The Wars of German Unification
德国的统一
Although the American Civil War was studied by a number of European military observers,84 its special features (of distance, of the wilderness, of being a civil conflict) made it appear less of a pointer to general military developments than the armed struggles which were to occur in Europe during the 1860s. There the Crimean War had not only undermined the old-style Concert diplomacy but had also caused each of the “flank” powers to feel less committed to intervention in the center: Russia needed many years to recover from its humiliating defeat; and Britain preferred to concentrate upon imperial and domestic issues. This therefore left European affairs dominated, artificially as it turned out, by France. Prussia, having occupied a seemingly inglorious place under Frederick William IV during the Crimean War, was now convulsed by the constitutional quarrels between his successor William I and the Prussian parliament, especially over the issue of army reform. The Habsburg Empire, for its part, was still juggling with the interrelated problem of preserving its Italian interests against Piedmont and its German interests against Prussia, while at the same time endeavoring to contain Hungarian discontents at home.
虽然美国内战被不少欧洲的军事观察家研究过，但它的特征（范围广大，在原野进行，以及内部冲突等性质），使它不像19世纪60年代欧洲发生的武装斗争那样表现为衡量全面军事发展的指示器。在欧洲，克里米亚战争不但破坏了老式的协作体外交，而且使各“侧翼”强国感到可以更少地去干涉欧洲中部的事务：俄国需要多年才能从其屈辱的战败中恢复过来，而英国则宁愿把精力集中在帝国和国内的问题上。因此，欧洲事务被法国所左右，虽然这种局面被证明是人为的。在克里米亚战争期间，普鲁士在腓特烈·威廉四世统治下处在表面上不光彩的地位，这时的它因腓特烈的继承者威廉一世与普鲁士议会之间关于宪法问题的争吵，特别是在陆军改革问题上的分歧，而正在备受折磨。就奥地利哈布斯堡而言，它仍在国家的相互关系问题上玩弄花招，即保持它在意大利的利益以反对皮埃蒙特，保持它在德意志的利益以反对普鲁士，同时又在国内大力遏制匈牙利的不满分子。
France, by contrast, seemed strong and confident under Napoleon III. Banking, railway, and industrial development had all advanced since the early 1850s. Its colonial empire was extended in West Africa, Indochina, and the Pacific. Its fleet was expanded so that at times (e. g. , 1859) it caused alarm on the other side of the English Channel. Militarily and diplomatically, it seemed to be the decisive third force in any solution of either the German or the Italian question—as was amply shown in 1859, when France swiftly intervened on Piedmont’s behalf in the shortlived war against Austria. 85
对比之下，在拿破仑三世的统治下，法国似乎是强大和有信心的。自19世纪50年代以来，银行业务、铁路和工业开发都有进展。它的殖民地帝国在西非、印度支那和太平洋扩大了。它的舰队得到扩充，以致有时（例如1859年）引起了英吉利海峡对岸的恐慌。在军事上和外交上，不论在解决德意志问题还是意大利问题时，它似乎都是决定性的第三种力量，这一点在1859年已充分表现出来：法国站在皮埃蒙特一边，迅速出面干预而与奥地利进行短期交战。
Yet however important the battles of Magenta and Solferino were in compelling the Habsburg Empire to surrender its hold upon Lombardy, acute observers in 1859 would have noticed that it was Austrian military incompetence, not French military brilliance (and certainly not Piedmontese military brilliance!), which decided the outcome. France’s army did have the advantage of possessing many more rifles than Austria—this being responsible for the numerous casualties which so unnerved the Emperor Francis Joseph—but French deficiencies were also remarkable: medical and ammunition supplies were sorely lacking, mobilization schedules were haphazard, and Napoleon Ill’s own leadership was less than brilliant. This did not matter so much at the time, since the Habsburg army was weaker and the leadership of General Gyulai was even more dithering. 86 Military effectiveness is, after all, relative—which was later demonstrated by the fact that Habsburg forces could still deal easily with the Italians on land (at Custozza, in 1866) and at sea (at Lissa) even when they were incapable of taking on France, or Prussia, or Russia. But this meant, by extension, that France itself would not be automatically superior in a future conflict against a different foe. The outcome of that war would depend upon the varying levels of military leadership, weapons systems, and productive base possessed by each side.
