The Great Year, 1870

“Tyras, sei huebsch, artig und gut,Sei es by Tag, sei es by Nacht!Bewache unsern Kanzler gut:Dan wird als Praeset dir dies Kanapé gebracht.”

Or, “Tyras, be good, gentle and kind; all day long and through the night watch over our Chancellor faithfully;—and this gift of a sofa you’ll receive.”

¶ But this was only the beginning. At the Universal Exposition in the jewelers’ section, one day a tall stranger was inspecting the beautiful display, and one of the exhibitors, bowing politely, asked the stranger to accept a magnificent diamondring. “Your Highness knows very well that he cannot deceive me! I respect your Highness’ desire to remain incognito, but your fame has preceded you!”

In vain the stranger protested. The ring was passed, the exhibitor was highly pleased, the stranger offered a card, “Alexander Schnabel, Bavaria.” The exhibitor still smiled, saying, “I respect your Highness’ incognito!” The stranger then quickly disappeared in the crowd. What is that shouting over yonder? “Hurrah for Count Bismarck! He comes! He comes!” In a moment, the diamond merchant saw it all. He had been cruelly deceived, and furthermore had deceived himself!

Strange superstition ingrained in this Bismarck mind; what ikon do you believe in, as you urge to duty and glory?

¶ In this life, each man has, secretly or openly, some ikon against which to charge, by way of explanation, his personal history.

In the story of Bismarck many ikons have been used by many writers, to account for the puzzle of this great man’s complex career.

Some call it ambition; others will power; others destiny. Certainly, in his long and adventurous career Bismarck was often close to death.

¶ Now Bismarck himself always had his own peculiar ikon. He called it God. His speeches for many years before Sadowa, his protests in behalf of his King, as against the rising tide of Liberalism, always contained amidst thunders of political consequence, the name God as the one explanation of Bismarck’s history and Bismarck’s ultimate victory.

¶ If that be true—and it is not for us to say yes or no, for we are reporting the man as he is and not the way we think he should be—then God was at the bloody field of Sadowa, on the side of the 221,000 Germans, armed with needle-guns, and not on the side of the 224,000 Austrians, armed with old-fashioned muzzle-loaders;—and the clash of445,000 men with tens of thousands left dead on the field, was the final expression of the will of God.

¶ Thus reasoned Bismarck, and surely he should be the best authority on the conclusions of his own mind? As a matter of fact, Bismarck’s profound belief that God was on his side but shows Bismarck’s excess of faith—the faith that moves mountains.

¶ It has been said by eminent historians that Bismarck as the Unifier of Germany had in his mind’s eye, for many years, the dream of Empire; and the statement is either true or false.

¶ These writers call Bismarck the man with the vision, the seer, the German patriot who saw in an early dream the stirring plan to which he was to devote his long and arduous life.

¶ You are familiar with the painting by LaFarge, depicting the boy Napoleon, in the school yard at Brien, walking to one side, by himself? On his youthful brow is already an air of strange preoccupation, that cloud of ambition, as an outward sign that the boy’s imagination is bodying forth the heroic deeds of the man, many years hence.

¶ Do not believe it! It is only a poetic fancy, not human life. Plans such as Bismarck met and carried forth, empires such as Napoleon founded are not placed constructively before one in a vision, nor are the complex ramifications attendant upon their ultimate achievement a matter of pre-vision.

It is only the small mind that plans down to the hair’s breadth. Your truly great man, like Bismarck or Napoleon, takes up life as he finds it, and little by little learns the business of compelling other men to do his bidding; and always in this there is a large element left to the hazard of the die; or to use Bismarck’s own phrase just before Sadowa, “Now we shall see how the god of battle rolls the iron dice!” Your great man rides forth to the battle, prepared to take instant advantage of circumstances as they may rise.

¶ Bismarck’s idea of United Germany, at least the idea he always gave to the public, was that the thing might be done, with and through the power of God.

The word God appears and reappears in connection with hisplan; in his messages, speeches, dispatches, and in his private letters, he calls on God. I am not here to say that Bismarck had religious visions. I take it that he never heard mysterious voices or saw ghostly forms, but instead was an intensely human man who fought out his life even as you fight out yours—with the powers with which you are endowed, and for such ends as seem worth the price, to you. The religious faith learned at his mother’s knee, made Bismarck’s life-work a sacred vocation. He believed that he was chosen by God to educate, guide and discipline the German people.

“My dear professor, whoever has once looked into the breaking eye of a dying warrior on the battlefield, will pause ere he begins war.”

¶ And now we meet Bismarck back in Berlin wearing his Koeniggraetz military cross, suspended by a ribbon around the collar of his plain blue Prussian uniform. But the great strain of the years is beginning to show. For one thing Bismarck’s eyes are failing; he uses a glass as he muses over his mounds of state papers; his face is lined with deep marks; care has done its work; our Otto is now bald, obese and stiff-jointed, much more so than his 54 years might seem to call for. In making speeches he does not speak as boldly, as directly as in days of yore. He stops, hesitates, stammers, but manages to hold the crowd.

