,jt-^^^ y p/ tUJi'J^ .i^^^-cA-./iJu-Cc /'fif ( '////// /'f^/'^ //tZ/uv/n 1 . THE REFOUNDING OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1848-1871 COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.L AUTHOR OF 'the INDIAN MUTINY,' 'HISTORY OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA,' ' THE BATTLEFIELDS OF GERMANY,' ETC., ETC. With Portraits atid Plans LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1893 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE — THE RENUNCIATION OF FRANCIS II. — THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD — FROM 1815 TO 1848 — 1848 TO 1852, . . I II. PRUSSIA FROM 1852 TO 1S57, . . .36 III. THE REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA — THE PERIOD OF AWAKENING, . . . .49 IV. THE KINGSHIP OF WILLIAM I. — THE POLICY OF 'BLOOD AND IRON,' ..... 66 V. THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN INVASION OF SCHLESWIG- HOLSTEIN, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, . . 86 VI. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF AUSTRIA — PREPARATIONS FOR WAR — ACTION OF THE LESSER STATES OF GERMANY — MOLTKE — PRINCE FREDERIC CHARLES — THE CROWN PRINCE — HERWARTH VON BITTEN- FELD — BENEDEK — THE WAR BREAKS OUT, . 1 03 VII. THE WAR OF 1866 HANOVER AND ELECTORAL HESSE — LANGENSALZA AND WILHELMSHOHE, . II 9 VIII. THE CAMPAIGN IN BOHEMIA — COMBATS OF LIEBENAU — OF PODOL — OF MUNCHENGRATZ — OF GITSCHIN — OF TRAUTENAU — OF SOOR OF NACHOD — OF SKALITZ — OF SCHWEINSCHADEL, . . . 132 IX. THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ, . . .154 iv Contents. CHAP. PAGB X. THE BATTLE OF CUSTOZA — THE CAMPAIGN IN BAVARIA — THE MARCH OF THE PRUSSIANS ON VIENNA — THE ARMISTICE OF NIKOLSBURG AND TREATY OF PRAGUE, . . . . 175 XI. NAPOLEON III. AND BISMARCK — FOUR YEARS OF SMOULDERING IN PARIS AND BERLIN THE HOHENZOLLERN CANDIDATURE — KING WILLIAM AND BENEDETTI AT EMS — EXCITEMENT IN PARIS — THE BERLIN FICTIONS RENDER WAR INEVITABLE, . . . . . 194 XII. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR — THE NUMBERS AND RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS — THE LEADERS ON BOTH SIDES — AUSTRIA AND ITALY — SAAR- BRUCKEN — WORTH — SPICHEREN, . . 222 XIII. COLOMBEV — VIONVILLE AND MARS -LE- TOUR — GRAVELOTTE, . . . . 255 XIV. SEDAN, ...... 279 XV. THE LAST PHASES OF THE WAR, . . .296 XVI. THE CROWNING OF THE EDIFICF, . . . 314 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE EMPEROR WILLIAM I., • • • FrOlltispiece PRINCE BISMARCK, . . • • • 74 FREDERICK, CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA, . . l66 COUNT VON MOLTKE, ..... 230 MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA, To face 155 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ, . • 156 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF CUSTOZA, . . . 178 MAP OF PART OF FRANCE INVADED BY THE GERMANS, To face 225 PLAN OF THE BATTLES OF VIONVILLE AND GRAVE- LOTTE, ...... 260 *,* The Portraits of the Emperor William, Prin'ce Bismarck and Count Von Moltke are engraved by permission of Messrs Loescher & Petsch ; that of the CuowN Princf, Frederick by permission of Messrs Reichard & Lindner. PREFACE This book deals especially with a period of German history of twenty-three years' duration. Beginning with the French Revolution of 1848 it records the rousing in Germany of passions long pent-up, and, for the time, difficult to be controlled or directed ; the manner in which these passions were eventually mastered ; the great void and the fierce longing they left behind them ; the use made by one of the chief Powers of Germany of the feelings and aspirations thus dormant, and, finally, the complete reversal, by the means employed by that Power, of the positions held in Europe till that period by Austria and Prussia on the one side, by France and Germany on the other. During this period of twenty-three years there occurred in Europe five wars ; and although, of those five wars, two, the Crimean war and the Franco-Austrian war require in this volume but a cursory notice, the other three, viz., the Danish war, the Austro-Prussian war, and the Franco-German war constitute the three steps which made possible the refounding of the German Empire. The second and third of these wars would viii Preface have been impossible without their predecessor. For if the first of the three, the Danish war, may be re- garded as a small thing — the whole of Germany being pitted against the smallest country in Europe — it was, nevertheless, the necessary prelude to the wars that followed. That war, and the two greater wars of 1866 and 1870, had been predetermined in the mind of the regenerator of Germany before a shot in the first had been fired. The initial war, in fact, was needed to cause the second ; the second to produce the third. The Danish war, then, far from being a war of secondary importance, was the first act of a deliberately planned system ; the first consequence of the introduction of that policy of 'Blood and Iron' which, in one of his earliest speeches to the Prussian parliament. Count Bismarck declared to be necessary for the solution of the great questions which were agitating Germany. The writer of a book professing to deal with these subjects had, therefore, to record (ist) the effect in Germany of that outburst in Paris of February 1848, which acted as a match to the inflamed imaginations of the populations of the great centres of thought in the Fatherland ; (2d) the manner in which that outbreak seized hold of the German mind ; how it was viewed by princes and peoples ; the action it induced ; the several movements that followed ; the precipitancy of the mob, and the patient waiting of sovereigns ; until the fire of the movement had been spent, and the sovereigns were enabled to recover all that they had temporarily lost. It will then be shown how the popular feeling, though crushed for the time, never died out ; how it remained, a remini- scence full of hope, to encourage those to whom the Preface ix prospect of German Unity had ever been a living ideal ; how, again, the feelings and aspirations which had been aroused were, whilst still dormant, utilised by politicians to prepare a machine which, placing the necessary power in the hands of men who knew their own minds, who had a fixed policy, and who were to be deterred by no scruples, would, at the proper time, deal the blows which were to secure for Germany the union which had been her dream ; how the policy of ' Blood and Iron ' was invented for that end ; how other Powers, not in Germany alone, played into the hands of the masters of the machine. Then will follow the story of the wars which had been planned. It will be told finally, how, in 1871, the adventurous but far-sighted policy was crowned with success. In preparing a continuous account of this policy and of these events the main difficulty of the writer has been to compress in the allotted number of pages events so momentous and so diverging : the diverse actions of Austria, of Prussia, of the German Diet, of France, of Italy. The battles of the three wars above noted — the secret plans and hopes of the several Courts have all demanded the most careful study. How diffi- cult it has been to give a sufficiently clear description of the several battles, many of them of the first importance, may be gathered from the fact that Major Henderson, the most eminent of the younger officers of the British army, has devoted to the consideration of only one battle, that of Spicheren, a number of words at least equal to the whole of those contained in this volume.^ ' ' The Battle of Spicheren,' by Brevet-Major Henderson. This volume counts three hundred pages, but, in the type of this volume, the contents would require a few pages more. X Preface I am bound to add that in Major Henderson's volume I do not find a single redundant page. It is throughout admirable ; for the military student invaluable. I call attention to the fact simply to illustrate the difficulty of a writer who has to describe, within a given compass equal to that considered by Major Henderson neces- sary for one battle, not one only, but many battles, some of them of even greater importance than Spicheren, for they were more decisive of the war. The author has been forced then to endeavour to produce, by bold and correct outlines, results which may atone for want of detail. He would fain hope that he has succeeded in producing such sketches of the principal battles as will convey a clear meaning of the movements on both sides to the general reader. With respect to some of them, those of 1866 in particular, he has enjoyed the advantage of a personal acquaintance with many officers who served in the campaign of Bohemia, and he can confidently assert that, although his account of that campaign may differ in some details from the story told by some English writers, it will be accepted in Vienna as the true one. He may add that a distin- guished foreign officer, whom he consulted this year, has endorsed every word of it. Regarding the political events, also, the writer is not without personal experience. He was in Westphalia in the summer and autumn of 1858, and again during 1863-4, and witnessed the growing discontent of large classes of the people, and their distrust of Count Bis- marck. There never was a policy so unpopular as that involved by the military system of Von Roon ; never a minister so detested as was Bismarck. The war of Preface xi 1866 was, in its inception, nowhere so unpopular as in Prussia. But success atoned for everything. All the previous high-handed measures of the ministry were forgotten, and the annexations and other advan- tages which followed it produced the most complete revulsion in the public mind with regard to the minister theretofore so detested. With respect to events generally, the writer has consulted all the German, and many of the English and French works written on the subject. He has also been allowed to peruse journals of some of the actors, hitherto unpublished. To all he is greatly indebted. But he is bound to admit that he has met with no writer whose knowledge of the incidents which led to the war of 1866 is so ample, or whose con- clusions are so just, as those of Sir Alexander Malet, at the time H.M.'s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Frankfort. In his book, 'The Over- throw of the Germanic Confederation by Prussia in 1866,' the keys of the Foreign Office at Berlin are placed in the readers' hands, and the mind of the statesman who, after excluding Austria from Germany, completed his policy of ' Thorough ' by the humiliation of France, is laid, an open book, before the generation that witnessed ' the refounding of the German Empire.' G. B. M. The Refounding of the German Empire CHAPTER I. THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE — RENUNCIATION BY FRANCIS II. — THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD — FROM 1815 TO 1848 — FROM 1848 TO 1852. The Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne, and dating from Christmas day 800, died on the 6th of August 1806. It had lived just over a thousand years. The hopes of the great Charles that the sceptre would descend in perpetuity to members of his own family had not been realised. The family became extinct in 911. From that date the numerous dukes and counts who had been content to serve as officers of the imperial court asserted their independence, and with it the right to elect their supreme overlord. The method of election, under the arrangement originally settled, was gradually found to be in practice crude, unwieldy, and unworkable. In the thirteenth century, then, the electoral basis was narrov/ed by restricting the voting power to seven of the most influential magnates of the land. In 1648 the number was increased to eight, and in 1692 to nine. It was reduced to eight in 1777, but the peace of Lun(^- ville (February 9, 1801) increased it to ten. From the year 1407 onwards the electing body had, with rare A 2 The Reiuinciation of Francis I. exceptions, conferred the dignity on the representative of the House of Habsburg. AHke in his capacity as Emperor of Germany and the hereditary ruler of the several States he had inherited from his ancestors, the Emperor Francis II. had taken a prominent part in the wars of the French Revolution. Up to the year 1796 the victories gained and the defeats sustained by his armies and those of his allies were not very un- evenly balanced. In 1795 the tide had seemed to turn rather decisively in his and their favour, but in the following year the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte turned the scale very effectually against him. The same genius forced him the year immediately following to accept a peace ' by which he yielded the Low Countries and the Ionian islands to France, and Milan, Mantua, and Modena to the newly formed Cisalpine republic, receiving, by a secret article, Venice as compensation. The war was renewed a year later, Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, and Austria, powerfully aided by Russia, carried at the outset all before her. The return of Bonaparte on the 9th of October, his successful blow at the existing constitution exactly one month later, his nomination as First Consul, and, finally and chiefly, the campaign of Marengo, changed into despair the bright hopes to which the earlier successes of the war had given birth at Vienna. The peace of Luneville which followed confirmed the advantages to France obtained by the preceding treaty, and in addition secured for her a preponderating influence in western Germany. The conditions imposed by the conqueror were lenient. It was the__only_ time, if we may except the conditions reo-arding Russia of the treaty of Tilsit, when the young 1 Treaty of Campo Formio, Octoljer 17, 1797. The Consequences of Austerlitz. 3 conqueror whose work it was showed consideration to a defeated enemy. His subsequent words and acts proved that he had come to beheve that in displaying that consideration he had made a blunder. The peace between France and Austria lasted four years. Meanwhile the conqueror of Marengo had become Emperor of the French (May 18, 1804), and the Emperor Francis of Germany had, nearly three months later, as- sumed, by letters patent, the position of hereditary Emperor of Austria, under the title of F"rancis I. (August II, 1804). When he assumed the rank and position of Emperor of the French, Napoleon was, and for some time previously had been, engaged in making gigantic preparations for the invasion of England. He was still pushing forward these preparations when, on the 5th of August 1805, the Emperor Francis, yielding to the solicitations of Pitt, declared war against him. How Napoleon, with marvellous skill, suddenly trans- ferred his army from the shores of the ocean to southern Germany, how he compelled one Austrian army to capitulate at Ulm, and completely defeated another allied with the Russians, on the anniversary of his coronation (December 2) at Austerlitz, need not be told here in detail. Napoleon had prefaced the war by telling his soldiers that he would not again spare the enemy to whom he had been too merciful at Campo Formio and at Luneville, and he kept his word. The treaty of Pressburg, the consequence of Austerlitz, rent Venice from Austria, transferred to Bavaria Tirol, Voral- berg, the principality of Eichstadt, and part of the Bishopric of Passau ; to Baden the greater part of the Brisgau, with Constance ; to Wiirtemberg Augsburg and a portion of Suabia. The Electors of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg became kings, and Baden was recognised 4 The Confederation of the Rhine : as a sovereign State. In the words of the latest English historian ^ of the period : ' The constitution of the empire ceased to exist even in name.' But another and a fiercer blow directed against that constitution was to follow. Napoleon employed the comparative leisure which followed the signature of the peace of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) to devise a still more potent method for crippling Germany. On the ruins of the empire he had broken up he designed to constitute in Germany a new power, independent alike of Austria and Prussia, pushed in as a wedge between the two, a province of France in all but in name, and de- riving from France all its motive power. He worked at this project with his accustomed energy during the earlier months of i8o6. In July of that year he had arranged every detail. Sixteen prominent princes of western and southern Germany declared their separation from the German Empire and Emperor, and formed under the protection of the French Emperor, a league to be styled ' The Confederation of the Rhine.' On the 6th of August, the Emperor Francis, under the pressure of Napoleon, dissolved by decree the Germanic confedera- tion, and formally abdicated his title as chief of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the close of the year the adhesion of Saxony had brought within that league almost every German who was not either Austrian or Prussian.2 fhe territories thus amalgamated for offence and defence became virtually a French province. They counted a population of more than fourteen millions, and had an extent of over 125,000 square miles. The military forces they disposed of, fixed after the union of Saxony at 1 Fyffe's History of Modern Euiope, Vol. I. page 300. - In December 1806 the Confederation consisted of France, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and Westphalia, seven grand duchies, six duchies, and twenty principalities. Its Strength and its Weakness. 5 1 19,180 men, were drilled by French officers. The frontiers were regarded to all intents as the frontiers of France. The Confederation, thrust into the very heart of Ger- many, was a standing menace to Austria and Prussia. Its formation, from the standpoint of the actual moment, seemed to its author and to Europe generally to be the outcome of the highest political genius. With the con- sent of a great part of Germany Napoleon had, it seemed, rendered German union against France for ever impos- sible. Nor can it be doubted that the German people admitted within the Confederation derived great imme- diate advantages from the amalgamation. Justice was made easy to all ; the taxes were spread in more even pro- portions over the several classes ; whilst to the ambitious a career was opened such as, under the petty govern- ments which had been swept away, had been impossible. Yet it can scarcely be doubted now that the measure in the form it took was adverse to the interests of France; that it really contributed, and greatly, to the cause of German unity. The existence of the Confederation was only possible under the condition of continued success on the field of battle. The campaign of 18 12 in Russia, still more the campaign of 1813 in Germany, proved the instability of the foundations on which it rested. Nor was the evil — to France — confined to the sudden disaffection which immediately preceded and immedi- ately followed the battle of Lcipsig. The Confederation had introduced into the very heart of Germany that power of combination for the cause of national union which we have seen fructify in our own day. There were, indeed, in 1806 some shrewd men, some of them Frenchmen, who deprecated the policy of Napoleon because, in their view, it was bound to lead to such results. One of these, the Baron de Marbot, at the time 6 How it contributed to German Unity. aide-de-camp to Marshal Augereau, has detailed, in one of the most charming autobiographies^ ever given to the world, the opinions he formed at that period. In the presence of accomplished facts they are worthy of being transcribed. ' Although,' wrote the Baron, ' I was very young at this epoch I thought that Napoleon com- mitted a great fault in reducing the number of the small principalities of Germany. In fact in the ancient wars against France the 800 princes of the Germanic corps could not act together. There was some of them who furnished only a company, some only a platoon, many but half a soldier ; so that the reunion of these different contingents composed an army totally deprived of any principle of combination, and disbanded at the very first reverse. But when Napoleon had reduced to thirt^'- two the number of the principalities he introduced the spirit of union into the forces of Germany, The sove- reigns preserved and aggrandised formed a small but well-constituted army. That indeed was the end which the Emperor proposed to himself in the hope of thus utilising to his profit all the military resources of the country. This was the case so long as we were success- ful. But at the very first reverse the thirty-two sove- reigns, having a common understanding, combined against France, and their coalition with Russia overthrew the Emperor Napoleon.' The Confederation of the Rhine, wounded to the death by the campaign of 1812, and killed by the battle of Leipsig, was succeeded, in 181 5, by a new league called 'The Germanic Federation.' In the autumn of 1814 the work of forming a scheme for the reorganisation of Germany had been committed to Austria, Prussia, 1 Mernoires du Gen. Baron dc Marbot, Vol. I. page 275. Paris, Plon Nourrit & Co., 1891. The Gcrinanic Federation. 7 and three of the minor powers. The scheme itself, promulgated June 8, 181 5, fell short of the hopes that had been roused during the life and death struggles of 1813-14. The blighting influence of Metternich had suc- cessfully restricted the wider- reaching aspirations of the patriots of northern Germany. That many difficulties existed in the way of satisfying the latter must be ad- mitted. The kings whom Napoleon had made, released from his yoke, were resolved to maintain, as far as was possible, the absolutism which had ^characterised their rule during the preceding eight years. Austria was bound hand and foot to the same principle. And though the general feeling of Prussia, as a nation, was strongly in favour of progress, the King and his ministers were in their hearts not one whit more inclined to it than was Metternich himself. The outcome, then, of the deliberations of the five powers was unsatisfactory. Germany became federated only in name. The act of June 1 81 5 created a Federal Diet at which seventeen members, the representatives of States, or groups of States or free cities, were to meet. These representatives were nominated by the rulers of the respective States or groups. The place of meeting was the city of Frankfort on the Main. From its first meeting, in November 18 16, to its last, in August 1866, the Diet was powerless to assure the real union of Germany. Throughout that period the influence of Austria was predominant ; and during the arbitrary rule of Metternich, 181 5 to 1848, and again during the reaction which followed the outbreaks of 1848, Austria used that influence to stifle every aspiration for freedom. Her principle was, 'to aggrandise Austria, to humiliate Prussia.' During its life of fifty-one years, inclusive of the suspension of its powers from July 1848 to May 1851, the Diet, with opportunities favourable for 8 The Revolutio7i ^y 1848. the development of sound patriotic principles, displayed only a genius for intrigue and a capacity for repression. To the Diet, thus playing a part at once subordinate and humiliating, the mouthpiece in matters pertaining to Germany of Metternich, the revolution of February 1848 in Paris was a very rude awakener. To the people of every State in Germany the same event acted as a call to prompt and resolute action. It happened that at the moment (February 27) a meeting of patriotic men was being held at Mannheim to devise how to procure for the Fatherland a few moderate reforms. These were, the freedom of the press, trial by jury, liberty to carry arms, national representation. The terror inspired in ruling circles by the movements in Paris caused these proposals to be everywhere accepted. Baden led the way. The other States followed. In a few days not only had the modest requests I have mentioned been all but universally granted, but the governments, those of Austria and Prussia excepted, had promised to revoke the exceptional laws ; to impose on the army an oath of fidelity to the constitution ; to declare the political equality of all creeds ; the responsibility of the ministers of the crown ; the independence of the judges ; the aboli- tion of the remnants of feudalism. But little opposition was offered by the rulers. In Bavaria, indeed, there were tumults ; but the abdication of King Louis (March 20) promptly put an end to these. Meanwhile, in Frank- fort, the population of which, like the populations of all the great cities in Germany, was wild with enthusiasm and excitement, the Diet had passed a resolution (March 3) empowering every federal State to abolish the cen- sorship, and, under certain guarantees, to sanction the freedom of the press. On the loth, noting the continued swelling of the storm, it despatched to the rulers of Its First Effect in Germany. 9 Germany an invitation to send to Frankfort commis- saries to discuss the reorganisation of the country. This invitation was its own death-warrant. In the tumult of the national aspirations it passed from the minds of men, and apparently expired. For nearly three years, from July 1848 to May 185 1, it ceased to meet. But for Austria, fresh from her triumph over the internal foes of her unpopular sway, the Diet would never have been heard of again. But we shall presently see how, in May 185 1, the powerful representative of the am- bitious policy of that power needing the semblance of a national sanction to the schemes he was planning^ summoned it from its tomb, and used its phantom form to impress the will of Austria on the Fatherland. How it existed for fifteen years, and then, under the treatment of Count Bismarck, went the way of other shams, will be told in due course. In considering the course of events which in Germany followed the explosion of 1848 it must be borne in mind that during the first eighteen months Austria was too much occupied with her own affairs to take a decisive part in the settlement of German questions, and that it was not to her but to Prussia that the patriots of the Fatherland looked for the action which should make Germany a nation. It will then be only necessary to state that no country in Europe was apparently so com- pletely shattered by the storm of the revolution as was the composite empire ruled over by the Habsburgs. For some time it seemed absolutely impossible that she could escape shipwreck. What with risings in Lombardy, at Venice, in Bohemia, in Hungary, in her own capital, Austria had the appearance of a gallant ship cast upon a lee shore combating with the breakers. The time came indeed when she righted herself, and made for a few lo Frederic William IV\ of Prussia. years a show as proud and as defiant as that which she had presented before February 1848. But for the moment she seemed a wreck, and all eyes and all hearts turned with hope and expectation to Prussia and her king. It seems advisable, under these circumstances, before we enter upon a sketch of the troubles at Berlin and at Frankfort, with their gradual subsidence in favour of a policy which, if responded to, might have antici- pated by twenty years the great event at Versailles of January 1871, to examine very briefly the character of the sovereign who then ruled in Prussia. Frederic William IV., King of Prussia, was in his fifty-fourth year when Paris dismissed the King of the French and his family. Though he had served as a youth in the stirring campaigns of 1811-14-15,^ he had none of the instincts of the soldier. The term ' dreamer ' describes accurately what he was. He had unbounded confidence in, almost a worship for the Czar Nicholas, a dread of offending Austria, a reverence for royalty and for ruling princes, such as placed them on a pedestal not to be approached by the common people. A senti- mentalist, irresolute, enthusiastic, and indolent, he wished the happiness of his subjects provided they would leave himself and his nobles in the enjoyment of the power and privileges he and they had inherited. He was ever ready with soft cajoling words, but he would not give them, if he could avoid it, any of the political food for which they clamoured. He was ready to promise without intending to perform. If he had ruled in France in the place of Louis XVI. he would have displayed no more ' Baron Marbot records how his father, in 1812, earnestly begged Napoleon to allow the young prince to accompany him to Russia, on his staff, and how Napoleon, to his surprise, refused. Berlin /;^ 1 848. 11 firmness than did that ill-fated monarch. But there was this difference in the positions of the two men. In France, in 1789-90, the army sided with the people. In Prussia, in 1848, the soldiers were loyal to the sovereign. Popular aspirations and popular enthusiasm had, early in March 1848, found a very strong expression in Berlin. With the cry for constitutional freedom in its broadest sense was joined the demand for the reorganisation of Germany on the principle of unity. The King was not disposed to grant any but the very slightest concession. On the 5th of March he attempted to disarm the leaders of the movement by telling them that their proposals would be considered by the Prussian Diet, the periodical meeting of which had been assured. Three days later the public were informed that the revision of the press laws was under consideration ; but these paltry and half- hearted concessions rather irritated than satisfied the people. For the six days that followed Berlin was paraded by an angry mob, which seemed inclined even to court a contest with the soldiery. On the 14th the King, who had been apparently delaying action until he should ascertain the results of the movements in other large centres, especially in Vienna, driven by the attitude of the people to do something, made another feeble attempt to calm men's minds. He issued a proclama- tion summoning the parliament to meet on the 27th of April, and promising that the question of unity should be considered at Dresden by a congress of princes. This ill-judged announcement drove the Berliners to fever heat, and for three days the city was a prey to continual tumult. The mind of the King was not relieved when, on the evening of the 15th, he received news of the untoward result of the outbreak at Vienna. Still he resisted ; nor did a deputation from Cologne, warning / 12 Berlin in 1848. him in threatening tones of the attitude of the people of the Rhine provinces, nor another from BerHn itself, urging him to comply with the popular wishes, move him to action. After a sleepless night on the 17th- 18th he gave waj'. At midday of the 18th he issued an edict granting freedom of the press, summoning the united Prussian parliament for the 2d of April, and promising to aid with all his influence the meeting of a parliament for all Germany, to work out in the most practical manner the regeneration of the Fatherland. This manifesto seemed for the moment to satisfy the people. They crowded in groups round the palace, desirous to express their complete satisfaction. Then ensued one of those catastrophes which in times of revolution are brought about no one knows how. The scene was one full of excitement; there were groups round the palace, the King vainly striving to address and to make himself heard by the mass'es in the front rank. The position bore some analogy to that of the 20th of June 1791 in Paris. Behind the front ranks the people continued to press on until the pressure became intolerable ; then to relieve it there was issued an order to disperse. The untrained elements which compose a crowd never disperse easily ; there can seldom be that unity of thought and action which is the only insurance against disorder. On this occasion the crowd did not readily disentangle itself. The soldiers who had heard the order noticed that it was not obeyed, and two of them discharged their muskets. In the panic which ensued the cavalry and infantry charged the people and dispersed them. But the anger of the people had been roused, blood had been shed, bands of men from all parts of the city collected to continue the combat, and during the night to erect barricades. There was every prospect Reconciliation between King and People. 1 3 of a terrible battle on the 19th, when on the early morn- ing of that day the King, who had been greatly distressed at the occurrences, yielded to the advice pressed upon him and issued an order to withdraw the troops into the palace. The order was understood by those by whom it was received to mean withdrawal from the city, and this was done, the palace being left unprotected. The \ people now stood in the position of victors ; they used I their victory far more generously than did the Paris mob \ on the occasion I have referred to. Desirous only that the - King should witness the effect of the precipitate action of his soldiers, they had the bodies of the slain brought into the courtyard of the palace and their w^ounds laid bare. The King descended from the balcony and stood with uncovered head in the presence of the victims. His manner, sympathetic yet dignified, produced a deep effect. The same day he issued a political amnesty, to be ex- tended to all -classes, granted permission to carry arms, dismissed his reactionary ministry, and formed one from the ranks of the liberals. The people, on their s'de, attri- buted none of the mischance to their King. It was his / brother, afterwards the Emperor William I., to whom they, assigned the Tole of adviser against their interests, and that prince, conscious of his unpopularity, seized the oppor- tunity to depart for London. On the 2ist took place the formal reconciliation be- tween the King and the Berliners. The former, wearing the tricolour emblematic of German unity, rode, the head of a procession, through the streets, saluted by the crowd as Emperor of Germany, and talking platitudes regarding the duties imposed on all by a common danger. To him, an utter contemner of the authority of the people, the shouts which greeted him as Emperor were most distaste- ful. He endeavoured by signs to signify his disapproval, 1 4 King Williain ' turns ' His Difficulties. and declared repeatedly that he would not despoil the other princes of the Fatherland. However, on his return he published a manifesto in which, whilst declaring him- self ready to assume the leadership in the hour of peril, and announcing that thenceforth Prussia was merged in Germany, he told the people that the country could only be saved by the most intimate union of German princes and peoples under a single headship. But at this time neither his words nor his acts gave a true indication of his inner convictions. Talking confidentially to a deputy at a later period of his conduct on this very day, March 21, he described his famous ride through the city and its accompaniments as 'a comedy he had been made to play.' Though internal peace was restored, and the victory of the party of progress seemed assured, the King's position was still surrounded by difficulties. The principality of Neuchatel in Switzerland, which had come into the hands of the King of Prussia as heir to the House of Orange, seized the opportunity of the general convulsion to sever itself from its liege lord. The Prussian Poles, to whose demands for a national reorganisation the King had listened, were pressing their claims. At this moment of perplexity a request from the people of Schleswig- Holstein for assistance against the Danes came to him as a positive relief The subject may be treated very briefly. On the 2ist of March a deputation of Schleswig-Holsteiners had proceeded to Copenhagen to make demands affecting their national life, to which, as Germans, they were entitled. These were, the admission of Schleswig into the German Bund, a common constitution for Schleswig- Holstein, the freedom of the press, and the dismissal of their obnoxious Statthalter. The King of Denmark Important Movements in Germany. 