可是，在迫使奥地利哈布斯堡放弃它对伦巴第的控制中，不管马真塔之战和索尔费里诺之战多么重要，1859年敏锐的观察家们已经注意到，是奥地利人军事上的无能，而不是法国人杰出的军事才能（当然也不是皮埃蒙特人的军事才能），决定了结局。法国陆军的确拥有比奥地利更多数量步枪的优势（这造成了令弗朗西斯·约瑟夫皇帝深感不安的伤亡），但法国的缺点也是显著的：医药和军火供应非常缺乏，动员的日程表是无计划的，拿破仑三世自己的领导也不出众。奥地利哈布斯堡的陆军比较弱，居莱伊将军的领导更加犹豫不决，这些缺点还没有太大关系。军事效力毕竟是相对的，这可以从后来奥地利哈布斯堡的军队仍能在陆地（1866年在库斯托扎）和海上（在利萨）轻而易举地对付意大利人这一事实中看出，虽然它当时仍不能与法国、普鲁士或俄国较量。但推而广之，这并不意味着法国自己在未来与另一个敌人的冲突中能自动地处于优势。那场战争的结局将取决于各方拥有的不同层次的军事领导、武器体系和生产基础。
Since it was precisely in the era of the 1850s and 1860s that the technological explosion caused by the Industrial Revolution made its first real impacts upon warfare, it is not surprising that armed services everywhere were now found grappling with unprecedented operational problems. What would be the more important arm in battle—the infantry with its new breech-loading rifles, or the artillery with its new steel-barreled, mobile guns? What was the impact of railways and telegraphs upon command in the field? Did the new technology of war give the advantage to the advancing army, or the defending one?87 The proper answer to such questions was, of course, that it all depends on the circumstances. That is, the outcome would be affected not only by newer weaponry but also by the terrain in which it was used, the morale and tactical competence of the troops, the efficacy of the supply systems, and all of the other myriad factors which help to decide the fate of battles. Since knowing beforehand how everything would work out was an impossibility, the key factor was the possession of a military-political leadership adept at juggling the various elements and a military instrument flexible enough to respond to new circumstances. And in these vital respects, neither the Habsburg Empire nor even France were going to be as successful as Prussia.
由于正是在19世纪50和60年代，产业革命引起的技术的迅猛发展开始真正地影响战争方式，所以人们发现，各国诸军种这时正在尽力解决前所未有的作战问题就不会惊奇了。在战斗中，是配备新式后膛装弹步枪的步兵重要，还是配备新式钢炮筒机动炮的炮兵重要？铁路和电报对战地指挥有什么作用？新的战争技术是使进攻的军队还是使防守的军队更占优势？这些问题的正确答案当然都要视具体情况而定。也就是说，战争的结局不但受到更新式武器的影响，而且也受到使用新武器的地形、部队士气和利用战术的能力、供应制度的效能以及其他一切有助于决定战斗命运的众多因素的影响。由于不可能事先知道一切事态的进展情况，因此最关键的是要拥有一个擅长利用各种不同因素的军事—政治领导和完全能对新情况做出灵活反应的军事机构。在这些重要方面，奥地利哈布斯堡甚至法国，都将不能像普鲁士那样成功。
The Prussian “military revolution” of the 1860s, soon to produce what Disraeli would grandly term the “German revolution” in European affairs, was based upon a number of interrelated elements. The first of these was a unique short-service system, pushed through by the new King Wilhelm I and his war minister against their Liberal opponents, which involved three years’ obligatory service in the regular army and then another four in the reserve before each man passed into the Landwehr—which meant that the fully mobilized Prussian army had seven annual intakes. * Since no substitutes were permitted, and the Landwehr could take over most garrison and “rear area” duties, such a system gave Prussia a far larger frontline army relative to its population than any other Great Power had. This depended, in turn, upon a relatively high level of at least primary education among the people —a rapidly expandable, short-service system, in the opinion of most experts, would be difficult to work in a nation of uneducated peasants—and it depended also upon a superb organization simply to handle such great numbers. There was, after all, little use in raising a force of half a million or a million men if they could not be adequately trained, clothed, armed, and fed, and transported to the decisive battle zone; and it would be even more of a waste of manpower and resources if the army commander could not communicate with and control the sheer masses involved.
19世纪60年代普鲁士“军事革命”很快产生了迪斯雷利[13]所郑重命名的欧洲事务中的“德意志革命”。“军事革命”建立在许多互相关联的因素之上。第一个因素是一种独特的短期服役制度，它是新王威廉一世及其陆军大臣不顾自由党的反对而推行的，该制度包括的内容有，每个男人先在正规军中服3年义务兵役，再在预备役中服役4年，才能转入后备军。这意味着，充分动员起来的普鲁士陆军（对每个人）有7年的征召[14]。由于不准顶替，且后备军能够承担大部分卫戍和“后方”的任务，这一制度使普鲁士拥有的一线陆军与其人口相对而言，远远多于其他大国。这又反过来要求人民接受至少是较高程度的初等教育，因为根据大部分专家的意见，一个迅速发展的短期兵役制在无文化的农民国家是难以实行的；它还要依靠安排这样大批人员的优秀的组织工作。如果一支50万或100万人员的大军不能充分地得到训练、服装、武器和粮食，并被运往决战地区，那么建设这支军队终究是没有用的；如果军队指挥官不能与有关的大批士兵保持联系并进行控制，那这就更是浪费人力和资源。
The body imparting control to this force was the Prussian General Staff, which rose from obscurity in the early 1860s to be “the brains of the army” under the elder Moltke’s genius. Hitherto, most armies in peacetime had consisted of combat units, supported by quartermaster, personnel, engineering, and other branches; actual military staffs were scrambled together only when campaigning began and a command was established. In the Prussian case, however, Moltke had recruited the brightest products of the War Academy and taught them to plan and prepare for possible future conflicts. Operations plans had to be made, and frequently revised, well before the outbreak of hostilities; war games and maneuvers bore careful study, as did historical campaigns and operations carried out by other powers. A special department was created to supervise the Prussian railway system and make sure that troops and supplies could be speeded to their destinations. Above all, Moltke’s staff system attempted to inculcate in the officer corps the operational practice of dealing with large bodies of men (army corps or full armies) which would move and fight independently but always be ready to converge upon the scene of the decisive battle. If communication could not be maintained with Moltke’s headquarters in the rear, generals at the front were permitted to use their initiative and to act according to a few basic ground rules.
