No. 164.
Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Fish.
No. 139.]
American Legation, Berlin, September 24, 1870. (Received October
10.)
Sir: Count Bismarck has published another
circular, in which he expressly defines as the conditions of peace the
cession to Germany of the fortresses of Strasburg and Metz. He describes
every attempt of the French to obtain the intervention of neutral powers
as only a delay in the negotiations for peace. On the part of neutrals
themselves, he holds it to be an act of cruelty for them to prolong the
war by nursing hopes of intervention which can never be fulfilled. He
declines a truce, unless it shall be attended with the security of the
adoption of the concerted conditions of peace. He justifies his demand
for the possession of the fortresses by the fact, that in more than
twenty wars against Germany the French have in every instance been the
aggressors. His conditions of peace he describes as moderate, because
they have no other object than the safe enjoyment of tranquillity in
time to come. As to the internal government of France, he disavows every
disposition to meddle with it. His words are: “It is perfectly
indifferent to us what government the French nation may establish for
itself.” But he draws a distinction between the conditions of peace
which Germany demands and the form of government which France may elect.
The latter France alone must decide. Strasburg and Metz must pass from
the possession of France into that of Germany, or the peace which is to
be negotiated, whatever the government of France may be, will prove only
a truce, that would last only till France could recover strength to take
revenge for its defeats.
With regard to the progress of the war, I am assured by the best military
authorities here that Strasburg can hold out but a few days longer. It
will probably be in the hands of the Germans before this letter reaches
you. On the other hand, little has been done at Metz, except to invest
it, and await its surrender from want of food, of which, however, as yet
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there appears to be no
deficiency. Nevertheless, the bold, unequivocal manner in which Count
Bismarck, supported by all the governments of Germany, publishes to the
world his conditions of peace, implies a settled determination to be
content with nothing less.
The circular of Count Bismarck defines the nature of any negotiations on
the part of Jules Favre. He has communicated his conditions of peace to
cabinets and peoples, and leaves to the French minister little more than
to decide whether he can accept them. He begins and ends with an
ultimatum which he propounds, not in secret, but aloud, so that Jules
Favre, and everybody else in Europe and America, may know what it
is.
The news of last night announced the capture of Toul, the fortress which
interrupted the German line of communication by railroad with Paris. It
now becomes possible to forward to the neighborhood of Paris the heavy
guns which have already been sent forward into France as if they had
been intended for the siege of Metz. The circulars of Count Bismarck, of
which I inclose copies, of which I have given you an analysis, furnish
solutions to every question but one—the conditions on which Germany will
agree to a truce. On that subject I have now special information; Count
Bismarck offered Jules Favre a truce on condition, first, a constituent
assembly should be called; and second, for the convenience of supplying
the German army, the Germans should hold the fortresses of Strasburg,
Toul, and Verdun. Jules Favre took the offer to Paris, and yesterday
sent a refusal, so that war continues to rage. Meantime Toul has
surrendered at discretion, and the city of Strasburg may be taken within
three days. Meantime measures are going forward for the reconstruction
of government in France and in Germany. For France, it is agreed on all
hands that it is not fit to restore the dynasty of Napoleon. In the
present condition of the country it is not likely that many friends of
the Orleans dynasty will be returned as members of the constituent
assembly, which is soon to come together. And therefore there is room to
hope that the republic will win a majority to its support; the more so,
as the republic will be the second choice of the legitimists, and
perhaps of other parties. But the republic will be seen with reluctance
by Great Britain; and, in truth, of the great powers the United States
alone will give it a hearty welcome.
In Germany negotiations are going forward for its reconstruction as a
united kingdom or empire, with the King of Prussia as King or Emperor of
Germany. Baden has for four years been ready for such a result. The
possession of Hesse lying already partly in North Germany, partly in
South, and exposed to invasion from France, it will need but a slight
pressure to obtain the consent of its sovereign to the change which its
people already desire. In Würtemberg and in Bavaria the stern and strict
system of Prussian discipline, both civil and military, was not loved,
but its results in this war have been so astounding as to convert that
adverse feeling into a sentiment of admiration and gratitude. The
opposition to a union in Würtemberg grew out of a junction between an
extreme democratic party, a court party, and the ultra-montanes. The war
has dissolved this coalition, and the national party is in the
ascendant. Up to this time the spirit of independence has been strongest
in Bavaria, from its greatness and wealth, the antiquity and imperial
ancestry of its royal house, its geographical position on the Danube,
and the attachment of its royal family and its people to the See of
Borne. But the people of Bavaria have for their sovereign a patriot
King, who loves Germany as well as Bavaria. The ultra montane party,
which, against his wishes, seemed likely to obtain
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the ascendency in the parliament of the
kingdom, has suffered severe blows from the decree of Papal
infallibility and the fall of the temporal power of the Pope. The
exposed situation of the Bavarian Palatinate creates a dependency on
others for defense. The delight in victories achieved by the coöperation
of Bavarian and Prussian troops has effaced the sullenness consequent in
the hard reverses of 1866, and Mr. Delbrück, whose standing and ability
are known to you, is now at Munich, on the invitation of the Bavarian
government, to concert the basis of a constitution that shall include
all Germany. A congress of the German ruling princes will then be held,
and it is the general belief that success will attend the
negotiations.
