The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.)

en daemokratia, ergo de hup

mocracy, was in fact ruled by her great

rman War and the splendid though hopeless rally attempted by the newly-installed Government of National Defence. Few facts in recent history have a more thrilling interest than the details of the valiant efforts made by th

urdy championship of a great principle--that of Nationality--which had ranged nearly the whole of the German race on her side. France, on the other hand, owing to the shocking blunders of her politicians and generals during the war, had but one army corps free, that of General Vinoy, which hastily retreated from the

k form in the famous phrase of Jules Favre, Minister of Foreign Affairs: "We will give up neither an inch of our territory nor a stone of our fortresses." This being so, all hope of compromise with the Germans was vain. Favre had interviews with Bismarck at the Chateau de Ferrières (September 19); but his fine orato

k must have known. On their side, Frenchmen could not believe that their great capital, with its bulwarks and ring of outer forts, could be taken; while the Germans--so it seems from the Diary of General von Blumenthal--looked forward to its speedy capitulati

provision, made after the Crimean War, which prevented her from sending war-ships on to the Black Sea; and this was subsequently done, under a thin diplomatic disguise, at the Congress of London (March 1871). Bismarck's astuteness in supporting Russia at this time therefore kept that Power quiet. As for Austria, she undoubtedly wished to intervene, but did not choo

ought to have gone there; for, shut up in the capital, it lost touch with the provinces, save when balloons and carrier-pigeons eluded the German sharpshooters and brought precious news[55]. The mistake was seen in time to enable a man of wondrous energy to leave Paris by balloon on October 7, to descend as a veritable deus ex m

pression. Disdaining all forms of rhetoric, he poured forth a torrent of ideas, clothing them in the first words that came to his facile tongue, enforcing them by blows of the fist or the most violent gestures, and yet, again, modulating the roar of passion to the falsetto of satire or the whisper of emotion. His short, thick-set frame, vibrating with strength, doubled the force of all his utterances. Nor did they lack the glamour of poetry and romance that might be expected from his Italian ancestry. He came of a Genoese stock that had for some time settled in the South of France. Strange fate, that called him now to the front with the aim of repairin

for the softness shown in the defence. The voluminous evidence taken at his trial shows that he was very slack in the critical days at the close of August; it is also certain that Bismarck duped him under the pretence that, on certain conditions to be arranged with the Empress Eugénie, his army might be kept intact for the sake o

French were speedily driven down the valley of the Loire and thence as far west as Le Mans. In the North, at St. Quentin, the Germans were equally successful, as also in Burgundy against that once effective free-lance, Garibaldi, who came with his sons to fight for the Republic. The last effort was made by Bourbaki and a large but ill-c

ed, which put an end to the war except in the neighbourhood of Belfort. That exception was due to the determination of the Germans to press Bourbaki hard, while the French negotiators were not aware of his plight. The garrison of Paris, except 12,000 men charged with the duty of keeping order, surrendered; the forts were placed in the besiegers' hands. When that was done the c

done wonders in reviving the national spirit: Frenchmen could once more feel the self-confidence which had been damped by the surrenders of Sedan and Metz; but the instinct of self-preservation now called imperiously for the ending of the hopeless struggl

, which met in the middle of February, should soon have declared that the Napoleonic Empire had ceased to exist, as being "responsible for the ruin, invasion, and dismemberment of the country" (March 1). These rather exaggerated charges (against which Napo

due to party considerations, while the personal influence of one man perhaps turned the bal

the urgent question of peace or war, either to rescue France from her long agony, or to pledge the last drops of her life-blood in an affair of honour. By an instinct of self-preservation, the electors, especially in the country districts, turned to the men of property and local influence as those who were most likely to save them from the

giving up of Belgium and the Rhine boundary should devolve on his successor, Louis XVIII., and counted on that as one of the causes undermining the restored monarchy, so now the Royalists intended to leave the disagreeable duty of ceding the eastern districts of France to the Republicans who had so persistently prolonged the struggle. The clamour of no small section of the Republican party for war à outrance stil

