British policy and opinion during the Franco-Prussian war

Front matter

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BRITISH POLICY AND OPINION DURING THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

Foreword

This study is the development of a master's thesis written at the University of Texas under Professor Thad Weed Riker, The author takes this opportunity of thanking him for his help at that time and for his suggestion of a subject that has afforded her sustained interest and enjoyment. She wishes to acknowledge very gratefully the assistance of Professor Charles Downer Hazen, under whose guidance the research was conducted for two' years at Columbia. Through his introduction she was enabled to use the very excellent collection o^f British periodicals and newspapers in the Boston Athenaeum and was incidentally given the pleasure of working in the most delightful library it has been her privilege to enter. The burden of proof reading has fallen tO' Professor Carlton Hayes, whose skillful care in this particular the author much appreciates.

Though examination has been made oi the files oi the New York and the Boston Public Libraries, the Library of Congress, and the Libraries of Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Texas, the author is aware that much interesting material on the subject remains untouched across the Atlantic. That valuable collection of ex:tracts from the British Press which is entitled Public Opinion has been extensively drawn upon to supply the lack of papers not available in this country. Biographies and memoirs of the period are constantly making their appearance and, barring the adoption oif the loose-leaf system of certain encyclo^ paedias, it would not be possible, even in England, to make the work definitive.

9]- 9 lO FOREWORD [lO

Finally, the author wishes very sincerely to thank Professor William Archibald Dunning for having permitted her to write the dissertation under his supervision after Professor Hazen had been called to Strasburg. Professor Dunning's marginal comments and annotations have been so interesting, and, at times, so humorous that she regrets that it is not permissible to retain them with the text. The unconscious criticism that has been supplied by the superiority of his own work cannot be so erased and the author hopes she may still profit by it.

Introduction

England, 1870

England^ in the summer of 1870, may be described not inaptly by phrases which at that time might have described her Queen, — a lady who had attained tO' thatt age when comfort is more to be esteemed than glory, and the quiet of Balmoral to any royal progress, even though it emulate the French Eugenie's joumeyings in Egypt. A lady, however, not to be pitied or ignored, — -one who caused her physician small anxiety and was herself undismayed by any vaporous fears of age or death. There was, to'O, a dignity about her that commanded respect, — ^the respect accorded to power which has been used greatly in times past and may again be used on provocation. The Queen, it was said, might sometimes be unmindful of the talk about her, but she was found to be alert always to Whatever had to do with her brother, the Duke of Coburg; her cousin. King of Hanover; her imcle, Leopold of Belgium; her daughter, the Crown Princess oi Prussia, her daughter-in-iaw, the erstwhilei Princess of Denmark; and most of all, her son, who was to rule dominions on the Seven Seas. Victoria, then, might choose to ride behind plump ponies in the low-swung carriage that bears her name, but diplomatists and their masters could not forget that the drowsy widow imder the tilted little sunshade was a queen and that the sunshade could be discarded for a sceptre.

England, be it said, was like her Queen,— plump, and

pacific, yet powerful withal. In this summer of 1870, her

policy was controlled by disciples O'f the Manchester School :

gentlemen who preferred congresses to wars, and rejoiced more at the conclusion of a commercial treaty or a guarantee of free trade than the acquisition of new territory. The days of " bluster and blunder " were believed to be well passed. Palmerston had died five years before, and Russell was in retirement. Reduction in armament was operating very favorably on the budget. A cotton market gone astray had come to be as much a matter of concern as a stray Britisher, clamorous of his citizenship. That echo of the Government, the Times, once called the " Thunderer," had donned slippers and dressing jacket and become querulous and homiletic.

First of her public men was Gladstone, who for two years had been prime minister. Very much interested in the difficulties of Ireland was Gladstone. One of his greatest qualities, the only one in which he claimed to excel his rivals, was concentration. When it is considered that his interest was already deeply engaged elsewhere and that in character and manner he was wholly antithetic to his French neighbcurs, it may be understood how it happens that in his excellent biography in the Encyclopedia Britannica no mention is made of the war which during his premiership was waged beyond the " streak of silver sea," — a great war whose issue was of vast importance to England.

