Such was the man who ruled the German empire with an iron hand for twenty years or more,--the most remarkable man of power known to history for seventy-five years; immortal like Cavour, and for his services even more than his abilities. He had raised Prussia to the front rank among nations, and created German unity. He had quietly effected more than Richelieu ever aspired to perform; for Richelieu sought only to build up a great throne, while Bismarck had united a great nation in patriotic devotion to Fatherland, which, so far as we can see, is as invincible as it is enlightened,--enlightened in everything except in democratic ideas.
I will not dwell on the career and character of Prince Bismarck since the Franco-Prussian war. After that he was not identified with any great national movements which command universal interest. His labors were principally confined to German affairs,--quarrels with the Reichstag, settlement of difficulties with the various States of the Germanic Confederation, the consolidation of the internal affairs of the empire while he carried on diplomatic relations with other great Powers, efforts to gain the good-will of Russia and secure the general peace of Europe. These, and a multitude of other questions too recent to be called historical, he dealt with, in all of which his autocratic sympathies called out the censures of the advocates of greater liberty, and diminished his popularity. For twenty years his will was the law of the German Confederation; though bitterly opposed at times by the Liberals, he was always sustained by his imperial master, who threw the burdens of State on his herculean shoulders, sometimes too great to bear with placidity. His foreign policy was then less severely criticised than his domestic, which was alternate success and failure.
The war which he waged with the spiritual power was perhaps the most important event of his administration, and in which he had not altogether his own way, underrating, as is natural to such a man, spiritual forces as compared with material. In his memorable quarrel with Rome he appeared to the least advantage,--at first rigid, severe, and arbitrary with the Catholic clergy, even to persecution, driving away the Jesuits (1872), shutting up schools and churches, imprisoning and fining ecclesiastical dignitaries, intolerant in some cases as the Inquisition itself. One-fourth of the people of the empire are Catholics, yet he sternly sought to suppress their religious rights and liberties as they regarded them, thinking he could control them by material penalties,--such as taking away their support, and shutting them up in prison,--forgetting that conscientious Christians, whether Catholics or Protestants, will in matters of religion defy the mightiest rulers. No doubt the policy of the Catholics of Germany was extremely irritating to a despotic ruler who would exalt the temporal over the spiritual power; and equally true was it that the Pope himself was unyielding in regard to the liberties of his church, demanding everything and giving back nothing, in accordance with the uniform traditions of Papal domination. The Catholics, the world over, look upon the education of their children as a thing to be superintended by their own religious teachers,--as their inalienable right and imperative duty; and any State interference with this right and this duty they regard as religious persecution, to which they will never submit without hostility and relentless defiance. Bismarck felt that to concede to the demands which the Catholic clergy ever have made in respect to religious privileges was to "go to Canossa,"--where Henry IV. Emperor of Germany, in 1077, humiliated himself before Pope Gregory VII. in order to gain absolution. The long-sighted and experienced Thiers remarked that here Bismarck was on the wrong track, and would be compelled to retreat, with all his power. Bismarck was too wise a man to persist in attempting impossibilities, and after a bitter fight he became conciliatory. He did not "go to Canossa," but he yielded to the dictates of patriotism and enlightened policy, and the quarrel was patched up.
His long struggles with the Catholics told upon his health and spirits, and he was obliged to seek long periods of rest and recreation on his estates,--sometimes, under great embarrassments and irritations, threatening to resign, to which his imperial master, grateful and dependent, would never under any circumstances consent. But the prince-president of the ministers and chancellor of the empire was loaded down with duties--in his cabinet, in his office, and in the parliament--most onerous to bear, and which no other man in Germany was equal to. His burdens at times were intolerable: his labors were prodigious, and the opposition he met with was extremely irritating to a man accustomed to have his own way in everything.
