side of England,
and anticipate, in the concert of the two great Western States,
the establishment of a permanent force in European politics which
should hold in check the reactionary influences of Vienna and St.
Petersburg. To some extent these views were realised. A general
relation of friendliness was recognised as subsisting between the
Governments of Paris and London, and in certain European
complications their intervention was arranged in common. But even
here the element of mistrust was seldom absent; and while English
Ministers jealously watched each action of their neighbour, the
French Government rarely allowed the ties of an informal alliance
to interfere with the prosecution of its own views. Although down
to the close of Louis Philippe's reign the good understanding
between England and France was still nominally in existence, all
real confidence had then long vanished; and on more than one
occasion the preservation of peace between the two nations had
been seriously endangered.</p>
<p>[Affairs of Portugal, 1826-1830.]</p>
<p>It was in the establishment of the kingdom of Belgium that the
combined action of France and England produced its first and most
successful result. A second demand was made upon the Governments
of the two constitutional Powers by the conflicts which agitated
the Spanish Peninsula, and which were stimulated in the general
interests of absolutism by both the Austrian and the Russian
Court. The intervention of Canning in 1826 on behalf of the
constitutional Regency of Portugal against the foreign supporters
of Don Miguel, the head of the clerical and reactionary party,
had not permanently restored peace to that country. Miguel indeed
accepted the constitution, and, after betrothing himself to the
infant sovereign, Donna Maria, who was still with her father
Pedro, in Brazil, entered upon the Regency which his elder
brother had promised to him. But his actions soon disproved the
professions of loyalty to the constitution which he had made; and
after dissolving the Cortes, and re-assembling the medi&aelig;val
Estates, he caused himself to be proclaimed King (June, 1828). A
reign of terror followed. The constitutionalists were completely
crushed. Miguel's own brutal violence gave an example to all the
fanatics and ruffians who surrounded him; and after an
unsuccessful appeal to arms, those of the adherents of Donna
Maria and the constitution who escaped from imprisonment or
execution took refuge in England or in the Azore islands, where
Miguel had not been able to establish his authority. Though
Miguel was not officially recognised as Sovereign by most of the
foreign Courts, his victory was everywhere seen with satisfaction
by the partisans of absolutism; and in Great Britain, where the
Duke of Wellington was still in power, the precedent of Canning's
intervention was condemned, and a strict neutrality maintained.
Not only was all assistance refused to Donna Maria, but her
adherents who had taken refuge in England were prevented from
making this country the basis of any operations against the
usurper.</p>
<p>[Invasion of Portugal by Pedro. July, 1832.]</p>
<p>Such was the situation of Portuguese affairs when the events
of 1830 brought an entirely new spirit into the foreign policy of
both England and France. Miguel, however, had no inclination to
adapt his own policy to the change of circumstances; on the
contrary, he challenged the hostility of both governments by
persisting in a series of wanton attacks upon English and French
subjects resident at Lisbon. Satisfaction was demanded, and
exacted by force. English and French squadrons successively
appeared in the Tagus. Lord Palmerston, now Foreign Secretary in
the Ministry of Earl Grey, was content with obtaining a pecuniary
indemnity for his countrymen, accompanied by a public apology
from the Portuguese Government: the French admiral, finding some
difficulty in obtaining redress, carried off the best ships of
Don Miguel's navy. <a name="FNanchor396">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_396"><sup>[396]</sup></a> A weightier blow was,
however, soon to fall upon the usurper. His brother, the Emperor
Pedro, threatened with revolution in Brazil, resolved to return
to Europe and to enforce the rights of his daughter to the throne
of Portugal. Pedro arrived in London in July, 1831, and was
permitted by the Government to raise troops and to secure the
services of some of the best naval officers of this country. The
gathering place of his forces was Terceira, one of the Azore
islands, and in the summer of 1832 a sufficiently strong body of
troops was collected to undertake the reconquest of Portugal. A
landing was made at Oporto, and this city fell into the hands of
Don Pedro without resistance. Miguel, however, now marched
against his brother, and laid siege to Oporto. For nearly a year
no progress was made by either side; at length the arrival of
volunteers from various countries, among whom was Captain Charles
Napier, enabled Pedro to divide his forces and to make a new
attack on Portugal from the south. Napier, in command of the
fleet, annihilated the navy of Don Miguel off St. Vincent; his
colleague, Villa Flor, landed and marched on Lisbon. The
resistance of the enemy was overcome, and on the 28th of July,
1833, Don Pedro entered the capital. But the war was not yet at
an end, for Miguel's cause was as closely identified with the
interests of European absolutism as that of his brother was with
constitutional right, and assistance both in troops and money
continued to arrive at his camp. The struggle threatened to prove
a long and obstinate one, when a new turn was given to events in
the Peninsula by the death of Ferdinand, King of Spain.</p>
<p>[Death of Ferdinand, Sept., 1833.]</p>
<p>Since the restoration of absolute Government in Spain in 1823,
Ferdinand, in spite of his own abject weakness and ignorance, had
not given complete satisfaction to the fanatics of the clerical
party. Some vestiges of statesmanship, some sense of political
necessity, as well as the influence of foreign counsellors, had
prevented the Government of Madrid from completely identifying
itself with the monks and zealots who had first risen against the
constitution of 1820, and who now sought to establish the
absolute supremacy of the Church. The Inquisition had not been
restored, and this alone was enough to stamp the King as a
renegade in the eyes of the ferocious and implacable champions of
medi&aelig;val bigotry. Under the name of Apostolicals, these
reactionaries had at times broken into open rebellion. Their
impatience had, however, on the whole been restrained by the
knowledge that in the King's brother and heir, Don Carlos, they
had an adherent whose devotion to the priestly cause was beyond
suspicion, and who might be expected soon to ascend the throne.
Ferdinand had been thrice married; he was childless; his state of
health miserable; and his life likely to be a short one. The
succession to the throne of Spain had moreover, since 1713, been
governed by the Salic Law, so that even in the event of Ferdinand
leaving female issue Don Carlos would nevertheless inherit the
crown. These confident hopes were rudely disturbed by the
marriage of the King with his cousin Maria Christina of Naples,
followed by an edict, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, repealing
the Salic Law which had been introduced with the first Bourbon,
and restoring the ancient Castilian custom under which women were
capable of succeeding to the crown. A daughter, Isabella, was
shortly afterwards born to the new Queen. On the legality of the
Pragmatic Sanction the opinions of publicists differed; it was
judged, however, by Europe at large not from the point of view of
antiquarian theory, but with direct reference to its immediate
effect. The three Eastern Courts emphatically condemned it, as an
interference with established monarchical right, and as a blow to
the cause of European absolutism through the alliance which it
would almost certainly produce between the supplanters of Don
Carlos and the Liberals of the Spanish Peninsula. <a name=
"FNanchor397">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_397"><sup>[397]</sup></a> To
the clerical and reactionary party at Madrid, it amounted to
nothing less than a sentence of destruction, and the utmost
pressure was brought to bear upon the weak and dying King with
the object of inducing him to undo the alleged wrong which he had
done to his brother. In a moment of prostration Ferdinand revoked
the Pragmatic Sanction; but, subsequently, regaining some degree
of strength, he re-enacted it, and appointed Christina Regent
during the continuance of his illness. Don Carlos, protesting
against the violation of his rights, had betaken himself to
Portugal, where he made common cause with Miguel. His adherents
had no intention of submitting to the change of succession. Their
resentment was scarcely restrained during Ferdinand's life-time,
and when, in September, 1833, his long-expected death took place,
and the child Isabella was declared Queen under the Regency of
her mother, open rebellion broke out, and Carlos was proclaimed
King in several of the northern provinces.</p>
<p>[The Regency and the Carlists.]</p>
<p>[Quadruple Treaty, April 22, 1834.]</p>
<p>[Miguel and Carlos removed, May, 1834.]</p>
<p>For the moment the forces of the Regency seemed to be far
superior to those of the insurgents, and Don Carlos failed to
take advantage of the first outburst of enthusiasm and to place
himself at the head of his followers. He remained in Portugal,
while Christina, as had been expected, drew nearer to the Spanish
Liberals, and ultimately called to power a Liberal minister,
Martinez de la Rosa, under whom a constitution was given to Spain
by Royal Statute (April 10, 1834). At the same time negotiations
were opened with Portugal and with the Western Powers, in the
hope of forming an alliance which should drive both Miguel and
Carlos from the Peninsula. On the 22nd of April, 1834, a
Quadruple Treaty was signed at London, in which the Spanish
Government undertook to send an army into Portugal against
Miguel, the Court of Lisbon pledging itself in return to use all
the means in its power to expel Don Carlos from Portuguese
territory. England engaged to co-operate by means of its fleet.
The assistance of France, if it should be deemed necessary for
the attainment of the objects of the Treaty, was to be rendered
in such manner as should be settled by common consent. In
pursuance of the policy of the Treaty, and even before the formal
engagement was signed, a Spanish division under General Rodil
crossed the frontier and marched against Miguel. The forces of
the usurper were defeated. The appearance of the English fleet
and the publication of the Treaty of Quadruple Alliance rendered
further resistance hopeless, and on the 22nd of May Miguel made
his submission, and in return for a large pension renounced all
rights to the crown, and undertook to quit the Peninsula for
ever. Don Carlos, refusing similar conditions, went on board an
English ship, and was conducted to London. <a name=
"FNanchor398">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_398"><sup>[398]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Carlos appears in Spain.]</p>
<p>With respect to Portugal, the Quadruple Alliance had
completely attained its object; and in so far as the Carlist
cause was strengthened by the continuance of civil war in the
neighbouring country, this source of strength was no doubt
withdrawn from it. But in its effect upon Don Carlos himself the
action of the Quadruple Alliance was worse than useless. While
fulfilling the letter of the Treaty, which stipulated for the
expulsion of the two pretenders from the Peninsula, the English
Admiral had removed Carlos from Portugal, where he was
comparatively harmless, and had taken no effective guarantee that
he should not re-appear in Spain itself and enforce his claim by
arms. Carlos had not been made a prisoner of war; he had made no
promises and incurred no obligations; nor could the British
Government, after his arrival in this country, keep him in
perpetual restraint. Quitting England after a short residence, he
travelled in disguise through France, crossed the Pyrenees, and
appeared on the 10th of July, 1834, at the headquarters of the
Carlist insurgents in Navarre.</p>
<p>[The Basque Provinces.]</p>
<p>In the country immediately below the western Pyrenees, the
so-called Basque Provinces, lay the chief strength of the Carlist
rebellion. These provinces, which were among the most thriving
and industrious parts of Spain, might seem by their very
superiority an unlikely home for a movement which was directed
against everything favourable to liberty, tolerance, and progress
in the Spanish kingdom. But the identification of the Basques
with the Carlist cause was due in fact to local, not to general,
causes; and in fighting to impose a bigoted despot upon the
Spanish people, they were in truth fighting to protect themselves
from a closer incorporation with Spain. Down to the year 1812,
the Basque provinces had preserved more than half of the
essentials of independence. Owing to their position on the French
frontier, the Spanish monarchy, while destroying all local
independence in the interior of Spain, had uniformly treated the
Basques with the same indulgence which the Government of Great
Britain has shown to the Channel Islands, and which the French
monarchy, though in a less degree, showed to the frontier
province of Alsace in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The customs-frontier of the north of Spain was drawn to the south
of these districts. The inhabitants imported what they pleased
from France without paying any duties; while the heavy
import-dues levied at the border of the neighbouring Spanish
provinces gave them the opportunity of carrying on an easy and
lucrative system of smuggling. The local administration remained
to a great extent in the hands of the people themselves; each
village preserved its active corporate life; and the effect of
this survival of a vigorous local freedom was seen in the
remarkable contrast described by travellers between the aspect of
the Basque districts and that of Spain at large. The Fueros, or
local rights, as the Basques considered them, were in reality,
when viewed as part of the order of the Spanish State, a series
of exceptional privileges; and it was inevitable that the framers
of the Constitution of 1812, in their attempt to create a modern
administrative and political system doing justice to the whole of
the nation, should sweep away the distinctions which had hitherto
marked off one group of provinces from the rest of the community.
The continuance of war until the return of Ferdinand, and the
overthrow of the Constitution, prevented the plans of the Cortes
from being at that time carried into effect; but the revolution
of 1820 brought them into actual operation, and the Basques found
themselves, as a result of the victory of Liberal principles,
compelled to pay duties on their imports, robbed of the profits
of their smuggling, and supplanted in the management of their
local affairs by an army of officials from Madrid. They had
gained by the Constitution little that they had not possessed
before, and their losses were immediate, tangible, and
substantial. The result was, that although the larger towns, like
Bilbao, remained true to modern ideas, the country districts, led
chiefly by priests, took up arms on behalf of the absolute
monarchy, assisted the French in the restoration of despotism in
1823, and remained the permanent enemies of the constitutional
cause. <a name="FNanchor399">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_399"><sup>[399]</sup></a> On the death of Ferdinand
they declared at once for Don Carlos, and rose in rebellion
against the Government of Queen Christina, by which they
considered the privileges of the Basque Provinces and the
interests of Catholic orthodoxy to be alike threatened.</p>
<p>[Carlist victories, 1834-5.]</p>
<p>There was little in the character of Don Carlos to stimulate
the loyalty even of his most benighted partizans. Of military and
political capacity he was totally destitute, and his continued
absence in Portugal when the conflict had actually begun proved
him to be wanting in the natural impulses of a brave man. It was,
however, his fortune to be served by a soldier of extraordinary
energy and skill; and the first reverses of the Carlists were
speedily repaired, and a system of warfare organised which made
an end of the hopes of easy conquest with which the Government of
Christina had met the insurrection. Fighting in a worthless
cause, and commanding resources scarcely superior to those of a
brigand chief, the Carlist leader, Zumalacarregui, inflicted
defeat after defeat upon the generals who were sent to destroy
him. The mountainous character of the country and the universal
hostility of the inhabitants made the exertions of a regular
soldiery useless against the alternate flights and surprises of
men who knew every mountain track, and who gained information of
the enemy's movements from every cottager. Terror was added by
Zumalacarregui to all his other methods for demoralising his
adversary. In the exercise of reprisals he repeatedly murdered
all his prisoners in cold blood, and gave to the war so savage a
character that foreign Governments at last felt compelled to urge
upon the belligerents some regard for the usages of the civilised
world. The appearance of Don Carlos himself in the summer of 1834
raised still higher the confidence already inspired by the
victories of his general. It was in vain that the old
constitutionalist soldier, Mina, who had won so great a name in
these provinces in 1823, returned after long exile to the scene
of his exploits. Enfeebled and suffering, he was no longer able
to place himself at the head of his troops, and he soon sought to
be relieved from a hopeless task. His successor, the War Minister
Valdes, took the field announcing his determination to act upon a
new system, and to operate with his troops in mass instead of
pursuing the enemy's bands with detachments. The result of this
change of tactics was a defeat more ruinous and complete than had
befallen any of Valdes' predecessors. He with difficulty withdrew
the remainder of his army from the insurgent provinces; and the
Carlist leader master of the open country up to the borders of
Castile, prepared to cross the Ebro and to march upon Madrid. <a
name="FNanchor400">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_400"><sup>[400]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Request to France for assistance, May, 1835.]</p>
<p>The Ministers of Queen Christina, who had up till this time
professed themselves confident in their power to deal with the
insurrection, could now no longer conceal the real state of
affairs. Valdes himself declared that the rebellion could not be
subdued without foreign aid; and after prolonged discussion in
the Cabinet it was determined to appeal to France for armed
assistance. The flight of Don Carlos from England had already
caused an additional article to be added to the Treaty of the
Quadruple Alliance, in which France undertook so to watch the
frontier of the Pyrenees that no reinforcements or munition of
war should reach the Carlists from that side, while England
promised to supply the troops of Queen Christina with arms and
stores, and, if necessary, to render assistance with a naval
force (18th August, 1834). The foreign supplies sent to the
Carlists had thus been cut off both by land and sea; but more
active assistance seemed indispensable if Madrid was to be saved
from falling into the enemy's hands. The request was made to
Louis Philippe's Government to occupy the Basque Provinces with a
corps of twelve thousand men. Reasons of weight might be
addressed to the French Court in favour of direct intervention.
The victory of Don Carlos would place upon the throne of Spain a
representative of all those reactionary influences throughout
Europe which were in secret or in open hostility to the House of
Orleans, and definitely mark the failure of that policy which had
led France to combine with England in expelling Don Miguel from
Portugal. On the other hand, the experience gained from earlier
military enterprises in Spain might well deter even bolder
politicians than those about Louis Philippe from venturing upon a
task whose ultimate issues no man could confidently forecast.
Napoleon had wrecked his empire in the struggle beyond the
Pyrenees not less than in the march to Moscow: and the expedition
of 1823, though free from military difficulties, had exposed
France to the humiliating responsibility for every brutal act of
a despotism which, in the very moment of its restoration, had
scorned the advice of its restorers. The constitutional
Government which invoked French assistance might, moreover, at
any moment give place to a democratic faction which already
harassed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with
the populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw
Spain into anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened constitution of
1812. But above all, the attitude of the three Eastern Powers
bade the ruler of France hesitate before committing himself to a
military occupation of Spanish territory. Their sympathies were
with Don Carlos, and the active participation of France in the
quarrel might possibly call their opposing forces into the field
and provoke a general war. In view of the evident dangers arising
out of the proposed intervention, the French Government, taking
its stand on that clause of the Quadruple Treaty which provided
that the assistance of France should be rendered in such manner
as might be agreed upon by all the parties to the Treaty,
addressed itself to Great Britain, inquiring whether this country
would undertake a joint responsibility in the enterprise and
share with France the consequences to which it might give birth.
Lord Palmerston in reply declined to give the assurance required.
He stated that no objection would be raised by the British
Government to the entry of French troops into Spain, but that
such intervention must be regarded as the work of France alone,
and be undertaken by France at its own peril. This answer
sufficed for Louis Philippe and his Ministers. The Spanish
Government was informed that the grant of military assistance was
impossible, and that the entire public opinion of France would
condemn so dangerous an undertaking. As a proof of goodwill,
permission was given to Queen Christina to enrol volunteers both
in England and France. Arms were supplied; and some thousands of
needy or adventurous men ultimately made their way from our own
country as well as from France, to earn under Colonel De Lacy
Evans and other leaders a scanty harvest of profit or renown.</p>
<p>[Continuance of the war.]</p>
<p>The first result of the rejection of the Spanish demand for
the direct intervention of France was the downfall of the
Minister by whom this demand had been made. His successor,
Toreno, though a well-known patriot, proved unable to stem the
tide of revolution that was breaking over the country. City after
city set up its own Junta, and acted as if the central government
had ceased to exist. Again the appeal for help was made to Louis
Philippe, and now, not so much to avert the victory of Don Carlos
as to save Spain from anarchy and from the constitution of 1812.
Before an answer could arrive, Toreno in his turn had passed
away. Mendizabal, a banker who had been entrusted with financial
business at London, and who had entered into friendly relations
with Lord Palmerston, was called to office, as a politician
acceptable to the democratic party, and the advocate of a close
connection with England rather than with France. In spite of the
confident professions of the Minister, and in spite of some
assistance actually rendered by the English fleet, no real
progress was made in subduing the Carlists, or in restoring
administrative and financial order. The death of Zumalacarregui,
who was forced by Don Carlos to turn northwards and besiege
Bilbao instead of marching upon Madrid immediately after his
victories, had checked the progress of the rebellion at a
critical moment; but the Government, distracted and bankrupt,
could not use the opportunity which thus offered itself, and the
war soon blazed out anew not only in the Basque Provinces but
throughout the north of Spain. For year after year the monotonous
struggle continued, while Cortes succeeded Cortes and faction
supplanted faction, until there remained scarcely an officer who
had not lost his reputation or a politician who was not useless
and discredited.</p>
<p>[Constitution of 1837.]</p>
<p>[End of the war, Sept., 1839.]</p>
<p>The Queen Regent, who from the necessities of her situation
had for awhile been the representative of the popular cause,
gradually identified herself with the interests opposed to
democratic change; and although her name was still treated with
some respect, and her policy was habitually attributed to the
misleading advice of courtiers, her real position was well
understood at Madrid, and her own resistance was known to be the
principal obstacle to the restoration of the Constitution of
1812. It was therefore determined to overcome this resistance by
force; and on the 13th of August, 1836, a regiment of the
garrison of Madrid, won over by the Exaltados, marched upon the
palace of La Granja, invaded the Queen's apartments, and
compelled her to sign an edict restoring the Constitution of 1812
until the Cortes should establish that or some other. Scenes of
riot and murder followed in the capital. Men of moderate
opinions, alarmed at the approach of anarchy, prepared to unite
with Don Carlos. King Louis Philippe, who had just consented to
strengthen the French legion by the addition of some thousands of
trained soldiers, now broke entirely from the Spanish connection,
and dismissed his Ministers who refused to acquiesce in this
change of policy. Meanwhile the Eastern Powers and all rational
partisans of absolutism besought Don Carlos to give those
assurances which would satisfy the wavering mass among his
opponents, and place him on the throne without the sacrifice of
any right that was worth preserving. It seemed as if the
opportunity was too clear to be misunderstood; but the obstinacy
and narrowness of Don Carlos were proof against every call of
fortune. Refusing to enter into any sort of engagement, he
rendered it impossible for men to submit to him who were not
willing to accept absolutism pure and simple. On the other hand,
a majority of the Cortes, whose eyes were now opened to the
dangers around them, accepted such modifications of the
Constitution of 1812 that political stability again appeared
possible (June, 1837). The danger of a general transference of
all moderate elements in the State to the side of Don Carlos was
averted; and, although the Carlist armies took up the offensive,
menaced the capital, and made incursions into every part of
Spain, the darkest period of the war was now over; and when,
after undertaking in person the march upon Madrid, Don Carlos
swerved aside and ultimately fell back in confusion to the Ebro,
the suppression of the rebellion became a certainty. General
Espartero, with whom such distinction remained as was to be
gathered in this miserable war, forced back the adversary step by
step, and carried fire and sword into the Basque Provinces,
employing a system of devastation which alone seemed capable of
exhausting the endurance of the people. Reduced to the last
extremity, the Carlist leaders turned their arms against one
another. The priests excommunicated the generals, and the
generals shot the priests; and finally, on the 14th September,
after the surrender of almost all his troops to Espartero, Don
Carlos crossed the French frontier, and the conflict which during
six years had barbarised and disgraced the Spanish nation,
reached its close.</p>
<p>[End of the Regency, Isabella, Queen, Nov., 1843.]</p>
<p>The triumph of Queen Christina over her rivals was not of long
duration. Confronted by a strong democratic party both in the
Cortes and in the country, she endeavoured in vain to govern by
the aid of Ministers of her own choice. Her popularity had
vanished away. The scandals of her private life gave just offence
to the nation, and fatally weakened her political authority.
Forced by insurrection to bestow office on Espartero, as the
chief of the Progressist party, she found that the concessions
demanded by this general were more than she could grant, and in
preference to submitting to them she resigned the Regency, and
quitted Spain (Oct., 1840). Espartero, after some interval, was
himself appointed Regent by the Cortes. For two years he
maintained himself in power, then in his turn he fell before the
combined attack of his political opponents and the extreme men of
his own party, and passed into exile. There remained in Spain no
single person qualified to fill the vacant Regency, and in
default of all other expedients the young princess Isabella, who
was now in her fourteenth year, was declared of full age, and
placed on the throne (Nov., 1843). Christina returned to Madrid.
After some rapid changes of Ministry, a more durable Government
was formed from the Moderado party under General Narvaez; and in
comparison with the period that had just ended, the first few
years of the new reign were years of recovery and order.</p>
<p>[War between Mehemet Ali and the Porte, 1832.]</p>
<p>The withdrawal of Louis Philippe from his engagements after
the capitulation of Maria Christina to the soldiery at La Granja
in 1836 had diminished the confidence placed in the King by the
British Ministry; but it had not destroyed the relations of
friendship existing between the two Governments. Far more serious
causes of difference arose out of the course of events in the
East, and the extension of the power of Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of
Egypt. The struggle between Mehemet and his sovereign, long
foreseen, broke out in the year 1832. After the establishment of
the Hellenic Kingdom, the island of Crete had been given to
Mehemet in return for his services to the Ottoman cause by land
and sea. This concession, however, was far from satisfying the
ambition of the Viceroy, and a quarrel with Abdallah, Pasha of
Acre, gave him the opportunity of throwing an army into Palestine
without directly rebelling against his sovereign (Nov., 1831).
Ibrahim, in command of his father's forces, laid siege to Acre;
and had this fortress at once fallen, it would probably have been
allowed by the Sultan to remain in its conqueror's hands as an
addition to his own province, since the Turkish army was not
ready for war, and it was no uncommon thing in the Ottoman Empire
for one provincial governor to possess himself of territory at
the expense of another. So obstinate, however, was the defence of
Acre that time was given to the Porte to make preparations for
war; and in the spring of 1832, after the issue of a proclamation
declaring Mehemet and his son to be rebels, a Turkish army led by
Hussein Pasha entered Syria.</p>
<p>[Ibrahim conquers Syria and Asia Minor.]</p>
<p>Ibrahim, while the siege of Acre was proceeding, had overrun
the surrounding country. He was now in possession of all the
interior of Palestine, and the tribes of Lebanon had joined him
in the expectation of gaining relief from the burdens of Turkish
misgovernment. The fall of Acre, while the relieving army was
still near Antioch, enabled him to throw his full strength
against his opponent in the valley of the Orontes. It was the
intention of the Turkish general, whose forces, though superior
in number, had not the European training of Ibrahim's regiments,
to meet the assault of the Egyptians in an entrenched camp near
Hama. The commander of the vanguard, however, pushed forward
beyond this point, and when far in advance of the main body of
the army was suddenly attacked by Ibrahim at Homs. Taken at a
moment of complete disorder, the Turks were put to the rout.
Their overthrow and flight so alarmed the general-in-chief that
he determined to fall back upon Aleppo, leaving Antioch and all
the valley of the Orontes to the enemy. Aleppo was reached, but
the governor, won over by Ibrahim, closed the gates of the city
against the famishing army, and forced Hussein to continue his
retreat to the mountains which form the barrier between Syria and
Cilicia. Here, at the pass of Beilan, he was attacked by Ibrahim,
outmanoeuvred, and forced to retreat with heavy loss (July 29).
The pursuit was continued through the province of Cilicia.
Hussein's army, now completely demoralised, made its escape to
the centre of Asia Minor; the Egyptian, after advancing as far as
Mount Taurus and occupying the passes in this range, took up his
quarters in the conquered country in order to refresh his army
and to await reinforcements. After two months' halt he renewed
his march, crossed Mount Taurus and occupied Konieh, the capital
of this district. Here the last and decisive blow was struck. A
new Turkish army, led by Reschid Pasha, Ibrahim's colleague in
the siege of Missolonghi, advanced from the north. Against his
own advice, Reschid was compelled by orders from Constantinople
to risk everything in an engagement. He attacked Ibrahim at
Konieh on the 21st of December, and was completely defeated.
Reschid himself was made a prisoner; his army dispersed; the last
forces of the Sultan were exhausted, and the road to the
Bosphorus lay open before the Egyptian invader.</p>
<p>[Russian aid offered to the Sultan.]</p>
<p>[Peace of Kutaya, April, 1833.]</p>
<p>In this extremity the Sultan looked around for help; nor were
offers of assistance wanting. The Emperor Nicholas had since the
Treaty of Adrianople assumed the part of the magnanimous friend;
his belief was that the Ottoman Empire might by judicious
management and without further conquest be brought into a state
of habitual dependence upon Russia; and before the result of the
battle of Konieh was known General Muravieff had arrived at
Constantinople bringing the offer of Russian help both by land
and sea, and tendering his own personal services in the
restoration of peace. Mahmud had to some extent been won over by
the Czar's politic forbearance in the execution of the Treaty of
Adrianople. His hatred of Mehemet Ali was a consuming passion;
and in spite of the general conviction both of his people and of
his advisers that no possible concession to a rebellious vassal
could be so fatal as the protection of the hereditary enemy of
Islam, he was disposed to accept the Russian tender of
assistance. As a preliminary, Muravieff was sent to Alexandria
with permission to cede Acre to Mehemet Ali, if in return the
Viceroy would make over his fleet to the Sultan. These were
conditions on which no reasonable man could have expected that
Mehemet would make peace; and the intention of the Russian Court
probably was that Muravieff's mission should fail. The envoy soon
returned to Constantinople announcing that his terms were
rejected. Mahmud now requested that Russian ships might be sent
to the Bosphorus, and to the dismay of the French and English
embassies a Russian squadron appeared before the capital. Admiral
Roussin, the French ambassador, addressed a protest to the Sultan
and threatened to leave Constantinople. His remonstrances induced
Mahmud to consent to some more serious negotiation being opened
with Mehemet Ali. A French envoy was authorised to promise the
Viceroy the governorship of Tripoli in Syria as well as Acre; his
overtures, however, were not more acceptable than those of
Muravieff, and Mehemet openly declared that if peace were not
concluded on his own terms within six weeks, he should order
Ibrahim, who had halted at Kutaya, to continue his march on the
Bosphorus. Thoroughly alarmed at this threat, and believing that
no Turkish force could keep Ibrahim out of the capital, Mahmud
applied to Russia for more ships and also for troops. Again
Admiral Roussin urged upon the Sultan that if Syria could be
reconquered only by Russian forces it was more than lost to the
Porte. His arguments were supported by the Divan, and with such
effect that a French diplomatist was sent to Ibrahim with power
to negotiate for peace on any terms. Preliminaries were signed at
Kutaya under French mediation on the 10th of April, 1833, by
which the Sultan made over to his vassal not only the whole of
Syria but the province of Adana which lies between Mount Taurus
and the Mediterranean. After some delay these Preliminaries were
ratified by Mahmud; and Ibrahim, after his dazzling success both
in war and in diplomacy, commenced the evacuation of northern
Anatolia.</p>
<p>[Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, July, 1833.]</p>
<p>For the moment it appeared that French influence had
decisively prevailed at Constantinople, and that the troops of
the Czar had been summoned from Sebastopol only to be dismissed
with the ironical compliments of those who were most anxious to
get rid of them. But this was not really the case. Whether the
fluctuations in the Sultan's policy had been due to mere fear and
irresolution, or whether they had to some extent proceeded from
the desire to play off one Power against another, it was to
Russia, not France, that his final confidence was given. The
soldiers of the Czar were encamped by the side of the Turks on
the eastern shore of the Bosphorus; his ships lay below
Constantinople. Here on the 8th of July a Treaty was signed at
the palace of Unkiar Skelessi, <a name="FNanchor401">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_401"><sup>[401]</sup></a> in which Russia and Turkey
entered into a defensive alliance of the most intimate character,
each Power pledging itself to render assistance to the other, not
only against the attack of an external enemy, but in every event
where its peace and security might be endangered. Russia
undertook, in cases where its support should be required, to
provide whatever amount of troops the Sultan should consider
necessary both by sea and land, the Porte being charged with no
part of the expense beyond that of the provisioning of the
troops. The duration of the Treaty was fixed in the first
instance for eight years. A secret article, which, however, was
soon afterwards published, declared that, in order to diminish
the burdens of the Porte, the Czar would not demand the material
help to which the Treaty entitled him; while, in substitution for
such assistance, the Porte undertook, when Russia should be at
war, to close the Dardanelles to the war-ships of all
nations.</p>
<p>[Effect of this Treaty.]</p>
<p>By the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, Russia came nearer than it
has at any time before or since to that complete ascendency at
Constantinople which has been the modern object of its policy.
The success of its diplomatists had in fact been too great; for,
if the abstract right of the Sultan to choose his own allies had
not yet been disputed by Europe at large, the clause in the
Treaty which related to the Dardanelles touched the interests of
every Power which possessed a naval station in the Mediterranean.
By the public law of Europe the Black Sea, which until the
eighteenth century was encompassed entirely by the Sultan's
territory, formed no part of the open waters of the world, but a
Turkish lake to which access was given through the Dardanelles
only at the pleasure of the Porte. When, in the eighteenth
century, Russia gained a footing on the northern shore of the
Euxine, this carried with it no right to send war-ships through
the straits into the Mediterranean, nor had any Power at war with
Russia the right to send a fleet into the Black Sea otherwise
than by the Sultan's consent. The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, in
making Turkey the ally of Russia against all its enemies,
converted the entrance to the Black Sea into a Russian fortified
post, from behind which Russia could freely send forth its ships
of war into the Mediterranean, while its own ports and arsenals
remained secure against attack. England and France, which were
the States whose interests were principally affected, protested
against the Treaty, and stated they reserved to themselves the
right of taking such action in regard to it as occasion might
demand. Nor did the opposition rest with the protests of
diplomatists. The attention both of the English nation and of its
Government was drawn far more than hitherto to the future of the
Ottoman Empire. Political writers exposed with unwearied vigour,
and not without exaggeration, the designs of the Court of St.
Petersburg in Asia as well as in Europe; and to this time, rather
than to any earlier period, belongs the first growth of that
strong national antagonism to Russia which found its satisfaction
in the Crimean War, and which has by no means lost its power at
the present day.</p>
<p>[France and Mehemet Ali.]</p>
<p>In desiring to check the extension of Russia's influence in
the Levant, Great Britain and France were at one. The lines of
policy, however, followed by these two States were widely
divergent. Great Britain sought to maintain the Sultan's power in
its integrity; France became in an increasing degree the patron
and the friend of Mehemet Ali. Since the expedition of Napoleon
to Egypt in 1798, which was itself the execution of a design
formed in the reign of Louis XVI., Egypt had largely retained its
hold on the imagination of the leading classes in France. Its
monuments, its relics of a mighty past, touched a livelier chord
among French men of letters and science than India has at any
time found among ourselves; and although the hope of national
conquest vanished with Napoleon's overthrow, Egypt continued to
afford a field of enterprise to many a civil and military
adventurer. Mehemet's army and navy were organised by French
officers; he was surrounded by French agents and men of business;
and after the conquest of Algiers had brought France on to the
southern shore of the Mediterranean, the advantages of a close
political relation with Egypt did not escape the notice of
statesmen who saw in Gibraltar and Malta the most striking
evidences of English maritime power. Moreover the personal fame
of Mehemet strongly affected French opinion. His brilliant
military reforms, his vigorous administration, and his specious
achievements in finance created in the minds of those who were
too far off to know the effects of his tyranny the belief that at
the hands of this man the East might yet awaken to new life.
Thus, from a real conviction of the superiority of Mehemet's rule
over that of the House of Osman no less than from considerations
of purely national policy, the French Government, without any
public or official bond of union, gradually became the
acknowledged supporters of the Egyptian conqueror, and connected
his interests with their own.</p>
<p>[Rule of Mehemet and Ibrahim.]</p>
<p>Sultan Mahmud had ratified the Preliminaries of Kutaya with
wrath in his heart; and from this time all his energies were bent
upon the creation of a force which should wrest back the lost
provinces and take revenge upon his rebellious vassal. As eager
as Mehemet himself to reconstruct his form of government upon the
models of the West, though far less capable of impressing upon
his work the stamp of a single guiding will, thwarted moreover by
the jealous interference of Russia whenever his reforms seemed
likely to produce any important result, he nevertheless succeeded
in introducing something of European system and discipline into
his army under the guidance of foreign soldiers, among whom was a
man then little known, but destined long afterwards to fill
Europe with his fame, the Prussian staff-officer Moltke. On the
other side Mehemet and Ibrahim knew well that the peace was no
more than an armed truce, and that what had been won by arms
could only be maintained by constant readiness to meet attack.
Under pressure of this military necessity, Ibrahim sacrificed
whatever sources of strength were open to him in the hatred borne
by his new subjects to the Turkish yoke, and in their hopes of
relief from oppression under his own rule. Welcomed at first as a
deliverer, he soon proved a heavier task-master than any who had
gone before him. The conscription was rigorously enforced;
taxation became more burdensome; the tribes who had enjoyed a
wild independence in the mountains were disarmed and reduced to
the level of their fellow-subjects. Thus the discontent which had
so greatly facilitated the conquest of the border-provinces soon
turned against the conqueror himself, and one uprising after
another shook Ibrahim's hold upon Mount Lebanon and the Syrian
desert. The Sultan watched each outbreak against his adversary
with grim joy, impatient for the moment when the re-organisation
of his own forces should enable him to re-enter the field and to
strike an overwhelming blow.</p>
<p>[The commerce of the Levant.]</p>
<p>With all its characteristics of superior intelligence in the
choice of means, the system of Mehemet All was in its end that of
the genuine Oriental despot. His final object was to convert as
many as possible of his subjects into soldiers, and to draw into
his treasury the profits of the labour of all the rest. With this
aim he gradually ousted from their rights of proprietorship the
greater part of the land-owners of Egypt, and finally proclaimed
the entire soil to be State-domain, appropriating at prices fixed
by himself the whole of its produce. The natural commercial
intercourse of his dominions gave place to a system of monopolies
carried on by the Government itself. Rapidly as this system,
which was introduced into the newly-conquered provinces, filled
the coffers of Mehemet Ali, it offered to the Sultan, whose
paramount authority was still acknowledged, the means of
inflicting a deadly injury upon him by a series of commercial
treaties with the European Powers, granting to western traders a
free market throughout the Ottoman Empire. Resistance to such a
measure would expose Mehemet to the hostility of the whole
mercantile interest of Europe; submission to it would involve the
loss of a great part of that revenue on which his military power
depended. It was probably with this result in view, rather than
from any more obvious motive, that in the year 1838 the Sultan
concluded a new commercial Treaty with England, which was soon
followed by similar agreements with other States.</p>
<p>[Campaign of Nissib, June, 1839.]</p>
<p>The import of the Sultan's commercial policy was not lost upon
Mehemet, who had already determined to declare himself
independent. He saw that war was inevitable, and bade Ibrahim
collect his forces in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, while the
generals of the Sultan massed on the upper Euphrates the troops
that had been successfully employed in subduing the wild tribes
of Kurdistan. The storm was seen to be gathering, and the
representatives of foreign Powers urged the Sultan, but in vain,
to refrain from an enterprise which might shatter his empire.
Mahmud was now a dying man. Exhausted by physical excess and by
the stress and passion of his long reign, he bore in his heart
the same unquenchable hatreds as of old; and while assuring the
ambassadors of his intention to maintain the peace, he despatched
a letter to his commander-in-chief, without the knowledge of any
single person, ordering him to commence hostilities. The Turkish
army crossed the frontier on the 23rd of May, 1839. In the
operations which followed, the advice and protests of Moltke and
the other European officers at head-quarters were persistently
disregarded. The Turks were outmanoeuvred and cut off from their
communications, and on the 24th of June the onslaught of Ibrahim
swept them from their position at Nissib in utter rout. The whole
of their artillery and stores fell into the hands of the enemy:
the army dispersed. Mahmud did not live to hear of the
catastrophe. Six days after the battle of Nissib was fought, and
while the messenger who bore the news was still in Anatolia, he
expired, leaving the throne to his son, Abdul Medjid, a youth of
sixteen. Scarcely had the new Sultan been proclaimed when it
became known that the Admiral, Achmet Fewzi, who had been
instructed to attack the Syrian coast, had sailed into the port
of Alexandria, and handed over the Turkish fleet to Mehemet Ali
himself.</p>
<p>[Relations of the Powers to Mehemet.]</p>
<p>[Quadruple Treaty without France. July, 1840.]</p>
<p>The very suddenness of these disasters, which left the Ottoman
Empire rulerless and without defence by land or sea, contributed
ultimately to its preservation, inasmuch as it impelled the
Powers to combined action, which, under less urgent pressure,
would probably not have been attainable. On the announcement of
the exorbitant conditions of peace demanded by Mehemet, the
ambassadors addressed a collective note to the Divan, requesting
that no answer might be made until the Courts had arrived at some
common resolution. Soon afterwards the French and English fleets
appeared at the Dardanelles, nominally to protect Constantinople
against the attack of the Viceroy, in reality to guard against
any sudden movement on the part of Russia. This display of force
was, however, not necessary, for the Czar, in spite of some
expressions to the contrary, had already convinced himself that
it was impossible to act upon the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi and
to make the protectorate of Turkey the affair of Russia alone.
The tone which had been taken by the English Government during
the last preceding years proved that any attempt to exercise
exclusive power at Constantinople would have been followed by war
with Great Britain, in which most, if not all, of the European
Powers would have stood on the side of the latter. Abandoning
therefore the hope of attaining sole control, the Russian
Government addressed itself to the task of widening as far as
possible the existing divergence between England and France. Nor
was this difficult. The Cabinet of the Tuileries desired to see
Mehemet Ali issue with increased strength from the conflict, or
even to establish his dynasty at Constantinople in place of the
House of Osman. Lord Palmerston, always jealous and suspicious of
Louis Philippe, refused to believe that the growth of Russian
power could be checked by dividing the Ottoman Empire, or that
any system of Eastern policy could be safely based on the
personal qualities of a ruler now past his seventieth year. <a
name="FNanchor402">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_402"><sup>[402]</sup></a> He had moreover his own
causes of discontent with Mehemet. The possibility of
establishing an overland route to India either by way of the
Euphrates or of the Red Sea had lately been engaging the
attention of the English Government, and Mehemet had not improved
his position by raising obstacles to either line of passage. It
was partly in consequence of the hostility of Mehemet, who was
now master of a great part of Arabia, and of his known devotion
to French interests, that the port of Aden in the Red Sea was at
this time occupied by England. If, while Russia accepted the
necessity of combined European action and drew nearer to its
rival, France persisted in maintaining the claim of the Viceroy
to extended dominion, the exclusion of France from the European
concert was the only possible result. There was no doubt as to
the attitude of the remaining Powers. Metternich, whether from
genuine pedantry, or in order to avoid the expression of those
fears of Russia which really governed his Eastern policy,
repeated his threadbare platitudes on the necessity of supporting
legitimate dynasties against rebels, and spoke of the victor of
Konieh and Nissib as if he had been a Spanish constitutionalist
or a recalcitrant German professor. The Court of Berlin followed
in the same general course. In all Europe Mehemet Ali had not a
single ally, with the exception of the Government of Louis
Philippe. Under these circumstances it was of little avail to the
Viceroy that his army stood on Turkish soil without a foe before
it, and that the Sultan's fleet lay within his own harbour of
Alexandria. The intrigues by which he hoped to snatch a hasty
peace from the inexperience of the young Sultan failed, and he
learnt in October that no arrangement which he might make with
the Porte without the concurrence of the Powers would be
recognised as valid. In the meantime Russia was suggesting to the
English Government one project after another for joint military
action with the object of driving Mehemet from Syria and
restoring this province to the Porte; and at the beginning of the
following year it was determined on Metternich's proposition that
a Conference should forthwith be held in London for the
settlement of Eastern affairs. The irreconcilable difference
between the intentions of France and those of the other Powers at
once became evident. France proposed that all Syria and Egypt
should be given in hereditary dominion to Mehemet Ali, with no
further obligation towards the Porte than the payment of a yearly
tribute. The counter-proposal of England was that Mehemet,
recognising the Sultan's authority, should have the hereditary
government of Egypt alone, that he should entirely withdraw from
all Northern Syria, and hold Palestine only as an ordinary
governor appointed by the Porte for his lifetime. To this
proposition all the Powers with the exception of France gave
their assent. Continued negotiation only brought into stronger
relief the obstinacy of Lord Palmerston, and proved the
impossibility of attaining complete agreement. At length, when it
had been discovered that the French Cabinet was attempting to
conduct a separate mediation, the Four Powers, without going
through the form of asking for French sanction, signed on the
15th of July a Treaty with the Sultan pledging themselves to
enforce upon Mehemet Ali the terms arranged. The Sultan undertook
in the first instance to offer Mehemet Egypt in perpetuity and
southern Syria for his lifetime. If this offer was not accepted
within ten days, Egypt alone was to be offered. If at the end of
twenty days Mehemet still remained obstinate, that offer in its
turn was to be withdrawn, and the Sultan and the Allies were to
take such measures as the interests of the Ottoman Empire might
require. <a name="FNanchor403">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_403"><sup>[403]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Warlike spirit in France, 1840.]</p>
<p>The publication of this Treaty, excluding France as it did
from the concert of Europe, produced a storm of indignation at
Paris. Thiers, who more than any man had by his writings
stimulated the spirit of aggressive warfare among the French
people and revived the worship of Napoleon, was now at the head
of the Government. His jealousy for the prestige of France, his
comparative indifference to other matters when once the national
honour appeared to be committed, his sanguine estimate of the
power of his country, rendered him a peculiarly dangerous
Minister at the existing crisis. It was not the wrongs or the
danger of Mehemet Ali, but the slight offered to France, and the
revived League of the Powers which had humbled it in 1814, that
excited the passion of the Minister and the nation. Syria was
forgotten; the cry was for the recovery of the frontier of the
Rhine, and for revenge for Waterloo. New regiments were enrolled,
the fleet strengthened, and the long-delayed fortification of
Paris begun. Thiers himself probably looked forward to a campaign
in Italy, anticipating that successfully conducted by Napoleon
III. in 1859, rather than to an attack upon Prussia; but the
general opinion both in France itself and in other states was
that, if war should break out, an invasion of Germany was
inevitable. The prospect of this invasion roused in a manner
little expected the spirit of the German people. Even in the
smaller states, and in the Rhenish provinces themselves, which
for twenty years had shared the fortunes of France, and in which
the introduction of Prussian rule in 1814 had been decidedly
unpopular, a strong national movement carried everything before
it; and the year 1840 added to the patriotic minstrelsy of
Germany a war-song, written by a Rhenish citizen, not less famous
than those of 1813 and 1870. <a name="FNanchor404">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_404"><sup>[404]</sup></a> That there were
revolutionary forces smouldering throughout Europe, from which
France might in a general war have gained some assistance, the
events of 1848 sufficiently proved; but to no single Government
would a revolutionary war have been fraught with more imminent
peril than to that of France itself, and to no one was this
conviction more habitually present than to King Louis Philippe.
Relying upon his influence within the Chamber of Deputies, itself
a body representing the wealth and the caution rather than the
hot spirit of France, the King refused to read at the opening of
the session in October the speech drawn up for him by Thiers, and
accepted the consequent resignation of the Ministry. Guizot, who
was ambassador in London, and an advocate for submission to the
will of Europe, was called to office, and succeeded after long
debate in gaining a vote of confidence from the Chamber. Though
preparations for war continued, a policy of peace was now
assured. Mehemet Ali was left to his fate; and the stubborn
assurance of Lord Palmerston, which had caused so much annoyance
to the English Ministry itself, received a striking justification
in the face of all Europe.</p>
<p>[Ibrahim expelled from Syria, Sept.-Nov., 1840.]</p>
<p>[Final settlement, Feb., 1841.]</p>
<p>[The Dardanelles.]</p>
<p>The operations of the Allies against Mehemet Ali had now
begun. While Prussia kept guard on the Rhine, and Russia
undertook to protect Constantinople against any forward movement
of Ibrahim, an Anglo-Austrian naval squadron combined with a
Turkish land-force in attacking the Syrian coast-towns. The
mountain-tribes of the interior were again in revolt. Arms
supplied to them by the Allies, and the insurrection soon spread
over the greater part of Syria. Ibrahim prepared for an obstinate
defence, but his dispositions were frustrated by the extension of
the area of conflict, and he was unable to prevent the
coast-towns from falling one after another into the hands of the
Allies. On the capture of Acre by Sir Charles Napier he abandoned
all hope of maintaining himself any longer in Syria, and made his
way with the wreck of his army towards the Egyptian frontier.
Napier had already arrived before Alexandria, and there executed
a convention with the Viceroy, by which the latter, abandoning
all claim upon his other provinces, and undertaking to restore
the Turkish fleet, was assured of the hereditary possession of
Egypt. The convention was one which the English admiral had no
authority to conclude, but it contained substantially the terms
which the Allies intended to enforce; and after Mehemet had made
a formal act of submission to the Sultan, the hereditary
government of Egypt was conferred upon himself and his family by
a decree published by the Sultan and sanctioned by the Powers.
This compromise had been proposed by the French Government after
the expiry of the twenty days named in the Treaty of July, and
immediately before the fall of M. Thiers, but Palmerston would
not then listen to any demand made under open or implied threats
of war. Since that time a new and pacific Ministry had come into
office; it was no part of Palmerston's policy to keep alive the
antagonism between England and France; and he readily accepted an
arrangement which, while it saved France from witnessing the
total destruction of an ally, left Egypt to a ruler who, whatever
his faults, had certainly shown a greater capacity for government
than any Oriental of that age. It remained for the Powers to
place upon record some authoritative statement of the law
recognised by Europe with regard to the Bosphorus and
Dardanelles. Russia had already virtually consented to the
abrogation of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. It now joined with
all the other Powers, including France, in a declaration that the
ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire which forbade the passage of
these straits to the war-ships of all nations, except when the
Porte itself should be at war, was accepted by Europe at large.
Russia thus surrendered its chance of gaining by any separate
arrangement with Turkey the permanent right of sending its fleets
from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, and so becoming a
Mediterranean Power. On the other hand, Sebastopol and the
arsenals of the Euxine remained safe against the attack of any
maritime Power, unless Turkey itself should take up arms against
the Czar. Having regard to the great superiority of England over
Russia at sea, and to the accessibility and importance of the
Euxine coast towns, it is an open question whether the removal of
all international restrictions upon the passage of the Bosphorus
and Dardanelles would not be more to the advantage of England
than of its rival. This opinion, however, had not been urged
before the Crimean War, nor has it yet been accepted in our own
country.</p>
<p>[Turkey after 1840.]</p>
<p>[Legislation of Reschid.]</p>
<p>The conclusion of the struggle of 1840 marked with great
definiteness the real position which the Ottoman Empire was
henceforth to occupy in its relations to the western world.
Rescued by Europe at large from the alternatives of destruction
at the hands of Ibrahim or complete vassalage under Russia, the
Porte entered upon the condition nominally of an independent
European State, really of a State existing under the protection
of Europe, and responsible to Europe as well for its domestic
government as for its alliances and for the conduct of its
foreign policy. The necessity of conciliating the public opinion
of the West was well understood by the Turkish statesman who had
taken the leading part in the negotiations which freed the Porte
from dependence upon Russia. Reschid Pasha, the younger, Foreign
Minister at the accession of the new Sultan, had gained in an
unusual degree the regard and the confidence of the European
Ministers with whom, as a diplomatist, he had been brought into
contact. As the author of a wide system of reforms, it was his
ambition so to purify and renovate the internal administration of
the Ottoman Empire that the contrasts which it presented to the
civilised order of the West should gradually disappear, and that
Turkey should become not only in name but in reality a member of
the European world. Stimulated no doubt by the achievements of
Mehemet Ali, and anxious to win over to the side of the Porte the
interest which Mehemet's partial adoption of European methods and
ideas had excited on his behalf, Reschid in his scheme of reform
paid an ostentatious homage to the principles of western
administration and law, proclaiming the security of person and
property, prohibiting the irregular infliction of punishment,
recognising the civil rights of Christians and Jews, and
transferring the collection of taxes from the provincial
governors to the officers of the central authority. The friends
of the Ottoman State, less experienced then than now in the value
of laws made in a society where there exists no power that can
enforce them, and where the agents of government are themselves
the most lawless of all the public enemies, hailed in Reschid's
enlightened legislation the opening of a new epoch in the life of
the Christian and Oriental races subject to the Sultan. But the
fall of the Minister before a palace-intrigue soon proved on how
slight a foundation these hopes were built. Like other Turkish
reformers, Reschid had entered upon a hopeless task; and the name
of the man who was once honoured as the regenerator of a great
Empire is now almost forgotten.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XVIII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Europe during the Thirty-years' Peace-Italy and
Austria-Mazzini-The House of Savoy-Gioberti-Election of Pius
IX.-Reforms expected- Revolution at Palermo-Agitation in Northern
Italy-Lombardy-State of the Austrian Empire-Growth of Hungarian
National Spirit-The Magyars and Slavs-Transylvania-Parties among
the Magyars-Kossuth-The Slavic National Movements in Austria-The
Government enters on Reform in Hungary-Policy of the
Opposition-The Rural System of Austria- Insurrection in Galicia:
the Nobles and the Peasants-Agrarian Edict-Public Opinion in
Vienna-Prussia-Accession and Character of King Frederick William
IV.-Convocation of the United Diet-Its Debates and
Dissolution-France-The Spanish Marriages-Reform
Movement-Socialism- Revolution of February-End of the Orleanist
Monarchy.</p>
<br>

<p>The characteristic of Continental history during the second
quarter of this century is the sense of unrest. The long period
of European peace which began in 1815 was not one of internal
repose; the very absence of those engrossing and imperious
interests which belong to a time of warfare gave freer play to
the feelings of discontent and the vague longings for a better
political order which remained behind after the convulsions of
the revolutionary epoch and the military rule of Napoleon had
passed away. During thirty years of peace the breach had been
widening between those Governments which still represented the
system of 1815, and the peoples over whom they ruled. Ideas of
liberty, awakenings of national sense, were far more widely
diffused in Europe than at the time of the revolutionary war. The
seed then prematurely forced into an atmosphere of storm and
reaction had borne its fruit: other growths, fertilised or
accelerated by Western Liberalism, but not belonging to the same
family, were springing up in unexpected strength, and in regions
which had hitherto lain outside the movement of the modern world.
New forces antagonistic to Government had come into being,
penetrating an area unaffected by the constitutional struggles of
the Mediterranean States, or by the weaker political efforts of
Germany. In the homes of the Magyar and the Slavic subjects of
Austria, so torpid throughout the agitation of an earlier time,
the passion of nationality was every hour gaining new might. The
older popular causes, vanquished for the moment by one reaction
after another, had silently established a far stronger hold on
men's minds. Working, some in exile and conspiracy, others
through such form of political literature as the jealousy of
Governments permitted, the leaders of the democratic movement
upon the Continent created a power before which the established
order at length succumbed. They had not created, nor was it
possible under the circumstances that they should create, an
order which was capable of taking its place.</p>
<p>[Italy. 1831-1848.]</p>
<p>Italy, rather than France, forms the central figure in any
retrospect of Europe immediately before 1848 in which the larger
forces at work are not obscured by those for the moment more
prominent. The failure of the insurrection of 1831 had left
Austria more visibly than before master over the Italian people
even in those provinces in which Austria was not nominally
sovereign. It had become clear that no effort after reform could
be successful either in the Papal States or in the kingdom of
Naples so long as Austria held Lombardy and Venice. The expulsion
of the foreigner was therefore not merely the task of those who
sought to give the Italian race its separate and independent
national existence, it was the task of all who would extinguish
oppression and misgovernment in any part of the Italian
peninsula. Until the power of Austria was broken, it was vain to
take up arms against the tyranny of the Duke of Modena or any
other contemptible oppressor. Austria itself had twice taught
this lesson; and if the restoration of Neapolitan despotism in
1821 could be justified by the disorderly character of the
Government then suppressed, the circumstances attending the
restoration of the Pope's authority in 1831 had extinguished
Austria's claim to any sort of moral respect; for Metternich
himself had united with the other European Courts in declaring
the necessity for reforms in the Papal Government, and of these
reforms, though a single earnest word from Austria would have
enforced their execution, not one had been carried into effect.
Gradually, but with increasing force as each unhappy year passed
by, the conviction gained weight among all men of serious thought
that the problem to be faced was nothing less than the
destruction of the Austrian yoke. Whether proclaimed as an
article of faith or veiled in diplomatic reserve, this belief
formed the common ground among men whose views on the immediate
future of Italy differed in almost every other particular.</p>
<p>[Mazzini.]</p>
<p>Three main currents of opinion are to be traced in the ferment
of ideas which preceded the Italian revolution of 1848. At a time
not rich in intellectual or in moral power, the most striking
figure among those who are justly honoured as the founders of
Italian independence is perhaps that of Mazzini. Exiled during
nearly the whole of his mature life, a conspirator in the eyes of
all Governments, a dreamer in the eyes of the world, Mazzini was
a prophet or an evangelist among those whom his influence led to
devote themselves to the one cause of their country's
regeneration. No firmer faith, no nobler disinterestedness, ever
animated the saint or the patriot; and if in Mazzini there was
also something of the visionary and the fanatic, the force with
which he grasped the two vital conditions of Italian revival-the
expulsion of the foreigner and the establishment of a single
national Government-proves him to have been a thinker of genuine
political insight. Laying the foundation of his creed deep in the
moral nature of man, and constructing upon this basis a fabric
not of rights but of duties, he invested the political union with
the immediateness, the sanctity, and the beauty of family life.
With him, to live, to think, to hope, was to live, to think, to
hope for Italy; and the Italy of his ideal was a Republic
embracing every member of the race, purged of the priestcraft and
the superstition which had degraded the man to the slave,
indebted to itself alone for its independence, and consolidated
by the reign of equal law. The rigidity with which Mazzini
adhered to his own great project in its completeness, and his
impatience with any bargaining away of national rights, excluded
him from the work of those practical politicians and men of
expedients who in 1859 effected with foreign aid the first step
towards Italian union; but the influence of his teaching and his
organisation in preparing his countrymen for independence was
immense; and the dynasty which has rendered to United Italy
services which Mazzini thought impossible, owes to this great
Republican scarcely less than to its ablest friends.</p>
<p>[Hopes of Piedmont.]</p>
<p>Widely separated from the school of Mazzini in temper and
intention was the group of politicians and military men,
belonging mostly to Piedmont, who looked to the sovereign and the
army of this State as the one hope of Italy in its struggle
against foreign rule. The House of Savoy, though foreign in its
origin, was, and had been for centuries, a really national
dynasty. It was, moreover, by interest and traditional policy,
the rival rather than the friend of Austria in Northern Italy. If
the fear of revolution had at times brought the Court of Turin
into close alliance with Vienna, the connection had but thinly
veiled the lasting antagonism of two States which, as neighbours,
had habitually sought expansion each at the other's cost.
Lombardy, according to the expression of an older time, was the
artichoke which the Kings of Piedmont were destined to devour
leaf by leaf. Austria, on the other hand, sought extension
towards the Alps: it had in 1799 clearly shown its intention of
excluding the House of Savoy altogether from the Italian
mainland; and the remembrance of this epoch had led the restored
dynasty in 1815 to resist the plans of Metternich for
establishing a league of all the princes of Italy under Austria's
protection. The sovereign, moreover, who after the failure of the
constitutional movement of 1821 had mounted the throne surrounded
by Austrian bayonets, was no longer alive. Charles Albert of
Carignano, who had at that time played so ambiguous a part, and
whom Metternich had subsequently endeavoured to exclude from the
succession, was on the throne. He had made his peace with
absolutism by fighting in Spain against the Cortes in 1823; and
since his accession to the throne he had rigorously suppressed
the agitation of Mazzini's partizans within his own dominions.
But in spite of strong clerical and reactionary influences around
him, he had lately shown an independence of spirit in his
dealings with Austria which raised him in the estimation of his
subjects; and it was believed that his opinions had been deeply
affected by the predominance which the idea of national
independence was now gaining over that of merely democratic
change. If the earlier career of Charles Albert himself cast some
doubt upon his personal sincerity, and much more upon his
constancy of purpose, there was at least in Piedmont an army
thoroughly national in its sentiment, and capable of taking the
lead whenever the opportunity should arise for uniting Italy
against the foreigner. In no other Italian State was there an
effective military force, or one so little adulterated with
foreign elements.</p>
<p>[Hopes of the Papacy.]</p>
<p>A third current of opinion in these years of hope and of
illusion was that represented in the writings of Gioberti, the
depicter of a new and glorious Italy, regenerated not by
philosophic republicanism or the sword of a temporal monarch, but
by the moral force of a reformed and reforming Papacy. The
conception of the Catholic Church as a great Liberal power,
strange and fantastic as it now appears, was no dream of an
isolated Italian enthusiast; it was an idea which, after the
French Revolution of 1830, and the establishment of a government
at once anti-clerical and anti-democratic, powerfully influenced
some of the best minds in France, and found in Montalembert and
Lamennais exponents who commanded the ear of Europe. If the
corruption of the Papacy had been at once the spiritual and the
political death of Italy, its renovation in purity and in
strength would be also the resurrection of the Italian people.
Other lands had sought, and sought in vain, to work out their
problems under the guidance of leaders antagonistic to the
Church, and of popular doctrines divorced from religious faith.
To Italy belonged the prerogative of spiritual power. By this
power, aroused from the torpor of ages, and speaking, as it had
once spoken, to the very conscience of mankind, the gates of a
glorious future would be thrown open. Conspirators might fret,
and politicians scheme, but the day on which the new life of
Italy would begin would be that day when the head of the Church,
taking his place as chief of a federation of Italian States,
should raise the banner of freedom and national right, and
princes and people alike should follow the all-inspiring
voice.</p>
<p>[Election of Pius IX., June, 1846.]</p>
<p>[Reforms expected from Pius.]</p>
<p>[Ferrara, June, 1847.]</p>
<p>A monk, ignorant of everything but cloister lore, benighted,
tyrannical, the companion in his private life of a few jolly
priests and a gossiping barber, was not an alluring emblem of the
Church of the future. But in 1846 Pope Gregory XVI., who for the
last five years had been engaged in one incessant struggle
against insurgents, conspirators, and reformers, and whose
prisons were crowded with the best of his subjects, passed away.
<a name="FNanchor405">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_405"><sup>[405]</sup></a> His successor, Mastai
Ferretti, Bishop of Imola, was elected under the title of Pius
IX., after the candidate favoured by Austria had failed to secure
the requisite number of votes (June 17). The choice of this
kindly and popular prelate was to some extent a tribute to
Italian feeling; and for the next eighteen months it appeared as
it Gioberti had really divined the secret of the age. The first
act of the new Pope was the publication of a universal amnesty
for political offences. The prison doors throughout his dominions
were thrown open, and men who had been sentenced to confinement
for life returned in exultation to their homes. The act created a
profound impression throughout Italy, and each good-humoured
utterance of Pius confirmed the belief that great changes were at
hand. A wild enthusiasm seized upon Rome. The population
abandoned itself to festivals in honour of the Pontiff and of the
approaching restoration of Roman liberty. Little was done; not
much was actually promised; everything was believed. The
principle of representative government was discerned in the new
Council of State now placed by the side of the College of
Cardinals; a more serious concession was made to popular feeling
in the permission given to the citizens of Rome, and afterwards
to those of the provinces, to enrol themselves in a civic guard.
But the climax of excitement was reached when, in answer to a
threatening movement of Austria, occasioned by the growing
agitation throughout Central Italy, the Papal Court protested
against the action of its late protector. By the Treaties of
Vienna Austria had gained the right to garrison the citadel of
Ferrara, though this town lay within the Ecclesiastical States.
Placing a new interpretation on the expression used in the
Treaties, the Austrian Government occupied the town of Ferrara
itself (June 17th, 1847). The movement was universally understood
to be the preliminary to a new occupation of the Papal States,
like that of 1831; and the protests of the Pope against the
violation of his territory gave to the controversy a European
importance. The English and French fleets appeared at Naples; the
King of Sardinia openly announced his intention to take the field
against Austria if war should break out. By the efforts of
neutral Powers a compromise on the occupation of Ferrara was at
length arranged; but the passions which had been excited were not
appeased, and the Pope remained in popular imagination the
champion of Italian independence against Austria, as well as the
apostle of constitutional Government and the rights of the
people.</p>
<p>[Revolution at Palermo, Jan., 1848.]</p>
<p>In the meantime the agitation begun in Rome was spreading
through the north and the south of the peninsula, and beyond the
Sicilian Straits. The centenary of the expulsion of the Austrians
from Genoa in December, 1746, was celebrated throughout central
Italy with popular demonstrations which gave Austria warning of
the storm about to burst upon it. In the south, however,
impatience under domestic tyranny was a far more powerful force
than the distant hope of national independence. Sicily had never
forgotten the separate rights which it had once enjoyed, and the
constitution given to it under the auspices of England in 1812.
Communications passed between the Sicilian leaders and the
opponents of the Bourbon Government on the mainland, and in the
autumn of 1847 simultaneous risings took place in Calabria and at
Messina. These were repressed without difficulty; but the fire
smouldered far and wide, and on the 13th of January, 1848, the
population of Palermo rose in revolt. For fourteen days the
conflict between the people and the Neapolitan troops continued.
The city was bombarded, but in the end the people were
victorious, and a provisional government was formed by the
leaders of the insurrection. One Sicilian town after another
followed the example of the capital, and expelled its Neapolitan
garrison. Threatened by revolution in Naples itself, King
Ferdinand II., grandson of the despot of 1821, now imitated the
policy of his predecessor, and proclaimed a constitution. A
Liberal Ministry was formed, but no word was said as to the
autonomy claimed by Sicily, and promised, as it would seem, by
the leaders of the popular party on the mainland. After the first
excitement of success was past, it became clear that the
Sicilians were as widely at variance with the newly-formed
Government at Naples as with that which they had overthrown.</p>
<p>[Agitation in Austrian Italy.]</p>
<p>The insurrection of Palermo gave a new stimulus and imparted
more of revolutionary colour to the popular movement throughout
Italy. Constitutions were granted in Piedmont and Tuscany. In the
Austrian provinces national exasperation against the rule of the
foreigner grew daily more menacing. Radetzky, the Austrian
Commander-in-chief, had long foreseen the impending struggle, and
had endeavoured, but not with complete success, to impress his
own views upon the imperial Government. Verona had been made the
centre of a great system of fortifications, and the strength of
the army under Radetzky's command had been considerably
increased, but it was not until the eleventh hour that Metternich
abandoned the hope of tiding over difficulties by his old system
of police and spies, and permitted the establishment of
undisguised military rule. In order to injure the finances of
Austria, a general resolution had been made by the patriotic
societies of Upper Italy to abstain from the use of tobacco, from
which the Government drew a large part of its revenue. On the
first Sunday in 1848 Austrian officers, smoking in the streets of
Milan, were attacked by the people. The troops were called to
arms: a conflict took place, and enough blood was shed to give to
the tumult the importance of an actual revolt. In Padua and
elsewhere similar outbreaks followed. Radetzky issued a general
order to his troops, declaring that the Emperor was determined to
defend his Italian dominion whether against an external or
domestic foe. Martial law was proclaimed; and for a moment,
although Piedmont gave signs of throwing itself into the Italian
movement, the awe of Austria's military power hushed the rising
tempest. A few weeks more revealed to an astonished world the
secret that the Austrian State, so great and so formidable in the
eyes of friend and foe, was itself on the verge of
dissolution.</p>
<p>[Austria.]</p>
<p>[Affairs in Hungary.]</p>
<p>It was to the absence of all stirring public life, not to any
real assimilative power or any high intelligence in
administration, that the House of Hapsburg owed, during the
eighteenth century, the continued union of that motley of nations
or races which successive conquests, marriages, and treaties had
brought under its dominion. The violence of the attack made by
the Emperor Joseph upon all provincial rights first re-awakened
the slumbering spirit of Hungary; but the national movement of
that time, which excited such strong hopes and alarms, had been
succeeded by a long period of stagnation, and during the
Napoleonic wars the repression of everything that appealed to any
distinctively national spirit had become more avowedly than
before the settled principle of the Austrian Court. In 1812 the
Hungarian Diet had resisted the financial measures of the
Government. The consequence was that, in spite of the law
requiring its convocation every three years, the Diet was not
again summoned till 1825. During the intermediate period, the
Emperor raised taxes and levies by edict alone. Deprived of its
constitutional representation, the Hungarian nobility pursued its
opposition to the encroachments of the Crown in the Sessions of
each county. At these assemblies, to which there existed no
parallel in the western and more advanced States of the
Continent, each resident land-owner who belonged to the very
numerous caste of the noblesse was entitled to speak and to vote.
Retaining, in addition to the right of free discussion and
petition, the appointment of local officials, as well as a
considerable share in the actual administration, the Hungarian
county-assemblies, handing down a spirit of rough independence
from an immemorial past, were probably the hardiest relic of
self-government existing in any of the great monarchical States
of Europe. Ignorant, often uncouth in their habits, oppressive to
their peasantry, and dominated by the spirit of race and caste,
the mass of the Magyar nobility had indeed proved as impervious
to the humanising influences of the eighteenth century as they
had to the solicitations of despotism. The Magnates, or highest
order of noblesse, who formed a separate chamber in the Diet, had
been to some extent denationalised; they were at once more
European in their culture, and more submissive to the Austrian
Court. In banishing political discussion from the Diet to the
County Sessions, the Emperor's Government had intensified the
provincial spirit which it sought to extinguish. Too numerous to
be won over by personal inducements, and remote from the imperial
agencies which had worked so effectively through the Chamber of
Magnates, the lesser nobility of Hungary during these years of
absolutism carried the habit of political discussion to their
homes, and learnt to baffle the imperial Government by
withholding all help and all information from its subordinate
agents. Each county-assembly became a little Parliament, and a
centre of resistance to the usurpation of the Crown. The stimulus
given to the national spirit by this struggle against
unconstitutional rule was seen not less in the vigorous attacks
made upon the Government on the re-assembling of the Diet in
1825, than in the demand that Magyar, and not Latin as
heretofore, should be the language used in recording the
proceedings of the Diet, and in which communications should pass
between the Upper and the Lower House.</p>
<p>[Magyars and Slavs.]</p>
<p>There lay in this demand for the recognition of the national
language the germ of a conflict of race against race which was
least of all suspected by those by whom the demand was made.
Hungary, as a political unity, comprised, besides the Slavic
kingdom of Croatia, wide regions in which the inhabitants were of
Slavic or Roumanian race, and where the Magyar was known only as
a feudal lord. The district in which the population at large
belonged to the Magyar stock did not exceed one-half of the
kingdom. For the other races of Hungary, who were probably twice
as numerous as themselves, the Magyars entertained the utmost
contempt, attributing to them the moral qualities of the savage,
and denying to them the possession of any nationality whatever.
In a country combining so many elements ill-blended with one
another, and all alike subject to a German Court at Vienna,
Latin, as the language of the Church and formerly the language of
international communication, had served well as a neutral means
of expression in public affairs. There might be Croatian deputies
in the Diet who could not speak Magyar; the Magyars could not
understand Croatian; both could understand and could without much
effort express themselves in the species of Latin which passed
muster at Presburg and at Vienna. Yet no freedom of handling
could convert a dead language into a living one; and when the
love of country and of ancient right became once more among the
Magyars an inspiring passion, it naturally sought a nobler and
more spontaneous utterance than dog-latin. Though no law was
passed upon the subject in the Parliament in which it was first
mooted, speakers in the Diet of 1832 used their mother-tongue;
and when the Viennese Government forbade the publication of the
debates, reports were circulated in manuscript through the
country by Kossuth, a young deputy, who after the dissolution of
the Diet in 1836 paid for his defiance of the Emperor by three
years' imprisonment.</p>
<p>[Hungary after 1830.]</p>
<p>[The Diet of 1832-36.]</p>
<p>[Sz&eacute;chenyi.]</p>
<p>Hungary now seemed to be entering upon an epoch of varied and
rapid national development. The barriers which separated it from
the Western world were disappearing. The literature, the ideas,
the inventions of Western Europe were penetrating its archaic
society, and transforming a movement which in its origin had been
conservative and aristocratic into one of far-reaching progress
and reform. Alone among the opponents of absolute power on the
Continent, the Magyars had based their resistance on positive
constitutional right, on prescription, and the settled usage of
the past; and throughout the conflict with the Crown between 1812
and 1825 legal right was on the side not of the Emperor but of
those whom he attempted to coerce. With excellent judgment the
Hungarian leaders had during these years abstained from raising
any demand for reforms, appreciating the advantage of a purely
defensive position in a combat with a Court pledged in the eyes
of all Europe, as Austria was, to the defence of legitimate
rights. This policy had gained its end; the Emperor, after
thirteen years of conflict, had been forced to re-convoke the
Diet, and to abandon the hope of effecting a work in which his
uncle, Joseph II., had failed. But, the constitution once saved,
that narrow and exclusive body of rights for which the nobility
had contended no longer satisfied the needs or the conscience of
the time. <a name="FNanchor406">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_406"><sup>[406]</sup></a> Opinion was moving fast; the
claims of the towns and of the rural population were making
themselves felt; the agitation that followed the overthrow of the
Bourbons in 1830 reached Hungary too, not so much through French
influence as through the Polish war of independence, in which the
Magyars saw a struggle not unlike their own, enlisting their
warmest sympathies for the Polish armies so long as they kept the
field, and for the exiles who came among them when the conflict
was over. By the side of the old defenders of class-privilege
there arose men imbued with the spirit of modern Liberalism. The
laws governing the relation of the peasant to his lord, which
remained nearly as they had been left by Maria Theresa, were
dealt with by the Diet of 1832 in so liberal a spirit that the
Austrian Government, formerly far in advance of Hungarian opinion
on this subject, refused its assent to many of the measures
passed. Great schemes of social and material improvement also
aroused the public hopes in these years. The better minds became
conscious of the real aspect of Hungarian life in comparison with
that of civilised Europe-of its poverty, its inertia, its
boorishness. Extraordinary energy was thrown into the work of
advance by Count Sz&eacute;chenyi, a nobleman whose imagination
had been fired by the contrast which the busy industry of Great
Britain and the practical interests of its higher classes
presented to the torpor of his own country. It is to him that
Hungary owes the bridge uniting its double capital at Pesth, and
that Europe owes the unimpeded navigation of the Danube, which he
first rendered possible by the destruction of the rocks known as
the Iron Gates at Orsova. Sanguine, lavishly generous, an ardent
patriot, Sz&eacute;chenyi endeavoured to arouse men of his own
rank, the great and the powerful in Hungary, to the sense of what
was due from them to their country as leaders in its industrial
development. He was no revolutionist, nor was he an enemy to
Austria. A peaceful political future would best have accorded
with his own designs for raising Hungary to its due place among
nations.</p>
<p>[Transylvania.]</p>
<p>That the Hungarian movement of this time was converted from
one of fruitful progress into an embittered political conflict
ending in civil war was due, among other causes, to the action of
the Austrian Cabinet itself. Wherever constitutional right
existed, there Austria saw a natural enemy. The province of
Transylvania, containing a mixed population of Magyars, Germans,
and Roumanians, had, like Hungary, a Diet of its own, which Diet
ought to have been summoned every year. It was, however, not once
assembled between 1811 and 1834. In the agitation at length
provoked in Transylvania by this disregard of constitutional
right, the Magyar element naturally took the lead, and so gained
complete ascendancy in the province. When the Diet met in 1834,
its language and conduct were defiant in the highest degree. It
was speedily dissolved, and the scandal occasioned by its
proceedings disturbed the last days of the Emperor Francis, who
died in 1835, leaving the throne to his son Ferdinand, an invalid
incapable of any serious exertion. It soon appeared that nothing
was changed in the principles of the Imperial Government, and
that whatever hopes had been formed of the establishment of a
freer system under the new reign were delusive. The leader of the
Transylvanian Opposition was Count Wessel&eacute;nyi, himself a
Magnate in Hungary, who, after the dissolution of the Diet,
betook himself to the Sessions of the Hungarian counties, and
there delivered speeches against the Court which led to his being
arrested and brought to trial for high treason. His cause was
taken up by the Hungarian Diet, as one in which the rights of the
local assemblies were involved. The plea of privilege was,
however, urged in vain, and the sentence of exile which was
passed upon Count Wessel&eacute;nyi became a new source of
contention between the Crown and the Magyar Estates. <a name=
"FNanchor407">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_407"><sup>[407]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Parties among the Magyars.]</p>
<p>[The Diet of 1843.]</p>
<p>The enmity of Government was now a sufficient passport to
popular favour. On emerging from his prison under a general
amnesty in 1840, Kossuth undertook the direction of a Magyar
journal at Pesth, which at once gained an immense influence
throughout the country. The spokesman of a new generation,
Kossuth represented an entirely different order of ideas from
those of the orthodox defenders of the Hungarian Constitution.
They had been conservative and aristocratic; he was
revolutionary: their weapons had been drawn from the storehouse
of Hungarian positive law; his inspiration was from the
Liberalism of western Europe. Thus within the national party
itself there grew up sections in more or less pronounced
antagonism to one another, though all were united by a passionate
devotion to Hungary and by an unbounded faith in its future.
Sz&eacute;chenyi, and those who with him subordinated political
to material ends, regarded Kossuth as a dangerous theorist.
Between the more impetuous and the more cautious reformers stood
the recognised Parliamentary leaders of the Liberals, among whom
De&aacute;k had already given proof of political capacity of no
common order. In Kossuth's journal the national problems of the
time were discussed both by his opponents and by his friends.
Publicity gave greater range as well as greater animation to the
conflict of ideas; and the rapid development of opinion during
these years was seen in the large and ambitious measures which
occupied the Diet of 1843. Electoral and municipal reform, the
creation of a code of criminal law, the introduction of trial by
jury, the abolition of the immunity of the nobles from taxation;
all these, and similar legislative projects, displayed at once
the energy of the time and the influence of western Europe in
transforming the political conceptions of the Hungarian nation.
Hitherto the forty-three Free Cities had possessed but a single
vote in the Diet, as against the sixty-three votes possessed by
the Counties. It was now generally admitted that this anomaly
could not continue; but inasmuch as civic rights were themselves
monopolised by small privileged orders among the townsmen, the
problem of constitutional reform carried with it that of a reform
of the municipalities. Hungary in short was now face to face with
the task of converting its ancient system of the representation
of the privileged orders into the modern system of a
representation of the nation at large. Arduous at every epoch and
in every country, this work was one of almost insuperable
difficulty in Hungary, through the close connection with the
absolute monarchy of Austria; through the existence of a body of
poor noblesse, numbered at two hundred thousand, who, though
strong in patriotic sentiment, bitterly resented any attack upon
their own freedom from taxation; and above all through the
variety of races in Hungary, and the attitude assumed by the
Magyars, as the dominant nationality, towards the Slavs around
them. In proportion as the energy of the Magyars and their
confidence in the victory of the national cause mounted high, so
rose their disdain of all claims beside their own within the
Hungarian kingdom. It was resolved by the Lower Chamber of the
Diet of 1843 that no language but Magyar should be permitted in
debate, and that at the end of ten years every person not capable
of speaking the Magyar language should be excluded from all
public employment. The Magnates softened the latter provision by
excepting from it the holders of merely local offices in Slavic
districts; against the prohibition of Latin in the Diet the
Croatians appealed to the Emperor. A rescript arrived from Vienna
placing a veto upon the resolution. So violent was the storm
excited in the Diet itself by this rescript, and so threatening
the language of the national leaders outside, that the Cabinet,
after a short interval, revoked its decision, and accepted a
compromise which, while establishing Magyar as the official
language of the kingdom, and requiring that it should be taught
even in Croatian schools, permitted the use of Latin in the Diet
for the next six years. In the meantime the Diet had shouted down
every speaker who began with the usual Latin formula, and
fighting had taken place in Agram, the Croatian capital, between
the national and the Magyar factions.</p>
<p>[The Slavic national movements.]</p>
<p>It was in vain that the effort was made at Presburg to resist
all claims but those of one race. The same quickening breath
which had stirred the Magyar nation to new life had also passed
over the branches of the Slavic family within the Austrian
dominions far and near. In Bohemia a revival of interest in the
Czech language and literature, which began about 1820, had in the
following decade gained a distinctly political character.
Societies originally or professedly founded for literary objects
had become the centres of a popular movement directed towards the
emancipation of the Czech elements in Bohemia from German
ascendancy, and the restoration of something of a national
character to the institutions of the kingdom. Among the southern
Slavs, with whom Hungary was more directly concerned, the
national movement first became visible rather later. Its earliest
manifestations took, just as in Bohemia, a literary or linguistic
form. Projects for the formation of a common language which,
under the name of Illyrian, should draw together all the Slavic
populations between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, occupied for
a while the fancy of the learned; but the more ambitious part of
this design, which had given some umbrage to the Turkish
Government, was abandoned in obedience to instructions from
Vienna; and the movement first gained political importance when
its scope was limited to the Croatian and Slavonic districts of
Hungary, and it was endowed with the distinct task of resisting
the imposition of Magyar as an official language. In addition to
their representation in the Diet of the Kingdom at Presburg, the
Croatian landowners had their own Provincial Diet at Agram. In
this they possessed not only a common centre of action, but an
organ of communication with the Imperial Government at Vienna,
which rendered them some support in their resistance to Magyar
pretensions. Later events gave currency to the belief that a
conflict of races in Hungary was deliberately stimulated by the
Austrian Court in its own interest. But the whole temper and
principle of Metternich's rule was opposed to the development of
national spirit, whether in one race or another; and the
patronage which the Croats appeared at this time to receive at
Vienna was probably no more than an instinctive act of
conservatism, intended to maintain the balance of interests, and
to reduce within the narrowest possible limits such changes as
might prove inevitable.</p>
<p>[Agitation after 1843.]</p>
<p>Of all the important measures of reform which were brought
before the Hungarian Diet of 1843, one alone had become law. The
rest were either rejected by the Chamber of Magnates after
passing the Lower House, or were thrown out in the Lower House in
spite of the approval of the majority, in consequence of
peremptory instructions sent to Presburg by the county
assemblies. The representative of a Hungarian constituency was
not free to vote at his discretion; he was the delegate of the
body of nobles which sent him, and was legally bound to give his
vote in accordance with the instructions which he might from time
to time receive. However zealous the Legislature itself, it was
therefore liable to be paralysed by external pressure as soon as
any question was raised which touched the privileges of the noble
caste. This was especially the case with all projects involving
the expenditure of public revenue. Until the nobles bore their
share of taxation it was impossible that Hungary should emerge
from a condition of beggarly need; yet, be the inclination of the
Diet what it might, it was controlled by bodies of stubborn
squires or yeomen in each county, who fully understood their own
power, and stoutly forbade the passing of any measure which
imposed a share of the public burdens upon themselves. The
impossibility of carrying out reforms tinder existing conditions
had been demonstrated by the failures of 1843. In order to
overcome the obstruction as well of the Magnates as of the county
assemblies, it was necessary that an appeal should be made to the
country at large, and that a force of public sentiment should be
aroused which should both overmaster the existing array of
special interests, and give birth to legislation merging them for
the future in a comprehensive system of really national
institutions. To this task the Liberal Opposition addressed
itself; and although large differences existed within the party,
and the action of Kossuth, who now exchanged the career of the
journalist for that of the orator, was little fettered by the
opinions of his colleagues, the general result did not disappoint
the hopes that had been formed. Political associations and clubs
took vigorous root in the country. The magic of Kossuth's oratory
left every hearer a more patriotic, if not a wiser man; and an
awakening passion for the public good seemed for a while to throw
all private interests into the shade.</p>
<p>[Government Policy of Reform.]</p>
<p>[Programme of the Opposition.]</p>
<p>It now became plain to all but the blindest that great changes
were inevitable; and at the instance of the more intelligent
among the Conservative party in Hungary the Imperial Government
resolved to enter the lists with a policy of reform, and, if
possible, to wrest the helm from the men who were becoming
masters of the nation. In order to secure a majority in the Diet,
it was deemed requisite by the Government first to gain a
predominant influence in the county-assemblies. As a preliminary
step, most of the Lieutenants of counties, to whose high dignity
no practical functions attached, were removed from their posts,
and superseded by paid administrators, appointed from Vienna.
Count Apponyi, one of the most vigorous of the conservative and
aristocratic reformers, was placed at the head of the Ministry.
In due time the proposals of the Government were made public.
They comprised the taxation of the nobles, a reform of the
municipalities, modifications in the land-system, and a variety
of economic measures intended directly to promote the material
development of the country. The latter were framed to some extent
on the lines laid down by Szechenyi, who now, in bitter
antagonism to Kossuth, accepted office under the Government, and
gave to it the prestige of his great name. It remained for the
Opposition to place their own counter-proposals before the
country. Differences within the party were smoothed over, and a
manifesto, drawn up by De&aacute;k, gave statesmanlike expression
to the aims of the national leaders. Embracing every reform
included in the policy of the Government, it added to them others
which the Government had not ventured to face, and gave to the
whole the character of a vindication of its own rights by the
nation, in contrast to a scheme of administrative reform worked
out by the officers of the Crown. Thus while it enforced the
taxation of the nobles, it claimed for the Diet the right of
control over every branch of the national expenditure. It
demanded increased liberty for the Press, and an unfettered right
of political association; and finally, while doing homage to the
unity of the Crown, it required that the Government of Hungary
should be one in direct accord with the national representation
in the Diet, and that the habitual effort of the Court of Vienna
to place this kingdom on the same footing as the Emperor's
non-constitutional provinces should be abandoned. With the rival
programmes of the Government and the Opposition before it, the
country proceeded to the elections of 1847. Hopefulness and
enthusiasm abounded on every side; and at the close of the year
the Diet assembled from which so great a work was expected, and
which was destined within so short a time to witness, in storm
and revolution, the passing away of the ancient order of
Hungarian life.</p>
<p>[The Rural System of Hungary.]</p>
<p>The directly constitutional problems with which the Diet of
Presburg had to deal were peculiar to Hungary itself, and did not
exist in the other parts of the Austrian Empire. There were,
however, social problems which were not less urgently forcing
themselves upon public attention alike in Hungary and in those
provinces which enjoyed no constitutional rights. The chief of
these was the condition of the peasant-population. In the greater
part of the Austrian dominions, though serfage had long been
abolished, society was still based upon the manorial system. The
peasant held his land subject to the obligation of labouring on
his lord's domain for a certain number of days in the year, and
of rendering him other customary services: the manor-court,
though checked by the neighbourhood of crown-officers, retained
its jurisdiction, and its agents frequently performed duties of
police. Hence the proposed extinction of the so-called feudal
tie, and the conversion of the semi-dependent cultivator into a
freeholder bound only to the payment of a fixed money-charge, or
rendered free of all obligation by the surrender of a part of his
holding, involved in many districts the institution of new public
authorities and a general reorganisation of the minor local
powers. From this task the Austrian Government had shrunk in mere
lethargy, even when, as in 1835, proposals for change had come
from the landowners themselves. The work begun by Maria Theresa
and Joseph remained untouched, though thirty years of peace had
given abundant opportunity for its completion, and the
legislation of Hardenberg in 1810 afforded precedents covering at
least part of the field.</p>
<p>[Insurrection in Galicia, Feb., 1846.]</p>
<p>[Rural Edict, Dec., 1845.]</p>
<p>At length events occurred which roused the drowsiest heads in
Vienna from their slumbers. The party of action among the Polish
refugees at Paris had determined to strike another blow for the
independence of their country. Instead, however, of repeating the
insurrection of Warsaw, it was arranged that the revolt should
commence in Prussian and Austrian Poland, and the beginning of
the year 1846 was fixed for the uprising. In Prussia the
Government crushed the conspirators before a blow could be
struck. In Austria, though ample warning was given, the
precautions taken were insufficient. General Collin occupied the
Free City of Cracow, where the revolutionary committee had its
headquarters; but the troops under his command were so weak that
he was soon compelled to retreat, and to await the arrival of
reinforcements. Meanwhile the landowners in the district of
Tarnow in northern Galicia raised the standard of insurrection,
and sought to arm the country. The Ruthenian peasantry, however,
among whom they lived, owed all that was tolerable in their
condition to the protection of the Austrian crown-officers, and
detested the memory of an independent Poland. Instead of
following their lords into the field, they gave information of
their movements, and asked instructions from the nearest Austrian
authorities. They were bidden to seize upon any persons who
instigated them to rebellion, and to bring them into the towns. A
war of the peasants against the nobles forthwith broke out.
Murder, pillage, and incendiary fires brought both the Polish
insurrection and its leaders to a miserable end. The Polish
nobles, unwilling to acknowledge the humiliating truth that their
own peasants were their bitterest enemies, charged the Austrian
Government with having set a price on their heads, and with
having instigated the peasants to a communistic revolt.
Metternich, disgraced by the spectacle of a Jacquerie raging
apparently under his own auspices, insisted, in a circular to the
European Courts, that the attack of the peasantry upon the nobles
had been purely spontaneous, and occasioned by attempts to press
certain villagers into the ranks of the rebellion by brute force.
But whatever may have been the measure of responsibility incurred
by the agents of the Government, an agrarian revolution was
undoubtedly in full course in Galicia, and its effects were soon
felt in the rest of the Austrian monarchy. The Arcadian
contentment of the rural population, which had been the boast,
and in some degree the real strength, of Austria, was at an end.
Conscious that the problem which it had so long evaded must at
length be faced, the Government of Vienna prepared to deal with
the conditions of land-tenure by legislation extending over the
whole of the Empire. But the courage which was necessary for an
adequate solution of the difficulty nowhere existed within the
official world, and the Edict which conveyed the last words of
the Imperial Government on this vital question contained nothing
more than a series of provisions for facilitating voluntary
settlements between the peasants and their lords. In the quality
of this enactment the Court of Vienna gave the measure of its own
weakness. The opportunity of breaking with traditions of
impotence had presented itself and had been lost. Revolution was
at the gates; and in the unsatisfied claim of the rural
population the Government had handed over to its adversaries a
weapon of the greatest power. <a name="FNanchor408">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_408"><sup>[408]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Vienna.]</p>
<p>In the purely German provinces of Austria there lingered
whatever of the spirit of tranquillity was still to be found
within the Empire. This, however, was not the case in the
districts into which the influence of the capital extended.
Vienna had of late grown out of its old careless spirit. The home
in past years of a population notoriously pleasure-loving,
good-humoured, and indifferent to public affairs, it had now
taken something of a more serious character. The death of the
Emperor Francis, who to the last generation of Viennese had been
as fixed a part of the order of things as the river Danube, was
not unconnected with this change in the public tone. So long as
the old Emperor lived, all thought that was given to political
affairs was energy thrown away. By his death not only had the
State lost an ultimate controlling power, if dull, yet practised
and tenacious, but this loss was palpable to all the world. The
void stood bare and unrelieved before the public eye. The
notorious imbecility of the Emperor Ferdinand, the barren and
antiquated formalism of Metternich and of that entire system
which seemed to be incorporated in him, made Government an object
of general satire, and in some quarters of rankling contempt. In
proportion as the culture and intelligence of the capital
exceeded that of other towns, so much the more galling was the
pressure of that part of the general system of tutelage which was
especially directed against the independence of the mind. The
censorship was exercised with grotesque stupidity. It was still
the aim of Government to isolate Austria from the ideas and the
speculation of other lands, and to shape the intellectual world
of the Emperor's subjects into that precise form which tradition
prescribed as suitable for the members of a well-regulated State.
In poetry, the works of Lord Byron were excluded from
circulation, where custom-house officers and market-inspectors
chose to enforce the law; in history and political literature,
the leading writers of modern times lay under the same ban.
Native production was much more effectively controlled. Whoever
wrote in a newspaper, or lectured at a University, or published a
work of imagination, was expected to deliver himself of something
agreeable to the constituted authorities, or was reduced to
silence. Far as Vienna fell short of Northern Germany in
intellectual activity, the humiliation inflicted on its best
elements by this life-destroying surveillance was keenly felt and
bitterly resented. More perhaps by its senile warfare against
mental freedom than by any acts of direct political repression,
the Government ranged against itself the almost unanimous opinion
of the educated classes. Its hold on the affection of the capital
was gone. Still quiescent, but ready to unite against the
Government when opportunity should arrive, there stood, in
addition to the unorganised mass of the middle ranks, certain
political associations and students' societies, a vigorous Jewish
element, and the usual contingent furnished by poverty and
discontent in every great city from among the labouring
population. Military force sufficient to keep the capital in
subjection was not wanting; but the foresight and the vigour
necessary to cope with the first onset of revolution were nowhere
to be found among the holders of power.</p>
<p>[Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Frederick William IV., 1840.]</p>
<p>At Berlin the solid order of Prussian absolutism already shook
to its foundation. With King Frederick William III., whose long
reign ended in 1840, there departed the half-filial,
half-spiritless acquiescence of the nation in the denial of the
liberties which had been so solemnly promised to it at the epoch
of Napoleon's fall. The new Sovereign, Frederick William IV.,
ascended the throne amid high national hopes. The very contrast
which his warm, exuberant nature offered to the silent, reserved
disposition of his father impressed the public for awhile in his
favour. In the more shining personal qualities he far excelled
all his immediate kindred. His artistic and literary sympathies,
his aptitude of mind and readiness of speech, appeared to mark
the man of a new age, and encouraged the belief that, in spite of
the medi&aelig;val dreams and reactionary theories to which, as
prince, he had surrendered himself, he would, as King, appreciate
the needs of the time, and give to Prussia the free institutions
which the nation demanded. The first acts of the new reign were
generously conceived. Political offenders were freely pardoned.
Men who had suffered for their opinions were restored to their
posts in the Universities and the public service, or selected for
promotion. But when the King approached the constitutional
question, his utterances were unsatisfactory. Though undoubtedly
in favour of some reform, he gave no sanction to the idea of a
really national representation, but seemed rather to seek
occasions to condemn it. Other omens of ill import were not
wanting. Allying his Government with a narrow school of
theologians, the King offended men of independent mind, and
transgressed against the best traditions of Prussian
administration. The prestige of the new reign was soon exhausted.
Those who had believed Frederick William to be a man of genius
now denounced him as a vaporous, inflated dilettante; his
enthusiasm was seen to indicate nothing in particular; his
sonorous commonplaces fell flat on second delivery. Not only in
his own kingdom, but in the minor German States, which looked to
Prussia as the future leader of a free Germany, the opinion
rapidly gained ground that Frederick William IV. was to be
numbered among the enemies rather than the friends of the good
cause.</p>
<p>[United Diet convoked at Berlin, Feb. 3, 1847.]</p>
<p>In the Edicts by which the last King of Prussia had promised
his people a Constitution, it had been laid down that the
representative body was to spring from the Provincial Estates,
and that it was to possess, in addition to its purely
consultative functions in legislation, a real power of control
over all State loans and over all proposed additions to taxation.
The interdependence of the promised Parliament and the Provincial
Estates had been seen at the time to endanger the success of
Hardenberg's scheme; nevertheless, it was this conception which
King Frederick William IV. made the very centre of his
Constitutional policy. A devotee to the distant past, he spoke of
the Provincial Estates, which in their present form had existed
only since 1823, as if they were a great national and historic
institution which had come down unchanged through centuries. His
first experiment was the summoning of a Committee from these
bodies to consider certain financial projects with which the
Government was occupied (1842). The labours of the Committee were
insignificant, nor was its treatment at the hands of the Crown
Ministers of a serious character. Frederick William, however,
continued to meditate over his plans, and appointed a Commission
to examine the project drawn up at his desire by the Cabinet. The
agitation in favour of Parliamentary Government became more and
more pressing among the educated classes; and at length, in spite
of some opposition from his brother, the Prince of Prussia,
afterwards Emperor of Germany, the King determined to fulfil his
father's promise and to convoke a General Assembly at Berlin. On
the 3rd of February, 1847, there appeared a Royal Patent, which
summoned all the Provincial Estates to the capital to meet as a
United Diet of the Kingdom. The Diet was to be divided into two
Chambers, the Upper Chamber including the Royal Princes and
highest nobles, the Lower the representatives of the knights,
towns, and peasants. The right of legislation was not granted to
the Diet; it had, however, the right of presenting petitions on
internal affairs. State-loans and new taxes were not, in time of
peace, to be raised without its consent. No regular interval was
fixed for the future meetings of the Diet, and its financial
rights were moreover reduced by other provisions, which enacted
that a United Committee from the Provincial Estates was to meet
every four years for certain definite objects, and that a special
Delegation was to sit each year for the transaction of business
relating to the National Debt. <a name="FNanchor409">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_409"><sup>[409]</sup></a></p>
<p>[King Frederick William and the Diet.]</p>
<p>The nature of the General Assembly convoked by this Edict, the
functions conferred upon it, and the guarantees offered for
Representative Government in the future, so little corresponded
with the requirements of the nation, that the question was at
once raised in Liberal circles whether the concessions thus
tendered by the King ought to be accepted or rejected. The doubt
which existed as to the disposition of the monarch himself was
increased by the speech from the throne at the opening of the
Diet (April 11). In a vigorous harangue extending over half an
hour, King Frederick William, while he said much that was
appropriate to the occasion, denounced the spirit of revolution
that was working in the Prussian Press, warned the Deputies that
they had been summoned not to advocate political theories, but to
protect each the rights of his own order, and declared that no
power on earth should induce him to change his natural relation
to his people into a constitutional one, or to permit a written
sheet of paper to intervene like a second Providence between
Prussia and the Almighty. So vehement was the language of the
King, and so uncompromising his tone, that the proposal was
forthwith made at a private conference that the Deputies should
quit Berlin in a body. This extreme course was not adopted; it
was determined instead to present an address to the King, laying
before him in respectful language the shortcomings in the Patent
of February 3rd. In the debate on this address began the
Parliamentary history of Prussia. The Liberal majority in the
Lower Chamber, anxious to base their cause on some foundation of
positive law, treated the Edicts of Frederick William III.
defining the rights of the future Representative Body as actual
statutes of the realm, although the late King had never called a
Representative Body into existence. From this point of view the
functions now given to Committees and Delegations were so much
illegally withdrawn from the rights of the Diet. The Government,
on the other hand, denied that the Diet possessed any rights or
claims whatever beyond those assigned to it by the Patent of
February 3rd, to which it owed its origin. In receiving the
address of the Chambers, the King, while expressing a desire to
see the Constitution further developed, repeated the principle
already laid down by his Ministers, and refused to acknowledge
any obligation outside those which he had himself created.</p>
<p>[Proceedings and Dissolution of the Diet.]</p>
<p>When, after a series of debates on the political questions at
issue, the actual business of the Session began, the relations
between the Government and the Assembly grew worse rather than
better. The principal measures submitted were the grant of a
State-guarantee to certain land-banks established for the purpose
of extinguishing the rent-charges on peasants' holdings, and the
issue of a public loan for the construction of railways by the
State. Alleging that the former measure was not directly one of
taxation, the Government, in laying it before the Diet, declared
that they asked only for an opinion, and denied that the Diet
possessed any right of decision. Thus challenged, as it were, to
make good its claims, the Diet not only declined to assent to
this guarantee, but set its veto on the proposed railway-loan.
Both projects were in themselves admitted to be to the advantage
of the State; their rejection by the Diet was an emphatic
vindication of constitutional rights which the Government seemed
indisposed to acknowledge. Opposition grew more and more
embittered; and when, as a preliminary to the dissolution of the
Diet, the King ordered its members to proceed to the election of
the Committees and Delegation named in the Edict of February 3rd,
an important group declined to take part in the elections, or
consented to do so only under reservations, on the ground that
the Diet, and that alone, possessed the constitutional control
over finance which the King was about to commit to other bodies.
Indignant at this protest, the King absented himself from the
ceremony which brought the Diet to a close (June 26th). Amid
general irritation and resentment the Assembly broke up. Nothing
had resulted from its convocation but a direct exhibition of the
antagonism of purpose existing between the Sovereign and the
national representatives. Moderate men were alienated by the
doctrines promulgated from the Throne; and an experiment which,
if more wisely conducted, might possibly at the eleventh hour
have saved all Germany from revolution, left the Monarchy
discredited and exposed to the attack of the most violent of its
foes.</p>
<p>[Louis Philippe.]</p>
<p>The train was now laid throughout central Europe; it needed
but a flash from Paris to kindle the fire far and wide. That the
Crown which Louis Philippe owed to one popular outbreak might be
wrested from him by another, had been a thought constantly
present not only to the King himself but to foreign observers
during the earlier years of his reign. The period of comparative
peace by which the first Republican movements after 1830 had been
succeeded, the busy working of the Parliamentary system, the keen
and successful pursuit of wealth which seemed to have mastered
all other impulses in France, had made these fears a thing of the
past. The Orleanist Monarchy had taken its place among the
accredited institutions of Europe; its chief, aged, but vigorous
in mind, looked forward to the future of his dynasty, and
occupied himself with plans for extending its influence or its
sway beyond the limits of France itself. At one time Louis
Philippe had hoped to connect his family by marriage with the
Courts of Vienna or Berlin; this project had not met with
encouragement; so much the more eagerly did the King watch for
opportunities in another direction, and devise plans for
restoring the family-union between France and Spain which had
been established by Louis XIV. and which had so largely
influenced the history of Europe down to the overthrow of the
Bourbon Monarchy. The Crown of Spain was now held by a young
girl; her sister was the next in succession; to make the House of
Orleans as powerful at Madrid as it was at Paris seemed under
these circumstances no impossible task to a King and a Minister
who, in the interests of the dynasty, were prepared to make some
sacrifice of honour and good faith.</p>
<p>[The Spanish Marriage, October, 1846.]</p>
<p>While the Carlist War was still continuing, Lord Palmerston
had convinced himself that Louis Philippe intended to marry the
young Queen Isabella, if possible, to one of his sons. Some years
later this project was unofficially mentioned by Guizot to the
English statesman, who at once caused it to be understood that
England would not permit the union. Abandoning this scheme, Louis
Philippe then demanded, by a misconstruction of the Treaty of
Utrecht, that the Queen's choice of a husband should be limited
to the Bourbons of the Spanish or Neapolitan line. To this claim
Lord Aberdeen, who had become Foreign Secretary in 1841, declined
to give his assent; he stated, however, that no step would be
taken by England in antagonism to such marriage, if it should be
deemed desirable at Madrid. Louis Philippe now suggested that his
youngest son, the Duke of Montpensier, should wed the Infanta
Fernanda, sister of the Queen of Spain. On the express
understanding that this marriage should not take place until the
Queen should herself have been married and have had children, the
English Cabinet assented to the proposal. That the marriages
should not be simultaneous was treated by both Governments as the
very heart and substance of the arrangement, inasmuch as the
failure of children by the Queen's marriage would make her
sister, or her sister's heir, inheritor of the Throne. This was
repeatedly acknowledged by Louis Philippe and his Minister,
Guizot, in the course of communications with the British Court
which extended over some years. Nevertheless, in 1846, the French
Ambassador at Madrid, in conjunction with the Queen's mother,
Maria Christina, succeeded in carrying out a plan by which the
conditions laid down at London and accepted at Paris were utterly
frustrated. Of the Queen's Spanish cousins, there was one, Don
Francisco, who was known to be physically unfit for marriage. To
this person it was determined by Maria Christina and the French
Ambassador that the young Isabella should be united, her sister
being simultaneously married to the Duke of Montpensier. So
flagrantly was this arrangement in contradiction to the promises
made at the Tuileries, that, when intelligence of it arrived at
Paris, Louis Philippe declared for a moment that the Ambassador
must be disavowed and disgraced. Guizot, however, was of better
heart than his master, and asked for delay. In the very crisis of
the King's perplexity the return of Lord Palmerston to office,
and the mention by him of a Prince of Saxe-Coburg as one of the
candidates for the Spanish Queen's hand, afforded Guizot a
pretext for declaring that Great Britain had violated its
engagements towards the House of Bourbon by promoting the
candidature of a Coburg. In reality the British Government had
not only taken no part in assisting the candidature of the Coburg
Prince, but had directly opposed it. This, however, was urged in
vain at the Tuileries. Whatever may have been the original
intentions of Louis Philippe or of Guizot, the temptation of
securing the probable succession to the Spanish Crown was too
strong to be resisted. Preliminaries were pushed forward with the
utmost haste, and on the 10th of October, 1846, the marriages of
Queen Isabella and her sister, as arranged by the French
Ambassador and the Queen-Mother, were simultaneously solemnised
at Madrid. <a name="FNanchor410">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_410"><sup>[410]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Louis Philippe and Guizot, 1847.]</p>
<p>Few intrigues have been more disgraceful than that of the
Spanish Marriages; none more futile. The course of history mocked
its ulterior purposes; its immediate results were wholly to the
injury of the House of Orleans. The cordial understanding between
France and Great Britain, which had been revived after the
differences of 1840, was now finally shattered, Louis Philippe
stood convicted before his people of sacrificing a valuable
alliance to purely dynastic ends; his Minister, the austere and
sanctimonious Guizot, had to defend himself against charges which
would have covered with shame the most hardened man of the world.
Thus stripped of its garb of moral superiority, condemned as at
once unscrupulous and unpatriotic, the Orleanist Monarchy had to
meet the storm of popular discontent which was gathering over
France as well as over neighbouring lands. For the lost
friendship of England it was necessary to seek a substitute in
the support of some Continental Power. Throwing himself into the
reactionary policy of the Court of Vienna, Guizot endeavoured to
establish a diplomatic concert from which England should be
excluded, as France had been in 1840. There were circumstances
which gave some countenance to the design. The uncompromising
vigour with which Lord Palmerston supported the Liberal movement
now becoming so formidable in Italy made every absolute
Government in Europe his enemy; and had time been granted, the
despotic Courts would possibly have united with France in some
more or less open combination against the English Minister. But
the moments were now numbered; and ere the projected league could
take substance, the whirlwind descended before which Louis
Philippe and his Minister were the first to fall.</p>
<p>[Demand for Parliamentary Reform.]</p>
<p>A demand for the reform of the French Parliamentary system had
been made when Guizot was entering upon office in the midst of
the Oriental crisis of 1840. It had then been silenced and
repressed by all the means at the disposal of the Executive; King
Louis Philippe being convinced that with a more democratic
Chamber the maintenance of his own policy of peace would be
impossible. The demand was now raised again with far greater
energy. Although the franchise had been lowered after the
Revolution of July, it was still so high that not one person in a
hundred and fifty possessed a vote, while the
property-qualification which was imposed upon the Deputies
themselves excluded from the Chamber all but men of substantial
wealth. Moreover, there existed no law prohibiting the holders of
administrative posts under the Government from sitting in the
Assembly. The consequence was that more than one-third of the
Deputies were either officials who had secured election, or
representatives who since their election had accepted from
Government appointments of greater or less value. Though
Parliamentary talent abounded, it was impossible that a Chamber
so composed could be the representative of the nation at large.
The narrowness of the franchise, the wealth of the Deputies
themselves, made them, in all questions affecting the social
condition of the people, a mere club of capitalists; the
influence which the Crown exercised through the bestowal of
offices converted those who ought to have been its controllers
into its dependents, the more so as its patronage was lavished on
nominal opponents even more freely than on avowed friends.
Against King Louis Philippe the majority in the Chamber had in
fact ceased to possess a will of its own. It represented wealth;
it represented to some extent the common-sense of France; but on
all current matters of dispute it only represented the executive
government in another form. So thoroughly had the nation lost all
hope in the Assembly during the last years of Louis Philippe,
that even the elections had ceased to excite interest. On the
other hand, the belief in the general prevalence of corruption
was every day receiving new warrant. A series of State-trials
disclosed the grossest frauds in every branch of the
administration, and proved that political influence was
habitually used for purposes of pecuniary gain. Taxed with his
tolerance of a system scarcely distinguishable from its abuses,
the Minister could only turn to his own nominees in the Chamber
and ask them whether they felt themselves corrupted; invited to
consider some measure of Parliamentary reform, he scornfully
asserted his policy of resistance. Thus, hopeless of obtaining
satisfaction either from the Government or from the Chamber
itself, the leaders of the Opposition resolved in 1847 to appeal
to the country at large; and an agitation for Parliamentary
reform, based on the methods employed by O'Connell in Ireland,
soon spread through the principal towns of France.</p>
<p>[Socialism.]</p>
<p>But there were other ideas and other forces active among the
labouring population of Paris than those familiar to the
politicians of the Assembly. Theories of Socialism, the property
of a few thinkers and readers during the earlier years of Louis
Philippe's reign, had now sunk deep among the masses, and become,
in a rough and easily apprehended form, the creed of the poor.
From the time when Napoleon's fall had restored to France its
faculty of thought, and, as it were, turned the soldier's eyes
again upon his home, those questionings as to the basis of the
social union which had occupied men's minds at an earlier epoch
were once more felt and uttered. The problem was still what it
had been in the eighteenth century; the answer was that of a
later age. Kings, priests, and nobles had been overthrown, but
misery still covered the world. In the teaching of Saint-Simon,
under the Restoration, religious conceptions blended with a great
industrial scheme; in the Utopia of Fourier, produced at the same
fruitful period, whatever was valuable belonged to its
suggestions in co-operative production. But whether the doctrine
propounded was that of philosopher, or sage, or charlatan, in
every case the same leading ideas were visible;-the insufficiency
of the individual in isolation, the industrial basis of all
social life, the concern of the community, or of its supreme
authority, in the organisation of labour. It was naturally in no
remote or complex form that the idea of a new social order took
possession of the mind of the workman in the faubourgs of Paris.
He read in Louis Blanc, the latest and most intelligible of his
teachers of the right to labour, of the duty of the State to
provide work for its citizens. This was something actual and
tangible. For this he was ready upon occasion to take up arms;
not for the purpose of extending the franchise to another handful
of the Bourgeoisie, or of shifting the profits of government from
one set of place-hunters to another. In antagonism to the ruling
Minister the Reformers in the Chamber and the Socialists in the
streets might for a moment unite their forces: but their ends
were irreconcilable, and the allies of to-day were necessarily
the foes of to-morrow.</p>
<p>[The February Revolution, 1848.]</p>
<p>[Feb. 22nd.]</p>
<p>At the close of the year 1847 the last Parliament of the
Orleanist Monarchy assembled. The speech from the Throne,
delivered by Louis Philippe himself, denounced in strong terms
the agitation for Reform which had been carried on during the
preceding months, though this agitation had, on the whole, been
the work of the so-called Dynastic Opposition, which, while
demanding electoral reform, was sincerely loyal to the Monarchy.
The King's words were a challenge; and in the debate on the
Address, the challenge was taken up by all ranks of Monarchical
Liberals as well as by the small Republican section in the
Assembly. The Government, however, was still secure of its
majority. Defeated in the votes on the Address, the Opposition
determined, by way of protest, to attend a banquet to be held in
the Champs Elys&eacute;es on the 22nd of February by the
Reform-party in Western Paris. It was at first desired that by
some friendly arrangement with the Government, which had declared
the banquet illegal, the possibility of recourse to violence
should be avoided. Misunderstandings, however, arose, and the
Government finally prohibited the banquet, and made preparations
for meeting any disturbance with force of arms. The Deputies,
anxious to employ none but legal means of resistance, now
resolved not to attend the banquet; on the other hand, the
Democratic and Socialist leaders welcomed a possible opportunity
for revolt. On the morning of the 22nd masses of men poured
westwards from the workmen's quarter. The city was in confusion
all day, and the erection of barricades began. Troops were posted
in the streets; no serious attack, however, was made by either
side, and at nightfall quiet returned.</p>
<p>[Feb. 23rd.]</p>
<p>On the next morning the National Guard of Paris was called to
arms. Throughout the struggle between Louis Philippe and the
populace of Paris in the earlier years of his reign, the National
Guard, which was drawn principally from the trading classes, had
fought steadily for the King. Now, however, it was at one with
the Liberal Opposition in the Assembly, and loudly demanded the
dismissal of the Ministers. While some of the battalions
interposed between the regular troops and the populace and
averted a conflict, others proceeded to the Chamber with
petitions for Reform. Obstinately as Louis Philippe had hitherto
refused all concession, the announcement of the threatened
defection of the National Guard at length convinced him that
resistance was impossible. He accepted Guizot's resignation, and
the Chamber heard from the fallen Minister himself that he had
ceased to hold office. Although the King declined for awhile to
commit the formation of a Ministry to Thiers, the recognised
chief of the Opposition, and endeavoured to place a politician
more acceptable to himself in office, it was felt that with the
fall of Guizot all real resistance to Reform was broken. Nothing
more was asked by the Parliamentary Opposition or by the
middle-class of Paris. The victory seemed to be won, the crisis
at an end. In the western part of the capital congratulation and
good-humour succeeded to the fear of conflict. The troops
fraternised with the citizens and the National Guard; and when
darkness came on, the boulevards were illuminated as if for a
national festival.</p>
<p>[Feb. 24th.]</p>
<p>In the midst, however, of this rejoicing, and while the chiefs
of the revolutionary societies, fearing that the opportunity had
been lost for striking a blow at the Monarchy, exhorted the
defenders of the barricades to maintain their positions, a band
of workmen came into conflict, accidentally or of set purpose,
with the troops in front of the Foreign Office. A volley was
fired, which killed or wounded eighty persons. Placing the dead
bodies on a waggon, and carrying them by torchlight through the
streets in the workmen's quarter, the insurrectionary leaders
called the people to arms. The tocsin sounded throughout the
night; on the next morning the populace marched against the
Tuileries. In consequence of the fall of the Ministry and the
supposed reconciliation of the King with the People, whatever
military dispositions had been begun had since been abandoned. At
isolated points the troops fought bravely; but there was no
systematic defence. Shattered by the strain of the previous days,
and dismayed by the indifference of the National Guard when he
rode out among them, the King, who at every epoch of his long
life had shown such conspicuous courage in the presence of
danger, now lost all nerve and all faculty of action. He signed
an act of abdication in favour of his grandson, the Count of
Paris, and fled. Behind him the victorious mob burst into the
Tuileries and devastated it from cellar to roof. The Legislative
Chamber, where an attempt was made to proclaim the Count of Paris
King, was in its turn invaded. In uproar and tumult a Provisional
Government was installed at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville; and ere the
day closed the news went out to Europe that the House of Orleans
had ceased to reign, and that the Republic had been proclaimed.
It was not over France alone, it was over the Continent at large,
that the tide of revolution was breaking.</p>
<br>

<p>END OF VOL. II.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="VOLUME_III.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2>VOLUME III.</h2>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XIX.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Europe in 1789 and in 1848-Agitation in Western Germany before
and after the Revolution at Paris-Austria and Hungary-The March
Revolution at Vienna-Flight of Metternich-The Hungarian
Diet-Hungary wins its independence-Bohemian movement-Autonomy
promised to Bohemia- Insurrection of Lombardy-Of Venice-Piedmont
makes war on Austria-A general Italian war against Austria
imminent-The March Days at Berlin-Frederick William IV.-A
National Assembly promised- Schleswig-Holstein-Insurrection in
Holstein-War between Germany and Denmark-The German
Ante-Parliament-Republican rising in Baden-Meeting of the German
National Assembly at Frankfort-Europe generally in March,
1848-The French Provisional Government-The National Workshops-The
Government and the Red Republicans-French National Assembly-Riot
of May 15-Measures against the National Workshops-The Four Days
of June- Cavaignac-Louis Napoleon-He is elected to the
Assembly-Elected President.</p>
<br>

