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diff --git a/29473-8.txt b/29473-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6ffd53 --- /dev/null +++ b/29473-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11064 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blood and Iron, by John Hubert Greusel + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Blood and Iron + Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its + Founder, Bismarck + +Author: John Hubert Greusel + +Release Date: July 21, 2009 [EBook #29473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOOD AND IRON *** + + + + +Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + BLOOD and IRON + + _Origin of German Empire + As Revealed by Character + of Its Founder, Bismarck_ + + BY + + JOHN HUBERT GREUSEL + + THE SHAKESPEARE PRESS + 114-116 E. 28th St. + New York + 1915 + + + Copyright, 1915, John Hubert Greusel + + + _Dedicated to Stella My Wife_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + +BOOK THE FIRST: BISMARCK'S HUMAN ESSENCE + +Chapter I--The Man Himself + 1. The Giant's Ponderous Hammer + 2. Grossly Human Is Our Bismarck + 3. Despite Political Bogs + 4. Genius Combined with Foibles + +Chapter II--Blood Will Tell + 5. Iron-headed Ancestry + 6. Animal Basis of Rise to Power + 7. "The Wooden Donkey Dies Today!" + +Chapter III--The Gothic Cradle + 8. The Child of Destiny + 9. Soft Carl, Spartan Louise + +Chapter IV--Sunshine and Shadow + 10. Amazing Powers of Hereditary Traits + 11. The Wolf's Breed + 12. Twenty-eight Duels! + 13. Fizzle of First Official Service + + +BOOK THE SECOND: THE GERMAN NATIONAL PROBLEM + +Chapter V--The Great Sorrow + 14. The German Crazy Quilt + 15. The Diamond Necklace + +Chapter VI--Prussia's De Profundis + 16. The Lash and the Kiss + 17. The Prussian Downfall + 18. Prussia Becomes Germany + 19. Kingcraft Comes Upon Evil Days + 20. The Star of Hope + 21. The King Keeps Reading His Bible + 22. The Deluge + + +BOOK THE THIRD: BISMARCK SUPPORTS HIS KING + +Chapter VII--Fighting Fire with Fire + 23. Voice in the Wilderness + 24. The Young Giant + 25. Speechless for One Whole Month + 26. Bellowing His Defiance + +Chapter VIII--Bismarck Suffers a Great Shock + 27. Bismarck Scorns French Political Millennium + 28. Militarism as National Salvation + 29. King Marches with Mob! + +Chapter IX--So Much the Worse for Zeitgeist + 30. Not Politics--Human Nature + 31. Setting Back the Century Clock + 32. The Master at Work + 33. Bismarck Nudges His King + 34. Mystical High-flown Speeches + + +BOOK THE FOURTH: BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER + +Chapter X--Socrates in Politics + 35. The Frankfort School of Intrigue + 36. Preparing for German Unity + 37. Tyrants Are Necessary + 38. Bismarck, in Naked Realism + +Chapter XI--The Mailed Fist + 39. Democracy Stems from Aristocracy + 40. Parallel Elements of Power + +Chapter XII--By Blood and Iron! + 41. The Man of the Hour + 42. Rough and Tumble + 43. On Comes the Storm + 44. Bismarck Decides to Rule Alone + +Chapter XIII--The Dream of Empire + 45. Bismarck Tricks Them All + 46. Prussian Domination Essential + 47. By Faith Ye Shall Conquer + 48. Was Bismarck a Beast? + + +BOOK THE FIFTH: THE GERMAN PEOPLE ARE ONE AND UNITED + +Chapter XIV--Windrows of Corpses + 49. Devil or Saint, Which? + 50. Sleeping Beside the Dead + 51. The Rejected Stone + 52. His Ikon? + 53. "The Dying Warrior" + 54. Sadowa Summed Up + 55. Manure + +Chapter XV--The Great Year, 1870 + 56. "These Poor Times" + 57. The Bugle Blast + 58. Bismarck's Ironical Revenge + 59. The Weaver's Hut + 60. Zenith! + +Chapter XVI--The Versailles Masterpiece + 61. The Kaiser's Crown + 62. Divine-right, a Politico-Military Fact + + +BOOK THE SIXTH: ONCE A MAN AND TWICE A CHILD + +Chapter XVII--The Downfall + 63. Bismarck's Secret Discontent + 64. "Who Made United Germany?" + 65. The Irony of Fate + 66. Last Illusion Dispelled + 67. Binding Up the Old Man's Wounds + 68. Awaiting the Call + 69. Refuses to Pass Under the Yoke + 70. Glory Turns to Ashes + +Chapter XVIII--Hail and Farewell + 71. His Final and Most Glorious Decoration + 72. "As One Asleep" + + + + + BOOK THE FIRST + + Bismarck's Human Essence + + + + + CHAPTER I + + The Man Himself + + + 1 + + Hark, Hark! The giant's ponderous hammer rings on the anvil + of destiny. Enter, thou massive figure, Bismarck, and in + deadly earnest take thy place before Time's forge. + +¶ It is, it must be, a large story--big with destiny! The details +often bore with their monotony; they do not at all times march on; +they drag, but they do indeed never halt permanently; ahead always is +the great German glory. + +¶ Forward march, under Prince Bismarck. He is our grim blacksmith, +looming through the encircling dark, massive figure before Time's +forge. + +The sparks fly, the air rings with the rain of blows: he is in deadly +earnest, this half-naked, brawny Prussian giant; magnificent in his +Olympian mien; his bellows cracking, his shop aglow with +cheery-colored sparks as the heavy hammer falls on the unshapen ores +on the big black anvil. + +¶ Thus, toiling hour after hour in the heat and sweat, our Pomeranian +smith with ponderous hammer beats and batters the stubborn German iron +into a noble plan--for a great Nation! + + * * * * * + +¶ From a human point, we do not always see the ultimate glory. + +For that is obscured by dark clouds of party strife, extending over +years, the caprices of men and the interplay of ambitions both within +and without the distracted German lands. Russia, Austria, Italy, Great +Britain, France, Spain, have their spies engaged in all the under-play +of political intrigue; there are a thousand enemies at home and +abroad, in camp, court and peasant's cottage. + +¶ And at times, weary of it all, we throw down the book convinced +that, in a welter of sordid ends, the cause is lost in shame. + +But, somehow, some way, Germany does in truth ultimately emerge +triumphant, in spite of her amazing errors and the endless plots of +enemies. + +She does indeed justify her manhood--and thus the Bismarck story is of +imperishable glory. + + * * * * * + +¶ We say that Bismarck had to re-inspire the Germans to be a fighting +nation. + +What we mean is that the spirit of the ancient Teutons had to be +aroused; for though it slumbered for centuries, it never died. + +Rome found that out when she was still in her infancy; the Germans +burnt the town by the Tiber; and the fearsome struggle between the +Romans and the Germanic tribesmen lasted almost unbroken for nearly +five centuries. + +¶ The Romans regarded the Germans as the bravest people in the world. + +The migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones, and the frightful struggles +in which after superhuman endeavors the Roman Marius destroyed his +German enemies is one of the heroic pages of all history. It was a +hand-to-hand contest, and torrents of human blood ran that day. Menzel +tells us, (Germany, p. 85), that the place of battle enriched by a +deluge of blood and ultimately fertilized by heaps of the slain, +became in after years the site of vineyards whose wines were eagerly +sought by connoisseurs. + +¶ The Cimbri were drawn up in a solid square, each side of which +measured 7,000 paces. The foremost ranks were fastened together with +chains, that the enemy might not readily break through. Even the +German dogs that guarded the baggage train fought with animal +ferocity. The battle went against the Germans and the slaughter was +frightful. When all was lost, the Germans killed their women and +children, rather than see them fall into the hands of the Romans. +German courage inspired terror and created foreboding throughout the +Roman world. It is a heroic story and sustains the German tradition +that Germans born free under their ancient oaks never will be slaves, +though the whole world is against them. + +The success varied, but the Germans conquered, even in death, becoming +lineal descendants of the Empire. And on the ruins were builded the +German nation, as the successor of the old Holy Roman Empire. + + * * * * * + +¶ We picture to you these shadowy glimpses of remote battle-scenes to +show you that Germans were ever fighting men, who preferred death to +loss of liberty. + +On the ruins of Roman imperial glory, Teutonic conquerors founded an +Empire that defied time and chance for upwards of 1,000 years; then +there crept in a peculiar dry rot. The ancient German oak died at the +top. Along came Napoleon, hacking away the limbs and scarring the +gnarled trunk with fire and sword. The ruin seemed complete. Dead at +the top, dead at the root, men said. And what men say is true. There +is no longer a Germany, except as a mere geographical designation; +when you speak of the German Empire you recall merely the echo of a +once mighty name. + +It now becomes Bismarck's solemn duty, fortified by a noble +appreciation of the ancient legend, to make the German oak green again +in its immortal youth. And he watered the roots with blood. + +¶ We cannot tell you the great story in a few baby-sentences; you must +read and grasp the broad spirit as it gradually unfolds. Bismarck in +the crudity of his early inspiration scarcely finds himself for years. +But all the while he is holding fast to the idea that the Fatherland +should under God be free and united, sustained by the ancient Teutonic +brotherhood in arms. + +We present him in part as a tyrant, a wild, intolerant spirit, working +his own plans to be sure, but those plans in the end are to redound to +the good of the nation he long and unselfishly serves. + +We ask you to see him in his weakness and we hope with some of his +strength, always with his high purpose. + +We ask you to behold him as a man with all a strong man's frailties +and faults. We do not spare him. We paint him black, now and then, +deliberately, that you may know how very small ofttimes are the very +great; also to realize that if we are to wait for perfect human beings +to front our reforms then those reforms will never be made. + +Bismarck is too great a man to be belittled by the glamour of spurious +praise for spurious virtues. + +It was not necessary for him to cease to be a human being in order to +carry out his work. He remained, to the end, grossly human, for which +the gods be praised. + + + 2 + + Grossly human is our Bismarck, whose lust for control is + idiomatic; let us get this clearly, first of all. + +¶ Did you ever see a bulldog battle with one of his kind? The +startling fact is this: The dog suddenly develops magnificent reserve +force, making his battling blood leap; is transformed into a catapult, +bearing down his adversary or by him borne down--it matters not +which!--for the joy of battle. To fight is the realization of his +utmost being. + +¶ A peculiar fact known to all admirers of a fighting bulldog is this: +The dog during the fight, looks now and then at his master near-by, as +much as to say, "See how well I fight!" + +¶ Thus Bismarck looked at his King. + + * * * * * + +¶ The nature of the pit bulldog is seen in Bismarck's head. His surly +face inspires a sense of dread. There is that in his physiognomy that +shows his ugly disposition, when aroused. If you saw that moody face +in the crowd, one glance would be sufficient to make you feel how +vituperative, short, sharp, murderous the unknown man could be, on +occasion. + +¶ Yet the fear stirred by the sight of a pit bulldog is ofttimes +largely illusionary. The dog at heart is genial in a brute way, and +never a more loyal servant than the bulldog to his friends--devoted +even to death, to his master. + +¶ It is the sense of dread in the bulldog's head that strikes home! So +with Bismarck's physiognomy. The Iron Chancellor had but to come into +the room to make his onlookers experience uneasiness. There was an +ever-present suggestion of pent-up power, that could in an instant be +turned upon men's lives, to their destruction! + +¶ It is true that Bismarck had his genial side, but it cannot be said +that he drew and held men to him. He had thousands of admirers to one +friend. During the greater part of his life he was either hated or +feared--at best, misunderstood. Like the pit bulldog, Bismarck was +born to rule other lives--and he fulfilled his mission. + +¶ The element of absolutism in the man, his uncompromising severity, +his command of the situation regardless of cost, sorrow or suffering +to other men, is seen in his realistic physiognomy. We study these +facts more and more, as we go along. + + * * * * * + +¶ There was always something imperious about this great man. He +brooked no interference. His excessive dignity compelled respect. He +never allowed familiarities; you could not safely presume on his good +nature. He never permitted you to get too near. This abnormal +self-confidence conveyed the idea that this giant in physique and in +intellectual power was truly cut out for greatness. + +One of his favorite pranks, as a boy, was to amuse himself making +faces at his sister; he could frighten her by his queer grimaces. + +From early youth, he was accustomed to take himself very seriously, +and by his offensive manners conveyed an immediate impression of the +ironical indifference in which he held humanity, in the mass. + +¶ He was a born aristocrat, in a sense of high, offensive +partisanship. + +¶ Men shrank from him, cursed him, reviled his name; but they +respected his intellect, even in the early days when he used his +power in an undisciplined way; yes, was painfully learning the +business of mastering human lives. + +¶ The brute in the man loomed large; the unreasoning but magnificent +audacity of the bulldog expressed itself in scars, wounds, +deep-drinking bouts, fisticuffs, and in twenty-eight duels. + +¶ But he had another kind of courage, greater in import than that +expressed by physical combat. + + * * * * * + +¶ When we say Bismarck's work is a revelation of his will to power, we +emphasize again how unnecessary it is to make him either less or more +than a human being. There is a school of writers that never mentions +his name except with upturned eyes, as though he were a demigod. The +tendency of human nature is to idealize such as Bismarck out of all +semblance to the original, creating wax figures where once were men of +flesh and blood. + +¶ Men rise to power largely in uniform ways; that psychic foundation +on which they draw is always grossly human, rather dull when you +understand it, always conventional;--and the great Bismarck himself is +no exception. + +¶ In doing his work, Bismarck is following the psychic necessities of +his character; is acting in a very personal way, upheld always by the +soldier's virtue, ambition. There is also a large element of +self-love. His idiomatic lust for control is to be accepted as a +root-fact of his peculiar type of being. And while on the whole his +ambition is exercised for the good of his country, herein he is +acting, in addition, under the ardent appetite, in his case a passion, +to dominate millions of lives; urged not perhaps so much from a +preconceived desire to dominate as from an inherent call to exercise +his innate capacity for leadership. + +¶ Making allowance for the idea that Bismarck is a devoted servant of +the King of Prussia, it is not necessary to believe that Bismarck +poses as the Savior of his country. In fact, he distinctly disavows +this sacrifice, has too much sense to regard himself from this absurd +point of view. + +¶ The words carved on Bismarck's tomb at his own request, "A Faithful +German Servant of Emperor William I," show that however much other men +were unable to comprehend the baffling Bismarckian character, the Iron +Chancellor himself had no vain illusions. + +¶ When he was 83 and about to die, the old man taking a final sweep of +his long and turbulent life, asked himself solemnly: "How will I be +known in time to come?" + +¶ Fame replied: "You have been a great Prince; an invincible maker of +Empire, you have held in your hand the globe of this earth; call +yourself what you will, and I will write a sermon in brass on your +tomb." + +¶ But the Iron Chancellor, after mature reflection, decided that his +entire career, with all its high lights and its deep shadows, could be +expressed in four simple words, "A Faithful German Servant." He knew +exactly what he was, and how he would ultimately be represented in +history. + +¶ Think what this means. On those supreme questions of Life and Time +involving the interpretation of Destiny--a problem hopelessly obscure +to the average man--Bismarck brought a massive mind charged with a +peculiar clairvoyance; often, his fore-knowledge seemed well-nigh +uncanny in its exact realism; and if you doubt this assertion, all we +ask is that you withhold your verdict till you have read Bismarck's +story, herein set forth in intimate detail. + +¶ How clear the old man's vision to discern behind all his Bismarckian +pomp and majesty, in camp, court and combat, only the rôle of faithful +servant. + +¶ The phrase on his tomb proclaims the man's great mind. His +overbrooding silence, as it were, is more eloquent than sermons in +brass. + + * * * * * + +¶ In studying Bismarck, the man, we merge his identity in the events +of his time; but we must sharply differentiate between the events and +the man. We incline to the belief that hereditary tendencies explain +him more than does environment. It is Bismarck as a human being, and +not the tremendous panorama of incidents leading to German sovereignty +that always holds our interest. Life is life, and is intensely +interesting, for its own sake. + +Thus, we are at once freed from a common fallacy of biographical +writing--that vicious mental attitude, as vain as it is egotistical on +part of the over-partial historian, who would warp some manifest +destiny on human life. + +¶ Bismarck needs no historical explanation, no reference to hackneyed +categories in the card-index of Time. Whether his plan was dedicated +to this world or to the glory of some invisible God, you may debate as +you will, but Bismarck will be neither greater nor less because of +flights of your imagination. + +¶ He is a great man in the sense that he did large things, but this +does not make him other than he is, nor does his story lose because we +know him to be grossly human in his aims. His life does not borrow +anything because a certain type of mind professes to see behind +Bismarck's history, as indeed behind the careers of all great men, +some mysterious purpose apart and beyond human nature's daily needs. +It was not necessary for Bismarck to cease to be a human being, to +accomplish what he accomplished. + + * * * * * + +¶ Also, for the reason that Bismarck was a genius, he is an exception +to conventional rules covering the limitations of little men. + +¶ Bismarck was a born revolutionist. Look at his terrible jaw, which, +like the jaws of the bulldog, when once shut down never lets go till +that object is in shreds. + +¶ He was a true bulldog in this that, like the thoroughbred bulldog, +Bismarck favored one feed a day. He took a light breakfast, no second +breakfast, but at night would eat one enormous meal. + +The bulldog follows a similar practice, when eating never looks from +the plate, and the water fairly runs from his eyes, with animal +satisfaction. + +¶ Bismarck compelled men to do his bidding--as the wind drives the +clouds and asks not when or why. It is enough to know that that is the +wind's way! + +He knew the coward, the thief, the soldier, the priest, the citizen, +the king, and the peasant. + +He knew how to betray an enemy with a Judas kiss; how to smite him +when he was down; how to dig pitfalls for his feet; how to ply him +with champagne and learn his secrets; how to permit him to win money +at cards, and then get him to sign papers; how to remember old +obligations or to forget new favors; how to read a document in more +than one way; how to turn historical parallels upside down; how to +urge today what he refused to entertain a year ago; how to put the +best face on a losing situation; and how to shuffle, cut and stack the +cards, or at times how to play in the open. + +¶ He was not a humanitarian with conceptions of world peace or world +benevolences. He was for himself and his own ends, which were tied to +his political conception of a new Germany. + +¶ And all the time he was helped out by his extraordinary vital +powers, his ability to work all night like a horse week after week; go +to bed at dawn and sleep till afternoon; then drive a staff of +secretaries frantic with his insistent demands. + +¶ Likewise, he was helped out by his remarkable personality. Actor +that he was, he sometimes gained his point by his frankness, knowing +that when he told the exact truth he would not be believed. + +¶ Also, he could bluff and swagger, or he could speak in the polite +accents of the distinguished gentleman; he could gulp a quart of +champagne without taking the silver tankard from his lips; in younger +years he used to eat from four to eleven eggs at a meal, besides +vegetables, cakes, beer, game and three or four kinds of meats; his +favorite drink was a mixture of champagne and porter. + + * * * * * + +¶ He was a chain-smoker, lighted one cigar with another, often smoked +ten or twelve hours at a stretch. His huge pipes, in the drawing room; +his beer, in the salons of Berlin; his irritability, his bilious +streaks, his flashes of temper; his superstition about the number 13; +his strange mixing of God with all his despotic conduct; his fondness +for mastiffs; his attacks of jaundice; his volcanic outbursts; his +belief in ghosts, in the influence of the moon to make the hair grow; +his mystical something about seven and combinations of seven; his +incessant repetition of the formula that he was obeying his God--were +but human weaknesses that showed he had a side like an everyday common +man. + +¶ On top of it all he was great, because he knew how to manage men +either with or without their consent; but he always studied to place +himself in a strategic position from which he could insist on his +demand for his pound of flesh. + +¶ Sometimes, it took years before he could lull to sleep, buy, bribe +or win over the men he needed; again when the game was short and +sharp, he kicked some men out of his path contemptuously, others he +parleyed with, still others he thundered against and defied; but +always at the right time, won his own way. + +¶ Yes, even Bismarck's card-playing is subordinated to the shrewd ends +of diplomacy. Dr. Busch, the press-agent of Bismarck during the +Franco-Prussian war, tells us that Bismarck once made this frank +confession: + +¶ "In the summer of 1865 when I concluded the Convention of Gastein +with Blome (the Austrian), I went in for quinze so madly that the rest +could not help wondering at me. But I knew what I was about. Blome had +heard that this game gave the best possible opportunity for +discovering a man's real nature, and wanted to try it on with me. So I +thought to myself, here's for you then, and away went a few hundred +thalers, which I really might have charged as spent in His Majesty's +service. But at least I thus put Blome off the scent, so he thought me +a reckless fellow and gave way." + + + 3 + + Despite vast areas of political bogs, quaking under foot, + that one must traverse, our Otto is not inaccessible! + +¶ For many years they hate him like hell-fire itself, this Otto von +Bismarck. The Prussians hate him, the Austrians, the Bavarians, to say +nothing of the intervening rabble; but our tyrant is strong enough, in +the end, to win foreign wars, and then the haters veer about, almost +in a night, come up on bended knees and kiss the hand that +smites--that hand of Bismarck, at once the best-beloved and the +most-hated hand of his time. What more pray do you ask of human +nature? + +¶ Now here is a strange reality: If you look at the general outlines +of the German map in 1815, you will see that the frontiers trace in a +startling way the scowling outlines of Frederick the Great, "Old +Fritz," who first dreamed this German unity idea. + +But mighty Frederick is in the royal tomb these many years; and a new +Frederick in spirit is rapidly learning the business of king-maker and +empire-builder. + + * * * * * + +¶ Behind the name Bismarck is a story extraordinary, compounded of the +intrigues, blood and passions of Austria, Russia, Italy, France, +Belgium, Bavaria, Spain, and England. + +Volumes would not suffice to give you the bewildering details; +mountains of diplomatic letters, orders, telegrams, truths, +half-truths, shuffling, cutting and stacking; you go confusedly from +palace to people, prince to pauper, university to prison pen--all the +way from Waterloo to Versailles, where William I received at last his +great glory, German Emperor. + +¶ Bismarck's story is best told in flashes of lightning--as you try to +picture a bolt from the black skies. + +By the patience of the methodical historian who laboriously examines +each document in the National archives, one fills soon enough a +ten-volume account--with a swamp of cross-references, footnotes to +each paragraph, and with notes to the footnotes. + +¶ Yet this Bismarck is not inaccessible if we get at his inner side, +grasp the man's essence. + +Strong arm and tireless brain Time asked;--a man who could neither be +bent, broken nor brow-beaten; a man who would for 40 years follow a +plan by no means clear; often had to go out in the dark and find his +way, all old landmarks lost, and no pole-star in sight. + +¶ I dwell on one outstanding fact, all down through his career: I +mean Bismarck's power to conceal pain. Hurricanes of insulting +criticisms swept around his head, year after year, but on the whole +Otto's attitude was that of the mountain that defies the storm. He +would never give in that, as it seemed to onlookers, a shaft of +disagreeable truth had struck home; that a soft-nosed bullet, well +aimed, had torn his flesh or broken a bone; or that a dagger-thrust, +going directly through his coat of the White Cuirassier had pierced +his heart. + +¶ Even in his bitter defeats, he had a peculiar idiomatic way of +making out that the result was exactly what he desired. It was of +course only an adroit explanation to protect his pride; the brazen +invention of a nature that would not acknowledge itself in error. Here +is Bismarck, to the core. + +¶ For a long and turbulent life-time Bismarck's soul was tried by the +very tortures of the damned! + + + 4 + + Wherein it is set forth that Otto von Bismarck's massive + political genius, combined with his personal foibles, mark him + as a heroic figure, side by side with Frederick the Great. + +¶ In attempting to depict a consistent Bismarck, we find that his life +has been as much misinterpreted through the carping need of envious +political critics as through the bad art of historically well-disposed +friends. + +The perplexing problem is to blend his massive mental grasp, side by +side with his strange fits of irritability, his turbulence, his +deep-drinking, his gluttony, his wild pranks. + +About him at all times, whether expressed or concealed, there floated +an ironic derision of the littleness of the average man, whom at heart +Bismarck despised. + +While the eyes of detractors are everywhere, the voice of hero-worship +has likewise conspired to make an impossible idol of a man with very +human and ofttimes crying frailties; the biographic truth is to be +found somewhere between these two extremes; but even with this clear +clue in mind, it is often difficult to reconcile amazing personal and +diplomatic inconsistencies with which his career abounds. + +¶ Then, too, there is something that strikes like the irony of +Socrates, only bitter instead of light; and Bismarck reveals now and +then a touch remindful of that Rabelaisian hero whose enormous +capacity could only be quenched by draining the river dry. To tell +Bismarck's inner life-story, in a large way, one must often deal with +a series of pictures akin to the gods and devils in Dore's +delineations for Dante's "Inferno." + +It often seems as though every important act of this great man's life +was charged with the significance of Destiny, stands forth vividly +against a background of intrigue, superstition, personal follies, the +smoke and flame of battle--a heroic figure side by side with such +master-spirits as Frederick the Great. + +Like Frederick the Severe, this Bismarck is very human indeed, and has +his crying weaknesses, and his enemies, God knows, tried for forty +years to get rid of him by intrigue, often by assassination; yet until +his great duty is done he must hold firmly to his place, must do the +work which brings him no peace, or rest, only trouble year after year. + + * * * * * + +¶ Throughout the amazing story, no matter which way we travel, we +always return to a profound sense of this giant's will and his massive +knowledge of human life, expressed in his ability to force the +shrewdest men in Europe to do his bidding. + +His sense of power is so supreme that sometimes it really seems that, +as Bismarck himself often sets forth, his authority fell from heaven. + +Here, there is a direct harking back to the ancient days in the Alt +Mark, to the Circle of Stendal with its little town of Bismarck, on +the Biese, where stands the ancient masonry dating from 1203, and +known as the "Bismarck Louse." + +¶ The strange legend of the Bismarck Louse tells worlds of the ancient +Bismarck power, in those far-off times, helps us in the year 1915 to +grasp certain obscure phases of the Bismarck racial strength, +inherited by Otto von Bismarck. + +¶ This medieval Bismarck Tower received its name from a gigantic louse +which inhabited this place, and had to be fed and appeased; therefore, +every day the superstitious peasants of the district brought huge +quantities of meat and drink, for the monster's food. It is needless +to add that these visits were encouraged by the Bismarck lord of the +soil, in Alt Mark;--and here you see already the cunning in managing +human nature so characteristic of the Bismarck genius. + +¶ The purely social application of this gossip may, however, be eyed +with suspicion, as a French canard. It was so easy for "Figaro" to +libel the Bismarck of 1871, whereupon the whole French press followed +and barked at the Iron Chancellor's heels. + +He was caricatured, spit at, reviled, depicted as the beast-man in +Europe. + +¶ For one thing, Bismarck knew France was the richest nation in +Europe, also that she had ambition for the left bank of the Rhine; and +to General Sheridan, who chanced to be at Sedan and Gravelotte on +official business, Bismarck said, "The only way to keep France from +waging war in the near future is to empty her pockets." + +¶ French newspaper editors lashed themselves into insanity trying to +invent new names for the man who had brought the downfall of the +Empire, at Sedan; the man who at Versailles was arranging the hardest +terms of peace ever conceived by a diplomatic Shylock, bent on having +his pound of flesh. + +¶ Paris journalists called him "the incarnation of the evil spirit," +"the Antichrist," "the shrewd barbarian," "crime-stained ogre, who was +always thrashing his wife with a dog-whip," "he kept a harem, from +which no Berlin shopkeeper's daughter was safe;" "once he became +enamored of a nun and hired ruffians to kidnap her and bear her away +to his castle;" "he is the father of many illegitimate children, in +Berlin some say as many as fifty;" "he once lashed one of his Russian +mistresses over the bare shoulders because he suspected her of looking +at another admirer;" "he uses his confidential diplomatic knowledge to +add to his huge private fortune by gambling on every Bourse in +Europe." + +¶ How magnificent--if it were indeed only true! What a relief that +would be over the tame details of average human life, and what a boon +to biographers this grand wickedness! Alas, the tales are only +important as specimens of French drawing room gossip of 1871! + +¶ The fables never bothered Bismarck a moment. When he was ready, he +repaid them in his own splendid coin; and certainly he was past-master +of the gentle art of putting a razor-edge on an insult! + +¶ Bismarck had his vituperative side. Egged on by his wife and his +son, Bismarck became at times verbally ferocious. His wife, a +descendant of those terrible Frankish women-warriors, stemming from +barbarian times, could under stress exercise a barbarian's stark +freedom of speech; and when Bismarck, furious at some insult, was +replying with a political cannonade, she would infuriate him to still +greater exertions by suggesting: + +¶ "Bismarck, hiss a little! Hiss a little!" + + * * * * * + +¶ And after seven hundred years, the Bismarck psychology behind the +old Tower's superstitious appeal remains substantially the same. We +shall see at times as we sketch for you the life portrait of Otto von +Bismarck a mysterious atavism; the self-same mental astuteness that +stood his ancestors in such good stead, enabling them to frighten the +peasants into providing the corn. + +¶ Yes, blood will tell--and the Bismarck blood is rare juice! + + + + + CHAPTER II + + Blood Will Tell + + + 5 + + Battle-born, Bismarck's genius springs from the very fire and + sword of human nature--resembling definitely his iron-headed + barbarian ancestry, whose freedom remained unconquered through + the centuries. + +¶ We cannot hope to trace Bismarck to any complete legal basis--any +more than we can defend the complete legitimacy of France, Belgium, or +the United States, countries avowedly harking back to revolutionary +origin. Bismarck's life, likewise, presents unquestioned elements of +anarchistic root. Inherited from battle-born Bismarcks are forces +peculiar to himself, free, and individualistic, profoundly expressive +wherein Mother Nature summoning her ultimate powers endows a colossal +courage in a colossal mind and body. + +¶ As far as the Thirteenth Century, the name Bismarck, then styled +Bishofsmarck or Biscopesmarck, is associated with the little river +Biese; but whence the original stock is for antiquarians to debate. + +Believe the Bismarcks to be of Bohemian, of Frankish or of Jewish +origin, or of Slavic if you will, you find bespectacled, scholastic +authorities who will open the musty pages and display to you the +truth. + +¶ Herbort of Biese became in due course Herbort von Bismarck. The +"von" was unquestionably a mark of geographical origin, rather than a +sign of nobility. The name is borne by other families from Biese; but +the important part is not the name but the men behind that name, what +that name stood for. + +¶ Herbort von Bismarck's name is enrolled in the guild papers as +master of the merchant tailors of Stendal, in the old Mark of +Brandenburg; a "Mark" being somewhat equivalent to an English "shire." + +¶ But this fact about the tailor-ancestor must not be pressed too +far. Some antiquarian of the year 2700 A. D., let us say, might argue +that President Taft was a steam-shoveler, because the name is found +recorded among the laborers who helped dig the Panama Canal; whereas, +the fact is that the President was enrolled as an honorary member of +one of the labor unions. + +Also, after Waterloo, when the British nation was running wild trying +to imagine some distinction that as yet had not been bestowed on +Wellington, the London tailors in a moment of inspiration added the +Iron Duke's name to the great roll of scissor-snippers! + + * * * * * + +¶ Beginning with Herbort's son, four Bismarcks, in three generations, +were social lepers. + + * * * * * + +¶ Klaus von Bismarck died about the year 1385, outside the holy favor +of the church--as his father had died before him, and as did two sons, +in their turn. But Klaus, ever shrewd in a worldly way, recommended +himself as a king's fighting man; led the robber gang off with the +loot in the name of his merry monarch, the Margrave of Bavaria. + +¶ For this most excellent service as a professional man-killer, Klaus +was rewarded with a knight's fee of forest land, at Burgstal, an +estate that remained in the family for two hundred years. There were +deer, wild boar, wolves and bear in the Bismarck forest, and one day +Conrad of Hohenzollern came that way on a royal hunting expedition. + +¶ Conrad could have stolen the Bismarck petty title outright, but +while he confiscated Burgstal forest, he offered Schoenhausen, on the +Elbe, in exchange. However, Schoenhausen did not compare with the +estate that the envious monarch took by force. The Burgstal forest is +to this day one of the great game preserves of the German Emperor. + +¶ The Bismarcks also received in the exchange farming land known as +Crevisse, lately confiscated by the Hohenzollerns from the nuns; and +one of the conditions of the transfer to the Bismarcks was that these +nuns should be supported. + + + 6 + + Strong animal basis of Bismarck's rise to Power--The story is + always the same, "Fight, or die like a dog!" + +¶ Thus, from time immemorial, the fighting Bismarcks wrote their title +to a share of this earth with the sword, which in spite of all Hague +Conferences remains the best sort of title man has been able to +devise. + +As time sped and what is called Civilization grew somewhat, men took +on chicken-hearted ways; and in every pinch appealed to courts for +decisions formerly decided by individual brawn; till finally, as in +these latter degenerate days, if a fight becomes necessary, society +hires policemen to stop the row. + +¶ Klaus von Bismarck preferred to do his own murdering, and +consequently, Klaus stood first in the eyes of honest men of his own +generation; but in this Twentieth Century, instead of putting +incompetents to the test of the sword, society, committed to the soft +doctrine that all life is sacred, burdens itself with lengthening the +days of the daft. A far cry that from the ideals of the early +Bismarcks! It is well to keep these facts in mind, in contemplating +the extraordinary career of the great Otto von Bismarck, king-maker +and unifier of Germany. + + * * * * * + +¶ Modern timid-hearted folk, reading of the desperate makeshifts of +the old Bismarcks to get on in the world, would say off-hand, "There +must be a strain of madness in the Bismarck brain?" + +¶ Unquestionably! This fighting family in each generation had its born +revolutionists, its enormous egotists, its men who lived what orthodox +opinion calls "godless lives"--although in their own philosophy the +Bismarcks are always preaching that God is on their side. When the +Elector decided to steal Burgstal forest, the Bismarcks set up this +pious plea: "We wish to remain in the pleasant place assigned to us by +the Almighty." Four hundred years later we find Otto von Bismarck +using again and again this peculiar reasoning, to justify, at least +to explain, his own career: "If I were not a Christian, I would not +continue to serve the King another moment. Did I not obey my God and +count on Him, I should certainly take no account of earthly masters." + +¶ In three great wars of ambition in which 80,000 perished, he +repeated this solemn formula about God; he repeated it on the +blood-drenched field of Koeniggraetz; he repeated it in the Holstein +war, and he repeated it again at Sedan and at Gravelotte. + +¶ Bismarck persisted in this peculiar conception of life, down to the +last. While in retirement, after his downfall, one day the bloody past +rose before him like a dream, and he exclaimed to Dr. Busch: "Politics +has brought me vexation, anxiety and trouble; made no one happy, me, +my family nor anyone else, but many unhappy. Had it not been for me, +there would have been three great wars less; the lives of 80,000 would +not have been sacrificed; and many parents, brothers, sisters and +wives would not now be mourners. That, however, I have settled with my +Maker!" Now, once and for all, what we understand this to mean is +merely this: a super-abundance of faith. Many great leaders have had +it--David, Cromwell, Bismarck. + + * * * * * + +¶ In seeking biographic clues, through hereditary influences, we are +impressed with the astounding animal-basis of strength behind the +Bismarcks, from earliest recorded history. They were a deep-drinking, +prolific gormandizing race, and every mother's son had to do battle by +brawn backed by the sword, or die like a dog! This bred high tempers, +turbulent manners and contempt for the weak. + +¶ Soldiers, diplomatists, brow-beaters, characterized the Bismarck +clan down through centuries. Stormy and adventurous Bismarcks fought +for the sheer delight of doing battle;--it mattered not, whether +against the Turks or against some near-by king whose lands the German +robber-knights lusted for and wished to annex by appeal to the sword. + +¶ There is a story of a garrison brawl in which a Bismarck slew his +companion in drink, then fled to Russia, then on to Siberia; soldier +of fortune, he fights under any flag that promises a gay life and +plenty of loot. Three hundred years later--how the wheel turns +round!--Otto von Bismarck, as Russian Ambassador to the King of +Prussia, engaged in intrigues for the same old lust of land, the same +old nefarious business, but this time sprayed over by the +high-sounding name, diplomacy. + +¶ Dr. Busch, the Saxon press-agent for Prince Bismarck, repeats the +old tale of the winning of Alsace by the French king, through the aid +of Otto von Bismarck's great-great-grandfather, a mercenary soldier; +adding that while one Bismarck helped take Alsace away, another of +that redoubtable family brought it back many years later, with the +added joy of the prodigious money-fine of five billions of francs! + + + 7 + + Boisterous Col. Bismarck, of the Dragoons; "The Wooden Donkey + dies today!" French Cavalier Bismarck and his mushy + prose-poems. + +¶ Burly strength and horse-play, rather than diplomacy, were always +distinctive traits of that part of the Bismarck family immediately +surrounding Otto von Bismarck; and in Otto's case, although the years +gradually taught him that there are more ways of stopping a man's +mouth than by cutting off his head, on the whole we seek in vain, +among ancestral Bismarcks, for any striking characteristics in which +the point does not turn either on gluttony or on deep-drinking. + +¶ They were enormous eaters. Bread and meat were not enough. They must +have game, fish, cake, wines, and plenty of each. Hunger put them in a +rage. They were iron men, with stomachs of pigs. + +¶ They were unbrooked master spirits, followed the hounds, fought +duels, had noisy tongues, and gloried in personal independence. + +When they loved they loved madly; when they hated it was the same. +They drank all night and were out again at dawn. + +¶ Yet in their way, they were high-minded gentlemen, devoted +themselves industriously to their duties; and it may be that the +turbulence of their lives borrowed something from the rude clash of +opinion that often divided the best friends, during the stormy periods +of history in which they fought as soldiers of fortune. + +¶ Otto von Bismarck's great-grandfather, Augustus, calling his cronies +of the barracks around him, was wont to add zest to the carousal by +introducing the trumpet call after each toast; to heighten the +infernal racket, the boisterous colonel of dragoons ordered a volley +fired in the drink-hall. + +¶ This terrible dragoon, master of the hounds, guzzler, companion and +leader in all revels, was generally voted one of the amiable men in +army circles. He was a noted shot. In one year of record his score was +154 red deer and 100 stag. + +¶ At the Ihna bridge was a ducking stool, for army punishments; it +took the amusing style of a wooden donkey, and was so called by the +dragoons as a rude joke. + +After one of his hard drinking bouts, it was often the colonel's +amusing habit to order his men to march to the bridge; on arriving the +band struck up and the wooden donkey was thrown into the stream. "All +offenders of my regiment are forgiven," Bismarck would bawl, "the +donkey dies today!" + +Then with all manner of opera bouffe the offending donkey would be put +overboard--only to be brought out next morning, ready for official +business. + + * * * * * + +¶ But our fun-loving colonel's good times were now over. As commander +of the gallant Anspach-Bayreuth dragoons, Augustus fought for +Frederick the Great and was severely wounded at Czaslau. Austrian +hussars surprised the transport wagons carrying the wounded to the +rear, and with brutality common to the soldier-business of that rude +day killed the defenseless Prussians, among whom was our Colonel von +Bismarck. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck's grandfather, Karl Alexander, leaned toward the +namby-pamby intellectual rather than to the social and convivial. He +is remembered for his affected poetical style. Karl, brave soldier, +attracted the eye of no less a judge of valor than the Great +Frederick, who appointed this Karl Alexander von Bismarck an attache +of the Prussian embassy at Vienna. + +¶ Karl, like other Germans of the sentimental period, aped the French +poets; but when a German is sentimental, the mush-pots boil over. +Karl's writings show that peculiar over-inflated quality, +"sentimentality," so much admired in the rococo period. + + * * * * * + +¶ Karl William Ferd., Otto's father, and Louise Wilhelmina, Otto's +mother, born Mencken, lived at Schoenhausen in troublous French times. +Oct. 14th, 1806, the terrible defeat at Jena put Prussia in the hands +of the enemy. + +Fortresses surrendered without firing a shot, and the panic-stricken +king fled to the far eastern side of his domains, near Russia. + +All this took place within three months after the marriage of Karl and +Louise, who had now set up housekeeping at Schoenhausen. + +¶ The Bismarcks tried to escape in a coach, but the French +unexpectedly appeared and ordered Karl back to the house. The French +ransacked every room; Louise fled to the library and locked the +massive oak door; to this day it bears the marks of French bayonets; +the Bismarcks then hid in the forest where they remained all night +with panic-stricken neighbors; at dawn Karl and Louise ventured out, +to find Schoenhausen a scene of destruction. + +¶ The one galling fact that Karl could not overlook, in Marshal +Soult's raid, was the desecration of the genealogical tree. This huge +painting with its shields of the Bismarck descent was slashed from end +to end, with bayonets! + +¶ Oh, Otto von Bismarck remembered this many, many years later, in +making terms with the French after Sedan--do not for a moment forget +that! Such is the amazing power of hereditary loves and hates;--and +certainly the Bismarcks had no reason to admire the French. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + The Gothic Cradle + + + 8 + + Idyl of the child Otto, in his huge Gothic cradle at + Schoenhausen; wonders that gather 'round his destiny, a + forecast and a reality. + + +¶ Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, the great central figure in our +story, was the fourth of six children, three dying in infancy. He was +born April 1, 1815, but a few months before the crowning defeat at +Waterloo--that year big with the hammer-blows of Destiny! + +¶ In lonesome Schoenhausen on the Elbe, the village lately devastated +by Marshal Soult and his plundering soldiers, the infant Otto sleeps +peacefully in his oak-carved Gothic cradle. A century later, we still +see that huge cradle as one of the souvenirs in the famous Bismarck +museum at Schoenhausen. + +¶ Schoenhausen house is one of those thick-walled monuments of +medićval masonry. + +There is, to be sure, something out of drawing about the antiquated +three-story house; and we survey with respect for the past the queer +courtyard, leaded panes, park with the artificial island, wooded +byways, and old forest, and not far away is the village church with +the square stone tower; hard by, also, the kattenwinkel, or Katte's +corner, at the confluence of the Havel and the Elbe; and on the house +is the Katte's coat-of-arms, a cat watching a mouse, the mark of the +sturdy 17th century builder, Katte, who to honor his wife, Dorothea +Sophia Katte, added her name to his builder's sign over the lintel. + +¶ In this historical 1815, seed-time and harvest strangely blend, yet +are years apart. + +For, while the child sleeps in his Gothic cradle, the Congress of +Vienna meets to redistribute among the hungry kings the old domains +stolen as prizes in the long Napoleonic wars; and in turn, after +incredible political adventures, running over years, the child before +us, grown to be a man, will smash the rulings of Vienna and will +build an empire stronger far than that of imperial France, now dying +at Waterloo. + +¶ All these wonders gather 'round the destiny of the child in the big +Gothic cradle, before which we now tiptoe at Schoenhausen, lest we +awaken the baby and he cry. + + * * * * * + +¶ When the French overrun Prussian territory the old land-owning +military aristocracy was reduced to bankruptcy. Mortgages falling due +could not be paid; the king extended credit for four years; and in the +interim Prussians were forced to use depreciated rag-money; all the +gold and silver had been confiscated by the French invaders. + +¶ Great dissatisfaction followed. The farms had been tilled by +feudal-laborers, practically slaves; these oppressed peasants now flew +to arms. + +Schoenhausen was a dreary place indeed; while the Bismarcks were +better off than their neighbors, still the times were out of joint and +ruin fell over the broad acres. + +¶ Then came an unexpected change. Along about 1816, Karl inherited +Kneiphof, Kuelz and Jarchelin estates from his cousin, moved to +Kneiphof, just east of the hamlet of Naugard. + +The house was exceeding modest; a brook, the Zampel, ran near by; and +there was a carp pond. Karl was fond of hunting in the old beech +forest. Such were the unsettled conditions in the Bismarck family, up +to Otto's sixth year. + + + 9 + + Soft-hearted Karl and Spartan Mother Louise; her rigid + character, its good and its bad side; her extreme punctilio and + her pistol-shooting, to steady her sight. + +¶ Otto von Bismarck inherited his tall form from his father, Karl +William. This unusual type of cavalry captain subscribed for French +journals and ate off silver plate. Karl's regiment was known as the +"White and Blue," and one of his duties was to get up at 4 in the +morning and measure corn for horses. At one time the captain lived in +Berlin, but he soon tired of the capital and gladly returned to the +country where he passed his days as squire. To the end of his life, he +was fond of horseback riding and hunting; and he brought his sons up +to ride like centaurs. + +¶ Bismarck's mother, Louise Wilhelmina Mencken, married at the age of +sixteen; her husband Karl was nineteen years her senior. + +¶ In the family circle, the father was known as the heart, the mother +as the brains; but in Louise's case it might well read "ambition." She +wished to see Otto von Bismarck, her youngest son, become a +diplomatist--a judgment that in the light of after years seems almost +uncanny. + +Later, at the full tide of the Chancellor's great glory, frequently +his earliest friends used to say, "Bismarck, had your mother only +survived to see this day!" + + * * * * * + +¶ The wife's leading trait was her inflexible resolution, the will to +rulership;--and rule she certainly did, always. + +For one thing, she steadied her nerves and schooled her sharp eyes by +practising pistol shooting. + +There was Spartan courage about her decisions! Frau Bismarck's +irritability had been growing of late; Karl was too soft with Otto. +She was angered to think that her husband might spoil Otto, by too +much coddling. The domestic climax came. + +¶ That day at table, Otto with childish impatience, began swinging his +legs like a pendulum. The good-natured Karl hadn't it in his heart to +correct the child, but instead began making excuses for Otto's +conduct. This aroused Louise's ire. To smooth matters Karl said, "See, +Minchen, how the boy is sitting there dangling his little legs!" + +¶ Louise then and there read her ultimatum. She would not have her son +spoiled by the foolishness of his soft father--not at all! She would +send her beloved son away, first. At the time, Otto was only six years +old. + +And she thereupon proceeded to keep her decision--acting with all the +aggressiveness for which in later life Otto von Bismarck was himself +celebrated. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + Sunshine and Shadow + + + 10 + + Wherein is shown the amazing power of hereditary traits; + history repeats itself. + +¶ It was from his mother that Prince Bismarck, the future ruler of +Germany, received his endowment of dauntless audacity, his gift of +trenchant argument, his bursts of ironical laughter, his power of +instant decisions, his scolding, and his bitter wrath. All these +qualities shone in the parliamentary fight before the Austrian war, +when for three years he defied the country, and raised the Prussian +war-funds by extortion! + +¶ In one sense, he was always stacking the cards! And what chance has +the fellow-player against the dealer with the marked deck? Bismarck's +life abounds with episodes showing this astonishing readiness. In +love, in laughter and in intrigue, it was ever the same. Bismarck's +use of human nature, constructively, at the precise psychological +moment, redounding to his self-interest, is supreme. + + * * * * * + +¶ At the wedding of his friend Blankenburg to Fraulein +Thadden-Triglaff, the bridesmaid was Fraulein Johanna von Puttkammer. +Bismarck saw, admired and decided. Soon after in a Hartz journey, with +the Blankenburgs, Otto had a brief opportunity to favor energetic +measures. He wasted no time, Johanna must become his wife! He wrote +direct to the young lady's parents, with whom he was not acquainted. A +flying visit followed to the home of his intended father-in-law. The +Puttkammers were surprised at the suitor's impetuous love-making, also +were shocked by the reputation Bismarck had for fast living. + +The moment he saw parents and daughter he forced the situation. +Throwing his arms around his sweetheart, Bismarck embraced her, +vigorously. And thus he won his bride even before an unwilling father +and mother; for Bismarck carried them off their feet by the very +audacity of his wooing. + + * * * * * + +¶ During the Franco-Prussian war, coming to the Rothschild château, +Bismarck found 17,000 bottles of wines in the cellar, under lock and +key; and the keeper was determined that Bismarck should not use the +master's champagnes. + +It took Bismarck only a few minutes to change all that. Soon he was +comfortably settled in the Baron's private chambers, reached by a +grand winding staircase; here the Chancellor proceeded to make himself +at home in dressing gown and slippers. + +¶ He rang for the butler, ordered wine for himself and suite. The +keeper of the cellar still refused--and Bismarck's black ire rose. In +a voice of thunder he cried, "If you do not open that cellar door by +the time I count five, you will be trussed on a spit, like a fowl!" + +¶ After that, the Prussians had what they wanted, made merry on the +rare wines of Baron Rothschild, who was known as a hater of Prussia +and an admirer of Austria. + +¶ Bismarck now decided to try various gastronomic oddities; ordered +his staff to shoot pheasants from the Baron's preserves, and commanded +the cook to stew the birds in champagne! + + * * * * * + +¶ When Napoleon wrote his famous note, at Sedan, "Not having been able +to die in the midst of my troops, there is nothing left for me but to +place my troops in your Majesty's hands," Bismarck saw the human +nature side at a glance! He urged peace, then and there, with the +Prince Imperial on the throne, and "under German influence," which +would thus give to Prussia the whip hand. General Sheridan tells the +story. + +It was an instantaneous look into the far future, and although it did +not prevail, for certain important reasons, the Chancellor caught the +human side of the combination, with the clarity of a dramatist +constructing a plot. + +¶ On his mother's side, Otto von Bismarck comes of hunting, fighting +and farming stock. + +Shrewd, wise, ambitious, and haughty--with these traits she richly +endowed her son. His father was handsome, bright, solid, +emphatic-looking, but with a yielding disposition; the iron will and +sharp tongue of the wife overawed the husband. The shrewish frau had +things largely her own way, was able to read a lecture like the wrath +of God. However, on the whole, the couple got along passably well--for +Karl never took Louise too seriously! When Frau Louise's efforts to +make a lackey of him got on his nerves, Karl called his cronies and +away they went fox-hunting. + + + 11 + + At the tender age of six, already is Otto forced out of the + family circle; the wolf's breed shows its teeth. + +¶ Well, the incensed Louise, weary of the softness of Karl, and +fearing lest Karl would spoil Otto by too much petting, packed the +child off to Plamann Institute, Berlin, a school of the Squeers type. + +Otto remained in this Spartan school-prison for nearly six years, and +to the end of his life carried unpleasant memories. Plamann Institute +idea was to harden lads, but instead of hardening the practices there +embittered. + +¶ The half-starved boys were up at 6; breakfast of bread and milk; +religious exercises at 7; at 10, luncheon of bread and salt; then, a +run in the garden; at noon, dinner from the hands of Frau Plamann; and +if a lad wanted a second plate, and couldn't eat it all, he was +punished by being sent to the garden, there to remain till he had +gulped down the last morsel, even though he fairly choked; at teatime, +bread and salt, or warm beer and slices of bread; all day, studies of +interminable length and dullness;--but, best of all, fencing exercises +wound up the day. + +¶ In the school yard was a lone lime-tree, and here the boys came +running as a goal for their sports. Using this lime-tree as a pulpit, +Otto used to read to his companions chapters from Becker's stories +about giants. + +¶ There was a pond near Schoenberg where the pupils used to go +bathing. Otto's chum was Ernest Kriger. + +¶ After six years of this life on salt and potatoes, Otto was +transferred to Dr. Bonnell's Frdk-Wm. Gymnasium, Berlin, and in +another year to Grey Friars' Gymnasium. Soon after Dr. Schleiermacher +confirmed Otto, at Trinity Protestant church. + +In the light of subsequent history, it is significant, almost uncanny, +to recall the life-text offered to Otto at this solemn moment by his +pastor: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not +unto men." Many years later--just before his death--Bismarck ordered +the motto to be carved on his tomb; all his life he had followed the +text. + +¶ The lad was two years at Grey Friars' school. While there Otto's +deep-seated hatred of the French is again visible for a decisive +moment. + +In 1806 Marshal Soult had slashed the genealogical tree of the +Bismarck family; and young Otto, who often heard the story, grew up +with the idea that the French were ogres. + +The school schedule, among other studies, called for French, or +English as an optional selection; although all Otto's chums decided +for French, the lad flatly refused to follow and instead stood almost +alone in the English class. + +¶ He is no longer a child when he says good-bye to Grey Friars; he is +a young man of 17--and life is opening before him. + +Life! The joyous care-free life of youth and inexperience; with the +world and its cares still seemingly far away! + + + 12 + + At Goettingen, he joined the Hannovera Corps and his record is + twenty-eight duels; his face bore many scars, among them a long + cut from left jaw to corner of his mouth. + +¶ Otto's mother, who had strong social aspirations and held to the +rigid exclusiveness of the upper classes, wished to send her son to an +aristocratic university. So she selected Goettingen. Her ideas were +to make her son a man of dignity and solid social qualities. + +Alas, he became but an indifferent student, excelling principally in +dueling, beer-bouts in college taverns, dog-fighting, flirting, and +general deviltries unnumbered, for which he spent considerable time in +the college dungeon. Listen to this: + +¶ Many years ago, in his roaring student days, long before Otto von +Bismarck was famous, he received an invitation to a ball, and went to +the shoemaker to be measured for high-topped military boots, affected +by the beaux of that day. Calling some days later, he was told that it +would be impossible to get them finished in time; and he would +therefore have to wear his old boots to the ball. + +¶ Bismarck scowled and going back to his rooms, whistled for his two +ferocious dogs with which he was wont to trail around town; returning +to the cobbler's the daring rascal said in a loud voice: "Mister +bootmaker, at a signal from me the dogs will tear you to pieces! I am +here to tell you, in the most friendly way in the world, that it is +absolutely necessary to have my boots on time." + +¶ Bismarck then went away, but he hired a man to parade up and down in +the vicinity of the shop with the two mastiffs; and now and then this +man dropped in, and in a voice of sorrow, said to the cobbler: "My +master has a terrible temper and I am sorry for you." At that, the +shoemaker told his wife: "Frau, I am going to work all night, to get +Herr Bismarck's boots finished in time for that ball!" + +¶ It is needless to add that young Bismarck had his boots on time. + + * * * * * + +¶ In discussing Bismarck's life and personality many writers will tell +you that the man is inconsistency itself; advocating now what in a +year he will recant; that for this and other reasons it is baffling to +try to make a picture many-sided enough to portray adequately his +complex life. + +¶ On the contrary, Bismarck, once you get the biographic clue, is as +open, free and direct as the light of the noonday sun. And the story +of the poor cobbler and the boots is all there is to it! + +Repeat this story in a hundred and one forms, and the same man is +always behind. + +¶ Among his cronies, he early gained the name "The Mad Bismarck." At +Goettingen university, Otto fought 28 duels and his face bore his +fighting scars. + +¶ To scare the girls and to make them shriek and lift their skirts, a +sight that the rascal Otto enjoyed, one night at a dance he let loose +a small fox in the ball room! And he had ridden like the devil, some +30-odd miles to be at this dance. + +¶ As for drinking, no man could put him under the table. Later in +life, he invented his own special draught, a combination of champagne +and porter; ordinary men dropped under the deadly compound as from a +dose of cyanide of potassium, but Otto could drain his quart without +taking the tankard from his lips. He soon had all the company under +the chairs, like dead soldiers. + +¶ Often, at country houses, he fired pistols to awaken guests in the +morning. + +¶ His groom fell into the canal, the young giant Bismarck leaped in +and dragged the drowning man to safety; for this heroic deed, Bismarck +won his first medal. