Napoleon was won to the passive security from which he, too late, started into action, we do not profess to know. It is of little practical importance to search out the particular finesse by which one unscrupulous man is outwitted by another as little scrupulous as he. Nor does it greatly concern us to know. Without doubt, in the strange neutrality of France during the war of 1866, there lay at bottom the general notion that any contest between the two great Powers of Germany would assuredly weaken both so far as to make her the arbitress thereafter. The error, as matter of calculation, was great, and it has assuredly been paid for dearly. For Bismarck's purpose it was sufficient to gain time. He had confidence enough in the newly developed warlike power of his country, aided by the diversion Italy promised to make on the enemy's rear, to believe that Austria would be vanquished before the ruler of France could discover his mistake and take a decisive part in her favor. arms how vainly anxious to gain time when war became sure, how unequal at every point to contend against the supreme skill of the master of diplomacy at Berlin. Not that Bismarck's difficulties were confined to the intricacies of negotiation, or to intrigues in the distracted Diet. His bitterest opponents were nearer home, in the Liberal party who instinctively would have revolted against their master, and the free press which condemned the dangerous path of policy he pursued. The secret alliance with Italy, revolutionary Italy, was odious to the extreme Conservatives: the dangers of an Austrian war were terrible to the money-making bourgeoisie: the threatened call to weighed heavily on a hundred thousand peaceful homes. "How like you this?" below a rude sketch of Garibaldi, linked arm-in-arm with a Prussian General in full uniform, regarding a city wrapt in revolutionary flames, was the expression of popular hostility to the war policy, which the favorite humorist of Berlin sent all over All things were at length prepared for Germany but a few days before war was the great adventure on which Prussia's declared. Nor were there wanting defuture was to turn. It is impossible at clarations in the journals that to be plunthis near distance of time to do full justice dered by Croats and Sclaves was the fitto the genius of the Minister who, having ting retribution to come upon North Germade ready for the rupture long before- many for the toleration of the schemes of hand, brought it on exactly at the time it "the man of blood and iron." No Peace suited his own purpose. Austria's pre- Society could have condemned the wanton dominance in the Diet at Frankfort was ambition of a Louis Quatorze or a Naso dexterously used against her as to give poleon more severely than the citizens did her party the semblance of aggression, and their Premier's, when they found themto cause them to all appearance to force selves forced to the risk of personal seron Prussia the war the great mass of her vice in this "War of Brothers," felt by all citizens would have shrunk from. And to be the work of a single man. Well whilst the Frankfort discussions on the was it for the great Minister that he had new phase of the Schleswig-Holstein ques- not to depend for the actual campaign on tion were dragged on from day to day the exertions of the once-trusted Landtowards the final decision against herself wehr; for even through the more plastic which Prussia through her representative and disciplined ranks of the Line there sought, the real negotiations carried on were deep murmurs at the call to arms, between Berlin and Vienna up to the de- presaging the ruin of the Government claration of war were conducted with such which had caused this sacrifice, should deunvarying skill that Prussia could protest feat loose the bonds of order. None but she was forced on, against her will, from those who looked on at the gathering of step to step towards hostilities, whilst at 1866, and marked the unpopularity of the every fresh step she was able to keep be- war among the men who were to bear its fore her rival in readiness for action. It burdens, can believe that these were the is almost touching to read the story of same North Germans whom we have just these transactions as conveyed in the seen rush to arms as one man, with the Austrian Official Narrative of the War, fevered joy of those who exult that they which admits with honest simplicity of are allowed to share the sacred rapture of detail, how childlike were the statesmen a new crusade. of Vienna in their first hopes of peace, Can it be that mere success so gilds the schemes of ambition? Can it be that the policy forced upon an unwilling nation in 1866 is hailed by that nation as pure patriotism in 1870? Are we to think so lightly of a great people as to believe that the glare of Sadowa's triumph has blinded their eyes to ambition's evils, and made darkness seem light? Not so indeed. It is not merely the difference of a victory which has wrought this magic change. There is another cause in it, deep-rooted, constant, powerful to stir the German blood. No doubt the confidence which Bohemian victories gave the nation in its arms has much to do with the readiness for a struggle on the Rhine which Prussia has since displayed. No doubt the vague desire for German unity has been strengthened into passionate longing since Austria has ceased to bar the way. But the ancient loathing of French rule, the ancient detestation of French interference, the deep memory of the time when a Napoleon was indeed "the Scourge of the Fatherland," was needed to touch the heart of the nation with that fire which we have