Table of Contents


Preface
The Making of the Kingdom of Italy
The Unification of Germany
The Second Empire and the Franco-Prussian War
The German Empire
France Under the Third Republic
The Kingdom of Italy Since 1870
England Since 1868
The British Empire
The Partition of Africa
The Disruption of the Ottoman Empire and the Rise of the Balkan States
Russia to the War With Japan
The Far East
Russia Since the War With Japan
The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913
The European War
Making the Peace
Charles Downer Hazen

The Rise of Empires: European History, 1870-1919

Fifty Years of Europe from the Franco-Prussian War Until the Paris Peace Conference
e-artnow, 2018
Contact: info@e-artnow.org
ISBN  978-80-268-9937-2

Preface

Table of Contents

The fifty years that have elapsed since the Franco-Prussian War possess a unity that is quite exceptional among the so-called "periods" of history. They constitute a period of German ascendancy in Europe, a ascendancy acquired by force, maintained by force, an dedicated to the perpetuation and the extension of the rule of force -- that is, to the great principle that might makes right. Within that era are included the rise and the fall of the German Empire, whose history was summarized in a lapidary phrase pronounced by President Poincaré at the opening of the Conference of Paris "It was born in injustice; it has ended in opprobrium."

For the convenience of those who may wish to review this period I have brought together those chapters of my Modern European History which bear upon it, making, however, numerous changes in the narrative, condensing here, amplifying there, transforming and rearranging wherever it has seemed advantageous.

To complete the story, I have added a chapter on the Great War, the closing pages of which were written on the day the armistice was accepted and which therefore represent only the incomplete knowledge and the hurried impressions of a mighty moment in history. However, for that very reason, they may have a certain value, at least as a contemporary document.


CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, April 10, 1919.

The Making of the Kingdom of Italy

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Italy as we have seen was a land of small states, of arbitrary government, and of Austrian domination. The spirit of nationality, the spirit of freedom were nowhere recognized. Indeed, every effort was made to stamp them out whenever they appeared, in unity and thus far these efforts had been successful. They were now about to break down utterly and a noble and stirring movement of reform was to sweep over the peninsula in triumph, completely transforming and immensely enriching a land which, greatly endowed by nature, had been sadly treated by man.

The deepest aspirations of the Italian people had finally found a voice, clear, bold, and altogether thrilling, in the person of Joseph Mazzini. Mazzini was the spiritual force of the Italian Risorgimento or resurrection, as this national movement was called, the prophet of a state that was not yet but was to be, destined from youth to feel with extraordinary intensity a holy mission imposed upon him. He was born in 1805 in Genoa, his father being a physician and a professor in the university. Even in his boyhood he was morbidly impressed with the unhappiness and misery of his country. "In the midst of the noisy, tumultuous life of the students around me I was," he says, in his interesting though fragmentary autobiography, "somber and absorbed and appeared like one suddenly grown old. I childishly determined to dress always in black, fancying myself in mourning for my country."

As Mazzini grew up all his inclinations were toward a literary life. "A thousand visions of historical dramas and romances floated before my mental eye." But this dream he abandoned, "my first great sacrifice," for political agitation. He joined the Carbonari, not because he approved even then of their methods, but because at least they were a revolutionary organization. As a member of it, he was arrested in 1830. The governor of Genoa told Mazzini's father that his son was "gifted with some talent," but was "too fond of walking by himself at night absorbed in thought. What on earth has he at his age to think about? We don't like young people thinking without our knowing the subject of their thoughts." Mazzini was imprisoned in the fortress of Savona. Here he could only see the sky and the sea, "the two grandest things in Nature, except the Alps," he said. After six months he was released, but was forced to leave his country. For nearly all of forty years he was to lead the bitter life of an exile in France, in Switzerland, but chiefly in England, which became his second home. After his release from prison Mazzini founded in 1831 a society, "Young Italy," destined to be an important factor in making the new Founder of Italy. The Carbonari had led two revolutions and had failed. Moreover, he disliked that organization as being merely destructive in its aim, having no definite plan of reconstruction.

"Revolutions," he said, "must be made by the people and for the people." His own society must be a secret organization; otherwise it would be stamped out. But it must not be merely a body of conspirators; it must be educative, proselyting, seeking to win Italians by its moral and intellectual fervor to an idealistic view of life, a self-sacrificing sense of duty. Only those under forty were to be admitted to membership, because his appeal was particularly to the young. "Place youth at the head of the insurgent multitude." he said; "You know not the secret of the power hidden in these youthful hearts, nor the magic influence exercised on the masses by the voice of youth. You will find among the young a host of apostles of the new religion." With Mazzini the liberation and unification of Italy was indeed a new religion, appealing to the loftiest emotions, entailing complete methods of self-sacrifice, complete absorption in the ideal, and the young were to be its apostles. Theirs was to be a missionary life. He told them to travel, to bear from land to land, from village to village, the torch of liberty, to expound its advantages to the people, to establish and consecrate the cult. Let them not quail before the horrors of torture and imprisonment that might await them in the holy cause. "Ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs." Never did a cause have a more dauntless leader, a man of purity of life, a man of imagination, of poetry, of audacity, gifted, moreover, with a marvelous command of persuasive language and with burning enthusiasm in his heart. The response was overwhelming. By 1833 the society reckoned 60,000 members. Branches were founded everywhere. Garibaldi, whose name men were later to conjure with, joined it on the shores of the Black Sea. This is the romantic proselyting movement of the nineteenth century, all the more remarkable from the fact that its members were unknown men, bringing to their work no advantage of wealth or social position. But, as their leader wrote later, "All great national movements begin with the unknown men of the people, without influence except for the faith and will that counts not time or difficulties."

