The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-01 00:00:00

IHE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1,187 c.

the Vosges, the sudden resignation of his 'authority
by KERATRY and his threatened impeachment of
GAMBETTA, the • evident dwindling down of
the rations doled out day by day to the
Parisians simultaneously with the advent of
December, and the r consequent near approach
of the dead .whiter—sall these portents speak most
lamentably as to any hope being, left for France of
extrication at the eleventh hour from her appalling
difficulties. Surrounding nations stand aloof from
the quarrel now being fought out to its bitter
end by the belligerents. Remonstrances have
been of no avail with the conquering invaders.
Earl GRANVILLE and M. TRIERS have addressed
themselves alike in vain to the cynically polite
13ismAncis, the Evil Genius in a double sense of
France_ and of Germany. It only remains now for
a great neutral Power like England to reflect whether
it is compatible or consonant with the maintenance
of her pretensions to the world's consideration as
one of the dominant empires of the earth, the
continuation thus to the very end, come what come
may, of this seeming apathy and indifference of hers
as to the fate of France and as to the course
pursued by Germany under the leadership of the
Prussian Sovereign. France has for years past been
her trusted and loyal ally. They have entered
upon the same path of peaceful emulation in
art, science, commerce, and agriculture. They
adopted and have amicably interwoven the same
enlightened principles of political economy. Their
soldiers have fought side by side upon the
same battlefields in Europe and in Asia ;
they have bled together, they have died together in
winning victories, the names of which have been
emblazoned on their respective banners. We are still
friends and allies of our Gallic neighbours. Nothing
whatever has occurred to estrange the two nations
from each other. War has sprung up between France
and Germany, a war in the origination of which we
have, as Epectators, never for one instant approved,
a war that we certainly never encouraged, a war that
we did everything in our power to prevent. Since
the date of its: outbreak the whole scheme and pur-
pose of the contest between France and Germany
have been transformed in every particular. It was
intended to
.be an invasion of Germany. It
has been, ever since the firing of the first shot at
Saarbruck, an invasion of France, an advance upon
Paris, and the investment of that so-called capital of
civilisation. It was declared by King 'WILLIAM of
Prussia to be a war for the defence of the hearths
and homes of the German Fatherland. His Majesty
distinctly proclaimed to the soldiers of the North
German Confederation, at the time of his assuming
the command of their then rapidly mustering forces,
that it was a war against the French EMPEROR and
the French Soldiers, not against France and French-
men, His Majesty, further than that, in his first
proclamation issued before all Europe that it was a
defensive, and not an aggressive' war, that it
was a war undertaken by him in vindication of the
inalienable rights :and independence of Germany,
not a war of conquest, not a war entered upon with
a view to anything in the shape of territorial
aggrandisement. Territorial aggrandisement, in
effect, the King of PRUSSIA distinctly and formally,
most delberately and most emphatically, repudiated.
Since then a change has come over the spirit of his
dream. The Emperor NAPOLEON has for three
months past been sojourning as a captive in the
palace at Wilhelmshohe. The Imperial army of
France, horse, foot, and artillery, from the marshals
to the drummer-boys and the vivandieres, have been
conducted as prisoners of war beyond the northern
frontier of France, -and distributed unarmed hither
and thither in various parts of the German dominions.
Fortress Eaten fortress has been captured; even the
heroically defended battlements of Strasburg, even
the impregnable fortifications of Metz. Alsace and
Lorraine have been formally taken possession of
and—appetite coming with what it
.has fed upon—
the KING, who repudiated so solemnly any intention
of aiming at territorial aggrandisement, has inti-
mated his. determination to retain in his safe keeping
both Metz and Strasburg, both Alsace and Lor-
raine, His only foes, the *French EmpEsioß and
the French army, baying been swept from
the soil of France by the German legions, the loyal
and pious KING who declared himself, if not the
friend of France and the French people, at any rate
not their enemy, na advancing against them from
beyond the northern banks of the Rhine, has
now for Vireo months together been de-
vasting France with his arms and destroying
the French people, wherever his soldiers could con-
trive to grapple with them. Paris meanwhile has
been ringed round as with a ring of iron, and is
completely invested, with the view of quietly
starving her into submission, unless the Prussian
KING of to-day, the German EMPEROR of to-morrow,
should see his way meanwhile to shortening
her agony by storming his way in by
means of an overwhelming bombardment.. In
the interim, during which the whole of this asto-
nishing transformatiOn of the purpose of the war
has been effected, a remorseful sense has been
forcing itself more and more home to the heart of
England that a limit at last must surely be reached
in her own apathetic toleration of these events ;
that, in other words, the day may come when Eng-
land may be constrained to interfere between the
conqueror and the conquered, telling the former
that thus far he may go, but no farther !

TOPIOS OF THE D.Y.

by diplomatic documents to the world, first
that it informed the late. Imperial Govern-
ment early and most distinctly that it could
not reCkon • upon the support of Austria ; and,
secondly, that it gave instructions to its Ministers in
Southern Germany to abstain from influencing either
way the Governments to which they were accredited.
But if the Austrian Foreign Office can prove all this,
why does it not do so. Certainly, the silence of the
Bed Book is suspicious. It is generally believed
that Austria was favourable to France at the begin-
ning of the war, and that a French victory would have
led the Vienna Government to attack Germany. The
German papers make no secret of their convictions
on this point. If the Austrian Government can set
itself right in the sight of Germany, it might, one
would think, just as well do so.