Napoleon III and the Hohenzollern Candidacy for the Spanish Throne
1967; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1540-6563.1967.tb01786.x
ISSN1540-6563
Autores Tópico(s)Political and Social Issues
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. See, for example, Émile Bourgeois and E. Clermont, Rome et Napoléon III 1849–1870. Étude sur les origines et la chute du Second Empire (Paris, 1907), 236; Emile Ollivier, L' Empire libéral: études, récits, souvenirs (18 vols.; Paris, 18951915), XIV, 22; Pierre François Gustave de La Gorce, Histoire du Second Empire, (7 vols. Paris, 19041906), VI, 216–17. La Gorce does not describe the immediate reaction of Napoleon to the news but assumes that it was a surprise to his forign minister. The French school admits that Napoleon was aware of efforts to promote Leopold's condidacey in the spring of 1869 but holds that he was completely deceived in 1870.2. See, for example, Robert Howard Lord, The Origins of the War of 1870. New Documents from the German Archives (Cambridge, 1924), 27; Lawrence D. Steefel, Bismarck, the Hohenzollern Candidacy, and the Origins of the Franco‐German War of 1870 (Cambridge, 1962), 104; A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford, 1954), 203–04; J. M. Thompson, Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire (Oxford, 1958), 293–94.3. Richard Fester, Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hohenzollernschen Thronkandidatur in Spanien (Leipzig, 1913, 14, 174–75.4. The Sigmaringen archives and those of the German froeign ministry have now been opened to scholars. Searching monographs like that of Steefel and the documents published by Georges Bonnin (Bismarck and the Hohenzollern Candidature for the Spanish Throne. The Documents in the German Diplomatic Archives, trans. by Isabella M. Massey [London, 1957]) have established, probably definitively, the rôle of Bismarck in promoting Leopold's candidacy. See also the thorough books of Jochen Dittrich (Bismarck, Frankreich und die Spanische Thronkandidatur der Hohenzollern. Die “Kriegschuld frage” von 1870. Im Anhang Briefe und Aktenstücke aus dem Fjürstlich Hohenszollernschen Hausarchiv [Münich, 1962](and Otto Pflanze, (Bismark and the Development of Germany. The Period of Unification 1815–1871 [Princeton, 1963]). This recent scholarly activity has not been primarily concerned with Napoleon, whose actions have not yet been thoroughly scrutinized in the light of the recently uncovered evidence.5. Beust to Metternich, very secret, Vienna, July 11, 1870, Fester, Briefe, Aktenstücke und Regesten zur Geschichte der Hohenzollernschen Thronkandidatur in Spanien, (2 vols. Leipzig, 1913), II, No. 430; Hermann Oncken, Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III. von 1863 bis 1870 und der Ursprung des Krieges von 1870/71, (3 vols. Berlin, 1926), III, No. 871. See also Lyons to Granville, private, Paris, July 8, 1870, Public Recored Office, London, MSS (hereafter cited as PRO), 30/29/85; Granville to Lyons, copy, privated, July 6, 1870, F. O. ibid., 362/4; and Granville to Loftus, London, July 6, 1870, Bluebook, Fester, Briefe, I, No. 299.6. Ollivier, XI, 67; Steefel, 12.7. Vitzthum to Beust, reserved, Paris, October 13, 1868, Oncken, III, No. 636, p. 42; W. A. Smith, “Napoleon III and the Spanish Revolution of 1868,” Journal of Modern History, XXV (1953), 211–33; Steefel, 12.8. Undated memorandum by Napoleon, Maurice Fleury, Memoirs of the Empress EugÈnie, Compiled from Statements, Private Documents and Personal Letters of the Empress Eugénie. From Conversatios of the Emperor Napoleon III and from Family Letters and Papers of General Fleury, M. Faranceschini Pietri, Prince Victor Napoleon and Other Members of the Court of the Second Empire, (2 vols. New York and London, 1920), II, 195. Napoleon and Eugénie may have been wrong in their suspicion of a connection between