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck's student life was tempestuous. He was indeed full of the +very devil. + +His every-day get-up comprised top boots, long hair flowing over the +collar of his velveteen jacket; a big brass ring on the first finger +of his left hand; two fierce mastiffs trotted sullenly at his side. He +trailed around, smoking a long pipe. + +¶ The young man's high animal spirits broke all restraints; he smoked, +he drank, he sang, he flirted, and he fought; but as for books, he did +as little studying as he could. + +He was sent many times to the university "carcer" or prison; an +interesting souvenir is still to be seen at Goettingen, the +student-prison door, on which Bismarck carved his name in 1832, when +he was "doing" ten days for acting as second in a pistol duel. + +¶ With a Mecklenburg student, Otto's great chum, a trip was made +through the Hartz mountains, and on returning a wine dinner was +offered to other students. + +All the fellows drank too much brandy. Bismarck made an inflammatory +speech, at table, ending by showing his derision of scholasticism by +hurling ink bottles out of the window. For this breach of the rules, +he was hauled before the university court. Here, he appeared in +outlandish get-up, jack boots, tall hat, long pipe, dressing gown--and +coolly asked the proctor what 'twas all about. Bismarck's huge dogs, +with which he was always accompanied, frightened the proctor half to +death! Bismarck was promptly fined five thalers for his absurdities; +he paid the fine and began studying up more deviltry. + +¶ Joining the Hannovera Corps of fighting men, Otto was soon known as +"Achilles," leading the fellows in all sword-play. He fought duel +after duel, and finally under the influence of Morley, an American +student, decided to switch over from the Hannovera to the Brunswick +corps--whereon every Jack in the Hannovera sent Otto a challenge. + + * * * * * + +¶ On a trip to Jena, the fellows decided on a riot, and were deep in +their cups when the Goettingen proctor arrived to bring the runaway +Bismarck back, and put him in the "carcer" till he cooled off. The +Jena fellows carried on at a great rate to think that the beloved +"Achilles" had to leave so unceremoniously, but at the last moment +hitched up six horses and paraded Bismarck around town, as a +demonstrative fare thee well! + + * * * * * + +¶ The scene of many of his drinking bouts was "Crown" tavern, an +ancient Goettingen resort, where the fellows sat on wooden benches in +front of a long bar and drank till they felt like fighting cocks. By +the way, it is a bit strange that Otto had such amazing capacity; for +he was as thin as a knitting needle. + +Among the men Bismarck met at this bar was Albrecht von Roon, who many +years later was to become the great Prussian military drill-master. + +¶ Bismarck finally left Goettingen in August, '33; his last duel was +with an Englishman who had made fun of the German peasant, describing +that worthy as "a dunce in a night cap, whose night-dress is made of +39 rags." The 39 rags was an allusion to the 39 petty German states. +Bismarck was already becoming imbued with the "national German faith," +as it was called, and could not let the insult go by. + +¶ As a rule, Bismarck was lucky in his sword play. The biggest slash +he received was made by Biedenweg, whose sword broke and cut Otto from +jaw to lip, on the left cheek--a scar that Bismarck carried to his +grave. + +¶ Giesseler, the proctor, gave Bismarck a very doubtful letter of +recommendation; the duelist and beer-drinker had asked for a transfer +to Berlin university. Otto wanted to hear law lectures by Savigny. + +¶ He began his Berlin course in a mocking way. There was an unserved +jail sentence hanging over Bismarck's head at Goettingen; and with +sham seriousness, as though he were going to turn over a new leaf, +Otto humbly set up that, to be strictly honest with the professors, to +jail Otto must go and to jail they sent him! But no sooner was he out +than he forgot all his good resolutions, and began his mad existence +again. + +¶ Finally, in May, 1835, he passed his examination in law, or +"advocate assistant," but not without hiring a professional "crammer" +to drill him hours and hours--to make up for wasted weeks in beer +cellars and with the pretty girls. + + + 13 + + Deficient in discipline, young Otto makes a fizzle of his first + office-holding; his shocking conduct against his superior + officer; back to the old estates, he looks after the cattle, + dogs and horses. + +¶ Harum-scarum days are over--and now for the serious business of +life. Years later, in the days of his great renown, Bismarck, thinking +of his early preparation, always regretted, he said, that he did not +join the army. As a matter of fact, he had no serious plans for years +to come--and it would appear that, on the whole, his career was +decided by accident. Of this more, at the right time, later. + + * * * * * + +¶ When Bismarck was 20, he served several months at Aix-la-Chapelle, +in court work, then was transferred to Potsdam, to the administrative +side. + +He soon showed himself deficient in discipline. An over-officer kept +him waiting, and Bismarck took personal offense. At last Bismarck was +admitted. The over-officer was sitting there, calmly killing time +smoking a cigar. Bismarck leaned over and in his gruff way asked, +"Give me a match!" This in itself was highly insolent, a violation of +Prussian ideas of discipline. But the astonished over-officer +complied. The young clerk thereupon sprawled in a chair and lighted +his cigar. + +It was, you see, merely to show his independence. Also, it meant that +he had to get out of the service. + +¶ Bismarck was glad to go; he hated intensely the clock-like +regularity of the Prussian bureaucracy. + +¶ His mother died in 1839, at which time Otto was 24; and on the young +chap now fell the management of the Pomeranian estates. + +¶ In 1844, Otto went to live with his father at Schoenhausen; here, +Otto and his brother looked after the farms. Otto was later appointed +Dyke-captain of the Elbe. + +¶ Along about this time, a religious revival swept through Prussia and +Otto was carried away on the flood; also, he began showing himself a +strong monarchical man. + +Always religious and always a King's man, at heart, Otto now seriously +studied religion and state affairs. When the call came, he was not +found wanting! + + * * * * * + +¶ We hasten along. In 1847, Otto's naturally deep religious +convictions were strengthened by his wife's uncompromising orthodoxy. + +¶ It was in this year, also, that he made his entry into Prussian +politics--to the study of which he was to devote his long life and his +surprising genius. However, to present a clear idea of the work +Bismarck was to do, it is necessary to return, briefly, to an earlier +day, and to trace a complex historical movement through the past. We +shall summarize, on broad lines, the problem presented by the question +of German national unity. The German problem comprised a political, +sociological and racial situation toward whose solution hundreds, if +not thousands, of notable men and women, for several generations past, +had sought in vain. + +¶ "Nothing," says Wilhelm Gorlach, "can more clearly prove Bismarck's +historical importance than the fact that we are obliged to go back +several centuries to understand the connection of his actions." + + + + + BOOK THE SECOND + + The German National Problem + + + + + CHAPTER V + + The Great Sorrow + + + 14 + + The German crazy-quilt, of many hues and colors, and how this + blanket was patched and mended through the years. + +¶ From the 18th Century, and indeed before that time, to say nothing +of years to come as late as 1871, there was in fact no Germany. The +term was a mere geographical "designation." We shall hear more of +this, as Bismarck assumes the stupendous task of German unity, in a +real sense of the word; but we will never understand what Bismarck and +other statesmen who hoped for German unity had to deal with, unless we +take a broad survey of conditions in Germany from the year 1750; not +only from the political but also from the social and domestic side, as +represented in 300-odd German principalities that like a crazy-quilt +were thrown helter-skelter from Hamburg on the North to Vienna on the +South. + +¶ Many of the holdings were gained through musty papers from rulers of +the ancient Holy Roman Empire, a nation Voltaire declared "neither +holy, nor empire, nor Roman." + +¶ There were free cities, great landlords, and there were great +robber-barons--thieves of high or low degree. + +¶ At Cologne, Treves and Mayence archbishops held the lower valley of +the Moselle, also some of finest parts of the Rhein valley. + +¶ Next, came dukes, landgraves, margraves, cities of the Empire, and +then still smaller, duchies in duodecimo, down through some 800 minor +landlords who as the owners of some borough or village walked this +earth genuine game cocks on their own dunghills. Political conditions +were distressing; old feuds, old hates prevailed. + +There were restrictions on commerce, statute labor, barbarous penal +laws, religious persecution and Jew-baiting. + + * * * * * + +¶ In short, to make 300-odd jealous princelings join hands in national +brotherhood is the complex problem that goes down through the years; +generation after generation; till at last the one strong man appears, +Otto von Bismarck, who in his supreme rise to power sees clearly that +the only hope for Germany is in a complete social and political +revolution, in which the changes in the German mind concerning +political unity in governmental affairs must be as unusual as the +transformations in the German mode of life. + + * * * * * + +¶ During the early part of the 18th Century, of which we are now +writing, a certain bold political doctrine still stood unchallenged. +It had come out of the dim and hoary past, and in effect it proclaimed +the power of the fist. For centuries unnumbered the idea prevailed +that a state defends itself against foreign foes, and otherwise +conserves its existence through the direct will of a strong ruler, +preferably a king brought up in arms. + +Thus the "genius of the people" meant in effect the wisdom or the +ignorance of the line of kings. + +Under this theory, Prussia by slow degrees and through many sacrifices +of blood and treasure, had become a great power. + +¶ Fred: Wm. I., (1713-40), who was indeed a miser and a scoffer, freed +little Prussia from debt and rebuilt cities ruined by the wars. He +likewise established a system of compulsory education, made +schoolmasters state officers, and contributed mightily to a higher +standard. + +And he went further still: he welcomed religious exiles from other +parts of Germany; he settled thousands of immigrants on the raw lands; +he saved his money, economized to the last pfennig, was prudent in a +worldly sense, and to the end of his life remained intolerable foe of +idleness. + +¶ It was from this severe master that the Great Frederick (1740-86) +learned the trick of laying his cane over the backs of peasants and +crying out in rage: "Get to work!" + +¶ Old Fritz continued his line of battle from 1740 to 1763, in various +unequal contests with the Allies. He fought Austria, France, Russia, +Sweden, Saxony, and Poland, and for a while he fought their allied +strength. The upshot was that Prussian enemies at home and abroad were +defeated and Prussia won first rank as a military and political power. +This idea of military discipline, united with large worldly sagacity +in the management of state affairs, marks and explains Prussia's rise +to power. + +¶ But the decline was equally manifest under Fr: Wm. II, the Great +Frederick's nephew. Although he inherited a domain of six millions of +people, banded under an excellent administrative system, sustained by +the disciplined army of "Old Dessauer" (Prince Leopold), and although +Fr: Wm. II found the huge sum of 40,000,000 thalers in his fighting +uncle's treasure chest, yet within a few years all these splendid +advantages were frittered away in idle dalliance and the weak king +found himself twenty millions in debt. + +By the time he died, 1797, Prussia was riding to a fall; and +disregarding plain measures for her own safety, she had reached the +sad place where the sturdy old Prussian spirit of prudence and +independence had become so compromised that Prussia almost deemed it +unessential to preserve her own political life! + +¶ Thus, within three generations, Prussia repeated the old story of +human life, wherein the weak descendant eats up the strong sire's +goods. Frederick the Great died Aug. 17th, 1786. Within three years, +France struck at the German lands; and within 20 years the old +Constitution of the Empire was scoffed at by encircling enemies along +the frontiers, led by France, while at home political disputants +destroyed National spirit by exciting revolution after revolution. +"Everywhere," says Zimmermann, (Germany, p. 1618), "one felt the +morning breeze of the new dispensation." The cry of the people had to +be answered, and the common man wanted to know not only "Why!" but +"When!" + +¶ For the ensuing 85 years clamor, disruption and disunion continue +often accompanied by bloodshed; till through Bismarck's great work +over which he toiled for 40-odd years, came the final answer of the +Imperial democracy, 1871. + + * * * * * + +¶ It is to be the labor of years with confusion worse confounded, as +we go along. The Feudal system, with which Germany has been for +centuries petrified, must be thrown off; the peasant laborers freed in +some sort, whether social or political, the absurd restrictions of +countless customs houses walling-in each petty principality, must be +destroyed. Before a new Germany may emerge, if Germany is to emerge at +all, a National faith must be stimulated, fighting blood stirred, wars +waged. Then, and then only, may this idea of German Unity, long the +puzzling mental preoccupation of the fathers, become a geographical +actuality and a political fact. + +¶ The German peasants' sense of respect for vested authority, even +when held by hated kings, made the common people of the various German +states almost ox-like in their patience under harsh political +conditions. + +Between the power of petty tyrants and of foreign despots, there was +no freedom worthy of the name. + +The German lived for himself, aloof, suspicious, not caring +particularly to change his condition. + +Compromise after compromise, failure after failure, sorrow after +sorrow must be recorded in the great story; but do not despair. In +amazing manner, through blood and iron, Otto von Bismarck, our blond +Pomeranian giant, will face, fight and finally conquer the bewildering +cross-forces of his time--till "German national faith" is supreme. + + * * * * * + +¶ Paying no attention to its neighbor, each German state stood off by +itself; each princeling had his army, in some instances only 25 men; +each ruler had his castle, in imitation of Versailles; each state its +custom house, its distinct court and rural costumes. + +To go ten miles north or south was to find yourself in a new world; +you could scarcely understand the mush-talk of the peasants, whereas +the various Liliputian courts chattered in mongrel French, aped from +Versailles. + +¶ The minor courts of Germany imitated the excesses of Versailles; +had dancing teachers from Paris, French barbers, French governesses, +and French prostitutes. + +Every young man of wealth was sent to Paris to acquire what was called +"bon ton," that is to say, familiarity with the vices of the day; the +etiquette of the fan and the study of new ways to spend money wrung +from over-taxed peasants of German provinces was also regarded as very +important. + +Even to speak German was held a mark of vulgarity; and what more +despicable than to be ashamed of one's ancestry? + +¶ Unmoved by the sufferings of the peasants, Augustus III of Saxony +applied himself to grand operas, written by queens of French society. +While the peasants were living like beasts, Frederick Augustus, the +successor, spent his time hunting red deer. The dukes of Coburg and +Hildburghausen were miserable bankrupts. As a result of social +excesses, Charles VII of Bavaria left a debt of forty millions. +Charles Theodore, in some respects an enlightened monarch, is +particularly remembered for three strange facts: That he once gave an +opera in German and not in French; that he tried to sell off Bavaria, +his inheritance, and move to a more congenial locality; and third, +that he hired Rumford, the great chemist, to invent a soup, at low +cost, to feed the poor, whose miseries had been growing on account of +the bad government. + +¶ Nor should we overlook the monarch at Zweibrucken, the Pfalzgraf +Charles. His mania took the form of collecting pipes and toys, of +which he had innumerable specimens from the ends of the earth. He kept +also one thousand five hundred horses and a thousand dogs and cats. +Every traveler had to take off his hat and bow at sight of the spire, +on pain of being beaten by the Count's constable. + +¶ Charles Eugene, of Wuertemberg, slave to luxury, played pranks when +he was not indulging in vices. He liked to alarm peasants at night +with wild cries; and when a woman stuck her head out of the window, +the monarch would throw a hoop and try to drag her outside. In a deep +forest he built his castle "Solitude." + +¶ On his 50th birthday, he wrote to his subjects, promising to mend +his life; the letter was read in all the churches. The people decided +that he was in earnest, promised him more money, of which he was in +sore need. His first step was to contract a left-handed marriage with +Francisca von Bernedin, whom he raised to the rank of countess. + +¶ His next step was to build a queer bird-cage for his new mate. +Menzel says of this episode: "Records of every clime and of every age +were here collected. A Turkish mosque contrasted its splendid dome +with the pillared Roman temple and the steepled Gothic church. The +castled turret rose by the massive Roman tower; the low picturesque +hut of the modern peasant stood beneath the shelter of the gigantesque +remains of antiquity; and imitations of the pyramids of Cestius, of +the baths of Diocletian, a Roman senate-house and Roman dungeons, met +the astonished eye." + + * * * * * + +¶ Another amiable peculiarity of French-mongering German princelings +in their petty monarchies, was man-stealing. Hard-pressed for funds, +the practice was to kidnap peasants and sell them into foreign +military service. The vile trade was dignified by court authority; +followers of the game were known as "man merchants." + +¶ The Wuertemberg monarch in order to raise funds to complete the +absurd castle for his mistress, took it into his head to sell 1,000 +peasants to the Dutch, for the war in the Indies; and so deep lay the +curse of tyranny that no public protest was raised. It is true that +Schiller, the noble poet, who at this time was a student at Charles +College, fled in disgust, but Schaubert, another poet, was not so +fortunate; he was seized and imprisoned for ten years. + +¶ The vile practice of man-stealing from the wretched peasantry long +continued as a monarchical privilege. The Landgrave Frederick of +Hesse-Cassel, on one occasion sent 12,800 Hessians to the British, to +fight in America. English commissioners came over and inspected the +captive men as though picking out stock at a cattle show. Should a +parent protest, a son, a wife or a widow, the answer was the lash. +Hanau furnished 1200 of these slave-soldiers, Waldeck several hundred. +Seume, who was himself a victim to the system, deported to America, +tells us in his Memoirs: "No one was safe; every means was resorted +to, fraud, cunning, trickery, violence. Foreigners were thrown into +prison, and sold." + +"There is a Hessian prince of high distinction," says Huergelmer. "He +has magnificent palaces, pheasant-preserves, at Wilhelmsbad, operas, +mistresses, etc. These things cost money. He has, moreover, a hoard of +debts, the result of the luxury of his sainted forefathers. What does +the prince do in this dilemma? He seizes an unlucky fellow in the +street, expends fifty dollars on his equipment, sends him out of the +country, and gets a hundred dollars for him in exchange." + + * * * * * + +¶ Frederick of Bayreuth expended all his revenues in building a grand +opera house, for giving balls, parties, receptions and official +functions to aristocrats. His successor Alexander fell under the sway +of Lady Craven, a British adventuress, who led the peasants a merry +chase for the cash; man-stealing was the old game; and one order alone +from the British government called for 1,500 peasants. + + * * * * * + +¶ But why continue the recital of man's inhumanities? + +Charles of Brunswick, a spendthrift, who sold subjects into captivity, +paid his ballet-master 30,000 a year. Frederick of Brunswick on one +occasion sold 4,000 peasants to Britain, for the army. + +¶ The terrible famine of 1770-72 added to the discontent of the common +man, throughout Germany; he began to feel that it was the duty of +kings to feed the hungry; bark, grass, leaves, carrion were eaten; +disease spread; emigrations depopulated the Rheinlands; 20,000 left +Bavaria alone; while upwards of 180,000 Bavarians died of hunger; in +Saxony, the number that starved to death is placed at 100,000. Other +kingdoms suffered heavily. + +¶ In many of the provinces were laws to prevent immigration; those who +tried to get Bavarians to leave the country were guilty of a crime, +punishable by hanging. A similar punishment was exacted for marrying +out of one's native province. + +¶ Also, the wretched condition of the roads added to the isolation of +the various German provinces. Exacting customs' duties, military +espionages, a weak postal system, contributed to keep Germans +unacquainted, except with near neighbors. He, indeed, was a bold man +who had gone over the mountains or beyond his native valley. Even a +journey of two days caused grave anxieties; the carriage was almost +certain to be overturned in some deep rut and the travelers injured or +killed; robbers lay in wait in the mountains; protection was almost +unheard of; life and property were insecure; every traveler had to be +his own policeman, and never issued forth on a journey without dagger, +pistol and sword. + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus, 300 princelings, great or small, were determined to rule in +their individual capacities; there was no Germany in fact, and that +much of the German Empire that had outlived the gradual ruin of the +old Holy Roman Empire, the great-ancestor of Germany, was now +approaching complete dissolution. + +The power lay no more in states, but in 300-odd local political +bureaus, scattered everywhere, dominated often enough by an ambitious +French prostitute, or by some lucky ballet-master. + +¶ Then, there was August of Saxony, who is said to have been the +father of 300 children. This foolish fellow's fetes cost thalers by +the wagon-load; one set of Chinese porcelains ran into the millions, +and it cost 6,000 thalers to gild the gondolas for a night in June, to +say nothing of the fancy ball. + +¶ The Baden monarch, Charles William, built Carlsruhe in the deep +forest, the better that his orgies be kept from prying eyes. + +¶ Eberhardt of Wuertemberg gave the whole conduct of his government +over to women and Jews--and by the way the Jews were the only saving +force. As for the Graevenitz woman, she was king in petticoats. She +mortgaged crown lands and raised hell generally. One day in church she +made a fuss about not being mentioned among royal rulers, and the +pastor immediately replied: "Madam, we mention you daily in our +prayers when we say: 'O Lord, deliver us from all evil!'" Once, in +time of famine, Charles William scattered loaves of bread; the rabble +maddened by hunger fought to the death for the dole! + +¶ Also, there were Ernest of Hanover and Tony of Brunswick, two +precious rascals, with all their retinue of mistresses, mistresses' +maids, mothers, hangers-on, and pimps. Carl Magnus had his Grehweiler +palace costing 180,000 guelden. He grew so desperate that the Emperor +sent him to a fortress for ten years' imprisonment, for forging +documents to raise the wind. Count Limburg-Styrum was a princeling +whose army consisted of one colonel, six officers and two privates! +Count William of Bueckeburg had a fort with 300 guns, defending a +cabbage patch. Count Frederick of Salm-Kyrburg swindled the churches; +and in tiny Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, only 15 miles square, was a +royal palace of 350 rooms with clocks of all sizes, great and small, +in each apartment. This count went mad over clocks, but was popular +with the working class; often he would take a man off a job in order +to laugh and joke. + +Also, Frederick had original taste in military affairs; his army +comprised 150 soldiers, with 28 guards on horseback. The prince prided +himself on being a wrestler, and one day when a yokel threw the +prince, the prince set up a great cry, "I slipped on a cherry +stone!"--and this regardless of the fact that it was not the time of +the year for cherries. + +¶ There was another local ruler, Ludwig Guenther, who was fond of +painting horses, and on his death 246-odd horse pictures adorned the +walls of his palace. + + * * * * * + +¶ "Show a German a door and tell him to go through, and he will try to +break a hole in the wall." + +¶ "Here, every one lives apart in his own narrow corner, with his own +opinions; his wife and children round him; ever suspicious of the +Government, as of his neighbor; judging everything from his personal +point of view, and never from general grounds." + +¶ "The sentiment of individualism and the necessity for contradiction +are developed to an inconceivable degree in the German." + +¶ The problem of directing this intense individualism is the problem +of German unity. + + * * * * * + +¶ With rough manners, blunders, extravagances, absurdities, the +hereditary princes continued to sponge on the peasants, generation +after generation, till wretchedness spread far over the German lands. +They had their châteaux, their dancing girls, their dogs, horses, +cats, mistresses and their royal armies. + +¶ The misery of centuries of oppression existed; petty monarchs +exercised powers of life and death. + +¶ The South German mocked the North German's pronunciation. One set +vowed that the "g" in "goose" is hard, the other proclaimed that the +"g" is soft. One side went about mumbling with hard "g's," "A +well-baked goose is a gracious gift of God," whereupon the other side +replied that all the "g's" are "j's," that the "gute ganz" is really +"jute janz," and "Gottes" "Jottes." And duels were fought over it. + +¶ Nor was this all. An intense local pride expressed itself in +grotesque dialects, unsoftened by intercourse with the outer world; +also, there were outlandish fashions in dress and other domestic +affairs. + +¶ In Brunswick the women wore green aprons, curious black caps, the +men buff coats, red vests with four rows of buttons, caps with crazy +pompons, buckled slippers and gay ribbon garters. + +¶ In lower Saxony the women wore flat straw hats, like a dinner plate, +hair plastered down, head-dresses of gigantic black ribbons, aprons of +gay stripes, and ten petticoats coming only a little below the knee. +The men wore farce-comedy costumes, not unlike coachmen. + +¶ In Pomerania-Rugen the women admired scarlet petticoats, +knee-length, capes like turko-rugs, black veils, green garters and +blue stockings. The men wore aprons like butchers, caps and +long-tailed coats. + +¶ The Hessian women preferred turbans of red, vestees of gay stuffs, +blue, green or yellow knee-length skirts. + + * * * * * + +¶ The Baden men folk liked reds, greens and yellows, vests adorned +with many ribbons, top boots, high white collars and funny-looking +black coats. The women had their green aprons, puffed sleeves, and ten +short petticoats. + +¶ In East Prussia men wore double and triple vests. As for the women, +they looked like animals in the zoo. + +¶ In Wuertemberg, a typical landlord wore a blue peajacket with two +rows of large silver buttons, two vests of high contrasting colors, a +black sash, salmon-colored trousers, polished boots;--and carried a +meerschaum pipe. + +¶ In Bavaria one saw green vests, yodlers' hats with tiny feathers, +green leggings, or military boots; and among the women gay vestees, +bright shawls and white kerchiefs. + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus, the dead-weight of centuries still lay like a mountain on the +various German states. + +¶ This dead-weight of olden times kept the German states bickering +among themselves. + +For long years past, the people were divided by political brawls, +altercations, affrays, squabbles, feuds, often with the loss of life. +The general disposition was choleric, pugnacious, litigious. + +There was bad blood over principles and procedure, policies and plans. + +To transform aloofness to neighborliness, tumult to conciliation, +quarreling to friendliness, hostility to good will, dissent must give +way to assent, distrust to faith, denial to admission, misgiving to +conviction, political atheism to political revelation. + +Such are some of the peculiarities of the human animal; and in +political life human animals are prone to fight for self-interest, +like dogs over a bone. + + * * * * * + +¶ We are not going to try to tell you of the many efforts by rash +reformers, in the half-century of the dead-weight, leading to the rise +of Prussia. + +Again and again, far-sighted Germans, sick unto death at the way +things were going, urged equality for all men before the law, equal +taxation, restriction of the power of the nobles. + +Strange as it may seem, the peasants themselves stood in the way. They +did not care to change their condition, miserable as it was. They +dreaded the future, preferred present miseries than to risk new ills. +For example, on one occasion, a certain political idealist excited the +peasants in revolt, assassinated 120 nobles, destroyed 264 castles. +This was in the time of Joseph II, of Austria, the ruler filled with +amazing ideas of equality. The peasants themselves were the first to +protest, much as they detested the nobles; and the unsupported leaders +died on the wheel, while 150 miserable followers were buried alive. + +And yet, at that very moment, the idealistic Joseph, who with an +excess of zeal, tried for political equality, made enemies of his +nobles, enemies of his peasants, likewise. The great reformer was held +a fanatic, intent on destroying government. Too far ahead of his time, +his plans for political semi-equality failed. + +¶ This monarch, thinking to make a lesson, had swindling nobles placed +in the stocks, like common thieves. + +Joseph was one of the first great democrats, in the modern sense. To +him, the cause of the common man was sacred. He believed in genuine +equality, but alas, he did not know how to bring about the political +Millennium. + +¶ He threw open the parks to the people; he proclaimed free speech and +free thought; he abolished serfdom; he labored to construct a +state-machine with one system of justice and one National plan. + +Joseph, though overbrimming with emotions for the common man's +political salvation, failed to allow for the ignorance of his people, +their stubborn avowal of local self-interests. + +¶ And it fell out that his people thought that Joseph was trying to +enslave them the more; ingratitude and misapprehensions followed, +destroying the liberal reformer's most cherished plans for his beloved +Austria-Germany. + +The word was passed alone that Joseph was a tyrant. You see, as +frequently happens, the people preferred old abuses to new ways. The +general population hugged their chains and refused to be delivered. + +This singular belief in the past, rather than in the future, is indeed +a human weakness and has checked and restrained the rise of +intellectual freedom since the world began. + + * * * * * + +¶ It might all have been a good lesson to republicans, but the +nobility assumed a threatening attitude and the peasants did not +understand a monarch like Joseph. + +Their idea of a king was a man going upstairs on horseback and eating +spiders. A king must have powers of life and death and bags of gold. A +citizen king was absurd. + +The peasantry, on whom Joseph had endeavored to bestow many large +democratic privileges, rose against him. He died Feb. 20, 1790, "a +century too early," says Jellenz, and as Remer adds, "misunderstood by +a people unworthy of such a sovereign." + + * * * * * + +¶ Germany, in the sad period between 1750 and 1806 had long been a +European political jest; these are hard words, but it is the language +of truth. + +She had sunk so low that she saw no degradation in going off to fight +French or British wars, while at home remaining a mere political +nonentity. + +She had sunk so low, under French influences, and through her own lack +of self-control, that she forgot her great ancestors and her noble +traditions. + +She had sunk so low that her very children were brought up to despise +the language of the Fatherland; the children scoffing at the parents, +aped foreign ways rather than support German originality, strength and +national genius; young men coming of age preferred to leave the land +of their birth, mocked the simple German virtues, and occupied +themselves in idle dalliance in Paris, or failing in this, set up +imitations of French courts in the petty German monarchies. + +Thus, finally Germany became insensible, indifferent and debased by +stupid and selfish ideals from beyond the Vosges; till at last Germany +became, literally, a land without a people, a people without a land. + +¶ Worse still, the time came when, under these false teachings, a +sense of shame no longer lived, to arouse great national interests and +to recall degenerate sons to their solemn duties to their Fatherland. + +Hundreds of noble Germans, at one time or another, during these dark +years, tried in vain by voice or pen to restore national +consciousness, but failed. The problem of German liberty seemed +incapable of solution; and as for the still larger problem of German +unity--that became a mere dream. + + * * * * * + +¶ We glorify here and now, the genius and the manhood of Bismarck as +the one man who had the strength of purpose to recall to Germans the +heroic tale of a free and united Fatherland. + +It took him thirty years or more, through well-nigh superhuman +striving; he preached, he cursed, he vilified, he used the iron rod. + +He would have absolutely nothing to do with the political ideas from +over the Vosges; he knew too well the curse of olden times, and his +one great central emotion was to end that condition--as he hoped +forever. + +You are to read of the battles of a giant, filled with immense +compassion for the follies and weaknesses of his misled countrymen, +filled, too, with fanatical zeal to punish, that good might come of it +at last. + +Bismarck used the strong military arm, the hell fires and the +lightnings. + +His nature scorned any further mere palliation of the weaknesses of +human nature. Like all supermen, Bismarck struck straight from the +shoulder; in turn to be misunderstood, cursed and reviled by the very +people he would serve; but in the end aroused German manhood to a just +comprehension of the power and dignity of a free and united +Fatherland. + + * * * * * + +¶ For upwards of 100 years before Bismarck's great hour, the French +had been accustomed to exploit Germany. To fill the pocketbook, to +provide soldiers for wars, or to afford opportunities for buccaneering +expeditions, were all the same. + +We do not say this to bring up any "moral" issue, but we make the +statement merely as one uses the word dung or manure. + +That is to say, certain historical facts stink to heaven. + +Annexations, concessions, raids, riots at the hands of the French +conspired to keep Germany disunited, belligerent and mutinous; and as +the years passed Germany, to a large extent, seduced by French ways, +lost a sense of her dignity. France had looked to Germany to furnish +allies to help fight Prussia, Austria or England; then England turned +the trick against France. It is discouraging to add that even the +great Goethe was so seduced by the glamour of Napoleon's genius that +he wrote these strange words in praise of the French tyrant: + + Doubts that have baffled thousands, he has solved: + Ideas o'er which centuries have brooded, + His giant mind intuitively compressed. + +¶ Thus, you have before you this spectacle: Germany's greatest +poetical genius forgets the sad reality of his broken, dispirited and +disrupted country and leaves her to her wretched fate; passing his +time as a sentimental voluptuary in the splendor of the Weimar court, +where he concerns himself with such works as "Elective Affinities," a +frank endorsement of adultery. + +¶ On the other side, the noble Schiller, poet of the people, recalled +to his fellow countrymen the faded glory of Germany. "Schiller stands +forth," says Menzel, "as the champion of liberty, justice and his +country." + +In a word, it took Germany 100 years to learn by suffering that if she +is ever to regain her fallen prestige as a nation, she must fight her +enemies at home and abroad; she must restore the military ideal of +ancient times. And here, in a nutshell, is the very root of all this +cry about militarism: The man who will not fight for what he regards +as his political rights, remains a slave his whole life long; for it +is the essential nature of man to exercise tyrannous power over human +lives, whenever such practice holds out promise of advantage. + +Therefore, Bismarck again trained Germany to be a fighting nation; and +if an ideal of a free and united people is no justification, then +words have no meaning. + + + 15 + + The French peasant's son, returning from the wars brings his + wife a diamond necklace. + +¶ The cross-angles of politics, for years, lead as far as one cares to +go, in this German family fight. Each petty state has its intrigues +and its grievances; you become befuddled; it is all weariness of the +flesh. + +¶ However, behind all the political jargon, mighty forces are taking +form; and little by little, certain outstanding facts come to view, +involving every king, knight, bishop, prince and pauper on the German +map, from the North Sea to the Black Sea. + +After 1789, the German was down with that new disease, French +constitutionalism; liberty, fraternity and equality. No human being +knew exactly what it meant. It was a political fever that had to be +gone through with; and blood-letting was the only cure. + +Monarchs seemingly secure on their thrones from the days of old, now +shivered like ghosts as the mobs marched the streets of Vienna and +Berlin, waiving new flags and crying "Liberty!" + +¶ The word "liberty" went to the crook-backed German peasant's brain +like wine; he grew mad with the idea of an impossible world, in which +he could decree as he desired and all would bow to him, though he in +return would bow to nobody; in short, liberty for him, but death to +the others; and were it possible to confiscate the property of the +princes and redistribute the loot among the peasants, so much the +better. + +¶ Before we go into this thing, let us remember that as the French +armies marched over Europe, the doom of kings had been cracking and +rumbling. + +The soldiers carried everywhere the idea of French equality, that is +to say, to the popular mind an opportunity to share the loot. +Napoleon himself, reflecting on his own career and on the follies of +the French revolution, said: "Let us now turn ourselves to something +practical; the bombastic ideas of the Revolution have exhausted +themselves in grotesque efforts at self-government. All the Revolution +means is an opportunity for a man of talents to show what he can do." + +¶ And the French soldiers, returning from the wars, brought their +wives and daughters gold rings, bracelets and diamond necklaces, the +loot of the capitals of Europe. + +¶ As for Napoleon, he, of course, took the lion's share; but a diamond +necklace to a soldier's wife is indeed a powerful argument on the +importance of the new democratic era, in which peasants' sons wear +gold lace and their womankind ride in carriages. + +Also, many of the generals of France were sons of peasants; and an +account of Napoleon's marshals would show the humble origin of men of +the hour, sons of soap boilers, tavern keepers, stable-bosses. + +¶ One may imagine the result of such surprising overturnings of caste, +in old-world conditions. Henceforth the peasants of all lands will +naturally regard their respective kings as so many dogs, to be shot to +death at the first splendid opportunity! And Germany is no exception. + +¶ Forward march, ye sons of the soil, there are stormy days ahead for +you, through your "new" ideas. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + Prussia's De Profundis + + + 16 + + Humiliations heaped upon her by France; the strange + combination, the lash and the kiss! + +¶ First, let us quote from Bismarck, who looking backward after his +amazing politico-military triumph at Koeniggraetz, (1866), tells a +French interviewer for "Le Siecle" this root-fact about Germans, their +weakness and their power: + +¶ "No government, however it may act, will be popular in Prussia; the +majority in the country will always be opposed to it; simply from its +being the Government;--and holding authority over the individual, the +central authority is always doomed to be constantly opposed by the +moderates, and decried and despised by the ultras. This has been the +common fate of all successive governments since the beginning of the +dynasty. Neither liberal ministers, nor reactionary ministers have +found favor with our Prussian politicians. + +¶ "Frederick William III, surnamed the Just, had succeeded as little +as Frederick William IV in satisfying the Prussian nation. + +¶ "They shouted themselves hoarse at the victories of Frederick the +Great, but at his death they rubbed their hands at the thought of +being delivered from the tyrant! Despite this antagonism, there exists +a deep attachment to the royal house. No sovereign or minister, no +government, can win the favor of Prussian individualism. Yet all cry +from the depths of their hearts, 'God save the King!' And they obey +when the King commands." + + * * * * * + +¶ With this clue from the master before us, the thing to do is, +clearly, to reach out after this German Unity idea in a broad way. + +¶ Napoleon's armies had marched everywhere, during all those +victorious years, and each soldier had been a living exemplar of the +power of National glory. + +This National spirit in his armies had helped Napoleon amazingly, +despite his genius as a soldier. The great Prussian patriot, Stein, +one of the leading men of his time and an early believer in the high +destiny of his country, began studying some of the more obscure but +vital forces behind Napoleon's career of glory. Stein finally read the +secret and urged that as Napoleon had won by National spirit, so +Napoleon could in the end be defeated by a similar National spirit +when properly opposed to him; and Napoleon with one terrifying black +look saw that von Stein had divined the real force of French +solidarity, a proclamation was out for von Stein's head, and the +patriot who dreamed of his Confederation of Germany, against the +French, or any other foreign foe, was obliged to make his escape to +the heart of the Bohemian mountains. + + * * * * * + +¶ Fr: Wm. II (1797-1840), child of the Revolution, to his dying day +remained untouched by the new political principles that had their +origin beyond the Rhine. Compound of dreams and realities, William had +led a repressed life; for one thing, he did not fight for his +opinions; indeed his opinions were literary and artistic; a peculiar +pietism bound him; he believed too much in man's natural goodness; +being an honest man himself, he did not readily suspect others. + +¶ This Frederick was always thinking of a Germany built on the +traditional order, with all intervening social grades, from peasant to +king upon his throne, each bowing and scraping to the other; and +Frederick, as the father of his kingdom, exercising a despotic +paternalism. + +¶ Nor did he see that the French revolution had been fought and +Napoleon's armies had carried afar if not the seeds of political +equality, at least the glorious conception that "revolution means +opportunity for men of talents, everywhere." + +¶ The pressure on the king was found in this: that under duress he had +promised a written constitution. + +¶ And behold Frederick in these troublous times! For eleven long +years, off and on, he tries to find a common ground of religious +formulas for the united Lutheran and Reformed churches. He even +attacks Rome on the question of mixed marriages. Of course, he failed +utterly, this noble-minded Hohenzollern who believed too implicitly in +the inherent goodness of mankind. + +¶ Repair then to your church windows and read your blackletter Bible, +you dreaming Frederick; such is your story, in a few words. + +Gabble about your Gothic restorations as you will, and your correct +revisions of the liturgy, Frederick, it remains for your Louise to do +a man's work against French foes, and thus hasten the slow-coming of +United Germany. + + * * * * * + +¶ In the meantime, Prussia is falling to pieces for lack of the mailed +fist. Everything is going to rack and ruin; beloved Prussia +repeatedly humiliated by French invaders; and had it not been for +noble Queen Louise there might well be no Prussian glory at this hour +to record. + +¶ Her lovely countenance, wreathed in smiles, is immortalized for us +through the art of Joseph Grassi; and is to be seen in the +Hohenzollern Museum. + +The artist depicts her with youthful charm, her fair brow adorned by +her slender crown, whose weight, alas, although slight, gave her no +rest till death. + +Her eyes are gentle, and about her face and form is the indefinable +touch of ever-present girlishness, never to fade, even in the +woman-grown. + +¶ It were nearer the truth to say Louise personifies Prussia's +ambition to power. + +¶ This beautiful woman bore indeed a heavy burden; well she knew the +dread and fear of kings and kingly office. + +¶ On the one side was the tyrant Napoleon, on the other Fr: Wilhelm, +her kingly husband, without an idea outside of cathedral architecture +and bishoprics in Jerusalem; yet Louise willed that Prussia should +seize the reins of power, shake off the French yoke, and mount the +heights of glory. + + * * * * * + +¶ As a foil to the ferocious Bismarck--himself a majestic +king-maker--here we reveal to you a true creator of National honor, in +the form of a frail, fair woman; showing thus how far the pendulum of +Time and Chance often rocks in bringing about political changes. + +Though poles apart, the brutal Bismarck stands side by side with the +lovely Louise; the blood and iron of the man were of no avail without +the finesse of the woman. + +Thus this singular cross-fertilization, compounded of smiles and +frowns--the kiss and the lash--the white jeweled hand and the mailed +fist in the end makes it possible for humiliated Prussia to rise +again--the late harvest of the years bringing the reality of our +United Germany. + +¶ Bismarck's amazing story we spread before you in detail, but beside +that frowning rock we stoop for a moment to pluck the modest violets +clinging all unobserved in a gloomy place where the sun seldom comes; +these flowers are Louise and their subtle perfume symbolizes the +penetrating yet delicate incense of her pathetic life. + +¶ Without Louise, our story were soon ended. Otherwise Bismarck +himself could not have come into the illustrious pages of history. +Noble Prussian queen, heroine of Prussian glory, mother-consoler in +the twilight, your gentle spirit hovers like some evening-star, +luminous with hope. + + + 17 + + Napoleon's hated Continental system of domination causes + Prussian downfall--The Queen decides to fight back. + +¶ The treaty of Luneville, February, 1801, now seemed to lend color to +Napoleon's greatest delusion of grandeur; he would restore the ancient +domain of Charlemagne, comprising France, Germany and Italy! Signing +with Prussia and Bavaria, Napoleon confiscated broad Papal domains +along the Rhine, lands that had been in possession of the church since +Roman times. With this bribe for secular princes, as the price of the +readjustment, exactly 112 Teutonic domains, petty in size but +all-powerful with the prestige of centuries, vanished from the map. +The holy Electors of Treves and Cologne, those empire-makers of +ancient days, were stripped of their worldly possessions, and expelled +from the Papal lands. + +¶ There were even rumors of a French-supported Emperor of +Prussia--think of that! + +Francis of Austria, for reasons of policy, gave up the high-swelling +title, "Holy Roman Emperor," and more modestly contented himself with +"Emperor of Austria." + +¶ And now, when Napoleon's delusion--Charlemagne--seemed on the very +point of realization, there came the third Coalition against him; +Prussia joined against France; but Napoleon soon gained the most noted +of his victories, Austerlitz; 15,000 prisoners, 12,000 dead on the +field, represented Austria's loss alone, but this was not all. + +The victorious French pressed on to Vienna. By the treaty of +Pressburg, Austria was excluded from Germany; Wuertemberg, Bavaria +and the Rhinelands went over to the French, Napoleon setting himself +up as Protector of the Rhine country, with his representative +President Karl von Dalberg, former archbishop of Mainz. + + * * * * * + +¶ Louise was high-spirited, impulsive, courageous, imaginative--the +very foil of her slow-going Frederick, with his church restorations +forevermore. The Queen, always for an aggressive policy, by her +sympathy encouraged the Prussian war party; patriots, restive under +the indecision of Frederick, were eager to shake off French +domination. The appeal was to Militarism, but what would you? The Hun +was not only "at the gate," but was inside the walls; and if a man +will not fight for his fireside, then he must remain a slave. It was a +virtuous cause. + +¶ The cabal at the Prussian court, secretly in opposition to the +easy-going King, was aided by Louise. There were the King's brothers, +the ambitious Hardenburg, the King's cousin, Ferdinand, the gifted +Rahel Levin--and many others. + +These plots within the palace gave to Louise's life strange political +aspects. + +¶ The Queen desired to strike. + +¶ By 1805 Austria, Russia and Great Britain were united, but Russia +still wavered. + +¶ Louise's secret influence became a watchword for Prussian patriots, +who despised French rule. + + * * * * * + +¶ After Austerlitz, Napoleon read Prussia his ultimatum: Shall it be +war or peace? Peace and Hanover, or war with me? + +¶ A treaty was drawn giving to Napoleon control over Prussia; and this +document Fr: William weakly signed. After that Napoleon simply ignored +Prussia; made it so hot for Prussian ministers that they resigned when +Paris frowned, or danced when Paris smiled. Napoleon set up his new +Rhein Confederation without consulting Prussia; and Prussian patriots +felt themselves mortified beyond endurance. + +¶ Young men in Berlin, by way of protest, made a demonstration. Going +to the doorsteps of the French minister, they there sharpened their +swords! Napoleon was furious; he sought out the bookseller circulating +an anti-French pamphlet, "The Deepest Humiliation of Prussia," lured +him across the frontier, and had him assassinated. + +¶ The Prussian patriotic party, begun as a court cabal secretly headed +by Louise, decided on war. + +¶ The troops were drilled night and day in preparation for the great +war of liberation. Never before had a downtrodden nation worked harder +to win liberty through liberation from the French yoke. However, the +immediate results were to be disastrous. + +¶ The Queen's dragoons went to the front; the Queen rode near by in +her carriage; she wore a smart military coat, colors of her crack +regiment; and General Kalkreuth, in a burst of enthusiasm, vowed that +the Queen could herself win the war should she remain with the troops. + +¶ Yes, Louise was actually going out to fight Napoleon's veterans, +Napoleon's famous marshals, Berthier, Murat and the others; and even +the great Napoleon himself. + +The decisive struggle took place at Jena, October 16, 1806; Prussian +forces were annihilated. + +¶ Napoleon came on to Berlin and housed himself in the Prussian +palace. From here he now issued bulletins denouncing Louise as the +cause of the war; he attacked her character, accusing her of a liaison +with the handsome Alexander of Russia, and of still other intrigues +with high army officers; he presented her as a compound of shameless +camp-follower and dangerous woman, plotting against her own husband, +thus bringing ruin to her native land. + +Napoleon even had Louise's apartments broken into and the Queen's +papers seized, to see if incriminating evidence could not be +uncovered. Ah, he knew all the tricks of love as well as of war! + + * * * * * + +¶ But Napoleon went too far. His cruel persecution caused Prussians to +sympathize with their Queen, instead of reviling her. + + + 18 + + Years before the great question is settled Prussia indeed + becomes Germany--in moody thoughtfulness--in stubborn + determination--in unflinching courage. + +¶ Louise now reveals herself a glorious National heroine. In spite of +her animosity toward Napoleon for his atrocious slanders, the Queen +decided to arrange an interview with the conqueror and beg favorable +terms for her beloved Prussia. + +¶ The meeting took place July 6, 1807. Napoleon sent his coach, drawn +by six white horses, to bring the Queen to the miller's house, where +the interview was staged in an upper room. Louise had on her finest +court robe, white crepe embroidered with silver, and wore her famous +crown of pearls; her loveliness and her woman's wit were to be used in +behalf of prostrate Prussia. + +¶ Napoleon rode up in great style, surrounded by his brilliant +staff--Berthier, Murat and the others. Louise awaited him at the head +of the rickety stairs. As he went up in the semi-darkness, he stumbled +and fell. + +The Queen apologized that she was forced to meet the Emperor in so +mean a place; but he immediately replied that to see so lovely a woman +was well worth a few minor obstacles. + +¶ Louise now began pleading with Napoleon for leniency toward Prussia. +What an interview that was! + +How eloquently she set forth her people's sufferings in the great +French wars; she pictured the sorrows of Prussia so vividly that at +last Napoleon became mightily interested. Finally he said: + +¶ "Ah, your Majesty asks very much indeed, but I am dreaming!" By this +he meant, "I do not hear a word you say; I am looking at your +beautiful eyes." + +¶ The clever Louise saw that she was progressing with her arguments, +and undoubtedly had the Emperor under the spell of her fatal beauty; +to oblige a grand lady in distress, he would be willing to concede +much indeed, in his famous rôle of lady-killer and protector of +feminine loveliness. + +But at that precise moment, who should enter the room but Fr: Wilhelm +himself, the Queen's blundering husband! + +¶ Always in the way--mentally clumsy--he spoiled everything! The +interview ended abruptly. + +¶ Louise, heartbroken, retired in utter despair. She had believed that +the justice of her cause, her eloquence, her loyalty to her people +would go far to soften Napoleon's wrath, but in all this she was +cruelly disappointed. Next day the French tyrant announced his terms: +Indemnity of 154,000,000 marks; one-third cash; one-third payable in +lands; the final third "on time," in the interim he would garrison in +five fortified towns 30,000 French troops and 10,000 French cavalry, +whose support was at the expense of Prussia, till the debt was paid. + +¶ This great Queen, after life's fever, sleeps enshrined in her snowy +marble tomb at Charlottenburg. + +One day you will stand with uncovered head beside her royal grave, and +recall her noble life. She deserves well of her country! + + * * * * * + +¶ But mark this well: out of Prussia's humiliations came her ultimate +strength; the vanquished, as is often the story of human life, was +strengthened more than the victors. Prussia, chastened by her severe +lessons, henceforth proceeded to build herself up slowly till at last +she was ready, many, many years later, to strike for German Unity that +final blow at the palace of the French kings at Versailles. + +¶ In the wearisome stretch of time till that distant day of German +glory, Prussia henceforth becomes Germany--in spirit--in moody +thoughtfulness--in stubborn determination--yes, under God, by blood +and iron! There float before us many noble names, poets, prophets, +soldiers who aid in stimulating "German national faith"--Fichte, +Arndt, Kleist, Roon, Moltke, Scharnhorst, Humboldt--and in the +historical twilight big with mutterings and rumblings of the New Time +to come with all its glory, taking the place of the Prussian ruin +between 1806 and 1813, is Queen Louise, her gentle spirit a veritable +evening-star, luminous with hope. + + * * * * * + +¶ By 1813, Fr: William III had been induced by the pressure of public +opinion to join Russia to fight off the French. May 17, 1813, +William's famous decree, "To My People!" called for help to expel +invaders, thereby to recover Prussian independence; and Napoleon was +totally defeated in the tremendous battle of Leipzig, October 16-19, +or "Battle of the Nations," as the Germans call Prussia's return to +power and glory. + +¶ It was this patriotic appeal "To My People," that made William's +troubles; the Prussian Liberals felt that the Government owed the +people a Liberal political Constitution, in return for Leipzig. + +¶ His Majesty grabbed on it, twice, and was at his wit's end to know +how to keep his crown and his declaration of friendship for the +people. + +In the meantime, twenty-three minor German states having adopted +constitutions, more or less liberal, the growing demands of the common +people for a share in Prussian government could be no longer denied. + + + 19 + + Kingcraft comes upon evil days--in the rising tide of liberal + ideas, monarchies of old are all but swept away. + +¶ When the Napoleonic dynasty collapsed, after Waterloo, there were 39 +petty principalities in the German-speaking area grouped about Rhein, +the Main, Neckar, Elbe; these knights' holdings, ecclesiastical +strongholds, and domains of various descriptions became merged by +cross-fighting throughout the Napoleonic era. + +¶ The Congress of Vienna (1815) deeming it advisable to set up a loose +confederacy of the multitude of petty powers, founded a German +Confederation, but whether it was geographical, racial or political no +human being could say. + +The local German princes kept full sovereign powers, but gradually, as +a matter of expediency, the various states grouped themselves around +Prussia and Austria. As for the Nation, there was no German sovereign, +no supreme court, no commercial or political relationship worthy of +the name. Instead, on every hand was intense local hatred, aloofness +and suspicion. This condition continued for very many years. + +¶ The plain fact was that the various princes did not want German +National unity; for the reason that it is not human nature for men to +give up an advantage for an uncertainty. Also, at this time, neither +Prussia nor Austria was strong enough to impose her hegemony upon +Germany. Austria's policy was for delay; and in Prussia the general +belief existed for many years that Austrian domination was really +essential to put down the rising spirit of Democracy. + +¶ The authority of the Congress set up a Bond of Confederation, ruled +by a Diet or Bundestag, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main. + +¶ In the hurly-burly, certain centres, such as Saxony, Bavaria and +Wuertemberg, were raised in rank from duchies to kingdoms, while still +others, such as Westphalia, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were dissolved. The +free cities were reduced to four; caste declined in political +importance. The Confederation of the Rhine was set aside. + +Thus the close of the Napoleonic period found German territory without +political unity. + + * * * * * + +¶ The last stand of kingly ultra-conservatism is the one great +political feature of Europe, from the downfall of Napoleon, 1815, to +the popular outbreaks of 1848. During this dark period the cause of +constitutional liberty in Prussia made little progress. Old forms as +well as new were under suspicion. On the one side were ultra-conservative +conceptions of Divine-right, upheld by Metternich, and on the other +side was the idea that sovereignty came not from heaven but from +earth, making the will of the people the voice of God. + +¶ Prussia and Austria, as the representatives of Divine-right, +closely watched these revolutionary tendencies, suppressed uprisings, +muzzled the press, in an attempt to check the surging tide of +liberalism. + +However much the kings had feared the wars of Napoleon, kingcraft was +now confronted by an enemy more deadly. The babble of the bondsmen +about to break their chains portended far greater disaster to +dynasties than ever did bullets on the battlefield of Waterloo. + + * * * * * + +¶ With might and main, the monarchs, resisting the demands of the +people for constitutional government, stamped out everything that +looked like the first signs of National sentiment. + +¶ Nor was Germany alone in this reactionary attitude. The kingly side +of all Europe stood shoulder to shoulder against new political +experiments. + +In Italy, Greece, Spain, sovereigns applied the lash the harder, in an +endeavor to suppress this new evil against kingcraft; nevertheless, +among the common people there continued to grow consciousness of +political rights. + +¶ "Napoleon in many of the lands he conquered," says Ffyfe, "set up +many revolutionary ideas that sounded the death knell of the Feudal +system. It was part of his administrative genius to take the lands +from barons and their class, and turn them over to peasants; it +happened in France with the lands of the ecclesiastical barons of the +church; it happened in North Germany, in 1810, when the decree of +administrative following the annexation of the North German Coast +swept away with a few strokes of the pen, thirty-six forms of Feudal +privileges." + +¶ And these could never be restored, even after the Congress of Vienna +spent seven or eight months, after Waterloo, dividing the loot among +the old royal houses. + +¶ The system of monarchical Absolutism maintained itself in one way or +another for years, but the old-line conception of the political +legitimacy of despotic rulers had been rudely shattered. + +¶ In spite of a brave show of gold cloth, diamonds, laces, jewels, +swords, silk stockings, lackeys, grooms, guards and crowns, kingcraft +was now placed on the defensive. The cry of the people, "Liberty!" +filled many a market-place. + +¶ Forces of democracy were working everywhere, ill-directed to be +sure, but never despairing of ultimate victory over kingcraft, which +indeed had now come upon evil days. It is an undeniable fact that +Bonaparte had purged the political ideas of French Revolution of many +excesses, and had turned to practical account certain forms of +liberty, for example, ridding captured lands, as Ffyfe tells us, of +offensive special privileges, on part of irresponsible rulers of petty +degree; but the danger was found in this: that a mere "desire" for +political expediency, however surrounded by the halo of popular +rights, avails nothing unless ultimately sustained by strong central +authority; and it requires no profound knowledge of men's way to know +that at no time in the history of the world has collective rulership +been other than a theory. The excesses of the French Revolution were +not readily overlooked by the conservative elements in Germany. + + + 20 + + German hope of National Union gleams like a star. + +¶ There gradually grew throughout Germany a spirit of intense longing +for country, and many a noble spirit had in a vision seen from afar +the common Fatherland. Especially in the universities, the feeling was +strong. + +The German universities were hotbeds of political excitement. For many +years after Napoleon's downfall all manner of theories of government +were strenuously debated, to the accompaniment of duels, +beer-drinking, private feuds, and popular agitation, often ending in +blood. The Burschenschaft, as the student brothers were called, +finally formed themselves into a league comprising sixty schools; and +held a famous meeting at Wartburg, 1817. + +¶ The patriots took Holy Communion, made impassioned speeches, built +bonfires and cast into the flames hated books supporting Metternich's +system of kingcraft. Also the patriots consigned to the fire an +illiberal pamphlet by King Fr: Wilhelm III of Prussia. + +¶ Metternich became alarmed. Kotzebue, hated as a spy of Russia in +Germany, was stabbed to the heart by Karl Sand. This gave to +Metternich the desired opportunity, and he proceeded forthwith to +impress on Fr: Wilhelm and the Czar the absurdity of toying longer +with "Democratic ideas and paper constitutions." + +Then and there the Biblical phrases of democrat-mongering kings, under +the Holy Alliance, ceased in the high courts of Russia and Prussia. +Metternich got hold of Fr: Wilhelm, also the other political tools of +the Frankfort Diet, and at Carlsbad decrees were issued sounding the +doom of Liberalism and the return to power of the old-line kings. + +By gag-law and intimidation Metternich rushed the decrees through the +Diet;--and for a generation "Carlsbad" signified the suppression of +Democratic sentiments throughout Germany. + +¶ Metternich fought free speech, free parliaments and a free press. +His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian +spies were everywhere, searching out revolutionary societies. + +¶ The hope that Prussia might be the leader in the new German spirit +of nationality now vanished. William III definitely withdrew his +promise of a written Constitution, made in 1813, and reiterated in +1815. + +Persecutions continued north and south; Prussia hounded Jahn for five +long years, this Jahn whose gymnastic societies had been so helpful in +hardening young men to Prussian army services; and the poet Arndt, +whose impassioned verse intensified the National spirit of Germany, +was shamefully treated, his papers scattered and the man driven from +his university. + +¶ For many a long year the gloomy spirit of "Carlsbad" decrees hung +over Germany. + + * * * * * + +¶ However, the Germans have an intensely practical side as well as a +dreamy poetical side. It is not surprising, therefore, that the +earliest steps in the direction of German unity (1818) came through +Prussian customs house reforms under the patriot, Maassen. + +¶ There had been, as we explained heretofore, no freedom of trade +throughout Germany; each of the petty thirty-nine states was +surrounded by Chinese walls; for example, to send goods from Hamburg +to Vienna, the shipper had to pay ten separate tolls. + +¶ Under the old Prussian system there were in vogue at one and the +same time no less than sixty-seven conflicting tariff systems. All +this tax oppression meant a harvest for smugglers. But Maassen, at a +stroke, established a common tariff in Prussia; made the tax so low +that smuggling became unprofitable. The other states protested +vehemently at first, but one by one entered this new customs union. + +¶ And we may understand now certain sarcastic remarks sometimes made +about Germany by her historical enemies: "Paper, cheese, sauerkraut, +ham, and matches, served to unite German hearts more than political +ties!" + +¶ This slur is ill-deserved; at best, it simply means that the +advantages of the "Zollverein" were economic as well as political; +and, in later years, the necessity for a common system of doing +business played a deservedly important part in helping along +Bismarck's plans. + +¶ The customs league, called the "Zollverein," is generally held to be +the very beginning of practical unity for Germany. + + * * * * * + +¶ On the poetical side of German character, earliest appeals for the +Fatherland--one and united!--were expressed down through the years; +long indeed before actual political union was possible, Germany's +bards, in their impassioned, semi-religious songs awakened in German +hearts the spirit of intense longing for the common Fatherland, based +on blood-brotherhood and language. + +¶ One of the famous types of this patriot-poet was Arndt, son of an +emancipated slave. Arndt was a noble democrat; his history of slavery +in Pomerania inspired Adolphus to abolish that evil, 1806; the +Prussian aristocrats held Arndt a life-long grudge. + +"Spirit of the Times," his patriotic trumpet-call aroused Prussians to +fight France. Napoleon tracked the lyric poet out; Arndt fled to +Sweden; but continued to write for the cause. He returned to Germany, +1809. + +¶ "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" remains one of the great +semi-religious songs of nations. Arndt asks what comprises the +Fatherland? Surely not Prussia, not Swabia, nor this nor that, but all +side by side comprise the German brotherhood of race and language. + + Where is the German Fatherland? + Is't Swabia? Is't Prussia's land? + Is't where the grape glows on the Rhine, + Where sea-gulls skim the Baltic's brine? + Oh, no! more great, more grand + Must be the German Fatherland! + +¶ Here is a spirited verse from "The God That Lets the Iron Grow": + + The God who made earth's iron hoard + Scorned to create a slave + Hence, unto man the spear and sword + In his right hand he gave! + Hence him with courage he imbued + Lent wrath to Freedom's voice-- + That death or victory in the feud + Might be his only choice! + +¶ "Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess," "Was blasen die Trompeten," +were on all patriotic lips; at this, William III, mightily offended, +had Arndt arrested and sent him into retirement for twenty years. + +¶ The old man lived to become a great National hero. He died January +29, 1860, aged 91. It is pleasant to record that on his ninetieth +birthday Germany united in good wishes for their national poet of the +dark hours. + +The people built him a monument at the place of his birth, Schoritz, +and another at Bonn, where for many years he had been professor of +history. + + + 21 + + It is not time, O William, to go to church but to go to war; + yet you and your son keep on reading your Gothic Bible. + +¶ Now comes the year 1840; William III goes to the tomb of his +ancestors, and is succeeded by Fr: William IV, with whom began anew +the long battle between the principle of Divine-right of kings and +political democracy exercised by the masses. William IV, intensely +addicted to Divine-right theories of government, was in the course of +a turbulent reign forced to face great political agitators. However, +the King had behind his throne, always, that conservative class (found +in every country) that clings tenaciously to the past and dreads the +future. The watchword of all William's enemies was "Liberty!" The cry, +visionary as it was, served as a rallying point for those who favored +some form of French constitutionalism; and while, as a whole, the +so-called friends of Liberty were very impracticable, had no definite +plan for relief, we find among the political agitators foremost in +their discontent many of the brightest minds in Germany, college +graduates, professional men, the clergy, and solid middle class +merchants. All were zealous for immediate political reforms. + + * * * * * + +¶ Consider the position of our Fr: William IV. He was a peculiar man, +to begin with--and an irresolute man, to end with. He was not built +for times of war. Yet he had to face cannon! + +Early in life, in impressionable years, through a court blunder, young +William had had a tutor, Delbrueck, who poisoned his charge's mind +against the Prussian military and bureaucratic system. + +The attitude of Delbrueck was certainly heresy as vile as though your +own child's nurse should bring your boy up to fear and despise his own +father. Surely, you would not like that? + +¶ Delbrueck was quickly given the sack; and it was well that he got +off without a broken head! + +He was succeeded by a preacher, Ancillon, of renown in church affairs. +This Ancillon started young William off on another track; antiques, +church history, Bible study, architecture, the brotherhood of man, and +the fatherhood of God. + +¶ Then William studied art under Rausen, and under Schinkel; and also +the future king became absorbed in landscape gardening and in +architecture. + +¶ William was presumed to be "liberal" in his views, that is to say, +he was, in a sense, supposed to be a "democrat." + +¶ Of course, the Radicals at this hour knew nothing of Bismarck, who +was to be the power behind the throne. They saw instead only a weak +king; and history tells over and over again, down through time, what +becomes of weak kings when the people are throwing up barricades in +the streets and are tossing up their caps and crying "Liberty!" + + * * * * * + +¶ Under his royal nose the Liberals kept sticking his father's pledge +of the glorious year, 1813. How about that long-promised Constitution, +your Majesty? Thousands of deluded Prussians now believed that they +could accurately define the peculiar word "Liberty!" It looked as +though the people were bent on casting out a king. As yet there were +in Prussia no organized party lines; the general situation was summed +up in the growing hopes that the common people placed in French +constitutionalism--wherever that might lead. + +¶ At any rate, the old régime must go. + + + 22 + + Bad business, this promising a written Constitution--The deluge + breaks. + +¶ The Prussian nobility, always bound to the King by feelings of +ardent loyalty, formed a military caste; the peasantry was +industrious, thrifty and hard-working; the State officials were +devoted to a spirit of discipline at once thorough and pedantic; the +Prussian school-system was first in square-headed masters, who ruled +with rods of iron. Thus, the Prussian National ideal was based on +Discipline military in its severity, self-sacrifice and energy. +"Throughout Prussia was a spirit of affirmation, expressive of the +vigorous National egotism. As time passed, the machine men of olden +Prussia were gradually replaced by free-willed, self-conscious +citizens taking an enlightened interest in their country; the old-time +tutelage headed by the monarchs underwent a transformation; and the +trend was toward enlightened self-government; but many years were to +pass before this ideal was reached." + +¶ William did indeed cherish, in a way, an idea of German Unity, and +in this respect he was a democrat or a radical, whatever you wish to +term him. Here, we must make one fact plain. It will make you smile at +William's simplicity, will show you how utterly he was out of touch +with the tendencies of the times; how good-natured he was; how honest +he was. He believed that German Unity, if ever it came, should +historically be an extension of the old Holy Roman Empire, through the +illustrious House of Hapsburg! + +Which is equivalent to saying that your own family should advance by +humbling itself before your own greatest rival; that you should bow to +your political enemy and submit to being effaced, to heighten your +rival's glory. + +Strauss calls William "A romanticist on the throne of the Cćsars!" +This Fr: William IV wished to be an absolute monarch, after the +traditional Hohenzollern style, yet he had so few soldierly instincts +that the army hated him. + +¶ This political attitude with William was not a form of romantic +idealism bordering on lunacy; it was instead a token of his blundering +stupidity; also in a sense his four-square frankness in owning that +Prussia was playing second fiddle to Austria, at this interesting +moment. And, in truth, all that William thought was logical; the +stream was tending that way; few denied it, except politicians +interested in advancing their own fortunes by setting Austria back in +the great game of grab. However, William, instead of loading cannon +and turning them on the Radicals, now swarming around his palace, was +much pleased to send a bishop to Jerusalem. + +¶ Nicholas of Russia warned William to beware of democrats, and to +stand up for Divine-right of kings, but what is the use of advising a +coward to be a hero, a fool to be a wise man? In the end, a man must +go through life with the sort of head he has--round, square, flat, or +mushy--is it not true? You are no exception, yourself; and our +church-building William, in turn, was true to his own ćsthetic nature, +regardless of bayonets poked under his nose. + +¶ Bad business this promising the people a written Constitution; +ominous for the breed of kings; a situation, in short, not unlike that +forced on the Grand Monarch at an earlier day, that is to say, no +money without the States' General. + +¶ After 1840, Liberal opinions were directed against the King, +personally, charging him with political reactionary tendencies. The +course of popular liberty was taken by noted men, among them Arnold +Ruge, Karl Marx, Feuerbach, Strauss, Bauer, Fallersleben, Dingelstedt, +Meissner, Beck, Kinkel, and others. Also, when Ischech attempted to +assassinate William IV, the dastardly act found supporters who gloried +in the "patriot's" effort to rid the country of a "tyrant," even +through cold-blooded murder. + +¶ Also, the very memory of the frightful excesses of the French +Revolution still shocked the conservative political element of Europe. +The land-owning classes of Prussia, backed by the Prussian army, stood +shoulder to shoulder for their old titles. The new call of political +liberalism was, therefore, in the view of Prussian conservatives, to +be put down at all hazards. The position was, of course, largely +selfish, but it was very human. + + * * * * * + +¶ Matters came to a crisis in '47; King William IV needed money for a +little railroad project in East Prussia. In his dilemma, he called his +Baby Parliament, or Diet, April 11, 1847, and "deigned" to permit +therein the right of petition; there were in truth no privileges of +political significance, no real powers; it was a side-show, so far as +the "people" were concerned--and for eleven weeks volleys of oratory +crackled and thundered. + + * * * * * + +¶ Here, we meet Bismarck face to face; and you should now be prepared, +from what you have read, to understand the gigantic problem Bismarck +was called upon to face--single-handed! + +¶ Furthermore, Bismarck's attitude was not, as has often been +recorded, a case of "might is right." The French Revolution had proven +conclusively that there can be no political "right" without a +political "might." We should not forget this fact throughout the +Bismarck story of Prussia's rise to power. + + + + + BOOK THE THIRD + + Bismarck Supports His King + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + Fighting Fire With Fire + + + 23 + + The voice in the Wilderness proclaims the God-given glory of + Kings, vicegerents of Christ on this earth. + +¶ The French Revolution brought to Paris adventurers and patriots from +every part of Europe. Among these was a young Corsican who, with his +mother and sisters, had been driven out of his native island. This +man, Napoleon Bonaparte, was in the course of a few years to become +Emperor of France and Master of Europe. + +¶ There is a classical picture of young Napoleon, at the time of the +early riots in Paris. + +Standing on a curbstone, to one side, he watches the passing of +liberty-crazed mobs, armed with pikes--the self-same common people on +whose shoulders Napoleon himself was later to ride into amazing power. + +¶ Thus, likewise, in another time of political crisis, (1847-48) men +were flocking to Berlin to debate anew the well-worn theme, "The +Rights of Man." + +Quietly looking on was another man of destiny, Otto von Bismarck, +burly dyke-captain of the Elbe, up to that time a farmer on his +ancestral estates in Pomerania. What this young blond giant saw before +him was somewhat of this extraordinary order: + +¶ The universal theme was once more "Liberty," and the din not only in +Berlin but throughout German states, was ear-splitting. Of course, +there were patriots who stood on broad National grounds, but the +purely personal point of view was still very much in evidence. + +Every man had his say, often accompanied by brandishing of fists or +the laying on of canes; all dignified by the name "patriotism," but in +truth it exhibited the old struggle of human nature for supremacy. + +The masses were fighting to unseat kings, whose dogma of +"Divine-right" had by the French Revolution been shown to be only +insidious political quackery, in the past sustained largely by the +sword. The common people were wrestling to grasp this monarchic sword +away, and here and there had already seized the hilt or the blade--it +mattered not which!--and the dynasties of Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, +Wittelsbach, and all the lesser swarm, were suddenly put on the +defensive. Hotly pursued sovereigns kept their heads only by some +concession to popular fury; again, by flight. The people were +intoxicated with the wine of their newly found power! + +¶ And what would they do with their new bauble, liberty, fraternity +and equality? The centre of the stage was occupied by a struggling +mass of kings, fighting not only for their crowns but for the very +clothes on their backs! There were poets in fine frenzy declaiming; +grenadiers firing muzzle-loaders; priests invoking the wrath of God; +kings shouting out that they were the only accredited earthly +representatives of Heaven; historians hotly insisting that all were in +error, and that the scroll showed this or that; law-givers pleading +for the old forms; lunatics laughing in demoniacal glee; peasants +armed with pitchforks jabbing right and left; demagogues calling on +Heaven to witness their lofty and disinterested leadership; while +around the edges of the scene mountebanks, camp-followers, renegades, +whores and political blacklegs, were waiting for their share of the +plunder, let victory fall where it may. + +¶ What a magnificent scramble for place, pelf and power! It were +blasphemy to call this riot the desire for progress for the masses. It +were equal blasphemy to call it stupidity and reaction, on the part of +the contending monarchs, as against crushing with iron heel the hopes +of the people for political and intellectual life. Either one of these +diagonally opposed interpretations of the time is too extreme. The +truth is in neither view. As a matter of fact, behind the seething +mass of human forms was the age-old motive of human selfishness; and +while here and there some lofty soul may have glimpsed in his fervid +imagination a United Germany, based on a "German national faith," in +which the rights of each citizen should be no more or no less than the +rights of all others, with each man working for all men and all men +for each man, this poetical idea was only another evidence of how the +noblest minds place the illusion and the dream before the appalling +fact of human selfishness in the universal struggle for personal +aggrandizement. + +¶ The merging of the various German states, or the transference of +land from one German monarch to another, in the ensuing political +struggle for power, is, after all, as nothing compared with the change +in ideas, now close at hand; what may be called the "mind" of Germany +was about to undergo a veritable French Revolution! However, it was +not to be a French Revolution in the sense of mob-rule. We shall make +this clear as we come more especially to tell you, in details, of a +certain political millennium which Bismarck scorned, although +courageously pressed upon him by leaders of the party of the people. + +¶ On the whole, however, the drift of events was toward "German +national faith," bringing in turn some form of representative +government, as against the doctrine of Divine-right of kings. The +monarchs were placed more and more on the defensive; it was to be +their last stand, not only for their crowns but for their very lives! + + * * * * * + +¶ And now face to face with the gigantic problem of a United Germany, +again we study our last hope of kings--our Prussian Strafford von +Bismarck. In some respects he is the historical foil of Strafford of +Charles I, whose money-needs compelled the calling of the Long +Parliament; and the help Strafford had given to the king in ruling +without a parliament had mortally offended the Commons; Strafford was +declared guilty of high treason--and despite Charles' efforts, +Strafford went to the block! + +¶ Will Bismarck come to a similar end on the scaffold of the Prussian +liberals? + + * * * * * + +¶ We see before us a giant in form and in mental strength; a monster +of will-power, with the iron ambition to compel men to do his +individual bidding; a political superman. + +¶ He had spent his time more with cattle, horses and dogs than he had +with men. + +¶ His spirit was high, untrammelled, rebellious. He ironically +despised the common people; the burden-bearers in all forms of +government were in this giant's opinion not good enough to sit beside +kings. + +¶ Morose, obstinate, self-opinionated, with an enormous capacity for +liquor, Bismarck was an intellectual as well as physical glutton. + +¶ Most of all, this strange man, half-beast, half-seer, was to turn +out to be the very voice of the old decaying kingcraft. He had an +immovable belief in the Feudal right of royalty to rule over its +subjects as it pleased; and by his amazing power of intrigue supported +by supreme abilities exercised during the ensuing thirty years, +Bismarck at last rose to a height that overshadowed the monarchs whom +he served--and ruled! + +We wish to emphasize, again, that Bismarck's conception of kingcraft +was no mere despotic thing. To him, a king was truly a man of great +practical as well as moral responsibilities, akin to father, hence +should be obeyed. + + + 24 + + Our young blond giant appears at Third Estates' Assembly--The + King's predicament--Bismarck's opportunity. + +¶ Behold Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, the country squire, +straight from his cow-sheds and his hunting dogs; a young blond German +giant, 32 years old, in the very prime of his massive strength and +endurance; plentiful hair cropped short, ruddy face, blond beard, +bright blue eyes, big fists; high, shrill voice, strangely out of +keeping with his physical bulk. For years afterward, this peculiar +voice became the stock in trade of newspaper writers. However, it was +what the giant said! + +¶ Bismarck wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, military boots and his +dykeman's overcoat. This rough, yellow-colored garment, for which he +afterwards became famous, was long, baggy and loose. He used to wear +it when floods were high along the River Elbe. In Berlin, at the time +were only three notables who wore these yellow overcoats: the first, +Bismarck; the second, the immortal Baron von Herteford, the last of +his race, hereditary grand huntsman at Cleve, and the third was worn +by Geo. Hesekiel, the German historian. + +¶ Bismarck, who was now to receive his first experience in handling +men in political alignments, had inherited a country estate from the +old family domains and was living the life of a squire; hunting foxes, +with dogs and gay companions, passing nights in taverns, drinking +heavily, eating like a glutton, amusing himself as he pleased; a giant +in intellect and in stomach; turbulent, tempestuous, rough, a bad man +to cross, believe me, but among his cronies voted a prince of good +fellows. Such is our German hero as he comes upon the great stage of +affairs. + +¶ When this burly Bismarck made his first entrance at the Diet, or +Assembly of the Three Estates, held in the "White Saloon" of the Royal +Palace at Coelin on the Spree, our future empire-maker and +throne-overturner knew by practical experience absolutely nothing +about the diagonal of political cross-purposes. + +However, he was now taking up his great life-study, entering all +unknowingly upon a magnificent career leading in after years to his +fair renown as Father of the German Empire. + + * * * * * + +¶ He had, as we have seen, thus far passed the time as a practical +farmer; hale fellow well met, with upper-class leanings. + +After taking his doctor's degree at Goettingen, he had made a few +journeys, one to Italy, another to the island of Heligoland, on a +shooting trip; had crossed the English Channel, and had brought back +with him a smattering of Shakespeare, which he afterwards improved by +considerable study; and by the way throughout the crises in his +career, Bismarck often found refuge in apt Shakespearian quotations. + +Then he had done a little governmental clerical work in the lower +courts of his country, but his peculiar ideas of independence and his +abruptness in speaking his mind unfitted him for this work. Glad to be +rid of his job, he returned to the country. He knew nothing of +administrative or executive life, and aside from the fact that he was +a student of history, with a penchant for making historical parallels, +there was nothing to show the bent of his powerful mind. + +¶ Yet, there is a great man before us! And since it is not based on +his training, then it must come inherently from his natural endowment. + +His master-mind was to unseat and seat princes, kings and emperors, in +the fullness of time, rearranging the map of Germany to suit himself; +engaging in three wars of ambition, signally victorious in each; and +winning for himself imperishable fame during his active career of +forty years. + + * * * * * + +¶ By a singular turn, Bismarck knew or cared so little for politics, +at this time, that his very entry into the "White Saloon," in which +the Liberals decided to settle with this stubborn King Fr: Wm. IV, was +wholly by accident. + +The Saxon Provincial Diet at Meresburg had chosen Dyke Captain von +Brauchitsch of Scharteuke, in the Circle of Jerichow, as Deputy at the +United Diet, and had selected Dyke Captain von Bismarck of +Schoenhausen as his proxy. As Herr von Brauchitsch was very ill, his +substitute was summoned. + +¶ Bismarck appeared as representative of the Knight's Estate of +Jerichow, and vassal and chivalric servitor of the King. How go the +Fates! If the eminent von Brauchitsch had not had the toothache, that +day, there might not have been a United Germany--is it not true? + +¶ In the group that gathered in the "White Saloon" at Coelin on the +Spree, Bismarck met many men whose opinions were well known to him; +his brother, the Landrath, his cousins, the Counts von Bismarck-Bohlen +and von Bismarck-Briest; his future father-in-law, Herr von +Puttkammer; von Thadden, von Wedell, and many others. Says Hesekiel: + +¶ "Unfortunately these gentlemen in general, as Herr von Thadden once +bluntly said of himself, were not even bad orators, but no orators at +all. Nor could the two Freiherrs von Manteuffel contend in eloquence +with the brilliant rhetorics of the Liberals, such as Freiherr von +Vincke, Camphausen, Mevissen, Beckerath, and others. + +¶ "Few persons today can read those speeches of the First United Diet, +once so celebrated, without a melancholy or satirical smile. Those +were the blossom-days of liberal phraseology, causing an enthusiasm of +which we cannot now form any adequate idea!" + + * * * * * + +¶ Troublous times indeed; and the King an autocrat of autocrats, +forced by the liberal ideas of the hour, breaking everywhere. We can +imagine William saying angrily: + +"Confound the impudence of the Liberals with their crazy liberty, +fraternity and equality. We supposed that all this nonsense was blown +to bits by the guns at Waterloo!" + +¶ The bedeviled King began to show a streak of Prussian stubbornness; +in these angry words he incautiously addressed those delegates who had +dared to ask for a Constitution: + +¶ "I refuse to allow to come between Almighty God in Heaven and this +Prussian land so much as a blotted piece of parchment to rule us with +paragraphs, and to replace thereby the sacred bond of ancient +loyalty!" + +¶ The widening gulf between monarchy and French constitutionalism was +now manifest to almost any thoughtful Prussian, but, like the ostrich, +our timid William continued to hide his head under the sand and +believed himself safe. + + + 25 + + For one whole month, burly Bismarck sits with his mouth shut, + seemingly stricken dumb at the sacrilegious ideas of the + Democrats. + +¶ Now this giant dyke-captain, this lover of dogs, horses and cattle, +sat for one whole month, stricken dumb it seemed by the political +heresies that he heard. For one solid month, he never opened his +mouth! Then he could stand it no longer. He pleaded vigorously for the +Middle Ages feudal system, and for the right of his own aristocratic +class! In truth, without knowing it, he was expressing the King's +sentiments, was a genuine King's Man. + +¶ The future prince's first speech swept like a hurricane over a +garden in June--withering, blasting, uprooting. He began by denying, +absolutely, that the great victory of 1813 which expelled for Prussia +the French invaders was based on so low a consideration as the promise +of a paper Constitution. Not at all! It was an exhibition of pure +patriotism. In his historical reference, Bismarck, in this instance, +was in error. In no sense was "the people" to be credited with the +great Prussian victory of 1813; it came about largely through military +tactics, training and general preparedness, in which "the people" had +no part except to do their plain duty. + +¶ For his remarkable utterance, Bismarck was promptly hissed down by +the Liberal side. Undaunted, Bismarck loaded his heaviest guns against +this thing called "Liberalism," with all its mock-heroics of liberty, +fraternity and equality. Would it not endanger our King's sacred +throne? That was enough for Herr Bismarck. + +¶ Thus the doughty Dyke-captain from the Elbe endeavored to perform a +political miracle--new wine in old bottles--and as fast as the bottles +popped, he put the wine in still other old bottles. Was there ever +more folly? Did a young champion of the Crown ever make greater fool +of himself? + +¶ And with all Europe bawling for liberty, fraternity and equality; +with thrones tottering in every direction; with 23 of the 39 German +states already joyously exhibiting their new Constitutions? Here was +a voice in the wilderness crying for monarchy and the Divine-right of +kings! And what's more, gentlemen, he has before him a 30-years' +fight, but in the end will ram it down your throats. + +¶ His cry at this moment is that ancient Prussian slogan, "Mitt Gott +fuer Koenig und Vaterland!" The question on the proposed +Constitution--the right of petition and certain specified control over +state finance by the people--simple as all this seems today, created a +terrible storm! The nobility, led by the Dyke-captain, felt uneasy; a +parliament of the people was indeed a needless concession. And were +the people prepared by education for this great change? Was it not +hasty? + +¶ Meantime, the King was in truth a sort of broken reed, stirred by +every blast that swept from the "White Saloon." + +¶ Fr: Wm. IV was a "Hamlet-hesitating monarch," who had it not been +for the burly giant Bismarck would have been swept into oblivion by +the first whiff of gunpowder. A stickler for religious dogma, the +pietists adored him, but the classes despised him; he was one of those +men who discuss trifles with elegant ease, but who have no conception +of what is behind this present widespread demand for a constitution. +This King Fr.: Wm. IV lived in a mystic medićval dreamland; he +restored the cathedral of Cologne; sent a missionary band to spread +his beloved Lutheran doctrines to the Chinese, and established a +Protestant bishop at Jerusalem. The political literature of the time +is overwhelmingly against William. He did not understand the drift of +events. Without Bismarck, the King's head would soon have rolled into +the basket! + + + 26 + + Bellowing his defiance, though the Liberals bring the rope--The + new man explains his novel position, not as a politician but as + a Prussian in deadly earnest--The Jew, and time's revenge. + +¶ There were three sessions of the Baby Parliament, and Bismarck was +soon looked upon as the conservative leader. Perhaps conservative is +not the word; reactionary would be closer. There was no Conservative +party, nor a Liberal party for that matter. The obstinate fight with +Bismarck was not because he wished to prevent the common people from +having a share in their Prussian government, but because the change, +if ever it came, would set up a peculiar type of Prussian government; +a state-government, as it were, as against the old-time liege-lord +master-and-servant conception of Hohenzollern "Divine-right" policy. + +¶ The very word "people" threw Herr Bismarck into hysterical frenzy! +He determined upon resisting the heresy with all the virile courage of +his colossal bulk. + +It had been his duty, as Elbe dyke-captain, to protect his country +against torrential waters; now he would do similar service against the +rising floods of revolution. He set up the historical agreement that +the edifice of Prussia, under an aristocratic form of rulership, was +firmer toward foreign foes, firmer than was possible under the leader +rule of the people. + +¶ A conservative deputy from Pomerania, addressing the administration +member for West Havelland, said: "We have conquered!" + +¶ "Not so!" replied Bismarck, coolly. "We have not conquered, but we +have made an attack, which is the principal thing. Victory is yet to +come, but it will take years!" + +¶ These words accurately convey the nature of the situation. Bismarck +was master of short phrases in which complex situations are summed up. + + * * * * * + +¶ He had dog-like love for his master, the King: "No word," he +exclaimed, "has been more wrongly used in the past year than the word +'people.' Each man has held it to mean just what suits his individual +view." + +¶ "We are Prussians," was his eternal keynote, "and Prussia is +all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the +tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their +country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, recognized as +the color of their opponents. The accents of the Prussian National +Anthem, the strains of the Dessau and Hohenfriedberg March are well +known and beloved among them; but I have never yet heard a Prussian +soldier sing, 'What is the German Fatherland?' The nation whence this +army has sprung, and of which the army is the truest representative in +the happy and accurate words of the president of the First Chamber, +Rudolph von Auerswald, does not need to see the Prussian monarchy melt +away in the filthy ferment of South German immorality. We are +Prussians, and Prussians we desire to remain! I know that in these +words I utter the creed of the Prussian army, the creed of the +majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I hope to God that we shall +continue Prussians, when this bit of paper is forgotten like the +withered leaf of autumn!" + +¶ Yes, Bismarck, any day the mob may bring the rope; but you still +bellow your defiance, your face of brass unabashed. Man among +men--wrong though you be, Bismarck, you will have your say though the +Heavens fall. + +¶ "I am proud to be a Prussian Junker, and feel honored by the +appellation. Whigs and Tories were terms which once also had a very +mean signification; and be assured, gentlemen, that we shall on our +part bring Junkerdom to be regarded with honor and respect." + + * * * * * + +¶ Aristocrats were delighted; von Thadden exclaimed: "I am +enthusiastic over this man Bismarck!" Geo. v. Wincke, the Westphalian +high official, short, fat, red-headed, never admired the burly giant +Bismarck, smelling of the cow-sheds. + +¶ For twenty years, off and on, the testy v. Wincke indulged in +invective, his theme ever being "The rule of law." This George v. +Wincke in spite of his medals and his family tree was on the liberal +side, bag and baggage. + +¶ There was a strain of bitter eloquence about this red-headed +champion of the people's rights. He had read Guizot and talked much of +Hampden, the Long Parliament, and all that. George had the legal side +of the argument, especially since the French revolution had set +liberty bells a-ringing everywhere, even in solemn old Prussia; but +the doughty Bismarck would come thundering back with his "unlimited +crown" and rulership over the people "by the grace of God," royal +prerogative and general disdain for the masses;--as in the régime of +Louis the Magnificent at Versailles, when the convicts worked to build +the $200,000,000 palace to shelter art, wit and pretty women, while +the people starved. How out of tune, Bismarck; how hopelessly +reactionary! + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck voted against every new privilege. His speeches read like +reports of personal rows! He was frank, fearless and frenzied, and in +turn his volleys excited groans and hisses. + +¶ Was ever mortal so utterly out of touch with the prevailing French +conception of liberty, equality and fraternity? Here is the way he +summed up political equality: + +¶ "The goosequill arguments of newspaper writers!" "Relics of +pot-houses!" "The emancipation of the people does not mean progress!" +"A royal word is more than volumes of law!" "The Prussian sovereigns +are in possession of a crown by God's grace!" "The king has said he +did not wish to be coerced or driven!" "Let there be a period of four +years, at least, before another such stupid meeting as this is held." + +¶ It was a curious situation. Bismarck was both rude and crude! + +His style of delivery was lame, his voice improperly placed, his +mannerisms grotesque. Despite his hobbling oratory, however, Bismarck +was soon a marked man; he held his audience by his sensational ideas +and his dogged courage! + + * * * * * + +¶ Why did Bismarck vote against every new privilege? This may not be +decently answered in a word; you must read on in detail; there was a +great principle behind Bismarck's political attitude. True, it was +crudely conceived and expressed, at this period; but he will improve +with time. + +¶ Bismarck well remembered the excesses of German Jacobins, in the +southwest, during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. Alsace +and Lorraine had welcomed massacres as signs of political equality; +mob leaders destroyed castles and monasteries; Jew-baiters went mad; +Schneider, the tyrant of Strassburg, took charge of the guillotine, +but not making enough blood flow, was soon aided by professional +executioners, straight from Paris. + +¶ There was also the lunatic "Feast of Reason." Stark-mad Germans +paraded with Marat's statue, attacked churches, wrecked altars, heaped +up images of saints, crosses, pews, pulpits, and priests' garments, +touched the match, and danced around the fire;--while Schneider +harangued the mob on the joys of reason, as against revealed religion; +solemnly assuring his thousands of listeners that Christianity was now +a thing of the past. + +¶ Thus the mad war of liberty burst forth, accompanied by many +extraordinary episodes. Nor were the followers confined exclusively to +the rabble; we find many noted teachers, scholars and politicians +endorsing the French guillotine as a remedy for all political +ills--men like Blau, Wedekind, Hoffmann, Foster, Stamm, Dorsch, not +overlooking the spectacular John Mueller, who in the cause of the +people committed unheard-of follies with his pen, as a necessary +support for the sword. + +¶ There was also a stark-mad leader named Cloots, who usually signed +his bulletins "Cloots, Personal Enemy of Jesus of Nazareth." His +object was the union of all mankind, literally speaking; no halfway +measures for him, no long delays; he wanted his political salvation +here and now. + +¶ So inflamed were the people that the discharge of a tailor's +apprentice, in Breslau, precipitated a riot and the artillery was +brought into play. + +¶ In Saxony, 18,000 peasants demanded a democratic constitution; but +the authorities replied by sending the messenger to a mad-house. + +¶ Thus, in various directions, the crack-brained revolutionists played +their parts; nor should history overlook the contribution of the +learned Dr. Faust, of Buckelburg, whose profound treatise, "Origin of +Trousers," was read in Paris as a sort of historical endorsement of +the great democratic party that gloried in the equality, not to say +liberty, exhibited by casting trousers aside. + + * * * * * + +¶ Now what do you think? This King's Man, sprung up of a sudden, +coming from his fox-hunting and his cow-sheds, hits right and left at +the Jews! Yes, as against his "beloved Christians." Here is a new note +indeed--old yet new. + +We had not supposed Jew-baiting a thing of the past; but in these +tempestuous times it did seem that race-prejudice had no place in a +plain attempt to keep a king's crown. + +¶ "I will pass," Bismarck thundered, "to the question itself. I am no +enemy of Jews, and if they are enemies to me, I will forgive them. +Under certain circumstances, I even love them. I would grant them +every right--save that of holding superior office posts in a Christian +country. + +¶ "I admit I am full of prejudices, sucked in with my mother's milk. +If I think of a Jew, face to face with me as a representative of the +king's sacred majesty, and have to obey him, I must confess that I +should feel myself deeply broken and depressed. The sincere +self-respect with which I now attempt to fulfil my duties toward the +state would leave me! I share these feelings with the mass of large +strata of people, and I am not ashamed of their society." + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus, now at this supreme moment, when with voice of brass our +Bismarck is making his entry into the world of affairs with his sharp +words on Christians and Jews, and more especially with his +uncompromising conception that kings are indeed the personal +representatives of God on this earth, we do see that Bismarck stems +from a fighting race. All his years, this Bismarck was a frightful +hater. + +¶ With the sorry figure of the world-oppressed Jew in our eyes and the +malignancy of this new Jew-baiter, it is well that at the very outset +this be made clear: That whatever Bismarck was or was not, at least he +was no hypocrite. His words always fall like the wrath of God. + +It is a solemn fact that he changed his point of view many, many +times--even as you and I--but there is always the ring of sincerity +about it that even the acid test of long time is unable to dissolve. + + * * * * * + +¶ It was this tremendous earnestness--this sincerity--that made +Bismarck feared, hated and despised. + +Against your will, you are forced to believe what this giant says, no +matter how mocking, how insolent, how absurd his charges! + +Some tell us that Bismarck's ancestry stems from Bohemia, others trace +the Bismarcks to Russia, still others assert Jewish origin. + +This much is a fact: from a geographical point, the family name comes +from the little river Biese, near Stendal. + +¶ Bismarck's passion and prejudice against Jews was proverbial. It did +indeed often turn him, for the time being, into a mad dog! + +Near the close of life, in retirement at Friedrichsruh, some candid +friend desecrated the great man's retirement by sending him a copy of +a book by an anonymous writer, "Bismarck, the Jew." + +Ordinarily, Bismarck paid no attention to social lampoons, but on this +day as he read the book aloud to guests, his anger became black and +terrifying! + +¶ "I am determined to have the law on the audacious writer!" +Bismarck's guests saw the old man in one of his moods of frightful +rage. + +But next day something intervened--and Bismarck never brought suit for +damages. + + * * * * * + +¶ Here is one thing that you must never forget in studying great men: +That it is possible, nay inevitable, for a man to be at once very +great and very small. + +At the very beginning of his career, we find Bismarck ringing the +solemn changes on "Christian," and we behold him in a characteristically +unamiable mood over "Jews." Yet all the time he was endeavoring to lay +down the dogma that the proper aim of the state is the realization of +the Christian ideal! + +¶ If now you can understand this mental contradiction, you are in a +position to grasp one of the strange paradoxes with which Bismarck's +life is literally filled. + +You see here, at once, why he has been so often accused of +double-dealing, of stacking the cards, of changing his mind, of going +ahead by going backwards, winning ultimately by fair means or by foul. + + * * * * * + +¶ And now for the sequel. Many years later, Bismarck was exceedingly +glad to be guided by the advice of Jews, more especially the Jewish +banker Bleichroder. + +On one side of the table sits Bismarck, the Pomeranian Junker, and on +the other side the sallow-faced, undersized Jew, Bleichroder. + +Great friends they are today, to be sure; and between them is a mound +of treasury reports, telling in minute detail the financial resources +of Louis the Little, now a helpless prisoner of war. France is at the +Prussian's mercy, and a Jew is called in--a despised Jew! + +Bleichroder and Bismarck coolly examined the balance sheets of France, +the present state of her debts. + +The money cost turns out to be the stupendous sum of five thousand +millions of francs. + + * * * * * + +¶ Literary and journalistic France, in book, editorial and oration +made a great outcry at the moment, declaring dramatically that +Prussian barbarians had decided "to bleed France white"--attributing +to Bismarck a figure of speech borrowed from the butcher's block! Well +and good, but France paid the indemnity in surprisingly short time; +and had many millions left to go on her way rejoicing, had it not been +for the miserable obsession, "Ravanche!" that kept her in hot water +for years. + +¶ Bismarck was correctly quoted in this respect: That gold is as +necessary in war as gunpowder; and the best way to keep a quarrelsome +would-be Napoleon out of war is to empty his pockets. + +¶ The Jewish feature, however, shows Bismarck, through and through; +and we could not present him without this surprising scene. Make the +most of it. + + * * * * * + +¶ "I do not much like the piety that proclaims itself," said Louis +XIII. A similar remark may be made concerning Bismarck's life-long +belief that the Lord was on Bismarck's side--Jew-baiter and all. + +¶ "The longer I work in politics," he once remarked, summing up his +many political difficulties, "the smaller my belief in human +calculation. I look at the affair according to my human understanding, +but gratitude for God's assistance so far raises in me the confidence +that the Lord is able to turn our errors to our own good; that I +experience daily, to my wholesale humiliation." + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + Bismarck Suffers a Great Shock + + + 27 + + Wherein it is shown that Bismarck's protest against disrespect + for constituted authority was based on certain tragic + historical instances he would not repeat. + +¶ It is freely granted that ideas of "Liberty!" that many German +patriots desired to see come to pass, in 1848, were not those of 1789; +but elements of lawlessness, of mob-rule, of marchings to "Ca Ira!" of +absurd glorification of the common man, and of snarlings at kings as +kings, were largely in the spirit laid down by Robespierre, Danton, +Marat and that crew, with their chosen gangsters of the guillotine. +Bismarck would have none of it! + +True, many of the old-line excesses were no longer used for political +purposes, but Bismarck was too well-balanced, had too much common +sense, in short was too strongly aligned with landed interests to +endorse "popular" government on the old type from over the Vosges. His +protests were all in support of authority, discipline, duty, devotion +to a deliberately chosen monarch, who ruled by the will of God. + +¶ In '48 the talk of the "Rights of Man" really meant the rights of +individual men--the tailor, the barber, the shoemaker--each of whom +felt that the time had now come to overturn the political system of +kings and to bring on the rule of the common people. + +Old-line hatred of Napoleon had passed away. The French military +despot of the early part of the century was now figured as a "great +democrat," whose wars had "all" been in the interest of the people. +Could anything have been more absurd? The literary speculations of +Rousseau, as to the status of a new society (such, for example, as +running naked in the grove and rolling on the grass) were now replaced +by loud discussions not on the Rights of Man, as a form of idealism, +but the rights of all manner of men, each of whom felt that, under the +new dispensation, hastened if necessary by bomb, dagger and +poison-cup, the human race was to rise to nobler political ideals. It +is not difficult to see that political theories of this sort have been +indulged, in one way or other, by every generation in revolt against +the settled ways of the fathers. + +¶ Let us, therefore, go back to original sources and see for ourselves +just what account the common people had given of themselves, in a +political way, in France at the time of her so-called political +millennium. We shall then be able to grasp Bismarck's position clearly +and be able at least to understand, if we do not support, his attitude +of uncompromising severity toward popular rule, as understood at this +moment in the political evolution of Germany. + + * * * * * + +¶ If it be a mark of progress to call God a superstitious idol and to +endeavor by the guillotine to enforce political rights, then the +precious French key to the Door of Destiny for this human race should +be duplicated and placed in the possession of nations, far and wide, +as the final expression of man's best idea of himself, his wife, his +child and his country. + +This 1789-93 return to National paganism, both political and social, +is the mockery that Bismarck decided with all his almighty strength, +nay his supreme rage, to set aside; and for him Prussian Militarism, +which he so jealously set his heart on, against the rising tides of +French constitutionalism, otherwise mob-rule, was at once to prove the +sharp cure and the dreadful counter-blow. + + * * * * * + +¶ It was only after St. Helena that the Napoleonic legend, presenting +Napoleon as the great democrat, was brought forward, to wit, that the +Emperor's many brutal campaigns were in the interest of the "common +people" instead of gratification of his obsession for wars. + +The transition came about in a simple way. The Emperor was dead and +gone; his fate on a distant black rock added romantic interest to his +lost cause; and the return of the old-line French kings after +Waterloo, under the bayonets of Britain and the Allies, had proved a +keen disappointment, politically, to France. It is conceded that +Napoleon had promised and in many cases had applied liberal principles +in his conquered domains; but now that the man was dead, agitators of +many lands, including the 39 distracted German states, began to take +literally what the Emperor had said in a sort of huge politico-military +satire, to wit, that his blood-letting was truly in the interest of +the masses. + + * * * * * + +¶ Hence, between 1815 and 1848, agitators of Germany began ringing the +changes on the glories of the French Revolution. True, the Emperor had +been dead some 20-odd years; a new generation found surprising merits +in his military plans, forgetful of the lure of loot that had been the +foundation of it all; yes, for one thing the hungry desire of the +landless for the lands of the Catholic church. + +¶ The exaggerated fact has been falsely set forth again and again that +the French peasant of 1789 was down in the very mire of political +despond, without a sou to his name; the cock called him to work at +dawn, and all for the good of the aristocrats; he was penniless, he +was an absurd figure, he was not a man but a beast;--hence his +righteous revolt in the sacred name of Liberty. + +¶ The fact is that at this time the French peasant was in no worse +condition than the working classes of other lands, including Britain, +Italy and Germany. That the Revolution first broke out in France and +not in the other countries named is to be traced to journalistic and +oratorical agitators of the ward-politician type. + +¶ The special taxes of which the peasantry complained did not exceed +two per cent of the products of the soil; and it is also a fact that +France had a large and profitable foreign trade; but French political +and journalistic agitators were afield, and the plain truth is that +the landless desired to confiscate, and did confiscate, the titles of +those in possession. + +No sooner was the gigantic confiscation of Catholic church lands, +amounting to about one-third of the soil of France, or two billion +five hundred million of francs in nominal value, ordered by Mirabeau, +backed up by the Revolutionary tribunals, than the supposedly +impecunious French peasants came forward and purchased to the extent +of millions of francs; and it is a fact today (1915) that one of the +secret dreads of the French peasantry is that some sensational +political change may come in the stability of the French Government, a +change that will forfeit these old land titles, based on confiscation +in Revolutionary days. + +¶ The French peasantry wants no great National military hero to emerge +from the war of 1915; and it is not unthinkable that should a very +strong French general suddenly come forward, he would be removed by +assassination; a thing that has happened at least once before, in +latter-day French politics. + +This confession of politico-social fears on the part of the French +peasantry explains why in France, take them as a group, the candidates +invested with the honors of the Presidency are timid men, without +ambitious political bias, and why, on the whole, the modern French +National instinct lives in dread of a military hero, who with a turn +of his wrist might on the vote of his soldiers declare himself, let us +say, Emperor. + + * * * * * + +¶ Loaded down with debts incurred for various reasons, the French of +1789 were on the verge of National bankruptcy. + +This condition has usually been charged up against the excesses of the +French kings, such, for example, as expending some 200,000,000 francs +for pleasure-palaces, for the pretty women around Louis XIV; but this +charge will not bear the light of modern research. + +It is also a fact, on the practical side, that the much-boasted +support given to America by the French in America's Revolutionary War, +in a degree helped to bankrupt the French government; but Americans +have forgotten or wink at this plain financial obligation. + +¶ Also, the French Revolution had promised in its every utterance the +dawn of the political millennium, whereas instead it brought an era of +blood, idol-worship and free-love. We are not discussing here those +poetical French surveys of the Rights of Man. Every ward-politician in +Paris had the list at his tongue's end. There was some truth, much +truth, in many of these expressions, no doubt, as mere expressions of +humane sentiments. That, however, is another story. + + * * * * * + +¶ One has but to read the Memoirs of President Bailly of the +Revolutionary Assembly to find that mob-rule predominated from the +first day of the supposed "Dawn of the political Millennium." The mob +in the gallery hissed or applauded each speech, and deputies were +intimidated. + +¶ Bismarck in his united Germany wanted no Jacobin Clubs, largely +composed of ward-politicians, and Bismarck wanted no Marat with his +vile newspaper, "Friend of the People," setting class against class. + +¶ He wanted no guillotine as the German symbol of political liberty. +This political method of the guillotine was at best only a cowardly +form of assassination, ineffectual, barbarous. First one side used it, +then the other; then still another group; each set of French political +assassins prating of Liberty had recourse to the guillotine to be well +rid of rivals much as in Cćsar's time the women of Cćsar's family, +that their own might be exalted, in turn proceeded to poison +prospective collateral heirs to the Imperial throne. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck knew all about this dirty French mess, parading itself as +the "voice of the people." He was a strong man himself and he was +guilty of gross ambitions in his rise to power, but on the whole +Bismarck stood for self-possession and for manly audacity, certainly +not the French Revolution type of audacity. It is a fact that +Bismarck, as a human being, was a vast egotist, and had his own, +ofttimes unscrupulous, way of gaining his ends, but his conception of +Militarism, the force he did eventually use, was at bottom a virtuous +effort to support, liberate and unify the Fatherland, not drag it into +the mire of idolatry and bestiality. + + * * * * * + +¶ We shall frequently say harsh things about Bismarck, in this book; +we do not wish to follow French methods and endeavor to make an +impossible hero of a man of clay. Bismarck, as a man and in the +methods of his rise to great glory, had his gross faults, and we +fearlessly point them out. + +¶ But here are some of the facts that Bismarck can never stand accused +of, in the light of this much-boasted French political "Millennium" of +1789-93, and here, likewise we find the real reasons why he did +struggle with all his might against a reluctant people to enforce +Militarism throughout the jealous clashing 39 German states; and if +Bismarck's exercise of the strong hand, in the bosom of the German +family was a fault, then at least it did not include these French +conditions, set up to cause the world to gasp in admiration. + +¶ The bull-necked Danton, the Parisian ward-heeler, in control of +public opinion, came on with his guillotine; and closed the city's +gates against any man that had a dollar to pay his debts or buy a +dinner. + +¶ The so-called "will of the people" was in short a spurious affair, +unnaturally created by a political morphine that gave glorious dreams; +and this wretched drug was supplied by the mob-leaders. + +All the blood-letting was represented as a harmless affair, tending +toward liberty and equality; all the confiscations of church-lands and +redistribution among the peasants was declared a "great" political +triumph. + +Throughout even the loneliest country districts the word was passed +that the political millennium was about to break. + +¶ The King was represented as a "monster fattening on crime." His wife +was called an Austrian "panthress," and vile pamphlets were secretly +passed around reflecting on her character. God was represented as +judging the King, and the guillotine was awaiting Louis, by Heaven's +decree. + +¶ The 26,000 priests who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the +monstrous political farce were visited with all manner of +persecutions; one section of Revolutionary opinion decreed that death +was the just due of all offending pastors. + +¶ The assertion of kept-historians that there was "political +justification" is at once spurious and an insult to common sense. + +¶ In justice to the better French element it is granted freely that +the dreadful September massacres did not express the real beliefs of +the great decent body of the French people; but the Nation was dragged +through the mire and the Nation has for years been endeavoring to +explain this political Millennium of riots, murders, midnight +assassinations, despoilings of land titles. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck would have drained the poison cup rather than stand for +such French Constitutional nonsense in his beloved Germany, the +Germany of his dreams, the Germany for which he labored so many years, +the Germany which he would save from itself, so to speak. + +He purposed to build up German political opinion, not through +blatherskite ward-heelers, in Berlin, Frankfort or Hamburg, but by a +manly appeal to German common sense and German sense of respect for +authority; and if Bismarck overworked his idea of Divine-right of +kings, then at least this may be said: that he issued no appeal to the +German people "Who Laughs on Friday, Weeps on Sunday!" (The massacres +had come between!) And as to Danton, who glories in being the +immediate instigator of the massacres we have these, Danton's own +words: "It was I who caused them. Rivers of blood had to flow between +me and our enemies!" Finally, after these rivers of blood, the word +was passed, "That the entire Nation will hasten to adopt this +(guillotine) most-necessary means of public salvation." + + + 28 + + Viewing at closer range the work of the legislators of the + great republic of liberty and equality; these facts Bismarck + well knew, explaining his belief in militarism. + +¶ After reading five hundred pamphlets on the Revolution (as she +testified at her trial) Charlotte Corday struck down Marat with a +dagger; and her act has been generally condoned by men with a sense of +fair-play. It was indeed a bloody murder; but when a mad-dog is +running wild, a beast fattening on human blood, one passion feeds on +another--and Corday is no exception. (Henderson, Symbol and Satire of +the French Revolution). + +Heroine or monster, take your choice; at least in her time such was +the frenzy of the alleged political Millennium that Marat was soon +worshipped as a martyr. This atrocious political quack, with all his +daggers and his blackjacks, was likened to Jesus Christ; and among the +sentiments of the hour we read, "A perfidious hand has snatched him +away from his beloved people"; "To the immortal glory of Marat, the +people's friend"; "Unable to corrupt me, they have assassinated me!" +"Marat, rare and sublime soul, we will imitate thee; we swear it on +thy bloody corpse." + +Such are some of the expressions of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity +that followers of French Constitutionalism had years later decreed to +re-enact in Germany; but Bismarck stood as a master with a rod of iron +to lay over the backs of fanatical German Radicals, who would come on +with their drunken calls of "Liberty!" + + * * * * * + +¶ All this, however, is only the mild opening chapter of this much +glorified French Constitutionalism. The French prisons soon held about +all there was of French intelligence and moderation; the brains, the +blood and the beauty. It is not necessary to mention names. + +If you wish to become hysterical, read your fill of this drunken era +of French Constitutionalism. + +At the height of the Terror, there were 8,000 political prisoners in +French dungeons; and the mobs still came on with their cries for fresh +blood. One day, this expression was made: "The town of Lyons shall be +destroyed; the name Lyons shall be effaced," etc. All this meant that +Lyons, weary of blood, had decided on raising an army to beat back the +sons of spurious liberty. + + * * * * * + +¶ Any man who, in the Terror, dared disagree with the mob-rulers was +called a "conspirator." In a letter from Herbois, we find this plain +evidence of political lunacy masquerading as inspiration: "There are +60,000 individuals here who will never make good republicans; we must +have them sent away. I have new measures in mind, weighty and +effectual,* * * Heads, more heads, heads every day! * * * How you +would have enjoyed seeing National justice meted out to two hundred +and nine rogues. What cement for the Republic! I say fete, yes, +citizen president, fete is the right word. The guillotining and +fusillading are not going badly!" + + * * * * * + +¶ The Queen, now in her dungeon, was treated with wretched dishonor. +Even the petty expenses of bread and salt were begrudged: 15 francs a +day for food; three francs and 18 sous for trimming a skirt, 18 sous +for a ribbon and shoe-strings; three francs for a tooth wash;--all +this was kept track of. Yet in years gone by France had allowed her +four million francs of pin money, and the royal allowance was +twenty-five millions of francs per annum. + +¶ "Through a small window in her cell comes the light of day. * * * +She is accused of being a leech, a scourge, a harpy and a free-lover; +she is condemned to death." + + * * * * * + +¶ The political assassins, known as the Mountain, and that known as +the Girondists, now began destroying each other; every patriotic +action of the Girondists was set forth as having been instigated by +love of vulgar applause. After some days, the Jacobin Club petitioned +for freer trials, less hindered by legal formalities. + +¶ "Long live the Republic!" was the cry. "Perish all traitors!" +Executions continued, day by day. + +¶ The poor king was long since dead and gone, yet his memory was +detested. + +On a certain day of horrors, the tombs of his ancestors were broken +open by the mob, and the bones scattered. One corpse (or what remained +of it) was stood up against a wall and the beard hacked off by a +patriot of the new Regime. + + * * * * * + +¶ All authority was now overthrown; and as one writer adds, "the most +daring enterprise of the Revolution remains to be chronicled: the +storming of Heaven!" (Henderson.) + +¶ The leaders decided next to attack God on His throne; God was +officially declared a superstitious myth. + +The altars of France were hurled over; the Christian era was abolished +by political decree; the Sabbath day was officially proclaimed done +away with; Christ was to be henceforth banished, officially; churches +closed, pagan rites substituted. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck, the thinker, Bismarck, the builder, with his dream of +political responsibility, of vested Authority, stood for no such facts +in his protests against the rising tide of Radicalism, in the German +states. + +He knew his history too well; he knew the satire of the French +Revolution, the folly of meeting it in any way except by the sword. + +¶ Yes, Bismarck believed strongly in what has since been called +Militarism; but his idea was that power was needed for the liberation +and the unification of his country; and he hated French +Constitutionalism and fought by fair means and by foul all efforts to +warp upon Germans the political ideals of the French Revolution. So +you must here and now make up your mind whether or not Bismarck was a +great statesman or a great fool. + + * * * * * + +¶ The French Convention, weary of blood-letting, began maundering in +the psychology of religion. + +It was officially set forth by one of the Deputies that, after all, +the idea was to invent some new form of religion, without which the +proposed political Millennium had fallen short. + +Marat was turned to, that choice spirit of the height of the era; +though in his tomb, he was called upon in this strange language, +despite his bringing in the Terror: + +¶ "O, heart of Jesus, O heart of Marat, you have an equal right to our +homage!" + +¶ A New Era was now decreed, taken in the main from the paganism of +early France. The four seasons were symbolized by the hunt of the man +for his mate: he is afield in Autumn, on horseback; in Winter, he +first finds his new mate; in the Spring, the maid watches her sheep +feeding on the hills; and in Summertime, the man is seen leading his +mate to a couch, his arms already around her waist. + +¶ One of the leading symbols was Reason, presented as a lady petting a +lion; saints' days were replaced by days for animals, one for the cat, +the dog, the sheep, and what you will; but no longer St. John's, St. +James, St. Louis. + +Certain other days, dedicated to the "Spirit of the Revolution," were +termed "Sans culotte," or without trousers, to wit, the French version +of that great idol of the American yellow editor, who cries for +justice in behalf of the man with the seat out of his trousers. + +¶ On a certain day, the Cathedral of Notre Dame was used as a +background for the great French political drama; a mountain was +erected, a figure known as Truth was present. The Goddess Reason was +also carried to the Tuileries; and later as a report written at the +time says, "The President of the Convention gave the Goddess a +fraternal kiss, whereupon his secretaries asked and obtained a similar +privilege." + +¶ At Rochefort the orator of the hour began, "Citizens, there is no +future life!" + +¶ The images of saints were replaced by men of the stripe of Marat, +Brutus and other tyrants. + +¶Also, an ass was dressed in pontifical robes at a sort of National +fete, and a few days later at a public masquerade, the President +replying to praises of the New Era explained himself as follows: "In +one single instant you make vanish into nothingness the errors of +eighteen centuries"; by which he meant to honor the paganism of the +new French political Millennium. + + * * * * * + +¶ Now comes that dangerous man, king of political charlatans, +Robespierre, who offers a private religion of his own. + +¶ The queer thing about this Robespierre, the new dictator, is his +belief that he and he alone is the fountain of all political virtues. +One must be willing to sacrifice brothers, mother, sister, father to +the guillotine--for the good of one's country. + +The Robespierre idea is that the supreme duty of a Nation is to +repress "crime," as well as to uphold "virtue" and "crime" consists +largely in not agreeing with the great central authority. He has had +many followers since that day. + +¶ Robespierre was really a great man gone wrong; he had in many +respects a brilliant mind; he was a profound orator; a born leader; +but he was unsound at the core, like a rotten apple; taught bloodshed +and violence, as expressions of National honor. + +¶ In one picture of the hour, he is represented as the Sun, rising +over the Mountain, and Giving Light to the Universe. + + * * * * * + +¶ The day dawns when Robespierre has his old friend and rival Danton +on the scaffold. This was to be expected. Then followed many +executions of Dantonists. + +¶ Robespierre now came on with his "new" religion; he boldly announced +a Supreme Being and belief in immortality! + +¶ He applied the torch to the wooden images set up by his political +predecessors. He made a speech that is unintelligible, all wind, sound +and bombast, but was cheered to the echo. + + * * * * * + +¶ Are you not growing weary of all these absurdities? Perhaps you +think the details taken from the records of Bloomingdale Asylum? + +No; French Constitutionalism of 1789-93, the sort that the Radicals +of Germany had in mind, (with some variations), and often extolled in +fiery speeches of the German Liberal party that Bismarck decided to +crush down, with a rod of iron. True, the old offensive historical +details were kept out of sight and were not fresh in men's +minds;--except reading men and thinking men, like Bismarck; men bold +enough to stand out against mob-violence, called by whatever soft name +you please. + +¶ A French cartoon of the Robespierre Regime made at the time by an +admirer shows the earth around the guillotine heaped with heads, and +at last the over-weary executioner, failing to find further victims, +decides to execute himself! He is therefore seen lying under the axe, +his head rolling on the floor. + +¶ Robespierre in the end went the way of all the other political +fanatics; the day came when he was spat upon, struck, beaten by mobs, +pricked with knives. + +According to his own theory, he needed no trial (said his new rivals +and enemies in their lust for power), for he has by his acts shown +himself to be an enemy of his country. + +They carried him down the great staircase; he fought back savagely, +like the frightful animal that he was. + +¶ Eighty-two of his followers died that day, on the guillotine. + +¶ "Long live the Republic! Long live Liberty!" was the loud cry of the +rabble. + + * * * * * + +¶ Such is some of the work of the great legislators of the Republic of +Equality as set forth by the various authors of the new French +"political Millennium," during those terrible years 1789-93; we have +seen their ideas on a grand scale; and it is for you to judge whether +in setting himself squarely in favor of Discipline and respect for +constituted Authority, as exemplified by the line of Prussian kings, +and the Prussian system of education, Bismarck was to show himself a +man or a mouse. + +¶ Bismarck, who was a deep reader on politics, knew well the frightful +excesses of French mob-rule. He may also have recognized certain +general excellent principles, but he would have nothing to do with +the fungous growth. And as we follow his career, we see the virtue in +his strong reliance on Militarism, as an arm to keep in check the +turbulent German masses, also, later, this same Militarism to be used +to do battle for the German Empire. + + * * * * * + +¶ For many years, all manner of rosy democratic plans had been voiced +by the Liberals. + +The thing had been done to death. Every manner of political Utopia had +been planned by theorists, but Bismarck met them all with his ironical +speeches, and bided his time. + +¶ Bismarck's idea was that the only hope for German unity came through +accepting the King of Prussia as ordained of heaven. + +In his arguments, he ignored the masses, the villagers, the workers, +the busy-bees, the regard for individual rights. + +His whole programme seemed to the masses to be anti-Christ in +conception, that is to say, it harked back to political paganism. + +¶ It is very difficult for an American to comprehend this Prussian +conception of Divine-right, as a political principle--but it should +not be difficult from the point of human experience. Bismarck had no +illusions concerning the power of the average man, and he held that +the phrase "the people" was used by every political quack in Europe +for any one of a thousand selfish motives. + +Bismarck had absolutely no faith in the power of the average man to +govern himself--much less to govern others!--or faith in the average +man doing anything above the average, outside his own small trade or +craft. + + * * * * * + +¶ Americans are accustomed to make much of an alleged saying of +Lincoln: "No man is good enough to govern another without that man's +consent." It is all a beautiful dream, false in theory and false in +fact, belied by every record since the Lord drove Adam and Eve out of +the Garden of Eden. + +Beginning with that stupendous episode, certain it is that this act +of government was not carried out with, but against the will of the +ruled; and the point at issue was not the supreme goodness of the +ruler, but the power to station an angel with a flaming sword at the +gates, toward which Adam ever after looked backward with longing +eyes--but looked in vain! + +¶ In the innumerable dynasties of Babylon, Nineveh, Egypt, Greece, +Arabia, Armenia, what man ruled who did not force his leadership? + +It is not in the nature of human beings to accept new ideas without +hostile objection. + +This holds true also in the evolution of governments, for all life is +founded on struggle, and the man who would rule must force his +leadership or remain unknown. + +¶ Lincoln is absolutely in error, and his much-quoted words are folly. +It is not a question of goodness, or badness, or fitness, on part of +the man who has the ambition to rule, but it is very much a question +of his courage, his craft or his cunning in compelling others to do +his bidding. + +Julius Cćsar was not selected to rule, but he selected himself; and so +did Charlemagne, and Bismarck--and so Lincoln, himself. + +¶ If some concession to the democratic system is sought on the ground +that the voice of the people loudly "called" Lincoln, then it is to be +set up that Lincoln on his part was one of the shrewdest political +log-rollers this nation has ever seen; and if he did not originate the +canvass that busies itself kissing the babies, congratulating the +wives and shaking hands with the farmers, then at least Lincoln was an +apt pupil. + +It is inconceivable that, without his own high ambition, his long and +painstaking endeavors to trim sail to every favoring gale (for example +his shifting positions on the slavery question), he would have been +nominated for President of these United States. + + * * * * * + +¶ It is an amiable conceit of human nature, looking backward, to +profess to see what it blindly ignored, looking forward; and go to any +penitentiary in America, ask the convicts, and you will find that, +according to the stories, there are no guilty men behind the bars; +invariably a peculiar complication of circumstances enabled the guilty +man to escape, and justice was thereupon avenged by a human sacrifice; +likewise in the United States Senate or in the House of +Representatives, ask whom you please, "How came you to hold your +seat?" and you will find no ambitious man. Some were forced to stand +against their protests; others were away traveling when word was +received, by telegraph, "You have been elected!" Still others appealed +to the nominating committee, "For the love of God desist!"--but in +vain. + +Thus, without raising a finger to direct the movement of events, our +leaders were selected by an omnipotent democracy to occupy the seats +of the mighty. + +¶ Truly, no man is good enough to rule another without that other +man's consent! Recast in terms of human experience, it would mean that +we would go unruled; for no man yet has willingly selected his ruler, +but has had dominion over him thrust upon him--even as Bismarck +expressed his right to rule, backed by blood and iron. + +Such is human nature since the world began; otherwise why was Christ, +the gentlest ruler of all time, brought to the tree; Socrates forced +to drink the hemlock by the very wise justice of his day; and Columbus +called a madman because he wished to rule men's minds with a new +truth, showing clearly that the world is not square or flat, but round +like a ball? + +¶ Bismarck had the real clue--and forced his purpose through the power +of his commanding personality. + + + 29 + + In spite of the dyke-captain's denunciation of French + Constitutionalism, King Fr: Wm. IV marches with the Democrats! + +¶ The uprising of '48 was primarily a students' demonstration; the +hot-bloods of the universities, aided by various political +enthusiasts, were intent on doing something--and doing it right away. +There had been a preliminary meeting at Heidelberg, and this led to +the Frankfort Convention; 600 disputatious delegates were going to +build a liberal German constitution--at last! + +¶ Thus, between 1815 and 1848 German Unity had been stimulated by a +dozen causes, religious, commercial, literary, social--but the +political lagged, for the fact is that about the last thing a man +learns is to govern himself. + +There was a rising sense of National faith, as predicted by Arndt, the +poet of German brotherhood; also the call of blood, based on language; +likewise a deep yearning, as yet unsatisfied, for a constitutional +form of government, as against the warring, insolent 39 states. + +¶ By 1848 there were Constitutions in 23 of the states; many of these +documents illiberal to be sure; but nevertheless a step in +representative government. + +¶ But the Germans are a peculiar people. They wish to refer everything +to ultimate philosophical causes; hence the fruitless debates of the +Frankfort Convention, in which all manner of prospective Constitutions +were tried by the formal rules of philosophy and ethics. Such +questions as "What is a Federal state?" were angrily debated, and the +changes rung on "federation of states." + + * * * * * + +¶ After worlds of talking, unseen hands decided to offer to some +powerful prince the German crown. How is that for democrats? William +IV was the man selected. + +¶ Prodded by Bismarck, who was always explosive and satirical about +democratic crowns, William spunkily refused to "pick a crown out of +the gutter!" His dignity, as a Hohenzollern was offended; but Bismarck +was playing for larger stakes. William now went about canvassing the +German princes for a crown; twenty-eight replied, one way or another; +others, sticking to selfish interests, made no acknowledgment. + +¶ Now Bismarck, bellowing like a mastiff, set up the cry that if +William accepted that democratic crown out of the Frankfort gutter, +Prussia would become involved in civil war. And it was a fact! The +old-line Prussian military aristocracy wanted no "democratic gold, +from the gutter, melted down with their old aristocratic gold of +Frederick the Great"--and as a matter of fact, could you blame them? +Were you there, at the time, and of the land-holding privileged class, +you too would have been up in arms. + +¶ Get this straight: William's idea of "United Germany" simply meant +that there should be a United Germany compounded of the thirty-nine +clashing states, provided William's beloved Prussia and not the +detested Austria could front the movement. + +¶ Despite all the noble souls who write poetry on brotherhood (and +Germany has her patriots, God knows!), the irony of fate is such that +all human alignments of a political nature must at some stage be +spattered with mud. + +¶ You see, henceforth for a quarter of a century, the realization of +this much-prized but elusive and seemingly impossible Unity was to +become more and more a game of politics in which the stakes were +kingdoms, principalities, riches and honors unnumbered. In all +card-games the result is not known till the last card is played; and +in the present case the game was to be protracted twenty-four years. +Chips were flung about in huge stacks, now piled on the Austrian side, +now on the Prussian; and finally, it was to break up in a fight, in +which Prussia had to tip over the table, violently seize the spoils, +batter heads right and left, and beat off rival players with +needle-guns. + +¶ Come, come, there is no need of claiming too much for human nature. +The grand prize was to be gained, ultimately, by seizure! Even the +sober, common-sense William I, to whom it finally fell to be crowned +German Emperor, saw the true situation early, after the +church-building William IV had been gathered to his fathers. You will +hear more of that as we go along. + +When all intriguing, all card-stacking, all smiling, all smooth +speeches no longer serve to conceal the real end of this amazing game +of international politics, as between Prussia and Austria, then the +thing to do is to bring on "blood and iron." The very human end that +Bismarck always had in mind was German liberation and Unity, by +driving the Nation's enemies beyond the borders. + +¶ The best title to lands, the surest, the most incontrovertible--let +purists and pietists rage as they may--is the sharp edge of the sword. + +We shall see all that more clearly as the bloody years go by. + + * * * * * + +¶ In the critical year '48, democratic mobs chased that old aristocrat +and king-maker Metternich out of Vienna. Hungary, Bohemia and other +intervening principalities went mad with excitement about "Liberty!" +South Germany was in a turmoil. + +William IV had again practically promised a Constitution, and had +ordered the troops from Berlin; he placed a sign on his castle +"National Property." At this time the king let slip these fateful +words, "Prussia is to be dissolved in Germany!" Bismarck, pained +beyond expression, sent a letter to the King, full of expressions of +loyalty. The King kept the letter on his desk all summer. + +¶ The giant continued to protest. He now first used a subsidized +press, called well-known men to write for the "North Prussian +Gazette." + +For all this, he was dubbed "Junker," "Hot Head," "Reactionary," but +he thundered away like a battleship in action. + + * * * * * + +¶ The King was in the hands of the Liberals. Bismarck regarded this as +a frightful situation. Bismarck, of the Old Regime, stood by the +landlords and the titled folk. He had prodigious pride of station, +hated to see the King make a fool of himself about paper +Constitutions. + +¶ In Berlin, along in March, there were amazing scenes. The democrats +were crazy for blood; William shrank with horror against fighting his +beloved Berliners. But this son, the future William I, who twenty-four +years later was to gain the imperial German crown, was not so +squeamish. The young prince gained the popular title "Cartridge-box +prince," equivalent to saying that he was willing to blaze away at +"beloved Berliners," or at any other citizens insane with political +excitements hazardous to "Divine-right." + +¶ It is true that on March 18th this romantic William IV did indeed +enter into negotiations with the insurgents; and--think of the +mortification to one of Bismarck's upper-class leanings!--did indeed +do no less than wrap the German tricolor around his body and heading a +democratic procession march around the streets, even going so far as +to make a foolish speech in which he extolled the glories of the +German democratic revolution. + +¶ Here we might as well close the book, were it not for Bismarck. The +surly dog of a king's man flatly refused to vote "Aye!" in the Diet, +where the hot-heads were intent on passing resolutions "commending the +King for his loyalty to democratic principles," in marching 'round +town with the mob. Bismarck for the time being stood like a great +mastiff at bay before wolves. + +His terrific speech upholding royal prerogative made his early and +sudden fame. + + * * * * * + +¶ It is a fact that with all their political ambitions, and their +solemn belief that Germany's political future was an open book, the +Radicals in Prussia never guessed the way events were to turn out; nor +for that matter the Radicals never desired the conquest of Germany by +Prussia; therefore the subsequent astonishing rise of German +Imperialism through Prussian domination, would have proved a most +surprising revelation had the patriots of 1806 to 1848 returned from +the other world, say in 1870, to view Prussia's rise to glory. + + * * * * * + +¶ The political uprisings of 1848 had parallels in Italy, France, +Spain, and Germany; and the excesses cleared the way for wiser action, +in years to come. + +¶ "The frenzy was a sort of tottering bridge between the French +1789-93 idea of democracy (that has to do with bloodshed and violence) +and the purified conception expressed in modern constitutional +democracy." + +¶ The German democratic uprisings of 1820, '30 and '48 were planned to +win a certain type of civil liberty. They failed. The question was +"equality," as well as popular "machinery" of representation. How was +it to be brought about? Modern "parliamentarism" had not as yet been +involved. + +¶ The patriots of '48 had their Jacobin clubs in mild imitation of the +French Revolution. Baden alone had 400, with a membership of 20,000. +"Every tavern and brewery, (Dahlinger, German Revolution of '49, p. +33), became a seat of democratic propaganda." + + See, there stands the mighty Hecker, + A feather in his hat, + There stands the friend of the people, + Yearning for the tyrants' blood; + Big boots with thick soles, + Sword and pistol by his side. + +¶ Copied from French models was the word "Citizen." We hear of Citizen +Brentano, Citizen Franz Sigel, Citizen Ostenhaus, Citizen +Schimmelpfennig; some of these leaders were extremely radical; but +Brentano endeavored to keep the Revolution from becoming a record of +lawlessness after the French Revolution type. (Dahlinger, p. 100). + +We cannot go into the various battles fought and lost. Many of the +leaders were exiled, others shot. The patriots were as a rule young +collegians, ambitious to rise in life, but sincerely holding to +modified conceptions of French Constitutionalism. There were a large +number of journalists in the thick of the struggle, also professors in +high schools. These chosen leaders, by various oratorical tricks, drew +political and social malcontents from every walk of life. + +¶ In the end, Prussian troops put down the patriots. + + * * * * * + +¶ In '48, all kings were under suspicion; it made no difference +whether the king was a good king or a bad king; a king was a king, and +all kings were bad. + +The younger generation, especially became morbid over the word +"Liberty!" What it really meant, in '48, was that human nature should +restrain itself, in order that all men might, immediately, enter into +so-called God-given political rights. + +The situation was somewhat analogous to that created after the Civil +War, in the United States. Certain political fanatics, weeping over +the Negroes, now demanded universal suffrage, literally, for the +slaves, and in secret saw that by controlling the South, a "Black +Republic" might be set up, side by side with our "White Republic." + +¶ Fraternity and equality--that was the cry in '48--glossed over by +politico-religious glamour, expressed in the idea that men "ought" do +thus and so, and therefore "a people's king" was in order. The people +were to crown themselves. + +For a thousand years the accepted political doctrine had been that +kings held office by Divine-right, but now orators of the day +harangued mobs proclaiming the literal belief that the voice of the +people is the voice of God. + +While, thus, the new apostles ridiculed the old idea of Divine-right, +as attached to the acts of monarch, leaders of the people saw no +inconsistency in asserting attributes of political divinity in the +doings of the common people. Thus, a species of nebulous +politico-religious humanism was pictured as the highest expression of +political philosophy. + +The individual wished to come into his own and the quicker the better. +Reformers shocked landed proprietors, titled folk and office-holders +under kings, by demanding unconditional surrender of the machinery of +government; zealots urged revolts against all manner of constituted +authority. The point was to gain for the barber, the tailor, the +shoemaker and the blacksmith more life, more political experience, +more freedom of choice--and right on the next tick of the clock! + +¶ There is this about it: that the Frankfort Convention offered to +William IV the "People's Crown" as a direct symbol of belief in +political idealism, not necessarily, however, the political idealism +that tolerates a king but instead uses him as a popular signboard. + +The Convention held that German unity "ought by right" to be +established; therefore "once the grand Idea was set afloat" the cause +"must by moral right come to pass." + +¶ Probably never before in the world was there formulated an outright, +widespread expression of greater political idealism by men who called +themselves patriots. There is a noble side to the sentiment, +heightened the more as we realize the inevitable delusion of it all, +translated into terms of human selfishness. + +Germany, so the zealots proclaimed, should by blood and language be +united; and in this respect orators of the hour were correct. + +Germany had a manifest destiny, the speakers continued, but in this +respect they were guided by faith rather than by experience. At least, +the momentary end of "manifest destiny" was clearly the political +function; to be one and united. + +¶ So far good. + + * * * * * + +¶ Then why "should not" this noble German Idea be "accepted"? The word +Idea was usually presented with a capital letter, in form of +personification, so real had the thing become to German political +orators. + +Certainly every German was ready to testify that National Unity had +been the one political dream of generations past and gone. + +Had not the old wandering minstrels sung of the Fatherland, alas, too +long delayed by miserable human selfishness! German bull-headedness +insisted on insularity, on individualism, on particularism, on +standing each petty monarch in his corner, with farce-comedy courtiers +bowing and scraping while the rights of the peasant were forgotten. +Assuredly, the day had come for this folly to cease. Then in Heaven's +name, why not a United Germany--here and now? + + * * * * * + +¶ The petty passions of rival princes acted as a bar to the acceptance +of the glorious National Idea, spelled with the big "I." + +Intense particularisms preferred loyalty to local princes, fashions, +customs, dialects rather than to lose the old ways in the larger life +of the German Nation. + +¶ But Bismarck did not lose heart. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + So Much the Worse for Zeitgeist + + + 30 + + We will never get at Bismarck through a study of the interplay + of politics; suppose we state his case in terms of human + nature? + +¶ From this time on, the shelves are freighted with volume after +volume of German political jargon, forming a bewildering diagonal of +forces crossing and recrossing in thousands the tangled threads. +Bismarck's presence runs throughout, but it is a long and complex +story, hard to comprehend and difficult to compress without +sacrificing important details. + +¶ We find "Grand Germans" against "Petty Germans"; Grimm, the +philologist, has his say against Simson, the jurist; Arndt, the poet, +against Welcker, the publicist; the Frankfort parliament offering its +paper crown to the King of Prussia, imploring him to become a +democratic liberator and unifier; and on the other hand we hear +Bismarck in the Berlin Diet, urging the king to stand firm for the Old +Regime; arks of free-speech from Polish insurgents, also ill-advised +youth waving banners of blood; mobs in the Berlin streets, whiffs of +grapeshot here and there to clear the air; John of Austria urging +something and the Prince Consort of England advising, post-haste, the +kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Wuertemberg; the Assembly +manufacturing Magna Chartas, after noisy clashes of opinion. + +¶ "There is not enough practical sense behind all," says Bismarck, "to +build a political chicken-coop, to say nothing of an empire." Then, +the patriots, so-called, leave for America, worn out with waiting for +some new freedom set down on paper; and of the motley crew, not one is +sufficiently wise, or strong enough to make head or tail of the +complex situation. Barricades are thrown up, artillery plays upon the +mobs, and general blood-letting follows; thousands of lives are +snuffed out, to be charged up as advance sacrifices for political +cohesion. Hapsburger against Hohenzollern, Protestant against +Catholic, Ultramontanes beholding the reign of Anti-Christ; Guelphs +and Wittelsbachs, protesting their own peculiar and ancient lineage +against self-seeking latter-day upstart aristocrats! + +¶ And the problem grew darker as the months went by. + + * * * * * + +¶ You may read till you are dizzy and then stand back and try to get a +bird's-eye view of the complicated quarrels of the Diet; the vagaries +of Frankfort or Berlin; the brawls of this poet, that student, editor, +publicist, or princeling; with soldiers of fortune hovering around +waiting, like vultures that have already a whiff of the carrion, from +afar. Instead of a bird's-eye, the incoherent mass of details comes +piecemeal, and you get the toad's-eye view;--till we apply the simple +idea that behind it all is elemental human nature, with politics as a +mere frame to the picture. + +¶ Look on Bismarck at this moment as one dealing with forces of human +nature, the clash of many minds, ending by dominating over one and +all, years hence, through his own inherent sagacity as a human being +against other and weaker members of his kind--and we get at once a +significant conception of the greatness of Bismarck's mentality, also +of his innate craft, enabling him to triumph over a thousand oblique +forces, many of them firmly entrenched, and from a logical point fully +as defensible as were his own peculiar conceptions. + +¶ It was not, after all, what this man or that prince or some other +ruler thought, but what Bismarck thought, that turned the balance. + +A hundred instances could be offered to show that the men Bismarck was +fighting had the better part of the argument, as mere argument; but +between opinion and making that opinion stick is a wide gulf--however +logical may be the argument. + +¶ Bismarck was for the ensuing twenty years pictured as a noisy +disturber, but he was shrewd, very shrewd. He could call a man "liar," +"thief," "scoundrel," "impostor," in virile speechmaking, or could +pass him up with a shrug, all the while keeping a cold eye on the main +chance, and in the end getting his own way because he was strong +enough to get his way--and that is all the logic there is in the +situation. + + + 31 + + This miracle he did indeed perform; he turned back the + political clock to feudal days and gloriously set up + "Divine-right," in the face of the intensely modern cry, "Let + the People Rule!" + +¶ Bismarck's amazing career affords a classical instance of what a +strong man can do, even against the very spirit of his time! + +So much the worse for that Zeitgeist! The jade had to come to him, at +last, completely subdued, as in the "Taming of the Shrew." + +¶ As King's Man, Bismarck now preached "Divine-right" in an age of +democratic ideas. + +Thrones were falling everywhere; the inflammatory ideas of the French +Revolution had wrested from monarchs the form, if not the substance, +of constitutional liberties for the masses. + +The people were clamoring for they knew not what; at any rate for some +new experiment in the quest for happiness, which they believed could +be attained through new forms of government. Bismarck fought the new +order, and as late as A. D. 1870, restated the seemingly worn-out +doctrine of "Divine-right." How did he accomplish this political +miracle? + +¶ A strong leader, by tireless repetition of some idea, finally brings +about faith in that idea. It does not follow that this leader must +necessarily be wiser than the masses. It is always his will to power, +rather than the inherent validity of his ideas. + +¶ First, he stands alone with his idea, whatever it may be. Finally, +one person is convinced? This is the beginning. Well, if one, why not +two, then ten, then a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand? + +¶ And so the wonder grows. + +¶ At last, our stubborn man with the idea is believed! He now has his +long-awaited day to prove the force of his contribution to human +welfare. + +¶ There is a species of religious glamour over the old man's basic +conception of respect for kings. The word king, for Bismarck, spells +faith in discipline, obedience, loyalty to chosen leader--as against +excesses sure to follow in turning over the Government to the rabble, +according to the idea of the French Revolution. There is this +condition to be made here: that Bismarck undoubtedly leaned as far in +one direction as the old-line French Revolutionists did in another; +Bismarck was an extremist no less than Danton, Marat, Robespierre. But +there is also this distinction, in Bismarck's favor: He was a great +constructive statesman and the French agitators turned out to be but +assassins and political fools. + +¶ We spare no one in this analysis, neither Bismarck nor Robespierre. +Therefore, we boldly, here and now, call your attention to a certain +strange fallacy in all political ideals. + +¶ The people expect some new form, or change of government, to make +them happy and free. The machinery of legislation is the thing. It is +proclaimed the great leveler. + +¶ Thus men eagerly try all manner of political enterprises, believing +that ultimately in some plan of government, social equality will +result. In the light of the anomaly that in spite of our efforts, we +persist in reverence for "the good old" days, as against the +iniquities of the moment, it is clear that either we deceive +ourselves, or are forever wandering about in a fool's paradise. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck at least does not justify cynical damnation. He was +intensely human, and so was the King of Prussia. It is playing with +race prejudice to call Prussia, after the French fashion, "That robber +Prussia." + +¶ Nations act as do men individually, are swayed by forms of pride, +passion and prejudice. If every nation that robbed or stole should +return its loot of land, to whom would it ultimately go? + +¶ The United States would not, at least, now be in possession of +California. But for that matter, the Spaniards stole her from the +Indians, and the Indians from the Aztecs, and the Aztecs from we know +not whom. Always then, history justifies herself with the will to +power--as manifested by the strongest! + +¶ Take it by and large, this miracle he did indeed perform: He turned +back the political clock of Time to Feudal days, and gloriously set up +"Divine-right," in the face of the intensely modern cry, "Let the +people rule!" + + + 32 + + Secret chamber in this strange man's heart; the master at work + for United Germany. + +¶ The great Bismarck, during his long and turbulent career, as a rule +refused to remain loyal to party affiliations. + +The moment a party-theory no longer seemed expedient, the Prussian +Junker reckoned neither on political friendship nor on political +antipathy. + +His whole life, he was engaged in endeavoring to persuade others to +adopt his policies, regardless of the fact that opposed policies might +be supported by as much if not even by more logic. Bismarck always +justified his opportunism by saying that his sense of duty was +superior to his private feelings of love or hate; however, his +attitude was uniformly directed for or against conditions in +proportion as, to his mind, they were charged with good or evil for +his beloved Prussia. + +Although one of the world's greatest among amiable despots, Bismarck +always held himself to be at once free from prejudice and under the +hand of God. Even on this high ground, it would still be easy to show +(by many startling episodes in Bismarck's career) well-nigh +innumerable changes of front that, to the average mind, must pass as +inconsistencies. + +¶ Get clearly in mind, then, this giant's political attitudes of gross +contradiction, as between promise and performance--otherwise we will +miss the essence of Bismarck's genius as a statesman and his peculiar +glory as a man large enough to stand beside Cćsar. + +¶ Now here is the master-key, unlocking every door in the secret +chambers of his heart: Bismarck, all his long life, kept himself in +power by his consummate knowledge of human nature. + +Shakespeare dealt with men, on paper, making them march this way or +that at the behest of his immortal genius. + +Bismarck dealt with men in the open arena of life, had no way of +controlling their actions except by the inspiration of his own +practical, constructive genius. + +It is one thing to control a man's actions, on paper; wholly +another--and a greater triumph, is it not?--to master man's ways in +the market place, making those around you do not necessarily what they +think they ought, but do what you wish. + +Thus in some senses Bismarck appears in the figure of the superman; +for there is absolutely no question that on many occasions he forced +strong men to do his bidding, squarely against their individual +preferences! + +¶ This huge bulk, this deep-drinking, gluttonous Bismarck, this +world-defying voice, raged and stormed through his eighty-three years +of life--making little men's souls shrink in fear--and ever the +essence of his genius was for alignments with men, or against them, +using this human clay ultimately for his own peculiar ends, as the +potter molds the mud. He knew too that despite the old German family +and tribal feuds, the Germans are brothers; standing apart it is true +at this hour, fighting each other; yet the day is to come when +Bismarck will triumph in his Germany, one and united. It mattered not, +he would make friends with his deadly enemy, if such a step seemed +advisable to carry out that cherished plan for a free and united +Germany. + +If he could not bend men to his will by logic, he tried flattery, and +if that failed he threatened war, and the war came, too, but not till +Bismarck was good and ready. He took his own time, made preparations +that defied disaster, then moved forward and swept his enemies off the +face of the earth. + +¶ Thus, there was always evidences of peculiar precaution, even in +Bismarck's boldest strokes. He never forgot himself, never did things +by halves. It might take a week or a year, or ten years, that mattered +not to Bismarck; in the end, he would bring his wishes to pass. He +never courted failure by hastening with some incomplete plan; but with +the certainty of Fate, Bismarck abided his time. Obliged to surmount +tremendous obstacles, often set back, in the end he carried everything +by force before him. + +¶ We are here reminded of those vast fields of snow seemingly in a +state of dead rest, in the higher Alps, through many winters still +secretly gaining bulk and encroaching inch by inch all unobserved upon +the doomed valley below; then, at the dropping of a mere pebble, the +ice begins to slide, nor does the dread avalanche pause for the sobs +of the dying. So behind Bismarck's amazing preparedness his ofttimes +long deferred but inevitable destruction of his enemies seems to be +something that he borrows from the avalanche. It is at once massive +and inexorable, the power given to but few master-spirits in the +history of the world. + +¶ In political acumen, in administrative and executive capacity +Bismarck measures up with Cćsar. The smallest facts about such as +Bismarck are of more than ordinary interest. Too much time cannot be +spent on this great character, in an endeavor to understand the secret +springs of his mighty powers. + +Aside from the mere biographic outlines of his career, the man +presents, in himself, a study that deserves all the thought that can +be put on it--in an effort to set forth the realism of his mighty +life. + + + 33 + + Bismarck shows himself master at quelling a meeting, checking a + mob, stamping out a rebellion, and heading off a king. + +¶ And after the Frankfort radicals found themselves unable to make +Bismarck pick the German crown "out of the gutter," they turned and +tried to establish--what do you think?--a republic! + +By Autumn, the forces of Revolution spent themselves and Metternich +drove the rebels before him, as the hurricane blows chaff. Order was +re-established in Vienna and in the Italian states. + +The uncompromising Metternich restored the "Old Diet," originally +ordered by the Congress of Vienna, 1815, as the one authentic source +of political legitimacy for the clashing German states. It was a +clever Austrian by-play. + + * * * * * + +¶ We now return to Berlin. In May, the blood-letting was over, but no +prospect of political reform seemed immediately possible. + +Bismarck began using what might be called underground methods to head +off the demand for that long-promised democratic Constitution. + +¶ Already the King began to see more clearly. It struck him that this +brazen-faced giant might be useful, later on. Had not Bismarck said in +his now widely quoted speech: "Soon or late, the God who directs the +battle will cast his iron dice!" It gave His Majesty courage! + +¶ The King looked to right and left, dissolved one Diet after the +other, till he had one to suit him. Otto nudged his King. That +momentary weakness of marching with the democrats was something His +Majesty wished to forget! + +¶ Bismarck's position must be clearly set forth. He was no mere +reactionary, brandishing his fists at new leaders, who favored the +common people. He knew all about this liberty, equality and fraternity +business, from across the Vosges--and he despised the cure-all. + +Here is the idea in a few words: Bismarck was not fighting political +liberalism, as an end; instead, he protested with his giant's strength +at the implied destruction of the Old Regime. + +¶ He laid the revolt largely to the bureaucratic system, which he +characterized as "The animal with the pen!" + +He stood fast by his good old Prussian dogma, as outlined in "I am a +Prussian!" paralleling "Rule Britannia," and other national hymns. + +The song is sung with wild martial vigor, akin to the furious appeal +of ancient Polish melodies: + + I am a Prussian! see my colors gleaming-- + The black-white standard floats before me free; + For Freedom's rights, my fathers' heart-blood streaming, + Such, mark ye, mean the black and white to me! + Shall I then prove a coward? I'll e'er be marching forward! + Though day be dull, though sun shine bright on me, + I am a Prussian, will a Prussian be! + +Sixteen years later, when endeavoring with all his strength to bring +about German National unity, his "Prussians we are and Prussians we +will remain" was used against him with mocking effect. + + * * * * * + +¶ By October, nerves were steadied. The King sent Gen. Wangrel to +occupy Berlin and disperse the radicals--with cannon, if necessary. + +That speech has the right sound; but William has before this veered +around many times, like a weather-vane, and may he not shift again? + +For the instant, he stood for the Old Regime and Divine-right. + +¶ The following month William appointed Brandenberg, an old-line +Prussian aristocrat, Prime Minister. The siege of Berlin was declared; +the Assembly protested but finally gave in. Along in December, without +consulting the Assembly, William invited the states to send delegates +to Berlin and made an alliance of three kings--Prussia, Saxony and +Hanover. + +¶ What is going to happen next? + + + 34 + + At last the people have a share in their government, but + Bismarck sees to it that the radicals are not favored. + +¶ William's "Tri-regal alliance" failed as fail it must on account of +jealousies. Then Wuertemberg replied with a "quadruple" affair, +composed of herself, Hanover, Bavaria and Saxony, side by side, under +a constitution acceptable to Austria. Quite a stroke, that. + +In turn, William set up his Erfurt parliament, March 20, 1850. +Bismarck was fast becoming a "practical politician." Through deft +stacking of the cards, the radical delegates drew only the low cards, +and the Kreuz-Zeitung crowd and other ultra-conservatives were well +supplied with aces and kings. + +Bismarck naturally urged more concessions to the Prussian spirit; he +tried also to muzzle the press gallery, calling newspapers +"fire-bellows of democracy." + +Later, he even started newspapers for his political purposes. In this +he was not inconsistent, merely logical; his attitude was based on the +fact that, at this particular time, he felt called on to fight hostile +editors; but made terms wherever it seemed worth while. Such was the +man's discriminating glance. + +¶ The Erfurt "tongue tournament" Bismarck called the whole affair. He +did not oppose the King's position in this matter, because, as +Bismarck said, "it makes no difference." He spoke contemptuously of +the mystical high-flown speeches. Its "Constitution" was quickly +forgotten! + +¶ Bismarck's course would have been made somewhat easier had he not +openly refused to sit with President Simpson, at the Erfurt +convention, denouncing the President as "a converted Jew!" + +¶ The convention broke up, to meet again in Berlin, where a Prussian +Constitution was drawn up. + +¶ Events moved rapidly. Austria now stood forth for resumption of +authority by the Old Diet, established by the Congress of Vienna, +while from Berlin one heard of a plan for a "restricted union." + +Talk, talk, talk. Finally, in September, 1850, Austria invited Prussia +to a seat in the Old Diet. Prussia refused, and the cat was out of the +bag. + +It meant that German Unity must come through Prussian supremacy and +Austrian humiliation--otherwise all might well be forgotten. + +But Austria was by no means so easily disposed of. There was much life +and fighting blood in her yet! + +¶ Bismarck's opinions during his years of preparation were, on the +whole, unchanging, though often presented in different dress. In 1848, +he bitterly objected to the King's softness in recalling his troops +from Berlin, instead of definitely crushing the March rebellions; in +'49, he stood steadily beside the King in refusing the people's crown, +from Frankfort; in 1850, he deplored the Prussian diplomatic defeat at +Olmuetz, but swallowed his mortification because he saw that Prussia +was not ready to strike; "and he thereon assisted in reconciling his +party to a policy which he deplored." + +This situation convinced Bismarck that the first duty of a Prussian +statesman is to strengthen the army, "that the King's opinions can be +upheld at home; likewise backed by the mailed fist, Prussian authority +will be respected abroad." + +¶ "My idea," he says in his Memoirs, "was that we ought to prepare for +war, but at the same time to send an ultimatum to Austria, either to +accept our conditions in the German question, or to look out for our +attack." + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus out of the Revolution of 1848, Prussia emerged with a written +Constitution, establishing a legislative assembly and giving the +people a share in their government. + +¶ Bismarck's inconsistencies? Yes, by the score, but he was playing a +deep game of politics, for his King, and for his beloved German Unity. +Always, you must understand that Bismarck scorned the political +Millennium alleged to have been brought in by the French Revolution; +with the political ideas from over the Vosges Bismarck would have +nothing to do. That old war-cry "the people" made him sick! He +believed in discipline and not in mob-rule. But he would not rush +unprepared into the war. + +¶ It is a fact that, in 1850, Prussia had cause for war far more just +than that on which she seized in 1866. But Bismarck made his famous +anti-war speech! + +¶ "Woe to the statesman who does not look about for a reason for the +war that will be valid, when the war is over!" were his astonishing +sentiments. + +¶ What he really meant was that Prussia was not just then ready to +fight; hence, he painted war as detestable; later on, however, we +shall see how he looks upon war, when Prussia is ready! + +¶ Prussia, through her political endorsement of the people (1850) did +not suddenly become a Parliamentary state, despite William's new +Constitution. Broad privileges were granted, but Prussia remained an +absolute monarchy. While there was henceforth to be a certain +restricted cooperation between Crown and Crowd, the Divine-right +theory that had come down through the ages was not weakened or its +authority compromised; in short, by conciliating certain hostile +popular elements, led by fire-breathing first-cousins of the French +Revolutionists, a large part of the hated Liberal programme was done +away with, in turn consolidating the power of the Prussian kings. + +¶ This situation also defines the political evolution essential before +Germany could become a Nation. Despite various historians, Germany +could not at this hour have proclaimed herself a Republic. + +¶ Bismarck realized more and more, as he grew in experience and power, +that the Germans were sick unto death of political experiments; they +wanted unity, as a matter of course, but by unity they really meant a +head to the National house; a strong father, to advise, protect and +punish his children. The parallel extends to the German idea of +National rule; thoroughness, efficiency, discipline take the place of +political expediency, job-holding for the mere sake of job-holding; in +church, in state and in family life the idea of a great central +Authority alone satisfies the German mind. + +¶ Thus, the German conception of a Nation is intensely practical; the +state is not merely an aggregation of office-holders, but the state is +primarily a vast institution, efficiently administered by the best +minds, and these servants of the people are instantly responsible to +the great central authority, whose power of removal for cause may be +exercised as the father corrects his children, for the good of the +family. + + * * * * * + +¶ To these fundamental ideas, based on the soul of the German people, +Bismarck now addressed himself for many years to come. He knew what +the German race