The programme of this society was clear and emphatic. First, Austria must be of the driven out. This was the condition precedent to all success. War must come the sooner the better. Let not Italians rely on the aid of foreign governments, upon diplomacy, but upon their own unaided strength. Austria could not stand against a nation of twenty millions fighting for their rights. "The only thing wanting to twenty millions of Italians, desirous of emancipating themselves, is not power, but faith," he said.

At a time when the obstacles seemed insuperable, when but few Italians dreamed of unity even as an ultimate ideal, Mazzini declared that it was a practicable ideal, that the seemingly impossible was easily possible if only Italians would dare to show their power; and his great significance in Italian history is that he succeeded in imparting his burning faith to multitudes of others. Mazzini was a republican and he wished his country, when united, to be a republic. That a solution of the Italian problem lay in combining the existing states into a federation he did not for a moment believe.

Every argument for federation was a stronger argument for unity. "Never rise in any other name than that of Italy and of all Italy."

Mazzini worked at a great disadvantage as he was early expelled from his own country and was compelled to spend nearly all his lifetime as an exile in London, hampered by paltry resources, and cut off from that intimate association with his own people which is so essential to effective leadership.

Italy was not made as Mazzini wished it to be, as we shall see; nevertheless is he one of the chief of the makers of Italy. He and the society he founded constituted a leavening, quickening force in the realm of ideas. Around them grew up a patriotism for a country that existed as yet only in the imagination.

But to many serious students of the Italian problem Mazzini seemed far too radical; seemed a mystic and a rhetorician full of resounding and thrilling phrases, but with little practical sense. Men of conservative temperament could not follow him. There was a considerable variety of opinion. Some believed in independence as fervidly as did he but did not believe in the possibility of Italian unity, for Italy had been too long divided, the divisions were too deep-seated. Some believed, not in a single state of Italy but in a federation of the various states, with the Pope as president or leader. Others criticised this as a preposterous idea and denounced the Pope's government of his own states in scathing terms. Still others held that Italy was not at all republican in sentiment but was thoroughly monarchical and that a monarchy would be the natural form of its government. Some argued that, as it was impossible to drive the Austrians out, they should be included in the federation; and some thought that, though the Austrians could not be driven out, they might be bribed to leave by being offered fat pickings in the Balkan peninsula at the expense of the Turks. Austria might thus, for a consideration, make Italy a present of her independence, certainly a fanciful idea. Out of this fermentation of ideas grew a more vigorous spirit of unrest, of dissatisfaction, of aspiration.

The events of 1848 and 1849 gave a decided twist to Italian evolution. At one moment Italy had appeared to be on the very point of achieving her independence and her unity. Then the reverses had come and she relapsed into her former condition. It seemed as if everything was to be as it had been, only worse because of all these blasted hopes and fruitless struggles. But things were not exactly as they had been. In one quarter there was a change, emphatically for the better. One state in the peninsula formed a brilliant exception to this sorry system of reaction - Piedmont. Though badly defeated on the battlefield at Custozza in 1848, and at Novara in 1849, it had gained an important moral victory. An Italian prince had risked his throne twice for the cause of Italian independence, conduct which for multitudes marked the House of Savoy as the leader of the future. Moreover, the king who had done this, Charles Albert, had also granted his people a constitution. He had abdicated after the battle of Novara, and his son, Victor Emmanuel II, then twenty-nine years of age, had come to the throne.

Austria offered Victor Emmanuel easy terms of peace if he would abrogate this constitution, Austria not liking constitutions anywhere and particularly in a state that was a neighbor, and prospects of aggrandizement were dangled before him. He absolutely refused. This was a turning point in his career, in the history of Piedmont, and in that of Italy. It won him the popular title of the Honest King. It made Piedmont the one hope of Italian Liberals. She was national and constitutional. Henceforth her leadership was assured. For the next ten years her history is the history of the making of the Kingdom of Italy. Thither Liberals who were driven out of the other states took refuge, and their number was large.

