Twenty Years in Europe. S. H. M. Byers
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he had added; the pretzels were free. “Gute Nacht, meine Herren, und baldiges Wiedersehen,” called out the little waitress, as they would again shake hands and go out into the fog and darkness. For years that little waiting-girl lighted the lamp over the table, served us the beer, and found a half-franc piece under one of the empty glasses. She knew what it was for. Had she been a shorthand reporter, she could have stopped passing beer long ago, and the Orsini Café might have been her own.
CHAPTER III
1870
IN THE ORSINI CAFE--GREAT NEWS FROM FRANCE--WHAT THE EXILES THINK--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--I GET PERMISSION TO GO AND LOOK AT THE WAR--IN THE SNOW OF THE JURAS--ARRESTED--THE SURRENDER OF THE 80,000--ZURICH IN THE HANDS OF A MOB--A FRIENDLY HINT.
August 15, 1870.--At six in the evening of this day I was sitting with these other friends in the little corner of the Orsini, when a boy called out:
“Great news from France!”
Yesterday (August 14, 1870) was a day to be forever remembered in history, the day that was to begin the foundation of the German Empire. Louis Napoleon had declared war against Prussia. The news came into our little corner of the Orsini like a clap of thunder--but the exiles around that table went right on drinking beer. Pretty soon, grave Johannes Scherr, the historian, spoke: “It is good-by to Napoleon’s crown, that.” “They don’t know Bismarck in Paris yet,” said Beust. Beust did not like Bismarck very much either. “And what can we do?” said another. “Nothing,” replied Brentano. “Look on. We are exiles.” They all loved Germany.
Twenty years they had been waiting in Switzerland, to see what would happen. A new war tocsin was now really sounding. One empire was dying--great, new Germany was about at its birth. Almost that very night the strongest-souled, most dangerous man in modern times was playing his cards for empire. Even then, in a little German town, Bismarck was manipulating telegrams, deceiving the people, “firing the German heart,” deceiving his own Emperor, even. That was diplomacy. A hundred thousand men were about to die! What of it? Get ready, said the man of blood, dig their graves. The hour for Prussian vengeance on the name of Napoleon had arrived. “We are ready for war, to the last shoe-buckle,” wrote the French war minister to Louis Napoleon. Bismarck knew that to be a lie. His spies and ambassadors in Paris had not spent their time simply sipping wine on the boulevards. They had been seeing things, and he knew ten times more about the shoe-buckles of the French army than the French themselves did.
The next morning (August 16) things sounded strange enough to American ears in Zurich. A trumpeter rode through every street, blowing his bugle blasts between his cries for every German in Zurich to go home and fight for fatherland. But the exiles were not included and the little meetings in the Orsini went on. Then came a note from Napoleon to the Swiss government: “Can you defend your neutrality?” If not, he would instantly surprise Bismarck and Von Moltke by overrunning Switzerland and suddenly pour his armies all over South Germany. Then the Rhine would be behind him, not in front.
Switzerland saw her own danger. Permit this once, and her name would be wiped from the map of Europe. She knew that. A few days’ hesitancy and, for her, all would have been lost. That night at midnight the Swiss drums beat in every valley of the Alps. Twenty-three thousand men, with a hundred cannon, were thrown into the fastnesses and passes of the Jura Mountains, on the French frontier, inside of three days. That was the answer to Napoleon’s note, and it changed the destinies of the war. That prompt deed of the Swiss made the German Empire. Had the French army got possession of the Alpine passes once, and the Rhine, they would have taken Berlin. The backbone of the German minister at London was what brought on the war at last. England had proposed to join France in requesting the King of Prussia to promise that no German prince should aspire to the Spanish throne. The German minister at St. James indignantly declined to even report the British suggestion to his government. Had he reported England’s wishes, Bismarck, possibly, fearing two against him now instead of one, would have given that one little promise, and then the war would not have taken place.
The Americans had the war news by cable almost as soon as the Swiss, who were in sound of the guns.
Shortly I received a little note from General Sherman:
“Washington, D. C., Aug. 19, 1870.
“Dear Byers: Consul H. did not hand me your letter of May 1 st until to-day, else it should have been answered earlier. I was very glad to see that your health was improved by the change of climate and country, and that you had entered on your new career with zeal and interest. So interesting a country as Switzerland, topographically and historically, cannot but prove of inestimable value to you, in whatever after career you may engage, and I feel certain that you will profit by the opportunity.
“At this moment we are all on tiptoe of expectation to hear of the first events of the war begun between France and Prussia. The cause assigned for this war seems to us in this distance so trivial that we take it to be a mere pretext, and that the real cause must lie in the deeper feelings of the two countries. You are so near and so deeply concerned in the lines of traffic that must cross the paths of the contending armies that you cannot escape the consequences. Many Americans will go abroad to see these armies, and as much of the war as will be permitted them, and it may be that you will see at Zurich some of our soldiers. General Sheridan proposes to start at once, and one of my aids, Colonel Audenreid, begs to go along. If Sheridan wishes it I will let Audenreid go, and I will remind him that you are at Zurich, and he may drop in on you, and you can talk over events. You will remember him as one of my aids at Columbia, S. C.
“Always wishing you honor and success, I am truly your friend,
W. T. Sherman.”
With almost unbroken success for the Prussians, the dreadful war went on all that autumn. The Swiss were neutral and their sympathies were divided, or, if one-sided, they were with the Germans; at least, until that terrible Sedan day, when the Emperor himself fell a prisoner. Then Bismarck wanted more. It was Paris, and French humiliation, he wanted. He had tasted blood, and was he never to have enough? The war went on into the cold and storm of winter. Troops were nearly freezing to death in both armies in the east of France, and half the Swiss people were changing their minds. France was down, and Bismarck must not play the monster.
December, 1870.--I had been a soldier four years in our own great war, and was anxious to see European armies on a battlefield. The commander of the Swiss troops gave me a letter to the leader of the German army next the frontier, and got me passes. It was midwinter, and fearfully cold, and the snow was two feet to three feet deep when I went into the camp of the Swiss, away up in the Jura Mountains. None but well-clad, well-fed men could stand guarding the passes in such weather. What must the French army be doing, not far away, in their worn-out shoes and ragged overcoats? The German army lay not far from Montbeliard, when one cold evening I passed the frontier, and on foot, in the snow, wended my way to a deserted French hamlet. The village just beyond was occupied by a squadron of German Uhlans. Now all was new to me. Not far away that evening I heard the constant thundering of the cannon at Belfort. At the place where I stayed, an attack by the French could be expected any moment in the night. Shortly I saw captains of Uhlans ride to every house in the village and put a chalk-mark on the door, designating what companies were to take it for quarters. There was no room left anywhere, and one could freeze out of doors, unless hugging a camp-fire. An officer of Uhlans took me in and shared his bed on the floor of a cabin. We had a cup of coffee, a glass of brandy and some rations. Nobody knew that night what would happen out in the snow before morning. Next day I could get no horse; but if I could get to General Manteuffel at the next village, I would be all right. On I trudged afoot, but the advanced pickets outside the village could not read my French papers. They fearing me to be a French spy, I was arrested and jogged about very unceremoniously. The General was out somewhere with the troops, and it was hours before I was released. All this time I was kept