The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861

The peace of Villafranca surprised every one, from the Czar on the Neva to the gold-gatherers on the Sacramento. Strange as had been the doings—the world called them tricks—of Napoleon III., no man was prepared for that; and even now, though seventeen eventful months have rolled away since the first shock of it was experienced, the summer-day it was received seems more like one of those days we see in dreams than like a day of real life. Doubt, laughter, astonishment, and disgust followed each other through the minds of millions of men. If curses could kill, the man who had escaped the bombs of Orsini and the bullets of the Austrians would certainly have died in the month that followed the interview he had flogged his imperial brother into granting him. In America,—where we are always doing so much (on paper) for the cause of freedom, and for the deliverance of "oppressed nationalities" of the proper degrees and shades of whiteness, in the firm conviction that the free man is the better customer,—in America the reaction of opinion was overwhelming; and there were but few persons in the United States who would not have shouted over news that Henri Cinq was in Paris, and that the French Empire had a third time made way for the Kingdom of France. Time has not altogether removed the impression then created; for, if it has not justified the belief that the French Emperor had abandoned the Italian cause, it has convinced the world that he lost a noble opportunity to effect the destruction of Austria. There may be—most probably there are—facts yet unknown to the public, knowledge of which would partially justify the conduct of the victor toward the vanquished, in 1859; but, if we judge from what we know, which is all that any monarch can demand of the formers of opinion, Napoleon III. was guilty of a monstrous political and military blunder when he forced a truce upon Francis Joseph.

There is no evidence that any European power was about to interfere in behalf of Austria. Prussia, it is true, had taken a stern attitude, and showed a disposition to place herself at the head of those German States which were for beginning a march upon Paris at once, though M. le Maréchal Duc de Malakoff was ready with two hundred thousand men to receive them, and Paris itself was not the feeble place it had been in 1814 and 1815. It is altogether likely that Prussia was, as is usual with her at every European crisis, shamming. She had no interest in the maintenance of Austria's territorial integrity, and it was rather late in the day to assume that Berlin was affected by the mortifications of Vienna. Could the hearts of kings and the counsels of cabinets be known with that literal exactness which is so desirable in politics, and yet so unattainable, we should probably find that Prussia's apparent readiness to lead Germany was owing to her determination that German armies should be led nowhere to the assistance of Austria. England had just changed her Ministry, the Derby Cabinet giving way to Lord Palmerston's, which was recognized on all sides as a great gain to the cause of Italian independence; and Lord John Russell had written one of those crusty notes to the Prussian government for which he is so famous, and which was hardly less Italian in its sentiments than that in which, written in October last, he upheld the course of Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel. Russia had evinced no disposition to interfere in behalf of Austria, and perhaps the news of Magenta and Solferino was as agreeable to the dwellers in St. Petersburg and Moscow as it was to the citizens of New York and Boston. She was, indeed, believed to be backing France. Politically, so far as we can judge, there was no cause or occasion for the throwing up of the cards by the French, after Solferino.

Nor were the military reasons for the cessation of warlike operations of a nature to convince men of their irresistible weightiness. A great deal was said about the strength of "the Quadrilateral," and of the impregnability of the position which it formed,—as if there ever had existed a military position which could not be carried or turned, or out of which its defenders could not be bought, or forced, or starved! The strength of the Quadrilateral was as well known to the Emperor in January as it was in July, and he must have counted its powers of resistance before he resolved upon war. Victory he had organized, like Carnot; and victory in Lombardy was sure to take his army to the Mincio. Verona and Venetia were to be the complement of Milan. Then there was the story that he frightened the Kaiser into giving his consent to the truce by proving to him that the fortresses upon which he relied were not in good defensible condition, his commissaries having placed the funds in their pockets that should have been devoted to the purchase of stores,—a story that wears a very probable air, in view of the discovery subsequently made of the malversations of some of the highest persons at Vienna, and which had much to do with the suicide of the Minister of Finance. It is known, too, that the force which Napoleon III. had assembled in the Adriatic was very strong, and could have been so used as to have promoted an Hungarian insurrection in a sense not at all pleasant to the Austrians, to have attacked Dalmatia and Istria, and to have aided in the deliverance of Venice. That force was largely naval in its character, and the French navy was burning to distinguish itself in a war that had been so productive of glory to the sister-service: it would have had a Magenta and a Palestro of its own, won where the Dorias and the Pisani had struggled for fame and their countries' ascendency. Instead of the Quadrilateral being a bar to the French, it would have been a trap to the Austrians, who would have been taken there after the manner in which Napoleon I. took their predecessors at Ulm. After the war was over, it came out that Verona was not even half armed.

