No More Learning

Bismarck's extreme caution at every stage is remarkable.
More than once he clearly was in grave perplexity as to
the next move, and his own simile of the method of stalk-
ing woodcock in marshy ground is illuminating in its
appositeness. Every step must be tested before the next
is taken. If the ground gives, or a stone waggles, wait
until a better foothold is found by patient exploration.
Do not fire until you have both feet on firm ground;
otherwise you will miss your shot, scare the game, and be
bogged into the bargain.
The successive moves of the next few months, viewed as
a whole, present very clearly the general framework of
Bismarck's strategy. The Danes must put themselves in
the wrong, and be manoeuvred into remaining in the
wrong: driven to resist and then defeated. Once Prus-
sian blood had been spilt, a claim for Prussian compen-
1 n1 1
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 169
sation could be set up. Germany as far as possible must
be kept out of it. The Convention of London was an
international document. It was easier to manipulate the
European than the German situation, and to drive wedges
between the Powers than to create discord in Germany.
Hence the controversy must be pinned down to the Con-
vention of London. Once that was torn up, the Powers
resumed--delicious phrase--their individual liberty of
action, and Bismarck guessed that none of the Powers was
prepared to make a European war on behalf of Denmark.
Why should they? They could not annex the Duchies.
Prussia could. She had a definite and material gain for
which to fight, in the last resort. Hence, combined action
with Austria was essential. That broke the unity of the
Concert, and the alliance of Vienna with the middle and
petty States. It left the Federal Diet practically helpless.
A skilful diplomacy working on the strained relations re-
sulting from the Polish fiasco, could probably separate
England and France. On a calculation of forces, England
and Denmark were not strong enough to win. England
would not risk it. The Duchies would be severed from
Denmark. The final disposition of them opened up a
much bigger problem--the settlement with Austria and
the settlement of the German question.
Behind this diplomacy throughout stood silent and
obedient'--the Prussian army. The crude Junkertum of
Roon, conscious of Prussian strength, grew very impatient
with Bismarck's finesse and haggling with politicians
armed only with a pen and phrases. 'The question of the
Duchies,' he pronounced, 'is not one of right or law, but
of force, and we have it. ' Roon and all his school, who
saw in history nothing but the blessing of Providence on
the big battalions, failed to penetrate the secrets of the
real statecraft of power, Bismarckian or otherwise. Moltke
and Treitschke saw deeper. The big battalions must
first range themselves on the side of Providence, before
they can hope to extort the blessing. The maximum of
effort can only be secured from the monarchical State as
Force when sovereigns and subjects have a good con-
science, convinced that their cause is lawful and right.
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BISMARCK
Bismarck undertook the apparently impossible task of con-
vincing his sovereign and countrymen that in 1864, 1866,
and in 1870 they were fighting, not an aggressive, but a
defensive, war. Neither Moltke nor he himself believed
that--quite the contrary. But it was essential that the
King and Prussia--the professors, the lawyers, the bour-
geois at his desk and the peasant in the fields--should
believe it. And they did--in the end. The professors,
who backed Augustenburg to a man, were the first and the
most easily converted. For the disciplined and patriotic
intellect must harmonise appetite with reason, and the
carnal appetites of intellectuals are generally as irrational
as their minds are rational. Bismarck relied on ranging
the moral forces in Germany behind the strength of the
Prussian army. But the moral forces must first be chained
up in the ^Eolus cellar of the Foreign Office, and only let
loose at the right moment. The key of the cellars and
of the barracks must not be in the keeping of the Landtag,
but in the pocket of the Prussian monarch, i. e. of his
Minister-President.
How could this Bismarckian plan of campaign have been
met? Only by first keeping Denmark in the right;
secondly, by a complete understanding between France
and Great Britain; thirdly, by making an Anglo-French
entente the basis for a complete understanding with
Germany other than Prussia. The isolation of Prussia was
the true diplomatic objective, as clearly as for Bismarck was
the isolation of Great Britain. It was essential to inform
Denmark categorically and at once that she must withdraw
from an untenable position, and place her cause unreser-
vedly in the hands of her friends, or face Germany by her-
self. Nor was it enough to maintain the Convention of
London and the status quo. The ambitions of the Danish
Radicals were a grave danger for the future. The German
demand had to be met frankly and with sympathy; for
the German population in the Duchies had genuine
grievances; and effective guarantees must be provided
that the Schleswig-Holstein question did not continue to
poison the situation in Europe. The distinction between
Germany and Prussia (under the control of Bismarck) was
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 171
real and deep. A true alliance with Germany other than
Prussia, and with the powerful anti-Bismarckian forces in
Prussia, was well within the scope of diplomacy, which could
thus have divided Prussia and isolated her in Germany.
