BOOK VIII.

BEGINNING OF THE MINISTRY OF BISMARCK.

 

CHAPTER I.

STRUGGLE OVER THE CONSTITUTION.

 

The Prussian Ministry of March 18th, 1862, of which the virtual leader was the Minister of Finance, Von der Heydt, in the beginning of its existence had some weighty events to record in German politics.

In spite of the tension of relation which existed between the two German Great Powers, and which had been made manifest in the notes of the seven Governments communicated on the 2d of February, Count Rechberg had been unwilling to leave to the Prussian Government alone anything so popular as the defence of Schleswig-Holstein and of the constitutional rights of Hesse-Cassel. He therefore continued without interruption to take part energetically in common with the Cabinet of Berlin in the war of despatches against Denmark.

As regards Hesse-Cassel, the Elector made a third attempt in 1862 to get together on the basis of a new constitution a parliament that would be amenable; but this failed as completely as the two former. Rechberg then finally listened to Prussia’s proposition, that without any criticism of former decrees of the Diet, and solely on the ground of the impossibility of any other course, the Elector should be forced to yield to the wishes of his people. Both Powers, therefore, moved, on the 8th of March, in the Diet, that that body should call upon the Elector to bring into effect once more the Constitution of 1831, such provisions of that Constitu­tion as were contrary to the principles of the Confederation having been first expunged.

As a number of the smaller Courts found it hard to reconcile themselves to such a repeal of the steps that had formerly been taken in that wretched business, the decision in regard to the motion, according to the usual Frankfort practice, was long delayed. It occurred to King William, therefore, that it might be a good thing if he himself should appeal directly and personally to the Elector. He could send him, by one of his adjutants, an autograph letter, calling his attention to the certainty that the Diet would agree to the motion before it, and representing to him how admirable it would be, if, before that happened, he should grant of his own accord what was desired, and should at the same time call into his Ministry men who had the public confidence. The letter was to make it clear that Prussia could no longer tolerate a hotbed of increasing agitation between her provinces, and would therefore be driven, in her own interest, in case of further obstinacy on the Elector’s part, to take decided steps.

The King first of all invited the Cabinet of Vienna to take part in this measure, and at the same time laid before it a list of those who might become Ministers in Hesse. But Count Rechberg at once replied that this would be interfering too far in the Elector’s sovereign rights, and that Austria could the less take part in such an act, since at the head of the list of Ministers presented stood the name of a former “March” Minister, of acknowledged leanings towards a restricted Germany, Herr von Wintzingerode: Austria might yield to such an appointment so far as it affected Hesse, but never as it affected Germany.

The Elector, encouraged by so much hesitation, broke in upon these deliberations, on the 26th of April, with a brutal order, by which the participation of every citizen in the elections for the Parliament was made dependent upon a previous express recognition of the Constitution of 1860: without such recognition no elector was to be permitted to cast his vote, and it was expected that by this means the small company of the Elector’s faithful followers would be chosen by a minority of the voters and would form a popular representation that would be well affected. The indig­nation of the country flamed high; all the electors of Cassel sent a complaint to the Confederate Diet, a committee of which had now for two months been deliberating without result upon the proposition of the Great Powers. The Elector laughed; and counting on his secret supporters at Frankfort, he sent out, on the 3d of May, the writs for the parliamentary elections, in accordance with the order mentioned above.

But patience was now exhausted at Berlin. On the 6th of May, Count Bernstorff sent word to Vienna that the Elector had pushed things to extremities. Prussia, he said, could no longer make her action dependent upon the delays at Frankfort, and she believed that Austria’s feeling was the same. He therefore repeated, with a request for strict secrecy, the proposition that the two Cabinets, acting in common, should send two generals to Cassel, to demand first a postponement of the elections, and, in case of a refusal, to declare diplomatic relations broken off.

At that time in Vienna, in consequence of the affair of the Tariff-Union, which we shall mention later, the feeling toward Prussia had grown decidedly less friendly, while there was a strong desire to keep the leading rôle in the work of popular salvation, and hence to retain that work in the hands of the Diet. The sending of the generals was, therefore, declined; but it was proposed to move that the Diet should prohibit the carrying on of the elections, which motion, if passed, would render any independent action on the part of the Governments superfluous. “Very well, then,” telegraphed Bernstorff in reply. “The King will make this last attempt; but if the prohibition is not agreed to in the next sitting of the Diet, General von Willisen will march to Cassel, and Prussia will look to her own interests on her own account”

The telegraph was busy in all directions; and almost all the German Courts, with the exception of Hanover and Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had instructed their representatives to vote for the prohibition at the sitting on the 10th of May. On the other side, the Hessian representative demanded a postponement till the following sitting, a demand which, according to the regular order of business, had to be granted. As Herr von Usedom reported that there was every possibility of a similar demand at the next session, and as Herr von Sydow sent word from Cassel that the Elector was intoxicated with his victory in obtaining the postponement, and was determined to refuse obedience even to the prohibition, King William, on the 11th of May, ordered General Willisen to set out for Cassel, and made it known in Vienna that a refusal on the Elector’s part would involve serious consequences.

The first thing Willisen learned, when he saw Adjutant von Lossberg at Wilhelmshöhe, was that the secret of his coming had been badly kept. Lossberg informed him that orders had been given that no one should present him to the Elector but the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Göddäus. Soon after came a letter from Lossberg announcing that the Elector was ill in bed. Willisen returned to Cassel, and was not received by Göddäus, who, however, had a short conversation with him afterwards at Sydow’s, but would say nothing definite about the further treatment of the General. During this time, however, news had been brought to the Elector of movements of Prussian troops toward the Hessian boundaries, and this put him into such a state of wrath that he determined to have done with his troublesome visitor at once.

At eight in the evening Willisen was informed that the Elector, though ill, had come to town and would receive him then. In the ante-chamber the General found the two Ministers, Abde and Göddäus, who followed him when he entered, so that he could have no further doubt as to the result. The Elector held the King’s letter, which had been given to him, in his hand. Willisen asked whether His Electoral Highness would not open it (as is generally the custom). The Elector said: “That is not etiquette,” and tossed the letter upon a table standing before the mirror. Willisen was then obliged to speak, and said that it was his duty only to repeat, as well-meant and strongly-urged advice, what had been frequently said. The Elector interrupted him: “Every new Minister in Prussia wants to play a new game in Hesse; all misfortune in Hesse comes from Prussia; everything would be peaceable here, if some one from there were not always meddling.” “ Only one point is at issue just now,” observed Willisen, “in regard to which there is but one opinion in all Germany: that is, the stopping of the proceedings in regard to the elections.” The Elector cried: “A constitution involves elections; no one can release ministers from a constitutional duty.” To this Willisen agreed, but emphasized the fact that the main thing that was proposed was the withdrawal of the order of the 26th of April, which was by no means prescribed by the Constitution. The Elector, extremely angry, burst out: “Very extraordinary, that the King of Prussia criticises such steps in another country, yet will soon be obliged to do much worse things in his own!” At these words Abée hastily interposed, and made a long argument in justification of the order. This Willisen briefly disposed of, and then turned again to the Elector: he besought him not to give a final answer in the negative; in the morning all his fellow-members of the Diet would address the same recommendation to him that was now made by Prussia. The Elector shook his head. Willisen continued: “Then I must announce the intention of His Majesty to break off diplomatic relations.” The Elector closed the interview: “I cannot prevent the King from doing so,” he said; “but it is a singular proceeding to withdraw ambassadors, because in the internal affairs of a neighboring country everything does not go on exactly as one prescribes.”

After this, there was naturally no mention of a change of Ministry.

On the 13th of May the Diet agreed to the prohibition; but as this made no change in the attitude of the Elector, King William ordered the Westphalian and Magdeburg army-corps to be ready to march on the 23d; and on the 18th, Sydow, with the threat of a declaration of war, demanded, as satisfaction for the insulting treatment of General von Willisen and the formal disregard of the King’s letter, the immediate dismissal of the Hessian Ministry. It is not to be denied that this action might have brought Prussia into a difficult position, if the Elector had persisted in an obstinate and passive resistance; since Austria, as well as the Diet, would very soon have objected energetically to any continued occupation of Hesse-Cassel. The very threat of such a thing caused great excitement in Vienna.

Clearly, the steps taken by Prussia could have no real meaning nor significance, unless a determination had been formed at Berlin to make the Hessian question, as Prince Schwarzenberg had made it in 1850, the critical point of a question that affected all Germany, this being done at the risk of a great war with Austria and the Lesser States. Whether King William personally had this idea, I do not know; but it is certain that it was not entertained by his Cabinet.

At that time Herr von Bismarck, who had just been recalled from St. Petersburg and ordered to go to Paris, was in Berlin. Count Bernstorff asked him his opinion. Bismarck answered: “The circumstance of the Elector’s throwing a royal letter upon a table is not a very sound casus belli; but if you want war, make me your under-secretary of state, and I will furnish you within four weeks a German civil war of the finest quality.” But Count Bernstorff drew back in dismay.

Nevertheless, it was seen what an emphatic word from Prussia was worth in Germany. The fine co­operation of Bernstorff and Rechbeig in Hessian affairs had not been able in two months to bring about a decision of the committee of the Diet; now, when Prussia announced an ultimatum with her hand on her sword, the Austro-Prussian motion of March 8th for the re­establishment of the Constitution of 1831 became in a few days a Confederate decree, upon which the Hessian Ministry, glad of a good excuse, offered their resignation without delay.

A few weeks passed, after this, before the formation of a new Cabinet. The wish of Prussia, to see a pro­fessed supporter of the old Constitution at its head, was not, indeed, fulfilled; but one of the former Ministers, a certain Herr von Dehn-Rotfelser, who was raised to that position, to the agreeable surprise of the rest of the world, and to the great vexation of the Elector, took his stand conscientiously and honestly on the basis of the ancient rights, proclaimed the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1831, and immediately sent out writs for the elections, in accordance with the electoral law of 1849.

But whatever happened, Prussia’s victory over the Elector, the Diet, and the system consecrated at Olmütz, could no longer be questioned. What the last House of Deputies had so eagerly demanded of the Prussian Government had been accomplished to its fullest extent.

Still more in harmony were the Government and the representatives of the people in regard to a commercial and political question, which quickly acquired such an importance that it threatened to kindle a conflagration that would destroy the whole German Confederate Constitution.

For some time past the conviction had been present in the minds of those who had studied the Tariff-Union, that the existing system of tariff, arranged thirty years before, and in the course of time altered in particular points to adapt it to temporary needs or to inadequate compromises, no longer formed in itself a systematic whole, and did not any longer correspond to the growth of German industries, that had taken place since its introduction. Now, in 1860, the great Anglo-French commercial treaty had been agreed upon, on the English side with an almost complete adoption of free-trade, and on the French with a very important lightening of the burdens on international commerce, and immediately afterwards the Emperor Napoleon approached the Prussian Government on the subject of a treaty of like tendency between France and the Tariff-Union. Prussia was very ready to enter into this, and in June, 1860, called upon the other members to give her full powers for such a negotiation in the name of the Union, reserving to them, of course, a free criticism of the result.

In January, 1861, a French commissioner appeared in Berlin, who at once brought forward some general principles for the projected treaty: reciprocal freedom from duty for goods passing through the country; reciprocal freedom from duty on exports; finally, for imports, a mutual agreement on the basis of considering which nation was to gain the most, and a suitable adjustment of the tariff on both sides. The first two of these three propositions could be acceded to at once. As to the third, Prussia gladly seized the occasion thus offered for a general revision of the tariff, such as had long been desired, and in April she laid her plans on the subject before the other members of the Tariff-Union.

Answers were received in May and June, 1861, which suggested a number of amendments in regard to the duties upon particular articles, but which announced satisfaction in the main with the course the negotiation had hitherto taken. It was clearly shown that the strongly-protectionist party had everywhere lost ground, and that on the German side there was the prospect of an approval of an essential lightening of the burdens upon commerce.

But when the discussion began in Berlin with the French commissioner about the tariff in detail, the latter began to bargain, offered little and demanded much, so that in September Prussia announced to her fellow-members a complete standstill in the negotiations, and at the same time proposed to give up the treaty, unless France changed her tone, to establish the new tariff by internal legislation with the reduction of a long series of import duties, and with or without a commercial treaty, to allow those nations, which treated German products as favorably as those of any other country, to share the benefits of such an arrangement. Almost all the Governments in the Tariff-Union agreed to these suggestions of Prussia.

Up to this time the question had been treated solely from the point of view of national economy, with regard for the material prosperity of the German people. But now politics of a more general character suddenly interfered in the discussion, at first with a gentle touch, and then with a rough hand.

As we remember, the crisis in the affairs of the Tariff-Union in 1853 had ended in a commercial treaty with Austria, in the preamble of which there was held up as the great aim of the future an Austro-German tariff-union, the practicability of which was to be dis­cussed six years later; further than this, the two contracting parties had arranged a number of reductions of duties, very advantageous for their mutual commerce, but in which importations from other countries were to have no share; finally, they had mutually agreed, that, if one of them should concede to a third Power a reduction of duty on any of the articles the traffic in which was so favored, the other contracting party should receive notice of such concession three months before it was made. If the proposed tariff-union should amount to nothing at the end of six years, further facilitation of commerce at least could be arranged.

In the year 1853, therefore, both sides had expressed the wish for a great Austro-German tariff-union, although this was unfortunately not practicable at that time. But they had bound themselves to nothing except to consider the matter further after six years had elapsed, a pactum de contrahendo which left both parties entirely free so far as the outcome of the negotiations was concerned. In the year 1860, Austria made proposals in Berlin for the beginning of such negotiations; but Prussia declared that there was no need of taking that trouble, for any general tariff-union was as impracticable as before. This was the case even more certainly than in 1853, since, independent of the difficulty of uniting in one system of tariff such various consumers as Rhinelanders and Croats, Hanoverians and Hannahs, an ardent protectionist party was at that time dominant in Austria, while in the Tariff-Union a majority of the Governments and of the people were urgent for a reduction of import duties and free competition in the general market of the world.

In spite of all this, Count Rechberg felt himself obliged, on the news of the Franco-Prussian negotiations, to send a communication to Prussia in September, 1861, in which he pointed out the incompatibility of such a general tariff-union as had been contemplated in 1853 with a treaty which would give the French a claim to every consideration in tariff matters that had hitherto been shown to Austria. He even went so far as to ask whether Prussia meditated a complete tariff-union with France as well as with Austria.

There was as yet no talk of any right, or of any protest on Austria’s part; but an approaching battle against the French treaty and the liberal revision of the tariff was clearly indicated. What would follow, it was easy to predict: an agitation in South Germany among the protectionists still numerous there, and an exertion of influence upon the Lesser States, who were in other questions Austria’s constant allies. It was the old opposition of interests, showing itself now in a commercial field, as it had hitherto done in a political one: the point of struggle was the demand that Germany should refrain from a salutary improvement of its material conditions just so long as Austria thought she was not in a condition to take part in it.

Prussia determined to take a stand quickly and decidedly. Bernstorff resumed the interrupted negotiations with France; it immediately became evident in this conjuncture that the Cabinet of Paris had not meant anything very bad by its haggling, after all; both sides strove for an understanding by mutual concessions, and on the 29th of March, 1862, the treaty was prepared and drawn up at Berlin. It was then, four days after, communicated to the other members of the Union and to the Court of Vienna.

The excitement aroused in all Germany by this sudden event was immense. Austria did not delay opening the diplomatic attack in full force. In a memorial of May 7th, Count Rechberg declared that the object of the agreement of 1853 had been to prepare the way for a great Austro-German tariff-union through the favoring of mutual commerce by lower import duties than were imposed on the merchandise of other nations; the new treaty with France destroyed the effect of all advantages accorded to Austria, by the concession to France of all the rights of a most favored nation, and by setting the German rates of duties in general so low that Austria could not adopt them for herself without exposing her own industries to destruction by the influx of a tide of foreign products. Austria, therefore, could not but see in the treaty an infringement and a setting aside of the compact of 1853.

The answer was not long delayed. It came, to the fresh surprise of the German public, from two quarters, not only from Prussia, but also from Prussia’s bitterest political opponent, the Kingdom of Saxony, where, ad in 1852, regard for the welfare of the country and for the encouragement of its highly developed industries outweighed every other consideration. A note of the 27th from the Saxon Government, and one of the 28th from the Prussian, maintained, that, in the compact of 1853, neither of the contracting parties had renounced the liberty of making changes in its tariff; on the contrary, that compact contained provisions for what was to be done in such a contingency; the inutility for the future of the existing system of tariff was now manifest; a remodelling of the same in a liberal spirit had become a vital question for German industries, and if Austria complained that such a measure would injure her industries, the fact itself was a proof that the general tariff-union alluded to in 1853 would be out of the question for an indefinite time to come; at any rate, Germany could not possibly be expected to fetter her industries till Austria should overtake her.

After this, in June, both the Saxon Chambers unanimously approved the treaty with France, and Herr von Beust immediately communicated Saxony’s assent to the Prussian Cabinet. Baden, Oldenburg, and the Thuringian States, one after another, quickly followed this example.

Meanwhile, Austria had continued her campaign, and, indeed, on a twofold scene of operations. In the notes of the seven Governments, of the 2d of February, the states taking part therein had, as we have seen, announced further conferences in regard to Confederate reform, and had invited Prussia to join in them, but the latter had refused to participate in so hopeless a work. The Court of Vienna now sent out invitations once more, and in this matter Saxony did not hold aloof.

The four Kingdoms, both Hesses, and Nassau, sent their representatives; and on the 7th of July, Count Rechberg opened the first conference in Vienna with the proposal to make an attempt, with the co-operation of an assembly of delegates from the German Chambers, to consider the introduction of a system of German civil and criminal law. This meant the carrying out of a part, though, to be sure, only a small part, of the great plan of reform of Herr von Beust, which had been hitherto so generally rejected; and it can be easily understood that to him this bait was irresistible, in spite of all commercial treaties. Saxony’s cry, after this, was: “Prussia in matters of the Tariff-Union, Austria in all that concerns the Confederation! ”

There was then sent, on the 10th of July, to all the Governments in the Tariff-Union, a proposal of Count Rechberg, that, on the basis of a continuation of the tariff now prevailing, entire Austria should be received into the Union, and that, when this had taken place, Austria and Prussia should in common be empowered to treat with France and England.

Prussia’s attitude in regard to these proceedings of the Austrian Government was understood beforehand. In all that had to do with Confederate reform she simply persisted in her refusal to take any part in the conference and in her protest against every extension of the authority of the Confederate Diet that did not rest upon a unanimous determination of all the German Governments. She refused her consent to Austria’s admission into the Tariff-Union, in the first place because she considered herself already bound to France, but above all because the preliminary of such admission proposed by Austria herself, namely, the continuation of the existing system of tariff, was wholly incompatible with the vital interests of German industries.

Under these circumstances the Government at Berlin considered itself free from any considerations of friendship for Austria; and as in the beginning of July the Russian Government, then engaged in a bitter quarrel with the Pope, had declared its recognition of the young kingdom of Italy, Prussia did not hesitate to publish a similar acknowledgment. It was done the more readily, since in the preceding year the representatives of the people had expressed themselves very decidedly to the same effect. Austria did not restrain her anger at this. The Prussian Government, in announcing their action, had observed that that action was taken only in consideration of a solemn assurance that Italy would not attack Venetia. Rechberg retorted that such a promise was not worth the paper it was written on.

After the Prussian Parliament, with a minority of twelve in the Lower House and in the Upper House unanimously, had given its approval to the treaty with France, the Government, on the 2d of August, gave its final signature thereto. It then notified the members of the Tariff-Union; and to smooth the way for the South German States, it expressed its willingness to do what had been often asked for by them, to give up the duty on the transport of wines. Austria’s interference had, however, already had such an effect, that this concession on Prussia’s part received little attention. The Lesser States, with the exception of Saxony, and also the two Hesses and Nassau, categorically refused to agree to the treaty with France, partly on the ground of protective views, partly from consideration for the tariff­union with Austria and the compact of 1853.

At the same time, Prussia received word, on the 7th of August, that the Vienna conference had accepted the Austrian proposition for the convening of an assembly of delegates, and on the 14th, that this had been brought forward as a motion in the Diet by the eight states taking part in the conference. Count Bernstorff thereupon renewed his protest against any majority-decision in that matter, and declared that the popular assemblies of Germany would also object to this project of delegates; the nation desired, he said, an executive authority with greater powers and a true . national representation; neither of these was to be obtained by the course suggested.

On the 26th of August, Prussia’s answer was sent to Bavaria and Wurttemberg, to the effect that a definitive rejection of the commercial treaty must be taken as the expression of an intention not to continue the Tariff-Union with Prussia. The Prussian Lower House expressed its approval of this declaration on the 5th of September by a vote of 283 to 26.

Thus the two parties were confronting each other in distinct positions, in spite of the active efforts of Baden on one side and Saxony on the other for a reconciliation. The commercial question was not absolutely dangerous, although it touched very many irritable feelings; for the existing compacts of the Tariff-Union did not expire till the end of 1865, and before that time the passions excited might be allayed by numerous discussions and communications, as did in fact in a great measure take place. Very different was it with the question of Confederate reform, which by reason of the latest proposition of the party favoring an entire Germany had brought an armed collision dangerously near. If this proposition should be accepted by a majority in Frankfort, there would only remain to Prussia the choice between humble submission and a declaration of withdrawal from the Confederation, the nature of which had been falsified by the majority. The latter course would certainly and speedily bring on war.

