The Life of Bismarck, Private and Political / With Descriptive Notices of His Ancestry

by George Hesekiel

After this “elegantly” conducted war—which was at once an experiment on the newly reorganized army and the needle-gun, and had roused the patriotically warlike, i.e., the real, spirit of Prussia, the King invested his Minister-President with the highest mark of honor Prussia can bestow—the Exalted Order of the Black Eagle. Among those who felt obliged epistolarily to congratulate Bismarck on this well-earned distinction, was his former preceptor, the Director, Dr. Bonnell. One evening Bismarck called on him personally to thank him; he sat pleasantly chatting with Bonnell’s family at the tea-table. In his decisive manner he related a great deal about Biarritz, where he had enjoyed himself thoroughly; lightly alluded to the numerous threatening letters and warnings of assassination with which he had been incommoded, but which he despised, as no political party had ever yet received any benefit from murder. He then related a dream which he had had in Biarritz. In this dream he thought he ascended a mountain path which continually grew narrower, until he found himself before a wall of rock, and beside him a deep abyss. For an instant he paused, thinking whether he should retrace his steps; but he then made up his mind and struck the wall with his cane, on which it immediately disappeared, and his road was free again. After talking of many things in old and new times, he rose and said, “I must go now, or my wife will be uneasy again.”

“Dreams are seems,” says the proverb, but perhaps not always, and at the present time every one knows what the wall was which vanished before Bismarck’s blow.

The following year, 1865, arrived. By the Vienna peace of the 30th October, 1864, the Duchies of Holstein and Schleswig were ceded to Prussia and Austria—that is to say, they had returned whither they belonged, to Germany. This was, however, especially the result of the daring and skillful policy of Bismarck, for such a conquest was quite against the intention and desire of Austria. It was necessary now to deal with this acquisition, and it soon appeared that Austria was about to substitute, in place of the great national policy of Bismarck, the ultimate end of which was very openly expressed—to have a German Confederation under the leadership of Prussia—the wretched detail of a new Schleswig-Holstein minor state. No doubt that in such a policy Austria only thought of contravening Bismarck’s German policy—of rendering the realization of the Bismarck thought of union an impossibility. Nor was it remarkable that the Central States did not support the policy of Bismarck, as they would certainly have to sacrifice a part of that sovereignty they had so recently acquired to the nation, if Bismarck’s policy should prove victorious. These sovereigns could not determine to recede to the position they had so long held as German Princes of the Empire; they desired to assert their apparent sovereignty, and they were unable to perceive, that in case Austria should prevail, they would become Austria’s vassals at the expense of the German nation—at the price of Germany’s future. It was in vain that Bismarck exerted himself at the Federation, as well as at the German Courts, to introduce more healthy opinions—he could not get forward; and the continually abrupter forms in which Austria acted in the conquered Duchies, admitted of no doubt on his part that the Viennese politicians, with the whole of their partisans in Germany, were determined to force Prussia to submission; to the abandonment of her saving union policy, to the acceptance of the Austrian Federation—in fact, to her humiliation and dependence.

It was sad enough that Austria, in her inimical action, also reckoned upon the internal conflict in Prussia, which was the more zealously stimulated, in proportion as it became clear to the party of progress that the heart of the nation was more and more turning to the statesman who fought his victories, to the greater fame of Prussia and happiness of Germany, upon a field whither they were unable to follow him—upon the field of honor and of deeds. Of what use in the end was it, that they succeeded in victoriously maintaining, by their high-spiced speeches, a majority in the Chamber against the Ministry—that they embittered the daily life of Bismarck and the other Ministers—and rendered their labors more disagreeable, if this Ministry, despite of all, went victoriously on in the world’s history?—and that Bismarck, though he might not get the votes of the majority, won the hearts of the people?

We have no doubt that Bismarck, in the summer of 1865, already believed the hour of the great battle between Prussia and Austria to have arrived, and that he was determined to stand up manfully for his sound policy, and with this conviction we arrive at a great riddle—the episode of Gastein.

Bismarck had accompanied the King, in the summer of 1865, to Carlsbad, thence to Gastein and Salzburg, and so to the Emperor of Austria at Ischl.

The deepest veil of secrecy still covers the events which there took place; it is true the historian, A. Schmidt,[47] assures us that already, on the 15th of July, Bismarck, at Carlsbad, had said to the French Ambassador at the Court of Vienna, the Duc de Grammont, that he considered war between Prussia and Austria to be unavoidable—even that it had become a necessity. But this is unquestionably untrue—as untrue as the further statement of the same historian, that Bismarck, on the 23d July, said openly to the Prime Minister of the King of Bavaria, the Freiherr von der Pfordten, that “in his firm opinion war between Prussia and Austria was very likely and close at hand. It was a question, as the matter appeared to him, of a duel between Austria and Prussia only. The rest of Germany might stand by and contemplate this duel as passive spectators. Prussia had never contemplated, and even now did not think of extending its power beyond the line of the Maine. The settlement of the controversy would not long have to be awaited. One blow—one pitched battle—and Prussia would be in the position to dictate conditions. The most urgent need of the Central States was to range themselves on her side. Neutrality, even that of Saxon soil, would be observed by Prussia. A localization of the war, and that localization confined to Silesia, was not only determined, but, according to the already ascertained opinions of the most competent military authorities, it was possible. The Central States, in addition to this, by the proclamation of neutrality, were an additional means towards securing this centralization of the war. Bavaria ought, however, to weigh well the fact that she was the natural heir of the position of Austria in South Germany.”

What Bismarck really might have said to Freiherr von der Pfordten is not recognizable in this acceptation at all.

On the 14th of August the treaty of Gastein was concluded, which divided the co-domination of Prussia and Austria in Holstein and Schleswig. This treaty compelled Austria to leave the Central States a second time in an ambiguous position; the Central States might have learned from the fact how little really was cared for them at Vienna. This knowledge they had dearly to pay for a year later!