In July, 1870, fifty-five years after the Allied Armies, who had marched from the decisive field of Waterloo, entered Paris, a young diplomatist, Baron Wimpfen, started from the French capital, for Berlin. He was the bearer of a Declaration of War, from the Emperor Napoleon III., to William I., King of Prussia; and the fatal message was delivered to the French Chargé d’Affaires, M. le Sourd, and by him to the Prussian Government on the 19th of July. Thus, once again, a Napoleon, at the head of a French Empire, was destined to try his strength against the principal German Power beyond the Rhine.

Yet, under what different conditions! The Emperor was not now the Napoleon who surrounded the Austrians at Ulm, broke down the combined forces of Austria and Russia at Austerlitz, and extorted a peace which set him free to overthrow, at Jena and Auerstadt, the fine army left by Frederick the Great, and allowed to crystallize by his weak successors. Nor did the late Emperor find in his front a divided Germany, and the mere survival of a great military organization. He found a united people, and an army surpassing in completeness, as it did in armaments—the [p 2] victors of Prague, Rosbach, and Leuthen. The Germany known to the Congress of Vienna had disappeared—the deformed had been transformed. The little seed of unity, sown early in the century, had grown into a forest tree. The spirit of Arndt had run through the whole Teutonic nation, which, after the turmoil of 1848 had subsided, and the heavy hand of Russia had been taken off by the Crimean War, found a leader in the strongly-organized kingdom of Prussia. When the weak and hesitating will of Frederick William IV. ceased, first, by the operation of a painful disease, and then by extinction, to disturb the course of his country’s fortune, Prussia, in a few years, became practically a new Power. King William I., who crowned himself with his own hands at K?nigsberg, began his task, as a ruler, in a grave and earnest spirit, holding that kingship was not only a business, but a trust, and taking as his watchwords, Work and Duty. No monarch in any age, no private man, ever laboured more assiduously and conscientiously at his métier, to use the word of Joseph II., than the King of Prussia. He became Regent in 1858, when Napoleon III. was engaged in preparing for his Italian campaign against the House of Austria. French policy, with varying watchwords, had run that road for centuries; and, during the summer of 1859, it was the good fortune of the Emperor to win a series of victories which brought his army to the Mincio, and before the once famous Quadrilateral. The German Bund had taken no part in the fray, but the rapid successes of the French aroused some apprehensions in Berlin, and there went forth an order to mobilize a part of the army, which means to put each corps on a war-footing, and to assemble a force in Rhenish Prussia. Whatever share that demonstration may have had in producing the sudden arrangement between the rival Emperors, who [p 3] made peace over their cigarettes and coffee at Villafranca, the experiment tried by the Berlin War Office had one important result—it brought to light serious defects in the system then practised, and revealed the relative weakness of the Prussian army. From that moment, the Regent, who soon became King by the death of his brother, began the work of reforming the military system. For this step, at least from a Prussian standpoint, there was good reason; since the kingdom, although it was based on a strong and compact nucleus, was, as a whole, made up of scattered fragments lying between great military Powers, and therefore could not hope to subsist without a formidable army. The relative weakness of Prussia had, indeed, been burnt into the souls of Prussian statesmen; and King William, on his accession, determined that as far as in him lay, that grave defect should be cured. A keen observer, a good judge of character and capacity, his experience of men and things, which was large, enabled him at once to select fit instruments. He picked out three persons, two soldiers and a statesman, and severe ordeals in after years justified his choice. He appointed General von Roon, Minister of War, and no man in modern times has shown greater qualities in the organization of an army. He placed General von Moltke at the head of the General Staff, which that able man soon converted into the best equipped and the most effective body of its kind known to history. It rapidly became, what it now is, the brain of the army, alike in quarters and in the field. Finally, after some meditation, he called Herr Otto von Bismarck from the diplomatic service, which had revealed his rare and peculiar qualities, and made this Pomeranian squire his chief political adviser, and the manager of his delicate and weighty State affairs.

