So complicated and specious as was the strategy planned by the Emperor of the French, there is no doubt that M. de Bismarck penetrated it from the beginning, that he divined it, foresaw it in some way, even before it was completely fixed in the mind of its author, and we have on this subject a most striking proof. In the month of August, 1865, at the time when the first conferences were held between the two governments of Prussia and Italy against Austria, which were soon to interrupt the brusque conclusion of the armistice of Gastein, M. Nigra wrote to General La Marmora, being evidently inspired by the observations of his Prussian colleague at Paris, Count Goltz: "The cabinet of Berlin would not wish that, war once declared and begun, France should come, like the Neptune of Virgil, to dictate peace, lay down conditions, or convoke a congress at Paris."[56] Thus all is foreseen in those few lines written long before Biarritz, all up to that congress which a Napoleon III. would naturally not fail to extol one day or another, and which he in fact was to advance in the month of May, 1866. "The difficulty consists, then," continues M. Nigra in his dispatch, "in obtaining from France a promise of absolute neutrality. Will, or can, the Emperor Napoleon make this promise? Will he give it in writing as Prussia wishes it?" This promise of absolute neutrality M. de Bismarck certainly did not obtain at Biarritz (October, 1865), still less was there a question of any engagement in writing; but he learned there from august lips that Italy was right in wishing to "complete its unity," that it should not fail to profit by the first favorable occasion,—that France, for its part, was resolved to respect Germany, not to contradict on the other side of the Rhine the "national aspirations." Unless the map of Europe was to be modified to its detriment, France would preserve the neutrality, and this neutrality would not be other than "favorable" to a combination in which the interests of Italy were engaged. It is allowable to recall a reminiscence which is like a fragment of the conversations of Biarritz in this curious declaration, made six months afterwards by the president of the council of Prussia to General Govone,[57] "that apart from the profit which he might find in it, and with no regard for principles, the Emperor of the French would sooner approve the great war for the German nationality than the war for the Duchies of the Elbe!"
What, during his sojourn at Biarritz, could hardly have escaped a sagacious observer like M. de Bismarck, was the hold which his profound attachment for the country of Cavour and Manin had on the mind of Louis Napoleon; there was the key to the position, the real word of the Sphinx, and that certainty acquired, compensated in the eyes of the Prussian minister for many still disquieting doubts, made him pass over many a reticence of the august, taciturn man.[58] For certain reasons, he could even congratulate himself on the reserve which he preserved towards him, on the care which he took to avoid a discussion in detail; that released him on his part from any precise engagement, from any premature offer; it allowed him to confine himself to generalities, to make fantastic journeys over spaces and centuries,—and he neglected nothing. He spoke of Belgium and a part of Switzerland as the necessary and legitimate complement of French unity,—of the common action of France and Germany for the cause of progress and humanity,—of a future accord between Paris, Berlin, and Florence, even London and Washington, to conduct the destinies of Europe, to regulate those of the entire world, to lead, for instance, Russia to its real vocation in Asia and Austria to its civilizing mission on the Danube. How many times was seen on this henceforward historical coast of the Gulf of Biscay, the Emperor Napoleon slowly walking and leaning on the arm of Prosper Mérimée, while the president of the Prussian council followed him at a respectful distance, haranguing, gesticulating, and generally receiving for reply only a dull and slightly incredulous look, and how the thought remains to-day sadly fixed on this strange group of the romantic Cæsar, the romancing Cesarean and the terrible realist who, very obsequious at this moment towards his imperial host, four years later was to harshly assign him the prison of Wilhelmshoehe! From time to time Napoleon III. caused the author of "Colomba" to understand by a furtive pressure of the arm how amusing he found this diplomat with the futile imagination, this representative of a more than problematical Power, who so cleverly dismembered Europe and distributed the kingdoms. "He is crazy!" he even whispered one day in the ear of his companion; but, before recriminating a remark so cruelly expiated since, one can well recall the following passage of a dispatch which General Govone wrote the year after: "In speaking to me of Count Bismarck, M. Benedetti told me that he was, so to speak, a maniacal diplomat,"[59] and M. Benedetti took care to add that he had long known his man, that he had "followed" him for nearly fifteen years!
