Beacon Lights of History, Vol 9: European Statesmen — Prince Metternich, Part 2
One thing was impressed on the mind of Metternich during the festivities of this second visit to Paris; and that was that during the year 1811 the peace of Europe would not be disturbed.
Napoleon was absorbed with the preparations for the invasion of Russia,--the only power he had not subdued, except England, and a power in secret coalition with both Prussia and Austria.
His acquisitions would not be secure unless the Colossus of the North was hopelessly crippled.
Metternich saw that the campaign could not begin till 1812, and that the Emperor had need of all the assistance he could get from conquered allies.
He saw also the mistakes of Napoleon, and meant to profit by them.
He anticipated for that daring soldier nothing but disaster in attempting to battle the powers of Nature at such a distance from his capital.
He perceived that Napoleon was alienating, in his vast schemes of aggrandizement, even his own ministers, like Talleyrand and Fouché, who would leave him the moment they dared, although his marshals and generals might remain true to him because of the enormous rewards which he had lavished upon them for their military services.
He knew the discontent of Italy and Poland because of unfulfilled promises.
He knew the intense hatred of Prussia because of the humiliations and injuries Napoleon had inflicted on her.
Metternich was equally aware of the hostility of England, although Pitt had passed away; and he despised the arrogance of a man who looked upon himself as greater than destiny.
"It is an evidence of the weakness of the human understanding," said the infatuated conqueror, "for any one to dream of resisting me."
So Metternich, after the marriage ceremony and its attendant festivities, foreseeing the fall of the conqueror, retired to his post at Vienna to complete his negotiations, and make his preparations for the renewal of the conflict, which he now saw was inevitable.
His work was to persuade Prussia, Russia, and the lesser Powers, of the absolute necessity of a sincere and cordial alliance to make preparations for the conflict to put down, or at least successfully to resist, the common enemy,--the ruthless and unscrupulous disturber of the peace of Europe;
not to make war, but to prepare for war in view of contingencies; and this not merely to preserve the peace of Europe, but to save themselves from ruin.
All his confidential letters to his sovereign indicate his conviction that the throne of Austria was in extreme danger of being subverted.
All his despatches to ambassadors show that affairs were extremely critical.
His policy, in general terms, was pacific; he longed for peace on a settled basis.
But his policy in the great crisis of 1811 and 1812 was warlike,--not for immediate hostilities, but for war as soon as it would be safe to declare it.
It was his profound conviction that a lasting peace was utterly impossible so long as Napoleon reigned;
and this was the conviction also of Pitt and Castlereagh of England and of the Prussian Hardenberg.
The main trouble was with Prussia.
Frederick William III.
was timid, and considering the intense humiliation of his subjects and the overpowering ascendency of Napoleon, saw no hope but in submission.
He was afraid to make a move, even when urged by his ministers.
Indeed, he had in 1808 exiled the greatest of them, Stein, at the imperious demand of the French emperor,--sending him to a Rhenish city, whence he was soon after compelled to lead a fugitive life as an outlaw.
It is true the king did not like Stein, and saw him go without regret.
He could not endure the overshadowing influence of that great man, and was offended by his brusque manners and his plain speech.
But Stein saw things as Metternich saw them, and had when prime minister devoted himself to administrative and political reforms.
Prince Hardenberg, the successor of Stein, was easily convinced of Metternich's wisdom; for he was a patriot and an honest man, though loose in his private morals in some respects.
Metternich had an ally, too, in Schornhurst, who was remodelling the whole military system of Prussia.
The king, however, persisted in his timid policy until the Russian campaign,--a course which, singularly enough, proved the wisest in his circumstances.
When at last the king yielded, all Prussia arose with unbounded enthusiasm to engage in the war of liberation; Prussia needed no urging when actually invaded; Austria openly threw off her conservative appearance of armed neutrality: and the coalition for which Metternich had long been laboring, and of which he was the life and brain, became a reality.
The battle of Leipsic settled the fate of Napoleon.