Such a result was, before this war, not aspired to by the Prussian King.
He foresaw that the union of Germany must one day take place, but he
never believed that it would take place during his lifetime.
* * * * * *
P. S.—The number of German troops now on French soil is about five
hundred thousand. Other troops are still sent forward. To-day and
to-morrow there will go twelve battalions of infantry, two of
cavalry, and three batteries. Eight pieces of the heaviest artillery
are on the way to Paris. The places in Alsace which are invested and
not yet taken are Metz, Strasburg, Schlettstaedt, Bietsch, and
Pfahlzburg; in the north, Paris and Mezieres. Thionville is watched
by a small detachment. There has been fighting in the streets of
Paris, with the use of guns and cannon. Who were the parties is
unknown. On the 19th four divisions, one more than the Germans
supposed, fled before the Germans, carrying the panic into the
city.
One of the Würtemberg ministers, Mr. Mitnacht, has joined Mr.
Delbrück in Bavaria, and the conferences on the general outline of a
union are going forward jointly.
There are one hundred and fifty-five thousand French prisoners in
Germany; the French loss by death and wounds is a hundred thousand,
and a hundred thousand are shut up in the invested fortresses. Such
is the end of the French army.
count bismarck’s circular.
Germany,
Berlin,
September
23.
The Staatsanzeiger publishes two dispatches to the North German
representatives near several neutral governments, in which Count
Bismarck gives the reasons which impose upon Germany the necessity
of insisting upon cessions of territory as a condition of the
prospective conclusion of peace with France. The first is as
follows:
“Rheims,
September 13, 1870.
“In consequence of the erroneous ideas concerning our relations with
France, which reach us even from friendly quarters, I am induced to
express myself in the following lines in relation to the views of
his Majesty the King, which are shared by the allied German
governments.
“We thought we saw in the plebiscitum and the succeeding apparently
satisfactory condition of things in France, a guarantee of peace,
and the expression of a friendly feeling on the part of the French
nation. Events have taught us the contrary; at least they have shown
us how easily this voice, among the French nation, is changed to its
opposite. The almost unanimous majority of the representatives of
the people, of the senate, and of the organs of public opinion among
the press, demanded a war of conquest against us so loudly and
emphatically that the isolated friends of peace were discouraged,
and the Emperor Napoleon probably told his Majesty no untruth when
he declared that the state of public opinion forced him to undertake
the war.
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“In the face of this fact we must not seek our guarantees in French
feelings. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that, in consequence
of this war, we must be prepared for a speedy attack from France
again, and not for a permanent peace, and that quite independently
of any conditions which we may impose upon France. The French nation
will never forgive us for the defeat in itself, nor for our
victorious repulse of its wanton attack. If we should now withdraw
from France, without any acquisition of territory, without any
contribution, without any advantages save the glory won by our arms,
the same hatred, the same desire for revenge on account of wounded
pride and ambition, would remain among the French nation, and it
would only await the day when it might hope successfully to indulge
these feelings. It was not a doubt of the justice of our cause, nor
was it an apprehension that we might not be strong enough, that
restrained us in the year 1867 from the war which was then offered
us, but the fear of exciting those passions by our victories and of
inaugurating an era of mutual animosity and constantly renewed wars,
while we hoped, by a longer continuance and attentive care of the
peaceful relations of both nations, to gain a firm foundation for an
era of peace and welfare. Now, after having been forced into the war
which we desired to avoid, we must seek to obtain better guarantees
for our defense against the next attack of the French than those of
their good feeling.
“The guarantees which have been sought since the year 1815 against
the same French desires and for the peace of Europe in the holy
alliance and other arrangements made in the interest of Europe,
have, in the course of time, lost their efficacy and significance;
so that Germany has finally been obliged to defend herself against
France, depending solely upon her own strength and her own
resources. Such an effort as we are now making imposes such
sacrifices upon the German nation that we are forced to seek
material guarantees and the security of Germany against the future
attacks of France, guarantees at the same time for the peace of
Europe, which has nothing to fear from Germany.
