XXXVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE…

XXXVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

[Sidenote: The Napoleonic Period.]

238. The aristocratic military leaders of old France had either run away or been discredited along with the noble class to which they belonged. Among the commanders who, through exceptional ability, arose in their stead, one was soon to dominate the history of Europe as no man before him had ever done. For fifteen years, his biography and the political history of Europe are so nearly synonymous that the period that we are now entering upon may properly be called after him, the Napoleonic Period.

[Sidenote: Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1769), a Corsican by birth, an Italian by descent.]

Napoleon Bonaparte was hardly a Frenchman in origin. It is true that the island of Corsica, where he was born August 15, 1769, had at that time belonged to France for a year. But Napoleon's native language was Italian, he was descended from Italian ancestors who had come to the island in the sixteenth century, and his career revives, on a magnificent scale, the ambitions and the policy of a condottiere despot of the fifteenth century.[412]

[Sidenote: The young Bonaparte in a French military school.]

When he was ten years old he was taken to France by his father. After learning a little of the French language, which he is said never to have mastered perfectly, he was put into a military school where he remained for six years. He soon came to hate the young French aristocrats with whom he was associated. He wrote to his father, "I am tired of exposing my poverty and seeing these shameless boys laughing over it, who are superior to me only in their wealth, but infinitely beneath me in noble sentiments." Gradually the ambition to free his little island country from French control developed in him.

[Sidenote: His political intrigues in Corsica.]

[Sidenote: The Bonapartes banished from Corsica, 1793.]

On completing his course in the military school he was made second lieutenant. Poor and without influence, he had little hope of any considerable advance in the French army, and he was drawn to his own country both by a desire to play a political rôle there and to help his family, which had been left in straitened circumstances by his father's death. He therefore absented himself from his command as often and as long as he could, and engaged in a series of intrigues in Corsica with a hope of getting control of the forces of the island. He fell out, however, with the authorities, and he and his family were banished in 1793, and fled to France.

[Sidenote: Napoleon made commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, 1796.]

The following three years were for Bonaparte a period of great uncertainty. He had lost his love for Corsica and as yet he had no foothold in France. He managed, however, to demonstrate his military skill and decision on two occasions and gained thereby the friendship of the Directory. In the spring of 1796 he was made by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. This important appointment at the age of twenty-seven forms the opening of a military career which in extent and grandeur hardly finds a parallel in history, except that of Alexander the Great. And of all Bonaparte's campaigns, none is more interesting perhaps than his first, that in Italy in 1796-1797.

[Sidenote: Prussia and Spain conclude peace with the French republic, 1795.]

[Sidenote: The campaign in Italy, 1796-1797.]

239. After the armies raised by the Committee of Public Safety had driven back their enemies in the autumn of 1793, the French occupied the Austrian Netherlands, Holland, and that portion of Germany which lies on the left, or west, bank of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were again busy with a new, and this time final, partition of Poland. As Prussia had little real interest in the war with France, she soon concluded peace with the new republic, April, 1795. Spain followed her example and left Austria, England, and Sardinia to carry on the war. General Bonaparte had to face the combined armies of Austria and of the king of Sardinia. By marching north from Savona he skillfully separated his two enemies, forced the Sardinian troops back toward Turin, and compelled the king of Sardinia to conclude a truce with France.

This left him free to advance against the Austrians. These he outflanked and forced to retreat. On May 15, 1796, he entered Milan. The Austrian commander then shut himself up in the impregnable fortress of Mantua, where Bonaparte promptly besieged him. There is no more fascinating chapter in the history of warfare than the story of the audacious maneuvers by which Bonaparte successfully repulsed four attempts on the part of the Austrians to relieve Mantua, which was finally forced to capitulate at the beginning of February of the following year. As soon as he had removed all danger of an attack in the rear, the young French general led his army toward Vienna, and by April, 1797, the Austrian court was glad to sign a preliminary peace.

[Sidenote: The treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797.]

[Sidenote: Creation of the Cisalpine republic.]

The provisions of the definitive peace which was concluded at Campo-Formio, October 17, 1797, illustrate the unscrupulous manner in which Austria and the French republic disposed of the helpless lesser states. It inaugurated the bewilderingly rapid territorial redistribution of Europe, which was so characteristic of the Napoleonic period. Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands and secretly agreed to use its good offices to secure for France a great part of the left bank of the Rhine. Austria also recognized the Cisalpine republic which Bonaparte had created out of the smaller states of northern Italy, and which was under the "protection" of France. This new state included Milan, Modena, some of the papal dominions, and, lastly, a part of the possessions of the venerable and renowned but defenseless republic of Venice which Napoleon had iniquitously destroyed. Austria received as a partial indemnity the rest of the possessions of the Venetian republic, including Venice itself.

[Sidenote: General Bonaparte holds court; his analysis of the French character and of his own aims.]

240. While the negotiations were going on at Campo-Formio, the young general had established a brilliant court. "His salons," an observer informs us, "were filled with a throng of generals, officials, and purveyors, as well as the highest nobility and the most distinguished men of Italy, who came to solicit the favor of a glance or a moment's conversation." He appears already to have conceived the rôle that he was to play later. We have a report of a most extraordinary conversation which occurred at this time.

"What I have done so far," he declared, "is nothing. I am but at the opening of the career that I am to run. Do you suppose that I have gained my victories in Italy in order to advance the lawyers of the Directory?... Do you think either that my object is to establish a republic? What a notion!... What the French want is Glory and the satisfaction of their vanity; as for Liberty, of that they have no conception. Look at the army! The victories that we have just gained have given the French soldier his true character. I am everything to him. Let the Directory attempt to deprive me of my command and they will see who is the master. The nation must have a head, a head who is rendered illustrious by glory and not by theories of government, fine phrases, or the talk of idealists, of which the French understand not a whit."

There is no doubt whom General Bonaparte had in mind when he spoke of the needed head of the French nation who should be "rendered illustrious by glory." This son of a poor Corsican lawyer, but yesterday a mere unlucky adventurer, had arranged his programme; two years and a half later he was the master of the French republic.

[Sidenote: Personal characteristics.]

We naturally ask what manner of person this was who could frame such audacious schemes at twenty-eight and realize them at thirty years of age. He was a little man, less than five feet two inches in height. At this time he was extremely thin, but his striking features, quick, searching eye, abrupt, animated gestures and rapid speech, incorrect as it was, made a deep impression upon those who came in contact with him. He possessed in a supreme degree two qualities that are ordinarily incompatible. He was a dreamer, and at the same time a man whose practical skill and mastery of detail amounted to genius. He once told a friend that he was wont, when a poor lieutenant, to allow his imagination full play and fancy things just as he would have them. Then he would coolly consider the exact steps to be taken if he were to try to make his dream come true.

[Sidenote: Sources of power in Napoleon's character.]

In order to explain Bonaparte's success it must be remembered that he was not hampered or held back by the fear of doing wrong. He was utterly unscrupulous, whether dealing with an individual or a nation, and appears to have been absolutely without any sense of moral responsibility. Affection for his friends and relatives never stood in the way of his personal aggrandizement. To these traits must be added unrivaled military genius and the power of intense and almost uninterrupted work.

[Sidenote: The political conditions which rendered Napoleon's wonderful successes possible.]

But even Bonaparte, unexampled as were his abilities, could never have extended his power over all of western Europe, had it not been for the peculiar political weakness of most of the states with which he had to deal. There was no strong German empire in his day, no united Italy, no Belgium whose neutrality was guaranteed--as it now is--by the other powers of Europe. The French republic was surrounded by petty independent, or practically independent, principalities which were defenseless against an unscrupulous invader. Prussia, much smaller than it now is, offered, as we shall see, no efficient opposition to the extension of French control. Austria had been forced to capitulate, after a short campaign, by an enemy far from its source of supplies and led by a young and inexperienced general.

[Sidenote: Napoleon conceives the idea of an expedition to Egypt.]

241. After arranging the Peace of Campo-Formio, General Bonaparte returned to Paris. He at once perceived that France, in spite of her enthusiasm for him, was not yet ready to accept him as her ruler. He saw, too, that he would soon sacrifice his prestige if he lived quietly in Paris like an ordinary person. His active mind soon conceived a plan which would forward his interests. France was still at war with England, its most persevering enemy during this period. Bonaparte convinced the Directory that England could best be ruined in the long run by seizing Egypt and threatening her commerce through the Mediterranean, and perhaps ultimately her dominion in the East. Bonaparte, fascinated by the career of Alexander the Great, pictured himself riding to India on the back of an elephant and dispossessing England of her most precious colonial dependencies. He had, however, still another and a characteristic reason for undertaking the expedition. France was on the eve of a new war with the European powers. Bonaparte foresaw that, if he could withdraw with him some of France's best officers, the Directory might soon find itself so embarrassed that he could return as a national savior. And even so it fell out.

[Sidenote: The campaign in Egypt, 1798-1799.]

[Sidenote: Nelson destroys the French fleet.]

The French fleet left Toulon, May 19, 1798. It was so fortunate as to escape the English squadron under Nelson, which sailed by it in the night. Bonaparte arrived at Alexandria, July 1, and easily defeated the Turkish troops in the famous battle of the Pyramids. Meanwhile Nelson, who did not know the destination of the enemy's fleet, had returned from the Syrian coast where he had looked for the French in vain. He discovered Bonaparte's ships in the harbor of Alexandria and completely annihilated them in the first battle of the Nile (August 1, 1798). The French troops were now completely cut off from Europe.[413]

[Sidenote: Syrian campaign.]

[Sidenote: Bonaparte deserts the army in Egypt and returns to Paris.]

The Porte (i.e., the Turkish government) declared war against France, and Bonaparte resolved to attack Turkey by land. He accordingly marched into Syria in the spring of 1799, but was repulsed at Acre, where the Turkish forces were aided by the English fleet. Pursued by pestilence, the army regained Cairo in June after terrible suffering and loss. It was still strong enough to annihilate a Turkish army that landed at Alexandria; but news now reached Bonaparte from Europe which convinced him that the time had come for him to hasten back. Northern Italy, which he had won, was lost; the allies were about to invade France, and the Directory was completely demoralized. Bonaparte accordingly secretly deserted his army and managed, by a series of happy accidents, to reach France by October 9, 1799.

[Sidenote: The coup d'état of the 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799.]

[Sidenote: Bonaparte made First Consul.]

242. The Directory, one of the most corrupt and inefficient governmental bodies that the world has ever seen, had completely disgraced itself.[414] Bonaparte readily found others to join with him in a conspiracy to overthrow it. A plan was formed for abruptly destroying the old government and replacing it by a new one without observing any constitutional forms. This is a procedure so familiar in France during the past century that it is known even in English as a coup d'état (literally translated, a "stroke of state"). The conspirators had a good many friends in the two assemblies, especially among the "Elders." Nevertheless Bonaparte had to order his soldiers to invade the hall in which the Assembly of the Five Hundred was in session and scatter his opponents before he could accomplish his purpose. A chosen few were then reassembled under the presidency of Lucien Bonaparte, one of Napoleon's brothers, who was a member of the assembly. They voted to put the government in the hands of General Bonaparte and two others, to be called Consuls. These were to proceed, with the aid of a commission and of the "Elders," to draw up a new constitution.[415]

[Sidenote: The constitution of the year VIII.]

[Sidenote: The Council of State.]

The new constitution[416] was a very cumbrous and elaborate one. It provided for no less than four assemblies, one to propose the laws, one to consider them, one to vote upon them, and one to decide on their constitutionality. But Bonaparte saw to it that as First Consul he himself had practically all the power in his own hands. The Council of State, to which he called talented men from all parties and over which he presided, was the most important of the governmental bodies. This body and the administrative system which he soon established have endured, with a few changes, down to the present day. There is no surer proof of Napoleon's genius than that, with no previous experience, he could conceive a plan of government that should serve a great state like France, through all its vicissitudes, for a century.

[Sidenote: The administrative system instituted by Napoleon.]

In each department he put an officer called a prefect, in each subdivision of the department a subprefect. These, together with the mayors and police commissioners of the towns, were all appointed by the First Consul. The prefects, "little First Consuls," as Bonaparte called them, resembled the intendants--the king's officers under the old régime. Indeed, the new government suggested in several important respects that of Louis XIV.

[Sidenote: The new government accepted by a plebiscite.]

The new ruler objected as decidedly as Louis XIV had done to the idea of being controlled by the people, who, he believed, knew nothing of public affairs. It was enough, he thought, if they were allowed to say whether they wished a certain form of government or not. He therefore introduced what he called a plebiscite. The new constitution when completed was submitted to the nation at large, and all were allowed to vote "yes" or "no" on the expediency of its adoption. Over three million voted in favor of it and only fifteen hundred and sixty-two against it. This did not necessarily mean, however, that practically the whole nation wished to have General Bonaparte as its ruler. A great many may have preferred what seemed to them an objectionable form of government to the risk of rejecting it. Herein lies the injustice of the plebiscite. There are many questions that cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no."

[Sidenote: Bonaparte generally acceptable to France as First Consul.]

Yet the accession of the popular young general to power was undoubtedly grateful to the majority of citizens, who longed above all for a stable government. The Swedish envoy wrote just after the coup d'état: "A legitimate monarch has perhaps never found a people more ready to do his bidding than Bonaparte, and it would be inexcusable if this talented general did not take advantage of this to introduce a better form of government upon a firmer basis. It is literally true that France will perform impossibilities in order to aid him in this. The people (with the exception of a despicable horde of anarchists) are so sick and weary of revolutionary horrors and folly that they believe that any change cannot fail to be for the better.... Even the royalists, whatever their views may be, are sincerely devoted to Bonaparte, for they attribute to him the intention of gradually restoring the old order of things. The indifferent element cling to him as the one most likely to give France peace. The enlightened republicans, although they tremble for their form of government, prefer to see a single man of talent possess himself of the power than a club of intriguers."

[Sidenote: Necessity of renewing the war.]

243. Upon becoming First Consul, General Bonaparte found France at war with England, Russia, Austria, Turkey, and Naples. These powers had formed a coalition in December, 1798, had defeated the armies that the Directory sent against them, and undone Bonaparte's work in Italy. It now devolved upon him to reëstablish the prestige of France abroad, as well as to restore order and prosperity at home. A successful campaign would, moreover, fill the empty treasury of the state; for Bonaparte always exacted large contributions from the defeated enemy and from those of his allies, like the ephemeral Cisalpine republic, who were under the "protection" of France. Besides, he must keep himself before the people as a military hero if he wished to maintain his supremacy.

[Sidenote: Napoleon crosses the Alps and surprises the Austrians.]

