No More Learning

Bismarck therefore held his hand.
The neutrality of Belgium created a powerful lever on
Great Britain. The General Staff at Berlin preferred for
military reasons that Belgium should remain neutral.
When Bismarck published in The limes on July 25, 1870,
Benedetti's damning letter with its crude revelation of
Napoleon's ambitions and proposals, and followed it up
by a Prussian guarantee of Belgium's security, he practically
obtained British neutrality. 'Louis' was certainly going
to pay dearly for his intervention in 1866.
So far then from Prussia by the spring of 1870 being
hemmed in and isolated, it was France that was hemmed
in. The only alliances Bismarck required were the military
conventions with the south, and these had been secured
in 1866. Moltke assured him that, humanly speaking, if
a united Germany fought France in a ring fence victory
was certain. The ring fence was practically complete.
It was not enough, however, to hem France in. She
must be either coerced or lured into declaring war. The
war could then be proclaimed a defensive one, on behalf of
German honour, security, and independence. France the
aggressor, pacific Prussia the victim of her vanity and
ambition.
This attitude was essential. King William still had a
conscience, even if, as Bismarck said in 1869, ' our master
to-day has changed his tune from that in 1862; he has
drunk from the chalice of popularity and refuses to break
it. ' But the south must be brought in, fired with the
enthusiasm for 'Germany in danger. ' Neutral public
opinion must be influenced from the start to tolerate, per-
haps demand, the chastisement of France. Bismarck under-
stood as well as Lord Lyons that the Napoleonic Empire
could not stand another rebuff. He knew the men with
whom he had to deal: Napoleon, ill, vacillating, swayed
by every group in turn; Ollivier, high-minded, weak, and
not master of his cabinet; the reckless Duc de Gramont,
ultramontane to his finger-tips, who replaced the cool-
headed Daru in May; behind them the Empress and the
clerical camarilla, and in Paris the boulevard patriotism
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 265
de cafe-concert, vain, ignorant, the dupe of its government
and itself.
Spain could complete the isolation of France. Cer-
tainly Bismarck's luck was extraordinary, for just when
Prussia needed a revolution the Spaniards obligingly pro-
vided one. In 1868 Queen Isabella abdicated. The
Spanish throne was vacant. Who was to fill it?
The complete story of the Hohenzollern candidature
has never been told. It probably never will, for the secret
may be concealed in the archives of Friedrichsruhe, but
more probably was buried with Bismarck. But the main
points are clear, and they conclusively contradict the Prus-
sian version accepted for a decade because the refutation was
not available. Whether Prim and Salazar started the idea
of placing Leopold or Frederick of Hohenzollern-Sigmar-
ingen, the elder or the third son of Anthony of Hohen-
zollern, and the brothers of Charles, ruler in Roumania,
or whether the idea was inspired by Bismarck, is of historical
interest but not of political importance. We know now
that in February 1869 Villanueva came from Spain to
Berlin and had a long interview with the Chancellor; in
March Th. von Bernhardi left for a special mission to
Spain; in September 1869 Salazar was introduced by
Werthern, the Prussian minister at Munich, to Prince
Anthony, and suggested the throne for Prince Leopold; in
February 1870 Salazar returned and pressed the candidature
on King William and Prince Anthony, who were not favour-
able to the idea; Bismarck on February 27 drew up a
confidential report in which he strongly supported the
proposal; on March 15 a Council was held at which Moltke,
Roon, Schleinitz, Thile, Delbriick, Bismarck, the King,
and Prince Anthony and Leopold were present; at this
Council Delbriick asked Moltke ' Are we ready if Napoleon
takes it ill? ' and Moltke simply nodded; the Hohen-
zollerns hesitated, attracted by the prospects, repelled by
the dangers of so ambitious a stroke; Bismarck sent Lothar
Bucher and Major Versen on a secret mission to Spain in
April; to Prince Anthony's deep regret, neither of his avail-
able sons would accept; the affair which seemed to be closed
was renewed in May as the result of Bucher and Versen's
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BISMARCK
mission, and thanks to a second mission of Bucher's, and
Salazar's importunity, supported by Bismarck's persistent
pressure, Prince Leopold finally consented probably by the
end of May, definitely on June 19; and, lastly, on June 21,
'after a hard struggle,' King William also consented. So
far the matter had been kept a profound secret. Olozaga,
the Spanish minister at Paris, was quite in the dark; Prim,
however, instead of carrying the business through and
presenting Europe with a fait accompli, as Bismarck pro-
bably intended and Salazar expected, prorogued the
Cortes till October 31. He seems to have lost his nerve at
this point, and to have hoped to talk Napoleon over during
the summer at Vichy. But the secret was either betrayed
or deliberately let out, and on July 3 was definitively
known at Paris. .
