On the way to the Berlin Congress or the Crimean phantom of Alexander II
From Alexander's triumph to Alexander's defeat
We continue the series of conversations dedicated to the Berlin Congress and its prehistory. Today – about the phantoms of Alexander II and his diplomats: Petersburg was forced to deconstruct the San Stefano peace in Berlin under the alleged threat of a repeat of the Crimean scenario.
Let's talk about the reasons, on the one hand, for the appearance of the phantom, and on the other hand, about why a new war in the period under consideration was impossible not only between Russia and someone else, but in Europe in general. Perhaps the exception, in my opinion, could be a local Italian-Austrian conflict.
Fears of a repeat of the Crimean scenario are the verdict of Russian diplomacy, indicating that the peak of St. Petersburg's influence in the international arena, achieved by Catherine II and during the first part of her eldest grandson's reign, is behind us.
A.M. Gorchakov. In 1878 it was quite appropriate to say about him: Sic transit gloria mundi
The outstanding thinker V. L. Tsymbursky defined the Alexandrovsky triumph as the first geostrategic maximum of Russia in Europe. The second was the Yalta-Potsdam system.
The first one was demolished in 1853. However, a repeat of the events of a quarter of a century ago in 1878 was not possible: I repeat, there was no one to fight with Russia.
Versailles in the shadow of the coalition
France? Defeated by the Prussians, it saw in St. Petersburg the only guarantor of independence and was preparing for revenge, trying not to irritate potential, in the long term, Russian allies who had succumbed to the provocation of 1875 organized by French diplomacy.
Then the Elysee Palace managed to convince the Winter Palace of the threat from Berlin to the sovereignty of the Third Republic. And there was no need to convince, given the Francophile views of A. M. Gorchakov. It was not for nothing that he was rebuked by Bismarck:
You treat us not as a friendly power, but as a servant who does not appear quickly enough when called.
A reproach that testifies not to the grievances of the “iron chancellor,” but to Gorchakov’s insufficient understanding of the new political realities—is this not an indicator of the increasingly progressive crisis of Russian diplomacy, and of the ruling class as a whole?
In general, if our country's second geostrategic maximum was still ahead - I will note in passing: its architect, I. V. Stalin, was born in the year of the Berlin Congress - then the French one, achieved under Napoleon, remained in the past. After the fall of the Second Empire, France played on the European stage only as part of coalitions.
A separate topic is the French army of the period under consideration, in which, according to historian S. Yudin, 70% of the generals did not sympathize with republican ideas, and the first Bonapartist conspiracy arose among officers already in 1874, a year before the “Military alarm”.
So Paris, whose pavements still remembered the tread of Prussian soldiers, considered it important not only to restore the army, but also to maintain its loyalty.
In such a situation, the French could have only one slogan: let there be no war in the next twenty years.
And yes, since we mentioned the War Alarm: of course, Germany was not planning any new attack, since it was not going to construct an anti-German coalition of England, Austria and Russia with its own hands. Just imagine Bismarck dragging the Second Reich into a ring of strategic encirclement.
The English Bickford fuse under the powder keg of Europe
In reality, Berlin, according to the "iron chancellor", claimed the role of guardian of European peace. Another thing is that this did not cause sympathy in either St. Petersburg or London. The former had recently seen itself in such a status.
The second one is the same, but in a very peculiar way: through the policy of brilliant isolation and the financing of revolutions. Why?
In my opinion, the correct answer was given by military historian S. Makhov:
By the 1820s, Britain had become a leader in technical and industrial development. Initially, it was busy saturating its domestic market with manufactured goods, then its colonies, and then trade expansion into European countries was to begin. But here's the problem - the Europeans were also trying to develop their industry and for this purpose they introduced protectionist tariffs designed to protect their own industry from British producers. And this threatened to result in a crisis of overproduction for England.
The solution was simple – export of revolutions. The old government is overthrown, the new one proclaims its commitment to liberal values and free market, tariffs and duties are cancelled, and British goods are poured into the new market. Even if the revolution fails, there is in any case a decline in industrial development, expenses on preventing social tension, the army, etc., that is, a potential weakening of the competitor. Following the revolutions, British capital and British goods followed into Europe.
The solution was simple – export of revolutions. The old government is overthrown, the new one proclaims its commitment to liberal values and free market, tariffs and duties are cancelled, and British goods are poured into the new market. Even if the revolution fails, there is in any case a decline in industrial development, expenses on preventing social tension, the army, etc., that is, a potential weakening of the competitor. Following the revolutions, British capital and British goods followed into Europe.
That is, in London they tried to conduct a European concert at arm's length and in an outwardly detached manner. And note: revolutions shook Europe, but bypassed Foggy Albion and Russia.
The latter is an agrarian country, and the revolutions stirred up the cities with their excess, passionate young population due to the demographic boom – and specifically in the cities.
Rapid demographic growth is often accompanied by problems with employment of young people and accumulation of their already rebellious energy, which the gentlemen directed in the direction they needed.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with our topic? Directly. Revolution is identical to the breakdown of the financial system, and if we are talking about war, then perhaps only a small and victorious one, like the one started by Napoleon III against Austria in 1859.
Franz Joseph's Nightmares
Regarding the latter, there was still a generation alive that, one must assume, had nightmares about the collapse of the empire saved by Nicholas I.
By the way, to the naive question: “Why did the Tsar save her at all?” you will rarely find a non-naive answer: due to the anti-Russian position initially taken by the Hungarians, as well as the threat of a repeat of the Polish uprising, only jointly with the Hungarian one, and the subsequent inevitable drawing of Russia into a bloody conflict.
And it is difficult to imagine what would have arisen there on the smoldering ruins of the Habsburg monarchy – I will note in passing that simultaneously with the Hungarian uprising, the Romanians attempted to start a revolution in Iasi – given Austria’s possession of part of the Balkans, with their bloody tangle of centuries-old conflicts that did not fail to flare up after the “brothers” gained independence.
And in the event of the victory of the Hungarian uprising and the collapse of the Austrian Empire, this could have happened earlier. But the same Serbs crushed the rebellious Magyars together with the Austrians, although they initially supported the uprising, but, being part of Hungary, asked for some rights and freedoms for themselves. And they were refused.
Accordingly, by saving Franz Joseph, Nicholas I protected the western borders and regions of his empire from upheavals.
Franz Joseph. In 1878 he had no time for war.
And the "ungrateful" Habsburg allegedly intended to threaten us with war after some five years? Boring. I mean, it is boring to turn to economic realities when we are talking about dizzying geopolitical plans: why take into account that any revolution is, first of all, a financial shock. Vienna experienced them in full.
Against this background, the discussions about the Austrians' readiness to join the anti-Russian coalition during the Crimean War sound strange. The finance minister, who was patching up the patchwork budget of a patchwork empire, would have quickly dissuaded the emperor from even thinking about it.
But Franz Joseph could not take a pro-Russian position, which the Tsar demanded. Ungrateful? Of course not. To answer this, we recall, for example, The Gadfly and look towards Foggy Albion, pondering the topic: where did the Italian rebels, who did not want to vegetate under the Austrian yoke, get the money and weapon?
I would suggest that in some sense the reluctance to enter into conflict with England prevented Vienna from taking a pro-Russian position in 1854.
In general, it was St. Petersburg that spoiled relations with Vienna, and not the other way around. And here I agree with S. Makhov:
Franz Joseph began to understand that Russia, after helping Hungary, was treating Austria as a protectorate. It became clear that following in the wake of Russian policy at this point would be simply fatal for the Austrian Empire.
The subsequent defeats in the wars with France and Prussia almost reduced the Habsburg monarchy to the second league of the European concert and only further aggravated the financial crisis in its vastness. It was Bismarck who dusted off Franz Joseph's white uniform: he needed Austria-Hungary to maintain the balance of interests in Europe.
In short, Vienna had no time for war. Its finance minister, K. von Bruck, was desperately trying to improve the situation in the sphere entrusted to him. In 1855, he carried out a financial reform.
It included three elements. The first was the repayment of the state debt of 155 million guilders using the assets of the National Bank. The second was the creation of a mortgage department at the National Bank, which dealt with agricultural lending. The third was the creation of a large private bank for lending to industry and trade,
– writes historian M.S. Chernov.It is not difficult to imagine Brooke's reaction if his monarch had only hinted at the possibility of war at the very moment when the minister was putting his finances in order. Incidentally, I.Kh. Reitern reacted harshly to Alexander II's desire to start a war with the Turks.
It is noteworthy that in 1878 the financial system of the dual monarchy stabilized after the stock market crisis that had shaken it five years earlier. And in this situation, to take and collapse the guilder? And a war with unpredictable consequences would have collapsed it.
I will cite another interesting nuance noted by Major General A. A. Svechin when analyzing the actions of the parties during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866:
Hungary was ready to revolt when the Prussian armies entered its territory.
Not much time has passed since then for Magyar separatism not to make itself known again in the event of failures of the Austrian army during a hypothetical war with Russia, which Alexander II should have taken into account.
In the end, I believe, the relevant information was provided to him by the General Staff, the head of its intelligence unit was Colonel P.D. Parensov, a professional who had distinguished himself well in the Russo-Turkish War.
Another nuance that made an armed confrontation between Austria and Russia impossible: the "Iron Chancellor" was against it, "interested in preserving," notes G. Kissinger, "the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For the collapse of the dualistic monarchy carried the risk of destroying the entire Bismarckian policy in Germany. The German-speaking Catholics of the empire would then want to join Germany, which would threaten the dominance of Protestant Prussia, for which Bismarck had fought so hard. And the collapse of the Austrian Empire would deprive Germany of its only reliable ally. On the other hand, although Bismarck wanted to preserve Austria, he had no desire to challenge Russia. He skillfully pushed this puzzle into the background for several decades, but was never able to resolve it."