Bismarck and the Montpensier condidacy. Scholars today can find no positive proof of Bismarck's collaboration (Steefel, 16–18).9. Lord, The Origins of War, 9.10. Metternich to Beust, Paris, November 20, 1868, Haus‐, Hof‐, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, MSS (herafter cited as HHSA), No. 46 A‐D.11. Benedetti to La Valette, dispatich in cipher, Berlin, March 31, 1869, Les origines diplomatiques de la guerre de 1870–1871. Recueil de documents, (29 vols. Paris, 19101932), XXIV, No. 7363.12. Benedetti was dissatisfied with the interview and believed that Bismarck had not been entirely frank with him (Benedetti to Rouher, May 11, 1869, ibid., XXIV, No. 7466).13. Theodore von Bernhardi, Aus dem Leben Theodor von Bernhardis. Neunter Theil: In Spanien und Portugal. Tagebuchblätter aus den Jahren 1869 bis 1870 (Leipzig, 1906), 169, 171, 199, 218, 226, 229, and 243.14. Karnicki to Beust, reserved, Madrid, August 13, 1869, HHSA, XX/26 No. 52 B. The report giving a dossier of Bernhardi's reputed activities was from Count Dubsky, special counsellor of the legation, to Beust, Madrid, September 15, 1869, ibid., No. 56 C. Beust sent these reports to the Austrian chargeé d'affaires in Paris with instructions to show them to the French government. Both times the chargé d'affaires reported that he had carried out his orders (Hoyos to Beust, Paris, August 31, 1869 and October 14, 1869, HHSA, IX/94, Nos. 41 and 50 D). Napoleon's suspicions in 1869 may have been groundless. Steefel is reluctant to admit that Bismarck was involved in Leopol's candidacy before 1870 (pp. 20–22). Lord is readier to concede the possibility of Prussian collusion in 1869 (p. 27).15. Memorandum of one of Napoleon's aides‐de‐camp, Fleury, II, 204. Leopold later said that the emperor had raised no objection to his candidacy when the emperor heard of it in the autumn of 1869 (Conversation of Times correspondent W. H. Russell with Leopold, My Diary during the Last Great War [London, 1874], 97–98, Fester, Briefe, II, No. 594). Sybel asserted that Charles Anthony told Napoleon of the Spanish offer during this same visit to Paris: “Price Anton [Charles Anthony], who, for the moment saw no occasion to report to Berlin, informed his old friend and near relative the Emperor Napoleaon of the episode. The Emperor wrapped himself in profound silence, and from the absence of all dissuasion or warning the Prince drew the conclusion that Napoleon would not be unfavorable to his cousin's candidature….” (Sybel, article in Die Zukunft, April 20, 1895, p. 103, quoted by Bonnin, 285).16. See German translation from the Spanish in Fester, Briefe, I, No. 90. Mercier de I'Ostende, French ambassador at Madrid, later wrote that the pamphlet had been drawn up by Bernhardi (Mercier to Gramont, confidential, Madrid, July 7, 1870, Origines, XXVIII, No. 8306). See also Drouyn de Lhuys to Napoleon, November 17, 1869, Pradier‐Fodéré, Documents pour I'histoire contemporaine (Pais, 1871), 47–48, from Indépendance belge, February 3, 1871, Fester, Briefe, I, No. 92.17. The article was reproduced in part by the Frankfurter Zeitung of May 13, 1870, cited by Fester, Briefe, I, No. 168. Fester was apparently unaware of the official nature of the newspaper. It was subsidized by the French and Austrian foreign ministries (Metternich to Rechberg, private, Vienna, May 7, 1863, HHSA, IX/77).18. Charles Anthony's memorandum, April 22, 1870, Dittrich, Appendix, No. 40, p. 377.19. Fester cites at least fourteen articles that refer to a negotiation with a Prussian prince in the spring of 1870 in the French, Belgian, and German press (Briefe, I, Nos. 145–152, 157, 166, 173, 208–210, and 216).20. Prim's speech summarized in Fester, Briefe, I, No. 203. steefel gives a good account of it (pp. 93–94).21. Ollivier, L'Empire libéral, XIII, 573.22. Ibid..23. Mercier to Gramont, June 12, 1870, Fester, Briefe, I, No. 207, Ollivier, XIII, 573. See also Mercier to Gramont, Madrid, June 25, 1870, very confidential, Origines, XXVIII, No. 8229.24. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, CCIII, House of Commons, 650.25. Gramont to Mercier, Paris, June 17, 1870, Origines, XXVII, No.8212.26. Dubsky to Beust, reserved, Madrid, July 7, 1870, HHSA, XX/27, No. 31 A‐B.27. Beust to Metternich, Vienna, May 28, 1870, Deutsche Rundschau, 1910, Fester, Briefe, I, No. 188. See also Beust to Münch‐Bellinghausen, Vienna, July 6, 1870, Austrian Redbook, IV, 16–17, ibid., No. 296.28. Layard to Clarendon, private, Madrid, June 25, 1870, PRO, FO 361/1.29. Mercier to Gramont, Madrid, private, June 24, 1870, Origines, XXVII, No. 8225. The other two reports are dated June 23 and June 25, ibid., Nos. 8223 and 8229.30. Same to same, Madrid, July 3, 1870, ibid., XXVIII, No. 8243.31. The minister of the navy wired the naval commander at Cherbourg: “What do you have available in: boots, stockings, gloves, undervests, hats for a northern campaign?” (Paris, June 29, 1870, Correspondance de Berlin, 1870, No. 132, November 14, Fester, Briefe, I, 119).32. Fleury, II, 191–218. The chapter is a loosely organized collection of excerpts from private papers, some of them obviously written after 1870, and some of them unidentified. The main difficulty in using the work stems from its internal structure, which sometimes makes it impossible ot ascertain at what moment the emperor learned of the events described. But it becomes clear from the account that only a very few in the court were permitted to share the secret information. “Those who were in the secret” (II, 213) were Eugénie, Gramont, and Fleury senior. Ollivier was almost certainly excluded.33. Layard to Clarendon, private, Paris, November 21, 1869, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Clarendon deposit, carton 486.34. Bernhardi, IX, 55–56.35. Bamberger to Charles Anthony, Paris, April 8, 1870, Dittrich, Appendix, No. 35, p. 373.36. Versen's diary: May 18 ‐ July 22, 1870, Bonnin, Appendix A, 261–282. French agents even had published in the Kölnische Zeitung of June 15 a bogus telegrm to the effect tha tthe Cortes had been prorogued in order to trick the Prussians into thinking a fait acccompli impossible. See Versen's diary, Bonnin, 274–280.37. Fleury, II, 208–209. Charles of Rumania was the emperor's protégé and had his own interests at stake in learning of the Frenceh reaction to Hohenzollern prince in Madrid. Charles and Strat knew of the existence of a formidable conspiracy in Paris against them and realized that the emperor had within his power the means of endangering Charles' throne. See Ollivier, XIV, 206–208; Steefel, 140; Beust to Metternich, Vienna, July 11, 1870, Oncken, III, No. 870. In determining whether Charles warned the emperor, the student is faced with a maze of contradictory statements. Baron Keudell, legation counsellor in the Prussian foreign ministry, later accused Charles of having informed the emperor. Charles made no answer to the accusation. The Prussian historian, Hans Delbrück, said that Leopold told him that his father had never given away the secret (Ollivier, XIV, 22). Of course, Delbrück's assertion begs the question of whether or not Charles had warned Napoleon; nor does it cover Strat in any way. Ollivier said Franceschini Pieteri told him that the emperor had never received a word from either the sons or theidr father ‐ a statement which, as already seen, was not true (ibid., 22).38. Bismarck to Bernstorff, telegram, March 17, 1870, Bonnin, No. 21; Bernstorff to Bismarck, London, March 18, 1870, ibid., No. 31. There was no direct line from Madrid to Berlin or from Madrid to London. Telegrams from Berlin had to be relayed through Frankfurt‐on‐Main and Paris; those from London via Hâvre and Bordeaux. See also Salazar to Baron von Keudell, Madrid, March 25, 