THE SAME TO THE SAME.
Schönhausen, 8th July, 1850.
Yesterday a letter arrived from Oscar, according to which he will also be in Berlin to-morrow, but will not return until Thursday. I am very sorry your horses will be kept at work for two days together, but Oscar will not be able to set out on Wednesday, and it would be inconvenient for us to remain a day and a half in Berlin without any business whatever, or any other motive. The children and servants, Oscar, Johanna, and I, could not go in one carriage. I therefore remain, and my principal reason for writing to you is in relation to my former letter, according to which we should reach Angermünde on Wednesday and find horses at Gerswalde, unless you have arranged it yourselves differently—in which case Oscar will let me know, and it will be all right. I do not wish to propose any other route, or it will bring the horses into confusion, from the little time before us. This journey I perceive will give me an introduction to the new Lunatic Asylum, or at least the Second Chamber, for life. I already see myself on the platform at Genthin with the children; then both of us in the carriage with all sort of infantine requirements, businesses at which one turns up one’s nose—Johanna does not like to give the boy the breast, and he roars himself blue—then come official crowds, the inn, with both howlers in the Stettin railway-yard—at Angermünde, we shall have to wait an hour for the horses, and pack ourselves up again. How shall we get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? If we have to remain a night in Stettin it will be horrible. Last year I had to undergo all this with Marie and her screaming. Yesterday I got so despairing as to all these things that I positively determined to give the whole journey up, and so went to bed, determined at least to coach it right through or stop somewhere. But what do we not do for domestic peace? “The young cousins ought to know each other, and who can tell when Johanna will see you again?” In the night she attacked me with the boy in her arms, and with the arts that lost us Paradise she naturally succeeded, and every thing remains as before. But I feel that I am myself the victim of a terrible wrong; next year I shall be forced to travel about with three cradles, nurses, sheets, and all the rest. I wake at six o’clock in a mild rage, and can sleep no more, from the pictures of travel which my fancy paints me in the blackest hues—down to the picnics in the sandhills of Stolpmünde. And even were one’s expenses paid! But to throw away the ruins of a once brilliant fortune by travelling about with suckling children! I am very unhappy!
Therefore, on Wednesday we reach Gerswalde. Perhaps I had in the end better have gone by way of Passow, and you would not have had to send so far to Prenzlau as to G. However, it is a fait accompli; and the misery of choice is succeeded by the rest of resignation. Johanna greets you and packs. We shall send some of our things per freight; Johanna is therefore in some anxiety about her toilette, in case you Boitzenbürgers have company.
The period till the latter autumn of 1850 was very instructive to Bismarck as a politician; he continued to observe—we should, had not his Prussian heart been in the task, have said with scientific attention and curiosity—the effort made by Radowitz to save the Union; he was astonished at the dexterity of this statesman, but he also saw clearly that all this dexterity would fail, for want of real pressure. Bismarck learnt that it was as impossible to create a German Unity as any other form of state, if one is wanting in courage or power to exert a sufficient pressure upon that which opposes. While Austria opposed, union was not possible without war, nor did Bismarck forget this truth.
The triple alliance collapsed, war was forbidden by the political facts of the time—the union was abandoned, Herr von Radowitz resigned, and Herr von Manteuffel, who then entered upon his office as Minister of Foreign Affairs, went to Olmütz.
What a terrible outcry was raised as to this visit to Olmütz at the time, and how greatly Herr von Manteuffel was censured on the subject! Prussian feeling was deeply wounded, and was worthy of much respect; it was a severe transposition—but from Erfurt to Olmütz was a necessity, if it were not resolved to break the opposition of Austria by the sword. Herr von Manteuffel, however, who entered upon this severe task in patriotic devotion to his country, certainly did not deserve the flood of abuse which was heaped upon his head for many years. He, at least, had not led Prussia to Erfurt.
On the 3d December, 1850, Bismarck in a long speech defended the policy of the Ministry respecting the negotiations at Olmütz. He emphasized the community of interests existing between Prussia and Austria in reference to revolution, on the community of action of both States in German affairs. He censured war, by which Prussia would have set her existence upon the hazard of the die, in view of the threatening attitude abroad, and would have done so, not for herself, but for the lurking democracy. It will be understood that much of the so-called disgrace of Olmütz was cast upon Bismarck, and he was bitterly censured until the year 1866 for having defended those negotiations.
In the course of the session Bismarck had an opportunity of pronouncing a brilliant defense of the Prussian nobility, then assailed with unequalled license and malice. His words were these:—