Part 14 (2/2)

Bismarck, however, was not to be beaten; he insisted that the Hohenzollerns should not let the matter drop; and, as he could not persuade the King to use his authority, acted directly upon the family with such success that Prince Carl Anton telegraphed to his third son, Frederick, to ask if he would not accept instead of his brother.

Bismarck had now declared that the acceptance by one of the Princes was a political necessity; this he said repeatedly and with the greatest emphasis. At the same time, he despatched a Prussian officer of the general staff and his private secretary, Lothar Bucher, to Spain in order that they might study the situation. It was important that as far as possible the official representative of Prussia should have no share in the arrangement of this matter.

Prince Frederick came to Berlin, but, like his brother, he refused, unless the King gave a command. At the end of April, the negotiations seemed again to have broken down. Bismarck, who was in ill health, left Berlin for Varzin, where he remained for six weeks.

We are, however, not surprised, since we know that Bismarck's interest was so strongly engaged, that he was able after all to carry the matter through. He seems to have persuaded Prince Carl Anton; he then wrote to Prim telling him not to despair; the candidature was an excellent thing which was not to be lost sight of; he must, however, negotiate not with the Prussian Government, but with the Prince himself. When he wrote this he knew that he had at last succeeded in breaking down the reluctance of the Prince, and that the King, though he still was unwilling to undertake any responsibility, would not refuse his consent if the Prince voluntarily accepted. Prince Leopold was influenced not only by his interest in the Spanish race, but also by a letter from Bismarck, in which he said that he ought to put aside all scruples and accept in the interests of Prussia. The envoys had also returned from Spain and brought back a favourable report; they received an extraordinarily hearty welcome; we may perhaps suspect with the King that they had allowed their report to receive too rosy a colour; no doubt, however, they were acting in accordance with what they knew were the wishes of the man who had sent them out. In the beginning of June the decision was made; Prince Leopold wrote to the King that he accepted the crown which had been offered to him, since he thereby hoped to do a great service to his Fatherland. King William immediately answered that he approved of the decision.

Bismarck then at last was successful. A few days later Don Salazar again travelled to Germany; this time he brought a formal offer, which was formally-accepted. The Cortes were then in session; it was arranged that they should remain at Madrid till his return; the election would then be at once completed, for a majority was a.s.sured. The secrecy had been strictly maintained; there were rumours indeed, but no one knew of all the secret interviews; men might suspect, but they could not prove that it was an intrigue of Bismarck. If the election had once been made the solemn act of the whole nation, Napoleon would have been confronted with a _fait accompli_. To have objected would have been most injurious; he would have had to do, not with Prussia, which apparently was not concerned, but with the Spanish nation. The feeling of France would not allow him to acquiesce in the election, but it would have deeply offended the dignity and pride of Spain had he claimed that the King who had been formally accepted should, at his demand, be rejected. He could scarcely have done so without bringing about a war; a war with Spain would have crippled French resources and diverted their attention from Prussia; even if a war did not ensue, permanent ill feeling would be created. It is not difficult to understand the motives by which Bismarck had been influenced. At the last moment the plan failed. A cipher telegram from Berlin was misinterpreted in Madrid; and in consequence the Cortes, instead of remaining in session, were prorogued till the autumn. All had depended on the election being carried out before the secret was disclosed; a delay of some weeks must take place, and some indiscreet words of Salazar disclosed the truth. General Prim had no course left him but to send to the French Amba.s.sador, to give him official information as to what had been done and try to calm his uneasiness.

What were Bismarck's motives in this affair? It is improbable that he intended to use it as a means of bringing about a war with France. He could not possibly have foreseen the very remarkable series of events which were to follow, and but for them a war arising out of this would have been very unwise, for German public opinion and the sympathy of all the neutral Powers would have been opposed to Prussia, had it appeared that the Government was disturbing the peace of Europe simply in order to put a Prussian prince on the throne of Spain contrary to the wishes of France. He could not ignore German public opinion now as he had done in old days; he did not want to conquer South Germany, he wished to attract it. It seems much more probable that he had no very clear conception of the results which would follow; he did not wish to lose what might be the means of gaining an ally to Germany and weakening France. It would be quite invaluable if, supposing there were to be war (arising from this or other causes), Spain could be persuaded to join in the attack on France and act the part which Italy had played in 1866.

