Throughout winter and spring Bismarck was preoccupied with securing the adoption of a constitution for the new North German Confederation. A parliament, or Reichstag, would be elected by universal male suffrage, but would have limited powers. It could question ministers, but not hold them accountable. The states would be represented in a Federal Council and keep their powers of local administration. This reassured them that they would retain their own identities, and was intended to signal to the watching South German states that particularism would be respected in the new Confederation. Nevertheless, as a Baden politician quipped, this was the alliance of the Prussian dog with its fleas.6 Prussia had sufficient votes in the Federal Council to block any unwelcome law. Her king became President of the Confederation, with sole power to decide issues of war and peace, and commander of the army, whose soldiers would be bound to him by personal oath. The army would be even less answerable to Parliament than under the Prussian system, for Bismarck attempted to design out, in the government’s favour, all the causes of conflict under the Prussian constitution. The size of the army, fixed at 1 per cent of the population at a standard rate of costs, and the Roon terms of military service were written into the constitution. Moreover, he aimed to put the regular military budget, over 90 per cent of government expenditure, beyond the Reichstag’s reach: though eventually he accepted a limited right for it to review this ‘iron budget’ in four years’ time.
Thus the new Confederation solidly entrenched the power of Prussia, its king and its army behind a democratic façade, and equally Bismarck’s position as linchpin of the whole system. As Foreign Minister he continued to be responsible only to Wilhelm for conducting the policy of the new state, and himself took the role of Federal Chancellor. Yet, for all that the new system was designed to enhance his authority, Bismarck needed the Reichstag, which convened in February 1867, and ultimately yielded some safeguards of parliamentary immunity, limits on the royal power to prorogue, and the secret ballot to secure its support for the constitution. The dominant party in the Reichstag was the National Liberals, and Bismarck as a German statesman had to be more attentive to their nationalist views than he had been as a Prussian minister.
Bismarck increasingly affected military uniform, much to Moltke’s indignation at his non-regulation style. As Bismarck well knew, in Prussian tradition spiked helmets and jackboots commanded more respect than black coats, but his martial air also smacked of the French style of uniformed autocracy legitimized by popular votes and a superficially democratic constitution. The Goncourt brothers remarked of this modern Caesarism: ‘It is a curious thing, in these days of progress, revolution, the rights of the people, the reign of the masses and universal suffrage, that there have never been greater examples of the despotism and all powerful influence of a single will, namely our Emperor and Bismarck.’7
Actually Napoleon III was under pressure in early 1867 to concede greater political freedom and to make good on the hint given early in his reign that the political edifice might be crowned with liberty. His imperial regime was fifteen years old, and in a country as restive as France criticism and pressures for change were accumulating. Since the 1863 elections opposition in the Legislature had become better organized and vocal, and included not only the minority of republicans but some Orleanists and Bonapartists of Liberal persuasion. Napoleon sought to pre-empt his critics by announcing a package of Liberal measures, including the right to interpellate ministers and greater freedom of the press and of assembly. When he read out these plans at the opening of the Legislature in February he looked old and ill, delivering his speech from the throne in a lacklustre manner, and the paper he read from trembled.
The Legislature received him coolly, and was no more impressed with his reiterated claims that acceptance of the new German state had been the wisest and only possible course, since the public had wanted peace. In March Thiers attacked the imperial government’s conduct of foreign affairs as ‘fatal, chimerical, puerile’, condemning its championship of the principle of nationality and connivance at Prussian enlargement when it should have preserved a balance of power suiting French interests. Cruelly contrasting Bismarck’s boldness with French hesitancy, he concluded, ‘There isn’t a single mistake left to make.’ Rouher – the ‘Vice-Emperor’ as Émile Ollivier would dub him – defended himself by boasting of the decisive part France supposedly had played in halting the Prussians before Vienna and in ensuring the division of the old German Confederation into three.
Bismarck’s response to Rouher’s vainglorious assertions came within days, with his publication of the offensive-defensive treaties signed with the South German states the previous August. Intended as a warning to France, it came as a further blow to the optimistic claims of the Emperor and Rouher, and caused shock and consternation in Paris. For Bismarck, publication adroitly deflected criticism in the Reichstag that by agreeing to the Main frontier he had left the southern states vulnerable to foreign influences.