对这支军队实施控制的机构是普鲁士总参谋部，它在19世纪60年代初叶，在老毛奇[15]的天才领导下，从默默无闻的地位一跃而成为“陆军的智囊”。直到那时，大部分和平时期的陆军由战斗部队组成，这些部队得到军需、人事、工程和其他部门的支持；实际的作战参谋部只是在战役开始和指挥部成立时才拼凑而成。但在普鲁士，老毛奇已经招收了陆军学院最优秀的人才，并教导他们为未来可能的冲突制订计划和做好准备。在敌对行动开始以前很久，作战计划必须制订出来，并经常修改。图上作业和演习得到了周密的研究，对其他强国进行的历史性战役和军事行动也同样进行了深入研究。一个专门机构设立了，它监督普鲁士的铁路系统，以确保军队和供应能被迅速运往目的地。老毛奇的参谋系统试图教导军官团如何去处理大兵团（军或集团军）的作战方法，它们将独立地转移和作战，但又随时准备集结在决战性的战场上。如果不能保持与后方司令部的通信联系，前方的将领可根据几条地面作战的基本准则，去发挥他们的主动性并采取行动。
The above is, of course, an idealized model. The Prussian army was not perfect and was to suffer from many teething troubles in actual battle even after the reforms of the early to middle 1860s. Many of the field commanders ignored Moltke’s advice and crashed blindly ahead in premature attacks or in the wrong direction—the Austrian campaign of 1866 was full of such blunders. 88 At the tactical level, too, the frontal assault (and heavy loses) of the Prussian Guards at Gravelotte St. Privat in 1870 demonstrated a crass stupidity. The railway supply system by itself did not guarantee success; often it merely built up a vast stockpile of stores at the frontier, while the armies which needed those stocks had moved away from any nearby lines. Nor could it be said that Prussian scientific planning had ensured that their forces always possessed the best weapons: Austrian artillery was clearly superior in 1866, and the French Chassepot bolt-action rifle was stupendously better in 1870.
当然，上面所谈的是理想化了的模式。普鲁士陆军不是十全十美的，甚至在19世纪60年代初期和中期的改革后，在实际战斗中也遭受了许多暂时性的困难。许多战地将领无视老毛奇的意见，在条件不成熟的进攻或错误的方向中盲目推进——1866年普奥战争中这种差错比比皆是。在战术上，1870年普鲁士禁卫军在格拉夫洛特-圣普里瓦正面突击（因此遭受严重损失），也表现出他们是愚不可及的。铁路供应体系本身不能保证胜利，它往往只是在边界上堆积大批物资，而需要那些物资的军队已经调离附近的铁路线。也不能说普鲁士人科学的计划已经确保他们的军队始终能拥有最佳的武器，1866年时奥地利的大炮显然更好，1870年时法国夏斯波步枪也大大地优于普鲁士步枪。
The real point about the Prussian system was not that it was free of errors, but that the general staff carefully studied its past mistakes and readjusted training, organization, and weapons accordingly. When the weakness of its artillery was demonstrated in 1866, the Prussian army swiftly turned to the new Krupp breechloader which was going to be so impressive in 1870. When delays occurred in the railway supply arrangements, a new organization was established to improve matters. Finally, Moltke’s emphasis upon the deployment of several full armies which could operate independently yet also come to one another’s aid meant that even if one such force was badly mauled in detail—as actually occurred in both the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars—the overall campaign was not ruined. 89
真正的问题是，普鲁士的制度并不是没有错误，但是总参谋部仔细地研究了它过去的错误，并对训练、组织和武器相应地重新进行调整。当它的大炮的弱点在1866年暴露出来时，普鲁士陆军立即改用新的克虏伯后膛炮，这种武器在1870年给人以深刻的印象。当铁路供应的安排出现耽误时，一个新部门马上成立了，以便改进工作。最后，老毛奇重点部署了几个集团军，使之能独立作战，同时也能互相支援，这意味着一个集团军即使局部受到严重打击（这在普奥战争和普法战争中的确发生过），整个战局也不会不可收拾。
It was therefore a combination of factors which gave the Prussians the swift victory over the Austrians in the summer of 1866 that few observers had anticipated. Although Hanover, Saxony, and other northern German states joined the Habsburg side, Bismarck’s diplomacy had ensured that none of the Great Powers would intervene in the initial stages of the struggle; and this in turn gave Moltke the opportunity to dispatch three armies through separate mountain routes to converge on the Bohemian plain and assault the Austrians at Sadowa (Koeniggratz). In retrospect, the outcome seems all too predictable. Over one-quarter of the Habsburg forces were needed in Italy (where they were victorious); and the Prussian recruitment system meant that despite Prussia’s population being less than half that of its various foes, Moltke could deploy almost as many front-line troops. The Habsburg army had been underfinanced, had no real staff system, and was ineptly led by Benedek; and however bravely individual units fought, they were slaughtered in open clashes by the far superior Prussian rifles. By October 1866, the Habsburgs had been forced to cede Venetia and to withdraw from any interest in Germany— which was by then well on its way to being reorganized under Bismarck’s North German Federation. 90
