CHAPTER VIII

.

THE DANISH WAR.

Stagnant Politics--Excitement over the Danish War--Attitude of the Queen--Withdrawal of the Danes from Holstein--Lord Wodehouse’s Mission--The _Quarterly Review_ advocates War--Mr. Disraeli Repudiates a War Policy--Lord Palmerston’s Secret Plans--The Case against Germany--The Queen’s Warnings--Mr. Cobden’s Arguments--Lord Russell’s “Demands”--Palmerston drafts a Warlike Queen’s Speech--The Queen Refuses to Sanction it--Lord Derby Summoned to Osborne--He is Pledged to a Peace Policy--Austria and Prussia in Conflict with the Diet--The Occupation of Sleswig--War at Last--Retreat of the Danes to Düppel--Palmerston’s Protests Answered by German Victories--The Invasion of Jutland--Storming of the Düppel Redoubts--Excitement in London--Garibaldi’s Visit to London--Garibaldi and the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland--Anecdotes of Garibaldi’s Visit--Clarendon’s Visit to Napoleon III.--Expulsion of Garibaldi by Palmerston--Napoleon III. Agrees to Accept the Proposal for a Conference--Triumph of the Queen’s Peace Policy--Palmerston’s Last Struggle--His Ministry Saved by Surrender to Mr. Cobden--The Treaty of Vienna--End of the War.

The year 1864 gives one a vivid illustration of the stagnant condition of politics in England under Lord Palmerston. The mind of the country was absorbed in one question, and one only, namely, whether England should make war in Prussia and Austria to maintain the integrity of Denmark and uphold the Treaty of London. Ten years before, England had rushed headlong into war for a cause that was more shameful, and for “British interests” that were much more visionary than those which were now at stake. But great progress had been made during these ten years. The disasters and disgrace which had fallen on the nation during the Crimean struggle had not been endured for nothing. Englishmen had no longer boundless confidence in the aristocratic war party, whose clumsy diplomacy and military incapacity had involved the country in the inglorious contest with Russia. Moreover, while the Court was neutral in that struggle, latterly leaning, if to any side, to the side of the war party, in 1864 the Queen was obstinately determined to keep out of war, and Palmerston found in her a much more formidable antagonist than either Mr. Cobden or Mr. Bright. Mr. Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,” asserts that it was his (Cobden’s) influence, and the pressure brought to bear on the Ministry by Lancashire, that thwarted Palmerston at the end of the struggle. Count Vitzthum, on the other hand, credits the Queen with the honour of defeating the Premier. The truth is that neither the Queen nor Mr. Cobden, acting alone, could have saved their country from a fate as melancholy as that which smote Austria to the dust at Sadowa.[179] But, acting together, though quite independently of each other, they represented a combination of social and political forces, which would have crushed not only Palmerston, but his Cabinet, had he continued to resist them with blind oppugnancy.

At the beginning of the year the Danes, acting on English advice, had withdrawn from Holstein, where Prussia and Austria had put in Federal execution on behalf of the Diet. Danish and German troops therefore faced each other on the Eider, which divided Sleswig from Holstein, and Europe waited with almost breathless excitement for the first shot that would kindle the far-darting flames of war. Councils of moderation had been pressed by Lord Russell on the Danish Government, but in vain. They were urged by Lord Wodehouse, who had been sent on a special mission to Copenhagen, to withdraw the Constitution of November which had provoked the intervention of Germany. His mission was a failure. Politicians at home and abroad were alarmed by an extraordinary essay known to be from the pen of Lord Robert Cecil, which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_, advocating war against Germany on behalf of Denmark, and it was supposed to represent the policy of the Tory Party. It, however, did not represent the views of Mr. Disraeli, who, in a confidential conversation with Count Vitzthum, disowned it, and as for Lord Derby, he had no well-defined views on the subject. Had it been otherwise, Lord Palmerston could have easily frightened his Cabinet into war. “Any doubt,” writes Count Vitzthum, “as to the validity of the Treaty of 1852 offended so deeply the _amour propre_ of the Prime Minister that he was capable of going any lengths. The plan which he devised, to save his work, was to attack with one portion of the British ironclad fleet the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany, and with another portion, Trieste and Venice, to support with English gold Mazzini and Garibaldi in Italy, and Kossuth in Hungary, and thus kindle a general conflagration.”[180] This might have been Palmerston’s plan at the beginning of the year. A few week’s reflection, however, toned it down, for in a private letter to Lord Russell, dated the 13th of February, it seems that, though his _animus_ against Germany had not abated, he was of opinion that “it would be best for us to wait a while before taking any strong step; though,” he adds, “it is very useful to remind the Austrians and the Prussians privately of the danger they were running at home.”[181] A few days after that, in a private letter to the Duke of Somerset, Palmerston’s plan is found to be still further modified, but this time in a mischievous direction. It now took the form of sending the Fleet to Danish waters, with orders to prevent the Germans from attacking Zealand and Copenhagen.[182] Every word spoken and every line written on the Sleswig-Holstein Question by Palmerston and Russell at this juncture, deluded the Danes into the belief that the British Government were prepared to defend by force of arms the integrity of Denmark as a British interest. But for this delusion Denmark would not have obstinately resisted even the most moderate demands which were made for concessions to the Germans in Sleswig-Holstein.

[Illustration: KRONBORG CASTLE, ELSINORE.]

The case against Austria, Prussia, and the Diet was capable of easy statement in a popular form. Hence it is not surprising that the large class of Englishmen who act on what may be called the public schoolboy theory of high politics took the side of the Danes. Denmark was a small Power, whereas Austria and Prussia were two large Powers, who were “bullying” Denmark. Austria, Prussia, and most of the minor States of Germany did not come into court with clean hands. They had individually sanctioned the Treaty of London, to which they now objected, because the German Diet, of which they were members, had not ratified it. They refused to be bound by it because Denmark had violated antecedent engagements, made independently of it, and on another subject than the Danish Succession, with which the Treaty dealt. Austria and Prussia could hardly be disinterested in coming forward as the champions of Constitutionalism, and “the doctrine of nationalities” in Sleswig and Holstein. The Treaty of London of 1852 was the work of England, and to uphold it by arms was a debt of honour which Englishmen ought to pay. The big-boy-and-the-small-boy argument was founded on a strange misconception of the facts. In Holstein and Sleswig the

[Illustration: CHRISTIAN IX., KING OF DENMARK.]