Loss of face at home made Napoleon more anxious for a foreign policy success, and he pressed forward with plans to purchase the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg from its sovereign, the King of the Netherlands. The French believed they had Bismarck’s agreement, for in previous discussions about compensation he had raised no objection to the idea. In August 1866 he had spoken of Prussian willingness to make ‘important sacrifices’ for good relations with France, and of his wish to be obliging.8 He had even indicated to Benedetti in December that, although the initiative must come from the French and they should act quickly, he would respond publicly with only a token protest.
Most Luxemburgers spoke a German dialect, though their government was conducted in French. The duchy had been part of the old German Confederation, still housed a large federal fortress manned by Prussian troops, and was a member of the German Customs Union. Yet, left to themselves, probably only a small fraction of the inhabitants would have voted for union with either France or Germany, and all were glad to have been left aside in the recent German upheavals.
The Dutch king, who had expensive tastes, was tempted by the financial offer the French made him for a duchy he had no wish to retain. By late March all seemed set fair. French agents moved into Luxembourg to stir up anti-Prussian feeling. The King of the Netherlands prepared to sell his rights as Grand Duke on the understanding that France and Prussia were in accord about the transaction but, to avoid complications with his powerful new neighbour, he prudently sought the approval of the King of Prussia. Word of the transaction was seeping out in any case, and it was hardly realistic of the French to imagine that it could be carried through in secrecy.
The Luxembourg affair triggered one of those periodic paroxysms of francophobia that stirred Germans as little else could. Bismarck complained privately to French representatives that his hands were tied now that the matter had become official, picturing himself as a captive of public opinion. Questioned in the Reichstag on 1 April about the truth of the Luxembourg story, and what measures he was taking to safeguard ‘German’ territory and protect the garrison, he replied in measured diplomatic terms. Behind the scenes, however, he was stoking the crisis in the press and doing all he could to block French plans, and probably had arranged the interpellation himself. Though previously he had admitted that Luxemburgers had no love for Prussia and that the duchy was of little consequence, he now spoke of Luxembourg as being a ‘German’ territory that must remain so; and of the fortress as a key to the defence of Germany that must continue to be occupied. Feverish work was set in hand to strengthen the fortifications. The King of the Netherlands was pointedly told that peace could not be guaranteed if he proceeded with the sale. Intimidated by these threats and by the furore in Germany, he withdrew from the transaction. France had been thwarted once more.
In Paris there was anger. Even the Emperor’s customary calm was ruffled. A Hanoverian diplomat in the French capital noted that ‘Among the masses, [the prospect of] war with Prussia was most popular; everywhere, in workers’ ba
rs as in bourgeois salons, in editorial offices and political cafés, people spoke of nothing else but the chances of the coming campaign: they spoke of the generals who would command the different units and discussed plans of campaign, calculating the time it would take the French armies to reach Berlin, for no one doubted success. In barracks, enthusiasm was at its peak, and victory was toasted in officers’ messes.’ Perhaps businessmen and industrialists did not share this bellicose enthusiasm, he admitted, ‘but animosity against Prussia was such that they scarcely dared show feelings that would have been thought unpatriotic.’9
Equal and opposite sentiments were in evidence across the Rhine. Among them could be heard an undercurrent of German nationalist demands for Alsace, which had been part of France since the seventeenth century but where the majority of people still spoke German, and similarly for German-speaking eastern Lorraine, French since the eighteenth century. It was axiomatic in such circles that German-speakers under foreign rule must be ‘oppressed’. An appeal for peace by leading citizens of Strasbourg with German names, pointing out that they had no desire to be other than French and to live in peace and amity, could hardly dent the fervour of that minority of German nationalists who yearned for political dominion wherever German was spoken, and who had their sights on that great city of eastern France, sitting within its massive fortifications just across the Rhine.