因此，这些因素结合在一起使普鲁士人能在1866年夏季迅速战胜奥地利人，这只有少数观察家能够预料。虽然汉诺威、撒克逊和北方的其他德意志邦站在奥地利一边，但俾斯麦的外交确保了其他大国不在斗争的初期进行干涉。这又使老毛奇有机会派三个集团军通过不同的山路集中到波希米亚平原，并在萨多瓦（克尼格雷茨）袭击奥地利人。回想起来，战争的结果似乎是完全可以预料的。奥地利哈布斯堡1/4的军队需要用在意大利（他们在那里取得了胜利）；普鲁士的征兵制意味着，普鲁士人口尽管还不到它几个敌人人口的一半，老毛奇却能部署几乎同样多的第一线部队。奥地利陆军本来就缺乏经费，没有真正的参谋制度，并且受贝内德克无能的领导；不论个别部队如何英勇作战，他们在广阔原野的交锋中都死于更为精良的普鲁士步枪之下。到1866年10月，哈布斯堡被迫让出威尼斯，并撤销在德意志的一切利益——德意志在俾斯麦的北德意志联邦领导下，正在重新进行组建。
The “struggle for mastery in Germany” was almost complete; but the clash over who was supreme in western Europe, Prussia or an increasingly nervous and suspicious France, had been brought much closer, and by the late 1860s each side was calculating its chances. Ostensibly, France still appeared the stronger. Its population was much larger than Prussia’s (although the total number of Germanspeakers in Europe was greater). The French army had gained experience in the Crimea, Italy, and overseas. It possessed the best rifle in the world, the Chassepot, which far outranged the Prussian needlegun; and it had a new secret weapon, the mitrailleuse, a machine gun which could fire 150 rounds a minute. Its navy was far superior; and help was expected from Austria-Hungary and Italy. When the time came in July 1870 to chastise the Prussians for their effrontery (i. e. , Bismarck’s devious diplomacy over the future of Luxembourg, and over a possible Hohenzollern candidate to the Spanish throne), few Frenchmen had doubts about the outcome.
“争霸德意志的斗争”差不多完成了，而决定谁——是普鲁士还是日益不安和猜疑的法国——在西欧处于至高无上地位的斗争已经迫在眉睫，在19世纪60年代后期，双方都在测算各自的机会。表面上，法国仍表现得更为强大。法国的人口远远多于普鲁士的人口（虽然讲德语的人数在欧洲更多）。法国的陆军已在克里米亚、意大利和海外取得了经验。它拥有世界上射程最佳的夏斯波步枪，比普鲁士的撞针枪射程要远得多；它还有一个新的秘密武器——每分钟射150发子弹的后膛装填机关枪。它的海军更为优良，它还能指望得到奥匈帝国和意大利的帮助。1870年7月，由于普鲁士人的无耻行为（即俾斯麦对关于卢森堡的前途和一个可能登上西班牙王位的霍亨索伦候选人问题而玩弄的狡诈的外交）而对他们进行惩罚的时机来临时，法国人对于战争的结局预见很少有人怀疑。
The magnitude and swiftness of the French collapse—by September 4 its battered army had surrendered at Sedan, Napoleon III was a prisoner, and the imperial regime had been overthrown in Paris—was a devastating blow to such rosy assumptions. As it turned out, neither Austria-Hungary nor Italy came to France’s aid, and French sea power proved totally ineffective. All therefore had depended upon the rival armies, and here the Prussians proved indisputably superior. Although both sides used their railway networks to dispatch large forces to the frontier, the French mobilization was much less efficient. Called-up reservists had to catch up with their regiments, which had already gone to the front. Artillery batteries were scattered all over France, and could not be easily concentrated. By contrast, within fifteen days of the declaration of war, three German armies (of well over 300,000 men) were advancing into the Saarland and Alsace. The Chassepot rifle’s advantage was all too frequently neutralized by the Prussian tactic of pushing forward their mobile, quick-firing artillery. The mitrailleuse was kept in the rear, and never employed effectively. Marshal Bazaine’s lethargy and ineptness were indescribable, and Napoleon himself was little better. By contrast, while individual Prussian units blundered and suffered heavy losses in “the fog of war,” Moltke’s distant supervision of the various armies and his willingness to rearrange his plans to exploit unexpected circumstances kept up the momentum of the invasion until the French cracked. Although republican forces were to maintain a resistance for another few months, the German grip around Paris and upon northeastern France inexorably tightened; the fruitless counterattacks of the Army of the Loire and the irritations offered by francs-tireurs could not conceal the fact that France had been smashed as an independent Great Power. 91
法国崩溃之彻底和迅速给了这些乐观的假设一个致命的打击——到9月4日，它溃败的军队已在色当投降，拿破仑三世被俘，帝国政权已在巴黎被推翻。结果是，奥匈帝国和意大利都没有援助法国，而法国的海上力量被证明是完全无用的。因此，一切都取决于敌人的陆军，而在这方面，普鲁士人无可争辩地证明他们更加优秀。虽然双方都使用铁路网把大批军队运往前线，但法国动员的效率却差得多。应征的预备队必须跟上他们的部队，但部队已经开往前线。炮兵连遍布于全法国，不容易集中。对比之下，3个德意志集团军（大大超过30万人）在宣战的15天内，正在开进萨尔和阿尔萨斯。夏斯波步枪的优势，屡屡被普鲁士人推到前沿的机动速射炮的战术弄得失去效力。后膛装填机关枪留在后方，从未有效地发挥作用。巴赞元帅的懒散愚蠢无法言喻，而拿破仑三世本人也不比他强多少。相比之下，虽然个别普鲁士部队在“战雾”中出错，遭受严重损失，但老毛奇对各路大军进行远距离的监督以及他调整计划以利用意外情况的战术，保持了入侵的势头，直到法军土崩瓦解为止。虽然法国的部队又继续抵抗了几个月，但德意志人对巴黎的包围和对法国东北的控制网无情地收紧了。卢瓦尔军无效的反攻和游击队员的袭扰，不能掩盖这一事实：法国作为一个独立的大国已经被打垮了。
