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CHAP. by the troops of the Confederacy, and the contest was at an end.

XLVI.

1847.

102.

both sides.

In truth, the forces of the Confederacy, as compared Forces on with those of the Sunderbund, were so immense that the contest was evidently hopeless on the part of the latter, and nothing was wanting but time to secure victory to the former. The population of the twelve cantons hostile to the Sunderbund was 1,867,000 souls; that of the seven cantons which composed that league was only 394,629 souls. Bâle, Neufchâtel, and Appenzell, which remained neuter, had 105,000 souls. The contingent of the first was 50,104, and their landwehr 46,829-in all, 96,993 men, with 278 pieces of artillery; that of the Sunderbund was only 11,387 men, and their landwehr 20,436—in all, 31,823, with 87 guns. Twenty guns additional had been bought by the Sunderbund abroad, and some slender supplies of arms and ammunition had reached them from France and Austria. Thus the Radical forces were three times those of the Conservative; and though the latter were known to enjoy the good wishes of the great military monarchies of France and Austria, yet not a man was moved forward to their defence. The weight of England, and the dread of a general war thrown in on the other side, paralysed all their measures, and left the Swiss 1 Ann. Hist. mountaineers to contend alone with the overwhelming Ann. Reg. superiority of their antagonists. Yet they disdained subD'Hausson- mission, and advanced to the conflict with the same undaunted spirit that their ancestors did to the fields of Naefels and Morgarten.1

xxx. 458;

1847, 371;

ville, ii. 371, 372.

103. Easy suc

But the times were changed, and heroic valour was no longer capable of withstanding a great superiority of miliRadicals. tary force. The construction of roads through their ter

cess of the

Nov. 13.

ritory had deprived the Swiss of their natural means of defence; the introduction of artillery had levelled the superiority of their moral resolution. The first efforts of the Radical army were directed against Fribourg. On the 13th of November, General Dufour had concentrated

XLVI.

1847.

twenty-five thousand men, with seventy guns, in front of CHAP. that town. The magistrates, in no condition to resist forces so considerable, were under the necessity of capitulating, which they did on the guarantee that life and property should be respected. This was at once agreed to; but no sooner were the troops of the Diet in possession of the town than they abandoned themselves to every species of military excess, generally undergone only by a town which has been carried by assault. This shameful breach of the capitulation occurred under the very eyes of General Dufour, who, however indignant, was unable to prevent it, and furnished a theme for fresh and eloquent declamation, on the part of Count Montalembert, in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris. The next operation of the federal army, though more seriously resisted, was not less successful. On the 22d November, Nov. 22. General Dufour's army crossed the frontier of Lucerne in three massy columns, and advanced against the city, which was the capital of the Sunderbund. His forces consisted of sixty thousand men, and they had no less than two hundred pieces of cannon. The troops of the Sunderbund did not exceed eighteen thousand men, with forty guns. Notwithstanding this great disproportion of force, which rendered success hopeless, the mountaineers made a gallant defence, and it was after a serious and bloody encounter that they were overpowered, and driven back to the gates of Lucerne. Then, as the contest was evidently at an end, the army of the Sunderbund dispersed, and the city of Lucerne, now left without de- Nov. 24. fence, surrendered at discretion. The direction of the D'Hausaffairs of the canton was, three days after, put into the sonville, ii. hands of the Radical leaders, and the remaining cantons Ann. Hist. of the Sunderbund sent in their submission, which was 461, 462 only accepted on condition that the refractory cantons 1847, 371. should defray the whole expenses of the war.1

Meanwhile, Lord Palmerston was considering the terms on which the mediation of the five great powers should

Nov. 27.

i

372, 374;

xxx. 460,

Ann. Reg.

XLVI.

1847.

104.

The tardy

mediation

of the five

powers is declined.

CHAP. be offered; and on the 26th, two days after Lucerne had surrendered, he at length agreed to the conditions proposed by them, which were, that the Catholic cantons should be allowed to refer the religious part of the dispute to the Pope; that the Diet should undertake to defend the sovereignty of such of the lesser states as might be threatened; that the Sunderbund should be dissolved, and a mutual disarmament take place. Nothing could be more equitable than these conditions; and, had they been agreed to by England on the 6th November, they 1847, 372, would have prevented the conflict. Delayed till the 26th, Hist. xxx. when Lucerne was taken and the Sunderbund dissolved, it was too late; the victorious Radicals declared, with 373, 374. justice, that there were no longer two parties to interpose between, and refused the proffered mediation.1

1 Ann. Reg.

373; Ann.

462, 463; D'Haus

sonville, ii.

105. Alarm

which these measures

awakened

tinent.

