conversation with m. de vilbort.—appearance as chancellor.—m. bamberger’s views.—bismarck as an orator.—the luxemburg question.—fall from his horse.—citizenship of bülow.—visit to holstein.—speech to a torchlight procession.
from the paris journal, le siècle, we extract the following report of a conversation which count bismarck had with a parisian journalist on the 10th of june, 1866:
“on my arrival at berlin, i was informed that m. de bismarck was quite inaccessible. i was told, ‘do not attempt to see him; you will only lose time. he receives no one, but lives in the recesses of his cabinet, shut in with treble-locked doors. he only leaves it to wait upon the king, and his closest advisers can scarcely obtain access to him.’ nevertheless, i ventured to request an audience of the prime minister of the king of prussia. m. de bismarck immediately sent word that he would receive me in the evening.
“when i entered that study—where the peace of europe, as it were, was hanging by a thread, but which i found was only guarded by a bolt—i saw before me a man of tall stature, and of animated countenance. on his broad, high, and smooth forehead, i perceived with some surprise the presence of much benevolence, mingled with persistency. monsieur de bismarck is fair and somewhat bald; he wears a military mustache, and speaks rather with soldier-like brevity than with diplomatic caution. his air is that of the aristocrat and courtier, improved by all the charm of the most polished courtesy. he advanced to receive me, took me by the hand, led me to a seat, and offered me a cigar.
“‘monsieur le ministre,’ i said to him after a little preliminary conversation, ‘i, like many of my countrymen, am most anxious to be thoroughly enlightened on the true interests of the german nation. permit me, therefore, to express myself with entire frankness. i am glad to confess that, in her foreign policy, prussia seems, at the present time, to be pursuing objects with which the french nation sympathizes in no ordinary manner, such as the complete emancipation of italy from austrian influence, and the establishment of an united germany, based on universal suffrage. but is there not a flat contradiction between your prussian and german policies? you declare a national parliament to be the only fountain in which germany can find rejuvenescence, the only form of supreme authority by which she can realize her future destiny. yet, at the same time, you treat the second chamber at berlin in the manner of louis xiv., when he entered the houses of parliament whip in hand. in france we do not admit the possibility of any association between absolutism and democracy; and, to speak the whole truth, allow me to state to you that in paris your plan of a national parliament has not been considered as a serious one. it has been looked upon as an acutely constructed engine of war, and it is generally believed that you are quite the man to break it up when it has served your purpose, the moment it seems to have become inconvenient or useless.’
“‘a la bonne heure, you go at once to the root of things,’ replied m. de bismarck. ‘in france, i know, i am as unpopular as in germany. everywhere i am held responsible for a state of things i did not create, but which has been forced upon me as upon every one else. i am the scapegoat of public opinion; but that does not much trouble me. i follow out a plan, with a perfectly calm conscience, which i consider useful to my country and to germany.
“‘as to the means to this end, i have used those within my reach, for want of others. much might be said as to the internal condition of prussia. to judge of it impartially, it is necessary to study the peculiar character of the people of this country in the most thorough way. france and italy are now compact social polities, each animated by one spirit and one sentiment; while, on the contrary, germany is given up to individualism.[418] here, every one lives apart in his own narrow corner, with his own opinions; his wife and children round him; ever suspicious of the government, as of his neighbor; judging every thing from his personal point of view, and never from general grounds. the sentiment of individualism and the necessity for contradiction are developed to an inconceivable degree in the german. show him an open door, and, rather than pass through it, he will insist on breaking a hole in the wall at its side. no government however it may act, will be popular in prussia; the majority in the country will always be opposed to it; simply from its being the government, and holding authority over the individual, it is condemned to be constantly opposed by the moderates, and decried and despised by the ultras. this has been the common fate of all successive governments since the beginning of the dynasty. neither liberal ministers, nor reactionary ministers, have found favor with our politicians.’