Thenceforth, the long-gathering strength of Prussia, the [p 4] foundations of which were bedded deep in the history of its people, began to assume a form and a direction which great events revealed to astonished and incredulous Europe. The experiment undertaken by the King and his chief councillors was rendered less difficult by that effect of the Crimean War which so materially lessened the influence of Russia in Germany. The intimate and friendly relations subsisting between the two Courts remained unbroken, and to its preservation in fair weather and foul, Prussia owed, to a large extent, the favourable conditions surrounding the application and development of her policy. It seemed as necessary to Prussian, as it now does to German interests, that the Russian Government should be, at least, benevolently neutral; and probably the art of keeping it so was profoundly studied by Herr von Bismarck when he filled the post of Ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg. The large military reforms designed by the King and his advisers aroused an uncompromising opposition in the native Parliament, which was only overcome by the firmness with which King William supported his outspoken and audacious Minister. The victory was secured by methods which were called, and were, unconstitutional. The control of the Chamber over the Budget was placed in abeyance, by a clever interpretation of the fundamental law. It was held that if the Deputies could not agree with the Government respecting the estimates of the current year, the law which they had sanctioned in the preceding year still remained valid. Thus the taxes were collected, appropriated and expended, just the same as if the Chamber had not virtually “stopped the supplies” in order to defeat the measures which were intended to give the army stability, numbers, efficiency and cohesion. The whole transaction ran counter to English maxims and customs; but it should be remembered that Parliamentary Government, and [p 5] especially government by party, were never, and are not even now established in Berlin. The net result of the contest was the renovation and the strengthening of the National Army to an extent which, while it did not exceed, perhaps, the expectations of those who laboriously wrought it out, left some Powers of Europe ignorant, and others incredulous respecting its value.

Not that the military institutions of Prussia, dating back from the “new model,” devised during the stress of the Napoleonic Wars, had been fundamentally altered. Nothing was done except to increase the numbers, close up and oil the machinery, render its working prompt and easy by prudent decentralization, give it a powerful brain in the General Staff, and impart to the whole system a living energy. The art of war, if the phrase may be allowed, was, in accordance with venerable traditions rooted in the Hohenzollern House, taken up as a serious business; and that deep sense of its importance which prevailed at the fountain head, was made to permeate the entire frame. That is the real distinguishing characteristic of the Prussian, now the German army, as contrasted with the spirit in which similar labours were undertaken by some other Powers. The task was a heavy one, but the three men who set about it were equal to the task. King William, with a large intelligence, a severe yet kindly temper, and a thorough knowledge of his work, threw himself heart and soul into the business, and brought to bear upon its conduct that essential condition of success, the “master’s eye.” General von Roon framed or sanctioned the administrative measures which were needed to create an almost self-acting and cohesive organism, which could be set in motion by a telegram, as an engineer starts a complicated piece of machinery by touching a lever. Von Moltke, as chief of the General Staff, supplied the directing [p 6] intellect, and established a complete apparatus for the collection and classification of knowledge, bearing upon military affairs, which might be applied wherever needed. These men, working with “unhasting, unresting” diligence, founded a school of war, not based on “the law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not,” but upon the vital principle that a good army should possess in itself such a power of adaptation, as will make it always abreast with the latest genuine discoveries in tactics, arms, material appliances, and discipline. Also the army was treated as a great school in which officers and men alike were teaching and learning from dawn to sunset, throughout the allotted period of service. The principal trio had other and able helpers, but they were the main springs moving and guiding the marvellous product of constant labour applied by rare capacity.