Early in the year 1800 Bonaparte began secretly to collect an army near Dijon. This he proposed to direct against an Austrian army which was besieging the French general, Masséna, in Genoa. Instead of marching straight into Italy, as would have been most natural, the First Consul resolved to take the Austrian forces in the rear. Emulating Hannibal, he led his troops over the famous Alpine pass of the Great St. Bernard, dragging his cannon over in the trunks of trees which had been hollowed out for the purpose. He arrived safely in Milan on the 2d of June to the utter astonishment of the Austrians, who were taken completely by surprise.

[Sidenote: The battle of Marengo, June 14, 1800.]

Bonaparte now moved westward, but in his uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of the Austrians, he divided his force when near the village of Marengo (June 14) and sent a contingent under Desaix southward to head off the enemy in that direction. In the meantime the whole Austrian army approached from Alessandria and the engagement began. The Austrians at first repulsed the French, and Bonaparte saw all his great plans in jeopardy as he vainly besought his soldiers to make another stand. The defeat was soon turned, however, into one of the most brilliant victories; for Desaix had heard the firing and returned with his division. Meanwhile the aged and infirm Austrian commander had returned to Alessandria, supposing that the battle was won. The result was that the French troops, reënforced, returned to the attack and carried all before them. The brave Desaix, who had really saved the day, was killed; Bonaparte simply said nothing of his own temporary defeat, and added one more to the list of his great military successes. A truce was signed next day, and the Austrians retreated behind the Mincio River, leaving Bonaparte to restore French influence in Lombardy. The districts that he had "freed" had to support his army, and the reëstablished Cisalpine republic was forced to pay a monthly tax of two million francs.

[Sidenote: A general pacification, 1801.]

A victory gained by the French at Hohenlinden in December of the same year brought Austria to terms, and she agreed to conclude a separate peace with the French republic. This was the beginning of a general pacification. During the year 1801 treaties were signed with all the powers with which France had been at war, even with England, who had not laid down her arms since war was first declared in 1793.

[Sidenote: Two most important provisions of the treaties of 1801.]

[Sidenote: Bonaparte sells Louisiana to the United States, 1803.]

Among many merely transitory results of these treaties there were two provisions of momentous import. The first of these, Spain's cession of Louisiana to France in exchange for certain advantages in Italy, does not concern us here directly. When war again broke out, Bonaparte sold the district to the United States, and among the many transfers of territory that he made during his reign, none was more important than this. We must, however, treat with some detail the second of the great changes, which led to the complete reorganization of Germany and ultimately rendered possible the establishment of the present powerful German empire.

[Sidenote: Cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France and the results for Germany.]

244. In the treaty signed by Austria at Lunéville in February, 1801, the emperor agreed, on his own part and on the part of the Holy Roman Empire, that the French republic should thereafter possess in full sovereignty the territories lying on the left bank of the Rhine which belonged to the empire, and that thereafter the Rhine should form the boundary of France from the point where it left Switzerland to where it flowed into Dutch territory. As a natural consequence of this cession, various princes and states of the empire found themselves dispossessed, either wholly or in part, of their lands. The empire bound itself to furnish the hereditary princes who had lost possessions on the left bank of the Rhine with "an indemnity within the empire."

[Sidenote: Secularization of church lands.]

This provision implied a veritable territorial metamorphosis of the old Holy Roman Empire, which, except for the development of Prussia, was still in pretty much the same condition as in Luther's time.[417] There was no unoccupied land to give the dispossessed princes; but there were two classes of states in the empire that did not belong to hereditary princes, namely, the ecclesiastical states and the free towns. As the churchmen,--archbishops, bishops, and abbots,--who ruled over the ecclesiastical states, were forbidden by the rules of the church to marry, they could of course have no lawful heirs. Should an ecclesiastical ruler be deprived of his realms, he might, therefore, be indemnified by a pension for life, with no fear of any injustice to heirs, since there could be none. The transfer of the lands of an ecclesiastical prince to a lay, i.e., hereditary, prince was called secularization. The towns, once so powerful and important, had lost their former influence, and seemed as much of an anomaly in the German Confederation as the ecclesiastical states.

[Sidenote: Decree of the German diet redistributing German territory, 1803.]

[Sidenote: Disappearance of the imperial cities.]

[Sidenote: Fate of the knights.]

Reichsdeputationshauptschluss was the high-sounding German name of the great decree issued by the imperial diet in 1803, redistributing the territory so as to indemnify the hereditary princes dispossessed by the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France. All the ecclesiastical states, except the electorate of Mayence, were turned over to lay rulers. Of the forty-eight imperial cities, only six were left. Three of these still exist as republican members of the present German federation; namely, the Hanseatic towns,--Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck. Bavaria received the bishoprics of Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg, Freising, and a number of the imperial cities. Baden received the bishoprics of Constance, Basel, Speyer, etc. The knights who had lost their possessions on the left bank were not indemnified, and those on the right bank were deprived of their political rights within the next two or three years, by the several states within whose boundaries they lay.[418]

[Sidenote: Importance of the extinction of the smaller German states.]

The final distribution was preceded by a bitter and undignified scramble among the princes for additional bits of territory. All turned to Paris for favors, since the First Consul, and not the German diet, was really the arbiter in the matter. Germany never sank to a lower degree of national degradation than at this period. But this amalgamation was, nevertheless, the beginning of her political regeneration; for without the consolidation of the hundreds of practically independent little states into a few well-organized monarchies, such a union as the present German empire would have been impossible, and the country must have remained indefinitely in its traditional impotency.

[Sidenote: Extension of French territory.]

[Sidenote: French dependencies.]

The treaties of 1801 left France in possession of the Austrian Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, to which increase of territory Piedmont was soon added. Bonaparte found a further resource in the dependencies, which it was his consistent policy to create. Holland became the Batavian republic, and, with the Italian (originally the Cisalpine) republic, came under French control and contributed money and troops for the forwarding of French interests. The constitution of Switzerland was improved in the interests of the First Consul and, incidentally, to the great advantage of the country itself.

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XXXVIII. EUROPE AND NAPOLEON

[Sidenote: The demoralized condition of France, and Bonaparte's reforms.]

245. The activity of the extraordinary man who had placed himself at the head of the French republic was by no means confined to the important alterations of the map of Europe described in the previous chapter. He was indefatigable in carrying out a series of internal reforms, second only in importance to those of the great Revolution of 1789. The Reign of Terror and the incompetence of the Directory's government had left France in a very bad plight.[419] Bonaparte's reorganization of the government has already been noticed. The finances, too, were in a terrible condition. These the First Consul adjusted with great skill and quickly restored the national credit.

[Sidenote: The adjustment of relations with the pope and the church.]

[Sidenote: The Concordat of 1801.]

He then set about settling the great problem of the non-juring clergy, who were still suffering for refusing to sanction the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.[420] All imprisoned priests were now freed, on promising not to oppose the constitution. Their churches were given back to them, and the distinction between "non-juring" and "constitutional" clergymen was obliterated. Sunday, which had been abolished by the republican calendar, was once more observed, and all the revolutionary holidays except July 14,--the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile,--and the first day of the republican year, were done away with. A formal treaty with the pope, the Concordat of 1801, was concluded, which revoked some of the provisions of the Civil Constitution, especially the election of the priests and bishops by the people, and recognized the pope as the head of the church. It is noteworthy, however, that Bonaparte did not restore to the church its ancient possessions, and that he reserved to himself the right to appoint the bishops, as the former kings had done.

[Sidenote: The emigrant nobles permitted to return.]

As for the emigrant nobles, Bonaparte decreed that no more names should be added to the lists. The striking of names from the list and the return of confiscated lands that had not already been sold, he made favors to be granted by himself. Parents and relatives of emigrants were no longer to be regarded as incapable of holding public offices. In April, 1802, a general amnesty was issued, and no less than forty thousand families returned to France.

[Sidenote: Old habits resumed.]

[Sidenote: The grateful reliance of the nation on Bonaparte.]

There was a gradual reaction from the fantastic innovations of the Reign of Terror. The old titles of address, Monsieur and Madame, were again used instead of the revolutionary "Citizen." Streets which had been rebaptized with republican names resumed their former ones. Old titles of nobility were revived, and something very like a royal court began to develop at the Palace of the Tuilleries; for, except in name, Bonaparte was already a king, and his wife, Josephine, a queen. It had been clear for some years that the nation was weary of political agitation. How great a blessing after the anarchy of the past to put all responsibility upon one who showed himself capable of concluding a long war with unprecedented glory for France and of reëstablishing order and the security of person and property, the necessary conditions for renewed prosperity! How natural that the French should welcome a despotism to which they had been accustomed for centuries, after suffering as they had under nominally republican institutions!

[Sidenote: The Code Napoléon.]

One of the greatest and most permanent of Bonaparte's achievements still remains to be noted. The heterogeneous laws of the old régime had been much modified by the legislation of the successive assemblies. All this needed a final revision, and Bonaparte appointed a commission to undertake this great task. Their draft of the new code was discussed in the Council of State, and the First Consul had many suggestions to make. The resulting codification of the civil law--the Code Napoléon--is still used to-day, not only in France, but also, with some modifications, in Rhenish Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and even in the state of Louisiana. The criminal and commercial law was also codified. These codes carried with them into foreign lands the principles of equality upon which they were based, and thus diffused the benefits of the Revolution beyond the borders of France.[421]

[Sidenote: Napoleon made Consul for life, 1802; and Emperor, 1804.]

Bonaparte was able gradually to modify the constitution so that his power became more and more absolute. In 1802 he was appointed Consul for life and given the right to name his successor. Even this did not satisfy his insatiable ambition, which demanded that his actual power should be clothed with all the attributes and surroundings appropriate to an hereditary ruler. In May, 1804, he was accordingly given the title of Emperor, and (in December) crowned, as the successor of Charlemagne, with great pomp in the cathedral of Notre Dame. He at once proceeded to establish a new nobility to take the place of that abolished by the first National Assembly in 1790.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's censorship of the press.]

From this time on he became increasingly tyrannical and hostile to criticism. At the very beginning of his administration he had suppressed a great part of the numerous political newspapers and forbidden the establishment of new ones. As emperor he showed himself still more exacting. His police furnished the news to the papers and carefully omitted all that might offend their suspicious master. He ordered the journals to "put in quarantine all news that might be disadvantageous or disagreeable to France." His ideal was to suppress all newspapers but one, which should be used for official purposes.

[Sidenote: Napoleon on the necessity of war for France.]

246. A great majority of the French undoubtedly longed for peace, but Napoleon's position made war a personal necessity for him. No one saw this more clearly than he. "If," he said to his Council of State in the summer of 1802, "the European states intend ever to renew the war, the sooner it comes the better. Every day the remembrance of their defeats grows dimmer and at the same time the prestige of our victories pales.... France needs glorious deeds, and hence war. She must be the first among the states, or she is lost. I shall put up with peace as long as our neighbors can maintain it, but I shall regard it as an advantage if they force me to take up my arms again before they are rusted.... In our position I shall look on each conclusion of peace as simply a short armistice, and I regard myself as destined during my term of office to fight almost without intermission."

[Sidenote: Napoleon dreams of becoming emperor of Europe.]

On another occasion, in 1804, Napoleon said, "There will be no rest in Europe until it is under a single chief--an emperor who shall have kings for officers, who shall distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, and shall make this one king of Italy, that one of Bavaria; this one ruler of Switzerland, that one governor of Holland, each having an office of honor in the imperial household." This was the ideal that he now found himself in a situation to carry out with marvelous exactness.

[Sidenote: Reasons for England's persistent opposition to Napoleon.]

There were many reasons why the peace with England (concluded at Amiens in March, 1802) should be speedily broken, especially as the First Consul was not averse to a renewal of the war. The obvious intention of Napoleon to bring as much of Europe under his control as he could, and the imposition of high duties on English goods in those territories that he already controlled, filled commercial and industrial England with apprehension. The English people longed for peace, but peace appeared only to offer an opportunity to the Corsican usurper to ruin England by a continuous war upon her commerce. This was the secret of England's pertinacity. All the other European powers concluded peace with Napoleon at some time during his reign. England alone did not lay down her arms a second time until the emperor of the French was a prisoner.

[Sidenote: War between France and England renewed in 1803.]

[Sidenote: Napoleon institutes a coast blockade.]

247. War was renewed between England and France in 1803. Bonaparte promptly occupied Hanover, of which it will be remembered that the English king was elector, and declared the coast blockaded from Hanover to Otranto. Holland, Spain, Portugal, and the Ligurian republic--formerly the republic of Genoa--were, by hook or by crook, induced to agree to furnish each their contingent of men or money to the French army and to exclude English ships from their ports.

[Sidenote: Napoleon threatens to invade England.]

To cap the climax, England was alarmed by the appearance of a French army at Boulogne, just across the Channel. A great number of flatboats were collected, and troops trained to embark and disembark. Apparently Napoleon harbored the firm purpose of invading the British Isles. Yet the transportation of a large body of troops across the English Channel, trifling as is the distance, would have been very hazardous, and by many it was deemed downright impossible. No one knows whether Napoleon really expected to make the trial. It is quite possible that his main purpose in collecting an army at Boulogne was to have it in readiness for the continental war which he saw immediately ahead of him. He succeeded, at any rate, in terrifying England, who prepared to defend herself.

[Sidenote: Coalition of Russia, Austria, England, and Sweden.]

[Sidenote: Napoleon king of Italy.]

The Tsar, Alexander I, had submitted a plan for the reconciliation of France and England in August, 1803. The rejection of this and the evident intention of Napoleon to include the eastern coast of the Adriatic in his sphere of influence, led Russia to join a new coalition which, by July, 1805, included Austria, Sweden, and, of course, England. Austria was especially affected by the increase of Napoleon's power in Italy. He had been crowned king of Italy in May, 1805, had created a little duchy in northern Italy for his sister, and had annexed the Ligurian republic to France. There were rumors, too, that he was planning to seize the Venetian territories of Austria.

[Sidenote: The war of 1805.]

[Sidenote: Occupation of Vienna.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805.]

War was declared against Austria, August 23, and four days later the army at Boulogne was ordered eastward. One of the Austrian commanders exhibited the most startling incapacity in allowing himself to be shut up in Ulm, where he was forced to capitulate with all his troops (October 20). Napoleon then marched down the Danube with little opposition, and before the middle of November Vienna was in the possession of French troops. Napoleon thereupon led his forces north to meet the allied armies of Austria and Russia; these he defeated on December 2, in the terrible winter battle of Austerlitz. Russia then withdrew for a time and signed an armistice; and Austria was obliged to submit to a humiliating peace, the Treaty of Pressburg.

[Sidenote: The Treaty of Pressburg.]