His Foreign Secretary was the patient, and polite, and very pliant, Lord Granville. This Lord Granville spoke French like a Parisian. He could appreciate French wit and treasure a hon mot so carefully that it would lose nothing of its gallic sparkle when it reappeared in an after-dinner speech. But the French of that radical young advocate, Gambetta, left him cold. Nor can one fancy that the splendid verve of the Song of Roland would have been tO' him a compensation for its gory frightfulness. He has been called the great pacificator o^f politics. Men said, in the winter of 1870, that he led England through the valley of humiliation that he might gain that title.

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Perhaps the most powerful personahty in the Cabinet was that of the Quaker, John Bright. He was in ill-health at this time and absented himself from most of the meetings, but he wielded, none the less, a strong influence over his associates. For many years he had been consistently favorable towards France, believing as he did that Napoleon's friendship for England was the one "fixed point in his otherwise erratic schemes." He rejoiced at the renewal of the Commercial Treaty between the two countries; wrote an occasional strong letter tO' Gladstone or Granville when he feared they might swerve from neutrality; disregarded the critical press that urged his retirement; took his medicines regularly ; and when the war was over and done with could boast, as did the Abbe Sieyes after a more turbulent epoch, that he had lived.

Robert Lowe was 'Chancellor of the Exchequer. In a " Cabinet of Reform and Retrenchment " his business was to see that hostility to the former was balanced by gratitude for the latter. Reductions in the Navy had greatly assisted him in the preparation of a popular budget. It needed only peace to justify a continuation of his work. Messrs. Cardwell and Childers were respectively War Secretary and First Lord O'f the Admiralty. At this time these positions were regarded as secondary and no extensive inquiry had been made as to these gentlemen's ability to fill them.

Disraeli was the leader of the Opposition. He had not yet found himself, and was regarded as a weather cock by those Conservatives who could not understand how he had followed Bright in his desire for reduced naval armaments and, for the sake of office, embraced the Reform Bill of the Liberals. He, himself, was somewhat sceptical of the wisdom of his course in those proceedings and yet reluctant to be completely out of gear with the well- jointed times. He did not >vish to be classed with the brilliant Sir Henry Bulwer.

Good European that Sir Henry was, and servant of Great Britain in the days of Palmerston and Russell, it was believed that he did not know a hawk from a handsaw where commercial interests were involved. The young men even of his oa\ti party looked upon him as a superannuated diplomat. Of his pattern, too, was Sir Robert Morier whose finest days were yet to come. He was ripe now for his high destiny, but he found himself a charge d'affaires at Darmstadt while his country was served in the Continental capitals by men, who, though his inferiors in diplomacy, were regarded by the home Government as of sterling safety. In Paris there was that punctilious bachelor. Lord Lyons; in Madrid, Mr. Layard, the envoy extraordinary, dreamed of Babylon and Nineveh, while Prim and the agents of Bismarck conspired to place a Hohenzolleni on the Spanish throne; Lord Augustus Loftus showed himself more alert at Berlin; but in St. Petersburg, Sir Andrew* Buchanan could be disregarded with impunity.

Quite outside the pale of officialdom, and yet still vividly associated in the memory of his contemporaries with British foreign policy, was that old attache of Stratford Canning's, and most picturesque of diplomats, David Urquhart. He was still thundering against Russia and urging the sedulous study of international law. Absolutely and proudly opposed to the current O'f his time, he sought to redirect it in the Diplomatic Review, a periodical so scholarly and of a bias so vigorous and pronounced as tO' make it a thing unique of its kind. But " Urquhartism " was dying. The talents of the editor, reinforced by contributions from Karl Marx and a small group of followers, could not save the slim review from dropping from a monthy to a quarterly, supported by a steadily dwindling list of subscribers. Those who could understand its style were those most certain to poohpooh its ideas. Urqiihart, they said, was a good sort

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to have introduced the Turkish bath into England, but Jove, man, the fellow had gone to seed utterly with his eternal drivel against Russia and his harpings on the courtesies of nations. He was " touched."