Victor Emmanuel was a brave soldier, a man, not of brilliant mind, but of sound and independent judgment, of absolute loyalty to his word, of intense patriotism. And he had from 1850 on, in his leading minister, Count Camillo di Cavour, one of the greatest statesmen and diplomatists of the nineteenth century.

Cavour was born in 1810. His family belonged to the nobility of Piedmont. He received a military education and joined the army as an engineer. But by his liberal opinions, freely expressed, he incurred the hostility of his superiors and was kept for a time in semi-imprisonment. He resigned his commission in 1831, and for the next fifteen years lived the life of a country gentleman, developing his estates. During these years, to vary the monotony of existence, he visited France and England repeatedly, interested particularly in political and economic questions. He was anxious to play a part in politics himself, though he saw no chance in a country as yet without representative institutions. "Oh! if I were an Englishman," he said, "by this time I should be something, and my name would not be wholly unknown." Meanwhile, he studied abroad the institutions he desired for his own country, particularly the English parliamentary system.

Night after night he sat in the gallery of the House of Commons, seeking to make himself thoroughly familiar with its modes of procedure. He welcomed with enthusiasm the creation in 1848 of a parliament for Piedmont and of a constitution, which he had, indeed, been one of the boldest to demand. "Italy," he said, "must make herself by means of liberty, or we must give up trying to make her." This belief in parliamentary institutions Cavour held tenaciously all through his life, even when at times they seemed to be a hindrance to his policies. He believed that in the end, sooner or later, the people reach the truth of a matter. He was elected to the first Piedmontese Parliament, was taken into the cabinet in 1850, and became prime minister in 1852. He held this position for the remainder of his life, with the exception of a few weeks, proving himself a great statesman and an incomparable diplomat.

Cavour's mind was the opposite of Mazzini's, practical, positive, not poetical and speculative. He desired the unity and the independence of Italy. He hated Austria as the oppressor of his country, as an oppressor everywhere. But, unlike Mazzini, he did not underestimate her power, nor did he overestimate the power of his own countrymen. Cavour believed, as did all the patriots, that Austria must be driven out of Italy before any Italian regeneration could be achieved. But he did not believe with Mazzini and others that the Italians could accomplish this feat alone. In his opinion the history of the last forty years had shown that plots and insurrections would not avail. It was essential to win the aid of a great military power comparable in strength and discipline to Austria.

Cavour considered that the only possible leader in the work of freeing and unifying Italy was the House of Savoy and the Piedmontese monarchy, and he felt that the proper government of the new state, if it should ever arise, would be a constitutional monarchy. He wished to make Piedmont a model state so that, when the time came, the Italians of other states would recognize her leadership and join in her exaltation as best for them all. Piedmont had a constitution and the other states had not. He saw to it that she had a free political life and received a genuine training in self-government. Also he bent every energy to the development of the economic resources of his kingdom, by encouraging manufactures, by stimulating commerce, by modernizing agriculture, by building railroads. In a word he sought to make and did make Piedmont a model small state, liberal and progressive, hoping thus to win for her the Italians of the other states and the interest and approval of the countries and rulers of western Europe.

The fundamental purpose, the constant preoccupation of this man's life, determining every action, prompting every wish, was to gain a Great Power as an ally. In the pursuit of this elusive and supremely difficult object, year in, year out, Cavour displayed his incomparable measure as a diplomat, and stood forth finally without a peer. It is a marvelously absorbing story, from which we are precluded here because it cannot be properly presented except at length. The reader must go elsewhere for the details of this fascinating record, in which were combined, in rare harmony, sound judgment, practical sense, powers of clear, subtle, penetrating thought, unfailing attention to prosaic details, with imagination, audacity, courage, and iron nerve. A profound and accurate knowledge of the forces and personalities in the political life of Italy and of Europe, tact and sureness in appreciating the shifting scenes of the international stage, never-failing resourcefulness in the service of a steady purpose, such were some of the characteristics of this master in statecraft and diplomacy. Though the minister of a petty state of only five million people, his was the most dynamic personality in Europe.

Cavour was seeking an ally. He saw that the field was limited. It must be either England or France. The former country had no large army and was disposed to keep itself as free from European entanglements as possible. France on the other hand was supposed to have the best army in Europe and her ruler, Napoleon III, was an ambitious and adventurous person. "Whether we like it or not," said Cavour "our destinies depend upon France." He sought to ingratiate himself with Napoleon.

The Crimean War gave an opportunity. Piedmont made unconditional and very risky alliance in 1855 with France and England, then at war with Russia, and rendered a distinct service to them. They in turn rendered her the service of securing her admittance to the Congress of Paris which terminated that war, of thus securing her recognition as an equal among the powers of Europe. They also gave Cavour a chance to discuss the Italian question in an international gathering in which Austria sat.