<p>[Europe in 1789 and 1848.]</p>
<p>There were few statesmen living in 1848 who, like Metternich
and like Louis Philippe, could remember the outbreak of the
French Revolution. To those who could so look back across the
space of sixty years, a comparison of the European movements that
followed the successive onslaughts upon authority in France
afforded some measure of the change that had passed over the
political atmosphere of the Continent within a single lifetime.
The Revolution of 1789, deeply as it stirred men's minds in
neighbouring countries, had occasioned no popular outbreak on a
large scale outside France. The expulsion of Charles X. in 1830
had been followed by national uprisings in Italy, Poland, and
Belgium, and by a struggle for constitutional government in the
smaller States of Northern Germany. The downfall of Louis
Philippe in 1848 at once convulsed the whole of central Europe.
From the Rhenish Provinces to the Ottoman frontier there was no
government but the Swiss Republic that was not menaced; there was
no race which did not assert its claim to a more or less complete
independence. Communities whose long slumber had been undisturbed
by the shocks of the Napoleonic period now vibrated with those
same impulses which, since 1815, no pressure of absolute power
had been able wholly to extinguish in Italy and Germany. The
borders of the region of political discontent had been enlarged;
where apathy, or immemorial loyalty to some distant crown, had
long closed the ear to the voices of the new age, now all was
restlessness, all eager expectation of the dawning epoch of
national life. This was especially the case with the Slavic races
included in the Austrian Empire, races which during the earlier
years of this century had been wholly mute. These in their turn
now felt the breath of patriotism, and claimed the right of
self-government. Distinct as the ideas of national independence
and of constitutional liberty are in themselves, they were not
distinct in their operation over a great part of Europe in 1848;
and this epoch will be wrongly conceived if it is viewed as no
more than a repetition on a large scale of the democratic
outbreak of Paris with which it opened. More was sought in Europe
in 1848 than the substitution of popular for monarchical or
aristocratic rule. The effort to make the State one with the
nation excited wider interests than the effort to enlarge and
equalise citizen rights; and it is in the action of this
principle of nationality that we find the explanation of
tendencies of the epoch which appear at first view to be in
direct conflict with one another. In Germany a single race was
divided under many Governments: here the national instinct
impelled to unity. In Austria a variety of races was held
together by one crown: here the national instinct impelled to
separation. In both these States, as in Italy, where the
predominance of the foreigner and the continuance of despotic
government were in a peculiar manner connected with one another,
the efforts of 1848 failed; but the problems which then agitated
Europe could not long be set aside, and the solution of them
complete, in the case of Germany and Italy, partial and tentative
in the case of Austria, renders the succeeding twenty-five years
a memorable period in European history.</p>
<p>[Agitation in Western Germany.]</p>
<p>The sudden disappearance of the Orleanist monarchy and the
proclamation of the Republic at Paris struck with dismay the
Governments beyond the Rhine. Difficulties were already gathering
round them, opposition among their own subjects was daily
becoming more formidable and more outspoken. In Western Germany a
meeting of Liberal deputies had been held in the autumn of 1847,
in which the reform of the Federal Constitution and the
establishment of a German Parliament had been demanded: a
Republican or revolutionary party, small but virulent, had also
its own avowed policy and its recognised organs in the press. No
sooner had the news of the Revolution at Paris passed the
frontier than in all the minor German States the cry for reform
became irresistible. Ministers everywhere resigned; the popular
demands were granted; and men were called to office whose names
were identified with the struggle for the freedom of the Press,
for trial by jury, and for the reform of the Federal
Constitution. The Federal Diet itself, so long the instrument of
absolutism, bowed beneath the stress of the time, abolished the
laws of censorship, and invited the Governments to send
Commissioners to Frankfort to discuss the reorganisation of
Germany. It was not, however, at Frankfort or at the minor
capitals that the conflict between authority and its antagonists
was to be decided. Vienna, the stronghold of absolutism, the
sanctuary from which so many interdicts had gone forth against
freedom in every part of Europe, was itself invaded by the
revolutionary spirit. The clear sky darkened, and Metternich
found himself powerless before the storm.</p>
<p>[Austria.]</p>
<p>There had been until 1848 so complete an absence of political
life in the Austrian capital, that, when the conviction suddenly
burst upon all minds that the ancient order was doomed, there
were neither party-leaders to confront the Government, nor plans
of reform upon which any considerable body of men were agreed.
The first utterances of public discontent were petitions drawn up
by the Chamber of Commerce and by literary associations. These
were vague in purport and far from aggressive in their tone. A
sterner note sounded when intelligence reached the capital of the
resolutions that had been passed by the Hungarian Lower House on
the 3rd of March, and of the language in which these had been
enforced by Kossuth. Casting aside all reserve, the Magyar leader
had declared that the reigning dynasty could only be saved by
granting to Hungary a responsible Ministry drawn from the Diet
itself, and by establishing constitutional government throughout
the Austrian dominions. "From the charnel-house of the Viennese
system," he cried, "a poison-laden atmosphere steals over us,
which paralyses our nerves and bows us when we would soar. The
future of Hungary can never be secure while in the other
provinces there exists a system of government in direct
antagonism to every constitutional principle. Our task it is to
found a happier future on the brotherhood of all the Austrian
races, and to substitute for the union enforced by bayonets and
police the enduring bond of a free constitution." When the
Hungarian Assembly had thus taken into its own hands the cause of
the rest of the monarchy, it was not for the citizens of Vienna
to fall short in the extent of their demands. The idea of a
Constitution for the Empire at large was generally accepted and
it was proposed that an address embodying this demand should be
sent in to the Emperor by the Provincial Estates of Lower
Austria, whose meeting happened to be fixed for the 13th of
March. In the meantime the students made themselves the heroes of
the hour. The agitation of the city increased; rumours of State
bankruptcy and of the impending repudiation of the paper currency
filled all classes with the belief that some catastrophe was near
at hand. <a name="FNanchor411">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_411"><sup>[411]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The March Revolution at Vienna.]</p>
<p>The Provincial Estates of Lower Austria had long fallen into
such insignificance that in ordinary times their proceedings were
hardly noticed by the capital. The accident that they were now to
assemble in the midst of a great crisis elevated them to a sudden
importance. It was believed that the decisive word would be
spoken in the course of their debates; and on the morning of the
13th of March masses of the populace, led by a procession of
students, assembled round the Hall of the Diet. While the debate
proceeded within, street-orators inflamed the passions of the
crowd outside. The tumult deepened; and when at length a note was
let down from one of the windows of the Hall stating that the
Diet were inclining to half-measures, the mob broke into uproar,
and an attack was made upon the Diet Hall itself. The leading
members of the Estates were compelled to place themselves at the
head of a deputation, which proceeded to the Emperor's palace in
order to enforce the demands of the people. The Emperor himself,
who at no time was capable of paying serious attention to
business, remained invisible during this and the two following
days; the deputation was received by Metternich and the principal
officers of State, who were assembled in council. Meanwhile the
crowds in the streets became denser and more excited; soldiers
approached, to protect the Diet Hall and to guard the environs of
the palace; there was an interval of confusion; and on the
advance of a new regiment, which was mistaken for an attack, the
mob who had stormed the Diet Hall hurled the shattered furniture
from the windows upon the soldiers' heads. A volley was now
fired, which cost several lives. At the sound of the firing still
deeper agitation seized the city. Barricades were erected, and
the people and soldiers fought hand to hand. As evening came on,
deputation after deputation pressed into the palace to urge
concession upon the Government. Metternich, who, almost alone in
the Council, had made light of the popular uprising, now at
length consented to certain definite measures of reform. He
retired into an adjoining room to draft an order abolishing the
censorship of the Press. During his absence the cry was raised
among the deputations that thronged the Council-chamber, "Down
with Metternich!" The old man returned, and found himself
abandoned by his colleagues. There were some among them, members
of the Imperial family, who had long been his opponents; others
who had in vain urged him to make concessions before it was too
late. Metternich saw that the end of his career was come; he
spoke a few words, marked by all the dignity and self-possession
of his greatest days, and withdrew, to place his resignation in
the Emperor's hands.</p>
<p>[Flight of Metternich.]</p>
<p>For thirty-nine years Metternich had been so completely
identified with the Austrian system of government that in his
fall that entire system seemed to have vanished away. The tumult
of the capital subsided on the mere announcement of his
resignation, though the hatred which he had excited rendered it
unsafe for him to remain within reach of hostile hands. He was
conveyed from Vienna by a faithful secretary on the night of the
14th of March, and, after remaining for a few days in
concealment, crossed the Saxon frontier. His exile was destined
to be of some duration, but no exile was ever more cheerfully
borne, or sweetened by a profounder satisfaction at the evils
which a mad world had brought upon itself by driving from it its
one thoroughly wise and just statesman. Betaking himself in the
general crash of the Continental Courts to Great Britain, which
was still as safe as when he had visited it fifty-five years
before, Metternich received a kindly welcome from the Duke of
Wellington and the leaders of English society; and when the
London season was over he sought and found at Brighton something
of the liveliness and the sunshine of his own southern home. <a
name="FNanchor412">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_412"><sup>[412]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Hungarian Diet.]</p>
<p>The action of the Hungarian Diet under Kossuth's leadership
had powerfully influenced the course of events at Vienna. The
Viennese outbreak in its turn gave irresistible force to the
Hungarian national movement. Up to the 13th of March the Chamber
of Magnates had withheld their assent from the resolution passed
by the Lower House in favour of a national executive; they now
accepted it without a single hostile vote; and on the 15th a
deputation was sent to Vienna to lay before the Emperor an
address demanding not only the establishment of a responsible
Ministry but the freedom of the Press, trial by jury, equality of
religion, and a system of national education. At the moment when
this deputation reached Vienna the Government was formally
announcing its compliance with the popular demand for a
Constitution for the whole of the Empire. The Hungarians were
escorted in triumph through the streets, and were received on the
following day by the Emperor himself, who expressed a general
concurrence with the terms of the address. The deputation
returned to Presburg, and the Palatine, or representative of the
sovereign in Hungary, the Archduke Stephen, forthwith charged
Count Batthy&aacute;ny, one of the most popular of the Magyar
nobles, with the formation of a national Ministry. Thus far the
Diet had been in the van of the Hungarian movement; it now sank
almost into insignificance by the side of the revolutionary
organisation at Pesth, where all the ardour and all the
patriotism of the Magyar race glowed in their native force
untempered by the political experience of the statesmen who were
collected at Presburg, and unchecked by any of those influences
which belong to the neighbourhood of an Imperial Court. At Pesth
there broke out an agitation at once so democratic and so
intensely national that all considerations of policy and of
regard for the Austrian Government which might have affected the
action of the Diet were swept away before it. Kossuth, himself
the genuine representative of the capital, became supreme. At his
bidding the Diet passed a law abolishing the departments of the
Central Government by which the control of the Court over the
Hungarian body politic had been exercised. A list of Ministers
was submitted and approved, including not only those who were
needed for the transaction of domestic business, but Ministers of
War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs; and in order that the entire
nation might rally round its Government, the peasantry were at
one stroke emancipated from all services attaching to the land,
and converted into free proprietors. Of the compensation to be
paid to the lords for the loss of these services, no more was
said than that it was a debt of honour to be discharged by the
nation.</p>
<p>[Hungary wins independence.]</p>
<p>Within the next few days the measures thus carried through the
Diet by Kossuth were presented for the Emperor's ratification at
Vienna. The fall of Metternich, important as it was, had not in
reality produced that effect upon the Austrian Government which
was expected from it by popular opinion. The new Cabinet at
Vienna was drawn from the ranks of the official hierarchy; and
although some of its members were more liberally disposed than
their late chief, they had all alike passed their lives in the
traditions of the ancient system, and were far from intending to
make themselves the willing agents of revolution. These men saw
clearly enough that the action of the Diet at Presburg amounted
to nothing less than the separation of Hungary from the Austrian
Empire. With the Ministries of War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs
established in independence of the central government, there
would remain no link between Hungary and the Hereditary States
but the person of a titular, and, for the present time, an
imbecile sovereign. Powerless and distracted, Metternich's
successors looked in all directions for counsel. The Palatine
argued that three courses were open to the Austrian Government.
It might endeavour to crush the Hungarian movement by force of
arms; for this purpose, however, the troops available were
insufficient: or it might withdraw from the country altogether,
leaving the peasants to attack the nobles, as they had done in
Galicia; this was a dishonourable policy, and the action of the
Diet had, moreover, secured to the peasant everything that he
could gain by a social insurrection: or finally, the Government
might yield for the moment to the inevitable, make terms with
Batthy&aacute;ny's Ministry, and quietly prepare for vigorous
resistance when opportunity should arrive. The last method was
that which the Palatine recommended; the Court inclined in the
same direction, but it was unwilling to submit without making
some further trial of the temper of its antagonists. A rescript
was accordingly sent to Presburg, announcing that the Ministry
formed by Count Batthy&aacute;ny was accepted by the Emperor, but
that the central offices which the Diet had abolished must be
preserved, and the functions of the Ministers of War and Finance
be reduced to those of chiefs of departments, dependent on the
orders of a higher authority at Vienna. From the delay that had
taken place in the despatch of this answer the nationalist
leaders at Pesth and at Presburg had augured no good result. Its
publication brought the country to the verge of armed revolt.
Batthy&aacute;ny refused to accept office under the conditions
named; the Palatine himself declared that he could remain in
Hungary no longer. Terrified at the result of its own challenge,
the Court now withdrew from the position that it had taken up,
and accepted the scheme of the Diet in its integrity, stipulating
only that the disposal of the army outside Hungary in time of
war, and the appointment to the higher commands, should remain
with the Imperial Government. <a name="FNanchor413">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_413"><sup>[413]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bohemian movement.]</p>
<p>[Autonomy promised.]</p>
<p>Hungary had thus made good its position as an independent
State connected with Austria only through the person of its
monarch. Vast and momentous as was the change, fatal as it might
well appear to those who could conceive of no unity but the unity
of a central government, the victory of the Magyars appears to
have excited no feeling among the German Liberals at Vienna but
one of satisfaction. So odious, so detested, was the fallen
system of despotism, that every victory won by its adversaries
was hailed as a triumph of the good cause, be the remoter issues
what they might. Even where a powerful German element, such as
did not exist in Hungary itself, was threatened by the assertion
of provincial claims, the Government could not hope for the
support of the capital if it should offer resistance. The example
of the Magyars was speedily followed by the Czechs in Bohemia.
Forgotten and obliterated among the nationalities of Europe, the
Czechs had preserved in their language, and in that almost alone,
the emblem of their national independence. Within the borders of
Bohemia there was so large a German population that the ultimate
absorption of the Slavic element by this wealthier and privileged
body had at an earlier time seemed not unlikely. Since 1830,
however, the Czech national movement had been gradually gaining
ground. In the first days of the agitation of 1848 an effort had
been made to impress a purely constitutional form upon the
demands made in the name of the people of Prague, and so to
render the union of all classes possible. This policy, however,
received its deathblow from the Revolution in Vienna and from the
victory of the Magyars. The leadership at Prague passed from men
of position and experience, representing rather the intelligence
of the German element in Bohemia than the patriotism of the
Czechs, to the nationalist orators who commanded the streets. An
attempt made by the Cabinet at Vienna to evade the demands drawn
up under the influence of the more moderate politicians resulted
only in the downfall of this party, and in the tender of a new
series of demands of far more revolutionary character. The
population of Prague were beginning to organise a national guard;
arms were being distributed; authority had collapsed. The
Government was now forced to consent to everything that was asked
of it, and a legislative Assembly with an independent local
administration was promised to Bohemia. To this Assembly, as soon
as it should meet, the new institutions of the kingdom were to be
submitted.</p>
<p>[Insurrection of Lombardy, March 18.]</p>
<p>Thus far, if the authority of the Court of Vienna, had been
virtually shaken off by a great part of its subjects, the Emperor
had at least not seen these subjects in avowed rebellion against
the House of Hapsburg, nor supported in their resistance by the
arms of a foreign Power. South of the Alps the dynastic
connection was openly severed, and the rule of Austria declared
for ever at an end. Lombardy had since the beginning of the year
1848 been held in check only by the display of great military
force. The Revolution at Paris had excited both hopes and fears;
the Revolution at Vienna was instantly followed by revolt in
Milan. Radetzky, the Austrian commander, a veteran who had served
with honour in every campaign since that against the Turks in
1788, had long foreseen the approach of an armed conflict; yet
when the actual crisis arrived his dispositions had not been made
for meeting it. The troops in Milan were ill placed; the offices
of Government were moreover separated by half the breadth of the
city from the military head-quarters. Thus when on the 18th of
March the insurrection broke out, it carried everything before
it. The Vice-Governor, O'Donell, was captured, and compelled to
sign his name to decrees handing over the government of the city
to the Municipal Council. Radetzky now threw his soldiers upon
the barricades, and penetrated to the centre of the city; but he
was unable to maintain himself there under the ceaseless fire
from the windows and the housetops, and withdrew on the night of
the 19th to the line of fortifications. Fighting continued during
the next two days in the outskirts and at the gates of the city.
The garrisons of all the neighbouring towns were summoned to the
assistance of their general, but the Italians broke up the
bridges and roads, and one detachment alone out of all the troops
in Lombardy succeeded in reaching Milan. A report now arrived at
Radetzky's camp that the King of Piedmont was on the march
against him. Preferring the loss of Milan to the possible capture
of his army, he determined to evacuate the city. On the night of
the 22nd of March the retreat was begun, and Radetzky fell back
upon the Mincio and Verona, which he himself had made the centre
of the Austrian system of defence in Upper Italy. <a name=
"FNanchor414">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_414"><sup>[414]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Insurrection of Venice.]</p>
<p>[Piedmont makes war.]</p>
<p>Venice had already followed the example of the Lombard
capital. The tidings received from Vienna after the 13th of March
appear to have completely bewildered both the military and the
civil authorities on the Adriatic coast. They released their
political prisoners, among whom was Daniel Manin, an able and
determined foe of Austria; they entered into constitutional
discussions with the popular leaders; they permitted the
formation of a national guard, and finally handed over to this
guard the arsenals and the dockyards with all their stores. From
this time all was over. Manin proclaimed the Republic of St.
Mark, and became the chief of a Provisional Government. The
Italian regiments in garrison joined the national cause; the
ships of war at Pola, manned chiefly by Italian sailors, were
only prevented from sailing to the assistance of the rebels by
batteries that were levelled against them from the shore. Thus
without a blow being struck Venice was lost to Austria. The
insurrection spread westwards and northwards through city and
village in the interior, till there remained to Austria nothing
but the fortresses on the Adige and the Mincio, where Radetzky,
deaf to the counsels of timidity, held his ground unshaken. The
national rising carried Piedmont with it. It was in vain that the
British envoy at Turin urged the King to enter into no conflict
with Austria. On the 24th of March Charles Albert published a
proclamation promising his help to the Lombards. Two days later
his troops entered Milan. <a name="FNanchor415">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_415"><sup>[415]</sup></a></p>
<p>[General war against Austria, beginning in Italy.]</p>
<p>Austria had for thirty years consistently laid down the
principle that its own sovereignty in Upper Italy vested it with
the right to control the political system of every other State in
the peninsula. It had twice enforced this principle by arms:
first in its intervention in Naples in 1820, afterwards in its
occupation of the Roman States in 1831. The Government of Vienna
had, as it were with fixed intention, made it impossible that its
presence in any part of Italy should be regarded as the presence
of an ordinary neighbour, entitled to quiet possession until some
new provocation should be given. The Italians would have proved
themselves the simplest of mankind if, having any reasonable hope
of military success, they had listened to the counsels of
Palmerston and other statesmen who urged them not to take
advantage of the difficulties in which Austria was now placed.
The paralysis of the Austrian State was indeed the one
unanswerable argument for immediate war. So long as the Emperor
retained his ascendency in any part of Italy, his interests could
not permanently suffer the independence of the rest. If the
Italians should chivalrously wait until the Cabinet of Vienna had
recovered its strength, it was quite certain that their next
efforts in the cause of internal liberty would be as ruthlessly
crushed as their last. Every clearsighted patriot understood that
the time for a great national effort had arrived. In some
respects the political condition of Italy seemed favourable to
such united action. Since the insurrection of Palermo in January,
1848, absolutism had everywhere fallen. Ministries had come into
existence containing at least a fair proportion of men who were
in real sympathy with the national feeling. Above all, the Pope
seemed disposed to place himself at the head of a patriotic union
against the foreigner. Thus, whatever might be the secret
inclinations of the reigning Houses, they were unable for the
moment to resist the call to arms. Without an actual declaration
of war troops were sent northwards from Naples, from Florence,
and from Rome, to take part, as it was supposed, in the national
struggle by the side of the King of Piedmont. Volunteers thronged
to the standards. The Papal benediction seemed for once to rest
on the cause of manhood and independence. On the other hand, the
very impetus which had brought Liberal Ministries into power
threatened to pass into a phase of violence and disorder. The
concessions already made were mocked by men who expected to win
all the victories of democracy in an hour. It remained to be seen
whether there existed in Italy the political sagacity which,
triumphing over all local jealousies, could bend to one great aim
the passions of the multitude and the fears of the Courts, or
whether the cause of the whole nation would be wrecked in an
ignoble strife between demagogues and reactionists, between the
rabble of the street and the camarilla round the throne. <a name=
"FNanchor416">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_416"><sup>[416]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The March Days at Berlin.]</p>
<p>Austria had with one hand held down Italy, with the other it
had weighed on Germany. Though the Revolutionary movement was in
full course on the east of the Rhine before Metternich's fall, it
received, especially at Berlin, a great impetus from this event.
Since the beginning of March the Prussian capital had worn an
unwonted aspect. In this city of military discipline public
meetings had been held day after day, and the streets had been
blocked by excited crowds. Deputations which laid before the King
demands similar to those now made in every German town received
halting and evasive answers. Excitement increased, and on the
13th of March encounters began between the citizens and the
troops, which, though insignificant, served to exasperate the
people and its leaders. The King appeared to be wavering between
resistance and concession until the Revolution at Vienna, which
became known at Berlin on the 15th of March, brought affairs to
their crisis. On the 17th the tumult in the streets suddenly
ceased; it was understood that the following day would see the
Government either reconciled with the people or forced to deal
with an insurrection on a great scale. Accordingly on the morning
of the 18th crowds made their way towards the palace, which was
surrounded by troops. About midday there appeared a Royal edict
summoning the Prussian United Diet for the 2nd of April, and
announcing that the King had determined to promote the creation
of a Parliament for all Germany and the establishment of
Constitutional Government in every German State. This manifesto
drew fresh masses towards the palace, desirous, it would seem, to
express their satisfaction; its contents, however, were
imperfectly understood by the assembly already in front of the
palace, which the King vainly attempted to address. When called
upon to disperse, the multitude refused to do so, and answered by
cries for the withdrawal of the soldiery. In the midst of the
confusion two shots were fired from the ranks without orders; a
panic followed, in which, for no known reason, the cavalry and
infantry threw themselves upon the people. The crowd was
immediately put to flight, but the combat was taken up by the
population of Berlin. Barricades appeared in the streets;
fighting continued during the evening and night. Meanwhile the
King, who was shocked and distressed at the course that events
had taken, received deputations begging that the troops might be
withdrawn from the city. Frederick William endeavoured for awhile
to make the surrender of the barricades the condition for an
armistice; but as night went on the troops became exhausted, and
although they had gained ground, the resistance of the people was
not overcome. Whether doubtful of the ultimate issue of the
conflict or unwilling to permit further bloodshed, the King gave
way, and at daybreak on the 19th ordered the troops to be
withdrawn. His intention was that they should continue to
garrison the palace, but the order was misunderstood, and the
troops were removed to the outside of Berlin. The palace was thus
left unprotected, and, although no injury was inflicted upon its
inmates, the King was made to feel that the people could now
command his homage. The bodies of the dead were brought into the
court of the palace; their wounds were laid bare, and the King,
who appeared in a balcony, was compelled to descend into the
court, and to stand before them with uncovered head. Definite
political expression was given to the changed state of affairs by
the appointment of a new Ministry. <a name="FNanchor417">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_417"><sup>[417]</sup></a></p>
<p>The conflict between the troops and the people at Berlin was
described, and with truth, as the result of a misunderstanding.
Frederick William had already determined to yield to the
principal demands of his subjects; nor on the part of the
inhabitants of Berlin had there existed any general hostility
towards the sovereign, although a small group of agitators, in
part foreign, had probably sought to bring about an armed attack
on the throne. Accordingly, when once the combat was broken off,
there seemed to be no important obstacle to a reconciliation
between the King and the people. Frederick William chose a course
which spared and even gratified his own self-love. In the
political faith of all German Liberals the establishment of
German unity was now an even more important article than the
introduction of free institutions into each particular State. The
Revolution at Berlin had indeed been occasioned by the King's
delay in granting internal reform; but these domestic disputes
might well be forgotten if in the great cause of German unity the
Prussians saw their King rising to the needs of the hour.
Accordingly the first resolution of Frederick William, after
quiet had returned to the capital, was to appear in public state
as the champion of the Fatherland. A proclamation announced on
the morning of the 21st of March that the King had placed himself
at the head of the German nation, and that he would on that day
appear on horseback wearing the old German colours. In due time
Frederick William came forth at the head of a procession, wearing
the tricolor of gold, white, and black, which since 1815 had been
so dear to the patriots and so odious to the Governments of
Germany. As he passed through the streets he was saluted as
Emperor, but he repudiated the title, asserting with oaths and
imprecations that he intended to rob no German prince of his
sovereignty. At each stage of his theatrical progress he repeated
to appropriate auditors his sounding but ambiguous allusions to
the duties imposed upon him by the common danger. A manifesto,
published at the close of the day, summed up the utterances of
the monarch in a somewhat less rhetorical form. "Germany is in
ferment within, and exposed from without to danger from more than
one side. Deliverance from this danger can come only from the
most intimate union of the German princes and people under a
single leadership. I take this leadership upon me for the hour of
peril. I have to-day assumed the old German colours, and placed
myself and my people under the venerable banner of the German
Empire. Prussia henceforth is merged in Germany." <a name=
"FNanchor418">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_418"><sup>[418]</sup></a></p>
<p>[National Assembly promised.]</p>
<p>The ride of the King through Berlin, and his assumption of the
character of German leader, however little it pleased the minor
sovereigns, or gratified the Liberals of the smaller States, who
considered that such National authority ought to be conferred by
the nation, not assumed by a prince, was successful for the
moment in restoring to the King some popularity among his own
subjects. He could now without humiliation proceed with the
concessions which had been interrupted by the tragical events of
the 18th of March. In answer to a deputation from Breslau, which
urged that the Chamber formed by the union of the Provincial
Diets should be replaced by a Constituent Assembly, the King
promised that a national Representative Assembly should be
convoked as soon as the United Diet had passed the necessary
electoral law. To this National Assembly the Government would
submit measures securing the liberty of the individual, the right
of public meeting and of associations, trial by jury, the
responsibility of Ministers, and the independence of the
judicature. A civic militia was to be formed, with the right of
choosing its own officers, and the standing army was to take the
oath of allegiance to the Constitution. Hereditary jurisdictions
and manorial rights of police were to be abolished; equality
before the law was to be universally enforced; in short, the
entire scheme of reforms demanded by the Constitutional Liberals
of Prussia was to be carried into effect. In Berlin, as in every
other capital in Germany, the victory of the party of progress
now seemed to be assured. The Government no longer represented a
power hostile to popular rights; and when, on the 22nd of March,
the King spontaneously paid the last honours to those who had
fallen in combat with his troops, as the long funeral procession
passed his palace, it was generally believed that his expression
of feeling was sincere.</p>
<p>[Schleswig-Holstein.]</p>
<p>In the passage of his address in which King Frederick William
spoke of the external dangers threatening Germany, he referred to
apprehensions which had for a while been current that the second
French Republic would revive the aggressive energy of the first.
This fear proved baseless; nevertheless, for a sovereign who
really intended to act as the champion of the German nation at
large, the probability of war with a neighbouring Power was far
from remote. The cause of the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein,
which were in rebellion against the Danish Crown, excited the
utmost interest and sympathy in Germany. The population of these
provinces, with the exception of certain districts in Schleswig,
was German; Holstein was actually a member of the German
Federation. The legal relation of the Duchies to Denmark was,
according to the popular view, very nearly that of Hanover to
England before 1837. The King of Denmark was also Duke of
Schleswig and of Holstein, but these were no more an integral
portion of the Danish State than Hanover was of the British
Empire; and the laws of succession were moreover different in
Schleswig-Holstein, the Crown being transmitted by males, while
in Denmark females were capable of succession. On the part of the
Danes it was admitted that in certain districts in Holstein the
Salic law held good; it was, however, maintained that in the
remainder of Holstein and in all Schleswig the rules of
succession were the same as in Denmark. The Danish Government
denied that Schleswig-Holstein formed a unity in itself, as
alleged by the Germans, and that it possessed separate national
rights as against the authority of the King's Government at
Copenhagen. The real heart of the difficulty lay in the fact that
the population of the Duchies was German. So long as the Germans
as a race possessed no national feeling, the union of the Duchies
with the Danish Monarchy had not been felt as a grievance. It
happened, however, that the great revival of German patriotism
resulting from the War of Liberation in 1813 was almost
simultaneous with the severance of Norway from the Danish Crown,
which compelled the Government of Copenhagen to increase very
heavily the burdens imposed on its German subjects in the
Duchies. From this time discontent gained ground, especially in
Altona and Kiel, where society was as thoroughly German as in the
neighbouring city of Hamburg. After 1830, when Provincial Estates
were established in Schleswig and Holstein, the German movement
became formidable. The reaction, however, which marked the
succeeding period generally in Europe prevailed in Denmark too,
and it was not until 1844, when a posthumous work of Lornsen, the
exiled leader of the German party, vindicated the historical
rights of the Duchies, that the claims of German nationality in
these provinces were again vigorously urged. From this time the
separation of Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark became a question
of practical politics. The King of Denmark, Christain VIII., had
but one son, who, though long married, was childless, and with
whom the male line of the reigning House would expire. In answer
to an address of the Danish Provincial Estates calling upon the
King to declare the unity of the Monarchy and the validity of the
Danish law of succession for all its parts, the Holstein Estates
passed a resolution in November, 1844, that the Duchies were an
independent body, governed by the rule of male descent, and
indivisible. After an interval of two years, during which a
Commission examined the succession-laws, King Christian published
a declaration that the succession was the same in Schleswig as in
Denmark proper, and that, as regarded those parts of Holstein
where a different rule of succession existed, he would spare no
effort to maintain the unity of the Monarchy. On this the
Provincial Estates both of Schleswig and of Holstein addressed
protests to the King, who refused to accept them. The deputies
now resigned in a mass, whilst on behalf of Holstein an appeal
was made to the German Federal Diet. The Diet merely replied by a
declaration of rights; but in Germany at large the keenest
interest was aroused on behalf of these severed members of the
race who were so resolutely struggling against incorporation with
a foreign Power. The deputies themselves, passing from village to
village, excited a strenuous spirit of resistance throughout the
Duchies, which was met by the Danish Government with measures of
repression more severe than any which it had hitherto employed.
<a name="FNanchor419">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_419"><sup>[419]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Insurrection in Holstein, March 24.]</p>
<p>[War between Germany and Denmark.]</p>
<p>Such was the situation of affairs when, on the 20th of
January, 1848, King Christian VIII. died, leaving the throne to
Frederick VII., the last of the male line of his House.
Frederick's first act was to publish the draft of a Constitution,
in which all parts of the Monarchy were treated as on the same
footing. Before the delegates could assemble to whom the
completion of this work was referred, the shock of the Paris
Revolution reached the North Sea ports. A public meeting at
Altona demanded the establishment of a separate constitution for
Schleswig-Holstein, and the admission of Schleswig into the
German Federation. The Provincial Estates accepted this
resolution, and sent a deputation to Copenhagen to present this
and other demands to the King. But in the course of the next few
days a popular movement at Copenhagen brought into power a
thoroughly Danish Ministry, pledged to the incorporation of
Schleswig with Denmark as an integral part of the Kingdom.
Without waiting to learn the answer made by the King to the
deputation, the Holsteiners now took affairs into their own
hands. A Provisional Government was formed at Kiel (March 24),
the troops joined the people, and the insurrection instantly
spread over the whole province. As the proposal to change the law
of succession to the throne had originated with the King of
Denmark, the cause of the Holsteiners was from one point of view
that of established right. The King of Prussia, accepting the
positions laid down by the Holstein Estates in 1844, declared
that he would defend the claims of the legitimate heir by force
of arms, and ordered his troops to enter Holstein. The Diet of
Frankfort, now forced to express the universal will of Germany,
demanded that Schleswig, as the sister State of Holstein, should
enter the Federation. On the passing of this resolution, the
envoy who represented the Denmark. King of Denmark at the Diet,
as Duke of Holstein, quitted Frankfort, and a state of war ensued
between Denmark on the one side and Prussia with the German
Federation on the other.</p>
<p>[The German Ante-Parliament, March 30-April 4.]</p>
<p>[Republican rising in Baden.]</p>
<p>The passionate impulse of the German people towards unity had
already called into being an organ for the expression of national
sentiment, which, if without any legal or constitutional
authority, was yet strong enough to impose its will upon the old
and discredited Federal Diet and upon most of the surviving
Governments. At the invitation of a Committee, about five hundred
Liberals who had in one form or another taken part in public
affairs assembled at Frankfort on the 30th of March to make the
necessary preparations for the meeting of a German national
Parliament. This Assembly, which is known as the Ante-Parliament,
sat but for five days. Its resolutions, so far as regarded the
method of electing the new Parliament, and the inclusion of new
districts in the German Federation, were accepted by the Diet,
and in the main carried into effect. Its denunciation of persons
concerned in the repressive measures of 1819 and subsequent
reactionary epochs was followed by the immediate retirement of
all members of the Diet whose careers dated back to those
detested days. But in the most important work that was expected
from the Ante-Parliament, the settlement of a draft-Constitution
to be laid before the future National Assembly as a basis for its
deliberations, nothing whatever was accomplished. The debates
that took place from the 31st of March to the 4th of April were
little more than a trial of strength between the Monarchical and
Republican parties. The Republicans, far outnumbered when they
submitted a constitutional scheme of their own, proposed, after
this repulse, that the existing Assembly should continue in
session until the National Parliament met; in other words, that
it should take upon itself the functions and character of a
National Convention. Defeated also on this proposal, the leaders
of the extreme section of the Republican party, strangely
miscalculating their real strength, determined on armed
insurrection. Uniting with a body of German refugees beyond the
Rhine, who were themselves assisted by French and Polish soldiers
of revolution, they raised the Republican standard in Baden, and
for a few days maintained a hopeless and inglorious struggle
against the troops which were sent to suppress them. Even in
Baden, which had long been in advance of all other German States
in democratic sentiment, and which was peculiarly open to
Republican influences from France and Switzerland, the movement
was not seriously supported by the population, and in the
remainder of Germany it received no countenance whatever. The
leaders found themselves ruined men. The best of them fled to the
United States, where, in the great struggle against slavery
thirteen years later, they rendered better service to their
adopted than they had ever rendered to their natural
Fatherland.</p>
<p>[Meeting of the German National Assembly, May 18.]</p>
<p>On breaking up on the 4th of April, the Ante-Parliament left
behind it a Committee of Fifty, whose task it was to continue the
work of preparation for the National Assembly to which it had
itself contributed so little. One thing alone had been clearly
established, that the future Constitution of Germany was not to
be Republican. That the existing Governments could not be safely
ignored by the National Assembly in its work of founding the new
Federal Constitution for Germany was clear to those who were not
blinded by the enthusiasm of the moment. In the Committee of
Fifty and elsewhere plans were suggested for giving to the
Governments a representation within the Constituent Assembly, or
for uniting their representatives in a Chamber co-ordinate with
this, so that each step in the construction of the new Federal
order should be at once the work of the nation and of the
Governments. Such plans were suggested and discussed; but in the
haste and inexperience of the time they were brought to no
conclusion. The opening of the National Assembly had been fixed
for the 18th of May, and this brief interval had expired before
the few sagacious men who understood the necessity of
co-operation between the Governments and the Parliament had
decided upon any common course of action. To the mass of patriots
it was enough that Germany, after thirty years of disappointment,
had at last won its national representation. Before this imposing
image of the united race, Kings, Courts, and armies, it was
fondly thought, must bow. Thus, in the midst of universal hope,
the elections were held throughout Germany in its utmost federal
extent, from the Baltic to the Italian border; Bohemia alone,
where the Czech majority resisted any closer union with Germany,
declining to send representatives to Frankfort. In the body of
deputies elected there were to be found almost all the foremost
Liberal politicians of every German community; a few still
vigorous champions of the time of the War of Liberation, chief
among them the poet Arndt; patriots who in the evil days that
followed had suffered imprisonment and exile; historians,
professors, critics, who in the sacred cause of liberty have,
like Gervinus, inflicted upon their readers worse miseries than
ever they themselves endured at the hands of unregenerate kings;
theologians, journalists; in short, the whole group of leaders
under whom Germany expected to enter into the promised land of
national unity and freedom. No Imperial coronation ever brought
to Frankfort so many honoured guests, or attracted to the same
degree the sympathy of the German race. Greeted with the cheers
of the citizens of Frankfort, whose civic militia lined the
streets, the members of the Assembly marched in procession on the
afternoon of the 18th of May from the ancient banqueting-hall of
the Kaisers, where they had gathered, to the Church of St. Paul,
which had been chosen as their Senate House. Their President and
officers were elected on the following day. Arndt, who in the
frantic confusion of the first meeting had been unrecognised and
shouted down, was called into the Tribune, but could speak only a
few words for tears. The Assembly voted him its thanks for his
famous song, "What is the German's Fatherland?" and requested
that he would add to it another stanza commemorating the union of
the race at length visibly realised in that great Parliament.
Four days after the opening of the General Assembly of Frankfort,
the Prussian national Parliament began its sessions at Berlin. <a
name="FNanchor420">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_420"><sup>[420]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Europe generally in March, 1848.]</p>
<p>At this point the first act in the Revolutionary drama of 1848
in Germany, as in Europe generally, may be considered to have
reached its close. A certain unity marks the memorable epoch
known generally as the March Days and the events immediately
succeeding. Revolution is universal; it scarcely meets with
resistance; its views seem on the point of being achieved; the
baffled aspirations of the last half-century seem on the point of
being fulfilled. There exists no longer in Central Europe such a
thing as an autocratic Government; and, while the French Republic
maintains an unexpected attitude of peace, Germany and Italy,
under the leadership of old dynasties now penetrated with a new
spirit, appear to be on the point of achieving each its own work
of Federal union and of the expulsion of the foreigner from its
national soil. All Italy prepares to move under Charles Albert to
force the Austrians from their last strongholds on the Mincio and
the Adige; all Germany is with the troops of Frederick William of
Prussia as they enter Holstein to rescue this and the
neighbouring German province from the Dane. In Radetzky's camp
alone, and at the Court of St. Petersburg, the old monarchical
order of Europe still survives. How powerful were these two
isolated centres of anti-popular energy the world was soon to
see. Yet they would not have turned back the tide of European
affairs and given one more victory to reaction had they not had
their allies in the hatred of race to race, in the incapacity and
the errors of peoples and those who represented them; above all,
in the enormous difficulties which, even had the generation been
one of sages and martyrs, the political circumstances of the time
would in themselves have opposed to the accomplishment of the
ends desired.</p>
<p>[The French Provisional Government.]</p>
<p>[The National Workshops.]</p>
<p>France had given to Central Europe the signal for the
Revolution of 1848, and it was in France, where the conflict was
not one for national independence but for political and social
interests, that the Revolution most rapidly ran its course and
first exhausted its powers. On the flight of Louis Philippe
authority had been entrusted by the Chamber of Deputies to a
Provisional Government, whose most prominent member was the
orator and poet Lamartine. Installed at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville,
this Government had with difficulty prevented the mob from
substituting the Red Flag for the Tricolor, and from proceeding
at once to realise the plans of its own leaders. The majority of
the Provisional Government were Republicans of a moderate type,
representing the ideas of the urban middle classes rather than
those of the workmen; but by their side were Ledru Rollin, a
rhetorician dominated by the phrases of 1793, and Louis Blanc,
who considered all political change as but an instrument for
advancing the organisation of labour and for the emancipation of
the artisan from servitude, by the establishment of
State-directed industries affording appropriate employment and
adequate remuneration to all. Among the first proclamations of
the Provisional Government was one in which, in answer to a
petition demanding the recognition of the Right to Labour, they
undertook to guarantee employment to every citizen. This
engagement, the heaviest perhaps that was ever voluntarily
assumed by any Government, was followed in a few days by the
opening of national workshops. That in the midst of a Revolution
which took all parties by surprise plans for the conduct of a
series of industrial enterprises by the State should have been
seriously examined was impossible. The Government had paid homage
to an abstract idea; they were without a conception of the mode
in which it was to be realised. What articles were to be made,
what works were to be executed, no one knew. The mere direction
of destitute workmen to the centres where they were to be
employed was a task for which a new branch of the administration
had to be created. When this was achieved, the men collected
proved useless for all purposes of industry. Their numbers
increased enormously, rising in the course of four weeks from
fourteen to sixty-five thousand. The Revolution had itself caused
a financial and commercial panic, interrupting all the ordinary
occupations of business, and depriving masses of men of the means
of earning a livelihood. These, with others who had no intention
of working, thronged to the State workshops; while the certainty
of obtaining wages from the public purse occasioned a series of
strikes of workmen against their employers and the abandonment of
private factories. The chocks which had been intended to confine
enrolment at the public works to persons already domiciled in
Paris completely failed; from all the neighbouring departments
the idle and the hungry streamed into the capital. Every abuse
incidental to a system of public relief was present in Paris in
its most exaggerated form; every element of experience, of
wisdom, of precaution, was absent. If, instead of a group of
benevolent theorists, the experiment of 1848 had had for its
authors a company of millionaires anxious to dispel all hope that
mankind might ever rise to a higher order than that of
unrestricted competition of man against man, it could not have
been conducted under more fatal conditions. <a name=
"FNanchor421">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_421"><sup>[421]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Provisional Government and the Red Republicans.]</p>
<p>[Elections, April 23.]</p>
<p>The leaders of the democracy in Paris had from the first
considered that the decision upon the form of Government to be
established in France in place of the Orleanist monarchy belonged
rather to themselves than to the nation at large. They
distrusted, and with good reason, the results of the General
Election which, by a decree of the Provisional Government, was to
be held in the course of April. A circular issued by Ledru
Rollin, Minister of the Interior, without the knowledge of his
colleagues, to the Commissioners by whom he had replaced the
Prefects of the Monarchy gave the first open indication of this
alarm, and of the means of violence and intimidation by which the
party which Ledru Rollin represented hoped to impose its will
upon the country. The Commissioners were informed in plain
language that, as agents of a revolutionary authority, their
powers were unlimited, and that their task was to exclude from
election all persons who were not animated by revolutionary
spirit, and pure from any taint of association with the past. If
the circular had been the work of the Government, and not of a
single member of it who was at variance with most of his
colleagues and whose words were far more formidable than his
actions, it would have clearly foreshadowed a return to the
system of 1793. But the isolation of Ledru Rollin was well
understood. The attitude of the Government generally was so
little in accordance with the views of the Red Republicans that
on the 16th of April a demonstration was organised with the
object of compelling them to postpone the elections. The prompt
appearance in arms of the National Guard, which still represented
the middle classes of Paris, baffled the design of the leaders of
the mob, and gave to Lamartine and the majority in the Government
a decisive victory over their revolutionary colleague. The
elections were held at the time appointed; and, in spite of the
institution of universal suffrage, they resulted in the return of
a body of Deputies not widely different from those who had
hitherto appeared in French Parliaments. The great majority were
indeed Republicans by profession, but of a moderate type; and the
session had no sooner opened than it became clear that the
relation between the Socialist democracy of Paris and the
National Representatives could only be one of more or less
violent antagonism.</p>
<p>[The National Assembly, May 4.]</p>
<p>[Riot of May 15.]</p>
<p>[Measures against the National Workshops.]</p>
<p>The first act of the Assembly, which met on the 4th of May,
was to declare that the Provisional Government had deserved well
of the country, and to reinstate most of its members in office
under the title of an Executive Commission. Ledru Rollin's
offences were condoned, as those of a man popular with the
democracy, and likely on the whole to yield to the influence of
his colleagues. Louis Blanc and his confederate, Albert, as
really dangerous persons, were excluded. The Jacobin leaders now
proceeded to organise an attack on the Assembly by main force. On
the 15th of May the attempt was made. Under pretence of tendering
a petition on behalf of Poland, a mob invaded the Legislative
Chamber, declared the Assembly dissolved, and put the Deputies to
flight. But the triumph was of short duration. The National
Guard, whose commander alone was responsible for the failure of
measures of defence, soon rallied in force; the leaders of the
insurgents, some of whom had installed themselves as a
Provisional Government at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, were made
captive; and after an interval of a few hours the Assembly
resumed possession of the Palais Bourbon. The dishonour done to
the national representation by the scandalous scenes of the 15th
of May, as well as the decisively proved superiority of the
National Guard over the half armed mob, encouraged the Assembly
to declare open war against the so-called social democracy, and
to decree the abolition of the national workshops. The enormous
growth of these establishments, which now included over a hundred
thousand men, threatened to ruin the public finances; the
demoralisation which they engendered seemed likely to destroy
whatever was sound in the life of the working classes of Paris.
Of honest industry there was scarcely a trace to be found among
the masses who were receiving their daily wages from the State.
Whatever the sincerity of those who had founded the national
workshops, whatever the anxiety for employment on the part of
those who first resorted to them, they had now become mere hives
of disorder, where the resources of the State were lavished in
accumulating a force for its own overthrow. It was necessary, at
whatever risk, to extinguish the evil. Plans for the gradual
dispersion of the army of workmen were drawn up by Committees and
discussed by the Assembly. If put in force with no more than the
necessary delay, these plans might perhaps have rendered a
peaceful solution of the difficulty possible. But the Government
hesitated, and finally, when a decision could no longer be
avoided, determined upon measures more violent and more sudden
than those which the Committees had recommended. On the 21st of
June an order was published that all occupants of the public
workshops between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five must
enlist in the army or cease to receive support from the State,
and that the removal of the workmen who had come into Paris from
the provinces, for which preparations had already been made, must
be at once effected. <a name="FNanchor422">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_422"><sup>[422]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Four Days of June, 23-26.]</p>
<p>The publication of this order was the signal for an appeal to
arms. The legions of the national workshops were in themselves a
half-organised force equal in number to several army-corps, and
now animated by something like the spirit of military union. The
revolt, which began on the morning of the 23rd of June, was
conducted as no revolt in Pans had ever been conducted before.
The eastern part of the city was turned into a maze of
barricades. Though the insurgents had not artillery, they were in
other respects fairly armed. The terrible nature of the conflict
impending now became evident to the Assembly. General Cavaignac,
Minister of War, was placed in command, and subsequently invested
with supreme authority, the Executive Commission resigning its
powers. All the troops in the neighbourhood of Paris were at once
summoned to the capital, Cavaignac well understood that any
attempt to hold the insurrection in check by means of scattered
posts would only end, as in 1830, by the capture or the
demoralisation of the troops. He treated Paris as one great
battle-field in which the enemy must be attacked in mass and
driven by main force from all his positions. At times the effort
appeared almost beyond the power of the forces engaged, and the
insurgents, sheltered by huge barricades and firing from the
windows of houses, seemed likely to remain masters of the field.
The struggle continued for four days, but Cavaignac's artillery
and the discipline of his troops at last crushed resistance; and
after the Archbishop of Paris had been mortally wounded in a
heroic effort to stop further bloodshed, the last bands of the
insurgents, driven back into the north-eastern quarter of the
city, and there attacked with artillery in front and flank, were
forced to lay down their arms.</p>
<p>[Fears left by the events of June.]</p>
<p>Such was the conflict of the Four Days of June, a conflict
memorable as one in which the combatants fought not for a
political principle or form of Government, but for the
preservation or the overthrow of society based on the institution
of private property. The National Guard, with some exceptions,
fought side by side with the regiments of the line, braved the
same perils, and sustained an equal loss. The workmen threw
themselves the more passionately into the struggle, inasmuch as
defeat threatened them with deprivation of the very means of
life. On both sides acts of savagery were committed which the
fury of the conflict could not excuse. The vengeance of the
conquerors in the moment of success appears, however, to have
been less unrelenting than that which followed the overthrow of
the Commune in 1871, though, after the struggle was over, the
Assembly had no scruple in transporting without trial the whole
mass of prisoners taken with arms in their hands. Cavaignac's
victory left the classes for whom he had fought terror-stricken
at the peril from which they had escaped, and almost hopeless of
their own security under any popular form of Government in the
future. Against the rash and weak concessions to popular demands
that had been made by the administration since February,
especially in the matter of taxation and finance, there was now a
deep, if not loudly proclaimed, reaction. The national workshops
disappeared; grants were made by the Legislature for the
assistance of the masses who were left without resource, but the
money was bestowed in charitable relief or in the form of loans
to associations, not as wages from the State. On every side among
the holders of property the cry was for a return to sound
principles of finance in the economy of the State, and for the
establishment of a strong central power.</p>
<p>[Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon.]</p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon elected Deputy but resigns, June 14.]</p>
<p>General Cavaignac after the restoration of order had laid down
the supreme authority which had been conferred on him, but at the
desire of the Assembly he continued to exercise it until the new
Constitution should be drawn up and an Executive appointed in
accordance with its provisions. Events had suddenly raised
Cavaignac from obscurity to eminence, and seemed to mark him out
as the future ruler of France. But he displayed during the six
months following the suppression of the revolt no great capacity
for government, and his virtues as well as his defects made
against his personal success. A sincere Republican, while at the
same time a rigid upholder of law, he refused to lend himself to
those who were, except in name, enemies of Republicanism; and in
his official acts and utterances he spared the feelings of the
reactionary classes as little as he would have spared those of
rioters and Socialists. As the influence of Cavaignac declined,
another name began to fill men's thoughts. Louis Napoleon, son of
the Emperor's brother Louis, King of Holland, had while still in
exile been elected to the National Assembly by four Departments.
He was as yet almost unknown except by name to his
fellow-countrymen. Born in the Tuileries in 1808, he had been
involved as a child in the ruin of the Empire, and had passed
into banishment with his mother Hortense, under the law that
expelled from France all members of Napoleon's family. He had
been brought up at Augsburg and on the shores of the Lake of
Constance, and as a volunteer in a Swiss camp of artillery he had
gained some little acquaintance with military life. In 1831 he
had joined the insurgents in the Romagna who were in arms against
the Papal Government. The death of his own elder brother,
followed in 1832 by that of Napoleon's son, the Duke of
Reichstadt, made him chief of the house of Bonaparte. Though far
more of a recluse than a man of action, though so little of his
own nation that he could not pronounce a sentence of French
without a marked German accent, and had never even seen a French
play performed, he now became possessed by the fixed idea that he
was one day to wear the French Crown. A few obscure adventurers
attached themselves to his fortunes, and in 1836 he appeared at
Strasburg and presented himself to the troops as Emperor. The
enterprise ended in failure and ridicule. Louis Napoleon was
shipped to America by the Orleanist Government, which supplied
him with money, and thought it unnecessary even to bring him to
trial. He recrossed the Atlantic, made his home in England, and
in 1840 repeated at Boulogne the attempt that had failed at
Strasburg. The result was again disastrous. He was now sentenced
to perpetual imprisonment, and passed the next six years in
captivity at Ham, where he produced a treatise on the Napoleonic
Ideas, and certain fragments on political and social questions.
The enthusiasm for Napoleon, of which there had been little trace
in France since 1815, was now reviving; the sufferings of the
epoch of conquest were forgotten; the steady maintenance of peace
by Louis Philippe seemed humiliating to young and ardent spirits
who had not known the actual presence of the foreigner. In
literature two men of eminence worked powerfully upon the
national imagination. The history of Thiers gave the nation a
great stage-picture of Napoleon's exploits; B&eacute;ranger's
lyrics invested his exile at St. Helena with an irresistible,
though spurious, pathos. Thus, little as the world concerned
itself with the prisoner at Ham, the tendencies of the time were
working in his favour; and his confinement, which lasted six
years and was terminated by his escape and return to England,
appears to have deepened his brooding nature, and to have
strengthened rather than diminished his confidence in himself. On
the overthrow of Louis Philippe he visited Paris, but was
requested by the Provisional Government, on the ground of the
unrepealed law banishing the Bonaparte family, to quit the
country. He obeyed, probably foreseeing that the difficulties of
the Republic would create better opportunities for his
reappearance. Meanwhile the group of unknown men who sought their
fortunes in a Napoleonic restoration busily canvassed and wrote
on behalf of the Prince, and with such success that, in the
supplementary elections that were held at the beginning of June,
he obtained a fourfold triumph. The Assembly, in spite of the
efforts of the Government, pronounced his return valid. Yet with
rare self-command the Prince still adhered to his policy of
reserve, resigning his seat on the ground that his election had
been made a pretext for movements of which he disapproved, while
at the same time he declared in his letter to the President of
the Assembly that if duties should be imposed upon him by the
people he should know how to fulfil them. <a name=
"FNanchor423">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_423"><sup>[423]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon again elected, Sept. 17.]</p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon elected President, Dec. 10.]</p>
<p>From this time Louis Napoleon was a recognised aspirant to
power. The Constitution of the Republic was now being drawn up by
the Assembly. The Executive Commission had disappeared in the
convulsion of June; Cavaignac was holding the balance between
parties rather than governing himself. In the midst of the
debates on the Constitution Louis Napoleon was again returned
elected, to the Assembly by the votes of five Departments. He saw
that he ought to remain no longer in the background, and,
accepting the call of the electors, he took his seat in the
Chamber. It was clear that he would become a candidate for the
Presidency of the Republic, and that the popularity of his name
among the masses was enormous. He had twice presented himself to
France as the heir to Napoleon's throne; he had never directly
abandoned his dynastic claim; he had but recently declared, in
almost threatening language, that he should know how to fulfil
the duties that the people might impose upon him. Yet with all
these facts before it the Assembly, misled by the puerile
rhetoric of Lamartine, decided that in the new Constitution the
President of the Republic, in whom was vested the executive
power, should be chosen by the direct vote of all Frenchmen, and
rejected the amendment of M. Grevy, who, with real insight into
the future, declared that such direct election by the people
could only give France a Dictator, and demanded that the
President should be appointed not by the masses but by the
Chamber. Thus was the way paved for Louis Napoleon's march to
power. The events of June had dispelled any attraction that he
had hitherto felt towards Socialistic theories. He saw that
France required an upholder of order and of property. In his
address to the nation announcing his candidature for the
Presidency he declared that he would shrink from no sacrifice in
defending society, so audaciously attacked; that he would devote
himself without reserve to the maintenance of the Republic, and
make it his pride to leave to his successor at the end of four
years authority strengthened, liberty unimpaired, and real
progress accomplished. Behind these generalities the address
dexterously touched on the special wants of classes and parties,
and promised something to each. The French nation in the election
which followed showed that it believed in Louis Napoleon even
more than he did in himself. If there existed in the opinion of
the great mass any element beyond the mere instinct of
self-defence against real or supposed schemes of spoliation, it
was reverence for Napoleon's memory. Out of seven millions of
votes given, Louis Napoleon received above five, Cavaignac, who
alone entered into serious competition with him, receiving about
a fourth part of that number. Lamartine and the men who ten
months before had represented all the hopes of the nation now
found but a handful of supporters. Though none yet openly spoke
of Monarchy, on all sides there was the desire for the
restoration of power. The day-dreams of the second Republic had
fled. France had shown that its choice lay only between a soldier
who had crushed rebellion and a stranger who brought no title to
its confidence but an Imperial name.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XX.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c20">CHAPTER XX.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Austria and Italy-Vienna from March to May-Flight of the
Emperor- Bohemian National Movement-Windischgr&auml;tz subdues
Prague-Campaign around Verona-Papal Allocution-Naples in
May-Negotiations as to Lombardy-Reconquest of Venetia-Battle of
Custozza-The Austrians enter Milan-Austrian Court and Hungary-The
Serbs in Southern Hungary-Serb Congress at
Carlowitz-Jellacic-Affairs of Croatia-Jellacic, the Court and the
Hungarian Movement-Murder of Lamberg-Manifesto of October 3
Vienna on October 6-The Emperor at Olm&uuml;tz-Windischgr&auml;tz
conquers Vienna-The Parliament at Kremsier-Schwarzenberg
Minister-Ferdinand abdicates-Dissolution of the Kremsier
Parliament-Unitary Edict- Hungary-The Roumanians in
Transylvania-The Austrian Army occupies Pesth-Hungarian
Government at Debreczin-The Austrians driven out of
Hungary-Declaration of Hungarian Independence-Russian
Intervention- The Hungarian Summer Campaign-Capitulation of
Vilagos-Italy-Murder of Rossi-Tuscany-The March Campaign in
Lombardy-Novara-Abdication of Charles Albert-Victor
Emmanuel-Restoration in Tuscany-French Intervention in
Rome-Defeat of Oudinot-Oudinot and Lesseps-The French enter
Rome-The Restored Pontifical Government-Fall of Venice- Ferdinand
reconquers Sicily Germany-The National Assembly at Frankfort- The
Armistice of Malm&ouml;-Berlin from April to September-The
Prussian Army-Last days of the Prussian Parliament-Prussian
Constitution granted by Edict-The German National Assembly and
Austria-Frederick William IV. elected Emperor-He refuses the
Crown-End of the National Assembly-Prussia attempts to form a
separate Union-The Union Parliament at Erfurt-Action of
Austria-Hesse Cassel-The Diet of Frankfort
restored-Olm&uuml;tz-Schleswig-Holstein-Germany after 1849-
Austria after 1851-France after 1848-Louis Napoleon-The October
Message-Law Limiting the Franchise-Louis Napoleon and the Army-
Proposed Revision of the Constitution-The Coup
d'&Eacute;tat-Napoleon III. Emperor</p>
<br>

