Beacon Lights of History, Volume 10: European Leaders — Prince Bismarck, Part 3

In the meantime Austria fomented disaffection in the provinces which Prussia had acquired, and Bismarck resolved to cut the knot by the sword.

Prussian troops marched to the frontier, and Austria on her part also prepared for war.

It is difficult to see that a real _casus belli_ existed.

We only know that both parties wanted to fight, whatever were their excuses and pretensions; and both parties sought the friendship of Russia and France, especially by holding out delusive hopes to Napoleon of accession of territory.

They succeeded in inducing both Russia and France to remain neutral,--mere spectators of the approaching contest, which was purely a German affair.

It was the first care of Prussia to prevent the military union of her foes in North Germany with her foes in the south,--which was effected in part by the diplomatic genius of Bismarck, and in part by occupying the capitals of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel with Prussian troops, in a very summary way.

The encounter now began in earnest between Prussia and Austria for the prize of ascendency.

Both parties were confident of success,--Austria as the larger State, with proud traditions, triumphant over rebellious Italy; and Prussia, with its enlarged military organization and the new breech-loading needle-gun.

Count von Moltke at this time came prominently on the European stage as the greatest strategist since Napoleon.

He was chief of staff to the king, who was commander-in-chief.

He set his wonderful machinery in harmonious action, and from his office in Berlin moved his military pawns by touch of electric wire.

Three great armies were soon centralized in Bohemia,--one of three corps, comprising one hundred thousand men, led by Prince Charles, the king's nephew; the second, of four corps, of one hundred and sixteen thousand men, commanded by the crown prince, the king's son; and the third, of forty thousand, led by General von Bittenfield.

"March separately; strike together," were the orders of Moltke.

Vainly did the Austrians attempt to crush these armies in detail before they should combine at the appointed place.

On they came, with mathematical accuracy, until two of the armies reached Gitschin, the objective point, where they were joined by the king, by Moltke, by Bismarck, and by General von Roon, the war minister.

On the 2d of June, 1866, they were opposite Königgrätz (or Sadowa, as the Austrians called it), where the Austrians were marshalled.

On the 3d of July the battle began; and the scales hung pretty evenly until, at the expected hour, the crown prince--"our Fritz," as the people affectionately called him after this, later the Emperor Frederick William--made his appearance on the field with his army.

Assailed on both flanks and pressed in the centre, the Austrians first began to slacken fire, then to waver, then to give way under the terrific concentrated fire of the needle-guns, then to retreat into ignominious flight.

The contending forces were about equal; but science and the needle-gun won the day, and changed the whole aspect of modern warfare.

The battle of Königgrätz settled this point,--that success in war depends more on good powder and improved weapons than on personal bravery or even masterly evolutions.

Other things being equal, victory is almost certain to be on the side of the combatants who have the best weapons.

The Prussians won the day of Königgrätz by their breech-loading guns, although much was due to their superior organization and superior strategy.

That famous battle virtually ended the Austro-Prussian campaign, which lasted only about seven weeks.

It was one of those "decisive battles" that made Prussia the ascendent power in Germany, and destroyed the prestige of Austria.

It added territory to Prussia equal to one quarter of the whole kingdom, and increased her population by four and a half millions of people.

At a single bound, Prussia became a first-class military State.

The Prussian people were almost frantic with joy; and Bismarck, from being the most unpopular man in the nation, became instantly a national idol.

His marvellous diplomacy, by which Austria was driven to the battlefield, was now seen and universally acknowledged.

He obtained fame, decorations, and increased power.

A grateful nation granted to him four hundred thousand thalers, with which he bought the estate of Varzin.

General von Moltke received three hundred thousand thalers and immense military prestige.

The war minister, Von Roon, also received three hundred thousand thalers.

These three stood out as the three most prominent men of the nation, next to the royal family.

Never was so short a war so pregnant with important consequences.

It consolidated the German Confederation under Prussian dominance.

By weakening Austria it led to the national unity of Italy, and secured free government to the whole Austrian empire, since that government could no longer refuse the demands of Hungary.

Above all, "it shattered the fabric of Ultramontanism which had been built up by the concordat of 1853." It was the expectation of Napoleon III that Austria would win in this war; but the loss of the Austrians was four to one, besides her humiliation, condemned as she was to pay a war indemnity, with the loss also of the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort.

