A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 38

[Attempt at Frankfort, April, 1833.]

If among the minor sovereigns of Germany there were some who, as in Baden, sincerely desired the development of free inst.i.tutions, the authority exercised by Metternich and his adherents in reaction bore down all the resistance that these courts could offer, and the hand of despotism fell everywhere heavily upon the party of political progress. The majority of German Liberals, not yet prepared for recourse to revolutionary measures, submitted to the pressure of the times, and disclaimed all sympathy with illegal acts; a minority, recognising that nothing was now to be gained by const.i.tutional means, entered into conspiracies, and determined to liberate Germany by force. One insignificant group, relying upon the armed co-operation of Polish bands in France, and deceived by promises of support from some Wurtemberg soldiers, actually rose in insurrection at Frankfort.

A guard-house was seized, and a few soldiers captured; but the citizens of Frankfort stood aloof, and order was soon restored (April, 1833). It was not to be expected that the reactionary courts should fail to draw full advantage from this ill-timed outbreak of their enemies. Prussian troops marched into Frankfort, and Metternich had no difficulty in carrying through the Diet a decree establis.h.i.+ng a commission to superintend and to report upon the proceedings inst.i.tuted against political offenders throughout Germany. For several years these investigations continued, and the campaign against the opponents of government was carried on with various degrees of rigour in the different states. About two thousand persons altogether were brought to trial: in Prussia thirty-nine sentences of death were p.r.o.nounced, but not executed. In the struggle against revolution the forces of monarchy had definitely won the victory. Germany again experienced, as it had in 1819, that the federal inst.i.tutions which were to have given it unity existed only for the purposes of repression.

The breach between the nation and its rulers, in spite of the apparent failure of the democratic party, remained far deeper and wider than it had been before; and although Metternich, victor once more over the growing restlessness of the age, slumbered on for another decade in fancied security, the last of his triumphs had now been won, and the next uprising proved how blind was that boasted statesmans.h.i.+p which deemed the sources of danger exhausted when once its symptoms had been driven beneath the surface.

[Conspirators and exiles.]

[Dispersion of the Swiss exiles, 1834.]

In half the states of Europe there were now bodies of exasperated, uncompromising men, who devoted their lives to plotting against governments, and who formed, in their community of interest and purpose, a sort of obverse of the Holy Alliance, a federation of kings' enemies, a league of principle and creed, in which liberty and human right stood towards established rule as light to darkness. As the grasp of authority closed everywhere more tightly upon its baffled foes, more and more of these men pa.s.sed into exile. Among them was the Genoese Mazzini, who, after suffering imprisonment in 1831, withdrew to Ma.r.s.eilles, and there, in combination with various secret societies, planned an incursion into the Italian province of Savoy. It was at first intended that this enterprise should be executed simultaneously with the German rising at Frankfort.

Delays, however, arose, and it was not until the beginning of the following year that the little army, which numbered more Poles than Italians, was ready for its task. The incursion was made from Geneva in February, 1834, and ended disastrously. [395] Mazzini returned to Switzerland, where hundreds of exiles, secure under the shelter of the Republic, devised schemes of attack upon the despots of Europe, and even rioted in honour of freedom in the streets of the Swiss cities which protected them. The effect of the revolutionary movement of the time in consolidating the alliance of the three Eastern Powers, so rudely broken by the Greek War of Liberation, now came clearly into view. The sovereigns of Russia and Austria had met at Munchengratz in Bohemia in the previous autumn, and, in concert with Prussia, had resolved upon common principles of action if their intervention should be required against disturbers of order. Notes were now addressed from every quarter to the Swiss Government, requiring the expulsion of all persons concerned in enterprises against the peace of neighbouring States. Some resistance to this demand was made by individual cantons; but the extravagance of many of the refugees themselves alienated popular sympathy, and the greater part of them were forced to quit Switzerland and to seek shelter in England or in America. With the dispersion of the central band of exiles the open alliance which had existed between the revolutionists of Europe gradually pa.s.sed away. The brotherhood of the kings had proved a stern reality, the brotherhood of the peoples a delusive vision. Mazzini indeed, who up to this time had scarcely emerged from the rabble of revolutionary leaders, was yet to prove how deeply the genius, the elevation, the fervour of one man struggling against the powers of the world may influence the history of his age; but the fire that purified the fine gold charred and consumed the baser elements; and of those who had hoped the most after 1830, many now sank into despair, or gave up their lives to mere restless agitation and intrigue.