Much more intelligible, though also somewhat unBritish in its viewpoint, was that group of Oxford men that had followed the teachings of Auguste Comte. The Positivists had a disconcerting way oi analyzing governmental policies not on the basis of their effect on the industry of Manchester, and Leeds, and Birmingham, but of their effect on the populace as a whole. They were felt to be dangerous. Professor Beesly, with his reputation foT scholarly attainment, could not be denied a hearing. The eloquent young Frederic Harrison made an opponent even more alarming. The whole school showed a disconcerting tendency to affiliate with the working men, and to dignify by their approbation the speeches of George Odger and others whom the press was in the habit of deriding. It was beUeved that they might even have some ideas in common with that atheistical young republican, Charles Bradlaugh.

Others there were in the cast, — " lords, ladies, and attendants," — ^to say nothing of. the mob, which though it be kept off stage ever so successfully for most of the evening has a way, when once it gains the boards, of diverting either tragedy or comedy from its own proper ending. To speak severally of the supernumeraries would 'be tO' name many who in other dramas have a higher place. But here they can be grouped together as having exercised no very appreciable influence on a formation of policy or opinion at the time we are tO' describe.

Certainly, that doughty Scotchman, Thomas Carlyle, would cavil at seeing his name in pica. But so it deserves to be, if only as retribution for his own faults of classification. For he ranged all humankind into two columns. Man l6 BRITISH POLICY IN FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR [i6

was either exalted as a hero or impaled as a knave, — a method not so convincing as it was simple. The public tired of Carlylogiums on Prussia, Bismarck, and the brave and pious German soldier.

Other more worthy historians, somewhat too busy writing history to help to make it, were the gentle, humorous John Richard Green; that staunch admirer of things German, Freeman; the stately Lord Acton; and Sir Alexander Malet, late Minister Plenipotentiary at Frankfort, whose recently published history, had it been widely and immediately read, would have well prepared the British for what was to come. Ruskin philosophized on the enchained sequence of events; John Stuart Mill set forth his ideas on the worth and durabiUty of treaties; the poets, Browning and Buchanan, tested their powers at analyzing the character o^f the third Napoleon ; Swinburne celebrated the new Republic in an ode of " a thousand lines and not a single idea." A host of eager young war correspondents sent back reports all hot from camp and field. And John Morley and other oi the reviewers strove tO' boil all down to a potable draught of wisdom for the quarterlies.

The shifting, multicolored mob flocked to the Alhambra to hear the Marseillaise; and to the wax works of Madame Tussaud, where Bismarck frowned in effigy ; it lit its torches under Nelson's monument and gathered in Hyde Park, and all the sainted halls of London, to resolve and demonstrate. We must not linger so long in Downing Street and at the news stalls and print shops, that we miss the flare of torches through the fog, the sight of bobbing Phrygian caps and upflung arms, the raucous sound of voices hoarsened by night shouting. Nothing must be lost if we are tO' know of that public opinion, which Huxley called the chaos of popular prejudice.

CHAPTER I British Relations with France and Prussia, 1 860- 1 870

ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS FROM 1860 TO 187O

To appreciate the viewpoint the Islanders had of the events of the War of 1870, it is necessary to see them against the background of the past relationships of Great Britain with the two belligerents. For past events as well as future have the character of contributing to the chiaroscuro of the present. It was no single act of the French Emperor, be sure, that caused the calm Poet Laureate to shake his long ambrosial locks and exclaim as pettishly as any young subaltern : ^

" True that we ihave got such a faithful ally, That only the devil can tell what he means."

And that made his apprehensions to be so generally shared by his fellows.

Although, during the decade preceding the Franco^ Prussion War, England often acted in conjunction with her old ally of the Crimea, her attitude toward the foreign policy of France was always distrustful. This was not unnatural when it is remembered that the period opens on the Emperor's acquisition of Nice and Savoy, — an aggravating coda to a treaty which even the moderate friends of Italy had adjudged unsatisfactory, almost treacherous. Though Napoleon III had acquiesced in Lord John Russell's famous

^Alfred Tennyson, The Works of (Hallam edition, N. Y., 1916) ; RiHemen Form, p. 866.

