The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎595r] (80/239)

HOW IT STRUCK A CONTEMPORARY.
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doubted the wisdom of the course on which Prussia was bent,
Bismarck was ready for them, as he showed two years later, w’hen
he occupied Hanover, Dresden, and Cassel as a preliminary to his
attack upon Austria. Opinions may differ about the morality of
Prussian policy at this period. One recent wnriter speaks of the
Danish campaign as a triumph of Bismarck’s, because it was the
deeply thought out manoeuvre of how to embroil and compromise
Austria and so bring about the second war.” 1 Another remarks
that for ” complete and absolute cynicism his (Bismarck’s) pro
ceedings at this time are not surpassed even in his own career.” 2
But, whatever may be the moralities of the matter, there is not
the slightest doubt that from 1864 onwards to 1870, Bismarck
was engaged in the deep-laid continuous scheme by w-hich he w r as
to divide and conquer the various rivals and neighbours, w r ho
stood between Prussia and her ambition to unite the German
States under her leadership.
All this is a mere commonplace of history on looking back, yet
at the time it was hidden alike from Austria, France, and Great
Britain. Austria entered unsuspectingly into the affair of the
Duchies; Napoleon III. was completely hoodwinked by Bismarck
at the Biarritz interview; Great Britain remained in the dark
until the last moment before the Franco-German war. Within
three weeks of the outbreak of that war, the chief of the per
manent staff of the Foreign Office informed Lord Granville that
” he had never known foreign affairs in a more tranquil condition,”
and in France the unhappy M. Ollivier was of the same opinion.
In an admirable passage in these Essays Lord Salisbury demon
strates the immense importance of the harbours of Schleswig and
Holstein to a nation with ” a future on the sea,” and here, indeed,
he is abundantly justified by the development of Kiel and the con
struction of the great canal which now connects the North Sea
with the Baltic. Yet at the same time he denounces the desire to
possess these harbours as not merely immoral, which perhaps it
was, but as a fantastic and dangerous ambition of the irresponsible
national party. Germany to him seems a dangerous chaos of illu
sions and ambitions. ‘‘No one,” he writes, ‘‘ w r ould have ven
tured to predict that the ambition of a United Germany might be
as dangerous to the peace of Europe as the ambition of France
or Russia. Unhappily this movement for national unity did not
fall into the hands of the more sober part of the community. It
was closely linked with the secret propaganda of those wild demo
cratic theories which the Revolution had left as its legacy to
Europe. The Democratic and the National Party grew up side
(1) Foundations of Modern Europe, by Emil Reich (Geo. Bell), p. 200.
(2) A History of Modern England, by Herbert Paul (Macmillan). Vol. III., 43.
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