[Difficulties of Louis Philippe.]

[Insurrections, 1832-1834.]

[Repressive Laws, Sept., 1835.]

It was in France that the revolutionary movement was longest maintained.

During the first year of Louis Philippe's rule the opposition to his government was inspired not so much by Republicanism as by a wild and inconsiderate sympathy with the peoples who were fighting for liberty elsewhere, and by a headstrong impulse to take up arms on their behalf. The famous decree of the Convention in 1792, which promised the a.s.sistance of France to every nation in revolt against its rulers, was in fact the true expression of what was felt by a great part of the French nation in 1831; and in the eyes of these enthusiasts it was the unpardonable offence of Louis Philippe against the honour of France that he allowed Poland and Italy to succ.u.mb without drawing his sword against their conquerors. That France would have had to fight the three Eastern Powers combined, if it had allied itself with those in revolt against any one of the three, pa.s.sed for nothing among the clamorous minority in the Chamber and among the orators of Paris. The pacific policy of Casimir Perier was misunderstood; it pa.s.sed for mere poltroonery, when in fact it was the only policy that could save France from a recurrence of the calamities of 1815. There were other causes for the growing unpopularity of the King and of his Ministers, but the first was their policy of peace. As the attacks of his opponents became more and more bitter, the government of Casimir Perier took more and more of a repressive character. Disappointment at the small results produced in France itself by the Revolution of July worked powerfully in men's minds.

The forces that had been set in motion against Charles X. were not to be laid at rest at the bidding of those who had profited by them, and a Republican party gradually took definite shape and organisation. Tumult succeeded tumult. In the summer of 1832 the funeral of General Lamarque, a popular soldier, gave the signal for insurrection at Paris. There was severe fighting in the streets; the National Guard, however, proved true to the king, and shared with the army in the honours of its victory.

Repressive measures and an unbroken series of prosecutions against seditious writers followed this first armed attack upon the established government. The bitterness of the Opposition, the discontent of the working cla.s.ses, far surpa.s.sed anything that had been known under Charles X. The whole country was agitated by revolutionary societies and revolutionary propaganda. Disputes between masters and workmen, which, in consequence of the growth of French manufacturing industry, now became both frequent and important, began to take a political colour. Polish and Italian exiles connected their own designs with attacks to be made upon the French Government from within; and at length, in April, 1834, after the pa.s.sing of a law against trades-unions, the working cla.s.ses of Lyons, who were on strike against their employers, were induced to rise in revolt. After several days' fighting the insurrection was suppressed. Simultaneous outbreaks took place at St. Etienne, Gren.o.ble, and many other places in the south and centre of France; and on a report of the success of the insurgents reaching Paris, the Republic was proclaimed and barricades were erected. Again civil war raged in the streets, and again the forces of Government gained the victory. A year more pa.s.sed, during which the investigations into the late revolt and the trial of a host of prisoners served rather to agitate than to rea.s.sure the public mind; and in the summer of 1835 an attempt was made upon the life of the King so terrible and destructive in its effects as to amount to a public calamity. An infernal machine composed of a hundred gun-barrels was fired by a Corsican named Fieschi, as the King with a large suite was riding through the streets of Paris on the anniversary of the Revolution of July. Fourteen persons were killed on the spot, among whom was Mortier, one of the oldest of the marshals of France; many others were fatally or severely injured.

The King, however, with his three sons, escaped unhurt, and the repressive laws that followed this outrage marked the close of open revolutionary agitation in France. Whether in consequence of the stringency of the new laws, or of the exhaustion of a party discredited in public estimation by the crimes of a few of its members and the recklessness of many more, the const.i.tutional monarchy of Louis Philippe now seemed to have finally vanquished its opponents. Repeated attempts were made on the life of the King, but they possessed for the most part little political significance.