watched this summer so fiercely blaze forth into action. If the attitude of the Prussian people and the tone of the Prussian press up to the time of the rupture with Austria, might well have caused the most daring Ministry and the most bellicose monarch to pause in the path of aggression, it must be admitted that when the declaration of war came, and the evil so much dreaded was upon the nation, Prussia's conduct, sacrificed, as she herself plainly thought, to the demands of ambition, was as grand and heroic as her protest had been sincere. Once seen to be inevitable, army and nation went to meet fate in resolute silence, not hopeful, indeed, of the issue, but steeled to bear the worst. "The prologue is over, take your places for action," sang the popular poet who had bitterly opposed the war; and strong sense of duty combined with patriotism and discipline to send forth the legions, framed on the novel system which the citizens abhorred, so complete as never paper army mustered in camp before. The collision of the rival monarchies came, and for a few hours Germany's future seemed dependent on the sword. Theory encountered practice in open field, new tactics met ancient discipline, closet strategy was matched against a military putation which Europe could not sur pass. No need is there for us to recount the oft-told tale of Benedek's defeat. Jomini paused before laying down his well-worn pen to explain how Austria was beaten, and no younger critic has added much to the clearness with which that veteran writer, then in his ninetieth year, showed that in strategy and organization, no less than in weapons, she was fairly outmatched. The telegraph flashed its fatal news day after day to the brooding monarch, who dared not again lead the soldiers who had seen him fail at Solferino. The messages-"Do not, your Majesty, come down," "General Gablenz is despatched to ask an armistice at the Prussian headquarters"-were the fitting sequels to that vain answer to the same Gablenz's recent entreaty not to weigh the rifle against the breech-loader—“ His Majesty administers the Imperial army for himself." In vain did "Our Cousin " Albert, fit successor to the noble old Radetski, worthy son of the grand Archduke-General whom the Emperor of his day hated for his greatness, hurl back the legions of Italy from the Quadrilateral, and then hasten to defend the threatened capital of the Empire. Too late he came to retrieve the errors and misfortunes in which he had had no share. The Prussian army was before the gates; the troops of Benedek broken and despondent; his own, though confident in their general, distrusted their effete weapons. All that his victory of Custozza now availed was to win him the respect of those who had elsewhere seen Austrian soldiers only in retreat, and to gain from the enemy, as his father had twice done in his time, better terms than Austria could have asked had no such leader been left to her. . Europe witnessed with wonder and expectation, not unmixed with derision, the sudden intervention of France at this crisis of the German war; her vain attempt to save the Quadrilateral from eager Italian arms; her coming and going in the negotiations of Nicolsburg and Prague; her loud appeals in favor of Saxony and Denmark. Prussians there were many who, confident in the lately fledged powers of their army, would have bade instant defiance to this wanton interference with German affairs, and turned towards the Rhine the victorious legions that lay ready for new action in the plains of Moravia and Bavaria. But to quarrel with France whilst the Archduke Albert headed 200,000 Austrians; whilst the South Germans, though beaten, were not prostrate; whilst the Qadrilateral fortresses still flaunted the Imperial banner-was an adventure which even Bismarck's undaunted spirit, supported by the terror of the needle-gun, would not needlessly dare. To defeat French policy without open hostility to France seemed a more easy and certain road to the coming unification of Germany. On the single point of Saxony the victor so far yielded as to leave the King a nominal independence, while absorbing his brave army into the great military machine it had lately been arrayed against. The three unpopular ruling houses that had divided the northern half of Germany against Prussia were swept away into the dust-bin of history, and Hanover, Cassel, and Nassau made part of the enlarged kingdom of Hohenzollern. Private treaties with the South. German States, bitter draughts for outwitted France to swallow hereafter, laid on them the obligation to support their late enemy against all non-German opponents, and amongst others against their Austrian ally, now German no more, thrust out of the empire she once had misruled. A touch of moderation seemed to be breathed into the spirit of the Treaty of Prague in the recognition, slight though it was, of the claims of Denmark to the more purely Danish parts of Schleswig. Alas that the foundations of the colossal State that now stretched eastward of the Vistula and westward of the Rhine, should have seemed incomplete if a few parishes on her border choose to declare for the Dane against the Teuton! The promise to consult the people of the Schleswig frontier on their own future fate either meant nothing when signed, or has since been repented of as over-generous. No doubt the arrogancy of France, which claimed this promise as yielded to fear of her arms rather than to justice, has been a ready excuse for not fulfilling it; but so mighty a Power as Prussia has shown herself, need not have shown the weakness of fearing lest she should be thought to fear. The private