Bismarck’s whole message turns on the urgency of faith among the German people; his idea, that United Germany must be achieved by faith, alone!
Bismarck’s whole message turns on the urgency of faith among the German people; his idea, that United Germany must be achieved by faith, alone!
¶ Bismarck had the well-nigh impossible task of organizing and inspiring a common political faith in 25,000,000 people, divided by religious, climatic and personal differences. That at times he utterly failed to meet the situation except by political hypocrisy, is merely to say that in addition to being a warrior and ultimately the conqueror of a continent, healways kept within hailing distance of human nature; for when he could not win his way with a kiss, he gained it with a curse.
¶ In the final analysis he won, largely because of stirring faith in the German states.
With faith, what can a nation not do: If the United States, today, had deathless belief in the destiny of the Republic that Americans emphasize in their worship of the Golden Calf, a bloodless revolution for a higher standard of political thought would take place over night.
The difficulty is that with the average American National faith is dead.
He has come to the conclusion that he has no stake in the Government, that in short he is a victim to the machinations of plutocrats.
To read the American point of view, (1915) we, today, no less than the Prussians and the Austrians, in Bismarck’s time, are also about to spring at each other’s throats! There is little sentiment for National unity; it is the East against the West, in Congress, and in the newspapers it is the people against the plutocrats.
¶ Bismarck’s career affords a classical instance, in these poor times, of what a strong man, with faith in himself and his cause, can do against all manner of obstacles.
Faith in himself was the essence of his power. Over and over, he made clear that he regarded himself in God’s hands, doing God’s work, but on what specific evidence he based this profound conclusion no human being knows beyond Bismarck’s own assertion. However, that power urged him on. Naturally, in turn, the fire kindled by faith in himself at last stimulated faith in a people, numbering some twenty-five millions; a people who in the main had up to this time been political atheists to Bismarck’s dogma of a United Germany. This idea of faith is a fact of such vast import that we dare not pass it lightly by.
¶ By an almighty wave of faith in themselves the German people ceased playing the political craven; came out boldly for what they hold to be their too long deferred birthright!
Here, the mental attitude of the German people passes beyond the dogmas of politics or social intercourse whatsoever; it merges into a mysterious world of reality, close and near yet baffling to describe; expressing itself in an invincible National faith, now about to burst forth, at last, and sweep all before it!
¶ This mental phenomenon exists in various forms, but the animating impulse is ever the same.
The hymn-singing of Charles and John Wesley, whose appeals to religious emotionalism filled the fields of England with tens of thousands of weeping, shouting men and women, vastly excited as to the state of their souls, is a type of faith beginning in a small way and attaining National proportions. No historian could write adequately the history of England without crediting great changes to the work of the Wesley psalm-singers; women tearing off their jewels; men rising in the multitude and calling on God to witness that henceforth their lives would be pure and unsullied by sin; while under the excitement murderers came forward and confessed crimes known only to themselves.
¶ Oh, this German National faith that Frederick the Great so gloriously began; that Louise fostered and sustained; that the poet Arndt set to hymns; that the great von Humboldt in his own peculiar way saw from afar; that the German students apostrophied; that William III figured to himself in his church-building; that von Stein discerned vaguely; that William I emphasized in his cold-blooded, clear-eyed manner of the soldier; that von Sybel fought for; that scores, nay, hundreds and thousands of noble men and women, utterly apart from political chicanery, did indeed long for with all the fervor of their earnest God-fearing German nature; Bismarck stands in the centre, here and now!
¶ It is true that he is not as yet accepted, but he is biding his time; he is looked on with suspicion, but he fronts the scorn of the rabble, in the end to beat the doubters into submission, against their own will.
¶ This newly awakened German National faith was really a very old German faith that had never died, although foryears forgotten; the longing for the Fatherland was always there.
¶ Through love of home, through worship of ancestry and through respect for constituted authority in church and state, that is by “German national faith,” Bismarck touched the chord that made his life-work possible. The stimulus of three great wars, presented by Bismarck as sanctified by God, finally did the business.
¶ He knew that in all Germans is a certain generosity of character which when appealed to in the right way made them eager to take the chance of death on the battlefield.
¶ Bismarck played the positive as well as the negative side of this psychological fact. On the negative side, he stirred men with the idea that social ostracism rests on the man who in times of National danger tries to avoid the draft.