Even before that fatal battle was fought, however, Napoleon, had he been wise, might have saved himself.
If he had been content in 1812 to spend the winter in Smolensk, instead of hurrying on to Moscow, the enterprise might not have been disastrous; but after his retreat from Russia, with the loss of the finest army that Europe ever saw, he was doomed.
Yet he could not brook further humiliation.
He resolved still to struggle.
"It may cost me my throne," said he, "but I will bury the world beneath its ruins."
He marched into Germany, in the spring of 1813, with a fresh army of three hundred and fifty thousand men, replacing the half million he had squandered in Russia.
Metternich shrank from further bloodshed, but clearly saw the issue.
"You may still have peace," said he in an audience with Napoleon.
"Peace or war lie in your own hands; but you must reduce your power, or you will fail in the contest."
"Never!"
replied Napoleon; "I shall know how to die, but I will not yield a handbreadth of soil."
"You are lost, then," said the Austrian chancellor, and withdrew.
"It is all over with the man," said Metternich to Berthier, Napoleon's chief of staff; and he turned to marshal the forces of his empire.
A short time was given Napoleon to reconsider, but without effect.
At twelve o'clock, Aug.
10, 1813, negotiations ceased;
the beacon fires were lighted, and hostilities recommenced.
During the preparations for the Russian campaign, Austria had been neutral and the rest of Germany submissive; but now Russia, Prussia, and Austria were allied, by solemn compact, to fight to the bitter end,--not to ruin France, but to dethrone Napoleon.
The allied monarchs then met at Toplitz, with their ministers, to arrange the plan of the campaign,--the Austrian armies being commanded by Prince Schwartzenberg, and the Prussians by Blücher.
Then followed the battle of Leipsic, on the 16th to the 18th of October, 1813,--"the battle of the nations," it has been called,--and Napoleon's power was broken.
Again the monarchs, with their ministers, met at Basle to consult, and were there joined by Lord Castlereagh, who represented England, the allied forces still pursuing the remnants of the French army into France.
From Basle the conference was removed to the heights of the Vosges, which overlooked the plains of France.
On the 1st of April, 1814, the allied sovereigns took up their residence in the Parisian palaces; and on April 4 Napoleon abdicated, and was sent to Elba.
He still had twelve thousand or fifteen thousand troops at Fontainebleau; but his marshals would have shot him had he made further resistance.
On the 4th of May Louis XVIII.
was seated on the throne of his ancestors, and Europe was supposed to be delivered.
Considering the evils and miseries which Napoleon had inflicted on the conquered nations, the allies were magnanimous in their terms.
No war indemnity was even asked, and Napoleon in Elba was allowed an income of six million francs, to be paid by France.
After the leaders of the allies had settled affairs at Paris, they reassembled at Vienna,--ostensibly to reconstruct the political system of Europe and secure a lasting peace; in reality, to divide among the conquerors the spoils taken from the vanquished.
The Congress of Vienna,--in session from November, 1814, to June, 1815,--of which Prince Metternich was chosen president by common consent, was one of the grandest gatherings of princes and statesmen seen since the Diet of Worms.
There were present at its deliberations the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, and nearly every statesman of commanding eminence in Europe.
Lord Castlereagh represented England; Talleyrand represented the Bourbons of France; and Hardenberg, Prussia.
Von Stein was also present, but without official place.
Besides these was a crowd of petty princes, each with attachés. Metternich entertained the visitors in the most lavish and magnificent manner.
The government, though embarrassed and straitened by the expense of the late wars, allowed £10,000 a day, equal perhaps in that country and at that time to £50,000 to-day in London.
Nothing was seen but the most brilliant festivities, incessant balls, fêtes, and banquets.
The greatest actors, the greatest singers, and the greatest dancers were allured to the giddy capital, never so gay before or since.
Beethoven was also there, at the height of his fame, and the great assembly rooms were placed at his disposal.
The sittings of the Congress, in view of the complicated questions which had to be settled, did not regularly begin till November.