Is it not necessary in fact to be a little maniacal, to have that "little grain of folly" which Molière attributes to all great men, and which Boerhaave believes he finds in every great genius,[60] to launch the monarchy of Brandenburg into an adventure so eminently perilous as that of 1866? The minister of William I. remarked correctly, however, at Paris, that he would perhaps meet a second Olmütz, and his biographers quote a characteristic speech of his, "that death on the scaffold is under certain circumstances neither the most dishonorable nor the worst of deaths." In a diplomatic point of view, his only assurance was the profound love of Napoleon III. for the Italian cause, and after as before Biarritz the "Neptune of Virgil" arose, always menacing, free to pronounce his quos ego: the war once declared and begun, France could always dictate peace, lay down the conditions or convoke a congress. The whole point, then, was not to allow the benevolent neutrality of Napoleon III. the time to work those infallible changes; all that was necessary was to act quickly and well, to strike a blow at the beginning which should dictate peace to Vienna and respect to Paris; victory was only possible at this price! But, however, there has always been luck and misfortune in the affairs of this world,—"the all powerful God is capricious," according to the singular expression of M. de Bismarck at one of the most solemn moments,[61]—how far could one count on an army formed only a few years before, and which, as well as its chiefs, had never gone through a great campaign? An extraordinary circumstance in truth, and one which will never cease to be an astonishing fact in history, of the two eminent men who took upon themselves more especially the terrible responsibility of commencing the combat, neither of them had had a superior command, or had made his name illustrious on a historical field of battle! Before 1864, the only campaign in which General Moltke had ever assisted was that of Syria between the Turks and the Egyptians; in 1864 he had borne arms against his own country in that invasion of Denmark which was certainly not calculated to produce Turennes and Bonapartes. General de Roon had formed a part in 1832 of a "corps of observation" which watched the French besieging Antwerp, and had only distinguished himself since by books of military geography. "After all that we have heard said of these officers," General Govone wrote from Berlin on the 2d April, 1866, "the army is not enthusiastic for the war against Austria; there is rather in its ranks sympathy for the Austrian army. I know well that the war, once declared, the army will be electrified, and will do its duty bravely; but it is neither a spur nor a support for the policy which Count de Bismarck wishes to make prevail."[62]
As to public opinion in Germany, as to the national sentiment of the blond children of Arminius, far from finding there a "spur and support," the Prussian minister only met with repugnance and imprecations. All the Napoleonic ideology was necessary to see in the conflict which was preparing "the great war for German nationality," all the blindness of the authoritative and democratic press in France was necessary to assimilate the enterprise of M. de Bismarck on the other side of the Rhine to the work of Cavour in the peninsula. The German nationality was neither oppressed nor threatened from any quarter; none of the States of the Bund groaned under a foreign dominion; the ruling houses in Hanover, Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria, etc., were indigenous, antique and glorious, popular and liberal dynasties; the larger part of these countries enjoyed a constitutional and parliamentary system unknown at Berlin; the cities of Frankfort, Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen were even republics! To-day, when success has obscured the conscience and even the memory of contemporary generations, and when a sad philosophy of history is always on the point of justifying the present by falsifying the past, one is prepared to recognize the "providential," irresistible movement which drew Germany towards Prussian unity, and to almost call with M. de Bismarck the campaign of 1866 "a simple misunderstanding." The truth is that this campaign was a civil war, a fratricidal combat, and it was not only the Prussian people which repudiated the thought and even cursed its author on the eve of Sadowa. On the eve of Sadowa, the principal cities of the kingdom, Cologne, Magdeburg, Stittin, Minden, etc., sent addresses to the sovereign in favor of peace and against "a baleful policy of the cabinet," the great corporation of merchants of Koenigsberg, the city of Kant, even decided to no longer celebrate the king's birthday. On his arrival at Berlin, General Govone wrote: "Not only the upper classes, but even the middle classes are against or unfavorable to the war. This aversion shows itself in the popular journals; there is no hatred of Austria. More than that, although the chamber has neither great prestige nor great popularity, the debates still create adversaries for Count de Bismarck." Two months later, and at the approach of hostilities, he wrote: "Unfortunately the public mind in Prussia does not awaken in a perceptible manner, even face to face with a situation so decisive, so vital for the country."[63]