The triumph of Prussia-Germany was, quite clearly, a triumph of its military system; but, as Michael Howard acutely notes, “the military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of it in its entirety. ”92 Behind the sweeping advances of the German columns and the controlled orchestration of the general staff there lay a nation much better equipped and prepared for the conditions of modern warfare than any other in Europe. In 1870, the German states combined already possessed a larger population than France, and only disunity had disguised that fact. Germany had more miles of railway lines, better arranged for military purposes. Its gross national product and its iron and steel production were just then overtaking the French totals. Its coal production was two and a half times as great, and its consumption from modern energy sources was 50 percent larger. The Industrial Revolution in Germany was creating many more large-scale firms, such as the Krupp steel and armaments combine, which gave the Prusso-German state both military and industrial muscle. The army’s short-service system was offensive to liberals inside and outside the country—and criticism of “Prussian militarism” was widespread in these years—but it mobilized the manpower of the nation for warlike purposes more effectively than the laissez-faire west or the backward, agrarian east. And behind all this was a people possessing a far higher level of primary and technical education, an unrivaled university and scientific establishment, and chemical laboratories and research institutes without an equal. 93
很明显，普鲁士—德意志的胜利是它的军事制度的胜利；但是正如迈克尔·霍华德尖锐地指出的那样，“一个国家的军事制度不是社会制度以外的独立部分，而是其整体的一个方面”。支持德意志各路纵队全面猛进和总参谋部有控制地协调工作的，是它比欧洲任何其他国家装备更好，并且更有准备去适应现代战争条件。在1870年，德意志诸邦合在一起的人口已多于法国，只是分裂掩盖了这个事实。德意志有更长的并且更充分地为军事目的做好安排的铁路线。它的国民生产总值和钢铁产量就在那时赶上了法国。它的煤产量是法国的2.5倍，它消耗的现代能源也比法国多50%。德意志的产业革命正在建立更多的大企业，例如克虏伯钢铁和兵器联合体。这使普鲁士—德意志国家具有军事和工业力量。陆军的短期服役制遭到国内外自由主义者的反对（这些年对“普鲁士军国主义”的批评是很普遍的），但它为战争的目的动员国家人力，比放任主义的西方或落后和搞农业的东方更有效率。而支持这一切的后盾，则是这样一个民族：它拥有水平高得多的初等教育和技术教育，它的大学和科学设施是无与伦比的，它的化学实验室和研究机构是首屈一指的。
Europe, to repeat the quip of the day, had lost a mistress and gained a master. Under Bismarck’s astonishingly adroit handling, the Great Power system was going to be dominated by Germany for two whole decades after 1870; all roads, diplomats remarked, now led to Berlin. Yet as most people could see, it was not merely the cleverness and ruthlessness of the imperial chancellor which made Germany the most important power on the European continent. It was also German industry and technology, which boomed still faster once national unification had been accomplished; it was German science and education and local administration; and it was the impressive Prussian army. That the Second German Reich possessed major internal flaws, over which Bismarck constantly fretted, was scarcely noticed by outside observers. Every nation in Europe, even the isolationist British to some degree, felt affected by this new colossus. The Russians, although staying benevolently neutral during the 1870–1871 war and taking advantage of the crisis in western Europe to improve their own position in the Black Sea,94 resented the fact that the European center of gravity was now located in Berlin and secretly worried about what Germany might do next. The Italians, who had occupied Rome in 1870 while the French (the pope’s protectors) were being crushed in Lorraine, steadily gravitated toward Berlin. So, too, did the Austro-Hungarian Empire (as it became known after Vienna’s 1867 compromise with the Hungarians), which hoped to find in the Balkans compensation for its loss of place in Germany and Italy—but was well aware that such an ambition might provoke a Russian reaction. Finally, the shocked and embittered French felt it necessary to reexamine and reform vast areas of government and society (education, science, railways, the armed forces, the economy) in what was to be a fruitless attempt to regain parity with their powerful neighbor across the Rhine. 95 Both at the time and even more in retrospect, the year 1870 was viewed as a decisive watershed in European history.
