legitimist powers. But one man at least had no illusions about how far he
would travel with his conservative colleagues. For a short three months
before Bismarck had written to his wife from Erfurt regarding the chief
conservative theoretician: "Our beloved Stahl is throwing his pearls before
swine...He still has pearls for me, but the day will come when our ways will
part, if we live to see it."

36. E. I, p. 152.

-4

depends on two factors; that the different domestic notions of justice be compatible and that the components of the international order be made to feel secure by its arrangements. If the domestic legitimizing principles are incompatible, all disputes are transformed into revolutionary contests. When there is no agreement on what constitutes a "just" or a "reasonable" claim no basis for negotiation exists. Then the emphasis will be less on the settlement of disputes than on the subversion of loyalties to bring about the degree of compatibility which will permit statesmen to "understand" each other. BUT no matter what the degree of harmony of the domestic notions of justice, no major power will accept a settlement in which its survival depends entirely on the continued good-will of another sovereign state. For too great a dis-proportion of strength undermines self-restraint in the powerful and induces in the weak the irresponsibility brought about by the consciousness that events can not be affected by one's actions.

This then was the problem of the statesmen who created the Vienna settlement and of Metternich on whom fell the main burden of organizing Germany. No one familiar with European history could be blind to the fact that the greatest threat to European tranquillity was the existence of an impotent Central Europe which would whet the ambitions of the two great continental powers: France in the West and Russia in the East. Four generations of French rulers had used the dissensions of Germany to expand France's power and Russia had exploited each such opportunity to advance further into Europe. But equally a too powerful Germany might bring about the very coalition of Russia and France which had proved so pernicious to the peace or Europe heretofore. Metternich therefore sought to create a Central Europe strong enough to resist attacks from both the East and the West, but not so powerful as to disquiet its neighbors; sufficiently unified to be able to mobilize its forces but not so centralist as to overthrow its historic components and thereby put into question the legitimization of the settlement. However cumbersome the machinery of the German Confederation and however little it corresponded to the predominant trends of the country, it was well designed for the task that had been set for it. The very intricacy of its structure guaranteed that

- 20

18
analyzing which newspapers might prove amenable to such influence. But
if Austria's influence in Germany was to be eliminated Bismarck had to fight
a war on two fronts: at Frankfurt and in Berlin. For while Manteuffel
and the King might be ready to oppose Austria on specific issues such as the
German fleet, they were totally unprepared for a basic showdown. On the contrary,
the King could not even conceive a Germany without Austria as he had demon-
strated by his vacillations in 1848, while his environment still thought in
terms of the unity of conservative interests. Bismarck had therefore to be
careful in presenting his real aims and to couch them in a form acceptable to
his superiors. This caused his early reports to be voluble in their attack
on Austria's incapacity to ever come to power (the right for its own sake, on its
ruthless utilization of the machinery of the Assembly, so that the program
he was in the process of developing could be made to appear as an act of
self-defense. But even then it proved more difficult to overcome the moral
scruples of the Prussian ministry than the pedantry of his colleagues in
Frankfurt.

19
20
PERSEVERE IN

We owe to this effort of Bismarck's a flood of reports ever more
insistent for all their deferential tone urging the use of measures which in
anybody else would have been considered revolutionary. Before the year 1851
was out, Bismarck was to couple an analysis of Austria's misuse of the
machinery of the Confederation and its superior position at the minor courts
because of its skillful utilization of dynastic relationship with the following
proposal for a Prussian policy: "We can exercise our influence in the present
situation by seeming to unintentionally delaying the consideration of Austria's
proposals... by giving our press more materials for the discussions of the
CONFEDERATION
and granting it greater latitude in determining its policies.

18. See f.e., W.I., p. 53, p. 63.
19. See f.e., W.I., p. 3 (Bismarck's very first report).
20. See f.e., W.I., p. 39, among many examples.

Chapter V. The Crimean War

In the settlement of 1815, the equilibrium maintained by the Central Powers had been conceived only as a safety-valve, a last resort all the more effective for never being put to an explicit test. The real cement of the settlement was the appeal to legitimacy not only within Germany but also in the remainder of Europe. To be sure, the postulate of the sanctity of historical rule could not by its mere existence stem the currents of a century — and Revolutions in Belgium, Spain, Italy, and France revealed that tranquillity, though desirable, is not sufficient to inspire men. But the very proximity of the abyss solidified the unity of the three great traditional rulers of the Continent, the King of Prussia and the Emperors of Russia and Austria. Only the closest cooperation among the defenders of the conservative interests seemed capable of saving the world from imminent chaos. Thus, the Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia conceived originally as an instrument to protect the territorial settlement of 1815 became in effect an organization held together by the common fear of revolution and the common determination to prevent the spreading of liberal institutions. It seemed almost a matter of course therefore that the Tsar in 1848 used his troops to help quell the revolution in Hungary and in 1851 to bring back into line a Prussia dangerously wavering towards a national, if not a liberal, policy.

