The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859

Those who reasoned from the mere occasion of the war were perfectly right, from their point of view. Unfortunately for their reputation for sagacity, their premises were entirely wrong, and hence the viciousness of their conclusion. If we would know the cause of the war, we must banish from our minds all that is said about the desire of Napoleon III for vengeance on the conquerors of his uncle, all that we are told of his sentimental wish for the elevation of the Italian people to a national position, and all that is predicated of his ambitious longings for the reconstruction of the First Empire. We must regard Napoleon III in the light of what he really is, namely, one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived, or we shall never be able to understand what are his purposes. We have nothing to do with his morals, but have to regard him only as the chief of France, pursuing the policy he believes best calculated to advance that country's interests, and doing so in strict accordance with her historical traditions, and in the same manner in which it was pursued by the ablest of the Valois kings, by Henry IV. and Sully, by Richelieu and Mazarin, by Louis XIV., by the chiefs of the First Republic, and by Napoleon I. He may be a good man or a bad man, but his character is entirely aside from the question, the nature and merits of which have no necessary connection with the nature and merits of the men engaged in effecting its solution. Let us examine the subject, and see if we cannot find an intelligent, reasonable cause for Napoleon's course of action, that shall harmonize with the duties, we might almost say the instincts, of a great French statesman. The examination will embrace nothing recondite, but we are confident it will show that the French Emperor is no Quixote, and that he has been forced into the war by the necessities of his situation, and by the very natural desire he feels to prevent France from being compelled to descend to a secondary place in the scale of European nations.

Modern Europe, in the sense in which we understand the term, dates from the last quarter of the Fifteenth Century. Then England ceased to attempt permanent conquests on the continent. Then Spain assumed European rank and definite position. But two powers then began especially to show themselves, and to play parts which both have maintained down to the present time. The one was France, which then ceased to dread English invasions, from the effects of which she was rapidly recovering, whereby she was left to employ her energies on foreign fields. The other was the House of Austria, which, by a series of fortunate marriages, became, in the short period of forty years, the most powerful family the modern world has ever known. On the day when Maximilian, son of Frederick III., Emperor of Germany, wedded Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, the rivalry between France and the Austrian family began. Philip, son of that marriage, married Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; and their son, Charles I. of the Spains, became Charles V. of Germany. Thus there centred in his person a degree of power such as no other sovereign could boast, and which alone would have sufficed to make him the rival of the King of France, Francis I., had no personal feeling entered into the relations between them. But such feeling existed, and grew out of their competition for the imperial crown. The previous ill-will between the Valois and the Hapsburg was greatly increased, and assumed such force as permanently to color the course of European history from that day to this. The rivalry of Charles and Francis was the cause of many contests, and the French monarch, though he was "The Most Christian King," in the opinion of some, more than once aided, or offered to aid, the German Protestants against the Emperor. To Philip II. and Henry II. the rivalry of their fathers descended as an inheritance. It was in their warfare that the Battle of St. Quentin was fought. The progress of the Reformation led monarchs in those days to take a view of affairs not much unlike that which monarchs of this century took in the days of the Holy Alliance, and after the revolution of 1830. The hatred of Protestantism led the two kings to draw together, though Henry II. had had no mean part in that work which had enabled the Protestant Maurice of Saxony to render abortive all the plans of Charles V. for the full restoration of Catholicism in Germany. During the thirty years that followed the death of Henry II., the dissensions of France had rendered her unable to contend with the House of Austria, then principally represented by the Spanish branch of that family; and Philip II. at one time thought of obtaining the crown of that country for a member of his own house. But no sooner had Henry IV. ascended the French throne, and established himself firmly thereon, than the rivalry of France and Austria became as clearly pronounced as it had been in the reign of Francis I.; and at the time of his death that most popular of the Bourbon kings was engaged on a plan having for its object the subversion of the Austrian power. His assassination changed the course of events for a few years; but Richelieu became the ally of the Swedes and Protestant Germans in the Thirty Years' War, though he was a Cardinal, had destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, and might have aspired to the Papacy. Mazarin, another Cardinal, followed Richelieu's policy. Louis XIV. was repeatedly at war with the House of Austria, though he was the son of an Austrian princess, and was married to another. His last war with that house was for the throne of Spain, when the elder branch of the Hapsburgs died out, in 1700. Louis XV. had two contests with Austria; but in 1756, under the lead of Count Kaunitz, France and Austria were united, and acted together in the Seven Years' War, the incidents and effects of which were by no means calculated to reconcile the French to the departure of their government from its ancient policy. One of the causes of the French Revolution was the Austrian alliance, and one of its effects was the complete rupture of that alliance. Austria was the most determined foe that the French Republic and Empire ever encountered. Including the war of 1815, there were six contests between Austria and republican and imperial France. In all these wars Austria was the aggressor, and showed herself to be the enemy of France as well as of those French principles which so frightened the conservatives of the world in those days. In the first war, she took possession of French places for herself, and not for the House of Bourbon; and in the last she purposed a partition of France, long after Louis XVIII. had been finally restored, and when Napoleon was at or near St. Helena. She demanded that Alsace and Lorraine should be made over to her, in the autumn of 1815. She sought to induce Prussia to unite with her by offering to support any demand that she might make for French territory; and, failing to move that power, endeavored to get the smaller German States to act with her,—the same States, indeed, that are now so hostile to France, and which talk of a march upon Paris, and of a reduction of French territorial strength. Nothing prevented the Austrian idea from being reduced to practice but the opposition of Russia and England, neither of which had any interest in the spoliation of France, while both had no desire to see Austria rendered stronger than she was. It was to England that Austria owed her Italian possessions, which, in 1814, she at first had the sense not to wish to be cumbered with; and to make her still more powerful north of the Alps was not to be thought of even by the Liverpools and Castlereaghs. The Czar, too, had in his thoughts a closer connection with France than it suited him then to avow, and for purposes of his own; and therefore he could not desire the sensible diminution of the power of a country the resources of which he expected to employ. Nicholas inherited his brother's ideas and designs, and we are to attribute much of the ill-feeling that he exhibited towards the Orléans dynasty to his disappointment; for the revolution that elevated that dynasty to the French throne destroyed the hope that he had entertained of having French aid to effect the conquest of Turkey. There never would have been a siege of Sebastopol, if the elder branch of the Bourbons had continued to rule in France. It required even a series of revolutions to bring France to that condition in which the Western Alliance was possible. But there would have been something more than "an understanding" between France and Russia concerning Austria, had the government of the Restoration endured a few years beyond 1830. It suited the Austrian government to show considerable coldness towards the Orléans dynasty; but assuredly so wise a man as Prince Metternich, and who had such excellent means of information, never could have believed otherwise than that the establishment of that dynasty saved Austria from being assailed by both Russia and France.