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dispatch of January 17, i860, thereby giving pledge not to intervene in ItaHan affairs by force of arms nor to lengthen unduly the occupation of Rome by his soldiery/ dissatisfaction in England was still keen. The London Times described the Emperor as " universally declared to be a man without loyalty or good faith." ^ It cautioned the neighbors of France to extreme watchfulness. On the occasion of his meeting with the German rulers at Baden Baden, it described his arrival as the entrance of a sportsman into a well stocked preserve. The " bustling birds " were warned that he came, probably, to bag the Palatinate, which he desired for the "rectification" of his boundary.^ His proposed occupation of Chablis and Faucigny, the Swiss districts of Savoy, was declared to be inspired not so much by a wish for territory as for the securing of a passageway for his armies into neutralized Switzerland.* Prussia was urged to assume leadership : to compose her internal differences, to put money in her purse, and to increase her army.^ More, the Times suggested that that sense of security felt by France from her gain of two provinces separated from her by the highest mountains, might well dispose Prussia to attempt to gain two provinces separated from German territory by one of the widest rivers in Europe.* Small wonder that the Moniteur protested at the nervous shiverings of the neighbours of France, — among whom she included England.^ It Mras matter for rejoicing to Gladstone that the Com-

* Fitzmaurice, Edmondi George Petty, Life of Lord Granville (London, 1905), vol. i, pp. 36&-369.

* The Times, London, Apr. 3, i860. ' Ibid., June 16, i860.

I^] RELATIONS WITH FRANCE AND PRUSSIA 19

mercial treaty, concluded with France that year, served as a check to " needless alarms and fancies," to " tendencies} towards convulsion and confusion." ^ John Bright and certain other members of the House of Commons burned for a further application of the principles of the Manchester School. They urged a concert with the French Government for the mutual reduction of the British and French navies But against this the opposition of Palmerston was insurmountable.

In 1 861 Great Britain associated herself with France and Spain in a joint invasion of Mexico for the collection of debts due their subjects. But in the next year she withdrew from the expedition and further showed her divergence from the Emperor's American policy by refusing to support his offer of mediation between the Federals and Confederates.^ Her decision was justified by the future.

Not so sound was the rejection of cooperation in the matter of intervening in Polish affairs. In 1863, the conscription by the Russian viceroy of two thousand young Poles was believed by Napoleon III to justify the calling of a congress for a consideration of the entire question. The British government chose to content itself, and to discontent Russia, by giving platonic and ineffectual advice to that Government, the while Prussia won the Tsar by an attitude oif cordial sympathy.* Queen Victoria's fear that Napoleon intended, through an alliance with Austria and the aid of Italian armies, to resuscitate Poland by dissecting Prussia, quite overwhelmed her discretion.* Not only was Russian

*John iMorley, Life of Wnt. Ewart Gladstone (N. Y., 1911), vol. i, p. 638.

* J. A. R. Marriott, England Since Waterloo (London, 1911), p. 321; Fitzmaurice, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 446-447.

* Disraeli to Mrs. Bridges Williams, W. F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle, Life of Benjamin Disraeli (N. Y., 1910-1920), vol. iv, p. 340.

hostility incurred but the good understanding with France was diminished. It would still further have dwindled, had the French Emperor known that those English statesmen, who had dissociated themselves from his disastrous Mexican policy, were gloating at difficulties which they believed would save Belgium and the Palatinate from his rapacity. The Manchester group, however, still showed themselves friendly and arranged to cooperate with him in measures concerning the cotton question.^

In 1864 the tables were turned. The matter of the disposal of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein was a nearer concern of England than of France, though the latter was equally associated with her and the other five Powers that had guaranteed the King of Denmark in their possession by the London Protocol. Palmerston and Russell, — always proponents of the " strong policy," — were willing to go any lengths to preserve the strategically important duchies from falling under the dominance of Austria or Prussia. Napoleon, still embroiled in Mexico, would resort to nothing more drastic than a congress, — which it was found impossible to assemble." The Conference, convened in London, after the fortune of the war was already decided, had no positive effect on the fate of the duchies. But the admission during its sessions that England was without allies and unable to act alone had the negative effect of lowering British prestige abroad and the influence of the Ministry at bome.^ The creation by France of a friendly ally in Mexico for the Confederacy, thought Lord John Russell, might so strengthen the South as to make a Federal invasion of

' Sir Thos. Newton, Lord Lyons, A Record of British Diplomacy (N. Y., 1913), vol. i, pp. 115-116.