But Bismarck did not push Austria to the wall, since he did not wish to make her an irreconcilable enemy.

He left open a door for future and permanent peace.

He did not desire to ruin his foe, but simply to acquire the lead in German politics and exclude Austria from the Germanic Confederation.

Napoleon, disappointed and furious, blustered, and threatened war, unless he too could come in for a share of the plunder, to which he had no real claim.

Bismarck calmly replied, "Well, then, let there be war," knowing full well that France was not prepared, Napoleon consulted his marshals, "Are we prepared," asked he, "to fight all Germany?"

"Certainly not," replied the marshals, "until our whole army, like that of Prussia, is supplied with a breech-loader; until our drill is modified to suit the new weapon; until our fortresses are in a perfect state of preparedness, and until we create a mobile and efficient national reserve."

When Carlyle heard the news of the great victories of Prussia, he wrote to a friend, "Germany is to stand on her feet henceforth, and face all manner of Napoleons and hungry, sponging dogs, with clear steel in her hand and an honest purpose in her heart.

This seems to me the best news we or Europe have heard for the last forty years or more."

The triumphal return of the Prussian troops to Berlin was followed on the 24th of February, 1867, by the opening of the first North German parliament,--three hundred deputies chosen from the various allied States by universal suffrage.

Twenty-two States north of the Main formed themselves into a perpetual league for the protection of the Union and its institutions.

Legislative power was to be invested in two bodies,--the Reichstag, representing the people; and the Bundesrath, composed of delegates from the allied governments, the perpetual presidency of which was invested in the king of Prussia.

He was also acknowledged as the commander-in-chief of the united armies; and the standing army, on a peace footing, was fixed at one per cent of all the inhabitants.

This constitution was drawn by Bismarck himself, not unwilling, under the unquestioned supremacy of his monarch, to utilize the spirit of the times, and admit the people to a recognized support of the crown.

Thus Germany at last acquired a liberal constitution, though not so free and broad as that of England.

The absolute control of the army and navy, the power to make treaties and declare peace and war, the appointment of all the great officers of state, and the control of education and other great interests still remained with the king.

The functions of the lower House seemed to be mostly confined to furnishing the sinews of war and government,--the granting of money and the regulation of taxes.

Meanwhile, secret treaties of alliance were concluded with the southern States of Germany, offensive and defensive, in case of war,--another stroke of diplomatic ability on the part of Bismarck; for the intrigues of Napoleon had been incessant to separate the southern from the northern States,--in other words, to divide Germany, which the French emperor was sanguine he could do.

With a divided Germany, he believed that he was more than a match for the king of Prussia, as soon as his military preparations should be made.

Could he convert these States into allies, he was ready for war.

He was intent upon securing for France territorial enlargements equal to those of Prussia.

He could no longer expect any thing on the Rhine, and he turned his eyes to Belgium.

The war-cloud arose on the political horizon in 1867, when Napoleon sought to purchase from the king of Holland the Duchy of Luxemburg, which was a personal fief of his kingdom, though it was inhabited by Germans, and which made him a member of the Germanic Confederation if he chose to join it.

In the time of Napoleon I. Luxemburg was defended by one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, garrisoned by Prussian troops; it was therefore a menace to France on her northeastern frontier.

As Napoleon III, promised a very big sum of money for this duchy, with a general protectorate of Holland in case of Prussian aggressions, the king of Holland was disposed to listen to the proposal of the French emperor; but when it was discovered that an alliance of the southern States had been made with the northern States of Germany, which made Prussia the mistress of Germany, the king of Holland became alarmed, and declined the French proposals.

The chagrin of the emperor and the wrath of the French nation became unbounded.

Again they had been foiled by the arch-diplomatist of Prussia.

All this was precisely what Bismarck wanted.

Confident of the power of Prussia, he did all he could to drive the French nation to frenzy.

He worked on a vainglorious, excitable, and proud people, at the height of their imperial power.

Napoleon was irresolute, although it appeared to him that war with Prussia was the only way to recover his prestige after the mistakes of the Mexican expedition.

But Mexico had absorbed the marrow of the French army, and the emperor was not quite ready for war.

He must find some pretence for abandoning his designs on Luxemburg, any attempt to seize which would be a plain _casus belli_.

Both parties were anxious to avoid the initiative of a war which might shake Europe to its centre.