towards the one necessary man, now singled out M. Thiers. The veteran statesman was elected in twenty-six Departments. Gambetta and General Trochu, Governor of Paris, were each elected

d him to the survivors of the old Jacobin and Girondin parties, and his eager hostility to England during his term of office flattered the Chauvinist feelings that steadily grew in volume during the otherwise dull reign of Louis Philippe. In the main, Thiers was an upholder of the Orleans dynasty, yet his devotion to constitutional principles, the ardour of his Southern temperament,--he was a Marseillais by birth,--and t

obable fate of Dynasties and Ministries. Like Talleyrand, whom he somewhat resembled in versatility, opportunism, and undying love of France, he might have said that he never deserted a Government before it deserted itself. He foretold the fall of Louis Philippe under the reactionary Guizot Ministry as, later on, he foretold the fall of Napoleon III. He blamed the Emperor for not making war on Prussia in 1866 with the same unanswerable logic that marked his opposition to the mad rush for war in 1870. And yet the war spirit had been in some sen

e literary cultivation of the Napoleonic legend, was now in the evening of his days called upon to bear a crushing load of responsibility in struggling to win the best possible terms of peace from the victorious Teuton, i

th of February, the Assembly named him Head of the Executive Power "until it is based upon the French Constitution." He declined to accept this post until the words "of the French Republic" were substituted for the latter clause. He had every reason for ur

Republicans--Jules Favre, Picard, and Jules Simon. Having pacified the monarchical majority by appealing to them to defer

feeling of keen sympathy for France, and even Russia was restless at the sight of the great military Empire that had sprung into being on her flank. The recent proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles--an event that will be treated in a later chapter--opened up a vista of great developments for the Fatherland, not unmixed with difficulties and dangers. Above all, sharp differences had arisen between him and the military men at the German headquarters, who

bout Falkenberg or Saarbrück--there must be some suitable spot thereabouts. We should thus make a clear profit of 200,000,000 francs. [N.B.--A milliard = 1,000,000,000 francs.] I do not like so many Fren

gap of nearly level ground between the spurs of the Vosges and those of the Jura. If that virgin stronghold were handed over to Germany, she would easily be able to pour her legions down the valley of the Doubs and dominate the rich districts of Burgundy and the Lyonnais. Besides, military honour required France to keep a fortress that had kept the tricolour flying. Metz the Germans held, and it was impossible to

ntes, told with effect in the case of Belfort. That stronghold was accordingly saved for France. Thiers also obtained a reduction of a milliard from the impossible sum of six milliards first named for the war indemnity due to Germany; in th

e 1,600,000 souls, and underwent the other losses noted above. Last but not least was the burden of supporting the German army of occupation that kept its grip on the north-east of France until, as the instalments came in, the foreign troops were proportionately drawn away eastwards. The magnitude of these losses and burdens had already aroused cries of anguish in France. The National Assembly at Bordeaux, on first hearing the terms, passionately confirmed the deposition of Napoleon III.; while the deputies from the ceded districts lodged a solemn protest against thei

nd while at Bordeaux began to upbraid Thiers for his obstinate neutrality on this question. For his part, the wise old man had early seen the need of keeping the parties in check. On February 17 he begged them to defer questions as to the future form of government, working meanwhile solely for the present needs of France, and allowing future victory to be the meed of that party which showed itself most worthy of trust. "Can there be any man" (he excla

mmune of 1871. The first seeds of that movement had been sown by its prototype of 1792-93, which summed up all the daring and vigour of the revolutionary socialism of that

the head to a state of benumbed subjection. The triumph of rural notions accounts for the reactions of 1831-47, and 1851-70. Paris having once more regained freedom of movement by the fall of the Second Empire on September 4, at once sought to begin her politico-social experiments, and, as we pointed out, only the promptitude of the "moderates," when face to face with the advancing Germans, averted the catastrophe of a social

bligations in the capital for the period of siege as if in ordinary times, and it appointed an unpopular man to command the National Guards of Paris. At the close of February the National Guards formed a Central Committee to look after their interests and those of the capital; and when the Executive of the State sent troops of the line to seize their guns parked on Montmart