What he probably hoped for more than anything else was that France would declare war against Spain; then Napoleon would waste his strength in a new Mexico; he would no longer be a danger to Germany, and whether Germany joined in the war or not, she would gain a free hand by the preoccupation of France. If none of these events happened, it would be an advantage that some commercial gain might be secured for Germany.

On the whole, the affair is not one which shews his strongest points as a diplomatist; it was too subtle and too hazardous.

The news aroused the sleeping jealousy of Prussia among the French people; the suspicion and irritation of the Government was extreme, and this feeling was not ill-founded. They a.s.sumed that the whole matter was an intrigue of Bismarck's, though, owing to the caution with which the negotiations had been conducted, they had no proofs. They might argue that a Prussian prince could not accept such an offer without the permission of his sovereign, and they had a great cause of complaint that this permission had been given without any communication with Napoleon, whom the matter so nearly concerned. The arrangement itself was not alone the cause of alarm. The secrecy with which it had been surrounded was interpreted as a sign of malevolence.

Of course they must interfere to prevent the election being completed.

Where, however, were they to address themselves? With a just instinct they directed their remonstrance, not to Madrid, but to Berlin; they would thereby appear not to be interfering with the independence of the Spaniards, but to be acting in self-defence against the insidious advance of German power.

They could not, however, approach Bismarck; he had retired to Varzin, to recruit his health; the other Ministers also were absent; the King was at Ems. It was convenient that at this sudden crisis they should be away, for it was imperative that the Prussian Government should deny all complicity. Bismarck must not let it appear that he had any interest in, or knowledge of, the matter; he therefore remained in the seclusion of Pomerania.

Benedetti also was absent in the Black Forest. On the 4th of July, therefore, the French _Charge d'Affaires,_ M. de Sourds, called at the Foreign Office and saw Herr von Thiele. ”Visibly embarra.s.sed,” he writes, ”he told me that the Prussian Government was absolutely ignorant of the matter and that it did not exist for them.” This was the only answer to be got; in a despatch sent on the 11th to the Prussian agents in Germany, Bismarck repeated the a.s.sertion. ”The matter has nothing to do with Prussia. The Prussian Government has always considered and treated this affair as one in which Spain and the selected candidate are alone concerned.” This was literally true, for it had never been brought before the Prussian Ministry, and no doubt the records of the office would contain no allusion to it; the majority of the Ministers were absolutely ignorant of it.

Of course M. de Sourds did not believe Herr von Thiele's statement, and his Government was not satisfied with the explanation; the excitement in Paris was increasing; it was fomented by the agents of the Ministry, and in answer to an interpolation in the Chamber, the Duc de Grammont on the 6th declared that the election of the Prince was inadmissible; he trusted to the wisdom of the Prussian and the friends.h.i.+p of the Spanish people not to proceed in it, but if his hope were frustrated they would know how to do their duty. They were not obliged to endure that a foreign Power by setting one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V.

should destroy the balance of power and endanger the interests and honour of France. He hoped this would not happen; they relied on the wisdom of the German and the friends.h.i.+p of the Spanish people to avoid it; but if it were necessary, then, strong in the support of the nation and the Chamber, they knew how to fulfil their duty without hesitation or weakness.

The French Ministry hereby publicly declared that they held the Prussian Government responsible for the election, and they persisted in demanding the withdrawal, not from Spain, but from Prussia; Prim had suggested that as the Foreign Office refused to discuss the matter, Grammont should approach the King personally. Benedetti received instructions to go to the King at Ems and request him to order or advise the Prince to withdraw. At first Grammont wished him also to see the Prince himself; on second thoughts he forbade this, for, as he said, it was of the first importance that the messages should be conveyed by the King; he was determined to use the opportunity for the humiliation of Germany.

If it was the desire of the French in this way to establish the complicity of Prussia, it was imperative that the Prussian Government should not allow them to do so. They were indeed in a disagreeable situation; they could not take up the French challenge and allow war to break out; not only would the feeling of the neutral Powers, of England and of Russia, be against them, but that of Germany itself would be divided. With what force would the anti-Prussian party in Bavaria and Wurtemberg be able to oppose a war undertaken apparently for the dynastic interests of the Hohenzollern! If, however, the Prince now withdrew, the French would be able to proclaim that he had done so in consequence of the open threats of France; supposing they were able to connect the King in any way with him, then they might a.s.sert that they had checked the ambition of Prussia; Prussian prestige would be seriously injured at home, and distrust of Prussian good faith would be aroused abroad.