“and while thus passing in review the various governments and forms of rule which have existed since the foundation of the monarchy, m. de bismarck strove to prove to me, in brilliant, graphic language, sparkling with wit, that the auerswalds and the manteuffels had shared the same fate as himself, and that frederick william iii., surnamed the just, had succeeded as little as frederick william iv. in satisfying the prussian nation.
“‘they shouted,’ he added, ‘at the victories of frederick the great, but at his death they rubbed their hands at the thought of being delivered from the tyrant. despite this antagonism, there exists a deep attachment to the royal house. no sovereign or minister, no government, can win the favor of prussian individualism. yet all cry from the depths of their hearts, “god save the king!” and they obey when the king commands.’
“‘yet some say, m. le ministre, that this discontent might grow into rebellion.’
“‘the government does not believe this need be feared, and does not fear it. our revolutionists are not formidable. their hostility exhausts itself in invectives against the prime minister, but they respect the king. it is i who have done all the evil, and it is with me alone that they are angry. were they a little more impartial, perhaps they might see that i have not acted[419] otherwise, simply because i could not. in prussia’s present position in germany, and with austria opposed to her, an army was an imperative necessity. in prussia it is the only force capable of discipline. i do not know if that is a french word?’
“‘certainly, m. le ministre, and in france can also be applied.’
“‘a prussian who got his arm broken in a barricade,’ continued m. de bismarck, ‘would go home crestfallen, and his wife would look upon him as a madman; but in the army he is an admirable soldier, and fights like a lion for the honor of his country. a party opposed to the government has not chosen to recognize the necessity imposed on us by circumstances of maintaining a large military force, evident as that necessity has been. but i could not hesitate, for my own part; by family, by education, i am the king’s man; and the king adhered to the idea of this military organization as firmly as to his crown, being convinced, heart and soul, of its indispensability. no one could make him yield or compromise the point. at his age—he is seventy—and with his traditions, people persist in an idea; above all, if they feel it to be good. on the subject of the army, i should add, i entirely agree with his view.
“‘sixteen years ago i was living as a country gentleman, when the king appointed me the envoy of prussia at the frankfurt diet. i had been brought up in the admiration, i might almost say the worship, of austrian policy. much time, however, was not needed to dispel my youthful illusions with regard to austria, and i became her declared opponent.
“‘the humiliation of my country; germany sacrificed to the interests of a foreign nation; a crafty and perfidious line of policy—these were not things calculated to give me satisfaction. i was not aware that the future would call upon me to take any part in public events, but from that period i conceived the idea, which at the present day i am still pursuing, the idea of snatching germany from austrian oppression, or at least that part of germany whose tone of thought, religion, manners, and interests, identify her destinies with prussia—northern germany. in the plan which i brought forward, there has been no question of overthrowing thrones, of taking a duchy from one ruler, or some petty domain from another; nor would the king have consented to such schemes. and then there are all the interests of family[420] relationship and concessions, a host of antagonistic influences, against which i have had to sustain an hourly warfare.
“‘but neither all this, nor the opposition with which i have had to contend in prussia, could prevent my devoting myself, heart and soul, to the idea of a northern germany, constituted in her logical and natural form, under the ?gis of prussia. to attain this end i would brave all dangers, exile, the scaffold itself! i said to the crown prince, whose education and natural tendencies incline him rather to the side of parliamentary government, what matter if they hang me, provided the rope by which i am hung bind this new germany firmly to your throne?’
“‘may i also ask, m. le ministre, how you reconcile the principle of freedom, embodied in the existence of a national parliament, with the despotic treatment to which the berlin chamber has had to submit? how, above all, have you been able to induce the king, the representative of the principle of divine right, to accept universal suffrage, which is par excellence the principle of democracy?’
“m. de bismarck answered with animation: ‘that is a victory achieved after four years of struggle. when the king sent for me, four years ago, the situation of affairs was most critical. his majesty laid before me a long list of liberal concessions, but not one of these concerned the military question. i said to the king, “i accept; and the more liberal the government can prove itself the stronger it will be.” the chamber has been obdurate on one side, and the crown on the other. in the conflict i have remained by the king. my respect for him, all my antecedents, all the traditions of my family, made it my duty to do so. but that i am, either by nature or from principle, an adversary of national representation, a born enemy of parliamentary government, is a perfectly gratuitous supposition.