“These guarantees we have to demand, not from a temporary government
of France, but from the French nation, which has shown that it is
ready to follow any government to war against us, as is indisputably
manifested by the series of aggressive wars carried on for centuries
by France against Germany.
“Our demands for peace can therefore only be designed to lay
obstacles in the way of the next attack of France upon the German,
and especially the hitherto defenseless South German frontier, by
removing this frontier, and with it the point of departure of French
attacks, further back, and by seeking to bring the fortresses with
which France threatens us, as defensive bulwarks, into the power of
Germany.
“You will express yourself in this sense, if any questions are asked
of you.
“BISMARCK.”
The second circular relates to the first circular of Mr. Jules Favre,
and to the mission of Mr. Thiers, considers the question with what
government peace would have to be made, and then returns more
definitely to the subject of cessions of territory, expressly
demanding the surrender of Strasburg and Metz. The document is as
follows:
“Meaux,
September 16, 1870.
“You are aware of the contents of the document which Mr. Jules Favre
has addressed to the representatives of France abroad, in the name
of the present authorities in Paris, who style themselves the
government of the national defense.
“It has, at the same time, come to my knowledge, that Mr. Thiers has
undertaken a confidential mission to several foreign courts, and I
presume that it will be his task, on the one hand to inspire
confidence in the desire for peace of the present Paris government,
and on the other to seek the intervention of neutral powers in favor
of a peace designed to rob Germany of the fruits of her victory, and
to prevent the establishment of any basis of peace which might lay
obstacles in the way of the next French attack upon Germany.
“We cannot believe in the earnest intention of the present Paris
government to put an end to the war, so long as it continues to
excite the passions of the people by its language and its acts, to
increase the hatred and the bitter feeling of the population,
already excited by the sufferings caused by the war, and to condemn
in advance as inadmissible for France, every basis of peace which
can be accepted by Germany. It thereby renders peace impossible, for
which it should prepare the people by mild language, duly
considering the serious nature of the situation, if it would lead us
to believe that it aims at honest negotiations for peace with us. It
could only be seriously supposed that we would now conclude an
armistice without every security for our conditions of peace, if we
were thought to lack military and political sagacity, and to be
indifferent to the interests of Germany.
“Another thing which prevents the French from clearly comprehending
the necessity of peace with Germany, is the hope, which is
encouraged by the present authorities, of a diplomatic or material
intervention of neutral powers in favor of France. If the French
nation becomes convinced, that, as it alone voluntarily inaugurated
the
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war, and as Germany
has been obliged to carry on the contest alone, it will be compelled
to settle the account with Germany alone, it will soon put an end to
its now certainly useless resistance. It is cruelty on the part of
neutral nations towards France if they permit the Paris government
to encourage unrealizable hopes of intervention among the people and
thereby to prolong the struggle.
“We are far from any desire to interfere in the internal affairs of
France. It is a matter of indifference to us what sort of a
government the French may choose for itself. The government of the
Emperor Napoleon is the only one which has been formally recognized
by us. Our terms of peace, with whatever government, authorized for
the purpose, we may have to negotiate them, are entirely independent
of the question, how and by whom the French nation is governed; they
are dictated to us by the nature of the case, and by the law of
self-defense against a turbulent and quarrelsome people on our
frontier. The unanimous voice of the German governments and of the
German people demands that Germany be protected by better boundaries
than heretofore against the threats and outrages which have been
committed against us for centuries by all French governments. As
long as France remains in possession of Strasburg and Metz her
offensive is strategically stronger than our defensive, throughout
the entire south and that portion of the north of Germany which lies
on the left bank of the Rhine. Strasburg is, in the possession of
France, a constantly open sally-port against South Germany. In the
possession of Germany, on the other hand, Strasburg and Metz acquire
a defensive character. In more than twenty wars we have never been
the aggressor against France, and we desire nothing from that
country but our own safety, which has been so often jeopardized by
it. France, on the contrary, will regard any peace which may now be
concluded simply as a suspension of hostilities, and will again
assail us, in order to be revenged for her present defeat, with just
as little reason as she has done this year, as soon as she feels
strong enough to do so, either through her own strength or through
foreign alliances.
“In rendering it difficult for France (which has been the originator
of every disturbance of the peace of Europe hitherto) to act on the
offensive, we are acting, at the same time, in the interest of
Europe, which is that of peace. No disturbance of the peace of
Europe is to be feared from Germany. Since the war has been forced
upon us, which we have shunned for four years with the utmost care
and at a sacrifice of our national feeling, which has been
incessantly hectored by France, we will demand security in future as
the price of the gigantic efforts which we have been obliged to make
in our defense. No one will be able to reproach us for want of
moderation if we adhere to this just and reasonable demand.
“I desire you carefully to take cognizance of these ideas and present
them for consideration in your interviews.
