Herr VogtVIII
Dâ-Dâ Vogt and his Studies
"Sine Studio"[119]
About a month before the outbreak of the Italian war, Vogt published his so-called Studien zur gegenwärtigen Lage Europas, Geneva, 1859. Cui bono?[a]
Vogt knew that
"in the approaching war England would remain neutral" (Studien, p. 4).
He knew that Russia,
"in agreement with France, would do everything in its power to injure Austria, short of actual hostilities" (Studien, p. 13).[b]
He knew that Prussia—but let him say for himself what he knows about Prussia.
"Even the most short-sighted will have realised by now that there is an understanding between the Prussian Government and the Imperial Government of France; that Prussia will not take up arms to defend Austria's non-German provinces: that it will give its approval to all measures necessitated by the defence of the territory of the Confederation; but apart from this it will prevent any attempt by the Confederation or any of its members to intervene in support of Austria, and in the subsequent peace negotiations it will expect to be rewarded in the northern plains of Germany for these pains" (loc. cit., pp. [18-]19).
To sum up: In Bonaparte's imminent crusade against Austria, England will remain neutral, Russia will adopt a hostile stance towards Austria, Prussia will restrain the bellicose members of the Confederation, and Europe will localise the war. As with the Russian war earlier on, Louis Bonaparte. will now conduct the Italian war with the permission of the supreme authorities, he will act, as it were, as the secret general of a European coalition. What then is the purpose of Vogt's pamphlet? Since Vogt knows that England, Russia and Prussia are acting against Austria, what compels him to write for Bonaparte? But it appears that, quite apart from the old Francophobes with "the now childish Father Arndt and the ghost of the wretched Jahn at their head" (loc. cit., p. 121), a sort of national movement was convulsing "the German people" and was echoed in all kinds of "Chambers and newspapers" "while the governments only joined the dominant current hesitatingly and with reluctance" (loc. cit., p. 114). It appears that the "belief in an imminent threat" moved the German "people" to issue a "call for common measures" (loc. cit.). The French Moniteur (see inter alia the issue of March 15, 1859) looked on at this German movement with "astonishment and regret".[c]
"A sort of crusade against France," it declares, "is preached in the Chambers and in the press of some of the states of the German Confederation. They accuse France of entertaining ambitious plans, which it has disavowed, and of preparing for conquests of which it does not stand in need", etc.
In rebuttal of these "slanders" the Moniteur argues that "the Emperor's" attitude towards the Italian question should "rather inspire the greatest sense of security in Germany", that German unity and nationhood are, so to speak, the hobby-horses of Decembrist France, etc. The Moniteur concedes, however (see April 10, 1859), that certain German anxieties may appear to have been "provoked" by certain Parisian pamphlets—pamphlets in which Louis Bonaparte urgently exhorts himself to provide his people with the "long-desired opportunity" "pour s'étendre majestueusement des Alpes au Rhin" (to extend its frontiers majestically from the Alps to the Rhine).
"But," the Moniteur asserts, "Germany forgets that France stands under the protection of a legislation which does not authorise any preventive control on the part of the government."[d]
This and similar declarations by the Moniteur produced the very opposite effect to the one intended, or so it was reported to the Earl of Malmesbury (see the Blue Book On the Affairs of Italy. January to May 1859[e]). But where the Moniteur failed, Karl Vogt might perhaps succeed. His Studien are nothing but a compilation: in German of Moniteur articles, Dentu pamphlets[120] and Decem brist maps of the future.
Vogt's tub-thumping about England has only one point of interest—as an illustration of the general style of his Studien. Following his French sources he transforms the English Admiral, Sir Charles Napier, into "Lord" Napier (Studien, p. 4). The literary Zouaves attached to the Decembrists have learnt from the theatre of Porte St. Martin[121] that every distinguished Englishman is a Lord at the very least.
"England has never been able," Vogt declares, "to harmonise with Austria for long. Even though a momentary community of interests may have united them for a while, political necessity always separated them again immediately. On the other hand, England constantly formed close alliances with Prussia", etc. (loc. cit., p. 2.)[f]
Indeed! The common struggle of England and Austria against Louis XIV lasted with brief interruptions from 1689 to 1713, i.e. almost a quarter of a century. In the war of the Austrian Succession England fought for about six years together with Austria against Prussia and France. It was not until the Seven Years' War[122] that England became the ally of Prussia against Austria and France, but as early as 1762 Lord Bute left Frederick the Great in the lurch and put forward .proposals for the "partition of Prussia" first to the Russian minister Golitsin and then to the Austrian minister Kaunitz. In 1790 England concluded a treaty with Prussia against Russia and Austria, but it faded away before the year was out. During the Anti-Jacobin War Prussia withdrew from the European Coalition with the Treaty of Basle[123], despite Pitt's subsidies. Austria, on the other hand, urged on by England, fought on with brief interruptions from 1793 to 1809. As soon as Napoleon was eliminated and even before the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna, England concluded a secret treaty (of January 3, 1815) with Austria and France against Russia and Prussia[124]. In 1821, in Hanover, Metternich and Castlereagh made a new agreement against Russia[125]. Thus whereas the British themselves, both historians and parliamentarians, mostly refer to Austria as their "ancient ally"[g], Vogt has discovered from his original source, French pamphlets published by Dentu, that Austria and England were always at loggerheads apart from cases of a "momentary community of interests", while England and Prussia were constant allies, which probably explains why Lord Lyndhurst warned the House of Lords during the Russian war with Prussia in mind: "Quem tu, Romane, caveto!"[h] Protestant England has antipathies towards Catholic Austria, liberal England towards conservative Austria, free-trade England towards protectionist Austria, solvent England towards bankrupt Austria. But emotional factors have always been alien to English history. It is true that Lord Palmerston, during his thirty years' rule of England, occasionally glossed over his vassalage to Russia by parading his Austrian antipathies. From "antipathy" to Austria, for example, he rejected in 1848 Austria's proposal, approved by Piedmont and France, for England to mediate in Italy, a proposal according to which Austria would have withdrawn to Verona and the line of the Adige, Lombardy would have become part of Piedmont, if it so decided, Parma and Modena would have fallen to Lombardy, while Venice would have formed an independent Italian state under an Austrian Archduke and given itself a constitution. (See Blue Book on the Affairs of Italy, Part II, July 1849, Nos. 377, 478.) These conditions were at any rate better than those of the Treaty of Villafranca[126]. After Radetzky had defeated the Italians at all points, Palmerston put forward the same terms that he himself had earlier rejected. As soon as Russia's interests required the opposite approach, however, such as during the Hungarian war of independence, he refused the assistance for which the Hungarians asked on the basis of the treaty of 1711[127]—despite his "antipathy" to Austria—and even refused to make any protest against Russian intervention on the grounds that
"the political independence and liberties of Europe are bound up with the maintenance and integrity of Austria as a great European Power" (sitting of the House of Commons, July 21, 1849).[i]
Vogt's story continues:
"The interests of the United Kingdom ... are everywhere in opposition to them" (to the interests of Austria) (loc. cit., p. 2).
"Everywhere" is at once transformed into the Mediterranean.
"England wishes at all costs to preserve its influence in the Mediterranean and the countries along its coastline. Naples and Sicily, Malta and the Ionian Islands, Syria and Egypt are points of support of its policy oriented towards the East Indies. At all these points, Austria has set up the greatest obstacles to it" (loc. cit.).
It is amazing to see how much Vogt takes on trust from the original Decembrist pamphlets published by Dentu in Paris! The English had imagined hitherto that they had been fighting the Russians and the French in turn for Malta and the Ionian Islands, but never the Austrians. They imagined that France, not Austria, had earlier sent an expedition to Egypt and was establishing itself at this very moment in the isthmus of Suez; that France, not Austria, had made conquests on the North coast of Africa and, allied with Spain, had striven to snatch Gibraltar from Britain; that England had concluded the treaty of July 1840 referring to Egypt and Syria against France and with Austria[128]; that in "the policy oriented towards the East Indies" England had everywhere encountered the "greatest obstacles" set up by Russia, not Austria. They imagined that in the only serious dispute between England and Naples—the sulphur question of 1840—it was a French, not an Austrian, company whose monopoly of the Sicilian sulphur trade triggered off the conflict[129]. And lastly, that on the other side of the Channel, there was occasional talk of transforming the Mediterranean into a "lac français", but never into a lac autrichien". However, an important particular has to be considered in this context.
In the course of 1858 a map of Europe appeared in London entitled L'Europe en 1860 (Europe in 1860)[j]. This map, which was put out by the French Embassy and for 1858 contained several prophetic hints—Lombardy-Venice, for example, were annexed by Piedmont, and Morocco by Spain—redrew the political geography of the whole of Europe with one exception, that of France, which apparently remained within its old frontiers. The territories designed for it were, with sly irony, donated to impossible owners. Thus Egypt fell to Austria and the note in the margin of the map read: "Francois Joseph I, l'Empereur d'Autriche et d'Egypte" (Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and Egypt).
Vogt had the map of L'Europe en 1860 before him as a sort of Decembrist compass. Hence his dispute between England and Austria on account of Egypt and Syria. Vogt prophesies that this conflict would "end in the destruction of one of the disputants", if, as he remembers just in time, "if Austria possessed a navy" (loc. cit., p. 2). However, the historical scholarship peculiar to the Studien reaches its climax in the following passage:
"When Napoleon I once attempted to break the English Bank, the latter one day[k] resorted to counting the sums, instead of weighing them out, as it had always done previously; the Austrian Treasury finds itself in the same position, or even in a much worse one, for 365 days every year" (loc. cit., p. 43).
It is well known that the Bank of England ("the English Bank" is another figment of Vogt's imagination) suspended payments in cash from February 1797 until 1821[130], during which 24 years English banknotes could not be exchanged for metal at all, whether weighed or counted. When the suspension first began there was as yet no Napoleon I in France (although a General Bonaparte was engaged on his first Italian campaign), and when cash payments were resumed in Threadneedle Street, Napoleon I had ceased to exist in Europe. Such "studies" even surpass La Guéronnière's account of the conquest of Tyrol by the "Emperor" of Austria.
Frau von Krüdener, the mother of the Holy Alliance, used to distinguish between the . good principle, the "white angel of the North" (Alexander I), and the evil principle, the "black angel of the South" (Napoleon I)[l]. Vogt, the adoptive father of the new Holy Alliance, transforms both, Tsar and Caesar, Alexander II and Napoleon III, into "white angels". Both are the predestined liberators of Europe.
Piedmont, Vogt claims, "has even gained the respect of Russia" (loc. cit., p. 71).[m]
What more can be said of a state than that it has even gained the respect of Russia. Especially after Piedmont had ceded the naval port of Villafranca to Russia, and as the selfsame Vogt points out in regard to the purchase of the Jade Bay by Prussia[131]:
"A naval port on alien territory, without organic connections to the land to which it belongs, is such ridiculous nonsense that its existence can only acquire meaning if it is, as it were, regarded as a target of future aspirations, as a raised pennant on which to train one's sights" (Studien, p. 15).
It is common knowledge that Catherine II had already striven to obtain naval ports on the Mediterranean for Russia.
Tender consideration towards the "white angel" of the North leads Vogt into crude exaggerations which violate "the modesty of nature", insofar as this was still respected by his original source in Dentu. In La vraie question. France-Italie-Autriche, Paris, 1859 (published by Dentu) he read on p. 20:
"And besides, with what right could the Austrian Government invoke the inviolability of the treaties of 1815, when it has itself broken them with the confiscation of Cracow whose independence the treaties guaranteed?"{*27}
He translates his French original in this way:
"It is strange to hear such language from the mouth of the only government[n] which up to now has insolently violated the treaties [...] by raising its sacrilegious hand, without cause, in the midst of peace, against the Republic of Cracow, which had been guaranteed by the treaties, and incorporating it without more ado into the Empire" (loc. cit., p. 58).
It was of course out of "respect" for the treaties of 1815 that Nicholas destroyed the Constitution and autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland, which were guaranteed by the treaties of 1815. Russia had no less respect for the integrity of Cracow when it occupied the free city with Muscovite troops in 1831. In 1836 Cracow was again occupied by the Russians, Austrians and Prussians; it was treated like a conquered nation in every respect and as late as 1840 it vainly appealed to England and France, invoking the treaties of 1815. Finally, on February 22, 1846, Russians, Austrians and Prussians again occupied Cracow, to incorporate it into Austria[132]. Thus all three Northern powers violated the treaties and the Austrian confiscation of 1846 was only the sequel to the Russian invasion of 1831. Out of courtesy towards the "white angel of the North" Vogt forgets the confiscation of Poland and falsifies the history of the confiscation of Cracow.{*28}
The circumstance that Russia is "consistently hostile to Austria and sympathetic to France" leaves Vogt in no doubt about Louis Bonaparte's inclination to liberate all nations, just as the fact that "his" (Louis Bonaparte's) "policies are today in the closest agreement with those of Russia" (p. 30) raises no doubts in his mind about Alexander II's inclination to liberate all nations.
Hence in the East Holy Russia must be regarded as the "friend of aspirations to freedom" and of "popular and national development", just like Decembrist France in the West. This slogan was given out for all the agents of December 2.
"Russia," Vogt found in La foi des traités, les puissances signataires et l'empereur Napoléon III, Paris, 1859, a work published by Dentu, "Russia belongs to the family of the Slays, a chosen race.... Astonishment has been expressed at the chivalrous concord that has suddenly sprung up between France and Russia. Nothing could be more natural: agreement on principles, unanimity of purpose, submission to the law of the holy alliance of the governments and peoples, not to set traps and constrain others, but to guide and support the divine movements of the nations. From this perfect concord" (between Louis Philippe and England there was only an entente cordiale, but between Louis Bonaparte and Russia there is la cordialité la plus parfaite) "the most happy things have resulted: railways, emancipation of the serfs, trading posts in the Mediterranean, etc."{*29}
Vogt immediately latches on to the "emancipation of the serfs" and suggests that
"the present impulse ... may well make Russia the ally of aspirations to freedom, rather than their enemy" (loc. cit., p. 10).
Like his Dentu original, he attributes the impulse for the so-called emancipation of the serfs in Russia to Louis Bonaparte and for this purpose he transforms the Anglo-Turkish-French-Russian war, which provided the impulse, into a "French war" (loc. cit., p. 9).
It is well known that the call to emancipate the serfs first rang out, loud and persistently, under Alexander I. Tsar Nicholas was occupied with emancipation of the serfs throughout his life; in 1838 he created a Ministry of Domains for this very purpose; in 1843 he instructed this Ministry to make the necessary preparations and in 1847 he even issued decrees favourable to the peasantry about the disposal of land belonging to the nobility[133] which he only reversed in 1848 from fear of the revolution. Hence, if the emancipation of the serfs has assumed more substantial dimensions under the "benevolent Tsar", as Vogt genially calls Alexander II, this would appear to be the result of economic developments which even a Tsar cannot subdue. Besides, the emancipation of the serfs as the Russian Government sees it, would increase the aggressive power of Russia a hundredfold. It is simply intended to perfect autocratic rule by tearing down the barriers which the big autocrat has hitherto encountered in the shape of the many lesser autocrats of the Russian nobility, whose might is based on serfdom, as well as in the shape of the self-administrating peasant communes, whose material foundation, common ownership of land, is to be destroyed by the so-called emancipation.
The Russian serfs happen to interpret the emancipation differently from the government, and the Russian nobility understands it in yet a third sense. Hence the "benevolent Tsar" discovered that a genuine emancipation of the serfs is incompatible with his own autocratic rule, just as the benevolent Pope Pius IX discovered in his day that the emancipation of Italy was incompatible with the existence of the Papacy. The "benevolent Tsar", therefore, regards wars of conquest and the traditional foreign policy of Russia, which, as the Russian historian Karamzin remarks, is "immutable"[o], as the only way to postpone the revolution within. In his work La vérité sur la Russie, 1860, Prince Dolgorukov has subjected to devastating criticism the tissue of lies about the millennium that is supposed to have dawned under Alexander II, myths zealously disseminated throughout Europe since 1856 by writers in the pay of Russia, loudly proclaimed in 1859 by the Decembrists and blindly repeated by Vogt in his Studien.
According to Vogt, even before the outbreak of the Italian war the alliance forged between the "white Tsar" and the "Man of December" for the express purpose of liberating the subject nationalities, had shown its worth in the Danubian principalities, where the unity and independence of the Romanian nation were confirmed by the election of Colonel Cuza as ruler of Moldavia and Wallachia.[134]
"Austria protested with might and main, France and Russia applauded" (loc. cit., p. 65).
In a memorandum[135] (printed in the Preussisches Wochenblatt, 1855) drawn up in 1837 for the Tsar of the time[p] by the Russian Cabinet, we can read:
"Russia prefers not to annex immediately states with alien elements.... In any event it seems more fitting to allow countries whose acquisition has been resolved upon to exist for a time under separate, but entirely dependent leaders, as we have done in Moldavia and Wallachia, etc."[q]
Before Russia annexed the Crimea it proclaimed its independence. In a Russian proclamation of December 11, 1814, it is stated inter alia:
"The Emperor Alexander, your protector, appeals to you, Poles: Arm yourselves for the defence of your country and the maintenance of your political independence."[r]
And above all the Danubian principalities! Ever since Peter the Great's invasion of the Danubian principalities, Russia has laboured in the cause of their "independence". At the Congress of Niemirov (1737) the Empress Anne demanded that the Sultan should concede the independence of the Danubian principalities under Russian protection. At the Congress of Focşani (1772) Catherine II insisted on the independence of the principalities under European protection[136]. Alexander I continued these efforts and put the seal on them by transforming Bessarabia into a Russian province (by the Peace of Bucharest, 1812[137]). Nicholas even gladdened the hearts of the Romanians through Kiselev by bestowing on them the Règlement organique, which established the most hideous form of serfdom while the whole of Europe applauded him for this code of liberty, which is still in force[138]. By his quasi-unification of the Danubian principalities under Cuza, Alexander II only went one step further in the century-and-a-half's policy of his forbears. Vogt now discovers that this unification under a Russian vassal means that "the principalities will constitute a dam blocking the advance of Russia towards the South" (loc. cit., p. 64).