The rivalry of France and Austria being understood, and that rivalry leading to war whenever occasion therefor chances to arise, it remains to inquire what is the occasion of the existing contest. When Napoleon III. became head of France, as Prince-President, at the close of 1848, Austria was the last power with which he could have engaged in war, supposing that he had then been strong enough to control the policy of France, and it had suited him to make an occasion for war. She was then engaged in her death-and-life struggles with Hungarians, Italians, and others of her subjects who that year threw off her yoke, while the Sardinians had endeavored to obtain possession of Lombardy and Venice. Francis Joseph became chief of the Austrian Empire at the same time that Louis Napoleon ascended to the same point in France. Certainly, if the object of France had been the mere weakening and spoliation of Austria, then was the time to assail her, when one half her subjects were fighting the other half, when the Germans outside of her empire were by no means her friends, and when it was far from clear that she could rely upon assistance from Russia. Austria was then in a condition of helplessness apparently so complete, that many thought her hour had come; but those who knew her history, and were aware how often she had recovered from just such crises, held no belief of the kind. Yet if France had assailed her at that time, Austria must have lost all her Italian provinces; and it is now generally admitted, that, if Cavaignac had sent a French army into Italy immediately after the victory won by Radetzky over Charles Albert at Somma Campagna, (July 26th, 1848,) the "Italian question" would then have been settled in a manner that would have been satisfactory to the greater part of Europe, and have rendered such a war as is now waging in Italy quite impossible. Russia could have done nothing to prevent the success of the French arms, and it is probable that Austria would have abandoned the contest without fighting a battle. At an earlier period she had signified her readiness to allow the incorporation of most of Lombardy with Sardinia, she to retain the country beyond the Mincio, and to hold the two great fortresses of Peschiera (at the southern extremity of the Lago di Garda, and at the point where the river issues from the lake) and Mantua. She even asked the aid of France and England to effect a peace on this basis, but unsuccessfully. Cavoignac's anomalous political position prevented him from aiding the Italians. He was a Liberal, but the actual head of the reactionists in France of all colors, of men who looked upon the Italians as ruffians wedded to disorder, while Austria, in their eyes, was the champion of order. France did nothing, and in December Louis Napoleon became President. An opportunity was soon afforded him to interfere in Italian affairs. The armistice that had existed between the Austrians and the Sardinians after the 9th of August, 1848, was denounced on the 12th of March, 1849, by the latter; and Radetzky closed the order of the day, issued immediately after this denunciation was made, with the words,—"Forward, soldiers, to Turin!" The intentions of the Sardinians must have been known to Louis Napoleon, but he took no measures to aid them. He saw Piedmont conquered in a campaign of "hours." He saw Brescia treated by Haynau as Tilly treated Magdeburg. He saw the long and heroical defence of Venice against the Austrians, during the dreary spring and summer of '49,—a defence as worthy of immortality as the War of Chiozza, and indicating the presence of the spirit of Zeno, and Contarini, and Pisani in the old home of those patriots. But nothing moved him. He would not even mediate in behalf of the Venetians; and it was by the advice of the French consul and the French admiral on the station that Venice finally surrendered, but not until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President for his indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was not firm in his seat. He was but a temporary chief of the State. He was surrounded by enemies, political and personal, who were seeking his overthrow, without any regard for the tenure of his office. He knew not his power. His object was the restoration of internal peace to France, her recovery from the weakness info which she had fallen or had been precipitated. He dared not offend the Catholics, who saw then, as they see now, a champion in Austria. He was the victim of circumstances, and he had to bow before them, in order that he might finally become their master. Then he had no occasion for a quarrel with Austria. She was at the lowest ebb her fortunes had known since the day that the Turks appeared for the second time before Vienna. She could not have maintained herself in Italy, even after the successes of Radetzky, had not Nicholas sent one hundred and fifty thousand men to her assistance in Hungary. What had France to fear from her? No more than she had to fear from her on the day after Austerlitz.