Both parties pretended peace; but both desired war.

Napoleon, a man fertile in resources, in order to avoid immediate hostilities looked about for some way to avoid what he knew was premature; so he proposed submitting the case to arbitration, and the Powers applied themselves to extinguish the gathering flames.

The conference--composed of representatives of England, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Holland, and Belgium--met in London; and the result of it was that Prussia agreed to withdraw her garrison from Luxemburg and to dismantle the fortress, while the duchy was to continue to be a member of the German Zollverein, or Customs Union.

King William was willing to make this concession to the cause of humanity; and his minister, rather than go against the common sentiment of Europe, reluctantly conceded this point, which, after all, was not of paramount importance.

Thus was war prevented for a time, although everybody knew that it was inevitable, sooner or later.

The next three years Bismarck devoted himself to diplomatic intrigues in order to cement the union of the German States,--for the Luxemburg treaty was well known to be a mere truce,--and Napoleon did the same to weaken the union.

In the meantime King William accepted an invitation of Napoleon to visit Paris at the time of the Great Exposition; and thither he went, accompanied by Counts Bismarck and Moltke.

The party was soon after joined by the Czar, accompanied by Prince Gortschakoff, who had the reputation of being the ablest diplomatist in Europe, next to Bismarck.

The meeting was a sort of carnival of peace, hollow and pretentious, with fêtes and banquets and military displays innumerable.

The Prussian minister amused himself by feeling the national pulse, while Moltke took long walks to observe the fortifications of Paris.

When his royal guests had left, Napoleon travelled to Salzburg to meet the Austrian emperor, ostensibly to condole with him for the unfortunate fate of Maximilian in Mexico, but really to interchange political ideas.

Bismarck was not deceived, and openly maintained that the military and commercial interests of north and south Germany were identical.

In April, 1868, the Customs Parliament assembled in Berlin, as the first representative body of the entire nation that had as yet met.

Though convoked to discuss tobacco and cotton, the real object was to pave the way for "the consummation of the national destinies."

Bismarck meanwhile conciliated Hanover, whose sovereign, King George, had been dethroned, by giving him a large personal indemnity, and by granting home rule to what was now a mere province of Prussia.

In Berlin, he resisted in the Reichstag the constitutional encroachments which the Liberal party aimed at,--ever an autocrat rather than minister, having no faith in governmental responsibility to parliament.

Only one master he served, and that was the king, as Richelieu served Louis XIII.

Nor would he hear of a divided ministry; affairs were too complicated to permit him to be encumbered by colleagues.

He maintained that public affairs demanded quickness, energy, and unity of action; and it was certainly fortunate for Germany in the present crisis that the foreign policy was in the hands of a single man, and that man so able, decided, and astute as Bismarck.

All the while secret preparations for war went on in both Prussia and France.

French spies overran the Rhineland, and German draughtsmen were busy in the cities and plains of Alsace-Lorraine.

France had at last armed her soldiers with the breech-loading chassepot gun, by many thought to be superior to the needle-gun; and she had in addition secretly constructed a terrible and mysterious engine of war called _mitrailleuse_,--a combination of gun-barrels fired by mechanism.

These were to effect great results.

On paper, four hundred and fifty thousand men were ready to rush as an irresistible avalanche on the Rhine provinces.

To the distant observer it seemed that France would gain an easy victory, and once again occupy Berlin.

Besides her supposed military forces, she still had a great military prestige.

Prussia had done nothing of signal importance for forty years except to fight the duel with Austria; but France had done the same, and had signally conquered at Solferino.

Yet during forty years Prussia had been organizing her armies on the plan which Scharnhorst had furnished, and had four hundred and fifty thousand men under arms,--not on paper, but really ready for the field, including a superb cavalry force.

The combat was to be one of material forces, guided by science.

I have said that only a pretext was needed to begin hostilities.

This pretext on the part of the French was that their ambassador to Berlin, Benedetti, was reported to have been insulted by the king.

He was not insulted.

The king simply refused to have further parley with an arrogant ambassador, and referred him to his government,--which was the proper thing to do.

On this bit of scandal the French politicians--the people who led the masses--lashed themselves into fury, and demanded immediate war.

Napoleon could not resist the popular pressure, and war was proclaimed.