<p>[Austria and Italy.]</p>
<p>The plain of Northern Italy has ever been an arena on which
the contest between interests greater than those of Italy itself
has been brought to an issue, and it may perhaps be truly said
that in the struggle between established Governments and
Revolution through out Central Europe in 1848 the real turning
point, if it can anywhere be fixed, lay rather in the fortunes of
a campaign in Lombardy than in any single combination of events
at Vienna or Berlin. The very existence of the Austrian Monarchy
depended on the victory of Radetzky's forces over the national
movement at the head of which Piedmont had now placed itself. If
Italian independence should be established upon the ruin of the
Austrian arms, and the influence and example of the victorious
Italian people be thrown into the scale against the Imperial
Government in its struggle with the separatist forces that
convulsed every part of the Austrian dominions, it was scarcely
possible that any stroke of fortune or policy could save the
Empire of the Hapsburgs from dissolution. But on the prostration
or recovery of Austria, as represented by its central power at
Vienna, the future of Germany in great part depended. Whatever
compromise might be effected between popular and monarchical
forces in the other German States if left free from Austria's
interference, the whole influence of a resurgent Austrian power
could not but be directed against the principles of popular
sovereignty and national union. The Parliament of Frankfort might
then in vain affect to fulfil its mandate without reckoning with
the Court of Vienna. All this was indeed obscured in the tempests
that for a while shut out the political horizon. The Liberals of
Northern Germany had little sympathy with the Italian cause in
the decisive days of 1848. Their inclinations went rather with
the combatant who, though bent on maintaining an oppressive
dominion, was nevertheless a member of the German race and paid
homage for the moment to Constitutional rights. Yet, as later
events were to prove, the fetters which crushed liberty beyond
the Alps could fit as closely on to German limbs; and in the
warfare of Upper Italy for its own freedom the battle of German
Liberalism was in no small measure fought and lost.</p>
<p>[Vienna from March to May.]</p>
<p>Metternich once banished from Vienna, the first popular demand
was for a Constitution. His successors in office, with a certain
characteristic pedantry, devoted their studies to the Belgian
Constitution of 1831; and after some weeks a Constitution was
published by edict for the non-Hungarian part of the Empire,
including a Parliament of two Chambers, the Lower to be chosen by
indirect election, the Upper consisting of nominees of the Crown
and representatives of the great landowners. The provisions of
this Constitution in favour of the Crown and the Aristocracy, as
well as the arbitrary mode of its promulgation, displeased the
Viennese. Agitation recommenced in the city; unpopular officials
were roughly handled the Press grew ever more violent and more
scurrilous. One strange result of the tutelage in which Austrian
society had been held was that the students of the University
became, and for some time continued to be, the most important
political body of the capital. Their principal rivals in
influence were the National Guard drawn from citizens of the
middle class, the workmen as yet remaining in the background.
Neither in the Hall of the University nor at the taverns where
the civic militia discussed the events of the hour did the
office-drawn Constitution find favour. On the 13th of May it was
determined, with the view of exercising stronger pressure upon
the Government, that the existing committees of the National
Guard and of the students should be superseded by one central
committee representing both bodies. The elections to this
committee had been held, and its sittings had begun, when the
commander of the National Guard declared such proceedings to be
inconsistent with military discipline, and ordered the
dissolution of the committee. Riots followed, during which the
students and the mob made their way into the Emperor's palace and
demanded from his Ministers not only the re-establishment of the
central committee but the abolition of the Upper Chamber in the
projected Constitution, and the removal of the checks imposed on
popular sovereignty by a limited franchise and the system of
indirect elections. On point after point the Ministry gave way;
and, in spite of the resistance and reproaches of the Imperial
household, they obtained the Emperor's signature to a document
promising that for the future all the important military posts in
the city should be held by the National Guard jointly with the
regular troops, that the latter should never be called out except
on the requisition of the National Guard, and that the projected
Constitution should remain without force until it should have
been submitted for confirmation to a single Constituent Assembly
elected by universal suffrage.</p>
<p>[Flight of the Emperor, May 17.]</p>
<p>[Tumult of May 26.]</p>
<p>The weakness of the Emperor's intelligence rendered him a mere
puppet in the hands of those who for the moment exercised control
over his actions. During the riot of the 15th of May he obeyed
his Ministers; a few hours afterwards he fell under the sway of
the Court party, and consented to fly from Vienna. On the 18th
the Viennese learnt to their astonishment that Ferdinand was far
on the road to the Tyrol. Soon afterwards a manifesto was
published, stating that the violence and anarchy of the capital
had compelled the Emperor to transfer his residence to Innsbruck;
that he remained true, however, to the promises made in March and
to their legitimate consequences; and that proof must be given of
the return of the Viennese to their old sentiments of loyalty
before he could again appear among them. A certain revulsion of
feeling in the Emperor's favour now became manifest in the
capital, and emboldened the Ministers to take the first step
necessary towards obtaining his return, namely the dissolution of
the Students' Legion. They could count with some confidence on
the support of the wealthier part of the middle class, who were
now becoming wearied of the students' extravagances and alarmed
at the interruption of business caused by the Revolution;
moreover, the ordinary termination of the academic year was near
at hand. The order was accordingly given for the dissolution of
the Legion and the closing of the University. But the students
met the order with the stoutest resistance. The workmen poured in
from the suburbs to join in their defence. Barricades were
erected, and the insurrection of March seemed on the point of
being renewed. Once more the Government gave way, and not only
revoked its order, but declared itself incapable of preserving
tranquillity in the capital unless it should receive the
assistance of the leaders of the people. With the full
concurrence of the Ministers, a Committee of Public Safety was
formed, representing at once the students, the middle class, and
the workmen; and it entered upon its duties with an authority
exceeding, within the limits of the capital, that of the shadowy
functionaries of State. <a name="FNanchor424">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_424"><sup>[424]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bohemian national movement.]</p>
<p>[Windischgr&auml;tz subdues Prague, June 12-17.]</p>
<p>In the meantime the antagonism between the Czechs and the
Germans in Bohemia was daily becoming more bitter. The influence
of the party of compromise, which had been dominant in the early
days of March, had disappeared before the ill-timed attempt of
the German national leaders at Frankfort to include Bohemia
within the territory sending representatives to the German
national Parliament. By consenting to this incorporation the
Czech population would have definitely renounced its newly
asserted claim to nationality. If the growth of democratic spirit
at Vienna was accompanied by a more intense German national
feeling in the capital, the popular movements at Vienna and at
Prague must necessarily pass into a relation of conflict with one
another. On the flight of the Emperor becoming known at Prague,
Count Thun, the governor, who was also the chief of the moderate
Bohemian party, invited Ferdinand to make Prague the seat of his
Government. This invitation, which would have directly connected
the Crown with Czech national interests, was not accepted. The
rasher politicians, chiefly students and workmen, continued to
hold their meetings and to patrol the streets; and a Congress of
Slavs from all parts of the Empire, which was opened on the 2nd
of June, excited national passions still further. So threatening
grew the attitude of the students and workmen that Count
Windischgr&auml;tz, commander of the troops at Prague, prepared
to act with artillery. On the 12th of June, the day on which the
Congress of Slavs broke up, fighting began. Windischgr&auml;tz,
whose wife was killed by a bullet, appears to have acted with
calmness, and to have sought to arrive at some peaceful
settlement. He withdrew his troops, and desisted from a
bombardment that he had begun, on the understanding that the
barricades which had been erected should be removed. This
condition was not fulfilled. New acts of violence occurred in the
city, and on the 17th Windischgr&auml;tz reopened fire. On the
following day Prague surrendered, and Windischgr&auml;tz
re-entered the city as Dictator. The autonomy of Bohemia was at
an end. The army had for the first time acted with effect against
a popular rising; the first blow had been struck on behalf of the
central power against the revolution which till now had seemed
about to dissolve the Austrian State into its fragments.</p>
<p>[Campaign around Verona, April-May.]</p>
<p>At this point the dominant interest in Austrian affairs passes
from the capital and the northern provinces to Radetzky's army
and the Italians with whom it stood face to face. Once convinced
of the necessity of a retreat from Milan, the Austrian commander
had moved with sufficient rapidity to save Verona and Mantua from
passing into the hands of the insurgents. He was thus enabled to
place his army in one of the best defensive positions in Europe,
the Quadrilateral flanked by the rivers Mincio and Adige, and
protected by the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, and
Legnano. With his front on the Mincio he awaited at once the
attack of the Piedmontese and the arrival of reinforcements from
the north-east. On the 8th of April the first attack was made,
and after a sharp engagement at Goito the passage of the Mincio
was effected by the Sardinian army. Siege was now laid to
Peschiera; and while a Tuscan contingent watched Mantua, the bulk
of Charles Albert's forces operated farther northward with the
view of cutting off Verona from the roads to the Tyrol. This
result was for a moment achieved, but the troops at the King's
disposal were far too weak for the task of reducing the
fortresses; and in an attempt that was made on the 6th of May to
drive the Austrians out of their positions in front of Verona,
Charles Albert was defeated at Santa Lucia and compelled to fall
back towards the Mincio. <a name="FNanchor425">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_425"><sup>[425]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Papal Allocution, April 29.]</p>
<p>[Naples in May.]</p>
<p>A pause in the war ensued, filled by political events of evil
omen for Italy. Of all the princes who had permitted their troops
to march northwards to the assistance of the Lombards, not one
was acting in full sincerity. The first to show himself in his
true colours was the Pope. On the 29th of April an Allocution was
addressed to the Cardinals, in which Pius disavowed all
participation in the war against Austria, and declared that his
own troops should do no more than defend the integrity of the
Roman States. Though at the moment an outburst of popular
indignation in Rome forced a still more liberal Ministry into
power, and Durando, the Papal general, continued his advance into
Venetia, the Pope's renunciation of his supposed national
leadership produced the effect which its author desired,
encouraging every open and every secret enemy of the Italian
cause, and perplexing those who had believed themselves to be
engaged in a sacred as well as a patriotic war. In Naples things
hurried far more rapidly to a catastrophe. Elections had been
held to the Chamber of Deputies, which was to be opened on the
15th of May, and most of the members returned were men who, while
devoted to the Italian national cause were neither Republicans
nor enemies of the Bourbon dynasty, but anxious to co-operate
with their King in the work of Constitutional reform. Politicians
of another character, however, commanded the streets of Naples.
Rumours were spread that the Court was on the point of restoring
despotic government and abandoning the Italian cause. Disorder
and agitation increased from day to day; and after the Deputies
had arrived in the city and begun a series of informal meetings
preparatory to the opening of the Parliament, an ill-advised act
of Ferdinand gave to the party of disorder, who were weakly
represented in the Assembly, occasion for an insurrection. After
promulgating the Constitution on February both, Ferdinand had
agreed that it should be submitted to the two Chambers for
revision. He notified, however, to the Representatives on the eve
of the opening of Parliament that they would be required to take
an oath of fidelity to the Constitution. They urged that such an
oath would deprive them of their right of revision. The King,
after some hours, consented to a change in the formula of the
oath; but his demand had already thrown the city into tumult.
Barricades were erected, the Deputies in vain endeavouring to
calm the rioters and to prevent a conflict with the troops. While
negotiations were still in progress shots were fired. The troops
now threw themselves upon the people; there was a struggle, short
in duration, but sanguinary and merciless; the barricades were
captured, some hundreds of the insurgents slain, and Ferdinand
was once more absolute master of Naples. The Assembly was
dissolved on the day after that on which it should have met.
Orders were at once sent by the King to General Pepe, commander
of the troops that were on the march to Lombardy, to return with
his army to Naples. Though Pepe continued true to the national
cause, and endeavoured to lead his army forward from Bologna in
defiance of the King's instructions, his troops now melted away;
and when he crossed the Po and placed himself under the standard
of Charles Albert in Venetia there remained with him scarcely
fifteen hundred men.</p>
<p>[Negotiations as to Lombardy.]</p>
<p>[Reconquest of Venetia, June, July.]</p>
<p>It thus became clear before the end of May that the Lombards
would receive no considerable help from the Southern States in
their struggle for freedom, and that the promised league of the
Governments in the national cause was but a dream from which
there was a bitter awakening. Nor in Northern Italy itself was
there the unity in aim and action without which success was
impossible. The Republican party accused the King and the
Provisional Government at Milan of an unwillingness to arm the
people; Charles Albert on his part regarded every Republican as
an enemy. On entering Lombardy the King had stated that no
question as to the political organisation of the future should be
raised until the war was ended; nevertheless, before a fortress
had been captured, he had allowed Modena and Parma to declare
themselves incorporated with the Piedmontese monarchy; and, in
spite of Mazzini's protest, their example was followed by
Lombardy and some Venetian districts. In the recriminations that
passed between the Republicans and the Monarchists it was even
suggested that Austria had friends of its own in certain classes
of the population. This was not the view taken by the Viennese
Government, which from the first appears to have considered its
cause in Lombardy as virtually lost. The mediation of Great
Britain was invoked by Metternich's successors, and a willingness
expressed to grant to the Italian provinces complete autonomy
under the Emperor's sceptre. Palmerston, in reply to the
supplications of a Court which had hitherto cursed his influence,
urged that Lombardy and the greater part of Venetia should be
ceded to the King of Piedmont. The Austrian Government would have
given up Lombardy to their enemy; they hesitated to increase his
power to the extent demanded by Palmerston, the more so as the
French Ministry was known to be jealous of the aggrandisement of
Sardinia, and to desire the establishment of weak Republics like
those formed in 1796. Withdrawing from its negotiations at
London, the Emperor's Cabinet now entered into direct
communication with the Provisional Government at Milan, and,
without making any reference to Piedmont or Venice, offered
complete independence to Lombardy. As the union of this province
with Piedmont had already been voted by its inhabitants, the
offer was at once rejected. Moreover, even it the Italians had
shown a disposition to compromise their cause and abandon Venice,
Radetzky would not have broken off the combat while any
possibility remained of winning over the Emperor from the side of
the peace-party. In reply to instructions directing him to offer
an armistice to the enemy, he sent Prince Felix Schwarzenberg to
Innsbruck to implore the Emperor to trust to the valour of his
soldiers and to continue the combat. Already there were signs
that the victory would ultimately be with Austria. Reinforcements
had cut their way through the insurgent territory and reached
Verona; and although a movement by which Radetzky threatened to
sever Charles Albert's communications was frustrated by a second
engagement at Goito, and Peschiera passed into the besiegers'
hands, this was the last success won by the Italians. Throwing
himself suddenly eastwards, Radetzky appeared before Vicenza, and
compelled this city, with the entire Papal army, commanded by
General Durando, to capitulate. The fall of Vicenza was followed
June. July. by that of the other cities on the Venetian mainland
till Venice alone on the east of the Adige defied the Austrian
arms. As the invader pressed onward, an Assembly which Manin had
convoked at Venice decided on union with Piedmont. Manin himself
had been the most zealous opponent of what he considered the
sacrifice of Venetian independence. He gave way nevertheless at
the last, and made no attempt to fetter the decision of the
Assembly; but when this decision had been given he handed over
the conduct of affairs to others, and retired for awhile into
private life, declining to serve under a <a name=
"FNanchor426">king.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_426"><sup>[426]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Custozza July 25.]</p>
<p>[Austrians re-enter Milan, Aug. 6.]</p>
<p>Charles Albert now renewed his attempt to wrest the central
fortresses from the Austrians. Leaving half his army at Peschiera
and farther north, he proceeded with the other half to blockade
Mantua. Radetzky took advantage of the unskilful generalship of
his opponent, and threw himself upon the weakly guarded centre of
the long Sardinian line. The King perceived his error, and sought
to unite with his the northern detachments, now separated from
him by the Mincio. His efforts were baffled, and on the 25th of
July, after a brave resistance, his troops were defeated at
Custozza. The retreat across the Mincio was conducted in fair
order, but disasters sustained by the northern division, which
should have held the enemy in check, destroyed all hope, and the
retreat then became a flight. Radetzky followed in close pursuit.
Charles Albert entered Milan, but declared himself unable to
defend the city. A storm of indignation broke out against the
unhappy King amongst the Milanese, whom he was declared to have
betrayed. The palace where he had taken up his quarters was
besieged by the mob; his life was threatened; and he escaped with
difficulty on the night of August 5th under the protection of
General La Marmora and a few faithful Guards. A capitulation was
signed, and as the Piedmontese army evacuated the city Radetzky's
troops entered it in triumph. Not less than sixty thousand of the
inhabitants, according to Italian statements, abandoned their
homes and sought refuge in Switzerland or Piedmont rather than
submit to the conqueror's rule. Radetzky could now have followed
his retreating enemy without difficulty to Turin, and have
crushed Piedmont itself under foot; but the fear of France and
Great Britain checked his career of victory, and hostilities were
brought to a close by an armistice at Vigevano on August 9th. <a
name="FNanchor427">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_427"><sup>[427]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Austrian Court and Hungary.]</p>
<p>The effects of Radetzky's triumph were felt in every province
of the Empire. The first open expression given to the changed
state of affairs was the return of the Imperial Court from its
refuge at Innsbruck to Vienna. The election promised in May had
been held, and an Assembly representing all the non-Hungarian
parts of the Monarchy, with the exception of the Italian
provinces, had been opened by the Archduke John, as
representative of the Emperor, on the 22nd of July. Ministers and
Deputies united in demanding the return of the Emperor to the
capital. With Radetzky and Windischgr&auml;tz within call, the
Emperor could now with some confidence face his students and his
Parliament. But of far greater importance than the return of the
Court to Vienna was the attitude which it now assumed towards the
Diet and the national Government of Hungary. The concessions made
in April, inevitable as they were, had in fact raised Hungary to
the position of an independent State. When such matters as the
employment of Hungarian troops against Italy or the distribution
of the burden of taxation came into question, the Emperor had to
treat with the Hungarian Ministry almost as if it represented a
foreign and a rival Power. For some months this humiliation had
to be borne, and the appearance of fidelity to the new
Constitutional law maintained. But a deep, resentful hatred
against the Magyar cause penetrated the circles in which the old
military and official absolutism of Austria yet survived; and
behind the men and the policy still representing with some degree
of sincerity the new order of things, there gathered the passions
and the intrigues of a reaction that waited only for the outbreak
of civil war within Hungary itself, and the restoration of
confidence to the Austrian army, to draw the sword against its
foe. Already, while Italy was still unsubdued, and the Emperor
was scarcely safe in his palace at Vienna, the popular forces
that might be employed against the Government at Pesth came into
view.</p>
<p>[The Serbs in Southern Hungary.]</p>
<p>[Serb Congress at Carlowitz, May 13-15.]</p>
<p>In one of the stormy sessions of the Hungarian Diet at the
time when the attempt was first made to impose the Magyar
language upon Croatia the Illyrian leader, Gai, had thus
addressed the Assembly: "You Magyars are an island in the ocean
of Slavism. Take heed that its waves do not rise and overwhelm
you." The agitation of the spring of 1848 first revealed in its
full extent the peril thus foreshadowed. Croatia had for above a
year been in almost open mutiny, but the spirit of revolt now
spread through the whole of the Serb population of Southern
Hungary, from the eastern limits of Slavonia, <a name=
"FNanchor428">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_428"><sup>[428]</sup></a>
across the plain known as the Banat beyond the junction of the
Theiss and the Danube, up to the borders of Transylvania. The
Serbs had been welcomed into these provinces in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries by the sovereigns of Austria as a bulwark
against the Turks. Charters had been given to them, which were
still preserved, promising them a distinct political
administration under their own elected Voivode, and
ecclesiastical independence under their own Patriarch of the
Greek Church. <a name="FNanchor429">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_429"><sup>[429]</sup></a> These provincial rights had
fared much as others in the Austrian Empire. The Patriarch and
the Voivode had disappeared, and the Banat had been completely
merged in Hungary. Enough, however, of Serb nationality remained
to kindle at the summons of 1848, and to resent with a sudden
fierceness the determination of the Magyar rulers at Pesth that
the Magyar language, as the language of State, should
thenceforward bind together all the races of Hungary in the
enjoyment of a common national life. The Serbs had demanded from
Kossuth and his colleagues the restoration of the local and
ecclesiastical autonomy of which the Hapsburgs had deprived them,
and the recognition of their own national language and customs.
They found, or believed, that instead of a German they were now
to have a Magyar lord, and one more near, more energetic, more
aggressive. Their reply to Kossuth's defence of Magyar ascendency
was the summoning of a Congress of Serbs at Carlowitz on the
Lower Danube. Here it was declared that the Serbs of Austria
formed a free and independent nation under the Austrian sceptre
and the common Hungarian Crown. A Voivode was elected and the
limits of his province were defined. A National Committee was
charged with the duty of organising a Government and of entering
into intimate connection with the neighbouring Slavic Kingdom of
Croatia.</p>
<p>[Jellacic in Croatia.]</p>
<p>At Agram, the Croatian capital, all established authority had
sunk in the catastrophe of March, and a National Committee had
assumed power. It happened that the office of Governor, or Ban,
of Croatia was then vacant. The Committee sent a deputation to
Vienna requesting that the colonel of the first Croatian
regiment, Jellacic, might be appointed. Without waiting for the
arrival of the deputation, the Court, by a patent dated the 23rd
of March, nominated Jellacic to the vacant post. The date of this
appointment, and the assumption of office by Jellacic on the 14th
of April, the very day before the Hungarian Ministry entered upon
its powers, have been considered proof that a secret
understanding existed from the first between Jellacic and the
Court. No further evidence of this secret relation has, however,
been made public, and the belief long current among all friends
of the Magyar cause that Croatia was deliberately instigated to
revolt against the Hungarian Government by persons around the
Emperor seems to rest on no solid foundation. The Croats would
have been unlike all other communities in the Austrian Empire if
they had not risen under the national impulse of 1848. They had
been murmuring against Magyar ascendency for years past, and the
fire long smouldering now probably burst into flame here as
elsewhere without the touch of an incendiary hand. With regard to
Jellacic's sudden appointment it is possible that the Court,
powerless to check the Croatian movement, may have desired to
escape the appearance of compulsion by spontaneously conferring
office on the popular soldier, who was at least more likely to
regard the Emperor's interests than the lawyers and demagogues
around him. Whether Jellacic was at this time genuinely concerned
for Croatian autonomy, or whether from the first, while he
apparently acted with the Croatian nationalists his deepest
sympathies were with the Austrian army, and his sole design was
that of serving the Imperial Crown with or without its own avowed
concurrence, it is impossible to say. That, like most of his
countrymen, he cordially hated the Magyars, is beyond doubt. The
general impression left by his character hardly accords with the
Magyar conception of him as the profound and far-sighted
conspirator-he would seem, on the contrary, to have been a man
easily yielding to the impulses of the moment, and capable of
playing contradictory parts with little sense of his own
inconsistency. <a name="FNanchor430">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_430"><sup>[430]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Affairs of Croatia April 14-June 16.]</p>
<p>Installed in office, Jellacic cast to the winds all
consideration due to the Emperor's personal engagements towards
Hungary, and forthwith permitted the Magyar officials to be
driven out of the country. On the 2nd of May he issued an order
forbidding all Croatian authorities to correspond with the
Government at Pesth. Batthy&aacute;ny, the Hungarian Premier, at
once hurried to Vienna, and obtained from the Emperor a letter
commanding Jellacic to submit to the Hungarian Ministry. As the
Ban paid no attention to this mandate, General Hrabowsky,
commander of the troops in the southern provinces, received
orders from Pesth to annul all that Jellacic had done, to suspend
him from his office, and to bring him to trial for high treason.
Nothing daunted, Jellacic on his own authority convoked the Diet
of Croatia for the 5th of June; the populace of Agram, on hearing
of Hrabowsky's mission, burnt the Palatine in effigy. This was a
direct outrage on the Imperial family, and Batthy&aacute;ny
turned it to account. The Emperor had just been driven from
Vienna by the riot of the 15th of May. Batthy&aacute;ny sought
him at Innsbruck, and by assuring him of the support of his loyal
Hungarians against both the Italians and the Viennese obtained
his signature on June 10th to a rescript vehemently condemning
the Ban's action and suspending him from office. Jellacic had
already been summoned to appear at Innsbruck. He set out, taking
with him a deputation of Croats and Serbs, and leaving behind him
a popular Assembly sitting at Agram, in which, besides the
representatives of Croatia, there were seventy Deputies from the
Serb provinces. On the very day on which the Ban reached
Innsbruck, the Imperial order condemning him and suspending him
from his functions was published by Batthy&aacute;ny at Pesth.
Nor was the situation made easier by the almost simultaneous
announcement that civil war had broken out on the Lower Danube,
and that General Hrabowsky, on attempting to occupy Carlowitz,
had been attacked and compelled to retreat by the Serbs under
their national leader Stratimirovic. <a name="FNanchor431">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_431"><sup>[431]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Jellacic, the Court, and the Hungarian Government.]</p>
<p>It is said that the Emperor Ferdinand, during deliberations in
council on which the fate of the Austrian Empire depended, was
accustomed to occupy himself with counting the number of
carriages that passed from right and left respectively under the
windows. In the struggle between Croatia and Hungary he appears
to have avoided even the formal exercise of authority, preferring
to commit the decision between the contending parties to the
Archduke John, as mediator or judge. John was too deeply immersed
in other business to give much attention to the matter. What
really passed between Jellacic and the Imperial family at
Innsbruck is unknown. The official request of the Ban was for the
withdrawal or suppression of the rescript signed by the Emperor
on June 10th. Prince Esterhazy, who represented the Hungarian
Government at Innsbruck, was ready to make this concession; but
before the document could be revoked, it had been made public by
Batthy&aacute;ny. With the object of proving his fidelity to the
Court, Jellacic now published an address to the Croatian
regiments serving in Lombardy, entreating them not to be diverted
from their duty to the Emperor in the field by any report of
danger to their rights and their nationality nearer home. So
great was Jellacic's influence with his countrymen that an appeal
from him of opposite tenor would probably have caused the
Croatian regiments to quit Radetzky in a mass, and so have
brought the war in Italy to an ignominious end. His action won
for him a great popularity in the higher ranks of the Austrian
army, and probably gained for him, even if he did not possess it
before, the secret confidence of the Court. That some
understanding now existed is almost certain, for, in spite of the
unrepealed declaration of June 10th, and the postponement of the
Archduke's judgment, Jellacic was permitted to return to Croatia
and to resume his government. The Diet at Agram occupied itself
with far-reaching schemes for a confederation of the southern
Slavs; but its discussions were of no practical effect, and after
some weeks it was extinguished under the form of an adjournment.
From this time Jellacic held dictatorial power. It was
unnecessary for him in his relations with Hungary any longer to
keep up the fiction of a mere defence of Croatian rights; he
appeared openly as the champion of Austrian unity. In
negotiations which he held with Batthy&aacute;ny at Vienna during
the last days of July, he demanded the restoration of single
Ministries for War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs for the whole
Austrian Empire. The demand was indignantly refused, and the
chieftains of the two rival races quitted Vienna to prepare for
war.</p>
<p>[Imminent breach between Austria and Hungary.]</p>
<p>[Jellacic restored to office, Sept. 3. He marches on
Pesth.]</p>
<p>The Hungarian National Parliament, elected under the new
Constitution, had been opened at Pesth on July 5th. Great efforts
had been made, in view of the difficulties with Croatia and of
the suspected intrigues between the Ban and the Court party, to
induce the Emperor Ferdinand to appear at Pesth in person. He
excused himself from this on the ground of illness, but sent a
letter to the Parliament condemning not only in his own name but
in that of every member of the Imperial family the resistance
offered to the Hungarian Government in the southern provinces. If
words bore any meaning, the Emperor stood pledged to a loyal
co-operation with the Hungarian Ministers in defence of the unity
and the constitution of the Hungarian Kingdom as established by
the laws of April. Yet at this very time the Minister of War at
Vienna was encouraging Austrian officers to join the Serb
insurgents. Kossuth, who conducted most of the business of the
Hungarian Government in the Lower Chamber at Pesth, made no
secret of his hostility to the central powers. While his
colleagues sought to avoid a breach with the other half of the
Monarchy, it seemed to be Kossuth's object rather to provoke it.
In calling for a levy of two hundred thousand men to crash the
Slavic rebellion, he openly denounced the Viennese Ministry and
the Court as its promoters. In leading the debate upon the
Italian War, he endeavoured without the knowledge of his
colleagues to make the cession of the territory west of the Adige
a condition of Hungary's participation in the struggle. As
Minister of Finance, he spared neither word nor act to
demonstrate his contempt for the financial interests of Austria.
Whether a gentler policy on the part of the most powerful
statesman in Hungary might have averted the impending conflict it
is vain to ask; but in the uncompromising enmity of Kossuth the
Austrian Court found its own excuse for acts in which
shamelessness seemed almost to rise into political virtue. No
sooner had Radetzky's victories and the fall of Milan brought the
Emperor back to Vienna than the new policy came into effect. The
veto of the sovereign was placed upon the laws passed by the Diet
at Pesth for the defence of the Kingdom. The Hungarian Government
was required to reinstate Jellacic in his dignities, to enter
into negotiations at Vienna with him and the Austrian Ministry,
and finally to desist from all military preparations against the
rebellious provinces. In answer to these demands the Diet sent a
hundred of its members to Vienna to claim from the Emperor the
fulfilment of his plighted word. The miserable man received them
on the 9th of September with protestations of his sincerity; but
even before the deputation had passed the palace-gates, there
appeared in the official gazette a letter under the Emperor's own
hand replacing Jellacic in office and acquitting him of every
charge that had been brought against him. It was for this formal
recognition alone that Jellacic had been waiting. On the 11th of
September he crossed the Drave with his army, and began his march
against the Hungarian <a name="FNanchor432">capital.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_432"><sup>[432]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Mission of Lamberg. He is murdered at Pesth, Sept. 28.]</p>
<p>The Ministry now in office at Vienna was composed in part of
men who had been known as reformers in the early days of 1848;
but the old order was represented by Count Wessenberg, who had
been Metternich's assistant at the Congress of Vienna, and by
Latour, the War Minister, a soldier of high birth whose career
dated back to the campaign of Austerlitz. Whatever contempt might
be felt by one section of the Cabinet for the other, its members
were able to unite against the independence of Hungary as they
had united against the independence of Italy. They handed in to
the Emperor a memorial in which the very concessions to which
they owed their own existence as a Constitutional Ministry were
made a ground for declaring the laws establishing Hungarian
autonomy null and void. In a tissue of transparent sophistries
they argued that the Emperor's promise of a Constitution to all
his dominions on the 15th of March disabled him from assenting,
without the advice of his Viennese Ministry, to the resolutions
subsequently passed by the Hungarian Diet, although the union
between Hungary and the other Hereditary States had from the
first rested solely on the person of the monarch, and no German
official had ever pretended to exercise authority over Hungarians
otherwise than by order of the sovereign as Hungarian King. The
publication of this Cabinet memorial, which appeared in the
journals at Pesth on the 15th of September, gave plain warning to
the Hungarians that, if they were not to be attacked by Jellacic
and the Austrian army simultaneously, they must make some
compromise with the Government at Vienna. Batthy&aacute;ny was
inclined to concession, and after resigning office in consequence
of the Emperor's desertion he had already re-assumed his post
with colleagues disposed to accept his own pacific policy.
Kossuth spoke openly of war with Austria and of a dictatorship.
As Jellacic advanced towards Pesth, the Palatine took command of
the Hungarian army and marched southwards. On reaching Lake
Baloton, on whose southern shore the Croats were encamped, he
requested a personal conference with Jellacic, and sailed to the
appointed place of meeting. But he waited in vain for the Ban;
and rightly interpreting this rejection of his overtures, he fled
from the army and laid down his office. The Emperor now sent
General Lamberg from Vienna with orders to assume the supreme
command alike over the Magyar and the Croatian forces, and to
prevent an encounter. On the success of Lamberg's mission hung
the last chance of reconciliation between Hungary and Austria.
Batthy&aacute;ny, still clinging to the hope of peace, set out
for the camp in order to meet the envoy on his arrival. Lamberg,
desirous of obtaining the necessary credentials from the
Hungarian Government, made his way to Pesth. There he found
Kossuth and a Committee of Six installed in power. Under their
influence the Diet passed a resolution forbidding Lamberg to
assume command of the Hungarian troops, and declaring him a
traitor if he should attempt to do so. The report spread through
Pesth that Lamberg had come to seize the citadel and bombard the
town; and before he could reach a place of safety he was attacked
and murdered by a raging mob. It was in vain that
Batthy&aacute;ny, who now laid down his office, besought the
Government at Vienna to take no rash step of vengeance. The
pretext for annihilating Hungarian independence had been given,
and the mask was cast aside. A manifesto published by the Emperor
on the 3rd of October declared the Hungarian Parliament
dissolved, and its acts null and void. Martial law was
proclaimed, and Jellacic appointed commander of all the forces
and representative of the sovereign. In the course of the next
few days it was expected that he would enter Pesth as
conqueror.</p>
<p>[Manifesto of Oct. 3.]</p>
<p>[Tumult of Oct. 6 at Vienna. Latour murdered.]</p>
<p>In the meantime, however confidently the Government might
reckon on Jellacic's victory, the passions of revolution were
again breaking loose in Vienna itself. Increasing misery among
the poor, financial panics, the reviving efforts of professional
agitators, had renewed the disturbances of the spring in forms
which alarmed the middle classes almost as much as the holders of
power. The conflict of the Government with Hungary brought
affairs to a crisis. After discovering the uselessness of
negotiations with the Emperor, the Hungarian Parliament had sent
some of its ablest members to request an audience from the
Assembly sitting at Vienna, in order that the representatives of
the western half of the Empire might, even at the last moment,
have the opportunity of pronouncing a judgment upon the action of
the Court. The most numerous group in the Assembly was formed by
the Czech deputies from Bohemia. As Slavs, the Bohemian deputies
had sympathised with the Croats and Serbs in their struggle
against Magyar ascendency, and in their eyes Jellacic was still
the champion of a national cause. Blinded by their sympathies of
race to the danger involved to all nationalities alike by the
restoration of absolutism, the Czech majority, in spite of a
singularly impressive warning given by a leader of the German
Liberals, refused a hearing to the Hungarian representatives. The
Magyars, repelled by the Assembly, sought and found allies in the
democracy of Vienna itself. The popular clubs rang with
acclamations for the cause of Hungarian freedom and with
invectives against the Czech instruments of tyranny. In the midst
of this deepening agitation tidings arrived at Vienna that
Jellacic had been repulsed in his march on Pesth and forced to
retire within the Austrian frontier. It became necessary for the
Viennese Government to throw its own forces into the struggle,
and an order was given by Latour to the regiments in the capital
to set out for the scene of warfare. This order had, however,
been anticipated by the democratic leaders, and a portion of the
troops had been won over to the popular side. Latour's commands
were resisted; and upon an attempt being made to enforce the
departure of the troops, the regiments fired on one another
(October 6th). The battalions of the National Guard which rallied
to the support of the Government were overpowered by those
belonging to the working men's districts. The insurrection was
victorious; the Ministers submitted once more to the masters of
the streets, and the orders given to the troops were withdrawn.
But the fiercer part of the mob was not satisfied with a
political victory. There were criminals and madmen among its
leaders who, after the offices of Government had been stormed and
Latour had been captured, determined upon his death. It was in
vain that some of the keenest political opponents of the Minister
sought at the peril of their own lives to protect him from his
murderers. He was dragged into the court in front of the War
Office, and there slain with ferocious and yet deliberate
barbarity. <a name="FNanchor433">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_433"><sup>[433]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Emperor at Olm&uuml;tz.]</p>
<p>[Windischgr&auml;tz marches on Vienna.]</p>
<p>The Emperor, while the city was still in tumult, had in his
usual fashion promised that the popular demands should be
satisfied; but as soon as he was unobserved he fled from Vienna,
and in his flight he was followed by the Czech deputies and many
German Conservatives, who declared that their lives were no
longer safe in the capital. Most of the Ministers gathered round
the Emperor at Olm&uuml;tz in Moravia; the Assembly, however,
continued to hold its sittings in Vienna, and the Finance
Minister, apparently under instructions from the Court, remained
at his post, and treated the Assembly as still possessed of legal
powers. But for all practical purposes the western half of the
Austrian Empire had now ceased to have any Government whatever;
and the real state of affairs was bluntly exposed in a manifesto
published by Count Windischgr&auml;tz at Prague on the 11th of
October, in which, without professing to have received any
commission from the Emperor, he announced his intention of
marching on Vienna in order to protect the sovereign and maintain
the unity of the Empire. In due course the Emperor ratified the
action of his energetic soldier; Windischgr&auml;tz was appointed
to the supreme command over all the troops of the Empire with the
exception of Radetzky's army, and his march against Vienna was
begun.</p>
<p>[Windischgr&auml;tz conquers Vienna, Oct. 26-Nov. 1.]</p>
<p>To the Hungarian Parliament, exasperated by the decree
ordering its own dissolution and the war openly levied against
the country by the Court in alliance with Jellacic, the revolt of
the capital seemed to bring a sudden deliverance from all danger.
The Viennese had saved Hungary, and the Diet was willing, if
summoned by the Assembly at Vienna, to send its troops to the
defence of the capital. But the urgency of the need was not
understood on either side till too late. The Viennese Assembly,
treating itself as a legitimate and constitutional power
threatened by a group of soldiers who had usurped the monarch's
authority, hesitated to compromise its legal character by calling
in a Hungarian army. The Magyar generals on the other hand were
so anxious not to pass beyond the strict defence of their own
kingdom, that, in the absence of communication from a Viennese
authority, they twice withdrew from Austrian soil after following
Jellacic in pursuit beyond the frontier. It was not until
Windischgr&auml;tz had encamped within sight of Vienna, and had
detained as a rebel the envoy sent to him by the Hungarian
Government, that Kossuth's will prevailed over the scruples of
weaker men, and the Hungarian army marched against the besiegers.
In the meantime Windischgr&auml;tz had begun his attack on the
suburbs, which were weakly defended by the National Guard and by
companies of students and volunteers, the nominal commander being
one Messenhauser, formerly an officer in the regular army, who
was assisted by a soldier of far greater merit than himself, the
Polish general Bem. Among those who fought were two members of
the German Parliament of Frankfort, Robert Blum and Fr&ouml;bel,
who had been sent to mediate between the Emperor and his
subjects, but had remained at Vienna as combatants. The besiegers
had captured the outskirts of the city, and negotiations for
surrender were in progress, when, on the 30th of October,
Messenhauser from the top of the cathedral tower saw beyond the
line of the besiegers on the south-east the smoke of battle, and
announced that the Hungarian army was approaching. An engagement
had in fact begun on the plain of Schwechat between the
Hungarians and Jellacic, reinforced by divisions of
Windischgr&auml;tz's troops. In a moment of wild excitement the
defenders of the capital threw themselves once more upon their
foe, disregarding the offer of surrender that had been already
made. But the tide of battle at Schwechat turned against the
Hungarians. They were compelled to retreat, and
Windischgr&auml;tz, reopening his cannonade upon the rebels who
were also violators of their truce, became in a few hours master
of Vienna. He made his entry on the 31st of October, and treated
Vienna as a conquered city. The troops had behaved with ferocity
during the combat in the suburbs, and slaughtered scores of
unarmed persons. No Oriental tyrant ever addressed his fallen
foes with greater insolence and contempt for human right than
Windischgr&auml;tz in the proclamations which, on assuming
government, he addressed to the Viennese; yet, whatever might be
the number of persons arrested and imprisoned, the number now put
to death was not great. The victims were indeed carefully
selected; the most prominent being Robert Blum, in whom, as a
leader of the German Liberals and a Deputy of the German
Parliament inviolable by law, the Austrian Government struck
ostentatiously at the Parliament itself and at German democracy
at large.</p>
<p>[The Parliament at Kremsier, Nov. 22.]</p>
<p>[Schwarzenberg Minister.]</p>
<p>In the subjugation of Vienna the army had again proved itself
the real political power in Austria; but the time had not yet
arrived when absolute government could be openly restored. The
Bohemian deputies, fatally as they had injured the cause of
constitutional rule by their secession from Vienna, were still in
earnest in the cause of provincial autonomy, and would vehemently
have repelled the charge of an alliance with despotism. Even the
mutilated Parliament of Vienna had been recognised by the Court
as in lawful session until the 22nd of October, when an order was
issued proroguing the Parliament and bidding it re-assemble a
month later at Kremsier, in Moravia. There were indications in
the weeks succeeding the fall of Vienna of a conflict between the
reactionary and the more liberal influences surrounding the
Emperor, and of an impending <i>coup d'etat</i>: but counsels of
prudence prevailed for the moment; the Assembly was permitted to
meet at Kremsier, and professions of constitutional principle
were still made with every show of sincerity. A new Ministry,
however, came into office, with Prince Felix Schwarzenberg at its
head. Schwarzenberg belonged to one of the greatest Austrian
families. He had been ambassador at Naples when the revolution of
1848 broke out, and had quitted the city with words of menace
when insult was offered to the Austrian flag. Exchanging
diplomacy for war, he served under Radetzky, and was soon
recognised as the statesman in whom the army, as a political
power, found its own peculiar representative. His career had
hitherto been illustrated chiefly by scandals of private life so
flagrant that England and other countries where he had held
diplomatic posts had insisted on his removal; but the cynical and
reckless audacity of the man rose in his new calling as Minister
of Austria to something of political greatness. Few statesmen
have been more daring than Schwarzenberg; few have pushed to more
excessive lengths the advantages to be derived from the moral or
the material weakness of an adversary. His rule was the debauch
of forces respited in their extremity for one last and worst
exertion. Like the Roman Sulla, he gave to a condemned and
perishing cause the passing semblance of restored vigour, and
died before the next great wave of change swept his creations
away.</p>
<p>[Ferdinand abdicates, Dec. 2. Francis Joseph Emperor.]</p>
<p>[Dissolution of the Kremsier Parliament, March 7, 1849.]</p>
<p>[The Unitary Constitutional Edict, March, 1849.]</p>
<p>Schwarzenberg's first act was the deposition of his sovereign.
The imbecility of the Emperor Ferdinand had long suggested his
abdication or dethronement, and the time for decisive action had
now arrived. He gladly withdrew into private life: the crown,
declined by his brother and heir, was passed on to his nephew,
Francis Joseph, a youth of eighteen. This prince had at least not
made in person, not uttered with his own lips, not signed with
his own hand, those solemn engagements with the Hungarian nation
which Austria was now about to annihilate with fire and sword. He
had not moved in friendly intercourse with men who were
henceforth doomed to the scaffold. He came to the throne as
little implicated in the acts of his predecessor as any nominal
chief of a State could be; as fitting an instrument in the hands
of Court and army as any reactionary faction could desire.
Helpless and well-meaning, Francis Joseph, while his troops
poured into Hungary, played for a while in Austria the part of a
loyal observer of his Parliament; then, when the moment had come
for its destruction, he obeyed his soldier-minister as Ferdinand
had in earlier days obeyed the students, and signed the decree
for its dissolution (March 4, 1849). The Assembly, during its
sittings at Vienna, had accomplished one important task: it had
freed the peasantry from the burdens attaching to their land and
converted them into independent proprietors. This part of its
work survived it, and remained almost the sole gain that Austria
derived from the struggle of 1848. After the removal to Kremsier,
a Committee of the Assembly had been engaged with the formation
of a Constitution for Austria, and the draft was now completed.
In the course of debate something had been gained by the
representatives of the German and the Slavic races in the way of
respect for one another's interests and prejudices; some
political knowledge had been acquired; some approach made to an
adjustment between the claims of the central power and of
provincial autonomy. If the Constitution sketched at Kremsier had
come into being, it would at least have given to Western Austria
and to Galicia, which belonged to this half of the Empire, a
system of government based on popular desires and worthy, on the
part of the Crown, of a fair trial. But, apart from its own
defects from the monarchical point of view, this Constitution
rested on the division of the Empire into two independent parts;
it assumed the separation of Hungary from the other Hereditary
States; and of a separate Hungarian Kingdom the Minister now in
power would hear no longer. That Hungary had for centuries
possessed and maintained its rights; that, with the single
exception of the English, no nation in Europe had equalled the
Magyars in the stubborn and unwearied defence of Constitutional
law; that, in an age when national spirit was far less hotly
inflamed, the Emperor Joseph had well-nigh lost his throne and
wrecked his Empire in the attempt to subject this resolute race
to a centralised administration, was nothing to Schwarzenberg and
the soldiers who were now trampling upon revolution. Hungary was
declared to have forfeited by rebellion alike its ancient rights
and the contracts of 1848. The dissolution of the Parliament of
Kremsier was followed by the publication of an edict affecting to
bestow a uniform and centralised Constitution upon the entire
Austrian Empire. All existing public rights were thereby
extinguished; and, inasmuch as the new Constitution, in so far as
it provided for a representative system, never came into
existence, but remained in abeyance until it was formally
abrogated in 1851, the real effect of the Unitary Edict of March,
1849, which professed to close the period of revolution by
granting the same rights to all, was to establish absolute
government and the rule of the sword throughout the Emperor's
dominions. Provincial institutions giving to some of the German
and Slavic districts a shadowy control of their own local affairs
only marked the distinction between the favoured and the dreaded
parts of the Empire. Ten years passed before freedom again came
within sight of the Austrian peoples. <a name=
"FNanchor434">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_434"><sup>[434]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Hungary.]</p>
<p>[The Roumanians in Transylvania.]</p>
<p>The Hungarian Diet, on learning of the transfer of the crown
from Ferdinand to Francis Joseph, had refused to acknowledge this
act as valid, on the ground that it had taken place without the
consent of the Legislature, and that Francis Joseph had not been
crowned King of Hungary. Ferdinand was treated as still the
reigning sovereign, and the war now became, according to the
Hungarian view, more than ever a war in defence of established
right, inasmuch as the assailants of Hungary were not only
violators of a settled constitution but agents of a usurping
prince. The whole nation was summoned to arms; and in order that
there might be no faltering at headquarters, the command over the
forces on the Danube was given by Kossuth to G&ouml;rgei, a young
officer of whom little was yet known to the world but that he had
executed Count Eug&egrave;ne Zichy, a powerful noble, for holding
communications with Jellacic. It was the design of the Austrian
Government to attack Hungary at once by the line of the Danube
and from the frontier of Galicia on the north-east. The Serbs
were to be led forward from their border-provinces against the
capital; and another race, which centuries of oppression had
filled with bitter hatred of the Magyars, was to be thrown into
the struggle. The mass of the population of Transylvania belonged
to the Roumanian stock. The Magyars, here known by the name of
Szeklers, and a community of Germans, descended from immigrants
who settled in Transylvania about the twelfth century, formed a
small but a privileged minority, in whose presence the Roumanian
peasantry, poor, savage, and absolutely without political rights,
felt themselves before 1848 scarcely removed from serfdom. In the
Diet of Transylvania the Magyars held command, and in spite of
the resistance of the Germans, they had succeeded in carrying an
Act, in May, 1848, uniting the country with Hungary. This Act had
been ratified by the Emperor Ferdinand, but it was followed by a
widespread insurrection of the Roumanian peasantry, who were
already asserting their claims as a separate nation and demanding
equality with their oppressors. The rising of the Roumanians had
indeed more of the character of an agrarian revolt than of a
movement for national independence. It was marked by atrocious
cruelty; and although the Hapsburg standard was raised, the
Austrian commandant, General Puchner, hesitated long before
lending the insurgents his countenance. At length, in October, he
declared against the Hungarian Government. The union of the
regular troops with the peasantry overpowered for a time all
resistance. The towns fell under Austrian sway, and although the
Szeklers were not yet disarmed, Transylvania seemed to be lost to
Hungary. General Puchner received orders to lead his troops, with
the newly formed Roumanian militia, westward into the Banat, in
order to co-operate in the attack which was to overwhelm the
Hungarians from every quarter of the kingdom. <a name=
"FNanchor435">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_435"><sup>[435]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Austrians occupy Pesth, Jan. 5, 1849.]</p>
<p>On the 15th of December, Windischgr&auml;tz, in command of the
main Austrian army, crossed the river Leitha, the border between
German and Magyar territory. G&ouml;rgei, who was opposed to him,
had from the first declared that Pesth must be abandoned and a
war of defence carried on in Central Hungary. Kossuth, however,
had scorned this counsel, and announced that he would defend
Pesth to the last. The backwardness of the Hungarian preparations
and the disorder of the new levies justified the young general,
who from this time assumed the attitude of contempt and hostility
towards the Committee of Defence. Kossuth had in fact been
strangely served by fortune in his choice of G&ouml;rgei. He had
raised him to command on account of one irretrievable act of
severity against an Austrian partisan, and without any proof of
his military capacity. In the untried soldier he had found a
general of unusual skill; in the supposed devotee to Magyar
patriotism he had found a military politician as self-willed and
as insubordinate as any who have ever distracted the councils of
a falling State. Dissensions and misunderstandings aggravated the
weakness of the Hungarians in the field. Position after position
was lost, and it soon became evident that the Parliament and
Government could remain no longer at Pesth. They withdrew to
Debreczin beyond the Theiss, and on the 5th of January, 1849,
Windischgr&auml;tz made his entry into the capital. <a name=
"FNanchor436">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_436"><sup>[436]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Hungarian Government at Debreczin.]</p>
<p>[Kossuth and G&ouml;rgei.]</p>
<p>The Austrians now supposed the war to be at an end. It was in
fact but beginning. The fortress of Comorn, on the upper Danube,
remained in the hands of the Magyars; and by conducting his
retreat northwards into a mountainous country where the Austrians
could not follow him G&ouml;rgei gained the power either of
operating against Windischgr&auml;tz's communications or of
combining with the army of General Klapka, who was charged with
the defence of Hungary against an enemy advancing from Galicia.
While Windischgr&auml;tz remained inactive at Pesth, Klapka met
and defeated an Austrian division under General Schlick which had
crossed the Carpathians and was moving southwards towards
Debreczin. G&ouml;rgei now threw himself eastwards upon the line
of retreat of the beaten enemy, and Schlick's army only escaped
capture by abandoning its communications and seeking refuge with
Windischgr&auml;tz at Pesth. A concentration of the Magyar forces
was effected on the Theiss, and the command over the entire army
was given by Kossuth to Dembinski, a Pole who had gained
distinction in the wars of Napoleon and in the campaign of 1831.
G&ouml;rgei, acting as the representative of the officers who had
been in the service before the Revolution, had published an
address declaring that the army would fight for no cause but that
of the Constitution as established by Ferdinand, the legitimate
King, and that it would accept no commands but those of the
Ministers whom Ferdinand had appointed. Interpreting this
manifesto as a direct act of defiance, and as a warning that the
army might under G&ouml;rgei's command make terms on its own
authority with the Austrian Government, Kossuth resorted to the
dangerous experiment of superseding the national commanders by a
Pole who was connected with the revolutionary party throughout
Europe. The act was disastrous in its moral effects upon the
army; and, as a general, Dembinski entirely failed to justify his
reputation. After permitting Schlick's corps to escape him he
moved forwards from the Theiss against Pesth. He was met by the
Austrians and defeated at Kapolna (February 26). Both armies
retired to their earlier positions, and, after a declaration from
the Magyar generals that they would no longer obey his orders,
Dembinski was removed from his command, though he remained in
Hungary to interfere once more with evil effect before the end of
the war.</p>
<p>[The Austrians driven out of Hungary, April.]</p>
<p>The struggle between Austria and Hungary had reached this
stage when the Constitution merging all provincial rights in one
centralised system was published by Schwarzenberg. The Croats,
the Serbs, the Roumanians, who had so credulously flocked to the
Emperor's banner under the belief that they were fighting for
their own independence, at length discovered their delusion.
Their enthusiasm sank; the bolder among them even attempted to
detach their countrymen from the Austrian cause; but it was too
late to undo what had already been done. Jellacic, now
undistinguishable from any other Austrian general, mocked the
politicians of Agram who still babbled of Croatian autonomy:
Stratimirovic, the national leader of the Serbs, sank before his
rival the Patriarch of Carlowitz, a Churchman who preferred
ecclesiastical immunities granted by the Emperor of Austria to
independence won on the field of battle by his countrymen. Had a
wiser or more generous statesmanship controlled the Hungarian
Government in the first months of its activity, a union between
the Magyars and the subordinate races against Viennese
centralisation might perhaps even now have been effected. But
distrust and animosity had risen too high for the mediators
between Slav and Magyar to attain any real success, nor was any
distinct promise of self-government even now to be drawn from the
offers of concession which were held out at Debreczin. An
interval of dazzling triumph seemed indeed to justify the
Hungarian Government in holding fast to its sovereign claims. In
the hands of able leaders no task seemed too hard for Magyar
troops to accomplish. Bem, arriving in Transylvania without a
soldier, created a new army, and by a series of extraordinary
marches and surprises not only overthrew the Austrian and
Roumanian troops opposed to him, but expelled a corps of Russians
whom General Puchner in his extremity had invited to garrison
Hermannstadt. G&ouml;rgei, resuming in the first week of April
the movement in which Dembinski had failed, inflicted upon the
Austrians a series of defeats that drove them back to the walls
of Pesth; while Klapka, advancing on Comorn, effected the relief
of this fortress, and planted in the rear of the Austrians a
force which threatened to cut them off from Vienna. It was in
vain that the Austrian Government removed Windischgr&auml;tz from
his command. His successor found that a force superior to his own
was gathering round him on every side. He saw that Hungary was
lost; and leaving a garrison in the fortress of Buda, he led off
his army in haste from the capital, and only paused in his
retreat when he had reached the Austrian frontier.</p>
<p>[Declaration of Hungarian Independence, April 19.]</p>
<p>The Magyars, rallying from their first defeats, had
brilliantly achieved the liberation of their land. The Court of
Vienna, attempting in right of superior force to overthrow an
established constitution, had proved itself the inferior power;
and in mingled exaltation and resentment it was natural that the
party and the leaders who had been foremost in the national
struggle of Hungary should deem a renewed union with Austria
impossible, and submission to the Hapsburg crown an indignity. On
the 19th of April, after the defeat of Windischgr&auml;tz but
before the evacuation of Pesth, the Diet declared that the House
of Hapsburg had forfeited its throne, and proclaimed Hungary an
independent State. No statement was made as to the future form of
government, but everything indicated that Hungary, if successful
in maintaining its independence, would become a Republic, with
Kossuth, who was now appointed Governor, for its chief. Even in
the revolutionary severance of ancient ties homage was paid to
the legal and constitutional bent of the Hungarian mind. Nothing
was said in the Declaration of April 19th of the rights of man;
there was no Parisian commonplace on the sovereignty of the
people. The necessity of Hungarian independence was deduced from
the offences which the Austrian House had committed against the
written and unwritten law of the land, offences continued through
centuries and crowned by the invasion under Windischgr&auml;tz,
by the destruction of the Hungarian Constitution in the edict of
March 9th, and by the introduction of the Russians into
Transylvania. Though coloured and exaggerated by Magyar
patriotism, the charges made against the Hapsburg dynasty were on
the whole in accordance with historical fact; and if the affairs
of States were to be guided by no other considerations than those
relating to the performance of contracts, Hungary had certainly
established its right to be quit of partnership with Austria and
of its Austrian sovereign. But the judgment of history has
condemned Kossuth's declaration of Hungarian independence in the
midst of the struggle of 1849 as a great political error. It
served no useful purpose; it deepened the antagonism already
existing between the Government and a large part of the army; and
while it added to the sources of internal discord, it gave colour
to the intervention of Russia as against a revolutionary cause.
Apart from its disastrous effect upon the immediate course of
events, it was based upon a narrow and inadequate view both of
the needs and of the possibilities of the future. Even in the
interests of the Magyar nation itself as a European power, it may
well be doubted whether in severance from Austria such influence
and such weight could possibly have been won by a race
numerically weak and surrounded by hostile nationalities, as the
ability and the political energy of the Magyars have since won
for them in the direction of the accumulated forces of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.</p>
<p>[Russian intervention against Hungary.]</p>
<p>It has generally been considered a fatal error on the part of
the Hungarian commanders that, after expelling the Austrian army,
they did not at once march upon Vienna, but returned to lay siege
to the fortress of Buda, which resisted long enough to enable the
Austrian Government to reorganise and to multiply its forces. But
the intervention of Russia would probably have been fatal to
Hungarian independence, even if Vienna had been captured and a
democratic government established there for a while in opposition
to the Court at Olm&uuml;tz. The plan of a Russian intervention,
though this intervention was now explained by the community of
interest between Polish and Hungarian rebels, was no new thing.
Soon after the outbreak of the March Revolution the Czar had
desired to send his troops both into Prussia and into Austria as
the restorers of monarchical authority. His help was declined on
behalf of the King of Prussia; in Austria the project had been
discussed at successive moments of danger, and after the
overthrow of the Imperial troops in Transylvania by Bem the
proffered aid was accepted. The Russians who then occupied
Hermannstadt did not, however, enter the country as combatants;
their task was to garrison certain positions still held by the
Austrians, and so to set free the Emperor's troops for service in
the field. On the declaration of Hungarian independence, it
became necessary for Francis Joseph to accept his protector's
help without qualification or disguise. An army of eighty
thousand Russians marched across Galicia to assist the Austrians
in grappling with an enemy before whom, when single-handed, they
had succumbed. Other Russian divisions, while Austria massed its
troops on the Upper Danube, entered Transylvania from the south
and east, and the Magyars in the summer of 1849 found themselves
compelled to defend their country against forces three times more
numerous than their own. <a name="FNanchor437">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_437"><sup>[437]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The summer campaign in Hungary, July-August, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Vilagos, August 13.]</p>
<p>[Vengeance of Austria.]</p>
<p>When it became known that the Czar had determined to throw all
his strength into the scale, Kossuth saw that no ordinary
operations of war could possibly avert defeat, and called upon
his countrymen to destroy their homes and property at the
approach of the enemy, and to leave to the invader a flaming and
devastated solitude. But the area of warfare was too vast for the
execution of this design, even if the nation had been prepared
for so desperate a course. The defence of Hungary was left to its
armies, and G&ouml;rgei became the leading figure in the
calamitous epoch that followed. While the Government prepared to
retire to Szegedin, far in the south-east, G&ouml;rgei took post
on the Upper Danube, to meet the powerful force which the Emperor
of Austria had placed under the orders of General Haynau, a
soldier whose mingled energy and ferocity in Italy had marked him
out as a fitting scourge for the Hungarians, and had won for him
supreme civil as well as military powers. G&ouml;rgei naturally
believed that the first object of the Austrian commander would be
to effect a junction with the Russians, who, under Paskiewitsch,
the conqueror of Kars in 1829, were now crossing the Carpathians;
and he therefore directed all his efforts against the left of the
Austrian line. While he was unsuccessfully attacking the enemy on
the river Waag north of Comorn, Haynau with the mass of his
forces advanced on the right bank of the Danube, and captured
Raab (June 28th). G&ouml;rgei threw himself southwards, but his
efforts to stop Haynau were in vain, and the Austrians occupied
Pesth (July 11th). The Russians meanwhile were advancing
southwards by an independent line of march. Their vanguard
reached the Danube and the Upper Theiss, and G&ouml;rgei seemed
to be enveloped by the enemy. The Hungarian Government adjured
him to hasten towards Szegedin and Arad, where Kossuth was
concentrating all the other divisions for a final struggle; but
G&ouml;rgei held on to his position about Comorn until his
retreat could only be effected by means of a vast detour
northwards, and before he could reach Arad all was lost.
Dembinski was again in command. Charged with the defence of the
passage of the Theiss about Szegedin, he failed to prevent the
Austrians from crossing the river, and on the 5th of August was
defeated at Czoreg with heavy loss. Kossuth now gave the command
to Bern, who had hurried from Transylvania, where overpowering
forces had at length wrested victory from his grasp. Bern fought
the last battle of the campaign at Temesvar. He was overthrown
and driven eastwards, but succeeded in leading a remnant of his
army across the Moldavian frontier and so escaped capture.
G&ouml;rgei, who was now close to Arad, had some strange fancy
that it would dishonour his army to seek refuge on neutral soil.
He turned northwards so as to encounter Russian and not Austrian
regiments, and without striking a blow, without stipulating even
for the lives of the civilians in his camp, he led his army
within the Russian lines at Vilagos, and surrendered
unconditionally to the generals of the Czar. His own life was
spared; no mercy was shown to those who were handed over as his
fellow-prisoners by the Russian to the Austrian Government, or
who were seized by Haynau as his troops advanced. Tribunals more
resembling those of the French Reign of Terror than the Courts of
a civilised Government sent the noblest patriots and soldiers of
Hungary to the scaffold. To the deep disgrace of the Austrian
Crown, Count Batthy&aacute;ny, the Minister of Ferdinand, was
included among those whose lives were sacrificed. The vengeance
of the conqueror seemed the more frenzied and the more insatiable
because it had only been rendered possible by foreign aid.
Crushed under an iron rule, exhausted by war, the prey of a
Government which knew only how to employ its subject-races as
gaolers over one another, Hungary passed for some years into
silence and almost into despair. Every vestige of its old
constitutional rights was extinguished. Its territory was
curtailed by the separation of Transylvania and Croatia; its
administration was handed over to Germans from Vienna. A
conscription, enforced not for the ends of military service but
as the surest means of breaking the national spirit, enrolled its
youth in Austrian regiments, and banished them to the extremities
of the empire. No darker period was known in the history of
Hungary since the wars of the seventeenth century than that which
followed the catastrophe of 1849. <a name="FNanchor438">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_438"><sup>[438]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Italian affairs, August, 1848-March, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Murder of Rossi, Nov. 15. Flight of Pius IX.]</p>
<p>[Roman Republic, Feb. 9, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Tuscany.]</p>
<p>The gloom which followed Austrian victory was now descending
not on Hungary alone but on Italy also. The armistice made
between Radetzky and the King of Piedmont at Vigevano in August,
1848, lasted for seven months, during which the British and
French Governments endeavoured, but in vain, to arrange terms of
peace between the combatants. With military tyranny in its most
brutal form crushing down Lombardy, it was impossible that
Charles Albert should renounce the work of deliverance to which
he had pledged himself. Austria, on the other hand, had now
sufficiently recovered its strength to repudiate the concessions
which it had offered at an earlier time, and Schwarzenberg on
assuming power announced that the Emperor would maintain Lombardy
at every cost. The prospects of Sardinia as regarded help from
the rest of the Peninsula were far worse than when it took up
arms in the spring of 1848. Projects of a general Italian
federation, of a military union between the central States and
Piedmont, of an Italian Constituent Assembly, had succeeded one
another and left no result. Naples had fallen back into
absolutism; Rome and Tuscany, from which aid might still have
been expected, were distracted by internal contentions, and
hastening as it seemed towards anarchy. After the defeat of
Charles Albert at Custozza, Pius IX., who was still uneasily
playing his part as a constitutional sovereign, had called to
office Pellegrino Rossi, an Italian patriot of an earlier time,
who had since been ambassador of Louis Philippe at Rome, and by
his connection with the Orleanist Monarchy had incurred the
hatred of the Republican party throughout Italy. Rossi, as a
vigorous and independent reformer, was as much detested in
clerical and reactionary circles as he was by the demagogues and
their followers. This, however, profited him nothing; and on the
15th of November, as he was proceeding to the opening of the
Chambers, he was assassinated by an unknown hand. Terrified by
this crime, and by an attack upon his own palace by which it was
followed, Pius fled to Gaeta and placed himself under the
protection of the King of Naples. A Constituent Assembly was
summoned and a Republic proclaimed at Rome, between which and the
Sardinian Government there was so little community of feeling
that Charles Albert would, if the Pope had accepted his
protection, have sent his troops to restore him to a position of
security. In Tuscany affairs were in a similar condition. The
Grand Duke had for some months been regarded as a sincere, though
reserved, friend of the Italian cause, and he had even spoken of
surrendering his crown if this should be for the good of the
Italian nation. When, however, the Pope had fled to Gaeta, and
the project was openly avowed of uniting Tuscany with the Roman
States in a Republic, the Grand Duke, moved more by the
fulminations of Pius against his despoilers than by care for his
own crown, fled in his turn, leaving the Republicans masters of
Florence. A miserable exhibition of vanity, riot, and braggadocio
was given to the world by the politicians of the Tuscan State.
Alike in Florence and in Rome all sense of the true needs of the
moment, of the absolute uselessness of internal changes of
Government if Austria was to maintain its dominion, seemed to
have vanished from men's minds. Republican phantoms distracted
the heart and the understanding; no soldier, no military
administrator arose till too late by the side of the rhetoricians
and mob-leaders who filled the stage; and when, on the 19th of
March, the armistice was brought to a close in Upper Italy,
Piedmont took the field alone. <a name="FNanchor439">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_439"><sup>[439]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Match campaign, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Novara, March 23.]</p>
<p>The campaign which now began lasted but for five days. While
Charles Albert scattered his forces from Lago Maggiore to
Stradella on the south of the Po, hoping to move by the northern
road upon Milan, Radetzky concentrated his troops near Pavia,
where he intended to cross the Ticino. In an evil moment Charles
Albert had given the command of his army to Chrzanowski, a Pole,
and had entrusted its southern division, composed chiefly of
Lombard volunteers, to another Pole, Ramorino, who had been
engaged in Mazzini's incursion into Savoy in 1833. Ramorino had
then, rightly or wrongly, incurred the charge of treachery. His
relations with Chrzanowski were of the worst character, and the
habit of military obedience was as much wanting to him as the
sentiment of loyalty to the sovereign from whom he had now
accepted a command. The wilfulness of this adventurer made the
Piedmontese army an easy prey. Ramorino was posted on the south
of the Po, near its junction with the Ticino, but received orders
on the commencement of hostilities to move northwards and defend
the passage of the Ticino at Pavia, breaking up the bridges
behind him. Instead of obeying this order he kept his division
lingering about Stradella. Radetzky, approaching the Ticino at
Pavia, found the passage unguarded. He crossed the river with the
mass of his army, and, cutting off Ramorino's division, threw
himself upon the flank of the scattered Piedmontese. Charles
Albert, whose headquarters were at Novara, hurried southwards.
Before he could concentrate his troops, he was attacked at
Mortara by the Austrians and driven back. The line of retreat
upon Turin and Alessandria was already lost; an attempt was made
to hold Novara against the advancing Austrians. The battle which
was fought in front of this town on the 23rd of March ended with
the utter overthrow of the Sardinian army. So complete was the
demoralisation of the troops that the cavalry were compelled to
attack bodies of half-maddened infantry in the streets of Novara
in order to save the town from pillage. <a name=
"FNanchor440">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_440"><sup>[440]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Abdication of Charles Albert.]</p>
<p>Charles Albert had throughout the battle of the 23rd appeared
to seek death. The reproaches levelled against him for the
abandonment of Milan in the previous year, the charges of
treachery which awoke to new life the miserable record of his
waverings in 1821, had sunk into the very depths of his being.
Weak and irresolute in his earlier political career, harsh and
illiberal towards the pioneers of Italian freedom during a great
part of his reign, Charles had thrown his whole heart and soul
into the final struggle of his country against Austria. This
struggle lost, life had nothing more for him. The personal hatred
borne towards him by the rulers of Austria caused him to believe
that easier terms of peace might be granted to Piedmont if
another sovereign were on its throne, and his resolution, in case
of defeat, was fixed and settled. When night fell after the
battle of Novara he called together his generals, and in their
presence abdicated his crown. Bidding an eternal farewell to his
son Victor Emmanuel, who knelt weeping before him, he quitted the
army accompanied by but one attendant, and passed unrecognised
through the enemy's guards. He left his queen, his capital,
unvisited as he journeyed into exile. The brief residue of his
life was spent in solitude near Oporto. Six months after the
battle of Novara he was carried to the grave.</p>
<p>[Beginning of Victor Emmanuel's reign.]</p>
<p>It may be truly said of Charles Albert that nothing in his
reign became him like the ending of it. Hopeless as the conflict
of 1849 might well appear, it proved that there was one sovereign
in Italy who was willing to stake his throne, his life, the whole
sum of his personal interests, for the national cause; one
dynasty whose sons knew no fear save that others should encounter
death before them on Italy's behalf. Had the profoundest
statesmanship, the keenest political genius, governed the
counsels of Piedmont in 1849, it would, with full prescience of
the ruin of Novara, have bidden the sovereign and the army strike
in self-sacrifice their last unaided blow. From this time there
was but one possible head for Italy. The faults of the Government
of Turin during Charles Albert's years of peace had ceased to
have any bearing on Italian affairs; the sharpest tongues no
longer repeated, the most credulous ear no longer harboured the
slanders of 1848; the man who, beaten and outnumbered, had for
hours sat immovable in front of the Austrian cannon at Novara
had, in the depth of his misfortune, given to his son not the
crown of Piedmont only but the crown of Italy. Honour,
patriotism, had made the young Victor Emmanuel the hope of the
Sardinian army; the same honour and patriotism carried him safely
past the lures which Austria set for the inheritor of a ruined
kingdom, and gave in the first hours of his reign an earnest of
the policy which was to end in Italian union. It was necessary
for him to visit Radetzky in his camp in order to arrange the
preliminaries of peace. There, amid flatteries offered to him at
his father's expense, it was notified to him that if he would
annul the Constitution that his father had made, he might reckon
not only on an easy quittance with the conqueror, but on the
friendship and support of Austria. This demand, though
strenuously pressed in later negotiations, Victor Emmanuel
unconditionally refused. He had to endure for a while the
presence of Austrian troops in his kingdom, and to furnish an
indemnity which fell heavily on so small a State; but the
liberties of his people remained intact, and the pledge given by
his father inviolate. Amid the ruin of all hopes and the
bankruptcy of all other royal reputations throughout Italy, there
proved to be one man, one government, in which the Italian people
could trust. This compensation at least was given in the
disasters of 1849, that the traitors to the cause of Italy and of
freedom could not again deceive, nor the dream of a federation of
princes again obscure the necessity of a single national
government. In the fidelity of Victor Emmanuel to the Piedmontese
Constitution lay the pledge that when Italy's next opportunity
should arrive, the chief would be there who would meet the
nation's need.</p>
<p>[Restoration in Tuscany.]</p>
<p>[Rome and France.]</p>
<p>[French intervention determined on.]</p>
<p>The battle of Novara had not long been fought when the Grand
Duke of Tuscany was restored to his throne under an Austrian
garrison, and his late democratic Minister, Guerazzi, who had
endeavoured by submission to the Court-party to avert an Austrian
occupation, was sent into imprisonment. At Rome a far bolder
spirit was shown. Mazzini had arrived in the first week of March,
and, though his exhortation to the Roman Assembly to forget the
offences of Charles Albert and to unite against the Austrians in
Lombardy came too late, he was able, as one of a Triumvirate with
dictatorial powers, to throw much of his own ardour into the
Roman populace in defence of their own city and State. The enemy
against whom Rome had to be defended proved indeed to be other
than that against whom preparations were being made. The
victories of Austria had aroused the apprehension of the French
Government; and though the fall of Piedmont and Lombardy could
not now be undone, it was determined by Louis Napoleon and his
Ministers to anticipate Austria's restoration of the Papal power
by the despatch of French troops to Rome. All the traditions of
French national policy pointed indeed to such an intervention.
Austria had already invaded the Roman States from the north, and
the political conditions which in 1832 had led so pacific a
minister as Casimir Perier to occupy Ancona were now present in
much greater force. Louis Napoleon could not, without abandoning
a recognised interest and surrendering something of the due
influence of France, have permitted Austrian generals to conduct
the Pope back to his capital and to assume the government of
Central Italy. If the first impulses of the Revolution of 1848
had still been active in France, its intervention would probably
have taken the form of a direct alliance with the Roman Republic;
but public opinion had travelled far in the opposite direction
since the Four Days of June; and the new President, if he had not
forgotten his own youthful relations with the Carbonari, was now
a suitor for the solid favours of French conservative and
religious sentiment. His Ministers had not recognised the Roman
Republic. They were friends, no doubt, to liberty; but when it
was certain that the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Neapolitans,
were determined to restore the Pope, it might be assumed that the
continuance of the Roman Republic was an impossibility. France,
as a Catholic and at the same time a Liberal Power, might well,
under these circumstances, address itself to the task of
reconciling Roman liberty with the inevitable return of the Holy
Father to his temporal throne. Events were moving too fast for
diplomacy; troops must be at once despatched, or the next French
envoy would find Radetzky on the Tiber. The misgivings of the
Republican part of the Assembly at Paris were stilled by French
assurances of the generous intentions of the Government towards
the Roman populations, and of its anxiety to shelter them from
Austrian domination, President, Ministers, and generals
resolutely shut their eyes to the possibility that a French
occupation of Rome might be resisted by force by the Romans
themselves; and on the 22nd of April an armament of about ten
thousand men set sail for Civita Vecchia under the command of
General Oudinot, a son of the Marshal of that name.</p>
<p>[The French at Civita Vecchia, April 25, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Oudinot attacks Rome and is repelled, April 30.]</p>
<p>Before landing on the Italian coast, the French general sent
envoys to the authorities at Civita Vecchia, stating that his
troops came as friends, and demanding that they should be
admitted into the town. The Municipal Council determined not to
offer resistance, and the French thus gained a footing on Italian
soil and a basis for their operations. Messages came from French
diplomatists in Rome encouraging the general to advance without
delay. The mass of the population, it was said, would welcome his
appearance; the democratic faction, if reckless, was too small to
offer any serious resistance, and would disappear as soon as the
French should enter the city. On this point, however, Oudinot was
speedily undeceived. In reply to a military envoy who was sent to
assure the Triumvirs of the benevolent designs of the French,
Mazzini bluntly answered that no reconciliation with the Pope was
possible; and on the 26th of April the Roman Assembly called upon
the Executive to repel force by force. Oudinot now proclaimed a
state of siege at Civita Vecchia, seized the citadel, and
disarmed the garrison. On the 28th he began his march on Rome. As
he approached, energetic preparations were made for resistance.
Garibaldi, who had fought at the head of a free corps against the
Austrians in Upper Italy in 1848, had now brought some hundreds
of his followers to Rome. A regiment of Lombard volunteers, under
their young leader Manara, had escaped after the catastrophe of
Novara, and had come to fight for liberty in its last stronghold
on Italian soil. Heroes, exiles, desperadoes from all parts of
the Peninsula, met in the streets of Rome, and imparted to its
people a vigour and resolution of which the world had long deemed
them incapable. Even the remnant of the Pontifical Guard took
part in the work of defence. Oudinot, advancing with his little
corps of seven thousand men, found himself, without heavy
artillery, in front of a city still sheltered by its ancient
fortifications, and in the presence of a body of combatants more
resolute than his own troops and twice as numerous. He attacked
on the 30th, was checked at every point, and compelled to retreat
towards Civita Vecchia, leaving two hundred and fifty prisoners
in the hands of the enemy. <a name="FNanchor441">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_441"><sup>[441]</sup></a></p>
<p>[French policy, April-May.]</p>
<p>Insignificant as was this misfortune of the French arms, it
occasioned no small stir in Paris and in the Assembly. The
Government, which had declared that the armament was intended
only to protect Rome against Austria, was vehemently reproached
for its duplicity, and a vote was passed demanding that the
expedition should not be permanently diverted from the end
assigned to it. Had the Assembly not been on the verge of
dissolution it would probably have forced upon the Government a
real change of policy. A general election, however, was but a few
days distant, and until the result of this election should be
known the Ministry determined to temporise. M. Lesseps, since
famous as the creator of the Suez Canal, was sent to Rome with
instructions to negotiate for some peaceable settlement. More
honest than his employers, Lesseps sought with heart and soul to
fulfil his task. While he laboured in city and camp, the French
elections for which the President and Ministers were waiting took
place, resulting in the return of a Conservative and reactionary
majority. The new Assembly met on the 28th of May. In the course
of the next few days Lesseps accepted terms proposed by the Roman
Government, which would have precluded the French from entering
Rome. Oudinot, who had been in open conflict with the envoy
throughout his mission, refused his sanction to the treaty, and
the altercations between the general and the diplomatist were
still at their height when despatches arrived from Paris
announcing that the powers given to Lesseps were at an end, and
ordering Oudinot to recommence hostilities. The pretence of
further negotiation would have been out of place with the new
Parliament. On the 4th of June the French general, now strongly
reinforced, occupied the positions necessary for a regular siege
of Rome.</p>
<p>[Attempted insurrection in France, June 13.]</p>
<p>[The French enter Rome, July 3.]</p>
<p>Against the forces now brought into action it was impossible
that the Roman Republic could long defend itself. One hope
remained, and that was in a revolution within France itself. The
recent elections had united on the one side all Conservative
interests, on the other the Socialists and all the more extreme
factions of the Republican party. It was determined that a trial
of strength should first be made within the Assembly itself upon
the Roman question, and that, if the majority there should stand
firm, an appeal should be made to insurrection. Accordingly on
the 11th of June, after the renewal of hostilities had been
announced in Paris, Ledru Rollin demanded the impeachment of the
Ministry. His motion was rejected, and the signal was given for
an outbreak not only in the capital but in Lyons and other
cities. But the Government were on their guard, and it was in
vain that the resources of revolution were once more brought into
play. General Changarnier suppressed without bloodshed a tumult
in Paris on June 13th; and though fighting took place at Lyons,
the insurrection proved feeble in comparison with the movements
of the previous year. Louis Napoleon and his Ministry remained
unshaken, and the siege of Rome was accordingly pressed to its
conclusion. Oudinot, who at the beginning of the month had
carried the positions held by the Roman troops outside the walls,
opened fire with heavy artillery on the 14th. The defence was
gallantly sustained by Garibaldi and his companions until the end
of the month, when the breaches made in the walls were stormed by
the enemy, and further resistance became impossible. The French
made their entry into Rome on the 3rd of July, Garibaldi leading
his troops northwards in order to prolong the struggle with the
Austrians who were now in possession of Bologna, and, if
possible, to reach Venice, which was still uncaptured. Driven to
the eastern coast and surrounded by the enemy, he was forced to
put to sea. He landed again, but only to be hunted over mountain
and forest. His wife died by his side. Rescued by the devotion of
Italian patriots, he made his escape to Piedmont and thence to
America, to reappear in all the fame of his heroic deeds and
sufferings at the next great crisis in the history of his
country.</p>
<p>[The restored Pontifical Government.]</p>
<p>It had been an easy task for a French army to conquer Rome; it
was not so easy for the French Government to escape from the
embarrassments of its victory. Liberalism was still the official
creed of the Republic, and the protection of the Roman population
from a reaction under Austrian auspices had been one of the
alleged objects of the Italian expedition. No stipulation had,
however, been made with the Pope during the siege as to the
future institutions of Rome; and when, on the 14th of July, the
restorations of Papal authority was formally announced by
Oudinot, Pius and his Minister Antonelli still remained
unfettered by any binding engagement. Nor did the Pontiff show
the least inclination to place himself in the power of his
protectors. He remained at Gaeta, sending a Commission of three
Cardinals to assume the government of Rome. The first acts of the
Cardinals dispelled any illusion that the French might have
formed as to the docility of the Holy See. In the presence of a
French Republican army they restored the Inquisition, and
appointed a Board to bring to trial all officials compromised in
the events that had taken place since the murder of Rossi in
November, 1848. So great was the impression made on public
opinion by the action of the Cardinals that Louis Napoleon
considered it well to enter the lists in person on behalf of
Roman liberty; and in a letter to Colonel Ney, a son of the
Marshal, he denounced in language of great violence the efforts
that were being made by a party antagonistic to France to base
the Pope's return upon proscription and tyranny. Strong in the
support of Austria and the other Catholic Powers, the Papal
Government at Gaeta received this menace with indifference, and
even made the discourtesy of the President a ground for
withholding concessions. Of the re-establishment of the
Constitution granted by Pius in 1848 there was now no question;
all that the French Ministry could hope was to save some
fragments in the general shipwreck of representative government,
and to avert the vengeance that seemed likely to fall upon the
defeated party. A Pontifical edict, known as the Motu Proprio,
ultimately bestowed upon the municipalities certain local powers,
and gave to a Council, nominated by the Pope from among the
persons chosen by the municipalities, the right of consultation
on matters of finance. More than this Pius refused to grant, and
when he returned to Rome it was as an absolute sovereign. In its
efforts on behalf of the large body of persons threatened with
prosecution the French Government was more successful. The
so-called amnesty which was published by Antonelli with the Motu
Proprio seemed indeed to have for its object the classification
of victims rather than the announcement of pardon; but under
pressure from the French the excepted persons were gradually
diminished in number, and all were finally allowed to escape
other penalties by going into exile. To those who were so driven
from their homes Piedmont offered a refuge.</p>
<p>[Fall of Venice, Aug. 25.]</p>
<p>[Sicily conquered by Ferdinand, April, May.]</p>
<p>Thus the pall of priestly absolutism and misrule fell once
more over the Roman States, and the deeper the hostility of the
educated classes to the restored power the more active became the
system of repression. For liberty of person there was no security
whatever, and, though the offences of 1848 were now professedly
amnestied, the prisons were soon thronged with persons arrested
on indefinite charges and detained for an unlimited time without
trial. Nor was Rome more unfortunate in its condition than Italy
generally. The restoration of Austrian authority in the north was
completed by the fall of Venice. For months after the subjugation
of the mainland, Venice, where the Republic had again been
proclaimed and Manin had been recalled to power, had withstood
all the efforts of the Emperor's forces. Its hopes had been
raised by the victories of the Hungarians, which for a moment
seemed almost to undo the catastrophe of Novara. But with the
extinction of all possibility of Hungarian aid the inevitable end
came in view. Cholera and famine worked with the enemy; and a
fortnight after G&ouml;rgei had laid down his arms at Vilagos the
long and honourable resistance of Venice ended with the entry of
the Austrians (August 25th). In the south, Ferdinand of Naples
was again ruling as despot throughout the full extent of his
dominions. Palermo, which had struck the first blow for freedom
in 1848, had soon afterwards become the seat of a Sicilian
Parliament, which deposed the Bourbon dynasty and offered the
throne of Sicily to the younger brother of Victor Emmanuel. To
this Ferdinand replied by a fleet to Messina, which bombarded
that city for five days and laid a great part of it in ashes. His
violence caused the British and French fleets to interpose, and
hostilities were suspended until the spring of 1849, the Western
Powers ineffectually seeking to frame some compromise acceptable
at once to the Sicilians and to the Bourbon dynasty. After the
triumph of Radetzky at Novara and the rejection by the Sicilian
Parliament of the offer of a separate constitution and
administration for the island, Ferdinand refused to remain any
longer inactive. His fleet and army moved southwards from
Messina, and a victory won at the foot of Mount Etna over the
Sicilian forces, followed by the capture of Catania, brought the
struggle to a close. The Assembly at Palermo dispersed, and the
Neapolitan troops made their entry into the capital without
resistance on the 15th of May. It was in vain that Great Britain
now urged Ferdinand to grant to Sicily the liberties which he had
hitherto professed himself willing to bestow. Autocrat he was,
and autocrat he intended to remain. On the mainland the
iniquities practised by his agents seem to have been even worse
than in Sicily, where at least some attempt was made to use the
powers of the State for the purposes of material improvement. For
those who had incurred the enmity of Ferdinand's Government there
was no law and no mercy. Ten years of violence and oppression,
denounced by the voice of freer lands, had still to be borne by
the subjects of this obstinate tyrant ere the reckoning-day
arrived, and the deeply rooted jealousy between Sicily and
Naples, which had wrought so much ill to the cause of Italian
freedom, was appeased by the fall of the Bourbon throne. <a name=
"FNanchor442">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_442"><sup>[442]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Germany from May, 1848.]</p>
<p>[The National Assembly at Frankfort.]</p>
<p>[Archduke John chosen Administrator, June 29.]</p>
<p>We have thus far traced the stages of conflict between the old
monarchical order and the forces of revolution in the Austrian
empire and in that Mediterranean land whose destiny was so
closely interwoven with that of Austria. We have now to pass back
into Germany, and to resume the history of the German revolution
at the point where the national movement seemed to concentrate
itself in visible form, the opening of the Parliament of
Frankfort on the 18th of May, 1848. That an Assembly representing
the entire German people, elected in unbounded enthusiasm and
comprising within it nearly every man of political or
intellectual eminence who sympathised with the national cause,
should be able to impose its will upon the tottering Governments
of the individual German States, was not an unnatural belief in
the circumstances of the moment. No second Chamber represented
the interests of the ruling Houses, nor had they within the
Assembly itself the organs for the expression of their own real
or unreal claims. With all the freedom of a debating club or of a
sovereign authority like the French Convention, the Parliament of
Frankfort entered upon its work of moulding Germany afresh,
limited only by its own discretion as to what it should make
matter of consultation with any other power. There were
thirty-six Governments in Germany, and to negotiate with each of
these on the future Constitution might well seem a harder task
than to enforce a Constitution on all alike. In the creation of a
provisional executive authority there was something of the same
difficulty. Each of the larger States might, if consulted, resist
the selection of a provisional chief from one of its rivals; and
though the risk of bold action was not denied, the Assembly, on
the instance of its President, Von Gagern, a former Minister of
Hesse-Darmstadt, resolved to appoint an Administrator of the
Empire by a direct vote of its own. The Archduke John of Austria,
long known as an enemy of Metternich's system of repression and
as a patron of the idea of German union, was chosen
Administrator, and he accepted the office. Prussia and the other
States acquiesced in the nomination, though the choice of a
Hapsburg prince was unpopular with the Prussian nation and army,
and did not improve the relations between the Frankfort Assembly
and the Court of Berlin. <a name="FNanchor443">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_443"><sup>[443]</sup></a> Schmerling, an Austrian, was
placed at the head of the Archduke's Ministry.</p>
<p>[The National Assembly. May-Sept.]</p>
<p>In the preparation of a Constitution for Germany the Assembly
could draw little help from the work of legislators in other
countries. Belgium, whose institutions were at once recent and
successful, was not a Federal State; the founders of the American
Union had not had to reckon with four kings and to include in
their federal territory part of the dominions of an emperor.
Instead of grappling at once with the formidable difficulties of
political organisation, the Committee charged with the drafting
of a Constitution determined first to lay down the principles of
civil right which were to be the basis of the German
commonwealth. There was something of the scientific spirit of the
Germans in thus working out the substructure of public law on
which all other institutions were to rest; moreover, the
remembrance of the Decrees of Carlsbad and of the other
exceptional legislation from which Germany had so heavily
suffered excited a strong demand for the most solemn guarantees
against arbitrary departure from settled law in the future. Thus,
regardless of the absence of any material power by which its
conclusions were to be enforced, the Assembly, in the intervals
between its stormy debates on the politics of the hour, traced
with philosophic thoroughness the consequences of the principles
of personal liberty and of equality before the law, and fashioned
the order of a modern society in which privileges of class,
diversity of jurisdictions, and the trammels of feudalism on
industrial life were alike swept away. Four months had passed,
and the discussion of the so-called Primary Rights was still
unfinished, when the Assembly was warned by an outbreak of
popular violence in Frankfort itself of the necessity of
hastening towards a constitutional settlement.</p>
<p>[The Armistice of Malm&ouml;, Aug. 26.]</p>
<p>[Outrages at Frankfort, Sept. 18.]</p>
<p>The progress of the insurrection in Schleswig-Holstein against
Danish sovereignty had been watched with the greatest interest
throughout Germany; and in the struggle of these provinces for
their independence the rights and the honour of the German nation
at large were held to be deeply involved. As the representative
of the Federal authority, King Frederick William of Prussia had
sent his troops into Holstein, and they arrived there in time to
prevent the Danish army from following up its first successes and
crushing the insurgent forces. Taking up the offensive, General
Wrangel at the head of the Prussian troops succeeded in driving
the Danes out of Schleswig, and at the beginning of May he
crossed the border between Schleswig and Jutland and occupied the
Danish fortress of Fredericia. His advance into purely Danish
territory occasioned the diplomatic intervention of Russia and
Great Britain; and, to the deep disappointment of the German
nation and its Parliament, the King of Prussia ordered his
general to retire into Schleswig. The Danes were in the meantime
blockading the harbours and capturing the merchant-vessels of the
Germans, as neither Prussia nor the Federal Government possessed
a fleet of war. For some weeks hostilities were irresolutely
continued in Schleswig, while negotiations were pursued in
foreign capitals and various forms of compromise urged by foreign
Powers. At length, on the 26th of August, an armistice of seven
months was agreed upon at Malm&ouml; in Sweden by the
representatives of Denmark and Prussia, the Court of Copenhagen
refusing to recognise the German central Government at Frankfort
or to admit its envoy to the conferences. The terms of this
armistice, when announced in Germany, excited the greatest
indignation, inasmuch as they declared all the acts of the
Provisional Government of Schleswig-Holstein null and void,
removed all German troops from the Duchies, and handed over their
government during the duration of the armistice to a Commission
of which half the members were to be appointed by the King of
Denmark. Scornfully as Denmark had treated the Assembly of
Frankfort, the terms of the armistice nevertheless required its
sanction. The question was referred to a committee, which, under
the influence of the historian Dahlmann, himself formerly an
official in Holstein, pronounced for the rejection of the treaty.
The Assembly, in a scene of great excitement, resolved that the
execution of the measures attendant on the armistice should be
suspended. The Ministry in consequence resigned, and Dahlmann was
called upon to replace it by one under his own leadership. He
proved unable to do so. Schmerling resumed office, and demanded
that the Assembly should reverse its vote. Though in severance
from Prussia the Central Government had no real means of carrying
on a war with Denmark, the most passionate opposition was made to
this demand. The armistice was, however, ultimately ratified by a
small majority. Defeated in the Assembly, the leaders of the
extreme Democratic faction allied themselves with the populace of
Frankfort, which was ready for acts of violence. Tumultuous
meetings were held; the deputies who had voted for the armistice
were declared traitors to Germany. Barricades were erected, and
although the appearance of Prussian troops prevented an assault
from being made on the Assembly, its members were attacked in the
streets, and two of them murdered by the mob (Sept. 17th). A
Republican insurrection was once more attempted in Baden, but it
was quelled without <a name="FNanchor444">difficulty.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_444"><sup>[444]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Berlin, April-Sept., 1848.]</p>
<p>The intervention of foreign Courts on behalf of Denmark had
given ostensible ground to the Prussian Government for not
pursuing the war with greater resolution; but though the fear of
Russia undoubtedly checked King Frederick William, this was not
the sole, nor perhaps the most powerful influence that worked
upon him. The cause of Schleswig-Hulstein was, in spite of its
legal basis, in the main a popular and a revolutionary one, and
between the King of Prussia and the revolution there was an
intense and a constantly deepening antagonism. Since the meeting
of the National Assembly at Berlin on the 22nd of May the capital
had been the scene of an almost unbroken course of disorder. The
Assembly, which was far inferior in ability and character to that
of Frankfort, soon showed itself unable to resist the influence
of the populace. On the 8th of June a resolution was moved that
the combatants in the insurrection of March deserved well of
their country. Had this motion been carried the King would have
dissolved the Assembly: it was outvoted, but the mob punished
this concession to the feelings of the monarch by outrages upon
the members of the majority. A Civic Guard was enrolled from
citizens of the middle class, but it proved unable to maintain
order, and wholly failed to acquire the political importance
which was gained by the National Guard of Paris after the
revolution of 1830. Exasperated by their exclusion from service
in the Guard, the mob on the 14th of June stormed an arsenal and
destroyed the trophies of arms which they found there. Though
violence reigned in the streets the Assembly rejected a proposal
for declaring the inviolability of its members, and placed itself
under the protection of the citizens of Berlin. King Frederick
William had withdrawn to Potsdam, where the leaders of reaction
gathered round him. He detested his Constitutional Ministers,
who, between a petulant king and a suspicious Parliament, were
unable to effect any useful work and soon found themselves
compelled to relinquish their office. In Berlin the violence of
the working classes, the interruption of business, the example of
civil war in Paris, inclined men of quiet disposition to a return
to settled government at any price. Measures brought forward by
the new Ministry for the abolition of the patrimonial
jurisdictions, the hunting-rights and other feudal privileges of
the greater landowners, occasioned the organisation of a league
for the defence of property, which soon became the focus of
powerful conservative interests. Above all, the claims of the
Archduke John, as Administrator of the Empire, to the homage of
the army, and the hostile attitude assumed towards the army by
the Prussian Parliament itself, exasperated the military class
and encouraged the king to venture on open resistance. A tumult
having taken place at Schweidnitz in Silesia, in which several
persons were shot by the soldiery, the Assembly, pending an
investigation into the circumstances, demanded that the Minister
of War should publish an order requiring the officers of the army
to work with the citizens for the realisation of Constitutional
Government; and it called upon all officers not loyally inclined
to a Constitutional system to resign their commissions as a
matter of honour. Denying the right of the Chamber to act as a
military executive, the Minister of War refused to publish the
order required. The vote was repeated, and in the midst of
threatening demonstrations in the streets the Ministry resigned
(Sept. 7th). <a name="FNanchor445">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_445"><sup>[445]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Prussian army.]</p>
<p>[Count Brandenburg Minister, Nov. 2.]</p>
<p>[Prorogation of the Prussian Assembly, Nov. 9.]</p>
<p>It had been the distinguishing feature of the Prussian
revolution that the army had never for a moment wavered in its
fidelity to the throne. The success of the insurrection of March
18th had been due to the paucity of troops and the errors of
those in command, not to any military disaffection such as had
paralysed authority in Paris and in the Mediterranean States.
Each affront offered to the army by the democratic majority in
the Assembly supplied the King with new weapons; each slight
passed upon the royal authority deepened the indignation of the
officers. The armistice of Malm&ouml; brought back to the
neighbourhood of the capital a general who was longing to crush
the party of disorder, and regiments on whom he could rely; but
though there was now no military reason for delay, it was not
until the capture of Vienna by Windischgr&auml;tz had dealt a
fatal blow at democracy in Germany that Frederick William
determined to have done with his own mutinous Parliament and the
mobs by which it was controlled. During September and October the
riots and tumults in the streets of Berlin continued. The
Assembly, which had rejected the draft of a Constitution
submitted to it by the Cabinet, debated the clauses of one drawn
up by a Committee of its own members, abolished nobility, orders
and titles, and struck out from the style of the sovereign the
words that described him as King by the Grace of God. When
intelligence arrived in Berlin that the attack of
Windischgr&auml;tz upon Vienna had actually begun, popular
passion redoubled. The Assembly was besieged by an angry crowd,
and a resolution in favour of the intervention of Prussia was
brought forward within the House. This was rejected, and it was
determined instead to invoke the mediation of the Central
Government at Frankfort between the Emperor and his subjects. But
the decision of the Assembly on this and every other point was
now matter of indifference. Events outstripped its deliberations,
and with the fall of Vienna its own course was run. On the 2nd of
November the King dismissed his Ministers and called to office
the Count of Brandenburg, a natural son of Frederick William II.,
a soldier in high command, and one of the most outspoken
representatives of the monarchical spirit of the army. The
meaning of the appointment was at once understood. A deputation
from the Assembly conveyed its protest to the King at Potsdam.
The King turned his back upon them without giving an answer, and
on the 9th of November an order was issued proroguing the
Assembly, and bidding it to meet on the 27th at Brandenburg, not
at Berlin.</p>
<p>[Last days of the Prussian Assembly.]</p>
<p>[Dissolution of the Assembly, Dec. 5.]</p>
<p>[Prussian Constitution granted by edict.]</p>
<p>The order of prorogation, as soon as signed by the King was
brought into the Assembly by the Ministers, who demanded that it
should be obeyed immediately and without discussion. The
President allowing a debate to commence, the Ministers and
seventy-eight Conservative deputies left the Hall. The remaining
deputies, two hundred and eighty in number, then passed a
resolution declaring that they would not meet at Brandenburg;
that the King had no power to remove, to prorogue, or to dissolve
the Assembly without its own consent; and that the Ministers were
unfit to hold office. This challenge was answered by a
proclamation of the Ministers declaring the further meeting of
the deputies illegal, and calling upon the Civic Guard not to
recognise them as a Parliament. On the following day General
Wrangel and his troops entered Berlin and surrounded the Assembly
Hall. In reply to the protests of the President, Wrangel answered
that the Parliament had been prorogued and must disappear. The
members peaceably left the Hall, but reassembled at another spot
that they had selected in anticipation of expulsion; and for some
days they were pursued by the military from one place of meeting
to another. On the 15th of November they passed a resolution
declaring the expenditure of state funds and the raising of taxes
by the Government to be illegal so long as the Assembly should
not be permitted to continue its deliberations. The Ministry on
its part showed that it was determined not to brook resistance.
The Civic Guard was dissolved and ordered to surrender its arms.
It did so without striking a blow, and vanished from the scene, a
memorable illustration of the political nullity of the middle
class in Berlin as compared with that of Paris. The state of
siege was proclaimed, the freedom of the Press and the right of
public meeting were suspended. On the 27th of November a portion
of the Assembly appeared, according to the King's order, at
Brandenburg, but the numbers present were not sufficient for the
transaction of business. The presence of the majority, however,
was not required, for the King had determined to give no further
legal opportunities to the men who had defied him. Treating the
vote of November 15th as an act of rebellion on the part of those
concerned in it, the King dissolved the Assembly (December 5th),
and conferred upon Prussia a Constitution drawn up by his own
advisers, with the promise that this Constitution should be
subject to revision by the future representative body. Though the
dissolution of the Assembly occasioned tumults in Breslau and
Cologne it was not actively resented by the nation at large. The
violence of the fallen body during its last weeks of existence
had exposed it to general discredit; its vote of the 15th of
November had been formally condemned by the Parliament of
Frankfort; and the liberal character of the new Constitution,
which agreed in the main with the draft-Constitution produced by
the Committee of the Assembly, disposed moderate men to the
belief that in the conflict between the King and the popular
representatives the fault had not been on the side of the
sovereign.</p>
<p>[The Frankfort Parliament and Austria, Oct.-Dec.]</p>
<p>In the meantime the Parliament of Frankfort, warned against
longer delay by the disturbances of September 17th, had addressed
itself in earnest to the settlement of the Federal Constitution
of Germany. Above a host of minor difficulties two great problems
confronted it at the outset. The first was the relation of the
Austrian Empire, with its partly German and partly foreign
territory, to the German national State; the other was the nature
of the headship to be established. As it was clear that the
Austrian Government could not apply the public law of Germany to
its Slavic and Hungarian provinces, it was enacted in the second
article of the Frankfort Constitution that where a German and a
non-German territory had the same sovereign, the relation between
these countries must be one of purely personal union under the
sovereign, no part of Germany being incorporated into a single
State with any non-German land. At the time when this article was
drafted the disintegration of Austria seemed more probable than
the re-establishment of its unity; no sooner, however, had Prince
Schwarzenberg been brought into power by the subjugation of
Vienna, than he made it plain that the government of Austria was
to be centralised as it had never been before. In the first
public declaration of his policy he announced that Austria would
maintain its unity and permit no exterior influence to modify its
internal organisation; that the settlement of the relations
between Austria and Germany could only be effected after each had
gained some new and abiding political form; and that in the
meantime Austria would continue to fulfil its duties as a
confederate. <a name="FNanchor446">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_446"><sup>[446]</sup></a> The interpretation put upon
this statement at Frankfort was that Austria, in the interest of
its own unity, preferred not to enter the German body, but looked
forward to the establishment of some intimate alliance with it at
a future time. As the Court of Vienna had evidently determined
not to apply to itself the second article of the Constitution,
and an antagonism between German and Austrian policy came within
view, Schmerling, as an Austrian subject, was induced to resign
his office, and was succeeded in it by Gagern, hitherto President
of the Assembly (Dec. 16th). <a name="FNanchor447">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_447"><sup>[447]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Frankfort Parliament and Austria, Dec., Jan.]</p>
<p>In announcing the policy of the new Ministry, Gagern assumed
the exclusion of Austria from the German Federation. Claiming for
the Assembly, as the representative of the German nation,
sovereign power in drawing up the Constitution, he denied that
the Constitution could be made an object of negotiation with
Austria. As Austria refused to fulfil the conditions of the
second article, it must remain outside the Federation; the
Ministry desired, however, to frame some close and special
connection between Austria and Germany, and asked for authority
to negotiate with the Court of Vienna for this purpose. Gagern's
declaration of the exclusion of Austria occasioned a vehement and
natural outburst of feeling among the Austrian deputies, and was
met by their almost unanimous protest. Some days later there
arrived a note from Schwarzenberg which struck at the root of all
that had been done and all that was claimed by the Assembly.
Repudiating the interpretation that had been placed upon his
words, Schwarzenberg declared that the affairs of Germany could
only be settled by an understanding between the Assembly and the
Courts, and by an arrangement with Austria, which was the
recognised chief of the Governments and intended to remain so in
the new Federation. The question of the inclusion or exclusion of
Austria now threw into the shade all the earlier differences
between parties in the Assembly. A new dividing-line was drawn.
On the one side appeared a group composed of the Austrian
representatives, of Ultramontanes who feared a Protestant
ascendency if Austria should be excluded, and of deputies from
some of the smaller States who had begun to dread Prussian
domination. On the other side was the great body of
representatives who set before all the cause of German national
union, who saw that this union would never be effected in any
real form if it was made to depend upon negotiations with the
Austrian Court, and who held, with the Minister, that to create a
true German national State without the Austrian provinces was
better than to accept a phantom of complete union in which the
German people should be nothing and the Cabinet of Vienna
everything. Though coalitions and intrigues of parties obscured
the political prospect from day to day, the principles of Gagern
were affirmed by a majority of the Assembly, and authority to
negotiate some new form of connection with Austria, as a power
outside the Federation, was granted to the Ministry.</p>
<p>[The Federal Headship.]</p>
<p>[King Frederick William IV. elected Emperor, March 28.]</p>
<p>The second great difficulty of the Assembly was the settlement
of the Federal headship. Some were for a hereditary Emperor, some
for a President or Board, some for a monarchy alternating between
the Houses of Prussia and Austria, some for a sovereign elected
for life or for a fixed period. The first decision arrived at was
that the head should be one of the reigning princes of Germany,
and that he should bear the title of Emperor. Against the
hereditary principle there was a strong and, at first, a
successful opposition. Reserving for future discussion other
questions relating to the imperial office, the Assembly passed
the Constitution through the first reading on February 3rd, 1849.
It was now communicated to all the German Governments, with the
request that they would offer their opinions upon it. The four
minor kingdoms-Saxony, Hanover, Bavaria, and W&uuml;rtemberg-with
one consent declared against any Federation in which Austria
should not be included; the Cabinet of Vienna protested against
the subordination of the Emperor of Austria to a central power
vested in any other German prince, and proposed that the entire
Austrian Empire, with its foreign as well as its German elements,
should enter the Federation. This note was enough to prove that
Austria was in direct conflict with the scheme of national union
which the Assembly had accepted; but the full peril of the
situation was not perceived till on the 9th of March
Schwarzenberg published the Constitution of Olm&uuml;tz, which
extinguished all separate rights throughout the Austrian Empire,
and confounded in one mass, as subjects of the Emperor Francis
Joseph, Hungarians, Germans, Slavs and Italians. The import of
the Austrian demand now stood out clear and undisguised. Austria
claimed to range itself with a foreign population of thirty
millions within the German Federation; in other words, to reduce
the German national union to a partnership with all the
nationalities of Central Europe, to throw the weight of an
overwhelming influence against any system of free representative
government, and to expose Germany to war where no interests but
those of the Pole or the Magyar might be at stake. So deep was
the impression made at Frankfort by the fall of the Kremsier
Parliament and the publication of Schwarzenberg's unitary edict,
that one of the most eminent of the politicians who had hitherto
opposed the exclusion of Austria-the Baden deputy
Welcker-declared that further persistence in this course would be
treason to Germany. Ranging himself with the Ministry, he
proposed that the entire German Constitution, completed by a
hereditary chieftainship, should be passed at a single vote on
the second reading, and that the dignity of Emperor should be at
once offered to the King of Prussia. Though the Assembly declined
to pass the Constitution by a single vote, it agreed to vote upon
clause by clause without discussion. The hereditary principle was
affirmed by the narrow majority of four in a House of above five
hundred. The second reading of the Constitution was completed on
the 27th of March, and on the following day the election of the
sovereign took place. Two hundred and ninety votes were given for
the King of Prussia. Two hundred and forty-eight members, hostile
to the hereditary principle or to the prince selected, abstained
from voting. <a name="FNanchor448">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_448"><sup>[448]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Frederick William IV.]</p>
<p>Frederick William had from early years cherished the hope of
seeing some closer union of Germany established under Prussian
influence. But he dwelt in a world where there was more of
picturesque mirage than of real insight. He was almost
superstitiously loyal to the House of Austria; and he failed to
perceive, what was palpable to men of far inferior endowments to
his own, that by setting Prussia at the head of the
constitutional movement of the epoch he might at any time from
the commencement of his reign have rallied all Germany round it.
Thus the revolution of 1848 burst upon him, and he was not the
man to act or to lead in time of revolution. Even in 1848, had he
given promptly and with dignity what, after blood had been shed
in his streets, he had to give with humiliation, he would
probably have been acclaimed Emperor on the opening of the
Parliament of Frankfort, and have been accepted by the universal
voice of Germany. But the odium cast upon him by the struggle of
March 18th was so great that in the election of a temporary
Administrator of the Empire in June no single member at Frankfort
gave him a vote. Time was needed to repair his credit, and while
time passed Austria rose from its ruins. In the spring of 1849
Frederick William could not have assumed the office of Emperor of
Germany without risk of a war with Austria, even had he been
willing to accept this office on the nomination of the Frankfort
Parliament. But to accept the Imperial Crown from a popular
Assembly was repugnant to his deepest convictions. Clear as the
Frankfort Parliament had been, as a whole, from the taint of
Republicanism or of revolutionary violence, it had nevertheless
had its birth in revolution: the crown which it offered would, in
the King's expression, have been picked up from blood and mire.
Had the princes of Germany by any arrangement with the Assembly
tendered the crown to Frederick William the case would have been
different; a new Divine right would have emanated from the old,
and conditions fixed by negotiation between the princes and the
popular Assembly might have been endured. That Frederick William
still aspired to German leadership in one form or another no one
doubted; his disposition to seek or to reject an accommodation
with the Frankfort Parliament varied with the influences which
surrounded him. The Ministry led by the Count of Brandenburg,
though anti-popular in its domestic measures, was desirous of
arriving at some understanding with Gagern and the friends of
German union. Shortly before the first reading of the
Constitution at Frankfort, a note had been drafted in the Berlin
Cabinet admitting under certain provisions the exclusion of
Austria from the Federation, and proposing, not that the Assembly
should admit the right of each Government to accept or reject the
Constitution, but that it should meet in a fair spirit such
recommendations as all the Governments together should by a joint
act submit to it. This note, which would have rendered an
agreement between the Prussian Court and the Assembly possible,
Frederick William at first refused to sign. He was induced to do
so (Jan. 23rd) by his confidant Bunsen, who himself was
authorised to proceed to Frankfort. During Bunsen's absence
despatches arrived at Berlin from Schwarzenberg, who, in his
usual resolute way, proposed to dissolve the Frankfort Assembly,
and to divide Germany between Austria, Prussia, and the four
secondary kingdoms. Bunsen on his return found his work undone;
the King recoiled under Austrian pressure from the position which
he had taken up, and sent a note to Frankfort on the 16th of
February, which described Austria as a necessary part of Germany
and claimed for each separate Government the right to accept or
reject the Constitution as it might think fit. Thus the
acceptance of the headship by Frederick William under any
conditions compatible with the claims of the Assembly was known
to be doubtful when, on the 28th of March, the majority resolved
to offer him the Imperial Crown. The disposition of the Ministry
at Berlin was indeed still favourable to an accommodation; and
when, on the 2nd of April, the members of the Assembly who were
charged to lay its offer before Frederick William arrived at
Berlin, they were received with such cordiality by Brandenburg
that it was believed the King's consent had been won.</p>
<p>[Frederick William IV. refuses the Crown, April 3.]</p>
<p>The reply of the King to the deputation on the following day
rudely dispelled these hopes. He declared that before he could
accept the Crown not only must he be summoned to it by the
Princes of Germany, but the consent of all the Governments must
be given to the Constitution. In other words, he required that
the Assembly should surrender its claims to legislative
supremacy, and abandon all those parts of the Federal
Constitution of which any of the existing Governments
disapproved. As it was certain that Austria and the four minor
kingdoms would never agree to any Federal union worthy of the
name, and that the Assembly could not now, without renouncing its
past, admit that the right of framing the Constitution lay
outside itself, the answer of the King was understood to amount
to a refusal. The deputation left Berlin in the sorrowful
conviction that their mission had failed; and a note which was
soon afterwards received at Frankfort from the King showed that
this belief was correct. <a name="FNanchor449">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_449"><sup>[449]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Frankfort Constitution rejected by the Governments.]</p>
<p>The answer of King Frederick William proved indeed much more
than that he had refused the Crown of Germany; it proved that he
would not accept the Constitution which the Assembly had enacted.
The full import of this determination, and the serious nature of
the crisis now impending over Germany, were at once understood.
Though twenty-eight Governments successively accepted the
Constitution, these were without exception petty States, and
their united forces would scarcely have been a match for one of
its more powerful enemies. On the 5th of April the Austrian
Cabinet declared the Assembly to have been guilty of illegality
in publishing the Constitution, and called upon all Austrian
deputies to quit Frankfort. The Prussian Lower Chamber, elected
under the King's recent edict, having protested against the state
of siege in Berlin, and having passed a resolution in favour of
the Frankfort Constitution, was forthwith dissolved. Within the
Frankfort Parliament the resistance of Governments excited a
patriotic resentment and caused for the moment a union of
parties. Resolutions were passed declaring that the Assembly
would adhere to the Constitution. A Committee was charged with
the ascertainment of measures to be adopted for enforcing its
recognition; and a note was addressed to all the hostile
Governments demanding that they should abstain from proroguing or
dissolving the representative bodies within their dominions with
the view of suppressing the free utterance of opinions in favour
of the Constitution.</p>
<p>[End of the German National Assembly, June, 1849.]</p>
<p>On the ground of this last demand the Prussian official Press
now began to denounce the Assembly of Frankfort as a
revolutionary body. The situation of affairs daily became worse.
It was in vain that the Assembly appealed to the Governments, the
legislative Chambers, the local bodies, the whole people, to
bring the Constitution into effect. The moral force on which it
had determined to rely proved powerless, and in despair of
conquering the Governments by public opinion the more violent
members of the democratic party determined to appeal to
insurrection. On the 4th of May a popular rising began at
Dresden, where the King, under the influence of Prussia, had
dismissed those of his Ministers who urged him to accept the
Constitution, and had dissolved his Parliament. The outbreak
drove the King from his capital; but only five days had passed
when a Prussian army-corps entered the city and crushed the
rebellion. In this interval, short as it was, there had been
indications that the real leaders of the insurrection were
fighting not for the Frankfort Constitution but for a Republic,
and that in the event of their victory a revolutionary
Government, connected with French and Polish schemes of
subversion, would come into power. In Baden this was made still
clearer. There the Government of the Grand Duke had actually
accepted the Frankfort Constitution, and had ordered elections to
be held for the Federal legislative body by which the Assembly
was to be succeeded. Insurrection nevertheless broke out. The
Republic was openly proclaimed; the troops joined the insurgents;
and a Provisional Government allied itself with a similar body
that had sprung into being with the help of French and Polish
refugees in the neighbouring Palatinate. Conscious that these
insurrections must utterly ruin its own cause, the Frankfort
Assembly on the suggestion of Gagern called upon the Archduke
John to suppress them by force of arms, and at the same time to
protect the free expression of opinion on behalf of the
Constitution where threatened by Governments. John, who had long
clung to his office only to further the ends of Austria, refused
to do so, and Gagern in consequence resigned. With his fall ended
the real political existence of the Assembly. In reply to a
resolution which it passed on the 10th of May, calling upon John
to employ all the forces of Germany in defence of the
Constitution, the Archduke placed a mock-Ministry in office. The
Prussian Government, declaring the vote of the 10th of May to be
a summons to civil war, ordered all Prussian deputies to withdraw
from the Assembly, and a few days later its example was imitated
by Saxony and Hanover. On the 20th of May sixty-five of the best
known of the members, including Arndt and Dahlmann, placed on
record their belief that in the actual situation the
relinquishment of the task of the Assembly was the least of
evils, and declared their work at Frankfort ended. Other groups
followed them till there remained only the party of the extreme
Left, which had hitherto been a weak minority, and which in no
sense represented the real opinions of Germany. This
Rump-Parliament, troubling itself little with John and his
Ministers, determined to withdraw from Frankfort, where it
dreaded the appearance of Prussian troops, into W&uuml;rtemberg,
where it might expect some support from the revolutionary
Governments of Baden and the Palatinate. On the 6th of June a
hundred and five deputies assembled at Stuttgart. There they
proceeded to appoint a governing Committee for all Germany,
calling upon the King of W&uuml;rtemberg to supply them with
seven thousand soldiers, and sending out emissaries to stir up
the neighbouring population. But the world disregarded them. The
Government at Stuttgart, after an interval of patience, bade them
begone; and on the 18th of June their hall was closed against
them and they were dispersed by troops, no one raising a hand on
their behalf. The overthrow of the insurgents who had taken up
arms in Baden and the Palatinate was not so easy a matter. A
campaign of six weeks was necessary, in which the army of
Prussia, led by the Prince of Prussia, sustained some reverses,
before the Republican levies were crushed, and with the fall of
Rastadt the insurrection was brought to a close. <a name=
"FNanchor450">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_450"><sup>[450]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Baden insurrection suppressed, July, 1849.]</p>
<p>[Prussia attempts to form a separate union.]</p>
<p>The end of the German Parliament, on which the nation had set
such high hopes and to which it had sent so much of what was
noblest in itself, contrasted lamentably with the splendour of
its opening. Whether a better result would have been attained if,
instead of claiming supreme authority in the construction of
Federal union, the Assembly had from the first sought the
co-operation of the Governments, must remain matter of
conjecture. Austria would under all circumstances have been the
great hindrance in the way; and after the failure of the efforts
made at Frankfort to establish the general union of Germany,
Austria was able completely to frustrate the attempts which were
now made at Berlin to establish partial union upon a different
basis. In notifying to the Assembly his refusal of the Imperial
Crown, King Frederick William had stated that he was resolved to
place himself at the head of a Federation to be formed by States
voluntarily uniting with him under terms to be subsequently
arranged; and in a circular note addressed to the German
Governments he invited such as were disposed to take counsel with
Prussia to unite in Conference at Berlin. The opening of the
Conference was fixed for the 17th of May. Two days before this
the King issued a proclamation to the Prussian people announcing
that in spite of the failure of the Assembly of Frankfort a
German union was still to be formed. When the Conference opened
at Berlin, no envoys appeared but those of Austria, Saxony,
Hanover, and Bavaria. The Austrian representative withdrew at the
end of the first sitting, the Bavarian rather later, leaving
Prussia to lay such foundations as it could for German unity with
the temporising support of Saxony and Hanover. A confederation
was formed, known as the League of the Three Kingdoms. An
undertaking was given that a Federal Parliament should be
summoned, and that a Constitution should be made jointly by this
Parliament and the Governments (May 26th). On the 11th of June
the draft of a Federal Constitution was published. As the King of
Prussia was apparently acting in good faith, and the
draft-Constitution in spite of some defects seemed to afford a
fair basis for union, the question now arose among the leaders of
the German national movement whether the twenty-eight States
which had accepted the ill-fated Constitution of Frankfort ought
or ought not to enter the new Prussian League. A meeting of a
hundred and fifty ex-members of the Frankfort Parliament was held
at Gotha; and although great indignation was expressed by the
more democratic faction, it was determined that the scheme now
put forward by Prussia deserved a fair trial. The whole of the
twenty-eight minor States consequently entered the League, which
thus embraced all Germany with the exception of Austria, Bavaria
and W&uuml;rtemberg. But the Courts of Saxony and Hanover had
from the first been acting with duplicity. The military influence
of Prussia, and the fear which they still felt of their own
subjects, had prevented them from offering open resistance to the
renewed work of Federation; but they had throughout been in
communication with Austria, and were only waiting for the moment
when the complete restoration of Austria's military strength
should enable them to display their true colours. During the
spring of 1849, while the Conferences at Berlin were being held,
Austria was still occupied with Hungary and Venice. The final
overthrow of these enemies enabled it to cast its entire weight
upon Germany. The result was seen in the action of Hanover and
Saxony, which now formally seceded from the Federation. Prussia
thus remained at the end of 1849 with no support but that of the
twenty-eight minor States. Against it, in open or in tacit
antagonism to the establishment of German unity in any effective
form, the four secondary Kingdoms stood ranged by the side of
Austria.</p>
<p>[Prussia in 1849.]</p>
<p>[The Union Parliament at Erfurt, March 1850.]</p>
<p>It was not until the 20th of March, 1850, that the Federal
Parliament, which had been promised ten months before on the
incorporation of the new League, assembled at Erfurt. In the
meantime reaction had gone far in many a German State. In
Prussia, after the dissolution of the Lower Chamber on April
27th, 1849, the King had abrogated the electoral provisions of
the Constitution so recently granted by himself, and had
substituted for them a system based on the representation of
classes. Treating this act as a breach of faith, the Democratic
party had abstained from voting at the elections, with the result
that in the Berlin Parliament of 1850 Conservatives,
Reactionists, and officials formed the great majority. The
revision of the Prussian Constitution, promised at first as a
concession to Liberalism, was conducted in the opposite sense.
The King demanded the strengthening of monarchical power; the
Feudalists, going far beyond him, attacked the municipal and
social reforms of the last two years, and sought to lead Prussia
back to the system of its medi&aelig;val estates. It was in the
midst of this victory of reaction in Prussia that the Federal
Parliament at Erfurt began its sittings. Though the moderate
Liberals, led by Gagern and other tried politicians of Frankfurt,
held the majority in both Houses, a strong Absolutist party from
Prussia confronted them, and it soon became clear that the
Prussian Government was ready to play into the hands of this
party. The draft of the Federal Constitution, which had been made
at Berlin, was presented, according to the undertaking of May
28th, 1849, to the Erfurt Assembly. Aware of the gathering
strength of the reaction and of the danger of delay, the Liberal
majority declared itself ready to pass the draft into law without
a single alteration. The reactionary minority demanded that a
revision should take place; and, to the scandal of all who
understood the methods or the spirit of Parliamentary rule, the
Prussian Ministers united with the party which demanded
alterations in the project which they themselves had brought
forward. A compromise was ultimately effected; but the action of
the Court of Prussia and the conduct of its Ministers throughout
the Erfurt debates struck with deep despondency those who had
believed that Frederick William might still effect the work in
which the Assembly of Frankfort had failed. The trust in the
King's sincerity or consistence of purpose sank low. The sympathy
of the national Liberal party throughout Germany was to a great
extent alienated from Prussia; while, if any expectation existed
at Berlin that the adoption of a reactionary policy would disarm
the hostility of the Austrian Government to the new League, this
hope was wholly vain and <a name="FNanchor451">baseless.</a><a
href="#Footnote_451"><sup>[451]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Action of Austria.]</p>
<p>Austria had from the first protested against the attempt of
the King of Prussia to establish any new form of union in
Germany, and had declared that it would recognise none of the
conclusions of the Federal Parliament of Erfurt. According to the
theory now advanced by the Cabinet of Vienna the ancient Federal
Constitution of Germany was still in force. All that had happened
since March, 1848, was so much wanton and futile mischief-making.
The disturbance of order had at length come to an end, and with
the exit of the rioters the legitimate powers re-entered into
their rights. Accordingly, there could be no question of the
establishment of new Leagues. The old relation of all the German
States to one another under the ascendency of Austria remained in
full strength; the Diet of Frankfort, which had merely suspended
its functions and by no means suffered extinction, was still the
legitimate central authority. That some modifications might be
necessary in the ancient Constitution was the most that Austria
was willing to admit. This, however, was an affair not for the
German people but for its rulers, and Austria accordingly invited
all the Governments to a Congress at Frankfort where the changes
necessary might be discussed. In reply to this summons, Prussia
strenuously denied that the old Federal Constitution was still in
existence. The princes of the numerous petty States which were
included in the new Union assembled at Berlin round Frederick
William, and resolved that they would not attend the Conference
at Frankfort except under reservations and conditions which
Austria would not admit. Arguments and counter-arguments were
exchanged; but the controversy between an old and a new Germany
was one to be decided by force of will or force of arms, not by
political logic. The struggle was to be one between Prussia and
Austria, and the Austrian Cabinet had well gauged the temper of
its opponent. A direct summons to submission would have roused
all the King's pride, and have been answered by war. Before
demanding from Frederick William the dissolution of the Union
which he had founded, Schwarzenberg determined to fix upon a
quarrel in which the King should be perplexed or alarmed at the
results of his own policy. The dominant conviction in the mind of
Frederick William was that of the sanctity of monarchical rule.
If the League of Berlin could be committed to some enterprise
hostile to monarchical power, and could be charged with an
alliance with rebellion, Frederick William would probably falter
in his resolutions, and a resort to arms, for which, however,
Austria was well prepared, would become <a name=
"FNanchor452">unnecessary.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_452"><sup>[452]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Hesse-Cassel.]</p>
<p>[The Diet of Frankfort restored, Sept., 1850.]</p>
<p>[Prussia and Austria.]</p>
<p>[The Warsaw meeting, Oct. 29, 1850.]</p>
<p>[Manteuffel at Olm&uuml;tz, Nov. 29.]</p>
<p>Among the States whose Governments had been forced by public
opinion to join the new Federation was the Electorate of
Hesse-Cassel. The Elector was, like his predecessors, a thorough
despot at heart, and chafed under the restrictions which a
constitutional system imposed upon his rule. Acting under
Austrian instigation, he dismissed his Ministers in the spring of
1850, and placed in office one Hassenpflug, a type of the worst
and most violent class of petty tyrants produced by the
officialism of the minor German States. Hassenpflug immediately
quarrelled with the Estates at Cassel, and twice dissolved them,
after which he proceeded to levy taxes by force. The law-courts
declared his acts illegal; the officers of the army, when called
on for assistance, began to resign. The conflict between the
Minister and the Hessian population was in full progress when, at
the beginning of September, Austria with its vassal Governments
proclaimed the re-establishment of the Diet of Frankfort. Though
Prussia and most of the twenty-eight States confederate with it
treated this announcement as null and void, the Diet, constituted
by the envoys of Austria, the four minor Kingdoms, and a few
seceders from the Prussian Union, commenced its sittings. To the
Diet the Elector of Hesse forthwith appealed for help against his
subjects, and the decision was given that the refusal of the
Hessian Estates to grant the taxes was an offence justifying the
intervention of the central power. Fortified by this judgment,
Hassenpflug now ordered that every person offering resistance to
the Government should be tried by court-martial. He was baffled
by the resignation of the entire body of officers in the Hessian
army; and as this completed the discomfiture of the Elector, the
armed intervention of Austria, as identified with the Diet of
Frankfort, now became a certainty. But to the protection of the
people of Hesse in their constitutional rights Prussia, as chief
of the League which Hesse had joined, stood morally pledged. It
remained for the King to decide between armed resistance to
Austria or the humiliation of a total abandonment of Prussia's
claim to leadership in any German union. Conflicting influences
swayed the King in one direction and another. The friends of
Austria and of absolutism declared that the employment of the
Prussian army on behalf of the Hessians would make the King an
accomplice of revolution: the bolder and more patriotic spirits
protested against the abdication of Prussia's just claims and the
evasion of its responsibilities towards Germany. For a moment the
party of action, led by the Prince of Prussia, gained the
ascendant. General Radowitz, the projector of the Union, was
called to the Foreign Ministry, and Prussian troops entered
Hesse. Austria now ostentatiously prepared for war. Frederick
William, terrified by the danger confronting him, yet unwilling
to yield all, sought the mediation of the Czar of Russia.
Nicholas came to Warsaw, where the Emperor of Austria and Prince
Charles, brother of the King of Prussia, attended by the
Ministers of their States, met him. The closest family ties
united the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin but the Russian
sovereign was still the patron of Austria as he had been in the
Hungarian campaign. He resented the action of Prussia in
Schleswig-Holstein, and was offended that King Frederick William
had not presented himself at Warsaw in person. He declared in
favour of all Austria's demands, and treated Count Brandenburg
with such indignity that the Count, a high-spirited patriot,
never recovered from its effect. He returned to Berlin only to
give in his report and die. Manteuffel, Minister of the Interior,
assured the King that the Prussian army was so weak in numbers
and so defective in organisation that, if it took the field
against Austria and its allies, it would meet with certain ruin.
Bavarian troops, representing the Diet of Frankfort, now entered
Hesse at Austria's bidding, and stood face to face with the
Prussians. The moment had come when the decision must be made
between peace and war. At a Council held at Berlin on November
and the peace-party carried the King with them. Radowitz gave up
office; Manteuffel, the Minister of repression within and of
submission without, was set at the head of the Government. The
meaning of his appointment was well understood, and with each new
proof of the weakness of the King the tone of the Court of
Austria became more imperious. On the 9th of November
Schwarzenberg categorically demanded the dissolution of the
Prussian Union, the recognition of the Federal Diet, and the
evacuation of Hesse by the Prussian troops. The first point was
at once conceded, and in hollow, equivocating language Manteuffel
made the fact known to the members of the Confederacy. The other
conditions not being so speedily fulfilled, Schwarzenberg set
Austrian regiments in motion, and demanded the withdrawal of the
Prussian troops from Hesse within twenty-four hours. Manteuffel
begged the Austrian Minister for an interview, and, without
waiting for an answer, set out for Olm&uuml;tz. His instructions
bade him to press for certain concessions; none of these did he
obtain, and he made the necessary submission without them. On the
29th of November a convention was signed at Olm&uuml;tz, in which
Prussia recognised the German Federal Constitution of 1815 as
still existing, undertook to withdraw all its troops from Hesse
with the exception of a single battalion, and consented to the
settlement of affairs both in Hesse and in Schleswig-Holstein by
the Federal Diet. One point alone in the scheme of the Austrian
statesman was wanting among the fruits of his victory at
Olm&uuml;tz and of the negotiations at Dresden by which this was
followed. Schwarzenberg had intended that the entire Austrian
Empire should enter the German Federation; and if he had had to
reckon with no opponents but the beaten and humbled Prussia, he
would have effected his design. But the prospect of a central
European Power, with a population of seventy millions, controlled
as this would virtually be by the Cabinet of Vienna, alarmed
other nations. England declared that such a combination would
undo the balance of power in Europe and menace the independence
of Germany; France protested in more threatening terms; and the
project fell to the ground, to be remembered only as the boldest
imagination of a statesman for whom fortune, veiling the Nemesis
in store, seemed to set no limit to its favours.</p>
<p>[Schleswig-Holstein.]</p>
<p>[The German National Fleet sold by auction, June, 1852.]</p>
<p>The cause of Schleswig-Holstein, so intimately bound up with
the efforts of the Germans towards national union, sank with the
failure of these efforts; and in the final humiliation of Prussia
it received what might well seem its death-blow. The armistice of
Malm&ouml;, which was sanctioned by the Assembly of Frankfort in
the autumn of 1848, lasted until March 26th, 1849. War was then
recommenced by Prussia, and the lines of D&uuml;ppel were stormed
by its troops, while the volunteer forces of Schleswig-Holstein
unsuccessfully laid siege to Fredericia. Hostilities had
continued for three months, when a second armistice, to last for
a year, and Preliminaries of Peace, were agreed upon. At the
conclusion of this armistice, in July, 1850, Prussia, in the name
of Germany, made peace with Denmark. The inhabitants of the
Duchies in consequence continued the war for themselves, and
though defeated with great loss at Idstedt on the 24th of July,
they remained unconquered at the end of the year. This was the
situation of affairs when Prussia, by the Treaty of Olm&uuml;tz,
agreed that the restored Federal Diet should take upon itself the
restoration of order in Schleswig-Holstein, and that the troops
of Prussia should unite with those of Austria to enforce its
decrees. To the Cabinet of Vienna, the foe in equal measure of
German national union and of every democratic cause, the
Schleswig-Holsteiners were simply rebels in insurrection against
their Sovereign. They were required by the Diet, under Austrian
dictation, to lay down their arms; and commissioners from Austria
and Prussia entered the Duchies to compel them to do so. Against
Denmark, Austria, and Prussia together, it was impossible for
Schleswig-Holstein to prolong its resistance. The army was
dissolved, and the Duchies were handed over to the King of
Denmark, to return to the legal status which was defined in the
Treaties of Peace. This was the nominal condition of the
transfer; but the Danish Government treated Schleswig as part of
its national territory, and in the northern part of the Duchy the
process of substituting Danish for German nationality was
actively pursued. The policy of foreign Courts, little interested
in the wish of the inhabitants, had from the beginning of the
struggle of the Duchies against Denmark favoured the maintenance
and consolidation of the Danish Kingdom. The claims of the Duke
of Augustenburg, as next heir to the Duchies in the male line,
were not considered worth the risk of a new war; and by a
protocol signed at London on the 2nd of August, 1850, the Powers,
with the exception of Prussia, declared themselves in favour of a
single rule of succession in all parts of the Danish State. By a
Treaty of the 8th of May, 1852, to which Prussia gave its assent,
the pretensions of all other claimants to the disputed succession
were set aside, and Prince Christian, of the House of
Gl&uuml;cksburg, was declared heir to the throne, the rights of
the German Federation as established by the Treaties of 1815
being reserved. In spite of this reservation of Federal rights,
and of the stipulations in favour of Schleswig and Holstein made
in the earlier agreements, the Duchies appeared to be now
practically united with the Danish State. Prussia, for a moment
their champion, had joined with Austria in coercing their army,
in dissolving their Government, in annulling the legislation by
which the Parliament of Frankfort had made them participators in
public rights thenceforward to be the inheritance of all Germans.
A page in the national history was obliterated; Prussia had
turned its back on its own professions; there remained but one
relic from the time when the whole German people seemed so ardent
for the emancipation of its brethren beyond the frontier. The
national fleet, created by the Assembly of Frankfort for the
prosecution of the struggle with Denmark, still lay at the mouth
of the Elbe. But the same power which had determined that Germany
was not to be a nation had also determined that it could have no
national maritime interests. After all that had passed, authority
had little call to be nice about appearances; and the national
fleet was sold by auction, in accordance with a decree of the
restored Diet of Frankfort, in the summer of 1852. <a name=
"FNanchor453">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_453"><sup>[453]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Germany after 1849.]</p>
<p>It was with deep disappointment and humiliation that the
Liberals of Germany, and all in whom the hatred of democratic
change had not overpowered the love of country, witnessed the
issue of the movement of 1848. In so far as that movement was one
directed towards national union it had totally failed, and the
state of things that had existed before 1848 was restored without
change. As a movement of constitutional and social reform, it had
not been so entirely vain; nor in this respect can it be said
that Germany after the year 1848 returned altogether to what it
was before it. Many of the leading figures of the earlier time
re-appeared indeed with more or less of lustre upon the stage.
Metternich though excluded from office by younger men, beamed
upon Vienna with the serenity of a prophet who had lived to see
most of his enemies shot and of a martyr who had returned to one
of the most enviable Salons in Europe. No dynasty lost its
throne, no class of the population had been struck down with
proscription as were the clergy and the nobles of France fifty
years before. Yet the traveller familiar with Germany before the
revolution found that much of the old had now vanished, much of a
new world come into being. It was not sought by the
re-established Governments to undo at one stroke the whole of the
political, the social, the agrarian legislation of the preceding
time, as in some other periods of reaction. The nearest approach
that was made to this was in a decree of the Diet annulling the
Declaration of Rights drawn up by the Frankfort Assembly, and
requiring the Governments to bring into conformity with the
Federal Constitution all laws and institutions made since the
beginning of 1848. Parliamentary government was thereby
enfeebled, but not necessarily extinguished. Governments narrowed
the franchise, curtailed the functions of representative
assemblies, filled these with their creatures, coerced voters at
elections; but, except in Austria, there was no open abandonment
of constitutional forms. In some States, as in Saxony under the
reactionary rule of Count Beust, the system of national
representation established in 1848 was abolished and the earlier
Estates were revived; in Prussia the two Houses of Parliament
continued in existence, but in such dependence upon the royal
authority, and under such strong pressure of an aristocratic and
official reaction, that, after struggling for some years in the
Lower House, the Liberal leaders at length withdrew in despair.
The character which Government now assumed in Prussia was indeed
far more typical of the condition of Germany at large than was
the bold and uncompromising despotism of Prince Schwarzenberg in
Austria. Manteuffel, in whom the Prussian epoch of reaction was
symbolised, was not a cruel or a violent Minister; but his rule
was stamped with a peculiar and degrading meanness, more
irritating to those who suffered under it than harsher wrong. In
his hands government was a thing of eavesdropping and espionage,
a system of petty persecution, a school of subservience and
hypocrisy. He had been the instrument at Olm&uuml;tz of such a
surrender of national honour and national interests as few
nations have ever endured with the chances of war still untried.
This surrender may, in the actual condition of the Prussian army,
have been necessary, but the abasement of it seemed to cling to
Manteuffel and to lower all his conceptions of government. Even
where the conclusions of his policy were correct they seemed to
have been reached by some unworthy process. Like Germany at
large, Prussia breathed uneasily under an oppression which was
everywhere felt and yet was hard to define. Its best elements
were those which suffered the most: its highest intellectual and
political aims were those which most excited the suspicion of the
Government. Its King had lost whatever was stimulating or
elevated in his illusions. From him no second alliance with
Liberalism, no further effort on behalf of German unity, was to
be expected: the hope for Germany and for Prussia, if hope there
was, lay in a future reign.</p>
<p>[Austria after 1851.]</p>
<p>[Austrian Concordat, Sept. 18, 1855.]</p>
<p>The powerlessness of Prussia was the measure of Austrian
influence and prestige. The contrast presented by Austria in 1848
and Austria in 1851 was indeed one that might well arrest
political observers. Its recovery had no doubt been effected
partly by foreign aid, and in the struggle with the Magyars a
dangerous obligation had been incurred towards Russia; but
scarred and riven as the fabric was within, it was complete and
imposing without. Not one of the enemies who in 1848 had risen
against the Court of Vienna now remained standing. In Italy,
Austria had won back what had appeared to be hopelessly lost; in
Germany it had more than vindicated its old claims. It had thrown
its rival to the ground, and the full measure of its ambition was
perhaps even yet not satisfied. "First to humiliate Prussia, then
to destroy it," was the expression in which Schwarzenberg summed
up his German policy. Whether, with his undoubted firmness and
daring, the Minister possessed the intellectual qualities and the
experience necessary for the successful administration of an
Empire built up, as Austria now was, on violence and on the
suppression of every national force, was doubted even by his
admirers. The proof, however, was not granted to him, for a
sudden death carried him off in his fourth year of power (April
5th, 1852). Weaker men succeeded to his task. The epoch of
military and diplomatic triumph was now ending, the gloomier side
of the reaction stood out unrelieved by any new succession of
victories. Financial disorder grew worse and worse. Clericalism
claimed its bond from the monarchy which it had helped to
restore. In the struggle of the nationalities of Austria against
the central authority the Bishops had on the whole thrown their
influence on to the side of the Crown. The restored despotism
owed too much to their help and depended too much on their
continued goodwill to be able to refuse their demands. Thus the
new centralised administration, reproducing in general the
uniformity of government attempted by the Emperor Joseph II.,
contrasted with this in its subservience to clerical power.
Ecclesiastical laws and jurisdictions were allowed to encroach on
the laws and jurisdiction of the State; education was made over
to the priesthood; within the Church itself the bishops were
allowed to rule uncontrolled. The very Minister who had taken
office under Schwarzenberg as the representative of the modern
spirit, to which the Government still professed to render homage,
became the instrument of an act of submission to the Papacy which
marked the lowest point to which Austrian policy fell. Alexander
Bach, a prominent Liberal in Vienna at the beginning of 1848, had
accepted office at the price of his independence, and surrendered
himself to the aristocratic and clerical influences that
dominated the Court. Consistent only in his efforts to simplify
the forms of government, to promote the ascendency of German over
all other elements in the State, to maintain the improvement in
the peasant's condition effected by the Parliament of Kremsier,
Bach, as Minister of the Interior, made war in all other respects
on his own earlier principles. In the former representative of
the Liberalism of the professional classes in Vienna absolutism
had now its most efficient instrument; and the Concordat
negotiated by Bach with the Papacy in 1855 marked the definite
submission of Austria to the ecclesiastical pretensions which in
these years of political languor and discouragement gained
increasing recognition throughout Central Europe. Ultramontanism
had sought allies in many political camps since the revolution of
1848. It had dallied in some countries with Republicanism; but
its truer instincts divined in the victory of absolutist systems
its own surest gain. Accommodations between the Papacy and
several of the German Governments were made in the years
succeeding 1849; and from the centralised despotism of the
Emperor Francis Joseph the Church won concessions which since the
time of Maria Theresa it had in vain sought from any ruler of the
Austrian State.</p>
<p>[France after 1848.]</p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The European drama which began in 1848 had more of unity and
more of concentration in its opening than in its close. In Italy
it ends with the fall of Venice; in Germany the interest lingers
till the days of Olm&uuml;tz; in France there is no decisive
break in the action until the Coup d'Etat which, at the end of
the year 1851, made Louis Napoleon in all but name Emperor of
France. The six million votes which had raised Louis Napoleon to
the Presidency of the Republic might well have filled with alarm
all who hoped for a future of constitutional rule; yet the
warning conveyed by the election seems to have been understood by
but few. As the representative of order and authority, as the
declared enemy of Socialism, Louis Napoleon was on the same side
as the Parliamentary majority; he had even been supported in his
candidature by Parliamentary leaders such as M. Thiers. His
victory was welcomed as a victory over Socialism and the Red
Republic; he had received some patronage from the official party
of order, and it was expected that, as nominal chief of the
State, he would act as the instrument of this party. He was an
adventurer, but an adventurer with so little that was imposing
about him, that it scarcely occurred to men of influence in Paris
to credit him with the capacity for mischief. His mean look and
spiritless address, the absurdities of his past, the
insignificance of his political friends, caused him to be
regarded during his first months of public life with derision
rather than with fear. The French, said M. Thiers long
afterwards, made two mistakes about Louis Napoleon: the first
when they took him for a fool, the second when they took him for
a man of genius. It was not until the appearance of the letter to
Colonel Ney, in which the President ostentatiously separated
himself from his Ministers and emphasised his personal will in
the direction of the foreign policy of France, that suspicions of
danger to the Republic from his ambition arose. From this time,
in the narrow circle of the Ministers whom official duty brought
into direct contact with the President, a constant sense of
insecurity and dread of some new surprise on his part prevailed,
though the accord which had been broken by the letter to Colonel
Ney was for a while outwardly re-established, and the forms of
Parliamentary government remained unimpaired.</p>
<p>[Message of Oct. 31, 1849.]</p>
<p>The first year of Louis Napoleon's term of office was drawing
to a close when a message from him was delivered to the Assembly
which seemed to announce an immediate attack upon the
Constitution. The Ministry in office was composed of men of high
Parliamentary position; it enjoyed the entire confidence of a
great majority in the Assembly, and had enforced with at least
sufficient energy the measures of public security which the
President and the country seemed agreed in demanding. Suddenly,
on the 31st of October, the President announced to the Assembly
by a message carried by one of his aides-de-camp that the
Ministry were dismissed. The reason assigned for their dismissal
was the want of unity within the Cabinet itself; but the language
used by the President announced much more than a ministerial
change. "France, in the midst of confusion, seeks for the hand,
the will of him whom it elected on the 10th of December. The
victory won on that day was the victory of a system, for the name
of Napoleon is in itself a programme. It signifies order,
authority, religion, national prosperity within; national dignity
without. It is this policy, inaugurated by my election, that I
desire to carry to triumph with the support of the Assembly and
of the people." In order to save the Republic from anarchy, to
maintain the prestige of France among other nations, the
President declared that he needed men of action rather than of
words; yet when the list of the new Ministers appeared, it
contained scarcely a single name of weight. Louis Napoleon had
called to office persons whose very obscurity had marked them as
his own instruments, and guaranteed to him the ascendency which
he had not hitherto possessed within the Cabinet. Satisfied with
having given this proof of his power, he resumed the appearance
of respect, if not of cordiality, towards the Assembly. He had
learnt to beware of precipitate action; above two years of office
were still before him; and he had now done enough to make it
clear to all who were disposed to seek their fortunes in a new
political cause that their services on his behalf would be
welcomed, and any excess of zeal more than pardoned. From this
time there grew up a party which had for its watchword the
exaltation of Louis Napoleon and the derision of the methods of
Parliamentary government. Journalists, unsuccessful politicians,
adventurers of every description, were enlisted in the ranks of
this obscure but active band. For their acts and their utterances
no one was responsible but themselves. They were disavowed
without compunction when their hardihood went too far; but their
ventures brought them no peril, and the generosity of the
President was not wanting to those who insisted on serving him in
spite of himself.</p>
<p>[Law limiting the Franchise, May 31, 1850.]</p>
<p>France was still trembling with the shock of the Four Days of
June; and measures of repression formed the common ground upon
which Louis Napoleon and the Assembly met without fear of
conflict. Certain elections which were held in the spring of
1850, and which gave a striking victory in Paris and elsewhere to
Socialist or Ultra-Democratic candidates, revived the alarms of
the owners of property, and inspired the fear that with universal
suffrage the Legislature itself might ultimately fall into the
hands of the Red Republicans. The principle of universal suffrage
had been proclaimed almost by accident in the midst of the
revolution of 1848. It had been embodied in the Constitution of
that year because it was found already in existence. No party had
seriously considered the conditions under which it was to be
exercised, or had weighed the political qualifications of the
mass to whom it was so lightly thrown. When election after
election returned to the Chamber men whose principles were held
to menace society itself, the cry arose that France must be saved
from the hands of the vile multitude; and the President called
upon a Committee of the Assembly to frame the necessary measures
of electoral reform. Within a week the work of the Committee was
completed, and the law which it had drafted was brought before
the Assembly. It was proposed that, instead of a residence of six
months, a continuous residence of three years in the same commune
should be required of every voter, and that the fulfilment of
this condition should be proved, not by ordinary evidence, but by
one of certain specified acts, such as the payment of personal
taxes. With modifications of little importance the Bill was
passed by the Assembly. Whether its real effect was foreseen even
by those who desired the greatest possible limitation of the
franchise is doubtful; it is certain that many who supported it
believed, in their ignorance of the practical working of
electoral laws, that they were excluding from the franchise only
the vagabond and worthless class which has no real place within
the body politic. When the electoral lists drawn up in pursuance
of the measure appeared, they astounded all parties alike. Three
out of the ten millions of voters in France were disfranchised.
Not only the inhabitants of whole quarters in the great cities
but the poorer classes among the peasantry throughout France had
disappeared from the electoral body. The Assembly had at one blow
converted into enemies the entire mass of the population that
lived by the wages of bodily labour. It had committed an act of
political suicide, and had given to a man so little troubled with
scruples of honour as Louis Napoleon the fatal opportunity of
appealing to France as the champion of national sovereignty and
the vindicator of universal suffrage against an Assembly which
had mutilated it in the interests of class. <a name=
"FNanchor454">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_454"><sup>[454]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Prospects of Louis Napoleon.]</p>
<p>The duration of the Presidency was fixed by the Constitution
of 1848 at four years, and it was enacted that the President
should not be re-eligible to his dignity. By the operation of
certain laws imperfectly adjusted to one another, the tenure of
office by Louis Napoleon expired on the 8th of May, 1852, while
the date for the dissolution of the Assembly fell within a few
weeks of this day. France was therefore threatened with the
dangers attending the almost simultaneous extinction of all
authority. The perils of 1852 loomed only too visibly before the
country, and Louis Napoleon addressed willing hearers when, in
the summer of 1850, he began to hint at the necessity of a
prolongation of his own power. The Parliamentary recess was
employed by the President in two journeys through the
Departments; the first through those of the south-east, where
Socialism was most active, and where his appearance served at
once to prove his own confidence and to invigorate the friends of
authority; the second through Normandy, where the prevailing
feeling was strongly in favour of firm government, and utterances
could safely be made by the President which would have brought
him into some risk at Paris. In suggesting that France required
his own continued presence at the head of the State Louis
Napoleon was not necessarily suggesting a violation of the law.
It was provided by the Statutes of 1848 that the Assembly by a
vote of three-fourths might order a revision of the Constitution;
and in favour of this revision petitions were already being drawn
up throughout the country. Were the clause forbidding the
re-election of the President removed from the Constitution, Louis
Napoleon might fairly believe that an immense majority of the
French people would re-invest him with power. He would probably
have been content with a legal re-election had this been rendered
possible; but the Assembly showed little sign of a desire to
smooth his way, and it therefore became necessary for him to seek
the means of realising his aims in violation of the law. He had
persuaded himself that his mission, his destiny, was to rule
France; in other words, he had made up his mind to run such risks
and to sanction such crimes as might be necessary to win him
sovereign power. With the loftier impulses of ambition, motives
of a meaner kind stimulated him to acts of energy. Never wealthy,
the father of a family though unmarried, he had exhausted his
means, and would have returned to private life a destitute man,
if not laden with debt. When his own resolution flagged, there
were those about him too deeply interested in his fortunes to
allow him to draw back.</p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon and the army.]</p>
<p>[Dismissal of Changarnier, Jan., 1851.]</p>
<p>It was by means of the army that Louis Napoleon intended in
the last resort to make himself master of France, and the army
had therefore to be won over to his personal cause. The generals
who had gained distinction either in the Algerian wars or in the
suppression of insurrection in France were without exception
Orleanists or Republicans. Not a single officer of eminence was
as yet included in the Bonapartist band. The President himself
had never seen service except in a Swiss camp of exercise; beyond
his name he possessed nothing that could possibly touch the
imagination of a soldier. The heroic element not being
discoverable in his person or his career, it remained to work by
more material methods. Louis Napoleon had learnt many things in
England, and had perhaps observed in the English elections of
that period how much may be effected by the simple means of
money-bribes and strong drink. The saviour of society was not
ashamed to order the garrison of Paris double rations of brandy
and to distribute innumerable doles of half a franc or less.
Military banquets were given, in which the sergeant and the
corporal sat side by side with the higher officers. Promotion was
skilfully offered or withheld. As the generals of the highest
position were hostile to Bonaparte, it was the easier to tempt
their subordinates with the prospect of their places. In the
acclamations which greeted the President at the reviews held at
Paris in the autumn of 1850, in the behaviour both of officers
and men in certain regiments, it was seen how successful had been
the emissaries of Bonapartism. The Committee which represented
the absent Chamber in vain called the Minister of War to account
for these irregularities. It was in vain that Changarnier, who,
as commander both of the National Guard of Paris and of the first
military division, seemed to hold the arbitrament between
President and Assembly in his hands, openly declared at the
beginning of 1851 in favour of the Constitution. He was dismissed
from his post; and although a vote of censure which followed this
dismissal led to the resignation of the Ministry, the Assembly
was unable to reinstate Changarnier in his command, and
helplessly witnessed the authority which he had held pass into
hostile or untrustworthy hands.</p>
<p>[Proposed Revision of the Constitution.]</p>
<p>[Revision of the Constitution rejected, July 19.]</p>
<p>There now remained only one possible means of averting the
attack upon the Constitution which was so clearly threatened, and
that was by subjecting the Constitution itself to revision in
order that Louis Napoleon might legally seek re-election at the
end of his Presidency. An overwhelming current of public opinion
pressed indeed in the direction of such a change. However gross
and undisguised the initiative of the local functionaries in
preparing the petitions which showered upon the Assembly, the
national character of the demand could not be doubted. There was
no other candidate whose name carried with it any genuine
popularity or prestige, or around whom even the Parliamentary
sections at enmity with the President could rally. The Assembly
was divided not very unevenly between Legitimists, Orleanists,
and Republicans. Had indeed the two monarchical groups been able
to act in accord, they might have had some hope of
re-establishing the throne; and an attempt had already been made
to effect a union, on the understanding that the childless
Comt&eacute; de Chambord should recognise the grandson of Louis
Philippe as his heir, the House of Orleans renouncing its claims
during the lifetime of the chief of the elder line. These plans
had been frustrated by the refusal of the Comt&eacute; de
Chambord to sanction any appeal to the popular vote, and the
restoration of the monarchy was therefore hopeless for the
present. It remained for the Assembly to decide whether it would
facilitate Louis Napoleon's re-election as President by a
revision of the Constitution or brave the risk of his violent
usurpation of power. The position was a sad and even humiliating
one for those who, while they could not disguise their real
feeling towards the Prince, yet knew themselves unable to count
on the support of the nation if they should resist him. The
Legitimists, more sanguine in temper, kept in view an ultimate
restoration of the monarchy, and lent themselves gladly to any
policy which might weaken the constitutional safeguards of the
Republic. The Republican minority alone determined to resist any
proposal for revision, and to stake everything upon the
maintenance of the constitution in its existing form. Weak as the
Republicans were as compared with the other groups in the
Assembly when united against them, they were yet strong enough to
prevent the Ministry from securing that majority of three-fourths
without which the revision of the Constitution could not be
undertaken. Four hundred and fifty votes were given in favour of
revision, two hundred and seventy against it (July 19th). The
proposal therefore fell to the ground, and Louis Napoleon, who
could already charge the Assembly with having by its majority
destroyed universal suffrage, could now charge it with having by
its minority forbidden the nation to choose its own head. Nothing
more was needed by him. He had only to decide upon the time and
the circumstances of the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> which was to
rid him of his adversaries and to make him master of France.</p>
<p>[Preparations for the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>.]</p>
<p>Louis Napoleon had few intimate confidants; the chief among
these were his half-brother Morny, one of the illegitimate
offspring of Queen Hortense, a man of fashion and speculator in
the stocks; Fialin or Persigny, a person of humble origin who had
proved himself a devoted follower of the Prince through good and
evil; and Fleury, an officer at this time on a mission in
Algiers. These were not men out of whom Louis Napoleon could form
an administration, but they were useful to him in discovering and
winning over soldiers and officials of sufficient standing to
give to the execution of the conspiracy something of the
appearance of an act of Government. A general was needed at the
War Office who would go all lengths in illegality. Such a man had
already been found in St. Arnaud, commander of a brigade in
Algiers, a brilliant soldier who had redeemed a disreputable past
by years of hard service, and who was known to be ready to treat
his French fellow-citizens exactly as he would treat the Arabs.
As St. Arnaud's name was not yet familiar in Paris, a campaign
was arranged in the summer of 1851 for the purpose of winning him
distinction. At the cost of some hundreds of lives St. Arnaud was
pushed into sufficient fame; and after receiving congratulations
proportioned to his exploits from the President's own hand, he
was summoned to Paris, in order at the right moment to be made
Minister of War. A troop of younger officers, many of whom gained
a lamentable celebrity as the generals of 1870, were gradually
brought over from Algiers and placed round the Minister in the
capital. The command of the army of Paris was given to General
Magnan, who, though he preferred not to share in the
deliberations on the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>, had promised his
cooperation when the moment should arrive. The support, or at
least the acquiescence, of the army seemed thus to be assured.
The National Guard, which, under Changarnier, would probably have
rallied in defence of the Assembly, had been placed under an
officer pledged to keep it in inaction. For the management of the
police Louis Napoleon had fixed upon M. Maupas, Pr&eacute;fet of
the Haute Garonne. This person, to whose shamelessness we owe the
most authentic information that exists on the <i>coup
d'&eacute;tat</i>, had, while in an inferior station, made it his
business to ingratiate himself with the President by sending to
him personally police reports which ought to have been sent to
the Ministers. The objects and the character of M. Maupas were
soon enough understood by Louis Napoleon. He promoted him to high
office; sheltered him from the censure of his superiors; and,
when the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> was drawing nigh, called him
to Paris, in the full and well-grounded confidence that, whatever
the most perfidious ingenuity could contrive in turning the
guardians of the law against the law itself, that M. Maupas, as
Pr&eacute;fet of Police, might be relied upon to accomplish.</p>
<p>[The <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> fixed for December.]</p>
<p>Preparations for the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> had been so far
advanced in September that a majority of the conspirators had
then urged Louis Napoleon to strike the blow without delay, while
the members of the Assembly were still dispersed over France in
the vacation. St. Arnaud, however, refused his assent, declaring
that the deputies, if left free, would assemble at a distance
from Paris, summon to them the generals loyal to the
Constitution, and commence a civil war. He urged that, in order
to avoid greater subsequent risks, it would be necessary to seize
all the leading representatives and generals from whom resistance
might be expected, and to hold them under durance until the
crisis should be over. This simultaneous arrest of all the
foremost public men in France could only be effected at a time
when the Assembly was sitting. St. Arnaud therefore demanded that
the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> should be postponed till the
winter. Another reason made for delay. Little as the populace of
Paris loved the reactionary Assembly, Louis Napoleon was not
altogether assured that it would quietly witness his own
usurpation of power. In waiting until the Chamber should again be
in session, he saw the opportunity of exhibiting his cause as
that of the masses themselves, and of justifying his action as
the sole means of enforcing popular rights against a legislature
obstinately bent on denying them. Louis Napoleon's own Ministers
had overthrown universal suffrage. This might indeed be matter
for comment on the part of the censorious, but it was not a
circumstance to stand in the way of the execution of a great
design. Accordingly Louis Napoleon determined to demand from the
Assembly at the opening of the winter session the repeal of the
electoral law of May 31st, and to make its refusal, on which he
could confidently reckon, the occasion of its destruction.</p>
<p>[Louis Napoleon demands repeal of Law of May 31.]</p>
<p>[The Assembly refuses.]</p>
<p>The conspirators were up to this time conspirators and nothing
more. A Ministry still subsisted which was not initiated in the
President's designs nor altogether at his command. On his
requiring that the repeal of the law of May 31st should be
proposed to the Assembly, the Cabinet resigned. The way to the
highest functions of State was thus finally opened for the agents
of the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>. St. Arnaud was placed at the
War Office, Maupas at the Pr&eacute;fecture of Police. The
colleagues assigned to them were too insignificant to exercise
any control over their actions. At the reopening of the Assembly
on the 4th of November an energetic message from the President
was read. On the one hand he denounced a vast and perilous
combination of all the most dangerous elements of society which
threatened to overwhelm France in the following year; on the
other hand he demanded, with certain undefined safeguards, the
re-establishment of universal suffrage. The middle classes were
scared with the prospect of a Socialist revolution; the Assembly
was divided against itself, and the democracy of Paris flattered
by the homage paid to the popular vote. With very little delay a
measure repealing the Law of May 31st was introduced into the
Assembly. It was supported by the Republicans and by many members
of the other groups; but the majority of the Assembly, while
anxious to devise some compromise, refused to condemn its own
work in the unqualified form on which the President insisted. The
Bill was thrown out by seven votes. Forthwith the rumour of an
impending <i>coup d'etat</i> spread through Paris. The Questors,
or members charged with the safeguarding of the Assembly, moved
the resolutions necessary to enable them to secure sufficient
military aid. Even now prompt action might perhaps have saved the
Chamber. But the Republican deputies, incensed by their defeat on
the question of universal suffrage, plunged headlong into the
snare set for them by the President, and combined with his open
or secret partisans to reject the proposition of the Questors.
Changarnier had blindly vouched for the fidelity of the army; one
Republican deputy, more imaginative than his colleagues, bade the
Assembly confide in their invisible sentinel, the people. Thus
the majority of the Chamber, with the clearest warning of danger,
insisted on giving the aggressor every possible advantage. If the
imbecility of opponents is the best augury of success in a bold
enterprise, the President had indeed little reason to anticipate
failure.</p>
<p>[The <i>coup d'etat</i>, Dec. 2.]</p>
<p>The execution of the <i>coup d'etat</i> was fixed for the
early morning of December 2nd. On the previous evening Louis
Napoleon held a public reception at the Elys&eacute;e, his quiet
self-possessed manner indicating nothing of the struggle at hand.
Before the guests dispersed the President withdrew to his study.
There the last council of the conspirators was held, and they
parted, each to the execution of the work assigned to him. The
central element in the plan was the arrest of Cavaignac, of
Changarnier and three other generals who were members of the
Assembly, of eleven civilian deputies including M. Thiers, and of
sixty-two other politicians of influence. Maupas summoned to the
Prefecture of Police in the dead of night a sufficient number of
his trusted agents, received each of them on his arrival in a
separate room, and charged each with the arrest of one of the
victims. The arrests were accomplished before dawn, and the
leading soldiers and citizens of France met one another in the
prison of Mazas. The Palais Bourbon, the meeting-place of the
Assembly, was occupied by troops. The national printing
establishment was seized by gendarmes, and the proclamations of
Louis Napoleon, distributed sentence by sentence to different
compositors, were set in type before the workmen knew upon what
they were engaged. When day broke the Parisians found the
soldiers in the streets, and the walls placarded with manifestoes
of Louis Napoleon. The first of these was a decree which
announced in the name of the French people that the National
Assembly and the Council of State were dissolved, that universal
suffrage was restored, and that the nation was convoked in its
electoral colleges from the 14th to the 21st of December. The
second was a proclamation to the people, in which Louis Napoleon
denounced at once the monarchical conspirators within the
Assembly and the anarchists who sought to overthrow all
government. His duty called upon him to save the Republic by an
appeal to the nation. He proposed the establishment of a
decennial executive authority, with a Senate, a Council of State,
a Legislative Body, and other institutions borrowed from the
Consulate of 1799. If the nation refused him a majority of its
votes he would summon a new Assembly and resign his powers; if
the nation believed in the cause of which his name was the
symbol, in France regenerated by the Revolution and organised by
the Emperor, it would prove this by ratifying his authority. A
third proclamation was addressed to the army. In 1830 and in 1848
the army had been treated as the conquered, but its voice was now
to be heard. Common glories and sorrows united the soldiers of
France with Napoleon's heir, and the future would unite them in
common devotion to the repose and greatness of their country.</p>
<p>[Paris on Dec. 2.]</p>
<p>The full meaning of these manifestoes was not at first
understood by the groups who read them. The Assembly was so
unpopular that the announcement of its dissolution, with the
restoration of universal suffrage, pleased rather than alarmed
the democratic quarters of Paris. It was not until some hours had
passed that the arrests became generally known, and that the
first symptoms of resistance appeared. Groups of deputies
assembled at the houses of the Parliamentary leaders; a body of
fifty even succeeded in entering the Palais Bourbon and in
commencing a debate: they were, however, soon dispersed by
soldiers. Later in the day above two hundred members assembled at
the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. There they passed
resolutions declaring the President removed from his office, and
appointing a commander of the troops at Paris. The first officers
who were sent to clear the Mairie flinched in the execution of
their work, and withdrew for further orders. The Magistrates of
the High Court, whose duty it was to order the impeachment of the
President in case of the violation of his oath to the
Constitution, assembled, and commenced the necessary proceedings;
but before they could sign a warrant, soldiers forced their way
into the hall and drove the judges from the Bench. In due course
General Forey appeared with a strong body of troops at the
Mairie, where the two hundred deputies were assembled. Refusing
to disperse, they were one and all arrested, and conducted as
prisoners between files of troops to the Barracks of the Quai
d'Orsay. The National Guard, whose drums had been removed by
their commander in view of any spontaneous movement to arms,
remained invisible. Louis Napoleon rode out amidst the
acclamations of the soldiery; and when the day closed it seemed
as if Paris had resolved to accept the change of Government and
the overthrow of the Constitution without a struggle.</p>
<p>[December 3.]</p>
<p>[December 4.]</p>
<p>There were, however, a few resolute men at work in the
workmen's quarters; and in the wealthier part of the city the
outrage upon the National Representation gradually roused a
spirit of resistance. On the morning of December 3rd the Deputy
Baudin met with his death in attempting to defend a barricade
which had been erected in the Faubourg St. Antoine. The artisans
of eastern Paris showed, however, little inclination to take up
arms on behalf of those who had crushed them in the Four Days of
June; the agitation was strongest within the Boulevards, and
spread westwards towards the stateliest district of Paris. The
barricades erected on the south of the Boulevards were so
numerous, the crowds so formidable, that towards the close of the
day the troops were withdrawn, and it was determined that after a
night of quiet they should make a general attack and end the
struggle at one blow. At midday on December 4th divisions of the
army converged from all directions upon the insurgent quarter.
The barricades were captured or levelled by artillery, and with a
loss on the part of the troops of twenty-eight killed, and a
hundred and eighty wounded resistance was overcome. But the
soldiers had been taught to regard the inhabitants of Paris as
their enemies, and they bettered the instructions given them.
Maddened by drink or panic, they commenced indiscriminate firing
in the Boulevards after the conflict was over, and slaughtered
all who either in the street or at the windows of the houses came
within range of their bullets. According to official admissions,
the lives of sixteen civilians paid for every soldier slain;
independent estimates place far higher the number of the victims
of this massacre. Two thousand arrests followed, and every
Frenchman who appeared dangerous to Louis Napoleon's myrmidons,
from Thiers and Victor Hugo down to the anarchist orators of the
wineshops, was either transported, exiled, or lodged in prison.
Thus was the Republic preserved and society saved.</p>
<p>[The Pl&eacute;biscite, Dec. 20.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon III. Emperor, Dec. 2, 1852.]</p>
<p>France in general received the news of the <i>coup d'etat</i>
with indifference: where it excited popular movements these
movements were of such a character that Louis Napoleon drew from
them the utmost profit. A certain fierce, blind Socialism had
spread among the poorest of the rural classes in the centre and
south of France. In these departments there were isolated
risings, accompanied by acts of such murderous outrage and folly
that a general terror seized the surrounding districts. In the
course of a few days the predatory bands were dispersed, and an
unsparing chastisement inflicted on all who were concerned in
their misdeeds; but the reports sent to Paris were too
serviceable to Louis Napoleon to be left in obscurity; and these
brutish village-outbreaks, which collapsed at the first
appearance of a handful of soldiers, were represented as the
prelude to a vast Socialist revolution from which the <i>coup
d'etat</i>, and that alone, had saved France. Terrified by the
re-appearance of the Red Spectre, the French nation proceeded on
the 20th of December to pass its judgment on the accomplished
usurpation. The question submitted for the <i>plebiscite</i> was,
whether the people desired the maintenance of Louis Napoleon's
authority and committed to him the necessary powers for
establishing a Constitution on the basis laid down in his
proclamation of December 2nd. Seven million votes answered this
question in the affirmative, less than one-tenth of that number
in the negative. The result was made known on the last day of the
year 1851. On the first day of the new year Louis Napoleon
attended a service of thanksgiving at Notre Dame, took possession
of the Tuileries, and restored the eagle as the military emblem
of France. He was now in all but name an absolute sovereign. The
Church, the army, the ever-servile body of the civil
administration, waited impatiently for the revival of the
Imperial title. Nor was the saviour of society the man to shrink
from further responsibilities. Before the year closed the people
was once more called upon to express its will. Seven millions of
votes pronounced for hereditary power; and on the anniversary of
the <i>coup d'etat</i> Napoleon III. was proclaimed Emperor of
the French.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XXI.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>England and France in 1851-Russia under Nicholas-The Hungarian
Refugees-Dispute between France and Russia on the Holy
Places-Nicholas and the British Ambassador-Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe-Menschikoff's Mission-Russian Troops enter the Danubian
Principalities-Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet-Movements of the
Fleets-The Vienna Note-The Fleets pass the Dardanelles-Turkish
Squadron destroyed at Sinope-Declaration of War-Policy of
Austria-Policy of Prussia-The Western Powers and the European
Concert-Siege of Silistria-The Principalities evacuated-Further
objects of the Western Powers-Invasion of the Crimea-Battle of
the Alma-The Flank March-Balaclava-Inkermann-Winter in the
Crimea-Death of Nicholas-Conference of Vienna-Austria-Progress of
the Siege-Plans of Napoleon III.-Canrobert and
P&eacute;lissier-Unsuccessful Assault-Battle of the
Tchernaya-Capture of the Malakoff-Fall of Sebastopol-Fall of
Kars-Negotiations for Peace-The Conference of Paris-Treaty of
Paris -The Danubian Principalities-Continued discord in the
Ottoman Empire-Revision of the Treaty of Paris in 1871.</p>
<br>