In speaking of a possible war to defend German honour over Luxembourg, Bismarck was exploiting national passions for all their worth. Not only did this further boost his credit with nationalist opinion; it conveniently eased passage of the North German constitution through the Reichstag. The timing could hardly have been better, and Bismarck sought to prolong the crisis until the constitution had been agreed. Nevertheless, although the military were keen for war, Bismarck privately thought the tiny duchy not worth such a wager. Besides, the excitement had not stimulated southern enthusiasm for union with the North to the extent he had hoped. Nor had his usual mixture of threats and lures directed at the other Great Powers succeeded in isolating France. He agreed to a Russian proposal for a conference, which was convened in London in May.
Napoleon too, though feeling that he had been led into a trap by Bismarck’s duplicity, had no inclination for war over the issue, particularly while the country remained militarily ill prepared. His advisers counselled conciliation. His Foreign Minister, Lionel de Moustier, kept his nerve and worked to extricate France from her faux pas as best he could. He used restrained and conciliatory language, avoiding anything that might further raise the political temperature or serve as provocation. He let it be known that France wanted a peaceful solution, but pressed firmly for the evacuation of the Prussian fortress in Luxembourg. As the old German Confederation had ceased to exist, what was the legal justification for maintaining the Prussian garrison there? With the support of Austria, Britain and Russia this argument prevailed at the London conference. It was agreed that Luxembourg, still under the personal sovereignty of the Dutch king, would become a neutral state under the guarantee of the Great Powers. France would not take it, but neither would Prussia, which would demolish the fortress and withdraw her garrison.
So the crisis subsided, to general relief in France once spirits had cooled. In Germany the impression had been strengthened that her neighbour remained jealous of her nationhood and arrogantly inclined to meddle in German affairs and to covet ‘German’ territory. Withdrawal of the garrison rankled with nationalists and the military. The French government, on the other hand, felt itself cheated of even a small compensation for its ‘benevolent neutrality’ in July 1866 when, ironically, a bold demand for Luxembourg could have succeeded. The French had been caught out in an act of rapacity, and the sequel left them no illusions about the sincerity or worth of Bismarck’s earlier assurances of friendship and goodwill.
This was underscored when they pressed him to act on his 1866 agreement to hold a plebiscite in northern Schleswig. Bismarck, knowing that nationalist opinion would never stand for returning any territory to Denmark, made conditions about German security. When the French pointed out that the Treaty of Prague made no such conditions, Bismarck informed them tartly that it had been an agreement between Austria and Prussia which did not concern them. He had not the slightest intention of honouring a clause which had been included at Napoleon III’s request to protect the Schleswig Danes. (Germany formally renounced it in 1879.) The French backed down, but this succession of humiliations at Bismarck’s hands left them ill disposed ever to suffer another. It strengthened the view of many right-wing Bonapartists that the dented prestige of the dynasty could not withstand another public rebuff from Prussia. After the Luxembourg crisis, war between the two powers began to be talked of with fatalism. As for the armies, no soldier on either side had any doubt as to who the next enemy would be.
Once the war scare over Luxembourg had passed, Paris gave itself over to the splendours of the Universal Exhibition, held in a vast oval structure temporarily erected on the Champ de Mars. Fifteen million visitors marvelled at this celebration of the achievements of industry and labour. Among varied examples of the arts of civilization stood specimens of modern artillery, including Krupp’s giant steel guns in the Prussian section. Also to be seen was the latest field hospital equipment, demonstrating how medical advances would ease the plight of the wounded in war. ‘Strange epoch’, reflected one visitor, ‘that with equal enthusiasm cultivates the science of killing and the science of healing!’10
For many tourists that summer, the worthy contents of the Exhibition were less appealing than the crowded pleasure gardens, bars, shops, theatres and concert halls where the music of Offenbach and the younger Strauss held sway – or than the lure of illicit pleasures. Whatever the attraction, they flocked to Paris for the event of the year. For Napoleon III it was a chance to welcome his fellow sovereigns and to take pride in a peaceful and popular French triumph. On 1 June Czar Alexander arrived, greeted by demonstrators shouting ‘Long live Poland!’ Four days later his uncle, King Wilhelm of Prussia, alighted in his turn at the Gare du Nord. Charming and courteous, Wilhelm meant to be complimentary when he exclaimed, ‘What splendid things you’ve done since I was last here!’ – a reference to his presence with the forces that had taken the French capital in 1814. There were no hostile demonstrations, and the crowds studied Bismarck with curiosity. He was the soul of bonhomie, and was hugely amused by the comedy of the moment, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, which poked fun at the militarism of a fictional small German court.