If Napoleon III. was bent upon carrying that imitation of his uncle, of which he is so fond, to the extent of granting a magnanimous peace to a crushed foe, he may be said to have caricatured that which he sought to imitate. The first Napoleon's magnanimity after Austerlitz has been attributed to the craft of the beaten party,—he allowing the Russians to escape when they had extricated themselves from the false position in which their master's folly had caused them to be placed. But the third Napoleon did allow the Austrians to avoid the consequences of their defeat, and so disappointed Italy and the world. He was magnanimous, and most astonishing to the minds of men was his magnanimity. Most people called it stupidity, and strange stories were told of his nervous system having been shattered by the sights and sounds of those slaughter-fields which he had planned and fought and won!

We live rapidly in this age, when nations are breaking up all around us, when unions are dissolving, when dynasties disappear before the light like ghosts at cock-crowing, and when emperors and kings rely upon universal suffrage, once so terrible a bugbear in their eyes, for the titles to their crowns. Opinion is rapidly formed, and is as rapidly dismissed. We may be as much astonished now at the peace of Villafranca as we were on the day when first it was announced, and while looking upon it only as a piece of diplomacy intended to put an end to a contest costly in blood and gold; but we cannot say, as it was common then to say, that the war which it closed has decided nothing. That war established the freedom and nationality of Italy, and the peace so much condemned was the means of demonstrating to the world the existence of an Italian People. How far the French Emperor was self-deceived, and to what extent he believed in the practicability of the arrangements made at Villafranca and Zurich, are inscrutable mysteries. Que sais-je? might be the form of his own answer, were any one entitled to question him concerning his own opinion on his own acts of 1859. But of the effects of his attack on Austria there can be no doubt. That Lorraines and Bourbons have ceased to reign in Italy,—that the Kingdom of Victor Emanuel has increased from six millions of people to twenty-four millions,—that the same constitutional monarch who ruled at Turin is now acknowledged in Milan, in Ancona, in Florence, in Naples, and in Palermo, being King of Lombards, and Tuscans, and Romans, and Neapolitans, and Sicilians,—and that the Austrians are no longer the rulers of the Peninsula,—these things are all due to the conduct of the French Emperor. Had the peace of Europe not been broken by France, the Austrian power in Italy would have been unbroken at this moment, and Naples have been still under the dominion of that mad tyrant whose supreme delight it was to offend the moral sense of the world, and who found even in the remonstrances of his brother-despots occasion for increasing the weight of the chains of his victims, and of adding to the intensity and the exquisiteness of their tortures.

