TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE EUROPEAN CRISIS.
THE recent Plebiscite, which re-established the Throne of the Napoleons, revealed to the Emperor the weak point of his position. France was annoyed by his foreign, and not by his internal policy. He had not of late years sufficiently flattered the arrogance of a people who, while believing their country the first in the world, dread and detest the prosperity of any neighbour who may contest, or may seem able to con- test, their claim. The orators of the Opposition made much of Sadowa. Sadowa re-appeared too often in the Prefects' re- ports. Fifty thousand soldiers voted against the Empire, and the main cause was believed to be the loss of military prestige France had suffered in Europe since Sadowa. If the dynasty was to last, if the soldiery were to be always ready to fire upon Parisians, if the weakly lad now riding veloci- pedes was ever to ascend the throne, Sadowa must be avenged. That was the Emperor's conviction, and accordingly, with that supreme selfishness, that callous recklessness of human misery which in all great crises he has invari- ably displayed, he resolved on war,—war with Prussia, with the Rhine for prize. Accident gave him a magni- ficent opportunity. Among many candidates for the Spanish throne, Marshal Prim had turned his eyes to the nearest agnate of the Braganzas, Leopold of Hohenzollern, had men- tioned his idea so publicly that many weeks ago M. J. Lemoinne criticized it in the Debuts, and had when pressed by the ex- Queen's abdication attempted to make his selection a reality. Aware, however, that the Empress Eugenie would move heaven and earth for the family whose subject she was born, he kept his negotiations secret, trusting that when the choice had been made the Emperor, who had only interdicted the Orleanists and the Republic, would tolerate a Catholic German of Portuguese connections. He offered the Crown to the Prince, therefore, through a secret agent ; but the secret was betrayed by the seizure of a telegram en route, and Napoleon found his opportunity. His Ministry were irritated to find how stupid their Embassies had been. His Generals were irritated by the thought of an alliance which might threaten the Southern frontier. His people were irritated to find that Bismarck, Bismarck the betrayer, Bismarck the bogey, had for the twentieth time clutched a prize in the diplo- Ratio game. At a hint the inspired journals raved of danger to France from the " aggressive ambition " of Prussia, the public, always thinking of Sadowa, responded eagerly, the army grew savage with excitement, the Legisla- tive Chamber shook with enthusiastic cheers at the first mention of war, and as his first act the Emperor proposed an ultimatum to Berlin. Prince Leopold should not reign in Spain under penalty of war. It was believed at the Tuileries that this demand, if proffered with sufficient rudeness, with talk about hours, and fanfaronade about susceptibilities, would evoke a refusal ; but the Tuileries had not understood the nature of Teutonic pride. The soldierlike old King who has made Germany met all this arrogance with cold disdain, ordered his Press to ask what all the pother was about, de- clined at first to interfere with Spanish affairs one way or another, and finally, when convinced by the agitation of Europe that the menace was serious, refused to let Germans die for a remote dynastic interest of his own. As King he would do nothing, as head of the Hohenzollern he would dis- approve the candidature. Accordingly the candidature ended, Prince Anton, father of Leopold, withdrawing his son, while the Spanish Government announced that they had abandoned their intention of electing him. There seemed a chance of peace, and Napoleon, at the cost to Europe of a few score mil- lions of movable property, had triumphed over Spain. This, however, was insufficient. Sadowa was not avenged because Serrano fled ; there must be at least some open humiliation of Prussia; and accordingly France demanded that King William as King should pledge Prussia never to allow any member of her Royal family, however distant, to ascend the throne of Spain,—that is, should acknowledge that he had commenced and had failed in a gigantic intrigue. To make sure of a repulse, the French Ambassador, M. Benedetti, received instructions which induced him to assail the King on the public promenade of Ems with this demand, an affront which, even in the history of French diplomacy, always able, but so often arrogant, is almost without a parallel. It was met with haughty dignity, the King, looking steadily at M. Benedetti, ordered the aide-de-camp by his side to. inform him that he declined to receive him, having no. further communication to make,—and the Emperor had at last. succeeded. He had aroused the German heart at last. It was, then, insult that he meant, to be accepted under penalty of war, and Germany stood up ready for the inevitable con- flict. Cool, cynical Berlin, which believes in no one, Hohen-- zollerns and Providence included, no sooner heard of this incident than it rose storming for war, and before these words reach our readers the orders will have been issued which call into the field the army which won. Sadowa.
This is, we believe, the only true, as it is certainly the only intelligible, explanation of the astounding incidents of the week,. and we question if in history there is such another instance of an attack on the human race in the interest of an individual. France was not only not threatened by Spain, but knew she was not threatened, for from the first it was understood that Spain, whether she persisted or not, would be permitted to be neutral. Prussia, on the other hand, was not only not threat- ening France, but rather than wage a purposeless war sub- mitted to see her dynasty refused permission to accept a compliment from a friendly nation. Napoleon, unprovoked, or victorious over the provoker, deliberately plunges all Europe- into war, in order that by the seizure of the Rhine, or the visible humiliation of the Prussian King, he may regain a shattered prestige with the soldiery who support his throne. For this object, and this alone, he exposes Europe to all the dangers and miseries of a war which must be terrible, and may be universal. It is childish to speak of such a war as a " duel " between France and Prussia. Will Denmark remain quiet while Frenchmen are on the Elbe, or Russia sit patient- while Denmark becomes a German province ? Will armies counted by quarter-millions respect that neutrality of Belgium which will embarrass every military design, which will make the most necessary movements impossible, and which,. nevertheless, has been formally guaranteed by Great Britain For this, and this only, to make his boy's succession a little more likely, the French Emperor has risked not his dynasty merely, but the people who elected him their chief, and who, after eighteen years of submissive quiescence, after- the sacrifice of a million lives and nearly two hundred millions. of treasure, after seeing the conscription doubled, and every promise of free institutions broken—it is not a fortnight since the Emperor refused to hear of elective Mayors—are called on to do battle for existence with a Power which Imperial policy has helped to call into being. For it is a battle for existence,. to be waged under most unfavourable circumstances. That the Frenchman is a splendid soldier, that the French army is the most perfect of military machines, that a contest with France is a contest in which no race has ever greatly won, we willingly acknowledge. But this time France is fighting in a bad cause the only nation in which army and people are conter- minous, just when its self-confidence is excited by magnificent victories, and it has at its head the men who won them. It is not a Council or a King who will guide the Prussian army, but the little man in spectacles who, away from. the fire, struck down the Austrian Empire in a week. The Empire, fatal to every other form of genius,—to literature, which it has enslaved ; to art, which it has sensualized; to statesmanship, which it has suppressed,—has not been friendly to the development even of military genius. It has fought many battles, but it has not developed many first-class soldiers. That France, were the war to last, would produce generals of the first rank, goes without talking ; but will it last, or will it be ended in a month, while the Imperial policy, which considers devotion above genius, is still in its full force ? France has no ally, for Austria dare not claim to re- enter Germany by the side of the Germans' foe ; she has no ad- vantage of situation, for Prussia can invade her more easily than she can invade Prussia ; and she has no advantage of numbers, for Prussia can collect all the soldiers any generals can handle with effect. She enters on war in her own strength only, amid the disapprobation of Europe, under the leadership of a man of sixty-two, who has never shown any capacity for generalship, and who sets before him as an end to do what has never yet been done,—to turn a nation's history back. With France in the field, it is folly to' predict defeat or even repulse ; but if past history ever justifies prediction about the future, Germany will not be unmade, and the Napoleons will be found to have wearied the patience of Heaven out.
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