Chapter Chapter 52 · Filled With The Rumour Of Many Wars Of Independence

It will serve no good purpose to say “if only the Congress of Vienna

had done such and such a thing instead of taking such and such a

course, the history of Europe in the nineteenth century would have been

different.” The Congress of Vienna was a gathering of men who had just

passed through a great revolution and through twenty years of terrible

and almost continuous warfare. They came together for the purpose

of giving Europe that “peace and stability” which they thought that

the people needed and wanted. They were what we call reactionaries.

They sincerely believed in the inability of the mass of the people to

rule themselves. They re-arranged the map of Europe in such a way as

seemed to promise the greatest possibility of a lasting success. They

failed, but not through any premeditated wickedness on their part.

They were, for the greater part, men of the old school who remembered

the happier days of their quiet youth and ardently wished a return of

that blessed period. They failed to recognise the strong hold which

many of the revolutionary principles had gained upon the people of the

European continent. That was a misfortune but hardly a sin. But one of

the things which the French Revolution had taught not only Europe but

America as well, was the right of people to their own “nationality.”

Napoleon, who respected nothing and nobody, was utterly ruthless

in his dealing with national and patriotic aspirations. But the

early revolutionary generals had proclaimed the new doctrine that

“nationality was not a matter of political frontiers or round skulls

and broad noses, but a matter of the heart and soul.” While they were

teaching the French children the greatness of the French nation, they

encouraged Spaniards and Hollanders and Italians to do the same thing.

Soon these people, who all shared Rousseau’s belief in the superior

virtues of Original Man, began to dig into their past and found, buried

beneath the ruins of the feudal system, the bones of the mighty races

of which they supposed themselves the feeble descendants.

The first half of the nineteenth century was the era of the great

historical discoveries. Everywhere historians were busy publishing

mediæval charters and early mediæval chronicles and in every country

the result was a new pride in the old fatherland. A great deal of

this sentiment was based upon the wrong interpretation of historical

facts. But in practical politics, it does not matter what is true, but

everything depends upon what the people believe to be true. And in most

countries both the kings and their subjects firmly believed in the

glory and fame of their ancestors.

The Congress of Vienna was not inclined to be sentimental. Their

Excellencies divided the map of Europe according to the best interests

of half a dozen dynasties and put “national aspirations” upon the

Index, or list of forbidden books, together with all other dangerous

“French doctrines.”

But history is no respecter of Congresses. For some reason or other

(it may be an historical law, which thus far has escaped the attention

of the scholars) “nations” seemed to be necessary for the orderly

development of human society and the attempt to stem this tide was

quite as unsuccessful as the Metternichian effort to prevent people

from thinking.

Curiously enough the first trouble began in a very distant part of the

world, in South America. The Spanish colonies of that continent had

been enjoying a period of relative independence during the many years

of the great Napoleonic wars. They had even remained faithful to their

king when he was taken prisoner by the French Emperor and they had

refused to recognise Joseph Bonaparte, who had in the year 1808 been

made King of Spain by order of his brother.

Indeed, the only part of America to get very much upset by the

Revolution was the island of Haiti, the Espagnola of Columbus’ first

trip. Here in the year 1791 the French Convention, in a sudden outburst

of love and human brotherhood, had bestowed upon their black brethren

all the privileges hitherto enjoyed by their white masters. Just as

suddenly they had repented of this step, but the attempt to undo the

original promise led to many years of terrible warfare between General

Leclerc, the brother-in-law of Napoleon, and Toussaint l’Ouverture,

the negro chieftain. In the year 1801, Toussaint was asked to visit

Leclerc and discuss terms of peace. He received the solemn promise that

he would not be molested. He trusted his white adversaries, was put on

board a ship and shortly afterwards died in a French prison. But the

negroes gained their independence all the same and founded a Republic.

Incidentally they were of great help to the first great South American

patriot in his efforts to deliver his native country from the Spanish

yoke.

