Studies in Literature and History
to be in the case of the French Empire. In domestic affairs also the
Liberal Empire took up a kind of half-way position, which was assailed
by the extreme parties on both sides; for thorough-going Imperialists
like Rouher asserted that a Napoleon could only rule by retaining
absolute authority; while uncompromising Liberals demanded full
parliamentary control. Ollivier's ministry took office with the avowed
object of gradually extending constitutional administration; but he
found that, as Tocqueville had said in his _Ancien Regime_, the most
dangerous moment for an absolute government is when it endeavours to
introduce reforms.
General du Barail, in the memoirs already quoted, gives M. Ollivier
full credit for his honesty, ability, and sincere patriotism in
undertaking his difficult task, which was begun in an evil hour, and
failed through adverse circumstance. In May 1870, Ollivier, who was
holding the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, transferred it to the Duc de
Gramont, foreseeing no troubles abroad, and desiring to give his
whole attention to politics at home. The external policy of the
ministry was decidedly pacific; they relied on a quiet moment for
developing the new constitutional system; they had no notion of
changing horses in mid-stream, yet most unluckily they were caught by
a sudden flood. At the end of June it was announced in Madrid that
Leopold of Hohenzollern, son of the Roumanian prince, had accepted the
crown of Spain that had been secretly offered to him by Marshal Prim;
and the news, M. Ollivier says, startled all France like the bursting
of a bomb. It had always, we must remember, been a cardinal maxim of
French statesmanship that the maintenance of a preponderant influence
in Spain was essential to the security of France; while, on the other
hand, a complete subordination of Spanish to French interests has been
held by other governments to be dangerous to the balance of power in
Europe. The collision between these two principles had been the cause
of great wars and diplomatic quarrels. Louis XIV. only succeeded in
securing the Spanish throne for his grandson after a long war. When
Napoleon I. made his nefarious attempt to impose his brother on the
Spaniards as their king, his pretext was that under the Bourbon
dynasty Spain had always been a dependency of France; and it had been
the invariable aim of English policy to prevent a close association of
the two kingdoms. The question had long been regarded on all sides as
one of vital importance; and in 1869, when some information of secret
negotiations between Bismarck and Marshal Prim had leaked out, the
French ambassador at Berlin, Benedetti, had warned Bismarck that
France would oppose the election of a Prussian prince to the vacant
throne of Spain. Bismarck had treated the information as an improbable
rumour, yet he had carefully abstained from a formal assurance that
the king would forbid Prince Leopold to accept any such offer.[43] It
was therefore quite certain that in 1870, when the relations between
France and Prussia were in a very critical state, the announcement
that Prince Leopold had been chosen for Spain would be treated as a
most threatening move on the political chessboard. Italy was under
deep obligation to Prussia for aid in expelling the Austrians from
Venice; the St. Gothard railway had been openly promoted and
subsidised by Germany for direct and secure communication with Italy
in case of need; and now the family connection which was obviously
contemplated would bring Spain into the circle of alliances that
Bismarck was drawing round the French frontier. It was a strategical
manoeuvre that the imperial government was bound to resist. Within
France all factions were for once unanimous in demanding immediate and
resolute protest; and the clerical party, very powerful in that
country, were especially vehement in denouncing the project of placing
the scion of a great Protestant dynasty on the 'throne of Charles V.'
M. Ollivier tells us that when the news first reached him it brought
upon him suddenly and painfully the presentiment of impending war, to
the discomfiture of all his efforts for the preservation of peace
until the Liberal Empire should have been consolidated in France.
The plot--for it was nothing less--had been skilfully concerted
between Berlin and Madrid; and even the parts to be played in
anticipation of French remonstrances had been rehearsed. When
Benedetti went to the Berlin Foreign Office for explanations, he found
that Bismarck was absent at his country house and the king at Ems; and
Von Thiele, the Under-Secretary, cut short his interrogation by
replying at once that the Prussian Government knew nothing of, and had
no concern with, the Hohenzollern candidature, adding that the Spanish
people had a right to choose their own king. At Madrid,
notwithstanding the French ambassador's attempts to check Prim's
jubilant activity, Leopold's acceptance of the crown was proclaimed to
all the foreign courts as a matter for joyful congratulation; and the
Cortes were summoned for July 20 to elect their new monarch. To demand
satisfaction from Spain would have been to fall into Bismarck's net;
for the Hohenzollern prince would have been elected nevertheless, and
if French troops had then marched into Spain the Prussian army would
have crossed the Rhine, whereby the French would have been placed
between two fires. It was necessary to fix the responsibility for
these proceedings upon Prussia, and to act promptly; but the precise
line to be adopted was the subject of anxious deliberation in the
emperor's council--that is, in a meeting of the Cabinet presided over
by him. Finally, Ollivier proposed, as he has told us, to speak out so
plainly that Prussia must understand France to be in earnest, and to
say that the Hohenzollern could not be permitted to reign at Madrid.