The ultimate, although not the immediate, effect of the French successes at Magenta and Solferino, was the creation of an Italian kingdom, which included within its boundaries, Naples, Sicily, the States of the Church, except Rome, and of course the Duchies on the right bank of the Po. The price of compliance, exacted by the Emperor Napoleon, whose plans had been thwarted, was the cession to him of Nice and Savoy. Venice and the territory beyond the Mincio remained Austrian for several years. While the map of Italy was in course of reconstruction, the political conflict in Berlin raged on with unintermitted violence. Simultaneously the Austrian Emperor was induced to assert his claims to predominance in Germany, but the plans laid, in 1863, were blighted by the prompt refusal of William I. to take any share in them. It was the first symptom of reviving hostility between the two Powers, although a little later, on the death of the King of Denmark, they were found, side by side in arms, to assert [p 7] the claims of the German Bund upon Holstein, Schleswig and Lauenburg, and avert the occupation of those countries by the troops of Saxony and other minor States alone. The campaign which ensued brought the new model of the” Prussian army to the test of actual experiment. But the brave adversaries they had to encounter, if stout in heart, were weak in numbers; and Europe did not set much store by the victories then achieved by Prussia. The public and the Governments were intently occupied with the Secession War in the United States of America, and the astounding expedition to Mexico, which was designed to place an Austrian Archduke on “the throne of the Montezumas,” under illustrious French patronage. Thus the quality of the troops, the great influence of the famous “needle-gun,” the character of the staff, and the excellent administrative services escaped the notice of all, save the observant few. The political aspects of the dispute were keenly discussed. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell were, at one moment, disposed to fight for the Treaty of 1851; but the Danish King committed grave blunders; Russia stood aloof, the Emperor Napoleon III. distinctly refused to enter the lists, and the House of Commons was decidedly averse to war. Here it should be noted that the French Emperor, meditating on the value to him of the rival Powers in Germany, had determined to stand well with both. He hoped to please Austria by making the brother of Francis Joseph Emperor of Mexico, and to keep open the possibilities of an alliance with Prussia, by throwing no obstacles in her way on the Eider.

Then began the great strife between the two Governments which had wrested the Elbe Duchies from the Dane. When the short war ended, certain divisions from each army were posted in the conquered country, and the rivalry which animated the two Courts was carried on by diplomats and [p 8] statesmen. Prussian policy, since the days of Frederick II., had leaned always towards, if not an alliance with Russia, yet the maintenance of a solid understanding with that growing Power. Herr von Bismarck, who was a deep student in the history of his own country, and who had always nourished large ideas, kept steadily on the well-trodden path, but imparted to his methods a boldness, an inventiveness, and an energy most unusual in Prussian statescraft. The Polish insurrection of 1864 gave him an opportunity which he did not neglect, and while the poor patriots were assisted from the side of Galicia, on the Posen frontier they were ruthlessly repressed, the Russian and Prussian troops making common cause, and crossing the frontier whenever that step seemed needful. The ill-fated Poles, of course, were defeated; Prussia had recorded a fresh claim upon the benevolent neutrality of Russia, while Austrian “ingratitude,” never forgiven in St. Petersburg, took a deeper tinge in the eyes of the Czar. The Prussian Government had not long to wait for their reward. During the summer of 1865, the abiding quarrel between Vienna and Berlin, respecting the future status of the conquered or restored Duchies, nearly came to an open rupture. Neither side, however, was ready for a blow, and the “Convention of Gastein,” which Bismarck, in a letter to his wife, defined as a mode of “pasting together the cracks in the building,” was devised to gain time. The Prussian army, still incomplete from the royal and the military point of view, had been augmented after the Danish war, and the new levies of horse and artillery had not acquired the requisite instruction. So the summer and autumn of 1865 wore away, revealing the spectacle of King William and Herr von Bismarck battling fiercely with the Parliament, and not so clearly displaying Von Moltke and Von Roon labouring hourly to bring the [p 9] machine intrusted to their charge up to the highest attainable efficiency. There were other reasons for delay. As it was more than probable that the South Germans, and possible that the King of Hanover would not rank themselves with Prussia, but go with Austria and the Bund, an ally was wanted who would divide the forces of the largest Power. That ally was found in the newly united kingdom of Italy.