Two years later Cavour received his great reward. Napoleon III bade him come to Plombieres, a watering place in the Vosges mountains, where the Emperor was taking the cure. And view at there in a famous carriage drive which these two took through the forests of the Vosges, Napoleon holding the reins, and in subsequent interviews, they plotted to bring about a war which should result in driving Austria out of Italy. Italy was to be freed "from the Alps to the Adriatic." Piedmont should be given Lombardy and Venetia and a part of the Papal States. The Italian states should then be united in a confederation, with the Pope as president. France should receive Savoy, and possibly Nice. Such was the understanding of Plombieres. The motives that influenced Napoleon to take this step which was to be momentous for himself as well as for Italy were numerous. The principle and the of nationality which he held tenaciously, and which largely determined the foreign policy of his entire reign, prompted him in this direction the principle, namely, that people of the same race and language had the right to be united politically if they wished to be. Further, Napoleon had long been interested in Italy. He had himself taken part in the revolutionary movements there in 1831, and had probably been a member of the Carbonari. Moreover, it was one of his ambitions to tear up the treaties of 1815, treaties that sealed the humiliation of the Napoleonic dynasty. These treaties still formed the basis of the Italian political system in 1858. Again, he was probably lured on by a desire to win glory for his throne, and there was always the chance, too, of gaining territory.

Thus in 1859 there came about a war between Austria on the one hand and Piedmont and France on the other. The latter were victorious in two great battles, that of Magenta (June 4) and of Solferino (June 24). The latter was one of the greatest battles of the nineteenth century. It lasted eleven hours, more than 260,000 men were engaged, nearly 800 cannon. The Allies lost over 17,000 men, the Austrians about 22,000. All Lombardy was conquered, and Milan was occupied. It seemed that Venetia could be easily overrun and the termination of Austrian rule in Italy effected, and Napoleon's statement that he would free Italy 'from the Alps to the Adriatic' accomplished. Suddenly Napoleon halted in the full tide of success, sought an interview with the Emperor of Austria at Villafranca, and there on July 11th, without consulting the wishes of his ally, concluded a famous armistice. The terms agreed upon by the two Emperors were: that Lombardy should pass to Piedmont, that Austria should retain Venetia, that the Italian states should form a confederation, that the rulers of Tuscany and Modena should be restored to their states, whence they had just been driven by popular uprisings.

Why had Napoleon stopped in the middle of a successful campaign, and before he had accomplished the object for which he had come into Italy? There were several reasons. He had been shocked by the horrors of the battlefield. He saw that the completion of the conquest of Austria meant a far larger sacrifice of life. Prussia was preparing to intervene. Moreover Napoleon became apprehensive about the results of his policy. If it should end in the creation of a strong national kingdom, as seemed likely, would not this be dangerous to France? A somewhat enlarged Piedmont was one thing, but a kingdom of all Italy, neighbor to France, was something very different.

The news of the peace came as a cruel disappointment to the Italians, dashing their hopes just as they were apparently about to be realized. The Government of Victor Emmanuel had not even been consulted. In intense indignation at the faithlessness of Napoleon, overwrought by the excessive strain under which he had long been laboring, Cavour completely lost his self-control, urged desperate measures upon the King and, when they were declined, in a fit of rage, threw up his office. The King by overruling Cavour showed himself wiser than his gifted minister. As disappointed as the latter, he saw more clearly than did Cavour that though Piedmont had not gained all that she had hoped to, yet she had gained much. It was wiser to take what one could get and bide the future than to imperil all by some mad course. Here was one of the great moments where the independence and common sense of Victor Emmanuel were of great and enduring service to his country.

Napoleon had not done all that he had planned for Italy, yet he had rendered a very important service. He had secured Lombardy for Piedmont. It should also be noted that he himself acknowledged that the failure to carry out the whole programme had canceled any claim he had upon the annexation of Savoy and Nice to France.

But the future of Italy was not to be determined solely by the Emperor of France and the Emperor of Austria. The people of Italy had their own ideas and were resolved to make them heard. During the war, so suddenly and unexpectedly closed, the rulers of Modena, Parma, Tuscany had been overthrown by popular uprisings and the Pope's Central Italy authority in Romagna, the northern part of his dominions, had been destroyed. The people who had accomplished this had no intention of restoring the princes they had expelled. They defied the two Emperors who had decided at Villa-franca that those rulers should be restored. In this they were supported diplomatically by the English Government. This was England's great service to the Italians. "The people of the duchies have as much right to change their sovereigns," said Lord Palmerston, "as the English people, or the French, or Belgians or the Swedish. The annexation of the duchies to Piedmont will be an unfathomable good to Italy."

The people of these states voted almost unanimously in favor of annexation (March 11-12, 1860). Victor Emmanuel accepted the sovereignty thus offered him, and on April 2, 1860, the first parliament of the enlarged kingdom met in Turin. A small state of less than 5,000,000 had grown to one of 11,000,000 within a year. This was the most important change in the political system of Europe since 1815. As far as Italy was concerned it made waste paper of the treaties of 1815. It constituted the most damaging breach made thus far in the work of the Congress of Vienna. What that congress had decided was to be a mere 'geographical expression' was now a nation in formation. And this was being accomplished by the triumphant assertion of two principles utterly odious to the monarchs of 1815, the right of revolution and the right of peoples to determine their own destinies for themselves, for these annexations were the result of war and of plebiscites.