demands; his analysis was psychologically correct, +although few patriots of '48 could see it that way. + + * * * * * + +¶ As his years of apprenticeship pass, Bismarck carries on his mission +in a new way: is decided to lead Prussia to the conquest of Germany; +is done with political platform-making except in so far as the +alignments of politics lend themselves to his final purpose. + +¶ With political instinct for gigantic projects carried out with +realism, the King's Man now determined the bold outlines of his +National policy. + +He did not worry about details: these he would fill in, as time +passed; but he would on one side hold fast to German National unity +and on the other side would sustain Prussian kingcraft as the very +voice of God for Germany; one of Bismarck's strongest ideas was that +the King of Prussia was the vicegerent of Christ on this earth. In +short, Germany must come through Prussian supremacy, and incidentally +exalt Prussian supremacy, otherwise it might not come at all. + + * * * * * + +¶ To clear William's Divine-right once for all, so far as our story +goes, let it be known that German historians have always laid stress +on the respect of Teutonic tribesmen, from ancient days, for the +leadership of a strong fighting man. Tacitus, the earliest writer of +importance, detailing the lives of Teutonic tribes, sets forth that it +was the custom of the German warriors in times of crises to select +their strong man and endow him with the power of rulership; looking to +him in turn to lead the tribe to war against the common enemy. This +reliance upon kings who were also powerful war lords continuing +through the centuries, satisfied the fundamental aspirations of the +Germans in their will to military power; but as the generations passed +the old story of human nature was proved anew, that is to say, what +begins as a "privilege" ends as a "demanded right." On the side of the +kings, was now proclaimed more loftily than ever that monarchy is the +voice of God. + + + + + BOOK THE FOURTH + + Blood is Thicker than Water + + + + + CHAPTER X + + Socrates in Politics + + + 35 + + Perfecting himself in political intrigue and in vituperative + debating, also in caustic letter-writing; all is necessary + grist for the Bismarck mill. + +¶ We come now to the year 1851. + +¶ The entrance of Emperor Francis Joseph, at this time, on the +politico-military stage of Austria was followed by still another era +of political reaction; the Liberal Austrian constitution, wrested +during the riots, was revoked; as were also those Democratic +constitutions pledged for almost every German state. + +¶ The Germanic Confederation, with political legitimacy vested in the +curious Frankfort Parliament, again took the field. It was an Austrian +plan to get the advantage of Prussia. + +¶ "If I do not do well, you can recall me," Bismarck told William. The +King decided in his extremity to hazard the appointment of the unknown +Bismarck, as Prussian delegate to Frankfort. William remembered those +bold "White Saloon" speeches. + +¶ Now get this straight: Bismarck was a land-owner of ancient days; +estates won by the sword had been in the Bismarck family for 600 +years; nay, the Bismarcks traced their knighthood to the far-distant +year 1200. The force of this appeal in the blood was at once profound +and irresistible. + +¶ Bismarck to the day he died was always an Alt Mark vassal to his +liege lord and master, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the King of +Prussia. So much is clear. + +Bismarck was also much more than this. We repeat, he was a leader of +men. The King of Prussia could command old families in scores if not +in hundreds, to support the Ancient Regime, socially and politically, +but where find that rare man, a born leader for the cause? + +¶ Duty and self-interest prompted Bismarck to hold up the royal hand, +but after all is said, the vital force of Bismarck's endorsement was +found in the man's genius for leadership. It was not so much the cause +as it was the man. For had Bismarck gone over to the other side the +history of Germany would have been vastly different. + +¶ This Frankfort parliament, a hydra-headed political creation +dedicated to liberty, was in secret doing the purposes of Austrian +plutocracy and reaction; it was to be the last stand of the Old +Regime, against Democracy. + +But it was necessary to move with cautious foot. The sappers were at +work under the thrones, and at any instant the mines might be touched +off. + +¶ Bismarck thus, quite by accident, finds himself the representative +of William IV, in Frankfort Diet or Bundestag, the political Punch and +Judy show originally set up by Metternich, in 1815, to rule the +quarreling thirty-nine German states. Their intense individualism was +such that Metternich, who dominated at the Congress of Vienna, after +the downfall of Napoleon, did not know what was best. + +All other parts of Europe, and even the islands of the seas had been +reassigned, but no human being could tell what to do with the +turbulent thirty-nine German states. + +¶ "Here, then, was a mysterious 'Court of Chance,' where things +dragged on for years, a political circumlocution office, hopelessly +bound by its own interminable seals, parchments and red tape." + +The secret object was to do nothing that would not favor Austria; with +the idea that, in the end, the devious course of politics would bring +Austria final control of the German lands, everywhere. + +¶ It was in this absurd Parliament that Bismarck was to perfect +himself in political intrigue. Frankfort made no organic laws; these +were mysteriously settled at Vienna; the meetings of the Diet were +held in secret; at best, the voting was along lines that gave to +Austria and not to Prussia the deciding voice. + + * * * * * + +¶ It did not take Bismarck long to find that at Frankfort the King of +Prussia was but a cipher. Furthermore, what raised Bismarck's ire was +the impotence of the Parliament. Frankfort had been unable to put down +the blood-letting of '48, and Bismarck detested weakness of any kind, +mental, physical or spiritual. + +He was, and always remained, a profound extremist; but his position +was tempered by massive common sense. + +¶ The world dearly loves a flunkey--and flunkeyism was universal at +Frankfort. + +The many members fluttered about in gay military dress, wore stars of +sham authority, gold crosses, medals dangling from bright ribbons. + +Names prefixed by count, duke, margrave--crests on the coach door and +Latin mottoes--hyphenated family names, indicated all manner of +political marriages de convenience. Bestarred gentlemen, one and all, +if you please! + +¶ Bismarck wrote home soon enough, for he was choking with anger, not +on account of the aristocratic airs of Frankfort (for Bismarck dearly +loved a title), but choking with anger because his beloved King of +Prussia was a Nobody in this crazy Parliament. "I find them a drowsy, +insipid set of creatures, only endurable when I appear among them as +so much pepper," are his sarcastic words. + + * * * * * + +¶ Had Bismarck not been a diplomat, he might have made his mark as a +radical writer. His letters very often show almost anarchistic +dissent. At vulgar characterization, no man could outsnarl Bismarck. + +Also this Pomeranian giant's correspondence at times fairly stinks +with frightful smells. When in these black moods, he released nasty +fumes around the heads of rivals. + +We are surprised, likewise, to find growing in the mire of his +thoughts, here and there, violets worthy of the poet Freiligrath. The +man's power to be poetical or insulting, as he willed, is indeed as +strange as it is rare. + +¶ Bismarck's pen pictures of fellow ambassadors--how they flirted, +danced, drank to excess, their maudlin ideas of government, although +regarding themselves as veritable political seers--show the powerful +satirical and analytical side of Bismarck's brain. + +And although Bismarck mocked with sardonic immensity his colleagues, +yet with an under-play worthy of the Devil, our Otto proceeded to make +these owlish and absurd gentlemen puppets in the hands of Prussia. + +¶ Alas, time does not permit us to set forth the charming letters +Bismarck writes home. There is that moonlight swim in the Danube; the +interview with Metternich, the old war-horse of kings; the gypsy ball +and the weird fiddling gypsies; his visits to robber-infested parts of +Hungary, making the trip in part in a peasant's cart, "loaded pistols +in the straw at our feet, and near by a company of lanciers carrying +cocked carbines, against the imminent visits of robber bands." + +He describes how he visited Ostend, going sea-bathing at that famous +resort; rambling on through Holland, smoking a long clay pipe; then on +to Sweden for the shooting; next to Russia for wild boars. + +¶ His letters often have a lyrical quality, telling of waterfalls of +the Pyrenees, the fascinating fairyland of Mendelssohn, dark-eyed +Spanish beauties, open-air concerts, London garroters, old musty +houses with peculiar smells, or what you will. Bismarck dwells often +on eating and drinking; and in one letter from Paris speaks of a +dinner at which he drank St. Julien, Lafitte Branne, Mouton, Pichon, +Larose, Latour, Margaux, and Arneillac! + +¶ These, and hundreds of other letters comprise charming interludes +between black moods of political intrigue, wherein he used his +vitriolic pen to lampoon his beribboned, bejeweled farce-comedy +fellow-ambassadors. + +¶ "Germany is tied together with red tape," writes Bismarck at this +stage of his political apprenticeship, at Frankfort; and he hit the +nail on the head. + +¶ Promise yourself a delightful month reading Bismarck's four octavo +volumes telling of his change of heart toward Austria, as shown little +by little in Frankfort dispatches, documents and proceedings, +interspersed with satirical stories in Bismarck's extremely +individualistic style. Throughout, you receive glimpses of the man's +great mind. No less an authority than the Herr Prof. von Sybel tells +us of these Bismarck writings, bearing on the formation of the German +Empire: "They possess a classic worth, unsurpassed by the best German +prose writers of any age." + + + 36 + + Applying Socratic methods to game of politics; Bismarck's bold + and masterful preparations for German unity. + +¶ Now then, during these years 1851-'61, Bismarck was doing two +things: Perfecting himself in the dastardly art of political intrigue; +likewise, he was going about like a modern Socrates, talking with men +of high or low degree everywhere; studying what might be called the +human nature side of the German problem of unity and nationality; +studying it, not in an aimless way, but to mould men to his own +gigantic political ends, when the right time arrived. + +¶ Thus, with the stiff wind of adverse political affairs straight in +his teeth, remember that Bismarck's great strength was always his +knowledge of men. + +During the years of which we now write he made it his business to +visit the various petty German courts, to gaze on princelings who +would be kings; busied himself with court gossip till he found out the +inner political jealousies. + +Thus fortified, Bismarck knew the one man or woman to touch in the +various parts of Germany, to help along Prussian ambition--when the +supreme moment to strike had come at last. + +¶ This supreme moment he awaited with diabolical patience through the +slow-going years. + +No human being could hasten or retard Bismarck's ultimate victory; for +he remained the one truly masterful man in Europe. + +He sat at gambling tables, he wheedled secrets from the prostitutes of +princes; he stood by and egged on human dog-fights; he took part in +church-rows about doctrines; he had inside glimpses of the venality of +Austrian kept-press-writers, "the scum of the earth," he calls them, +"who sell opinions as the petty merchant sells butter and eggs." +Bismarck seemed to be the only man in Europe who really was able to +grasp the solution of the German problem. + +¶ Also, the granite soil of his heart is shown again and again. What a +hater he was! + +For example, refusing to go to Mass for the repose of Schwarzenberg's +soul, Bismarck gave the reason: "He is the man who said: 'I will abuse +Prussia and then abolish her.'" + + * * * * * + +¶ You see, our Otto is one of those uncomfortable Germans who in his +own amazing personality expresses the National ideal of earnestness; +Otto is frightfully in earnest in his cups, or over his half dozen +eggs for breakfast--as you please. He frightens timid souls. + +¶ His temper few men could curb, much less sit calmly by and receive +without retiring in bad order. Incident after incident at Frankfort +might be cited, but what is the use? + +¶ With fiendish earnestness Bismarck plotted to break the bones of two +democratic editors whose writings threw the Prussian mastiff into +periodical black rages. Bismarck justified his cruelty by insisting +that "bounds must be set for these infamous press scribblings." He +means that attacks on the Divine-right of kings must at all hazards be +choked off. He always hated journalists, called the press "a poisoned +well," and as for himself he is on record to this effect: "I always +approached the ink-bottle with great caution." + +¶ But mark this well: Our Otto, in his turn, craftily used the press +to present the smooth side of his own political intriguing; indeed he +had his very valuable Prussian press bureau; and we have authority for +the statement that the Bismarckian idea of journalism was to have +"hireling scribes well in hand, men who stabbed like masked assassins +and mined like mobs." + +¶ During the decade we call Bismarck's apprenticeship, 1851-'61, he +was thus engaged: 1851, envoy at Frankfort Diet; 1852, Prussian +ambassador at Vienna, during the illness of Count Arnim; St. +Petersburg, 1859; Paris, 1862. + +Thus, he had an opportunity to get acquainted with all the leading +diplomatists on the European chessboard, to study them in their own +haunts, and to perfect himself in playing with pitch without +blackening his hands. + +¶ Bismarck told Francis Joseph, "I am firm to put an end to the +attacks on Prussia in the Austrian press!" + +This boldness won the Emperor, and in confidence he remarked to a +friend: "Ah, that I had a man of Bismarck's audacity." + +¶ Also, he told Joseph, "Prussia will never yield in the matter of the +commercial union, with Austria." + +The Emperor remarked on Bismarck's youth--37 years--and was much +impressed. "Bismarck had the wisdom of a man of 70!" was Joseph's +comment. + + * * * * * + +¶ You begin to get a clearer idea of what this thing called patriotism +means? Nay, do not scoff at our Otto; he is only carrying on the old, +old game called reaching out after place and power; is doing exactly +what you would do yourself, if you had the will to rise to the +mountain-tops where live the Bismarcks and the Cćsars. + +Mask after mask Bismarck used to cover his real intent, from 1847 to +1870, the long years he was scheming to establish a German Empire; and +he did his work well; more than that cannot be said of any man. +Therefore, his fame is secure in the Valhalla of Mankind. + + * * * * * + +¶ Here is an amusing bit, showing the craft and cunning of our master: +When Napoleon the Little, through his coup d'etat made himself Emperor +of France, December 2, 1851, and while Frankfort's Parliament was +trying to decide "what" to say about it, officially, a French journal +in Frankfort printed an enthusiastic endorsement of the new Emperor. + +Bismarck suspected that it came straight from Prussia's hated rival. +Seeking out the proprietor of the newspaper Bismarck congratulated +him "on close relations with Napoleon." The owner, taken off his +guard, replied: "You are wrong; it came from Vienna!" This was exactly +what Bismarck wished to ascertain, and his suspicions were verified. + +To make assurance doubly sure, Bismarck leaving the journalist, did a +little detective work. In the garden, from a secret place, he could +see the French minister's house. In half an hour, he spied the +journalist ringing the French minister's doorbell. + +"Ah, ha!" was Bismarck's comment. + + * * * * * + +¶ What did this giant not do to help his beloved Prussia, and to +humiliate his detested Austria? + +One day, he found a fiery anti-Prussian review in an Austrian member's +desk. He thought nothing of ransacking a desk. Richelieu had a system +of espionage unrivaled in history. Bismarck in this respect is the +Cardinal's close second. Each man regarded himself as a patriot. +Bismarck was obstinately loyal to Prussia. Her aggrandizement became +henceforth his life's passion. Nay, Bismarck did not ask that the +member be dismissed! That would be punishment too coarse. Instead, +Bismarck decided that the best revenge would be to print the address +piecemeal and thus keep the member in suspense;--something like +twisting the cords a little each day till the victim meets +strangulation in frightful form. + +¶ During the eight years that Bismarck was a member of the freakish +Frankfort Diet set up by Austria to "rule" the quarreling thirty-nine +German states, Bismarck, the Prussian giant, came to see the necessity +of controlling the press. + +¶ Frankfort stupidities decided Bismarck to appeal directly to the +common people (whom also he politically despised!) and hence we find +that he now meets Austria's hired journalists by urging the utmost +press-freedom. "In this," says Lowe, "Bismarck was an opportunist," as +he often was. "I learned something," he used to say when his enemies +accused him of shifting ground. + +¶ Bismarck now demanded "open discussion" of German policies; saw that +hired press agents vigorously set forth the Prussian side. In this +connection it is interesting to draw a parallel between Bismarck's +ideas of journalism, in 1852, and the American conception (1915). + +¶ "In the press, truth will not come to light through the mists +conjured into life by the mendacity of subsidized newspapers, until +the material wherewith to oppose all the mysteries of the Bund +(Frankfort) shall be supplied to the Prussian press, with unrestricted +liberty to use it." + +¶ This idea is precisely what extremists like Roosevelt set up (1915), +battling against "trusts," endeavoring to make them audit their books +on the curbstone! So, what is new under the sun? + + + 37 + + Ox-like patience of Prussian peasantry sorely tried--The + incessant call for the strong man to end political miseries. + +¶ As the result of all this deep study, Bismarck came to the +conclusion that Prussia in the great moral idea of a United Germany +could win, only by fighting Austria. We might as well get at the core +of this thing, in short order. The complications are amazing; but the +more we probe into Bismarck's gigantic problem, the larger grows the +stature of our modern German giant. + +¶ From this time till the hour of his death, many years later, +Bismarck remains the one great central will power of Germany, the +source of political legitimacy, dealing out with his brawny hands +favors where they would do the most good, setting men up or casting +them down; and in the end, through a series of profound political +combinations the inner currents of which to this hour no human being +has been able to chart and classify, our strong man at last is to set +up his United Germany, placing the imperial crown on William's head in +the palace of the French kings, at Versailles. + +¶ Oh, how unforgivable all this is to the French. Not only that defeat +should come in '70, but that the palace of the Bourbons, costing some +$200,000,000, should be used in solemn mockery by the super-man +Bismarck, as the stage-setting whereby to complete the imperial +German holiday! Centuries must pass before this, the profound +mortification to French feelings, is forgotten. That is to say, the +worst thing you can do to a man is to hurt his pride. Had the German +Empire come to pass without wounding French pride (not to add the +French pocketbook) the French would long since have gone on their way +in peace, rejoicing in German prosperity. Why not? The French are +Christians, not the slightest doubt of that; and as Christians do not +envy the German ox, ass or maid-servant. Indeed, that is as it should +be in a Christian world. + + * * * * * + +¶ At home, up in Prussia, Bismarck's sullen glances surveyed Europe +afar, and in the '50's, of which we are writing, this is his problem: + +He sees Germany still a mere crazy-quilt of clashing states. There are +warring ecclesiastical barons, free cities, petty princelings; +Catholic Bavaria against Protestant Prussia; nobles against the +people; the people against themselves, divided by God knows what +controversies, sane or insane; poets writing their hymns of liberty +then dying unheroically by a brickbat flung wildly in some street +brawl; jurists trying to hammer together some constitution that will +not be blown to pieces by the first explosion of gunpowder;--and all +failing! With pugnacious Prussia on the North, with rapacious Austria +on the South, with insolent Bavaria hanging off on the Southwest, and +the others fighting tooth and nail for the land, that will eventually +fall to the strongest--the German problem became an exhibition over +many years of the noblest, likewise of the darkest, passions of the +human breast. + +Three dreadful wars were to be fought, 80,000 lives were to be +sacrificed, during twenty years of turbulence; and in the +blood-drenched interim various monarchs are to make a plaything of the +thirty-nine disunited German states. + +¶ But the thing had to be gone through with. The historical evolution +could not be hastened, although it was often set back. Sick Germany +had many a hideous nightmare before the fever passed. + +Convention after convention, diet after diet, contending monarchs +using any plea that will give the upper hand to Prussia or to Austria, +or over princes and whimsical knights, from the one who holds his +sovereignty because his ancestor had been a king's barber, to another +who in a lucky moment had found the queen's lace handkerchief, and +after that lived like a parasite on the land;--all these high +contracting parties must be sent to the dump heap and the soil +sprinkled with precious German brothers' blood, mingling freely with +vile blood, before the new political crop can grow. + +¶ Between 1750 and 1870 the German problem had been settled over and +over again, but was not finally settled till by Bismarck's blood and +iron. This means in Frederick the Great's own obstinate way! + +¶ We have heard from political fanatics, poets, lawyers, kings, +thieves, church-people; all manner of men and not a few women have +babbled and cackled; and there has been blood-letting, generation +after generation, all up and down the Rhine, the Main, the Spree and +the Elbe; then there would follow a lull brought about by some great +Charter of Liberty framed by the Liberals, at their latest conference; +and when it all went up in smoke, we would hear again that the +Prussian government had its own plan, which, quite naturally Austria +would never consent to advance. + +¶ Indeed, the ox-like patience of the German people, with their great +moral dream of "German National faith," was strongly tried. + +¶ It remained for the obstinate spirit of Frederick, through Bismarck, +to find the only way, by blood and iron. Sentimentalists should not +shed tears. It is no less an authority than Marshal Davout, the great +French soldier who had for his watchword, "The world belongs to the +obstinate." + +Was not the Great Frederick, in his youth, an idealist, and did he not +write a touching essay on the evils of absolutism? But he ended by +embracing the tyranny of kings--even as you and I, if we have the +power. + + * * * * * + +¶ At the very outset, then, let it be made clear that it is +short-sighted to call Bismarck Prussian tyrant. What would you, +please? Cakes for the child, when the child cries? That has often been +tried, and always in vain. + +Next time, the child wants two cakes instead of one. It will not do. + +Frederick was dubbed the "last of the tyrants." We are sorry if this +were true. + +Tyrants are exceedingly useful. Nay, we are glad to report that +Frederick is not the last. + +They still exist in every family, village, city, state, and nation. + +For the most part, they exercise their tyranny in petty exactions, +with no big plan such as distinguishes the dominating man from the +little fellow with the mean temper and his childish ambition to rule, +let us say, his dog or his wife. + +¶ There is something pathetic in the incessant call this earth has for +a strong man. It was so in Germany, and Bismarck was that man. + +Cćsar was assassinated because he was said to be a tyrant, yet after +his death for 400 years Rome sought in vain for a man strong enough to +hold the Empire from going to pieces. + +¶ Is there not something puzzling in the devotion of a people to their +amiable oppressor? They may rebel against absolutism, as Bavarian +hates Prussian, but if the political despot is strong enough to win +against foreign foes, as Bismarck did at Koeniggraetz, Sedan and +Gravelotte, the people kiss the hand that smites. What greater tests +of loyalty do you ask of human nature? + +¶ Before 1866, he was without doubt the "best-hated" man in Europe, +lampooned, ridiculed, even the victim of attempted assassinations. + +At Frankfort mothers sang their children to sleep by the following +ditty: + + Sleep, darling, sleep, + Be always gentle and good, + Or Vogel von Falkenstein will come + And carry you away in a sack; + Bismarck too will come after him, + And he eats up little children. + +¶ Yet within a few years, in his character as Prussian Prime Minister, +who against the will of the people achieved the greatness of Prussia, +and thereby made possible United Germany, no adulation was too great +for our self-same Bismarck, formerly sneered at, despised, vilified, +and stoned. + +So much for the value of public opinion. What then does it all mean? + +Bismarck made his 30-years' battle against the people and won; and the +people, strange to say, turned a mental somersault and now saw no +inconsistency in cheering Bismarck, as liberator. + +¶ How strange this sounds! + + + 38 + + Here is the Man of the Hour, depicted in all his naked realism. + +¶ This amazing German problem called for a wise despot, to confront +and overawe weak men, gathered in German parliaments in which there +were worlds of cackling, but no wisdom. + +The curse of Germany had been too much speechmaking, too much poetry, +too much dreaming. The babble went on from 1815 to 1866, at +least--fifty years! + +¶ The times called for a hard-headed, dogmatic, tyrannical man with a +plan large enough to subdue the thirty-nine warring parts, and weld +the whole into a mighty Empire. + +This meant a tyrant of the massive Frederick the Great type. It called +for a man erect and proud, keen of speech, with absolute +self-confidence, who in a pinch was master at underhand dealing, and +who could deliberately use harshness and malice. + +The man had to understand the delicate art of flattery, and at other +times be blustering and outspoken. + +The roar of cannon should make him as cold as ice, but underneath his +frozen exterior he should have a fiery nature, full of craft and +guile, like a Gascon. + +He should have a torrent of cutting words, his eyes should flash and +his blood should boil, yet he should be able to wage a secret war, +masked under compliments, or draw his dagger and strike for the heart. + +He should have thousands of enemies and prevail over them all. + +He should have boundless ambition; action should be the zest of his +life, and at crucial times he should display an uncontrollable temper. + +He should seek the path of glory; a man of fiery enthusiasm, who never +forgives an enemy; has fits of rage; is jealous; a great swordsman, +fights duels; a master horseman, able to ride day and night without +fatigue. + +He should be at once cautious and headlong, realizing that in the end +it is the bold play that wins. He should be able to live down public +utterances that would cause other men years of disgrace. He should be +able to quell a mutiny, check a mob or stamp out a rebellion. And, +above all, whether admired or detested, he should justify his career +by succeeding in what he started to do. + +¶ In other words, he must be Bismarck, the greatest empire-builder +since Cćsar's day--yes, not even barring Napoleon, for Napoleon's +empire crumbled to dust, yet Bismarck's, fresh with youth, still lives +on! + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + The Mailed Fist + + + 39 + + Supporting Bismarck's idea of the mailed fist; Democracy stems + from and is supported by aristocracy. + +¶ Why is it that, in the American Republic, there is aversion to +acknowledging the services of men sprung from aristocracy, like +Bismarck? Are the facts unrecognized, or is the silence only another +form of political quackery? + +¶ To bring the matter home, let us ask, "How is it in the United +States?" Washington was an aristocrat of fortune, one of the richest +men of his time, dispassionate, cold, aloof; Hamilton, an aristocrat +of breeding, contributing his quota to democracy, as he saw it; +Lafayette, an aristocrat of birth, helped us gain our liberty; and +certainly Jefferson, an aristocrat of intellect as well as of fortune, +the owner of 185 slaves, and the gifted author of the Declaration of +Independence, offered inestimable services to the common people. + +¶ Off-hand, the average biographer records this: "Bismarck had no +confidence in the common people. He fought a written Constitution. He +did not wish to see his King yield an inch to the masses. It was the +Crown against the Crowd. Violently reactionary, he blocked +progress--for there can be no progress without change. He was trying +to force the stream of time backward, instead of going with the tide." + + * * * * * + +¶ An American who for the first time follows the history of the +Unifier of Germany begins very early in the investigation to have a +feeling of apprehension. He is sure that Bismarck is a reactionary; +his ideas are so out of "harmony" with the spirit of the times, the +air full of the "liberty, equality and fraternity." + +Bismarck's attempt to sustain the monarchial system, especially the +idiotic conception of "Divine-right" of kings, as against the rising +tide of "confidence in the people," has about as much chance for +success as that the slavery system could be re-introduced into the +United States, after that question had been settled by five years' +war. Thus you conclude, from the American view! + +¶ As you read on and on, you feel that on the very next page, Bismarck +will surely go to the scaffold, or will fall by the dagger of some +"friend of the people," a thug ever after regarded as the veritable +Savior of his country for the assassination of the enemy of the common +people. + + * * * * * + +¶ The much ridiculed "Divine-right" of kings is cognizable as a right +based on the survival of the fittest, backed by the sword; filled +with human weaknesses and shortcomings, but defensible as a system, +withal; just as the real intent of the words "captain of industry" +should mean one whose fatherly care over his laborers, his judgment, +his risk of capital, his foresight in weathering bad times--redounds +to the immediate prosperity of the workers with whom he can have no +quarrel. + +¶ To those who make light of Bismarck's theory of blood and iron, in +government, it should be pointed out that all governments that endure, +regardless of what theory you may work under, in the end fall to the +strongest;--just as in a family fight the estate goes to the +strongest, or in a partnership fight, or in religion, science, social +affairs, love or war, the strong man has his way over the weak; and it +is still to be proven that the American democracy, which at best is +only another of manifold experiments in self-government, is to survive +as long as have in the past royalist ideas--already that have +persisted for thousands of years. + +¶ So, we have invented Democracy out of a thousand costly expenditures +of blood and treasure. We protest that this latest experiment in +government is to endure forever more, but not one man in a thousand +has any real conception of the Democracy in which all men shall work +for a common National end. + +Thus, Democracy is fully as large an experiment as any other in the +Halls of Time; and today we are still nursing childish ideals, +attempting to level men by legislation, and incidentally taking +satisfaction in stoning our public servants, decrying wealth, and +robbing the individual of any broad conception of responsibility. + + + 40 + + Parallel elements that make for power in America and Germany. + +¶ It is difficult for a certain type of American mind to get +Bismarck's point of view. This is because of the failure to recognize +that in whatever respect Absolutism and Republicanism may differ, as +forms of government, the fact remains that it is society, and not +human nature, that has been transformed. The old motives, ambition, +love, war, marriage, pride, prejudice, still sum up underlying +conditions, however firmly any government may seem to be established, +called by whatever name, and led by Crown or Crowd. In addition, all +history forecasts the ultimate ruin of any régime founded on human +nature. + +¶ As between the share which belongs to each man, and the share which +does not belong to him but to the body politic, expressed in a +reciprocal concession, upon each side, for the good of the state--that +dream of governmental idealism has never yet been attained, even in +free America, to say nothing of Germany, France, England or Russia, +and men will continue to annex the spoils to their private estates as +long as men are what they are, at heart. + +¶ The elements that make for a desire to grasp power, in free America, +are essentially the same, though in a different dress, as they were in +Prussia, in Bismarck's day. + +We are wont to dismiss this matter with a shrug and charge all the +turmoil up to a senseless desire on the part of the King of Prussia to +force, for his own aggrandizement, his rule on an unwilling people, +and we therefore call Bismarck a tyrant, as though in this conclusion +we thus elevated our own virtues by a shuddering "May-God-forbid!" +sort of recognition of Bismarck's political vices. + + * * * * * + +¶ The old man had a grand idea just the same; he devoted his life to +building up a free and united Germany. His intense belief in German +virtues made his task sacred. He met the desire for a National cause +and for greater freedom. He had to carry men by storm. + +¶ However offensive, politically speaking, may seem in democratic +America Prussia's "Divine-right" theory, it is a fact that we, also, +appeal to the god of battles just as Bismarck did. We open our +Congress with prayers often couched in conceited belief that God is on +our side; while our historians have repeatedly dwelt on the fact that +America has a "manifest destiny," a phrase reiterated by editors the +land over till it has sunk deep into the public conscience. Therefore, +in democratic America, we avow that we are in the hands of the Lord; +an idea secretly nourished by millions of Americans who would publicly +deny that any such Feudal conception as Divine-right of kings could +possibly exist in related form, in the United States. + +Surely we cannot mean that Divinity has anything to do with the +majorities in an American election? + +¶ Then this "manifest destiny" must refer to the ultimate fact that, +however we may blunder along, in times of crisis the Lord comes forth, +to lead us out of the wilderness. + +It is a familiar line of thought to find Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln +and others, deified in the American press, as men "miraculously risen" +in storm and stress to preserve the "manifest destiny" of our Nation. + +If there be any logical distinction between this hope on the part of +millions of loyal Americans, expressing their patriotism in terms of +Heaven's protective policy, and the attitude of Bismarck in regard to +his King, as ordained of God, to rule over the Prussian people, then +it would require a high-power microscope to detect any essential +variation. + +¶ Meantime, we go on building dreadnaughts and inscribe on our coins, +"In God We Trust." + +King William in Bismarck's day refused the people's paper crown of the +Frankfort assembly, but plotted to have one offered to him by the +princes of Germany. Was he, logically, any more inconsistent than is +our own "manifest destiny" conception of America? + + * * * * * + +¶ For it is ever the way with strong men to believe themselves the +Lord's anointed, likewise with strong nations--and democratic America +is no exception. + +"Chinese" Gordon carried with him wood of the real Cross, as he +believed, and read his Bible day by day, up to the last, confident +that he was in the charge of some unseen power for good, as against +the destroying African tribes around Khartum. + +Henry M. Stanley's books are honeycombed with appeals to God as his +guide and protector; he believed that God was with him in "Darkest +Africa," would see him through at the price of how many negro murders +it mattered not, warding off fever, discouragement, starvation, and +standing ever on the white man's side. + +In America, where the "Divine-right" of kings is a subject of +political ridicule, it is a fact that in the courts we raise our right +hand and swear to tell the whole truth; our marriage ceremonies are +consecrated; and the last word at the grave is that God is our refuge; +we have our chaplains who speak of God on our battleships, and in our +armies; in the Autumn the President of the United States invokes a +blessing for bountiful crops, and returns the Nation's thanks to God +for these favors. + +¶ All this is no more illogical than that Bismarck should insist that +the Hohenzollerns, his masters, obtained their right to rule as a +direct dispensation from high heaven, as against the Hapsburgs, who +were Prussia's rivals. Bismarck preached his theological-political +dogma with intense earnestness during his long life; and at last the +people must have been impressed with his arguments--or was it that he +forced them to his way of thinking? + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + By Blood and Iron + + + 41 + + William I writes his abdication, and is about to quit in + disgust; Bismarck says, "Tear that letter up!" + +¶ Along about 1857, our poor William IV lost his mind; for four years +he continued a nervous wreck; his brother, William I, was the sick +man's representative as Prussian king; and in '61, when William IV +died, William I became sovereign ruler of pugnacious Prussia. + +¶ The common people welcomed William I with open arms, that is to say, +adoring a fighting man, and long disappointed by the timidity and +vacillation of kind-hearted William IV, with his church-building plans +and his Jerusalem bishoprics, it seemed as though the reactionary +character of Prussian political life might now come to an end. + +Frederick's many-sidedness was in sharp contrast to William's +one-sidedness; Frederick's unfixed decision is now expressed by +William's unvarying will. Where Frederick had been brilliant and +imaginative, William was cold and solid. + +¶ William was now over sixty, at which age men's lives, as a rule, are +in eclipse. + +Yet this man of destiny had still in store the making of a modern +Cćsar. He was to become king of kings, ruler of an empire whose +individual units were commanded not by democrats trying new ambitions; +but instead, many monarchs were to proclaim, "William, Emperor of +United Germany!" + +¶ This son of Queen Louise, mother of Prussia, was now to justify the +sacrifices of the great German foster-mother; for as she had labored +with Scharnhorst to perfect the Prussian military, and in the hour of +Prussia's extremity dared to confront even the great Napoleon himself, +likewise her son William was now to complete, years later, the +mother's ideals. + +Where she scattered seed on fallow ground, the son was to reap his +abundant harvest of Prussian glory. + +¶ "Whoever wishes to rule Germany must conquer it; and that cannot be +done with phrases," wrote William, 22 years before he was crowned at +Versailles. + + * * * * * + +¶ We have seen all manner of Hohenzollerns--robber-knight +Hohenzollerns--landscape-gardening Hohenzollerns--church-building +Hohenzollerns--and Hohenzollerns tied to a woman's apron string. + +A brave, practical, common-sense Hohenzollern is now head of the +distinguished Prussian house. + +William I is flatly opposed to Liberalism, but is shrewd enough to +have a moderate Liberal among his kingly advisers; for William +realizes the political weakness of further constitution-tinkering. + +¶ Finally, we have before us a man as obstinate as Bismarck, but +without Bismarck's creative imagination; a Prussian King reared in the +army, who loved the army, who understood the army;--even as Bismarck +understood political intrigue. The combination was unique! + +Also, we have here a William of enormous ambition, little suspected +under his rather conventional innocent-appearing German mask. + + * * * * * + +¶ We come now to a place where furious political torrents begin +beating down the ancestral forests of Germany; torn by flashes of +lightning and the ominous roll of thunders, the air is filled with +broken boughs, flying leaves and clouds of dust. + +Bismarck, god of thunder, rides upon the furious storm. + +Let us closely follow the general track of the hurricane now raging in +Prussia, more especially in the Prussian Chamber. + +¶ In '59, William had appointed von Roon Minister of War; the people +objected, declaring it another evidence of William's reactionary +principles. The plan was to increase the army from 130,000 in peace +and 215,000 in war to 190,000 in peace and 450,000 in war. + +It really meant universal military service for Prussia, with 63,000 +recruits each year, practically doubling the service, making it +possible within a decade to call possibly 1,200,000 soldiers! + +¶ The Chamber of Deputies opposed the plan, vigorously. However, the +Chamber in a patriotic moment had voted army money on condition that +the increase was only incidental, but William while saying little of +his plans acted as though his army appropriations were to be +permanent, henceforth. + +¶ Over this question, a bitter controversy! The King took the ground +that it was the duty of the Deputies to raise the cash in such sums as +were required for state purposes--whatever these might be, in the +opinion of the King. + +It was conceded that, in military matters, William's judgment was +good, but the Liberals did not much like these great military +expenses. + +William even thought of breaking the deadlock by abolishing parliament +and ruling alone, or abdicating his throne! + +He had already written out his abdication, so the story goes, and it +was lying on his desk, all signed, awaiting the moment of +proclamation. + +¶ At the eleventh hour, William bethought himself of an invincible +fighting man, Otto von Bismarck, widely known for boldness and +independence. + +¶ "I am willing to carry out your policy, whether Parliament is agreed +or not! I will rather perish with my King than forsake Your Majesty in +the contest with Parliamentary government!" + +¶ And William tore up the abdication paper and replied, "Let's get +down to business!" + + + 42 + + The four years' conflict era--Here Bismarck is at last revealed + in his true character--King's Man supreme! + +¶ Ten years of rough-and-tumble fighting in the blind alleys of +political intrigue have now prepared Otto von Bismarck for great +things. In the solemn years to come, all is yet to be dignified by the +formation of an Empire, through blood and iron. + +¶ The King's ambition grew on what it fed upon--a desire for Prussian +aggrandizement, at all hazards, and the ultimate solution of the +German problem through Prussian power of arms. He made up his mind, +accordingly, that he ought to reorganize the army; for this purpose he +had asked the Chamber for 12,000,000 thalers. + +The cat slipped out of the bag, in spite of precautions. This +12,000,000 thalers was to be used to buy needle-guns and powder, in +the oncoming War of the Brothers. + +¶ Our William I, whatever he might be, was at least no namby-pamby +sentimentalist. That honest German face, those kindly blue eyes, his +high complexion, made him look as guileless as a happy school boy; but +he had his deep desire for place and power, side by side with +Bismarck. + +¶ It was a most fortunate day for this hard-headed unimaginative +William that Otto von Bismarck, in the Autumn of 1862, accepted the +Portfolio of Prussian Minister. William wanted a strong man to fight +the hostile radical deputies for that 12,000,000 thalers, for the +war-chest. + +There is no use casting about for fair words to butter parsnips. The +long-deferred irrepressible War of the Brothers was determined upon; +and the Prussian dynasty was to wade through seas of blood to the +heights of glory; and the purpose was ever to end this age-old German +family strife. + +¶ William I is deservedly a great German national hero. He is the true +father of his country. + +¶ We see nothing to criticise. The situation is very human; and the +leading actors play their difficult parts with discrimination. In your +own life's conquests, do you do any more, and often do you not do +less? Is it not true in your own life that you have to fight for what +you achieve? Truly, the world belongs to him who seizes it. William +knew this; Bismarck certainly knew it; and in this respect the two +great men were agreed. So far, good. In broad outline the plan was to +make the Prussian dynastic government rule over territorial United +Germany; but it must come with the consent of the rulers of the +independent German states and not through decrees of people's +parliaments or the howlings of mobs. + +¶ As for Bismarck, he was the one man of the hour for black +situations. His schooling in human nature had progressed amazingly. +For the past ten years, at Frankfort, at St. Petersburg, at Paris, at +Vienna, Bismarck had fallen afoul of all leading political strategists +of Europe, men gloating over the problem of annexing to their private +estates the divided German thirty-nine states: Bismarck had studied +the individual line of battle of Frenchman, Russian, Italian, Dane, +Briton, to say nothing of the ambitions of princelings, counts, +deputies, margraves, prelates, poets, and political hen-coop +makers;--knew too, how at the critical moment to block their +individual games and just when to give his own deadly knockout--either +above or below the belt! + +¶ During his period of preparation, as we have seen, for twenty years +Bismarck had consistently preached "Divine-right," stood for what he +called "Christian monarchy." + +For years, also, it appeared that the thing was for Prussia to enter +into a close political union with Austria, but now Bismarck was +convinced that he must fight Austria. Fight or shake hands were the +same to the giant Otto; the thing was to win, if not in one way then +in another! Otto, after his Frankfort experiences saw clearly +Austria's under-play to dominate the political situation; and in turn +felt himself called upon to check Austrian ambition in favor of his +liege lord, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the King of Prussia. + +¶ Finally, Bismarck's great chance came. William asked Bismarck to +force the army bill. + +Now indeed will the giant rage, snapping his teeth in the face of the +hurricane,--yes, four long years he is to rule without color of law. + + + 43 + + On comes the storm--Not by speechmaking but by blood and iron + are the great questions to be decided, says Bismarck! + +¶ At least, we admit that William I was a thoroughbred Hohenzollern in +innate admiration of the iron fist! + +Now this was the situation: The secret war-chest against Austria had +to be filled in one way or another; but the difficulty was found in +the fact that the common people, acting under a mysterious instinct +not to be explained but very real withal, had already begun to show +unrest about an approaching War of the Brothers, as the +sentimentalists called the irrepressible conflict between Austria and +Prussia. The upshot was that Bismarck's political secrets while not +definitely understood in detail, were quite generally divined by close +students of the German problem. The Liberals were intent on their own +interests, in Prussia, and believed that their political solution +depended on hampering the King, regardless of his cause. Hence the +Liberal deputies of the Chamber spunkily stood out against William's +heavy demands for cannon and gunpowder. + +¶ Bismarck, as King's Minister, had to face the political storm. He +did not dare to say that he wanted the money for war; he wanted the +money--was not that enough? + +Thereupon, Bismarck proceeded to domineer over the delegates. + +The Chamber was willing to do something, but how about the rumor that +these huge appropriations are to be hereafter a permanent item in the +budget? Bismarck would not make the delegates' minds easy; he wanted +money, much money, 12,000,000 thalers in fact, for the army--and the +least the delegates could do was to vote the funds. If they did not +give the cash gracefully, why he would coerce the deputies--that was +all! + +¶ "It is not by speechifying and majorities," he thundered, "that the +great questions of the time will be decided--that was the great +mistake in '48 and in '49,--BUT BY BLOOD AND IRON." + +¶ Members of the Chamber shrank in horror. + +There were extremely powerful and learned men there, to combat +Bismarck's point of view, and our political conspirator on his +emperor-hunt had to listen to some of the most merciless rebukes he +was ever to hear, during his long and highly exciting career. But he +took them all, without a whimper. + +¶ "We have too many Catalines existing among us that have an interest +in social uprisings," Bismarck thundered. "Germany considers not the +Liberalists of Prussia, but her own power. Bavaria, Wuertemberg and +Baden may flirt with liberalism, but no German would think on that +account of asking them to assume the rôle of Prussia. Prussia must +brace herself, for the fitter moment. Prussia's borders are not +favorable to the development of a healthy state." + + * * * * * + +¶ The giant Pomeranian King's Man with his turbulent support of his +monarch, now advanced reasons to show his side, and concluded by +mocking his hearers to do their worst. + +¶ "What matter if they hang me, provided the rope binds this new +Germany more firmly to the throne?" + +¶ A few days after this sensational defiance of Democratic leaders, +Bismarck announced his decision: "We shall carry on the finances of +the state without the conditions provided for in the Constitution." + +¶ Bismarck was not surprised at the storms of protest. "Some +progressive journals hope to see me picking oakum for the benefit of +the state." The comic newspapers pictured Bismarck as a ballet dancer, +pirouetting over eggs marked Right, Law, Order, Reform, Constitution. + +¶ The King became alarmed. + +¶ "I see how this will end," said the King. "Over there, near the +opera house, in front of my windows, they will cut off your head, and +mine a little afterwards." + +¶ "And after that, sire?" asked Bismarck spunkily. + +¶ "After that, why we shall be dead!" + +¶ "Oh, well, all must die," cut in Bismarck indifferently, "and the +question is can a man die more honorably than for his country? I am +fighting for your cause, and you are sealing with your own blood your +rights as King, by the grace of God. + +¶ "Your Majesty is bound to fight! You cannot capitulate! You must, +even at the risk of bodily danger, go forth to meet any attempt at +coercion!" + +¶ As Bismarck spoke, the King grew more and more animated. "He began +to assume the part of one fighting for kingdom and fatherland," wrote +Bismarck, in explaining the situation. + + * * * * * + +¶ The giant's very soul glowed with fiery indignation. It was not in +his nature to hesitate, as to means. He wanted these 12,000,000 +thalers for the army--and was not that enough? True, he could not say +in the open that he wished to expel Austria--but must an elephant step +on your foot? + +¶ He had no scruples, moral or material; such are for lesser men. +Hamlet-questioning princes, if you please, may soliloquize on life and +its inner meaning; but not your Otto von Bismarck, with his clear +view of the little lives of men and with his correct conviction that +if the intervening thirty-nine German states are to be made a unit in +a German Empire, then under Heaven or under Hell, the thirty-nine +states must be seized, even in a hurricane of bullets if necessary. +Could anything be simpler? Had not the "German problem," as it was +called, been talked to death generation after generation, and had not +lawyers, poets, preachers, philosophers and petty princes unnumbered +come and gone with their impossible enterprises looking to National +glory and political legitimacy? + +¶ Bismarck was, as usual, everlastingly correct in his political +instincts; and furthermore he had the iron will to power to support +him in this great Prussian conflict; yes, and the wizardry in +manipulating human nature that, in the end, would cause even +obstinate, opposed political leaders to do our giant's bidding. + +¶ What he demanded was absolute, blind, unquestioning obedience from +this Assembly; then, the Prussian army must fight like fiends; and +lastly, he would take personal responsibility for the issue. Mahommet +himself never urged war on Christian dogs with more zeal than did this +fiery Bismarck, battling with his own German kind. To shame them, to +beat them over their backs with hot irons if necessary--anything would +he do to force Prussia to fight Austria, and arouse thus with a sense +of blood-brotherhood the thirty-nine states, for Germany's great +glory. This was his religion--and do you now get the man behind it? + +¶ Of course, it was all cleverly masked under the plea of Prussian +army reforms, pure and simple, and in general the fight between +Bismarck and the Chamber seemed to turn on the right of a Minister to +force appropriations for the support of the government, regardless of +parliamentary unwillingness. Bismarck held to his general principle +that the Deputies had no authority to refuse the King funds to enlarge +the army. The deputies were pledged to support the government, not to +starve or ignore it, was Bismarck's contention. + +¶ The Liberals raged and stormed, called him "demented Bismarck," +"Napoleon worshiper," "hollow braggart," "a country gentleman of +moderate political training, inconsistent, nonchalant, insolent to a +degree;--pray when did Bismarck ever express a political thought?" + +King William's choice was exceedingly unpopular, but between Von Roon +and Bismarck there was now to be set up the most efficient military +instrument known to history; that is to say, an all-powerful Prussian +army of gigantic proportions, armed with the newly-invented +needle-guns. Such was to be Von Roon's contribution. Bismarck's was to +arouse at home the slumbering great "German National sentiment" that +made failure impossible, at the front. Under God, Bismarck believed in +the justness of his cause. + +¶ In the interim, before the first cannon was to roar, Bismarck, the +political wizard, was to tie the hands of every other European +monarch--either by bribes, idle promises or what you will--that the +war might be fought to a finish without hazard of Allies coming to the +rescue of the Emperor on the South. + + * * * * * + +¶ The parliamentary debaters who thundered against Bismarck came on +with all manner of attacks. The learned v. Sybel, the great authority +on the French revolution, cried out his many historical warnings; Dr. +Virchow, known for his work on skeletons of the mammoth, battled along +other historical lines; Dr. Gneist, the very learned member, exclaimed +in a burst of moral indignation, "This army reorganization of yours +has the marks of Cain on its brow!" And to this insulting speech, von +Roon immediately replied, "That speech of yours bears the stamp of +arrogance and impudence!" Virchow challenged Bismarck to a duel, for +defamatory remarks on the doctor's scientific attainments. To this +Bismarck replied: + +¶ "I am past the time of life when one takes advice from flesh and +blood, in such things as now confront us. When I stake my life for a +matter, I do so in that faith which I have strengthened by long and +severe struggling--but also in honest and humble prayer to God, a +faith which no word of man, even that of friend in Christ and servant +of his church, can overthrow!" + +¶ Magnificent, magnificent you are, at this supreme moment, you big +bull-dog Bismarck, and you can whip them three to one, when the great +day comes. + +¶ Bismarck gained in power as he exercised his strength. He kept +Prussia steady during the perilous times of the Crimean war; even +urged an alliance with the French--think of that!