These solid advantages to Italy, this freedom of hers from domestic despotism and foreign control, are the fruits of French intervention; and they could have been obtained in no other way. There was no nation but France to which Italy could look for aid, and to France she did not look in vain. Of the motives of her ally it would be idle to speak, as there is no occasion to go beyond consequences; and those consequences are just as good as if the French Emperor were as pure-minded and unselfish as the most perfect of those paladins of romance who went about redressing one class of wrongs by the creation of another. What Italy desired, what alone she needed, was freedom from foreign intervention; and that she got through the interposition of French armies, and that she could have got from no other human source. This single fact is an all-sufficient answer to the myriads of sneers that were called forth by the failure of Napoleon III. to redeem his pledge to make Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic. What other potentate did anything for that country in 1859, or has done anything for it since that memorable year? Neither prince nor people, leaving Napoleon III. and the French aside, has so much as lifted a hand to promote the regeneration of Italy. America has enough to do in the way of attending to domestic slavery, without concerning herself about the freedom of foreigners; and she has given the Italians her—sympathies, which are of as much real worth to her as would be a treatise on the Resolutions of '98 to a man who should happen to tumble into the Niagara, with the Falls close upon him. England would have had Italy submit to that Austrian rule which had been established over her by English influence in 1814, when even the perverse, pig-headed Francis II. could see sound objections to it; and all because want of submission on her part would disturb the equilibrium of Europe, and might tend to the aggrandizement of France,—two things which she by no means desired to see happen. Russia, like America, gave Italy her sympathies; but she had a better excuse than we had for being prudent, as her monarch was engaged in planning at least the freedom of the serfs. If the Russians desired the overthrow of the Austrians, it was not because they loved the Italians, but from hatred of their oppressors; and that hatred had its origin in the refusal of Austria to join Russia when she was so hard pressed by France and England, Turkey and Piedmont. Prussia, us we have seen, sided with Austria; and though it is impossible to believe in her sincerity, her moral power, so far as it went, was adverse to the Italian cause. The other European nations were of no account, having no will of their own, and being influenced only by the action of the members of the Pentarchy. Save France, Italy had no friend possessed of the disposition and the ability to afford her that assistance without which she must soon have become in name, as she was fast becoming in fact, a mere collection of Austrian provinces.

We dwell upon those well-known facts because an opinion seems to prevail that no nation or government shall interfere for the protection of the weak against the strong, unless it shall be able to show that it is perfect itself, and that its intentions are of the most unselfish nature. Peoples are to be delivered from oppression only as the Israelites were delivered, by the direct and immediate interposition of Heaven in human affairs; and the delivering agent must be as high-minded and generous as Moses, who was allowed merely to gaze upon the Promised Land. Men who thus reason about human action, and the motives of actors on the great stage of life, must have read history to very little purpose, and have observed the making of history round about them to no purpose at all. The instruments of Providence are seldom perfect men, and the broad light in which they live brings out their faults in full force. Napoleon III. is not above the average morality of his time; and if he had been so, probably he never would have become Emperor of the French. But in this respect differs he much from those men who have wrought great things for the world, and whom the world is content to reverence? Robert Bruce, who saved Scotland from the misery that befell Ireland; Henry IV., who renewed the life of France; Maurice of Saxony, who prevented the Reformation from proving a stupendous failure; and William III., without whose aid the Constitutionalists of England must have gone down before the Stuarts: not one of these men was perfect; and yet what losses the world would have experienced, if they had never lived, or had failed in their great labors! It has been claimed for Gustavus Adolphus that he was the only pure conqueror that ever lived; but his purity may safely be placed to the account of the balls of Lützen: he was not left unto temptation. We should extend to Napoleon III. the same charity that we extend to men who have long been historical characters, and judge him by his actions and their results, and not criticise him by the canons of faction.