King William earnestly desired to be spared such an unfortunate alternative, and would gladly, like Count Rechberg, have put aside any thought of unity, if an honorable co-operation of the two Powers in the leadership of Germany could have been brought about. Yet if this could not be, he was determined not to yield a hair’s-breadth to any decree contrary to the Constitu­tion, but to put forth Prussia’s whole might for Prussia’s good right—and then vogue la galère.

In European affairs in general no symptom appeared, of a nature to induce Prussia to give way before anything unfitting. Her relations with Russia were excellent: the Emperor Alexander continually assured the King of his warm friendship, and while Prince Gortschakoff held firmly to his wish for a Franco-Russian alliance, nothing would have pleased him better’ than the entrance of Prussia into so mighty a league. He repeatedly declared to the Prussian ambassador that the strengthening of Prussia’s position in the German Confederation would be of general advantage, and that Austria’s opposition to this lacked all reasonable ground. Moreover, Gortschakoff was not by any means certain of bringing about a French alliance, as the Emperor Alexander displayed a constantly increasing mistrust of Napoleon’s revolutionary tendencies. On the other hand, Russia’s harmonious relations with Austria had been much shaken by the Russian recognition of Italy, and the complications existing in Servia were not adapted to increase the friendly feeling on either side. All this was as advantageous as possible for Prussia.

More than this, the Emperor Napoleon spoke very decidedly to Herr von Bismarck about affairs in Germany. He alluded with great respect to the admirable personal character of King William; he expressed sympathy in regard to the difficulties which the King had to encounter on internal questions in the Prussian Parliament; in his view everything depended upon the general aim of the policy of the Government: if the people agreed with this, disputes about particular points would be attended with little danger; it appeared to him that Prussia was led by the nature of things in the direction of a reformation of the German Confederation, and if she made this the object of her efforts, all other difficulties would quickly disappear. France, he said, could welcome any transformation of Germany, with the exception of the so-called “empire of seventy millions,” that is, the admission of entire Austria into the Confederation. That she would object to, because it would completely disturb the European balance of power. All this sounded sufficiently favorable to Prussia; how far such a view would be persisted in, in the event of things actually taking such a course, was indeed worth considering. But it was evident that, for the time, Prussia need not fear Napoleon’s taking part with Austria.

Finally, all former misunderstandings with Italy were disposed of by the accomplishment of Prussia’s recognition of that kingdom. There was, as yet, no talk of any closer relation between the two Courts; but the whole world was convinced that the instant there was a breach between Austria and Prussia, the Italian army would fall upon Venetia.

The Prussian Cabinet, therefore, saw itself surrounded all over the continent with the good-will and the sympathy of the non-German Powers. Its sole opponents were to be found on German, and unhappily, as we shall now see, on Prussian, soil.

It has already been explained from how many sources the gradually increasing dislike to King William’s military reforms had grown up among the great majority of the Prussian people. First, there were the desire for relief from the burden of the army and the taxes, romantic memories of the glory of the militia of 1813, and resentment against the preference shown to the nobility in many corps of officers. There was the general conviction, founded on the attitude of the Department of Foreign Affairs, that the existing Government, like that of Frederick William IV, would never venture on a bold war-policy, and would, therefore, never have use for so oppressive an armament. And lastly, there was an uncertainty in the parliamentary management of the reforms, a dragging along of ambiguous provisional arrangements from one session to another, which at length spread far and wide among the people the unfortunate delusion that a systematic deception of the Parliament was being attempted by the Ministers.

In such a state of things the Democratic party of 1848, which had gained renewed strength, found no difficulty in securing everywhere a ready hearing in their appeal for taking the offensive energetically against so unconstitutional a system; and when the Liberal Ministers had finally resigned and a Conservative Cabinet undertook the government, no doubt seemed possible any longer, and the one duty of the people appeared to be determined opposition to the threatened return to feudal absolutism.

The new Cabinet did its best, by a rough attempt at influencing the election agitation, to increase this tide of feeling and to drive a number of otherwise moderate men into the arms of the Radical Opposition. The election of May 6th resulted in a total defeat of the Ministry. Not one of its adherents obtained a seat; the feudal and the Catholic interests, as well as the party of the former Ministry, now called the old-Liberal party, were reduced to small groups; the Progressists and the almost equally strong Left Centre, who differed from each other decidedly in their plans for the future, but were for the most part agreed in regard to the main question then pending, formed together an overwhelming majority in the House.

Disagreements did, indeed, arise at once concerning the manner and method of treating the matter in hand, as well as in regard to what concessions were to be made to the Government. In each of the two great parties, voices were raised in behalf of the former policy of the House; that is, in favor of granting the means of support for the new regiments, if the Government, by the proposal of a new law concerning the obligation to serve, would agree to the two years’ term of service for the infantry of the line.

Many weeks passed before an understanding in this matter could be brought about among the members of the parties, and meanwhile the question was not touched upon either in the House or in the committee on the budget But the decision finally reached was wholly in the spirit of the Radicals. And it then appeared, that in both parties, only one member persisted in the conciliatory view, all the others being resolved upon a complete refusal of the costs of the army-reforms. The announcement by the Ministry, that they had saved two millions more in the military budget and could now give up the additional taxes of 1859, made no longer any impression.

In the beginning of August, the budget-committee began the consideration of the cost of the army; in their very first sitting they ordered the transference of the cost of the military reforms into the category of extraordinary expenses, again repeated the more than doubtful assertion, that the reforms were contrary to the law of September 3d, 1814 (and consequently could not be recognized as legal), and finally, on August 22d, decided upon a proposition to strike out all additional expenses for the reforms, and to leave it to the Government to take what course they pleased for placing the condition of the army once more on a legitimate foundation.

Quite as thoroughgoing was the proposition made on the 29th of August by the committee on marine matters, that the plan brought forward by the Government for the creation of a fleet should be totally rejected, because the necessary means for such a purpose were lacking. Finally, the budget-committee, a few days later, came to a decision in regard to the military expenses for 1863, exactly the same as that they had adopted for the current year.

Upon this, on the 11th of September, the House entered into a seven days’ discussion, such as the Parliament had not seen since its creation. All the oratorical powers of the Government and of the different parties were called into play; on either side every man’s pulse throbbed with the feeling that a crisis of far-reaching importance to Prussia’s future was at hand. On one side was the belief that constitutional life in Prussia was being destroyed, and that the times of feudal degradation would return, if in this matter the will of the people’s representatives did not have its free course. On the other was the conviction, that, with the victory of the Majority, constitutional monarchy would be changed into a parliamentary government, and the independence of the Crown would be lost. One side constantly urged energetic action in the affairs of Hesse and of Holstein as well as in the questions of the commercial treaty and of Confederate reform, and with the adoption of a liberal policy a reliance on the enthusiastic approval of the German nation as an effective weapon for controlling the self-importance of individual Princes. The other side could not restrain its anger at such a childish blindness, which believed that Denmark, Austria, and South Germany would not offer armed resistance to these plans, and which consequently sought to make Prussia defenceless by land and by sea.

We need not go into a further consideration of the great parliamentary battle, since no new arguments were brought forward in regard to the subject which had been for three years under discussion. A motion of Reichensperger, of the Catholic party, that the Government should be required to bring in a petition for indemnity for their action hitherto, did not receive a single vote. A mediatory proposal made by the deputies Stavenhagen, Twesten, and Von Sybel (the author of this book), that the new regiments should be maintained and the two years’ term of service introduced, was for an instant regarded by Herr von Roon as possibly practicable, but was rejected on the following day, after more careful technical examination, as being too dangerous to the organic consistency of the bodies of troops. The proposal had no better success in the House; it was rejected by a majority of three to one. The result of the whole thing was the refusal of sup­plies for the reforms, to the amount of nearly six million thalers. That is to say, it was an imperious summons to the Government to disband the one hundred and seventeen new battalions, and in one form or another to ask pardon for having supported those battalions for nine months of the current year, before their budget for that year had been sanctioned.

Thus the struggle was proclaimed in all its bitterness, a struggle not only about certain special demands, but about rights.

For hitherto the right of the Crown to determine the figures of the yearly draft, and, accordingly, to arrange the number and strength of the regiments supported by that draft, had been undisputed; but equally undisputed had been the right of the Lower House to refuse such new supplies as were not prescribed by law. The King said, with good reason, that an exaggerated application of this right of controlling the budget would make his position as commander-in-chief of the army an empty name. But the answer was quite as clear, that the expenditure of a sum not granted by the House involved an infringement of the Constitution.

There were few men in Prussia at that time, who were not thoroughly convinced of the truth of this latter assertion; old-Liberals and Left Centre, Catholics and Progressists, whether they praised or blamed the recent vote, all agreed in recognizing the principle no supplies without the approval of the Lower House, as the foundation and corner-stone of a constitutional state. This had been the lesson learned from the example of England, ever since efforts had been made in Germany for constitutional rights. Often enough had there been complaints of its being a serious fault in the Prussian Constitution that it had not placed the consent to methods of raising revenue as completely in the hands of the Deputies; but the answer had always been, that the control over the spending of that revenue was quite sufficient to insure a deciding influence in the affairs of the State. And this influence was secured to the Lower House alone, to the representatives of the people chosen by the tax-payers. As in England, so in Prussia, the co-operation of the Upper House had been limited by the prohibition of alterations in details to the power of accepting or refusing the estimates as a whole in the form approved by the Deputies; that is to say, as in England, its part in the matter was merely honorary. For rejection would mean throwing the State wholly out of joint, and the conservative Upper House would certainly not place itself on a line with the revolutionaries that wished to refuse supplies.

Public opinion was unanimous in this matter. Even the Minister of Finance, Von der Heydt, had no other view: he had cried out to the deputies that an improper application of their right might bring about things which were by no means written in the Constitution,—which, in other words, might lead to a coup d'ètat; but he had for weeks kept declaring to the King, that, if the House came to the decision that seemed probable, he should no longer be able to co-operate in the support of the new organization of the army.

The King himself was, if I am rightly informed, in a state of great uncertainty, between his oath to the Constitution and his convictions in regard to military matters. After Von der Heydt’s declarations, he turned to the man whom he had long known as the most skilful and the boldest of his statesmen, to whom in 1858, and again in the preceding May, he had wished to intrust a ministerial portfolio: he desired Bismarck, who was then at Biarritz enjoying a short season of repose, to come to Berlin. Bismarck yielded unwillingly ; for never certainly did a born master of state­craft have so little ambition to attain to the highest place.

But his sense of duty forbade him to refuse the King. On the 19th of September, 1862, he came to Berlin; four days later followed the momentous decision of the House. On the 24th, Prince Hohenlohe and Herr von der Heydt resigned, and Bismarck, for the time without any portfolio, was made president of the Ministry.

No one suspected then that with that day a new era did in truth begin for Prussia and Germany, and so for Europe. For how many men knew anything of Bismarck’s inward development since 1851? Every one saw in him the boldest champion of the feudal party, the most insolent opponent of every liberal effort, the orator who had wished to blot out all great cities from the. face of the earth, who had met the Liberals with the threatening cry: “The proud steed of Borussia shall lay the parliamentary carpet-knights low in the dust.”

The very name of the new Minister pushed the general excitement beyond all bounds. Now, it was felt, the last veil was tom away; this haughty young noble, who had formerly opposed the first steps towards the Constitution, who had raised his voice in Erfurt against German Unity, who had defended the shameful policy of Olmütz, and had then found in the Confederate Diet a retreat wholly suited to encourage his natural tendencies,—this absolutist and aristocrat had now taken lessons in the art of coup d'état from Napoleon, and hoped with volleys of grape to scatter the shreds of the Constitution to the winds. The only thing to be done, therefore, was to take a firm stand on the ground of the law, to cast away every unworthy weakness, and at no point to sacrifice with cowardly submission the smallest atom of constitutional right.

In spite of this declaration of war made by a thousand voices, Bismarck’s first steps were an attempt at some arrangement. He invited the leaders of the old-Liberals to come to him, explained to them his intentions, and offered them some of the places in his Cabinet. They were astonished to find him so entirely different from what the Liberal world loved to represent him. But the unfortunate demand of a two years’ term of service, on which they laid so much stress, came between him and them. “Should we become Ministers without this concession,” said Simson, “we should be officers without any soldiers.”

Bismarck, thereupon, withdrew the estimates for 1863, which had already been curtailed by the budget­committee, in order that he might not increase the number of burning questions in dispute, and at the same time he promised a statement as soon as possible after the beginning of the new session in January, 1863, together with the new law so often asked for in regard to the obligation to serve. The answer was a resolution of the House, that the Government was bound to produce the budget for 1863 before the beginning of the year, and that all expenditure before the approval of the same was unconstitutional. Bismarck did not hesitate an instant; he was perfectly clear in his mind as to the course to be pursued in the contest that was now unavoidable.

On the 10th of October the Upper House considered the estimates as sent to them by the Lower. The committee of the former had proposed conferences with the other House, for the purpose of arriving at an understanding in regard to the military estimates; on the other hand, Count Arnim-Boytzenburg desired a rejection of the budget as determined in the Lower House, and an acceptance of the original proposition of the Government. The latter part of this suggestion was unfortunate, because it was formally contrary to the established order of things; according to that order such an acceptance could merely be made in the form of a resolution of the House. In any case, the only part of the proposal of any importance was the negative one, the rejection of the estimates as agreed to in the other House. Bismarck interposed in the discussion with the statement that nothing was to be expected from conferences with the Lower House, and that therefore he could recommend only the proposition of Arnim. After a long debate the rejection of the budget as settled by the other House followed on the 11th of October, with a vote of 150 against 17, and the proposal of the Government was approved by 114 against 44.

Thus it stood. In Prussia, a Government without a budget had become for the time unavoidable. On the 12th of October, the Lower House declared the action of the Upper House, so far as it concerned the acceptance of the proposition of the Government, as uncon­stitutional and null. Immediately afterwards the President of the Ministry announced the close of the session, and in the afternoon he read the Address from the Throne, in which the Government declared it to be its duty to maintain the new arrangements in the army, which had been created on the basis of former grants of the Parliament; after the action of the Upper House, it felt itself obliged to carry on the administration without the grant prescribed by the Constitution; it was conscious of the responsibility it assumed by so doing, but it was also mindful of its duty to the country, which forced it to make the outlay necessary for the general good, until the estimates were legally settled, with the expectation that this outlay would afterwards receive the approval of the Parliament.

Did Bismarck at that time suspect that he was with these words opening a four years’ bitter struggle in Prussia between the highest powers of the State? It is certain, at any rate, that he was determined to carry it through to the end at every risk. At the same time, he had succeeded in convincing the King of the constitutionality of his action. The views which, during the years of contest, he was forced to defend in various applications, can be summed up in the following positions:

In England, indeed, as a result of a long historical development, the Lower House alone has the power of deciding whether a certain revenue shall be collected, or a certain expenditure allowed. From this, a widespread doctrine has been formed, that this right in regard to the budget is a necessary element of all constitutional Government.

We, however, do not live in England, but in Prussia; and we have to arrange our methods in State affairs, not according to general theories, but according to positive Prussian laws.

Now, since the proclamation of the Prussian Constitution, all receipts and expenses have been brought together in the estimates, and these estimates have been made the subject of an Act passed every year. The Act for this purpose, like every other Act, becomes valid by the common consent of the Crown and the two Houses. Before the consent of all three has been obtained, the decision of one House has only the value of an expression of opinion, not any binding force. Although the Upper House has less influence in the settlement of the estimates than the two other factors, yet its final vote upon the estimates as a whole is of equal importance with that of the Lower House. For, according to an express provision of the Constitution, the members of either House have alike the character of representatives of the entire people.

If this Act concerning the estimates is not passed, then, strictly speaking, the continuance of the Act of the preceding year cannot be assumed, for this ceases to be valid with the last day of the year to which it applies. And strictly speaking, neither the raising nor the spending of money in the new year is in this case allowable, whether special items in the estimates have been accepted in the Lower House or refused.

But as the State cannot exist a day without expenditures, while on the other hand it must exist, an imperative necessity requires that some one must provide for the necessary expenses; and it again results from the necessity of the circumstances, that this some one can be no one else than the royal Government, even leaving out of account that article of the Constitution which gives the Government, in case of urgent necessity, a provisional right of taking its own measures.

Doubtless, all the different parts of the organization, and hence the Government also, are bound to do their utmost to end this state of things, and to bring about as soon as possible an agreement of the three different authorities with regard to the estimates. With this object in view, the Government will, therefore, during the interim unprovided for, respect as much as possible the former decisions of one House as well as of the other, without, however, allowing them a binding force which they do not have, nor in any particular case giving more consideration to them than to the needs of the country. 

If these arguments are examined and compared with the corresponding provisions of the Constitution, it will be impossible to assert that false interpretation of those provisions was intended, after the fashion of Herr von Westphalen under Frederick William IV. On the contrary, the actual letter of the law is followed, though in contradiction to what we all, at that time, considered the spirit. Evident it certainly is, that under such a system the power of the Lower House in financial matters, and hence in the Government as a whole, is much more limited than in England. A mischievous Government can make the right of the Lower House in regard to the budget an empty name. This is quite as true as the converse proposi­tion, that the English Lower House, by means of its right, can make the Crown and the Upper House yield to any of its demands. The guaranty against such extremes lies in a clear consciousness on either side, that reasonable co-operation is more profitable for every one than an obstinate effort for mastery.

It was the good fortune of Prussia and of Germany, that neither in the fiercest moments of the conflict, nor in the triumph of the most brilliant victories, was the consciousness of this principle wanting in the minds of the King and his great Ministers. Both were immovable in their determination to uphold at once the military reforms and the Constitution.

After the close of the session, Bismarck next gave his attention to the arrangement of the Cabinet. He himself undertook the direction of Foreign Affairs, while Count Bernstorff once more returned to London. For want of a better, he appointed to the Department of Finance the former Minister in the Manteuffel Cabinet, Carl von Bodelschwingh. The place of Herr von Jagow in the Department of the Interior was taken by Count Frederick Eulenburg, a man of solid ability, very fond of enjoying life, and perhaps less so of work, a statesman of keen insight, a fearless and ready debater, firmly grounded in monarchical principles, and as free from party fanaticism as Bismarck himself.

The German questions were the ones that first of all required the attention of the Cabinet. Bismarck took them in hand without hesitation. He announced his intention to persist in the renewal of the Tariff-Union only with those states that entered into the commercial treaty with France. In this, in spite of the abhorrence felt by the Liberals for the Minister personally, the public opinion of Germany, determined by the importance of material interests, was entirely on the Prussian side. On the 18th of October, the German commercial convention in Munich, by a majority of 104 non­Austrian votes against 96 Austrian and 4 South German, expressed a desire that the French treaty should continue in force.

In Hesse-Cassel the Parliament was summoned for the 80th of October. It expressed its thanks to the Elector for the re-establishment of the Constitution, but learned that its sole work was to be the acceptance of a new electoral law, as the Elector did not consider the Act of 1849 to be valid. The legal competence of the Parliament was thus brought in question, this time by the Elector. The Parliament protested, and asked that the budget should be presented to them as was proper at that time. When a negative answer was returned, they requested that at least the Government would move the granting of an extraordinary credit.

Ötker, who on the 15th of October had consulted Bismarck with the profoundest secrecy, and who, contrary to Liberal prejudices, had recognized in him the eminent statesman, turned in these new difficulties once more to Berlin; and when in November the Elector suddenly dismissed his Ministers and prorogued the assembly of Estates for an indefinite time, Bismarck’s decisive counter-move followed at once. Diplomatic relations between the two Courts had not been renewed since they had been broken off after Willisen’s interview with the Elector. Bismarck, therefore, sent a despatch by a sharp-shooter directly to Herr von Dehn, expressing regret for the Elector’s action, declaring it impossible for Prussia again to allow political difficulties of such a dangerous nature to arise in a country placed between her provinces, and announcing the intention, if the Elector continued in his perverse courses, of beginning to take the necessary steps in conjunction with the agnates.

This hit the mark more sharply than Bernstorff’s military equipments, six months before. The Elector hated nothing more than his agnates, and the feeling was cordially returned by them. It was also certain that Austria would make no objection, if a family­council should declare a Prince whose character was incapable of improvement, incapable of ruling. The Elector, therefore, yielded in impotent anger, summoned the Ministers and the Estates to new activity, and for a time Hesse-Cassel was restored to the number of normally-administered and constitutionally-governed states.

In a far more comprehensive fashion did the proposal from Vienna for the summoning of an assembly of delegates in connection with the Confederate Diet afford the Prussian Minister an occasion for indicating his position on the German question.

It is hardly likely that Bismarck had at that time formed any definite conclusion in regard to the nature and form of the German Constitution that was to be aimed at in the future. He was quite clear as to the fact that Prussia’s actual position in the Confederation was unendurable, and that it must be changed, if necessary, as he had once written to Schleinitz, ferro et igni. And not less certain was he that the decision of the question depended wholly upon the two important powers in Germany, upon the relation between Austria and Prussia.

A peaceful transformation of these relations Bismarck regarded as wholly improbable: “Any other war,” he well said, “that Prussia might undertake before this Austrian one, would be a mere throwing away of powder.” He was ready to enter into the conflict, but did not ignore its dangers, and would gladly have welcomed the chance of an understanding, if such a work of peace had appeared possible.

