The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎599r] (88/239)

HOW IT STRUCK A CONTEMPORARY.
57
to be the random act of democracies bent on aggression, whereas
in reality it was the first act in a deliberate policy imposed by the
despotic will of one man. They were seemingly unaware of the
existence of Bismarck, and had missed the significance of the con
stitutional struggle between him and the Prussian Assembly in
regard to his openly avowed policy of “ blood and iron.” Lord
Palmerston supposed Prussia to be too weak to maintain her proper
place in Europe, whereas she was shortly to prove herself the most
formidable of military Powers. On the other hand, he believed
Prance to be a growing menace to her neighbours, and especially
to Great Britain, whereas, in reality, she had exhausted the
energies which the second Empire had brought into being, and had
definitely entered upon the period of decline which led to the
catastrophe of 1870. All these misconceptions were shared in
Austria and Prance, and with disastrous consequences to both
Powers. Austria looked on complacently while reorganisation and
rearmament proceeded in Prussia, and remained content with her
old-patterned muzzle-loader. The result was seen at Koniggratz.
France also remained invincibly convinced of her superiority to all
comers, and the warning despatches of her military attache at
Berlin were found unopened in the bureau of her Emperor after
the disaster of Sedan. Lord Granville, as we have seen, was
assured by his Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office within
a few days of the outbreak of the Franco-German war, that he had
never known foreign affairs in a more tranquil position.
It is intelligible enough that the first steps in this continuous
policy should have been misunderstood, but almost inconceivable
that the intention should not have been perceived after the first and
second warnings. Bismarck’s diplomacy was open and un
ashamed. He entrapped Austria after the Danish war by a device
so simple that one would have supposed it could scarcely deceive
a child. His manner of settling with Austria after the six weeks’
war, and his forbearance towards the southern States which had
sided with Austria, looks in retrospect like an open advertisement
that he was preparing for another war. Why were these signs
not perceived by his contemporaries? We can only say that the
idea of a new Power is one of the hardest for the official mind to
entertain. And what was Prussia or these German States and
petty Principalities, with their sham royalties and absurd courts,
their impracticable metaphysicians, turbulent socialists and
pedantic professors, that they should presume to challenge their
great neighbours and break in upon the ordered solemnities of
Europe as decreed by the acknowledged Potentates? Diplomatic
theory knew nothing of these upstarts.