<p>[England in 1851.]</p>
<p>The year 1851 was memorable in England as that of the Great
Exhibition. Thirty-six years of peace, marked by an enormous
development of manufacturing industry, by the introduction of
railroads, and by the victory of the principle of Free Trade, had
culminated in a spectacle so impressive and so novel that to many
it seemed the emblem and harbinger of a new epoch in the history
of mankind, in which war should cease, and the rivalry of nations
should at length find its true scope in the advancement of the
arts of peace. The apostles of Free Trade had idealised the cause
for which they contended. The unhappiness and the crimes of
nations had, as they held, been due principally to the action of
governments, which plunged harmless millions into war for
dynastic ends, and paralysed human energy by their own blind and
senseless interference with the natural course of exchange.
Compassion for the poor and the suffering, a just resentment
against laws which in the supposed interest of a minority
condemned the mass of the nation to a life of want, gave moral
fervour and elevation to the teaching of Cobden and those who
shared his spirit. Like others who have been constrained by a
noble enthusiasm, they had their visions; and in their sense of
the greatness of that new force which was ready to operate upon
human life, they both forgot the incompleteness of their own
doctrine, and under-estimated the influences which worked, and
long must work, upon mankind in an opposite direction. In perfect
sincerity the leader of English economical reform at the middle
of this century looked forward to a reign of peace as the result
of unfettered intercourse between the members of the European
family. What the man of genius and conviction had proclaimed the
charlatan repeated in his turn. Louis Napoleon appreciated the
charm which schemes of commercial development exercised upon the
trading classes in France. He was ready to salute the Imperial
eagles as objects of worship and to invoke the memories of
Napoleon's glory when addressing soldiers; when it concerned him
to satisfy the commercial world, he was the very embodiment of
peace and of peaceful industry. "Certain persons," he said, in an
address at Bordeaux, shortly before assuming the title of
Emperor, "say that the Empire is war. I say that the Empire is
peace; for France desires peace, and when France is satisfied the
world is tranquil. We have waste territories to cultivate, roads
to open, harbours to dig, a system of railroads to complete; we
have to bring all our great western ports into connection with
the American continent by a rapidity of communication which we
still want. We have ruins to restore, false gods to overthrow,
truths to make triumphant. This is the sense that I attach to the
Empire; these are the conquests which I contemplate." Never had
the ideal of industrious peace been more impressively set before
mankind than in the years which succeeded the convulsion of 1848.
Yet the epoch on which Europe was then about to enter proved to
be pre-eminently an epoch of war. In the next quarter of a
century there was not one of the Great Powers which was not
engaged in an armed struggle with its rivals. Nor were the wars
of this period in any sense the result of accident, or
disconnected with the stream of political tendencies which makes
the history of the age. With one exception they left in their
train great changes for which the time was ripe, changes which
for more than a generation had been the recognised objects of
national desire, but which persuasion and revolution had equally
failed to bring into effect. The Crimean War alone was barren in
positive results of a lasting nature, and may seem only to have
postponed, at enormous cost of life, the fall of a doomed and
outworn Power. But the time has not yet arrived when the real
bearing of the overthrow of Russia in 1854 on the destiny of the
Christian races of Turkey can be confidently expressed. The
victory of the Sultan's protectors delayed the emancipation of
these races for twenty years; the victory, or the unchecked
aggression, of Russia in 1854 might possibly have closed to them
for ever the ways to national independence.</p>
<p>[Russian policy under Nicholas.]</p>
<p>The plans formed by the Empress Catherine in the last century
for the restoration of the Greek Empire under a prince of the
Russian House had long been abandoned at St. Petersburg. The
later aim of Russian policy found its clearest expression in the
Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, extorted from Sultan Mahmud in 1833 in
the course of the first war against Mehemet Ali. This Treaty, if
it had not been set aside by the Western Powers, would have made
the Ottoman Empire a vassal State under the Czar's protection. In
the concert of Europe which was called into being by the second
war of Mehemet Ali against the Sultan in 1840, Nicholas had
considered it his interest to act with England and the German
Powers in defence of the Porte against its Egyptian rival and his
French ally. A policy of moderation had been imposed upon Russia
by the increased watchfulness and activity now displayed by the
other European States in all that related to the Ottoman Empire.
Isolated aggression had become impracticable; it was necessary
for Russia to seek the countenance or support of some ally before
venturing on the next step in the extension of its power
southwards.</p>
<p>[Nicholas in England, 1844.]</p>
<p>In 1844 Nicholas visited England. The object of his journey
was to sound the Court and Government, and to lay the foundation
for concerted action between Russia and England, to the exclusion
of France, when circumstances should bring about the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire, an event which the Czar believed to be not
far off. Peel was then Prime Minister; Lord Aberdeen was Foreign
Secretary. Aberdeen had begun his political career in a
diplomatic mission to the Allied Armies in 1814. His feelings
towards Russia were those of a loyal friend towards an old ally;
and the remembrance of the epoch of 1814, when the young Nicholas
had made acquaintance with Lord Aberdeen in France, appears to
have given to the Czar a peculiar sense of confidence in the
goodwill of the English Minister towards himself. Nicholas spoke
freely with Aberdeen, as well as with Peel and Wellington, on the
impending fall of the Ottoman Empire. "We have," he said, "a
sick, a dying man on our hands. We must keep him alive so long as
it is possible to do so, but we must frankly take into view all
contingencies. I wish for no inch of Turkish soil myself, but
neither will I permit any other Power to seize an inch of it.
France, which has designs upon Africa, upon the Mediterranean,
and upon the East, is the only Power to be feared. An
understanding between England and Russia will preserve the peace
of Europe." If the Czar pursued his speculations further into
detail, of which there is no evidence, he elicited no response.
He was heard with caution, and his visit appears to have produced
nothing more than the formal expression of a desire on the part
of the British Government that the existing treaty-rights of
Russia should be respected by the Porte, together with an
unmeaning promise that, if unexpected events should occur in
Turkey, Russia and England should enter into counsel as to the
best course of action to be pursued in common. <a name=
"FNanchor455">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_455"><sup>[455]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Nicholas in 1848.]</p>
<p>[The Hungarian refugees, 1849.]</p>
<p>Nicholas, whether from policy or from a sense of kingly honour
which at most times powerfully influenced him, did not avail
himself of the prostration of the Continental Powers in 1848 to
attack Turkey. He detested revolution, as a crime against the
divinely ordered subjection of nations to their rulers, and would
probably have felt himself degraded had he, in the spirit of his
predecessor Catherine, turned the calamities of his
brother-monarchs to his own separate advantage. It accorded
better with his proud nature, possibly also with the schemes of a
far-reaching policy, for Russia to enter the field as the
protector of the Hapsburgs against the rebel Hungarians than for
its armies to snatch from the Porte what the lapse of time and
the goodwill of European allies would probably give to Russia at
no distant date without a struggle. Disturbances at Bucharest and
at Jassy led indeed to a Russian intervention in the Danubian
Principalities in the interests of a despotic system of
government; but Russia possessed by treaty protectorial rights
over these Provinces. The military occupation which followed the
revolt against the Hospodars was the subject of a convention
between Turkey and Russia; it was effected by the armies of the
two Powers jointly; and at the expiration of two years the
Russian forces were peacefully withdrawn. More serious were the
difficulties which arose from the flight of Kossuth and other
Hungarian leaders into Turkey after the subjugation of Hungary by
the allied Austrian and Russian armies. The Courts of Vienna and
St. Petersburg united in demanding from the Porte the surrender
of these refugees; the Sultan refused to deliver them up, and he
was energetically supported by Great Britain, Kossuth's children
on their arrival at Constantinople being received and cared for
at the British Embassy. The tyrannous demand of the two Emperors,
the courageous resistance of the Sultan, excited the utmost
interest in Western Europe. By a strange turn of fortune, the
Power which at the end of the last century had demanded from the
Court of Vienna the Greek leader Rhegas, and had put him to death
as soon as he was handed over by the Austrian police, was now
gaining the admiration of all free nations as the last barrier
that sheltered the champions of European liberty from the
vengeance of despotic might. The Czar and the Emperor of Austria
had not reckoned with the forces of public indignation aroused
against them in the West by their attempt to wrest their enemies
from the Sultan's hand. They withdrew their ambassadors from
Constantinople and threatened to resort to force. But the
appearance of the British and French fleets at the Dardanelles
gave a new aspect to the dispute. The Emperors learnt that if
they made war upon Turkey for the question at issue they would
have to fight also against the Western Powers. The demand for the
surrender of the refugees was withdrawn; and in undertaking to
keep the principal of them under surveillance for a reasonable
period, the Sultan gave to the two Imperial Courts such
satisfaction as they could, without loss of dignity, accept. <a
name="FNanchor456">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_456"><sup>[456]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Dispute between France and Russia on the Holy Places,
1850-2.]</p>
<p>The <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> of Louis Napoleon at the end of
the year 1851 was witnessed by the Czar with sympathy and
admiration as a service to the cause of order; but the assumption
of the Imperial title by the Prince displeased him exceedingly.
While not refusing to recognise Napoleon III., he declined to
address him by the term (<i>mon fr&egrave;re</i>) usually
employed by monarchs in writing to one another. In addition to
the question relating to the Hungarian refugees, a dispute
concerning the Holy Places in Palestine threatened to cause
strife between France and Russia. The same wave of religious and
theological interest which in England produced the Tractarian
movement brought into the arena of political life in France an
enthusiasm for the Church long strange to the Legislature and the
governing circles of Paris. In the Assembly of 1849 Montalembert,
the spokesman of this militant Catholicism, was one of the
foremost figures. Louis Napoleon, as President, sought the favour
of those whom Montalembert led; and the same Government which
restored the Pope to Rome demanded from the Porte a stricter
enforcement of the rights of the Latin Church in the East. The
earliest Christian legends had been localised in various spots
around Jerusalem. These had been in the ages of faith the goal of
countless pilgrimages, and in more recent centuries they had
formed the object of treaties between the Porte and France. Greek
monks, however, disputed with Latin monks for the guardianship of
the Holy Places; and as the power of Russia grew, the privileges
of the Greek monks had increased. The claims of the rival
brotherhoods, which related to doors, keys, stars and lamps,
might probably have been settled to the satisfaction of all
parties within a few hours by an experienced stage-manager; in
the hands of diplomatists bent on obtaining triumphs over one
another they assumed dimensions that overshadowed the peace of
Europe. The French and the Russian Ministers at Constantinople
alternately tormented the Sultan in the character of aggrieved
sacristans, until, at the beginning of 1852, the Porte
compromised itself with both parties by adjudging to each rights
which it professed also to secure to the other. A year more,
spent in prevarications, in excuses, and in menaces, ended with
the triumph of the French, with the evasion of the promises made
by the Sultan to Russia, and with the discomfiture of the Greek
Church in the person of the monks who officiated at the Holy
Sepulchre and the Shrine of the Nativity. <a name=
"FNanchor457">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_457"><sup>[457]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Nicholas and Sir H. Seymour, Jan., Feb., 1853.]</p>
<p>Nicholas treated the conduct of the Porte as an outrage upon
himself. A conflict which had broken out between the Sultan and
the Montenegrins, and which now threatened to take a deadly form,
confirmed the Czar in his belief that the time for resolute
action had arrived. At the beginning of the year 1853 he
addressed himself to Hamilton Seymour, British ambassador at St.
Petersburg, in terms much stronger and clearer than those which
he had used towards Lord Aberdeen nine years before. "The Sick
Man," he said, "was in extremities; the time had come for a clear
understanding between England and Russia. The occupation of
Constantinople by Russian troops might be necessary, but the Czar
would not hold it permanently. He would not permit any other
Power to establish itself at the Bosphorus, neither would he
permit the Ottoman Empire to be broken up into Republics to
afford a refuge to the Mazzinis and the Kossuths of Europe. The
Danubian Principalities were already independent States under
Russian protection. The other possessions of the Sultan north of
the Balkans might be placed on the same footing. England might
annex Egypt and Crete." After making this communication to the
British ambassador, and receiving the reply that England declined
to enter into any schemes based on the fall of the Turkish Empire
and disclaimed all desire for the annexation of any part of the
Sultan's dominions, Nicholas despatched Prince Menschikoff to
Constantinople, to demand from the Porte not only an immediate
settlement of the questions relating to the Holy Places, but a
Treaty guaranteeing to the Greek Church the undisturbed enjoyment
of all its ancient rights and the benefit of all privileges that
might be accorded by the Porte to any other Christian
communities. <a name="FNanchor458">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_458"><sup>[458]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Claims of Russia.]</p>
<p>The Treaty which Menschikoff was instructed to demand would
have placed the Sultan and the Czar in the position of
contracting parties with regard to the entire body of rights and
privileges enjoyed by the Sultan's subjects of the Greek
confession, and would so have made the violation of these rights
in the case of any individual Christian a matter entitling Russia
to interfere, or to claim satisfaction as for the breach of a
Treaty engagement. By the Treaty of Kainardjie (1774) the Sultan
had indeed bound himself "to protect the Christian religion and
its Churches"; but this phrase was too indistinct to create
specific matter of Treaty-obligation; and if it had given to
Russia any general right of interference on behalf of members of
the Greek Church, it would have given it the same right in behalf
of all the Roman Catholics and all the Protestants in the
Sultan's dominions, a right which the Czars had never professed
to enjoy. Moreover, the Treaty of Kainardjie itself forbade by
implication any such construction, for it mentioned by name one
ecclesiastical building for whose priests the Porte did concede
to Russia the right of addressing representations to the Sultan.
Over the Danubian Principalities Russia possessed by the Treaty
of Adrianople undoubted protectorial rights; but these Provinces
stood on a footing quite different from that of the remainder of
the Empire. That the Greek Church possessed by custom and by
enactment privileges which it was the duty of the Sultan to
respect, no one contested: the novelty of Menschikoff's claim was
that the observation of these rights should be made matter of
Treaty with Russia. The importance of the demand was proved by
the fact that Menschikoff strictly forbade the Turkish Ministers
to reveal it to the other Powers, and that Nicholas caused the
English Government to be informed that the mission of his envoy
had no other object than the final adjustment of the difficulties
respecting the Holy Places. <a name="FNanchor459">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_459"><sup>[459]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.]</p>
<p>[Menschikoff leaves Constantinople, May 21.]</p>
<p>[Russian troops enter the Principalities.]</p>
<p>When Menschikoff reached Constantinople the British Embassy
was in the hands of a subordinate officer. The Ambassador, Sir
Stratford Canning, had recently returned to England. Stratford
Canning, a cousin of the Premier, had been employed in the East
at intervals since 1810. There had been a period in his career
when he had desired to see the Turk expelled from Europe as an
incurable barbarian; but the reforms of Sultan Mahmud had at a
later time excited his warm interest and sympathy, and as
Ambassador at Constantinople from 1842 to 1852 he had laboured
strenuously for the regeneration of the Turkish Empire, and for
the improvement of the condition of the Christian races under the
Sultan's rule. His dauntless, sustained energy, his noble
presence, the sincerity of his friendship towards the Porte, gave
him an influence at Constantinople seldom, if ever, exercised by
a foreign statesman. There were moments when he seemed to be
achieving results of some value; but the task which he had
attempted was one that surpassed human power; and after ten years
so spent as to win for him the fame of the greatest ambassador by
whom England has been represented in modern times, he declared
that the prospects of Turkish reform were hopeless, and left
Constantinople, not intending to return. <a name=
"FNanchor460">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_460"><sup>[460]</sup></a>
Before his successor had been appointed, the mission of Prince
Menschikoff, the violence of his behaviour at Constantinople, and
a rumour that he sought far more than his ostensible object,
alarmed the British Government. Canning was asked to resume his
post. Returning to Constantinople as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
he communicated on his journey with the Courts of Paris and
Vienna, and carried with him authority to order the Admiral of
the fleet at Malta to hold his ships in readiness to sail for the
East. He arrived at the Bosphorus on April 5th, learnt at once
the real situation of affairs, and entered into negotiation with
Menschikoff. The Russian, a mere child in diplomacy in comparison
with his rival, suffered himself to be persuaded to separate the
question of the Holy Places from that of the guarantee of the
rights of the Greek Church. In the first matter Russia had a good
cause; in the second it was advancing a new claim. The two being
dissociated, Stratford had no difficulty in negotiating a
compromise on the Holy Places satisfactory to the Czar's
representative; and the demand for the Protectorate over the
Greek Christians now stood out unobscured by those grievances of
detail with which it had been at first interwoven. Stratford
encouraged the Turkish Government to reject the Russian proposal.
Knowing, nevertheless, that Menschikoff would in the last resort
endeavour to intimidate the Sultan personally, he withheld from
the Ministers, in view of this last peril, the strongest of all
his arguments; and seeking a private audience with the Sultan on
the 9th of May, he made known to him with great solemnity the
authority which he had received to order the fleet at Malta to be
in readiness to sail. The Sultan placed the natural
interpretation on this statement, and ordered final rejection of
Menschikoff's demand, though the Russian had consented to a
modification of its form, and would now have accepted a note
declaratory of the intentions of the Sultan towards the Greek
Church instead of a regular Treaty. On the 21st of May
Menschikoff quitted Constantinople; and the Czar, declaring that
some guarantee must be held by Russia for the maintenance of the
rights of the Greek Christians, announced that he should order
his army to occupy the Danubian Provinces. After an interval of
some weeks the Russian troops crossed the Pruth, and spread
themselves over Moldavia and Wallachia. (June 22nd.) <a name=
"FNanchor461">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_461"><sup>[461]</sup></a></p>
<p>[English Policy.]</p>
<p>In the ordinary course of affairs the invasion of the
territory of one Empire by the troops of another is, and can be
nothing else than, an act of war, necessitating hostilities as a
measure of defence on the part of the Power invaded. But the Czar
protested that in taking the Danubian Principalities in pledge he
had no intention of violating the peace; and as yet the common
sense of the Turks, as well as the counsels that they received
from without, bade them hesitate before issuing a declaration of
war. Since December, 1852, Lord Aberdeen had been Prime Minister
of England, at the head of a Cabinet formed by a coalition
between followers of Sir Robert Peel and the Whig leaders
Palmerston and Russell. <a name="FNanchor462">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_462"><sup>[462]</sup></a> There was no man in England
more pacific in disposition, or more anxious to remain on terms
of honourable friendship with Russia, than Lord Aberdeen. The
Czar had justly reckoned on the Premier's own forbearance; but he
had failed to recognise the strength of those forces which, both
within and without the Cabinet, set in the direction of armed
resistance to Russia. Palmerston was keen for action. Lord
Stratford appears to have taken it for granted from the first
that, if a war should arise between the Sultan and the Czar in
consequence of the rejection of Menschikoff's demand, Great
Britain would fight in defence of the Ottoman Empire. He had not
stated this in express terms, but the communication which he made
to the Sultan regarding his own instructions could only have been
intended to convey this impression. If the fleet was not to
defend the Sultan, it was a mere piece of deceit to inform him
that the Ambassador had powers to place it in readiness to sail;
and such deceit was as alien to the character of Lord Stratford
as the assumption of a virtual engagement towards the Sultan was
in keeping with his imperious will and his passionate conviction
of the duty of England. From the date of Lord Stratford's visit
to the Palace, although no Treaty or agreement was in existence,
England stood bound in honour, so long as the Turks should pursue
the policy laid down by her envoy, to fulfil the expectations
which this envoy had held out.</p>
<p>[British and French fleets moved to Besika Bay, July,
1853.]</p>
<p>[The Vienna Note, July 28.]</p>
<p>[Constantinople in September.]</p>
<p>[British and French fleets pass the Dardanelles, Oct. 22.]</p>
<p>Had Lord Stratford been at the head of the Government, the
policy and intentions of Great Britain would no doubt have been
announced with such distinctness that the Czar could have
fostered no misapprehension as to the results of his own acts.
Palmerston, as Premier, would probably have adopted the same
clear course, and war would either have been avoided by this
nation or have been made with a distinct purpose and on a
definite issue. But the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen was at variance
with itself. Aberdeen was ready to go to all lengths in
negotiation, but he was not sufficiently master of his colleagues
and of the representatives of England abroad to prevent acts and
declarations which in themselves brought war near; above all, he
failed to require from Turkey that abstention from hostilities on
which, so long as negotiations lasted, England and the other
Powers which proposed to make the cause of the Porte their own
ought unquestionably to have insisted. On the announcement by the
Czar that his army was about to enter the Principalities, the
British Government despatched the fleet to Besika Bay near the
entrance to the Dardanelles, and authorised Stratford to call it
to the Bosphorus, in case Constantinople should be attacked. <a
name="FNanchor463">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_463"><sup>[463]</sup></a> The French fleet, which had
come into Greek waters on Menschikoff's appearance at
Constantinople, took up the same position. Meanwhile European
diplomacy was busily engaged in framing schemes of compromise
between the Porte and Russia. The representatives of the four
Powers met at Vienna, and agreed upon a note which, as they
considered, would satisfy any legitimate claims of Russia on
behalf of the Greek Church, and at the same time impose upon the
Sultan no further obligations towards Russia than those which
already existed. <a name="FNanchor464">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_464"><sup>[464]</sup></a> This note, however, was ill
drawn, and would have opened the door to new claims on the part
of Russia to a general Protectorate not sanctioned by its
authors. The draft was sent to St. Petersburg, and was accepted
by the Czar. At Constantinople its ambiguities were at once
recognised; and though Lord Stratford in his official capacity
urged its acceptance under a European guarantee against
misconstruction, the Divan, now under the pressure of strong
patriotic forces, refused to accept the note unless certain
changes were made in its expressions. France, England, and
Austria united in recommending to the Court of St. Petersburg the
adoption of these amendments. The Czar, however, declined to
admit them, and a Russian document, which obtained a publicity
for which it was not intended, proved that the construction of
the note which the amendments were expressly designed to exclude
was precisely that which Russia meant to place upon it. The
British Ministry now refused to recommend the note any longer to
the Porte. <a name="FNanchor465">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_465"><sup>[465]</sup></a> Austria, while it approved
of the amendments, did not consider that their rejection by the
Czar justified England in abandoning the note as the common award
of the European Powers; and thus the concert of Europe was
interrupted, England and France combining in a policy which
Austria and Prussia were not willing to follow. In proportion as
the chances of joint European action diminished, the ardour of
the Turks themselves, and of those who were to be their allies,
rose higher. Tumults, organised by the heads of the war-party,
broke out at Constantinople; and although Stratford scorned the
alarms of his French colleagues, who reported that a massacre of
the Europeans in the capital was imminent, he thought it
necessary to call up two vessels of war in order to provide for
the security of the English residents and of the Sultan himself.
In England Palmerston and the men of action in the Cabinet
dragged Lord Aberdeen with them. The French Government pressed
for vigorous measures, and in conformity with its desire
instructions were sent from London to Lord Stratford to call the
fleet to the Bosphorus, and to employ it in defending the
territory of the Sultan against aggression. On the 22nd of
October the British and French fleets passed the Dardanelles.</p>
<p>[The ultimatum of Omar Pasha rejected, Oct. 10.]</p>
<p>[Turkish squadron destroyed at Sinope, Nov. 30.]</p>
<p>The Turk, sure of the protection of the Western Powers, had
for some weeks resolved upon war; and yet the possibilities of a
diplomatic settlement were not yet exhausted. Stratford himself
had forwarded to Vienna the draft of an independent note which
the Sultan was prepared to accept. This had not yet been seen at
St. Petersburg. Other projects of conciliation filled the desks
of all the leading politicians of Europe. Yet, though the belief
generally existed that some scheme could be framed by which the
Sultan, without sacrifice of his dignity and interest, might
induce the Czar to evacuate the Principalities, no serious
attempt was made to prevent the Turks from coming into collision
with their enemies both by land and sea. The commander of the
Russian troops in the Principalities having, on the 10th of
October, rejected an ultimatum requiring him to withdraw within
fifteen days, this answer was taken as the signal for the
commencement of hostilities. The Czar met the declaration of war
with a statement that he would abstain from taking the offensive,
and would continue merely to hold the Principalities as a
material guarantee. Omar Pasha, the Ottoman commander in
Bulgaria, was not permitted to observe the same passive attitude.
Crossing the Danube, he attacked and defeated the Russians at
Oltenitza. Thus assailed, the Czar considered that his engagement
not to act on the offensive was at an end, and the Russian fleet,
issuing from Sebastopol, attacked and destroyed a Turkish
squadron in the harbour of Sinope on the southern coast of the
Black Sea (November 30). The action was a piece of gross folly on
the part of the Russian authorities if they still cherished the
hopes of pacification which the Czar professed; but others also
were at fault. Lord Stratford and the British Admiral, if they
could not prevent the Turkish ships from remaining in the Euxine,
where they were useless against the superior force of Russia,
might at least in exercise of the powers given to them have sent
a sufficient escort to prevent an encounter. But the same
ill-fortune and incompleteness that had marked all the diplomacy
of the previous months attended the counsels of the Admirals at
the Bosphorus; and the disaster of Sinope rendered war between
the Western Powers and Russia almost <a name=
"FNanchor466">inevitable.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_466"><sup>[466]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Effect of the action at Sinope.]</p>
<p>[Russian ships required to enter port, December.]</p>
<p>[England and France declare war, March 27, 1854.]</p>
<p>The Turks themselves had certainly not understood the
declaration of the Emperor Nicholas as assuring their squadron at
Sinope against attack; and so far was the Ottoman Admiral from
being the victim of a surprise that he had warned his Government
some days before of the probability of his own destruction. But
to the English people, indignant with Russia since its
destruction of Hungarian liberty and its tyrannous demand for the
surrender of the Hungarian refugees, all that now passed heaped
up the intolerable sum of autocratic violence and deceit. The
cannonade which was continued against the Turkish crews at Sinope
long after they had become defenceless gave to the battle the
aspect of a massacre; the supposed promise of the Czar to act
only on the defensive caused it to be denounced as an act of
flagrant treachery; the circumstance that the Turkish fleet was
lying within one of the Sultan's harbours, touching as it were
the territory which the navy of England had undertaken to
protect, imparted to the attack the character of a direct
challenge and defiance to England. The cry rose loud for war.
Napoleon, eager for the alliance with England, eager in
conjunction with England to play a great part before Europe, even
at the cost of a war from which France had nothing to gain,
proposed that the combined fleets should pass the Bosphorus and
require every Russian vessel sailing on the Black Sea to re-enter
port. His proposal was adopted by the British Government.
Nicholas learnt that the Russian flag was swept from the Euxine.
It was in vain that a note upon which the representatives of the
Powers at Vienna had once more agreed was accepted by the Porte
and forwarded to St. Petersburg (December 31). The pride of the
Czar was wounded beyond endurance, and at the beginning of
February he recalled his ambassadors from London and Paris. A
letter written to him by Napoleon III., demanding in the name of
himself and the Queen of England the evacuation of the
Principalities, was answered by a reference to the campaign of
Moscow, Austria now informed the Western Powers that if they
would fix a delay for the evacuation of the Principalities, the
expiration of which should be the signal for hostilities, it
would support the summons; and without waiting to learn whether
Austria would also unite with them in hostilities in the event of
the summons being rejected, the British and French Governments
despatched their ultimatum to St. Petersburg. Austria and Prussia
sought, but in vain, to reconcile the Court of St. Petersburg to
the only measure by which peace could now be preserved. The
ultimatum remained without an answer, and on the 27th of March
England and France declared war.</p>
<p>[Policy of Austria.]</p>
<p>The Czar had at one time believed that in his Eastern schemes
he was sure of the support of Austria; and he had strong reasons
for supposing himself entitled to its aid. But his mode of
thought was simpler than that of the Court of Vienna.
Schwarzenberg, when it was remarked that the intervention of
Russia in Hungary would bind the House of Hapsburg too closely to
its protector, had made the memorable answer, "We will astonish
the world by our ingratitude." It is possible that an instance of
Austrian gratitude would have astonished the world most of all;
but Schwarzenberg's successors were not the men to sacrifice a
sound principle to romance. Two courses of Eastern policy have,
under various modifications, had their advocates in rival schools
of statesmen at Vienna. The one is that of expansion southward in
concert with Russia; the other is that of resistance to the
extension of Russian power, and the consequent maintenance of the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire. During Metternich's long rule,
inspired as this was by a faith in the Treaties and the
institutions of 1815, and by the dread of every living,
disturbing force, the second of these systems had been
consistently followed. In 1854 the determining motive of the
Court of Vienna was not a decided political conviction, but the
certainty that if it united with Russia it would be brought into
war with the Western Powers. Had Russia and Turkey been likely to
remain alone in the arena, an arrangement for territorial
compensation would possibly, as on some other occasions, have won
for the Czar an Austrian alliance. Combination against Turkey
was, however, at the present time, too perilous an enterprise for
the Austrian monarchy; and, as nothing was to be gained through
the war, it remained for the Viennese diplomatists to see that
nothing was lost and as little as possible wasted. The presence
of Russian troops in the Principalities, where they controlled
the Danube in its course between the Hungarian frontier and the
Black Sea, was, in default of some definite understanding, a
danger to Austria; and Count Buol, the Minister at Vienna, had
therefore every reason to thank the Western Powers for insisting
on the evacuation of this district. When France and England were
burning to take up arms, it would have been a piece of
superfluous brutality towards the Czar for Austria to attach to
its own demand for the evacuation of the Principalities the
threat of war. But this evacuation Austria was determined to
enforce. It refused, as did Prussia, to give to the Czar the
assurance of its neutrality; and, inasmuch as the free navigation
of the Danube as far as the Black Sea had now become recognised
as one of the commercial interests of Germany at large, Prussia
and the German Federation undertook to protect the territory of
Austria, if, in taking the measures necessary to free the
Principalities, it should itself be attacked by Russia. <a name=
"FNanchor467">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_467"><sup>[467]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Prussia.]</p>
<p>The King of Prussia, clouded as his mind was by political and
religious phantasms, had nevertheless at times a larger range of
view than his neighbours; and his opinion as to the true solution
of the difficulties between Nicholas and the Porte, at the time
of Menschikoff's mission, deserved more attention than it
received. Frederick William proposed that the rights of the
Christian subjects of the Sultan should be placed by Treaty under
the guarantee of all the Great Powers. This project was opposed
by Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers as an encroachment on
the Sultan's sovereignty, and its rejection led the King to write
with some asperity to his ambassador in London that he should
seek the welfare of Prussia in absolute neutrality. <a name=
"FNanchor468">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_468"><sup>[468]</sup></a> At
a later period the King demanded from England, as the condition
of any assistance from himself, a guarantee for the maintenance
of the frontiers of Germany and Prussia. He regarded Napoleon
III. as the representative of a revolutionary system, and
believed that under him French armies would soon endeavour to
overthrow the order of Europe established in 1815. That England
should enter into a close alliance with this man excited the
King's astonishment and disgust; and unless the Cabinet of London
were prepared to give a guarantee against any future attack on
Germany by the French Emperor, who was believed to be ready for
every political adventure, it was vain for England to seek
Prussia's aid. Lord Aberdeen could give no such guarantee; still
less could he gratify the King's strangely passionate demand for
the restoration of his authority in the Swiss canton of
Neuch&acirc;tel, which before 1848 had belonged in name to the
Hohenzollerns. Many influences were brought to bear upon the King
from the side both of England and of Russia. The English Court
and Ministers, strenuously supported by Bunsen, the Prussian
ambassador, strove to enlist the King in an active concert of
Europe against Russia by dwelling on the duties of Prussia as a
Great Power and the dangers arising to it from isolation. On the
other hand, the admiration felt by Frederick William for the
Emperor Nicholas, and the old habitual friendship between Prussia
and Russia, gave strength to the Czar's advocates at Berlin.
Schemes for a reconstruction of Europe, which were devised by
Napoleon, and supposed to receive some countenance from
Palmerston, reached the King's ear. <a name="FNanchor469">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_469"><sup>[469]</sup></a> He heard that Austria
was to be offered the Danubian Provinces upon condition of giving
up northern Italy; that Piedmont was to receive Lombardy, and in
return to surrender Savoy to France; that, if Austria should
decline to unite actively with the Western Powers, revolutionary
movements were to be stirred up in Italy and in Hungary. Such
reports kindled the King's rage. "Be under no illusion," he wrote
to his ambassador; "tell the British Ministers in their private
ear and on the housetops that I will not suffer Austria to be
attacked by the revolution without drawing the sword in its
defence. If England and France let loose revolution as their
ally, be it where it may, I unite with Russia for life and
death." Bunsen advocated the participation of Prussia in the
European concert with more earnestness than success. While the
King was declaiming against the lawlessness which was supposed to
have spread from the Tuileries to Downing Street, Bunsen, on his
own authority, sent to Berlin a project for the annexation of
Russian territory by Prussia as a reward for its alliance with
the Western Courts. This document fell into the hands of the
Russian party at Berlin, and it roused the King's own
indignation. Bitter reproaches were launched against the authors
of so felonious a scheme. Bunsen could no longer retain his
office. Other advocates of the Western alliance were dismissed
from their places, and the policy of neutrality carried the day
at Berlin.</p>
<p>[Relation of the Western Powers to the European Concert.]</p>
<p>The situation of the European Powers in April, 1854, was thus
a very strange one. All the Four Powers were agreed in demanding
the evacuation of the Principalities by Russia, and in the
resolution to enforce this, if necessary, by arms. Protocols
witnessing this agreement were signed on the 9th of April and the
23rd of May, <a name="FNanchor470">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_470"><sup>[470]</sup></a> and it was moreover declared
that the Four Powers recognised the necessity of maintaining the
independence and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But France
and England, while they made the presence of the Russians in the
Principalities the avowed cause of war, had in reality other
intentions than the mere expulsion of the intruder and the
restoration of the state of things previously existing. It was
their desire so to cripple Russia that it should not again be in
a condition to menace the Ottoman Empire. This intention made it
impossible for the British Cabinet to name, as the basis of a
European league, that single definite object for which, and for
which alone, all the Powers were in May, 1854, ready to unite in
arms. England, the nation and the Government alike, chose rather
to devote itself, in company with France, to the task of
indefinitely weakening Russia than, in company with all Europe,
to force Russia to one humiliating but inevitable act of
submission. Whether in the prosecution of their ulterior objects
the Western Courts might or might not receive some armed
assistance from Austria and Prussia no man could yet predict with
confidence. That Austria would to some extent make common cause
with the Allies seemed not unlikely; that Prussia would do so
there was no real ground to believe; on the contrary, fair
warning had been given that there were contingencies in which
Prussia might ultimately be found on the side of the Czar.
Striving to the utmost to discover some principle, some object,
or even some formula which might expand the purely defensive
basis accepted by Austria and Prussia into a common policy of
reconstructive action, the Western Powers could obtain nothing
more definite from the Conference at Vienna than the following
shadowy engagement:-"The Four Governments engage to endeavour in
common to discover the guarantees most likely to attach the
existence of the Ottoman Empire to the general equilibrium of
Europe. They are ready to deliberate as to the employment of
means calculated to accomplish the object of their agreement."
This readiness to deliberate, so cautiously professed, was a
quality in which during the two succeeding years the Courts of
Vienna and Berlin were not found wanting; but the war in which
England and France now engaged was one which they had undertaken
at their own risk, and they discovered little anxiety on any side
to share their labour.</p>
<p>[Siege of Silistria, May.]</p>
<p>[The Principalities evacuated, June.]</p>
<p>During the winter of 1853 and the first weeks of the following
year hostilities of an indecisive character continued between the
Turks and the Russians on the Danube. At the outbreak of the war
Nicholas had consulted the veteran Paskiewitsch as to the best
road by which to march on Constantinople. Paskiewitsch, as a
strategist, knew the danger to which a Russian force crossing the
Danube would be exposed from the presence of Austrian armies on
its flank; as commander in the invasion of Hungary in 1849 he had
encountered, as he believed, ill faith and base dealing on the
part of his ally, and had repaid it with insult and scorn; he had
learnt better than any other man the military and the moral
weakness of the Austrian Empire in its eastern part. His answer
to the Czar's inquiries was, "The road to Constantinople lies
through Vienna." But whatever bitterness the Czar might have felt
at the ingratitude of Francis Joseph, he was not ready for a war
with Austria, in which he could hardly have avoided the
assistance of revolutionary allies; moreover, if the road to
Constantinople lay through Vienna, it might be urged that the
road to Vienna lay through Berlin. The simpler plan was adopted
of a march on the Balkans by way of Shumla, to which the capture
of Silistria was to be the prelude. At the end of March the
Russian vanguard passed the Danube at the lowest point where a
crossing could be made, and advanced into the Dobrudscha. In May
the siege of Silistria was undertaken by Paskiewitsch himself.
But the enterprise began too late, and the strength employed both
in the siege and in the field operations farther east was
insufficient. The Turkish garrison, schooled by a German engineer
and animated by two young English officers, maintained a stubborn
and effective resistance. French and English troops had already
landed at Gallipoli for the defence of Constantinople, and
finding no enemy within range had taken ship for Varna on the
north of the Balkans. Austria, on the 3rd of June, delivered its
summons requiring the evacuation of the Principalities. Almost at
the same time Paskiewitsch received a wound that disabled him,
and was forced to surrender his command into other hands. During
the succeeding fortnight the besiegers of Silistria were
repeatedly driven back, and on the 22nd they were compelled to
raise the siege. The Russians, now hard pressed by an enemy whom
they had despised, withdrew to the north of the Danube. The
retreating movement was continued during the succeeding weeks,
until the evacuation of the Principalities was complete, and the
last Russian soldier had recrossed the Pruth. As the invader
retired, Austria sent its troops into these provinces, pledging
itself by a convention with the Porte to protect them until peace
should be concluded, and then to restore them to the Sultan.</p>
<p>[Further objects of the Western Powers.]</p>
<p>With the liberation of the Principalities the avowed ground of
war passed away; but the Western Powers had no intention of
making peace without further concessions on the part of Russia.
As soon as the siege of Silistria was raised instructions were
sent to the commanders of the allied armies at Varna, pressing,
if not absolutely commanding, them to attack Sebastopol, the
headquarters of Russian maritime power in the Euxine. The capture
of Sebastopol had been indicated some months before by Napoleon
III. as the most effective blow that could be dealt to Russia. It
was from Sebastopol that the fleet had issued which destroyed the
Turks at Sinope: until this arsenal had fallen, the growing naval
might which pressed even more directly upon Constantinople than
the neighbourhood of the Czar's armies by land could not be
permanently laid low. The objects sought by England and France
were now gradually brought into sufficient clearness to be
communicated to the other Powers, though the more precise
interpretation of the conditions laid down remained open for
future discussion. It was announced that the Protectorate of
Russia over the Danubian Principalities and Servia must be
abolished; that the navigation of the Danube at its mouths must
be freed from all obstacles; that the Treaty of July, 1841,
relating to the Black Sea and the Dardanelles, must be revised in
the interest of the balance of power in Europe; and that the
claim to any official Protectorate over Christian subjects of the
Porte, of whatever rite, must be abandoned by the Czar. Though
these conditions, known as the Four Points, were not approved by
Prussia, they were accepted by Austria in August, 1854, and were
laid before Russia as the basis of any negotiation for peace. The
Czar declared in answer that Russia would only negotiate on such
a basis when at the last extremity. The Allied Governments,
measuring their enemy's weakness by his failure before Silistria,
were determined to accept nothing less; and the attack upon
Sebastopol, ordered before the evacuation of the Principalities,
was consequently allowed to take its course. <a name=
"FNanchor471">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_471"><sup>[471]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Sebastopol.]</p>
<p>[The Allies land in the Crimea, Sept. 14.]</p>
<p>[Battle of the Alma, Sept. 20.]</p>
<p>The Roadstead, or Great Harbour, of Sebastopol runs due
eastwards inland from a point not far from the south-western
extremity of the Crimea. One mile from the open sea its waters
divide, the larger arm still running eastwards till it meets the
River Tchernaya, the smaller arm, known as the Man-of-War
Harbour, bending sharply to the south. On both sides of this
smaller harbour Sebastopol is built. To the seaward, that is from
the smaller harbour westwards, Sebastopol and its approaches were
thoroughly fortified. On its landward, southern, side the town
had been open till 1853, and it was still but imperfectly
protected, most weakly on the south-eastern side. On the north of
the Great Harbour Fort Constantine at the head of a line of
strong defences guarded the entrance from the sea; while on the
high ground immediately opposite Sebastopol and commanding the
town there stood the Star Fort with other military constructions.
The general features of Sebastopol were known to the Allied
commanders; they had, however, no precise information as to the
force by which it was held, nor as to the armament of its
fortifications. It was determined that the landing should be made
in the Bay of Eupatoria, thirty miles north of the fortress.
Here, on the 14th of September, the Allied forces, numbering
about thirty thousand French, twenty-seven thousand English, and
seven thousand Turks, effected their disembarkation without
meeting any resistance. The Russians, commanded by Prince
Menschikoff, lately envoy at Constantinople, had taken post ten
miles further south on high ground behind the River Alma. On the
20th of September they were attacked in front by the English,
while the French attempted a turning movement from the sea. The
battle was a scene of confusion, and for a moment the assault of
the English seemed to be rolled back. But it was renewed with
ever increasing vigour, and before the French had made any
impression on the Russian left Lord Raglan's troops had driven
the enemy from their positions. Struck on the flank when their
front was already broken, outnumbered and badly led, the Russians
gave up all for lost. The form of an orderly retreat was
maintained only long enough to disguise from the conquerors the
completeness of their victory. When night fell the Russian army
abandoned itself to total disorder, and had the pursuit been made
at once it could scarcely have escaped destruction. But St.
Arnaud, who was in the last stage of mortal illness, refused, in
spite of the appeal of Lord Raglan, to press on his wearied
troops. Menschikoff, abandoning the hope of checking the advance
of the Allies in a second battle, and anxious only to prevent the
capture of Sebastopol by an enemy supposed to be following at his
heels, retired into the fortress, and there sank seven of his
war-ships as a barrier across the mouth of the Great Harbour,
mooring the rest within. The crews were brought on shore to serve
in the defence by land; the guns were dragged from the ships to
the bastions and redoubts. Then, when it appeared that the Allies
lingered, the Russian commander altered his plan. Leaving
Korniloff, the Vice-Admiral, and Todleben, an officer of
engineers, to man the existing works and to throw up new ones
where the town was undefended, Menschikoff determined to lead off
the bulk of his army into the interior of the Crimea, in order to
keep open his communications with Russia, to await in freedom the
arrival of reinforcements, and, if Sebastopol should not at once
fall, to attack the Allies at his own time and opportunity.
(September 24th.)</p>
<p>[Flank march to south of Sebastopol.]</p>
<p>[Ineffectual Bombardment, Sept. 17-25.]</p>
<p>The English had lost in the battle of the Alma about two
thousand men, the French probably less than half that number. On
the morning after the engagement Lord Raglan proposed that the
two armies should march straight against the fortifications lying
on the north of the Great Harbour, and carry these by storm, so
winning a position where their guns would command Sebastopol
itself. The French, supported by Burgoyne, the chief of the
English engineers, shrank from the risk of a front attack on
works supposed to be more formidable than they really were, and
induced Lord Raglan to consent to a long circuitous march which
would bring the armies right round Sebastopol to its more open
southern side, from which, it was thought, an assault might be
successfully made. This flank-march, which was one of extreme
risk, was carried out safely, Menschikoff himself having left
Sebastopol, and having passed along the same road in his retreat
into the interior a little before the appearance of the Allies.
Pushing southward, the English reached the sea at Balaclava, and
took possession of the harbour there, accepting the exposed
eastward line between the fortress and the Russia is outside; the
French, now commanded by Canrobert, continued their march
westwards round the back of Sebastopol, and touched the sea at
Kasatch Bay. The two armies were thus masters of the broken
plateau which, rising westwards from the plain of Balaclava and
the valley of the Tchernaya, overlooks Sebastopol on its southern
side. That the garrison, which now consisted chiefly of sailors,
could at this moment have resisted the onslaught of the fifty
thousand troops who had won the battle of the Alma, the Russians
themselves did not believe; <a name="FNanchor472">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_472"><sup>[472]</sup></a> but once more the French
staff, with Burgoyne, urged caution, and it was determined to
wait for the siege-guns, which were still at sea. The decision
was a fatal one. While the Allies chose positions for their heavy
artillery and slowly landed and placed their guns, Korniloff and
Todleben made the fortifications on the southern side of
Sebastopol an effective barrier before an enemy. The sacrifice of
the Russian fleet had not been in vain. The sailors were learning
all the duties of a garrison: the cannon from the ships proved
far more valuable on land. Three weeks of priceless time were
given to leaders who knew how to turn every moment to account.
When, on the 17th of October, the bombardment which was to
precede the assault on Sebastopol began, the French artillery,
operating on the south-west, was overpowered by that of the
defenders. The fleets in vain thundered against the solid
sea-front of the fortress. At the end of eight days' cannonade,
during which the besiegers' batteries poured such a storm of shot
and shell upon Sebastopol as no fortress had yet withstood, the
defences were still unbroken.</p>
<p>[Battle of Balaclava, Oct. 25.]</p>
<p>Menschikoff in the meantime had received the reinforcements
which he expected, and was now ready to fall upon the besiegers
from the east. His point of attack was the English port of
Balaclava and the fortified road lying somewhat east of this,
which formed the outer line held by the English and their Turkish
supports. The plain of Balaclava is divided by a low ridge into a
northern and a southern valley. Along this ridge runs the
causeway, which had been protected by redoubts committed to a
weak Turkish guard. On the morning of the 25th the Russians
appeared in the northern valley. They occupied the heights rising
from it on the north and east, attacked the causeway, captured
three of the redoubts, and drove off the Turks, left to meet
their onset alone. Lord Raglan, who watched these operations from
the edge of the western plateau, ordered up infantry from a
distance, but the only English troops on the spot were a light
and a heavy brigade of cavalry, each numbering about six hundred
men. The Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, was directed to
move towards Balaclava itself, which was now threatened. While
they were on the march, a dense column of Russian cavalry, about
three thousand strong, appeared above the crest of the low ridge,
ready, as it seemed, to overwhelm the weak troops before them.
But in their descent from the ridge the Russians halted, and
Scarlett with admirable courage and judgment formed his men for
attack, and charged full into the enemy with the handful who were
nearest to him. They cut their way into the very heart of the
column; and before the Russians could crush them with mere weight
the other regiments of the same brigade hurled themselves on the
right and on the left against the huge inert mass. The Russians
broke and retreated in disorder before a quarter of their number,
leaving to Scarlett and his men the glory of an action which
ranks with the Prussian attack at Mars-la-Tour in 1870 as the
most brilliant cavalry operation in modern warfare. The squadrons
of the Light Brigade, during the peril and the victory of their
comrades, stood motionless, paralysed by the same defect of
temper or intelligence in command which was soon to devote them
to a fruitless but ever-memorable act of self-sacrifice. Russian
infantry were carrying off the cannon from the conquered redoubts
on the causeway, when an aide-de-camp from the general-in-chief
brought to the Earl of Lucan, commander of the cavalry, an order
to advance rapidly to the front, and save these guns. Lucan, who
from his position could see neither the enemy nor the guns,
believed himself ordered to attack the Russian artillery at the
extremity of the northern valley, and he directed the Light
Brigade to charge in this direction. It was in vain that the
leader of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan, warned his chief, in
words which were indeed but too weak, that there was a battery in
front, a battery on each flank, and that the ground was covered
with Russian riflemen. The order was repeated as that of the head
of the army, and it was obeyed. Thus</p>
<span class="c4">"Into the valley of Death</span><br>
 <span class="c5">Rode the Six Hundred."</span><br>

<p>How they died there, the remnant not turning till they had
hewn their way past the guns and routed the enemy's cavalry
behind them, the English people will never <a name=
"FNanchor473">forget.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_473"><sup>[473]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Inkermann, Nov. 5.]</p>
<p>The day of Balaclava brought to each side something of victory
and something of failure. The Russians remained masters of the
road that they had captured, and carried off seven English guns;
the English, where they had met the enemy, proved that they could
defeat overwhelming numbers. Not many days passed before our
infantry were put to the test which the cavalry had so
victoriously undergone. The siege-approaches of the French had
been rapidly advanced, and it was determined that on the 5th of
November the long-deferred assault on Sebastopol should be made.
On that very morning, under cover of a thick mist, the English
right was assailed by massive columns of the enemy. Menschikoff's
army had now risen to a hundred thousand men; he had thrown
troops into Sebastopol, and had planned the capture of the
English positions by a combined attack from Sebastopol itself,
and by troops advancing from the lower valley of the Tchernaya
across the bridge of Inkermann. The battle of the 5th of
November, on the part of the English, was a soldier's battle,
without generalship, without order, without design. The men,
standing to their ground whatever their own number and whatever
that of the foe, fought, after their ammunition was exhausted,
with bayonets, with the butt ends of their muskets, with their
fists and with stones. For hours the ever-surging Russian mass
rolled in upon them; but they maintained the unequal struggle
until the arrival of French regiments saved them from their
deadly peril and the enemy were driven in confusion from the
field. The Russian columns, marching right up to the guns, had
been torn in pieces by artillery-fire. Their loss in killed and
wounded was enormous, their defeat one which no ingenuity could
disguise. Yet the battle of Inkermann had made the capture of
Sebastopol, as it had been planned by the Allies, impossible.
Their own loss was too great, the force which the enemy had
displayed was too vast, to leave any hope that the fortress could
be mastered by a sudden assault. The terrible truth soon became
plain that the enterprise on which the armies had been sent had
in fact failed, and that another enterprise of a quite different
character, a winter siege in the presence of a superior enemy, a
campaign for which no preparations had been made, and for which
all that was most necessary was wanting, formed the only
alternative to an evacuation of the Crimea.</p>
<p>[Storm of Nov. 14.]</p>
<p>[Winter in the Crimea.]</p>
<p>On the 14th of November the Euxine winter began with a storm
which swept away the tents on the exposed plateau, and wrecked
twenty-one vessels bearing stores of ammunition and clothing.
From this time rain and snow turned the tract between the camp
and Balaclava into a morass. The loss of the paved road which had
been captured by the Russians three weeks before now told with
fatal effect on the British army. The only communication with the
port of Balaclava was by a hillside track, which soon became
impassable by carts. It was necessary to bring up supplies on the
backs of horses; but the horses perished from famine and from
excessive labour. The men were too few, too weak, too destitute
of the helpful ways of English sailors, to assist in providing
for themselves. Thus penned up on the bleak promontory,
cholera-stricken, mocked rather than sustained during their
benumbing toil with rations of uncooked meat and green
coffee-berries, the British soldiery wasted away. Their effective
force sank at midwinter to eleven thousand men. In the hospitals,
which even at Scutari were more deadly to those who passed within
them than the fiercest fire of the enemy, nine thousand men
perished before the end of February. The time indeed came when
the very Spirit of Mercy seemed to enter these abodes of woe, and
in the presence of Florence Nightingale nature at last regained
its healing power, pestilence no longer hung in the atmosphere
which the sufferers breathed, and death itself grew mild. But
before this new influence had vanquished routine the grave had
closed over whole regiments of men whom it had no right to claim.
The sufferings of other armies have been on a greater scale, but
seldom has any body of troops furnished a heavier tale of loss
and death in proportion to its numbers than the British army
during the winter of the Crimean War. The unsparing exposure in
the Press of the mismanagement under which our soldiers were
perishing excited an outburst of indignation which overthrew Lord
Aberdeen's Ministry and placed Palmerston in power. It also gave
to Europe at large an impression that Great Britain no longer
knew how to conduct a war, and unduly raised the reputation of
the French military administration, whose shortcomings, great as
they were, no French journalist dared to describe. In spite of
Alma and Inkermann, the military prestige of England was injured,
not raised, by the Crimean campaign; nor was it until the
suppression of the Indian Mutiny that the true capacity of the
nation in war was again vindicated before the world.</p>
<p>[Death of Nicholas, March 2, 1855.]</p>
<p>[Conference of Vienna, March-May, 1855.]</p>
<p>[Austria.]</p>
<p>"I have two generals who will not fail me," the Czar is
reported to have said when he heard of Menschikoff's last defeat,
"Generals January and February." General February fulfilled his
task, but he smote the Czar too. In the first days of March a new
monarch inherited the Russian crown. <a name="FNanchor474">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_474"><sup>[474]</sup></a> Alexander II. ascended
the throne, announcing that he would adhere to the policy of
Peter the Great, of Catherine, and of Nicholas. But the proud
tone was meant rather for the ear of Russia than of Europe, since
Nicholas had already expressed his willingness to treat for peace
on the basis laid down by the Western Powers in August, 1854.
This change was not produced wholly by the battles of Alma and
Inkermann. Prussia, finding itself isolated in Germany, had after
some months of hesitation given a diplomatic sanction to the Four
Points approved by Austria as indispensable conditions of peace.
Russia thus stood forsaken, as it seemed, by its only friend, and
Nicholas could no longer hope to escape with the mere abandonment
of those claims which had been the occasion of the war. He
consented to treat with his enemies on their own terms. Austria
now approached still more closely to the Western Powers, and
bound itself by treaty, in the event of peace not being concluded
by the end of the year on the stated basis, to deliberate with
France and England upon effectual means for obtaining the object
of the Alliance. <a name="FNanchor475">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_475"><sup>[475]</sup></a> Preparations were made for a
Conference at Vienna, from which Prussia, still declining to
pledge itself to warlike action in case of the failure of the
negotiations, was excluded. The sittings of the Conference began
a few days after the accession of Alexander II. Russia was
represented by its ambassador, Prince Alexander Gortschakoff,
who, as Minister of later years, was to play so conspicuous a
part in undoing the work of the Crimean epoch. On the first two
Articles forming the subject of negotiation, namely the abolition
of the Russian Protectorate over Servia and the Principalities,
and the removal of all impediments to the free navigation of the
Danube, agreement was reached. On the third Article, the revision
of the Treaty of July, 1841, relating to the Black Sea and the
Dardanelles, the Russian envoy and the representatives of the
Western Powers found themselves completely at variance.
Gortschakoff had admitted that the Treaty of 1841 must be so
revised as to put an end to the preponderance of Russia in the
Black Sea; <a name="FNanchor476">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_476"><sup>[476]</sup></a> but while the Western
Governments insisted upon the exclusion of Russian war-vessels
from these waters, Gortschakoff would consent only to the
abolition of Russia's preponderance by the free admission of the
war-vessels of all nations, or by some similar method of
counterpoise. The negotiations accordingly came to an end, but
not before Austria, disputing the contention of the Allies that
the object of the third Article could be attained only by the
specific means proposed by them, had brought forward a third
scheme based partly upon the limitation of the Russian navy in
the Euxine, partly upon the admission of war-ships of other
nations. This scheme was rejected by the Western Powers,
whereupon Austria declared that its obligations under the Treaty
of December 2nd, 1854, had now been fulfilled, and that it
returned in consequence to the position of a neutral.</p>
<p>Great indignation was felt and was expressed at London and
Paris at this so-called act of desertion, and at the subsequent
withdrawal of Austrian regiments from the positions which they
had occupied in anticipation of war. It was alleged that in the
first two conditions of peace Austria had seen its own special
interests effectually secured; and that as soon as the Court of
St. Petersburg had given the necessary assurances on these heads
the Cabinet of Vienna was willing to sacrifice the other objects
of the Alliance and to abandon the cause of the Maritime Powers,
in order to regain, with whatever loss of honour, the friendship
of the Czar. Though it was answered with perfect truth that
Austria had never accepted the principle of the exclusion of
Russia from the Black Sea, and was still ready to take up arms in
defence of that system by which it considered that Russia's
preponderance in the Black Sea might be most suitably prevented,
this argument sounded hollow to combatants convinced of the
futility of all methods for holding Russia in check except their
own. Austria had grievously injured its own position and credit
with the Western Powers. On the other hand it had wounded Russia
too deeply to win from the Czar the forgiveness which it
expected. Its policy of balance, whether best described as too
subtle or as too impartial, had miscarried. It had forfeited its
old, without acquiring new friendships. It remained isolated in
Europe, and destined to meet without support and without an ally
the blows which were soon to fall upon it.</p>
<p>[Progress of the siege, January-May, 1855.]</p>
<p>[Canrobert succeeded by P&eacute;lissier, May.]</p>
<p>[Unsuccessful assault, June 18.]</p>
<p>[Battle of the Tchernaya, Aug. 16.]</p>
<p>[Capture of the Malakoff, Sept. 8.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Sebastopol, Sept. 9.]</p>
<p>The prospects of the besieging armies before Sebastopol were
in some respects better towards the close of January, 1855, than
they were when the Conference of Vienna commenced its sittings
six weeks later. Sardinia, under the guidance of Cavour, had
joined the Western Alliance, and was about to send fifteen
thousand soldiers to the Crimea. A new plan of operations, which
promised excellent results, had been adopted at headquarters. Up
to the end of 1854 the French had directed their main attack
against the Flagstaff bastion, a little to the west of the head
of the Man-of-War Harbour. They were now, however, convinced by
Lord Raglan that the true keystone to the defences of Sebastopol
was the Malakoff, on the eastern side, and they undertook the
reduction of this formidable work, while the British directed
their efforts against the neighbouring Redan. <a name=
"FNanchor477">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_477"><sup>[477]</sup></a>
The heaviest fire of the besiegers being thus concentrated on a
narrow line, it seemed as if Sebastopol must soon fall. But at
the beginning of February a sinister change came over the French
camp. General Niel arrived from Paris vested with powers which
really placed him in control of the general-in-chief; and though
Canrobert was but partially made acquainted with the Emperor's
designs, he was forced to sacrifice to them much of his own
honour and that of the army. Napoleon had determined to come to
the Crimea himself, and at the fitting moment to end by one grand
stroke the war which had dragged so heavily in the hands of
others. He believed that Sebastopol could only be taken by a
complete investment; and it was his design to land with a fresh
army on the south-eastern coast of the Crimea, to march across
the interior of the peninsula, to sweep Menschikoff's forces from
their position above the Tchernaya, and to complete the
investment of Sebastopol from the north. With this scheme of
operations in view, all labour expended in the attack on
Sebastopol from the south was effort thrown away. Canrobert, who
had promised his most vigorous co-operation to Lord Raglan, was
fettered and paralysed by the Emperor's emissary at headquarters.
For three successive months the Russians not only held their own,
but by means of counter-approaches won back from the French some
of the ground that they had taken. The very existence of the
Alliance was threatened when, after Canrobert and Lord Raglan had
despatched a force to seize the Russian posts on the Sea of Azof,
the French portion of this force was peremptorily recalled by the
Emperor, in order that it might be employed in the march
northwards across the Crimea. At length, unable to endure the
miseries of the position, Canrobert asked to be relieved of his
command. He was succeeded by General P&eacute;lissier.
P&eacute;lissier, a resolute, energetic soldier, one moreover who
did not owe his promotion to complicity in the <i>coup
d'&eacute;tat</i>, flatly refused to obey the Emperor's orders.
Sweeping aside the flimsy schemes evolved at the Tuileries, he
returned with all his heart to the plan agreed upon by the Allied
commanders at the beginning of the year; and from this time,
though disasters were still in store, they were not the result of
faltering or disloyalty at the headquarters of the French army.
The general assault on the Malakoff and the Redan was fixed for
the 18th of June. It was bravely met by the Russians; the Allies
were driven back with heavy loss, and three months more were
added to the duration of the siege. Lord Raglan did not live to
witness the last stage of the war. Exhausted by his labours,
heartsick at the failure of the great attack, he died on the 28th
of June, leaving the command to General Simpson, an officer far
his inferior. As the lines of the besiegers approached nearer and
nearer to the Russian fortifications, the army which had been
defeated at Inkermann advanced for one last effort. Crossing the
Tchernaya, it gave battle on the 16th of August. The French and
the Sardinians, with little assistance from the British army, won
a decisive victory. Sebastopol could hope no longer for
assistance from without, and on the 8th of September the blow
which had failed in June was dealt once more. The French,
throwing themselves in great strength upon the Malakoff, carried
this fortress by storm, and frustrated every effort made for its
recovery; the British, attacking the Redan with a miserably weak
force, were beaten and overpowered. But the fall of the Malakoff
was in itself equivalent to the capture of Sebastopol. A few more
hours passed, and a series of tremendous explosions made known to
the Allies that the Russian commander was blowing up his
magazines and withdrawing to the north of the Great Harbour. The
prize was at length won, and at the end of a siege of three
hundred and fifty days what remained of the Czar's great fortress
passed into the hands of his enemies.</p>
<p>[Exhaustion of Russia.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Kars, Nov. 28.]</p>
<p>[Negotiations for peace.]</p>
<p>The Allies had lost since their landing in the Crimea not less
than a hundred thousand men. An enterprise undertaken in the
belief that it would be accomplished in the course of a few
weeks, and with no greater sacrifice of life than attends every
attack upon a fortified place, had proved arduous and terrible
almost beyond example. Yet if the Crimean campaign was the result
of error and blindness on the part of the invaders, it was
perhaps even more disastrous to Russia than any warfare in which
an enemy would have been likely to engage with fuller knowledge
of the conditions to be met. The vast distances that separated
Sebastopol from the military dep&ocirc;ts in the interior of
Russia made its defence a drain of the most fearful character on
the levies and the resources of the country. What tens of
thousands sank in the endless, unsheltered march without ever
nearing the sea, what provinces were swept of their beasts of
burden, when every larger shell fired against the enemy had to be
borne hundreds of miles by oxen, the records of the war but
vaguely make known. The total loss of the Russians should perhaps
be reckoned at three times that of the Allies. Yet the fall of
Sebastopol was not immediately followed by peace. The hesitation
of the Allies in cutting off the retreat of the Russian army had
enabled its commander to retain his hold upon the Crimea; in
Asia, the delays of a Turkish relieving army gave to the Czar one
last gleam of success in the capture of Kars, which, after a
strenuous resistance, succumbed to famine on the 28th of
November. But before Kars had fallen negotiations for peace had
commenced. France was weary of the war. Napoleon, himself
unwilling to continue it except at the price of French
aggrandisement on the Continent, was surrounded by a band of
palace stock-jobbers who had staked everything on the rise of the
funds that would result from peace. It was known at every Court
of Europe that the Allies were completely at variance with one
another; that while the English nation, stung by the failure of
its military administration during the winter, by the nullity of
its naval operations in the Baltic, and by the final disaster at
the Redan, was eager to prove its real power in a new campaign,
the ruler of France, satisfied with the crowning glory of the
Malakoff, was anxious to conclude peace on any tolerable terms.
Secret communications from St. Petersburg were made at Paris by
Baron Seebach, envoy of Saxony, a son-in-law of the Russian
Chancellor: the Austrian Cabinet, still bent on acting the part
of arbiter, but hopeless of the results of a new Conference,
addressed itself to the Emperor Napoleon singly, and persuaded
him to enter into a negotiation which was concealed for a while
from Great Britain. The two intrigues were simultaneously pursued
by our ally, but Seebach's proposals were such that even the
warmest friends of Russia at the Tuileries could scarcely support
them, and the Viennese diplomatists won the day. It was agreed
that a note containing Preliminaries of Peace should be presented
by Austria at St. Petersburg as its own ultimatum, after the
Emperor Napoleon should have won from the British Government its
assent to these terms without any alteration. The Austrian
project embodied indeed the Four Points which Britain had in
previous months fixed as the conditions of peace, and in
substance it differed little from what, even after the fall of
Sebastopol, British statesmen were still prepared to accept; but
it was impossible that a scheme completed without the
participation of Britain and laid down for its passive acceptance
should be thus uncomplainingly adopted by its Government. Lord
Palmerston required that the Four Articles enumerated should be
understood to cover points not immediately apparent on their
surface, and that a fifth Article should be added reserving to
the Powers the right of demanding certain further special
conditions, it being understood that Great Britain would require
under this clause only that Russia should bind itself to leave
the &Aring;land Islands in the Baltic Sea unfortified. Modified
in accordance with the demand of the British Government, the
Austrian draft was presented to the Czar at the end of December,
with the notification that if it as not accepted by the 16th of
January the Austrian ambassador would quit St. Petersburg. On the
15th a Council was held in the presence of the Czar. Nesselrode,
who first gave his opinion, urged that the continuance of the war
would plunge Russia into hostilities with all Europe, and advised
submission to a compact which would last only until Russia had
recovered its strength or new relations had arisen among the
Powers. One Minister after another declared that Poland, Finland,
the Crimea, and the Caucasus would be endangered if peace were
not now made; the Chief of the Finances stated that Russia could
not go through another campaign without bankruptcy. <a name=
"FNanchor478">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_478"><sup>[478]</sup></a> At
the end of the discussion the Council declared unanimously in
favour of accepting the Austrian propositions; and although the
national feeling was still in favour of resistance, there appears
to have been one Russian statesman alone, Prince Gortschakoff,
ambassador at Vienna, who sought to dissuade the Czar from making
peace. His advice was not taken. The vote of the Council was
followed by the despatch of plenipotentiaries to Paris, and here,
on the 25th of February, 1856, the envoys of all the Powers, with
the exception of Prussia, assembled in Conference, in order to
frame the definitive Treaty of Peace. <a name=
"FNanchor479">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_479"><sup>[479]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Conference of Paris, Feb. 25, 1856.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856.]</p>
<p>In the debates which now followed, and which occupied more
than a month, Lord Clarendon, who represented Great Britain,
discovered that in each contested point he had to fight against
the Russian and the French envoys combined, so completely was the
Court of the Tuileries now identified with a policy of
conciliation and friendliness towards Russia. <a name=
"FNanchor480">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_480"><sup>[480]</sup></a>
Great firmness, great plainness of speech was needed on the part
of the British Government, in order to prevent the recognised
objects of the war from being surrendered by its ally, not from a
conviction that they were visionary or unattainable, but from
unsteadiness of purpose and from the desire to convert a defeated
enemy into a friend. The end, however, was at length reached, and
on the 30th of March the Treaty of Paris was signed. The Black
Sea was neutralised; its waters and ports, thrown open to the
mercantile marine of every nation, were formally and in
perpetuity interdicted to the war-ships both of the Powers
possessing its coasts and of all other Powers. The Czar and the
Sultan undertook not to establish or maintain upon its coasts any
military or maritime arsenal. Russia ceded a portion of
Bessarabia, accepting a frontier which excluded it from the
Danube. The free navigation of this river, henceforth to be
effectively maintained by an international Commission, was
declared part of the public law of Europe. The Powers declared
the Sublime Porte admitted to participate in the advantages of
the public law and concert of Europe, each engaging to respect
the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and all
guaranteeing in common the strict observance of this engagement,
and promising to consider any act tending to its violation as a
question of general interest. The Sultan "having, in his constant
solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, issued a firman
recording his generous intentions towards the Christian
population of his empire, <a name="FNanchor481">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_481"><sup>[481]</sup></a> and having communicated it
to the Powers," the Powers "recognised the high value of this
communication," declaring at the same time "that it could not, in
any case, give to them the right to interfere, either
collectively or separately, in the relations of the Sultan to his
subjects, or in the internal administration of his empire." The
Danubian Principalities, augmented by the strip of Bessarabia
taken from Russia, were to continue to enjoy, under the
suzerainty of the Porte and under the guarantee of the Powers,
all the privileges and immunities of which they were in
possession, no exclusive protection being exercised by any of the
guaranteeing Powers. <a name="FNanchor482">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_482"><sup>[482]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Agreement of the Conference on rights of neutrals.]</p>
<p>Passing beyond the immediate subjects of negotiation, the
Conference availed itself of its international character to gain
the consent of Great Britain to a change in the laws of maritime
war. England had always claimed, and had always exercised, the
right to seize an enemy's goods on the high sea though conveyed
in a neutral vessel, and to search the merchant-ships of neutrals
for this purpose. The exercise of this right had stirred up
against England the Maritime League of 1800, and was condemned by
nearly the whole civilised world. Nothing short of an absolute
command of the seas made it safe or possible for a single Power
to maintain a practice which threatened at moments of danger to
turn the whole body of neutral States into its enemies. Moreover,
if the seizure of belligerents' goods in neutral ships profited
England when it was itself at war, it injured England at all
times when it remained at peace during the struggles of other
States. Similarly by the issue of privateers England inflicted
great injury on its enemies; but its own commerce, exceeding that
of every other State, offered to the privateers of its foes a
still richer booty. The advantages of the existing laws of
maritime war were not altogether on the side of England, though
mistress of the seas; and in return for the abolition of
privateering, the British Government consented to surrender its
sharpest, but most dangerous, weapon of offence, and to permit
the products of a hostile State to find a market in time of war.
The rule was laid down that the goods of an enemy other than
contraband of war should henceforth be safe under a neutral flag.
Neutrals' goods discovered on an enemy's ship were similarly made
exempt from capture.</p>
<p>[Fictions of the Treaty of Paris as to Turkey.]</p>
<p>The enactments of the Conference of Paris relating to commerce
in time of hostilities have not yet been subjected to the strain
of a war between England and any European State; its conclusions
on all other subjects were but too soon put to the test, and have
one after another been found wanting. If the Power which calls
man into his moment of life could smile at the efforts and the
assumptions of its creature, such smile might have been moved by
the assembly of statesmen who, at the close of the Crimean War,
affected to shape the future of Eastern Europe. They persuaded
themselves that by dint of the iteration of certain phrases they
could convert the Sultan and his hungry troop of Pashas into the
chiefs of a European State. They imagined that the House of
Osman, which in the stages of a continuous decline had
successively lost its sway over Hungary, over Servia, over
Southern Greece and the Danubian Provinces, and which would twice
within the last twenty-five years have seen its Empire dashed to
pieces by an Egyptian vassal but for the intervention of Europe,
might be arrested in its decadence by an incantation, and be made
strong enough and enlightened enough to govern to all time the
Slavic and Greek populations which had still the misfortune to be
included within its dominions. Recognising-so ran the words which
read like bitter irony, but which were meant for nothing of the
kind-the value of the Sultan's promises of reform, the authors of
the Treaty of Paris proceeded, as if of set purpose, to
extinguish any vestige of responsibility which might have been
felt at Constantinople, and any spark of confidence that might
still linger among the Christian populations, by declaring that,
whether the Sultan observed or broke his promises, in no case
could any right of intervention by Europe arise. The helmsman was
given his course; the hatches were battened down. If words bore
any meaning, if the Treaty of Paris was not an elaborate piece of
imposture, the Christian subjects of the Sultan had for the
future, whatever might be their wrongs, no redress to look for
but in the exertion of their own power. The terms of the Treaty
were in fact such as might have been imposed if the Western
Powers had gone to war with Russia for some object of their own,
and had been rescued, when defeated and overthrown, by the
victorious interposition of the Porte. All was hollow, all based
on fiction and convention. The illusions of nations in time of
revolutionary excitement, the shallow, sentimental commonplaces
of liberty and fraternity have afforded just matter for satire;
but no democratic platitudes were ever more palpably devoid of
connection with fact, more flagrantly in contradiction to the
experience of the past, or more ignominiously to be refuted by
each succeeding act of history, than the deliberate consecration
of the idol of an Ottoman Empire as the crowning act of European
wisdom in 1856.</p>
<p>[The Danubian Principalities.]</p>
<p>[Alexander Cuza Hospodar of both Provinces.]</p>
<p>[Complete Union, 1862.]</p>
<p>[Charles of Hohenzollern, Hereditary Prince, 1866.]</p>
<p>Among the devotees of the Turk the English Ministers were the
most impassioned, having indeed in the possession of India some
excuse for their fervour on behalf of any imaginable obstacle
that would keep the Russians out of Constantinople. The Emperor
of the French had during the Conferences at Paris revived his
project of incorporating the Danubian Principalities with Austria
in return for the cession of Lombardy, but the Viennese
Government had declined to enter into any such arrangement.
Napoleon consequently entered upon a new Eastern policy.
Appreciating the growing force of nationality in European
affairs, and imagining that in the championship of the principle
of nationality against the Treaties of 1815 he would sooner or
later find means for the aggrandisement of himself and France, he
proposed that the Provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, while
remaining in dependence upon the Sultan, should be united into a
single State under a prince chosen by themselves. The English
Ministry would not hear of this union. In their view the creation
of a Roumanian Principality under a chief not appointed by the
Porte was simply the abstraction from the Sultan of six million
persons who at present acknowledged his suzerainty, and whose
tribute to Constantinople ought, according to Lord Clarendon, to
be increased. <a name="FNanchor483">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_483"><sup>[483]</sup></a> Austria, fearing the effect
of a Roumanian national movement upon its own Roumanian subjects
in Transylvania, joined in resistance to Napoleon's scheme, and
the political organisation of the Principalities was in
consequence reserved by the Conference of Paris for future
settlement. Elections were held in the spring of 1857 under a
decree from the Porte, with the result that Moldavia, as it
seemed, pronounced against union with the sister province. But
the complaint at once arose that the Porte had falsified the
popular vote. France and Russia had now established relations of
such amity that their ambassadors jointly threatened to quit
Constantinople if the elections were not annulled. A visit paid
by the French Emperor to Queen Victoria, with the object of
smoothing over the difficulties which had begun to threaten the
Western alliance, resulted rather in increased misunderstandings
between the two Governments as to the future of the
Principalities than in any real agreement. The elections were
annulled. New representative bodies met at Bucharest and Jassy,
and pronounced almost unanimously for union (October, 1857). In
the spring of 1858 the Conference of Paris reassembled in order
to frame a final settlement of the affairs of the Principalities.
It determined that in each Province there should be a Hospodar
elected for life, a separate judicature, and a separate
legislative Assembly, while a central Commission, formed by
representatives of both Provinces, should lay before the
Assemblies projects of law on matters of joint interest. In
accordance with these provisions, Assemblies were elected in each
Principality at the beginning of 1859. Their first duty was to
choose the two Hospodars, but in both Provinces a unanimous vote
fell upon the same person, Prince Alexander Cuza. The efforts of
England and Austria to prevent union were thus baffled by the
Roumanian people itself, and after three years the elaborate
arrangements made by the Conference were similarly swept away,
and a single Ministry and Assembly took the place of the dual
Government. It now remained only to substitute a hereditary
Prince for a Hospodar elected for life; and in 1866, on the
expulsion of Alexander Cuza by his subjects, Prince Charles of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a distant kinsman of the reigning
Prussian sovereign, was recognised by all Europe as Hereditary
Prince of Roumania. The suzerainty of the Porte, now reduced to
the bare right to receive a fixed tribute, was fated to last but
for a few years longer.</p>
<p>[Continued discord in Turkish Empire.]</p>
<p>[Revision of the Treaty of Paris, 1871.]</p>
<p>Europe had not to wait for the establishment of Roumanian
independence in order to judge of the foresight and the
statesmanship of the authors of the Treaty of Paris. Scarcely a
year passed without the occurrence of some event that cast
ridicule upon the fiction of a self-regenerated Turkey, and upon
the profession of the Powers that the epoch of external
interference in its affairs was at an end. The active
misgovernment of the Turkish authorities themselves, their
powerlessness or want of will to prevent flagrant outrage and
wrong among those whom they professed to rule, continued after
the Treaty of Paris to be exactly what they had been before it.
In 1860 massacres and civil war in Mount Lebanon led to the
occupation of Syria by French troops. In 1861 Bosnia and
Herzegovina took up arms. In 1863 Servia expelled its Turkish
garrisons. Crete, rising in the following year, fought long for
its independence, and seemed for a moment likely to be united
with Greece under the auspices of the Powers, but it was finally
abandoned to its Ottoman masters. At the end of fourteen years
from the signature of the Peace of Paris, the downfall of the
French Empire enabled Russia to declare that it would no longer
recognise the provisions of the Treaty which excluded its
war-ships and its arsenals from the Black Sea. It was for this,
and for this almost alone, that England had gone through the
Crimean War. But for the determination of Lord Palmerston to
exclude Russia from the Black Sea, peace might have been made
while the Allied armies were still at Varna. This exclusion was
alleged to be necessary in the interests of Europe at large; that
it was really enforced not in the interest of Europe but in the
interest of England was made sufficiently clear by the action of
Austria and Prussia, whose statesmen, in spite of the discourses
so freely addressed to them from London, were at least as much
alive to the interests of their respective countries as Lord
Palmerston could be on their behalf. Nor had France in 1854 any
interest in crippling the power of Russia, or in Eastern affairs
generally, which could be remotely compared with those of the
possessors of India. The personal needs of Napoleon III. made
him, while he seemed to lead, the instrument of the British
Government for enforcing British aims, and so gave to Palmerston
the momentary shaping of a new and superficial concert of the
Powers. Masters of Sebastopol, the Allies had experienced little
difficulty in investing their own conclusions with the seeming
authority of Europe at large; but to bring the representatives of
Austria and Prussia to a Council-table, to hand them the pen to
sign a Treaty dictated by France and England, was not to bind
them to a policy which was not their own, or to make those things
interests of Austria and Prussia which were not their interests
before. Thus when in 1870 the French Empire fell, England stood
alone as the Power concerned in maintaining the exclusion of
Russia from the Euxine, and this exclusion it could enforce no
longer. It was well that Palmerston had made the Treaty of Paris
the act of Europe, but not for the reasons which Palmerston had
imagined. The fiction had engendered no new relation in fact; it
did not prolong for one hour the submission of Russia after it
had ceased to be confronted in the West by a superior force; but
it enabled Great Britain to retire without official humiliation
from a position which it had conquered only through the help of
an accidental Alliance, and which it was unable to maintain
alone. The ghost of the Conference of 1856 was, as it were,
conjured up in the changed world of 1871. The same forms which
had once stamped with the seal of Europe the instrument of
restraint upon Russia now as decorously executed its release.
Britain accepted what Europe would not resist; and below the
slopes where lay the countless dead of three nations Sebastopol
rose from its ruins, and the ensign of Russia floated once more
over its ships of war.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XXII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Piedmont after 1849-Ministry of Azeglio-Cavour Prime
Minister-Designs of Cavour-His Crimean Policy-Cavour at the
Conference of Paris-Cavour and Napoleon III.-The Meeting at
Plombi&egrave;res-Preparations in Italy-Treaty of January,
1859-Attempts at Mediation-Austrian Ultimatum-Campaign of
1859-Magenta-Movement in Central Italy-Solferino-Napoleon and
Prussia -Interview of Villafranca-Cavour resigns-Peace of
Z&uuml;rich-Central Italy after Villafranca-The Proposed
Congress-"The Pope and the Congress"- Cavour resumes
office-Cavour and Napoleon-Union of the Duchies and the Romagna
with Piedmont-Savoy and Nice added to France-Cavour on this
cession-European opinion-Naples-Sicily-Garibaldi lands at
Marsala- Capture of Palermo-The Neapolitans evacuate
Sicily-Cavour and the Party of Action-Cavour's Policy as to
Naples-Garibaldi on the Mainland-Persano and Villamarina at
Naples-Garibaldi at Naples-The Piedmontese Army enters Umbria and
the Marches-Fall of Ancona-Garibaldi and Cavour-The Armies on the
Volturno-Fall of Gaeta-Cavour's Policy with regard to Rome and
Venice-Death of Cavour-The Free Church in the Free State.</p>
<br>

<p>[Piedmont after 1849.]</p>
<p>In the gloomy years that followed 1849 the kingdom of Sardinia
had stood out in bright relief as a State which, though crushed
on the battle-field, had remained true to the cause of liberty
while all around it the forces of reaction gained triumph after
triumph. Its King had not the intellectual gifts of the maker of
a great State, but he was one with whom those possessed of such
gifts could work, and on whom they could depend. With certain
grave private faults Victor Emmanuel had the public virtues of
intense patriotism, of loyalty to his engagements and to his
Ministers, of devotion to a single great aim. Little given to
speculative thought, he saw what it most concerned him to see,
that Piedmont by making itself the home of liberty could become
the Master-State of Italy. His courage on the battlefield,
splendid and animating as it was, distinguished him less than
another kind of courage peculiarly his own. Ignorant and
superstitious, he had that rare and masculine quality of soul
which in the anguish of bereavement and on the verge of the
unseen world remains proof against the appeal and against the
terrors of a voice speaking with more than human authority. Rome,
not less than Austria, stood across the path that led to Italian
freedom, and employed all its art, all its spiritual force, to
turn Victor Emmanuel from the work that lay before him. There
were moments in his life when a man of not more than common
weakness might well have flinched from the line of conduct on
which he had resolved in hours of strength and of insight; there
were times when a less constant mind might well have wavered and
cast a balance between opposing systems of policy. It was not
through heroic greatness that Victor Emmanuel rendered his
priceless services to Italy. He was a man not conspicuously cast
in a different mould from many another plain, strong nature, but
the qualities which he possessed were precisely those which Italy
required. Fortune, circumstance, position favoured him and made
his glorious work possible; but what other Italian prince of this
century, though placed on the throne of Piedmont, and numbering
Cavour among his subjects, would have played the part, the simple
yet all momentous part, which Victor Emmanuel played so well? The
love and the gratitude of Italy have been lavished without stint
on the memory of its first sovereign, who served his nation with
qualities of so homely a type, and in whose life there was so
much that needed pardon. The colder judgment of a later time will
hardly contest the title of Victor Emmanuel to be ranked among
those few men without whom Italian union would not have been
achieved for another generation.</p>
<p>[Ministry of Azeglio, 1849-52.]</p>
<p>[Cavour Prime Minister, 1852.]</p>
<p>On the conclusion of peace with Austria after the campaign of
Novara, the Government and the Parliament of Turin addressed
themselves to the work of emancipating the State from the system
of ecclesiastical privilege and clerical ascendency which had
continued in full vigour down to the last year of Charles
Albert's reign. Since 1814 the Church had maintained, or had
recovered, both in Piedmont and in the island of Sardinia, rights
which had been long wrested from it in other European societies,
and which were out of harmony with the Constitution now taking
root under Victor Emmanuel. The clergy had still their own
tribunals, and even in the case of criminal offences were not
subject to the jurisdiction of the State. The Bishops possessed
excessive powers and too large a share of the Church revenues;
the parochial clergy lived in want; monasteries and convents
abounded. It was not in any spirit of hostility towards the
Church that Massimo d'Azeglio, whom the King called to office
after Novara, commenced the work of reform by measures subjecting
the clergy to the law-courts of the State, abolishing the right
of sanctuary in monasteries, and limiting the power of
corporations to acquire landed property. If the Papacy would have
met Victor Emmanuel in a fair spirit his Government would gladly
have avoided a dangerous and exasperating struggle; but all the
forces and the passions of Ultramontanism were brought to bear
against the proposed reforms. The result was that the Minister,
abandoned by a section of the Conservative party on whom he had
relied, sought the alliance of men ready for a larger and bolder
policy, and called to office the foremost of those from whom he
had received an independent support in the Chamber, Count Cavour.
Entering the Cabinet in 1850 as Minister of Commerce, Cavour
rapidly became the master of all his colleagues. On his own
responsibility he sought and won the support of the more moderate
section of the Opposition, headed by Rattazzi; and after a brief
withdrawal from office, caused by divisions within the Cabinet,
he returned to power in October, 1852, as Prime Minister.</p>
<p>[Cavour.]</p>
<p>Cavour, though few men have gained greater fame as
diplomatists, had not been trained in official life. The younger
son of a noble family, he had entered the army in 1826, and
served in the Engineers; but his sympathies with the liberal
movement of 1830 brought him into extreme disfavour with his
chiefs. He was described by Charles Albert, then Prince of
Carignano, as the most dangerous man in the kingdom, and was
transferred at the instance of his own father to the solitary
Alpine fortress of Bard. Too vigorous a nature to submit to
inaction, too buoyant and too sagacious to resort to conspiracy,
he quitted the army, and soon afterwards undertook the management
of one of the family estates, devoting himself to scientific
agriculture on a large scale. He was a keen and successful man of
business, but throughout the next twelve years, which he passed
in fruitful private industry, his mind dwelt ardently on public
affairs. He was filled with a deep discontent at the state of
society which he saw around him in Piedmont, and at the condition
of Italy at large under foreign and clerical rule. Repeated
visits to France and England made him familiar with the
institutions of freer lands, and gave definiteness to his
political and social aims. <a name="FNanchor484">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_484"><sup>[484]</sup></a> In 1847, when changes were
following fast, he founded with some other Liberal nobles the
journal <i>Risorgimento</i>, devoted to the cause of national
revival; and he was one of the first who called upon King Charles
Albert to grant a Constitution. During the stormy days of 1848 he
was at once the vigorous advocate of war with Austria and the
adversary of Republicans and Extremists who for their own
theories seemed willing to plunge Italy into anarchy. Though
unpopular with the mob, he was elected to the Chamber by Turin,
and continued to represent the capital after the peace. Up to
this time there had been little opportunity for the proof of his
extraordinary powers, but the inborn sagacity of Victor Emmanuel
had already discerned in him a man who could not remain in a
subordinate position. "You will see him turn you all out of your
places," the King remarked to his Ministers, as he gave his
assent to Cavour's first appointment to a seat in the
Cabinet.</p>
<p>[Plans of Cavour.]</p>
<p>[Cavour's Crimean policy.]</p>
<p>The Ministry of Azeglio had served Piedmont with honour from
1849 to 1852, but its leader scarcely possessed the daring and
fertility of mind which the time required. Cavour threw into the
work of government a passion and intelligence which soon produced
results visible to all Europe. His devotion to Italy was as deep,
as all-absorbing, as that of Mazzini himself, though the methods
and schemes of the two men were in such complete antagonism.
Cavour's fixed purpose was to drive Austria out of Italy by
defeat in the battle-field, and to establish, as the first step
towards national union, a powerful kingdom of Northern Italy
under Victor Emmanuel. In order that the military and naval
forces of Piedmont might be raised to the highest possible
strength and efficiency, he saw that the resources of the country
must be largely developed; and with this object he negotiated
commercial treaties with Foreign Powers, laid down railways, and
suppressed the greater part of the monasteries, selling their
lands to cultivators, and devoting the proceeds of sale not to
State-purposes but to the payment of the working clergy. Industry
advanced; the heavy pressure of taxation was patiently borne; the
army and the fleet grew apace. But the cause of Piedmont was one
with that of the Italian nation, and it became its Government to
demonstrate this day by day with no faltering voice or hand.
Protection and support were given to fugitives from Austrian and
Papal tyranny; the Press was laid open to every tale of wrong;
and when, after an unsuccessful attempt at insurrection in Milan
in 1853, for which Mazzini and the Republican exiles were alone
responsible, the Austrian Government sequestrated the property of
its subjects who would not return from Piedmont, Cavour bade his
ambassador quit Vienna, and appealed to every Court in Europe.
Nevertheless, Cavour did not believe that Italy, even by a
simultaneous rising, could permanently expel the Austrian armies
or conquer the Austrian fortresses. The experience of forty years
pointed to the opposite conclusion; and while Mazzini in his
exile still imagined that a people needed only to determine to be
free in order to be free, Cavour schemed for an alliance which
should range against the Austrian Emperor armed forces as
numerous and as disciplined as his own. It was mainly with this
object that Cavour plunged Sardinia into the Crimean War. He was
not without just causes of complaint against the Czar; but the
motive with which he sent the Sardinian troops to Sebastopol was
not that they might take vengeance on Russia, but that they might
fight side by side with the soldiers of England and France. That
the war might lead to complications still unforeseen was no doubt
a possibility present to Cavour's mind, and in that case it was
no small thing that Sardinia stood allied to the two Western
Powers; but apart from these chances of the future, Sardinia
would have done ill to stand idle when at any moment, as it
seemed, Austria might pass from armed neutrality into active
concert with England and France. Had Austria so drawn the sword
against Russia whilst Piedmont stood inactive, the influence of
the Western Powers must for some years to come have been ranged
on the side of Austria in the maintenance of its Italian
possessions, and Piedmont could at the best have looked only to
St. Petersburg for sympathy or support. Cavour was not scrupulous
in his choice of means when the liberation of Italy was the end
in view, and the charge was made against him that in joining the
coalition against Russia he lightly entered into a war in which
Piedmont had no direct concern. But reason and history absolve,
and far more than absolve, the Italian statesman. If the cause of
European equilibrium, for which England and France took up arms,
was a legitimate ground of war in the case of these two Powers,
it was not less so in the case of their ally; while if the
ulterior results rather than the motive of a war are held to
constitute its justification, Cavour stands out as the one
politician in Europe whose aims in entering upon the Crimean War
have been fulfilled, not mocked, by events. He joined in the
struggle against Russia not in order to maintain the Ottoman
Empire, but to gain an ally in liberating Italy. The Ottoman
Empire has not been maintained; the independence of Italy has
been established, and established by means of the alliance which
Cavour gained. His Crimean policy is one of those excessively
rare instances of statesmanship where action has been determined
not by the driving and half-understood necessities of the moment,
but by a distinct and true perception of the future. He looked
only in one direction, but in that direction he saw clearly.
Other statesmen struck blindfold, or in their vision of a
regenerated Turkey fought for an empire of mirage. It may with
some reason be asked whether the order of Eastern Europe would
now be different if our own English soldiers who fell at
Balaclava had been allowed to die in their beds: every Italian
whom Cavour sent to perish on the Tchernaya or in the
cholera-stricken camp died as directly for the cause of Italian
independence as if he had fallen on the slopes of Custozza or
under the walls of Rome.</p>
<p>[Cavour at the Conference of Paris.]</p>
<p>[Change of Austrian policy, 1856.]</p>
<p>At the Conference of Paris in 1856 the Sardinian Premier took
his place in right of alliance by the side of the representatives
of the great Powers; and when the main business of the Conference
was concluded, Count Buol, the Austrian Minister, was forced to
listen to a vigorous denunciation by Cavour of the misgovernment
that reigned in Central and Southern Italy, of the Austrian
occupation which rendered this possible. Though the French were
still in Rome, their presence might by courtesy be described as a
measure of precaution rendered necessary by the intrusion of the
Austrians farther north; and both the French and English
plenipotentiaries at the Conference supported Cavour in his
invective. Cavour returned to Italy without any territorial
reward for the services that Piedmont had rendered to the Allies;
but his object was attained. He had exhibited Austria isolated
and discredited before Europe; he had given to his country a
voice that it had never before had in the Councils of the Powers;
he had produced a deep conviction throughout Italy that Piedmont
not only could and would act with vigour against the national
enemy, but that in its action it would have the help of allies.
From this time the Republican and Mazzinian societies lost ground
before the growing confidence in the House of Savoy, in its
Minister and its army. <a name="FNanchor485">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_485"><sup>[485]</sup></a> The strongest evidence of
the effect of Cavour's Crimean policy and of his presence at the
Conference of Paris was seen in the action of the Austrian
Government itself. From 1849 to 1856 its rule in Northern Italy
had been one not so much of severity as of brutal violence. Now
all was changed. The Emperor came to Milan to proclaim a general
amnesty and to win the affection of his subjects. The
sequestrated estates were restored to their owners. Radetzky, in
his ninety-second year, was at length allowed to pass into
retirement; the government of the sword was declared at an end;
Maximilian, the gentlest and most winning of the Hapsburgs, was
sent with his young bride to charm away the sad memories of the
evil time. But it was too late. The recognition shown by the
Lombards of the Emperor's own personal friendliness indicated no
reconciliation with Austria; and while Francis Joseph was still
in Milan, King Victor Emmanuel, in the presence of a Lombard
deputation, laid the first stone of the monument erected by
subscriptions from all Italy in memory of those who had fallen in
the campaigns of 1848 and 1849, the statue of a foot-soldier
waving his sword towards the Austrian frontier. The Sardinian
Press redoubled its attacks on Austria and its Italian vassals.
The Government of Vienna sought satisfaction; Cavour sharply
refused it; and diplomatic relations between the two Courts,
which had been resumed since the Conference of Paris, were again
broken off.</p>
<p>[Cavour and Napoleon III.]</p>
<p>[Meeting at Plombi&egrave;res, July, 1858.]</p>
<p>Of the two Western Powers, Cavour would have preferred an
alliance with Great Britain, which had no objects of its own to
seek in Italy; but when he found that the Government of London
would not assist him by arms against Austria, he drew closer to
the Emperor Napoleon, and supported him throughout his
controversy with England and Austria on the settlement of the
Danubian Principalities. Napoleon, there is no doubt, felt a real
interest in Italy. His own early political theories formed on a
study of the Napoleonic Empire, his youthful alliance with the
Carbonari, point to a sympathy with the Italian national cause
which was genuine if not profound, and which was not altogether
lost in 1849, though France then acted as the enemy of Roman
independence. If Napoleon intended to remould the Continental
order and the Treaties of 1815 in the interests of France and of
the principle of nationality, he could make no better beginning
than by driving Austria from Northern Italy. It was not even
necessary for him to devise an original policy. Early in 1848,
when it seemed probable that Piedmont would be increased by
Lombardy and part of Venetia, Lamartine had laid it down that
France ought in that case to be compensated by Savoy, in order to
secure its frontiers against so powerful a neighbour as the new
Italian State. To this idea Napoleon returned. Savoy had been
incorporated with France from 1792 to 1814; its people were more
French than Italian; its annexation would not directly injure the
interests of any great Power. Of the three directions in which
France might stretch towards its old limits of the Alps and the
Rhine, the direction of Savoy was by far the least dangerous.
Belgium could not be touched without certain loss of the English
alliance, with which Napoleon could not yet dispense; an attack
upon the Rhenish Provinces would probably be met by all the
German Powers together; in Savoy alone was there the chance of
gaining territory without raising a European coalition against
France. No sooner had the organisation of the Danubian
Principalities been completed by the Conference which met in the
spring of 1858 than Napoleon began to develop his Italian plans.
An attempt of a very terrible character which was made upon his
life by Orsini, a Roman exile, though at the moment it threatened
to embroil Sardinia with France, probably stimulated him to
action. In the summer of 1858 he invited Cavour to meet him at
Plombi&egrave;res. The negotiations which there passed were not
made known by the Emperor to his Ministers; they were
communicated by Cavour to two persons only besides Victor
Emmanuel. It seems that no written engagement was drawn up; it
was verbally agreed that if Piedmont could, without making a
revolutionary war, and without exposing Napoleon to the charge of
aggression, incite Austria to hostilities, France would act as
its ally. Austria was then to be expelled from Venetia as well as
from Lombardy. Victor Emmanuel was to become sovereign of
North-Italy, with the Roman Legations and Marches; the remainder
of the Papal territory, except Rome itself and the adjacent
district, was to be added to Tuscany, so constituting a new
kingdom of Central Italy. The two kingdoms, together with Naples
and Rome, were to form an Italian Confederation under the
presidency of the Pope. France was to receive Savoy and possibly
Nice. A marriage between the King's young daughter Clotilde and
the Emperor's cousin Prince Jerome Napoleon was discussed, if not
actually settled. <a name="FNanchor486">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_486"><sup>[486]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Cavour in view of the French Alliance.]</p>
<p>From this moment Cavour laboured night and day for war. His
position was an exceedingly difficult one. Not only had he to
reckon with the irresolution of Napoleon, and his avowed
unwillingness to take up arms unless with the appearance of some
good cause; but even supposing the goal of war reached, and
Austria defeated, how little was there in common between Cavour's
aims for Italy and the traditional policy of France! The first
Napoleon had given Venice to Austria at Campo Formio; even if the
new Napoleon should fulfil his promise and liberate all Northern
Italy, his policy in regard to the centre and south of the
Peninsula would probably be antagonistic to any effective union
or to any further extension of the influence of the House of
Savoy. Cavour had therefore to set in readiness for action
national forces of such strength that Napoleon, even if he
desired to draw back, should find it difficult to do so, and that
the shaping of the future of the Italian people should be
governed not by the schemes which the Emperor might devise at
Paris, but by the claims and the aspirations of Italy itself. It
was necessary for him not only to encourage and subsidise the
National Society-a secret association whose branches in the other
Italian States were preparing to assist Piedmont in the coming
war, and to unite Italy under the House of Savoy-but to enter
into communication with some of the Republican or revolutionary
party who had hitherto been at enmity with all Crowns alike. He
summoned Garibaldi in secrecy to Turin, and there convinced him
that the war about to be waged by Victor Emmanuel was one in
which he ought to take a prominent part. As the foremost defender
of the Roman Republic and a revolutionary hero, Garibaldi was
obnoxious to the French Emperor. Cavour had to conceal from
Napoleon the fact that Garibaldi would take the field at the head
of a free-corps by the side of the Allied armies; he had
similarly to conceal from Garibaldi that one result of the war
would be the cession of Nice, his own birthplace, to France. Thus
plunged in intrigue, driving his Savoyards to the camp and
raising from them the last farthing in taxation, in order that
after victory they might be surrendered to a Foreign Power;
goading Austria to some act of passion; inciting, yet checking
and controlling, the Italian revolutionary elements; bargaining
away the daughter of his sovereign to one of the most odious of
mankind, Cavour staked all on the one great end of his being, the
establishment of Italian independence. Words like those which
burst from Danton in the storms of the Convention-"Perish my
name, my reputation, so that France be free"-were the calm and
habitual expression of Cavour's thought when none but an intimate
friend was by to hear. <a name="FNanchor487">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_487"><sup>[487]</sup></a> Such tasks as Cavour's are
not to be achieved without means which, to a man noble in view as
Cavour really was, it would have been more agreeable to leave
unemployed. Those alone are entitled to pronounce judgment upon
him who have made a nation, and made it with purer hands. It was
well for English statesmen and philanthropists, inheritors of a
world-wide empire, to enforce the ethics of peace and to plead
for a gentlemanlike frankness and self-restraint in the conduct
of international relations. English women had not been flogged by
Austrian soldiers in the market-place; the treaties of 1815 had
not consecrated a foreign rule over half our race. To Cavour the
greatest crime would have been to leave anything undone which
might minister to Italy's liberation. <a name=
"FNanchor488">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_488"><sup>[488]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Treaty of January, 1859.]</p>
<p>[Attempts at mediation.]</p>
<p>[Austrian ultimatum, April 23.]</p>
<p>Napoleon seems to have considered that he would be ready to
begin war in the spring of 1859. At the reception at the
Tuileries on the 1st of January he addressed the Austrian
ambassador in words that pointed to an approaching conflict; a
few weeks later a marriage-contract was signed between Prince
Napoleon and Clotilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, and part of
the agreement made at Plombi&egrave;res was embodied in a formal
Treaty. Napoleon undertook to support Sardinia in a war that
might arise from any aggressive act on the part of Austria, and,
if victorious, to add both Lombardy and Venetia to Victor
Emmanuel's dominions. France was in return to receive Savoy, the
disposal of Nice being reserved till the restoration of peace. <a
name="FNanchor489">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_489"><sup>[489]</sup></a> Even before the Treaty was
signed Victor Emmanuel had thrown down the challenge to Austria,
declaring at the opening of the Parliament of Turin that he could
not be insensible to the cry of suffering that rose from Italy.
In all but technical form the imminence of war had been
announced, when, under the influence of diplomatists and
Ministers about him, and of a financial panic that followed his
address to the Austrian ambassador, the irresolute mind of
Napoleon shrank from its purpose, and months more of suspense
were imposed upon Italy and Europe, to be terminated at last not
by any effort of Napoleon's will but by the rash and impolitic
action of Austria itself. At the instance of the Court of Vienna
the British Government had consented to take steps towards
mediation. Lord Cowley, Ambassador at Paris, was sent to Vienna
with proposals which, it was believed, might form the basis for
an amicable settlement of Italian affairs. He asked that the
Papal States should be evacuated by both Austrian and French
troops; that Austria should abandon the Treaties which gave it a
virtual Protectorate over Modena and Parma; and that it should
consent to the introduction of reforms in all the Italian
Governments. Negotiations towards this end had made some progress
when they were interrupted by a proposal sent from St.
Petersburg, at the instance of Napoleon, that Italian affairs
should be submitted to a European Congress. Austria was willing
under certain conditions to take part in a Congress, but it
required, as a preliminary measure, that Sardinia should disarm.
Napoleon had now learnt that Garibaldi was to fight at the head
of the volunteers for Victor Emmanuel. His doubts as to the
wisdom of his own policy seem to have increased hour by hour;
from Britain, whose friendship he still considered indispensable
to him, he received the most urgent appeals against war; it was
necessary that Cavour himself should visit Paris in order to
prevent the Emperor from acquiescing in Austria's demand. In
Cavour's presence Napoleon seems to have lost some of his fears,
or to have been made to feel that it was not safe to provoke his
confidant of Plombi&egrave;res; <a name="FNanchor490">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_490"><sup>[490]</sup></a> but Cavour had not long
left Paris when a proposal was made from London, that in lieu of
the separate disarmament of Sardinia the Powers should agree to a
general disarmament, the details to be settled by a European
Commission. This proposal received Napoleon's assent. He
telegraphed to Cavour desiring him to join in the agreement.
Cavour could scarcely disobey, yet at one stroke it seemed that
all his hopes when on the very verge of fulfilment were dashed to
the ground, all his boundless efforts for the liberation of Italy
through war with Austria lost and thrown away. For some hours he
appeared shattered by the blow. Strung to the extreme point of
human endurance by labour scarcely remitted by day or night for
weeks together, his strong but sanguine nature gave way, and for
a while the few friends who saw him feared that he would take his
own life. But the crisis passed: Cavour accepted, as inevitable,
the condition of general disarmament; and his vigorous mind had
already begun to work upon new plans for the future, when the
report of a decision made at Vienna, which was soon confirmed by
the arrival of an Austrian ultimatum, threw him into joy as
intense as his previous despair. Ignoring the British proposal
for a general disarmament, already accepted at Turin, the
Austrian Cabinet demanded, without qualifications and under
threat of war within three days, that Sardinia should separately
disarm. It was believed at Vienna that Napoleon was merely
seeking to gain time; that a conflict was inevitable; and that
Austria now stood better prepared for immediate action than its
enemies. Right or wrong in its judgment of Napoleon's real
intentions, the Austrian Government had undeniably taken upon
itself the part of the aggressor. Cavour had only to point to his
own acceptance of the plan of a general disarmament, and to throw
upon his enemy the responsibility for a disturbance of European
peace. His reply was taken as the signal for hostilities, and on
the 29th of April Austrian troops crossed the Ticino. A
declaration of war from Paris followed without delay. <a name=
"FNanchor491">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_491"><sup>[491]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Campaign of 1859.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Magenta, June 4.]</p>
<p>For months past Austria had been pouring its troops into
Northern Italy. It had chosen its own time for the commencement
of war; a feeble enemy stood before it, its more powerful
adversary could not reach the field without crossing the Alps or
the mountain-range above Genoa. Everything pointed to a vigorous
offensive on the part of the Austrian generals, and in Piedmont
itself it was believed that Turin must fall before French troops
could assist in its defence. From Turin as a centre the Austrians
could then strike with ease, and with superior numbers, against
the detachments of the French army as they descended the
mountains at any points in the semicircle from Genoa to Mont
Cenis. There has seldom been a case where the necessity and the
advantages of a particular line of strategy have been so obvious;
yet after crossing the Ticino the Austrians, above a hundred
thousand strong, stood as if spell-bound under their incompetent
chief, Giulay. Meanwhile French detachments crossed Mont Cenis;
others, more numerous, landed with the Emperor at Genoa, and
established communications with the Piedmontese, whose
headquarters were at Alessandria. Giulay now believed that the
Allies would strike upon his communications in the direction of
Parma. The march of Bonaparte upon Piacenza in 1796, as well as
the campaign of Marengo, might well inspire this fear; but the
real intention of Napoleon III. was to outflank the Austrians
from the north and so to gain Milan. Garibaldi was already
operating at the extreme left of the Sardinian line in the
neighbourhood of Como. While the Piedmontese maintained their
positions in the front, the French from Genoa marched northwards
behind them, crossed the Po, and reached Vercelli before the
Austrians discovered their manoeuvre. Giulay, still lingering
between the Sesia and the Ticino, now called up part of his
forces northwards, but not in time to prevent the Piedmontese
from crossing the Sesia and defeating the troops opposed to them
at Palestro (May 30). While the Austrians were occupied at this
point, the French crossed the river farther north, and moved
eastwards on the Ticino. Giulay was thus outflanked and compelled
to fall back. The Allies followed him, and on the 4th of June
attacked the Austrian army in its positions about Magenta on the
road to Milan. The assault of Macmahon from the north gave the
Allies victory after a hard-fought day. It was impossible for the
Austrians to defend Milan; they retired upon the Adda and
subsequently upon the Mincio, abandoning all Lombardy to the
invaders, and calling up their troops from Bologna and the other
occupied towns in the Papal States, in order that they might take
part in the defence of the Venetian frontier and the fortresses
that guarded it.</p>
<p>[Movement in Central Italy.]</p>
<p>The victory of the Allies was at once felt throughout Central
Italy. The Grand Duke of Tuscany had already fled from his
dominions, and the Dictatorship for the period of the war had
been offered by a Provisional Government to Victor Emmanuel, who,
while refusing this, had allowed his envoy, Boncampagni, to
assume temporary powers at Florence as his representative. The
Duke of Modena and the Duchess of Parma now quitted their
territories. In the Romagna the disappearance of the Austrians
resulted in the immediate overthrow of Papal authority.
Everywhere the demand was for union with Piedmont. The calamities
of the last ten years had taught their lesson to the Italian
people. There was now nothing of the disorder, the extravagance,
the childishness of 1848. The populations who had then been so
divided, so suspicious, so easy a prey to demagogues, were now
watchful, self-controlled, and anxious for the guidance of the
only real national Government. As at Florence, so in the Duchies
and in the Romagna, it was desired that Victor Emmanuel should
assume the Dictatorship. The King adhered to the policy which he
had adopted towards Tuscany, avoiding any engagement that might
compromise him with Europe or his ally, but appointing
Commissioners to enrol troops for the common war against Austria
and to conduct the necessary work of administration in those
districts. Farini, the historian of the Roman States, was sent to
Modena; Azeglio, the ex-Minister, to Bologna. Each of these
officers entered on his task in a spirit worthy of the time; each
understood how much might be won for Italy by boldness, how much
endangered or lost by untimely scruples. <a name=
"FNanchor492">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_492"><sup>[492]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Solferino, June 24.]</p>
<p>In his proclamations at the opening of the war Napoleon had
declared that Italy must be freed up to the shore of the
Adriatic. His address to the Italian people on entering Milan
with Victor Emmanuel after the victory of Magenta breathed the
same spirit. As yet, however, Lombardy alone had been won. The
advance of the allied armies was accordingly resumed after an
interval of some days, and on the 23rd of June they approached
the positions held by the Austrians a little to the west of the
Mincio. Francis Joseph had come from Vienna to take command of
the army. His presence assisted the enemy, inasmuch as he had no
plan of his own, and wavered from day to day between the
antagonistic plans of the generals at headquarters. Some wished
to make the Mincio the line of defence, others to hold the Chiese
some miles farther west. The consequence was that the army
marched backwards and forwards across the space between the two
rivers according as one or another general gained for the moment
the Emperor's confidence. It was while the Austrians were thus
engaged that the allied armies came into contact with them about
Solferino. On neither side was it known that the whole force of
the enemy was close at hand. The battle of Solferino, one of the
bloodiest of recent times, was fought almost by accident. About a
hundred and fifty thousand men were present under Napoleon and
Victor Emmanuel; the Austrians had a slight superiority in force.
On the north, where Benedek with the Austrian right was attacked
by the Piedmontese at San Martino, it seemed as if the task
imposed on the Italian troops was beyond their power. Victor
Emmanuel, fighting with the same courage as at Novara, saw the
positions in front of his troops alternately won and lost. But
the success of the French at Solferino in the centre decided the
day, and the Austrians withdrew at last from their whole line
with a loss in killed and wounded of fourteen thousand men. On
the part of the Allies the slaughter was scarcely less.</p>
<p>[Napoleon and Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Interview of Villafranca, July 11.]</p>
<p>[Peace of Villafranca.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Z&uuml;rich, Nov. 10.]</p>
<p>Napoleon stood a conqueror, but a conqueror at terrible cost;
and in front of him he saw the fortresses of the Quadrilateral,
while new divisions were hastening from the north and east to the
support of the still unbroken Austrian army. He might well doubt
whether, even against his present antagonist alone, further
success was possible. The fearful spectacle of Solferino,
heightened by the effects of overpowering summer heat, probably
affected a mind humane and sensitive and untried in the
experience of war. The condition of the French army, there is
reason to believe, was far different from that represented in
official reports, and likely to make the continuance of the
campaign perilous in the extreme. But beyond all this, the
Emperor knew that if he advanced farther Prussia and all Germany
might at any moment take up arms against him. There had been a
strong outburst of sympathy for Austria in the south-western
German States. National patriotism was excited by the attack of
Napoleon on the chief of the German sovereigns, and the belief
was widely spread that French conquest in Italy would soon be
followed by French conquest on the Rhine. Prussia had hitherto
shown reserve. It would have joined its arms with those of
Austria if its own claims to an improved position in Germany had
been granted by the Court of Vienna; but Francis Joseph had up to
this time refused the concessions demanded. In the stress of his
peril he might at any moment close with the offers which he had
before rejected; even without a distinct agreement between the
two Courts, and in mere deference to German public opinion,
Prussia might launch against France the armies which it had
already brought into readiness for the field. A war upon the
Rhine would then be added to the war before the Quadrilateral,
and from the risks of this double effort Napoleon might well
shrink in the interest of France not less than of his own
dynasty. He determined to seek an interview with Francis Joseph,
and to ascertain on what terms peace might now be made. The
interview took place at Villafranca, east of the Mincio, on the
11th of July. Francis Joseph refused to cede any part of Venetia
without a further struggle. He was willing to give up Lombardy,
and to consent to the establishment of an Italian Federation
under the presidency of the Pope, of which Federation Venetia,
still under Austria's rule, should be a member; but he required
that Mantua should be left within his own frontier, and that the
sovereigns of Tuscany and Modena should resume possession of
their dominions. To these terms Napoleon assented, on obtaining a
verbal agreement that the dispossessed princes should not be
restored by foreign arms. Regarding Parma and the restoration of
the Papal authority in the Romagna no stipulations were made.
With the signature of the Preliminaries of Villafranca, which
were to form the base of a regular Treaty to be negotiated at
Z&uuml;rich, and to which Victor Emmanuel added his name with
words of reservation, hostilities came to a close. The
negotiations at Z&uuml;rich, though they lasted for several
months, added nothing of importance to the matter of the
Preliminaries, and decided nothing that had been left in
uncertainty. The Italian Federation remained a scheme which the
two Emperors, and they alone, undertook to promote. Piedmont
entered into no engagement either with regard to the Duchies or
with regard to Federation. Victor Emmanuel had in fact announced
from the first that he would enter no League of which a province
governed by Austria formed a part, and from this resolution he
never swerved. <a name="FNanchor493">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_493"><sup>[493]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Resignation of Cavour.]</p>
<p>[Central Italy.]</p>
<p>Though Lombardy was gained, the impression made upon the
Italians by the peace of Villafranca was one of the utmost
dismay. Napoleon had so confidently and so recently promised the
liberation of all Northern Italy that public opinion ascribed to
treachery or weakness what was in truth an act of political
necessity. On the first rumour of the negotiations Cavour had
hurried from Turin, but the agreement was signed before his
arrival. The anger and the grief of Cavour are described by those
who then saw him as terrible to witness. <a name=
"FNanchor494">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_494"><sup>[494]</sup></a>
Napoleon had not the courage to face him; Victor Emmanuel bore
for two hours the reproaches of his Minister, who had now
completely lost his self-control. Cavour returned to Turin, and
shortly afterwards withdrew from office, his last act being the
despatch of ten thousand muskets to Farini at Modena. In
accordance with the terms of peace, instructions, which were
probably not meant to be obeyed, were sent by Cavour's successor,
Rattazzi, to the Piedmontese Commissioners in Central Italy,
bidding them to return to Turin and to disband any forces that
they had collected. Farini, on receipt of this order, adroitly
divested himself of his Piedmontese citizenship, and, as an
honorary burgher of Modena, accepted the Dictatorship from his
fellow-townsmen. Azeglio returned to Turin, but took care before
quitting the Romagna to place four thousand soldiers under
competent leaders in a position to resist attack. It was not the
least of Cavour's merits that he had gathered about him a body of
men who, when his own hand was for a while withdrawn, could
pursue his policy with so much energy and sagacity as was now
shown by the leaders of the national movement in Central Italy.
Venetia was lost for the present; but if Napoleon's promise was
broken, districts which he had failed or had not intended to
liberate might be united with the Italian Kingdom. The Duke of
Modena, with six thousand men who had remained true to him, lay
on the Austrian frontier, and threatened to march upon his
capital. Farini mined the city gates, and armed so considerable a
force that it became clear that the Duke would not recover his
dominions without a serious battle. Parma placed itself under the
same Dictatorship with Modena; in the Romagna a Provisional
Government which Azeglio had left behind him continued his work.
Tuscany, where Napoleon had hoped to find a throne for his
cousin, pronounced for national union, and organised a common
military force with its neighbours. During the weeks that
followed the Peace of Villafranca, declarations signed by tens of
thousands, the votes of representative bodies, and popular
demonstrations throughout Central Italy, showed in an orderly and
peaceful form how universal was the desire for union under the
House of Savoy.</p>
<p>[Cavour's Plans before Villafranca.]</p>
<p>[Central Italy after Villafranca. July-November.]</p>
<p>[Mazzini and Garibaldi. August-November.]</p>
<p>Cavour, in the plans which he had made before 1859, had not
looked for a direct and immediate result beyond the creation of
an Italian Kingdom including the whole of the territory north of
the Po. The other steps in the consolidation of Italy would, he
believed, follow in their order. They might be close at hand, or
they might be delayed for a while; but in the expulsion of
Austria, in the interposition of a purely Italian State numbering
above ten millions of inhabitants, mistress of the fortresses and
of a powerful fleet, between Austria and those who had been its
vassals, the essential conditions of Italian national
independence would have been won. For the rest, Italy might be
content to wait upon time and opportunity. But the Peace of
Villafranca, leaving Venetia in the enemy's hands, completely
changed this prospect. The fiction of an Italian Federation in
which the Hapsburg Emperor, as lord of Venice, should forget his
Austrian interests and play the part of Italian patriot, was too
gross to deceive any one. Italy, on these terms, would either
continue to be governed from Vienna, or be made a pawn in the
hands of its French protector. What therefore Cavour had hitherto
been willing to leave to future years now became the need of the
present. "Before Villafranca," in his own words, "the union of
Italy was a possibility; since Villafranca it is a necessity."
Victor Emmanuel understood this too, and saw the need for action
more clearly than Rattazzi and the Ministers who, on Cavour's
withdrawal in July, stepped for a few months into his place. The
situation was one that called indeed for no mean exercise of
statesmanship. If Italy was not to be left dependent upon the
foreigner and the reputation of the House of Savoy ruined, it was
necessary not only that the Duchies of Modena and Parma, but that
Central Italy, including Tuscany and at least the Romagna, should
be united with the Kingdom of Piedmont; yet the accomplishment of
this work was attended with the utmost danger. Napoleon himself
was hoping to form Tuscany, with an augmented territory, into a
rival Kingdom of Etruria or Central Italy, and to place his
cousin on its throne. The Ultramontane party in France was
alarmed and indignant at the overthrow of the Pope's authority in
the Romagna, and already called upon the Emperor to fulfil his
duties towards the Holy See. If the national movement should
extend to Rome itself, the hostile intervention of France was
almost inevitable. While the negotiations with Austria at
Z&uuml;rich were still proceeding, Victor Emmanuel could not
safely accept the sovereignty that was offered him by Tuscany and
the neighbouring provinces, nor permit his cousin, the Prince of
Carignano, to assume the regency which, during the period of
suspense, it was proposed to confer upon him. Above all, it was
necessary that the Government should not allow the popular forces
with which it was co-operating to pass beyond its own control. In
the critical period that followed the armistice of Villafranca,
Mazzini approached Victor Emmanuel, as thirty years before he had
approached his father, and offered his own assistance in the
establishment of Italian union under the House of Savoy. He
proposed, as the first step, to overthrow the Neapolitan
Government by means of an expedition headed by Garibaldi, and to
unite Sicily and Naples to the King's dominions; but he demanded
in return that Piedmont should oppose armed resistance to any
foreign intervention occasioned by this enterprise; and he seems
also to have required that an attack should be made immediately
afterwards upon Rome and upon Venetia. To these conditions the
King could not accede; and Mazzini, confirmed in his attitude of
distrust towards the Court of Turin, turned to Garibaldi, who was
now at Modena. At his instigation Garibaldi resolved to lead an
expedition at once against Rome itself. Napoleon was at this very
moment promising reforms on behalf of the Pope, and warning
Victor Emmanuel against the annexation even of the Romagna (Oct.
20th). At the risk of incurring the hostility of Garibaldi's
followers and throwing their leader into opposition to the
dynasty, it was necessary for the Sardinian Government to check
him in his course. The moment was a critical one in the history
of the House of Savoy. But the soldier of Republican Italy proved
more tractable than its prophet. Garibaldi was persuaded to
abandon or postpone an enterprise which could only have resulted
in disaster for Italy; and with expressions of cordiality towards
the King himself, and of bitter contempt for the fox-like
politicians who advised him, he resigned his command and bade
farewell to his comrades, recommending them, however, to remain
under arms, in full confidence that they would ere long find a
better opportunity for carrying the national flag southwards. <a
name="FNanchor495">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_495"><sup>[495]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The proposed Congress.]</p>
<p>Soon after the Agreement of Villafranca, Napoleon had proposed
to the British Government that a Congress of all the Powers
should assemble at Paris in order to decide upon the many Italian
questions which still remained unsettled. In taking upon himself
the emancipation of Northern Italy Napoleon had, as it proved,
attempted a task far beyond his own powers. The work had been
abruptly broken off; the promised services had not been rendered,
the stipulated reward had not been won. On the other hand, forces
had been set in motion which he who raised them could not allay;
populations stood in arms against the Governments which the
Agreement of Villafranca purported to restore; the Pope's
authority in the northern part of his dominions was at an end;
the Italian League over which France and Austria were to join
hands of benediction remained the laughing-stock of Europe.
Napoleon's victories had added Lombardy to Piedmont; for the
rest, except from the Italian point of view, they had only thrown
affairs into confusion. Hesitating at the first between his
obligations towards Austria and the maintenance of his prestige
in Italy, perplexed between the contradictory claims of
nationality and of Ultramontanism, Napoleon would gladly have
cast upon Great Britain, or upon Europe at large, the task of
extricating him from his embarrassment. But the Cabinet of
London, while favourable to Italy, showed little inclination to
entangle itself in engagements which might lead to war with
Austria and Germany in the interest of the French Sovereign.
Italian affairs, it was urged by Lord John Russell, might well be
governed by the course of events within Italy itself; and, as
Austria remained inactive, the principle of non-intervention
really gained the day. The firm attitude of the population both
in the Duchies and in the Romagna, their unanimity and
self-control, the absence of those disorders which had so often
been made a pretext for foreign intervention, told upon the mind
of Napoleon and on the opinion of Europe at large. Each month
that passed rendered the restoration of the fallen Governments a
work of greater difficulty, and increased the confidence of the
Italians in themselves. Napoleon watched and wavered. When the
Treaty of Z&uuml;rich was signed his policy was still
undetermined. By the prompt and liberal concession of reforms the
Papal Government might perhaps even now have turned the balance
in its favour. But the obstinate mind of Pius IX. was proof
against every politic and every generous influence. The
stubbornness shown by Rome, the remembrance of Antonelli's
conduct towards the French Republic in 1849, possibly also the
discovery of a Treaty of Alliance between the Papal Government
and Austria, at length overcame Napoleon's hesitation in meeting
the national demand of Italy, and gave him courage to defy both
the Papal Court and the French priesthood. He resolved to consent
to the formation of an Italian Kingdom under Victor Emmanuel
including the northern part of the Papal territories as well as
Tuscany and the other Duchies, and to silence the outcry which
this act of spoliation would excite among the clerical party in
France by the annexation of Nice and Savoy.</p>
<p>["The Pope and the Congress," Dec. 24.]</p>
<p>[Change of Ministry at Paris, Jan. 5, 1860.]</p>
<p>[Cavour resumes office, Jan. 16.]</p>
<p>The decision of the Emperor was foreshadowed by the
publication on the 24th of December of a pamphlet entitled "The
Pope and the Congress." The doctrine advanced in this essay was
that, although a temporal authority was necessary to the Pope's
spiritual independence, the peace and unity which should surround
the Vicar of Christ would be best attained when his temporal
sovereignty was reduced within the narrowest possible limits.
Rome and the territory immediately around it, if guaranteed to
the Pope by the Great Powers, would be sufficient for the
temporal needs of the Holy See. The revenue lost by the
separation of the remainder of the Papal territories might be
replaced by a yearly tribute of reverence paid by the Catholic
Powers to the Head of the Church. That the pamphlet advocating
this policy was written at the dictation of Napoleon was not made
a secret. Its appearance occasioned an indignant protest at Rome.
The Pope announced that he would take no part in the proposed
Congress unless the doctrines advanced in the pamphlet were
disavowed by the French Government. Napoleon in reply submitted
to the Pope that he would do well to purchase the guarantee of
the Powers for the remainder of his territories by giving up all
claim to the Romagna, which he had already lost. Pius retorted
that he could not cede what Heaven had granted, not to himself,
but to the Church; and that if the Powers would but clear the
Romagna of Piedmontese intruders he would soon reconquer the
rebellious province without the assistance either of France or of
Austria. The attitude assumed by the Papal Court gave Napoleon a
good pretext for abandoning the plan of a European Congress, from
which he could hardly expect to obtain a grant of Nice and Savoy.
It was announced at Paris that the Congress would be postponed;
and on the 5th of January, 1860, the change in Napoleon's policy
was publicly marked by the dismissal of his Foreign Minister,
Walewski, and the appointment in his place of Thouvenel, a friend
to Italian union. Ten days later Rattazzi gave up office at
Turin, and Cavour returned to power.</p>
<p>[Cavour and Napoleon, Jan-March.]</p>
<p>[Union of the Duchies and the Romagna with Piedmont,
March.]</p>
<p>[Savoy and Nice ceded to France.]</p>
<p>Rattazzi, during the six months that he had conducted affairs,
had steered safely past some dangerous rocks; but he held the
helm with an unsteady and untrusted hand, and he appears to have
displayed an unworthy jealousy towards Cavour, who, while out of
office, had not ceased to render what services he could to his
country. Cavour resumed his post, with the resolve to defer no
longer the annexation of Central Italy, but with the heavy
consciousness that Napoleon would demand in return for his
consent to this union the cession of Nice and Savoy. No Treaty
entitled France to claim this reward, for the Austrians still
held Venetia; but Napoleon's troops lay at Milan, and by a march
southwards they could easily throw Italian affairs again into
confusion, and undo all that the last six months had effected.
Cavour would perhaps have lent himself to any European
combination which, while directed against the extension, of
France, would have secured the existence of the Italian Kingdom;
but no such alternative to the French alliance proved possible;
and the subsequent negotiations between Paris and Turin were
intended only to vest with a certain diplomatic propriety the now
inevitable transfer of territory from the weaker to the stronger
State. A series of propositions made from London with the view of
withdrawing from Italy both French and Austrian influence led the
Austrian Court to acknowledge that its army would not be employed
for the restoration of the sovereigns of Tuscany and Modena.
Construing this statement as an admission that the stipulations
of Villafranca and Z&uuml;rich as to the return of the fugitive
princes had become impracticable, Napoleon now suggested that
Victor Emmanuel should annex Parma and Modena, and assume secular
power in the Romagna as Vicar of the Pope, leaving Tuscany to
form a separate Government. The establishment of so powerful a
kingdom on the confines of France was, he added, not in
accordance with the traditions of French foreign policy, and in
self-defence France must rectify its military frontier by the
acquisition of Nice and Savoy (Feb. 24th). Cavour well understood
that the mention of Tuscan independence, and the qualified
recognition of the Pope's rights in the Romagna, were no more
than suggestions of the means of pressure by which France might
enforce the cessions it required. He answered that, although
Victor Emmanuel could not alienate any part of his dominions, his
Government recognised the same popular rights in Savoy and Nice
as in Central Italy; and accordingly that if the population of
these districts declared in a legal form their desire to be
incorporated with France, the King would not resist their will.
Having thus consented to the necessary sacrifice, and ignoring
Napoleon's reservations with regard to Tuscany and the Pope,
Cavour gave orders that a popular vote should at once be taken in
Tuscany, as well as in Parma, Modena, and the Romagna, on the
question of union with Piedmont. The voting took place early in
March, and gave an overwhelming majority in favour of union. The
Pope issued the major excommunication against the authors,
abettors, and agents in this work of sacrilege, and heaped curses
on curses; but no one seemed the worse for them. Victor Emmanuel
accepted the sovereignty that was offered to him, and on the 2nd
of April the Parliament of the united kingdom assembled at Turin.
It had already been announced to the inhabitants of Nice and
Savoy that the King had consented to their union with France. The
formality of a <i>pl&eacute;biscite</i> was enacted a few days
later, and under the combined pressure of the French and
Sardinian Governments the desired results were obtained. Not more
than a few hundred persons protested by their vote against a
transaction to which it was understood that the King had no
choice but to submit. <a name="FNanchor496">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_496"><sup>[496]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Cavour on the cession of Nice and Savoy.]</p>
<p>That Victor Emmanuel had at one time been disposed to resist
Cavour's surrender of the home of his race is well known. Above a
year, however, had passed since the project had been accepted as
the basis of the French alliance; and if, during the interval of
suspense after Villafranca, the King had cherished a hope that
the sacrifice might be avoided without prejudice either to the
cause of Italy or to his own relations with Napoleon, Cavour had
entertained no such illusions. He knew that the cession was an
indispensable link in the chain of his own policy, that policy
which had made it possible to defeat Austria, and which, he
believed, would lead to the further consolidation of Italy.
Looking to Rome, to Palermo, where the smouldering fire might at
any moment blaze out, he could not yet dispense with the
friendship of Napoleon, he could not provoke the one man powerful
enough to shape the action of France in defiance of Clerical and
of Legitimist aims. Rattazzi might claim credit for having
brought Piedmont past the Treaty of Z&uuml;rich without loss of
territory; Cavour, in a far finer spirit, took upon himself the
responsibility for the sacrifice made to France, and bade the
Parliament of Italy pass judgment upon his act. The cession of
the border-provinces overshadowed what would otherwise have been
the brightest scene in Italian history for many generations, the
meeting of the first North-Italian Parliament at Turin.
Garibaldi, coming as deputy from his birthplace, Nice, uttered
words of scorn and injustice against the man who had made him an
alien in Italy, and quitted the Chamber. Bitterly as Cavour felt,
both now and down to the end of his life, the reproaches that
were levelled against him, he allowed no trace of wounded
feeling, of impatience, of the sense of wrong, to escape him in
the masterly speech in which he justified his policy and won for
it the ratification of the Parliament. It was not until a year
later, when the hand of death was almost upon him, that fierce
words addressed to him face to face by Garibaldi wrung from him
the impressive answer, "The act that has made this gulf between
us was the most painful duty of my life. By what I have felt
myself I know what Garibaldi must have felt. If he refuses me his
forgiveness I cannot reproach him for it." <a name=
"FNanchor497">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_497"><sup>[497]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The cession in relation to Europe and Italy.]</p>
<p>The annexation of Nice and Savoy by Napoleon was seen with
extreme displeasure in Europe generally, and most of all in
England. It directly affected the history of Britain by the
stimulus which it gave to the development of the Volunteer
Forces. Owing their origin to certain demonstrations of hostility
towards England made by the French army after Orsini's conspiracy
and the acquittal of one of his confederates in London, the
Volunteer Forces rose in the three months that followed the
annexation of Nice and Savoy from seventy to a hundred and eighty
thousand men. If viewed as an indication that the ruler of France
would not be content with the frontiers of 1815, the acquisition
of the Sub-Alpine provinces might with some reason excite alarm;
on no other ground could their transfer be justly condemned.
Geographical position, language, commercial interests, separated
Savoy from Piedmont and connected it with France; and though in
certain parts of the County of Nice the Italian character
predominated, this district as a whole bore the stamp not of
Piedmont or Liguria but of Provence. Since the separation from
France in 1815 there had always been, both in Nice and Savoy, a
considerable party which desired reunion with that country. The
political and social order of the Sardinian Kingdom had from 1815
to 1848 been so backward, so reactionary, that the middle classes
in the border-provinces looked wistfully to France as a land
where their own grievances had been removed and their own ideals
attained. The constitutional system of Victor Emmanuel, and the
despotic system of Louis Napoleon had both been too recently
introduced to reverse in the minds of the greater number the
political tradition of the preceding thirty years. Thus if there
were a few who, like Garibaldi, himself of Genoese descent though
born at Nice, passionately resented separation from Italy, they
found no considerable party either in Nice or in Savoy animated
by the same feeling. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical
sentiment of Savoy rendered its transfer to France an actual
advantage to the Italian State. The Papacy had here a
deeply-rooted influence. The reforms begun by Azeglio's Ministry
had been steadily resisted by a Savoyard group of deputies in the
interests of Rome. Cavour himself, in the prosecution of his
larger plans, had always been exposed to the danger of a
coalition between this ultra-Conservative party and his opponents
of the other extreme. It was well that in the conflict with the
Papacy, without which there could be no such thing as a Kingdom
of United Italy, these influences of the Savoyard Church and
Noblesse should be removed from the Parliament and the Throne.
Honourable as the Savoyard party of resistance had proved
themselves in Parliamentary life, loyal and faithful as they were
to their sovereign, they were yet not a part of the Italian
nation. Their interests were not bound up with the cause of
Italian union; their leaders were not inspired with the ideal of
Italian national life. The forces that threatened the future of
the new State from within were too powerful for the surrender of
a priest-governed and half-foreign element to be considered as a
real loss.</p>
<p>[Naples.]</p>
<p>Nice and Savoy had hardly been handed over to Napoleon when
Garibaldi set out from Genoa to effect the liberation of Sicily
and Naples. King Ferdinand II., known to his subjects and to
Western Europe as King Bomba, had died a few days before the
battle of Magenta, leaving the throne to his son Francis II. In
consequence of the friendship shown by Ferdinand to Russia during
the Crimean War, and of his refusal to amend his tyrannical
system of government, the Western Powers had in 1856 withdrawn
their representatives from Naples. On the accession of Francis
II. diplomatic intercourse was renewed, and Cavour, who had been
at bitter enmity with Ferdinand, sought to establish relations of
friendship with his son. In the war against Austria an alliance
with Naples would have been of value to Sardinia as a
counterpoise to Napoleon's influence, and this alliance Cavour
attempted to obtain. He was, however, unsuccessful; and after the
Peace of Villafranca the Neapolitan Court threw itself with
ardour into schemes for the restoration of the fallen Governments
and the overthrow of Piedmontese authority in the Romagna by
means of a coalition with Austria and Spain and a
counterrevolutionary movement in Italy itself. A rising on behalf
of the fugitive Grand Duke of Tuscany was to give the signal for
the march of the Neapolitan army northwards. This rising,
however, was expected in vain, and the great Catholic design
resulted in nothing. Baffled in its larger aims, the Bourbon
Government proposed in the spring of 1860 to occupy Umbria and
the Marches, in order to prevent the revolutionary movement from
spreading farther into the Papal States. Against this Cavour
protested, and King Francis yielded to his threat to withdraw the
Sardinian ambassador from Naples. Knowing that a conspiracy
existed for the restoration of the House of Murat to the
Neapolitan throne, which would have given France the ascendency
in Southern Italy, Cavour now renewed his demand that Francis II.
should enter into alliance with Piedmont, accepting a
constitutional system of government and the national Italian
policy of Victor Emmanuel. But neither the summons from Turin,
nor the agitation of the Muratists, nor the warnings of Great
Britain that the Bourbon dynasty could only avert its fall by
reform, produced any real change in the spirit of the Neapolitan
Court. Ministers were removed, but the absolutist and
anti-national system remained the same. Meanwhile Garibaldi was
gathering his followers round him in Genoa. On the 15th of April
Victor Emmanuel wrote to King Francis that unless his fatal
system of policy was immediately abandoned the Piedmontese
Government itself might shortly be forced to become the agent of
his destruction. Even this menace proved fruitless; and after
thus fairly exposing to the Court of Naples the consequence of
its own stubbornness, Victor Emmanuel let loose against it the
revolutionary forces of Garibaldi.</p>
<p>[Sicily.]</p>
<p>[Garibaldi starts for Sicily, May 5.]</p>
<p>[Garibaldi at Marsala, May 11.]</p>
<p>Since the campaign of 1859 insurrectionary committees had been
active in the principal Sicilian towns. The old desire of the
Sicilian Liberals for the independence of the island had given
place, under the influence of the events of the past year, to the
desire for Italian union. On the abandonment of Garibaldi's plan
for the march on Rome in November, 1859, the liberation of Sicily
had been suggested to him as a more feasible enterprise, and the
general himself wavered in the spring of 1860 between the
resumption of his Roman project and an attack upon the Bourbons
of Naples from the south. The rumour spread through Sicily that
Garibaldi would soon appear there at the head of his followers.
On the 3rd of April an attempt at insurrection was made at
Palermo. It was repressed without difficulty; and although
disturbances broke out in other parts of the island, the reports
which reached Garibaldi at Genoa as to the spirit and prospects
of the Sicilians were so disheartening that for a while he seemed
disposed to abandon the project of invasion as hopeless for the
present. It was only when some of the Sicilian exiles declared
that they would risk the enterprise without him that he resolved
upon immediate action. On the night of the 5th of May two
steamships lying in the harbour of Genoa were seized, and on
these Garibaldi with his Thousand put to sea. Cavour, though he
would have preferred that Sicily should remain unmolested until
some progress had been made in the consolidation of the North
Italian Kingdom, did not venture to restrain Garibaldi's
movements, with which he was well acquainted. He required,
however, that the expedition should not touch at the island of
Sardinia, and gave ostensible orders to his admiral, Persano, to
seize the ships of Garibaldi if they should put into any
Sardinian port. Garibaldi, who had sheltered the Sardinian
Government from responsibility at the outset by the fiction of a
sudden capture of the two merchant-ships, continued to spare
Victor Emmanuel unnecessary difficulties by avoiding the fleet
which was supposed to be on the watch for him off Cagliari in
Sardinia, and only interrupted his voyage by a landing at a
desolate spot on the Tuscan coast in order to take up artillery
and ammunition which were waiting for him there. On the 11th of
May, having heard from some English merchantmen that there were
no Neapolitan vessels of war at Marsala, he made for this
harbour. The first of his two ships entered it in safety and
disembarked her crew; the second, running on a rock, lay for some
time within range of the guns of a Neapolitan war-steamer which
was bearing up towards the port. But for some unknown reason the
Neapolitan commander delayed opening fire, and the landing of
Garibaldi's followers was during this interval completed without
loss. <a name="FNanchor498">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_498"><sup>[498]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Garibaldi captures Palermo, May 26.]</p>
<p>On the following day the little army, attired in the red
shirts which are worn by cattle-ranchers in South America,
marched eastwards from Marsala. Bands of villagers joined them as
they moved through the country, and many unexpected adherents
were gained among the priests. On the third day's march
Neapolitan troops were seen in position at Calatafimi. They were
attacked by Garibaldi, and, though far superior in number, were
put to the rout. The moral effects of this first victory were
very great. The Neapolitan commander retired into Palermo,
leaving Garibaldi master of the western portion of the island.
Insurrection spread towards the interior; the revolutionary party
at Palermo itself regained its courage and prepared to co-operate
with Garibaldi on his approach. On nearing the city Garibaldi
determined that he could not risk a direct assault upon the
forces which occupied it. He resolved, if possible, to lure part
of the defenders into the mountains, and during their absence to
throw himself into the city and to trust to the energy of its
inhabitants to maintain himself there. This strategy succeeded.
While the officer in command of some of the Neapolitan
battalions, tempted by an easy victory over the ill-disciplined
Sicilian bands opposed to him, pursued his beaten enemy into the
mountains, Garibaldi with the best of his troops fought his way
into Palermo on the night of May 26th. Fighting continued in the
streets during the next two days, and the cannon of the forts and
of the Neapolitan vessels in harbour ineffectually bombarded the
city. On the 30th, at the moment when the absent battalions were
coming again into sight, an armistice was signed on board the
British man-of-war <i>Hannibal</i>. The Neapolitan commander gave
up to Garibaldi the bank and public buildings, and withdrew into
the forts outside the town. But the Government at Naples was now
becoming thoroughly alarmed; and considering Palermo as lost, it
directed the troops to be shipped to Messina and to Naples
itself. Garibaldi was thus left in undisputed possession of the
Sicilian capital. He remained there for nearly two months,
assuming the government of Sicily as Dictator in the name of
Victor Emmanuel, appointing Ministers, and levying taxes. Heavy
reinforcements reached him from Italy. The Neapolitans, driven
from the interior as well as from the towns occupied by the
invader, now held only the north-eastern extremity of the island.
On the 20th of July Garibaldi, operating both by land and sea,
attacked and defeated them at Milazzo on the northern coast. The
result of this victory was that Messina itself, with the
exception of the citadel, was evacuated by the Neapolitans
without resistance. Garibaldi, whose troops now numbered eighteen
thousand, was master of the island from sea to sea, and could
with confidence look forward to the overthrow of Bourbon
authority on the Italian mainland.</p>
<p>[The Party of Action.]</p>
<p>During Garibaldi's stay at Palermo the antagonism between the
two political creeds which severed those whose devotion to Italy
was the strongest came clearly into view. This antagonism stood
embodied in its extreme form in the contrast between Mazzini and
Cavour. Mazzini, handling moral and political conceptions with
something of the independence of a mathematician, laid it down as
the first duty of the Italian nation to possess itself of Rome
and Venice, regardless of difficulties that might be raised from
without. By conviction he desired that Italy should be a
Republic, though under certain conditions he might be willing to
tolerate the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. Cavour, accurately
observing the play of political forces in Europe, conscious above
all of the strength of those ties which still bound Napoleon to
the clerical cause, knew that there were limits which Italy could
not at present pass without ruin. The centre of Mazzini's hopes,
an advance upon Rome itself, he knew to be an act of
self-destruction for Italy, and this advance he was resolved at
all costs to prevent. Cavour had not hindered the expedition to
Sicily; he had not considered it likely to embroil Italy with its
ally; but neither had he been the author of this enterprise. The
liberation of Sicily might be deemed the work rather of the
school of Mazzini than of Cavour. Garibaldi indeed was personally
loyal to Victor Emmanuel; but around him there were men who, if
not Republicans, were at least disposed to make the grant of
Sicily to Victor Emmanuel conditional upon the king's fulfilling
the will of the so-called Party of Action, and consenting to an
attack upon Rome. Under the influence of these politicians
Garibaldi, in reply to a deputation expressing to him the desire
of the Sicilians for union with the Kingdom of Victor Emmanuel,
declared that he had come to fight not for Sicily alone but for
all Italy, and that if the annexation of Sicily was to take place
before the union of Italy was assured, he must withdraw his hand
from the work and retire. The effect produced by these words of
Garibaldi was so serious that the Ministers whom he had placed in
office resigned. Garibaldi endeavoured to substitute for them men
more agreeable to the Party of Action, but a demonstration in
Palermo itself forced him to nominate Sicilians in favour of
immediate annexation. The public opinion of the island was
hostile to Republicanism and to the friends of Mazzini; nor could
the prevailing anarchy long continue without danger of a
reactionary movement. Garibaldi himself possessed no glimmer of
administrative faculty. After weeks of confusion and
misgovernment he saw the necessity of accepting direction from
Turin, and consented to recognise as Pro-Dictator of the island a
nominee of Cavour, the Piedmontese Depretis. Under the influence
of Depretis a commencement was made in the work of political and
social reorganisation. <a name="FNanchor499">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_499"><sup>[499]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Cavour's policy with regard to Naples.]</p>
<p>[Garibaldi crosses to the mainland, Aug. 19.]</p>
<p>Cavour, during Garibaldi's preparation for his descent upon
Sicily and until the capture of Palermo, had affected to disavow
and condemn the enterprise as one undertaken by individuals in
spite of the Government, and at their own risk. The Piedmontese
ambassador was still at Naples as the representative of a
friendly Court; and in reply to the reproaches of Germany and
Russia, Cavour alleged that the title of Dictator of Sicily in
the name of Victor Emmanuel had been assumed by Garibaldi without
the knowledge or consent of his sovereign. But whatever might be
said to Foreign Powers, Cavour, from the time of the capture of
Palermo, recognised that the hour had come for further steps
towards Italian union; and, without committing himself to any
definite line of action, he began already to contemplate the
overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty at Naples. It was in vain that
King Francis now released his political prisoners, declared the
Constitution of 1848 in force, and tendered to Piedmont the
alliance which he had before refused. Cavour, in reply to his
overtures, stated that he could not on his own authority pledge
Piedmont to the support of a dynasty now almost in the agonies of
dissolution, and that the matter must await the meeting of
Parliament at Turin. Thus far the way had not been absolutely
closed to a reconciliation between the two Courts; but after the
victory of Garibaldi at Milazzo and the evacuation of Messina at
the end of July Cavour cast aside all hesitation and reserve. He
appears to have thought a renewal of the war with Austria
probable, and now strained every nerve to become master of Naples
and its fleet before Austria could take the field. He ordered
Admiral Persano to leave two ships of war to cover Garibaldi's
passage to the mainland, and with one ship to proceed to Naples
himself, and there excite insurrection and win over the
Neapolitan fleet to the flag of Victor Emmanuel. Persano reached
Naples on the 3rd of August, and on the next day the negotiations
between the two Courts were broken off. On the 19th Garibaldi
crossed from Sicily to the mainland. His march upon the capital
was one unbroken triumph.</p>
<p>[Persano and Villamarina at Naples.]</p>
<p>[Departure of King Francis, Sept. 6.]</p>
<p>[Garibaldi enters Naples, Sept. 7.]</p>
<p>It was the hope of Cavour that before Garibaldi could reach
Naples a popular movement in the city itself would force the King
to take flight, so that Garibaldi on his arrival would find the
machinery of government, as well as the command of the fleet and
the army, already in the hands of Victor Emmanuel's
representatives. If war with Austria was really impending,
incalculable mischief might be caused by the existence of a
semi-independent Government at Naples, reckless, in its
enthusiasm for the march on Rome, of the effect which its acts
might produce on the French alliance. In any case the control of
Italian affairs could but half belong to the King and his
Minister if Garibaldi, in the full glory of his unparalleled
exploits, should add the Dictatorship of Naples to the
Dictatorship of Sicily. Accordingly Cavour plied every art to
accelerate the inevitable revolution. Persano and the Sardinian
ambassador, Villamarina, had their confederates in the Bourbon
Ministry and in the Royal Family itself. But their efforts to
drive King Francis from Naples, and to establish the authority of
Victor Emmanuel before Garibaldi's arrival, were baffled partly
by the tenacity of the King and Queen, partly by the opposition
of the committees of the Party of Action, who were determined
that power should fall into no hands but those of Garibaldi
himself. It was not till Garibaldi had reached Salerno, and the
Bourbon generals had one after another declined to undertake the
responsibility of command in a battle against him, that Francis
resolved on flight. It was now feared that he might induce the
fleet to sail with him, and even that he might hand it over to
the Austrians. The crews, it was believed, were willing to follow
the King; the officers, though inclined to the Italian cause,
would be powerless to prevent them. There was not an hour to
lose. On the night of September 5th, after the King's intention
to quit the capital had become known, Persano and Villamarina
disguised themselves, and in company with their partisans mingled
with the crews of the fleet, whom they induced by bribes and
persuasion to empty the boilers and to cripple the engines of
their ships. When, on the 6th, King Francis, having announced his
intention to spare the capital bloodshed, went on board a mail
steamer and quitted the harbour, accompanied by the ambassadors
of Austria, Prussia, and Spain, only one vessel of the fleet of
followed him. An urgent summons was sent to Garibaldi, whose
presence was now desired by all parties alike in order to prevent
the outbreak of disorders. Leaving his troops at Salerno,
Garibaldi came by railroad to Naples on the morning of the 7th,
escorted only by some of his staff. The forts were still
garrisoned by eight thousand of the Bourbon troops, but all idea
of resistance had been abandoned, and Garibaldi drove fearlessly
through the city in the midst of joyous crowds. His first act as
Dictator was to declare the ships of war belonging to the State
of the Two Sicilies united to those of King Victor Emmanuel under
Admiral Persano's command. Before sunset the flag of Italy was
hoisted by the Neapolitan fleet. The army was not to be so easily
incorporated with the national forces. King Francis, after
abandoning the idea of a battle between Naples and Salerno, had
ordered the mass of his troops to retire upon Capua in order to
make a final struggle on the line of the Volturno, and this order
had been obeyed. <a name="FNanchor500">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_500"><sup>[500]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Piedmontese army enters Umbria and the Marches. Sept.
11.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Ancona, Sept. 25.]</p>
<p>As soon as it had become evident that the entry of Garibaldi
into Naples could not be anticipated by the establishment of
Victor Emmanuel's own authority, Cavour recognised that bold and
aggressive action on the part of the National Government was now
necessity. Garibaldi made no secret or his intention to carry the
Italian arms to Rome. The time was past when the national
movement could be checked at the frontiers of Naples and Tuscany.
It remained only for Cavour to throw the King's own troops into
the Papal States before Garibaldi could move from Naples, and,
while winning for Italy the last foot of ground that could be won
without an actual conflict with France, to stop short at those
limits where the soldiers of Napoleon would certainly meet an
invader with their fire. The Pope was still in possession of the
Marches, of Umbria, and of the territory between the Apennines
and the coast from Orvieto to Terracina. Cavour had good reason
to believe that Napoleon would not strike on behalf of the
Temporal Power until this last narrow district was menaced. He
resolved to seize upon the Marches and Umbria, and to brave the
consequences. On the day of Garibaldi's entry into Naples a
despatch was sent by Cavour to the Papal Government requiring, in
the name of Victor Emmanuel, the disbandment of the foreign
mercenaries who in the previous spring had plundered Perugia, and
whose presence was a continued menace to the peace of Italy. The
announcement now made by Napoleon that he must break off
diplomatic relations with the Sardinian Government in case of the
invasion of the Papal States produced no effect. Cavour replied
that by no other means could he prevent revolution from mastering
all Italy, and on the 10th of September the French ambassador
quitted Turin. Without waiting for Antonelli's answer to his
ultimatum, Cavour ordered the King's troops to cross the
frontier. The Papal army was commanded by Lamorici&egrave;re, a
French general who had gained some reputation in Algiers; but the
resistance offered to the Piedmontese was unexpectedly feeble.
The column which entered Umbria reached the southern limit
without encountering any serious opposition except from the Irish
garrison of Spoleto. In the Marches, where Lamorici&egrave;re had
a considerable force at his disposal, the dispersion of the Papal
troops and the incapacity shown in their command brought the
campaign to a rapid and inglorious end. The main body of the
defenders was routed on the Musone, near Loreto, on the 19th of
September. Other divisions surrendered, and Ancona alone remained
to Lamorici&egrave;re. Vigorously attacked in this fortress both
by land and sea, Lamorici&egrave;re surrendered after a siege of
eight days. Within three weeks from Garibaldi's entry into Naples
the Piedmontese army had completed the task imposed upon it, and
Victor Emmanuel was master of Italy as far as the Abruzzi.</p>
<p>[Cavour, Garibaldi, and the Party of Action.]</p>
<p>Cavour's successes had not come a day too soon, for Garibaldi,
since his entry into Naples, was falling more and more into the
hands of the Party of Action, and, while protesting his loyalty
to Victor Emmanuel, was openly announcing that he would march the
Party of on Rome whether the King's Government permitted it or
no. In Sicily the officials appointed by this Party were
proceeding with such violence that Depretis, unable to obtain
troops from Cavour, resigned his post. Garibaldi suddenly
appeared at Palermo on the 11th of September, appointed a new
Pro-Dictator, and repeated to the Sicilians that their union with
the Kingdom of Victor Emmanuel must be postponed until all
members of the Italian family were free. But even the personal
presence and the angry words of Garibaldi were powerless to check
the strong expression of Sicilian opinion in favour of immediate
and unconditional annexation. His visit to Palermo was answered
by the appearance of a Sicilian deputation at Turin demanding
immediate union, and complaining that the island was treated by
Garibaldi's officers like a conquered province. At Naples the
rash and violent utterances of the Dictator were equally
condemned. The Ministers whom he had himself appointed resigned.
Garibaldi replaced them by others who were almost Republicans,
and sent a letter to Victor Emmanuel requesting him to consent to
the march upon Rome and to dismiss Cavour. It was known in Turin
that at this very moment Napoleon was taking steps to increase
the French force in Rome, and to garrison the whole of the
territory that still remained to the Pope. Victor Emmanuel
understood how to reply to Garibaldi's letter. He remained true
to his Minister, and sent orders to Villamarina at Naples in case
Garibaldi should proclaim the Republic to break off all relations
with him and to secure the fleet. The fall of Ancona on September
28th brought a timely accession of popularity and credit to
Cavour. He made the Parliament which assembled at Turin four days
later arbiter in the struggle between Garibaldi and himself, and
received from it an almost unanimous vote of confidence.
Garibaldi would perhaps have treated lightly any resolution of
Parliament which conflicted with his own opinion: he shrank from
a breach with the soldier of Novara and Solferino. Now, as at
other moments of danger, the character and reputation of Victor
Emmanuel stood Italy in good stead. In the enthusiasm which
Garibaldi's services to Italy excited in every patriotic heart,
there was room for thankfulness that Italy possessed a sovereign
and a statesman strong enough even to withstand its hero when his
heroism endangered the national cause. <a name=
"FNanchor501">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_501"><sup>[501]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The armies on the Volturno.]</p>
<p>[Meeting of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Oct. 26.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Gaeta, Feb. 14, 1861.]</p>
<p>The King of Naples had not yet abandoned the hope that one or
more of the European Powers would intervene in his behalf. The
trustworthy part of his army had gathered round the fortress of
Capua on the Volturno, and there were indications that Garibaldi
would here meet with far more serious resistance than he had yet
encountered. While he was still in Naples, his troops, which had
pushed northwards, sustained a repulse at Cajazzo. Emboldened by
this success, the Neapolitan army at the beginning of October
assumed the offensive. It was with difficulty that Garibaldi,
placing himself again at the head of his forces, drove the enemy
back to Capua. But the arms of Victor Emmanuel were now thrown
into the scale. Crossing the Apennines, and driving before him
the weak force that was intended to bar his way at Isernia, the
King descended in the rear of the Neapolitan army. The Bourbon
commander, warned of his approach, moved northwards on the line
of the Garigliano, leaving a garrison to defend Capua. Garibaldi
followed on his track, and in the neighbourhood of Teano met King
Victor Emmanuel (October 26th). The meeting is said to have been
cordial on the part of the King, reserved on the part of
Garibaldi, who saw in the King's suite the men by whom he had
been prevented from invading the Papal States in the previous
year. In spite of their common patriotism the volunteers of
Garibaldi and the army of Victor Emmanuel were rival bodies, and
the relations between the chiefs of each camp were strained and
difficult. Garibaldi himself returned to the siege of Capua,
while the King marched northwards against the retreating
Neapolitans. All that was great in Garibaldi's career was now in
fact accomplished. The politicians about him had attempted at
Naples, as in Sicily, to postpone the union with Victor
Emmanuel's monarchy, and to convoke a Southern Parliament which
should fix the conditions on which annexation would be permitted;
but, after discrediting the General, they had been crushed by
public opinion, and a popular vote which was taken at the end of
October on the question of immediate union showed the majority in
favour of this course to be overwhelming. After the surrender of
Capua on the 2nd of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into
Naples. Garibaldi, whose request for the Lieutenancy of Southern
Italy for the space of a year with full powers was refused by the
King, <a name="FNanchor502">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_502"><sup>[502]</sup></a> declined all minor honours
and rewards, and departed to his home, still filled with
resentment against Cavour, and promising his soldiers that he
would return in the spring and lead them to Rome and Venice. The
reduction of Gaeta, where King Francis II. had taken refuge, and
of the citadel of Messina, formed the last act of the war. The
French fleet for some time prevented the Sardinians from
operating against Gaeta from the sea, and the siege in
consequence made slow progress. It was not until the middle of
January, 1861, that Napoleon permitted the French admiral to quit
his station. The bombardment was now opened both by land and sea,
and after a brave resistance Gaeta surrendered on the 14th of
February. King Francis and his young Queen, a sister of the
Empress of Austria, were conveyed in a French steamer to the
Papal States, and there began their life-long exile. The citadel
of Messina, commanded by one of the few Neapolitan officers who
showed any soldierly spirit, maintained its obstinate defence for
a month after the Bourbon flag had disappeared from the
mainland.</p>
<p>[Cavour's policy with regard to Rome and Venice.]</p>
<p>[The Free Church in the Free State.]</p>
<p>Thus in the spring of 1861, within two years from the outbreak
of war with Austria, Italy with the exception of Rome and Venice
was united under Victor Emmanuel. Of all the European Powers,
Great Britain alone watched the creation of the new Italian
Kingdom with complete sympathy and approval. Austria, though it
had made peace at Z&uuml;rich, declined to renew diplomatic
intercourse with Sardinia, and protested against the assumption
by Victor Emmanuel of the title of King of Italy. Russia, the
ancient patron of the Neapolitan Bourbons, declared that
geographical conditions alone prevented its intervention against
their despoilers. Prussia, though under a new sovereign, had not
yet completely severed the ties which bound it to Austria.
Nevertheless, in spite of wide political ill-will, and of the
passionate hostility of the clerical party throughout Europe,
there was little probability that the work of the Italian people
would be overthrown by external force. The problem which faced
Victor Emmanuel's Government was not so much the frustration of
reactionary designs from without as the determination of the true
line of policy to be followed in regard to Rome and Venice. There
were few who, like Azeglio, held that Rome might be permanently
left outside the Italian Kingdom; there were none who held this
of Venice. Garibaldi might be mad enough to hope for victory in a
campaign against Austria and against France at the head of such a
troop as he himself could muster; Cavour would have deserved ill
of his country if he had for one moment countenanced the belief
that the force which had overthrown the Neapolitan Bourbons could
with success, or with impunity to Italy, measure itself against
the defenders of Venetia or of Rome. Yet the mind of Cavour was
not one which could rest in mere passive expectancy as to the
future, or in mere condemnation of the unwise schemes of others.
His intelligence, so luminous, so penetrating, that in its
utterances we seem at times to be listening to the very spirit of
the age, ranged over wide fields of moral and of spiritual
interests in its forecast of the future of Italy, and spent its
last force in one of those prophetic delineations whose breadth
and power the world can feel, though a later time alone can judge
of their correspondence with the destined course of history.
Venice was less to Europe than Rome; its transfer to Italy would,
Cavour believed, be effected either by arms or negotiations so
soon as the German race should find a really national Government,
and refuse the service which had hitherto been exacted from it
for the maintenance of Austrian interests. It was to Prussia, as
the representative of nationality in Germany, that Cavour looked
as the natural ally of Italy in the vindication of that part of
the national inheritance which still lay under the dominion of
the Hapsburg. Rome, unlike Venice, was not only defended by
foreign arms, it was the seat of a Power whose empire over the
mind of man was not the sport of military or political
vicissitudes. Circumstances might cause France to relax its grasp
on Rome, but it was not to such an accident that Cavour looked
for the incorporation of Rome with Italy. He conceived that the
time would arrive when the Catholic world would recognise that
the Church would best fulfil its task in complete separation from
temporal power. Rome would then assume its natural position as
the centre of the Italian State; the Church would be the noblest
friend, not the misjudging enemy, of the Italian national
monarchy. Cavour's own religious beliefs were perhaps less simple
than he chose to represent them. Occupying himself, however, with
institutions, not with dogmas, he regarded the Church in profound
earnestness as a humanising and elevating power. He valued its
independence so highly that even on the suppression of the
Piedmontese monasteries he had refused to give to the State the
administration of the revenue arising from the sale of their
lands, and had formed this into a fund belonging to the Church
itself, in order that the clergy might not become salaried
officers of the State. Human freedom was the principle in which
he trusted; and looking upon the Church as the greatest
association formed by men, he believed that here too the rule of
freedom, of the absence of State-regulation, would in the end
best serve man's highest interests. With the passing away of the
Pope's temporal power, Cavour imagined that the constitution of
the Church itself would become more democratic, more responsive
to the movement of the modern world. His own effort in
ecclesiastical reform had been to improve the condition and to
promote the independence of the lower clergy. He had hoped that
each step in their moral and material progress would make them
more national at heart; and though this hope had been but
partially fulfilled, Cavour had never ceased to cherish the ideal
of a national Church which, while recognising its Head in Rome,
should cordially and without reserve accept the friendship of the
Italian State. <a name="FNanchor503">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_503"><sup>[503]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Death of Cavour, June 6, 1861.]</p>
<p>[Free Church in Free State.]</p>
<p>It was in the exposition of these principles, in the
enforcement of the common moral interest of Italian nationality
and the Catholic Church, that Cavour gave his last counsels to
the Italian Parliament. He was not himself to lead the nation
farther towards the Promised Land. The immense exertions which he
had maintained during the last three years, the indignation and
anxiety caused to him by Garibaldi's attacks, produced an illness
which Cavour's own careless habits of life and the unskilfulness
of his doctors rendered fatal. With dying lips he repeated to
those about him the words in which he had summed up his policy in
the Italian Parliament: "A free Church in a free State." <a name=
"FNanchor504">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_504"><sup>[504]</sup></a>
Other Catholic lands had adjusted by Concordats with the Papacy
the conflicting claims of temporal and spiritual authority in
such matters as the appointment of bishops, the regulation of
schools, the family-rights of persons married without
ecclesiastical form. Cavour appears to have thought that in
Italy, where the whole nation was in a sense Catholic, the Church
might as safely and as easily be left to manage its own affairs
as in the United States, where the Catholic community is only one
among many religious societies. His optimism, his sanguine and
large-hearted tolerance, was never more strikingly shown than in
this fidelity to the principle of liberty, even in the case of
those who for the time declined all reconciliation with the
Italian State. Whether Cavour's ideal was an impracticable fancy
a later age will decide. The ascendency within the Church of Rome
would seem as yet to have rested with the elements most opposed
to the spirit of the time, most obstinately bent on setting faith
and reason in irreconcilable enmity. In place of that democratic
movement within the hierarchy and the priesthood which Cavour
anticipated, absolutism has won a new crown in the doctrine of
Papal Infallibility. Catholic dogma has remained impervious to
the solvents which during the last thirty years have operated
with perceptible success on the theology of Protestant lands.
Each conquest made in the world of thought and knowledge is still
noted as the next appropriate object of denunciation by the
Vatican. Nevertheless the cautious spirit will be slow to
conclude that hopes like those of Cavour were wholly vain. A
single generation may see but little of the seed-time, nothing of
the harvests that are yet to enrich mankind. And even if all
wider interests be left out of view, enough remains to justify
Cavour's policy of respect for the independence of the Church in
the fact that Italy during the thirty years succeeding the
establishment of its union has remained free from civil war.
Cavour was wont to refer to the Constitution which the French
National Assembly imposed upon the clergy in 1790 as the type of
erroneous legislation. Had his own policy and that of his
successors not been animated by a wiser spirit; had the
Government of Italy, after overthrowing the Pope's temporal
sovereignty, sought enemies among the rural priesthood and their
congregations, the provinces added to the Italian Kingdom by
Garibaldi would hardly have been maintained by the House of Savoy
without a second and severer struggle. Between the ideal Italy
which filled the thoughts not only of Mazzini but of some of the
best English minds of that time-the land of immemorial greatness,
touched once more by the divine hand and advancing from strength
to strength as the intellectual and moral pioneer among
nations-between this ideal and the somewhat hard and commonplace
realities of the Italy of to-day there is indeed little enough
resemblance. Poverty, the pressure of inordinate taxation, the
physical and moral habits inherited from centuries of evil
government,-all these have darkened in no common measure the
conditions from which Italian national life has to be built up.
If in spite of overwhelming difficulties each crisis has hitherto
been surmounted; if, with all that is faulty and infirm, the
omens for the future of Italy are still favourable, one source of
its good fortune has been the impress given to its ecclesiastical
policy by the great statesman to whom above all other men it owes
the accomplishment of its union, and who, while claiming for
Italy the whole of its national inheritance, yet determined to
inflict no needless wound upon the conscience of Rome.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XXIII.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Germany after 1858-The Regency in Prussia-Army
re-organisation-King William I.-Conflict between the Crown and
the Parliament-Bismarck-The struggle continued-Austria from
1859-The October Diploma-Resistance of Hungary-The
Reichsrath-Russia under Alexander II.-Liberation of the
Serfs-Poland-The Insurrection of 1863-Agrarian measures in
Poland-Schleswig-Holstein-Death of Frederick VII.-Plans of
Bismarck-Campaign in Schleswig-Conference of London-Treaty of
Vienna-England and Napoleon III.-Prussia and Austria-Convention
of Gastein-Italy-Alliance of Prussia with Italy-Proposals for a
Congress fail-War between Austria and Prussia-Napoleon
III.-K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz- Custozza-Mediation of Napoleon-Treaty
of Prague-South Germany-Projects for compensation to
France-Austria and Hungary-De&aacute;k-Establishment of the Dual
System in Austria-Hungary.</p>
<br>

