As regards our attitude towards Prussia, he found that we were lacking in cleverness. He was convinced that we were uselessly stimulating the appetite of our enemy by our attitude and that we ought to have said exactly the contrary to what was the gist of our language to Prussia.
“You make yourselves out too rich,” he added. “You repeat to M. de Bismarck: money, as much money as you like, but no provinces. These are bad tactics! You do not know your enemy. He will take both your money and your provinces.
“Tell him, on the contrary, that you are poor, that the war has exhausted your resources and that you are no longer capable of paying a large indemnity. Give up Alsace. It is an inevitable necessity and you cannot escape from this calamity. Who can say what the future has not in store for us? A province lost is not necessarily a province lost for ever, while as to your millions, you will never see them again.”
He then went on to examine the resources of Germany in their turn—and he knew them well—and admitting for a moment the most favourable chances that could still befall us, M. de Beust, after having weighed and calculated everything, concluded as he had commenced. He thought it impossible to resist the forces that had invaded France. Any continuation of the conflict was a useless sacrifice. We should only exhaust the country without being able to hope for any result. And he sincerely advised us to stop the struggle and conclude peace as quickly as possible, because the more we delayed, the greater would be the demands of the conqueror. “To-day rather than to-morrow,” said he. We had already shrunk too long from facing the facts.
He would have liked to see an assembly of the Representatives of the Nation, but he freely admitted that in order to have elections we should have need of an armistice and the revictualling of Paris, which appeared difficult to obtain.
I took the opportunity offered by this remark to revert to my former demand for an effective intervention on the part of Austria in concert with the other Powers. Commencing with the desirability of convoking a National Assembly, I went on to say that an armistice and the revictualling of Paris, which would have allowed us to hold elections, were exactly the things that Prussia had refused.
“Perhaps,” said I, “Prussia may change her mind on this question and perhaps also allow of more tolerable conditions of peace if she sees that France is not isolated.” And I added that, if my information was accurate, the populace of the Austrian Empire was disposed to intervene, and that public opinion would see in helping France an opportunity of avenging Austria’s own defeat of 1866.
The Hungarians in particular had been reported to me as fervent admirers of France. They would rise in a body to help us if the Government did not prevent them.
But this was far from being M. de Beust’s view.
There was certainly great and sincere sympathy for the French cause everywhere in the Austrian monarchy. But one must not exaggerate. To conclude from this that a war against Germany would be a popular war in Austria would be a great exaggeration and a great mistake. “Besides,” said he, lowering his voice, “we are absolutely lacking in the material means for a campaign.” And he frankly explained the whole situation that I have previously described and everywhere insisted that: “We are not armed, and it is too late and too dangerous to mobilise now.”