• Fitzmaurice, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 450-472; Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 343-345.

* Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 346.

Canada impracticable.^ But this was but a shred of comfort for the loss of the strong European ally then so greatlyneeded.

In 1866 France was allowed the empty honor of assisting in negotiating a truce that led to the treaty ending the war of Austria and Prussia, — a treaty which gave notice to the world that France had lost in Mexico the hegemony of Europe. Impotence to direct on the Continent was more galling than the undisguised defeat abroad. The many British who looked on the French Emperor as a theatrical manager, holding his place only through his ability to stage a striking success at more or less regular intervals, were atiptoe to see with what new piece his people were to be regaled, and very sure that the performance would be one to merit censure. Belgium, Luxemburg, and Rhenish Bavaria were each rumored to be the intended victims of the tragedy, and not without reason. Some one of these, it was believed, had surely been held out as bait to ensure French neutrality during the recent war. The bristling questions were which, and how and when France was to make the acquisition. Publicly, her policy was blameless. In August of 1866, Napoleon declared, in a letter meant not alone for the recipient, that the true interest of France was not the acquisition of territory but rather the giving of such assistance to Germany as would enable her to constitute herself after a fashion favorable to French and European interests.^ The letter failed of its purpose. Disquieting rumours O'f intrigue continued, and on the last day of the year we find Disraeli uneasy over a proposition, said tO' have emanated from Bismarck and found favor in the French ministry, that France acquire Belgium as the quid pro quo of allowing Prussia to absorb the states of south Germany.*

^ Newton, op. cit., vol. i, p. 133.

' Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse (London, 1913), p. 182.

' Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 69.

England, however, kept the distrust of the French foreign policy well localized and, while keeping a crowded eye on her possible intrigue in Central Europe, cooperated with her in the East to secure Turkey's recognition of a Hohenzollern prince as hereditary ruler of the new Rumania/ She was temperate, too, in her remonstrance at the new French garrison which occupied Rome after the attack of tiie Italian volunteers.^ Prussia, who was not so, would have laid the onus of discontent on England but Napoleon was not deceived and showed no ill will toward his old ally.^

It was something of a relief to the turbid situation when a plan for French compensation came to the surface and could be officially discussed. In April of 1867, the King of the Netherlands was f oimd to have given a contingent consent to Napoleon's purchase from him of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. His consent was qualified because the possession of the duchy had been guaranteed to him in 1 839 by the Great Powers and their acquiescence was necessary for its disposal.* Russia expressed her willingness to the transfer, — bought, England believed, by the French proposal to hasten the dissolution of Turkey by a cession of Crete to Greece.® The matter in its entirety was displeasing to England. She had no wish to see Belgium become a French enclave nor to see Rwssia advance even indirectly toward Constantinople. Prussia also expressed emphatic disapproval of the proposed purchase by France of Luxemburg. She made her disapproval more noteworthy by re-

' Newton, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 153-156.

* Lyons to Stanley, Paris, Jan. 16, 1868, ibid., vol. i, p. 186.

* Stanley to Lyons, London, Apr. 4, 1867, ibid., vol. i, p. 168 ; Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 469-471 ; Newton, op. cit., vol. i, p. 168.

vealing at the same time the defensive mihtary treaties she had made with the South German States at the close of the late war. The matter was settled at a conference of the great Powers in London. France, though absolutely denied the acquisition of Luxemburg, seems to have left the Conference with greater satisfaction than either Prussia or England, — a fact which would make it appear that it was not so much territory as a preservation of prestige and a guarantee against further Prussian encroachments that she desired. To Victoria and certain of the English diplomats the collective guarantee accorded the neutrality of Luxemtiurg seemed not so strong as circumstance might demand. It was believed France would be aggressive and disposed to violate international agreements and an unequivocal attitude of Great Britain in such a contingency was needed as a deterrent.^ Prussia was unhappy at being obliged to re;- move her garrisons and at having to sign a treaty with France instead of against her. A solution by war might have proven more favorable. She was well prepared and she knew that her rival was not.^ It was something, however, for Prussian satisfaction to have drawn from France in the early stage of the negotiations, the admission that the question of possessing Luxemburg involved the existence of the Napoleonic dynasty. The London Conference and its deference to French amour propre had modified the failure of the Emperor's project. But a state whose dynasty could survive a rebuff only by the assistance of a European congress, was temptingly vulnerable.