Order was welcome to the nation at large; and though in the growth of a socialistic theory and creed of life which dates from this epoch there lay a danger to Governments greater than any purely political, Socialism was as yet the affair of thinkers rather than of active workers either in the industrial or in the Parliamentary world. The Government had beaten its enemies outside the Chamber. Within the Chamber, the parties of extremes ceased to exercise any real influence. Groups were formed, and rival leaders played against one another for office; but they were separated by no far-reaching differences of aim, and by no real antagonism of const.i.tutional principle. During the succeeding years of Louis Philippe's reign there was little visible on the surface but the normal rivalry of parties under a const.i.tutional monarchy. The middle-cla.s.s retained its monopoly of power: authority, centralised as before, maintained its old prestige in France, and softened opposition by judicious gifts of office and emolument. Revolutionary pa.s.sion seemed to have died away: and the triumphs or reverses of party-leaders in the Chamber of Deputies succeeded to the hara.s.sing and doubtful conflict between Government and insurrection.

[The English Reform movement.]

The near coincidence in time between the French Revolution of 1830 and the pa.s.sing of the English Reform Bill is apt to suggest to those who look for the operation of wide general causes in history that the English Reform movement should be viewed as a part of the great current of political change which then traversed the continent of Europe. But on a closer examination this view is scarcely borne out by facts, and the coincidence of the two epochs of change appears to be little more than accidental. The general unity that runs through the history of the more advanced continental states is indeed stronger than appears to a superficial reader of history; but this correspondence of tendency does not always embrace England; on the contrary, the conditions peculiar to England usually preponderate over those common to England and other countries, exhibiting at times more of contrast than of similarity, as in the case of the Napoleonic epoch, when the causes which drew together the western half of the continent operated powerfully to exclude our own country from the current influences of the time, and made the England of 1815, in opinion, in religion, and in taste much more insular than the England of 1780. The revolution which overthrew Charles X. did no doubt encourage and stimulate the party of Reform in Great Britain; but, unlike the Belgian, the German, and the Italian movements, the English Reform movement would unquestionably have run the same course and achieved the same results even if the revolt against the ordinances of Charles X. had been successfully repressed, and the Bourbon monarchy had maintained itself in increased strength and reputation. A Reform of Parliament had been acknowledged to be necessary forty years before. Pitt had actually proposed it in 1785, and but for the outbreak of the French Revolution would probably have carried it into effect before the close of the last century. The development of English manufacturing industry which took place between 1790 and 1830, accompanied by the rapid growth of towns and the enrichment of the urban middle cla.s.s, rendered the design of Pitt, which would have transferred the representation of the decayed boroughs to the counties alone, obsolete, and made the claims of the new centres of population too strong to be resisted.

In theory the representative system of the country was completely transformed; but never was a measure which seemed to open the way to such boundless possibilities of change so thoroughly safe and so thoroughly conservative. In spite of the increased influence won by the wealthy part of the commercial cla.s.ses, the House of Commons continued to be drawn mainly from the territorial aristocracy. Cabinet after Cabinet was formed with scarcely a single member included in it who was not himself a man of t.i.tle, or closely connected with the n.o.bility: the social influence of rank was not diminished; and although such measures as the Reform of Munic.i.p.al Corporations attested the increased energy of the Legislature, no party in the House of Commons was weaker than that which supported the democratic demands for the Ballot and for Triennial Parliaments, nor was the repeal of the Corn Laws seriously considered until famine had made it inevitable.

That the widespread misery which existed in England after 1832, as the result of the excessive increase of our population and the failure alike of law and of philanthropy to keep pace with the exigencies of a vast industrial growth, should have been so quietly borne, proves how great was the success of the Reform Bill as a measure of conciliation between Government and people. But the crowning justification of the changes made in 1832, and the complete and final answer to those who had opposed them as revolutionary, was not afforded until 1848, when, in the midst of European convulsion, the monarchy and the const.i.tution of England remained unshaken.

Bold as the legislation of Lord Grey appeared to men who had been brought up amidst the reactionary influences dominant in England since 1793, the Reform Bill belongs not to the cla.s.s of great creative measures which have inaugurated new periods in the life of nations, but to the cla.s.s of those which, while least affecting the general order of society, have most contributed to political stability and to the avoidance of revolutionary change.

CHAPTER XVII.