The various systems available in war or in peace lay all in perfect clearness before his incomparably keen and far-seeing eye: a control over Germany exercised by the two Great Powers in common; or a division of Germany between the two Powers along the line of the Main; or a complete exclusion of Austria from Germany, and in this case either a more federative or a more unified constitution of the new Confederation, a more limited or a more extended competence of the central authority under Prussia’s headship, and of the national popular representation. With none of the prejudices of a doctrinaire in favor of any one of these systems, he weighed all their aspects and advantages, as well as their costs and dangers, and above all their practicability in view of the mutual jealousy of the two Powers, always ready to change his means or his end as circumstances might dictate: only keeping this one rule fixed, that Prussia should always advance, should never yield, never lose the ground that had been gained, nor her own courage. Without doubt, the point of departure of all his action was not a Germany existing only in the fancy, but Prussia growing in tangible reality; yet it is not less certain that this man, who dealt only with facts, for that very reason found the true way to realize Germany’s ideal.

As early as the 30th of September Bismarck had announced, at a sitting of the budget-committee, that the German problem could hardly be solved by parliamentary decrees, but only by blood and iron, and he had thus caused a great boiling over of public opinion and moral indignation on the part of peace-loving citizens. As has been said, he was very ready, so far as in him lay, to save them from the need of these violent means; and when, on the 4th of December, the report of the committee on the proposal from Vienna came up for consideration in the Diet, and Prussia was preparing to cast a protecting vote in the negative, Bismarck invited the Austrian Deputy, Count Karolyi, to a consultation in regard to the state of things on both sides and the probable outcome. This was the first of those interviews in which Bismarck henceforth so often astonished the diplomatic world by his unreserved frankness in the exposition of his views and purposes.

With the tone of indifference of an historian narrating events of the past, Bismarck gave the Count a sketch of the future of Germany. “Our relations with Austria,” he said, “must become better or worse; we sincerely desire the former of these alternatives, but Austria’s behavior cannot but prepare us for the latter.” He mentioned Austria’s hostile efforts among the states neighboring to Prussia, which could not but destroy all sympathy for Austria in Berlin.

Karolyi thought that in the case of a French attack upon Austria, the two German Powers would remain in firm alliance. But Bismarck entreated him to oppose in Vienna with all his power such a dangerous mistake; the renewal of the intimate relations of the past, he said, would depend solely upon Austria’s German policy; and if such a renewal were not brought about, an alliance of Prussia with one of Austria’s opponents was as little out of the question, as in the contrary event a firm and loyal union of both Powers against their common enemies. It lay in Austria’s choice, either to continue her present anti-Prussian policy with the support of a coalition of the Lesser States, or to seek an honorable alliance with Prussia. Prussia’s most earnest wish was to bring about the latter; but this could only be accomplished by Austria’s abandoning her unfriendly machinations at the German Courts.

Karolyi said that Austria could not possibly resign her traditional influence at the German Courts; that would mean her being thrust out from Germany. “Well, then,” cried Bismarck, “move your centre of gravity towards Buda-Pesth.”

Bismarck then laid stress on the want of consideration shown by the friends of Austria in the Diet in adopting a hostile attitude towards Prussia, and in treating the Prussian protest against Austria’s proposal as an incident not worth noticing. In a second inters view on the 13th, he further declared to the Count, that Prussia would be forced to regard any exceeding of the proper powers of the Confederation by the vote of a mere majority as a breach of the Act of Confederation, and to withdraw her representative from the Diet without appointing any one in his place. The practical results of this would soon make themselves felt.

On the 19th of December, after Pfordten, as spokes­man of the committee, had recommended to the Diet the acceptance of the proposal, it was agreed without further discussion to take the vote on the subject on the 22d of January, 1863.

Meanwhile the report of Bismarck’s conversation with Karolyi was causing great excitement in Vienna. Count Rechberg assured the Prussian ambassador, Baron Werther, that he desired, as ardently as Bismarck, a close understanding between the two Powers, and that he wished for an active alliance between them against revolutionary tendencies. Werther reminded him of his efforts in opposition to the proposals of Prussia in the matters of the Confederate military organization and the defence of the coast, also of the ever-increasing disturbance that had been aroused in the Tariff-Union, and of the stirring-up of trouble in Hanover and Cassel. But Rechberg explained that the military organization of the Confederation had great practical difficulties; that Austria’s isolation in affairs of trade had long ago been seen by Metternich to be insupportable, nay, it might even be looked upon as one great cause of the March Revolution in Vienna. The dislike of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel for Prussia, he said, had its foundation, not in Austria’s influence, but in the fear that both States had of a Prussian hegemony. If Austria should refuse to protect them any longer, they would not look to Prussia, but would make advances to France.

In accordance with these views, Count Rechberg on another occasion declared that the withdrawal of the project in regard to the delegates, in the actual advanced stage of the proceedings, was quite out of the question. At the same time he disputed the right of the Prussian Government to secede from the Confederation, and hoped that between then and the 22d of January that Government would yet become convinced that by such a step it would draw down upon itself the greatest evils.

With no small anxiety, therefore, did the whole of Germany look forward to the 22d. But for this time, at any rate, the crisis was avoided. The proposal was unsatisfactory, not only to those States that had in mind a genuine parliament in a more restricted union, but also to the extreme opponents of such a union, the Governments that were disgusted at the idea of any popular representation at all in the Confederation. It was therefore rejected by nine votes against seven, while one member refrained from voting. Prussia, in giving her vote, had dwelt not only upon the question of the powers of the Confederation, but also upon the practi­cal impossibility of carrying out the plan of an assembly of delegates, and had at the same time referred to the national demand for a parliament based upon the suffrages of the people.

By the German public this attitude was everywhere treated with scorn. What was to be said of the brazen forehead of a man that tyrannized over the parliament in his own country and then wished to assemble representatives from all Germany to make them undergo similar treatment? No one would put any faith in the threat of Prussia’s withdrawal from the Confederation : such a bold and dangerous course seemed out of the question in a state so distracted by internal dissensions as was Prussia at that time.

But meanwhile other events had occurred that turned the attention of all Europe in feverish anxiety toward the East The cry spread through every country: The Revolution is in Poland.

 

CHAPTER II

COMPLICATIONS IN POLAND.

 

Among the world-embracing schemes of improvement of the Emperor Napoleon III, the liberation of Poland, as we have seen, occupied a conspicuous place beside the reconstruction of Italy. When the Crimean War began, all parties among the Polish fugitives bestirred themselves energetically in both Paris and London. General Mieroslawski, in mournful remembrance of 1849, hoped for a democratic republic with the exclusion of all Occidental conventions of civilization. More moderate spirits gathered about Prince Adam Czartoryski, the patriarch of the emigration, and candidate for the throne of the future Polish national kingdom. The country of Poland itself, however, remained in silent lethargy, completely fettered by the military dictatorship that had administered the government since 1831 and repressed the least movement of any kind.

Attention was at once aroused by a statement of Napoleon’s that had made its way into the newspapers, to the effect that it would perhaps be for the interest of Germany to revive the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. But when the Prussian ambassador made inquiries as to the meaning of these words, Drouyn de Lhuys drew back: it was evident, he said, that much might be adduced in favor of such a view; but, nevertheless, it was the affair of the German Powers, and the Emperor would not bring it forward. He added further, that if Prussia and Austria feared that the creation of such a Polish state would imply the loss of their Polish provinces, the possibility of a rich compensation on German soil lay near at hand. Prussia, on this, said no more; but Count Buol, the Austrian Minister, sent word to Paris that the Cabinet of Vienna held firmly to the principle proclaimed at the commencement of the war, that the protection of Turkey was aimed at, but no change in the possessions of any European Power. Thus the Poles gained nothing.

Immediately after the beginning of the negotiations for peace in 1856, Napoleon said to Prince Czartoryski: “For the first time I press your hand with a painful feeling; but there was nothing else to be done.” Napoleon’s wish, to demand political rights for Poland at the Peace-Congress in Paris, was decidedly rejected by Austria; and even England, though approving of the object, thought the proposal “inopportune” in the highest degree: the Congress, therefore, contented itself with a declaration on the part of Prince Orloff, that the Emperor Alexander II. would do what was possible to better the condition of Poland. Afterwards, when the Poles pressed Napoleon for support, he well said to them: “What would you have? You missed the favorable opportunity of the Crimean War; now have patience ; trust in my sympathy, and look with hope to the future.”

In fact, the existing state of things was not favorable to the Poles. As Napoleon, immediately after the Paris Congress, turned his thoughts to the expulsion of Austria from Italy, and for this object sought to establish closer relations with Russia, any talk of Poland’s being assisted by French arms, that is, of the re-establishment of an independent Poland, was for him out of the question. At the same time he never entirely gave up his concern for that unfortunate people, and strove, if not with the sword for their freedom, yet with diplomatic means for an improvement of their condition.

When in 1857 he met Alexander II in Stuttgart, he said to the Russian Emperor that there was no other matter that involved any danger to the accord between them; the sole question that could occasion any disturbance of the good-feeling of the French people was the Polish one; if the Emperor Alexander desired to confirm harmonious relations, he must go as far in his concessions to Poland as was compatible with the interests of Russia. Alexander, who was the mildest and most humane ruler that ever occupied the Russian throne, replied, that it had long been his most heartfelt wish to take such measures; and thus the two Sover­eigns parted with an excellent understanding between them.

Still more than the Czar, was the guiding spirit in foreign affairs, the Vice-Chancellor, Prince Gortschakoff, filled with a desire for close friendship with France. Even when a young man, as Russian chargé d'affaires in Stuttgart, the quick, ambitious, and easily-excited mind of the diplomat had seized the idea that Russia, if supported by a French alliance, would acquire the first place in Europe. And now, after the Crimean War, his soul lived and moved in the desire of making good as soon as possible the losses then suffered, of restoring Russia’s influence in the Orient, and above all of blotting out the shameful clause in the Peace of Paris that forbade the presence of Russian ships in the Black Sea. If France should be well disposed to these ideas of his, as then appeared probable, and if the relaxation of the oppressive sabre-domination in Poland was to be the price of a French alliance, Gortschakoff was ready and eager to pay the same in its full extent.

The new Governor of Poland, Prince Michael Gort­schakoff, readily came into accord with the wishes of the Minister. No restoration of the Constitution was as yet ventured upon; but in the administration, a wholly new tone of liberal confidence replaced the jealous severity of Paskiewitsch. Especially did the Government turn its attention to what was at that time the worst side of affairs in Poland, to the condition of the peasant population; and on this point the evil was very serious, and any improvement exceedingly difficult to carry out

It is well known that in the old days of Poland, the peasant serf was bound to the soil, and unlimited sway was given to the arbitrary will of the lord. When, in the year 1807, Napoleon founded the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, serfage was at once abolished, personal freedom was proclaimed for the peasants, and the power of changing their abode at will, and with the introduction of the code Napoleon the relation between proprietor and peasant was characterized as a free compact subject to withdrawal on either side at any time. For a more detailed settlement of the matter neither Napoleon nor the Saxon-Polish Government found time.

Under the constitutional rule of Alexander I, the influence of the nobles controlled the Chambers, and the nobles did not find themselves at leisure to call into existence organic laws in regard to peasant-rights, at the expense of their own purses. Meanwhile, as a matter of fact, the freedom of the peasants had taken the following shape. So long as the peasant had remained bound to the estate to which he belonged, the lord had, indeed, been able to maltreat him, but not to rob him of his wretched possessions : now, when mutual withdrawal from the compact was the right of either side, the proprietor, in innumerable cases, found it to his advantage to get rid of the peasant, and either to incorporate the latter’s farm into his own estate proper, or to rent it to some foreign and prosperous peasant, very often a German, for a profitable return.

This treatment of the peasantry went so far, that by the middle of the century half the rural population had lost all their property, and were floating aimlessly with their wives and children about the country, seeking their daily bread in every sort of service. In the case of the other half, the power of dismissal which belonged to the proprietors was used for the purpose of imposing upon their vassals, in addition to the rent, the continuance of a great number of feudal services: ordinary and extraordinary labor upon the lord’s fields, contributions to the kitchen of the manor-house, service as watchman, house-service, socage-service, etc. An official account of the various kinds of service rendered by the peasantry throughout the kingdom numbered them at one hundred and twenty-one.

But this was not enough. Beside these pecuniary privileges, there was a widely-extended power of super­intending control. A proprietor that possessed ten or more peasant farms was by hereditary right the superintendent of such a group, or could himself appoint a bailiff with the power of dismissing him at his pleasure. The bailiff represented the police of his district; he could impose petty punishments, either pecuniary or corporal, at his discretion; he administered justice, and was the sole organ of the central government within that district. These districts, which occupied the greater part of the arable land in the kingdom, were reckoned at something over five thousand, with about sixteen thousand officials connected with them. These latter were all taken from the petty nobles, the schlachta; they were, for the most part, penniless and ignorant, harsh and prejudiced against the peasantry, and blindly subservient to the proprietors, at the same time ardent patriots and filled with hatred for Russians, Germans, and Jews. These feelings were shared with them to their full extent by the only other influential class in the country, the Catholic clergy, who, indeed, under the Russian Government still retained their great revenues, but on whose peculiar privileges and thirst for power strict limits had been imposed.

This wretched state of things had long attracted attention in St. Petersburg, and even in the time of the Emperor Nicholas various steps had been taken towards improving the condition of things; but that ruler had not ventured upon thorough measures, because he had scruples about freeing the Russian peasants, and yet could not refuse to them what he conceded to the peasants in Poland. But when his successor decided on the abolition of serfage in Russia, he thought at once of his unhappy Polish subjects also. One of his first measures was the granting of permission to form a great agricultural association for the sake of materially advancing the cultivation of the soil. This association was to have a chosen central committee in Warsaw, and branch associations in all the provinces of the kingdom,—an organization that would have been simply impossible and inconceivable under Paskiewitsch. After this, in the year 1856, a ukase declared it to be the emperor’s will, that the feudal labors and services should be converted into a fixed money-payment to be settled in the beginning by the free agreement of the parties concerned, but afterwards by standards soon to be legally fixed for such agreements, for the consideration and preparation of which special authorities were appointed.

All this was well and good, and held out to the country the prospect of material improvement. Nevertheless, it was quite comprehensible, that all hearts did not at once warm to the new system with submissive gratitude. The burden had pressed too heavily, the hatred had eaten in too far. Among the cultivated classes national ideas on the one side and the stream of democratic tendencies on the other had sufficed to keep alive hatred of Russia and of the Czar’s omnipotence. It was an old saying, that under a mild ruler Poland could rise, and under a harsh one she must. In every benefit emanating from St. Petersburg there seemed to be nothing but a small instalment toward the payment of past debts, in every privilege of freedom granted by the Czar but a weapon for continuing the struggle against the accursed foreign yoke.

In regard to the means to be employed for this pur­pose, opinions did, indeed, differ; and from the first day a moderate and a radical party, afterwards called the Whites and the Reds, appeared in opposition to one another. The nucleus of the former party consisted of the great landed proprietors, who now possessed, in the Agricultural Association, which was under their guid­ance, an organization embracing the whole kingdom. Their view of the matter was, that the Emperor’s good­will should be used for obtaining once more for the kingdom an autonomous administration independent of Russia, that then the restoration of the Liberal Consti­tution of 1815 and of a Polish army should be brought about, and so the means of arriving at complete independence prepared. They looked upon the questions concerning the peasants, which had been raised by the Emperor, with very divided feelings. They saw in them, first of all, the desire of the Government to secure the dependence of the peasants upon itself, and hence the probability of serious losses of property for the nobles; they therefore determined to take the thing into their own hands, to make a bargain as cheaply as possible, and to gain for themselves the gratitude of the peasants for the benefits they were to receive.

The Red party bestowed on this slow and complicated method of procedure nothing but silent contempt. In their view, the holy cause of democratic Revolution disowned all half-measures; the sole object to be pursued was to strike down every enemy as quickly as possible, and the Polish nobility themselves would have to choose whether they would be enemies or friends. To these enthusiasts, therefore, it was not a question of constitutional experiments, but of war and arms. This concise programme was accepted by the great body of the petty nobles, so far as they had not entered the service of the great lords, by the majority of the merchants and artisans in the towns, by a great part of the parish clergy and of those in monastic institutions, and by almost all the younger men of the educated classes. For a time, however, both these parties took pains to avoid an open breach; for the Whites were anxious to remain popular in the towns, and the Reds needed for their preparations the influence and the wealth of the landed proprietors.

A consideration of great importance in the pursuit of all these different interests was the internal condition of the Russian Empire itself at that time. Even there the democratic tendencies of the age had found entrance and adherents, by reason of the failure of the absolutist system in the Crimean War. Many of the nobles thought that they ought to receive compensation for what they had lost by the abolition of serfage and by the concession of constitutional and parliamentary privileges; and the Vice-Chancellor, who credited himself with brilliant oratorical powers, was not indisposed to give his support to such demands. Still more adherents, however, both in the country and in the army, joined the social-democratic party, which received its impetus from the well-known exiles, Herzen and Bakunin, and which was in intimate connection with those of like disposition in Warsaw. Bakunin at this time declared publicly that three hundred Russian officers in the standing army of the Empire had been gained over to the cause of revolt.

Now in 1859, as we know, it happened that the Emperor Alexander, on account of the revolutionary tempest in Italy, became decidedly cooler in his feelings toward France; and also in October, 1860, at the interview in Warsaw, a moderately amicable relation with the Emperor of Austria was once more established. Napoleon, irritated by this and by the failure of his plans for a congress, then decided to show the grim side of his disposition to his faithless friend; and he announced, in violent newspaper articles written by his cousin Jerome, that France would come to an understanding with Russia, just so far as the latter agreed to look favorably upon Poland’s efforts towards progress.

In Poland this action of the French Government had all the more effect, since at the same time rumors were abroad of Italian preparations against Venetia. If this be the case, thought the Poles, then Hungary and Galicia will rise in full revolt, and the hour of liberation for the Polish people, and for the Russian people also, is near at hand. The first nucleus of a revolutionary organization was therefore formed at Warsaw: twelve young men, hitherto wholly insignificant and unknown in the country, organized themselves as a secret committee, which, according to revolutionary custom, gave itself, in the name of the Polish people, full powers for guiding the national movement. Its orders appeared without signature, accredited only by the seal of the Committee; but in the excited state of public feeling its action awoke a ready echo, and it found numerous adherents in all parts of the country.

One of the chiefs of the insurrection of 1831, Mochnacki, had once closed an historical account of that rebellion with the words: “Poland will become free when her patriotism can rise into discipline and obedience.” The leaders in 1860 had profited by this saying, and unconditional obedience to the orders of the Committee became the first and last command for every member of the league. Quite as definite was the declaration of the aim of the conspiracy : the restoration of Poland, at least to the boundaries of 1815, and, if it might in any way be possible, to those of the glorious times of the Jagiellos, that is, from the Oder to the Carpathians and the Dnieper. For an actual contest in arms, those who espoused these plans were not yet prepared; but they determined to begin at once, by a series of unarmed demonstrations, to arouse the minds of the people, to provoke the oppressor to more hateful deeds of violence, and to show the world that Poland was still alive.

In February, 1861, the general assembly of the Agricultural Association held its meeting in Warsaw and discussed the great question of the condition of the peasants. It was generally agreed that something must be done to assert the Association’s leadership in the matter; but as to what that something should be, opinions dispersed to all points of the compass. A turbulent minority, which wished to force the nobility at once into the path of revolution, demanded the transference of the ownership of the small farms to the peasants in consideration of a moderate payment; in general these more violent spirits urged an active interference of the Association in the political agitation, and although the Managing Committee decidedly rejected this course, it met with more and more sympathy in the assembly.

At this juncture, there appeared in Warsaw, for the purpose of giving weight to an exactly opposite tendency, the only member of the great land-holding class that had hitherto held aloof from the Association, the Marquis Wielopolski. He was a dignified personage, of strong features and concise speech, with the manner of one accustomed to command, an admirable manager of his vast estates, a proud aristocrat of strong passions and of an iron will. Up to this time, he had lived for fifty years in the cultivation of these characteristics. In 1846, at the time of the Galician butcheries, he had attracted great attention by an energetic despatch to Metternich; then he had sunk back once more into his solitary existence in the country and into his scholarly pursuits of every sort.

His was an imperious nature, imperious towards others and towards itself, thirsting insatiably after thorough knowledge, inflexible in its logical reasoning, pitiless against every illusion however fair; in all these respects it contrasted with the excitable temperament of the greater part of his countrymen, sensitive as it was to every emotion, and hence he was a stranger among his fellows, misunderstood and not beloved. In politics, he was a man of order, of system, of reform based upon experience; the noisy harangues of enthusiastic half-knowledge disgusted him; and he was the born opponent of all lawless insurrection. He had as high a conception of the rights of the government as of its duties; it should rule with a strong hand, but at the same time surrender itself with complete devotion to labor for the common good.

With such sentiments, he had studied the condition of his country, and step by step had turned his back upon the patriotic dreams of his countrymen. “Our past,” he said, “lies in ashes; we must build with the materials of the present.” With him, this meant a renunciation of national independence, which with good reason he regarded as for the time unattainable, a frank acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Russian Imperial House, and on this basis the hope for a return to the liberal state of things of 1815, and so, for a reconciliation between the two nations hitherto enemies to the death.

The ultimate object of this Slavonic brotherly league was, however, suggested to him by his bitter and inextinguishable hatred of the Germans. Even in the preceding year of 1860 he had put himself in communication with the Vice-Chancellor, and in a long memorial had demonstrated to him the necessity of the liberation of Poland as a bulwark for Russia, since only in this way could the mortal enemy of the Slavic name, the German, be hindered in his constant encroachment upon Slavic territory and be once more deprived of his unlawful possessions on Slavic soil. Gortschakoff had made no objections to this line of argument.