Since Russia has been applauding the election of Cuza (loc. cit., p. 65) it is as clear as daylight that the benevolent Tsar must be doing all he can to block his own "path to the South" even though "Constantinople remains an eternal goal of Russian policy" (loc. cit., p. 9).
There is nothing new in proclaiming Russia the protector of liberalism and of national aspirations. Catherine II was celebrated as the standard-bearer of progress by a whole host of French and German Enlighteners. The "noble" Alexander I (Le Grec du Bas Empire[s] as Napoleon meanly described him) in his day played the hero of liberalism throughout Europe. Did he not make Finland happy by bestowing on it the blessings of Russian civilisation? Did he not in his magnanimity give France not only a Constitution, but even a Russian Prime Minister, the Duc de Richelieu? Was he not the secret head of the "Hetairia"[139], while simultaneously at the Congress of Verona, he urged Louis XVIII through his hired agent Chateaubriand to campaign against the Spanish rebels?[140] Did he not use Ferdinand VII's confessor to incite Ferdinand to send an expedition to quell the rebellious Spanish-American colonies, while at the same time he promised the President of the United States of North America[t] his assistance against the intervention of any European power on the American continent? Did he not send Ypsilanti to Wallachia as the "leader of the Holy Hellenic Host", and use the same Ypsilanti to betray the host and arrange for the assassination of Vladimirescu, the Wallachian rebel leader? Before 1830 Nicholas, too, was eulogised in every language, in verse and in prose, as the hero who would liberate the subject nationalities. In 1828-29, when he undertook a war against Mahmood II, for the liberation of the Greeks, after Mahmood had refused to allow a Russian army to move in to suppress the Greek uprising, Palmerston speaking in the British Parliament declared that the enemies of Russia, the liberator, were necessarily the "friends" of the greatest monsters in the world: Dom Miguel, Austria and the Sultan. Did not Nicholas in paternal solicitude give the Greeks a president, namely Count Capo d'Istria, a Russian general? But the Greeks were not Frenchmen and they murdered the noble Capo d'Istria. And although Nicholas had mainly appeared in his role as guardian of legitimacy ever since the July 1830 revolution, he did not cease for a moment to work for the "liberation of the subject nationalities". A few illustrations will suffice. The constitutional revolution in Greece in September 1843 was led by Katakasi, the Russian minister in Athens and formerly the responsible supervisor over Admiral Heiden at the time of the disaster at Navarino[141]. The centre of the Bulgarian rebellion in 1842 was the Russian consulate in Bucharest. There in the spring of 1842, the Russian general Duhamel received a Bulgarian deputation whom he presented with a plan for a general insurrection. Serbia was to act as reserve for the revolt and the Russian general Kiselev was to become Hospodar of Wallachia. During the Serbian uprising (1843) Russia used its Embassy in Constantinople to drive the Turks to resort to violence against the Serbs, and then made use of this pretext to appeal to the sympathy and fanaticism of Europe against the Turks. Italy, too, was by no means excluded from the liberation plans of Tsar Nicholas. La Jeune Italie, which was for a time the Paris organ of the Mazzini party, recounts in an issue in November 1843:
"The recent disturbances in the Romagna and the movements in Greece were more or less connected with each other.... The Italian movement failed because the real democratic party refused to join it. The Republicans would not aid in a movement instigated by Russia. Everything was prepared for a general insurrection in Italy. The movement was to commence in Naples, where it was expected that a section of the army would take the lead or make common cause with the patriots. After the outbreak of the revolution, Lombardy, Piedmont and the Romagna would rise and an Italian Empire was to be established under the Duke of Leuchtenberg, the son of Eugène Beauharnais and the son-in-law of the Tsar. 'Young Italy'[142] frustrated this plan."[u]
The Times of November 20, 1843 commented as follows on this information from La Jeune Italie:
"If that great end—the establishment of a new Italian Empire the head of which would be a Russian Prince—could be attained, so much the better; but there was another—an immediate, though perhaps not quite so important advantage to be gained by any outbreak in Italy—the causing of alarm to Austria and the withdrawal of her attention from the fearful[v] projects of Russia on the Danube."
After Nicholas had made an unsuccessful approach to "Young Italy" in 1843, he sent Mr. von Butenev to Rome in March 1844. Butenev proposed to the Pope[w] in the name of the Tsar that Russian Poland should be ceded to Austria in exchange for Lombardy, which was to become a North Italian kingdom under Leuchtenberg. The Tablet of April 1844, which was at that time the English organ of the Roman Curia, commented as follows:
"The bait for the Roman Curia contained in this beautiful plan lay in the fact that Poland would fall into Catholic hands, while Lombardy would remain in the possession of a Catholic dynasty as before. But the diplomatic veterans of Rome perceived that while Austria can barely maintain its hold on its own possessions and in all human probability will be forced sooner or later to relinquish its Slav provinces, the cession of Poland to Austria, even if this part of the proposal were seriously intended, would be nothing more than a loan to be repaid at a later date. Whereas North Italy with the Duke of Leuchtenberg would in fact fall under Russian protection and before long would infallibly come beneath the Russian sceptre. The warmly recommended plan was consequently put aside for the present."[x]
Thus far The Tablet of 1844.
The only factor that has served as a justification for the existence of Austria as a political entity since the middle of the eighteenth century has been its resistance to the advance of Russia in Eastern Europe, a resistance conducted in a helpless, inconsistent and cowardly, but obstinate manner. This resistance leads Vogt to the discovery that "Austria is the source of all discord in the East" (loc. cit., p. 56). With "a certain childlike innocence" so becoming to his tubbiness, he explains the alliance of Russia and-France against Austria as the result of the latter's ingratitude for the services rendered it by Nicholas during the Hungarian revolution, to say nothing of the liberating predilections of the "benevolent Tsar".
"In the Crimean war Austria went to the very edge of hostile, armed neutrality. It is self-evident that such an attitude, which moreover bore all the marks of falsity and scheming, was bound to be bitterly resented by the Russian Government and impel it to draw closer to France" (loc. cit., pp. 10, 11).
According to Vogt, Russia pursues a sentimental policy. The gratitude Austria expressed to the Tsar at Germany's expense during the Warsaw Congress in 1850 and in the march on Schleswig-Holstein[143] does not satisfy the grateful Vogt.
The Russian diplomat Pozzo di Borgo in his celebrated dispatch from Paris in October 1825[144], having listed Austria's intrigues to frustrate Russia's plans for intervention in the East, goes on to say:
"Our policy obliges us, therefore, to present our most terrifying face towards this state" (Austria) "to convince it by our preparations that if it ventures any movement against us we shall unleash upon it the greatest storm it has ever experienced.
He goes on to threaten war from without and revolution from within, and having hinted at a possible peaceful solution in the suggestion that Austria should annex any Turkish "provinces that appealed to it" and having described Prussia as a subordinate ally of Russia, he continues:
"If the Viennese court had yielded to our good purposes and intentions, the plan of the Imperial Cabinet would long since have achieved fulfilment—a plan which embraces not only the annexation of the Danubian principalities and Constantinople, but even provides for the expulsion of the Turks from Europe."
It is well known that in 1830 a secret treaty was concluded between Nicholas and Charles X. Its terms laid down that France would permit Russia to take possession of Constantinople and would receive the Rhine provinces and Belgium in return. Prussia would be given Hanover and Saxony, and Austria would receive a part of the Turkish provinces on the Danube. Under Louis Philippe, at Russia's suggestion, this plan was again laid before the Russian Cabinet by Molé. A little while after, Brunnow went to London with the document where it was shown to the English Government as proof of France's treachery and helped to set up the anti-French coalition of 1840.
Let us now see how, according to the ideas of Vogt, who obtained his inspirations from his original Paris sources, Russia was supposed to exploit the Italian war in agreement with France. It might be thought that the "national" composition of Russia and especially the "Polish nationality" might well create certain difficulties for a man for whom "the principle of nationality was the Lodestar"[y]. However:
"The principle of nationality stands high in our estimation, but the principle of free self-determination stands even higher" (loc. cit., p. 121).
When Russia annexed by far the largest portion of Poland proper by virtue of the treaties of 1815, it gained a position which extended so far westward, and drove as it were a wedge not only between Austria and Prussia, but also between. East Prussia and Silesia, that even at the time Prussian officers (such as Gneisenau) pointed out that such frontiers could not be tolerated in relation to so powerful a neighbour. However, it was not until 1831, when the defeat of Poland put the whole territory at the mercy of Russia, that the true significance of the wedge became clear. The subjugation of Poland was no more than a pretext for constructing the grandiose chain of fortresses at Warsaw, Modlin and Ivangorod. Its real purpose was complete strategic control of the basin of the Vistula, and the establishment of a base from which to launch attacks to the North, South and West. Even Haxthausen, who enthused about the orthodox Tsar and all things Russian, regards this as a very definite danger and a threat to Germany. The Russian fortifications on the Vistula pose a .greater threat to Germany than all the French fortresses put together, especially if and when Polish national resistance were to cease completely and Russia were able to use Poland's war potential as its own force of aggression. Hence Vogt comforts Germany with the thought that Poland has become Russian from an act of free self-determination.
"There can, be no doubt," he says, "that thanks to the great efforts of the Russian people's party, the gulf that yawned between Poland and Russia has been narrowed significantly and it perhaps requires only a small impulse to close it completely" (loc. cit., p. 12).
This small impulse was to be provided by the Italian war. (However, in the course of this war Alexander II became convinced that Poland had not yet reached such Vogtian heights.) The idea was that owing to the law of gravity Poland, which had been absorbed into Russia by an act of "free self-determination", would as a central body attract the detached limbs of the former Kingdom of Poland, which were now wasting away under foreign rule. To facilitate this process of attraction Vogt counsels Prussia to seize the opportunity and rid itself of its "Slav appendage" (loc. cit., p. 17), that is Posen (loc. cit., p. 97) and probably also West Prussia since only East Prussia is recognised to be a "genuine German land". The limbs detached from Prussia would, of course, at once revert to the central body absorbed by Russia and the "genuine German land" of East Prussia would be transformed into a Russian enclave. On the other hand, as far as Galicia is concerned, which is also shown as a part of Russia on the map of L'Europe en 1860, its separation from Austria lay directly in line with the war to free Germany from the non-German possessions of Austria. Vogt recollects that
"before 1848 the picture of the Russian Tsar could be seen more frequently in [...] Galicia than that of the Austrian Emperor" (loc. cit., p. 12) and "in view of the uncommon skill displayed by Russia in weaving its intrigues, Austria would have serious cause for anxiety here" (loc. cit.).
It is perfectly self-evident, however, that in order to rid itself of the "internal enemy" Germany should simply allow the Russians "to advance troops to the frontier" (p. 13) to lend their support to these intrigues. While Prussia is detaching itself from its Polish provinces, Russia using the Italian war should separate Galicia from Austria, just as in 1809 Alexander I had received a piece of Galicia in payment for his purely theatrical support of Napoleon I. It is well known that Russia successfully reclaimed parts of Poland that had originally gone to Austria and Prussia, partly from Napoleon I and partly from the Congress of Vienna. According to Vogt, in 1859 the time had come for the whole of Poland to be united with Russia. Vogt demands not the emancipation of the Polish nationality from Russians, Austrians and Prussians, but the absorption by Russia and the annihilation of the entire former Kingdom of Poland. Finis Poloniae![145] This "Russian" conception of the "reconstruction of Poland", which was rife throughout Europe immediately after the death of Tsar Nicholas, was denounced as early as March 1855 by David Urquhart in his pamphlet The New Hope of Poland.[z]
But Vogt had not yet done enough for Russia.
"The extraordinary civility," says our agreeable companion, "indeed the almost brotherly feelings with which the Russians treated the Hungarian revolutionaries formed too great a contrast with the behaviour of the Austrians for it not to have had repercussions. Russia did indeed crush the party" (N.B.: according to Vogt the Russians crushed not Hungary but the party), "but treated it with forbearance and courteousness, and thereby laid the foundations for an attitude which may be characterised by saying that when faced with two evils one must choose the lesser of the two, and that in the present case, Russia is not the greater" (loc. cit., pp. 12, 13).
With what "extraordinary civility, forbearance, courteousness", and indeed almost "brotherly feelings" does Plon-Plon's Falstaff conduct the Russians to Hungary, making himself into the "channel" for the illusion which destroyed the Hungarian revolution of 1849. It was Görgey's party which disseminated the belief in a Russian prince as the future King of Hungary, a belief which broke the will of the Hungarian revolution to resist.{*30}
Without having particular support in any one race the Habsburgs naturally based their dominion over Hungary before 1848 on the dominant nationality—the Magyars. We may remark in passing that Metternich was the great protector of the nationalities. He misused them by playing them off against each other, but he needed them in order to misuse them. He therefore preserved them. We may compare the situation in Posen and Galicia. After the revolution of 1848-49 the Habsburg dynasty, having used the Slays to subdue the Germans and Magyars, tried to follow in the footsteps of Joseph II and to impose the rule of the German element in Hungary by force. The fear of Russia prevented the Habsburgs from embracing their rescuers, the Slays. Their overall reactionary policy in Hungary was aimed more against their saviours, the Slays, than against their defeated enemies, the Magyars. Hence, as Szemere has shown in his pamphlet Hungary, 1848-1860, London, 1860, fighting against its own saviours, the Austrian reaction therefore drove the Slays back under the wing of the Magyars. Austrian rule over Hungary and the rule of the Magyars in Hungary coincided, therefore, both before and after 1848. Russia is in a quite different position, whether it rules Hungary directly or indirectly. Taking the racial and religious affinities together, Russia would immediately have the non-Magyar majority of the population at its disposal. The Magyar race would instantly succumb to the union of the Slays, who are akin to the Russians ethnically, and the Wallachians, who are akin to them religiously. Russian domination in Hungary, therefore, is synonymous with the destruction of Hungarian nationality, i.e. of a Hungary historically bound up with Magyar rule.{*31}
Vogt, who proposes that the Poles by an act of "free self-determination" should be absorbed by Russia, also wants to drown the Hungarians in a sea of Slays by subjecting them to Russian rule.{*32}
But Vogt has still not done enough for Russia.
Among the "non-German provinces" of Austria on behalf of whom the German Confederation should not "take up its sword" against France and Russia, which "stands whole-heartedly on .the side of France", are not only Galicia, Hungary and Italy, but in particular Bohemia and Moravia, as well.
"Russia," Vogt says, "provides the firm centre around which the Slav nationalities increasingly strive to congregate" (loc. cit., pp. 9-10).
Bohemia and Moravia belong to the "Slav nationalities". As Muscovy developed into Russia, so must Russia develop into Pan-Slavonia. "With the Czechs ... at our side we shall succumb to every enemy" (loc. cit., p. 134). We, i.e. Germany, must attempt to rid ourselves of the Czechs, i.e. of Bohemia and Moravia. "No guarantee for non-German possessions of the rulers" (loc. cit., p. 133). "No non-German provinces in the Confederation any longer" (loc. cit.) but only German provinces in France! Hence we must not only "give the present French Empire a free hand [...] as long as it does not violate the territory of the German Confederation" (Preface, p. 9), but we must also allow Russia "a free hand" as long as it only violates "non-German provinces in the Confederation". Russia will help Germany develop its "unity" and "nationhood" by advancing troops to the "Slav appendages of Austria exposed to Russia's "intrigues". While Austria is kept busy in Italy by Louis Bonaparte and Prussia forces the sword of the German Confederation back into its sheath, the "benevolent Tsar" will "be able secretly to support" revolutions in Bohemia and Moravia "with money, arms and munitions" (loc. cit., p. 13).
And "with the Czechs at our side we must succumb to every enemy"!
How magnanimous of the "benevolent Tsar", then, to relieve us of Bohemia and Moravia with all their Czechs which as "Slav nationalities must" naturally "congregate around Russia".
Let us examine how our Vogt of the Empire protects the Eastern German frontier by incorporating Bohemia and Moravia in Russia. Bohemia Russian! But Bohemia lies in the middle of Germany, separated from Russian Poland by Silesia, and from the Galicia and Hungary Russified by Vogt, by a Moravia also Russified by Vogt. Thus Russia acquires an expanse of German federal territory 50 German miles long and 25-35 miles broad[ac]. Its Western frontier will advance westwards by a full 65 German miles. Since the distance between Eger[ad] and Lauterburg in Alsace is no more than 45 German miles as the crow flies, North Germany will be totally separated from South Germany by the French wedge in the West and even more by the Russian wedge in the East, and the partition of Germany would be complete! The direct route from Vienna to Berlin would, pass through Russia, and the same would apply even to the direct route from Munich to Berlin. Dresden, Nuremberg, Regensburg and Linz would be our frontier towns bordering on Russia; our position vis-à-vis the Slays would, at least in the South, be the same as it was before Charlemagne (while in the West Vogt does not allow us to go back as far as Louis XV), and we could simply erase 1,000 years of our history.
