Me: “That war was after my death.”
The old man: “It was said that France should not have let Germany unite. Strictly speaking, it did not have any more right to impede German unification than to oppose Italian unification. In any case, those two transformations, one of which was the result of the other, were only the final destruction of the treaties of 1845 that had only ever had one goal, to keep France down. Those treaties, which had caused so much bloodshed in Poland, Belgium and Italy, did not constitute any European equilibrium, but merely consecrated our diminution. That is what is fundamental. Thus, when everyone violated them in turn, why should France have defended that dead letter, whose text, spirit and temporary application had been such a heavy burden for us?
“The Emperor did better; he allowed Italian unity and German unity to be founded, and he founded French unity in his turn. If he did not take up arms the day after Sadowa, it is because, under the action of a press whose patriotism seemed troubled in that epoch, public opinion vacillated, went momentarily astray, and voiced the desire in places for peace at any price. Pacific by nature, Napoléon III did no violence to the country, and initially left his sword in its scabbard.”
“Me: “But Prussia’s war against Germany was a pure war of conquest.”
The old man: “Undoubtedly, but for want of conquest, the unification of Germany would have taken place some other way. Then again, we are not the world’s Don Quixotes.”
Me: “That has been said, though.”
The old man: “It’s puerile. A great cause and a great idea are always at the bottom of the interests of France; that’s the truth—with the result that our most political and most French wars always work to the advantage of the oppressed or contribute to civilization. In any case, Napoléon III had too practical a mind to make wars of sentiment, theory or whimsy. He did not, strictly speaking, make war for the Turks against Russia. With regard to the Turks, he prevented Russia from becoming mistress of the Mediterranean, where we had such considerable interests: Marseille, Algeria, Corsica, Tunis, Egypt. He did not make war for Italy against Austria, but on Austria on the occasion of Italy, which she had, in fact, conquered, with the result that three hundred years of conflict between her and us had terminated in our radical defeat, and our security was directly threatened. And that is why I willingly exempt the Gate and Italy from any gratitude, even though they owe us a profound amity, born of the community of perils and interests, sealed by blood shed in common.”
“Me: “In sum, how was the Franco-German question resolved? How was the French agglomeration formed?
The old man: “By arms and by the will of the populations, honestly consulted. A campaign and a battle in 1869 sufficed. And, in passing, I will tell you that it was high time to make that war.
“In Germany, the work improvised and imposed by Prussia was consolidated; our absolute silence had caused the conquered populations to lose all hope of seeing us come to their aid; they submitted. At the same time, the Rhenish populations rendered hesitant by Louis-Philippe in 1840 became more so every day.
“In France, opinion was labored by an opposition that, fearing nothing more than seeing the government cover itself with glory and fulfill the desires of the nation, enervated the country and strove to shake its patriotism in the name of a ridiculous cosmopolitanism. For in France, opposition always being systematic and antidynastic—it has never hidden that—is only patriotic when the government is not, as under King Louis Philippe; when the government is nationalistic and glorious, it kisses the foreigner’s feet, and then, to put its language in harmony with its conduct, it is constrained to affect the most revolting doctrines. Thus, in 1867, one newspaper, which was scarcely of its time, had the indecency to sustain the thesis that the checks that the government and French diplomacy might suffer were of no interest to the country; from there to saying that a battle lost by our armies would be indifferent to us is only a short step. Thus, another rag that did not foresee the future and had nothing nationalistic, provoked Italy with all its might to outrage France by violating a convention solemnly signed with her.
“So, the military spirit was weakened. On the other hand, the Chassepot rifles and Noel cannon could not be kept inactive until the day when some new invention would have sent them to the Artillery Museum as curiosities; victory goes to whoever has the best weapon, that weapon only serves once, and that once never arrives if one keeps the weapon for three years.
“Such were the accessory, political and military motives that combined in the absolute necessary that France was in to make war on the Rhine, under pain of being exposed one day to finding herself in the situation of a second-rate power, or even a nation vanquished without having had the honor of fighting.”
Me: “But for what reason did that war break out?”
The old man: “I’ve indicated to you what rendered it necessary. The motives of right were not lacking either; the Treaty of Prague had been violated as soon as it was concluded in two essential dispositions: the States of Southern Germany that ought to have formed a separate confederation were commercially and militarily part of Prussian Germany, which had imposed on them a customs regime common with the Northern Confederation and offensive and defensive alliances, while the relationships between the South and the North were to be regulated by an ulterior arrangement with Austria. On the other hand, the populations of northern Schleswig, which ought to have been honestly consulted as to whether they wanted to be restored to Denmark were maintained under the Prussian yoke.”
Me: “So the Rhine is ours and Belgium is with us! I would never have dared hope for that immense result.”
The old man: “In 1858, who would have believed that Sardinia would become mistress of the Milanese? Who in 1865 could have explained how Venice would be Italy’s the following year?”
Me: “By the way, what has become of the Pope?”
