Bismarck: some secret pages of his history (Vol. 3 of 3). Being a diary kept by Dr. Moritz Busch during twenty-five years' official and private intercourse with the great Chancellor

by Moritz Busch

Resignation.

“B(erlin) 18.3.90.—On the occasion of my respectful report of the 15th instant, your Majesty commanded me to submit the draft of an Order which should revoke the Royal Order of the 8th of September, 1852, by which the relations between the Minister President and his colleagues have hitherto been regulated.

“I take the liberty most humbly to submit the following statement of the origin and significance of this Order. Under the absolute Monarchy the office of a President of the Ministry of State was not required; and it was in 1847, in the United Diet, that the Liberal members of that time (Mevissen) first pointed to the necessity of paving the way for constitutional arrangements by the appointment of a ‘Prime Minister’ (‘Premier Minister’), whose task it should be to take charge of and provide for the maintenance of a uniform policy by the responsible Ministry, and to undertake responsibility for the entire results of the policy of the Cabinet. This constitutional arrangement came into force with us in 1848, and the ‘President of the Ministry of State,’—in succession Count Arnim, Camphausen, Count Brandenburg, Baron von Manteuffel, and the Prince of Hohenzollern,—was responsible in the first place not for any single department, but for the entire policy of the Cabinet, and, therefore, for the departments, as a whole. Most of these gentlemen had no separate department but only the Presidency, as for instance, prior to my entrance into office, the Prince of Hohenzollern, Minister von Auerswald and Prince von Hohenlohe. It was their duty, however, to maintain that unity and continuity in the Ministry of State itself and in the relations between the latter and the monarchy without which Ministerial responsibility, such as arises under a constitutional system, would be an impossibility. The relations of the Ministry of State and its individual members to their newly instituted Minister President, however, soon required to be regulated in more strict accordance with the Constitution. This was done, in concurrence with the Ministry of State, in the Order of the 8th of September, 1852. Since that time this Order had governed the relations of the Minister President to the Ministry of State, and through it alone the Minister President was invested with the authority which enabled him to assume that degree of responsibility for the policy of the Cabinet as a whole which was attributed to him in the Diet and by public opinion. If each individual Minister can receive commands from the Sovereign without previous arrangement with his colleagues, a coherent policy in the Cabinet, for which some one is to be responsible, is an impossibility. It would be impossible for any of the Ministers, and especially for the Minister President, to bear the constitutional responsibility for the Cabinet as a whole. Such a provision as that contained in the Order of 1852 could be dispensed with under the absolute monarchy, and could also be dispensed with to-day if we returned to absolutism without Ministerial responsibility. But according to the constitutional arrangements now legally in force, the control of the Cabinet by a President under the Order of 1852 is indispensable. All my colleagues agree with me upon this point, as is shown by yesterday’s sitting of the Ministry of State, and also that no one who succeeds me as Minister President can assume responsibility for his office if he lacks the authority vested in him by the Order of 1852. This necessity will be felt even more strongly by any succeeding Minister than by me, as he will not be immediately sustained by that authority which I have hitherto enjoyed, owing to my long tenure of the Presidency and to the confidence reposed in me by the two late Emperors. Up to the present it has never been necessary for me, in dealing with my colleagues, to expressly appeal to the Order of 1852. Its existence and the certainty that I possessed the confidence of the two late Emperors, William and Frederick, was sufficient to secure my authority in the Cabinet. To-day, however, this certainty exists neither for my colleagues nor myself. I have therefore been obliged to fall back upon that Order for the purpose of securing the necessary unity in your Majesty’s service. For the reasons stated above, I am not in a position to carry out your Majesty’s command in accordance with which I should myself introduce and countersign the revocation of the Order of 1852 (to which I myself recently called attention), and nevertheless continue to hold the Presidency of the Ministry of State.

“According to the communications made to me yesterday by Lieutenant-General Hahnke and Geheimer Kabinetsrath von Lucanus, I can entertain no doubt that your Majesty knows and believes that it is not possible for me to revoke the Order and yet remain Minister President. Notwithstanding that fact your Majesty has maintained the command given on the 15th instant and indicated that my resignation, which is thereby rendered necessary, would be accepted. From previous conferences which I had with your Majesty on the question whether your Majesty desired my continuance in office, I gathered that it would be agreeable to your Majesty that I should resign my position in the service of Prussia, but continue in that of the Empire. After considering this matter more closely I took the liberty to call attention to some critical consequences of such a division of my offices, particularly so far as the future action of the Chancellor in the Imperial Diet is concerned, and therefore refrain from repeating here all the consequences which would attend such a divorce between Prussia and the Imperial Chancellor. Thereupon your Majesty deigned to agree that for the present everything should remain as it was.

