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The Mission of M. Thiers to the Neutral Powers in 1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. Holland Rose
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Extract

In the usually unexciting annals of diplomacy there sometimes occur episodes which belong almost to the domain of chivalry; and such, surely, is that which forms the subject of this paper. It is hard to over-estimate the difficulties which confronted M. Thiers in the second week of September 1870, when he undertook to appeal to the chief neutral Powers of Europe on behalf of France. On September 2 she had suffered the staggering blow of Sedan. Two days later the Napoleonic Empire collapsed during vehement demonstrations in the streets of Paris, which had their counterpart in the chief provincial centres. The Republic was declared in several parts simultaneously; and the deputies for Paris, with one prominent exception, were acclaimed at the Hôtel de Ville as forming the Provisional Government of the French Republic. It is well known that, if that Government had not been speedily installed in office, a Red Republic would have been proclaimed, as was destined to happen in March 1871. The new Government, then, was a hasty makeshift. It had no mandate from the French nation. It promised, at first, to hold a General Election which should regularise the situation; but, as is now the case in Russia, the holding of a General Election during a furious war proved to be surrounded with very great difficulties, which could not be overcome until February 1871, after the armistice with Germany.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 11 , December 1917 , pp. 35 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1917

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References

page 40 note 1 Memoirs of Sir Robert Marier, vol. ii. pp. 279, 280.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 For those dispatches, see Favre, J., Le Gouvernement de la Défense nationale, vol. i. pp. 134et seqGoogle Scholar.

page 42 note 1 Life of Lord Granville, by Fitzmaurice, Lord, vol. ii. pp. 63–5Google Scholar; Life of Lord Lyons, by Newton, Lord, vol. i. p. 321Google Scholar; Busch, , Bismarck in the Franco-German War, vol. i. pp. 144, 168, 178.Google Scholar Mr. J. W. T. Omond kindly reminds me of the interesting statement contained in the first-named work (vol. ii. p. 74), on the authority of Mr. Odo Russell's dispatch of December 18, 1870, to the effect that Thiers had offered, ‘through a third party,’ to cede Alsace Lorraine in exchange for Belgium, which was to be incorporated in a French kingdom for King Leopold.

page 43 note 1 de Chaudordy, Comte, La France à la Suite de la Guerre de 1870–1871, p. 123.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Busch, , Bismarck in the Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 159.Google Scholar The negotiations at Ferrières turned mainly on the question of an armistice, with a view to the holding of a General Election. Obviously, no peace could be signed, in a satisfactory way, which was not endorsed by the French nation. This was the trump card in Favre's hand; but he seems to have played it too soon and too ostentatiously. The Germans, probably with reason, thought that, during such an armistice, the position of France would improve, and that the mission of Thiers to the neutral Powers would bring about a European intervention in favour of the young Republic. Consequently, they stiffened their terms, and probably as a retort to, and a precaution against, the diplomatic efforts of Thiers. In any case, Bismarck now demanded from France, as the price of an armistice for the purpose above indicated, the following heavy conditions—the surrender of Strassburg, Toul, Bitche, and even of Fort Valérien. These, of course, were quite out of the question. Consequently the war went on, and Thiers proceeded with his mission (Debidour, , Hist, diplomatique de l'Europe, vol. ii. p. 409).Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 Thiers, , Notes et Souvenirs, pp. 5et seq.Google Scholar

page 44 note 2 Beust, , Memoirs (Eng. Edit.), vol. ii. pp. 177–184.Google Scholar

page 44 note 3 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 184.

page 45 note 1 F,O. Correspondence, Austria, No. 768.

page 47 note 1 Bismarck, (Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 113)Google Scholar even says the Tsar was hostile to France. This is an exaggeration; but Alexander II certainly regarded it as an act of filial piety to reverse the Treaty of Paris which had dealt so fatal a blow to the hopes of Nicholas I. Lord Morley, in his Life of Gladstone, assumes that Bismarck, early in the war of 1870, hinted to Russia to abrograte the Treaty of Paris. I have found no proof of this statement, which, however, is antecedently probable.

page 54 note 1 October 8.

page 57 note 1 Debidour, , vol. ii. pp. 415–6Google Scholar; Klaczko, , The Two Chancellors (Eng. edit.), pp. 304–6.Google Scholar

page 58 note 1 Busch, , Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History (Eng. edit.), vol. i. pp. 269, 277–289.Google Scholar

page 59 note 1 See Buchanan's second dispatch of September 21,1870, quoted above.

page 60 note 1 A Diplomat's Memoir of 1870, by Reitlinger, Frédéric (Eng. transl.). London, 1915.Google Scholar