The King therefore had a difficult task when Benedetti asked for an interview. He had been brought into this situation against his own will, and his former scruples seemed fully justified. He complained of the violence of the French Press and the Ministry; he repeated the a.s.sertion that the Prussian Government had been unconnected with the negotiations and had been ignorant of them; he had avoided a.s.sociating himself with them, and had only given an opinion when Prince Leopold, having decided to accept, asked his consent. He had then acted, not in his sovereign capacity as King of Prussia, but as head of the family. He had neither collected nor summoned his council of Ministers, though he had informed Count Bismarck privately. He refused to use his authority to order the Prince to withdraw, and said that he would leave him full freedom as he had done before.

These statements were of course verbally true; probably the King did not know to what extent Bismarck was responsible for the acceptance by the Prince. They did not make the confidence of the French any greater; it was now apparent that the King had been asked, and had given his consent without considering the effect on France; they could not acquiesce in this distinction between his acts as sovereign and his acts as head of the family, for, as Benedetti pointed out, he was only head of the family because he was sovereign.

All this time Bismarck was still at Varzin; while Paris was full of excitement, while there were hourly conferences of the Ministers and the city was already talking of war, the Prussian Ministers ostentatiously continued to enjoy their holidays. There was no danger in doing so; the army was so well prepared that they could afford quietly to await what the French would do. What Bismarck's plans and hopes were we do not know; during these days he preserved silence; the violence of the French gave him a further reason for refusing to enter into any discussion.

When, however, he heard of Benedetti's visit to Ems he became uneasy; he feared that the King would compromise himself; he feared that the French would succeed in their endeavour to inflict a diplomatic defeat on Prussia. He proposed to go to Ems to support the King, and on the 12th left Varzin; that night he arrived in Berlin. There he received the news that the Prince of Hohenzollern, on behalf of his son, had announced his withdrawal.

The retirement was probably the spontaneous act of the Prince and his father; the decisive influence was the fear lest the enmity of Napoleon might endanger the position of the Prince of Roumania. Everyone was delighted; the cloud of war was dispelled; two men only were dissatisfied--Bismarck and Grammont. It was the severest check which Bismarck's policy had yet received; he had persuaded the Prince to accept against his will; he had persuaded the King reluctantly to keep the negotiations secret from Napoleon; however others might disguise the truth, he knew that they had had to retreat from an untenable position, and retreat before the noisy insults of the French Press and the open menace of the French Government; his anger was increased by the fact that neither the King nor the Prince had in this crisis acted as he would have wished.

We have no authoritative statement as to the course he himself would have pursued; he had, according to his own statement, advised the King not to receive the French Amba.s.sador; probably he wished that the Prince should declare that as the Spaniards had offered him the crown and he had accepted it, he could not now withdraw unless he were asked to do so by Spain; the attempt of Grammont to fasten a quarrel on Prussia would have been deprived of any responsible pretext; he would have been compelled to bring pressure to bear on the Spaniards, with all the dangers that that course would involve. We may suspect that he had advised this course and that his advice had been rejected. However this may be, Bismarck felt the reverse so keenly that it seemed to him impossible he could any longer remain Minister, unless he could obtain redress for the insults and menaces of France. What prospect was there now of this? It was no use now going on to Ems; he proposed to return next day to Varzin, and he expected that when he did so he would be once more a private man.

He was to be saved by the folly of the French. Grammont, vain, careless, and inaccurate, carried away by his hatred of Prussia, hot-headed and bl.u.s.tering, did not even see how great an advantage he had gained. When Guizot, now a very old man, living in retirement, heard that the Prince had withdrawn, he exclaimed: ”What good fortune these people have! This is the finest diplomatic victory which has been won in my lifetime.”

This is indeed the truth; how easy it would have been to declare that France had spoken and her wishes had been fulfilled! the Government need have said no more, but every Frenchman would have always told the story how Bismarck had tried to put a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain, had been foiled by the word of the Emperor, and had been driven from office.

Grammont prepared to complete the humiliation of Prussia, and in doing so he lost all and more than all he had won.

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