The arrogant demand of Napoleon, through his ambassador Benedetti, that the king of Prussia should agree never to permit his relative, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, to accept the vacant throne of Spain, to which he had been elected by the provisional government of that country, was the occasion of King William's curt reception of the French envoy; for this was an insulting demand, not to be endured.

It was no affair of Napoleon, especially since the prince had already declined the throne at the request of the king of Prussia, as the head of the Hohenzollern family.

But the French nation generally, the Catholic Church party working through the Empress Eugenie, and, above all, the excitable Parisians, goaded by the orators and the Press, saw the possibility of an extension of the Roman empire of Charles V. , under the control of Prussia; and Napoleon was driven to the fatal course, first, of making the absurd demand, and then--in spite of a wholesome irresolution, born of his ignorance concerning his own military forces--of resenting its declinature with war.

In two weeks the German forces were mobilized, and the colossal organization, in three great armies, all directed by Moltke as chief of staff to the commander-in-chief, the still vigorous old man who ruled and governed at Berlin, were on their way to the seat of war.

At Mayence, the king in person, on the 2d of August, 1870, assumed command of the united German armies; and in one month from that date Prance was prostrate at his feet.

It would be interesting to detail the familiar story; but my limits will not permit.

I can only say that the three armies of the German forces, each embracing several corps, were, one under the command of General Steinmetz, another under Prince Frederic Charles, and the third under the crown prince,--and all under the orders of Moltke, who represented the king.

The crown prince, on the extreme left, struck the first blow at Weissenburg, on the 4th of August; and on the 6th he assaulted McMahon at Worth, and drove back his scattered forces,--partly on Chalons, and partly on Strasburg; while Steinmetz, commanding the right wing, nearly annihilated Frossard's corps at Spicheren.

It was now the aim of the French under Bazaine, who commanded two hundred and fifty thousand men near Metz, to join McMahon's defeated forces.

This was frustrated by Moltke in the bloody battle of Gravelotte, compelling Bazaine to retire within the lines of Metz, the strongest fortress in France, which was at once surrounded by Prince Charles.

Meanwhile, the crown prince continued the pursuit of McMahon, who had found it impossible to effect a junction with Bazaine.

At Sedan the armies met;

but as the Germans were more than twice the number of the French, and had completely surrounded them, the struggle was useless,--and the French, with the emperor himself, were compelled to surrender as prisoners of war.

Thus fell Napoleon's empire.

After the battle of Sedan, one of the decisive battles of history, the Germans advanced rapidly to Paris, and King William took up his quarters at Versailles, with his staff and his councillor Bismarck, who had attended him day by day through the whole campaign, and conducted the negotiations of the surrender.

Paris, defended by strong fortifications, resolved to sustain a siege rather than yield, hoping that something might yet turn up by which the besieged garrison should be relieved,--a forlorn hope, as Paris was surrounded, especially on the fall of Metz, by nearly half a million of the best soldiers in the world.

Yet that memorable siege lasted five months, and Paris did not yield until reduced by extreme, famine; and perhaps it might have held out much longer if it could have been provisioned.

But this was not to be.

The Germans took the city as Alaric had taken Rome, without much waste of blood.

The conquerors were now inexorable, and demanded a war indemnity of five milliards of francs, and the cession of Metz and the two province of Alsace-Lorraine (which Louis XIV had formerly wrested away), including Strasburg.

Eloquently but vainly did old Thiers plead for better terms;

but he pleaded with men as hard as iron, who exacted, however, no more than Napoleon III would have done had the fortune of war enabled him to reach Berlin as the conqueror.

War is hard under any circumstances, but never was national humiliation more complete than when the Prussian flag floated over the Arc de Triomphe, and Prussian soldiers defiled beneath it.

Nothing was now left for the aged Prussian king but to put upon his head the imperial crown of Germany, for all the German States were finally united under him.

The scene took place at Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors, in probably the proudest palace ever erected since the days of Nebuchadnezzar.

Surrounded by princes and generals, Chancellor Bismarck read aloud the Proclamation of the Empire, and the new German emperor gave thanks to God.

It was a fitting sequence to the greatest military success since Napoleon crushed the German armies at Jena and Austerlitz.

The tables at last were turned, and the heavy, phlegmatic, intelligent Teutons triumphed over the warlike and passionate Celts.

So much for the genius of the greatest general and the greatest diplomatist that Europe had known for half-a-century.