Origins of the Triple alliance

Preface

In January, 1916, I had the honor and the pleasure of giving the Barbour-Page lectures for that year at the University of Virginia. The substance of those lectures is reproduced in this little volume, though there have been many changes in the form besides the addition of footnotes. Any one who wishes to understand even in a superficial way the causes that have brought about the present world conflict should familiarize himself with the history of Europe since the Franco-Prussian War, and should try to grasp the interplay of political forces, the aims of statesmen, and the aspirations of peoples during that period. For the greater part of the time the so-called Triple Alliance was the strongest political and military element in the international situation. Its friends declared that it was an element for peace; its enemies regarded vi PREFACE

it as a conservative league to protect illgotten gains. Although it dissolved when brought to the touchstone of actual war, its importance as an international factor for many years makes it well worth our study. In the following three chapters I have tried to point out the causes, personal as well as international, that led to its formation. I have not made any startling discoveries, nor have I new theories to put forth, but I believe I have made use of the best accessible information. Instead of St. Petersburg I ought perhaps to have used the name Petrograd, and I should have done so in speaking of current affairs, but for those of the past it still seems permissible to keep to the older form. For the sake of brevity and smoothness I have often used the word Austria where Austria-Hungary or the Dual Empire would have been more correct; but this, also, is, I think, condoned by current usage.

ORIGINS OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

THE ORIGINS OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Chapter I

On May 10, 1871, the Peace of Frankfort was signed between the new French republic and the still newer German empire. This date may be regarded as marking, in the conventional way that dates do, the termination not only of a great and dramatic war, but also of a period of European history. With the complete triumph of Germany over France, accompanied by the overthrow of what a few years before had seemed the brilliantly successful government of Napoleon III, with the proclamation at Versailles of William of Prussia as German emperor, with the entry of the Italian troops into Rome, and the extinction of the age-long temporal sovereignty of the Pope, Europe had within a few months undergone such changes as to constitute the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one. This new epoch, which closes with the war of 19 14, may be described as that of the ascendancy of Germany.

The Europe of 1871 was represented and controlled, as it had been for centuries, by certain great powers, jealous indeed of one another and often in disagreement, but whose collective decision once reached was in practice binding upon the rest of the continent. The composition of the group had varied from time to time, and the relative strength and influence of the different members had been subject to continual readjustment. They were six in number. One of them, united Italy, had only just come into existence and was hardly recognized by the rest as quite an equal. Imperial Germany, on the other hand,

THE GREAT POWERS was a political outgrowth of the kingdom of Prussia, which had been a power for more than a century, and now in its new form, crowned with a halo of victories, it had stepped from the last to the first place among the great European states. Three of the others, Russia, Austria, and France, had been severely defeated in war in the course of the last twenty years, and of these none so disastrously as France.

Ever since the days of Richelieu, for well over two centuries, France had been, with occasional eclipses, the first power in the world. One coalition after another had been necessary to check the ambitions of Louis XIV. The last and most formidable of all, though its armies, led by Marlborough and Eugene, humbled his pride and exhausted his resources, did not succeed in preventing him from seating his grandson on the throne of Spain. Even the fatal reign of Louis XV, with its loss of colonial empires in North

America and India, was marked by the widest supremacy of the French language and of French ideas. Politically, too, France soon began to recover under his successor and enjoyed a partial revenge on England in the war of American independence. Then followed the victories of the Revolution, and the unexampled glories of the Napoleonic empire, when the conquering soldiers of France entered the gates of Berlin and Vienna, of Rome and of Madrid and of Moscow. When at last the tide turned and she was vanquished by combined Europe, only a few years of rest were necessary for her before she again began to assert herself. A generation later, under Napoleon III, she was victorious in the Crimea and in Italy, and once more became the brilliant centre of Europe and the leading power in international affairs.

Now all was changed. France had been overwhelmingly defeated, this time not by a coalition, but by a single foe, in

THE DEFEAT OF FRANCE a war into which she had entered 'with a light heart' and in which she had lost every important battle. A large part of her territory had been overrun, her capital had been entered by the victorious enemy, she had had imposed upon her the payment of an indemnity such as had never been heard of in history. She was deprived of her eastern provinces, Alsace and part of Lorraine, with some 1,600,000 people, and she was left with a disadvantageous frontier unfortified against a neighbor who had just given such fearful evidence of his power. As a crowning humiliation, she had to retake Paris itself from the anarchistic government of the Commune amid wild scenes of bloodshed, and this under the very eyes of the Germans. In the midst of these disasters she met with little compassion from the outside world. Sympathy is the last thing a vanquished nation may expect to find, especially if it has excited envy in the past. Instead, it is assured that it has merited its fate by its faults, which are pointed out to it with unsparing frankness.