Danes played the part of the big boy who was bullying the little one. When they were asked to hold their harsh hand by stronger Powers they pleaded their weakness as an excuse for their tyranny. The bad motives of the champions of the Sleswig-Holsteiners, however, did not affect the rights or wrongs of their clients. Moreover, Englishmen quite mistook the German argument, which was this: The German Powers who sanctioned the Treaty of London did not allege that it was null and void because Denmark had not kept the engagements of 1851. They said that Frederick VII. had died before he had lawfully established in his kingdom the order of succession which the Treaty sanctioned, and which, had Denmark stood by her engagements, they would have had no difficulty in supporting. This being the case, they were, they said, entitled to repudiate a Treaty which was illegal in the eyes of international law, till ratified by the German Diet, by the Sleswig-Holsteiners, and by the heirs to the Duchies who had been set aside by it.

So far as the Queen was concerned, Palmerston’s arguments had no effect on her mind. She had warned him that the change in the Danish succession, effected by the Treaty of London, was illegal, and would one day be disputed. It might have been legalised by a _fait accompli_--that is to say, if the Germans in the Duchies had been induced to accept the change by a conciliatory policy. On the contrary, the policy of the Danes had been so offensively anti-German, that the Sleswig-Holsteiners were more opposed to the Treaty than ever. Moreover, Germans all over the Fatherland were with them, and it was therefore idle to ask German Sovereigns to risk revolution by forcing on Germans in the Duchies an oppressive foreign government. To propose English intervention was equally objectionable to the Queen. She was firmly convinced that the English people wanted peace and not war, and that the integrity of a petty Northern State was not, in their opinion, essential to their Imperial existence. Her Majesty laid her finger at the outset on the point of folly in Palmerston’s policy, which was the maintenance of the Treaty of 1852. Would Englishmen consent to levy war on the German race to uphold an instrument which the carelessness of English diplomatists, in refusing to obtain legal ratifications, had rendered invalid? And then what would men of business say when asked to bear the burden of such a war, to uphold a Treaty that thrust dynasty on a people who did not want it? Curiously enough, the same line of argument was subsequently taken by Mr. Cobden, though he did not know the secret history of the Treaty of London. “In 1852,” said he, “by the mischievous

## activity of our Foreign Office, seven diplomatists were brought round a

green table in London to settle the destinies of a million of people in the two provinces of Sleswig and Holstein without the slightest reference to the wants and wishes, and the tendencies or interests, of that people. The preamble of the Treaty which was then and there agreed to, stated that what those seven diplomatists were going to do was to maintain the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and to sustain the balance of power in Europe. Kings, emperors, princes, were represented at that meeting, but the people had not the slightest voice or right in the matter. They settled the Treaty, the object of which was to draw closer the bonds between those two provinces and Denmark. The tendency of the great majority of the people of these provinces--about a million of them altogether--was altogether in the direction of Germany. From that time to this year the Treaty was followed by constant agitation and discord; two wars have sprung out of it, and it has ended in the Treaty being torn to pieces by two of the Governments who were prominent

## parties to the Treaty.”[183] Still, the Queen was so desirous of peace

that she did not refuse her sanction to proposals of compromise which were from time to time made by Lord Russell, but which proved abortive. In one of these, addressed to the German Diet on the 31st of December, 1863, Lord Russell said that England “_demands_, in the interests of peace,” (1), a Conference of the signatory powers in London to compose the dispute, and (2), the establishment of the _status quo_ till this Conference finished its labours--one of those “demands” which, according to Sir Alexander Malet, Herr von Bismarck treated with “disdain.”[184]

Anxious Cabinet meetings were held in January, and reports of Ministerial dissensions flew round. Projects for giving the Danes material support seem to have been broached, but, according to Lord Malmesbury, writing on the 29th of January, the Ministry found “great difficulties in the opposition of the Queen.”[185] In these circumstances Lord Palmerston, knowing that the Tory Party were ready to support him in defending Denmark, began to look to Lord Derby for aid. To his colleagues he said, “If _we_ do not begin the war, the Tories will turn us out in order to do it themselves.”[186] But here he was again foiled. The Queen had an interview with Lord Derby at Osborne, which ended in the leader of the Opposition becoming convinced that the integrity of the Danish Kingdom was a mere phrase involving no British interest which justified a war--an opinion which Mr. Disraeli enforced in private when he scornfully described the “integrity of Denmark” not as “a phrase,” but as “humbug.” He told Count Vitzthum, that he believed if Denmark ever again possessed a fleet she “would fight in the next war not for England, but for Russia and France.”[187] As for making war with France for an ally--another Palmerstonian idea--Lord Derby was asked whether that did not mean sacrificing Antwerp to save Copenhagen? There thus remained for Palmerston but one more chance of committing the country before Parliament met, and that was by inserting a bellicose paragraph into the Royal Speech. Again he was thwarted by the Queen’s opposition. Her Majesty refused to sanction a threatening speech, and her objections were sustained by a majority of the Cabinet, much to Palmerston’s chagrin. “It was not,” says Count Vitzthum, “till the day before Parliament opened, that her Majesty approved the colourless speech which was read on her behalf. Every one,” he adds, “was waiting with the keenest anxiety for the debate on the Address, and the House of Lords was crowded when Lord Derby (February 4) rose to make his three hours’ speech. I stood on the steps of the throne, close by the front railings. It so chanced that Lord Palmerston, who had been fetched by the Duke of Argyll, was standing next to me, and thus I was able to watch the impression produced on the Prime Minister by the eloquence of his opponent. The House listened with breathless silence to Lord Derby’s solemn admonitions on behalf of peace, in which he enlarged with statesmanlike tact and rare skill on the proposition that a war with Germany would be the gravest calamity to England. A perfect storm of applause was the orator’s reward, and Lord Palmerston left the House in evident uneasiness.”[188] And no wonder. He knew that his colleagues would now be all the more disposed for peace, for it was only too obvious that the result of Lord Derby’s interview with the Queen at Osborne had been a pledge that he would not permit his party to aid the Prime Minister in goading the country into war. “That particular danger,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was over. Twice more, however, in the course of that Session did Lord Palmerston attempt to drag the Cabinet along with him and carry his project of a war. Each time he was outvoted. Thrice did the Queen gain a victory over the would-be Dictator in the bosom of his own Cabinet.”[189] The criticism of the Tory chiefs was, however, directed to raise general distrust in Palmerston’s foreign policy as a whole. Lord Derby described it as one of “meddle and muddle.” “_Nihil intactum reliquit_,” observed Lord Derby, laughingly, “_nihil tetigit quod non conturbavit._” In the meantime the whole question was passing out of the sphere of diplomacy.