<p>[Germany from 1858.]</p>
<p>[The Regency in Prussia, Oct. 1858.]</p>
<p>Shortly before the events which broke the power of Austria in
Italy, the German people believed themselves to have entered on a
new political era. King Frederick William IV., who, since 1848,
had disappointed every hope that had been fixed on Prussia and on
himself, was compelled by mental disorder to withdraw from public
affairs in the autumn of 1858. His brother, Prince William of
Prussia, who had for a year acted as the King's representative,
now assumed the Regency. In the days when King Frederick William
still retained some vestiges of his reputation the Prince of
Prussia had been unpopular, as the supposed head of the
reactionary party; but the events of the last few years had
exhibited him in a better aspect. Though strong in his belief
both in the Divine right of kings in general, and in the
necessity of a powerful monarchical rule in Prussia, he was
disposed to tolerate, and even to treat with a certain respect,
the humble elements of constitutional government which he found
in existence. There was more manliness in his nature than in that
of his brother, more belief in the worth of his own people. The
espionage, the servility, the overdone professions of sanctity in
Manteuffel's r&eacute;gime displeased him, but most of all he
despised its pusillanimity in the conduct of foreign affairs. His
heart indeed was Prussian, not German, and the destiny which
created him the first Emperor of united Germany was not of his
own making nor of his own seeking; but he felt that Prussia ought
to hold a far greater station both in Germany and in Europe than
it had held during his brother's reign, and that the elevation of
the State to the position which it ought to occupy was the task
that lay before himself. During the twelve months preceding the
Regency the retirement of the King had not been treated as more
than temporary, and the Prince of Prussia, though constantly at
variance with Manteuffel's Cabinet, had therefore not considered
himself at liberty to remove his brother's advisers. His first
act on the assumption of the constitutional office of Regent was
to dismiss the hated Ministry. Prince Antony of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was called to office, and posts in the
Government were given to men well known as moderate Liberals.
Though the Regent stated in clear terms that he had no intention
of forming a Liberal party-administration, his action satisfied
public opinion. The troubles and the failures of 1849 had
inclined men to be content with far less than had been asked
years before. The leaders of the more advanced sections among the
Liberals preferred for the most part to remain outside
Parliamentary life rather than to cause embarrassment to the new
Government; and the elections of 1859 sent to Berlin a body of
representatives fully disposed to work with the Regent and his
Ministers in the policy of guarded progress which they had laid
down.</p>
<p>[Revival of idea of German union.]</p>
<p>This change of spirit in the Prussian Government, followed by
the events that established Italian independence, told powerfully
upon public opinion throughout Germany. Hopes that had been
crushed in 1849 now revived. With the collapse of military
despotism in the Austrian Empire the clouds of reaction seemed
everywhere to be passing away; it was possible once more to think
of German national union and of common liberties in which all
Germans should share. As in 1808 the rising of the Spaniards
against Napoleon had inspired Bl&uuml;cher and his countrymen
with the design of a truly national effort against their foreign
oppressor, so in 1859 the work of Cavour challenged the Germans
to prove that their national patriotism and their political
aptitude were not inferior to those of the Italian people. Men
who had been prominent in the National Assembly at Frankfort
again met one another and spoke to the nation. In the Parliaments
of several of the minor States resolutions were brought forward
in favour of the creation of a central German authority. Protests
were made against the infringement of constitutional rights that
had been common during the last ten years; patriotic meetings and
demonstrations were held; and a National Society, in imitation of
that which had prepared the way for union with Piedmont in
Central and Southern Italy, was formally established. There was
indeed no such preponderating opinion in favour of Prussian
leadership as had existed in 1848. The southern States had
displayed a strong sympathy with Austria in its war with Napoleon
III., and had regarded the neutrality of Prussia during the
Italian campaign as a desertion of the German cause. Here there
were few who looked with friendly eye upon Berlin. It was in the
minor states of the north, and especially in Hesse-Cassel, where
the struggle between the Elector and his subjects was once more
breaking out, that the strongest hopes were directed towards the
new Prussian ruler, and the measures of his government were the
most anxiously watched.</p>
<p>[The Regent of Prussia and the army.]</p>
<p>[Scheme of reorganisation.]</p>
<p>The Prince Regent was a soldier by profession and habit. He
was born in 1797, and had been present at the battle of
Arcis-sur-Aube, the last fought by Napoleon against the Allies in
1814. During forty years he had served on every commission that
had been occupied with Prussian military affairs; no man better
understood the military organisation of his country, no man more
clearly recognised its capacities and its faults. The defective
condition of the Prussian army had been the principal, though not
the sole, cause of the miserable submission to Austria at
Olm&uuml;tz in 1850, and of the abandonment of all claims to
German leadership on the part of the Court of Berlin. The Prince
would himself have risked all chances of disaster rather than
inflict upon Prussia the humiliation with which King Frederick
William then purchased peace; but Manteuffel had convinced his
sovereign that the army could not engage in a campaign against
Austria without ruin. Military impotence was the only possible
justification for the policy then adopted, and the Prince
determined that Prussia should not under his own rule have the
same excuse for any political shortcomings. The work of
reorganisation was indeed begun during the reign of Frederick
William IV., through the enforcement of the three-years' service
to which the conscript was liable by law, but which had fallen
during the long period of peace to two-years' service. The number
of troops with the colours was thus largely increased, but no
addition had been made to the yearly levy, and no improvement
attempted in the organisation of the Landwehr. When in 1859 the
order for mobilisation was given in consequence of the Italian
war, it was discovered that the Landwehr battalions were almost
useless. The members of this force were mostly married men
approaching middle life, who had been too long engaged in other
pursuits to resume their military duties with readiness, and
whose call to the field left their families without means of
support and chargeable upon the public purse. Too much, in the
judgment of the reformers of the Prussian army, was required from
men past youth, not enough from youth itself. The plan of the
Prince Regent was therefore to enforce in the first instance with
far more stringency the law imposing the universal obligation to
military service; and, while thus raising the annual levy from
40,000 to 60,000 men, to extend the period of service in the
Reserve, into which the young soldier passed on the completion of
his three years with the colours, from two to four years.
Asserting with greater rigour its claim to seven years in the
early life of the citizen, the State would gain, without
including the Landwehr, an effective army of four hundred
thousand men, and would practically be able to dispense with the
service of those who were approaching middle life, except in
cases of great urgency. In the execution of this reform the
Government could on its own authority enforce the increased levy
and the full three years' service in the standing army; for the
prolongation of service in the Reserve, and for the greater
expenditure entailed by the new system, the consent of Parliament
was necessary.</p>
<p>[The Prussian Parliament and the army, 1859-1861.]</p>
<p>[Accession of King William, Jan., 1861.]</p>
<p>The general principles on which the proposed reorganisation
was based were accepted by public opinion and by both Chambers of
Parliament; it was, however, held by the Liberal leaders that the
increase of expenditure might, without impairing the efficiency
of the army, be avoided by returning to the system of two-years
service with the colours, which during so long a period had been
thought sufficient for the training of the soldier. The Regent,
however, was convinced that the discipline and the instruction of
three years were indispensable to the Prussian conscript, and he
refused to accept the compromise suggested. The mobilisation of
1859 had given him an opportunity for forming additional
battalions; and although the Landwehr were soon dismissed to
their homes the new formation was retained, and the place of the
retiring militiamen was filled by conscripts of the year. The
Lower Chamber, in voting the sum required in 1860 for the
increased numbers of the army, treated this arrangement as
temporary, and limited the grant to one year; in spite of this
the Regent, who on the death of his brother in January, 1861,
became King of Prussia, formed the additional battalions into new
regiments, and gave to these new regiments their names and
colours. The year 1861 passed without bringing the questions at
issue between the Government and the Chamber of Deputies to a
settlement. Public feeling, disappointed in the reserved and
hesitating policy which was still followed by the Court in German
affairs, stimulated too by the rapid consolidation of the Italian
monarchy, which the Prussian Government on its part had as yet
declined to recognise, was becoming impatient and resentful. It
seemed as if the Court of Berlin still shrank from committing
itself to the national cause. The general confidence reposed in
the new ruler at his accession was passing away; and when in the
summer of 1861 the dissolution of Parliament took place, the
elections resulted in the return not only of a Progressist
majority, but of a majority little inclined to submit to measures
of compromise, or to shrink from the assertion of its full
constitutional rights.</p>
<p>[First Parliament of 1862.]</p>
<p>[Dissolution, May, 1862.]</p>
<p>[Second Parliament of 1862.]</p>
<p>[Bismarck becomes Minister, Sept., 1862.]</p>
<p>The new Parliament assembled at the beginning of 1862. Under
the impulse of public opinion, the Government was now beginning
to adopt a more vigorous policy in German affairs, and to
re-assert Prussia's claims to an independent leadership in
defiance of the restored Diet of Frankfort. But the conflict with
the Lower Chamber was not to be averted by revived energy abroad.
The Army Bill, which was passed at once by the Upper House, was
referred to a hostile Committee on reaching the Chamber of
Deputies, and a resolution was carried insisting on the right of
the representatives of the people to a far more effective control
over the Budget than they had hitherto exercised. The result of
this vote was the dissolution of Parliament by the King, and the
resignation of the Ministry, with the exception of General Roon,
Minister of War, and two of the most conservative among his
colleagues. Prince Hohenlohe, President of the Upper House,
became chief of the Government. There was now an open and
undisguised conflict between the Crown and the upholders of
Parliamentary rights. "King or Parliament" was the expression in
which the newly-appointed Ministers themselves summed up the
struggle. The utmost pressure was exerted by the Government in
the course of the elections which followed, but in vain. The
Progressist Party returned in overwhelming strength to the new
Parliament; the voice of the country seemed unmistakably to
condemn the policy to which the King and his advisers were
committed. After a long and sterile discussion in the Budget
Committee, the debate on the Army Bill began in the Lower House
on the 11th of September. Its principal clauses were rejected by
an almost unanimous vote. An attempt made by General Roon to
satisfy his opponents by a partial and conditional admission of
the principle of two-years' service resulted only in increased
exasperation on both sides. Hohenlohe resigned, and the King now
placed in power, at the head of a Ministry of conflict, the most
resolute and unflinching of all his friends, the most
contemptuous scorner of Parliamentary majorities, Herr von
Bismarck. <a name="FNanchor505">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_505"><sup>[505]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bismarck.]</p>
<p>The new Minister was, like Cavour, a country gentleman, and,
like Cavour, he owed his real entry into public life to the
revolutionary movement of 1848. He had indeed held some obscure
official posts before that epoch, but it was as a member of the
United Diet which assembled at Berlin in April, 1848, that he
first attracted the attention of King or people. He was one of
two Deputies who refused to join in the vote of thanks to
Frederick William IV. for the Constitution which he had promised
to Prussia. Bismarck, then thirty-three years old, was a Royalist
of Royalists, the type, as it seemed, of the rough and masterful
Junker, or Squire, of the older parts of Prussia, to whom all
reforms from those of Stein downwards were hateful, all ideas but
those of the barrack and the kennel alien. Others in the spring
of 1848 lamented the concessions made by the Crown to the people;
Bismarck had the courage to say so. When reaction came there were
naturally many, and among them King Frederick William, who were
interested in the man who in the heyday of constitutional
enthusiasm had treated the whole movement as so much midsummer
madness, and had remained faithful to monarchical authority as
the one thing needful for the Prussian State. Bismarck continued
to take a prominent part in the Parliaments of Berlin and Erfurt;
it was not, however, till 1851 that he passed into the inner
official circle. He was then sent as the representative of
Prussia to the restored Diet of Frankfort. As an absolutist and a
conservative, brought up in the traditions of the Holy Alliance,
Bismarck had in earlier days looked up to Austria as the mainstay
of monarchical order and the historic barrier against the flood
of democratic and wind-driven sentiment which threatened to
deluge Germany. He had even approved the surrender made at
Olm&uuml;tz in 1850, as a matter of necessity; but the belief now
grew strong in his mind, and was confirmed by all he saw at
Frankfort, that Austria under Schwarzenberg's rule was no longer
the Power which had been content to share the German leadership
with Prussia in the period before 1848, but a Power which meant
to rule in Germany uncontrolled. In contact with the
representatives of that outworn system which Austria had
resuscitated at Frankfort, and with the instruments of the
dominant State itself, Bismarck soon learnt to detest the
paltriness of the one and the insolence of the other. He declared
the so-called Federal system to be a mere device for employing
the secondary German States for the aggrandisement of Austria and
the humiliation of Prussia. The Court of Vienna, and with it the
Diet of Frankfort, became in his eyes the enemy of Prussian
greatness and independence. During the Crimean war he was the
vigorous opponent of an alliance with the Western Powers, not
only from distrust of France, and from regard towards Russia as
on the whole the most constant and the most natural ally of his
own country, but from the conviction that Prussia ought to assert
a national policy wholly independent of that of the Court of
Vienna. That the Emperor of Austria was approaching more or less
nearly to union with France and England was, in Bismarck's view,
a good reason why Prussia should stand fast in its relations of
friendship with St. Petersburg. <a name="FNanchor506">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_506"><sup>[506]</sup></a> The policy of
neutrality, which King Frederick William and Manteuffel adopted
more out of disinclination to strenuous action than from any
clear political view, was advocated by Bismarck for reasons
which, if they made Europe nothing and Prussia everything, were
at least inspired by a keen and accurate perception of Prussia's
own interests in its present and future relations with its
neighbours. When the reign of Frederick William ended, Bismarck,
who stood high in the confidence of the new Regent, was sent as
ambassador to St. Petersburg. He subsequently represented Prussia
for a short time at the Court of Napoleon III., and was recalled
by the King from Paris in the autumn of 1862 in order to be
placed at the head of the Government. Far better versed in
diplomacy than in ordinary administration, he assumed, together
with the Presidency of the Cabinet, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.</p>
<p>[Bismarck and the Lower Chamber, 1862.]</p>
<p>There were now at the head of the Prussian State three men
eminently suited to work with one another, and to carry out, in
their own rough and military fashion, the policy which was to
unite Germany under the House of Hohenzollern. The King,
Bismarck, and Roon were thoroughly at one in their aim, the
enforcement of Prussia's ascendency by means of the army. The
designs of the Minister, which expanded with success and which
involved a certain daring in the choice of means, were at each
new development so ably veiled or disclosed, so dexterously
presented to the sovereign, as to overcome his hesitation on
striking into many an unaccustomed path. Roon and his workmen,
who, in the face of a hostile Parliament and a hostile Press, had
to supply to Bismarck what a foreign alliance and enthusiastic
national sentiment had supplied to Cavour, forged for Prussia a
weapon of such temper that, against the enemies on whom it was
employed, no extraordinary genius was necessary to render its
thrust fatal. It was no doubt difficult for the Prime Minister,
without alarming his sovereign and without risk of an immediate
breach with Austria, to make his ulterior aims so clear as to
carry the Parliament with him in the policy of military
reorganisation. Words frank even to brutality were uttered by
him, but they sounded more like menace and bluster than the
explanation of a well-considered plan. "Prussia must keep its
forces together," he said in one of his first Parliamentary
appearances, "its boundaries are not those of a sound State. The
great questions of the time are to be decided not by speeches and
votes of majorities but by blood and iron." After the experience
of 1848 and 1850, a not too despondent political observer might
well have formed the conclusion that nothing less than the
military overthrow of Austria could give to Germany any tolerable
system of national government, or even secure to Prussia its
legitimate field of action. This was the keystone of Bismarck's
belief, but he failed to make his purpose and his motives
intelligible to the representatives of the Prussian people. He
was taken for a mere bully and absolutist of the old type. His
personal characteristics, his arrogance, his sarcasm, his habit
of banter, exasperated and inflamed. Roon was no better suited to
the atmosphere of a popular assembly. Each encounter of the
Ministers with the Chamber embittered the struggle and made
reconciliation more difficult. The Parliamentary system of
Prussia seemed threatened in its very existence when, after the
rejection by the Chamber of Deputies of the clause in the Budget
providing for the cost of the army-reorganisation, this clause
was restored by the Upper House, and the Budget of the Government
passed in its original form. By the terms of the Constitution the
right of the Upper House in matters of taxation was limited to
the approval or rejection of the Budget sent up to it from the
Chamber of Representatives. It possessed no power of amendment.
Bismarck, however, had formed the theory that in the event of a
disagreement between the two Houses a situation arose for which
the Constitution had not provided, and in which therefore the
Crown was still possessed of its old absolute authority. No
compromise, no negotiation between the two Houses, was, in his
view, to be desired. He was resolved to govern and to levy taxes
without a Budget, and had obtained the King's permission to close
the session immediately the Upper House had given its vote. But
before the order for prorogation could be brought down the
President of the Lower Chamber had assembled his colleagues, and
the unanimous vote of those present declared the action of the
Upper House null and void. In the agitation attending this trial
of strength between the Crown, the Ministry and the Upper House
on one side and the Representative Chamber on the other the
session of 1862 closed. <a name="FNanchor507">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_507"><sup>[507]</sup></a></p>
<p>[King William.]</p>
<p>[The conflict continued, 1863.]</p>
<p>[Measures against the Press.]</p>
<p>The Deputies, returning to their constituencies, carried with
them the spirit of combat, and received the most demonstrative
proofs of popular sympathy and support. Representations of great
earnestness were made to the King, but they failed to shake in
the slightest degree his confidence in his Minister, or to bend
his fixed resolution to carry out his military reforms to the
end. The claim of Parliament to interfere with matters of
military organisation in Prussia touched him in his most
sensitive point. He declared that the aim of his adversaries was
nothing less than the establishment of a Parliamentary instead of
a royal army. In perfect sincerity he believed that the
convulsions of 1848 were on the point of breaking out afresh.
"You mourn the conflict between the Crown and the national
representatives," he said to the spokesman of an important
society; "do I not mourn it? I sleep no single night." The
anxiety, the despondency of the sovereign were shared by the
friends of Prussia throughout Germany; its enemies saw with
wonder that Bismarck in his struggle with the educated Liberalism
of the middle classes did not shrink from dalliance with the
Socialist leaders and their organs. When Parliament reassembled
at the beginning of 1863 the conflict was resumed with even
greater heat. The Lower Chamber carried an address to the King,
which, while dwelling on the loyalty of the Prussian people to
their chief, charged the Ministers with violating the
Constitution, and demanded their dismissal. The King refused to
receive the deputation which was to present the address, and in
the written communication in which he replied to it he sharply
reproved the Assembly for their errors and presumption. It was in
vain that the Army Bill was again introduced. The House, while
allowing the ordinary military expenditure for the year, struck
out the costs of the reorganisation, and declared Ministers
personally answerable for the sums expended. Each appearance of
the leading members of the Cabinet now became the signal for
contumely and altercation. The decencies of debate ceased to be
observed on either side. When the President attempted to set some
limit to the violence of Bismarck and Roon, and, on resistance to
his authority, terminated the sitting, the Ministers declared
that they would no longer appear in a Chamber where freedom of
speech was denied to them. Affairs came to a deadlock. The
Chamber again appealed to the King, and insisted that
reconciliation between the Crown and the nation was impossible so
long as the present Ministers remained in office. The King, now
thoroughly indignant, charged the Assembly with attempting to win
for itself supreme power, expressed his gratitude to his
Ministers for their resistance to this usurpation, and declared
himself too confident in the loyalty of the Prussian people to be
intimidated by threats. His reply was followed by the prorogation
of the Assembly (May 26th). A dissolution would have been worse
than useless, for in the actual state of public opinion the
Opposition would probably have triumphed throughout the country.
It only remained for Bismarck to hold his ground, and, having
silenced the Parliament for a while, to silence the Press also by
the exercise of autocratic power. The Constitution authorised the
King, in the absence of the Chambers, to publish enactments on
matters of urgency having the force of laws. No sooner had the
session been closed than an edict was issued empowering the
Government, without resort to courts of law, to suppress any
newspaper after two warnings. An outburst of public indignation
branded this return to the principles of pure despotism in
Prussia; but neither King nor Minister was to be diverted by
threats or by expostulations from his course. The Press was
effectively silenced. So profound, however, was the distrust now
everywhere felt as to the future of Prussia, and so deep the
resentment against the Minister in all circles where Liberal
influences penetrated, that the Crown Prince himself, after in
vain protesting against a policy of violence which endangered his
own prospective interests in the Crown, publicly expressed his
disapproval of the action of Government. For this offence he was
never forgiven.</p>
<p>[Austria from 1859.]</p>
<p>The course which affairs were taking at Berlin excited the
more bitter regret and disappointment among all friends of
Prussia as at this very time it seemed that constitutional
government was being successfully established in the western part
of the Austrian Empire. The centralised military despotism with
which Austria emerged from the convulsions of 1848 had been
allowed ten years of undisputed sway; at the end of this time it
had brought things to such a pass that, after a campaign in which
there had been but one great battle, and while still in
possession of a vast army and an unbroken chain of fortresses,
Austria stood powerless to move hand or foot. It was not the
defeat of Solferino or the cession of Lombardy that exhibited the
prostration of Austria's power, but the fact that while the
conditions of the Peace of Z&uuml;rich were swept away, and Italy
was united under Victor Emmanuel in defiance of the engagements
made by Napoleon III. at Villafranca, the Austrian Emperor was
compelled to look on with folded arms. To have drawn the sword
again, to have fired a shot in defence of the Pope's temporal
power or on behalf of the vassal princes of Tuscany and Modena,
would have been to risk the existence of the Austrian monarchy.
The State was all but bankrupt; rebellion might at any moment
break out in Hungary, which had already sent thousands of
soldiers to the Italian camp. Peace at whatever price was
necessary abroad, and at home the system of centralised despotism
could no longer exist, come what might in its place. It was
natural that the Emperor should but imperfectly understand at the
first the extent of the concessions which it was necessary for
him to make. He determined that the Provincial Councils which
Schwarzenberg had promised in 1850 should be called into
existence, and that a Council of the Empire (Reichsrath), drawn
in part from these, should assemble at Vienna, to advise, though
not to control, the Government in matters of finance. So urgent,
however, were the needs of the exchequer, that the Emperor
proceeded at once to the creation of the Central Council, and
nominated its first members himself. (March, 1860.)</p>
<p>[Hungary.]</p>
<p>[Centralists and Federalists in the Council.]</p>
<p>[The Diploma of Oct 20, 1860.]</p>
<p>That the Hungarian members nominated by the Emperor would
decline to appear at Vienna unless some further guarantee was
given for the restoration of Hungarian liberty was well known.
The Emperor accordingly promised to restore the ancient
county-organisation, which had filled so great a space in
Hungarian history before 1848, and to take steps for assembling
the Hungarian Diet. This, with the repeal of an edict injurious
to the Protestants, opened the way for reconciliation, and the
nominated Hungarians took their place in the Council, though
under protest that the existing arrangement could only be
accepted as preparatory to the full restitution of the rights of
their country. The Council continued in session during the summer
of 1860. Its duties were financial; but the establishment of
financial equilibrium in Austria was inseparable from the
establishment of political stability and public confidence; and
the Council, in its last sittings, entered on the widest
constitutional problems. The non-German members were in the
majority; and while all parties alike condemned the fallen
absolutism, the rival declarations of policy submitted to the
Council marked the opposition which was henceforward to exist
between the German Liberals of Austria and the various
Nationalist or Federalist groups. The Magyars, uniting with those
who had been their bitterest enemies, declared that the ancient
independence in legislation and administration of the several
countries subject to the House of Hapsburg must be restored, each
country retaining its own historical character. The German
minority contended that the Emperor should bestow upon his
subjects such institutions as, while based on the right of
self-government should secure the unity of the Empire and the
force of its central authority. All parties were for a
constitutional system and for local liberties in one form or
another; but while the Magyars and their supporters sought for
nothing less than national independence, the Germans would at the
most have granted a uniform system of provincial self-government
in strict subordination to a central representative body drawn
from the whole Empire and legislating for the whole Empire. The
decision of the Emperor was necessarily a compromise. By a
Diploma published on the 20th of October he promised to restore
to Hungary its old Constitution, and to grant wide legislative
rights to the other States of the Monarchy, establishing for the
transaction of affairs common to the whole Empire an Imperial
Council, and reserving for the non-Hungarian members of this
Council a qualified right of legislation for all the Empire
except Hungary. <a name="FNanchor508">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_508"><sup>[508]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Hungary resists the establishment of a Central Council.]</p>
<p>The Magyars had conquered their King; and all the impetuous
patriotism that had been crushed down since the ruin of 1849 now
again burst into flame. The County Assemblies met, and elected as
their officers men who had been condemned to death in 1849 and
who were living in exile; they swept away the existing
law-courts, refused the taxes, and proclaimed the legislation of
1848 again in force. Francis Joseph seemed anxious to avert a
conflict, and to prove both in Hungary and in the other parts of
the Empire the sincerity of his promises of reform, on which the
nature of the provincial Constitutions which were published
immediately after the Diploma of October had thrown some doubt.
At the instance of his Hungarian advisers he dismissed the chief
of his Cabinet, and called to office Schmerling, who, in 1848,
had been Prime Minister of the German National Government at
Frankfort. Schmerling at once promised important changes in the
provincial systems drawn up by his predecessor, but in his
dealings with Hungary he proved far less tractable than the
Magyars had expected. If the Hungarians had recovered their own
constitutional forms, they still stood threatened with the
supremacy of a Central Council in all that related to themselves
in common with the rest of the Empire, and against this they
rebelled. But from the establishment of this Council of the
Empire neither the Emperor nor Schmerling would recede. An edict
of February 26th, 1861, while it made good the changes promised
by Schmerling in the several provincial systems, confirmed the
general provisions of the Diploma of October, and declared that
the Emperor would maintain the Constitution of his dominions as
now established against an attack.</p>
<p>[Conflict of Hungary with the Crown, 1861.]</p>
<p>In the following April the Provincial Diets met throughout the
Austrian Empire, and the Diet of the Hungarian Kingdom assembled
at Pesth. The first duty of each of these bodies was to elect
representatives to the Council of the Empire which was to meet at
Vienna. Neither Hungary nor Croatia, however, would elect such
representatives, each claiming complete legislative independence,
and declining to recognise any such external authority as it was
now proposed to create. The Emperor warned the Hungarian Diet
against the consequences of its action; but the national spirit
of the Magyars was thoroughly roused, and the County Assemblies
vied with one another in the violence of their addresses to the
Sovereign. The Diet, reviving the Constitutional difficulties
connected with the abdication of Ferdinand, declared that it
would only negotiate for the coronation of Francis Joseph after
the establishment of a Hungarian Ministry and the restoration of
Croatia and Transylvania to the Hungarian Kingdom. Accepting
Schmerling's contention that the ancient constitutional rights of
Hungary had been extinguished by rebellion, the Emperor insisted
on the establishment of a Council for the whole Empire, and
refused to recede from the declarations which he had made in the
edict of February. The Diet hereupon protested, in a long and
vigorous address to the King, against the validity of all laws
made without its own concurrence, and declared that Francis
Joseph had rendered an agreement between the King and the nation
impossible. A dissolution followed. The County Assemblies took up
the national struggle. They in their turn were suppressed; their
officers were dismissed, and military rule was established
throughout the land, though with explicit declarations on the
part of the King that it was to last only till the legally
existing Constitution could be brought into peaceful working. <a
name="FNanchor509">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_509"><sup>[509]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Reichsrath at Vienna, May, 1861-Dec., 1862.]</p>
<p>[Second session of the Reichsrath, 1863.]</p>
<p>[The Reichsrath at Vienna, May, 1861-Dec., 1862.]</p>
<p>[Second session of the Reichsrath, 1863.]</p>
<p>Meanwhile the Central Representative Body, now by enlargement
of its functions and increase in the number of its members made
into a Parliament of the Empire, assembled at Vienna. Its real
character was necessarily altered by the absence of
representatives from Hungary; and for some time the Government
seemed disposed to limit its competence to the affairs of the
Cis-Leithan provinces; but after satisfying himself that no
accord with Hungary was possible, the Emperor announced this fact
to the Assembly, and bade it perform its part as the organ of the
Empire at large, without regard to the abstention of those who
did not choose to exercise their rights. The Budget for the
entire Empire was accordingly submitted to the Assembly, and for
the first time the expenditure of the Austrian State was laid
open to public examination and criticism. The first session of
this Parliament lasted, with adjournments, from May, 1861, to
December, 1862. In legislation it effected little, but its
relations as a whole with the Government remained excellent, and
its long-continued activity, unbroken by popular disturbances,
did much to raise the fallen credit of the Austrian State and to
win for it the regard of Germany. On the close of the session the
Provincial Diets assembled, and throughout the spring of 1863 the
rivalry of the Austrian nationalities gave abundant animation to
many a local capital. In the next summer the Reichsrath
reassembled at Vienna. Though Hungary remained in a condition not
far removed from rebellion, the Parliamentary system of Austria
was gaining in strength, and indeed, as it seemed, at the expense
of Hungary itself; for the Roumanian and German population of
Transylvania, rejoicing in the opportunity of detaching
themselves from the Magyars, now sent deputies to Vienna. While
at Berlin each week that passed sharpened the antagonism between
the nation and its Government, and made the Minister's name more
odious, Austria seemed to have successfully broken with the
traditions of its past, and to be fast earning for itself an
honourable place among States of the constitutional type.</p>
<p>One of the reproaches brought against Bismarck by the
Progressist majority in the Parliament of Berlin was that he had
isolated Prussia both in Germany and in Europe. That he had
roused against the Government of his country the public opinion
of Germany was true: that he had alienated Prussia from all
Europe was not the case; on the contrary, he had established a
closer relation between the Courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg
than had existed at any time since the commencement of the
Regency, and had secured for Prussia a degree of confidence and
goodwill on the part of the Czar which, in the memorable years
that were to follow, served it scarcely less effectively than an
armed alliance. Russia, since the Crimean War, had seemed to be
entering upon an epoch of boundless change. The calamities with
which the reign of Nicholas had closed had excited in that narrow
circle of Russian society where thought had any existence a
vehement revulsion against the sterile and unchanging system of
repression, the grinding servitude of the last thirty years. From
the Emperor downwards all educated men believed not only that the
system of government, but that the whole order of Russian social
life, must be recast. The ferment of ideas which marks an age of
revolution was in full course; but in what forms the new order
was to be moulded, through what processes Russia was to be
brought into its new life, no one knew. Russia was wanting in
capable statesmen; it was even more conspicuously wanting in the
class of serviceable and intelligent agents of Government of the
second rank. Its monarch, Alexander II., humane and well-meaning,
was irresolute and vacillating beyond the measure of ordinary
men. He was not only devoid of all administrative and organising
faculty himself, but so infirm of purpose that Ministers whose
policy he had accepted feared to let him pass out of their sight,
lest in the course of a single journey or a single interview he
should succumb to the persuasions of some rival politician. In no
country in Europe was there such incoherence, such
self-contradiction, such absence of unity of plan and purpose in
government as in Russia, where all nominally depended upon a
single will. Pressed and tormented by all the rival influences
that beat upon the centre of a great empire, Alexander seems at
times to have played off against one another as colleagues in the
same branch of Government the representatives of the most
opposite schools of action, and, after assenting to the plans of
one group of advisers, to have committed the execution of these
plans, by way of counterpoise, to those who had most opposed
them. But, like other weak men, he dreaded nothing so much as the
reproach of weakness or inconstancy; and in the cloud of
half-formed or abandoned purposes there were some few to which he
resolutely adhered. The chief of these, the great achievement of
his reign, was the liberation of the serfs.</p>
<p>[Liberation of the Serfs. March, 1861.]</p>
<p>It was probably owing to the outbreak of the revolution of
1848 that the serfs had not been freed by Nicholas. That
sovereign had long understood the necessity for the change, and
in 1847 he had actually appointed a Commission to report on the
best means of effecting it. The convulsions of 1848, followed by
the Hungarian and the Crimean Wars, threw the project into the
background during the remainder of Nicholas's reign; but if the
belief of the Russian people is well founded, the last injunction
of the dying Czar to his successor was to emancipate the serfs
throughout his empire. Alexander was little capable of grappling
with so tremendous a problem himself; in the year 1859, however,
he directed a Commission to make a complete inquiry into the
subject, and to present a scheme of emancipation. The labours of
the Commission extended over two years; its discussions were
agitated, at times violent. That serfage must sooner or later be
abolished all knew; the points on which the Commission was
divided were the bestowal of land on the peasants and the
regulation of the village community. European history afforded
abundant precedents in emancipation, and under an infinite
variety of detail three types of the process of enfranchisement
were clearly distinguishable from one another. Maria Theresa, in
liberating the serf, had required him to continue to render a
fixed amount of labour to his lord, and had given him on this
condition fixity of tenure in the land he occupied; the Prussian
reformers had made a division of the land between the peasant and
the lord, and extinguished all labour-dues; Napoleon, in
enfranchising the serfs in the Duchy of Warsaw, had simply turned
them into free men, leaving the terms of their occupation of land
to be settled by arrangement or free contract with their former
lords. This example had been followed in the Baltic Provinces of
Russia itself by Alexander I. Of the three modes of emancipation,
that based on free contract had produced the worst results for
the peasant; and though many of the Russian landowners and their
representatives in the Commission protested against a division of
the land between themselves and their serfs as an act of agrarian
revolution and spoliation, there were men in high office, and
some few among the proprietors, who resolutely and successfully
fought for the principle of independent ownership by the
peasants. The leading spirit in this great work appears to have
been Nicholas Milutine, Adjunct of the Minister of the Interior,
Lanskoi. Milutine, who had drawn up the Municipal Charta of St.
Petersburg, was distrusted by the Czar as a restless and
uncompromising reformer. It was uncertain from day to day whether
the views of the Ministry of the Interior or those of the
territorial aristocracy would prevail; ultimately, however, under
instructions from the Palace, the Commission accepted not only
the principle of the division of the land, but the system of
communal self-government by the peasants themselves. The
determination of the amount of land to be held by the peasants of
a commune and of the fixed rent to be paid to the lord was left
in the first instance to private agreement; but where such
agreement was not reached, the State, through arbiters elected at
local assemblies of the nobles, decided the matter itself. The
rent once fixed, the State enabled the commune to redeem it by
advancing a capital sum to be recouped by a quit-rent to the
State extending over forty-nine years. The Ukase of the Czar
converting twenty-five millions of serfs into free proprietors,
the greatest act of legislation of modern times, was signed on
the 3rd of March, 1861, and within the next few weeks was read in
every church of the Russian Empire. It was a strange comment on
the system of government in Russia that in the very month in
which the edict was published both Lanskoi and Milutine, who had
been its principal authors, were removed from their posts. The
Czar feared to leave them in power to superintend the actual
execution of the law which they had inspired. In supporting them
up to the final stage of its enactment Alexander had struggled
against misgivings of his own, and against influences of vast
strength alike at the Court, within the Government, and in the
Provinces. With the completion of the Edict of Emancipation his
power of resistance was exhausted, and its execution was
committed by him to those who had been its opponents. That some
of the evils which have mingled with the good in Russian
enfranchisement might have been less had the Czar resolutely
stood by the authors of reform and allowed them to complete their
work in accordance with their own designs and convictions, is
scarcely open to doubt. <a name="FNanchor510">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_510"><sup>[510]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Poland, 1861, 1862.]</p>
<p>It had been the belief of educated men in Russia that the
emancipation of the serf would be but the first of a series of
great organic changes, bringing their country more nearly to the
political and social level of its European neighbours. This
belief was not fulfilled. Work of importance was done in the
reconstruction of the judicial system of Russia, but in the other
reforms expected little was accomplished. An insurrection which
broke out in Poland at the beginning of 1863 diverted the
energies of the Government from all other objects; and in the
overpowering outburst of Russian patriotism and national feeling
which it excited, domestic reforms, no less than the ideals of
Western civilisation, lost their interest. The establishment of
Italian independence, coinciding in time with the general
unsettlement and expectation of change which marked the first
years of Alexander's reign, had stirred once more the ill-fated
hopes of the Polish national leaders. From the beginning of the
year 1861 Warsaw was the scene of repeated tumults. The Czar was
inclined, within certain limits, to a policy of conciliation. The
separate Legislature and separate army which Poland had possessed
from 1815 to 1830 he was determined not to restore; but he was
willing to give Poland a large degree of administrative autonomy,
to confide the principal offices in its Government to natives,
and generally to relax something of that close union with Russia
which had been enforced by Nicholas since the rebellion of 1831.
But the concessions of the Czar, accompanied as they were by acts
of repression and severity, were far from satisfying the demands
of Polish patriotism. It was in vain that Alexander in the summer
of 1862 sent his brother Constantine as Viceroy to Warsaw,
established a Polish Council of State, placed a Pole,
Wielopolski, at the head of the Administration, superseded all
the Russian governors of Polish provinces by natives, and gave to
the municipalities and the districts the right of electing local
councils; these concessions seemed nothing, and were in fact
nothing, in comparison with the national independence which the
Polish leaders claimed. The situation grew worse and worse. An
attempt made upon the life of the Grand Duke Constantine during
his entry into Warsaw was but one among a series of similar acts
which discredited the Polish cause and strengthened those who at
St. Petersburg had from the first condemned the Czar's attempts
at conciliation. At length the Russian Government took the step
which precipitated revolt. A levy of one in every two hundred of
the population throughout the Empire had been ordered in the
autumn of 1862. Instructions were sent from St. Petersburg to the
effect that in raising this levy in Poland the country population
were to be spared, and that all persons who were known to be
connected with the disorders in the towns were to be seized as
soldiers. This terrible sentence against an entire political
class was carried out, so far as it lay within the power of the
authorities, on the night of January 14th, 1863. But before the
imperial press-gang surrounded the houses of its victims a rumour
of the intended blow had gone abroad. In the preceding hours, and
during the night of the 14th, thousands fled from Warsaw and the
other Polish towns into the forests. There they formed themselves
into armed bands, and in the course of the next few days a
guerilla warfare broke out wherever Russian troops were found in
insufficient strength or off their guard. <a name=
"FNanchor511">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_511"><sup>[511]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Poland and Russia.]</p>
<p>The classes in which the national spirit of Poland lived were
the so-called noblesse, numbering hundreds of thousands, the town
populations, and the priesthood. The peasants, crushed and
degraded, though not nominally in servitude, were indifferent to
the national cause. On the neutrality, if not on the support, of
the peasants the Russian Government could fairly reckon; within
the towns it found itself at once confronted by an invisible
national Government whose decrees were printed and promulgated by
unknown hands, and whose sentences of death were mercilessly
executed against those whom it condemned as enemies or traitors
to the national cause. So extraordinary was the secrecy which
covered the action of this National Executive, that Milutine, who
was subsequently sent by the Czar to examine into the affairs of
Poland, formed the conclusion that it had possessed accomplices
within the Imperial Government at St. Petersburg itself. The
Polish cause retained indeed some friends in Russia even after
the outbreak of the insurrection; it was not until the
insurrection passed the frontier of the kingdom and was carried
by the nobles into Lithuania and Podolia that the entire Russian
nation took up the struggle with passionate and vindictive ardour
as one for life or death. It was the fatal bane of Polish
nationality that the days of its greatness had left it a claim
upon vast territories where it had planted nothing but a
territorial aristocracy, and where the mass of population, if not
actually Russian, was almost indistinguishable from the Russians
in race and language, and belonged like them to the Greek Church,
which Catholic Poland had always persecuted. For ninety years
Lithuania and the border provinces had been incorporated with the
Czar's dominions, and with the exception of their Polish
landowners they were now in fact thoroughly Russian. When
therefore the nobles of these provinces declared that Poland must
be reconstituted with the limits of 1772, and subsequently took
up arms in concert with the insurrectionary Government at Warsaw,
the Russian people, from the Czar to the peasant, felt the
struggle to be nothing less than one for the dismemberment or the
preservation of their own country, and the doom of Polish
nationality, at least for some generations, was sealed. The
diplomatic intervention of the Western Powers on behalf of the
constitutional rights of Poland under the Treaty of Vienna, which
was to some extent supported by Austria, only prolonged a
hopeless struggle, and gave unbounded popularity to Prince
Gortschakoff, by whom, after a show of courteous attention during
the earlier and still perilous stage of the insurrection, the
interference of the Powers was resolutely and unconditionally
repelled. By the spring of 1864 the insurgents were crushed or
exterminated. General Muravieff, the Governor of Lithuania,
fulfilled his task against the mutinous nobles of this province
with unshrinking severity, sparing neither life nor fortune so
long as an enemy of Russia remained to be overthrown. It was at
Wilna, the Lithuanian capital, not at Warsaw, that the terrors of
Russian repression were the greatest. Muravieff's executions may
have been less numerous than is commonly supposed; but in the
form of pecuniary requisitions and fines he undoubtedly aimed at
nothing less than the utter ruin of a great part of the class
most implicated in the rebellion.</p>
<p>[Agrarian measures in Poland.]</p>
<p>[Agrarian measures in Poland, 1864.]</p>
<p>In Poland itself the Czar, after some hesitation, determined
once and for all to establish a friend to Russia in every
homestead of the kingdom by making the peasant owner of the land
on which he laboured. The insurrectionary Government at the
outbreak of the rebellion had attempted to win over the peasantry
by promising enactments to this effect, but no one had responded
to their appeal. In the autumn of 1863 the Czar recalled Milutine
from his enforced travels and directed him to proceed to Warsaw,
in order to study the affairs of Poland on the spot, and to
report on the measures necessary to be taken for its future
government and organisation. Milutine obtained the assistance of
some of the men who had laboured most earnestly with him in the
enfranchisement of the Russian serfs; and in the course of a few
weeks he returned to St. Petersburg, carrying with him the draft
of measures which were to change the face of Poland. He
recommended on the one hand that every political institution
separating Poland from the rest of the Empire should be swept
away, and the last traces of Polish independence utterly
obliterated; on the other hand, that the peasants, as the only
class on which Russia could hope to count in the future, should
be made absolute and independent owners of the land they
occupied. Prince Gortschakoff, who had still some regard for the
opinion of Western Europe, and possibly some sympathy for the
Polish aristocracy, resisted this daring policy; but the Czar
accepted Milutine's counsel, and gave him a free hand in the
execution of his agrarian scheme. The division of the land
between the nobles and the peasants was accordingly carried out
by Milutine's own officers under conditions very different from
those adopted in Russia. The whole strength of the Government was
thrown on to the side of the peasant and against the noble.
Though the population was denser in Poland than in Russia, the
peasant received on an average four times as much land; the
compensation made to the lords (which was paid in bonds which
immediately fell to half their nominal value) was raised not by
quit-rents on the peasants' lands alone, as in Russia, but by a
general land-tax falling equally on the land left to the lords,
who had thus to pay a great part of their own compensation: above
all, the questions in dispute were settled, not as in Russia by
arbiters elected at local assemblies of the nobles, but by
officers of the Crown. Moreover, the division of landed property
was not made once and for all, as in Russia, but the woods and
pastures remaining to the lords continued subject to undefined
common-rights of the peasants. These common-rights were
deliberately left unsettled in order that a source of contention
might always be present between the greater and the lesser
proprietors, and that the latter might continue to look to the
Russian Government as the protector or extender of their
interests. "We hold Poland," said a Russian statesman, "by its
rights of common." <a name="FNanchor512">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_512"><sup>[512]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Russia and Polish nationality.]</p>
<p>Milutine, who, with all the fiery ardour of his national and
levelling policy, seems to have been a gentle and somewhat
querulous invalid, and who was shortly afterwards struck down by
paralysis, to remain a helpless spectator of the European changes
of the next six years, had no share in that warfare against the
language, the religion, and the national culture of Poland with
which Russia has pursued its victory since 1863. The public life
of Poland he was determined to Russianise; its private and social
life he would probably have left unmolested, relying on the
goodwill of the great mass of peasants who owed their
proprietorship to the action of the Czar. There were, however,
politicians at Moscow and St. Petersburg who believed that the
deep-lying instinct of nationality would for the first time be
called into real life among these peasants by their very
elevation from misery to independence, and that where Russia had
hitherto had three hundred thousand enemies Milutine was
preparing for it six millions. It was the dread of this
possibility in the future, the apprehension that material
interests might not permanently vanquish the subtler forces which
pass from generation to generation, latent, if still unconscious,
where nationality itself is not lost, that made the Russian
Government follow up the political destruction of the Polish
noblesse by measures directed against Polish nationality itself,
even at the risk of alienating the class who for the present were
effectively won over to the Czar's cause. By the side of its
life-giving and beneficent agrarian policy Russia has pursued the
odious system of debarring Poland from all means of culture and
improvement associated with the use of its own language, and has
aimed at eventually turning the Poles into Russians by the
systematic impoverishment and extinction of all that is
essentially Polish in thought, in sentiment, and in expression.
The work may prove to be one not beyond its power; and no common
perversity on the part of its Government would be necessary to
turn against Russia the millions who in Poland owe all they have
of prosperity and independence to the Czar: but should the excess
of Russian propagandism, or the hostility of Church to Church, at
some distant date engender a new struggle for Polish
independence, this struggle will be one governed by other
conditions than those of 1831 or 1863, and Russia will, for the
first time, have to conquer on the Vistula not a class nor a
city, but a nation.</p>
<p>[Berlin and St. Petersburg, 1863.]</p>
<p>It was a matter of no small importance to Bismarck and to
Prussia that in the years 1863 and 1864 the Court of St.
Petersburg found itself confronted with affairs of such
seriousness in Poland. From the opportunity which was then
presented to him of obliging an important neighbour, and of
profiting by that neighbour's conjoined embarrassment and
goodwill, Bismarck drew full advantage. He had always regarded
the Poles as a mere nuisance in Europe, and heartily despised the
Germans for the sympathy which they had shown towards Poland in
1848. When the insurrection of 1863 broke out, Bismarck set the
policy of his own country in emphatic contrast with that of
Austria and the Western Powers, and even entered into an
arrangement with Russia for an eventual military combination in
case the insurgents should pass from one side to the other of the
frontier. <a name="FNanchor513">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_513"><sup>[513]</sup></a> Throughout the struggle with
the Poles, and throughout the diplomatic conflict with the
Western Powers, the Czar had felt secure in the loyalty of the
stubborn Minister at Berlin; and when, at the close of the Polish
revolt, the events occurred which opened to Prussia the road to
political fortune, Bismarck received his reward in the liberty of
action given him by the Russian Government. The difficulties
connected with Schleswig-Holstein, which, after a short interval
of tranquillity following the settlement of 1852, had again begun
to trouble Europe, were forced to the very front of Continental
affairs by the death of Frederick VII., King of Denmark, in
November, 1863. Prussia had now at its head a statesman resolved
to pursue to their extreme limit the chances which this
complication offered to his own country; and, more fortunate than
his predecessors of 1848, Bismarck had not to dread the
interference of the Czar of Russia as the patron and protector of
the interests of the Danish court.</p>
<p>[Schleswig-Holstein, 1852-1863.]</p>
<p>[The Patent of March 30, 1863.]</p>
<p>By the Treaty of London, signed on May 8th, 1852, all the
great Powers, including Prussia, had recognised the principle of
the integrity of the Danish Monarchy, and had pronounced Prince
Christian of Gl&uuml;cksburg to be heir-presumptive to the whole
dominions of the reigning King. The rights of the German
Federation in Holstein were nevertheless declared to remain
unprejudiced; and in a Convention made with Austria and Prussia
before they joined in this Treaty, King Frederick VII. had
undertaken to conform to certain rules in his treatment of
Schleswig as well as of Holstein. The Duke of Augustenburg,
claimant to the succession in Schleswig-Holstein through the male
line, had renounced his pretensions in consideration of an
indemnity paid to him by the King of Denmark. This surrender,
however, had not received the consent of his son and of the other
members of the House of Augustenburg, nor had the German
Federation, as such, been a party to the Treaty of London.
Relying on the declaration of the Great Powers in favour of the
integrity of the Danish Kingdom, Frederick VII. had resumed his
attempts to assimilate Schleswig, and in some degree Holstein, to
the rest of the Monarchy; and although the Provincial Estates
were allowed to remain in existence, a national Constitution was
established in October, 1855, for the entire Danish State. Bitter
complaints were made of the system of repression and encroachment
with which the Government of Copenhagen was attempting to
extinguish German nationality in the border provinces; at length,
in November, 1858, under threat of armed intervention by the
German Federation, Frederick consented to exclude Holstein from
the operation of the new Constitution. But this did not produce
peace, for the inhabitants of Schleswig, severed from the
sister-province and now excited by the Italian war, raised all
the more vigorous a protest against their own incorporation with
Denmark; while in Holstein itself the Government incurred the
charge of unconstitutional action in fixing the Budget without
the consent of the Estates. The German Federal Diet again
threatened to resort to force, and Denmark prepared for war.
Prussia took up the cause of Schleswig in 1861; and even the
British Government, which had hitherto shown far more interest in
the integrity of Denmark than in the rights of the German
provinces, now recommended that the Constitution of 1855 should
be abolished, and that a separate legislation and administration
should be granted to Schleswig as well as to Holstein. The Danes,
however, were bent on preserving Schleswig as an integral part of
the State, and the Government of King Frederick, while willing to
recognise Holstein as outside Danish territory proper, insisted
that Schleswig should be included within the unitary
Constitution, and that Holstein should contribute a fixed share
to the national expenditure. A manifesto to this effect,
published by King Frederick on the 30th of March, 1863, was the
immediate ground of the conflict now about to break out between
Germany and Denmark. The Diet of Frankfort announced that if this
proclamation were not revoked it should proceed to Federal
execution, that is, armed intervention, against the King of
Denmark as Duke of Holstein. Still counting upon foreign aid or
upon the impotence of the Diet, the Danish Government refused to
change its policy, and on the 29th of September laid before the
Parliament at Copenhagen the law incorporating Schleswig with the
rest of the Monarchy under the new Constitution. Negotiations
were thus brought to a close, and on the 1st of October the Diet
decreed the long-threatened Federal execution. <a name=
"FNanchor514">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_514"><sup>[514]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Death of Frederick VII., November, 1863.]</p>
<p>[Federal execution in Holstein. December, 1863.]</p>
<p>Affairs had reached this stage, and the execution had not yet
been put in force, when, on the 15th of November, King Frederick
VII. died. For a moment it appeared possible that his successor,
Prince Christian of Gl&uuml;cksburg, might avert the conflict
with Germany by withdrawing from the position which his
predecessor had taken up. But the Danish people and Ministry were
little inclined to give way; the Constitution had passed through
Parliament two days before King Frederick's death, and on the
18th of November it received the assent of the new monarch.
German national feeling was now as strongly excited on the
question of Schleswig-Holstein as it had been in 1848. The
general cry was that the union of these provinces with Denmark
must be treated as at an end, and their legitimate ruler,
Frederick of Augustenburg, son of the Duke who had renounced his
rights, be placed on the throne. The Diet of Frankfort, however,
decided to recognise neither of the two rival sovereigns in
Holstein until its own intervention should have taken place.
Orders were given that a Saxon and a Hanoverian corps should
enter the country; and although Prussia and Austria had made a
secret agreement that the settlement of the Schleswig-Holstein
question was to be conducted by themselves independently of the
Diet, the tide of popular enthusiasm ran so high that for the
moment the two leading Powers considered it safer not to obstruct
the Federal authority, and the Saxon and Hanoverian troops
accordingly entered Holstein as mandatories of the Diet at the
end of 1863. The Danish Government, offering no resistance,
withdrew its troops across the river Eider into Schleswig.</p>
<p>[Plans of Bismarck.]</p>
<p>[Union of Austria and Prussia.]</p>
<p>[Austrian and Prussian troops enter Schleswig. Feb.,
1864.]</p>
<p>From this time the history of Germany is the history of the
profound and audacious statecraft and of the overmastering will
of Bismarck; the nation, except through its valour on the
battle-field, ceases to influence the shaping of its own
fortunes. What the German people desired in 1864 was that
Schleswig-Holstein should be attached, under a ruler of its own,
to the German Federation as it then existed; what Bismarck
intended was that Schleswig-Holstein, itself incorporated more or
less directly with Prussia, should be made the means of the
destruction of the existing Federal system and of the expulsion
of Austria from Germany. That another petty State, bound to
Prussia by no closer tie than its other neighbours, should be
added to the troop among whom Austria found its vassals and its
instruments, would have been in Bismarck's eyes no gain but
actual detriment to Germany. The German people desired one course
of action; Bismarck had determined on something totally
different; and with matchless resolution and skill he bore down
all opposition of people and of Courts, and forced a reluctant
nation to the goal which he had himself chosen for it. The first
point of conflict was the apparent recognition by Bismarck of the
rights of King Christian IX. as lawful sovereign in the Duchies
as well as in the rest of the Danish State. By the Treaty of
London Prussia had indeed pledged itself to this recognition; but
the German Federation had been no party to the Treaty, and under
the pressure of a vehement national agitation Bavaria and the
minor States one after another recognised Frederick of
Augustenburg as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. Bismarck was accused
alike by the Prussian Parliament and by the popular voice of
Germany at large of betraying German interests to Denmark, of
abusing Prussia's position as a Great Power, of inciting the
nation to civil war. In vain he declared that, while surrendering
no iota of German rights, the Government of Berlin must recognise
those treaty-obligations with which its own legal title to a
voice in the affairs of Schleswig was intimately bound up, and
that the King of Prussia, not a multitude of irresponsible and
ill-informed citizens, must be the judge of the measures by which
German interests were to be effectually protected. His words made
no single convert either in the Prussian Parliament or in the
Federal Diet. At Frankfort the proposal made by the two leading
Powers that King Christian should be required to annul the
November Constitution, and that in case of his refusal Schleswig
also should be occupied, was rejected, as involving an
acknowledgment of the title of Christian as reigning sovereign.
At Berlin the Lower Chamber refused the supplies which Bismarck
demanded for operations in the Duchies, and formally resolved to
resist his policy by every means at its command. But the
resistance of Parliament and of Diet were alike in vain. By a
masterpiece of diplomacy Bismarck had secured the support and
co-operation of Austria in his own immediate Danish policy,
though but a few months before he had incurred the bitter hatred
of the Court of Vienna by frustrating its plans for a
reorganisation of Germany by a Congress of princes at Frankfort,
and had frankly declared to the Austrian ambassador at Berlin
that if Austria did not transfer its political centre to Pesth
and leave to Prussia free scope in Germany, it would find Prussia
on the side of its enemies in the next war in which it might be
engaged. <a name="FNanchor515">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_515"><sup>[515]</sup></a> But the democratic and
impassioned character of the agitation in the minor States in
favour of the Schleswig-Holsteiners and their Augustenburg
pretender had enabled Bismarck to represent this movement to the
Austrian Government as a revolutionary one, and by a dexterous
appeal to the memories of 1848 to awe the Emperor's advisers into
direct concert with the Court of Berlin, as the representative of
monarchical order, in dealing with a problem otherwise too likely
to be solved by revolutionary methods and revolutionary forces.
Count Rechberg, the Foreign Minister at Vienna, was lured into a
policy which, after drawing upon Austria a full share of the
odium of Bismarck's Danish plans, after forfeiting for it the
goodwill of the minor States with which it might have kept
Prussia in check, and exposing it to the risk of a European war,
was to confer upon its rival the whole profit of the joint
enterprise, and to furnish a pretext for the struggle by which
Austria was to be expelled alike from Germany and from what
remained to it of Italy. But of the nature of the toils into
which he was now taking the first fatal and irrevocable step
Count Rechberg appears to have had no suspicion. A seeming
cordiality united the Austrian and Prussian Governments in the
policy of defiance to the will of all the rest of Germany and to
the demands of their own subjects. It was to no purpose that the
Federal Diet vetoed the proposed summons to King Christian and
the proposed occupation of Schleswig. Austria and Prussia
delivered an ultimatum at Copenhagen demanding the repeal of the
November Constitution; and on its rejection their troops entered
Schleswig, not as the mandatories of the German Federation, but
as the instruments of two independent and allied Powers. (Feb. 1,
1864.)</p>
<p>[Campaign in Schleswig. Feb.-April, 1864.]</p>
<p>Against the overwhelming forces by which they were thus
attacked the Danes could only make a brave but ineffectual
resistance. Their first line of defence was the Danewerke, a
fortification extending east and west towards the sea from the
town of Schleswig. Prince Frederick Charles, who commanded the
Prussian right, was repulsed in an attack upon the easternmost
part of this work at Missunde; the Austrians, however, carried
some positions in the centre which commanded the defenders'
lines, and the Danes fell back upon the fortified post of
D&uuml;ppel, covering the narrow channel which separates the
island of Alsen from the mainland. Here for some weeks they held
the Prussians in check, while the Austrians, continuing the march
northwards, entered Jutland. At length, on the 18th of April,
after several hours of heavy bombardment, the lines of
D&uuml;ppel were taken by storm and the defenders driven across
the channel into Alsen. Unable to pursue the enemy across this
narrow strip of sea, the Prussians joined their allies in
Jutland, and occupied the whole of the Danish mainland as far as
the L&uuml;m Fiord. The war, however, was not to be terminated
without an attempt on the part of the neutral Powers to arrive at
a settlement by diplomacy. A Conference was opened at London on
the 20th of April, and after three weeks of negotiation the
belligerents were induced to accept an armistice. As the troops
of the German Federation, though unconcerned in the military
operations of the two Great Powers, were in possession of
Holstein, the Federal Government was invited to take part in the
Conference. It was represented by Count Beust, Prime Minister of
Saxony, a politician who was soon to rise to much greater
eminence; but in consequence of the diplomatic union of Prussia
and Austria the views entertained by the Governments of the
secondary German States had now no real bearing on the course of
events, and Count Beust's earliest appearance on the great
European stage was without result, except in its influence on his
own career. <a name="FNanchor516">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_516"><sup>[516]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Conference of London. April, 1864.]</p>
<p>The first proposition laid before the Conference was that
submitted by Bernstorff, the Prussian envoy, to the effect that
Schleswig-Holstein should receive complete independence, the
question whether King Christian or some other prince should be
sovereign of the new State being reserved for future settlement.
To this the Danish envoys replied that even on the condition of
personal union with Denmark through the Crown they could not
assent to the grant of complete independence to the Duchies.
Raising their demand in consequence of this refusal, and
declaring that the war had made an end of the obligations
subsisting under the London Treaty of 1852, the two German Powers
then demanded that Schleswig-Holstein should be completely
separated from Denmark and formed into a single State under
Frederick of Augustenburg, who in the eyes of Germany possessed
the best claim to the succession. Lord Russell, while denying
that the acts or defaults of Denmark could liberate Austria and
Prussia from their engagements made with other Powers in the
Treaty of London, admitted that no satisfactory result was likely
to arise from the continued union of the Duchies with Denmark,
and suggested that King Christian should make an absolute cession
of Holstein and of the southern part of Schleswig, retaining the
remainder in full sovereignty. The frontier-line he proposed to
draw at the River Schlei. To this principle of partition both
Denmark and the German Powers assented, but it proved impossible
to reach an agreement on the frontier-line. Bernstorff, who had
at first required nearly all Schleswig, abated his demands, and
would have accepted a line drawn westward from Flensburg, so
leaving to Denmark at least half the province, including the
important position of D&uuml;ppel. The terms thus offered to
Denmark were not unfavourable. Holstein it did not expect, and
could scarcely desire, to retain; and the territory which would
have been taken from it in Schleswig under this arrangement
included few districts that were not really German. But the
Government of Copenhagen, misled by the support given to it at
the Conference by England and Russia-a support which was one of
words only-refused to cede anything north of the town of
Schleswig. Even when in the last resort Lord Russell proposed
that the frontier-line should be settled by arbitration the
Danish Government held fast to its refusal, and for the sake of a
few miles of territory plunged once more into a struggle which,
if it was not to kindle a European war of vast dimensions, could
end only in the ruin of the Danes. The expected help failed them.
Attacked and overthrown in the island of Alsen, the German flag
carried to the northern extremity of their mainland, they were
compelled to make peace on their enemies' terms. Hostilities were
brought to a close by the signature of Preliminaries on the 1st
of August; and by the Treaty of Vienna, concluded on the 30th of
October, 1864, King Christian ceded his rights in the whole of
Schleswig-Holstein to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia
jointly, and undertook to recognise whatever dispositions they
might make of those provinces.</p>
<p>[Great Britain and Napoleon III.]</p>
<p>The British Government throughout this conflict had played a
sorry part, at one moment threatening the Germans, at another
using language towards the Danes which might well be taken to
indicate an intention of lending them armed support. To some
extent the errors of the Cabinet were due to the relation which
existed between Great Britain and Napoleon III. It had up to this
time been considered both at London and at Paris that the Allies
of the Crimea had still certain common interests in Europe; and
in the unsuccessful intervention at St. Petersburg on behalf of
Poland in 1863 the British and French Governments had at first
gone hand in hand. But behind every step openly taken by Napoleon
III. there was some half-formed design for promoting the
interests of his dynasty or extending the frontiers of France;
and if England had consented to support the diplomatic concert at
St. Petersburg by measures of force, it would have found itself
engaged in a war in which other ends than those relating to
Poland would have been the foremost. Towards the close of the
year 1863 Napoleon had proposed that a European Congress should
assemble, in order to regulate not only the affairs of Poland but
all those European questions which remained unsettled. This
proposal had been abruptly declined by the English Government;
and when in the course of the Danish war Lord Palmerston showed
an inclination to take up arms if France would do the same,
Napoleon was probably not sorry to have the opportunity of
repaying England for its rejection of his own overtures in the
previous year. He had moreover hopes of obtaining from Prussia an
extension of the French frontier either in Belgium or towards the
<a name="FNanchor517">Rhine.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_517"><sup>[517]</sup></a> In reply to overtures from
London, Napoleon stated that the cause of Schleswig-Holstein to
some extent represented the principle of nationality, to which
France was friendly, and that of all wars in which France could
engage a war with Germany would be the least desirable. England
accordingly, if it took up arms for the Danes, would have been
compelled to enter the war alone; and although at a later time,
when the war was over and the victors were about to divide the
spoil, the British and French fleets ostentatiously combined in
manoeuvres at Cherbourg, this show of union deceived no one,
least of all the resolute and well-informed director of affairs
at Berlin. To force, and force alone, would Bismarck have
yielded. Palmerston, now sinking into old age, permitted Lord
Russell to parody his own fierce language of twenty years back;
but all the world, except the Danes, knew that the fangs and the
claws were drawn, and that British foreign policy had become for
the time a thing of snarls and grimaces.</p>
<p>[Intentions of Bismarck as to Schleswig-Holstein.]</p>
<p>Bismarck had not at first determined actually to annex
Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia. He would have been content to
leave it under the nominal sovereignty of Frederick of
Augustenburg if that prince would have placed the entire military
and naval resources of Schleswig-Holstein under the control of
the Government of Berlin, and have accepted on behalf of his
Duchies conditions which Bismarck considered indispensable to
German union under Prussian leadership. In the harbour of Kiel it
was not difficult to recognise the natural headquarters of a
future German fleet; the narrow strip of land projecting between
the two seas naturally suggested the formation of a canal
connecting the Baltic with the German Ocean, and such a work
could only belong to Germany at large or to its leading Power.
Moreover, as a frontier district, Schleswig-Holstein was
peculiarly exposed to foreign attack; certain strategical
positions necessary for its defence must therefore be handed over
to its protector. That Prussia should have united its forces with
Austria in order to win for the Schleswig-Holsteiners the power
of governing themselves as they pleased, must have seemed to
Bismarck a supposition in the highest degree preposterous. He had
taken up the cause of the Duchies not in the interest of the
inhabitants but in the interest of Germany; and by Germany he
understood Germany centred at Berlin and ruled by the House of
Hohenzollern. If therefore the Augustenburg prince was not
prepared to accept his throne on these terms, there was no room
for him, and the provinces must be incorporated with Prussia
itself. That Austria would not without compensation permit the
Duchies thus to fall directly or indirectly under Prussian sway
was of course well known to Bismarck; but so far was this from
causing him any hesitation in his policy, that from the first he
had discerned in the Schleswig-Holstein question a favourable
pretext for the war which was to drive Austria out of
Germany.</p>
<p>[Relations of Prussia and Austria, Dec., 1854-Aug., 1865.]</p>
<p>[Convention of Gastein, Aug. 14, 1865.]</p>
<p>Peace with Denmark was scarcely concluded when, at the bidding
of Prussia, reluctantly supported by Austria, the Saxon and
Hanoverian troops which had entered Holstein as the mandatories
of the Federal Diet were compelled to leave the country. A
Provisional Government was established under the direction of an
Austrian and a Prussian Commissioner. Bismarck had met the Prince
of Augustenburg at Berlin some months before, and had formed an
unfavourable opinion of the policy likely to be adopted by him
towards Prussia. All Germany, however, was in favour of the
Prince's claims, and at the Conference of London these claims had
been supported by the Prussian envoy himself. In order to give
some appearance of formal legality to his own action, Bismarck
had to obtain from the Crown-jurists of Prussia a decision that
King Christian IX. had, contrary to the general opinion of
Germany, been the lawful inheritor of Schleswig-Holstein, and
that the Prince of Augustenburg had therefore no rights whatever
in the Duchies. As the claims of Christian had been transferred
by the Treaty of Vienna to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia
jointly, it rested with them to decide who should be Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein, and under what conditions. Bismarck announced
at Vienna on the 22nd of February, 1865, the terms on which he
was willing that Schleswig-Holstein should be conferred by the
two sovereigns upon Frederick of Augustenburg. He required, in
addition to community of finance, postal system, and railways,
that Prussian law, including the obligation to military service,
should be introduced into the Duchies; that their regiments
should take the oath of fidelity to the King of Prussia, and that
their principal military positions should be held by Prussian
troops. These conditions would have made Schleswig-Holstein in
all but name a part of the Prussian State: they were rejected
both by the Court of Vienna and by Prince Frederick himself, and
the population of Schleswig-Holstein almost unanimously declared
against them. Both Austria and the Federal Diet now supported the
Schleswig-Holsteiners in what appeared to be a struggle on behalf
of their independence against Prussian domination; and when the
Prussian Commissioner in Schleswig-Holstein expelled the most
prominent of the adherents of Augustenburg, his Austrian
colleague published a protest declaring the act to be one of
lawless violence. It seemed that the outbreak of war between the
two rival Powers could not long be delayed; but Bismarck had on
this occasion moved too rapidly for his master, and
considerations relating to the other European Powers made it
advisable to postpone the rupture for some months. An agreement
was patched up at Gastein by which, pending an ultimate
settlement, the government of the two provinces was divided
between their masters, Austria taking the administration of
Holstein, Prussia that of Schleswig, while the little district of
Lauenburg on the south was made over to King William in full
sovereignty. An actual conflict between the representatives of
the two rival governments at their joint headquarters in
Schleswig-Holstein was thus averted; peace was made possible at
least for some months longer; and the interval was granted to
Bismarck which was still required for the education of his
Sovereign in the policy of blood and iron, and for the completion
of his own arrangements with the enemies of Austria outside
Germany. <a name="FNanchor518">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_518"><sup>[518]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bismarck at Biarritz, Sept., 1865.]</p>
<p>The natural ally of Prussia was Italy; but without the
sanction of Napoleon III. it would have been difficult to engage
Italy in a new war. Bismarck had therefore to gain at least the
passive concurrence of the French Emperor in the union of Italy
and Prussia against Austria. He visited Napoleon at Biarritz in
September, 1865, and returned with the object of his journey
achieved. The negotiation of Biarritz, if truthfully recorded,
would probably give the key to much of the European history of
the next five years. As at Plombi&egrave;res, the French Emperor
acted without his Ministers, and what he asked he asked without a
witness. That Bismarck actually promised to Napoleon III. either
Belgium or any part of the Rhenish Provinces in case of the
aggrandisement of Prussia has been denied by him, and is not in
itself probable. But there are understandings which prove to be
understandings on one side only; politeness may be
misinterpreted; and the world would have found Count Bismarck
unendurable if at every friendly meeting he had been guilty of
the frankness with which he informed the Austrian Government that
its centre of action must be transferred from Vienna to Pesth.
That Napoleon was now scheming for an extension of France on the
north-east is certain; that Bismarck treated such rectification
of the frontier as a matter for arrangement is hardly to be
doubted; and if without a distinct and written agreement Napoleon
was content to base his action on the belief that Bismarck would
not withhold from him his reward, this only proved how great was
the disparity between the aims which the French ruler allowed
himself to cherish and his mastery of the arts by which alone
such aims were to be realised. Napoleon desired to see Italy
placed in possession of Venice; he probably believed at this time
that Austria would be no unequal match for Prussia and Italy
together, and that the natural result of a well-balanced struggle
would be not only The completion of Italian union but the
purchase of French neutrality or mediation by the cession of
German territory west of the Rhine. It was no part of the duty of
Count Bismarck to chill Napoleon's fancies or to teach him
political wisdom. The Prussian statesman may have left Biarritz
with the conviction that an attack on Germany would sooner or
later follow the disappointment of those hopes which he had
flattered and intended to mock; but for the present he had
removed one dangerous obstacle from his path, and the way lay
free before him to an Italian alliance if Italy itself should
choose to combine with him in war.</p>
<p>[Italy, 1862-65.]</p>
<p>Since the death of Cavour the Italian Government had made no
real progress towards the attainment of the national aims, the
acquisition of Rome and Venice. Garibaldi, impatient of delay,
had in 1862 landed again in Sicily and summoned his followers to
march with him upon Rome. But the enterprise was resolutely
condemned by Victor Emmanuel, and when Garibaldi crossed to the
mainland he found the King's troops in front of him at
Aspromonte. There was an exchange of shots, and Garibaldi fell
wounded. He was treated with something of the distinction shown
to a royal prisoner, and when his wound was healed he was
released from captivity. His enterprise, however, and the
indiscreet comments on it made by Rattazzi, who was now in power,
strengthened the friends of the Papacy at the Tuileries, and
resulted in the fall of the Italian Minister. His successor,
Minghetti, deemed it necessary to arrive at some temporary
understanding with Napoleon on the Roman question. The presence
of French troops at Rome offended national feeling, and made any
attempt at conciliation between the Papal Court and the Italian
Government hopeless. In order to procure the removal of this
foreign garrison Minghetti was willing to enter into engagements
which seemed almost to imply the renunciation of the claim on
Rome. By a Convention made in September, 1864, the Italian
Government undertook not to attack the territory of the Pope, and
to oppose by force every attack made upon it from without.
Napoleon on his part engaged to withdraw his troops gradually
from Rome as the Pope should organise his own army, and to
complete the evacuation within two years. It was, however,
stipulated in an Article which was intended to be kept secret,
that the capital of Italy should be changed, the meaning of this
stipulation being that Florence should receive the dignity which
by the common consent of Italy ought to have been transferred
from Turin to Rome and to Rome alone. The publication of this
Article, which was followed by riots in Turin, caused the
immediate fall of Minghetti's Cabinet. He was succeeded in office
by General La Marmora, under whom the negotiations with Prussia
were begun which, after long uncertainty, resulted in the
alliance of 1866 and in the final expulsion of Austria from
Italy. <a name="FNanchor519">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_519"><sup>[519]</sup></a></p>
<p>[La Marmora.]</p>
<p>[Govone at Berlin, March, 1866.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of April 8, 1856.]</p>
<p>Bismarck from the beginning of his Ministry appears to have
looked forward to the combination of Italy and Prussia against
the common enemy; but his plans ripened slowly. In the spring of
1865, when affairs seemed to be reaching a crisis in
Schleswig-Holstein, the first serious overtures were made by the
Prussian ambassador at Florence. La Marmora answered that any
definite proposition would receive the careful attention of the
Italian Government, but that Italy would not permit itself to be
made a mere instrument in Prussia's hands for the intimidation of
Austria. Such caution was both natural and necessary on the part
of the Italian Minister; and his reserve seemed to be more than
justified when, a few months later, the Treaty of Gastein
restored Austria and Prussia to relations of friendship. La
Marmora might now well consider himself released from all
obligations towards the Court of Berlin: and, entering on a new
line of policy, he sent an envoy to Vienna to ascertain if the
Emperor would amicably cede Venetia to Italy in return for the
payment of a very large sum of money and the assumption by Italy
of part of the Austrian national debt. Had this transaction been
effected, it would probably have changed the course of European
history; the Emperor, however, declined to bargain away any part
of his dominions, and so threw Italy once more into the camp of
his great enemy. In the meantime the disputes about
Schleswig-Holstein broke out afresh. Bismarck renewed his efforts
at Florence in the spring of 1866, with the result that General
Govone was sent to Berlin in order to discuss with the Prussian
Minister the political and military conditions of an alliance.
But instead of proposing immediate action, Bismarck stated to
Govone that the question of Schleswig-Holstein was insufficient
to justify a great war in the eyes of Europe, and that a better
cause must be put forward, namely, the reform of the Federal
system of Germany. Once more the subtle Italians believed that
Bismarck's anxiety for a war with Austria was feigned, and that
he sought their friendship only as a means of extorting from the
Court of Vienna its consent to Prussia's annexation of the Danish
Duchies. There was an apparent effort on the part of the Prussian
statesman to avoid entering into any engagement which involved
immediate action; the truth being that Bismarck was still in
conflict with the pacific influences which surrounded the King,
and uncertain from day to day whether his master would really
follow him in the policy of war. He sought therefore to make the
joint resort to arms dependent on some future act, such as the
summoning of a German Parliament, from which the King of Prussia
could not recede if once he should go so far. But the Italians,
apparently not penetrating the real secret of Bismarck's
hesitation, would be satisfied with no such indeterminate
engagement; they pressed for action within a limited time; and in
the end, after Austria had taken steps which went far to overcome
the last scruples of King William, Bismarck consented to fix
three months as the limit beyond which the obligation of Italy to
accompany Prussia into war should not extend. On the 8th of April
a Treaty of offensive and defensive alliance was signed. It was
agreed that if the King of Prussia should within three months
take up arms for the reform of the Federal system of Germany,
Italy would immediately after the outbreak of hostilities declare
war upon Austria. Both Powers were to engage in the war with
their whole force, and peace was not to be made but by common
consent, such consent not to be withheld after Austria should
have agreed to cede Venetia to Italy and territory with an equal
population to Prussia. <a name="FNanchor520">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_520"><sup>[520]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bismarck and Austria, Aug., 1865-April, 1866.]</p>
<p>Eight months had now passed since the signature of the
Convention of Gastem. The experiment of an understanding with
Austria, which King William had deemed necessary, had been made,
and it had failed; or rather, as Bismarck expressed himself in a
candid moment, it had succeeded, inasmuch as it had cured the
King of his scruples and raised him to the proper point of
indignation against the Austrian Court. The agents in effecting
this happy result had been the Prince of Augustenburg, the
population of Holstein, and the Liberal party throughout Germany
at large. In Schleswig, which the Convention of Gastein had
handed over to Prussia, General Manteuffel, a son of the Minister
of 1850, had summarily put a stop to every expression of public
opinion, and had threatened to imprison the Prince if he came
within his reach; in Holstein the Austrian Government had
permitted, if it had not encouraged, the inhabitants to agitate
in favour of the Pretender, and had allowed a mass-meeting to be
held at Altona on the 23rd of January, where cheers were raised
for Augustenburg, and the summoning of the Estates of
Schleswig-Holstein was demanded. This was enough to enable
Bismarck to denounce the conduct of Austria as an alliance with
revolution. He demanded explanations from the Government of
Vienna, and the Emperor declined to render an account of his
actions. Warlike preparations now began, and on the 16th of March
the Austrian Government announced that it should refer the
affairs of Schleswig-Holstein to the Federal Diet. This was a
clear departure from the terms of the Convention of Gastein, and
from the agreement made between Austria and Prussia before
entering into the Danish war in 1864 that the Schleswig-Holstein
question should be settled by the two Powers independently of the
German Federation. King William was deeply moved by such a breach
of good faith; tears filled his eyes when he spoke of the conduct
of the Austrian Emperor; and though pacific influences were still
active around him he now began to fall in more cordially with the
warlike policy of his Minister. The question at issue between
Prussia and Austria expanded from the mere disposal of the
Duchies to the reconstitution of the Federal system of Germany.
In a note laid before the Governments of all the Minor States
Bismarck declared that the time had come when Germany must
receive a new and more effective organisation, and inquired how
far Prussia could count on the support of allies if it should be
attacked by Austria or forced into war. It was immediately after
this re-opening of the whole problem of Federal reform in Germany
that the draft of the Treaty with Italy was brought to its final
shape by Bismarck and the Italian envoy, and sent to the Ministry
at Florence for its approval.</p>
<p>[Austria offers Venice, May 5.]</p>
<p>Bismarck had now to make the best use of the three months'
delay that was granted to him. On the day after the acceptance of
the Treaty by the Italian Government, the Prussian representative
at the Diet of Frankfort handed in a proposal for the summoning
of a German Parliament, to be elected by universal suffrage.
Coming from the Minister who had made Parliamentary government a
mockery in Prussia, this proposal was scarcely considered as
serious. Bavaria, as the chief of the secondary States, had
already expressed its willingness to enter upon the discussion of
Federal reform, but it asked that the two leading Powers should
in the meantime undertake not to attack one another. Austria at
once acceded to this request, and so forced Bismarck into giving
a similar assurance. Promises of disarmament were then exchanged;
but as Austria declined to stay the collection of its forces in
Venetia against Italy, Bismarck was able to charge his adversary
with insincerity in the negotiation, and preparations for war
were resumed on both sides. Other difficulties, however, now came
into view. The Treaty between Prussia and Italy had been made
known to the Court of Vienna by Napoleon, whose advice La Marmora
had sought before its conclusion, and the Austrian Emperor had
thus become aware of his danger. He now determined to sacrifice
Venetia if Italy's neutrality could be so secured. On the 5th of
May the Italian ambassador at Paris, Count Nigra, was informed by
Napoleon that Austria had offered to cede Venetia to him on
behalf of Victor Emmanuel if France and Italy would not prevent
Austria from indemnifying itself at Prussia's expense in Silesia.
Without a war, at the price of mere inaction, Italy was offered
all that it could gain by a struggle which was likely to be a
desperate one, and which might end in disaster. La Marmora was in
sore perplexity. Though he had formed a juster estimate of the
capacity of the Prussian army than any other statesman or soldier
in Europe, he was thoroughly suspicious of the intentions of the
Prussian Government; and in sanctioning the alliance of the
previous month he had done so half expecting that Bismarck would
through the prestige of this alliance gain for Prussia its own
objects without entering into war, and then leave Italy to reckon
with Austria as best it might. He would gladly have abandoned the
alliance and have accepted Austria's offer if Italy could have
done this without disgrace. But the sense of honour was
sufficiently strong to carry him past this temptation. He
declined the offer made through Paris, and continued the
armaments of Italy, though still with a secret hope that European
diplomacy might find the means of realising the purpose of his
country without war. <a name="FNanchor521">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_521"><sup>[521]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Proposals for a Congress.]</p>
<p>The neutral Powers were now, with various objects, bestirring
themselves in favour of a European Congress. Napoleon believed
the time to be come when the Treaties of 1815 might be finally
obliterated by the joint act of Europe. He was himself ready to
join Prussia with three hundred thousand men if the King would
transfer the Rhenish Provinces to France. Demands, direct and
indirect, were made on Count Bismarck on behalf of the Tuileries
for cessions of territory of greater or less extent. These
demands were neither granted nor refused. Bismarck
procrastinated; he spoke of the obstinacy of the King his master;
he inquired whether parts of Belgium or Switzerland would not
better assimilate with France than a German province; he put off
the Emperor's representatives by the assurance that he could more
conveniently arrange these matters with the Emperor when he
should himself visit Paris. On the 28th of May invitations to a
Congress were issued by France, England, and Russia jointly, the
objects of the Congress being defined as the settlement of the
affairs of Schleswig-Holstein, of the differences between Austria
and Italy, and of the reform of the Federal Constitution of
Germany, in so far as these affected Europe at large. The
invitation was accepted by Prussia and by Italy; it was accepted
by Austria only under the condition that no arrangement should be
discussed which should give an increase of territory or power to
one of the States invited to the Congress. This subtly-worded
condition would not indeed have excluded the equal aggrandisement
of all. It would not have rendered the cession of Venetia to
Italy or the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia
impossible; but it would either have involved the surrender of
the former Papal territory by Italy in order that Victor
Emmanuel's dominions should receive no increase, or, in the
alternative, it would have entitled Austria to claim Silesia as
its own equivalent for the augmentation of the Italian Kingdom.
Such reservations would have rendered any efforts of the Powers
to preserve peace useless, and they were accepted as tantamount
to a refusal on the part of Austria to attend the Congress.
Simultaneously with its answer to the neutral Powers, Austria
called upon the Federal Diet to take the affairs of
Schleswig-Holstein into its own hands, and convoked the Holstein
Estates. Bismarck thereupon declared the Convention of Gastein to
be at an end, and ordered General Manteuffel to lead his troops
into Holstein. The Austrian commander, protesting that he yielded
only to superior force, withdrew through Altona into Hanover.
Austria at once demanded and obtained from the Diet of Frankfort
the mobilisation of the whole of the Federal armies. The
representative of Prussia, declaring that this act of the Diet
had made an end of the existing Federal union, handed in the plan
of his Government for the reorganisation of Germany, and quitted
Frankfort. Diplomatic relations between Austria and Prussia were
broken off on the 12th of June, and on the 15th Count Bismarck
demanded of the sovereigns of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel,
that they should on that very day put a stop to their military
preparations and accept the Prussian scheme of Federal reform.
Negative answers being given, Prussian troops immediately marched
into these territories, and war began. Weimar, Mecklenburg, and
other petty States in the north took part with Prussia: all the
rest of Germany joined Austria. <a name="FNanchor522">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_522"><sup>[522]</sup></a></p>
<p>[German Opinion.]</p>
<p>The goal of Bismarck's desire, the end which he had steadily
set before himself since entering upon his Ministry, was
attained; and, if his calculations as to the strength of the
Prussian army were not at fault, Austria was at length to be
expelled from the German Federation by force of arms. But the
process by which Bismarck had worked up to this result had ranged
against him the almost unanimous opinion of Germany outside the
military circles of Prussia itself. His final demand for the
summoning of a German Parliament was taken as mere comedy. The
guiding star of his policy had hitherto been the dynastic
interest of the House of Hohenzollern; and now, when the Germans
were to be plunged into war with one another, it seemed as if the
real object of the struggle was no more than the annexation of
the Danish Duchies and some other coveted territory to the
Prussian Kingdom. The voice of protest and condemnation rose loud
from every organ of public opinion. Even in Prussia itself the
instances were few where any spontaneous support was tendered to
the Government. The Parliament of Berlin, struggling up to the
end against the all-powerful Minister, had seen its members
prosecuted for speeches made within its own walls, and had at
last been prorogued in order that its insubordination might not
hamper the Crown in the moment of danger. But the mere
disappearance of Parliament could not conceal the intensity of
ill-will which the Minister and his policy had excited. The
author of a fratricidal war of Germans against Germans was in the
eyes of many the greatest of all criminals; and on the 7th of May
an attempt was made by a young fanatic to take Bismarck's life in
the streets of Berlin. The Minister owed the preservation of his
life to the feebleness of his assailant's weapon and to his own
vigorous arm. But the imminence of the danger affected King
William far more than Bismarck himself. It spoke to his simple
mind of supernatural protection and aid; it stilled his doubts;
and confirmed him in the belief that Prussia was in this crisis
the instrument for working out the Almighty's will.</p>
<p>[Napoleon III.]</p>
<p>A few days before the outbreak of hostilities the Emperor
Napoleon gave publicity to his own view of the European
situation. He attributed the coming war to three causes: to the
faulty geographical limits of the Prussian State, to the desire
for a better Federal system in Germany, and to the necessity felt
by the Italian nation for securing its independence. These needs
would, he conceived, be met by a territorial rearrangement in the
north of Germany consolidating and augmenting the Prussian
Kingdom; by the creation of a more effective Federal union
between the secondary German States; and finally, by the
incorporation of Venetia with Italy, Austria's position in
Germany remaining unimpaired. Only in the event of the map of
Europe being altered to the exclusive advantage of one Great
Power would France require an extension of frontier. Its
interests lay in the preservation of the equilibrium of Europe,
and in the maintenance of the Italian Kingdom. These had already
been secured by arrangements which would not require France to
draw the sword; a watchful but unselfish neutrality was the
policy which its Government had determined to pursue. Napoleon
had in fact lost all control over events, and all chance of
gaining the Rhenish Provinces, from the time when he permitted
Italy to enter into the Prussian alliance without any stipulation
that France should at its option be admitted as a third member of
the coalition. He could not ally himself with Austria against his
own creation, the Italian Kingdom; on the other hand, he had no
means of extorting cessions from Prussia when once Prussia was
sure of an ally who could bring two hundred thousand men into the
field. His diplomacy had been successful in so far as it had
assured Venetia to Italy whether Prussia should be victorious or
overthrown, but as regarded France it had landed him in absolute
powerlessness. He was unable to act on one side; he was not
wanted on the other. Neutrality had become a matter not of choice
but of necessity; and until the course of military events should
have produced some new situation in Europe, France might well be
watchful, but it could scarcely gain much credit for its
disinterested part. <a name="FNanchor523">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_523"><sup>[523]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Hanover and Hesse-Cassel conquered.]</p>
<p>[The Bohemian Campaign, June 26-July 3.]</p>
<p>[Battle of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, July 3.]</p>
<p>Assured against an attack from the side of the Rhine, Bismarck
was able to throw the mass of the Prussian forces southwards
against Austria, leaving in the north only the modest contingent
which was necessary to overcome the resistance of Hanover and
Hesse-Cassel. Through the precipitancy of a Prussian general, who
struck without waiting for his colleagues, the Hanoverians gained
a victory at Langensalza on the 27th of June; but other Prussian
regiments arrived on the field a few hours later, and the
Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate on the next day. The
King made his escape to Austria; the Elector of Hesse-Cassel,
less fortunate, was made a prisoner of war. Northern Germany was
thus speedily reduced to submission, and any danger of a
diversion in favour of Austria in this quarter disappeared. In
Saxony no attempt was made to bar the way to the advancing
Prussians. Dresden was occupied without resistance, but the Saxon
army marched southwards in good time, and joined the Austrians in
Bohemia. The Prussian forces, about two hundred and fifty
thousand strong, now gathered on the Saxon and Silesian frontier,
covering the line from Pirna to Landshut. They were composed of
three armies: the first, or central, army under Prince Frederick
Charles, a nephew of the King; the second, or Silesian, army
under the Crown Prince; the westernmost, known as the army of the
Elbe, under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld. Against these were
ranged about an equal number of Austrians, led by Benedek, a
general who had gained great distinction in the Hungarian and the
Italian campaigns. It had at first been thought probable that
Benedek, whose forces lay about Olm&uuml;tz, would invade
Southern Silesia, and the Prussian line had therefore been
extended far to the east. Soon, however, it appeared that the
Austrians were unable to take up the offensive, and Benedek moved
westwards into Bohemia. The Prussian line was now shortened, and
orders were given to the three armies to cross the Bohemian
frontier and converge in the direction of the town of Gitschin.
General Moltke, the chief of the staff, directed their operations
from Berlin by telegraph. The combined advance of the three
armies was executed with extraordinary precision; and in a series
of hard-fought combats extending from the 26th to the 29th of
June the Austrians were driven back upon their centre, and
effective communication was established between the three
invading bodies. On the 30th the King of Prussia, with General
Moltke and Count Bismarck, left Berlin; on the 2nd of July they
were at headquarters at Gitschin. It had been Benedek's design to
leave a small force to hold the Silesian army in check, and to
throw the mass of his army westwards upon Prince Frederick
Charles and overwhelm him before he could receive help from his
colleagues. This design had been baffled by the energy of the
Crown Prince's attack, and by the superiority of the Prussians in
generalship, in the discipline of their troops, and in the weapon
they carried; for though the Austrians had witnessed in the
Danish campaign the effects of the Prussian breech-loading rifle,
they had not thought it necessary to adopt a similar arm.
Benedek, though no great battle had yet been fought, saw that the
campaign was lost, and wrote to the Emperor on the 1st of July
recommending him to make peace, for otherwise a catastrophe was
inevitable. He then concentrated his army on high ground a few
miles west of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, and prepared for a defensive
battle on the grandest scale. In spite of the losses of the past
week he could still bring about two hundred thousand men into
action. The three Prussian armies were now near enough to one
another to combine in their attack, and on the night of July 2nd
the King sent orders to the three commanders to move against
Benedek before daybreak. Prince Frederick Charles, advancing
through the village of Sadowa, was the first in the field. For
hours his divisions sustained an unequal struggle against the
assembled strength of the Austrians. Midday passed; the defenders
now pressed down upon their assailants; and preparations for a
retreat had been begun, when the long-expected message arrived
that the Crown Prince was close at hand. The onslaught of the
army of Silesia on Benedek's right, which was accompanied by the
arrival of Herwarth at the other end of the field of battle, at
once decided the day. It was with difficulty that the Austrian
commander prevented the enemy from seizing the positions which
would have cut off his retreat. He retired eastwards across the
Elbe with a loss of eighteen thousand killed and wounded and
twenty-four thousand prisoners. His army was ruined; and ten days
after the Prussians had crossed the frontier the war was
practically at an end. <a name="FNanchor524">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_524"><sup>[524]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Battle of Custozza, June 24.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon's mediation, July 5.]</p>
<p>[Preliminaries of Nicolsburg, July 26.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Prague, Aug. 23.]</p>
<p>The disaster of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz was too great to be
neutralised by the success of the Austrian forces in Italy. La
Marmora, who had given up his place at the head of the Government
in order to take command of the army, crossed the Mincio at the
head of a hundred and twenty thousand men, but was defeated by
inferior numbers on the fatal ground of Custozza, and compelled
to fall back on the Oglio. This gleam of success, which was
followed by a naval victory at Lissa off the Istrian coast, made
it easier for the Austrian Emperor to face the sacrifices that
were now inevitable. Immediately after the battle of
K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz he invoked the mediation of Napoleon III.,
and ceded Venetia to him on behalf of Italy. Napoleon at once
tendered his good offices to the belligerents, and proposed an
armistice. His mediation was accepted in principle by the King or
Prussia, who expressed his willingness also to grant an armistice
as soon as preliminaries of peace were recognised by the Austrian
Court. In the meantime, while negotiations passed between all
four Governments, the Prussians pushed forward until their
outposts came within sight of Vienna. If in pursuance of General
Moltke's plan the Italian generals had thrown a corps
north-eastwards from the head of the Adriatic, and so struck at
the very heart of the Austrian monarchy, it is possible that the
victors of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz might have imposed their own
terms without regard to Napoleon's mediation, and, while adding
the Italian Tyrol to Victor Emmanuel's dominions, have completed
the union of Germany under the House of Hohenzollern at one
stroke. But with Hungary still intact, and the Italian army
paralysed by the dissensions of its commanders, prudence bade the
great statesman of Berlin content himself with the advantages
which he could reap without prolongation of the war, and without
the risk of throwing Napoleon into the enemy's camp. He had at
first required, as conditions of peace, that Prussia should be
left free to annex Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and other North
German territory; that Austria should wholly withdraw from German
affairs; and that all Germany, less the Austrian Provinces,
should be united in a Federation under Prussian leadership. To
gain the assent of Napoleon to these terms, Bismarck hinted that
France might by accord with Prussia annex Belgium. Napoleon,
however, refused to agree to the extension of Prussia's
ascendency over all Germany, and presented a counter-project
which was in its turn rejected by Bismarck. It was finally
settled that Prussia should not be prevented from annexing
Hanover, Nassau, and Hesse-Cassel, as conquered territory that
lay between its own Rhenish Provinces and the rest of the
kingdom; that Austria should completely withdraw from German
affairs; that Germany north of the Main, together with Saxony,
should be included in a Federation under Prussian leadership; and
that for the States south of the Main there should be reserved
the right of entering into some kind of national bond with the
Northern League. Austria escaped without loss of any of its
non-Italian territory; it also succeeded in preserving the
existence of Saxony, which, as in 1815, the Prussian Government
had been most anxious to annex. Napoleon, in confining the
Prussian Federation to the north of the Main, and in securing by
a formal stipulation in the Treaty the independence of the
Southern States, imagined himself to have broken Germany into
halves, and to have laid the foundation of a South German League
which should look to France as its protector. On the other hand,
Bismarck by his annexation of Hanover and neighbouring districts
had added a population of four millions to the Prussian Kingdom,
and given it a continuous territory; he had forced Austria out of
the German system; he had gained its sanction to the Federal
union of all Germany north of the Main, and had at least kept the
way open for the later extension of this union to the Southern
States. Preliminaries of peace embodying these conditions and
recognising Prussia's sovereignty in Schleswig-Holstein were
signed at Nicolsburg on the 26th of July, and formed the basis of
the definitive Treaty of Peace which was concluded at Prague on
the 23rd of August. An illusory clause, added at the instance of
Napoleon, provided that if the population of the northern
districts of Schleswig should by a free vote express the wish to
be united with Denmark, these districts should be ceded to the
Danish Kingdom. <a name="FNanchor525">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_525"><sup>[525]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The South German States.]</p>
<p>[Secret Treaties of the Southern States with Prussia.]</p>
<p>Bavaria and the south-western allies of Austria, though their
military action was of an ineffective character, continued in
arms for some weeks after the battle of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz and
the suspension of hostilities arranged at Nicolsburg did not come
into operation on their behalf till the 2nd of August. Before
that date their forces were dispersed and their power of
resistance broken by the Prussian generals Falckenstein and
Manteuffel in a series of unimportant engagements and intricate
manoeuvres. The City of Frankfort, against which Bismarck seems
to have borne some personal hatred, was treated for a while by
the conquerors with extraordinary and most impolitic harshness;
in other respects the action of the Prussian Government towards
these conquered States was not such as to render future union and
friendship difficult. All the South German Governments, with the
single exception of Baden, appealed to the Emperor Napoleon for
assistance in the negotiations which they had opened at Berlin.
But at the very moment when this request was made and granted
Napoleon was himself demanding from Bismarck the cession of the
Bavarian Palatinate and of the Hessian districts west of the
Rhine. Bismarck had only to acquaint the King of Bavaria and the
South German Ministers with the designs of their French protector
in order to reconcile them to his own chastening, but not
unfriendly, hand. The grandeur of a united Fatherland flashed
upon minds hitherto impenetrable by any national ideal when it
became known that Napoleon was bargaining for Oppenheim and
Kaiserslautern. Not only were the insignificant questions as to
the war-indemnities to be paid to Prussia and the frontier
villages to be exchanged promptly settled, but by a series of
secret Treaties all the South German States entered into an
offensive and defensive alliance with the Prussian King, and
engaged in case of war to place their entire forces at his
disposal and under his command. The diplomacy of Napoleon III.
had in the end effected for Bismarck almost more than his earlier
intervention had frustrated, for it had made the South German
Courts the allies of Prussia not through conquest or mere
compulsion but out of regard for their own interests. <a name=
"FNanchor526">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_526"><sup>[526]</sup></a> It
was said by the opponents of the Imperial Government in France,
and scarcely with exaggeration, that every error which it was
possible to commit had, in the course of the year 1866, been
committed by Napoleon III. One crime, one act of madness,
remained open to the Emperor's critics, to lash him and France
into a conflict with the Power whose union he had not been able
to prevent.</p>
<p>[Projects of compensation for France.]</p>
<p>Prior to the battle of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, it would seem
that all the suggestions of the French Emperor relating to the
acquisition of Belgium were made to the Prussian Government
through secret agents, and that they were actually unknown, or
known by mere hearsay, to Benedetti, the French Ambassador at
Berlin. According to Prince Bismarck, these overtures had begun
as early as 1862, when he was himself Ambassador at Paris, and
were then made verbally and in private notes to himself; they
were the secret of Napoleon's neutrality during the Danish war;
and were renewed through relatives and confidential agents of the
Emperor when the struggle with Austria was seen to be
approaching. The ignorance in which Count Benedetti was kept of
his master's private diplomacy may to some extent explain the
extraordinary contradictions between the accounts given by this
Minister and by Prince Bismarck of the negotiations that passed
between them in the period following the campaign of 1866, after
Benedetti had himself been charged to present the demands of the
French Government. In June, while the Ambassador was still, as it
would seem, in ignorance of what was passing behind his back, he
had informed the French Ministry that Bismarck, anxious for the
preservation of French neutrality, had hinted at the
compensations that might be made to France if Prussia should meet
with great success in the coming war. According to the report of
the Ambassador, made at the time, Count Bismarck stated that he
would rather withdraw from public life than cede the Rhenish
Provinces with Cologne and Bonn, but that he believed it would be
possible to gain the King's ultimate consent to the cession of
the Prussian district of Tr&egrave;ves on the Upper Moselle,
which district, together with Luxemburg or parts of Belgium and
Switzerland, would give France an adequate improvement of its
frontier. The Ambassador added in his report, by way of comment,
that Count Bismarck was the only man in the kingdom who was
disposed to make any cession of Prussian territory whatever, and
that a unanimous and violent revulsion against France would be
excited by the slightest indication of any intention on the part
of the French Government to extend its frontiers towards the
Rhine. He concluded his report with the statement that, after
hearing Count Bismarck's suggestions, he had brought the
discussion to a summary close, not wishing to leave the Prussian
Minister under the impression that any scheme involving the
seizure of Belgian or Swiss territory had the slightest chance of
being seriously considered at Paris. (June 4-8.)</p>
<p>[Demand for Rhenish territory, July 25-Aug. 7, 1866.]</p>
<p>[The Belgian project, Aug. 16-30.]</p>
<p>Benedetti probably wrote these last words in full sincerity.
Seven weeks later, after the settlement of the Preliminaries at
Nicolsburg, he was ordered to demand the cession of the Bavarian
Palatinate, of the portion of Hesse-Darmstadt west of the Rhine,
including Mainz, and of the strip of Prussian territory on the
Saar which had been left to France in 1814 but taken from it in
1815. According to the statement of Prince Bismarck, which would
seem to be exaggerated, this demand was made by Benedetti as an
ultimatum and with direct threats of war, which were answered by
Bismarck in language of equal violence. In any case the demand
was unconditionally refused, and Benedetti travelled to Paris in
order to describe what had passed at the Prussian headquarters.
His report made such an impression on the Emperor that the demand
for cessions on the Rhine was at once abandoned, and the Foreign
Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, who had been disposed to enforce this
by arms, was compelled to quit office. Benedetti returned to
Berlin, and now there took place that negotiation relating to
Belgium on which not only the narratives of the persons
immediately concerned, but the documents written at the time,
leave so much that is strange and unexplained. According to
Benedetti, Count Bismarck was keenly anxious to extend the German
Federation to the South of the Main, and desired with this object
an intimate union with at least one Great Power. He sought in the
first instance the support of France, and offered in return to
facilitate the seizure of Belgium. The negotiation, according to
Benedetti, failed because the Emperor Napoleon required that the
fortresses in Southern Germany should be held by the troops of
the respective States to which they belonged, while at the same
time General Manteuffel, who had been sent from Berlin on a
special mission to St. Petersburg, succeeded in effecting so
intimate a union with Russia that alliance with France became
unnecessary. According to the counter-statement of Prince
Bismarck, the plan now proposed originated entirely with the
French Ambassador, and was merely a repetition of proposals which
had been made by Napoleon during the preceding four years, and
which were subsequently renewed at intervals by secret agents
almost down to the outbreak of the war of 1870. Prince Bismarck
has stated that he dallied with these proposals only because a
direct refusal might at any moment have caused the outbreak of
war between France and Prussia, a catastrophe which up to the end
he sought to avert. In any case the negotiation with Benedetti
led to no conclusion, and was broken off by the departure of both
statesmen from Berlin in the beginning of autumn. <a name=
"FNanchor527">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_527"><sup>[527]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Prussia and North Germany after the war.]</p>
<p>The war of 1866 had been brought to an end with extraordinary
rapidity; its results were solid and imposing. Venice, perplexed
no longer by its Republican traditions or by doubts of the
patriotism of the House of Savoy, prepared to welcome King Victor
Emmanuel; Bismarck, returning from the battle-field of
K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, found his earlier unpopularity forgotten in
the flood of national enthusiasm which his achievements and those
of the army had evoked. A new epoch had begun; the antagonisms of
the past were out of date; nobler work now stood before the
Prussian people and its rulers than the perpetuation of a barren
struggle between Crown and Parliament. By none was the severance
from the past more openly expressed than by Bismarck himself; by
none was it more bitterly felt than by the old Conservative party
in Prussia, who had hitherto regarded the Minister as their own
representative. In drawing up the Constitution of the North
German Federation, Bismarck remained true to the principle which
he had laid down at Frankfort before the war, that the German
people must be represented by a Parliament elected directly by
the people themselves. In the incorporation of Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel and the Danish Duchies with Prussia, he saw that it
would be impossible to win the new populations to a loyal union
with Prussia if the King's Government continued to recognise no
friends but the landed aristocracy and the army. He frankly
declared that the action of the Cabinet in raising taxes without
the consent of Parliament had been illegal, and asked for an Act
of Indemnity. The Parliament of Berlin understood and welcomed
the message of reconciliation. It heartily forgave the past, and
on its own initiative added the name of Bismarck to those for
whose services to the State the King asked a recompense. The
Progressist party, which had constituted the majority in the last
Parliament, gave place to a new combination known as the National
Liberal party, which, while adhering to the Progressist creed in
domestic affairs, gave its allegiance to the Foreign and the
German policy of the Minister. Within this party many able men
who in Hanover and the other annexed territories had been the
leaders of opposition to their own Governments now found a larger
scope and a greater political career. More than one of the
colleagues of Bismarck who had been appointed to their offices in
the years of conflict were allowed to pass into retirement, and
their places were filled by men in sympathy with the National
Liberals. With the expansion of Prussia and the establishment of
its leadership in a German Federal union, the ruler of Prussia
seemed himself to expand from the instrument of a military
monarchy to the representative of a great nation.</p>
<p>[Hungary and Austria, 1865.]</p>
<p>To Austria the battle of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz brought a
settlement of the conflict between the Crown and Hungary. The
Constitution of February, 1861, hopefully as it had worked during
its first years, had in the end fallen before the steady refusal
of the Magyars to recognise the authority of a single Parliament
for the whole Monarchy. Within the Reichsrath itself the example
of Hungary told as a disintegrating force; the Poles, the Czechs
seceded from the Assembly; the Minister, Schmerling, lost his
authority, and was forced to resign in the summer of 1865. Soon
afterwards an edict of the Emperor suspended the Constitution.
Count Belcredi, who took office in Schmerling's place, attempted
to arrive at an understanding with the Magyar leaders. The
Hungarian Diet was convoked, and was opened by the King in person
before the end of the year. Francis Joseph announced his
abandonment of the principle that Hungary had forfeited its
ancient rights by rebellion, and asked in return that the Diet
should not insist upon regarding the laws of 1848 as still in
force. Whatever might be the formal validity of those laws, it
was, he urged, impossible that they should be brought into
operation unaltered. For the common affairs of the two halves of
the Monarchy there must be some common authority. It rested with
the Diet to arrive at the necessary understanding with the
Sovereign on this point, and to place on a satisfactory footing
the relations of Hungary to Transylvania and Croatia. As soon as
an accord should have been reached on these subjects, Francis
Joseph stated that he would complete his reconciliation with the
Magyars by being crowned King of Hungary.</p>
<p>[De&aacute;k.]</p>
<p>In the Assembly to which these words were addressed the
majority was composed of men of moderate opinions, under the
leadership of Francis De&aacute;k. De&aacute;k had drawn up the
programme of the Hungarian Liberals in the election of 1847. He
had at that time appeared to be marked out by his rare political
capacity and the simple manliness of his character for a great,
if not the greatest, part in the work that then lay before his
country. But the violence of revolutionary methods was alien to
his temperament. After serving in Batthy&aacute;ny's Ministry, he
withdrew from public life on the outbreak of war with Austria,
and remained in retirement during the dictatorship of Kossuth and
the struggle of 1849. As a loyal friend to the Hapsburg dynasty,
and a clear-sighted judge of the possibilities of the time, he
stood apart while Kossuth dethroned the Sovereign and proclaimed
Hungarian independence. Of the patriotism and the
disinterestedness of De&aacute;k there was never the shadow of a
doubt; a distinct political faith severed him from the leaders
whose enterprise ended in the catastrophe which he had foreseen,
and preserved for Hungary one statesman who could, without
renouncing his own past and without inflicting humiliation on the
Sovereign, stand as the mediator between Hungary and Austria when
the time for reconciliation should arrive. De&aacute;k was little
disposed to abate anything of what he considered the just demands
of his country. It was under his leadership that the Diet had in
1861 refused to accept the Constitution which established a
single Parliament for the whole Monarchy. The legislative
independence of Hungary he was determined at all costs to
preserve intact; rather than surrender this he had been willing
in 1861 to see negotiations broken off and military rule
restored. But when Francis Joseph, wearied of the sixteen years'
struggle, appealed once more to Hungary for union and friendship,
there was no man more earnestly desirous to reconcile the
Sovereign with the nation, and to smooth down the opposition to
the King's proposals which arose within the Diet itself, than
De&aacute;k.</p>
<p>[Scheme of Hungarian Committee, June 25, 1866.]</p>
<p>Under his influence a committee was appointed to frame the
necessary basis of negotiation. On the 25th of June, 1866, the
Committee gave in its report. It declared against any
Parliamentary union with the Cis-Leithan half of the Monarchy,
but consented to the establishment of common Ministries for War,
Finance, and Foreign Affairs, and recommended that the Budget
necessary for these joint Ministries should be settled by
Delegations from the Hungarian Diet and from the western
Reichsrath. <a name="FNanchor528">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_528"><sup>[528]</sup></a> The Delegations, it was
proposed, should meet separately, and communicate their views to
one another by writing. Only when agreement should not have been
thus attained were the Delegations to unite in a single body, in
which case the decision was to rest with an absolute majority of
votes.</p>
<p>[Negotiations with Hungary after K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz.]</p>
<p>[Federalism or Dualism.]</p>
<p>[Settlement by Beust.]</p>
<p>[Francis Joseph's Coronation, June 8, 1867.]</p>
<p>The debates of the Diet on the proposals of King Francis
Joseph had been long and anxious; it was not until the moment
when the war with Prussia was breaking out that the Committee
presented its report. The Diet was now prorogued, but immediately
after the battle of K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz the Hungarian leaders
were called to Vienna, and negotiations were pushed forward on
the lines laid down by the Committee. It was a matter of no small
moment to the Court of Vienna that while bodies of Hungarian
exiles had been preparing to attack the Empire both from the side
of Silesia and of Venice, De&aacute;k and his friends had loyally
abstained from any communication with the foreign enemies of the
House of Hapsburg. That Hungary would now gain almost complete
independence was certain; the question was not so much whether
there should be an independent Parliament and Ministry at Pesth
as whether there should not be a similarly independent Parliament
and Ministry in each of the territories of the Crown, the
Austrian Sovereign becoming the head of a Federation instead of
the chief of a single or a dual State. Count Belcredi, the
Minister at Vienna, was disposed towards such a Federal system;
he was, however, now confronted within the Cabinet by a rival who
represented a different policy. After making peace with Prussia,
the Emperor called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Count
Beust, who had hitherto been at the head of the Saxon Government,
and who had been the representative of the German Federation at
the London Conference of 1864. Beust, while ready to grant the
Hungarians their independence, advocated the retention of the
existing Reichsrath and of a single Ministry for all the
Cis-Leithan parts of the Monarchy. His plan, which pointed to the
maintenance of German ascendency in the western provinces, and
which deeply offended the Czechs and the Slavic populations, was
accepted by the Emperor: Belcredi withdrew from office, and Beust
was charged, as President of the Cabinet, with the completion of
the settlement with Hungary (Feb. 7, 1867). De&aacute;k had
hitherto left the chief ostensible part in the negotiations to
Count Andr&aacute;ssy, one of the younger patriots of 1848, who
had been condemned to be hanged, and had lived a refugee during
the next ten years. He now came to Vienna himself, and in the
course of a few days removed the last remaining difficulties. The
King gratefully charged him with the formation of the Hungarian
Ministry under the restored Constitution, but De&aacute;k
declined alike all office, honours, and rewards, and
Andr&aacute;ssy, who had actually been hanged in effigy, was
placed at the head of the Government. The Diet, which had
reassembled shortly before the end of 1866, greeted the national
Ministry with enthusiasm. Alterations in the laws of 1848
proposed in accordance with the agreement made at Vienna, and
establishing the three common Ministries with the system of
Delegations for common affairs, were carried by large majorities.
<a name="FNanchor529">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_529"><sup>[529]</sup></a> The abdication of Ferdinand,
which throughout the struggle of 1849 Hungary had declined to
recognise, was now acknowledged as valid, and on the 8th of June,
1867, Francis Joseph was crowned King of Hungary amid the
acclamations of Pesth. The gift of money which is made to each
Hungarian monarch on his coronation Francis Joseph by a happy
impulse distributed among the families of those who had fallen in
fighting against him in 1849. A universal amnesty was proclaimed,
no condition being imposed on the return of the exiles but that
they should acknowledge the existing Constitution. Kossuth alone
refused to return to his country so long as a Hapsburg should be
its King, and proudly clung to ideas which were already those of
the past.</p>
<p>[Hungary since 1867.]</p>
<p>The victory of the Magyars was indeed but too complete. Not
only were Beust and the representatives of the western half of
the Monarchy so overmatched by the Hungarian negotiators that in
the distribution of the financial burdens of the Empire Hungary
escaped with far too small a share, but in the more important
problem of the relation of the Slavic and Roumanian populations
of the Hungarian Kingdom to the dominant race no adequate steps
were taken for the protection of these subject nationalities.
That Croatia and Transylvania should be reunited with Hungary if
the Emperor and the Magyars were ever to be reconciled was
inevitable; and in the case of Croatia certain conditions were no
doubt imposed, and certain local rights guaranteed. But on the
whole the non-Magyar peoples in Hungary were handed over to the
discretion of the ruling race. The demand of Bismarck that the
centre of gravity of the Austrian States should be transferred
from Vienna to Pesth had indeed been brought to pass. While in
the western half of the Monarchy the central authority, still
represented by a single Parliament, seemed in the succeeding
years to be altogether losing its cohesive power, and the
political life of Austria became a series of distracting
complications, in Hungary the Magyar Government resolutely set
itself to the task of moulding into one the nationalities over
which it ruled. Uniting the characteristic faults with the great
qualities of a race marked out by Nature and ancient habit for
domination over more numerous but less aggressive neighbours, the
Magyars have steadily sought to the best of their power to
obliterate the distinctions which make Hungary in reality not one
but several nations. They have held the Slavic and the Roumanian
population within their borders with an iron grasp, but they have
not gained their affection. The memory of the Russian
intervention in 1849 and of the part then played by Serbs, by
Croats and Roumanians in crushing Magyar independence has blinded
the victors to the just claims of these races both within and
without the Hungarian kingdom, and attached their sympathy to the
hateful and outworn empire of the Turk. But the individuality of
peoples is not to be blotted out in a day; nor, with all its
striking advance in wealth, in civilisation, and in military
power, has the Magyar State been able to free itself from the
insecurity arising from the presence of independent communities
on its immediate frontiers belonging to the same race as those
whose language and nationality it seeks to repress.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XXIV.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>Napoleon III.-The Mexican Expedition-Withdrawal of the French
and death of Maximilian-The Luxemburg Question-Exasperation in
France against Prussia-Austria-Italy-Mentana-Germany after
1866-The Spanish candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern-French
declaration-Benedetti and King William-Withdrawal of Leopold and
demand for guarantees-The telegram from Ems-War-Expected
Alliances of France-Austria-Italy- Prussian plans-The French
army-Causes of French inferiority-
Weissenburg-W&ouml;rth-Spicheren-Borny-Mars-la-Tour-Gravelotte-Sedan-
The Republic proclaimed at Paris-Favre and Bismarck-Siege of
Paris-Gambetta at Tours-The Army of the Loire-Fall of
Metz-Fighting at Orleans-Sortie of Champigny-The Armies of the
North, of the Loire, of the East-Bourbaki's ruin-Capitulation of
Paris and Armistice- Preliminaries of Peace-Germany-Establishment
of the German Empire-The Commune of Paris-Second siege-Effects of
the war as to Russia and Italy-Rome.</p>
<br>