¶ Bismarck’s work thus shows him to be the great constructive poet of his time. He placed war before his fellow man in such a way that it was held a sweet privilege to die for one’s land, which interpreted means Bismarck’s idea of a new territorial arrangement of the map of Europe.
¶ There was race prejudice behind his deeper plans. He made much of the fact that within a given area the German language was spoken, whereas while there were millions of German-speaking people in Austria there were also Slavs, Czechs, Bohemians and mongrel races.
¶ The idea of brotherhood based on blood and language finally prevailed over the idea of the confraternity of races. Make as much out of this as you will, but the basic fact is incontestible.
¶ Some 80,000 men perished to sustain Bismarck’s peculiar conception of United Germany. Through the turmoil and misery of these three wars he had his way, and being at last successful, he suddenly became the most popular man in Europe, idolized by the millions who a little while before had reviled his name as the enemy of the Democrats.
¶ Such is human nature.
¶ Perhaps, after all, German National faith is only another name for the tremendous earnestness that set the whole landablaze with singleness of purpose, consecrated to a high cause.
Bismarck in a very real sense because of faith in himself and in his ultimate cause, directed this National faith in the Fatherland and won thereby a magnificent United Germany. If we do not grasp the significance of this unseen but gigantic National German faith, as expressed in the increasing unity of will of the whole people, harked on by Prussia, we might as well close the book on Bismarck—and know him not.
¶ To comprehend, somewhat, the firm roots of racial strength, as expressed by German National faith, let us for the moment pass from the 1840’s, ’50’s and ’60’s, which we are now endeavoring to present with their psychological message of faith, and turn our eyes to the year 1914, when Germany and Austria, no longer enemies, now battle side by side, against armed forces of the world—British, Russian, Italian, Servian, French, Australian, East Indian, African, Belgian, Canadian, and Japanese!
The sustaining spirit in this life-and-death struggle, as in the wars that made Germany an empire, is bulwarked on German National faith.
¶ For Germans are no longer soft-hearted heroes of lyrical poetry, as depicted by Arndt! They are men of blood and iron.
¶ Bismarck’s mother threw her wedding ring into the public melting pot for the benefit of the War Fund of 1813 and received in exchange a ring of iron; and thousands of German women did the same; and Bismarck’s wife exchanged her gold ring for one of iron, for the War Fund of ’66. Tens of thousands of German women did likewise, not only in Germany, but in foreign lands, wherever hearts beat for the Fatherland.
They did it in 1813, and in 1864, and in 1866, and in 1870;—and again in 1914!
¶ For example, in the great war of 1914, Baroness von Ropp, granddaughter of Geo. Ebers, Germany’s most foremost woman novelist, cries out for her country in the accents oftrue German nationality, the self-same spirit which Arndt stimulated in days of French and Austrian domination. And since it is this elusive spirit that we are endeavoring to bring home to you, in grasping the higher significance of Bismarck’s work, and its true inner meaning, we quote freely from a private letter penned by the Baroness, from Magdeburg, August, 1914.
Ilse Hahn-Ropp did not write for publication, and therefore her words have the more weight.
¶ “On the first day of mobilization I traveled to Magdeburg to say farewell to my husband, who was leaving for France. I had three hours; then I had to take the last train out of town. From that time only military trains were running. Shall I ever forget that ride? It was as though we were living in another world. People were standing in the cars closely packed together; but not a word of complaint. Each one felt he was no longer an individual—but a German! Rich and poor, nobles and peasants, talked together as brothers. Each had the deep conviction that this war had been forced upon us, and that every one must throw his whole strength into the scales, for victory.
¶ “Ceaselessly, military trains roll by, crowded with soldiers in gala uniforms, burning to reach the enemy. I hear them all night long from my parents’ home—those wheels rolling, rolling westward; no hurry, no confusion; the mighty machine moves majestically on its way. Show us another nation which could duplicate that spectacle!
¶ “And then, from a thousand throats, rose ‘Die Wacht am Rhein.’ It was overpowering—irresistible. This mighty anthem, from the lips of soldiers going out to battle!
¶ “It was thus that both my brothers left us. I shall never, never forget. Every one gives his all gladly. I could not keep my husband with me, although exempt through his profession from military duty. He went as a volunteer, and I would not have held him if I could, though you can guess the cost of that parting!
¶ “One hears not a single complaint from the women of the Fatherland. We are all too thoroughly roused over the insults offered our loved country. Working each waiting momentfor our wounded—for our soldiers—we have no time for tears.