Bismarck was perfectly well aware that France would
not accept the Hohenzollern candidature. The King of
Roumania duly noted in his diary the certainty of French
opposition, as far back as December 9, 1868, and on the
mere rumour of such a candidature in 1869 Napoleon
(May n) had sent Benedetti to Bismarck to indicate the
attitude of the French government. It is certain that
Bismarck intended to fling down a challenge to France,
and that in procuring the acceptance of the candidature by
his sovereign he was deliberately provoking a European war.
The argument that a Hohenzollern prince at Madrid would
drop hk Germanism and become a Spaniard when he
crossed the Pyrenees is worthless, and recent events in the
Near East confirm its worthlessness. Bismarck himself can
be put in the witness-box. In his report of February 27
he argued that among many advantages that acceptance
of the Spanish throne would bring--the prestige of the
Hohenzollerns elevated like the Habsburgs to a European
position, the strengthening of the monarchical principle,
the commercial concessions for German trade (as in Rou-
mania)--the military aspect was of great importance:--
'If Germany and France were at war,' he wrote, ' and
the position was that under Isabella, and if on the other
hand a government in sympathy with Germany existed,
the difference for us between these two situations may be
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 267
calculated at one to two army corps. In the former,
French troops would be released by Spain and be available
against Germany; in the latter, France would have to
detach an army corps to the (Spanish) frontier. '
In a word, Spain would complete the isolation of France
and open the Mediterranean to Germany. It was a case
of double or quits. If France acquiesced, Spain became
a Hohenzollern satrapy, possibly an ally in a future war; if
she refused, she must make the candidature a casus belli,
and force war on Prussia.
Bismarck's contention that the whole matter was a pure
family and dynastic matter is belied by his conduct and
arguments. If so, why all the secrecy? Why was it
necessary to discuss a pure family affair of a cadet branch
of the Hohenzollerns at a Prussian Council, at which it was
requisite to include the Federal Chancellor, the Chief of
the General Staff, the Minister of War, the Director of the
Federal Chancery, and the Under-Secretary of the Foreign
Department? In Bismarck's confidential report the
candidature was argued on grounds of high policy in which
the interests of Germany and Prussia were deeply con-
cerned, and refusal of the offer was represented to be
politically detrimental to Germany. Bismarck repeatedly
asserted that he had no locus standi officially to advise the
King in a dynastic concern. Yet for twelve months he
had used all his authority and power as Chancellor and
Minister-President to press Prince Anthony and his sove-
reign to accept. Bismarck's denial of knowledge of the
affair was a he. . In what capacity did he receive Villanueva,
send Bernhardi, Bucher, and Versen to Spain, and corre-
spond with the Crown Prince on the subject? The
original introduction of Salazar to Prince Anthony was
made by Werthern, certainly with Bismarck's consent and
probably at his instigation. Men in the diplomatic ser-
vice were broken by Bismarck for implicating the govern-
ment, without the Chancellor's authority, in a policy
that committed Prussia. Werthern would not have dared
to do what he did, unless he desired to be treated as
Arnim was later.
