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FHE STORY OF 
 
 )UNT BISMARCK’S 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Bismarck and Napoleon III.—From a German point of view. 
 
 By GEORGE BULLEN. 
 
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THE STORY OF 
 
 :OUNT BISMARCK’S 
 LIFE. 
 
 FOR POPULAR PERUSAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BULLEN. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 & 75, PICCADILLY. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 SATILL, EDWARDS AND CC., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 COYENT GARDEN. 
 
123.^3 
 ^LZZ & 1 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 N the following pages an attempt has been 
 made to give a brief sketch of the life and 
 character of the great Statesman, whose 
 ame during the past three months has been ringing 
 hrough the world, in connexion with the fierce war 
 till carried on between France and Germany. 
 
 The facts in Count Bismarck’s Life have been 
 ulled from various published works and documents, 
 nd from private information. In the estimate here 
 iven of his character we have exercised our own 
 .idgment, and at the same time placed before our 
 eaders the opinions of others, with a strict view to 
 npartiality. 
 
 What judgment, however, in speaking of such a 
 lan as Bismarck, can pretend to anything like com- 
 leteness, in his present unfinished career ? What 
 tay not the future still unfold ? Could any words 
 ' ours reach him in his exalted position, we would 
 <hort him to display that moderation in the hour 
 victory, which is one of the best characteristics 
 a noble nature. 
 
If 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Readers desirous of further information with respec 
 to the life of Bismarck, previously to the war wit 
 France, are referred to his “Life,”* by Hesekiel, c 
 which an excellent English translation has been re 
 cently published. 
 
 Should the present small work be favourably re 
 ceived, we propose to issue another edition, bringim 
 down the biography to the conclusion of the wai 
 which we trust is not far distant, and embodying an; 
 further particulars relating to Bismarck which shai 
 have come to hand. 
 
 * “ The Life of Bismarck, Private and Political; with Descrij 
 tive Notices of his Ancestry. By John George Louis Hesekiei 
 Translated and edited, with an Introduction, Explanatory Note 
 and Appendices. By Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie.” London 
 Hogg and Son. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP ' PACE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION. X 
 
 II. BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND ANCESTORS-BIRTH¬ 
 PLACE-EARLY EDUCATION.4 
 
 III. BISMARCK AT THE GYMNASIUM AND UNIVERSITY IO 
 
 IV. FIRST OFFICIAL EMPLOYMENTS—SOWING WILD 
 
 OATS-COUNTRY LIFE.j6 
 
 V. EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 21 
 
 VI. MARRIAGE — INTRODUCTION TO THE KING— 
 
 ELECTED TO THE UNITED DIET - HIS POLITICS 33 
 
 VII. AMBASSADOR TO THE DIET AT FRANKFORT . . 45 
 
 VIII. AMBASSADOR AT ST. PETERSBURG AND PARIS . 53 
 
 IX. BISMARCK PRIME MINISTER OF PRUSSIA ... 75 
 
 X. BISMARCK AND THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUES¬ 
 TION . 
 
 XI. RUPTURE WITH AUSTRIA.93 
 
 XII. CAMPAIGN OF 1 866 - BISMARCK ON THE BATTLE- 
 
 IIELD .x OO 
 
 XIII. AFTER THE BATTLE.107 
 
 XIV. THE LUXEMBURG QUESTION—CONSTITUTION FOR 
 
 NORTH GERMANY - REST FOR A TIME . . .112 
 
VI 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAr - PAGE 
 
 XV. GENERAL SURVEY OF BISMARCK’S CHARACTER . 117 
 
 xvi. Bismarck’s personal appearance and man¬ 
 ners—INTERVIEW WITH M. VILBORT . . .123 
 
 XVII. ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS.1 33 
 
 XVIII. WAR WITH FRANCE.-THE PRELIMINARIES . . 141 
 
 XIX. THE DECLARATION OF WAR, ETC. 159 
 
 XX. FORCES OF THE COMBATANTS-HOSTILITIES COM¬ 
 
 MENCED .168 
 
 XXL BATTLES OF WEISSENBURG, WORTH, AND FOR- 
 
 BACH. 174 
 
 XXII. BISMARCK AGAIN ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. . . 180 
 
 XXIII. BATTLE OF SEDAN. 1 87 
 
LIFE OF BISMARCK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PgfgOME eight years ago, the name of Count 
 fgSjyf von Bismarck first became known to the gene- 
 ral English public as the high-handed first 
 minister of a sovereign whose policy was supposed to 
 be entirely reactionary, and of the absolutist school. 
 On this account his own countrymen, especially those 
 of the liberal party, regarded him with feelings of 
 animosity, almost of detestation. He governed for some 
 time without a parliament, and many predicted for him 
 and his royal master the fate of Strafford and Charles 
 I. It is true that while so doing, he raised the army of 
 Prussia to a pitch of efficiency that it had never pre¬ 
 viously known. This, however, it was thought by most 
 persons was done in the interests of Absolutism. Two 
 years later he incurred a vast amount of odium in this 
 country and France by his spoliation, as it was then 
 called, of little Denmark ; the war against Denmark 
 
 P 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 having been waged in concert with Austria. The latter 
 power is said to have been tricked into the joint ex¬ 
 pedition by Bismarck, under the promise of a share of 
 the booty. But Prussia appropriated the Duchies 
 entirely, and then came open war with Austria, when 
 Bismarck’s policy was crowned with complete success, 1 
 culminating, after a brief campaign, in 1866 in the 
 decisive victory of Sadowa. Austria retired bleeding 
 from the contest. Prussia annexed to herself not 
 only the Duchies, but Hanover, Brunswick, and 
 PI esse Cassel; she deposed Austria from the headship 
 of the German Bund, and established herself as the 
 chief and directing spirit, head and hand, of a new 
 North German Confederation, comprising twenty-one 
 States ; besides which, she stipulated by treaty with 
 Bavaria, Baden, and Wiirtemberg, that in case of 
 foreign war the King of Prussia was to have the I 
 supreme command of the armies of those South Ger- I 
 man States. Thus was realized for the first time with 
 full effect, the idea of German unification, and Europe 
 was ringing with the fame of the distinguished states- 
 man, through whose wisdom, energy, and perseverance 1 
 it was accomplished ; when on the nineteenth of July 1 
 in the present year, war was declared by the Emperor 
 of the P'rench against Prussia, on the most trivial 
 pretext that could be alleged as a ground for hostilities 
 between two peaceful nations. How that war has 
 progressed hitherto is well known to our readers. 
 After a series of victories gained by the German arms, 
 one of which ended in the unconditional surrender of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 3 
 
 ninety thousand Frenchmen, with the Emperor at 
 their head ; Paris, at the moment we are writing, is 
 besieged by three or four hundred thousand Germans, 
 eager to conquer a peace which shall be of lasting 
 duration. For the result, not only Europe but the 
 whole world is waiting, with breathless expectation. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Count von Bismarck has done 
 enough to interest all English readers in his hitherto 
 splendid career : and we shall therefore in these pages 
 attempt a sketch of his life, which shall present not 
 merely the various public events in which he has 
 acted so conspicuous a part, but such traits of his 
 private and domestic character as have been commu¬ 
 nicated to us by his German biographers ; especially 
 by Herr Hesekiel, to whom some very important 
 private letters of the great Minister have been con¬ 
 fided for publication. 
 
 B 2 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND ANCESTORS—BIRTHPLACE—EARLY 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 HE Count von Bismarck—or, to give him his 
 full name, Count Otto Eduard Leopold von 
 Bismarck-Schonhausen—was born at Schon- 
 hausen, in the province of Brandenburg, on the 1st of 
 April, 1815. He is descended from an ancient family 
 which originally had its seat at Bismarck on the 
 Biese, a small town in the Alt Mark. The family 
 were of the rank called Junkers; something, that 
 is, between our esquires and knights ; a rank, how¬ 
 ever, which in North Germany is regarded as 
 almost noble. Like the other old families in the 
 Mark, they assisted in early times in conquering 
 the Slaves on both banks of the Elbe, and in con¬ 
 verting them to Christianity, or else driving them 
 back to the Oder. In the thirteenth century some of 
 them appear as citizens of Stendal. About 1270, 
 Claus von Bismarck was an influential member of the 
 Guild of Tailors in that town ; and later on, the name 
 of Rudolf von Bismarck appears in the records of 
 Stendal from 1309 to 1338, both as a member of the 
 Guild of Tailors and one of the Town Councillors. 
 
ANCESTRY. 
 
 5 
 
 From this it is argued by some that the family had 
 no right to lay claim to the rank of Junkers. We 
 shall not attempt to settle so grave a dispute. This 
 Rudolf or Rule von Bismarck, whatever his rank, was 
 a remarkable man, who amassed wealth, and left 
 behind him four sons, one of whom, Claus, became 
 the head of the patrician party in Stendal, which 
 was the party in fact of the Tailors. English readers 
 will not be surprised at this, knowing that our own 
 Company of Merchant Tailors is a highly aristo¬ 
 cratic and Conservative body. The Guild of Tailors 
 attempted to put down the other guilds in the town, 
 but were worsted in the encounter, and then Claus 
 and his associates were obliged to go into exile. 
 Claus von Bismarck retired to his country estates, 
 where he attached himself to the service of the Mar¬ 
 grave Ludwig of Brandenburg, assisted him with his 
 money and his counsel, and in 1345 was rewarded for 
 his fidelity by being put in possession of the Castle of 
 Burgstall, a strongly fortified place, from which he 
 derived the title of Castellan. This Claus, during the 
 remainder of his career, distinguished himself by his 
 activity in all the political contests of the time, and 
 Led about the year 1377, full of riches and honours, 
 although under a ban of excommunication, from some 
 lifferences that he had with the ecclesiastical autho- 
 ities. The Castle of Burgstall descended to his three 
 ons, one of whom, Claus II., also distinguished him- 
 elf and obtained the rank of knight. The Emperor 
 Charles IV. wished to attach him to his party, and 
 
6 
 
 ANCESTRY. 
 
 induce him to join his court at Tangermiide, but tc 
 no purpose ; and when he died, his two sons, Claus III 
 
 and Henning, devoted themselves to the interests o 
 
 the Burgrave Frederick vonNurnberg. Notwithstand 
 ing many political changes, the Castle of Burgstal 
 remained in the possession of the Bismarck famil 
 down to the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 
 In the year 1563, the Bismarcks, much to the 
 sorrow, were called upon to give up Burgstall, tl 
 
 ancient possession of their house, in exchange f< 
 
 money and lands in other parts of the Alt Mark. Th 
 reason of it was this. The country round Burgsta 
 was well known to be the finest hunting ground in tli 
 whole Mark, and the Bismarcks themselves for Ion 
 generations were all of them mighty hunters. Thed 
 often entertained the Electors and Margraves at the * 
 Castle, when those high personages desired to hunt : / 
 the preserves. One of these, the Margrave Jol 1 
 George, was a keener sportsman than all the rest, ar 1 1 
 greatly coveted the Castle for himself. He offered t’ ' 
 Bismarcks compensation, which for a long time th 
 declined, but at length yielding to threats and pc ^ 
 suasions, they consented to be dispossessed, and z f 
 cepted in exchange the Abbey of Crevese, with a c< ul 
 tain sum of money, which fell to the elder branch I 
 the house ; and the estates of Schonhausen and Fisc 
 beck, which were given to the representatives of t 
 younger branch, Jobst and George von Bismar 
 Through the decease of these latter without iss 
 Schonhausen came into the possession of the el 
 
ANCESTRY. 
 
 7 
 
 branch, represented by Frederick von Bismarck, and 
 thence by lineal descent of several generations, passed 
 into the hands of Charles William Ferdinand, the 
 father of the present Prime Minister. 
 
 Bismarck’s father was not in any way a remarkable 
 , man. He was a handsome man, of cheerful dispo¬ 
 sition, full of humour, and passionately attached to 
 jheld sports. Like his three brothers, he was brought 
 pp to the military profession, and for some time held 
 a commission in the body-guard of the King of 
 Prussia. In 1806 he married Louisa Wilhelmina 
 jMenken, orphan daughter of Anastatius Ludwig Men¬ 
 ken, a Privy Councillor who had served under three 
 Prussian sovereigns. This lady is represented as a 
 person of considerable beauty, highly educated, of 
 liberal views in politics, which she inherited from her 
 , father, and of fascinating manners in society. Bis- 
 . marck’s parents had six children, of whom three sur¬ 
 vive ; namely, Bernhard, born in 1810, now Royal 
 Chamberlain, Privy Councillor, &c. ; Franzisca Ange¬ 
 lica Malwina, born in 1827, married to Oscar von 
 Arnim, Royal Chamberlain, and a member of the 
 jjpper House; and the Minister-President, subject of 
 ..the present biography, born in 1815. 
 
 , The house at Schonhausen, in which Bismarck was 
 born, and where his parents resided for some years, 
 also the Minister himself and his Countess, dates from 
 the end of the seventeenth century. It is a plain, 
 rather heavy, square building, standing upon the 
 foundations of the old mansion, which was destroyed 
 
BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 during the Thirty Years’ War. It is near the church, 
 having the farm-buildings on the left, and on the 
 right a fine park, abounding in chestnut and lime 
 trees. The house is of two stories, with a lofty roof. 
 Over the doorway are two shields, one bearing the 
 arms of the Bismarcks, the other of the Kattes. Lead¬ 
 ing out of the hall is the dining-room, with rather a 
 low ceiling, but with two fire-places richly carved. On 
 the left of this are two reception rooms, from the win¬ 
 dows of which there is a good view of the Park. To 
 the right of the dining-room is the Countess’s bou¬ 
 doir, and to the right of this again a bed-chamber, 
 the same in which Bismarck was born. 
 
 In the library, which is a spacious chamber, Hese- 
 kiel had the curiosity to notice the contents of the 
 book cases, in order to form some idea of the mental 
 pabulum on which Bismarck might have fed during 
 his youth. On the shelves he found Zedler’s ‘ Grosses 
 Universal Lexikon,’ and near it the ‘ Theatrum 
 Europeeum ;’ a general ‘ History of Germany,’ and 
 a ‘Universal History;’ also Gledow’s ‘History of 
 the Empire ;’ an historical ‘ Labyrinth of Time ;’ Lud¬ 
 wig Gottfried’s ‘ Historical Chronicle of the Four Mo¬ 
 narchies ;’ Martin Luther’s German works ; a collec¬ 
 tion of old travels ; an old Lexicon of politics and 
 news ; and Biisching’s ' Description of the Earth.’ 
 He also noticed the works of Voltaire, the Letters 
 of Count de Bussy, P'riedrich von Schlegel’s works, 
 and Leopold Schefer’s ‘ Lay-Breviary Basedow’s 
 ‘ Introduction,’ and Herschel’s ‘ Popular Astronomy’ 
 
EARL Y ED UCA TION. 
 
 9 
 
 —altogether a very respectable country gentleman’s 
 Library. 
 
 The house generally has an appearance of comfort, 
 and when seen by Hesekiel, it was well furnished, 
 though without extravagance. The Park was some¬ 
 what neglected, as though needing the master’s eye, 
 and the farm-house was leased. 
 