By this treaty Austria recognized all Napoleon's changes in Italy, and ceded to his kingdom of Italy that portion of the Venetian territory that she had received at Campo-Formio. Moreover, she ceded Tyrol to Bavaria, which was friendly to Napoleon, and other of her possessions to Würtemberg and Baden, also friends of the French emperor. She further agreed to ratify the assumption, on the part of the rulers of Bavaria and Würtemberg, of the titles of King. Napoleon was now in a position still further to reorganize western Europe, with a view to establishing a great international federation of which he should be the head.[422]

[Sidenote: The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806.]

248. Napoleon had no desire to unify Germany; he merely wished to maintain a certain number of independent states, or groups of states, which he could conveniently control. He had provided, in the Treaty of Pressburg, that the newly created sovereigns should enjoy the "plenitude of sovereignty" and all the rights derived therefrom, precisely as did the rulers of Austria and Prussia.

This, by explicitly declaring several of the most important of the German states altogether independent of the emperor, rendered the further existence of the Holy Roman Empire impossible. The emperor, Francis II, accordingly abdicated, August 6, 1806. Thus the most imposing and enduring political office known to history was formally abolished.

[Sidenote: Francis II assumes the title of 'Emperor of Austria.']

Francis II did not, however, lose his title of Emperor. Shortly after the First Consul had received that title, Francis adopted the formula "Emperor of Austria," to designate him as the ruler of all the possessions of his house. Hitherto he had been officially known as King of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Galicia, and Laodomeria, Duke of Lorraine, Venice, Salzburg, etc., Grand Duke of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, etc.

[Sidenote: The Confederation of the Rhine.]

Meanwhile Napoleon had organized a union of the southern German states, called the Confederation of the Rhine, and had assumed its headship as "Protector." This he had done, he assured Europe, "in the dearest interests of his people and of his neighbors," adding the pious hope that the French armies had crossed the Rhine for the last time, and that the people of Germany would witness no longer, "except in the annals of the past, the horrible pictures of disorder, devastation, and slaughter that war invariably brings with it."[423]

Immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon proclaimed that the king of Naples, who had allied himself with the English, had ceased to reign, and French generals were ordered to occupy Naples. In March, 1806, he made his brother Joseph king of Naples and Sicily, his brother Louis king of Holland, and his brother-in-law, Murat, duke of Cleves and Berg. These states and those of his German allies constituted what he called "the real French Empire."

[Sidenote: Prussia forced into war with France.]

249. One of the most important of the continental states, it will have been noticed, had taken no part as yet in the opposition to the extension of Napoleon's power. Prussia, the first power to conclude peace with the new French republic in 1795, had since that time maintained a strict neutrality. Had it yielded to Tsar Alexander's persuasions and joined the coalition in 1805, it might have turned the tide at Austerlitz, or at any rate have encouraged further resistance to the conqueror. The hesitation of Frederick William III cost him dear, for Napoleon now forced him into war at a time when he could look for no efficient assistance from Russia or the other powers. The immediate cause of the declaration of war was the disposal of Hanover. This electorate Frederick William had consented to hold provisionally, pending its possible transfer to him should the English king give his assent. Prussia was anxious to get possession of Hanover because it lay just between her older possessions and the territory which she had gained in the redistribution of 1803.[424]

[Sidenote: Napoleon's insolent behavior toward Prussia.]

Napoleon, as usual, did not fail either to see or to use his advantage. His conduct toward Prussia was most insolent. After setting her at enmity with England and promising that she should have Hanover, he unblushingly offered to restore the electorate to George III. His insults now began to arouse the national spirit in Prussia, and the reluctant Frederick William was forced by the party in favor of war, which included his beautiful queen Louise, and the great statesman Stein, to break with Napoleon.

[Sidenote: Decisive defeat of the Prussian army at Jena, 1806.]

Her army was, however, as has been well said, "only that of Frederick the Great grown twenty years older"; one of Frederick's generals, the aged duke of Brunswick, who had issued the famous manifesto in 1792,[425] was its leader. A single defeat, near Jena (October 14, 1806), put Prussia completely in the hands of her enemy. This one disaster produced complete demoralization throughout the country. Fortresses were surrendered without resistance, and the king fled to the uttermost parts of his realm on the Russian boundary.

[Sidenote: The campaign in Poland.]

[Sidenote: Territorial changes of the treaties of Tilsit, July, 1807.]

[Sidenote: Creation of the grand duchy of Warsaw and the kingdom of Westphalia.]

Napoleon now led his army into Poland, where he spent the winter in operations against Russia and her feeble Prussian ally. He closed an arduous campaign by a signal victory at Friedland (June 14, 1807), which was followed by the treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia (July 7 and 9). Napoleon had no mercy on Prussia. Frederick William III lost all his possessions to the west of the Elbe and all that Prussia had gained in the second and third partitions of Poland. The Polish territory Napoleon made into a new subject kingdom called the grand duchy of Warsaw, and chose his friend, the king of Saxony, as its ruler. Out of the western lands of Prussia, which he later united with Hanover, he created the kingdom of Westphalia for his brother Jerome. Russia, on the other hand, was treated with marked consideration. The Tsar finally consented to recognize all the sweeping territorial changes that Napoleon had made, and secretly agreed to enforce the blockade against England should that country refuse to make peace.

[Sidenote: The continental blockade.]

250. Napoleon's most persevering enemy still remained unconquered and inaccessible. Just as Napoleon was undertaking his successful campaign against Austria in 1805, Nelson had annihilated the French fleet for the second time in the renowned naval engagement of Trafalgar, off the coast of Spain. It seemed more than ever necessary, therefore, to ruin England commercially and industrially, since there was obviously no likelihood of subduing it by arms.

[Sidenote: The Berlin Decree and Napoleon's 'paper' blockade.]

In May, 1806, England had declared the coast from the Elbe to Brest to be blockaded. Napoleon replied to this with the Berlin Decree (November 21, 1806), in which he proclaimed it a monstrous abuse of the right for England to declare great stretches of coast in a state of blockade which her whole fleet would be unable to enforce. He retaliated with a "paper"[426] blockade of the British Isles, which forbade all commerce with them. Letters or packages directed to England or to an Englishman or written in the English language were not to be permitted to pass through the mails in the countries he controlled. Every English subject in countries occupied by French troops or in the territory of Napoleon's allies was to be regarded as a prisoner of war and his property as a lawful prize. All trade in English goods was forbidden.

[Sidenote: Disastrous effects of the blockades on the commerce of the United States.]

A year later England established a similar paper blockade of the ports of the French empire and its allies, but permitted the ships of neutral powers to proceed, provided that they touched at an English port, secured a license from the English government, and paid a heavy export duty. Napoleon promptly declared all ships that submitted to these humiliating regulations to be lawful prizes of French privateers. The ships of the United States were at this time the most numerous and important of the neutral carriers. The disastrous results of these restrictions led to the various embargo acts (the first of which was passed by Congress in December, 1807), and ultimately to the destruction of the flourishing carrying trade of the United States.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's attempt to make the continent independent of English colonial products.]

Napoleon tried to render Europe permanently independent of the colonial productions brought from English colonies and by English ships. He encouraged the substitution of chicory for coffee, the cultivation of the sugar beet, and the discovery of new dyes to replace those coming from the tropics. But the distress caused by the disturbance in trade produced great discontent, especially in Russia; it rendered the domination of Napoleon more and more distasteful, and finally contributed to his downfall.[427]

[Sidenote: Napoleon's policy in France.]

251. France owed much to Napoleon, for he had restored order and guaranteed many of the beneficent achievements of the Revolution of 1789. His boundless ambition was, it is true, sapping her strength by forcing younger and younger men into his armies in order to build up the vast international federation of which he dreamed. But his victories and the commanding position to which he had raised France could not but fill the nation with pride.

[Sidenote: Public works.]

He sought to gain popular approval by great public improvements. He built marvelous roads across the Alps and along the Rhine, which still fill the traveler with admiration. He beautified Paris by opening up wide streets and quays, and building magnificent bridges and triumphal arches that kept fresh in the people's mind the recollection of his victories. By these means he gradually converted a mediæval town into the most beautiful of modern capitals.

[Sidenote: Reorganization of education.]

The whole educational system was reorganized and made as highly centralized and as subservient to the aims of the emperor as any department of government. Napoleon argued that one of the chief aims of education should be the formation of loyal subjects who would be faithful to the emperor and his successors. An imperial catechism was prepared, which not only inculcated loyalty to Napoleon, but actually threatened with eternal perdition those who should fail in their obligations to him, including military service.[428]

[Sidenote: The new nobility and the Legion of Honor.]

Napoleon created a new nobility, and he endeavored to assure the support of distinguished individuals by making them members of the Legion of Honor which he founded. The "Princes" whom he nominated received an annual income of two hundred thousand francs. The ministers of state, senators, members of his Council of State, and the archbishops received the title of Count and a revenue of thirty thousand francs, and so on. The army was not forgotten, for Napoleon felt that to be his chief support. The incomes of his marshals were enormous, and brave actions among the soldiers were rewarded with the decoration of the Legion of Honor.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's despotism in France.]

As time went on Napoleon's despotism grew more and more oppressive. No less than thirty-five hundred prisoners of state were arrested at his command, one because he hated Napoleon, another because in his letters he expressed sentiments adverse to the government, and so on. No grievance was too petty to attract the attention of the emperor's jealous eye. He ordered the title of a History of Bonaparte to be changed to the History of the Campaigns of Napoleon the Great.[429] He forbade the performance of certain of Schiller's and Goethe's plays in German towns, as tending to arouse the patriotic discontent of the people with his rule.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's European power threatened by the growth of national opposition to him.]

252. Up to this time Napoleon had had only the opposition of the several European courts to overcome in the extension of his power. The people of the various states which he had conquered showed an extraordinary indifference toward the political changes. It was clear, however, that as soon as the national spirit was once awakened, the highly artificial system created by the French emperor would collapse. His first serious reverse came from the people and from an unexpected quarter.

[Sidenote: Napoleon makes his brother Joseph king of Spain.]

Napoleon decided, after Tilsit, that the Spanish peninsula must be brought more completely under his control. Portugal was too friendly to the English, and Spain, owing to serious dissensions in the royal family, seemed an easy prey. In the spring of 1808 Napoleon induced both the king and the crown prince of Spain to meet him at Bayonne. Here he was able to persuade or force both of them to surrender their rights to the throne; on June 6 he appointed his brother Joseph king of Spain, making Murat king of Naples in his stead.

[Sidenote: Revolt in Spain against the foreign ruler.]

Joseph entered Madrid in July, armed with excellent intentions and a new constitution. The general rebellion in favor of the crown prince which immediately broke out had an element of religious enthusiasm in it, for the monks stirred up the people against Napoleon, on the ground that he was oppressing the pope and depriving him of his dominions. One French army was captured at Baylen, and another capitulated to the English forces which had landed in Portugal. Before the end of July Joseph and the French troops had been compelled to retreat behind the Ebro River.

[Sidenote: Spain subdued by arms.]

In November the French emperor himself led a magnificent army into Spain, two hundred thousand strong, in the best of condition and commanded by his ablest marshals. The Spanish troops, perhaps one hundred thousand in number, were ill clad and inadequately equipped; what was worse, they were over-confident in view of their late victory. They were, of course, defeated, and Madrid surrendered December 4. Napoleon immediately abolished the Inquisition, the feudal dues, the internal customs lines, and two thirds of the cloisters. This is typical of the way in which the French Revolution went forth in arms to spread its principles throughout western Europe.

The next month Napoleon was back in Paris, as he saw that he had another war with Austria on his hands. He left Joseph on his insecure throne, after assuring the Spanish that God had given the French emperor the power and the will to overcome all obstacles.[430] He was soon to discover, however, that these very Spaniards could maintain a guerilla warfare against which his best troops and most distinguished generals were powerless. His ultimate downfall was in no small measure due to the persistent hostility of the Spanish people.

[Sidenote: War with Austria, 1809.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Wagram.]

[Sidenote: Extension of the boundaries of France.]

In April, 1809, Austria ventured to declare war once more on the "enemy of Europe," but this time she found no one to aid her. The great battle of Wagram, near Vienna (July 5-6), was not perhaps so unconditional a victory for the French as that of Austerlitz, but it forced Austria into just as humiliating a peace as that of Pressburg. Austria's object had been to destroy Napoleon's system of dependencies and "to restore to their rightful possessors all those lands belonging to them respectively before the Napoleonic usurpations." Instead of accomplishing this end, Austria was obliged to cede more territory to Napoleon and his allies, and he went on adding to his dependencies. After incorporating into France the kingdom of Etruria and the papal dominions (1808-1809), Napoleon was encouraged by his victory over Austria to annex Holland[431] and the German districts to the north, including the Hanseatic towns. Consequently, in 1810 France stretched from the confines of Naples to the Baltic. One might travel from Lübeck to Rome without leaving Napoleon's realms.

Napoleon was anxious to have an heir to whom he could transmit his vast dominions. As Josephine bore him no children, he decided to divorce her, and after considering a Russian princess, he married the Archduchess Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Austrian emperor and a grandniece of Marie Antoinette. In this way the former Corsican adventurer gained admission to one of the oldest and proudest of reigning families, the Hapsburgs. His new wife soon bore him a son, who was styled King of Rome.

[Sidenote: Relations between Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia.]

253. Among the continental states Russia alone was entirely out of Napoleon's control. There were plenty of causes for misunderstanding between the ardent young Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon. Up to this time the agreement of Tilsit had been maintained. Napoleon was, however, secretly opposing Alexander's plans for adding the Danubian provinces and Finland to his possessions. Then the possibility of Napoleon's reëstablishing Poland as a national kingdom which might threaten Russia's interests, was a constant source of apprehension to Alexander. By 1812 Napoleon believed himself to be in a condition to subdue this doubtful friend, who might at any moment become a dangerous enemy. Against the advice of his more far-sighted counselors, the emperor collected on the Russian frontier a vast army of four hundred thousand men, composed to a great extent of young conscripts and the contingents furnished by his allies.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's campaign in Russia, 1812.]

The story of the fearful Russian campaign which followed cannot be told here in detail. Napoleon had planned to take three years to conquer Russia, but he was forced on by the necessity of gaining at least one signal victory before he closed the season's campaign. The Russians simply retreated and led him far within a hostile and devastated country before they offered battle at Borodino (September 7). Napoleon won the battle, but his army was reduced to something over one hundred thousand men when he entered Moscow a week later. The town had been set on fire by the Russians before his arrival; he found his position untenable, and had to retreat as winter came on. The cold, the want of food, and the harassing attacks of the people along the route made that retreat the most signal military tragedy on record. Napoleon regained Poland early in December with scarcely twenty thousand of the four hundred thousand with which he had started less than six months before.[432]

[Sidenote: Napoleon collects a new army.]

