Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
No. 351.]
Legation of the United States,
Paris,
August 3, 1866.
Sir: I have the honor to enclose to you, in two
extracts from official journals I at Berlin, what is here recognized in
official quarters as substantially the priliminary conditions of a peace
which were entered into On the 26th of July by Austria and Prussia.
Austria assents to a dissolution of the old Germanic Confederation, and
to a new organization of Germany proper, to which she shall in no
political sense belong. She engages to recognize such federal union as
Prussia may establish in connection with the states north of the Main,
and any union among themselves which the states south of that river may
enter into.
I learn that Prussia insists further that Austria shall never become a
member of this latter union, though nothing of that has yet transpired
in the press. This is at present one of the gravest questions which now
divide the belligerents. It is difficult to see how Austria can yield to
such a humiliating privation of sovereignty if she has any faculty of
resistance left, while Prussia, I am told, is disposed to be very
tenacious upon this point.
The manner in which the war has been conducted and in a manner
terminated, I has been so mysterious and so unprecedented in its most
important aspects, as to leave the public mind of this country in a very
unquiet state. No one is yet able to see how France is to reap the
profit from this war which will compensate her for the great accessions
of strength resulting from it to her two most | powerful continental
neighbors. Without some such compensation they feel that the relative
influence of France in the European system is lowered, her security
gravely compromised, and the peace that may now be made not likely to be
durable.
I confess I have not as yet shared these apprehensions. The Emperor of
France is the author and apostle of the policy of absorbing the
secondary and tertiary; sovereignties by the primary ones. For purposes
which nearly concern the dignity and honor of France, as the French
understand those words, he wished to have the authority of some leading
European power in support of it, and he now has it in Prussia. Austria
will be compelled to lend her concurrence. That France will have her
compensation sooner or later in the final peace, or under a future
treaty, I have no doubt. Without some tolerably satisfactory assurance
upon that point the war would have been prevented, an easy thing for
France to have managed, or, what would be still easier, it would yet be
prolonged. The more completely, however, France shall appear to have
suffered by the changes wrought by the war, the more easy it will be for
these “rectifications’’ to be conceded to France, which, in my opinion,
were intended in advance to be the price of her forbearance. That no
symptoms of any such arrangements have been disclosed by the press is
not strange, but rather confirms me in the impression I have expressed.
Savoy was not added to France till many months after [Page 335] the peace of Villa-Franca. It came to her
then as a present, “not as the price of blood.”
The Emperor is at Vichy, attended by the minister of foreign affairs and
by most of his cabinet. The Prince Napoleon also arrived there yesterday
from Italy. Up to last night the negotiations for a peace between
Austria and Italy were not as far advanced as between Austria and
Prussia. Indeed, a battle between the Italian and Austrian troops
yesterday morning was with difficulty prevented. I learned this
yesterday at the ministry of foreign affairs. The press makes no
allusion to it.
My impression is that the obstacles to a peace, however, will all be
overcome without more fighting of consequence. Prussia will have all she
has yet asked. Italy will get Venetia without conditions, and as much
more as possible; and Austria will be reduced to a second rate power.
For such of the secondary states south of the Main as may be left
independent for the present, will be reserved the privilege, if it may
be called such, which Polyphemus reserved for Ulysses, of being eaten
last.
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Untitled]
The Prussian Moniteur publishes the preliminaries of peace,
stipulated the 26th July, to obviate in advance, as it states in an
article, the evil results which might arise from false
interpretations.
Berlin, August 1—Evening.
The Emperor of Austria recognizes the dissolution of the Germanic
Confederation, and consents to a new organization of Germany, to
which Austria remains foreign. The Emperor promises to recognize the
limited federal relations which the King of Prussia is to establish
in the German countries north of the line of the Main, and gives
also his consent to a union of the states situated south of that
line; a union, the national representation of which, is reserved for
a more definite arrangement with the confederation of the north.
These articles correspond exactly to the French propositions of
mediation recommended at Vienna the 14th July. Austria has,
therefore, consented to a reorganization of Germany, without any
obstacle on her part, and without herself taking part in it. The
empire of Austria does not form a part of the southern union, and we
cannot consider the national and natural bond of union between the
north and the south of Germany as destroyed by the line of the
Main.
The following is the account of the conditions for peace, published
by the Provincial Correspondence, of Berlin, known as an office al
organ. Most of the details here given have, however, been already
received from other sources:
“According to the information at present received the principal
clauses of the preliminaries of peace appear to be the following:
Austria will not suffer, with the exception of Venetia, any loss of
territory; but she codes to Prussia her part of the copossession of
Schleswig-Holstein. Saxony, which alone in the German states figures
in the Austro-Prussian preliminaries of peace, preserves also her
territorial integrity, with the reserve of ulterior decisions as to
her position in the confederation of the north with regard to
Prussia. Austria pays to Prussia 40,000,000 of thalers as cost of
the war. Of this sum 15,000,000 will be deducted as Austria’s share
of the cost of the war in the duchies, and 5,000,000 as cost of
occupation. Bohemia and Moravia will continue to be occupied by the
Prussian troops until the payment of the balance, (20,000,000.)
Austria withdraws entirely from the union of the German states, and
recognizes the formation of a restricted confederation of the states
of the north under the direction of Prussia. The union of the states
of the south, and the regulation of their connection with the
confederation of the north, are reserved to the free understanding
of these states. Austria recognizes the changes of possession to be
made in northern Germany. By that is understood the measures which
Prussia will take relative to the countries occupied militarily—that
is to say, Hanover, Electoral Hesse, the part of Hesse Darmstadt
(Oberhessen) situated to the north of the Main, the duchy of Nassau,
and Frankfort. The details are not, however, contained in the
preliminaries of peace with Austria, as those leave to Prussia a
free decision in that respect, stipulating that Austria will
recognize what Prussia shall have done.”
[Page 336]
The same journal also says:
“France, by her mediation, has acquired great merit for herself by
the satisfactory results of the work of peace up to this time
obtained. The Emperor of the French accepted, in a generous and
disinterested manner, with the hope of a really just and impartial
pacification, the mission given to him by Austria. In the important
position created for him in the negotiations, the Emperor Napoleon
has not sought, neither for himself nor for France, anything but the
honor and glory of causing his authority to prevail among the
sovereigns in favor of an equitable peace. It has been given to him
to contribute to the accomplishment of the great work which he had
rigorously commenced for the establishment of a free and united
Italy. In the same spirit that presided at that work he has
spontaneously offered his hand to Prussia, to lay the solid and
secure foundations of a united Germany. The financial situation of
Prussia, favorable beyond all expectation, permits the cessation of
the forced contributions levied on the country for bread, meat, and
forage for the troops; henceforward such things will be paid for by
the state. A loan does not appear to be necessary to cover the
expenses of the war; a transitory financial measure will, perhaps,
be sufficient to acquit the state obligations resulting notably from
the contributions imposed on the country.”