From Munich, my last stopping-place, I went direct to Vienna.
CHAPTER XI
IN AUSTRIA
From the first day of my arrival, it was clear to me that the good people of Austria were with us in their hearts and were praying for our success—but that was all. Our Ambassador, who was to present me to the Imperial Chancellor, did not leave me in ignorance that the Imperial Court had made its decision, and that I could obtain nothing from the Austrian Cabinet. The latter was firmly resolved not to depart from the most strict and absolute neutrality.
I was not long in convincing myself that this information was perfectly accurate and, at my first interview with M. de Beust, at that time Imperial Chancellor, I became assured that Austria was not in a condition to accord the effective intervention necessary to carry weight with Germany.
I have purposely said that Austria was not in a condition to, that she could not intervene effectively, because this was the truth and because if I said that she would not do so, it would perhaps be doing her an injustice. It was not the goodwill that was lacking, but the power.
That was exactly the great misfortune of our situation; not a single power in Europe was prepared for any kind of action: none was in a position for action.
In 1870 Europe was not expecting war. Among all the living and active nations, from the Ocean to the Ural Mountains, from the Mediterranean to the North Pole, only one Power was on the watch and getting ready. Only one Power was prepared at the moment of shock, and that Power was exactly the one which France, herself unready, had chosen for an enemy. Outside Prussia no one in Europe had foreseen war, and no one was armed or in condition for a campaign.
The declaration of war in 1870 had burst unexpectedly in the midst of peaceable Europe like a thunder-clap which shakes the earth in the middle of a calm spring day.