The Marquis now laid before the Managing Committee an address to the Emperor drawn up in accordance with his own principles, containing, that is, an open declaration of firm loyalty, and on the strength of this, first of all a request for the restoration of the Constitution, and secondly, a proposal for the settlement of the questions concerning the peasants, for the reform of the higher education, especially in the reopening of the University of Warsaw, and for the bestowal of equal rights as citizens upon the Jews, a step which the Marquis regarded as being the most important one, in the existing state of things, towards the strengthening of the citizen class in Poland, which had been hitherto lamentably insignificant.

The members of the Committee hesitated. The substance of what Wielopolski proposed agreed exactly with their own wishes. But it went against the grain to swear fealty and obedience to the alien Czar, to beg from his favor what they held to be their own right, to disown the revolution of 1881, in one word, to sign a petition that involved the recognition of the existing state of things. The Committee took counsel with their friends; and the state of feeling became more and more unfavorable to the position held by the Marquis.

But the Radicals had little confidence in this mere feeling; they decided to stifle the attempt to conciliate in blood. On the 25th of February, 1831, the Poles had once fought the Russians, near Grochow; they had been defeated, but they had struggled bravely. The Secret Committee now ordered a great religious celebration of the anniversary of that day. It began with a solemn service in all the churches, to which was added a colossal procession with all priestly pomp, with Polish colors, with standards and with torches. An immense concourse of people followed. Soon there was a block in the streets, interruption of traffic, collision with the police. Finally, armed authority was able to disband the people by the slow advance of horsemen.

On the 27th the gathering was renewed; and when the Cossacks behaved with brutality, and maltreated even the priests who were present, the crowd turned threateningly toward the castle of the Governor. The old general, hesitating and uncertain, assailed by many different counsels, finally gave the order to use arms. Five men were shot dead on the spot; the people then dispersed with a fierce clamor.

Thus blood had been shed, and a state of war was once more proclaimed between Poles and Russians. The Secret National Committee had stood the first trial of its power. “Only a few bold men took an active part,” said one of the Committee’s newspapers, “but the people of Warsaw rallied about them and screened them from the sight of the police.” The Committee now issued orders almost daily, printed handbills, which were sometimes pasted on the walls and sometimes carried by boys to the different houses. A general mourning throughout the country was ordered, black garments for the women and a new national dress for the men. On certain days, at the command of the unknown chiefs, all the promenades, theatres, and caffe were left empty. Above all, by the enthusiastic participation of the clergy, the church was drawn into the patriotic agitation. Not a week passed without a solemn high-mass in one of the Warsaw churches celebrated in memory of some anniversary honorable to Poland, and these were always concluded by the singing of a patriotic hymn. This fashion was set first in Warsaw, and soon spread through all parts of the country.

The Agricultural Association was swept more and more into the stream. Since the shots of the 27th of February, nothing more had been heard of Wielopolski’s petition. In its stead, an address was sent to the Emperor demanding in pathetic language the recognition of the national and historical rights of Poland. The general assembly of the Association closed its deliberations with a series of resolutions, in which it was declared the duty of the landed proprietors to convert the domestic service and the socage service of the peasants into a money-equivalent, and then to give them the title to their property after sixteen such payments.

After this the Managing Committee of the Association remained passive; but the majority of the branch associations, and therefore of the landed proprietors, obeyed the directions of the Secret National Committee. Since, as we have seen, the officials appointed by the proprietors were the sole organs of the Government throughout the country, the civil administration in the provinces was, by these proceedings, practically broken up or put in the hands of the revolutionary leaders. In Warsaw, upon receiving a notice from the National Committee, a large number of the Polish officials resigned their offices in a body. The remainder were affected by the contagion that was spreading through both upper and lower classes. Before long, the Government could not escape the conviction that in all its different offices, in the postal service and in that of the railroads, above all in the ranks of the police, the patriotic conspiracy had its sympathizers and its agents.

While, therefore, the effectiveness of the Government service was diminished in all directions, the secret administration soon found itself in a position to constrain the lukewarm or the disaffected among their countrymen to obey their commands. Every Polish woman that showed herself in a bright-colored garment was publicly insulted in the streets, the shops of recal­citrant merchants were plundered, and Poles of distinctly Russian sympathies were most brutally maltreated in broad daylight. In these cases, the police regularly ap­peared on the scene only after the act had been completed and the actors had escaped.

So within a few weeks the entire authority of the legal administration of the State passed into the hands of twelve unknown young men, whose efforts were supported by the enthusiasm of the youth, the women, and the clergy, and the neglect of whose commands was more dangerous than refusal to obey the orders of the Emperor of Russia. In the beginning, every appearance of an armed insurrection was avoided. On the contrary, it was proclaimed to all Europe: “We beg and implore; and the Russians murder us.” But the object in view was very clearly expressed by General Mieroslawski on the 3d of March, 1861, in a message to the Secret Committee.

First of all, he said, the resolution of the Agricultural Association in regard to the establishment of the peasantry upon an independent footing must be promulgated and carried into effect, both in the kingdom itself and among the Lithuanians and Ruthenians; while, in the meantime, the whole population is to be prepared for the struggle and to receive a military organization. Then the peasants, gained over by the gift of their independence, will place themselves under the leadership of the nobility, and at a given moment fall upon whatever Russian garrison is the nearest. Above all things, the people must not allow the Russian Government to make any conscription for the army. At the same time the Committee at Warsaw must arouse the attention and the interest of Europe by newspaper articles in all languages, and must by vigorous, and, if necessary, fictitious reports, portray the strength of the revolt and the internal disintegration of Russia. The Governments of France and England are to be overwhelmed and wearied with complaints which must ostensibly have been presented at St. Petersburg and invariably put aside with contemptuous neglect. Some time will be required for all this to take effect; but it will finally bring about a quarrel between the Western Powers and Russia. An insurrection in Poland would be a signal to the Italians and the Hungarians to rise: on this point, it was said, there was a complete understanding between Mieroslawski, Garibaldi, and Klapka.

We shall see with what exactness and completeness this programme was carried out by the Warsaw National Committee.

While these mines were being laid in Poland, what was the state of things on the Russian side?

The scenes of the 27th of February had put the aged Governor, General Gortschakoff, quite beside himself. In the first moment of excitement, he proposed to the Government the proclamation of a state of siege; but on such insufficient grounds the Vice-Chancellor would not hear of such a thing. Upon this, the old man went quite to the other extreme, and favored the proposition of a volunteer committee of citizens who should become responsible for order, if the police and the military were withdrawn. The Secretary of the State Council, Enoch, then represented strongly to the Governor, that if he wished to manage the uprising by a policy of conciliation, he must enter as soon as possible upon organic reforms; and when the Governor eagerly declared his readiness to do this, Enoch proposed, as the best representative of such a policy, the Marquis Wielopolski. The Governor agreed; he rejected, indeed, the Marquis’s first proposition, the restoration of the Constitution of 1815, but forwarded to St. Petersburg, with an urgent recommendation for their acceptance, the further proposals of Wielopolski: that is to say, those for the establishment of elective district­councils and local authorities, as well as of a council of state re-enforced by notables to pronounce an opinion upon legislative propositions, for the extension of equal rights to the Jews, for the abolition of socage service, the reform of the system of education, and the re-establishment of the University of Warsaw.

In St. Petersburg also, these proposals were well received. The Emperor, in the consciousness of his own humane inclinations, would not yet believe the Poles irreconcilable. The Vice-Chancellor saw in the approval of the proposals a great step towards the realization of his own pet idea, the renewal of an intimate connection with France. When the Prussian Ambassador, Herr von Bismarck, expressed to him some doubts—not as to the extent of the concessions, but as to the opportuneness of the time, since it might seem as if they had been produced by fright at the out­break of the 27th of February—Gortschakoff declared with some vexation that Russia could not take advice in these internal questions even from her best friends; it was the duty of every Government to get rid of such abuses as had hitherto existed in the administration of Poland; Russia was tired of being always looked upon in Europe as the wild man, the barbaric despot, whenever her government was compared with that exercised by Prussia and Austria in their Polish territories.

In short, Wielopolski’s proposals went through some further sifting; but in a ukase of the 26th of March, the Governor received by telegraph the imperial approval of the establishment of a council of state, of the formation of elective councils in the various local divisions of the country, and of the creation of a commission to preside over the concerns of the church and of education. On the 27th the Marquis entered upon his new office. He was determined to restore order and obedience, and by that very course to lay the firm foundation for a systematic and liberal self-government in Poland under the supremacy of the Emperor, but independent of Russian officials. He was destined to a bitter experience in the difficulties of the task he had set before himself.

The Marquis found the Agricultural Association and the country priests engaged so actively in a national agitation that, though himself a Roman Catholic, he at once, on the 2d of April, forbade the clergy to interfere in political matters, and on the 5th dissolved the Asso­ciation on the ground of its having gone beyond its powers. While this was sufficient to exasperate the bishops and the great nobles, the Reds had, from the very beginning, regarded Wielopolski as the most dangerous enemy of their cause. To prepare the way for their revolution they required an increasing feeling of indignation among the people, and for this purpose in the ruling circles, not intelligent reform, but a harsher misgovernment. They therefore resolved to meet the ukase of March 26th with an emphatic repetition of the tumult of the 27th of February, in order that the new authorities at their very entrance into office might receive in the sight of the people the character of bloodthirsty oppressors. The course that things took on the 8th of April was exactly the same as in February : a religious solemnity, patriotic songs, a threatening crowd gathered before the palace of the Governor. A repeated command to disperse was followed by the throwing of stones at the troops, till finally a sharp volley was fired and ten men were killed on the spot.

By this the ukase of March 26th and Wielopolski’s system received their interpretation in the public opinion of Poland. Once more the old state of things—“we entreat, they murder”— was renewed, and Wielopolski was regarded as the betrayer of his country, who wished to tame her with caressing words to the yoke of the Russian tyrant. Yet in spite of all this, the Minister worked unceasingly at his reforms, and was supported, so far as possible, by the Governor, whose entire confidence he had gained. But it was the ill-fortune of the Marquis that, at the end of May, Prince Michael suddenly fell sick, and died on the 30th after a few days of suffering. Wielopolski’s whole position was thus endangered.

There was great difficulty in St Petersburg about finding a suitable successor to the Prince, and it cannot be denied that the various choices that were made one after another resulted very unfortunately. The first of them, the former Minister of War, General Suchosanett, was a soldier of seventy years, who had no other conception of government than with his fifty thousand Russian soldiers to keep those incorrigible Polacks at any rate in order, to lock up or transport every suspicious character, and to regard the civil authorities as simply non-existent.

In August he was succeeded by Count Lambert, a half-disabled general of French descent and education, wholly uninformed as to Polish affairs. He had been charged to proclaim a state of siege, if necessary for the preservation of peace and order; but, for his own part, he was filled with the idea of becoming popular not only in Poland, but also in France, and strove, as a good Catholic, to win the approval of the clergy; so that very soon a weak and purposeless anarchy took the place of the rule of the sword.

The seed sown by the National Committee was now growing more and more vigorously with the increasing irritation of the people and the miserable inefficiency of the Government. In the postal service and on the railroads nearly half of the officials were agents of the Committee, and the case was not very different in the ranks of the police and of the gendarmes. The contributions levied by the Committee were exactly paid, implicit obedience was yielded to its orders, and the recalcitrant or negligent were reached by the daggers of the mighty secret tribunal. The Committee extended its activity to Lithuania and Volhynia; in Kovno and Wilna there were tumults as bloody as those in Warsaw.

On the 10th of October, the Committee arranged a great popular assembly at Horodlo on the Bug, in commemoration of the union of the Poles and Ruthenians there effected in the year 1413, and also as a protest in the sight of Europe against the division of Poland. In the appeal, therefore, an invitation was extended to deputations from all the countries formerly belonging to Poland—from Posen, West-Prussia, and Pomerania, from Cracow, from Galicia, and from Kiev—to be present at Horodlo. The Russian General in command at Horodlo looked on with his troops in indifference, while the religious service forbidden by Lambert was celebrated with all ecclesiastical pomp in the open fields, by the Bishop of Lublin with a hundred priests, and before four thousand spectators.

When this was reported in St. Petersburg, it filled the cup of imperial wrath to overflowing, and on the 14th of October there appeared in Warsaw an order from the supreme authority containing the proclamation of a state of siege. The Committee, in response to this, ordered a national celebration in honor of Kosciusko to be held in all the churches on the evening of the 15th. The celebration took place before an immense throng of people. At the conclusion of the service revolutionary songs were sung in two of the churches; whereupon the doors were occupied by the military, and when the crowd refused to leave the building, a detachment of soldiers was sent in about midnight, who with a violent tumult drove out the women and children, but carried off the men, seventeen hundred in number, to prison.

On the 16th, at a hint from the Committee, a majority of the chapter of the Cathedral obliged the Archbishop, Bialobrzeski, to order the closing, not only of the two churches desecrated by the brawl, but of all the churches of Warsaw, in order to save them, as he said, from possible desecration in the future. This was an act that went beyond all canonical rules, in its open hostility to the Government; and the latter answered it by the deposition and arrest of the holder of the see, a proceeding that gave the patriots clear proof that the Government was involved in a like damnation with Nero and Diocletian. The hand of God vindicated its own power: Count Lambert was made incapable of managing affairs by a hemorrhage, and once more the rough and harsh Suchosanett was called provisionally to undertake the government of Poland.

In these hours of violence, Wielopolski had seen his most cherished schemes fade away without effect. He was openly on bad terms with both Suchosanett and Lambert; and when the former was reinstated, the Marquis besought the Emperor to allow him to resign. Alexander, who prized the ability and information of the Marquis, had been by various circumstances somewhat shaken in his confidence in the trustworthiness of the man; he therefore sent for him to St. Petersburg, in order to judge for himself.

There the Marquis succeeded in winning greater consideration and stronger influence every day; and especially Prince Gortschakoff continued to show himself the zealous supporter of a conciliatory policy, such as was recommended by Wielopolski. The Marquis was soon able to unfold to the Emperor his great plan in all its details: it consisted of a separation of the military and civil powers, the former to remain in the hands of a Russian General with Russian troops, the latter to be confided to a Minister, who should be independent of Russian authorities, should have at his side a council of state for the promulgation of laws, and should have under him Polish officials, as well as local authorities chosen by the people ; with the organization of this system the state of siege would come to an end, and also the Catholic Church would receive important concessions; finally, at the head of the whole should be placed a member of the imperial family, as representative of the Crown.

In connection with this Gortschakoff said: “The present state of things cannot continue; you can lean on bayonets, but you cannot sit on them; something must be done.” The oldest of the Emperor’s brothers, the Grand Duke Constantine, expressed his emphatic approval of Wielopolski’s scheme. The Emperor hesitated for a long time, in doubt whether the step, taken at that late hour, would have the desired conciliatory effect upon the Poles; but finally he decided not to deny himself the satisfaction of making one more attempt. In the last days of May, 1862, therefore, the world, which had hitherto heard of nothing but Russian acts of violence in Poland, was astonished by the proc­lamation of the new system. The Grand Duke Constantine was appointed Governor, and Wielopolski chief of the civil administration; the command of the army was retained by General Lüders, who had already held it for some months.

Wielopolski had reckoned this time upon receiving for once some thanks from his countrymen. Instead of the Russian military dictatorship, he brought them a civil administration carried on by their own people and independent of Russia, together with reforms in every sphere of social life. But the Emperor had judged the Polish parties only too correctly. The nobility of the White faction refused every office under Wielopolski, because his power did not extend to the entire Poland of 1771. The Reds, on the other hand, to whom nothing seemed more dreadful and more full of danger than a reconciliation between the Czar and the Poles, and who, as we have seen, had, on the 8th of April, responded to the first step of the Marquis in that direction with bloodshed, decided that very different blood should smoke before him now, when he was returning as the guiding spirit of the government. On the 27th of June a pistol-shot was fired at short range at General Lüders in the Saxon Garden, by which his jaws were broken. Those who had done the deed could not be discovered.

Soon after this, the news spread through the country that a negotiation between Russia and the Vatican, set on foot to induce the Pope to address peaceful admonitions to the Polish clergy, had grown to an open breach. The Pope called upon the Polish bishops to take under their protection the priests who had been arrested for unlawful behavior. Upon this, Gortschakoff said: “If the Pope fosters revolution in Poland, he cannot expect Russia to support him against revolution in Italy,” and he acknowledged openly the Italian sovereignty of Victor Emmanuel.

By these proceedings, the fanaticism of the Poles was increased to the highest point, and it showed itself in an unexampled series of deeds of violence. A pistol was fired at the Grand Duke two days after his arrival; the ball reached its mark, but was arrested in the thick epaulets of the general’s uniform. In the month of August four attempts at assassination were made one after another against Wielopolski, with firearms, with steel, with poisoned letters, and with poisoned food. It is a wonder that they all failed. At the same time thirty Russian officers of the garrison of Warsaw were convicted of participation in the conspiracy; all the pulpits once more resounded with an appeal for the sacrifice of property and life for the good of the Fatherland; and the arms necessary to supplement this appeal were hidden in the cellars of the monasteries. On the 1st of September the National Committee issued a proclamation, in which it constituted itself the National Government, announced, as the aim of the revolt, the liberation of all Poland as far as the boundaries of 1771, promised to the peasants the ownership of their farms, and summoned all the Slavonic peoples to take part in the struggle for freedom.

The feelings aroused in the Grand Duke and the Minister by such proceedings can easily be imagined. They had come, in their own view, to overwhelm the Polish nation with benefits, and they found themselves confronted with a storm of popular hatred that was guided by fanatics who recognized no restraint, who hesitated at no crime, who declared themselves and their followers as free as air, and who hurled the threat of armed revolution in the faces of their would-be benefactors. Wielopolski, keeping his ideal unswervingly before him, was not even in this state of affairs unfaithful to his convictions. In spite of all the machinations and the audacity of the rebels, he was determined that the autonomous administration, and the benefits of the reforms in education, and of the laws releasing the peasants from their obligations, should not be spoiled for his countrymen. He therefore dismissed all Russian officials, and gave their places for the remainder of the year to natives of the country: he would not believe that by doing this he brought many thousand agents of the approaching revolution into influential positions. The instigation to disturbance which was kept up more and more by the clergy in all the provinces he at first left unnoticed; but he was resolved to seize the Hydra of Revolution in its deepest lurking-place with what he thought would be a crushing grasp. Against the assassins who with poison and dagger disgraced the Polish name, any means seemed to him permissible, if they were only effective.

Since the end of the Crimean war no recruiting had been undertaken for the Russian army, so that the different divisions hardly contained half the normal number of troops for a peace-footing. Beside the guard (30,000 men) and the Orenburg and Caucasian troops (150,000), the European garrisons had somewhat more than 180,000 men under the flag, of whom 60,000 were kept in Poland, in view of the threatening condition of that country, and as many in the western provinces of Russia, which had formerly been Polish. Nothing was more natural than that the Government should think of once more filling up the vacancies with young men; and already in June, the new Minister of War, Miliretin, had announced to the Marquis Wielopolski the necessity of such a measure.

Now in the year 1859 a ukase had been issued which instituted the conscription by lot among all classes of the population liable to military service, but this had never as yet gone into effect. Wielopolski, brought to the highest degree of irritation by the succession of attempts at assassination and by the proclamation of the 1st of September, now adopted the idea of carrying on the recruiting in Poland according to the old principle, which left the authorities free choice among those liable to serve, and of removing from the country by this means at one stroke, if not the whole band of rebels, at least the greater part of them. He laid before the Grand Duke the arguments on which such action could be based: as regarded the substance of the matter, there could be no doubt of the Government’s right to use every means against the bandits, who of their own accord had put themselves beyond any consideration of law; nor was the Emperor’s formal right less clear, as the sole and unrestricted source of all law, to suspend any existing law for a particular place and time.

The Grand Duke objected; he had been sent, he said, to further peace and reconciliation, and this mission could not be brought into accord with a measure that in spite of the arguments of the Marquis would be regarded as a coup d'état. But the strong will and keen logic of the Marquis overcame these scruples, and Wielopolski’s proposal received the royal approval on the 18th of September.

Accordingly, on the 6th of October, the official journal of the Government published an announcement to the following effect: at the same time with the general recruiting throughout the Empire, a partial draft was to take place in Poland, which, as an exception to the usual custom, would not affect the rural population—in order not to interfere with the action of the laws affecting the obligations of the peasants—but only that of the towns, and this, too, with the exclusion of choice by lot, although all legal grounds of exemption would still continue fully in force. In all districts conscription-commissions were then instituted, and the officials were charged with an examination of the physical fitness of those liable to serve. A secret instruction was addressed to the commissions, charging them to select above all those of bad reputation, those who had no definite place of abode and no vocation, and those who were under the suspicion of exciting revolutionary agitation, since it was desired to use the con­scription as a means of getting rid of these dangerous elements. A few days after its communication this order became known to the National Committee and also to the foreign newspapers. As the Grand Duke had foreseen, a shout of indignation went through Poland and through Europe.

We remember that so long before as March, 1861, Mieroslawski had admonished his friends in Warsaw to submit under no circumstances to a conscription, but if such a thing should be announced, to oppose it at every risk. This entirely suited the wishes of the National Committee; the question was only, how far the necessary preparations could be carried before the as yet unknown day of the outbreak, in order that the insurgents might fall with effect in one night upon the Russian garrisons scattered through the country.

