The indulgence of military vanity, and the desire to dominate Europe, are faults which may be ascribed to France in a larger degree than to Prussia. But Germany, after having disarmed her antagonist, has indulged these propensities with a mercenary spirit, and with the manifest intention of wiping France out of the list of the great powers. The frankness with which this is avowed is admirable in its simplicity. France must be hindered from being dangerous in the future. She must, therefore, be reduced to such a position as to render her alike both impotent and defenceless. She must be degraded from her state in the family of nations. She is, therefore, stripped of her armaments: her artillery, her muskets, her swords, her ammunition, her military stores, in fact, nearly all her implements and panoply of war, are carted off to Berlin. That she may not be in an immediate position to supply their place, she is loaded with a pecuniary indemnity which must exhaust the energies of another generation. The frontiers of the country are thrown back to the state in which they were in the middle of the sixteenth century. The strong chain of fortresses which France has erected or fortified during the last three hundred years, with two or three minor exceptions, have been wrenched from her by her enemy. Strasburg, Bitsche, Phalsburg, Thionville, and Metz, protecting that flank of France which is most exposed to attack, are now only so many reservoirs, ready, at a moment's notice, to open the rivers of invasion and deluge the country. Metz, which is only some 160 miles from Paris, is a naked rapier laid across the defenceless throat of France. With her greatest buckler of defence in the hands of Prussia, anything like independent action on the part of France is manifestly impossible. While Metz is in the hands of Prussia, she must remain as politically weak as Piedmont, with Austria in the Quadrilateral. With a bankrupt exchequer, with a pillaged population, with a disorganized government, with a defenceless frontier, with a mutilated territory, with civil feud in her capitals, with all her strongholds in the hands of the enemy, with an imposition of £200,000,000 sterling as a war indemnity, France is not likely to recover her physical strength in our day; and when vigour returns to her shattered frame, it will be only to feel she has lost her place in the councils of Europe.
There are, of course, many excellent reasons assigned for this sort of beneficence, which need only be stated to win common assent. Metz and Alsace belonged to the house of Hapsburg in the fourteenth century. They ought, therefore, to belong to the house of Hohenzollern in the nineteenth,—a convincing argument, which no country so consistently as Prussia could urge with elaborate effect. If every nation which has been disintegrated during the last two hundred years, should get back its own to-morrow, we all know how much Prussia would be a gainer by the transfer. But the inhabitants of Alsace speak a patois of German and French, which contains something of both, and is not either. They are, therefore, clearly entitled to be governed from Berlin. This principle is beautifully illustrated by the Sclave-speaking population of Silesia, the Polish community of Posen, and the Danes of Schleswig. What more in keeping with this piebald collection of people, in the name of nationality, than the French people at Metz? Then, were not Alsace and Lorraine taken by force and guile from Germany? and what more proper to retake them by the same openhanded violence? But it is forgotten that these provinces were first wrenched from France by Germany, so that to restore the original balance, France will have to scramble for them again. By this flux and reflux of empire, at least, one principle is fully assured. Nations are prevented from becoming stagnant. The standing pool of industrial affairs is defecated. War becomes, not an exceptional, but the normal condition of the universe. Civilization has the consolation of knowing that it has no sooner got on its legs, and is about to gather into its granaries an exuberant harvest, than it is knocked over again and its fruits are withered.
It is singular that German ideologists, whose views are so sound upon abstract subjects, should put forth such inconsistent trash, to justify their newly-adopted policy of territorial aggrandizement. There are, however, a large number of sentimentalists in the world, who have a strange hankering for the past, whose sympathies it was necessary to secure. The German archives have, therefore, been ransacked for every tittle of evidence to prove that Metz was a German province in the fourteenth century; and, therefore, if any Frenchmen are found there in the nineteenth, they ought to be under Prussian rule. But to do Bismark justice, he has a great contempt for trashy dialectics of this character. He takes his stand upon the firmer ground of political expediency. France has invaded Germany some twenty-seven times, stimulated entirely by her lust for the Rhine provinces. It is, therefore, necessary to reduce her to such conditions that she is not likely to offend again. In the case of the German ideologists, we grant the premise, but deny the inference. They are doubtless sincere in their unreason. But Bismark's premiss and conclusion are alike vicious, and no one knows that better than himself.