Bismarck's conduct throughout the affair was com-
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BISMARCK
petent, dictatorial, and absolutely unscrupulous, and his
behaviour was indicated in the letter, taken by Bucher to
Spain on June 11, the authenticity of which can be
accepted. He would maintain that officially he was not
concerned. Why should the Spaniards not offer the crown
to any one they pleased? Accordingly, he retired to
Varzin on April 14, and stayed there till May 21. Until
June 8 he was in Berlin and then retired to Varzin to be
out of the way, when 'the Spanish bomb' burst, and
stayed there till July 12. King William went for a cure
to Ems, and the Hohenzollerns of Sigmaringen were
at their country-house. Thile as under-secretary could
therefore reply to French questions that 'the Prussian
government was absolutely ignorant of this affair, which
did not exist for it. ' Thile who had been present at the
Council of March 15!
It is unnecessary to relate in detail the oft-told dramatic
story of the French government's action when the news
of the candidature became known. From July 3 onwards
French public opinion was in a fever of excitement and
indignation. The government recognised the challenge.
By sending Benedetti direct to King William at Ems they
succeeded in stripping the candidature of its family char-
acter. They deliberately fixed the responsibility on
Prussia, and on July 12, when Prince Anthony renounced
the candidature, with King William's acquiescence,
France had won a striking diplomatic success. King
William, indeed, confessed that the renunciation removed
a load of stone from his heart. The French government
feared, however, that Prince Leopold might imitate his
brother Prince Charles in 1866 in the Roumanian affair, re^
pudiate his father, and go to Spain. The Duc de Gramont
and Ollivier knew the character of the Prussian government
and of Bismarck, and were determined to stroke the t's and
dot the i's of the renunciation; they aimed at inflicting a
personal as well as a political humiliation on the Hohen-
zollern sovereign and his minister. Like a weak man
Gramont did not know where to stop. His insistence
that King William must give a guarantee that the candi-
dature would not be renewed, was made on his own re-
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 269
sponsibility without communication to the Prime Minister,
or the Council of State, or, apparently, Napoleon himself.
King William, who had behaved correctly so far, and was
convinced that his acquiescence in the renunciation closed
the whole episode, naturally resented the French demand
as an insinuation against his royal good faith and as a deli-
berate attempt to pick a quarrel with Prussia. The
message through an aide-de-camp that the incident was
closed, and that he had nothing further to say, was some-
what curt but unobjectionable. It was not insulting nor
intended to be an insult. Gramont had by his folly
pledged France; much worse, he had given Bismarck his
chance.
By July 12 Bismarck was very depressed. For the first
time he had been worsted before Europe in a grave affair
of diplomacy; and it is clear that he had not anticipated
the French success in terrifying Prince Anthony into a re-
nunciation. The game as he had intended to play it had
broken down completely. He now had neither a defen-
sive war nor the candidature. Public opinion both in
Paris and Germany was very excited, but had the French
government taken a strong and cool line on the 12th of
July, informed France that as the result of French action
the candidature was at an end, that the King of Prussia
acquiesced in the renunciation, and that his royal words
and pacific disposition could be trusted, it is difficult to see
what Bismarck could have done. The Duc de Gramont's
irresponsible and criminal levity ruined a great success.
But it is impossible to acquit Ollivier, the Prime Minister,
of culpable negligence, indecision, and weakness. A close
examination of the evidence leaves an indelible impression
that Ollivier wavered between several and contradictory
lines of action, and did not supervise the action of the
Foreign Office as he should have done. Gramont and
Ollivier enabled Bismarck to represent France as insulted.
The French government had now either to sit down under
the insult or force a war in vindication of French honour.
