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!