On the 14th of January, Austria and Prussia asked the Diet to sanction the occupation of Sleswig, pending the withdrawal of the obnoxious Constitution incorporating Sleswig in Danish territory, and all fulfilment by Denmark of her engagements to respect the civic privileges of all Germans in the Duchies. The Diet considered that the Danes might comply with the German demand, and thus recover the Duchies. Hence the Austro-Prussian proposal was defeated, the ostensible reason given by the Diet being that it had no jurisdiction beyond Holstein. Prussia and Austria then intimated that they would themselves occupy Sleswig. The Prussian Chamber, adopting the view of the Diet, refused to grant the Government supplies, because, as Herr Schultze-Delitzsch said, this policy could only lead to the restoration of the Duchies to Denmark. Von Bismarck’s retort was “_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo._[190] If you refuse supplies, the Government will take them in spite of you.” Austria, eager to recover the military _prestige_ she had lost in Italy, and alarmed at the progress which democracy was making every day in the Duchies, perhaps also somewhat afraid lest Prussia might win all the glory of a strong and resolute pan-German policy, joined Prussia, thereby striking a mortal blow at the authority of the moribund Germanic Confederation among the German-speaking race. On the 1st of February the Austro-Prussian Army of occupation crossed the Eider, which was the answer the allies gave to Lord Russell’s “demand” for a Conference and the establishment of the _status quo_. Within a week the Danes were driven northwards behind their fortifications in Düppel--their last line of defence in Sleswig. Lord

[Illustration: THE PRUSSIANS STORMING THE REDOUBTS OF DÜPPEL.]

Palmerston, who had imagined that they could gain time for him by holding the Dannewerk, now found that he had made a sad mistake. The English Government accordingly implored France and Russia to join England in giving moral and material support to Denmark. But Von Bismarck, though still opposed by the Prussian Chamber, laughed at Palmerston’s efforts to roll back the tide of German conquest. “He had,” as his biographer says, “already taken care to be sure of his men, in expectation of such a contingency. Russia, as we have seen, had been laid under a counter-obligation to Prussia by the services of the latter in the matter of the Polish insurrection.”[191] As for France, she had been propitiated by a favourable Commercial Treaty, and Napoleon III. was reminded that it was not Prussia, who had accepted, but England, who had refused to accept, his project for an European Congress of Sovereigns in 1863, who had dealt a cruel blow at his _prestige_. Palmerston now awoke to the painful fact that there was another obstacle in the way of carrying out a war policy. He and Lord Russell had left England without a single ally in Europe. In vain did the two Ministers struggle with their fate. Their protests and their proposals were answered by German victories. At last, when Jutland was invaded--territory so sacred that Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell had resolved to resent its invasion by naval intervention--the Danes offered to negotiate for peace on the basis of the _status quo_, as established by the Treaties of 1851-52. Von Bismarck’s answer was that the offer came too late, for Prussia no longer considered herself bound by Treaties which war had cancelled. Still, Prussia would not object to a Conference, but it must be a Conference without a basis or an armistice--England having insisted on both. The proposal of an armistice soon had no practical interest. On the 18th of April, after a destructive cannonade, the Prussians stormed the redoubts of Düppel, and captured them after half-an-hour’s fighting. The excitement now became intense in London. Was it possible that the hitherto invincible diplomacy of Palmerston was destined to fail whenever it was met by an antagonist who, as Sir A. Malet says, treated “cajolery and menace” with equal disdain?

“At this juncture,” writes Count Vitzthum, “Lord Palmerston thought fit to offer a spectacle to the London mob, which was calculated to inflame still more their revolutionary passions. Mindful of the _panem et circenses_ of the Roman Emperors, the veteran Premier sought to please the people by showing them Garibaldi. The latter, who had been released from his imprisonment after the affair at Aspromonte, was to be employed, if Palmerston succeeded in carrying through his scheme, against Venetia, and, if necessary, against Rome. Ovations were showered on the guerilla leader from the moment of his landing.[192] In London he was met at the railway station by the Duke of Sutherland, and conducted in pomp through the leading thoroughfares to Stafford House. Countless multitudes thronged the streets, and hailed this triumphal procession with acclamations. There had scarcely been such crowds at the entrance of the French Emperor and Empress in 1855, or at that of the Princess of Wales.[193] Garibaldi was lodged like a prince at the Duke of Sutherland’s mansion. Thither came the most distinguished ladies of the Whig aristocracy to court the favour of a look or a smile from the fêted champion of freedom. The Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition met together at the banquet given in his honour at Stafford House.[194] London society filled the splendid apartments in the evening, and thronged round the lion of the day.... Among those most profuse in their attentions was the Duchess of Sutherland, late Mistress of the Robes, who gave a luncheon party at Chiswick to the adventurer, and received him like a king at the door of her mansion dressed in full attire. Lord Clarendon, not to miss this festivity, postponed his journey to Paris, where he was to make the last fruitless attempt to induce Napoleon to take action.[195] There was something indescribably comic in this exaggerated display of British hero-worship. The only man who was unaffected by it was Garibaldi himself. The old sailor was not the least imposed on by it all--not the least impressed. He made his appearance in the gilded saloons without coat or waistcoat, and paraded in his red flannel shirt. In the streets he wore his black felt hat, with a red feather. Festivities and attentions bored him intensely. He made no secret of his aversion to old women, even though they wore the ermine of duchesses. After the banquet at Stafford House he said that he was not accustomed to sit so late and so long at his meals. He called for his pipe of tobacco. The Dowager Duchess [of Sutherland] overcame her dislike to tobacco smoke, took Garibaldi into her boudoir, lit his pipe with her own hands, and never left him till he had finished it.”[196] This strange episode did not impose on the Queen either, who had reason to believe that nobody concerned was deceived, except the good-natured British populace, whose honest hero-worship was being exploited by Palmerston for diplomatic purposes. The reception of Garibaldi was meant as a warning to Austria that if invincible in Denmark she was vulnerable in Venice; to France, that if through pique she thwarted Palmerston’s diplomacy in Northern Europe, there would soon be trouble brewing for her at Rome; and to Russia, that if she deserted England she would find that the spirit of revolution could yet be roused in Poland. How far the Tory leaders were parties to the imposture is not clear. Lord Malmesbury tries to persuade us that they took part in it merely from motives of childish curiosity. A fashionable lion was reported to be in Stafford House, and so he and his colleagues went there to hear him roar.

One of the most curious projects broached by Lord Palmerston’s satellites was that of raising a subscription among “the gentry of England” to furnish Garibaldi with funds for attacking Austria in Venice, and France in Rome. This scheme, says Lord Shaftesbury, who euphuistically describes it as one for “furthering his [Garibaldi’s] Italian purposes,” was quashed by

[Illustration: GARIBALDI’S RECEPTION IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON.]

the patriot himself, happily in time to save his credit as well as the credit of “the gentry of England.” After “many sittings of committees,” writes Lord Shaftesbury, who was one of the most active of Lord Palmerston’s agents in this business,[197] “myriads of letters and private requests, we had in two months obtained payments and promises for a sum considerably under three thousand pounds.” Whether Lord Shaftesbury was, like Garibaldi, a tool in Palmerston’s hands it is impossible to say. But it is a singular fact that we find him writing to the Duc de Persigny on the 8th of April assuring him “that there is not in it [Garibaldi’s visit] a notion of politics.” On the other hand, he himself discloses, in a posthumous Memorandum unearthed by the industry of his biographer, the whole story of his abortive attempt to raise subsidies for Garibaldi’s revolutionary designs. Nay, when the Tory chiefs went to Stafford House to dine with the hero, Lady Shaftesbury, who was Lady Palmerston’s daughter, appears on the scene laughing at them for having fallen into a trap.[198]

[Illustration: KIEL.]

But after the lion had roared loud enough to wake the echoes of the Tuileries, Lord Clarendon was sent to Paris on a private diplomatic mission. His object was to induce the Emperor Napoleon to support Lord Palmerston’s proposal for a Conference of the Powers on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, a scheme which France as yet did not sanction. It must be allowed that if the German Powers scoffed at the attempt to frighten them by a Cockney demonstration in favour of Garibaldi, Lord Palmerston and his envoy seem to have made it serve their turn in Paris. Napoleon III. agreed at last to support the Palmerston-Russell scheme of a Conference, provided Palmerston would send Garibaldi out of England as quickly as possible. This was an embarrassing condition to fulfil, as the guerilla chief was becoming far too popular to be treated in such an unceremonious fashion. He had entered into an engagement to proceed to Manchester, and from thence on a provincial tour of agitation, which greatly disquieted Napoleon III., and which must therefore be stopped. The end of the farce may be told in Lord Malmesbury’s words. In his Diary on the 20th of April he writes:--“Garibaldi leaves England on Friday.... Certainly there must be some intrigue, as Mr. Ferguson, the surgeon, writes a letter to the Duke of Sutherland--which is published--saying it would be dangerous for Garibaldi’s health if he exposed himself to the fatigue of an expedition to Manchester, &c. &c. On the other hand, Dr. Basile, Garibaldi’s own doctor, says he is perfectly well, and able to undergo all the fatigue of a journey to the manufacturing towns.”[199] This communication from Dr. Basile was published, because Garibaldi was naturally angry at having been overreached by Palmerston and the Whig aristocracy, who sacrificed him whenever he was of no more use to them as a piece on the political chessboard. What made matters worse was that Garibaldi felt certain that, if he had been allowed but one week for agitation in the provinces, he would have stirred up so much popular feeling that he could have defied Lord Palmerston to order him home.

As usual in cases where Lord Palmerston was forced to do something that displeased the populace, it was promptly insinuated far and wide that he was again the victim of the Court. Garibaldi, it was hinted, had been expelled in deference to the Queen’s pro-Austrian sympathies. It is but right to vindicate her Majesty from the absurd suggestions that were then current, and for that reason it has been deemed expedient to tell the true story of Garibaldi’s visit to London in 1864. Let it be admitted, however, that at least one member of the Whig aristocracy refused to turn against the hero when the _mot d’ordre_ went forth from Cambridge House that he must be dropped. This was the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, who carried the discarded lion away to Cliefden, and tended him faithfully till he left Plymouth on the 25th of April. It was her enthusiasm that inspired one of the diners-out of the day with an anecdote which rendered the wonderful party at Stafford House on the 13th of April almost as memorable as Garibaldi’s presence there. “She” (the Dowager Duchess), said one of the company, “is noble, richly jointured, romantic, and a widow--why, then, does she not marry her hero?” “Ah,” was the reply, “but you forget he has a wife living.” “That,” said another guest--alleged to have been Lord Palmerston--“is of no consequence; I have Gladstone here, and can easily get him to explain her away.” Yet, though the duchess and the mob alike forgot to mourn for their hero after his expulsion had ceased to be a nine days’ wonder, it is pleasing to know that their fidelity to his cause was unwavering, and that their admiration of the man himself was absolutely untarnished by sordid and selfish calculations.