At any rate the Committee went on with the work with redoubled zeal. Already they had repeatedly collected sums of money among the patriots, and made here and there purchases of arms; now they issued an order, on the 8th of October, imposing upon all real-estate and mortgages a capital-tax of one-half of one per cent, and upon all revenues of any other sort an income tax of five per cent.

The enthusiasm for this patriotic sacrifice was not shared by all the patriots, but the committee had more effective means of executing its wishes than is usually the case with other governments: if any landholder refused to pay, his house and farm-buildings were burned within a week after the expiration of the term set for payment; and in the towns, recalcitrant citizens were murdered in the streets in open day. Great sums were, therefore, quickly collected, without the Government officers being able to lay hands on a single one of the receivers of the money, of the assassins, or of the incendiaries. And soon large orders had been despatched to England, France, and Belgium, for a speedy delivery of muskets and sabres, of munitions and uniforms, and also of daggers, strychnine, and curare.

The refugees in Paris and the European Revolutionary Committee in London helped on these preparations according to their ability, though with the difference that Ladislas Czartoryski gave warnings against premature action, in view of the unfavorable conjuncture in European affairs; while the Committee in London, on the other hand, in the hope that the fire blazing up in Poland would quickly spread to the countries round about, urged that the rising should take place as soon as possible.

Meanwhile the Warsaw Committee made its arrangements for establishing the revolutionary organization in Lithuania, Posen, and Galicia. In harmony with the tone of the manifesto of September 1st, its newspapers, at the close of the year, raised the cry for the liberation of the whole great Fatherland from the yoke of the Germans and the Russians. To be sure, it was not intended to allow the revolt immediately to break out also on Prussian and Austrian territory, and so to draw forth at once the military force of all three of the Powers that took part in the partition; on the contrary, the struggle was first to be begun against Russia, where it was hoped that the demoralization of the army, and perhaps revolutionary agitations in sympathy with those in Poland, would be of assistance, while the Courts of Berlin and Vienna would be restrained by the public opinion of Europe from interfering in a quarrel that apparently did not concern them. But none the less on this account were Posen and Galicia to be drawn in as a support in the attack upon Russia, since they would furnish aid by transmitting across the frontier the supply of arms arriving from Liége, by sharing in the payment of the national contributions, and by levying and sending over companies of volunteers. In Posen the association of the Polish deputies of the Provincial Parliament had been for two years doing preparatory work, and had also extended its connections among the Slavonic population of Upper Silesia: in the beginning of the year 1863, the Warsaw Committee appointed the deputy, Alexander Guttry, chief of the entire national government which was to be established in the duchy, on the model of that in Warsaw.

While all this was going on, the National Committee received the news that the recruiting was to take place about the middle of January. After long and stormy debates, the majority of the Committee came to the conclusion that at that moment insurrection was out of the question; all that could be done was to withdraw individuals who were threatened from the grasp of the Russian military authorities. There was no great difficulty about this, considering the disposition of the greater part of the civil officials; it was only necessary to send the young men away from their actual place of abode into another district, so that the officers who had charge of the conscription had no means whatever of tracing them.

Immediately many hundreds of young men began to disappear every night, especially from Warsaw. When, on the night of the 14th of January, 1868, the conscription was begun in the capital, the officials found only 1,400 men out of 4,500, and those under suspicion in political matters were the very ones who were missing. Wielopolski was bitterly undeceived, and had the failure of his plan before his eyes.

But the National Committee also found it impossible to adhere to its decision. First among the youth who had escaped from the conscription, and soon also among the greater number of the revolutionary agents in the provinces, the cup of passions that had been inflamed for years was filled to overflowing. The young men did not wish to hide, but to fight Those from Warsaw gathered together in a wood a few miles from the town. Similar bands were assembled at Plock, Lublin, and Petrikau.

The Committee saw that they would entirely lose the control of things, if they attempted to resist the current any longer. With heavy heart and bold words they gave the signal to all the agents in the provinces for the armed rising: exactly in accordance with what Mieroslawski had proposed in March, 1861, the Russian garrisons, on the night of the 23d of January, were to be attacked and overwhelmed.

On the 22d appeared three proclamations of the Committee, or rather, according to the title now adopted by it, the National Government: in these, the Polish nation, up to that day a martyr and a suppliant, was called upon to become on the morrow a hero and a giant; all men capable of bearing arms were to hasten to the banner of the Fatherland; all peasant-farmers were once more promised the ownership of their farms—with the reservation of compensation to be made later to the former proprietors;—all farm-servants, cottagers, and day-laborers were promised a share of three acres apiece in the public land. For the Committee did not fail to appreciate the fact that everything depended upon gaining over the peasant population to the standard of the revolt. Bold as was the youth of the cities, eager as the petty nobles were for battle, it was not possible to form from them such masses as were necessary to encounter the columns of the Russians.

On the night of the 23d of January, then, a number of Russian garrisons in the smaller towns were attacked. The secret had been remarkably well kept; everywhere the Russian soldiers lay quietly asleep in their quarters; some hundreds were struck down at the first attack, or destroyed in the houses that were set on fire, and over three hundred were wounded. But no decisive result was obtained by the insurgents. Everywhere the first surprise was followed by an alarm quickly given, an assembling of the troops, and a repulse of the Polish bands. The latter threw themselves once more into the woods, made a new gathering, and received accessions from all sides, mainly petty nobles, artisans, and students, a very few peasants, and soon also volunteers from Posen and Galicia. At one stroke the country was filled with the tumult of war, the civil administration of the Government was scattered like chaff before the wind; and the hopes of the patriots soared high over all difficulties and all bounds.

But quite as patriotic feelings were aroused in Russia by the news of the outbreak. There the entire people looked upon the attack made upon sleeping soldiers as a treacherous assassination on a large scale, and thousands of voices called upon the Government to take bloody revenge. Gortschakoff, however, said: “It is a good thing that the ulcer has at last broken; now we will cut it out, and then continue to carry on a mild and conciliatory government.”

He and every one else in St. Petersburg believed that the rebellion would be quickly put down. “In that case,” wrote the Prussian consul-general in Warsaw, “Wielopolski would be omnipotent, and would manage Poland as he liked.” Another Prussian observer describes the far-reaching, ambitious plans that were entertained by those who surrounded the Grand Duke Constantine: if the Reds were once controlled, it was thought that Poland might, as the inheritance of the second son of the Russian Imperial House, become an independent kingdom under Russian protection, strong enough to draw to itself Posen and Galicia, Croatia and Servia, and perhaps all the Austrian Slavs, so opening to the White Czar the broadest path to Constantinople.

However this might turn out, great anxiety was felt in Vienna, in Berlin, and in London, with regard to the course things might take. In the most recent negotiations in regard to the complications in the Turkish countries on the Danube, Russia had assumed a position in close understanding with France, and in sharp opposition to Austria and England. It was now learned with surprise that Napoleon, in spite of all the sympathy that was everywhere manifested throughout France, strongly condemned the Polish outbreak, which, he said, had been made in conjunction with Mazzini, at a time when the Emperor Alexander was overwhelming Poland with benefits. The conclusion was easily reached, that Gortschakoff and Wielopolski were carrying out their plans on a perfect understanding with Napoleon, and that a kingdom of Poland closely allied with Russia was to form a basis of attack against Vienna and Constantinople, while Napoleon at the same time would bring the affairs of Italy to the desired settlement and then become master in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In this connection the Polish revolt, which for the moment interfered with Gortschakoff’s combinations, seemed in London extremely opportune, and even in Vienna to have its good side, in spite of all fears for Galicia. In England, appeals were made to the public opinion of Europe in favor of the insurgents; in Austria the further course of events was awaited, no objection was entertained to seeing Russia fall into a position of embarrassment, and Polish arms and volunteers were allowed to pass the Galician frontier unregarded.

The Prussian Government also had in mind to use the Polish revolt for the overthrow of the dangerous system devised by France and Russia. But it had not an instant’s doubt that the proper means the reverse of the tendencies ruling in Vienna and London. In order to nip the proposed Polish-Russian Union and the French alliance connected with it in the bud, it was necessary, not to look favoringly upon the Poles, but to keep Russia firm in her ancient friendship with Prussia.

 

 

CHAPTER III.

PRUSSIA AND RUSSIA.

 

During the last half-year Prussia’s position in Europe had in more than one connection been giving cause for serious consideration. On the 22d of January, 1863, immediately after the rejection of the proposition concerning the delegations, Austria had expressly asserted for herself in the Confederate Diet the right of introducing such plans of reform and of carrying them out, if not in the whole of Germany, at least in such States as agreed to them; and Count Rechberg now declared his approval of Beust’s view, that the Governments must take the reform into their own hands, if they did not wish to be surprised by revolution. With such principles as these, the crisis that had just been avoided might at any time reappear, and the breach of the compact of confederation might bring with it an appeal to arms. If this were to happen, what would be the relation of the contending parties to the foreign Great Powers?

With England Austria had long gone hand in hand in the numerous questions that had arisen in the East; and far as the English Cabinet was from thinking of interfering in the German trouble, its sympathies, nevertheless, were with the Court of Vienna, and its appeals to the Court of Berlin to be reconciled with Austria were unceasing. The only answer that could be made to these was that Austria’s attitude made such a reconciliation impossible, and that England must direct her admonitions to Vienna: this was, indeed, not calculated to increase in London the friendly feeling towards Prussia.

More important and more serious, however, was a change in the policy of France, which took place in the autumn of 1862. Faithful to the principle formerly established by Cavour, that Rome must be the capital of Italy, but that this object was only to be attained by peaceful means, the Cabinet of Turin had crushed at Aspromonte an audacious troop of Garibaldi’s volunteers on their march against Rome, but had at the same time declared that no Italian Government could renounce the thought of solving the difficulty in accordance with the Italian national idea. The Emperor Napoleon, who would neither withdraw the French garrison from Rome, nor give up the hope of forcing the Pope and Italy to recognize the existing state of things, decided, upon this, to make his imperial disapproval distinctly manifest to the Turin Cabinet; he appointed for Rome and for Turin ambassadors of a clerical tendency, and replaced Thouvenel in the management of foreign affairs by the old supporter of the Pope and Austria, M. Drouyn de Lhuys. From this time on, there could be no more talk in Berlin of reliance upon the friendship of France.

So much the more important was it for Prussia to keep up a thorough good understanding with Russia, and so much the more perilous would it be to allow the same to be disturbed by the troubles in Poland.

It might have been difficult to decide which danger would be the more serious for Prussia, the certainly not very probable victory of the Red insurrection, as it was carried on by Mieroslawski, Mazzini, and Garibaldi, or the creation of an autonomous Poland under Russian and French protection, according to the plans of Wielopolski, Gortschakoff, and Constantine. The Red party had already at Horodlo, and again at the moment of the outbreak, announced their claims to West Prussia, Posen, and Pomerania as far as the Oder; they were already levying contributions and recruits among their fellow Slavs in those countries, and were establishing in Posen a well-organized administration of the country.

Such extreme steps as these would hardly be taken by Wielopolski’s autonomous Poland, but the Minister would be unceasingly urged in the same direction, as well by the Polish patriots, as by the efforts of the Panslavists and by his own hatred for the Germans; and Prince Gortschakoff would be the last to check him in such a course. Neither for Posen and West Prussia, nor for the entire monarchy, would there be a quiet hour under such conditions.

At the first news, then, of the Polish insurrection, the determination was formed in Berlin of appealing directly to the personal feelings of the Emperor Alexander. General Gustav von Alvensleben received instructions to go to St. Petersburg and from there to Warsaw. In St. Petersburg he was to deliver an autograph letter from the King to the Emperor, and then to obtain as complete information as possible in regard to what had happened hitherto, but above all to seek to arrange an understanding with the Emperor with reference to common measures for the suppression of the revolt. “ The King,” so the instructions ran, “is firmly convinced that the interests of both Governments are alike imperilled by the Polish rising, and that any emancipation of the Polish element from the authority of the Emperor will not be limited in its effects to the boundaries of the kingdom of Poland, but will disturb the peace as well of the neighboring portions of Prussia as of the western provinces of the Russian Empire. In our view, the position of the two Courts with regard to the Polish revolution is substantially that of two allies threatened by a common enemy.” It was therefore to be arranged that the generals of the two nations on both frontiers should be instructed to render one another every assistance necessary for the restoration of order and the putting down of the revolt.

Any one who at that time had cast a glance about him in Europe, would have been justified in thinking such a step an audacious venture. For the Press of all the most civilized countries was rejoicing at the insurrection in Poland; a judgment of condemnation was unanimously passed upon the Russian tyranny, which had now by an unlawful system of recruiting forced a long-suffering people into the struggle of despair. The liberal, clerical, and national tendencies, which generally neutralized each other, now worked together, and had on their side the sympathy of public opinion and energetic champions in the most powerful governments. It required a consummate firmness of purpose to oppose this tide of feeling and to take a stand by the side of Russia, shunned and isolated as she was.

This very state of things, however, insured the Prussian general a doubly favorable reception at the hands of the Emperor Alexander. The more keenly the sensitive mind of that Sovereign was affected by the tempest let loose against him, the more refreshing to him was this message of loyal friendliness. From the bottom of his heart he met the advances of his ally: and during his lifetime the Panslavic league of brotherhood between Poles and Russians was no longer to be feared.

Alvensleben found that Wielopolski was still in favor with the Emperor: Alexander spoke with sympathy and indignation of two fresh attempts which had been made to poison the courageous Minister. “Independent of the Emperor,” wrote Alvensleben, “the Marquis has also a strong party here; among the Russian people the sentiment is divided, on one side there is a violent hatred of the Polish assassins, on the other, a feeling that Russia has not the slightest interest in the supremacy of the House of Gottorp in Poland.” The Emperor, however, remained firm in his determination to suppress the rebellion as speedily as he might, and then to govern the country as mildly as possible. At his order, Gortschakoff proposed to the Prussian general to settle what measures it was necessary to adopt by a written conven­tion or agreement.

Alvensleben had certainly neither commission nor powers to do this, but, considering the simplicity of the matter, he saw no reason for not listening to the wish of the Vice-Chancellor; and he sent to Berlin, on the 6th of February, the outline of such an agreement. The substance of the matter was, that at the request of the Russian or of the Prussian commander-in-chief, or of the frontier authorities on both sides, the generals of both nations should have full power to render one another mutual assistance, and, in case of need, even to cross the frontier for the pursuit of the rebels who should pass from one country to the other. Officers from both sides, appointed for the purpose, would be present at the headquarters of the generals in command and of the leaders of the different corps, and would be informed of all movements. There was another article which Gortschakoff begged should be kept secret: the Prussian commander was to be kept informed of all news received of political machinations affecting Posen.

King William was satisfied with the outline as a whole, and only desired that reciprocity should be observed in regard to the secret article. Gortschakoff then added at the end of the outline the words (which substantially invalidated the whole thing): “ This arrangement shall have force so long as the state of things requires it, and both Courts regard it as desirable.” A compact from which either party can withdraw, is, strictly speaking, hardly to be called a compact at all.

On the 8th of February the compact was signed by Alvensleben and Gortschakoff. No ratification by the two Sovereigns took place. Afterwards, Gortschakoff, to whom the sending of Alvensleben to St. Petersburg had been in every way disagreeable, determined to find compensation in another quarter for the annoyance Prussia had caused him: on the very day after the signing of the compact he hastened to show the text of the agreement to the French ambassador, the Duke of Montebello.

Bismarck, however, on his side, had not intended to hide from the world the substance of the convention. Almost half the Prussian army, four of the nine army­corps, was put in readiness for war and posted in divisions on the long Polish frontier from Insterburg to Oppeln: with such a display of force, whatever might happen on the other side of the frontier, order was assured for Prussia, and the Government was prepared for any further steps that might be decided upon.

Alvensleben had stopped at Warsaw on his return, and had found the Government there confident of victory, and hence much annoyed at the agreement with Prussia, in which they appeared as if in need of assistance. In their instructions to the Russian generals they urged them to take pains to confine the number and extent of their incursions across the frontiers within the narrowest possible limits; and this naturally led to corresponding orders to the Prussian commanders. In regard to the actual state of things in Poland, however, Alvensleben and the officers who accompanied him had no very encouraging news to give. There was no firm control and no distinct plan in the management of the army; every leader of a corps acted on his own account; they were at one only in their dislike to Wielopolski, whom they regarded simply as guilty of high treason. The country now swarmed in all the provinces with armed bands, for the most part small in number, since the peasants obstinately refused their adhesion to the revolution; only in the south-west were larger bodies of troops to be found, in consequence of the accessions which arrived there from Silesia and Galicia. Everywhere the leaders proclaimed that foreign aid was at hand, and so kept up the courage of their people.

In this general uncertainty concerning the state of things in Poland, Bismarck thought it desirable not to leave the Great Powers at all in doubt in regard to Prussia’s attitude. On the 11th of February he had a conversation with the English ambassador, Sir Andrew Buchanan. He informed him in confidence of the conclusion of a compact with Russia for common action in the suppression of the revolt. Sir Andrew asked whether by this compact the troops of both sides were permitted to pass the frontier. Bismarck answered in the affirmative, with a distinct declaration that Prussia could never tolerate an independent Poland on her borders. “But how will it be,” said Sir Andrew, “if, as is certainly possible, the Russians are driven out of Poland? What will you do then?” “Then,” answered Bismarck, “we must try to occupy the kingdom ourselves, in order to prevent this growth of a power hostile to us.” “Europe will never suffer that,” said Sir Andrew, and repeated it several times. Bismarck asked shortly: “Who is Europe” “The various great nations,” said the ambassador. “Are they already agreed about the matter” asked Bismarck. Sir Andrew avoided giving a positive answer, but declared France found herself unable to allow another suppression of Poland. “For us,” said Bismarck, “the suppression of the revolt is a matter of life and death; ” but he closed the conversation with the remark that it was useless to discuss possibilities.

He afterwards adopted a similar tone in talking with the French ambassador, M. de Talleyrand, who confined himself to the statement that he did not know the views of his Government with regard to Poland. Bismarck spoke the more freely, since he himself, when ambassador at Paris, upon the Emperor’s saying that something must be done for Poland, had explained his own view with emphasis without receiving any con­tradiction from Napoleon, and since as lately as the 4th of February the French Government, in the legisla­tive assembly, had opposed a motion of Jules Favre friendly to the Poles, and had advised Poland to rely upon the magnanimity and humanity of the Emperor Alexander.

But on this point the Minister was destined to be soon undeceived.

Napoleon was certainly an opponent of the Red party, as well in Poland as in the rest of Europe. But he would gladly have agreed to the plans of Gortschakoff and Wielopolski, and this fact alone would have made the Prussian compact disagreeable to him. But in addition to this there was the violent storm of public opinion in France, where the entire body of the clergy went hand in hand with the Liberals in favoring Poland, and where just at this time a general election was close at hand, in which the support of the clergy was very important to the Government. Thus placed in a dilemma between the sympathy of the country for Poland on the one hand, and its own sympathy for Russia on the other, the Government began to consider whether “ something could not be done for Poland,” if the agitation were directed, not against Russia, the origo mali, but against her companion in guilt, Prussia. No one could be more eager and ready for such a course than Drouyn de Lhuys.

On the 15th of February he said to the Prussian ambassador, Count Goltz: “We understand that each of the three Powers that took part in the partition is anxious to keep its Polish provinces. But we supposed that you were strong enough to defend Posen on your own account, and would have left Russia to manage her affairs alone. Then only a third of the Polish difficulty would have been touched upon, and we could have looked on calmly. The state of things is altered when it becomes a question of the whole of Poland. This question, I fear, you yourselves have brought up prematurely. Are you not anxious lest, with the existing state of mind among the English and the French people, your making common cause with Russia should provoke others to form alliances also ? ”

His tone was indeed most friendly: he said that he only expressed fears, none of which would, he hoped, be realized. But on the next day but one, the 17th, he sent a despatch to Talleyrand, to the same effect as the above speech: up to the present time the Polish difficulty had been local; now, by Prussia’s compact, it had grown into a question of importance for all Europe. On the 18th he sent a despatch to Montebello at St. Petersburg, in which, referring to the Act of the Vienna Congress of 1815, the provisions of which, he said, were not being fulfilled by Russia, he expressed anxiety lest the relations between the two Courts might become strained. That Drouyn de Lhuys was the moving spirit in the matter is shown in this case by the appeal to the compacts of 1815, which the Emperor, like every Napoleon, detested from the bottom of his heart. The Minister assumed every day a higher tone with Goltz, until he finally declared openly that only the dismissal of Bismarck could restore amicable relations. In a much less hostile tone, though substantially to the same effect, the Emperor spoke with Goltz on the 20th: “You know how I have always desired intimate relations with Prussia: had Austria committed such an error as Prussia has done in agreeing to this convention, it would have been a matter of indifference to me; but now that Prussia has done it, the event causes me genuine sorrow.”

However, sorrow or no sorrow, the course had been entered upon; and on the 21st there was sent to London and Vienna, the outline of a common note, in which the three Powers, although in the most courteous language, were to express to the Prussian Cabinet their regret at the conclusion of the convention, and at the same time the hope, that Prussia would soon find it for her interest to withdraw from the same.

Drouyn de Lhuys had no doubt of obtaining the consent of the two Courts. He knew that in Vienna indignation against Prussia on account of Confederate reform and of the commercial treaty was blazing high, that the most influential advisers of Rechberg, Herren von Biegeleben and von Meysenbug, were, if from nothing more than Catholic sympathies, zealous, friends of Poland, and that in Galicia the Poles were allowed without hinderance to send money and volunteers across the frontier. In London public opinion was enthusi­astic in favor of Poland; and on the 20th, the very day before the outline was sent, the Minister, Lord John Russell, had declared in Parliament that the conscription in Warsaw was the most unwise and the most unjust step that Russia could have taken, and that Prussia, by entering into the convention, had, as an accessary after the deed, become a sharer in responsi­bility for the hateful measure. What ground, then, could the two Powers have for refusing to sign together a note couched in such mild terms?