1870, ibid., No. 52; Bismarck to Bernstorff, Berlin, March 27, 1870, ibid., No. 56.39. Augustus Loftus, The Diplomatic Reminiscences of Lord Augusturs Loftus, P. C., G. C. B., 18621879, 2nd series, (2 vols. London, 1894), I, 273.40. Ollivier, XIII, 425–27.41. Howden to Lyons, copy, Bayonne, June 7, 1870, PRO FO 361/1.42. See the extensive documentation worked out by Smith, 228–29.43. Fester found Napoleon's support of Ferdinand indicative of deceit (Neue Beiträge, 14), but he was unable to demostrate completely the false nature of the emperor's maneuver. The double game has now been thoroughly worked out by Smith (pp. 226–30). But Smith, adhering to the conventional view, does not hold that Napoleon knew of the Hohenzollern candidacy in the spring of 1870 and offers no reason for the maneuver. See also Conde de Carnota, Memoirs of Field‐Marshal the Duke of Saldanha (London, 1880), II, 375–404; Ildefonso Antonio Bermejo, Historia de la interinidad y guerra civil de España desde 1868 (Madrid, 1876), I, 947–48; Bernhardi, IX, 334–35, 396–99.44. According to Ollivier, in June Napoleon directed Gramont to find out from Mercier if there had been a plot to put a Prussian prince on the Spanish throne and added that if it were so it would be necessary to express his displeasure at Madrid and Berlin (June 17, 1870, Ollivier, XIII, 573–74). Yet despite the far from reassuring reports with which Mercier replied, he allowed the matter to drop. He made no inquiry at Berlin as he had done, on far less evidence, in 1869. Two days after Prim's speech in the Cortes the French ambassador at Berlin presented himself to the Prussian under‐secretary of state and “with a certain purposefulness” remarked that he had no business to take up with the Prussian government (Thile to Bismarck, Berlin, June 13, 1870, Bonnin, No. 180). The absence of a French protest against consideration of a Hohenzollern candidacy was later a source of embarrassement to the government. The British minister at Madrid thought it very peculiar that the Spanish foreign minister had not received a hint of French opposition in 1870. To be truly effective in tits expressions of outrage against the Prussians the French government should have been able to demonstrate that all along it had made its position unequivocabley clear. (See Layard to Granville, July 25, 1870, Bluebook, III, 42, No. 45; Fester, Briefe, II, No. 586.) This the emperor was unable to do. Napoleon had even forgotten that any inquiry had ever been made to the Prussian government. Only after the war had begun did Benedetti, formerly ambassador at Berlin, exhume from the diplomatic archives and have published in the Journal officiel the record of his conversations with Bismarck of 1869. The Frecnh government could cite only this isolated proof that it had expressed opposition to Leopold. The incident is described in a letter from Metternich to Beust not reproduced by Oncken (Paris, July 22, 1870, HHSA, IX/95, No. 40 B).45. Isabella to the Tsar of Russia, Paris, June 26, 1870, telegram, Bonnin, No. 217. See also D. Halévy, Carnets, (2 vols. Paris, 1935), II, 164. Mercier took it for granted that the queen's act was controlled by France (Mercier to Gramont, Madrid, June 10, 1870, Origines, XXVII, No. 8202). See also Dittrich, 85 and E. H. Strobel, The Spanish Revolution, 1868–1875 (Boston, 1898), 87–89.46. Howden to Lyons, copy, Bayonne, June 7, 1870, PRO FO 361/1.47. Metternich to Beust, Paris, July 8, 1870, HHSA, IX/90, No. 37 A‐H; Oncken, III, No. 849.48. Ibid., No. 848.49. Same to Same, Ibid., No. 847.50. Mercier to Gramont, June 12 and 23, 1870, Origines, XXVII, Nos. 8206 and 8223.51. Metternich to Beust, Paris, July 8, 1870, Oncken, III, No. 851.Additional informationNotes on contributorsNancy N. BarkerThe author is Lecturer in History at the University of Texas, Austin.
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