 Such was the mansion in which young Bismarck 
 first saw the light, but where it was decreed that he 
 should not long remain, for he was little more than a 
 year old when his parents removed to an estate in 
 Pomerania, called Kniephof, in the circle of Naugard, 
 to which they had succeeded through the death of a 
 cousin. With Kniephof were associated two other 
 estates ; namely, Jarchelin, formerly called Grecholin, 
 and Kiilz, both situated in the same circle of Nau¬ 
 gard. At Kniephof, which is pleasantly situated, 
 Bismarck passed the first six years of his life, until 
 1821, when he was placed in the school of Professor 
 Plamann, in Berlin, where his brother Bernhard al¬ 
 ready was. From this he was removed in 1827 to the 
 Frederick William Gymnasium (corresponding- to our 
 grammar school) in Berlin : where he was placed 
 under the charge of a Dr. Bonnell, who treated him 
 with great kindness, and who still lives to enjoy the 
 friendship of his former pupil. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BISMARCK AT THE GYMNASIUM AND UNIVERSITY. 
 
 ISMARCK’S parents usually spent the winter 
 months at Berlin : Madame Bismarck being 
 exceedingly fond of society, and indeed 
 rather inclined to extravagance, while her husband 
 preferred residing on his estate. The establishment 
 at Berlin was kept up on rather too liberal a 
 scale, which, with summer excursions to watering- 
 places and other expenses, eventually crippled the 
 family, as will be seen hereafter. When the parents 
 were at Berlin, the two boys resided with them, 
 and during their absence were under the control of 
 a faithful housekeeper from Schonhausen. Besides 
 pursuing their classical studies at the gymnasium, 
 they had masters at home, who instructed them in 
 French and English, and Madame von Bismarck 
 herself did much to inspire them with an ambition to 
 distinguish themselves in after-life. It was her desire 
 that the elder should become a Provincial Councillor 
 and the younger a diplomatist, both- of which ends 
 were happily accomplished—in the case of the latter 
 to an extent which she could hardly have anticipated, 
 and unfortunately never lived to see. 
 
AT THE GYMNASIUM. 
 
 ii 
 
 In 1829, Bismarck’s tutor, Bonnell, was removed 
 from the Frederick William Gymnasium to the Gym¬ 
 nasium of the Graue Kloster, to which Bismarck 
 accompanied him; and in 1831 he entered Bonnell’s 
 house as an in-door pupil. Both the Doctor and 
 his wife had every reason to be satisfied with 
 his behaviour while under their roof; and although 
 not a brilliant scholar, he distinguished himself 
 well enough by his general proficiency. He was 
 particularly fond of historical studies, in which 
 he excelled, but the judgment pronounced upon his 
 prize essay for Easter, 1832, was not very flattering— 
 “ Oratio est lucida ac Latina, sed non satis casti- 
 gata.” In the same year that this decision was given 
 he exchanged his school-boy life for that of a student 
 at the University. 
 
 While at Plamann’s .boarding school and the 
 Gymnasium, young Bismarck’s book labours used to 
 be agreeably diversified by his visits to the paternal 
 estate at Kniephof, during the vacations. Who does 
 not recollect the joys of youth when once completely 
 loosened from the shackles of school routine ? Oh, 
 the pleasant hours that have too speedily glided 
 away ! When the holidays came, the emancipated 
 school-boy used to set off from Berlin in the evening 
 by Nagler’s stage-coach, which reached Stettin at 
 noon the next day, and thence he would proceed to 
 Gollnow, the birthplace of his grandfather, where he 
 stopped at the house of an old lady, a relative, who 
 told him stories of his ancestors, and imbued him with 
 
12 
 
 AT THE GYMNASIUM . 
 
 the chivalrous spirit of the Junkers of bygone days. 
 On the third day he flung himself into his father’s 
 and mother’s arms, and thenceforward for some weeks, 
 what with field-sports and junketings at home and 
 at neighbours’ houses, all went merrily until sum¬ 
 moned to return to the school routine again. 
 
 In the cholera season of 1831, Bismarck was ordered 
 by his father to leave Berlin on the appearance of the 
 first case of the malady in that city. He hired a horse 
 and used to ride out every day to the district which 
 was expected to be the first attacked. In one of 
 these excursions, however, he was thrown from his 
 horse and sprained his leg. This kept him a prisoner 
 for some time at Dr. Bonnell’s, and when at length 
 he set out on his journey to Kniephof, the restrictions 
 upon travellers were very great. When stopping at 
 such places as Bernau or Werneuchen, they were not 
 allowed to alight : and when it was necessary to go 
 from one stage-coach into another the two vehicles 
 were driven close to each other, to allow the exchange 
 to be made. In another town Bismarck and his 
 fellow-passengers were allowed to alight, but were 
 compelled to take their breakfast in the open street, 
 as no house was allowed to harbour them. On 
 arriving at Kniephof, he found that every precaution 
 had been taken to ward off the disease. His mother 
 had expressly engaged in her service a retired mili¬ 
 tary surgeon, to look after her family and tenants : 
 and yet, strange to say, hers was the only estate in 
 the neighbourhood in which any cases of cholera 
 
AT THE GYMNASIUM. 
 
 13 
 
 occurred. Bismarck, young as he was at the time, did 
 not believe in the infectious nature of cholera, nor in 
 the efficacy of quarantine restrictions, and held many 
 discussions with the Doctor on the subject. At a 
 later period of his life, when there was a case of 
 cholera at Kiilz, and no one could be found to attend 
 to the sufferer, Bismarck and his brother waited upon 
 the sick person themselves, and insisted that they 
 would not leave the house until proper medical at¬ 
 tendance was procured. 
 
 Bismarck in his boyhood and youth, according to 
 Hesekiel’s account of him, was not of a very animated 
 or striking character. He was by no means demon¬ 
 strative, and was slow to form friendships. In ap¬ 
 pearance he was tall and slim, with blank eyes, as 
 they were called. He was fond of riding and hunting, 
 fencing and dancing, but not of gymnastic exercises, 
 to which he appears to have formed a dislike when at 
 the school of Professor Plamann, where for the rest 
 he seems to have experienced rather rough usage ; 
 not, however, we should think, on the score of his 
 being a Junker, while his masters were of democratic 
 opinions, as Hesekiel would have us believe. Of 
 dumb animals he was always fond, and he had a 
 favourite Danish dog, a splendid fellow, that was well 
 known in the neighbourhood of Kniephof. Let us 
 add that he always enjoyed good health and a famous 
 appetite. 
 
 On Bismarck leaving the gymnasium, the choice of 
 a university for the completion of his education was a 
 
1 4 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 matter of anxiety with his parents. His own desire 
 was to go to Heidelberg, but his lady mother had a 
 horror of the beer-drinking propensities of the students, 
 and pi'eferred sending him to Gottingen. To Got¬ 
 tingen accordingly he went in 1832, right glad to 
 share in the freedom, heartiness, and enjoyment of a 
 university life. Here he fought rather more than the 
 usual amount of duels—as many in fact as one-and- 
 twenty altogether—coming out scatheless from all 
 except one, in which he received a wound in the face, 
 the scar of which is still visible. These duels were 
 fought for the most part on the most frivolous pre¬ 
 tences. They are part of a German student’s life, or 
 were so in those days. 
 
 Bismarck once gave a breakfast to some Meck- 
 lenburgers, with whom he had taken a journey 
 into the Harz. They were all very merry, and 
 some one threw a bottle out of the window. This 
 came to the ears of the Dean, and Bismarck was 
 summoned before him. The young student went 
 dressed in gay Berlin attire, in riding boots, and ac¬ 
 companied by his big dog. The dog was illegal, and 
 for that he had to pay a fine of five thalers. Then 
 the throwing of the bottle was investigated, and the 
 matter ended altogether rather unpleasantly. On 
 coming away, he was noticed by a party of four 
 Hanoverian students, who set up a laugh at his ap¬ 
 pearance. “ Do you laugh at me ?” said Bismarck. 
 “ As you please,” was the answer; and Bismarck’s 
 rejoinder, “ Stupid fellows,” at once brought a chal- 
 
AT THE UNIVERSITY. 15 
 
 lenge from all four Hanoverians. These particular 
 duels were not fought, for some one interfered, and 
 told the Hanoverians that Bismarck was a remarkably 
 good fellow. So they apologized to him, and he was 
 enrolled a member of the Hanoverian Corps. Other 
 quarrels, however, were not so easily arranged, and 
 had to be fought out. 
 
 As may be supposed, with such affairs on his 
 hands, he was not very exemplary in his attendance 
 at classes. He nevertheless unaccountably received 
 some testimonials for his industry. Once, during the 
 vacation, he went home; but his mother was by no 
 means favourably impressed with his student’s garb, 
 general appearance, and manner. Accordingly, in 
 1833, he was summoned back to Berlin, and entered 
 a member of the university in that city. Here his 
 life was of the same free and jovial kind as at Got¬ 
 tingen—that of a jlotter Burschc, a merry student who 
 cares for nothing. Although nominally studying for 
 the law, twice only was he known to attend the lec¬ 
 tures of the celebrated Savigny. The time for his exa¬ 
 mination in jurisprudence drew near, and it seemed 
 madness for him to try to pass. He did so, however, 
 by dint of great industry, and with the assistance of a 
 memoria technica. During his student life at Berlin, 
 he resided with Count Kayserlingk, of Courland, with 
 whom he formed a friendship, as he also did with 
 Mr. Lothrop Motley, who has since become eminent 
 as the historian of the Netherlands. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST OFFICIAL EMPLOYMENTS—SOWING WILD OATS— 
 COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 N 1835, Bismarck was appointed to the office 1 
 of “ Auscultator” or examiner, a sort of clerk¬ 
 ship in the city police, for which, however, i 
 lawyers only seem to be eligible. He now resided 
 in apartments with his brother Bernhard, and both of 
 them moved a good deal in polite society, being 
 constant visitors at the house of their aunt, the wife 
 of General von Kessel, as well as at Count von 
 Bismarck-Bohlen’s. In the winter of 1835-36, Bis -1 
 marck was introduced to the Court circle. It was at 
 a Court ball during this season that he first made his 
 bow to the Sovereign whose Prime Minister he after¬ 
 wards became. He and another young advocate, Von 
 Schenck, equally as tall as Bismarck, were introduced, 
 at the same time, when the Prince remarked, “Well, 
 justice seeks her young advocates after the standard 1 
 of the Guards.” 
 
 In 1836, Bismarck removed to Aix-la-Chapelle, to 
 practise law in the Crown Court, under the auspices of 
 Count Arnim-Boytzenburg,- and was received by the 
 Arnim family with great kindness. He was not very 
 
COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 17 
 
 industrious, however, being too fond of society. He was 
 a great favourite with the foreigners who visited that 
 town during the bathing season, especially the English, 
 and made frequent excursions in their company into 
 the Rhine province, France, and Belgium. In the 
 autumn of 1837 he removed to the Crown Court of 
 Potsdam, and in the following year entered the Jtiger 
 Guard. From this, he exchanged into the second 
 battalion of Jager at Greifswald, with the view of at¬ 
 tending lectures at the Agricultural Academy in that 
 :own at the same time. 
 
 He was induced to do this from the impoverishment 
 :>f the family estates, owing to extravagance and bad 
 idministration. To remedy this the brothers Bern¬ 
 ard and Otto proposed to their parents that the 
 atter should hand over to them the management of 
 heir property in Pomerania, namely, of the estates of 
 Ciilz, Kniephof, and Jarchelin. This arrangement 
 vas agreed to, and in 1839 the elder Bismarcks re- 
 noved to their house at Schonhausen. The mother, 
 vho was about this time a great invalid, went to 
 1 lerlin for medical advice, and there died on the 1st 
 1 f November in the same year. The father continued 
 1 0 reside at Schonhausen until his death in 1845. 
 
 1 The two brothers now set themselves vigorously to 
 'ork in the management of the Pomeranian property, 
 
 0 nd not without considerable success. They were 
 >f tuch attached to each other, and lived together in the 
 16 ouse at Kniephof until the summer of 1841, when 
 y ernhard became Landrath of the circle of Naugard, 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 married, and settled in the chief town. They now 
 made a partition of the estates, Kulz falling to the 
 elder brother, and Kniephof and Jarchelin to the 
 younger. The younger Bismarck, continuing to 
 reside at Kniephof, devoted himself for some time to 
 agricultural pursuits, and was rewarded for his in¬ 
 dustry by finding his property soon placed in a 
 flourishing condition. He could now entrust its 
 management in a great measure to subordinates, and 
 his old fondness for leading a jolly life having got the 
 better of him, he gave himself up to a career of what 
 may be called reckless dissipation. He indulged 
 in carouses with the officers of the neighbouring 
 garrisons, and filled his house at Kniephof with 
 companions as gay and reckless as himself. There 
 they sat up the whole night, drinking bumpers of 
 champagne and porter—surely, the oddest tipple that 
 was ever invented ! Did any of them slumber, pistol 
 shots were fired by the others to awake them. Bis¬ 
 marck himself got the sobriquet of “ Mad Bismarck, 
 and the house was declared to have changed its name 
 from Kniephof to Kneiphof or pot-house. 
 
 All the neighbourhood was scandalized by such pro-i 
 ceedings, and a bad ending was predicted by every 
 one for the mad Junker. If mad, however, he hac 
 his lucid intervals, when he would shut himself up ir 
 his study and devour parcels of books which from time 
 to time he ordered to be sent to him by his bookseller 
 the subjects being chiefly history and politics, religioi 
 and philosophy. Spinoza was one of his favourite au if 
 
COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 1 9 
 
 thors, and he studied his writings deeply. Sometimes 
 he used to bore his younger companions with discussions 
 on some of the subjects that occupied his thoughts. 
 The elder ones used to think that after all there must 
 be something in him. When alone, he was often 
 plunged in deep melancholy, from which he sought to 
 rouse himself by dashing through the country at full 
 speed on horseback. He also found relief in foreign 
 travel. He visited France and England ; and he 
 I even resumed his post of Referendarius at Potsdam, 
 where for some time he worked industriously enough. 
 His friends noticed this, and he might have obtained 
 the post of Landrath in Posen or Prussia Proper, but 
 this he declined. His own desire was to' be made 
 Landrath at Schonhausen, which, however, did not 
 take place. 
 
 Upon one event at least during this stormy period 
 of his existence, Bismarck can look back with satisfac¬ 
 tion. This was the saving of a man’s life from 
 drowning, with very considerable risk of losing his 
 own in the attempt. It occurred in 1842, when Bis¬ 
 marck was on duty as a cavalry officer in the Landwehr 
 i- at Lippehne in the Neumark. His groom Hildebrand 
 y took one of the horses into the lake for a bath, but 
 dgetting out of his depth the unlucky Hildebrand was 
 flung from his saddle and disappeared. Bismarck 
 idmmediately unbuckled his sword, tore off his coat, 
 r and sprang into the lake after him. As usual with 
 it drowning men, the groom clung to him, and there 
 u vas danger of both losing their lives. Bismarck’s 
 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 strength, however, prevailed, and he brought Hilde¬ 
 brand to shore alive, though in an exhausted state, 
 from which it took him some time to recover. The 
 inhabitants of the little town formally thanked Bis¬ 
 marck for his heroic conduct, and he received the 
 Prussian Humane Society’s medal, “For rescue from 
 danger,” which he still often wears, and of which he is 
 said to be more proud than of all his other decora¬ 
 tions. Some one once asked him what was the 
 purport of such a decoration, when he replied, “ It is 
 my habit sometimes to save a man’s life.” 
 
