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 manœuvered 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.