¶ “We will not give in until all are defeated, even though we women should have to take up the sword to defend the Fatherland. Were it not for my baby daughter I should be with my husband, as a nurse.
¶ “You cannot picture how great, how noble, how grave this time is. Human nature is transfigured. Individual fate is lost, in the fate of the Nation.
¶ “I am at home with my parents. Scarcely a year has passed since my happy, peaceful wedding day. And now my home is bare and desolate, and I am again the daughter of my father—I can write no more. My feelings are stifling me. The bells are ringing a new victory. Unfurl the black-white-red banner. Always lovingly yours,
ILSE.”
A postscript reads:
“Oct. 6.—For six weeks I have been trying to send this letter—in vain. In the meantime both my brothers have died fighting for the Fatherland. My husband still lives, but—we must, we shall and must win!”
Bismarck balances between tempestuous outbursts and inscrutable silence; biding his time in the great game of German Unity.
Bismarck balances between tempestuous outbursts and inscrutable silence; biding his time in the great game of German Unity.
¶ In the gigantic project of creating an Empire for a king who solemnly protested that he was directly accountable to God for the throne, “and would never consent to have so much as a sheet of paper (constitution) between my people and my Maker.” Bismarck was under tremendous nervous pressure for years; and he meant that his political secrets for United Germany should not become too early known. Not only were the people as yet unwilling to help, but Austria was watching with jealous eyes the possibility of plunder for herself;—for where the carrion is there will the vultures wheel.
¶ Bismarck’s ambition bit him by day and by night, and there was for him no rest; he required a continent to turn ’roundin, and nothing less would suffice. It was now only a question of waiting for the psychological moment to electrify the inert mass of the people to rally to his cause.
¶ Naturally you ask, “Was this Bismarck then a beast?” Not at all. He was merely a human being who wanted a continent to turn around in.
In the gigantic project, Bismarck was exercising his own peculiar gifts in his own way—for none stood ready to give him what he wanted, without fighting for it—even as you or I lay out lesser plans to beg, or coax, or force the world to give us not what we think we need but what we are strong enough to obtain.
¶ In this attitude, Bismarck needs neither apology nor defense—for, after all, he is Bismarck.
Through thirty-odd years of din and roar and battle largely of his own making Bismarck knew neither rest nor peace; returning again and again to the attack and wearing down his enemies by the sheer brute force of courage. His idea was United Germany, through Prussian military power; at the same time, Prussia must hold her dynastic over-lordship, and must yield it finally only in a territorial German Empire.
¶ Unquestionably there was, incidentally, a large element of injustice in his plans and purposes, but what of it? Is there not such in your own life, and do you know any man whose career is not based on injustice either in some coarse, obvious or in some subtle way?
The world belongs only to those who do battle, and there is absolutely no chance for the man who will not fight!
All government is based on some form of injustice, all land tenure is stained with the sword, all “putting up” of one family, or individual, is based on “taking” something from some other family or individual.
Nor am I excepting the conquests of love itself, from time immemorial presented as a token of man’s romantic, softer side. For, if the hero does not “save” the heroine from the villain, to take her for himself, then for whom does he save her?
¶ The Bismarck struggle and the Bismarck triumph are as old as history—and as new as the career of the man of today who has achieved his heart’s desire.
The empire-maker Bismarck had his way because he was strong enough to have his way, and while cruelties in various forms, for the ends of statecraft, coexisted in him with many fine qualities, after all that simply means that he was a human being with impulses of various kinds—good and less good—in one heart. It is also an undeniable fact that as late as 1862 Bismarck was by the common crowd in Prussia hated and feared, regarded as Germany’s ogre of disaster.
¶ Here then is the whole thing in a nutshell: His strong conservative, not to say reactionary, sentiments did not blind him to the fact that he could do nothing without the “people,” whom politically he ignored in so far as their fitness for constructive government was concerned; but it was the “people,” and the “people” only, who could bring United Germany.
He realized the present impracticability of such a Union as he had in mind for his master, the King of Prussia; that to urge it too soon would simply bring a new revolution, and God knows there had been enough blood-letting for the sake of power in and around Prussia for lo! these one hundred years gone by.
¶ The only thing for him to do, then, was to keep his ambition to himself and his own crowd, and to bide his time to strike—for time makes all things right for him who can wait.
And at waiting and at concealing Bismarck was past master. While usually figured as a blunt, bold, tyrannical man, there was also a side of inscrutable reticence.