Napoleon III acquiesced in all this, taking for himself Savoy and Nice in return for services rendered. The Peace of Villafranca was never enforced.

The Conquest of the Kingdom of Naples

Much had been achieved in the eventful year just described, but much remained to be achieved before the unification of Italy should be complete. Venetia, the larger part of the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples still stood outside. In the last, however, events now occurred which carried the process a long step forward. Early in 1860 the Sicilians rose in revolt against the despotism of their new king, Francis II. This insurrection created an opportunity for a man already famous but destined to a wonderful exploit and to a memorable service to his country, Giuseppe Garibaldi, already the most popular military leader in Italy, and invested with a half mythical character of invincibility and daring, the result of a very spectacular, romantic career.

Garibaldi was born at Nice in 1807. He was therefore two years younger than Mazzini and three years older than Cavour. Destined by his parents for the priesthood he preferred the sea, and for Giuseppe many years he lived a roving and adventurous sailor's life. He early joined 'Young Italy.' His military experience was chiefly in irregular, guerilla fighting. He took part in the unsuccessful insurrection organized by Mazzini in Savoy in 1834, and as a result was condemned to death. He managed to escape to South America where, for the next fourteen years, he was an exile. He participated in the abundant wars of the South American states with the famous 'Italian Legion,' which he organized and commanded. Learning of the uprising of 1848 he returned to Italy, though still under the penalty of death, and immediately thousands flocked to the standard of the 'hero of Montevideo' to fight under him against the Austrians.

After the failure of that campaign he went, in 1849, to Rome to assume the military defense of the republic. When the city was about to fall he escaped with four thousand troops, intending to attack the Austrian power in Venetia. French and Austrian armies pursued him. He succeeded in evading them, but his army dwindled away rapidly and the chase became so hot that he was forced to escape to the Adriatic. When he landed later, his enemies were immediately in full cry again, hunting him through forests and over mountains as if he were some dangerous game. It was a wonderful exploit, rendered tragic by the death in a farmhouse near Ravenna, of his wife Anita, who was his companion in the camp as in the home, and who was as high-spirited, as daring, as courageous as he. Garibaldi finally escaped to America and began once more the life of an exile. But his story, shot through and through with heroism and chivalry and romance, moved the Italian people to unwonted depths of enthusiasm and admiration.

For several years Garibaldi was a wanderer, sailing the seas, commander of a Peruvian bark. For some months, indeed, he was a candlemaker on Staten Island, but in 1854 he returned to Italy and settled down as a farmer on the little island of Caprera. But the events of 1859 once more brought him out of his retirement. Again, as a leader of volunteers, he plunged into the war against Austria and immensely increased his reputation. He had become the idol of soldiers and adventurous spirits from one end of Italy to the other. Multitudes were ready to follow in blind confidence wherever he might lead. His name was one to conjure with. There now occurred, in 1860, the most brilliant episode of his career, the Sicilian expedition and the campaign against the Kingdom of Naples. For Garibaldi, the most redoubtable warrior of Italy, whose very name was worth an army, now decided on his own account to go to the aid of the Sicilians who had risen in revolt against their king, Francis II of Naples.

On May 5, 1860, the expedition of "The Thousand," the "Red Shirts," embarked from Genoa in two steamers. These were the volunteers, nearly 1,150 men, whom Garibaldi's fame had caused, to rush into the new adventure, an adventure that seemed at the moment one of utter folly. The King of Naples had 24,000 troops in Sicily and 100,000 more on the mainland. The odds against success seemed overwhelming. But fortune favored the brave. After a campaign of a few weeks, in which he was several times in great danger, and was only saved by the most reckless fighting, Garibaldi stood master of the island, helped by the Sicilian insurgents, by volunteers who had flocked from the mainland, and by the incompetency of the commanders of the Neapolitan troops. Audacity had won the victory. He assumed the position of Dictator in Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II (August 5, 1860).

Garibaldi now crossed the straits to the mainland determined to the Kingdom conquer the entire Kingdom of Naples (August 19, 1860). The King still had an army of 100,000 men, but it had not even the strength of a frail reed. There was practically no bloodshed. The Neapolitan Kingdom was not overthrown; it collapsed. Treachery, desertion, corruption did the work. On September 6th, Francis II left Naples for Gaeta and the next day Garibaldi entered it by rail with only a few attendants, and drove through the streets amid a pandemonium of enthusiasm. In less than five months he had conquered a kingdom of 11,000,000 people, an achievement unique in modern history.