 In 1843 Bismarck spent some pleasant months with 
 the 4th Regiment of Uhlans, then in garrison at 
 Treptow and Greiffenberg, the officers of which he 
 entertained almost every Saturday at Kniephof. The 
 regimental commander was somewhat severe, but in 
 other respects the service was agreeable enough. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1844, Bismarck on his 
 return from one of his foreign excursions had the 
 satisfaction to assist at the betrothal of his only sister 
 Malwina to the friend of his youth, Oscar von Arnim, 
 and in the following year his father died. This latter 
 event brought about a new arrangement of the pro¬ 
 perty between himself and his brother Bernhard. 
 Of the four estates, Bernhard took Klilz and Jarchelin, 
 while Otto held Schonhausen and Kniephof. Bismarck 
 now resided for the most part at Schonhausen, but 
 was often seen also in Pomerania and Berlin, being 
 fond of change, and apparently uncertain as to his 
 movements from one day to another. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 EARLY LETTERS TO IIIS SISTER. 
 
 FEW letters written by Bismarck to his 
 sister about this time are of a very affec¬ 
 tionate tone, and at the same time of a 
 sprightly and amusing character. They exhibit also 
 some of his peculiarities. We give the following 
 passages. 
 
 In one he writes to tell how he had fulfilled a 
 commission for her respecting a pair of boots. “If 
 the boots are not right I shall be sorry. You said 
 nothing in your letter as to how you wished they 
 should be, and so I had them made just like the old 
 ones. In the morning I go with Arnim to Schon- 
 hausen, where, on the following day, we shall do a little 
 hunting. My father has allowed us to kill a stag, but 
 it is almost a pity at this time of year. Since yester¬ 
 day it has been freezing here again. With you 
 Samoieds, the snow must be already house-high ; I 
 shall never go back there again. There is no news 
 here ; all is mourning; the King of Sweden too is 
 just dead ; I feel more and more continually how 
 solitary I am in the world. At your dance the only 
 
22 
 
 EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 one present from this place will be-, whose jealousy 
 
 I have at length succeeded in rousing. Take care 
 that there is plenty of ice secured at Kniephof, 
 otherwise, in the summer, you will have to drink your 
 champagne lukewarm.” 
 
 In another he writes to her on her birthday, “ Pure- 
 vient pour fdiciter. I cannot come myself to your 
 birthday, because my viceroy is not yet here to set me 
 at liberty ; besides which, I would wager that if I came 
 you would say, following the example of your un¬ 
 believing bridegroom, that it was for matters of 
 business and not on your account. On careful con¬ 
 sideration I don’t know of anything that I can wish 
 you, for you can remain as you are ; I could only 
 desire that you had two more sisters-in-law, one who 
 is now gone, and the other who will not come. Fare¬ 
 well, my Heart.” 
 
 In another he writes that he is packing up to be 
 off on his Landwehr duties. “ Since the wool-market 
 I have represented our* vagabond Landrath ; have 
 had many fires, many term sittings in the strong 
 heat, and many journeys in the sandy pine-woods, so 
 that I am completely tired of playing the Landrath, 
 and my horses likewise. I have had scarcely a week’s 
 rest, and now I must serve my country again as a 
 soldier. You seef ‘how men of merit are sought 
 after, the undeserver may,’ &c. I have been obliged 
 
 * Probably alluding to his brother Bernhard. 
 
 -\ English. 
 
EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 
 to buy myself another horse, as mine are not fitted for 
 the exercises ; meanwhile I shall try and do with 
 Grosvenor as a reserve. The latter moreover draws 
 the carriage like an old coach-horse; I shall therefore 
 pay for him shortly, you may tell Oscar (when the 
 money for the rape crop comes in), a thing which I 
 had firmly resolved not to do, if he would not draw. 
 [Here in the letter is an ink-stain.] Forgive the fore¬ 
 going Arabic. I cannot give even one minute to 
 write this scrap over again, for I must be off in an 
 hour, and have still some packing to do. For the 
 next fortnight we shall be at Crussow, near Stargard, 
 afterwards near Fiddichowand Bahn, opposite Schwedt. 
 Should you write to me, address Poste restante, Star¬ 
 gard. Farewell! my portmanteau is waiting for me, 
 with its mouth open ready for packing, and all around 
 me is the military blue and white.” 
 
 From Norderney, where he was taking the baths, 
 in September, 1844, he writes an account of his 
 pleasures and occupations at that watering-place. 
 “We bathe, for instance, only at high-water tide, 
 when the waves are strongest, between six in the 
 morning and six in the evening, every day an hour 
 later ; and in pleasant alternation I enjoy the benefit 
 of a breezy, rainy summer morning, one while in 
 God’s glorious nature, with the lofty impressions of 
 sand and sea-water ; another while the five-foot bed¬ 
 stead of Mousse Omne Fimmen, my landlord, with the 
 delightful ideas inspired by lying on a sea-weed 
 mattress. In like manner the table d'hote changes its 
 
24 EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER, 
 
 times between one o’clock and five; its component parts 
 varying between shell-fish, beans and mutton on the 
 odd days, and soles, peas and veal on the even days 
 of the month, accompanied in the former case by por¬ 
 ridge with sweet sauce, and in the latter by plum¬ 
 pudding. That the eye may not envy the palate, 
 near me sits a lady from Denmark, whose appearance 
 fills me with melancholy and home-longing, for it re¬ 
 minds me of Pfeffer at Kniephof, when he was 
 very thin. She must have a noble nature, or fate has 
 been unjust to her; moreover, she has a soft 
 voice, and offers me two helpings from every dish 
 before her. Opposite to me sits the old Minister 
 
 -, one of those figures that appear to us in dreams, 
 
 when we are not sleeping well; a fat frog without 
 egs, who at every morsel opens his mouth like a 
 carpet-bag as far as his shoulders, so that I hold fast 
 by the table for giddiness. My other neighbour is a 
 Russian officer, a good youth, shaped like a boot-jack 
 ■—a long slender body, and short crooked legs. Most 
 of the company have already left, so that the table 
 guests have melted away from two or three hundred, 
 to about twelve or fifteen. For myself, I shall leave 
 by the next steamboat, which is expected the day 
 after to-morrow, for Heligoland, and thence by way of 
 Hamburg shall go to Schonhausen. Meanwhile I 
 cannot exactly state the day of my arrival, as it is not 
 
 certain about the steamboat.If you receive 
 
 this letter in time, which I scarcely believe, owing 
 to the slowness of these posts, you might let me 
 
EARLY LETTERS TO H/S SISTER. 
 
 2S 
 
 know in two lines, addressed ‘ Old City of Lon¬ 
 don,’ Hamburg, whether my father has changed his 
 travelling plans. The bathing here pleases me very 
 much, and I have it so much to myself that I should 
 not mind staying a few days longer. The shore is 
 splendid, quite flat and even, the sand without stones, 
 and the surf such as I have not seen either in 
 the Baltic or at Dieppe. If I go in, even only up to 
 the knees, comes a wave as high as the house (only 
 the houses here are not so high as the schloss at Ber¬ 
 lin), tosses me over ten times and whirls me on the 
 sand twenty paces away; and this is an amusement 
 to which I give myself up daily con amore, so long as 
 the medical men allow it. I am on very friendly 
 terms with the sea. Every day I go sailing for some 
 hours, to fish and shoot seals. Of the latter I 
 have only killed one, with such a gentle dog’s face, 
 and large beautiful eyes, that I was really sorry. A 
 fortnight ago we had storms of unusual severity ; some 
 twenty ships of all nations were stranded on the is¬ 
 land here, and for several days innumerable fragments 
 of ships, utensils, goods in casks, dead bodies, clothes 
 and papers drifted to the shore. I myself had some 
 little experience of what a storm looks like. I was 
 out with a brother fisherman, Tonke Hams, and in 
 four hours we got to the island of Wangeroge ; 
 on our return we were tossed about for twenty-four 
 hours in our little boat, and in the first hour had 
 not a dry thread upon us, although I lay in what was 
 called a cabin. Luckily we were well found in ham 
 
26 
 
 EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 and port wine, or the voyage would have been dis¬ 
 agreeable.” 
 
 A letter written to his sister towards the end of 
 1844, after her marriage, is highly characteristic of 
 his affection both for her and his father. 
 
 After upbraiding her playfully for leaving him at 
 Schonhausen, a lonely bachelor, he proceeds :—"Since 
 then I am living here with father ; reading, smoking, 
 walking, helping him to eat lampreys ; and whiles join¬ 
 ing with him in a farce which he is pleased to call fox¬ 
 hunting. We go out, that is, in a pelting rain, or in 
 a frost of six degrees, with Ihle, Beilin, and Carl ; 
 with all huntsman-like precaution, without noise and 
 considering well the direction of the wind, we sur¬ 
 round an old fir thicket, in which all of us, my father 
 perhaps included, are perfectly convinced that there 
 is no living creature to be found, except some women 
 gathering faggots. Then Ihle, Carl and two dogs, 
 uttering the strangest and most terrible cries, espe¬ 
 cially Ihle, burst in through the thicket ; my father 
 standing motionless, but on the alert, with his gun at 1 
 full cock, as if he actually expected some wild beast ’ 
 to issue forth, until Ihle comes out, crying, ' Hu ! la ! ■ 
 la! He, he! fass! Hah, hah!’ with the strangest < 
 guttural sounds. Then my father asks me in the « 
 coolest way whether I have not seen something, and P 
 I reply with a very natural smack of astonishment in v 
 my tone, 'No! not the least thing.’ Then we go 1 
 away, abusing the weather, to another thicket, which s! 
 Ihle is convinced must be stocked with wild animals, 
 
EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 27 
 
 and there we go on as before. This lasts for three 
 or four hours, and the passion does not cool for an 
 instant in either my father, Ihle or Fingal. 
 
 “ Besides this we visit the orangery twice a day, and 
 the sheepfold once ; we consult the four thermometers 
 in the parlour every hour, move the hands of the weather 
 glass, and, since the weather has been so clear, we 
 have brought all the clocks to go so exactly alike by 
 the Sun, that when they strike there is only the clock 
 in the library which is one stroke behind all the 
 
 others.* Charles V. was but a poor hand at it. 
 
 “The Elbe is full of ice; the wind East South East; 
 the newest thermometer from Berlin marks 8° ; the 
 barometer 28'8. I mention this to give you an 
 example how in your letters to father you might be 
 a little more communicative about the small circum¬ 
 stances of your life, which always give him pastime; 
 for example, who has been to see you and Curts, 
 what persons you visit, what you have had to eat, 
 
 ! how the horses are going on, how the servants con¬ 
 duct themselves, whether the doors creak and the 
 windows fit close—in short, facts; anything that 
 happens. Further mark that he cannot bear to be 
 called ‘ Papa he does not like the expression —Avis 
 an Iccteur ! Antonie sent him on his birthday a very 
 pretty letter and a green purse, with which Papa was 
 very much touched, and wrote two pages in reply. 
 
 I The Rohrs travelled through here lately, without 
 showing up anywhere. They fed at the ale-house at 
 * Was he already thinking of a United Germany ? 
 
28 
 
 EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 Hohen-Gohren, and sat for two hours, with wife and 
 children, in the tap-room, in company with ten 
 smoking countrymen. Beilin asserts that they have 
 quarrelled with us. That would be very hard, and 
 would deprive me of one of my dearest acquaintances. 
 My father sends many greetings, and will follow me 
 soon into Pomerania—he thinks about Christmas. 
 There is a Cafe dansant the day after to-morrow at 
 Genthin, to which I shall go en passant, were it only 
 to have a final shot at the old Landrath, and take my 
 leave of the circle for at least four months. I have 
 
 come to know Miss -; she has moments when 
 
 she is good-looking, but she will soon lose her colour 
 and become red. I was in love with her for four-and- 
 twenty hours. Greet Oscar heartily, and farewell, 
 my Angel!” 
 
 In the spring of 1845 Bismarck was at Kniephof 
 from which he writes to his sister, complaining of the 
 badness of the season. “Night frosts, sick cattle, bad 
 rape and bad roads, dead lambs, hungry sheep, failure 
 in the straw, fodder, money, potatoes and manure. In 
 addition to this, Johann outside is most persistently 
 whistling out of tune a wretched Schottische, and I 
 have not the cruelty to stop him, since without doubt 
 he is seeking with music to soothe his passionate love 
 sorrows. The ideal of his dreams has lately refused 
 him by order of her parents, and has married a wheel¬ 
 wright. Exactly my case, except the wheelwright, 
 who is still rasping in the bosom of the future. For 
 the rest, I must, I suppose—de’il take me!—get 
 
EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 29 
 
 married ; that has again become quite clear to me, 
 because since my father’s departure I feel lonely and 
 deserted, and this mild damp weather inclines me 
 towards melancholy and love-longing. It is of no 
 
 use striving against it ; I must in the end marry-; 
 
 so every one will have it ; and nothing seems more 
 natural, since we have both remained behind together. 
 She treats me with much coldness, but that they all 
 do. It is fine when one cannot change one’s incli¬ 
 nations with one’s shirt, seldom as the case may be 
 with the latter! You will have learned from my 
 father with what dignified deportment I sustained a 
 visit from several ladies on the 1st inst. 
 
 “When I came from Angermunde I was cut off 
 from Kniephof by the floods of the Hampel, and as 
 no one would lend me any horses I was obliged to 
 remain for the night at Naugard, with many business 
 travellers and others, who were likewise waiting for 
 the subsidence of the waters. Afterwards the bridges 
 over the Hampel were torn away, so that Knobels- 
 dorf and I, the Regents of two great circles, were 
 here on a little patch of land surrounded by water, 
 while an anarchical interregnum prevailed from Schie- 
 velbein even unto Damm. About I o’clock one of 
 my carts with three casks of spirits was carried away 
 by the floods, and I am proud to be able to say of my 
 neighbour, the Hampel, that it drowned a man and 
 horse in a cart laden with pitch.* Besides this, many 
 houses have been thrown down ; a culprit in the House 
 
 * Rather a heartless jest this, if jest it can be called. 
 
3 ° EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 of Correction has hanged himself on account of a flog¬ 
 ging ; and my neighbour, the landed proprietor - 
 
 of -- has shot himself on account of a failure in his 
 
 fodder ; three widows and an infant mourn in tearless 
 grief over the bier of the suicide. An eventful time. 
 It may be expected that some of our acquaintances 
 will go off the stage, since this year with its - bad crops, 
 low prices and long winter is a very hard one for em¬ 
 barrassed proprietors to contend with. To-morrow I 
 expect Bernhard back, and I am glad to be free of the 
 Landrath business, which in summer is agreeable 
 enough, but in this weather and during the rain is 
 very unpleasant.” 
 
 Towards the end of the same month he writes :— 
 “ I have not brought with me the least sign of a 
 key, and I can tell you from experience that it is 
 never of any use to look for keys. On which account, 
 in any such case, which with my orderly habits 
 seldom occurs, I at once go to the locksmith and 
 order a new one to be made. With important ones, 
 for example, safes, there is the agreeable variety 
 of altering the locks and the several keys that 
 you lock with ( schliessen ). I perceive that I shall 
 soon close (. schliessen ) my letter; not from spite, be¬ 
 cause you wrote me only a page ; it would be painful 
 to think that you should believe me so revengeful; 
 but only for pure sleepiness. I have been riding and 
 walking all day in the sun ; saw a dance yesterday 
 in Plathe, and drank much Montebello ; the first gives 
 me acidity in the stomach, the second cramp in the leg. 
 
EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 31 
 
 Add to this a painful swelling of the uvula in swallow¬ 
 ing, a small smack of headache and sunburn, and you 
 will understand that neither thinking of you, my 
 angel, nor the melancholy howl of a sheep dog locked 
 up for an inordinate passion for hunting, can keep me 
 awake any longer.” 
 
 Towards the end of February, 1846, Bismarck was 
 at Schonhausen, from which he writes to his sister, 
 making an appointment to visit her at Angermtinde, 
 &c. Pie proceeds to inform her :—“ I shall be invested 
 here with the important charge of Superintendent of 
 Dikes, and I have a tolerably sure prospect of being 
 elected to the Saxon (not the Dresden) diet. My 
 acceptance of the former office would be decisive as 
 to my choice of residence, namely here. There is no 
 pecuniary advantage attending it, but the administra¬ 
 tion of the office is of importance for Schonhausen 
 and the other properties, as it pre-eminently depends 
 upon this whether we shall be occasionally under 
 water again or not. On the other hand, my friend 
 
 -, who wishes by all means to send me to East 
 
 Prussia, presses me to take the office of H.M. Com¬ 
 missioner for Improvements in that Province. Bern- 
 hard, contrary to my expectation, advises me strongly 
 to go to Prussia. I should like to know what he 
 thinks himself about it. Pie stands to his ground that 
 by inclination and natural disposition I am made for 
 the public service, and that sooner or later I must 
 engage in it.” 
 
 In July of the same year he writes complaining of 
 
32 EARLY LETTERS TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 the tediousness of his occupations, and of a hailstorm 
 that had beaten down all his corn. “ And finally,” he 
 says, “ I have always a most harassing cough; although 
 I have drunk no wine since Angermiinde, have been 
 careful not to catch any cold, have no complaint to make 
 about appetite, and sleep like a badger. Meanwhile, 
 every one mocks at my healthy looks, when I declare 
 that I am suffering from chest complaint. To-morrow 
 at mid-day I shall pay Redekin a visit, the day after 
 shall go to Magdeburg, and after stopping there for a 
 day or two, shall at once fling myself into your arms. 
 From this I can send you no news, except that the 
 vegetation at my arrival was fourteen days in advance 
 of Angermiinde, and the crops upon the whole 
 moderate. The results of the inundation make them¬ 
 selves visible in the most vexatious way in the garden. 
 Besides the many trees that I took in the winter out 
 of the shubberies as useless, it now appears that 
 several of the still remaining acacias, and more than 
 half of the ashes are withered, so that little remains ; 
 seventeen of the limes at the farther end of the great 
 avenue are either already dead or are visibly dying. 
 I shall have those topped, in which one or two leaves 
 still show, and see whether this operation will save 
 them. Of the fruit trees, especially the plums, many 
 are likewise lost. In the fields and especially in the 
 meadows, there are many places in which the vegeta¬ 
 tion has been stopped, because the upper productive 
 stratum has been washed away. The Beilins and the 
 other Schonhausers commend themselves, to you.” 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MARRIAGE — INTRODUCTION TO THE KING—ELECTED TO 
 THE UNITED DIET—HIS POLITICS. 
 
 ROM certain passages in these letters it might 
 be augured that the time was not far distant 
 when Bismarck, burdened as he was with the 
 care of his estates, and anxious to administer them 
 properly, would seek the sweet solace of a wife to help 
 him through the cares of existence. “ Mad Bismarck,” 
 however, might have found some trouble in this, had 
 he not succeeded in captivating the affections of a 
 young lady, the Fraul ein Johanna von Putkammer, 
 who discerned in this Junker, notwithstanding his 
 questionable reputation, most of those qualities which 
 go far towards making a good husband and father of 
 a family. He had first met her at the house of his 
 friend and neighbour, Von Blankcnburg. An intimacy 
 sprang up, and when assured of the young lady’s 
 affections, Bismarck took heart and boldly asked her 
 hand of her father, the Plerr Heinrich Ernst Jacob 
 von Putkammer, of Kartlum. “It seemed as if I had 
 been felled with an axe,” were the words of old 
 Putkammer, who was a pious country gentleman, in 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 describing the impression made upon him by such a 
 proposal. The daughter, however, was resolute in 
 protesting that she loved him, and with a struggle on 
 the side of the mother as well against it, consent was 
 at length given. 
 
 The marriage took place on the 28th of June, 
 1847, and the pair started for a wedding trip 
 through Switzerland and Italy, in the course of 
 which Bismarck accidentally met at Venice his 
 Sovereign, Frederick William IV. He was com¬ 
 manded to dine at the royal table, when the King 
 conversed with him freely on German politics. This 
 conversation is supposed to have led to the high 
 opinion with which the King ever afterwards regarded 
 him. On returning from the wedding trip Bismarck 
 and his bride took up their abode in the old house 
 at Schonhausen. The union between them thus 
 happily cemented,has been blessed with three children: 
 Mary Elizabeth Johanna, born August 21st, 1848, at 
 Schonhausen; Nicholas Ferdinand Herbert, born 
 December 28th, 1849, at Berlin; and Wilhelm Otto 
 Albert, born August 1st, 1852, at Frankfort-on-the- 
 Maine. 
 
 Thus far we have traced the life of Bismarck 
 through the stormy period of his youth and early 
 manhood, until he at length settled down, determined 
 to lead a worthy life as a country gentleman. We 
 have seen, however, that his friends, especially his 
 brother, credited him with a considerable capacity for 
 public business, and thought that he should engage in 
 
ELECTED DEPUTY. 
 
 35 
 
 the service of the State. Before his marriage he had 
 taken one step in this direction, having been made 
 Dike Captain at Schonhausen, and afterwards elected 
 Knights’ Deputy in the circle of Jerichow in the Saxon 
 Provincial Diet at Merseburg. In this capacity he 
 attended the first meeting of the first United Diet of 
 Prussia, called together by the memorable Constitu¬ 
 tion of King Frederick William IV., issued on the 3rd 
 of February, 1847. 
 
 This Diet was opened in April, 1847, by an 
 eloquent speech from the throne, In which the King, 
 
 1 with much dignity combined with enthusiasm, called 
 upon the members to bear in mind how much Prussia 
 was indebted to the Royal Family for its general pros- 
 I perity and to himself for the grant of this particular 
 Constitution, which he trusted would not be abused, 
 nor the powers of its members strained beyond their 
 legitimate functions. “ Noble Lords,” he said, “ and 
 trusty Orders, I know that with these rights I entrust 
 a costly jewel of freedom to your hands, and that you 
 will employ it faithfully, But I know as certainly that 
 many will mistake and despise this jewel : that to 
 many it is not enough. A portion of the press, for in¬ 
 stance, demands outright from me and my Govern¬ 
 ment a revolution in Church and State, and from you, 
 gentlemen, acts of importunate ingratitude, of . il¬ 
 legality, nay, of disobedience. Many also, and among 
 them very worthy men, look for our safety in the con¬ 
 version of the natural relation between prince and 
 people into a conventional existence, granted by 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 
 charters and ratified by oaths.” The King evidently 
 looked for a strong opposition in the Assembly, which 
 indeed immediately began to show itself under the 
 leadership of Von Vincke, Camphausen, Mevissen, 
 Beckerath, and others. Bismarck at once joined the 
 Conservative party, which in rhetorical power was by 
 no means a match for the Liberals. They “ were not 
 even bad orators, but no orators at all,” as one of their 
 party candidly acknowledged. 
 
 Bismarck made his first speech in the United Diet 
 on the 17th May, in reply to Deputy von Sauchen, 
 who had unfortunately alleged that the object of the 
 rising of the Prussian nation in 1813 was to obtain a 
 Constitution. It was not difficult to demolish such a 
 fallacy as this, but Bismarck said many things that 1 
 were unpleasant to the Liberals in his speech which ‘ 
 drew upon him marks of disapprobation, hisses, and ! 
 outcries. He concluded with these words : “ In my e 
 opinion it is doing bad service to the national honour to r 
 conclude that the ill-treatment and humiliation suffered ^ 
 by Prussians at the hands of a foreign ruler would not 1 
 be enough to make their blood boil, and cause all other c 
 feelings to be absorbed by the hatred of foreigners.” 
 
 On the 1st of June Bismarck made an important*' 
 speech in the debate on the Periodicity question. In 
 this speech he strongly opposed the motion for an ad-; 
 dress to the King to amend the Constitution by fixing ™ 
 regular periodical times for the meeting of the Diet [t 
 This Bismarck thought was premature. Everything 1 * 1 
 was to be expected from the King’s goodness, and hC 
 
IN THE DIET. 
 
 37 
 
 ought not to be urged to grant this or that. Indeed 
 the ink was scarcely dry with which the Constitution 
 had been written, and it would be disrespectful to press 
 upon their Sovereign alterations which would much 
 better come from his spontaneous generosity. This 
 was too conservative a view of the question by far, a 
 Royalist confession of faith which drew forth a storm of 
 hisses. The same thing happened in the debate on 
 the Jews’ question, June 15th. Bismarck strongly 
 opposed the motion for abolishing the Jewish disabi¬ 
 lities. “ I am of opinion,” he said, “ that the idea of 
 the Christian State is as ancient as the ci-devant 
 Holy Roman Empire—as ancient as the several 
 European States ; that it is, in fact, the very soil 
 in which these States have taken root, and that every 
 State which wishes to have its existence secured, if 
 it desires to point to any justification for that 
 existence, when called in question, must rest on a 
 religious basis.” For these and similar utterances 
 Bismarck was held up to the scorn of the nation by 
 the Liberal press, which represented him as advo- 
 . eating the ideas of the Middle Ages. “ You may call,” 
 he said, “ my ideas dark and Mediaeval, but I ask that 
 t Christianity shall be above the State. Without a 
 f 'eligious foundation the State is only an accidental 
 iggregate of rights, a bulwark against the King, a 
 r nihvark of all against all. Its legislation will not be 
 5 egenerated out of the original fountain of eternal wis- 
 lom, but stand on the shifting sands of vague and 
 hangeable ideas of humanity.” 
 
38 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 It was no wonder that the King, recognising in 
 Bismarck so staunch an advocate of the Royal pre¬ 
 rogative, hailed the opportunity of cultivating his 
 personal acquaintance, as we have seen that he did 
 a few months later at Venice. Then came, in March 
 1848, the Berlin Revolution, in which that prerogative, 
 and many other fondly cherished ideas of Bismarck 
 and his friends, were so roughly handled. Strange to 
 say, the King himself was carried away by the 
 popular enthusiasm. He rode through the streets 
 wearing the new German colours—black, red, and 
 gold—and stopping at the statue of Frederick the 
 Great, harangued the students of the University with 
 the rector at their head, and declared that he would 
 procure liberty and unity for the German people. At 
 the same time he granted several reforms. Unfor¬ 
 tunately, several collisions took place between the 
 military and the people, in one of which as many as 
 sixty lives were sacrificed. 
 
 In these proceedings Bismarck took no part, but on 
 the 2nd of April in that year he again took his place at 
 the meeting of the second United Diet. The country 
 was still in the agonies of revolution, and the Diet 
 had been called together simply for the purpose of 
 transferring its functions to a Constituent Assembly 
 empowered to frame a constitution. Camphausen, 
 the new Minister of State, read the Royal Decree of 
 Proposition, and Prince Lichnowsky rose to move the 
 address in reply. The address was to be framed at 
 once. But Bismarck objected to this hot haste. He 
 
IN THE DIET. 
 
 39 
 
 accepted the address, he said, in the sense of a pro¬ 
 gramme for the future, “ but for the sole reason that 
 I am powerless to do otherwise. (Laughter.) . . 
 
 If it be indeed possible to attain to a United German 
 Fatherland by the new path now pursued, to arrive 
 at a happy or even legally well ordered condition of 
 things, the moment will have come when I can tender 
 my thanks to the originator of the new state of 
 things ; but at present this is beyond my power.” 
 Bismarck, however, did not despair of the future. 
 
 His speeches had made him a sort of rallying point 
 for the Prussian Conservatives, who, in imitation of 
 their opponents, founded clubs, patriotic societies, and 
 even newspapers. The Neiv Prussian Gazette , or 
 Kreuz-Zeitung, with the cross and motto “ Mit Gott 
 fur Kbnig und Vaterland ” (with God for King and 
 Country), was called into existence; also the New Prus¬ 
 sian Sunday News, which circulated in thousands. He 
 also wrote a letter of comfort to the King, and was 
 invited by his Sovereign frequently during the 
 summer of 1848 to Sans Souci to tender him his 
 advice. 
 
 In December, 1848, Bismarck was elected as the 
 Representative of West Havelland in Brandenburg, 
 in the second Chamber of the Diet that assembled 
 after the publication of the Constitution. The Diet 
 was opened on the 26th of February, 1849, and Bis¬ 
 marck was at once recognised as one of the chief 
 leaders of the Conservative party. The King declined 
 the invitation of the Frankfort Parliament to assume 
 
4 ° 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 the Imperial Crown of Germany, declaring that he 
 could not accept it “ without the voluntary assent of 
 the Crowned Princes and Free States of our Father- 
 land.” When the project of the Frankfort Federal 
 Constitution was brought forward in the second 
 Chamber, Bismarck both spoke and voted against 
 it. The measure was carried, however, by a majority 
 of 179 against 159. He also spoke against the 
 measure for granting to the Diet the power of taxation, 
 representing that it would lead to continual conflicts 
 with the Crown. When England was referred to he 
 said: “ Give us everything English that we have not 
 got; give us English piety, and English respect for 
 the law; give the entire English Constitution; but 
 with this the entire relations of the English land¬ 
 lords, English wealth and English common sense— 
 then it will be possible to govern in a similar manner. 
 The Prussian Crown must not be forced into the 
 powerless position of the English Crown, which 
 appears more like an elegant ornament on the dome 
 of the edifice of the State, while in ours I recognise 
 the supporting pillar of the same.” 
 
 In all his speeches and all his writings, whether 
 contributions to newspapers or to private letters, both 
 at this time and somewhat later on, the great enemy 
 that he conceived had to be conquered was democracy. 
 He objected to the interference of Prussia in the 
 Schleswig-Holstein business ; he opposed all projects 
 for German unity, and even flattered Austria by 
 declaring that he acknowledged in her “ the repre- 
 
IN THE DIET. 
 
 4i 
 
 sentative and the heir of an old German power, which 
 has often and gloriously wielded the sword of 
 Germany.” 
 
 In the autumn of 1849 Bismarck was invited to the 
 royal hunting parties at Letzlingen, to which he was 
 always afterwards asked, if within a convenient dis¬ 
 tance, and here he hunted over the moors and through 
 the forests which centuries previously had belonged 
 to his own house. In the winter of 1849-50 he brought 
 his family to Berlin, and devoted himself to politics. 
 In the evenings he used to-meet his friends in Schwarz’s 
 Beer Saloon, which was a sort of rendezvous of the 
 Conservative party. So conservative in fact, that 
 even the landlord’s dog, it was said, used to bark at 
 any intruding democrat. Then he would often call at 
 the office of the Kreuz-Zcitung, and regale any 
 of his friends that he found in the editorial room 
 with some choice anecdote, or else would place him- 
 ! self at the high desk, and with his gloves and hat in 
 ' his left hand, dash off some brilliant article in support 
 of his party. 
 