Simon Bolivar, a native of Caracas in Venezuela, born in the year

1783, had been educated in Spain, had visited Paris where he had seen

the Revolutionary government at work, had lived for a while in the

United States and had returned to his native land where the widespread

discontent against Spain, the mother country, was beginning to take a

definite form. In the year 1811, Venezuela declared its independence

and Bolivar became one of the revolutionary generals. Within two

months, the rebels were defeated and Bolivar fled.

For the next five years he was the leader of an apparently lost cause.

He sacrificed all his wealth and he would not have been able to

begin his final and successful expedition without the support of the

President of Haiti. Thereafter the revolt spread all over South America

and soon it appeared that Spain was not able to suppress the rebellion

unaided. She asked for the support of the Holy Alliance.

This step greatly worried England. The British shippers had succeeded

the Dutch as the Common Carriers of the world and they expected to reap

heavy profits from a declaration of independence on the part of all

South America. They had hopes that the United States of America would

interfere but the Senate had no such plans and in the House, too, there

were many voices which declared that Spain ought to be given a free

hand.

Just then, there was a change of ministers in England. The Whigs went

out and the Tories came in. George Canning became secretary of State.

He dropped a hint that England would gladly back up the American

government with all the might of her fleet, if said government would

declare its disapproval of the plans of the Holy Alliance in regard to

the rebellious colonies of the southern continent. President Monroe

thereupon, on the 2nd of December of the year 1823, addressed Congress

and stated that: “America would consider any attempt on the part of the

allied powers to extend their system to any portion of this western

hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety,” and gave warning that

“the American government would consider such action on the part of the

Holy Alliance as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward

the United States.” Four weeks later, the text of the “Monroe Doctrine”

was printed in the English newspapers and the members of the Holy

Alliance were forced to make their choice.

[Illustration: THE MONROE DOCTRINE]

Metternich hesitated. Personally he would have been willing to risk the

displeasure of the United States (which had allowed both its army and

navy to fall into neglect since the end of the Anglo-American war of

the year 1812.) But Canning’s threatening attitude and trouble on the

continent forced him to be careful. The expedition never took place and

South America and Mexico gained their independence.

As for the troubles on the continent of Europe, they were coming fast

and furious. The Holy Alliance had sent French troops to Spain to act

as guardians of the peace in the year 1820. Austrian troops had been

used for a similar purpose in Italy when the “Carbonari” (the secret

society of the Charcoal Burners) were making propaganda for a united

Italy and had caused a rebellion against the unspeakable Ferdinand of

Naples.

Bad news also came from Russia where the death of Alexander had been

the sign for a revolutionary outbreak in St. Petersburg, a short but

bloody upheaval, the so-called Dekaberist revolt (because it took place

in December,) which ended with the hanging of a large number of good

patriots who had been disgusted by the reaction of Alexander’s last

years and had tried to give Russia a constitutional form of government.

But worse was to follow. Metternich had tried to assure himself of the

continued support of the European courts by a series of conferences at

Aix-la-Chapelle, at Troppau, at Laibach, and finally at Verona. The

delegates from the different powers duly travelled to these agreeable

watering places where the Austrian prime minister used to spend his

summers. They always promised to do their best to suppress revolt but

they were none too certain of their success. The spirit of the people

was beginning to be ugly and especially in France the position of the

king was by no means satisfactory.

The real trouble however began in the Balkans, the gate-way to western

Europe through which the invaders of that continent had passed since

the beginning of time. The first outbreak was in Moldavia, the ancient

Roman province of Dacia which had been cut off from the Empire in the

third century. Since then, it had been a lost land, a sort of Atlantis,

where the people had continued to speak the old Roman tongue and still

called themselves Romans and their country Roumania. Here in the year

1821, a young Greek, Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, began a revolt against

the Turks. He told his followers that they could count upon the support

of Russia. But Metternich’s fast couriers were soon on their way to St.

Petersburg and the Tsar, entirely persuaded by the Austrian arguments

in favor of “peace and stability,” refused to help. Ypsilanti was

forced to flee to Austria where he spent the next seven years in prison.

In the same year, 1821, trouble began in Greece. Since 1815 a secret

society of Greek patriots had been preparing the way for a revolt.