Garibaldi now began to talk of pushing on to Rome. To Cavour the situation seemed full of danger. Rome was occupied by a French garrison. An attack upon it would almost necessarily mean an attack upon France. Cavour therefore decided to intervene, to take the direction of events out of the hands of Garibaldi, and to guide the future evolution himself. At his instance therefore Victor Emmanuel led an army into the Papal States. But he did not lead it to Rome as he knew that Napoleon III, because of the strong Catholic feeling in France, would not permit him to annex the Papal capital. Napoleon, however, was willing that he should annex the Marches and Umbria, which were parts of the Pope's possessions. Only the city of Rome and the country round about it must not be touched.

Victor Emmanuel's army defeated the Papal troops at Castelfidardo (September 18, 1860). It then entered the territory of Naples. On November 7th, Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi drove of Piedmont together through the streets of Naples. The latter refused all rewards and honors and with only a little money and a bag of seed beans for the spring planting sailed away to his farm on the island of Caprera.

Victor Emmanuel completed the conquest which Garibaldi had alone carried so far. The people in the Marches, Umbria, and the Kingdom of Naples voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the new Kingdom of Italy, which had been created in this astonishing fashion.

On the 18th of February, 1861, a new Parliament, representing all Italy except Venetia and Rome, met in Turin. The Kingdom of Sardinia now gave way to the Kingdom of Italy, the King proclaimed on March 17. Victor Emmanuel II was declared "by the grace of God and the will of the nation, King of Italy."

A new kingdom, comprising a population of about twenty-two millions, had arisen during a period of eighteen months, and now took its place among the powers of Europe. But the Kingdom of Italy was still incomplete. Venetia was still Austrian and Rome was still subject to the Pope. The acquisition of these had to be postponed.

Nevertheless, Cavour felt that "without Rome there was no Italy." He was working on a scheme which he hoped might reconcile the Pope and the Catholic world everywhere to the recognition of Rome as the capital of the new kingdom, when he suddenly fell ill. Overwork, the extraordinary pressure under which he had for months been laboring, brought on insomnia; finally fever developed and he died on the morning of June 6th, 1861, in the very prime of life, for he was only fifty-one years of age.

"Cavour," said Lord Palmerston, in the British House of Commons, "left a name 'to point a moral and adorn a tale.' The moral was, that a man of transcendent talent, indomitable industry, inextinguishable patriotism, could overcome difficulties which seemed insurmountable, and confer the greatest, the most inestimable benefits on his country. The tale with which his memory would be associated was the most extraordinary, the most romantic, in the annals of the world. A people which had seemed dead had arisen to new and vigorous life, breaking the spell which bound it, and showing itself worthy of a new and splendid destiny."

Throughout his life Cavour remained faithful to his fundamental political principle, government by parliament and by constitutional forms. Urged at various times to assume a dictatorship he replied that he had no confidence in dictatorships. "I always feel strongest," he said, "when Parliament is sitting." "I cannot betray my origin, deny the principles of all my life," he wrote in a private letter not intended for the public. "I am the son of liberty and to her I owe all that I am. If a veil is to be placed on her statue, it is not for me to do it."

The Unification of Germany

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In 1848 and 1849 the liberal elements of Germany had made an earnest effort to achieve national unity but the work of the Parliament of Frankfort had been rejected by the sovereigns of the Reaction in leading states and had been rendered null and void. The old Confederation was restored, resuming its sessions in May, 1851. A period of reaction in Germany began again, even more far-reaching in its scope than that which had followed the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Austria and Prussia took the lead in the familiar work of oppression.

One gain had been made in the turbulent year. The King of Prussia had granted a constitution and created a Parliament. Like the King of Piedmont he refused to abolish the constitution. Unlike the latter, however, he did not at all intend that creation of a Parliament should mean the introduction of the English parliamentary system, with parliament, representing the people, the dominant authority in the state. The constitutional development of Piedmont and Prussia, starting at the same time, was to be utterly different. In passing from Italy to Germany we enter another atmosphere. In Piedmont, as we have seen, the constitution was honestly and vigorously applied and yielded its legitimate fruit in the political education of the people. Cavour believed that the free discussion of parliament was a safer and wiser guide than the autocratic determination of a monarch. Liberty was his ideal from which he never swerved, though it would often have been convenient for him if he had. On the other hand King of Prussia did not propose to divide his power with any assembly. The assembly had no control over the ministry.

While Prussia preserved her constitution the ministers developed great skill in really nullifying it, though pretending to maintain it. The government of Prussia was, after 1848 as before, a scarcely veiled autocracy. Reaction of the old, classic style was the order of the day. The press was not free. Public meetings might be held only by those favorable to the government. The police were active and unscrupulous.

A change came over Prussia, though not in the direction of free institutions and the development of a free public life, with the beginning of a reign, destined to prove most illustrious, that of William I.