再用当时的一句妙语来说：欧洲失去了一个主妇，却得到了一个主人。在俾斯麦惊人而巧妙的安排下，1870年以后的整整20年中，大国体制将被德意志支配。外交家们注意到，这时条条道路通向柏林。可是许多人都能看到，使德意志成为欧洲大陆最重要强国的因素，不仅仅是帝国宰相的聪明和残酷无情，而且还有以下的因素：德意志的工业和技术，一旦国家统一，它将发展得更快；德意志的科学、教育和地方行政；引人注目的普鲁士陆军。至于第二德意志帝国也有俾斯麦为之烦恼的重大内部缺陷的事实，局外的观察家们则很少注意到。欧洲的每个国家，在某种程度上甚至秉持孤立主义的英国人，都感到了这个新巨人的影响。俄国在1870～1871年仁慈地保持中立，并且利用西欧的危险来提高自己在黑海的地位，但对这时欧洲的重心移至柏林这一事实愤懑不平，并且暗暗担心德意志下一步可能的行动。1870年，当法国人（教皇的保护人）在洛林溃不成军时，占领罗马的意大利人渐渐倒向柏林。奥匈帝国（1867年维也纳与匈牙利人妥协后的名称）也是如此，它希望在巴尔干半岛找到补偿，以弥补它在德意志和意大利丧失的地位，但它也很清楚，这样的野心可能激起俄国的反应。最后，备受打击和怨恨不平的法国人在妄想重新取得与莱茵河彼岸的强邻平等地位的尝试中，终于感到有必要重新考察和改造行政和社会的几个重大领域（教育、科学、铁路、武装部队和经济）。在当时，甚至在以后的回顾中，1870年都被视为欧洲史上具有决定意义的分界线。
On the other hand, perhaps because most countries felt the need to draw breath after the turbulences of the 1860s, and because statesmen operated cautiously under the new order, the diplomatic history of the Great Powers for the decade or so after 1871 was one of a search for stability. Being concerned respectively with the post- Civil War reconstruction and with the aftermath of the Meiji Revolution, neither the United States nor Japan were part of the “system,” which if anything was more Eurocentric than before. While there now existed a recast version of the “European pentarchy,” the balances were considerably altered from those which pertained after 1815. Prussia-Germany, under Bismarck’s direction, was now the most powerful and influential of the European states, in place of a Prussia which had always been the weakest. There was also another new power, united Italy, but its desperate condition of economic backwardness (especially the lack of coal) meant that it was never properly accepted into the major league of powers, even though it was obviously more important in European diplomacy than countries such as Spain or Sweden. 96 What it did do, because of its pretensions in the Mediterranean and North Africa, was to move into a state of increasing rivalry with France, distracting the latter power and offering a useful future ally to Germany; secondly, because of its legacy of liberation wars against Vienna and its own ambitions in the western Balkans, Italy also disconcerted Austria-Hungary (at least until Bismarck had cemented over those tensions in the Austro-German-Italian “Triple Alliance” of 1882). This meant that neither Austria-Hungary nor France, the two chief “victims” of Germany’s rise, could concentrate its energies fully upon Berlin, since both now possessed a vigorous (if not too muscular) Italy in their rear. And whereas this fact simply added to the Austrian reasons for reconciling themselves to Germany, and becoming a quasi-satellite in consequence, it also meant that even France’s greater degree of national strength and alliance worthiness97 was compromised in any future struggle against Berlin by the existence of a hostile and unpredictable Italy to the south.
另一方面，也许是因为许多国家感到在19世纪60年代的种种动乱以后应该喘一口气，还因为政治家们在新秩序下谨慎行事，所以1871年以后约10年的大国外交史是寻求稳定的历史。美国关心内战后的重建，日本关心明治维新的影响，它们都不是“体系”的一部分，“体系”反而比以往更加以欧洲为中心。虽然这时存在一个重新塑造的“欧洲五头政治”的模式，但均势与1815年以后的均势相比有很大的变化。普鲁士—德意志在俾斯麦的指引下，这时是欧洲国家中最强和最有影响的，它代替了以前一直最弱的那个普鲁士。还有另一个新强国，即统一的意大利，但其经济落后得令人失望的条件（特别是缺煤），意味着它永远不会被体面地接纳进列强的主要集团，虽然它在欧洲外交中显然比西班牙或瑞典等国家更为重要。由于它在地中海和北非的要求，它的确做到了成为一个日益与法国为敌、分散法国力量和给德意志提供一个有用的未来盟友的国家；此外，由于在反对维也纳的解放战争中它的收获和它在巴尔干半岛西部的野心，意大利还使奥匈帝国恐慌不安（至少在俾斯麦于1882年奥德意“三国同盟”中冻结那些紧张关系之前是如此）。这意味着奥匈帝国和法国（德意志崛起的两个主要“受害者”）都不能集中其精力去对付柏林，因为两者的后方都有一个有生气的（虽然不太强大的）意大利存在。这个事实使奥地利人更有理由去听从德意志，结果成了一个准卫星国，而且它还意味着，在未来与柏林的任何斗争中，甚至法国更强的国力和更大的结盟价值，也因南方存在着一个敌对的和无法捉摸的意大利而受到损害。