What could be accomplished with the aid of Poland, could be accomplished even better with the aid of Bohemia. If Prague were transformed into a fortified encampment, with secondary for-tresses at the confluence of the Moldau and the Eger[ae] with the Elbe, the Russian army in Bohemia could calmly stand and wait for the German army which, divided from the outset, would approach from Bavaria, Austria and Brandenburg. Falling upon the smaller German units it would be able to destroy them while allowing the larger ones to run up against the fortresses. .
Let us look at a linguistic map of Central Europe, taking, for example, a Slav authority, the "slovanský zemĕvid" of Šafařík[146], According to this the Slav-language frontier runs from the Pomeranian coast near Stolp via Zastrow south of Chodziehen[af] on the Netze, and advances westwards to Meseritz. However, from there it suddenly curves south-east. Here the massive German territory of Silesia drives a deep wedge between Poland and Bohemia. In Moravia and Bohemia the Slavonic language again protrudes far to the west, although it is greatly eroded by the advance of German from all directions and the whole area is interspersed with German towns and linguistic islands, just as in the north, the whole Lower Vistula and the best part of East and West Prussia are German and push forward uncomfortably towards Poland. Between the most westerly point of the Polish tongue and the most northerly point of Bohemian, the Lusatian or Wendish linguistic enclave lies in the middle of German-speaking territory, but in such a way that it almost cuts off Silesia.
For the Russian Pan-Slavist Vogt, who has Bohemia to play with, there is no doubt where the natural frontier of the Slav Empire lies. It goes from Meseritz directly to Lieberose and Lübben, then south of where the Elbe passes through the mountains on the Bohemian frontier, after which it follows the Western and Southern frontier of Bohemia and Moravia. Everything to the east of this is Slav: the few German enclaves and other interlopers on Slav soil can no longer withstand the development of the great Slav nation. And anyway they have no right to be where they are. Once this "Pan-Slavist state of affairs" has been brought about, a similar rectification of the frontiers will become inevitable in the south. Here too a German wedge has of its own accord thrust itself between the North and South Slays and occupied the valley of the Danube and the Styrian Alps. Vogt cannot tolerate this wedge and, being consistent, he therefore has Russia annex Austria, Salzburg, Styria and the German parts of Carinthia. In this construction of the Slav-Russian Empire, Vogt has already demonstrated, Austria notwithstanding, that according to the well-tested axioms of the "principle of nationality" small numbers of Magyars and Romanians as well as various groups of Turks must fall to Russia (for the "benevolent Tsar" also contributes to the "principle of nationality" by his subjugation of Circassia and the extermination of the Crimean Tartars!)—as a punishment for being wedged between the North and South Slays.
In this operation, we Germans lose—nothing more than East and West Prussia, Silesia, parts of Brandenburg and Saxony, the whole of Bohemia, Moravia and the rest of Austria apart from Tyrol (part of which falls to the Italian "principle of nationality")—and our national existence to boot!
But let us just consider the first stage, according to which Galicia, Bohemia and Moravia become Russian!
In such circumstances German Austria, Southwest Germany and North Germany can never act in concert, except—and this would inevitably come about—under Russian leadership.
Vogt makes us Germans sing what his Parisians sang in 1815:
"Vive Alexandre,
Vive le roi des rois,
Sans rien prétendre,
Il nous donne des lois."[ag]
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Vogt's "principle of nationality", which he desired to realise in 1859 through the alliance between the "white angel of the North" and the "white angel of the South", should according to his views prove its worth by the absorption of Polish nationality, the disappearance of Magyar nationality and vanishing of German nationality in—Russia.
I have not mentioned his original source in Dentu's pamphlets on this occasion because I was reserving a single conclusive quotation as proof that everything that he either hints at or blurts out stems from slogans issued by the Tuileries. In the Pensiero ed Azione's issue of May 2-16, 1859, in which Mazzini forecasts events that later took place, he remarks inter alia that the first condition of the alliance agreed between Alexander II and Louis Bonaparte was: "abbandono assoluto delta Polonia" (absolute abandonment of Poland by France, which Vogt translates as "completely closing the gulf yawning between Poland and Russia").
"Che la guerra si prolunghi e assuma ... proporzioni europee, l'insurrezione delle provincie oggi turche preparata di lunga mano e quelle dell'Ungheria, daranno campo all'Allianza di rivelarsi... Principi russi governerebbo le provincie che surgerebbo sulle rovine dell'Impero Turco e dell'Austria... Constantino di Russia è già proposto ai malcontenti ungheresi." (See Pensiero ed Azione, May 2-16, 1859.) ("If the war be prolonged so as to assume ... European proportions, the insurrection of the Turkish provinces, prepared a long time since, and that of Hungary, would enable the alliance to assume palpable forms.... Russian princes would govern the states established on the ruins of the Turkish Empire and Austria.... Constantine of Russia is already proposed to the Hungarian malcontents.")[ah]
But Vogt's Russophile posture is only secondary. He is merely repeating one of the catch-phrases issued by the Tuileries and his aim is merely to prepare Germany for manoeuvres agreed between Louis Bonaparte and Alexander II if certain contingencies of the war against Austria should eventuate. In fact, he merely echoes slavishly the Pan-Slavist phraseology of his original Paris pamphlets. His true task is to sing the Lay of Ludwig[147]:
"Einan kùning wèiz ih, hèizit hêr Hlùdowîg
ther gêrno Gôde" (i.e. the nationalities) "dionôt.[ai]
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We saw earlier how Vogt praised Sardinia by pointing out that "it had even gained the respect of Russia". We now have the parallel assertion.
"There is no mention of Austria," he says, "in" (Prussia's) "declarations ... in the event of an imminent war between North America and Cochin China the wording would be the same. But the German mission of Prussia, its German obligations, the old Prussia—that is where the emphasis is put for preference. France" (in accordance with his statement on p. 27 that "France is now summed up [...] exclusively in the person of its ruler") "therefore bestows praise through the 'Moniteur' and the rest of the press.—Austria fumes" (Studien, p. 18).
"The fact that Prussia correctly interprets' its 'German mission' follows from the praise bestowed on it by Louis Bonaparte in the Moniteur and the rest of the Decembrist press." What brazen impudence! We remember how from a feeling of tenderness towards the "white angel of the North" Vogt made Austria the sole offender against the treaties of 1815 and the sole state to confiscate Cracow. He now performs the same labour of love for the benefit of the "white angel of the South".
"This ecclesiastical state against whose republic" (republic of an ecclesiastical state!) "Cavaignac, the representative of the doctrinaire republican party [...] and the military counterpart of Gagern" (a fine parallel!),"perpetrated the abominable act of massacre" (to commit massacre against the republic of a state!), "a crime which, however, did not help him to reach the presidential chair" (loc. cit., p. 69).
So it was Cavaignac and not Louis Bonaparte who perpetrated "the abominable act of massacre" against the Roman Republic! Cavaignac did indeed send a navy to Civitavecchia in November 1848 for the personal protection of the Pope. But it was only in the following year, on February 9, 1849, several months after Cavaignac had failed to get the - presidential chair, that the temporal rule of the Pope was abolished and the republic proclaimed in Rome. So Cavaignac could not possibly murder a republic that did not yet exist while he was in power. On April 22, 1849 Louis Bonaparte sent General Oudinot with 14,000 men to Civitavecchia after he had tricked the National Assembly into giving him the funds necessary for the expedition against Rome by solemnly declaring several times over that his intention was merely to resist an invasion of the Roman states planned by Austria. It is well known that the Paris catastrophe of June 13, 1849[148] arose from the resolution moved by Ledru-Rollin and the Montagne to exact vengeance for the "abominable act of massacre against the Roman Republic" which was also an "abominable breach of the French Constitution" and an "abominable violation of the resolution of the National Assembly", from Louis Bonaparte, who was responsible for all these abominations, by instituting proceedings for impeachment against him. We see how "abominably" the base sycophant of the coup d'état, how brazenly Karl Vogt falsifies history in order to elevate the mission of Lord "Hlùdowîg" to liberate the subject nationalities in general and Italy in particular-beyond all doubt.
Vogt remembers from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung that alongside the class of the lumpenproletariat it is the class of peasant smallholders that in France constitutes the sole social basis of the bas empire. He now adjusts this as follows:
"The present Empire has no party among the educated, no party [...] in the French bourgeoisie—only two masses belong to it, the army and the rural proletariat[aj], which cannot read or write. But this constitutes 9/10 of the population and embraces the mighty organised instrument with whose aid resistance can be smashed, and the herd of mortgage helots who own nothing but their vote" (p. 25).
The non-urban population of France, including the army, amounts to scarcely 2/3 of the total population. Vogt transforms less than 2/3 into 9/l0. Moreover, he transforms the whole non-urban population of France, of which around 1/5 consists of well-to-do landowners and another 1/5 of people with neither land nor other possessions, lock, stock and barrel into smallholders, "mortgage helots". Finally, he abolishes all reading and writing in France outside the cities. Just as he earlier distorted history, so now he falsifies statistics in order to enlarge the pedestal of his hero. Having done this he installs his hero on this pedestal.
"Thus France is now indeed summed up exclusively in the person of its ruler, of whom Masson" (also an authority) "said 'he possesses great qualities as a statesman and a sovereign, an unshakable will, sure sense of tact, vigorous resolution, a stout heart, a bold, noble spirit and utter ruthlessness"' (loc. cit., p. 27).
"wie saeleclîche stât im an
allez daz, daz êr begât!
wie gâr sîn lîp ze wunsche stât!
wie gênt îm so gelîche inein
die fînen keiserlîchen bein."
(Tristan)[ak]
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Vogt snatches the censer from Masson's hands in order to swing it himself. To Masson's catalogue of virtues he adds "cold calculation", "bold planning", "serpentine cunning", "tenacious patience" (p. 28) and then, as the Tacitus of the antechamber, he stammers: "The origins of this reign are monstrous", which is certainly—nonsense. Above all he has to melodramatise the grotesque figure of his hero into a great man and so "Napoléon le Petit"[149] becomes a "man of destiny" (loc. cit., p. 36).
"Even if present circumstances," Vogt exclaims, "lead to a change" (what a modest word: a change!) "in the government" (of this man of destiny), "we shall not be behindhand with our warmest congratulations, even though we can see no prospect of this for the time being!" (loc. cit., p. 29.)
How serious the warm fellow is with his congratulations in petto[al] can be seen from the following:
"Hence with a lasting peace the internal situation becomes more and more untenable day by day, because the French army is much more closely involved with the parties of the educated than is the case, for example, in the German states, in Prussia and Austria; because these parties find an echo, above all among the officers, so that one fine day the only active pillar of the power that the Emperor holds in his hands might slip away" (loc. cit., pp. [26-]27).[am]
So the "internal situation" became "more and more untenable day by day" with a "lasting peace". This is why Vogt had to assist Louis Bonaparte to violate the peace. The army, the "only active pillar" of his "power", threatened to "slip away". This is why Vogt had to prove that it was Europe's task to bind the French "army" to Louis Bonaparte once again by means of a "localised" war in Italy. And indeed at the end of 1858 it looked as though things were going to end dreadfully[150] with Badinguet, as the Parisians unrespectfully call the "nephew of his uncle". The general trade crisis of 1857-58 had paralysed French industry{*33}. The government manoeuvres to prevent the crisis from becoming acute made the malady chronic, so that the stagnation in French trade dragged on until the outbreak of the Italian war. On the other hand, grain prices fell so low between 1857 and 1859 that a loud cry went up at various congrès agricoles to the effect that French agriculture was being ruined by low prices and the heavy burdens imposed on it. Louis Bonaparte's absurd attempt to raise grain prices artificially by a fiat designed to force the bakers throughout France to set up granaries only reveals the helpless confusion of his government.
The foreign policy of the coup d'état exhibited nothing but a series of unsuccessful attempts to play Napoleon—mere trials, invariably crowned by official withdrawals. For example, his intrigue against the United States of America, his manoeuvres to revive the slave trade[151], the melodramatic threats directed against England. The insolence with which Louis Bonaparte at that time ventured to treat Switzerland, Sardinia, Portugal and Belgium—even though in Belgium he could not even prevent the fortification of Antwerp—only throws the fiasco of his policy vis-à-vis the great powers into even starker relief. In the British Parliament "Napoléon le Petit" became a standard expression and The Times heaped ridicule on the "Man of Iron" in its articles at the end of 1858, by describing him as the "Man of Gutta-Percha". In the meantime, Orsini's hand-grenades[152] had burst like a thunderbolt, illuminating the internal situation in France. It turned out that Louis Bonaparte's regime was just as insecure as it had been in the first days after the coup d'état. The Lois de sûreté publique[153] revealed his total isolation. He had to abdicate to his own generals. In an unprecedented development, France was divided into 5 General Captaincies, in the Spanish manner. With the introduction of the Regency Pélissier was in fact recognised as the highest authority in France[154]. Moreover, the renewed terreur intimidated no one. Instead of presenting a terrible appearance, the Dutch nephew of the battle of Austerlitz only looked grotesque[155]. Montalembert was able to play Hampden in Paris, Berryer and Dufaure to disclose the hopes of the bourgeoisie in their summings-up and in Brussels Proudhon to proclaim Louis-Philippism with an acte additionnel[156], while Louis Bonaparte himself disclosed the growing power of Marianne to the whole of Europe. In the course of the uprising in Chalon[157] the officers, on hearing that a republic had been proclaimed in Paris, cautiously inquired at the Prefecture whether a republic had actually been proclaimed, instead of just falling upon the insurgents, an event which demonstrated in a striking manner that even the army regarded the restored Empire as a pantomime, whose closing scene was drawing near. Scandalous duels of the arrogant officers in Paris coincided with scandalous deals on the Stock Exchange in which the top leaders of the Gang of December 10 were involved. The Palmerston Government in England fell because of its alliance with Louis Bonaparte![158] And lastly, a treasury that could only be replenished by resorting to exceptional subterfuges! Such was the situation of the bas empire at the end of 1858. The Brummagem[an] Empire would collapse, or else the absurd farce of a Napoleonic empire within the frontiers of the treaties of 1815 would have to cease. But for this a localised war was essential. The mere prospect of a war with Europe would then have sufficed to produce an explosion in France. A child could understand what Horsman said in the British Parliament:
"We know that France will support the Emperor as long as our vacillation allows him success in his foreign policy, but we have grounds to believe that it will abandon him as soon as we show resolute opposition."
All depended on localising the war, i.e. on conducting it with the supreme sanction of Europe. To begin with, France itself had to be prepared gradually for the war with the aid of a series of hypocritical peace negotiations and their repeated failure. Louis Bonaparte came to grief even here. Lord Cowley, the English Ambassador in Paris, had gone to Vienna with proposals drawn up by Louis Bonaparte and approved by the (Derby) Cabinet in London. In Vienna (see the Blue Book quoted above[ao]), under English pressure, the proposals were unexpectedly accepted. Cowley had just returned to London with the tidings of a "peaceful solution" when suddenly the news came that Louis Bonaparte had abandoned his own proposals and had supported the convocation of a congress suggested by Russia to discipline Austria. The war became possible only through the intervention of Russia. If Russia had no longer needed Louis Bonaparte in order to carry out its own plans—either to enforce them with French assistance or to use the French to beat Austria and Prussia into passive instruments of Russia Louis Bonaparte would have fallen then. But despite Russia's covert support, despite the promises of Palmerston, who had given his blessing at Compiègne to the conspiracy of Plombières[159], everything depended on the attitude of Germany, since on the one hand the Tory Cabinet was still at the helm in England, and on the other hand the silent rebellion of France against the Bonapartist regime would have been driven out into the open by the prospect of a European war.
Vogt himself lets slip that he sang his Lay of Ludwig neither from a lively sympathy for Italy, nor from fear of the timid, conservative despotism of Austria, which was as clumsy as it was brutal. On the contrary, he believed that if Austria, which, it should be noted, was forced to start the war, should gain the advantage in Italy at first,
"the revolution would certainly be unleashed in France, the Empire would be overthrown and the future would be different" (loc. cit., p. 131). He believed that "the Austrian armies would in the last resort be unable to withstand the liberated forces of the French people" (loc. cit.) and that "the victorious armies of Austria, by provoking revolutions in France, Italy and Hungary, would themselves create the enemy who would crush them".[ap]
But the issue for him was not the liberation of Italy from Austria, but the enslavement of France by Louis Bonaparte.
What further proof is required that Vogt was merely one of the countless mouthpieces through whom the grotesque ventriloquist in the Tuileries spoke in foreign tongues?
It will be remembered that at the time when Louis Bonaparte first discovered his mission to liberate the subject nationalities in general and Italy in particular, France presented a spectacle, unprecedented in its history. The whole of Europe marvelled at the stubborn obstinacy with which it rejected the "idées napoléoniennes"[aq]. People still remember very well the enthusiasm with which even the "chiens savants"[ar] of the Corps législatif welcomed Morny's assurances of peace[as]; the irritated tone in which the Moniteur lectured the nation, now for its immersion in material interests, now for its lack of patriotic vigour and its doubts about Badinguet's talents as a general and his wisdom as a politician[at]; the soothing official messages to all the chambers of commerce throughout France and the imperial assurance that "étudier une question n'est pas la créer"[au]. At the time, the English press, astonished at the extraordinary spectacle, was crammed full of well-meaning nonsense about the transformation of the French into a peace-loving people, the Stock Exchange treated the issue of "war" or "not war" as a "duel" between Louis Bonaparte, who wanted war, and the nation, which did not, and bets were placed as to who would prevail, the nation or "his uncle's nephew". To give an idea of the situation as it was at the time I shall simply quote a few passages from the London Economist, which, as the organ of the City, as the spokesman of the Italian war and as the property of Wilson (the recently deceased Secretary of the Treasury for India and a tool of Palmerston), was highly influential:
"Alarmed at the colossal uproar which has been created, the French Government is now trying the soothing system" (The Economist, January 15, 1859).