¶ You see he has a world of things on his mind; the under-play of the great political game absorbs his very life. What, pray, about this subconscious impression, that everybody has about an impending war with France? Bismarck, as deep as the sea, is still seemingly as open as a child.

One day, a famous professor made the fateful inquiry as had hundreds of journalists—and this time Bismarck replied, “My dear professor, whoever has once looked into the breaking eye of a dying warrior on the battlefield, will pause ere he begins a war.”

¶ So much for the astuteness of the man with the iron cross. He is indeed no longer learning the game.

¶ Already Bismarck was thinking of great armaments against France; for she was now demanding territorial compensations, as between Prussia and Austria. We find in the “Revue Modern,” August, 1865, this striking interview with Bismarck, by the French writer, Vilbort:

¶ “About 10 p. m. we were in the study of the Premier, when M. Benedette, the French Ambassador, is announced. ‘Will you take a cup of tea in the salon?’ M. de Bismarck said to me, ‘I will be yours in a moment.’ Two hours passed away; midnight struck; one o’clock. Some twenty persons, his family and intimate friends, awaited their host.

¶ “The tiny cloud on the horizon as yet had no name, but this cloud hung to the west across the Rhine.

¶ “At last he appeared, with a cheerful face and a smile upon his lips. Tea was taken; there was smoking and beer, in German fashion. Conversation turned, pleasantly or seriously, on Germany, Italy and France. Rumors of a war with France were then current for the tenth time in Berlin. At the moment of my departure, I said: ‘M. le Ministre, will you pardon me a very indiscreet question? Do I take war or peace with me back to Paris?’ M. de Bismarck replied, with animation: ‘Friendship, a lasting friendship with France! I entertain the firmest hope that France and Prussia, in the future, will represent the dualism of intelligence and progress.’ Nevertheless, it seemed to us that at these words we surprised a singular smile on the lips of a man who is destined to play a distinguished part in Prussian politics, the Privy Councillor Baron von ——. We visited him the next morning, and admitted to him how much reflection this smile had caused us. ‘You leave for France tonight,’ he replied; ‘well, give me your word of honor to preserve the secret I am about to confide to you until you reach Paris? Ere a fortnight is past we shall have war on the Rhine, if France insists upon her territorial demands. She asks of us what we neither will nor can give. Prussia will not cede an inch of German soil; we cannot do so without raising the whole of Germany against us, and, if it be necessary, let it rise against France rather than ourselves.’”

¶ The treasonable speech of the Baron did not, however, bearfruit “in a fortnight,” but Bismarck knew the great political game well, and everything served him in his German undertakings. We shall see.

The curtain falls in triumph on another spirited act in the great drama “Germania.”

¶ The political fruits of Sadowa may be summed up in a few sentences. We clear the air for the grand finale, at the palace of the French kings at Versailles, four years later.

¶ By the Prague treaty, August 23, 1866, Austria consented to the reconstruction of the Federation and retired from the scene.

Bismarck saw that the large states beyond the River Main,—Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden and South-Hesse, were not yet ready for his new North German Confederation; but he would bring them in—somehow—later! As for Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfort, and Schleswig-Holstein, they were now mapped with Prussia, their crime being this, that they had opposed Prussia in a half-hearted way, before Sadowa.

¶ Bismarck now set up his popular Prussian Constitution. Wonder of wonders! Really, it differed not in essentials from the hated Liberal Constitution that he had assailed so vigorously in 1848. Also, up to 1866, the Unifier of Germany had as we have seen always appeared as an opponent of the National German party. When, however, he had become its leader, through the great politico-military struggle, he brought about the results vainly fought for by the patriots in the revolution of 1848. The distinction was that in the Revolutionary days, the King would have been obliged to stoop to the gutter for a “people’s crown,” whereas now he need do no such humiliating thing. The two wars had proven William monarch “by Divine right.”

¶ However, a blaze of aristocratic honors at the hands of King William pleased Bismarck more than he was willing to admit. Count Bismarck, one night, when the people came with the torchlights, sounded the old German keynote in a new way, as follows:

¶ “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, Luebeckers, and Hamburgers exist, and they are 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, 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 cheer resounded throughout the castle-yard.

¶ The new Constitution gave to the people manhood suffrage and a popular Assembly. The King of Prussia was made President of the new Federation, but not its sovereign. Prussia ruled in her own way, henceforth, but the fiction of the King, as President, served to steady the minor disgruntled German princelings, who were led to believe that their councils were still reckoned with in great affairs. However, the voting was so arranged that Prussia controlled, off-hand, 17 out of 48 units in the new political Confederation—and in a pinch Bismarck could rely on having the desired majority.

¶ Some say that Bismarck was influenced by the socialist Lasalle to make concessions to the people, of a piece with the concessions which in ’48 Bismarck had fought because they sprang from revolutionists; but the liberal aspects of the new Constitution served to place the great dream of German Unity on a firmer basis than would otherwise have been possible. Bismarck was learning this: To try to choke the current of public opinion is folly; the wise man, instead, aims to direct the waters to his own advantage.

