CHRISTIAN IX., KING OF DENMARK.
Danes played the part of the big boy who was bullying the little one. When they were asked to hold their harsh hand by stronger Powers they pleaded their weakness as an excuse for their tyranny. The bad motives of the champions of the Sleswig-Holsteiners, however, did not affect the rights or wrongs of their clients. Moreover, Englishmen quite mistook the German argument, which was this: The German Powers who sanctioned the Treaty of London did not allege that it was null and void because Denmark had not kept the engagements of 1851. They said that Frederick VII. had died before he had lawfully established in his kingdom the order of succession which the Treaty sanctioned, and which, had Denmark stood by her engagements, they would have had no difficulty in supporting. This being the case, they were, they said, entitled to repudiate a Treaty which was illegal in the eyes of international law, till ratified by the German Diet, by the Sleswig-Holsteiners, and by the heirs to the Duchies who had been set aside by it.
So far as the Queen was concerned, Palmerston’s arguments had no effect on her mind. She had warned him that the change in the Danish succession, effected by the Treaty of London, was illegal, and would one day be disputed. It might have been legalised by a fait accompli—that is to say, if the Germans in the Duchies had been induced to accept the change by a conciliatory policy. On the contrary, the policy of the Danes had been so offensively anti-German, that the Sleswig-Holsteiners were more opposed to the Treaty than ever. Moreover, Germans all over the Fatherland were with them, and it was therefore idle to ask German Sovereigns to risk revolution by forcing on Germans in the Duchies an oppressive foreign government. To propose English intervention was equally objectionable to the Queen. She was firmly convinced that the English people wanted peace and not war, and that the integrity of a petty Northern State was not, in their opinion, essential to their Imperial existence. Her Majesty laid her finger at the outset on the point of folly in Palmerston’s policy, which was the maintenance of the Treaty of 1852. Would Englishmen consent to levy war on the German race to uphold an instrument which the carelessness of English diplomatists, in refusing to obtain legal ratifications, had rendered invalid? And then what would men of business say when asked to bear the burden of such a war, to uphold a Treaty that thrust dynasty on a people who did not want it? Curiously enough, the same line of argument was subsequently taken by Mr. Cobden, though he did not know the secret history of the Treaty of London. “In 1852,” said he, “by the mischievous activity of our Foreign Office, seven diplomatists were brought round a green table in London to settle the destinies of a million of people in the two provinces of Sleswig and Holstein without the slightest reference to the wants and wishes, and the tendencies or interests, of that people. The preamble of the Treaty which was then and there agreed to, stated that what those seven diplomatists were going to do was to maintain the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and to sustain the balance of power in Europe. Kings, emperors, princes, were represented at that meeting, but the people had not the slightest voice or right in the matter. They settled the Treaty, the object of which was to draw closer the bonds between those two provinces and Denmark. The tendency of the great majority of the people of these provinces—about a million of them altogether—was altogether in the direction of Germany. From that time to this year the Treaty was followed by constant agitation and discord; two wars have sprung out of it, and it has ended in the Treaty being torn to pieces by two of the Governments who were prominent parties to the Treaty.”[183] Still, the Queen was so desirous of peace that she did not refuse her sanction to proposals of compromise which were from time to time made by Lord Russell, but which proved abortive. In one of these, addressed to the German Diet on the 31st of December, 1863, Lord Russell said that England “demands, in the interests of peace,” (1), a Conference of the signatory powers in London to compose the dispute, and (2), the establishment of the status quo till this Conference finished its labours—one of those “demands” which, according to Sir Alexander Malet, Herr von Bismarck treated with “disdain.”[184]