The earlier wars of France against the Empire arose out of the struggle for these border possessions when the posterity of Lothaire II., to whom they belonged, had died out; but in these wars, France, then being parcelled out among numerous vassals, had the worst of it. A series of German irruptions, under Henry the Fowler, and the Othos, united these domains to the Empire. They were, however, held more or less as fiefs of the crown of France. The French element within, and French intrigue without, always gave the German emperors great uneasiness; and this, combined with further schemes of obtaining fresh fiefs in Burgundy and Flanders, exposed France to two German invasions—one under Henry V., and the other under Otho IV., which made Louis the Fat and Philip Augustus tremble for their suzerainty. But the Germans soon found in Italy a richer field for their exploits, and France was left to constitute her unity without much hindrance, until the empire fell into Spanish hands. Afraid, then, of being bodily eaten up, her monarchs became aggressive; but their blows were aimed, not against Germany, but against Spain, unluckily without any great effect; for, the towns of France were some half dozen times invaded by the Emperor and his allies, her king captured, and her fortresses demolished. Our share in these plundering transactions helped us to Tournay and Boulogne. In the next series of wars, which arose out of the religious and political dissensions of the empire, if France intermeddled, she was invited to do so by the Protestant princes of Germany, with whom she was allied, and whose interests were menaced by the house of Austria. As the price of her intervention, she got a portion of the disputed frontier; but we never heard that Germany otherwise than freely conceded the long-coveted prize to her, or regarded this portion of the Treaty of Munster as a menace to her liberties. It was not until Louis Quatorze seized Franche Comté, and sent his legions over the Rhine, that Germany manifested any uneasiness at the ambition of France—an uneasiness which the league of Augsburg immediately dispelled, and an ambition which the armies of Eugene and Marlborough levelled to the ground. Hence, Lorraine soon afterwards fell as quietly into the hands of France, as if its exchange for the reversion of Tuscany had been an arrangement of Providence. We are rather curious, therefore, to know how Count Bismark gets his twenty-seven instances of French aggression against Germany, and whether he includes in the list the troops which France lent to Prussia to enable her to retain her hold upon Silesia, and the counter-support she gave Maria Theresa to enable the empress to defeat Prussia. It is evident no parties are responsible for such interventions except those who invite them; and to ascribe to the ambition of the people of France, wars which arose out of the rapacity of his own countrymen, is a phase given to the quarrel which outrages common sense. Even were all the wars carried on under the Louises, the Richelieus, and the feudal princes of France, as wantonly aggressive as Bismark would make out, the French people are no more responsible for them, than the horses which dragged their artillery to the field. They were waged frequently in their own despite, purely for dynastic interests, and as often undertaken to repel aggression, as to make it. Even when the people woke up to their sovereign rights, in 1789, from whom did the first deliberate act of aggression come? From mild and peace-loving Prussia. Scarcely five years ago, we saw both the Saxon and Bavarian palatinate entirely at the mercy of the first French regiment that might have ventured to cross the border, without a hand being stretched forth to snatch the defenceless prize. It is therefore false, in fact, to assign to the French such an incurable lust after German territory, as to warrant the necessity of her political servitude. The French have no specific hatred to the Germans as a people, any more than they have to the Italians, whose territory they have honoured no less frequently with their presence. The allegation of Bismark is not, therefore, very assuring. He revives the memory of these miserable feuds, as a reason why they should be stopped; and produces a treaty, for that purpose, which only transmits them to posterity, wrapped in a blaze of undying vehemence. It is monstrous for the conquerors of a country to assign, as a pretext for its abasement, the participation of its rulers in those quarrels which originated with themselves. The great shield of Germany against French interference is its unity. Had she further insisted upon the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being dismantled, with an adequate pecuniary indemnity, she would then have been doubly secure. But when, in addition, she requires the keys of France to be placed in her hands, and the country, bound hand and foot, to be cast under her feet, it is idle to say that Prussia is aiming at mere immunity from aggression. There is a weightier reason behind for the mutilation of France, which it would be inconvenient to avow, and that is the preservation, if not the increase, of her own military ascendancy.