The highlight of the ceremonial was a military review at Longchamp on 6 June. In radiant sunshine, the assembled sovereigns watched the cream of the French army march past in immaculate and colourful uniforms; the infantry, including sappers, grenadiers, Zouaves, chasseurs-à-pied and gendarmes as well as the red-trousered line infantry; then the cavalry, including cuirassiers, lancers and dragoons, followed by four regiments of artillery with their brass cannon. All went perfectly until, as Napoleon rode back in an open carriage with the Czar in late afternoon, a student in the crowd shot at Alexander. Although one of Napoleon’s equerries pushed his mount forward to intercept the shot, a pall was cast over events. In July the would-be assassin, a young Pole named Antoine Berezowski, was defended by republican lawyer Emmanuel Arago with the plea of ‘extenuating circumstances’, and the French court passed a sentence of hard labour rather than death. Alexander, who had been prepared to ask for clemency, was affronted, and the incident reopened the Franco-Russian rift over Poland.
Still worse news marred the Paris festivities at the beginning of July, just as the Emperor was about to present prizes at the Exhibition. The new transatlantic cable brought confirmation that the Austrian Archduke Maximilian, Napoleon’s puppet emperor of Mexico, had been shot by Mexican forces which had recovered control of the country following the departure of the French. The execution was a tragic postscript to a humiliating French failure, immortalized by the republican artist Manet in a canvas that was
refused admission to the 1869 Salon by the authorities. Described by Rouher at its outset as ‘the great idea of the reign’, the Mexican expedition had always been unpopular. From its sailing in 1861 to final withdrawal in 1867 under a virtual ultimatum from the United States, the French expeditionary force had lost at least 7,000 men in battle, fighting guerrillas or to disease, for no gain. Napoleon could only make a voyage of condolence to Salzburg in August to commiserate with Emperor Franz Josef on the loss of his younger brother. Courtesies were exchanged, but for some at the Austrian court Napoleon would always be the man who had taken Italy from them, who had encouraged the Prussians to attack them in Germany, and had sent a Habsburg prince to his death in Mexico. The centre of political power within the Habsburg Empire had anyway shifted eastwards as a consequence of defeat in Germany. The Hungarians now held equal power with the German half of the ‘Dual Monarchy’, and had no interest in an alliance with France that might involve them in a war of revenge against Prussia. The two emperors merely agreed that the status quo should be maintained.
Other news was discouraging for Napoleon. The harvest was bad, and in Algeria Governor General MacMahon had to cope with famine and cholera. On his return from Salzburg, addressing an audience at Lille, Napoleon contrasted the good fortune of the early years of his rule with the ‘dark clouds’ gathering on the horizon. That autumn workmen demolished the Exhibition venue, in what seemed like symbolism of the departed glories of his reign. At the same time the Kingdom of Italy which he had nurtured became a further source of embarrassment. Far from being grateful for the French gift of Venetia as a prize of the war of 1866, the Italian government resented not having won it by its own efforts. Having digested Venetia, its appetite to make the Papal city of Rome the capital of Italy was merely whetted. Conservative and clerical opinion in France made it impossible for Napoleon to yield in this matter to the nation he had seen as a protégé. In December 1866 he had withdrawn French troops from Rome, relying on volunteer forces to defend it. But it became clear that the Italian government could not be relied upon to keep its agreement to defend remaining Papal territory. In October a force of Italian radicals under national hero Garibaldi marched on Rome and began fighting Papal troops in its suburbs. Reluctantly and with his usual hesitations, Napoleon despatched a French expeditionary force which arrived just in time to repulse Garibaldi bloodily at Mentana on 3 November. A French garrison would have to stay to guard against further attempts. Napoleon, the would-be liberator of Italy and champion of the principle of nationality, appeared both to Italians and French radicals as the betrayer of that cause and the defender of clerical reaction. Worse, France had not a single ally in Europe.
Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France Page 6