Years rolled on, and brought with them great changes; and the greatest of those changes was to be seen in Italy, in reference to the position of Austria there, and its effect upon France. Austria rapidly reëstablished her power in Italy, not only over Lombardy and Venice, but over every part of the Peninsula, excepting Sardinia. Tuscany was connected with her by various ties, and was ruled as she wished it to be ruled. Parma and Modena were hers in every sense. She was the patron and protector of the abominable Bomba, and her support alone enabled him to defy the sentiment of the civilized world, and to indulge in cruelties such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes, and were no more free to act without her consent than were the kings the Roman Republic and Empire allowed to exist within their dominions free to act without the consent of the proconsuls. What the proconsul of Syria was to the little potentates mentioned in the New Testament, the Austrian viceroy in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was to the nominal rulers of the various Italian States. It only remained to bring Sardinia within this ring-fence of sea and mountains to convert all Italy into an Austrian dependency. There is nothing like this in history, we verily believe. In the short period of ten years after the capture of Milan by Radetzky, (August 4, 1848,) the Austrians had established themselves completely in nearly every part of Italy. Of the twenty-seven millions of people that compose her population, twenty-two millions were as much at the command of Austria as were the Hungarians and Bohemians. Had she had the sense to use her power, not with mildness only, but beneficially to this great mass of men, and had nothing occurred to disturb her plans, she would have nearly doubled the number of her subjects, and have more than doubled her resources. She would have become a great maritime state, and have converted the Mediterranean into an Austrian lake. Had they been well governed, the Italians might, and most probably would, have accepted their condition, and have become loyal subjects of the House of Lorraine. Foreign rule is no new thing to them, nor have they ever been impatient under its existence, when it has existed for their good. The people rarely are hostile to any government that is conducted with ordinary fairness. There is no greater error than that involved in the idea that revolutions or changes of any kind originate from below, that they proceed from the people. Almost invariably they come from above, from governmental action; and it is ever in the power of a government to make itself perpetual. The term of its existence is in its own hands. At the very worst for Austria, she might have accomplished in Italy what was accomplished there three centuries ago by Spain, then ruled by the elder branch of the Hapsburgs. She might have commanded almost everything within its limits, with Sardinia to play some such part as was then played by Venice.

