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by the Empress, came to Windsor, in the course of the Crimean War, and was invested with the Garter; in August, the Queen and Prince Albert paid an equally successful visit to Paris. 'It is not only a Union of the two Governments-the two Sovereigns-it is that of the two Nations' (Letters,' III, 175). The policy of Napoleon III was, however, to cause great anxiety before many years had elapsed. In the peace negotiations of 1856, he seemed to the Queen to show too tender a regard for Russia; and in the years which followed the Crimean War, the increase of French armaments created an alarm similar to that which in recent years was inspired by Germany.

During this period, Queen Victoria, by letter and by frequent personal intercourse, exerted herself to maintain both peace and alliance with France, while frankly expressing her dislike of existing French policy. In 1859, she disapproved of Napoleon's giving aid to the King of Sardinia in the attempt to bring about the unification of Italy. Her attitude on this question is an exception to the late Lord Salisbury's remark that she always represented the feeling of the nation, but her reasons are clear and intelligible. She pictured Louis Napoleon as triumphant over Austria first and then Prussia and Germany, and, as the master of the Continent, challenging Great Britain; but her attitude was not determined by such fears or by the marriage of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick of Prussia. She had made up her mind on the question at a time when she thought of Prussia as the country of all others which the rest of Germany dislikes,' and could not understand Stockmar's ove for it. She had a genuine horror of war, and had Deen taught to regard the Treaty of Paris as sacrosanct. In 1848, she had protested to Lord John Russell that it was the boast of this country 'to stand by treaties,' and eclared that the establishment of an entente cordiale with the French Republic, for the purpose of driving he Austrians out of their dominions in Italy, would be disgrace to this country.'

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In 1859, she described the action of Louis Napoleon is 'making war on Austria in order to wrest her two talian kingdoms from her, which were assured to her by the treaties of 1815, to which England is a party.'

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The long friendship of the House of Hanover with the House of Hapsburg may have influenced her sympathies; and she certainly distrusted the disinterestedness of the Emperor of the French. The conduct of France as regards Italy,' she reminded Lord John Russell, after the Peace of Villafranca, 'shows how little the Emperor Napoleon cared for, or thought of, its independence when he undertook this war' ('Letters,' III, 458). Nevertheless, a few months later, she wrote him a most cordial letter with good wishes for the coming year (1860), and in the course of that year she received the Empress Eugenie at Osborne.

In the years which elapsed between the death of the Prince Consort in 1861 and the outbreak of the FrancoPrussian war in 1870, the relations between Great Britain and France were disturbed by a general distrust of the policy and aims of the Emperor Napoleon. In these suspicions the Queen shared; in 1863 she addressed to him a solemn warning against any attempt to annex the left bank of the Rhine; and in 1867 she took steps to prevent an outbreak of war over the question of Luxemburg. But, meanwhile, she had come not less seriously to distrust the policy of Prussia and the ambition of Bismarck, who had long been a bitter opponent of those whom he used to describe as 'the Coburg gang.' It is often said that Queen Victoria kept this country neutral in the Danish war of 1864, but the ultimate responsibility rested with her Ministers, who encouraged Denmark and threatened Austria and Prussia and, when it came to the point, agreed to remain neutral The Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, accepted the responsibility, declaring that on every occasion the Queen had 'most willingly followed' the advice of her Ministers, and defended the policy of the Cabinet on the reasonable grounds that, though Denmark had suffered many wrongs, she herself had not been without fault and had declined to accept a compromise; that, in view of the declared neutrality of France and Russia, the whole brunt of the fighting would have fallen upon Great Britain; and that the Government did not believe that the nation desired a general war in Europe in the name of peace.'

Whatever the Queen's views were when the controversy first became acute, the policy adopted by Prussia and Austria aroused her indignation. In May 1864, General Grey told Lord Granville that the Queen had almost quarrelled with the Crown Princess by deprecating the violent counsels Prussia seemed disposed to pursue.† In June, Lord Clarendon wrote to the Queen pointing out that

assurance

too much stress in Parliament must not be laid upon any given by Prussia, as there exists a deep and well founded distrust (in which Lord C. shares) of M. de Bismarck, and great fear that he will consent to no arrangement unless he thinks that it can be turned to account for bettering his own position at home. Lord Clarendon ventures to think that, in writing to the Princess Royal, Your Majesty might perhaps inculcate the desirableness of moderation on the part of the King as a response to the pacific policy of Your Majesty's Government.'