<p>[Napoleon III.]</p>
<p>The reputation of Napoleon III. was perhaps at its height at
the end of the first ten years of his reign. His victories over
Russia and Austria had flattered the military pride of France;
the flowing tide of commercial prosperity bore witness, as it
seemed, to the blessings of a government at once firm and
enlightened; the reconstruction of Paris dazzled a generation
accustomed to the mean and dingy aspect of London and other
capitals before 1850, and scarcely conscious of the presence or
absence of real beauty and dignity where it saw spaciousness and
brilliance. The political faults of Napoleon, the shiftiness and
incoherence of his designs, his want of grasp on reality, his
absolute personal nullity as an administrator, were known to some
few, but they had not been displayed to the world at large. He
had done some great things, he had conspicuously failed in
nothing. Had his reign ended before 1863, he would probably have
left behind him in popular memory the name of a great ruler. But
from this time his fortune paled. The repulse of his intervention
on behalf of Poland in 1863 by the Russian Court, his petulant or
miscalculating inaction during the Danish War of the following
year, showed those to be mistaken who had imagined that the
Emperor must always exercise a controlling power in Europe.
During the events which formed the first stage in the
consolidation of Germany his policy was a succession of errors.
Simultaneously with the miscarriage of his European schemes, an
enterprise which he had undertaken beyond the Atlantic, and which
seriously weakened his resources at a time when concentrated
strength alone could tell on European affairs, ended in tragedy
and disgrace.</p>
<p>[The Mexican Project.]</p>
<p>There were in Napoleon III., as a man of State, two
personalities, two mental existences, which blended but ill with
one another. There was the contemplator of great human forces,
the intelligent, if not deeply penetrative, reader of the signs
of the times, the brooder through long years of imprisonment and
exile, the child of Europe, to whom Germany, Italy, and England
had all in turn been nearer than his own country; and there was
the crowned adventurer, bound by his name and position to gain
for France something that it did not possess, and to regard the
greatness of every other nation as an impediment to the
ascendency of his own. Napoleon correctly judged the principle of
nationality to be the dominant force in the immediate future of
Europe. He saw in Italy and in Germany races whose internal
divisions alone had prevented them from being the formidable
rivals of France, and yet he assisted the one nation to effect
its union, and was not indisposed, within certain limits, to
promote the consolidation of the other. That the acquisition of
Nice and Savoy, and even of the Rhenish Provinces, could not in
itself make up to France for the establishment of two great
nations on its immediate frontiers Napoleon must have well
understood: he sought to carry the principle of agglomeration a
stage farther in the interests of France itself, and to form some
moral, if not political, union of the Latin nations, which should
embrace under his own ascendency communities beyond the Atlantic
as well as those of the Old World. It was with this design that
in the year 1862 he made the financial misdemeanours of Mexico
the pretext for an expedition to that country, the object of
which was to subvert the native Republican Government, and to
place the Hapsburg Maximilian, as a vassal prince, on its throne.
England and Spain had at first agreed to unite with France in
enforcing the claims of the European creditors of Mexico; but as
soon as Napoleon had made public his real intentions these Powers
withdrew their forces, and the Emperor was left free to carry out
his plans alone.</p>
<p>[The Mexican Expedition, 1862-1865.]</p>
<p>[Napoleon compelled to withdraw, 1866-7.]</p>
<p>[Fall and Death of Maximilian.]</p>
<p>The design of Napoleon to establish French influence in Mexico
was connected with his attempt to break up the United States by
establishing the independence of the Southern Confederacy, then
in rebellion, through the mediation of the Great Powers of
Europe. So long as the Civil War in the United States lasted, it
seemed likely that Napoleon's enterprise in Mexico would be
successful. Maximilian was placed upon the throne, and the
Republican leader, Juarez, was driven into the extreme north of
the country. But with the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy
and the restoration of peace in the United States in 1865 the
prospect totally changed. The Government of Washington refused to
acknowledge any authority in Mexico but that of Juarez, and
informed Napoleon in courteous terms that his troops must be
withdrawn. Napoleon had bound himself by Treaty to keep
twenty-five thousand men in Mexico for the protection of
Maximilian. He was, however, unable to defy the order of the
United States. Early in 1866 he acquainted Maximilian with the
necessities of the situation, and with the approaching removal of
the force which alone had placed him and could sustain him on the
throne. The unfortunate prince sent his consort, the daughter of
the King of the Belgians, to Europe to plead against this act of
desertion; but her efforts were vain, and her reason sank under
the just presentiment of her husband's ruin. The utmost on which
Napoleon could venture was the postponement of the recall of his
troops till the spring of 1867. He urged Maximilian to abdicate
before it was too late; but the prince refused to dissociate
himself from his counsellors who still implored him to remain.
Meanwhile the Juarists pressed back towards the capital from
north and south. As the French detachments were withdrawn towards
the coast the entire country fell into their hands. The last
French soldiers quitted Mexico at the beginning of March, 1867,
and on the 15th of May, Maximilian, still lingering at Queretaro,
was made prisoner by the Republicans. He had himself while in
power ordered that the partisans of Juarez should be treated not
as soldiers but as brigands, and that when captured they should
be tried by court-martial and executed within twenty-four hours.
The same severity was applied to himself. He was sentenced to
death and shot at Queretaro on the 19th of June.</p>
<p>[Decline of Napoleon's reputation.]</p>
<p>Thus ended the attempt of Napoleon III. to establish the
influence of France and of his dynasty beyond the seas. The doom
of Maximilian excited the compassion of Europe; a deep,
irreparable wound was inflicted on the reputation of the man who
had tempted him to his treacherous throne, who had guaranteed him
protection, and at the bidding of a superior power had abandoned
him to his ruin. From this time, though the outward splendour of
the Empire was undiminished, there remained scarcely anything of
the personal prestige which Napoleon had once enjoyed in so rich
a measure. He was no longer in the eyes of Europe or of his own
country the profound, self-contained statesman in whose brain lay
the secret of coming events; he was rather the gambler whom
fortune was preparing to desert, the usurper trembling for the
future of his dynasty and his crown. Premature old age and a
harassing bodily ailment began to incapacitate him for personal
exertion. He sought to loosen the reins in which his despotism
held France, and to make a compromise with public opinion which
was now declaring against him. And although his own cooler
judgment set little store by any addition of frontier strips of
alien territory to France, and he would probably have been best
pleased to pass the remainder of his reign in undisturbed
inaction, he deemed it necessary, after failure in Mexico had
become inevitable, to seek some satisfaction in Europe for the
injured pride of his country. He entered into negotiations with
the King of Holland for the cession of Luxemburg, and had gained
his assent, when rumours of the transaction reached the North
German Press, and the project passed from out the control of
diplomatists and became an affair of rival nations.</p>
<p>[The Luxemburg question, Feb.-May, 1867.]</p>
<p>Luxemburg, which was an independent Duchy ruled by the King of
Holland, had until 1866 formed a part of the German Federation;
and although Bismarck had not attempted to include it in his own
North German Union, Prussia retained by the Treaties of 1815 a
right to garrison the fortress of Luxemburg, and its troops were
actually there in possession. The proposed transfer of the Duchy
to France excited an outburst of patriotic resentment in the
Federal Parliament at Berlin. The population of Luxemburg was
indeed not wholly German, and it had shown the strongest
disinclination to enter the North German league; but the
connection of the Duchy with Germany in the past was close enough
to explain the indignation roused by Napoleon's project among
politicians who little suspected that during the previous year
Bismarck himself had cordially recommended this annexation, and
that up to the last moment he had been privy to the Emperor's
plan. The Prussian Minister, though he did not affect to share
the emotion of his countrymen, stated that his policy in regard
to Luxemburg must be influenced by the opinion of the Federal
Parliament, and he shortly afterwards caused it to be understood
at Paris that the annexation of the Duchy to France was
impossible. As a warning to France he had already published the
Treaties of alliance between Prussia and the South German States,
which had been made at the close of the war of 1866, but had
hitherto been kept secret. <a name="FNanchor530">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_530"><sup>[530]</sup></a> Other powers now began to
tender their good offices. Count Beust, on behalf of Austria,
suggested that Luxemburg should be united to Belgium, which in
its turn should cede a small district to France. This
arrangement, which would have been accepted at Berlin, and which,
by soothing the irritation produced in France by Prussia's
successes, would possibly have averted the war of 1870, was
frustrated by the refusal of the King of Belgium to part with any
of his territory-Napoleon, disclaiming all desire for territorial
extension, now asked only for the withdrawal of the Prussian
garrison from Luxemburg; but it was known that he was determined
to enforce this demand by arms. The Russian Government proposed
that the question should be settled by a Conference of the Powers
at London. This proposal was accepted under certain conditions by
France and Prussia, and the Conference assembled on the 7th of
May. Its deliberations were completed in four days, and the
results were summed up in the Treaty of London signed on the
11th. By this Treaty the Duchy of Luxemburg was declared neutral
territory under the collective guarantee of the Powers. Prussia
withdrew its garrison, and the King of Holland, who continued to
be sovereign of the Duchy, undertook to demolish the
fortifications of Luxemburg, and to maintain it in the future as
an open town. <a name="FNanchor531">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_531"><sup>[531]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Exasperation in France against Prussia.]</p>
<p>Of the politicians of France, those who even affected to
regard the aggrandisement of Prussia and the union of Northern
Germany with indifference or satisfaction were a small minority.
Among these was the Emperor, who, after his attempts to gain a
Rhenish Province had been baffled, sought to prove in an
elaborate State-paper that France had won more than it had lost
by the extinction of the German Federation as established in
1815, and by the dissolution of the tie that had bound Austria
and Prussia together as members of this body. The events of 1866
had, he contended, broken up a system devised in evil days for
the purpose of uniting Central Europe against France, and had
restored to the Continent the freedom of alliances; in other
words, they had made it possible for the South German States to
connect themselves with France. If this illusion was really
entertained by the Emperor, it was rudely dispelled by the
discovery of the Treaties between Prussia and the Southern States
and by their publication in the spring of 1867. But this
revelation was not necessary to determine the attitude of the
great majority of those who passed for the representatives of
independent political opinion in France. The Ministers indeed
were still compelled to imitate the Emperor's optimism, and a few
enlightened men among the Opposition understood that France must
be content to see the Germans effect their national unity; but
the great body of unofficial politicians, to whatever party they
belonged, joined in the bitter outcry raised at once against the
aggressive Government of Prussia and the feeble administration at
Paris, which had not found the means to prevent, or had actually
facilitated, Prussia's successes. Thiers, who more than any one
man had by his writings popularised the Napoleonic legend and
accustomed the French to consider themselves entitled to a
monopoly of national greatness on the Rhine, was the severest
critic of the Emperor, the most zealous denouncer of the work
which Bismarck had effected. It was only with too much reason
that the Prussian Government looked forward to an attack by
France at some earlier or later time as almost certain, and
pressed forward the military organisation which was to give to
Germany an army of unheard-of efficiency and strength.</p>
<p>[France and Prussia after 1867.]</p>
<p>There appears to be no evidence that Napoleon III. himself
desired to attack Prussia so long as that Power should strictly
observe the stipulations of the Treaty of Prague which provided
for the independence of the South German States. But the current
of events irresistibly impelled Germany to unity. The very Treaty
which made the river Main the limit of the North German
Confederacy reserved for the Southern States the right of
attaching themselves to those of the North by some kind of
national tie. Unless the French Emperor was resolved to acquiesce
in the gradual development of this federal unity until, as
regarded the foreigner, the North and the South of Germany should
be a single body, he could have no confident hope of lasting
peace. To have thus anticipated and accepted the future, to have
removed once and for all the sleepless fears of Prussia by the
frank recognition of its right to give all Germany effective
Union, would have been an act too great and too wise in reality,
too weak and self-renouncing in appearance, for any chief of a
rival nation. Napoleon did not take this course; on the other
hand, not desiring to attack Prussia while it remained within the
limits of the Treaty of Prague, he refrained from seeking
alliances with the object of immediate and aggressive action. The
diplomacy of the Emperor during the period from 1866 to 1870 is
indeed still but imperfectly known; but it would appear that his
efforts were directed only to the formation of alliances with the
view of eventual action when Prussia should have passed the
limits which the Emperor himself or public opinion in Paris
should, as interpreter of the Treaty of Prague, impose upon this
Power in its dealings with the South German States.</p>
<p>[Negotiations with Austria, 1868-69.]</p>
<p>The Governments to which Napoleon could look for some degree
of support were those of Austria and Italy. Count Beust, now
Chancellor of the Austrian Monarchy, was a bitter enemy to
Prussia, and a rash and adventurous politician, to whom the very
circumstance of his sudden elevation from the petty sphere of
Saxon politics gave a certain levity and unconstraint in the
handling of great affairs. He cherished the idea of recovering
Austria's ascendency in Germany, and was disposed to repel the
extension of Russian influence westwards by boldly encouraging
the Poles to seek for the satisfaction of their national hopes in
Galicia under the Hapsburg Crown. To Count Beust France was the
most natural of all allies. On the other hand, the very system
which Beust had helped to establish in Hungary raised serious
obstacles against the adoption of his own policy.
Andr&aacute;ssy, the Hungarian Minister, while sharing Beust's
hostility to Russia, declared that his countrymen had no interest
in restoring Austria's German connection, and were in fact better
without it. In these circumstances the negotiations of the French
and the Austrian Emperor were conducted by a private
correspondence. The interchange of letters continued during the
years 1868 and 1869, and resulted in a promise made by Napoleon
to support Austria if it should be attacked by Prussia, while the
Emperor Francis Joseph promised to assist France if it should be
attacked by Prussia and Russia together. No Treaty was made, but
a general assurance was exchanged between the two Emperors that
they would pursue a common policy and treat one another's
interests as their own. With the view of forming a closer
understanding the Archduke Albrecht visited Paris in February,
1870, and a French general was sent to Vienna to arrange the plan
of campaign in case of war with Prussia. In such a war, if
undertaken by the two Powers, it was hoped that Italy would join.
<a name="FNanchor532">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_532"><sup>[532]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Italy after 1866.]</p>
<p>[Mentana, Nov. 3, 1867.]</p>
<p>The alliance of 1866 between Prussia and Italy had left behind
it in each of these States more of rancour than of good-will. La
Marmora had from the beginning to the end been unfortunate in his
relations with Berlin. He had entered into the alliance with
suspicion; he would gladly have seen Venetia given to Italy by a
European Congress without war; and when hostilities broke out, he
had disregarded and resented what he considered an attempt of the
Prussian Government to dictate to him the military measures to be
pursued. On the other hand, the Prussians charged the Italian
Government with having deliberately held back its troops after
the battle of Custozza in pursuance of arrangements made between
Napoleon and the Austrian Emperor on the voluntary cession of
Venice, and with having endangered or minimised Prussia's success
by enabling the Austrians to throw a great part of their Italian
forces northwards. There was nothing of that comradeship between
the Italian and the Prussian armies which is acquired on the
field of battle. The personal sympathies of Victor Emmanuel were
strongly on the side of the French Emperor; and when, at the
close of the year 1866, the French garrison was withdrawn from
Rome in pursuance of the convention made in September, 1864, it
seemed probable that France and Italy might soon unite in a close
alliance. But in the following year the attempts of the
Garibaldians to overthrow the Papal Government, now left without
its foreign defenders, embroiled Napoleon and the Italian people.
Napoleon was unable to defy the clerical party in France; he
adopted the language of menace in his communications with the
Italian Cabinet; and when, in the autumn of 1867, the
Garibaldians actually invaded the Roman States, he despatched a
body of French troops under General Failly to act in support of
those of the Pope. An encounter took place at Mentana on November
3rd, in which the Garibaldians, after defeating the Papal forces,
were put to the rout by General Failly. The occupation of Civita
Vecchia was renewed, and in the course of the debates raised at
Paris on the Italian policy of the Government, the Prime
Minister, M. Rouher, stated, with the most passionate emphasis
that, come what might, Italy should never possess itself of Rome.
"Never," he cried, "will France tolerate such an outrage on its
honour and its dignity." <a name="FNanchor533">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_533"><sup>[533]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Napoleon and Italy after Mentana.]</p>
<p>[Italy and Austria.]</p>
<p>The affair of Mentana, the insolent and heartless language in
which General Failly announced his success, the reoccupation of
Roman territory by French troops, and the declaration made by M.
Rouher in the French Assembly, created wide and deep anger in
Italy, and made an end for the time of all possibility of a
French alliance. Napoleon was indeed, as regarded Italy, in an
evil case. By abandoning Rome he would have turned against
himself and his dynasty the whole clerical interest in France,
whose confidence he had already to some extent forfeited by his
policy in 1860; on the other hand, it was vain for him to hope
for the friendship of Italy whilst he continued to bar the way to
the fulfilment of the universal national desire. With the view of
arriving at some compromise he proposed a European Conference on
the Roman question; but this was resisted above all by Count
Bismarck, whose interest it was to keep the sore open; and
neither England nor Russia showed any anxiety to help the Pope's
protector out of his difficulties. Napoleon sought by a
correspondence with Victor Emmanuel during 1868 and 1869 to pave
the way for a defensive alliance; but Victor Emmanuel was in
reality as well as in name a constitutional king, and probably
could not, even if he had desired, have committed Italy to
engagements disapproved by the Ministry and Parliament. It was
made clear to Napoleon that the evacuation of the Papal States
must precede any treaty of alliance between France and Italy.
Whether the Italian Government would have been content with a
return to the conditions of the September Convention, or whether
it made the actual possession of Rome the price of a
treaty-engagement, is uncertain; but inasmuch as Napoleon was not
at present prepared to evacuate Civita Vecchia, he could aim at
nothing more than some eventual concert when the existing
difficulties should have been removed. The Court of Vienna now
became the intermediary between the two Powers who had united
against it in 1859. Count Beust was free from the associations
which had made any approach to friendship with the kingdom of
Victor Emmanuel impossible for his predecessors. He entered into
negotiations at Florence, which resulted in the conclusion of an
agreement between the Austrian and the Italian Governments that
they would act together and guarantee one another's territories
in the event of a war between France and Prussia. This agreement
was made with the assent of the Emperor Napoleon, and was
understood to be preparatory to an accord with France itself; but
it was limited to a defensive character, and it implied that any
eventual concert with France must be arranged by the two Powers
in combination with one another. <a name="FNanchor534">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_534"><sup>[534]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Isolation of France.]</p>
<p>At the beginning of 1870 the Emperor Napoleon was therefore
without any more definite assurance of support in a war with
Prussia than the promise of the Austrian Sovereign that he would
assist France if attacked by Prussia and Russia together, and
that he would treat the interests of France as his own. By
withdrawing his protection from Rome Napoleon had undoubtedly a
fair chance of building up this shadowy and remote engagement
into a defensive alliance with both Austria and Italy. But
perfect clearness and resolution of purpose, as well as the
steady avoidance of all quarrels on mere incidents, were
absolutely indispensable to the creation and the employment of
such a league against the Power which alone it could have in
view; and Prussia had now little reason to fear any such exercise
of statesmanship on the part of Napoleon. The solution of the
Roman question, in other words the withdrawal of the French
garrison from Roman territory, could proceed only from some
stronger stimulus than the declining force of Napoleon's own
intelligence and will could now supply. This fatal problem
baffled his attempts to gain alliances; and yet the isolation of
France was but half acknowledged, but half understood; and a host
of rash, vainglorious spirits impatiently awaited the hour that
should call them to their revenge on Prussia for the triumphs in
which it had not permitted France to share.</p>
<p>[Germany, 1867-1870.]</p>
<p>Meanwhile on the other side Count Bismarck advanced with what
was most essential in his relations with the States of Southern
Germany-the completion of the Treaties of Alliance by conventions
assimilating the military systems of these States to that of
Prussia. A Customs-Parliament was established for the whole of
Germany, which, it was hoped, would be the precursor of a
National Assembly uniting the North and the South of the Main.
But in spite of this military and commercial approximation, the
progress towards union was neither so rapid nor so smooth as the
patriots of the North could desire. There was much in the
harshness and self-assertion of the Prussian character that
repelled the less disciplined communities of the South.
Ultramontanism was strong in Bavaria; and throughout the minor
States the most advanced of the Liberals were opposed to a closer
union with Berlin, from dislike of its absolutist traditions and
the heavy hand of its Government. Thus the tendency known as
Particularism was supported in Bavaria and W&uuml;rtemberg by
classes of the population who in most respects were in antagonism
to one another; nor could the memories of the campaign of 1866
and the old regard for Austria be obliterated in a day. Bismarck
did not unduly press on the work of consolidation. He marked and
estimated the force of the obstacles which too rapid a
development of his national policy would encounter. It is
possible that he may even have seen indications that religious
and other influences might imperil the military union which he
had already established, and that he may not have been unwilling
to call to his aid, as the surest of all preparatives for
national union, the event which he had long believed to be
inevitable at some time or other in the future, a war with
France.</p>
<p>[The Spanish candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern.]</p>
<p>[Leopold accepts the Spanish Crown, July 3, 1870.]</p>
<p>Since the autumn of 1868 the throne of Spain had been vacant
in consequence of a revolution in which General Prim had been the
leading actor. It was not easy to discover a successor for the
Bourbon Isabella; and after other candidatures had been vainly
projected it occurred to Prim and his friends early in 1869 that
a suitable candidate might be found in Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, whose elder brother had been made
Prince of Roumania, and whose father, Prince Antony, had been
Prime Minister of Prussia in 1859. The House of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was so distantly related to the reigning
family of Prussia that the name alone preserved the memory of the
connection; and in actual blood-relationship Prince Leopold was
much more nearly allied to the French Houses of Murat and
Beauharnais. But the Sigmaringen family was distinctly Prussian
by interest and association, and its chief, Antony, had not only
been at the head of the Prussian Administration himself, but had,
it is said, been the first to suggest the appointment of Bismarck
to the same office. The candidature of a Hohenzollern might
reasonably be viewed in France as an attempt to connect Prussia
politically with Spain; and with so much reserve was this
candidature at the first handled at Berlin that, in answer to
inquiries made by Benedetti in the spring of 1869, the Secretary
of State who represented Count Bismarck stated on his word of
honour that the candidature had never been suggested. The affair
was from first to last ostensibly treated at Berlin as one with
which the Prussian Government was wholly unconcerned, and in
which King William was interested only as head of the family to
which Prince Leopold belonged. For twelve months after
Benedetti's inquiries it appeared as if the project had been
entirely abandoned; it was, however, revived in the spring of
1870, and on the 3rd of July the announcement was made at Paris
that Prince Leopold had consented to accept the Crown of Spain if
the Cortes should confirm his election.</p>
<p>[French Declaration, July 6.]</p>
<p>At once there broke out in the French Press a storm of
indignation against Prussia. The organs of the Government took
the lead in exciting public opinion. On the 6th of July the Duke
of Gramont, Foreign Minister, declared to the Legislative Body
that the attempt of a Foreign Power to place one of its Princes
on the throne of Charles V. imperilled the interests and the
honour of France, and that, if such a contingency were realised,
the Government would fulfil its duty without hesitation and
without weakness. The violent and unsparing language of this
declaration, which had been drawn up at a Council of Ministers
under the Emperor's presidency, proved that the Cabinet had
determined either to humiliate Prussia or to take vengeance by
arms. It was at once seen by foreign diplomatists, who during the
preceding days had been disposed to assist in removing a
reasonable subject of complaint, how little was the chance of any
peaceable settlement after such a public challenge had been
issued to Prussia in the Emperor's name. One means of averting
war alone seemed possible, the voluntary renunciation by Prince
Leopold of the offered Crown. To obtain this renunciation became
the task of those who, unlike the French Minister of Foreign
Affairs, were anxious to preserve peace.</p>
<p>[Ollivier's Ministry.]</p>
<p>The parts that were played at this crisis by the individuals
who most influenced the Emperor Napoleon are still but
imperfectly known; but there is no doubt that from the beginning
to the end the Duke of Gramont, with short intermissions, pressed
with insane ardour for war. The Ministry now in office had been
called to their places in January, 1870, after the Emperor had
made certain changes in the constitution in a Liberal direction,
and had professed to transfer the responsibility of power from
himself to a body of advisers possessing the confidence of the
Chamber. Ollivier, formerly one of the leaders of the Opposition,
had accepted the Presidency of the Cabinet. His colleagues were
for the most part men new to official life, and little able to
hold their own against such representatives of unreformed
Imperialism as the Duke of Gramont and the War-Minister Leboeuf
who sat beside them. Ollivier himself was one of the few
politicians in France who understood that his countrymen must be
content to see German unity established whether they liked it or
not. He was entirely averse from war with Prussia on the question
which had now arisen; but the fear that public opinion would
sweep away a Liberal Ministry which hesitated to go all lengths
in patriotic extravagance led him to sacrifice his own better
judgment, and to accept the responsibility for a policy which in
his heart he disapproved. Gramont's rash hand was given free
play. Instructions were sent to Benedetti to seek the King of
Prussia at Ems, where he was taking the waters, and to demand
from him, as the only means of averting war, that he should order
the Hohenzollern Prince to revoke his acceptance of the Crown.
"We are in great haste," Gramont added, "for we must gain the
start in case of an unsatisfactory reply, and commence the
movement of troops by Saturday in order to enter upon the
campaign in a fortnight. Be on your guard against an answer
merely leaving the Prince of Hohenzollern to his fate, and
disclaiming on the part of the King any interest in his future."
<a name="FNanchor535">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_535"><sup>[535]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Benedetti and King William at Ems, July 9-14.]</p>
<p>Benedetti's first interview with the King was on the 9th of
July. He informed the King of the emotion that had been caused in
France by the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince; he dwelt on
the value to both countries of the friendly relation between
France and Prussia; and, while studiously avoiding language that
might wound or irritate the King, he explained to him the
requirements of the Government at Paris. The King had learnt
beforehand what would be the substance of Benedetti's
communication. He had probably been surprised and grieved at the
serious consequences which Prince Leopold's action had produced
in France; and although he had determined not to submit to
dictation from Paris or to order Leopold to abandon his
candidature, he had already, as it seems, taken steps likely to
render the preservation of peace more probable. At the end of a
conversation with the Ambassador, in which he asserted his
complete independence as head of the family of Hohenzollern, he
informed Benedetti that he had entered into communication with
Leopold and his father, and that he expected shortly to receive a
despatch from Sigmaringen. Benedetti rightly judged that the
King, while positively refusing to meet Gramont's demands, was
yet desirous of finding some peaceable way out of the difficulty;
and the report of this interview which he sent to Paris was
really a plea in favour of good sense and moderation. But Gramont
was little disposed to accept such counsels. "I tell you
plainly," he wrote to Benedetti on the next day, "public opinion
is on fire, and will leave us behind it. We must begin; we wait
only for your despatch to call up the three hundred thousand men
who are waiting the summons. Write, telegraph, something
definite. If the King will not counsel the Prince of Hohenzollern
to resign, well, it is immediate war, and in a few days we are on
the Rhine."</p>
<p>[Leopold withdraws, July 12.]</p>
<p>[Guarantee against renewal demanded.]</p>
<p>[Benedetti and the King, July 13.]</p>
<p>Nevertheless Benedetti's advice was not without its influence
on the Emperor and his Ministers. Napoleon, himself wavering from
hour to hour, now inclined to the peace-party, and during the
11th there was a pause in the military preparations that had been
begun. On the 12th the efforts of disinterested Governments,
probably also the suggestions of the King of Prussia himself,
produced their effects. A telegram was received at Madrid from
Prince Antony stating that his son's candidature was withdrawn. A
few hours later Ollivier announced the news in the Legislative
Chamber at Paris, and exchanged congratulations with the friends
of peace, who considered that the matter was now at an end. But
this pacific conclusion little suited either the war-party or the
Bonapartists of the old type, who grudged to a Constitutional
Ministry so substantial a diplomatic success. They at once
declared that the retirement of Prince Leopold was a secondary
matter, and that the real question was what guarantees had been
received from Prussia against a renewal of the candidature.
Gramont himself, in an interview with the Prussian Ambassador,
Baron Werther, sketched a letter which he proposed that King
William should send to the Emperor, stating that in sanctioning
the candidature of Prince Leopold he had not intended to offend
the French, and that in associating himself with the Prince's
withdrawal he desired that all misunderstandings should be at an
end between the two Governments. The despatch of Baron Werther
conveying this proposition appears to have deeply offended King
William, whom it reached about midday on the 13th. Benedetti had
that morning met the King on the promenade at Ems, and had
received from him the promise that as soon as the letter which
was still on its way from Sigmaringen should arrive he would send
for the Ambassador in order that he might communicate its
contents at Paris. The letter arrived; but Baron Werther's
despatch from Paris had arrived before it; and instead of
summoning Benedetti as he had promised, the King sent one of his
aides-de-camp to him with a message that a written communication
had been received from Prince Leopold confirming his withdrawal,
and that the matter was now at an end. Benedetti desired the
aide-de-camp to inform the King that he was compelled by his
instructions to ask for a guarantee against a renewal of the
candidature. The aide-de-camp did as he was requested, and
brought back a message that the King gave his entire approbation
to the withdrawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern, but that he
could do no more. Benedetti begged for an audience with His
Majesty. The King replied that he was compelled to decline
entering into further negotiation, and that he had said his last
word. Though the King thus refused any further discussion,
perfect courtesy was observed on both sides; and on the following
morning the King and the Ambassador, who were both leaving Ems,
took leave of one another at the railway station with the usual
marks of respect.</p>
<p>[Publication of the telegram from Ems, July 13.]</p>
<p>[War decided at Paris, July 14.]</p>
<p>That the guarantee which the French Government had resolved to
demand would not be given was now perfectly certain; yet, with
the candidature of Prince Leopold fairly extinguished, it was
still possible that the cooler heads at Paris might carry the
day, and that the Government would stop short of declaring war on
a point on which the unanimous judgment of the other Powers
declared it to be in the wrong. But Count Bismarck was determined
not to let the French escape lightly from the quarrel. He had to
do with an enemy who by his own folly had come to the brink of an
aggressive war, and, far from facilitating his retreat, it was
Bismarck's policy to lure him over the precipice. Not many hours
after the last message had passed between King William and
Benedetti, a telegram was officially published at Berlin,
stating, in terms so brief as to convey the impression of an
actual insult, that the King had refused to see the French
Ambassador, and had informed him by an aide-de-camp that he had
nothing more to communicate to him. This telegram was sent to the
representatives of Prussia at most of the European Courts, and to
its agents in every German capital. Narratives instantly gained
currency, and were not contradicted by the Prussian Government,
that Benedetti had forced himself upon the King on the promenade
at Ems, and that in the presence of a large company the King had
turned his back upon the Ambassador. The publication of the
alleged telegram from Ems became known in Paris on the 14th. On
that day the Council of Ministers met three times. At the first
meeting the advocates of peace were still in the majority; in the
afternoon, as the news from Berlin and the fictions describing
the insult offered to the French Ambassador spread abroad, the
agitation in Paris deepened, and the Council decided upon calling
up the Reserves; yet the Emperor himself seemed still disposed
for peace. It was in the interval between the second and the
third meeting of the Council, between the hours of six and ten in
the evening, that Napoleon finally gave way before the threats
and importunities of the war-party. The Empress, fanatically
anxious for the overthrow of a great Protestant Power,
passionately eager for the military glory which alone could
insure the Crown to her son, won the triumph which she was so
bitterly to rue. At the third meeting of the Council, held
shortly before midnight, the vote was given for war.</p>
<p>In Germany this decision had been expected; yet it made a deep
impression not only on the German people but on Europe at large
that, when the declaration of war was submitted to the French
Legislative Body in the form of a demand for supplies, no single
voice was raised to condemn the war for its criminality and
injustice: the arguments which were urged against it by M. Thiers
and others were that the Government had fixed upon a bad cause,
and that the occasion was inopportune. Whether the majority of
the Assembly really desired war is even now matter of doubt. But
the clamour of a hundred madmen within its walls, the ravings of
journalists and incendiaries, who at such a time are to the true
expression of public opinion what the Spanish Inquisition was to
the Christian religion, paralysed the will and the understanding
of less infatuated men. Ten votes alone were given in the
Assembly against the grant demanded for war; to Europe at large
it went out that the crime and the madness was that of France as
a nation. Yet Ollivier and many of his colleagues up to the last
moment disapproved of the war, and consented to it only because
they believed that the nation would otherwise rush into
hostilities under a reactionary Ministry who would serve France
worse than themselves. They found when it was too late that the
supposed national impulse, which they had thought irresistible,
was but the outcry of a noisy minority. The reports of their own
officers informed them that in sixteen alone out of the
eighty-seven Departments of France was the war popular. In the
other seventy-one it was accepted either with hesitation or
regret. <a name="FNanchor536">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_536"><sup>[536]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Initial forces of either side.]</p>
<p>[Expected Alliances of France.]</p>
<p>[Austria preparing.]</p>
<p>How vast were the forces which the North German Confederation
could bring into the field was well known to Napoleon's
Government. Benedetti had kept his employers thoroughly informed
of the progress of the North German military organisation; he had
warned them that the South German States would most certainly act
with the North against a foreign assailant; he had described with
great accuracy and great penetration the nature of the tie that
existed between Berlin and St. Petersburg, a tie which was close
enough to secure for Prussia the goodwill, and in certain
contingencies the armed support, of Russia, while it was loose
enough not to involve Prussia in any Muscovite enterprise that
would bring upon it the hostility of England and Austria. The
utmost force which the French military administration reckoned on
placing in the field at the beginning of the campaign was two
hundred and fifty thousand men, to be raised at the end of three
weeks by about fifty thousand more. The Prussians, even without
reckoning on any assistance from Southern Germany, and after
allowing for three army-corps that might be needed to watch
Austria and Denmark, could begin the campaign with three hundred
and thirty thousand. Army to army, the French thus stood
according to the reckoning of their own War Office outnumbered at
the outset; but Leboeuf, the War-Minister, imagined that the
Foreign Office had made sure of alliances, and that a great part
of the Prussian Army would not be free to act on the western
frontier. Napoleon had in fact pushed forward his negotiations
with Austria and Italy from the time that war became imminent.
Count Beust, while clearly laying it down that Austria was not
bound to follow France into a war made at its own pleasure,
nevertheless felt some anxiety lest France and Prussia should
settle their differences at Austria's expense; moreover from the
victory of Napoleon, assisted in any degree by himself, he could
fairly hope for the restoration of Austria's ascendency in
Germany and the undoing of the work of 1866. It was determined at
a Council held at Vienna on the 18th of July that Austria should
for the present be neutral if Russia should not enter the war on
the side of Prussia; but this neutrality was nothing more than a
stage towards alliance with France if at the end of a certain
brief period the army of Napoleon should have penetrated into
Southern Germany. In a private despatch to the Austrian
Ambassador at Paris Count Beust pointed out that the immediate
participation of Austria in the war would bring Russia into the
field on King William's side. "To keep Russia neutral," he wrote,
"till the season is sufficiently advanced to prevent the
concentration of its troops must be at present our object; but
this neutrality is nothing more than a means for arriving at the
real end of our policy, the only means for completing our
preparations without exposing ourselves to premature attack by
Prussia or Russia." He added that Austria had already entered
into a negotiation with Italy with a view to the armed mediation
of the two Powers, and strongly recommended the Emperor to place
the Italians in possession of Rome. <a name="FNanchor537">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_537"><sup>[537]</sup></a></p>
<p>[France, Austria, and Italy.]</p>
<p>Negotiations were now pressed forward between Paris, Florence,
and Vienna, for the conclusion of a triple alliance. Of the
course taken by these negotiations contradictory accounts are
given by the persons concerned in them. According to Prince
Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel demanded possession of Rome and this
was refused to him by the French Emperor, in consequence of which
the project of alliance failed. According to the Duke of Gramont,
no more was demanded by Italy than the return to the conditions
of the September Convention; this was agreed to by the Emperor,
and it was in pursuance of this agreement that the Papal States
were evacuated by their French garrison on the 2nd of August.
Throughout the last fortnight of July, after war had actually
been declared, there was, if the statement of Gramont is to be
trusted, a continuous interchange of notes, projects, and
telegrams between the three Governments. The difficulties raised
by Italy and Austria were speedily removed, and though some weeks
were needed by these Powers for their military preparations,
Napoleon was definitely assured of their armed support in case of
his preliminary success. It was agreed that Austria and Italy,
assuming at the first the position of armed neutrality, should
jointly present an ultimatum to Prussia in September demanding
the exact performance of the Treaty of Prague, and, failing its
compliance with this summons in the sense understood by its
enemies, that the two Powers would immediately declare war, their
armies taking the field at latest on the 15th of September. That
Russia would in that case assist Prussia was well known; but it
would seem that Count Beust feared little from his northern enemy
in an autumn campaign. The draft of the Treaty between Italy and
Austria had actually, according to Gramont's statement, been
accepted by the two latter Powers, and received its last
amendments in a negotiation between the Emperor Napoleon and an
Italian envoy, Count Vimercati, at Metz. Vimercati reached
Florence with the amended draft on the 4th of August, and it was
expected that the Treaty would be signed on the following day.
When that day came it saw the forces of the French Empire dashed
to <a name="FNanchor538">pieces.</a><a href=
"#Footnote_538"><sup>[538]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Prussian Plans.]</p>
<p>Preparations for a war with France had long occupied the
general staff at Berlin. Before the winter of 1868 a memoir had
been drawn up by General Moltke, containing plans for the
concentration of the whole of the German forces, for the
formation of each of the armies to be employed, and the positions
to be occupied at the outset by each corps. On the basis of this
memoir the arrangements for the transport of each corps from its
depot to the frontier had subsequently been worked out in such
minute detail that when, on the 16th of July, King William gave
the order for mobilisation, nothing remained but to insert in the
railway time-tables and marching-orders the day on which the
movement was to commence. This minuteness of detail extended,
however, only to that part of Moltke's plan which related to the
assembling and first placing of the troops. The events of the
campaign could not thus be arranged and tabulated beforehand;
only the general object and design could be laid down. That the
French would throw themselves with great rapidity upon Southern
Germany was considered probable. The armies of Baden,
W&uuml;rtemberg, and Bavaria were too weak, the military centres
of the North were too far distant, for effective resistance to be
made in this quarter to the first blows of the invader. Moltke
therefore recommended that the Southern troops should withdraw
from their own States and move northwards to join those of
Prussia in the Palatinate or on the Middle Rhine, so that the
entire forces of Germany should be thrown upon the flank or rear
of the invader; while, in the event of the French not thus taking
the offensive, France itself was to be invaded by the collective
strength of Germany along the line from Saarbr&uuml;cken to
Landau, and its armies were to be cut off from their
communications with Paris by vigorous movements of the invader in
a northerly direction. <a name="FNanchor539">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_539"><sup>[539]</sup></a></p>
<p>[German mobilisation.]</p>
<p>The military organisation of Germany is based on the division
of the country into districts, each of which furnishes at its own
dep&ocirc;t a small but complete army. The nucleus of each such
corps exists in time of peace, with its own independent
artillery, stores, and material of war. On the order for
mobilisation being given, every man liable to military service,
but not actually serving, joins the regiment to which he locally
belongs, and in a given number of days each corps is ready to
take the field in full strength. The completion of each corps at
its own dep&ocirc;t is the first stage in the preparation for a
campaign. Not till this is effected does the movement of troops
towards the frontier begin. The time necessary for the first act
of preparation was, like that to be occupied in transport,
accurately determined by the Prussian War Office. It resulted
from General Moltke's calculations that, the order of
mobilisation having been given on the 16th of July, the entire
army with which it was intended to begin the campaign would be
collected and in position ready to cross the frontier on the 4th
of August, if the French should not have taken up the offensive
before that day. But as it was apprehended that part at least of
the French army would be thrown into Germany before that date,
the westward movement of the German troops stopped short at a
considerable distance from the border, in order that the troops
first arriving might not be exposed to the attack of a superior
force before their supports should be at hand. On the actual
frontier there was placed only the handful of men required for
reconnoitring, and for checking the enemy during the few hours
that would be necessary to guard against the effect of a
surprise.</p>
<p>[The French Army.]</p>
<p>The French Emperor was aware of the numerical inferiority of
his army to that of Prussia; he hoped, however, by extreme
rapidity of movement to penetrate Southern Germany before the
Prussian army could assemble, and so, while forcing the Southern
Governments to neutrality, to meet on the Upper Danube the
assisting forces of Italy and Austria. It was his design to
concentrate a hundred and fifty thousand men at Metz, a hundred
thousand at Strasburg, and with these armies united to cross the
Rhine into Baden; while a third army, which was to assemble at
Ch&acirc;lons, protected the north-eastern frontier against an
advance of the Prussians. A few days after the declaration of
war, while the German corps were still at their depots in the
interior, considerable forces were massed round Metz and
Strasburg. All Europe listened for the rush of the invader and
the first swift notes of triumph from a French army beyond the
Rhine; but week after week passed, and the silence was still
unbroken. Stories, incredible to those who first heard them, yet
perfectly true, reached the German frontier-stations of actual
famine at the advanced posts of the enemy, and of French soldiers
made prisoners while digging in potato-fields to keep themselves
alive. That Napoleon was less ready than had been anticipated
became clear to all the world; but none yet imagined the
revelations which each successive day was bringing at the
headquarters of the French armies. Absence of whole regiments
that figured in the official order of battle, defective
transport, stores missing or congested, made it impossible even
to attempt the inroad into Southern Germany within the date up to
which it had any prospect of success. The design was abandoned,
yet not in time to prevent the troops that were hurrying from the
interior from being sent backwards and forwards according as the
authorities had, or had not, heard of the change of plan.
Napoleon saw that a Prussian force was gathering on the Middle
Rhine which it would be madness to leave on his flank; he ordered
his own commanders to operate on the corresponding line of the
Lauter and the Saar, and despatched isolated divisions to the
very frontier, still uncertain whether even in this direction he
would be able to act on the offensive, or whether nothing now
remained to him but to resist the invasion of France by a
superior enemy. Ollivier had stated in the Assembly that he and
his colleagues entered upon the war with a light heart; he might
have added that they entered upon it with bandaged eyes. The
Ministers seem actually not to have taken the trouble to exchange
explanations with one another. Leboeuf, the War-Minister, had
taken it for granted that Gramont had made arrangements with
Austria which would compel the Prussians to keep a large part of
their forces in the interior. Gramont, in forcing on the quarrel
with Prussia, and in his negotiations with Austria, had taken it
for granted that Leboeuf could win a series of victories at the
outset in Southern Germany. The Emperor, to whom alone the entire
data of the military and the diplomatic services of France were
open, was incapable of exertion or scrutiny, purposeless,
distracted with pain, half-imbecile.</p>
<p>[Causes of French military inferiority.]</p>
<p>That the Imperial military administration was rotten to the
core the terrible events of the next few weeks sufficiently
showed. Men were in high place whose antecedents would have
shamed the better kind of brigand. The deficiencies of the army
were made worse by the diversion of public funds to private
necessities; the looseness, the vulgar splendour, the base
standards of judgment of the Imperial Court infected each branch
of the public services of France, and worked perhaps not least on
those who were in military command. But the catastrophe of 1870
seemed to those who witnessed it to tell of more than the
vileness of an administration; in England, not less than in
Germany, voices of influence spoke of the doom that had overtaken
the depravity of a sunken nation; of the triumph of simple
manliness, of Godfearing virtue itself, in the victories of the
German army. There may have been truth in this; yet it would
require a nice moral discernment to appraise the exact degeneracy
of the French of 1870 from the French of 1854 who humbled Russia,
or from the French of 1859 who triumphed at Solferino; and it
would need a very comprehensive acquaintance with the lower forms
of human pleasure to judge in what degree the sinfulness of Paris
exceeds the sinfulness of Berlin. Had the French been as strict a
race as the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae, as devout as the
Tyrolese who perished at K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, it is quite
certain that, with the numbers which took the field against
Germany in 1870, with Napoleon III. at the head of affairs, and
the actual generals of 1870 in command, the armies of France
could not have escaped destruction.</p>
<p>[Cause of German Success.]</p>
<p>The main cause of the disparity of France and Germany in 1870
was in truth that Prussia had had from 1862 to 1866 a Government
so strong as to be able to force upon its subjects its own
gigantic scheme of military organisation in defiance of the votes
of Parliament and of the national will. In 1866 Prussia, with a
population of nineteen millions, brought actually into the field
three hundred and fifty thousand men, or one in fifty-four of its
inhabitants. There was no other government in Europe, with the
possible exception of Russia, which could have imposed upon its
subjects, without risking its own existence, so vast a burden of
military service as that implied in this strength of the fighting
army. Napoleon III. at the height of his power could not have
done so; and when after K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz he endeavoured to
raise the forces of France to an equality with those of the rival
Power by a system which would have brought about one in seventy
of the population into the field, his own nominees in the
Legislative Body, under pressure of public opinion, so weakened
the scheme that the effective numbers of the army remained little
more than they were before. The true parallel to the German
victories of 1870 is to be found in the victories of the French
Committee of Public Safety in 1794 and in those of the first
Napoleon. A government so powerful as to bend the entire
resources of the State to military ends will, whether it is one
of democracy run mad, or of a crowned soldier of fortune, or of
an ancient monarchy throwing new vigour into its traditional
system and policy, crush in the moment of impact communities of
equal or greater resources in which a variety of rival influences
limit and control the central power and subordinate military to
other interests. It was so in the triumphs of the Reign of Terror
over the First Coalition; it was so in the triumphs of King
William over Austria and France. But the parallel between the
founders of German unity and the organisers of victory after 1793
extends no farther than to the sources of their success.
Aggression and adventure have not been the sequels of the war of
1870. The vast armaments of Prussia were created in order to
establish German union under the House of Hohenzollern, and they
have been employed for no other object. It is the triumph of
statesmanship, and it has been the glory of Prince Bismarck,
after thus reaping the fruit of a well-timed homage to the God of
Battles, to know how to quit his shrine.</p>
<p>[The frontier, Aug. 2.]</p>
<p>[Saarbr&uuml;cken, Aug 2.]</p>
<p>[Weissenburg, Aug 4.]</p>
<p>[Battle of W&ouml;rth, Aug. 6.]</p>
<p>At the end of July, twelve days after the formal declaration
of war, the gathering forces of the Germans, over three hundred
and eighty thousand strong, were still some distance behind the
Lauter and the Saar. Napoleon, apparently without any clear
design, had placed certain bodies of troops actually on the
frontier at Forbach, Weissenburg, and elsewhere, while other
troops, raising the whole number to about two hundred and fifty
thousand, lay round Metz and Strasburg, and at points between
these and the most advanced positions. The reconnoitring of the
small German detachments on the frontier was conducted with
extreme energy: the French appear to have made no reconnaissances
at all, for when they determined at last to discover what was
facing them at Saarbr&uuml;cken, they advanced with twenty-five
thousand men against one-tenth of that number. On the 2nd of
August Frossard's corps from Forbach moved upon Saarbr&uuml;cken
with the Emperor in person. The garrison was driven out, and the
town bombarded, but even now the reconnaissance was not continued
beyond the bridge across the Saar which divides the two parts of
the town. Forty-eight hours later the alignment of the German
forces in their invading order was completed, and all was ready
for an offensive campaign. The central army, commanded by Prince
Frederick Charles, spreading east and west behind
Saarbr&uuml;cken, touched on its right the northern army
commanded by General Steinmetz, on its left the southern army
commanded by the Crown Prince, which covered the frontier of the
Palatinate, and included the troops of Bavaria and
W&uuml;rtemberg. The general direction of the three armies was
thus from northwest to south-east. As the line of invasion was to
be nearly due west, it was necessary that the first step forwards
should be made by the army of the Crown Prince in order to bring
it more nearly to a level with the northern corps in the march
into France. On the 4th of August the Crown Prince crossed the
Alsatian frontier and moved against Weissenburg. The French
General Douay, who was posted here with about twelve thousand
men, was neither reinforced nor bidden to retire. His troops met
the attack of an enemy many times more numerous with great
courage; but the struggle was a hopeless one, and after several
hours of severe fighting the Germans were masters of the field.
Douay fell in the battle; his troops frustrated an attempt made
to cut off their retreat, and fell back southwards towards the
corps of McMahon, which lay about ten miles behind them. The
Crown Prince marched on in search of his enemy, McMahon, who
could collect only forty-five thousand men, desired to retreat
until he could gain some support; but the Emperor, tormented by
fears of the political consequences of the invasion, insisted
upon his giving battle. He drew up on the hills about W&ouml;rth,
almost on the spot where in 1793 Hoche had overthrown the armies
of the First Coalition. On the 6th of August the leading
divisions of the Crown Prince, about a hundred thousand strong,
were within striking distance. The superiority of the Germans in
numbers was so great that McMahon's army might apparently have
been captured or destroyed with far less loss than actually took
place if time had been given for the movements which the Crown
Prince's staff had in view, and for the employment of his full
strength. But the impetuosity of divisional leaders on the
morning of the 6th brought on a general engagement. The
resistance of the French was of the most determined character.
With one more army-corps-and the corps of General Failly was
expected to arrive on the field-it seemed as if the Germans might
yet be beaten back. But each hour brought additional forces into
action in the attack, while the French commander looked in vain
for the reinforcements that could save him from ruin. At length,
when the last desperate charges of the Cuirassiers had shattered
against the fire of cannon and needle-guns, and the village of
Froschwiller, the centre of the French position, had been stormed
house by house, the entire army broke and fled in disorder. Nine
thousand prisoners, thirty-three cannon, fell into the hands of
the conquerors. The Germans had lost ten thousand men, but they
had utterly destroyed McMahon's army as an organised force. Its
remnant disappeared from the scene of warfare, escaping by the
western roads in the direction of Ch&acirc;lons, where first it
was restored to some degree of order. The Crown Prince, leaving
troops behind him to beleaguer the smaller Alsatian fortresses,
marched on untroubled through the northern Vosges, and descended
into the open country about Lun&eacute;ville and Nancy,
unfortified towns which could offer no resistance to the passage
of an enemy.</p>
<p>[Spicheren, Aug. 6.]</p>
<p>On the same day that the battle of W&ouml;rth was fought, the
leading columns of the armies of Steinmetz and Prince Frederick
Charles crossed the frontier at Saarbr&uuml;cken. Frossard's
corps, on the news of the defeat at Weissenburg, had withdrawn to
its earlier positions between Forbach and the frontier: it held
the steep hills of Spicheren that look down upon
Saarbr&uuml;cken, and the woods that flank the high road where
this passes from Germany into France. As at W&ouml;rth, it was
not intended that any general attack should be made on the 6th; a
delay of twenty-four hours would have enabled the Germans to
envelop or crush Frossard's corps with an overwhelming force. But
the leaders of the foremost regiments threw themselves
impatiently upon the French whom they found before them: other
brigades hurried up to the sound of the cannon, until the
struggle took the proportion of a battle, and after hours of
fluctuating success the heights of Spicheren were carried by
successive rushes of the infantry full in the enemy's fire. Why
Frossard was not reinforced has never been explained, for several
French divisions lay at no great distance westward, and the
position was so strong that, if a pitched battle was to be fought
anywhere east of Metz, few better points could have been chosen.
But, like Douay at Weissenburg, Frossard was left to struggle
alone against whatever forces the Germans might throw upon him.
Napoleon, who directed the operations of the French armies from
Metz, appears to have been now incapable of appreciating the
simplest military necessities, of guarding against the most
obvious dangers. Helplessness, infatuation ruled the miserable
hours.</p>
<p>[Paris after Aug. 6.]</p>
<p>The impression made upon Europe by the battles of the 6th of
August corresponded to the greatness of their actual military
effects. There was an end to all thoughts of the alliance of
Austria and Italy with France. Germany, though unaware of the
full magnitude of the perils from which it had escaped, breathed
freely after weeks of painful suspense; the very circumstance
that the disproportion of numbers on the battle-field of
W&ouml;rth was still unknown heightened the joy and confidence
produced by the Crown Prince's victory, a victory in which the
South German troops, fighting by the side of those who had been
their foes in 1866, had borne their full part. In Paris the
consternation with which the news of McMahon's overthrow was
received was all the greater that on the previous day reports had
been circulated of a victory won at Landau and of the capture of
the Crown Prince with his army. The bulletin of the Emperor,
briefly narrating McMahon's defeat and the repulse of Frossard,
showed in its concluding words-"All may yet be retrieved"-how
profound was the change made in the prospects of the war by that
fatal day. The truth was at once apprehended. A storm of
indignation broke out against the Imperial Government at Paris.
The Chambers were summoned. Ollivier, attacked alike by the
extreme Bonapartists and by the Opposition, laid down his office.
A reactionary Ministry, headed by the Count of Palikao, was
placed in power by the Empress, a Ministry of the last hour as it
was justly styled by all outside it. Levies were ordered, arms
and stores accumulated for the reserve-forces, preparations made
for a siege of Paris itself. On the 12th the Emperor gave up the
command which he had exercised with such miserable results, and
appointed Marshal Bazaine, one of the heroes of the Mexican
Expedition, General-in-Chief of the Army of the Rhine.</p>
<p>[Napoleon at Metz. Aug. 7-11.]</p>
<p>[Borny, Aug 14.]</p>
<p>After the overthrow of McMahon and the victory of the Germans
at Spicheren, there seems to have been a period of utter
paralysis in the French headquarters at Metz. The divisions of
Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz did not immediately press
forward; it was necessary to allow some days for the advance of
the Crown Prince through the Vosges; and during these days the
French army about Metz, which, when concentrated, numbered nearly
two hundred thousand men, might well have taken the positions
necessary for the defence of Moselle, or in the alternative might
have gained several marches in the retreat towards Verdun and
Ch&acirc;lons. Only a small part of this body had as yet been
exposed to defeat. It included in it the very flower of the
French forces, tens of thousands of troops probably equal to any
in Europe, and capable of forming a most formidable army if
united to the reserves which would shortly be collected at
Ch&acirc;lons or nearer Paris. But from the 7th to the 12th of
August Napoleon, too cowed to take the necessary steps for battle
in defence of the line of Moselle, lingered purposeless a id
irresolute at Metz, unwilling to fall back from this fortress. It
was not till the 14th that the retreat was begun. By this time
the Germans were close at hand, and their leaders were little
disposed to let the hesitating enemy escape them. While the
leading divisions of the French were crossing the Moselle,
Steinmetz hurried forward his troops and fell upon the French
detachments still lying on the south-east of Metz about Borny and
Courcelles. Bazaine suspended his movement of retreat in order to
beat back an assailant who for once seemed to be inferior in
strength. At the close of the day the French commander believed
that he had gained a victory and driven the Germans off their
line of advance; in reality he had allowed himself to be diverted
from the passage of the Moselle at the last hour, while the
Germans left under Prince Frederick Charles gained the river
farther south, and actually began to cross it in order to bar his
retreat.</p>
<p>[Mars-la-Tour, Aug. 15.]</p>
<p>From Metz westwards there is as far as the village of
Gravelotte, which is seven miles distant, but one direct road; at
Gravelotte the road forks, the southern arm leading towards
Verdun by Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, the northern by Conflans.
During the 15th of August the first of Bazaine's divisions moved
as far as Vionville along the southern road; others came into the
neighbourhood of Gravelotte, but two corps which should have
advanced past Gravelotte on to the northern road still lay close
to Metz. The Prussian vanguard was meanwhile crossing the Moselle
southwards from Noveant to Pont-a-Mousson, and hurrying forwards
by lines converging on the road taken by Bazaine. Down to the
evening of the 15th it was not supposed at the Prussian
headquarters that Bazaine could be overtaken and brought to
battle nearer than the line of the Meuse; but on the morning of
the 16th the cavalry-detachments which had pushed farthest to the
north-west discovered that the heads of the French columns had
still not passed Mars-la-Tour. An effort was instantly made to
seize the road and block the way before the enemy. The struggle,
begun by a handful of combatants on each side, drew to it
regiment after regiment as the French battalions close at hand
came into action, and the Prussians hurried up in wild haste to
support their comrades who were exposed to the attack of an
entire army. The rapidity with which the Prussian generals
grasped the situation before them, the vigour with which they
brought up their cavalry over a distance which no infantry could
traverse in the necessary time, and without a moment's hesitation
hurled this cavalry in charge after charge against a superior
foe, mark the battle of Mars-la-Tour as that in which the
military superiority of the Germans was most truly shown. Numbers
in this battle had little to do with the result, for by better
generalship Bazaine could certainly at any one point have
overpowered his enemy. But while the Germans rushed like a
torrent upon the true point of attack-that is the
westernmost-Bazaine by some delusion considered it his primary
object to prevent the Germans from thrusting themselves between
the retreating army and Metz, and so kept a great part of his
troops inactive about the fortress. The result was that the
Germans, with a loss of sixteen thousand men, remained at the
close of the day masters of the road at Vionville, and that the
French army could not, without winning a victory and breaking
through the enemy's line, resume its retreat along this line.</p>
<p>[Gravelotte, Aug. 18.]</p>
<p>It was expected during the 17th that Bazaine would make some
attempt to escape by the northern road, but instead of doing so
he fell back on Gravelotte and the heights between this and Metz,
in order to fight a pitched battle. The position was a
well-chosen one; but by midday on the 18th the armies of
Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles were ranged in front of
Bazaine with a strength of two hundred and fifty thousand men,
and in the judgment of the King these forces were equal to the
attack. Again, as at W&ouml;rth, the precipitancy of divisional
commanders caused the sacrifice of whole brigades before the
battle was won. While the Saxon corps with which Moltke intended
to deliver his slow but fatal blow upon the enemy's right flank
was engaged in its long northward d&eacute;tour, Steinmetz pushed
his Rhinelanders past the ravine of Gravelotte into a fire where
no human being could survive, and the Guards, pressing forward in
column over the smooth unsheltered slope from St. Marie to St.
Privat, sank by thousands without reaching midway in their
course. Until the final blow was dealt by the Saxon corps from
the north flank, the ground which was won by the Prussians was
won principally by their destructive artillery fire: their
infantry attacks had on the whole been repelled, and at
Gravelotte itself it had seemed for a moment as if the French
were about to break the assailant's line. But Bazaine, as on the
16th, steadily kept his reserves at a distance from the points
where their presence was most required, and, according to his own
account, succeeded in bringing into action no more than a hundred
thousand men, or less than two-thirds of the forces under his
command. <a name="FNanchor540">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_540"><sup>[540]</sup></a> At the close of the awful
day, when the capture of St. Privat by the Saxons turned the
defender's line, the French abandoned all their positions and
drew back within the defences of Metz.</p>
<p>[McMahon is compelled to attempt Bazaine's relief.]</p>
<p>The Germans at once proceeded to block all the roads round the
fortress, and Bazaine made no effort to prevent them. At the end
of a few days the line was drawn around him in sufficient
strength to resist any sudden attack. Steinmetz, who was
responsible for a great part of the loss sustained at Gravelotte,
was now removed from his command; his army was united with that
under Prince Frederick Charles as the besieging force, while
sixty thousand men, detached from this great mass, were formed
into a separate army under Prince Albert of Saxony, and sent by
way of Verdun to co-operate with the Crown Prince against
McMahon. The Government at Paris knew but imperfectly what was
passing around Metz from day to day; it knew, however, that if
Metz should be given up for lost the hour of its own fall could
not be averted. One forlorn hope remained, to throw the army
which McMahon was gathering at Ch&acirc;lons north-eastward to
Bazaine's relief, though the Crown Prince stood between
Ch&acirc;lons and Metz, and could reach every point in the line
of march more rapidly than McMahon himself. Napoleon had quitted
Metz on the evening of the 15th; on the 17th a council of war was
held at Ch&acirc;lons, at which it was determined to fall back
upon Paris and to await the attack of the Crown Prince under the
forts of the capital. No sooner was this decision announced to
the Government at Paris than the Empress telegraphed to her
husband warning him to consider what would be the effects of his
return, and insisting that an attempt should be made to relieve
Bazaine. <a name="FNanchor541">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_541"><sup>[541]</sup></a> McMahon, against his own
better judgment, consented to the northern march. He moved in the
first instance to Rheims in order to conceal his intention from
the enemy, but by doing this he lost some days. On the 23rd, in
pursuance of arrangements made with Bazaine, whose messengers
were still able to escape the Prussian watch, he set out
north-eastwards in the direction of Montm&eacute;dy.</p>
<p>[German movement northwards, Aug 26.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Sedan, Sept. 1.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Sedan, Sept. 2.]</p>
<p>The movement was discovered by the Prussian cavalry and
reported at the headquarters at Bar-le-Duc on the 25th. Instantly
the westward march of the Crown Prince was arrested, and his
army, with that of the Prince of Saxony, was thrown northwards in
forced marches towards Sedan. On reaching Le Chesne, west of the
Meuse, on the 27th, McMahon became aware of the enemy's presence.
He saw that his plan was discovered, and resolved to retreat
westwards before it was too late. The Emperor, who had attached
himself to the army, consented, but again the Government at Paris
interfered with fatal effect. More anxious for the safety of the
dynasty than for the existence of the army, the Empress and her
advisers insisted that McMahon should continue his advance.
Napoleon seems now to have abdicated all authority and thrown to
the winds all responsibility. He allowed the march to be resumed
in the direction of Mouzon and Stenay. Failly's corps, which
formed the right wing, was attacked on the 29th before it could
reach the passage of the Meuse at the latter place, and was
driven northwards to Beaumont. Here the commander strangely
imagined himself to be in security. He was surprised in his camp
on the following day, defeated, and driven northwards towards
Mouzon. Meanwhile the left of McMahon's army had crossed the
Meuse and moved eastwards to Carignan, so that his troops were
severed by the river and at some distance from one another. Part
of Failly's men were made prisoners in the struggle on the south,
or dispersed on the west of the Meuse; the remainder, with their
commander, made a hurried and disorderly escape beyond the river,
and neglected to break down the bridges by which they had passed.
McMahon saw that if the advance was continued his divisions would
one after another fall into the enemy's hands. He recalled the
troops which had reached Carignan, and concentrated his army
about Sedan to fight a pitched battle. The passages of the Meuse
above and below Sedan were seized by the Germans. Two hundred and
forty thousand men were at Moltke's disposal; McMahon had about
half that number. The task of the Germans was not so much to
defeat the enemy as to prevent them from escaping to the Belgian
frontier. On the morning of September 1st, while on the east of
Sedan the Bavarians after a desperate resistance stormed the
village of Bazeilles, Hessian and Prussian regiments crossed the
Meuse at Donch&eacute;ry several miles to the west. From either
end of this line corps after corps now pushed northwards round
the French positions, driving in the enemy wherever they found
them, and, converging under the eyes of the Prussian King, his
general, and his Minister, each into its place in the arc of fire
before which the French Empire was to perish. The movement was as
admirably executed as designed. The French fought furiously but
in vain: the mere mass of the enemy, the mere narrowing of the
once completed circle, crushed down resistance without the clumsy
havoc of Gravelotte. From point after point the defenders were
forced back within Sedan itself. The streets were choked with
hordes of beaten infantry and cavalry; the Germans had but to
take one more step forward and the whole of their batteries would
command the town. Towards evening there was a pause in the
firing, in order that the French might offer negotiations for
surrender; but no sign of surrender was made, and the Bavarian
cannon resumed their fire, throwing shells into the town itself.
Napoleon now caused a white flag to be displayed on the fortress,
and sent a letter to the King of Prussia, stating that as he had
not been able to die in the midst of his troops, nothing remained
for him but to surrender his sword into the hands of his Majesty.
The surrender was accepted by King William, who added that
General Moltke would act on his behalf in arranging terms of
capitulation. General Wimpffen, who had succeeded to the command
of the French army on the disablement of McMahon by a wound,
acted on behalf of Napoleon. The negotiations continued till late
in the night, the French general pressing for permission for his
troops to be disarmed in Belgium, while Moltke insisted on the
surrender of the entire army as prisoners of war. Fearing the
effect of an appeal by Napoleon himself to the King's kindly
nature, Bismarck had taken steps to remove his sovereign to a
distance until the terms of surrender should be signed. At
daybreak on September 2nd Napoleon sought the Prussian
headquarters. He was met on the road by Bismarck, who remained in
conversation with him till the capitulation was completed on the
terms required by the Germans. He then conducted Napoleon to the
neighbouring ch&acirc;teau of Bellevue, where King William, the
Crown Prince, and the Prince of Saxony visited him. One pang had
still to be borne by the unhappy man. Down to his interview with
the King, Napoleon had imagined that all the German armies
together had operated against him at Sedan, and he must
consequently have still had some hope that his own ruin might
have purchased the deliverance of Bazaine. He learnt accidentally
from the King that Prince Frederick Charles had never stirred
from before Metz. A convulsion of anguish passed over his face:
his eyes filled with tears. There was no motive for a prolonged
interview between the conqueror and the conquered, for, as a
prisoner, Napoleon could not discuss conditions of peace. After
some minutes of conversation the King departed for the Prussian
headquarters. Napoleon remained in the ch&acirc;teau until the
morning of the next day, and then began his journey towards the
place chosen for his captivity, the palace of Wilhelmsh&ouml;he
at Cassel. <a name="FNanchor542">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_542"><sup>[542]</sup></a></p>
<p>[The Republic Proclaimed, Sept. 4.]</p>
<p>[Circular of Jules Favre, Sept. 6.]</p>
<p>Rumours of disaster had reached Paris in the last days of
August, but to each successive report of evil the Government
replied with lying boasts of success, until on the 3rd of
September it was forced to announce a catastrophe far surpassing
the worst anticipations of the previous days. With the Emperor
and his entire army in the enemy's hands, no one supposed that
the dynasty could any longer remain on the throne: the only
question was by what form of government the Empire should be
succeeded. The Legislative Chamber assembled in the dead of
night; Jules Favre proposed the deposition of the Emperor, and
was heard in silence. The Assembly adjourned for some hours. On
the morning of the 4th, Thiers, who sought to keep the way open
for an Orleanist restoration, moved that a Committee of
Government should be appointed by the Chamber itself, and that
elections to a new Assembly should be held as soon as
circumstances should permit. Before this and other propositions
of the same nature could be put to the vote, the Chamber was
invaded by the mob. Gambetta, with most of the Deputies for
Paris, proceeded to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, and there
proclaimed the Republic. The Empress fled; a Government of
National Defence came into existence, with General Trochu at its
head, Jules Favre assuming the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Gambetta that of the Interior. No hand was raised in defence of
the Napoleonic dynasty or of the institutions of the Empire. The
Legislative Chamber and the Senate disappeared without even
making an attempt to prolong their own existence. Thiers, without
approving of the Republic or the mode in which it had come into
being, recommended his friends to accept the new Government, and
gave it his own support. On the 6th of September a circular of
Jules Favre, addressed to the representatives of France at all
the European Courts, justified the overthrow of the Napoleonic
Empire, and claimed for the Government by which it was succeeded
the goodwill of the neutral Powers. Napoleon III. was charged
with the responsibility for the war: with the fall of his
dynasty, it was urged, the reasons for a continuance of the
struggle had ceased to exist. France only asked for a lasting
peace. Such peace, however, must leave the territory of France
inviolate, for peace with dishonour would be but the prelude to a
new war of extermination. "Not an inch of our soil will we
cede"-so ran the formula-"not a stone of our fortresses." <a
name="FNanchor543">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_543"><sup>[543]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Favre and Bismarck, Sept. 29.]</p>
<p>The German Chancellor had nothing ready in the way of rhetoric
equal to his antagonist's phrases; but as soon as the battle of
Sedan was won it was settled at the Prussian headquarters that
peace would not be made without the annexation of Alsace and
Lorraine. Prince Bismarck has stated that his own policy would
have stopped at the acquisition of Strasburg: Moltke, however,
and the chiefs of the army pronounced that Germany could not be
secure against invasion while Metz remained in the hands of
France, and this opinion was accepted by the King. For a moment
it was imagined that the victory of Sedan had given the conqueror
peace on his own terms. This hope, however, speedily disappeared,
and the march upon Paris was resumed by the army of the Crown
Prince without waste of time. In the third week of September the
invaders approached the capital. Favre, in spite of his
declaration of the 6th, was not indisposed to enter upon
negotiations; and, trusting to his own arts of persuasion, he
sought an interview with the German Chancellor, which was granted
to him at Ferri&egrave;res on the 19th, and continued on the
following day. Bismarck hesitated to treat the holders of office
in Paris as an established Government; he was willing to grant an
armistice in order that elections might be held for a National
Assembly with which Germany could treat for peace; but he
required, as a condition of the armistice, that Strasburg and
Toul should be surrendered. Toul was already at the last
extremity; Strasburg was not capable of holding out ten days
longer; but of this the Government at Paris was not aware. The
conditions demanded by Bismarck were rejected as insulting to
France, and the war was left to take its course. Already, while
Favre was negotiating at Ferri&egrave;res, the German vanguard
was pressing round to the west of Paris. A body of French troops
which attacked them on the 19th at Ch&acirc;tillon was put to the
rout and fled in panic. Versailles was occupied on the same day,
and the line of investment was shortly afterwards completed
around the capital.</p>
<p>[Siege of Paris, Sept. 19.]</p>
<p>[Tours.]</p>
<p>[Gambetta at Tours.]</p>
<p>The second act in the war now began. Paris had been fortified
by Thiers about 1840, at the time when it seemed likely that
France might be engaged in war with a coalition on the affairs of
Mehemet Ali. The forts were not distant enough from the city to
protect it altogether from artillery with the lengthened range of
1870; they were sufficient, however, to render an assault out of
the question, and to compel the besieger to rely mainly on the
slow operation of famine. It had been reckoned by the engineers
of 1840 that food enough might be collected to enable the city to
stand a two-months' siege; so vast, however, were the supplies
collected in 1870 that, with double the population, Paris had
provisions for above four months. In spite therefore of the
capture and destruction of its armies the cause of France was not
hopeless, if, while Paris and Metz occupied four hundred thousand
of the invaders, the population of the provinces should take up
the struggle with enthusiasm, and furnish after some months of
military exercise troops more numerous than those which France
had lost, to attack the besiegers from all points at once and to
fall upon their communications. To organise such a national
resistance was, however, impossible for any Government within the
besieged capital itself. It was therefore determined to establish
a second seat of Government on the Loire; and before the lines
were drawn round Paris three members of the Ministry, with M.
Cr&eacute;mieux at their head, set out for Tours.
Cr&eacute;mieux, however, who was an aged lawyer, proved quite
unequal to his task. His authority was disputed in the west and
the south. Revolutionary movements threatened to break up the
unity of the national defence. A stronger hand, a more commanding
will, was needed. Such a hand, such a will belonged to Gambetta,
who on the 7th of October left Paris in order to undertake the
government of the provinces and the organisation of the national
armies. The circle of the besiegers was now too closely drawn for
the ordinary means of travel to be possible. Gambetta passed over
the German lines in a balloon, and reached Tours in safety, where
he immediately threw his feeble colleagues into the background
and concentrated all power in his own vigorous grasp. The effect
of his presence was at once felt throughout France. There was an
end of the disorders in the great cities, and of all attempts at
rivalry with the central power. Gambetta had the faults of
rashness, of excessive self-confidence, of defective regard for
scientific authority in matters where he himself was ignorant:
but he possessed in an extraordinary degree the qualities
necessary for a Dictator at such a national crisis: boundless,
indomitable courage; a simple, elemental passion of love for his
country that left absolutely no place for hesitations or reserve
in the prosecution of the one object for which France then
existed, the war. He carried the nation with him like a
whirlwind. Whatever share the military errors of Gambetta and his
rash personal interference with commanders may have had in the
ultimate defeat of France, without him it would never have been
known of what efforts France was capable. The proof of his
capacity was seen in the hatred and the fear with which down to
the time of his death he inspired the German people. Had there
been at the head of the army of Metz a man of one-tenth of
Gambetta's effective force, it is possible that France might have
closed the war, if not with success, at least with undiminished
territory.</p>
<p>[Fall of Strasburg, Sept. 28.]</p>
<p>[The army of the Loire.]</p>
<p>[Tann takes Orleans, Oct. 12.]</p>
<p>Before Gambetta left Paris the fall of Strasburg set free the
army under General Werder by which it had been besieged, and
enabled the Germans to establish a civil Government in Alsace,
the western frontier of the new Province having been already so
accurately studied that, when peace was made in 1871, the
frontier-line was drawn not upon one of the earlier French maps
but on the map now published by the German staff. It was
Gambetta's first task to divide France into districts, each with
its own military centre, its own army, and its own commander.
Four such districts were made: the centres were Lille, Le Mans,
Bourges, and Besan&ccedil;on. At Bourges and in the neighbourhood
considerable progress had already been made in organisation.
Early in October German cavalry-detachments, exploring
southwards, found that French troops were gathering on the Loire.
The Bavarian General Von der Tann was detached by Moltke from the
besieging army at Paris, and ordered to make himself master of
Orleans. Von der Tann hastened southwards, defeated the French
outside Orleans on the 11th of October, and occupied this city,
the French retiring towards Bourges. Gambetta removed the
defeated commander, and set in his place General Aurelle de
Paladines. Von der Tann was directed to cross the Loire and
destroy the arsenals at Bourges; he reported, however, that this
task was beyond his power, in consequence of which Moltke ordered
General Werder with the army of Strasburg to move westwards
against Bourges, after dispersing the weak forces that were
gathering about Besan&ccedil;on. Werder set out on his dangerous
march, but he had not proceeded far when an army of very
different power was thrown into the scale against the French
levies on the Loire.</p>
<p>[Bazaine at Metz.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Metz, Oct. 27.]</p>
<p>In the battle of Gravelotte, fought on the 18th of August, the
French troops had been so handled by Bazaine as to render it
doubtful whether he really intended to break through the enemy's
line and escape from Metz. At what period political designs
inconsistent with his military duty first took possession of
Bazaine's thoughts is uncertain. He had played a political part
in Mexico; it is probable that as soon as he found himself at the
head of the one effective army of France, and saw Napoleon
hopelessly discredited, he began to aim at personal power. Before
the downfall of the Empire he had evidently adopted a scheme of
inaction with the object of preserving his army entire: even the
sortie by which it had been arranged that he should assist
McMahon on the day before Sedan was feebly and irresolutely
conducted. After the proclamation of the Republic Bazaine's
inaction became still more marked. The intrigues of an adventurer
named Regnier, who endeavoured to open a negotiation between the
Prussians and the exiled Empress Eug&eacute;nie, encouraged him
in his determination to keep his soldiers from fulfilling their
duty to France. Week after week passed by; a fifth of the
besieging army was struck down with sickness; yet Bazaine made no
effort to break through, or even to diminish the number of men
who were consuming the supplies of Metz by giving to separate
detachments the opportunity of escape. On the 12th of October,
after the pretence of a sortie on the north, he entered into
communication with the German headquarters at Versailles.
Bismarck offered to grant a free departure to the army of Metz on
condition that the fortress should be placed in his hands, that
the army should undertake to act on behalf of the Empress, and
that the Empress should pledge herself to accept the Prussian
conditions of peace, whatever these might be. General Boyer was
sent to England to acquaint the Empress with these propositions.
They were declined by her, and after a fortnight had been spent
in manoeuvres for a Bonapartist restoration. Bazaine found
himself at the end of his resources. On the 27th the capitulation
of Metz was signed. The fortress itself, with incalculable cannon
and material of war, and an army of a hundred and seventy
thousand men, including twenty-six thousand sick and wounded in
the hospitals, passed into the hands of the Germans. <a name=
"FNanchor544">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_544"><sup>[544]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Bazaine.]</p>
<p>Bazaine was at a later time tried by a court-martial, found
guilty of the neglect of duty, and sentenced to death. That
sentence was not executed; but if there is an infamy that is
worse than death, such infamy will to all time cling to his name.
In the circumstances in which France was placed no effort, no
sacrifice of life could have been too great for the commander of
the army at Metz. To retain the besiegers in full strength before
the fortress would not have required the half of Bazaine's actual
force. If half his army had fallen on the field of battle in
successive attempts to cut their way through the enemy, brave men
would no doubt have perished; but even had their efforts failed
their deaths would have purchased for Metz the power to hold out
for weeks or for months longer. The civil population of Metz was
but sixty thousand, its army was three times as numerous; unlike
Paris, it saw its stores consumed not by helpless millions of
women and children, but by soldiers whose duty it was to aid the
defence of their country at whatever cost. Their duty, if they
could not cut their way through, was to die fighting; and had
they shown hesitation, which was not the case, Bazaine should
have died at their head. That Bazaine would have fulfilled his
duty even if Napoleon III. had remained on the throne is more
than doubtful, for his inaction had begun before the catastrophe
of Sedan. His pretext after that time was that the government of
France had fallen into the hands of men of disorder, and that it
was more important for his army to save France from the
Government than from the invader. He was the only man in France
who thought so. The Government of September 4th, whatever its
faults, was good enough for tens of thousands of brave men,
Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, who flocked without
distinction of party to its banners: it might have been good
enough for Marshal Bazaine. But France had to pay the penalty for
the political, the moral indifference which could acquiesce in
the Coup d'&Eacute;tat of 1851, in the servility of the Empire,
in many a vile and boasted deed in Mexico, in China, in Algiers.
Such indifference found its Nemesis in a Bazaine.</p>
<p>[Tann driven from Orleans, Nov. 9.]</p>
<p>[Battles of Orleans, Nov. 28-Dec. 2.]</p>
<p>[Sortie of Champigny, Nov. 29-Dec. 4.]</p>
<p>[Battle of Amiens, Nov. 27.]</p>
<p>The surrender of Metz and the release of the great army of
Prince Frederick Charles by which it was besieged fatally changed
the conditions of the French war of national defence. Two hundred
thousand of the victorious troops of Germany under some of their
ablest generals were set free to attack the still untrained
levies on the Loire and in the north of France, which, with more
time for organisation, might well have forced the Germans to
raise the siege of Paris. The army once commanded by Steinmetz
was now reconstituted, and despatched under General Manteuffel
towards Amiens; Prince Frederick Charles moved with the remainder
of his troops towards the Loire. Aware that his approach could
not long be delayed, Gambetta insisted that Aurelle de Paladines
should begin the march on Paris. The general attacked Tann at
Coulmiers on the 9th of November, defeated him, and re-occupied
Orleans, the first real success that the French had gained in the
war. There was great alarm at the German headquarters at
Versailles; the possibility of a failure of the siege was
discussed; and forty thousand troops were sent southwards in
haste to the support of the Bavarian general. Aurelle, however,
did not move upon the capital: his troops were still unfit for
the enterprise; and he remained stationary on the north of
Orleans, in order to improve his organisation, to await
reinforcements, and to meet the attack of Frederick Charles in a
strong position. In the third week of November the leading
divisions of the army of Metz approached, and took post between
Orleans and Paris. Gambetta now insisted that the effort should
be made to relieve the capital. Aurelle resisted, but was forced
to obey. The garrison of Paris had already made several
unsuccessful attacks upon the lines of their besiegers, the most
vigorous being that of Le Bourget on the 30th of October, in
which bayonets were crossed. It was arranged that in the last
days of November General Trochu should endeavour to break out on
the southern side, and that simultaneously the army of the Loire
should fall upon the enemy in front of it and endeavour to force
its way to the capital. On the 28th the attack upon the Germans
on the north of Orleans began. For several days the struggle was
renewed by one division after another of the armies of Aurelle
and Prince Frederick Charles. Victory remained at last with the
Germans; the centre of the French position was carried; the right
and left wings of the army were severed from one another and
forced to retreat, the one up the Loire, the other towards the
west. Orleans on the 5th of December passed back into the hands
of the Germans. The sortie from Paris, which began with a
successful attack by General Ducrot upon Champigny beyond the
Marne, ended after some days of combat in the recovery by the
Germans of the positions which they had lost, and in the retreat
of Ducrot into Paris. In the same week Manteuffel, moving against
the relieving army of the north, encountered it near Amiens,
defeated it after a hard struggle, and gained possession of
Amiens itself.</p>
<p>[Rouen occupied, Dec. 6.]</p>
<p>[Bapaume, Jan. 3.]</p>
<p>[St. Quentin, Jan 19.]</p>
<p>After the fall of Amiens, Manteuffel moved upon Rouen. This
city fell into his hands without resistance; the conquerors
pressed on westwards, and at Dieppe troops which had come from
the confines of Russia gazed for the first time upon the sea. But
the Republican armies, unlike those which the Germans had first
encountered, were not to be crushed at a single blow. Under the
energetic command of Faidherbe the army of the North advanced
again upon Amiens. Goeben, who was left to defend the line of the
Somme, went out to meet him, defeated him on the 23rd of
December, and drove him back to Arras. But again, after a week's
interval, Faidherbe pushed forward. On the 3rd of January he fell
upon Goeben's weak division at Bapaume, and handled it so
severely that the Germans would on the following day have
abandoned their position, if the French had not themselves been
the first to retire. Faidherbe, however, had only fallen back to
receive reinforcements. After some days' rest he once more sought
to gain the road to Paris, advancing this time by the eastward
line through St. Quentin. In front of this town Goeben attacked
him. The last battle of the army of the North was fought on the
19th of January. The French general endeavoured to disguise his
defeat, but the German commander had won all that he desired.
Faidherbe's army was compelled to retreat northwards in disorder;
its part in the war was at an end.</p>
<p>[The Armies of the Loire and of the East.]</p>
<p>[Le Mans, Jan. 12.]</p>
<p>[Bourbaki.]</p>
<p>[Montb&eacute;liard, Jan. 15-17.]</p>
<p>[The Eastern army crosses the Swiss Frontier, Feb. 1.]</p>
<p>During the last three weeks of December there was a pause in
the operations of the Germans on the Loire. It was expected that
Bourbaki and the east wing of The Armies of the French army would
soon re-appear at Orleans and endeavour to combine with Chanzy's
troops. Gambetta, however, had formed another plan. He considered
that Chanzy, with the assistance of divisions formed in Brittany,
would be strong enough to encounter Prince Frederick Charles, and
he determined to throw the army of Bourbaki, strengthened by
reinforcements from the south, upon Germany itself. The design
was a daring one, and had the two French armies been capable of
performing the work which Gambetta required of them, an inroad
into Baden, or even the re-conquest of Alsace, would most
seriously have affected the position of the Germans before Paris.
But Gambetta miscalculated the power of young, untrained troops,
imperfectly armed, badly fed, against a veteran enemy. In a
series of hard-fought struggles the army of the Loire under
General Chanzy was driven back at the beginning of January from
Vendome to Le Mans. On the 12th, Chanzy took post before this
city and fought his last battle. While he was making a vigorous
resistance in the centre of the line, the Breton regiments
stationed on his right gave way; the Germans pressed round him,
and gained possession of the town. Chanzy retreated towards
Laval, leaving thousands of prisoners in the hands of the enemy,
and saving only the debris of an army. Bourbaki in the meantime,
with a numerous but miserably equipped force, had almost reached
Belfort. The report of his eastward movement was not at first
believed at the German headquarters before Paris, and the troops
of General Werder, which had been engaged about Dijon with a body
of auxiliaries commanded by Garibaldi, were left to bear the
brunt of the attack without support. When the real state of
affairs became known Manteuffel was sent eastwards in hot haste
towards the threatened point. Werder had evacuated Dijon and
fallen back upon Vesoul; part of his army was still occupied in
the siege of Belfort. As Bourbaki approached he fell back with
the greater part of his troops in order to cover the besieging
force, leaving one of his lieutenants to make a flank attack upon
Bourbaki at Villersexel. This attack, one of the fiercest in the
war, delayed the French for two days, and gave Werder time to
occupy the strong positions that he had chosen about
Montb&eacute;liard. Here, on the 15th of January, began a
struggle which lasted for three days. The French, starving and
perishing with cold, though far superior in number to their
enemy, were led with little effect against the German
entrenchments. On the 18th Bourbaki began his retreat. Werder was
unable to follow him; Manteuffel with a weak force was still at
some distance, and for a moment it seemed possible that Bourbaki,
by a rapid movement westwards, might crush this isolated foe.
Gambetta ordered Bourbaki to make the attempt: the commander
refused to court further disaster with troops who were not fit to
face an enemy, and retreated towards Pontarlier in the hope of
making his way to Lyons. But Manteuffel now descended in front of
him; divisions of Werder's army pressed down from the north; the
retreat was cut off; and the unfortunate French general, whom a
telegram from Gambetta removed from his command, attempted to
take his own life. On the 1st of February, the wreck of his army,
still numbering eighty-five thousand men, but reduced to the
extremity of weakness and misery, sought refuge beyond the Swiss
frontier.</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Paris and Armistice, Jan. 28.]</p>
<p>The war was now over. Two days after Bourbaki's repulse at
Montb&eacute;liard the last unsuccessful sortie was made from
Paris. There now remained provisions only for another fortnight;
above forty thousand of the inhabitants had succumbed to the
privations of the siege; all hope of assistance from the
relieving armies before actual famine should begin disappeared.
On the 23rd of January Favre sought the German Chancellor at
Versailles in order to discuss the conditions of a general
armistice and of the capitulation of Paris. The negotiations
lasted for several days; on the 28th an armistice was signed with
the declared object that elections might at once be freely held
for a National Assembly, which should decide whether the war
should be continued, or on what conditions peace should be made.
The conditions of the armistice were that the forts of Paris and
all their material of war should be handed over to the German
army; that the artillery of the enceinte should be dismounted;
and that the regular troops in Paris should, as prisoners of war,
surrender their arms. The National Guard were permitted to retain
their weapons and their artillery. Immediately upon the
fulfilment of the first two conditions all facilities were to be
given for the entry of supplies of food into Paris. <a name=
"FNanchor545">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_545"><sup>[545]</sup></a></p>
<p>[National Assembly at Bordeaux, Feb. 12.]</p>
<p>[Preliminaries of Peace, Feb. 26.]</p>
<p>The articles of the armistice were duly executed, and on the
30th of January the Prussian flag waved over the forts of the
French capital. Orders were sent into the provinces by the
Government that elections should at once be held. It had at one
time been feared by Count Bismarck that Gambetta would
acknowledge no armistice that might be made by his colleagues at
Paris. But this apprehension was not realised, for, while
protesting against a measure adopted without consultation with
himself and his companions at Bordeaux, Gambetta did not actually
reject the armistice. He called upon the nation, however, to use
the interval for the collection of new forces; and in the hope of
gaining from the election an Assembly in favour of a continuation
of the war, he published a decree incapacitating for election all
persons who had been connected with the Government of Napoleon
III. Against this decree Bismarck at once protested, and at his
instance it was cancelled by the Government of Paris. Gambetta
thereupon resigned. The elections were held on the 8th of
February, and on the 12th the National Assembly was opened at
Bordeaux. The Government of Defence now laid down its powers.
Thiers-who had been the author of those fortifications which had
kept the Germans at bay for four months after the overthrow of
the Imperial armies; who, in the midst of the delirium of July,
1870, had done all that man could do to dissuade the Imperial
Government and its Parliament from war; who, in spite of his
seventy years, had, after the fall of Napoleon, hurried to
London, to St. Petersburg, to Florence, to Vienna, in the hope of
winning some support for France,-was the man called by common
assent to the helm of State. He appointed a Ministry, called upon
the Assembly to postpone all discussions as to the future
Government of France, and himself proceeded to Versailles in
order to negotiate conditions of peace. For several days the old
man struggled with Count Bismarck on point after point in the
Prussian demands. Bismarck required the cession of Alsace and
Eastern Lorraine, the payment of six milliards of francs, and the
occupation of part of Paris by the German army until the
conditions of peace should be ratified by the Assembly. Thiers
strove hard to save Metz, but on this point the German staff was
inexorable; he succeeded at last in reducing the indemnity to
five milliards, and was given the option between retaining
Belfort and sparing Paris the entry of the German troops. On the
last point his patriotism decided without a moment's hesitation.
He bade the Germans enter Paris, and saved Belfort for France. On
the 26th of February preliminaries of peace were signed. Thirty
thousand German soldiers marched into the Champs Elys&eacute;es
on the 1st of March; but on that same day the treaty was ratified
by the Assembly at Bordeaux, and after forty-eight hours Paris
was freed from the sight of its conquerors. The Articles of Peace
provided for the gradual evacuation of France by the German army
as the instalments of the indemnity, which were allowed to extend
over a period of three years, should be paid. There remained for
settlement only certain matters of detail, chiefly connected with
finance; these, however, proved the object of long and bitter
controversy, and it was not until the 10th of May that the
definitive Treaty of Peace was signed at Frankfort.</p>
<p>[German Unity.]</p>
<p>France had made war in order to undo the work of partial union
effected by Prussia in 1866: it achieved the opposite result, and
Germany emerged from the war with the Empire established.
Immediately after the victory of W&ouml;rth the Crown Prince had
seen that the time had come for abolishing the line of division
which severed Southern Germany from the Federation of the North.
His own conception of the best form of national union was a
German Empire with its chief at Berlin. That Count Bismarck was
without plans for uniting North and South Germany it is
impossible to believe; but the Minister and the Crown Prince had
always been at enmity; and when, after the battle of Sedan, they
spoke together of the future, it seemed to the Prince as if
Bismarck had scarcely thought of the federation of the Empire or
of the re-establishment of the Imperial dignity, and as if he was
inclined to it only under certain reserves. It was, however, part
of Bismarck's system to exclude the Crown Prince as far as
possible from political affairs, under the strange pretext that
his relationship to Queen Victoria would be abused by the French
proclivities of the English Court; and it is possible that had
the Chancellor after the battle of Sedan chosen to admit the
Prince to his confidence instead of resenting his interference,
the difference between their views as to the future of Germany
would have been seen to be one rather of forms and means than of
intention. But whatever the share of these two dissimilar spirits
in the initiation of the last steps towards German union, the
work, as ultimately achieved, was both in form and in substance
that which the Crown Prince had conceived. In the course of
September negotiations were opened with each of the Southern
States for its entry into the Northern Confederation. Bavaria
alone raised serious difficulties, and demanded terms to which
the Prussian Government could not consent. Bismarck refrained
from exercising pressure at Munich, but invited the several
Governments to send representatives to Versailles for the purpose
of arriving at a settlement. For a moment the Court of Munich
drew the sovereign of W&uuml;rtemberg to its side, and orders
were sent to the envoys of W&uuml;rtemberg at Versailles to act
with the Bavarians in refusing to sign the treaty projected by
Bismarck. The W&uuml;rtemberg Ministers hereupon tendered their
resignation; Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt signed the treaty, and the
two dissentient kings saw themselves on the point of being
excluded from United Germany. They withdrew their opposition, and
at the end of November the treaties uniting all the Southern
States with the existing Confederation were executed, Bavaria
retaining larger separate rights than were accorded to any other
member of the Union.</p>
<p>[Proclamation of the Empire, Jan. 18.]</p>
<p>In the acts which thus gave to Germany political cohesion
there was nothing that altered the title of its chief. Bismarck,
however, had in the meantime informed the recalcitrant sovereigns
that if they did not themselves offer the Imperial dignity to
King William, the North German Parliament would do so. At the end
of November a letter was accordingly sent by the King of Bavaria
to all his fellow-sovereigns, proposing that the King of Prussia,
as President of the newly-formed Federation, should assume the
title of German Emperor. Shortly afterwards the same request was
made by the same sovereign to King William himself, in a letter
dictated by Bismarck. A deputation from the North German
Reichstag, headed by its President, Dr. Simson, who, as President
of the Frankfort National Assembly, had in 1849 offered the
Imperial Crown to King Frederick William, expressed the
concurrence of the nation in the act of the Princes. It was
expected that before the end of the year the new political
arrangements would have been sanctioned by the Parliaments of all
the States concerned, and the 1st of January had been fixed for
the assumption of the Imperial title. So vigorous, however, was
the opposition made in the Bavarian Chamber, that the ceremony
was postponed till the 18th. Even then the final approving vote
had not been taken at Munich; but a second adjournment would have
been fatal to the dignity of the occasion; and on the 18th of
January, in the midst of the Princes of Germany and the
representatives of its army assembled in the Hall of Mirrors at
Versailles, King William assumed the title of German Emperor. The
first Parliament of the Empire was opened at Berlin two months
later.</p>
<p>[The Commune of Paris.]</p>
<p>[Troops withdrawn to Versailles, March 18.]</p>
<p>[The Commune.]</p>
<p>The misfortunes of France did not end with the fall of its
capital and the loss of its border provinces; the terrible drama
of 1870 closed with civil war. It is part of the normal order of
French history that when an established Government is overthrown,
and another is set in its place, this second Government is in its
turn attacked by insurrection in Paris, and an effort is made to
establish the rule of the democracy of the capital itself, or of
those who for the moment pass for its leaders. It was so in 1793,
in 1831, in 1848, and it was so again in 1870. Favre, Trochu, and
the other members of the Government of Defence had assumed power
on the downfall of Napoleon III. because they considered
themselves the individuals best able to serve the State. There
were hundreds of other persons in Paris who had exactly the same
opinion of themselves; and when, with the progress of the siege,
the Government of Defence lost its popularity and credit, it was
natural that ambitious and impatient men of a lower political
rank should consider it time to try whether Paris could not make
a better defence under their own auspices. Attempts were made
before the end of October to overthrow the Government. They were
repeated at intervals, but without success. The agitation,
however, continued within the ranks of the National Guard, which,
unlike the National Guard in the time of Louis Philippe, now
included the mass of the working class, and was the most
dangerous enemy, instead of the support, of Government. The
capitulation brought things to a crisis. Favre had declared that
it would be impossible to disarm the National Guard without a
battle in the streets; at his instance Bismarck allowed the
National Guard to retain their weapons, and the fears of the
Government itself thus prepared the way for successful
insurrection. When the Germans were about to occupy western
Paris, the National Guard drew off its artillery to Montmartre
and there erected entrenchments. During the next fortnight, while
the Germans were withdrawing from the western forts in accordance
with the conditions of peace, the Government and the National
Guard stood facing one another in inaction; on the 18th of March
General Lecomte was ordered to seize the artillery parked at
Montmartre. His troops, surrounded and solicited by the National
Guard, abandoned their commander. Lecomte was seized, and, with
General Cl&eacute;ment Thomas, was put to death. A revolutionary
Central Committee took possession of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville;
the troops still remaining faithful to the Government were
withdrawn to Versailles, where Thiers had assembled the Chamber.
Not only Paris itself, but the western forts with the exception
of Mont Val&eacute;rien, fell into the hands of the insurgents.
On the 26th of March elections were held for the Commune. The
majority of peaceful citizens abstained from voting. A council
was elected, which by the side of certain harmless and
well-meaning men contained a troop of revolutionists by
profession; and after the failure of all attempts at
conciliation, hostilities began between Paris and Versailles.</p>
<p>[Second Siege-April 2, May 21.]</p>
<p>There were in the ranks of those who fought for the Commune
some who fought in the sincere belief that their cause was that
of municipal freedom; there were others who believed, and with
good reason, that the existence of the Republic was threatened by
a reactionary Assembly at Versailles; but the movement was on the
whole the work of fanatics who sought to subvert every authority
but their own; and the unfortunate mob who followed them, in so
far as they fought for anything beyond the daily pay which had
been their only means of sustenance since the siege began, fought
for they knew not what. As the conflict was prolonged, it took on
both sides a character of atrocious violence and cruelty. The
murder of Generals Lecomte and Thomas at the outset was avenged
by the execution of some of the first prisoners taken by the
troops of Versailles. Then hostages were seized by the Commune.
The slaughter in cold blood of three hundred National Guards
surprised at Clamart by the besiegers gave to the Parisians the
example of massacre. When, after a siege of six weeks, in which
Paris suffered far more severely than it had suffered from the
cannonade of the Germans, the troops of Versailles at length made
their way into the capital, humanity, civilisation, seemed to
have vanished in the orgies of devils. The defenders, as they
fell back, murdered their hostages, and left behind them palaces,
museums, the entire public inheritance of the nation in its
capital, in flames. The conquerors during several days shot down
all whom they took fighting, and in many cases put to death whole
bands of prisoners without distinction. The temper of the army
was such that the Government, even if it had desired, could
probably not have mitigated the terrors of this vengeance. But
there was little sign anywhere of an inclination to mercy.
Courts-martial and executions continued long after the heat of
combat was over. A year passed, and the tribunals were still busy
with their work. Above ten thousand persons were sentenced to
transportation or imprisonment before public justice was
satisfied.</p>
<p>[Entry of Italian Troops into Rome, Sept. 20, 1870.]</p>
<p>[The Papacy.]</p>
<p>The material losses which France sustained at the hands of the
invader and in civil war were soon repaired; but from the battle
of W&ouml;rth down to the overthrow of the Commune France had
been effaced as a European Power, and its effacement was turned
to good account by two nations who were not its enemies. Russia,
with the sanction of Europe, threw off the trammels which had
been imposed upon it in the Black Sea by the Treaty of 1856.
Italy gained possession of Rome. Soon after the declaration of
war the troops of France, after an occupation of twenty-one years
broken only by an interval of some months in 1867, were withdrawn
from the Papal territory. Whatever may have been the
understanding with Victor Emmanuel on which Napoleon recalled his
troops from Civita Vecchia, the battle of Sedan set Italy free;
and on the 20th of September the National Army, after overcoming
a brief show of resistance, entered Rome. The unity of Italy was
at last completed; Florence ceased to be the national capital. A
body of laws passed by the Italian Parliament, and known as the
Guarantees, assured to the Pope the honours and immunities of a
sovereign, the possession of the Vatican and the Lateran palaces,
and a princely income; in the appointment of Bishops and
generally in the government of the Church a fulness of authority
was freely left to him such as he possessed in no other European
land. But Pius would accept no compromise for the loss of his
temporal power. He spurned the reconciliation with the Italian
people, which had now for the first time since 1849 become
possible. He declared Rome to be in the possession of brigands;
and, with a fine affectation of disdain for Victor Emmanuel and
the Italian Government, he invented, and sustained down to the
end of his life, before a world too busy to pay much heed to his
performance, the reproachful part of the Prisoner of the
Vatican.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>
 <a name="CHAPTER_XXV.">&nbsp;</a>
<h2><a href="#c25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h2>
<br>