In its issue of January 22, 1859, in an article entitled "The Practical Limits of the Imperial Power in France", The Economist says:
"Whether the Emperor's designs for a war in Italy are or are not carried out to their completion, one fact at least has become conspicuous enough,—that his plans have received a very severe and probably unexpected check in the chilling attitude assumed by popular feeling in France and the complete absence of any sympathy with the Emperor's scheme.... He proposes a war [...] and the French people show nothing but alarm and discontent;—the Government securities are depreciated, the fear of the tax-gatherer subdues every gleam of political or martial enthusiasm, the commercial portion of the nation is simply panic-struck, the rural districts are dumb and dissatisfied, fearing fresh conscriptions and fresh imposts;—the political circles which have supported the Imperial régime most strongly, as a pis aller against anarchy[av], discourage war for exactly the same reason for which they support that régime [...] it is certain that Louis Napoleon has found an extent and depth of opposition throughout all classes in France to a war, even in Italy, which he did not anticipate."{*34}
Faced with this mood of the French people that section of the original Dentu pamphlets was launched which "in the name of the people" peremptorily called on the "Emperor" "at last to assist France in the majestic extension of its frontiers from the Alps to the Rhine" and no longer to resist the "nation's pugnacious spirit and desire to bring about the liberation of the subject nationalities". Vogt plays the same tune as the prostitutes of December. At the very moment when Europe stood amazed at France's obstinate longing for peace, Vogt made the discovery that "today, the fickle nation" (the French) "appears to be filled with a warlike passion" (loc. cit., pp. 29, 30), and Lord Hlùdowîg was only following the "dominant trend of the age" which was intent on the "independence of the nationalities" (loc. cit., p. 31). Naturally, he did not believe a single syllable of what he was writing. In the Programme in which he called upon democrats to co-operate in his Bonapartist propaganda he makes it crystal clear that the Italian war was unpopular in France.
"I cannot foresee any immediate threat to the Rhine; but one could arise in the future. A war there or against England would make Louis Napoleon almost popular; the Italian war does not possess this popular aspect" ("Magnum Opus", Documents, p. 34).{*35}
If now one portion of the original Dentu pamphlets sought to rouse the French nation from its "peace lethargy" with the aid of the traditional visions of conquest and to put the private wishes of Louis Bonaparte into the mouth of the nation, the other portion, with the Moniteur in the vanguard, had the task of convincing Germany in particular of the Emperor's repugnance to foreign conquests and of his ideal mission as the Messiah who would bring freedom to the subject nationalities. The proofs of the disinterestedness of his policy on the one hand and of his desire to free the subject nationalities on the other are easy to remember because they are constantly repeated and revolve round only two axes. Proof of the disinterestedness of Decembrist policies—the Crimean war. Proof of his desire to free the subject nationalities—Colonel Cuza and the Romanian nationality. The tone was set by the Moniteur. See the Moniteur of March 15, 1859 on the Crimean war. The Moniteur of April 10, 1859 writes about the Romanian nationality:
"In Germany as in Italy it" (France) "desires that the nationalities recognised by the treaties should continue to exist and become even stronger. In the Danubian principalities he" (the Emperor) "has endeavoured to help the legitimate wishes of these provinces to triumph so that an order based on national interests might be established in this part of Europe too."
See also the pamphlet published by Dentu at the beginning of 1859 with the title Napoléon III et la question roumaine. With regard to the Crimean war:
"Lastly, what compensation has France requested for the blood it has shed and the millions it has expended in the East in the service of an exclusively European cause?" (La vraie question, Dentu, Paris, 1859, p. 13.)
This theme, played with endless variations in Paris, was translated so well into German by Vogt that E. About, that gossipy magpie of Bonapartism, appears to have translated Vogt's German translation back into French. See La Prusse en 1860. Here too we are again pursued by the Crimean war and Romanian nationality under Colonel Cuza.
"But this much at least is clear," Vogt announces, echoing the Moniteur and Dentu's original pamphlets, "that France did not conquer a single square foot of land" (in the Crimea) "and that after such a victorious campaign the uncle would not have rested content with the meagre gain of having proved his superiority in the art of warfare" (Studien, p. 33). "Here we can see an essential difference between the present and the old Napoleonic policies"{*36}(loc. cit.).
As if Vogt had to prove to us that "Napoléon le Petit" is not the real Napoleon! With just as much justification Vogt could have prophesied in 1851 that the nephew, who had nothing to set against the first Italian campaign and the expedition to Egypt but the Strasbourg adventure, the expedition to Boulogne and the sausage review of Satory[160], could never emulate the 18 Brumaire, to say nothing of acquiring the Imperial Crown. There was after all "an essential difference between the present and the old Napoleonic policies". Yet another difference was between waging a war against a European coalition and waging one with the permission of a European coalition.
The "glorious campaign in the Crimea" in which England, France, Turkey and Sardinia in concert "captured" half a Russian fortress after two years, and in exchange lost a whole Turkish fortress (Kars) to the Russians, and at the conclusion of peace were forced humbly to "request" the enemy at the Paris Congress[161] for "permission" to evacuate their troops without interference and ship them home—that was indeed anything but "Napoleonic". It was glorious only in Bazancourt's novel[az]. But the Crimean war proved all sorts of things. Louis Bonaparte betrayed his ostensible allies (the Turks) in order to gain the alliance of the ostensible enemy. The first success of the Paris peace was the sacrifice of the "Circassian nationality" and the extermination of the Crimean Tartars by the Russians, and likewise the destruction of the national hopes that the Poles and Swedes had pinned to a West European crusade against Russia. A further moral of the Crimean war was: Louis Bonaparte could not afford a second Crimean war, could not afford to lose an old army and gain new national debts in exchange for the knowledge that France was rich enough "de payer sa propre gloire"[ba], that the name of Louis Napoleon figured in a European treaty, that "the conservative and dynastic press of Europe" unanimously acknowledged "the ruling virtues, the wisdom and the moderation of the Emperor"—a fact which Vogt counts to Louis Bonaparte's credit (loc. cit., p. 32)—and that at the time the whole of Europe paid him all the honour due to a genuine Napoleon, on the express condition that Louis Bonaparte, following the example of Louis Philippe, should quietly stay within "the limits of practical reason", i.e. of the treaties of 1815, and not forget for a single moment the fine line that distinguishes a buffoon[bb] from the hero he represents. The political combinations, the ruling powers and the social conditions that provided the leader of the December Gang with the opportunity to play at being Napoleon, first in France and then even beyond French territory, do in fact belong to his epoch, and not to the annals of the Great French Revolution.
"This fact at any rate is established, that present French policy in the East has fulfilled the aspirations of one nationality" (the Romanian) "for unification" (Studien, pp. 34-35).
Cuza, as we have mentioned, is keeping the place open for either a Russian governor or a Russian vassal. On the map of L'Europe en 1860 a Grand Duke of Mecklenburg figures as that vassal. Russia naturally allowed Louis Bonaparte all the honour for this Romanian emancipation, reserving all its advantages for itself. Austria stood in the way of further benevolent intentions. Hence the Italian war had the function of remodelling Austria, changing it from an obstacle into an instrument.
The ventriloquist in the Tuileries was already playing the tune of "Romanian nationality" on his innumerable mouthpieces as early as 1858. One of Vogt's authorities, Mr. Kossuth, was thus in a position to give an answer as early as November 20, 1858 in a lecture in Glasgow[bc]:
"Wallachia and Moldavia receive a Constitution, hatched in the caverns of secret diplomacy.... It is in reality no more nor less than a charter granted to Russia for the purpose of disposing of the Principalities."[bd]
Thus the "principle of nationality" was abused by Louis Bonaparte in the Danubian principalities so as to mask the fact that they were being handed over to Russia, just as in 1848-49 the Austrian Government had abused the "principle of nationality" to strangle the Magyar and German revolution with the aid of the Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Wallachians, etc.
Good care is taken both by the Russian consul in Bucharest and by the rabble of Moldavian and Wallachian Boyars, most of whom are not even Romanian but a motley mosaic of adventurers from God-knows-where—a sort of oriental December Gang—that the Romanian people should still groan beneath the burdens of a villeinage so monstrous that it could only have been set up by Russians with their règlement organique and could only be sustained by an oriental demi-monde.
Vogt, in the attempt to deck out the wisdom quarried from his original Dentu sources with his own eloquence, says:
"Austria already had enough on her hands with one Piedmont in the South; it had no need of another in the East" (loc. cit., p. 64).
Piedmont annexes Italian lands. So are the Danubian principalities, the least warlike of the Turkish lands, to annex Romanian territory, that is, conquer Bessarabia from Russia, and Transylvania, the Banat of Temesvár and the Bukovina from Austria? Vogt not only forgets the "benevolent Tsar", he also forgets that in 1848-49 Hungary did not seem in the least inclined to part with these more or less Romanian provinces, that it answered their "cry of distress" with a drawn sword, and that on the contrary it was Austria which used "propaganda about the principle of nationality" as a weapon against Hungary.
But the historical scholarship of his Studien shows itself in its full splendour when Vogt, relying on half-remembered bits from an ephemeral pamphlet, which he had skimmed through, with perfect calm
"deduces the wretched condition of the principalities ... from the destructive poison of the Greeks and Fanariots" (loc. cit., p. 63).
He had no idea that the Fanariots (so called after a district in Constantinople) are these very same Greeks who have lorded it in the Danubian principalities under Russian protection since the beginning of the eighteenth century. They are, in part, the descendants of the limondji (lemonade-sellers) of Constantinople that are now once again playing at "Romanian nationality" by order of the Russians.
While the white angel of the North advances from the East, destroying the various nationalities for the benefit of the Slav race, the white angel of the South advances from the opposite direction as the standard-bearer of the principle of nationality, and
"we must wait until the liberation of the subject nationalities has been brought about by this man of destiny" (Studien, p. 36).
Now while these combined operations of the two angels and the "two greatest external enemies of Germany's unity" (Studien, 2nd edition, Afterword, p. 154) are being conducted "in close concert"—what role is assigned to Germany by our Imperial Vogt, who is, however, no "Augmentor of the Realm"[be]?
"The most short-sighted persons," Vogt remarks, "must have realised by now that there is an understanding between the Government of Prussia and the Imperial Government of France, that Prussia will not unsheath its sword to defend the non-German provinces of Austria" (including Bohemia and Moravia, of course), "that it will give its approval to all measures affecting the defence of the territory of the Confederation" (excluding its "non-German" provinces), "but will otherwise prevent any intervention of the Confederation or its individual members on Austria's behalf, so that in the subsequent peace negotiations it will receive its reward for these efforts in the North German plains" (Studien, 1st edition, pp. 18-19).
By proclaiming from the housetops, even before the outbreak of the war against Austria, the secret entrusted to him by the Tuileries that Prussia was acting in "secret understanding" with the "external enemy of Germany", who would reward it with territory "in the North German plains", Vogt was of course giving Prussia the best possible assistance in achieving its alleged ends. He roused the suspicions of the other German governments both towards Prussia's initial attempts to neutralise them and towards its military preparations and its claim to the supreme command during the war.
"Whatever path Germany has to choose in the present crisis," Vogt says, "one thing is certain: that as a whole it must pursue one definite path with energy, whereas as things are the unhappy Federal Diet, etc." (loc. cit., p. 96).
By spreading the view that Prussia goes arm in arm with "the external enemy" and that this will lead to its devouring the Northern plains, Vogt presumably intends to restore the unity in the Federal Diet which is so badly lacking. Saxony, in particular, is reminded explicitly that Prussia has already once occasioned "the loss of some of its finest provinces" (loc. cit., p. 93). The "purchase of the Jade Bay" is denounced (loc. cit., p. 15).
"Holstein was to have been the reward for Prussia's participation" (in the Turkish War) "when the notorious theft of the dispatch gave the negotiations a different turn" (loc. cit., p. 15). "Mecklenburg, Hanover, Oldenburg, Holstein and other miscellaneous appendages ... these fraternal German states are the bait at which Prussia greedily snatches"—and does so moreover "at every possible opportunity" (loc. cit., pp. 14, 15).
And as Vogt reveals, on this occasion it has been firmly hooked by Louis Bonaparte. On the one side, as the result of its secret "understanding" with Louis Bonaparte Prussia must and will "reach the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic at the expense of its German brothers" (loc. cit., p. 14). On the other side,
"Prussia will have obtained a natural frontier only when the watershed of the Erzgebirge and the Fichtelgebirge is extended through the white Main and along the Main up to Mainz" (loc. cit., p. 93).
Natural frontiers in the depth of Germany! Formed, moreover, by a watershed which passes through a river! It is this sort of discovery in the realm of physical geography—to which we may add the channel that rose to the surface (see "Magnum Opus")—that puts "the well-rounded character" on a par with Alexander von Humboldt. At the same time as he was preaching to the German Confederation on the confidence it must have in the leadership of Prussia, Vogt, not satisfied with the "ancient rivalry between Prussia and Austria on German, etc., territory", invented another rivalry between these two states which "has so frequently broken out on non-European soil" (loc. cit., p. 20). This non-European soil is probably on the moon.
In fact Vogt simply translates into words the map of L'Europe en 1860 published by the French Government in 1858. The map shows Hanover, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Holstein, the Electorate of Hesse together with sundry territories such as Waldeck, Anhalt, Lippe, etc., as having been annexed to Prussia, while "l'Empereur des Français conserve ses (!) limites actuelles", the Emperor of the French preserves his (!) existing frontiers. "Prussia down to the Main" is also a slogan of Russian diplomacy. (See, for example, the memorandum of 1837 mentioned above.) A Prussian North Germany would counterbalance an Austrian South, Germany, separated by natural frontiers, tradition, denomination, dialect and tribal differences. The division of Germany into two parts would be completed by simplifying the contradictions within it and the Thirty Years' War[162] would be declared in permanence.
According to the first edition of the Studien, Prussia was supposed to receive such a "reward" for its "efforts" in forcing the sword of the German Confederation back into its sheath during the war. In Vogt's Studien, as on the French map L'Europe en 1860, it is not Louis Bonaparte, but Prussia that seeks and achieves the enlargement of its territory and attains natural frontiers as a result of the French war against Austria.
Vogt only reveals Prussia's true task in the Afterword to the second edition of his Studien[bg], which appeared while the Franco-Austrian war was still in progress. Prussia was to initiate a "civil war" (see the 2nd edition, p. 152) so as to establish a "unified central power" (loc. cit., p. 153), to incorporate Germany in the Prussian monarchy. While Russia advances from the East and Austria is held down by Louis Bonaparte in Italy, Prussia is to embark on a dynastic "civil war" in Germany. Vogt guarantees the Prince Regent[bh] that
"the war that has broken out" in Italy "will last, out the year 1859 at the very least, whereas the unification of Germany, if prosecuted resolutely, will not take as many weeks as the Italian campaign months" (loc. cit., p. 155).
The civil war in Germany will only be a matter of weeks! Apart from the Austrian troops which would immediately march on Prussia, Italian war or no Italian war, Prussia would meet resistance, as Vogt himself explains, from "Bavaria[bi] ... which is entirely under Austrian influence" (Studien, 1st edition, p. 90), from Saxony, which would be the first to be threatened and which would no longer have any reason to do violence to its "sympathies for Austria" (loc. cit., p. 93), from "Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt and Hanover" (loc. cit., p. 94), in short from "nine-tenths" (loc. cit., p. 16) of the "German governments". And these governments, as Vogt further demonstrates, would not lack support in the event of such a dynastic "civil war", especially if initiated by Prussia at a time when Germany was threatened by its "two greatest external enemies".
"The court" (in Baden), says Vogt, "goes along with Prussia, but the people, and there is no doubt about that, certainly does not share the predilections of the ruling family. The Breisgau, no less than Upper Swabia, is bound much more closely to the Emperor and the Imperial state by ties of sympathy, religious confession and old memories of the Austrian Forelands, to which it formerly belonged, than one would have supposed after such a long separation" (loc. cit., pp. 93-94). "With the exception of Mecklenburg" and "perhaps" the Electorate of Hesse, "in North Germany the attitude to the theory of incorporation is one of mistrust and Prussia's policy is accepted only with reluctance. The instinctive feeling of dislike, indeed of hatred, aroused by Prussia in South Germany ... has not been eliminated or talked out of existence by the full-throated cry of the Imperial party[bj]. It lives on in the people, and no government, not even that of Baden, can resist it for long. Thus Prussia has no real support either among the German people, or in the governments of the German Confederation" (loc. cit., p. 21).
Thus speaks Vogt. And for that very reason, according to that same Vogt, a dynastic "civil war" initiated by Prussia in "secret understanding" with the "two greatest external enemies of Germany", would only be a matter of "weeks". But there is more to come.
"The Old Prussian provinces go along with the government—the Rhineland and Westphalia with Catholic Austria. If the popular movement there does not succeed in pushing the government over to Austria's side, the immediate consequence would be to reopen the gulf between the two parts of the monarchy" (loc. cit., p. 20).