But in spite of all this, the calculation was a mistaken one.

Lord John, as an orthodox Whig, was certainly full of sympathy for the Poles, as for all oppressed nations, but recognized the danger to Prussia involved in the insurrection, and, as a practical statesman, he had for many reasons no desire whatever to injure Prussia or to see her injured. He therefore answered the French communication by saying that, in spite of any courtesy of expression, a common note, as such, was the most serious and most threatening way of making a remonstrance. Much as he disapproved of the convention, its practical importance was not sufficient to justify such a step. And, at any rate, if a desire was felt to interfere, why should such interference be directed at the aider and abettor, rather than at the originator of the trouble ? England, therefore, refused to take part in the note addressed to Prussia, and instead of this, called upon the signers of the Act of the Vienna Congress, to take steps in common against Russia.

Austria, who was at that time constantly strengthening her connection with England, refused from mistrust of Napoleon to sign the proposed note, in spite of any differences of her own with Prussia. The action of the French Minister ended, therefore, in a diplomatic fiasco. But it was, nevertheless, of great importance. By it the French Government had confessed its obligation to support the cause of Poland. In the effort to do this it had suffered a defeat, which Napoleon was much less able to bear in the sight of his people than a legitimate sovereign would have been. When, therefore, England now proposed fresh steps against Russia, the Emperor found it doubly difficult to refuse, though none of the consequences of such a step could be foreseen.

Bismarck had watched the development of the French policy during that time not without anxiety but with firm determination; and immediately after receiving the first reports on the subject, he had declared beforehand to the French ambassador, that there was no choice for Prussia in Polish matters, and that he could therefore give no other than a negative answer to any intercession in favor of Poland. But after this he was astonished by an unexpected announcement from the opposite quarter. On the 22d of February, the Russian ambassador, Herr von Oubril, called on him, and informed him that in the opinion of his Government the state of things in Europe made it desirable that the clauses of the convention which gave the generals on both sides liberty to cross the frontier, should go out of effect. That meant nearly the same as a suspension of the entire compact; indeed, the liberty to cross the frontier was the only provision of that compact that required an agreement of both sides. The Prussian general in command, however, was at once given orders in accordance with Oubril’s wish, and Oubril was informed of it.

Two days later there came another surprise in the shape of a telegram from Warsaw stating that the Grand Duke Constantine had received notice that Prussia, on account of news from Paris, desired, in spite of Alvensleben’s arrangement, to have no passing of the frontier, and that corresponding instructions should be given to the Russian generals. Bismarck was not a little astonished that the desire for the suspension or the giving up of the convention was thus attributed to Prussia. But, at any rate, by such action the convention was deprived of all significance; and Bismarck had, therefore, no hesitation in announcing to the English ambassador in Oubril’s presence that the compact would from that time remain a dead letter.

Immediately after, however, it appeared that this whole affair had been managed by Gortschakoff behind the Emperor’s back. Alexander first learned of it through Gortschakoff’s false announcement that Prussia desired that the convention should be abandoned; and the Emperor was much disturbed. On the 25th of February, he received the Prussian military plenipotentiary, Herr von Loen, and asked him excitedly: “Do you know what has happened? When soldiers deal with one another, everything goes well; but when the diplomats begin to meddle, everything is done foolishly and stupidly. I agreed to the convention with great satisfaction, at the wish of the King; now I hear that Prussia, on grounds of internal and external policy, desires that the agreement should come to an end; I am ready to assent to that at once, though I do not see how it can be any concern of France. Or has there been a feeling in Berlin that Russia desires to withdraw from the compact? It is true that we no longer need it in view of the improved state of things in Poland, but I never thought of drawing back; though, as I have said, I am perfectly ready to do so, if I can save Prussia any embarrassment. If Oubril has said anything else than this I will not sustain him.”

Loen sought instructions by telegraph from his Government, and on the 28th received word that the Prussian Cabinet saw no object in giving up the compact; it was added, that so far as outsiders were concerned, it would be more to the purpose to say that the convention had as yet remained unfulfilled through the want of the necessary provisions in regard to its being carried out. On the following day the Emperor again received Loen with the question: “Prussia, then, desires the convention to be given up?” He was agreeably surprised when Loen read him Bismarck’s despatch; and he dwelt at length on his satisfaction at the clearing up of the misunderstanding, and at the determination to keep up harmonious feeling.

Gortschakoff’s intrigue was thus thwarted in its main object, the disturbing of the intimate relations between two sovereigns. But Bismarck had at the same time other difficulties to contend with at home, in the unfriendly disposition of the Lower House, which included the Polish matter also within the limits of its deliberations. Since the close of the preceding session, the view that the carrying on of an administra­tion without a budget was a breach of the Constitution had spread more widely in the country, and had taken firmer root among the parties. At the very opening of the new session, this view found energetic expression in an address to the King containing an open complaint against the Ministry. As, however, the King stood firm by his counsellors, and the Constitution offered no means of legal procedure against these, the opinion gained ground that it was best to compel a dismissal of the hated Ministers by rejecting or opposing every motion made and every step taken by them, to open the battle, as it was called, along the whole line.

When, then, the convention of the 8th of February came under discussion, in regard to the unpublished text of which the most extravagant rumors were current, it was only a few deputies that were moved by enthusiasm for an independent Poland to desire speedy action in regard to the same: the majority were much more affected by the fear of a great European war towards which the country, by reason of the foolhardy policy of Bismarck, seemed to be driving. The great body of the people and of the House felt, with regard to him, as in the contest about the budget, the conviction that this haughty aristocrat had nothing in view but a reactionary suppression of all freedom, and that for that reason he was assisting to suppress the Polish insurrection, even at the risk of Prussia’s being over­whelmed by an attack from the superior force of the Western Powers.

After a passionate debate which lasted three days, during which Bismarck refused to make any communication concerning the contents or the object of the convention, the House voted by an overwhelming majority that Prussia’s welfare demanded a strict neutrality while the struggles were going on in Poland. In the midst of the bitterness of the quarrel about the Constitution, there was no thought that such a vote might affect the prestige of the Government in Europe, and so increase the possible dangers that were threatening Prussia. Still less had any one in the House or in the country any suspicion that Bismarck had, by the convention and the assurance of Russian friendship thereby obtained, laid the first stone for the foundation of Prussia’s future greatness.

During all this, the Minister did not allow himself, either by these attacks, or by Gortschakoff’s machinations, or by French threats, to be moved a hair’s-breadth from the line of action he had adopted. The English invitation to participate in steps to be taken by the Powers who had been present at the Vienna Congress, he rejected as not according with Prussia’s stand­point in the matter. Moreover, the storm about the convention of February gradually abated, when the English papers published Bismarck’s statement that it would remain a dead letter, and above all when it was clear that the progress of the struggle in Poland no longer gave occasion for any crossing of the frontier.

The National Committee had appointed Mieroslawski dictator. The latter had, on the 17th of February, taken command of a strong body of troops in the vicinity of the Prussian frontier, but had on the 22d been attacked by Russian troops not far from Kalisch, and been completely beaten; his men had been scattered, and be himself had fled, and thus disappeared forever from the scene.

This aroused a new spirit of independence in the White party of the great landed-proprietors, who had up to this time remained completely in subordination to the Reds. Through Ladislas Czartoryski, they learned from Paris that Napoleon would have nothing to do with Mieroslawski, as one of the stamp of Mazzini and of the London Revolutionary Committee, but that he was ready to support more moderate patriots. The party, therefore, chose as their leader a certain Langiewicz from Posen, who then got together a considerable body of men in the southern part of the country, took the title of dictator in his turn, and established a civil administration, but by so doing excited to such a degree the wrath of the National Committee that they sent three agents to his camp to slay the mutineer who had taken the government into his own hands. These men were, however, discovered, arrested, and condemned to death; they were just on the point of being hanged, when the Russians attacked the camp on the 19th of March, scattered the insurgents in all direc­tions, and compelled Langiewicz to fly into Galicia.

A few days later the same thing happened to two other large bands; so that now no force of rebels of any consequence anywhere kept the field. A systematic co-operation of the different bodies of Russian troops would soon have resulted in the restoration of order, especially as the great body of the peasants had remained loyal to the Emperor, had killed some who spoke for the rebels in the pulpit, and had delivered over disaffected landholders to the police; so that, if a vote had been taken on a basis of universal suffrage, the Polish people would have recognized the Czar as their ruler by a large majority. But the imperial Government, so far as harmony was concerned, was not much better off than the revolutionary one. The Grand Duke, and even more decidedly than he, the Grand Duchess, stood by Wielopolski, who, in spite of the state of siege, strove to keep his system of civil administration on foot, and to soften the severity of the military measures. The officers, however, were indignant with the whole system. General Ramsay urgently prayed to be allowed to resign, and proposed the appointment of the prudent and energetic general, Count Berg, as Assistant to the Grand Duke with full powers in both military and civil affairs.

In St. Petersburg also, a strong feeling now prevailed against Wielopolski, to whom the delay in the suppression of the revolt was attributed; yet for several weeks more the Emperor allowed himself to be restrained by his brother and the Vice-Chancellor from taking decided steps. Ramsay was succeeded by a man whose chief merit was his intimate connection with the Grand Duke, and the war against the rebels dragged on in the slow course it had followed hitherto. The soldiers conquered every band that they encountered; but the indifference of the civil authorities was such, that the troops remained masters of the country only in the spot they actually occupied.

Towards the end of March, the Emperor finally decided to bring, by means of a more vigorous hand, system and vigor at least into the military operations, without, however, completely subordinating the civil administration and its chief to a military dictatorship. On the 30th of March, Count Berg was appointed military Assistant of the Grand Duke, that is, commander-in-chief in Poland. The whole world saw in this a sign of the approaching downfall of the system of Wielopolski, and of the recall of the Grand Duke and the Minister that would naturally result. Together with this appointment another step was taken, not so much intended to affect the Polish insurgents as the Foreign Powers who were connected with the revolt in Poland. Up to this time, in consideration of the insurrection, Russia had mobilized four army-corps; now the order was given to place the whole army on a war-footing, and to arm the coast fortress of Cronstadt, which protected St. Petersburg. At the same time considerable reinforcements were despatched to Poland, and the positions hitherto held by these were now occupied by forces quite as numerous brought forward from the interior of the country. Russia was preparing herself to stand on the defensive against any show of hostility coming from the West.

The Russian Cabinet had sufficient occasion for taking such steps. England was, indeed, determined not to declare war herself against Russia on account of Poland, but she rejoiced at everything that gave increased embarrassment to her Oriental rival, and exerted all her energies to bring the other Great Powers to accept her theory, that Russia had not fulfilled the conditions on which Poland had been allotted to her by the Vienna Congress in 1815, but that the constitution promised and brought into effect at that time had been abolished in 1831, and that consequently Russia ought to be kept, by an expression of European opinion, to the fulfilment of her duties, or else to be ejected from the possessions that she had forfeited.

From a legal point of view this line of argument was open to attack in two directions, both in regard to the substance of the complaint and to the right of the complainant to make it. For in 1815 Russia and Austria had mutually agreed by compact on the 3d of May to grant their Polish subjects a representation and national institutions, framed according to such a model of political existence as their Governments should deem useful and expedient. The promise of representation, therefore, was by no means equivalent to an assent to a parliamentary constitution. Only after the conclusion of the Congress had the Emperor, Alexander I., acting on his own independent judgment, granted such a constitution to the kingdom of Poland; but unfortunately the Poles themselves, by their revolt in 1830, had overthrown this, and the Emperor Nicholas, after the suppression of the revolt, had not restored it.

Moreover, by the compact of Münchengratz in 1833, the two German Powers had bound themselves in common with Russia to maintain the existing state of things, and had by this action admitted that they interpreted the compacts of 1815 in the same sense as Russia. These compacts, indeed, immediately after they were concluded, had been incorporated into the Act of the Vienna Congress; but, as we have before seen, this only imposed upon the other Powers that took part in the Congress the duty of respecting on their side the contents of the compacts, and by no means implied that no alteration in the same could be made by the original contracting parties without the consent of all those who signed the Act of this Congress. From this point of view, England’s right to demand a restoration of the Polish constitution of 1815 on the ground of the compacts, could not but appear decidedly questionable.

Considering all this, it is easily understood how important it was to England, in her diplomatic action, to have at least one of the German Powers on her side; and Lord John Russell, therefore, used every means to gain Austria’s support in Polish matters, as well as in the eastern complications. In this he was most warmly seconded by Drouyn de Lhuys, who was in 1863 just as strongly of the opinion as he had been in 1854, that a Franco-Austrian alliance contained the remedy for all European troubles, and who therefore did everything in his power to keep Napoleon firm in the course he had adopted, which was favorable to Poland, and which was now to be distinctly hostile to Russia.

Napoleon hesitated for a time; then the political world was astonished by a journey of the Austrian ambassador in Paris, Prince Metternich, to Vienna, where he arrived on the 14th of March, and remained for a week in anxious deliberation with the Emperor and Count Rechberg. The substance of these deliberations is not yet known from authentic sources. At the time many rumors were afloat: it was said that Napoleon offered Austria an alliance with himself and the acquisition of Silesia and Roumania in return for the abandonment of Venetia; according to other statements Napoleon desired that Galicia should be relinquished, and in return agreed to the acquisition of Roumania and to the guaranteeing of Venetia; while the Russian Emperor received information that Austria, in return for acting in harmony with the Western Powers against Russia, was promised a strengthened position in Germany and accessions of territory in the East. On the other hand, the Prussian ambassador, Herr von Werther, reported from Vienna that he had received the express assurance from Count Rechberg that Metternich had been called to Vienna only that both sides might be in possession of accurate information, and that there was no mention whatever of any French propositions communicated through him. Austria, said the Count, would not falter in her attitude in the Polish question, and would not hear of an independent Poland.

In fact, Austria had sufficient reason for thus holding back. Constituted as her Empire was, every appeal to the principle of nationality could not but be a danger to her; a revolt in Poland rendered her supremacy in Galicia uncertain; a combination of the revolutionary parties in Poland and Hungary was only too probable, and it was impossible to say what Napoleon’s attitude would be in such a case. But on the other side, constantly increasing pressure wag exerted from England; it was urged that there could be no greater danger for both England and Austria than the realization of the Russo-French alliance that had been threatened since 1857; at such a juncture the Polish question and Napoleon’s attitude in regard to it seemed as if sent from Heaven; the breach between him and Russia would be beyond healing if he should decide to take any steps in favor of Poland, and he was perfectly ready to do this, if Austria would take part also.

Then, at the end of March, the official invitation was extended from Paris to London and Vienna to make a common effort at St. Petersburg in favor of Poland.

What was to be done? In his relations with Prussia also, Count Rechberg, saw both attractive and repellent points, and this fact naturally did not render the decision any easier. The refusal of Austria to take part in the common note which Napoleon had prepared to be sent to Prussia had been acknowledged in Berlin with sincere gratitude. Bismarck expressed repeatedly to Count Karolyi his contentment with Austria’s firm and befitting attitude, and by a detailed despatch to Werther conveyed to the Court of Vienna the assurance that the same feeling was entertained by the King. After Werther had read the despatch to the Austrian Minister, the former reported on the 28th of March that Rechberg had received the communication with keen satisfaction. Everything seemed to indicate that the community of interests of the two Courts in Polish matters would bring about a more intimate relation in every direction.

But a new turn of affairs in the sphere of commerce obliterated again at one stroke all these favorable impressions. Prussia, in the name of the Tariff-Union, had concluded a commercial treaty with Belgium on the same liberal basis as the French. This was a new difficulty in the way of the tariff-union desired by Austria, and it aroused great anger in Vienna. In vain did Bismarck declare that the disagreement in regard to commercial matters need be no obstacle in the way of political friendship, as was shown by Prussia’s relations with Russia and with Mecklenburg. Rechberg insisted that it was impossible to separate the two; and when Bismarck again observed to Karolyi that it would be for the interests of peace to pass over in Confederate matters all motions that required a unanimous vote, Rechberg answered decidedly that Confederate reforms were indispensable, since, if they were not brought about by the Governments, they would surely be by revolution. “In the Polish matter, also,” he declared, “a closer sympathy with Prussia will be possible for us only when it has been preceded by an understanding in regard to the tariff and to Confederate reform.”

The disagreement with Prussia was therefore once more present in full force, and this undoubtedly made the establishment of friendly relations with France seem very desirable, especially as England daily repeated her urgent requests to that effect. Besides this, there was the consideration on the one hand that the liberal majority of the existing Reichstag was hostile to Russia, and on the other hand that the Clerical party was angry on account of the measures taken by Russia against the rebellious Polish clergy. Under all these influences Rechberg began gradually to incline to the French side; he did not miscalculate the force of the arguments against this; but he thought that, by the very fact of becoming a participant in the action taken by the Western Powers, he could accomplish more for peace and for the adoption of moderate measures. He announced, therefore, to the Western Powers, that he did, indeed, object to the harsh method of a common note, and that he could not appeal to the compacts of 1815, which had not been infringed by Russia, but that he was ready by a note sent at the same time with those of the other Powers to support their demands.

This was agreed to in Paris and London; and on the 10th and 12th of April, therefore, the three notes were sent to St. Petersburg. Austria in hers complained only of the injurious effect of the state of anarchy in Poland on Galicia, and begged the Emperor on that account to grant to his Polish provinces the conditions of a permanent peace.

England took a sharper tone, and declared that Prussia’s obligations to the Powers that took part in the Congress of 1815 had not been abolished by the revolution of 1830, and that consequently Great Britain , had a right to desire the fulfilment of those obligations, that is to say, the restoration of the Constitution of 1815.

France spoke of the constantly recurring convulsions in Poland, which kept all Europe in a state of turmoil; she requested that the Russian Government would at last grant to Poland the conditions of a permanent peace, since all former attempts at constitutions had failed. This meant the same as pronouncing both the Constitution of 1815 and Wielopolski’s autonomous administration to be insufficient, and, as a matter of fact, designating the complete independence of Poland as the only satisfactory solution of the difficulty.

Count Rechberg had neither said nor thought anything like this, but he had nevertheless supported it by taking part in the representation: however much he might persist in his assertion that he was only acting in the interests of peace and would co-operate in no hostile action against Russia, from this time on the fact could not be disputed that Austria had abandoned her neutrality and become a sympathizer with the Western Powers.

The Western Powers hastened to inform the world of the step they had taken. All the Cabinets of Europe, among the rest the Courts of all the German States also, naturally with the exception of Prussia, received an invitation to give their support to the three notes; and even the Confederate Diet might almost have been the scene of deliberations favorable to the Poles, if Rechberg, quite as decidedly as Bismarck, had not forbidden such an exhibition.

In Paris the Government was in doubt as to what was to be done, if Russia remained obstinate. There was talk of a Swedish-French landing in Courland, but the plan was abandoned when Bismarck announced in London that Prussia would make an armed resistance to such an undertaking. It was also proposed to land 60,000 French in Triest, whence they might then march to Poland in conjunction with an equal number of Austrians. But Austria’s love of peace made it necessary to postpone this scheme also to a more advanced stage of the proceedings.

Meanwhile the Polish committees in Paris and London, in Posen and Galicia, worked all the more zealously. In spite of all surveillance on the frontiers, they sent over volunteers, arms, and munitions, transmitted large sums of money, and spread abroad in all parts of the land the news of the action taken by Europe. The consequences were manifest at once in a revival of the revolt, which had been dying out, in an increase in the number and strength of the different bands, and in a rising of the Polish nobility in Lithuania and Volhynia. The National Government at Warsaw developed its authority still further, and gave still harsher orders to its dreaded agents, which punished all disobedience to its commands with steel, fire, and pillage.

The Russian Ministry beheld these proceedings with wrath and anxiety. In Warsaw, Count Berg, like his predecessors, had quarrelled with Wielopolski, and now remained passive, since the Grand Duke refused him his support against the Marquis. The great military preparations advanced but slowly; more than one month might pass before the whole force was in condition for active service.

Under these circumstances the Government decided to restrain for the time its anger at the interference of the outside world, and to answer the three notes as mildly as possible. In the reply addressed to England on the 26th of April, Gortschakoff observed that Russia recognized all compacts, but must insist upon an accurate interpretation of them: in no document of 1815 had a parliamentary constitution been promised to the Poles ; the attempt to carry out such a constitution had been rendered abortive by the Poles themselves; the Emperor had now been trying for years to introduce salutary and liberal reforms in Poland, and in return for his efforts had been obliged to encounter a new insurrection. He was ready, the reply continued, to enter into explanations in regard to the principles laid down in the Act of the Congress, but above all he wished to call the attention of the Powers to the true cause of the disturbances, the stimulus constantly applied by those parties that were fomenting revolution everywhere. This last point was especially insisted upon in the note addressed to France, and somewhat more briefly in the one intended for Austria; but both these Courts were referred in general to the note that had been sent to London.

Though perfectly courteous in form, the reply was substantially a decided refusal to admit the unasked-for interference of the Powers. In Paris and London, it was felt that this could not be allowed to pass unanswered: indeed, the note addressed to England had contained an expression of willingness to enter upon further explanations. The only question was, what positive demands were now to be made; and on this point there was so great a difference of opinion that during several weeks there seemed to be no prospect that an understanding would be arrived at.