The project of the Conference on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, now that France accepted it, was fairly started, and it gave Palmerston a chance of extricating his Ministry without much ignominy from the complication in which they had become enmeshed. The Queen favoured it, as she favoured any arrangement that seemed likely to make for peace; but, as the Conference was to meet without a basis and without an armistice--indeed, as the capture of Düppel had made Prussia and Austria masters of the situation, an armistice was of little consequence--her Majesty’s view of the issue was not so sanguine as that of her Prime Minister. “Austria and Prussia,” says Count Vitzthum, “were not sorry to take advantage of it (the Conference) in order to escape from a false position, in which they had placed themselves as belligerent Powers and cosignatories of the London Treaty. Both of them declared their readiness to attend the Conference, on condition that the German Bund received, as such, an invitation also. It was the first time since its existence that the Diet had been invited to attend and vote at a European Conference. The choice of its representation fell on the Saxon Minister of State, the most active advocate of the Federal standpoint. He accepted the choice, but was unable, from the haste with which the matter was arranged, to reach London on the 20th of April, the day fixed by the impatient Lord Russell for the opening of the Conference.”[200]

As might be expected, this led to a hitch in the proceedings. Austria and Prussia alleged that they could not take part in the Conference until Count Beust appeared on the scene, so that the first meeting of the diplomatists was ominously abortive. It was not till the 25th of April that the Conference met for work, and the story of its transactions is somewhat painful for Englishmen to recall. It soon became apparent that the real object of the German representatives was to thwart the policy of the English Government, and tear up the Treaty of London under the very eyes of their English colleagues. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell speedily discovered why the Diet had been invited for the first time to take part in a European Conference. Austria and Prussia, being cosignatories of the Treaty of London, found it a little embarrassing to take the initiative in “denouncing” that futile instrument; but they put forward Count Beust, as the representative of the Diet, to repudiate it, and he, on behalf of corporate Germany, declared that no solution of the problem could be accepted which did not provide for the complete separation of the Duchies from Denmark. In vain did Palmerston and Russell resist a demand that was utterly irreconcilable with the policy of maintaining the integrity of Denmark which was formulated in the Treaty of London. Russia and France abandoned them, and it became evident that continued victory would render the Germans, not more moderate, but more exacting in their demands. “Lord Clarendon,” writes Count Vitzthum, in his bright but brief account of the secret history of the Conference, “who, though nominally second, was in reality the first British plenipotentiary, induced Lord Russell, with a view of checking the bloodshed, to propose the separation of Holstein, Lauenburg, and South Sleswig. The neutrals--Russia and France--agreed to this, but the Danish representatives declared that their instructions were exhausted, and thus the matter remained to be settled by the sword.”[201]

Count Vitzthum’s narrative does not seem quite fair to Denmark. The Danes, it must be noted, have always alleged that they agreed to a frontier proposed by Lord Clarendon, and accordingly they assumed that after such a surrender of their position England would defend them and stand by her own proposition. Lord Russell, however, in his statement of the 27th June, denied that England had, through Lord Clarendon, committed herself to maintain this frontier. The fact is that Austria and Prussia, at a meeting of the Conference on the 17th of May, brought the proceedings to a deadlock by declaring that they would no longer recognise the King of Denmark as Sovereign of the Duchies. The neutral Plenipotentiaries then met privately at Lord Russell’s house and concocted a compromise by which Denmark should cede Holstein and Sleswig as far as the Schlei, and that the European Powers should then guarantee the rest of the Danish Dominions. Denmark accepted this proposal, but the German Powers, whilst eagerly accepting the principle of separating the Duchies from Denmark, objected to the frontier. According to a statement made by Bishop Monrad in the Danish Rigsraad, it is clear the compromise was not distinctively an English project, though it originated in Clarendon’s suggestions. But, according to Bishop Monrad, “Earl Russell promised that neither would he make a proposal himself nor support the proposal of any other Plenipotentiary which would be less favourable for Denmark, unless Denmark herself should consent to such new proposals.” Yet after the boundary of the Schlei had been suggested, Earl Russell, at a meeting of the Conference, proposed that the question of the frontier should be submitted to arbitration--the King of the Belgians being mentioned as arbiter--although Denmark did _not_ consent to such a proposal. This proposition, partially accepted by Austria and Prussia, was rejected by Count Beust on behalf of the Diet. France then proposed that, while Germany should take German and Denmark should keep Danish Sleswig, the intervening part, with a mixed population, should by a _plébiscite_ determine its own destiny. This was also rejected by Denmark, and so the Conference, which met at the request of England without a basis, separated without a result.