Thus, according to Vogt, if the simple non-intervention of Prussia on Austria's behalf was enough to reopen the gulf between Rhineland-Westphalia and the Old Prussian provinces, then clearly, in the eyes of the same Vogt, a "civil war", undertaken by Prussia with the aim of expelling Austria from Germany, was bound to wrench Rhineland-Westphalia from Prussia for good and all. But "what does Germany matter to these papists?" (loc. cit., p. 119), or as he really thinks, what do these papists matter to Germany? The Rhineland and Westphalia are ultramontane "Roman-Catholic" and not "true German" provinces. Hence they must be expelled from the territory of the Confederation just like Bohemia and Moravia. And this process of expulsion is to be accelerated by the dynastic "civil war" recommended to Prussia by Vogt. And in fact in its map published in 1858 of L'Europe en 1860, which served Vogt as a compass throughout his Studien, the French Government, which had annexed Egypt to Austria, also showed the Rhine provinces as countries of "Catholic nationality" and annexed by Belgium—an ironic formula for the annexation of Belgium and the Rhine provinces by France. The fact that Vogt goes even further than the map of the French Government and throws in Catholic Westphalia as an extra, can be explained by the "scientific relations" between the fugitive Regent of the Empire and Plon-Plon, the son of the ex-King of Westphalia.[bk]
To sum up: On the one hand, Louis Bonaparte will give Russia leave to extend its rule from Posen to Bohemia and from Hungary right down to Turkey. On the other hand, he himself will establish a united and independent Italy on France's frontier by force of arms, and all that—pour le roi de Prusse[bl]; all that to give Prussia an opportunity to bring Germany under its wing by means of a civil war and to "secure" the "Rhine provinces for ever" against France (loc. cit., p. 121).
"But, it will be said, the territory of the Confederation is in danger, the hereditary foe threatens, his real goal is the Rhine. Then, defend the Rhine and defend the territory of the Confederation" (loc. cit., p. 105),
and in fact defend the territory of the Confederation by ceding Bohemia and Moravia to Russia, and defend the Rhine by starting a German "civil war" with the aim, among others, of tearing Rhineland and Westphalia from Prussia.
"But, it will be said, Louis Napoleon ... desires to satisfy his Napoleonic thirst for conquest by some means or other! We do not think so, we have the example of the Crimean campaign before our eyes!" (loc. cit., p. 129.)
Apart from his scepticism about the Napoleonic thirst for conquest and his faith in the Crimean campaign, Vogt has yet another argument in petto. The Austrians and the French will follow the example of the Kilkenny cats[163] and keep on biting each other in Italy until there is nothing left of them but their tails.
"It will be a terribly bloody, stubborn and perhaps indecisive war" (loc. cit., pp. 127, 128). "Only by exerting its strength to the very utmost will France, together with Piedmont, be able to triumph, and it will not recover from these efforts for decades" (loc. cit., p. 129).
This prospect of a long-lasting Italian war silences his critics. And the method by which Vogt manages to prolong Austria's resistance to French arms in Italy and to cripple France's aggressive power, is indeed original enough. On the one hand, the French are given carte blanche in Italy; On the other hand, the "benevolent Tsar" is given leave by manoeuvres in Galicia, Hungary, Moravia and Bohemia and by revolutionary machinations within the country and military demonstrations on its frontiers
"to hold down a significant part of the Austrian forces in those parts of the monarchy which are exposed to Russian attack or vulnerable to Russian intrigue" (loc. cit., p. 11).
And lastly, by means of a dynastic "civil war" simultaneously unleashed in Germany by Prussia, Austria will be compelled to withdraw its main forces from Italy to protect its German possessions. It is obvious that in such circumstances Francis Joseph and Louis Bonaparte will not conclude a Treaty of Campoformio[164] but "will both bleed to death in Italy".
Austria will not make any concessions to the "benevolent Tsar" in the East and accept the long-standing offer of indemnification in Serbia and Bosnia. Nor will it guarantee the Rhine provinces to France and fall on Prussia in league with Russia and France. Not on your life! It will insist on "bleeding to death in Italy". In any event, however, Vogt's "man of destiny" would indignantly reject such a compensation on the Rhine. Vogt knows that
"the foreign policy of the present Empire has only one principle, that of self-preservation" (loc. cit., p. 31).
He knows that Louis Bonaparte
"is intent on pursuing a single idea [...] that of preserving his power" (over France) (loc. cit., p. 29).
He knows that the "Italian war does not increase his popularity in France" whereas the acquisition of the Rhine provinces would make him and his dynasty "popular". He says:
"The Rhine provinces are indeed a pet ambition of the French chauvinist and perhaps, if one were to go into it, one would discover only a very small minority of the nation which did not bear this wish deep in its heart" (loc. cit., p. 121).
On the other hand, "perceptive Frenchmen", and therefore presumably also Vogt's "man of destiny who is as wise as a serpent", know that
"they can only hope to see this realised" (namely France's acquisition of the natural frontier of the Rhine) "as long as Germany possesses 34 different governments. [...] Let a real Germany come into existence, with unified interests and a firm organisation—and the Rhine frontier will be secure for all time" (loc. cit., p. 121).
For this very reason, Louis Bonaparte, who at Villafranca offered the Emperor of Austria Lombardy in exchange for a guarantee of the Rhine provinces (see the statement by Kinglake in the House of Commons, July 12, 1860[bm]), would have indignantly rejected Austria's offer of the Rhine provinces in exchange for French aid against Prussia.
Vogt's original Dentu sources likewise not only indulged in lyrical effusions on the subject of German unity under the aegis of Prussia{*37}: they also spurned every suggestion of ambitions in the Rhine provinces with virtuous indignation.
"The Rhine!... What is the Rhine?—A frontier. Frontiers will soon be anachronisms" (La foi des traités, etc., Paris, 1859, p. 36).{*38}
In the millennium that is to be established by Badinguet on the foundations of the principle of nationality, who will be concerned about the Rhine frontier, or indeed any frontiers at all!
"Does France insist on compensation for the sacrifices it is prepared to make in the cause of equity, of legitimate influence and in the interest of European equilibrium? Does it demand the left bank of the Rhine? Does it so much as lay claim to Savoy and the County of Nice?" (La vraie question, etc., Paris, 1859, p. 13.){*39}
France's renunciation of Savoy and Nice as proof of France's renunciation of the Rhine! Vogt did not translate that into German.
Before the start of the war it was of crucial importance for Louis Bonaparte, if he was unable to lure Prussia into an understanding, at least to make the German Confederation believe that he had done so. Vogt attempts to disseminate this belief in the first edition of his Studien. During the war it became even more important for Louis Bonaparte to induce Prussia to take steps that would provide Austria with proof or apparent proof of such an understanding. In the second edition of the Studien, which appeared while the war was in progress, Vogt therefore calls on Prussia in an Afterword to conquer Germany and initiate a dynastic "civil war" which, as the text of his book makes clear, would be "bloody, stubborn and perhaps indecisive" and would cost Prussia Rhineland and Westphalia at the very least. And in the Afterword to the same book he solemnly assures his readers that it will "only cost a matter of weeks". Vogt's voice is in truth not that of the siren. Hence Louis Bonaparte, seconded in his knavish plot by bottle-holder[bn] Palmerston, was forced to present Prussian proposals he himself had drawn up to Francis Joseph in Villafranca; Austria had to use Prussia's modest claims to the military leadership of Germany as an excuse for concluding a peace{*40} which Louis Bonaparte had to excuse in France by saying that the Italian war was threatening to become a general war which
"would bring about German unity and thus accomplish a work which ever since Francis I it had been the object of French policy to prevent".{*41}
After France had acquired Savoy and Nice as a result of the Italian war, and with them a position worth more than an army in the event of a war on the Rhine, "German unity under Prussian hegemony" and "cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France" became interchangeable factors in the probability calculations of the 2nd December. The map of L'Europe en 1860 published in 1858 was interpreted by the map L'Europe pacifiée (Europe pacified?) which appeared in 1860. According to this map Egypt was no longer given to Austria and the Rhine provinces together with Belgium were annexed by France in return for the "Northern plains" that were now assigned to Prussia.{*42}
Finally, Persigny made an official pronouncement in Etienne that, if only in the "interest of European equilibrium", any further centralisation on the part of Germany would entail the advance of France to the Rhine{*43}. But neither before nor after the Italian war had the grotesque ventriloquist of the Tuileries expressed himself with such insolence as through the mouthpiece of the fugitive Imperial Regent.
Vogt "the New Swiss, citizen of the Canton of Berne and member of the Council of States[165] for Geneva" (loc. cit., Preface), opens the Swiss section of his Studien with a prologue (loc. cit., pp. 37-39) in which he calls upon Switzerland to utter a paean of joy at the replacement of Louis Philippe by Louis Bonaparte. It is true that Louis Bonaparte was demanding that the Federal Council should "put controls on the press", but "the Napoleonides seem in this respect to have extremely sensitive skins" (loc. cit., p. 36). A mere skin disease, so engrained in the family that it is transmitted not only "in the family blood, but even—teste Louis Bonaparte—by the mere family name. However,
"The persecution of innocent men in Geneva which has been carried out by the Federal Council on instructions from the Emperor against poor devils whose only crime was that they were Italians; the establishment of consulates; the harassment of the press; the senseless police regulations of every conceivable kind and, finally, the negotiations about the cession of the Vallee des Dappes[166], have all played an essential part in obliterating in the minds of the Swiss the 16 memories of those services which the Emperor really rendered in the Neuchâtel affair[167], and in particular for the very party which has now turned most violently against him" (loc. cit., pp. 37, 38).
Magnanimous Emperor, ungrateful party! The Emperor's aim in the Neuchâtel affair was by no means the creation of a precedent for the violation of . the treaties of 1815, the humiliation of Prussia and the establishment of a protectorate over Switzerland. What he was really concerned with was "to render" Switzerland "a real service", in his capacity as "New Swiss, citizen of the Canton of Thurgau and artillery captain of Oberstrass". The accusation of ingratitude levelled by Vogt against the anti-Bonapartist party in Switzerland in March 1859, was extended to the whole of Switzerland in June 1860 by another servant of the Emperor, M. de Thouvenel. The Times of June 30, 1860 writes that
"A few days ago a meeting took place between Dr. Kern and M. de Thouvenel in the Foreign Ministry in Paris in the presence of Lord Cowley. Thouvenel informed the honourable representative of Switzerland that the doubts and protestations of the Federal Government were insulting inasmuch as they seemed to imply a want of faith in the government of His Imperial Majesty. Such treatment was base ingratitude in view of the services which the Emperor Napoleon had rendered[bp] the Confederation on many occasions, and in particular in the Neuchâtel affair. However that may be, since Switzerland had been so blind as to mistrust her benefactor, she must herself bear the consequences."
Nevertheless Vogt tried to open the eyes of the blind anti-Bonapartist party in Switzerland as early as March 1859. On the one hand, he points to "the real services" which "the Emperor has rendered". On the other hand, "the Imperial harassments shrink to vanishing point" beside the royal harassments under Louis Philippe (loc. cit., p. 39). For example, in 1858 the Federal Council "on instructions from the Emperor" expelled some "poor devils whose only crime was that they were Italians"[bq] (p. 37); in 1838, notwithstanding Louis Philippe's threats, it refused to expel Louis Bonaparte, whose only crime was to have used Switzerland as a base from which to conspire against Louis Philippe. In 1846, despite Louis Philippe's "warlike gestures", Switzerland ventured upon the Sonderbund war[168], for it refused to let itself be bullied by the peaceful King; in 1858 it was hardly prudish in its reaction to Louis Bonaparte's groping in the Vallée des Dappes.
"Louis Philippe," Vogt says himself, "had dragged out a miserable existence in Europe, snubbed by everybody, even by the lesser legitimate rulers, because he had not dared to conduct a strong foreign policy" (loc. cit., p. 31). However, "Imperial policy vis-à-vis Switzerland is without any doubt that of a powerful neighbour who knows that in the end he can enforce whatever he likes" (loc. cit., p. 37).
Therefore, Vogt concludes, with a logic worthy of Grandguillot, "from a purely Swiss point of view one can only rejoice heartily" (p. 39) because instead of "Louis Philippe who was snubbed by every-body" Switzerland has received a "powerful neighbour who knows that with respect to Switzerland he can do whatever he likes".
This prologue, which establishes the necessary mood, is followed by a German translation of the note of the Federal Council of March 14, 1859[br], and curiously enough Vogt is full of praise for this note in which the Federal Council referred to the treaties of 1815[169], though the same Vogt declares that it is "hypocrisy" to refer to these treaties. "Get along with your hypocrisy!" (loc. cit., p. 112.){*44}
Vogt now goes on to consider "from which side the first attack on Swiss neutrality will come" (loc. cit., p. 84) and proves, quite unnecessarily, that the French army, which had no need to conquer Piedmont this time, would march through neither the Simplon nor the Great St. Bernard. At the same time he discovers a non-existent land route "over the Mont Cenis, via Fenestrelle and through the Stura valley" (loc. cit., p. 84). He means the Dora valley. From France, then, there is no threat to Switzerland.
"But respect for Swiss neutrality on the part of Austria cannot be looked for with similar confidence, and various factors even suggest that in certain eventualities Austria is indeed prepared to violate it" (loc. cit., p. 85). "Of significance in this respect is the concentration of a military force in Bregenz and Feldkirch" (loc. cit., p. 86).
Here the thread which runs through the Studien and leads straight from Geneva to Paris becomes visible.
The Blue Book on The Affairs of Italy. January to May 1859 published by the Derby Cabinet says that "the concentration of an Austrian military force near Bregenz and Feldkirch" was a rumour assiduously cultivated by Bonapartist agents in Switzerland without a jot of factual evidence to support it (No. 174 of the Blue Book in question: letter from Captain Harris to Lord Malmesbury, Berne, March 24, 1859). In this connection Humboldt-Vogt also made the discovery that in Bregenz and Feldkirch
"one is in the immediate vicinity of the valley of the Rhine, which is the starting-point for three great Alpine passes with viable roads, viz., the Via Mala, the Splügen and the Saint Bernard, the latter leading to the Ticino, the first two to Lake Como" (loc. cit., p. 86).
In reality the Via Mala leads firstly over the Splügen, secondly over the Saint Bernard and thirdly nowhere else.
After all this Polonius chatter designed to direct the apprehensions of the Swiss from the Western to the Eastern frontier, "the well-rounded character" at last rolled on to its real task.
"Switzerland," Vogt announces, "is utterly in the right when it firmly rejects the obligation not to permit troop movements on this railway" (from Culoz to Aix and Chambéry) "and will confine itself, should the case arise, to make use of the neutralised territory only insofar as it is necessary for the defence of its own territory" (loc. cit., p. 89).
And he assures the Federal Council that "the whole of Switzerland will support the policy indicated in its note of March 14 to a man".
Vogt published his Studien at the end of March. It was not until April 24 that Louis Bonaparte used the above-mentioned railway for troop movements and he did not declare war until even later. Thus Vogt, who was privy to the details of the Bonapartist plan of war, knew very well "from which side the first attack on Swiss neutrality would come". His mission was explicitly to decoy Switzerland into condoning an initial violation of its neutrality, which would lead logically to the annexation of the neutralised territory of Savoy by the December Empire. Patting the Federal Council on the back, he attributes to the note of March 14 the meaning that it ought to have from the point of view of the Bonapartists. The Federal Council stated in its note that Switzer-land would fulfil its "mission" of neutrality as stipulated in the treaties, "faithfully and with complete impartiality". It goes on to quote an article of the treaties according to which "no troops belonging to any other power may pass through or be stationed there" (in the neutralised territory of Savoy). It does not mention at all that it would permit the French to use the railway which passes through the neutralised territory. Conditionally, as a "measure designed to secure and defend the territory of the Confederation", it reserves the right of the Confederation to a "military occupation" of the neutralised territory. The fact that Vogt deliberately and on instructions from above distorts the note of the Federal Council is not only evident from its own wording; it is corroborated also by the statement made in the House of Lords on April 23, 1860 by Lord Malmesbury, then British Foreign Secretary:
"When the French troops were about to march through Savoy into Sardinia" (more than a month after the Federal Council's note of March 14), "the Swiss Government, true to the neutrality upon which depends its independence, [...] at first objected that these troops had no right to pass through the neutralised territory."[bt]
And by what means did Louis Bonaparte and the Swiss party allied with him manage to allay the doubts of the Federal Council? Vogt, who was aware at the end of March 1859 that French troop trains would violate the neutralised territory at the end of April 1859, was naturally able to foresee by the end of March the euphemism which Louis Bonaparte would use at the end of April to palliate his act of violence. He casts doubt on whether the "head of the line from Culoz to Aix and Chambéry comes within the neutral territory" (loc. cit., p. 89) and shows that "the demarcation of neutral territory was not carried out with the purpose of cutting off communications between France and Chambéry", so that morally the railway in question does not come within the neutral territory.{*45}
Let us, on the other hand, listen to what Lord Malmesbury says about it:
"Subsequently, there being some question as to whether the line of railway did not avoid the neutralised portion of Savoy, the Swiss Government withdrew their objection, and allowed the troops of France to pass. I think that they were wrong in doing so[bu]. We thought the maintenance of the neutrality of such European consequence ... that we protested at the French Court against the passage of those troops to Sardinia on 28 April 1859."
