“During the first years of my Ministry, I frequently remarked in the course of similar conversation that the Princess took pleasure in provoking my patriotic susceptibility by playful criticism of persons and matters.”
In this passage we have evidently a perfectly frank expression of Bismarck’s real feeling, and it gives an extraordinarily vivid picture of these two remarkable personalities, facing one another with watchful, guarded, measuring glance, like two duellists awaiting the signal for combat.
That Bismarck to a great extent misunderstood the Princess is plain enough, and indeed it would have been extraordinary if he had understood her, so different was she from any normal type of German lady. But there is abundant evidence that he did not underrate her intellectual ability, though it must have been a perpetual astonishment to him to find such mental powers in a woman, and there were even moments when the aims of the two, generally so wide apart, seemed actually to converge. It is curious to speculate how different the course of history might have been if the Princess had added to her other qualities that tact, prudence, and power of judging human character, which were surely alone wanting to make her one of the most remarkable women who have ever held her exalted rank.
The greatest injustice which Bismarck did the Princess lay in his suspicion—to use a mild term—of her German patriotism. The Prince Consort had consistently pursued the ideal of a union of the German States under the leadership of Prussia as the champion of German Liberalism. Such a new-born Germany might, or might not, have become the ally of England, but the Prince Consort must certainly be acquitted of any Machiavellian designs for the benefit of his adopted country; the supreme end he had in view was undoubtedly the happiness and greatness of Germany, and both his wife and his daughter knew and shared his aims.
From 1858 to 1861 the Prince Consort’s influence in Prussian politics may almost be described as paramount; but the happy relations between England and Prussia were broken, partly by the inability of King William to share the liberalism of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which seemed to him positively anti-monarchical, partly by anti-Prussian feeling in England, and partly by the claim of the Prussian Liberals to dictate to the Crown on the question of army reorganisation.
Prince Albert did not live to see how completely his hopes had been shattered, and his premature death deprived his daughter of his counsel at the very moment when Bismarck came into office in the full tide of Russophil reaction and Anglophobia.
It is difficult to realise, in view of later events, how strong was the distrust which Bismarck inspired at the beginning of his accession to power. It was known that he desired an alliance with Napoleon III, and it was even believed that he would be capable of ceding German territory to France.
The trend of popular opinion was significantly shown on March 17, 1863, when the fiftieth anniversary of the Proclamation “To my People” was celebrated, and the foundation-stone of a memorial to Frederick William III was laid in Berlin.
Nothing that the authorities could do to give distinction to the occasion was omitted. The Crown Prince, who had just been appointed to a high post on the staff, commanded the military parade, and was present with his father at the festivities in honour of the survivors of the War of Liberation and the Knights of the Iron Cross. The citizens of Berlin, however, were conspicuous by their absence, and the popular feeling was expressed by the great writer, Freytag, who said in an article in a Liberal newspaper: “All good Prussians will pass this day quietly, seriously, and will consider the means by which they may best preserve the illustrious House of Hohenzollern for the future welfare of the State.”
The first real efforts made by Bismarck to alienate the King from the Crown Prince and Princess date from the year 1863, just when the Princess was beginning to recover her spirits and normal state of mental health.