The famous 'dispatch from Ems'1 which brought
1 Late in life Bismarck remarked to Harden, the editor of Die Zukunfi, who
printed it in his paper: 'It is very easy, without falsification, but simply by
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BISMARCK
about the final rupture was neither a falsification nor a
forgery. The King left to Bismarck's discretion the re-
sponsibility of publishing his intimation to Benedetti that
he had nothing further to communicate. Bismarck saw
Gortschakov on July 12 at Berlin, and probably then and
there ratified Russia's benevolent neutrality in the case of
war by agreeing to the denunciation of the prohibitive
clauses in the Treaty of 1856 at a favourable opportunity;
he was searching with ferocious earnestness for the oppor-
tunity to reopen the issues between France and Prussia
and drive France into war. The edited version of the
King's narrative which he authorised for publication was
a brutaUsed and provocative message, true in the bare
facts, but so worded as to convey a wholly different con-
struction; it was deliberately intended to be 'a red flag
for the Gallic Bull. ' The Bismarckian version gladdened
the gloomy hearts of Roon and Moltke at that memorable
meal on the night of July 13. This meant the war for
which they had prayed and worked. Roon said: 'Our
God of old lives still and will not let us perish in disgrace. '
Moltke smote his hand upon his breast and said: * If I
may not live to lead our armies in such a war, then the devil
may come directly afterwards and fetch away the old car-
case. ' That night Bismarck said his prayers with Unusual
fervency. On July 14 Germany was singing ' Die Wacht
am Rhein! ' At Paris delirious crowds on the boulevards
were crying ' A Berlin! ' On July 15 King William issued
the order for general mobilisation. On July 19 France
declared war. 1
Bismarck had won. The British offer of mediation
(July 17) was politely but firmly rejected. France was
isolated. Beust and Victor Emmanuel's efforts to settle
omissions and corrections, completely to alter the tone of a communication. I
have myself once had experience of the task, as editor of the Ems dispatch . . .
when by omissions and compressions I had edited it, Moltke exclaimed: "The
original was an order to retreat (chamade), now it is a summons to charge
(fanfare). "' The text of the King's message and the version, as edited by
Bismarck and sent officially for publication and to all the Prussian diplomatic
representatives, is printed in an Appendix (p. 496), where the exact character
of the ' editing1 can be textually established by every reader for himself.
1 The famous cartoon in Punch (July 30), one of Tenniel's best, in which
the great Napoleon warned Napoleon III. to halt--' Beware ! '--published before
the German victories bore the warning out, was a prophecy tragically true.
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 271
the Italian problem, with a view to armed mediation and
subsequent active intervention on the side of France, broke
down between July 19 and August 2. Even at the eleventh
hour and in the extreme peril of the situation Napoleon
could not, or more probably was not allowed to, bring him-
self to renounce Rome. He wavered, consented, and then
withdrew his consent. By August 6 the German victories
made the intervention of Austria and Italy or a Triple
Alliance too dangerous to be seriously entertained further.
Bismarck's political strategy, as in 1866, had given the
German army its chance; and the soldiers justified his
confidence. Roon told King William on July 15 that
mobilisation was easy, for everything was ready. Marshal
Leboeuf had said the same at St. Cloud. Leboeuf s assertion
was an ignorant boast, Roon's a summary of three years'
relentless preparation. The German military machine
worked with marvellous precision. After July 15 Moltke
could find time to read French novels, until the troops
had reached their appointed stations, when he left Berlin
with his sovereign for Worth, Spicheren, Mars-la-Tour,
St. Privat, Sedan, and Paris.
Bismarck travelled with General Headquarters through-
out the campaign; his sons were serving in the army and
took part in the desperate battles round Metz; he himself
was present at Sedan, and there at the weaver's cottage on
the Donchery road, on the morning of September 2, he
met Napoleon. 'An emphatic contrast,' he wrote to his
wife on September 3, ' with our last meeting in '67 at the
Tuileries. Our conversation was difficult, although I did
not wish to recall things which would painfully affect the
man struck down by God's mighty hand . . . yesterday
and the day before lost France 100,000 men and an
Emperor. ' By October 5 Headquarters reached Versailles,
and Bismarck resided in the Rue de Provence till March 6,
1871--Versailles he had last visited with General Leboeuf.
