terrible 1848 with its barricades, and mobs, and street-firing, soon put an end to that delusion, and the poor King of Prussia, who, but a few months before, had been dreaming of a constitutional government, after the fashion of the middle ages, might have been seen riding about the streets of Berlin, and fraternising with the mob, pretty much in the same way as Louis XVI. had done before him with the Poissardes and Sans-culottes of Paris, after he had been dragged away from Versailles. The meeting of the Frankfort Parliament followed. There was a time when, despite of all his mistakes, and all his humiliations, Frederick-William might, to all appearance at the time, have been the ruler of a free and united Germany; but he had neither the resolution, nor the ability,—not even the wish—to seize time by the forelock at so critical a moment. Called upon to make his choice between the princes and the nations, Frederick William deliberately made his election to remain true to his own order, and to defeat the liberal movement in Germany. He would not consent to be the nominee of his people unless the choice was ratified by the assent of the princes, and it was not very probable that they could be induced to endorse their own degradation. Frederick William gained for them that which was all-important for them as matters stood—time. Windischgratz and Felix Schwarzenberg were not men to lose so golden an opportunity; and the revolution was defeated in the south of Germany, whilst Frederick-William was talking fustian and prating about Schleswig-Holstein in the north, to the grief and astonishment of his own subjects and of Europe. The various States gravitated back to their former condition of subjection to the old despotisms, and of freedom in Germany there was an end for another twenty years. It would be idle here to do more than allude to the closing acts of his reign. Prussia was humbled to the dust before the arms of Austria in the affair of Hesse Cassel. She was made the laughing-stock of Europe on the question of Neuchâtel. The King had thought and energy to spare for the foundation of a bishopric at Jerusalem; but when he was called upon to bear a decisive part in that great struggle of the nations, which was finally played out in the Crimea, he was again found wanting to the occasion. It is now notorious enough that had he heartily united in counsel with England and France, that dreadful contest might have been averted, and with it the humiliation of Russia. As far as his Russian friends were concerned, he might in all probability have saved the Emperor Nicholas from a premature death, and the legions of Russia from annihilation.
The military power of Russia for aggressive purposes was broken for one generation at least; and who can tell how much of that internal agitation, which is now fermenting throughout Russia, is not due to the fact that the great military machine was thrown completely out of gear by the results of the Crimean war? That was the way in which Frederick William served those whom he wished to serve; but he generally contrived to order his affairs with such dexterity, that he inflicted the utmost possible amount of injury upon everybody, combining this happy result with the deepest humiliation of his own nation. The worst feature in his moral character was the inveteracy with which he united with the retrograde party in hunting to death the unfortunate liberals on the Upper Rhine, when the revolution had been suppressed—that party, of which, but a short time before, he himself had been the chief!
On the whole, when we look to their history since 1815, a European Liberal may well be pardoned if he doubts whether the Germans are fit for political liberty. Italy, enslaved as she has been for centuries, will in all likelihood be free before the country which so long oppressed her has shaken off the masquerades of the middle ages, and the dreams of the professorial chairs. Had the people been ripe for freedom, it is impossible that two such golden opportunities as 1830 and 1848 could have been so wholly thrown away as they have been in Germany. The Belgians and the Sardinians have put the Germans to shame; the Hollanders we always knew to be a more practical and efficient race. At the present moment, from the Rhine to the Russian frontiers—from the Baltic to the Alps—there is not a vestige of freedom to be found. The Prussians in particular, with some miserable show of constitutional government, are known to be ground down by the police, who trample under foot at their own arbitrary pleasure all guarantees for liberty and property.
In Saxony, again, it was but the other day so foul an aggression was perpetrated upon the person of a Hungarian refugee that a simultaneous cry of indignation was uttered by all civilised nations save those who speak in the German tongue. Even the Austrian Emperor shrank from concluding the foul business in which the King of Saxony had borne part. Such things are done, and the Germans have tolerated them now for well-nigh half a century—can the Liberals of Europe look at them otherwise than with despair?
What the coming spring may bring with it we know not; but it would be much to say that the nations have been reassured by the few words spoken by the French Emperor at Paris to the diplomatic body on New Year’s Day now just past. Louis Napoleon looks forward to the maintenance of peace in consequence of the perfect agreement and harmony which reign among the sovereigns of Europe. The contrary is notoriously the case. Never since the fall of the first Napoleon was Europe more signally divided into two camps. Never did what Prince Metternich used to call “a war of ideas” appear to be more imminent. It is utterly impossible at the present period of the world’s history that Austria can renew the scenes of carnage and oppression in Hungary and Lombardy which marked the resumption of her dominion in those provinces after the last great revolutionary struggle. Nor is there anything to denote that the Emperor and his advisers have abandoned the traditional policy of the House of Hapsburgh. Such being the case, we rather hope for a peaceful year than expect it.
For the moment, however, we are content to adjourn all our anxieties about the future destinies of Europe. Let the shadows—even the shadows which warn us of coming events—be shadows, for