Marshal Le Boeuf had assured the council that the army was in the
highest condition of efficiency and readiness; and when M. Ollivier
inquired whether, in the event of war, any help from other governments
could be relied upon, Napoleon produced certain letters from the
Austrian emperor and the King of Italy, which he interpreted as
distinct assurances of armed support in the case of a rupture with
Prussia. The wording of a declaration to be made before the French
Chamber of Deputies was carefully settled--it was delivered next day
(July 6) by the Duc de Gramont, and received with immense enthusiasm.
Some objection was taken, then and afterwards, to its menacing tone;
but we may agree with M. Ollivier that this outspoken warning to
Prussia was at the moment judicious and effective; and we may admit
that up to this point no exception could be taken to the procedure of
the French Government.
M. Ollivier dates from July 6 the first of five phases, or alternating
changes (_peripeties_), which the diplomatic campaign, as he terms it,
traversed in its headlong course. They are successively described and
commented upon in the chapters of his volume; and they may be here set
down in his own language, for the guidance of our readers through the
complicated transactions that ensued:
'Le premier moment est la declaration ministerielle du 6 juillet;
le second, la renonciation du Prince Antoine (11 juillet); le
troisieme, la demande de garanties de la droite (12 juillet); le
quatrieme, le soufflet de Bismarck et la fabrication de la depeche
d'Ems; le cinquieme, notre reponse au soufflet de Bismarck par
notre declaration de guerre du 15 juillet.'
These are, in fact, the five acts of a portentous drama, full of
shifting scenes and striking situations, on the issues of which
depended the fortunes of France and of Germany; it was played out with
ill-omened rapidity in nine days. In regard to the train of causes and
consequences that brought France to the tremendous disaster upon which
the curtain fell, diverse accounts have been given to the world by the
leading actors--by M. de Gramont, by Bismarck, Benedetti, and, the
latest by many years, by M. Ollivier. His narrative does raise
somewhat higher the veil which has hitherto kept in partial obscurity
certain dark corners of the stage upon which these things went on. We
know more now of the precise motives and considerations, the personal
influences and impulses which diverted the Cabinet, after starting on
the right path, into leaving it for rash and perilous adventures. On
some points of interest he is, indeed, still reticent, and on others
his evidence is in conflict with different narratives; but in regard
to facts actually known to him we may accept his testimony, though in
matters of opinion we may sometimes differ from him.
M. Ollivier insists that Gramont's declaration of July 6 was
altogether _irreprochable_; he writes that he has read it again after
so many years with satisfaction. He admits that it contained,
substantially, an intimation to Prussia that she must choose between
withdrawing the Hohenzollern candidate and accepting war with France;
but he argues that this straightforward and peremptory warning was
justified by its effects; that Bismarck was taken aback and
discomfited by the resolute attitude of the French ministry, supported
enthusiastically by the Chamber of Deputies; and that Prince Antoine
was thereby so intimidated as to compel his son Leopold to retract his
acceptance of the Spanish crown. On the other hand, this stern
language alarmed cautious deputies, and though it stirred Paris to a
pitch of wild excitement it was read with uneasiness in the cooler air
of the French provinces, where the prospect of imminent war met with
scanty welcome.[44] The foreign governments were startled. Bismarck,
in his _Reminiscences_, says that it was an 'official international
threat, uttered with the hand on the sword-hilt,' From the Austrian
chancellor, Count Beust, came earnest advice against marching hastily
into Prussia; while the British Cabinet, in particular, doubted the
wisdom of taking up such high ground, from which it might be difficult
to retreat, at the opening of a grave and complicated question. And
our ambassador in Paris, Lord Lyons, whose calm judgment and friendly
counsels M. Ollivier acknowledges unreservedly, exerted himself
throughout this critical time to deprecate precipitate words and
deeds.
Simultaneously Benedetti, the French ambassador at Berlin, had been
ordered to seek an interview with the Prussian king, and to impress
upon him the necessity of appeasing the just indignation of the French
people by forbidding Leopold to accept the crown of Spain. The king
replied, as is well known, that he had treated the candidature
entirely as a family matter, quite apart from the sphere of
international politics; that he had nevertheless communicated with
Leopold, and could give Benedetti no positive answer until he should
have heard from that prince. If, as has been asserted, the king had
been cognisant of Bismarck's secret negotiations, this reply was more
evasive than ingenuous; and we may note that he immediately directed
his own ambassador, Werther, who was present at Ems, to return at once
to Paris. M. Ollivier scores the king's order to the credit of
Benedetti's diplomacy, since it amounted to an admission that the
question in debate was much more than a mere family concern. And he
adds that he immediately urged Gramont to allow no more equivocation
upon this essential point, but to press Werther for a straightforward
reply upon it. It will be seen that this pressure was carried rather
too far at the French Foreign Office, with an important effect upon
the course of negotiations.
But at this juncture supervened the _coup de theatre_, as M. Ollivier
styles it, which opens the second act of the drama. Olozaga, the