The obstinacy of the Danes, who seem to have built their hopes of English succour on Lord Palmerston’s marvellous power over a servile House of Commons, secured the triumph of Austria and Prussia--who up to this point were encumbered by their signatures to the Treaty of London. Lord Clarendon’s

[Illustration: COUNT BEUST.]

proposal marked the abandonment of that instrument by the only Power desirous of abiding by it. The Conference, by its abortive attempts at solving the Danish problem, therefore, extricated Austria and Prussia from their false position, for when it broke up the ill-starred Treaty of London was there and then consigned to what Carlyle calls “the limbo of dead dogs.” And the curious thing is that Palmerston and Russell seem to have almost courted a defeat, which shattered the diplomatic _prestige_ of England for more than a decade. “The Treaty of London,” writes Count Vitzthum, “might, perhaps, have been saved, had the British Minister acknowledged from the first that the value of a Treaty, intended to settle a _quæstio de futuro_, an eventuality of the future, depended on the circumstances under which that eventuality occurred. A very different importance attaches to treaties which, like those of 1815, deal with _faits accomplis_ and establish the final results of a war lasting over many years. Palmerston and Russell committed in their zeal a political blunder when they declared that to cancel the Treaty of London was tantamount to unsettling everything else. Had not Napoleon been then so seriously occupied in Mexico he would have taken the British Ministers at their word.[202] But be that as it may, the Treaty was now dead. The Conference had not only united Germany, but also served as a safety-valve against an explosion in Parliament. The saying that no change of Ministry is to be thought of after the Ascot Races was verified anew. The Ascot meeting was now over. Nevertheless, before the Session came to an end, the Ministers were doomed to suffer a humiliation without a parallel.”[203] What made this humiliation all the more mortifying to Palmerston, was that the punishment was to come from the hateful hand of Cobden.

At the end of June, says Mr. Cobden, “the Prime Minister announced that he was going to produce the Protocols,[204] and to state the decision of the Government upon the question. He gave a week’s notice of this intention, and then I witnessed what has convinced me that we have effected a revolution in our Foreign policy. The whippers-in--you know what I mean--those on each side of the House who undertake to take stock of the number and the opinion of their followers--the whippers-in during the week were taking soundings of the inclination of members of the House of Commons. And then came up from the country such a manifestation of opinion against war, that day after day during that eventful week member after member from the largest constituencies went to those who acted for the Government in Parliament, and told them distinctly that they would not allow war on any such matters as Sleswig and Holstein. Then came surging up from all the great seats and centres of manufacturing and commercial activity one unanimous veto upon war for this matter of Sleswig and Holstein.”[205]

The old device which had served Palmerston so often in his contests with the Court--that of pitting the infatuation of a bellicose people against the calm sagacity of a pacific sovereign--could not be employed, and the Minister was forced to admit that the game on which he had staked his reputation had gone against him. Hence, writes Mr. Morley, “when Lord Palmerston came down to the House on that memorable afternoon of the 27th of June, it was to make the profoundly satisfactory but profoundly humiliating announcement that there was to be no war.” He admitted that the Government “felt great sympathy for Denmark,” although “she had in the beginning been in the wrong.” But under a new sovereign she had shown some desire to act properly, and so, said the Prime Minister, “we felt that from the beginning to the end of these events she [Denmark] had been ill-used, and that might had overridden right.” With jaunty audacity he added that Ministers also knew that the sympathies of the British nation were in favour of Denmark--for he made no allusion to the confidential reports of the Ministerial “whips”--and he frankly said “we should therefore have been glad to have found it possible to recommend to our Sovereign to take part with Denmark in the approaching struggle.” But then Denmark had rejected a compromise in the Conference--a compromise which, however, he did not state, had been almost thrust on her by Lord Russell, in violation of his own pledges to her--though he did admit that in rejecting this proposal, her fault was “equally shared by her antagonists.” Yet other considerations must be looked to--an admission which illustrated the revolution that had been effected in English diplomacy since the Crimean War. It did not appear, observed Lord Palmerston blandly, that the matter in dispute “was one of very great importance,” (an amazing statement from the author of the Treaty of London) for “it did not affect the independence of Denmark, and it went very little beyond what she herself had agreed to.” Now, Lord Russell had pledged himself not to support any arrangement that went “beyond what she [Denmark] had agreed to” when she accepted the compromise arrived at in his house by the plenipotentiaries of the neutral Powers, and Lord Palmerston’s additional explanation that it turned “simply on the question to whom a portion of territory should belong,” provoked a contemptuous titter in the House. But the real truth had to be confessed at last. Ministers, said Lord Palmerston--who had led the War Party in Lord Aberdeen’s Cabinet--in advising their sovereign to levy war, “could not possibly lose sight of the magnitude of the object--the magnitude of the resistance which would have to be overcome, and the comparative means which England and its supposed antagonist would have to bring to bear upon the contest.” They had discovered that neither France nor Russia would help England in supporting Denmark. “The whole brunt, therefore,” said Lord Palmerston, “of the effort to dislodge the German troops, and those who might come to their assistance, from Sleswig and Holstein, would fall upon this country alone.” Hence, he continued, “we have not thought it consistent with our duty to give our Sovereign advice to undertake such an enterprise.”

The whole scheme of Palmerstonian diplomacy seemed revealed, as if by a lightning-flash, in all its impotent meddlesomeness. In a matter of no very great importance concerning a foreign country, England was to talk daggers, but use none, if her antagonist chanced to be too strong to be cowed by menaces. The House of Commons instinctively felt that this was not a policy worthy of a great nation. It received the Prime Minister’s statement in a manner that convinced him that his spell over it was broken. He made one final effort to regain his influence by appealing to its foibles. He accordingly uttered dark and terrible threats of vengeance if Austria and Prussia attacked “the existence of Denmark as an independent Power in Europe,” and did other things which everybody knew they had no temptation to do. “If,” said he, “we should see at Copenhagen the horrors of a town taken by assault--the destruction of property, the sacrifice of the lives, not only of its defenders but of peaceful inhabitants, the confiscation which would arise, the capture of the Sovereign as a prisoner of war, or events of that kind--I do not mean to say that if any of these events were likely to happen, the position of this country might not possibly be a fit subject for reconsideration.” Then he paused to see if his old trick of rhetoric would do its work. It failed him, however, and, instead of the cheers for which he waited, his declamation was greeted with shouts of contemptuous derision. The cheers did not come till Mr. Disraeli condemned the utterance as “a continuation of those senseless and spiritless menaces by which her Majesty’s Government had lowered the influence of England in the Councils of Europe.” And they came again and again from every quarter of the House when the Tory leader declared “he should prefer that the foreign policy of this country should be conducted by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, for the result would have been the same as in the hands of her Majesty’s Government, while they would not have lured on Denmark by fallacious hopes, and exasperated the German Powers by exaggerated expressions of menace and condemnation of their conduct.” As for Lord Russell, he seemed to feel his humiliation so keenly that it was with difficulty he made his statement audible in the House of Lords. “I heard enough,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his terse summary of it, “to know that the Government were for peace at any price, and meant to desert the Danes.”