¶ The North German Confederation comprised 22 states and Bismarck was made Chancellor. The Constitution wasadopted February 24th, 1867. For all practical purposes, the German Empire was now a fact.

¶ But more work was still to be done, by way of bloody Gravelotte, Metz, Mar-la-Tour, St. Privat, Woerth, Spichern Heights, Sedan, and the Siege of Paris.

¶ Corpses, corpses everywhere, lying in windrows miles long!

The master uses the masses as the gardener utilizes manure—fertilizing the soil with blood and bones!

¶ Bismarck knows that to demand in an emphatic way is the surest way of receiving. He is always studying men, looking ahead to the time of the inevitable French war. He is asking himself, concerning various monarchs of adjacent nations, opposed to Prussia: “On which side will he be?” “Is he weak?” “Can he be relied on to stand on my side?” “Is he dangerous?” “Will he take a bribe?” “At any rate, give him what he wants—but let me do it in such a way that he thinks he is forcing us to do what he wants, whereas we know how to make him actually demand our own terms!”

¶ Thus Bismarck without histronic talent, with his piping voice and his prohibitory bulk for heroic theater-roles, is at heart the great actor-manager of his time. Instead of creating parts, he deals them out.

¶ He goes through this world during these trying times finding the best men to do his own bidding in the coming war. And when he is hissed down by those who will not acknowledge his right he breaks their power by defying them—as the hurricane scatters the clouds, nor asks permission.

¶ They say that had he lost the Austrian war, he would have gone to the gallows. Can a Man of Destiny lose?

¶ A new era is dawning. The old worn-out system for a disunited Germany of 39 jealous states is to be swept away.

¶ For thirty years he dreamed of the inevitable German Union, had his visions of that glory. He was greater than himself in those black hours before the Parliament, for four long years thundering for his side;—with public opinion flatagainst him, and with mutterings on part of angry mobs that would bring the rope and hang Bismarck to the highest tree.

¶ Throughout Germany, distressed as her people had been for years past by political and social miseries, a growing consciousness of brotherhood, blood and language was at last about to be politically realized.

Even Napoleon the Little, political fool that he was in many respects, at least had one idea that showed his common sense. However, in his day he was laughed out of court for his “theory of nationality,” that is to say, he believed that people speaking a common language and living in contiguous territory, have an inalienable right to a common flag.

¶ Now that is precisely what German poets had in mind, in their romantic way, when for well-nigh 100 years past they had been dreaming of a united Fatherland—

Fuer Heim und Herd, fuer Weib und KindFuer jedes treue Gut—

Or, in other words, a man’s house is his castle and if men will not fight for their hearthstones, then they will soon have no hearthstones.

For home and hearth, for wife and child—These things we prize the most;And fight to keep them undefiledBy foreign ruffian host.For German Right, for German Speech,For German household ways,For German homesteads, all and eachStrike men, through battle’s blaze!Hurrah! Hurrah!Hurrah, Germania!

¶ The words, “Auf, Deutschland, auf, und Gott mit dir!”—“To arms, Germany, and God be with thee!” is a National hymn breathing the solemn thought that Germans are not slaves—

Old feuds, old hates are dashed asideAll Germany is one!

¶ Bismarck’s work, raw as it may seem in many respects, was consecrated to the great central idea that the German race is one, or as the poet Freiligrath puts it in one of his stirring lines, “Das deutsche Volk ist Eins!”

¶ The whole thing comes down to the inner meaning of the word “patriotism.” Tolstoi calls patriotism a frightful vice; Washington regarded patriotism as a virtue of virtues.

¶ Take your choice.

¶ He is even now brooding over the element necessary for the perpetuation of a free and United Germany. He reads his Bible and prepares for the French war.

¶ Bismarck used the masses as the gardener uses manure. The blood of the peasantry manured the ground, out of which was to grow the harvest.

Bismarck and Von Moltke, over a bowl of sherry punch, discuss “these poor times”—The Emperor-hunt begins.

¶ Volumes have been written to explain the origin of the Franco-Prussian war, and the intricate and inter-related facts are gone over again and again, now with emphasis here, again on the other side.

¶ It is trite to say that Bismarck foresaw that a war with France was inevitable. Behind this simple statement is a world of intrigue and ambition. The French still hold that the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was the price not of war but of Bismarck’s brigandage. The French also believe that the candidacy of Prince Leopold Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne was a Prussian intrigue against France. The controversy on these points will never be settled, till the Doomsday Book is opened.

¶ When Bismarck sees that his work of unifying Germany cannot be completed without another war, the war comes!

His amazing insight into complex political, military and historical situations, in which with a few words he is able to divert public opinion to his own peculiar view, has been shown never with more diabolical cunning than at the time of the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war. We refer here to the “Ems dispatch,” that played a startling part in bringing on the war; but the telegram, in itself, was really a simple thing.