¶ Thus finally between outbursts of temper in which he attacked his enemies with the power of a battleship in action, followed by periods of silence after the storm, Bismarck remained master of the diplomatic situation, playing his waiting game.
¶ And did his stern face never break into an ironical smile? Did he never betray himself?
It was impossible to preserve his great political secret from the intuitions of other and lesser minds.
¶ You see, men have various ways of getting their will. Some fight, others play, still others threaten suicide if the money is not forthcoming. It is all a matter of temperament and peculiar style of doing battle.
With some, a curse will bring what a kiss will not; with others a club is more useful than a loving word. With Bismarck, the first instinct was to do battle by fire and sword, and this explains why his career is filled with broken wine bottles, fist cuffs, sword thrusts, and his “sic ’em!” to the big dogs that trailed around with him.
¶ Once, during the crisis of which we now write, on going into a saloon for a glass of beer, some table talk on politics offended him. He ordered the man to stop, then and there, “or I will smash a beer glass over your head!”
The man went on talking; Bismarck drank, turned around and said, “That for you!” smashed the tankard on the offending head, and coolly walked out!
He is no longer the roaring delegate of the “White Saloon,” but has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint.
He is no longer the roaring delegate of the “White Saloon,” but has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint.
¶ Fight, fight, fight! Nothing but fight! And all this trying time, Bismarck suffered excruciating pains from his old rheumatic complaint.
He was irritable, melancholy and jaundiced; sat up all night half-buried in his mounds of state papers; dictating telegrams, quarreling with callers, denouncing, adjusting, scheming; four o’clock found him in bed; he tossed about till seven, when he managed to get to sleep; and was not seen again till late in the afternoon. The situation was getting on the master’s nerves.
¶ Enemies in the house of his friends spied on Bismarck, endeavored to poison the King against the doughty Minister. The Crown Prince, especially, who always had an aversion to Bismarck, despite the war-dog’s inestimable services to the House of Hohenzollern, now tried to pull the Pomeranian giant down.
To this end, the Prince dissassociated himself from Bismarck’s policy, avoided the great man at court. The situation passed rapidly from political to social objections on part of the Prince, who spread before the King the ruin of Hohenzollern if Bismarckian policies were longer pursued.
¶ But the King would not give Bismarck up. In this regard, William was as cold as ice. He saw that should Bismarck be asked to go, at that time, the Liberals would be irresistiblystrengthened. The recoil of the mighty wave against kingcraft might even end by forcing abdication for the Prussian monarch.
¶ Instead of fearing the Liberal leaders, Bismarck despised their plots. The master knew enough of human nature to see clearly one great central fact. The fire-breathing Democrats would, at the hour of Prussia’s peril, join with the hated system of Bismarck and march to glory. In defense of Prussia, Liberals, Socialists and political nonconformists of every description, would be carried off their feet. Then, Bismarck would be able to call on his very enemies to come forward and help him win the day.
¶ And the old man, as usual, was absolutely correct. In the hour of danger how the Prussian Liberals fought! Like fiends they stood, took the murderous fire and went to their death singing, “I am a Prussian, will a Prussian be!”
¶ The opportunity to test German National faith first came through the Holstein war, precipitated by Bismarck’s clever manipulation of events.
¶ As well ask from what quarters of the globe the hurricane came which last night tore up the old oak tree. You can read a dozen fat volumes on the Holstein problem, and still you will not be convinced. Schleswig-Holsteiners in their rock-grit lands on the North Sea had their political troubles about the right of succession, and that sort of thing; the spit of land up there was aflame with war talk.
¶ The Germans, as a people, wished Schleswig attached as a principality of the German Confederation, but Bismarck’s secret plan was to seize the territory for the gain of Prussia, a clean political theft of a huge estate. By pushing the Danes out of the Frankfort Diet—that antiquated political stuffed-club of Austria—the Emperor of the South would also be forced out of German affairs. In a few words, that was the play.
¶ Opposition? Why, Bismarck lived by opposition, grew fat on opposition. He is no longer the old roaring delegate of the “White Saloon,” in his blossom time. He has developedthe astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint. As a matter of fact, he now invited Austria “to co-operate,” in settling the complex Danish question; and the unsuspecting Emperor of the South, who was also playing a deep game of his own, decided to take a hand.