Italy was delivered by the war of 1859, and that war was terminated by the peace of Villafranca. For the moment, it seemed as if there were to be a restoration of the petty princes who had fled from Tuscany and Parma and Modena, and that an Italian Confederation had been resolved upon, in which the noxious influences of Austria and Naples and Papal Rome should stifle the pure principles upheld by Sardinia. A few months sufficed to show that these evils existed in apprehension only. The Italians, by the withdrawal of the French, were thrown upon their own resources, and by their conduct they dissipated the belief that they were unequal to the emergency. Had the war been continued, had Venetia been conquered, and had the last of the Austrians been driven beyond the Isonzo, Italy would have been the prize of French valor and genius; for all this must have been done on the instant, and before the Italians, less the Sardinians, could have taken an effective part in the war. The most devoted believer in the patriotism and bravery of the Italians must perforce admit that they had little to do with the war of 1859. Leaving the Sardinians aside, the Italian element in that contest was scarcely appreciable. This we say without meaning any reflection on the Italians. There were many good reasons why they should remain quiet. In common with the rest of the world, even France herself, the war took them by surprise, Austria bringing it on weeks, if not months, before Napoleon III. had meant it to begin. They, too, had seen their country so often abused by those who had conquered there, that they had some excuse for waiting the progress of events. The most industrious and studied efforts had been made to convince them that the object of the ruler of France was the realization of another Napoleonic idea, namely, the restoration of that Kingdom of Italy which perished in 1814; and though the rule of Napoleon I. was the best that Italy had known for three hundred years, it was hardly worth while to enter upon a doubtful fight for its restoration. Hence the majority of the people of Italy were not so active as they might have been; and their coolness is said to have had much effect on the mind of the victor, who must have thought that the people he had come to deliver were taking things very easily, and who could not have felt much flattered, when assured, in the politest terms, that those people believed him to be a selfish liar. His work, therefore, was but partially performed. Instead of halting on the shores of the historical Adriatic, his armies drew up on the banks of the classic Mincius. Trance had done her part; let Italy do the rest, if it were to be done. Thus abdicating his original purpose, and probably feeling much as William III. felt when the English were so slow in joining him that he talked of returning to his ships, Napoleon III. gave up his power to dictate the future of Italy. He had no right, thereafter, to say that the Bourbons should continue to govern in the Two Sicilies, that the Dukes should be restored to their Duchies, and that Venetia should be guarantied to Austria. He felt this, as the terms of the treaties that were made very clearly show; for he was careful to abstain from pledging himself to anything of a definite character. If he had perfected his original work, and been possessed of the power to effect a new settlement of Italy, he would, we presume, have stipulated for the continuance of the Bourbon power in the southern portion of the Peninsula and in Sicily; while the much talked-of purpose of creating an Italian Kingdom or Duchy for Prince Napoleon would probably have been carried out, and that gentleman have been established on the Arno. To the Sardinian monarchy would have been assigned the spoils taken from Austria,—Venice and Lombardy. The change in his political plans was the consequence of the change in his military plan,—though either change may be pronounced the cause or the effect, according to the point from which the observer views the entire series of transactions. Thus the peace of 1859 may be considered to have been a benefit to Italy, just as the war it terminated had been. The war freed her from Austrian dominion; the peace, from its character, and from the circumstances under which it was made, left her people at liberty to act as they pleased in the fair field that had been won for their exertions by the skill and courage of the French and Sardinian armies.