 In 1850 the Prussian Foreign Minister, Von Ra- 
 dowitz, resigned office, and Bismarck’s friend, Baron 
 von Manteuffel, became Foreign Minister. His policy 
 was submission to Austria, a policy dictated by the 
 fear of revolution in the minds of the Court and Con¬ 
 servative party. Unfortunately, under the influence 
 of this fear he went to Olmiitz, and there consented 
 to submit Prussia to the disgrace of the humiliating 
 conditions imposed on her by Prince Schwarzenberg. 
 
42 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 The German Diet was restored under the presidency of 
 Austria, and Prussia was reduced in a large degree to 
 the position of her vassal. Bismarck defended these 
 proceedings in a speech made by him on the 3rd Decem¬ 
 ber, 1850, by which he naturally incurred much odium. 
 Indeed, he was as much blamed for what occurred as 
 Manteuffel himself. Herr Bamberger thus writes of 
 his share in the business, and the extract which we 
 shall give is further interesting, as giving us a sketch 
 of Bismarck’s style as an orator, when on the point of 
 leaving a parliamentary life for that of a diplo¬ 
 matist* 
 
 “ Count Bismarck naturally recommended himself 
 to a government which had so literally followed his 
 programme, the more so as he had distinguished 
 himself, not only by the vehemence of his convictions, 
 but also by his promptitude and vigour of mind. 
 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 ob¬ 
 taining the ear of his audience, had materially con¬ 
 tributed of late years to the development of his parlia¬ 
 mentary faculty. Yet in the year 1866, one of his 
 admirers, who had attended a sitting of the Reichstag, 
 
 * “Count Bismarck: a Political Biography.” Translated by 
 C. L. Lewes. 
 
IN THE DIET. 
 
 43 
 
 drew his portrait in the following terms: ‘No orato¬ 
 rical ornamentation, no choice of words, nothing which 
 carries the audience away. His voice, although clear 
 and audible, is dry and unsympathetic, the tone mo¬ 
 notonous ; 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 with 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.’ Any one 
 hearing him now for the first time, would not consider 
 this description altogether just. It is true that his 
 words still come slowly, by starts and with hesitation ; 
 but, except for those who regard a melodious unin¬ 
 terrupted flow of language as the only true form of 
 oratory, his mode of speech is not without charm, for 
 it allows the listener to assist at the working out of 
 the speaker’s thought, and thereby chains his attention 
 much more forcibly than many a smooth sounding, 
 or even finely rolling diction which has no internal 
 difficulties to contend with. Often he succeeds in 
 presenting his subject in sharp, happy touches, press¬ 
 ing into his service similes from real life with won¬ 
 derful audacity, and in a cool unprejudiced kind of 
 way overthrowing tenderly revered traditions by a 
 reference to stern realities. It should be added that 
 
44 
 
 SPEECHES IN THE DIET. 
 
 his style, although unstudied, is often not wanting in 
 imagery. His bright and clear intellect does not 
 despise colouring, any more than his strong constitu¬ 
 tion is free from nervous irritability.” 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AMBASSADOR TO THE DIET AT FRANKFORT. 
 
 j ]ISMARCK’S services to Manteufifel and the 
 
 \ Iffiy Court were rewarded by his being appointed 
 ; in May, 1851, to the post of First Secretary 
 
 of the Embassy to the restored Diet at Frankfort, 
 
 ' with the title of Privy Councillor; from which, three 
 months later, he was promoted to the rank of Ambas¬ 
 sador, in the place of Herr von Rochow. He imme¬ 
 diately set out for his post, but did not find Rochow 
 very cordially disposed towards him. Count Thun, the 
 Austrian presiding Deputy, received him morewarmly, 
 believing him to be a partisan of Austria : but even he 
 endeavoured to put a slight upon him, which Bismarck 
 in his own way resented. One day Bismarck paid him 
 a visit, when the Count scarcely rose to receive him ; 
 he was coolly smoking a cigar, and did not even ask 
 Bismarck to be seated. The latter drew a cigar from 
 his pocket, and as coolly said, “ Excellency, may I 
 ask you for a light!” This was given with an air of 
 astonishment, Bismarck took a chair, and when his 
 cigar was well lighted, entered into conversation. 
 
 While he was still only Secretary, the Prince of 
 
46 
 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 Prussia, now King William I., visited Frankfort, and 
 Bismarck was introduced to him. At first the Prince 
 did not appear to like him. He hinted as much to 
 Rochow, but the Ambassador, to his credit, spoke 
 highly of the Secretary, and thence afterwards the 
 Prince sought Bismarck’s society, asked him to drive 
 out with him, and accompany him to the theatre. In 
 the following year he became godfather to Bismarck’s 
 son. When promoted to be Ambassador, in August, 
 1851, Bismarck hired a villa of the younger Roths¬ 
 child, situated in a very pleasant quarter, and with a 
 beautiful garden. Here he installed Madame von 
 Bismarck and her family, and the house soon became 
 noted for its genial hospitality. The circle of his 
 acquaintance became widely extended, embracing all 
 the German notabilities, and every foreigner of dis¬ 
 tinction that visited Frankfort—authors, artists, mu¬ 
 sicians, and politicians. The most remarkable of all 
 his acquaintances was, perhaps, the venerable Prince 
 Metternich, whom he visited at his Castle of Johan- 
 nisberg in the summer of 1851, and who conversed 
 with him in the most amiable manner on the world’s 
 affairs. 
 
 Bismarck had not been long at Frankfort before a 
 change came over his mind respecting the relations 
 between Prussia and Austria. On viewing the Aus¬ 
 trian system more nearly, he became aware of its 
 rottenness, and of the disgrace that it would be to 
 Prussia to continue much longer to uphold it. Aus¬ 
 tria, moreover, flushed with her Olmtitz victory, and 
 
AT FRANKFORT. 
 
 47 
 
 arrogant of her headship at the Diet, took no pains to 
 hide her contempt for her great rival in the councils 
 of Germany. “ II faut avilir la Prusse d’abord pour 
 ensuite la demourir ” (Prussia must first be humbled, 
 in order that we may afterwards destroy her), was one 
 of the phrases used by Prince Schwarzenberg, which 
 soon spread like wild-fire through the minor German 
 Courts, and made them think lightly of the great 
 Northern Power. All this had to be altered, and the 
 new Ambassador set himself seriously to the task of 
 vindicating for his country in the eyes not only of 
 the Diet, but of Europe and the world, a far higher 
 position than Austria had any right to aspire to, with 
 her scattered and discontented empire of Hungarians, 
 Italians, Slaves, and a few millions of Germans. In¬ 
 deed, the Diet itself was not in its nature and pro¬ 
 ceedings a thing to commend itself to the keen intel¬ 
 lect of Bismarck. It was an institution of the past, 
 and all its proceedings were characterized by chi¬ 
 canery and intrigue. Austria strove to outwit Prussia, 
 and Prussia to undermine Austria—and so the game 
 went on. 
 
 For eight years Bismarck held the post of Ambas¬ 
 sador to the Diet, varying this not very serious occu¬ 
 pation by frequent visits to Berlin to give his Sove¬ 
 reign counsel in emergencies. In 1852 also he went 
 for a short time on a special mission to Vienna, 
 iwhence he followed the Austrian Court into Hungary, 
 and wrote some delightful letters to his wife concern¬ 
 ing town and country, and all the people with whom 
 
4 S 
 
 MISSION 
 
 he was brought in contact. Take the following, much 
 abridged, as a specimen :— 
 
 On the 27th June he writes from Szolnok,— 
 
 . . . . “ I travelled by railway from Pesth to 
 
 Alberti-Josa, where a Prince W. is quartered, who 
 married a Princess of M. The place is on the border 
 of the great Hungarian Steppes, between the Danube 
 and the Theiss, which I wanted to see for mere amuse¬ 
 ment. I was not permitted to travel without an escort, 
 as the neighbourhood was rendered unsafe by bands 
 of mounted robbers, here called Betyaren. After a 
 comfortable breakfast under a Schoenhausen lime tree, 
 
 I mounted a very low country waggon, containing I 
 some sacks of straw, and drawn by three of the horses 
 of the Steppes, the Uhlans loaded their carbines, 
 mounted, and off we were in a roaring gallop, Hilde¬ 
 brand and a Hungarian lacquey sitting on the fore¬ 
 most sack, and a driver, a dark brown peasant with 
 moustache, broad-brimmed hat, long black hair greased 
 with bacon-fat, a shirt that reaches only to the waist, 
 and leaves a dark brown girdle of naked skin visible 
 down to where the white trousers begin, each leg of 
 which is broad enough for a woman’s petticoat, and 
 which reach to the knee, where the spurred boots 
 commence. Picture to yourself, firm, grassy ground, 
 level as the table, on which one sees nothing but the 
 lofty bare posts for drawing water from the wells for 
 the half-wild horses and oxen ; thousands of white- 
 brown oxen, with horns an arm’s length, timid as 
 game; shaggy, innumerable horses, tended by mounted 
 
TO VIENNA. 
 
 <9 
 
 half-naked herdsmen, with goads like lances, endless 
 herds of pigs, with each of which is an ass to carry the 
 bunda (sheepskin coat) of the herdsman, and some¬ 
 times his body ; then great flocks of bustards, horses, 
 field mice, and sometimes, on a pond of brackish water, 
 wild geese, ducks, grey plover—these were the objects 
 which flew past us during the three hours in which we 
 drove the seven miles [German] to Kecskemet, having 
 made a short halt at a Csarda [solitary inn] on the 
 ! way. 
 
 “ I arrived here at 5 o’clock, where a gay coloured 
 crowd of Hungarians, Slovenes, and Wallachians 
 enliven the streets, from whom the wildest and 
 maddest gipsy music resounds in my room. . . 
 
 The women generally well grown, some of them very 
 beautiful, all of them have coal-black hair plaited 
 behind, and red ribbons in it. The women have on 
 their heads either gay green and red handkerchiefs, or 
 small red velvet caps trimmed with gold, a beautiful 
 bright yellow shawl, silk handkerchief over the shoul¬ 
 ders and breast, short black or deep blue petticoats, 
 and red morocco leather boots, which reach up beneath 
 :heir dress. Fresh coloured, mostly of a yellow-brown 
 romplexion, with fiery black eyes ; all together, a 
 :roop of such women afford such a play of colour as 
 ' vould please you, every colour as strongly contrasted 
 is it can be. Since my arrival, about 5 o’clock, I have 
 lathed in the Theiss, seen the ‘ Csardas' danced; 
 amented my inability to draw, that I might have put 
 I >n paper the most fabulous figures for you ; then eaten 
 
 E 
 
VISIT TO PARIS. 
 
 5 ° 
 
 Paprika-Hahndel, Stiirl, and Tick, drunk a deal of 
 Hungarian wine, written, and now I am going to bed, 
 if the gipsy music will let me sleep. Good night. 
 Istern adiamek!” 
 
 In the autumn Bismarck went again to the King’s 
 hunting party. In the summer of 1853 he visited 
 Ostend and Holland, also Westphalia and Nor-' 
 derney. He went also on a mission to Hanover. 
 In the same year he received many visits from 
 the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augus- 
 tenburg, whom he assisted to obtain a consider¬ 
 able sum of money in satisfaction of his claim 
 upon Denmark. In the autumn of 1833 he travelled 
 with his family into Switzerland and Italy, and on 
 his return visited the King at Potsdam, and the 
 hunting-ground at Letzlingen. 
 
 A pleasant life enough, as it might appear to most 
 persons. It was continued in much the same kind of 
 way for the next two or three years. In the spring of 
 1854 he was at Potsdam, and in the summer at Munich 
 and Stuttgart. He also went with the King to the island 
 of Riigen. In the summer of 1855 he went to Paris to 
 see the Great Exhibition, and was introduced to the 
 Emperor Napoleon. Afterwards he visited Stuttgart 1 
 and Munich, and then went on a visit to the King 
 and Queen at Stolzenfels. During the year 1856 he 
 was not moved about so much : the summer he , 
 passed at Stolpmunde. In the spring of 1857, Bis- \ 
 marck was again at Paris, and had a special political . 
 conference with Napoleon (was it with respect toi c 
 
THE REGENCY. 
 
 Austria, and a compensation to France in the direc¬ 
 tion of Belgium ?). In the summer he went to Den- 
 i mark and Sweden. 
 
 In 1858 the King was found to be labouring under 
 mental disease. Consequently his brother, now King 
 William I., was declared Prince Regent. One of his 
 first acts was to dismiss the Manteuffel administra¬ 
 tion. Bismarck was astonished, and some of his 
 friends thought that he should resign his post at Frank¬ 
 fort. Bismarck, however, preferred waiting for the 
 Ministerial programme. “If these gentlemen,” he 
 said, writing to his sister, “ keep up a certain connexion 
 with the Conservative party, if they endeavour 
 sincerely to establish an understanding and peace in 
 home affairs, they may have a considerable advantage 
 for our foreign policy, for we had sunk downwards we 
 scarcely know how. This I felt here most bitterly. 
 I think the Prince (Hohcnzollcrn) was made premier 
 to give guarantees against a party government and 
 sliding down to the left. If I am mistaken in this, or 
 if government wants my post to gratify the place- 
 hunters, I shall retire under the guns of Schonhausen, 
 and watch how Prussia is to be governed by demo¬ 
 cratic majorities, trying to do my duty in the Upper 
 House. Change is the soul of life, and I hope to feel 
 ten years younger if I find myself in the same position 
 c of warfare as in 1848-49. The prospect of a fresh and 
 • honest struggle without any official shackles, if I may 
 I say so, in political bathing trousers, has nearly as much 
 “ charm for me as a continued regime of truffles, dis- 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 THE REGENCY. 
 
 patches, and grand crosses. If I should find the parts 
 of the gentleman and the diplomatist incompatible, 
 the pleasure of spending decently a high salary will 
 not make me waver for a moment. With my simple 
 wants I am independent; and if God keeps my wife 
 and children in good health, I say vogue la galbe! 
 whatever the waters may be.” 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AMBASSADOR AT ST. PETERSBURG AND PARIS. 
 
 HE new Ministers resolved that Bismarck 
 should be removed from his office at Frank¬ 
 fort, and the Regent appointed him to the 
 post of Ambassador at St. Petersburg, the duties of 
 which he commenced on the ist April, 1859. 
 
 Soon after his arrival he addressed the following 
 letter to his sister, describing his journey :— 
 
 “ I have been here, warm and dry, in the Demidoff 
 Hotel, since the morning of the day before yesterday, 
 but I have not got so far without some trouble. 
 