When we add to all this the fact that in 1 87 1 the government of France was confessedly only provisional, and the existing republican form did not appear to satisfy the wishes of the majority of the people, though there was no telling just what they did want, and finally when we remember that her birth rate had long been declining and was lower than that of any other country in Europe, we can see reason enough for the widespread belief that her sun had set and that henceforth she must content herself with a secondary place among nations. In any event, it was hard to conceive that she could ever again be the first state on the continent.

History records with admiration the way in which the French people and their rulers met and overcame the innumerable difficulties that beset them, and in a surprisingly short time brought order out of

THE RECOVERY OF FRANCE chaos. Their most immediate and pressing task was the payment of the war indemnity, in order to obtain liberation of French territory from the burden and shame of foreign occupation. The huge sums necessary for the purpose were raised with a promptness that astonished the world, and made the Germans regret that they had not insisted on obtaining more. Then followed the painful process of recovery from the wounds inflicted by the war, the arduous work of reconstruction, and especially the reconstitution of the military strength of the country. Not only did the building of a new chain of fortresses on the exposed frontier cost by itself many hundred million francs, but the army had to be reorganized and reenforced from top to bottom. Here, too, the progress was soon such as to provoke disquiet, not to say irritation, on the part of the watchful neighbor to the east. The question as to the final form of the government of France remained open for some years, but in the meanwhile the republicans, at first a minority in the nation and a still smaller one among its leading men, steadily gained ground. The Conservatives, even after they had brought about the fall of President Thiers, were too divided among themselves to profit by the majority they had in the chambers, and in the end, against their wills, they voted a republican constitution.

These circumstances imperatively demanded that the energies of France should be devoted to internal affairs. In consequence, the foreign policy of the third republic was at first cautious, not to say timorous, in the extreme, being dominated by fear of Germany and by the necessity of avoiding complications of all kinds until the country should have recovered its strength. This was no time for France to take the initiative in international questions, or, indeed, to do much of anything, except keep on good

ITALY terms with other powers, and, if she could not make friends, at least avoid giving offence.

Her Latin sister, the young kingdom of Italy, was equally timid. Italian unity had been achieved in large part thanks to the assistance of stronger nations, and thanks also to their quarrels with one another. The coping stone of the edifice, the acquisition of Rome as a capital, had only been possible owing to the withdrawal of the French army of occupation after the first Prussian victories. This passing of the Eternal City from the hands of the papacy, which had ruled it for so many centuries, had created a painful impression in the Catholic world. It was, indeed, no secret that not only in Austria and Germany, but also among the Conservatives in France, there were not a few who openly advocated the restoration of the temporal authority of the Pope, and were willing to use force to bring this about. The fear of such interio THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

vention was for many years a controlling element in Italian foreign policy, and combined with a sense of the weakness and the backwardness of the new kingdom to make its statesmen eminently cautious. The Italians still professed their gratitude for the aid France had given them on the field of battle, but they were disposed to claim that she had repaid herself by her annexation of Nice and Savoy, an act which they still resented. They had not forgotten the French occupation of Rome, and they feared the advent to power of the clerical party in Paris. They were also beginning to entertain ambitions of a Mediterranean empire, ambitions which could not fail to bring them some day into disagreement if not actual collision with their former benefactor. Austria they regarded as a one-time hated oppressor, who still held Italians under her rule, and was capable at any moment of again menacing Italian unity and independence.

ENGLAND

Of the great European powers, England was the one that had been least affected by the recent convulsions on the continent; indeed, her position in the world had long been subject to fewer variations than that of others. In the course of the last four hundred years, though often at war, she had met with but one serious defeat, the war of American independence. Even then, heavy as her losses had been, they had brought little direct gain to her rivals. England had never dominated Europe, but she had always been a power of the first rank which continental statesmen could not safely leave out of account, though they sometimes affected to do so. She had reached her highest point relatively in 1815, after her triumph over Napoleon, whom she had opposed so long, often single-handed. In Nelson she had possessed perhaps the greatest of all admirals, in Wellington she had the one general who had been uniformly victorious over the French, and it was her troops that had borne the brunt of the fray in the crowning victory of Waterloo. At that time she was not only the first but in fact the only great maritime and colonial power; indeed, Britannia ruled the waves more completely then than ever before or since. In mechanical invention, too, and in industrial progress, she led mankind.