The old man: “By unanimous accord, the Powers maintained him in his reduced territory. They rose above, if one can put it thus, the question of temporal sovereignty, above the political question, and only wanted to see in his eventual dispossession one more blow against the greatest institution in the world, a disturbance of the most powerful dyke opposed to socialism, materialism, atheism and immortality.
“The Pope is still in Rome, where he governs his petty State in peace, and his crown is the most respected in the world.
“In sum, this is what the reign of Napoléon III produced: internally, peace, security, order, labor, activity, wealth, the relief of poverty, moral and intellectual progress, democracy and all the civil, economic and political liberties; externally, real and peaceful equilibrium, the definitive solution of all the great questions, save for the maintenance of certain provisional ones that are sometimes the best solutions.”
Chapter XII
Marcellus lived and reigned.
Me: “Since then what has happened? What series of events has traversed the world?”
The old man: “The first years of the reign of Napoléon IV, who mounted the throne of his ancestors in 1888, were troubled by one of those formidable wars that temper courage, fortify hearts and elevate souls, by exercising the noblest passions: disinterest, abnegation, devotion and heroism. For it must be admitted that if wars are scourges, they are moralizing scourges.
“So, war broke out.
“The ambitions of Russia and the United States, contained by the prestige of the arbiter of the world, were unleashed when he entered eternal repose. There was a kind of universal earthquake; the world tottered; one might have thought that the base of everything was collapsing; the nations were adrift, bewildered.
“People knew what that thirty-two-year-old Emperor was, whose august father had remade Europe and society and whose mother was a saint. He was known to be as brave and firm as he was good and wise. But so what? Not to attempt anything at the beginning of his reign, not to put him to the proof, would have been to renounce old projects forever, to submit forever to the prep
onderance of France. That could not be.
“The Orient was worked up, exciting the Slavs—who, independent thanks to us, could only lose by any change in the state of things, and ran the risk of seeing their independence in regard to Turkey changed into vassalage with regard to Russia. But people did not understand their interests very well; if it were otherwise, the terms bad politics and adventure would not exist. So, the Bulgars agitated; the Rumanians, Serbs and Montenegrins armed; the Albanians and Thessalonians engaged in conflict. Then Russia threw away the mask and got ready to intervene militarily. France and England immediately adopted a threatening attitude.
“In that situation, the United States having offered their mediation, which had not been accepted because of the goal to which it manifestly tended—the intervention of America in European affairs, and consequently, the possession of some territory in Europe—a concerted comedy was played out. Russia demanded that the American Republic was appointed as an arbiter between herself on the one hand, and France, England, Austria, Italy and Turkey on the other; the Powers refused; the United States took offense and prepared ostentatiously to attack us.
“It was then that the Emperor proclaimed loudly in the name of all the cis-Atlantic states the ‘Doctrine of the Author,’ of which the formula was: Europe for the Europeans, and whose application consisted of rejecting in an absolute manner the slightest participation of America in the affairs of the Old World.
“It was in the wake of those events that the Tsars were, for the last time, expelled from the Ottoman Empire, and were reduced to the impossibility of ever reentering it.
“The war was brief and terrible at sea and in Europe. It required nothing less than the united navies of France and England to destroy, in three famous battles, one fought in the Baltic, one of the coast of Louisiana and the third in the Channel, the combined fleets of the enemy, and then ships of infernal invention came more than once to bombard our ports. It required no less than 110,000 men to repel the Russian army that suddenly descended upon Bulgaria; it required 200,000 more to take Warsaw and Moscow, and as many to take Cronstadt and Saint Petersburg, and more that 500,000 Germans, English and French acting simultaneously.
“When 90,000 French troops were disembarked in the United States, they fought so well in two encounters with the elite of 1,500,000 American volunteers that they had only to appear before the rest to disperse them as the wind disperses smoke; their machine guns and other engines did not save them. A false idea had doomed them; they had believed, after the Civil War of 1861-66, that improvised armies, who could vanquish volunteers, were capable of withstanding permanent troops fashioned by discipline, imbued with the military spirit—without which there is no army—and proven.
“After that war, the United States were confined to their continent, and no more mention was heard of them. That was justice. Had they not the compensation, in any case, of Cuba, the pearl of the Antilles, Jamaica and the Bahamas, which England and Spain had allowed to be snatched away from them in the struggle? In those conditions, having no more useful allies on this side of the Ocean, and instructed by that lesson, they were not tempted to come back, and signed a solemn renunciation of any mixture in European questions—a renunciation that was, moreover, in conformity with the advice that Washington had given them in his farewell address.
“Russia lost Bessarabia, which was restored to Turkey, and Poland, divided between Germany and Austria, sharing with Pomerania and Galicia a mild domination, the great Slavic empire in Central Europe being, in a way, reconstituted by that plan. Russia was also obliged to raze her places of war and no longer to have in Europe anything but an army and a navy reduced to the necessities of police service. No one threatened her; her forces could only have existed for aggressive purposes. She has reported all her activity since then to Asia, where she has begun to press England closely.