In these circumstances there was an inherent limit to the disputes of the German Confederation in Frankfurt: that the requirement of the unity of the Conservative monarchs superseded all considerations of local advantage. And while it was easy enough for Bismarck to ridicule the claims

- 2

of the common nationality, the Russian ambassador sent by the Tsar to insist
on a settlement of the fleet issue represented a more tangible reality.
Whatever one might think of "legitimacy," the master of the divisions on
the Vistula could not be antagonized with impunity. But even under these
circumstances, Bismarck denied that Prussia would have to agree to every
proposal of its allies. While he admitted that as long as Austria and
Russia were united, Prussia had to remain allied to Austria, a formula-
tion which expressed the reality of a power-relationship much more than a
conviction of ideal bonds, he interpreted the requirement of unity as a
weapon to exact concessions or to obtain a veto over Allied actions: "We
must act," wrote Bismarck to his mentor Gerlach, "so that Austria and
Russia solicit our assistance and do not treat us as an ally who has no
other choice. We must stick to them, but never give them the certainty
that it could not be otherwise."

2

BUT IT

~~STAGE~~ the policy indicated by this letter was IMPOSSIBLE

as long as Russia saw in Austria the repository of conservative interests.

The full implications of Bismarck's position could not become apparent
until the powers were no longer inhibited by "rules" which restricted the
full development of their potential strength. The revolution of 1848 had
brought about this condition for the German Confederation; the Crimean War
was to do the same for the international order. And then, with Austria and
Russia separated and with Austria attempting to fall back on the reserve
afforded to it by the Vienna settlement in the German Confederation, it could
become apparent what a skillful diplomacy might achieve in first frustrating

1. W. I, p. 354.

2. L. G., 60.

case of the demise of the "sick man of Europe." But the emergence of
a new Napoleon Bonaparte in France furnished a reasonable assurance that
Britain's attention would be focused more on the protection of the Low
Countries than on the security of the Straits.

The crisis in the Balkans therefore took the course which had
become almost traditional in the disputes between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire: an insistence by the Tsar that both history and specific treaty
relationships had made him the protector of the Christian faith in the
Ottoman Empire, coupled with an intransigent demand for specific guarantees.
The POARTE, in turn, resorted to dilatory measures while it sought help
from the other powers. Finally when faced with the threat of war, the
FERMAN
Sultan issued a edn in which he acceded to most of the Russian demands.
But it soon became apparent that the Tsar was less interested in his co-
religionists than in the humiliation of the Turks. A special envoy,
Mensikov, was dispatched to Constantinople with demands that the Sultan
reiterate the edn in the form of a treaty and in effect recognize the
Russia formally as the protector of the Greek-Orthodox Church in the
Ottoman Empire. And if the POARTE hoped to buy peace successfully with such
a surrender of sovereignty, Mensikov's arrogant behavior made it clear
that nothing less than a complete SUBSEQUENCE would placate the autocrat in
St. Petersburg.

3. See Stern VI, p. 45.

4. The specific issue this time concerned the protection of the Holy places in Jerusalem and the theft from them of religious objects some years previously. It was complicated by the fact that not only the Tsar but also Napoleon sought to use this opportunity to appear as the protectors of Christianity: the former to inherit the Turkish Empire, the latter to appeal to French Catholicism.

The Tsar had however been mistaken about the reaction of the West. Had he behaved more subtly, he might have exploited Britain's distrust of France and Austria's weakness to achieve a hegemony in the Balkans. But Nicholas' arrogance overcame Great Britain's misgivings and it gave Napoleon an opportunity to end the isolation which for thirty years had paralyzed French policy on the Continent. On March 19, 1853, the French fleet sailed for Salamis on the Greek coast from which it could easily reach Constantinople in case of need. On May 21 Mensikov quit Constantinople with an ultimatum demanding Turkisk acceptance of the Russian terms within eight days. On June 2 the Britash squadron stationed in Malta sailed for the Bay of Besira just south of the Dardanelles where it was soon joined by the French fleet. On July 2, Russian troops crossed the Pusth and occupied the Danube Principalities in order to obtain "material guarantees" for the fulfillment of the Tsar's demands. Europe which had not known war for a generation began to look to its rusty armaments.

It was clear that the attitude of the Central Powers would decide the course of events. If the Holy Alliance continued unimpaired, Russia was unassailable and the Franco-British measures would be reduced to empty demonstrations. Even if Austria and Prussia remained neutral, Russia could hope to settle the Near Eastern problem to its satisfaction. But the Russian advance into the Danube Principalities confronted Austria with all the dilemmas of its existence. Its fear of revolution counselled close ties with the Russian autocrat; but its dread of nationalist upheavals urged resistance to an advance which was certain to unloose Pan-Slavic sympathies and outflank Austria to the south. Austria had barely survived its internal upheavals of 1848; it could not fail to be disquieted by the emergence of