¶ For four years, Germany had been increasing her military power by ten-fold. The greatest military martinet of all time, Von Roon, had the men up at three and four in the morning drilling them as human beings were never drilled before. Von Moltke, “with the battle pictures in his brain,” was planning every detail against France.

¶ The preparations were now complete. The Germans were thoroughly organized, led by generals guided by a single brain, von Moltke, master of tactics and strategy.

¶ Just the day the war broke out von Moltke, who was always as taciturn as the Sphinx, “and in times of peace ugly and crabbed,” was sitting in his garden moodily declaiming against these poor times—with no war in sight!

Bismarck greeted his compatriot, bravely. Von Moltke ordered sherry punch and the two cronies began drinking each other’s health.

¶ “You are not looking well, Chief?” began Bismarck.

¶ “No, I have not been well, lately!”

¶ “But you must cheer up. War is your business and you will now quickly mend. I remember when the Spanish war was the burning question you looked at least ten years younger. When I told you that the Hohenzollern prince gave the thing up, you became at once ten years older. This time, the French have made difficulties, and you look fresh and younger by ten years.”

¶ In this light-hearted way Bismarck spoke of the oncoming strife—up to the year 1914 the bloodiest in the history of the world.

The bugle blast “For God and Fatherland!” again resounds throughout Germany—The great host crosses the Rhine.

¶ Up to 1914, there never was such a disciplined army since the world began! Neither Napoleon, Cæsar nor Alexander ever had a power like the United German swarm, now numbering 1,200,000 men, counting advance and reserve; however, the total strength was never called, as the war was practically over in seven weeks.

The hosts of Germany, 800,000 strong, helmeted, machine-like, moved silently and swiftly toward the Rhine, carrying their trusty needle-guns which had done such destruction at Koeniggraetz. As they marched they sang the war songs of their race, and swore to guard the Rhine.

Zum Rhine, zum Rhine, zum Deutchen Rhine,Wir alle wollen Hueter sein;Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein,Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhine!

¶ The King immediately left for the seat of war, Mayennce being the first headquarters of the royal party. Bismarck was always close to the King.

¶ Bismarck had been only a few days in the field when his health began to improve. Like von Moltke, Bismarck looked ten years younger.

The old-time biliousness and vein-swelling from which he suffered, now passed away; the irritability vanished; he was cool and collected.

¶ He was attended throughout the war by a corps of cipherers, decipherers, cooks, privy counsellors, secretaries, and couriers. Faithful Dr. Busch, head of the Bismarck press-agency, was one of the busiest men of the hour. Bismarck, who learned the power of the press in shaping public opinion, kept Busch constantly employed sending out telegrams, giving the German side of the war.

¶ The Chancellor wore the white uniform of Heavy Landwehr Cavalry, with white cap and top boots.

¶ Bismarck and his staff camped along the line of advance, wherever night fell—sometimes in the château of a French nobleman, again in the hut of a French peasant. The company ate at a common table, and had the same fare. Bismarck was called “Chief.”

¶ Often the table was made by taking doors off their hinges and placing them on barrels or boxes; then waiters spread the cloth and brought out pewter plates and huge tumblers of a silver-like metal, lined with gilt.

Candles were stuck in empty wine bottles. Thus the great man worked during the war, week after week.

Dr. Busch, although a very busy man, managed to gather two volumes of table talk, minute details of what Bismarck said, ate, drank, preached, the whole set forth in spirited style, affording an intimate picture of the Iron Chancellor to which all historians are henceforth under obligations.

¶ Firing was going on around the royal party, often dangerously near by, and now and then a battle would take place close to where the King was encamped, with his faithful minister. They would ride out, to see the fight. Bismarck read dispatches, made notes, talked to His Majesty, gave instructions on state matters, counseled with von Moltke on military matters, received visits, and studied maps. This continued all day and sometimes all night.

Germans drink 2,500,000 bottles of champagne at Rheims—Bismarck’s ironical revenge!

¶ The high tension of war was relieved by amusing episodes, from day to day. In the evening of the arrival at Rheims, Bismarck humored himself trying various brands of champagne. Word was brought that the day before a squadron of Prussian hussars had been fired on from a leading hotel. Bismarck ordered that the house should at once be torn down and the landlord sent to prison; but when it was explainedthat none had been injured, Bismarck waggishly decided to let the landlord off if he would give 2,500 bottles of champagne to the squadron—an obligation which the man quickly proceeded to settle.

¶ The Prussians drank, in and around Rheims, some 2,500,000 bottles of champagne; and, for that matter, the highways all the way to Paris were marked with long lines of empty bottles!

¶ Thus Bismarck had his ironical revenge on France; took his cherry brandy or his champagne as he pleased, while the great war waged.

¶ “Verily, in all history,” wrote Carlyle to the London Times, “there is no instance of an insolent unjust neighbor that ever got so complete, instantaneous and ignominious a smashing down, as France now got from Germany.” The whole civilized world looked on in amazement.

¶ France had declared war July 15th, and the crushing defeat at Sedan came September 1.

However, it took seven months before Bismarck was satisfied that the final papers were drawn to his satisfaction.

Louis Napoleon being a prisoner of war, had lost his throne; and consequently Bismarck insisted that any peace made with France would have to be ratified by some central authority. It is a long, interesting story, but Bismarck finally won his point.

Sedan and the Belgian weaver’s hut; the highways to Paris are strewn with wine bottles; death drinks a toast to “German Unity.”

¶ As it had been the Iron Chancellor’s fortune to be present at the crowning victory of Koeniggraetz, in the Austrian war, likewise it was now his destiny to be a spectator at the two battles that decided the issue of the French war, Gravelotte and Sedan.

The spoils were immense, the glory set Germany in flames. Bismarck, von Roon and von Moltke were held to be the greatest men of all time.

¶ Gravelotte, the bloodiest battle of the campaign, engaged 333,000 men and 1,362 cannon. The King commanded in person, on the right, and Bismarck was with him.

The carnage was frightful. Bismarck busied himself carrying water to the wounded. When the sun went down, German victory was complete, at the loss of every tenth man!

¶ That night, Bismarck bivouacked on the battlefield, amidst serried ranks of the dead. Says one who saw the terrifying scene: “Anon, the watchfires of the Prussians blazed round about; and worn out by incredible exertions at last Bismarck fell asleep, among the living and the dead. He was now to have evidence of the result of his life-long ambition; he had plunged his country into three great wars, with all their dreadful toll of human life; but he slept that night the sleep of the just—because he saw, in the complex blending of his ideas, no inconsistency in paying any price for the glory of his country.”

¶ The whole bloody day at Gravelotte Bismarck had nothing to eat. Finally, he found a hen’s nest with five eggs; giving three to half-starving soldiers near by, Bismarck with his sword broke the shells of the two remaining and sucked the eggs.

Next morning he had some sausage soup, the first warm food that had passed his lips for 36 hours.

¶ While he was standing dismounted, a concealed French battery began a tremendous cannonade; the shells dropping all around, exploded, and plowed up the ground.

¶ Night again. Nothing to eat. A sutler had some miserable rum and wine. Bismarck took that, at once, but there was not a morsel to eat. In the village, a few cutlets were found after a hard search, just enough for the King.

His Majesty decided not to bivouac among the dead again, but took shelter at a little public house.

¶ Bismarck with General Sheridan set off to find a sleeping place. House after house was filled with the wounded.

Finally they found three empty beds with straw mattresses. Here Bismarck and General Sheridan took up their quarters and slept capitally.

Sheridan was present as official observer for the United States Army. In his life, he had seen many great battles, including Gettysburg and Sedan.

¶ Bismarck talked to Sheridan in English; and at dinner they drank champagne and porter, Bismarck’s favorite beverage.

¶ With tens of thousands of Cuirassiers as companions the King and Bismarck rode down the broad highways, toward Paris; Bismarck wore his famous big top-boots.

What a picture the King, Bismarck and von Moltke marching down the highways of France, at their back their almighty army, up to 1914 the greatest in all history, its fighting strength 600,000 men, perfectly drilled and armed with deadly needle-guns. In puffs of smoke the reign of Napoleon the Little was ending; and it is now curious to recall that, 50 years before, as a young lieutenant, the present King of Prussia had traversed almost the identical route with the Allies, to help defeat Napoleon the Great!

¶ The iron heel of war was grinding men’s lives into the dust, setting fire to the country, and leaving a trail of destruction.

France looked along the German route as though a cyclone had devastated the face of nature.

¶ Past cities, towns, vineyards, châteaux, the tramp, tramp, tramp; the roll of the war drums; the rumbling of wheels—so the terrible Prussians marched on!

¶ “Summer was passing,” says Lowe, “Autumn was coming fast; France had turned from the sap green of the vineyards to the golden hues of the harvest; but it was the harvest of Death.”

¶ Now came a gigantic cavalry movement, to the right, a prodigious wheel, to round-up the French MacMahon, who had dodged and doubled in the basin of the Meuse. “The chase,” said Bismarck, “reminds me of a wolf hunt in the Ardennes, but when we arrived, the wolf had vanished!”

To make common ground with Bazaine, MacMahon concentrated his troops, with the idea of breaking the siege of Metz, where 175,000 French soldiers were undergoing the horrors of starvation.

The Germans outwitted MacMahon, who finally decided to make a last stand around the frontier fortress of Sedan.

¶ On the night of August 31, the Germans closed in on him, in what proved to be one of the momentous battles in the world’s history.

Von Roon and Moltke had 121,000 infantry and 618 cannon, the French 70,000 of all arms, 320 cannon and 70 Mitrailleuses.

On the slopes of Frenois, the Prussian King, Bismarck and a brilliant retinue witnessed for ten hours the dreadful carnage reddening the fields.

¶ “More artillery!” cried the King, surprised that the French would not yield.

In the King’s retinue stood Bismarck, a crowd of princes, dukes, aide-de-camps, marshals, besides army attaches of Russia, England and America.

¶ On the King’s order, 600 German guns began drawing the most terrific artillery fire in the history of battles, concentrating an ever-narrowing circle of flame and shell around the doomed place. It was too much for flesh and blood; a white flag was hoisted.

The Prussian flag of truce to inquire for the commander, was led into the presence of Napoleon, trapped at Sedan!

¶ Moltke’s terms were short; the whole French army was to surrender as prisoners of war.

The French regarded this as too severe after their heroism, but the Prussians were inexorable; an armistice left the final decision till daylight.

¶ Bismarck passed the night at the house of Dr. Jeanpot, at Donchery, a few miles from the bloody field of Sedan.

Along about daybreak, a servant awakened Bismarck, tellinghim a French general was at the door. It was Reille, Napoleon’s messenger, saying “Napoleon is on the way over to see the King of Prussia!”

¶ What a moment! How Bismarck’s pride must have risen; how he must have gritted his wolf’s teeth and felt his gorge rise as he realized that the hour of his life-long revenge was at hand, against his old enemy.

¶ And yet, that night, he had been reading in his room after the dreadful Sedan carnage—what do you think? Human inconsistency! “Daily Refreshment for Believing Christians,” by the Moravian brotherhood.

¶ Unwashed, breakfastless, Bismarck immediately set out, his revolver in his belt; down the road Napoleon’s carriage, “evidently a hired one,” said Bismarck afterwards, recounting the scene, “came into view; the Emperor was escorted by a handful of officers; Napoleon had on his military uniform, wore white kid gloves, and was smoking a cigarette!”

¶ Bowing and asking His Majesty’s pleasure, Napoleon asks Bismarck, “I wish to meet the King of Prussia.” Bismarck replies, “Unfortunately impossible; the King is quartered some fifteen miles away.” However, it is only a trick to gain time. Bismarck has certain powerful reasons why he does not desire, just then, that Napoleon and William should meet. We shall see, presently.

¶ Napoleon drives slowly onward, but nearing Donchery hesitates on account of the crowd; and spying a solitary cottage near by, asks if he could not remain there.

¶ It is the hut of a weaver of Donchery—a mean, dirty place—and stands about fifteen paces from the high-road, which is lined with poplars; the house is one-story, yellow, with four windows, and has a slate roof.

¶ Bismarck and Napoleon ascend a rickety, narrow staircase giving entrance to a gloomy chamber, in which are a deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs. Here the two men sit alone for an hour. What a moment in history!

¶ Only a few years before, that is to say, in October, 1865, Bismarck had sought out Napoleon III, or “Napoleon theLittle,” and had held a famous political interview; the meeting at Biarritz found Napoleon filled with ambitions to emulate the illustrious career of his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte; but the secret although well kept did not escape the vision of Bismarck.

¶ The Iron Chancellor came as a friend, on a pleasant exchange of diplomatic courtesies, but in secret he was sounding Napoleon’s possible attitude in the oncoming Prussian war, against Austria. The Emperor was completely tricked. Bismarck talked frankly of the necessity of “reform” in the German Confederation, and Napoleon, whose hobby was that peoples speaking the same language should be under one rule, fell in quite naturally with the plan to “reform” Prussia. The Emperor thought that Bismarck had in mind only certain constitutional changes in Prussia, not dynastic changes, destroying the European balance of power and preparing the way for German Unity.

¶ Bismarck made clear to the Emperor that, in return for keeping out of any impending Austrian clash, France would be rewarded by enlarged boundaries. As an enlightened egotist, Bismarck felt that it was “only fair” to acknowledge French help with the left bank of the Rhine. It was all a bluff. But Napoleon, with his hunger to enlarge French territory, and to appear before France as a sort of second Napoleon the Great, fell in with the conspiracy. Herein, the Bismarckian skill at stacking the cards reaches its height.

¶ And now to think that the next meeting of the French lamb and the Prussian wolf should take place in a weaver’s hut, Napoleon stripped of glory and power by the man who was to “give” great lands to France.

¶ The Emperor had been caught in his own trap; his armies had been crushed; his government destroyed by Bismarck’s genius for political intrigue. The rise to power of Prussia over Austria, against which Napoleon had been tricked not to protest, was a turning point in the history of modern Europe. Hence we say that these two contrasted interviews, the one of glory, the other of the downfall, Biarritz and the Weaver’s Hut, show our Otto von Bismarck as the supreme politico-military genius of his time.

¶ A curious sidelight on the famous interview at Biarritz is supplied by Bismarck’s writings. “Napoleon said things could not go on as they had been doing, in Prussia,” wrote Bismarck, “otherwise there would soon be an uprising in Berlin and a revolution in the whole country. I told him that the people of our country were not barricade-builders, and that in Prussia revolutions were made only by the kings. If the King could stand the strain on him for three or four years he would certainly win the game. Unless he got tired and left me, I would not fail him. The Emperor at that time said of me, ‘Ce n’est pas un homme serieux,’ (Bismarck is not a serious man), a mot of which I did not think myself at liberty to remind him, in the weaver’s hut, at Donchery.”