¶ Throughout his long career, Bismarck was everlastingly trading in political advantages. Often there was a large element of imagination in his promises to pay, but he gained his point in the Holstein problem. He had to face: Dissension between the Prussian Chamber and the Government; the feeling in rival German states; the general distrust of Prussia and the hostility of Austria; finally, the jealousy of other powers.
¶ Volumes have been written, learned decisions handed down on the complex rights of the warring houses of Schleswig-Holstein. There were mountains of precedents on this side or that, as you pleased. Bismarck’s plan was to annex the domain to Prussia and seize the harbor of Kiel, with all the accrued advantages to the Prussian monarch; and while the talk went on Bismarck manœuvered to enlist his old enemy, Austria, to make common cause in a clear way of plunder, if ever there was one. Then, they swept the country with fire and sword, took it by the “divine right” of the strongest; and it fell out that Bismarck stacked the cards against Austria, as a gambler stacks them against the man on the other side of the table who is supposed to be his friend, in a gentleman’s game. Bismarck at a stroke thus won away Austria’s share.
¶ After the conquest of the Holstein duchies, King William became more ambitious; henceforth the object of his life was the aggrandizement of Prussia, in Germany. Bismarck had given the King the taste of blood. The Iron Chancellor admits the fact. Here are Bismarck’s exact words, from his interviews with Dr. Busch: “The King’s frame of mind underwent a psychological change; he developed a taste for conquest.”
¶ Bismarck laid the foundation in this way: He reminded the reluctant William of the glories of Hohenzollern; howeach Hohenzollern had added to the common family fortunes, ever-widening estates and power. He told William how King Fr: Wm. IV had acquired Hohenzollern and the Jande District; Fr: Wm. III, the Rhine Province; Fr: Wm. II, Poland; Fr: II, Silesia; Fr: Wm. I, Old Hinter Pomerania; the Great Elector, Further Pomerania, etc.; “and I encouraged the King to do likewise.”
¶ Is it too much to say that in this great National crisis, Bismarck was more than servant of the King? In many respects Bismarck was the King’s master. “If you only knew how I had to struggle to make the King go to war with Austria!” is a significant comment Bismarck once made in a moment of confidence.
It is a question whether he loved the King more, or himself less.
¶ “My party consisted solely of the King and myself,” wrote Bismarck many years later, “and my only aim was the restoration and aggrandizement of the German Empire and the defense of monarchial authority.”
¶ He always had a contempt for parliaments and for parties. This fact is so clear that we pass it without further comment. In short, Bismarck measures up to these lines in Tennyson:
“Ah, God! for a man with heart, head, handLike some of the simple great ones goneForever and ever by;One still strong man in a blatant land,Whatever they call him, what care I,Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—”
“Ah, God! for a man with heart, head, handLike some of the simple great ones goneForever and ever by;One still strong man in a blatant land,Whatever they call him, what care I,Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—”
¶ However, in this world all things are relative; the finest coat has its reverse side, where the ugly seams show; and Bismarck is no exception. He has all the strong man’s virtues, and vices. Make the most of it.
It is a solemn fact that, in his unfailing loyalty to his country, Bismarck showed little consideration for men whochanced to oppose his own principles—but what would you, pray?
Man at best is a curious animal; he indulges in great wars and he is capable of great mercies; he is all things by turn and nothing long; on the same day he loves and he hates, he commits crimes and he goes to church; he has his way and having it, is still dissatisfied.
¶ And Bismarck was no exception.
¶ He always expected absolute obedience. “My ambassadors,” he once said to one of them, “must wheel round like non-commissioned officers, at a word of command, without knowing why.”
¶ “There are indeed,” says Sir Spencer Walpole, “few things more remarkable in modern history than Bismarck’s determined disregard, from 1863 to 1866 of the decisions of Parliament and his readiness to stake his own life and that of his sovereign on the issue of the contest.”
¶ This Holstein raid was justified as “statecraft,” but the gambler’s nerve and the gambler’s methods were behind it, from end to end; and Bismarck shuffled and cut and stacked, and if now and then some shrewd player caught the sleight of hand and protested, Bismarck coolly banged him over the head with a chair or flung a wine bottle at his head and threw him into the street to make off as best he might, smarting for revenge but not daring to raise a hand; for in his heart the defeated player realized that in a game of this kind the only thing to do is to take one’s medicine, “put up, pay up and shut up”—like the lesser known but equally discerning gamblers of old Mississippi steamboat days.