But before the Italian envoy astonished the diplomatic world by his apparition at Berlin, in March, the controversy between Austria and Prussia had gone on rapidly, step by step, nearer towards a rupture. Count Mensdorff, on behalf of the Emperor Francis Joseph, set up a claim to full liberty of action in the Duchy of Holstein, and began openly to favour the pretentions of the Duke Frederick of Augustenburg to the Ducal Chair. That position was vigorously contested by Herr von Bismarck, who put an opposite construction on the Treaty, which created what was called the “condominium.” The consequence was a frequent and animated exchange of despatches, containing such “arguments” as seemed proper to the occasion. Into the merits of this dispute it is needless to enter now, since the whole drift of the verbal struggle shows that while Prussia was intent on providing a solid ground on which to fight out a long-standing quarrel—“inevitable,” said Von Moltke, “sooner or later,”—Austria was by no means inclined to shrink from a test directly applied to her position in Germany. Whatever line she had taken her rival would have discovered, or tried to discover, an opposing course; but, it so happened, that, whether by chance or miscalculation, Count Mensdorff, the Austrian Foreign Minister, managed his case so as to give advantages to his abler antagonist. In the last days of February a great council was held in Berlin. Not only the King and his [p 10] chief Minister, but General von Moltke and General von Manteuffel, from Schleswig, took part in its deliberations. It was the turning point in the grave debate, so far as Prussian action was concerned; for the decision then adopted unanimously, was, that Prussia could not honourably recede, but must go forward, even at the risk of war. No order was given to prepare for that result, because the organization of the army was complete, and moreover, because “the King was very adverse to an offensive war.” Nevertheless, from that moment such an issue of the dispute became certain to occur at an early day. Yet neither party wished to fight over the Duchies; each felt that the cause was too paltry. The Austrians, therefore, extended the field, by appealing to the Bund, a move which gave Herr von Bismarck the advantage he so eagerly sought. He answered it by resolving to push, in his own sense, the cause of federal reform. Learning this determination early in March, M. Benedetti observed to Herr von Bismarck that it would insure peace. “Yes,” answered the Minister President,—“for three months,” a very accurate forecast by a prophet who could fulfil his own prediction, and who desired to fight the adversary promptly, lest a reconciliation should be effected between Vienna and Pesth, and Hungary, from a source of weakness, should thus become a tower of strength.

A few days later, March 14th, General Govone, from Florence, arrived in Berlin. His advent had been preceded by attempts, on the part of Bismarck, to discover how the French would look on a Prusso-Italian alliance. The subject was delicate, and even after the General’s arrival, it was officially stated that he had come, exclusively, to study the progress in small arms and artillery! The pretence was soon abandoned, and the negotiations were avowed; but the conclusion of a treaty was delayed for some days, [p 11] because no specific date could be fixed on for the outbreak of war, Prussia having determined, at least to make it appear, that she was not the aggressor. At length a form of words was devised, which satisfied both Powers, stipulating that Italy was to share in the war, providing it began within “three months,” and the Convention was signed on the 8th of April. Not, however, before it had been well ascertained that France had really helped on the Prussian alliance and desired to see war ensue, although, avowedly, she did not interfere, giving out that she stood neuter, and that the understanding which might be ultimately come to between France and Prussia would be determined by the march of events, the extension of the war, and the questions to which it might give rise. This language foreshadowed the policy which the Emperor, if not M. Drouyn de Lhuys desired to follow; and as Russia, recently obliged in the Polish troubles, was friendly, if not allied, Herr von Bismarck was convinced that no foreign power would array itself on the side of Austria, unless the campaign were prolonged.