The meetings at first were harmonious; but ere long they became acrimonious, as the views of the representatives of the four great powers--Russia, Austria, England, and Prussia--were brought to light.
They all, except England, claimed enormous territories as a compensation for the sacrifices they had made.
Talleyrand at first was excluded from the conferences; but his wonderful skill as a diplomatist soon made his power felt.
He was the soul of intrigue and insincerity.
All the diplomatists were at first wary and prudent, then greedy and unscrupulous.
Violent disputes arose.
The Emperor Alexander openly quarrelled with Metternich, and refused to be present at his parties, although they had been on the most friendly terms.
In the division of the spoils, the Czar claimed the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, to be nominally under the rule of a sovereign, but really to be incorporated with his vast empire.
Metternich resisted this claim with all the ability he had, as bringing Russia too dangerously near the frontiers of Austria; but Alexander had laid Prussia under such immense obligations that Frederick William supported his claims,--with the mutual understanding, however, that Prussia should annex the kingdom of Saxony, since Saxony had supported Napoleon.
The plenipotentiaries were in such awe of the vast armies of the Czar, that they were obliged to yield to this wicked annexation; and Poland--once the most powerful of the mediaeval kingdoms of Europe--was wiped out of the map of independent nations.
This acquisition by far outbalanced all the expenses which Alexander had incurred during the war of liberation.
It made Russia the most powerful military empire in the world.
Although Prussia and Austria had been, since the times of Frederic the Great, in perpetual rivalry, the greatness of the common danger from such a warlike neighbor now induced Metternich to make every overture to Prussia to prevent a possible calamity to Germany; but Frederick William was obstinate, and his league with Alexander could not be broken.
It appears, from the memoirs of Metternich, that it had been for a long time his desire to unite Prussia and Austria in a firm alliance, in order to protect Germany in case of future wars.
That was undoubtedly his true policy.
It was the policy fifty years later of Bismarck, although he was obliged to fight and humble Austria before he could consummate it.
With Russia on one side and France on the other, the only hope of Germany is in union.
But this aim of the great Austrian statesman was defeated by the stupidity and greed of the Prussian king, and by his interested friendship with "the autocrat of all the Russias."
Alexander got Poland, with an addition of about four million subjects to his empire.
A greater resistance was made to the outrageous claims of Prussia.
She wanted to annex the whole of Saxony and important provinces on the Rhine, which would have made her more powerful than Austria.
Neither Metternich nor Talleyrand nor Castlereagh would hear of this crime; and so angry and threatening were the disputes in the Congress that a treaty was signed by England, France, and Austria for an offensive and defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia, in case the claims of Prussia were persisted in.
After the combination of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and England against Napoleon, there was imminent danger of war breaking out between these great Powers in the matter of a division of spoils.
In rapacity and greed they showed themselves as bad as Napoleon himself.
Prussia, however, was the most greedy and insatiable of all the contracting parties.
She always has been so since she was erected into a kingdom.
The cruel terms exacted by Bismarck and Moltke in their late contest with France indicate the real animus of Prussia.
The conquerors would have exacted ten milliards instead of five, as a war indemnity, if they had thought that France could pay it.
They did not dare to carry away the pictures of the Louvre, nor perhaps did those iron warriors care much for them; but they did want money and territory, and were determined to get all they could.
Prussia was a poor country, and must be enriched any way by the unexpected spoils which the fortune of war threw into her hands.
This same rapacity was seen at the Congress of Vienna; but the opposition to it was too great to risk another war, and Prussia, at the entreaty of Alexander, abated some of her demands, as did also Russia her own.
The result was that only half of Saxony was ceded to Prussia, raising the subjects of Prussia to ten millions.
The tact and firmness of Talleyrand and Castlereagh had prevented the utter absorption of Saxony in the new military monarchy.
Talleyrand, whose designs could never be fathomed by the most astute of diplomatists, had succeeded also in isolating Russia and Prussia from the rest of Europe, and raising France into a great power, although her territories were now confined to the limits which had existed in 1792. He had succeeded in detaching Austria and the southern States of Germany from Prussia.