¶ What were they fighting about in Holstein? Alas, who knows, except that Bismarck had his great German enterprise well under way. It was said, at the time, that Disraeli was “the only man in Europe who really understood the Holstein question,” but Disraeli was a British cynic on allthings German, and his explanations must be taken with a grain of salt. However, Disraeli used Bismarck as “Count Ferroll” in “Endymion.”
Bismarck sleeps surrounded by windrows of the dead; it was the moment he had awaited, all these years.
Bismarck sleeps surrounded by windrows of the dead; it was the moment he had awaited, all these years.
¶ One fact should never be overlooked. Whether Bismarck talks to his countrymen of patriotism or of religious duties, through it all and behind it all, while framing constitutions and putting the ballot in every man’s hand, Bismarck always had something to draw to—and this something was the invincible Prussian army.
This Prussian army, together with Prussian dog-like discipline, made Bismarck’s plans possible.
¶ Also, he everlastingly kept the substance of power for himself and his King; for, however much Bismarck from time to time made concessions to the Liberal side, Bismarck always nourished sentiments of royalty, in the end deftly substituted the mailed fist for his talks on religious faith.
¶ His war-dramas are always rich in strife; but somehow, he makes them conclude in joy.
¶ Realizing that the Austrian war could not much longer be put off, Bismarck’s great care was that there should be no powerful coalitions against Prussia.
¶ We have spoken before of his closeness to Russia, and the means whereby Bismarck secured the Czar’s neutrality in the oncoming Austrian war. The King’s man next settled with Italy, behind the screen. He knew that she longed to come into possession of Venetian powers, held by Austria; Bismarck got after the Italian minister, Lamarmora; the bargain was this: A secret treaty promising Venetia to Italy; no separate peace to be made with Austria; the treaty not to be binding unless Prussia declared war within three months.
¶ Then Bismarck crossed over and proposed to Austria that Frankfort “reform” the Confederation. The lure to the Liberals was the promise of a National Convention elected by the people, to decide on a new Constitution; the solution carried the Holstein question, Bismarck averred, “not as a piece of monarchial greed but as a National affair.”
¶ Bavaria agreed provided Austria and Prussia would not attack each other.
¶ At this, Bismarck promised to give to Italy the Venetian provinces, by peaceful arrangement—war or no war. But Italy wavered; she was afraid of Bismarck’s behind-the-screen policies.
Austria decided to increase her Venetian armaments, and Bismarck, quick as a cat, seized on this move of his old enemy as an act of “insincerity” in regard to peace.
¶ Austria now replied by urging that the Holstein question be left to the Diet, despite the fact that Prussia had expressly denied the competency of Frankfort to settle questions affecting Prussia.
¶ From this point events moved with rapidity toward war. Troops under Manteuffel marched into Holstein, alleging the Gastein treaty broken; Austrians retired, but under protest, alleging that Prussia had violated Section 11 of the Acts of Confederation, which provided that members could not make war against each other; and Austria moved that the Confederation be mobilized, except Prussia. Bismarck thereupon played his trump card. “The Confederation is dissolved!” he thundered, and submitted a new draft of articles, leaving Austria out.
¶ Germany was now in two hostile camps; on came the war.
¶ Thus stood matters on the fateful June 1st, 1866, when the critical situation in the Danish country offered the match to touch off the powder magazines against Austria; startled Austria immediately called upon her beribboned, bejeweled Frankfort Parliament to declare war on Prussia for insolence; and this is exactly what Bismarck wished to bring to pass; it was the moment he had awaited all these long years.
¶ Hanover and two other states were asked by telegraph to declare their intentions. The replies being unsatisfactory, Bismarck, with supreme daring worthy of Frederick the Great, orders von Roon and Moltke’s iron men forward. They poured like fiends into the surprised territories, overran them in a night, compelling the flight or capture of three kings.
¶ “With God for King and Fatherland!” That old cry is again heard throughout the Prussian North country. Austria reckoned stupidly; she had thought Bismarck’s internal political dissensions would make it impossible for Prussia to rally her iron men in good order; but Bismarck knew that while Liberal leaders quarreled like dogs and cats over Prussian policies, still when beloved Prussia was in danger, all differences would be forgotten—and Prussia in a night would become an armed camp.
¶ Bismarck, that memorable Thursday night, June 14th, 1866, spent the long hours pacing up and down under the oaks in the beautiful garden of the Minister of Foreign Affairs; in deep thought, he awaited the mobilization order from the King.