¶ Bismarck exercised all his mighty ingenuity to keep Napoleon from urging too far that the King of Prussia be brought forward. Bismarck knew that King William was tender-hearted, and, tempted by the disaster that had come to Napoleon, would in consequence be inclined to deal leniently with the Emperor.

¶ Bismarck, setting his iron jaws hard, determined then and there to keep the Prussian King out of it till the terms of peace had been arranged.

¶ Come, come, are we not justified in our character study of Bismarck? Who now is master, who now servant? Who now is shown to be the real power behind the throne? And if Bismarck did not actually bring on this awful war, then he well knew the art of making other nations declare war. Oh, he has learned a thing or two in his long and eventful life; and he is now about to create his diplomatic masterpiece—in the Belgian weaver’s hut.

¶ Sedan surrendered 40 generals, 2,825 various other officers, 83,000 prisoners of war, 184 pieces of artillery, 350 field guns, 70 Mitrailleuses, 12,000 horses, and enormous quantities of military stores.

¶ The broken-hearted Emperor was sent away to the castle at Wilhelmshoehe, near Cassel.

And the King of Prussia opened the champagne at his royal headquarters at Vendresse, and toasted von Roon, Moltke and Bismarck: “You, General von Roon, whetted our sword; you General von Moltke, wielded it; and you, Count Bismarck, have brought Prussia to its present prominence by the way in which you have directed its policy for several years.”

In which Bismarck reaches the zenith of his stupendous career; diplomatist, ministerial Cæsar, unifier of his country.

¶ The Iron Chancellor held firmly to his plan to strip France of her last franc.

The siege of Paris continued, with Bismarck and the King of Prussia installed at Versailles, within the shadow of the stately palace of the Kings of France.

¶ It is a long, vivid story leading to the 5,000,000,000 francs indemnity, and the cessation of Alsace-Lorraine.

M. Thiers treated in vain to get softer terms; but Bismarck kept the King out of it and stuck to his hard bargaining.

¶ “This is not war, it is confiscation!” Thiers exclaimed one day in terrible anger, and eloquently he parleyed to have the amount reduced.

¶ Bismarck thereupon began to talk in German!

¶ “I have not enough French to answer such a charge as you have just made!” he thundered. “Henceforth, we carry on our affairs in German.”

¶ M. Thiers threatened to appeal to Europe to intervene, but at this Bismarck broke into a hoarse laugh.

He knew that he had in his pocket a secret quit-claim from Russia and Italy, Denmark and Belgium were tied in another way, Spain was hostile to the French, and as for England—he snapped his fingers!

¶ “Defy me, and I tell you what I will do! We have in Germany about 100,000 excellent French troops, captured at Metz, who are still wholly devoted to the old Imperial cause.I will release them and bring back the Bonapartists! I care not who is in power so long as the proper sovereign government of France signs our peace demands for indemnity. Napoleon cannot do it, as his throne is in ruins; and even if he did, the next party in power would probably set it aside. So part of my duty is not only to demand for my King the just rewards of our victory, but to start France again with some new form of government.”

¶ Going behind this stern diplomatic language, what Bismarck really meant was this: “The longer the French Assembly hesitates to call an election the more we will starve the city into submission. Live on horseflesh, stale bread, cats and dogs!—die of fever and pestilence!—the sooner it is over! Our siege guns will continue to bark night and day, Paris will be reduced to ashes, crumble to ruins, but the demands of the Prussian King must be obeyed. No power on this earth can turn me from my project. I am resolved to wage a war of extermination—and I have spoken!”

¶ “Very well, then!” exclaimed M. Thiers, “M. le Comte, as you will! Rob us of our homes!—provinces!—burn down our homes!—strangle our peaceful inhabitants!—in a word, complete your work! We shall fight you as long as our breath remains. Perhaps we shall die—but we shall never be dishonored.”

¶ Bismarck seemed touched, but said all he had to do was to obey the orders of the King.

Meantime he went out and was closeted again with Moltke and His Majesty.

¶ “I do not believe,” said M. Favre, “that any criminal ever waited for the judgment with more feverish anxiety. Motionless, we followed with bewildered gaze the hands of the clock.

¶ “The door opened; Bismarck stood on the threshold, announcing that he would not insist on the German troops entering Paris—provided we gave up Belfort!

¶ “There was a moment of inexpressible agony, but an exchange of glances sufficed. ‘We should be wanting in patriotismif we accepted!’ exclaimed M. Thiers. The door closed and Bismarck disappeared again.

¶ “At eight o’clock, M. Thiers had reaped the reward of his heroic endeavors. He had saved Belfort, but in all other respects he had absolutely failed to move the man of blood and iron. For five fearful days they had wrestled with the problem of the 5,000,000,000—and had lost! Bismarck had his own banker, the Jew Bleichroder, to show that after all the indemnity would be adding ‘only about one-fourth’ to France’s national debt.”