But such a policy implied the sympathy and comprehension
that only knowledge and mastery of the realities could
give. The one thing needful was the one thing con-
spicuously wanting. English public opinion condemned
Germany no less than Prussia, just because the Liberals
in Germany were dead against the Convention of 1852/
It broke the hearts of the few Englishmen and the many
Germans who recognised the gravity of the issues at stake
for England and for Germany to see the blindness, apathy,
and ignorance on our side, and the squandering by our
ministers of opportunity after opportunity. Great Britain
deserted much more than Denmark. The alienation from
Great Britain of Nationalist and Liberal Germany and
Prussia--the commencement of the estrangement that
was to deepen into opposition and solidify into an irre-
concilable hostility--dates from 1864. Our policy, skil-
fully exploited by Bismarck, was the foundation of the
conversion of Prussia and Germany to Bismarckianism.
Yet if ever there was a British cause, the defeat of
Bismarckian statecraft in 1864 was that cause.
British statesmanship had gravely handicapped itself.
The rejection by the British government in November
1863 of Napoleon's proposal for a Congress was a criminal
blunder which had greatly angered the Emperor. -The
rooted distrust of Napoleon in. , and the exaggerated
estimate of his ability and strength, which Bismarck had
long ago abandoned, prevented a sincere Anglo-French
union. Napoleon, as usual, wandered in the twilight of
phrases which he mistook for principles. He was heavily
committed in Mexico, he was not prepared for war, and he
had had one damaging lesson from Poland in the blunder
of empty threats. When Great Britain proposed in June
1864 that France should join with her in an agreed line of
partition in Schleswig and make it an ultimatum, Drouyn
de Lhuys replied that with Poland before their eyes such
a step was, as Napoleon said, to invite another gros souffiet,
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? BISMARCK
and unless Great Britain were ready to go to the bitter end,
i. e. make refusal to accept the ultimatum a casus belli,
France would not join in the proposal. Great Britain was
not ready for that, and the proposal came to nothing.
The conception of Prussia as a representative of national-
ism, strengthened in the north to make an equipoise to
Austria in the south, fascinated Napoleon's ebbing imagi-
nation. He has received sympathy because Bismarck
blackmailed him deliberately. But the truth is that
Napoleon, like the gambler who fears the honest banker
and borrows from an unscrupulous moneylender, hoped
to get the money and evade the sixty per cent. He de-
sired to win an imposing success without striking a blow or
risking a French life. The Danes blew up their bridges
and burnt their boats, and then expected Great Britain
single-handed to intervene in their behalf.
The British Court, as has been revealed, had much
sympathy with the Augustenburg claims; and the Queen
was absolutely determined that her country should not be
involved in war to save the Duchies for Denmark. 1 But the
real cause of the mischief and the real responsibility for our
failure lay with the nation and its leaders. The ignorance
of ministers throughout the whole business was equalled
by the ignorance of the organs of public opinion and of
the nation they claimed to instruct. The newspapers--
The Times, in particular--surpassed themselves in the
winter of 1863-4 by the insufficiency of their knowledge
and the self-sufficiency of the lectures they poured out on
Germany and Prussia. 2 We were quite unprepared for
war. The nation was not willing to go to war, for it
1 Yet, curiously enough, in 1866 Queen Victoria desired 'to interfere by
force against Prussian designs in the Duchies' (Clarendon's Lift, ii. p. 311)--
a pretty clear proof of sympathy with Austria and the Augustenburg claims.
The ministers wee wholly against the Queen.