Napoleon hastened back to Paris, where he freely misrepresented the true state of affairs, even declaring that the army was in a good condition up to the time that he turned it over to Murat in December. While the loss of men in the Russian campaign was enormous, just those few had naturally survived who would be most essential in the formation of a new army, namely, the officers. With their help, Napoleon soon had a force of no less than six hundred thousand men with which to return to the attack. This contained one hundred and fifty thousand conscripts who should not have been called into service until 1814, besides older men who had been hitherto exempted.

[Sidenote: Social conditions in Prussia before 1806.]

254. By the end of February, 1813, the timid Frederick William had been induced by public sentiment in Prussia to break with his oppressor and join Russia. On March 17, he issued a famous address "To my People," in which he called upon them to assist him in the recovery of Prussian independence. Up to the defeat of Jena, Prussia was far more backward in its social organization than France had been before 1789. The agricultural classes were serfs, who were bound to the land and compelled to work a certain part of each week for the lord without remuneration.[433] The population was divided into strict social castes. Moreover, no noble could buy citizen or peasant land; no citizen, noble or peasant land; no peasant, noble or citizen land.

[Sidenote: Reform of the social system in Prussia.]

The disaster of Jena and the losses at Tilsit convinced the clearer-sighted statesmen of Prussia, especially Stein, that the country's only hope of recovery was a complete social and political revolution, not unlike that which had taken place in France. They saw that the feudal system must be abolished, the peasants freed, and the restrictions which hedged about the different classes done away with, before it would be possible to arouse public spirit to a point where a great popular uprising might expel the intruder forever.

The first great step toward this general reform was the royal decree of October 9, 1807,[434] intended to "remove every obstacle that has hitherto prevented the individual from attaining such a degree of prosperity as he was capable of reaching." Serfdom was abolished and the restrictions on landholding removed, so that any one, regardless of class, was at liberty to purchase and hold landed property of every kind. In some cases the principles of the French Revolution had been introduced by Napoleon or the rulers that he set up. In this case it was the necessity of preparing the country to throw off his yoke and regain its independence that led to the same result.

[Sidenote: Napoleon defeated by the allied Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, October, 1813.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Leipsic, October 16-19, 1813.]

255. Napoleon had therefore to face now, not only the cabinets of Europe and the regular armies that they directed, but a people who were being organized to defend their country. His soldiers were, however, still triumphant for a time. He met with no successful opposition, and on May 14, 1813, he occupied Dresden in the territory of his faithful ally, the king of Saxony. This he held during the summer, and inflicted several defeats upon the allies, who had been joined by Austria in August. He gained his last great victory, the battle of Dresden, August 26-27. Finding that the allied armies of the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, which had at last learned the necessity of coöperating against their powerful common enemy, were preparing to cut him off from France, he retreated early in October and was totally defeated in the tremendous "Battle of the Nations," as the Germans love to call it, in the environs of Leipsic (October 16-19).

[Sidenote: Germany, Holland, and Spain throw off the Napoleonic yoke.]

As the defeated emperor crossed the Rhine with the remnants of his army, the whole fabric of his political edifice in Germany and Holland collapsed. The members of the Confederation of the Rhine joined the allies. Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia, and the Dutch drove the French officials from Holland. During the year 1813 the Spanish, with the aid of the English under Wellington, had practically cleared their country of the French intruders.

[Sidenote: Occupation of Paris by the allies, March 31, 1814.]

[Sidenote: Napoleon abdicates and is banished to the island of Elba.]

In spite of these disasters, Napoleon refused the propositions of peace made on condition that he would content himself henceforth with his dominion over France. The allies consequently marched into France, and the almost superhuman activity of the hard-pressed emperor could not prevent their occupation of Paris (March 31, 1814). Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and the allies, in seeming derision, granted him full sovereignty over the tiny island of Elba and permitted him to retain his imperial title. In reality he was a prisoner on his island kingdom, and the Bourbons reigned again in France.

[Sidenote: Return of Napoleon.]

Within a year, encouraged by the dissensions of the allies and the unpopularity of the Bourbons, he made his escape, landed in France (March 1, 1815), and was received with enthusiasm by a portion of the army. Yet France as a whole was indifferent, if not hostile, to his attempt to reëstablish his power. Certainly no one could place confidence in his talk of peace and liberty. Moreover, whatever disagreement there might be among the allies on other matters, there was perfect unanimity in their attitude toward "the enemy and destroyer of the world's peace." They solemnly proclaimed him an outlaw, and devoted him to public vengeance.

[Sidenote: Battle of Waterloo, June, 1815.]

[Sidenote: Exile to Saint Helena.]

Upon learning that English troops under Wellington and a Prussian army under Blücher had arrived in the Netherlands, Napoleon decided to attack them with such troops as he could collect. In the first engagements he defeated and drove back the Prussians. Wellington then took his station south of Brussels, at Waterloo. Napoleon advanced against him (June 18, 1815) and might have defeated the English had they not been opportunely reënforced by Blücher's Prussians, who had recovered themselves. As it was, Napoleon lost the most memorable of modern battles. Yet, even if he had not been defeated at Waterloo, he could not long have opposed the vast armies which were being concentrated to overthrow him. This time he was banished to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he could only brood over the past and prepare his Memoirs, in which he carefully strove to justify his career of ambition.[435]

General Reading.--Of the many lives of Napoleon the best and most recent are the following: FOURNIER, Life of Napoleon (a translation of this work from the original German, edited by E.G. Bourne, is announced by Holt & Co.); ROSE, Life of Napoleon the First (The Macmillan Company, 2 vols., $4.00). The fullest biography of Napoleon is that of SLOANE, Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (The Century Co., 4 vols., $18). An excellent sketch of the military history may be found in ROPES, The First Napoleon (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $2.00).

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XXXIX. EUROPE AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

[Sidenote: Problem of the reconstruction of Europe after Napoleon's fall.]

256. There is no more important chapter in the political history of Europe than the reconstruction of the map after Napoleon's abdication. The allies immediately reinstated the Bourbon dynasty on the throne of France in the person of Louis XVI's younger brother, the count of Provence, who became Louis XVIII.[436] They first restricted France to the boundaries that she had had at the beginning of 1792, but later deprived her of Savoy as a punishment for yielding to the domination of Napoleon after his return from Elbe. A great congress of the European powers was summoned to meet at Vienna, where the allies proposed to settle all those difficult problems that faced them. They had no idea of reëstablishing things just as they were before the Napoleonic cataclysm, for the simple reason that Austria, Russia, and Prussia all had schemes for their own advantage that precluded so simple an arrangement.

[Sidenote: Provisions of the Congress of Vienna in regard to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.]

The Congress of Vienna began its sessions November 1, 1814. The allies quickly agreed that Holland should become an hereditary kingdom under the house of Orange, which had long played so conspicuous a rôle in the nominal republic. In order that Holland might be the better able to check any new encroachments on the part of France, the former Austrian Netherlands were given to her. Switzerland was declared independent, as were all the small Italian states which had existed prior to the innovations of Napoleon, except the ancient republics of Venice and Genoa, neither of which was restored. Genoa was given to the king of Sardinia; Venetia to Austria, as an indemnity for her losses in the Netherlands. Austria also received back her former territory of Milan, and became, by reason of her control of northern Italy, a powerful factor in determining the policy of the whole Italian peninsula. As to Germany, no one desired to undo the great work of 1803 and restore the old anarchy. The former members of the Rhine Confederation were bent upon maintaining the "sovereignty" which Napoleon had secured for them; consequently the allies determined that the several states of Germany should be independent, but "united in a federal union."

[Sidenote: Dispute over disposal of the Polish territory and the fate of the kingdom of Saxony.]

So far all was tolerably harmonious. Nevertheless, serious differences of opinion developed at the congress, which nearly brought on war among the allies themselves, and encouraged Napoleon's return from Elba. These concerned the disposition of the Polish territory that Napoleon had converted into the grand duchy of Warsaw. Prussia and Russia were agreed that the best way would be to let the Tsar make a separate state of this territory, and unite it in a personal union with his Russian realms. Prussia was then to be indemnified for her losses in the East by annexing the lands of the king of Saxony, who, it was argued, merited this retribution for remaining faithful to Napoleon after the other members of the Confederation of the Rhine had repudiated him.

Austria and England, on the other hand, were bitterly opposed to this arrangement. They approved neither of dispossessing the king of Saxony nor of extending the Tsar's influence westward by giving him Poland. The great diplomatist, Talleyrand, who represented Louis XVIII at the congress, now saw his chance. The allies had resolved to treat France as a black sheep, and permit the other four great powers to arrange matters to suit themselves. But they were now hopelessly at odds, and Austria and England found France a welcome ally in their opposition to the northern powers. So in this way the disturber of the peace of Europe for the last quarter of a century was received back into the family of nations.

[Sidenote: The compromise.]

A compromise was at last reached. The Tsar was allowed to create a kingdom of Poland out of the grand duchy of Warsaw, but only half of the possessions of the king of Saxony were ceded to Prussia. As a further indemnity, Frederick William III was given certain districts on the left bank of the Rhine which had belonged to ecclesiastical and petty lay princes before the Treaty of Lunéville. The great importance of this arrangement we shall see later when we come to trace the development of the present German empire.

[Sidenote: Changes in the map of Europe since 1815.]

If one compares the map of Europe in 1815 with that of the present day,[437] he will be struck with the following differences. In 1815 there was no German empire, and Prussia was a much smaller and less compact state than now. It has evidently grown at the expense of its neighbors, as several of the lesser German states of 1815,--Hanover, Nassau, and Hesse-Cassel,--no longer appear on the map, and Schleswig Holstein, which then belonged to Denmark, is now Prussian. It will be noted that the present German empire does not include any part of the Austrian countries, as did the Confederation of 1815, and that, on the other hand, it does include all of Prussia. The kingdom of Poland has become an integral part of the Russian dominions. Austria, excluded from the German union, has entered into a dual union with Hungary, in which the two countries are placed upon the same footing.

There was no kingdom of Italy in 1815. Now Austria has lost all hold on Lombardy and Venetia, and all the little states reëstablished by the Congress of Vienna, including the Papal States, have disappeared. A new kingdom, Belgium, has been created out of the old Austrian Netherlands which the congress gave to the king of Holland. France, now a republic again, has recovered Savoy, but has lost all her possessions on the Rhine by the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to the German empire. Lastly, Turkey in Europe has nearly disappeared, and several new states, Greece, Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria, have appeared in southeastern Europe. It is the purpose of the following chapters to show how the great changes indicated on the map took place and explain the accompanying internal changes, in so far as they represent the general trend of modern development or have an importance for Europe at large.

[Sidenote: Influence of Napoleon in spreading the reforms achieved by the Revolution.]

[Sidenote: Reactionary policy in the smaller states of Europe.]

257. Napoleon had been as thoroughly despotic in his government as any of the monarchs who regained their thrones after his downfall, but he was a son of the Revolution and had no sympathy with the ancient abuses that it had done away with. In spite of his despotism the people of the countries that had come under his influence had learned the great lessons of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, the restored monarchs in many of the smaller European states proceeded to reëstablish the ancient feudal abuses and to treat their subjects as if there had been no French Revolution and no such man as Napoleon. In Spain, for example, the Inquisition and the monasteries were restored and the clergy exempted anew from taxation. In Hesse-Cassel, which had formed a part of the kingdom of Westphalia, all the reforms introduced by Napoleon and his brother were abolished. The privileges of the nobility, and also the feudal burdens of the peasantry, were restored. The soldiers were even required to assume the discarded pigtails and powdered wigs of the eighteenth century. In Sardinia and Naples the returning monarchs pursued the same policy of reaction. The reaction was not so sudden and obvious in the greater European states,--France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.

[Sidenote: The restoration of the Bourbons in France.]

[Sidenote: Policy of Louis XVIII, 1814-1824.]

258. The French had aroused themselves in 1793-1794 to repel the foreign powers, Austria and Prussia, who threatened to intervene in the domestic concerns of the country, and to reëstablish the old régime. Twenty years later, in 1814, when the allies entered Paris, there was no danger either of a popular uprising, or of the reëstablishment of the old abuses. It is true that the Bourbon line of kings was restored; but France had always been monarchical at heart. It was only the ill-advised conduct of Louis XVI in the peculiar circumstances of 1791-1792 that had led to his deposition and the establishment of a republic, which Napoleon had easily converted into a monarchy. The new king, Louis XVIII, left the wonderful administrative system of Napoleon intact and made no effort to destroy the great achievements of the Revolution. He granted the nation a constitution called the "Charter," which is a most interesting document from two standpoints.

[Sidenote: The Charter of 1814.]

In the first place, the provisions of the Charter of 1814 furnish us with a statement of the permanent results of the Revolution. The concessions that Louis XVIII found it expedient to make, "in view of the expectations of enlightened Europe," help us to measure the distance that separates his time from that of his elder brother. In the second place, no other constitution has yet lasted the French so long as did the Charter.[438] Although somewhat modified in 1830, it was maintained down to 1848.

All Frenchmen are declared by the Charter to be equal before the law, and equally eligible to civil and military positions. Personal and religious liberty is insured, and all citizens, without distinction of rank, are required to contribute to the taxes in proportion to their means. In short, almost all the great reforms proclaimed by the first Declaration of the Rights of Man are guaranteed. The laws are to be made by the king in coöperation with a House of Peers and a popular body, the Chamber of Deputies; the latter may impeach the king's ministers.

[Sidenote: Policy of the reactionary party in France.]

In spite of these enlightened provisions attempts were made by the old emigrant nobles--still led by their original leader, the king's brother, the count of Artois--and by the clergy, to further a reaction in France. This party induced the French parlement to pass certain oppressive measures, and, as we shall see, persuaded Louis XVIII to coöperate with the other reactionary rulers in interfering to quell the revolutionary movements in Italy and Spain.

THE LAST BOURBON KINGS

Louis XIII (d. 1643) | +------------------+---------------------------------+ | | Louis XIV (d. 1715) Philip, Duke of Orleans | | Louis XV (d. 1774), | great-grandson of Louis XIV | | | Louis the Dauphin (d. 1765) | | | +------------------+-----------------+ | | | | | Louis XVI Louis XVIII Charles X | (d. 1793) (d. 1824), (deposed 1830), | | Count of Provence Count of Artois | | | Louis XVII (d. 1795) Louis Philippe I, great-great-grandson of Philip (deposed 1848)

[Sidenote: Charles X deposed in 1830 and replaced by Louis Philippe.]

In 1824 Louis XVIII died and was succeeded by the count of Artois, who took the title of Charles X. Under his rule the reactionary policy of the government naturally became more pronounced. A bill was passed indemnifying the nobility for the property they had lost during the Revolution. Other less just measures led to the dethronement of the unpopular king in 1830, by a revolution. Louis Philippe, the descendant of Henry IV through the younger, or Orleans, branch of the Bourbon family, was put upon the throne.[439]

[Sidenote: Three chief results of Napoleon's influence in Germany.]