1 5 refused these demands, whereupon the duchies con- summated (March 24) a bloodless revolution, dismissed their Statthalter, nominated in his stead a governing commission of five persons, summoned a common parlia- ment, and appealed to Berlin for support in the struggle which they knew to be inevitable. Frederic William IV. responded gladly to the appeal, and ordered Prussian troops to enter the duchies. These arrived just in time to prevent the collapse of the revolu- tionary movement. They proceeded to occupy the duchies, the Danes retaliating by employing their ships of war against the mercantile marine of Germany. Thus matters continued till the 26th of August, when Prussia and Denmark, — the latter refusing to admit to the de- liberations the representatives of the National Assembly of Frankfort — signed an armistice for seven months. It is time that I should advert to the proceedings at Frankfort, the outcome of the combined thought and action of the intellect of Germany. To those thinkers it had long been clear that the victorious issue of the struggle with Napoleon had not produced the results which had been hoped for. Napoleon had enslaved a great part of Germany because the Germans were disunited. After their release they remained almost as disunited as before. The yoke of Napoleon had been exchanged for the yoke of Metternich. Never had the freedom of thought and the freedom of the pen been more repressed than in the period from 1S15 to 1848. But now a chance had occurred : the chance of recovering all and more than all Germany had been hoping and secretly strug- gling for during the past thirty-three years. Instantly there was a movement. Communications passed from hand to hand, from centre to centre. Finally it was resolved that some 500 men, who had for the most part 1 6 The Fi^mkfoj't Assembly. taken a share in the discussions of the day, should meet at Frankfort, the central point between north and south, the seat of the Diet, and make there preparations for the assembling of a national parliament representative of the entire Fatherland. The 500 met, sat five days, framed resolutions for the election of members of the new parliament, and then began to quarrel. In a time of revolution there is always a party of extremists, and they were not wanting in the ante-parliament, as the assembly of the 500 was called. But they formed the minority, and after having been worsted in argument, and having risen in insurrection in Baden, they were defeated, and deported to America. Meanwhile the elections had taken place, and on the 1 8th of May the national constitutional assembly was opened. The main object of its members was to frame a constitution which should ensure the unity of Germany. Recalling the circumstances of the times, the state of chaos existing everywhere, the energies, often badly directed, which had been aroused, the terror of the princes, and the madness of the people, we can see that their task was almost impossible of accomplishment. Some hundreds of excellent gentlemen, all enthusiasts, many of them deep thinkers, all eager for the unity of the Fatherland, had met in solemn conclave to devise a scheme which, without the support of an army, they would enforce on States till then disunited and independent. Their best chance of success lay in the rapidity with which the scheme should be formulated and adopted. Failing that, they could hope for success only by enlisting in favour of their constitution one of the two great German powers, Austria or Prussia. But instead of acting with the celerity absolutely necessary to success, the philosophers and fanatics of the National Its Dilatory Proceedings. 1 7 Assembly threw away valuable time in searching for first principles, in debating theoretical objections, and in debating the Schleswig-Holstein question. The result was that by the time their constitution was ready Austria had reasserted her influence, and the enthu- siasm of the peoples had in great part evaporated. It is not necessary here to examine minutely the several phases through which the National Assembly of Frankfort passed in 1848-9. Meeting on May 18th, it was not until the 28th of June that it had defined its powers for dealing with foreign affairs. On the day following it nominated the Archduke John of Austria to be regent of the empire, the holder, until a permanent chief should be appointed, of the executive power. An order assuring to itself indirectly supreme power, issued by the Assembly on this occasion, and directed to be read to the troops garrisoned all over Germany, gave rise on the part of the rulers of different parts of the country to expressions of opinion which should have warned the makers of the constitution to hurry on. Frederic William of Prussia was especially indignant, and although a meeting with the Archduke John at Cologne stilled his animosity, he could not refrain from telling a deputation of the Assembly which waited upon him that it was as well they should not forget that ' in Germany there were princes, and he was one of them.' Still the Assembly did not expedite the framing of the constitution. Early in June the consideration of the Schleswig-Holstein question had diverted it from the one path it should have followed, and served only to demon- strate its impotence. To the severance of its various parties, to the insurrectionary risings in Baden and their repression (September 24), it is not necessary to refer except to note the time diverted thereby from the main B 1 8 // elects Frederic Williain Emperor. and pressing object. Nor is it desirable to do more than indicate the embroihuent with Austria caused by the proposition of that power that the entrance of the Aus- trian empire into any scheme of union would mean the entrance of the whole empire, with its nearly 40,000,000 of inhabitants, the majority non-German. It must suf- fice to state that it was not until March 27, 1849, that the Assembly resolved by 267 votes against 263 to make the dignity of the future German Emperor hereditary ; not till the 28th, that the constitution was read a second time, and that Frederic William IV. of Prussia was elected Emperor, 290 members voting for him, 248 ab- staining. Before we consider the reply made by Frederic William to the offer it is advisable to take a glance alike at the turn affairs had been taking in Prussia and to the position of Austria. We left Frederic William moment- arily relieved from his internal troubles by the outbreak of war with Denmark, a valve, he thought, for the super- abundant energies of the liberals. Shortly afterwards, May 22d, the constituent assembly met. It was com- posed of very mediocre men, the best heads in northern Germany having preferred seats in the Frankfort Assembly. It effected very little. For a time it could with difficulty repress the street riots which continued at intervals to rage. It rejected the constitution scheme put before it by the government as not sufficiently democratic. Thereupon the cabinet resigned (June 15), and ten days later a new ministry was constituted which styled itself a ' ministry of action.' At first it seemed to justify its title, but soon new complications arose which defied its capacity to unravel. At length the unlicensed demagogy of the streets paved the way by its excesses to a reaction. Gradually the party of order recovered courage, the army Position of Frederic William. 19 was staunch, and when, after many trials, the King had found the assembly impracticable, he suddenly appointed Count Brandenburg minister, prorogued the assembly (November 8), and ordered that it should meet at Bran- denburg. Meanwhile troops were concentrated round the capital, and a state of siege was proclaimed On December 5th, finding the assembly still bent on obstruc- tion, the King dissolved it, published a new constitution, and summoned a new parliament, composed of two chambers, to meet on February 26th. Such was the situation of Prussia during the later months of 1848 and the earlier days of 1849. The King meanwhile was watching with mingled feelings the action tending to the unity of Germany under the presidency of Prussia at Frankfort. Whether he should accept or refuse the offer which he felt sure would be made him was a question he debated long and seriously with him- self It can scarcely be doubted that in the earlier period of the consideration he was inclined to acceptance. This is evident from the fact that even at the last moment, when the imperial crown was actually offered, those about him believed that he would take it. But not only were his prejudices very strong, not only did he abhor the idea of accepting from inferiors that which he would have hailed if offered by men of his own caste, but the long delays of the Frankfort assembly, the indications of its waning authority, and, above all, the rapid revival of Austria, and the dictatorial tone she was assuming, set before his eyes every day more clearly the great diffi- culties to himself an acceptance would involve. But he wavered long. The smaller States of Germany had given evidence that the Frankfort plan would be acceptable to them. The King himself (Frederic William), in a circular note he addressed to the powers, seemed to favour it. 20 The Recovery of Atistria. But before the offer actually was made the action of Austria, under the guidance of Felix Schwarzenberg, came not only to increase the difficulties of the situa- tion but to efface as far as was possible all the records of the revolution. From that revolution Austria had suffered more than all the other German powers together. She had lost for the moment Italy and Hungary. Her capital, Vienna, was more than once in the hands of the revolutionary party. But she had recovered with a celerity which astonished Europe. The victory of Novara (March 23, 1849), followed by the peace of Milan (August 6), re- stored to her her Italian possessions. The energy of Prince Windischgratz had put down revolution in Prague and Vienna. From September 1848 to August 1849 she was engaged in a severe struggle with Hungary, to emerge from it, with the aid of Russia, given without stint, absolutely victorious. On the 2d of December 1848 the feeble Emperor Ferdinand had abdicated in favour of a nephew in the prime of early youth — he was but just nineteen — at Olmiitz in Moravia. With the new Emperor, Francis Joseph, or rather preceding him by a few days (November 22), came the famous minister who for a short time was to impose his will upon Ger- many, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg. The recovery of Italy, and the suppression of the national rising in Hungary, by invoking the aid of Russia, were the work of Felix Schwarzenberg. He assumed at once the high tone which would have be- fitted the ruler of a recuperated empire. His one aim for the moment was to abolish all disunion within his own empire, to restore to Austria in Germany the preponderance she had exercised between 181 5 and 1848, if possible to augment it. He set to work in a man- Atistria and the Frankfort Assembly. 2 1 ner which quickly assured temporary union within, and certain preponderance without, the borders of his coun- try. Had he Hved and retained his position there is no saying how far he might have rendered permanent the advantages he had gained, but he died (April 5, 1852) too early for his purpose. It is necessary to examine here how far his action affected the cause of German unity as that cause was progressing in 1849. When, in the early days of 1849, the majority of the National Assembly at Frankfort had made it abundantly clear that they contemplated the union of Germany as a federated State under the leadership of Prussia, to be followed by a union with Austria, Schwarzenberg pro- tested in the most positive manner against the subordina- tion of the Kaiser to a supreme power centred in any other German prince (February 1849). On the 5th of April following, for reasons presently to be mentioned, he recalled all the Austrian deputies from Frankfort. Meanwhile, in March, he had dissolved at Olmiitz the parliament which, during the prevalence of the revolu- tionary fever, had been summoned to meet at Kremsier, a town in Moravia, and the seat during the troubles in Vienna of the government; had set aside the constitu- tion it had drafted ; and had published an edict, known as the edict of Olmiitz, which professed to bestow upon die entire Austrian empire a uniform and centralised "constitution. This constitution, under the pretence of securing equal rights for all the subjects of the Kaiser, really established absolute government throughout his dominions, some of them still in a state of rebellion. It contained, indeed, clauses granting provincial insti- tutions to the German and Slav districts, but the powers of these were practically extremely limited. The action of Austria towards the National Assembly 2 2 Schwarzenberfr and Prussia cb in protesting against the subordination of the Kaiser to a central power vested in any other German prince had been indirectly supported by the four lesser kingdoms — Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Hanover ; for these had with one voice protested against any federation in which Austria was not included. Now, the Austria of Schwarzenberg would be included only on her own terms. She could make or mar. She could either, that is to say, impose terms, which, if accepted, would assure her a pre- dominance in Germany, or she would restore the old Diet in which, for thirty-three years, her preponderance had been unquestioned. In the same note then in which he protested against the subordination of Austria Schwarzenberg proposed the entry into the Germanic federation of the entire Austrian empire, including all its foreign elements. This announcement, followed a month later by the edict of Olmlitz, which merged into one mass the different nationalities which recognised the Kaiser, excited the greatest commotion at Frankfort, and hastened the action of the supporters of German unity under a Prussian king. It led directly to that election of the King of Prussia to the headship of the Father- land (March 28) of which I have written in a preceding page.i It must always be borne in mind, when considering the action of the King of Prussia with respect to the offer of the headship of federated Germany, that he was thoroughly cognisant of the policy of Austria, and knew well that acceptance on his part would almost certainly mean war. Now he was not prepared for war. The army of Prussia was not in a condition to enter upon a campaign with a first-class power. Neither could the King count upon the support of the Czar. Indeed Tare 18. Considerations affecting Prussia. 23 a little later, he had to learn that the sympathies of that powerful sovereign were entirely with Austria. He had besides, and had always had, a reverence for Austria. And although, in the early part of 1849, Austria had not retrieved her affairs in Italy, and her armies were still engaged in Hungary, yet no one doubted her speedy success in both quarters. That success achieved, she w^ould have at her disposal troops seasoned by warfare, and probably rendered enthusiastic by victory. But what weighed most of all, probably, with Frederic William was the fact that if he were to accept the offer he would accept it from an assembly founded by a revolution, and he would have thus to assert his rights, as champion of the revolution, against the supporters of the divine right in which he implicitly believed. Still the temptation to him was great ; and when, on the evening of the 2d of April, the members de- puted by the Frankfort assembly to offer the crown to the King arrived at Berlin, the minister, Count Brandenburg, received them with such cordiality that the impression was general that Frederic William had been won over. But the events of the following morning dispelled the impression. Whatever may have passed through his mind during the night, the dawn of day found Frederic William true to the traditions in which he had been nursed. He would not, he told the de- putation, accept the proffered crown unless he were summoned to take it by the princes of Germany, and unless, also, the constitution should be approved by the same princes. The answer amounted to an absolute refusal : as such it was intended : as such it was sorrow- fully accepted. The answer was indeed much more than a refusal. 2 4 Despotic Action of Frederic William. It was the deathblow to the . Frankfort Assembly : to that assembly of German patriots who had made a genuine and strenuous effort to heal the many wounds of the Fatherland, to remove all causes of discord, to anticipate, in a word, the work of 1866-71. For the answer of the King of Prussia was not only a rejection of the crown, it was virtually a rejection of the constitu- tion, the result of so many debates and so many com- promises. That part of his reply referring to the constitution supplied a keynote for all Germany, for Austria in particular. It was that reference which brought from Prince Schvvarzenberg the order of the 5th of April to the Austrian deputies of the National Assembly, to which I have alluded, to quit Frankfort. The ground he took was that the Assembly had been guilty of illegality in publishing the constitution. It became clear that Bavaria and Wurtemberg would act with Austria, and that neither Saxony nor Planover would side with the Assembly. Frederic William fol- lowed up his refusal by dismissing his recently sum- moned parliament for passing a resolution in favour of the Frankfort constitution, ^ This was a blow the significance of which could scarcely be overrated. When, in reply, the Frankfort Assembly addressed a note to all the disapproving Governments, demanding that they should abstain from dismissing or proroguing the re- presentative bodies within their dominions, in order thus to stifle the free utterance of opinions in favour of the constitution they had drawn up, the official press of Prussia denounced that Assembly as a revolu- tionary body. Thus denounced, the Assembly, the basis of moral ' The parliament also protested against the conlinuance of the state of siege in Beilin. End of the Frankfort Assembly. 25 power on which it had depended cut from beneath it. abandoned on all sides, had no choice but to succumb. Some of the most violent of the democratic spirits arranged a popular rising at Dresden (May 4). But five days later Prussian troops restored order in the Saxon capital. In Baden, despite the fact that the Grand Duke had accepted the constitution, and had issued summonses of election for the federal legislative body by which the Assembly was to be succeeded, insurrection broke out, the republic was .proclaimed, the troops joined the insurgents, and revolu- tionists from beyond the borders poured in to assist them. The situation was a test situation for the Frank- fort Assembly. Could it or could it not repress disorders the consequence of its own failure to ensure unity .-* It at least made the attempt. It called upon the regent of the empire it had appointed, the Archduke John, to put down the revolution in Baden, and to protect the expres- sion of free opinion regarding the constitution where that expression was threatened. The Archduke refused, and on the consequent resignation of his minister Von Gagern, he placed a set of nobodies in office. Prussia then, anxious to finish with the Assembly, declared that it regarded the resolution passed by it on the loth of May, calling upon the Archduke to employ all the forces of Germany in defence of the constitution as a summons to civil war, and ordered all the Prussian deputies to quit Frankfort. Saxony and Hanover followed her example, and a few days later. May 20th, sixty-five of the most re- spected of the deputies declared their conviction that under the actual circumstances the relinquishment of its task by the x^ssembly was the least of evils, and that their ^vork must be regarded as ended. Their example was gradually followed by all but the extreme radicals. These withdrew first to Stuttgart (June 6). But their 26 Austria and Prussia Face to Face. vagaries at that quiet capital roused against them the popular opinion, and on the i8th they were driven out and dispersed. The Baden revolutionists, to whom I have previously referred, made a longer stand, and a campaign of six weeks was necessary before the Prince of Prussia was able, after some reverses, to crush them. Such was the end of the great attempt made in 1848-9 to secure the federal union of Germany. It was a bold, a generous, a patriotic attempt. Resting solely on moral force, it could only succeed by enlisting on its behalf one of the two great powers which influenced respectively the country north of the Main and the ter- ritories south of that river. Had the King of Prussia been other than he was, had his nature partaken of the adventurous, and his will been strong and resolute, had, moreover, the Assembly been more intent on quickly forming its constitution than on fruitlessly debating the Schleswig-Holstein question; in a word, had it made to the King in the autumn of 1848 the offer it submitted to him in April 1849, it is just possible that the scheme might have been accepted. But the delay gave time to Austria, and the opposition of Austria was fatal. The King of Prussia could not have accepted the offer of April 1849 without having to meet Austria in the field. That was a contingency which — it will be seen later on — with an unprepared army, he dared not face. The failure of the P^rankfort Assenibly left Austria and Prussia practically face to face. The views of Frederic William and Prince Felix Schwarzenberg were essentially opposed. The former still desired, in the perfunctory manner habitual to him, to bring about some kind of German union, with Prussia at the head. The latter was determined to restore the state of affairs Secret Hopes of Frederic JVilHaiu. 27 which had existed prior to March 1848. He would resuscitate the Bund with its Diet ensuring the preponder- ance of Austria. It is advisable to devote a very short space to the discussion of the methods they severally pursued, and note the results which followed therefrom. The story is another illustration of the maxim that, in politics as in war, the boldest player almost in- variably chains victory to his car. The secret hopes of Frederic William IV. of Prussia to obtain, not from the Frankfort Assembly, now through his action dying or dead, but from the princes of northern and central Germany, a position which should more than counterbalance the influence of Austria, had been in- ducing him, in the earlier months of 1849, to set on foot secret negotiations to bring about that end. When, on the 3d of April, he had refused the proffered crown, he had announced his determination to place himself at the head of a federation of States voluntarily uniting them- selves to Prussia, under terms to be arranged ; and, very soon afterwards, he had addressed to the several govern- ments of Germany a circular, inviting such of them as might be disposed to attend a conference to be held at Berlin on the 17th of May. In the interval his govern- ment, by its reply to the resolution of the Frankfort Assembly of the loth of May, had dealt to that Assembly the blow from which it never rallied. To transfer to him- self, then, any moral power which up to that date might have been wielded by the Assembly as the promoter of German unity, and to calm the minds of the liberals at Breslau, Elberfeld, Dusseldorf, and other centres, the King, on the 1 5th, issued a proclamation to the Prussian people, declaring that despite the failure at Frankfort a German union was still to be formed. From the con- ference that he summoned, the smaller States, which had 2 8 Manceuvres of Prussia. given in their adhesion to the Frankfort constitution, at first held aloof, though subsequently twenty-eight of them sent in their adherence. To guage its real object, Austria sent a representative, but he retired at the close of the first sitting. The Bavarian agent followed his example. There remained, then, besides Prussia, the representatives of Hanover and Saxony. These three, proceeding to work, formed the confederation of the 26th of May, known as the ' League of the Three Kingdoms,' and which had for its object the forma- tion of a federal union for all the States of Germany willingly adhering thereto. An undertaking was given that a federal parliament should be summoned for this purpose. Meanwhile Frederic William despatched troops to put down the disturbances which, as previously noted, had broken out in Saxony and Baden, a military opera- tion which, in the case of the latter, occupied six weeks. The League of the Three Kingdoms gradually attracted to itself the smaller powers of Germany, but Austria, Bavaria, and Wlirtemberg would have nothing further to say to it. With Austria all that could be accomplished was to renew the agreement of the 30th of September previously, which provided that, until the permanent settlement of the affairs of Germany should be accomplished, a joint •commission should carry on the administration of the Bund. But, as the internal affairs of the Austrian em- pire righted themselves, the opposition of Prince Schwar- zenberg to the action taken by the King of Prussia became more strongly defined. The victory of Novara (March 23) had restored to Austria Northern Italy ; the surrender of Vilagos (August 13) gave her back Hungary. Thenceforward Schwarzenberg could reckon upon an army proved in war to support his policy. Accordingly he began to work with a purpose which there was no Insincerity of F7'ederic William. 29 mistaking. He first succeeded in detaching Saxony and Hanover from the Prussian league. Prussia, never- theless, though followed only by the twenty-eight minor States of Germany, pursued her plan, and held at Erfurt (March 20, 1850) a federal parliament for the consideration of a new system of federal union. A draft of a constitution, drawn up in Berlin, was submitted to it. But hardly had it been read when the insincerity of the King of Prussia became mani- fest. In the interval between June 1849 and March 1850 a great reaction had taken place in Prussia. The King had reconquered the power he had lost in March 1848, and he was entirely disposed to retract all the concessions he had made at the period when, to use his own words, he had been ' acting a comedy.' The very federal con- stitution he had had drawn up at Berlin whilst his fears held the ascendency had now become too liberal ; and, although the parliament he had summoned to Erfurt would have voted it en bloc, his supporters demanded that it should be revised. This proceeding excited the scorn and contempt of all the right-minded liberals of Germany. It was plain to them that Frederic William IV. of Prussia was a shuffler, whose word was not to be trusted, and from whom no scheme for the real union of Germany was to be expected. Meanwhile Austria, her hands now completely free, had been slowly working for the attainment of her aim, the restoration of the Bund of 181 5 to the position it had lost in 1848. The vacillations and want of faith of Frederic William greatly helped her. Already there sat in Frankfort thirteen representatives of States composing the Bund as an extraordinary Diet with full powers. This Diet was ready to act as Prince Schwarzenberg might desire. It possessed the fullest authority, for. 30 The Case of Hesse-Cassel. legally, it was the Bund, the representative of all Germany. A circumstance very soon arose which gave Schwarzenburg the opportunity of exercising its powers with decisive effect against Prussia. Frederic William I., Elector of Hesse-Cassel, born in 1802, had become, September 30, 1831, by the virtual abdication of his father, ruler of the electorate when still in his twenty-ninth jear. A despot at heart, the young prince had begun by administering the electorate under constitutional forms which he was always endeav- ouring to evade. The death of his father, November 20, 1847, made him ruler in name as well as in fact. Not foreseeing the coming storm, he then made an attempt to suppress the constitution, which he detested, but when the crisis came his army failed him, and he was baffled. Close upon that rebuff broke out the revolution of February 1848, and the popular enthusiasm it caused made itself felt in every town and district of the electorate. The Elector bowed before the storm, and, deserted on the night of the 5th of March by his unpopular minister, Scheffer, promised the reforms immediately asked for (March 7). Pressed still further, he gave way on all points, formed a new ministry composed of liberals, and summoned the estates for the 13th of March. They met on that date, and passed laws which removed grievances long passively endured. A new era of happiness seemed to dawn for the people of Hesse-Cassel. They sent deputies to the Frankfort Assembly, and on its dissolu- tion the electorate adhered to the league formed by Prussia and known as the League of the Three Kings. A fresh parliament, elected in July 1849, endorsed this policy. But by this time it had, become clear to the rulers, who had divested themselves of absolutism, that the Divergent Policies of Austria and Prussia. 31 enthusiasm of March 1848 had waned considerably, and that the zeal for reform was abatini^. We have already noticed how this consideration affected the action of Frederic William IV. of Prussia. It acted similarly on the mind of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel. This prince, who had been waiting his opportunity, resolved now to strike a blow for the recovery of his lost authority. To attain this end he entered into secret negotiations with Austria; dismissed, February 22, 1850, his liberal, ministry, when he found the change he suggested unacceptable to his parliament ; dissolved the latter without warning (June 12); and despatched his unpopular minister, Hassenpflug, to represent Hesse-Cassel at the Diet then sitting at Frankfort. He then proceeded to undo all that had been accomplished in the way of liberal reform in the period between March 1848 and the actual date, and he persisted in this course despite the refusal of his troops to coerce the people, and the opposition of the constituted authorities within the electorate. Meanwhile the action of Hassenpflug at the Diet brought to boiling point the differences between Austria and Prussia. The Hesse minister, backed by Austria and her allies, had persuaded the Diet to pass a resolu- tion (September 17) pledging itself to use all its efforts to maintain the threatened authority of the Elector within his dominions. But Prussia had morally pledged herself to the support of the constitutional rights of the people of the electorate, and she could not, without abandoning her claim to the leadership of German union, forsake her confederates in their extremity. She began by issuing a diplomatic circular to the effect that an irregular body which called itself the Diet had no right whatever to interfere in the affairs of the electorate. The King followed up this declaration by directing 32 Sckwarzenberg' s Opportunity. Prussian troops to enter Hesse. They did enter the country, and occupied the important posts of Cassel and Fulda. This was the opportunity for which Prince Schwarzen- berg had been longing, to reobtain for Austria her preponderance in Germany. Acting with Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, he upheld the authority of the Diet against the strictures of Prussia, and gave orders to an Austro- Bavarian army corps to march into Hesse from the east. It appeared impossible, if both the contending parties should adhere to their published declarations, that a conflict between the north and south could be avoided. But just at this critical moment the Czar Nicholas, whose delight it was to pose as the arbiter of continental Europe, and who had but recently crushed Hungary at the urgent prayer of Austria, came to Warsaw. There he was met (October 29) by the Emperor of Austria and the brother of the King of Prussia. There also were Schwarzenberg for Austria and Count Brandenburg repre- senting Prussia. The differences between the two great German powers were considered in detail by the Czar, and on all points he decided in favour of Austria. Indeed the reception he gave to the Prussian minister, Count Brandenburg, was so galling that that true-hearted man returned to Berlin only to submit his report and to die. To a mind constituted as was that of the King of Prussia the opinions expressed by a potentate whom he had been taught to revere, and whom the history of the past forty years had identified so closely with his family and his country, came as an order from heaven. He had still able and patriotic men by his side. Promi- nent among these was his minister, General Radowitz, who urged him at this crisis to be true to Prussia and to his principles. But, on the other side, was Manteuffe Trmmpk of Austria. 33 whispering in his ear that the Prussian army was in such a condition that it could not possibly resist the hardy and well-tried soldiers of Austria, and that the consequences of defeat might be far - reaching. This information was not reassuring, but it was the dictum of the Czar that settled the question. At a council held at Berlin on the 2d of November the King decided to submit. Radowitz resigned. Manteuffel succeeded him. Prussia abandoned the lead she had assumed, and accepted, to hold it for sixteen years, the second position in Germany. Prince Schwarzenberg was thus triumphant. The army corps of which I have spoken entered Hesse (November i), occupied Hanau, and marching west- wards, had a slight brush with the Prussian troops at Bronzell near Fulda. On the 9th he categorically demanded the dissolution of the Prussian union, the recognition of the Diet, and the evacuation of Hesse. Manteuffel conceded the first point. Whilst he was hesitating regarding the other two Schwarzenberg sent the order to the Austro-Bavarian army corps to advance, and demanded that Prussian troops should evacuate the electorate within four-and -twenty hours. Upon this Manteuffel begged for an interview, and, not waiting for an answer, started for Olmiitz. There he had to give way on all points. He agreed, in the name of Prussia, to withdraw all her troops, one battalion ex- cepted, from Hesse, and practically to recognise the Bund. He resigned, in fact, all that Prussia and her king had intrigued for persistently ever since they had recovered from the terror caused by the outbreak of 1848. The triumph of Prince Schwarzenberg was, it cannot be denied, the triumph of reaction. Not only was the C 34 Temporary Ejfacement of Prussia. Bund reconstituted on the principles on which it had been founded in 1815, but Austria herself, by decrees of August 185 1 and January 1852, still further restricted the liberties of her people. In Prussia the restrictions imposed by the constitution of January 31, 1850, existed indeed, but did not prevent a near approach to absolutism. In most of the other German States, more especially in Hesse, the reaction exhibited an impatient and unsparing activity. In Schlesvvig-Holstein the retrograde action of Germany was even more pronounced. Austria and Prussia virtually accepted terms dictated by Denmark, which secured to the latter power supreme authority in the two duchies. In a conference held in London the right of inheritance to the duchies was secured, after the death of the reigning king, to the line of Gllicksburg. To this the two larger German powers also agreed. Finally, the German fleet, the object of so much enthu- siasm, was offered up to the reactionary spirit. After long deliberations it was resolved to break it up. Prussia bought some of the larger vessels, the others were sold by auction to the highest bidder. But if the dreams of unity which inspired all hearts on the morrow of the revolution of 1848 were thus cruelly dissipated ; if the one power to which every thoughtful German had turned with hope and expectation in 1848 had renounced the aspirations which had fitfully inspired it in the early days of the revolution ; if the years 185 1 and 1852 witnessed the re-welding of that central authority which secured for Austria the first, and relegated Prussia to the second place in the German hierarchy ; if the cause of union seemed dead, not to be resuscitated except by a general convulsion, there were yet some shrewd men who, remembering the story of the mouse and the lion, worked quietly and unostentatiously Causes Working for Her Futiwe. 