Henceforth, the aim of each disputant was to secure a vantage-ground in Germany. Austria had partially collected troops in Bohemia and Moravia, and had secretly stipulated with several States to call out four Federal corps d’armée; while Prussia, who could wait, being always ready, had only carried her preparations forward to a certain extent. M. von Beust, the Saxon Minister, then intervened with a proposal that the Diet should name arbiters, whose decision should be final; a suggestion instantly rejected by the principals in the quarrel. The Emperor Napoleon III., towards the end of May, when Prussian mobilization had practicably been completed in eight corps, produced his specific—the characteristic proposal that a Conference should be held in Paris to study the means of maintaining the peace. Prussia accepted the [p 12] offer, but Austria put an end to the hopes of Napoleon, by stipulating that no arrangement should be discussed which would augment the territory or power of any party of the Conference, and in addition that the Pope should be invited to share in any deliberations on “the Italian Question.” These pretensions, by excluding, what everyone wanted, the cession of Venetia to Italy, decided the fate of the Conference. “They desire war at Vienna,” said Von Bismarck to Count Benedetti. “These conditions have been conjured up solely for the purpose of giving the States in South Germany time to complete their military preparations.” And when the news came officially from Paris that the Austrian answer had killed the project, the Minister President shouted in the French Ambassador’s presence “Vive le Roi!” The solution was war. The Prussian army, for once, had been mobilized by slow degrees. More than a month elapsed between the first precautionary and the final steps, but by the 12th of May the entire active army had been summoned to arms. The Conference project was a last attempt, made, indeed, after all hope of arresting the conflict had vanished, alike in Vienna and Berlin; and it was followed by events in Holstein, which put an end to the period of suspense, and formed a prelude to the war. Practically, but without actual fighting, General von Manteuffel compelled the Austrian brigade, under Field-Marshal von Glablenz, to retreat swiftly over the Elbe. The pretext for this strong measure was the fact that Austria, by her sole will, had summoned the Estates to meet at Itzeh?e, and had thus infringed the rights of King William! Thereupon Austria requested the Diet at Frankfort to call out all the Federal Corps; and her demand was complied with, on the 14th of June, by a majority of nine to six. The Prussian delegate protested, and withdrew, leaving Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemburg, the two Hesses, [p 13] and several minor States, in open combination against Prussia. But the same stroke which isolated the latter, also destroyed the German Bund, invented by the kings and statesmen of 1815, to preserve internal tranquillity, and safeguard the Fatherland against France. The arrangement implied the co-operation of two Powers; one purely German, yet subordinate; the other parcel German, and mainly consisting of divers peoples outside Germany; and it fell to pieces at a blow, because the time had arrived when one of the two must attain supremacy. Side by side with the secular dynastic conflict arose in the nation that longing for unity which could only be accomplished by a thoroughly German Power.

That Power was Prussia, trained for the task by the steadfast labours of two hundred years. The army she had formed did its work swiftly. Pouring through Saxony and over the Silesian Mountains, the King and his son, July 3rd, crushed the Austrians, on the memorable field of Sadowa, near K?niggr?tz. The Hanoverian troops, after winning the fight at Langensalza, had been obliged to surrender, and in South Germany the army employed to overcome the Confederates was equally victorious. On the 22nd of July, so swiftly had the main body moved, the Prussians were in front of Vienna and Presburg on the Danube. Four days afterwards, the Emperor Napoleon having struck in with an offer of mediation, which was accepted, the preliminaries of a peace were signed at Nikolsburg, on the 26th of July, and the final treaty was settled and ratified at Prague, on the 23rd of August, long after King William and his formidable Minister were once more in Berlin. By this instrument, Austria was excluded from Germany; a Northern Confederation, reaching to the Main, was founded; Hanover, the Elbe Duchies, Hesse-Cassel, and other territories, were annexed to Prussia; and [p 14] a formal statement was inserted, declaring that Napoleon III., to whom Austria had ceded Venetia, had acquired it in order to hand over the city and Terra Firma, as far as the Isonzo, to Victor Emmanuel, when the peace should be re-established. Prussia thus became the acknowledged head of Germany, at least as far as the Main; and the national longing for complete unity was about to be gratified in a much shorter time than seemed probable in 1866.