“‘during those discussions, when the chamber of berlin set itself in opposition to a line of policy imposed on prussia by circumstances of most pressing necessity, i would not separate myself from the king. but no one has a right to insult me by the supposition that i am only mystifying germany in bringing forward my project of a parliament. should the day come when, my task being accomplished, i find it impossible to reconcile my[421] duties to my sovereign with my duties as a statesman, i shall know how to retire without denying the work i have done.’
“such are substantially,” says m. vilbort in conclusion, “the political opinions expressed to me by m. de bismarck. his thoughts conveyed by my pen, in another form, may have lost to some extent their emphasis; but i have anxiously endeavored faithfully to reproduce them.”
we have placed this report of the intellectual frenchman here on purpose, because count bismarck, independently of other interesting remarks, has given indications as to the course of his future policy not easily to be misunderstood; for it may readily be conceived that we do not feel called upon to enlarge upon bismarck’s policy in the last three years. what he has done in this period, and how he has done it, is vivid before the eyes of every one, and fresh in every one’s memory, and there is scarcely time yet to incorporate it with history. our readers will have convinced themselves, that in contradistinction to others, we do not find the last deeds and speeches of bismarck inconsistent with his earlier acts and speeches; and we think we have demonstrated that the bismarck of to-day has developed consequently from the bismarck of 1847—that the great aristocratic statesman is still the “king’s man,” as he then was the “junker hotspur,” or conservative party leader. the demand for the so-called indemnity, the amnesty, the direct elections, and all those things which are sometimes praised and sometimes blamed and designated “bismarck’s contradictions,” are only apparent contradictions, at once to be explained if thoroughly examined. it is very easy to hold very different opinions on many points from those of bismarck, and warmly as we admire him, we do not regard him as infallible; but we think that it is necessary to be very careful in censuring his individual political acts, even where such unpleasant surprises occur, for actually a quite incomparable political instinct has fitted him for leadership, and has caused him to discover ways and means not existing in any programme, sometimes coming into severe collision with theory, but in practice either have or will have great blessings in them for the prussian kingdom and the german people.
we have depicted bismarck in person at various ages; of latter years he has altered but little at first sight. those who have[422] only seen him in the distance at the chamber or the diet, looking round with his eye-glass, looking through papers, or playing with his pencil, will only have seen the tall form in the king’s plain blue uniform, with a single order—a cross hanging from the neck. it is necessary to draw nearer to observe that time has done more than pass with a friendly greeting by the chancellor of the diet. such years of service as those of bismarck, in this period of his life, count double, like soldiers’ years. bismarck, according to this calculation, is more than fifty-four years of age.
as an orator, too, the chancellor of the diet is almost the same as of old, only he has grown quieter. a member of the diet,[423] herr l. bamberger, describes him in his book as follows:[55]—“count bismarck is certainly no orator in the usual sense of the word, yet, in spite of many defects in his delivery, he commands the attention of his audience by the evident force with which his thoughts work within him. it seems, besides, as if the habit of speaking in public, and especially the certainty which is so requisite, and which he now possesses of obtaining the ear of his audience, has materially contributed of late years to the development of his parliamentary faculty. yet in the year 1866, one of his admirers, who had attended a sitting of the reichstag, drew his portrait in the following terms:—‘no oratorical ornamentation, no choice of words, nothing which carries the audience away. his voice, although clear and audible, is dry and unsympathetic, the tone monotonous; he interrupts himself, and stops frequently; sometimes even he stutters, as if his recalcitrant tongue refused obedience, and as if he had difficulty in finding words in which to express his thoughts. his uneasy movements, somewhat lolling and negligent, in no wise aid the effect of his delivery. still, the longer he speaks, the more he overcomes these defects; he attains more precision of expression, and often ends with a well-delivered, vigorous—sometimes, as every one is aware, too vigorous—peroration.’” “it should be added,” observes herr bamberger,[56] “that his style, although unstudied, is often not wanting in imagery. his bright and clear intellect does not despise coloring, any more than his strong constitution is free from nervous irritability.”
