Year: 1870

L


greater than that of 1866 for his success then


only set aside every obstacle to Prussian am


bition except France, and as France was the
| greatest obstacle Of all, the success that had


no other effect upon her but to excite irritation


and enmity was not complete. 1t is the glory Of


Bismarcks latest achievement that 1t removes


the last and greatest obstacle to Prussian
policy. 1t sets aside France, the only remain
ing Power competent or likely to stand in
| Prussia's way. Napoleon was inveigled into
this war by the acts of the Prussian Premier
just when Prussia was ready for it, and when
the Emperor had lulled himself to a false secu-
rity and faith in his power by the great polti-
cal nostrum, the ple6iscite: when he had
deceived himself by the device that in his
stronger days he used only to deceive others;
and the same acute politician who secured his
inactivity in 1866, who by shrewd contrivance
of appearances duped him to stand still when
he should have done his utmost in moving,
finally lured him into the blunder of moving
when he should have stood still-fooled him
into declaring war whose least doubtful result
must be his own downfall. His last appear
ance on the throne of France is scarcely in
more dignifed character than that Of puppet
worked by the Prussian Premier. He was
tempted in 1866 by the alluring bait of the
Rhine frontier. 1t seems to be monomania
with the French nation that it will never be
happy till the commonplace Rhine is its eastern
limit Because that was once the limit OF
France, and France lost it, the nations pride is
bent on lis recovery and Napoleon saw the
prestige it would give to his reign and reflect


on the dynasty if he could restore that glory.


With the hope of the chance to seize it, or the
promise that he should have it, he stood still;
and the war ended and the promise and the
opportunity slipped away for ever. But in
1870 he saw slipping away not only the chance
for Rhine frontier but the glory Of keeping
intact the dignity and honor of France. He
saw the nation humilated in his reign, and the
nation, skillfully irritated by the arch enemy,
saw things the same way, and thus he was
thrust and duped into war.


Napoleon's vanities and peculiar position
uncovered him to the arts of Bismarck. His
intellectual furniture is made up in great part
of the splendid rubbish left by the resolute
soldier Of fortune, his uncle. Napoleon knew
how to utter on occasion things that seethe
with the spirit of democracy. He never
suffered himself however, to be controlled by
them. The nephew treasures these utterances
as dynastic gospel, and does not distinguish
bofu xyh hot fho Grot ho1i in
and what he said to humbug others. He is
thus involved in continued inconsistencies, and
it is because of the practical application Of
one of these pretty Napoleonic theories that
he is now in such imminent peril. 1t is be-
cause there is united Germany that France
finds herself in the hands of an overwhelm-
ingly powerful foe; yet Louis Napoleon tried
to excuse to France his inactivity in 1866 by
taking position for the Bonapartes on a
political formula that assumed to reconstruct
Europe by the aggregation of peoples accord
ing to nationality. This would do many things
in Europe that France might contemplate
without displeasure. 1t would give all Italy
to the Italians, and so prove fair stroke for
the Latin nations. 1t would rend Austria
piecemeal. 1t would put the British empire
in liquidation It would disturb Russia. 1t
would take from Prussia her half digested cut
of Poland. All this would be satisfactory
in Napoleonic view, perhaps. But there
is one other thing it would do, that in its
danger to France would infinitely overbear
all self-complacent views of the disasters
of others it would give her great German
nation for her next door neighbor-a nation of
people hostile by tradition, opposed in char
acter and sentiment, and having century-long
scores of humiliatons to revenge. It would at
one step forfeit that supremacy through the
division of others that the political policy of
every French dynasty has built up. Commit
ting himself to this philanthropic blunder,
Napoleon made it easier for Bismarck to
assimilate all the North German States, and to
approach the States of South Germany with
the conditional alliance that now puts Bavaria,
Baden and Wurtemberg side by side with
Prussia in arms. And who doubts that the
Emperor has at last helped the Prussian over
his most difficult ground by furnishing the
war whose fire shall fuse these all into one
nation?


Yet what are all these events but so many
lessons teaching the people their power !?
Bismarck and the Prussian monarchy move in
whirl of success and supremacy just now
because their purposes coincide with the
national development and tendencies of the
great German people They assist and give
the opportunity to this development, and in so
doing they encourage, beyond all calculation,
its further progress. What is naturally the
ultimate aim of this progress? Not to
satiate the ambition of few Prussian
princes, but to emancpate great people
Ill md La thor,, 70 oIit