From the declaration of war to the ratification of the
Peace of Frankfurt, May 10, 1871, he was overwhelmed
with work; and, as in 1866, the strain imposed on his health
and nerves by the continuous negotiations, the relations
with the European neutrals, the necessity of keeping in close
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BISMARCK
touch with developments and public opinion in Germany,
and the perpetual crisis created by the war and the military
operations, caused an excessive irritability, aggravated by
frequent bursts of violent anger.
'The official files,' he
wrote to his wife, 'make a pile higher than my head. '
'Dead tired as he is,' noted Abeken, 'he cannot sleep. '
Every one from the King downwards had to endure his
dictatorial temper, his explosions of wrath, and his rasping
tongue, with its vivid, direct, unsparing, and bitter
phrases. He was endured, because he was indispensable.
His experience, prestige, inexhaustible resources, and
amazing powers of work, the lucid grip on general prin-
ciples and the mastery of detail, the personality and the
temperament of genius, made him unique. There was
only one Bismarck, and there were no three men at Head-
quarters or elsewhere in Germany who could combine his
gifts . and his qualities. 'The Bismarck touch' was re-
vealed in the ten months that followed July 19, 1870, not
once but fifty times. In truth, these Prussians, leaders
and subordinates alike, were an iron race, tough of skin,
lavish in all the relations of life of a stern brutality, and a
full-blooded and unrestrained force, and meting out to each
other no little of the militarist and graceless arrogance that
defeated France had to endure. They were the victors,
and they took care to let Europe as well as France feel it.
Through all the events that make the history of these
months so tragic for France, so intoxicating for Ger-
many, so humiliating for Europe, there rings the gospel of
the conqueror's sword. For pity, generosity, sympathy
you will look in vain. The appeal is always to force.
German power had brought the German armies to Paris
--to Babylon--and Babylon was about to fall. Power was
the one and only convincing argument, and Germany had
it. No one else had.
From the commencement to the end of the war Bis-
marck's relations with the soldier-chiefs were more sharply
strained than they had been in 1866. The soldiers--' the
demi-gods,' as Bismarck called them--would gladly have
left him behind at Berlin; his continuous presence at Head-
quarters, his ' interference' with the military direction and
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 273
decisions, his acrid criticisms, and his insistence on accurate
and complete information on all military matters, stirred
professional jealousy and the deepest personal resentments.
The war was a soldier's business; and the generals wished
to make a military peace. 'It was a shame,' said E. von
Manteuffel, 'that a mere politician should have more
influence than a general. ' And the soldiers did their best
to ignore the civilian, an attitude which simply infuriated
Bismarck. General Headquarters was a camp of con-
tinuous strife. Bismarck quarrelled with every one from
the Crown Prince downwards, and with Moltke at Ver-
sailles it came to an open breach, which the Crown Prince
failed to close. 'I am the military adviser of the King,'
Moltke said coldly, 'and I have no other duty to fulfil;
I will not permit the decisions of Count Bismarck to lead
me into error. ' Bismarck has laid down in his Memoirs his
general theory of the relations of policy and strategy--of
the civil and military powers in war--which is difficult to
refute:--
? The object of war is to conquer peace under conditions
which are conformable to the policy pursued by the State. To fix
and limit the objects to be attained by the war, and to advise the
monarch in respect of them, is and remains during the war, just
as before it, a political function, and the manner in which these
questions are solved cannot be without influence on the method
of conducting the war. . . . Still more difficult in the same line
is it to judge whether and with what motives the neutral Powers
might be inclined to assist the adversary, in the first instance
diplomatically, and eventually by armed force. . . . Bat, above
all, is the difficulty of deciding when the right moment has come
for introducing the transition from war to peace; for this pur-
pose are needed knowledge of the European conditions, which
is not apt to be familiar to the military element, and political
information which cannot be accessible to it. The negotiations
in 1866 show that the question of war or peace always belongs,
even in war, to the responsible political minister, and cannot be
decided by the technical military leaders. '--(Reminiscences, ii. 198. )
But in this argument, which practically identifies the
civil power with himself, Bismarck ignores two important
points. The decision, in a personal monarchy, lay with
b. s
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BISMARCK
the sovereign, who held the supreme command of the army.