Suddenly they hoisted the flag of independence in the Morea (the

ancient Peloponnesus) and drove the Turkish garrisons away. The Turks

answered in the usual fashion. They took the Greek Patriarch of

Constantinople, who was regarded as their Pope both by the Greeks and

by many Russians, and they hanged him on Easter Sunday of the year

1821, together with a number of his bishops. The Greeks came back with

a massacre of all the Mohammedans in Tripolitsa, the capital of the

Morea and the Turks retaliated by an attack upon the island of Chios,

where they murdered 25,000 Christians and sold 45,000 others as slaves

into Asia and Egypt.

Then the Greeks appealed to the European courts, but Metternich told

them in so many words that they could “stew in their own grease,” (I

am not trying to make a pun, but I am quoting His Serene Highness

who informed the Tsar that this “fire of revolt ought to burn itself

out beyond the pale of civilisation”) and the frontiers were closed

to those volunteers who wished to go to the rescue of the patriotic

Hellenes. Their cause seemed lost. At the request of Turkey, an

Egyptian army was landed in the Morea and soon the Turkish flag was

again flying from the Acropolis, the ancient stronghold of Athens. The

Egyptian army then pacified the country “à la Turque,” and Metternich

followed the proceedings with quiet interest, awaiting the day when

this “attempt against the peace of Europe” should be a thing of the

past.

Once more it was England which upset his plans. The greatest glory

of England does not lie in her vast colonial possessions, in her

wealth or her navy, but in the quiet heroism and independence of

her average citizen. The Englishman obeys the law because he knows

that respect for the rights of others marks the difference between a

dog-kennel and civilised society. But he does not recognize the right

of others to interfere with his freedom of thought. If his country

does something which he believes to be wrong, he gets up and says so

and the government which he attacks will respect him and will give

him full protection against the mob which to-day, as in the time of

Socrates, often loves to destroy those who surpass it in courage or

intelligence. There never has been a good cause, however unpopular or

however distant, which has not counted a number of Englishmen among its

staunchest adherents. The mass of the English people are not different

from those in other lands. They stick to the business at hand and have

no time for unpractical “sporting ventures.” But they rather admire

their eccentric neighbour who drops everything to go and fight for

some obscure people in Asia or Africa and when he has been killed they

give him a fine public funeral and hold him up to their children as an

example of valor and chivalry.

Even the police spies of the Holy Alliance were powerless against this

national characteristic. In the year 1824, Lord Byron, a rich young

Englishman who wrote the poetry over which all Europe wept, hoisted

the sails of his yacht and started south to help the Greeks. Three

months later the news spread through Europe that their hero lay dead

in Missolonghi, the last of the Greek strongholds. His lonely death

caught the imagination of the people. In all countries, societies

were formed to help the Greeks. Lafayette, the grand old man of the

American revolution, pleaded their cause in France. The king of Bavaria

sent hundreds of his officers. Money and supplies poured in upon the

starving men of Missolonghi.

In England, George Canning, who had defeated the plans of the Holy

Alliance in South America, was now prime minister. He saw his chance

to checkmate Metternich for a second time. The English and Russian

fleets were already in the Mediterranean. They were sent by governments

which dared no longer suppress the popular enthusiasm for the cause

of the Greek patriots. The French navy appeared because France, since

the end of the Crusades, had assumed the rôle of the defender of the

Christian faith in Mohammedan lands. On October 20 of the year 1827,

the ships of the three nations attacked the Turkish fleet in the bay

of Navarino and destroyed it. Rarely has the news of a battle been

received with such general rejoicing. The people of western Europe and

Russia who enjoyed no freedom at home consoled themselves by fighting

an imaginary war of liberty on behalf of the oppressed Greeks. In the

year 1829 they had their reward. Greece became an independent nation

and the policy of reaction and stability suffered its second great

defeat.

It would be absurd were I to try, in this short volume, to give you a

detailed account of the struggle for national independence in all other

countries. There are a large number of excellent books devoted to such

subjects. I have described the struggle for the independence of Greece

because it was the first successful attack upon the bulwark of reaction

which the Congress of Vienna had erected to “maintain the stability

of Europe.” That mighty fortress of suppression still held out and

Metternich continued to be in command. But the end was near.

