Lord Clarendon to Lord Lyons.
Foreign Office, March 16, 1869.
We are very anxious about the Belgian business because more or less convinced that the Emperor is meaning mischief and intending to establish unfriendly relations with Belgium preparatory to ulterior designs. It is very imprudent on his part, and he will only reap disappointment, for even if he meditates war with Prussia he could not undertake it upon a worse pretext or one less likely to win public opinion to his side, as it would wantonly entail an interruption, to use a mild term, of friendly relations with England. It is unnecessary to say that we attach extreme importance to the maintenance unimpaired of those relations, and it is therefore our paramount duty to omit no effort for that object.
I have accordingly, by the unanimous desire of the Cabinet, written you a despatch calling the serious attention of the French Government to the dangerous eventualities that we see looming in the distance, but the mode of dealing with that despatch may be delicate and difficult, and we therefore leave the decision on that point to your discretion. You can either read it, or tell the substance of it at once to La Valette, or you may keep it for a short time until some crisis arrives when it could best be turned to account. I feel that this is rather hard upon you, and I would much rather have been more precise, but, on the spot, you will be such a much better judge of opportunity than I can pretend to be here, and if the warning is to have any success it will depend on its being given at the right moment and in the right manner.'
One cannot help wondering whether a similar confidence in an Ambassador's judgment is still shown at the present day, the views of the so-called 'man on the spot' being now generally at a considerable discount. In this case, Lord Lyons gave reasons showing that the warning was not needed, and would not be of any advantage to Belgium, while complaining that he disliked going about with a live shell in his pocket. A few days later, however, Lord Clarendon wrote again saying that he thought that the warning would have to be addressed shortly, as public opinion in England was beginning to become excited, and attacks were being made upon the Government for not using stronger language or showing its determination to stand by Belgium, while the King of the Belgians was anxious to make his woes known through the English press. 'If,' said Lord Clarendon, 'the Emperor attaches value to the English Alliance he ought not to sacrifice it by a sneaking attempt to incorporate Belgium by means of a railway company and its employés. If he wants war it is a bad pretext for doing that which all mankind will blame him for.'
It was not unnatural that Lord Clarendon should have felt uneasy at the threatening development of this apparently insignificant railway difficulty, because it was plain that the one object which the Belgians were bent upon was to entangle us in their concerns, and to make us responsible for their conduct towards France; nor, again, was this an unreasonable proceeding upon their part, for Belgium was an artificial state, and as dependent upon foreign guarantees for her existence as Holland was dependent upon her dykes. Perhaps in order to reassure the British Government, Marshal Niel's aide-de-camp and General Fleury were sent over to London in April. They brought a message from the Marshal to the effect that France was ready for anything, and that the Emperor had only to give the word; but that to begin by a rupture with England about a miserable Belgian difference would be a sottise. These visitors did more to convince the French Ambassador in London that there was no danger of war than all his correspondence with the French Foreign Office, but Lord Clarendon continued to be apprehensive of the influence excited upon the Emperor by shady financiers and by an untrustworthy representative at Brussels.
Lord Clarendon to Lord Lyons.
Foreign Office, April 19, 1869.
I have never, as you know, felt any confidence in the soft sayings and assurances of the French Government, but I did not think they would have exposed the cloven foot so soon and completely as they have done. No affair has given me so much pain since my return to this place, and I foresee that out of it will grow serious complications and an end to those friendly relations between England and France that are so advantageous to both countries and which have had an important influence on the politics of Europe.
What provokes me is that sales tripotages should be at the bottom of it all, and upon that I have reliable information. I know of all the jobbery and pots de vin that are passing, and yet it is to fill the pockets of half a dozen rascals, just as in the case of Mexico, that the Emperor allows himself to be dragged through the mud and to imperil the most manifest interests of France.
The policy of the French Government is perfectly understood at Berlin, where the leading object of Bismarck is to detach us from France. We might to-morrow, if we pleased, enter into a coalition with Prussia against France for the protection of Belgian independence, which is a European and not an exclusively French question; but we will do nothing of the kind so long as there is a hope that France will act with common honesty. I wish you would speak seriously to La Valette about the tripoteurs, and represent the disgrace to his Government of playing the game of such people, which will all come out and be known in the same way as the Jecker bonds are now unanimously acknowledged to have been the cause of that fatal Mexican expedition.
I send you rather a curious despatch from Loftus. Bismarck's ways are inscrutable, and he is never to be relied upon, but he has had a union with us against France in his head ever since the Belgian business began, for Bernstorff, who never speaks without instructions, has said on more than one occasion to Gladstone and to me that though Prussia would not undertake to defend Belgium single-handed, as that country concerned England more nearly than Prussia, yet that we had but to say the word, and we should soon come to terms. I treated this, as did Gladstone, rather as a façon de parler and a ruse to detach us from France, which is Bismarck's main object, as I did not choose that Bernstorff should have to report the slightest encouragement to the suggestion, but it may come to that after all.