It is true that none of these obstacles were of a nature to disturb the president of the council at Berlin in his resolutions, nor to retard the course which was traced out. On the contrary there were quite other difficulties and falterings against which he stumbled in the court itself, with the old fogies of Potsdam, especially with his sovereign, and in many a circumstance the "iron count" could well say, like a certain cardinal, "that the cabinet of the king and his petit-coucher embarrassed him more than all Europe." In spite of the faith of William I. in his "mission from above," in spite of the equally strong resolution to preserve at any price his good port of Kiel, he did not the less look upon an open conflict with the Emperor of Austria, an act of hostility declared against this German sovereign who bore the venerated name of Hapsburg, as the last of extremities, and he did not wish to have recourse to it until after having exhausted all the means of an amiable settlement. For the extreme case, and in opposition to Napoleon III., he also greatly preferred the little war for the Duchies to "the great war for German nationality;" but what he disliked above all things, was the idea of a compact with Italy, a veritable compact, offensive and defensive, in place of a "generic" treaty with a vague declaration of alliance and friendship, and only destined, as one had persuaded him from the first, to make Austria reflect and bring it to an adjustment. He, the loyal Hohenzollern, to make war on a Hapsburg on joint and equal terms with a Welche,—he, the Lord's anointed, the old combatant of the holy alliance, to become the brother in arms of a Victor Emmanuel, that representative of revolution, that usurper who had overthrown so many legitimate princes, besieged and dethroned his own nephew, and made Garibaldi in a red shirt sit near him, in the coach of the king!
The faltering and compunctions on this point were very sincere. Notwithstanding what has been said, nothing less than the marvelous art of M. de Bismarck was necessary to triumph in the end over these "syncopes" of the mission, to operate on these tumors of the conscience. "There is my doctor!" said the old monarch of Prussia one day to a Russian princess who congratulated him on his good health, pointing to his first minister.[64] The difficulty of gaining over the king, of triumphing over his superstitions, over the old ideas, over his legitimist scruples,—these words were continually on the lips of M. de Bismarck in the confidential interviews of the spring of 1866, which the valuable reports of General Govone have so fortunately preserved for posterity. Assuredly, in studying those reports, as well as the other dispatches which M. le Marquis La Marmora wished very much to deliver to the public, one can enjoy the spectacle of a comedy in five different acts, all doing little honor to human nature; one can ask who bears away the palm in duplicity of language, and in æs triplex of the forehead, the grandsons of Machiavelli or the heirs of the Teutonic order; one can admire there how, to use an ingenuous expression of the Italian negotiator, the Southern viper attempts to bite the charlatan of the North, and the charlatan puts his foot on the viper.[65] What, however, is the most curious and the most instructive in these documents is the quantity of matters which the president of the Prussian council succeeded in this short space of some months in teaching his august master, a still greater quantity than he had made him forget. Without doubt, one of the most remarkable of these forgetfulnesses is a certain word of honor given in June, 1866, by a very august personage to the Emperor Francis Joseph, that there was no treaty signed with Italy,[66] when that treaty, a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance in good and due form, already counted at this moment two months of existence, which had been signed at Berlin the 8th April by the respective plenipotentiaries, ratified by the King of Italy at Florence on the 14th, and then ratified on the 20th by the King of Prussia at Berlin.