“Thus the question of the Orient was resolved.
“One no longer saw in Constantinople those antagonisms of diametrically opposed politics, those struggles for influence between the powers that had done so much harm to the Ottoman Empire. One no longer saw Russia incessantly raising questions, engendering conflicts, inciting vassal populations against the suzerain. For their part, they understood that wellbeing for all consisted of enjoying the entire independence of which they were really in possession, and devoting their time and effort to veritable progress. They were no longer seen abandoning themselves to intrigues, allowing themselves to be drawn into foolish enterprises. The Turk, therefore, no longer hesitated to do for them everything in his power, and do so honestly, renouncing the eternal postponements and attenuations, either in concession or execution, which were equivalent to refusals. And the Powers no longer thought of anything but aiding the populations and the governors to persist in that sage community of views; they renounced having any other thought regarding the Bosphorus than that of the amelioration and consolidation of the Turkish Empire.
“That thought had, in any case, been until then the essential feature of French politics, and had entered into that of Austria; they had pursued its realization, if not as a unique goal, at least as a means of saving Turkey from revolt, conquest and destruction. They could persevere in that path, for what had been for them a means of influence and resistance to ambitious projects, and for another State a pretext for dissolving action, became a goal for everyone.
“It was thus that England—once more Turkish than the Turk, more Muslim than the Muslim, and more antiprogressive than him—prefer to an immobility and a fatal inertia adopted on his advice, reforms and a fecund activity inaugurated on ours. England, finally forced to recognize than our politics was absolutely disinterested, no longer put up any opposition, adopted the same object as us, and worked sincerely thereafter to attain it.
“That resulted in such a concurrence of wills that nothing—no hidden agendas, no resistances—any longer opposed it; al the difficulties were soon ironed out as if by magic, and the agriculture, finances and civil and administrative organization of Turkey rapidly caught up with that of more prosperous states.
“That transformation of the Oriental politics of cabinets was all the easier to accomplish because, fortunately, the Egyptian question no longer came up—a question that might have been a new Oriental question whose seat would have been Cairo rather than Constantinople, but whose importance and danger would have been similar, its peripeties analogous, and would have given rise to exactly the same rivalries and political deviations. No one thought of dominating the Viceroy, or, at least, no one dared assume the responsibility of opening such a door to discord; and, no ne having entered that path, everyone limited themselves to maintaining cordial relations with the Prince. It must be said, moreover, that the unity of religion of his peoples, which set aside any pretext for a general and permanent interference; the wealth and abundance of indigenous and foreign activity that determined the movement in Egypt produced by the piercing of the isthmus of Suez; and the excellent organization of the country that soon made it a mighty power, rendered interventions les easy and took away the desire. England therefore limited herself to retaining her possessions in Aden and Perim, without entertaining any more territorial or moral ambitions.
“The same causes preserved from any absorption Rumania and the Slav states south of the Danube; the prosperity and strength they knew after many storms prevented anyone from thinking of conquering them. What would have been more natural, however, than Austria, mistress of so many Slavic provinces and such a large part of the course of the Danube, turning her views and her action toward the sovereignty of the entire river basin? Well, the vitality of the populations to be absorbed had become such that to think of it would have been folly; Austria renounced it with the same sagacity that had made her renounce Italy permanently, as impossible to submit.
“Then was revealed in all its grandeur the Danubian politics of France, whose goal had been to render free and too strong for anyone to attempt to attack them, the Serbs, the
Rumanians and the Montenegrins, and to regenerate Turkey itself by reform.
“Everywhere, in Florence, Berlin, Vienna, London and Paris, there was a general renunciation of projects that, in other times, would have been the simple development of new politics based in new circumstances.
“England being disinterested in the affairs of the continent, into which the Oriental question alone had led her to mingle, and from which she had distanced herself as much as possible with that reservation; Prussia, having abandoned any project of expansion, losing all interest in returning beyond the Rhine; France and Italy being satisfied and Russia defeated, a complete equilibrium was finally found that no one any longer had any desire to disturb, and everyone had an interest in maintaining.
“Note once again that the principle of nationalities was not the sole constitutive element of that equilibrium. The equilibrium was normal because it did not repose on that principle any more than on faith in treaties, history, geographical analogies, grouping of interests, etc.—which is to say that all the considerations that can determine the tracing of a frontier, and not one alone, had been put in the balance. And that manner of procedure had been truly wise, for it is as iniquitous and false only to delimit empires under the influence of a preoccupation with nationalities as it would be to regulate the solely on differences of religion. A State is not an abstract and theoretical entity; it is an ensemble of real people and things; it can only live, or at least prosper, on the condition that the elements forming it have more affinities with one another than with neighboring groups; now, when a single link holds them together, it is likely that several attach them to the continuous agglomeration.
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