France and England after 1830--Affairs of Portugal--Don Miguel--Don Pedro invades Portugal--Ferdinand of Spain--The Pragmatic Sanction--Death of Ferdinand: Regency of Christina--The Const.i.tution--Quadruple Alliance-- Miguel and Carlos expelled from Portugal--Carlos enters Spain--The Basque Provinces--Carlist War: Zumalacarregui--The Spanish Government seeks French a.s.sistance, which is refused--Const.i.tution of 1837--End of the War--Regency of Espartero--Isabella Queen--Affairs of the Ottoman Empire--Ibrahim invades Syria; his victories--Rivalry of France and Russia at Constantinople--Peace of Kutaya and Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi--Effect of this Treaty--France and Mehemet Ali--Commerce of the Levant--Second War between Mehemet and the Porte--Ottoman disasters--The Policy of the Great Powers--Quadruple Treaty without France--Ibrahim expelled from Syria--Final Settlement--Turkey after 1840--Attempted reforms of Reschid Pasha.

[France and England after 1830.]

Alliances of opinion usually cover the pursuit on one or both sides of some definite interest; and to this rule the alliance which appeared to be springing up between France and England after the changes of 1830 was no exception. In the popular view, the bond of union between the two States was a common attachment to principles of liberty; and on the part of the Whig statesmen who now governed England this sympathy with free const.i.tutional systems abroad was certainly a powerful force: but other motives than mere community of sentiment combined to draw the two Governments together, and in the case of France these immediate interests greatly outweighed any abstract preference for a const.i.tutional ally. Louis Philippe had an avowed and obstinate enemy in the Czar of Russia, who had been his predecessor's friend: the Court of Vienna tolerated usurpers only where worse mischief would follow from attacking them; Prussia had no motive for abandoning the connexions which it had maintained since 1815. As the union between the three Eastern Courts grew closer in consequence of the outbreak of revolution beyond the borders of France, a good understanding with Great Britain became more and more obviously the right policy for Louis Philippe; on the other hand, the friends.h.i.+p of France seemed likely to secure England from falling back into that isolated position which it had occupied when the Holy Alliance laid down the law to Europe, and averted the danger to which the Ottoman Empire, as well as the peace of the world, had been exposed by the combination of French with Russian schemes of aggrandizement. If Canning, left without an ally in Europe, had called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old, his Whig successors might well look with some satisfaction on that s.h.i.+fting of the weights which had brought over one of the Great Powers to the side of England, and antic.i.p.ate, in the concert of the two great Western States, the establishment of a permanent force in European politics which should hold in check the reactionary influences of Vienna and St.

Petersburg. To some extent these views were realised. A general relation of friendliness was recognised as subsisting between the Governments of Paris and London, and in certain European complications their intervention was arranged in common. But even here the element of mistrust was seldom absent; and while English Ministers jealously watched each action of their neighbour, the French Government rarely allowed the ties of an informal alliance to interfere with the prosecution of its own views. Although down to the close of Louis Philippe's reign the good understanding between England and France was still nominally in existence, all real confidence had then long vanished; and on more than one occasion the preservation of peace between the two nations had been seriously endangered.

[Affairs of Portugal, 1826-1830.]

It was in the establishment of the kingdom of Belgium that the combined action of France and England produced its first and most successful result.

A second demand was made upon the Governments of the two const.i.tutional Powers by the conflicts which agitated the Spanish Peninsula, and which were stimulated in the general interests of absolutism by both the Austrian and the Russian Court. The intervention of Canning in 1826 on behalf of the const.i.tutional Regency of Portugal against the foreign supporters of Don Miguel, the head of the clerical and reactionary party, had not permanently restored peace to that country. Miguel indeed accepted the const.i.tution, and, after betrothing himself to the infant sovereign, Donna Maria, who was still with her father Pedro, in Brazil, entered upon the Regency which his elder brother had promised to him. But his actions soon disproved the professions of loyalty to the const.i.tution which he had made; and after dissolving the Cortes, and re-a.s.sembling the mediaeval Estates, he caused himself to be proclaimed King (June, 1828). A reign of terror followed. The const.i.tutionalists were completely crushed. Miguel's own brutal violence gave an example to all the fanatics and ruffians who surrounded him; and after an unsuccessful appeal to arms, those of the adherents of Donna Maria and the const.i.tution who escaped from imprisonment or execution took refuge in England or in the Azore islands, where Miguel had not been able to establish his authority. Though Miguel was not officially recognised as Sovereign by most of the foreign Courts, his victory was everywhere seen with satisfaction by the partisans of absolutism; and in Great Britain, where the Duke of Wellington was still in power, the precedent of Canning's intervention was condemned, and a strict neutrality maintained. Not only was all a.s.sistance refused to Donna Maria, but her adherents who had taken refuge in England were prevented from making this country the basis of any operations against the usurper.

