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Scientific men fondly imagined that the march of intellect was destined to impel society, through stages of uninterrupted progress, to a fanciful millennium. Knowledge was to be the spiritual means of redeeming the nations. When mankind came to understand their relations to the surrounding universe, Astrea would again visit the earth, and the golden age return. There were not wanting many minor postulates which seemed to support this splendid vision. All the wars of Europeans found their root in dynastic interests, and would vanish, when the wishes of the million became the mainspring of politics. The knell of standing armies was rung by a citizen soldiery; and with standing armies vanished all fear of territorial aggrandizement. Economic inventions and the wide ramifications of industrial interests were fast binding mankind in a network of harmony and peace. Under war waged for the spell of these illusions, philosophers and statesmen had looked back upon the past as the wilderness of humanity, and, from the heights of Pisgah, sighted the promised land. Even Gioberti, priest though he was, did not shrink from avowing in his primato, that if the Jews looked forward to the Messiah as yet to come, in the light of the golden age, he was as stanch in that belief as the stoutest Israelite among them. The rationalist divines have vied with the poets of our own age in announcing the approach of the dawn of an era of universal peace and happiness. In the midst of these delightful anticipations a speck appears upon a sunny sky, no bigger than a man's hand. But it suddenly swells to gigantic dimensions and sheds disastrous twilight over the fairest regions of the earth. Without any rational pretext whatever, two of the most enlightened nations of Europe rush with murderous weapons at each other's throats. They close with deadly gripe; inflict upon each other mortal blows, until one sinks through sheer exhaustion. The collapsed state is then let blood. Heavy gyves are placed upon it, from which there is little chance of escape for many years to come, and then only by combination with some other power. Between two races who were, a little time ago, beginning to forget their old animosity in acts of amity and good-will, the flames of hate are anew enkindled with a vehemence destined to last

through all time. Now these phenomena may, doubtless, be explained by the usual philosophic method of assigning very simple causes to very complicated effects.

As to which power is humanly responsible for these multiplied disasters, is discussed at large in the pamphlets before us.* The question is not simply historical, but bears directly upon the reasonableness of the terms of peace which have been imposed. If Prussia is as blameless in the transactions which led to the outbreak, as Bismarck would make out, it is obvious he had some reason for his recent severity. But this, we think, can in no way be sustained. We do not share the bias of the authors who have written on this subject. It is our opinion, haying heard, with the impartiality of a nisi prius judge, all that can be said upon the subject, that both parties have been lamentably in the wrong; that the diplomatic relations between France and Prussia for the last six years have been conducted upon principles more worthy of thieves than honest politicians; that each has been attempting to overreach the other; that Napoleon began these subterranean intrigues with a view to secure all the prizes of war without fighting for them, and that Bismarck so manipulated events as to cause the Emperor to fight after all, and left him nothing but defeat for his pains. Each knew that the mining operations in which both were engaged had gone so far, that they must explode somewhere, and each endeavored to direct the train from his own territory to that of his neighbor's. It is beyond question that Bismarck, if he did not plan the Hohenzollern intrigue with his eyes open to all the consequences, knew of its existence when his Government denied all knowledge of it. It is also clear that Baron Von Theile, in a conference with Benedetti, repudiated, on the part of his Government, the very suggestion, after Bismarck and the King had expressed their approval of the candidature. From the declarations of the French ambassador on this occasion, Bismarck must have known

*The best of these is decidedly that by "Scrutator." If we could unmask the writer, we believe we should find Mr. Otway, for he writes with a full knowledge of the facts, and his views are laid down with geometrical precision.

Despatch of Benedetti to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated March 31, 1869.

*

the conflict after the Hohenzollern grievance had been substantively withdrawn, we cannot acquit Prussia of irritating her adversary, and of provoking, in a great degree, the blow she seemed anxious to repel. In point of fact, both parties had their respective interests in the struggle; both desired to fight; both, like two pugilists, had been in training for the encounter during the last five years, and both were determined that so opportune an occasion should not be lost for bringing it on.