trol of the imperial préfets. The Communists now asserted the right of each town to complete self-government, with the control of its officials, magistrates, National Guards, and police, as well as of taxation, education, and many other spheres of activity. The more ambitious minds looked

ntelligent changes which pointed the way to reforms of lasting benefit; but it is very questionable whether its aims could have achieved permanence in a land so very largely agricultural as France then was. Certainly it started its experiment i

to have resulted from their misreading of his promise to maintain a friedlich (peaceful) attitude, as if it were freundlich (friendly)[61]. The full truth as to Bismarck's relations to the Commune is not known. The Germans, however, sent back a force of French prisoners, and these with other troops, after beating back the Communist sortie of April 3, began to threaten the defences of the city. The strife at once took on a savage character, as was inevitable afte

ople, for the bare-armed fighting men. The hour of the revolutionary war has struck." This was the placard posted throughout Paris on the 22nd, by order of the Communist chief, Delescluze. And again, "After the barricades, our houses; after our houses, our ruins." Preparations were made to burn down a part of Central Paris to delay the progress of the Versaillese. Rumour magnified

ended the Communist wounded, so that she might be done to death as a fighter[62]. Both sides, in truth, were maddened by the long and murderous struggle, which showed once again that no strife is so horrible as that of civil war. On Sunday, May 28, the last desperate band was cut down at the Cemetery Père-Lachaise, and fighting gave way to fusillades. Most of the chiefs perished without the pretence of trial, and the same fate befel thous

lanation. Obviously, there is no lack of discontent, as the sequel will show. Finland, portions of Caucasia, and all the parts of the once mighty realm of Poland which have fallen to Russia and Prussia, now and again heave with anger and resentment. But these feelings are suppressed. They do not flame forth, as was the case in Poland as late as the year 1863. What is the reason for this? Mainly, it would seem, the enormous powers given to the modern organised State by

forest, and to focus it noisily but peacefully in the columns of the Press and the arena of Parliament. The appeal now is not so much to arms as to argument; and in this new sphere a minority, provided that it is well organised and persistent, may ge

eds; yet (up to the year 1904) no great rising has shaken her autocratic system to its base. This seems to prove that the immunity of the present age in regard to insurrections is due rather to the triumphs of mechanical science than to the progress of democracy. The fact is not pleasing to cont

xtremists of 1793 and 1848 in similar experiments--not to speak of the Communistic rising of Babeuf in 1797--was only temporary; but doubtless it encouraged the "Reds" of 1871 to make their mad bid for power. Now, however, the case was very different. France was no longer a lethargic mass, dominated solely by the eager brain of Paris. The whole country thrilled with political life. For t

" who dominated the National Assembly; and in that respect it foreshadowed, however crudely, what will probably be the political future of all great States, wherein the urban population promises altogether to outweigh and control that of the country. Further, it should be remembered that the experimenters of 1871 believed the Assembly to have betrayed the cause of France by ceding her east

e were deplorable misunderstandings. In ordinary times they might have been cleared away by frank explanations between the more moderate leaders; but the feverish state of the public mind forbade all thou

TNO

n, especially that of Austria, see his Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 109 (English edit.); Count Beust's Aus drei V

ea; 363 carrier-pigeons left the city and 57 came in. For details of the French efforts see Les Responsabilités de la Défense rationale, by H. Génevo

then at Hastings; but Bismarck seems to have distrusted him and to have dismissed him curtly. The adventuress, Mme. Humbert, recently claimed that she had her "millions" from this Regnier. A sharp criticism on Bazaine'

ements in Paris are not fully known; but he warned Favre on Jan. 26 to "provoke an émeute w

istory of Contemporary Europe

in the Franco-German

s work is the most detailed and authoritative that has yet appeared on

diplomatique de l'Euro

y of William Simpson

ssagaray's History of the Commune; also personal details in Washburne's R

for the parallel instance of the enhanced power o