more prone to encourage than to restrain the impru- CHAP. dence of her old ally. XXVIII. respects discharged These were the faults with which Austria may In other fairly be charged. In other respects she was not Austria forgetful of her duty towards herself and towards her duty. Europe; and it has been seen that, from the day when the Czar crossed the Pruth down to the time when he was obliged to relinquish his hold, Austria persisted in taking the same view of the dispute as was taken by the Western Powers, and was never at all backward in her measures for the deliverance of the Principalities. which had in the War. In the nature and temperament of the King of Share Prussia there was so much of weakness that his Prussia Imperial brother-in-law was accustomed to speak of causing him in terms of ruthless disdain; and it seems that this habit of looking down upon the King caused the Czar to shape his policy simply as though Prussia were null. When he found his Royal brother-in-law engaged against him in an offensive and defensive alliance, he perhaps understood the error which he had committed in assuming that the policy of an enlightened and a high-spirited nation would be steadily subservient to the weakness of its Sovereign; but until he was thus undeceived, or, at all events, until the failure of Baron Budberg's mission in the beginning of 1854, he seems to have closed his eyes to all the long series of public acts in which Prussia had engaged, and to have cheated himself into the belief that she would never take up such a ground as might enable Austria to act freely on her CHA P. southern frontier, and so drive him out of the PrinXXVIII. cipalities. And although, until after the outbreak of the war between Russia and the Western Powers, Prussia did not at all hang back,* it is nevertheless true that the Czar's policy was shaped upon a knowledge of the King's weak nature. Therefore the temperament and mental quality of the Prussian monarch must be reckoned among the causes of the war. Prussia also, in the same degree as Austria, must bear the kind of repute that was entailed upon her by the conduct of her representative; and the name of Colonel Rochow, and his thanksgiving for the slaughter of Sinope, will long be remembered against her. Another fault attributable to Prussia was her invincible love of metaphysical or rather mere verbal refinements. When this form of human error is brought into politics it chills all human sympathies, and tends to bring a country into contempt, by giving to its policy the bitter taste of a theory or a doctrine, and so causing it to be misunderstood. An instance of this vice was given by the First Minister of the Prussian Crown, in a speech of great moment which he addressed to the Lower Chamber on the 18th of March 1854. After an abundance of phrases of a pacific tendency, Baron Manteuffel said that Prussia was resolved faithfully to aid any member of the Confederation who, from his * The state of war began on the 19th of March. Prussia first began to hang back about the 21st of July. See ante. geographical position, might feel himself called upon CHAP. sooner than Prussia to draw the sword in defence ' of German interests.' Now this to the ear of any diplomatist, foreshadowed, or rather announced, an offensive and defensive alliance with Austria against the Czar for the delivery of the Principalities; and accordingly, the alliance so announced was actually contracted by Prussia some four weeks afterwards. But, in the minds of the common public, a disclosure couched in this diplomatic phraseology was smothered under the intolerable weight of the pacific verbiage which had gone before; and the result was, that a speech which announced a measure of offence and hostility to Russia was looked upon as the disclosure of a halting, timid, and worthless policy. XXVIII. respects discharged But, except upon the grounds here stated, there In other was no grave fault to find with the policy of Prussia Prussia down to the outbreak of the war between the Czar her duty. and the Western Powers. Distant as she was from the scene of the Czar's encroachment, she was nevertheless compelled, as she valued her hold upon the goodwill of Germany, to be steadfast in hindering Russia from establishing herself in provinces which would give her the full control of the Lower Danube; and up to the time of the final rupture she always so accommodated her policy to the views of the Western Powers as to be able to remain in firm accord with them, both as to the adjudication of the dispute between Russia and Turkey, and as to the principles which should guide the belligerents in VOL. I. 2 I CHAP. the event of their being forced into a war by the obstinacy of the Emperor Nicholas. XXVIII. As did also the Ger man Con federation. Share which the French Govern Of course the Czar's relinquishment of the Principalities took away from Prussia, as well as from Austria, her ground of complaint against the Czar, and with it her motive for action. Nor was this all; for by determining to quit the mainland of Europe and make a descent upon a remote maritime province of Russia, the Western Powers deprived themselves of all right to expect that Austria and Prussia would favour a scheme of invasion which they did not and could not approve. Down to the time when the Czar determined to repass the Pruth, the policy followed by Prussia, as well as by Austria, was sound and loyal towards Europe. The German Confederation was brought into the same views as Austria and Prussia; and thus, so long as the object in view was the deliverance of the Principalities, the whole of Central Europe was joined with the great Powers of the West in a determination to repress the Czar's encroachments. I repeat that the papers laid before the Parliament have not yet disclosed the ground on which the English Government became discontent with this vast union, and was led to contract those separate engagements with the Emperor of the French which ended by bringing on the war. The blame of beginning the dispute which led on to the war must rest with the French Government; ment had for it is true, as our Foreign Secretary declared, that the Ambassador of France at Constantinople was in causing the War. the first to disturb the status quo in which the CHAP. ' matter rested, and without political action on the part of France, the quarrels of the Churches would 'never have troubled the relations of friendly Powers.' For this offence against the tranquillity of Europe the President of the Republic was answerable in the first instance; but it must be remembered that at the time France was under a free Parliamentary Government; and it is just, therefore, to acknowledge that the blame of sanctioning the disinterment of a forgotten treaty more than a hundred years old, and of violently using it as an instrument of disturbance, must be shared by an Assembly which had not enough of the statesmanlike quality to be able to denounce a wanton and noxious policy. It was the weakness of the gifted statesmen and orators who then adorned the Chambers that, like most of their countrymen, they were too easily fascinated by the pleasure of seeing France domineer. But at the close of the year 1851 the France known to Europe and the world was bereaved of political life; and thenceforth her complex interests in the affairs of nations were so effectually overruled by the exigency of personal considerations, that in a little while she was made to adopt an Anglo-Turkish policy, and, as the price of this concession to the views of our Foreign Office, the venturers of the 2d of December were brought under the sanctions of an alliance with the Queen of England. It has * Ubi ante. XXVIII. |