--to gain secret ends +for Prussia; but the Prussian king, who hated rulers of revolutionary +origin, was opposed to Bismarck's master-scheme; that is to say, +William held in contempt Napoleon III, hero of the trick, known as the +coup d'etat, which won a crown. But Bismarck had no such scruples. + +At St. Petersburg, Bismarck won the Czar--for which the liberals hated +Otto the more. His arts of diplomacy were expanding in all directions. + +Foreshadowing the war with Austria, Bismarck planned to keep Italy, +France, Russia, England and Belgium quiet by various intrigues of +politics--and how well he succeeded we shall learn later on. + + + 44 + + The storm increases--Bismarck decides to defy the Chamber and + rule alone! + +¶ In the general turmoil, along comes a fanatic named Cohen, who +attempts to kill Bismarck. + +This was in May, 1866. The war broke within thirty days! Cohen fired +point-blank three shots, and there was a personal struggle. The giant +coolly handed the would-be murderer over to the guards, then went +home. His greeting to his wife was characteristic. "They have tried +even to kill me, my dear, but do not mind, no harm has been done. Let +us go out to dinner." + +It was a time of assassins and their plots follow. Struck down by the +police, Ferd Cohen, step-son of Karl Blind, meets in the eyes of the +Democrats a martyr's death; his body is crowned with flowers, as +though the corpse were a consecration of Prussian Liberalism on the +altar of liberty. + +The frenzy takes still other forms; suicide cults become notorious; +here and there, we read that some lunatic patriot "seeks voluntary +death, for the sacred cause of the people." + +¶ And as for Cohen, ladies of high degree bring flowers, soldiers of +the common cause wear on their coats his picture crowned with oak +leaves. The cult of murder, with Bismarck as the arch enemy in the +centre of the picture, was indulged to prevent what was termed the War +of the Brothers. + +¶ "I believe," rumbled the granite rock Bismarck, with frowning clouds +around his brow, "I do solemnly believe in victory--whether or not I +shall live to see it!" This speech was regarded as little short of +blasphemy! + +¶ Bismarck now spoke more than ever of God, and of high German +convictions. There was always grave danger of ingratitude, of +insufficiency of time and place, but he certainly thought God on his +side. + +¶ What lashed Bismarck into fury was the contention that the Crown and +the two Chambers were equal, in political legitimacy. + +¶ "All constitutional life," roared Bismarck, "is based on +constitutional compromises." + + * * * * * + +¶ Day after day, Bismarck, the Prussian bull-dog, and von Roon, the +terrifying drill-master, would appear at the Chamber, on the oak bench +in full view of the angry deputies. Time and again, through political +jugglery, angry members attempted to oust the Minister, but Bismarck +was equal to every occasion. He actually ruled for four years without +a legal budget. He conceded that point, too. He set up that it was his +solemn sworn duty to support his King, and since the Chamber refused +to vote the 12,000,000 thalers, why, it became the Minister's duty to +get the money, by fair means or by foul. + +¶ And get it, he did! + +It was all wretchedly unconstitutional--of this there is no doubt. +Bismarck never made any pretenses on that score. After the Austrian +war, an act of "immunity" was passed, in his behalf. + +¶ From quarreling about the secret war-chest, the disputants next +began a mighty wrangling about rules. Bismarck's points were always +ingenious. He averred that, as King's Minister, he was "in" the +parliament but not "of" it. "Ministers must always be listened to with +respect," he contended. Thus, he forced the unwilling Radicals to +listen to his bellowing, in behalf of the Brothers' War. + +¶ Bismarck construed in his own favor every blessed rule brought up to +oust him. The Minister was exempt from the Chamber's dominations, he +insisted in a hundred ways. + +Violent scenes followed. The King sent long messages endorsing his +fighting man; the Liberal press took up the cry, in support of +Parliament; and thereupon Bismarck promptly muzzled the press. + +¶ Our Otto is now becoming the best-hated man not only in Prussia but +in all Europe. + +The deputies were brow-beaten, legislative officials intimidated with +threats. + +¶ The climax came on that day of hubbub when angry members, swarming +around Bismarck and von Roon, were sent back by von Roon's thunderous +defiance. Pointing to the gangway before his bench, he hissed, "Thus +far and no farther!" + +¶ The real reason why Bismarck fought the Chamber for four long years +so desperately for the 12,000,000 thalers, to be used against Austria, +was this: On one hand he wished to nullify the importance of the +Prussian Parliament, and especially in the matter of dictation to the +King, either under the Constitution or not; also, to thrust at the +same time, Austria out of the German body of the nation. + +¶ He became a fanatic on the subject of expelling Austria from +Germany! He had no scruples, stopped at nothing, paused at nothing; +and at the right moment defied the Chamber, smashed the Prussian +Constitution that would restrain the King's action in peace or +war--and ruled alone! + +¶ There are few parallels in history of a stronger man. + +¶ Looked at in a large way, we are forced to conclude that the German +masses were not ready to believe, at this moment, in Bismarck's Old +Testament faith in a God of Battles. To fulfil the Bismarckian +political ideal, there was essential an implied humility on part of +the people; and this attitude of submission and renunciation was a sin +against the spirit of '48. Bismarck's idea of political efficiency was +also by no means worked out in detail; it had yet to find a place for +the tailor, the shoemaker and the barber, side by side with the King +of Prussia; even that miracle was ultimately accomplished, but at the +present hour the street-bred people felt it their solemn duty to get +up and howl, and to profess to know nothing of political efficiency, +wherever kings were concerned. + +¶ At all times, the speeches of the crowd in the market-place were +blatant enough, but there was also an unrecognized undercurrent of +courage and patriotism passing with the flood that was to mean much to +Germany, in days to come. The cause of the crowd was really an early +form of our vital modernist democratic movement, not to be put down +nor yet shut out; all political life was to be revalued, also all new +ideas of political happiness were to be henceforth tested by their +virility and actuality, cutting away completely bookish ideals. + +¶ The part that lagged was this: leaders of the people were soon +over-engaged, so to say, with the many-sided aspects and problems of +the new political leadership; the German compatriots failed at this +time to realize their obligations to a German Empire, to be; the +people's politicians were still insular with little or no +consciousness of the great German National destiny just around the +bend of the road. Thus, Bismarck's function was to force the people to +join the National movement--do so as it were in spite of themselves; +and when Bismarck fought back and called the people fools, he did not +pause there, but stopped at nothing to lead a hitherto indifferent +people to warlike patriotism over the Austrian question--over which +they had gabbled and slept for years. Bismarck's unity of purpose for +the Fatherland deftly combined sordid as well as exalted motives. + +¶ And the demands Bismarck finally made on German character were not +in vain. For years, however, he was looked upon as an ogre in the eyes +of the masses, who misread his patriotism for jingoism in behalf of +the King of Prussia. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + The Dream of Empire + + + 45 + + Bismarck tricks them all--and by under-play matches King + against King. + +¶ Von Roon had the soldiers up at 4 o'clock in the morning, +incessantly drilling for the oncoming War of the Brothers. The deadly +needle-guns--von Roon's secret--were relied on to do superior work in +the impending great crisis. + +¶ Blood and iron--yes, that is the thing! + +¶ About this time, Bismarck executes another master-stroke. He decides +to intervene in Poland, in favor of Russia; and certainly he has now +to face a "word of wrath." + +England sets up a cry, "Stop thief!" Exeter Hall statesmen, +"brotherhood of man" type, begin tearful whinings. + +¶ Louis Napoleon tries to form an alliance between England and +Austria, and England offers gold for a copy of the Russo-Prussian +agreement, affecting Poland. Spies were everywhere. + +¶ Well, 10,000 Poles perish in the sacred cause of liberty, but mark: +That in helping Russia Bismarck is laying the foundation for Russia's +neutrality in the coming master-stroke against Austria. What do the +lives of 10,000 Poles weigh in the balance beside the great strategic +necessities to encompass Bismarck's idea of a United Germany? We do +believe that Bismarck has the only practical solution, let nominal +Christians say what they will. + +¶ The next step, to bribe France, is brought about craftily, through a +customs' arrangement; and when some of the German states object, +Bismarck replies: "You go my way or go your own way, alone!" + +Also, Italy has to be quieted by soothing promises! + +¶ Austria now sets up more wind-baggery and gold lace, in the form of +a new parliament, but Bismarck counters with a "proposed German +parliament"--a spurious affair to be sure, but the scare has its +weight. + +¶ Dark and intricate diplomacy here passes before the eyes. Austria +fails in her Congress of Sovereigns, and is anxious likewise to +retrieve her losses in the Italian war. Bismarck at least knows that +Austria henceforth is powerless to inflame German states against +Prussia, also that the growth of Liberalism, within Austria's own +domains, is again keeping her very busy. + +¶ Cast your eyes toward Paris. Louis the Little is secretly plotting +with both sides--Bismarck's spies tell all to the old man up in +Berlin! Secretly, Louis feels that Prussia will be defeated; the +French Emperor aims at what he calls the balance of power--by which he +means that while the two big dogs are fighting, he will slip in and +steal the bone? Exactly that! + +¶ Many years later, Bismarck writing of this period, makes this +confession: + +¶ "Napoleon secretly thought that if Austria and Prussia clashed, +Austria would win and then France would step in and 'protect' Prussia; +later on, in return for the price of her French favor, Napoleon III +believed he could make such terms as he wished with our Prussia." + +¶ Thus, up to the decisive battle of Sadowa, or Koeniggraetz, France +remains politely bowing and scraping to both sides--while having her +understanding with each side. + +Napoleon feels that he will in time be asked to intervene, and for his +help he will take a slice of the Rhineland. + +Bismarck did not undeceive France--mark that well! Later in life, the +Man of Blood and Iron, taunted with the charge of attempting to give +away German territory, made a strong "diplomatic" defense. He +fearlessly produced the draft of a proposed treaty showing that France +was conniving to acquire Belgium, through the under-play of politics, +aided by Bismarck. + +The amusing part was Bismarck's solemn reply, "The treaty was drawn up +by Napoleon himself, and was offered to me for signature!" + +Also, to show that he is disinterested, Napoleon now proposes that the +"differences" between Prussia and Austria be settled by a European +congress. Austria hangs back, although England and Russia join to ask +for the Congress of Settlement. + + + 46 + + 1864-1866--Prussian domination essential in all Bismarck's + plans--Consistent in his inconsistencies. + +¶ The difficulties of Bismarck's position are not to be ascribed to +the fact that, first and foremost, he desired to re-establish +confidence in the Feudal theory of Divine-right of kings. His +life-long plans had to do with increasing the power of Prussia and he +preached the legitimacy of his loyal master's house as an American +politician is wont to eulogize the services of the "grand old +Republican party," or "the great principles of Jefferson," or boasts +that he is "progressive and independent," whatever that may mean. + +In each case, the appeal is to a given audience, with the hope of +adding to the following. + +¶ The logic of hereditary influences placed Bismarck squarely in line +as King's Man; and to his credit be it said that he consistently +preached one gospel throughout his long political life. + +But his alignment with kings was more than mere opportunism, as too +often is the case in America, among the "people's" leaders. + +Bismarck honestly believed that the logic of events precluded any +change in rulership over the Prussian people; and in his larger view +Prussian domination must eventually spread over the German states, +uniting them in one country--as they were already united by blood and +by languages. + +¶ That he battled with Austria, the rival for the good will of the +German states, is easily explained. It is not human nature for any +man to yield what to him promises to turn out an advantage. + +That the sovereigns of Prussia held their crown upon the principle of +Divine-right, was construed also to impose obligations; and it was +part of the theory that the King and his advisers must see to it that +the land is used for the common good. The King of Prussia swore to +"Divine-right to the soil; swore to defend it; swore to improve it, +for the benefit of all." + +¶ Furthermore, the old-time German political idealism in which brother +was supposed to shake hands with brother, sung by the poet Arndt, in +his romantic semi-religious lyrics of liberty, was through the recent +German revolution (1848) replaced by a new type of positivist German, +intent on money-success, business affairs, economic achievements. + +The century-long dreams of National unity based on idealistic +speeches, poetry, romantic phrase-mongering, was now slowly to yield +to a new spirit; and believers in German Unity came to see that +Prussian supremacy held all there was, in a practical way, of possible +German centralization. Bismarck certainly saw it very clearly and +acted accordingly in his future political appeals and alignments. + +¶ Prussia had early led in the practical business of clearing the +Chinese-walls that had bound many of the petty states; the Zollverein +or customs' union, begun in 1818, as heretofore explained, grew in +power with the extension of Prussian railroads and telegraphs; the +Prussian capitalistic middle-classes, intent on building up the family +fortunes, had prospered in proportion as the customs' union had been +extended, under Prussian domination; and accordingly in 1849 Bismarck, +as soon as Prussia had been placed herself at the head of this +Business Union, began scheming as never before to win German Unity +through economic as well as patriotic arguments. + +For one thing, Bismarck henceforth studied to put himself on even +terms with the commercial interests in the 39 jealous states. The +leaders of Liberalism were, as a rule, men of theoretical rather than +practical ideas; essentially a cultured élite, as it were, engaged in +babbling about German Constitutions, German fraternal alignments and +impossible German peace-parliaments. + +¶ True, the good faith of patriots opposed to Bismarck is undisputed; +but the King's Man was a man with an exceedingly strong will and with +immense practical common sense to support his own ideas; a man who to +bring about his beneficent plan of German Unity followed his flag even +through three great wars. + +This will of iron was exercised for the National good; and on the +whole exercised wisely. He went on with his schemings for many years, +from day to day making the best use of the material at hand; with +well-nigh infallible instinct seizing on the very forces that were +essential in years to come to the realization of his ultimate dream. + +¶ Little by little he set aside the professorial class, and the +cultured élite politicians, and the theoretical constitution-makers; +in their places he brought forward hard-headed middle-class +capitalists, on one side, and the supreme military and landed Prussian +aristocracy, on the other side; and after overcoming gigantic +obstacles made clear to the average German peasant that both wealth +and authority were to be properly sustained in the old thorough-going +German fashion only by having no more to do with semi-spiritual, +politico-idealistic aims and purposes; also, that through Bismarck's +proposed new type of Unity the peasant on one side and the King on the +other could rise to even higher worldly positions without setting +aside safe old lines of respect for authority through a Divine-right +king, at the same time sharing the royal power with a great and +essentially democratic public opinion. Thus, Bismarck's German +National enterprise, although not thoroughly understood for many +years, was found at last to support in every particular the ancient +German tradition of a strong fighting man, as leader of a free people. + + * * * * * + +¶ That Bismarck was proud and old-fashioned he made his boast, his +joy, his strength. + +Opponents held him up to obloquy, picturing his ideas as prehistoric, +even antediluvian; but Bismarck stood the prick of honor; as King's +Man he insisted in numberless arguments, far and wide, that behind the +Divine-right idea was not only a sentimental but a practical side. At +any rate, the King's Man was everlastingly against any movement that +looked like French mob-rule. + +¶ As time passed, Bismarck learned gradually that he need not hesitate +to throw himself fearlessly forward, with this Divine-right as a +leverage, to express the legitimacy of the royal house for which he +battled. + +In the final analysis he was secretly fortified by his instinctive +knowledge of the peculiar political idiosyncrasies of Prussians; how +dog-like in the final analysis is their submission to the political +conception of the Over-man who rules by Divine-right. + + * * * * * + +¶ It was to this National faith that Bismarck was constantly +addressing himself--this loyalty to a paternalistic idea--and his +attitude was much the same as that of the Chinese in their worship of +ancestors, or of an American who preserves his family record. + +Bismarck was urging family unity among quarreling German sons and +daughters; and as is the case in all family feuds, the intrinsic +merits of the controversy were often overlooked and the time taken in +an endeavor to inflict personal humiliations. + +¶ Bismarck was essentially appealing to National honor, which he +placed higher than absolutism or republicanism, tyranny or democracy. +By National honor, he meant the German conception of an over-lord for +a ruler, preferably one with a strong military record. + +Herein, we touch the core of Bismarck's strength, the measure of his +greatness. + +When a man fights, on honor, for institutions which his forefathers +slowly fostered and sustained through six hundred years of strife, the +question of his rights or his wrongs is merged into the larger +question of chivalry. + +¶ If there were no other gift which might be set up to justify for +Bismarck a commanding position among the world's great figures, his +conception of National honor, based on powerful personal convictions, +his inheritance, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh--utterly apart +from the French mob-rule idea of liberty expressed in license--Bismarck's +plea for the National honor of Prussia, as the custodian of ancient +German traditions, suffices to stamp Bismarck as the true custodian of +German political tradition of his age. + +¶ To this might reasonably be added another claim which in our broad +view of Bismarck's character we here demand for him as one of the +world's great men--courage of the bull-dog type, not altogether +unselfish, but courage and remarkable consistency; standing the acid +test of self-sacrifice during thirty-odd years' vexatious delays in +attaining his goal; a period of probation certainly long enough to try +the stoutest heart. + +¶ With qualities of this supreme order, far outside average human +nature, Bismarck at last prepared himself to win his surprising fight +for a United Germany; incidentally stamping himself, his power and his +purpose high among the great Germans of all time, from Charlemagne +down. + + * * * * * + +¶ To understand these ideas, let us for the moment look forward as +well as backward. Let us speak in general terms, along the lines of +the realistic politics, that Bismarck was maturing, as against the +old-time German sentimental idealism, once the political hope of +Unity. + + + 47 + + Bismarck's whole message turns on the urgency of faith among + the German people; his idea, that United Germany must be + achieved by faith, alone! + +¶ Bismarck had the well-nigh impossible task of organizing and +inspiring a common political faith in 25,000,000 people, divided by +religious, climatic and personal differences. That at times he utterly +failed to meet the situation except by political hypocrisy, is merely +to say that in addition to being a warrior and ultimately the +conqueror of a continent, he always kept within hailing distance of +human nature; for when he could not win his way with a kiss, he gained +it with a curse. + +¶ In the final analysis he won, largely because of stirring faith in +the German states. + +With faith, what can a nation not do: If the United States, today, had +deathless belief in the destiny of the Republic that Americans +emphasize in their worship of the Golden Calf, a bloodless revolution +for a higher standard of political thought would take place over +night. + +The difficulty is that with the average American National faith is +dead. + +He has come to the conclusion that he has no stake in the Government, +that in short he is a victim to the machinations of plutocrats. + +To read the American point of view, (1915) we, today, no less than the +Prussians and the Austrians, in Bismarck's time, are also about to +spring at each other's throats! There is little sentiment for National +unity; it is the East against the West, in Congress, and in the +newspapers it is the people against the plutocrats. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck's career affords a classical instance, in these poor times, +of what a strong man, with faith in himself and his cause, can do +against all manner of obstacles. + +Faith in himself was the essence of his power. Over and over, he made +clear that he regarded himself in God's hands, doing God's work, but +on what specific evidence he based this profound conclusion no human +being knows beyond Bismarck's own assertion. However, that power urged +him on. Naturally, in turn, the fire kindled by faith in himself at +last stimulated faith in a people, numbering some twenty-five +millions; a people who in the main had up to this time been political +atheists to Bismarck's dogma of a United Germany. This idea of faith +is a fact of such vast import that we dare not pass it lightly by. + + * * * * * + +¶ By an almighty wave of faith in themselves the German people ceased +playing the political craven; came out boldly for what they hold to be +their too long deferred birthright! + +Here, the mental attitude of the German people passes beyond the +dogmas of politics or social intercourse whatsoever; it merges into a +mysterious world of reality, close and near yet baffling to describe; +expressing itself in an invincible National faith, now about to burst +forth, at last, and sweep all before it! + +¶ This mental phenomenon exists in various forms, but the animating +impulse is ever the same. + +The hymn-singing of Charles and John Wesley, whose appeals to +religious emotionalism filled the fields of England with tens of +thousands of weeping, shouting men and women, vastly excited as to the +state of their souls, is a type of faith beginning in a small way and +attaining National proportions. No historian could write adequately +the history of England without crediting great changes to the work of +the Wesley psalm-singers; women tearing off their jewels; men rising +in the multitude and calling on God to witness that henceforth their +lives would be pure and unsullied by sin; while under the excitement +murderers came forward and confessed crimes known only to themselves. + +¶ Oh, this German National faith that Frederick the Great so +gloriously began; that Louise fostered and sustained; that the poet +Arndt set to hymns; that the great von Humboldt in his own peculiar +way saw from afar; that the German students apostrophied; that William +III figured to himself in his church-building; that von Stein +discerned vaguely; that William I emphasized in his cold-blooded, +clear-eyed manner of the soldier; that von Sybel fought for; that +scores, nay, hundreds and thousands of noble men and women, utterly +apart from political chicanery, did indeed long for with all the +fervor of their earnest God-fearing German nature; Bismarck stands in +the centre, here and now! + +¶ It is true that he is not as yet accepted, but he is biding his +time; he is looked on with suspicion, but he fronts the scorn of the +rabble, in the end to beat the doubters into submission, against their +own will. + +¶ This newly awakened German National faith was really a very old +German faith that had never died, although for years forgotten; the +longing for the Fatherland was always there. + +¶ Through love of home, through worship of ancestry and through +respect for constituted authority in church and state, that is by +"German national faith," Bismarck touched the chord that made his +life-work possible. The stimulus of three great wars, presented by +Bismarck as sanctified by God, finally did the business. + +¶ He knew that in all Germans is a certain generosity of character +which when appealed to in the right way made them eager to take the +chance of death on the battlefield. + +¶ Bismarck played the positive as well as the negative side of this +psychological fact. On the negative side, he stirred men with the idea +that social ostracism rests on the man who in times of National danger +tries to avoid the draft. + +¶ Bismarck's work thus shows him to be the great constructive poet of +his time. He placed war before his fellow man in such a way that it +was held a sweet privilege to die for one's land, which interpreted +means Bismarck's idea of a new territorial arrangement of the map of +Europe. + +¶ There was race prejudice behind his deeper plans. He made much of +the fact that within a given area the German language was spoken, +whereas while there were millions of German-speaking people in Austria +there were also Slavs, Czechs, Bohemians and mongrel races. + +¶ The idea of brotherhood based on blood and language finally +prevailed over the idea of the confraternity of races. Make as much +out of this as you will, but the basic fact is incontestible. + +¶ Some 80,000 men perished to sustain Bismarck's peculiar conception +of United Germany. Through the turmoil and misery of these three wars +he had his way, and being at last successful, he suddenly became the +most popular man in Europe, idolized by the millions who a little +while before had reviled his name as the enemy of the Democrats. + +¶ Such is human nature. + + * * * * * + +¶ Perhaps, after all, German National faith is only another name for +the tremendous earnestness that set the whole land ablaze with +singleness of purpose, consecrated to a high cause. + +Bismarck in a very real sense because of faith in himself and in his +ultimate cause, directed this National faith in the Fatherland and won +thereby a magnificent United Germany. If we do not grasp the +significance of this unseen but gigantic National German faith, as +expressed in the increasing unity of will of the whole people, harked +on by Prussia, we might as well close the book on Bismarck--and know +him not. + + * * * * * + +¶ To comprehend, somewhat, the firm roots of racial strength, as +expressed by German National faith, let us for the moment pass from +the 1840's, '50's and '60's, which we are now endeavoring to present +with their psychological message of faith, and turn our eyes to the +year 1914, when Germany and Austria, no longer enemies, now battle +side by side, against armed forces of the world--British, Russian, +Italian, Servian, French, Australian, East Indian, African, Belgian, +Canadian, and Japanese! + +The sustaining spirit in this life-and-death struggle, as in the wars +that made Germany an empire, is bulwarked on German National faith. + +¶ For Germans are no longer soft-hearted heroes of lyrical poetry, as +depicted by Arndt! They are men of blood and iron. + +¶ Bismarck's mother threw her wedding ring into the public melting pot +for the benefit of the War Fund of 1813 and received in exchange a +ring of iron; and thousands of German women did the same; and +Bismarck's wife exchanged her gold ring for one of iron, for the War +Fund of '66. Tens of thousands of German women did likewise, not only +in Germany, but in foreign lands, wherever hearts beat for the +Fatherland. + +They did it in 1813, and in 1864, and in 1866, and in 1870;--and again +in 1914! + +¶ For example, in the great war of 1914, Baroness von Ropp, +granddaughter of Geo. Ebers, Germany's most foremost woman novelist, +cries out for her country in the accents of true German nationality, +the self-same spirit which Arndt stimulated in days of French and +Austrian domination. And since it is this elusive spirit that we are +endeavoring to bring home to you, in grasping the higher significance +of Bismarck's work, and its true inner meaning, we quote freely from a +private letter penned by the Baroness, from Magdeburg, August, 1914. + +Ilse Hahn-Ropp did not write for publication, and therefore her words +have the more weight. + +¶ "On the first day of mobilization I traveled to Magdeburg to say +farewell to my husband, who was leaving for France. I had three hours; +then I had to take the last train out of town. From that time only +military trains were running. Shall I ever forget that ride? It was as +though we were living in another world. People were standing in the +cars closely packed together; but not a word of complaint. Each one +felt he was no longer an individual--but a German! Rich and poor, +nobles and peasants, talked together as brothers. Each had the deep +conviction that this war had been forced upon us, and that every one +must throw his whole strength into the scales, for victory. + +¶ "Ceaselessly, military trains roll by, crowded with soldiers in gala +uniforms, burning to reach the enemy. I hear them all night long from +my parents' home--those wheels rolling, rolling westward; no hurry, no +confusion; the mighty machine moves majestically on its way. Show us +another nation which could duplicate that spectacle! + +¶ "And then, from a thousand throats, rose 'Die Wacht am Rhein.' It +was overpowering--irresistible. This mighty anthem, from the lips of +soldiers going out to battle! + +¶ "It was thus that both my brothers left us. I shall never, never +forget. Every one gives his all gladly. I could not keep my husband +with me, although exempt through his profession from military duty. He +went as a volunteer, and I would not have held him if I could, though +you can guess the cost of that parting! + +¶ "One hears not a single complaint from the women of the Fatherland. +We are all too thoroughly roused over the insults offered our loved +country. Working each waiting moment for our wounded--for our +soldiers--we have no time for tears. + +¶ "We will not give in until all are defeated, even though we women +should have to take up the sword to defend the Fatherland. Were it not +for my baby daughter I should be with my husband, as a nurse. + +¶ "You cannot picture how great, how noble, how grave this time is. +Human nature is transfigured. Individual fate is lost, in the fate of +the Nation. + +¶ "I am at home with my parents. Scarcely a year has passed since my +happy, peaceful wedding day. And now my home is bare and desolate, and +I am again the daughter of my father--I can write no more. My feelings +are stifling me. The bells are ringing a new victory. Unfurl the +black-white-red banner. Always lovingly yours, + + ILSE." + +A postscript reads: + +"Oct. 6.--For six weeks I have been trying to send this letter--in +vain. In the meantime both my brothers have died fighting for the +Fatherland. My husband still lives, but--we must, we shall and must +win!" + + + 48 + + Bismarck balances between tempestuous outbursts and inscrutable + silence; biding his time in the great game of German Unity. + +¶ In the gigantic project of creating an Empire for a king who +solemnly protested that he was directly accountable to God for the +throne, "and would never consent to have so much as a sheet of paper +(constitution) between my people and my Maker." Bismarck was under +tremendous nervous pressure for years; and he meant that his political +secrets for United Germany should not become too early known. Not only +were the people as yet unwilling to help, but Austria was watching +with jealous eyes the possibility of plunder for herself;--for where +the carrion is there will the vultures wheel. + +¶ Bismarck's ambition bit him by day and by night, and there was for +him no rest; he required a continent to turn 'round in, and nothing +less would suffice. It was now only a question of waiting for the +psychological moment to electrify the inert mass of the people to +rally to his cause. + +¶ Naturally you ask, "Was this Bismarck then a beast?" Not at all. He +was merely a human being who wanted a continent to turn around in. + +In the gigantic project, Bismarck was exercising his own peculiar +gifts in his own way--for none stood ready to give him what he wanted, +without fighting for it--even as you or I lay out lesser plans to beg, +or coax, or force the world to give us not what we think we need but +what we are strong enough to obtain. + +¶ In this attitude, Bismarck needs neither apology nor defense--for, +after all, he is Bismarck. + +Through thirty-odd years of din and roar and battle largely of his own +making Bismarck knew neither rest nor peace; returning again and again +to the attack and wearing down his enemies by the sheer brute force of +courage. His idea was United Germany, through Prussian military power; +at the same time, Prussia must hold her dynastic over-lordship, and +must yield it finally only in a territorial German Empire. + + * * * * * + +¶ Unquestionably there was, incidentally, a large element of injustice +in his plans and purposes, but what of it? Is there not such in your +own life, and do you know any man whose career is not based on +injustice either in some coarse, obvious or in some subtle way? + +The world belongs only to those who do battle, and there is absolutely +no chance for the man who will not fight! + +All government is based on some form of injustice, all land tenure is +stained with the sword, all "putting up" of one family, or individual, +is based on "taking" something from some other family or individual. + +Nor am I excepting the conquests of love itself, from time immemorial +presented as a token of man's romantic, softer side. For, if the hero +does not "save" the heroine from the villain, to take her for himself, +then for whom does he save her? + +¶ The Bismarck struggle and the Bismarck triumph are as old as +history--and as new as the career of the man of today who has achieved +his heart's desire. + +The empire-maker Bismarck had his way because he was strong enough to +have his way, and while cruelties in various forms, for the ends of +statecraft, coexisted in him with many fine qualities, after all that +simply means that he was a human being with impulses of various +kinds--good and less good--in one heart. It is also an undeniable fact +that as late as 1862 Bismarck was by the common crowd in Prussia hated +and feared, regarded as Germany's ogre of disaster. + + * * * * * + +¶ Here then is the whole thing in a nutshell: His strong conservative, +not to say reactionary, sentiments did not blind him to the fact that +he could do nothing without the "people," whom politically he ignored +in so far as their fitness for constructive government was concerned; +but it was the "people," and the "people" only, who could bring United +Germany. + +He realized the present impracticability of such a Union as he had in +mind for his master, the King of Prussia; that to urge it too soon +would simply bring a new revolution, and God knows there had been +enough blood-letting for the sake of power in and around Prussia for +lo! these one hundred years gone by. + + * * * * * + +¶ The only thing for him to do, then, was to keep his ambition to +himself and his own crowd, and to bide his time to strike--for time +makes all things right for him who can wait. + +And at waiting and at concealing Bismarck was past master. While +usually figured as a blunt, bold, tyrannical man, there was also a +side of inscrutable reticence. + +¶ Thus finally between outbursts of temper in which he attacked his +enemies with the power of a battleship in action, followed by periods +of silence after the storm, Bismarck remained master of the diplomatic +situation, playing his waiting game. + +¶ And did his stern face never break into an ironical smile? Did he +never betray himself? + +It was impossible to preserve his great political secret from the +intuitions of other and lesser minds. + + * * * * * + +¶ You see, men have various ways of getting their will. Some fight, +others play, still others threaten suicide if the money is not +forthcoming. It is all a matter of temperament and peculiar style of +doing battle. + +With some, a curse will bring what a kiss will not; with others a club +is more useful than a loving word. With Bismarck, the first instinct +was to do battle by fire and sword, and this explains why his career +is filled with broken wine bottles, fist cuffs, sword thrusts, and his +"sic 'em!" to the big dogs that trailed around with him. + +¶ Once, during the crisis of which we now write, on going into a +saloon for a glass of beer, some table talk on politics offended him. +He ordered the man to stop, then and there, "or I will smash a beer +glass over your head!" + +The man went on talking; Bismarck drank, turned around and said, "That +for you!" smashed the tankard on the offending head, and coolly walked +out! + + + + + BOOK THE FIFTH + + The German People Are One and United + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + Windrows of Corpses + + + 49 + + He is no longer the roaring delegate of the "White Saloon," but + has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity + of a saint. + +¶ Fight, fight, fight! Nothing but fight! And all this trying time, +Bismarck suffered excruciating pains from his old rheumatic complaint. + +He was irritable, melancholy and jaundiced; sat up all night +half-buried in his mounds of state papers; dictating telegrams, +quarreling with callers, denouncing, adjusting, scheming; four o'clock +found him in bed; he tossed about till seven, when he managed to get +to sleep; and was not seen again till late in the afternoon. The +situation was getting on the master's nerves. + +¶ Enemies in the house of his friends spied on Bismarck, endeavored to +poison the King against the doughty Minister. The Crown Prince, +especially, who always had an aversion to Bismarck, despite the +war-dog's inestimable services to the House of Hohenzollern, now tried +to pull the Pomeranian giant down. + +To this end, the Prince dissassociated himself from Bismarck's policy, +avoided the great man at court. The situation passed rapidly from +political to social objections on part of the Prince, who spread +before the King the ruin of Hohenzollern if Bismarckian policies were +longer pursued. + +¶ But the King would not give Bismarck up. In this regard, William was +as cold as ice. He saw that should Bismarck be asked to go, at that +time, the Liberals would be irresistibly strengthened. The recoil of +the mighty wave against kingcraft might even end by forcing abdication +for the Prussian monarch. + +¶ Instead of fearing the Liberal leaders, Bismarck despised their +plots. The master knew enough of human nature to see clearly one great +central fact. The fire-breathing Democrats would, at the hour of +Prussia's peril, join with the hated system of Bismarck and march to +glory. In defense of Prussia, Liberals, Socialists and political +nonconformists of every description, would be carried off their feet. +Then, Bismarck would be able to call on his very enemies to come +forward and help him win the day. + +¶ And the old man, as usual, was absolutely correct. In the hour of +danger how the Prussian Liberals fought! Like fiends they stood, took +the murderous fire and went to their death singing, "I am a Prussian, +will a Prussian be!" + + * * * * * + +¶ The opportunity to test German National faith first came through the +Holstein war, precipitated by Bismarck's clever manipulation of +events. + +¶ As well ask from what quarters of the globe the hurricane came which +last night tore up the old oak tree. You can read a dozen fat volumes +on the Holstein problem, and still you will not be convinced. +Schleswig-Holsteiners in their rock-grit lands on the North Sea had +their political troubles about the right of succession, and that sort +of thing; the spit of land up there was aflame with war talk. + +¶ The Germans, as a people, wished Schleswig attached as a +principality of the German Confederation, but Bismarck's secret plan +was to seize the territory for the gain of Prussia, a clean political +theft of a huge estate. By pushing the Danes out of the Frankfort +Diet--that antiquated political stuffed-club of Austria--the Emperor +of the South would also be forced out of German affairs. In a few +words, that was the play. + +¶ Opposition? Why, Bismarck lived by opposition, grew fat on +opposition. He is no longer the old roaring delegate of the "White +Saloon," in his blossom time. He has developed the astuteness of the +devil, the open sincerity of a saint. As a matter of fact, he now +invited Austria "to co-operate," in settling the complex Danish +question; and the unsuspecting Emperor of the South, who was also +playing a deep game of his own, decided to take a hand. + +¶ Throughout his long career, Bismarck was everlastingly trading in +political advantages. Often there was a large element of imagination +in his promises to pay, but he gained his point in the Holstein +problem. He had to face: Dissension between the Prussian Chamber and +the Government; the feeling in rival German states; the general +distrust of Prussia and the hostility of Austria; finally, the +jealousy of other powers. + +¶ Volumes have been written, learned decisions handed down on the +complex rights of the warring houses of Schleswig-Holstein. There were +mountains of precedents on this side or that, as you pleased. +Bismarck's plan was to annex the domain to Prussia and seize the +harbor of Kiel, with all the accrued advantages to the Prussian +monarch; and while the talk went on Bismarck manoeuvered to enlist +his old enemy, Austria, to make common cause in a clear way of +plunder, if ever there was one. Then, they swept the country with fire +and sword, took it by the "divine right" of the strongest; and it fell +out that Bismarck stacked the cards against Austria, as a gambler +stacks them against the man on the other side of the table who is +supposed to be his friend, in a gentleman's game. Bismarck at a stroke +thus won away Austria's share. + +¶ After the conquest of the Holstein duchies, King William became more +ambitious; henceforth the object of his life was the aggrandizement of +Prussia, in Germany. Bismarck had given the King the taste of blood. +The Iron Chancellor admits the fact. Here are Bismarck's exact words, +from his interviews with Dr. Busch: "The King's frame of mind +underwent a psychological change; he developed a taste for conquest." + +¶ Bismarck laid the foundation in this way: He reminded the reluctant +William of the glories of Hohenzollern; how each Hohenzollern had +added to the common family fortunes, ever-widening estates and power. +He told William how King Fr: Wm. IV had acquired Hohenzollern and the +Jande District; Fr: Wm. III, the Rhine Province; Fr: Wm. II, Poland; +Fr: II, Silesia; Fr: Wm. I, Old Hinter Pomerania; the Great Elector, +Further Pomerania, etc.; "and I encouraged the King to do likewise." + +¶ Is it too much to say that in this great National crisis, Bismarck +was more than servant of the King? In many respects Bismarck was the +King's master. "If you only knew how I had to struggle to make the +King go to war with Austria!" is a significant comment Bismarck once +made in a moment of confidence. + +It is a question whether he loved the King more, or himself less. + + * * * * * + +¶ "My party consisted solely of the King and myself," wrote Bismarck +many years later, "and my only aim was the restoration and +aggrandizement of the German Empire and the defense of monarchial +authority." + +¶ He always had a contempt for parliaments and for parties. This fact +is so clear that we pass it without further comment. In short, +Bismarck measures up to these lines in Tennyson: + + "Ah, God! for a man with heart, head, hand + Like some of the simple great ones gone + Forever and ever by; + One still strong man in a blatant land, + Whatever they call him, what care I, + Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat--" + +¶ However, in this world all things are relative; the finest coat has +its reverse side, where the ugly seams show; and Bismarck is no +exception. He has all the strong man's virtues, and vices. Make the +most of it. + +It is a solemn fact that, in his unfailing loyalty to his country, +Bismarck showed little consideration for men who chanced to oppose +his own principles--but what would you, pray? + +Man at best is a curious animal; he indulges in great wars and he is +capable of great mercies; he is all things by turn and nothing long; +on the same day he loves and he hates, he commits crimes and he goes +to church; he has his way and having it, is still dissatisfied. + +¶ And Bismarck was no exception. + + * * * * * + +¶ He always expected absolute obedience. "My ambassadors," he once +said to one of them, "must wheel round like non-commissioned officers, +at a word of command, without knowing why." + + * * * * * + +¶ "There are indeed," says Sir Spencer Walpole, "few things more +remarkable in modern history than Bismarck's determined disregard, +from 1863 to 1866 of the decisions of Parliament and his readiness to +stake his own life and that of his sovereign on the issue of the +contest." + + * * * * * + +¶ This Holstein raid was justified as "statecraft," but the gambler's +nerve and the gambler's methods were behind it, from end to end; and +Bismarck shuffled and cut and stacked, and if now and then some shrewd +player caught the sleight of hand and protested, Bismarck coolly +banged him over the head with a chair or flung a wine bottle at his +head and threw him into the street to make off as best he might, +smarting for revenge but not daring to raise a hand; for in his heart +the defeated player realized that in a game of this kind the only +thing to do is to take one's medicine, "put up, pay up and shut +up"--like the lesser known but equally discerning gamblers of old +Mississippi steamboat days. + +¶ What were they fighting about in Holstein? Alas, who knows, except +that Bismarck had his great German enterprise well under way. It was +said, at the time, that Disraeli was "the only man in Europe who +really understood the Holstein question," but Disraeli was a British +cynic on all things German, and his explanations must be taken with a +grain of salt. However, Disraeli used Bismarck as "Count Ferroll" in +"Endymion." + + + 50 + + Bismarck sleeps surrounded by windrows of the dead; it was the + moment he had awaited, all these years. + +¶ One fact should never be overlooked. Whether Bismarck talks to his +countrymen of patriotism or of religious duties, through it all and +behind it all, while framing constitutions and putting the ballot in +every man's hand, Bismarck always had something to draw to--and this +something was the invincible Prussian army. + +This Prussian army, together with Prussian dog-like discipline, made +Bismarck's plans possible. + +¶ Also, he everlastingly kept the substance of power for himself and +his King; for, however much Bismarck from time to time made +concessions to the Liberal side, Bismarck always nourished sentiments +of royalty, in the end deftly substituted the mailed fist for his +talks on religious faith. + +¶ His war-dramas are always rich in strife; but somehow, he makes them +conclude in joy. + + * * * * * + +¶ Realizing that the Austrian war could not much longer be put off, +Bismarck's great care was that there should be no powerful coalitions +against Prussia. + +¶ We have spoken before of his closeness to Russia, and the means +whereby Bismarck secured the Czar's neutrality in the oncoming +Austrian war. The King's man next settled with Italy, behind the +screen. He knew that she longed to come into possession of Venetian +powers, held by Austria; Bismarck got after the Italian minister, +Lamarmora; the bargain was this: A secret treaty promising Venetia to +Italy; no separate peace to be made with Austria; the treaty not to be +binding unless Prussia declared war within three months. + +¶ Then Bismarck crossed over and proposed to Austria that Frankfort +"reform" the Confederation. The lure to the Liberals was the promise +of a National Convention elected by the people, to decide on a new +Constitution; the solution carried the Holstein question, Bismarck +averred, "not as a piece of monarchial greed but as a National +affair." + +¶ Bavaria agreed provided Austria and Prussia would not attack each +other. + +¶ At this, Bismarck promised to give to Italy the Venetian provinces, +by peaceful arrangement--war or no war. But Italy wavered; she was +afraid of Bismarck's behind-the-screen policies. + +Austria decided to increase her Venetian armaments, and Bismarck, +quick as a cat, seized on this move of his old enemy as an act of +"insincerity" in regard to peace. + +¶ Austria now replied by urging that the Holstein question be left to +the Diet, despite the fact that Prussia had expressly denied the +competency of Frankfort to settle questions affecting Prussia. + +¶ From this point events moved with rapidity toward war. Troops under +Manteuffel marched into Holstein, alleging the Gastein treaty broken; +Austrians retired, but under protest, alleging that Prussia had +violated Section 11 of the Acts of Confederation, which provided that +members could not make war against each other; and Austria moved that +the Confederation be mobilized, except Prussia. Bismarck thereupon +played his trump card. "The Confederation is dissolved!" he thundered, +and submitted a new draft of articles, leaving Austria out. + +¶ Germany was now in two hostile camps; on came the war. + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus stood matters on the fateful June 1st, 1866, when the critical +situation in the Danish country offered the match to touch off the +powder magazines against Austria; startled Austria immediately called +upon her beribboned, bejeweled Frankfort Parliament to declare war on +Prussia for insolence; and this is exactly what Bismarck wished to +bring to pass; it was the moment he had awaited all these long years. + +¶ Hanover and two other states were asked by telegraph to declare +their intentions. The replies being unsatisfactory, Bismarck, with +supreme daring worthy of Frederick the Great, orders von Roon and +Moltke's iron men forward. They poured like fiends into the surprised +territories, overran them in a night, compelling the flight or capture +of three kings. + +¶ "With God for King and Fatherland!" That old cry is again heard +throughout the Prussian North country. Austria reckoned stupidly; she +had thought Bismarck's internal political dissensions would make it +impossible for Prussia to rally her iron men in good order; but +Bismarck knew that while Liberal leaders quarreled like dogs and cats +over Prussian policies, still when beloved Prussia was in danger, all +differences would be forgotten--and Prussia in a night would become an +armed camp. + +¶ Bismarck, that memorable Thursday night, June 14th, 1866, spent the +long hours pacing up and down under the oaks in the beautiful garden +of the Minister of Foreign Affairs; in deep thought, he awaited the +mobilization order from the King. + +Von Moltke, old Roon and Bismarck hold whispered consultations in +which Bismarck is so sure of himself that his mind at times wanders +off war to chatty anecdotes. "This afternoon, in the antechamber of +the King," says Bismarck, "I was so weary I fell asleep on the sofa. +Is not this garden fine? Suppose we take a look at the old trees in +the park, behind the palace?" + + * * * * * + +¶ Berlin rang with the patriotic "I am a Prussian, know'st thou not my +colors?" and in unnumbered thousands the multitudes pressed around the +palace. On the night of the 29th came the news by telegraph--"First +blood for Prussia!" Berlin goes fairly insane with patriotic joy. + +Bismarck leaves the palace at two in the morning; his stern expression +contrasts strangely with the frenzied faces in the crowd; never did +the great man's inherent poise show more clearly, by contrast. The +crowds are singing Luther's hymn, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott"--"A +fortress firm in our God." The King comes out on the balcony and +returns thanks. Never-ending cries of triumph force Bismarck to say a +few words from the window of his hotel in the Wilhelms-strasse. It is +a squally, rain-bespattered night, with the tempest near at hand, but +the mobs will not go home. Suddenly, Bismarck raises his hand, shouts +congratulations, ends by inviting a salute for the King and Prussia. + +That very instant a peal of thunder rumbles over the city, and a trail +of forked lightning splits the midnight skies. "The very heavens +salute Prussia!" cries Bismarck--and the mobs go wild again. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck and his King are off to the front. At Sichrow they see the +corpse-strewn field of glory; 5,000 bodies in all the agonizing +attitudes of sudden death are there before the master. + +William and Otto pass to the field hospital. The wounded beg for +cigars, and Bismarck writes his wife, "Send cigars by the thousand, by +each courier; also forward copies of the 'Kreutzzeitung.'" This is the +official Bismarckian political organ. So you see, he spreads his +political propaganda, even in the face of death. + +¶ Otto winds up his letter with this surprising request, under date, +July 2, Jitschen, "Send me a French novel to read, but only one at a +time." + +¶ Then came Sadowa, July 3d. The "Red" Prince Charles assigns his +troops to battle line at dawn, amidst fog and rain. At 9, the King and +Bismarck appear on the bloody field. Bismarck rides his tall roan mare +"Verada," rechristened "Sadowa." + +In thunder and smoke the battle goes burning on. For hours the result +is in doubt. All depends on the second battle line, but where is the +Crown Prince? Will he arrive in time? + +¶ The vast artillery duel began early and lasted many hours. At the +height of the battle, old King William asked for a cigar, and when the +box was brought took a long time to select one, to his fancy. Bismarck +regarded it as a good sign! "If he can bother about the best cigar, +the battle cannot be lost," was Bismarck's mental comment. + +¶ At last, the Austrians began giving way. + +¶ In joy, the King took from his neck his own Iron Cross and hung it +on Bismarck's neck. + +¶ Moltke came up, bright and happy, with these words: "Your Majesty +has not only won the battle, but the whole campaign." + +¶ It was true; the great Austrian war was practically now won, and in +three short weeks! + +¶ Sadowa, or Koeniggraetz as the Germans call it, is one of the great +battles of history. There were 445,000 men engaged; Austria lost +30,000 and 1,147 officers. + +¶ Bismarck, on his tall roan, was eighteen hours in the saddle; +neither man nor faithful beast had food or drink, except that the +horse, standing now and again among the windrows of corpses, ate +corn-tops and nibbled at leaves. That night, Bismarck slept by the +roadside, without straw, a carriage cushion under his head. The rain +beat down in a drizzle, and for miles the smoke hung like a pall. +Bismarck's rheumatic pains, his weakness from loss of food, wore him +down. + +¶ At last, the course of nature can no farther go; and the master +falls into a deep sleep--surrounded by windrows of the dead. + +¶ At dawn, as he stood up, half-dead from exhaustion, against the +lowering skies he saw the vultures ready to pick the bones that Glory +had provided in this phase of the terrifying story of German Unity. + +¶ The hour of victory again proved Bismarck's astuteness. The +fire-breathers around the King urged that the Prussians march on +Vienna and lay the city in waste; Austria could not prevent; she was +prostrate; but Bismarck said no; and as usual, he had an object. Part +of his far-seeing plan was to take advantage of this psychological +moment to conclude secret treaties with the smaller states, as allies +of Prussia, in case of future wars. It was the forerunner of his last +great work, many years later, the Triple Alliance. + + + 51 + + Alas, poor human nature! The rejected stone now becomes the + foundation of the palace wall! Otto von Bismarck is justified + at last. + +¶ It goes to show that the right man can bring about any idea, whether +to do it makes it necessary to turn Time's clock backward or forward. + +Bismarck is magnificent because his extraordinary political work +inspired and carried a new National faith that forced men to bow, +often against their will, to the logic of his own gigantic mind. + +Bismarck is magnificent because, too, when the tiger strife was ended, +he who had been despised as the arch tyrant of his time, was now seen +to be the one strong man of his land, who had brought an unwilling +people peace, happiness and prosperity. + +¶ After the Austrian war the deputies whom Bismarck had fought granted +immunity to Bismarck for those four turbulent years of unconstitutional +rule; the overjoyed people readily forgave him for exacting 12,000,000 +thalers for the secret war chest. + + * * * * * + +¶ The millions who had looked on him as a madman now hailed him as +little under the stature of a demigod, loaded him with estates, gold, +diamonds, medals, stocked his cellars with the choicest vintages, sent +him train-loads of presents, thousands of felicitations on parchments +done up with blue ribbons, threw up their hats in frenzy only to see +his rattling old coach pass along the streets of Berlin; and in the +National excitement to do something or say something that nobody had +ever thought of, became as children to the extent of offering presents +to Bismarck's dogs. + +Also, in the grand distribution of Austrian prize money, Bismarck was +awarded $300,000. With this unexpected good fortune he bought Varzin +estate in Pomerania. + +¶ Of late years, his unpopularity has been made clear in a thousand +ways, some harmless, others bloodthirsty; his very life was demanded +more than once, by assassins. But now all had changed. + +¶ It is related that a German professor, in Greece, caught out after +dark was beset by bandits. + +¶ "Who are you?" they inquired menacingly. + +¶ "I am a German." + +¶ "Who is your king?" + +¶ "The King of Prussia!" + +¶ "Ah! Then you are Bismarck!" + +¶ And the robbers pulled off their hats and ran headlong in the night. + + * * * * * + +¶ In America, shops sold Bismarck pipes, Bismarck cravats, Bismarck +hairbrushes, and one came across such advertisements as this: "What is +the difference between Jones' paste and Prince Bismarck? Answer, there +is no difference, because each sticks so fast that once either gets a +hold it is impossible to get away from it." + +¶ After Koeniggraetz, the growing sense of German nationality +impressed itself in a thousand joyful ways. + +In Spain, lucifer matches bore on the boxes this doggerel: + + Als Wilhelm wirkt und Bismarck span + Gott hatte seine Freude dran. + +Or, "As William worked and Bismarck spun, God had his joy thereon." + +The fashionable world dressed in Bismarck brown; ironclads bore his +name; in Paraguay the "Citizen Bismarck" ran up and down the river; +Bismarck, South Dakota; Bismarck and von Moltke streets; huge Bismarck +strawberries--and what more you please. + +¶ The Brandenburg Cuirassiers made him drink out of a silver tankard, +holding a level quart of champagne; Bismarck, at the officers' revel, +put the goblet to his lips and drained the draught in a few long +gulps. + +¶ "Another!" cried the National hero. + +¶ "Alas," sighed a dyspeptic Frenchman, who heard of it, "champagne +and smoke agree with him--happy man!" + +¶ Whenever the Chancellor was out, on foot or on horseback, the news +ran like wildfire through Berlin! Offices were emptied, clerks stood +in windows, the public uncovered and cheered. + +¶ The German colony of Constantinople sent him a sword of honor; +thousands begged his photograph, autograph, or lock of his hair; +brewer George Pschorr, at great cost, sent thirty-three gallons of +beer in a carved cask weighing 500 pounds, with solid silver +tankards--veritable gems of art. + +¶ Carried away by the general excitement, an inmate of the almshouse +put his name down for $5, on a public list, and when confronted with +his utter inability to pay, replied: + +¶ "When the time comes for paying I shall ask them to let me off with +so many days in jail! So many marks, so many days!" + +¶ A little town in the Black Forest offered a huge patriotic scroll +composed of bottles of raspberry brandy, with handsome labels, +bordered with the German colors, red, white and black; a Bavarian +organ builder forwarded a huge organ; the inhabitants of Stanaitschen, +a gigantic whip; plovers' eggs came from the people of Jever; the King +of Prussia made Bismarck a Count, presented him with a rich domain; +and in the general excitement, the Chancellor's famous dog Tyras was +honored with a magnificent blanket with his initials worked in gold, +in the four corners, costly collars to match--and a sofa;--also this +explanatory poem: + + "Tyras, sei huebsch, artig und gut, + Sei es by Tag, sei es by Nacht! + Bewache unsern Kanzler gut: + Dan wird als Praeset dir dies Kanapé gebracht." + +Or, "Tyras, be good, gentle and kind; all day long and through the +night watch over our Chancellor faithfully;--and this gift of a sofa +you'll receive." + + * * * * * + +¶ But this was only the beginning. At the Universal Exposition in the +jewelers' section, one day a tall stranger was inspecting the +beautiful display, and one of the exhibitors, bowing politely, asked +the stranger to accept a magnificent diamond ring. "Your Highness +knows very well that he cannot deceive me! I respect your Highness' +desire to remain incognito, but your fame has preceded you!" + +In vain the stranger protested. The ring was passed, the exhibitor was +highly pleased, the stranger offered a card, "Alexander Schnabel, +Bavaria." The exhibitor still smiled, saying, "I respect your +Highness' incognito!" The stranger then quickly disappeared in the +crowd. What is that shouting over yonder? "Hurrah for Count Bismarck! +He comes! He comes!" In a moment, the diamond merchant saw it all. He +had been cruelly deceived, and furthermore had deceived himself! + + + 52 + + Strange superstition ingrained in this Bismarck mind; what ikon + do you believe in, as you urge to duty and glory? + +¶ In this life, each man has, secretly or openly, some ikon against +which to charge, by way of explanation, his personal history. + +In the story of Bismarck many ikons have been used by many writers, to +account for the puzzle of this great man's complex career. + +Some call it ambition; others will power; others destiny. Certainly, +in his long and adventurous career Bismarck was often close to death. + +¶ Now Bismarck himself always had his own peculiar ikon. He called it +God. His speeches for many years before Sadowa, his protests in behalf +of his King, as against the rising tide of Liberalism, always +contained amidst thunders of political consequence, the name God as +the one explanation of Bismarck's history and Bismarck's ultimate +victory. + +¶ If that be true--and it is not for us to say yes or no, for we are +reporting the man as he is and not the way we think he should be--then +God was at the bloody field of Sadowa, on the side of the 221,000 +Germans, armed with needle-guns, and not on the side of the 224,000 +Austrians, armed with old-fashioned muzzle-loaders;--and the clash of +445,000 men with tens of thousands left dead on the field, was the +final expression of the will of God. + +¶ Thus reasoned Bismarck, and surely he should be the best authority +on the conclusions of his own mind? As a matter of fact, Bismarck's +profound belief that God was on his side but shows Bismarck's excess +of faith--the faith that moves mountains. + + * * * * * + +¶ It has been said by eminent historians that Bismarck as the Unifier +of Germany had in his mind's eye, for many years, the dream of Empire; +and the statement is either true or false. + +¶ These writers call Bismarck the man with the vision, the seer, the +German patriot who saw in an early dream the stirring plan to which he +was to devote his long and arduous life. + +¶ You are familiar with the painting by LaFarge, depicting the boy +Napoleon, in the school yard at Brien, walking to one side, by +himself? On his youthful brow is already an air of strange +preoccupation, that cloud of ambition, as an outward sign that the +boy's imagination is bodying forth the heroic deeds of the man, many +years hence. + +¶ Do not believe it! It is only a poetic fancy, not human life. Plans +such as Bismarck met and carried forth, empires such as Napoleon +founded are not placed constructively before one in a vision, nor are +the complex ramifications attendant upon their ultimate achievement a +matter of pre-vision. + +It is only the small mind that plans down to the hair's breadth. Your +truly great man, like Bismarck or Napoleon, takes up life as he finds +it, and little by little learns the business of compelling other men +to do his bidding; and always in this there is a large element left to +the hazard of the die; or to use Bismarck's own phrase just before +Sadowa, "Now we shall see how the god of battle rolls the iron dice!" +Your great man rides forth to the battle, prepared to take instant +advantage of circumstances as they may rise. + +¶ Bismarck's idea of United Germany, at least the idea he always gave +to the public, was that the thing might be done, with and through the +power of God. + +The word God appears and reappears in connection with his plan; in +his messages, speeches, dispatches, and in his private letters, he +calls on God. I am not here to say that Bismarck had religious +visions. I take it that he never heard mysterious voices or saw +ghostly forms, but instead was an intensely human man who fought out +his life even as you fight out yours--with the powers with which you +are endowed, and for such ends as seem worth the price, to you. The +religious faith learned at his mother's knee, made Bismarck's +life-work a sacred vocation. He believed that he was chosen by God to +educate, guide and discipline the German people. + + + 53 + + "My dear professor, whoever has once looked into the breaking + eye of a dying warrior on the battlefield, will pause ere he + begins war." + +¶ And now we meet Bismarck back in Berlin wearing his Koeniggraetz +military cross, suspended by a ribbon around the collar of his plain +blue Prussian uniform. But the great strain of the years is beginning +to show. For one thing Bismarck's eyes are failing; he uses a glass as +he muses over his mounds of state papers; his face is lined with deep +marks; care has done its work; our Otto is now bald, obese and +stiff-jointed, much more so than his 54 years might seem to call for. +In making speeches he does not speak as boldly, as directly as in days +of yore. He stops, hesitates, stammers, but manages to hold the crowd. + +¶ You see he has a world of things on his mind; the under-play of the +great political game absorbs his very life. What, pray, about this +subconscious impression, that everybody has about an impending war +with France? Bismarck, as deep as the sea, is still seemingly as open +as a child. + +One day, a famous professor made the fateful inquiry as had hundreds +of journalists--and this time Bismarck replied, "My dear professor, +whoever has once looked into the breaking eye of a dying warrior on +the battlefield, will pause ere he begins a war." + +¶ So much for the astuteness of the man with the iron cross. He is +indeed no longer learning the game. + +¶ Already Bismarck was thinking of great armaments against France; for +she was now demanding territorial compensations, as between Prussia +and Austria. We find in the "Revue Modern," August, 1865, this +striking interview with Bismarck, by the French writer, Vilbort: + +¶ "About 10 p. m. we were in the study of the Premier, when M. +Benedette, the French Ambassador, is announced. 