1 This is a deliberate judgment based on a careful study of the files of Tie
Times, and other British newspapers for 1863 and 1864: the cumulative im-
pression of such a study cannot be verified from a single reference. But I will
cite three examples of knowledge, political judgment, and prescience as
samples: 'The grievances of her (Denmark's) German subjects seem puerile
or groundless' (Times, November 16, 1863): 'We have ourselves as a nation
little interest in the question' (November 24, 1863): 'We believe that even
now (February 6, 1864) Prussia is anxious to leave the Danish state un-
touched. ' How Bismarck must have enjoyed reading that divination of
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT
173
scarcely knew where Schleswig-Holstein could be found
on the map, but we were ready to threaten what we had
no intention of performing, and we hectored every one
with the complacent superiority that deserves the title of
insular. The gravity of the German and European situa-
tion was quite unappreciated, because there are none so
blind as those who do not wish to see. The language of
responsible public men, and not merely of Palmerston, of
politicians, and of ' Society,' naturally misled the Danes,
who made the pardonable mistake of supposing that
England meant what she said, and of interpreting ignorant
bluster as moral conviction. 'I wasted several years of
my life,' Bismarck remarked, 'by the supposition that
England was a great nation. ' The price that we paid then
and subsequently was the price that we deserved to pay.
A nation with responsible parliamentary government is
not the victim but the author of its government's blunders;
and if it seeks to transfer the responsibility to politicians
and a party system, or some other scapegoat, it is guilty
of the lie in the soul.
Bismarck's first step was to secure Austria. It did not
escape his attention that Austria, compared with Prussia,
was in a very unfavourable position for effective military
and political action in the Duchies. Austria, humiliated
by the Polish fiasco and the failure of the Congress of
Princes, was only too ready to listen to the Prussian over-
tures. The rejection by the Federal Diet (January 14)
of the Prussian proposal, that Austria and Prussia, in virtue
of their international position, should occupy Schleswig
in order to secure the observance of the Convention, was
tantamount to a declaration that the Diet repudiated the
his policy and aims. The effect of these utterances on public opinion
at Copenhagen, throughout Germany, and at Berlin and Vienna, is not a
question of speculation. Morier and others saw with pain how our newspapers
encouraged the Danes, angered while patronising the German Liberals, inflamed
the tension, and were carefully studied by Bismarck, who was accurately in-
formed of the ignorance and bluster in London. 'England,' said a Prussian
deputy, 'is always full of consideration for those who can defend themselves. '
And the England of 1863-64 aUo seems to have been convinced that (a) the
British fleet had only to appear and Prussia would retire in humble fear;
and (A) still more characteristic, that military states would conduct their
military operations as our Government and War Office had conducted the
Crimean War.
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? 174
BISMARCK
Convention; it compelled Austria to accept the Prussian
alliance. 'We recognise,' said Bismarck, ' in King Chris-
tian the heir both of the rights and the wrongs of his
predecessor; our fidelity to treaties must be open to no
impeachment. ' The Treaty of January 16, 1864, bound
Austria and Prussia to determine the future of the Duchies
by joint agreement and to decide the succession question
only by common consent. It ruled out agreements with
a third party, and it made the two States, as guarantors
of the Convention and Protocol of 1852, a single State to
all intents and purposes. Austria could henceforward
only oppose Prussia or act with the Federal Diet, or another
European Power, by tearing up the treaty, which proved,
as Bismarck intended it to be, a millstone round Austria's
neck. It was to be the connecting link between the
German question and the question of the Duchies. Had
the Danes now accepted the Austro-Prussian ultimatum
of January 16, to withdraw the new constitution and place
the situation in the hands of the Powers, there must have
been at least delay, and time would have been brought on
to the Danish side. The Danish government knew, as
every one did, that Great Britain had previously rejected
the reference to a Congress. The British government was
of opinion that King Christian's claims to the Duchies
could not be questioned. The ultimatum was accordingly
rejected.
Bismarck afterwards smilingly admitted that a Danish
acceptance would have been a serious upset to his plans;
but he added, probably with truth, '1 had ascertained
that the Danes would certainly refuse, otherwise I should
not have taken the risk. ' The Danes, moreover, were only
given forty-eight hours to decide, and the Austro-Prussian
army crossed the frontier at once. The Prussian note of
January 31 virtually proclaimed that Danish resistance
ad torn the Convention of London to shreds and tatters.
And Danish resistance was openly applauded in England
--which expected to see 1849 repeated in 1864. So much
did England know of Prussia and of Denmark.