Prussia in making peace consulted her own interests. Had her troops returned to Berlin after concluding with France a wise and durable treaty, that would have occurred which occurred after the peace of 1815—Germany would have demanded free and liberal institutions. There would have been no necessity for Prussian Cæsarism. Berlin would have had to modify her military constitution. There would have been no necessity for vast armaments. The world would have once more settled down to pacific ways. But in leaving behind her an exasperated France, Prussia has the strongest of all motives for inducing Germany to perpetuate her military dictatorship, and keep the war ferment at high pressure. But it is impossible that the most pacific country can remain long under the influence of such a military organization as Prussia commands, without using it as an instrument for further aggrandizement. Were it indeed otherwise, a marvel would occur, the like of which would be unknown in history. Who ever heard of a power suddenly overtopping Europe, and, amid a handful of weaker states, stopping short in her career of aggression? Those who believe in the pacific virtues of Bismark, and the pious sincerity of William, ask us to indulge in anticipations which have never been realised. Did Rome stop when it overran the Peninsula, Macedon when it fulminated over Greece, the Caliphs when they stormed Constantinople, or the Hapsburgs when they conquered Vienna? There is a momentum in all states, once entered upon a career of conquest, which hurries them along with a speed proportionate to the extent of their acquisitions. The law of rising kingdoms may be formulated almost with the same nicety as that of falling bodies. Nor are there any circumstances in this instance calculated to modify its tendency, except such as give it vastly preponderating force and direction.
It must not be overlooked in this case, that the states under the hegemony of Prussia are amongst the poorest in Europe. Some three hundred thousand annually are driven, by fell necessity, to seek that provision in foreign lands which is denied them at home. The little wealth possessed by the home population is not in the possession of their princes and feudal aristocracy, but in the hands of the mercantile class, to whom war would not be in the least distasteful, if it opened out new avenues for their trade. The poverty of the German Junker, however, has been up to the present only equalled by his pretentiousness. Sheridan advised the last generation of them, to sell their high-sounding titles, to buy worsted to mend their stockings. Yet some of our statesmen would have us believe that these gentlemen, long suffering under a painful sense of impecuniosity, will, on waking up to the reality of their being masters of the world, continue to go about, as heretofore, with empty pockets. Can we suppose that a strong state, steeped up to the ears in poverty, will continue quiescent, surrounded by weak states who oppose no barriers to her possession of superabundant wealth? The inference is against everything we know of human nature, even upon the supposition that Prussia, to whom the people have entrusted their fortunes, is the most pacific state in the world, and that they have been attempted to be worried like bleating lambs, in the recent struggle. The only rational conclusion is that the Junkers of Germany will, like every other impoverished class, make the most of their new position. They will sit down to consider what countries contain the great reservoirs of commerce, and by what accession of territory the stream of wealth may be diverted to their own land. Germany is in the condition of the miller who had large mills but no water. Is it likely, when she has the power, she will refrain from entering her neighbour's territory, to divert the course of the element which sweeps by her with such majestic abundance, without rendering any service to herself? If she did not withhold her hand from a few barren roods in the case of Denmark, is she likely to do so when the prize is more tempting, the power to snatch it a thousand degrees more startling, and the chances of failure so much less? There can be only one reply to these questions. If the bourgeoisie condemned the movement, their opposition would be treated with the same indifference as the opposition of the great commercial class to the war of 1866. But the Minister has only to show the trading class that the movement is a commercial venture, and he will convert them into his staunchest adherents.
