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 Cæsar. 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.