<p>France after 1871-Alliance of the Three Emperors-Revolt of
Herzegovina-The Andr&aacute;ssy Note-Murder of the Consuls at
Salonika-The Berlin Memorandum-Rejected by England-Abdul Aziz
deposed-Massacres in Bulgaria-Servia and Montenegro declare
War-Opinion in England- Disraeli-Meeting of Emperors at
Reichstadt-Servian Campaign-Declaration of the Czar-Conference at
Constantinople-Its Failure-The London Protocol-Russia declares
War-Advance on the Balkans-Osman at Plevna-Second Attack on
Plevna-The Shipka Pass-Roumania-Third attack on
Plevna-Todleben-Fall of Plevna-Passage of the Balkans-Armistice-
England-The Fleet passes the Dardanelles-Treaty of San
Stefano-England and Russia-Secret Agreement-Convention with
Turkey-Congress of Berlin-Treaty of Berlin-Bulgaria.</p>
<br>

<p>[France after 1871.]</p>
<p>The storm of 1870 was followed by some years of European calm.
France, recovering with wonderful rapidity from the wounds
inflicted by the war, paid with ease the instalments of its debt
to Germany, and saw its soil liberated from the foreigner before
the period fixed by the Treaty of Frankfort. The efforts of a
reactionary Assembly were kept in check by M. Thiers; the
Republic, as the form of government which divided Frenchmen the
least, was preferred by him to the monarchical restoration which
might have won France allies at some of the European Courts. For
two years Thiers baffled or controlled the royalist majority at
Versailles which sought to place the Comt&eacute; de Chambord or
the chief of the House of Orleans on the throne, and thus saved
his country from the greatest of all perils, the renewal of civil
war. In 1873 he fell before a combination of his opponents, and
McMahon succeeded to the Presidency, only to find that the
royalist cause was made hopeless by the refusal of the
Comt&eacute; de Chambord to adopt the Tricolour flag, and that
France, after several years of trial, definitely preferred the
Republic. Meanwhile, Prince Bismarck had known how to frustrate
all plans for raising a coalition against victorious Germany
among the Powers which had been injured by its successes, or
whose interests were threatened by its greatness. He saw that a
Bourbon or a Napoleon on the throne of France would find far more
sympathy and confidence at Vienna and St. Petersburg than the
shifting chief of a Republic, and ordered Count Arnim, the German
Ambassador at Paris, who wished to promote a Napoleonic
restoration, to desist from all attempts to weaken the Republican
Government. At St. Petersburg, where after the misfortunes of
1815 France had found its best friends, the German statesman had
as yet little to fear. Bismarck had supported Russia in undoing
the Treaty of Paris; in announcing the conclusion of peace with
France, the German Emperor had assured the Czar in the most
solemn language that his services in preventing the war of 1870
from becoming general should never be forgotten; and, whatever
might be the feeling of his subjects, Alexander II. continued to
believe that Russia could find no steadier friend than the
Government of Berlin.</p>
<p>[Alliance of the three Emperors.]</p>
<p>With Austria Prince Bismarck had a more difficult part to
play. He could hope for no real understanding so long as Beust
remained at the head of affairs. But the events of 1870, utterly
frustrating Beust's plans for a coalition against Prussia, and
definitely closing for Austria all hope of recovering its
position within Germany, had shaken the Minister's position.
Bismarck was able to offer to the Emperor Francis Joseph the
sincere and cordial friendship of the powerful German Empire, on
the condition that Austria should frankly accept the work of 1866
and 1870. He had dissuaded his master after the victory of
K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz from annexing any Austrian territory; he had
imposed no condition of peace that left behind it a lasting
exasperation; and he now reaped the reward of his foresight.
Francis Joseph accepted the friendship offered him from Berlin,
and dismissed Count Beust from office, calling to his place the
Hungarian Minister Andr&aacute;ssy, who, by conviction as well as
profession, welcomed the establishment of a German Empire, and
the definite abandonment by Austria of its interference in German
affairs. In the summer of 1872 the three Emperors, accompanied by
their Ministers, met in Berlin. No formal alliance was made, but
a relation was established of sufficient intimacy to insure
Prince Bismarck against any efforts that might be made by France
to gain an ally. For five years this so-called League of the
three Emperors continued in more or less effective existence, and
condemned France to isolation. In the apprehension of the French
people, Germany, gorged with the five milliards but still lean
and ravenous, sought only for some new occasion for war. This was
not the case. The German nation had entered unwillingly into the
war of 1870; that its ruler, when once his great aim had been
achieved, sought peace not only in word but in deed the history
of subsequent years has proved. The alarms which at intervals
were raised at Paris and elsewhere had little real foundation;
and when next the peace of Europe was broken, it was not by a
renewal of the struggle on the Vosges, but by a conflict in the
East, which, terrible as it was in the sufferings and the
destruction of life which it involved, was yet no senseless duel
between two jealous nations, but one of the most fruitful in
results of all modern wars, rescuing whole provinces from Ottoman
dominion, and leaving behind it in place of a chaos of outworn
barbarism at least the elements for a future of national
independence among the Balkan population.</p>
<p>[Revolt of Herzegovina, Aug., 1875.]</p>
<p>[Andr&aacute;ssy Note, Jan. 31, 1876.]</p>
<p>In the summer of 1875 Herzegovina rose against its Turkish
masters, and in Bosnia conflicts broke out between Christians and
Mohammedans. The insurrection was vigorously, though privately,
supported by Servia and Montenegro, and for some months baffled
all the efforts made by the Porte for its suppression. Many
thousands of the Christians, flying from a devastated land and a
merciless enemy, sought refuge beyond the Austrian frontier, and
became a burden upon the Austrian Government. The agitation among
the Slavic neighbours and kinsmen of the insurgents threatened
the peace of Austria itself, where Slav and Magyar were almost as
ready to fall upon one another as Christian and Turk.
Andr&aacute;ssy entered into communications with the Governments
of St. Petersburg and Berlin as to the adoption of a common line
of policy by the three Empires towards the Porte; and a scheme of
reforms, intended to effect the pacification of the insurgent
provinces, was drawn up by the three Ministers in concert with
one another. This project, which was known as the Andr&aacute;ssy
Note, and which received the approval of England and France,
demanded from the Porte the establishment of full and entire
religious liberty, the abolition of the farming of taxes, the
application of the revenue produced by direct taxation in Bosnia
and Herzegovina to the needs of those provinces themselves, the
institution of a Commission composed equally of Christians and
Mohammedans to control the execution of these reforms and of
those promised by the Porte, and finally the improvement of the
agrarian condition of the population by the sale to them of waste
lands belonging to the State. The Note demanding these reforms
was presented in Constantinople on the 31st of January, 1876. The
Porte, which had already been lavish of promises to the
insurgents, raised certain objections in detail, but ultimately
declared itself willing to grant in substance the concessions
which were specified by the Powers. <a name="FNanchor546">&nbsp;</a><a
href="#Footnote_546"><sup>[546]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Murder of the Consuls at Salonika, May 6.]</p>
<p>Armed with this assurance, the representatives of Austria now
endeavoured to persuade the insurgents to lay down their arms and
the refugees to return to their homes. But the answer was made
that promises enough had already been given by the Sultan, and
that the question was, not what more was to be written on a piece
of paper, but how the execution of these promises was to be
enforced. Without some guarantee from the Great Powers of Europe
the refugees refused to place themselves again at the mercy of
the Turk, and the leaders in Herzegovina refused to disband their
troops. The conflict broke out afresh with greater energy; the
intervention of the Powers, far from having produced peace,
roused the fanatical passions of the Mohammedans both against the
Christian rayahs and against the foreigner to whom they had
appealed. A wave of religious, of patriotic agitation, of
political disquiet, of barbaric fury, passed over the Turkish
Empire. On the 6th of May the Prussian and the French Consuls at
Salonika were attacked and murdered by the mob. In Smyrna and
Constantinople there were threatening movements against the
European inhabitants; in Bulgaria, the Circassian settlers and
the hordes of irregular troops whom the Government had recently
sent into that province waited only for the first sign of an
expected insurrection to fall upon their prey and deluge the land
with blood.</p>
<p>[The Berlin Memorandum, May 13.]</p>
<p>As soon as it became evident that peace was not to be produced
by Count Andr&aacute;ssy's Note, the Ministers of the three
Empires determined to meet one another with the view of arranging
further diplomatic steps to be taken in common. Berlin, which the
Czar was about to visit, was chosen as the meeting-place; the
date of the meeting was fixed for the second week in May. It was
in the interval between the despatch of Prince Bismarck's
invitation and the arrival of the Czar, with Prince Gortschakoff
and Count Andr&aacute;ssy, that intelligence came of the murder
of the Prussian and French Consuls at Salonika. This event gave a
deeper seriousness to the deliberations now held. The Ministers
declared that if the representatives of two foreign Powers could
be thus murdered in broad daylight in a peaceful town under the
eyes of the powerless authorities, the Christians of the
insurgent provinces might well decline to entrust themselves to
an exasperated enemy. An effective guarantee for the execution of
the promises made by the Porte had become absolutely necessary.
The conclusions of the Ministers were embodied in a Memorandum,
which declared that an armistice of two months must be imposed on
the combatants; that the mixed Commission mentioned in the
Andr&aacute;ssy Note must be at once called into being, with a
Christian native of Herzegovina at its head; and that the reforms
promised by the Porte must be carried out under the
superintendence of the representatives of the European Powers. If
before the end of the armistice the Porte should not have given
its assent to these terms, the Imperial Courts declared that they
must support these diplomatic efforts by measures of a more
effective character. <a name="FNanchor547">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_547"><sup>[547]</sup></a></p>
<p>[England alone rejects the Berlin Memorandum.]</p>
<p>On the same day that this Memorandum was signed, Prince
Bismarck invited the British, the French, and Italian Ambassadors
to meet the Russian and the Austrian Chancellors at his
residence. They did so. The Memorandum was read, and an urgent
request was made that Great Britain France, and Italy would
combine with the Imperial Courts in support of the Berlin
Memorandum as they had in support of the Andr&aacute;ssy Note. As
Prince Gortschakoff and Andr&aacute;ssy were staying in Berlin
only for two days longer, it was hoped that answers might be
received by telegraph within forty-eight hours. Within that time
answers arrived from the French and Italian Governments accepting
the Berlin Memorandum; the reply from London did not arrive till
five days later; it announced the refusal of the Government to
join in the course proposed. Pending further negotiations on this
subject, French, German, Austrian, Italian, and Russian ships of
war were sent to Salonika to enforce satisfaction for the murder
of the Consuls. The Cabinet of London, declining to associate
itself with the concert of the Powers, and stating that Great
Britain, while intending nothing in the nature of a menace, could
not permit territorial changes to be made in the East without its
own consent, despatched the fleet to Besika Bay.</p>
<p>[Abdul Aziz deposed, May 29.]</p>
<p>[Massacres in Bulgaria.]</p>
<p>[Servia and Montenegro declare war, July 2.]</p>
<p>Up to this time little attention had been paid in England to
the revolt of the Christian subjects of the Porte or its effect
on European politics. Now, however, a series of events began
which excited the interest and even the passion of the English
people in an extraordinary degree. The ferment in Constantinople
was deepening. On the 29th of May the Sultan Abdul Aziz was
deposed by Midhat Pasha and Hussein Avni, the former the chief of
the party of reform, the latter the representative of the older
Turkish military and patriotic spirit which Abdul Aziz had
incensed by his subserviency to Russia. A few days later the
deposed Sultan was murdered. Hussein Avni and another rival of
Midhat were assassinated by a desperado as they sat at the
council; Murad V., who had been raised to the throne, proved
imbecile; and Midhat, the destined regenerator of the Ottoman
Empire as many outside Turkey believed, grasped all but the
highest power in the State. Towards the end of June reports
reached western Europe of the repression of an insurrection in
Bulgaria with measures of atrocious violence. Servia and
Montenegro, long active in support of their kinsmen who were in
arms, declared war. The reports from Bulgaria, at first vague,
took more definite form; and at length the correspondents of
German as well as English newspapers, making their way to the
district south of the Balkans, found in villages still strewed
with skeletons and human remains the terrible evidence of what
had passed. The British Ministry, relying upon the statements of
Sir H. Elliot, Ambassador at Constantinople, at first denied the
seriousness of the massacres: they directed, however, that
investigations should be made on the spot by a member of the
Embassy; and Mr. Baring, Secretary of Legation, was sent to
Bulgaria with this duty. Baring's report confirmed the accounts
which his chief had refused to believe, and placed the number of
the victims, rightly or wrongly, at not less than twelve
thousand. <a name="FNanchor548">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_548"><sup>[548]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Opinion in England.]</p>
<p>The Bulgarian massacres acted on Europe in 1876 as the
massacre of Chios had acted on Europe in 1822. In England
especially they excited the deepest horror, and completely
changed the tone of public opinion towards the Turk. Hitherto the
public mind had scarcely been conscious of the questions that
were at issue in the East. Herzegovina, Bosnia, Bulgaria, were
not familiar names like Greece; the English people hardly knew
where these countries were, or that they were not inhabited by
Turks. The Crimean War had left behind it the tradition of
friendship with the Sultan; it needed some lightning-flash, some
shock penetrating all ranks of society, to dispel once and for
all the conventional idea of Turkey as a community resembling a
European State, and to bring home to the English people the true
condition of the Christian races of the Balkan under their
Ottoman masters. But this the Bulgarian massacres effectively
did; and from this time the great mass of the English people, who
had sympathised so strongly with the Italians and the Hungarians
in their struggle for national independence, were not disposed to
allow the influence of Great Britain to be used for the
perpetuation of Turkish ascendency over the Slavic races. There
is little doubt that if in the autumn of 1876 the nation had had
the opportunity of expressing its views by a Parliamentary
election, it would have insisted on the adoption of active
measures in concert with the Powers which were prepared to force
reform upon the Porte. But the Parliament of 1876 was but two
years old; the majority which supported the Government was still
unbroken; and at the head of the Cabinet there was a man gifted
with extraordinary tenacity of purpose, with great powers of
command over others, and with a clear, cold, untroubled
apprehension of the line of conduct which he intended to pursue.
It was one of the strangest features of this epoch that a
Minister who in a long career had never yet exercised the
slightest influence upon foreign affairs, and who was not himself
English by birth, should have impressed in such an extreme degree
the stamp of his own individuality upon the conduct of our
foreign policy; that he should have forced England to the very
front in the crisis through which Europe was passing; and that,
for good or for evil, he should have reversed the tendency which
since the Italian war of 1859 had seemed ever to be drawing
England further and further away from Continental affairs.</p>
<p>[Disraeli.]</p>
<p>Disraeli's conception of Parliamentary politics was an
ironical one. It had pleased the British nation that the
leadership of one of its great political parties should be won by
a man of genius only on the condition of accommodating himself to
certain singular fancies of his contemporaries; and for twenty
years, from the time of his attacks upon Sir Robert Peel for the
abolition of the corn-laws down to the time when he educated his
party into the democratic Reform Bill of 1867, Disraeli with an
excellent grace suited himself to the somewhat strange parts
which he was required to play. But after 1874, when he was placed
in office at the head of a powerful majority in both Houses of
Parliament and of a submissive Cabinet, the antics ended; the
epoch of statesmanship, and of statesmanship based on the
leader's own individual thought not on the commonplace of public
creeds, began. At a time when Cavour was rice-growing and
Bismarck unknown outside his own county, Disraeli had given to
the world in Tancred his visions of Eastern Empire. Mysterious
chieftains planned the regeneration of Asia by a new crusade of
Arab and Syrian votaries of the one living faith, and lightly
touched on the transfer of Queen Victoria's Court from London to
Delhi. Nothing indeed is perfect; and Disraeli's eye was favoured
with such extraordinary perceptions of the remote that it proved
a little uncertain in its view of matters not quite without
importance nearer home. He thought the attempt to establish
Italian independence a misdemeanour; he listened to Bismarck's
ideas on the future of Germany, and described them as the
vapourings of a German baron. For a quarter of a century Disraeli
had dazzled and amused the House of Commons without, as it
seemed, drawing inspiration from any one great cause or
discerning any one of the political goals towards which the
nations of Europe were tending. At length, however, the time came
for the realisation of his own imperial policy; and before the
Eastern question had risen conspicuously above the horizon in
Europe, Disraeli, as Prime Minister of England, had begun to act
in Asia and Africa. He sent the Prince of Wales to hold Durbars
and to hunt tigers amongst the Hindoos; he proclaimed the Queen
Empress of India; he purchased the Khedive's shares in the Suez
Canal. Thus far it had been uncertain whether there was much in
the Minister's policy beyond what was theatrical and picturesque;
but when a great part of the nation began to ask for intervention
on behalf of the Eastern Christians against the Turks, they found
out that Disraeli's purpose was solid enough. Animated by a deep
distrust and fear of Russia, he returned to what had been the
policy of Tory Governments in the days before Canning, the
identification of British interests with the maintenance of
Ottoman power. If a generation of sentimentalists were willing to
sacrifice the grandeur of an Empire to their sympathies with an
oppressed people, it was not Disraeli who would be their
instrument. When the massacre of Batak was mentioned in the House
of Commons, he dwelt on the honourable qualities of the
Circassians; when instances of torture were alleged, he remarked
that an oriental people generally terminated its connection with
culprits in a more expeditious manner. <a name=
"FNanchor549">&nbsp;</a><a href="#Footnote_549"><sup>[549]</sup></a>
There were indeed Englishmen enough who loved their country as
well as Disraeli, and who had proved their love by sacrifices
which Disraeli had not had occasion to make, who thought it
humiliating that the greatness of England should be purchased by
the servitude and oppression of other races, and that the
security of their Empire should be deemed to rest on so miserable
a thing as Turkish rule. These were considerations to which
Disraeli did not attach much importance. He believed the one
thing needful to be the curbing of Russia; and, unlike Canning,
who held that Russia would best be kept in check by England's own
armed co-operation with it in establishing the independence of
Greece, he declined from the first to entertain any project of
imposing reform on the Sultan by force, doubting only to what
extent it would be possible for him to support the Sultan in
resistance to other Powers. According to his own later statement
he would himself, had he been left unfettered, have definitely
informed the Czar that if he should make war upon the Porte
England would act as its ally. Public opinion in England,
however, rendered this course impossible. The knife of Circassian
and Bashi-Bazouk had severed the bond with Great Britain which
had saved Turkey in 1854. Disraeli-henceforward Earl of
Beaconsfield-could only utter grim anathemas against Servia for
presuming to draw the sword upon its rightful lord and master,
and chide those impatient English who, like the greater man whose
name is associated with Beaconsfield, considered that the world
need not be too critical as to the means of getting rid of such
an evil as Ottoman rule. <a name="FNanchor550">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_550"><sup>[550]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Meeting and Treaty of Reichstadt, July 8.]</p>
<p>[The Servian Campaign, July-Oct.]</p>
<p>[Russian enforces an armistice, Oct. 30.]</p>
<p>The rejection by England of the Berlin Memorandum and the
proclamation of war by Servia and Montenegro were followed by the
closer union of the three Imperial Courts. The Czar and the
Emperor Francis Joseph, with their Ministers, met at Reichstadt
in Bohemia on the 8th of July. According to official statements
the result of the meeting was that the two sovereigns determined
upon non-intervention for the present, and proposed only to renew
the attempt to unite all the Christian Powers in a common policy
when some definite occasion should arise. Rumours, however, which
proved to be correct, went abroad that something of the nature of
an eventual partition of European Turkey had been the object of
negotiation. A Treaty had in fact been signed providing that if
Russia should liberate Bulgaria by arms, Austria should enter
into possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The neutrality of
Austria had virtually been purchased at this price, and Russia
had thus secured freedom of action in the event of the necessary
reforms not being forced upon Turkey by the concert of Europe.
Sooner perhaps than Prince Gortschakoff had expected, the
religious enthusiasm of the Russian people and their sympathy for
their kinsmen and fellow-believers beyond the Danube forced the
Czar into vigorous action. In spite of the assistance of several
thousands of Russian volunteers and of the leadership of the
Russian General Tchernaieff, the Servians were defeated in their
struggle with the Turks. The mediation of England was in vain
tendered to the Porte on the only terms on which even at London
peace was seen to be possible, the maintenance of the existing
rights of Servia and the establishment of provincial autonomy in
Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. After a brief suspension of
hostilities in September war was renewed. The Servians were
driven from their positions; Alexinatz was captured, the road to
Belgrade lay open, and the doom of Bulgaria seemed likely to
descend upon the conquered Principality. The Turks offered indeed
a five months' armistice, which would have saved them the risks
of a winter campaign and enabled them to crush their enemy with
accumulated forces in the following spring. This, by the advice
of Russia, the Servians refused to accept. On the 30th of October
a Russian ultimatum was handed in at Constantinople by the
Ambassador Ignatieff, requiring within forty-eight hours the
grant to Servia of an armistice for two months and the cessation
of hostilities. The Porte submitted; and wherever Slav and
Ottoman stood facing one another in arms, in Herzegovina and
Bosnia as well as Servia and Montenegro, there was a pause in the
struggle.</p>
<p>[Declaration of the Czar, Nov. 2.]</p>
<p>[England proposes a Conference.]</p>
<p>The imminence of a war between Russia and Turkey in the last
days of October and the close connection between Russia and the
Servian cause justified the anxiety of the British Government.
This anxiety the Czar sought to dispel by a frank declaration of
his own views. On the 2nd of November he entered into
conversation with the British Ambassador, Lord A. Loftus, and
assured him on his word of honour that he had no intention of
acquiring Constantinople; that if it should be necessary for him
to occupy part of Bulgaria his army would remain there only until
peace was restored and the security of the Christian population
established; and, generally, that he desired nothing more
earnestly than a complete accord between England and Russia in
the maintenance of European peace and the improvement of the
condition of the Christian population in Turkey. He stated,
however, with perfect clearness that if the Porte should continue
to refuse the reforms demanded by Europe, and the Powers should
put up with its continued refusal, Russia would act alone.
Disclaiming in words of great earnestness all desire for
territorial aggrandisement, he protested against the suspicion
with which his policy was regarded in England, and desired that
his words might be made public in England as a message of peace.
<a name="FNanchor551">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_551"><sup>[551]</sup></a> Lord Derby, then Foreign
Secretary, immediately expressed the satisfaction with which the
Government had received these assurances; and on the following
day an invitation was sent from London to all the European Powers
proposing a Conference at Constantinople, on the basis of a
common recognition of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire,
accompanied by a disavowal on the part of each of the Powers of
all aims at aggrandisement or separate advantage. In proposing
this Conference the Government acted in conformity with the
expressed desire of the Czar. But there were two voices within
the Cabinet. Lord Beaconsfield, had it been in his power, would
have informed Russia categorically that England would support the
Sultan if attacked. This the country and the Cabinet forbade: but
the Premier had his own opportunities of utterance, and at the
Guildhall Banquet on the 9th of November, six days after the
Foreign Secretary had acknowledged the Czar's message of
friendship, and before this message had been made known to the
English people, Lord Beaconsfield uttered words which, if they
were not idle bluster, could have been intended only as a menace
to the Czar or as an appeal to the war-party at home:-"Though the
policy of England is peace, there is no country so well prepared
for war as our own. If England enters into conflict in a
righteous cause, her resources are inexhaustible. She is not a
country that when she enters into a campaign has to ask herself
whether she can support a second or a third campaign. She enters
into a campaign which she will not terminate till right is
done."</p>
<p>[Project of Ottoman Constitution.]</p>
<p>The proposal made by the Earl of Derby for a Conference at
Constantinople was accepted by all the Powers, and accepted on
the bases specified. Lord Salisbury, then Secretary of State for
India, was appointed to represent Great Britain in conjunction
with Sir H. Elliot, its Ambassador. The Minister made his journey
to Constantinople by way of the European capitals, and learnt at
Berlin that the good understanding between the German Emperor and
the Czar extended to Eastern affairs. Whether the British
Government had as yet gained any trustworthy information on the
Treaty of Reichstadt is doubtful; but so far as the public eye
could judge, there was now, in spite of the tone assumed by Lord
Beaconsfield, a fairer prospect of the solution of the Eastern
question by the establishment of some form of autonomy in the
Christian provinces than there had been at any previous time. The
Porte itself recognised the serious intention of the Powers, and,
in order to forestall the work of the Conference, prepared a
scheme of constitutional reform that far surpassed the wildest
claims of Herzegovinian or of Serb. Nothing less than a complete
system of Parliamentary Government, with the very latest
ingenuities from France and Belgium, was to be granted to the
entire Ottoman Empire. That Midhat Pasha, who was the author of
this scheme, may have had some serious end in view is not
impossible; but with the mass of Palace-functionaries at
Constantinople it was simply a device for embarrassing the West
with its own inventions; and the action of men in power, both
great and small, continued after the constitution had come into
nominal existence to be exactly what it had been before. The very
terms of the constitution must have been unintelligible to all
but those who had been employed at foreign courts. The Government
might as well have announced its intention of clothing the
Balkans with the flora of the deep sea.</p>
<p>[Demands settled at the Preliminary Conference, Dec.
11-21.]</p>
<p>In the second week of December the representatives of the six
Great Powers assembled at Constantinople. In order that the
demands of Europe should be presented to the Porte with
unanimity, they determined to hold a series of preliminary
meetings with one another before the formal opening of the
Conference and before communicating with the Turks. At these
meetings, after Ignatieff had withdrawn his proposal for a
Russian occupation of Bulgaria, complete accord was attained. It
was resolved to demand the cession of certain small districts by
the Porte to Servia and Montenegro; the grant of administrative
autonomy to Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria; the appointment in
each of these provinces of Christian governors, whose terms of
office should be for five years, and whose nomination should be
subject to the approval of the Powers; the confinement of Turkish
troops to the fortresses; the removal of the bands of Circassians
to Asia; and finally the execution of these reforms under the
superintendence of an International Commission, which should have
at its disposal a corps of six thousand gendarmes to be enlisted
in Switzerland or Belgium. By these arrangements, while the
Sultan retained his sovereignty and the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire remained unimpaired, it was conceived that the Christian
population would be effectively secured against Turkish violence
and caprice.</p>
<p>[The Turks refuse the demands of the Conference, Jan. 20,
1877.]</p>
<p>All differences between the representatives of the European
Powers having been removed, the formal Conference was opened on
the 23rd of December under the presidency of the Turkish Foreign
Minister, Savfet Pasha. The proceedings had not gone far when
they were interrupted by the roar of cannon. Savfet explained
that the new Ottoman constitution was being promulgated, and that
the salvo which the members of the Conference heard announced the
birth of an era of universal happiness and prosperity in the
Sultan's dominions. It soon appeared that in the presence of this
great panacea there was no place for the reforming efforts of the
Christian Powers. Savfet declared from the first that, whatever
concessions might be made on other points, the Sultan's
Government would never consent to the establishment of a Foreign
Commission to superintend the execution of its reforms, nor to
the joint action of the Powers in the appointment of the
governors of its provinces. It was in vain argued that without
such foreign control Europe possessed no guarantee that the
promises and the good intentions of the Porte, however gratifying
these might be, would be carried into effect. Savfet replied that
by the Treaty of 1856 the Powers had declared the Ottoman Empire
to stand on exactly the same footing as any other great State in
Europe, and had expressly debarred themselves from interfering,
under whatever circumstances, with its internal administration.
The position of the Turkish representative at the Conference was
in fact the only logical one. In the Treaty of Paris the Powers
had elaborately pledged themselves to an absurdity; and this
Treaty the Turk was never weary of throwing in their faces. But
the situation was not one for lawyers and for the interpretation
of documents. The Conference, after hearing the arguments and the
counter-projects of the Turkish Ministers, after reconsidering
its own demands and modifying these in many important points in
deference to Ottoman wishes, adhered to the demand for a Foreign
Commission and for a European control over the appointment of
governors. Midhat, who was now Grand Vizier, summoned the Great
Council of the Empire, and presented to it the demands of the
Conference. These demands the Great Council unanimously rejected.
Lord Salisbury had already warned the Sultan what would be the
results of continued obstinacy; and after receiving Midhat's
final reply the ambassadors of all the Powers, together with the
envoys who had been specially appointed for the Conference,
quitted Constantinople.</p>
<p>[The London Protocol, Mar. 31.]</p>
<p>[The Porte rejects the Protocol.]</p>
<p>[Russia declares war, April 24.]</p>
<p>Russia, since the beginning of November, had been actively
preparing for war. The Czar had left the world in no doubt as to
his own intentions in case of the failure of the European
Concert; it only remained for him to ascertain whether, after the
settlement of a definite scheme of reform by the Conference and
the rejection of this scheme by the Porte, the Powers would or
would not take steps to enforce their conclusion. England
suggested that the Sultan should be allowed a year to carry out
his good intentions: Gortschakoff inquired whether England would
pledge itself to action if, at the end of the year, reform was
not effected; but no such pledge was forthcoming. With the object
either of discovering some arrangement in which the Powers would
combine, or of delaying the outbreak of war until the Russian
preparations were more advanced and the season more favourable,
Ignatieff was sent round to all the European Courts. He visited
England, and subsequently drew up, with the assistance of Count
Schouvaloff, Russian Ambassador at London, a document which
gained the approval of the British as well as the Continental
Governments. This document, known as the London Protocol, was
signed on the 31st of March. After a reference to the promises of
reform made by the Porte, it stated that the Powers intended to
watch carefully by their representatives over the manner in which
these promises were carried into effect; that if their hopes
should be once more disappointed they should regard the condition
of affairs as incompatible with the interests of Europe; and that
in such case they would decide in common upon the means best
fitted to secure the well-being of the Christian population and
the interests of general peace. Declarations relative to the
disarmament of Russia, which it was now the principal object of
the British Government to effect, were added. There was indeed so
little of a substantial engagement in this Protocol that it would
have been surprising had Russia disarmed without obtaining some
further guarantee for the execution of reform. But weak as the
Protocol was, it was rejected by the Porte. Once more the appeal
was made to the Treaty of Paris, once more the Sultan protested
against the encroachment of the Powers on his own inviolable
rights. Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet even now denied that the last
word had been spoken, and professed to entertain some hope in the
effect of subsequent diplomatic steps; but the rest of Europe
asked and expected no further forbearance on the part of Russia.
The army of operations already lay on the Pruth: the Grand Duke
Nicholas, brother of the Czar, was appointed to its command; and
on the 24th of April the Russian Government issued its
declaration of war.</p>
<p>[Passage of the Danube, June 27.]</p>
<p>[Advance on the Balkans, July.]</p>
<p>[Gourko south of the Balkans, July 15.]</p>
<p>Between the Russian frontier and the Danube lay the
Principality of Roumania. A convention signed before the outbreak
of hostilities gave to the Russian army a free passage through
this territory, and Roumania subsequently entered the war as
Russia's ally. It was not, however, until the fourth week of June
that the invaders were able to cross the Danube. Seven army-corps
were assembled in Roumania; of these one crossed the Lower Danube
into the Dobrudscha, two were retained in Roumania as a reserve,
and four crossed the river in the neighbourhood of Sistowa, in
order to enter upon the Bulgarian campaign. It was the desire of
the Russians to throw forward the central part of their army by
the line of the river Jantra upon the Balkans; with their left to
move against Rustchuk and the Turkish armies in the eastern
fortresses of Bulgaria; with their right to capture Nicopolis,
and guard the central column against any flank attack from the
west. But both in Europe and in Asia the Russians had underrated
the power of their adversary, and entered upon the war with
insufficient forces. Advantages won by their generals on the
Armenian frontier while the European army was still marching
through Roumania were lost in the course of the next few weeks.
Bayazid and other places that fell into the hands of the Russians
at the first onset were recovered by the Turks under Mukhtar
Pasha; and within a few days after the opening of the European
campaign the Russian divisions in Asia were everywhere retreating
upon their own frontier. The Bulgarian campaign was marked by the
same rapid successes of the invader at the outset, to be
followed, owing to the same insufficiency of force, by similar
disasters. Encountering no effective opposition on the Danube,
the Russians pushed forward rapidly towards the Balkans by the
line of the Jantra. The Turkish army lay scattered in the
Bulgarian fortresses, from Widdin in the extreme west to Shumla
at the foot of the Eastern Balkans. It was considered by the
Russian commanders that two army-corps would be required to
operate against the Turks in Eastern Bulgaria, while one corps
would be enough to cover the central line of invasion from the
west. There remained, excluding the two corps in reserve in
Roumania and the corps holding the Dobrudscha, but one corps for
the march on the Balkans and Adrianople. The command of the
vanguard of this body was given to General Gourko, who pressed on
into the Balkans, seized the Shipka Pass, and descended into
Southern Bulgaria (July 15). The Turks were driven from Kesanlik
and Eski Sagra, and Gourko's cavalry, a few hundreds in number,
advanced to within two days' march of Adrianople.</p>
<p>[Osman occupies Plevna, July 19.]</p>
<p>[First engagement at Plevna, July 20.]</p>
<p>[Second battle at Plevna, July 30.]</p>
<p>[The Shipka Pass, Aug. 20-23.]</p>
<p>The headquarters of the whole Russian army were now at
Tirnova, the ancient Bulgarian capital, about half-way between
the Danube and the Balkans. Two army-corps, commanded by the
Czarewitch, moved eastwards against Rustchuk and the so-called
Turkish army of the Danube, which was gathering behind the lines
of the Kara Lom; another division, under General Krudener, turned
westward and captured Nicopolis with its garrison. Lovatz and
other points lying westward of the Jantra were occupied by weak
detachments; but so badly were the reconnaissances of the
Russians performed in this direction that they were unaware of
the approach of a Turkish army from Widdin, thirty-five thousand
strong, till this was close on their flank. Before the Russians
could prevent him, Osman Pasha, with the vanguard of this army,
had occupied the town and heights of Plevna, between Nicopolis
and Lovatz. On the 20th of July, still unaware of their enemy's
strength, the Russians attacked him at Plevna: they were defeated
with considerable loss, and after a few days one of Osman's
divisions, pushing forward upon the invader's central line, drove
them out of Lovatz. The Grand Duke now sent reinforcements to
Krudener, and ordered him to take Plevna at all costs. Krudener's
strength was raised to thirty-five thousand; but in the meantime
new Turkish regiments had joined Osman, and his troops, now
numbering about fifty thousand, had been working day and night
entrenching themselves in the heights round Plevna which the
Russians had to attack. The assault was made on the 30th of July;
it was beaten back with terrible slaughter, the Russians leaving
a fifth of their number on the field. Had Osman taken up the
offensive and the Turkish commander on the Lom pressed vigorously
upon the invader's line, it would probably have gone ill with the
Russian army in Bulgaria. Gourko was at once compelled to abandon
the country south of the Balkans. His troops, falling back upon
the Shipka Pass, were there attacked from the south by far
superior forces under Suleiman Pasha. The Ottoman commander,
prodigal of the lives of his men and trusting to mere blindfold
violence, hurled his army day after day against the Russian
positions (Aug. 20-23). There was a moment when all seemed lost,
and the Russian soldiers sent to their Czar the last message of
devotion from men who were about to die at their post. But in the
extremity of peril there arrived a reinforcement, weak, but
sufficient to turn the scale against the ill-commanded Turks.
Suleiman's army withdrew to the village of Shipka at the southern
end of the pass. The pass itself, with the entrance from northern
Bulgaria, remained in the hands of the Russians.</p>
<p>[Roumania.]</p>
<p>[Third battle of Plevna, Sept 11-12.]</p>
<p>After the second battle of Plevna it became clear that the
Russians could not carry on the campaign with their existing
forces. Two army-corps were called up which were guarding the
coast of the Black Sea; several others were mobilised in the
interior of Russia, and began their journey towards the Danube.
So urgent, however, was the immediate need, that the Czar was
compelled to ask help from Roumania. This help was given.
Roumanian troops, excellent in quality, filled up the gap caused
by Krudener's defeats, and the whole army before Plevna was
placed under the command of the Roumanian Prince Charles. At the
beginning of September the Russians were again ready for action.
Lovatz was wrested from the Turks, and the division which had
captured it moved on to Plevna to take part in a great combined
attack. This attack was made on the 11th of September under the
eyes of the Czar. On the north the Russians and Roumanians
together, after a desperate struggle, stormed the Grivitza
redoubt. On the south Skobeleff carried the first Turkish
position, but could make no impression on their second line of
defence. Twelve thousand men fell on the Russian side before the
day was over, and the main defences of the Turks were still
unbroken. On the morrow the Turks took up the offensive.
Skobeleff, exposed to the attack of a far superior foe, prayed in
vain for reinforcements. His men, standing in the positions that
they had won from the Turks, repelled one onslaught after
another, but were ultimately overwhelmed and driven from the
field. At the close of the second day's battle the Russians were
everywhere beaten back within their own lines, except at the
Grivitza redoubt, which was itself but an outwork of the Turkish
defences, and faced by more formidable works within. The
assailants had sustained a loss approaching that of the Germans
at Gravelotte with an army one-third of the Germans' strength.
Osman was stronger than at the beginning of the campaign; with
what sacrifices Russia would have to purchase its ultimate
victory no man could calculate.</p>
<p>[Todleben besieges Plevna.]</p>
<p>[Fall of Plevna, Dec. 10.]</p>
<p>The three defeats at Plevna cast a sinister light upon the
Russian military administration and the quality of its chiefs.
The soldiers had fought heroically; divisional generals like
Skobeleff had done all that man could do in such positions; the
faults were those of the headquarters and the officers by whom
the Imperial Family were surrounded. After the third catastrophe,
public opinion called for the removal of the authors of these
disasters and the employment of abler men. Todleben, the defender
of Sebastopol, who for some unknown reason had been left without
a command, was now summoned to Bulgaria, and virtually placed at
the head of the army before Plevna. He saw that the stronghold of
Osman could only be reduced by a regular siege, and prepared to
draw his lines right round it. For a time Osman kept open his
communications with the south-west, and heavy trains of
ammunition and supplies made their way into Plevna from this
direction; but the investment was at length completed, and the
army of Plevna cut off from the world. In the meantime new
regiments were steadily pouring into Bulgaria from the interior
of Russia. East of the Jantra, after many alternations of
fortune, the Turks were finally driven back behind the river Lom.
The last efforts of Suleiman failed to wrest the Shipka Pass from
its defenders. From the narrow line which the invaders had with
such difficulty held during three anxious months their forces,
accumulating day by day, spread out south and west up to the
slopes of the Balkans, ready to burst over the mountain-barrier
and sweep the enemy back to the walls of Constantinople when once
Plevna should have fallen and the army which besieged it should
be added to the invader's strength. At length, in the second week
of December, Osman's supply of food was exhausted. Victor in
three battles, he refused to surrender without one more struggle.
On the 10th of December, after distributing among his men what
there remained of provisions, he made a desperate effort to break
out towards the west. His columns dashed in vain against the
besieger's lines; behind him his enemies pressed forward into the
positions which he had abandoned; a ring of fire like that of
Sedan surrounded the Turkish army; and after thousands had fallen
in a hopeless conflict, the general and the troops who for five
months had held in check the collected forces of the Russian
Empire surrendered to their conqueror.</p>
<p>[Crossing of the Balkans, Dec. 25-Jan. 8.]</p>
<p>[Capitulation of Shipka, Jan. 9.]</p>
<p>[Russians enter Adrianople, Jan. 20, 1878.]</p>
<p>If in the first stages of the war there was little that did
credit to Russia's military capacity, the energy that marked its
close made amends for what had gone before. Winter was descending
in extreme severity: the Balkans were a mass of snow and ice; but
no obstacle could now bar the invader's march. Gourko, in command
of an army that had gathered to the south-west of Plevna, made
his way through the mountains above Etropol in the last days of
December, and, driving the Turks from Sophia, pressed on towards
Philippopolis and Adrianople. Farther east two columns crossed
the Balkans by bye-paths right and left of the Shipka Pass, and
then, converging on Shipka itself, fell upon the rear of the
Turkish army which still blocked the southern outlet.
Simultaneously a third corps marched down the pass from the north
and assailed the Turks in front. After a fierce struggle the
entire Turkish army, thirty-five thousand strong, laid down its
arms. There now remained only one considerable force between the
invaders and Constantinople. This body, which was commanded by
Suleiman, held the road which runs along the valley of the
Maritza, at a point somewhat to the east of Philippopolis.
Against it Gourko advanced from the west, while the victors of
Shipka, descending due south through Kesanlik, barred the line of
retreat towards Adrianople. The last encounter of the war took
place on the 17th of January. Suleiman's army, routed and
demoralised, succeeded in making its escape to the &AElig;gean
coast. Pursuit was unnecessary, for the war was now practically
over. On the 20th of January the Russians made their entry into
Adrianople; in the next few days their advanced guard touched the
Sea of Marmora at Rodosto.</p>
<p>[Armistice, Jan. 31.]</p>
<p>Immediately after the fall of Plevna the Porte had applied to
the European Powers for their mediation. Disasters in Asia had
already warned it not to delay submission too long; for in the
middle of October Mukhtar Pasha had been driven from his
positions, and a month later Kars had been taken by storm. The
Russians had subsequently penetrated into Armenia and had
captured the outworks of Erzeroum. Each day that now passed
brought the Ottoman Empire nearer to destruction. Servia again
declared war; the Montenegrins made themselves masters of the
coast-towns and of border-territory north and south; Greece
seemed likely to enter into the struggle. Baffled in his attempt
to gain the common mediation of the Powers, the Sultan appealed
to the Queen of England personally for her good offices in
bringing the conflict to a close. In reply to a telegram from
London, the Czar declared himself willing to treat for peace as
soon as direct communications should be addressed to his
representatives by the Porte. On the 14th of January
commissioners were sent to the headquarters of the Grand Duke
Nicholas at Kesanlik to treat for an armistice and for
preliminaries of peace. The Russians, now in the full tide of
victory, were in no hurry to agree with their adversary. Nicholas
bade the Turkish envoys accompany him to Adrianople, and it was
not until the 31st of January that the armistice was granted and
the preliminaries of peace signed.</p>
<p>[England.]</p>
<p>[Vote of Credit, Jan. 28-Feb. 8.]</p>
<p>[Fleet passes the Dardanelles, Feb. 6.]</p>
<p>While the Turkish envoys were on their journey to the Russian
headquarters, the session of Parliament opened at London. The
Ministry had declared at the outbreak of the war that Great
Britain would remain neutral unless its own interests should be
imperilled, and it had defined these interests with due clearness
both in its communications with the Russian Ambassador and in its
statements in Parliament. It was laid down that Her Majesty's
Government could not permit the blockade of the Suez Canal, or
the extension of military operations to Egypt; that it could not
witness with indifference the passing of Constantinople into
other hands than those of its present possessors; and that it
would entertain serious objections to any material alterations in
the rules made under European sanction for the navigation of the
Bosphorus and Dardanelles. <a name="FNanchor552">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_552"><sup>[552]</sup></a> In reply to Lord Derby's
note which formulated these conditions of neutrality Prince
Gortschakoff had repeated the Czar's assurance that the
acquisition of Constantinople was excluded from his views, and
had promised to undertake no military operation in Egypt; he had,
however, let it be understood that, as an incident of warfare,
the reduction of Constantinople might be necessary like that of
any other capital. In the Queen's speech at the opening of
Parliament, Ministers stated that the conditions on which the
neutrality of England was founded had not hitherto been infringed
by either belligerent, but that, should hostilities be prolonged,
some unexpected occurrence might render it necessary to adopt
measures of precaution, measures which could not be adequately
prepared without an appeal to the liberality of Parliament. From
language subsequently used by Lord Beaconsfield's colleagues, it
would appear that the Cabinet had some apprehension that the
Russian army, escaping from the Czar's control, might seize and
attempt permanently to hold Constantinople. On the 23rd of
January orders were sent to Admiral Hornby, commander of the
fleet at Besika Bay, to pass the Dardanelles, and proceed to
Constantinople. Lord Derby, who saw no necessity for measures of
a warlike character until the result of the negotiations at
Adrianople should become known, now resigned office; but on the
reversal of the order to Admiral Hornby he rejoined the Cabinet.
On the 28th of January, after the bases of peace had been
communicated by Count Schouvaloff to the British Government but
before they had been actually signed, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer moved for a vote of &pound;6,000,000 for increasing the
armaments of the country. This vote was at first vigorously
opposed on the ground that none of the stated conditions of
England's neutrality had been infringed, and that in the
conditions of peace between Russia and Turkey there was nothing
that justified a departure from the policy which England had
hitherto pursued. In the course of the debates, however, a
telegram arrived from Mr. Layard, Elliot's successor at
Constantinople, stating that notwithstanding the armistice the
Russians were pushing on towards the capital; that the Turks had
been compelled to evacuate Silivria on the Sea of Marmora; that
the Russian general was about to occupy Tchataldja, an outpost of
the last line of defence not thirty miles from Constantinople;
and that the Porte was in great alarm, and unable to understand
the Russian proceedings. The utmost excitement was caused at
Westminster by this telegram. The fleet was at once ordered to
Constantinople. Mr. Forster, who had led the opposition to the
vote of credit, sought to withdraw his amendment; and although on
the following day, with the arrival of the articles of the
armistice, it appeared that the Russians were simply moving up to
the accepted line of demarcation, and that the Porte could hardly
have been ignorant of this when Layard's telegram was despatched,
the alarm raised in London did not subside, and the vote of
credit was carried by a majority of above two hundred. <a name=
"FNanchor553">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_553"><sup>[553]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Imminence of war with England.]</p>
<p>When a victorious army is, without the intervention of some
external Power, checked in its work of conquest by the
negotiation of an armistice, it is invariably made a condition
that positions shall be handed over to it which it does not at
the moment occupy, but which it might reasonably expect to have
conquered within a certain date, had hostilities not been
suspended. The armistice granted to Austria by Napoleon after the
battle of Marengo involved the evacuation of the whole of Upper
Italy; the armistice which Bismarck offered to the French
Government of Defence at the beginning of the siege of Paris
would have involved the surrender of Strasburg and of Toul. In
demanding that the line of demarcation should be carried almost
up to the walls of Constantinople the Russians were asking for no
more than would certainly have been within their hands had
hostilities been prolonged for a few weeks, or even days. Deeply
as the conditions of the armistice agitated the English people,
it was not in these conditions, but in the conditions of the
peace which was to follow, that the true cause of contention
between England and Russia, if cause there was, had to be found.
Nevertheless, the approach of the Russians to Gallipoli and the
lines of Tchataldja, followed, as it was, by the despatch of the
British fleet to Constantinople, brought Russia and Great Britain
within a hair's breadth of war. It was in vain that Lord Derby
described the fleet as sent only for the protection of the lives
and property of British subjects. Gortschakoff, who was superior
in amenities of this kind, replied that the Russian Government
had exactly the same end in view, with the distinction that its
protection would be extended to all Christians. Should the
British fleet appear at the Bosphorus, Russian troops would, in
the fulfilment of a common duty of humanity, enter
Constantinople. Yielding to this threat, Lord Beaconsfield bade
the fleet halt at a convenient point in the Sea of Marmora. On
both sides preparations were made for immediate action. The guns
on our ships stood charged for battle; the Russians strewed the
shallows with torpedoes. Had a Russian soldier appeared on the
heights of Gallipoli, had an Englishman landed on the Asiatic
shore of the Bosphorus, war would at once have broken out. But
after some weeks of extreme danger the perils of mere contiguity
passed away, and the decision between peace and war was
transferred from the accidents of tent and quarter deck to the
deliberations of statesmen assembled in Congress.</p>
<p>[Treaty of San Stefano, Mar. 3.]</p>
<p>The bases of Peace which were made the condition of the
armistice granted at Adrianople formed with little alteration the
substance of the Treaty signed by Russia and Turkey at San
Stefano, a village on the Sea of Marmora, on the 3rd of March. By
this Treaty the Porte recognised the independence of Servia,
Montenegro, and Roumania, and made considerable cessions of
territory to the two former States. Bulgaria was constituted an
autonomous tributary Principality, with a Christian Government
and a national militia. Its frontier, which was made so extensive
as to include the greater part of European Turkey, was defined as
beginning near Midia on the Black Sea, not sixty miles from the
Bosphorus; passing thence westwards just to the north of
Adrianople; descending to the &AElig;gean Sea, and following the
coast as far as the Thracian Chersonese; then passing inland
westwards, so as barely to exclude Salonika; running on to the
border of Albania within fifty miles of the Adriatic, and from
this point following the Albanian border up to the new Servian
frontier. The Prince of Bulgaria was to be freely elected by the
population, and confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the
Powers; a system of administration was to be drawn up by an
Assembly of Bulgarian notables; and the introduction of the new
system into Bulgaria with the superintendence of its working was
to be entrusted for two years to a Russian Commissioner. Until
the native militia was organised, Russian troops, not exceeding
fifty thousand in number, were to occupy the country; this
occupation, however, was to be limited to a term approximating to
two years. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the proposals laid before
the Porte at the first sitting of the Conference of 1876 were to
be immediately introduced, subject to such modifications as might
be agreed upon between Turkey, Russia, and Austria. The Porte
undertook to apply scrupulously in Crete the Organic Law which
had been drawn up in 1868, taking into account the previously
expressed wishes of the native population. An analogous law,
adapted to local requirements, was, after being communicated to
the Czar, to be introduced into Epirus, Thessaly, and the other
parts of Turkey in Europe for which a special constitution was
not provided by the Treaty. Commissions, in which the native
population was to be largely represented, were in each province
to be entrusted with the task of elaborating the details of the
new organisation. In Armenia the Sultan undertook to carry into
effect without further delay the improvements and reforms
demanded by local requirements, and to guarantee the security of
the Armenians from Kurds and Circassians. As an indemnity for the
losses and expenses of the war the Porte admitted itself to be
indebted to Russia in the sum of fourteen hundred million
roubles; but in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan, and in
consideration of the financial embarrassments of Turkey, the Czar
consented to accept in substitution for the greater part of this
sum the cession of the Dobrudscha in Europe, and of the districts
of Ardahan, Kars, Batoum, and Bayazid in Asia. As to the balance
of three hundred million roubles left due to Russia, the mode of
payment or guarantee was to be settled by an understanding
between the two Governments. The Dobrudscha was to be given by
the Czar to Roumania in exchange for Bessarabia, which this State
was to transfer to Russia. The complete evacuation of Turkey in
Europe was to take place within three months, that of Turkey in
Asia within six months, from the conclusion of peace. <a name=
"FNanchor554">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_554"><sup>[554]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Congress proposed.]</p>
<p>[Opposite purposes of Russia and England.]</p>
<p>It had from the first been admitted by the Russian Government
that questions affecting the interests of Europe at large could
not be settled by a Treaty between Russia and Turkey alone, but
must form the subject of European agreement. Early in February
the Emperor of Austria had proposed that a European Conference
should assemble at his own capital. It was subsequently agreed
that Berlin, instead of Vienna, should be the place of meeting,
and instead of a Conference a Congress should be held, that is,
an international assembly of the most solemn form, in which each
of the Powers is represented not merely by an ambassador or an
envoy, but by its leading Ministers. But the question at once
arose whether there existed in the mind of the Russian Government
a distinction between parts of the Treaty of San Stefano bearing
on the interests of Europe generally and parts which affected no
States but Russia and Turkey; and whether, in this case, Russia
was willing that Europe should be the judge of the distinction,
or, on the contrary, claimed for itself the right of withholding
portions of the Treaty from the cognisance of the European Court.
In accepting the principle of a Congress, Lord Derby on behalf of
Great Britain made it a condition that every article of the
Treaty without exception should be laid before the Congress, not
necessarily as requiring the concurrence of the Powers, but in
order that the Powers themselves might in each case decide
whether their concurrence was necessary or not. To this demand
Prince Gortschakoff offered the most strenuous resistance,
claiming for Russia the liberty of accepting, or not accepting,
the discussion of any question that might be raised. It would
clearly have been in the power of the Russian Government, had
this condition been granted, to exclude from the consideration of
Europe precisely those matters which in the opinion of other
States were most essentially of European import. Phrases of
conciliation were suggested; but no ingenuity of language could
shade over the difference of purpose which separated the rival
Powers. Every day the chances of the meeting of the Congress
seemed to be diminishing, the approach of war between Russia and
Great Britain more unmistakable. Lord Beaconsfield called out the
Reserves and summoned troops from India; even the project of
seizing a port in Asia Minor in case the Sultan should fall under
Russian influence was discussed in the Cabinet. Unable to
reconcile himself to these vigorous measures, Lord Derby, who had
long been at variance with the Premier, now finally withdrew from
the Cabinet (March 28). He was succeeded in his office by the
Marquis of Salisbury, whose comparison of his relative and
predecessor to Titus Oates revived the interest of the diplomatic
world in a now forgotten period of English history.</p>
<p>[Circular of April 1.]</p>
<p>The new Foreign Secretary had not been many days in office
when a Circular, despatched to all the Foreign Courts, summed up
the objections of Great Britain to the Treaty of San Stefano. It
was pointed out that a strong Slavic State would be created under
the control of Russia, possessing important harbours upon the
shores of the Black Sea and the Archipelago, and giving to Russia
a preponderating influence over political and commercial
relations on both those seas; that a large Greek population would
be merged in a dominant Slavic majority; that by the extension of
Bulgaria to the Archipelago the Albanian and Greek provinces left
to the Sultan would be severed from Constantinople; that the
annexation of Bessarabia and of Batoum would make the will of the
Russian Government dominant over all the vicinity of the Black
Sea; that the acquisition of the strongholds of Armenia would
place the population of that province under the immediate
influence of the Power that held these strongholds, while through
the cession of Bayazid the European trade from Trebizond to
Persia would become liable to be arrested by the prohibitory
barriers of the Russian commercial system. Finally, by the
stipulation for an indemnity which it was beyond the power of
Turkey to discharge, and by the reference of the mode of payment
or guarantee to a later settlement, Russia had placed it in its
power either to extort yet larger cessions of territory, or to
force Turkey into engagements subordinating its policy in all
things to that of St. Petersburg.</p>
<p>[Count Schouvaloff.]</p>
<p>[Secret agreement, May 30th.]</p>
<p>[Convention with Turkey, June 4.]</p>
<p>[Cyprus.]</p>
<p>It was the object of Lord Salisbury to show that the effects
of the Treaty of San Stefano, taken in a mass, threatened the
peace and the interests of Europe, and therefore, whatever might
be advanced for or against individual stipulations of the Treaty,
that the Treaty as a whole, and not clauses selected by one
Power, must be submitted to the Congress if the examination was
not to prove illusory. This was a just line of argument.
Nevertheless it was natural to suppose that some parts of the
Treaty must be more distasteful than others to Great Britain; and
Count Schouvaloff, who was sincerely desirous of peace, applied
himself to the task of discovering with what concessions Lord
Beaconsfield's Cabinet would be satisfied. He found that if
Russia would consent to modifications of the Treaty in Congress
excluding Bulgaria from the Aegean Sea, reducing its area on the
south and west, dividing it into two provinces, and restoring the
Balkans to the Sultan as a military frontier, giving back Bayazid
to the Turks, and granting to other Powers besides Russia a voice
in the organisation of Epirus, Thessaly, and the other Christian
provinces of the Porte, England might be induced to accept
without essential change the other provisions of San Stefano. On
the 7th of May Count Schouvaloff quitted London for St.
Petersburg, in order to lay before the Czar the results of his
communications with the Cabinet, and to acquaint him with the
state of public opinion in England. On his journey hung the
issues of peace or war. Backed by the counsels of the German
Emperor, Schouvaloff succeeded in his mission. The Czar
determined not to risk the great results already secured by
insisting on the points contested, and Schouvaloff returned to
London authorised to conclude a pact with the British Government
on the general basis which had been laid down. On the 30th of May
a secret agreement, in which the above were the principal points,
was signed, and the meeting of the Congress for the examination
of the entire Treaty of San Stefano was now assured. But it was
not without the deepest anxiety and regret that Lord Beaconsfield
consented to the annexation of Batoum and the Armenian
fortresses. He obtained indeed an assurance in the secret
agreement with Schouvaloff that the Russian frontier should be no
more extended on the side of Turkey in Asia; but his policy did
not stop short here. By a Convention made with the Sultan on the
4th of June, Great Britain engaged, in the event of any further
aggression by Russia upon the Asiatic territories of the Sultan,
to defend these territories by force of arms. The Sultan in
return promised to introduce the necessary reforms, to be agreed
upon by the two Powers, for the protection of the Christian and
other subjects of the Porte in these territories, and further
assigned the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by
England. It was stipulated by a humorous after-clause that if
Russia should restore to Turkey its Armenian conquests, Cyprus
would be evacuated by England, and the Convention itself should
be at an end. <a name="FNanchor555">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#Footnote_555"><sup>[555]</sup></a></p>
<p>[Congress of Berlin, June 13-July 13.]</p>
<p>[Treaty of Berlin, July 13.]</p>
<p>The Congress of Berlin, at which the Premier himself and Lord
Salisbury represented Great Britain, opened on the 13th of June.
Though the compromise between England and Russia had been settled
in general terms, the arrangement of details opened such a series
of difficulties that the Congress seemed more than once on the
point of breaking up. It was mainly due to the perseverance and
wisdom of Prince Bismarck, who transferred the discussion of the
most crucial points from the Congress to private meetings of his
guests, and who himself acted as conciliator when Gortschakoff
folded up his maps or Lord Beaconsfield ordered a special train,
that the work was at length achieved. The Treaty of Berlin,
signed on the 13th of July, confined Bulgaria, as an autonomous
Principality, to the country north of the Balkans, and diminished
the authority which, pending the establishment of its definitive
system of government, would by the Treaty of San Stefano have
belonged to a Russian commissioner. The portion of Bulgaria south
of the Balkans, but extending no farther west than the valley of
the Maritza, and no farther south than Mount Rhodope, was formed
into a Province of East Roumelia, to remain subject to the direct
political and military authority of the Sultan, under conditions
of administrative autonomy. The Sultan was declared to possess
the right of erecting fortifications both on the coast and on the
land-frontier of this province, and of maintaining troops there.
Alike in Bulgaria and in Eastern Roumelia the period of
occupation by Russian troops was limited to nine months. Bosnia
and Herzegovina were handed over to Austria, to be occupied and
administered by that Power. The cessions of territory made to
Servia and Montenegro in the Treaty of San Stefano were modified
with the object of interposing a broader strip between these two
States; Bayazid was omitted from the ceded districts in Asia, and
the Czar declared it his intention to erect Batoum into a free
port, essentially commercial. At the instance of France the
provisions relating to the Greek Provinces of Turkey were
superseded by a vote in favour of the cession of part of these
Provinces to the Hellenic Kingdom. The Sultan was recommended to
cede Thessaly and part of Epirus to Greece, the Powers reserving
to themselves the right of offering their mediation to facilitate
the negotiations. In other respects the provisions of the Treaty
of San Stefano were confirmed without substantial change.</p>
<p>[Comparison of the two Treaties.]</p>
<p>Lord Beaconsfield returned to London, bringing, as he said,
peace with honour. It was claimed, in the despatch to our
Ambassadors which accompanied the publication of the Treaty of
Berlin, that in this Treaty the cardinal objections raised by the
British Government to the Treaty of San Stefano had found an
entire remedy. "Bulgaria," wrote Lord Salisbury, "is now confined
to the river-barrier of the Danube, and consequently has not only
ceased to possess any harbour on the Archipelago, but is removed
by more than a hundred miles from the neighbourhood of that sea.
On the Euxine the important port of Bourgas has been restored to
the Government of Turkey; and Bulgaria retains less than half the
sea-board originally assigned to it, and possesses no other port
except the roadstead of Varna, which can hardly be used for any
but commercial purposes. The replacement under Turkish rule of
Bourgas and the southern half of the sea-board on the Euxine, and
the strictly commercial character assigned to Batoum, have
largely obviated the menace to the liberty of the Black Sea. The
political outposts of Russian power have been pushed back to the
region beyond the Balkans; the Sultan's dominions have been
provided with a defensible frontier." It was in short the
contention of the English Government that while Russia, in the
pretended emancipation of a great part of European Turkey by the
Treaty of San Stefano, had but acquired a new dependency,
England, by insisting on the division of Bulgaria, had baffled
this plan and restored to Turkey an effective military dominion
over all the country south of the Balkans. That Lord Beaconsfield
did well in severing Macedonia from the Slavic State of Bulgaria
there is little reason to doubt; that, having so severed it, he
did ill in leaving it without a European guarantee for good
government, every successive year made more plain; the wisdom of
his treatment of Bulgaria itself must, in the light of subsequent
events, remain matter for controversy. It may fairly be said that
in dealing with Bulgaria English statesmen were, on the whole,
dealing with the unknown. Nevertheless, had guidance been
accepted from the history of the other Balkan States, analogies
were not altogether wanting or altogether remote. During the
present century three Christian States had been formed out of
what had been Ottoman territory: Servia, Greece, and Roumania.
Not one of these had become a Russian Province, or had failed to
develop and maintain a distinct national existence. In Servia an
attempt had been made to retain for the Porte the right of
keeping troops in garrison. This attempt had proved a mistake. So
long as the right was exercised it had simply been a source of
danger and disquiet, and it had finally been abandoned by the
Porte itself. In the case of Greece, Russia, with a view to its
own interests, had originally proposed that the country should be
divided into four autonomous provinces tributary to the Sultan:
against this the Greeks had protested, and Canning had
successfully supported their protest. Even the appointment of an
ex-Minister of St. Petersburg, Capodistrias, as first President
of Greece in 1827 had failed to bring the liberated country under
Russian influence; and in the course of the half-century which
had since elapsed it had become one of the commonplaces of
politics, accepted by every school in every country of Western
Europe, that the Powers had committed a great error in 1833 in
not extending to far larger dimensions the Greek Kingdom which
they then established. In the case of Roumania, the British
Government had, out of fear of Russia, insisted in 1856 that the
provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia should remain separate: the
result was that the inhabitants in defiance of England effected
their union, and that after a few years had passed there was not
a single politician in England who regarded their union otherwise
than with satisfaction. If history taught anything in the
solution of the Eastern question, it taught that the effort to
reserve for the Sultan a military existence in countries which
had passed from under his general control was futile, and that
the best barrier against Russian influence was to be found not in
the division but in the strengthening and consolidation of the
States rescued from Ottoman dominions.</p>
<p>It was of course open to English statesmen in 1878 to believe
that all that had hitherto passed in the Balkan Peninsula had no
bearing upon the problems of the hour, and that, whatever might
have been the case with Greece, Servia, and Roumania, Bulgaria
stood on a completely different footing, and called for the
application of principles not based on the experience of the past
but on the divinations of superior minds. Should the history of
succeeding years bear out this view, should the Balkans become a
true military frontier for Turkey, should Northern Bulgaria sink
to the condition of a Russian dependency, and Eastern Roumelia,
in severance from its enslaved kin, abandon itself to a thriving
ease behind the garrisons of the reforming Ottoman, Lord
Beaconsfield will have deserved the fame of a statesman whose
intuitions, undimmed by the mists of experience, penetrated the
secret of the future, and shaped, because they discerned, the
destiny of nations. It will be the task of later historians to
measure the exact period after the Congress of Berlin at which
the process indicated by Lord Beaconsfield came into visible
operation; it is the misfortune of those whose view is limited by
a single decade to have to record that in every particular, with
the single exception of the severance of Macedonia from the
Slavonic Principality, Lord Beaconsfield's ideas, purposes and
anticipations, in so far as they related to Eastern Europe, have
hitherto been contradicted by events. What happened in Greece,
Servia, and Roumania has happened in Bulgaria. Experience, thrown
to the winds by English Ministers in 1878, has justified those
who listened to its voice. There exists no such thing as a
Turkish fortress on the Balkans; Bourgas no more belongs to the
Sultan than Athens or Belgrade; no Turkish soldier has been able
to set foot within the territory whose very name, Eastern
Roumelia, was to stamp it as Turkish dominion. National
independence, a living force in Greece, in Servia, in Roumania,
has proved its power in Bulgaria too. The efforts of Russia to
establish its influence over a people liberated by its arms have
been repelled with unexpected firmness. Like the divided members
of Roumania, the divided members of Bulgaria have effected their
union. In this union, in the growing material and moral force of
the Bulgarian State, Western Europe sees a power wholly
favourable to its own hopes for the future of the East, wholly
adverse to the extension of Russian rule: and it has been
reserved for Lord Beaconsfield's colleague at the Congress of
Berlin, regardless of the fact that Bulgaria north of the
Balkans, not the southern Province, created that vigorous
military and political organisation which was the precursor of
national union, to explain that in dividing Bulgaria into two
portions the English Ministers of 1878 intended to promote its
ultimate unity, and that in subjecting the southern half to the
Sultan's rule they laid the foundation for its ultimate
independence.</p>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>
<br>