Of course the Opposition felt bound to challenge the policy of the Ministry by a vote of censure, though they were far from being unanimous as to their tactics. Writing on the 3rd of July, Lord Malmesbury says:--“Lord Derby is so ill with the gout, that he cannot bring on the question of the correspondence between Denmark and Germany next Friday, and he has deputed me to do it in his place, and Lords Salisbury,[206] Donoughmore, Colville, Hardwicke, Carnarvon, and Chelmsford came this afternoon at one o’clock to consult with me respecting the motion to be made in the House of Lords. Lord Derby is nervous in consequence of some objections made by the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanhope, who talk of a collision between the two Houses, and he fears the Party will not be unanimous. I am for going on with it, and so were the rest. We adjourned at two o’clock, when a large meeting took place, I being in the chair. The two above-named Peers, with Lords Winchester and Bath, made some difficulties, but ended by giving way, and it was settled unanimously that the same resolution

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THE BERKSHIRE SHORE.]

which Disraeli makes to-day in the Commons is to be moved on Friday in the Lords. I went yesterday to Disraeli to settle about this, he merely pointing to a chair. I did not sit down, but gave him the message Lord Derby had sent, and went away.[207] After the meeting at Lord Salisbury’s I went to Lord Derby’s to report what had occurred. He was pleased to hear that the motion was not given up, but he was in such dreadful pain that I did not stay.”[208] The vote of censure in the House of Lords was rejected by a majority of 9, and little attention was paid to the struggle there. But all eyes turned to the arena of strife in the House of Commons, where the issue was doubtful, and where on the 4th of July Mr. Disraeli moved a Resolution “to express to her Majesty our great regret that, while the course pursued by her Majesty’s Government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the independence and integrity of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence of this country in the councils of Europe, and thereby diminished the securities for peace.” His indictment of Palmerston’s Foreign Policy was unanswerable. In alliance with France and Russia, England might have controlled the Danish Question. But Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, after annoying Russia because she persecuted Poland, provoked France by refusing to join her in protecting the Poles from persecution. When the English Government discovered that France was immovably neutral on the Danish Question, they should either have declared frankly that they would, if need be, defend Denmark by force, or, like France, they should have abstained from either menacing the German Powers, or holding out to Denmark delusive hopes of succour. The latter, said Mr. Disraeli, would have been his policy; on the other hand, the British Ministers wavered between peace and war--indulging in unaccomplished threats and unfulfilled promises. The undignified part that Lords Palmerston and Russell made England play at the Conference--which, as Mr. Disraeli observed, “lasted about as long as a Carnival and, like a Carnival, was an affair of masks and mystifications,”--laid them open to a disastrous attack. Palmerston’s first aim was to maintain the integrity of Denmark. In the Conference the English plenipotentiary was the first to accept and even suggest her dismemberment. His second aim was professedly to maintain the independence of Denmark and lessen the risk of a great war in Europe. In the Conference the English representative, however, proposed to put Denmark under the joint guarantee of the Great Powers. “They would,” as Mr. Disraeli pointed out, “have created another Turkey in Europe, in the same geographical situation, the scene of the same rival intrigues, and the same fertile source of constant misconceptions and wars.” Mr. Gladstone virtually acknowledged the diplomatic defeat of the Government. They had tried, he said in effect, to induce France and Russia--the natural enemies of England--to join them in going to war with Germany--her natural ally. But having failed they ceased to menace the German Powers, who were too strong to be intimidated by Lord Palmerston.