By the side of official Italy, the minister of William I. had taken care to equally attach discontented Italy, which murmured in the shallows of the young monarchy, and General La Marmora complains on several occasions, in his interesting book, "of the intimate and cordial relations which the minister of Prussia at Florence, Count d'Usedom, entertained with some members of the party of action," and whose untoward advice it followed only too often. On his part, the consul of Prussia at Bucharest held in hand (February, 1866) the thread of a conspiracy which was to bring about the fall of the Prince Couza, and make a considerable difference in the action of the government at Berlin. "Liberalism is childishness which it is easy to bring to reason; but revolution is a force of which it is necessary to know how to avail one's self," the cavalier of the Mark one day said at Paris, and he did not delay to prove the two truths of his aphorism. It is known that his relations with Mazzini were kept up a long time even after Sadowa,[67] and the engagements contracted in 1866 towards Prussia by the Magyar chiefs have since influenced, influence still at the present time, and much more than is generally thought, the external policy of the empire of the Hapsburg. It was also in the conventicles of the men of the European revolution where the fantastic plan of campaign was worked out, which M. d'Usedom wished to force on General La Marmora in his famous dispatch of the 17th June;[68] in it he recommended making war thoroughly, to overturn the quadrilateral, to march along the Adriatic, to penetrate into Hungary, which would at once rise at the name of Garibaldi: "we will thus strike Austria, not at the extremities, but at the heart!" As to the endeavor to form, under the orders of the refugee General Klapka, a legion composed of deserters from the Austrian army, the president of the Prussian council greatly wished to affirm before the chambers of Berlin, in his celebrated speech of the 16th January, 1874, that he had rejected with energy all those projects at the beginning of the war. "It was not until after the battle of Sadowa, at the moment when the Emperor Napoleon III., by a telegraphic dispatch, had caused the possibility of his intervention to be seen,—it was not till then, and as an act of legitimate defense, that I did not order but only tolerated the formation of this Hungarian legion." Unfortunately, the dates are not quite in accord with the declarations of the present chancellor of Germany. The battle of Sadowa was fought the 3d July; but on the 12th June, M. de Bismarck let the Italian government know that it had definitely accepted the aid of the Sclavic and Hungarian defections,[69] and it is established by evidence that, long before Sadowa, even before any beginning of war, the Prussian government had had recourse to a means which, according to the chancellor's own expressions, "would excite to revolt and treason the Magyar and Dalmatian regiments of the Austrian army." Let us not forget, however, that, while treating with Mazzini and M. Klapka, the minister of William I. was not sparing in denouncing to Europe the Jacobin spirit of the House of Hapsburg: "The king, our august master," said a Prussian dispatch of the 26th January, 1866, "is grievously affected at seeing in the Duchies of the Elbe, and under the ægis of the Austrian eagle, revolutionary tendencies, hostile to all thrones. If at Vienna they believe that they can tranquilly assist in this transformation of a race distinguished up to the present time by its conservative sentiments into a hot-bed of revolutionary agitations, we cannot do it for our part, and we are decided not to do it."