the irritating effect the avowal of the scheme must produce on the French Government. He also refused to advise the King simply to withdraw his consent from Leopold's acceptance of the Spanish crown, when pressed to do so by the British Government, though that step would have probably induced France to give up the quarrel. When the Prince withdrew his claims to the Spanish throne, at the instance of his father, Prussia sullenly refused to renounce her sanction to those claims, and thus bore a very conspicuous part in drawing upon Europe the consequences which followed. Then, there is a great deal of mystery about the telegram from Ems conveying the falsehood that the King, in a crowded watering-place, turned upon his heel when accosted by, and refused to speak with, the French ambassador. Now, it is expressly admitted by Bismarck, that he sent copies of that telegram to all the German representatives abroad; and either himself or his subordinates must have caused its insertion in the official Berlin gazette, by which the war excitement in both countries was roused to fever height. We all know it was that telegram which impelled the French Government to launch their declaration of war. It is also upon record that France, in the course of February, made, through Lord Clarendon, two overtures to Berlin for mutual disarmament, offering to reduce her various contingents to the extent of 90,000 men, which was, in fact, one-eighth of her army; but that Bismarck, having churlishly refused to listen to the first proposal, did so far entertain the second as to forward it to the King, who, under the councils of his astute chancellor, declined the proposition on the ground that the military organization of Prussia was the vital principle of her constitution, and that she was least of all inclined to modify it, in front of an aggressive Russia, and with the probability of an alliance between Austria and the South German States-two pretexts, the hollowness of which, recent events sufficiently demonstrate. Now, though the conduct of France is utterly indefensible in provoking

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The indulgence of military vanity, and the desire to dominate Europe, are faults which may be ascribed to France in a larger degree than to Prussia. But Germany, after having disarmed her antagonist, has indulged these propensities with a mercenary spirit, and with the manifest intention of wiping France out of the list of the great powers. The frankness with which this is avowed is admirable in its simplicity. France must be hindered from being dangerous in future. She must, therefore, be reduced to such a position as to render her alike both impotent and defenceless. She must be degraded from her state in the family of nations. She is, therefore, stripped of her armaments: her artillery, her muskets, her swords, her ammunition, her military stores-in fact, nearly all her implements and panoply of war, are carted off to Berlin. That she may not be in an immediate position to supply their place, she is loaded with a pecuniary indemnity which must exhaust the energies of another generation. The frontiers of the country are thrown back to the state in which they were in the middle of the sixteenth century. The strong chain of fortresses which France has erected or fortified during the last three hundred years, with two or three minor exceptions, have been wrenched from her by her enemy. Strasburg, Bitsche, Phalsburg, Thionville, and Metz, protecting that flank of France which is most exposed to attack, are now only so many reservoirs, ready, at a moment's notice, to open the rivers of invasion and deluge the country. Metz, which is only some 160 miles from Paris, is a naked rapier laid across the defenceless throat of France. With her greatest buckler of defence in the hands of Prussia, anything like independent action on the part of France is manifestly impossible. While Metz is in the hands of Prussia, she must remain as

politically weak as Piedmont, with Austria in the Quadrilateral. With a bankrupt exchequer, with a pillaged population, with a disorganized government, with a defenceless frontier, with a mutilated territory, with civil feud in her capitals, with all her strongholds in the hands of the enemy, with an imposition of £200,000,000 sterling as a war indemnity, France is not likely to recover her physical strength in our day; and when vigor returns to her shattered frame, it will be only to feel she has lost her place in the councils of Europe.

There are, of course, many excellent reasons assigned for this sort of beneficence, which need only be stated to win common assent. Metz and Alsace belonged to the house of Hapsburg in the fourteenth century. They ought, therefore, to belong to the house of Hohenzollern in the nineteenth,-a convincing argument, which no country so consistently as Prussia could urge with elaborate effect. If every nation which has been disintegrated during the last two hundred years should get back its own to-morrow, we all know how much Prussia would be a gainer by the transfer. But the inhabitants of Alsace speak a patois of German and French, which contains something of both, and is not either. They are, therefore, clearly entitled to be governed from Berlin. This principle is beautifully illustrated by the Sclave-speaking population of Silesia, the Polish community of Posen, and the Danes of Schleswig. What more in keeping with this piebald collection of people, in the name of nationality, than the French population at Metz? Then, were not Alsace and Lorraine taken by force and guile from Germany? and what more proper to retake them by the same open-handed violence? But it is forgotten that these provinces were first wrenched from France by Germany, so that to restore the original balance, France will have to scramble for them again. By this flux and reflux of empire, at least, one principle is fully assured, Nations are prevented from becoming stagnant. The standing pool of industrial affairs is defecated. War becomes, not an exceptional, but the normal condition of the universe. Civilization has the consolation of knowing that it has no sooner got on its legs, and is about to gather into its granaries an exuberant harvest, than it is

knocked over again and its fruits are withered.

It is singular that German ideologists, whose views are so strong upon abstract subjects, should put forth such inconsistent trash, to justify their newly-adopted policy of territorial aggrandizement. There are however, a large number of sentimentalists in the world, who have a strange hankering for the past, whose sympathies it was necessary to secure. The German archives have, therefore, been ransacked for every tittle of evidence to prove that Metz was a German province in the fourteenth century; and, therefore, if any Frenchmen are found there in the nineteenth, they ought to be under Prussian rule. But, to do Bismarck justice, he has a great contempt for trashy dialectics of this character. He takes his stand upon the firmer ground of political expediency. France has invaded Germany some twenty-seven times, stimulated entirely by her lust for the Rhine provinces. It is, therefore, necessary to reduce her to such conditions that she is not likely to offend again. In the case of the German ideologists, we grant the premiss, but deny the inference. They are doubtless sincere in their unreason. But Bismarck's premiss and conclusion are alike vicious, and no one knows that better than himself.

The earlier wars of France against the Empire arose out of the struggle for these border possessions when the posterity of Lothaire II., to whom they belonged, had died out; but in these wars France, then being parcelled out among numerous vassals, had the worst of it. A series of German irruptions, under Henry the Fowler and the Othos, united these domains to the Empire. They were, however, held more or less as fiefs of the crown of France. The French element within, and French intrigue without, always gave the German emperors great uneasiness; and this, combined with further schemes of obtaining fresh fiefs in Burgundy and Flanders, exposed France to two German invasions-one under Henry V., and the other under Otho IV., which made Louis the Fat and Philip Augustus tremble for their suzerainty. But the Germans soon found in Italy a richer field for their exploits, and France was left to constitute her unity without much hindrance, until the empire fell into Spanish hands. Afraid,

then, of being bodily eaten up, her monarchs became aggressive; but their blows were aimed, not against Germany, but against Spain, unluckily without any great effect; for, the towns of France were some half-dozen times invaded by the Emperor and his allies, her king captured, and her fortresses demolished. Our share in these plundering transactions helped us to Tournay and Boulogne. In the next series of wars, which arose out of the religious and political dissensions of the Empire, if France intermeddled, she was invited to do so by the Protestant princes of Germany, with whom she was allied, and whose interests were menaced by the house of Austria. As the price of her intervention, she got a portion of the disputed frontier; but we never heard that Germany otherwise than freely conceded the long-coveted prize to her, or regarded this portion of the Treaty of Munster as a menace to her liberties. It was not until

Louis Quatorze seized Franche-Comté, and sent his legions over the Rhine, that Germany manifested any uneasiness at the ambition of France-an uneasiness which the league of Augsburg immediately dispelled, and an ambition which the armies of Eugene and Marlborough levelled to the ground. Hence, Lorraine soon afterwards fell as quietly into the hands of France, as if its exchange for the reversion of Tuscany had been an arrangement of Providence. We are rather curious, therefore, to know how Count Bismarck gets his twenty-seven instances of French aggression against Germany, and whether he includes in the list the troops which France lent to Prussia to enable her to retain her hold upon Silesia, and the counter-support she gave Maria Theresa to enable the empress to defeat Prussia. It is evident no parties are responsible for such interventions except those who invite them; and to ascribe to the ambition of the people of France, wars which arose out of the rapacity of his own countrymen, is a phase given to the quarrel which outrages common sense. Even were all the wars carried on under the Louises, the Richelieus, and the feudal princes of France, as wantonly aggressive as Bismarck would make out, the French people are no more responsible for them than the horses which dragged their artillery to the field. They were waged frequently in their own despite, purely for dynastic interests, and as often

undertaken to repel aggression as to make it. Even when the people woke up to their sovereign rights, in 1789, from whom did the first deliberate act of aggression come? From mild and peace-loving Prussia. Scarcely five years ago, we saw both the Saxon and Bavarian palatinate entirely at the mercy of the first French regiment that might have ventured to cross the border, without a hand being stretched forth to snatch the defenceless prize. It is therefore false, in fact, to assign to the French such an incurable lust after German territory, as to warrant the necessity of her political servitude. The French have no specific hatred to the Germans as a people, any more than they have to the Italians, whose territory they have honored no less frequently with their presance. The allegation of Bismarck is not, therefore, very assuring. He revives the memory of these miserable feuds, as a reason why they should be stopped; and produces a treaty, for that purpose, which only transmits them to posterity wrapped in a blaze of undying vehemence. It is monstrous for the conquerors of a country to assign, as a pretext for its abasement, the participation of its rulers in those quarrels which originated with themselves. The great shield of Germany against French interference is its unity. Had she further insisted upon the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being dismantled, with an adequate pecuniary indemnity, she would then have been doubly secure. But when, in addition, she requires the keys of France to be placed in her hands, and the country, bound hand and foot, to be cast under her feet, it is idle to say that Prussia is aiming at mere immunity from aggression. There is a weightier reason behind for the mutilation of France, which it would be inconvenient to avow, and that is the preservation, if not the increase, of her own military ascendency.

Prussia, in making peace, consulted her own interests. Had her troops returned to Berlin after concluding with France a wise and durable treaty, that would have occurred which occurred after the peace of 1815-Germany would have demanded free and liberal institutions. There would have been no necessity for Prussian Cæsarism. Berlin would have had to modify her military constitution. There would have been no necessity for vast armaments. The world would have

once more settled down to pacific ways. But in leaving behind her an exasperated France, Prussia has the strongest of all motives for inducing Germany to perpetuate her military dictatorship, and keep the war ferment at high pressure. But it is impossible that the most pacific country can remain long under the influence of such a military organization as Prussia commands, without using it as an instrument for further aggrandizement. Were it indeed otherwise, a marvel would occur, the like of which would be unknown in history. Who ever heard of a power suddenly overtopping Europe, and, amid a handful of weaker states, stopping short in her career of aggression? Those who believe in the pacific virtues of Bismarck, and the pious sincerity of William, ask us to indulge in anticipations which have never been realized. Did Rome stop when it overran the Peninsula, Macedon when it fulminated over Greece, the Caliphs when they stormed Constantinople, or the Hapsburgs when they conquered Vienna? There is a momentum in all states, once entered upon a career of conquest, which hurries them along with a speed proportionate to the extent of their acquisitions. The law of rising kingdoms may be formulated almost with the same nicety as that of falling bodies. Nor are there any circumstances in this instance calculated to modify its tendency, except such as give it vastly preponderating force and direction.

It must not be overlooked in this case, that the states under the hegemony of Prussia are amongst the poorest in Europe. Some three hundred thousand annually are driven, by fell necessity, to seek that provision in foreign lands which is denied them at home. The little wealth possessed by the home population is not in the possession of their princes and feudal aristocracy, but in the hands of the mercantile class, to whom war would not be in the least distasteful, if it opened out new avenues for their trade. The poverty of the German Junker, however, has been up to the present only equalled by his pretentiousness. Sheridan advised the last generation of them to sell their highsounding titles, to buy worsted to mend their stockings. Yet some of our states

men would have us believe that these gentlemen, long suffering under a painful sense of impecuniosity, will, on waking

up to the reality of their being masters of the world, continue to go about, as heretofore, with empty pockets. Can we suppose that a strong state, steeped up to the ears in poverty, will continue quiescent, surrounded by weak states who oppose no barriers to her possession of superabundant wealth? The inference is against everything we know of human nature, even upon the supposition that Prussia, to whom the people have intrusted their fortunes, is the most pacific state in the world, and that they have been attempted to be worried like bleating lambs in the recent struggle. The only rational conclusion is that the Junkers of Germany will, like every other impoverished class, make the most of their new position. They will sit down to consider what countries contain the great reservoirs of commerce, and by what accession of territory the stream of wealth may be diverted to their own land. Germany is in the condition of the miller who had large mills, but no water. Is it likely, when she has the power, she will refrain from entering her neighbor's territory, to divert the course of the element which sweeps by her with such majestic abundance, without rendering any service to herself? If she did not withhold her hand from a few barren roods in the case of Denmark, is she likely to do so when the prize is more tempting, the power to snatch it a thousand degrees more startling, and the chances of failure so much less? There can be only one reply to these questions. If the bourgeoisie condemned the movement, their opposition would be treated with the same indifference as the opposition of the great commercial class to the war of 1866. But the Minister has only to show the trading class that the movement is a commercial venture, and he will convert them into his stanchest adherents.

The German people have acquired of late years a peace-loving character, which, however, is rather adventitious than real, springing more out of the helplessness into which they were thrown by the dissensions of the Diet, than out of any innate disposition to be less quarrelsome than their neighbors. That they are more phlegmatic, more industrious, and less easily roused than the French, may be readily admitted. But we should be strangely oblivious of the thirty years'

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