The resolution was only a party device to drive Ministers from office by drawing a sensational picture of the degradation to which England had been exposed by Ministerial diplomacy. Mr. Kinglake, however, interfered, and proposed a resolution drafted by Cobden evidently for the purpose of humiliating Palmerston, and yet offering a loophole of escape from a vote of censure that must, if carried, have cut short his career, and brought a Tory Ministry with violent anti-German sympathies back to power. This resolution ironically expressed the satisfaction of the House that the Queen had been advised not to aid Denmark by force of arms. Mr. Kinglake then showed Lord Palmerston a list of the Liberals who intended to vote for Mr. Disraeli’s motion, in the event of the Government declining to accept what Count Vitzthum calls Mr. Cobden’s “humiliating absolution,” so that the Prime Minister had but little choice. “He was bound either to retire from office, or swallow the bitter pill offered to him by the Manchester School and pledge himself to maintain the strictest neutrality.”[209] He agreed to swallow the pill, which Mr. Cobden refused to gild; for in his speech of the 6th of July Cobden delivered a scathing attack on the futility of Lord Palmerston’s whole scheme of foreign policy, which had subjected England to humiliation in all parts of the world. The final demonstration of its failure, he argued, was the complete justification of those principles of non-intervention which he and Mr. Bright had preached for many long and weary years. It was admitted that he laid down with a masterly hand the foreign policy which future Governments, whether Whig or Tory, would be compelled by the people to follow. “Our country,” said Cobden, amidst cheers from every part of the House, “requires peace. Some people think it is very degrading and very base that an Englishman should speak of his country as requiring peace, and as being entitled to enjoy its blessings; and if we allude to our enormous commercial and industrial engagements as a reason why we should avoid these petty embroilments, we are told that we are selfish and grovelling in our politics. But I say we were very wrong to take such measures as were calculated to extend our commerce, unless we were prepared to use prudential precautions to keep our varied manufacturing and mercantile operations free from the mischief of unnecessary war.” England had no armies to spare for Continental interference. She had 79,000 troops locked up in India. In China she had two little armies separated by thousands of miles; she had another detachment in Japan; she had 10,000 men “fighting somebody’s battles” in New Zealand; she had from 10,000 to 15,000 troops in North America, “committed as a point of honour to defend a frontier of 1,500 miles against a country which can keep 700,000 men on the field;” she had also troops at the Cape, the West Indies, West Africa, Malta, and Gibraltar. Surely the world never saw, said Cobden, such a dispersion of force as this by a Power that attempted to interfere with Continental affairs. Hence the time had come for the new departure in foreign politics, for, with the failure of Lord Palmerston’s Danish policy, it was clear our whole system of conducting our relations with foreign countries had broken down. The Foreign Office had lost its credit abroad. Foreign Governments now knew that its threats and its pledges were vain and empty, because the real power now lay, not in the Foreign Office, but in the House of Commons. It was not the Ministry he desired to change, but the system; so that, though he was prepared to vote against Mr. Disraeli’s censure, Mr. Cobden, as Lord Robert Cecil observed, was about as true a friend to the Ministry, as the Ministry had been to Denmark. The only difference was, that whilst the Government gave Denmark fair words and no succour, Mr. Cobden had given Lord Palmerston valuable succour, but no fair words. It was past midnight on the 9th of July when Palmerston rose to defend his position, but he added nothing to the debate. As Mr. Evelyn Ashley, his adoring biographer, says, “he had, in truth, a difficult task. There had been a conspicuous failure; of that much there could be no doubt. Allies, colleagues, and circumstances had proved adverse; yet the excuses for failure could not be laid on any of them. So, with the exception of a dexterous allusion to the words of the resolution as ‘a gratuitous libel upon the country by a great Party who hoped to rule it,’ he did not detain the House for long on the points immediately at issue, but, dropping the Danish matter altogether, went straight into a history of the financial triumphs of his Government.”[210] After all, for these he was indebted to Mr. Gladstone with whom he was rarely in agreement on matters of general policy; and his obvious evasion of the matter in dispute was resented by the House, which interrupted him with angry cries of “Question!” His defence certainly had no bearing on the issue; but, as Mr. Ashley observes, with unconscious cynicism, “it had all to do with the Party question, for it decided the votes of doubting men, who, caring little about Sleswig-Holstein, cared a great deal about English finance. Anyhow, it commanded success, for the Government got a majority of eighteen, and thus renewed their lease of power.” Lord Palmerston had expected only a majority of three, but several Tories had voted with the Liberals, and eleven abstained from voting at all. “This,” writes Count Vitzthum, “is explained by the fear of a Roman Catholic intrigue. The Vatican had been anxious to make use of the opportunity for overthrowing the hated Premier. Some Monsignori especially sent from Rome are said to have been busily engaged in the lobby in inducing the Irish Members to vote with the Opposition. Be that as it may, a majority of eighteen votes was a godsend so unexpected, that the Premier begged some young ladies, who had no notion of what had happened, to congratulate him. Lady Palmerston was delighted at the hand-shakings lavished on the Prime Minister by the crowd that thronged the lobby.”

[Illustration: FREDERICKSBORG CASTLE, ELSINORE.]

The result of the division was hailed with great delight by the country. To have turned out Palmerston would have brought Lord Derby back to office, whose followers, it was suspected, would have finally driven him into war with Germany. To retain Palmerston in power, but by a vote that humiliated him and destroyed his personal _prestige_, was felt to be in every way safer for the country than the transference of its Government to an Opposition which was at once weak and warlike. “However the dice may fall,” writes Count Vitzthum, “the Prime Minister is disarmed, and his secret schemes of anger and revenge are condemned. The victory of the Peace Party is a victory of the Queen. Maligned, insulted, and reproached for German sympathies, her Majesty has checked the dictatorship of her Prime Minister, and beaten him three times in his own Cabinet on the question of war and peace. The Queen has recognised the true interests, the true wishes of her people, and not allowed herself to be misled by the gossip of the drawing-rooms, or the declamations of the daily Press.”[211] As for Lord Palmerston, his biographer has published some letters which show how bitterly he resented his defeat. In one of these, addressed to the King of the Belgians, he rails at Austria and Prussia for taking advantage of the weakness of Denmark, at Denmark for obstinately putting herself in the wrong, and at France for not cooperating with England. “One consequence,” he says, “is clear and certain, that if our good friend and neighbour at Paris were to take it into his head to deprive Prussia of her Rhenish provinces, not a finger in England would be stirred, nor a voice raised, nor a man or a shilling voted, to resist such a retribution upon the Prussian monarch.” As the Power which seized the Rhine would have Belgium at its mercy, it would be difficult to imagine an English Minister addressing to a Belgian Sovereign a more maladroit expression of impotent discomfiture. Then, in autumn, Palmerston, replying to a letter from Lord Russell, writes, “You say that with less timidity around us we might probably have kept Austria quiet on the Danish affair. Perhaps we might; but then we had no equal pull upon Prussia, and she would have rallied all the German Powers round her, and we should equally have failed in saving Denmark.[212] As to Cabinets, if we had colleagues like those who sat in Pitt’s Cabinet, such as Westmoreland and others, or such men as those who were with Peel, like Goulburn and Hardinge, you and I might have our own way on most things; but when, as is now the case, able men fill every department, such men will have opinions, and hold to them; but, unfortunately, they are often too busy with their own department to follow up foreign questions so as to be fully masters of them, and their conclusions are generally on the timid side of what ought to be the best.”[213] The further development of the Danish Question need not be dwelt on here, as it affected the policy neither of the Cabinet nor of the Court. The Germans resumed the war as soon as the Conference broke up. Uninterrupted victory put them in complete possession of the Duchies, to which Denmark finally renounced all claim by the Treaty of Vienna, which was signed on the 18th of October.

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