¶ On Sunday, February 26, the preliminaries of peace were signed. As Thiers signed, Bismarck took him by the hand, saying, “You are the last who ought to have been burdened by France with this sorrow—for of all Frenchmen you have the least deserved it!”

¶ Bismarck, radiant with joy, signed the papers with a new golden pen sent him for this express purpose by the ladies of the German town of Pforsheim.

¶ Said M. Favre: “The countenance of M. de Bismarck was most happy. With theatrical pomp, he sent for a golden pen.... M. Thiers approached the little table on which lay the documents; he wrote his name without betraying the feelings that tortured him. I tried to imitate him, and we withdrew. The sacrifice was accomplished.

¶ “As a special understanding, it was agreed that the siege should be lifted that morning at four o’clock and that France should fire the last shot.

¶ “What sentiment in this, for Paris! Along then, in the deep night that precedes the dawn, with the sky illuminated by occasional flashes of the siege guns, at last the fire lessened, slackened gradually, and then solemn silence fell. Suddenly, through the night, a loud report was heard from the Paris ramparts, followed by a path of fire through the sky; this immediately died away, and deep silence, now unbroken, continued.

¶ “The long siege was over!”

¶ On the third day after signing the hard conditions, 30,000German troops made their triumphal entry into Paris, after being reviewed on the plain of Longchamps.

With the victorious Prussians, Bismarck rode as far as the Arc de Triomphe.

¶ It was one of the greatest incidents of his eventful life.

We have transposed to the last an episode that took place January 18th, 1871, the anniversary of the day on which the first King of Prussia had himself crowned at Koenigsberg, 1701.

In the Hall of Mirrors, at Versailles, King William I of Prussia was crowned German Emperor, amidst a clash of arms, martial music, hymns of praise, and the felicitations of a brilliant throng.

In the semi-circle stood princes, grand dukes, dukes, crown princes, hereditary princes, generals, ministers, military and political figures, against a background of Prussian hussars.

¶ The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles had seen many astonishing sights in the centuries gone by; and doubtless that night the shades of Richelieu, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, Marie Theresa, Madam Pompadour, looked down on one of the strangest incidents in all history, a German Emperor receiving his crown in the very palace of the old French kings, who in their turn, had waged some twenty hard wars upon Germany, and more than once had placed some part of German soil in pawn. Who read the proclamation to the assembled company expressing the new dignity of the sovereign over United Germany?

¶ The Man of Blood and Iron, Otto von Bismarck, at last had demonstrated the dream of his life, that is to say, he had in truth not only long been King’s Man, but also long had upheld the King his master; had unified Germany;—and now had made his master more than king, as William I, German Emperor.

¶ Bismarck’s life work was now practically over; however, he was a busy man for twenty years to come, trying to settle Germany’s perplexing internal problems; but in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles he reached the zenith of his stupendous career as unifier of his country.

¶ In this magnificent state apartment of Louis XIV are seventeen arcades of looking-glass, corresponding to the seventeen large windows; the ceiling by Lebrun shows thirty incidents in the life of Louis the Magnificent, each painting bordered by rich gilded sculptures.

The entire gallery is decorated with marbles and grand trophies of gilded copper, by Coysevox.

In Louis’s time, the gallery was hung in white damask brocaded with gold; there were orange trees in rare boxes; the great central chandelier of gilded silver was by famous smiths; priceless Savonnerie carpets muffled the lightest foot-fall; round about were silver stools, with green velvet coverings surrounded by bands of gold brocade. Later, the silver was melted down, on Louis’s order, and the money squandered.

¶ These great artists worked in the Hall of Mirrors and neighboring apartments: Berain, Monsart, Lebrun, Lenotre, Grissey, Vigarani, Audran, Baptiste, Coustau, Coypel, Van Cleve, Taffieri, Taupin, Tempore, Temporiti, numbering among them painters, sculptors, designers, architects, wood carvers, silversmiths and lockmakers extraordinary.

¶ Here, Louis, surrounded by some 1,500 flatterers of all degree, high and low, kept his court of pleasure bestowing ribbons, favors, dinners, golden swords for the men, diamond necklaces for the women.

¶ However, 1789 ended all that; the mob stormed into imperial chambers and through the apartments of the old aristocratic French courtesans; and with clubs, axes and fires laid in ruin art treasures that stood unmatched through centuries.

¶ To this Versailles come now the Prussian soldiers to proclaim their German Emperor; in this palace, where the Bourbons had expended some 200,000,000 francs, as money is reckoned today; to say nothing of the free labor of thousands of convicts.

No record tells what Louis spent on the place, but in August, 1684, 8,000 horses and 20,000 convicts were working there, and in 1685 at one time as many as 36,000 convicts, in charge of soldiers, added their vast free labor to heighten the peculiarglory of the great French monarchs, as the sublime representatives of kingcraft—in its splendor and in its downfall.

¶ All hail, William I, German Emperor! All hail, Bismarck! All hail, United Germany!

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