Anxious Cabinet meetings were held in January, and reports of Ministerial dissensions flew round. Projects for giving the Danes material support seem to have been broached, but, according to Lord Malmesbury, writing on the 29th of January, the Ministry found “great difficulties in the opposition of the Queen.”[185] In these circumstances Lord Palmerston, knowing that the Tory Party were ready to support him in defending Denmark, began to look to Lord Derby for aid. To his colleagues he said, “If we do not begin the war, the Tories will turn us out in order to do it themselves.”[186] But here he was again foiled. The Queen had an interview with Lord Derby at Osborne, which ended in the leader of the Opposition becoming convinced that the integrity of the Danish Kingdom was a mere phrase involving no British interest which justified a war—an opinion which Mr. Disraeli enforced in private when he scornfully described the “integrity of Denmark” not as “a phrase,” but as “humbug.” He told Count Vitzthum, that he believed if Denmark ever again possessed a fleet she “would fight in the next war not for England, but for Russia and France.”[187] As for making war with France for an ally—another Palmerstonian idea—Lord Derby was asked whether that did not mean sacrificing Antwerp to save Copenhagen? There thus remained for Palmerston but one more chance of committing the country before Parliament met, and that was by inserting a bellicose paragraph into the Royal Speech. Again he was thwarted by the Queen’s opposition. Her Majesty refused to sanction a threatening speech, and her objections were sustained by a majority of the Cabinet, much to Palmerston’s chagrin. “It was not,” says Count Vitzthum, “till the day before Parliament opened, that her Majesty approved the colourless speech which was read on her behalf. Every one,” he adds, “was waiting with the keenest anxiety for the debate on the Address, and the House of Lords was crowded when Lord Derby (February 4) rose to make his three hours’ speech. I stood on the steps of the throne, close by the front railings. It so chanced that Lord Palmerston, who had been fetched by the Duke of Argyll, was standing next to me, and thus I was able to watch the impression produced on the Prime Minister by the eloquence of his opponent. The House listened with breathless silence to Lord Derby’s solemn admonitions on behalf of peace, in which he enlarged with statesmanlike tact and rare skill on the proposition that a war with Germany would be the gravest calamity to England. A perfect storm of applause was the orator’s reward, and Lord Palmerston left the House in evident uneasiness.”[188] And no wonder. He knew that his colleagues would now be all the more disposed for peace, for it was only too obvious that the result of Lord Derby’s interview with the Queen at Osborne had been a pledge that he would not permit his party to aid the Prime Minister in goading the country into war. “That particular danger,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was over. Twice more, however, in the course of that Session did Lord Palmerston attempt to drag the Cabinet along with him and carry his project of a war. Each time he was outvoted. Thrice did the Queen gain a victory over the would-be Dictator in the bosom of his own Cabinet.”[189] The criticism of the Tory chiefs was, however, directed to raise general distrust in Palmerston’s foreign policy as a whole. Lord Derby described it as one of “meddle and muddle.” “Nihil intactum reliquit,” observed Lord Derby, laughingly, “nihil tetigit quod non conturbavit.” In the meantime the whole question was passing out of the sphere of diplomacy.
On the 14th of January, Austria and Prussia asked the Diet to sanction the occupation of Sleswig, pending the withdrawal of the obnoxious Constitution incorporating Sleswig in Danish territory, and all fulfilment by Denmark of her engagements to respect the civic privileges of all Germans in the Duchies. The Diet considered that the Danes might comply with the German demand, and thus recover the Duchies. Hence the Austro-Prussian proposal was defeated, the ostensible reason given by the Diet being that it had no jurisdiction beyond Holstein. Prussia and Austria then intimated that they would themselves occupy Sleswig. The Prussian Chamber, adopting the view of the Diet, refused to grant the Government supplies, because, as Herr Schultze-Delitzsch said, this policy could only lead to the restoration of the Duchies to Denmark. Von Bismarck’s retort was “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.[190] If you refuse supplies, the Government will take them in spite of you.” Austria, eager to recover the military prestige she had lost in Italy, and alarmed at the progress which democracy was making every day in the Duchies, perhaps also somewhat afraid lest Prussia might win all the glory of a strong and resolute pan-German policy, joined Prussia, thereby striking a mortal blow at the authority of the moribund Germanic Confederation among the German-speaking race. On the 1st of February the Austro-Prussian Army of occupation crossed the Eider, which was the answer the allies gave to Lord Russell’s “demand” for a Conference and the establishment of the status quo. Within a week the Danes were driven northwards behind their fortifications in Düppel—their last line of defence in Sleswig. Lord
THE PRUSSIANS STORMING THE REDOUBTS OF DÜPPEL.