Another thing gave him great solicitude, taxed to the utmost his fertile brain; and that was the rising and wide-spreading doctrines of Socialism,--which was to Germany what Nihilism is to Russia and Fenianism was to Ireland; based on discontent, unbelief, and desperate schemes of unpractical reform, leading to the assassination even of emperors themselves. How to deal with this terrible foe to all governments, all laws, and all institutions was a most perplexing question. At first he was inclined to the most rigorous measures, to a war of utter extermination; but how could he deal with enemies he could neither see nor find, omnipresent and invisible, and unscrupulous as satanic furies,--fanatics whom no reasoning could touch and no laws control, whether human or divine? As experience and thought enlarged his mental vision, he came to the conclusion that the real source and spring of that secret and organized hostility which he deplored, but was unable to reach and to punish, were evils in government and evils in the structure of society,--aggravating inequality, grinding poverty, ignorance, and the hard struggle for life. Accordingly, he devoted his energies to improve the general condition of the people, and make the struggle for life easier. In his desire to equalize burdens he resorted to indirect rather than direct taxation,--to high tariffs and protective duties to develop German industry; throwing to the winds his earlier beliefs in the theories of the Manchester school of political economy, and all speculative ideas as to the blessings of free-trade for the universe in general. He bought for the government the various Prussian railroads, in order to have uniformity of rates and remove vexatious discriminations, which only a central power could effect. In short, he aimed to develop the material resources of the country, both to insure financial prosperity and to remove those burdens which press heavily on the poor.
On one point, however, his policy was inexorable; and that was to suffer no reduction of the army, but rather to increase it to the utmost extent that the nation could bear,--not with the view of future conquests or military aggrandizement, as some thought, but as an imperative necessity to guard the empire from all hostile attacks, whether from France or Russia, or both combined. A country surrounded with enemies as Germany is, in the centre of Europe, without the natural defences of the sea which England enjoys, or great chains of mountains on her borders difficult to penetrate and easy to defend, as is the case with Switzerland, must have a superior military force to defend her, in case of future contingencies which no human wisdom can foresee. Nor is it such a dreadful burden to support a peace establishment of four hundred and fifty thousand men as some think,--one soldier for every one hundred inhabitants, trained and disciplined to be intelligent and industrious when his short term of three years of active service shall have expired: much easier to bear, I fancy, than the burden of supporting five paupers or more to every hundred inhabitants, as in England and Scotland.
In 1888, Bismarck made a famous speech in the Reichstag to show the necessity of Prussia's being armed. He had no immediate fears of Russia, he said; he professed to believe that she would keep peace with Germany. But he spoke of numerous distinct crises within forty years, when Prussia was on the verge of being drawn into a general European war, which diplomacy fortunately averted, and such as now must be warded off by being too strong for attack. He mentioned the Crimean war in 1853, the Italian war in 1858, the Polish rebellion in 1863, the Schleswig-Holstein embroilment, which so nearly set all Europe by the ears, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the Luxemburg dispute in 1867, the Franco-German war of 1870, the Balkan war of 1877, the various aspects of the Eastern Question, changes of government in France, etc.,--each of which in its time threatened the great "coalition war," which Germany had thus far been kept out of, but which Bismarck wished to provide against for the future.
"The long and the short of it is," said he, "that we must be as strong as we possibly can be in these days. We have the capability of being stronger than any other nation of equal population in the world, and it would be a crime if we did not use this capability. We must make still greater exertions than other Powers for the same ends, on account of our geographical position. We lie in the midst of Europe. We have at least three sides open to attack. God has placed on one side of us the French,--a most warlike and restless nation,--and he has allowed the fighting tendencies of Russia to become great; so we are forced into measures which perhaps we would not otherwise make. And the very strength for which we strive shows that we are inclined to peace; for with such a powerful machine as we wish to make the German army, no one would undertake to attack us. We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God which causes us to love and cherish peace."
Such was the avowed policy of Bismarck,--and I believe in his sincerity,--to foster friendly relations with other nations, and to maintain peace for the interests of humanity as well as for Germany, which can be secured only by preparing for war, and with such an array of forces as to secure victory. It was not with foreign Powers that he had the greatest difficulty, but to manage the turbulent elements of internal hostilities and jealousies, and oppose the anarchic forces of doctrinaires, visionary dreamers, clerical aggressors, and socialistic incendiaries,--foes alike of a stable government and of ultimate progress.
In the management of the internal affairs of the empire he cannot be said to have been as successful as was Cavour in Italy. He was not in harmony with the spirit of the age, nor was he wise. His persistent opposition to the freedom of the Press was as great an error as his persecution of the Catholics; and his insatiable love of power, grasping all the great offices of State, was a serious offence in the eyes of a jealous master, the present emperor, whom he did not take sufficient pains to conciliate. The greatness of Bismarck was not as administrator of an empire, but rather as the creator of an empire, and which he raised to greatness by diplomatic skill. His distinguishable excellence was in the management of foreign affairs; and in this power he has never been surpassed by any foreign minister.