[Invasion of Portugal by Pedro. July, 1832.]

Such was the situation of Portuguese affairs when the events of 1830 brought an entirely new spirit into the foreign policy of both England and France. Miguel, however, had no inclination to adapt his own policy to the change of circ.u.mstances; on the contrary, he challenged the hostility of both governments by persisting in a series of wanton attacks upon English and French subjects resident at Lisbon. Satisfaction was demanded, and exacted by force. English and French squadrons successively appeared in the Tagus. Lord Palmerston, now Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of Earl Grey, was content with obtaining a pecuniary indemnity for his countrymen, accompanied by a public apology from the Portuguese Government: the French admiral, finding some difficulty in obtaining redress, carried off the best s.h.i.+ps of Don Miguel's navy. [396] A weightier blow was, however, soon to fall upon the usurper. His brother, the Emperor Pedro, threatened with revolution in Brazil, resolved to return to Europe and to enforce the rights of his daughter to the throne of Portugal. Pedro arrived in London in July, 1831, and was permitted by the Government to raise troops and to secure the services of some of the best naval officers of this country. The gathering place of his forces was Terceira, one of the Azore islands, and in the summer of 1832 a sufficiently strong body of troops was collected to undertake the reconquest of Portugal. A landing was made at Oporto, and this city fell into the hands of Don Pedro without resistance. Miguel, however, now marched against his brother, and laid siege to Oporto. For nearly a year no progress was made by either side; at length the arrival of volunteers from various countries, among whom was Captain Charles Napier, enabled Pedro to divide his forces and to make a new attack on Portugal from the south. Napier, in command of the fleet, annihilated the navy of Don Miguel off St. Vincent; his colleague, Villa Flor, landed and marched on Lisbon. The resistance of the enemy was overcome, and on the 28th of July, 1833, Don Pedro entered the capital. But the war was not yet at an end, for Miguel's cause was as closely identified with the interests of European absolutism as that of his brother was with const.i.tutional right, and a.s.sistance both in troops and money continued to arrive at his camp.

The struggle threatened to prove a long and obstinate one, when a new turn was given to events in the Peninsula by the death of Ferdinand, King of Spain.

[Death of Ferdinand, Sept., 1833.]

Since the restoration of absolute Government in Spain in 1823, Ferdinand, in spite of his own abject weakness and ignorance, had not given complete satisfaction to the fanatics of the clerical party. Some vestiges of statesmans.h.i.+p, some sense of political necessity, as well as the influence of foreign counsellors, had prevented the Government of Madrid from completely identifying itself with the monks and zealots who had first risen against the const.i.tution of 1820, and who now sought to establish the absolute supremacy of the Church. The Inquisition had not been restored, and this alone was enough to stamp the King as a renegade in the eyes of the ferocious and implacable champions of mediaeval bigotry. Under the name of Apostolicals, these reactionaries had at times broken into open rebellion. Their impatience had, however, on the whole been restrained by the knowledge that in the King's brother and heir, Don Carlos, they had an adherent whose devotion to the priestly cause was beyond suspicion, and who might be expected soon to ascend the throne. Ferdinand had been thrice married; he was childless; his state of health miserable; and his life likely to be a short one. The succession to the throne of Spain had moreover, since 1713, been governed by the Salic Law, so that even in the event of Ferdinand leaving female issue Don Carlos would nevertheless inherit the crown. These confident hopes were rudely disturbed by the marriage of the King with his cousin Maria Christina of Naples, followed by an edict, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, repealing the Salic Law which had been introduced with the first Bourbon, and restoring the ancient Castilian custom under which women were capable of succeeding to the crown.

A daughter, Isabella, was shortly afterwards born to the new Queen. On the legality of the Pragmatic Sanction the opinions of publicists differed; it was judged, however, by Europe at large not from the point of view of antiquarian theory, but with direct reference to its immediate effect. The three Eastern Courts emphatically condemned it, as an interference with established monarchical right, and as a blow to the cause of European absolutism through the alliance which it would almost certainly produce between the supplanters of Don Carlos and the Liberals of the Spanish Peninsula. [397] To the clerical and reactionary party at Madrid, it amounted to nothing less than a sentence of destruction, and the utmost pressure was brought to bear upon the weak and dying King with the object of inducing him to undo the alleged wrong which he had done to his brother.

