To this end, he needed strong and impenetrable frontiers, which he got by the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. Prince von Bismarck cannot fail to perceive that the annexation of these two provinces to Germany constitutes for it, in a political point of view, a source of weakness rather than of strength; that it is an additional embarrassment to the difficulties following the organization of German unity; that Alsace and Lorraine will be, for a long time to come, another bleeding Poland on the flanks of the new empire; nevertheless, the conquest of these two provinces seemed to him, in a military point of view, indispensable as a first material guarantee against the possibility of retaliation on the part of France. By the possession of those provinces, he turns against France the formidable triple line of defence of the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Vosges; at Strasbourg and at Metz he holds the strategical keys of France; these two strongholds are, so to speak, iron gates of which the bolts are kept at Berlin. The other Rhenish frontiers are defended by the armed neutrality of Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Switzerland. Seated behind its impassable frontiers, and relying upon its powerful military organization and the remembrance of its recent triumphs, the German Empire appears perfectly secure from attack.
But even all this was not enough for Prince von Bismarck. He has just been repeating the policy which turned out so well for him in the war of 1866 against Austria. Then, through the guilty and senseless connivance of Napoleon III., he allied himself to Italy; he compelled Austria to divide her forces, to have two armies, one at Verona, the other in Bohemia—which was making sure beforehand of the defeat of Austria. M. von Bismarck has just begun a second time this skilful manœuvre. He has formed an offensive and defensive alliance with Italy which owes its political life to France, and repays the boon by treachery. By means of this alliance he would compel France, in the event of a war, to have an army of the Alps and an army of the Rhine, which would be equivalent to certain defeat.
Any war of retaliation is consequently for a long time to come rendered impossible.
There would be left to France only one resource, and that a distant one, viz., an alliance with a great military power, such as Austria, or, in particular, Russia, whose secret jealousies she would turn to her account.
But such an alliance presupposes France raised up, in a political, military, and moral sense, from her present ruin, and in possession of a settled government, stable within and influential without. Can a republic, even a conservative one, and even if it always had at its head as capable a statesman as M. Thiers, so raise France? Can a republic which is a [pg 478] good enough raft to take refuge on for a while, a so to speak narrow bed, which will do for France, wounded and ailing, to lie on during the period of convalescence—can it, in a country which lacks manly habits and historical institutions, unite enough solidity, security, wise liberty, strength, and grandeur to become the ally of so great an empire as Russia? To my mind, the idea of an alliance between a French republic and one of the two empires of the North against the German Empire is one of those impossibilities which need but to be asserted, not to be argued. If France could succeed in reuniting the separated links of her history, in reconciling her present with her past, if she were to again become a traditional, representative, and free monarchy, one holding itself equidistant from the abuses of the old régime and the errors of the Revolution—oh! then her situation would indeed be changed, and great alliances at present impossible might become possible soon thereafter. But such alliances would not have for their object never-ending retaliations and new wars; they would bear their fruits through social peace, through the restoration of authority and order, and through that true, prudent, and measured liberty which, now that they have it not, they talk so much about. The greatness of France depends less on the extent of her frontiers than on her political, social, and religious renovation.
It is because M. von Bismarck understands perfectly that an alliance between one of the great military empires of the North and republican France is a chimerical project, that he encourages the adherents of the republic at Versailles to sustain their work.
Anyhow, M. von Bismarck, having in view the nature of contingencies, has sought to shut France out from hopes or temptations in this direction; after, having in her folly dreamt of getting a frontier on the Rhine, she has wretchedly lost, through the folly of her emperor, her eastern frontier; after, having sworn to tear in pieces the treaty of 1815, to which she had submitted with detestation, she has had to sign at Frankfort the treaty in virtue of which she was invaded and dismembered.
The new Empire of Germany, resting on its formidable army, protected by impenetrable frontiers, certain of an alliance with Italy which renders the undertaking of war against it almost impossible for France, sustained by the official friendship of Austria and of Russia, compels France to be resigned and peaceful; condemns her to political and military impotence, or, what may sound better, to walk in the ways of prudence. M. Thiers, in words which the French press has published, has recently made a resolute profession of this policy of prudence, by proclaiming that he desires peace—peace to build up and fructify; and that France, at all events, will not seek to break it.
When, from the balcony of the Imperial Palace at Berlin, it is proclaimed that the object and result of the meeting of three emperors is to sanction the statu quo of Europe, and to consolidate a general peace, we believe that they mean what they proclaim; but what is the signification of the proclamation? Why, that they have thereby accepted the actual state of things which has grown out of the recent wars; that is to say, the European supremacy of the German Empire, founded on the powerlessness or the cautious prudence of France; and that they think to have extinguished the centre of combustion from which the firebrand of war might be again hurled over Europe.
This is assuredly a clever policy, one in which Prince von Bismarck might allow himself to take a certain pride.