Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, July 19, 1870.
The war has been forced upon the Emperor principally by his own party in the Chamber, the Right, and by his Ministers. Constitutional Government has so far established itself that a Ministry in a minority in the Corps Législatif is as much bound to go out as a Ministry in the House of Commons. The Emperor was in a bad position to resist, because after the line taken at the time of Sadowa, it would have been too dangerous for him to be put forward as the cause of France's truckling to Prussia. The whole affair is a series of blunders which has culminated in an awful catastrophe.
Gramont told me this afternoon that La Valette wrote him a very bizarre story. La Valette said that it had been considered by the British Cabinet whether they should not send an English force to occupy Belgium during the war, which would be a strange way of showing respect for Belgian neutrality.
I should myself be very sorry to see a British soldier landed on the Continent, and seriously alarmed if any force that was landed was under a hundred thousand strong.
Gramont told me also that Bray[20] had hit upon a combination to which France would have no objection if it were possible. Bray declared that Bavaria would be neutral if the neutrality of Baden were secured. Gramont said however that of course to carry out such an arrangement, the Prussian troops must retire from Rastadt.
He said he had just been informed that Italy had called out two classes of her military contingent. He did not know what this might mean. Italy has not yet made to France any declaration of policy.
Gramont concluded by saying that he supposed all the Minor States would wait for a battle and then declare for the victor.
The neutrality of Belgium was, of course, one of the main preoccupations of H.M. Government, but there is no reason to suppose that a British occupation was ever seriously contemplated, and La Valette's report on the subject was probably caused by the vanity of appearing to possess special pieces of information which often leads diplomatists astray. Belgium was not, however, the only country which had reason to feel alarmed. The position of Denmark before hostilities actually began between France and Prussia was both painful and critical. The Danish Minister at Paris appeared at the British Embassy in great distress, saying that he knew nothing of what his Government intended, and asking for information; as it seemed quite likely that the Danish capital would be occupied by whichever of the two opposing armies could get there first. It was common knowledge that a great expedition was fitting out for Copenhagen at Cherbourg, and that General Trochu, who passed for about the best French general, was to command it. And if French forces appeared off Copenhagen it would be impossible to restrain the people from marching against the Prussians, although there was, as yet apparently, no understanding between the French and Danish Governments.
On July 25 the Times surprised the world by publishing the text of a draft treaty concerning the annexation of Belgium which it was alleged had been submitted by the French Government to Bismarck in 1866.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, July 26, 1870.
I have had some conversation with Gramont about the nefarious Projet de Traité which the Times has given to the world, but as he has written to La Valette about it, I had better leave you to receive from him the French version. The only curious, and to me quite new statement which he made, was that Bismarck had at one time offered, if France was afraid of the odium of occupying Belgium, to occupy it first himself, and then to retire in apparent deference to remonstrances from France, and so give France a pretext for entering.
It has long been a common belief among diplomatists that France and Prussia have at different times discussed the propriety of seizing, the one upon Belgium, the other upon Holland. No such scandalous iniquity has been contemplated since the partition of Poland, and it is much worse than the partition of Poland, for there might be some colourable assertions that Poland was turbulent, ill-governed, that most of the population were serfs, and that she was an inconvenient neighbour. But Belgium and Holland are free, extremely well governed, and, to say the least, perfectly inoffensive neighbours. One must leave it to the parties concerned to defend themselves from the reproach of such odious projects, and I hope they will.
The insinuation in the leading article in the Times that the subject has been revived by France since the Hohenzollern crisis seems to me to be extremely improbable.
Bernstorff's attempts to make you vouch for the authenticity of the Projet, without committing himself, is as poor a little trick as I ever heard of.
I send you in a despatch the official account of the cause of the tardiness in producing Benedetti's despatch, that is to say, delicacy on the part of Gramont. The version accepted by the public is that the whole affair had been forgotten at the Ministère until at last Benedetti himself remembered it and had it looked up.