This work of organization is a difficult one; it requires wisdom and time. M. von Bismarck has recourse to precipitation, to force, and to wrath.
German unity, inuring to the benefit of Prussia, could not, before the war of 1866, have been foreseen. When, in 1863, the Emperor of Austria made his triumphal entry into Frankfort, bearing in his hand federal reform, he was surrounded by all the princes of Germany. Prussia stood alone, abandoned by all Germany; and, if Napoleon had not foolishly thwarted the plans of the Emperor Francis Joseph, the Emperor of Germany would have been crowned, not at Berlin, but at Vienna.
After the war of 1866, Prusso-Germanic unitarism had not yet been accomplished. Saxony and the states of the South which had fought by the side of Austria were defeated; they submitted to, rather than accepted, the terms which Prussia forced on them as the consequence [pg 486] of their defeat. Northern Germany was bounded by the Main, and the minor states ever felt themselves drawn towards Vienna, their old centre of attraction.
It was the war of 1870, declared by Napoleon against the whole of Germany, notwithstanding the patriotic protest of M. Thiers, which all at once created this unity; this unity, which brought all the Germans together under one flag, received thus the baptism of glory and of blood.
But the Prusso-German unitarism, extemporized and rough-cast by the war, was not consolidated; many difficulties remained to be overcome.
M. von Bismarck saw before him two formidable adversaries: the particularism of the middle states, and socialist democracy, which claims to abolish unity for its own gain, by substituting the German Republic for the German Empire.
Several symptoms go to show that the particularist movement, which had been stopped by the war, is reviving, and certainly the hostile action directed against the Catholics assists powerfully towards giving it new life. The symptoms of the awakening of this movement are numerous; it is needless that I should enumerate them; they are perfectly known at Berlin, and have assuredly become aggravated since the religious war undertaken by M. von Bismarck.
The particularism of the states, then, is not dead, and red democracy is full of life. These are the two great difficulties which M. von Bismarck's policy finds in its way. To these must be added a third one: the assimilation of the two conquered provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, so thoroughly French by the ties of history, of religion, of habits, and of interests.
To overcome these obstacles, to organize unity, the basis of the new empire, to accomplish his great work, M. von Bismarck needs prudence, time, and the hand of a true statesman.
Now, what does the Prince von Bismarck do? To the three considerable existing obstacles he adds another one, greater and more dangerous than the former, a difficulty which did not exist, which he of his own accord created, which he wantonly got up, and which will crush him; I mean the religious difficulty, the brutal war, the veritable persecution which he is organizing against the Catholics. He had to fight against particularist opposition and radical opposition; he himself, with deliberate purpose, needlessly and without reason, raises up a third one—the opposition of sixteen millions of Catholics united with their bishops; that is to say, almost half of the new empire which he thus unsettles and, so to speak, dissolves with his own hand.