This protest led to Palmerston accusing Malmesbury of "pro Austrian" sympathies, as he "had uselessly offended the French Government"[bv], just as Vogt in his "Magnum Opus" (p. 183) accuses Das Volk of
"doing everything in its power to embarrass Switzerland", on behalf of Austria, of course.... "Read the articles which Das Volk published about the question of neutrality and the passage of the French troops through Savoy if you wish to have tangible evidence of these views, which are fully shared by the allgemeine Zeitung"{*46}
The reader will now have "tangible evidence" that the entire section of Vogt's Studien that deals with Switzerland had no other purpose than to prepare the ground for the first violation of Swiss neutrality by his "man of destiny". It was the first step towards the annexation of Savoy and hence of French Switzerland. The fate of Switzerland depended on the vigour with which it opposed this first step, maintained its rights by availing itself of them at the decisive moment and raised the matter at European level at a time when the support of the English Government was assured and Louis Bonaparte, who was just launching into his localised war, would not venture to throw down the gauntlet. Once the English Government had become officially committed, it could not back out{*47}. Hence the mighty efforts of our "New Swiss, citizen of the Canton of Berne and member of the Council of States for Geneva" to distract attention by representing it as a right to be asserted by Switzerland and as a courageous gesture of defiance towards Austria to grant permission to the French troops to march through the neutralised territory. After all, he had saved Switzerland from Catiline-Cherval!
At the same time as Vogt reiterates and amplifies the denial put out in his original Dentu pamphlets with regard to ambitions on the Rhine frontier, he avoids making any reference, even the most tentative, to the renunciation of Savoy and Nice contained in the same pamphlets. Even the names of Savoy and Nice do not appear at all in his Studien. Now, as early as February 1859, Savoyard delegates in Turin had protested against the Italian war on the grounds that the annexation of Savoy by the December Empire would be the price of purchasing the French alliance. This protest had never reached Vogt's ears. Nor had the terms of the agreement reached at Plombières by Louis Bonaparte and Cavour in August 1858 (published in one of the first issues of Das Volk[bw] even though they were well known in émigré circles. In the issue of Pensiero ed Azione already cited (May 2-16, 1859), Mazzini had predicted, literally:
"But if Austria were to be defeated right at the start of the war and if it were to revive the proposals which it had put to the English Government for some time in 1848, namely the surrender of Lombardy on condition that it could keep Venice, then peace would be accepted. The only conditions to be implemented would be the enlargement of the Sardinian monarchy and the cession of Savoy and Nice to France."{*48}
Mazzini published his prediction in the middle of May 1859 and the second edition of Vogt's Studien appeared in the middle of June 1859, but it did not contain a single word about Savoy and Nice. Even before Mazzini and the Savoyard delegates, as early as October 1858, a month and a half after the conspiracy at Plombières, the President of the Swiss Confederation informed the English Ministry in a dispatch that
"he had reason to believe that a conditional agreement about the cession of Savoy had been reached between Louis Bonaparte and Cavour".{*49}
In the beginning of June 1859 the President of the Confederation again informed the English chargé d'affaires in Berne of his fears about the imminent annexation of Savoy and Nice{*50}. Vogt, the professional saviour of Switzerland, never received the least intimation either of the protest of the Savoyard delegates or of Mazzini's revelations, or of the anxieties of the Swiss Federal Government which persisted from October 1858 to June 1859. Indeed, as we shall see later, even in March 1860, when the secret of Plombières was circulating in all the streets of Europe, it took care to keep out of Vogt's way. "Silence is the virtue of slaves"[bx], the motto of the Studien, refers presumably to their failure to mention the threatened annexation. They do, however, contain one oblique reference to it:
"But even assuming," Vogt says, "even assuming that the improbable were to take place and that territory in Italy, whether to the south or the north, were to be the prize for victory.... Undoubtedly, from an extremely narrow German point of view ... one might fervently wish that the French wolf will get his teeth into an Italian bone" (loc. cit., pp. 129, 130).
Italian territory to the north of course meant Nice and Savoy. After the New Swiss, citizen of the Canton of Berne and member of the Council of States for Geneva has called on Switzerland "from a purely Swiss point of view" (loc. cit., p. 39) to "rejoice with all its heart" at having Louis Bonaparte for a neighbour, it suddenly occurs to the fugitive Regent of the Empire that "undoubtedly, from an extremely narrow German point of view" he would "fervently wish" that the French wolf "will get his teeth into the bone" of Nice and Savoy, and hence, of French Switzerland.{*51}
Some time ago a pamphlet appeared in Paris with the title Napoléon III, not Napoléon III et l'Italie, or Napoléon III et la question Roumaine, or Napoléon III et la Prusse[by], but quite simply Napoleon III, Napoleon III without any qualification. Couched entirely in hyperboles, it is a panegyric on Napoleon III written by Napoleon III. The pamphlet was translated by an Arab called Dâ-Dâ into his native tongue[bz]. In the Afterword the intoxicated Dâ-Dâ is unable to contain his enthusiasm any longer and overflows into radiant verse. In the Foreword, however, he is still sober enough to confess that his pamphlet had been published at the behest of the local authorities in Algiers and was destined for distribution among the indigenous Arab tribes beyond the Algerian frontiers so that "the idea of unity and nationhood under a common leader might take hold of their imagination". This common leader who would lay the foundations for "the unity of the Arab nation" is, as Dâ-Dâ makes clear, none other than "the sun of beneficence, the glory of the firmament,—the Emperor Napoleon III". Vogt, although his writing is unrhymed[ca], is none other than the German Dâ-Dâ.
That Dâ-Dâ Vogt should employ the word "studies" to describe his German paraphrase of the "Moniteur" articles, Dentu pamphlets and revised maps of Europe inspired by the sun of beneficence and the glory of the firmament, is the best joke that has ever occurred to him in the course of his hilarious career. It even surpasses his Regency of the Empire, the Imperial Wine-Bibbing and his invention of the Imperial passports. The fact that the "educated" German citizen was able to accept in good faith "studies" in which Austria fought against Britain for the possession of Egypt, Austria and Prussia were waging their struggle on non-European terrain, Napoleon I compelled the Bank of England to weigh its gold instead of counting it, Greeks and Fanariots were racially distinct, a land route went from Mont Cenis through Fenestrelle via the Stura valley, etc.,—all this bears witness to the high pressure which a ten-year-long reaction had exerted on his liberal skull.
Curiously enough, the same liberal German sluggard who had applauded the crude exaggerations of Vogt's German version of the original Decembrist pamphlets, leaped up in fury from his sleep when Edmond About produced a prudently restrained French retranslation of Dâ-Dâ's compilation with the title La Prusse en 1860 (originally Napoléon III et la Prusse). This chattering magpie of Bonapartism, incidentally, has a dash of waggishness. As evidence of Bonapartist sympathies for Germany, About points out, e.g., that the December Empire no more distinguishes between Dâ-Dâ Vogt and Humboldt than it does between Lazarillo Hackländer and Goethe[cb]. At any rate his bracketing of Vogt with Hackländer suggests a more profound study on the part of About than is to be found anywhere in the Studien of our German Dâ-Dâ.
Original notes
{*27}
"De quel droit, d'ailleurs, be gouvernement autrichien viendrait-il invoquer l'inviolabilité de ceux (traités) de 1815, lui qui les a violés en confisquant Cracovie, dont ces traités garantissaient l'indépendance?"
{*28}
Palmerston, who fooled Europe with his ridiculous protest, had worked unceasingly in the intrigue against Cracow ever since 1831. (See my pamphlet Palmerston and Poland, London, 1853.) [See present edition, Vol. 12.]
{*29}
"La Russie est de la famille des Slaves, race d'élite... On s'est étonné de l'accord chevaleresque survenu soudainement entre la France et la Russie. Rien de plus naturel: accord des principes, unanimité du but ... soumission à la loi de l'alliance sainte des gouvernements et des peuples, non pour leurrer et contraindre, mais pour guider et aider la marche divine des nations. De la cordialité la plus parfaite sont sortis les plus heureux effets: chemins de fer, affranchissement des serfs, stations commerciales dans la Méditerranée, etc." La foi des traités, etc., Paris, 1859, p. 33.
{*30}
According to the Polish Colonel Lapinski, who fought against the Russians in the Hungarian revolutionary army up to the fall of Komorn[aa], and later in Circassia, "it was the Hungarians' misfortune that they did not know the Russians" (Theophil Lapinski, Feldzug der Ungarischen Hauptarmee im Jahre 1849, Hamburg, 1850, p. 216). "The Viennese Cabinet was completely in the hands of the Russians ... it was on their advice that the leaders were murdered ... while the Russians did everything to gain the sympathies of all, Austria was ordered by them to make itself even more hated than ever in the past" (loc. cit., pp. 188, 189).
{*31}
General Moritz Perczel, famous for his part in the Hungarian revolutionary war, withdrew from the group of Hungarian officers around Kossuth in Turin while the Italian campaign was still in progress. In a public declaration he explained the reasons for his resignation—on the one hand, there was Kossuth, who merely acted as a Bonapartist bogyman, on the other hand, there was the prospect of a Russian future for Hungary. In his reply (from St. Hélier, April 19, 1860) to a letter from me in which I inquired for further information about his declaration, he said inter alia: "I shall never consent to act as a tool to rescue Hungary from the claws of the Double Eagle merely to force it into the deadly embrace of the Northern Bear."
{*32}
Mr. Kossuthwas never in any doubt about the correctness of the views set forth in the present work. He knew that Austria can maltreat Hungary, but not annihilate it. "The Emperor Joseph II," he writes to the Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha from Kütahya, February 15, 1851, "the only man of genius produced by the Habsburg family, exhausted the extraordinary resources of his rare intellect and of the then still common notions of the power of his House, in the attempt to Germanise Hungary, and integrate it within the state as a whole. But Hungary emerged from the struggle with renewed vigour.... In the last revolution Austria only raised itself from the dust in order to collapse once again at the feet of the Tsar, its master, who never gives his aid but only sells it. And Austria had to pay for this aid dearly" (Correspondence of Kossuth, p. 33). On the other hand, he maintains in the same letter that only Hungary and Turkey together can frustrate the Pan-Slavist intrigues of Russia. He writes to David Urquhart from Kütahya, January 17, 1851: "We must crush Russia, my dear Sir! and, headed by you, we will! I have not only the resolution of will, but also that of hope! and this is no vain word, my dear Sir! no sanguine fascination; it is the word of a man, who is wont duly to calculate every chance: of a man though very weak in faculties, not to be shaken in perseverance and resolution, etc." (loc. cit., p. 39.)[ab]
{*33}
It is in fact the industrial prosperity that has sustained the regime of Louis Bonaparte for so long. As the result of the discoveries in Australia and California and their effects on the world market, French export trade had more than doubled, a hitherto unprecedented advance. And in general the failure of the February revolution may be attributed in the last analysis to California and Australia.
{*34}
Lord Chelsea, who deputised for Lord Cowley in Paris during the latter's absence, writes: "The official disavowal" (in the Moniteur of March 5, 1859) "of all warlike intentions on the part of the Emperor, this Imperial message of peace[aw], has been received by all classes of Paris with feelings of what may be called exultation" (No. 88 of the Blue Book On the Affairs of Italy. January to May 1859). [Marx quotes in English and gives the German translation in brackets.]
{*35}
N. B. In his Studien he echoes the Moniteur and the original Dentu pamphlets to the effect that "it is a peculiar whim of fate which compels this man" (Louis Bonaparte) "to place himself in the forefront as the liberator of the subject nationalities" (p. 35), that one "must agree to assist this policy as long as it keeps within the framework of the liberation of subject nationalities" and must wait "until this liberation has been brought about by this man of destiny" (p. 36). In his Programme for the democrats, on the other hand, he says: "We can and must warn against such a helper" ("Magnum Opus", Documents, p. 34).
{*36}
Incidentally, "Napoléon le Petit" also copied the catchword "liberation of subject nationalities" from the real Napoleon. In May 1809, for example, Napoleon issued a proclamation from Schönbrunn to the Hungarians, in which he says inter alia: "Hungarians! The moment is come to recover your independence.... I ask nothing of you. I only desire to see you a free and independent nation. Your union with Austria has been your bane, etc."[ax] On May 16, 1797 Bonaparte concluded a treaty with the Republic of Venice whose first article states: "In future peace and understanding shall govern relations between France and the Venetian Republic." He revealed his intentions in concluding this peace three days later in a secret dispatch to the French Directory which opens with these words: "You receive herewith the treaty that I have concluded with the Republic of Venice and under the terms of which General Baraguay d'Hilliers has occupied the city with 5,000-6,000 men. In making this peace I had a number of aims in mind." As the final aim he mentions: "To silence all the talk in Europe since it will now seem as if our occupation of Venice is merely a temporary operation which the Venetians themselves urgently requested." Two days later, on May 26, Bonaparte wrote to the Venice municipality: "The treaty concluded in Milan can be signed by the municipality in the meantime—the secret articles by three of its members. I shall always do everything in my power to provide you with proofs of my desire to consolidate your liberties and to see this unfortunate Italy at last occupy the place it deserves on the world stage, free and independent of all alien rule." Afew days later he wrote to General Baraguay d'Hilliers[ay]: "On receipt of this letter present yourself to the Provisional Government of Venice and point out to them that in accordance with the principles which now unite the Republics of France and Venice, and with the immediate protection granted to Venice by the French Republic, it is essential to place its sea power on a footing that will inspire respect. On this pretext you will take possession of everything, while at the same time you will do all in your power to remain on good terms with the Venetians and to recruit all the sailors of the Republic to our service—while constantly speaking in the name of Venice. In brief, you must manage matters so that you can transport the entire stock of ships and naval supplies in the harbour of Venice to Toulon. By virtue of a secret article in the treaty, the Venetians are obliged to provide the French Republic with naval supplies to the value of 3 million for the Toulon navy, but it is my intention to take possession on behalf of the French Republic of all the Venetian ships and all their naval supplies for the benefit of Toulon" (see Correspondance secrète et confidentielle de Napoléon, 7 vols., Paris, 1817). These commands were carried out to the letter; and as soon as Venice had been plundered of all its naval and war supplies, Napoleon, without the slightest hesitation, handed over his new ally, the liberated Republic of Venice, whom he had solemnly sworn to defend at whatever the risk, to the despotic yoke of Austria.
{*37}
"La Prusse est l'espoir de l'Allemagne ... l'esprit allemand a son centre a Berlin ... l'esprit allemand cherche l'unité de son corps, la vérité de la Confédération. C'est par cet entraînement que s'élève la Prusse... D'où vient-il que, lorsque l'Italie réclame l'intégrité, l'unité nationale, ce que l'Allemagne désire, celle-ci favorise l'Autriche, négation vivante de toute nationalité?... C'est que la Prusse n'est pas encore la tête; c'est que la tête est l'Autriche qui, pesant avec ces forces hétérogènes sur l'Allemagne politique, l'entraîne à des contradictions avec l'Allemagne véritable" (La foi des traités, etc., p. 34). ["Prussia is the hope of Germany ... the German spirit has its centre in Berlin ... the German spirit seeks the unity of its body, a real Confederation. It is this desire that induces Prussia to rise.... How does it come about that while Italy demands national integrity and unity, which Germany too longs for, the latter can still favour Austria, the living negation of all nationality?... The reason is that Prussia is not yet in command; the reason is that Austria is still in command and weighing with its heterogeneous forces on the political entity called Germany, and brings it into contradiction with the real Germany."]
{*38}
"Le Rhin!... Qu'est-ce que le Rhin? Une frontière. Les frontières seront bientôt des anachronismes" (loc. cit., p. 36).
{*39}
"La France stipule-t-elle des dédommagements pour les sacrifices qu'elle est prête à faire dans un but d'équité, de juste influence, et dans l'intérêt de l'équilibre européen? Demande-t-elle la rive gauche du Rhin? Élève-t-elle même des prétentions sur la Savoie et sur le Comté de Nice?" (La vraie question, etc., p. 13.)
{*40}
A few days after the conclusion of peace in Villafranca the Prager Zeitung printed the following official declaration: "This insistence" (Prussia's insistence on taking over the supreme command of the federal army under federal control) "provides clear proof that Prussia is striving for hegemony in Germany and thus for the expulsion of Austria from Germany. Since faithless Lombardy is infinitely less valuable than the maintenance of our position in Germany, we sacrificed it so as to achieve peace which had become an urgent necessity for us in view of Prussia's attitude."[bo]
{*41}
Galignani's Messenger of Paris, which only carries leading articles by way of exception and then in response to special official request, states in its issue of July 22, 1859 [Marx quotes in English]: "To give another province to the King of Piedmont, it would not only have been necessary to support a war against two-thirds of Europe, but German unity would have been realised, and a work thus accomplished, which ever since the time of Francis I it has been the object of French policy to prevent." ["Latest Intelligence", Galignani's Messenger, No. 13876, July 22, 1859.]
{*42}
Plon-Plon's special organ, L'Opinion nationale, said in an article of July 5, 1860: "The day of demanding the return of territories by force is past. The Emperor has too much tact and too accurate a feeling for the trend of public opinion for that.... But is Prussia obliged by oath never to think of German unity? Can it guarantee never to cast a covetous eye on Hanover, Saxony, Brunswick, Hesse, Oldenburg and Mecklenburg? Today the rulers embrace each other and their sincerity is certainly genuine. But who knows what the people will demand of them in a few years' time? And if, under the pressure of public opinion, Germany is unified would it be fair, would it be reasonable not to allow France to expand its territory at the expense of its neighbours?... If the Germans were to think it right and proper to alter their hitherto existing political constitution and to put a strong centralised government in the place of the impotent Confederation, then we cannot guarantee that France would not think it right and proper to demand compensation and assurances from Germany."