King William was the military and civil power in one, and
as a soldier was likely to be profoundly influenced by purely
military considerations. Secondly, the soldiers disputed the
soundness of Bismarck's military judgments. Moltke was
not prepared to admit that the Federal Chancellor's opinion
should overrule the considered advice of the responsible
Chief of the Staff. The admission would have reduced
the Chief of the Staff to subordinate office in the Federal
Chancery. He claimed, and not unjustly, that the success-
ful conduct of the war frequently required policy to adapt
itself to the military needs rather than strategy to adapt
itself to policy; the interpretation of the military situa-
tion he declined to surrender to any civilian, or indeed
to any soldier other than himself. So long as the King
kept him at his post, Moltke categorically refused to allow
Bismarck to be both Federal Chancellor and Chief of the
Staff. He gave Bismarck to understand that interference
would be resisted and then ignored. Supported by all
the generals, he met Bismarck's outbursts with an impene
trable silence. Moltke had a dignity and self-control
extraordinarily disconcerting. He was the one man in
Germany whom Bismarck could neither frighten, hustle,
cajole, or ruin. Bismarck's wrath arose from recognition
of this, and from the bitter knowledge that the King so
often decided for Moltke and against the Chancellor.
In the conduct of war and the making of peace recon-
ciliation of strategy with policy is the most difficult of all
tasks for the civil power. The eight months from July 19,
1870, to March 6,1871, furnish the student of the Higher
Command, in the sphere of policy with ample material in
the complexity and comprehensiveness of the problem.
As a training in the sifting and appreciation of evidence,
and in the synthetic construction of a fluctuating European
situation, influenced by the military position, and reacting
upon it; in the function of history to provide a scientific
criticism of life--its ends, its values, and the methods for
realising the purposes of organised and self-conscious
political communities--the Franco-German war is unsur-
passable in the period from 1815 to 1878.
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 275
The intrinsic difficulties of war and peace were aggra-
vated by two different sets of circumstances. Had it
simply been a war and peace between Prussia and a stable
Second Empire, the task would have been formidable
enough. But the war and the peace were to make a
unified Germany, and irrevocably to solve the German
problem; they were to close one great chapter and settle
the form and contents of another, in advance. Unification
was to be the consummation of victory. No other result
would justify the war in Bismarck's judgment. What kind
of France, therefore, did German unification require?
Everything turned on the answer to that question.
The collapse of the Second Empire, and the establish-
ment on September 4, after Sedan, of a provisional
government of National Defence, reduced the political
and military situation to a bewildering flux. Where was
France--at Paris, Metz, or Bordeaux? It was as difficult
to find as'the Europe' which Thiers sought. What was the
government of National Defence? With whom was peace to
be made? Where in France could be found the guarantees,
who could give them, and what were they worth when
given? The complications grew worse with every month,
until they culminated in the struggle between the National
government and the Commune. The tortuous dealings
with Bazaine, the sinister episode of Regnier, the negotia-
tions with Chislehurst, with Jules Favre at Ferrieres, with
Boyer, with the Comte de Chambord, with Thiers, the inter-
position of Gambetta, and the establishment of the National
Assembly at Bordeaux, make a parallel column on the page,
side by side with which the military events make another
column, and the European situation a third. The three
columns had to be daily written up, weighed and harmon-
ised at General Headquarters--and all the time Germany,
pressed by Bismarck, was writing a fourth column of greater
importance than the other three in its decisive influence
on the future. It is not surprising that in the Rue de
Provence and in the H6tel des Reservoirs at Versailles
a tense irritability prevailed, and that these Prussians
quarrelled with each other almost as fiercely as with the
French. But Bismarck's luck was extraordinary. Had
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? BISMARCK
Bazaine with 170,00x3 of France's finest troops at Metz
fought like Colonel Denfort and the handful of heroes at
Belfort to the last cartridge, man, and horse, France cer-
tainly would have obtained a reasonable peace. The
Place Belfort at Paris with its unconquered Lion facing to
the east and the simplicity of the inscription,' A la defense
nationale! ' is illuminated to all time by the Duc d'Aumale's
cry at Bazaine's trial--' Mais il y avait la France! '
Bazaine betrayed France. He deserved a monument in
the Sieges Allee at Berlin.
