1848

LETTER BY BARON STOCKMAR.

59

nothing to urge, except that an example of this kind, set by princes, might be accepted by the democrats in a different sense, and be carried beyond the limits which your Royal Highness assigns to it; for the notion that in accordance with such a plan all Saxony at least has to become united lies so near that it is sure to suggest itself.

'My own plan, which I have for forty years carried in my own bosom, has been formulated for some time. I have a notion of getting it printed in the Deutsche Zeitung. It is the only one of all the plans that have come under my eye which admits of adhering to what actually exists, and sparing it in a statesmanlike way as far as possible.

...

'In belonging to the Diet, I am the fifth wheel to the carriage. As a private individual and mere volunteer I should perhaps have been able to accomplish more. The National Assembly is at present merely devising a Constitution. The pressure of actual events will soon make it also assume executive authority.'

Stockmar was naturally and justly impatient at his position in the Diet, where he had not even a vote. That body, by sanctioning the National Assembly, now proclaimed its own unfitness to meet the exigencies of the hour. At its best it had been since 1815, in his opinion, a wretched machine, despicable and despised,' which the governments had one and all used as the 'instrument of a policy false and dishonourable in itself, and ruinous at once to princes and people.' Its very constitution made 'national activity and energetic consistent measures impossible. To belong to such a body is in itself misery' (Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 505). Neither there nor among the mass of the National Assembly was his trenchant and far-sighted scheme likely to find much favour. His experiences at Frankfort, indeed, satisfied him that the hour for realising his hopes of a United Germany had not yet come. 'If my two months' seat in the Diet was good for nothing else, it at least convinced me that among all its members there existed nothing but mistrust, hatred, envy, backbiting, and malignity.'

By the time he wrote this sentence he had also satisfied himself that the man was yet to arise to whom Germany must look as its future Emperor. He had gone to Berlin in the beginning of June to see the King, to whom he had previously sent an outline of his plan for the reconstruction of Ger

60

ELECTION OF VICAR OF THE EMPIRE.

1848

many. What then passed appears to have convinced him that Frederick William could not be depended upon. The work which Stockmar would have him to do demanded qualities which the King did not possess." The consequence was, as Stockmar's biographer writes (Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 509), 'that, although he assisted from a distance the attempts made by others during 1848, yet he was never himself deceived as to the results. It was his way to form rapid conclusions on points of character.' One person alone he seems to have found in Berlin of whom he could speak with unqualified praisethe present Empress of Germany. The Princess of Prussia is sound at heart and clear in head, decided and devoted, one person who thoroughly understands the extraordinary and peculiar character of our times' (ibid. p. 516). Berlin itself he found in a state of anarchy, which he had the courage to tell the King it was his first duty to put down. The means were in his hands for doing so, but he could not be brought to use them. This was clearly not the man to play the leading part in Stockmar's scheme.

6

the

What happened soon afterwards at Frankfort could therefore scarcely have surprised him. The settlement of a new Constitution for Germany made but slow progress there; but it was felt that in the meantime it was necessary the Assembly should create some central executive power, to administer such affairs as affected the nation generally. This power the Assembly on the 28th of June decreed should be confided to a Vicar of the Empire (Reichsverweser), who was to act with a Ministry responsible to the Assembly, until the Constitution should be completed. The power of the Reichsverweser was virtually imperial; but to be operative, it implied the concurrence of all the sovereigns, and that they should place their military forces at his disposal, for which important details no arrangements had been made. Next day one of the Prussian Deputies moved that the imperial power should be vested in the Royal House of Prussia; but the motion was overruled amid general laughter, and the Archduke John, uncle of the then reigning Emperor of Austria, was elected Reichsverweser by a large majority.

The power thus created was a mere phantom. It had no

The King was himself conscious of this. In 1849 he said to Beckerath, 'Frederick the Great would have been the man for you: I am not a great ruler' (Friedrich der Grosse wäre Ihr Mann gewesen: ich bin kein grosser Regent). A man of the type of Washington would probably have been still bet

ter.

1848

INSTALLED AT FRANKFORT.

61

material resources at its back. These were in the hands of Prussia, whom the Assembly had offended deeply by its proceedings, and of the other Sovereigns, whom no attempt had been made to conciliate. They were not, however, at the moment ripe for open opposition. At all events, no sooner was the Archduke chosen than the Diet voted an address to him, in which they stated that its plenipotentiaries, even before the choice of the Assembly was declared, had been instructed by their respective Governments to declare in favour of the election of his Imperial Highness. This choice Stockmar, with his usual sagacity, saw would in the end work for the good of Prussia. 'I have a notion,' he wrote on the 27th of June (Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 588), that this very election. of an Austrian Prince will, from its specific character, be rather an advantage to Prussia. It cannot fail to show more clearly than ever by its results how impossible it is to place Austria at the head of Germany.'