35 to prepare the ground for a new opportunity. These men were Prussians, working under the despotism of Frederic Wilh'am IV., and under the timid and reactionary ministry of Manteuffel. It is to the consideration of their operations that we must now turn, for, in the presence of accomph'shed facts, it has to be admitted that the ZOLLVEREIN, the NEEDLE-GUN, and, a little later, THE REORGANISATION OF HER MILITARY SYSTEM, were the factors which enabled Prussia to become pre- dominant in Germany in 1866, absolutely supreme in 18/L CHAPTER II. TRUSSIA FROM 1 852 TO 1 857. Under the ministry of Manteufifel Prussia retrograded to a system more despotic than that which had obtained prior to the revolution of 1848. She had had her chance and had thrown it away. The period of alternate fears and hopes had culminated in the capitulation of Olmiitz, a capitulation made by the very man whom the King, Frederic William IV., delighted to honour, and to whom he now entrusted the administration of the country. All the measures of Manteufifel were tainted by the moral disgrace engendered by that capitulation. They were, in external affairs, petty, irritating, poor in conception, showing that their author had not realised the nature of the policy which had made Prussia great, and which alone could keep her great. Manteuffel's one aim appeared to be to keep Prussia out of sight, to yield with a good grace, to avoid all responsibility, to submit to moral efifaccment. Had the powerful Austrian statesman who had brought about the capitulation of Olmiitz lived but a few years longer it is probable that Prussia during the period of which I am writing would have reached even a lower point of degradation. Felix Schwarzenberg had made no secret of the aim of his German policy. He had resolved to undo the work of Frederic II, He would first humiliate Prussia, and then destroy her. How effectuallv he had humiliated her the records of the con- The Zollvereiii. 2>7 vention of the 29th of November 1850 clearly prove. But in April 1852 a stroke of apoplexy removed Felix Schvvarzenberg from the scene. His sucessors, fortun- ately for Prussia, were men of inferior mental calibre. For some time, however, the shadow of his presence seemed to hover round the council chamber of the King of Prussia and his ministers, and to impel them to the policy of self-effacement which I have endeavoured to describe. But whilst the King of Prussia and his minister were thus degrading Prussia externally, an internal process was going on, the development of the work of preceding statesmen, which was destined to bear abundant fruit. I find the early stages of this process so admirably and concisely described by Mr Fyffe in his history of modern Europe ^ that I venture to quote the passage. Writing of the internal administration of Prussia between 1828 and 1836 Mr Fyffe says : ' Under a wise and enlightened financial policy the country was becoming visibly richer. Obstacles to commercial intercourse were removed ; com- munications opened ; and finally, by a series of treaties with the neighbouring German States, the foundations were laid for that customs union which, under the name of the Zollverein, ultimately embraced almost the whole of non-Austrian Germany. As one principality after another attached itself to the Prussian system, the products of the various regions of Germany, hitherto blocked by the frontier dues of each petty State, moved freely through the land, while the costs attending the taxation of foreign imports, now concentrated upon the external line of frontier, were enormously diminished. Patient, sagacious, and even liberal in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours, Prussia silently connected ^ Fyffe's Moaern Europe, \"ol. II. page 4C6. 38 Growth of the Zo liver ein. with itself, through the ties of financial union, States which had hitherto looked to Austria as their natural head. The semblance of political union was carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were neverthe- less present in the growing community of material interests.' The extension of the Zollverein was steadily pushed on after the period of which Mr Fyffe writes, and in 1837, 1 84 1, 1843, 1844, and 1845 various petty States joined it. After the revolution of 1848, when matters had re- turned in the manner described into the old grooves, Austria made an attempt to creep into the system. The manner in which her action in this respect was baffled proves that there were men in Prussia fully cognisant of the immense advantages which would accrue to their country by the exclusion from the Zollverein of the purely Austrian element. It happened in this way. In November 1851 Prussia had announced to the members of the Zollverein that, at a conference which had been summoned to meet at Berlin in the spring of 1852, she intended to bring forward proposals for strength- ening and enlarging its basis and its scope of action. Meanwhile the minister for commerce and public works at Vienna, Charles Louis von Brlick, a native of Elberfeld, and therefore by birth a Prussian, had convinced Prince Schwarzcnberg of the necessity of altering the prohibitive system then existing in the dominions of the Kaiser, and of proposing to the other States of Germany a closer commercial connection. Flushed with this idea, Schwar- zenberg summoned a Zoll-Congress to meet at Vienna in January 1852. In this congress the majority of the members of the Zollverein, Prussia, Hanover, and some smaller States excepted, took part. These unanimously agreed to advocate the acceptance of the Austrian pro- Attempts of Austria to enter it. 39 posals, securing to Austria a footing in the Zollverein, at the meeting of the members of the latter to be held at Berlin on the 19th of April following. At a pre- liminary meeting at Darmstadt, on the 6th of April, Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtemberg, both the provinces of Hesse, Baden, and Nassau, known in the history of the period as ' The Darmstadt Coalition,' bound themselves to make a special point of this admission. But at the Berlin conference Prussia, without openly opposing it, managed to get the scheme virtually shelved. Her re- presentatives met the proposal of the Darmstadt coalition by a motion that the consideration of that proposal should be deferred until the conference should have pronounced an opinion on the plans they had submitted for the reconstruction of the bases of the Zollverein itself After many discussions, all of which proved fruit- less, the Zoll conference was adjourned for a month (July 20). In the interval the Darmstadt coalition met again at Stuttgart, and, when the conference reassembled at Berlin on the 21st of August, announced that they were willing to accept, on certain conditions, the scheme which Prussia had proposed. They insisted, however, that coincidently with the ratification of the Prussian scheme a customs union and commercial treaty should be signed with Austria. Prussia, supported by Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenberg, and Thuringia, agreed to sign such a treaty, but only after the Zollverein should have been recon- stituted. On this the conference was again adjourned, and the Darmstadt coalition held in September a meet- ing at Munich. Further negotiations made clear the secret purpose of Prussia not to allow Austria to enter the Zollverein. Possessing no longer the guiding hand and resolute will of Felix Schwarzenberg, Austria, after an interval, agreed to a compromise, by which she made 40 Austria is baffled. a treaty with Prussia (February 19, 1853) securing for her products a more moderate scale of import, ex- port, and transit duties, the terms, in fact, granted to the ' most favoured nation.' The duration of the treaty was to be twelve years. In i860 committees were to meet to discuss the possibility of a customs union, or, in case this should be pronounced impracticable, of a further mutual lowering of the scale of duties. Thus by masterly adherence to her main idea — the exclusion of Austria from the Zollverein — Prussia maintained dur- ing those years of waiting the enormous advantage of union of interests with the German principalities outside of Austria. Her policy in this respect was one great factor in the cementing of the union of hearts which followed the events of 1866. Another factor, which preceded and had a large in- fluence in producing those events, was the introduction into the Prussian army of the needle-gun. During the thirty-five years which had followed the peace of 1 8 1 5 the several nations of Europe had shown a great disinclina- tion to effect improvements in their armies. This dis- inclination had been manifested especially in England. The first Duke of Wellington, whose influence on this point was all-commanding, had set his face against the attempting any large change in the weapons which had won for him his great battles. He would agree to the replacement of the flint lock by the percussion cap, but nothing beyond that. The same line had been taken by the historian of the Peninsular war, the late Sir William Napier. By both of these the old musket known as ' Brown Bess ' was extolled as the ' Queen of weapons ' for the infantry soldier. Led by these high authorities, the nation adopted the same idea. Unsparing ridicule was cast upon inventors. When in 1850-2 a gentleman The Needle-Gun. 41 named Warner produced a gun capable of covering a range far in excess of that attained by the artillery guns of the period the ministry of the day laughed at him as a crack-brained enthusiast, and refused point-blank to sanction the trial he asked for. Thus no change in the arming of the soldier was then possible in England. Stranger still was the fact that a similar dislike to ex- amining existing methods had likewise taken hold of France, though she had but just recognised as her Emperor a man who had not only served in the artillery but had written a book on the subject, advocating certain reforms. In Austria, in Russia, and in all the other countries of Europe save one the same fatuous content- ment with the actual arming of the soldier prevailed. In the opinions of all, the weapons which had freed con- tinental Europe in 181 5 were good enough for their day. But, as I have indicated, to this reasoning there was one exception. That exception was Prussia. It happened in this wise. John Nicolas Drcyse, born at Sommerda in Saxony in 1787, the son of a master locksmith, had been gifted by nature with a remarkable faculty for working in iron. At the age of nineteen he followed his father's profession at Altenburg and Dresden. There he showed so much capacity that in 1809 he migrated to Paris, then the place in Europe for the development of genius. There Dreyse succeeded in obtaining employment in the small arms manufactory of Pauli, under the immediate patronage of Napoleon. In that manufactory he com- pletely mastered the technicalities of the trade, and suggested many improvements in the process then adopted. After the collapse of 1814 he returned to his native place, Sommerda, and established there an iron manufactory, under the name of Dreyse & Kronbicgel. 42 The Necdle-Gtin. In course of time the firm was entrusted with the replace- ment in the muskets for the army of the flint lock by the percussion cap. Whilst Dreyse was engaged in this work the idea came to him that he could improve on the per- cussion cap, and in 1827 he produced a weapon the cartridge of which, though still inserted at the muzzle, was ignited by a small steel rod or needle pressed through it by the hammer. This weapon he called the 'needle- gun ' (Zundnadelgewehr). He greatly interested the government in his invention, but recognising that it was not }'et perfect, he insisted on continuing to labour for its improvement, until in 1836 he produced a weapon which loaded from the breach, the cartridge being still ignited by the action of the needle. The government tried the weapon very severely at Spandau and Llibben, and then accepted it. They resolved to keep the inven- tion a secret, and served out the needle-guns only to the fusilier battalions. But the storming of the Berlin arsenal by the mob in 1848 disclosed the existence of a very large supply of muskets of the new pattern. The reason for secrecy existing no longer, the weapon was gradually served out to the entire army, first to the light infantry, and then, as the men could be instructed, to the other regiments. A trial on a small scale of its efficiency in action was made when the Prince of Prussia led an army corps to put down the Baden insurgents in 185 1-2. The prince, afterwards King William I. of Prussia, and later the first German Emperor, saw enough of it during this campaign of six weeks to realise that Prussia pos- .sessed a weapon in all respects superior to the weapons of every other nation in Europe, and under his influence the distribution of it to the remainder of the army was pushed on with the greatest rapidity. In the Austrian war of 1866 it was this weapon which largely assisted in giving success Reactionary Internal Policy of Prussia. 43 to the policy of the daring statesmen who risked all on the endeavour to place Prussia at the head of Germany. Rightly therefore may the needle-gun be regarded as a factor in the realisation of that cheiished dream. But during the years in which Prussia was engaged, unostentatiously and with what secrecy was possible, in preparing herself for a contest which was ever looming in the future, she was, by her reactionary policy within, turning against the government the hearts of her own people, and by her self-effacing external policy earning the contempt of Europe. The King, gloomy, mystical, unsympathetic towards the new ideas, was sinking daily into the hands of the absolutist party. His minister of public worship and public education, Raumer, and his minister of the interior, Westphalen, tormented the people by the restrictions they introduced into the ad- ministrations over which they severally presided. The system they adopted was one of continuous irritation. Spies were encouraged, denunciations were rewarded, public utterances were forbidden. The members of the party which had been dominant in 1848-9 were watched, tracked and on the most insignificant pretences thrown into prison. The writer recollects well how at the time he asked a professor in Westphalia who had taken a lead in the revolutionary events of 1848, and whose every movement was watched in the period between 1852 and 1866, how it would all end, and received the reply, given in a whisper, and in a tone as though the speaker really believed that walls had ears, ^ in ei^ier Revolution!^ And it might have so ended but for the victories of 1866. The foreign policy directed by Manteuffel, soured by the surrender of Olmlitz, was as humiliating to its author as it was degrading to Prussia. Otto Thcodor, Freiherr von ' ' In a revolution.' 44 Manteuffefs Foreigit Policy. Manteuffel, born in 1805, had been an absolutist through- out his career. In the united Prussian chambers, in 1847, and again, on the morrow of the revolution in April 1848, he had spoken strongly against the principle of constitu- tionalism. The manner in which, during the reaction ■which followed 1848, the advantages gained by the people were gradually filched from them had only strengthened his convictions. He had succeeded Count Brandenburg as minister for foreign affairs, and in December 1850 pre- pared to gain peace for Prussia at any price so that he might inaugurate a policy of repression within. As min- ister-president (December 19) and minister for foreign affairs he had, during eight years (from the 4th of De- cember 1850 to the 9th of November 1858), all the means in his hand for oppressing his country within, and for humiliating her without, and he thoroughly succeeded in doing both. To explain the details of his internal administration — to show how the popular rights gained in 1848 were swept away ; how the abuses which had been then swept away were restored ; how the education of the people was as far as possible restricted, and the press taught to subserve or be silent — would be beyond the scope of this work. It is mainly with the foreign policy of Manteuffel that we have to deal : to observe how his action during the crisis of the Crimean war affected the position of his country. When in April 1853 the Czar Nicholas despatched Prince Mcnschikoff to Constantinople to make demands to which it was impossible for the Sultan to agree with- out yielding the independence of his country, and Turkey appealed from the dictates of the Czar to the public opinion of Europe, the King of Prussia proposed a plan the acceptance of whi:h by the Powers and the Porte Prussia during the Crimean War. 45 might possibly, although certainly not probably, have prevented hostilities. The demands of Russia had in- cluded the conceding to the Czar of the protectorship of the rights of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. It is obvious that such a concession would have estab- lished an ' iiuperium in imperio ' throughout Turkey ; that the influence of the Sultan would have waned before that of the Czar ; and that the way would have been paved for the gradual obliteration of all the rights of the former. Amid many suggestions for a middle way there came one from Frederic William IV. of Prussia. This was to the effect that the transfer of the rights over the Christian subjects of the Sultan should be con- ceeded, not to the Czar, but to the five great powers, that is, that the powers should guarantee and protect the rights of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. Logic- ally there was no difference in principle between the proposal of the Czar and that of the Prussian king. Under both the rights of the subjects of the Sultan would be placed under foreign subjection. It was not a proposition which a sovereign with any self-respect or regard to his own dignify and the maintainance of his supreme authority dare accept. So it seemed to the English ambassador at the Porte, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and he advised the Sultan, who with his ministers fully shared Lord Stratford's views, to reject the proposal. It was rejected accordingly. It will suffice if I simply record here the events which immediately followed. The Sultan, confiding in the support of the two great western powers, refused the conditions sought to be imposed upon him by the Czar. Upon this Prince Menschikoff quitted Constantinople (May 21). Thereupon the Sultan, to prove the sincerity of the concessions he had already made with respect to 46 The Crimean War. his Christian subjects, pubHshed a ' hatt-i-sharif ' (imperial edict) in which he confirmed to the Christians all their rights and privileges, and appealed to his allies to support him against the unjust aggression of Russia. Then followed a conference at Vienna of the representatives of England, France, Austria, and Prussia. These agreed on the nth of July to a collective note, which on the loth of August following was accepted by the Czar. But as this note virtually conceded all that the Czar had asked for it was natural that the Sultan should object to it. He did object unless it should be partly modified, and the allies showed their appreciation of his reasons for so acting by supporting him in his demand for such modifications. On the 7th of September the Czar re- jected the modifications proposed, and maintained his troops, who had crossed the Pruth on the 2d of July, in Moldavia. Thereupon the Sultan, with the consent of the national council, declared war against Russia (October 5). On the 2d of November the English and French fleets entered the Bosphorus and — after the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope (November 30) — the Black sea (January 4, 1S54). After many attempts at negotiation the Vienna conferences closed (January 16). England and France sent to the Czar an ultimatum, which he left unanswered (February 27) ; Turkey en- tered into an alliance with those powers to oppose, by force of arms, the demands of the Czar (March 12), and on the 27th and 28th following they declared war against Russia. During the negotiations which had preceded that declaration Frederic William IV. had displayed a re- solution, based upon the strangest grounds, not only to keep Prussia out of the war, but to avoid as far as possible taking any active part in the attempts made Self-effacement of Prussia. 47 to stave off hostilities. He had made one proposal, that mentioned in a preceding page ; and he had permitted his ambassador to take part in the conference at Vienna. He had, moreover, corresponded directly with the Queen of England and, through the ordinary channel, with the English Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. His objec- tions to the war were manifold. It was ' a war for an idea ' ; it was a war ' which did not concern the indus- trious Rhinelanders and the husbandmen of Riesengebirg and Bernstein ' ; it was a war which had brought about an alliance which had filled him with disgust,' the alliance of England and Napoleon HI.; he would take no part in it unless England would guarantee him against being attacked by 'that adventurer'; it was a war which, undertaken to support ' Islam against Christians,' would draw upon those who should take part in it ' God's avenging judgment,' and the baffling of all their hopes ; it was a war undertaken against a sovereign whom he had found an acceptable neighbour ; who, he knew, was ' ardently desirous of peace,' and who only desired an excuse to accept terms. ' I know,' he wrote to the Queen, ' that the Russian Emperor is ardently desirous of peace. Let your Majesty build a bridge for the principle of his life — the Imperial honour. He will walk over it, extolling God and praising Him. For this I pledge myself.' ^ In the spirit in which the words above quoted were written Frederic William IV. conducted the foreign policy of Prussia throughout the Crimean war. The drift of that policy may be summed up in a single sentence. It was a policy of isolation. It was a policy which deprived Prussia of all influence in the councils ' See Martin's Life of the Prime Consort, Vol. III. pages 41 and onwards ; and Fyffe's Modern Europe, Vol. III. page 202 and note. 48 Melancholy Position of Pmssia. of Europe. Whilst England and France were battling with the great eastern Colossus ; whilst Austria occupied, in sympathetic alliance with the western powers, the Danu- bian principalities; whilst Italy, represented by the House of Savoy, aided those powers with an army ; Prussia, guided by her sovereign, stood selfishly aloof. It is not surprising that when the war was approaching its termina- tion, and a Conference of the Powers met at Paris (February 26, 1856) to negotiate for peace, Prussia, though nominally one of the great powers, was excluded from the initiatory stages of the discussion. She was not admitted until the first articles of the draft treaty had been settled, and then only because it had become necessary to revise the treaties of 1841, of which she had been one of the signatories. Never, since the days of Jena and the six years which followed Jena, had Prussia sunk so low in the estimation of the world. Who could have foreseen, who would have ventured to prophesy at that period of her humiliation that, only ten years later, she would not only regain, and more than regain, her influence in Europe as a great power, but would obtain a position in Germany assuring her a predominance more real, more certain, more decisive than that which might have been gained had Frederic William accepted the offer made to him by the National Assembly of Frankfort in April 1849? CHAPTER II I< THE REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA — THE I'ERIOD OF AWAKENING. The peace of Paris, concluding the Crimean war, was signed on the 30th of March 1856. On the 23d of Octo- ber the following year, Frederic William IV. of Prussia ceased to rule. He had long suffered from a cerebral dis- order, and the increase of this compelled him, on the date I have mentioned, to withdraw, temporarily it was thought, into seclusion. As he had no children, the exe- cutive power devolved for the moment on the Prince of Prussia, not immediately as Regent, but as Stellvertrcter, or substitute. The name of this prince has been men- tioned more than once in these pages. But, as he will occupy a very prominent position in those which are to follow, it seems desirable to give a short sketch of his career prior to his acceptance of the office which the ill- ness of the King placed in his hands. The second son of King Frederic William III., Prince William of Prussia was born at Berlin the 22d of March 1797. On the 1st of January 1807, the period when his country was in the deadly grasp of Napoleon, he received his first commission in the army. Nominated captain in October 18 13, he accompanied his father throughout the campaign of 18 14, won the Iron Cross at Bar-sur-Aube (February 26), and entered Paris with the Prussian army. After a short visit to P^ngland with D 50 King William I. of Prussia. the allied sovereigns he returned to be appointed major in a battalion of the Guards, and set out to join the army on the frontiers of Belgium. He was too late for Waterloo, but he again entered Paris with the army. On his return to Berlin he devoted himself very earnestly to his profession, mastered all its technicalities, and in 1825 was promoted ta be lieutenant-general and command- ant of the Guards. Four years later he married the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar. The death of his father in 1840 made him heir-presumptive to the Prussian throne. As such he took the title of Prince of Prussia, and became Statthalter of Pomerania and general of infantry. In the first throes of the outbreak of March 1848 in Berlin the Prince of Prussia strongly urged upon his brother the necessity of putting down the revolt with a strong hand before making concessions to the armed mob. Suppress the disturbances, he said in so many words, then redress real grievances, and loyally carry out the promises you may make. His advice was not followed, but the people associated his name with the advocacy of repressive measures, and he became so unpopular that the King and his ministers urged him to retire for a time. He proceeded, therefore, for the second time to London, and there associating with the first men of the day, with the Prince Consort, with Peel, Russell, Palmerston, and Bunsen, he rapidly made up his mind as to the course which Prussia ought to pursue in the crisis through which she was passing. He did not believe in the ultimate success of the endeavours then being made to constitute a united Germany ; but he formed a very just idea as to the position which Prussia should prepare herself to take in the Fatherland. Returning to Berlin, he made a speech in the National King William I. of Prussia. 51 Assembly (June 8) in which he declared himself a sup- porter of constitutional government. The same day he was nominated to the command of the Prussian army corps which was to put down insurrection in Baden and the Palatinate. A campaign of six weeks, during which he enjoyed many opportunities of testing the needle-gun, saw the complete collapse of the rebellion. Returning to Berlin, and appointed Governor of the Rhenish provinces and Westphalia, he witnessed with a bitter pang the action of his brother in the Hesse question, culminating in the surrender of Olmlitz, Thenceforth, and during the ministry of the author of that surrender, he took no part in politics. Being an outspoken man, however, he lost no opportunit}' of expressing his opinion regarding Manteuffel and his policy, and these utterances, everywhere repeated, gained for him a large amount of popularity, and caused the leaders of the liberal party to sigh for the time when power should fall into the hands of a man so honest, so capable, and disposed to act so fairly towards the people. What this man was, thus suddenly called to the highest office in the State, can be but dimly imagined from the slight sketch I have given. But to that something has to be added. The Prince of Prussia was a real soldier. He had given himself to the study of army organisation. He knew the deficiencies of the Prussian army, and he had stored in his mind the plans which were to repair them. He was essentially a sober-minded man. Partaking to a certain extent of the caste prejudices of his elder brother, he would yet, in cases of emergency, allow himself, though with great difficulty, when pressed by men in whom he had absolute confidence, to forego them. He was a marvellous judge of a man. On this crucial point, for a ruler, his judgment 52 King William I. of Prussia. was never once at fault. When, moreover, he had found the man, and had proved him, he gave him his entire confidence. Yet so honest was his nature that even his most trusted counsellors knew that there was a point beyond which he could not be persuaded. In such a case, when they considered the concession they re- quired absolutely essential to the success of their policy, they did not hesitate deliberately to deceive him. And this indicates one weak point of his character. He was so true himself, and therefore so trusting, that a statement regarding which he would have made inquiries if uttered by an ordinary adviser was accepted by him unreservedly, and without the smallest doubt as to its accuracy, when tendered by one of his inner counsellors. A remarkable instance of this occurred immediately before the breaking out of the war of 1870. His bearing was ever manly and frank and his bonhomie and knowledge of the world endeared him to all about him. Such was the man. His first acts, after attaining power, seemed to justify the hopes which hailed his suc- cession. For Mantcuffel he entertained a dislike strongly tempered with contempt. The petty tyrannies of the minister in matters internal, and his cringing, lifeless policy in matters external, had combined to produce this feeling. Whilst still only Stellvertreter, or Deputy for the King, whose recovery was not then despaired of, that is, from the 23d of October 1857 to the 7th of October 1858, he felt bound in conscience, as simply his brother's temporary representative, to maintain in office that minister and his colleagues. How bitter the necessity was may be judged from the fact that his first act on being nominated Regent (7th October 1858) was to re- move them. It is difficult to describe the popularity of this measure. The writer, who happened then to be at Good Effect of His Early Measures. 53 Dlisseldorf, cannot forget the enthusiasm displayed aHke by officers of the army and the people. Nor was that popularity diminished when the names of the new ministers were known. Chief of them was Prince Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, the head of the Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns, a Catholic, and possessed of a lofty nature. His colleagues belonged to the moderate liberal party : the foreign affairs being in the hands of Von Schleinitz. and those of the interior entrusted to Count Schwerin-Putzar. On the 8th of November the Regent addressed to the new ministry a few remarks which were accepted as his programme. He was, he said, in favour of a moderate constitutional government; declared that the highest duty of Prussia was to support and maintain the interests of Germany ; and insisted that, for Prussia, the most absolute necessity was the organisation of a powerful army. The country responded to these words by returning a ministerial majority to the parliament (January 12, 1859). But before that parliament had met the question of Italy had begun, on the initiative of Napoleon HI., to engross the attention of Europe. That sovereign had entered into an agreement with Count Cavour, the prime minister of the King of Sardinia, whereby the latter should renew the quarrel with Austria, with the view to expel her from Italy and to absorb her possessions there — France assisting her with all her strength, and re- ceiving, at the successful close of the war, the districts of Savoy and Nice as her share of the spoil. The engage- ment was a secret one, but as the action of the French Emperor developed itself very shrewd guesses were made as to its tendency. I have now to examine how the Italian question was regarded by the Regent of Prussia and his people. 