Moreover, the head of the foreign policy department of the dual monarchy, Count D. Andrassy, came to the Berlin Congress with a baggage of unresolved territorial disputes with Italy, which was born at an inopportune time for Austria, even four years after the signing of the treaty, when the Triple Alliance arose.
In general, in 1878, Franz Joseph had no time for wars. His diplomacy faced a different task: preventing the strengthening of Russia's influence in the Balkans, while strengthening his own positions there through political combinations.
London without coalitions
Great Britain? The weakness of its land army was demonstrated by the Crimean War, won by the French Zouaves who took Malakhov Kurgan.
The painful adventures of British soldiers in the Crimea and the low level of their command - and what is surprising about this given the existence of a patent for the purchase of officer positions, which was only cancelled by E. Cardwell in the 1870s? - need to be discussed separately. It is not for nothing that the English public began to talk about the need for reforms in the army precisely after the Crimean War: Lord D. Cardigan, who destroyed the Light Brigade near Balaklava, bought an officer position.
During the period in question, Her Majesty's troops, fit only for colonial wars, having barely defeated the sepoys, stood on the threshold of the Mahdist uprising in Sudan.
English fleet in the Sea of Marmara? Yes, a formidable force. He stood there and smoked. What next? What threat did he pose to the Russian army concentrated near Constantinople? Another matter: the Royal Navy became a deterrent for Russia regarding the establishment of control over the Straits by St. Petersburg. And without them, Constantinople brought no benefits to the Romanovs.
But London could no longer drag Paris and Vienna into the anti-Russian team, nor could Rome. Berlin?
In 1878, he was not seen as a rival by the British: the adoption of Germany's naval program was still a long way off, and the creation of a colonial empire seemed expensive to the "Iron Chancellor" and was not part of his plans, which his son Herbert, being the German envoy in London, informed the British about.
Bismarck. If he had nightmares, they were only in the form of anti-German coalitions
But Bismarck had no intention of dragging chestnuts from the crackling Balkan fire for gentlemen.
In short, no one planned to fight at that particular time. A rare situation for Europe. Why didn't Russian diplomacy calculate something like this?
I see one of the reasons in the increasingly deepening crisis of the elites, caused by the general degradation of the ruling class – and from it a cohort of, to use the sarcastic language of the nineties, “effective managers” was formed – in conditions when the reforms generated – I don’t know if they can be called great, but that they were belated – for sure, since the social elevators that began to work with creaking and slipping have not yet produced their results.
The Lopakhins were just breaking through to the top of the social ladder, where the Gaevs, Ranevskys, Manilovs and Nozdrevs still reigned.
The Balkan Ghost of the Great War
In conclusion and as a general discussion, I will refer to V. L. Tsymbursky. In his most interesting work, dedicated to extremely long military cycles, he cites the following reflections of Field Marshal General G. von Moltke, who in 1890, as
The senior member of the Reichstag, almost literally in accordance with Clausewitz, contrasts the current “era of purely people’s wars” with the former “cabinet wars” of the 18th century.
Last time we talked about the specifics of the Balkans, about the tangle of contradictions that reigned there. Accordingly, a war in the region could not have been of a cabinet nature, nor would it have become a peripheral conflict for the leading powers, similar to the wars: the Crimean War and the comparatively local Austro-Prussian-Danish War, or a fleeting one, such as the Austro-Prussian or Franco-Prussian War.
The consequences of the accumulation of contradictions in the Balkans and their development into a major European war may have been underestimated by Nicholas II or Wilhelm II, but not by Bismarck, Andrassy, and one of the participants from the Turkish side of the Berlin Congress, the Greek Phanariot A. Carathéodory, as well as the master of diplomatic games B. Disraeli.
Thus, none of the great powers wanted war on the eve of the Berlin Congress. Even France, the only one in the concert, wanted it, because neither for reasons of prestige nor for economic reasons could it reconcile itself to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, but in the comparatively distant future and certainly in alliance with Russia.
Paris would begin to draw her into the orbit of its interests, which had an anti-German orientation. The Germans had no choice but to find a foothold in Austria-Hungary. The circle was to be closed, but not in 1878.
In the next conversation we will finally get to the congress itself. However…
However, an armed conflict, and in a very specific form, between two great powers could hypothetically flare up. But between whom and whom and in what it should have been expressed - we will talk in the next article.
Продолжение следует ...
Использованная литература:
Bismarck O. Thoughts and Memories. Vol. 2. Moscow: Ogiz-Sotsekgiz Publishing House, 1940.
Kissinger G. Diplomacy. M.: 1997.
Makhov S. Crimean War: Neutrals with their own opinions
Mikhneva R., Kolev V. The Berlin Congress of 1878 through the eyes of the Phanariot Alexander Caratheodory Pasha // Bulletin of MGIMO-University. 2021. Vol. 14. No. 4. P. 7-25.
Chernov M.A. Credit and financial policy in the 19th – early 20th centuries.
Tsymbursky V.L. Super-long military cycles and world politics; military cycles: problem, hypothesis, model
Shendygaev D.I. Cardwell's military reforms and the abolition of patents in the British army
Yudin S. Army Third Republic: Military Renaissance
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