England, too, was apprized of the weakness of the nation which she had been regarding as a bogey. The French Ambassador told his British confrere in Berlin that the reason France could not permit the formation of a German

^ Monyp^nny and Buckle, op. cii., vol. iv, p. 472. ^ Newton^ op. cit., vol. i, p. 169.

Empire was that it would make the position of the Emperor untenable.^ The British Ambassador in Paris was assured by the Foreign Minister, who spoke with even more authority, that it was not aggrandizement France wished but security for the future.^ France, it would appear, would mis- (behave only if she were frightened, and the task of England was either to preserve the status quo or to convince France that a united Germany would oppose no real danger to her freedom and prestige. The compliance of the present attitude of France was encouraging. She had accepted the decision of the London Conference with real happiness, and according to the Emperor, who had been looked on as the chief offender in the matter, was eager to settle the Roman question also by conference.*

When in the next year, 1868, France was alarmed at the rumour that Prussia was on the point of annexing the Grand Duchy of Baden, she turned again to England. She would have had her advise Prussia of the disfavor with which such a step would be regarded in Paris. The attitude of France was that any annexation of territory south of the Main would be as much an act of aggression and conquest on the part of Prussia as on her own part. England refused to give the desired advice to Prussia, but France on this special point received reassurance from Prince Napoleon after his visit to Berlin in the spring. The Prince reported that there was no present intention of increasing the area of the North German Confederacy by annexation but that the principle was one Prussia was prepared to maintain. He reported, also, that nowhere else, save in the United States, were foreign governments held in such indifference. Prussia, he

* Ibid., vol. ii, p. 320.

said, was fast carrying out her plans and war, were it to be made, should be declared this year or not at all/ Lord Lyons, however, informed his Government that he believed the Emperor was sincerely anxious tO' preserve peace.^ His opinion seems to have been justified, for the critical period was allowed to elapse.

With the New Year, there came a recrudescence of alarm in England. In January the King O'f Belgium, in a letter to Victoria, expressed a fear that France, by a customs convention or by purchase through a French company of the Luxemburg railway, would attempt to gain a footing in Belgium. He was at once assured by the Queen that any proceedings which seemed to threaten the independence or integrity of Belgium would bring England at once into the field.^ At this time the Prussian ambassador in London (von Bemstorff) thought it opportune to inform Gladstone and 'Clarendon that, though his Government was not willing to defend Belgium single-handed, it would willingly make terms with England to join in her defense.* At a later time Bismarck reverted to this episode and assured Clarendon that it was only this offer of support and the disapproval of a single French minister that had prevented an occupation O'f Belgium from taking place.^ However real the danger may have been, England, it seems, did not think it necessary to contract the alliance. In view of the existing guarantee of neutrality to which France was signatory and the officially correct attitude of her Government, such an effort at reinsurance on England's part would certainly have been regarded as a slap in the face. Belgium was more affected by the Prussian warning, and passed an act to f or-

1 Newton, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 192-193.

^ Lyons to Stanley, Paris, March 27, 1868, ibid., vol. i, p. 192.

* Clarendon to Lyons, Apr. 19, 1868, Newton, op. cit., vol. i, p. 218.

bid the granting of concessions to railroads without governmental consent/ The act was regarded in France as having been instigated by Bismarck. M, de Lavalette declared that after this it would be impossible for the French Government to have any friendship for the Belgian Ministry.^ No hostility was shown toward the attitude of England in the matter, since the Queen's declaration had been merely a reassertion of her already avowed policy, and was made not to the Emperor but to the uneasy king of the neutral country.