In France the Bourbons had established an almost unbearable rule

of police officials who were trying to undo the work of the French

revolution, with an absolute disregard of the regulations and laws of

civilised warfare. When Louis XVIII died in the year 1824, the people

had enjoyed nine years of “peace” which had proved even more unhappy

than the ten years of war of the Empire. Louis was succeeded by his

brother, Charles X.

Louis had belonged to that famous Bourbon family which, although it

never learned anything, never forgot anything. The recollection of

that morning in the town of Hamm, when news had reached him of the

decapitation of his brother, remained a constant warning of what might

happen to those kings who did not read the signs of the times aright.

Charles, on the other hand, who had managed to run up private debts of

fifty million francs before he was twenty years of age, knew nothing,

remembered nothing and firmly intended to learn nothing. As soon as he

had succeeded his brother, he established a government “by priests,

through priests and for priests,” and while the Duke of Wellington, who

made this remark, cannot be called a violent liberal, Charles ruled in

such a way that he disgusted even that trusted friend of law and order.

When he tried to suppress the newspapers which dared to criticise his

government, and dismissed the Parliament because it supported the

Press, his days were numbered.

On the night of the 27th of July of the year 1830, a revolution took

place in Paris. On the 30th of the same month, the king fled to the

coast and set sail for England. In this way the “famous farce of

fifteen years” came to an end and the Bourbons were at last removed

from the throne of France. They were too hopelessly incompetent. France

then might have returned to a Republican form of government, but such a

step would not have been tolerated by Metternich.

The situation was dangerous enough. The spark of rebellion had leaped

beyond the French frontier and had set fire to another powder house

filled with national grievances. The new kingdom of the Netherlands had

not been a success. The Belgian and the Dutch people had nothing in

common and their king, William of Orange (the descendant of an uncle

of William the Silent), while a hard worker and a good business man,

was too much lacking in tact and pliability to keep the peace among his

uncongenial subjects. Besides, the horde of priests which had descended

upon France, had at once found its way into Belgium and whatever

Protestant William tried to do was howled down by large crowds of

excited citizens as a fresh attempt upon the “freedom of the Catholic

church.” On the 25th of August there was a popular outbreak against the

Dutch authorities in Brussels. Two months later, the Belgians declared

themselves independent and elected Leopold of Coburg, the uncle of

Queen Victoria of England, to the throne. That was an excellent

solution of the difficulty. The two countries, which never ought to

have been united, parted their ways and thereafter lived in peace and

harmony and behaved like decent neighbours.

News in those days when there were only a few short railroads,

travelled slowly, but when the success of the French and the Belgian

revolutionists became known in Poland there was an immediate clash

between the Poles and their Russian rulers which led to a year of

terrible warfare and ended with a complete victory for the Russians who

“established order along the banks of the Vistula” in the well-known

Russian fashion. Nicholas the First, who had succeeded his brother

Alexander in 1825, firmly believed in the Divine Right of his own

family, and the thousands of Polish refugees who had found shelter in

western Europe bore witness to the fact that the principles of the Holy

Alliance were still more than a hollow phrase in Holy Russia.

In Italy too there was a moment of unrest. Marie Louise, Duchess of

Parma and wife of the former Emperor Napoleon, whom she had deserted

after the defeat of Waterloo, was driven away from her country, and

in the Papal state the exasperated people tried to establish an

independent Republic. But the armies of Austria marched to Rome and

soon everything was as of old. Metternich continued to reside at the

Ball Platz, the home of the foreign minister of the Habsburg dynasty,

the police spies returned to their job, and peace reigned supreme.

Eighteen more years were to pass before a second and more successful

attempt could be made to deliver Europe from the terrible inheritance

of the Vienna Congress.