Naturally, the astonishing successes won by Prussian arms against the Federal Corps, as well as the Austrians, compelled the South German States to sue for peace, and accept public treaties, which, while leaving them independent, brought them all, more or less, within the limits of a common German federation. But something more important was accomplished at Nikolsburg. Herr von der Pfordten, the Bavarian Prime Minister, repaired thither towards the end of July, and Bismarck was in possession of information, including a certain French document, which enabled him to state the German case in a manner so convincing and terrifying, that the Bavarian agreed to sign a secret treaty, bringing the army within the Prussian system, and stipulating that, in case of war, it should pass at once under the command of King William. That which Von der Pfordten conceded the Ministers of Wurtemburg and Hesse Darmstadt could not refuse, and thus provision was made, on the morrow of Sadowa, for that concentration of armed Germany which overwhelmed France in 1870–71. So that, although nothing formally constituting a United Germany had been done, Prussia, by securing the control of all her forces, and knowing that a strong and deeply-rooted public sentiment would support her, was satisfied that, providing time could be gained in which to arm, instruct and discipline upon the Prussian model the South Germans and the troops raised from the annexed provinces, she would be [p 15] more than a match for France. South Germany, indeed, had long known her relative helplessness against the French. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the real peril was more perceptible to the soldiers and statesmen than to the people, many of whom were strongly imbued with democratic ideas of the French type. Yet, although they hungered for what they understood as liberty and independence, they were still German, and did not fail to see that their cherished desires could not be gratified either under French patronage or French prefects. The soldiers and statesmen had early perceived the full secret of South German dependence. The Archduke Charles, who had great knowledge and harsh experience to guide him, pointed out that the French posts on the Rhine had placed the country south of the Main at the mercy of France. “As long as the Rhine frontier from Huningen to Lauterbourg remains in her hands,” wrote a Prussian staff-officer at a later period, “Germany is open on the Rhine frontier to an invasion directed upon the Southern States.” No stronger testimony to the sense, if not to the reality of insecurity could be adduced, than the remarkable fact that, even so far back as the Crimean War, the then King of Wurtemberg, in conversation with Herr von Bismarck, set forth, significantly, the feelings, the hopes and the dread of South Germany. “Give us Strassburg,” he said, “and we will unite to encounter any eventuality … for until that city shall become German, it will always stand in the way of Southern Germany, devoting herself unreservedly to German unity and to a German national policy.” Hence it will be seen that, beyond the Main, there were traditional, yet very real fears of French invasion; and that these apprehensions had no small share in facilitating the acceptance of the secret military treaties, and in shaping the course of subsequent events.

Thus much it seems needful to state, in order that some portion of the earlier transactions which had a great influence in bringing on the war of 1870, may be recalled to the reader’s mind. The short, sharp and decisive duel fought between Austria and Prussia for leadership in Germany, created a profound impression throughout Europe. Austria was irritated as well as humbled; Russia, although the Czar remained more than friendly, was not without apprehensions; but the French ruler and his ministers were astounded, indignant and bewildered. The telegram, which reported the Battle of Sadowa, wrenched a “cry of agony” from the Court of the Tuileries, whose policy had been based on the conjecture or belief that Prussia would be defeated, and would call for help. The calculation was, that Napoleon III. would step in as arbiter, and that while he moderated the demands of Austria, he would be able to extort territorial concessions from Prussia as the reward of his patronage. M. Drouyn de Lhuys would have had his master strike in, at once, and cross the Rhine, or occupy the Palatinate; but the Emperor was not then in the mood for heroic enterprises; he feared that his army was not “ready,” and, besides, he still thought that by arrangement he could obtain some sort of “compensation” from Prussia, at the expense of Germany. But all he did was to pose as mediator at Nikolsburg; and Herr von Bismarck, who had done his utmost to keep him in a dubious frame of mind, regarded it as “fortunate” that he did not boldly thrust himself into the quarrel. The “golden opportunity” slid by; M. Drouyn de Lhuys resigned; and Imperial France acquiesced, publicly, in the political and territorial arrangements which, for the first time, during the lapse of centuries, laid broad and deep the foundations of German Unity, and, as a consequence, rendered inevitable a France-German War.