These decisive steps on the part of the Government of Great Britain in favour of the revolutionary party in so many states of Western Europe, had come now to awaken of England the serious apprehensions of all the great Continental on the Con- powers. Since the changes in the ruling party in England, effected by the Reform Bill, its rulers had, in conjunction with France, effected the partition of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and forcibly prevented the victorious arms of their sovereign from regaining his lost inheritance. In conjunction with the same power, they had changed the order of succession in Spain, placed a queen, supported by the movement party, on the throne, both of Spain and Portugal, and beat down, after a heroic struggle, the efforts of the Basque mountaineers to maintain their constitutional rights. In opposition to France, they had more recently encouraged the demands for organic reform in the Italian states; changes so great as to amount to revolution had followed in the footsteps of their legate; and Sicily had at length been landed in open revolt, in consequence of the hopes of succour which they permitted to be formed. By a policy more guarded, but not less effectual, they had accomplished the overthrow of the

XLVI.

1847.

106.

of a league

Great Bri

Conservative party in Switzerland, and placed the revo- CHAP. lutionary leader of the Free Bands and his associates at the head of the whole forces of the Helvetic Confederacy. So alarming had this policy become, that the Cabinets of the Continent deemed it indispensable to unite in joint Formation measures for their common defence, and the task was against committed to General Radowitz on the part of Prussia tain. and Russia, and Count Colloredo on that of Austria. These two eminent diplomatists, after having met, and concerted measures in Germany, repaired to Paris, where they entered into communication with M. Guizot, by whom they were cordially received. The English agents at Vienna, Berlin, and Berne, warned the British Government repeatedly, in the course of the winter of 1847-8, that something underhand was in agitation ;* but they were far from being aware of the extent and imminence. of the danger which threatened. It is now known, from the revelations of the Ministers of Louis Philippe, that the overtures of the Northern Powers had been accepted by the French Government, and the 15th March fixed for the conclusion of definitive arrangements against Great Britain! The Revolution of 1848, by setting the Continental powers against each other, probably saved Great Britain from a contest, single-handed, with a confederacy as powerful as that which overthrew France on the field of Leipsic.t

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See, in particular, the last pages of the papers communicated to Parliament in 1848-9, on the affairs of Italy and Switzerland.

+"Désespérant de pouvoir jamais s'entendre avec un gouvernement qui s'était fait à Madrid le patron des cabales Espagnoles, qui à Rome, à Naples et en Sicile favorisait la destruction des institutions, et la levée des boucliers en Grèce, qui était devenu un agent incessant de trouble et de désordre, qui avait livré les conservateurs de Fribourg et de Lucerne à la colère des Radicaux Suisses, les grandes puissances de l'Europe renaient témoigner à la France le désir de se concerter avec elle, à l'exclusion de l'Angleterre. Notre Cabinet avait accepté leurs ouvertures; un jour était pris (le 15 Mars) pour donner aux arrangements déjà débattus une forme arrêtée et précise. Ainsi était franchi un pas immense. Ces mêmes puissances du nord si hostiles en 1830, qui avaient eu si grande hâte de prendre parti contre nous, et pour l'Angleterre en 1840 au sujet des affaires du Levant, qui étaient restées passives et neutres en 1846 après les mariages Espagnoles, en 1848 après les affaires de la Suisse, se mettaient avec

CHAP.
XLVI.

1847.

107.

of Great

Britain at land at this

sea and

period.

When dangers so formidable and so imminent threatened England in consequence of the policy which her rulers had adopted, it is worth while, as a matter of hisWeakness torical curiosity, to examine what preparations the Government of Great Britain had made to meet the crisis. This matter is now finally set at rest by official authority. It appears from a return presented to Parliament on 1st June 1857, that the total military forces in the pay of Great Britain in 1847-8 were 138,769 men, of whom 30,497 were in India, and 41,393 stationed in the other colonies, leaving 67,005 for service in Great Britain and Ireland; of whom certainly not more than 30,000 could be reckoned on as capable of combating in the former island. As at least half of this force would be required to garrison the maritime fortresses, upon the preservation of which the very existence of the empire depended, not more than 15,000 men could have been collected to keep the field against a coalition, which would with ease have invaded the country with 150,000 men! Nor were the naval forces more considerable; for it appears from the same return, that in the year 1847-8, the number of sailors and boys voted was only 29,500, and marines 11,000— in all, 40,500; a force little more than a fifth of what the nation, with not half the resources, had on foot during the war, and which could not by possibility have produced ten sail of the line in the Channel to meet a sudden emergency, or protect the shores of the empire from invasion from Powers who had forty sail in the Baltic and Channel ready for sea.

This extraordinary disproportion between the magnitude of the danger evoked, and the diminutive amount of the forces provided to meet it, is one of the most curious and instructive circumstances which the annals

nous contre l'Angleterre. Nous n'avions pas passé de leur côté, elles avaient passé du nôtre. C'était le tour de l'Angleterre d'être mise dans l'isolement." D'HAUSSONVILLE, vol. ii. pp. 381, 382 (the publisher of Guizot's papers with his authority).

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