"International policy is a fluid element which, under certain conditions, will solidify, but, on a change of atmosphere, reverts to its original condition."--Bismarck's Reflections and Reminiscences.
It is one thing to build up a system of States: it is quite another thing to guarantee their existence. As in the life of individuals, so in that of nations, longevity is generally the result of a sound constitution, a healthy environment, and prudent conduct. That the new States of Europe possessed the first two of these requisites will be obvious to all who remember that they are co-extensive with those great limbs of Humanity, nations. Yet even so they needed protection from the intrigues of jealous dynasties and of dispossessed princes or priests, which have so often doomed promising experiments to failure. It is therefore essential to our present study to observe the means which endowed the European system with stability.
Here again the master-builder was Bismarck. As he had concentrated all the powers of his mind on the completion of German unity (with its natural counterpart in Italy), so, too, he kept them on the stretch for its preservation. For two decades his policy bestrode the continent like a Colossus. It rested on two supporting ideas. The one was the maintenance of alliance with Russia, which had brought the events of the years 1863-70 within the bounds of possibility; the other aim was the isolation of France. Subsidiary notions now and again influenced him, as in 1884 when he sought to make bad blood between Russia and England in Central Asian affairs (see Chapter XIV.), or to busy all the Powers in colonial undertakings: but these considerations were secondary to the two main motives, which at one point converged and begot a haunting fear (the realisation of which overclouded his last years) that Russia and France would unite against Germany.
In order, as he thought, to obviate for ever a renewal of the "policy of Tilsit" of the year 1807, he sought to favour the establishment of the Republic in France. In his eyes, the more Radical it was the better: and when Count von Arnim, the German ambassador at Paris, ventured to contravene his instructions in this matter, he subjected him to severe reproof and finally to disgrace. However harsh in his methods, Bismarck was undoubtedly right in substance. The main consideration was that which he set forth in his letter of December 20, 1872, to the Count:--"We want France to leave us in peace, and we have to prevent France finding an ally if she does not keep the peace. As long as France has no allies she is not dangerous to Germany." A monarchical reaction, he thought, might lead France to accord with Russia or Austria. A Republic of the type sought for by Gambetta could never achieve that task. Better, then, the red flag waving at Paris than the fleur-de-lys.
Still more important was it to bring about complete accord between the three empires. Here again the red spectre proved to be useful. Various signs seemed to point to socialism as the common enemy of them all. The doctrines of Bakunin, Herzen, and Lassalle had already begun to work threateningly in their midst, and Bismarck discreetly used this community of interest in one particular to bring about an agreement on matters purely political. In the month of September 1872 he realised one of his dearest hopes. The Czar, Alexander II., and the Austrian Emperor, Francis Joseph, visited Berlin, where they were most cordially received. At that city the chancellors of the three empires exchanged official memoranda--there seems to have been no formal treaty[242]--whereby they agreed to work together for the following purposes: the maintenance of the boundaries recently laid down, the settlement of problems arising from the Eastern Question, and the repression of revolutionary movements in Europe.
Such was the purport of the Three Emperors' League of 1872. There is little doubt that Bismarck had worked on the Czar, always nervous as to the growth of the Nihilist movement in Russia, in order to secure his adhesion to the first two provisions of the new compact, which certainly did not benefit Russia. The German Chancellor has since told us that, as early as the month of September 1870, he sought to form such a league, with the addition of the newly-united Italian realm, in order to safeguard the interests of monarchy against republicans and revolutionaries[243]. After the lapse of two years his wish took effect, though Italy as yet did not join the cause of order. The new league stood forth as the embodiment of autocracy and a terror to the dissatisfied, whether revengeful Gauls, Danes, or Poles, intriguing cardinals--it was the time of the "May Laws"--or excited men who waved the red flag. It was a new version of the Holy Alliance formed after Waterloo by the monarchs of the very same Powers, which, under the plea of watching against French enterprises, succeeded in bolstering up despotism on the Continent for a whole generation.
Fortunately for the cause of liberty, the new league had little of the solidity of its predecessor. Either because the dangers against which it guarded were less serious, or owing to the jealousies which strained its structure from within, signs of weakness soon appeared, and the imposing fabric was disfigured by cracks which all the plastering of diplomatists failed to conceal. An eminent Russian historian, M. Tatischeff, has recently discovered the hidden divulsive agency. It seems that, not long after the formation of the Three Emperors' League, Germany and Austria secretly formed a separate compact, whereby the former agreed eventually to secure to the latter due compensation in the Balkan Peninsula for her losses in the wars of 1859 and 1866 (Lombardy, Venetia, and the control of the German Confederation, along with Holstein)[244].
That is, the two Central Powers in 1872 secretly agreed to take action in the way in which Austria advanced in 1877-78, when she secured Herzegovina. When and to what extent Russian diplomatists became aware of this separate agreement is not known, but their suspicion or their resentment appears to have prompted them to the unfriendly action towards Germany which they took in the year 1875. According to the Bismarck Reflections and Reminiscences, the Russian Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, felt so keenly jealous of the rapid rise of the German Chancellor to fame and pre-eminence as to spread "the lie" that Germany was about to fall upon France. Even the uninitiated reader might feel some surprise that the Russian Chancellor should have endangered the peace of Europe and his own credit as a statesman for so slight a motive; but it now seems that Bismarck's assertion must be looked on as a "reflection," not as a "reminiscence."
The same remark may perhaps apply to his treatment of the "affair of 1875," which largely determined the future groupings of the Powers. At that time the recovery of France from the wounds of 1870 was well nigh complete; her military and constitutional systems were taking concrete form; and in the early part of the year 1875 the Chambers decreed a large increase to the armed forces in the form of "the fourth battalions." At once the military party at Berlin took alarm, and through their chief, Moltke, pressed on the Emperor William the need of striking promptly at France. The Republic, so they argued, could not endure the strain which it now voluntarily underwent; the outcome must be war; and war at once would be the most statesmanlike and merciful course. Whether the Emperor in any way acceded to these views is not known. He is said to have more than once expressed a keen desire to end his reign in peace.
The part which Bismarck played at this crisis is also somewhat obscure. If the German Government wished to attack France, the natural plan would have been to keep that design secret until the time for action arrived. But it did not do so. Early in the month of April, von Radowitz, a man of high standing at the Court of Berlin, took occasion to speak to the French ambassador, de Gontaut-Biron, at a ball, and warned him in the most significant manner of the danger of war owing to the increase of French armaments. According to de Blowitz, the Paris correspondent of the Times (who had his information direct from the French Premier, the Duc Decazes), Germany intended to "bleed France white" by compelling her finally to pay ten milliards of francs in twenty instalments, and by keeping an army of occupation in her Eastern Departments until the last half-milliard was paid. The French ambassador also states in his account of these stirring weeks that Bismarck had mentioned to the Belgian envoy the impossibility of France keeping up armaments, the outcome of which must be war[245].