'Will you take a cup +of tea in the salon?' M. de Bismarck said to me, 'I will be yours in a +moment.' Two hours passed away; midnight struck; one o'clock. Some +twenty persons, his family and intimate friends, awaited their host. + +¶ "The tiny cloud on the horizon as yet had no name, but this cloud +hung to the west across the Rhine. + +¶ "At last he appeared, with a cheerful face and a smile upon his +lips. Tea was taken; there was smoking and beer, in German fashion. +Conversation turned, pleasantly or seriously, on Germany, Italy and +France. Rumors of a war with France were then current for the tenth +time in Berlin. At the moment of my departure, I said: 'M. le +Ministre, will you pardon me a very indiscreet question? Do I take war +or peace with me back to Paris?' M. de Bismarck replied, with +animation: 'Friendship, a lasting friendship with France! I entertain +the firmest hope that France and Prussia, in the future, will +represent the dualism of intelligence and progress.' Nevertheless, it +seemed to us that at these words we surprised a singular smile on the +lips of a man who is destined to play a distinguished part in Prussian +politics, the Privy Councillor Baron von ----. We visited him the next +morning, and admitted to him how much reflection this smile had caused +us. 'You leave for France tonight,' he replied; 'well, give me your +word of honor to preserve the secret I am about to confide to you +until you reach Paris? Ere a fortnight is past we shall have war on +the Rhine, if France insists upon her territorial demands. She asks of +us what we neither will nor can give. Prussia will not cede an inch of +German soil; we cannot do so without raising the whole of Germany +against us, and, if it be necessary, let it rise against France rather +than ourselves.'" + +¶ The treasonable speech of the Baron did not, however, bear fruit +"in a fortnight," but Bismarck knew the great political game well, and +everything served him in his German undertakings. We shall see. + + + 54 + + The curtain falls in triumph on another spirited act in the + great drama "Germania." + +¶ The political fruits of Sadowa may be summed up in a few sentences. +We clear the air for the grand finale, at the palace of the French +kings at Versailles, four years later. + +¶ By the Prague treaty, August 23, 1866, Austria consented to the +reconstruction of the Federation and retired from the scene. + +Bismarck saw that the large states beyond the River Main,--Bavaria, +Wuertemberg, Baden and South-Hesse, were not yet ready for his new +North German Confederation; but he would bring them in--somehow--later! +As for Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfort, and Schleswig-Holstein, they +were now mapped with Prussia, their crime being this, that they had +opposed Prussia in a half-hearted way, before Sadowa. + +¶ Bismarck now set up his popular Prussian Constitution. Wonder of +wonders! Really, it differed not in essentials from the hated Liberal +Constitution that he had assailed so vigorously in 1848. Also, up to +1866, the Unifier of Germany had as we have seen always appeared as an +opponent of the National German party. When, however, he had become +its leader, through the great politico-military struggle, he brought +about the results vainly fought for by the patriots in the revolution +of 1848. The distinction was that in the Revolutionary days, the King +would have been obliged to stoop to the gutter for a "people's crown," +whereas now he need do no such humiliating thing. The two wars had +proven William monarch "by Divine right." + +¶ However, a blaze of aristocratic honors at the hands of King William +pleased Bismarck more than he was willing to admit. Count Bismarck, +one night, when the people came with the torchlights, sounded the old +German keynote in a new way, as follows: + +¶ "We have always belonged to each other as Germans--we have ever been +brothers--but we were unconscious of it. In this country, too, there +were different races: Schleswigers, Holsteiners, and Lauenburgers; as, +also, Mecklenburgers, Hanoverians, Luebeckers, and Hamburgers exist, +and they are free to remain what they are, in the knowledge that they +are Germans--that they are brothers. And here in the North we should +be doubly aware of it, with our Platt Deutsch, which stretches from +Holland to the Polish frontier; we were also conscious of it, but have +not proclaimed it until now. But that we have again so joyfully and +vividly been able to recognize our German descent and solidarity--for +that we must thank the man whose wisdom and energy have rendered this +consciousness a truth and a fact, in bringing our King and Lord a +hearty cheer. Long live His Majesty, our most gracious King and +Sovereign, William the First!" + +¶ A cheer resounded throughout the castle-yard. + +¶ The new Constitution gave to the people manhood suffrage and a +popular Assembly. The King of Prussia was made President of the new +Federation, but not its sovereign. Prussia ruled in her own way, +henceforth, but the fiction of the King, as President, served to +steady the minor disgruntled German princelings, who were led to +believe that their councils were still reckoned with in great affairs. +However, the voting was so arranged that Prussia controlled, off-hand, +17 out of 48 units in the new political Confederation--and in a pinch +Bismarck could rely on having the desired majority. + +¶ Some say that Bismarck was influenced by the socialist Lasalle to +make concessions to the people, of a piece with the concessions which +in '48 Bismarck had fought because they sprang from revolutionists; +but the liberal aspects of the new Constitution served to place the +great dream of German Unity on a firmer basis than would otherwise +have been possible. Bismarck was learning this: To try to choke the +current of public opinion is folly; the wise man, instead, aims to +direct the waters to his own advantage. + +¶ The North German Confederation comprised 22 states and Bismarck was +made Chancellor. The Constitution was adopted February 24th, 1867. +For all practical purposes, the German Empire was now a fact. + +¶ But more work was still to be done, by way of bloody Gravelotte, +Metz, Mar-la-Tour, St. Privat, Woerth, Spichern Heights, Sedan, and +the Siege of Paris. + +¶ Corpses, corpses everywhere, lying in windrows miles long! + + + 55 + + The master uses the masses as the gardener utilizes + manure--fertilizing the soil with blood and bones! + +¶ Bismarck knows that to demand in an emphatic way is the surest way +of receiving. He is always studying men, looking ahead to the time of +the inevitable French war. He is asking himself, concerning various +monarchs of adjacent nations, opposed to Prussia: "On which side will +he be?" "Is he weak?" "Can he be relied on to stand on my side?" "Is +he dangerous?" "Will he take a bribe?" "At any rate, give him what he +wants--but let me do it in such a way that he thinks he is forcing us +to do what he wants, whereas we know how to make him actually demand +our own terms!" + +¶ Thus Bismarck without histronic talent, with his piping voice and +his prohibitory bulk for heroic theater-roles, is at heart the great +actor-manager of his time. Instead of creating parts, he deals them +out. + +¶ He goes through this world during these trying times finding the +best men to do his own bidding in the coming war. And when he is +hissed down by those who will not acknowledge his right he breaks +their power by defying them--as the hurricane scatters the clouds, nor +asks permission. + +¶ They say that had he lost the Austrian war, he would have gone to +the gallows. Can a Man of Destiny lose? + +¶ A new era is dawning. The old worn-out system for a disunited +Germany of 39 jealous states is to be swept away. + +¶ For thirty years he dreamed of the inevitable German Union, had his +visions of that glory. He was greater than himself in those black +hours before the Parliament, for four long years thundering for his +side;--with public opinion flat against him, and with mutterings on +part of angry mobs that would bring the rope and hang Bismarck to the +highest tree. + + * * * * * + +¶ Throughout Germany, distressed as her people had been for years past +by political and social miseries, a growing consciousness of +brotherhood, blood and language was at last about to be politically +realized. + +Even Napoleon the Little, political fool that he was in many respects, +at least had one idea that showed his common sense. However, in his +day he was laughed out of court for his "theory of nationality," that +is to say, he believed that people speaking a common language and +living in contiguous territory, have an inalienable right to a common +flag. + +¶ Now that is precisely what German poets had in mind, in their +romantic way, when for well-nigh 100 years past they had been dreaming +of a united Fatherland-- + + Fuer Heim und Herd, fuer Weib und Kind + Fuer jedes treue Gut-- + +Or, in other words, a man's house is his castle and if men will not +fight for their hearthstones, then they will soon have no +hearthstones. + + For home and hearth, for wife and child-- + These things we prize the most; + And fight to keep them undefiled + By foreign ruffian host. + For German Right, for German Speech, + For German household ways, + For German homesteads, all and each + Strike men, through battle's blaze! + Hurrah! Hurrah! + Hurrah, Germania! + +¶ The words, "Auf, Deutschland, auf, und Gott mit dir!"--"To arms, +Germany, and God be with thee!" is a National hymn breathing the +solemn thought that Germans are not slaves-- + + Old feuds, old hates are dashed aside + All Germany is one! + +¶ Bismarck's work, raw as it may seem in many respects, was +consecrated to the great central idea that the German race is one, or +as the poet Freiligrath puts it in one of his stirring lines, "Das +deutsche Volk ist Eins!" + +¶ The whole thing comes down to the inner meaning of the word +"patriotism." Tolstoi calls patriotism a frightful vice; Washington +regarded patriotism as a virtue of virtues. + +¶ Take your choice. + +¶ He is even now brooding over the element necessary for the +perpetuation of a free and United Germany. He reads his Bible and +prepares for the French war. + +¶ Bismarck used the masses as the gardener uses manure. The blood of +the peasantry manured the ground, out of which was to grow the +harvest. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + The Great Year, 1870 + + + 56 + + Bismarck and Von Moltke, over a bowl of sherry punch, discuss + "these poor times"--The Emperor-hunt begins. + +¶ Volumes have been written to explain the origin of the +Franco-Prussian war, and the intricate and inter-related facts are +gone over again and again, now with emphasis here, again on the other +side. + + * * * * * + +¶ It is trite to say that Bismarck foresaw that a war with France was +inevitable. Behind this simple statement is a world of intrigue and +ambition. The French still hold that the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine +was the price not of war but of Bismarck's brigandage. The French also +believe that the candidacy of Prince Leopold Hohenzollern for the +Spanish throne was a Prussian intrigue against France. The controversy +on these points will never be settled, till the Doomsday Book is +opened. + +¶ When Bismarck sees that his work of unifying Germany cannot be +completed without another war, the war comes! + +His amazing insight into complex political, military and historical +situations, in which with a few words he is able to divert public +opinion to his own peculiar view, has been shown never with more +diabolical cunning than at the time of the breaking out of the +Franco-Prussian war. We refer here to the "Ems dispatch," that played +a startling part in bringing on the war; but the telegram, in itself, +was really a simple thing. + +¶ For four years, Germany had been increasing her military power by +ten-fold. The greatest military martinet of all time, Von Roon, had +the men up at three and four in the morning drilling them as human +beings were never drilled before. Von Moltke, "with the battle +pictures in his brain," was planning every detail against France. + +¶ The preparations were now complete. The Germans were thoroughly +organized, led by generals guided by a single brain, von Moltke, +master of tactics and strategy. + +¶ Just the day the war broke out von Moltke, who was always as +taciturn as the Sphinx, "and in times of peace ugly and crabbed," was +sitting in his garden moodily declaiming against these poor +times--with no war in sight! + +Bismarck greeted his compatriot, bravely. Von Moltke ordered sherry +punch and the two cronies began drinking each other's health. + +¶ "You are not looking well, Chief?" began Bismarck. + +¶ "No, I have not been well, lately!" + +¶ "But you must cheer up. War is your business and you will now +quickly mend. I remember when the Spanish war was the burning question +you looked at least ten years younger. When I told you that the +Hohenzollern prince gave the thing up, you became at once ten years +older. This time, the French have made difficulties, and you look +fresh and younger by ten years." + +¶ In this light-hearted way Bismarck spoke of the oncoming strife--up +to the year 1914 the bloodiest in the history of the world. + + + 57 + + The bugle blast "For God and Fatherland!" again resounds + throughout Germany--The great host crosses the Rhine. + +¶ Up to 1914, there never was such a disciplined army since the world +began! Neither Napoleon, Cćsar nor Alexander ever had a power like the +United German swarm, now numbering 1,200,000 men, counting advance and +reserve; however, the total strength was never called, as the war was +practically over in seven weeks. + +The hosts of Germany, 800,000 strong, helmeted, machine-like, moved +silently and swiftly toward the Rhine, carrying their trusty +needle-guns which had done such destruction at Koeniggraetz. As they +marched they sang the war songs of their race, and swore to guard the +Rhine. + + Zum Rhine, zum Rhine, zum Deutchen Rhine, + Wir alle wollen Hueter sein; + Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein, + Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhine! + +¶ The King immediately left for the seat of war, Mayennce being the +first headquarters of the royal party. Bismarck was always close to +the King. + +¶ Bismarck had been only a few days in the field when his health began +to improve. Like von Moltke, Bismarck looked ten years younger. + +The old-time biliousness and vein-swelling from which he suffered, now +passed away; the irritability vanished; he was cool and collected. + +¶ He was attended throughout the war by a corps of cipherers, +decipherers, cooks, privy counsellors, secretaries, and couriers. +Faithful Dr. Busch, head of the Bismarck press-agency, was one of the +busiest men of the hour. Bismarck, who learned the power of the press +in shaping public opinion, kept Busch constantly employed sending out +telegrams, giving the German side of the war. + + * * * * * + +¶ The Chancellor wore the white uniform of Heavy Landwehr Cavalry, +with white cap and top boots. + +¶ Bismarck and his staff camped along the line of advance, wherever +night fell--sometimes in the château of a French nobleman, again in +the hut of a French peasant. The company ate at a common table, and +had the same fare. Bismarck was called "Chief." + +¶ Often the table was made by taking doors off their hinges and +placing them on barrels or boxes; then waiters spread the cloth and +brought out pewter plates and huge tumblers of a silver-like metal, +lined with gilt. + +Candles were stuck in empty wine bottles. Thus the great man worked +during the war, week after week. + +Dr. Busch, although a very busy man, managed to gather two volumes of +table talk, minute details of what Bismarck said, ate, drank, +preached, the whole set forth in spirited style, affording an intimate +picture of the Iron Chancellor to which all historians are henceforth +under obligations. + +¶ Firing was going on around the royal party, often dangerously near +by, and now and then a battle would take place close to where the King +was encamped, with his faithful minister. They would ride out, to see +the fight. Bismarck read dispatches, made notes, talked to His +Majesty, gave instructions on state matters, counseled with von Moltke +on military matters, received visits, and studied maps. This continued +all day and sometimes all night. + + + 58 + + Germans drink 2,500,000 bottles of champagne at + Rheims--Bismarck's ironical revenge! + +¶ The high tension of war was relieved by amusing episodes, from day +to day. In the evening of the arrival at Rheims, Bismarck humored +himself trying various brands of champagne. Word was brought that the +day before a squadron of Prussian hussars had been fired on from a +leading hotel. Bismarck ordered that the house should at once be torn +down and the landlord sent to prison; but when it was explained that +none had been injured, Bismarck waggishly decided to let the landlord +off if he would give 2,500 bottles of champagne to the squadron--an +obligation which the man quickly proceeded to settle. + +¶ The Prussians drank, in and around Rheims, some 2,500,000 bottles of +champagne; and, for that matter, the highways all the way to Paris +were marked with long lines of empty bottles! + + * * * * * + +¶ Thus Bismarck had his ironical revenge on France; took his cherry +brandy or his champagne as he pleased, while the great war waged. + + * * * * * + +¶ "Verily, in all history," wrote Carlyle to the London Times, "there +is no instance of an insolent unjust neighbor that ever got so +complete, instantaneous and ignominious a smashing down, as France now +got from Germany." The whole civilized world looked on in amazement. + +¶ France had declared war July 15th, and the crushing defeat at Sedan +came September 1. + +However, it took seven months before Bismarck was satisfied that the +final papers were drawn to his satisfaction. + +Louis Napoleon being a prisoner of war, had lost his throne; and +consequently Bismarck insisted that any peace made with France would +have to be ratified by some central authority. It is a long, +interesting story, but Bismarck finally won his point. + + + 59 + + Sedan and the Belgian weaver's hut; the highways to Paris are + strewn with wine bottles; death drinks a toast to "German + Unity." + +¶ As it had been the Iron Chancellor's fortune to be present at the +crowning victory of Koeniggraetz, in the Austrian war, likewise it was +now his destiny to be a spectator at the two battles that decided the +issue of the French war, Gravelotte and Sedan. + +The spoils were immense, the glory set Germany in flames. Bismarck, +von Roon and von Moltke were held to be the greatest men of all time. + +¶ Gravelotte, the bloodiest battle of the campaign, engaged 333,000 +men and 1,362 cannon. The King commanded in person, on the right, and +Bismarck was with him. + +The carnage was frightful. Bismarck busied himself carrying water to +the wounded. When the sun went down, German victory was complete, at +the loss of every tenth man! + +¶ That night, Bismarck bivouacked on the battlefield, amidst serried +ranks of the dead. Says one who saw the terrifying scene: "Anon, the +watchfires of the Prussians blazed round about; and worn out by +incredible exertions at last Bismarck fell asleep, among the living +and the dead. He was now to have evidence of the result of his +life-long ambition; he had plunged his country into three great wars, +with all their dreadful toll of human life; but he slept that night +the sleep of the just--because he saw, in the complex blending of his +ideas, no inconsistency in paying any price for the glory of his +country." + + * * * * * + +¶ The whole bloody day at Gravelotte Bismarck had nothing to eat. +Finally, he found a hen's nest with five eggs; giving three to +half-starving soldiers near by, Bismarck with his sword broke the +shells of the two remaining and sucked the eggs. + +Next morning he had some sausage soup, the first warm food that had +passed his lips for 36 hours. + +¶ While he was standing dismounted, a concealed French battery began a +tremendous cannonade; the shells dropping all around, exploded, and +plowed up the ground. + +¶ Night again. Nothing to eat. A sutler had some miserable rum and +wine. Bismarck took that, at once, but there was not a morsel to eat. +In the village, a few cutlets were found after a hard search, just +enough for the King. + +His Majesty decided not to bivouac among the dead again, but took +shelter at a little public house. + +¶ Bismarck with General Sheridan set off to find a sleeping place. +House after house was filled with the wounded. + +Finally they found three empty beds with straw mattresses. Here +Bismarck and General Sheridan took up their quarters and slept +capitally. + +Sheridan was present as official observer for the United States Army. +In his life, he had seen many great battles, including Gettysburg and +Sedan. + +¶ Bismarck talked to Sheridan in English; and at dinner they drank +champagne and porter, Bismarck's favorite beverage. + + * * * * * + +¶ With tens of thousands of Cuirassiers as companions the King and +Bismarck rode down the broad highways, toward Paris; Bismarck wore his +famous big top-boots. + +What a picture the King, Bismarck and von Moltke marching down the +highways of France, at their back their almighty army, up to 1914 the +greatest in all history, its fighting strength 600,000 men, perfectly +drilled and armed with deadly needle-guns. In puffs of smoke the reign +of Napoleon the Little was ending; and it is now curious to recall +that, 50 years before, as a young lieutenant, the present King of +Prussia had traversed almost the identical route with the Allies, to +help defeat Napoleon the Great! + + * * * * * + +¶ The iron heel of war was grinding men's lives into the dust, setting +fire to the country, and leaving a trail of destruction. + +France looked along the German route as though a cyclone had +devastated the face of nature. + +¶ Past cities, towns, vineyards, châteaux, the tramp, tramp, tramp; +the roll of the war drums; the rumbling of wheels--so the terrible +Prussians marched on! + +¶ "Summer was passing," says Lowe, "Autumn was coming fast; France had +turned from the sap green of the vineyards to the golden hues of the +harvest; but it was the harvest of Death." + + * * * * * + +¶ Now came a gigantic cavalry movement, to the right, a prodigious +wheel, to round-up the French MacMahon, who had dodged and doubled in +the basin of the Meuse. "The chase," said Bismarck, "reminds me of a +wolf hunt in the Ardennes, but when we arrived, the wolf had +vanished!" + +To make common ground with Bazaine, MacMahon concentrated his troops, +with the idea of breaking the siege of Metz, where 175,000 French +soldiers were undergoing the horrors of starvation. + +The Germans outwitted MacMahon, who finally decided to make a last +stand around the frontier fortress of Sedan. + +¶ On the night of August 31, the Germans closed in on him, in what +proved to be one of the momentous battles in the world's history. + +Von Roon and Moltke had 121,000 infantry and 618 cannon, the French +70,000 of all arms, 320 cannon and 70 Mitrailleuses. + +On the slopes of Frenois, the Prussian King, Bismarck and a brilliant +retinue witnessed for ten hours the dreadful carnage reddening the +fields. + +¶ "More artillery!" cried the King, surprised that the French would +not yield. + +In the King's retinue stood Bismarck, a crowd of princes, dukes, +aide-de-camps, marshals, besides army attaches of Russia, England and +America. + +¶ On the King's order, 600 German guns began drawing the most terrific +artillery fire in the history of battles, concentrating an +ever-narrowing circle of flame and shell around the doomed place. It +was too much for flesh and blood; a white flag was hoisted. + +The Prussian flag of truce to inquire for the commander, was led into +the presence of Napoleon, trapped at Sedan! + +¶ Moltke's terms were short; the whole French army was to surrender as +prisoners of war. + +The French regarded this as too severe after their heroism, but the +Prussians were inexorable; an armistice left the final decision till +daylight. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck passed the night at the house of Dr. Jeanpot, at Donchery, +a few miles from the bloody field of Sedan. + +Along about daybreak, a servant awakened Bismarck, telling him a +French general was at the door. It was Reille, Napoleon's messenger, +saying "Napoleon is on the way over to see the King of Prussia!" + +¶ What a moment! How Bismarck's pride must have risen; how he must +have gritted his wolf's teeth and felt his gorge rise as he realized +that the hour of his life-long revenge was at hand, against his old +enemy. + +¶ And yet, that night, he had been reading in his room after the +dreadful Sedan carnage--what do you think? Human inconsistency! "Daily +Refreshment for Believing Christians," by the Moravian brotherhood. + +¶ Unwashed, breakfastless, Bismarck immediately set out, his revolver +in his belt; down the road Napoleon's carriage, "evidently a hired +one," said Bismarck afterwards, recounting the scene, "came into view; +the Emperor was escorted by a handful of officers; Napoleon had on his +military uniform, wore white kid gloves, and was smoking a cigarette!" + +¶ Bowing and asking His Majesty's pleasure, Napoleon asks Bismarck, "I +wish to meet the King of Prussia." Bismarck replies, "Unfortunately +impossible; the King is quartered some fifteen miles away." However, +it is only a trick to gain time. Bismarck has certain powerful reasons +why he does not desire, just then, that Napoleon and William should +meet. We shall see, presently. + +¶ Napoleon drives slowly onward, but nearing Donchery hesitates on +account of the crowd; and spying a solitary cottage near by, asks if +he could not remain there. + +¶ It is the hut of a weaver of Donchery--a mean, dirty place--and +stands about fifteen paces from the high-road, which is lined with +poplars; the house is one-story, yellow, with four windows, and has a +slate roof. + +¶ Bismarck and Napoleon ascend a rickety, narrow staircase giving +entrance to a gloomy chamber, in which are a deal table and two +rush-bottomed chairs. Here the two men sit alone for an hour. What a +moment in history! + + * * * * * + +¶ Only a few years before, that is to say, in October, 1865, Bismarck +had sought out Napoleon III, or "Napoleon the Little," and had held a +famous political interview; the meeting at Biarritz found Napoleon +filled with ambitions to emulate the illustrious career of his uncle, +Napoleon Bonaparte; but the secret although well kept did not escape +the vision of Bismarck. + +¶ The Iron Chancellor came as a friend, on a pleasant exchange of +diplomatic courtesies, but in secret he was sounding Napoleon's +possible attitude in the oncoming Prussian war, against Austria. The +Emperor was completely tricked. Bismarck talked frankly of the +necessity of "reform" in the German Confederation, and Napoleon, whose +hobby was that peoples speaking the same language should be under one +rule, fell in quite naturally with the plan to "reform" Prussia. The +Emperor thought that Bismarck had in mind only certain constitutional +changes in Prussia, not dynastic changes, destroying the European +balance of power and preparing the way for German Unity. + +¶ Bismarck made clear to the Emperor that, in return for keeping out +of any impending Austrian clash, France would be rewarded by enlarged +boundaries. As an enlightened egotist, Bismarck felt that it was "only +fair" to acknowledge French help with the left bank of the Rhine. It +was all a bluff. But Napoleon, with his hunger to enlarge French +territory, and to appear before France as a sort of second Napoleon +the Great, fell in with the conspiracy. Herein, the Bismarckian skill +at stacking the cards reaches its height. + +¶ And now to think that the next meeting of the French lamb and the +Prussian wolf should take place in a weaver's hut, Napoleon stripped +of glory and power by the man who was to "give" great lands to France. + +¶ The Emperor had been caught in his own trap; his armies had been +crushed; his government destroyed by Bismarck's genius for political +intrigue. The rise to power of Prussia over Austria, against which +Napoleon had been tricked not to protest, was a turning point in the +history of modern Europe. Hence we say that these two contrasted +interviews, the one of glory, the other of the downfall, Biarritz and +the Weaver's Hut, show our Otto von Bismarck as the supreme +politico-military genius of his time. + +¶ A curious sidelight on the famous interview at Biarritz is supplied +by Bismarck's writings. "Napoleon said things could not go on as they +had been doing, in Prussia," wrote Bismarck, "otherwise there would +soon be an uprising in Berlin and a revolution in the whole country. I +told him that the people of our country were not barricade-builders, +and that in Prussia revolutions were made only by the kings. If the +King could stand the strain on him for three or four years he would +certainly win the game. Unless he got tired and left me, I would not +fail him. The Emperor at that time said of me, 'Ce n'est pas un homme +serieux,' (Bismarck is not a serious man), a mot of which I did not +think myself at liberty to remind him, in the weaver's hut, at +Donchery." + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck exercised all his mighty ingenuity to keep Napoleon from +urging too far that the King of Prussia be brought forward. Bismarck +knew that King William was tender-hearted, and, tempted by the +disaster that had come to Napoleon, would in consequence be inclined +to deal leniently with the Emperor. + +¶ Bismarck, setting his iron jaws hard, determined then and there to +keep the Prussian King out of it till the terms of peace had been +arranged. + +¶ Come, come, are we not justified in our character study of Bismarck? +Who now is master, who now servant? Who now is shown to be the real +power behind the throne? And if Bismarck did not actually bring on +this awful war, then he well knew the art of making other nations +declare war. Oh, he has learned a thing or two in his long and +eventful life; and he is now about to create his diplomatic +masterpiece--in the Belgian weaver's hut. + + * * * * * + +¶ Sedan surrendered 40 generals, 2,825 various other officers, 83,000 +prisoners of war, 184 pieces of artillery, 350 field guns, 70 +Mitrailleuses, 12,000 horses, and enormous quantities of military +stores. + +¶ The broken-hearted Emperor was sent away to the castle at +Wilhelmshoehe, near Cassel. + +And the King of Prussia opened the champagne at his royal headquarters +at Vendresse, and toasted von Roon, Moltke and Bismarck: "You, General +von Roon, whetted our sword; you General von Moltke, wielded it; and +you, Count Bismarck, have brought Prussia to its present prominence by +the way in which you have directed its policy for several years." + + + 60 + + In which Bismarck reaches the zenith of his stupendous career; + diplomatist, ministerial Cćsar, unifier of his country. + +¶ The Iron Chancellor held firmly to his plan to strip France of her +last franc. + +The siege of Paris continued, with Bismarck and the King of Prussia +installed at Versailles, within the shadow of the stately palace of +the Kings of France. + + * * * * * + +¶ It is a long, vivid story leading to the 5,000,000,000 francs +indemnity, and the cessation of Alsace-Lorraine. + +M. Thiers treated in vain to get softer terms; but Bismarck kept the +King out of it and stuck to his hard bargaining. + +¶ "This is not war, it is confiscation!" Thiers exclaimed one day in +terrible anger, and eloquently he parleyed to have the amount reduced. + +¶ Bismarck thereupon began to talk in German! + +¶ "I have not enough French to answer such a charge as you have just +made!" he thundered. "Henceforth, we carry on our affairs in German." + +¶ M. Thiers threatened to appeal to Europe to intervene, but at this +Bismarck broke into a hoarse laugh. + +He knew that he had in his pocket a secret quit-claim from Russia and +Italy, Denmark and Belgium were tied in another way, Spain was hostile +to the French, and as for England--he snapped his fingers! + +¶ "Defy me, and I tell you what I will do! We have in Germany about +100,000 excellent French troops, captured at Metz, who are still +wholly devoted to the old Imperial cause. I will release them and +bring back the Bonapartists! I care not who is in power so long as the +proper sovereign government of France signs our peace demands for +indemnity. Napoleon cannot do it, as his throne is in ruins; and even +if he did, the next party in power would probably set it aside. So +part of my duty is not only to demand for my King the just rewards of +our victory, but to start France again with some new form of +government." + +¶ Going behind this stern diplomatic language, what Bismarck really +meant was this: "The longer the French Assembly hesitates to call an +election the more we will starve the city into submission. Live on +horseflesh, stale bread, cats and dogs!--die of fever and +pestilence!--the sooner it is over! Our siege guns will continue to +bark night and day, Paris will be reduced to ashes, crumble to ruins, +but the demands of the Prussian King must be obeyed. No power on this +earth can turn me from my project. I am resolved to wage a war of +extermination--and I have spoken!" + +¶ "Very well, then!" exclaimed M. Thiers, "M. le Comte, as you will! +Rob us of our homes!--provinces!--burn down our homes!--strangle our +peaceful inhabitants!--in a word, complete your work! We shall fight +you as long as our breath remains. Perhaps we shall die--but we shall +never be dishonored." + +¶ Bismarck seemed touched, but said all he had to do was to obey the +orders of the King. + +Meantime he went out and was closeted again with Moltke and His +Majesty. + +¶ "I do not believe," said M. Favre, "that any criminal ever waited +for the judgment with more feverish anxiety. Motionless, we followed +with bewildered gaze the hands of the clock. + +¶ "The door opened; Bismarck stood on the threshold, announcing that +he would not insist on the German troops entering Paris--provided we +gave up Belfort! + +¶ "There was a moment of inexpressible agony, but an exchange of +glances sufficed. 'We should be wanting in patriotism if we +accepted!' exclaimed M. Thiers. The door closed and Bismarck +disappeared again. + +¶ "At eight o'clock, M. Thiers had reaped the reward of his heroic +endeavors. He had saved Belfort, but in all other respects he had +absolutely failed to move the man of blood and iron. For five fearful +days they had wrestled with the problem of the 5,000,000,000--and had +lost! Bismarck had his own banker, the Jew Bleichroder, to show that +after all the indemnity would be adding 'only about one-fourth' to +France's national debt." + +¶ On Sunday, February 26, the preliminaries of peace were signed. As +Thiers signed, Bismarck took him by the hand, saying, "You are the +last who ought to have been burdened by France with this sorrow--for +of all Frenchmen you have the least deserved it!" + +¶ Bismarck, radiant with joy, signed the papers with a new golden pen +sent him for this express purpose by the ladies of the German town of +Pforsheim. + + * * * * * + +¶ Said M. Favre: "The countenance of M. de Bismarck was most happy. +With theatrical pomp, he sent for a golden pen.... M. Thiers +approached the little table on which lay the documents; he wrote his +name without betraying the feelings that tortured him. I tried to +imitate him, and we withdrew. The sacrifice was accomplished. + +¶ "As a special understanding, it was agreed that the siege should be +lifted that morning at four o'clock and that France should fire the +last shot. + +¶ "What sentiment in this, for Paris! Along then, in the deep night +that precedes the dawn, with the sky illuminated by occasional flashes +of the siege guns, at last the fire lessened, slackened gradually, and +then solemn silence fell. Suddenly, through the night, a loud report +was heard from the Paris ramparts, followed by a path of fire through +the sky; this immediately died away, and deep silence, now unbroken, +continued. + +¶ "The long siege was over!" + +¶ On the third day after signing the hard conditions, 30,000 German +troops made their triumphal entry into Paris, after being reviewed on +the plain of Longchamps. + +With the victorious Prussians, Bismarck rode as far as the Arc de +Triomphe. + +¶ It was one of the greatest incidents of his eventful life. + + * * * * * + +We have transposed to the last an episode that took place January +18th, 1871, the anniversary of the day on which the first King of +Prussia had himself crowned at Koenigsberg, 1701. + +In the Hall of Mirrors, at Versailles, King William I of Prussia was +crowned German Emperor, amidst a clash of arms, martial music, hymns +of praise, and the felicitations of a brilliant throng. + +In the semi-circle stood princes, grand dukes, dukes, crown princes, +hereditary princes, generals, ministers, military and political +figures, against a background of Prussian hussars. + +¶ The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles had seen many astonishing sights +in the centuries gone by; and doubtless that night the shades of +Richelieu, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, Marie Theresa, Madam +Pompadour, looked down on one of the strangest incidents in all +history, a German Emperor receiving his crown in the very palace of +the old French kings, who in their turn, had waged some twenty hard +wars upon Germany, and more than once had placed some part of German +soil in pawn. Who read the proclamation to the assembled company +expressing the new dignity of the sovereign over United Germany? + +¶ The Man of Blood and Iron, Otto von Bismarck, at last had +demonstrated the dream of his life, that is to say, he had in truth +not only long been King's Man, but also long had upheld the King his +master; had unified Germany;--and now had made his master more than +king, as William I, German Emperor. + +¶ Bismarck's life work was now practically over; however, he was a +busy man for twenty years to come, trying to settle Germany's +perplexing internal problems; but in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles +he reached the zenith of his stupendous career as unifier of his +country. + +¶ In this magnificent state apartment of Louis XIV are seventeen +arcades of looking-glass, corresponding to the seventeen large +windows; the ceiling by Lebrun shows thirty incidents in the life of +Louis the Magnificent, each painting bordered by rich gilded +sculptures. + +The entire gallery is decorated with marbles and grand trophies of +gilded copper, by Coysevox. + +In Louis's time, the gallery was hung in white damask brocaded with +gold; there were orange trees in rare boxes; the great central +chandelier of gilded silver was by famous smiths; priceless Savonnerie +carpets muffled the lightest foot-fall; round about were silver +stools, with green velvet coverings surrounded by bands of gold +brocade. Later, the silver was melted down, on Louis's order, and the +money squandered. + +¶ These great artists worked in the Hall of Mirrors and neighboring +apartments: Berain, Monsart, Lebrun, Lenotre, Grissey, Vigarani, +Audran, Baptiste, Coustau, Coypel, Van Cleve, Taffieri, Taupin, +Tempore, Temporiti, numbering among them painters, sculptors, +designers, architects, wood carvers, silversmiths and lockmakers +extraordinary. + +¶ Here, Louis, surrounded by some 1,500 flatterers of all degree, high +and low, kept his court of pleasure bestowing ribbons, favors, +dinners, golden swords for the men, diamond necklaces for the women. + +¶ However, 1789 ended all that; the mob stormed into imperial chambers +and through the apartments of the old aristocratic French courtesans; +and with clubs, axes and fires laid in ruin art treasures that stood +unmatched through centuries. + +¶ To this Versailles come now the Prussian soldiers to proclaim their +German Emperor; in this palace, where the Bourbons had expended some +200,000,000 francs, as money is reckoned today; to say nothing of the +free labor of thousands of convicts. + +No record tells what Louis spent on the place, but in August, 1684, +8,000 horses and 20,000 convicts were working there, and in 1685 at +one time as many as 36,000 convicts, in charge of soldiers, added +their vast free labor to heighten the peculiar glory of the great +French monarchs, as the sublime representatives of kingcraft--in its +splendor and in its downfall. + + * * * * * + +¶ All hail, William I, German Emperor! All hail, Bismarck! All hail, +United Germany! + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + The Versailles Masterpiece + + + 61 + + The Kaiser's crown at last, and how and why; herein, we sum up + the very flower of our great man's genius; and mark it well! + +¶ The very name "Kaiser" brings up memories of the Middle Ages, thence +backward to the days of imperial Cćsar. Kaiser, at best, is but Cćsar, +rewritten. + +Yet Bismarck was at great pains to make clear that the substitution of +Kaiser for King of Prussia involved no restoration of ancient imperial +institutions. + +¶ The use of Kaiser, as the title for the new monarch, had behind it a +deep, almost religious purpose, in conformity with the sense of +nationality and brotherhood to which through long and painful +development the German states had at last attained. Bismarck calls the +return of the title "a political necessity, making for unity and +centralization." + +¶ "I was convinced," he says, "that the pressure solidifying our +imperial institutions would be more permanent the more the Prussian +wearer of the imperial title should himself avoid that dangerous +striving on the part of our dynasty to flaunt its own pre-eminence in +the face of other dynasties. King William I was not free from this +inclination ... to call forth a recognition of the superior prestige +of Prussia's crown, over the Kaiser's title." + +¶ The Kaiser idea is simple: He is the sworn servant "of" the people, +but his terms are his own, viz., all is "for" the people, but not +"through" the people. + +Such in a few words is the Bismarckian conception of a strong ruler. + + * * * * * + +¶ It was not, then, to be "an expanded Prussia," but a German Empire. +And the Kaiser's powers are hence the legal functions of an imperial +organ, attached by the organic law of the Empire to the Prussian +crown. + +Thus Germany is a true state, but not a monarchy; sovereignty does not +rest with the Kaiser, but with the totality of the allied governments. +And in turn the old states became provinces of the Empire; and the +Kaiser exercises his powers in the name of the Empire. + + * * * * * + +¶ However, it must be recalled that Bismarck always detested political +and social conformity, trampled conformity under foot, and with wild +voice ridiculed conformity--especially when conformity meant to yield +to the peasants a constructive share in the governments of the +thirty-nine clashing German states. That is to say, his idea of +freedom was to make the State paramount, guiding, directing and if +need be disciplining the people. + +¶ Memories fasten themselves on us, at this moment, memories of the +old days of struggle for nationality. + +It was on Bismarck's advice that, although Frederick William IV was +bitten by the ambition to become ruler of United Germany, yet when the +democratic Frankfort Diet offered him the crown, he did indignantly +refuse; and many years later, his successor--that old man with the +wonderful history!--William I, after the victories of Sedan and +Gravelotte, was mightily afraid that the Berlin Parliament, +representing democratic conformity, would offer him the honor of +Emperor before that gift could be bestowed by the princes themselves. + +¶ Ludwig of Bavaria in his letter to William, urging the imperial +title, Kaiser, or German Emperor, uses these words: "I have proposed +to the German princes to join me in urging Your Majesty to assume the +title, German Emperor, in connection with the exercise of the prćdial +rights of the Federation." But it was Bismarck's masterpiece of +politics, equal to his stroke of Holstein, that sent to the King of +Bavaria the proper diplomatic advices, to be acted upon by the South +German princes and returned to the supposedly surprised William, +urging on him to become German Emperor. + + * * * * * + +¶ In spite of Bismarck's fine hand, Bavaria at first refused to accept +the Iron Chancellor's advices. There is light on this topic in Herr +Ottokar Lorenz's "Foundation of the German Empire," making clear among +other facts that "the German eagle had a narrow escape from dying in +the egg." Twice negotiations were broken off; finally, when the King +of Bavaria tried to get his countrymen behind him in the plan to +proclaim William of Prussia, German Emperor, at Versailles, "it was +only after some hesitation and much regret." + +It took the Bavarian Landtag a month to make up its mind! To read the +heated discussions is to destroy the legend that the proclamation of +the Kaiser was by spontaneous demand. + +¶ But we must not press these things too far. The fact that King +William had to fight for the magnificent honor he had won for himself +and his country, is merely to say that men are men; nor should we ever +forget that nothing creates so much jealousy as prosperity. + +¶ Herr Bismarck had the cleverness to win, at last, and after that +there is little to be added. + +For that matter, the much-lauded revolt of the American colonists +against Britain was originally not endorsed by over one-third of the +inhabitants. Yet, with the final victory, like a pack the colonists +went over to the winning side, saying, "We told you so." + +¶ We have nothing but praise for the way in which Bismarck created his +Versailles masterpiece. That there was a political squabble behind the +curtain, in Bavaria, was to be expected. + +¶ Tell me, did you ever achieve any success that you did not have to +go out and fight for? + +It is an amiable fiction that men "recognize" each other's work, in +politics, and "urge" on them rulership over nations. They, too, have +to get out and fight for it! + + * * * * * + +¶ This necessity for turbulent striving to carry out political ideas +was especially true of Germany during the period of which we write. +Complex conditions long made National Unity a profound problem, not +only in politics but in human nature. + +¶ All manner of blacklegs were at work with here and there an honest +man; national oratory was at once visionary, ludicrous and tragical; +fanatics of the bomb, the knife and the poison-cup for years were +abroad in the land. These situations, growing from times past, compel +you to hold with Bismarck that ultimate appeal to the sword was after +all the only hope for a new Germany. + +¶ Bismarck did it grossly, but at least he went through with it--call +it militarism or what you please. + +¶ For that matter, neither Britain, France, Belgium, (nor the United +States with her 186-odd variants of Christianity in her 186-odd +religious sects), grew out of political cynicism, least of all out of +some aloof system of esoteric idealism. + +¶ The King of Britain owes his crown to the sword; the President of +France his high office to the sword; the Belgian King traces his +legitimacy to revolution; likewise, to revolution the President of the +United States owes his right to rule during his brief hour of official +authority. + +¶ But what would you in this imperfect world? + +German Unity sprang from the needs of human hearts--fighting bravely +for what they hold important!--even as you fight for your rights, or +consent to remain a slave. And Germans never will be slaves. + +¶ Therefore, know it now and be done with it, or make the most of it +if you are inclined to snarl at realities: The Kaiser's crown came by +the sword. Surely, you did not expect that it fell from Heaven? As +long as men are men, they must fight for what they achieve; and the +German Empire is no exception;--nor is there any good reason to expect +that history can possibly be other than the record of human nature, in +action. + +¶ Up to his downfall in 1890, Bismarck was an uncompromising Royalist, +scoffed at the common people as a source of political sovereignty. + +¶ No man knows what is, ultimately, for the glory of God; but when in +bitter retirement, thrown off by the grandson of William I, Bismarck, +replying to the old dispute about the interior causes of the +Franco-Prussian war, to which William owes his title German Emperor, +it is a fact that Bismarck proceeded to weaken the royalist tradition +by forcing the government to produce the Ems dispatch; and it was then +made clear to the common people that there was behind it all the +under-play of politics, thus dispelling the religious and patriotic +glamour that the war had been entered upon to protect the Fatherland +against the land-lust of Napoleon the Little. + +Had now the military right been used not to express the will of God, +but the ends of human expediency? + +¶ Bismarck certainly knew all this before the great war, but for +reasons of political expediency suppressed the facts till in a moment +of indignation he dropped the mask and called on all honest men to +know the truth. + +Bismarck, twenty years before, had with equal indignation set up +before the Prussians that their King had been grossly insulted, and +that Napoleon wanted the left bank of the Rhine. + +¶ But let us forget all this, in a broad acknowledgment of the fact +that human beings at various times, for their own ends, do indeed wear +various masks; and let us not keep up the fight forevermore;--but here +and now let us grant to Bismarck final absolution, not claiming for +him the perfection of the demigod. + +¶ After all is said, history is not the record of some far-off +manifest destiny, but instead is merely the sordid story of human +nature in action, reciting at best the littleness that appertains to +men's ways, with now and then the unrealized expression of some +fleeting larger hope. + + + 62 + + His Versailles masterpiece reduced to its final analysis, in + terms of human nature; wherein it is made clear that Bismarck + knew his German peasant as well as his Prussian King. + +¶ The core of human interest around which Bismarck shaped his +stupendous politico-military drama, in order that, in the end, William +might become German Emperor, was neither an appeal to parliaments nor +to armies, but a reply to a peculiar psychological something in the +Teuton character that makes respect for the strong hand. + +It is only in the largest way that this fact may be made clear. It +escapes categorical statement;--and can best be glimpsed behind the +history of events, from the psychological rather than the physical +side. + +¶ Bismarck manipulated an invisible but very real human force, made it +the breath of life for his plans! + +¶ That he warped on the Nineteenth Century the old Holy Roman Empire +conception of Divine-right is an amazing politico-military fact. + +It was only after many brilliant achievements that, at the height of +his power, Cćsar linked himself with the gods. Cćsar's earlier life +knew no such pretensions, but as he climbed the dizzy heights of fame, +at last the day came when his kinship with the immortal gods +themselves alone satisfied his inordinate ambitions; and from that +time forth Divine-right became an established fact in the +theological-political code of kings; and thus on, down through the +Middle Ages, until the French Revolution destroyed confidence in the +old-line absolute monarch, as vicegerent of Christ on this earth. + + * * * * * + +¶ However, that Otto von Bismarck, the blond Pomeranian giant, warped +on the Nineteenth Century the Imperial Cćsarian idea of the +Divine-right of kings is not the final fact of his work. The inner +fact is that he urged the King's authority as a foil against the +mob-idea of the French Revolution. The liberty-crazed masses needed a +strong hand at this time. + +¶ What made possible the coming of the Empire was not, after all, +traceable entirely to the political side of Bismarck's hotly contested +struggles. + +The innate craving of the German people for a strong ruler has a +subtle inner meaning, too easily overlooked. + +¶ In the final analysis, Bismarck's position expresses Prussian sense +of National security in a powerful war lord, rather than supports the +conception of master and man. His was not the position of lord and +servant; rather it means a manly, intelligent admission of the +necessity of a strong central authority in the nation. + +¶ By the force of years of tedious repetitions, building on the plain +laws of mental suggestion, Bismarck at last created certain dominating +ideas; but the germ of these ideas already existed in Prussia's +consciousness. + +The Prussian character supporting Divine-right represents a singular +compound of cadet, blind confidence in aristocratic leadership, +religious radicalism, worship of ancestors approximating the Chinese +sentiment, and finally, a racial psychology of rulership, based on the +rattan of Frederick the Great. On this total combination, the astute +Bismarck played for thirty long years, warring for his lord and +master, the Hohenzollerns. + +A careful reading of Bismarck's speeches, letters, dispatches, will +show that whatever political expediency he may at various times have +followed, and however often he may have changed front, there is still +in his great labor a tireless repetition of ideas commanding respect +for vested authority, for ancestry, for a ruling class as against the +ruled, and always for absolute dog-like obedience to some central +commanding power. + + * * * * * + +¶ The psychological something on which Bismarck builded his German +Empire is Bismarck's recognition of the peculiarities of his German +peasant, as well as of his Prussian King. We come now to some great +central racial facts. + +Bismarck's unending eulogies of military glory, now extolled in the +high language of a victorious commander-in-chief, again as a +drill-sergeant sharply criticising the squad, are not to be dismissed +as the expressions of one in large authority, speaking from the steps +of the throne. + +Bismarck's work would have failed had he not linked it to some secret +craving of the Teutonic heart, far deeper than conquering the +jealousies, intrigues and selfishness that compose the long story of +the rise of the German Empire. + +¶ Historians may talk as much as they please about Bismarck's +executive and administrative genius, but these, great as they are, are +overshadowed by his power of political spirit-healing, as it were; +through practice of his peculiar psychotherapy he cured sick Germany +of many of her ills; at the same time bringing about German +brotherhood in a way that added to the great glory of Prussia. + +¶ Appealing to the solemn religious side of Prussian character that +expresses itself in upholding authority, in church or state, Bismarck +incessantly lauds the descendants of noble families, and sets up that +Prussian military aristocracy alone reared up Prussian political +legitimacy. + +He presents likewise the idea that the supreme quality of German +manhood is courage; and to Bismarck's mind the sovereign German virtue +is revealed in strong-willed eager soldiers. + +While in these lofty moods, Bismarck displays enormous family pride +for his beloved aristocrats of Brandenburg, is never weary of telling +of their military prowess. + +He avows on many occasions his life-long regret that he did not enter +the army as a career, instead of taking up the civil service; he digs +into his family records and proudly numbers each Bismarck who carried +arms, even down to distant cousins, and is never so happy as when +telling of Bismarcks on many blood-drenched fields. + +Above all else, he everlastingly insists that behind his demands for +his King is the direct will of God. + +¶ There is not the slightest doubt that as time passed and Bismarck +kept telling over and over for years that the King represented God's +will on this earth, true Prussians came at last to believe it more and +more; for the reason that it was in their blood to believe, as it is +the nature of a bull-dog to fight, a glutton to eat, a thief to steal, +the sun to shine. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck called on heaven to send its avenging lightnings on the +heads of those who deserted their monarch, to their perpetual +dishonor; could think of no crime more monstrous than ingratitude to +his King, especially to a king by the grace of God. + +And Bismarck declared again and again, as his deepest conviction, that +the Prussian crown was encircled by a heavenly aureole. In short, +Bismarck revived in its purest and most uncompromising form the +doctrine of Divine-right. + +¶ In an age seemingly out of touch with this iron-bound mold of the +Feudal past, Bismarck would have failed miserably were it not that he +touched a responsive side of Prussian character--dog-like loyalty to +authority, compounded of military glory and a pale shimmering ghost of +religious aspiration. + +The governing fact of the whole situation was psychological rather +than physical; and all this stupendous cannonading at Gravelotte, +Sedan, Koeniggraetz, and the magnificent drama in the Hall of Mirrors, +were after all merely so many evidences that Bismarck better than all +the tribe of his objectors knew the psychological core of Prussian +character. + +¶ Bismarck brought down the wrath of God on those rival leaders who +dared to be disloyal to his Divine-right King, and flew into frenzy at +the very thought that a genuine Prussian should expect wisdom from the +common people. Behind all this, was always the solid appeal to +Prussian military-cadet idea of loyalty and strong politico-religious +instincts. + +¶ Manipulating this psychological side, invisible yet very real, +Bismarck shows his genius as a constructive statesman. Without this +intuitive touch of Prussian consciousness, all the lustre that +Bismarck ultimately shed on the Imperial crown would have been +impossible. + +¶ Thus, we behold Otto von Bismarck, the rude, blond, Pomeranian +giant--in spite of his coarse speeches, his brawls, his political +card-stacking, his enormous egotism, his passionate seeking after +power--play with Shakespearian subtlety on the strings of human +passion. + +There is no larger character-side to our Bismarck; so study it well +and reflect on its wide meaning. + + * * * * * + +¶ We are not here to say what Bismarck should or should not have done, +but we make up our mind about him by what he did do. + +¶ He had peculiar ideas of religion, pleasure, duty, and certainly he +had his own idea of what was best for Prussia, and finally for +Germany. + +¶ He bartered his immortal time for a King's crown and an Emperor's +glory, guns, swords, forts, marchings up and down the land. + +¶ He bartered his time in angry disputes with his fellow-man, for +prisons, broken homes, murders, tears for 80,000 widows and orphans. + +¶ He bartered his time for magnificent spectacles such as the +coronation of William I in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, a palace +outrivaling any creation of man since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. + +¶ He bartered his time for grand balls for aristocrats in silk coats +and ladies in diamonds and satin gowns. + +¶ He bartered his time that a certain space in Europe be made over to +his own liking. Other kings and emperors with equal logic wished to +have this space made over in a way that seemed as good as the one +Bismarck had in mind, but Bismarck regarding it as a calamity that +other plans should come to pass, fought bitterly with sword and cannon +to back his individual opinion against all who disputed with him. + +¶ He bartered his time that a certain part of the map be marked with +one name instead of thirty-nine names, as had been the case when he +came to power as a young man in the politics of Prussia. + +¶ And finally he bartered his immortal time in a thirty-years' +gladiatorial fight that in the end millions of Germans might feel the +tingle of blood-brotherhood. How he faced the long, heart-breaking +battle, therein we find the true measure of our great Bismarck! Thus +his work, as an individual, is absorbed in the larger life of the +German Empire. These National services make Bismarck one of the +immortals; and his name will be remembered affectionately by Germans +for thousands of years. + + * * * * * + +¶ The present review of German origins, through Bismarckian genius, is +concerned largely with the form of government established. + +The collective efficiency of the Bismarckian idea, as worked out in +the German Constitution, promptly ascertains the will of the people, +and carries out that will. + +¶ The Kaiser, through the Chancellor, has the selection of all +important public officials, and as King of Prussia appoints Prussian +administrative officials; and in turn, the various kings choose the +various public servants in their respective kingdoms. All hold office +during good behavior, or for life; instantly responsive to the will of +the Kaiser, or to the Bundesrath. The state officials are thus "the +fingers of the Kaiser," working the duties of the Empire, free from +the petty molestations that assail even the most trustworthy and +patriotic American office-holders. + +¶ In simple terms of parallel, the much-lauded American Commission +System, for the government of cities, was borrowed from the Kaiser. + +The Commission System delegates the power to a committee of five, who +pass and execute the laws. + +This is precisely the principle laid down by the Bundesrath, in which +body is united executive, legislative and judicial functions. It is a +fact that the cities most efficiently managed, in the United States +(1915), are under the Commission System, that is to say, the German +conception of responsible politico-civic authority. + +¶ German thoroughness, as well as German discipline, unite to make the +German system a brilliant success; but in America the German +collective idea is politically offensive because of our superstition +that the way of Liberty lies through incessant political changes. The +American has confidence in the wisdom of large numbers, believes that +by dividing the functions of government the people may be saved from +themselves. One-man power is (theoretically) greatly feared, in +America. Despite the fact that in all great industrial undertakings +Americans appreciate the part played by personal responsibility, they +are loath to admit that the principle makes for National political +efficiency. + + * * * * * + +¶ One final word: Revolution means change; and in this sense the +French Revolution is important. In some respects, it is still going +forward. However, in 1848 the practical side of the Revolution was not +understood, was therefore decried by conservative thinkers who saw in +the excesses of the Commune little that heralded a better day. + +¶ In France, thousands of men misinterpreted emotional zeal for human +brotherhood for fitness to govern. It is the old, old story. + +To come at once to the point: You must judge a nation as you do a man, +not by what that man says, but by what he does. Hence, from Bismarck's +point of view, it was time to be done with the bursting of blood +vessels in a frenzy about equality, and to come down to the essential +facts of human nature; or if you like the words better, human ways. + +It is not necessarily a mark of wisdom to issue "manifestoes against +special privileges" and to set up that "all" the people are fit to +rule an empire. + +The very reverse is the proof of history; few men indeed there are who +have the patience, the discretion and the prudence to rule over other +lives. + +Also, the German race asks no upstart rulers; the idea of father and +child, duty, discipline and personal responsibility is deeply grounded +in the German conception of an adequate State. + + * * * * * + +¶ There is small profit in using precious time denouncing Bismarck's +protest against French Constitutionalism. Let us, instead, try to +understand why the old ways were cherished. And always bear in mind +that the Past holds mankind in a tighter grip than the Radicals are +willing to concede! There is no such thing as wiping off the slate +and starting with a "new" set of ideas. The wisest man in the world +cannot do that. At best, he recognizes the past, with here and there a +slight variation. + +Such, in short, was Bismarck's broad and true idea of human necessity. +And he planned his German Empire accordingly. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck was faced by these facts: the idiomatic ways in which +German people thought and acted; their tastes and ideals, not only in +politics but in society, law, religion;--nay, their very dreams. +Throughout, there is always a profound sense of personal +responsibility to the State. The State is not to be forgotten for some +spurious personal individuality. + +And mark this: that for generations "events" in Germany all gave +expression to certain racial habits of thought, against which all +manner of Communistic uprisings were anathema. + +German sense of discipline, duty and personal responsibility, in State +affairs, is grounded on a high consciousness that is not satisfied +with half-measures, bungling, waste, cheap politicians, and freakish +legislation. The German takes himself too seriously to permit a +bunko-politician to come on with faking, as a substitute for the +National ideal of government. + +¶ Hence, Bismarck's Imperial democracy, with the Kaiser at its head. + + * * * * * + +¶ As between the inevitable contest between the Crowd and the Crown, +springing from the inflammatory ideas of French Constitutionalism, +Bismarck did not shrink; but fought it out in his own way. Our Man of +Blood and Iron desired the blessings of liberty for Germany with all +the strength of his powerful being; but he could not stultify his +common sense by meekly conceding no essential distinction between men, +in their capacity for leadership. He was, then, intent on bringing out +of the German political chaos a type of democracy that may be termed +Imperial as well as representative, in which the people are accorded +their share, as he saw it, but always under the guidance of a strong +central authority. + +¶ And after all said in glorification of any special type of +government, the stubborn fact remains that absolute equality, from a +representative point of view, is a fiction unsupported by fact. The +notorious incapacity and apathy of the masses is always, in the end, +directed by central powers, exercised insidiously or openly as you +please, but exercised nevertheless. In every political party we find a +coterie, men of little wisdom it may be but leaders of the crowd; in +every city commission is always one masterful man to whom the other +members defer; in every banking house, one deciding voice; every +religious organization must have a head, regardless of the number of +counsellors; every ship a captain; every army a general; and, finally, +in every family there should be the guidance and direction of a strong +father. + +¶ Is there not a ring of sincerity in Bismarck's manly acknowledgment +of the inevitable equalities in the human stuff of which governments +are composed? He saw only common sense in openly protesting that in +any German government big enough and enduring enough to satisfy the +German conception of responsibility, in a word German thoroughness, +there must be, somewhere, a master-mind. + +¶ For many years, and even today, Bismarck is in some quarters +regarded as the arch-enemy of the common people, but his great work +has stood the acid test of time. The German Empire, builded under +Bismarck's broad ideas may be likened unto a wonderful watch, in which +each part does its peculiar work without even a gambler's chance of +going wrong. + + + + + BOOK THE SIXTH + + Once a Man and Twice a Child + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + The Downfall + + + 63 + + The secret discontent of the man who believed himself sole + founder of the German Empire. + +¶ When the Kaiser, on that eventful day in March, 1890, turned and +told the old man to go, Bismarck received the heart-breaking sentence +without a sign of protest. + +¶ To a friend who called he told the news in a calm voice, a smile on +his lips, congratulating himself on being able to resume his country +life, of which he was so fond, of visiting again the forests on his +estates, and "belonging to himself" in the few years that were yet +left. + +¶ "I'll soon be gone," he said, "and it is time I should take a rest." + +¶ The story is long and complex, but we will give you the large +details, only. The day comes when Bismarck's old friend, Emperor +William I, passes from this earthly scene; his son, Frederick III, +reigns three months and is carried off by cancer of the throat. The +doom of Bismarck is now sealed! Emperor William I was the firm +foundation of Bismarck's strength, but the son did not like the Iron +Chancellor, and within the three brief months of power before death +called, Frederick III let it be known that Bismarck was marked for +retirement. Frederick's one act leveled against the Bismarck +family-dynasty was to dismiss von Puttkammer, Minister of the +Interior. + +¶ Now enters William II, aged 29, a mighty man in the making, a +sleepless man, one who in his time was to become the standard by which +henceforth all German institutions are to be measured. His first +address to the army; his second, to the navy; his third, three days +later, to the citizens. + +¶ Did he not ask old von Moltke to resign? Yes, and others. It was +not, as many historians set up, that Emperor William II was jealous of +Bismarck, nor was it a case of "crabbed age and youth cannot live +together." + +¶ The Emperor, with firm feeling in his will to Imperial power, wishes +to develop Germany along lines of world-wide importance. Bismarck was +of the past; William of the future. The blow fell March 28th, 1890. + +¶ The world gave a gasp of astonishment; it seemed impossible that +Bismarck, the master-mind of United Germany, should be unceremoniously +shuffled out of sight. + +Political writers the world around become involved in spirited +controversies, on the whole supporting the old man and denouncing what +seemed like ingratitude on the part of the new Emperor. It was pointed +out that Bismarck himself, speaking to the Czar, had only a short time +before declared, "I hope to die in office, always a good friend of +Russia." Also that William II had on New Year's telegraphed to +Bismarck, "That I may long be permitted to work with you, for the +welfare and greatness of the Fatherland!" + + * * * * * + +¶ If Bismarck was not made by a King's breath, at least a breath +destroyed Bismarck's control of the situation. + +Bismarck had long ruled the lives of millions; but when Wm. II snapped +his fingers and said "Finis!" the old Chancellor had to go. The loss +of Bismarck's influence was as complete as though instead of being the +foremost man of his time in the diplomatic world, he was instead only +a clerk discharged by his superior. + + * * * * * + +¶ In listing the elements on which Bismarck builded there is always +one often overlooked, yet at the very foundation, the bottom stone in +the wall. That one was the favorable attitude of King William I. +Without the King's consent, Bismarck's career would have been +impossible! Herein, we find a classic illustration of how +interdependent are men's lives; what small causes sustain or defeat +great careers. + + * * * * * + +¶ But first we wish to tell you something of his honors during the +past few years, also of the munificent patronage of the Kaiser, going +far to refute the libel that the Kaiser was ungrateful. The patient +Kaiser in truth dealt nobly with the moody old man. + +On the old man's 70th birthday (1885), the people of Germany offered a +gift of $1,350,000, one-half of which Bismarck used to repurchase the +ancestral estate, Schoenhausen, which he had sold in his impecunious +years; and now, thanks to the gratitude of the German nation, the old +place, mightily enlarged and improved, passed again into Bismarck's +hands. + +The other half of the $1,350,000 Bismarck set aside as an endowment +fund for school teachers. + +¶ Even Victor Hugo added his hero-worship, in this curious letter: +"The giant salutes the giant! The enemy salutes the enemy! The friend +sends the greeting of a friend! + +¶ "I hate you, cruelly, for you have humiliated France; I love you +because I am greater than you. + +¶ "You kept silence when my eighty years sounded from the belfry of my +glory; but I speak now because the stolen clock which stands upon your +desk, refuses to announce to you that your 70th birthday has come. + +¶ "If you and I were united in one person, the history of the world +would have been ended.... But you are great because you know not what +fear is. Therefore, I, the poet, offer my hand to you, the great man." + +¶ The Prince, thunderstruck, wrote in reply two words, "Otto--Adieu!" + + * * * * * + +¶ Nor was this all. The Pope bestowed upon Bismarck the Order of +Christ, for ameliorating the last of certain hard conditions against +the Church, dating from the culture-struggle of years gone by. + +¶ In 1871, Emperor William I had invested Bismarck with the hereditary +dignity of Prince, and William II conferred on Bismarck, at the time +of dismissal (1890), the title Duke of Lauenburg, together with a +larger share of the Duchy of Lauenburg, an estate on which the Emperor +expended $1,000,000. + +¶ The old man's income was now said to be in excess of $100,000 a +year; in addition he received unnumbered gifts of a princely nature, +as well as priceless tokens of sentimental esteem, from patriotic +Germans the world around. + +¶ It was a relief to Bismarck, in his old age, to know that his family +would be rich and famous. He had been deeply engrossed in politics for +years, and all his ambitions had been exhausted on his beloved +Germany; he not only had no time to make money, but was heavily in +debt; his interest account, for loans, was said to have been, for many +years, $30,000 per annum. + +How he managed to keep his head above water (with all the distractions +of statesmanship, to say nothing of the burdens of three great wars, +and the embarrassments of his private finances) shows the man's iron +constitution as well as his sagacity in practical affairs. + +¶ In all, Bismarck received forty-eight orders of distinction, at the +hands of monarchs; also a long list of university degrees, medals and +golden keys bestowing the freedom of German cities. + + * * * * * + +¶ The immediate cause of Bismarck's dismissal had to do with an old +"Order in Council," 1852, to the effect that the Prime Minister, as +head of the Prussian Cabinet, had autocratic powers. + +This order the Kaiser now abruptly countermanded. The decision was +made following an interview between Bismarck and Dr. Windhorst, at +Bismarck's house. + +William II did not much like this political jockeying on the part of +Bismarck; Windhorst was an enemy of the established order; therefore, +that the Prussian Chancellor should hold a secret caucus with a +politician objectionable to the Emperor created a crisis. + +The Kaiser, who lived in a wire-hung whispering gallery, knew at once +that Bismarck and Windhorst had been in conference; and early on the +day following, William abruptly appeared at Bismarck's and asked to +see the Chancellor. + +Bismarck came down in morning gown and slippers, for he had been +summoned from his bed! + +¶ "What is the meaning of this Windhorst interview?" inquired the +Kaiser sharply. + +Bismarck replied with spirit. The breach widened. Bismarck took the +ground that it was none of the Kaiser's business who called at the +Bismarck house. + +¶ The Kaiser then insisted that in the future he should be notified in +advance of prospective political interviews, that, if he so desired, +he might send a personal representative, to report the drift of the +talk. + +This made Bismarck furious; the old man rebelled, flatly! + +¶ It was a sharp, short, painful scene; by no means a ceremonious +discussion of constitutional prerogatives, or the amicable +rearrangement of methods of transacting state business. Instead, it +was the parting of the ways, the breaking of old ties;--and after all +these long years! + +¶ "Then I understand, Your Majesty, that I am in your way?" + +¶ "Yes!" + +¶ "Enough!" + +¶ "Haste!" rejoined the Kaiser; and thus, in few words, the celebrated +interview came to an end. + +¶ In parting with the Chancellor, the Kaiser made Bismarck Prince of +Lauenburg and gave him a very valuable country estate, and added also +the rank of Field Marshal. The princes of Germany joined in good +wishes for the old man's peace and happiness, for his declining days. + +¶ Peace and happiness--what a satire! + + + 64 + + And Bismarck was intensely human! "Who made United Germany?" is + his question. + +¶ The women of his household did not take the news quietly. + +¶ The imperial messenger arrived with the Kaiser's portrait, as a +farewell souvenir to Prince Bismarck. His wife exclaimed: "Take it to +Friedrichsruh and let it be placed in the stable!" + + * * * * * + +¶ At the depot, a great crowd came to see the old man depart for the +country, but the Kaiser was not there. + +Bismarck's hoary age, his great dignity, his known services to +Germany, were now dear to the heart of Germans; thousands gathered, in +spontaneous farewell, crowding around the old man and kissing his +hand. + +¶ Now let us face the facts. + +To a man of Bismarck's iron mold, the exercise of power is the breath +of life; this made it a tragedy for the aged Bismarck to withdraw. + +It was but natural for him, as time passed and his ambition grew, that +he should believe himself the sole founder of the German Empire. His +constant utterances after his downfall bear out this idea. The +composite victory of scores of minds merged in his imagination and now +crystallized in his own soul victory. Such is human nature, and so we +say "Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo," but is this strictly +true? True or false, such is human habit of thought, and Bismarck was +also now shown to be human enough to claim it all for himself. + + * * * * * + +¶ The story of Wolsey over again; our old counsellor of state thrown +off in his declining years; and we can almost hear Bismarck in his +great bitterness repeat the tragic words: + + Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal + I serv'd my King, he would not in my age + Have left me naked to mine enemies! + +¶ Bismarck's further official presence was irksome to the new master. +With the iron decision characteristic of Hohenzollern, William II +ended the situation, with a stroke of his imperial will. In this +attitude William not only acted wisely, but showed himself every inch +a Kaiser. + +¶ Besides, Bismarck was plotting in a very human way to support and +advance the rising fortunes of the Bismarck family. Would you not have +done as much, or even more? + +In his princely office, Bismarck thought to found a diplomatic dynasty +of his own, wherein the servant becomes the master; he made his son, +young Count Herbert, Minister of Foreign Affairs, a rise in life +prodigiously fast for one who used to fill the function of holding his +father's dispatch bag in the Parliament, when the old man made +speeches, supported by incessant drinking of brandy. + +Bismarck, himself, was Chancellor, Minister-President, Foreign +Minister; his cousin, Minister of the Interior; and there were many +other Bismarcks in state service, trained to know the old man's +policy. Constructive governmental work was all in Bismarck's +power;--and he meant to keep it there. + +¶ These many acts of family favoritism, arousing the indignation of +the new Emperor, played an important part in determining the old man's +dismissal. The King was offended by Bismarck's many acts of nepotism, +"the greatest," he secretly declared, "which politics have ever +recorded." + + * * * * * + +¶ A high official said to Bismarck after Koeniggraetz: "You should be +well satisfied;--it made you a Prince!" + +¶ "It made me a Prince," mused Bismarck, with a sudden and +unaccountable show of irony. Then, pointing to the map of United +Germany, he replied with deep-rooted conviction that revealed how the +fires of ambition were consuming his very soul: "A Prince, did you +say? Yes, there is my principality!" + +¶ From that hour, the suspicious and irrascible side of Bismarck's +mind continued to expand. Some of us quarrel with our family, our +partners, or our political party, asking who was responsible for the +disaster, but the most deadly disputes are those called forth by +ambition to decide not who was responsible for the loss, but who made +the success. + +¶ Small cause; great effect. + +¶ And Bismarck was intensely human! + + + 65 + + The elements of his greatness number three--Here read two, but + the third and greatest is yet to come. + +¶ Now you ought to begin to understand the man in his naked reality; +his elements of greatness compounded with crying frailties--but his +very faults endear him to us the more, because they show him brother +to the weak. + +¶ Threefold a great man, great in ambition and courage; greater in +compelling victory through years of patient and moody planning; but +greatest of all in his downfall, when turning his back upon the blaze +of glory, he retires to the country to view the mighty forests, and to +take long walks with his dogs over the fields, communing with himself, +the winds of heaven, and the immortal stars. + +¶ His time is now very short; the sands have all but run out of the +glass. For the first time in many, many years, he now belongs to +himself once more--on the very edge of the tomb--before the sun is to +go out forever--and the long night settles down. + +¶ Does he still believe in his old ikon? In the secret chamber of his +heart does he still believe that God was behind it all, on the side of +the needle-guns of Sadowa? + +¶ The justifications of earth ofttimes betray themselves in strange +superstitions, and there always was a large strain of superstition +compounded in the great mind of this great man; not unlike the +superstitions of a brother conqueror, Julius Cćsar, who was wont to +crawl on his belly to the Temple, there to return thanks to the +immortal gods for success in battle. + +¶ To his dying day, Otto von Bismarck held fast that he was the +instrument of God, and that God did it all, through him. Flesh and +blood needs some explanation for its ways--and it may be that one +interpretation is on the whole as good as another. With Bismarck the +ikon was God. + + * * * * * + +¶ On his part, as a human being, for many years Bismarck nursed his +seemingly impossible dream of expelling Austria from the German +states and binding up thirty-nine principalities in one grand Empire. +This ambition he pursued incessantly, and ultimately succeeded in +reaching by his genius in manipulating the human nature side of the +men around him. He worked for himself, for his King and for his ideal +of a United Germany. He gave to the seemingly hopeless cause all his +time, strength, nay, his very soul. + +¶ His was also now the secret discontent of a man who thought himself +the sole founder of the German Empire. It was so understood by Kaiser +William. For the time being, then, the patient Kaiser, averse to +wounding the pride of a true German servant of the Empire, permitted +the overleaping ambition of his great Minister of State to have sway; +but William knew that, soon or late, the break must come; and in his +own mind had already decided on the man who was to take Bismarck's +place. + +¶ Little by little threats came; men in high office secretly inveighed +against Bismarck's new ambitions; it did not escape the attention of +the Emperor's intriguers, who now worked against the old man's family +aspirations; then came more resolute attitudes on Bismarck's part, +egged on by his wife and by his son, who each had grown prodigiously +ambitious. + + * * * * * + +¶ Enter General Caprivi! + + * * * * * + +¶ Before the will of the Kaiser, Bismarck must bow; and now behold how +the mighty has fallen! We must henceforth seek him not in the splendid +halls of state, but among simple rural scenes in Schoenhausen, where +he was born, where he lived as a child; and to these quiet shades +under the oaks and elms he now returns at the last remove of life; a +broken, world-weary man, full of honors it is true, but by the irony +of fate come back to die stripped of worldly grandeur, and to ponder +the vanity of all earthly ambitions. + + + 66 + + Bismarck inveighs against the ingratitude of kings--A fighter + to the end. + +¶ Did he take kindly to his enforced retirement? Far from it. With all +the querulous impatience of an octogenarian, full of whims, sick in +soul and body, suspicious, irritable, dying inch by inch, a prey to +insomnia, his neuralgic pains, his swollen veins, in short, a crabbed +old man, awaiting the call--behold now our great Otto von Bismarck, +and mark well to what narrow limits his power has shrunk. + +¶ On one occasion he moodily replied to a question: "Who are the +Hohenzollerns? My family is as good as theirs!" And the old man meant +it, every word of it. + +¶ He began bombarding the newspapers with bitter reviews, criticising +the Government, the affairs of the day. The African treaty he +dissected, to Caprivi's disadvantage. "I never would have signed it!" +wrote Bismarck, and the press took up the cry. Any utterance from the +old political sage was welcomed, the more caustic the criticism the +better it read, all to the disadvantage of the Emperor and the new +advisers. + +¶ Many newspaper reporters called at Bismarck's country retreat; the +old man would tell them strong truths against the Government. Here and +there, a newspaper came out as Bismarck's official spokesman! + +¶ It did seem as though nothing Caprivi did ever pleased the old man. + +The curious fact was this: that Bismarck in his own time had always +held as an inviolable principle, "No criticism of the Government in +foreign affairs," but now he claimed a privilege he had never granted +to another. + +¶ One of his many startling confessions of state secrets was that the +Franco-Prussian war never would have taken place but for the garbled +Ems dispatch. Instead of being a "holy war," to support the very life +of the Fatherland, it was now made clear that the old Divine-right +idea had been but the stage-play of a political minister, for his +imperial sovereign's march to glory. + +¶ The last illusion was now dispelled. + +Caprivi was obliged to issue a circular-letter to Germany's diplomatic +corps, everywhere, "Do not mind Bismarck's utterances; take no stock +in them!" + +¶ Even when Bismarck's old friend, von Moltke, died, the Man of Iron +refused to go to the funeral; he did not care to take a chance of +meeting the Emperor, there! + +¶ Querulous, iron-willed--such he is to remain. No giving up, no +softening, no forgiveness; but blood and iron to the end. We must +present him thus, our sad-hearted, irritable old master, proclaiming +against the vanity of earthly glories, and like Wolsey wondering on +the frailties and ingratitude of kings, whose memories are indeed no +longer than the going down of the sun. + +¶ Thus for two long weary years the bitter fight went on. + + * * * * * + +¶ The old man now went on a trip to Vienna, to see his son Herbert +married, but ahead of him the Government had telegraphed, "No official +welcome for Bismarck!" + +The German ambassador, under instructions from Berlin, did not dare +attend the wedding, refused to notice Bismarck's presence in Vienna, +officially. + +¶ This was the last straw; it worked revulsion of popular feeling; the +common people of Germany, the self-same people that Bismarck had so +long doubted, now took up arms for fair play for the old man; and +Caprivi, made the scapegoat, was forced to resign. He was succeeded by +Hohenlohe, Bismarck's friend, and leader in the Bavarian National +party. + +¶ On Bismarck's eightieth birthday, the Emperor came in person, and +with military honors presented the old man with a magnificent sword; +but on Bismarck's part the reconciliation was not sincere, you may +well imagine that. + + + 67 + + Wherein, at last, abandoned by his King, the plain people, whom + the great Bismarck so long politically ignored, now do indeed + bind up the old man's wounds. + +¶ Bismarck's mighty nature never softened, but remained bitter to the +day of his death, with fire and sword pursuing his enemies; broken by +Fate, his power gone, Bismarck still continued consistent to the last; +true to his iron nature, he returned the hatred of enemies with his +own arrogant contempt. + +¶ As the years of his downfall passed and men came to comprehend +somewhat his extraordinary combination of overshadowing political +genius in administrative and executive life, side by side with his +strange superstitions and his many weaknesses of a grand order, this +awe-inspiring man became beloved for his frailties by the very common +people whom all his life long he had held under suspicion. The people +rallied to his defense when kings quitted his side; they took up his +cause because the old man had been outraged in his sensibilities, +rather than because he was right; they sent him thousands of +sympathetic letters, telegrams, presents; thousands of students, +business men, women and children, visited him in his retirement; and +by that touch of human nature that proves the world kin, took the +embittered old man to their hearts in the name of the United Germany +that he had created with toil so infinite and battlings so long and +blood-stained;--and they disarmed Bismarck by honoring the name of +their old enemy. + +¶ It is a wonderful story of human nature, this story of how the +German people rallied to Bismarck's side; a story that reaffirms how +slender after all is the space between the pomp of kings and the +obscure destiny of the shepherd on the hills. + +The proud figure of the grand old man who was not too high to fall +from power stands side by side with Marius at the ruins of Carthage. + +¶ Finally, as between the kings whom Bismarck served so faithfully +and who abandoned him at last, and the people whom he despised but who +rallied to his side and bound up his wounds, this courageous giant, +who during the long years in which he fronted the seemingly forlorn +struggle for United Germany, had been so conscientious in the +discharge of his unpleasant duties, came at last to his peculiar +eminence as one of the world's greatest characters. + +¶ When he came to die, full of years and honors, although he had no +National funeral like the magnificent outpouring that marked the +return of Napoleon's body to the banks of the River Seine, yet in the +hearts of the German people Otto von Bismarck was accorded the +grandest funeral of modern times, if not of all time. + +That was many years ago; but his unapproachable memory still lives, as +Father of United Germany--and his fame goes marching on. + + + 68 + + The old man's strange fancies as he passes the time awaiting + his final call. + +¶ Behold our old master in retirement, as obscure as a simple country +squire; and he reads again--what do you think? The Book of Job, +Bismarck's last reading, reminds him of the evanescence of all earthly +glory, which passes away like the grass that is cut down by the mower. + +¶ Brave old fighter, with your show of dauntless spirit, down to the +very end, we know that you are grown weary of it all, and in truth, in +silent moments of self-communion, you do not care when the end may +come, nor may it come too soon for you. + +¶ He is worried all the time, now; worried about his son's health; +worried about the death of his brother; broken over the death of his +wife; distressed by the death of favorite dogs and horses. Also, he +recalls a gypsy saying having to do with the end of the Bismarck +family, under strange conditions, in these mystical words: + + Dem Grafen von Bismarck soll es verleiber + So Lang sie vom Horste die Reiher nicht trieben-- + +Or, "The Counts Bismarck shall reign at Varzin as long as the herons +are not driven from their ancient haunts"; in rude rhyme: + + "The Bismarcks shall hold their domain till the day + When they from their haunts drive the herons away." + +¶ You see, the old man's mind was wandering, and now and then he saw +the future, as in a strange dream. + +¶ He watched the crows and jackdaws gather over the fields and at the +rookeries, and he said one day, "They have their joys and sorrows like +human beings." + +¶ He recited Shakespeare, thinking of the olden times when he went +roaring up and down the land! "Let me play the lion, too! I will roar +that it will do any man's heart good to hear me. I will that I can +make the Duke say, 'Let him roar again, let him roar again!'" + + * * * * * + +¶ Trifles annoyed the aged Bismarck, as might be expected; such things +as changing the clocks to introduce "standard time," as it is called. +"I do not like this 'standard time'; here I get up half an hour too +early and go to bed half an hour too soon," was the octogenarian's +crabbed comment. + +¶ Day by day, crowds came to see him--children, students, laborers, +artists, musicians, politicians, writers--all visited the sage in his +retirement. + +Levi, the Wagnerian Kappelmeister, journeyed from Munich to +Friedrichsruh to beg the honor of owning, as a souvenir, one of +Bismarck's old hats. + +¶ Lenbach, the renowned artist, came to paint Bismarck's picture; and +noted the curious fact that although Mecklenburgers have the largest +German skulls, "Bismarck's is larger still." + +¶ Bad nights, neuralgia, insomnia became his companions; but still +ambition, the one supreme infirmity of his majestic mind, gives him no +peace. + +What would future generations say of Bismarck's work? And of the +immediate present, has Caprivi helped it any? Was the repeal of my +Iron Laws against Socialism wise? Why did not Caprivi follow my plan +of making the Government the arbiter of German conscience? Why did not +Caprivi carry the Army Bill? I fought for four years, once, to get +army money for King William--and won over all obstacles! + +¶ Schaffer came to make the Bismarck bust; it shows the Chancellor +with high-cut nostrils, heavy jaws, scowling brows. + +The old man likes it, because it presents him as a soldier; he is +proud that he is a Field Marshal, prouder still of the Bismarcks in +the old wars, proud also that he is a Prussian General of Cavalry. + +¶ Then he scolds again about Caprivi's treaty with Austria, says it +will cost fifty million marks a year and nothing gained. + +¶ Often in deep fits of melancholy, Bismarck thinks that Germany is +ungrateful. For one thing, the Government ought to recognize my son +Herbert; why, England saw in Pitt the son of his father, a chip of the +old block; and why not one Bismarck after another, eh? + + * * * * * + +¶ Maybe Dr. Schweninger could do me some good, what do you think? This +doctor is from South Germany--and a very determined fellow with a jet +black, piratical beard; he gives orders like a military man, is a +believer in diet, and all that sort of thing. + +Twenty years before, when Bismarck's weight was 247, this South German +Dr. Schweninger put Bismarck through a course of "banting," and the +Chancellor rewarded the doctor with a chair in Berlin, against the +united protests of the faculty! Why, yes, bring up Dr. Schweninger; he +can make me well, I am sure. + +¶ "I can make you live to be ninety, Prince!" + +¶ "Then get to work; spare no time; I am in bad shape!" + + * * * * * + +¶ Letters, telegrams, felicitations in the form of magnificently +embossed diplomas, continue to come, day after day; Bismarck is given +the freedom of cities; he is enrolled among engineers, carpenters, +brewers, ship-masters, tailors; each guild demands that the Iron +Chancellor's name head the list of honorary officers of the Grand +Lodge. + +In one year the record shows 650,000 letters and 10,000 telegrams; and +among these are begging letters asking a total of $2,500,000! + +¶ Bismarck often grows tired of seeing visitors; he has built himself +a secret spiral staircase, hidden in an unexpected place; and uses it +against unwelcome callers. + +Now and then, when his health permits, he is at his editorial work +again, laboriously issuing his proclamations to the German people; he +writes with a quill pen, and for a blotter prefers the old-time box of +blue sand. + +For scribbling hasty notes, he prefers huge lead pencils, such as he +favored in parliamentary days; pencils 15 inches long, similar to +those used by German carpenters. + +He sits at an immense oak table, and his chair seems uncomfortable; it +has no back. + +At his side is his porcelain tobacco jar, two feet tall, and on the +stand are innumerable pipes, which in turn are filled and smoked, all +day long. He holds a sort of tobacco parliament every day. Visitors +must smoke a pipe or cigars, drink wine, meet the dogs, and hear the +old man inveigh against these degenerate times. + +¶ Those big Ulmar dogs are always around him. At meal times, no matter +how fashionable the company, Bismarck pauses at the end of the dinner +to throw "Sultana" or "Cyrus" a biscuit! + +Sometimes he wears his Cuirassier's uniform, this broad-shouldered +giant with the thick neck and the grizzled mustache; his eyes glower +under his thick white brows, and in the depths of his faded blue eyes +is the old look of determination. + +The old man's face is ashen grey, but he still has the stamp of +immense dignity, a colossal personality, unquestionably representing +the first public man of his time. + +Folks bow to him, and he is master to the end; men are his servants, +not his companions. + +¶ He is always very deliberate; he has a peculiar way of stopping in +the middle of a sentence to seek out in a moment of silence the exact +word he needs. + +¶ In the morning, he usually takes a stroll with his big dogs. It was +a shock when "Old William" died, and the Emperor then gave Bismarck +"Cyrus"; the Prince also had "Rebecca" and "Sultana." + +The Ulmar dogs, following the old giant, resemble tigers in their +powerful slouching gait. + +At night they sleep in his bedroom. + + + 69 + + Bismarck refuses to pass under the yoke--the octogenarian's + last struggle of ambition. + +¶ He has his superstitions to the end; about the number 13, about the +number 7; and he believes that the moon has power to make human hair +grow. "It is best," he says, "not to make scoff of such matters." + +¶ Sometimes he goes over his orders of honor, forty-eight in all, and +of great distinction; also, his learned degrees. University of Halle +made him Doctor of Philosophy; Erlangen, Doctor of Law; Tuebingen, +Doctor of Political Science; Giessen, Doctor of Theology, and Jena, +Six-fold Doctor, that is to say Doctor of Medicine; and Goettingen, +Doctor of Law. + + * * * * * + +¶ They bring him a joint of wild boar, shot in Varzin forest, and he +has a feast. His fondness for game he never gives up. Also, to the +last he has his champagne. After the Franco-Prussian war Bismarck +refused to drink German champagne, and told the Emperor, quite +plainly, "Your Majesty, my patriotism stops with my stomach; I simply +must stick to French champagnes." + +¶ He tells how he used to drink Affenthaler and Merkgraefler, years +before at Frankfort; these were first-rate, at one florin a bottle, or +wholesale, the old man explains; by the 100 liters, only 14 kreutzers +(8 cents) a bottle. + +¶ "Red wine is for children, champagne for ladies, and schnapps for +generals," is one of his drinking mottoes, but he tells that he +himself prefers his old-line invention, the Bismarck champagne and +porter, a most powerful decoction, putting ordinary mortals under the +table very early in the evening--but not the Iron Chancellor, not at +all! + +¶ He recalls amusing stories of his ancestors. "One ancestor put pigs' +ears in pea soup and made a gastronomic hit." + +¶ Bismarck's eyes water one day and he explains, "The wine my +ancestors drank to excess comes back in punishment for their sins." + + * * * * * + +¶ What do you think? Bismarck's old enemy, Herr von Sybel, the eminent +author of the ponderous "History of Prussia," called today, and +Bismarck was glad to see Sybel, and they chatted a long time. As he +and Sybel talked of history, Bismarck had moments when he held himself +the one authentic builder of the German Empire. + +¶ Gradually, he came to think that he alone of his own unaided might +did the work. + +¶ Last scene of all in this great drama of Bismarck! The octogenarian, +in his downfall, is bitterly storming against his enemies. + +Consistent to the end, he never weakened. He did not pass under the +yoke of defeat by revealing any of those soft virtues that writers who +make a wax doll of this mighty man would have us believe. + +He raged and stormed impotently in his retirement at Friedrichsruh, +and by every loud and insulting means in his power--by voice, pen, by +special interviews, in his private letters, in his telegraphic +dispatches, in his talks with the old friends or new callers, and to +the last scratch of his Memoirs--Bismarck remains unrepentant, +turbulent, to the end fighting bitterly against the Fate to which he +could not and would not submit. + +Temperamentally and psychologically, it was impossible for him to act +in any way other than that in which he did act--even as you, in your +own life, are true to yourself in storm and sunshine, following some +unformulated but idiomatic law of your being. + +Bismarck believed himself a chosen instrument in the hands of God and +tenaciously clung to the dominant idea that the Bismarck work +comprised all the raw materials of German history, affecting the +German Empire. + + + 70 + + His face is ashen, his grizzled mustache, eyebrows and hair + white as the driven snow. + +¶ On the whole, the old man is interested in events not in persons; he +does not keep track of individuals; but he studies their work and its +effects. + +So, in his retirement he talks of big events, mostly; all the while +suffers from fits of depression and exhibits a growing moroseness, a +peculiar characteristic of highly developed German character. + +He calls for Kant, Hegel, Christ; and reads them, deeply. He likes +Hegel's idea that the history of the world shows "rational order," +conceals a "manifest destiny." + +¶ But the old man's one consolation is the Book of Job. + +He lays awake o' nights, unable to sleep, he says, "and it seems as +though there were a mountain on my chest." + +¶ He does not think much of Gladstone's "Home Rule" ideas; this "let +the people" rule is bad business, is the old man's comment. + +¶ He is invited out a great deal, but always makes the same excuse, "I +do not sleep well anywhere except in my own four-post bed. My +traveling days are over, thank you." + +¶ One day in the park, the ladies kissed his hand, but he replied by +kissing their cheeks, and he made a little speech as though he were in +parliament. + +¶ He studies the thick walls of Schoenhausen mansion and examines the +old French cannon of '71 scattered around the yard, as souvenirs. + +¶ He superintends the planting of trees; and rules over his estate +with all the old family dignity and unshaken firmness of soul. He asks +his secretary to count the telegrams that came this past year and in +round numbers there are 10,000. The old man takes a notion to send +each inquirer after his health a Bismarck autograph. So each day, from +April to August, he spends part of his time writing over and over in +great scrawling letters, at the bottom of a printed card of thanks, +the huge signature, "Bismarck." + + * * * * * + +¶ Little things are beginning to bother the old man. He comes in today +from a short walk and says he hates crows, because they are the enemy +of the singing birds. + +¶ Neuralgia is tormenting him, day and night, and he is very +irritable. + +School children come with teachers and after the children sing the old +man bows and says, "Children, I thank you." + +¶ And this Dr. Schweninger, who promised Bismarck ninety years of +life, is always hovering about, like a military doctor, giving express +orders to eat this, to get up at such an hour, to go to bed at such an +hour, and to take a nap at such an hour. + +The old man obeys like a child. + +¶ Strangers wait at the village bridge to see Bismarck and his dogs +pass by; week after week delegations of working-men, lawyers, +students, come to the house. + +Schweninger orders him to take longer naps, not worry about politics +and not to meet strangers. The old saying, "Once a man and twice a +child" is coming to pass; Otto von Bismarck is no longer the stubborn, +dogmatic fellow that he was, even a few years ago. But he still +scolds, fights and has his way with all--except the doctor. + + * * * * * + +¶ Tomorrow, April 1, 1898, Bismarck will be 83; however, he does not +seem to be failing much; but his face is ashen, his grizzled mustache, +eyebrows and hair are as white as the driven snow. + +¶ Gardeners write to him that they have named their choicest new +variety of rose, the Bismarck; and cigarmakers have the Bismarck +shape, cutlers the Bismarck dinner knife, a thick, sharp blade that +will carve a duck's neck in a twinkling. + +¶ However, the old man is growing weary of it all; and he hears with +no great show of interest that the people are planning monuments +everywhere. There is going to be an equestrian, helmeted statue in the +market place at Leipzig; at Weringrode, a heroic-sized Bismarck will +lean upon a sword; there will be a column in Hartzburg, Victory with a +lyre and another Victory with a wreath; there is to be a statue at +Kissingen; a helmeted-heroic figure at Freiberg; a column at +Charlotte-springs; a column at Meiszen; at Cologne, a heroic figure +with a sword; a heroic "Tyras and Bismarck," dog and man, at Leipzig; +allegorical figures, "Glory and War," for Berlin; at Wiesbaden, a +statue symbolizing the Bismarck National victory; a bust at +Heidelberg; at Kreuznach; a heroic figure with helmet and sword, with +"Glory" at his feet; at Zwickau, an allegorical memorial of noble +proportions; a tower in the Black Forest; and still another at Altona. + +¶ No; it is no use! As we said before, the old man is growing very +weary of it all; and now along comes Arthur Mendell, who paints for +posterity that remarkable Bismarck in which you see only the blazing +eyes and the shining silver helmet--the Bismarck of the brave days of +'66 and '70, when the German hosts carrying their deadly needle-guns, +marched over the Rhine--at Bismarck's word! + +¶ Dear Old Bismarck, these wreaths of immortelles come to you in your +retirement, but you have reached the time when the grasshopper has +become a burden, and when you have but one wish left in this +world--and that wish is to go in peace to your long sleep. + +¶ Coming, Bismarck--coming very soon now, Old Soldier; and we know +well how courageously you will answer up, when the invisible Skeleton +in Armor calls your imperial name! + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + Hail and Farewell + + + 71 + + Prince Otto V. Bismarck receives his final and his one glorious + decoration; and here we leave him, his fame secure among + Germany's immortals. + +¶ The game is now all but played out. The last phase is to be the +noblest expression. + +In his prime, Bismarck was of massive proportions in mind and body; +but of his moral nature both friends and enemies had often been in +doubt for many years. Now, even that was revealed to be in concord +with his herculean bulk. + +¶ The old glory passed from him, like a dream. He committed his soul +to his God; and he heard again voices of Nature that had been +inaudible to him, during his many years of intriguing diplomacy. + +These voices spoke to him of the vanity and emptiness of human life, +of the worthless baubles for which men exchange all they have, that is +to say, their immortal gift of time, which soon passes away and is no +more. + +The musings of the Prince on the follies, inconsistencies and +ambitions of life conspire to create a heroic figure like King +Solomon. All is vanity! The conqueror of a continent has so declared. +He had held the world in his hand, and had found that the sphere is +hollow. + +So go the fates of men. + +¶ The great Prince Bismarck has now become as a beggar at the city's +gates. + + * * * * * + +¶ Over his grand spectacle of human pomp and power, contrasted with +his final self-abnegation, shining forth we see the heights and depths +of human life; but in this case the end was greater than the +beginning; the defeat than the victory; the downfall than the glory; +and the disillusion than the dream. + +¶ Prince Bismarck in his long career as friend and confidant of the +kings of this earth, had been honored with forty-eight orders of +distinction. It is needless to mention them all, but they included the +Iron Cross and the Order of Merit, the one entitling him to sit with +kings, the other to command an army corps. + +¶ But the greatest decoration of all was the one he now wore, his high +tide of glory gone. + +It is the Decoration of the Order of the Disillusioned, bestowed upon +himself by his own soul. + +Soon or late, prince or pauper, and you and I, wear this Order as at +last we sit and wonder at the years gone by. + +¶ Let us silently pass on, leaving Bismarck here, in the one solemn +moment of his life; when he attains to real grandeur, stamps himself +as greater than when he sat before kings. + +For now he possesses his own soul, in peace. + +And in this last picture, the end is greater than the beginning; the +defeat than the victory; the downfall than the glory; and the +disillusion than the dream. + +¶ His final consolation was the Book of Job; and he read therein these +strange and solemn words: + +¶ What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that +I should prolong my life? + +Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass? + +¶ So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are +appointed to me. + +When I lie down, I say, when shall I arise, and the night be gone? and +I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day. + +My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without +hope. + +¶ Yea, man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. I would +seek unto God and unto God would I commit my cause; + +Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without +number; + +Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields; + +To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be +exalted to safety. + +He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot +perform their enterprise. + +¶ Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not +thou the chastening of the Almighty; + +For he maketh sore and bindeth up; he woundeth and his hands make +whole. + +He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall be no +evil touch thee. + +In famine, he shall redeem thee from death; and in war from the power +of the sword ... neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it +cometh. + + + 72 + + "As One Asleep" + +¶ On July 30, 1898, just before midnight, Otto Edward Leopold von +Bismarck, Prince of Lauenburg and former Imperial Chancellor of the +German Empire, died peacefully in the old homestead of his ancestors. + +The immediate cause of death was congestion of the lungs. + +¶ "Ich danke Dir, mein Kind," were his last words, addressed to his +daughter, who had stooped to wipe the moisture from his pale brow. + +¶ As late as the day he died, he had read the newspapers and talked +politics. + +His final remarks were on the relations of Germany and Russia, at all +times a subject of deep concern to him. + +¶ Dr. Schweninger had promised to bring him to 90--and was seven years +short. + +But the Bismarck of retirement was not unhappy in the taking off; he +had grown tired of it all; and it is pleasant to record that his last +hours were without pain. + +¶ A few days before, he had had his champagne, and had smoked five +pipes in succession; also the day before he died, he had asked an +attendant to "color" two new meerschaums, gifts of friends. Toward the +last, he had used an invalid's chair for breakfast, but otherwise he +seemed as well as could be expected. + + * * * * * + +¶ The windows looking upon the garden were opened, early next morning, +and the servants of the household gathered there to look at the +master, at rest. + +He was seemingly asleep in his four-poster bed, his head slightly +inclined to the left; his expression was that of one gently dreaming; +his arms were resting over the coverlet, and in his left hand he held +one white and three red roses, a last love-token from an Austrian +lady. + +¶ The expression of his features was, at the end, proud and noble; but +the face was as grey as ashes; for the fire of life was out at last! + + * * * * * + +¶ Later, came two Cuirassiers, in white, with drawn swords; and these +massive figures stood there by the bedside, and by and by kept solemn +guard beside the coffin; also, near by were two Foresters, in green. + +¶ Books, papers, telegrams and a laurel wreath were in the death +chamber, where the master had worked to the end. + +Not far away was his favorite chessboard, also, within touch the +Emperor's last present, a fac-simile of Frederick the Great's great +crook-headed gold cane; a step the other way the globe of the earth +that Bismarck used to roll over with his big hand, when he studied his +endless foreign political combinations. + +¶ Later, came the magnificent funeral with the high military, and all +the rest; but we think we shall take leave of him in his old room with +these simple objects around him, his tools of work, his big oak desk, +his mounds of state papers, his writings, his quill pens, his box of +blue sand, his pipes, steins and champagne glasses, his letters, his +telegrams, his great heaps of books, his immense correspondence on the +affairs of nations, his diplomas from universities, his degrees of +law, philosophy and letters, and finally, his big Ulmar dogs. + +¶ Here we leave him as one asleep, reminded of his final words, +uttered when the master was breaking fast with the infirmities of his +eighty-three years: + +¶ "There is only one happy day left for me. It is the one on which I +shall not wake again." + + * * * * * + +¶ His son refused the request that a death-mask be made of the noble +old face, but Lenbach's famous painting will recall the stern head for +years to come. + +¶ Bismarck's coffin was of polished dark oak, with eight silver +handles in the shape of lion's paws; candles burned around his coffin, +the pale lights softened by veils of black and silver gauze that +ornamented the silver candelabra. The floor was literally covered with +wreaths, many bearing cards of sympathy in gold letters, from various +eminent personages throughout the world. + +¶ The Kaiser heard the funeral services. + + * * * * * + +¶ Bismarck's mausoleum rests on a spot Bismarck selected for himself; +a plain Romanesque House of Death against a background of trees; and +to the right still may be seen his favorite bench where he used to +sit, under the shade of spreading oaks. + +The sarcophagus of yellow marble bears this inscription, selected by +Bismarck himself: + + Here Lies + PRINCE BISMARCK + A Faithful German Servant + of Emperor William I. + +¶ Hostile critics of Germany, brought forth by the great war of 1914, +profess to believe that this inscription on Bismarck's tomb shows that +Bismarck did not wish his work to be associated with the future of the +Empire, but with its past. + +Instead, it really proclaims the man's great mind, his clairvoyant +historical vision. He could have said many things about himself, +touching the great part he played in sustaining the pomp and majesty +of kings; but his simple acknowledgment of the rôle of faithful +servant, is more eloquent than sermons in brass. + +¶ Finally, a small altar to the right of the porch carries this text +from Colossians iii:23, the motto given to Bismarck many, many years +before by Rev. Schliermacher, the pastor who confirmed the boy Otto; +and that motto became indeed Bismarck's guiding star through life, as +now well you do know, balancing his record with the solemn Biblical +injunction you read here beside the master's tomb: + +¶ "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto +men." + + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blood and Iron, by John Hubert Greusel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOOD AND IRON *** + +***** This file should be named 29473-8.txt or 29473-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/7/29473/ + +Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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