Pray exert all your influence to obtain the assent of France to the Conference. It will of course be an annoyance to her that peace instead of war prevails, and there is no doubt that a general conflagration might be of advantage to her. But you may point out that the very nature of the question almost precludes instant and offensive war, and that hostilities distant in point of time would be nothing but an embarrassment to her.
With regard to the Diplomatic position, it is a great step for the Provisional Government that Prussia has asked us to obtain her consent to a Conference. On the other hand, it would be a severe blow to the Provisional Government if they were left out in the cold, while the other Powers were settling a question of so much interest to France.
If such an unfortunate state of things were to occur, we should do our best to protect the dignity of France, but it would be difficult. Do not encourage France to suggest delay.
Foreign Office, Nov. 30, 1870.
The French are unwisely playing the same game as they did under Gramont about the Belgian Treaty. In each case, Bismarck had the sense to do at once what was to be done.
It is an enormous step for the Provisional Government to be recognized by Prussia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, and England as capable of attending a Conference, and it will be very foolish of them to lose the opportunity and remain out in the cold.
As London is the place, it would be my duty to issue the formal invitations; at least I suppose so. Do your best to persuade them.
The Government here wish to hold their own, but are most desirous of a prompt and peaceable solution of this 'Circular' question.
We shall adhere to anything we say, but you will observe that we are not rash.
Turkey, Austria and Italy are not pleasant reeds to rest on.
If we go to war, we shall be very like the man with a pistol before a crowd, after he has fired it off. Do not let a pacific word, however, escape your lips.
These two letters are a sufficiently clear indication of the highly uncomfortable position in which H.M. Government found itself involved, and of the urgent necessity of discovering some face-saving formula. France being incapacitated, it could hardly be supposed that Austria and Italy would go to war with Russia on account of a question whether Russia should or should not maintain a fleet in the Black Sea, and England with her ludicrous military establishments would therefore have been left to undertake the contest single-handed, or, at most, with the assistance of Turkey.
Ultimately, of course, a Black Sea Conference met in London, and a French representative, the Duc de Broglie, put in an appearance just as it was terminating, after ineffectual efforts had been made to secure the presence of M. Jules Favre. Lord Fitzmaurice, in his 'Life of Lord Granville,' has elaborately endeavoured to show that the Conference resulted in a triumph for British diplomacy. If the acceptance of a particular form of words (of which, by the way, no notice was taken by Count Aehrenthal when he annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in defiance of the Treaty of Berlin), constitutes a success, then Mr. Gladstone's Government were entitled to congratulate themselves; but as the Russians got their way and established their right to maintain a fleet in the Black Sea, they could legitimately claim that for all practical purposes the triumph was theirs.
In the course of his interviews with Thiers, Bismarck had denounced England, and before the end of 1870 the feeling between England and Prussia was anything but friendly. At the outbreak of hostilities British sympathy had been almost universally on the side of Prussia, but as the war progressed, public opinion began to veer round. The change in opinion was due partly to sympathy with a losing cause, partly to an impression that the Prussians were inclined to put forward unjust and exaggerated demands, partly to the violent abuse which appeared in the press of both countries, as well as to a variety of other causes. A letter from Mr. Henry Wodehouse, one of the secretaries at the Paris Embassy, shows that the Crown Prince of Prussia, whose Anglophil sympathies were well known, deplored the tone of the German papers, and alludes at the same time to a domestic squabble in high German circles, thus showing that the Prussian Government as well as the French was not entirely exempt from internal dissensions.