So Much the Worse for Zeitgeist
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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.
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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!”
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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 Cæsar.
¶ 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 Cæsar. 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.
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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?
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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.