[Sidenote: Disappearance of most of the little states.]

259. The chief effects of the Napoleonic occupation of Germany were three in number. First, the consolidation of territory that followed the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France had, as has been explained, done away with the anomalous ecclesiastical states, the territories of knights, and most of the free towns. Only thirty-eight German states, including four towns, were left when the Congress of Vienna took up the question of forming a confederation to replace the defunct Holy Roman Empire.

[Sidenote: Advantageous position of Prussia.]

Second, the external and internal conditions of Prussia had been so changed as to open the way for it to replace Austria as the controlling power in Germany. A great part of the Slavic possessions gained in the last two partitions of Poland had been lost, but as an indemnity Prussia had received half of the kingdom of Saxony, in the very center of Germany, and also the Rhine provinces, where the people were thoroughly imbued with the revolutionary doctrines that had prevailed in France. Prussia now embraced all the various types of people included in the German nation and was comparatively free from the presence of non-German races. In this respect it offered a marked contrast to the heterogeneous and mongrel population of its great rival Austria.

The internal changes were no less remarkable. The reforms carried out after Jena by the distinguished minister Stein and his successor, Hardenberg, had done for Prussia somewhat the same that the first National Assembly had done for France. The abolition of the feudal social castes, and the liberation of the serfs made the economic development of the country possible. The reorganization of the whole military system prepared the way for Prussia's great victories in 1866 and 1870, which led to the formation of a new German empire under her headship.

[Sidenote: Demand for constitutional government.]

Third, the agitations of the Napoleonic period had aroused the national spirit. The appeal to the people to aid in the freeing of their country from foreign oppression, and the idea of their participation in a government based upon a written constitution, had produced widespread discontent with the old absolute monarchy.

[Sidenote: The German Confederation of 1815.]

When the form of union for the German states came up for discussion at the Congress of Vienna, two different plans were advocated. Prussia's representatives submitted a scheme for a firm union like that of the United States, in which the central government should control the individual states in all matters of general interest. This idea was successfully opposed by Austria, supported by the other German rulers. Austria realized that her possessions, as a whole, could never be included in any real German union, for even in the western portion of her territory there were many Slavs, while in Hungary and the southern provinces there were practically no Germans at all. On the other hand, she felt that she might be the leader in a very loose union in which all the members should be left practically independent. Her ideal of an international union of sovereign princes under her own headship was almost completely realized in the constitution adopted.

[Sidenote: Character of the German constitution.]

The confederation was not a union of the various countries involved, but of "The Sovereign Princes and Free Towns of Germany," including the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia for such of their possessions as were formerly included in the German empire; the king of Denmark for Holstein; and the king of the Netherlands for the grand duchy of Luxembourg. The union thus included two sovereigns who were out-and-out foreigners, and did not include all the possessions of its two most important members.[440]

The diet which met at Frankfort was composed (as was perfectly logical), not of representatives of the people, but of plenipotentiaries of the rulers who were members of the confederation. The members reserved to themselves the right of forming alliances of all kinds, but pledged themselves to make no agreement prejudicial to the safety of the union or of any of its members, or to make war upon any member of the confederation on any pretense whatsoever. The constitution could not be amended without the approval of all the governments concerned. In spite of its obvious weaknesses, the confederation of 1815 lasted for a half a century, until Prussia finally expelled Austria from the union by arms, and began the formation of the present German federation.

[Sidenote: Political associations of German students.]

260. The liberal and progressive party in Germany was sadly disappointed by the failure of the Congress of Vienna to weld Germany into a really national state. They were troubled, too, by the delay of the king of Prussia in granting the constitution that he had promised to his subjects. Other indications were not wanting that the German princes might not yet be ready to give up their former despotic power and adopt the principles of the French Revolution advocated by the liberals. A "League of Virtue" had been formed after the disastrous battle of Jena to arouse and keep alive the zeal of the nation for expelling the invader. This began to be reënforced, about 1815, by student associations organized by those who had returned to their studies from the war of independence. The students anathematized the reactionary party in their meetings, and drank to the freedom of Germany. October 18, 1817, they held a celebration in the Wartburg to commemorate both Luther's revolt and the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic. Speeches were made in honor of the brave who had fallen in the war of independence, and of the grand duke of Weimar, who was the first of the North German princes to give his people a constitution. The day closed with the burning of certain reactionary pamphlets.

This innocent burst of enthusiasm excited great apprehension in the minds of the conservative statesmen of Europe, the leader among whom was the Austrian minister, Metternich. The murder by a fanatical student of a journalist, who was supposed to have influenced the Tsar to desert his former liberal policy, cast discredit upon the liberal party. It also gave Metternich an opportunity to emphasize the terrible results which he anticipated would come from the students' associations, liberal governments, and the freedom of the press.

[Sidenote: The 'Carlsbad Resolutions,' 1819.]

The extreme phase in the progress of reaction in Germany was reached when, with this murder as an excuse, Metternich called together the representatives of the larger states of the confederation at Carlsbad in August, 1819. Here a series of resolutions were drawn up with the aim of checking the free expression of opinions hostile to existing institutions, and of discovering and bringing to justice the revolutionists who were supposed to exist in dangerous numbers. These "Carlsbad Resolutions" were laid before the diet by Austria and adopted, though not without protest.

They provided that there should be a special official in each university to watch the professors. Should any of them be found "abusing their legitimate influence over the youthful mind and propagating harmful doctrines hostile to the public order or subversive of the existing governmental institutions," the offenders were to lose their positions. The general students' union, which was suspected of being too revolutionary, was to be suppressed. Moreover, no newspaper, magazine, or pamphlet was to go to press without the previous approval of government officials, who were to determine whether it contained anything tending to foster discontent with the government. Lastly, a special commission was appointed to investigate the revolutionary conspiracies which Metternich and his sympathizers supposed to exist throughout Germany.[441]

The attack upon the freedom of the press, and especially the interference with the liberty of teaching in the great institutions of learning, which were already becoming the home of the highest scholarship in the world, scandalized all the progressive spirits in Germany. Yet no successful protest was raised, and Germany as a whole, acquiesced for a generation in Metternich's system of discouraging reform of all kinds.

[Sidenote: The southern German states receive constitutions, 1818-1820.]

[Sidenote: Formation of a customs union--zollverein--with Prussia at its head.]

Nevertheless, important progress was made in southern Germany. As early as 1818 the king of Bavaria granted his people a constitution in which he stated their rights and admitted them to a share in the government by establishing a parliament. His example was followed within two years by the rulers of Baden, Würtemberg, and Hesse. Another change for the better was the gradual formation of a customs union, which permitted goods to be sent freely from one German state to another without the payment of duties at each boundary line. This yielded some of the advantages of a political union. This economic union, of which Prussia was the head, and from which Austria was excluded, was a harbinger of the future German empire.[442]

[Sidenote: Metternich opposes revolutionary movements in Spain and Italy.]

261. Metternich had met with signal success in his efforts to keep Germany at a standstill. When, in 1820, the kings of Spain and Naples were compelled by popular uprisings to accept constitutions, and so surrender their ancient right to rule their subjects despotically, it was but natural that Metternich should urge the European powers to unite for the purpose of suppressing such manifestations. He urged that revolts of this kind set a dangerous example and threatened the tranquillity and security of all the other absolute monarchs.

[Sidenote: Italy only 'a geographical expression' in 1820.]

Italy was at this time what Metternich called only "a geographical expression"; it had no political unity whatever. Lombardy and Venetia, in the northern part, were in the hands of Austria, and Parma, Modena, and Tuscany belonged to members of the Austrian family. In the south, the considerable kingdom of the Two Sicilies was ruled over by a branch of the Spanish Bourbons. In the center, cutting the peninsula in twain, were the Papal States, which extended north to the Po. The presence of Austria, and the apparent impossibility of inducing the pope to submit to any government but his own, seemed to preclude all hope of making Italy into a true nation. Yet fifty years later the kingdom of Italy, as it now appears on the map of Europe, came into existence through the final exclusion of Austria from the peninsula and the extinction of the political power of the pope.

[Sidenote: Reforms introduced in Italy during the Napoleonic occupation.]

Although Napoleon had governed Italy despotically he had introduced a great many important reforms. He had established political equality and an orderly administration, and had forwarded public improvements; the vestiges of the feudal régime had vanished at his approach. Moreover, he had held out the hope of a united Italy, from which the foreign powers who had plagued and distracted her for centuries should be banished. But his unscrupulous use of Italy to advance his personal ambitions disappointed those who at first had placed their hopes in him, and they came to look for his downfall as eagerly as did the nobility and the dispossessed clergy, whose hopes were centered in Austria. It became clear to the more thoughtful Italians that Italy must look to herself and her own resources if she were ever to become an independent European state.

[Sidenote: Reaction in Italy after Napoleon's downfall.]

[Sidenote: The Carbonari.]

The downfall of Napoleon left Italy seemingly in a worse state than that in which he had found it. The hold of Austria was strengthened by her acquisition of Venice. The petty despots of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, reseated on their thrones by the Congress of Vienna, hastened to sweep away the reforms of the Corsican and to reëstablish all the abuses of the old régime, now doubly conspicuous and obnoxious by reason of their temporary abolition. The lesser Italian princes, moreover, showed themselves to be heartily in sympathy with the hated Austria. Popular discontent spread throughout the peninsula and led to the formation of numerous secret societies, which assumed strange names, practiced mysterious rites, and plotted darkly in the name of Italian liberty and independence. By far the most noted of these associations was that of the Carbonari, i.e., charcoal burners. Its objects were individual liberty, constitutional government, and national independence and unity; these it undertook to promote by agitation, conspiracy, and, if necessary, by revolution.

[Sidenote: Temporary constitutions in Spain and Naples, 1820.]

The Italian agitators had a superstitious respect for a constitution; they appear to have regarded it not so much as a form of government to be carefully adapted to the needs of a particular country and time, as a species of talisman which would insure liberty and prosperity to its happy possessor. So when the Neapolitans heard that the king of Spain had been forced by an insurrection to grant a constitution, they made the first attempt on the part of the Italian people to gain constitutional liberty by compelling their king to agree to accept the Spanish constitution (July, 1820). However, at the same time that he was invoking the vengeance of God upon his own head should he violate his oath of fidelity to the constitution, he was casting about for foreign assistance to suppress the revolution and enable him to return to his old ways.

[Sidenote: Austria intervenes in Italy (1821), in support of absolutism.]

262. He had not long to wait. The alert Metternich invited Russia, Prussia, France, and England to unite in order to check the development of "revolt and crime." He declared that the liberal movements, if unrestrained, would prove "not less tyrannical and fearful" in their results than that against which the allies had combined in the person of Napoleon. "Revolution" appeared to him and his conservative sympathizers as heresy appeared to Philip II,--it was a fearful disease that not only destroyed those whom it attacked directly, but spread contagion wherever it appeared and justified prompt and sharp measures of quarantine and even violent intervention with a view of stamping out the devastating plague.

To the great joy of the king of Naples, Austria marched its troops into his territory (March, 1821) and, meeting but an ill-organized opposition, freed him from the limitations which his subjects had for the moment imposed upon him. An attempt on the part of the subjects of the king of Sardinia to win a constitution was also repressed by Austrian troops.

[Sidenote: Hopeful signs in Italy.]

The weakness of the liberal movement in both southern and northern Italy appeared to be conclusively demonstrated. A new attempt ten years later, in Piedmont,[443] Modena, and the Papal States, to get rid of the existing despotism was quite as futile as the revolution of 1820-1821. Yet there were two hopeful signs. England protested as early as 1820 against Metternich's theory of interfering in the domestic affairs of other independent states in order to prevent reforms of which he disapproved, and France emphatically repudiated the doctrine of intervention on the accession of Louis Philippe in 1830. A second and far more important indication of progress was the increasing conviction on the part of the Italians that their country ought to be a single nation and not, as hitherto, a group of small independent states under foreign influence.

[Sidenote: Mazzini, 1805-1872.]

A great leader arose in the person of the delicately organized and highly endowed Mazzini. He quickly became disgusted with the inefficiency and the silly mystery of the Carbonari, and founded a new association, called "Young Italy." This aimed to bring about the regeneration of Italy through the education of the young men in lofty republican principles. Mazzini had no confidence in princes and treaties and foreign aid. "We are of the people and will treat with the people. They will understand us," he said. He was not the man to organize a successful revolution, but he inspired the young Italians with an almost religious enthusiasm for the cause of Italy's liberation. His writings, which were widely read throughout the peninsula, created a feeling of loyalty to a common country among the patriots who were scattered through the different states of Italy.[444]

[Sidenote: Plan of uniting Italy under the headship of the pope.]

[Sidenote: Early reforms of Pius IX (pope, 1846-1878).]

There was a great diversity of opinion among the reformers as to the best way to make Italy into a nation. Mazzini's party saw no hope except in republican institutions, but others were confident that an enlightened pope could form an Italian federation, of which he should be the head. And when Pius IX, upon his accession in 1846, immediately began to consult the interests and wishes of his people by subjecting priests to taxation, admitting laymen to his councils and tribunals, granting greater liberty of the press, and even protesting against Austrian encroachments, there seemed to be some ground for the belief that the pope might take the lead in the regeneration of Italy. But he soon grew suspicious of the liberals, and the outcome furnished one more proof of the sagacity of Machiavelli, who had pointed out over three centuries earlier that the temporal possessions of the pope constituted the chief obstacle to Italian unity.

The future belonged neither to the republicans nor to the papal party, but to those who looked for salvation in the gradual reformation of the existing monarchies, especially of the kingdom of Sardinia. Only in this way was there any prospect of ousting Austria, and without that no union, whether federal or otherwise, could possibly be formed.

[Sidenote: Reason of Austria's influence after the Congress of Vienna.]

From 1815 to 1848 those who believed in keeping things as they were at any cost were able, under the leadership of Metternich, to oppose pretty successfully those who from time to time attempted to secure for the people a greater control of the government and to satisfy the craving for national life. This did not mean, of course, that no progress was made during this long period in realizing the ideals of the liberal party in the various European states, or that one man can block the advance of nations for a generation. The very fact that Austria had, after the Congress of Vienna, assumed the leading rôle in Europe that France had played during the period following the Revolution of 1789, is a sufficient indication that Metternich's aversion to change corresponded to a general conviction that it was best, for the time being, to let well enough alone.

[Sidenote: Creation of the kingdom of Greece, 1829.]