This is said on the supposition, first, that her government should have been mild and conciliatory, active only for good, and that all her interference with local rule should have been on the side of humanity; and, second, that no foreign power should have interfered to prevent the full development of her policy. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for other nations, and especially so for Italy, she not only did not govern well, but governed badly; and there was a great power which was deeply, vitally interested—moved by the all-controlling principle of self-preservation—in watching all her movements, and in finding occasion to drive her out of Italy. She was not content with upholding misgovernment in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and elsewhere, but she meant to subvert the constitutional polity established in the Sub-Alpine Kingdom of Sardinia. The enemy of constitutionalism and freedom everywhere, she was especially hostile to their existence in the little state that bordered on a portion of her Italian possessions, whence they always threatened Lombardy with a plague she detests far more heartily than she detests cholera. No natural boundary or cordon militaire could suffice to stay the march of principles. Nothing would answer but the subversion of the Sardinian constitution and the bringing of that nation's government into harmony with the admirable rule that existed, under the double-headed eagle's protection, in Naples and Modena. Unless all Austrian history be false, Austria's object for years has been a revolution in Sardinia, and Rome has aided her. This is the necessity of her moral situation with reference to her little neighbor. The world has smiled at Austria's late complaint that Sardinia menaced her, it seemed so like the wolf's protestation that the lamb was doing him an injury; but it was really well founded, though not entitled to much respect. Sardinia did menace Austria. She menaced her by the force of her example,—as the honest man menaces the rogue, as the peaceful man menaces the ruffian, as the charitable man menaces the miser, as the Good Samaritan menaced the priest and Levite. In the sense that virtue ever menaces vice, and right constantly menaces wrong, Sardinia was a menace to Austria;—and as we often find the wrongdoer denouncing the good as subverters of social order, we ought not to be astonished at the plaintive whine of the master of thrice forty legions at the conduct of the decorous, humane, and enlightened Victor Emanuel.

The only foreign power that had a direct, immediate, positive interest in preventing the establishment of Austrian power over Italy was France. Several other powers had some interest adverse to the success of the Austrian scheme, but it was so far below that which France felt, that it is difficult to make any comparison between the several cases. England, speaking generally, might not like the idea of a new naval power coming into existence in the Mediterranean, which, with great fleets and greater armies, might come to have a controlling influence in the East, and prevent the establishment of her power in Egypt and Syria. She might see with some jealousy the further development of Austrian commerce, which has been so successfully pursued in the Mediterranean and the Levant since 1815. But then England is not very remarkable for forethought, and she has a just confidence in her own naval power. Besides, would not Austria, in the event of her adding Italy virtually to her dominions, become the ally of England in the business of supporting Turkey against Russia, and in preventing the further extension of Russian power to the South and the East? The old traditionary policy of England pointed to an Austrian alliance, and nations are tenacious of their traditions. The war in Italy was unquestionably precipitated by Austria's belief that in the last resort she could rely upon English support; and she made a fatal delay in her military movements in deference to English interposition. Prussia could not be expected to see the increase of the power of the House of Austria with pleasure; but it was possible that the extension of its dominions to the South, by giving it new objects of ambition, and forcing upon it a leading part in Eastern affairs, might cause that house to pay less regard to German matters, leaving them to be managed by the House of Hohenzollern. Russia, under the system that Nicholas pursued, could not have seen Austria absorb Italy without resisting the process at any cost; but Alexander IV.,14 a wiser man than his father was, never would have gone to war to prevent it, his views being directed to those internal reforms the success of which is likely to create a Russian People, and to place his empire in a far higher position than it has ever yet occupied. Yet Russia could not have witnessed Austria's success with pleasure; and the readiness with which she has agreed to aid France, should the Germans aid Austria, is proof sufficient that she is desirous that Austria should not merely be prevented from extending her territory, but actually reduced in extent and in means. From no part of Europe have come more decided condemnations of the course of Austria than from the Russian capital. The language of the St. Petersburg journals touching the Treaties of Vienna has been absolutely contemptuous; and that language is all the more oracular and significant because we know that the editors of those journals must have been inspired by the government. It has been justly regarded as expressing the views of the Czar, and of the statesmen who compose his cabinet. Though not disposed for war, and probably sincerely desirous of the preservation of peace everywhere, the rulers of Russia are quite ready to support France in all proper measures that she may adopt to drive the Austrians from every part of the Italian Peninsula. They are too sagacious not to see that France cannot hold a league of Italian territory, and the reduction of Austrian power is just so much gained towards the ultimate realization of their Oriental policy.

Of the other European powers, and of their opinions respecting the effect of Austrian supremacy, little need be said. Such countries as Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal have little weight in the European system, individually or collectively. Even Spain, though she is not the feeble nation many of our countrymen are pleased to represent her, when seeking to find a reason for the seizure of Cuba,—even Spain, we say, could not be much moved by the prospect of Austria's reaching to that condition of vast strength which would necessarily follow from her undisputed ascendency in Italy. The lesser German States would probably have seen Austria's increase with pleasure, partly because it would have helped to remove their fears of France and Russia, and partly because it would have been flattering to their pride of race, the House of Austria being Germanic in its character, though ruling directly over but few Germans,—few, we mean, in comparison with the Slaves, Magyars, Italians, and other races that compose the bulk of its subjects. Turkey alone had a direct interest in Austria's success, as promising her protection against all the other great European powers; but Turkey is not, properly speaking, a member of the European Commonwealth.