the same author says at another part of his book,[57] “to an opponent he can be provoking, malicious, even malignant; but he is not treacherous; he offends against morality and justice, but against good taste, by pathetic appeals, never. he is not of the tribe of paragraph writers who imagine that the world is governed by fine phrases, and that public evils are to be mastered by wrapping them up in pompous commonplaces. on the contrary, he is one of those who delight in heightening a contrast by exaggeration, and who thus overshoot their mark. what induced[424] him to confess his principle of blood and iron at that committee meeting?” the instance is very unhappily chosen, without considering that by a blunder the so-called blood-and-iron theory is written, principe du fer et du feu,[58] for bismarck never proclaimed this theory, with which philisters are made to shudder, at all. in an actually peaceable sense there was a reference at that committee meeting of the 1st september, 1862, as to sparing the effusion of blood and the use of iron. but it is useless to say this, and to reiterate it; bismarck has been credited with the blood-and-iron theory, and his it will remain, for it has been proverbial as a “winged word.”[59]
another description of bismarck as an orator (by glagau) we extract from the daheim.
“the chivalrous personality of count bismarck, his easy carriage, and, above all, his universal fame as a diplomatist and statesman, lead us to expect him also to be a brilliant speaker; either one who could bring forth a deeply meditated, well arranged speech without hesitation or trouble, in an elegant flow, or, still more, a speaker of natural eloquence, whose thoughts and figures arise in the soul during his speech, the play of whose words and rhetorical figures, born of the moment, leap in winged dance from the lips, who poetizes in his speech like an improvisatore, whose lightning thoughts and catchwords hit the mark, moving, and burning the hearts of his auditors. neither of these. certainly, a few moments before, with a swift pen, he has written a few notes on a narrow slip of paper, which looks like a recipe, over which he, while turning his thumbs one over the other, balancing the upper part of his body backwards and forwards, and speaking to the house, occasionally casts a glance; but, nevertheless, he stops, and hesitates, even sometimes stammers and repeats himself; he appears to struggle with his thoughts, and the words clamber over his lips in a half-reluctant way. after two or three words he continually pauses, and one seems to hear an inarticulate sob. he speaks without gestures, pathos, and intonation, without laying a stress on any particular word; sometimes he accentuates the final syllable or the halting verb in a manner totally wrong. can this be the man who has now a parliamentary[425] career of twenty years behind him?—who already belonged in the diet of 1847, as deputy of the saxon chivalry, to the leaders and promptest speakers of the then exceeding extreme right; who set the liberal majority into excitement and rage in 1849 and 1850, as a member of the second chamber and of the erfurt union parliament; who, finally, has, almost singly, opposed a closed phalanx of progressists, as minister-president, since 1862, repaying their emotional speeches, full of self-confidence and security, in almost the same coin, replying to their mocking and malicious attacks upon him on the spot, and with flashing presence of mind even exciting them to the combat by witty impromptus and cutting sarcasms, often wounding them to the soul?