 “ I had but just got beyond Konigsberg, this day 
 week, when a heavy snow-storm commenced, and 
 since then I have not seen the earth’s surface again. 
 By the time I got to Insterburg, I could only with 
 post-horses go at the rate of a mile [German] in the 
 hour. In Wirballen I found a mail-carriage, the in¬ 
 terior of which was too short for use, so I changed 
 places with Eugel, and made the rest of the journey 
 on the box-seat, the front of which is open, and the 
 seat narrow, with a back-breaking hinder part, which 
 rendered sleeping at night, setting aside the cold, 
 
54 
 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 12° [Reamur], quite impossible. I remained in this 
 condition from early on Friday morning until Monday 
 evening, and with the exception of the first and last 
 nights on the railway, the only sleep I got was once 
 for three hours, and again for two hours on a sofa at 
 one of the stations, from Wednesday morning until 
 Tuesday evening. The skin peeled off my face on 
 my arrival. The journey took so long in consequence 
 of the deep snow, freshly fallen, and over which there 
 was as yet no sledge-road made. Several times we 
 were compelled to get out and go on foot, as eight 
 horses absolutely could not move the carriage. The 
 Dwina was frozen, but was open at a spot half a mile 
 higher up, where we crossed ; the Wilna was full of 
 floating ice, the Niemen still open. Horses were not 
 to be had at times, as every post-carriage required 
 eight or ten, instead of three or four as usual. I never 
 had less than six anywhere, and the carriage was not 
 unusually heavy. The guard and postilions did their 
 best to urge them on, so that I was obliged to inter¬ 
 fere myself to save the horses. Slippery hills were 
 the greatest hindrance, in the descent of which, par¬ 
 ticularly, all four of the hindermost horses would at 
 times roll down together in a knot, but the postilion 
 on the off-side leader never fell once; and the horses 
 were scarcely on their legs when off we started again in 
 full gallop, down hill, with the highly packed carriage, 
 and over bridges, winding our way with shouting and 
 smacking of whips—probably rightly enough, as the 
 horses only fell when walking ; if, however, we had 
 
AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 55 
 
 fallen on one of the precipitous declivities during 
 one of these gallops, versts in length, we should have 
 all been with the Prince [of Shadows] in a moment. 
 That is past now, and it amuses me to have gone 
 through it all. Here stands the Neva, firm as granite ; 
 but since yesterday it thaws and the sun shines. 
 The beauty of the city is well known ; but if I wonder 
 at anything, it is at the crowded state of the streets ; 
 notwithstanding their great breadth, none but a good 
 driver can proceed with one at a trot, as the carriages 
 
 are so numerous. Sledges disappeared yesterday. 
 
 “April 1st, In writing the date it occurred to me 
 that it is my birthday; the first fi'osty one, for it freezes 
 sharply again to-day, and the first I have spent with¬ 
 out Johanna for twelve years. Yesterday I had a 
 long audience of the Empress-Mother, and was pleased 
 at the gracious loftiness of the old lady. To-day with 
 the Emperor ; so that I commence my new duties 
 exactly upon my birthday. The Emperor shot two 
 bears so lately as yesterday, but Bruin is no longer to 
 
 be met with, unless by chance.” 
 
 On the 2nd July, he wrote as follows to his wife :— 
 “ Half an hour since a courier awoke me with news 
 of peace and war. Our policy glides more and more 
 into Austrian waters, and if we but fire one shot on 
 the Rhine, there will be an end of the Austro-Italian 
 war, and in its stead a Prusso-French will appear upon 
 the stage, in which Austria, after we have removed 
 the burden from her shoulders, will either assist or 
 leave us in the lurch, just as her own interests may 
 
56 
 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 require: she will certainly never be willing that we 
 should play any very brilliant role as conquerors. 
 
 “ God’s will be done ! But everything here is a mere 
 question of time. Nations and men, foolery and 
 sagacity, war and peace, come and go like the waves 
 on the shore, and the sea remains; for there is 
 nothing on the face of this earth but hypocrisy and 
 jugglery; and whether this mask of flesh is torn away 
 by a fever or canister-shot, it must fall sooner or later ; 
 and then the difference between a Prussian and an 
 Austrian, if they are the same size, will be so slight 
 as to make it difficult to distinguish them; the 
 foolish too, and the wise, as clean skeletons, look 
 
 very much alike.” 
 
 While at St. Petersburg he also addressed several 
 letters to his sister, the contents of which are partly 
 of a domestic and partly of a political character, 
 We give two or three of these, much abridged :— 
 
 . . . . “You know that the basis of my do¬ 
 
 mestic happiness [his rvife] was born on the nth of 
 April, but you are not, perhaps, so well acquainted 
 with the circumstance that last year, in order to show 
 my satisfaction at the return of the day, I made the 
 said dear lady a present of a pair of brilliant ear¬ 
 rings, purchased of Wagner, Unter den Linden, which 
 she has since lost, probably by theft. In order to 
 alleviate in some measure the affliction for this loss, I 
 should like to have by the nth—by that date there 
 will certainly be an opportunity of sending by courier 
 or otherwise—a similar pair of ornaments for my 
 
AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 57 
 
 wife’s ears. Wagner will still know what they were 
 like, and what they cost. I should like them to be, 
 as nearly as possible, the same as the others were ; in 
 a plain setting like your own, and they may, if you 
 like, be rather more expensive than those of last year. 
 The balance of my budget is not so easily maintained, 
 be the damage one hundred thalers, more or less. I 
 must wait and see how my finances recover them¬ 
 selves. If I send my wife and the children to Pome¬ 
 rania in the summer, and the horses to Ingermann- 
 land for some months to graze, time alone can show 
 what the saving will be by these means. If it proves 
 to be too little, I shall leave the agreeable house in 
 which I now reside, and settle my establishment on a 
 Saxo-Bavarian-Wiirtemberg footing, until my pay is 
 increased, or they permit me to return to the leisure 
 of private life. For the rest : I have grown accus¬ 
 tomed to the mode of living here ; do not find the 
 v/inters so bad as I expected, and do not desire any 
 change in my condition until I, if God wills it, retire 
 to Schoenhausen or Reinfeld, in order to get my 
 coffin made at my leisure. One loses all ambition 
 nowadays to be a Minister, for various reasons, the 
 whole of which are not of a nature that one could 
 
 commit them to paper. 
 
 “Thecare of 200,000vagrant Prussians, one-third of 
 whom reside in Russia, and the remaining two-thirds 
 of whom visit the country yearly, provides me with 
 enough to do to keep me from getting dull. My wife 
 and children bear the climate very well; I have a 
 
58 
 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 number of agreeable people with whom I associate, 
 shoot occasionally, &c. . . . ” 
 
 From another letter to his sister, written early in 
 January, 1862, we select the following passages :— 
 “You wrote in your last about some indiscreet 
 
 speeches which-has made in Berlin. Fie has 
 
 no tact, and never will have any ; but I do not think 
 that he is intentionally hostile to me. And nothing 
 takes place here which might not be known to every¬ 
 one. If I cared to mount higher (carriere machcn), it 
 would, perhaps, be just the thing that a good deal to 
 my disadvantage might be heard. I should then at 
 least get back to Frankfort again, or if I was down¬ 
 right lazy for eight years, and always full of importu¬ 
 nity, that would help me. But it is too late for that, 
 so I go on doing my duty in a home-spun way. 
 Since my illness I have felt so much mental fatigue 
 that I have lost the energy necessary for active busi¬ 
 ness. Three years since a serviceable Minister might 
 have been made of me; now I seem, in my own 
 mind, like a sick circus-rider. I must remain in the 
 service of the State a few years longer, if I live. In three 
 years’ time Kniephof will be wanting a tenant, and in 
 four, Schoenhausen; until then I do not well know 
 where I should reside if I quit the service. The pre¬ 
 sent revision of appointments leaves me in the cold, 
 and I have a superstitious fear to express a wish and 
 to regret afterwards its non-fulfilment—the usual 
 result of my experience. I would go to Paris or to 
 London without regret or pleasure, or remain here, as 
 
AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 59 
 
 it pleases God and His Majesty ; neither our policy 
 nor my prospects will be much affected whichever 
 may happen. Johanna wishes to get to Paris because 
 she believes that the climate would suit the children 
 better. Sickness comes everywhere, and misfortunes 
 too. With God’s assistance, one withstands them or 
 bends in submission to His will! locality has nothing 
 
 to do with it. I am glad that-has got the post : 
 
 he has the right stuff in him. I should be ungrateful 
 to God and man if I were to say that I am doing 
 badly here, and strove for change ; the post of Minister 
 I am downright afraid of, as of a cold bath. I would 
 : sooner go to one of those vacant posts, or back to 
 Frankfort, even to Berne, where I enjoyed myself well. 
 If I am to leave here, I should like to know soon. On 
 the i | 13th of February I must declare whether I 
 intend to retain my house, and in that case ask for 
 the necessary building, repairs, &c. Valuable horses 
 and other things also would have to be sold, which 
 requires months to do here, and in doing which 
 one may lose or gain thousands. A removal in the 
 winter is scarcely possible. I am reading the letter 
 again, after some interruptions, and find that it 
 conveys an impression of hypochondria ; unjustly, I 
 feel neither dissatisfied with nor tired of life, and can 
 discover, on careful reflection, no wish unsatisfied, ex¬ 
 cept that the cold was ten degrees less, and that I 
 had already made about fifty visits which I have still 
 to make. Modest wishes ! 
 
 “ I hear that folks appear to expect to see me at 
 
6o 
 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 the Landtag in the winter. I should not think of 
 coming to Berlin except at the express command of 
 the King, unless in the summer, when on leave. 
 Johanna and the children will go to Germany, I think, 
 about four months hence: I shall follow, God willing, 
 four or six weeks later, returning here the same time 
 before them. The children have not been out of the 
 house now for nearly three weeks, in consequence of 
 the cold. All Russian mothers have this practice so 
 soon as the cold exceeds ten degrees, doubtless for 
 good reasons, though I go to fifteen, no farther : and 
 they look well enough, considering the want of fresh 
 air, in spite of errors of diet to which they have an 
 hereditary disposition, and the cramming at Christmas 
 time. Marie has become quite a sensible little 
 body, but is still quite childlike, which I am glad to 
 see.” 
 
 On the 7th March he writes as follows :— 
 
 “ I avail myself of an English courier to send you a 
 few lines greeting ; a deep sigh for all the diseases 
 with which God afflicts us. We have scarcely had a 
 single day this winter when the whole of the house¬ 
 hold were well. At this moment Johanna has a cough, 
 which quite exhausts her, and dare not go out; Bill 
 is in bed, feverish, with pains in his body and neck, 
 and the doctor cannot yet say what it will be. Our 
 new governess has scarcely any hope of seeing 
 Germany again, she has been in bed for weeks past, 
 and grows daily weaker and more helpless. A gallop¬ 
 ing consumption will end it, the doctor thinks. I 
 
AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 61 
 
 myself am only well while out hunting ; as soon as I 
 get to balls or theatre here I catch cold, and cannot 
 sleep. Directly the weather becomes milder, and they 
 are fit for travelling, I will send the whole of them off 
 to Reinfeld. The indifference with which I regarded 
 the question of my transfer grows less under the cir¬ 
 cumstances ; I should scarcely have the courage to 
 withstand the next winter here. It will be very 
 difficult to persuade Johanna to let me come back 
 here alone. If I am not transferred, I shall send in a 
 request for a long term of leave. I had a letfcr 
 
 recently from-: he thinks he is destined for this 
 
 place, but would rather go to Paris; he suggests 
 London for me, and I have accustomed myself 
 
 tolerably well to the idea.” 
 
 During the many years in which he had represented 
 Prussia at the Diet, Bismarck never failed to make the 
 strongest representations to the ministry at home as 
 to the humiliatory part which Prussia was made to 
 sustain, in her relation to that body. But all his efforts 
 to rouse the ministers to action were in vain. The 
 scales had fallen from his own eyes in reference to 
 Austria, but they still obscured the vision of the King 
 and his advisers. He certainly had a triumph when in 
 the war with France and England against Russia in 
 1864, he succeeded in keeping Prussia neutral, against 
 the strong desire of Austria to assist the western 
 Powers. He had also the gratification in 1859 to find 
 Austria obliged to fight singlehanded against the 
 French in the war for Italian Independence. All the 
 
62 
 
 THE WAR IN ITALY. 
 
 minor German states were crying out, “ to arms,” but 
 Bismarck saw that this was Prussia’s opportunity. 
 Writing to Baron Schleinitz, in May, 1859, he said, 
 “If the majority at Frankfort, under the pressure of 
 Austria, should take resolutions which, overstep the 
 provisions of the Federal treaties, or which even would 
 go so far as to set aside those treaties, we ought to take 
 up the gauntlet. The more unequivocally such a viola¬ 
 tion is manifested the better for us. We shall not 
 easily find more favourable conditions in Austria, Russia 
 or France, to permit us to ameliorate our position in 
 Germany. On the other hand, our confederates are in 
 a fair way of offering us a legitimate cause for such an 
 undertaking.” 
 
 Public opinion in Prussia when the war com¬ 
 menced was in favour of Italy, but the Court 
 itself vacillated, and when the defeat of Magenta 
 came, the Regent despatched a circular to the 
 various German Courts, declaring his intention to 
 intervene in favour of Austria. For this pur¬ 
 pose six Prussian corps d' armee, 250,000 men, were 
 mobilised, and Prussia proposed that two other corps 
 d'armee should be put on a war footing by the 
 Diet, and the command given to Prussia. To this, 
 however, Austria objected, saying that it was the 
 duty of Prussia to fight by her side, and that Austria 
 would not think of giving up a single Lombard 
 village. The battle of Solferino was next fought, and 
 it being convenient to Napoleon to conclude the 
 war, the Peace of Villafranca was made, at the very 
 
LETTER TO SCHLEINITZ. 
 
 63 
 
 moment when Prussia was being urged to declare 
 war and put her troops in motion. An Austrian 
 journal afterwards pronounced that it would be better 
 to lose three Lombardies than suffer Prussia to ex¬ 
 tend her influence in Germany. 
 
 The minor states in the Diet fostered this feeling 
 against Prussia. Bismarck knew this well, and thinking 
 the time come for plain speaking, he concluded his 
 letter to Baron Schleinitz, quoted from above, with 
 the following words : “ As regards the use of the 
 word German in the place of Prussian, I should desire 
 to see the former on our flag only when we have be¬ 
 come united to our German fellow-countrymen in a 
 closer and more effectual bond : it loses its charm if 
 from the beginning it is misused by being applied to 
 the state of things represented by the Diet. I fear 
 that your Excellency will interrupt me in this digres¬ 
 sion into the domain of my former activity, with the 
 cry, ‘ he sutor ultra crepidam.’ And I had no intention 
 of making an official report, but simply wished to give 
 an expert’s opinion concerning the Diet. I perceive 
 something defective in our position in the Bund, 
 which sooner or later we shall be obliged to repair 
 fcrro ct igni, unless we submit it in time and at a 
 favourable opportunity to serious treatment. I believe 
 that if the Confederation were put an end to this very 
 day, and were even not replaced by anything else, this 
 negative result would alone suffice in a short time to 
 establish better and more natural relations between 
 Prussia and her German neighbours.” 
 
6 4 
 
 DEFECTS OF 
 
 In this there is an evident prefiguration of the policy i 
 afterwards pursued by Bismarck towards Austria, cul- c 
 minating in the events of 1866. In others of his letters 0 
 written about this time, or a little later, there is seen the 
 same hostility to Austria, and the same hearty longing 
 to try issues with that power. Bismarck’s once all-en¬ 
 grossing fear of revolution must have ceased to trouble 
 him, when on the 18th September, 1861, he could 
 write as follows :—“ The system of the solidarity of 
 conservative interests in all countries is a dangerous 
 fiction without complete and unrestricted reciprocity. 
 