The situation was certainly peculiar. Saxon and Hano-
verian troops were acting for the Federal Diet, whose
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 175
jurisdiction was limited to Holstein. The Austrian and
Prussian troops, representing two signatories to the
Convention of 1852, could coerce Denmark, for the Con-
vention applied to the whole kingdom and not merely to
the Duchies. France, Great Britain, and Russia had an
equal right with Austria and Prussia to intervene; and
Austria and Prussia by themselves could not draw up a
new, or restore the old, Convention. A Congress was
inevitable. The Prussian General Staff, on its mettle,
recognised that the pace must be forced. The storm of
the Diippel lines (April 18) drove the Danes to accept
reference to a Congress at London, and the armistice of
April 18 left Austria and Prussia in practical possession of
the Duchies. Germany was jubilant: 1848 was avenged.
It only remained now for Europe to sever the Duchies
from Denmark, install the Duke of Augustenburg, and the
business was over.
'The business,' Bismarck had decided, was only begin-
ning. The Prussian Staff would not be whistled off its
prey by journalists in Printing House Square or Fleet
Street; the King, who flattered himself that he had faced a
scaffold in Unter Den Linden for the army, felt it was good
to be a Hohenzollern; and even the most rebellious
Prussian Radical had pride in the soldiers of Prussia. 'It
will not be amiss,' Bismarck concluded, 'if we enter the
Congress in possession of the object in dispute. ' But the
floors of European Congresses are notoriously slippery.
Bismarck, represented by Bernstorff in London, was deter-
mined to make the Congress end in a stalemate. He
could always block what he did not want, and then propose
what he felt sure would be rejected by others. The blood
and iron of the Prussian sword could then bring the curtain
down on the first act.
War was only a continuation of policy, a means to give yon
the terms on which you wish to live with your neighbours;
and Bismarck had three fine cards to play. A settlement
against the will of the Duchies was no settlement (that
appealed to Napoleon with his itch for plebiscites); the
restoration of the Duchies to Denmark would be violently
opposed by Germany, and every Augustenburger in Europe
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BISMARCK
(that was for the Queen of Great Britain, the widow of a
Coburg prince); a partition could probably be wrecked on
its details (that was for himself). Where in the Duchies did
the Danish fringe end and the German begin? Bismarck
had a crushing answer to the proposals of his opponents in
London. If he was thwarted he would resign, with the
result that Prussia, in the hands of the overwhelming oppo-
sition in the Landtag, would join the Diet and the princes
in supporting the Duke of Augustenburg, and Europe
would be confronted with a united Germany, holding the
Duchies in its possession and determined to fight for their
retention. He kept his hand on German nationalism,
and now opened the throttle to let the superheated steam
out.
From the Wilhelmstrasse he invited the journalists
and the professors to lash public opinion into a frenzy.
'Let the whole pack go,' he commanded; and 'the whole
pack' let themselves go with German thoroughness and
rhetoric. As a corrective he encouraged Russia to revive
the claims of the house of Oldenburg, passed over in 1852.
Nor--he quietly insinuated--were the dynastic claims of
a Prussian claimant to be wholly overlooked.
The interest of the Congress does not lie in its tedious
details of proposals1 rejected by one or other of the parties,
but in the steady sapping and countermining by Prussia, so
as to bring about a deadlock. Clarendon penetrated the
blocking tactics. It was then too late. British public
opinion, confronted with a disinterested war by Great
Britain alone for two wretched Duchies on behalf of an un-
reasonable Denmark, which rejected every compromise, had
not the vision or the knowledge to graspthe significance for
Europe of Schleswig-Holstein, and the situation had been
so bungled by the British government and so skilfully en-
gineered by Bismarck that war on behalf of Denmark was
war with Liberal Germany. Our Court was determined to
1 The proposal to return to the position defined in the Convention of 1852
was rejected by Germany, Austria, and Prussia; the proposal to install the
Duke of Augustenburg in the Duchies, separated from Denmark, made by
Austria and Prussia, was rejected by Denmark and Great Britain; the British
proposal to divide Schleswig at the line of the river Schlei was rejected by
Germany; the Danish proposal to make the river Eider the frontier was
rejected by Prussia.
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 177
keep England out of war, and the ministers,- divided
amongst themselves, shrank from involving the Crown in
a ministerial crisis, in which it was very uncertain that
public opinion would support them. The government
had not decided in advance whether it was a British interest
to fight, and, if it was not, what line of action would
spare Great Britain from a humiliating rebuff and
treachery to friends it had deceived. Napoleon, 'the
Man of Sin,' was playing with the idea (suggested by
the Arch-Tempter) that the most reasonable solution
was to recognise the Nationalist principle and assign
the Duchies to Prussia as the representative of that
principle--of course for a compensation to be denned
later. The policy of disinterested idealism and the
policy of pourboir'es--the policy of the benevolent
heart and the policy of the calculating brain--are hard
to harmonise at any time, but the harmony is im-
possible for a muddled head and a heart suffering from
valvular disease.