54 King William takes Measures The fact that the Austrian Empire included many provinces which were non-German deprived her, in Ger- man opinion, of all claim to the armed assistance of Ger- many in the event of one or more of those provinces, and those provinces only, being assailed. This also was the opinion of the Prince Regent. But as the victory of the allies over Austria in Italy might possibly draw after it an attack upon German territory — an attack which could not be permitted with impunity — the Regent declared that it was necessary for Prussia to prepare for any eventuality. On the 20th of April, therefore, he caused the mobilisation of three army corps. The same month he received in Berlin the Archduke Albert of Austria. This prince had come to beg that Prussia would guarantee to Austria her Italian possessions, and by placing a large army on the Rhine, in an attitude threatening to France, would prevent that power from rendering to Sardinia efficient assistance. This request the Regent was compelled to refuse ; but, to ascertain clearly the political aims of Austria, he despatched General Willisen to Vienna. In his journey thither Willisen ascertained that entire southern Germany was prepared to stand by and support Austria, and that, as far as Austria was concerned, the war which had broken out on the 26th of April was a war of self- defence. Resolved to be ready for any event, the Regent then, the day after the battle of Solferino (June 24) mobilised the 7th and 8th Prussian army corps and on July 4 the 9th and loth corps of the Bund army. He at the same time demanded from the Diet the command- in-chief of the entire German force and the sole direction of the same. Austria, by her representative at the Diet, was willing to comply with the first demand, but de- sired that the direction of the troops should be controlled To baffle the French Designs against Anst7^ia. 55 by the Diet, that is, by herself as paramount in the Diet. When the Regent refused to agree to this proposal there ensued a curious but characteristic phase in Austria's policy. At the very time when the Emperor Napoleon, frightened by the losses he had sustained at Solferino, and still more by the conviction that not only was he no general himself but that he had no good general under his command, was fronting the formidable quad- rilateral, and negotiating at Villafranca terms of a peace which he felt necessary to France and to him- self, Prussia, by means of the Regent, was arranging a plan by which a formidable German army should force Napoleon to forego the advantages which Solferino had apparently secured to him. The preliminaries of peace between France and Austria had been negotiated at Villafranca, and Prince Windischgratz had taken them to Berlin to obtain the opinion upon them of the Regent. The latter expressed to Windischgratz, as representing Austria, an opinion strongly adverse to their acceptance. He pointed out to him the insecure position of Napoleon III., the preparations of Prussia and the rest of Germany, and how the French Emperor might be forced to quit his prey. Windischgratz carried back these opinions to his master. The question which Austria had to decide was whether she would give up Lombardy to Sardinia or maintain her position in Italy at the cost of seeing the Prince Regent of Prussia at the head of a German army, and invested with its sole direction. Jealousy of Prussia prevailed. Rather than witness the great in- crease of her influence in Germany, which must have resulted from the position of the Prussian Regent she renounced Lombardy. The marked step towards Italian unity evidenced by the cession of Lombardy to the House of Savoy con- 56 The Jealous Policy of Austria tributed largely, with the liberal administration of the Regent, to revive the longing for unity in Germany itself. On the i6th of September there was founded at Frank- fort an association called the National Society (National- verein), which set forth the idea of centralisation of the executive power of Germany in the hands of the King of Prussia ; one leadership, also that of Prussia, for the German armies ; and one diplomatic centre. This idea, circulating all over Germany, provoked in all the smaller States manifestations in favour of the Prussian headship. The Regent had, however, nothing of the adventurer in his nature. Essentially a Prussian, and looking for- ward to regain for Prussia, by legitimate means, the position in Germany to which she was entitled, and which she had lost, he directed his efforts rather to the reform of the military principles of the Bund than to the fostering of an agitation which might disturb the confidence of rulers. He wished by his measures to gain the trust of the party which had at heart the real welfare of Germany rather than that of German rulers individually. Prominent amongst those measures was the reorganisation on a sound basis, not only of the Prussian army, but of the German army under the control of the Diet. To ensure an efficient direction of the latter, his representative at Frankfort proposed, in January i860, that in the event of a war in which all Germany should be interested the army of the Bund should be divided into two equal portions, the southern portion to be commanded by a nominee of Austria, the northern by a general named by Prussia. But Austria would not yield an inch, and by her influence the proposal was rejected the following April. Nor was the opposition to the Regent's schemes for the general welfare of Germany confined to the southern States. Baffles King William, 57 Noting how, in the event of a war, the coasts of North Germany, and the flourishing ciiies which commercial enterprise had built upon them, would be exposed, de- fenceless or nearly so, to hostile cruisers, he proposed, at a conference of States whose territories were bordered by the sea, held for the purpose at Berlin the same year, that by their united efforts a fleet should be built, con- sisting of ten ships of the line and twenty frigates, to protect the sea-coast. By the votes of the smaller States the proposal was indeed carried ; but when it was further suggested to build a line of railway to connect Minden with Jade Bay (Jadebusen), an inlet of the North Sea, to the point where now stands, thanks to the efforts of William when he became king, the flourishing naval station of Wilhelmshaven, Hanover absolutely refused to permit the line to traverse one single ell of her ter- ritory. Convinced by this refusal, by the action of the Diet, and by other facts of more or less significance, that he could expect neither sympathy nor support from the larger States of Germany, all of which preferred to lean upon stationary Austria, the Regent turned his attention to the modelling of his army on a basis which should make it strong and efficient. Already in the time of his brother certain reforms had been initiated. Not only had the needle-gun become the armament of all the infantry, but the number of men under the colours had been largely increased by the putting in force of the law, which during the period between 18 15 and 1848 had fallen into partial disuse, requiring from the conscript a service of three years. The system which provided for the mobilisation of the Landwehr had grown rusty with time. When, on the breaking out of the Franco-Austrian war in 1859, the Regent had mobilised the Prussian army, he 58 The Necessity for Army Reform. discovered that for all practical purposes the Landwehr battalions were most inefficient. He found them filled with middle-aged, even old men, who had indeed been soldiers in their early ) outh, but who, in the long interval between their actual service and the time of their recall to duty, had forgotten all that they had ever known ; and from the habits contracted in the interval the majority were utterly unfit for warfare. To restore efficiency to the army it was necessary, he felt, to introduce a radical change of principle, to alter the basis of the organisation. To effect this he required a man whom he could ab- solutely trust : a man imbibed with his views regarding organisation, convinced of the necessity to Prussia of an army which could fight, of the necessity likewise that Prussia should regain her proper place in Germany and in Europe. Here it was that his thorough knowledge of men, of which I have spoken, came into play. He had been intimately connected with the army for fifty years, and it is scarcely too much to affirm that he had read the character of every man of note in its ranks. When the hour for reorganisation arrived his thoughts then turned instinctively to a soldier whom, in the period of inactivity of Manteuffel's premiership, he had noticed, and with whom, since his assumption of his high office, he had come much into contact. This man's name was Albert Theodore Emil, Count von Roon. On the 5th December 1859 the Regent appointed him minister of war. Of the new war minister, whose action contributed so largely to the gaining for Prussia of the position she now occupies in Europe and the world, it is necessary here to say something. A Pomeranian by family and birth, he was born in 1803, and spent his early years at Alt-Damm, near Stettin. He was sent in 18 16 to the school of The War Minister, Vo7i Roon. 59 cadets at Kulin in West Prussia ; joined two years later the cadet corps at Berlin ; entered (January 9, 1821) the 14th infantry regiment as second lieutenant ; visited, 1825-7, the military public schools ; was transferred in 1826 to the 15th infantry regiment; and in October 1828 was nominated to comm.and the Berlin cadet corps as its instructor. At the instigation of Karl Ritter, the famous geographer, who at that time was director of studies of the cadet corps, Von Roon compiled a handbook of geography, which was published in 1832 under the title of Outlijies of Information regarding Peoples and Coun- tries? At a later period, 1847-55, ^^e work was greatly enlarged, and had an enormous circulation. In 1832 Von Roon returned to his regiment at Minden, but, the following November, General Muffling, who had been appointed to command the corps of observation which was to watch the siege of Antwerp by the French (Nov- ember-December 1832), summoned him to his head- quarters. In February 1833 Von Roon inspected the citadel of Antwerp, was transferred to the topographical bureau, and, recommended by the knowledge he displayed of surveying and the technicalities of military science, was nominated, March 30, 1836, to be captain on the general staff. Whilst engaged in the hea\y duties devolving upon him in that capacity he wrote a book entitled The Military Oiorography of Europe"- and, his attention having been directed to the civil war then raging in Spain, another entitled The Iberian Feuinsula ; from a Military Standpoint:' Of this, however, only the first part appeared. Whilst engaged in 1841 in making a reconnaissance on duty through Bohemia, Moravia, and ^ Gntndziige der Erd- Volker-and Staatenkunde. * Militdrische Ldnderbesckreibung von Etiropa. ' Die iberische Halbinsel, Vom Standpunkte des Militdrs. 6o General Von Roon. Hungary, he was attacked by a very severe illness. On his recovery he was nominated major (1842) of the general staff of the second army corps, but the year following was ordered back to Berlin, to resume there his lectures. In 1844 I'^G was selected to give to Prince Frederic Charles lessons in geography and tactics, and accompanied him in 1846 not only to the University of Bonn but also in his travels through Switzerland, Italy, France, and Belgium, This companionship was the means of cementing a bond of friendship, respect, and regard between the young prince and his mentor. On the 13th of March 1848 Von Roon returned to the practical exercise of his profession, was appointed in May to the general staff of the 8th army corps, and on the 22d of August following became chief of that staff. In the difficult crisis of that year and its immediate successor Von Roon displayed a judg- ment and a knowledge which drew upon him the com- mendation of his superiors. He took part in the short campaign in Baden in 1849, ^i^^) promoted in 1850 to be lieutenant-colonel, was nominated in December of that year (1850) commandant of the 33d regiment of infantry, stationed then at Thorn, afterwards at Cologne. On the 2d of December of that year he was advanced to the rank of colonel. On the 26th of June 1856 he received command of the 20th brigade of infantry in Posen ; was promoted less than three months later (Octo- ber 15, 1856) to be major-general; and, November 22, 1858, was nominated commander of the 14th division at Dlisseldorf His varied experiences in many offices, especially in the mobilisations of 1832, 1849, ^"d 1850, had convinced Von Roon of the glaring deficiencies of the Prussian army system, and he had thought out many plans for remedy- ing these, especially those existing in the infantry. Great Qualities of Von Roon. 6 1 These plans he caused, in June 1858, to be communi- cated to the Prince Regent. In May 1859 he became lieutenant - general. The mobilisation of that year served to confirm in the mind of the Regent the re- presentations made to him by Von Roon. He sent for him, therefore (September 2), to Berlin to work out in the office of the minister of war his plans for the re- organisation of the army. Von Roon accompanied the Regent to Breslau, and a little later w^as appointed member of two commissions, which, under the presidency of the Prince Regent and General Wrangel respectively, sat in Berlin to perfect the plans for the reorganisation. In constant communication with the Regent, he made so deep an impression on the mind of the latter that, on the 5th of December 1859, he was nominated minister of war. He held that post for fourteen years (1859 to 1873), witnessing the perfect working of the machine which he had made, and the accomplishment by it of results greater by far than those which his master had contemplated in 1859. He was the third man in the illustrious triad presided over by the sovereign. Like the three brothers described in the Arabimi NigJits, one of whom had the gift of supernatural sight, the second of supernatural transport, the third of supernatural healing, each of the Prussian triad was essential to his companions. The daring policy of Bismarck, the perfect strategical knowledge of Moltke might alike have failed but for the thorough organisation of the machine which had been accomplished by the genius of Albert Theodore Emil, Count von Roon The plan of reorganisation worked out by Von Roon in conjunction with the Prince Regent, in 1859-60, may be thus briefly summarised. It began by reciting the existing law imposing universal liability to military service. This law was in the future to be strictly en- 62 Vo7i Rooiis Plans f 07'- Re -organisation. forced. Such service was limited in the line to three years, in the reserve to four, in the Landwehr to nine, making a total service for each man of sixteen years, instead of the nineteen till then authorised. By this means the peace establishment was raised from 150,000 men to somewhere about 213,000; the yearly conscrip- tion was increased from 40,000 to 63,000 recruits ; the infantry battalions were increased from 135 to 253 ; and eighteen fresh cavalry regiments were to be raised. On the occasion of a mobilisation the Landwehr were not to be called out, whilst the line and the reserve were to be strengthened, so as to permit the rapid assembly of an army excellent alike in quality and in numbers. The yearly increase of expenditure for these changes was calculated at something in excess of 10,000,000 thalers, the cost of the first dispositions at about 5,000,000. Such were the heads of the plan submitted by the new war minister to the Lower House of Parliament on the 5th of February i860. Its reception was not favourable. The deputies looked rather to the amount of money required than to the necessity that Prussia, with her straggling territories, should be ready for war. Some deputies questioned the wisdom of making any sweeping change. The increase of service in the line from two to three years caused especially great murmuring. The minister there- fore, dreading a defeat if he should persist with the measure in its actual form, withdrew it, and submitted on the 5th of May another proposal to the House. In this he simply demanded an extraordinary credit of 9,000,000 of thalers for the purpose of maintaining the army for the space of one year — till the 30th of June 1 86 1 — in a higher state of efficiency for war than then existed. At the same time he emphatically declared Nominal Modifications of the Plan accepted. 63 that he brought forward this measure in order that sub- sequent resolutions regarding the army might not be prejudiced ; and he pointed out that the condition it proposed for the army for the year ending the 30th of June 1 86 1 was only provisional. Though he said this, both he and the Regent were fully determined, come what might come, with the consent of the House or without it, that the law should be absolutely per- manent. The Lower House, after some discussion, granted the credit, and gave a provisional sanction to the proposed reorganisation ; that is, it limited its pro- visions to the 30th of June following. Beyond that date there was to be no sanction for their existence. The Regent, however, paid no heed to this limitation, but proceeded to raise the additional infantry battalions and the additional cavalry regiments, and to bestow upon them their names and their colours. The army bill had but just been passed when an event occurred which at the time attracted the attention of Europe. The Emperor of the French had cherished, especially since his triumph over Austria in 1859, the secret hope that it might be possible, by fanning the jealousy between Austria and Prussia, to regain for France on the Rhine the frontier she had possessed in the time of the first empire. So early as 185 1 his minister to Berlin, the Count de Persigny, had sounded Frederic William IV. on the subject of an alliance which should benefit Prussia at the expense of Austria, the reward to France for her assistance being left purposely vague. But Frederic William was not only disinclined to a policy of adventure, he detested the adventurer who proposed it. During the active part of his reign, then, the subject was not again referred to. But in February 1859, after the accession of the Regent, and before the 64 Prussia declines tJie FrencJi OvertuvLS. declaration of war with Austria, Napoleon caused cer- tain proposals advantageous to Prussia to be made at Berlin. The Regent declined to entertain them, and, as we have seen, mobilised the Prussian army to defend the soil of Germany in case the turn of events should bring hostilities near to her door. After the war, the Emperor still clinging to his ideas, and believing that the same tactics which had gained for France the cession of Savoy and Nice might procure for her advantages on the Rhine, again opened negotiations with the Regent, proposing a personal interview, on the ostensible ground that he might convince him of his peaceable intentions, and prove to the Germans, who had attributed to him aggressive tendencies, that they had misjudged him. The Regent consented, and the interview took place at Baden- Baden on the 1 5th- 1 7th June i860. But the Regent had not gone alone. With commendable foresight he had taken care to be accompanied by German princes whom any proposal for the aggrandisement of Prussia at the expense of her neighbours would certainly affect. Beyond, then, making a passing allusion to the advantages which would accrue to Prussia from the possession of Schleswig- Holstein the baffled Emperor confined himself to gen- eralities, and the meeting had no result. It deserves, however to be mentioned, as indicating alike the inner hopes of the French Emperor and the caution of the Prussian ruler. The latter, engaged in the formation of an army the real object of which was to secure for Prussia her proper place in Germany and in Europe, and nothing, as he then believed, beyond that, had had the opportunity of considering contingencies which an aggressive policy was to open out to him. He had no desire that his policy should be aggressive ; he was content to live at peace with his German neighbours, but it should be a peace The Views of King Willia7n in i860. 65 which would include respect for Prussia, which should give her the influence in German affairs which was her due. Above all, he desired no secret understandings with the French Emperor. The year i860 passed away, then, without further events deserving notice. The Regent and his war minister gave all their attention to the reorganisation of the army — the first step towards the recovery by Prussia of the position which the feeble policy of Frederic William IV. had temporarily lost. CHAPTER IV. THE KINGSHIP OF WILLIAM I. — THE POLICY OF 'BLOOD AND IRON.' On the 2d of January 1861 Frederic William IV. died. The Regent succeeded him, under the title of William I. His accession was very popular. He was almost uni- versally regarded as an honest man, a man of his word, a man who had at heart the good of his country rather than that of a caste or a section of the community. His first act, the granting of an amnesty for all political offences (12th of January) confirmed the hopes of the people. His speeches at this time give the best possible indication of the subject which had possession of his mind. In his proclamation assuming the kingship, dated January 7th, whilst stating that he regarded his duties towards Prussia as bound up with those towards Germany, he declared that the task which Prussia had to fulfil in and for Germany was dictated by her glorious history, and rested for its accomplishment on the development of the plans of military reorganisation actually in progress. In the speech from the throne on the opening of the chambers the same ['spirit made itself clear. That the Lower Chamber did not fully partake his views was mani- fest in the answer to the address which they voted. In this they said, in so many words, that the reorganisation of the army was very well in its way, but it was not every- thing ; that the reform of the Bund, and certain popular The Prussian Pi'ogress Party. 67 demands required attention. They confirmed, however, the grant of the 9,000,000 thalers for reorganisation as an extraordinary expenditure, with the exception of 750,000 thalers, which they struck off (May 31). The scs'^ion closed on the 5th of June. Four days later saw the for- mation of a new liberal party, known as the 'German progress-party.' Its programme was (i) the reform of the Bund in a sense favourable to Prussia ; (2) the placing the central power in the hands of Prussia ; (3) the representa- tion of the German people; (4) the real responsibility of ministers, the trial of political and press offences by a jury, the reform of the Upper House, and economy in the army administration by the advocacy of two years service in place of three. This party at once attracted to itself all the wavering elements of the House and the country. It became the great principle with which the King and his ministers had to struggle for the ac- complishment of their plans. At the moment, and up to the year 1866, it represented, there can be no doubt, the majority of the people of Prussia. But, pure as were its principles, its leaders wanted in one particular point the foresight and the political acumen which characterised their opponents. That point was the absolute necessity for the thorough reorganisation of the army. How, when the crisis came, they were reminded of this in a manner which neither Prussia, nor Germany, nor Europe will ever forget will be told in its place. A general impression prevailed at this time throughout Germany that the King had not risen to the height of the situation he occupied as ruler of the kingdom which every Prussian believed would eventually be compelled to assume the leading part in the formation of German unity. The aspirations which had been called into prominence by the events of 1848, though tempered and cooled by failure, 68 The General Feeling of Prussia. still glowed in many a German heart. An expression used by the Archduke John at a public banquet held at Cologne in 1849 — 'No Austria, no Prussia, but one united Germanland, which shall stand as firmly as our mountains ' — had penetrated the hearts of the people, and was repeated with peculiar fervour at the period of the ac- cession of King William, But as time advanced, and the King, from whom so much had been hoped, appeared to the minds of the unreflecting multitude to care for little but the reorganisation of the Prussian army, a feeling of disappointment arose, and men began to ask one another whether, after all, he was more likely than had been his brother to initiate a bold policy of union. This feeling vented itself at Baden-Baden in an attempt made by a young man, Oscar Becker, to assassinate the King. Becker, though born at Odessa, was of German parentage, well instructed in jurisprudence and knowledge of finance, a good mathematician, and learned in the Turkish and Arabic languages. To effect his purpose he had travelled on the 1 2th of July from Leipsig, where he was studying, to Baden-Baden. There, on the 14th, he met the King, who was taking the waters, in the Lichtenthal Alley, and at a distance of only three paces discharged at his face, point-blank, both barrels of a pocket pistol. One of the balls struck the King on the neck, but inflicted only a slight contusion. When arrested Becker admitted that the act had been committed in cold blood, and was the consequence of his conviction ' that the King had not risen to the height of his position, the effecting of the union of Germany.' Becker was sentenced by the Baden Court of justice to twenty years' imprisonment, with intervals of solitary confinement; but, on the intercession in 1866 of the King, whose action then had proved the shallowness of the reason for the crime, he was released on condition The Position of the Bund. 69 that he should quit Germany for ever. He died, two years later, in Alexandria. That the King, whilst bent on preparing the instru- ment which alone could assure to Prussia her proper position in Germany, had neither forgotten nor neglected the position of the States of Germany, bound hand and foot by the action of the Bund to the car of Austria, was proved by the answer he gave in December of the same year to a suggestion emanating from the Saxon government urging the reform of the Bund. He stated his conviction that the remodelling of the Bund's con- stitution could only be accomplished by means of single close alliance between the several States which consti- tuted the Bund. How such alliances were to be con- tracted was not stated, and it would have been difficult to state plainly. The fact was that at this period the reform of the Bund was a question which, though it was burning under the surface, each German power shrank from approaching, though each of them knew^ that in a very short time it must be approached and solved. The policy of William consisted solely in the preparing of Prussia for the day of solution. At that moment neither he nor any prominent statesman in Germany had forecast the manner in which, by the action of one man, the question was to become within one year so pressing, so burning, as to compel the invocation of the God of battles. Meanwhile the position in Prussia was being very sharply defined. When the Parliament met in the be- ginning of 1862 it was at once apparent that the ministry was not strong enough to meet the attacks of the new progress-party supported by the old liberals. The King then resolved to maintain at all costs his army reorganisa- tion scheme, dismissed his ministry, appointed a new one, 70 Opposite Vieivs of King and Parliament. with Prince von Hohenlohe as its chief, dissolved the parliament, and made a special appeal to the country to support his policy. The appeal was fruitless. On the 19th of May the new parliament met, and though for a brief period it seemed inclined to support the measures submitted to it by the ministers, it struck when the army budget came under discussion. It ruthlessly refused the sum demanded for extraordinary expenses, that is, the sum required to carry out the reorganisations planned by the King and Von Roon. The King had anticipated this result. He had been long searching for a man who would dominate the parliament : a man who, recognising as he had recog- nised the necessity of recovering for Prussia her place in Germany, should devote all his energies to the attain- ment of that end. But he must be a strong man, a man of convictions, of nerve; he must be 'a man of instincts and insights ; a man, nevertheless, who will glare fiercely on any object, and see through it, and conquer it ' ; a man who had ' intellect, who had will, who had force beyond other men.' ^ Such a man King William believed he had found in Otto Edward Leopold, Count von Bismarck. On the 8th of October 1862 he nominated this man to be minister-president and minister of foreign affairs. The new minister was comparatively young. He was born the ist of April 1815 at the family estate of Schonhausen in the district of Magdeburg. At the age of seven years he was sent to school at Berlin, and, with the exception of a few months spent in 1832-3 at the university of Gottingen to study law and finance, he remained there for some years. In due course he passed the examination in the two subjects mentioned, received ' Carlyle's French Revolutio)i. The Count von Bismarck. 7 1 the licence enabling him to practise in the courts of law, went through the military course required by the law, studied agriculture at Greifswald in Pomerania, and then in 1839 assumed the co - management of the family estates. On his father's death in 1845 he took up his residence at Schonhausen, which he then inherited. The same year he became a member of the provincial par- liament of Pomerania, and in 1846 of that of Prussian Saxony. In this capacity he took a leading part in 1847 in the constitution of the first united parliament at Berlin, posing as a most decided champion of the conservative- monarchical principle, in opposition to the efforts made to introduce constitutionalism into Prussia. With the second united parliament which met in Berlin after the revolutionary events of March 1848 Bismarck did not much concern himself He preferred to remain on his estates, devoting his time to the earnest consideration of the problems which were perplexing all the statesmen of the day. He attended, however, in the summer of 1848 the meeting at Berlin of the conference of conservatives known as the 'Junker parliament,' and contributed articles to the Kreuz-Zeitung newspaper which caused great sen- sation. In the parliament which met on the 7th of August 1849, and in which the conservative element predominated, Bismarck took his position as recognised leader of the right. His great principle was the building up in Prussia of a powerful kingdom, and the maintenance of such an under- standing with Austria as would enable the two powers to have complete control of German affairs. In this sense he opposed the efforts in favour of union made by the King at the assembly he had convened at Erfurt (1850), and even approved of the convention of Olmlitz, regarding it as unavoidable under the circumstances. As the ablest and most energetic supporter of ab 72 Bismarck. solutism Bismarck drew upon himself at this period the attention of the leading men of all parties. The re- actionary government of Manteuffel especially appreciated a man of his strongly pronounced absolutist views. In May 185 1, therefore, he was nominated secretary to the Prussian legation at Frankfort ; three months later, he was appointed Prussian representative to the Diet. Bismarck went to Frankfort with the fixed determination to bring about that cordial understanding between the two great German powers which had been the dream of his early manhood. He quitted Frankfort nearly three years later, January 1855, completely convinced that no such understanding was possible ; that the Austrian policy was based on the principle of using the secondary States of Germany for her own aggrandisement, and for the humiliation of Prussia ; that for the latter power there was but one course — to carve out her own destiny by the con- tinuation of the policy employed by Frederic II. in 1740-2. From having been the friend with whom it was desirable to work with cordiality, Austria had become, in his eyes, the enemy whom it would be necessary to smite to the ground. On leaving Frankfort Bismarck proceeded as Prussian ambassador to St Petersburg. The embassy was especi- ally agreeable to him, for, with the scheme for smiting Austria dimly forming in his mind, he was anxious to secure the friendship of the ministers of the Czar, then deeply disappointed with the ' ingratitude ' of the court of Vienna. The conduct of Austria during the Crimean war, then raging, the semi-hostility she had displayed, and her understanding with the western powers, had been regarded at St Petersburg as a shameful return for the aid afforded to her by Russia in the Hungarian war of 1849. The conduct of Prussia, on the contrary, Bismarck's Plans of Policy. 73 in steadily refusing to listen to the advances of England and France, had conciliated the gratitude of the Czar and his ministers. Of this state of feeling Bismarck took full advantage, and it cannot be doubted but that the three years of his residence at St Petersburg laid the foundation of that alliance which was so useful to Prussia in her struggles in 1866 and 1 870-1. In the spring of 1862 Bismarck exchanged the em- bassy at St Petersburg for that of Paris. There he came in contact with the sovereign whose inscrutable policy was then exciting the attention of Europe. Napoleon III. did not impress Bismarck. He looked upon him as a dreamer, a trickster whose policy would best be met by plain blunt phrases and decisive action. For the policy which allowed France to embroil herself in an expedition to Mexico when Europe was in a state of tension he had the most profound contempt. Such a policy, however, he recognised, might favour his de- signs against Austria, for it might paralyse the action of France in Europe at the critical moment. Bismarck had been but a few months at Paris when he was summoned by his sovereign to return to Berlin, September 23, to assume an ad interim position in the ministry. A fortnight later, October 8, he became minister-president and minister for foreign affairs. We have looked at his training : it is time for us now to discuss the character of the man. Strong in his convictions, unshakeable in his determina- tions, a Prussian to the backbone, Bismarck had shaped in his mind a policy which was to place Prussia at the head of Germany. With the carrying out of that policy, which he took an early opportunity of announcing as a policy of 'blood and iron,' nothing was to be allowed to interfere, neither scruples of conscience, regard for 74 J^fi^ Method of Attaining Success. truth, considerations of honour. All these must give way. Not only that, but all the elements which combine to aid the course of an unscrupulous man were to be enlisted in his service. If the policy was a policy of ' blood and iron,' it was also a policy of ' fraud and falsehood.' The reader will find that it required a large exercise of the two last-named agencies to force Austria to that war which finally excluded her from the rest of Germany. Well had Bismarck studied the career of Frederic II. He could not, indeed, concentrate in his own person the qualities which gave PVederic the first position in Germany. But working under a master the one idea of whose life at that period was to make Prussia great, and in concert with colleagues one of whom would provide him with an army whilst the other would think out a strategy, he could repress internal opposition ; then, throwing himself with avidity into the arena of foreign policy, and taking up the dropped threads of 1740-2 and of 1756-63, he could complete the plan which the ablest and most unscrupulous of the Hohen- zollerns so ably began and so unwillingly left unfinished. Such was the man, such was his policy: let us now con- sider his actions. On the 23d of September Bismarck had accepted the post of first minister ad interim on the resignation of the Prince von Hohenlohe. With characteristic energy he went straight to the task. On the 29th he informed the House that if the budget of the ministry were defeated, he would reintroduce it in the next session, and with it a new bill for the reorganisation of the army. The day following, addressing the budget commission, he made use of the phrase, alike historical and prophetic, that 'great questions were not to be solved by speeches and the resolutions of majorities, but by blood and iron.' This ■tH/izcey ,^d!A^»»y' rr/- Bismarck over-rides the Parliament. 