It was in the midst of such dark intrigues, and of negotiations more or less regular, of preparations for war and a continual exchange of notes, of parliamentary conflicts and of almost continual daily combats with the "old fogies" of the court, that the first six months of the year 1866 passed for the president of the council at Berlin, and rarely has a statesman lived through a more troubled or disturbed period. The waves of events first cast him ashore, then threw him back again, and seemed to remove him farther than ever from his goal. The revolution in Roumania, and the election of Prince Hohenzollern by the people of Bucharest, was, for instance, a great stroke of fortune, for this incident brusquely shut a door through which, in the opinion of more than one politician at that time, the Venetian question might have resulted in peace,[70] and it was through efforts of the French, who had contributed to the installation of the young Prussian prince on the banks of the Danube! However, immediately after, M. de Bismarck was again aroused from his security by vague rumors of conferences between Austria and France, touching the city of Saint Mark. He, at least, profited by them to persuade the king to sign the secret treaty of the 8th April with the government of Florence; but soon the offer of disarming, made by the cabinet of Vienna, the debates in the midst of the legislative body, and the manifestations of public opinion in France, more and more favorable to the cause of peace, produced a despairing lull, and again gave courage to the numerous partisans of Austria at the court of William I. The Emperor Napoleon III. then rendered to the Prussian minister the signal service of again putting in motion the great political machine which began to slacken. He made the speech of Auxerre (6th May), and defied, with scorn, the treaties of 1815. That did not, however, prevent him from immediately baffling all the plans of M. de Bismarck, by the sudden proposition of a congress, and, at this new occurrence, which seemed to compromise everything, the president of the council at Berlin spoke for the first time of compensations for France. "I am much less German than Prussian," he said to General Govone; "I would not have any difficulty in ceding to France the whole country comprised between the Rhine and Mosel, but the king would have very grave scruples."[71] Let it be well understood, he would in return demand of the French government an active coöperation in the war. But what did not enter at all into the views of Napoleon III. was, that the state of opinion in France did not even permit it to be thought of. In the interim, he learned that new negotiations had just been entered on between Austria and France concerning Venice, and that on the other side the king was making, without his knowledge, propositions to the Emperor Francis Joseph for an amicable arrangement: William I. always preferred the little question of the Duchies to the great war for the German nationality! One can surmise what must have been at this moment the state of mind of the minister who, for so many months, complained before the Count de Barral, Italian plenipotentiary at Berlin, of being betrayed by his agents at London, at Florence, and at Paris. Moreover, he considered his life in danger since an attack made on his person the 7th May; he was not without uneasiness about his sojourn at Paris during the congress in which he was going to take part, and which he dreaded for so many other reasons. "He does not go out unaccompanied," wrote the Count de Barral, the 1st June, "and agents of French police will come as far as the frontier to follow him during the whole journey."[72]
The journey did not take place, as is known; Prussia, in the words of M. d'Usedom, was "rescued from the congress," and Prince Gortchakof contributed largely to this work of salvation. Always a ready friend, he was the first to think that the projected conference had no "practical aim" with the reservations which Austria wished to bring to it,[73] and thus gave the signal for the general overthrow. From that time M. de Bismarck set himself to "work on the mind of his royal master," and he ended by freeing him from all scruples. "His majesty," Count de Barral telegraphed even on the 23d May from Berlin, "was very much moved at the situation, of which he spoke with great tears in his eyes." Two weeks later, the 8th June, the king wept no longer, but "he still had in his voice something sad, indicating clearly the decision of a resigned man, who believed that he could not act differently. His majesty told me that he had full confidence in the justice of his cause. I have a clear conscience," he added, with a moved air, and placing his hand on his heart; "for a long time I have been accused of wishing war for ambitious views, but now the whole world knows who is the aggressor."[74]
"I will return via Vienna or Munich, or I will charge with the last squadron, which will never return," M. de Bismarck said to a foreign ambassador, at the moment of leaving Berlin for the head-quarters, the 30th June, 1866. Two days later he was already at Jitschin, on the field still smoking from a great battle which had just been fought there. "I have just arrived," he wrote to his wife from Jitschin; "the ground is still heaped up with corpses, horses, and arms. Our victories are much greater than we thought.... Send me some French romances to read, but not more than one at a time. May God keep you!" This was written the 2d July, 1866; the next day the battle of Sadowa was fought; the next day Germany was at the feet of this singular lover of French romances; and the Emperor Napoleon III. was sadly awakened from his own romance, from his long humanitarian dream. Like the Titania of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," imperial France saw all at once that, in a state of inconceivable hallucination, she had caressed a monster.