While the Congress wrangled Bismarck was clearing a
difficulty of his own out of the way. Through the Crown
Prince and M. Duncker he gave the Duke of Augustenburg
an interview at Berlin (June 1). The King and the Crown
Prince were apparently confident that it would result in
the adoption by Bismarck of Augustenburg as the candi-
date of Prussia. It is impossible to reconcile the narratives
of that memorable scene, which come first hand from
Bismarck and the duke. Recent German critical scholar-
ship has held that the duke's story is the more trustworthy,
which is quite probable, but the controversy, though a
fascinating study in evidential sources, does not affect the
result. When the two men parted at midnight of June 1
Bismarck had decided that he had finished with the duke,
and the duke recognised that he would be installed in
the Duchies only by Bismarck's expulsion from office.
Bismarck expounded the difficulties, legal and political, of
enforcing the duke's claims; but if the duke were prepared
to agree to certain conditions, which would place the
Duchies in the military and administrative control of
Prussia, he would work on his behalf. The conditions
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? i78
BISMARCK
were such as to establish a virtual Prussian protectorate,
under which the duke would be nominally sovereign, but
in all essentials he would simply be the President (Regie-
rungs Oberprasident) of a Prussian province. The Duchies
were, in short, to be the ducal scabbard of the Prussian
sword. The duke rejected the conditions, as incom-
patible with his independence as a sovereign prince and his
desire to be an autonomous and Liberal ruler. When he
walked out into the summer night, he was walking out of
history. Upstairs the Minister-President was shrugging
his shoulders. Liberals never would see that half a loaf was
better than no bread. It was now quite clear that annexa-
tion-to Prussia was the only tolerable solution. Annexa-
tion? How? Would Austria consent to a Prussian
annexation?
The Congress broke up on June 25 on the deadlock that
Bismarck desired. Its debates registered three results:
first, that the Convention of 1852 had gone into the waste-
paper basket; secondly, that no alternative settlement had
been arrived at; and thirdly,--the really momentous
result--that Bismarck had smashed the Concert of Europe
into fragments. Henceforward one of the main prin-
ciples of his policy, not merely in the Schleswig-Holstein
affair, was to prevent the fragments from re-uniting.
German sentiment supported this policy. As long as the
European Powers fell out, Prussia and Germany would
come by their own. The next six years provided the
proof. Beust--the representative of the Federal Diet at
London--whom defeat always prompted to epigrams, said
happily enough: 'The conference closed after some very
animated debates, as a Black Forest clock sometimes stops
after ticking more loudly than usual. ' 'You came,' said
Clarendon to Bernstorff, 'into the conference as masters
of the situation, and as masters of the situation you now
leave it. Have a care how long that will last. ' Bismarck
appreciated the compliment from an experienced states-
man. As for the threat, he had the care to see that ' that *
lasted from 1864 to 1890. The disappointment at Wind-
sor Castle was even more bitter than Clarendon's disgust.
The failure of the Congress was a grievous blow to dynastic
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 179
Liberalism in Germany. 1 Our Court agreed with another
remark of Clarendon's: 'Je ne veux plus jamais rien avoir
a faire avec cet homme sans foi ni loi qui s'appelle M. de
Bismarck, ni celui qui est son negre M. de Rechberg
(the Austrian Prime Minister). ' Clarendon was to have
another bout later on with the man without faith or law,
and to fare no better.
Hostilities were resumed. The Danes saw the security
of their islands smashed in when Alsen was captured
(June 29) by the skill of the Prussian Chief of the Staff.
The miracle of British help, for which to the last they had
hoped against hope, was not vouchsafed. On August 1,
to avoid the fall of Copenhagen, preliminaries of peace
were signed. The Duchies were handed over in full sove-
reignty to Austria and Prussia conjointly, who in accord-
ance with the treaty of January 16, would now conjointly
determine their ultimate fate. The major military opera-
tions were over; but the major strategy of diplomacy had
simply closed the first phase of the campaign. 'We were
liberated Schleswig and Holstein to leave poor King
Christian in peace. ' For Bismarck the annexation of the
conquered Duchies was only a part, and not the most im-
portant part, of the great problem--the solution of the
German question in accordance with Prussian principles
and interests. The enemy in that vast field was Prussia's
ally Austria. And until Austria was as decisively defeated
as Denmark Prussia could not impose her terms.