With France isolated, Austria-Hungary cowed, and the intermediate “buffer states” of southern Germany and Italy now merged into their larger national units,98 the only substantial checks to the further aggrandizement of Germany seemed to lie with the independent “flank” powers of Russia and Great Britain. To British administrations oscillating between a Gladstonian emphasis upon internal reforms (1868–1874) and a Disraelian stress upon the country’s “imperial” and “Asian” destinies (1874–1880), this issue of the European equilibrium rarely seemed very pressing. This was probably not the case in Russia, where Chancellor Gorchakov and others resented the transformation of their Prussian client-state into a powerful Germany; but such feelings were mingled with the close dynastic and ideological sympathies that existed between the courts of St. Petersburg and Potsdam after 1871, by the still-pressing Russian need to recover from the Crimean War disasters, by the hope of obtaining Berlin’s support for Russian interests in the Balkans, and by the renewal of interest in central Asia. On the whole, however, the flank powers’ likelihood of intervening in the affairs of west-central Europe would depend heavily upon what Germany itself did; there was certainly no need to become involved if it could be assumed that the second German Reich was now a satiated power. 99
由于法国处境孤立，奥匈帝国受到威胁，处于中间的南德意志“缓冲邦国”和意大利这时都统一成更大的国家单位，因此遏制德意志进一步扩张的举足轻重的力量，看来只能是俄国和英国这两个独立的“侧翼”强国了。英国政府在格莱斯顿重视国内改革的主张（1868～1874年），和迪斯雷利重视国家的“帝国”命运及亚洲命运的主张（1874～1800年）之间来回摇摆，对它来说，欧洲的平衡问题似乎很难说是紧迫的。俄国的情况可能并非如此，在那里，哥恰可夫等人对他们的保护国普鲁士转变成一个强大的德意志心怀不满。但这种感情中又掺杂着1871年以后存在于圣彼得堡和波茨坦两个宫廷之间的亲密王朝和思想意识的认同感，掺杂着俄国人企图从克里米亚战争灾难中恢复元气的需要，希望柏林支持俄国在巴尔干半岛的利益和恢复中亚利益的企图。但是总的说来，侧翼强国干预欧洲西部和中部事务的可能性，在很大程度上取决于德意志自己的行为；如果假定第二德意志帝国这时已是得到充分满足的强国，那么它们肯定没有必要再卷入纠纷之中。
This assurance Bismarck himself was all too willing to give after 1871, since he had no wish to create a gross-deutscher (“Greater German”) state which incorporated millions of Austrian Catholics, destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and left Germany isolated between a vengeful France and a suspicious Russia. 100 It therefore seemed to him far safer to go along with the creation of the Three Emperors’ League (1873), a quasi-alliance which stressed the ideological solidarity of the eastern monarchies (as against “republican” France) and simultaneously cemented over some of the Austro-Russian clashes of interest in the Balkans. And when, during the “war-insight” crisis of 1875, indications arose that the German government might be contemplating a preventive war against France, the warnings from both London and (especially) St. Petersburg convinced Bismarck that there would be strong opposition to any further alterations in the European balance. 101 For internalpolitical as well as external-diplomatic reasons, therefore, Germany remained within the boundaries established in 1871—a “half-hegemonial power,” as some historians have termed it—until its military-industrial growth and the political ambitions of a post-Bismarckian leadership would once again place it in a position to question the existing territorial order. 102
1871年以后，俾斯麦本人非常愿意做出这种保证，因为他没有建立一个吞并几百万奥地利天主教徒、摧毁奥匈帝国和使德意志孤立于有复仇心的法国及有猜疑心的俄国之间的“大德意志国”的意愿。因此，对他来说，赞同建立三皇同盟（1873年）似乎要安全得多。三皇同盟是半结盟性的，它强调东方诸皇思想上的团结（如反对“共和的”法国），同时冻结俄奥在巴尔干的利益冲突。在1875年“战争在望”的危机时期，当出现德意志政府可能在对法国酝酿一场预防性战争的迹象时，来自伦敦、（特别是）圣彼得堡的警告，使俾斯麦相信，任何改变欧洲均势的企图将引起强烈的反对。因此，出于国内政治和对外外交的原因，德意志依然留在1871年建立的边界内，正像有些历史学家所说的，是一个“半霸权强国”，直到德国军事与工业的发展和俾斯麦之后的领导集团的政治野心再次使它能够对现存的领土秩序提出疑问。
However, to pursue that transformation would take us well into the next chapter. For the period of the 1870s and into the 1880s, Bismarck’s own diplomacy ensured the preservation of the status quo which he now deemed essential to German interests. The chancellor was partially helped in this endeavor by the flaring-up, in 1876, of another acute phase in the age-old “eastern question” when Turkey’s massacre of the Bulgarian Christians and Russia’s military response to it turned all attention from the Rhine to Constantinople and the Black Sea. 103 It was true that the outbreak of hostilities on the lower Danube or the Dardanelles could be dangerous even to Germany, if the crisis was allowed to escalate into a full-scale Great Power war, as seemed quite possible by early 1878. However, Bismarck’s diplomatic skills in acting as “honest broker” to bring all the Powers to a compromise at the Congress of Berlin reinforced the pressures for a peaceful solution of the crisis and emphasized again the central—and stabilizing—position in European affairs which Germany now occupied.