The German people have acquired of late years a peace-loving character, which, however, is rather adventitious than real, springing more out of the helplessness into which they were thrown by the dissensions of the Diet, than out of any innate disposition to be less quarrelsome than their neighbours. That they are more phlegmatic, more industrious, and less easily roused than the French may be readily admitted. But we should be strangely oblivious of the thirty years' war, of the Silesian wars, of the Swedish and Italian wars, of the Danish and Austrian wars, if we came to the conclusion that, if left to themselves, and in possession of their united strength, they would be the most benignant people in the world. The Germans have always evinced a conservative disposition to follow their feudal chiefs, and, by espousing their quarrels, have kept Europe embroiled for many centuries. In no other country could a small state like Prussia spring out of a mere society of Knight Templars, and in less than two hundred years, take her place among the first powers of the globe. While the smaller states of the empire followed their indolent habits, and cultivated the dilettante tastes of their rulers, Prussia was perpetually sharpening her sword, carving out of her neighbours fresh slices of territory, and using one acquisition as a stepping-stone to another. The acceptance of the peaceful pursuits to which the inaction of the minor states, and the jealous rivalries and despotic tendencies of the larger, impelled their respective populations, as a pledge of the new era of quiet harmony upon which Europe is about to enter, is only another instance of taking the forced and exceptional state of a people for its normal and natural condition. If the German people could be divorced from their feudal leanings, if they could bind up their unity with free institutions, and sink the interest of each particular state in that of the entire community, we should regard their assumption of military supremacy as a blessing to Europe. But this state of things, so near being accomplished in 1848, is now further off than ever. Prussia, then, by the free voice of Germany, was offered the Imperial crown, upon condition of merging her individual sovereignty in that of the commonwealth. But she refused. Now she has got it upon her own terms—that of merging the commonwealth into herself. All the power and might of Germany, instead of being allied with liberal institutions, is wielded by one despotic hand. Instead of Germany swallowing up Prussia, Prussia has swallowed up Germany. Germany in inaugurating her unity, like the young man coming to his heritage, was surrounded by two candidates for her favours,—free institutions and military despotism—and, succumbing to the tempter, she has flung herself into the embraces of military despotism.
Prussia, who first intoxicated Germany with the idea of unity, has debauched her with the doctrine of nationality. The lure was in the Elbe Duchies, which she first held out to the Fatherland, and then appropriated to herself. The overthrow of Austria induced the Northern states to submit, some out of compulsion, and others out of love, but all out of a hope that under so puissant a leader, an impoverished state of independence might be changed for one of wealthy servility. Hence, the Confederation or Staatenbund of the North, which placed the armaments and international relationships of all the states on the Prussian side of the Main completely under the control of Berlin. The Treaty of Prague guaranteed independent action, as well as a separate confederation to the German states south of the Main. But while the ink wherewith that treaty was signed was scarcely dry, and while Napoleon was congratulating his subjects on having set up two confederations in Germany instead of one, Bismark signed treaties of offensive and defensive alliance with each of the Southern States, which made their confederation an impossibility, by placing all their armaments as completely in the hands of Prussia as if they belonged to the Northern Bund. But, in these days, changes take place so rapidly as to exhaust our breath in recounting them. The goal of Prussian ambition to-day, is its starting-post to-morrow. The North German Confederation, with their treaties of defensive and offensive alliance, which have done their work so effectually in the subjugation of France, has already made room for another edifice of a more momentous character. The Staatenbund, which has disappeared, was, as its name imports, a mere confederacy. The union was effective for federal purposes, but too much individual action was left to the component bodies. The armies of the Confederacy, though under the command of the King of Prussia, as President of the Bund, owed fealty to their respective chiefs. There is something naïve in the declaration that they should have command of their own troops in time of peace. But now this poor shadow of sovereignty is taken away, and the armies of the Northern States, both in peace and war, are handed over to the King of Prussia, and constitute part and parcel of the Prussian force. The joints have, therefore, been tightened in proportion as the area has been extended. In point of fact, the former mediatized states have been virtually incorporated with Prussia; while the semi-independent sovereignties of the south have been reduced to the position of the former mediatized states. They have only one railway and water communication, one system of post and telegraph, one mercantile marine, one tariff, one code of civil and criminal judicature, one consulate, and one army and navy. The states south of the Main now find themselves bound up in closer ligatures with those of the north than formerly united these with each other. In other words, the Staatenbund has been changed into a Bundesstaat, or a confederacy into one allied State. The whole of Germany, from the Baltic to the Vosges, from the frontiers of Gallicia to the mouth of the Weser, is now united in a single commonwealth, with an hereditary emperor, with a central parliament, and a common capital: we need hardly add that the majority of that parliament are Prussian subjects, that the Emperor is the Prussian monarch, and that the capital is Berlin.