Since those days, however, her prestige and political influence had somewhat waned. It was not that Great Britain had not made satisfactory progress. On the contrary, in population, in industrial development, in commerce, in wealth, she had advanced without halt, and she had added steadily to her vast colonial empire. Nevertheless, her position in the world, if imposing, was no longer commanding. Although she still held the first place economically, other nations also had modern industries and extensive seagoing commerce. The British navy was still the strongest in existence, but France

THE DECLINE OF BRITISH PRESTIGE 13

and the United States possessed powerful fleets. British troops had won many victories over Orientals and savages, but such successes have never made much impression on foreign military opinion, and in the Crimean war, the one struggle where the English had had to face European opponents, though they fought with their usual bravery, they did not display equal competence, and in the later stages they were completely cast into the shade by the superior achievements of their French allies. Not many people, even in England, remember the name of the English general in command when Sebastopol fell. On the continent there was a tendency to depreciate the British army, and to regard it as something good enough against enemies of inferior civilization, but not the equal of troops trained to meet more scientific foes.

In the ten years preceding 1871, England had several times been on the verge of war with other great powers — with the

United States over the Trent affair and over the question of the Confederate cruisers, with Russia over the Polish insurrection of 1863, and with the German states over the Schleswig-Holstein question. In the Trent affair, the demand of England had been acceded to, but in the other cases she had suffered some humiliation. She was still harassed by the question of the Alabama claims, which, as later arbitrated, ended in a triumph for the United States; she had encouraged the Polish revolt by joint diplomatic intervention with France in its behalf, but as she was unwilling to go to the point of war, she had to submit to being severely snubbed by Russia, while the Poles were in the end left worse off than ever; and in the question of Schleswig-Holstein, she had likewise failed altogether to make good her words by action. Of late, especially since the disappearance from the scene of the bumptious figure of Lord Palmerston, the foreign policy of England

ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY 15

had been unaggressive and inclined to mind its own business.

During the Franco-Prussian war English public opinion had been in the main favorable to the Germans. This was not due to any especial love for them, though there was much respect for Prussia, but Englishmen had sympathized with the achievement of German unity, and for some years they had disliked and distrusted their former ally, Emperor Napoleon III. The way, too, in which the war had apparently been brought about had prejudiced many against France, as had Bismarck's timely revelations of French desires for the acquisition of Belgium. The first victories of the German armies were, therefore, generally applauded. It is true that, after the overthrow of the Second Empire, the heroic efforts of France to retrieve her desperate fortunes and the severity of the terms of peace imposed upon her produced a certain reaction in her favor, but, as a whole,

English feeling toward the new German empire was one of cordiality and frank admiration. There seemed to be no important matters about which the interests of the two peoples were likely to conflict, and the relations between the two courts were intimate. Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg, the beloved husband of Queen Victoria, had been a patriotic German, and their daughter was now married to Crown Prince Frederick, the heir to the new imperial throne.

The only power which England viewed with suspicion and hostility was Russia; indeed, there had been little improvement in the relations between the two countries since the Crimean war. The events connected with the Polish insurrection, the renewal of Russian activity in Asia, and particularly the repudiation by Russia of the article in the Treaty of Paris that limited her freedom of action in the Black Sea, had aroused British anger and deepened British distrust of a state whose de-

ENGLAND AND RUSSIA 17

signs were deemed to be full of menace to the interests of the British empire.

Russia under Tsar Alexander II had profited by the bitter experiences of the Crimean war to put her house in order. Public opinion, from the emperor down, had realized that the country was in need of drastic changes, and that all reforms must be based on the fundamental one of the abolition of serfdom. This, perhaps the greatest legislative act in the history of mankind, had been formally proclaimed on March 3, 1861. It had been carried out with the enthusiastic support of all that was best in the nation and had been followed up by the institution of provincial councils and by other measures of far-reaching importance that should help to create a new Russia. But, as was inevitable in a work of such magnitude, there had been numerous mistakes in matters of detail, and the first enthusiasm of the public was succeeded by disappointment. The government, too, alarmed at some of the results of its own policy, had of late grown reactionary, and had thereby aroused increasing discontent among the liberal elements of society. In her absorption in the work of internal regeneration and also in that of reconstituting her military strength, Russia had for fifteen years withdrawn from active participation in international questions. She had taken no share in the events that led to the liberation of Italy and to the unification of Germany. She had, it is true, watched with lively satisfaction the defeat and humiliation of Austria, whose ungrateful hostility at the time of the Crimean war she had not forgiven. For a while she had seemed to seek closer relations with France, but the threat of French intervention during the Polish insurrection, in contrast with the ostentatious friendship of Prussia at this juncture, had led to a reawakening of Russian nationalism and thrown Alexander II into the embrace of his kinsman