[426]
“yes, it is the same man; and, when requisite, he is as acute and biting as of yore, although, since his great victories, he has adopted more of statesmanlike earnestness, quiet objectivity, and a conciliating carriage, corresponding to his present universally admitted greatness. gradually his speech begins to flow and to warm, and soon unfolds its especial charm—that original and fresh, free and straightforward mode of expression to which we, in our commonplace days, were quite unaccustomed. hence it has been called by his opponents ‘paradoxical,’ ‘frivolous,’ and ‘scholastic.’ we are indebted to them for a whole vocabulary of sentences, such as ‘cataline existences,’ ‘people who have missed their vocation,’ ‘blood and iron,’ ‘austria should transfer her centre of gravity to ofen,’ ‘this conflict must not be taken too tragically,’ and which soon became proverbially current, and, in the mean time, have revealed their deep truth and apposite precision. how true and exact, and, at the same time, how colored and tangible, is his definition of the national character of the germans, on the occasion of the introduction of the bill for the constitution of the confederation, which has hitherto prevented the attainment of a great united fatherland. ‘it is, as it seems to me,’ says count bismarck, ‘a certain superfluity in the feelings of manly self-consciousness which in germany causes the individual, the community, the race, to depend more upon their own powers than upon those of the totality. it is the deficiency of that readiness of the individual and the race to merge itself in favor of the commonwealth, that readiness which has enabled our neighbor nations to secure, at an earlier period, those benefits after which we are striving.’ and when the orator, at the end of his speech, exhorts the house to fulfill their task as soon and as perfectly as possible, he continues:—‘for the german nation, gentlemen, has a right to expect from us that we should preclude the possibility of a recurrence of such a catastrophe (i.e., a german war); and i am convinced that you, together with the allied government, have nothing so nearly at heart as to fulfill this just anticipation of the german nation.’ with this beautiful exhortation, simply, but worthily and warmly, uttered, like the greatest of orators, he electrified the whole assembly, for tumultuous applause resounded from all the benches.”
next to the reichstag of the north german confederation, the[427] luxemburg question, in the year 1867, principally drew attention to bismarck. probably many of those who in the pride of recent victory then demanded war for the former federal fortress, have become convinced that bismarck’s measured attitude was full of high political wisdom. at bismarck’s dinner-table, a short time after luxemburg had been declared neutral, a learned man gave it as his opinion that prussia ought to have made it a casus belli with france. bismarck answered very seriously:—“my dear professor, such a war would have cost us at least thirty thousand brave soldiers, and in the best event would have brought us no gain. whoever has once looked into the breaking eye of a dying warrior on the battle-field, will pause ere he begins a war.” and, after dinner, when he was walking in the garden with some guests, he stopped on a lawn, and related how he had paced to and fro upon this place in disquiet and deep emotion in those momentous days of june. he awaited the royal decision in an anguish of fear. when he came indoors again, his wife asked what had happened that he looked so overcome. “i am excited for the very reason that nothing has happened,” he replied, and went into his study. a few minutes later, shortly before midnight, he received the royal decision—the declaration of war.
from the 5th to the 14th of june, 1867, count bismarck remained at paris in the suite of the king, where he became an object of general attention. the parisians could not picture our minister-president in any other way than in his white uniform of cuirassiers. a regular flood of generally horribly bad pictures of him were sold at a sou per copy—the white uniform alone showing that bismarck was the subject.
from the end of june to the beginning of august he visited his family at varzin, an estate in farther pomerania, which he had bought in the spring.
on the 14th of july, 1867, he was appointed chancellor of the north german confederation, went in the beginning of august to the king at ems, and on the 15th of august opened the session of the council of the federation at berlin. on the 15th of november the diet was opened, and on the 29th of february, 1868, it was closed. on the 23d of march the reichstag of the north german confederation was opened, and to this the customs[428] parliament was added; it was no wonder, therefore, that under the gigantic load of work the strength of the minister-president at last gave way altogether. in the june of 1868 he was taken seriously ill, and it was only at the end of the month that he was able to go to varzin, where, in complete retirement and entire abstinence from all regular business, he very slowly mended; but was not able to regain his strength, in consequence of nervous sleeplessness. he seemed to feel the obstacles to his activity even more than all his illness. “send me no secretary hither, or i shall go to work again!” he was heard querulously to exclaim. despite of all public notifications, a flood of letters pursued him to varzin; the whole correspondence, as might be naturally supposed, had to be returned unopened to berlin, where it was estimated that during this stay at varzin the minister-president had been solicited for aid to the extent of not less than a million and a half of thalers.[60]
when at last he had grown somewhat better, bismarck had the misfortune, on the 21st of august, to have a dangerous fall from his horse. he had gone out riding with his friends, moritz von blankenburg and the legation’s rath von keudell, on a meadow near puddiger, one of his farms, a german mile and a quarter from varzin; his horse put his foot into a hole, fell, and fell with all its weight upon his body. so severe a fall might have had still sadder results, but such as they were they were sad enough, and weeks of severe pain again had to be endured, often not unmixed with many fears. at the very time when the foreign newspapers were picturing the most secret and wonderful activity in the chancellor, he was lying prostrate in the most dangerous state. it need hardly be said that most anxious looks were directed towards varzin—that general excitement eagerly anticipated news from thence, and that many hearts breathed lightly again when better intelligence arrived. the news was better than, properly speaking, it had any right to have been, but, fortunately, it has been justified by time.