“As I have had the honour to explain, however, it is not possible for me to retain the post of Minister President after your Majesty has repeatedly ordered it to be subjected to the capitis diminutio involved in the revocation of the fundamental Order of 1852.

“On the occasion of my respectful report of the 15th instant your Majesty was pleased to confine me, as regards the extent of my official authority, within limits which do not allow me that degree of participation in the affairs of State, that supervision of the latter, and that freedom in my Ministerial decisions and in my intercourse with the Imperial Diet and its members, which I require if I am to accept constitutional responsibility for my official acts.

“But even if it were possible to carry on our foreign policy so independently of our home policy, and our Imperial policy so independently of Prussian policy, as would be the case if the Imperial Chancellor had as little share in the policy of Prussia as in that of Bavaria and Saxony, and had nothing to do in the Imperial Diet with the decision as to the Prussian vote in the Federal Council, it would nevertheless—after your Majesty’s recent decisions on the direction of our foreign policy, as laid down in the confidential letter with which your Majesty yesterday accompanied the report of the Consul at Kieff—be impossible for me to undertake to carry out the instructions respecting foreign affairs contained therein. I should thereby endanger all the important results for the German Empire, which our foreign policy, in agreement with the views of your Majesty’s two predecessors, has for decades past under difficult circumstances secured in our relations with Russia, results that have attained a significance beyond all expectations great for the present and for the future, a circumstance which was confirmed by Count Schuvaloff after his return from St. Petersburg.

“Attached as I am to the service of the Royal House and of your Majesty, and accustomed for many years to conditions which I have hitherto regarded as permanent, it is very painful to me to sever my wonted relations with your Majesty, and to break off my connection with the entire policy of the Empire of Prussia. Nevertheless, after conscientiously weighing your Majesty’s intentions, which I should have to be prepared to carry out if I were to remain in office, I have no alternative but most humbly to beg your Majesty graciously to relieve me of the offices of Imperial Chancellor and of Minister President, and Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs, under the usual regulations as to pension.

“From my impressions of the last few weeks and the communications made to me yesterday by your Majesty’s Civil and Military Cabinet, I may respectfully take it for granted that I meet your Majesty’s views in thus tendering my resignation, and therefore that I may reckon with certainty upon its being graciously accepted.

“I would have submitted to your Majesty the petition to be relieved of my offices a year ago if I had not been under the impression that your Majesty desired to take advantage of the experience and capacity of a faithful servant of your predecessors. Now that I am assured your Majesty does not require them, I may retire from political life without fearing that public opinion will condemn my decision as untimely.

(Signed) “von Bismarck.”

At the present stage of international affairs I consider it hazardous to publish the “Draft of confidential statement as to the motives of my retirement from office.” The interest of Germany in keeping it secret for the immediate future seems to me to be greater than the interest of history in its publication now.

“Notes on my Retirement.

“The Vice-President of the Ministry of State (von Bötticher) declared that he and his colleagues were deeply grieved at my retirement. He had hitherto hoped that the only differences of opinion between his Majesty and myself were connected with home domestic policy, and therefore that the arrangement indicated by me, namely, that I should confine myself to the control of foreign affairs, would prove a satisfactory solution. My withdrawal from all my offices involved incalculable difficulties; and although he could understand my displeasure, he could only beg me urgently to come to a compromise.

“I replied: The expedient of withdrawing from the Prussian service and confining myself to the position of Imperial Chancellor had met with objections from the Federal Governments and the Imperial Diet. It is felt to be desirable that the Chancellor should have an official position in which he can control the casting of the Prussian vote; and I, too, could not accept a position in which I should be obliged to take from the Prussian Ministers instructions in the preparation of which I had had no part. Therefore this expedient also would not be free from difficulties.

“The Minister of Finance declared that the Order of the 8th of September, 1852, by no means went beyond what was necessary, and could not form an insurmountable difficulty. And also so far as the difficulties in the matter of foreign affairs were concerned, he could only agree with the Minister of State, von Bötticher, that a compromise ought to be sought. Besides, if the retirement took place not for reasons of health, but on political grounds, and from all offices, then the Ministry of State itself would have to consider whether it should not take part in this step. Perhaps that would contribute to avert the fatal event.

“The Ministers of Public Worship and of Justice considered that the differences referred to were due solely to a misunderstanding, which it might be possible to clear up for his Majesty. The Minister of War added, that for a long time past his Majesty had not let fall a single word that had any reference to warlike complications with Russia.

“The Minister of Public Works (Maybach) described my retirement as a misfortune for the security of the country and the peace of Europe. Every possible effort should be made to avert it. In these circumstances he considered that the Ministers should place their offices at the disposal of his Majesty, and he at least was determined to do so.

“The Minister for Agriculture declared that if I were convinced that my retirement was desired in the highest quarter I could not be dissuaded from this step. But in any case the Ministry would then have to consider what course it should adopt.”