Bismarck

by Moritz Busch

“But the Government, which has undertaken the task of delivering the contaminated soil of France from foreign hordes, should take care. In times like the present, and under the fearful conditions in which we find ourselves, it is not enough to be honest. It is also necessary to show energy, to keep a cool head, and not to allow one’s self to be drowned in a glass of water. Let the Cremieuxs, the Glais-Bizoins, and the Fourichons remember the manner in which the men of 1792 and ’93 acted! To-day we need a Danton, a Robespierre, the men of the Convention! Away with you, gentlemen! Make room for the Revolution! That alone can save us. Great crises demand great measures!”

The fatherland disappears before the Republic! Resort to the great measures adopted by Danton and Robespierre! Behead every one who differs from us in religious and political affairs, and establish the guillotine as a permanent institution. Dismiss Generals Chanzy and Bourbaki, Faidherbe and Vinoy, Ducrot and Trochu, and appoint private soldiers in their place. That is the gospel preached by the son of a Prefect in the department of Doubs, an officer of Garibaldi’s General Staff. I wonder whether these proposals will commend themselves to many of the Versailles people when they see this letter in the Moniteur one of these days?

Tuesday, December 13th.—In the morning wrote another article on the confession of faith of the cosmopolitan Republicans. The Chief’s health is somewhat better, only he feels very exhausted....

At lunch Bucher, Hatzfeldt, and Keudell declared in all seriousness that they thought the Chancellor would resign. It was jestingly suggested that he would be followed by a Ministry under Lasker, who would be “a kind of Ollivier,” and then half in joke, half in earnest, the possibility was discussed of our having for a Chancellor Delbrück,—“a very clever man, but no politician.”

I regarded it as absolutely inconceivable that the Chief could ever be allowed to resign, even if he requested to be relieved from office. They thought, nevertheless, that it was possible. I said that in such circumstances they would be obliged to recall him in less than a month. Bucher questioned whether he would come back, and said positively that so far as he knew him, if the Count once retired he would never take office again. He enjoyed himself far too well at Varzin, free from business and worry of every kind. He liked best of all to be in the woods and fields. The Countess had once said to him: “Believe me, a turnip interests him (Bismarck) more than all your politics.” That statement, however, must not be too hastily accepted, and must be limited to a temporary state of feeling.

About 1.30 P.M. I was summoned to the Chancellor. He wished me to call attention to the difficulties of the King of Holland with regard to a new Ministry, and to point to this as the result of a purely Parliamentary system under which the advisers of the Crown must retire, whatever the condition of affairs may be, when a majority of the representatives is opposed to them on any question. He observed: “I remember when I became Minister that there had been twenty or twenty-one Ministries since the introduction of the constitutional system. If the principle of Ministers retiring before a hostile majority be too strictly enforced, far too many politicians will be used up. Then mediocrities will have to be taken for the post, and finally there will be no one left who will care to devote himself to such a trade. The moral is that either the advantages of a Minister’s position must be increased, or the Parliamentary system must be applied less stringently.”

The Chief went out for a drive at 3 o’clock, after Russell had again called upon him.

He talked after dinner about his negotiations with Russell and the demands of Gortschakoff. He said amongst other things: “They do not want in London to give an unqualified approval to the proposal that the Black Sea shall be again given up to Russia and the Turks with full sovereignty over its coast. They are afraid of public opinion in England, and Russell returns again and again to the idea that some equivalent might possibly be found. He asked, for instance, whether it would not be possible for us to join in the agreement of the 16th of April, 1856. I replied that Germany had no real interest in the matter. Or whether we would bind ourselves to observe neutrality in case of a conflict some day breaking out there. I told him I was not in favour of a conjectural policy, such as his suggestion involved. It would depend altogether on circumstances. For the present we saw no reason why we should take any part in the matter. That ought to suffice for him. Besides I did not believe that gratitude had no place in politics. The present Tsar had always acted in a friendly and benevolent manner towards us. Austria, on the other hand, was up to the present little to be trusted and took up at times a very dubious attitude. Of course he knew himself how far we were indebted to England. The friendship of the Tsar was the legacy of old relations, based partly on family connections, but partly also on the recognition that our interests are not opposed to his. We did not know what those relations would be in future, and therefore it was impossible to speak about them.... Our position would now be different to what it was formerly. We should be the only Power that had reason to be satisfied; we had no call to oblige any one of whose willingness to reciprocate our services we could not altogether feel sure.... He returned again and again to the suggestion as to an equivalent, and at length asked me if I could not propose something. I spoke of making the Dardanelles and the Black Sea free to all. That would please Russia, as she could then pass from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, and Turkey also as she could have her friends, including the Americans, near her. It would remove one of the reasons why the Americans held with the Russians, namely, their desire for free navigation in all seas. He seemed to recognise the truth of that.” The Chancellor added: “As a matter of fact, the Russians should not have been so modest in their demands. They ought to have asked for more, and then the matter of the Black Sea would have been granted to them without any difficulty.” Turning to Abeken the Minister said: “Write that to Bernstorff and also to Reuss for his information. In writing to the latter, suggest that in St. Petersburg they should try to find something harmless that would look like an equivalent.”

The conversation then turned upon the four new points of international law respecting navigation—that no privateers should be fitted out, that goods should not be seized so far as they were not contraband of war, and that a blockade was only valid when effective, &c. The Chief remarked that one of these was flagrantly violated by the French in burning a German ship. He concluded the conversation on this head by saying, “We must see how we are to get rid of this rubbish.”

Wednesday, December 14th.—The German party of centralisation are still dissatisfied with the Bavarian Treaty. Treitschke writes me from Heidelberg on the subject in an almost despairing tone: “I quite understand that Count Bismarck could not have acted otherwise, but it remains a very regrettable affair all the same. Bavaria has once more clogged our feet as she did in 1813 in the Treaty of Ried. So long as we have our leading statesman we can manage to move in spite of that. But how will it be later on? I cannot feel that unquestioning confidence in the vitality of the new Empire which I had in that of the North German Confederation. I only hope that the nation will prosper, owing to its own healthy vigour, in spite of constitutional deficiencies.”