Again it was France, the revolutionary weather-cock of Europe, which

gave the signal of revolt. Charles X had been succeeded by Louis

Philippe, the son of that famous Duke of Orleans who had turned

Jacobin, had voted for the death of his cousin the king, and had

played a rôle during the early days of the revolution under the name

of “Philippe Egalité” or “Equality Philip.” Eventually he had been

killed when Robespierre tried to purge the nation of all “traitors,”

(by which name he indicated those people who did not share his own

views) and his son had been forced to run away from the revolutionary

army. Young Louis Philippe thereupon had wandered far and wide. He had

taught school in Switzerland and had spent a couple of years exploring

the unknown “far west” of America. After the fall of Napoleon he had

returned to Paris. He was much more intelligent than his Bourbon

cousins. He was a simple man who went about in the public parks with a

red cotton umbrella under his arm, followed by a brood of children like

any good housefather. But France had outgrown the king business and

Louis did not know this until the morning of the 24th of February, of

the year 1848, when a crowd stormed the Tuileries and drove his Majesty

away and proclaimed the Republic.

When the news of this event reached Vienna, Metternich expressed the

casual opinion that this was only a repetition of the year 1793 and

that the Allies would once more be obliged to march upon Paris and make

an end to this very unseemly democratic row. But two weeks later his

own Austrian capital was in open revolt. Metternich escaped from the

mob through the back door of his palace, and the Emperor Ferdinand was

forced to give his subjects a constitution which embodied most of the

revolutionary principles which his Prime Minister had tried to suppress

for the last thirty-three years.

This time all Europe felt the shock. Hungary declared itself

independent, and commenced a war against the Habsburgs under the

leadership of Louis Kossuth. The unequal struggle lasted more than a

year. It was finally suppressed by the armies of Tsar Nicholas who

marched across the Carpathian mountains and made Hungary once more

safe for autocracy. The Habsburgs thereupon established extraordinary

court-martials and hanged the greater part of the Hungarian patriots

whom they had not been able to defeat in open battle.

As for Italy, the island of Sicily declared itself independent from

Naples and drove its Bourbon king away. In the Papal states the prime

minister, Rossi, was murdered and the Pope was forced to flee. He

returned the next year at the head of a French army which remained in

Rome to protect His Holiness against his subjects until the year 1870.

Then it was called back to defend France against the Prussians, and

Rome became the capital of Italy. In the north, Milan and Venice rose

against their Austrian masters. They were supported by king Albert of

Sardinia, but a strong Austrian army under old Radetzky marched into

the valley of the Po, defeated the Sardinians near Custozza and Novara

and forced Albert to abdicate in favour of his son, Victor Emanuel, who

a few years later was to be the first king of a united Italy.

In Germany the unrest of the year 1848 took the form of a great national

demonstration in favour of political unity and a representative form of

government. In Bavaria, the king who had wasted his time and money upon

an Irish lady who posed as a Spanish dancer—(she was called Lola Montez

and lies buried in New York’s Potter’s Field)—was driven away by the

enraged students of the university. In Prussia, the king was forced

to stand with uncovered head before the coffins of those who had been

killed during the street fighting and to promise a constitutional form

of government. And in March of the year 1849, a German parliament,

consisting of 550 delegates from all parts of the country came together

in Frankfort and proposed that king Frederick William of Prussia should

be the Emperor of a United Germany.

Then, however, the tide began to turn. Incompetent Ferdinand had

abdicated in favour of his nephew Francis Joseph. The well-drilled

Austrian army had remained faithful to their war-lord. The hangman

was given plenty of work and the Habsburgs, after the nature of that

strangely cat-like family, once more landed upon their feet and rapidly

strengthened their position as the masters of eastern and western

Europe. They played the game of politics very adroitly and used the

jealousies of the other German states to prevent the elevation of the

Prussian king to the Imperial dignity. Their long training in the art

of suffering defeat had taught them the value of patience. They knew

how to wait. They bided their time and while the liberals, utterly

untrained in practical politics, talked and talked and talked and got

intoxicated by their own fine speeches, the Austrians quietly gathered

their forces, dismissed the Parliament of Frankfort and re-established

the old and impossible German confederation which the Congress of

Vienna had wished upon an unsuspecting world.