Two events, at least, during the period of Metternich's influence served to encourage the liberals of Europe. In 1821 the inhabitants of Greece had revolted against the oppressive government of the Turks. The Turkish government set to work to suppress the revolt by atrocious massacres. It is said that twenty thousand of the inhabitants of the island of Chios were slaughtered. The Greeks, however, succeeded in arousing the sympathy of western Europe, and they held out until England, Russia, and France intervened and forced the Sultan to recognize the independence of Greece in 1829.[445]

[Sidenote: Belgium becomes an independent kingdom in 1831.]

Another little kingdom was added to the European states by the revolt of the former Austrian Netherlands from the king of Holland, to whom they had been assigned by the Congress of Vienna. The southern Netherlands were still as different from the northern as they had been in the time of William the Silent.[446] Holland was Protestant and German, while the southern provinces, to whom the union had always been distasteful, were Catholic and akin to the French in their sympathies. Encouraged by the revolution at Paris in 1830, the people of Brussels rose in revolt against their Dutch king, and forced his troops to leave the city. Through the influence of England and France the European powers agreed to recognize the independence of the Belgians, who established a kingdom and introduced an excellent constitution providing for a limited monarchy modeled upon that of England.

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XL. THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY

[Sidenote: The general revolutionary movement in western Europe in 1848.]

263. In 1848 the gathering discontent and the demand for reform suddenly showed their full strength and extent; it seemed for a time as if all western Europe was about to undergo as complete a revolution as France had experienced in 1789. With one accord, and as if obeying a preconcerted signal, the liberal parties in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria, during the early months of 1848, overthrew or gained control of the government, and proceeded to carry out their programme of reform in the same thoroughgoing way in which the National Assembly in France had done its work in 1789. The general movement affected almost every state in Europe, but the course of events in France, and in that part of central Europe which had so long been dominated by Austria, merits especial attention.

[Sidenote: The revolution of 1848 in France.]

[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Louis Philippe among the republicans.]

The revolutionary movements of 1848 did not begin in France, but in Italy; yet it was the dethronement of Louis Philippe and the establishment of a second French republic that gave the signal for the general European revolt. The Charter of 1814 had been only slightly modified after the revolution of 1830, in spite of the wishes of the republicans who had been active in bringing about the deposition of Charles X. They maintained that the king had too much power and could influence the parlement to make laws contrary to the wishes of the people at large. They also protested against the laws which excluded the poorer classes from voting (only two hundred thousand among a population of thirty million enjoyed that right), and demanded that every Frenchman should have the right to vote so soon as he reached maturity. As Louis Philippe grew older he became more and more suspicious of the liberal parties which had helped him to his throne. He not only opposed reforms himself, but also did all he could to keep the parlement and the newspapers from advocating any changes which the progressive parties demanded. Nevertheless the strength of the republicans gradually increased. They found allies in a new group of socialistic writers who desired a fundamental reorganization of the state.

[Sidenote: The second French republic proclaimed February 27, 1848.]

On February 24, 1848, a mob attacked the Tuilleries. The king abdicated in favor of his grandson, but it was too late; he and his whole family were forced to leave the country. The mob invaded the assembly, as in the time of the Reign of Terror, crying, "Down with the Bourbons, old and new! Long live the Republic!" A provisional government was established which included the writer, Lamartine, Louis Blanc, a prominent socialist, two or three editors, and several other politicians. The first decree of this body, ratifying the establishment of the republic, was solemnly proclaimed on the former site of the Bastile, February 27.

[Sidenote: The social democrats and the 'red republic.']

[Sidenote: National workshops established.]

The provisional government was scarcely in session before it was threatened by the "red republic." Its representatives, the social democrats, desired to put the laboring classes in control of the government and let them conduct it in their own interests. Some advocated community of property, and wished to substitute the red flag for the national colors. The government went so far as to concede the so-called "right to labor," and established national workshops, in which all the unemployed were given an opportunity to work.

[Sidenote: The insurrection in Paris, June, 1848.]

A National Assembly had been convoked whose members were elected by a popular vote of all Frenchmen above the age of twenty-one. The result of the election was an overwhelming defeat for the social democrats. Their leaders then attempted to overthrow the new assembly on the pretext that it did not represent the people; but the national guard frustrated the attempt. The number of men now enrolled in the national workshops had reached one hundred and seventeen thousand, each of whom received two francs a day in return for either useless labor or mere idleness. The abolition of this nuisance led to a serious revolt. Battle raged in the streets of Paris for three days, and over ten thousand persons were killed.

[Sidenote: Louis Napoleon elected president.]

[Sidenote: Establishment of the second empire, 1852.]

This wild outbreak of the forces of revolution resulted in a general conviction that a strong hand was essential to the maintenance of peace. The new constitution decreed that the president of the republic should be chosen by the people at large. Their choice fell upon the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, who had already made two futile attempts to make himself the ruler of France. Before the expiration of his four years' term he succeeded, by a coup d'état on the anniversary of the coronation of his uncle (December 2, 1851), in setting up a new government. He next obtained, by means of a plebiscite,[447] the consent of the people to his remaining president for ten years. A year later (1852) the second empire was established, and Napoleon III became "Emperor of the French by the grace of God and the will of the people."

[Sidenote: Austria's commanding position in central Europe.]

264. When Metternich heard of the February revolution of 1848 in France, he declared that "Europe finds herself to-day in the presence of a second 1793." This was not true, however. It was no longer necessary for France to promote liberal ideas by force of arms, as in 1793. For sixty years ideas of reform had been spreading in Europe, and by the year 1848 they were accepted by a great majority of the people, from Berlin to Palermo. The Europe of 1848 was no longer the Europe of 1793.

The overthrow of Louis Philippe encouraged the opponents of Metternich in Germany, Austria, and Italy to attempt to make an end of his system at once and forever. In view of the important part that Austria had played in central Europe since the fall of Napoleon I, it was inevitable that she should appear the chief barrier to the attainment of national unity and liberal government in Italy and Germany. As ruler of Lombardy and Venetia she practically controlled Italy, and as presiding member of the German Confederation she had been able to keep even Prussia in line. It is not strange that Austria felt that she could make no concessions to the spirit of nationality, for the territories belonging to the house of Hapsburg, some twenty in number, were inhabited by four different races,--Germans, Slavs, Hungarians, and Italians.[448] The Slavs (especially the Bohemians) and the Hungarians longed for national independence, as well as the Italians.

[Sidenote: Overthrow of Metternich, March, 1848.]

On March 13 the populace of Vienna rose in revolt against their old-fashioned government. Metternich fled, and all his schemes for opposing reform appeared to have come to naught. Before the end of the month the helpless Austrian emperor had given his permission to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia to draw up constitutions for themselves incorporating the longed-for reforms (equality of all classes in the matter of taxation, religious freedom, liberty of the press, and the rest), and providing that each country should have a parliament of its own, which should meet annually. The Austrian provinces were promised similar advantages. None of these regions, however, showed any desire to throw off their allegiance to the Austrian ruler.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Italian war of independence.]

The rising in northern Italy, on the contrary, was directed to that particular end. Immediately on the news of Metternich's fall the Milanese expelled the Austrian troops from their city, and soon Austria had evacuated a great part of Lombardy. The Venetians followed the lead of Milan and set up a republic once more. The Milanese, anticipating a struggle, appealed to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, for aid. By this time a great part of Italy was in revolt. Constitutions were granted to Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and Piedmont by their rulers. The king of Sardinia was forced by public opinion to assume the leadership in the attempt to expel the interloping Austria and ultimately, perhaps, to found some sort of an Italian union which should satisfy the longings for national unity. The pope and even the Bourbon king of Naples were induced to consent to the arming and dispatch of troops in the cause of Italian freedom, and Italy began its first war for independence.

[Sidenote: The liberal movement in Germany in 1848.]

The crisis at home and the Italian war made it impossible for Austria to prevent the progress of revolution in Germany. So spontaneous was the movement, that before the fall of Metternich reform movements had begun in Baden, Würtemberg, Bavaria, and Saxony. The opportunity seemed to have come, now that Austria was hopelessly embarrassed, to reorganize the German Confederation.

[Sidenote: Frederick William IV (1840-1861) of Prussia takes the lead in the reform movement in Germany.]

The king of Prussia, seeing his opportunity, suddenly reversed his policy of obedience to the dictates of Austria, and determined to take the lead in Germany. He agreed to summon an assembly to draw up a constitution for Prussia. Moreover, a great national assembly was convoked at Frankfurt to draft a constitution for Germany at large.

265. By the end of March, 1848, the prospects of reform were bright indeed. Hungary and Bohemia had been guaranteed constitutional independence; the Austrian provinces awaited their promised constitution; Lombardy and Venetia had declared their independence of Austria; four Italian states had obtained their longed-for constitutions, and all were ready for a war with Austria; Prussia was promised a constitution, and lastly, the National Assembly at Frankfurt was about to prepare a constitution for a united Germany.

[Sidenote: Conservatives and radicals both help to frustrate the realization of the proposed reforms.]

The moderate reformers who had gained these seeming victories had, however, only just reached the most difficult part of their task. They had two kinds of enemies, who abhorred each other but who effectually combined to undo the work of the moderates. These were, first, the conservative party, represented by Austria and the Italian rulers who had been forced most reluctantly to grant constitutions to their subjects; and, secondly, the radicals, who were not satisfied with the prospect of a liberal monarchy and desired a republican or socialistic form of government. While the princes were recovering from the astonishing humiliations of March, the radicals began to discredit the revolutionary movement and alienate public opinion by fantastic programmes and the murder of hostile ministers.

[Sidenote: Defeat of the Italians under Charles Albert of Sardinia, July, 1848.]

For the moment Austria's chief danger lay in Italy, which was the only one of her dependencies that had actually taken up arms against her. The Italians had been unable to drive out the Austrian army, which, under the indomitable general, Radetzky, had taken refuge in the so-called Quadrilateral, in the neighborhood of Mantua, where it was protected by four great fortresses. Charles Albert of Sardinia found himself, with the exception of a few volunteers, almost unsupported by the other Italian states. The best ally of Austria was the absence of united action upon the part of the Italians, and the jealousy and indifference that they showed as soon as war had actually begun. The pope decided that his mission was one of peace and that he could not afford to join in a war against Austria, the stoutest ally of the Roman church. The king of Naples easily found a pretext for recalling the troops that public opinion had compelled him to send to the aid of the king of Sardinia. Charles Albert was defeated at Custozza, July 25, and compelled to sign a truce with Austria and withdraw his forces from Lombardy.

[Sidenote: Policy of the Italian republicans.]

The Italian republicans, who had imputed to Charles Albert merely personal motives in his efforts to free Italy, now attempted to carry out their own programme. Florence, as well as Venice, proclaimed itself a republic. At Rome the liberal and enlightened Rossi, whom the pope had put at the head of affairs, was assassinated in November just as he was ready to promulgate his reforms. The pope fled from the city and put himself under the protection of the king of Naples. A constitutional assembly was then convoked by the revolutionists, and under the influence of Mazzini, in February, 1849, it declared the temporal power of the pope abolished and proclaimed the Roman republic.

[Sidenote: Hostility between the Germans and Czechs in Bohemia.]

266. Meanwhile the conditions in Austria began to be favorable to a reëstablishment of the emperor's former influence. Race rivalry proved his friend in his Austrian domains just as republicanism tended to his ultimate advantage in Italy. The Czechs[449] in Bohemia hated the Germans in 1848, much as they had hated them in the time of Huss. The German part of the population naturally opposed the plan of making Bohemia practically independent of the government at Vienna, for it was to German Vienna that they were wont to look for protection against the enterprises of their Czechish fellow-countrymen. The Germans wanted to send delegates to the Frankfurt convention, and to maintain the union between Bohemia and the German states.

[Sidenote: The Pan-Slavic Congress of 1848.]

[Sidenote: Beginnings of revolt in Bohemia suppressed.]

The Czechs determined to offset the movement toward German consolidation by a Pan-Slavic Congress, which should bring together the various Slavic peoples comprised in the Austrian empire. To this assembly, which met in Prague in June, 1848, came delegates from the Czechs, Moravians, Ruthenians, and Poles in the north, and the Servians and Croatians in the south. Its deliberations were interrupted by an insurrection that broke out among the people of Prague and gave the commander of the Austrian forces a sufficient excuse for intervening. He established a military government, and the prospect of independence for Bohemia vanished. This was Austria's first real victory.

[Sidenote: The Slavic peoples revolt against Hungary.]

The eastern and southern portion of the Hapsburg domains were not more homogeneous than the west and north. When a constitution was granted to Hungary it was inevitable that the races which the Hungarians (Magyars) had long dominated should begin to consider how they might gain the right to govern themselves. The Slavs inhabiting Carniola, Carinthia, Istria, Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, and Servia had long meditated upon the possibility of a united Slavic kingdom in the south. Both the Servians and Croatians now revolted against Hungary. Like the Germans in Bohemia, the Servians and Croatians were on the whole friendly to the Vienna government, from which they had less to fear than from the establishment of Hungarian independence, which would put them at the mercy of the Magyars. It was, therefore, with the support of the Austrian ministry that an army of Servians and Croatians crossed into Hungary in September.

[Sidenote: Insurrection of the radicals in Vienna suppressed.]

[Sidenote: Accession of Francis Joseph I, 1848-.]

In October, 1848, the radical party rose in Vienna as it had in Paris after the deposition of Louis Philippe. The minister of war was brutally murdered and the emperor fled. The city was, however, besieged by the same commander who had put down the insurrection in Prague, and was forced to surrender. The imperial government was now in a position still further to strengthen itself. The emperor, a notoriously inefficient person, was forced to abdicate (December 2, 1848) in favor of his youthful nephew, Francis Joseph I, who still sits upon the Austrian throne. Moreover, a new Metternich appeared in the person of Schwarzenberg.

[Sidenote: Suppression of Hungarian republic.]

[Sidenote: Final peaceful union between Austria and Hungary, 1867.]

A vigorous campaign was begun against Hungary, which, under the influence of the patriotic Kossuth, had deposed its Hapsburg king and declared itself an independent republic under the presidency of Kossuth. The Tsar placed his forces at the disposal of Francis Joseph, and with the aid of an army of one hundred and fifty thousand Russians, who marched in from the east, the Hungarians were compelled, by the middle of August, to surrender. Austria took terrible vengeance upon the rebels. Thousands were hung, shot, and imprisoned, and many, including Kossuth, fled to the United States or elsewhere. But within a few years Hungary won its independence by peaceful measures, and it is now on exactly the same footing as the western dominions of Francis Joseph in the dual federation of Austria-Hungary.

[Sidenote: Austria defeats the king of Sardinia at Novara, March, 1849.]

[Sidenote: Accession of Victor Emmanuel as king of Sardinia.]

It remained for Austria to reëstablish her prestige in Italy and in the German Confederation. In March, 1849, Charles Albert renewed the war which had been discontinued after the defeat at Custozza. The campaign lasted but five days and closed with his crushing and definitive defeat at Novara (March 23), which put an end to the hopes of Italian liberty for the time being. Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel, who was destined before many years to become king of Italy.