Von Moltke, old Roon and Bismarck hold whispered consultations in which Bismarck is so sure of himself that his mind at times wanders off war to chatty anecdotes. “This afternoon, in the antechamber of the King,” says Bismarck, “I was so weary I fell asleep on the sofa. Is not this garden fine? Suppose we take a look at the old trees in the park, behind the palace?”
¶ Berlin rang with the patriotic “I am a Prussian, know’st thou not my colors?” and in unnumbered thousands the multitudes pressed around the palace. On the night of the 29th came the news by telegraph—“First blood for Prussia!” Berlin goes fairly insane with patriotic joy.
Bismarck leaves the palace at two in the morning; his stern expression contrasts strangely with the frenzied faces in the crowd; never did the great man’s inherent poise show more clearly, by contrast. The crowds are singing Luther’shymn, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”—“A fortress firm in our God.” The King comes out on the balcony and returns thanks. Never-ending cries of triumph force Bismarck to say a few words from the window of his hotel in the Wilhelms-strasse. It is a squally, rain-bespattered night, with the tempest near at hand, but the mobs will not go home. Suddenly, Bismarck raises his hand, shouts congratulations, ends by inviting a salute for the King and Prussia.
That very instant a peal of thunder rumbles over the city, and a trail of forked lightning splits the midnight skies. “The very heavens salute Prussia!” cries Bismarck—and the mobs go wild again.
¶ Bismarck and his King are off to the front. At Sichrow they see the corpse-strewn field of glory; 5,000 bodies in all the agonizing attitudes of sudden death are there before the master.
William and Otto pass to the field hospital. The wounded beg for cigars, and Bismarck writes his wife, “Send cigars by the thousand, by each courier; also forward copies of the ‘Kreutzzeitung.’” This is the official Bismarckian political organ. So you see, he spreads his political propaganda, even in the face of death.
¶ Otto winds up his letter with this surprising request, under date, July 2, Jitschen, “Send me a French novel to read, but only one at a time.”
¶ Then came Sadowa, July 3d. The “Red” Prince Charles assigns his troops to battle line at dawn, amidst fog and rain. At 9, the King and Bismarck appear on the bloody field. Bismarck rides his tall roan mare “Verada,” rechristened “Sadowa.”
In thunder and smoke the battle goes burning on. For hours the result is in doubt. All depends on the second battle line, but where is the Crown Prince? Will he arrive in time?
¶ The vast artillery duel began early and lasted many hours. At the height of the battle, old King William asked for a cigar, and when the box was brought took a long time to select one, to his fancy. Bismarck regarded it as a goodsign! “If he can bother about the best cigar, the battle cannot be lost,” was Bismarck’s mental comment.
¶ At last, the Austrians began giving way.
¶ In joy, the King took from his neck his own Iron Cross and hung it on Bismarck’s neck.
¶ Moltke came up, bright and happy, with these words: “Your Majesty has not only won the battle, but the whole campaign.”
¶ It was true; the great Austrian war was practically now won, and in three short weeks!
¶ Sadowa, or Koeniggraetz as the Germans call it, is one of the great battles of history. There were 445,000 men engaged; Austria lost 30,000 and 1,147 officers.
¶ Bismarck, on his tall roan, was eighteen hours in the saddle; neither man nor faithful beast had food or drink, except that the horse, standing now and again among the windrows of corpses, ate corn-tops and nibbled at leaves. That night, Bismarck slept by the roadside, without straw, a carriage cushion under his head. The rain beat down in a drizzle, and for miles the smoke hung like a pall. Bismarck’s rheumatic pains, his weakness from loss of food, wore him down.
¶ At last, the course of nature can no farther go; and the master falls into a deep sleep—surrounded by windrows of the dead.
¶ At dawn, as he stood up, half-dead from exhaustion, against the lowering skies he saw the vultures ready to pick the bones that Glory had provided in this phase of the terrifying story of German Unity.
¶ The hour of victory again proved Bismarck’s astuteness. The fire-breathers around the King urged that the Prussians march on Vienna and lay the city in waste; Austria could not prevent; she was prostrate; but Bismarck said no; and as usual, he had an object. Part of his far-seeing plan was to take advantage of this psychological moment to conclude secret treaties with the smaller states, as allies of Prussia, in case of future wars. It was the forerunner of his last great work, many years later, the Triple Alliance.
Alas, poor human nature! The rejected stone now becomes the foundation of the palace wall! Otto von Bismarck is justified at last.
Alas, poor human nature! The rejected stone now becomes the foundation of the palace wall! Otto von Bismarck is justified at last.