He had split Germany into two rival powers, just what Louis Napoleon afterwards aspired to do, hoping to derive from their mutual jealousies some great advantage to France in case of war.
Neither of them, however, realized the intense common love of both Austria and Prussia, and indeed of all the German States at heart, for "Fatherland," needing only the genius of a very great man finally to unite them together in one great nation, impossible to be hereafter vanquished by any single power.
Austria retained for her share Lombardy, Venice, Parma, Placentia,--the finest part of Italy, that which was known in the time of Julius Caesar as Cisalpine Gaul.
She did not care for the Low Countries, which formed a part of the old empire of Charles V. , since to keep that territory would cost more than it would pay.
She also received from Bavaria the Tyrol.
As further results of the Congress of Vienna, the Netherlands and Holland were united in one kingdom, under a prince of the house of Nassau; Naples returned to the rule of the Bourbons; Genoa became a part of Piedmont.
The petty independent States of Germany (some three hundred) were united into a confederation of thirty-seven, called the German Confederacy, to afford mutual support in time of war, and to be directed by a Diet, in which Austria and Prussia were to have two votes each, while Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Hanover were to have one vote each.
Thus, Prussia and Austria had four votes out of seven; which practically gave to these two powers, if they chose to unite, the control of all external relations.
As to internal affairs, the legislative power was vested in representatives from all the States, both small and great.
It will be seen that the higher interests of Germany were not considered in this Congress at all, attention being directed solely to a division of spoils.
But while the Congress was dividing between the princes who composed it its acquisition of territory by conquest, and quarrelling about their respective shares like the members of a family that had come into a large fortune, news arrived of the escape of Napoleon from Elba, after a brief ten months' detention, the adherence to him of the French army, and the consequent dethronement of Louis XVIII.
The Congress at once dispersed, forgetting all its differences, while the great monarchs united once more in pouring such an avalanche of troops into France and Belgium that Napoleon stood no chance of retaining his throne, whatever military genius he might display.
After his defeat at Waterloo the allies occupied Paris, and this time exacted a large war indemnity of £40,000,000, and left an army of occupation of one hundred and fifty thousand men in France until the money should be paid.
They also returned to their owners the pictures of the Louvre which Napoleon had taken in his various conquests.
It was while the allies were in Paris settling the terms of the second peace, that what is called the "Holy Alliance" was formed between Alexander, Frederick William, and Francis (to whom were afterward added the kings of France, Naples, and Spain), which had for its object the suppression of liberal ideas throughout the Continent, in the name of religion.
Some of these monarchs were religious men in their way,--especially the Czar, who had been much interested in the spread of Christianity, and the king of Prussia; but even these men thought more of putting down revolutionary ideas than they did of the triumphs of religion.
We must, however, turn our attention to Metternich as the administrator of a large empire, rather than as a diplomatist, although for thirty years after this his hand was felt, if not seen, in all the political affairs of Europe.
He was now forty-four years of age, in the prime of his strength and the fulness of his fame,--a prince of the empire, chancellor and prime minister to the Emperor Francis.
On his shoulders were imposed the burdens of the State.
He ruled with delegated powers indeed, but absolutely.
The master whom he served was weak, but was completely in accord with Metternich on all political questions.
He of course submitted all important documents to the emperor, and requested instructions; but all this was a matter of form.
He was allowed to do as he pleased.
He was always exceedingly deferential, and never made himself disagreeable to his sovereign, who could not do without him.
From first to last they were on the most friendly terms with each other, and there was no jealousy of his power on the part of the emperor.
The chancellor was a gentleman, and had extraordinary tact.
But his labors were prodigious, and gave him no time for pleasure, or even social intercourse, which finally became irksome to him.
He was too busy with public affairs to be a great scholar, and was not called upon to make speeches, as there was no deliberative assembly to address.
Nor was he a national idol.
He lived retired in his office, among ministers and secretaries, and appeared in public as little as possible.