[Sidenote: Austria reëstablishes the former conditions in Italy, except in Piedmont.]

After bringing the king of Sardinia to terms, Austria pushed southward, reëstablishing the old order as she went. The ephemeral Italian republics were unable to offer any effectual resistance. The former rulers were restored in Rome, Tuscany, and Venice, and the constitutions were swept away from one end of the peninsula to the other, except in Piedmont, the most important part of the king of Sardinia's realms. There Victor Emmanuel not only maintained the representative government introduced by his father, but, by summoning to his councils d'Azeglio and others known throughout Italy for their liberal sentiments, he prepared to lead Italy once more against her foreign oppressors.

[Sidenote: Question of the extent of the proposed union.]

[Sidenote: Impossibility of a German state which should include both Austria and Prussia.]

267. In Germany, as elsewhere, Austria profited by the dissensions among her opponents. On May 18, 1848, the National Assembly, consisting of nearly six hundred representatives of the German people, had met at Frankfurt. It immediately began the consideration of a new constitution that should satisfy the popular longings for a great free German state, to be governed by and for the people. But what were to be the confines of this new German state? The confederation of 1815 did not include all the German inhabitants of Prussia, and did include the heterogeneous western possessions of Austria,--Bohemia and Moravia, for example, where a great part of the people were Slavs. There was no hesitation in deciding that all the Prussian territories should be admitted to the new union. As it appeared impossible to exclude Austria altogether, the Assembly agreed to include those parts of her territory which had belonged to the confederation formed in 1815. This decision rendered the task of founding a real German state practically impossible; for the new union was to include two great European powers who might at any moment become rivals, since Prussia would hardly consent to be led forever by Austria. So heterogeneous a union could only continue to be, as it had been, a loose confederation of practically independent princes.

[Sidenote: The Assembly at Frankfurt gives Austria time to recover.]

The improbability that the Assembly at Frankfurt would succeed in its undertaking was greatly increased by its unwise conduct. Instead of proceeding immediately to frame a new form of government, it devoted several months to the formulation of the general rights of the German citizen. This gave a fine opportunity to the theorists, of which there were many in the Assembly, to ventilate their views, and by the time that the constitution itself came up for discussion, Austria had begun to regain her influence and was ready to lead the conservative forces once more. She could rely upon the support of the rulers of South Germany, for they were well satisfied with the old confederation and the independence that it gave them.

[Sidenote: The Assembly asks the king of Prussia to become emperor of Germany.]

[Sidenote: Frederick William IV refuses the imperial crown.]

In spite of her partiality for the old union, Austria could not prevent the Assembly from completing its new constitution. This provided that there should be an hereditary emperor at the head of the government, and that exalted office was tendered to the king of Prussia. Frederick William IV had been alienated from the liberal cause, which he had at first espoused, by an insurrection in Berlin. He was, moreover, timid and conservative at heart; he hated revolution and doubted if the National Assembly had any right to confer the imperial title. He also greatly respected Austria, and felt that a war with her, which was likely to ensue if he accepted the crown, would not only be dangerous to Prussia, since Francis Joseph could rely upon the assistance of the Tsar, but dishonorable as well, in Austria's present embarrassment. So he refused the honor of the imperial title and announced his rejection of the new constitution (April, 1849).

[Sidenote: The National Assembly disperses and the old diet is restored.]

This decision rendered the year's work of the National Assembly fruitless, and its members gradually dispersed, with the exception of the radicals, who made a last desperate effort to found a republic. Austria now insisted upon the reëstablishment of the old diet, and nearly came to war with Prussia over the policy to be pursued. Hostilities were only averted by the ignominious submission of Prussia to the demands of Schwarzenberg in 1851.

[Sidenote: Results of the revolutions of 1848.]

While the revolutions of 1848 seem futile enough when viewed from the standpoint of the hopes of March, they left some important indications of progress. The king of Prussia had granted his country a constitution, which, with some modifications, has served Prussia down to the present day. Piedmont also had obtained a constitution. The internal reforms, moreover, which these countries speedily introduced, prepared them to head once more, and this time with success, a movement for national unity.

It will be noted that the revolution of 1848 aimed to do more than the French Revolution of 1789. Not only was the national question everywhere an important one, but there were plans for the economic reorganization of society. It was no longer simply a matter of abolishing the remnants of feudalism and insuring equal rights to all and the participation of the more prosperous classes in the government. Those who lived by the labor of their hands and were employed in the vast industries that had developed with the application of steam machinery to manufacture also had their spokesmen. The relation of the state to the industrial classes, and of capital to labor, had become, as they still are, the great problems of modern times.

[Sidenote: Decline of Austrian influence after 1851.]

In 1851 Austria had once more, in spite of the greatest obstacles, established the system of Metternich. But this victory was of short duration, and it was her last. Five years later the encroachments of Russia in Turkey brought on the Crimean War, of which something will be said later. In this war Austria observed an inglorious neutrality; she thereby sacrificed much of her prestige with both Russia and the western powers, and encouraged renewed attempts to free both Italy and Germany from her control.

[Sidenote: Development of Piedmont under Cavour.]

268. Under Victor Emmanuel and his great minister, Cavour, Piedmont had rapidly developed into a modern state. It sent a contingent to the aid of the western powers in the Crimean War waged by France and England against Russia (1853-1856); it developed its resources, military and economic, and at last found an ally to help it in a new attempt to expel Austria from Italy.

[Sidenote: Position and policy of Napoleon III.]

Napoleon III, like his far more distinguished uncle, was a usurper. He knew that he could not rely upon mere tradition, but must maintain his popularity by deeds that should redound to the glory of France. A war with Austria for the liberation of the Italians, who like the French were a Latin race, would be popular; especially if France could thereby add a bit of territory to her realms, and perhaps become the protector of the proposed Italian confederation. A conference was arranged between Napoleon and Cavour. Just what agreement was reached we do not know, but Napoleon no doubt engaged to come to the aid of the king of Sardinia, should the latter find a pretense for going to war with Austria. Should they together succeed in expelling Austria from northern Italy, the king of Sardinia was to reward France by ceding to her Savoy and Nice, which both geographically and racially belonged to her.

[Sidenote: Victories of Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III over Austria.]

By April, 1859, Victor Emmanuel had managed to involve himself in a war with Austria. The French army promptly joined forces with the Piedmontese, defeated the Austrians at Magenta, and on June 8, Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel entered Milan amid the rejoicings of the people. The Austrians managed the campaign very badly, and were again defeated at Solferino (June 24).

[Sidenote: Napoleon III alarmed by the Italian successes.]

Suddenly Europe was astonished to hear that a truce had been concluded, and that the preliminaries of a peace had been arranged which left Venetia in Austria's hands, in spite of Napoleon III's boast that he would free Italy to the Adriatic. The French emperor had begun to fear that, with the growing enthusiasm which was showing itself throughout the peninsula for Piedmont, there was danger that it might succeed in forming a national kingdom so strong as to need no French protector. By leaving Venetia in possession of Austria, and agreeing that Piedmont should only be increased by the incorporation of Lombardy and the little duchies of Parma and Modena, Napoleon III hoped to prevent the consolidation of Italy from proceeding too far.

[Sidenote: The formation of a kingdom of Italy, 1860.]

He had, however, precipitated changes which he was powerless to check. Italy was now ready to fuse into a single state. Tuscany, as well as Modena and Parma, voted (March, 1860) to unite with Piedmont. Garibaldi, a famous republican leader, sailed for Sicily, where he assumed the dictatorship of the island in the name of Victor Emmanuel, "King of Italy." After expelling the troops of the king of Naples from Sicily, he crossed to the mainland, and early in September he entered Naples itself, just as the king fled from his capital.

[Sidenote: Napoleon III intervenes to prevent the annexation of Rome to the kingdom of Italy.]

Garibaldi now proposed to march on Rome and proclaim the kingdom of Italy from the Quirinal. This would have imperiled all the previous gains, for Napoleon III could not, in view of the strong Catholic sentiment in France, possibly permit the occupation of Rome and the destruction of the political independence of the pope. He agreed that Victor Emmanuel might annex the outlying papal possessions to the north and reëstablish a stable government in Naples instead of Garibaldi's dictatorship. But Rome, the imperial city, with the territory immediately surrounding it, must be left to its old master. Victor Emmanuel accordingly marched southward and occupied Naples (October). Its king capitulated and all southern Italy became a part of the kingdom of Italy.

In February, 1861, the first Italian parliament was opened at Turin, and the process of really amalgamating the heterogeneous portions of the new kingdom began. Yet the joy of the Italians over the realization of their hopes of unity and national independence was tempered by the fact that Austria still held one of the most famous of the Italian provinces, and that Rome, which typified Italy's former grandeur, was not included in the new kingdom. Within a decade, however, both these districts became a part of the kingdom of Italy through the action of Prussia. William I and his extraordinary minister and adviser, Bismarck, were about to do for Germany what Victor Emmanuel and Cavour had accomplished for Italy.[450]

[Sidenote: William I of Prussia, 1861-1888.]

269. With the accession of William I in 1858,[451] a new era dawned for Prussia. A practical and vigorous man had come into power, whose great aim was to expel Austria from the German Confederation, and out of the remaining states to construct a firm union, under the leadership of Prussia, which should take its place among the most powerful of the states of Europe. He saw that war would come sooner or later, and his first business was to develop the military resources of his realms.

[Sidenote: William I's plan for strengthening the army.]

The German army, which was the outgrowth of the early reforms of William I, is so extraordinary a feature of the Europe of to-day, that its organization merits attention. The war of independence against Napoleon in 1813 had led to the summoning of the nation to arms, and a law was passed in Prussia making military service a universal obligation of every healthy male citizen. The first thing that William I did was to increase the annual levy from forty to sixty thousand men, and to see that all the soldiers remained in active service three years. They then passed into the reserve, according to the existing law, where for two years more they remained ready at any time to take up arms should it be necessary. William wished to increase the term of service in the reserve to four years. In this way the state would claim seven of the years of early manhood and have an effective army of four hundred thousand, which would permit it to dispense with the service of those who were approaching middle life. The lower house of the Prussian parliament refused, however, to make the necessary appropriations for increasing the strength of the army.

[Sidenote: Bismarck and his struggle with the Prussian parliament.]

The king proceeded, nevertheless, with his plan, and in 1862 called to his side one of the most extraordinary statesmen of modern times, Bismarck. The new minister conceived a scheme for laying Austria low and exalting Prussia, which he succeeded in carrying out with startling precision. He could not, however, reveal it to the lower chamber; he would, indeed, scarcely hint its nature to the king himself. In defiance of the lower house and of the newspapers, he carried on the strengthening of the army without formal appropriations, on the theory that the constitution had not provided for a dead-lock between the upper and lower house, and that consequently the king might exercise, in such a case, his former absolute power. For a time it seemed as if Prussia was returning to a pure despotism, for there was assuredly no more fundamental provision of the constitution than the right of the people to control the granting of the taxes. Yet Bismarck was eventually fully exonerated by public opinion, and it was generally agreed that the end had amply justified the means.

[Sidenote: The Schleswig-Holstein affair.]

270. Prussia now had a military force that appeared to justify the hope of victory should she undertake a war with her old rival. In order to bring about the expulsion of Austria from the confederation, Bismarck took advantage of a knotty problem that had been troubling Germany, and which was known as the Schleswig-Holstein affair. The provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, although inhabited largely by Germans, had for centuries belonged to the king of Denmark. They were allowed, however, to retain their provincial assemblies, and were not considered a part of Denmark any more than Hanover was a part of Great Britain in the last century.

In 1847, just when the growing idea of nationality was about to express itself in the Revolution of 1848, the king of Denmark proclaimed that he was going to make these German provinces an integral part of the Danish kingdom. This aroused great indignation throughout Germany, especially as Holstein was a member of the confederation. Frederick William IV consented to go to war with Denmark, but only succeeded in delaying for a few years the proposed absorption of the provinces by Denmark. The constant encroachments of the government at Copenhagen upon the privileges claimed by Schleswig-Holstein aroused new apprehension and much discontent. In 1863 Schleswig was finally incorporated into the Danish kingdom.

[Sidenote: Bismarck's audacious plan for the expulsion of Austria from Germany.]

"From this time the history of Germany is the history of the profound and audacious statecraft and of the overmastering will of Bismarck; the nation, except through its valour on the battlefield, ceases to influence the shaping of its own fortunes. What the German people desired in 1864 was that Schleswig-Holstein should be attached, under a ruler of its own, to the German Federation as it then existed; what Bismarck intended was that Schleswig-Holstein, itself incorporated more or less directly with Prussia, should be made the means of the destruction of the existing Federal system and of the expulsion of Austria from Germany.... The German people desired one course of action; Bismarck had determined on something totally different; with matchless resolution and skill he bore down all the opposition of people and of the [European] courts, and forced a reluctant nation to the goal which he himself had chosen for it" (Fyffe).

[Sidenote: The working out of the plan.]

Bismarck's first step was to invite Austria to coöperate with Prussia in settling the Schleswig-Holstein difficulty. As Denmark refused to make any concessions, the two powers declared war, defeated the Danish army, and forced the king of Denmark to cede Schleswig-Holstein to the rulers of Prussia and Austria jointly (October, 1864). They were to make such disposition of the provinces as they saw fit. There was now no trouble in picking a quarrel with Austria. Bismarck suggested the nominal independence of the duchies, but that they should become practically a part of Prussia. This plan was of course indignantly rejected by Austria, and it was arranged that, pending an adjustment, Austria should govern Holstein, and Prussia, Schleswig.

[Sidenote: Prussia declares the German Confederation dissolved.]

Bismarck now obtained the secret assurance of Napoleon III that he would not interfere if Prussia and Italy should go to war with Austria. In April, 1866, Italy agreed that, should the king of Prussia take up arms during the following three months with the aim of reforming the German union, it too would immediately declare war on Austria, with the hope, of course, of obtaining Venice. The relations between Austria and Prussia grew more and more strained, until finally in June, 1866, Austria induced the diet to call out the forces of the confederation with a view of making war on Prussia. This act the representative of Prussia declared put an end to the existing union. He accordingly submitted to the diet Prussia's scheme for the reformation of Germany and withdrew from the diet.

[Sidenote: War declared between Prussia and Austria.]

271. On June 12 war was declared between Austria and Prussia. With the exception of Mecklenburg and the small states of the north, all Germany sided with Austria against Prussia. Bismarck immediately demanded of the rulers of the larger North German states--Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel--that they stop their warlike preparations and agree to accept Prussia's plan of reform. On their refusal, Prussian troops immediately occupied these territories, and war actually began.

[Sidenote: Prussia victorious.]