75 expression produced little effect on the committee, for on the 7th of October the Lower House rejected the reorganisation scheme. Bismarck then caused the scheme to be passed by the Upper House, and prorogued the parliament. He had invented the theory that if the three great constitutional bodies could not agree the view taken by the majority of the three should prevail. He would in the meantime govern and levy taxes without a budget. In vain did the Lower House protest that the decisions of the Upper House were contrary to the constitution, and therefore illegal. The ' man of insight and instincts ' was not to be moved by mere words. On the 1 3th, five days after he had assumed the office of foreign minister, he sent them back to their constituents. From their constituents the deputies received thanks and congratulations for their patriotic conduct. The country evidently was with them. The people could not understand the daring conduct of this new minister, in- experienced in parliamentary affairs, who would thus trample upon the privileges of their representatives, and declare he would levy taxes, not only without their sanction but against their express decisions. The three months that followed were spent by both parties in preparing for a renewal of the struggle — a struggle regarded by the large majority of the people as affecting the very basis of constitutional government ; by the Crown and the ministers as involving the very existence of Prussia as a great power. The Lower House reassembled on the loth of January 1863. Its members had returned in a very resolute mood. In reply to the speech from the throne they launched complaints against the statesman who had ad- ministered the affairs of the country without a budget, had disregarded the votes of the majorit}', and had 76 Bismarck defies the Parliament. spent money which had not been voted. A new cause of complaint soon arose from the action of the govern- ment in signing a convention with Russia (February 8) for the mobihsation of an army corps on Prussian Poland, in view of the disturbances in Warsaw and its neighbour- hood, without communicating the same to the Lower House. The opposition fully believed that this mobilisa- tion, coinciding as it did in date with the reintroduction of the army reorganisation scheme, would be used by the government to extort support for their measures. In effect, on the 8th of February, Von Roon did introduce his new army bill. It was found to be in principle a reproduction of the old one. It was then submitted to a committee. On the 24th of April this committee made a report, not only condemning the measure as it had been drafted, but taking it paragraph by paragraph and making its own amendments in each, entirely alter- ing its scope, and representing it to the House as a bill which fixed the period of service with the line at two years. A fierce debate, in which the war minister, Von Roon, was repeatedly called to order by the vice- president of the Assembly, Herr von Bockum-Dolffs, followed the presentation of the report (May 11). But the action of the vice-president only stimulated the audacity of Bismarck. The following day he an- nounced to the House that the members of the ministry would not again appear within its precincts until the president of the Assembly should have renounced all disciplinary authority over them. As the House declined to accept this condition the members of the ministry withdrew. A crisis followed. On the 21st the King announced that he fully supported his ministers in their contention. The following day the House voted an ad- dress to the King; to the effect that the wide differences Bismarc/cs Foreign Policy. yy existing between his advisers and the deputies could only be healed by a change of men and a change of system. The reply of the Government was to prorogue the par- liament (May 27). Three days later (June i) a royal ordinance placed the press under police inspection and governmental superintendence. Whilst the King and his ministers were thus engaged in forcing upon an unwilling, because uninstructed, par- liament a scheme for army reorganisation which alone would enable Prussia to assume that position in Germany which was not only her due, but which the very liberals who opposed the scheme wished her to assume, Bismarck was introducing that aggressive system of foreign policy which could not fail to lead sooner or later to a rupture. It happened that the affairs of electoral Hesse, temporarily settled by the convention of Olmlitz, again demanded the interference of the Bund. The hand of the Elector had been so heavy that his subjects loudly called for in- terference. In 1850, it will be recollected, Prussia had championed the cause of the people, Austria that of the Elector, and Austria had prevailed. This time Bismarck resolved that the influence and the hand of Prussia should be felt. Whilst, then, the Diet was nodding over the appeal which had been made to it, Bismarck addressed directly to the Elector a pressing demand to concede and to maintain the just rights of the estates of his realm. Then, again, Austria had expressed her dissatisfaction with the effect on her trade of a commercial treaty which Bismarck when at Paris had negotiated with France, and with the proposals regarding it which Prussia had made to the Diet. Bismarck seized the opportunity to address a very sharp despatch to Vienna, in which he charged the Austrian government with deliberate hostility to Prussia, and shadowed forth in plain terms the di>ruption of the yS Bismarck's Foreign Policy. Bund in case Austria and the central States of Germany should persist in their hostile action. In the course of the correspondence which ensued Bismarck indicated very clearly the thoughts which directed his policy and the end he proposed. He told Austria that she would act in her best interests if she were to remove her centre of gravity to Buda-Pest instead of seeking to root the same, by her repeated attacks on Prussian influence, in Germany. Although such utterances tended to the isola- tion of Prussia in Germany, by inducing the central and southern States to cling more closely to Austria, they were nevertheless deliberate. Bismarck felt that to effect his end it was necessary that Prussia should break with past traditions, should show herself ready to look the rest of Germany in the face, should be ready to make good her pretensions, not by means of despatches and protocols, but by ' blood and iron.' The utterances were then simply preparatory to an action which in the inner circles of the Prussian capital was avowed. As a step in the same direction we have again to con- sider the dealings of the same minister with Russia. We have seen how careful he had been to conciliate the friendship of the statesmen of the Czar during his resi- dence at St Petersburg. An event happened shortly after his accession to the foreign office which gave him the opportunity of cementing the friendships and union of interests he then had formed. On the 22d of January 1863 an insurrection, which gradually extended to all Russian Poland, broke out at Warsaw. The sympathies of Paris and London went deeply with the Poles. Not so those of Bismarck. There were Poles in Prussia. In- surrection might breed insurrection. Bismarck had no sympathy with Polish aspirations. More than that, the opportunity was an excellent one for coming to a thorough Bismarck conciliates Russia. 79 understanding with St Petersburg. The time, he felt, was not very distant when Prussia would require the friendly- neutrality of her northern neighbour. Bismarck then con- cluded a convention with Russia for a combined operation against the insurgents in the event of their crossing the Prussian frontier, closed that frontier against all fugitives, and, through Von Roon, directed the mobilisation of a strong army corps, which he placed in observation to watch events. Austria, who had likewise Polish subjects, dis- played no such readiness to meet the wishes of the Czar, It can readily be seen, then, how this action on the part of Prussia contrasted with the hostility of the western powers and the callous indifference of Austria ; how it impressed the minds of the statesmen of St Petersburg, and predisposed them to return in kind the service thus rendered. There were two other questions which came to the front during this and the following year which tended to sharpen the differences, and eventually to cause an open breach, between Prussia and the rest of Germany. These were the reform of the Bund and the Schleswig- Holstein question. There was no desire now on the part of Austria to avoid the solution of the first of those questions. Under the guidance of her Emperor, Francis Joseph, a single- minded and honourable man, Austria had been led into the path of constitutional government, and in her orderly methods, and in the frank and sincere co-operation of her statesmen, she presented a very favourable contrast to her northern rival. The high tone assumed, and the pressure ex- ercisedby Bismarck, had, however, frightened the Austrian statesmen, and they were as willing now to conciliate as they had been formerly unbending. In the autumn of the year the two Emperors had met at Gastein, and 8o Questions between Austria and Prussia. Francis-Joseph had endeavoured to win the consent of his nephew to a scheme which he had formed, in conjunction with the princes of middle and southern Germany, for the assembling at Frankfort of a congress of German rulers to deliberate on the reform of the Bund. But Bismarck was not at Gastein, and although King William expressed tentatively his approval of the scheme, he decline to commit himself until he should have seen Bismarck. Before the matter had been finally settled King William quitted Gastein. The invitations addressed to all the countries represented at the Diet were a little later duly de- spatched. By sixteen of the States represented at the Diet they were accepted ; by the seventeenth, Prussia, the invitation was declined. The King had at Berlin come under the influence of his minister, and al- though the princes assembled at Frankfort despatched one of their number, the most acceptable of all, King John of Saxony, to William, to induce him to change his mind, the King persisted in holding aloof, and the projected congress fell through. It is easy to understand why Bismarck persuaded his master to decline. The only conditions, he declared, upon which a resettlement of the Bund was possible were — absolute equality of Prussia and Austria in the Diet ; the right of veto to each with respect to the declaration of war ; and a representation of the German people proceeding from direct voting on a franchise common to all. These were his three points, not one of which, he argued, would be conceded by a congress of princes. It is probable he was right. On the failure of the congress there quickly followed the reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question. The treaty of London ^ had laid down, in terms accepted by ' Vide page 34. Strained Relations ivith Denviark. 8 1 Austria and Prussia alike, the recognition of the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and of Prince Christian of GlUcksburg as heir-presumptive of the whole dominions of the reigning king. It had been arranged, however, that the rights in Holstein of the German Bund should remain unprejudiced, and the King, Frederic VII., had promised to conform to certain rules in his treatment of both principalities. This agreement the King had, in his zeal for union in the territories under his sway, persistently and continuously broken. The German population of the duchies had more than once appealed to the Diet to interfere on their behalf. There had been correspondence, even threats, but still their wrongs remained unredressed. But in March 1863 the Diet refused any longer to hold its hand. It plainly informed King Frederic that if he did not recall an edict he had then recently issued, impos- ing unauthorised burdens on the duchies, it would proceed to federal execution. Frederic replied by incorporating Schleswig with the rest of the monarchy. In consequence of this act the Diet, on the ist of October, decreed federal execution, that is, armed intervention against the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein. Before the execution could be enforced the King of Denmark died (November 15). If his successor. Prince Christian of Gliicksburg, would but withdraw the ob- noxious edicts it appeared possible that the German intervention might be avoided. But the feelings of the Danes had been roused to a height too great to permit of a peaceable solution. The new king was forced to bow to the popular will, to give his assent to a con- stitution which included Schleswig as a part and parcel of Danish territory, and which levied taxes for the national expenditure from Holstein. But the popular feeling in Germany had been roused to a level higher F 82 The Diet declai'es for War. than it had reached since 1848. From the moment King Christian had given his assent to the new con- stitution intervention was not to be avoided. P'rom all parts of the Fatherland the cry came to Frankfort to abolish the conditions of the treaty of London, and to bring Schleswig-Holstein under the Duke of Augusten- burg into a close federal union with Germany. The cry prevailed, and the Diet committed the execution of its orders to Saxony and Hanover. Never in the history of Europe has the truth of the wise saying of King Solomon been more thoroughly manifested than it was upon this occasion,^ Although the execution of the decree of the Diet had been openly entrusted to Saxony and Hanover, and the contingents from these two kingdoms had entered Holstein to ac- complish one accepted purpose, the federal union with Germany of the two duchies under a prince of their own, Bismarck had resolved not only to thwart this accepted and partly executed scheme of the Diet but so to manceuvre as to win the duchies for Prussia alone, with the aid mainly of Prussian troops, and to incorporate them into the Prussian monarchy. He carried out this scheme with all the audacit}', all the deception, all the masterfulness of his bold and unscrupulous nature. His first care was to hoodwink Austria. Since the death of Felix Schwarzenberg Austria had not possessed a statesman capable of taking a comprehensive view of her requirements as a nation which, largely German, was still more largely composed of foreign elements. The minister who, at the period at which we have arrived, possessed the confidence of his master in the direction of the foreign "The beginning of strife is as when one letteih out water.' — Proverbs xvii. 14. Bismarck seizes the Direction of It. 8 o policy of the empire was Count Rechberg, a statesman of the school of Metternich, regarding all other dangers as small compared with the spread of democratic in- fluences. Bismarck had been associated with this man at Frankfort. He knew him well, his weak points as well as his good qualities, and he played with him as a cat plays with a mouse. By persuading him that the gratification of the popular demand for the admission into federal Germany of the two duchies would intensify and rouse to fever heat democratic influences throughout the Fatherland, and by guaranteeing the possessions of Austria in the case of a war arising from her union with Prussia, he persuaded Rechberg to unite with him in treating as null and void the resolution of the Diet ; to join the troops of Austria to those of Prussia in order that they, the conservators of order, might enter the duchies, not as mandatories of the Bund but as the instruments of two independent and allied powers. It .seems incredible that Austria, the Austria whom Bismarck had told that she must remove her centre of gravity to Buda-Pest, the Austria whose measures he had constantly and openly thwarted, should walk quietly into the transparent trap he had laid for her, should run the risk of forfeiting all her influence with the minor states of Germany for the sole purpose of playing into the hands of her hereditary enemy. The only possible explanation is the reality of the dread felt by Rechberg, painted in exaggerated colours by Bismarck, that the action of the Bund, obeying the popular impulse, would open the floodgates of revolution, and restore the dreaded days of 1848. Austrian statesmanship with regard to foreign affairs has rarely been conspicuous for its excellence, but we shall see as we progress that, during the period between 1863 and 1866 inclusive, it 84 Austria blindly folloivs Him. was at its very lowest ebb. But, bad as it was in 1866, no mistake which she made equalled in its terrible con- sequences the initial mistake made by Count Rechberg when he not only agreed that Austria should draw the Schleswig-Holstein chestnuts from the fire in order that Prussia might eat them, but ran the risk of forfeiting the support of the rest of Germany, and laid his country open to the after consequences — the sudden turning upon her of the long-pent hatred of the unscrupulous man who had duped him. How high Austria would have stood had Rechberg refused to betray the Bund, how unassail- able she would then have been, how complete would have been the exposure of the designs of Bismarck, it is easy to see now. Unfortunately for Austria it was a sealed book to Count Rechberg. Having secretly arranged for the co-operation 01 Austria, Bismarck took the next step. That step was to pose as an upholder of the sacredness of treaties. The treaty of London had agreed to recognise King Christian as King of Denmark and as sovereign of the duchies. Bismarck declared to the Diet that by that treaty Prussia would abide. This declaration turned all Germany, the hoodwinked Austria excepted, against Prussia. Never had she, or rather never had her minister, been so un- popular. For the voice of Prussia coincided with the voice of Germany. The Lower House of Parliament at Berlin refused, we shall see, the supplies asked for a Prussian attack on the duchies. Nor in the Diet did the Prussian policy find a single supporter, except, of course, that of her deluded victim. The proposal Bismarck made to the Diet to despatch a summons to King Chris- tian to annul the constitution of the previous November, and, in the event of his refusal, to occupy only Schleswig, was all but unanimously rejected. Then Bismarck laid The Plans of Bismarck tuifolded. 85 his cards on the table. He would have his way despite the Diet. In concert with Austria he despatched an ultimatum to Copenhagen demanding the repeal of the November constitution. King Christian refused. Where- upon, on the 1st of February 1864, Prussian and Austrian troo^.s entered Schleswig. The Danish war had begun. Bismarck had let out the waters which were not to sub- side until his ally, Austria, should be excluded from the rest of Germany. CHAPTER V. THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN INVASION OF SCHLESWIG- HOLSTEIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. Whilst Bismarck had, in the manner described, directed the foreign policy of Prussia, the King and Von Roon had, despite the opposition of the Hberals, been pushing on the reorganisation of the army with giant's strides. By the legal fiction which Bismarck had invented, and to which the King had given his public sanction, the taxes refused by the Lower House, but approved by the Crown and the Upper House, were still levied. But the discontent of the people was great. In the quiet corners of the cities the word ' revolution ' was muttered in no dulcet tones. The more advanced liberals had persuaded themselves that the private soldiers, mostly men sprung from the people, would fire ^ in the air. These feelings found expression in the parliament newly elected, which met on the 9th of November 1863. The government had taken extraordinary pains to secure a majority in this parliament, but the feeling of the country had proved too strong for them. The first act of its members was to vote an address to the Crown requesting that the Schleswig - Holstein question might be settled by the recognition of the rights of the Duke of Augustenburg. ' I write this from personal knowledge. I was much in Prussia in 1863-4, and was assured, over and over again, that in the cause of constitutionalism the troops would not fire on the people. opposition of the Prussian Parliament. Z^ Any other course, the address added, would threaten the sohdarity of the two duchies, and would produce strife and civil war in Germany. Bismarck spoke against the address, but in vain. In his reply to it the King, whilst evading compliance with its prayer, demanded a loan of 12,000,000 thalers to enable him to carry out the policy of the government. The House, roused to indignation, not only refused the loan but rejected also the budget, the army reorganisation bill, and the law muzzling the press. The government, careless of its opposition, passed the budget through the Upper House, and then on the 25th of January dissolved the Lower House. The King's speech on the dissolution, written and read by Bismarck, abounded in reproaches against the Lower House. They had sinned grievously against patriotism. In the main he was right. The Piussian people had not comprehended that, for Prussia to resume her place in Germany, it was essential she should have an army on the model devised by the King and his war minister. Seven days later Austrian and Prussian troops entered Schleswig and occupied Ecken- forde. The day following they attacked the Danewerke, an ancient fortification, consisting of a very thick wall from thirty to forty feet high, extending for about ten miles along the southern frontier of the duchy, from the North Sea to the Baltic. In the attack upon this work there happened something which gave great con- fidence to the Austrians, and produced an impression regarding the Prussian soldiers which continued till 1866. The extreme left of the Danewerke rested on Missunde, a town situated on the river Schlei, a narrow inlet of the Baltic. It was arranged that whilst the Austrians, under the Freiherr von Gablenz, a very capable officer, who had served under Radetzky, should attack the centre, 88 The Danish War, the Prussians, led by Prince Frederic Charles, better known as the ' Red Prince,' a cousin of the King, should assail the left at Missunde. The arrangement was carried out, but notwithstanding the needle-gun, now distributed to every soldier in the Prussian army, the Red Prince was repulsed ; nor was it until Gablenz, victorious in his attack in the centre, brought his men against the flank of the defenders that Frederic Charles was able to force his way in. The Danes, yielding to numbers, fell back on Diippel, a fortified village covering the narrow channel which separates the isle of Alsen from the mainland. Whilst the Prussians took a position at Flensburg, at the west end of the fiord of the same name, thence to watch Diippel, Gablenz, marching northwards, occupied the town of Schleswig on the 6th of February, caught and defeated the Danish rearguard, after a very bloody battle at Oeversee, and entered Jutland on the 8th of March. There he remained until a month later he was joined by Frederic Charles. That prince had experienced more difficulties than had Gablenz. Diippel was strong by natiire, and had been made stronger by art. Its front works, ranging over an extent of 3000 metres, had been fortified according to the newest methods. Raised on an elevated plateau, they commanded the country in front, whilst the flanks resting on the sea were protected on one side by the Danish fleet, on the other by the batteries of Alsen. Before this place Frederic Charles had appeared on the nth of February. After very many skirmishes he opened his batteries on the i6th of March, bombarded the place that day and the day following, but, making but little impression, sat down on the 29th to a regular siege. On the 17th of April his engineers reported the breaches practicable The Danish War. 89 The following morning he led his troops to the assault, and in a very brief space of time carried the place. The garrison retreated into Alsen, whither the Prince could not, by reason of the extreme narrowness of the channel, in the face of the protecting batteries, pursue them. He pushed on rather to join the Austrians in Jut- land. The Danes, not strong enough to contend against the united forces, evacuated the province (April 29). The allies then proceeded to occupy the mainland as far as the series of inland water basins known as the Llimfiord, ex- tending from the North Sea to the Kattegat. So far as actual fighting was concerned the war was over. Europe had looked on with folded arms whilst a treaty signed by all the great powers only eleven years before was being deliberately broken. It is true that two of the parties to the treaty which guaranteed the succession of the Danish possessions, inclusive of Schles- wig and Holstein, to the Glucksburg family, — the Duke of Augustenburg renouncing his claims for a compensa- tion in money, — were the infringers of the treaty. Of the other three, Russia was bound by promises to support the policy of Prussia. The conduct of England and France would, however, seem to demand explanation. It has been customary to attribute the inaction of the western powers in this grave European question to the increasing coldness between the courts of St James and the Tuileries, and to the fact that, because the former had not responded favourably to the invitation of the French Emperor to a congress to be held at Paris in 1863, therefore the latter rejected the proposals regarding Denmark which might, if acted upon, have saved her. But the refusal of Napoleon III. to co- operate with England was prompted by considerations of a character altogether different. No one more than go Reason zvhy France did not interfere. he had fanned the frowning mistrust between Austria and Prussia. Ever since he had compelled Italy to cede Savoy and Nice he had nursed the hope of being able to play a similar game with the two great German powers. To set them against one another, to witness their gradual exhaustion, then to step in as arbitrator, receiving as payment either the frontier of the Rhine or the liberty to annex Belgium, had become to him a fixed resolve. It is remarkable that whilst cherishing such dreams he should have directed his foreign policy on lines which would most certainly prevent the fulfilment of them. That, at a period when Bismarck was beginning that series of intrigues which had for their object the compelling Austria to fight at a disadvantage, Napoleon should have entered upon the Mexican adventure was a madness paralleled only in history by the tenacity with which his uncle had clung in 1812 to the posses- sion of Spain. When the hour arrived for which he had been hoping and scheming he was then powerless to utilise to his advantage the chance which it offered. He declined then, in 1864, to respond favourably to the advances of England, because he sympathised with Bismarck's avowed intention to thrust Austria from her seat of predominance. For Denmark he really cared very little : for a civil war in Germany a great deal. It was not, then, pique, but a well-thought-out policy which dictated his reply to England : a policy excellent for France if he had carefully husbanded his resources to support it, but which, in the absence of any such states- manlike action, would blunt his sickle on the barren sand. As for England, it is only necessary to state that, under the guidance of the aged Lord Palmerston and the aged Lord Russell, her policy was a policy of words The Contested Provinces ceded. 9 1 only. Those words, however bold, were not intended to be the precursors of action. ' I look upon Lord Russell's despatches as so much waste paper,' ^ said the Bavarian representative at Frankfort, the Baron von der Pfordten to the English minister, Sir Alexander Malet. But, though they did not interfere, the neutral powers made an effort to settle the differences by diplomacy. A conference met in London on the 20th of April, two days after the storming of Dlippel, and after three weeks of negotiation induced the belligerents to accept an armistice. At the time Schlesvvig, Holstein, and Jutland were in the occupation of the allies. Denmark was powerless. At the conference, however, she was misled by the expressions of sympathy emanating from the English and French representatives, and she refused an offer which, taking from her Holstein, would leave her the northern part of Schleswig. The war, consequently, recommenced (June 26). The result was such as everyone foresaw. Alsen was bombarded and taken, the Danes were driven to the northern extremity of the mainland, and they were finally compelled to accept terms far harder than those they had rejected in May. An armistice was agreed to on the i8th of July. On the 26th a conference of the powers was held at Vienna. On the 30th of October a treaty was signed by which Holstein, Schleswig, and Lauenburg were ceded to the allies. Denmark also agreed to pay a large sum to defray the expenses of the war. After successful war follows the distribution of the spoil. Before they entered Denmark the invading powers had made no precise stipulation as to the manner in which the territories to be conquered should be appropriated. It had simply been settled by agreement that the two 1 Overthrow of the Germanic Confederation by Prussia in 1866, by Sir Alexander Malet. 92 Plans of Bismarck. powers 'engage to establish the future condition of the duchies only by way of mutual understanding,' The time for the settling of the nature of this mutual under- standing had now arrived. It was a question abounding with difficulties for Austria, for, as we now know, it was the full intention of Bismarck to arrange, not 'a mutual understanding,' but, rather, such a ' mutual misunderstand- ing' as would enable him, at any chosen moment, to fix a quarrel upon that Power. It was Bismarck's firm determination to procure the cession of the duchies to Prussia. They supplied all that of which Prussia was in need : in Kiel, a magnificent harbour ; in the narrownesss of the peninsula the possi- bility of uniting the North Sea and the Baltic by means of a canal — a frontier which might easily be made defensible. The acquisition of such a territory was so valuable that the utterance of falsehood and the practice of fraud might well seem, to an utterly unscrupulous man, not only justifiable but patriotic. That he had been able to delude Austria to go so far with him as to be a partner in the expulsion of the Danes was a marvellous feat of diplomacy. But it was a part only of the great scheme. The awakening for Austria would come when the time for the division of the spoil should arrive. Then, with an army increased and reorganised, supplied with an irresistible weapon, he could easily find means to pick the quarrel, the solution of which would either place Prussia at the head of Germany or roll her into an abyss more terrible than that formed by the whirlwind of 1 801-7. Such was the policy of Bismarck : a policy truly of adventure, a policy which could succeed only by deliberately deceiving Austria until the pear should be ripe — a policy rightly called 'of fraud and falsehood,' to be supported at the proper time by force. It had two dis- Plans of Bismarck. 93 tinct bases : the deceiving of Austria and the preparation of an army which should be irresistible. Yet it cannot be concealed that in this policy of ad- venture Bismarck was encouraged by four or five potent factors. He could count upon the sympathy of Russia ; upon the blindness, and, above all, on the pride of the Habsburgs, always displaying itself at the wrong moment, always damaging to their country ; upon successfully de- ceiving phlegmatic England ; upon the secret sympathy and neutrality of the Emperor of the French, who, believ- ing that the struggle would be long and exhaustive, and in the end disastrous to Prussia, hoped to step in towards its conclusion, as the armed arbitrator, and claim as his spoil the frontier of the Rhine. But he too was hood- winked, and, unlike his fellow-adventurer who armed whilst he plotted, he plotted but did not arm. To carry out his plans Bismarck proceeded with his accustomed dissimulation and his accustomed audacity. The first question to arise was as to the division of the spoil. On this point, as I have said, the two powers had had, before the outbreak of hostilities, but the vaguest understanding. It was necessary for Bismarck to break to his ally only gradually his intentions. Accordingly, in the first instance, the occupation of the conquered country was thus arranged. One Austrian brigade, consisting of five battalions of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, and a battery of artillery, occupied Holstein, whilst two Prussian brigades of infantry, amounting to eighteen battalions, eighteen squadrons of cavalry, and three batteries of artillery, held Schleswig. It was understood by Austria that the occupation should only continue until the Duke of Augustenburg should have subscribed to certain necessary conditions, the claims of this prince hav- ing been recognised by all the powers, inclusive of the 94 Bisviarck ivorks His Scheme. Prussian representative, at the later conference of London. But it was no part of Bismarck's policy to hand over the duchies to the Duke of Augustenburg. Accordingly, he obtained an opinion from the crown jurists of Berlin to the effect that the claims of King Christian (whom he had just dispossessed) to Schleswig-Holstein were legal, and that the Duke had no rights whatever in the duchies. To give to Austria some idea of this tendency of his policy he communicated to Vienna, February 22, 1865, the terms ^ upon which Prussia was ready to admit the claim of the Duke of Augustenburg. These conditions scarcely veiled the determination of Bismarck to seize the duchies for Prussia. They provided a system under which the Duke would be a mere puppet, and the duchies would be Prussian all but in name. Needless to say that they raised a storm on all sides. Austria would not have them ; the Duke himself declined to listen to them ; almost the entire population of Schleswig-Holstein pro- tested against them. Austria, partially awakened now to the aspirations of Bismarck, formally demanded the re-establishment of the independence of both duchies, and that their future relations to Prussia should be regulated in consonance with the federal compact. The Diet, too, on the motion of Bavaria, Saxony, and Hesse, passed a resolution expressive of a hope that pending the final solution of the question the duchy of Plolstein should be handed over to the Duke of Augustenburg. It was clear to Bismarck that, whilst his preparations ' They were : that the finance, postal, and railway systems should be assimilated to and combined with those of Prussia ; that Prussian law, in- cluding the obligation to serve, should be introduced ; that the regiments should take the oath of fidelity to the Prussian king; that the piincipa! military positions should be held by Prussian troops. He hoodwinks Austria. 95 for war had not been completed, the feeling of all Germany was opposed to the pretensions he had raised for Prussia. It was necessary, therefore, to temporise. After some correspondence he arranged to meet the Austrian minister, Count Blome, at Gastein ; and there, on the 14th of August 1865, he signed with him a treaty — known as the Convention of Gastein — in virtue of which Holstein was transferred to Austria, and Schleswig to Prussia, 'without prejudice to the continuation of the rights of both powers to the whole of both duchies.' The second article provided for the establishment of a German fleet and the fixing of the port of Kiel as the federal harbour, under conditions which gave Prussia complete control ; the third, for the establishment of Rendsburg as a federal fortress, to be garrisoned alternately by the troops of the two powers ; the fourth stipulated that, until the carrying out of the partition agreed to in the first article, Prussia should have possession of two military roads through Holstein, the one from Lubeck to Kiel, the other from Hamburg to Rendsburg; the fifth gave to Prussia the privilege of erecting and using a telegraphic wire between Kiel and Rendsburg, and the right for its post-office carriages, with its own employes, to circulate on both railway lines throughout the duchy of Holstein, her railway line from LUbeck to Kiel being also assured a passage across the Holstein territory ; the sixth provided for the entry of both duchies into the Zollverein ; the seventh assured to Prussia the right of directing through the Holstein territory the intended North Sea canal, under her absolute control throughout its course ; the seventh freed the duchy of Lauenburg from all contribu- tion to the costs of the war ; the eighth conferred that duchy upon Prussia, that power binding herself to pay to Austria, in exchange for the cession, 2,500,000 Danish 96 Bismarck lioodivinks His Sovereign. rix-thalers within four weeks of the ratification of the treaty ; the tenth provided that ' the execution of the hereinbefore agreed upon partition of the joint sovereignty shall follow as speedily as possible upon the ratification of this Convention ' — by the two sovereigns — ' and at latest be carried out by the 15 th of September.' The plain English of this convention was to secure absolutely to Prussia Schleswig and Lauenburg, and the right of constant interference, under any number of pre- texts, in the affairs of Holstein. The Emperor of Austria met his uncle the King of Prussia to ratify it at Salzburg on the 20th of August, and there it was signed and sealed. Both sovereigns signed in good faith, the King regard- ing it as a most favourable agreement for Prussia, the Emperor as the best bargain he could make to escape the consequences of the entanglement Count Rechberg had unwittingly made for him. At this period, and from this period onwards, the King of Prussia was not in the com- plete confidence of his chief minister. An honest man, he would have started back from Bismarck, as Hazael did from the prophet Elisha, with a similar exclamation on his lips, had Bismarck opened to him his whole heart, told him of the necessity of hoodwinking his nephew, of strik- ing him down in due season, of keeping him in good humour until the war preparations, then fast approaching completion, should be completed. The convention was bad enough for Austria. Had it rested there there would have been indeed constant misunderstandings and bicker- ings. But the matter was not to rest there. The conven- tion was to be made the instrument for casting down the supremacy, for annihilating the influence, of Austria in Germany. So confident was Bismarck that he had now laid the train which he could explode at any moment that Bismarck and Italy. 