How is it that Mr. Bourassa, so fond of charging England with ambitious views of constant self-agrandizement, of worldly domination, can suddenly turn about and accuse her of having shamefully sacrificed France, in 1870, to the overpowering German blow?
The circumstances of the two cases—1870 and 1914—were very different. The conflict of 1870 had, apparently at least, a dynastic cause. The House of Hohenzollern had been intriguing to have a Prussian prince of her own elevated to the Spanish Throne. The Imperial Government of Napoleon III strongly objected to such a policy. The diplomatic correspondence which ensued did not settle the difficulty. France declared war against Prussia. Many years later it was discovered that by a falsified diplomatic despatch, Bismark had succeeded in his satanic design to bring the government of Napoleon III to attack Prussia, thus shamefully throwing upon France the responsibility of the war.
In 1870, England was at peace with all the European Powers, as she had ever been since 1815, with the only exception of the Crimean War. During the diplomatic correspondence that led to the hostilities, what reason would have justified England to break her neutrality? What would the present critics of her course have said if she had sided with Prussia? Would they have pretended that she would have used Prussia as a shield against France?
I personally remember very well the tragic events of the terrible year, 1870. The crushing military power of Prussia as proved by the triumphant march of her victorious armies, was a revelation for all, for France still more than for others. True Prussia had beaten Austria in the short campaign ended at Sadowa. The Prussia France was then fighting was not the giant Empire against which she is battling with such heroism for the last four years. France was at the time the leading continental Power. The general opinion was, when war was suddenly declared, that France would easily triumph over her enemy.
It must not be forgotten that, in 1870, England was even less ready than in 1914 to engage in a continental conflict. Her standing army was not large, and then partly garrisoned in the colonies. Some of her best regiments were stationed in Canada. She could have been a really important ally of France only as a strong support of another continental power joining with her against Prussia, for instance Russia or Austria, or both of them.
If England had been able to send 500,000 men in a few days to the very heart of France, incessantly followed by another half million, it is almost certain that the Prussian army would not have entered Paris. But England had not that million of trained men. It would have taken at least a year to organize such a large army.
I will speak my mind openly. After Sedan, any attempt at saving France by force would have been vain and useless. Even Russia and Austria were unprepared for such a task. Their intervention, coming too late, would most likely have given Prussia a chance to win a much greater victory. France out of the struggle, Prussia would then have had the opportunity to achieve, as early as 1870, what she has ever since prepared for, and tried to accomplish by the war she has brought on in 1914.
What then becomes of the "Nationalist" pretention that Great Britain has ever been aiming at dominating the world, when it is so easy to understand that without a very large territorial army, which she persistingly refused to organize, she was unable to take an important part in any continental war. The days were passed, after the extraordinary development of Prussian militarism, when she could brilliantly hold her own on the continent with a small standing army backed by generous subsidies to the European powers. The present war is surely proof evident of it, since England, instead of the two hundred thousand men she was expected to send over to France, as her man-power contribution, has had to raise a total army, with all the auxiliary services, of 6,000,000 officers and men, exclusive of the 2,000,000 contributed by the whole British Colonial Empire.
The Nationalists accusing England to have abandoned France to her sad fate, in 1870, was only another instance of their campaign to arouse the feelings of the French Canadians against Great Britain.
Other "Nationalist" Erroneous Assertions.