the delight at the good news from varzin was shown in the most various ways, especially in presents of remedies against sleeplessness. bismarck was particularly amused with an old soldier, who advised him to smoke a pound of porto rico tobacco[429] every day: he sent the old warrior a pipe and a quantity of tobacco, with the request that he would be so good as to smoke for him.
on the 1st of october the burgomaster of bülow arrived, with a deputation of the magistracy and town council, and brought the minister-president the honorary diploma of the citizenship of the town. bismarck received the gentlemen from bülow with special friendliness, and said, among other things, that he accepted the diploma with the greater satisfaction, as bülow had ever shown itself a patriotic and loyal city. after dinner, he offered the deputation the hospitality of his house for the night. but the respectable citizens declared that they had promised their careful and inquisitive wives to return before midnight, and that they must, therefore, keep their words. on this the countess turned merrily to her husband and said: “as you are now also a citizen of bülow, i should be very glad if you would, from this time, follow the good example of your colleagues of bülow!” bismarck laughed and shrugged his shoulders, but returned no answer.
the fresh and vigorous manner with which bismarck has since returned to his duties, allows us to hope that his long and severe illness is quite at an end. he has certainly never thought of sparing himself when duty called; but he takes part freely in hunting parties, for the free air of the forest is his best medicine, and in the month of december he was present at several parties in the province of saxony, in the mark, and even in holstein. in holstein, at ahrensburg, where he hunted for two days with count schimmelmann, a brilliant torchlight procession was formed in his honor.
on the 13th of december, shortly before the count’s departure, a long train of several hundred people, young and old, with two hundred flaming pitch torches, appeared in the castle-yard, preceded by a band, and followed by sixty mounted yeomanry. after the leader of the procession had announced that they had come to pay their respects to the minister-president, count bismarck approached the window, before the crowd, and spoke to the following effect:—
“i am rejoiced that you thus salute me as a fellow-countryman, and i thank you for the honor you do me. i see in it a[430] proof that the feeling of solidarity has also grown stronger and stronger with you; and of this i shall joyfully inform the king. we have always belonged to each other as germans—we have ever been brothers—but we were unconscious of it. in this country, too, there were different races: schleswigers, holsteiners, and lauenburgers; as, also, mecklenburgers, hanoverians, lübeckers, and hamburgers exist, and they are all free to remain what they are, in the knowledge that they are germans—that they are brothers. and here in the north we should be doubly aware of it, with our platt deutsch language, which stretches from holland to the polish frontier: we were also conscious of it, but have not proclaimed it until now. but that we have again so joyfully and vividly been able to recognize our german descent and solidarity—for that we must thank the man whose wisdom and energy have rendered this consciousness a truth and a fact, in bringing our king and lord a hearty cheer. long live his majesty, our most gracious king and sovereign, william the first!”
a threefold cheer was heard throughout the castle-yard. the torch-bearers and pedestrians then accompanied the honored man to the railway station hard by, where the farmers, who had led the procession on horseback, were introduced to the count, and were greeted by him in friendly accents. a hurrah of many hundreds of voices followed the train as it glided away.
