CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES—FRANCE AND GERMANY.
December 31, 1892.
The Great War has come to an end. The preliminaries of peace have been signed. We have, therefore, now only to record the events in different parts of the world which have brought this about. In the first place, during that lull in the conflict on the Continent which we recorded in our last reports, for many weeks an almost complete silence fell over the centre of Europe. Commercial relations, in their modern sense, were almost entirely suspended.
The German Government, recognising the impossibility of cutting off the sources of news as long as the telegraphs were used at all, had, for a great emergency, paralysed all the communications of Europe by stopping all telegraphic messages along a broad belt extending from the Vistula to the Rhine, and somewhat beyond those limits. No one knew what was going on; till suddenly the French forces advancing into Alsace-Lorraine became aware that the German Armies in their front had almost doubled their strength.
The Italian Army, warned of the great reinforcement which had taken place, began to show a formidable and renewed activity. The English Fleet, completely superior at sea since the victory of Sardinia, vigorously enforced the blockades of the French Ports. The Belgian Government now maintained a rigid line of observation along the whole of its frontier. Similarly Spain exercised a vigilant guardianship over all communications through the Pyrenees. France, isolated, suffering greatly from the enormous disturbance caused by the war, and finding her Generals unable to pursue the successes which had appeared for a moment to attend her arms, was becoming restless and discontented. The statesmen at the head of affairs, by no means anxious to see a successful soldier emerge from the war as their master, far from interfering with the growth of the popular impression that any further success was exceedingly problematical, encouraged it secretly in every way. The Prefects, in fact, had orders to allow no news to circulate which did not tend to discourage further action. Reports of the overwhelming strength with which the Germans had inundated the Reichsland, of the consequent danger of the force at Belfort, were accompanied by suggestions that France had been betrayed by Russia; that the great gathering of German troops against France could not have taken place if Russia had acted with proper vigour on the opposite frontier. It was thrown out, at first covertly, afterwards more and more openly, that the moment was not opportune for France to engage Europe single-handed; that the consequences of any serious disaster might be fatal to France, and that it would be better to be content with the laurels which had already been gained, and which had restored the honour of the French arms. Strasbourg, Metz, and the great fortresses in rear of them, were represented as likely to prove dangerous obstacles to the advance of the French Army. As the Generals were obliged to delay action, this feeling grew, till France on her part was quite in a humour to make peace if it could be concluded on reasonable terms.
The longing for peace in Germany had also become intense. The great increase of the force against France had been secured only by the transfer by rail across Europe of the greater part of the army that had been employed against Russia. For the moment this was a perfectly safe operation; the Russian Army was in no condition to act effectively, and the Austrian Army—with the support of the newly-raised Polish troops, the Roumanian Army, and the Bulgarians, who, having disposed at length of the troubles in Macedonia, were ready to lend effective aid to their allies—was fully competent at least to keep the Russians in check, if and whenever it should again attempt to advance. Nevertheless the consciousness in Germany that virtually her whole forces were engaged against France, and that there was little to spare to resist any movement that might be made by the Russians, kept up a continual feeling of anxiety. There appeared to be every prospect that Russia might be seriously crippled, and prevented from again disturbing the peace of Europe, if peace could now be speedily made. All these considerations were for many months telling upon the two chief opponents in the struggle, during a time when no very exciting events were taking place.