So admirable was the organization of the Prussian army that, in spite of the suspicion and even hatred which the liberal party in Prussia entertained for the despotic Bismarck, all resistance on the part of the states of the north was promptly prevented, Austria was miserably defeated on July 3 in the decisive battle of Königgrätz, or Sadowa,[452] and within three weeks after the breaking off of diplomatic relations the war was practically over. Austria's influence was at an end, and Prussia had won her right to do with Germany as she pleased.

[Sidenote: The North German Federation.]

Prussia was aware that the larger states south of the Main River were not ripe for the union that she desired. She therefore organized a so-called North German Federation, which included all the states north of the Main. Prussia had seized the opportunity considerably to increase her own boundaries and round out her territory by annexing the North German states, with the exception of Saxony, that had gone to war with her. Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and the free city of Frankfurt, along with the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, all became Prussian.

[Sidenote: Requirements of the proposed constitution.]

Prussia, thus enlarged, summoned the lesser states about her to confer upon a constitution that should accomplish four ends. First, it must give all the people of the territory included in the new union, regardless of the particular state in which they lived, a voice in the government. A popular assembly satisfied this demand. Secondly, the predominating position of Prussia must be secured, but at the same time (thirdly) the self-respect of the other monarchs whose lands were included must not be sacrificed. In order to accomplish this double purpose the king of Prussia was made president of the federation but not its sovereign. The chief governing body was the Federal Council (Bundesrath). In this each ruler, however small his state, and each of the three free towns--Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck--had at least one vote; in this way it was arranged that the other rulers did not become subjects of the king of Prussia. The real sovereign of the North German Federation and of the present German empire is not the king of Prussia, but "all of the united governments." The votes were distributed as in the old diet, so that Prussia, with the votes of the states that she annexed in 1860, enjoyed seventeen votes out of forty-three. Lastly, the constitution must be so arranged that when the time came for the southern states--Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and south Hesse--to join the union, it would be adapted to the needs of the widened empire.

The union was a true federation like that of the United States, although its organization violated many of the rules which were observed in the organization of the American union. It was inevitable that a union spontaneously developed from a group of sovereign monarchies, with their traditions of absolutism, would be very different from one in which the members, like the states of the American union, had previously been governed by republican institutions.

[Sidenote: Disappointment of the hopes of Napoleon III.]

272. No one was more chagrined by the abrupt termination of the war of 1866 and the victory of Prussia than Napoleon III. He had hoped that both the combatants might be weakened by a long struggle, and that at last he might have an opportunity to arbitrate and incidentally to gain something for France, as had happened after the Italian war. But Prussia came out of the conflict with greatly increased power and territory, while France had gained nothing. An effort of Napoleon's to get a foothold in Mexico had failed, owing to the recovery of the United States from the Civil War and their warning that they should regard his continued intervention there as an hostile act.[453] His hopes of annexing Luxembourg as an offset for the gains that Prussia had made, were also frustrated.

[Sidenote: France declares war upon Prussia, July 19, 1870.]

One course remained for the French usurper, namely, to permit himself to be forced into a war against the power which had especially roused the jealousy of France. Never was an excuse offered for war more trivial than that advanced by the French,[454] never did retribution come more speedily. The hostility which the South German states had hitherto shown toward Prussia encouraged Napoleon III to believe that so soon as the French troops should gain their first victory, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden would join him. That first victory was never won. War had no sooner been declared than the Germans laid all jealousy aside and ranged themselves as a nation against a national assailant. The French army, moreover, was neither well equipped nor well commanded. The Germans hastened across the Rhine, and within a few days were driving the French before them. In a series of bloody encounters about Metz, one of the French armies was defeated and finally shut up within the fortifications about the town. Seven weeks had not elapsed after the beginning of the war, before the Germans had captured a second French army and made a prisoner of the emperor himself in the great battle of Sedan, September 1, 1870.[455]

[Sidenote: Siege of Paris and close of Franco-Prussian War.]

[Sidenote: Cession of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany.]

The Germans then surrounded and laid siege to Paris. Napoleon III had been completely discredited by the disasters about Metz and at Sedan, and consequently the empire was abolished and France for the third time was declared a republic. In spite of the energy which the new government showed in arousing the French against the invaders, prolonged resistance was impossible. The capital surrendered January 28, 1871, and an armistice was arranged. Bismarck, who had been by no means reluctant to go to war, deeply humiliated France, in arranging the treaty of peace, by requiring the cession of two French provinces which had formerly belonged to Germany,--Alsace and northeastern Lorraine.[456] In this way France was cut off from the Rhine, and the crest of the Vosges Mountains was established as its boundary. The Germans exacted, further, an enormous indemnity for the unjustifiable attack which the French had made upon them. This was fixed at five billion francs, and German troops were to occupy France till it was paid. The French people made pathetic sacrifices to hasten the payment of this indemnity, in order that the country might be freed from the presence of the hated Germans. The bitter feeling of the French for the Germans dates from this war, and the longing for revenge still shows itself. For many years after the war a statue in Paris, representing the lost city of Strasburg, was draped in mourning.

[Sidenote: The insurrection of the Paris commune of 1871.]

Immediately after the surrender of Paris the new republican government had been called upon to subdue a terrible insurrection of the Parisian populace. The insurgents reëstablished the commune of the Reign of Terror, and rather than let Paris come again into the hands of the national government, they proposed to burn the city. When, after two months of disorder, their forces were completely routed in a series of bloody street fights, the city was actually set on fire; but only two important public buildings were destroyed,--the Palace of the Tuilleries and the city hall.

[Sidenote: The French constitutional laws of 1875.]

A National Assembly had been elected by the people in February, 1871, to make peace with Germany and to draw up a new constitution. Under this temporary government France gradually recovered from the terrible loss and demoralization caused by the war. There was much uncertainty for several years as to just what form the constitution would permanently take, for the largest party in the National Assembly was composed of those who favored the reëstablishment of a monarchy.[457] Those who advocated maintaining the republic prevailed, however, and in 1875 the assembly passed a series of three laws organizing the government. These have since served France as a constitution.

[Sidenote: Character of the present French republic.]

While France is nominally a republic with a president at its head, its government closely resembles that of a limited monarchy like Belgium. This is not strange, since the monarchists were in the majority when its constitutional laws were passed. The French government of to-day is therefore a compromise, and since all attempts to overthrow it have proved vain, we may assume that it is suited to the wants of the nation.

[Sidenote: Permanent character of the French government in spite of changes in the constitution.]

As one reviews the history of France since the establishment of the first republic in 1792, it appears as if revolutionary changes of government had been very frequent. As a matter of fact, the various revolutions produced far less change in the system of government than is usually supposed. They neither called in question the main provisions of the Declaration of the Rights of Man drawn up in 1789, nor did they materially alter the system of administration which was established by Napoleon immediately after his accession in 1800. So long as the latter was retained, the civil rights and equality of all citizens secured, and the representatives of the nation permitted to control the ruler, it really made little difference whether France was called an empire, a constitutional monarchy, or a republic.

[Sidenote: Final unification of Germany.]

[Sidenote: Proclamation of the German empire, January 18, 1871.]

273. The attack of France upon Prussia in 1870, instead of hindering the development of Germany as Napoleon III had hoped it would, only served to consummate the work of 1866. The South German states,--Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and south Hesse--having sent their troops to fight side by side with the Prussian forces, consented after their common victory over France to join the North German Federation. Surrounded by the German princes, William, King of Prussia and President of the North German Federation, was proclaimed German Emperor in the palace of Versailles, January, 1871. In this way the present German empire came into existence. With its wonderfully organized army and its mighty chancellor, Bismarck, it immediately took a leading place among the western powers of Europe.

[Sidenote: Predominance of Prussia in the present German empire.]

The constitution of the North German Federation had been drawn up with the hope that the southern states would later become a part of the union; consequently, little change was necessary when the empire was established. The king of Prussia enjoys the title of German Emperor, and is the real head of the federation. He is not, however, emperor of Germany, for the sovereignty is vested, theoretically, not in him, but in the body of German rulers who are members of the union, all of whom send their representatives to the Federal Council (Bundesrath). Prussia's influence in the Federal Council is, however, secured by assigning her king a sufficient number of votes to enable him to block any measure he wishes.

[Sidenote: Rome added to the kingdom of Italy, 1870.]

The unification of Italy was completed, like that of Germany, by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. After the war of 1866 Austria had ceded Venetia to Italy. Napoleon III had, however, sent French troops in 1867 to prevent Garibaldi from seizing Rome and the neighboring districts, which had been held by the head of the Catholic church for more than a thousand years. In August, 1870, the reverses of the war compelled Napoleon to recall the French garrison from Rome, and the pope made little effort to defend his capital against the Italian army, which occupied it in September. The people of Rome voted by an overwhelming majority to join the kingdom of Italy; and the work of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour was consummated by transferring the capital to the Eternal City.

[Sidenote: Position of the pope.]

Although the papal possessions were declared a part of the kingdom of Italy, a law was passed which guaranteed to the pope the rank and privileges of a sovereign prince. He was to have his own ambassadors and court like the other European powers. No officer of the Italian government was to enter the Lateran or Vatican palaces upon any official mission. As head of the church, the pope was to be entirely independent of the king of Italy, and the bishops were not required to take the oath of allegiance to the government. A sum of over six hundred thousand dollars annually was also appropriated to aid the pope in defraying his expenses. The pope, however, refused to recognize the arrangement. He still regards himself as a prisoner, and the Italian government as a usurper who has robbed him of his possessions. He has never accepted the income assigned to him, and still maintains that the independence which he formerly enjoyed as ruler of the Papal States is essential to the best interests of the head of a great international church.[458]

[Sidenote: Southeastern Europe.]

274. To complete the survey of the great political changes of the nineteenth century, we must turn for a moment to southeastern Europe. The disposal of the European lands occupied by the Turks has proved a very knotty international question. We have seen how the Turks were expelled from Hungary by the end of the seventeenth century, and how Peter the Great and his successors began to dream of acquiring Constantinople as a Russian outpost which would enable the Tsar to command the eastern Mediterranean.[459] Catherine II (1762-1796) had extended the Russian boundary to the Black Sea. On the whole, however, the Turks held their own pretty well during the eighteenth century, but the nineteenth witnessed the disruption of European Turkey into a number of new and independent Christian states.

[Sidenote: Servia and Greece revolt from the Sultan.]

The Servians first revolted successfully against their oppressors, and forced the Sultan (1817) to permit them to manage their own affairs, although he did not grant them absolute independence. Of the war of independence which the Greeks waged against the Turks (1821-1829) something has already been said.[460] The intervention of Russia, England, and France saved the insurgents from defeat, and in 1829 the Porte recognized the independence of Greece, which became a constitutional monarchy. The Turkish government also pledged itself to allow vessels of all nations to pass freely through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus.

[Sidenote: The Crimean War, 1853-1856.]

[Sidenote: Origin of the principality of Roumania, 1859.]

Inasmuch as a great part of the peoples still under Turkish rule in Europe were--like the Russians--Slavs and adherents of the Greek church, Russia believed that it had the best right to protect the Christians within the Sultan's dominions from the atrocious misgovernment of the Mohammedans. When in 1853 news reached the Tsar that the Turks were troubling Christian pilgrims, he demanded that he be permitted to assume a protectorate over all the Christians in Turkey. This the Porte refused to grant. Russia declared war and destroyed the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea. The English government looked with apprehension upon the advance of the Russians. It felt that it would be disastrous to western Europe if Russia were permitted to occupy the well-nigh impregnable Constantinople and send its men-of-war freely about the Mediterranean. England therefore induced Napoleon III to combine with her to protect the Sultan's possessions. The English and French troops easily defeated the Russians, landed in the Crimea, and then laid siege to Sevastopol, an important Russian fortress on the Black Sea. Sevastopol fell after a long and terrible siege, and the so-called Crimean War came to a close. The intervention of the western powers had prevented the capture of Constantinople by the Russians, but very soon the powers recognized the practical independence of two important Turkish provinces on the lower Danube, which were united in 1859 into the principality of Roumania.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Bosnia, 1875.]

The Turkish subjects in Bosnia and Herzegovina naturally envied the happier lot of the neighboring Servians, who had escaped from the bondage of the Turks. These provinces were stirred to revolt in 1875, when the Turks, after collecting the usual heavy taxes, immediately demanded the same amount over again. The oppressed Christians proposed to escape Turkish tyranny by becoming a part of Servia. They naturally relied upon the aid of Russia to carry out their plans. The insurrection spread among the other Christian subjects of the Sultan, especially those in Bulgaria.

[Sidenote: The Bulgarian atrocities.]

Here the Turks wreaked vengeance upon the insurgents by atrocities which filled Europe with horror and disgust. In a single town six thousand of the seven thousand inhabitants were massacred with incredible cruelty, and scores of villages were burned. Russia, joined by Roumania, thereupon declared war upon the Porte (1877). The Turks were defeated, but western Europe would not permit the questions at issue to be settled without its approval. Consequently, a congress was called at Berlin under the presidency of Bismarck, which included representatives from Germany, Austria, Russia, England, France, Italy, and Turkey.

[Sidenote: The Congress of Berlin (1878) and the eastern question.]

The Congress of Berlin determined that Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania should thereafter be altogether independent. The latter two became kingdoms within a few years, Roumania in 1881 and Servia in 1882. Bosnia and Herzegovina,[461] instead of becoming a part of Servia, as they wished, were to be occupied and administered by Austria, although the Sultan remained their nominal sovereign. Bulgaria received a Christian government, but was forced to continue to recognize the Sultan as its sovereign and pay him tribute.[462]

To-day the once wide dominions of the Sultan in Europe are reduced to the city of Constantinople and a strip of mountainous country stretching westward to the Adriatic.

General Reading.--In addition to the works of Andrews and Fyffe referred to in the footnotes, the following are excellent short accounts of the political history of Europe since 1815. W.A. PHILLIPS, Modern Europe (The Macmillan Company, $1.50); SEIGNOBOS, Political History of Europe since 1814, carefully edited by MacVane (Henry Holt & Co., $3.00), and the readable but partisan German work of Müller, Political History of Recent Times (American Book Company, $2.00). For Germany: MUNROE SMITH, Bismarck and German Unity (The Macmillan Company, $1.00) and KUNO FRANCKE, History of German Literature as determined by Social Forces (Henry Holt & Co., $2.50). For Italy: THAYER, Dawn of Italian Independence (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 2 vols., $4.00); STILLMAN, Union of Italy (The Macmillan Company, $1.60); COUNTESS CESARESCO, Liberation of Italy (Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.75) and her Cavour (The Macmillan Company, 75 cents). For England: MCCARTHY, History of our Own Times (issued by various publishers, e.g., Coates & Co., 2 vols., $1.50).

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