But among the men who had attended this strange Parliament of

unpractical enthusiasts, there was a Prussian country squire by the

name of Bismarck, who had made good use of his eyes and ears. He had a

deep contempt for oratory. He knew (what every man of action has always

known) that nothing is ever accomplished by talk. In his own way he was

a sincere patriot. He had been trained in the old school of diplomacy

and he could outlie his opponents just as he could outwalk them and

outdrink them and outride them.

Bismarck felt convinced that the loose confederation of little states

must be changed into a strong united country if it would hold its own

against the other European powers. Brought up amidst feudal ideas of

loyalty, he decided that the house of Hohenzollern, of which he was

the most faithful servant, should rule the new state, rather than the

incompetent Habsburgs. For this purpose he must first get rid of the

Austrian influence, and he began to make the necessary preparations for

this painful operation.

Italy in the meantime had solved her own problem, and had rid herself

of her hated Austrian master. The unity of Italy was the work of

three men, Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi. Of these three, Cavour,

the civil-engineer with the short-sighted eyes and the steel-rimmed

glasses, played the part of the careful political pilot. Mazzini, who

had spent most of his days in different European garrets, hiding from

the Austrian police, was the public agitator, while Garibaldi, with his

band of red-shirted rough-riders, appealed to the popular imagination.

Mazzini and Garibaldi were both believers in the Republican form

of government. Cavour, however, was a monarchist, and the others

who recognised his superior ability in such matters of practical

statecraft, accepted his decision and sacrificed their own ambitions

for the greater good of their beloved Fatherland.

[Illustration: GIUSEPPE MAZZINI]

Cavour felt towards the House of Sardinia as Bismarck did towards the

Hohenzollern family. With infinite care and great shrewdness he set

to work to jockey the Sardinian King into a position from which His

Majesty would be able to assume the leadership of the entire Italian

people. The unsettled political conditions in the rest of Europe

greatly helped him in his plans and no country contributed more to the

independence of Italy than her old and trusted (and often distrusted)

neighbour, France.

In that turbulent country, in November of the year 1852, the Republic

had come to a sudden but not unexpected end. Napoleon III the son of

Louis Bonaparte the former King of Holland, and the small nephew of a

great uncle, had re-established an Empire and had made himself Emperor

“by the Grace of God and the Will of the People.”

This young man, who had been educated in Germany and who mixed his

French with harsh Teutonic gutturals (just as the first Napoleon had

always spoken the language of his adopted country with a strong Italian

accent) was trying very hard to use the Napoleonic tradition for his

own benefit. But he had many enemies and did not feel very certain

of his hold upon his ready-made throne. He had gained the friendship

of Queen Victoria but this had not been a difficult task, as the

good Queen was not particularly brilliant and was very susceptible

to flattery. As for the other European sovereigns, they treated the

French Emperor with insulting haughtiness and sat up nights devising

new ways in which they could show their upstart “Good Brother” how

sincerely they despised him.

Napoleon was obliged to find a way in which he could break this

opposition, either through love or through fear. He well knew the

fascination which the word “glory” still held for his subjects. Since

he was forced to gamble for his throne he decided to play the game of

Empire for high stakes. He used an attack of Russia upon Turkey as an

excuse for bringing about the Crimean war in which England and France

combined against the Tsar on behalf of the Sultan. It was a very costly

and exceedingly unprofitable enterprise. Neither France nor England nor

Russia reaped much glory.

But the Crimean war did one good thing. It gave Sardinia a chance to

volunteer on the winning side and when peace was declared it gave

Cavour the opportunity to lay claim to the gratitude of both England

and France.

Having made use of the international situation to get Sardinia

recognised as one of the more important powers of Europe, the clever

Italian then provoked a war between Sardinia and Austria in June of the

year 1859. He assured himself of the support of Napoleon in exchange

for the provinces of Savoy and the city of Nice, which was really an

Italian town. The Franco-Italian armies defeated the Austrians at

Magenta and Solferino, and the former Austrian provinces and duchies

were united into a single Italian kingdom. Florence became the capital

of this new Italy until the year 1870 when the French recalled their

troops from Rome to defend France against the Germans. As soon as they

were gone, the Italian troops entered the eternal city and the House of

Sardinia took up its residence in the old Palace of the Quirinal which

an ancient Pope had built on the ruins of the baths of the Emperor

Constantine.

The Pope, however, moved across the river Tiber and hid behind

the walls of the Vatican, which had been the home of many of his

predecessors since their return from the exile of Avignon in the year

1377. He protested loudly against this high-handed theft of his

domains and addressed letters of appeal to those faithful Catholics

who were inclined to sympathise with him in his loss. Their number,

however, was small, and it has been steadily decreasing. For, once

delivered from the cares of state, the Pope was able to devote all

his time to questions of a spiritual nature. Standing high above the

petty quarrels of the European politicians, the Papacy assumed a new

dignity which proved of great benefit to the church and made it an

international power for social and religious progress which has shown

a much more intelligent appreciation of modern economic problems than

most Protestant sects.

In this way, the attempt of the Congress of Vienna to settle the

Italian question by making the peninsula an Austrian province was at

last undone.

The German problem however remained as yet unsolved. It proved the

most difficult of all. The failure of the revolution of the year 1848

had led to the wholesale migration of the more energetic and liberal

elements among the German people. These young fellows had moved to the

United States of America, to Brazil, to the new colonies in Asia and

America. Their work was continued in Germany but by a different sort of

men.

In the new Diet which met at Frankfort, after the collapse of the

German Parliament and the failure of the Liberals to establish a united

country, the Kingdom of Prussia was represented by that same Otto von

Bismarck from whom we parted a few pages ago. Bismarck by now had

managed to gain the complete confidence of the king of Prussia. That

was all he asked for. The opinion of the Prussian parliament or of the

Prussian people interested him not at all. With his own eyes he had

seen the defeat of the Liberals. He knew that he would not be able to

get rid of Austria without a war and he began by strengthening the

Prussian army. The Landtag, exasperated at his high-handed methods,

refused to give him the necessary credits. Bismarck did not even bother

to discuss the matter. He went ahead and increased his army with the

help of funds which the Prussian house of Peers and the king placed at

his disposal. Then he looked for a national cause which could be used

for the purpose of creating a great wave of patriotism among all the

German people.

In the north of Germany there were the Duchies of Schleswig and

Holstein which ever since the middle ages had been a source of trouble.

Both countries were inhabited by a certain number of Danes and a

certain number of Germans, but although they were governed by the King

of Denmark, they were not an integral part of the Danish State and this

led to endless difficulties. Heaven forbid that I should revive this

forgotten question which now seems settled by the acts of the recent

Congress of Versailles. But the Germans in Holstein were very loud in

their abuse of the Danes and the Danes in Schleswig made a great ado

of their Danishness, and all Europe was discussing the problem and

German Männerchors and Turnvereins listened to sentimental speeches

about the “lost brethren” and the different chancelleries were trying

to discover what it was all about, when Prussia mobilised her armies

to “save the lost provinces.” As Austria, the official head of the

German Confederation, could not allow Prussia to act alone in such

an important matter, the Habsburg troops were mobilised too and the

combined armies of the two great powers crossed the Danish frontiers

and after a very brave resistance on the part of the Danes, occupied

the two duchies. The Danes appealed to Europe, but Europe was otherwise

engaged and the poor Danes were left to their fate.

Bismarck then prepared the scene for the second number upon his

Imperial programme. He used the division of the spoils to pick a

quarrel with Austria. The Habsburgs fell into the trap. The new

Prussian army, the creation of Bismarck and his faithful generals,

invaded Bohemia and in less than six weeks, the last of the Austrian

troops had been destroyed at Königgrätz and Sadowa and the road to

Vienna lay open. But Bismarck did not want to go too far. He knew

that he would need a few friends in Europe. He offered the defeated

Habsburgs very decent terms of peace, provided they would resign their

chairmanship of the Confederation. He was less merciful to many of the

smaller German states who had taken the side of the Austrians, and

annexed them to Prussia. The greater part of the northern states then

formed a new organisation, the so-called North German Confederacy, and

victorious Prussia assumed the unofficial leadership of the German

people.