treaties had not long been made known which added 100,000 soldiers to those of Prussia; Europe had hardly yet become accustomed to her new settlement; France was murmuring over South German bondage; when a question arose which threatened to make the year 1867 more full of bloodshed than its predecessor. The fortress of Luxemburg, an appanage nominally of the Crown of Holland, had been a Federal property under the old Bund. Prussia, which had been charged with its custody before the war, held it with her Landwehr during the campaign, and still continued to occupy it by virtue of possession. "Could Holland," she asked, "now that the Federation was broken up, carry with her a great Federal fortress, to be seized, whenever convenient, by France, to which it lay adjacent ?" "Shall we," replied the French, "permit these rude Germans to hold, without a title of legal claim, the most formidable stronghold on our border?"- "Will Europe see me plundered of my Duchy because it contains a fortress ?" asked the nominal sovereign, crushed between the mutual frowns of his great neighbors. Never had France a better opportunity of showing herself on the side of justice : never was Germany, in her jealous watching of her French frontier, so completely in the wrong. But the restless desire which drives French rulers to stretch out again and again hands greedy to win back the plunder of Louis Quatorze and the First Empire, was still at work; Europe learnt with disgust that Napoleon had taken advantage of the Luxemburg question to bring forward claims for compensation, against the unity of the Northern Confederation which had been urged but not listened to when Germany owned the mastery of Prussia the year before. France asked for the rectification of her frontiers by a return to the conditions of 1814, when the Allies weakly left her Sarrelouis and Landau, the two gates of the Palatinate, with Philippeville and Marienburg, behind which next spring Napoleon crouched for his spring into Belgium before Waterloo. "Yield these to France, or give up Luxemburg, or face our displeasure," were the three alternatives held up before Count Bismarck. For a moment that firm spirit seemed to waver at the issue, till behind him he felt the mighty impulse he had done so much to create, and heard the deep voice of a great nation saying, "Yield not to our old enemy one foot of German soil." Then went the answer back to the Emperor, which bade him plainly do his worst. Once more for a moment the Ber lin councillors turned from politics to stra tegy, and found that the man of the sword was this time more ready to face the great issue than the colleague he had hitherto followed. "Let him but dare to threaten us. s; Give me our own nine Prussian corps without waiting for allies or annexations I will engage to mass them in two columns on the Rhine, and to march straight to Paris, trusting to the needle-gun alone. We want no strategy to beat these half-armed blusterers." The firm countenance assumed by Prussia, and the natural fear of bringing on a collision between troops armed and raised on an unimproved system and those before which Austrian valor and experience had so miserably gone down, stayed the French Emperor's demands. He soon reduced them to the proposal of receiving from Belgium only the portions of territory given to her in 1815, which (as before said) had been made use of by his uncle in the last rash adventure of his career. But here England warmly interposed; and notwithstanding that support which Austria (willing possibly to show gratitude for French action the year before, or to maintain the preponderance against Prussia) gave to the modified demand, it was rejected by the consent of Europe. The demolition of the fortress over which the issue had been raised, and the transfer of the territory to Belgium under European guarantee, closed the famous Luxemburg dispute. But the check which the greed of France had openly received before the world, and her manifest inability to maintain her own pretensions, made thenceforth a rankling sore which time could not heal. To arm, to organize her once invincible legions until they should be invincible once more, became the main object of the Imperial Government, while Orleanist and Republican writers, no less than the imperialist, fanned the flame of national vanity, and made Prussia's humiliation the sole object of French patriots. In vain did the world outside demand an armed peace; in vain did dreaming journalists declare that each month, each year, brought fresh assurance that Europe's quiet would be disturbed no more. The two ancient foes had no thought of the mutual disarmament which their candid friends urged on them. Fixed was the purpose on the one side to regain the ancient predominance of which her writers taught her she was robbed. Fixed, upon the other, the resolve to go steadily forward in the newly cleared path towards 'German unity, and to place the new nation, under Prussian guidance, far beyond the power of the stranger's interference. The history of the past three years is but the history of preparation for the coming mortal struggle for which both peoples longed at heart. To name the ostensible cause of the war we now witness is simply to name the date when the old passions that had smouldered on unceasingly beneath the garb of civilization broke forth in open flame. To assign the exact blame to persons, great or small, would be to ransack the history of the past three centuries (of which we have but reviewed the closing chapter), and to weigh each Frenchman and German in the scales. Englishmen who are proud of England's greatness should