<p><a name="Footnote_1">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a></p>
<blockquote>Chapters I. to XI. of this Edition.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_2"> </a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a></p>
<blockquote>Chapters XII. to XVIII. of this Edition.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_3">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a></p>
<blockquote>Page 362 of this Edition.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_4">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn der Revolutionskriege, p.
90, Vivenot, Quellen zur Geschichte der Kaiserpolitik
Oesterreichs, i. 185, 208.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_5">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a></p>
<blockquote>Von Sybel, Geschichte der Revolutionszeit, i.
289.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_6">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a></p>
<blockquote>Vivenot, Quellen, i. 372. Buchez et Roux, xiii. 340,
xiv. 24.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_7">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, Deutsche Geschichte, i. 88. Vivenot,
Herzog Albrecht, i. 78.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_8">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a></p>
<blockquote>Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs, i.
46.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_9">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, Leben Stein, ii. 402. Paget, Travels in
Hungary, i. 131.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_10">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn, p. 256. Vivenot, Quellen,
i. 133, 165. The acquisition of Bavaria was declared by the
Austrian Cabinet to be the <i>summum bonum</i> of the
monarchy.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_11">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a></p>
<blockquote>Biedermann, Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert,
iv. 1144.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_12">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a></p>
<blockquote>Carlyle, Friedrich, vi. 667.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_13">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, i. 197. Hardenberg (Ranke), i. 139. Von
Sybel, i. 272.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_14">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The connection with the House of Austria and the
present undertaking continue to be very unpopular. It is openly
said that one half of the treasure was uselessly spent at
Reichenbach, and that the other half will be spent on the present
occasion, and that the sovereign will be reduced to his former
level of Margrave of Brandenburg." Eden, from Berlin; June 19,
1792. Records: Prussia, vol. 151. "He (M&ouml;llendorf)
reprobated the alliance with Austria, condemning the present
interference in the affairs of France as ruinous, and censuring
as undignified and contrary to the most important interests of
this country the leaving Russia sole arbitress of the fate of
Poland. He, however, said, what every Prussian without any
exception of party will say, that this country can never
acquiesce in the establishment of a good government in Poland,
since in a short time it would rise to a very decided
superiority," <i>Id.</i>, July 17. Mr. Cobden's theory that the
partition of Poland was effected in the interest of good
government must have caused some surprise at Berlin.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_15">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a></p>
<blockquote>The condition of Mecklenburg is thus described in a
letter written by Stein during a journey in 1802:-"I found the
aspect of the country as cheerless as its misty northern sky;
great estates, much of them in pasture or fallow; an extremely
thin population; the entire labouring class under the yoke of
serfage; stretches of land attached to solitary ill-built
farmhouses; in short, a monotony, a dead stillness, spreading
over the whole country, an absence of life and activity that
quite overcame my spirits. The home of the Mecklenburg noble, who
weighs like a load on his peasants instead of improving their
condition, gives me the idea of the den of some wild beast, who
devastates even thing about him, and surrounds himself with the
silence of the grave." Pertz, Leben Stein, i. 192. For a more
cheerful description of M&uuml;nster, see <i>id.</i>, i.
241.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_16">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a></p>
<blockquote>Perthes, Staatsleben, p. 116. Rigby, Letters from
France, p. 215.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_17">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a></p>
<blockquote>Buchez et Roux, xvi. 279. One of the originals of
this declaration, handed to the British ambassador, is in the
London Records: Prussia, vol. 151.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_18">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a></p>
<blockquote>The accounts of the emigrants sent to England by Lord
Elgin, envoy at Brussels, and Sir J. Murray, our military
attach&eacute; with Brunswick's army (in Records: Flanders, vol.
221) are instructive: "The conduct of the army under the Princes
of France is universally reprobated. Their appearance in dress,
in attendants, in preparations, is ridiculous. As an instance,
however trivial, it may be mentioned that on one of the waggons
was written <i>Toilette de Monsieur</i>. The spirit of vengeance,
however, which they discover on every occasion is far more
serious. Wherever they have passed, they have exercised acts of
cruelty, in banishing and severely punishing those persons who,
though probably culpable, had yet been left untouched by the
Prussian commanders. To such an extent has this been carried that
the commander at Verdun would not suffer any Frenchman (emigrant)
to pass a night in the town without a special permission." Sept.
21. After the failure of the campaign, Elgin writes of the
emigrants: "They every-where added to the cruelties for some of
which several hussars had been executed: carried to its extent
the vengeance threatened in the Duke of Brunswick's Declaration,
in burning whole villages where a shot was fired on them: and on
the other hand by their self-sufficiency, want of subordination
and personal disrespect, have drawn upon themselves the contempt
of the combined armies." Oct. 6. So late as 1796, the exile Louis
XVIII. declared his intention to restore the "property and
rights" (i.e. tithes, feudal dues, etc.) of the nobles and
clergy, and to punish the men who had "committed offences." See
Letter to Pichegru, May 4, 1796, in Manuscrit In&eacute;dit de
Louis XVIII., p. 464.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_19">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wordsworth, Prelude, book ix.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_20">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a></p>
<blockquote>The correspondence is in Ranke, Ursprung und Beginn,
p. 371. Such was the famine in the Prussian camp that Dumouriez
sent the King of Prussia twelve loaves, twelve pounds of coffee,
and twelve pounds of sugar. The official account of the campaign
is in the <i>Berlinische Zeitung</i> of Oct. 11,
1792.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_21">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a></p>
<blockquote>Forster, Werke, vi. 386.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_22">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The very night the news of the late Emperor's
(Leopold's) death arrived here (Brussels), inflammatory
advertisements and invitations to arm were distributed." One
culprit "belonged to the Choir of St. Gudule: he chose the middle
of the day, and in the presence of many people posted up a paper
in the church, exhorting to a general insurrection. The remainder
of this strange production was the description of a vision he
pretended to have seen, representing the soul of the late emperor
on its way to join that of Joseph, already suffering in the other
world." Col. Gardiner, March 20, 1792. Records: Flanders, vol.
220.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_23">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a></p>
<blockquote>Elgin, from Brussels, Nov. 6. "A brisk cannonade has
been heard this whole forenoon in the direction of Mons. It is at
this moment somewhat diminished, though not at an end" Nov. 7.
"Several messengers have arrived from camp in the course of the
night, but all the Ministers (I have seen them all) deny having
received one word of detail.... Couriers have been sent this
night in every direction to call in all the detachments on the
frontiers.... The Government is making every arrangement for
quitting Brussels: their papers are already prepared, their
carriages ready." ... Then a PS. "A cannonade is distinctly heard
again.... All the emigrants now here are removing with the utmost
haste." Nov. 9th. "The confusion throughout the country is
extreme. The roads are covered with emigrants, and persons of
these provinces flying from the French armies," Records:
Flanders, vol. 222.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_24">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a></p>
<blockquote>In Nov. 1792, Grenville ordered the English envoys at
Vienna and Berlin to discover, if possible, the real designs of
aggrandisement held by those Courts. Mr. Straton, at Vienna, got
wind of the agreement against Poland. "I requested Count Philip
Cobenzl" (the Austrian Minister) "that he would have the goodness
to open himself confidentially to me on the precise object which
the two allied Courts might have in contemplation. This, however,
the Count was by no means disposed to do; on the contrary, he
went round the compass of evasion in order to avoid a direct
answer. But determined as I was to push the Austrian Minister, I
heaped question on question, until I forced him to say, blushing,
and with evident signs of embarrassment, 'Count Stadion'
(Ambassador at London) 'will be able to satisfy the curiosity of
the British Minister, to whatever point it may be directed.'"
Jan. 20, 1793. Records: Austria, vol. 32. Stadion accordingly
informed Lord Grenville of the Polish and Bavarian plans.
Grenville expressed his concern and regret at the aggression on
Poland, and gave reasons against the Bavarian exchange. To our
envoy with the King of Prussia Grenville wrote: "It may possibly
be the intention of the Courts to adopt a plan of indemnifying
themselves for the expense of the war by fresh acquisitions in
Poland, and carrying into execution a new partition of that
country. You will not fail to explain in the most distinct and
pointed manner his Majesty's entire disapprobation of such a
plan, and his determination on no account to concur in any
measures which may tend to the completion of a design so unjust
in itself." Jan. 4, 1793. Records: Army in Germany, vol. 437. At
Vienna Cobenzl declared, Feb. 9, that Austria could not now "even
manifest a wish to oppose the projects of Prussia in Poland, as
in that case his Prussian Majesty would probably withdraw his
assistance from the French war; nay, perhaps even enter into an
alliance with that nation and invade Bohemia." Records: Austria,
vol. 32.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_25">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a></p>
<blockquote>Auckland, ii. 464. Papers presented to Parliament,
1793. Mr. Oscar Browning, in <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, Feb.,
1883.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_26">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a></p>
<blockquote>Von Sybel, ii. 259. Thugut, Vertrauliche Briefe, i.
17. Letters from Brussels, 23rd March in Records: Flanders, vol.
222. "The Huzars are in motion all round, so that we hope to have
them here to-morrow. Most of the French troops who arrived last,
and which are mostly peasants armed with pikes, are returning
home, besides a great number of their volunteers." 24th March.
"At this moment we hear the cannon. The French have just had it
cry'd in the town that all the tailors who are making coats for
the army must bring them made or unmade, and be paid directly....
They beat the drums to drown the report of the cannon.... You
have not a conception of the confusion in the town.... This
moment passed four Austrians with their heads cut to pieces, and
one with his eye poked out. The French are retiring by the Porte
d'Anderlecht." Ostend, April 4th. "This day, before two of the
clock, twenty-five Austrian huzars enter'd the town while the
inhabitants were employed burning the tree of
liberty."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_27">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a></p>
<blockquote>Mortimer-Ternaux, vii. 412.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_28">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a></p>
<blockquote>Berriat-St.-Prix, La Justice R&eacute;volutionnaire,
introd.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_29">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The King of Prussia has been educated in the
persuasion that the execution of that exchange involves the ruin
of his family, and he is the more sore about it that by the
qualified consent which he has given to its taking place he has
precluded himself from opposing it by arms. Accordingly, every
idle story which arrives from Munich which tends to revive this
apprehension makes an impression which I am unable, at the first
moment, to efface." Lord Yarmouth, from the Prussian camp, Aug.
12, 1793, Records: Army in Germany, 437. "Marquis Lucchesini, the
effectual director, is desirous of avoiding every expense and
every exertion of the troops; of leaving the whole burden of the
war on Austria and the other combined Powers; and of seeing
difficulties multiply in the arrangements which the Court of
Vienna may wish to form I do not perceive any object beyond this;
no desire of diminishing the power of France; no system or
feeling for crushing the opinions, the doctrines, of that
country." Elgin, May 17. Records: Flanders, vol.
223.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_30">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a></p>
<blockquote>Auckland, iii. 24. Thugut, Vertrauliche Briefe, i.
13. Grenville to Eden, Sept. 7th, 1793, Records: Austria, vol.
34: a most important historical document, setting out the
principles of alliance between England and Austria. Austria, if
it will abandon the Bavarian exchange, may claim annexations on
the border of the Netherlands, in Alsace and Lorraine, and in the
intermediate parts of the frontier of France. England's indemnity
"must be looked for in the foreign settlements and colonies of
France.... His Majesty has an interest in seeing the House of
Austria strengthen itself by acquisitions on the French frontier.
The Emperor must see with pleasure the relative increase of the
naval and commercial resources of this country beyond those of
France." In the face of this paper, it cannot be maintained that
the war of 1793 was, after the first few months, purely defensive
on England's part; though no doubt Pitt's notion of an indemnity
was fair and modest in comparison with the schemes and acts of
his enemy.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_31">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a></p>
<blockquote>The first mention of Bonaparte's name in any British
document occurs in an account of the army of Toulon sent to
London in Dec. 1793 by a spy. "Les capitaines
d'artill&eacute;rie, &eacute;l&eacute;v&eacute; dans cet
&eacute;tat, connoissent leur service et ont tous du talens. Ils
pr&eacute;f&eacute;roient l'employer pour une meilleure cause....
Le sixt&egrave;rne, nomm&eacute; Bonaparte, tr&eacute;s
republicain, a &eacute;t&eacute; tu&eacute; sous les murs de
Toulon." Records: France, vol. 599. Austria undertook to send
5,000 troops from Lombardy to defend Toulon, but broke its
engagement. "You will wait on M. Thugut (the Austrian Minister)
and claim in the most peremptory terms the performance of this
engagement. It would be very offensive to his Majesty that a
request made so repeatedly on his part should be neglected; but
it is infinitely more so to see that, when this country is
straining every nerve for the common cause, a body of troops for
the want of which Toulon may possibly at this moment be lost,
have remained inactive at Milan. You will admit of no further
excuses." Grenville to Eden, Nov. 24, 1793. Thugut's written
answer was, "The Emperor gave the order of march at a moment when
the town of Toulon had no garrison. Its preservation then seemed
matter of pressing necessity, but now all inquietude on this
score has happily disappeared. The troops of different nations
already assembled at Toulon put the place out of all danger."
Records: Austria, vol. 35.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_32">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, i. 482. "La Prusse," wrote Thugut at
this time, "parviendra au moyen de son alliance &agrave; nous
faire plus de mal qu'elle ne nous a fait par les guerres les plus
sanglantes." Briefe, i. 12, 15. Thugut even proposed that England
should encourage the Poles to resist. Eden, April 15; Records:
Austria, vol. 33.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_33">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a></p>
<blockquote>The English Government found that Thugut was from the
first indifferent to their own aim, the restoration of the
Bourbons, or establishment of some orderly government in France.
In so far as he concerned himself with the internal affairs of
France, he hoped rather for continued dissension, as facilitating
the annexation of French territory by Austria. "Qu'on profite de
ce conflit des partis en France pour t&acirc;cher de se rendre
m&acirc;itre des forteresses, afin de faire la loi au parti qui
aura pr&eacute;valu, et l'obliger d'acheter la paix et la
protection de l'empereur, en lui cedant telle partie de ses
conqu&ecirc;tes que S.M. jugera de sa covenance." Briefe, i.
13.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_34">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a></p>
<blockquote>The despatches of Lord Yarmouth from the Prussian and
Austrian headquarters, from July 17 to Nov. 22, 1793, give a
lively picture both of the military operations and of the
political intrigues of this period. They are accompanied by the
MS. journal of the Austrian army from Sept. 15 to Dec. 14, each
copy apparently with Wurmser's autograph, and by the original
letter of the Prussian Minister, Lucchesini, to Lord Yarmouth,
announcing the withdrawal of Prussia from the war, "M. de
Lucchesini read it to me very hastily, and seemed almost ashamed
of a part of its contents." Records: Army in Germany, vols. 437,
438, 439.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_35">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg (Ranke), i. 181, Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht,
i. 10.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_36">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a></p>
<blockquote>Elgin reports after this engagement, May 1st,
1794-"The French army appears to continue much what it has
hitherto been, vigorous and persevering where (as in villages and
woods) the local advantages are of a nature to supply the defects
of military science; weak and helpless beyond belief where
cavalry can act, and manoeuvres are possible.... The magazines of
the army are stored, and the provisions regularly given out to
the troops, and good in quality. Indeed, it is singular to
observe in all the villages where we have been forward forage,
etc., in plenty, and all the country cultivated as usual. The
inhabitants, however, have retired with the French army; and to
that degree that the tract we have lately taken possession of is
absolutely deserted.... The execution of Danton has produced no
greater effect in the army than other executions, and we have
found many papers on those who fell in the late actions treating
it with ridicule, and as a source of joy." Records: Flanders,
226. "I am in hopes to hear from you on the subject of the French
prisoners, as to where I am to apply for the money I advance for
their subsistence. They are a great number of them almost naked,
some entirely so. It is absolutely shocking to humanity to see
them. I would purchase some coarse clothing for those that are in
the worst state, but know not how far I should be authorised.
They are mostly old men and boys." Consul Harward, at Ostend,
March 4th, <i>id</i>.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_37">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a></p>
<blockquote>These events are the subject of controversy. See
H&uuml;ffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 62 Von Sybel, iii. 138.
Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 38. The old belief, defended by Von Sybel,
was that Thugut himself had determined upon the evacuation of
Belgium, and treacherously deprived Coburg of forces for its
defence. But, apart from other evidence, the tone of exasperation
that runs through Thugut's private letters is irreconcilable with
this theory. Lord Elgin, whose reports are used by Von Sybel, no
doubt believed that Thugut was playing false; but he was a bad
judge, being in the hands of Thugut's opponents, especially
General Mack, whom he glorifies in the most absurd way. The other
English envoy in Belgium, Lord Yarmouth, reported in favour of
Thugut's good faith in this matter, and against military
intriguers. Records: Army in Germany, vol. 440. A letter of
Prince Waldeck's in Thugut, i. 387, and a conversation between
Mack and Sir Morton Eden, on Feb. 3rd, 1797, reported by the
latter in Records: Austria, vol. 48, appear to fix the
responsibility for the evacuation of Belgium on these two
generals, Waldeck and Mack, and on the Emperor's confidential
military adviser, Rollin.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_38">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Should the French come they will find this town
perfectly empty. Except my own, I do not think there are three
houses in Ostend with a bed in them. So general a panic I never
witnessed." June 30th.-"To remain here alone would be a wanton
sacrifice. God knows 'tis an awful stroke to me to leave a place
just as I began to be comfortably settled." Consul Harward:
Records: Army in Germany, vol. 440. "All the English are arrested
in Ostend; the men are confined in the Capuchin convent, and the
women in the Convent des Soeurs Blancs. All the Flamands from the
age of 17 to 32 are forced to go for soldiers. At Bruges the
French issued an order for 800 men to present themselves. Thirty
only came, in consequence of which they rang a bell on the Grand
Place, and the inhabitants thinking that it was some ordinance,
quitted their houses to hear it, when they were surrounded by the
French soldiers, and upwards of 1,000 men secured, gentle and
simple, who were all immediately set to work on the canals." Mr.
W. Poppleton, Flushing, Sept. 4. Records: Flanders, vol.
227.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_39">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a></p>
<blockquote>Malmesbury, ii. 125. Von Sybel, iii. 168. Grenville
made Coburg's dismissal a <i>sine qua non</i> of the continuance
of English co-operation. Instructions to Lord Spencer, July 19,
1794. Records: Austria, 36. But for the Austrian complaints
against the English, see Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 50.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_40">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a></p>
<blockquote>Schlosser, xv. 203: borne out by the Narrative of an
Officer, printed in Annual Register, 1795, p. 143.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_41">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a></p>
<blockquote>Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht, iii. 59, 512. Martens,
Recueil des Trait&eacute;s, vi. 45, 52. Hardenberg, i. 287.
Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 32. "Le Roi de Prusse," wrote the Empress
Catherine, "est une m&eacute;chante b&ecirc;te et un grand
cochon." Prussia made no attempt to deliver the unhappy son of
Louis XVI. from his captivity.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_42">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor42">[42]</a></p>
<blockquote>The British Government had formed the most sanguine
estimate of the strength of the Royalist movement in France. "I
cannot let your servant return without troubling you with these
few lines to conjure you to use every possible effort to give
life and vigour to the Austrian Government at this critical
moment. Strongly as I have spoken in my despatch of the present
state of France, I have said much less than my information, drawn
from various quarters, and applying to almost every part of
France, would fairly warrant. We can never hope that the
circumstances, as far as they regard the state of France, can be
more favourable than they now are. For God's sake enforce these
points with all the earnestness which I am sure you will feel
upon them." Grenville to Eden, April 17, 1795; Records: Austria,
vol. 41. After the failure of the expedition, the British
Government made the grave charge against Thugut that while he was
officially sending Clerfayt pressing orders to advance, he
secretly told him to do nothing. "It is in vain to reason with
the Austrian Ministers on the folly and ill faith of a system
which they have been under the necessity of concealing from you,
and which they will probably endeavour to disguise" Grenville to
Eden, Oct., 1795; <i>id</i>., vol. 43. This charge, repeated by
historians, is disproved by Thugut's private letters. Briefe, i.
221, <i>seq</i>. No one more bitterly resented Clerfayt's
inaction.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_43">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor43">[43]</a></p>
<blockquote>The documents relating to the expedition to Quiberon,
with several letters of D'Artois, Charette, and the Vendean
leaders, are in Records: France, vol. 600.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_44">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor44">[44]</a></p>
<blockquote>Von Sybel, iii. 537. Buchez et Roux, xxxvi.
485.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_45">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor45">[45]</a></p>
<blockquote>For the police interpretation of the
<i>Zauberfl&ouml;te</i>, see Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs,
vol. i. p. 49.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_46">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor46">[46]</a></p>
<blockquote>Zobi, Storia Civile della Toscana, i.
284.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_47">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor47">[47]</a></p>
<blockquote>Galanti, Descrizione delle Sicilie, 1786, i. 279. He
adds, "The Samnites and the Lucanians could not have shown so
horrible a spectacle, because they had no feudal laws." Galanti's
book gives perhaps the best idea of the immense task faced by
monarchy in the eighteenth century in its struggle against what
he justly calls "gli orrori del governo feudale." Nothing but a
study of these details of actual life described by eye-witnesses
can convey an adequate impression of the completeness and the
misery of the feudal order in the more backward countries of
Europe till far down in the eighteenth century. There is a good
anonymous account of Sicily in 1810 in Castlereagh, 8,
317.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_48">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor48">[48]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon, i. 260. Botta, lib. vi.
Despatches of Col. Graham, British attach&eacute; with the
Austrian army, in Records: Italian States, vol. 57. These most
interesting letters, which begin on May 19, show the discord and
suspicion prevalent from the first in the Austrian army.
"Beaulieu has not met with cordial co-operation from his own
generals, still less from the Piedmontese. He accuses them of
having chosen to be beat in order to bring about a peace promised
in January last." "Beaulieu was more violent than ever against
his generals who have occasioned the failure of his plans. He
said nine of them were cowards. I believe some of them are
ill-affected to the cause." June 15.-"Many of the officers
comfort themselves with thinking that defeat must force peace,
and others express themselves in terms of despair." July
25,-Beaulieu told Graham that if Bonaparte had pushed on after
the battle of Lodi, he might have gone straight into Mantua. The
preparations for defence were made later.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_49">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor49">[49]</a></p>
<blockquote>Thugut, Briefe i. 107. A correspondence on this
subject was carried on in cypher between Thugut and Ludwig
Cobenzl, Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg in 1793-4. During
Thugut's absence in Belgium, June, 1794, Cobenzl sent a duplicate
despatch, not in cypher, to Vienna. Old Prince Kaunitz, the
ex-minister, heard that a courier had arrived from St Petersburg,
and demanded the despatch at the Foreign Office "like a
dictator." It was given to him. "Ainsi," says Thugut, "adieu au
secret qui depuis un an a &eacute;t&eacute; conserv&eacute; avec
tant de soins!"</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_50">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor50">[50]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wurmser's reports are in Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 477.
Graham's daily despatches from the Austrian head-quarters give a
vivid picture of these operations, and of the sudden change from
exultation to despair. Aug. 1.-"I have the honour to inform your
lordship that the siege of Mantua is raised, the French having
retreated last night with the utmost precipitation." Aug. 2.-"The
Austrians are in possession of all the French mortars and cannon,
amounting to about 140, with 190,000 shells and bombs; the loss
of the Imperial army is inconsiderable." Aug. 5.-"The rout of
this day has sadly changed the state of affairs. There are no
accounts of General Quosdanovich." Aug. 9.-"Our loss in men and
cannon was much greater than was imagined. I had no idea of the
possibility of the extent of such misfortunes as have overwhelmed
us" Aug. 17.-"It is scarcely possible to describe the state of
disorder and discouragement that prevails in the army. Were I
free from apprehension, about the fate of my letter" (he had lost
his baggage and his cypher in it), "I should despair of finding
language adequate to convey a just idea of the discontent of the
officers with General Wurmser. From generals to subalterns the
universal language is 'qu'il faut faire la paix, car nous ne
savons pas faire la guerre.'" Aug. 18.-"Not only the
commander-in-chief, but the greatest number of the generals are
objects of contempt and ridicule." Aug. 27.-"I do not exaggerate
when I say that I have met with instances of down-right dotage."
"It was in general orders that wine should be distributed to the
men previous to the attack of the 29th. There was some difficulty
in getting it up to Monte Baldo. General Bayolitzy observed that
'it did not signify, for the men might get the value in money
afterwards.' The men marched at six in the evening without it, to
attack at daybreak, and received four kreutzers afterwards. This
is a fact I can attest. In action I saw officers sent on urgent
messages going at a foot's pace: they say that their horses are
half starved, and that they cannot afford to kill
them."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_51">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor51">[51]</a></p>
<blockquote>Grunds&auml;tze (Archduke Charles), ii. 202.
Bulletins in Wiener Zeitung, June-Oct., 1796.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_52">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor52">[52]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, vi. 59.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_53">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor53">[53]</a></p>
<blockquote>This seems to me to be the probable truth about
Austria's policy in 1796, of which opposite views will be found
in H&auml;usser, vol. ii. ch. 1-3, and in H&uuml;ffer, Oestreich
und Preussen, p. 142. Thugut professed in 1793 to have given up
the project of the Bavarian exchange in deference to England. He
admitted, however, soon afterwards, that he had again been
pressing the King of Prussia to consent to it, but said that this
was a ruse, intended to make Prussia consent to Austria's
annexing a large piece of France instead. Eden, Sept., 1793;
Records: Austria, vol. 34. The incident shows the difficulty of
getting at the truth in diplomacy.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_54">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor54">[54]</a></p>
<blockquote>Yet the Government had had warning of this in a
series of striking reports sent by one of Lord Elgin's spies
during the Reign of Terror. "Jamais la France ne fut
cultiv&eacute;e comme elle l'est. Il n'y a pas un arpent qui ne
soit ensemenc&eacute;, sauf dans les lieux o&ugrave;
op&egrave;rent les arm&eacute;es bellig&eacute;rantes. Cette
culture universelle a &eacute;t&eacute; forc&eacute;e par les
Directrices l&agrave; o&ugrave; on ne la faisait pas
volontairement." June 8, 1794; Records: Flanders, vol. 226. Elgin
had established a line of spies from Paris to the Belgian
frontier. Every one of these persons was arrested by the
Revolutionary authorities. Elgin then fell in with the writer of
the above, whose name is concealed, and placed him on the Swiss
frontier. He was evidently a person thoroughly familiar with both
civil and military administration. He appears to have talked to
every Frenchman who entered Switzerland; and his reports contain
far the best information that readied England during the Reign of
Terror, contradicting the Royalists, who said that the war was
only kept up by terrorism. He warned the English Government that
the French nation in a mass was on the side of the Revolution,
and declared that the downfall of Robespierre and the terrorists
would make no difference in the prosecution of the war. The
Government seems to have paid no attention to his reports, if
indeed they were ever read.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_55">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor55">[55]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon, ii. 28. Thugut, about
this time, formed the plan of annexing Bologna and Ferrara to
Austria, and said that if this result could be achieved, the
French attack upon the Papal States would be no bad matter. See
the instructions to Allvintzy, in Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 511,
which also contain the first Austrian orders to imprison Italian
innovators, the beginning of Austria's later Italian
policy.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_56">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor56">[56]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wurmser had orders to break out southwards into the
Papal States. "These orders he (Thugut) knew had reached the
Marshal, but they were also known to the enemy, as a cadet of
Strasoldo's regiment, who was carrying the duplicate, had been
taken prisoner, and having been seen to swallow a ball of wax, in
which the order was wrapped up, he was immediately put to death
and the paper taken out of his stomach." Eden, Jan., 1797;
Records: Austria, vol. 48. Colonel Graham, who had been shut up
in Mantua since Sept. 10, escaped on Dec 17, and restored
communication between Wurmser and Allvintzy. He was present at
the battle of Rivoli, which is described in his
despatches.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_57">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor57">[57]</a></p>
<blockquote>"We expect every hour to hear of the entry of the
Neapolitan troops and the declaration of a religious war. Every
preparation has been made for such an event." Graves to Lord
Grenville, Oct. 1, 1796; Records; Rome, vol. 56.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_58">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor58">[58]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The clamours for peace have become loud and
importunate. His Imperial Majesty is constantly assailed by all
his Ministers, M. de Thugut alone excepted, and by all who
approach his person. Attempts are even made to alarm him with a
dread of insurrection. In the midst of these calamities M. de
Thugut retains his firmness of mind, and continues to struggle
against the united voice of the nobility and the numerous and
trying adversities that press upon him." Eden, April 1. "The
confusion at the army exceeds the bounds of belief. Had Bonaparte
continued his progress hither (Vienna), no doubt is entertained
that he might have entered the place without opposition. That,
instead of risking this enterprise, he should have stopped and
given the Austrians six days to recover from their alarm and to
prepare for defence, is a circumstance which it is impossible to
account for." April 12. "He" (Mack) "said that when this place
was threatened by the enemy, Her Imperial Majesty broke in upon
the Emperor while in conference with his Minister, and, throwing
herself and her children at his feet, determined His Majesty to
open the negotiation which terminated in the shameful desertion
of his ally." Aug. 16; Records: Austria, vols. 49, 50. Thugut
subsequently told Lord Minto that if he could have laid his hand
upon &pound;500,000 in cash to stop the run on the Bank of
Vienna, the war would have been continued, in which case he
believed he would have surrounded Bonaparte's army.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_59">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor59">[59]</a></p>
<blockquote>The cession of the Rhenish Provinces was not, as
usually stated, contained in the Preliminaries. Corr. de
Napoleon, 2, 497; H&uuml;ffer, p. 259, where the details of the
subsequent negotiations will be found.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_60">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor60">[60]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gohier, M&eacute;moires i. Carnot, R&eacute;ponse
&agrave; Bailleul. Correspondance de Napoleon, ii. 188. Miot de
Melito, ch. vi.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_61">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor61">[61]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, Trait&eacute;s, vi. 420; Thugut, Briefe, ii.
64. These letters breathe a fire and passion rare among German
statesmen of that day, and show the fine side of Thugut's
character. The well-known story of the destruction of Cobenzl's
vase by Bonaparte at the last sitting, with the words, "Thus will
I dash the Austrian Monarchy to pieces," is mythical. Cobenzl's
own account of the scene is as follows;-"Bonaparte, excited by
not having slept for two nights, emptied glass after glass of
punch. When I explained with the greatest composure, Bonaparte
started up in a violent rage, and poured out a flood of abuse, at
the same time scratching his name illegibly at the foot of the
statement which he had handed in as protocol. Then without
waiting for our signatures, he put on his hat in the
conference-room itself, and left us. Until he was in the street
he continued to vociferate in a manner that could only be
ascribed to intoxication, though Clarke and the rest of his
suite, who were waiting in the hall, did their best to restrain
him." "He behaved as if he had escaped from a lunatic asylum. His
own people are all agreed about this." H&uuml;ffer, Oestreich und
Preussen, p. 453.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_62">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor62">[62]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 147. Vivenot,
Rastadter Congress, p. 17. Von Lang, Memoiren, i. 33. It is
alleged that the official who drew up this document had not been
made acquainted with the secret clauses.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_63">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor63">[63]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Tout annonce qu'il sera de toute
impossibilit&eacute; de finir avec ces gueux de Fran&ccedil;ais
autrement que par moyens de fermet&eacute;." Thugut, ii. 105. For
the negotiation at Seltz, see Historische Zeitschrift, xxiii.
27.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_64">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor64">[64]</a></p>
<blockquote>Botta, lib. xiii. Letters of Mr. J. Denham and others
in Records: Sicily, vol. 44.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_65">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor65">[65]</a></p>
<blockquote>Nelson Despatches, iii. 48.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_66">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor66">[66]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands, ii. 2,
382.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_67">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor67">[67]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Quel bonheur, quelle gloire, quelle consolation pour
cette grande et illustre nation! Que je vous suis oblig&eacute;e,
reconnaissante! J'ai pleur&eacute; et embrass&eacute; mes enfans,
mon mari. Si jamais on fait un portrait du brave Nelson je le
veux avoir dans ma chambre. Hip, Hip, Hip, Ma ch&egrave;re Miladi
je suis folle de joye." Queen of Naples to Lady Hamilton, Sept.
4, 1798; Records: Sicily, vol. 44. The news of the overwhelming
victory of the Nile seems literally to have driven people out of
their senses at Naples. "Lady Hamilton fell apparently dead, and
is not yet (Sept 25) perfectly recovered from her severe
bruises." Nelson Despatches, 3, 130. On Nelson's arrival, "up
flew her ladyship, and exclaiming, 'O God, is it possible?' she
fell into my arms more dead than alive." It has been urged in
extenuation of Nelson's subsequent cruelties that the contagion
of this frenzy, following the effects of a severe wound in the
head, had deprived his mind of its balance. "My head is ready to
split, and I am always so sick." Aug. 10. "It required all the
kindness of my friends to set me up." Sept. 25.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_68">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor68">[68]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sir W. Hamilton's despatch, Nov. 28, in Records:
Sicily, vol. 44, where there are originals of most of the
Neapolitan proclamations, etc., of this time. Mack had been a
famous character since the campaign of 1793. Elgin's letters to
Lord Grenville from the Netherlands, private as well as public,
are full of extravagant praise of him. In July, 1796, Graham
writes from the Italian army: "In the opinion of all here, the
greatest general in Europe is the Quartermaster Mack, who was in
England in 1793. Would to God he was marching, and here now."
Mack, on the other hand, did not grudge flattery to the
English:-"Je perdrais partout espoir et patience si je n'avais
pas vu pour mon bonheur et ma consolation l'adorable Triumvirat"
(Pitt, Grenville, Dundas) "qui surveille &agrave; Londres nos
affaires. Soyez, mon cher ami, l'organe de ma profonde
v&eacute;n&eacute;ration envers ces Ministres incomparables."
Mack to Elgin, 23. Feb., 1794. The British Government was
constantly pressing Thugut to make Mack commander-in chief.
Thugut, who had formed a shrewd notion of Mack's real quality,
gained much obloquy by his steady refusal.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_69">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor69">[69]</a></p>
<blockquote>Signed by Mack. Colletta, p. 176. Mack's own account
of the campaign is in Vivenot, Rastadter Congress, p.
83.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_70">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor70">[70]</a></p>
<blockquote>Nelson, iii. 210: Hamilton's despatch, Dec. 28, 1798,
in Records; Sicily, vol. 44. "It was impossible to prevent a
suspicion getting abroad of the intention of the Royal Family to
make their escape. However, the secret was so well kept that we
contrived to get their Majesties' treasure in jewels and money,
to a very considerable extent, on board of H.M. ship the
<i>Vanguard</i> the 20th of December, and Lord Nelson went on the
next night by a secret passage into the Palace, and brought off
in his boats their Sicilian Majesties and all the Royal Family.
It was not discovered at Naples, until very late at night, that
the Royal Family had escaped.... On the morning of Christmas Day,
some hours before we got into Palermo, Prince Albert, one of
their Majesties' sons, six years of age, was, either from fright
or fatigue, taken with violent convulsions, and died in the arms
of Lady Hamilton, the Queen, the Princesses, and women attendants
being in such confusion as to be incapable of affording any
assistance."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_71">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor71">[71]</a></p>
<blockquote>See Helfert, Der Rastatter Gesandtenmord, and Sybel's
article thereon, in Hist. Zeitschrift, vol. 32.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_72">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor72">[72]</a></p>
<blockquote>Danilevsky-Miliutin, ii. 214. Despatch of Lord W.
Bentinck from the allied head-quarters at Piacenza, June 23, in
Records: Italian States, vol. 58. Bentinck arrived a few days
before this battle; his despatches cover the whole North-Italian
campaign from this time.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_73">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor73">[73]</a></p>
<blockquote>Nelson Despatches, iii. 447; Sir W. Hamilton's
Despatch of July 14, in Records: Sicily, vol. 45. Helfert,
K&ouml;nigin Karolina, p. 38. Details of the proscription in
Colletta, v. 6. According to Hamilton, some of the Republicans in
the forts had actually gone to their homes before Nelson
pronounced the capitulation void. "When we anchored in the Bay,
the 24th of June, the capitulation of the castles had in some
measure taken place. Fourteen large polacks had taken on board
out of the castles the most conspicuous and criminal of the
Neapolitan rebels that had chosen to go to Toulon; the others had
already been permitted to return to their homes." If this is so,
Nelson's pretext that the capitulation had not been executed was
a mere afterthought. Helfert is mistaken in calling the letter or
proclamation of July 8th repudiating the treaty, a forgery. It is
perfectly genuine. It was published by Nelson in the King's name,
and is enclosed in Hamilton's despatch. Hamilton's exultations
about himself and his wife, and their share in these events, are
sorry reading. "In short, Lord Nelson and I, with Emma, have
carried affairs to this happy crisis. Emma is really the Queen's
bosom friend.... You may imagine, when we three agree, what real
business is done.... At least I shall end my diplomatical career
gloriously, as you will see by what the King of Naples writes
from this ship to his Minister in London, owing the recovery of
his kingdom to the King's fleet, and Lord Nelson and me." (Aug.
4, <i>id</i>.) Hamilton states the number of persons in prison at
Naples on Sept. 12 to be above eight thousand.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_74">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor74">[74]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, iv.; Records: Austria, 56. Lord Minto
had just succeeded Sir Morton Eden as ambassador. The English
Government was willing to grant the House of Hapsburg almost
anything for the sake "of strengthening that barrier which the
military means and resources of Vienna can alone oppose against
the future enterprises of France." Grenville to Minto, May 13,
1800. Though they felt some regard for the rights of the King of
Piedmont, Pitt and Grenville were just as ready to hand over the
Republic of Genoa to the Hapsburgs as Bonaparte had been to hand
over Venice; in fact, they looked forward to the destruction of
the Genoese State with avowed pleasure, because it easily fell
under the influence of France. Their principal anxiety was that
if Austria "should retain Venice and Genoa and possibly acquire
Leghorn," it should grant England an advantageous commercial
treaty. Grenville to Minto, Feb. 8, 1800; Castlereagh, v.
3-11.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_75">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor75">[75]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lord Mulgrave to Grenville, Sept. 12, 1799; Records:
Army of Switzerland, vol. 80. "Suvaroff opened himself to me in
the most unreserved manner. He began by stating that he had been
called at a very advanced period of life from his retirement,
where his ample fortune and honours placed him beyond the
allurement of any motives of interest. Attachment to his
sovereign and zeal for his God inspired him with the hope and the
expectation of conquests. He now found himself under very
different circumstances. He found himself surrounded by the
parasites or spies of Thugut, men at his devotion, creatures of
his power: an army bigoted to a defensive system, afraid even to
pursue their successes when that system had permitted them to
obtain any; he had to encounter the further check of a Government
at Vienna averse to enterprise, etc."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_76">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor76">[76]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miliutin, 2, 20, 3, 186; Minto, Aug. 10, 1799;
Records: Austria, vol. 56. "I had no sooner mentioned this topic
(Piedmont) than I perceived I had touched a very delicate point.
M. de Thugut's manner changed instantly from that of coolness and
civility to a great show of warmth attended with some sharpness.
He became immediately loud and animated, and expressed chagrin at
the invitation sent to the King of Sardinia.... He considers the
conquest of Piedmont as one made by Austria of an enemy's
country. He denies that the King of Sardinia can be considered as
an ally or as a friend, or even as a neuter; and, besides
imputing a thousand instances of ill-faith to that Court, relies
on the actual alliance made by it with the French Republic by
which the King of Sardinia had appropriated to himself part of
the Emperor's dominions in Lombardy, an offence which, I
perceive, will not be easily forgotten.... I mention these
circumstances to show the degree of passion which the Court of
Vienna mixes with this discussion." Minto answered Thugut's
invective with the odd remark "that perhaps in the present
extraordinary period the most rational object of this war was to
restore the integrity of the moral principle both in civil and
political life, and that this principle of justice should take
the lead in his mind of those considerations of temporary
convenience which in ordinary times might not have escaped his
notice." Thugut then said "that the Emperor of Russia had
desisted from his measure of the King of Sardinia's immediate
recall, leaving the time of that return to the Emperor." On the
margin of the despatch, against this sentence, is written in
pencil, in Lord Grenville's handwriting, "I am persuaded this is
not true."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_77">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor77">[77]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miliutin, 3, 117. And so almost verbatim in a
conversation described in Eden's despatch, Aug. 31 Records:
Austria, vol. 55. "M. de Thugut's answer was evidently dictated
by a suspicion rankling in his mind that the Netherlands might be
made a means of aggrandisement for Prussia. His jealousy and
aversion to that Power are at this moment more inveterate than I
have before seen them. It is probable that he may have some idea
of establishing there the Great Duke of Tuscany."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_78">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor78">[78]</a></p>
<blockquote>Thugut's territorial policy did actually make him
propose to abolish the Papacy not only as a temporal Power, but
as a religious institution. "Baron Thugut argued strongly on the
possibility of doing without a Pope, and of each sovereign taking
on himself the function of head of the National Church, as in
England. I said that as a Protestant, I could not be supposed to
think the authority of the Bishop of Rome necessary; but that in
the present state of religious opinion, and considering the only
alternative in those matters, viz. the subsistence of the Roman
Catholic faith or the extinction of Christianity itself, I
preferred, though a Protestant, the Pope to the Goddess of
Reason. However, the mind of Baron Thugut is not open to any
reasoning of a general nature when it is put in competition with
conquest or acquisition of territory." Minto to Grenville, Oct.
22, 1799; Records: Austria, vol. 57. The suspicions of Austria
current at the Neapolitan Court are curiously shown in the Nelson
Correspondence. Nelson writes to Minto (Aug. 20) at Vienna: "For
the sake of the civilised world, let us work together, and as the
best act of our lives manage to hang Thugut ... As you are with
Thugut, your penetrating mind will discover the villain in all
his actions.... That Thugut is caballing.... Pray keep an eye
upon the rascal, and you will soon find what I say is true. Let
us hang these three miscreants, and all will go smooth." Suvaroff
was not more complimentary. "How can that desk-worm, that
night-owl, direct an army from his dusky nest, even if he had the
sword of Scanderbeg?" (Sept. 3.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_79">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor79">[79]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miliutin, iii. 37; Bentinck, Aug. 16, from the
battle-field; Records: Italian States, vol. 58. His letter ends
"I must apologise to your Lordship for the appearance of this
despatch" (it is on thin Italian paper and almost illegible):
"we" (<i>i.e.</i>, Suvaroff's staff) "have had the misfortune to
have had our baggage plundered by the Cossacks."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_80">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor80">[80]</a></p>
<blockquote>Every capable soldier saw the ruinous mischief of the
Archduke's withdrawal. "Not only are all prospects of our making
any progress in Switzerland at an end, but the chance of
maintaining the position now occupied is extremely precarious.
The jealousy and mistrust that exists between the Austrians and
Russians is inconceivable. I shall not pretend to offer an
opinion on what might be the most advantageous arrangement for
the army of Switzerland, but it is certain that none can be so
bad as that which at present exists." Colonel Crauford, English
military envoy, Sept. 5, 1799; Records: Army of Switzerland, vol.
79. The subsequent Operations of Korsakoff are described in
despatches of Colonel Ramsay and Lord Mulgrave, <i>id</i>. vol.
80, 81, Conversations with the Archduke Charles in those of Mr.
Wickham, <i>id</i>. vol. 77.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_81">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor81">[81]</a></p>
<blockquote>The despatches of Colonel Clinton, English
attach&eacute; with Suvaroff, are in singular contrast to the
highly-coloured accounts of this retreat common in histories. Of
the most critical part he only says: "On the 6th the army passed
the Panix mountain, which the snow that had fallen during the
last week had rendered dangerous, and several horses and mules
were lost on the march." He expresses the poorest opinion of
Suvaroff and his officers: "The Marshal is entirely worn out and
incapable of any exertion: he will not suffer the subject of the
indiscipline of his army to be mentioned to him. He is popular
with his army because he puts no check whatever in its
licentiousness. His honesty is now his only remaining good
quality." Records: Army of Switzerland, vol. 80. The elaborate
plan for Suvaroff's and Korsakoff's combined movements, made as
if Switzerland had been an open country and Massena's army a
flock of sheep, was constructed by the Austrian colonel
Weyrother, the same person who subsequently planned the battle of
Austerlitz. On learning the plan from Suvaroff, Lord Mulgrave,
who was no great genius, wrote to London demonstrating its
certain failure, and predicting almost exactly the events that
took place.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_82">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor82">[82]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miot de Melito, ch. ix. Lucien Bonaparte,
R&eacute;volution de Brumaire, p. 31.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_83">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor83">[83]</a></p>
<blockquote>Law of Feb. 17, 1800 (28 Pluvi&ouml;se,
viii.).</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_84">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor84">[84]</a></p>
<blockquote>M. Thiers, Feb. 21, 1872.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_85">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor85">[85]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Hist, xxxiv. 1198. Thugut, Briefe ii.
445.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_86">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor86">[86]</a></p>
<blockquote>Memorial du D&eacute;p&ocirc;t de la Guerre, 1826,
iv. 268. Bentinck's despatch, June 16; Records: Italian States,
vol. 59.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_87">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor87">[87]</a></p>
<blockquote>Thugut, Briefe ii. 227, 281, 393; Minto's despatch,
Sept. 24, 1800; Records: Austria, vol. 60. "The Emperor was in
the act of receiving a considerable subsidy for a vigorous
prosecution of the war at the very moment when he was
clandestinely and in person making the most abject submission to
the common enemy. Baron Thugut was all yesterday under the
greatest uneasiness concerning the event which he had reason to
apprehend, but which was not yet certain. He still retained,
however, a slight hope, from the apparent impossibility of
anyone's committing such an act of infamy and folly. I never saw
him or any other man so affected as he was when he communicated
this transaction to me to-day. I said that these fortresses being
demanded as pledges of sincerity, the Emperor should have given
on the same principle the arms and ammunition of the army. Baron
Thugut added that after giving up the soldiers' muskets, the
clothes would be required off their backs, and that if the
Emperor took pains to acquaint the world that he would not defend
his crown, there would not be wanting those who would take it
from his head, and perhaps his head with it. He became so
strongly affected that, in laying hold of my hand to express the
strong concern he felt at the notion of having committed me and
abused the confidence I had reposed in his counsels, he burst
into tears and literally wept. I mention these details because
they confirm the assurance that every part of these feeble
measures has either been adopted against his opinion or executed
surreptitiously and contrary to the directions he had given."
After the final collapse of Austria, Minto writes of Thugut: "He
never for a moment lost his presence of mind or his courage, nor
ever bent to weak and unbecoming counsels. And perhaps this can
be said of him alone in this whole empire." Jan. 3, 1801,
<i>id.</i></blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_88">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor88">[88]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, vii. 296.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_89">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor89">[89]</a></p>
<blockquote>Koch und Schoell, Histoire des Trait&eacute;s, vi. 6.
Nelson Despatches, iv. 299.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_90">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor90">[90]</a></p>
<blockquote>De Clercq, Trait&eacute;s de la France i.
484.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_91">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor91">[91]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Hist., Nov. 3, 1801.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_92">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor92">[92]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gagern, Mein Antheil, i. 119. He protests that he
never carried the dog. The waltz was introduced about this time
at Paris by Frenchmen returning from Germany, which gave occasion
to the <i>mot</i> that the French had annexed even the national
dance of the Germans.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_93">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor93">[93]</a></p>
<blockquote>Perthes, Politische Zust&auml;nde, i.
311.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_94">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor94">[94]</a></p>
<blockquote>Koch und Schoell, vi. 247. Beer, Zehn Jahre
Oesterreichischer Politik, p. 35 H&auml;usser, ii.
398.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_95">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor95">[95]</a></p>
<blockquote>Perthes, Politische Zust&auml;nde, ii. 402,
<i>seq</i>.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_96">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor96">[96]</a></p>
<blockquote>Friedrich, Geschichte des Vatikanischen Konzils, i.
27, 174.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_97">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor97">[97]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, Leben Stein, i. 257. Seeley's Stein, i.
125.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_98">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor98">[98]</a></p>
<blockquote>The first hand account of the formation of the Code
Napoleon, with the Proc&egrave;s Verbal of the Council of State
and the principal reports, speeches, etc., made in the Tribunate
and the Legislative Bodies, is to be found in the work of Baron
Locr&eacute;, "La Legislation de la France," published at Paris
in 1827. Locr&eacute; was Secretary of the Council of State under
the Consulate and the Empire, and possessed a quantity of records
which had not been published before 1827. The Proc&egrave;s
Verbal, though perhaps not always faithful, contains the only
record of Napoleon's own share in the discussions of the Council
of State.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_99">&nbsp;</a><a href="#FNanchor99">[99]</a></p>
<blockquote>The statement, so often repeated, that the Convention
prohibited Christian worship, or "abolished Christianity," in
France, is a fiction. Throughout the Reign of Terror the
Convention maintained the State Church as established by the
Constituent Assembly in 1791. Though the salaries of the clergy
fell into arrear, the Convention rejected a proposal to cease
paying them. The non-juring priests were condemned by the
Convention to transportation, and were liable to be put to death
if they returned to France. But where churches were profaned, or
constitutional priests molested, it was the work of local bodies
or of individual Conventionalists on mission, not of the law. The
Commune of Paris shut up most, but not all, of the churches in
Paris. Other local bodies did the same. After the Reign of Terror
ended, the Convention adopted the proposal which it had rejected
before, and abolished the State salary of the clergy (Sept. 20th,
1794). This merely placed all sects on a level. But local
fanatics were still busy against religion; and the Convention
accordingly had to pass a law (Feb. 23, 1795), forbidding all
interference with Christian services. This law required that
worship should not be held in a distinctive building (<i>i.e.</i>
church), nor in the open air. Very soon afterwards the Convention
(May 23) permitted the churches to be used for worship. The laws
against non-juring priests were not now enforced, and a number of
churches in Paris were actually given up to non-juring priests.
The Directory was inclined to renew the persecution of this class
in 1796, but the Assemblies would not permit it; and in July,
1797, the Council of Five Hundred passed a motion totally
abolishing the legal penalties of non-jurors. This was
immediately followed by the coup d'&eacute;tat of
Fructidor.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_100">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor100">[100]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gr&eacute;goire, M&eacute;moires, ii. 87. Annales de
la Religion, x. 441; Pressens&eacute;, L'Eglise et la Revolution,
p. 359.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_101">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor101">[101]</a></p>
<blockquote>Papers presented to Parliament, 1802-3, p.
95.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_102">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor102">[102]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The King and his Ministers are in the greatest
distress and embarrassment. The latter do not hesitate to avow
it, and the King has for the last week shown such evident
symptoms of dejection that the least observant could not but
remark it. He has expressed himself most feelingly upon the
unfortunate predicament in which he finds himself. He would
welcome the hand that should assist him and the voice that should
give him courage to extricate himself."-F. Jackson's despatch
from Berlin, May 16, 1803; Records; Prussia, vol.
189.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_103">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor103">[103]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser ii. 472. There are interesting accounts
of Lombard and the other leading persons of Berlin in F.
Jackson's despatches of this date. The charge of gross personal
immorality made against Lombard is brought against almost every
German public man of the time in the writings of opponents.
History and politics are, however, a bad tribunal of private
character.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_104">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor104">[104]</a></p>
<blockquote>Fournier, Gentz und Cobenzl, p. 79. Beer, Zehn Jahre,
p. 49. The despatches of Sir J. Warren of this date from St.
Petersburg (Records: Russia, vol. 175) are full of plans for
meeting an expected invasion of the Morea and the possible
liberation of the Greeks by Bonaparte. They give the impression
that Eastern affairs were really the dominant interest with
Alexander in his breach with France.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_105">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor105">[105]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miot de Melito, i. 16. Savary, ii. 32.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_106">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor106">[106]</a></p>
<blockquote>A protest handed in at Vienna by Louis XVIII. against
Napoleon's title was burnt in the presence of the French
ambassador. The Austrian title was assumed on August 10, but the
publication was delayed a day on account of the sad memories of
August 10, 1792. Fournier, p. 102. Beer, p. 60.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_107">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor107">[107]</a></p>
<blockquote>Papers presented to Parliament, 28th January, 1806,
and 5th May, 1815.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_108">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor108">[108]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg, ii. 50: corrected in the articles on
Hardenberg and Haugwitz in the Deutsche Allgemeine
Biographie.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_109">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor109">[109]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg, v. 167. Hardenberg was meanwhile
representing himself to the British and Russian envoys as the
partisan of the Allies. "He declared that he saw it was become
impossible for this country to remain neutral, and that he should
unequivocally make known his sentiments to that effect to the
King. He added that if the decision depended upon himself, Russia
need entertain no apprehension as to the part he should
take."-Jackson, Sept. 3, 1805; Records: Prussia, vol.
194.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_110">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor110">[110]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, Schriften, iii. 60, Beer, 132, 141. Fournier,
104. Springer, i. 64.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_111">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor111">[111]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rustow, Krieg von 1805, p. 55.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_112">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor112">[112]</a></p>
<blockquote>Nelson Despatches, vi. 457.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_113">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor113">[113]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The reports from General Mack are of the most
satisfactory nature, and the apprehensions which were at one time
entertained from the immense force which Bonaparte is bringing
into Germany gradually decrease."-Sir A. Paget's Despatch from
Vienna, Sept, 18; Records: Austria, vol. 75.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_114">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor114">[114]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rustow, p. 154. Sch&ouml;nhals, Krieg von 1805, p.
33. Paget's despatch, Oct. 25; Records: Austria, vol. 75. "The
jealousy and misunderstanding among the generals had reached such
a pitch that no communication took place between Ferdinand and
Mack but in writing. Mack openly attributed his calamities to the
ill-will and opposition of the Archduke and the rest of the
generals. The Archduke accuses Mack of ignorance, of madness, of
cowardice, and of treachery. The consternation which prevails
here (Vienna) is at the highest pitch. The pains which are taken
to keep the public in the dark naturally increase the alarm. Not
a single newspaper has been delivered for several days past
except the wretched <i>Vienna. Gazette</i>. The Emperor is living
at a miserable country-house, in order, as people say, that he
may effect his escape. Every bark on the Danube has been put in
requisition by the Government. The greatest apprehensions prevail
on account of the Russians, of whose excesses loud complaints are
made. Their arrival here is as much dreaded as that of the
French. Cobenzl and Collenbach are in such a state of mind as to
render them totally unfit for all business." Cobenzl was
nevertheless still able to keep up his jocular style in asking
the ambassador for the English subsidies:-"Vous &ecirc;tes
malade, je le suis aussi un peu, mais ce qui est encore plus
malade que nous deux ce sont nos finances; ainsi pour l'amour de
Dieu d&eacute;p&ecirc;chez vous de nous donner vos deux cent
mille livres sterlings. Je vous embrasse de tout mon
coeur,"-Cobenzl to Paget, enclosed in <i>id</i>.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_115">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor115">[115]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg, ii. 268. Jackson, Oct. 7. Records:
Prussia, vol. 195. "The intelligence was received yesterday at
Potsdam, while M. de Hardenberg was with the King of Prussia. His
Prussian Majesty was very violently affected by it, and in the
first moment of anger ordered M. de Hardenberg to return to
Berlin and immediately to dismiss the French ambassador. After a
little reflection, however, he said that that measure should be
postponed."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_116">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor116">[116]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rapp, M&eacute;moires, p. 58. Beer, p.
188.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_117">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor117">[117]</a></p>
<blockquote>"The scarcity of provisions had been very great
indeed. Much discouragement had arisen in consequence, and a
considerable degree of insubordination, which, though less easy
to produce in a Russian army than in any other, is, when it does
make its appearance, most prejudicial, was beginning to manifest
itself in various ways. The bread waggons were pillaged on their
way to the camp, and it became very difficult to repress the
excesses of the troops."-Report of General Ramsay, Dec. 10;
Records: Austria, vol. 78.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_118">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor118">[118]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg, ii. 345, Haugwitz had just become joint
Foreign Minister with Hardenberg.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_119">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor119">[119]</a></p>
<blockquote>Haugwitz' justification of himself, with Hardenberg's
comments upon it, is to be seen in Hardenberg, v. 220. But see
also, for Hardenberg's own bad faith, <i>id.</i> i.
551.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_120">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor120">[120]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lord Harrowby's despatch from Berlin, Dec. 7;
Records: Prussia, vol. 196. The news of Austerlitz reached Berlin
on the night of Dec. 7. Next day Lord Harrowby called on
Hardenberg. "He told me that in a council of war held since the
arrival of the first accounts of the disaster, it had been
decided to order a part of the Prussian army to march into
Bohemia. These events, he said, need not interrupt our
negotiations." Then, on the 12th came the news of the armistice:
Harrowby saw Hardenberg that evening. "I was struck with
something like irritation in his manner, with a sort of reference
to the orders of the King, and with an expression which dropped
from him that circumstances might possibly arise in which Prussia
could look only to her own defence and security. I attributed
this in a great degree to the agitation of the moment, and I
should have pushed the question to a point if the entrance of
Count Metternich and M. d'Alopeus had not interrupted me....
Baron Hardenberg assured us that the military movements of the
Prussian army were proceeding without a moment's loss of time."
On the 25th Haugwitz arrived with his treaty. Hardenberg then
feigned illness. "Baron Hardenberg was too ill to see me, or, as
far as I could learn, any other person; and it has been
impossible for me to discover what intelligence is brought by
Count Haugwitz."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_121">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor121">[121]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lefebvre, Histoire des Cabinets, ii.
217.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_122">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor122">[122]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, viii. 388; viii. 479. Beer, p.
232.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_123">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor123">[123]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondence de Napoleon, xii. 253.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_124">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor124">[124]</a></p>
<p>[Transcriber's Note: A corner had been torn from the page in
our print copy. A [***] sometimes indicates several missing
words.]</p>
<blockquote>The story of Pitt's "Austerlitz look" preceding his
death is so impressive and so well known that I cannot resist
giving the real facts about the reception of the news of
Austerlitz in England. There were four Englishmen who were
expected to witness the battle, Sir A. Paget, ambassador at
Vienna, Lord L. Gower, ambassador with the Czar, Lord Harrington
and General Ramsay, military envoys. Of these, Lord Harrington
had left England too late to reach the armies; Sir A. Paget sat
[***] despatches at Olm&uuml;tz without hearing the firing, and
on going out alter the [***] astonished to fall in with the
retreating army; Gower was too far in [***] General Ramsay
unfortunately went off on that very day to get some [***] no
Englishman witnessed the awful destruction that took [***] that
reached England, quite misrepresented [***] decisive one. Pitt
actually thought at first [***] to his policy, and likely to
encourage [***] as December 20th the following [***] "Even
supposing the advantage of [***] must have been obtained with a
loss which cannot have left his force in a condition to contend
with the army of Prussia and at the same time to make head
against the Allies. If on the other hand it should appear that
the advantage has been with the Allies, there is every reason to
hope that Prussia will come forward with vigour to decide the
contest." Records: Prussia, vol. 196. It was the surrender of Ulm
which really gave Pitt the shock attributed to Austerlitz. The
despatch then written-evidently from Pitt's dictation-exhorting
the Emperor to do his duty, is the most impassioned and
soul-stirring thing in the whole political correspondence of the
time.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_125">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor125">[125]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg, ii. 463. Hardenberg, who, in spite of his
weak and ambiguous conduct up to the end of 1805, felt bitterly
the disgraceful position in which Prussia had placed itself, now
withdrew from office. "I received this morning a message from
Baron Hardenberg requesting me to call on him. He said that he
could no longer remain in office consistently with his honour,
and that he waited only for the return of Count Haugwitz to give
up to him the management of his department. 'You know,' he said,
'my principles, and the efforts that I have made in favour of the
good cause; judge then of the pain that I must experience when I
am condemned to be accessory to this measure. You know, probably,
that I was an advocate for the acquisition of Hanover, but I
wished it upon terms honourable to both parties. I thought it a
necessary bulwark to cover the Prussian dominions, and I thought
that the House of Hanover might have been indemnified elsewhere.
But now,' he added, 'j'abhorre les moyens infames par lesquels
nous faisons cette acquisition. Nous pourrions rester les amis de
Bonaparte sans &ecirc;tre ses esclaves.' He apologised for this
language, and said I must not consider it as coming from a
Prussian Minister, but from a man who unbosomed himself to his
friend.... I have only omitted the distressing picture of M. de
Hardenberg's agitation during this conversation. He bewailed the
fate of Prussia, and complained of the hardships he had undergone
for the last three months, and of the want of firmness and
resolution in his Prussian Majesty. He several times expressed
the hope that his Majesty's Government and that of Russia would
make some allowances for the situation of this country. They had
the means, he said, to do it an infinity of mischief. The British
navy might destroy the Prussian commerce, and a Russian army
might conquer some of her eastern provinces; but Bonaparte would
be the only gainer, as thereby Prussia would be thrown completely
into his arms."-F. Jackson's despatch from Berlin, March 27,
1806; Records: Prussia, vol. 197.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_126">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor126">[126]</a></p>
<blockquote>On the British envoy demanding his passports,
Haugwitz entered into a long defence of his conduct, alleging
grounds of necessity. Mr. Jackson said that there could be no
accommodation with England till the note excluding British
vessels was reversed. "M. de Haugwitz immediately rejoined, 'I
was much surprised when I found that that note had been delivered
to you.' 'How,' I said, 'can <i>you</i> be surprised who was the
author of the measures that give rise to it?' The only answer I
received was, 'Ah! ne dites pas cela.' He observed that it would
be worth considering whether our refusal to acquiesce in the
present state of things might not bring about one still more
disastrous. I smiled, and asked if I was to understand that a
Prussian army would take a part in the threatened invasion of
England. He replied that he did not now mean to insinuate any
such thing, but that it might be impossible to answer for
events."-Jackson's Despatch, April 25. <i>id.</i></blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_127">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor127">[127]</a></p>
<blockquote>Papers presented to Parliament, 1806, p.
63.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_128">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor128">[128]</a></p>
<blockquote>"An order has been issued to the officers of the
garrison of Berlin to abstain, under severe penalties, from
speaking of the state of public affairs. This order was given in
consequence of the very general and loud expressions of
dissatisfaction which issued from all classes of people, but
particularly from the military, at the recent conduct of the
Government; for it has been in contemplation to publish an edict
prohibiting the public at large from discussing questions of
state policy. The experience of a very few days must convince the
authors of this measure of the reverse of their expectation, the
satires and sarcasms upon their conduct having become more
universal than before."-Jackson's Despatch, March 22, <i>id</i>.
"On Thursday night the windows of Count Haugwitz' house were
completely demolished by some unknown person. As carbine bullets
were chiefly made use of for the purpose, it is suspected to have
been done by some of the garrison. The same thing had happened
some nights before, but the Count took no notice of it. Now a
party of the police patrol the street"-<i>Id</i>., April
27.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_129">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor129">[129]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, i. 331. Seeley, i. 271.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_130">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor130">[130]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hopfner, Der Krieg von 1806, i. 48.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_131"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor131">[131]</a></p>
<blockquote>A list of all Prussian officers in 1806 of and above
the rank of major is given in Henckel von Donnersmarck,
Erinnerungen, with their years of service. The average of a
colonel's service is 42 years; of a major's, 35.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_132">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor132">[132]</a></p>
<blockquote>M&uuml;ffling, Aus Meinem Leben, p. 15. Hopfner, i.
157. Correspondence de Napoleon, xiii. 150.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_133"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor133">[133]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hopfner, ii. 390. Hardenberg, iii. 230.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_134">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor134">[134]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Count Stein, the only man of real talents in the
administration, has resigned or was dismissed. He is a
considerable man, of great energy, character, and superiority of
mind, who possessed the public esteem in a high degree, and, I
have no doubt, deserved it.... During the negotiation for an
armistice, the expenses of Bonaparte's table and household at
Berlin were defrayed by the King of Prussia. Since that period
one of the Ministers called upon Stein, who was the chief of the
finances, to pay 300,000 crowns on the same account. Stein
refused with strong expressions of indignation. The King spoke to
him: he remonstrated with his Majesty in the most forcible terms,
descanted on the wretched humiliation of such mean conduct, and
said that he never could pay money on such an account unless he
had the order in writing from his Majesty. This order was given a
few days after the conversation."-Hutchinson's Despatch, Jan. 1,
1807; Records: Prussia, vol. 200.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_135">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor135">[135]</a></p>
<blockquote>Corr. Nap. xiii. 555.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_136"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor136">[136]</a></p>
<blockquote>"It is still doubtful who commands, and whether
Kamensky has or has not given up the command. I wrote to him on
the first moment of my arrival, but have received no answer from
him. On the 23rd, the day of the first attack, he took off his
coat and waistcoat, put all his stars and ribbons over his shirt,
and ran about the streets of Pultusk encouraging the soldiers,
over whom he is said to have great influence."-Lord Hutchinson's
Despatch, Jan. 1, 1807; Records: Prussia, vol. 200.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_137">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor137">[137]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hutchinson's letter, in Adair, Mission to Vienna, p.
373.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_138">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor138">[138]</a></p>
<blockquote>For the Whig foreign policy, see Adair, p. 11-13. Its
principle was to relinquish the attempt to raise coalitions of
half-hearted Governments against France by means of British
subsidies, but to give help to States which of their own free
will entered into war with Napoleon.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_139">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor139">[139]</a></p>
<blockquote>The battle of Friedland is described in Lord
Hutchinson's despatch (Records: Prussia, vol. 200-in which volume
are also Colonel Sonntag's reports, containing curious details
about the Russians, and some personal matter about Napoleon in a
letter from an inhabitant of Eylau; also Gneisenau's appeal to
Mr. Canning from Colberg).</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_140">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor140">[140]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bignon, vi. 342.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_141">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor141">[141]</a></p>
<blockquote>Papers presented to Parliament, 1808, p. 106. The
intelligence reached Canning on the 21st of July. Canning's
despatch to Brook Taylor, July 22; Records: Denmark, vol. 196. It
has never been known who sent the information, but it must have
been some one very near the Czar, for it purported to give the
very words used by Napoleon in his interview with Alexander on
the raft. It is clear, from Canning's despatch of July 22, that
this conversation and nothing else had up till then been
reported. The informant was probably one of the authors of the
English alliance of 1805.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_142">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor142">[142]</a></p>
<blockquote>Napoleon to Talleyrand, July 31, 1807. He instructs
Talleyrand to enter into certain negotiations with the Danish
Minister, which would be meaningless if the Crown Prince had
already promised to hand over the fleet. The original English
documents, in Records: Denmark, vols. 196, 197, really show that
Canning never considered that he had any proof of the intentions
of Denmark, and that he justified his action only by the
inability of Denmark to resist Napoleon's demands.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_143">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor143">[143]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cevallos, p. 73.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_144">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor144">[144]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, ii. 23. Seeley, i. 430.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_145"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor145">[145]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cevallos, p. 13. Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, i.
131.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_146">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor146">[146]</a></p>
<blockquote>Escoiquiz, Expos&eacute;, p. 57, 107.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_147">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor147">[147]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miot de Melito, ii. ch. 7. Murat was made King of
Naples.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_148">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor148">[148]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten, i. 242.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_149">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor149">[149]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Despatches, iii. 135.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_150">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor150">[150]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, iii. 133. Seeley, i. 480.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_151">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor151">[151]</a></p>
<blockquote>For the striking part played at Erfurt by Talleyrand
in opposition to Napoleon see Metternich's paper of December 4,
in Beer, p. 516. It seems that Napoleon wished to involve the
Czar in active measures against Austria, but was thwarted by
Talleyrand.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_152"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor152">[152]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten i. 311.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_153">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor153">[153]</a></p>
<blockquote>Napier, ii. 17.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_154">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor154">[154]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, ii. 147.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_155">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor155">[155]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, Tageb&uuml;cher, i. 60.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_156">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor156">[156]</a></p>
<blockquote>Steffens, vi. 153. M&eacute;moires du Roi
J&eacute;rome, iii. 340.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_157">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor157">[157]</a></p>
<blockquote>Beer, p. 370. H&auml;usser, iii. 278.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_158"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor158">[158]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon, xviii. 459, 472. Gentz,
Tageb&uuml;cher, i. 120, Pelet, M&eacute;moires sur la Guerre de
1809, i. 223.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_159">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor159">[159]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Je n'ai jamais vu d'affaire aussi sanglante et aussi
meurtri&egrave;re." Report of the French General, M&eacute;moires
de J&eacute;r&ocirc;me, iv. 109.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_160">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor160">[160]</a></p>
<blockquote>See Arndt's Poem on Schill. Gedichte, i. 328 (ed.
1837).</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_161"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor161">[161]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Despatches, iv. 533. Sup. Desp. vi. 319,
Napier, ii. 357.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_162">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor162">[162]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon: D&eacute;cision, Mai 23,
1806. Parliamentary Papers, 1810, p. 123, 697.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_163">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor163">[163]</a></p>
<blockquote>Beer, p. 445, Gentz, Tageb&uuml;cher, i. 82,
118.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_164"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor164">[164]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon, xix. 15,
265.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_165">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor165">[165]</a></p>
<blockquote>Corresp. de Napoleon, xxiii. 62, D&eacute;cret, 9
D&eacute;c., 1811.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_166">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor166">[166]</a></p>
<blockquote>M&eacute;moires de J&eacute;rome, v.
185.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_167">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor167">[167]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Supplementary Despatches, vi. 41. Napier,
iii. 250.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_168">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor168">[168]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, i. 405.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_169">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor169">[169]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hardenberg (Ranke), iv. 268. H&auml;usser, iii. 535.
Seeley, ii. 447.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_170">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor170">[170]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, Nouveau Recueil, i. 417. A copy, or the
original, of this Treaty was captured by the Russians with other
of Napoleon's papers during the retreat from Moscow, and a draft
of it sent to London, which remains in the Records.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_171">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor171">[171]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, i. 122.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_172">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor172">[172]</a></p>
<blockquote>M&eacute;moires de J&eacute;rome, v.
247.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_173">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor173">[173]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bogdanowitsch, i. 72; Chambray, i. 186. Sir R.
Wilson, Invasion of Russia, p. 15.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_174">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor174">[174]</a></p>
<blockquote>Droysen, Leben des Grafen York. I. 394.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_175">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor175">[175]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, iii. 211, <i>seq</i>. Seeley, iii.
21.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_176">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor176">[176]</a></p>
<blockquote>Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen, i. 28.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_177">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor177">[177]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martens, N.R., III. 234. British and Foreign State
Papers (Hertslet), i. 49.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_178"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor178">[178]</a></p>
<blockquote>For Breslau in February, see Steffens, 7.
69.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_179">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor179">[179]</a></p>
<blockquote>For the difference between the old and the new
officers, see Correspondance de Napol&eacute;on, 27 Avril,
1813.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_180">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor180">[180]</a></p>
<blockquote>Henckel von Donnersmarck, p. 187. The battles of
L&uuml;tzen, Bautzen, and Leipzig are described in the despatches
of Lord Cathcart, who witnessed them in company with the Czar and
King Frederick William. Records: Russia, 207, 209.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_181">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor181">[181]</a></p>
<blockquote>The account given in the following pages of
Napoleon's motives and action during the armistice is based upon
the following letters printed in the twenty-fifth volume of the
Correspondence:-To Eug&egrave;ne, June 2, July 1, July 17, Aug.
4; to Maret, July 8; to Daru, July 17; to Berthier, July 23; to
Davoust, July 24, Aug. 5; to Ney, Aug. 4, Aug. 12. The statement
of Napoleon's error as to the strength of the Austrian force is
confirmed by Metternich, i. 150.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_182">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor182">[182]</a></p>
<blockquote>Oncken, i. 80.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_183">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor183">[183]</a></p>
<blockquote>Napoleon to Eug&egrave;ne, 1st July,
1813.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_184">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor184">[184]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, i. 163.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_185">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor185">[185]</a></p>
<blockquote>H&auml;usser, iv. 59. One of the originals is
contained in Lord Cathcart's despatch from Kalisch, March 28th,
1813. Records: Russia, Vol. 206.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_186">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor186">[186]</a></p>
<blockquote>M&eacute;moires de J&eacute;rome, vi.
223.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_187">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor187">[187]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Your lordship has only to recollect the four days'
continued fighting at Leipzig, followed by fourteen days' forced
marches in the worst weather, in order to understand the reasons
that made some repose absolutely necessary. The total loss of the
Austrians alone, since the 10th of August, at the time of our
arrival at Frankfort, was 80,000 men. We were entirely unprovided
with heavy artillery, the nearest battery train not having
advanced further than the frontiers of Bohemia." It was thought
for a moment that the gates of Strasburg and Huningen might be
opened by bribery, and the Austrian Government authorised the
expenditure of a million florins for this purpose; in that case
the march into Switzerland would have been abandoned. The bribing
plan, however, broke down.-Lord Aberdeen's despatches, Nov. 24,
Dec. 25, 1813. Records; Austria, 107.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_188">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor188">[188]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh's despatch from Langres, Jan. 29, 1814.
Records: Continent, Vol. II.: "As far as I have hitherto felt
myself called on to give an opinion, I have stated that the
British Government did not decline treating with Bonaparte." "The
Czar said he observed my view of the question was different from
what he believed prevailed in England" (<i>id.</i> Feb. 16). See
Southey's fine Ode on the Negotiations of 1814.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_189">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor189">[189]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, I.
131.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_190">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor190">[190]</a></p>
<blockquote>B&eacute;ranger, Biographie, ed. duod., p.
354.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_191">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor191">[191]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, I.
151.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_192">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor192">[192]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lord W. Bentinck, who was with Murat, warned him
against the probable consequences of his duplicity. Bentinck had,
however, to be careful in his language, as the following shows.
Murat having sent him a sword of honour, he wrote to the English
Government, May 1, 1814: "It is a severe violence to my feelings
to incur any degree of obligation to an individual whom I so
entirely despise. But I feel it my duty not to betray any
appearance of a spirit of animosity." To Murat he wrote on the
same day: "The sword of a great captain is the most flattering
present which a soldier can receive. It is with the highest
gratitude that I accept the gift, Sire, which you have done me
the honour to send."-Records: Sicily, Vol. 98.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_193">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor193">[193]</a></p>
<blockquote>Treaties of Teplitz, Sept. 9, 1813. In Bianchi,
Storia Documentata della Diplomazia Europea, i. 334, there is a
long protest addressed by Metternich to Castlereagh on May 26,
1814, referring with great minuteness to a number of clauses in a
secret Treaty signed by all the Powers at Prague on July 27,
1813, and ratified at London on August 23, giving Austria the
disposal of all Italy. This protest, which has been accepted as
genuine in Reuchlin's Geschichte Italiens and elsewhere, is, with
the alleged secret Treaty, a forgery. My grounds for this
statement are as follows:-(1) There was no British envoy at
Prague in July, 1813. (2) The private as well as the official
letters of Castlereagh to Lord Cathcart of Sept. 13 and 18, and
the instructions sent to Lord Aberdeen during August and
September, prove that no joint Treaty existed up to that date, to
which both England and Austria were parties. Records: Russia,
207, 209 A. Austria, 105. (3) Lord Aberdeen's reports of his
negotiations with Metternich after this date conclusively prove
that almost all Italian questions, including even the Austrian
frontier, were treated as matters to be decided by the Allies in
common. While Austria's right to a preponderance in upper Italy
is admitted, the affairs of Rome and Naples are always treated as
within the range of English policy.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_194">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor194">[194]</a></p>
<blockquote>The originals of the Genoese and Milanese petitions
for independence are in Records: Sicily, Vol. 98. "The Genoese
universally desire the restoration of their ancient Republic.
They dread above all other arrangements their annexation to
Piedmont, to the inhabitants of which there have always existed a
peculiar aversion."-Bentick's Despatch, April 27, 1814,
<i>id.</i></blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_195">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor195">[195]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, x. 18.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_196">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor196">[196]</a></p>
<blockquote>As Arndt, Schriften, ii. 311, F&uuml;nf oder sechs
Wunder Gottes.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_197">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor197">[197]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands, iii.
26.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_198"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor198">[198]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Debates, xxvii. 634, 834.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_199">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor199">[199]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, Sup. Des., x. 468; Castlereagh, x. 145.
Records, Sicily, vol. 97. The future King Louis Philippe was sent
by his father-in-law, Ferdinand, to England, to intrigue against
Murat among the Sovereigns and Ministers then visiting England.
His own curious account of his proceedings, with the secret sign
for the Prince Regent, given him by Louis XVIII., who was afraid
to write anything, is in <i>id.</i>, vol. 99.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_200"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor200">[200]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wippermann, Kurhessen, pp. 9-13. In Hanover torture
was restored, and occasionally practised till the end of 1818:
also the punishment of death by breaking on the wheel. See
Hodgskin, Travels, ii. 51, 69.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_201">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor201">[201]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, ii. 30, Wellington,
D., xii. 27; S. D., ix. 17.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_202">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor202">[202]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., ix. 328.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_203"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor203">[203]</a></p>
<blockquote>Compare his cringing letter to Pichegru in Manuscrit
de Louis XVIII., p. 463, with his answer in 1797 to the Venetian
Senate, in Thiers.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_204">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor204">[204]</a></p>
<blockquote><i>Moniteur</i>, 5 Juin. British and Foreign State
Papers, 1812-14, ii. 960.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_205">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor205">[205]</a></p>
<blockquote>The payment of &pound;13 per annum in direct taxes.
No one could be elected who did not pay &pound;40 per annum in
direct taxes,-so large a sum, that the Charta provided for the
case of there not being fifty persons in a department
eligible.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_206">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor206">[206]</a></p>
<blockquote>Fourteen out of Napoleon's twenty marshals and
three-fifths of his Senators were called to the Chamber of Peers.
The names of the excluded Senators will be found in Vaulabelle,
ii. 100; but the reader must not take Vaulabelle's history for
more than a collection of party-legends.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_207">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor207">[207]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ordonnance, in <i>Moniteur</i>, 26 Mai.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_208">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor208">[208]</a></p>
<blockquote>This poor creature owed his life, as he owes a shabby
immortality, to the beautiful and courageous Grace Dalrymple
Elliot. Journal of Mrs. G.D. Elliot, p. 79.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_209">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor209">[209]</a></p>
<blockquote>Carnot, M&eacute;moire adress&eacute; au Roi, p.
20.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_210">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor210">[210]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Despatches, xii. 248. On the ground of his
ready-money dealings, it has been supposed that Wellington
understood the French people. On the contrary, he often showed
great want of insight, both in his acts and in his opinions, when
the finer, and therefore more statesmanlike, sympathies were in
question. Thus, in the delicate position of ambassador of a
victorious Power and counsellor of a restored dynasty, he
bitterly offended the French country-population by behaving like
a <i>grand seigneur</i> before 1789, and hunting with a pack of
hounds over their young corn. The matter was so serious that the
Government of Louis XVIII. had to insist on Wellington stopping
his hunts. (Talleyrand et Louis XVIII., p. 141.) This want of
insight into popular feeling, necessarily resulted in some
portentous blunders: <i>e.g.,</i> all that Wellington could make
of Napoleon's return from Elba was the following:-"He has acted
upon false or no information, and the King will destroy him
without difficulty and in a short time." Despatches, xii.
268.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_211">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor211">[211]</a></p>
<blockquote>A good English account of Vienna during the Congress
will be found in "Travels in Hungary," by Dr. R. Bright, the
eminent physician. His visit to Napoleon's son, then a child five
years old, is described in a passage of singular beauty and
pathos.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_212">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor212">[212]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 554,
<i>seq</i>. Talleyrand et Louis XVIII., p. 13. Kluber, ix. 167.
Seeley's Stein, iii. 248. Gentz, D&eacute;p&ecirc;ches
In&eacute;dites, i. 107. Records: Continent, vol. 7, Oct.
2.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_213">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor213">[213]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bernhardi, i. 2; ii. 2, 661.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_214">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor214">[214]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., ix. 335.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_215">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor215">[215]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., ix. 340. Records: Continent, vol.
7, Oct. 9, 14.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_216">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor216">[216]</a></p>
<blockquote>Talleyrand, p. 74. Records, <i>id</i>., Oct. 24,
25.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_217">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor217">[217]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., ix. 331. Talleyrand, pp. 59, 82,
85, 109. Kl&uuml;ber, vii. 21.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_218"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor218">[218]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 814.
Kl&uuml;ber, vii. 61.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_219">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor219">[219]</a></p>
<blockquote>Talleyrand, p. 281.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_220">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor220">[220]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1814-15, ii.
1001.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_221">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor221">[221]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh did not contradict them. Records: Cont.,
vol. 10, Jan. 8.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_222"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor222">[222]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 642.
Seeley's Stein, iii. 303. Talleyrand, Preface, p.
18.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_223">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor223">[223]</a></p>
<blockquote>Chiefly, but not altogether, because Napoleon's war
with England had ruined the trade of the ports. See the report of
Marshal Brune, in Daudet, La Terreur Blanche, p. 173, and the
striking picture of Marseilles in Thiers, xviii. 340, drawn from
his own early recollections. Bordeaux was Royalist for the same
reason.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_224">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor224">[224]</a></p>
<blockquote>Berriat-St. Prix, Napol&eacute;on &agrave; Grenoble,
p. 10.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_225">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor225">[225]</a></p>
<blockquote>B&eacute;ranger, Biographie, p. 373, ed.
duod.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_226">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor226">[226]</a></p>
<blockquote>See their contemptible addresses, as well as those of
the army, in the <i>Moniteur</i>, from the 10th to the 19th of
March to Louis XVIII., from the 27th onwards to
Napoleon.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_227">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor227">[227]</a></p>
<blockquote><i>i.e.</i>, Because he had abused his liberty. On
Ney's trial two courtiers alleged that Ney said he "would bring
back Napoleon in an iron cage." Ney contradicted, them.
Proc&egrave;s de Ney, ii. 105, 113.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_228">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor228">[228]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, ii.
443.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_229">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor229">[229]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napoleon, xxviii. 171, 267,
etc.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_230">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor230">[230]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, ii. 275.
Castlereagh, ix. 512, Wellington, S.D., ix. 244. Records:
Continent, vol. 12, Feb. 26.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_231">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor231">[231]</a></p>
<blockquote>Correspondance de Napol&eacute;on, xxviii. 111, 127.
The order forbidding him to come to Paris is wrongly dated April
19; probably for May 29. The English documents relating to
Ferdinand's return to Naples, with the originals of many
proclamations, etc., are in Records: Sicily, vols. 103, 104. They
are interesting chiefly as showing the deep impression made on
England by Ferdinand's cruelties in 1799.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_232">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor232">[232]</a></p>
<blockquote>Benjamin Constant, M&eacute;moire sur les Cent
Jours.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_233">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor233">[233]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lafayette, M&eacute;moires, v. 414.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_234">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor234">[234]</a></p>
<blockquote>Miot de Melito, iii. 434.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_235">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor235">[235]</a></p>
<blockquote>Napoleon to Ney; Correspondance, xxviii.
334.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_236"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor236">[236]</a></p>
<blockquote>"I have got an infamous army, very weak and
ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff." (Despatches, xii.
358.) So, even after his victory, he writes:-"I really believe
that, with the exception of my old Spanish infantry, I have got
not only the worst troops but the worst-equipped army, with the
worst staff that was ever brought together." (Despatches, xii.
509.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_237">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor237">[237]</a></p>
<blockquote>Therefore he kept his forces more westwards, and
further from Bl&uuml;cher, than if he had known Napoleon's actual
plan. But the severance of the English from the sea required to
be guarded against as much as a defeat of Bl&uuml;cher. The Duke
never ceased to regard it as an open question whether Napoleon
ought not to have thrown his whole force between Brussels and the
sea. (<i>Vide</i> Memoir written in 1842 Wellington, S.D., ix.
530.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_238">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor238">[238]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, i., p. 155.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_239">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor239">[239]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Despatches, xii. 649.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_240">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor240">[240]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xi. 24, 32. Maps of projected
frontiers, Records: Cont., vol 23.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_241">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor241">[241]</a></p>
<blockquote>Despatches, xii. 596. Seeley's Stein, iii.
332.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_242"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor242">[242]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F State Papers, 1815-16, iii. 201. The second
article is the most characteristic:-"Les trois Princes ...
confessant que la nation Chr&eacute;tienne dont eux et leurs
peuples font partie n'a r&eacute;ellement d'autre Souverain que
celui &agrave; qui seul appartient en propri&eacute;t&eacute; la
puissance ... c'est-&agrave;-dire Dieu notre Divin Sauveur
J&eacute;sus Christ, le Verbe du Tr&egrave;s Haut, la parole de
vie: leurs Majest&eacute;s recommandent ... &agrave; leurs
peuples ... de se fortifier chaque jour davantage dans les
principes et l'exercice des devoirs que le Divin Sauveur a
enseign&eacute;s aux hommes."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_243">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor243">[243]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xi. 175. The account which
Castlereagh gives of the Czar's longing for universal peace
appears to refute the theory that Alexander had some idea of an
attack upon Turkey in thus uniting Christendom. According to
Castlereagh, Metternich also thought that "it was quite clear
that the Czar's mind was affected," but for the singular reason
that "peace and goodwill engrossed all his thoughts, and that he
had found him of late friendly and reasonable on all points"
(<i>Id</i>.) There was, however, a strong popular impression at
this time that Alexander was on the point of invading Turkey.
(Gentz, D.I., i. 197.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_244">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor244">[244]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1815-16, iii. 273. Records;
Continent, vol. 30.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_245">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor245">[245]</a></p>
<blockquote>Kl&uuml;ber, ii. 598.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_246">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor246">[246]</a></p>
<blockquote>Kl&uuml;ber, vi. 12. It covers, with its appendices,
205 pages.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_247">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor247">[247]</a></p>
<blockquote>In the first draft of the secret clauses of the
Treaty of June 14, 1800, between England and Austria (see p.
150), Austria was to have had Genoa. But the fear arising that
Russia would not permit Austria's extension to the Mediterranean,
an alteration was made, whereby Austria was promised half of
Piedmont, Genoa to go to the King of Sardinia in
compensation.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_248">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor248">[248]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, Leben Steins, iv 524.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_249">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor249">[249]</a></p>
<blockquote>Talleyrand, p. 277.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_250">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor250">[250]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1815-16, p. 928.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_251">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor251">[251]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bernhardi, iii. 2, 10, 666.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_252">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor252">[252]</a></p>
<blockquote>"We are now inundated with Russian agents of various
descriptions, some public and some secret, but all holding the
same language, all preaching 'Constitution and liberal
principles,' and all endeavouring to direct the eyes of the
independents towards the North.... A copy of the instructions
sent to the Russian Minister here has fallen into the hands of
the Austrians." A'Court (Ambassador at Naples) to Castlereagh,
Dec. 7, 1815, Records: Sicily, 104.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_253">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor253">[253]</a></p>
<blockquote>A profound reason has been ascribed to Metternich's
conservatism by some of his English apologists in high place,
namely the fear that if ideas of nationality should spring up,
the non-German components of the Austrian monarchy, viz.,
Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, etc., would break off and become
independent States. But there is not a word in Metternich's
writings which shows that this apprehension had at this time
entered his mind. To generalise his Italian policy of 1815 into a
great prophetic statesmanship, is to interpret the ideas of one
age by the history of the next.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_254"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor254">[254]</a></p>
<blockquote>In Moravia. For the system of espionage, see the book
called "Carte segrete della polizia Austriaca," consisting of
police-reports which fell into the hands of the Italians at Milan
in 1848.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_255">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor255">[255]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Storia Documentata, i. 208. The substance of
this secret clause was communicated to A'Court, the English
Ambassador at Naples. "I had no hesitation in saying that
anything which contributed to the good understanding now
prevailing between Austria and Naples, could not but prove
extremely satisfactory to the British Government." A'Court to
Castlereagh, July 18, 1815. Records: Sicily, vol.
104.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_256">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor256">[256]</a></p>
<blockquote>Letters in Reuchlin, Geschichte Italiens, i. 71. The
Holy Alliance was turned to better account by the Sardinian
statesmen than by the Neapolitans. "Apres s'&ecirc;tre
alli&eacute;," wrote the Sardinian Ambassador at St. Petersburg,
"en Jesus-Christ notre Sauveur parole de vie, pourquoi et
&agrave; quel propos s'allier en Metternich?"</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_257">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor257">[257]</a></p>
<blockquote>See the passages from Grenville's letters quoted in
pp. 125, 126 of this work.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_258">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor258">[258]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, x. 18. "The danger is that the
transition" (to liberty) "may be too sudden to ripen into
anything likely to make the world better or happier.... I am sure
it is better to retard than accelerate the operation of this most
hazardous principle which is abroad."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_259">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor259">[259]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1816-17, p. 553. Metternich,
iii. 80. Castlereagh had at first desired that the Constitution
should be modified under the influence of the English Ambassador.
Instructions to A'Court, March 14, 1814, marked "Most Secret";
Records: Sicily, vol. 99. A'Court himself detested the
Constitution. "I conceive the Sicilian people to be totally and
radically unfit to be entrusted with political power." July 23,
1814, id.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_260">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor260">[260]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, x. 25.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_261"> </a><a href=
"#FNanchor261">[261]</a></p>
<blockquote>"If his Majesty announces his determination to give
effect to the main principles of a constitutional r&eacute;gime,
it is possible that he may extinguish the existing arrangement
with impunity, and re-establish one more consistent with the
efficiency of the executive power, and which may restore the
great landed proprietors and the clergy to a due share of
authority." Castlereagh, id.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_262">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor262">[262]</a></p>
<blockquote>Daudet, La Terreur Blanche, p. 186. The loss of the
troops was a hundred. The stories of wholesale massacres at
Marseilles and other places are fictions.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_263">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor263">[263]</a></p>
<blockquote>See the Address, in <i>Journal des D&eacute;bats</i>,
15 Octobre: "Nous oserons solliciter humblement la
r&eacute;tribution n&eacute;cessaire," etc. For the general
history of the Session, see Duvergier de Hauranne, iii. 257;
Viel-Castal, iv. 139; Castlereagh's severe judgment of Artois.
Records: Cont., 28, Sept. 21.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_264">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor264">[264]</a></p>
<blockquote><i>Journal des D&eacute;bats</i>, 29
October.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_265">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor265">[265]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xi. 95. This self-confident folly
is repeated in many of Lord Liverpool's letters.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_266">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor266">[266]</a></p>
<blockquote>Proc&egrave;s du Mar&eacute;chal Ney, i.
212.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_267">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor267">[267]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ney was not, however, a mere fighting general. The
Military Studies published in English in 1833 from his
manuscripts prove this. They abound in acute remarks, and his
estimate of the quality of the German soldier, at a time when the
Germans were habitually beaten and despised, is very striking. He
urges that when French infantry fight in three ranks, the charge
should be made after the two front ranks have fired, without
waiting for the third to fire. "The German soldier, formed by the
severest discipline, is cooler than any other. He would in the
end obtain the advantage in this kind of firing if it lasted
long." (P. 100.) Ney's parents appear to have been
W&uuml;rtemberg people who had settled in Alsace. The name was
really Neu (New).</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_268">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor268">[268]</a></p>
<blockquote>See the extracts from La Bourdonnaye's printed speech
in <i>Journal des D&eacute;bits</i>, 19 Novembre: "Pour
arr&ecirc;ter leurs trames criminelles, il faut des fers, des
bourreaux, des supplices. La mort, la mort seule peut effrayer
leurs complices et mettre fin &agrave; leurs complots," etc. The
journals abound with similar speeches.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_269">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor269">[269]</a></p>
<blockquote>General Mouton-Duvernet. Several were sentenced to
death in their absence; some were acquitted on the singular plea
that they had become subjects of the Empire of Elba, and so could
not be guilty of treason to the King of France.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_270">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor270">[270]</a></p>
<blockquote>The sentence was commuted by the King to twelve
years' imprisonment. General Chartran was actually shot. It is
stated, though it appears not to be clear, that his prosecution
began at the same late date. Duvergier de Hauranne, iii.
335.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_271">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor271">[271]</a></p>
<blockquote>The highest number admitted by the Government to have
been imprisoned at any one time under the Law of Public Security
was 319, in addition to 750 banished from their homes or placed
under surveillance. No one has collected statistics of the
imprisonments by legal sentence. The old story that there were
70,000 persons in prison is undoubtedly an absurd exaggeration;
but the numbers given by the Government, even if true at any one
moment, afford no clue to the whole number of imprisonments, for
as fast as one person gets out of prison in France in a time of
political excitement, another is put in. The writer speaks from
personal experience, having been imprisoned in 1871. Any one who
has seen how these affairs are conducted will know how ridiculous
it would be to suppose that the central government has
information of every case.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_272">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor272">[272]</a></p>
<blockquote>See, <i>e.g.</i>, the P&eacute;tition aux Deux
Chambres, 1816, at the beginning of P.L. Courier's
works.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_273">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor273">[273]</a></p>
<blockquote><i>Journal des D&eacute;bats</i>, 19 Decembre,
1815.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_274">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor274">[274]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xi 309.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_275">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor275">[275]</a></p>
<blockquote>Despatch in Duvergier de Hauranne, iii.
441.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_276">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor276">[276]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, Leben Steins, iv. 428.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_277">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor277">[277]</a></p>
<blockquote>Schmalz, Berichtigung, etc., p. 14.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_278">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor278">[278]</a></p>
<blockquote>Pertz, Leben Steins, v. 23.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_279">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor279">[279]</a></p>
<blockquote>A curious account of the festival remains, written by
Kieser, one of the Professors who took part in it (Kieser, Das
Wartburgfest, 1818). It is so silly that it is hard to believe it
to have been written by a grown-up man. He says of the procession
to the Wartburg, "There have indeed been processions that
surpassed this in outward glory and show; but in inner
significant value it cannot yield to any." But making allowance
for the author's personal weakness of head, his book is a
singular and instructive picture of the mental condition of
"Young Germany" and its teachers at that time-a subject that
caused such extravagant anxiety to Governments, and so seriously
affected the course of political history. It requires some effort
to get behind the ridiculous side of the students' Teutonism; but
there were elements of reality there. Persons familiar with Wales
will be struck by the resemblance, both in language and spirit,
between the scenes of 1818 and the religious meetings or the
Eisleddfodau of the Welsh, a resemblance not accidental, but
resulting from similarity of conditions, viz., a real
susceptibility to religious, patriotic, and literary ideas among
a people unacquainted with public or practical life on a large
scale. But the vigorous political action of the Welsh in 1880,
when the landed interest throughout the Principality lost seats
which it had held for centuries, surprised only those who had
seen nothing but extravagance in the chapel and the
field-meeting. Welsh ardour, hitherto in great part undirected,
then had a practical effect because English organisation afforded
it a model: German ardour in 1817 proved sterile because it had
no such example at hand.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_280">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor280">[280]</a></p>
<blockquote>See the speech in Bernhardi, iii. 669.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_281">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor281">[281]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, D.I., ii. 87, iii. 72.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_282">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor282">[282]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, xii. 55, 62.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_283">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor283">[283]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xii. 835.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_284">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor284">[284]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1818-19, vi. 14.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_285">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor285">[285]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, D.I., i. 400. Gentz, the confidant and adviser
of Metternich, was secretary to the Conference at
Aix-la-Chapelle. His account of it in this despatch is of the
greatest value, bringing out in a way in which no official
documents do the conservative and repressive tone of the
Conference. The prevalent fear had been that Alexander would
break with his old Allies and make a separate league with France
and Spain. See also Castlereagh, xii. 47.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_286">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor286">[286]</a></p>
<blockquote>"I could write you a long letter about the honour
which the Prussians pay to everything Austrian, our whole
position, our measures, our language. Metternich has fairly
enchanted them." Gentz, Nachlasse (Osten), i. 52.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_287">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor287">[287]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 171.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_288">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor288">[288]</a></p>
<blockquote>See his remarks in Metternich, iii. 269; an oasis of
sense in this desert of Commonplace.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_289">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor289">[289]</a></p>
<blockquote>Stourdza, Denkschrift, etc., p. 31. The French
original is not in the British Museum.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_290">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor290">[290]</a></p>
<blockquote>The extracts from Sand's diaries, published in a
little book in 1821 (Tageb&uuml;cher, etc.), form a very
interesting religious study. The last, written on Dec. 31, 1818,
is as follows:-"I meet the last day of this year in an earnest
festal spirit, knowing well that the Christmas which I have
celebrated will be my last. If our strivings are to result in
anything, if the cause of mankind is to succeed in our
Fatherland, if all is not to be forgotten, all our enthusiasm
spent in vain, the evildoer, the traitor, the corrupter of youth
must die. Until I have executed this, I have no peace; and what
can comfort me until I know that I have with upright will set my
life at stake? O God, I pray only for the right clearness and
courage of soul, that in that last supreme hour I may not be
false to myself" (p. 174). The reference to the Greeks is in a
letter in the English memoir, p. 40.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_291">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor291">[291]</a></p>
<blockquote>The papers of the poet Arndt were seized. Among them
was a copy of certain short notes made by the King of Prussia,
about 1808, on the uselessness of a <i>lev&eacute;e en masse</i>.
One of these notes was as follows:-"As soon as a single clergyman
is shot" (<i>i.e.</i> by the French) "the thing would come to an
end." These words were published in the Prussian official paper
as an indication that Arndt, worse than Sand, advocated murdering
clergymen! Welcker, Urkunden, p. 89.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_292">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor292">[292]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 217, 258.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_293">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor293">[293]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 268.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_294">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor294">[294]</a></p>
<blockquote>The minutes of the Conference are in Welcker,
Urkunden, p. 104, <i>seq</i>. See also Weech,
Correspondenzen.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_295">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor295">[295]</a></p>
<blockquote>Protokolle der Bundesversammlung, 8, 266. Nauwerck,
Th&auml;tigkeit, etc., 2, 287.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_296">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor296">[296]</a></p>
<blockquote>&AElig;gidi, Der Schluss-Acte, ii. 362,
446.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_297">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor297">[297]</a></p>
<blockquote>Article 57. The intention being that no assembly in
any German State might claim sovereign power as representing the
people. If, for instance, the Bavarian Lower House had asserted
that it represented the sovereignty of the people, and that the
King was simply the first magistrate in the State, this would
have been an offence against Federal law, and have entitled the
Diet-<i>i.e.</i> Metternich-to armed interference. The German
State-papers of this time teem with the constitutional
distinction between a Representative Assembly (<i>i.e.</i>
assembly representing popular sovereignty) and an Assembly of
Estates (<i>i.e.</i>, of particular orders with limited, definite
rights, such as the granting of a tax). In technical language,
the question at issue was the true interpretation of the phrase
<i>Landst&auml;ndische Verfassungen</i>, used in the 13th article
of the original Act of Federation.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_298">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor298">[298]</a></p>
<blockquote>See, in Welcker, Urkunden, p. 356, the celebrated
paper called "Memorandum of a Prussian Statesman, 1822," which at
the same time recommends a systematic underhand rivalry with
Austria, in preparation for an ultimate breach. Few State-papers
exhibit more candid and cynical cunning.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_299">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor299">[299]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ilse, Politische Verfolgungen, p. 31.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_300">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor300">[300]</a></p>
<blockquote>The comparison is the Germans' own, not mine. "'How
savoury a thin roast veal is!' said one Hamburg beggar to
another. 'Where did you eat it?' said his friend, admiringly. 'I
never ate it at all, but I smelt it as I passed a great man's
house while the dog was being fed.'" (Ilse, p. 57.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_301">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor301">[301]</a></p>
<blockquote>The Commission at Mainz went on working until 1827.
It seems to have begun to discover real revolutionary societies
about 1824. There is a long list of persons remanded for trial in
their several States, in Ilse, p. 595, with the verdicts and the
sentences passed upon them, which vary from a few months' to
nineteen years' imprisonment.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_302">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor302">[302]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 168; and see Wellington, S.D., xii.
878.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_303">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor303">[303]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gr&eacute;goire, M&eacute;moires, i. 411. Had the
Constitutional Church of France succeeded, Gr&eacute;goire would
have left a great name in religious history. Napoleon, by one of
the most fatal acts of despotism, extinguished a society likely,
from its democratic basis and its association with a great
movement of reform, to become the most liberal and enlightened of
all Churches, and left France to be long divided between
Ultramontane dogma and a coarse kind of secularism. The life of
Gr&eacute;goire ought to be written in English. From the enormous
number of improvements for which he laboured, his biography would
give a characteristic picture of the finer side of the generation
of 1789.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_304">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor304">[304]</a></p>
<blockquote>The late Count of Chambord, or Henry V., son of the
Duke of Barry, was born some months after his father's
death.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_305">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor305">[305]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, xii. 162, 259. "The monster Radicalism
still lives," Castlereagh sorrowfully admits to
Metternich.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_306">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor306">[306]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 369. "A man must be like me, born
and brought up amid the storm of politics, to know what is the
precise meaning of a shout of triumph like those which now burst
from Burdett and Co. He may have read of it, but I have seen it
with my eyes. I was living at the time of the Federation of 1789.
I was fifteen, and already a man."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_307">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor307">[307]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, ii.
175.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_308">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor308">[308]</a></p>
<blockquote>See the note of Fernan Nu&ntilde;ez, in Wellington,
S. D, xii 582. "Les efforts unanimes de ces m&ecirc;mes
Puissances ont d&eacute;truit le syst&egrave;me
d&eacute;vastateur, d'o&ugrave; naquit la r&eacute;bellion
Am&eacute;ricaine; mais il leur restait encore &agrave; le
d&eacute;truire dans l'Am&eacute;rique Espagnole."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_309">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor309">[309]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, S.D., xii. 807.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_310">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor310">[310]</a></p>
<blockquote>Jullian, Pr&eacute;cis Historique, p.
78.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_311">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor311">[311]</a></p>
<blockquote>Historia de la vida de Fernando VII., ii.
158.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_312">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor312">[312]</a></p>
<blockquote>Carrascosa, M&eacute;moires, p. 25; Colletta, ii.
155.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_313">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor313">[313]</a></p>
<blockquote>Carrascosa p. 44.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_314">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor314">[314]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz. D.I., ii. 108, 122. It was rather too much
even for the Austrians. "La conduite de ce malheureux souverain
n'a &eacute;t&eacute;, d&egrave;s le commencement des troubles,
qu'un tissu de faiblesse et de duplicit&eacute;," etc.
"Voil&agrave; l'alli&eacute; que le ciel a mis entre nos mains,
et dont nous avons &agrave; r&eacute;tablir les
int&eacute;r&ecirc;ts!" Ferdinand was guilty of such monstrous
perjuries and cruelties that the reader ought to be warned not to
think of him as a saturnine and Machiavellian Italian. He was a
son of the Bourbon Charles III. of Spain. His character was that
of a jovial, rather stupid farmer, whom a freak of fortune had
made a king from infancy. A sort of grotesque comic element runs
through his life, and through every picture drawn by persons in
actual intercourse with him. The following, from one of
Bentinck's despatches of 1814 (when Ferdinand had just heard that
Austria had promised to keep Murat in Naples), is very
characteristic: "I found his Majesty very much afflicted and very
much roused. He expressed his determination never to renounce the
rights which God had given him.... He said he might be poor, but
he would die honest, and his children should not have to reproach
him for having given up their rights. He was the son of the
honest Charles III. ... he was his unworthy offspring, but he
would never disgrace his family.... On my going away he took me
by the hand, and said he hoped I should esteem him as he did me,
and begged me to take a Pheasant pye to a gentleman who had been
his constant shooting companion." Records, Sicily, vol. 97.
Ferdinand was the last sovereign who habitually kept a
professional fool, or jester, in attendance upon
him.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_315">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor315">[315]</a></p>
<blockquote>British and Foreign State Papers, vii. 361,
995.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_316">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor316">[316]</a></p>
<blockquote>Except in Sicily, where, however, the course of
events had not the same publicity as on the
mainland.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_317">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor317">[317]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verbatim from the Russian Note of April 18. B. and F.
State Papers, vii. 943.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_318">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor318">[318]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parliamentary Debates, N.S., viii. 1136.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_319">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor319">[319]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, D.I., ii. 70. "M. le Prince Metternich s'est
rendu chez l'Empereur pour le mettre au fait de ces tristes
circonstances. Depuis que je le connais, je ne l'ai jamais vu
aussi frapp&eacute; d'aucun &eacute;v&eacute;nement qu'il
l'&eacute;tait hier avant son d&eacute;part."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_320">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor320">[320]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, xii. 311.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_321">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor321">[321]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, D.I., ii. 76. Metternich, iii. 395. "Our
fire-engines were not full in July, otherwise we should have set
to work immediately."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_322">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor322">[322]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, ii. 85. Gentz was secretary at the Congress of
Troppau, as he had been at Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelle. His
letters exhibit the Austrian and absolutist view of all European
politics with striking clearness. He speaks of the change in
Richelieu's action as disagreeable but not fatal. "Ces pruderies
politiques sont sans doute l&acirc;cheuses.... La Russie,
l'Autriche, et la Prusse, heureusement libres encore dans leurs
mouvements, et assez puissantes pour soutenir ce qu'elles
arr&ecirc;tent, pourraient adopter sans le concours de
l'Angleterre et de la France un syst&egrave;me tel que les
besoins du moment le demandent." The description of the three
despotisms as "happily free in their movements" is very
characteristic of the time.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_323">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor323">[323]</a></p>
<blockquote>This is the system conveniently but incorrectly named
Holy Alliance, from its supposed origination in he unmeaning
Treaty of Holy Alliance in 1815. The reader will have seen that
it took five years of reaction to create a definitive agreement
among the monarchs to intervene against popular changes in other
States, and that the principles of any operative league planned
by Alexander in 1815 would have been largely different from those
which he actually accepted in 1820. The Alexander who designed
the Holy Alliance was the Alexander who had forced Louis XVIII.
to grant the Charta.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_324">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor324">[324]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, xii. 330.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_325">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor325">[325]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 394. B. and F. State Papers, viii.
1160. Gentz, D. I., ii. 112. The best narrative of the Congress
of Troppau is in Duvergier de Hauranne, vi. 93. The Life of
Canning by his secretary, Stapleton, though it is a work of some
authority on this period, is full of misstatements about
Castlereagh. Stapleton says that Castlereagh took no notice of
the Troppau circular of December 8 until it had been for more
than a month in his possession, and suggests that he would never
have protested at all but for the unexpected disclosure of the
circular in a German newspaper. As a matter of fact, the first
English protest against the Troppau doctrine, expressed in a
memorandum, "tr&egrave;s long, tr&egrave;s positif, assez dur
m&ecirc;me, et assez tranchant dans son langage," was handed in
to the Congress on December 16 or 19, along with a very unwelcome
note to Metternich. There is some gossip of another of Canning's
secretaries in Greville's Memoirs, i. 105, to the effect that
Castlereagh's private despatches to Troppau differed in tone from
his official ones, which were only written "to throw dust in the
eyes of Parliament." It is sufficient to read the Austrian
documents of the time, teeming as they do with vexation and
disappointment at England's action, to see that this is a
fiction.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_326">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor326">[326]</a></p>
<blockquote>Had Ferdinand's first proposals been accepted by the
Neapolitan Parliament, France and England, it was thought, might
have insisted on a compromise at Laibach. "Les Gouvernements de
France et d'Angleterre auraient fortement insist&eacute; sur
l'introduction d'un regime constitutionnel et
repr&eacute;sentatif, r&eacute;gime que la Cour de Vienne croit
absolument incompatible avec la position des &Eacute;tats de
l'Italie, et avec la suret&eacute; de ses propres &Eacute;tats."
Gentz, D.I., ii. 110.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_327">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor327">[327]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, Nachlasse (P. Osten), i. 67. Lest the reader
should take a prejudice against Capodistrias for his cunning, I
ought to mention here that he was a man of austere
disinterestedness in private life, and one of the few statesmen
of the time who did not try to make money by politics. His
ambition, which was very great, rose above all the meaner objects
which tempt most men. The contrast between his personal goodness
and his unscrupulousness in diplomacy will become more clear
later on.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_328">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor328">[328]</a></p>
<blockquote>Colletta, ii. 230. Bianchi, Diplomazia, ii.
47.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_329">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor329">[329]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gualterio, Ultimi Rivolgimenti, iii. 46. Silvio
Pellico, Le mie prigioni, ch. 57.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_330">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor330">[330]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, viii. 1203.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_331">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor331">[331]</a></p>
<blockquote>Baumgarten, ii. 325.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_332">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor332">[332]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington Despatches, N.S., i. 284.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_333">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor333">[333]</a></p>
<blockquote>Talleyrand et Louis XVIII., p. 333.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_334">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor334">[334]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, i. 343.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_335">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor335">[335]</a></p>
<blockquote>Duvergier de Hauranne, vii. 140.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_336">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor336">[336]</a></p>
<blockquote>Canning denied that it was offered, but the
despatches in Wellington prove it. These papers, supplemented by
the narrative of Duvergier de Hauranne, drawn from the French
documents which he specifies, are the authority for the history
of the Congress. Canning's celebrated speech of April, 1823, is
an effective <i>ex parte</i> composition rather than a historical
summary. The reader who goes to the originals will be struck by
the immense superiority of Wellington's statements over those of
all the Continental statesmen at Verona, in point, in force, and
in good sense, as well as in truthfulness. The Duke, nowhere
appears to greater advantage.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_337">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor337">[337]</a></p>
<blockquote>Report of Angoul&ecirc;me, Duvergier d'Hauranne, vii.
"L&agrave; o&ugrave; sont nos troupes, nous maintenons la paix
avec beaucoup de peine; mais l&agrave; o&ugrave; nous ne sommes
pas, on massacre, on br&ucirc;le, on pille, on vole. Les corps
Espagnols, se disant royalistes, ne cherchent qu'&agrave; voler
et &agrave; piller."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_338">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor338">[338]</a></p>
<blockquote>Decretos del Rey Fernando, vii. 35, 50, 75. This
process, which was afterwards extended even to common soldiers,
was called Purificacion. Committees were appointed to which all
persons coming under the law had to send in detailed evidence of
correct conduct in and since 1820, signed by some well-known
royalists. But the committees also accepted any letters of
denunciation that might be sent to them, and were bound by law to
keep them secret, so that in practice the Purificacion became a
vast system of anonymous persecution.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_339">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor339">[339]</a></p>
<blockquote>Historia de la vida de Fernando VII., 1842, iii.
152.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_340">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor340">[340]</a></p>
<blockquote>Decretos del Rey Fernando, vii. 45.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_341">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor341">[341]</a></p>
<blockquote>Decretos, vii. 154. The preamble to this law is
perhaps the most astonishing of all Ferdinand's devout
utterances. "My soul is confounded with the horrible spectacle of
the sacrilegious crimes which impiety has dared to commit against
the Supreme Maker of the universe. The ministers of Christ have
been persecuted and sacrificed; the venerable successor of St.
Peter has been outraged; the temples of the Lord have been
profaned and destroyed; the Holy Gospel depreciated; in fine, the
inestimable legacy which Jesus Christ gave in his last supper to
secure our eternal felicity, the Sacred Host, has been trodden
under foot. My soul shudders, and will not be able to return to
tranquillity until, in union with my children, my faithful
subjects, I offer to God holocausts of piety," etc. But for some
specimens of Ferdinand's command of the vernacular, of a very
different character, see Wellington, N.S., ii. 37.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_342">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor342">[342]</a></p>
<blockquote>Revolution d'Espagne, examen critique (Paris, 1836),
p. 151, from the lists in the Gaceta de Madrid. The Gaceta for
these years is wanting from the copy in the British Museum, and
in the large collection in that library of historical and
periodical literature relating to Spain I can find no first hand
authorities for the judicial murders of these years. Nothing
relating to the subject was permitted to be printed in Spain for
many years afterwards The work cited in this note, though bearing
a French title, and published at Paris in 1836, was in fact a
Spanish book written in 1824. The critical inquiry which has
substantiated many of the worst traditions of the French Reign of
Terror from local records still remains to be undertaken for this
period of Spanish history.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_343">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor343">[343]</a></p>
<blockquote>See e.g., Stapleton, Canning and his Times p. 378.
Wellington often suggested the use of less peremptory language.
Despatches, i. 134, 188[***], Metternich wrote as follows on
hearing at Vienna of Castlereagh's death: "Castlereagh was the
only man in his country who had gained any experience in foreign
affairs. He had learned to understand me. He was devoted to me in
heart and spirit, not only from personal inclination, but from
conviction. I awaited him here as my second self." iii. 391.
Metternich, however, was apt to exaggerate his influence over the
English Minister. It was a great surprise to him that
Castlereagh, after gaining decisive majorities in the House of
Commons on domestic questions in 1820, in no wise changed the
foreign policy expressed in the protest against the Declaration
of Troppau.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_344">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor344">[344]</a></p>
<blockquote>Stapleton, Political Life of Canning, ii.
18.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_345">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor345">[345]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, i. 188.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_346">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor346">[346]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl Hist., 12th Dec., 1826.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_347">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor347">[347]</a></p>
<blockquote>Stapleton, Life of Canning, i. 134. Martineau, p.
144.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_348">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor348">[348]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gentz, Nachlasse (Osten), ii. 165.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_349">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor349">[349]</a></p>
<blockquote>About the year 1830 the theory was started by
Fallmerayer, a Tyrolese writer, that the modern Greeks were the
descendants of Slavonic invaders, with scarcely a drop of Greek
blood in their veins. Fallmerayer was believed by some good
scholars to have proved that the old Greek race had utterly
perished. More recent inquiries have discredited both Fallmerayer
and his authorities, and tend to establish the conclusion that,
except in certain limited districts, the Greeks left were always
numerous enough to absorb the foreign incomers. (Hopf,
Griechenland; in Etsch and Gruber's Encyklop&auml;die, vol. 85,
p. 100.) The Albanian population of Greece in 1820 is reckoned at
about one-sixth.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_350">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor350">[350]</a></p>
<blockquote>Maurer, Das Griechische Volk, i. 64.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_351">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor351">[351]</a></p>
<blockquote>The Greek songs illustrate the conversion of the
Armatole into the Klepht in the age preceding the Greek
revolution. Thus, in the fine ballad called "The Tomb of Demos,"
which Goethe has translated, the dying man says-<br>
<br>
 [Transcriber's Note: The following has been transliterated from
the Greek]<br>
<br>
 <span class="c4">Kai pherte ton pneumatikon na m'
exomologaisae</span><br>
 <span class="c4">na tun eipo ta krimata osa cho
kamomena</span><br>
 <span class="c4">trianta chroni armatolos, c'eicosi echo
klephtaes.</span><br>
<br>
<br>
 "Bring the priest that he may shrive me; that I may tell him the
sins that I have committed, thirty years an Armatole and twenty
years a Klepht." -Fauriel, Chants Populaires, i. 56.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_352">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor352">[352]</a></p>
<blockquote>Finlay, Greece under Ottoman Domination, p.
284.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_353">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor353">[353]</a></p>
<blockquote>Kanitz, Donau-Bulgarien, i. 123.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_354">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor354">[354]</a></p>
<blockquote>Literally, <i>Interpreter</i>; the old theory of the
Turks being that in their dealings with foreign nations they had
only to receive petitions, which required to be translated into
Turkish.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_355">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor355">[355]</a></p>
<blockquote>Zallonos, (Transliterated Greek) Pragmateia peri ton
phanarioton, p. 71. Kagalnitchau, La Walachie, i.
371.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_356">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor356">[356]</a></p>
<blockquote>A French translation of the Autobiography of Koraes,
along with his portrait, will be found in the Lettres
In&eacute;dites de Coray, Paris, 1877. The vehicle of expression
usually chosen by Koraes for addressing his countrymen was the
Preface (written in modern Greek) to the edition of an ancient
author. The second half of the Preface to the Politics of
Aristotle, 1822, is a good specimen of his political spirit and
manner. It was separately edited by the Swiss scholar, Orelh,
with a translation, for the benefit of the German Philhellenes.
Among the principal linguistic prefaces are those to Heliodorus
1804, and the Prodromos, or introduction, to the series of
editions called Bibliotheca Gr&aelig;ca, begun in 1805, and
published at the expense of the brothers Zosimas of Odessa Most
of the editions published by Koraes bear on their title page a
statement of the patriotic purpose of the work, and indicate the
persons who bore the expense. The edition of the Ethics,
published immediately after the massacre of Chios, bears the
affecting words 'At the expense of those who have so cruelly
suffered in Chios.' The costly form of these editions, some of
which contain fine engravings, seems somewhat inappropriate for
works intended for national instruction. Koraes, however, was not
in a hurry. He thought, at least towards the close of his life,
that the Greeks ought to have gone through thirty years more of
commercial and intellectual development before they drew the
sword. They would in that case, he believed, have crushed Turkey
by themselves and have prevented the Greek kingdom from becoming
the sport of European diplomacy. Much miscellaneous information
on Greek affairs before 1820 (rather from the Phanariot point of
view) will be found, combined with literary history in the Cours
de Litt&eacute;rature Grecque of Rhizos Neroulos, 1827. The more
recent treatise of R Rhankabes on the same subject (also in
French, Paris, 1877) exhibits what appears to be characteristic
of the modern Greeks, the inability to distinguish between mere
passable performances and really great work.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_357">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor357">[357]</a></p>
<blockquote>Zinkeisen, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, v.
959.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_358">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor358">[358]</a></p>
<blockquote>Koraes, M&eacute;moire sur l'&eacute;tat actual de la
civilization de la Gr&egrave;ce: republished in the Lettres
In&eacute;dites, p. 464. This memoir, read by Koraes to a learned
society in Paris, in January, 1803, is one of the most luminous
and interesting historical sketches ever penned.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_359">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor359">[359]</a></p>
<blockquote>(Greek text: Didaskalia Patrik&aelig;), by, or
professing to be by, Anthimos, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and
printed "at the expense of the Holy Sepulchre," p. 13. This
curious work, in which the Patriarch at last breaks out into
doggrel, has found its way to the British Museum. It was answered
by Koraes. For the effect of Rhegas' songs on the people, see
Fauriel, ii. 18. Mr. Finlay seems to be mistaken in calling
Anthimos' book an answer to the tract of Eugenios Bulgaris on
religious toleration. That was written about thirty years
before.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_360">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor360">[360]</a></p>
<blockquote>Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch, v. 36,
37.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_361">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor361">[361]</a></p>
<blockquote>Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Geschichte Griechenlands, i.
145, from the papers of Hypsilanti's brother. Otherwise in
Prokesch-Osten, Abfall der Griechen, i. 13.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_362">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor362">[362]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cordon, Greek Revolution, i. 96.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_363">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor363">[363]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F, State Papers, viii. 1203.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_364">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor364">[364]</a></p>
<blockquote>Finlay, i. 187; Gordon, i. 203; K. Mendelssohn,
Geschichte Griechenlands, i. 191; Prokesch-Osten, Abfall der
Griechen, i. 20.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_365">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor365">[365]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, iii. 622, 717; Prokewh-Ostett, i. 231,
303. B. and F. State Papers, viii. 1247.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_366">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor366">[366]</a></p>
<blockquote>Records, Continent, iii.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_367">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor367">[367]</a></p>
<blockquote>Castlereagh, viii. 16; Metternich, iii.
504.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_368">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor368">[368]</a></p>
<blockquote>Kolokotrones, (Transliterated Greek) Aiaegaesis
Symbanton, p. 82; Tricoupis, (Transliterated Greek) Historia, i.
61, 92.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_369">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor369">[369]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gordon, i. 388; Finlay, i. 330; Mendelssohn, i.
269.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_370">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor370">[370]</a></p>
<blockquote>Gordon ii. 138. The news of this catastrophe reached
Metternich at Ischl on July 30th. "Prince Metternich was taking
an excursion, in which, unfortunately I could not accompany him.
I at once sent Francis after him with this important letter,
which he received at a spot where the name of the Capitan Pasha
had probably never been heard before. The prince soon came back
to me; and (<i>pianissimo</i> in order that the friends of Greece
might not hear it) we congratulate one another on the event,
which may very well prove <i>le commencement de la fin</i> for
the Greek insurrection." (Gentz.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_371">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor371">[371]</a></p>
<blockquote>Prokesch-Osten, i. 253, iv. 63. B. and F. State
Papers, xii. 902. Stapleton, Canning, p. 496 Metternich, 127.
Wellington, N.S. ii. 372-396.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_372">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor372">[372]</a></p>
<blockquote>Korff, Accession of Nicholas, p. 253; Herzen,
Russische Verschw&ouml;rung, p. 106; Mendelssohn, i. 396.
Schnitzler, Histoire Intime, i. 195.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_373">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor373">[373]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, xiv. 630; Metternich, iv.
161, 212, 320, 372; Willington, N.S., ii. 85, 148, 244; Gentz,
D.I., iii. 315.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_374">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor374">[374]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, xiv. 632; xvii. 20;
Wellington, N.S., iv. 57.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_375">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor375">[375]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Deb., May 11, 1877. Nothing can be more
misleading than to say that Canning never contemplated the
possibility of armed action because a clause in the Treaty of
1827 made the formal stipulation that the contracting Powers
would not "take part in the hostilities between the contending
parties." How, except by armed force, could the Allies "prevent,
in so far as might be in their power, all collision between the
contending parties," which, in the very same clause, they
undertook to do? And what was the meaning of the stipulation that
they should "transmit instructions to their Admirals conformable
to these provisions"? Wellington himself, <i>before</i> the
battle of Navarino, condemned the Treaty of London on the very
ground that it "specified means of compulsion which were neither
more nor less than measures of war;" and he protested against the
statement that the treaty arose directly out of the Protocol of
St. Petersburg, which was his own work. Wellington, N.S., iv.
137, 221.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_376">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor376">[376]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bourchier's Codrington, ii. 6[***]. Admiralty
Despatches, Nov. 10, 1807, Parl. Deb., Feb. 14,
1828.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_377">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor377">[377]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rosen, Geschichte der T&uuml;rkei, i.
57.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_378">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor378">[378]</a></p>
<blockquote>Moltke, Russisch-Turkische Feldzug, p. 226. Rosen, i.
67.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_379">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor379">[379]</a></p>
<blockquote>Viel-Castel, xx. 16. Russia was to have had the
Danubian Provinces; Austria was to have had Bosnia and Servia;
Prussia was to have had Saxony and Holland; the King of Holland
was to have reigned at Constantinople.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_380">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor380">[380]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, ii. 813. Rosen, i.
108.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_381">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor381">[381]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, N. S, iv. 297.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_382">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor382">[382]</a></p>
<blockquote>Mendelssohn, Graf Capodistrias, p. 64.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_383">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor383">[383]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, xvii. p. 132. Prokesch-Osten,
v. 136.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_384">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor384">[384]</a></p>
<blockquote>Stockmar, i. 80; Mendelssohn; Capodistrias, p. 272.
B. and F. State Papers, xvii. 453.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_385">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor385">[385]</a></p>
<blockquote>Viel-Castel, xix. 574. Duvergier de Hauranne, x.
85.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_386">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor386">[386]</a></p>
<blockquote>Proc&egrave;s des ex-Ministres, i. 189.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_387">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor387">[387]</a></p>
<blockquote>Lafayette, vi. 383. Marmont, viii. 238. Dupin,
R&eacute;volution de Juillet, p. 7. Odilon Barrot, i. 105.
Sarrans, Lafayette, i. 217. Berard, R&eacute;volution de 1830, p.
60. Hillebrand, Die Juli-Revolution, p. 87.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_388">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor388">[388]</a></p>
<blockquote>Juste, R&eacute;volution Belge, i. 85. Congr&egrave;s
National, i. 134.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_389">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor389">[389]</a></p>
<blockquote>Wellington, N.S. vii. 309. B. and F. State Papers,
xviii. 761. Metternich, v. 44. Hillebrand, Geschichte
Frankreichs, i. 171. Stockmar, i. 143. Bulwers Palmerston, ii. 5.
Hertslet, Map of Europe, iii. 81.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_390">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor390">[390]</a></p>
<blockquote>Smitt, Geschichte des Polnischen Aufstandes, i. 112.
Spazier, Geschichte des Aufstandes, i. 177. Leiewel, Histoire de
Pologne, i. 300.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_391">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor391">[391]</a></p>
<blockquote>Leroy-Beaulieu, Milutine, p. 199; L'Empire des Tsars,
i. 380. Leiewel, Consid&eacute;rations, p. 317.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_392">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor392">[392]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Ducati Estensi, i. 54. La Farina, v. 241.
Farini, i. 34.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_393">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor393">[393]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Diplomazia, iii. 48. Metternich, iv. 121.
Hillebrand, Geschichte Frankreichs, i. 206. Haussonville, i. 32.
B. and F. State Papers, xix. 1429. Guizot, M&eacute;moires, ii.
290.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_394">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor394">[394]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ilse, Untersuchungen, p. 262. Metternich, v. 347.
Biedermann, Dreissig Jahre, i. 6.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_395">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor395">[395]</a></p>
<blockquote>Mazzini, Scritti, iii. 310. Simoni, Conspirations
Mazziniennes, p. 53. Metternich, v. 526. B. and F. State Papers,
xxiv. 979.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_396">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor396">[396]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, xviii. 196. Palmerston, i.
300.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_397">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor397">[397]</a></p>
<blockquote>"La Reine Isabelle est la R&eacute;volution
incarn&eacute;e dans sa forme la plus dangereuse; Don Carlos
repr&eacute;sente le principe Monarchique aux prises avec la
R&eacute;volution pure." Metternich, v. 615. B. and F. State
Papers, xviii. 1365; xxii. 1394. Baumgarten, iii.
65.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_398">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor398">[398]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hertslet, Map of Europe, ii. 941. Miraflores,
Memorias, i. 39. Guizot, iv. 86. Palmerston ii. 180.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_399">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor399">[399]</a></p>
<blockquote>Essai historique sur les Provinces Basques, p. 58. W.
Humboldt, Werke iii. 213.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_400">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor400">[400]</a></p>
<blockquote>Henningsen, Campaign with Zumalacarregui, i. 93.
Burgos, Anales, ii. 110. Baumgarten, iii. 257.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_401">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor401">[401]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rosen, i. 158. Prokesch von Osten, Kleine Schriften,
vii. 56. Mehmed Ali, p. 17. Hillebrand, i. 514 Metternich, v.
481. B. and F. State Papers, xx. 1176; xxii. 140.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_402">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor402">[402]</a></p>
<blockquote>Palmerston understood little about the real condition
of the Ottoman Empire, and thought that with ten years of peace
it might again become a respectable Power. "All that we hear
about the decay of the Turkish Empire and its being a dead body
or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure and unadulterated
nonsense." Bulwer's Palmerston, ii. 299.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_403">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor403">[403]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hertslet, Map of Europe, ii. 1008. Rosen, ii. 3.
Guizot, v. 188. Prokesch-Osten, Mehmed Ali, p. 89. Palmerston,
ii. 356. Hillebrand, ii. 357. Greville Memoirs, 2nd part, vol. i.
297.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_404">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor404">[404]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Sie sollen ihn nicht haben <span class="c6"><br>
 Den freien Deutschen Rhein."</span><br>
<br>
<br>
 By Becker; answered by De Musset's "Nous avons eu votre Rhin
Allemand." The words of the much finer song "Die Wacht am Rhein"
were also written at this time-by Schneckenburger, a
W&uuml;rtemberg man; but the music by which they are known was
not composed till 1854.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_405">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor405">[405]</a></p>
<blockquote>Farini, i. 153. Azeglio, Corresp. Politique, p. 24;
Casi di Romagna, p. 47.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_406">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor406">[406]</a></p>
<blockquote>Down to 1827 not only was all land inherited by
nobles free from taxation, but any taxable land purchased by a
noble thereupon became tax-free. The attempt of the Government to
abolish this latter injustice evoked a storm of anger in the Diet
of 1825, and still more in the country assemblies, some of the
latter even resolving that such law, if passed, fey the Diet,
would be null and void.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_407">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor407">[407]</a></p>
<blockquote>Horv&aacute;th, F&uuml;nfundzwanzig Jahre, i. 408.
Springer, i. 466. Gerando, Esprit Public, 173. Kossuth,
Gessammelte Werke, i. 29. Beschwerden und Klagen der Slaven in
Ungarn, 39.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_408">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor408">[408]</a></p>
<blockquote>Das Polen-Attentat, 1846, p. 203. Verh&auml;ltnisse
in Galizien, p. 57. Briefe eines Polnischen Edelmannes, p. 31.
Metternich, vii. 196. Cracow, which had been made an independent
Republic by the Congress of Vienna, was now annexed by Austria
with the consent of Russia and Prussia, and against the protests
of England and France.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_409">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor409">[409]</a></p>
<blockquote>Reden des Koenigs Friedrich Wilhelm IV., p. 17.
Ranke's F. W, IV. in Allg. Deutsche Biog. Biedermann, Dreissig
Jahre, i. 186.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_410">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor410">[410]</a></p>
<blockquote>Guizot, viii. 101, Palmerston, iii. 194. Parl.
Papers, 1847. Martin's Prince Consort, i. 341.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_411">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor411">[411]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, vii. 538, 603; Vitzthum, Berlin und Wien,
1845-62, p. 78; Kossuth Werke (1850), ii. 78; Pillersdorff,
R&uuml;ckblicke, p. 22; Reschauer, Das Jahr 1848, i. 191;
Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs, ii. 185; Ir&aacute;nyi et
Chassin, R&eacute;volution de Hongrie, i. 128.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_412">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor412">[412]</a></p>
<blockquote>Metternich, viii. 181. The animation of his remarks
on all sorts of points in English life is wonderful. After a halt
at Brussels and at his Johannisburg estate Metternich returned to
Vienna in 1852, and, though not restored to office, resumed his
great position in society. He lived through the Crimean War, on
which he wrote numerous memoranda, for whose use it does not
appear. Even on the outbreak of war with France in 1859 he was
still busy with his pen. He survived long enough to hear of the
battle of Magenta, but was spared the sorrow of witnessing the
creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He died on the 11th of June,
1859, in his eighty-seventh year. Metternich was not the only
statesman present at the Congress of Vienna who lived to see the
second Napoleonic Empire. Nesselrode, the Russian Chancellor,
lived till 1862; Czartoryski, who was Foreign Minister of Russia
at the time of the battle of Austerlitz, till 1861.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_413">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor413">[413]</a></p>
<blockquote>Adlerstein, Archiv des Ungarischen Ministeriums, i.
27; Ir&aacute;nyi et Chassin, i. 184; Springer, ii.
219.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_414">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor414">[414]</a></p>
<blockquote>Casati Nuove Rivelazioni, ii. 72. Sch&ouml;nhals,
Campagnes d'ltalie de 1848 et 1849 p. 72. Cattaneo, Insurrezione
di Milano, p. 29. Parl. Pap. 1849, lvii. (2) 210, 333.
Senneidawind, Feldzug in 1848, i. 30.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_415">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor415">[415]</a></p>
<blockquote>Manin, Documents laiss&eacute;s, i. 106. Perlbach,
Manin, p. 14. Contarini, Memoriale Veneto, p. 10. Rovani, Manin,
p. 25. Parliamentary Papers, 1849, lvii. (a) 267.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_416">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor416">[416]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Diplomazia Europea, v. 183. Farini, Stato
Romano, ii. 16. Parl. Papers, 1849, lvii. 285, 297, 319.
Pasolini, Memorie, p. 91.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_417">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor417">[417]</a></p>
<blockquote>Die Berliner M&auml;rz-Revolution, p. 55.
Ausf&uuml;hrliche Beschreibung, p. 3. Amtliche Berichte, p. 16.
Stahr, Preussische Revolution, i. 91. S. Stern, Geschichte des
Deutschen Volkes, p. 58. Stern was an eye-witness at Berlin,
though not generally a good authority.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_418">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor418">[418]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Preussen geht fortan in Deutschland auf." Reden
Friedrich Wilhelms, p. 9. In conversation with Bassermann
Frederick William at a later time described his ride through
Berlin as "a comedy which he had been made to play." The bombast
at any rate was all his own.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_419">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor419">[419]</a></p>
<blockquote>Droysen und Samwer, Schleswig-Holstein, p. 220.
Bunsen, Memoir on Schleswig-Holstein, p. 25. Schleswig-Holstein,
Uebersichtliche Darstellung, p 51. On the other side, Noten zur
Beleuchtung, p. 12.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_420">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor420">[420]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen der National-versammlung, i. 25.
Biedermann Dreissig Jahre, i. 278. Radowitz, Werke, ii.
36.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_421">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor421">[421]</a></p>
<blockquote>Actes du Gouvernement Provisoire, p. 12. Louis Blanc,
R&eacute;v&eacute;lat&igrave;ons Historiques, i. 135. Gamier
Pag&egrave;s, R&eacute;volution de 1848, vi 108, viii 148.
&Eacute;mile Thomas, Histoire des Ateliers Nationaux, p.
93.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_422">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor422">[422]</a></p>
<blockquote>Barret, M&eacute;moires, ii. 103. Caussidi&egrave;re,
M&eacute;moires, p. 117. Gamier Pag&egrave;s, x. 419. Normanby,
Year of Revolution, i. 389. Granier de Cassagnac, Chute de Louis
Philippe, i. 359. De la Gorce, Seconde R&eacute;publique, i. 273.
Falloux, M&eacute;moires, i. 328.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_423">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor423">[423]</a></p>
<blockquote>Oeuvres de Napoleon III., iii. 13, 24. Granier de
Cassagnac, ii. 16. Jerrold, Napoleon III., ii. 393.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_424">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor424">[424]</a></p>
<blockquote>Vitzthum, Wien, p. 108. Springer, ii. 293.
Pillersdorff, R&uuml;ckblicke, p. 68; Nachlass, p. 118.
Reschauer, ii. 176. Dunder, October Revolution, p. 5.
Ficquelmont, Aufkl&auml;rungen, p. 65.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_425">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor425">[425]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sch&ouml;nhals, p. 117. Farini, ii. 9. Parl. Pap.,
1849, lvii. 352.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_426">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor426">[426]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ficquelmont p. 6. Pillersdorfif, Nachlass, 93.
Helfert, iv. 142. Schf&ouml;nhais, p. 177. Parliamentary Papers,
<i>id</i>. 332, 472, 597. Contarini, p. 67. Azeglio, Operazioni
del Durando, p. 6. Manin, Documents, i. 289. Bianchi, Diplomazia,
v. 257. Pasolini, p. 100.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_427">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor427">[427]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parliamentary Papers, 1849 lviii p. 128. Venice
refused to acknowledge the armistice, and detached itself from
Sardinia, restoring Manin to power.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_428">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor428">[428]</a></p>
<blockquote>Slavonia itself was attached to Croatia; Dalmatia
also was claimed as a member of this triple Kingdom under the
Hungarian Crown in virtue of ancient rights, though since its
annexation in 1797 it had been governed directly from Vienna, and
in 1848 was represented in the Reichstag of Vienna, not in that
of Pesth.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_429">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor429">[429]</a></p>
<blockquote>The real meaning of the Charters is, however,
contested. Springer, ii. 281. Adlerstein, Archiv, i. 166.
Helfert, ii. 255. Ir&aacute;nyi et Chassin, i. 236. Die Serbische
Wolwodschaftsfrage, p. 7.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_430">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor430">[430]</a></p>
<blockquote>But see Kossuth, Schriften (1880, ii. 215), for a
conversation between Jellacic and Batthy&aacute;ny, said to have
been narrated to Kossuth by the latter. If authentic, this
certainly proves Jellacic to have used the Slavic agitation from
the first solely for Austrian ends. See also Vitzthuin, p.
207.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_431">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor431">[431]</a></p>
<blockquote>Adlerstein, Archiv, i. 146. 156. Klapk&aacute;,
Erinnerungen, p. 30. Ir&aacute;nyi et Chassin, i. 344. Serbische
Bewegung, p. 106.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_432">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor432">[432]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ir&aacute;nyi et Chassin, ii. 56. Codex der neuen
Gesetze (Pesth), i. 7.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_433">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor433">[433]</a></p>
<blockquote>Adlerstein, ii. 296. Helfert, Geschichte
Oesterreichs, i. 79, ii. 192. Dunder, p. 77. Springer, ii. 520.
Vitzthum, p. 143. Kossuth, Schriften (1881), ii. 284. Reschauer,
ii. 563. Pillersdorff, Nachlass, p. 163. Ir&aacute;nyi et
Chassin, ii. 98.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_434">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor434">[434]</a></p>
<blockquote>Codex der neuen Gesetze, i. 37. Helfert, iv. (3)
321.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_435">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor435">[435]</a></p>
<blockquote>Revolutionskrieg in Siebenburgen i. 30. Helfert, ii.
207. Bratiano et Ir&aacute;nyi, Lettres Hongro-Roumaines,
Adlerstein, ii. 105.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_436">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor436">[436]</a></p>
<blockquote>Klapka, Erinnerungen, p. 56. Helfert, iv. 199;
G&ouml;rgei, Leben und Wirken, i. 145. Adlerstein, iii. 576,
648.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_437">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor437">[437]</a></p>
<blockquote>Helfert, iv. (2) 326. Klapka, War in Hungary, i. 23.
Ir&aacute;nyi et Chassin, ii. 534. G&ouml;rgei, ii.
54.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_438">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor438">[438]</a></p>
<blockquote>Klapka, War, ii. 106. Erinnerungen, 58. G&ouml;rgei,
ii. 378. Kossuth, Schriften (1880), ii. 291. Codex der neuen
Gesetze, i. 75, 105.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_439">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor439">[439]</a></p>
<blockquote>Farini, ii. 404. Parl. Pap., 1849. lvii. 607; lviii.
(2) 117. Bianchi, Diplomazia, vi. 67. Gennarelli, Sventure, p.
29. Pasolini, p. 139.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_440">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor440">[440]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sch&ouml;nhals, p. 332. Parl. Pap., 1849, lviii. (2)
216. Bianchi, Politica Austriaca, p. 134. Lamarmora, Un Episodie,
p. 175. Portafogli ci Ramorino, p. 41. Ramorino was condemned to
death, and executed.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_441">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor441">[441]</a></p>
<blockquote>Garibaldi, Epistolario, i. 33. Del Vecchio, L'assedio
di Roma, p. 30. Vaillant, Si&eacute;ge de Rome, p. 12. Bianchi,
Diplomazia, vi. 213. Guerzoni, Garibaldi, i. 266. Granier de
Cassagnac, ii. 59. Lesseps, M&eacute;moire, p. 61. Barrot, iii
191, Discours de Napoleon 3rd, p. 38.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_442">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor442">[442]</a></p>
<blockquote>Manin, Documents, ii. 340. Perlbach, Manin, p. 37.
Gennarelli, Governo Pontificio, i. 32. Contarini, p.
224.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_443">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor443">[443]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen der National Versammlung. i. 576
Radowitz, Werke, iii. 369. Briefwechsel Friedrich Wilhelms, p.
205. Biedermann, Dreissig Jahre, i. 295.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_444">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor444">[444]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen der National Versammlung, ii. 1877,
2185. Herzog Ernst II., Ausmeinem Leben, i. 313. Biedermann, i.
306. Beseier, Erlebtes, p. 68. Waitz, Friede mit D&auml;nemark.
Radowitz, iii. 406.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_445">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor445">[445]</a></p>
<blockquote>Briefwechsel Friedrich Wilhelms, p. 184. Wagener,
Erlebtes, p. 28. Stahr, Preussische Revolution, i.
453.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_446">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor446">[446]</a></p>
<blockquote><i>Seine Bundespflichten</i>: an ambiguous expression
that might mean either its duties as an ally or its duties as a
member of the German Federation. The obscurity was probably
intentional.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_447">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor447">[447]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen der National Versammlung, vi. 4225.
Haym, Deutsche National Versammlung, ii. 112. Radowitz, iii. 459.
Helfert, iv. 62.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_448">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor448">[448]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen, viii. 6093. Beseler, p. 82. Helfert,
iv. (3) 390, Haym, ii. 317, Radowitz, v. 477.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_449">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor449">[449]</a></p>
<blockquote>Briefwechsel Friedrich Wilhelms, pp. 233, 269.
Beseler, 87. Biedermann, i. 389. Wagener, Politik Friedrich
Wilhelm IV., p. 56. Ernst II., i. 329.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_450">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor450">[450]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen, etc., ix. 6695, 6886. Haym, in. 185.
Barnberger, Erlebnisse, p. 6.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_451">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor451">[451]</a></p>
<blockquote>Verhandlungen zu Erfurt, i. 114; ii. 143. Biedermann,
i. 469. Radowitz, ii. 138.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_452">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor452">[452]</a></p>
<blockquote>Der F&uuml;rsten Kongress, p. 13. Reden Friedrich
Wilhelms, iv pp. 55, 69. Konferenz der Verbundeten, 1850, pp. 26,
53. Beust, Erinnerungen, i. 115, Ernst II., i. 525. Duncker, Vier
Monate, p. 41.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_453">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor453">[453]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ernst II., i. 377. Hertslet, Map of Europe, ii. 1106,
1129, 1151. Parl. Papers, 1864, lxiii., p. 29; 1804, lxv., pp.
30, 187.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_454">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor454">[454]</a></p>
<blockquote>Maupas, M&eacute;moires, i. 176. Oeuvres de Napoleon
III., iii. 271. Barrot, iv. 21. Granier de Cassagnac, Chute de
Louis Philippe, ii. 128; R&eacute;cit complet, p. 1. Jerrold,
Napoleon III., iii. 203. Tocqueville, Corresp. ii.
176.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_455">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor455">[455]</a></p>
<blockquote>Stockman, 396. Eastern Papers (<i>i.e</i>.,
Parliamentary Papers, 1854, vol. 71), part 6. Malmesbury, Memoirs
of an ex-Minister, i. 402; the last probably inaccurate.
Diplomatic Study of the Crimean War, i. 11. This work is a
Russian official publication, and, though loose and
untrustworthy, is valuable as showing the Russian official
view.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_456">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor456">[456]</a></p>
<blockquote>Ashley's Palmerston, ii. 142. Lane Poole, Stratford
de Redcliffe, ii. 191.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_457">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor457">[457]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, i. 55. Diplomatic Study, i.
121.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_458">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor458">[458]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, v. 2, 19.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_459">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor459">[459]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, i. 102. Admitted in Diplomatic Study,
i. 163.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_460">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor460">[460]</a></p>
<blockquote>He writes thus, April 5, 1851:-"The great game of
improvement is altogether up for the present. It is impossible
for me to conceal that the main object of my stay here is almost
hopeless." Even Palmerston, in the rare moments when he allowed
his judgment to master his prepossessions on this subject,
expressed the same view. He wrote on November 24, 1850, warning
Reschid Pasha "the Turkish Empire is doomed to fall by the
timidity and irresolution of its Sovereign and of its Ministers;
and it is evident we shall ere long have to consider what other
arrangements may be set up in its place." Stratford left
Constantinople on leave in June, 1852, but resigned his Embassy
altogether in January, 1853. (Lane Poole, Life of Stratford de
Redcliffe, ii. 112, 215.)</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_461">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor461">[461]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, i. 253, 339. Lane Poole, Stratford,
ii. 248.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_462">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor462">[462]</a></p>
<blockquote>Palmerston had accepted the office of Home Secretary,
but naturally exercised great influence in foreign affairs. The
Foreign Secretary was Lord Clarendon.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_463">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor463">[463]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, i. 210, ii. 116. Ashley's Palmerston,
ii. 23.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_464">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor464">[464]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, ii. 23.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_465">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor465">[465]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, ii. 86, 91, 103.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_466">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor466">[466]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, ii. 203, 227, 299.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_467">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor467">[467]</a></p>
<blockquote>Treaty of April 20, 1854, and Additional Article,
Eastern Papers, ix. 61. The Treaty between Austria and Prussia
was one of general defensive alliance, covering also the case of
Austria incurring attack through an advance into the
Principalities. In the event of Russia annexing the
Principalities or sending its troops beyond the Balkans the
alliance was to be offensive.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_468">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor468">[468]</a></p>
<blockquote>Briefwechsel F. Wilhelms mit Bunsen, p. 310. Martin's
Prince Consort, iii. 39. On November 20, after the Turks had
begun war, the King of Prussia wrote thus to Bunsen (the italics,
capitals, and exclamations are his own): "All direct help which
England <i>in unchristian folly!!!!!!</i> gives TO ISLAM AGAINST
CHRISTIANS! will have (besides God's avenging judgment {hear!
hear!}) no other effect than to bring what is now Turkish
territory at a somewhat later period under Russian dominion"
(Briefwechsel, p. 317). The reader may think that the insanity to
which Frederick William succumbed was already mastering him; but
the above is no rare specimen of his epistolary
style.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_469">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor469">[469]</a></p>
<blockquote>The Treaty of alliance between France and England, to
which Prussia was asked to accede, contained, however, a clause
pledging the contracting parties "under no circumstance to seek
to obtain from the war any advantage to themselves."</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_470">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor470">[470]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, viii. I.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_471">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor471">[471]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, xi. 3. Ashley's Palmerston, ii. 60.
For the navigation of the mouths of the Danube, see Diplomatic
Study, ii. 39. Russia, which had been in possession of the mouths
of the Danube since the Treaty of Adrianople, and had undertaken
to keep the mouths clear, had allowed the passage to become
blocked and had otherwise prevented traffic descending, in order
to keep the Black Sea trade in its own hands.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_472">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor472">[472]</a></p>
<blockquote>See, however, Burgoyne's Letter to the <i>Times</i>,
August 4, 1868, in Kinglake, iv. 465. Rousset, Guerre de
Crim&eacute;e, i. 280.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_473">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor473">[473]</a></p>
<blockquote>Statements of Raglan, Lucan, Cardigan; Kinglake, v.
108, 402.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_474">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor474">[474]</a></p>
<blockquote>On the death of Nicholas, the King of Prussia
addressed the following lecture to the unfortunate Bunsen:-"You
little thought that, at the very moment when you were writing to
me, one of the noblest of men, one of the grandest forms in
history, one of the truest hearts, and at the same time one of
the greatest rulers of this narrow world, was called from faith
to sight. I thank God on my knees that He deemed me worthy to be,
in the best sense of the word, his (Nicholas') friend, and to
remain true to him. You, dear Bunsen, thought differently of him,
and you will now painfully confess this before your conscience,
most painfully of all the truth (which all your letters in these
late bad times have unfortunately shown me but too plainly), that
<i>you hated him</i>. You hated him, not as a man, but as the
representative of a principle, that of violence. If ever,
redeemed like him through simple faith in Christ's blood, you see
him in eternal peace, then remember what I now write to you:
'<i>You will beg his pardon</i>. Even here, my dear friend, may
the blessing of repentance be granted to you."-Briefwechsel, p.
325. Frederick William seems to have forgotten to send the same
pious wishes to the Poles in Siberia.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_475">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor475">[475]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parliamentary Papers, 1854-5, vol. 55, p. 1, Dec. 2,
1854. Ashley's Palmerston, ii. 84.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_476">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor476">[476]</a></p>
<blockquote>Eastern Papers, Part 13, 1.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_477">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor477">[477]</a></p>
<blockquote>Kinglake, vii. 21. Rousset, ii. 35, 148.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_478">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor478">[478]</a></p>
<blockquote>Diplomatic Study, ii. 361. Martin, Prince Consort,
iii. 394.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_479">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor479">[479]</a></p>
<blockquote>Prussia was admitted when the first Articles had been
settled, and it became necessary to revise the Treaty of July,
1841, of which Prussia had been one of the
signatories.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_480">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor480">[480]</a></p>
<blockquote>"In the course of the deliberation, whenever our
(Russian) plenipotentiaries found themselves in the presence of
insurmountable difficulties, they appealed to the personal
intervention of this sovereign (Napoleon), and had only to
congratulate themselves on the result."-Diplomatic Study, ii.
377.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_481">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor481">[481]</a></p>
<blockquote>Three pages of promises. Eastern Papers, xvii. One
was kept faithfully. "To accomplish these objects, means shall be
sought to profit by the science, the art, <i>and the funds</i> of
Europe." One of the drollest of the prophecies of that time is
the congratulatory address of the Missionaries to Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe, <i>id</i>. 1882.-"The Imperial Hatti-sheriff has
convinced us that our fond expectations are likely to be
realised. The light will shine upon those who have long sat in
darkness; and blest by social prosperity and religious freedom,
the millions of Turkey will, we trust, be seen ere long sitting
peacefully under their own vine and fig-tree." So they were, and
with poor Lord Stratford's fortune, among others, in their
pockets.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_482">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor482">[482]</a></p>
<blockquote>All verbatim from the Treaty. Parl. Papers, 1856, vol
61, p. 1.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_483">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor483">[483]</a></p>
<blockquote>Martin, Prince Consort, iii. 452. Poole, Stratford,
ii. 356.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_484">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor484">[484]</a></p>
<blockquote>Berti, Cavour avanti 1848, p. 110. La Rive, Cavour,
p. 58. Cavour, Lettere (ed. Chuala), introd. p. 73.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_485">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor485">[485]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere (Chiala), ii. introd. p. 187.
Guerzoni, Garibaldi, i. 412. Manin, the Ex-President of Venice,
now in exile, declared from this time for the House of Savoy.
Garibaldi did the same.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_486">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor486">[486]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere (Chiala), ii. introd. pp. 289, 324;
iii. introd. p. i. Bianchi, Diplomazia, vii. 1, Mazade, Cavour,
p. 187, Massari, La Marmora, p. 204.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_487">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor487">[487]</a></p>
<blockquote>"In mezzo alle piu angosciose crisi politiche,
esclamava nelle solitudine delle sue stanze; 'Perisca il mio
nome, perisca la mia fama, purche l'Italia sia,'" Artom (Cavour's
secretary), Cavour in Parlameuto: introd. p. 46.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_488">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor488">[488]</a></p>
<blockquote>La Farina Epistolaria, ii. 56, 81, 137, 426. The
interview with Garibaldi; Cavour, Letiere, id. introd. p. 297.
Garibaldi, Epistolario, i. 55.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_489">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor489">[489]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere (Chiala), iii. introd. p. 32.
Bianchi, Diplomazia, viii. II. The statement of Napoleon III. to
Lord Cowley, in Martin Prince Consort, v. 31, that there was no
Treaty, is untrue.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_490">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor490">[490]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Politique de Cavour, p. 328, where is
Cavour's indignant letter to Napoleon. The last paragraph of this
seems to convey a veiled threat to publish the secret
negotiations.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_491">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor491">[491]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere, iii. introd. p. 115; iii. 29.
Bianchi, Politique de Cavour, p. 333. Bianchi, Diplomazia, vii.
61. Massari, Cavour, p. 314. Parliamentary Papers, 1859, xxxii.
204, 262. M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, Lettres &agrave; Panizzi, i. 21.
Martin, Prince Consort, iv. 427.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_492">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor492">[492]</a></p>
<blockquote>La Farina, Epistolaria, ii. 172. Parliamentary
Papers, 1859, xxxiii. 391, 470.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_493">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor493">[493]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere, iii. introd. 212, iii. 107. Bianchi,
Politique de Cavour, p. 319. Bianchi, Diplomazia, viii. 145, 198.
Massari, Vittorio Emanuele, ii. 32. Kossuth, Memories p. 394.
Parl. Pap. 1859, xxxii. 63, 1860, lxviii. 7. La Farina Epist, ii.
190. Ollivier, L'&Eacute;glise et l'&Eacute;tat, ii.
452.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_494">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor494">[494]</a></p>
<blockquote>Arrivabene, Italy under Victor Emmanuel, i.
268.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_495">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor495">[495]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere, iii. introd. 301. Bianchi, viii.
180. Garibaldi, Epist., i. 79. Guerzoni, i. 491. Reuchlin, iv.
410.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_496">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor496">[496]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere, iv. introd. 20. Bianchi, Politique,
p. 354. Bianchi, Diplomazia, viii. 256. Parliamentary Papers,
1860, lxvii. 203; lxviii. 53.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_497">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor497">[497]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour in Parlamento, p. 536.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_498">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor498">[498]</a></p>
<blockquote>Garibaldi, Epist., i. 97. Persano, Diario, i. 14. Le
Farina, Epist., ii. 324. Guerzoni, ii. 23. Parliamentary Papers,
1860, lxviii. 2. Mundy, H.M.S. <i>Hannibal</i> at Palermo, p.
133.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_499">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor499">[499]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour, Lettere, iii. introd. 269. La Farina, Epist.,
ii. 336. Bianchi, Politique, p. 366. Persano, Diario, i. 50, 72,
96.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_500">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor500">[500]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Politique, p. 377. Persano, ii. p. 1-102.
Persano sent his Diary in MS. to Azeglio, and asked his advice on
publishing it. Azeglio referred to Cavour's saying, "If we did
for ourselves what we are doing for Italy, we should be sad
blackguards," and begged Persano to let his secrets be secrets,
saying that since the partition of Poland no confession of such
"colossal blackguardism" had been published by any public
man.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_501">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor501">[501]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bianchi, Politique, p. 383. Persano, iii. 61.
Bianchi, Diplomazia, viii. 337, Garibaldi, Epist., i.
127.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_502">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor502">[502]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Le Roi r&eacute;pondit tout court: 'C'est
impossible.'" Cavour to his ambassador at London, Nov. 16, in
Bianchi, Politique, p. 386. La Farina, Epist., ii. 438. Persano,
iv. 44, Guerzoni, ii. 212.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_503">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor503">[503]</a></p>
<blockquote>Cavour in Parlamento, p. 630. Azeglio, Correspondance
Politique, p. 180. La Rive, p. 313. Berti, Cavour avanti 1848, p.
302.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_504">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor504">[504]</a></p>
<blockquote>"Le comte le reconnu, lui serra la main et dit:
'Frate, frate, libera chiesa in libero stato' Ce furent ses
derni&egrave;res paroles." Account of the death of Cavour by his
niece, Countess Alfieri, in La Rive, Cavour, p. 319.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_505">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor505">[505]</a></p>
<blockquote>Berichte uber der Militair etat, p. 669. Schulthess,
Europaischer Geschichts Kalender, 1862, p. 122.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_506">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor506">[506]</a></p>
<blockquote>Poschinger, Preussen im Bundestag ii. 69, 97; iv.
178. Hahn, Bismarck, i. 608.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_507">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor507">[507]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, F&uuml;rst Bismarck, i. 66. This work is a
collection of documents, speeches, and letters not only by
Bismarck himself but on all the principal matters in which
Bismarck was concerned. It is perhaps, from the German point of
view, the most important repertory of authorities for the period
1862-1885.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_508">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor508">[508]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sammlung der Staatsacten Oesterreichs (1861), pp. 2,
33. Drei Jahre Verfassungstreit, p. 107.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_509">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor509">[509]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sammlung der Staatsacten, p. 89. Der Ungarische
Reichstag 1861, pp. 3, 194, 238. Arnold Forster, Life of
De&aacute;k, p. 141.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_510">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor510">[510]</a></p>
<blockquote>Celestin, Russland, p. 3. Leroy-Beaulieu, L'Empire
des Tsars, i. 400. Homme d'&Eacute;tat Russe, p. 73. Wallace,
Russia, p. 485.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_511">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor511">[511]</a></p>
<blockquote>Raczynski, M&eacute;moires sur la Pologne, p. 14. B.
and F. State Papers, 1862-63, p. 769.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_512">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor512">[512]</a></p>
<blockquote>Leroy-Beaulieu, Homme d'&Eacute;tat Russe, p.
259.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_513">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor513">[513]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, i. 112. Verhandl des Preuss, Abgeord. &uuml;ber
Polen, p. 45.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_514">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor514">[514]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parliamentary Papers, 1864, vol. lxiv. pp. 28, 263.
Hahn, Bismarck, i. 165.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_515">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor515">[515]</a></p>
<blockquote>From Rechberg's despatch of Feb 28, 1863 (in Hahn, i.
84), apparently quoting actual words uttered by Bismarck.
Bismarck's account of the conversation (id. 80) tones it down to
a demand that Austria should not encroach on Prussia's recognised
joint-leadership in Germany.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_516">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor516">[516]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1863-4, p. 173. Beust,
Erinnerungen, i. 136.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_517">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor517">[517]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bismarck's note of July 29th, 1870, in Hahn, i. 506,
describing Napoleon's Belgian project, which dated from the time
when he was himself ambassador at Paris in 1862, gives this as
the explanation of Napoleon's policy in 1864. The Commercial
Treaty with Prussia and friendly personal relations with Bismarck
also influenced Napoleon's views. See Bismarck's speech of Feb.
21st, 1879, on this subject, in Hahn, iii. 599.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_518">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor518">[518]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, Bismarck, i. 271, 318. Oesterreichs K&auml;mpfe
in 1866, i. 8.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_519">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor519">[519]</a></p>
<blockquote>B. and F. State Papers, 1864-65, p. 460.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_520">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor520">[520]</a></p>
<blockquote>La Marmora, Un po pi&ugrave; di luce, pp. 109, 146,
Jacini, Due Anni, p. 154. Hahn, i. 377. In the first draft of the
Treaty Italy was required to declare war not only on Austria but
on all German Governments which should join it. King William, who
had still some compunction in calling in Italian arms against the
Fatherland, struck out these words.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_521">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor521">[521]</a></p>
<blockquote>La Marmora, Un po pi&uacute; di luce, p. 204. Hahn,
i. 402.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_522">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor522">[522]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, Bismarck, i. 425. Hahn, Zwei Jahre, p. 60.
Oesterreichs K&auml;mpfe, i. 30.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_523">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor523">[523]</a></p>
<blockquote>Discours de Napoleon III., p. 456. On May 11th,
Nigra, Italian ambassador at Paris, reported that Napoleon's
ideas on the objects to be attained by a Congress were as
follows:-Venetia to Italy, Silesia to Austria; the Danish Duchies
and other territory in North Germany to Prussia; the
establishment of several small States on the Rhine under French
protection; the dispossessed German princes to be compensated in
Roumania. La Marmora, p. 228. Napoleon III. was pursuing in a
somewhat altered form the old German policy of the Republic and
the Empire-namely, the balancing of Austria and Prussia against
one another, and the establishment of a French protectorate over
the group of secondary States.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_524">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor524">[524]</a></p>
<blockquote>Oesterreichs K&auml;mpfe, ii. 341. Prussian Staff,
Campaign of 1866 (Hozier), p. 167.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_525">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor525">[525]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, i. 476. Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, p.
186. Reuchlin, v. 457. Massari, La Marmora, p. 350.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_526">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor526">[526]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, i. 501, 505.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_527">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor527">[527]</a></p>
<blockquote>Benedetti, p. 191. Hahn, i. 508; ii. 328, 635. See
also La Marmora's Un po pi&ugrave; di luce, p. 242, and his
Segreti di Stato, p. 274. Govone's despatches strongly confirm
the view that Bismarck was more than a mere passive listener to
French schemes for the acquisition of Belgium. That he originated
the plan is not probable; that he encouraged it seems to me quite
certain, unless various French and Italian documents unconnected
with one another are forgeries from beginning to end. On the
outbreak of the war of 1870 Bismarck published the text of the
draft-treaty discussed in 1866 providing for an offensive and
defensive alliance between France and Prussia, and the seizure of
Belgium by France. The draft was in Benedetti's handwriting, and
written on paper of the French Embassy. Benedetti stated in
answer that he had made the draft at Bismarck's dictation. This
might seem very unlikely were it not known that the draft of the
Treaty between Prussia and Italy in 1866 was actually so written
down by Barral, the Italian Ambassador, at Bismarck's
dictation.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_528">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor528">[528]</a></p>
<blockquote>Regelung der Verh&auml;ltnisse, p. 4. Ausgleich mit
Ungarn, p. 9.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_529">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor529">[529]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hungary retained a Ministry of National Defence for
its Reserve Forces, and a Finance Ministry for its own separate
finance. Thus the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the only one of
the three common Ministries which covered the entire range of a
department.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_530">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor530">[530]</a></p>
<blockquote>They had indeed been discovered by French agents in
Germany. Rothan, L'Affaire du Luxembourg, p. 74.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_531">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor531">[531]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, i. 658. Rothan, Luxembourg, p. 246.
Correspondenzen des K.K. Minist. des A&uuml;ssern, 1868, p. 24.
Parl. Pap., 1867, vol. lxxiv., p. 427.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_532">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor532">[532]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sorel, Histoire Diplomatique, i. 38. But see the
controversy between Beust and Gramont in <i>Le Temps</i>, Jan.
11-16, 1873.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_533">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor533">[533]</a></p>
<blockquote>Rothan, La France en 1867, ii. 316. Reuchlin, v. 547.
Two historical expressions belong to Mentana: the "Never," of M.
Rouher, and "The Chassepots have done wonders," of General
Failly.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_534">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor534">[534]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sorel, i. 40. Hahn, i. 720. Immediately after
Mentana, on Nov. 17, 1867, Mazzini wrote to Bismarck and to the
Prussian ambassador at Florence, Count Usedom, stating that
Napoleon had resolved to make war on Prussia and had proposed an
alliance to Victor Emmanuel, who had accepted it for the price of
Rome. Mazzini offered to employ revolutionary means to frustrate
this plan, and asked for money and arms. Bismarck showed caution,
but did not altogether disregard the communication. Politica
Segreta Italiana, p. 339.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_535">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor535">[535]</a></p>
<blockquote>Benedetti, Ma Mission, p. 319, July 7. Gramont, La
France et la Prusse, p. 61.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_536">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor536">[536]</a></p>
<blockquote>Sorel, Histoire Diplomatique, i. 197.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_537">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor537">[537]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, ii. 69. Sorel, i. 236.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_538">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor538">[538]</a></p>
<blockquote>Prince Napoleon, in Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1,
1878; Gramont, in Revue de France, April 17, 1878. (Signed
Andreas Memor.) Ollivier, L'Eglise et l'&Egrave;tat, ii. 473.
Sorel, i. 245.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_539">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor539">[539]</a></p>
<blockquote>Der Deutsch Franz&ouml;sische Krieg, 1870-71
(Prussian General Staff), i. 72.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_540">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor540">[540]</a></p>
<blockquote>Bazaine, L'Arm&eacute;e du Rhin, p. 74.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_541">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor541">[541]</a></p>
<blockquote>Papiers S&eacute;crets du Second Empire (1875), pp.
33, 240.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_542">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor542">[542]</a></p>
<blockquote>Diary of the Emperor Frederick, Sept. 3.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_543">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor543">[543]</a></p>
<blockquote>Favre's circular alleged that the King of Prussia had
declared that he made war not on France but on the Imperial
Dynasty. King William had never stated anything of the kind. His
proclamation on entering France, to which Favre appears to have
referred, merely said that the war was to he waged against the
French army, and not against the inhabitants, who, so long as
they kept quiet, would not be molested.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_544">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor544">[544]</a></p>
<blockquote>Deutsch-Franz&ouml;siche Krieg, vol. III., p. 104.
Bazaine, p. 166. Proc&egrave;s de Bazaine, vol. ii., p. 219.
Regnier, p. 20. Hahn, ii., 171.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_545">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor545">[545]</a></p>
<blockquote>Hahn, ii. 216. Valfrey, Diplomatie du Gouvernement de
la D&eacute;fense Nationale, ii. 51. Hertsier, Map of Europe,
iii. 1912, 1954.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_546">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor546">[546]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1876, vol. lxxxiv., pp. 74,
96.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_547">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor547">[547]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1876, vol. lxxxiv., p. 183.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_548">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor548">[548]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1877, vol. xc., p. 143.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_549">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor549">[549]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Deb. July 10, 1876, verbatim.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_550">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor550">[550]</a></p>
<blockquote>See Burke's speech on the Russian armament, March 29,
1791, and the passage on "the barbarous anarchic despotism" of
Turkey in his Reflections on the French Revolution, p. 150, Clar.
edit. Burke lived and died in Beaconsfield, and his grave is
there. There seems, however, to be no evidence for the story that
he was about to receive a peerage with the title of Beaconsfield,
when the death of his son broke all his hopes.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_551">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor551">[551]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1877, vol. xc., p. 642; 1878, vol. lxxxi.,
p. 679.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_552">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor552">[552]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1877, vol. lxxxix., p. 135.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_553">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor553">[553]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1878, vol. lxxxi., pp. 661, 725. Parl.
Deb., vol. ccxxxvii.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_554">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor554">[554]</a></p>
<blockquote>The Treaty, with Maps, is in Parl. Pap. 1878, vol.
lxxxiii. p. 239.</blockquote>
<p><a name="Footnote_555">&nbsp;</a><a href=
"#FNanchor555">[555]</a></p>
<blockquote>Parl. Pap. 1878, vl. lxxxii., p. 3. <i>Globe</i>, May
31, 1878. Hahn, iii. 116.</blockquote>
<br>
<br>

<hr class="c1">
<br>

<p><a name="Transcribers_Note"><br>
</a> <a href="#Tn">Transcriber's Note:</a><br>
 (1) Footnotes have been numbered and collected at the end of the
work.<br>
 (2) Sidenotes have been placed in brackets prior to the
paragraph in which they occur.<br>
 (3) In a few places (all in the footnotes) the text in our print
copy was illegible and has been marked with a [***].<br>
 (4) The spelling in the print copy was not always consistent.
Irregular words in the original (e.g., "ascendent," "Christain,"
and "W&uuml;rtemburg") have been retained whenever possible.</p>
<br>
<br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr class="full">

<br>
<br>
<pre>
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