It is curious to notice the careful guarantees by which Prussia has secured the increase of her ascendancy in the new institution, and the growth of centralization in her hands. No change can be effected in the charter which is opposed by fourteen votes of the Federal Council. But as she has seventeen of these, it is clear Germany cannot enter upon a more liberal regime unless Prussia wishes it. Baden and Hesse have, like the Northern States, handed over their armies to Prussia, with whose forces they are henceforth incorporated. The King of Bavaria has the command of his own troops only in times of peace; in war he is liable to be superseded by a Federal commander, appointed by the Emperor. Würtemburg has consented to consign her troops to a Federal commander, nominated by Prussia, both in peace and war. For this concession the King has been allowed to appoint his inferior officers, subject to the approval of the Emperor. Throughout the rest of Germany, the appointment of all the officers rests entirely with the Emperor. All the citadels and fortresses of every state, without exception, are surrendered into his hands. He can give the keys of all the strong places to whom he chooses. The Emperor alone can make war or conclude peace; though unless the country be invaded, he has been restricted, at the instance of Bavaria, from making war without the consent of the Federal Council. But, as King of Prussia, he can make war when he pleases, which renders him as practically independent of control as if the restriction did not exist. The armaments of Germany are, therefore, as practically in the hands of Prussia, as the armaments of Russia are in those of the Czar. The concessions in favour of the Kings of Würtemburg and Bavaria are so trifling, that to call these princelings kings any longer is trifling with the name. Their sovereignties are virtually absorbed in the crown of Prussia. Let the phantom monarchs, who have signed their own death-warrants at Munich and Stuttgart, presume to interfere with the mandates of Berlin, and they will be dealt with as summarily as any provincial maire who ventured to disobey imperial decrees under the Napoleonic régime.
These results we ventured to predict some five years ago, but they have been brought about with a celerity and completeness which even have surprised ourselves.[239] The fact is, there is a splendour and glitter about military achievements which the soberest cannot withstand, when they appear in the shape of victories over those who have been perpetually disparaging our strength or crowing over our weakness. It would, indeed, have been a great advantage to German liberty, had the different states been allowed to consolidate their unity in peace. Prussia would then have been obliged to make terms with the southern populations, who would have been alive to the necessity of obtaining solid pledges from her, that the resources of the German commonwealth should not be squandered to gratify the ambition of the house of Hohenzollern. But the astonishing exploits of Prussia, the unparalleled series of triumphs which have laid France prostrate at her feet, have carried away the judgments of the populations of the South, and induced them to call for indiscriminate amalgamation with the conqueror, in terms which their princes could not withstand. The sovereigns of Stuttgart and Munich had, therefore, no choice between deposition and obedience to the popular voice. They therefore made a virtue of necessity, and were the first to offer the Imperial Crown to the King of Prussia. In the Salle des Glaces at Versailles, surrounded by the pictures and medallions which perpetuate the triumphs of Louis XIV. in Franche Comté and the Netherlands, and beneath the roof of the edifice dedicated to all the glories of France, King William was solemnly proclaimed Emperor, on the anniversary of the day when, 170 years ago, the Elector Frederick first assumed the crown of Prussia. Before all the representatives of Germany, ranged beneath the banners of their respective states, at the gates of the French capital, already quivering in the throes of capitulation, and girt round with all the panoply and pride of victorious armies, the German cannon thundered out the ominous title in the ears of dying France. In the power which the title created, the lofty pinnacle to which it elevated the sovereign upon whom it was conferred, in the proud circumstances under which the transfer of the Imperial Crown was accomplished, the imagination is carried back to the days of Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa in order to find a parallel. For, the pageant represented the assumption of no mere primatial dignity, but the extension of direct sovereign power, absorbing some three kingdoms, with twenty-four principalities, which at once enables it to become supreme in Europe, both in war and peace. The nominal federal ties, by which the princes of the Southern States are allowed to flatter their hereditary vanity, cannot even outlast the present generation; for the new elections to the Federal Parliament have returned a large majority, to strengthen the autocratic interests and centralizing policy of Prussia. The need of simplification in the laws which bind up the different states into one homogeneous body, will powerfully contribute to the same end, so that, in a few years, Prussia will find herself wielding the power of the Cæsars, with a single national authority.