6

On the 12th of July the Archduke John was installed at Frankfort with great solemnity as Vicar of the Empire. The Diet sent a deputation to invite him to appear among them, ' in order that they might place in his hands the functional discharge of the constitutional rights and duties which had belonged to the Diet, and which were now in the name of the German Governments to be transferred to the Provisional Central Power,' and they coupled this invitation with their assurance, as the organ of these Governments, that they would cheerfully tender to the central power their coöperation whenever by so doing they could found and strengthen the power of Germany at home or abroad.' The invitation was accepted; the Diet with due state pronounced its own dissolution; and a fresh chapter in the troubled volume of German history began.

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CHAPTER XXVII.

Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary-Our Ambassador ordered to leave Spain - CounterRevolution in Naples-Defeat of the Sicilians-Austria's Proposal to surrender Lombardy refused-Insurrection in Posen-The Ateliers Nationaux in Paris-Their Failure-Breakdown of Chartist Plots in England-The June Massacres in Paris-Correspondence of Prince with Baron Stockmar.

In a letter to Prince Albert (19th June, 1849) Lord John Russell states, on the authority of Lord Palmerston, that during the year 1848 no less than 28,000 Despatches were received or sent out at the Foreign Office. These 28,000 Despatches in the year,' the Prince says, in his reply, 'Lord Palmerston must recollect, come to you and to the Queen, as well as to himself.'

This fact brings strikingly into view the enormous pressure of work and of anxiety which the condition of Europe at this time brought not only upon the chiefs of the Executive, but also upon the Head of the State. The events which were passing in every part of the European Continent—Holland and Belgium alone perhaps excepted-required to be watched with the closest attention. At any moment circumstances might arise to involve this country in serious complications. While England could not stand aloof in cold indifference from what was passing around, it was above all important that she should maintain an attitude of complete neutrality in the conflicts which were everywhere going on between governments and people, so as to afford no cause for irritation on either side, and at the same time preserve her influence unimpaired, should the opportunity arise for successful mediation, or appeal be made to us at any time with this view.

However we might as a nation desire to see other nations as free in their institutions and fortunate in their government as ourselves, it could only be from within-by the fitness of these nations for them, and by their own determined perseverance to obtain them—that these blessings could be secured. The existence of these conditions had yet to be proved, and in the meantime sound policy demanded that nothing should

1848

LORD PALMERSTON.

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be done by us to offend or alienate the existing Governments, who, if they should succeed in subduing the revolutionary forces which were now arrayed against them, would not be likely to forget that we had borne hard upon them in their hour of trouble. The necessity for this line of policy—a deviation from which might have left us without allies among the Sovereigns of Europe-was constantly present to the minds of the Queen and Prince. Every communication on foreign affairs, every phase of the almost daily changes in the current of events, therefore, engaged their most earnest attention. The discharge of this anxious duty was made still more anxious by the fact, that Lord Palmerston, then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was somewhat prone to forget in his enthusiasm for constitutional freedom that, as England was not prepared to wrest it for other countries from their Sovereigns by force of arms, despatches full of unpleasant truths unpleasantly put could only occasion sore and angry feelings towards this country, without advancing in any degree the cause which they were intended to serve.

Attention was publicly drawn in Parliament during May and June of this year to the mischievous consequences likely to arise from the business of the Foreign Office being conducted in this spirit by what had recently occurred in Madrid. On the 16th of March Lord Palmerston had written a letter to Sir Henry Bulwer, our representative there, in which he recommended Sir Henry to advise the Spanish Government to adopt a legal and constitutional system. He then went on to refer to the recent expulsion of Louis Philippe and his Ministers from France as a proof that even a numerous and well-disciplined army offers only an insufficient defence to the Crown, when the system followed by it is not in harmony with the general system of the country.' The letter concluded in these words: The Queen of Spain would act wisely in the present critical state of affairs if she was to strengthen her executive government by widening the bases on which the administration reposes, and in calling to her councils some of the men in whom the Liberal party reposes confidence.' A copy of this letter was communicated by Sir H. Bulwer to the Duke de Sotomayor, then the head of the Spanish Ministry. As might have been expected, it gave an opening for a reply from the Duke, which left him master of the field. The observations of Lord Palmerston were rejected 'as offensive to the dignity of a free and independent