97 immediately after the ratification of the convention he hastened to Biarritz, there to engage the Emperor of the French to permit him to secure the active alliance of Italy, and to observe himself absolute neutrality during the war he was projecting. The Italian government had greatly at heart two objects : the cession of Rome and the cession of Venetia. The first was in the hands of Napoleon III., whose troops occupied the eternal city, the second depended solely upon Austria. Bismarck had argued that the desire to possess the Venetian territories was so intense in the Italian heart that it would move Italy to form an aggressive alliance with Prussia to gain them by force of arms. He was conscious, however, that Italy would not move without the sanction of Napoleon. Were that sanction to be given, and were that alliance to be con- cluded, he would succeed in dividing the Austrian forces, and compel her to maintain half her troops in Italy. He had already made guarded overtures to Italy, but these had not been very favourably received, and on the con- clusion of the Convention of Gastein the Italian minister, La Marmora, believing that the distribution of the spoil of the Danish war had been amicably arranged, had actually despatched a confidential envoy to Vienna to ask if the Emperor would cede Venetia on the payment by Italy of a very large sum of money and on the assump- tion by her of a fair share of the Austrian public debt. Such was the situation when Bismarck arrived at Biarritz. No authentic record of the proceedings at that famous meeting has been published, and there is but one man living who could supply one. But we can imagine the scene. On the one hand, the tempter from Berlin, who had read the character of his august host, who under- stood every movement of his mind, who could divine his G 98 Bismarck at Biarritz. ev^ery thought on the subject of the impending war ; and this tempter, with one distinct settled purpose before him, a purpose which he could attain only by the silent co- operation of his host ; a tempter ready to humour, to promise, to agree by word of mouth, but determined to sign nothing — as determined not to perform what he might be compelled verbally to promise. He had gone there absolutely convinced that, for his influence with Italy, for his own neutrality, Napoleon would demand his price. His price he knew to be the cession of the Rhine frontier or of Belgium, possibly of both. For the services to be rendered he was prepared, I have said, to promise largely, to humour the French Emperor to the full extent of his hopes, little caring for the fact that he was leading him into a fool's paradise. As little cared he for the rude awakening of his ally when his point should have been gained, his victory achieved. The Prussian army would fight the more confidently for the victory it had won. The French army was in Mexico. On the other side was Napoleon HI. A plotter by nature, accustomed to intrigue, he had encouraged Bismarck in all his schemes against Austria. Bismarck had a very frank nature, especially with those he desired to gain. With Napoleon HI. he had been especially frank. None of his aspirations had been withheld from him. This frankness had thoroughly misled Napoleon. He never before 1866 credited Bismarck with the great talent he undoubtedly possessed. He looked upon him rather as a boaster, a sort of Bobadil, who, with abundance of ambition, overrated his own capacity. Such a blunt man, speaking so openly of his aims, could easily be over- reached. He did not think for a moment that as a military power Prussia was a match for Austria. He was the more ready, therefore, at Biarritz, to listen to the He hoodivinks Napoleon III. ' 99 suggestion that he should signify to Italy his approval of her making common cause with Prussia. He was content to accept from his frank, outspoken guest — in return for his whisper to Italy and his engagement that France should be neutral — vague, possibly, indeed, definite promises of cessions on the Rhine frontier or of a free hand with regard to Belgium. But these promises were merely verbal promises. Confident that the war would be a long one, Napoleon required no more, fully resolved that before the chance should arrive France should be ready. He had in his mind the recollection of his transaction with Cavour. He did not, possibly, reflect that the cir- cumstances differed from one another in almost every particular. In 1859 he had helped Cavour with his army, and he was in a position to insist on the carrying out of the contract. In 1865-6 he was almost in the position of a general without an army. Bismarck quitted Biarritz, taking with him the con- sent of the French Emperor to all his plans. On his arrival at Berlin he set to work to accomplish the three purposes he had immediately in view : the goading of Austria to the point of quarrel, the cementing of an offensive and defensive alliance with Italy, the presen- tation to the honest mind of the King of the conduct and motives of Austria in a light the absolute reverse of the true light. He accomplished these three necessary schemes. When he had in March 1866 goaded Austria, in the manner to be indicated, to arm in self-defence, he arranged, and on the 8th of April signed, an offensive and defensive treaty with Italy. This treaty provided that if within three months Prussia should take up arms for the reform of the German federal system Italy would immediately declare war against Austria. Both parties were to put into the field their whole strength, and peace lOO Bismarck drives Austria from the Duchies. was not to be made until Austria should have agreed to cede Venetia to Italy. Bismarck's representation that Austria, by her conduct in Holstein, was pandering to the democratic principle for the purpose of fostering internal discontent in Prussia gained the King. Bismarck had drawn up the Convention of Gastein in such a manner that he could use it to create and to foment difficulties with Vienna. His policy was based on the principle which, according to ^sop, animated the wolf in his conduct towards the lamb. He had in- structed the statesman whom he had sent to govern the duchy of Schleswig, General Manteuffel, a son of the minister of that name, to maintain the strictest discipline in his duchy, to allow no meetings, to repress every expression of opinion. The Austrian governor of Holstein, on the other hand, had been directed to intro- duce into that duchy the tolerant principles which guided constitutional Austria in her dealings with her German subjects. It followed that public meetings, conducted in an orderly manner, were permitted in Holstein. It is quite possible that at some of these meetings observations were made regarding the different systems prevailing in the two duchies, and that regrets were expressed that a union of the two under the Duke of Augustenburg had not been effected. Bismarck used these expressions of the Holsteiners — not, be it remarked, of the Austrians — to fix the blame on Austria, and to press home, in his inter- course with the King, his charges against Austria, indi- cated in this paragraph. Then, the King having been gained, he openly charged Austria with disturbing the peace of Germany. Vainly did Vienna protest that her intentions were of the purest. Fruitlessly did the Diet propose an alternative arrange- ment for the administration of the duchies. The only Bismarck forces Austria to War. loi alternative scheme acceptable to Bismarck was their bodily transfer to Prussia. He would even have rejected that, for it would have deprived him of the goad he held in his hand for the tormenting and exciting of Austria. To such a length at last did his complaints proceed that, on the 1 6th of March, Count Karolyi, the Austrian am- bassador at Berlin, received orders to demand point-blank from Bismarck whether ' Prussia meant to break the treaty of Gastein.' Bismarck was not quite ready for war, the alliance with Italy not having been signed. He therefore replied with a decided ' No,' but he is said to have added : ' If I had the intention, do you think I should tell you ? ' ^ Count Karolyi, however, a shrewd diplomatist, read between the lines, and in his despatch reporting the conversation informed his government that he considered war inevitable. From that moment x'lustria began, slowly indeed and hesitatingly, to arm. Prussia had been arming for five years. By the efforts of the King and his ministers, in direct opposition to the votes of the national parliament, she had organised an army which could be made in three weeks superior to any force that Austria could put into the field at the end of two months. Yet, when Bismarck heard of the slow and hesitat- ing movements of Austria in the way of arming, he did not hesitate to accuse her of endeavouring to force on war. In this sense he addressed a circular to all the States of the Germanic Confederation, in which he informed them that ' he had seen with surprise that Austria was preparing for a great war ' ; asked them : ' what is the object of Austria ' Overthrow of the Germanic Confederation by Prussia in 1866, by Sir Alexander Mallet, Bart, K.C.B., late H.M. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Frankfort. Sir Alexander adds : ' Deter- mined to provoke Austria to act in some way that should put her in the wrong, M. de Bismarck did not find it an easy task to irritate the Im- perial Government beyond endurance.' I02 Bismarck forces Austria to War. in this armament ? ' , told them that Prussia ' had not made the slightest counter-armament ' ; intimated that, ' in the face of the Austrian dispositions, we on our side,' i.e. Prussia, ' can no longer delay.' He concluded by asking the federated States separately whether, in the face of the threatening 'armaments of Austria, and to what extent, Prussia could count upon their good dispositions.' These expressions, paraphrased by Sir Alexander Malet, may thus be rendered : ' Prussia has irrevocably broken with Austria. The imperial government takes a menacing attitude. Prussia rather courts the issue, and is ready to fight. Prussia expects that all Germany will side with her against Austria. The confederation is antiquated, and must be remodelled. Prussia must have the control of the armed force of Germany.' This circular bears date March 24th. A fortnight later the treaty with Italy, the terms of which had then been almost arranged, was signed. The Prussian army could be made ready in a fortnight. The circular was a bid for the support of those parts of Germany not subject to the Austrian Emperor. Whether their replies should be favourable or the reverse, Prussia would make her spring. Before I describe how she made it I must ask the reader to accompany me to Vienna, to examine briefly the action of the Austrian statesmen ; then, re- viewing the combatants on both sides, and glancing at their leaders, he will be ready to consider dispassionately the conduct of the war. CHAPTER VI. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF AUSTRIA — PREPARATIONS FOR WAR — ACTION OF THE LESSER STATES OF GERMANY — THE COMBATANTS — THE GENERALS — MOLTKE — PRINCE FREDERIC CHARLES — THE CROWN PRINCE — HERWARTH VON BITTENFELD — BENEDEK — THE WAR BREAKS OUT. In the preceding chapter I have told how, just before the meeting of the French Emperor and Bismarck at Biarritz, the Italian prime minister, General La Marmora, had sent an envoy to Vienna to ascertain whether the Emperor was inclined to cede Venetia to Italy on terms very advan- tageous to Austria. These were a large money payment to Austria and the assumption by Italy of a proportionate part of the Austrian national debt. When we consider the terms on which Austria had first obtained Venetia in 1797, that the cession has been branded by historians as one of the most disgraceful transactions entered into by a great power, there would have been nothing humiliating to Austria if she had taken advantage of the crisis with which she was threatened to restore the abducted child to the Italian fatherland, receiving due compensation in money. During the period she had possessed Venetia she had failed to conciliate affection. The people of the lagoons hated their foreign master with a hatred which displayed itself in abstention from all social intercourse. It is at least questionable whether, putting on the one I04 The Ministers of Atistria. side the hatred of the people and the expense of occupa- tion ; the fact that her retention of the city was a festering sore in the heart of every Italian ; the advantages to be derived from holding Venetia were not quite balanced by the drawbacks. Had Austria complied at that time with the suggestion of La Marmora she would have rid herself of an incumbrance, have won the applause of the neutral powers, and have baffled two intriguing plotters, Bismarck and Napoleon III. Austria has always boasted of her politicians, but from the time of Kaunitz onwards those politicians have suc- ceeded either in subjecting her to a considerable loss of territory or in laying up for her, as did Metternich, heavy burdens for the future. When the offer of La Marmora reached Vienna the chief minister of the Emperor was Count Mensdorf-Pouilly, successor of the Count Rechberg, who had brought about the Schleswig-Holstein imbroglio. Mensdorf was the son of a soldier, and himself a soldier. He had fought at Magenta and Solferino, and after the Italian campaign had entered the diplomatic service. He was a favourite at court, but he had had but little experience, and in the events about to be recorded he figured rather as the mouthpiece of the inner court circles than as a min- ister with a policy of his own. The responsibility of the Austrian policy of 1866 rests therefore with the Emperor. The Emperor was a very honest man, but he had no chance in the game of politics wdth either Bismarck or the French Emperor. He rejected, then, the one plan which would have defeated those unscrupulous schemers, and haughtily replied to the suggestions of La Marmora that he would not bargain away any part of his dominions.^ ' Sir A. Malet describes this reply as ' a fatal political error.' Mr Fyfife writes : ' Had this transaction been effected it would probably have changed the course of European history.' Austria, Italy, and France. 105 But the sentimental feeling which had prompted this reply died away when a despatch from Paris informed Francis Joseph of the treaty signed between Prussia and Italy on the 8th of April. The Emperor resolved then at once to offer Venetia to Italy as the price of her neutrality in the war which he saw was inevitable. The offer was made by the French Emperor on behalf of Francis Joseph to Count Nigra, the Italian ambassador in Paris, and trans- mitted by the latter to Florence. The Italian prime minister would have gladly accepted it, for it procured for him all the results of a war without its expense, had he received it earlier. But he felt he could not with honour recede from the engagements he had entered into with Prussia, and he therefore declined it. For Austria it was another example of the fatal 'too late.' The refusal of La Marmora was followed by a pro- posal made by the French Emperor. The time had arrived, in the opinion of that prince, when the treaties of 181 5 might be absolutely set aside. He suggested there- fore to Bismarck, towards the latter days of May, that France should join Prussia with an army of 300,000 men, if the latter power would transfer to her the Rhenish provinces. He repeated offers of this nature in various forms during the weeks which immediately followed. The proposal savoured strongly of pure brigandage, for France had no quarrel with Austria. It indicated, also, poor statesmanship, for there were many other ways — the breaking of the Italian treaty, for instance — in which Napoleon could have made his co-operation necessary and rendered his reward secure. Bismarck, recognis- ing the need to humour his neighbour, to maintain him in an expectant mood, did not absolutely reject any of his proposals. But he gave him no decisive To6 The Eve of the War. answer.^ Meanwhile the English government had made overtures to France and Russia, and on the 28th of May these powers proposed a congress of all the powers, at which to settle every point in dispute, and to reform the federal constitution of Germany. Of the three powers to whom invitations were sent, two, Italy and Prussia, accepted unconditionally, the third, Austria, conditionally. She stipulated that no arrangement should be discussed which should give increase of territory or power to any one of the States invited. This condition was naturally interpreted as a refusal. Probably the Austrian government saw that, with Russia, Italy, France, and Prussia arrayed against her in the congress, she would have no choice but to lay down her arms before she had fought. The course she actually pursued strengthens this view. Simul- taneously with her answer to the neutral powers she called upon the Diet to take the affairs of Schleswig- Holstein into its own hands, and convoked the Holstein estates. Bismarck, recognising in this act a movement which he could use to render war certain, declared the treaty of Gastein to be at an end, and ordered Prussian troops to enter Holstein. The Austrian general, Von Gablentz, protesting that he yielded only to superior force, immediately marched the brigade he commanded to Altona, thence by a masterly manoeuvre, in the face of superior forces, into Hanover. Furious at the breach of treaty committed by Prussia, Austria demanded and obtained from the Diet, by nine votes against six, the ^ ' Bismarck procrastinated ; he spoke of the obstinacy of the King his master ; he inquired whether parts of Belgium or Switzerland would not better assimilate with France than a German province ; he put oft' the Emperor's representatives by the assurance that he could more conveniently arrange these matters with the Emperor when he should himself visit Paris.' Fyff"e, Vol. III. pages 368-9. The JFar 0/ I S66 de£-ins. 107 order for the mobilisation of the federal armies. The Prussian representative at Frankfort, declaring that this act dissolved the federal union, handed in the Prussian plan for the reorganisation of Germany,^ and quitted Frankfort (June 14). The day following Bismarck demanded of the sovereigns of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel that they should put a stop to their mili- tary preparations and accept the Prussian scheme. On their refusal he directed Prussian troops to invade their territories. The war then began. Nearly the whole of Germany, disgusted with the high-handed action of Bismarck, sided with Austria. With the solitary excep- tion of having weakly yielded to Prussia on the question of the duchies, she had respected the federal rights of her neighbours, whilst Prussia, led by Bismarck, had dis- played a constantly increasing desire to trample upon all rights which might set a bar to his ambition.^ The battle to be fought for supremacy was then to be waged by Prussia, in Germany, against the undivided force and opinion of the Fatherland, for in all Germany Prussia could count only on the support of Mecklenburg, Weimar, and some pretty States in the north. Had she entered into the war without an external ally it is just pos- sible that, despite the needle-gun, the result might have been adverse to her. She was about to fight, she well knew, ^ This plan contained ten articles, the most salient of which were the convocation of a national representative body to sit periodically, and the exclusion of Austria from the Confederation. Malet, page i88. - Amongst the propositions made by Prussia to Austria on the eve of the war was one transmitted by the King himself, proposing the cession to Prussia of Holstein for a pecuniary indemnity, and a division of Germany into North and South, separated by the river Main, under the respective presidial direction of the two great powers. Austria summarily rejected it on the ground that ' she declined to violate the federal law of Germany. Fide M.a.\et, page 185. loS The Feeling in Prussia. for supremacy in Germany or for degradation. The former, indeed, would be the consequence of her victory. But in war nothing is certain ; and defeat, in her case, would have meant the cession of Silesia to Austria ; of the parts of Saxony she had filched in 1815 to that power; and probably of the Elbe duchies to Hanover. She had done her best to prevent the possibility of so great a misfortune by obtaining the alliance of Italy. This alliance diminished by at least a third the military resources of her rival, for it forced Austria to maintain in Italy a large army capable of making head against the undivided force which that power could bring against her. One word as to the sentiments of the several popula- tions respecting the coming war. In Prussia it was un- popular with all classes, except with the upper classes and the immediate surroundings of the King. William himself had been persuaded by subtle reasoning on per- verted facts to believe in its necessity. The result of his own efforts for peace had confirmed this reasoning. Had he not offered to Austria control of Germany beyond the Main, and had she not refused it ? Why should she re- fuse the south unless she desired the north as well ? But the parliament, the people, the very soldiers sprung from the people, hated the thought of fighting with their brethren to uphold the policy of Bismarck. No one in Prussia at this period, except the King and the court, believed in Bismarck. The people not only mistrusted him : they hated him He was regarded as a flighty poli- tician, full of vain ambition, with neither foresight nor prudence. Before a hostile shot had been fired the bulk of the army shared these sentiments, though when in the presence of the enemy they behaved magnificently. They went unwillingly to the war. Something more than In the Other States of Germany. 109 persuasion was often required to make them march beyond the borders.' In the other parts of Germany the war was popular. The federal States had been so bullied, trodden upon, and insulted by Prussia that even war was preferable to the continuance of subjection to her insults. Few in Germany had a doubt but that the war would result in Prussia's overthrow. Their wishes dictated their opinions. They had not watched the five years' reorganising of the Prussian army, they knew but little of the needle-gun, they had been told that the Austrian troops had made a better impression on the Danes than had those of Prussia, they had never heard of Von Moltke, Benedek was a household word. As to the co-operation of Italy, they gave it but scant consideration. Nor had they paid sufficient attention to the fact that there was one great drawback in the composition of the Austrian army. Austria had not effected that reconciliation with Hungary which was subsequently found to be essential to the well-being of the two countries. The Hungarian leaders, tired of struggling against the prip.ciple of autonomy, saw no chance of salvation from the victory of Austria. Hence the Hun- garian soldiers were less well affected to the cause than were the other troops of her empire. If Austria had had more time to prepare, or if her military administra- tion had been conducted on the lines of common sense ' A relative of my own who happened to be at Colofjne at the lime re- lated to me an incident he had witnessed at that city. The men of a Landwehr regiment ordered to the front had declined to move unless their wives should go with them. When threats and persuasions were found useless the authori- ties gave way, on the condition that the wives should be stowed in separate carriages. This was done. The soldiers took their places in the front part of the train, the wives in the rear compartments. Just one second before the whistle sounded the couplings of the rear compartments were unloosed and the soldiers went on alone. no Sympathy of Germany with Austria. this evil might have been greatly lessened by the trans- ferring of more Hungarian regiments to the army of Italy. But it would seem that no effort was made in this direction.' The feeling of Germany regarding the combatants was well illustrated when the troops of the two nations which formed the garrison of Frankfort quitted that city. When the Austrian regiment marched out, the entire population poured into the streets, and accompanied the men to the railway station. ' Flowers were showered on them by fair hands from the windows, cigars and refreshments of all kinds thrust into the railway carriages, the notabilities of society and of commerce joined wishes of speedy and happy return with their farewell benisons.'^ When the Prussians quitted the town there was not a voice to cry, ' God bless them ' ; no sympathising crowd accompanied them. ' Egypt was glad at their departure.' ' On the contrary, I am personally cognisant of an instance in which the Vienna war office lost the services of a very valuable officer because it per- sisted in taking a step prompted by a very opposite spirit. A Prussian friend of mine had entered the Austrian cavalry, had served with distinction during the many disturbances which took place in Hungary in the years 1860-64, ^"d had become a captain. His regiment had received orders for Italy, when, on the eye of the war, he was transferred from it to a cavalry regiment told off to "take part in the war against Prussia. He hurried to the war office, explained that he was a Prussian born, and could not fight against his own countrymen, although ready and willing to fight against the Italians, and begged to be re- transferred to a regiment serving in Italy. But the war minister was inexor- able ; he seemed to take a petty delight in wounding this officer's feelings because he was a Prussian, and rudely refused his request. The officer, who, I believe, is still living, resigned his commission rather than fight against his own countrymen. - Malet, page 204. The author adds that the sympathy for the Austrians was the more significant inasmuch as the regiment was a Bohemian regiment, scarcely a man in which spoke German. The sympathy was emphatically for Austria. The Prussian Army. 1 1 1 One word regarding the Prussian army. The reorgan- isation designed by Von Roon and approved by the King had been persistently carried on despite the equally per- sistent opposition of the parliament. In vain had the King, when the parliament of 1865 opened in January, expressed the hope that in the presence of the threatening aspect of affairs the differences between the two great powers would be smoothed. The Lower House rejected the reorganisation bill and the war budget, refused to pass the bill for the expenses of the war with Denmark, and declared the spending of money not voted by parlia- ment to be unconstitutional. It persisted in the same spirit when it was reopened in January 1866. The King dismissed it after a sitting of only eight days, and con- tinued to levy taxes as he had levied them in the preceding years. He had in the treasury the savings of preced- ing years, amounting to 20,000,000 thalers. The sale of the State railway from Cologne to Minden brought him a considerable sum, whilst he enforced the budget sanctioned by the Upper House and himself notwith- standing that the Lower House had rejected it. Indepen- dent thus of his parliament, independent likewise of the wishes of his people, who poured in petitions ^ begging for the continuance of peace, he pursued the policy dictated by Bismarck, determined to solve, by blood and iron, the question of Prussia's position in Germany. Meanwhile Von Roon had succeeded in bringing the army to a very high state of efficiency. It numbered 326,600 men, well drilled, well fed, the infantry armed with the new weapon of precision, the cavalry well mounted, the artillery admir- ' It is significant that whilst the petitions from every other part of the King's dominions pleaded strongly for peace, the city of Ereslau, capital of the province which Frederic 11. had filched from Austria, adhered resolutely to the policy of Bismarck. 1 1 2 Moltke. ably appointed. The order to mobilise was given at in- tervals between the 3d and 12th of May. In fourteen days from the latter date the entire army awaited only the order to advance. It remains now to introduce to the reader the dis- tinguished man, the last mentioned of the triad to whom Prussia owes the position she now occupies in the world. If Von Roon organised victory, if Bismarck by his aggressive policy brought the question of Prussia's future to the point when blood and iron alone could solve it, it was Hellmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke who when the moment of action arrived laid down with an accuracy not to be surpassed the decisive points which were to be struck. Von Moltke was a strategist of the highest order. Born on the 26th of October 1800 at Parchim, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was educated for the most part at Copenhagen, and entered the infantry of the Prussian army as second lieutenant on the 12th of March 1822. From October 1823 to the same month in 1826 he attended the classes at the public military school (Allgemeine Kriegsschule) in Berlin, and gained there more than ordinary distinction. From 1828 to 1831 he was engaged in land surveying. On the 30th of March 1832 he was appointed to the general staff; was promoted to first lieutenant in it in 1833, and to captain in 1835. The same year he undertook a journey to Constantinople, and was requested by the Seraskier, Muhammad Chosref Pacha, to remain there some time in the interests of Turkey. Maintaining a perfectly independent position, he took a very leading part in the reorganisation of the Turkish army, accompanied Sultan Mahmud II. in a journey through Bulgaria, and carried out the mandates he received for the fortifying of Rustchuk, Silistria, Varna, Schumla, and a little later of the Dardanelles. About His Earlier Career. 113 this time the Turkish government obtained from Berlin the prolongation of Moltke's leave for three years, and the sending to him thence of three officers to aid in the task he had undertaken. In 1838 Moltke proceeded to the army in Asia Minor, and utilised the assistance sent to him in making military roads. He took part also in the campaign against the Kurds, and against the Egyptians in Syria. On the death of Sultan Mahmud (ist of July 1839) Moltke returned to Prussia, was nominated to the general staff of the 4th army corps (April 1840), was promoted to be major in 1842, became permanently a member of the general staff in October 1845, and accompanied Prince Henry of Prussia to Rome in the quality of adjutant the same year. During his stay in Rome Moltke made a topographical survey of the country surrounding the city. On the death of Prince Henry he returned home, and was sent to the general staff of the 8th army corps (December 1846). In May 1848 he was nominated divisional chief in the principal general staff; on the 2 2d of August of the same year chief of the general staff of the 4th army corps. Whilst holding this position he was promoted, September 26, 1850, to be lieutenant-colonel, in December 1851 to be colonel. On the ist of September 1855 he was ap- pointed first adjutant to the Crown Prince (afterwards the Emperor Frederic) with the rank of major-general. He accompanied this prince in his journeys to London, Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris. Returning, he was nominated to act, October 29, 1857, as chief of the general staff of the army, and in September of the year following was confirmed in that post. In May 1859 he became lieutenant-general. In the Danish war of 1864 Moltke took part as chief of the general staff under the command-in-chief of Prince II 114 Mo like. Frederic Charles. On the conclusion of the war he reassumed his post as chief of the general staff of the army. Early in the spring of 1866 he took part in the consultations held at Berlin as to the possibilities of success in a war against Austria. To the council of superior officers presided over by the King he submitted plans of operations which he contended must lead to success if carried out with energy and vigour. On the 8th of June he was nominated general of infantry, and attached to the headquarters of the King as the real director of the movements of the army. Such, told baldly, was the previous career of the man who was to astonish Europe by his strategic insight — to inspire a confidence such as soldiers can feel only in men of combined genius and action — such as inspired the soldiers of Hannibal, of Alexander, of Caesar, of Cromwell, of Turenne, of Clive, of Eugene, of Marlborough, of Villars, of Frederic, of Loudon, above all, of Napoleon. I do not assert that history will place Moltke on the level of the greatest of these, for it was his fortune never to meet an opponent who soared above mediocrity. But as a strategist, as a master of the art of war, as a general whose combinations were bold yet prudent, who could detect the weak point of his enemy, who could inspire officers and men with the most absolute confidence in his leading, he may claim admittance to the Wal- halla in which rest the shades of the world's most famous warriors. He was a very modest man, kept himself always in the background, was jealous for the acknowledgment of the merits of others rather than of his own. His superiority therefore excited no feeling of envy or of hostility. He was singularly devoid of ambition. In common with the first Duke of Wellington, he claimed duty as his polar star. A few words, and only a few, must be said of the Prince Frederic Charles. 