Q.—How will it be in the summer?
“There will not be war. There is a growing contention, like growling, angry dogs; they may keep up growling for a year, but it will be nothing; there will be good coming out of it—a better understanding; this experience will elevate the views of the people; they will see the folly, and not be so belligerent. There will be no war this summer.”
What was the drift of opinion, however, as shown by the press? The correspondent of the New York Sun said: “Everybody talks of war as a sure thing which must soon appear somewhere. The work of getting ready for the fray, of which I have often sent details, goes steadily on.” M. Thibaudin “hopes for peace, as do all other diplomats trained and admired for their ability to say what they don’t think; and finally he announces that France is ready to fight whenever the time comes.” January 29 he writes: “The Daily News war scare which shook us up early in the week seems not to have exhausted its disquieting influence yet.” “France and Germany are looked upon as certain to lead off the ball, and Germany, it is generally thought, will be found at the head of the set and take the initiative. Preparations for a big fight continue in every direction.” “Russia, if we can believe the tales from that unreliable country, is quietly making preparations on a tremendous scale to have her paw fall heavily on somebody.”
The French Revue des Deux Mondes said about this time that a war between France and Germany would almost inevitably lead to a general European war, on a scale such as the world has never before seen.
The Russian Viedomosti of February 5 said: “No compromise is possible between Russia and Austria concerning Eastern affairs, without detriment to Russia and the Eastern races. German intervention is useless, and will only create hostility between Russia and Germany.”
The Boston Herald correspondent of February 5, said of France and Germany: “Now both are counted as among the most civilized and most humanitarian on the face of the globe, and yet the certainty of war between the two hereditary enemies on either side of the Rhine is as certain as anything can be. When it comes, be it sooner or later, one of the two adversaries is inevitably condemned, if not to total annihilation, at least to such a crushing punishment that for many long years the defeated power will be little more than a geographical expression on modern maps.” His letter concluded with an elaborate statement of the military resources and condition of the two nations, which approximate an equality in the aggregate.
A Paris dispatch of the same date said that “Prince Bismarck has succeeded in establishing a coalition between Austria, England, and Italy against Russia. Germany will join the coalition if France supports Russia.”
The New York Sun of February 7, said: “We suppose there is no subject which just now is more earnestly discussed among intelligent Americans than the probable result of the war between France and Germany which is believed to be approaching. France ought by this time to have outstripped her enemy in point of military efficiency. She has laid out since 1871 nearly twice as much on her permanent armament, and she devotes nearly twice as much to the current military expenses of each year. She has maintained a larger peace establishment, and she should have it in her power to bring to the field a larger number of soldiers who have served under the colors.”
February 10 the Paris correspondent of the Berlin Post said that General Boulanger was growing in popularity, and “is regarded by the masses as the long-expected liberator. The whole country is anxious for revanche [revenge], and is arming silently, but with the evident belief that the hour is coming.” To add to the growing hostility, the Post quotes from the Paris Figaro an article imputing the grossest immorality to German women.
At the same date, the Buda Pesth Journal urged Austria to attack Russia before the latter has completed her preparations on the lower Danube. It said: “War is inevitable, and it is better to begin fighting before the Balkan states have been Russianized.”