Benjamin Moran to Hamilton Fish, February 4, 1871
Mr. Moran to Mr. Fish
The first direct news that has reached London from Paris since the capitulation, arrived this evening. For a whole week a black veil seemed to have fallen between that city and the outer world. The advices so far are meager, but they are sufficient to show that the sufferings of the population during the siege, and particularly at its close, from want of food and fuel, were really terrible. Nothing more truly awful has occurred since the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. Starvation had actually set in, and the proud capital fell, not before the military prowess of Prussia, but before the sappings of famine.
Politically, things are much confused in France. Mr. Gambetta’s course is doing mischief. Many regard him as a despot. He is not disposed to carry out fairly that clause of the convention of the 28th of January which relates to the elections. He proposes to exclude all but republicans from the polls. In other words, he advises not to consult the whole nation, but to try to get an assembly elected only by one section of French society, and that probably not the majority. An object of this kind was foreseen by Count Bismarck and M. Jules Favre, as indicated by the second article of the convention of the 28th of January. Mr. Gambetta’s decree is in violation of that article. Count Bismarck protests against the decree, and declares that only freely elected deputies, as stipulated in the convention, will be recognized by the Germans as representatives of France.
A translation of the convention appeared in The Daily Telegraph yesterday morning, and I have the honor to inclose a copy herewith.
Much has been said in the newspapers about the German terms of peace; but the conditions reported from Berlin a few days since, and generally believed here at the time, are pronounced inaccurate in so far as concerns Lorraine, Pondecherry, and the cession of twenty men-of-war. The demand for a war indemnity of about four hundred millions of pounds will probably be persisted in. Some excitement exists here in consequence of the alleged demand for Pondecherry, it being very properly remarked that the surrender of that settlement cannot be needed to promote “German unity,” any more than the cession of Martinique, Guadaloupe, or Corsica.
That peace will result from the armistice, is doubtful. But, after all, the exhausted state of France may lead the people—for they are to decide the question—to come to terms now, rather than go on fighting a hopeless battle, in which they must at last be the losers.
I have, &c.,