feel for Germans who would consolidate the fragments of an empire. Englishmen who are proud of England's past history should sympathize with Frenchmen who cannot forget their own. Let optimists frame new Utopias, and economists preach the extravagance of war, the politician and the philosopher can no more disregard the passions of great nations than their material condition. Whether the new struggle be the mere starting-point of fresh chapters of hostility, we do not pretend to foretell. Unless German moderation be as remarkable as German strength, the future peace of Europe is indeed ill-assured; for the restoration of Alsace to Germany, if made a condition of peace, will add fuel to the fierce enmity already burning in the hearts of Frenchmen against their prosperous neighbor. This is so obvious, that to mention it is but to repeat a truism which strikes the most careless observers. But there is another source of disquietude for Europe's future more sure than this, in the certainty that Germany, having made of late such rapid steps towards her unity as defied anticipation, will not rest satisfied on her Austrian side with the consequences of Sadowa. The Treaty of Prague cut off from her nine millions of her race, whose sympathies in her cause have been so plainly manifested in the late crisis, that it would be vain to expect so powerful a nation in the height of its prosperity to ignore them. Austria is already cut in twain by her own political necessities. The opposing sentiments of her two great races, which have forced upon her a dual administration, cannot but be strengthened by the effect of late events upon the Teuton element in the empire. The desire to complete the German nation by bringing back those sons she has for a time thrust out, is a force that must act in this direction when the fear of France ceases to influence the policy of Berlin. The work of the great Minister stands unfinish ed until it be crowned by a fresh humiliation of Austria. Years since, he pointed out that Pesth, and not Vienna, was the proper capital of the Hapsburg, and in due time he will (who can doubt it that has watched his past career ?) find means and opportunity to accomplish his prediction, or bequeath the task to others as their duty to the Fatherland. Fraser's Magazine. FASHIONS IN HAIR AND HEAD-DRESSES.* THERE are three facts which the advocates of the Rights of Women, so far as these are based upon an alleged equality of the sexes, will find it extremely difficult to get over: 1. The peculiar functions of the fair sex touching the continuation of the species: 2. That no woman has ever manifested the highest order of genius in any walk of literature or art: 3. That women have never been able to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of fashion, however absurd, ridiculous, destructive to beauty, or ruinous to health. Without entering on the main question, or seeking to break a lance with Mr. Mill, we wish to call attention to the third of these social phenomena and point the concomitant or resulting moral. The history of masculine costume is undoubtedly a stinging satire on the male sex. It comprises every variety of vestment or device by which the human form could be disguised, disfigured, or distorted. But if not more becoming, it has gradually become more rational; ease and comfort are pursued with even an undue disregard of appearances; and the movements of the most consummate exquisite are free and unfettered, except when he occasionally indulges in tight boots. The greatest improvement is in the head; i.e. the outside; especially in the general abandonment of the peruke. Wigs, meant to pass for the natural hair of the wearer, are still to be detected by a critical observer, though daily getting rarer; but the formal and avowed peruke, a costly and inconvenient article, has been permanently laid aside except by the Les Femmes blondes selon les peintres de Pécole de Venise. Par deux Vénitiens [M. Feui1let de Conches.] Paris, 1865. judicial body and the bar. Even the bishops have succeeded in discarding it after a prolonged struggle; in the course of which one of them (Pelham, Bishop of Chichester) is reported to have knelt in vain to George III. for permission to begin the innovation. Immediately prior to the French Revolution, which introduced crops à la Brutus, the wigs commonly worn by gentlemen in the streets of London cost from thirty to forty guineas; "and (adds a distinguished contemporary) Rogers, appealing to Luttrell in our hearing, thus described a mode of theft as practised in London within their common memory. The operator was a small dog in a butcher's tray on the shoulders of a tall man; and when the wig was adroitly twitched off, the bewildered owner looked round for it in vain; an accomplice confused and impeded under the pretence of assisting him, and the tray-bearer made off." Whilst this custom lasted, the being wigged was as marked a step in the adolescent's approach to manhood as being breeched, and was postponed as long as possible by prudent parents with a view to economy. The second wife of Racine wrote thus to Jean-Baptiste, his son by his first; who, on becoming secretary of embassy in Holland, was obliged to conform to the fashion: "Your father deeply regrets the necessity which you say you are under of wearing a wig. He leaves the decision to the ambassador. When your father is in better health he will order M. Marguery to make you such a one as you require. Madame la Comtesse de Gramont is very sorry for you that you should lose the attraction which your hair gave you." Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1866. |