 If we cling to it without this condition it becomes 
 Quixotism, which only hinders our King and govern¬ 
 ment from fulfilling their proper task, to protect 
 Prussia against any attack. We should not proclaim 
 as a shibboleth of the Prussian Conservative party the 
 extravagant and lawless ideas of sovereignty of those 
 German princes who use their federal position to play 
 at European politics. Our government is liberal in 
 Prussia, and legitimist in other countries. We pro¬ 
 tect foreign crowns with more zeal than those of our 
 own. We are wild for maintaining those diminutive 
 sovereignties created by Napoleon, and sanctioned by 
 Metternich, and remain blind to the dangers by 
 which the independence of Prussia and Germany is 
 threatened as long as the nonsense of the present 
 Federal Constitution is maintained, whilst it is only 
 a hotbed of dangerous and revolutionary tendencies. 
 We ought to say plainly what changes we wish to 
 accomplish in Germany; whether they are to be 
 
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 65 
 
 realised by a revision of the Federal Constitution, 
 or by a free association like the Zollverein. We 
 ought to declare at the same time, frankly, that we 
 wish to bring about these changes legally, and do 
 not wish to go further than our security and the in¬ 
 terests of all require. A stronger consolidation of 
 the German military forces is as necessary to us as 
 our daily bread. We need new and elastic duties 
 for the Zollverein, and provisions for protecting our 
 material interests which arise from the unnatural con- 
 | figuration of the internal German frontiers. Neither 
 can I conceive why we should be terrified at the 
 idea of a popular representation at the Diet, or at 
 a Customs Parliament. Can we Conservatives im¬ 
 pugn an institution as revolutionary which legitimately 
 exists in every German state ?” 
 
 In the same year that this was written, Bismarck 
 had frequent interviews with King William I., who 
 had succeeded to the crown on the death of his 
 brother, January 2. He met him at Baden-Baden, 
 where he conversed with him on German politics, and 
 explained his views with respect to the measures 
 necessary to secure the power and greatness of Prus¬ 
 sia. The King listened with admiration, but not 
 without some fear as to the lengths he was expected 
 to go. Finally, he desired Bismarck to make a me¬ 
 morandum on paper of the subject of their conversa¬ 
 tion. At Coblentz, he again saw him, when the King 
 commanded Bismarck to furnish him with a fuller 
 exposition of his views. On the 15th of October, 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 AMBASSADOR AT PARIS. 
 
 Bismarck was present at the Coronation, and it is 
 supposed that at an interview he then had with His 
 Majesty, the completed sketch of his policy was placed 
 in the King’s hands. 
 
 It now became evident that the time was not far 
 distant when Bismarck would be called upon to take 
 the supreme direction of affairs as First Minister. 
 The King had already intimated to him that such was 
 his desire. But Bismarck, although anxious to be re¬ 
 leased from St. Petersburg, where he had several 
 attacks of illness, especially rheumatism, was in no 
 hurry to undertake the responsible post of Minister- 
 President. The King had already entered on the 
 Budget contest with the Chambers, and had dissolved 
 them for refusing to sanction the extraordinary amount 
 asked for the reorganisation of the army. General. 
 Von Roon was the War Minister, and he, with the 
 King’s sanction, had determined that the army should 
 be put into a state of efficiency, at whatever cost. It 
 was not a pleasant time, we should think, for one who 
 had never been in the Ministry before, to undertake 
 the cares of office, and so Bismarck gladly availed 
 himself of the offer made him, to go as Ambassador 
 to Paris. 
 
 Bismarck’s appointment to the Paris embassy was 
 made on the 23rd of May, 1862, and a day or two 
 afterwards he set out for the French capital. 
 
 Before leaving Berlin he addressed a letter to his 
 wife, then staying at Reinfeld :— 
 
 “ You write very seldom, and have without doubt 
 
AMBASSADOR A T PARIS. 
 
 67 
 
 more time than I have. Since I have been here, I 
 have not once had enough sleep. Yesterday I went out 
 at 8 o’clock in the morning, and came home hastily 
 five times to change my dress, drove to Potsdam 
 so late as 8 o’clock to see Prince Frederick Charles, 
 and back here again at 11. 
 
 “To-day I have now, at 4 o’clock, my first leisure 
 moment, and I avail myself of it to heap these coals 
 of fire upon your black head. I intend to-morrow, or 
 at the latest, on Tuesday, to set out for Paris, for how 
 long God knows, perhaps only for some months or 
 weeks. All here are in a conspiracy to keep me, and 
 I shall be truly thankful when I have gained a resting- 
 place in the Garden on the Seine, and have a door- 
 porter who will deny me to every one for a few 
 days. 
 
 “ If I see a prospect of remaining in Paris until the 
 winter, I intend you to follow me soon, and we will 
 settle down, if only for a short time. It must be 
 decided in the course of June whether I am to return 
 here, before the sitting of the Landtag, or remain 
 longer, and long enough to have you with me in Paris. 
 I will do all I can to effect the last, and anyhow, I 
 should like you to come to Paris, if only for a short 
 time, and without any other arrangements being made, 
 that you may have seen it. Yesterday there was a 
 grand military dinner, where I figured as major, pre¬ 
 ceded by a parade. The chestnut mare affords me 
 daily pleasure in the Thiergarten, but is not quiet 
 enough for troops.” 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 AMBASSADOR AT PARIS. 
 
 On the 1st of June Bismarck was received by the 
 Emperor, and delivered his credentials. In a letter to 
 his wife the same day, he describes the Emperor as 
 looking well, and the Empress as being handsomer 
 than ever. The reception was official and solemn. But 
 soon there came a series of private interviews, in which 
 it is supposed that Bismarck strove to prepare the Em¬ 
 peror’s mind for the attitude that Prussia was about to 
 take in Germany. Towards the end of June, he visited 
 London to see the Great Exhibition, and had an 
 interview with Lord Palmerston, but was not suc¬ 
 cessful in obtaining that statesman’s approval of his 
 projects. 
 
 In a letter to Madame Bismarck, he says, that he 
 could have wished to stay a little longer in London, 
 where he saw “ so many pretty faces and fine horses.” 
 But of the Embassy house in London he says that he 
 has a perfect horror. His description of it is amusing : 
 
 “ Handsomely furnished, but having on the ground- 
 floor only three rooms, of which one is an office, 
 another a dining-room, and between the two his 
 Excellency’s study; used also to meet in before 
 dinner, and in which there is not a corner to take off 
 a dressing-gown. If one wishes to wash one’s hands 
 or anything of the kind, one must mount the great 
 staircase, and pass through Madame’s bedroom into a 
 little dog-hole of a dwelling-room. On the first floor 
 there is a large drawing-room, a small ball-room, ad¬ 
 joining said bedroom, with dog-hole ; that is the 
 whole of the space. On the second-floor, two rooms 
 
AMBASSADOR A T PARIS. 
 
 69 
 
 for the secretary, and five little rooms for the chil¬ 
 dren, tutor, governess, &c. The servants are on the 
 third floor, and the kitchen is in the cellar.” 
 
 Later in the summer he visited Biarritz, where he 
 conferred again with the Emperor, and on his return 
 was met by a telegram at Avignon, which summoned 
 him to Berlin. While absent on this excursion, Bis¬ 
 marck, as usual, wrote several letters to his wife, in 
 which there is an exuberance of animal spirits, and 
 of healthful, rational enjoyment, quite delightful to 
 contemplate in one destined so soon to enter upon a 
 career in which he has distinguished himself as the 
 foremost man of his age, and one of the most notice¬ 
 able characters in all history. 
 
 From Bordeaux he writes :— 
 
 “ I did not leave Paris until mid-day the day 
 before yesterday, but it seems to me as though it 
 was a week since. I have seen some very beautiful 
 castles—Chambord, of which the leaf I send, torn 
 from a book, gives a very imperfect idea, resembles 
 in its desolation the destiny of its owner. In the 
 spacious halls and splendid saloons, where kings 
 with their mistresses, and hunting parties, held their 
 courts, are the toys of the Duke of Bordeaux for 
 the sole furniture. The woman who accompanied 
 me through the rooms, believing me to be a French 
 Legitimist, wiped away a tear when she showed me 
 the toy-cannons of her master. I paid for the tear¬ 
 drop, at the usual tariff, with one franc extra, although 
 [ have no desire to subventionize Carlism. The court- 
 
70 
 
 AMBASSADOR A T PARIS. 
 
 yards lay as quietly in the sunshine as deserted church¬ 
 yards. From the towers one has an extensive view all 
 round ; but on all sides silent forest and heather to the 
 extreme horizon ; no town, no village, no farmhouse, 
 neither near the castle nor around. From the speci¬ 
 mens I send with this you will not be able to perceive 
 how purple this plant, which I love so much, blooms 
 there. It is too lonesome for the sparrows. The old 
 castle of Amboise has a magnificent situation: one 
 sees the Loire for the distance of six miles [German] 
 up or down. 
 
 “ Between there and this place one passes gradually 
 into a southern clime. Wheat disappears, making 
 place for maize; here and there thick woods of vines 
 and chestnut trees, castles and houses with many towers, 
 chimneys, and balconies, all of them white with pointed 
 tiled roofs. The heat was intense, and I was very 
 glad to have a half coupe to myself. In the evening 
 there was splendid lightning in the whole of the 
 eastern heavens, and now there is an agreeable cool¬ 
 ness, which I should still consider close at home. 
 The sun went down by 7^35 ; in St. Petersburg people 
 will still, 11 o’clock, be able to see without a light. 
 No letter for me has reached here yet; perhaps I shall 
 find one at Bayonne. I shall remain here, I think, 
 for two days, that I may see where our wines grow.” 
 
 In another he writes :— 
 
 “ I received your letter of the 23rd, here, safely yes¬ 
 terday, and thank God that you are well. I spent the 
 whole day yesterday with our Consul and a General 
 
AMBASSADOR AT PARIS. 71 
 
 in making a charming tour through Medoc ; drank 
 Lafitte, Mouton, Pichon, Larose, Latour, Margaux, St. 
 Julien, Branne, Armeillac, and other wines from the 
 wine-press, in the original language* The thermo¬ 
 meter stood at 30° [Reaumur] in the shade, and 55 0 in 
 the sun ; but with good wine in one’s body one docs 
 not feel that in the least.” 
 
 From Biarritz he writes on the 4th August :— 
 
 “ Yesterday evening I arrived at Bayonne again from 
 San Sebastian. Picture to yourself the Siebengebirge 
 with the Drachenfels upon the seashore, adjoining 
 Ehrenbreitstein, and between the two of them an arm 
 of the sea rather broader than the Rhine, which runs 
 into the land and forms a round bay behind the 
 mountains. In this one bathes in perfectly clear 
 water, so heavy and so salt that one swims without 
 an effort, and sees through the rocky entrance out to 
 sea, or landwards, where the chains of mountains ever 
 higher and more blue rise above each other. The 
 women of the middle and lower classes are remark¬ 
 ably pretty, some of them beautiful; the men sulky 
 and boorish, and the conveniences of life to tvhich we 
 are accustomed are wanting. The heat here is not 
 greater than it is there, and I think nothing of it, but 
 find myself, on the contrary, very well, thank God. 
 The day before yesterday there was a storm, such as 
 I have never seen before. To mount a staircase of four 
 steps, on the beach, I was obliged to take a run three 
 
 * In the German, Ursprache. 
 
72 
 
 AMBASSADOR AT PARIS. 
 
 times before I could succeed in ascending them. Pieces 
 of stone and halves of trees flew about in the air. In 
 consequence of this I was induced to give up a berth 
 which I had taken on board a sailing vessel for Ba¬ 
 yonne, for I could not imagine that four hours later all 
 would be bright and quiet again. In this way I lost 
 a charming sea-voyage along the coast, remained a 
 day longer in St. Sebastian, and rode yesterday in 
 the diligence, rather uncomfortably packed in be¬ 
 tween pretty Spanish women, with whom I was 
 unable to speak a word. However, they under¬ 
 stood enough Italian to enable me to make them 
 comprehend my satisfaction with their external 
 appearance.” 
 
 The last of these delightful letters, so picturesque and 
 appreciative, is dated from Luchon, 9th September :— 
 
 “ The day before yesterday we ascended the Col de 
 Venasque, from this place : the first two hours through 
 magnificent woods of beeches, full of ivy, rocks, and 
 waterfalls ; then a Hospice ; then two hours’ steep 
 climbing, on horseback, in the snow, with distant 
 views, quiet deep lakes, amidst snow and cliffs ; and at 
 the height of 7500 feet a small gate opens in the 
 rocks on the summit of the Pyrenees, through which 
 one enters Spain. The land of the chestnut and the 
 palm appears here like a rocky cauldron, encircled by 
 the Maladetta, which lay before us, the Pic de Sauve- 
 garde, and the Pic de Picade. On the right the waters 
 flow to the Ebro, on the left to the Garonne, and gla¬ 
 cier and snowy summit succeed each other to the 
 
AMBASSADOR A T PAR/S. 
 
 73 
 
 horizon, far away into Catalonia and Aragon. We 
 breakfasted here, amidst the rocks, on red-legged par¬ 
 tridges, without salt or water, and then rode down 
 again by giddy paths, but with splendid weather. 
 
 “Yesterday we made a similar journey to Super- 
 : bagneres and the Gates of Hell, legouffre d'cnfcr, into 
 the depths of which, amidst beeches, oak, chestnut, and 
 ash trees, a splendid waterfall precipitates itself. . . . 
 
 “ To-morrow there will be an end of the fun. . . . 
 To-morrow evening- we shall be in Toulouse, where I 
 hope to find letters from you, via Paris. The last I 
 ; received from you, dated the 29th, was sent me by R. 
 .... I hear nothing from Berlin : have not read 
 a newspaper for the last fourteen days, and my leave 
 
 has expired. I expect a letter in Toulouse from-, 
 
 and that they will recall me to Berlin, without any 
 definite decision being arrived at as to the future.” 
 
 Bismarck reached Berlin in the midst of a minis¬ 
 terial crisis. It was the old question of the military 
 budget. The Liberals in the Chamber of Depu¬ 
 ties viewed with distrust the large augmentation of 
 the army that was proposed, and believed that the 
 great additions made to the line regiments were to 
 be carried out at the expense of the Landwehr. They 
 also thought that the period of effective service should 
 be reduced from three years to two. Moreover, they 
 naturally shrunk from placing so large a standing 
 army at the disposal of a sovereign who was purely 
 a military man, and whose political tendencies had 
 often been shown to lean towards Absolutism. At all 
 
74 
 
 THE WAR BUDGET. 
 
 events, if so much money was to be voted, they con¬ 
 sidered it only reasonable that the measure should be 
 accompanied by corresponding political reforms. Eng¬ 
 lishmen, recollecting the strong feeling among our 
 ancestors against standing armies, will not be surprised 
 at a similar feeling being exhibited by the second 
 Prussian Chamber. The war budget was again re¬ 
 jected, upon which the First Minister, Von der Heydt, 
 and his colleague, Count Bernstorff, resigned. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BISMARCK PRIME MINISTER OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 N this crisis,onthe 23rd of September, 1862, Bis. 
 marck was created ad interim Minister of State 
 and President of the Ministry, and afterwards, 
 on the 8th of October, Minister of Foreign Affairs and 
 President. His appointment was at once assailed by 
 the Liberal press as an insult to the country, and the 
 signal of a reactionary policy. He was nicknamed 
 the coup-d'ctat Minister on account of his recent 
 intimacy with Napoleon, and dark hints were given 
 of secret machinations for the oppression of his 
 native country. Nothing daunted, however, Bismarck 
 set himself to the task of conciliating, if possible, the 
 heads of the Liberal party. For himself, he said, 
 that he gave up the three years’ service, but wished it to 
 remain as it was for the present. He spoke of a future 
 grand foreign policy, and implored the Liberal leaders 
 to allow him to carry it out. It was all, however, of 
 no effect. The leaders could not be talked over. On 
 the 7th of October the Chamber declared that all ex¬ 
 penditure was unconstitutional that was not voted by 
 the National representatives. 
 