Metz surrendered on October 27. The surrender
settled the fate of the armies of the . Loire and of Paris.
On October 31 Gortschakov issued the note in which
Russia formally declared that the neutrality of the Black
Sea, defined in the Treaty of 1856, no longer existed.
'Idiots! ' Bismarck exclaimed, 'they have begun four
weeks too soon. ' But Gortschakov was neither so foolish
nor so vain as Bismarck would have us believe, either in
that or any other transaction. He knew his Bismarck.
He was not going to wait until the war was over, and his
former pupil, with a treaty of peace in his pocket, could
take an unembarrassed part in the Near Eastern question,
and consider whether British and Austrian amity were not
worth more than a pledge to Russia. We may be quite
sure that Bismarck on July 12 had given no undertaking
in writing. The understanding was purely verbal, and
verbal pledges from Bismarck without corroboration were
as difficult to prove as verbal offers of marriage without an
engagement ring. The King of Prussia, the Reichstag, and
German historians could always be trusted to accept, in a
conflict of personal evidence, the word of a German Chan-
cellor against all the words of all the statesmen in the
world. When Bismarck lied, he lied as advised by one of
the greatest of his countrymen--Luther. He lied fortiter,
like a hero.
In reality Gortschakov's bomb burst at the happiest
moment for Bismarck. Austria and Great Britain, con-
sidering with their hearts in their boots whether they could
intervene in the west without being publicly insulted or
of being drawn into a war, which they were determined
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 277
to avoid at all costs, were now flung into a whirlpool of
their own, from which it took them three months to ex-
tricate themselves with such bedraggled dignity as accept-
ance of the Russian ultimatum permitted. The Congress
of London accomplished the reconciliation of two contra-
dictory propositions (March 13, 1871). It declared that
a solemn treaty, to which the European Powers were
signatories, could only be altered by and with the consent
of the signatories, and it registered in the Protocol the
successful violation of that principle by Russia. By the
time the Congress met (January 17) to insert the diplo-
matic and juristic patch in the document, torn up by
Russia, the German Empire was made and the preliminaries
of peace were practically settled. King William spoke the
truth in his letter to the Tsar, when he emphasised his
own and Germany's gratitude for Russia's invaluable ser-
vices. Public opinion in England was hopelessly divided
between admiration for Germany, pity for France, con-
tempt for the fallen Second Empire and determination to
remain neutral, i. e. the right to condemn both parties
without reserve, and the love of peace that is based on
military impotence. Carlyle's notable letter to The Times
did great service to the German cause. It is not sur-
prising that Bismarck was not afraid of serious interven-
tion from Great Britain and Austria. He could reply as
the friend of William the Silent replied, when he tested
his dagger on a protocol: 'I wish to see what steel can
do against parchment. '
To the making of peace Bismarck brought four fixed
principles: serious negotiations with any authority in
France that would grant his terms; no submission of the
terms to a European Congress; the impotence of France
for a generation to undo the settlement; the foundation
of German unification on the impotence of France. A
France so bled and mutilated as to be an irreconcilable
enemy, and condemned to stare 'hypnotised at the gap in
the Vosges,' would be an incontrovertible argument for the
continuance of the Empire in arms. What Germany had
taken by force, she could only keep henceforth by force.
National sentiment and pride, and the perpetual danger
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? 278
BISMARCK
would prevent Prussia from 'falling asleep' as she did
after 1786 ' on the laurels ' of victory.