The Prussian army had had a dress rehearsal in the
Danish campaign. It had justified itself. Let the
soldiers now see to it that the experience was used to pre-
pare the army for the much more serious trial that lay
ahead. 'The occasion for such a war,' Bismarck wrote in
December 1862, ' can be found at any moment, when our
position with regard to the great Powers is favourable for
carrying it on. ' But the tremendous task imposed on the
director of Prussian policy was how to force a war upon
1 'The Queen cannot but think that this country . . . has no other course
but to withdraw, and to refuse to take any further part in this lamentable
contest/ (Mem. to Lord Granville, June 27,1S64. Lift, i. p. 475. )
remarked later, 'once we had
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? i8o
BISMARCK
Austria, and at the same time convince King William,
Prussia, Germany if possible, and Europe, that it was
Austria forcing the war on Prussia; how also to link the
interests of Germany with the essential interests of Prussia,
and how to secure the European situation that would
leave Prussia to fight in a closed ring fence with Austria,
and garner undisturbed the fruits of victory. A Congress
of Paris, London, or Vienna to rearrange the map of
Europe and the organisation of Germany would be fatal
to a Prussian settlement. Bismarck's diplomacy in the
next eighteen months reveals his interpretation of the
situation: first, the settlement of the Duchies must be
kept open; secondly, the key of the international situation
lay at Paris; thirdly, that so far from quarrelling with
Austria in 1864 the benefits of the alliance were by no
means exhausted and must be exploited a great deal
further. 'So long,' he said, 'as we--Austria and Prussia
--remain united no one of the great Powers will move a
finger to disturb the status quo. ' What Bismarck really
intended was that they should not move a finger if Austria
and Prussia fell out--as they were bound to do.
From September 1862 (and earlier) until September
1870 at least, a repetition by Francis Joseph of
the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was perpetually in
his thoughts. France and Austria had then laid aside
their historic antagonism to unite against the troubler of
the peace--Frederick the Great. Bismarck realised that
in autocracies, such as Austria, Russia, or the Second
Empire (as in the Europe of the ancien rigime) policy
could be shaped by the sovereign entirely against the
popular wish or sentiment, and Bismarck's handling of
Russia both before and after 1870 explicitly rested on his
hold not on Russian sentiment--as he told the Reichstag
in 1888--but on the Tsar. Great Britain was quite
different; for there you had to deal with a nation that
could coerce, and could not be coerced by, its government.
In diplomacy the power of the autocracies had great ad-
vantages, but also one great disadvantage. The auto-
cratic State might be quickly switched off into a new orbit,
to suit the policy of its governor. The psychology of the
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 181
statecraft of power reveals one simple categorical impera-
tive of state-reason: never let others do to you what you
would do to them, and it is one of the supreme penalties
of that statecraft, imposed on its disciples, invariably to
expect foul play as the riposte to foul play. Statesmen
who spend half their lives preparing to force war on their
unprepared neighbours invariably spend the other half
in meeting the wars they are convinced their neighbours
intend to force upon them. The incapacity of a de-
bauchee autocrat is, therefore, a better security of the
peace of Europe than the ambitions of genius. The sove-
reign who covets his neighbour's wife is less harmful in
the long run than the Minister-President of an autocracy
who covets his neighbour's lands.
For Bismarck it was not necessary to secure France as
an accomplice--and he could not have secured France--
but it was essential to secure Napoleon. That the policy
of which Napoleon was to be the accomplice was wholly
opposed to the interests of France, indeed was to be the
basis of France's ultimate ruin, was obvious to Bismarck;
and, in his mind, ought to have been obvious to Napoleon.
Yet, if the interest of Prussia could only be gained by the
ruin of France, it was the duty of a Prussian statesman to
ruin France. For Bismarck the ethics were irrelevant:
the real problem was of a wholly different kind--how to
secure the essential neutrality of Napoleon without paying
for it except in vague promises that could always be
repudiated, or in a good will which he did not feel. The
compact of Plombieres could now or at any time be re-
peated by the compact of Biarritz. But pride and national
sentiment were far too strong for so simple a solution. He
was not Cavour, nor was Prussia the kingdom of Sardinia.