1 1 5 generals commanding the Prussian army corps when the war broke out. They were three: Prince Frederic Charles, the Crown Prince of Prussia, General Herwarth von Bittenfeld. Prince Frederic Charles, only son of Prince Charles, younger brother of the actual King of Prussia, was born at Berlin on the 20th of March 1828, and from his days of boyhood was trained for the army. Whilst yet in his teens he was placeJ under the care of Major von Roon, later minister of war, who accompanied him to the Uni- versity of Bonn (1846-8). The Prince took part in the Danish war of 1848, having the rank of captain, and thus early displayed the qualities of an excellent cavalry officer. He served on the staff of his uncle in 1849, when the latter was engaged in suppressing the insurrec- tionists of Baden, distinguished himself at the combat of Wiesenthal (June 20), in which he was twice severely wounded. On his recovery he devoted himself to military studies. A soldier from the bottom of his heart, he read and re-read the histories of the campaigns of Frederic II. and of Napoleon. He became a perfect soldier in theor}-, and wrote in i860, for private circulation, a pamphlet in which he severely criticised the tactics displayed by the French Emperor in the Italian war of 1859, and compared, advantageously to the former, the German and French armies. Made general of cavalry in 1861, he commanded the right wing of the Prussian army corps which invaded the duchies in 1864. In this war he dis- played many of the qualities of a commander, being quick in his decisions, rapid in his movements, and thorough in his plans. On the conclusion of peace he returned to his studies. He had gained a considerable reputation in Prussia, and was regarded by many officers as the coming man. His popularity with his men was great. 1 1 6 TJic Crown Prince. The second commander mentioned, Frederic, Crown Prince of Prussia, the only son of the reigning king, was three years younger than his cousin, having been born the 1 8th of October 1831. This prince had received a military education, but, as heir to the throne, greater care had been taken to fit him for the duties which would devolve upon him as chief of the State. He possessed a noble character, being frank, open, resolute, just in his views, and courteous in his manners. No one knew better than he how to disarm opposition or to conciliate public opinion. He had had but little experience in the field, having served only, and not prominently, in the Danish war of 1864. To place him at the head of an important army, with a distinct mission of its own, was therefore an experiment. It will be seen, however, that at the most important crisis of the campaign, the results of which depended upon his action, he displayed a capacity and judgment which more than justified his selection. The third officer, Herwarth von Bittenfeld, who was an older man than his comrades, having been born in 1796, had entered the army in 181 1, and taken part in the cam- paigns of 181 3-14. After the peace of 18 15 he remained for twenty years with his regiment, serving five years as adjutant, and becoming captain in 182 1. He became major in 1839, colonel in 1848, and in that rank was placed in command of an infantry brigade. Soon after the 'surrender of Olmiitz ' he commanded the Prussian troops at Frankfort, became a major-general in March 1852, commander of the 7th division in August 1856, and was promoted to lieutenant - general two months later. He held various important commands till the Danish war broke out in 1864. He then received command of the ist mobilised army corps, and at the head of this gained a great reputation by the manner Von Bitten/eld — Benedek. 1 1 7 in which he captured the island of Alsen. But it was his reputation as an unsurpassed handler of masses, his character as a daring, cool, capable leader which procured for him in the seventieth year of his age the position of leader of one of the three aggressive armies of Prussia. Of the army put into the field by Austria and her allies I shall write more at length when the time shall arrive to recount their exploits. But it is necessary to say a few words here of the commander of that army in Germany — Ludwig von Benedek. Benedek was a Hungarian, having been born at Oedenburg in July 1804. He was, however, educated in the military academy at Wiener-Neustadt, issuing from it in 1822 with a lieutenant's commission. He be- came major in 1840, lieutenant-colonel in 1843, colonel in 1846. In that rank he served in the suppression of the insurrection in Galicia, and gave numeious proofs of courage and conduct. He fought in the Italian war of 1848-9, and was promoted to major-general in the Hungarian war of 1849, receiving therein many wounds. After the submission of Hungary Benedek was appointed chief of the general staff to Marshal Radetzky, became field - marshal - lieutenant in 1853, and during the Crimean war was placed in command of the army of observation located in Galicia. In the Franco-Italian war of 1859 he took an active part. At Solferino he commanded the right wing of the Austrian army, the only part of that army which was not beaten, for he completely repulsed the Italian attack. Promoted in November 1859 to be Feldzeugmeister (Inspector-General of Ordnance), he became, two months later, quartermaster - general of the whole army, and in the April following was nominated to be civil 1 1 S Benedek. and military governor of Hungary. From this post he was moved in October to take the command-in-chief of the Austrian army in Italy, and of its reserves in the Alpine country north of Verona. Beloved by the troops, and regarded as the most capable general in the army, he was moved thence when, in May 1866, war with Prussia was seen to be imminent, to take command of the Austrian forces in Germany, the Archduke Albert re- lieving him in Italy. Regarding his talents as a com- mander, no opinion could be formed by those qualified to form one. He had certainly gained the confidence of his men, but he had never commanded in chief. Victory in war is to the general who makes the fewest mistakes. The reader will see that in the operations of the hostile armies neither general-in-chief was free from the com- mission of error ; but the error of Benedek was far greater than the error of Moltke, and, committed at a critical period, was fatal. Having presented to the reader the leading generals on both sides, I propose to take them to the battle- fields on which were to be decided the claims for su- premacy in Germany of Austria and Prussia. CHAPTER VII. THE WAR OF 1 866 — HANOVER AND ELECTORAL HESSE — LANGENSALZA AND WILHELMSHOHE. On the 13th and 15th of June the Prussian government notified to the several generals commanding corps and divisions to be ready to push forward at the first intima- tion sent by wire. On the 15th the same government declared war against Hanover, electoral Hesse, and Saxony; on the i8th^ against the other members of the alliance. At the first of these dates the Prussian army was thus disposed. The first army, commanded by Prince Frederic Charles, consisting of the 2d, 3d, and 4th army corps, and numbering 93,000 men, occupied the Saxon frontier as far as Gorlitz. The second, led by the Crown Prince, composed of the 1st, 5th, and 6th corps, and the Guards, numbering in all 115,000 men, was con- centrated at Neisse in Silesia. The third army, called the army of the Elbe, commanded by Herwarth von Bittenfeld, composed of one division of the 7th corps and of the 8th corps, numbering 46,000 men, and having a Landwehr reserve of 24,300, which, however, was not engaged, stood on the left bank of the Elbe facing Saxony. The three armies, counting the reserve, numbered 278,000 men. But they constituted only a ' Austria was comprehended in this declaration ; but the actual date on which the document declaring war was handed in at the Austrian advanced posts was the 21st. 1 20 The Austrian Ain}iy. part of the Prussian forces available for immediate action. At Minden was the 13th division, 14,300 strong, under General von Falkenstein ; at Hamburg the corps of Manteuffel, 14,100 strong ; at Wetzlar, ready to dash into electoral Hesse, Beyer's division, 19,600 strong.^ Altogether the Prussian troops, ready for immediate action, counted 326,600 men. If the forces of the enemy somewhat exceeded these in number they were neither so ready for immediate action, so united, so well armed, nor so dominated by one imperious will. It was the misfortune of Austria that she was compelled to divide her forces ; that whilst maintaining one army, called the army of the north, under Benedek, in Germany, she was compelled, by the hostile action of Italy, to keep a second army, called the army of the south, in or about the Italian quadrilateral. To that army, under Archduke Albert, I shall refer later on. The northern army was composed of seven corps, the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and loth, each consisting of four brigades ; of an artillery reserve of six batteries, of two light and three heavy reserve cavalry divisions. Its total strength was 247,000 men ; but that strength was raised to 271,000 by the co-operation with it of a corps of Saxon troops, 24,000 strong. Besides these, the garrisons of Cracow, of Olmiitz, of Theresienstadt, of Josephstadt, and of Koniggratz,^ absorbed 54,000 men. Austria, moreover, had contributed 7000 men to the Bund army. The Bund army was formed of 52,000 troops contri- buted by Bavaria; of 16,250 by Wiirtemberg ; of 10,850 by Baden ; of 9400 by Hesse (Hesse- Darmstadt) ; of ' These three corps were afterwards united to form the army of the Main. - It is scarcely necessary to state that Olmiitz is in Moravia ; the three places last named in Bohemia. The Position of Hanove7\ 1 2 1 5400 by Nassau; of 18,400 by Hanover; of 7000 by electoral Hesse (Hesse-Cassel). But these corps were neither ready nor united when Prussia declared war. Although Prussia despatched her cartel to Austria only on the 21st of June she had, as I have said, notified to her generals on the 15th, the very moment she had understood that neither Saxony,^ Hanover, nor electoral Hesse would make common cause with her, to move on those States at a moment's notice. It was a repetition of the policy of Frederic H. in 1756, viz., to dash upon an assured enemy before his resources should be complete. Hanover, long coveted by Prussia, was one of the first to feel the blow. It would have been impossible for Hanover to arm at any time previously without provok- ing an attack from her more powerful neighbour. Her troops, therefore, were utterly unprepared for war. They were about to assemble for their peaceful summer manoeuvres. But learning on the 15th the hostile dis- positions of Prussia, and that orders to the Prussian army to march had been given, the King of Hanover sum- moned his whole army to assemble at Gottingen with the utmost haste. His soldiers obeyed his instructions with alacrity, and on the iSth the whole army, with the exception of three companies of artillery left at Stade, and some small detachments, joined the King and the Crown Prince at the given rendezvous. Nothing was ready for them. The force was deficient in camp equipage, in means of transport, and in ammuni- tion. It counted 15,000 infantry, 2000 of whom were recruits of only two months; 2200 cavalry, and forty-two"^ ' Hanover was not given a chance of neutrality. She was told she must join forces against Austria or accept war. Malet, page 211 and note. " Vide Malet's Overthrow of the Geri/iaiiic Confederation in 1866, pages 210-12. 122 Prussia potirs Her Troops into Hanover. field-pieces. The ammunition train consisted of forty waggons, and there was a reserve of ten guns. The King, his generals, and his subjects generally, worked incessantly to make good the deficiencies, but time was short, the means of the country were inadequate, and when the enemy approached, the Hanoverians were but ill-supplied with the means of moving. The feeling, however, of the troops was excellent. Recognising that they were about to be sacrificed to the long pent-up greed of their neighbour, they threw all their energies into the cause which was at once their King's and their own. Whilst they were thus working the enemy were carry- ing all before them. On the 13th the Prussian general to whom had been committed the task of occupying Hanover, General Vogel von Falkenstein, a veteran in his sixty-ninth }ear, commanding the 13th division, received orders to hold himself in readiness to move at a moment's notice by wire. Crossing the Elbe on the 15th, he sent Manteuffel to seize Harburg that night ; thence pushing forward detachments, he occupied on the i6th, Luneburg and Brunshausen. On the 17th Manteuffel forced the fortress of Stade to surrender. Whilst Emden and the strand batteries on the Ems and the west were attacked by and surrendered to the Prussian maritime force during the four days, from the 19th to the 22d, another division of the Minden army, led by Von Goeben, himself a Hanoverian, marched straight on the town of Hanover, and entered it the evening of the 17th. A portion of Manteuffel's division joined him there the night of the 19th, whilst the other brigade entered Celle on the 20th. It was on that day that the Hanoverian army at Gottingen had been brought into a condition in which it might attempt to move. Many were the consultations held as to the direction it should take. As always Retreat of the Hanoverians. 123 happens under such circumstances, the diversity of opinion was great. The most obvious course seemed to march in the direction by which an early junction could be effected with the Bavarian corps then gathering in the Main. But it was not until the evening of the 20th that the decision was arrived at to march on Eisenach in Saxe-Weimar, thence to traverse Thuringia to a point where a union with the Bavarian force under Prince Charles would be easy. The King had entrusted the command of his little force to General von Arentschildt. It consisted of four brigades : those of Knesebeck, De Vaux, Biilow, and Bothmer, besides reserves, altogether about 18,000 men. It set out on the morning of the 21st. On the evening of that day the advanced guard (Bulow's brigade) was at Helmsdorf, the rearguard at Geismar. It seemed possible that by pushing earnestly forward the little force might carry out the intentions of its leaders, for between it and its destination there was but one Prussian brigade, that of Fliess, about 9000 strong, posted at Gotha. The next day, the 22d, the advanced guard reached Heroldshausen ; but reports coming in that the Prussians were in force in the vicinity, Arentschlidt decided to change slightly the plan of advance, and to move the next day on Langen- salza instead of on Eisenach. Accordingly on the 23d the headquarters of the army were established at Langen- salza, the advanced posts being pushed on to Henings- leben and Merxleben, the rear posts at Mulhausen. No Prussians had been seen, and had the force made a serious effort the following day to push across Thuringia it is almost certain it would have succeeded, for its numbers were to the enemy fronting it at Gotha in the proportion of two to one. It was their one chance, but Prussian cunning induced them to neoilect it. 124 The Effect of Prussian Intrigue. For whilst the Hanoverians were marching to Lang- ensalza the Prussians were gathering on the path and round them. General Goeben had reached Gottingen on the 22d ; Manteuffel's division was but one march behind him ; Von Falkenstein entered the same town on the 23d. Here, however, the Prussian commanders were all at fault. Whilst Wrangel's brigade made a vain reconnaissance in the direction of Heiligenstadt, General Beyer had been detached with his force to guard the passage of the Werra, where no enemy attempted to pass. Two battalions of the Guards had been hurriedly sent from Berlin to occupy Eisenach, from which place the Prussian Landwehr, alarmed by the reports of the Hanoverian advance, had fallen back on Gotha — but they arrived there only on the night of the 23d. I have already stated that there were 9000 Prussians at Gotha. In war nothing is absolutely certain ; but, mathematically, it is more than probable that if the 18,000 men at Langen- salza on the 23d had pushed on, either by Eisenach or by Gotha, on the 24th they would have escaped the Prussian toils. But they did not push on. The Prussians had as- certained the position of their enemies, and dreading lest they should escape, they employed the stale but telling device of propositions for terms to detain them. Deceived by the false statement that the passes in front of them were strongly guarded, and by the idea, stated with an air of conviction, that by negotiations they could obtain terms which would preserve to Hanover its army, the King and his general counter-ordered the directions to advance on Eisenach. Then followed the result which those who knew Prussia and her chief minister might have expected. Conditions were offered from Berlin which could not be accepted. The march on Eisenach was The Hanoverians a7'e entrapped. 1 25 delayed till the afternoon. By that time the garrison there had been effectually reinforced ; and when the Hanoverian army appeared before the place in the evening they found it strongly occupied. They therefore halted where they were, between Langensalza and Eisen- ach, the headquarters at Gross-Behringen. For reasons not to be satisfactorily explained they halted there the next day, the King being still deceived by negotiations intended only to make his surrender certain. The Prussians employed their time far more practically To make the doom of their foes certain they marched to positions encircling them with all their immediately avail- able forces. On the evening of the 25th the position of the Prussian arm}' was as follows : Fliess was at Gotha with his 9000 men ; Von Goeben at Eisenach with the same number ; Von Glumer was at Kreuzburg and Treffurt with 6000; Wrangel was at Cassel with 12,000. Man- teuffel's division occupied the country about Gottingen and Minden. The headquarters were at Eisenach, at which place Von Falkenstein arrived on the 25th to take supreme command. It was on the evening of the same day only that the King of Hanover and his general came to the conviction that they had been entrapped. Nothing remained then but to fight. Accordingly Arcntschildt concentrated his force between Gross and Oster-Behringcn, with Knesc- beck's brigade at Henningsleben to protect a retrograde movement on Langensalza in case of a repulse. It is necessary to call particular attention to the disposition of Knesebeck's brigade, for it shows that the Hanoverian leaders had not yet arrived at the true bearings of the situation. No retreat would save them. The one course open to them was to mass their forces and endeavour to cut their way through the foe in front 126 Position of the Hanoverian Army. of them. Defensive operations could only mean ultimate ruin. This should have been made clear to them by the fact that the Prussians, after much vapouring, made no attack that day. They were waiting for the further re- inforcements which were approaching. During this the King prepared for the battle of the morrow, hoping that the messengers he had despatched to Prince Charles of Bavaria and Prince Alexander of Hesse on the 19th and 2 1st, to explain his situation and to ask assistance, might bring him aid.^ The rumour of a Bavarian advance had reached the Prussian camp, and it disposed the general commanding to make his attack at once. The Hanoverians, mean- while, had taken a position on the left bank of the river Unstrutt, their forces being disposed in the following manner : Blilow's brigade, with the reserve artillery, on the right ; De Vaux's brigade in the centre at Merxleben, connected with Blilow by the village of Thamsbriick, occupied by a detachment, and with the left by Hennings- leben, occupied by the Cambridge dragoons. Bothmer's brigade held the left towards Nagelstadt, with one battalion at the bridge over the Unstrutt, and one squadron and a half guarding the flank towards Tenn- stedt and Bruckstedt. Knesebeck's brigade formed the reserve. The headquarters were at Merxleben, the King was at Thamsbriick. The Unstrutt covered the whole front of the position. It had steep banks, was not easily fordable, and was impassable for cavalry save by bridges. The difficulty of approach was greatly increased by the fact that the road to the south-west, beyond the ^ In point of fact they brought none. Neither prince was ready for offensive operations. The Bavarian prince, however, tendered his advice that the Hanoverians should cut their way through. Battle of Langensalza. 127 river, ran for about eighty yards between a bank from ten to fourteen feet high and the Salza brook. The key of the position was Merxleben and the eminence of Kirchberg, immediately to the south of it.^ In obedience to orders he had received, General Fliess marched, at half-past seven on the morning of the 27th, with his force of nearly 9000 men, from Warza upon Langensalza. His advanced guard reached the entrance of that town at eleven, and drove before it the small Hanoverian party which had occupied it. The latter, however, encountered in its retreat the brigade of Knesebeck which had been despatched to its support. Knesebeck at once occupied a strongly defensive position, and held the Prussians at bay until, at half-past eleven, all the Hanoverians who had been posted on the right bank of the Unstrutt had traversed the defile leading to Merxleben. The Prussians then seized a position on a hill known as the Judenhiigel, but the Hanoverian guns on the more commanding position of the Kirchberg opened on them, and inflicted so much loss that they maintained themselves only by being reinforced. By this time the entire force of Fliess had come up. That general then made a resolute attack on the Hanoverian centre at Merxleben. The attack was repulsed, whereupon Bothmer on the left and Blilow on the right crossed the Unstrutt to attack the Prussian flanks, De Vaux's brigade supporting the attack, whilst the reserves were brought up nearer to the centre. Owing mainly to the great difficulties of the ground, Bothmer's attack failed, but Blilow, who crossed the ' For the graphic description of the position, and for many interesting details connected with story of the Langensalza episode, so advantageous to Prussia and so damaging to her enemies, I am indebted to Sir Alexander Malet's book, already repeatedly quoted. ,128 , The Prussians^ retreat. river about one o'clock, drove back the Prussians and took a position between Unstrutt and the Salza. There- he was joined half an hour later by the first and second battalions of the Guard. He then advanced, stormed a strong position known as Kallenberg's mill, and push- ing on, drove the Prussians from the Judenhiigel. Other positions were stormed, and about two o'clock the Prussians were driven out of Langensalza. But though Fliess's attack had failed he had accom- plished one main purpose of his mission. ' He had secured the detention of the Hanoverians for another day. Strong reinforcements, he knew, were marching up, and could the enemy be induced to stay where they were till the follow- ing morning it would be impossible for them to escape the 40,000 men who would then surround them. Not desirous, however, to expose his own troops to further loss, Fliess began a retreat about half-past three, leaving to the Hanoverians all the honours of the day. The latter pursued the Prussians for about an hour. Their own loss in killed and wounded was greater than that of the Prussians, but they took 907 prisoners, of whom ten were officers. The course of events not only released these the next day, but restored also the two guns and 2000 stand of small-arms which the Hanoverians had captured. It was about half-past four when the pursuit ceased. The question then arose as to what course should be pursued ; whether to remain on the ground or to en- deavour to march all night into Thuringia. A Prussian writer, generally very accurate,^ has thus summed up the situation : ' Although the Hanoverians had undoubtedly won a victory which had at last made it possible for them to escape to the south and effect a junction with the 1 Brockhaus's Conversations-I.cxikon, 1 2th edition. Vol. IX. page 525. The Hanoverians capittdate. 129 Bavarians, they did not profit by it.' Whether they could have escaped may be doubtful. According to the testimony of the superior officers the men were exhausted, the dead remained unburied, they possessed ammunition only for one more serious combat, the supply of food in sufficient quantities was impossible, the Prussians were closing in from several directions, the further ex- penditure of blood could lead, in their opinion, to no good result. For these reasons the King and his officers re- solved to remain w^here they were, and to treat the day following for a capitulation. The terms were drawn up on the 28th by the Prussian chief commander at Eisenach, General von Falkenstein, and after having been submitted to and revised by the King of Prussia, were agreed to by the Hanoverian commander-in-chief. They were to the following purport: (i) that the King of Hanover, the Crown Prince, and such entourage as they might select, should fix their residence wherever they pleased except in Hanover ; (2) that the officers and civilians of the Hanoverian army should engage not to serve against Prussia; that they should keep their arms and receive their pay, and stand in the same relations towards the Prussian administration of Hanover as they had done towards the independent government of that kingdom ; (3) that the rank and file should give up their arms and return to their homes, engaging not to serve against Prussia ; (4) that arms, horses, and war materials should be handed over to Prussia. There was no mistaking these conditions. The order had gone forth that the House of Guelph should cease to reign in Germany. Surely it would have been better had the representative of that ancient House and his army attempted a retreat across Thuringia, even at the risk of encountering superior numbers and being slaughtered I 130 Reflections on the Action of Hanover. to a man. Better that than to await in camp the tender mercies of a Bismarck-inspired King. It was a case of Might against Right. The King of Hanover had been told that he must either espouse a cause against which his conscience and the conscience of his people revolted, or be attacked. He was in the position of a private man who is told that he must either join in a robbery or be himself despoiled. The King of Hanover chose the right, and suffered accordingly. I have dwelt at some length on the actions which led to the surrender of Hanover because it was one of the most important events of the war. It was the first great blow in that war, and it tended enormously to the advant- age of Prussia. War with Austria had only been formally declared on the 21st of June, and a week later Prussia had succeeded not only in neutralising one of her enemies but in securing for herself the advantages accruing from the command of the resources of a territory containing about 2300 square miles and nearly 4,000,000 inhabitants. It was a blow which struck terror into the minds of her weaker foes. And although the conquest could not be attributed to the superior valour of the Prussian soldiers — for they had been beaten in fair fight — it gave evidence that the director-in-chief of the Prussian armies thoroughly understood the time-honoured principle that the way to win a battle is to concentrate the greatest number of men on the decisive point. Not less expeditiously did Prussia act towards elec- toral Hesse. General Beyer, stationed with 19,000 men at Weitzlar, broke up from that place on the i6th, and before the troops of the electorate could be organised for action occupied Cassel (June 19). The Elector, sur- prised, had but time to direct his troops to march on Hainau and Fulda. This they attempted to do, and Enormous Gain to Prussia. \%\ most of them succeeded eventually in joining their several corps at Frankfort and Mayence. But the un- fortunate Elector, who persisted in remaining at his palace at Wilmelmshohe, was taken prisoner by the Prussians, underwent many annoyances at their hands, and was eventually transferred under arrest to Bremen by the express order of the Prussian King. The elec- torate, left defenceless, was annexed by Prussia. We have thus seen how two limbs of the German Confederation were lopped off before the war was a fort- night old. I: remains now to examine the action of the other members, and of Prussia towards them. CHAPTER VIII. THE WAR OF 1 866 — THE CAMPAIGN IN BOHEMIA — COMBATS OF LIEBENAU, OF PODOL, OF MUNCHEN- GRATZ, OF GITSCHIN, OF TRAUTENAU, OF SOOR, OF NACIIOD, OF SKALITZ, OF SCHWEINSCHADEL. The Prussian leaders thoroughly understood the advant- age of promptitude in war. Ready themselves, and opposed to an enemy whose preparations were not yet completed, but who occupied a large extent of territory, some of which overlapped that of Prussia, it was a matter of life and death to strike a blow which should paralyse before the several opponents could combine to utilise the natural advantages open to them. It was, for instance, quite possible — and I mention it here because the points had been considered by the Prussian generals — that had Prussia delayed her forward movements, a capable Austrian commander — and Benedek had that character — might, by uniting with a portion of the Bund army, have dashed in between East and West Prussia, thus preventing combined action between the two parts, whilst a Bavarian army, dash- ing into Hanover and Hesse, and picking up the troops of those allies, might make possible a march upon Berlin. How Prussia prevented the possibility of such action by paralysing both Hanover and Hesse has been already shown. In point of fact there was no such thing as ' dash ' on the part of the allies. They had not an irresponsible general, nor were their preparations for war nearly com- A ction of the A Hies. 1 3 3 pleted. The prompt success of the divisions of Manteufifel, Von Falkenstein, and Beyer, in Hanover and Hesse, had proved this to the hilt. There remained, then, to Prussia the obligation to pursue a similar course towards Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and their lesser allies, with the convic- tion that boldness was prudence, and that to succeed as they had succeeded in Hanover they must give no respite to the enemy. How rigorously they acted on this prin- ciple I shall now show. Before war had been declared, but when it was still imminent, the representatives of Bavaria, Saxony, VViir- temberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau had met at Munich, and had fixed the contingents which should be furnished severally by those powers. It was not, how- ever, till the 14th of June that the Diet called those troops into activity. It was then further arranged that whilst the contingents from the four last named of the allies, and the contingents to be furnished by Austria and Saxony, should be sent to Frankfort, to be placed there under the command of Prince Alexander of Hesse, an officer who had served wMth distinction in the Austrian army, the command of the Bavarian forces, which were to assemble on the Upper Main, should be given to Prince Charles of Bavaria, a veteran in his seventy-first year, who had seen no service since 181 5, when he was a mere boy. It was decided further that the troops assembling at Frankfort under Alexander of Hesse should be subject to the command- in-chief of Prince Charles. By the i8th and 19th the two armies were ready for movement. It had been quite possible for its commander to detach a sufficient body of troops to save the Hano- verian army. But, in reply to the earnest request of the blind sovereign of that State, Prince Charles had sent only advice. Now that Hanover had fallen, the turn fir 134 Movements of the Przissian Armies. action of the Bavarian prince had arriv^ed, for the Prussian army of the Main, formed of the three divisions which had acted in Hanover and in Hesse-Cassel, and led by- Generals von Goeben, Beyer, and Fliess, were on his track, eager to bring him to battle. Before I notice the action of these generals and their opponents it is necessary to follow the movements of the main armies — the armies destined to operate against Austria in Bohemia — commanded respectively by Prince Frederic Charles, the Crown Prince, and General von Bittenfeld, under the supreme direction of the chief of the general staff of the army, General von Moltke On the 19th of June the second army, commanded by the Crown Prince, and cantoned, as previously stated, about Neisse, in Silesia, received orders to leave one corps, the sixth, at Neisse, and with the remainder to press forward into Bohemia, and there effect a junction with the first army. That arm}', commanded by Prince Frederic Charles, was similarly directed to march by way of the upper Lausitz to Reichenberg, seven miles beyond the Bohemian frontier, and to unite with the second army at Gitschin, fifty miles to the north-cast of Prague. The Elbe army (Von Bittenfeld's) was to push on from Dresden, and, barred by the Saxon occupation of Konig- stein from attempting the Elbe valley, to make for Gabel, fifty miles to the north-east of Prague. To secure the upper Silesian frontier two detachments, commanded respectively by General von Knobelsdorff and General Count Stolberg, were left behind. Meanwhile the Austrian commander-in-chief, General Benedek, had been indefatigable in bringing into line the considerable forces of which the Austrian empire could dispose. Benedek was not at all inclined to play a waiting game. He had noticed the positions of the Benedek forestalled by Moltke. 