The evidence is sound that the first victories decided
Bismarck's intentions to annex Alsace and Lorraine, gilt-
edged by a swinging indemnity. Where exactly the
frontier line would be drawn would be determined by the
extent of the victories and the advice of the military
experts. Throughout the prolonged negotiations he
never wavered from these two conditions--the indemnity
and the annexations. After 1871 Bismarck 'confessed'
more than once that the soldiers were responsible for the
retention of Metz, and that he himself would have been
content with Alsace and a strip of 'German' Lorraine.
The sincerity of such obiter dicta is more than questionable.
The contemporary evidence of 1870-1 points to a wholly
different conclusion. Bismarck was just as remorseless
as the most truculent militarist at Headquarters. His
insistence on the bombardment of Paris, his scorn at 'the
English catchwords of humanity and civilisation,' his
jeers at the sufferings of the civil population and the
children in Paris, the dinner-table ridicule of the appeals
and tears of Favre and Thiers--by these and fifty other
similar self-revealing acts recorded and gloated over by
Busch and the jackals of the back-stairs, he proved that he
neither wished nor intended to be generous. Generosity
would have been an unpardonable weakness. Behind the
impressive record of achievement lies an unforgettable
chronicle of envenomed pettiness and coarse brutality, and
the pitiable part of it is that Bismarck was unaware of the
depths to which he could sink; and that the Germany of
Bismarck's Chancellorship could read and approve--even
praise--the qualities and traits revealed in these intimate
and degrading chronicles.
It is more probable that he agreed with the criticism
of the Junkers on his folly in not insisting on taking
Belfort as well as Metz and Strasburg. His remark that
had Thiers been the minister of an historic monarchy
France would have obtained easier terms, is illuminating,
but not convincing. In any case, he utilised to the full
the terrible dislocation which the demoralised and demo-
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 279
ralising Second Empire had inflicted on France. Every
twist that the screw could drive home was utilised to the
full. Napoleon, Bourbonism, Orleanism, republicanism,
anarchy, the inexorability of Moltke and his sovereign, the
national demand in Germany, the impotence of Great
Britain and Austria, the connivance of Russia, were all in
turn or together pressed on the unhappy French nego-
tiators. Thiers and Favre had also frequently to suffer
for the slights and jealousies of ' the demi-gods'; because
Bismarck had lost his temper with the Crown Prince, or
was exasperated at the obstinacy of Wiirttemberg, or the
insolence of Bavaria in the concurrent negotiations for the
unification of Germany. In his hatred and contempt of
France Bismarck was . the incarnation of Prussia's stored-
up passion. The preliminaries of Versailles and the Peace
of Frankfurt--the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, with
Strasburg and Metz, worth in Moltke's judgment two
army corps and an unrivalled place cL'armes as a pivot for a
future offensive, the indemnity of . ? 200,000,000 and the
occupation of French territory at French cost till the last
franc had been paid, together with the guarantee that
France would always accord to Germany 'the most
favoured nation ' privilege in her tariffs--were the begin-
ning of a new Europe.
It is idle to argue the thesis that Bismarck by another
kind of peace could have reconciled France in a few years
no less effectively than he reconciled Austria, and that
such a reconciliation in the twenty years that followed
1871 would have enabled him to isolate Great Britain as
completely as the most ardent champion of German Welt-
macht could have desired. The 'might have beens' of
history are only valuable as a help to an interpretation of
the actual. The thesis presupposes a wholly different
Bismarck, and a wholly different evolution of Germany
since 1815. Ranke's verdict that the war of 1870 was not
a war with Napoleon in. but with Louis xiv. was the
verdict of every German. There is every reason to
conclude that if the National Liberals had established
a constitutional monarchy and responsible parliamentary
government in 1866 they would have exacted from France
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? 28o
BISMARCK
in 1871 terms as severe as those imposed by the prelimi-
naries of Versailles.