{*43}
The Imperial Pecksniff excels himself in the Dentu pamphlet La politique anglaise, Paris, 1860. According to this a few million Germans and Belgians have to be purloined in order to improve the moral constitution of France, whose southerly element requires a greater admixture of northern solidity. Having argued that for political and military reasons France requires the frontiers given it by nature itself, it continues: "A second factor makes such an annexation" (of the Rhine provinces and Belgium) "necessary. France desires and demands a rational freedom (uhe sage liberté) and the southerly element plays an important role in its public institutions. This southerly element has many wonderful qualities ... but it lacks stamina and firmness. It stands in need of patient steadfastness, the cold, unbending resolution of our northern brothers. The frontiers destined for us by providence, therefore, are as essential to our freedom as to our independence."
{*44}
In reality it was not the "treaties" which had protected Swiss neutrality, but the fact that the interests of the various neighbouring powers cancelled each other out. "The Swiss feel," wrote Captain Harris, the English chargé d'affaires in Berne, in a letter to Lord John Russell after an interview with Frey-Hérosé, the Federal President, "that ... recent events have fundamentally altered the balance of power among Switzerland's neighbours, as ever since the Neuchâtel affair, Prussia has been indifferent, Austria paralysed, and France incomparably more powerful than before." [bs]
{*45}
The fact that the railway does come within the neutralised territory was explicitly conceded in a note addressed to Captain Harris on November 18, 1859 by Stämpfli, the President of the Confederation, and Schiess, the Chancellor. It says there: "Il pourrait être aussi question d'un autre point qui concerne la neutralité de la Savoie ... nous voulons parler du chemin de fer dernièrement construit de Culoz à Chambéry, à l'égard duquel on peut se demander s'il devait continuer à faire partie du territoire neutralisé." ["A further question could arise concerning the neutrality of Savoy ... we refer to the railway recently constructed between Culoz and Chambéry, regarding which it may be questionable whether it can continue to form part of the neutralised territory."]
{*46}
Vogt accuses Das Volk in particular of having attempted "to bring about a conflict between the Swiss Confederation and its more powerful neighbours". When the annexation of Savoy actually took place, the Eidgenössische Zeitung, a Bonapartist paper, criticised the official journal, Der Bund, because "its views on Savoy and France were a feeble echo of the policy which had aimed at involving Switzerland in the conflicts of Europe ever since 1848" (see Der Bund, Berne, No. 71, March 12, 1860). It is evident that the Bonapartist scribes receive the phrases ready-made.
{*47}
"Had those provinces (Chablais and Faucigny) been occupied by the Federal troops ... there can be little doubt they would have remained in them up to this moment" (L. Oliphant, Universal Suffrage and Napoleon III, London, 1860, p. 20).
{*48}
"Ma dove l'Austria, disfatta in sulle prime, affacciasse proposte eguali, a quelle ch'essa affacciò per breve tempo nel 1848 al Governo Inglese, abbandono della Lombardia a patto di serbare il Veneto, la pace ... sarebbe accettata: le sole condizioni dell'ingrandimento della Monarchia Sarda e della cessione della Savoia e di Nizza alla Francia, riceverebbero esecuzione."
{*49}
In the speech mentioned above, Lord Malmesbury said: "There is a despatch now in the Foreign Office, dated as long back as October 1858 ... from the President of the Swiss Republic, stating that he had reason to believe that some conditional agreement had been come to between the Emperor of the French and Count Cavour with respect to Savoy."
{*50}
See No. I of the first Blue Book On the Proposed Annexation of Savoy, etc.
{*51}
The wish which, "from an extremely narrow German point of view", Vogt has to force Italian "bones" between the jaws of the "French wolf" to give the wolf indigestion, will undoubtedly be fulfilled in increasing measure. The semi-official Revue contemporaine—Vogt's special patron, incidentally—on October 15, 1860 carries a report from Turin of October 8 which states inter alia: "Genoa and Sardinia would be the legitimate prize for a new (French) war on behalf of Italian unity. I may add that the possession of Genoa would be the necessary instrument of our influence on the peninsula and the only effective means of preventing the sea power whose establishment we had aided from defecting from an alliance with us at a later date in order to enter into league with someone else. Only with our knee on Italy's throat can we be sure of its loyalty. Austria, a good judge on this point, knows this very well. We shall apply pressure less crudely, but more effectively than Austria,—that is the only difference." [Quoted from "La situation de l'Italie, Turin, le 8 octobre 1860".]
Notes
[a]
Who benefits?—Ed.
[b]
The quotation actually begins with the words "would do everything".—Ed.
[c]
"Pantie non officielle. Paris, le 14 mars", Le Moniteur universel, No. 74, March 15, 1859.—Ed.
[d]
Le Moniteur universel, No. 100, April 10, 1859.—Ed.
[e]
Cowley to Malmesbury, April 10, 1859 (extract). Here and below Marx uses the English title of the Blue Book.—Ed.
[f]
In this passage the italics are Marx's. The punctuation is slightly altered.—Ed.
[g]
Marx uses the English phrase and gives the German translation in brackets.—Ed.
[h]
"Be on your guard against him, Romans!" (Horace, Satires, Book I, Satire 4, paraphrased.)—Ed.
[i]
The Times, No. 20235, July 23, 1849.—Ed.
[j]
A description of the map was published in The Times, Nos. 23228 and 23229, February 12 and 14, 1859.—Ed.
[k]
The italics are Marx's except for the words "one day"; the punctuation is slightly altered.—Ed.
[l]
See J. Turquan, Une illuminée au XIXe siècle (la baronne de Krüdener), 1766-1824, Paris, p. 194.—Ed.
[m]
Marx's italics and bold type.—Ed.
[n]
The words "only government" were italicised by Vogt. The other italics in this passage are Marx's.—Ed.
[o]
Н. М. Карамзинъ, Исmорія Госdарсmва Россіŭскаzо, T. XI, Спб, стр. 23(N. M. Karamzin, The History of the Russian State, Vol. XI, St. Petersburg, 1824, p. 23).—Ed.
[p]
Nicholas I.—Ed.
[q]
"Zur Signatur der russischen Politik", Preussisches Wochenblatt, No. 23, June 9; 1855. Marx gives a summary rather than the exact words of the passage in question.—Ed.
[r]
The source used by Marx has not been established. The text of the proclamation can be found in D'Angeberg's Recueil des traités, conventions et actes diplomatiques concernant la Pologne.—Ed.
[s]
Greek of the Byzantine Empire; figuratively, confidence-trickster. See Emmanuel Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène..., t. 2, Paris, 1824, p. 407, and Francois René Chateaubriand, Congrès de Vèrone, Vol. I, Paris, 1838, pp. 186-87.—Ed.
[t]
James Monroe.—Ed.
[u]
Here and below Marx probably drew on the item "Express from Paris", The Times, No. 18458, November 20, 1843. The italics are Marx's.—Ed.
[v]
In the original Marx gives the word "fearful" in brackets after its German equivalent.—Ed.
[w]
Gregory XVI.—Ed.
[x]
"The Papacy and the Great Powers", The Tablet, No. 205, April 13, 1844. Marx gives a summary rather than the exact words of the passage in question. He may have used some other source too.—Ed.
[y]
Carl Vogt, Studien..., Einleitung, S. ix.—Ed.
[z]
Marx gives the English title and supplies the German translation in brackets.—Ed.
[aa]
Komárom.—Ed.
[ab]
The letter was quoted in the article "Data by Which to Judge of Kossuth", The Free Press, No. 5, May 27, 1859. Marx quotes the original English text and gives the German translation in brackets.—Ed.
[ac]
A German mile is equal to 7,420 metres.—Ed.
[ad]
Modern name: Cheb.—Ed.
[ae]
Now the Vltava and the Ohře.—Ed.
[af]
Modern names: Stölpchen (Stölpgen), Jastrow and Colmar.—Ed.
[ag]
"Long live Alexander,
Long live the king of kings;
He gives us laws and never
Asks for the least of things."
(Le Peuple de 1850, No. 26, September 27).—Ed.
[ah]
From Mazzini's manifesto entitled "La Guerra". Marx translated it into English and published it with a brief introduction in the New-York Daily Tribune (see present edition, Vol. 16, p. 357).—Ed.
[ai]
"I know of a king, he is called Lord Ludwig who gladly serves God" i.e. nationalities).—Ed.
[aj]
Vogt in his Studien has Landvolk (rural people).—Ed.
[ak]
"Everything he does, how divinely it becomes him! What a perfect body he has! How evenly those royal legs move together!" (Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Isolde.) Marx quotes according to an entry he made in his notebook entitled Vogtiana (1860).—Ed.
[al]
Up his sleeve.—Ed.
[am]
The italics and bold type are Marx's.—Ed.
[an]
Marx uses the English word.—Ed.
[ao]
This refers to Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of Italy.—Ed.
[ap]
Marx's italics.—Ed.
[aq]
An allusion to N. L. Bonaparte's book Des idées napoléoniennes, Paris, 1839.—Ed.
[ar]
"Trained dogs".—Ed.
[as]
This refers to Morny's speech at the opening of the Legislative Assembly on February 8, 1859, Le Moniteur universel, No. 40, February 9, 1859.—Ed.
[at]
"Partie non officielle. Paris, be 4 mars", Le Moniteur universel, No. 64, March 5, 1859.—Ed.
[au]
"To study a question is not to create it."—Ed.
[av]
Pis aller means "last resort". The Economist has "as against the alternative of anarchy".—Ed.
[aw]
"Partie non officielle. Paris, le 4 mars", Le Moniteur universel, No. 64, March 5, 1859.—Ed.
[ax]
"Proclamation Addressed to the Hungarians by Napoleon I. From Schoenbrunn, in May, 1809" (see Bartholomäus Szemere, Hungary, from 1848 to 1860, London, 1860).—Ed.
[ay]
Napoléon Bonaparte, "Au chef de division commandant la marine française dans le golfe Adriatique. Montebello, le 25 prairial, an 5 (13 juin 1797)", Correspondance inédite..., v. 5, livre 1, pp. 304-05. Baraguay d'Hilliers is named by mistake here.—Ed.
[az]
L'Expédition de Crimée jusqu'à la prise de Sébastopol, t. I-II, Paris, 1857.—Ed.
[ba]
"To pay for its own fame".—Ed.
[bb]
Marx uses the word Pickelhäring, the name for the buffoon in Old German comedies.—Ed.
[bc]
Kossuth actually gave the lecture on November 19 (Kossuth, L'Europe, l'Autriche et la Hongrie, Bruxelles, 1859, pp. 54-55).—Ed.
[bd]
Marx gives this sentence in English in brackets after its German equivalent.—Ed.
[be]
Medieval title bestowed on the German Emperor.—Ed.
[bg]
The Preface to the first edition of the Studien was dated "March 31, 1859", and the Afterword to the second edition, "June 6, 1859".—Ed.
[bh]
William, Prince of Prussia.—Ed.
[bi]
Vogt's italics.—Ed.
[bj]
i.e. the supporters of Austria.—Ed.
[bk]
Jérôme Bonaparte.—Ed.
[bl]
For the King of Prussia, i.e. for nothing.—Ed.
[bm]
The Times, No. 23671, July 13, 1860.—Ed.
[bn]
Marx uses the English expression.—Ed.
[bo]
"Politische Übersicht, Wien, 13. Juli", Prager Zeitung, No. 165, July 15, 1859.—Ed.
[bp]
Marx gives the English words "services" and "rendered" in brackets after their German equivalents.—Ed.
[bq]
In early 1858 Napoleon III demanded that the Swiss Government should extradite the political refugees accused of being implicated in the Orsini conspiracy.—Ed.
[br]
Carl Vogt, Studien..., S. 80-83.—Ed.
[bs]
Harris to Russell, received January 25, Correspondence Respecting the Proposed Annexation of Savoy and Nice to France..., London, 1860, p. 12.—Ed.
[bt]
Marx gives the quoted passage in English in a footnote.—Ed.
[bu]
Marx gives this sentence in English in brackets after its German equivalent.—Ed.
[bv]
Marx gives this phrase in English in brackets after its German equivalent.—Ed.
[bw]
"Mazzini und Monsieur Bonaparte", Das Volk, No. 5, June 4, 1859.—Ed.
[bx]
Paraphrased dictum from Heinrich Heine's Reisebilder, Zweiter Teil, Italien. III. Die Stadt Lucca, Kap. XVII.—Ed.
[by]
Marx refers to the following pamphlets: Arthur La Guéronnière, Napoléon III, portrait politique, Paris, 1853 and L'empereur Napoléon III et l'Italie, Paris, 1859; A. Lévy, L'empereur Napoléon III et les principautés roumaines, Paris, 1858; and Edmond About, La Prusse en 1860, Paris, 1860.—Ed.
[bz]
La Guéronnière, Portrait politique de l'empereur Napoléon III, trad. en arabe par M. Rochaid Dandah, Paris, 1860.—Ed.
[ca]
Marx puns on the word ungereimt, which means "unrhymed" and also "without rhyme or reason".—Ed.
[cb]
Edmond About. La Prusse en 1860, Paris, 1860, p. 6.—Ed.
[119]
Sine studio means here "without favour". It is part of the phrase "sine ira et studio" ("without anger and prejudice") with which Tacitus declared his intention to write an unbiased history (Annales, Liber primus, I). Marx's use of the phrase with reference to Vogt's Studien is clearly ironic.
[120]
This refers to the series of pro-Bonapartist pamphlets put out by the Dentu publishing house in Paris in 1859 and 1860.
[121]
Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin—a theatre company in Paris that catered to low tastes during the Second Empire.
[122]
The Seven Years' War (1756-63)—a European war in which England and Prussia fought against the coalition of Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden. In 1756-57, the Prussian troops of Frederick II won a number of victories over the Austrian and French armies; however, the success of the Russian forces in Prussia (1757-60) put Frederick II in a critical position, nullifying the results of his victories. The war ended with France having to cede some of her colonies (including Canada and almost all of her possessions in the East Indies) to Britain, while Prussia, Austria and Saxony had to recognise the pre-war frontiers.
[123]
The Treaty of Basle was concluded separately by the French Republic and Prussia, a member of the European Coalition, on April 5, 1795. Prussia was forced to sign it in view of the successes of the French army and the growing differences between the coalition members, above all between Prussia and Austria. Its conclusion marked the beginning of the coalition's disintegration. On July 22, 1795 Spain also signed a separate peace treaty with France in Basle.
[124]
The treaty was designed to prevent the seizure by Prussia of the King of Saxony's possessions and the annexation by Russia of all the lands of the former Duchy of Warsaw.
[125]
The agreement, concluded in October 1821 during King George IV's visit to Hanover, was directed against Russia's policy on the Greek question.
[126]
On July 8, 1859 the emperors of France and Austria held a separate meeting—without the King of Piedmont, France's ally in the war against Austria (see Note 13↑)—in Villafranca, at which they reached an agreement on an armistice. The meeting was held on the initiative of Napoleon III, who feared that the protracted war might give a fresh impulse to the revolutionary and national liberation movement in Italy and other European states. On July 11 France and Austria signed a preliminary peace treaty under which Austria was to cede to France its rights to Lombardy and France was to transfer this territory to Piedmont. Venetia was to remain under Austrian supremacy (despite the terms of the Plombières agreement, see Note 159↑) and the princes of the Central Italian states were to be restored to their thrones. A confederation of Italian states was to be formed under the honorary chairmanship of the Pope.
The Villafranca agreements formed the basis of the peace treaty France, Austria and Piedmont concluded in Zurich on November 10, 1859 (see Marx's articles "What Has Italy Gained?", "The Peace" and "The Treaty of Villafranca" in Vol. 16 of the present edition and Engels' letter to Marx of July 14, 1859, present edition, Vol. 40).
[127]
This refers to the peace treaty concluded by the Habsburgs and representatives of the Hungarian nobility at Szatmar, Hungary, in April 1711, following the defeat of the national liberation movement in Hungary. Under the peace treaty, Hungary became part of the Habsburg Empire. During the liberation war in Hungary British diplomacy sought to secure an early termination of the hostilities and preserve the integrity of the Habsburg Empire, Britain's ally in the War of the Spanish Succession.
[128]
The reference is to the London Convention of July 15, 1840 between Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia on supporting the Turkish Sultan against the Egyptian ruler Mehemet Ali. France, which supported Mehemet Ali, did not participate. The threat of an anti-French coalition made France withdraw her support for the Egyptian ruler.
[129]
Under a treaty concluded in 1816 by Britain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (the Kingdom of Naples) the latter undertook not to grant commercial privileges to third countries prejudicial to Britain's interests. In 1838 the King. of Naples granted a French company the monopoly right to mine sulphur in Sicily, which evoked a sharp protest from Britain. To make the King of Naples rescind his decision the British Government in 1840 ordered its navy in the Mediterranean to open hostilities. Naples was forced to comply with Britain's demands.
[130]
In 1797 the British Government issued a special Bank Restriction Act making banknotes legal tender and suspending the payment of gold for them. To all intents and purposes convertibility was not reintroduced until 1821. The return to convertibility was made possible by a law passed in 1819.
[131]
In August 1858 Russia and Piedmont concluded an agreement granting the Russian Steamship and Trading Company the temporary right to use the eastern part of the Villafranca harbour, near Nice, for mooring, refuelling and repairing its ships.
In 1853 Prussia bought from the Duchy of Oldenburg a strip of the shore in the Jade Bay to set up a naval base there. It was built between 1855 and 1869 and named Wilhelmshaven.