He said, truly enough, that in listening to Napoleon's over-
tures he felt like Joseph tempted by Potiphar's wife; and
the cession of German territory, even if it did not belong
to Prussia, as the price of French support stirred genuine
and fierce resentment within him. For to Bismarck, as to
all the Germans of his day, France was the one irreconcil-
able foe with whom Prussia and Germany had a long ac-
count to settle. For Napoleon himself Bismarck seems
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? r82
BISMARCK
to have had a liking, dashed with pity and contempt. But
Napoleon was France, and there was a quintessence of
satisfaction now in the task of making France, whom he
hated, the dupe of his diplomacy, and the engineer against
her will of her own downfall.
While the legal points involved in the Duke of Augusten-
burg's claims were referred to the Prussian Crown lawyers
(who might safely be trusted to examine them with Prus-
sian impartiality) Roon was sent to France to attend the
French manoeuvres--a fairly clear hint to Austria that
Prussia had friends elsewhere than at Vienna; and in
October Bismarck's health required him to pay the second
of three momentous visits to Bordeaux and Biarritz, where
he met the Emperor, and on his way back discussed the
situation and the future with the French ministers at Paris.
The principles of his policy were subsequently explained
in an elaborate memorandum submitted to Napoleon
(August 18, 1865): 'Continental politics have for a long
time been based on the close union of the three Eastern
Powers, which, in the condition of things resulting from the
Holy Alliance, took the form of a coalition against France
. . . the policy of Prussia had for many years turned in
this direction . . . and has forced her to follow Austria's
South Germany and ' Entire Germany' policies. . . . Op-
posed to this traditional view there is another doctrine
which is founded upon Prussia's most vital needs. It is
the doctrine of the free and independent development of
Prussia and North German elements into an independent
great power, which may feel itself secure. . . . Can the
Emperor Napoleon consider it his duty to discourage
Prussia . . . and force her back into the old defensive
attitude of the Coalition. . . . This would be a certain
proof that the traditional policy, pursued for fifty years,
was correct, and that it must determine Prussia's conduct
in the future. '
Bismarck was now carefully preparing the way for Napo-
leon's acquiescence in the. annexation of the Duchies, the
consolidation of Prussia in the north of Germany as an
equipoise to Austria, and some unspecified compensation
to France. But neither Napoleon nor his ministers had
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 183
learned that Bismarck's unconventional frankness marked
a diplomatic reconnaissance. The easiest way to evade
committing yourself was, under the guise of friendship, to
incite the other side to damaging revelations of greed or
conquest. At present, until Austria had categorically
refused a settlement satisfactory to Prussia, any definite
engagement with France was dangerous. Neither the
Bang nor German public opinion would in 1864 have
tolerated a settlement of the Duchies by concert with
France to the detriment of Austria.
The first step was to clear the Federal forces out of Schles-
wig and Holstein. The Saxon and Hanoverian troops were,
therefore, peremptorily required to evacuate the Duchies,
on the ground that they now legally belonged to Prussia
and Austria. Moltke's correspondence proves that the
Prussian Staff was ready to turn the Saxons and Hano-
verians out by force, if needs be; but it was not necessary.
The Bund recognised its impotence, declared the Federal
execution at an end, and the Federal troops were with-
drawn (December 5). Two days later the triumphal
return of the victorious army of Prussia was celebrated
with much rejoicing in Berlin.
Public opinion both in the Duchies and without cease-
lessly clamoured for the installation of the Duke of Au-
gustenburg. At Vienna the blunder of concluding the
alliance of January 16 was now fully recognised, and Rech-
berg's dismissal from office (October, 1864) proclaimed
that the Ball-Platz was about to try a new line of policy.
Bismarck was determined first to hold Austria tightly to
the alliance, secondly, to make the administrative condo-
minium of the Duchies quite unworkable. 'We stand,'
he said,' before the question of the Duchies like two guests
before a delicious dish. One of them who has no appetite
and will not eat rigorously forbids the other whom the
delicacies tempt. '
The continuous drip of facts was eating away the hard
rock in his sovereign's conscience and Prussian public
opinion. William had begun to feel that Prussian honour
was involved in a satisfactory settlement, and that 'coer-
cion ' by Austria would land Prussia in a second Olmiitz.
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