TOPICS OF THE DAY.
M. JULES FAVRE AND COUNT BISMARCK.
THE German invasion has entered on its aggressive stage. When M. Jules Favre was told by Count Bismarck that the " principle of territorial cession" was the sine qua non of
any peace,—a principle the meaning of which has been elucidated by the definitive incorporation of Alsace and the so-called "German" Lorraine into the system of the German Federal Government, the German war ceased to be a war of defence. It is true that the German Minister still makes military precautions for the future his pretext. But simi- lar " precautions" which take no sort of account of the transfer of - reluctant populations, who by Count Bismarck's candid confession to M. Jules Favre will regard their new Govern- ment as a yoke of oppression, might always be put forward, and almost always have been assigned, as reasons for the grossest acts of aggression. We are not saying, or meaning to say, that this demand of Germany is a gross act of aggression. It is a beginning of aggression which is not gross, which for so great a conqueror is very moderate. But we do say that the moment you permit purely defensive considera- tions to force you into a policy of conquest, you are inter- preting self-defence in a sense which might cover the grossest possible acts of aggression,—in a sense which certainly did pretend to make Austria's possession of Venetia and Lom- bardy a strictly defensive possession,—in a sense which might to-morrow be assigned by Turkey for taking a border province or two from Greece, or by Russia for taking the same guarantees from Turkey. There is no tangible dis- tinction at all between a defensive and an aggressive policy, except the distinction between a policy the object of which is confined to the protection of your own subjects, or of those who with all their hearts wish and claim to become such, and a policy the aim of which goes beyond that object, and includes forcible conquests, under one pretext or another, in its programme. When King William told France on the 11th August,—"The Emperor Napoleon, having made by land and sea an attack on the German nation, which desired, and still desires, to live in peace with the French people, I have assumed the command of the German armies to repel his aggression, and I have been led by military events to cross the frontiers of France," he gave the hope to all Europe that the war would as far as he was concerned cease, so soon as he should have effected the defeat of the French arms, and taken every security short of conquest for the future. He has disappointed that hope. He has received offers which, as is not denied but virtually affirmed by his own Minister, fall short of what Ger- many desired only by not conceding " the principle of a terri- torial cession,"—in other words, the cession of Alsace and a part of Lorraine. He is now carrying on the war solely to compel that cession. From this moment, then, the war is aggressive on the part of Germany, and defensive on the part of France. No doubt it was an aggression which was to be expected, and which France by her conduct had fairly earned. No doubt, as human nature is constituted, great conquerors will never stop short at the point dictated by reason and justice. No doubt, Germany is only doing what England in her place might have done, and what France in her place would have not only done, but far surpassed. Still, none the less, our sympathy with Germany must cease from the moment when, having it in her power to secure a glorious peace, with every guarantee except conquest, if conquest be a guarantee,—for her own safety in future, she determined to pursue the war for the sake of conquest alone. We shall still hold that the triumph of Germany has been an incalculably less evil to the world than would have been the triumph of France. We shall still hold that, for a conquering power, Germany shows moderation. But we have no guarantee how long that moderation will last, when once the conquering spirit begins to prevail. And already the sympathy of England,—which is worth extremely little, no doubt, is rapidly passing over to the power which proffered a hearty acknowledgement of wrong and guarantees that that wrong should not be repeated, and proffered them in vain.
But it is said that whether Germany were unreasonable or not, M. Jules Favre and the Provisional Government were criminally weak in not catching at the chance of putting an end to this hopeless resistance on the best terms they could secure,—that they were guilty of a false and unpatriotic pride in not venturing to undertake the unpopular duty of convincing France that to persevere in the struggle is simply hopeless, and that submission on the best terms they could secure was an imperative duty. The English Press has seemed to us both unjust and ungenerous in pressing this view with almost a tone of triumph against France, and heaping something like ridi- cule on M. Jules Favre and his colleagues for their determi- nation to defend Paris to the last. For our own parts, while entirely sharing the view that the military position of France is almost hopeless, we consider that the decision of the Pro- visional Government was, under the circumstances of Count. Bismarck's conditions, the wisest to which they could have come-,.