RUSSIA AND GERMANY 19

In Berlin. The Tsar had not only drunk to the success of German arms at the time of the Franco- Prussian war, he had likewise made no secret of the intention of Russia to intervene in case Austria should ally herself to France. In return, Russia, with the complicity of Bismarck, had profited by the French disasters to abrogate the Black Sea clause in the Treaty of Paris in defiance of England and Austria, who had protested angrily, but in the end could only sanction* what they were unable to prevent. In 1871 official relations between Berlin and St. Petersburg were of the most cordial nature, and personal ones were closer still. To be sure, the former friendship of the two chancellors, Gorchakov and Bismarck, had cooled down in the course of time — neither of the two was sentimental in such matters — but real ties of affection bound together Tsar Alexander and his uncle, Kaiser William.

* At the London Conference in 1871.

Austria-Hungary had within a few years undergone profound changes, both external and internal. When Francis Joseph had come to the throne on December 2, 1848, his territories were in the throes of revolutions that threatened the very existence of his empire. Thanks, however, to able generals and ministers, and still more thanks to the assistance of Russia, he had triumphed over Italians, Hungarians, and other insurgents, and had been able to resume his absolute authority. The German Confederation was reestablished, with Austria once more as its leading member, and presently Russia, an all too powerful friend, was defeated in the Crimean war, while Austria took the opportunity to "astonish the world by her ingratitude." But this period of success had been short-lived. In 1859, Austria had been expelled by the French from Italy, save for the Trentino and the province of Venetia, and had been forced to tolerate the growth of a united Italian

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY state. Seven years later, by the battle of Sadowa, she lost Venetia, and had also to submit to being excluded from Germany, to which her own German territories had belonged by race and history ever since they had come into existence. Her system of centralized despotic rule had now broken down, and disaffection was rife throughout the empire.

It was high time for a change of policy. The imperial government turned to the strongest of the discontented elements, the Hungarians, and offered to meet their wishes. In the negotiations that ensued the Hungarian leaders showed themselves much the shrewder of the two parties. The agreement reached, the so-called Ausgleich, was highly favorable to them, for they succeeded in obtaining not only a liberal constitution for their kingdom, but a complete ascendancy for the Magyar race over all other elements in it, and a reincorporation in it of the province of Croatia, thus dividing and weakening the

South Slavs. Hungary, though the less populous of the two halves of the monarchy, was granted equal rights with Austria in every respect, except in the language of the army, and she soon obtained and has kept more than an equal influence in the management of foreign affairs. The least statesmanlike part of the new constitution was the provision that the Ausgleich should hold good only for periods of ten years at a time, and should then be renewed by fresh agreement. It is in human nature that such renewals can only be reached after sharp bargaining, and that every ten years the Dual Empire is threatened with a crisis. Just before the outbreak of the Franco- Prussian war, Austria had been in negotiation with France for an alliance that should bring her revenge against Prussia. The plan had come to nothing, owing to the opposition of the Hungarians, the attitude of Russia, and the sudden completeness of the German victories. Aus-

GERMANY 23 tria quickly saw the error of her ways, and was anxious for reconciliation with her old rival and recently triumphant foe.

All that France had lost in the disastrous war of 1870, and more, Germany had gained. The position of Napoleon III at the height of his fortunes had never approached that attained by his victorious adversary, William of Prussia, now German emperor. The rank of the Germans as one of the great peoples of Europe had long been secure. Their achievements in many fields ever since they had overthrown the Roman empire had assured them a foremost place in the history of the world, and though after the close of their period of splendid accomplishments in the middle ages they had lost their political eminence, they had given repeated proof of their vitality and genius. During the last hundred years they had gained fresh distinction in many fields of human endeavor. German literature could show names that rivalled any in the literature of England or of France; German music had surpassed the glory of the Italian; German philosophy, with its cluster of celebrities of the first rank, had not been equalled since the days of ancient Greece; German science had already come to be regarded as second to none; German universities, as the models of learning and advanced thought, were attracting students from all over the civilized world. Even German military prestige, somewhat tarnished with time, had received fresh lustre from the exploits of Frederick the Great. Since his day, however, it had hardly gained, for Waterloo, where the English had done most of the fighting, did not more than efface the memories of Jena, and the Germans as a whole had the reputation of being not so much a people of soldiers as of thinkers and poets. In one respect Germany had been for centuries a conspicuous failure. Her people, though not devoid of national feeling and pride, had long seemed unable to form