¶ It goes to show that the right man can bring about any idea, whether to do it makes it necessary to turn Time’s clock backward or forward.
Bismarck is magnificent because his extraordinary political work inspired and carried a new National faith that forced men to bow, often against their will, to the logic of his own gigantic mind.
Bismarck is magnificent because, too, when the tiger strife was ended, he who had been despised as the arch tyrant of his time, was now seen to be the one strong man of his land, who had brought an unwilling people peace, happiness and prosperity.
¶ After the Austrian war the deputies whom Bismarck had fought granted immunity to Bismarck for those four turbulent years of unconstitutional rule; the overjoyed people readily forgave him for exacting 12,000,000 thalers for the secret war chest.
¶ The millions who had looked on him as a madman now hailed him as little under the stature of a demigod, loaded him with estates, gold, diamonds, medals, stocked his cellars with the choicest vintages, sent him train-loads of presents, thousands of felicitations on parchments done up with blue ribbons, threw up their hats in frenzy only to see his rattling old coach pass along the streets of Berlin; and in the National excitement to do something or say something that nobody had ever thought of, became as children to the extent of offering presents to Bismarck’s dogs.
Also, in the grand distribution of Austrian prize money, Bismarck was awarded $300,000. With this unexpected good fortune he bought Varzin estate in Pomerania.
¶ Of late years, his unpopularity has been made clear in a thousand ways, some harmless, others bloodthirsty; his verylife was demanded more than once, by assassins. But now all had changed.
¶ It is related that a German professor, in Greece, caught out after dark was beset by bandits.
¶ “Who are you?” they inquired menacingly.
¶ “I am a German.”
¶ “Who is your king?”
¶ “The King of Prussia!”
¶ “Ah! Then you are Bismarck!”
¶ And the robbers pulled off their hats and ran headlong in the night.
¶ In America, shops sold Bismarck pipes, Bismarck cravats, Bismarck hairbrushes, and one came across such advertisements as this: “What is the difference between Jones’ paste and Prince Bismarck? Answer, there is no difference, because each sticks so fast that once either gets a hold it is impossible to get away from it.”
¶ After Koeniggraetz, the growing sense of German nationality impressed itself in a thousand joyful ways.
In Spain, lucifer matches bore on the boxes this doggerel:
Als Wilhelm wirkt und Bismarck spanGott hatte seine Freude dran.
Als Wilhelm wirkt und Bismarck spanGott hatte seine Freude dran.
Or, “As William worked and Bismarck spun, God had his joy thereon.”
The fashionable world dressed in Bismarck brown; ironclads bore his name; in Paraguay the “Citizen Bismarck” ran up and down the river; Bismarck, South Dakota; Bismarck and von Moltke streets; huge Bismarck strawberries—and what more you please.
¶ The Brandenburg Cuirassiers made him drink out of a silver tankard, holding a level quart of champagne; Bismarck, at the officers’ revel, put the goblet to his lips and drained the draught in a few long gulps.
¶ “Another!” cried the National hero.
¶ “Alas,” sighed a dyspeptic Frenchman, who heard of it, “champagne and smoke agree with him—happy man!”
¶ Whenever the Chancellor was out, on foot or on horseback, the news ran like wildfire through Berlin! Offices were emptied, clerks stood in windows, the public uncovered and cheered.
¶ The German colony of Constantinople sent him a sword of honor; thousands begged his photograph, autograph, or lock of his hair; brewer George Pschorr, at great cost, sent thirty-three gallons of beer in a carved cask weighing 500 pounds, with solid silver tankards—veritable gems of art.
¶ Carried away by the general excitement, an inmate of the almshouse put his name down for $5, on a public list, and when confronted with his utter inability to pay, replied:
¶ “When the time comes for paying I shall ask them to let me off with so many days in jail! So many marks, so many days!”
¶ A little town in the Black Forest offered a huge patriotic scroll composed of bottles of raspberry brandy, with handsome labels, bordered with the German colors, red, white and black; a Bavarian organ builder forwarded a huge organ; the inhabitants of Stanaitschen, a gigantic whip; plovers’ eggs came from the people of Jever; the King of Prussia made Bismarck a Count, presented him with a rich domain; and in the general excitement, the Chancellor’s famous dog Tyras was honored with a magnificent blanket with his initials worked in gold, in the four corners, costly collars to match—and a sofa;—also this explanatory poem: