Read Ebook: Two Chancellors: Prince Gortchakof and Prince Bismarck by Klaczko Julian Ward Frank P Translator

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s. He finally selected a home on the banks of the Main, at Frankfort.

Thus, as it happens to more than one of his compatriots, Joukofski, living entirely in a foreign country, and being indeed manifestly unwilling to return to his native land, considered the Occident miserably sunken and corrupted, and hoped only in "holy Russia" for the renovation and safety of a world overrun and possessed by the demon of revolution. The events of February only served to confirm him in these gloomy visions and to plunge him more and more into an uneasy mysticism, at times even irritating, but more often inoffensive and not devoid of a certain unhealthy charm. The campaign of Hungary caused a momentary diversion in his sad thoughts, and filled him with joy. It was not so much the glory with which the Russian army covered itself which pleased his mind; it was not even the triumph attained by the Russian sword, the sword of St. Michael, over "the impure beast:" his prayers, his hopes went far beyond. He hoped--thus he wrote to his imperial pupil that the great czar would profit by the power which God had given him and would "solve a problem on which the crusades had stranded;" that is to say, that he should drive the infidel from Byzantium, and liberate the holy land. Mme. Joukofski, although born a Protestant, felt in unison with her melancholy husband. Her soul had need of a "principle of authority," which failed her in the reformed confession, and which she sought one day in the Orthodox Church, to the great joy of the poet, without, however, being able to find there perfect rest.

In fact, in a previous crisis, at the time of the Hellenic insurrection and the war of 1828, the grand chancellor of the court and of the empire had defended this principle of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire with a firmness which nothing could disturb. During eight years he had defended it, braving the storm alone, not allowing himself to be discouraged either by the unpopularity then attaching to the Turkish cause or by the desertion of France. Why should the Russians hope that Austria would now desert this principle so vital for her, that she would desert it at the very moment when it commenced to triumph over the indifference of the Occident, and counted France and England among its most earnest champions?

Negotiations were broken off, and nothing could be done but to await the issue of the supreme combat under the walls of Sebastopol. The Russian plenipotentiary awaited it at his post in Vienna in the twofold anguish of a patriot and a relation. The bulwark of the Crimea fell, and Russia found itself in the most critical situation. It was exhausted,--indeed much more exhausted than Europe then thought,--and the prolongation of the war would have infallibly transported the hostilities to the plains of Poland. At this moment Austria intervened anew. It agreed to the demands made by the allies at the conference of Vienna,--even that clause concerning the neutralization of the Black Sea, which it had hitherto resisted as too wounding to Russia. It was not possible to refuse this satisfaction to the allies after the capture of Sebastopol. In reality, these were the easiest conditions which have ever been imposed on a power at the close of a war so long, so bloody, and of such incontestable victories. Austria did more; it sent these conditions under form of an ultimatum, declaring that it would make common cause with the allies if they were not accepted; and Russia accepted them. To look at it plainly, this was a service rendered to a young sovereign, who, having inherited a disastrous war, thus found the means to spare at the same time the memory of his predecessor and the pride of his people. He could say now that he had only made peace because of a new adversary, who had arisen at the side of the old ones, and whom his father did not count on. In fact, it was said in Russia,--it was believed, indeed, so much was it in their interest to believe it. The Russian people were quickly reconciled with the conquerors of Alma and of Malakof. A single power remained in their eyes responsible for their disasters,--the power which during the whole war had rested on its arms. Even at this hour every Russian heart boils with indignation at the thought of Austria, of its immense ingratitude and its great treason.

Otto-Edward-Leopold de Bismarck-Schoenhausen, born the 1st of April, 1815, at Schoenhausen, hereditary estate of his family in the old Mark of Brandenburg, could not flatter himself with having, like his friend Alexander Mikha?lovitch, blood of the Saints in his veins. His biographers even observe with visible satisfaction, that at least two of his ancestors were excommunicated by the Church and died in final impenitence. What is more serious is that the most authorized historians of the Mark of Brandenburg, M. de Riedel among others, call into question the noble origin of the family. They show that the first of the line, of whom authentic documents of the fourteenth century speak, Rulo Bismarck, was a member and on several occasions even provost of "the guild of master tailors in cloth" at Stendal, a small market town of the old Mark. The fact does not seem doubtful. But could not the citizens of Stendal, just as well as those of certain cities in Tuscany, have forced every country noble, who wished to inhabit the city, to subscribe himself in one of those guilds? This is the opinion of the tories in this curious genealogical dispute. To hear them, the good citizens of Stendal must have been on a par, in the fourteenth century, with the great citizens of Florence and of Pisa, and Rulo Bismarck must have been master tailor in cloth about as much as Dante, his contemporary, was an apothecary. The whigs, on the contrary, the biographers in national-liberal colors, take their part gayly, and one of them ingeniously concludes, that in any case the ancestor Rulo ought "to contemplate with satisfaction and pride from the high heavens the splendid imperial mantle which his descendant has made for King William out of the cloth of Europe."

"Tu non pensavi ch'io loico fossi!"

FOOTNOTES:

Expressions from the Russian circular of the 6th July, 1848, addressed by Count Nesselrode to his agents in Germany.

The Germanic Confederation was formed in 1816. Frankfort was chosen as its seat, whither delegates were sent from all the States of Germany retaining sovereign rights. These delegates formed the assembly called the Diet.

The assembly was composed of seventeen envoys, presided over by the representative of Austria. There were however thirty-one States exclusive of the free cities, represented in the last period of the Diet's existence. The Diet was so constituted that each of the following States or combination of States had one representative: Austria; Prussia; Bavaria; Kingdom of Saxony; Hanover; W?rtemberg; Grand Duchy of Baden; Electorate of Hesse; Grand Ducal Hesse; Denmark, for the Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg; The Netherlands, for Limburg and Luxemburg; The Duchies of Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Altenburg; Brunswick and Nassau; The two Mecklenburgs ; Oldenburg, Anhalt and two Schwarzburgs ; Lichtenstein, Reuss, Schaumburg Lippe, Lippe Detmold, Waldeck and Hesse Homburg; The free cities, Lubeck, Frankfort, Bremen and Hamburg.

The votes were equal. Sittings were secret.

The leading idea with the founders of the Diet was the preservation of internal tranquillity, the next, the formation of a league which should inspire other nations with respect.

Ambassadors were accredited to the Diet.--TRANSLATOR.

Russian circular of the 27th May, 1859, concerning the war in Italy.

The battle of Sadowa, or as it is more commonly called in Germany, the battle of K?nigsgr?tz, was fought on the 3d of July, 1866, and decided the result of the conflict between Prussia and Austria.--TRANSLATOR.

Protocol of the conference of the 17th April, 1855.

A religious ceremony which, in the Protestant Church, corresponds in a certain degree to the first communion in the Catholic Church.

Treaty of Gastein, 14th August, 1865, between Austria and Prussia on the one side and Denmark on the other.--TRANSLATOR.

Varzin, the Tusculum of the German chancellor, is situated in Pomerania, to the right of the Stettin-Danzig road, and about ten miles from Schlawe. The comfortable dwelling-house is almost surrounded by a magnificent park of beech and oak trees. Varzin has been in M. de Bismarck's possession since 1867.--TRANSLATOR.

Berlin is situated on the river Spree.--TRANSLATOR.

Session of the chamber of the 21st April, 1849. See also the interpellation of M. Temme in the session of the 17th April, 1863.

The minister of Nassau, Baron Max de Gagern was at the head of this deputation.

A NATIONAL MINISTER AND A FAULT-FINDING DIPLOMAT AT ST. PETERSBURG.

It is interesting to study, in the confidential letters to Malvina, the state of mind of M. de Bismarck during these years 1859-1860. At the commencement of hostilities, and evidently despairing of seeing his government adopt the line of conduct which he had not ceased to recommend, he left his post, went to Moscow to visit the Kremlin, passed an agreeable day in a villa, so much more agreeable "when one has the feeling of being sheltered from the telegraph." The news of a great battle fought in Lombardy caused him, nevertheless, to return to St. Petersburg. "Perhaps there will be something for the diplomats to do." At St. Petersburg, he learns of the strange desire at Berlin of interceding for Austria, of mobilizing the federal armies, and from it he conceived the greatest apprehensions for his country. He became ill. A very grave case of hepatitis endangered his life seriously. "They covered my body with innumerable cupping glasses large as saucers, with mustard poultices and quantities of blisters, and I was already half way to a better world when I began to convince my doctors that my nerves were disordered by eight years of griefs and excitement without intermission , and that by continuing to weaken me, they would lead me into typhoid fever or imbecility. My good constitution ended by conquering, thanks, above all, to several dozen bottles of good wine."

FOOTNOTES:

"Austria is not a state, it is only a government."

M. de Bismarck has since presented these quadrupeds to the zo?logical garden of the former free city of Frankfort.

UNITED ACTION.

This criminal folly of a nation could only be equaled by the heedlessness not less culpable with which Europe encouraged and fanned it. Europe, which had not dared to touch the Polish question during the war of the Crimea, thought it opportune to sympathize, to trifle with it in this moment, the most ill-timed and the most desperate! Lord John Russell was the first to enter the lists. In 1861 he wrote the famous despatch to Sir J. Hudson, and persuaded himself and England that by it he had delivered Italy. The year afterwards, in the celebrated dispatch of Gotha, he conceived for Denmark a most original constitution in four parts, with four parliaments, and thus gave the signal for the dismemberment of the Scandinavian monarchy. This time he believed that he ought to recommend parliamentary institutions for Poland; and to the observation of the Russian ambassador that it would be difficult for the czar to favor on this point his Polish subjects over his own national ones, he na?vely asked why he would not extend the same benefit to all the Russias? Count Rechberg, the fatal minister who then directed the external affairs at Vienna, experienced on his part the desire of showing himself compassionate; he accorded himself the malicious and very costly pleasure of paying the cabinet of St. Petersburg, in Polish coin, for the sympathies which this latter had shown for the Italian cause. As if Austria had not already suffered enough from the imaginary grievances of the Muscovites as regards the pretended "treason" during the war of the Crimea, it desired to give it very legitimate grievances by a very real "connivance" in Gallicia; Gallicia became, in fact, the refuge, the depot of arms, and the place of revictualing for the insurgents of the kingdom.

It is just to acknowledge that the French government had long hesitated before starting on a way so perilous. From the first period of the Polish agitation, a note published in the "Moniteur" of the 23d April, 1861, had put the press and public opinion on guard against "the supposition that the government of the emperor encouraged hopes which it could not satisfy."

Let us lock up the hair shirt with the discipline; let us only think of the diplomat in tunic and helmet, of the "iron count" , as his people soon called him, and let us look at the disposition of France towards him at the moment when, after having left the rugged valley of Gastein, he prepared to visit the delightful region of Biarritz, to salute, interrogate, divine, and ... cast down the sphinx!

FOOTNOTES:

See the celebrated circular dispatch of M. de Bismarck of the 24th January, 1863, in which he gives an account of the curious interviews which he had with the ambassador of Austria, Count Karolyi, in the last months of the year 1862, soon after his accession to power.

"Why, then, should not representative institutions be accorded at the same time to the kingdom of Poland and to the empire of Russia?"--Dispatch of Lord John Russell to Lord Napier, 10th April, 1863.

Dispatch of M. Buchanan of the 17th October, 1863. Inclosure. Minute of conversation between M. de Bismarck and Sir A. Buchanan.

"In 1848 Denmark had demanded the protection of France; M. Bastide, then minister of foreign affairs under the republic, took its part warmly, and there was even an idea of sending 10,000 men to assist the Danes in the defense of their country."--Dispatch of Lord Cowley of the 13th February, 1864. See also the curious dispatches of M. Petetin, then envoy of the republic at Hanover.

The official journals of Berlin have renewed this reasoning in their recent discussions on the laws of guarantee accorded to the Holy See. The Pope, they argue, cannot be treated as a sovereign, as reprisals cannot be exercised against him by seizing his states.

Verse of a German song.

We have taken care to preserve in the translation the character of edifying obscurity which distinguishes the original.

Letter of the emperor to M. Drouyn de Lhuys of the 11th June, 1866. It is from this letter, solemnly presented to the legislative body, that the quotations which follow are taken.

He used this expression more than once, and in a very convincing tone, in the council of ministers before 1866. It was not till later, after Sadowa and the affair at Luxemburg, that he at times seemed to yield to the "party of action" in his views concerning Belgium, without, however, ever giving his full acquiescence.

Dispatch of M. Nigra of the 8th August, 1865. La Marmora, p. 45.

Dispatch of General Govone of the 17th March, 1866. La Marmora, p. 90.

It was on his return from Biarritz that M. de Bismarck said to the Chevalier Nigra, these significant words: "If Italy did not exist, it would have to be invented." La Marmora, p. 59.

Dispatch of General Govone, of the 6th April, 1866. La Marmora, p. 139.

At the moment when hostilities commenced; dispatch of M. de Barral of the 15th June, 1866. La Marmora, p. 332.

Dispatch of General Govone of the 2d April, 1866. La Marmora, p. 131.

Dispatches of General Govone of the 2d April and 22d May 1866. La Marmora, pp. 131 and 245.

George Hesekiel, iii. p. 271.

It was the Queen Augusta who affirmed it in a letter to the Emperor of Austria, saying that on this matter she had received the word of honor of her royal spouse. See the curious dispatch of M. Nigra of the 12th June, 1866, as well as the telegram of General La Marmora of the same day. La Marmora, pp. 305 and 310.

See the notes of M. d'Usedom of the 12th and 17th June, as well as the dispatch of Count de Barral of the 15th June. La Marmora, pp. 316, 331, 345-348.

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