William became King of Prussia in 1861. He was the William I, son of the famous Queen Louise, was born in 1797, and had served in the campaign against Napoleon in 1814. He was now sixty-four years old. His mind was in no sense brilliant but was slow, solid, and sound. His entire lifetime had been spent in the army, which he loved passionately. In military matters his thorough knowledge and competence were recognized. He believed that Prussia's destinies were dependent upon her army. The army was necessary for his purpose which was to put Prussia at the head of Germany. "Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it," he wrote in 1849, "and that cannot be done by phrases."

William believed that the Prussian army needed strengthening, and he brought forward a plan that would nearly double it. He demanded the necessary appropriations of Parliament, which declined to grant them. A bitter and prolonged controversy arose between the Crown and the Chamber of Deputies, each side growing stiffer as the contest proceeded. The King was absolutely resolved not to abate one jot or tittle from his demands. On the other hand the Chamber persisted in asserting its control over the purse, as the fundamental power of any Parliament that intends to count for anything in the state. A deadlock ensued. The King was urged to abolish Parliament altogether. This he would not do because he had sworn to support the constitution which established it. He thought of abdicating. He never thought of abandoning the reform. He had written out his abdication and signed it, and it was lying upon his desk when he at last consented to call to the ministry as a final experiment a new man, known for his boldness, his independence, his devotion to the monarchy, Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was appointed President of the Ministry September 23, 1862; on that very day the Chamber rejected anew the credits asked for by the King for the new regiments. The conflict entered upon its most acute phase and a new era began for Prussia and for the world.

In this interview Bismarck told the King frankly that he was willing to carry out his policy whether Parliament agreed to it or not. "I will rather perish with the King," he said, "than forsake your Majesty in the contest with parliamentary government." His boldness determined the King to tear up the paper containing his abdication and to continue the struggle with the Chamber of Deputies.

The man who now entered upon the stage of European politics was one of the most original and remarkable characters of his century. Born in 1815, he came of a noble family in Brandenburg. Bismarck was an aristocrat to his finger tips. Receiving a university education, he entered the civil service of Prussia, only to leave it shortly, disgusted by its monotony. He then settled upon his father's estate as a country squire. Unlike Cavour in Italy, Bismarck was enraged when the King granted a constitution to Prussia in 1850. While Cavour saw in England the model of what he wished his own country to become, Bismarck said, "The references to England are our misfortune." Bismarck's political ideas centered in his ardent belief in the Prussian monarchy. It had been the Prussian kings, not the Prussian people, who had made Prussia great. This great historic fact must be preserved. What Prussian kings had done, they still would do. A reduction of royal power would only be damaging to the state. Bismarck was the uncompromising foe of the attempts made in 1848 to achieve German unity, because he thought that it should be the princes and not the people who should determine the institutions and destinies of Germany. He hated democracy as he hated parliaments and constitutions. "I look for Prussian honor in Prussia's abstinence before all things from every shameful union with democracy," he said.

In 1851 Bismarck was appointed Prussian delegate to the Diet in Frankfort where for the next eight years he studied and practised the art of diplomacy, in which he was later to win many sweeping victories. He made the acquaintance of all the important statesmen and politicians of Germany and studied their characters and ambitions. He became strongly anti-Austrian in his sentiments. As early as 1853 he told his government that there was not room in Germany for both Prussia and Austria, that one or the other must bend. His utterances and attitudes became more and more irritating to Austria. Consequently King William, wishing to continue on good relations with the latter power, appointed him in 1859 ambassador to St. Petersburg, or, as Bismarck put it, sent him "to cool off on the banks of the Neva." Later he was, for a short time, ambassador to France.

Such was the man, who, in 1862 at the age of forty-seven, accepted the position of President of the Prussian Ministry at a time when King and Parliament confronted each other in angry deadlock, and when no other politician would accept the leadership. For four years, from 1862 to 1866, the conflict continued. The Constitution was not abolished, The Parliament was called repeatedly, the Lower House voted year after year against the budget, supported in this by the voters, the Upper House voted for it, and the King acted as if this made it legal. The period was one of virtual dictatorship and real suspension of parliamentary life. The King continued to collect the taxes, the army was thoroughly reorganized and absolutely controlled by the authorities, and the Lower House had no mode of opposition save the verbal one, which was entirely ineffective.

Thus the increase in the army was secured. But an army is a mere means to an end. The particular end that Bismarck had in view was the creation of Germany unity by means of Prussia and for the advantage of Prussia. There must be no absorption of Prussia in Germany, as there had been of Piedmont in Italy, Piedmont as a separate state entirely disappearing. And in Bismarck's opinion this unity could only be achieved by war.

He boldly denied in Parliament the favorite theory of the Liberals, that Prussia was to be made great by a liberal, free, parliamentary government, by setting an example of progressiveness, as Piedmont had done, which would rally Germans in other states about her, rather than about their own governments. In what was destined to be the most famous speech of his life he declared in 1863 that what Germans cared about was not the liberalism of Prussia but her power. Prussia must concentrate her forces and hold herself ready for the favorable moment. "Not by speeches and majority votes are the great questions of the day decided - that was the great blunder of 1848 and 1849 - but by blood and iron," in other words the army, not Parliament, would determine the future of Prussia.