The destinies of Italy being placed in her own hands, the Italians were as prompt as politic considerations would allow them to be in promoting the unification of their country. Central Italy soon became a part of the constitutional monarchy which had grown up under the shadow of the Alps. This could not have happened, if Napoleon III. had chosen to veto the proceedings of the Italians, which had virtually nullified one of his purposes. That he consented to this large addition to the power of Sardinia on the condition of receiving Savoy and Nice is by no means unlikely; and we do not think that Victor Emanuel was either unwise or wanting in patriotism in parting with those countries for the benefit of Italy. Taking advantage of the troubles in Sicily, Garibaldi led a small expedition to that island, which there landed, and began those operations which had their appropriate termination, in five months, in the addition of all the territories of the wretched Francis II., except Gaëta, to the dominions of the Sardinian King. The importance of Garibaldi's undertaking it is quite impossible to overrate; but of what account could it have been, if the Austrians had stood to Italy in the same position that they held at the opening of 1859? Of none at all. Garibaldi is preeminently a man of sense, and he would never have thought of moving against Francis II., if Francis Joseph had been at liberty to assist that scandalous caricature of kings. Or, if he had been tempted to enter upon the project, he would have been "snuffed out" as easily as was Murat, when, in 1815, he sought to recover the Neapolitan throne. If Austrian ships had not prevented him from landing in Sicily, Austrian troops would have destroyed him in that island. Nay, it is but reasonable to believe that Bomba's navy and army would have been amply sufficient to do their master's work. That his men were not wanting in courage and conduct has been proved by their deeds since the tyrant left his capital, on the Volturno and around Capua and at Gaëta. It was not want of bravery that led to their failure in Sicily, but the belief that their employer's system had failed, and that he and they were given up to the vengeance of Italy, supposing the Italians to be strong enough to do justice on them. They took courage when European circumstances led them to conclude that Austria would be advised, at the Warsaw Conference, to use her forces for the restoration of the old order of things in Italy, and receive the support of Russia and Prussia. To deserve such aid from the North, the Neapolitan army struggled hard, but in vain. The Absolutist cause was lost in Naples when the sovereigns met in the Polish capital; and though, forty years earlier, this would have been held an additional reason for the entrance of the barbarians into Italy, the successes of the patriots must have had their proper weight with the Prince Regent of Prussia and the Czar, who are understood to have been as deaf as adders to the charming of their young brother from Vienna. What was resolved upon at Warsaw the world has no positive means of knowing, and but little reliance is to be placed upon the rumors that have been so abundant; but, as Austria has not moved against the Italians, and as the instructions to her new commander-in-chief in Venetia (Von Benedek) are reported to be strong on the point of non-intervention, we are at liberty to infer that she accepts all that has been done as accomplished facts, and means to stand upon the defensive, in the hope of gaining moral support by her moderation in being outwardly content with less than half the spoil which was given to her at the expense of Italy, when Europe was "settled," for the time, four-and-forty years ago.

The action of the Sardinian government, in sending its soldiers against the legal banditti whom Lamoricière had sought to drill into the semblance of an army, which was a direct attack on the Pope, and the subsequent employment of those soldiers, and of the Sardinian fleet, against the forces of Francis II., were model pieces of statesmanship, and worthy of the great man whose name and fame have become indissolubly associated with the redemption of Italy. The decision thus to act could not have been taken without the consent of Napoleon III. having first been had and obtained; and there is probably much truth in the story, that, when Lamoricière had the coolness to threaten his conquerors with the vengeance of the Emperor, they told him, half-laughingly, that, they had planned the campaign with that illustrious personage at Chambéry, which must have convinced him that the cause of the Keys had nothing to expect from France beyond the sort of police aid which General Goyon was affording to it in the name of his master. Lamoricière also expected help from Austria, and professed to be able to number the few days at the expiration of which the white-coats would be at Alessandria, which would have been a diversion in his favor, that, had it been made, must have saved him from the mortification of surrendering to men whom he affected to despise, but who brought him and his army under the yoke. The faith of the commander of the rabble of the Faith in Austrian assistance was a Viennese inspiration, and was meant to induce him to resist to the last. Nor was it altogether false; for the Kaiser and Count Rechberg appear to have believed that they could induce the governments of Russia and Prussia to support them in a crusade in behalf of Rome and Naples, which was to rely upon Lutherans and supporters of the Eastern Church for the salvation of the Western Church and its worst members. The first interview between Rechberg and Gortschakoff, if we can believe a despatch from Warsaw, led quickly to a quarrel, which must have taken place not long after their chiefs, the Kaiser and the Czar, had been locked in each other's arms at the railway-station. It is but just to the Austrians to state, that they probably had received from St. Petersburg some promises of assistance, which Alexander found himself unable to redeem, so determined was Russian opinion in its expression of aversion to Austria when its organs began to suspect that the old game was to be renewed, and that Alexander contemplated doing in 1861 what Nicholas had done in 1849,—to step between Francis Joseph and humiliation, perhaps destruction. If it be true that the Czar has ordered all Russians to leave Italy, that piece of pitiful spite would show how he hates the Italian cause, and also that it is not in his power seriously to retard its progress at present. Instead of ordering Russians from Italy, he would send them to that country in great masses, could he have his way in directing the foreign policy of his empire.