At the same time, the course things were taking in Poland called urgently for further action, unless the three Powers were willing to acknowledge themselves beaten. Their notes had at once called forth a great burst of national indignation among the Russian people. Up to that time, as has been said, public opinion had been divided, one party desiring the punishment of the Polish assassins, the other the severance of this corrupt member from the body of sacred Russia. Now, however, at the news that the heretic West was trying to cry halt to Russian arms, a flood of patriotic pride filled all hearts: the recruits hastened to their colors, the nobles and the cities offered voluntary contributions, hundreds and hundreds of voices urged the Emperor to recall the Grand Duke, to remove Wielopolski, and to put down effectually the Polish rebellion.

The Government was ready. In Warsaw, Count Berg received increased authority: in every district, Russian officers undertook the most important positions in the administration, and organized from the peasant population strong and reliable police forces for the pursuit of the fugitives from such bands as might be broken up and to prevent the formation of others. The secret National Government answered this by establishing in every district of Poland and Lithuania revolutionary tribunals, which were to get rid of the enemies of national freedom in a summary manner and by any means whatsoever.

Upon this, the new Governor of Lithuania, General Muravieff, an able man, of an imperious disposition, and as inflexible as iron, determined to meet terrorism with terrorism by means of a military administration carried into the most minute details and holding the power of life and death. Thus beside the guerilla war in the open field, there was carried on in endless repetition a horrible struggle between sword and dagger, between military tribunal and secret tribunal, between the soldiers and the butcher-police, as the people termed the agents of the National Committee. The result could not be doubtful; in the public opinion of Europe there was a mixture of horror and astonishment; but the three Powers felt it to be impossible longer to watch the continuance of such a frightful state of things and remain inactive.

On the 17th and 18th of June they sent for the second time notes in part identical with one another to St. Petersburg. Austria declined to have anything to do with the more extensive demands of the Western Powers, and declared that she must confine herself to the following six requirements: a general amnesty, a national representation that should take part in legislation, an autonomous administration carried on by Polish officials, the removal of the restrictions that burdened the Catholic Church, the exclusive use of the Polish language in the administration of the government, and the introduction of a legal system of recruiting.

The Western Powers accepted these six points, with the understanding that they were to serve as the basis for deliberations at a conference of the eight Powers that had signed in 1815; and to this Austria agreed. In this connection Napoleon was of the opinion that the conference should take place at any rate, even if Russia refused to consent to it. This would have been substantially the same as a declaration of war. Austria, therefore, insisted that the conference should only be undertaken with Russia’s participation. The Western Powers further desired that while the negotiations were going on, there should be a truce to hostilities in Poland. This Austria regarded as impossible, and therefore did not embody such a demand in her note.

Drouyn de Lhuys was wholly prepared for a still more decided rejection of these proposals on the part of the Russian Government. His desires were centred in the re-establishment of Poland, which would make any coalition against France in the future impossible; it was now his hope, in spite of the love of peace that was felt in Vienna and London, to draw both Powers into a common war against Russia. Immediately after the sending of the notes, therefore, although even his own colleagues, Fould and Morny, expressed themselves decidedly against warlike measures, he sent to Vienna and London proposals for the establishment of a closer understanding, in the form of a convention or a protocol, in the event of obstinacy on the part of Russia, at the same time offering the Cabinet of Vienna every sort of guaranty against any danger that might threaten it owing to its geographical position.

In Vienna, as in Paris, different influences were acting in opposition to one another. The Emperor Francis Joseph, for his part, had always been against co-operating in the action of the Western Powers: he felt the solidarity with Prussia and Russia, in which his possessions in Galicia necessarily involved him, and he had no confidence in the Emperor Napoleon in any particular. On the other hand, it is said that the Minister Schmerling was strongly in favor of a policy friendly to the Poles, partly for the sake of securing the good-will of the Liberal majority in the Reichstag, and partly for the sake of winning, if not the support, at least the approval, of Napoleon for his German projects. Count Rechberg stood undecided between these two tendencies, and sought to comfort himself with the formula: “Alliance with the Western Powers so long as they confine themselves to peaceful measures, separation from them as soon as they take any warlike action.” He had no thought of the possibility of any third course.

The first effect of the three notes in St. Petersburg was the removal of Wielopolski under the form of an indefinite leave of absence. The second was an increase in the fierceness of the battle against the insurrection carried on by Count Berg, who now became the head of the civil administration also, and began to follow the example of Muravieff in Lithuania.

So far as the answer to the notes was concerned. Prince Gortschakoff had long since announced to the envoys of the Powers that in his note of April he had meant by the explanations there proposed nothing else than a friendly interchange of opinion to take place on the spot in St. Petersburg. If this had been tried it would have been seen that the Emperor Alexander, in accordance with his natural mildness and humanity, was ready to agree to the substance of the six demands, and indeed had himself already offered nearly the same thing to the Poles. But, the Prince said, it was contrary to the dignity and independence of a Great Power to allow itself to be dictated to by a conference of outsiders in such arrangements as in part touched upon matters that belonged most peculiarly to the internal administration of the country. In any case, such a conference must be preceded by an understanding between the three Powers that had taken part in the partition, since these three, by reason of the similar conditions prevailing in their Polish provinces, were more competent to judge in the matter than any others. And, above all, such concessions and negotiations could be considered only after the rebellion had been thoroughly put down and order restored. That in the existing condition of the country an armistice was simply impossible, every one who understood the situa­tion would bear witness.

To this effect, then, the notes were drawn up, which, on the 13th of July, Prince Gortschakoff despatched as an official answer to the three Courts. In them, how­ever, the constantly increasing indignation of the Court, of the people, and of the army, necessitated the employment of curt and decisive language; but this was somewhat moderated in the note intended for Vienna, since Gortschakoff desired, by the proposition of a conference confined to the three Powers that took part in the partition, to draw his Austrian neighbor away from the dangerous society of Napoleon and back into her old connections. On this account he had confidentially communicated the contents of his note to Count Rechberg a few days in advance; but he received a telegram from Vienna on the 14th, in which Rechberg categorically declined the conference of three as contrary to the dignity of Austria, in her position as the ally of the Western Powers. On the 19th, an Austrian note followed to the same effect, but in a still sharper tone. Just at that time the Cabinet of Vienna was occupied in getting great German plans under way, and was anxious to give the Emperor Napoleon no occasion for anger. Count Rechberg had, it would seem, no conception of any danger that might threaten Austria from any other quarter.

The Russian army was now wholly on a war-footing. Its strength, without counting the troops in Orenburg, Caucasia, and Siberia, was 400,000 men, of whom nearly half were in Lithuania, Poland, and Volhynia; and a new levy of 150,000 men was just being completed. It was felt that, without doubt, a small part of this force, with the militia composed of the loyal peasants, would be able, under a determined leader, quickly to put down what was left of the Polish insurrection; but beside this, the army had no more eager desire than to punish, sword in hand, the impertinent interference of the Powers in Russia’s internal affairs; and the stream of national enthusiasm turned so decidedly in this direction, that the Emperor, in an autograph letter, proposed to King William that they should make a common declaration of war against France and Austria.

The proposal had its attractive side for Prussia. In Austria, there was no sort of preparation for a contest, and the quarrel with Hungary was going on as hotly as ever. If the King, therefore, accepted the suggestion of Russia, Austria, in her almost defenceless condition, would be overwhelmed and subdued, before a single French regiment could come to her assistance. Prussia would then have her hands free in Germany, and at home she would have no more trouble in regard to the military reforms. But undeniably there were also serious objections to this proposal. There could be no doubt that France would throw herself with her whole power into the struggle And in all probability Prussia would then have to bear alone the chief burden of it. and would finally be forced to accept such a peace as should be arranged between France and Russia, very likely quite in accordance with the old ideas of Gortschakoff. “In such a case,” said Bismarck, “Rusia would be sitting on the longer arm of the lever.”

The King, whose personal feeling, in consideration of old friendship and connections, was always opposed to a breach with Austria, decided at once in favor of main­taining peace. He wrote his answer to the Emperor Alexander, following a draft outlined by Bismarck with his own hand, which explained the reasons for the decision with perfect frankness. King William said that his confidence in the Emperor’s good intentions was unbounded, but asked how it would be, if, when such an agreement had once been made, a new system under the pressure of other influences should come into control of things. Several other letters were exchanged between the Sovereigns. Finally Alexander, who was naturally much more fitted to reign in peace than to be a conqueror, allowed himself to be convinced; and his personal feeling toward the King underwent no change whatever.

On the Prussian side no one but King William and Bismarck knew at that time anything of the matter. With such strict observation of secrecy, there could naturally be no claim upon Austria to feel any gratitude for the part Prussia had taken. At the same time, the King could not but have had a peculiar feeling, when just at this juncture there arose new develop­ments emanating from Vienna, of a nature not a little surprising and by no means friendly to Prussia in their tendencies.

 

 

CHAPTER IV.

THE ASSEMBLY OF PRINCES AT FRANKFORT.

 

On the 2d of August, 1863, King William received at Gastein, where he was making his usual summer stay for the sake of the baths, a visit from the Emperor of Austria. Francis Joseph then communicated to him his intention to invite, on the 16th of August, all the German Princes to Frankfort, that they might deliberate and decide in person in regard to a new German constitution.

So far as I know, no authentic statement of the facts concerning the genesis of this imperial idea has as yet been published. The proposal that not the ministers, but the Princes themselves, should be called together to undertake the cutting of the Gordian knot, occurs at the conclusion of a treatise printed as manuscript in 1862 and written by Count Biome. The Count was a Holsteiner in the Austrian service, son-in-law of the Minister Buol, and one of those w converts from abroad,” like Meysenbug and Max Gagern, of whom the Viennese said that they came to teach the Austrians what true Austrian patriotism meant. We have already seen him active in his zeal for the preparation of the notes of the 2d of February, 1862. It was soon after this that he composed the brilliant plan for Confederate reform, which gives signs of literary talent, but in which one feels a lack of comprehension of human nature. He concludes with the question: “If today the Emperor Francis Joseph were to summon an assembly of German Princes, and were to invite his sovereign colleagues to appear in Ratisbon or Frankfort for the purpose of taking counsel with His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty in regard to the present and the future of Germany, who would hold aloof? The King of Prussia? Perhaps; but for how long?”

It is easy to understand that this appeal found sympathetic hearers in Vienna. It is stated, moreover, that a proposition of the same sort had been made to the Emperor by the Duke of Coburg.

As to the outline of the constitution to be laid before the noble assembly, Ebeling, in his biography of the Minister Beust,—a book containing many misrepresentations in regard to Prussian affairs, but much useful information about other matters,—relates that, after the miscarriage of the project of an assembly of delegates in January, 1862, the ruling and media­tized Princes of South Germany had caused a plan of a Confederate constitution to be worked out, and to be laid before the Emperor Francis Joseph by the Postmaster-General of Thum and Taxis, Baron von Domberg. Ebeling says also, that at the same time the Minister, Von Schmerling, who in 1861 with the approval of the German Liberals had restored the parliamentary constitution in Austria, in view of the unpopularity of the Prussian Government, of its struggle with the representatives of the people, and of its disputes with the Lesser States, had hit upon the idea of seizing this moment of supposed weakness on the part of the enemy for the carrying out of German Confederate reform in the sense approved by Austria, by means of the extraordinary measure of holding a congress of Princes. Count Rechberg, our author adds, had no particular confidence in the plan, and hoped at most to obtain by it a closer connection with the Lesser States. The Emperor, however, accepted Schmerling’s proposal with joy, though he substituted for the outline of a constitution proposed by him the somewhat less liberal one of Herr von Dornberg.

However all this may have been, in the interview to Gastein on August 3d the Emperor did not lay before his Prussian associate in the Confederation any detailed outline of a constitution, but contented himself with sketching out by word of mouth the main features, mentioning above all a Confederate directory of five members and a Confederate parliament consisting of delegates from the German Chambers, who should only have a consulting, not a deciding voice. He then gave the King a memorial that was to explain his intentions more in detail.

This was, indeed, a remarkable document. In the first part, the necessity of reform was confirmed by a portrayal of the existing state of things, which could not have been written more effectively by Robert Blum or Mazzini. “The compacts of confederation,” so the argument ran, “have long been shaken to their foundations... It must be confessed that the German Governments are now no longer united by the firm bonds of mutual compact, but are only living along side by side from day to day with the presentiment of an approaching catastrophe... The actual condition of things is simply chaotic.”

A second paragraph gave the main lines of the Austrian propositions of reform: “Both a single head and a parliament constituted by popular election are impossible, because they would be in contradiction to the principle of federation. The Emperor holds firmly to the ideas contained in the note of February 2d, 1862, and to the statement made in the Confederate Diet in January, 1863. He will, therefore, propose a Confederate directory and an assembly of delegates from the German parliaments, further, a Confederate court of appeal and periodical congresses of the Princes. As to the means to be employed for attaining this object, experience has shown that if conferences of ministers and diplomatic negotiations are resorted to, conflicting interests and the differences of opinion that exist will render any agreement impossible. The Ger­man Princes, however, being those to whom the rights in question belong, and all having regard for the interests of Germany, will understand each other much better by meeting personally and exchanging opinions than they can do by the agency of third parties.”

Finally the third paragraph declared that “ Prussia has the power, both in practice and in theory, to hinder the reform of the German Constitution. If she interposes her veto, the Confederation as a whole cannot raise itself from the wretched condition into which it has fallen. But a complete stoppage of the agitation for reform is no longer possible: the Governments that recognize this fact will feel themselves compelled to take hold of it as a work of necessity, by making up their minds to the partial carrying out of the proposed Confederate reform within their own boundaries, and by giving, for this purpose, to their rights as independent members of the Confederation the widest possible interpretation that shall still be consistent with their relations to that Confederation.”

In conclusion, an urgent request was addressed to Prussia, to the effect that she should abandon the policy hostile to the strengthening of the Confederation, which she had pursued hitherto, since upon her decision now depended the raising of the Confederation to that fulness of power which was so infinitely impor­tant in its consequences both for Germany and for Europe.

It will be admitted that this memorial was not of a nature that would be likely to inspire Prussia with a feeling either of obligation or of inclination to accept its. conclusions. The assertion that the compacts of confederation were already, properly speaking, dissolved, a statement which Rechberg soon afterwards explained in a positive sense, to the effect that Prussia was wholly to blame for this misfortune; then the undisguised revival of the constitutional plans so often rejected by Prussia; the express reference to the fiercest documents of the polemic that had been carried on against her; and finally, the announcement of the intention, if Prussia proved obstinate, to form a more restricted union within the Confederation, an intention, which, when Prussia had entertained it, had repeatedly been received with the most violent protests in the name of the principles of the Confederation,—all this was by no means calculated to dispose the King to favor the Austrian plans.

The conversations of the two Sovereigns in regard: to the great question took place without witnesses; but, as is shown by their correspondence afterwards and by the memoranda of the King, the tone of them was thoroughly friendly. The subject of Poland was also discussed in detail. The Emperor distinctly repeated the assurance, that he had joined the Western Powers in their diplomatic action only with the object of maintaining peace, and that he would abandon them so soon as they showed any intention of resorting to arms. “I am only afraid,” said the King, “ that you will find it very difficult to separate yourself from the Western Powers.” — “Not the least in the world,” was the answer; “the Western Powers have long known my determination, neither to carry on war nor to agree to any change in existing territorial arrangements, and I rejoice that England also is determined to use only diplomatic means and not force, in her support of Poland. In Galicia, moreover,” he added, “everything is as ready for revolution as in Poland, and T shall be obliged to resort to serious measures there.”

At the conclusion of the last interview, Francis Joseph asked the King to send to him at Vienna a résumé of the comments made by word of mouth about Confederate reform. The King wrote such a résumé immediately after the Emperor’s departure on the afternoon of the 3d of August; from it we learn exactly what his views in the matter were.

“I entirely concur,” he says, “in the belief of the necessity of Confederate reform; but I consider the convening of a congress of Princes, both in itself and especially at so early a date as the 16th of August, to be a doubtful experiment For in so short a time, the Princes cannot fully prepare for so important a decision, and even with a longer interval for preparation, it seems impossible that, the working capacity of an assembly so constituted being what it would be, due deliberation could be given to so weighty a question. A preliminary discussion of the outline by a conference of ministers would therefore be preferable, the results of which could afterwards be sanctioned by an assembly of Princes. Considering the constitution of many of the German Chambers, it is probable that delegations from them would not be contented with a consulting voice, but would immediately demand further powers, so that from the very beginning harmonious action would be endangered. If a conservative electoral law should be adopted, good results might be looked for from direct popular elections. As to the Confederate directory, the appointment of the three members in addition to Prussia and Austria would cause great difficulties; the composition of the directory would be essentially conditioned by the extent of its powers; the greater its authority, the harder it would be to obtain for it the approval of the states that were not to be represented.” In conclusion the King wrote: “It is important to consider what an impression would necessarily be made, if the congress of Princes were to adjourn without having accomplished anything. A greater service to revolutionary tendencies than would be rendered by such a result cannot be imagined. It is, therefore, all the more necessary to take preliminary measures which shall insure a satisfactory outcome.”

As is seen, the King avoided a direct refusal. Indeed, with the modifications he had suggested, the idea of a solemn convention of German Princes for the sake of the great national object seemed rather attractive than dangerous to him.

King William certainly had no reason to expect anything else than that the Emperor would await the arrival of the résumé before taking his final decision. He was, therefore, not a little surprised, when, on the evening of the 8d of August, an imperial adjutant delivered to him the official invitation, dated July 31st, to be present at Frankfort on the 16th of August. Upon this, he sent the résumé to the Emperor on the 4th, together with a private letter in which he expressed regret that his health prevented him from accepting the invitation. On the same day the invitation was also declined officially. Although all this was communicated that same morning by telegraph to Vienna, yet afterwards in the course of the day the invitations were nevertheless sent from there to all the German Courts.

The decision of the Emperor was thus irrevocably taken. But the King persisted quite as firmly in his view, which was not altered by a letter from Francis Joseph on the 7th of August. On the contrary, on the 13th and 14th two ministerial despatches were sent to Herr von Werther at Vienna, of which the first expressed astonishment at those passages of the Austrian memorial, according to which the Confederate Constitution had already ceased to exist. In the second, it was declared beneath the dignity of the King to take part in an assembly the object of which, though infinitely important, had not been previously discussed with him, and of which the details were only to be communicated to him in the assembly itself. “A final judgment,” said the despatch, “regarding the outline of a constitution there to be proposed cannot be given on such meagre information as has been communicated. So far as can be seen at present, a Confederate directory, if its decisions required unanimity among five members, would leave the existing state of things unchanged; on the other hand, if such a directory were empowered to act on the vote of a majority, Prussia would never agree to subordinate her independence and her legislative competence to the orders of three voices out of five. Delegations with a consulting voice amount to nothing whatever. Prussia persists in her original declaration, that she can approve any extension of the Confederate authority only on the condition that the decrees of that authority are made dependent upon the consent of a parliament chosen by the people.”

In communicating this despatch to the Prussian deputy in the Diet, Von Sydow, who had succeeded Usedom in 1862, Bismarck wrote: “I regard the Austrian project of reform as a piece of display, intended by Schmerling rather as a manoeuvre in internal Austrian policy than as a move of anti-Prussian diplomacy. He is arranging for the Emperor a brilliant birthday festival with Princes in white uniforms, and means to show him the great results of the constitutional era in Austria. But when you get rid of the smoke of fine phrases, the substance of the poodle is so wretchedly meagre, that really it would be better not to give the people practical proof beforehand that such a scheme can never be made to work... It does not at present seem desirable to attempt to exert any influence over the negotiations; we must first allow the wisdom of the reforms to manifest itself undisturbed.”

While now, at this very same time, the act of reform was taking its final shape at Vienna,—among other things the third place in the directory was allotted to the King of Bavaria, and an active voice in all Confederate legislation was conceded to the delegations,— Count Rechberg was once more busy with Polish matters. Napoleon was strongly inclined not to rest satisfied with Russia’s answer, and laid before the two other Powers the outline of a note which this time was to be sent in common, and which, after emphatically denying all Gortschakoff’s premises, in its concluding words took almost the shape of an ultimatum.

But neither Lord John Russell nor Count Rechberg would listen to any project of a common note. The plan of simultaneous protests hitherto employed was persisted in, the note from. Vienna having a much more moderate tone than that from Paris, though the former cast, as before, all responsibility for evil consequences upon Russia. The proposal of an alliance, made by Drouyn de Lhuys, had indeed been rejected by Austria, but just at the very point of entering upon the assembly of Princes, the Vienna Court was unwilling to break entirely with Paris. After the two Western Powers, therefore, had sent their notes on the 3d and 11th, the Austrian note followed on August 12th.

These notes, like those that had preceded them in June, received first of all a practical answer. On the former occasion, Wielopolski had been given his leave of absence ; now, the Grand Duke Constantine, in spite of his great reluctance, was recalled to St. Petersburg. The dictatorship of Count Berg was thus freed from the last restraint. Though the National Government increased the horrors of its reign of terror,—at that time the assassinations that had taken place at its command since the beginning of the revolt were calculated at five hundred,—nevertheless Lithuania was completely subdued, and in Poland the iron circle of Russian military power was ever drawing closer about the nucleus of the rebellion.