In a moment of prostration Ferdinand revoked the Pragmatic Sanction; but, subsequently, regaining some degree of strength, he re-enacted it, and appointed Christina Regent during the continuance of his illness. Don Carlos, protesting against the violation of his rights, had betaken himself to Portugal, where he made common cause with Miguel. His adherents had no intention of submitting to the change of succession. Their resentment was scarcely restrained during Ferdinand's life-time, and when, in September, 1833, his long-expected death took place, and the child Isabella was declared Queen under the Regency of her mother, open rebellion broke out, and Carlos was proclaimed King in several of the northern provinces.

[The Regency and the Carlists.]

[Quadruple Treaty, April 22, 1834.]

[Miguel and Carlos removed, May, 1834.]

For the moment the forces of the Regency seemed to be far superior to those of the insurgents, and Don Carlos failed to take advantage of the first outburst of enthusiasm and to place himself at the head of his followers.

He remained in Portugal, while Christina, as had been expected, drew nearer to the Spanish Liberals, and ultimately called to power a Liberal minister, Martinez de la Rosa, under whom a const.i.tution was given to Spain by Royal Statute (April 10, 1834). At the same time negotiations were opened with Portugal and with the Western Powers, in the hope of forming an alliance which should drive both Miguel and Carlos from the Peninsula. On the 22nd of April, 1834, a Quadruple Treaty was signed at London, in which the Spanish Government undertook to send an army into Portugal against Miguel, the Court of Lisbon pledging itself in return to use all the means in its power to expel Don Carlos from Portuguese territory. England engaged to co-operate by means of its fleet. The a.s.sistance of France, if it should be deemed necessary for the attainment of the objects of the Treaty, was to be rendered in such manner as should be settled by common consent. In pursuance of the policy of the Treaty, and even before the formal engagement was signed, a Spanish division under General Rodil crossed the frontier and marched against Miguel. The forces of the usurper were defeated. The appearance of the English fleet and the publication of the Treaty of Quadruple Alliance rendered further resistance hopeless, and on the 22nd of May Miguel made his submission, and in return for a large pension renounced all rights to the crown, and undertook to quit the Peninsula for ever. Don Carlos, refusing similar conditions, went on board an English s.h.i.+p, and was conducted to London. [398]

[Carlos appears in Spain.]

With respect to Portugal, the Quadruple Alliance had completely attained its object; and in so far as the Carlist cause was strengthened by the continuance of civil war in the neighbouring country, this source of strength was no doubt withdrawn from it. But in its effect upon Don Carlos himself the action of the Quadruple Alliance was worse than useless. While fulfilling the letter of the Treaty, which stipulated for the expulsion of the two pretenders from the Peninsula, the English Admiral had removed Carlos from Portugal, where he was comparatively harmless, and had taken no effective guarantee that he should not re-appear in Spain itself and enforce his claim by arms. Carlos had not been made a prisoner of war; he had made no promises and incurred no obligations; nor could the British Government, after his arrival in this country, keep him in perpetual restraint. Quitting England after a short residence, he travelled in disguise through France, crossed the Pyrenees, and appeared on the 10th of July, 1834, at the headquarters of the Carlist insurgents in Navarre.

[The Basque Provinces.]