and we believe that we can make their resolves appear reasonable and perhaps wise to our readers. The situation was this. Count Bismarck insisted, as the German official report tells us, on the "principle of territorial cession" as a condition sine qud non of peace. In his conversation with M. Jules Favre he gave this general interpretation to his principle,—" The two
departments of the Bas Rhin and Haut Rhin, with a part of the Moselle, Château Salina, and Semmes," which M. Jules- Favre understood him to ask for as " indispensable," but which the Germans say were only spoken of provisionally, the " principle of territorial cession ' being alone indispensable. Count Bismarck repeated several times, "Strasburg is the key of the House, we must have it." M. Jules Favre declared .that these terms were such as the Provisional Government absolutely could not accept, but yet, if time were given to consult the Constituent Assembly, they would, he said, resign their pro- visional powers into the hands of that Assembly, and leave the Assembly free to take its own decision. After this announce- ment the question for discussion became one on the condi- tions of an armistice. Count Bismarck offered, says M. Jules Favre, an armistice of fifteen days, on condition Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsburg (the German accounts say Verdun) were at once surrendered, and that in case the Assembly met in Paris, one of the forts commanding Paris, say Mont Valerien, were put into the hands of the Germans. M. Jules Favre remarked that they might as well ask for Paris itself, on which this condition was given up, it being understood that the Assembly would meet not in Paris but at Tours, but the Germans insisted on the other conditions, and insisted further that the garrison of Strasburg should be made prisoners of war. These, then, were the con- ditions the Provisional Government had to consider,—a disheartening armistice, one of the terms of which was that an unsurrendered garrison, which had fought for France the greatest fight of the war, should be made prisoners of war, as introductory to a peace involving the cession of reluctant populations, which had hitherto borne the whole brunt of the battle, to the enemy. Now, we think it absolutely obvious that the acceptance of such an armistice would have left no real choice in the hands of the Constituent Assembly as to the acceptance of the peace,—that it would, in fact, have been equivalent to the conclusion of peace there and then by the Provisional Govern.- Inca, and rather a mean form of so concluding it, as appearing to cast on the Constituent Assembly a responsibility practically taken out of its hands. A truce which involved a voluntary surrender to the enemy of the most gallant of the defenders of France, as yet unvanquished, as well as the surrender of -three fortresses, however likely to fall, would have taken the last vestige of spirit out of the garrison of Paris and the French people. No people is more easily demoralized by the confes- sion of faintheartedness on the part of rulers. How could any Minister go seriously to a Parliament and ask if it would or would not continue a war after a fortnight of surrendering of fortresses, the bravest of brave garrisons having been volun- tarily abandoned to the enemy, and the Germans having been employed all the time in bringing up along all the lines of railway the heavy siege guns for the attack ? You might as well take a quart or two of blood from a pugilist and then tell him to go in and win. This, then, at least, is beyond question, —the proposed armistice could only have been accepted by the Government if they had determined to have peace on any terms. If they had had any other thought on these heads, it would have been pure madness. And even if resolved on peace, it would have been a mean and underhanded way of making it. It would have been far more candid and open to conclude peace, and call together the Constituent Assembly only to ratify the act of the Provisional Government.
But then comes the further question,—was it incumbent on the Provisional Government as patriots and wise men to con- clude peace ? In answering that, we must remember, first, that in all probability the chances of successful resistance do not appear nearly so hopeless to M. Jules Favre and his colleagues, as they appear to us. We ourselves should not be easily persuaded that with an army of 300,000 men behind
strong fortifications, and the military resources of the pro- vinces not half exhausted, the chance of any prolonged resist- ance to invasion was hopeless. We should not easily consent to give .up Kent and the Isle of Wight with such an army, even though blockaded by one of double its number, still in existence. It would be wholly unreasonable to suppose that the English view of the hopelessness of the struggle is that of the Provisional Government. A brave and bellicose nation hardly can believe in conquest, and cannot believe it at all in such circumstances as those in which the French are now placed. Again, had the Provisional Government con- sented to the terms refused, there was every chance, not to say certainty, of an eineute in Paris and of their own deposition, —and that most fatal of possibilities, a headless nation raging furiously against the chiefs of all parties for their incapacity and treachery. Had the Republican leaders been guilty of what would have seemed a national treachery after the great downfall of the Empire, France would have ceased to have faith in any government, and we might have seen her unity broken up, her population disorganized, her most violent men forming local parties in every quarter of France, and no autho- rity anywhere sufficiently respected to restore the peace of society and the prestige of law. Compared with such a result, a siege of Paris, however bloody and fruitless, in which the existing leaders will have the means of showing their fortitude and their patriotism, is a slight evil. Undoubtedly there are arises in a nation's life when even a fruitless resistance to the foreigner is the absolute condition of future order, and we sin- cerely believe this crisis in the life of France to be such a one. The nation is writhing under the belief that the incapacity and corruption of the Emperor's rule have betrayed it to Germany. Let it once believe that similar incapacity and treachery are at work among the moderate Republicans, and there would be a long interval of anarchy in France. We do not believe that the Provisional Government could have made Place on the terms offered without being disowned by Paris, and plunging the whole country into distrust and division. We do not believe that it could have accepted the armistice with- out in an under-handed and discreditable form compelling the conclusion of peace. As the Germans had made up their minds for conquest, we believe no better course, fatal as it seems, could have been decided on by the Provisional Govern- ment, than to fight on till the nation sees,—if it must see,— the hopelessness of the struggle as clearly as neutral observers. And we have no sympathy with that frigid spirit of English criti- cism which, because it understands how hopeless the contest is, throws all the blame on a Government which has perceived,— justly we think,—that hopeless or not, it must be more con- spicuously hopeless before it can be discontinued without utterly disorganizing France. The sin of the war proves, as usual, to be infectious. Till now, as between the two peoples at least, it was an undivided burden on the shoulders of France, and the Germans were utterly guiltless. Now they are assuming their share of the guilt, by the terms on which they insist ; and if France thinks that repentance does not involve the sur- render of her own hapless countrymen of the border, till Paris has at least fought and suffered, though it be in vain, to redeem them, that is so far a sign of the nobility that lingers in the heart of France, and not a matter to deserve our Pharisaic pity and contempt.
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