257.

Extracts from a Pamphlet, Napoleon III and Europe in 1867

Germany is made! The North German Federation, the customs’ treaties and military conventions between Prussia and the South German States, the tendencies of the deliberative assemblies, the intentions of the cabinet of Berlin, and the manifest aspirations of the immense majority of the German people,—all these symptoms and facts compel every impartial mind to agree to the correctness of this affirmation—Germany is made!

The river Main, already lost sight of in the unity of commercial interests and military command, is nothing but an imaginary frontier. From the promontories of Schleswig to the mountains of the Tyrol, and possibly beyond; from the bridge of Kehl to the confines of the grand duchy of Posen, there exists a people with a common nationality, with common interests, forces, and language. Unity exists in its most decisive and most substantial shape. If we behold elsewhere the name without the fact, here, in Germany, we clearly have the fact without the name.

The slightest aggression from without would suffice to create one of those floods which disappoint all calculations and carry away all the barriers erected by conventionality, skill, might, and events. Yes, Germany is made! and the slightest breath may suffice to raise the wave which will place the sovereign crown of Germany upon the forehead of the chief of the House of Hohenzollern.

German unity inevitable

Superficial or systematically hostile observers see in the battle of Sadowa the sole cause of German unity; but to us who know the past of the German nation, the tendencies of its genius, the spirit of its schools, the dreams of its youth, the songs of its poets, the breath of its literature, and its practical requirements and material interests,—to us, acquainted with all this, the battle of Sadowa was nothing but an event conceived long since in the mysterious womb of the past, and finally brought into the world, into the daylight of history, at the prophetic hour of its completed formation.

It is certain, or at least probable, that this formation might have been retarded; but it is also certain that it could not have been prevented. For if, upon the one hand, facts engender events, events, upon the other hand, predispose facts. Interference, which tries to delay what must be accomplished, serves only to produce a catastrophe where, in the natural course of things, a change might have been developed, if not entirely without a commotion, at least without one of those earthquakes which shake the bases of European order and hold in suspense for an indefinite period the destinies of peoples and the fate of crowns.

Ought France to interfere in Germany?

Germany is made! but this Germany in process of formation, of unification upon our very frontier, is she a threat to us or a danger? Does there exist a duty, or indeed a right, that obliges or authorizes us to interfere in this solemn drama of the formation of a great people upon our frontier? Ought France to prevent Germany from becoming united? Can France prevent Germany from becoming united?

Intervention unjust

To this twofold question thus plainly put, we reply without hesitation, "No." France ought not; France cannot. Let us hasten to add that when we say France cannot oppose herself to the formation of the German nationality, we do not assuredly intend to speak of physical and material want of power. We wish to say that France cannot do so because she ought not. She cannot, because she must not be false to her democratic and liberal mission. She ought not and she cannot, lastly, because she must not make what is illogical and unjust the pivot of her policy.

Even a successful war to be dreaded

Ardent spirits, more impatient than reflecting, might retort that France is not in the habit of counting her enemies. But, to tell the truth, we dread a victory quite as much as a defeat. In a war undertaken to prevent the unification of Germany,—a war which would be as sacred to our patient and tenacious neighbors as is the idea of unity itself,—in such a war ten battles gained or lost would never bring about anything but truces, falsely called treaties of peace. The imprudent hand that should desire to prevent Germany from remaining or becoming a nation would kindle a war destined to ravage Europe for an incalculable period, sacrificing successive hecatombs of victims. Let the arbiters of the destinies of Germany also reflect upon this!