GERMANY 35 any real political union. Her magnificent empire of the middle ages had disintegrated into a mass of disjointed fragments, many of them ridiculously small, and tempting to the cupidity of their neighbors. The wars of the French Revolution had, indeed, swept most of these petty states into the melting-pot, and the final rising against Napoleon had taken on the character of a true national movement, but the hopes of patriots had been bitterly disappointed after the overthrow of the oppressor. Left to themselves, that is to say, to their governments, the Germans had been able only to produce a confederation helpless for any effective purpose, and one whose two chief members watched each other with constant jealousy and seldom combined except to put pressure on the others. The story of the abortive^ risings of 1848, and the lamentable fiasco of the Parliament of Frankfort appeared to set the seal on German political incapacity.

Now all was changed. Prussia in six years had fought three successful wars. The first of these, it is true, had been against so weak a foe that it could bring but little glory, but in the second Austria had been defeated in six weeks, and in the third two great French armies had been forced to surrender, others had been repeatedly defeated, Paris had had to yield to a siege, and at Versailles, in the halls that had witnessed the splendors of Louis XIV, there had been proclaimed a new German empire, which seemed to reconcile the conflicting claims of the autonomy of the smaller states and of the necessary predominance of Prussia, the principle of a strong monarchical authority and a modern parliament based on universal suffrage. The political achievement was as remarkable as the military. No wonder that the world was filled with astonishment and admiration. "Europe," it was said, "has lost a mistress and got a master." * Not only was the

*Morley's Gladstone, ii, p. 357.

victorious German army without question the most powerful in existence and under the command of the first general in Europe, but the destinies of the new empire were directed by the great statesman who had forged it 'with blood and iron/ Prince Otto von Bismarck.

In 1 87 1, the German chancellor was fifty-six years of age. Though somewhat fatigued by his labors, he was at the height of his extraordinary intellectual powers. Since the days of the first Napoleon, no man in Europe had been so feared and admired. Even his enemies — and he had many of them — did not venture to question his genius. His dominant personality, his gift of caustic expression, the apparent reckless frankness, nay, the very brutality of his utterances, fascinated and subjugated those with whom he came into contact. Born for strife, he passionately resented opposition, and was a good hater who seldom forgot an injury. The difficulties he had to overcome in winning over his master to his opinions — for William of Hohenzollern, who took a serious view of his rights and duties as a sovereign, was not easy to convince — and the resistance that he not infrequently met with at the hands of the parties in the Reichstag, or of the military authorities, or of hostile influences at court, at times so irritated Bismarck's nerves as to menace a breakdown of his health and render intercourse with him difficult. Ever and anon he would threaten to resign; but, except at certain critical moments, we may question the seriousness of his intention. His master, though sometimes angry enough with him, recognized the immense services that he had rendered, and had no thought of letting him go.

Like other statesmen of the first rank, Bismarck followed in the main a simple policy, even if his contemporaries could not be expected to realize this. He was infinitely resourceful in detail, keeping open various possibilities and ready to change on the instant, if need be, from one course of action to another; he was never off his guard, and was constantly puzzling and bewildering his opponents; but at bottom his aims and ambitions were not complicated. Now that German unity had been achieved in the form he desired, with Prussian supremacy and the exclusion of Austria, now that France had been defeated and deprived of her German territories, he regarded his creation as complete. Henceforth it was not his object to add to the stately fabric he had erected. He confined himself to strengthening it and to putting it in a position to weather future storms. He

to win over the discontented elements, to stimulate its economic development, to keep up its military strength at the highest point of efficiency, but there is no proof that he seriously harbored designs of further extending its borders. Here strove to consolidate the new empire, to make its inhabitants feel its advantages,

3 o THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

we have one of his remarkable characteristics. In spite of successes sufficient to turn the coolest head, his ambitions remained what they had been, and in spite of the aggressiveness of his manner and the roughness, if need be, of his means, he was essentially a moderate as well as a conservative. The most famous proof of this in his career was his single-handed opposition to the desire of the king and of the whole Prussian army to exact territory from Austria after the victory of Sadowa. By a desperate effort he had triumphed, and his countrymen have since been unanimous in recognizing the extraordinary wisdom of his views on this occasion. Toward France he did not display and could not be expected to display the same moderation, but he had serious doubts as to the advisability of taking the French part of Lorraine. In this case he yielded to the arguments of the military authorities, perhaps thinking that as France would be irreconcilable anyway,