In the country immediately below the western Pyrenees, the so-called Basque Provinces, lay the chief strength of the Carlist rebellion. These provinces, which were among the most thriving and industrious parts of Spain, might seem by their very superiority an unlikely home for a movement which was directed against everything favourable to liberty, tolerance, and progress in the Spanish kingdom. But the identification of the Basques with the Carlist cause was due in fact to local, not to general, causes; and in fighting to impose a bigoted despot upon the Spanish people, they were in truth fighting to protect themselves from a closer incorporation with Spain. Down to the year 1812, the Basque provinces had preserved more than half of the essentials of independence. Owing to their position on the French frontier, the Spanish monarchy, while destroying all local independence in the interior of Spain, had uniformly treated the Basques with the same indulgence which the Government of Great Britain has shown to the Channel Islands, and which the French monarchy, though in a less degree, showed to the frontier province of Alsace in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The customs-frontier of the north of Spain was drawn to the south of these districts. The inhabitants imported what they pleased from France without paying any duties; while the heavy import-dues levied at the border of the neighbouring Spanish provinces gave them the opportunity of carrying on an easy and lucrative system of smuggling. The local administration remained to a great extent in the hands of the people themselves; each village preserved its active corporate life; and the effect of this survival of a vigorous local freedom was seen in the remarkable contrast described by travellers between the aspect of the Basque districts and that of Spain at large. The Fueros, or local rights, as the Basques considered them, were in reality, when viewed as part of the order of the Spanish State, a series of exceptional privileges; and it was inevitable that the framers of the Const.i.tution of 1812, in their attempt to create a modern administrative and political system doing justice to the whole of the nation, should sweep away the distinctions which had hitherto marked off one group of provinces from the rest of the community. The continuance of war until the return of Ferdinand, and the overthrow of the Const.i.tution, prevented the plans of the Cortes from being at that time carried into effect; but the revolution of 1820 brought them into actual operation, and the Basques found themselves, as a result of the victory of Liberal principles, compelled to pay duties on their imports, robbed of the profits of their smuggling, and supplanted in the management of their local affairs by an army of officials from Madrid. They had gained by the Const.i.tution little that they had not possessed before, and their losses were immediate, tangible, and substantial. The result was, that although the larger towns, like Bilbao, remained true to modern ideas, the country districts, led chiefly by priests, took up arms on behalf of the absolute monarchy, a.s.sisted the French in the restoration of despotism in 1823, and remained the permanent enemies of the const.i.tutional cause. [399] On the death of Ferdinand they declared at once for Don Carlos, and rose in rebellion against the Government of Queen Christina, by which they considered the privileges of the Basque Provinces and the interests of Catholic orthodoxy to be alike threatened.

[Carlist victories, 1834-5.]

There was little in the character of Don Carlos to stimulate the loyalty even of his most benighted partizans. Of military and political capacity he was totally dest.i.tute, and his continued absence in Portugal when the conflict had actually begun proved him to be wanting in the natural impulses of a brave man. It was, however, his fortune to be served by a soldier of extraordinary energy and skill; and the first reverses of the Carlists were speedily repaired, and a system of warfare organised which made an end of the hopes of easy conquest with which the Government of Christina had met the insurrection. Fighting in a worthless cause, and commanding resources scarcely superior to those of a brigand chief, the Carlist leader, Zumalacarregui, inflicted defeat after defeat upon the generals who were sent to destroy him. The mountainous character of the country and the universal hostility of the inhabitants made the exertions of a regular soldiery useless against the alternate flights and surprises of men who knew every mountain track, and who gained information of the enemy's movements from every cottager. Terror was added by Zumalacarregui to all his other methods for demoralising his adversary. In the exercise of reprisals he repeatedly murdered all his prisoners in cold blood, and gave to the war so savage a character that foreign Governments at last felt compelled to urge upon the belligerents some regard for the usages of the civilised world. The appearance of Don Carlos himself in the summer of 1834 raised still higher the confidence already inspired by the victories of his general. It was in vain that the old const.i.tutionalist soldier, Mina, who had won so great a name in these provinces in 1823, returned after long exile to the scene of his exploits. Enfeebled and suffering, he was no longer able to place himself at the head of his troops, and he soon sought to be relieved from a hopeless task. His successor, the War Minister Valdes, took the field announcing his determination to act upon a new system, and to operate with his troops in ma.s.s instead of pursuing the enemy's bands with detachments. The result of this change of tactics was a defeat more ruinous and complete than had befallen any of Valdes'

predecessors. He with difficulty withdrew the remainder of his army from the insurgent provinces; and the Carlist leader master of the open country up to the borders of Castile, prepared to cross the Ebro and to march upon Madrid. [400]

[Request to France for a.s.sistance, May, 1835.]