1 3 5 three Prussian armies, and it had occurred to him that by a speedy movement in advance he might strike a dis- abling blow at the second Prussian army whilst it was debouching in separate columns from the passes leading into Bohemia. With this plan in view he set out from Olmutz on the 17th June, but he had not proceeded far when information reached him that the first and third Prussian armies had entered Bohemia. He still, however, hoped. The army of the Crown Prince was separated, he ascertained, from that of Prince Frederic Charles by a distance of about 139 miles (225 kilometres), and it was yet possible, he thought, to carry out his plan. But he had been forestalled. The possibility that Benedek might attempt to overwhelm the second army whilst it was threading its way through the passes, had not escaped the penetrating eye of Moltke. To render such an attack impossible, he had arranged that the first and third armies should make three marches before the army of the Crown Prince should have started. The two former would thus be able seriously to engage the attention of the Austrians whilst the latter was making its way through the diffi- cult passes of Bohemia, and if they could only gain an initial advantage they would compel Benedek to concentrate all his efforts against the foe immediately in front of him. The event fully justified this wise prevision. Benedek had entrusted to the corps of Count Clam-Gallas, backed by 24,000 men of the Saxon army, led b\' the Crown Prince Albert of Saxony, the defence of the Silcsian frontier. Clam-Gallas had his headquarters at Miinchen- griitz on the Iser, fifty-five miles nearly due north of Prague. He had posted one brigade at Rcichcnberg, the second largest provincial town in Bohemia, about thirty- two miles to the north of his own position, seventeen to 136 Advance of Prince Frederick Charles. the south-east from Zittau in Saxony. Between Miinch- engratz and Reichenberg he had one detachment at Podol, a village three or four miles from Munchengratz, where the Iser was spanned by the railway bridge ; a second at Liebenau, some eleven miles to the south of Reichenberg, At Hiihnerwasser, a village in the moun- tainous district north of the road leading to Bohmisch- Leipa, he had placed likewise a brigade to command the approaches from the direction of Dresden. Meanwhile Prince Frederic Charles had broken up from Gorlitz on the 22d, had reached Seidenberg the same evening, crossed the frontier by the passes of Schonwald and Neustadtl the morning of the 23d, and directed his march on Friedland,i sixteen miles due north of Reichenberg. Simultaneously General von Bittenfeld led the Elbe army along the highroad from Dresden leading from Schluckenau to Rumburg. The next morning Frederic Charles marched on Reichenberg : Bittenfeld on Gabel, twelve miles to the right of the first-named place. They both expected they might have to fight for the possession of Reichenberg, covering as it did the junction of the roads leading across the moun- tains by Gabel, Grottau, Friedland, and Hirschfeld. But Clam-Gallas was too prudent to encounter two armies with the much smaller force at his disposal, and he had directed the troops at Reichenberg to fall back on the approach of the enemy on Liebenau. This they did in a perfectly orderly manner. The Prussians occupied Reichenberg the same night and the following morn- ing. The village of Liebenau stands about midway between ^ Close to the village of Friedland stands out in bold relief the castle of that name, formerly the castle of the famous Wallenstein, but now the property of the Claai-Cjallas family. Combat of L iebenau. \ 3 7 Reichenberg and Turnau, the latter being nine and a half miles from Miinchengratz. It was on the road leading to Turnau, immediately south of the village, that the Austrian commander had taken his position, more to test the prowess of the enemy than with the hope that with his vastly inferior force he could defeat him. For he had but four regiments of cavalry, two batteries of horse artillery, and a mere handful of infantry. With these he made an imposing show. He placed his guns on the summit of the hill which looks down from the south upon Liebenau, and kept his cavalry in hand ready to cover his movements. As the Prussians reached the ground which rises gradually to the summit of the hill the Austrian guns opened fire : those of the Prussians im- mediately responded, and in a few seconds a dense smoke hid the combatants from one another. It soon became clear to the Austrian commander that the two batteries at his disposal were far inferior to the enormous firing capacity of the enemy ; he therefore limbered up and re- tired, halting occasionally to fire two or three rounds in the direction of Kositz. Vainly did the Prussian cavalry dash in pursuit. The ground was against them, and before they could come within striking distance the Austrians had reformed on the Kositz hill. Thence they opened a smart fire on the Prussian horse, and only ceased when the arrival of the enemy's guns gave the Prussians the superiority. Then they retired in excellent order on Podol. The affair had been but a skirmish, but it had satisfied both parties : the Austrians, because in the presence of vastly superior numbers they had displayed coolness and discipline ; the Prussians, because they discovered that the Austrian artillery fire was not so dangerous as it should have been, many of their shells penetrating the earth without bursting, and that their 138 Combat of Podol. practice was indifferent. The same evening the Prussians occupied Turnau, at which place the retreating Austrians had broken the bridge across the Iser. An advanced divi- sion of the army of the Elbe Hkewise occupied Bohmisch- Aicha on this day. Podol, which the Austrians now held in some force, is the point below Turnau where a wooden bridge and the railway bridge cross the Iser, here about a hundred yards wide. At this place Count Clam-Gallas had placed six battalions of infantry, intending to hold the place until his entire force should have time to concentrate at Munchen- gratz, thence eventually to fall back on Gitschin, It was his object not to fight a general action, but to delay the Prussian advance as long as possible, so as to give Benedek time to complete his preparations. In this object he only partially succeeded. It was eight o'clock on the evening of the 26th when the advanced division of Prince Frederic Charles's army pushed on to within 1400 yards of the wooden bridge of Podol and came in contact with the Austrian outposts. The six battalions of the latter occupied the village in such a manner as to make their dislodgment a work of time and difficulty. A large farmhouse before the en- trance into the village, strongly occupied, presented the first obstacle to the Prussians. From it, and from the skirm- . ishers covering it, and who had formed across the road, a heavy fire poured upon the advancing enemy did considerable damage. Nor were the defenders un- scathed. The needle-gun had enabled the Prussians to open fire from a distance beyond the range of the Austrian smooth-bores, and though the increasing twilight pre- vented them from taking a certain aim, their fire was nevertheless too well concentrated to fail in effect. Gradually their superiority in number made itself felt, and Combat of Podol. 1 39 the Austrians, slowly falling back, took a second position behind some abattis hastily thrown up across the road leading into the village. The Prussians pressed on till within a few feet of this abattis and halted. There was scarcely three paces between the combatants, and the men on both sides fired point-blank at the breasts of their foes. Again, however, the power of firing much more rapidly, possessed by the breachloading weapons of the Prussians, made itself felt, and the Austrians again slowly retired. Yet for them there was still some consolation. The ad- vancing Prussians were exposed to a murderous fire from the upper storeys of the loopholed houses and from the balconies. This fire, poured into the serried masses press- ing, through a narrow street, had a deadly effect. Every shot told. The Prussians nevertheless pushed steadily onwards. They knew that the river was behind their enemy, and that the occupants of the houses must become their prisoners as soon as they should have forced the front enemy across the bridge. But on this occasion the Austrian soldiers fought in a manner worthy of their ancient re- nown. Pressed back by superior numbers, armed with a superior weapon, they fell back in the darkness (for the moon had not yet risen) coolly and without panic, dis- puting every inch of ground. At last they were forced on to the bridge. There they turned, and, confronting their enemies, began again a resistance as stubborn as it was murderous in its effects. Before their fire the Prussian officers and men fell rapidly. When the enemy advanced too close the Austrians charged them with the bayonet. But again the weight of numbers and the superiority of the weapon told their tale. After a combat, terrible in its slaughter, the defenders were driven back, reaching the other bank of the Iser in time to join their comrades, who, after similar deeds of heroism, had been forced from the raiU 140 Position of Clam-G alias. way bridge. The two parties, uniting slowly, retreated for about a quarter of a mile, to a large house which com- manded the highway. Here they made another stand, gathering in many of their men who had been cut off in the darkness. But the Prussians were not to be denied. They pressed on with increased numbers, until at last the Austrians, having fulfilled the purpose of their general, fell back at four o'clock in the morning in unbroken order on Munchengratz. The Prussians made only a show of following them. The losses on both sides were heavy. But the Austrians left about 500 prisoners, the men who had occupied the houses and balconies of Podol, in the hands of the enemy. The same day the 8th corps, commanded by Von Bittenfeld, marching from Gabiel by Niemes, on the Munchengratz side of Bohmisch-Leipa, pushed on thence towards Huhnerwasser, and drove before it the skirm- ishers, all hussars, who had been thrown beyond that place to reconnoitre. The Austrian brigade which had occupied Huhnerwasser fell back then on Munchengratz, carrying to Count Clam-Gallas the information of the arrival on the field of the Prussian army of the Elbe. The result of the day and night encounters at Liebenau and Podol had been to give the Prussians complete command of the right bank of the Iser. The forces of Clam-Gallas were now concentrated at Munchen- gratz, immediately on the left bank. He knew he would be attacked on the 27th with the whole available force of the two Prussian armies ; he knew that against such a force he could not defend Munchengratz : his object therefore, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon, was not, as Prussian partisans have asserted, to fight a battle, but to offer with a strong rearguard a defence sufficiently resolute to secure for the remainder of his force an He retreats on Gitschin. 141 uninterrupted march on Gitschin. And this, it will be seen, he accomplished. Regarding the action of the 27th, then, it is not necessary to enter into detail. It was simply a combat fought by the Austrian rearguard to secure the retreat of the main body. When, then, about ten o'clock on the morning of the 27th, the Prussians began to move forward, the Austrians set fire to the wooden bridge over the Iser, After some delay the advanced cavalry of the Prussians found a ford by which some of them crossed. Bittenfeld, who commanded at this point, began then to throw a pontoon bridge for the rest of his troops. This bridge was not completed till one o'clock. Then, and then only, did his army begin its movement across the river. The main body of the Austrians had long before begun its march to Gitschin. The rearguard meanwhile had main- tained a steady artillery fire on the advancing Prussians. When the pontoon bridge had been completed they fell back gradually, disputing every point, but not commit- ting themselves to an engagement. Having done all that was possible they fell back on Gitschin. They lost in killed and wounded 193 men and 1000 prisoners. But those prisoners were mostly Italians,' who laid down their arms without fighting for a cause which was not their own. The Prussians lost that day 341 men killed and wounded. In the days immediately before Wallenstein Gitschin had been a poor village, counting but 200 inhabitants dwelling in wretched cabins. But the munificence of that warrior had made it a flourishing town. Its situa- tion on the river Cydlina, which divides itself into two 1 It is admitted that the Italian regiments showed no disposition to fight. Captain Mozier states that twenty-live of them laid down their arms to a Prussian lieutenant. 142 'Position of Gitschin. branches " just below the town, and the fact that it possesses four flourishing suburbs, constituting the market of the district of the same name as the town, gave it considerable importance. It lies twenty miles to the east by south of Miinchengratz, and about twenty-nine from Koniggratz, in a prolongation of the direction from Miinchengratz. Three miles before the traveller from the latter place can reach Gitschin he comes upon a semi-circular road of broken hills, grown with patches of silver firs, and interspersed here and there with small villages made up of ten or twelve huts or cabins sur- rounded by orchards. It was on these hills that Clam- Gallas had drawn up the Austro-Saxon army. He had posted his right in and about the village of Eisenstadt ; his left on the Annaberg, a hill on the south side of tb.e road leading from Sobotka to Gitschin ; his centre on the heights of Brada ; his reserves in Gitschin. To com- pensate as far as was possible for the inferiority of the Austrian musket to the needle-gun Clam-Gallas had directed that the groups of fir trees I have mentioned should be occupied by skilled marksmen, each having two soldiers with loaded muskets in attendance. It will be obvious that this arrangement, though assuring a con- tinuity of fire, could only be carried out by the sacrifice of numbers. The Austrian guns had been skilfully arranged so as to bring a cross-fire on the enemy advanc- ing along the main road. It was late in the afternoon of the 29th of June when the corps of General von Schmitt approached the kft of the Austrian position. The galling fire which opened upon him from an unseen enemy as soon as he arrived within range proved to him that he had to contend with an army well placed and resolute to defend. In vain did he send his skirmishers against the marksmen hidden Combat of Gitschin. 143 by the clumps of firs. Their rolling fire, well directed and sustained by the cross fire from the Austrian guns, caused him very heavy loss. He resolved after a time to wait the arrival of reinforcements. These came up very soon, led by General von Werder. This able commander, attacking then in considerable force, compelled the Austro-Saxons to quit their cover. Then ensued one of the severest fights of the war, the foes standing opposite to each other, separated only by a ravine, and firing point- blank. Whilst they were thus engaged we must see what was happening in the centre and on the right. There the Austro-Saxons occupied the hill of Brada and the range of low hills resting on the Eisenstadt, and in front of the village of Brada, at the foot of the slope of the hills on the further side the villages of Podultz and Diletz. Here also the Prussian attack made itself felt, just before the village clocks had struck five. On the two villages last named the Prussians threw all their infantry. The fight for them was very severe, the attack- ing party vying with the defenders in the ardour of their efforts. At length, about half-past seven, the Prussian attack relaxed. It even seemed to the hopeful Austro- Saxons that the enemy had been permanently repulsed, when an event happened which decided the fate of the day and enabled the Prussians to claim a victory. Nothing had been further from the intention of the general-in-chief of the Austrian army, General Benedek, than to permit the several corps of observation he had despatched to the front to be overwhelmed by superior numbers and beaten in detail. We have seen how Clam- Gallas had obeyed the directions of his commander at Turnau and Munchengratz, combating only for delay and avoiding a decisive action. But he had regarded the defence of Gitschin as so important that he had 144 Benedek recalls Clam-Gallas. notified the day previous to General Benedek that unless he should receive orders to the contrary he should hold that place to the last extremity.^ He was holding it with a fair chance of success, when at half-past seven a despatch from Benedek reached him, directing him to avoid all serious engagement and to fall back on the main army. This despatch was the turning-point of the combat on both wings and in the centre. The retreat had to be made in the presence of an attacking enemy who would claim the movement as a victory. And so, indeed, it happened. The sullenness and steadiness of the re- treating troops, commented upon with apparent ad- miration by Captain Hozier,^ showed most clearly that the men falling back knew that they had not been beaten, that they had at least held their own, that they were retreating in obedience to superior orders. It is at least a firm belief in the Austrian army to this day that but for Benedek's order to retreat Clam-Gallas and the Crown Prince of Saxony would have repulsed the Prussians. Such is the history, the true history, of the combat of Gitschin. It had been better, perhaps, for Austria had no despatch from Benedek interfered with the dis- positions of Clam-Gallas. For, as I shall have to show, the easy abandonment of Gitschin made possible the junction of the second army with that of Prince Frederic Charles. To the movements of that second army I must now turn the attention of the reader. It has already been stated that on the evening of the 19th of June the Crown Prince of Prussia, who com- • For his conduct at Miinchengriitz and Gitschin Benedek removed Count Clam-Gallas from his command, and caused him to be brought before a court-martial. The Count was honourably acquitted. * Ilozier's The Seven IVee/cs' IVar, Vol. I. page 248. Movements of the Crown Prince. 145 •manded the first army, received orders to move with one corps to Landshut, leaving a second at Neisse, and plac- ing a third and fourth in such a position that they could either co-operate with him or join the corps left at Neisse, according as the Austrian movements might be developed. It was thought not impossible that Benedek might begin the war by threatening the flank of the Prussian army in Silesia. Austria, however, was not nearly so ready for aggressive warfare as was her rival, and the chief of the Prussian staff, knowing the advant- age of such warfare to an army ready to move against an enemy whose preparations were considerably behind- hand, had directed the Crown Prince on the 20th of June to intimate to the nearest Austrian commander that the two nations were in a state of war, and on the 22d had instructed him to invade Bohemia and to make for Gitschin. The Crown Prince carried out these instructions. On the 25th of June he had moved his ist corps to Liebau and Schomberg, the Guards to Schlegel, the 5th corps to a position between Glatz and Reinerz, the first brigade of the 6th corps to Glatz, the remainder of that corps to Patschkau, the cavalry division to Waldenburg, his own headquarters to Eckersdorf He had in hand 125,000 good troops. His plan was to march by one or more of the six passes, all of them difficult, which lead from Prussian Silesia through the county of Glatz into Bohemia, and to effect somewhere about Gitschin a junction with the first army. After due consideration he resolved to march by the three roads which lead to Trautenau, Braunau, and Nachod ; on reaching the last- named place, to make a move to the left with the whole army, using Nachod and Skalitz as the pivots, seize the railway from Josephstadt to Turnau, and thus come into K 146 The Austrians fall Back. close communication with the first army. He began this movement on the evening of the 26th of June. On that date General Benedek's army was disposed in the following manner : the 4th corps was at Lanzow, the loth at Pilnikau, the 6th at Opocno, the 3d at Konig- gratz, the 8th at Tinist. It will thus be seen that the projected movement of the Crown Prince was not without danger, and that had the Austrian commander been well served by his intelligence department it was quite possible for him to concentrate the five corps named and smite the heads of the Prussian columns as they emerged from the passes. But apparently he was not well served. The leading division of the 5th Prussian corps secured Nachod on the evening of the 26th, almost without firing a shot, as the Austrians had there but two squadrons and two light guns. On the 27th the ist Prussian corps, commanded by General von Bonin, marched on Trautenau, an in- dustrial town on the Aupa. It so happened that the only Austrian troops in the town were some dragoons of the regiment of Windischgratz and a handful of jager in- fantry, far too {q.^^ to defend it. They made no attempt to do so. The dragoons, however, engaged outside the town in a short hand-to-hand encounter with the Prus- sian cavalry. They renounced this when they saw the enemy's infantry hurrying up at the double, and fell back, accompanied by the handful of jagers, unpursued.^ But there was to be fighting that day. It happened that the loth Austrian corps, commanded by General von Gablenz, whom we have already met in the Danish ' There is absolutely no truth in the story that Trautenau was defended, or that the entire Windischgratz regiment was routed by the Prussian cavalry. The account in the text is based on letters written at the time, and on the as- surances to me of men who served there. Vide Hozier, Vol. I. pages 264, etc. Combat of Trautenau. 147 war, had despatched his ist brigade towards Trautenau when he heard of the Prussian advance, arranging to follow with his main body as soon as possible. The brigade arrived too late to save Trautenau, but it took a position on a hill called the Capellenberg, to the south of the town. Here it was attacked by Von Bonin's corps, and being pressed hard, fell back across the wooded hills which line the course of the Aupa. Finding the pursuit more harassing than he had hoped, Bonin contented him- self with taking possession of the village of Hohenbriick and the heights towards Rognitz, and at three o'clock halted to rest. He had scarcely done so when Gablenz joined his ist brigade, and assuming the offensive, drove the Prussian corps first from Hohenbriick, then from the Capellenberg, and pressing still forward, compelled the Prussians to evacuate Trautenau. For the second time ^ in the war the m^uzzle-loadcrs, well led, had beaten the needle-gun. Gablenz did not pursue the Prussians beyond Trau- tenau. Leaving a brigade there as a rearguard, he marched nearly south-eastwards and bivouacked at the little town of Neu- Rognitz, intending to move thence the next morning to Deutsch-Prausnitz, to come there in touch with a brigade sent to reinforce him. Meanwhile the Prussian Guards, ignorant of the day's proceedings at Trautenau, had reached that same evening the village of Eypel, on the Aupa, and the town of Kosteletz, five miles to the south-east of Eypel. During the night the Prince of Wiirtemberg, who commanded them, re- ceived information of the defeat of the Prussians, and resolved to avenge the affront by attacking Gablenz. I'^arly then the following morning he sent out patrols to bring him information as to the whereabouts of the ' Langcnsalza was the first victor}'. 148 Manceuvres on Both Sides. Austrian general. The patrols did their work in a very- slovenly manner, for they informed the Prince that Gablenz was marching from Koniginhof to Trautenau. The Prince thereupon recalled the division Hiller which he had despatched from Eypel towards Trautenau and waited for further information. Two hours later he learned the true state of the case, viz., that Gablenz was marching from Neu-Rognitz on Deutsch-Prausnitz. He then made dispositions to attack him from three points on his line of march. 1 have stated that the object of Gablenz in marching to Deutsch-Prausnitz was to give the hand to Flei- schacher's brigade of the 4th Austrian corps, which he had received information had been sent hither to rein- force him. But mistakes sometimes occur in war, and very often those mistakes are fatal to success. It hap- pened that on this part of the Bohemian frontier there are two villages called Prausnitz : the one bearing the prefix of 'Deutsch,' the other that of ' Ober.' Both villages are generally spoken of in the neighbourhood as simply ' Prausnitz,' and it is probable that that name without the prefix was used in the instructions given to General Fleischacher. This at least is certain, that he marched on Ober-Prausnitz, and was not near the battlefield during the entire day.' Gablenz was close to the village of Soor when he became aware of the vicinity of the Prussian Guards. He instantly made soldierly arrangements, ranging his artillery on the hills between Neu-Rognitz and Burgers- dorf, extending his right wing to Prausnitz, and stretching his left towards Trautenau to give a hand to the rear brigade he had left in that town. The position was a diffi- cult one, for the task set him was to repulse an enemy ^ Yet Captain Hozier writes of him as though he took part in the action. Gablenz is compelled to retreat. 1 49 greatly superior in numbers until he should extricate his brigade. Had the brigade Fleischacher but moved on the proper Prausnitz it is probable that the Prussian attack would at least have been repulsed, for from the positions they occupied they could not attack Gablenz without ex- posing their flank and left rear to an enemy in Deutsch- Prausnitz. But, not menaced in those quarters, they attacked the position occupied by the Austrians with so much vigour that, in spite of a heroic defence, Gablenz was driven from position to position, until he was forced to abandon the hope of saving the brigade in Trautenau. Dearly did the Prussians pay for their success. They stormed one after another the Austrian positions, but it was ' at an awful sacrifice ; men fell every moment, and officers went down so quickly that hardly a company reached the summit commanded by its captain.' ' But the end came at last. Gablenz fell back slowly and un- pursued to Neu Schloss ; the brigade in Trautenau, cut off from the main body, fell back into the town, and yielded it only after a desperate defence. This success made the future movements of the two Prussian corps easy. On the 29th the Guards occupied Koniginhof, on the left bank of the Elbe, expelling thence the small Austrian garrison, whilst the corps of Bonin occupied Pilnikau. There we must leave them whilst we follow the movements of the other corps of the second Prussian army. The 5th Prussian corps had been directed to make its way through the defile which leads from Glatz to the town of Nachod. A strong defence to their march ought to have been made here, for the position is very defensible ; but, as already stated, no preparations had been made, ' Hozier, Vol. I. page 272. 1 50 Nachod. and the Prussians encountered only the sHghtest resist- ance in taking possession of Nachod and its castle. But the 4th Austrian corps, commanded by General Ramming, was at Skalitz, eight miles from Josephstadt, on the railway line towards the frontier, and between it and Josephstadt was the 8th corps, commanded by the Archduke Leo- pold. Benedek had instructed Von Ramming to smite the Prussian force as it issued from Nachod in the direction of Skalitz, and the Archduke to support him. It was about ten o'clock of the morning of the 27th when General Ramming attempted to carry out these instructions. He had ranged his corps on the plateau of Wenzelsberg, a little to the west of the point where the Nachod defile debouches into the open country, his guns on the high ground pointing in the direction by which the Prussians must emerge. These were supported by two brigades of infantry in front, a third in reserve, whilst two regiments of cuirassiers were drawn up in the open, ready to prevent any attempt of the enemy to rally. The position was admirable in many respects ; it would have been perfect if the Archduke had also occupied with his corps the village of Wisokow, situated on the railway at the point where the road from Nachod then joined it. The Prussians were commanded by General von Steinmetz, the advanced corps by General von Lowenfeld, and the Crown Prince was with them. The surprise to the Prussians as the heads of their columns emerged from the defile a little after ten o'clock was complete. The leading files were smitten by the fire from the Austrian artillery, and as the debouchment from the defile was narrow and the defile itself crowded, there appeared for them to be no salvation. Lowenfeld was, however, equal to the occasion. Hastening as much as possible the debouching of his men, he led them to a wood, which Combat of Nachod. 1 5 1 partly sheltered them from the enemy's fire, and kept them there till two regiments of cavalry had been able to emerge. He ordered these to charge the Austrian cuirassiers. They did so with great gallantry, but after a semblance of success were beaten back with loss. This skirmish cleared the way for the Austrian infantry, who now rapidly approached with the intention of driving the Prussian infantry from the wood. Had they succeeded in doing so they would have not only defeated the two Prussian corps but have captured all their artillery. But the Prussians held the wood splendidly. The Crown Prince, forcing his way through the crowd, encouraged them by his words and by his example. They still held the wood as reinforcement after reinforcement emerged from the defile, but from it they could not debouch as the Austrian cuirassiers were in the open eager to overwhelm them as they might attempt to advance. The Crown Prince recognised that unless he could force back that cavalry the day was irretrievably lost. Just then the 8th regiment of dragoons and the 1st Uhlans emerged from the pass. Explaining to these that the fate of the day depended on their efforts, he ordered them to charge. They obeyed with alacrity, and, with the enormous ad- vantage of assailing horsemen who were stationary, whilst they came on with the full impetus of weight and moral power, they forced the cuirassiers from their position, and giving them no time to rally, effectually cleared the way. Then Steinmetz, who had come up with the artillery and infantry, dashed forward with both arms, and seizing the village of Wisokow, which ought to have been but was not occupied by the Austrians, made the position of Ramming at Wenzelsburg untenable, and compelled him to retreat hastily on Skalitz. Vainly did the cuirassiers attempt to retrieve the day. At Skalitz the 1 5 2 Combat of Ska lit z. Archduke Leopold made a great bid for victory. Steinmetz had pressed forward, and his force engaged with that of the Archduke in fierce encounter. For long the victory remained doubtful, but after some hours of combat Archduke Leopold was forced to retire, first from Skalitz, and then, pushed by the victorious enemy, from a fresh position he had taken behind the Aupa. But there was to be one more combat for the posses- sion of the passes. We have seen how Von Bonin's corps and the Prussian Guards had, on the 29th, occupied Koniginhof on the Elbe. As the Crown Prince had resolved to unite his army at that important place before commencing operations in concert with the first army he directed Von Steinmetz to march the same day, the 29th, in that direction. Benedek, meanwhile, recognising the importance of the mission confided to General von Ramming, had de- spatched the 4th corps, commanded by General Festetics, to support him. Festetics had been at Lanzow on the 26th, and had marched thence with three brigades to- wards Dolau the same night to support the 6th corps. On the 29th he was at the little village of Schweinschadel, three miles from, and to the west by south-west of, Skalitz. He was attacked there by Steinmetz, and after an artillery combat of three hours fell back on the fortress of Josephstadt. Steinmetz then resumed his march, and took a position at Gradlitz, two miles to the east of Koniginhof. There also arrived on the 30th the 6th corps, which had followed the 5th through the defile of Nachod. The Crown Prince had now concentrated in the vicinity of Koniginhof all the corps of the second army which he had led into Bohemia. His ist corps was at Arnau, where was the bridge across the Elbe. There Why the Prussians were Victorious. 153 also on the 30th communication was established with with the first army, then at Gitschin. Of the operations so far it may be remarked that the Prussians had, and the Austrians had not, observed the great principle of bringing the greatest numbers to bear on the decisive point In the action of Nachod, if the 8th Austrian corps, instead of being left in reserve, had occupied the village of Wisokow,^ the 5 th and 6th corps of the Prussian army must have been crushed. It would not have been difficult then to overwhelm the army of the Crown Prince and afterwards successfully to deal with that of Prince Frederic Charles. ' The statement by Hozier that the village of Wisokow was occupied by the Austrians is erroneous. CHAPTER IX. THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ. Bohemia is a country rich in strong defensive positions. Notwithstanding the reverses recorded in the last chapter Benedek might have concentrated his army, amount- ing on the 30th of June to 205,000 men, in a position which would have made the work of the invader difficult and dangerous. Such a position would have been pre- sented had he occupied the right bank of the Elbe, his right resting on Koniggratz, his left, in the direction of Chlumetz, on the ponds of the lower Bistritz, in the Altwasser district. In such a position he could have bade defiance to any enemy, whilst, even supposing he were to be beaten, his retreat was secured. Benedek, however, selected a more forward position. This I shall now proceed to describe. Immediately beyond the village of Sadowa, coming from the west, the road from Horitz to Koniggratz crosses the river Bistritz by a stone bridge. Higher up, as far as Miletin, and lower down, as far as Nechanitz, the river of itself would be only an insignificant hin- drance to an advancing enemy, but it flows in a broad marshy valley, liable to constant overflows, which sub- merge the roads and the bridges. On the left bank of the Bistritz — between it, the Trotinka, and the Elbe — the country is irregular and hilly. The hills and the chains of hills are separated from one another by ravines, TypoMtcliiitg Cff.Sc. Benedek's Position. 157 which make excellent covered places for troops, especi- ally for troops not required for immediate action. The country abounds likewise in woods, forests, and parks, especially in the neighbourhood of Nechanitz and Prizm. Irregular as is the hill-land, a soldier viewing it from the right bank of the Bistritz or from the summit of the hill of Dub, would draw a correct impression as to its general character. To him it would appear a large amphitheatre, whose highest point on the main road traversing it to- wards Koniggratz was the village of Chlum. From this village branched country roads northwards to Gross- Burglitz and thence to Horitz, southwards by way of Prolus to Nechanitz. It was this tract of country, covered in front by the Bistritz, that Benedek had chosen in which to concentrate his army. To the right and left of the highway between Sadowa and Chlum, the key and centre of his position, he had posted the 4th corps of his army. To the right of that corps, towards Horzenoves and the Trotinka, the 3d and 2d corps ; to the left, and in touch with the 4th corps, and extending towards Nechanitz, the largely increased corps of Gablenz, now formed of two corps, the 8th and the loth, recently blended : then the army corps of the ■Saxons. In the reserve, somewhat to the right of Chlum, stood at Rosberitz the ist and 6th corps : in rear of them the cavalry divisions. The actual front of this position from the Trotinka, just beyond Horzenoves, by way of Chlum and Neu- Prizm to Hradin, was about 15,000 paces, just over seven English miles. Its front was thus very strongly occupied, there being twelve men to a pace. The position, naturally strong against a front attack, and occupied by a numerous infantry, had been further 158 Its Advantages and Disadvantages. strengthened by science. Benedek had taken especial care to arrange his formidable artillery, 600 guns, in such a manner as to bear with tremendous force on an enemy ap- proaching from Sadowa or from the north. With this view he had ranged his guns about Chlum and Lipa, on three natural terraces, the one above the other, pointing towards Sadowa, but capable of being turned in a northerly direc- tion. That the line of fire in the Sadowa direction should be free and unincumbered, he had caused to be cut down the clumps and copses which lay between, and of the trees so cut down he had formed abattis, which, unseen from the distance, would obstruct an approaching foe, especially when exposed to the tremendous fire he could command. The position was undoubtedly a strong one, but in the actual circumstances of the case it had its drawbacks. The first of these has reference to the distance between its extreme right and Koniginhof, the headquarters at the moment of the army of the Crown Prince. Now, from Koniginhof to Horzenoves, the extreme right of Benedek's position, is 18,000 paces, just over eight and a half English miles. Supposing, as the Austrian commander had the right to suppose, that between the 30th of June and the 3d of July there had been communications between Gits- chin and the extreme right of the Crown Prince's position^ and knowing, as he undoubtedly did know, that that prince was but three hours' march from the right of his position, he must have been aware that he was always liable to a flank attack. Allowing for delays in starting and in pro- gress on the part of the Crown Prince's army the march would not take more than six hours. The supporting corps would arrive at short intervals later. Benedek's resolution to await attack from an army in front in a position exposed to a flank attack a {