In the mean time more agreeable things were taking place in South Germany. Above all, the ancient city of the imperial elections and of the Confederate Diet was decking itself for the reception of the youthful ruler, who, as it was thought, would, in the midst of the German Princes, place the crown of the new Empire firmly upon his head. Frankfort had long been Austrian in feeling, owing to the influence of the Diet, to the activity of the organs of the Austrian Press, and to the friendliness of the Austrian officers, perhaps also to the great number of Austrian government-securities deposited in the safes of the good citizens. Expectation was raised to the highest pitch. On the .14th and 15th of August, the city was already in a state of restless agitation: Kings and Princes were arriving, welcomed with salvos of artillery, with peals of bells, and with deputations from the senate of the town.

All, indeed, were present, with the exception of Lippe, Anhalt-Bemburg, and Holstein: the King of Prussia, it was generally believed, would yield in the end. Finally, on the evening of the 16th, appeared in dignified state, the chief figure of the festival, the Emperor Francis Joseph. All the streets were decorated; an immense concourse of people accompanied the imperial cortège with unceasing shouts of joy; the municipal senate in a body offered the young Sovereign an address of welcome. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, rising from the caverns of the Kyffhauser, could not have been received with more boisterous enthusiasm.

The assembled Princes, also, did not fail to be impressed by this enthusiastic expression of popular feeling. Many a one among them looked with an anxious heart, on the 16th of August, at the outline of a constitution, hitherto unknown to him, concerning which he was to enter into deliberations on the morrow; but the demeanor of the Emperor, as calm as it was firm, made an impression on all of them, since it gave them, still undetermined as they were, a feeling that there was conviction and deliberate purpose at the bottom of the whole affair. The four Kings (the King of Würtemberg was represented by his son) sustained the Emperor entirely, and there were not many among the petty Princes who ventured to stand against such superior power; while the assertion of Austria, which she had once made in Dresden, that it would be impossible to leave the city without having accomplished something, daily found now, as formerly, many who were moved by it from sheer fear of revolution.

On the 17th of August the Emperor, as president, opened the first sitting with a well-calculated speech, which was answered and substantially seconded by King Max of Bavaria. Upon this, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin moved that the Assembly should send a written invitation to the King of Prussia to take part in their proceedings. King John of Saxony said that he would not discuss the fitness of such a step, nay, that he would give his voice in favor of it, but only on the condition, that it should be preceded by two resolutions, first, that the Assembly recognized in the imperial proposition a suitable basis for their future deliberations, and secondly, that the Assembly would not allow a possible negative answer on the King’s part to prevent them from continuing their deliberations on that basis. The Emperor and King Max supported the motion in this form, which was then, after a short discussion, approved.

The Emperor expressed his satisfaction at having thus received evidence that the august personages there assembled were all agreed that in any case their deliberations should produce a definite result. King John of Saxony then undertook the task of drawing up the letter to King William and of conveying it in person to Baden. In spite of advice to the ’contrary from the Grand Duke of Baden, it was decided that the fact that the Austrian outline had already been adopted as the basis of their deliberations should be expressly mentioned in the letter. On the morning of the 19th, King John went to Baden, and the Assembly was adjourned until his return.

All this caused King William much discomfort. His head and heart were at war in regard to the Assembly of Princes. It would have been a real satisfaction to him, there, in the midst of his fellow Princes, to have put a hand to the great work,—if only the reasons for a contrary course had not been too strong. Then came the doubt whether, after all, he could not act more effectively for Prussia’s interests and for Germany’s welfare on the spot than at a distance. Queen Maria, in Munich, and in Wildbad his sister-in-law, the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, whom he so highly revered, urged him in the same direction; while, on the other hand, Bismarck remained firm in his determination: if the King commanded, he would accompany him to Frankfort, but would never again return as Minister from there to Berlin.

The stimulating effect of the baths acting together with this struggle of opposing convictions made the King nervous, and when he came to the interviews with King John he grew decidedly ill. He expressed to the august messenger his strong desire to go to Frankfort, but after explaining his reasons, said that he preferred to give his decision in writing, in his answer to the Assembly.

When consulting with Bismarck after the interview, he cried: “Thirty Princes sending an invitation, and the courier a King—how can one refuse?” Yet in the end, as always with him, the head held the heart in check. After much hesitation and doubt, the letter of refusal was written, sealed, and then delivered by Bismarck to the King of Saxony at his departure. Bismarck’s wrath was boiling inwardly over the long suspense. When the door had closed behind the Saxon, he smashed a plate which was standing on the table with some glasses: “I had to break something” he said; “now I can breathe again.”

Meanwhile in Frankfort the Assembly continued to strike while the iron was hot. The order of business usually followed in such deliberations, first and second reading, discussion of the matter as a whole and in detail, etc., naturally did not come in question here; what was important, was to attain the object as quickly as possible, no matter under what form. On the morning of the 21st of August the Princes listened to an Austrian memorial, in which the Emperor, taking as a basis the acceptance of his outline, continued with the hope that only such amendments to that outline would be proposed as should not alter the system as a whole; he then recommended for the speedy consideration and decision of the Princes twelve especially important articles, and left the remainder to be discussed by the Ministers with the condition, that, whenever no understanding could be arrived at in regard to any change, the text of the original outline should be left untouched.

When the Emperor, at the sitting on the 22d, advocated this method of proceeding, he was at once supported by the King of Saxony and by some of the other Princes. In vain did the Grand Duke of Baden point out the need of a regular order of business, and raise the question whether resolutions passed by the majority of the Assembly were to be binding. King John replied that naturally each one could bind only himself by his own vote, but that it was desirable to arrive at a general understanding, and that for that purpose it was necessary to learn the opinion of all, or at any rate of the majority; he said that for his part he was always ready to subordinate his opinion to that of the majority.

The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin thereupon declared that he could regard the votes upon the special articles for the present as only preliminary; not until a general vote upon the whole was taken would the opinion of the Assembly be finally ascertained. The Emperor Francis Joseph at once assented to this, but expressed the hope that when the vote upon the whole was taken, it might be regarded as binding.

After the question of the form of proceeding had been thus summarily disposed of, the Assembly at once proceeded to business; that is, to the consideration of the special articles. It would not be interesting for us to follow out in detail these discussions, condemned from the beginning to result in nothing, especially as there is no authentic report of the speeches of the august participants, and as in the records of the sessions there is only an occasional reference to particular propositions that were made. From the very beginning a decided majority declared for the imperial proposals; these proposals exactly met the wishes of the Lesser States, and only a small number of the others had the courage to maintain an opposite view under the eyes of the Emperor.

During the whole course of the sessions Francis Joseph displayed a talent for presiding, as prudent and energetic as if he had been occupied his whole life with parliamentary business. King John of Saxony showed himself to be a no less successful leader of the Majority, whether it was a question of making convincing speeches or of employing strategic skill in the harmonizing of conflicting opinions. In opposition to him, it was above all the Grand Duke of Baden who fought against the whole system without flinching and did not hesitate to give expression to the heretical view, regarded with horror by the other side, that any fruitful activity on the part of the Confederation would be impossible so long as two Great Powers belonged to it.

For his propositions of amendment, however, he could not obtain more than from four to six votes: Weimar, Oldenburg, and occasionally Coburg, Waldeck, and Reuss.

In its contents the propositions of reform followed exactly the lines of the latest deliberations of the Confederate Diet, already known to us : the enlargement of the object of the Confederation; the authorizing of the Confederation to extend its legislative and administra­tive power to institutions of common usefulness of every sort, and hence the decided limiting of the requirement of unanimity in passing votes; in compensation for this, the communicating to delegates from the Chambers of a share in legislation, and the creation of an executive in the shape of a directory, in which, as well as in the Diet, Austria should have the presidency and could count upon having, in connection with the Lesser States, a permanent majority. Besides this there was to be a Confederate court of appeal, which should have the function among others of making a decision, in case of disputes between the Government and the popular representation in any state in respect to the interpretation of the constitution of that state. In order to recommend the Act of Reform to the King of Prussia, it was pointed out to him that by this means he could escape entirely from every contest with the Lower House in regard to the budget. He said with a smile: “That would not be so bad;” but immediately added, “but it will not do.”

From the point of view of Austria’s wishes, Article VIII. of the Act of Reform, that concerning peace and war, was especially characteristic. “Should there be danger of attack upon the Confederation or upon any part of the Confederate territory, or should the European balance of power appear endangered in any way likely to affect the Confederation, the Directory shall take all necessary steps, shall arrange the mobilization of the Confederate army, and shall appoint the Confederate commander-in-chief. The formal declaration of war shall be resolved upon by the Diet (or, as it was here called, the Confederate Council), by a majority of two-thirds. Should there be danger of a war between a Confederate State that at the same time has posses­sions outside of the Confederation and a foreign Power, then at the motion of the Directory the Confederate Diet shall decide in regard to participation in this war (for instance, an Austrian war about Venetia) by a simple majority-vote.” This arrangement, however,—a qualified majority for the defence of Confederate territory, a simple majority for the protection of non­Confederate countries,—was too much even for the faithful Lesser States. On the motion of Saxony and Nassau, the majority of two-thirds was adopted for both cases. Nevertheless, the article still remained an advance in the direction desired by Austria; since Article XLVII of the Vienna Final Act had provided for the second case, that, in the event of a hostile attack upon non-Confederate territory, the Confederate Diet must have recognized in that attack a danger for the Confederation, before deciding to resist it.

If the Act of Reform thus drawn up was unacceptable to Prussia, it was quite as unsuccessful in winning the favor of the German people. Besides the Assembly of Princes, there also met at that time in Frankfort an Assembly of three hundred members of all the German Chambers with the exception of Austria. This Assembly, on the 22d of August, resolved upon the demand of a Parliament chosen by the people, of the equalization of the two Great Powers in the Confederation, and of the settlement of the future constitution by the Governments and the Parliaments in common. “It is impossible,” said the resolution in polite language, “to adopt a wholly negative attitude in regard to Austria’s proposal.” But it was evident to all the world that the statement of these demands implied the complete rejection of the outline brought forward by the Emperor.

At the last sitting of the Assembly of Princes, on the 1st of September, 1863, Hanover and Brunswick proposed that the Articles hitherto reserved for the Conference of Ministers should be accepted at one vote, and that the deliberations of the Ministers should thus be rendered unnecessary. The proposal was well received, and after a short debate was unanimously adopted, Baden only making a reservation. Thus the discussion in detail was ended, and the vote in regard to the whole could be approached.

In regard to this, the Emperor Francis Joseph put two distinct questions: 1. Does the Assembly accept the final result of the deliberations? 2. Does the Assembly consider itself bound by these resolutions until the members of the Confederation not here present have either definitively refused the outline or have communicated to us their counter-proposals ? Both questions were thereupon answered affirmatively by twenty-four voices and negatively by six: Baden, Schwerin, Weimar, Luxemburg, Waldeck, and Reuss (younger branch).

The members of the Majority then signed a declaration of their readiness to complete, so far as in them lay, the future constitution of Germany according to the standard of the resolutions thus adopted, and to put it into execution, and with this object to strive for a general understanding on the basis of these resolutions with the members of the Confederation not represented in the Assembly, especially with the King of Prussia. It is noticeable that in the original draft of the declaration, instead of the words “general understanding,” had stood the words “an understanding in accordance with the principles of the Confederation;” the change was preferred, however, in order to exclude any doubt as to the intention being really to secure a unanimity of all the members, and not to bring about a more restricted union by means of Article XI of the old Act of Confederation.

This was a bad sign for the fulfilment of the desires of Austria, which were directed toward just such a union, in case the great Confederate reform now aimed at should prove a failure.

Finally, a second communication from the Assembly to the King of Prussia was proposed and accepted; and then the German Assembly of Princes was closed by a speech of the Emperor of Austria. To speak figuratively, a brilliant display of pyrotechnics, with noisy rockets, flashing stars, and Bengal lights, had been exhibited before the astonished public; what was left of it after the last gleam had faded away.

In Berlin the outline of the constitution sent from Frankfort had been officially placed before the Council for consideration, and the report was presented to the King on the 15th of December. This contained the advice not to enter into a criticism of the special articles, but rather that the Government should declare itself ready to carry on further negotiations in regard to Confederate reform by means of conferences of min­isters, provided a preliminary understanding could be arrived at concerning three decisive and essential principles. First, Prussia must demand for herself as well as Austria the right of vetoing a declaration of war on the part of the Confederation, since Prussia, as a European Power, could not make her foreign policy unconditionally subservient to that of the Confederation, and since, beside this, she had more inhabitants than the Lesser and Petty States together, who by joining forces in the Confederate Diet could at any time prevent for their part a declaration of war. Secondly, Prussia required that her position in the Confederation should be equal to Austria's, which would imply an alternation in the presidency of the supreme Confederate authority; for historical developments had given both States an equal importance in Europe, and in the Confederation Prussia counted more inhabitants than Austria. Thirdly, Prussia could not agree to an enlargement of the functions of the Confederation, which would naturally imply a limitation of her own independence, unless a guaranty were offered to her that this sacrifice would be for the interests of the German Nation as a whole and not for those of particular States: such a guaranty, however, Prussia could recognize only in a German Parliament chosen directly by the people, while the proposed assembly of delegates would be the exact opposite of this, a mere representation of individualistic tendencies.

King William at once expressed his acceptance of this report; and on the 22d of September he sent the same, together with letters of similar purport, to all the members of the Frankfort Majority. By this, every hope of an understanding was cut off.

A characteristic interlude may here be mentioned.

Lord John Russell, always well-intentioned and always convinced of the value of his good intentions, could not refuse himself the pleasure of communicating to the Prussian Government, on this occasion also, his opinion of their attitude. In a despatch sent to Berlin on the 30th of September he declared that the first two Prussian demands, concerning the veto and the alternation in the presidency, were just and reasonable; but he urgently entreated that the third, the demand of a German parliament chosen directly by the people, might be given up; for, he said, an electoral law with a high qualification would arouse the opposition of all the Liberals, and if one with a low qualification, or with no qualification at all, were adopted, elections would follow, which, as in 1848, would throw everything open to Revolution.

Bismarck’s answer to this is worthy of notice, because it shows already the train of ideas according to which he three years later gave the stamp to the future imperial constitution. “As to what concerns a German parliament,” he said in a despatch of the 8th of October, “our standpoint is based, not upon a political theory, but upon material Prussian interests which are identical with those of the majority of the German nation. The interests of the German Governments are not the same as ours, but those of by far the greater part of the German people are so. Prussia requires something to oppose to the dynastic policy of the Governments, and that something she can find only in a national representation... Even the lowest electoral qualification would offer us better guaranties against revolutionary extravagances than many of the electoral laws upon which the representative bodies of the individual States are now based, better guaranties, for instance, than the present method of election in Prussia.”

As is seen, if this view were adopted, general universal suffrage would not be at a great distance.

In conclusion, Bismarck gave the assurance, that, according to Prussia’s intentions, the proposition of a national representation would not serve either unifying or revolutionary purposes. Such a representative assembly would have great authority in matters affecting the Confederation, but would be much less authorized to interfere in the internal affairs of any country than would a Government established according to the Austrian proposal.

With this for the present Earl Russell was content The reports from St. Petersburg and Paris at that time were much more favorable to Prussia. Prince Gortschakoff expressed to the Prussian ambassador the conviction that, considering the dangers which threatened from France and from revolutionary tendencies, all friends of order ought to take care that any difficulty between Prussia and Austria might be avoided. He accordingly expressed sincere regret at the inconsiderate action of Austria in the Frankfort Assembly of Princes, which had tended to produce, not harmony, but discord. Russia, he said, had spared no pains to dispel in Vienna the illusion that the Act of Reform met with her approval.

In Paris an entire change in the tone of feeling that had prevailed since February was now taking place.

As we have seen, Napoleon had been in the beginning but little inclined to a diplomatic campaign against Russia. By the persuasion of England and the approval of Austria he had gradually allowed himself to be led into such measures, and then, when Russia's friendship had once been hazarded, he had taken hold of the matter seriously, had made imperative demands, and had wished to support them, in case of necessity, by force of arms. England, however, was ready to take part in the harshest notes, but would have nothing to do with war; and Austria, even in the notes, refused to make more decided demands than the six requirements, and rejected every suggestion of war even more energetically than England.

In the midst of his vexation at this, the Emperor received news of the Vienna Act of Reform, which with its directory could not but seem to him the first step towards the “empire of seventy millions,” and with its eighth article a German guaranty of Venetia. He was angry from the bottom of his heart. If Rechberg, by taking part in the Polish notes, had expected to gain Napoleon’s approval for the Frankfort Assembly of Princes, the exact contrary of this had happened. Napoleon thought that he had first been maliciously drawn into a quarrel with Russia, in order that then that one of all the forms of a German constitution which was to him the most disagreeable might be easily established.

He at once turned again to Prussia. “This unfortunate Polish question,” said he to Count Goltz, “ has not indeed made a quarrel between us,—it has never come to that,—but has made our relations somewhat less close. It is our only point of difference. I would give much if it could be got out of the way altogether. Prussia is in a position to accomplish fruitful results for this object.” Drouyn de Lhuys seconded his master: “The Emperor’s most anxious wish,” he said to the Ambassador, “is to do something in concert with Prussia.” Bismarck answered at once on the 5th of September, expressing satisfaction at the renewal of friendly relations, and also readiness to act as a mediator at St. Petersburg.

But before he could take such a step, there appeared on the 9th of September Gortschakoff’s answer to the notes of the 3d and 12th of August, containing the not very courteous announcement that Russia did not care to continue a profitless negotiation. This naturally caused new thoughts of war in Paris; since a Power like France could not let itself be put off in such a way as that.

Further negotiations with London and Vienna followed. Lord John Russell made an extremely bold speech, declaring to the world that Russia, after the breach of the agreement of 1815, had forfeited the support of the Act of the Vienna Congress for her possession of her Polish provinces. But Lord John had no intention of contributing more than these crushing words to the Polish cause. Count Rechberg would not even indulge in threatening language, and redoubled his opposition to any warlike action. This made it impossible for the French Emperor to punish Russia for the note of the 9th of September. He expressed great indignation at Austria’s policy, and showed increased friendliness toward Prussia. “In the Polish matter,” he said to Count Goltz, “you were among my opponents; but your conduct was plain and open: with you one always knows what to expect.” He had already considered how he would make his untrustworthy ally feel the weight of his dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile Count Rechberg was endeavoring to gather some fruit, whether great or small, from the Frankfort Assembly of Princes. When Herr von Werther communicated to him the Prussian documents of the 15th and 22d of September, the Count cried with great indignation: “Prussia herself can hardly expect that such demands will be fulfilled. She claims for Austria and for herself alike the right of objecting to a declaration of war on the part of the Confederation; but this is by no means the same thing for the two Courts: Austria may very easily come to require the help of the Confederation on account of Venetia or Hungary, Prussia is not likely to need such assistance. The alternation in the presidency is contrary to the old compacts; Austria cannot possibly give up an historical claim of her Emperor in point of honor. Finally, a parliament chosen by the people means nothing more nor less than revolution, mediatization of the Princes, and suppression of the individual States. What it all amounts to is, that Prussia, as usual, is opposing every fruitful development of the Confederation.”

In his excitement and anger the Count did not even wait for the orders of his Sovereign, who was then at Ischl, but at once, on the 26th of September, proposed, by a circular to the Princes who had met at Frankfort, that the confutation—which could easily be drawn up—of the confused and involved Prussian statements should be sent to Berlin in the form of a common note, in which also a fitting place might be found for the declaration that it was out of the question that the Frankfort resolutions should remain without practical results. This would have been the proclamation of a more restricted union within the Confederation, and hence would have meant the abandonment of all those principles, relying on which Prince Schwarzenberg had resisted the Prussian Union, and the senders of the common note of 1862 the programme of Count Bernstorff.

But Rechberg found little soil for the acceptance of such ideas among the Lesser States. Even at Frankfort the Bavarian Minister, Von Schrenck, had declared: “We will have no confederation without Austria, but likewise none without Prussia.” This was the guiding thought in the entire policy of the Lesser States at that time: to consider the presence of both the Great Powers in the Confederation as the best, if not the only, guaranty of their own independence and power, to find in the one an assurance against the ambi­tion of the other, and finally to make the decision in any difference between the two depend upon their own casting vote.

The Lesser States were now, therefore, quite as little disposed to listen to a more restricted alliance with Austria as they had been formerly to a union with Prussia. “That means the destruction of the German Confederation,” said Schrenck. And Beust expressed the opinion, that, in the uncertain state of European affairs, it was of the greatest importance not to push the quarrel with Prussia to extremities, but to bring about a good understanding between Vienna and Berlin. With this view, these States would not agree to the harsh method of a common note; so that some weeks were spent in considering in what way the confutation of the Prussian document was to find expression. Finally, for this purpose a conference of ministers was convened at Nuremberg on the 23d of October, and it was decided that Austria should take upon herself to answer the Prussian document in the name of all.

But when Rechberg called upon his Frankfort friends now to carry out in their own States the Confederate Constitution that had there been agreed upon, and at once to proceed to the establishment of a directory, he was met on all sides with a categorical refusal. The overthrow was complete. In the hope of confounding their opponents, the Austrian Government had played a bold game; they had at length found opponents even in their friends, and now had to regret the double loss.

Rechberg returned to Vienna with the feeling that if an accord with Prussia were possible, how much more fruitful it would be than dealing with all these insignificant and wilful potentates! If it only were possible!

The trial was near at hand. But here we will pause in the course of our narrative. We have arrived at the point at which the contest in regard to Schleswig-Holstein began to be decisive for the future of Germany. For the understanding of the questions that arise in this connection, it is indispensable to take a comprehensive glance at the origin of the German-Danish complication and at the course it had taken up to this time.