The Queen sent a copy of Lord Clarendon's letter to the Princess, who replied from Potsdam on July 2, 1864, arging the German case :

'That England should persist in turning the question apside down-and in thinking that big Prussia wishes to eat ap little Denmark-is very lamentable. That the bad Government we have been so long suffering under here in Prussia should have done much to complicate the case and to nislead public opinion in England as to the aims and cause of the war is sad enough. But to submit a second time ‡ to Lave conditions of an unjust and shameful peace dictated to is, in order to prevent public feeling in England driving the ountry to war with us, would be a crime which we would ot a second time be guilty of, and the first commission of which has sown the fruits of endless confusions and difficulties which we are now reaping. What the calamity of a war with England would be, no one knows better than I, who lie wake half the night thinking of all the dreadful consequences ith horror. But I would not have Prussia go one step aside om the right road in order to avoid it.' *

The Queen showed her daughter's letter to Lord

+ 'Life of Lord Granville,' 1, 467.

The reference is to the Treaty of 1852.

Clarendon, and in sending her his reply, took the opportunity of giving some counsels of moderation:

'Let Prussia, who is master of the position, be magnanimous. She can be so now so easily; she has obtained all Germany wished, viz. the severance of the Duchies from Denmark and their release from a yoke which had become so hateful to them. Let Prussia also show that she does not mean to keep them for herself and all will come right.' *

The use made by Prussia and Austria of their victory, and the seizure of territory to which they had no plausible claim of any sort, led the British Prime Minister to denounce the war as a war of aggression. The Queen was in full agreement with her Cabinet in condemning the terms of peace, and she went so far as to desire that the King of Prussia should be informed of her views:

'Her Majesty thinks that Prussia should at least be made aware of what she and her Government, and every honest man in Europe must think of the gross and unblushing violation of every assurance and pledge that she had given, which Prussia has been guilty of.' †

Two years later, the Queen contemplated the possibility of interfering 'by force against Prussian designs in the Duchies' ('Life of Lord Clarendon,' II, 311); and her distrust of Bismarck increased as time went on. When the Franco-German war broke out, opinion in this country was at first strongly pro-German. The Queen, like other onlookers, was at the outset shocked by the apparent recklessness with which the French had invited a European war, but she did not attach to the Benedetti Treaty the importance which was generally attributed to it when Bismarck first revealed it. In spite of the alarm which any suggestion of an attack upon Belgium naturally aroused in her, she believed, so early as the beginning of August 1870, that Bismarck was equally guilty with the French diplomatist ('Life of Lord Granville,' II, 40). In September, she made her famous appeal to the King of Prussia, on behalf of France:

'In the name of our friendship and in the interests of humanity, I express the hope that you may be able so to

† General Grey to Lord Granville, Aug. 25, 1864, Life of Lord Granville,' 1, 476.

shape your conditions of peace for the vanquished, that they may be able to accept them. Your name will stand yet higher if, at the head of your victorious army, you now resolve to make peace in a generous spirit' ('Life of Lord Granville,' II, 45).

King William's reply was a polite refusal. He must, he said, 'place in the first line the protection of Germany against the next attack of France, which no generosity will stop.' The Queen's telegram convinced Bismarck that she was not pro-German; he jeered at the Crown Prince for describing her as friendly; and in 1887 he told Busch that her sympathies and those of her Court had Deen with the French.t The events of the siege of Paris ncreased her horror of Prussian methods of war and policy; and the influence of Great Britain was exerted, with some success, to procure a mitigation of the terms imposed by Germany upon France. 1871, a conversation with the Crown Prince confirmed In the

the Queen's attitude:

July 31, 1871. Talked with good Fritz about the war. He is so fair and kind and good, and has the intensest Iriving power, but was bad, unprincipled, and all-powerful; 10rror of Bismarck, says he is no doubt energetic and had le is in fact the Emperor, which Fritz's father does not like, ut still does not seem to be able to prevent. As for the Treaty which he published, said to be proposed by Benedetti, Fritz said that it was quite as much Bismarck's doing as that if the Emperor Napoleon; that he felt they lived on the dge of a volcano, and that he should not be surprised if

Bismarck some

ustifies what many people here have said.'*

day tried to make war on England!

This

In 1874 and 1875, Queen Victoria again intervened on ehalf of France. Bismarck was minded to strike again efore France had reorganised her forces or secured an lly. In October 1874, the Emperor William I addressed

At that time I was pro

'As to the sympathies of the Royal Family, I may mention the llowing circumstance. Towards the end of the year 1870, I was asked lbany. The conversation was upon the war. Buckingham Palace to dine with Prince Leopold, afterwards Duke of erman, and adverse to the French. But the Prince said, "You will find Done in this house, not one of us, that shares your opinion. We are all as for the French."-Dr J. Wickham Legg, in the Yorkshire Post,'

ept, 17, 1918.

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