This 'blood and iron' policy was bitterly denounced by Liberals, but Bismarck ignored their criticisms and shortly found a chance to begin its application.

The German Empire is the result of the policy of blood and iron as carried out by Prussia in three wars which were crowded into the brief period of six years, the war with Denmark in 1864, with Austria in 1866, and with France in 1870, the last two of three wars which were largely the result of Bismarck's will and his diplomatic ingenuity and unscrupulousness, and the first of which he exploited consummately for the advantage of Prussia.

The first of these grew out of one of the most complicated questions that have ever perplexed diplomatists and statesmen, the future of Schleswig and Holstein. These were two duchies in the Danish peninsula, which is itself simply an extension of the great plain of northern Germany. Holstein was inhabited by a population of about 600,000, entirely German; Schleswig by a population of from 250,000 to 300,000 Germans and 150,000 Danes. These two duchies had for centuries been united with Denmark, but they did not form an integral part of the Danish Kingdom. Their relation to Denmark was personal, arising from the fact that a Duke of Schleswig and Holstein had become King of Denmark, just as an Elector of Hanover had become a King of England. Holstein was a member of the German Confederation, but Schleswig was not. The Germans in Schleswig wished to bring about its admission to the Confederation but the Danes objected and in 1863 declared Schleswig incorporated in Denmark.

There are other elements in the tangle which it is unnecessary to explain as the question of Schleswig and Holstein was not decided at all on its merits, was not decided as either the Danish or the German people wished it to be. Bismarck saw in the situation a chance for a possible aggrandizement of Prussia and a chance for a quarrel with Austria, both things which he desired for the greater glory of his country. He induced Austria to cooperate with Prussia in settling the Schleswig-Holstein question. The two powers delivered an ultimatum to Denmark allowing that country only forty-eight hours in which to comply with their demands. The Danes, not complying, Prussia immediately declared war. A war between one small state and two large ones could not be doubtful. Sixty thousand Prussians and Austrians invaded Denmark in February, 1864, and though their campaign was not brilliant, they easily won, and forced Denmark to cede the two duchies to them jointly (October, 1864). They might make whatever disposition of them they chose to.

But they could not agree. Austria wished them admitted together as an additional state of the German Confederation and the people of Germany were overwhelmingly in favor of this arrangement. between But Bismarck's ideas were very different. He did not care for another German state. There were too many already, and this one would only be another enemy of Prussia and ally of Austria. Moreover, Bismarck wished to annex the duchies wholly or in part to Prussia. He desired aggrandizement in general, but this particular addition would be especially advantageous, as it would lengthen the coast line of Prussia, would bring with it several good harbors, notably Kiel, and would enable Prussia to expand commercially.

Thus the two powers were at variance over the disposition of their spoils. The situation was one that exactly suited Bismarck. Out of it he hoped to bring about the war with Austria which he had desired for the past ten years as being the only means whereby German unity could be achieved by Prussia and for Prussia's advantage. There was not room enough in Germany, he thought, for both powers. That being the case, he wished the room for Prussia. The only way to get it was to take it. As Austria had no inclination gracefully to yield, there would have to be a fight. Both began to arm.

Finally war broke out in June, 1866. Bismarck had thus brought about his dream of a conflict between peoples of the same race to determine the question of control. It proved to be one of the shortest wars in history, one of the most decisive, and one whose consequences were most momentous. It is called the Seven Weeks' War. It began June 16, 1866, was virtually decided on July 3d, was brought to a close before the end of that month by the preliminary Peace of Nikolsburg, July 26, which was followed a month later by the definitive Peace of Prague, August 23. Prussia had no German allies of any importance. Several of the North German states sided with her, but these were small and their armies were unimportant. On the other hand, Austria was supported by the four kingdoms, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, and Hanover; also by Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and Baden. But Prussia had one important ally, Italy, without whose aid she might not have won the victory. Italy was to receive Venetia, which she coveted, if Austria were defeated. The Prussian army, however, was better prepared. For years the rulers of Prussia had been preparing for war, perfecting the army down to the minutest detail, and with scientific thoroughness, and when the war began it was absolutely ready. Moreover, it was directed by a very able leader, General von Moltke.

Prussia had many enemies. Being absolutely prepared, as her enemies were not, she could assume the offensive, and this was the cause of her first victories. War began June 16. Within three days Prussian troops had occupied Hanover, North Dresden, and Cassel, the capitals of her three North German enemies. A few days later the Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate. The King of Hanover and the Elector of Hesse were taken prisoners of war. All North Germany was now controlled by Prussia, and within two weeks of the opening of the war she was ready to attempt the great plan of Moltke, an invasion of Bohemia. The rapidity of the campaign struck Europe with amazement.