[132]
This refers to the repercussions of the uprising in the free city of Cracow (the Cracow Republic), which, by decision of the Congress of Vienna, had been placed under the joint control of Austria, Prussia and Russia. On February 22, 1846 the insurgents seized power in Cracow, established a National Government and issued a manifesto abolishing feudal services. The uprising was suppressed at the beginning of March. In November 1846 Austria, Prussia and Russia signed a treaty incorporating Cracow into the Austrian Empire.
[133]
This refers to the decree of. November 20 (8), 1847, signed by Nicholas I, allowing serfs to buy themselves off, together with their land, when their landlords' estates were put under distraint. (For details we Marx's article "The Emancipation Question", present edition, Vol. 16.)
[134]
To strengthen its influence in the Balkans, Russia supported the national liberation movement of the Balkan peoples against Turkish domination. Together with France, which likewise sought to consolidate its influence in the area, Russia backed the striving of Moldavia and Wallachia to unite and form a Romanian state. With French and Russian support Colonel Alexandru Cuza was elected hospodar (ruler) of Moldavia in January 1859 and of Wallachia in early February 1859. A united Romanian state was set up in 1862.
[135]
The memorandum was printed in the Preussisches Wochenblatt zur Besprechung politischer Tagesfragen, Nos. 23, 24 and 25 of June 9, 16 and 23, 1855. The source of its origin was not indicated. On July 13, 1859 it was reprinted in The Free Press under the heading "Memoir on Russia, for the Instruction of the Present Emperor. Drawn up by the Cabinet in 1837". Marx used the document in one of his reports for the New-York Daily Tribune (see present edition, Vol. 16). The memorandum attracted his attention in connection with the aggravation of the struggle over the question of German and Italian unification and the fight against Bonapartism. In a letter to Engels of July 19, 1859 Marx wrote -that he intended to sum up Russia's role in this tragicomedy and at the same time expose Bonaparte's intrigues. After familiarising themselves with this document Marx and Engels expressed doubts about the authenticity of certain passages (see Engels' letter to Marx of June 18, 1859 and Marx's letter to Engels of July 19, 1859, present edition, Vol. 40).
Bismarck in his reminiscences (Gedanken und Erinnerungen von Otto Fürst von Bismarck, Stuttgart, 1898, Bd. 1, S. 111-12) says that the memorandum was a falsification.
[136]
The Congress of Nemirov—the peace talks held by Russia, Austria and Turkey in the Ukrainian town of Nemirov between August and November 1737. The congress was convened on Turkey's initiative during the Russo-Turkish war of 1735-39, which Austria entered, on the side of Russia, in 1737. The peace. terms put forward by Russia called, among other things, for granting Moldavia and Wallachia the status of independent principalities under Russian protection. Turkey declared most of the terms unacceptable and resumed hostilities.
The Congress of Focşani was held at the Romanian town of Focşani in July and August 1772 with a view to ending the Russo-Turkish war started by Turkey in 1768. The Russian delegation proposed, in particular, that Wallachia and Moldavia should be granted independence under the joint protection of the European powers. Turkey rejected Russia's proposals. No agreement was reached and the hostilities were resumed.
[137]
The Peace of Bucharest, concluded on May 28 (16), 1812, put an end to the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-12. Under its terms, Russia got Bessarabia and certain areas in Transcaucasia. Turkey was to grant internal autonomy to Serbia and confirm its earlier agreements with Russia extending a measure of autonomy to Moldavia and Wallachia.
[138]
Règlement organique (1831-32)—constitutional acts laying down the socio-political system of the Danubian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia) after the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29. The Règlement, based on a draft framed by P. D. Kiselev, head of the Russian administration, was adopted by an assembly of boyars and clergymen. Legislative power in each of the Principalities was vested in an assembly elected by the big landowners. Executive power was wielded by the hospodars, rulers elected for life by representatives of the landowners, the clergy and the towns. The Règlement envisaged a number of bourgeois reforms: abolition of internal customs duties, introduction of free trade, and the right of peasants to move from one owner to another. However, in view of the preservation of serfdom and concentration of political power in the hands of the big landowners and boyars, the progressive forces in the Principalities regarded the Règlement as a symbol of feudal stagnation. It was repealed during the 1848 revolution.
[139]
The Hetairia (full name: Philike Hetairia) was a Greek secret organisation founded in Odessa in 1814. It moved its headquarters to Constantinople in 1818 and soon won,_ a nation-wide following. In 1821 the Hetairia prepared a national liberation prising in Greece, after the beginning of which it was disbanded.
[140]
At its congress in Verona (October to December 1822) the Holy Alliance decided to launch an armed intervention against revolutionary Spain. In 1823 French troops invaded Spain and restored the absolute power of Ferdinand VII. They stayed in the country until 1828.
[141]
At Navarino (a port in Greece) on October 20, 1827 the Turko-Egyptian navy clashed with the British, French and Russian squadrons sent into Greek waters for armed mediation in the war between Turkey and the Greek insurgents. The battle was fought after the Turkish command had refused to end the massacre of the Greek population. The forces of the three European powers, commanded by the British Vice-Admiral Edward Codrington, routed the Turko-Egyptian fleet. This facilitated the national liberation struggle of the Greeks and Russia's success in its war against Turkey in 1828 and 1829.
[142]
Young Italy (Giovine Italia) was a secret organisation of Italian revolutionaries (1831-48) founded by Mazzini. It fought for national independence and a united Italian republic.
[143]
In October 1850 Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria and Count Frederick William von Brandenburg, the head of the Prussian Government, met in Warsaw. The conference was held on the initiative of Nicholas I in connection with the sharpening struggle between Austria and Prussia for supremacy in Germany. The Russian Tsar, acting as arbiter, used his influence to make Prussia abandon its attempts to form a political confederation of German states under Prussia's aegis. The dispute was settled when the heads of the Austrian and Prussian governments signed an agreement in Olmütz (Olomouc) on November 29, 1850 under which Prussia renounced its claims to supremacy in Germany and yielded on the issues of Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse-Cassel. As a result of the agreement an Austrian army corps was sent to Holstein.
[144]
Pozzo di Borgo, Russia's Ambassador to Paris, sent the dispatch in question to Count Nesselrode, the Russian Chancellor, on October 16 (4), 1825 in reply to the latter's circular letter of August 18 (6), 1825. The circular, drawn up at the instructions of Alexander I, asked the Russian Ambassadors abroad for their opinion about the Western Powers' policy vis-à-vis Russia in connection with the Eastern question. Pozzo di Borgo suggested in his dispatch that Russia should resort to armed force in dealing with Turkey. The dispatch was published in Recueil des documents pour la plupart secrets et inédits et d'autres pièces historiques utiles à consulter dans la crise actuelle (juillet 1853), Paris. Marx used the second (1854) edition of the book.
[145]
Finis Poloniae!—a phrase attributed—without sufficient grounds—to Tadeusz Kościuszko, the leader of the national liberation movement in Poland in 1794. He is supposed to have uttered it after the defeat of the insurgent army at the battle of Maciejowice (October 10, 1794) when he was taken prisoner.
[146]
Marx is referring to the map of Slav lands compiled by the Czech Slavonic scholar Pavel Josef Šafařík for his book Slovanský národopis (Slavonic Ethnography) published in 1842.
[147]
The Lay of Ludwig (Das Ludwigslied) was written in the Frankish dialect by an anonymous poet in the late ninth century. It is a panegyric of the West Frankish King Louis III, celebrating his victory over the Normans at Sancourt in 881 (Hausschatz der Volkspoesie, Leipzig, 1846).
[148]
On June 11, 1849 Ledru-Rollin, the leader of the petty-bourgeois democrats, tabled a motion in the Legislative Assembly calling for the impeachment of President Louis Bonaparte and the government for violating the Constitution by sending French troops to crush the Roman Republic and restore the temporal power of the Pope. After it had been voted down by the conservative majority of the Assembly the petty-bourgeois democrats tried to organise a mass protest demonstration on June 13, which was dispersed by government troops. The leaders of the Montagne, the petty-bourgeois faction in the Assembly, were stripped of their powers as deputies and persecuted. Some of them were forced to emigrate. The June 13 events revealed the Montagne leaders' indecision and inability to head the revolutionary movement of the masses (see Marx's The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 101-07).
[149]
Napoléon le Petit (Napoleon the Little)—the nickname given to Louis Bonaparte by Victor Hugo in a speech he made to the French Legislative Assembly in 1851. It gained wide currency after the publication in 1852 of Hugo's Napoléon le Petit.
[150]
Here Marx uses the words "ein Ende mit Schrecken", apparently an allusion to the dictum "Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne Ende" ("A dreadful end is better than dread without end"). It is attributed to Ferdinand Schill, commander of volunteer units that fought against Napoleon's troops in 1806-07. Schill is believed to have uttered these words in a speech he made in the market-place of Arneburg on the Elbe on May 12, 1809 when he urged Prussia to fight France.
[151]
In the early 1850s the French Government drew up a plan for the import of African Negroes, including inhabitants of Portugal's African colonies, for work on plantations in France's West Indian colonies. The implementation of the plan was tantamount to a revival of the slave trade and led to a conflict between France and Portugal.
[152]
This refers to the abortive attempt by the Italian revolutionaries Orsini and Pieri to assassinate Napoleon III on January 14, 1858. Marx refers to it in several of his articles, e.g. "The War Prospect in France" and "Quid pro Quo" (see present edition, Vol. 16).
[153]
By the Lois de sûreté publique (laws on social security) Marx means the Loi des suspects (law on suspects) adopted by the Corps Législatif on February 19, 1858. It granted the government and the Emperor the unlimited right to deport persons suspected of hostility towards the regime of the Second Empire to various places in France and Algeria and even to banish them from French territory.
[154]
By the decree of January 27, 1858 the territory of the Second Empire was divided into five General Captaincies headed by marshals. This was done on the pattern of Spain, where the captain generals (commanders of military districts) wielded full power.
The decree on the regency and the establishment of the Privy Council was issued on February 1, 1858, soon after Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon III. Pélissier was a member of the Council, which was to become the Regency Council if the Emperor's son, a minor, acceded to the throne.
[155]
Napoleon III was the son of Napoleon I's brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland from 1806 to 1810. By calling Napoleon III the "nephew of the battle of Austerlitz" Marx alludes to the fact that the coup d'état of December 2, 1851 was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) at which Napoleon I defeated the allied Russian and Austrian forces.
[156]
At the end of 1858 the French journalist Montalembert was put on trial for writing an article condemning the regime of the Second Empire ("Un débat sur l'Inde au parlement anglais", Le Correspondant, nouvelle série, V. IX, octobre 1858). He was pardoned by Napoleon III but rejected the pardon and demanded his acquittal. Marx ironically draws a parallel between this trial and that of John Hampden, a prominent figure in the English seventeenth-century revolution, who in 1636 refused to pay "ship money", a royal tax not authorised by the House of Commons. The Hampden trial increased the opposition to absolutism in England.
In his pamphlet De la Justice poursuivie par l'Eglise (Brussels, 1858) Proudhon compares the Bonaparte and Orléans dynasties and gives preference to the principles of government proclaimed by the latter, but makes reservations concerning the need for certain democratic reforms. Marx ironically compares these reservations with the Acte additionel, the constitutional regulations introduced by Napoleon I in France in 1815 upon his return from Elba.
[157]
This refers to the abortive republican uprising of troops in Chalon-sur-Saône on March 6, 1858 (see Marx's article "Portents of the Day", present edition, Vol. 15).
[158]
On January 20, 1858 Count Walewski, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent a Note to the British Government expressing dissatisfaction with Britain's granting asylum to political refugees. In this connection Palmerston tabled the Conspiracy to Murder Bill in the House of Commons on February 8. During its second reading Milner Gibson proposed an amendment censuring the Palmerston Government for not giving an appropriate reply to the Note. The amendment, adopted by the majority of the House, amounted to a vote of no-confidence in the Government and forced it to resign.
[159]
On July 21, 1858, at Plombières, Napoleon III and Prime Minister Cavour of the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) reached a secret agreement envisaging Franco-Sardinian military co-operation against Austria, the abolition of Austrian rule in Lombardy and Venetia and their union with Piedmont, the establishment of a North Italian state to be ruled by the Savoy dynasty, and the cession by Piedmont of Savoy and Nice to France. The agreement was formalised by a Franco-Sardinian treaty concluded in Turin in January 1859. During the Plombières meeting the question of a Franco-Sardinian war against Austria was decided. It started in April 1859.
In the autumn of 1858, Palmerston, then head of the Whig opposition to the Derby-Disraeli Tory Cabinet, was invited by Napoleon III to Compiègne to clarify his position on the impending Franco-Austrian war. At the meeting Palmerston did not object to the Austrians being driven out of Italy, but in his speech at the opening of Parliament on February 3, 1859 he condemned France's action.
[160]
On October 10, 1850 Louis Bonaparte, then President of the French Republic, held a general review of troops on the plain of Satory (near Versailles). During the review Bonaparte, who was preparing a coup d'état, treated the soldiers and officers to sausages in order to win their support.
[161]
At the Congress of Paris on March 30, 1856 France, Britain, Austria, Sardinia, Prussia and Turkey, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, signed a peace treaty that concluded the Crimean War (1853-56). Russia, defeated in the war, was forced to cede the estuary of the Danube and part of South Bessarabia, renounce its protection of the Danubian Principalities, and agree to the neutralisation of the Black Sea, which involved the closure of the Straits to foreign warships and a ban on the maintenance by Russia and Turkey of naval arsenals and navies in the Black Sea. In exchange for Sevastopol and the other Crimean towns seized by the Allies, Russia was to return Kars to Turkey. France refused to support Britain's demand for the severance of the Caucasus from Russia and Austria's demand for the incorporation of Bessarabia into Turkey. The Congress marked the beginning of a Franco-Russian rapprochement.
[162]
The Thirty Years' War (1618-48)—a European war in which the Pope, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs and the Catholic German princes, rallied under the banner of Catholicism, fought the Protestant countries: Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, the Republic of the Netherlands and a number of Protestant German states. The rulers of Catholic France—rivals of the Habsburgs—supported the Protestant camp. Germany was the principal battle area and the main object of plunder and territorial claims. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) sealed the political dismemberment of Germany.
[163]
During the Irish uprising of 1798 the town of Kilkenny was occupied by Hessian mercenaries serving in the British army, who used to amuse themselves by watching fights between cats with their tails tied together. One day, a soldier, seeing an officer approaching, cut off the cats' tails with his sword and the cats ran away. The officer was told that the cats had eaten each other and only their tails remained.
[164]
The Treaty of Campoformio, signed on October 17, 1797, concluded the victorious war of the French Republic against Austria, a member of the first anti-French coalition. Under the treaty, France got Belgium, the Ionian Islands and part of Albania. Austria was to help France annex the left bank of the Rhine, and relinquished its former possessions in Northern Italy. Together with part of the abolished Venetian Republic, these constituted the Cisalpine Republic, a new state under French protection. A big portion of the Venetian Republic, including Venice, and also Istria and Dalmatia, were given to Austria in exchange for concessions made to France on the Rhine frontier.
[165]
The Council of States—one of the two houses of Switzerland's Federal Assembly (Parliament). The other house is called the National Council.
[166]
Vallée des Dappes—a mountain valley on the border of the Swiss Canton of Vaud and France. The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) ruled it to be Swiss territory; however France later refused to recognise this decision. Because of its strategic importance the Vallée des Dappes remained a bone of contention between the two states until Switzerland ceded part of it to France in exchange for territorial compensation in 1862.
[167]
In the autumn of 1856 a conflict developed between Prussia and Switzerland over the events in Neuchâtel (in German: Neuenburg). From 1707 to 1806 the principality of Neuchâtel was a dwarf state under Prussian rule. In 1815, by decision of the Vienna Congress, it was incorporated into the Swiss Confederation as its 21st canton, at the same time remaining a vassal of Prussia. In February 1848 a bourgeois revolution in Neuchâtel put an end to Prussian rule and a republic was proclaimed. In 1852 Britain, France and Russia signed a protocol in London which re-affirmed the Prussian King's rights to Neuchâtel. The Prusso-Swiss conflict flared up with fresh violence in September 1856 when the Swiss authorities arrested the participants in an abortive monarchist putsch in Neuchâtel who had the support of the Prussian King. The Swiss Government demanded that Prussia should renounce all its claims to the canton. The conflict was settled in the spring of 1857 thanks to the diplomatic intervention of other powers, notably France. The Prussian King had to waive his claim to Neuchâtel, while the Swiss Government released the arrested royalists.
[168]
The Sonderbund—a separatist union of the . seven economically backward Catholic cantons of Switzerland formed in 1843 to resist progressive bourgeois reforms and to defend the privileges of the Church and the Jesuits. The decree of the Swiss Diet of July 1847 dissolving the Sonderbund was used by the latter as a pretext for starting hostilities against the other cantons early in November. On November 23, 1847 the Sonderbund army was defeated by the federal forces. Attempts by Austria and Prussia to interfere in Swiss affairs in support of the Sonderbund failed. Louis Philippe's Government virtually sided with these powers in protecting the Sonderbund.
[169]
In this Note, directed to a number of states, the Federal Council declared that in the event of war in Italy, Switzerland would defend its neutrality and territorial integrity and would, in keeping with the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna, occupy the neutralised area of Savoy (Northern Savoy).
The Congress had proclaimed the "perpetual neutrality" of Switzerland and, in its Final Act, adopted on June 9, 1815, declared Chablais and Faucigny, the provinces of Northern Savoy, a neutralised territory and authorised Switzerland, in the event of war or the threat of war between the neighbouring states, to occupy these provinces, at the same time enjoining the Kingdom of Sardinia to withdraw its troops from there.
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