我们将在下一章探究这种转变。从19世纪70年代到80年代，俾斯麦本人的外交是维持现状，因为这时他认为这对德意志利益是非常重要的。在做出这方面的努力时，这位宰相部分地得到了1876年另一件突发事件的帮助，这是由来已久的“东方问题”的另一个尖锐的阶段，当时土耳其屠杀保加利亚基督教徒的行动和俄国对此做出的军事反应，使各方的注意力从莱茵河转向君士坦丁堡和黑海。的确，在多瑙河下游或达达尼尔爆发的敌对行动，如果让这场危机升级为全面的大国战争，甚至会危及德意志。这在1878年初期看来似乎是很可能的。但是，俾斯麦充当“诚实的掮客”以使所有强国在柏林会议上做出妥协的外交技巧，加强了和平解决危机的可能，并再次强调了在欧洲事务中德意志所占的中心的和稳定局势的地位。
But the great Eastern Crisis of 1876–1878 also did a great deal for Germany’s relative position. While the small Russian fleet in the Black Sea performed brilliantly against the Turks, the Russian army’s 1877 campaigning revealed that its post- Crimean War reforms had not really taken effect. Although bravery and sheer numbers produced an eventual Russian victory over the Turks in both the Bulgarian and the Caucasian theaters of operation, there were far too many examples of “extremely inadequate reconnaissance of the enemy positions, lack of coordination between the units, and confusion in the high command”;104 and the threat of British and Austrian intervention on Turkey’s behalf compelled the Russian government, once again aware of a looming bankruptcy, to agree to compromise on its demands by late 1877. If the Pan-Slavs in Russia were later to blame Bismarck for supervising the Berlin Conference which formalized those humiliating concessions, the fact remained that many among the St. Petersburg elite were more than ever aware of the need to maintain good relations with Berlin—and even to reenter, in a revised form, another Three Emperors’ understanding in 1881. Similarly, although Vienna had threatened to break away from Bismarck’s controls at the peak of the crisis in 1879, the secret Austro-German alliance of the following year tied it again to German strings, as did the later Three Emperors’ alliance of 1881, and the Triple Alliance between Berlin, Vienna, and Italy of 1882. All of these agreements, moreover, had the effect of drawing the signatories away from France and placing them in some degree of dependence upon Germany. 105
1876年至1878年的东方大危机对德意志的相对地位也大有裨益。虽然俄国在黑海的小型舰队在与土耳其人作战时表现得很出色，但是1877年俄国陆军的征讨却暴露出它在克里米亚战争后的改革没有真正见效。虽然勇敢兵员的绝对数字最后使俄国人在保加利亚和高加索两个战场上战胜土耳其人，但“侦察敌人阵地极不充分、各部队之间缺乏协同行动和高级指挥混乱”的例子实在太多了。英、奥站在土耳其一边进行干预的威胁，使俄国政府又一次意识到隐约出现的崩溃，从而迫使它在1877年晚些时候同意做出妥协。即使后来俄国的泛斯拉夫主义分子谴责俾斯麦，说他把持了使那些屈辱的让步合法化的柏林会议，但事实上圣彼得堡精英中的许多人更加意识到需要保持同柏林的良好关系——甚至在修正的形式下重新参加了1881年的另一个三皇谅解。同样，虽然俄国在1879年危机高潮时曾经威胁要挣脱俾斯麦的控制，但次年秘密的奥德同盟又把它捆在了德意志的绳索上，就像1881年的三皇同盟及1882年柏林、维也纳和意大利的三国同盟一样。另外，所有的这些协定都起着使签字国疏远法国和使它们在一定程度上依赖德意志的作用。
Finally, the events of the late 1870s had reemphasized the longstanding Anglo- Russian rivalry in the Near East and Asia, which inclined both of those powers to look toward Berlin for benevolent neutrality, and turned public attention even further away from Alsace-Lorraine and central Europe. This tendency was to become even stronger in the 1880s, when a whole series of events—the French acquisition of Tunis (1881), the British intervention in Egypt (1882), the wholesale “scramble” for tropical Africa (1884 onward), and the renewed threat of an Anglo-Russian war over Afghanistan (1885)— marked the beginnings of the age of the “New Imperialism. ”106 Although the longer-term effects of this renewed burst of western colonialism were going to profoundly alter the position of many of the Great Powers, the short-term consequence was to emphasize Germany’s diplomatic influence within Europe and thus aid Bismarck’s endeavors to preserve the status quo. If the peculiarly tortuous system of treaties and countertreaties which he devised during the 1880s was not likely to produce lasting stability, it nonetheless seemed to ensure that peace prevailed among the European powers at least in the near future.
最后，19世纪70年代后期的事件重新突出了长期以来在近东和亚洲的英俄对抗，这使两国倾向于谋求柏林仁慈的中立，甚至进一步转移公众对阿尔萨斯—洛林和中欧的注意。这一倾向在19世纪80年代变得更加强烈了，当时一系列事件——法国取得突尼斯（1881年），英国干涉埃及（1882年），大规模“争夺”赤道非洲（1884年起），就阿富汗问题引起的英俄战争的威胁重新出现——标志着“新帝国主义”时代的开始。虽然西方殖民主义的这种重新迸发的长期影响将深刻地改变许多大国的地位，但其短期的后果是突出德意志在欧洲内部的外交影响，从而加强了俾斯麦为维持现状所做的努力。即使19世纪80年代他设计了特别居心叵测的条约和反条约体系不可能持久的稳定，但它似乎能确保，至少在不久的将来，和平在欧洲列强中将是主流。