Palmerston, who had imagined that they could gain time for him by holding the Dannewerk, now found that he had made a sad mistake. The English Government accordingly implored France and Russia to join England in giving moral and material support to Denmark. But Von Bismarck, though still opposed by the Prussian Chamber, laughed at Palmerston’s efforts to roll back the tide of German conquest. “He had,” as his biographer says, “already taken care to be sure of his men, in expectation of such a contingency. Russia, as we have seen, had been laid under a counter-obligation to Prussia by the services of the latter in the matter of the Polish insurrection.”[191] As for France, she had been propitiated by a favourable Commercial Treaty, and Napoleon III. was reminded that it was not Prussia, who had accepted, but England, who had refused to accept, his project for an European Congress of Sovereigns in 1863, who had dealt a cruel blow at his prestige. Palmerston now awoke to the painful fact that there was another obstacle in the way of carrying out a war policy. He and Lord Russell had left England without a single ally in Europe. In vain did the two Ministers struggle with their fate. Their protests and their proposals were answered by German victories. At last, when Jutland was invaded—territory so sacred that Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell had resolved to resent its invasion by naval intervention—the Danes offered to negotiate for peace on the basis of the status quo, as established by the Treaties of 1851-52. Von Bismarck’s answer was that the offer came too late, for Prussia no longer considered herself bound by Treaties which war had cancelled. Still, Prussia would not object to a Conference, but it must be a Conference without a basis or an armistice—England having insisted on both. The proposal of an armistice soon had no practical interest. On the 18th of April, after a destructive cannonade, the Prussians stormed the redoubts of Düppel, and captured them after half-an-hour’s fighting. The excitement now became intense in London. Was it possible that the hitherto invincible diplomacy of Palmerston was destined to fail whenever it was met by an antagonist who, as Sir A. Malet says, treated “cajolery and menace” with equal disdain?
“At this juncture,” writes Count Vitzthum, “Lord Palmerston thought fit to offer a spectacle to the London mob, which was calculated to inflame still more their revolutionary passions. Mindful of the panem et circenses of the Roman Emperors, the veteran Premier sought to please the people by showing them Garibaldi. The latter, who had been released from his imprisonment after the affair at Aspromonte, was to be employed, if Palmerston succeeded in carrying through his scheme, against Venetia, and, if necessary, against Rome. Ovations were showered on the guerilla leader from the moment of his landing.[192] In London he was met at the railway station by the Duke of Sutherland, and conducted in pomp through the leading thoroughfares to Stafford House. Countless multitudes thronged the streets, and hailed this triumphal procession with acclamations. There had scarcely been such crowds at the entrance of the French Emperor and Empress in 1855, or at that of the Princess of Wales.[193] Garibaldi was lodged like a prince at the Duke of Sutherland’s mansion. Thither came the most distinguished ladies of the Whig aristocracy to court the favour of a look or a smile from the fêted champion of freedom. The Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition met together at the banquet given in his honour at Stafford House.[194] London society filled the splendid apartments in the evening, and thronged round the lion of the day.... Among those most profuse in their attentions was the Duchess of Sutherland, late Mistress of the Robes, who gave a luncheon party at Chiswick to the adventurer, and received him like a king at the door of her mansion dressed in full attire. Lord Clarendon, not to miss this festivity, postponed his journey to Paris, where he was to make the last fruitless attempt to induce Napoleon to take action.[195] There was something indescribably comic in this exaggerated display of British hero-worship. The only man who was unaffected by it was Garibaldi himself. The old sailor was not the least imposed on by it all—not the least impressed. He made his appearance in the gilded saloons without coat or waistcoat, and paraded in his red flannel shirt. In the streets he wore his black felt hat, with a red feather. Festivities and attentions bored him intensely. He made no secret of his aversion to old women, even though they wore the ermine of duchesses. After the banquet at Stafford House he said that he was not accustomed to sit so late and so long at his meals. He called for his pipe of tobacco. The Dowager Duchess [of Sutherland] overcame her dislike to tobacco smoke, took Garibaldi into her boudoir, lit his pipe with her own hands, and never left him till he had finished it.”[196] This strange episode did not impose on the Queen either, who had reason to believe that nobody concerned was deceived, except the good-natured British populace, whose honest hero-worship was being exploited by Palmerston for diplomatic purposes. The reception of Garibaldi was meant as a warning to Austria that if invincible in Denmark she was vulnerable in Venice; to France, that if through pique she thwarted Palmerston’s diplomacy in Northern Europe, there would soon be trouble brewing for her at Rome; and to Russia, that if she deserted England she would find that the spirit of revolution could yet be roused in Poland. How far the Tory leaders were parties to the imposture is not clear. Lord Malmesbury tries to persuade us that they took part in it merely from motives of childish curiosity. A fashionable lion was reported to be in Stafford House, and so he and his colleagues went there to hear him roar.