Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward.
Sir: It is not from negligence that I have written but little of late concerning the German-Danish war. All that occurred to me to say in regard to the causes and probable issue of the conflict I have already said. The events both at the seat of war and at the seat of the conferences reach you regularly, almost as soon as they are made known here; and I suppose that you have not much leisure for any academic disquisitions which it might occur to me to make on the subject.
The government of Austria is very moderate, for it went into the war with reluctance, in obedience to German popular pressure, and to its instinctive rivalry with Prussia, and will be glad to conclude peace now that its share in the military events has been so satisfactory to its military pride.
Prussia, on the other hand, whose troops have also fought with unquestionable [Page 151] success, seems no longer to have any urgent motive to continue the war, because any secret schemes of annexation that might he entertained would appear for the present impracticable. It is, therefore, for the two great powers, who have now Denmark at their feet, to dictate the terms of peace; but the Bund, although it was allowed to take no part in the war, will probably exercise sufficient moral pressure on its two principal members to prevent these terms being extravagantly generous.
The Augustenburg, with his pretensions, seems to have vanished from the scene, and is now rarely mentioned. The duchies, I suppose, will be united in what is called an administrative and political union, and will be dissevered definitely from Denmark. After this has been thoroughly accomplished, the personal sovereignty over them will be conferred upon the Danish king, as Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg. This is simply the dismemberment, and one would think annihilation, of the monarchy; and it is probable that the mass of the population, and all the most eminent persons in Denmark, would prefer a union with Sweden and Norway, under the Swedish monarch, to such an arrangement. It is probable, however, that England, among whose traditions is a strong hostility to the Scandinavian union, would prevent such a consummation by force, if force should be necessary. That both shores of the Skager Rack and the Katte-Gat should be under one crown has been usually thought contrary to her naval and commercial interests. Whether this be an antiquated notion or not, it would, perhaps, still be acted upon. It is true that there are “personal unions” not inconsistent with the idea of national integrity. That between Sweden and Norway, even with the addition of Denmark, would be a conceivable empire, for in this case there is not, nor would there be, an overpowering extraneous force to counteract that necessary centripetal tendency which alone keeps all organized bodies from dissolution. But in the personal union, as likely to be constituted between the Danish states and the continental provinces of Holstein and Schleswig, what central force could be found in the kingdom of one million inhabitants to overcome the enormous attraction of the great German confederacy with forty millions of people upon these duchies? I forbear to extend further these very obvious reflections.
The reluctance of the two great western powers, especially England, to engage in European war, is among the most significant signs of the times. Nations, or rather governments, act from instinct oftener, perhaps, than we at first sight imagine; and there is probably an instinctive uneasiness on the part of England, that, in case of a general war in which she should be belligerent and the United States neutral, the wonderful discoveries in the doctrine of neutrality made by some of her jurists and statesmen, together with the practical application thereof by ship-building members of Parliament, and others to the commercial advantage of England, and the great injury of American citizens, might be turned against herself. It is true that, in the words of a famous English statesman, England does not pique herself on being logical; and it does not follow, because she has practically allowed mutinous slaveholders who were without seaports or ships to make use of the Clyde and Mersey as a basis of naval operations against a power with which she was at peace, that she would tolerate a swarm of Alexandras and Alabamas issuing from New York and Boston, under Bavarian or Saxon colors, to burn her merchantmen on the high seas. Nevertheless, such complications might occasion her considerable inconvenience, and the reflection on such possibilities strengthens her pacific inclinations, so far as this side of the Atlantic is concerned. The two western powers have been moving in a vicious circle, as we all know, in regard to the United States ever since their hasty and ill-judged bestowal by solemn proclamation of maritime belligerent rights on a mutiny which had no more pretensions to be maritime than Poland or Wirtemberg. It is true, in the admiring words of a distinguished member of the British cabinet, that the slaveholders have succeeded [Page 152] “in creating a navy,” but it has been created for them entirely in England, and it sails from English ports alone; and it has been engendered by that clandestine connexion of England with the mutiny, of which an organized piracy is thus the sole fruit.
I have only to repeat that the Imperial Austrian government is disposed to peace, and seems to me by no means desirous of destroying the kingdom of Denmark. I am informed by the minister of foreign affairs that an important paper has been sent to the Imperial Russian government from the principal estates (staude) of Schleswig and Holstein, signed, as I understand, by the President and many notable members of these bodies, in which a separation of these duchies from Denmark is strongly deprecated, and in which an elaborate and cogent historical argument on the succession question is made, to the effect that even should the treaty of 1852 be set aside, the claims of the Augustenburg are entirely inadmissible, and that even had the chief of that branch not renounced his claims, they would be of little value, and far behind the pretensions of the Duke of Oldenburg and the Emperor of Russia. Such, as well as I could follow it, was the purport of the paper, and I understood the Imperial Russian minister to maintain very similar opinions. In the judgment of the Austrian government a compromise is inevitable, and to break down the arrangements of 1852 would be merely to open the door to endless litigation, out of which there could be no issue, even after a general war, but a fresh compromise. This, however, is manifestly not the feeling of the middle and lesser German states.
The avowed object of the two German powers, now acting, as I am informed, in perfect harmony, is stated to be to take such guarantees from Denmark as to prevent the repetition of her injustice to the German inhabitants of the duchies, and to compel her to observe the stipulations of 1851-’52, which preceded the London treaty.
With regard to the movements of the Austrian fleet, of which there has been recently so much mention in the public prints and in the British Parliament, the minister informed me that the instructions given to the commander of that fleet on the 9th March were to enter the North sea, but not to enter the Baltic; and that no fresh instructions had since been given. He added, that it would not be possible for the fleet to pass the sound, because there was but one ironclad ship in the squadron, and because the Danish batteries could easily sink any wooden ship attempting that narrow passage.
I do not understand, however, why it would not be easy enough for any fleet to enter the Baltic by way of the Great Belt, which is, I believe, eight or ten English miles in width.
The present appearances are supposed to be pacific; and it is expected that the armistice upon the basis of the evacuation of Jutland on the one side, and of Aslen, together with the raising of the blockade on the other, will soon be established, and it is hoped that if hostilities are once suspended it will be difficult to resume them.
But it is idle for me to speculate upon matters concerning which you will receive direct information long before any despatch of mine can reach you. The best I can do is to keep you apprised of the feelings of the imperial royal government from time to time.
The opinion at present is, that a general European war will be averted. I confess I do not understand how this is to be accomplished, except by the practical dissolution of the Danish monarchy, nor how the English government can, at the last moment, refrain from stepping in with the armed band to prevent such a catastrophe. If the two German great powers succeed in satisfying the German aspirations in regard to Schleswig-Holstein without exciting hostilities on the part of other powers, a very difficult task will have been accomplished.
[Page 153]Neither the merging of Danish nationality in the Scandinavian union, nor that other scheme which is occasionally broached, of a voluntary entrance of all Denmark into the Gorman confederation, by which Germany would become a considerable maritime power, would be in accordance with the traditional policy of England. Yet both projects are, to say the least, possible.
I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington.