XLIII
FROM DIARY AND PORTFOLIO
Extracts from diary · Caprivi in support of the military bill · Bebel’s interpellation · Invention of a bullet-proof cloth · Settlement of the Bering question · King Alexander to his Servians · Dynamite tragedies in Spain · Visit of the Russian fleet at Toulon · Marcoartu’s letter to me · His letter to Jules Simon · General inquiry of the Paris Figaro as to a gift for the Tsaritsa · My answer to it · Exchange of letters with Émile Zola
When I look back for further recollections of the year 1893, and turn the leaves of my diary to refresh my memory, I discover that I was not interested in incidents of my own life, but rather in the events of contemporary history, and especially in such political phenomena as appertained to questions of peace and war. Among the complicated doings of the world, the features which I followed—and still continue to follow—with passionate interest were the phases of a battle,—the battle which a new idea, a young movement, had begun to wage with deep-rooted existing phenomena. After the manifestations and impressions produced by the powerful “Old,” I listened toward the future and followed with the keenest attention and hopefulness the growth of the as yet invisible and feeble “New,” whereof the great mass of people still had no knowledge. I saw clearly that the tiny plant had started to grow, but I was also well aware how stony the soil was, how harsh were the winds that opposed the development of its life.
How different are the contents of my diary and the pictures in my memory now from those of my youth! Then the center was my own person and all that concerned it,—plans for an artistic career and for marriage, worldly pleasures, domestic cares, and such a lack of understanding and of interest in the events of the day that I scarcely knew what was going on; and a contemporaneous war was noted only after it had broken out, and was disposed of with a line in my day’s records. But since I had become engrossed in the peace question my soul had become a kind of seismograph, which was affected by the slightest political shocks.
Here are a few extracts from my diary of the year 1893:
January 18. Caprivi’s speech in support of the military bill was pure fanfare. It almost signalized the advance of the hostile troops through the Brandenburg Gate, and once more brought into circulation the word “offensive,” which had in a large measure gone out of fashion; for in the last twenty years pleas for armaments have been made only in the name of defense. The Danish Peace Society entered a protest against the insinuation in the Chancellor’s speech in regard to the probable attitude in the next war. As if, indeed, the next war were thus to be announced! We talk about the horrors of a possible war of the future in Europe, but the definite article we do not like to use,—we do not speak of “the next auto-da-fé.”
March 1. The question of peace and arbitration came up yesterday for open debate in the German Reichstag. Bebel inquires whether the authorities are going to join with England and the United States in their endeavors to bring about a solution of international differences by a court of arbitration. Secretary of State von Marschall replies that the United States had, in their brief communication, made no tender in this direction. Nature makes no leaps; still less does official politics. The question came to debate without result, but it was not pushed aside with a smile.
March 20. A man named Dowe is said to have invented a bullet-proof cloth. If the contest between resistance and penetration, as it is carried on between torpedo and armor plate at sea, is to involve the land forces also, there will probably ensue the accelerated ruin of the nations and a reductio ad absurdum of all warfare. Just imagine! a new military bill for providing the millions of the army with bullet-proof wadding,—this voted and furnished at the same time in all countries; and this, if war should break out at this stage of the game, would afford a lovely campaign of unwoundable opponents! Then there would have to be a hasty majority demand for new offensive weapons with bullet-proof-wadding-pierceable bombshells (fired, wherever possible, from mines and balloons, from the frog’s- and bird’s-eye view), then the introduction of armored umbrellas and mine-proof overshoes,—and all this for “the maintenance of Peace.”...
April 4. To-day the arbitrators meet in the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, to settle the Bering question. Such an event ought to give the editorial writers of the whole world subject matter for extended observations, and ought to be accompanied by magnificent pageantry.
April 10. Our papers have published the news of the Bering arbitration without comment. On the other hand, the Westminster Gazette writes: “If the intrinsic importance of events and the outward demonstrations were in proportion, the report of the Bering arbitration would ring throughout the world to-day.” And the Daily Telegraph: “The Bering arbitration, as well as that on the Alabama question, affords mankind to-day a majestic spectacle.” An estimate of the importance of the event—typical of the daily press—is afforded by the Paris Figaro, which adds the observation that the seal question, if it is decided by the arbitration commission in a humanitarian manner, will involve a rise in the price of sealskins and persuade our fine ladies to have economical recourse to rabbit skins!