The Ministers of Queen Christina, who had up till this time professed themselves confident in their power to deal with the insurrection, could now no longer conceal the real state of affairs. Valdes himself declared that the rebellion could not be subdued without foreign aid; and after prolonged discussion in the Cabinet it was determined to appeal to France for armed a.s.sistance. The flight of Don Carlos from England had already caused an additional article to be added to the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance, in which France undertook so to watch the frontier of the Pyrenees that no reinforcements or munition of war should reach the Carlists from that side, while England promised to supply the troops of Queen Christina with arms and stores, and, if necessary, to render a.s.sistance with a naval force (18th August, 1834). The foreign supplies sent to the Carlists had thus been cut off both by land and sea; but more active a.s.sistance seemed indispensable if Madrid was to be saved from falling into the enemy's hands. The request was made to Louis Philippe's Government to occupy the Basque Provinces with a corps of twelve thousand men. Reasons of weight might be addressed to the French Court in favour of direct intervention. The victory of Don Carlos would place upon the throne of Spain a representative of all those reactionary influences throughout Europe which were in secret or in open hostility to the House of Orleans, and definitely mark the failure of that policy which had led France to combine with England in expelling Don Miguel from Portugal. On the other hand, the experience gained from earlier military enterprises in Spain might well deter even bolder politicians than those about Louis Philippe from venturing upon a task whose ultimate issues no man could confidently forecast. Napoleon had wrecked his empire in the struggle beyond the Pyrenees not less than in the march to Moscow: and the expedition of 1823, though free from military difficulties, had exposed France to the humiliating responsibility for every brutal act of a despotism which, in the very moment of its restoration, had scorned the advice of its restorers. The const.i.tutional Government which invoked French a.s.sistance might, moreover, at any moment give place to a democratic faction which already hara.s.sed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with the populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw Spain into anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened const.i.tution of 1812. But above all, the att.i.tude of the three Eastern Powers bade the ruler of France hesitate before committing himself to a military occupation of Spanish territory.

Their sympathies were with Don Carlos, and the active partic.i.p.ation of France in the quarrel might possibly call their opposing forces into the field and provoke a general war. In view of the evident dangers arising out of the proposed intervention, the French Government, taking its stand on that clause of the Quadruple Treaty which provided that the a.s.sistance of France should be rendered in such manner as might be agreed upon by all the parties to the Treaty, addressed itself to Great Britain, inquiring whether this country would undertake a joint responsibility in the enterprise and share with France the consequences to which it might give birth. Lord Palmerston in reply declined to give the a.s.surance required. He stated that no objection would be raised by the British Government to the entry of French troops into Spain, but that such intervention must be regarded as the work of France alone, and be undertaken by France at its own peril.

This answer sufficed for Louis Philippe and his Ministers. The Spanish Government was informed that the grant of military a.s.sistance was impossible, and that the entire public opinion of France would condemn so dangerous an undertaking. As a proof of goodwill, permission was given to Queen Christina to enrol volunteers both in England and France. Arms were supplied; and some thousands of needy or adventurous men ultimately made their way from our own country as well as from France, to earn under Colonel De Lacy Evans and other leaders a scanty harvest of profit or renown.

[Continuance of the war.]

The first result of the rejection of the Spanish demand for the direct intervention of France was the downfall of the Minister by whom this demand had been made. His successor, Toreno, though a well-known patriot, proved unable to stem the tide of revolution that was breaking over the country.

City after city set up its own Junta, and acted as if the central government had ceased to exist. Again the appeal for help was made to Louis Philippe, and now, not so much to avert the victory of Don Carlos as to save Spain from anarchy and from the const.i.tution of 1812. Before an answer could arrive, Toreno in his turn had pa.s.sed away. Mendizabal, a banker who had been entrusted with financial business at London, and who had entered into friendly relations with Lord Palmerston, was called to office, as a politician acceptable to the democratic party, and the advocate of a close connection with England rather than with France. In spite of the confident professions of the Minister, and in spite of some a.s.sistance actually rendered by the English fleet, no real progress was made in subduing the Carlists, or in restoring administrative and financial order. The death of Zumalacarregui, who was forced by Don Carlos to turn northwards and besiege Bilbao instead of marching upon Madrid immediately after his victories, had checked the progress of the rebellion at a critical moment; but the Government, distracted and bankrupt, could not use the opportunity which thus offered itself, and the war soon blazed out anew not only in the Basque Provinces but throughout the north of Spain. For year after year the monotonous struggle continued, while Cortes succeeded Cortes and faction supplanted faction, until there remained scarcely an officer who had not lost his reputation or a politician who was not useless and discredited.

[Const.i.tution of 1837.]

[End of the war, Sept., 1839.]