Europe stood aghast at the rapidity with which the work of

consolidation had been done. England was quite indifferent but France

showed signs of disapproval. Napoleon’s hold upon the French people

was steadily diminishing. The Crimean war had been costly and had

accomplished nothing.

A second adventure in the year 1863, when a French army had tried to

force an Austrian Grand-Duke by the name of Maximilian upon the Mexican

people as their Emperor, had come to a disastrous end as soon as the

American Civil War had been won by the North. For the Government at

Washington had forced the French to withdraw their troops and this had

given the Mexicans a chance to clear their country of the enemy and

shoot the unwelcome Emperor.

It was necessary to give the Napoleonic throne a new coat of

glory-paint. Within a few years the North German Confederation would

be a serious rival of France. Napoleon decided that a war with Germany

would be a good thing for his dynasty. He looked for an excuse and

Spain, the poor victim of endless revolutions, gave him one.

Just then the Spanish throne happened to be vacant. It had been offered

to the Catholic branch of the house of Hohenzollern. The French

government had objected and the Hohenzollerns had politely refused

to accept the crown. But Napoleon, who was showing signs of illness,

was very much under the influence of his beautiful wife, Eugénie de

Montijo, the daughter of a Spanish gentleman and the grand-daughter of

William Kirkpatrick, an American consul at Malaga, where the grapes

come from. Eugénie, although shrewd enough, was as badly educated as

most Spanish women of that day. She was at the mercy of her spiritual

advisers and these worthy gentlemen felt no love for the Protestant

King of Prussia. “Be bold,” was the advice of the Empress to her

husband, but she omitted to add the second half of that famous Persian

proverb which admonishes the hero to “be bold but not too bold.”

Napoleon, convinced of the strength of his army, addressed himself to

the king of Prussia and insisted that the king give him assurances that

“he would never permit another candidature of a Hohenzollern prince

to the Spanish crown.” As the Hohenzollerns had just declined the

honour, the demand was superfluous, and Bismarck so informed the French

government. But Napoleon was not satisfied.

It was the year 1870 and King William was taking the waters at Ems.

There one day he was approached by the French minister who tried to

re-open the discussion. The king answered very pleasantly that it was a

fine day and that the Spanish question was now closed and that nothing

more remained to be said upon the subject. As a matter of routine, a

report of this interview was telegraphed to Bismarck, who handled all

foreign affairs. Bismarck edited the dispatch for the benefit of the

Prussian and French press. Many people have called him names for doing

this. Bismarck however could plead the excuse that the doctoring of

official news, since time immemorial, had been one of the privileges

of all civilised governments. When the “edited” telegram was printed,

the good people in Berlin felt that their old and venerable king

with his nice white whiskers had been insulted by an arrogant little

Frenchman and the equally good people of Paris flew into a rage because

their perfectly courteous minister had been shown the door by a Royal

Prussian flunkey.

And so they both went to war and in less than two months, Napoleon and

the greater part of his army were prisoners of the Germans. The Second

Empire had come to an end and the Third Republic was making ready to

defend Paris against the German invaders. Paris held out for five

long months. Ten days before the surrender of the city, in the nearby

palace of Versailles, built by that same King Louis XIV who had been

such a dangerous enemy to the Germans, the King of Prussia was publicly

proclaimed German Emperor and a loud booming of guns told the hungry

Parisians that a new German Empire had taken the place of the old

harmless Confederation of Teutonic states and statelets.

In this rough way, the German question was finally settled. By the end

of the year 1871, fifty-six years after the memorable gathering at

Vienna, the work of the Congress had been entirely undone. Metternich

and Alexander and Talleyrand had tried to give the people of Europe

a lasting peace. The methods they had employed had caused endless

wars and revolutions and the feeling of a common brotherhood of the

eighteenth century was followed by an era of exaggerated nationalism

which has not yet come to an end.