7 6 
 
 BISMARCK PREMIER. 
 
 Bismarck replied,—“ According to this resolution, 
 the Royal Government cannot for the present antici¬ 
 pate any result from the continuance of its efforts to 
 arrive at some settlement, but rather expect from any 
 renewal of the negotiation a heightening of party 
 differences, which would render any understanding in 
 the future more difficult.” In accordance with this 
 statement the session of the Chamber was closed on 
 the 13th October, and the reorganisation of the 
 army went on without any budget having been voted; 
 the Ministry declaring that they would govern the 
 country with the previous budget, which they said was 
 within the limits of the Constitution. The dismissal 
 of the Chamber was followed by ordinances against 
 the press, and other repressive measures, which, al¬ 
 though not directly emanating from himself, made 
 Bismarck still more unpopular. Even the Crown 
 Prince felt himself bound to protest against such 
 arbitrary proceedings. At a public meeting at 
 Dantzic he declared that the press ordinances had 
 been issued entirely without his knowledge, and that 
 he totally disapproved of them. He even wrote to 
 the King to express his condemnation of them, as 
 tending to endanger his succession to the Crown ; the 
 only result, however, being that for some time he was 
 obliged to absent himself from the Court. 
 
 Bismarck now, leaving affairs of internal adminis¬ 
 tration to take their course, and secure that the reor¬ 
 ganisation of the army would go on satisfactorily 
 under the able superintendence of his colleague, Von 
 
COUNT KA ROLYI. 
 
 77 
 
 Roon, applied himself to the realisation of his long 
 cherished scheme, the deposition of Austria from her 
 place of pride and power in the German Diet. Could 
 he succeed in this he might still conciliate the mal¬ 
 content Liberals at home, and be hailed as one that de¬ 
 served well of his country. 
 
 He commenced by some conversations, in De¬ 
 cember, 1862, with Count Karolyi, the Austrian 
 Minister at Berlin, in which he spoke of the un¬ 
 satisfactory relations existing between the two coun¬ 
 tries with respect to the Bund, and declared that they 
 must be altered for the better or for the worse. 
 That it should be for the better, he said, was the 
 anxious desire of the King’s Government ; but if 
 Austria would not seriously determine to bring this 
 about, that Prussia was in that case resolved to incur 
 her hostility at whatever risk. Count Karolyi not 
 meeting these observations in a friendly spirit, 
 Bismarck addressed a circular despatch on the 24th of 
 January, 1863, in which he made known the purport 
 of these conversations, and in a despatch to Baron 
 Werther, the Prussian Minister at Vienna, clearly hinted 
 that Austria would have to renounce her position in 
 Germany and transfer her centre of gravity to Pesth. 
 
 Then came the Polish insurrection, with respect to 
 which Bismarck adopted a very unworthy policy, 
 described as follows in the words of our own Edinburgh 
 Review * 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1869 ; article “ Count Bismarck.” 
 
78 
 
 POLISH INSURRECTION. 
 
 “ In January 1863, an insurrection broke out in War¬ 
 saw, which soon took alarming proportions. It was only 
 natural that Prussia, as a neighbouring state, and having 
 herself a considerable number of Polish subjects, should 
 take measures of precaution, and nobody objected 
 when a certain force was concentrated on the frontier ; 
 on the contrary, in a conversation with Count Goltz, 
 the Prussian Ambassador at Paris, M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys expressed his satisfaction at the untroubled 
 state of the Grand Duchy of Posen. But the Court 
 of Berlin was not satisfied with these preventive 
 measures. General Alvensleben, a declared partisan 
 of the Russian alliance, was sent to St. Petersburg on 
 a special mission, and there signed with Prince Gort- 
 schakoff a secret convention against the insurrection. 
 It stipulated that, disturbances having broken out in 
 the kingdom of Poland which might endanger pro¬ 
 perty and tranquillity in the neighbouring provinces of 
 Prussia, the troops of either of the two Governments 
 should be authorised, on the requisition of the military 
 authorities of the other, to cross the frontier, and in 
 case of necessity should be permitted to pursue in¬ 
 surgents into the territory of the other. This Con¬ 
 vention was a most imprudent act of provocation. It 
 was entirely unnecessary, the interests of Prussia being 
 on the contrary to localise the insurrection, and to 
 observe an expectant policy. 
 
 “ In abandoning wantonly this natural reserve and 
 making common cause with Russia, the Berlin 
 Cabinet, as M. Drouyn de Lhuys justly observed, 
 
POLISH INSURRECTION. 
 
 79 
 
 not only accepted a share of responsibility for the 
 repressive measures of Russia, but invited the sepa¬ 
 rated members of the Polish nationality to oppose 
 their union to that of the Governments, and to 
 attempt a really national insurrection ; in short, 
 the Convention evoked the whole Polish question. 
 M. de Bismarck seems to have soon perceived that he 
 had made a mistake. In conversations which ensued 
 with the English and French ambassadors he- en¬ 
 deavoured to attenuate the scope of the Convention. 
 The agreement, he said, had no political character or 
 significance whatever ; it was simply an arrangement 
 for the maintenance of security on the borders of th 
 two countries. 
 
 “The insurgents were in the habit of falling on 
 custom-house stations and other localities, where 
 public funds were deposited. It was necessary that 
 the agents of Government should be enabled to with¬ 
 draw with their funds from threatened posts to places 
 of safety, if necessary even on foreign territory. 
 This means of safety was assured to them by the 
 Convention, and if they were pursued by the rebels, 
 the latter in their turn would be followed by the 
 Russian troops over the frontier until they fell 
 in with an armed Prussian force. The other clauses 
 only provided that officers should reside at the re- 
 spectivehead-quarters of the two Governments in order 
 to carry on the correspondence which would be neces¬ 
 sary between them. No ratifications of the Convention 
 had as yet been exchanged ; it therefore was not only 
 
8 o 
 
 THE MINISTRY UNPOPULAR. 
 
 incomplete, but could not even be considered a binding 
 engagement, for it was expressly stipulated that either 
 of the contracting parties should at any time be at 
 liberty to terminate the engagement. Whoever would 
 consider the circumstances dispassionately and impar¬ 
 tially, would easily satisfy himself that the Prussian 
 Government had done no more than was necessary 
 for the maintenance of tranquillity and the protection 
 of the population on a frontier which was 1500 
 miles in length ; but a portion of the English and 
 French press hostile to Prussia, and the whole press 
 of Denmark and Austria, had seized upon the Con¬ 
 vention to calumniate Prussia. 
 
 “ Lord Russell, not being satisfied with these explana¬ 
 tions, and having plainly expressed his disapprobation 
 of the Convention, along with the hope that the respec¬ 
 tive Governments might be disposed to cancel it, or to 
 put an end to its operation, M. de Bismarck informed 
 Sir Andrew Buchanan that the necessary instructions 
 to carry the Convention into effect had never been drawn 
 up. It might therefore be looked upon as a dead letter.” 
 
 When the Chambers again met, this Convention 
 formed a ground of complaint against Bismarck, 
 scarcely less important than the budget question. 
 Were the Prussians then, said the Liberals, to be made 
 the policemen of Russia, and assist her in handing over 
 poor Polish fugitives to the executioner ? In the 
 debate on the address, which in strong language ac¬ 
 cused the Ministers of unconstitutional behaviour, 
 Bismarck, who never shrank from the most provoking 
 
THE MINISTRY UNPOPULAR. 
 
 expressions, said “ Constitutional conflicts may be de¬ 
 cided in other countries by a change of the ministry, 
 but this is not the custom in Prussia. With us, if two 
 political bodies which cannot go to law are unable to 
 agree, circumstances decide which of the tivo is the 
 strongest Count Schwerin observed of this that it 
 was the assertion of might over right ; and Baron 
 Waldeck, that it was a miserable way of shielding 
 himself behind the King’s person. 
 
 When the address was to be presented, the King 
 refused to receive it in person, and answered by 
 a rebuke after the fashion of the Stuarts. Still 
 the Government went on ; although at this time 
 there is no doubt that Bismarck was more hated 
 than perhaps any other man in Europe. He well 
 knew himself the boldness of the game for which he 
 was playing, and the possibility of his losing. This 
 he thought might even bring him to the scaffold ; but 
 said he to his friends, is not death by the axe under 
 certain circumstances as honourable as on the battle¬ 
 field ? Of his great unpopularity at this time an in¬ 
 stance is mentioned that occurred in the streets. The 
 Crown Prince was looking on, somewhat in sorrow, at 
 the departure of a number of German emigrants for 
 America, when a man from the crowd stepped for¬ 
 ward and said “Will your Royal Highness give me a 
 crown if I tell you how to prevent this ?” “ Speak,” 
 
 said the Prince. “ Send Bismarck to America, and you 
 may be sure no one will follow him !” The Prince 
 handed the man a Friedrich d'or and passed on. 
 
 G 
 
8s 
 
 CONGRESS AT FRANKFORT. 
 
 In the summer of 1863 Bismarck accompanied the 
 King to Carlsbad and afterwards to Gastein. A pro¬ 
 ject was now set on foot by Austria for a congress of 
 Princes to be held at Frankfort, for the settlement of 
 all differences between them. The Emperor himself, 
 who came to see the King at Gastein, informed him of 
 this project. The King seemed to approve, but sug¬ 
 gested that the meeting should not take place until 
 October. Eventually the Congress met, but King 
 William, by the advice of Bismarck, was not present ; 
 and eventually nothing came of it. It is true that the. 
 Princes present acknowledged their fealty to Austria, 
 while Prussia by her absence appeared to put herself 
 out of court. An event, however, very soon occurred, 
 the consequences of which showed the abortiveness of 
 the Congress. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BISMARCK AND THE SCIILESWIG-IIOLSTEIN QUESTION. 
 
 N the 15th of November the King of Denmark 
 died childless, and this immediately brought 
 right to the front of all other European business 
 the question of Schleswig-Holstein orof Denmark and the 
 Duchies; a question that was called by Metternich “ the 
 bone on which the Germans are sharpening their teeth 
 by Palmerston “ the match which will set Europe on 
 fire and by Bismarck “ a fight for the Emperor’s 
 aeard ; a true querelle Allemaudc.” This question is 
 one which very few people have ever understood— 
 scarcely even the statesmen themselves who professed 
 to discuss it. People approach the consideration of it, 
 and then find it so difficult that they give it up, merely 
 retaining a general impression that, although the 
 Germans may have had much right on their side, 
 Denmark also had strong pretensions which ought not 
 :o have been disposed of by mere force of battalions. 
 
 The principal features of the dispute respecting 
 Schleswig-Holstein are as follows:— 
 
 ! The late King of Denmark was the last representa- 
 ive of the house of Oldenburg, which had ruled in 
 Denmark proper, i.e., Jutland and the Islands of the 
 
84 SCHLESIV1G-H0LSTEIN QUESTION. 
 
 Baltic Archipelago, for just four centuries. The first 
 sovereign of this line, Christian I., succeeded in 1448 
 to Christopher III., who was the last Danish King 
 of the line of Waldemar. This Christopher bestowed 
 the fief of Schleswig on Adolph VIII., Count of Hol¬ 
 stein, as an hereditary possession, and he consequently 
 became Count of Schleswig-Holstein. Christian I. 
 was nephew of Adolph, and upon the death of the 
 latter in 1460, Christian was elected by the Estates 
 as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, in opposition to a 
 rival claimant. The ordinary course would have been 
 to appeal to the Emperor of Germany"; instead of 
 which he came before a meeting of the Estates of the 
 two Counties or Duchies, assembled at Rendsburg 
 for mutual interest and protection, and there received 
 from them the investiture on certain conditions. 
 
 He acknowledged that he received the sovereignty 
 from them, not as King of Denmark, but by pure favour 
 of the Estates, and agreed that the same should be 
 the case with his descendants, none of whom were 
 to succeed except by like goodwill and favour of 
 the Estates. He also engaged not to levy taxes ; 
 without consent of the Estates, and not to compel 
 military service out of the confines of the two 
 provinces. For a considerable period this state of 
 things went on, but by degrees the Kings of Den¬ 
 mark sought to encroach upon the provinces, and 
 deprived them of their independence. This naturally 
 produced disaffection : the inhabitants of Schleswig 
 and Holstein, especially the latter, which was in 
 
SCHLES WIG-HOLS TEIN QUES TION. 85 
 
 every respect German, objecting to be governed by 
 the island of Zealand. 
 
 Consequently there were numerous disputes, which 
 theKing of Denmark in Napoleon’s time, FrederickVI., 
 thought to cut short by declaring himself no longer 
 amenable to the Germanic Confederation on the score 
 of Holstein. At the Congress of Vienna, however, he 
 again entered the Confederation as Duke of Hol¬ 
 stein and Lauenburg. Then came more disputes, 
 delays in convoking the Estates, complaints as to the 
 use of the Danish language instead of the German in 
 official documents, and the appointment of Danes to 
 important offices, almost to the exclusion of Germans. 
 
 The thing was not to be borne, and the people cried 
 out for separation. Then followed the insurrection of 
 1848 in favour of the Duke of Augustenburg, which, 
 however, was put down, and the Government went on 
 as before. 
 
 But the condition of Denmark proper, as well as of 
 the Duchies, now became a source of uneasiness to the 
 Great Powers. Frederick VII. was without issue. He 
 had been twice married and twice divorced, and 
 lastly, had contracted a left-handed marriage with the 
 Countess Danner. His next heir was his uncle, aged 
 sixty, also without children. To find a successor was 
 no easy task. There were numerous claimants and 
 much discussion ; but at length by the treaty of 
 London, May 8th, 1852, Christian IX., son of Duke 
 William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gliicks- 
 burg, and of the Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel, was 
 
86 SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION. 
 
 fixed upon as the next successor to the Crown of 
 Denmark and the Dukedom of Schleswig-Holstein. 
 And this arrangement was ratified by the Danish law 
 of succession, passed July 31, 1853. 
 
 So far as concerned Denmark proper this was as 
 good an arrangement perhaps as could have been 
 made. The awkward part of the business lay in what 
 concerned the Duchies. These had not been con¬ 
 sulted, and they naturally objected, being upwards of 
 400,000 people, rich and prosperous, Germans and not 
 Danes, at least in South Schleswig and Holstein, to 
 be handed over in this way to a Prince chosen for 
 them by foreign Powers. It was a direct infringe¬ 
 ment of the original compact of 1460, which made the 
 connexion between themselves and the Crown of 
 Denmark to depend solely upon the free choice of 
 the Estates. 
 
 We shall not enter into any minute account of the 
 proceedings which took place in the Frankfort Diet 
 upon the death of the King of Denmark. With all 
 parties in Germany the idea of rescuing Holstein at 
 least from the dominion of Denmark, had been popular. 
 An attempt in this direction had been made by the 
 Democratic party, in 1848-49, and was strenuously 
 opposed by Bismarck himself, who received for his 
 ^services from the then King, the Danish order of the 
 Dannebrog. Now, however, when the Diet decreed 
 that execution, as it was called, should be done in Hol¬ 
 stein, and the troops of Hanover and Saxony were 
 told off for the purpose, Bismarck stepped forward 
 
SCHLES WIG-HOLS TEIN Q UES TION. 87 
 
 and proposed to Austria a joint occupation with 
 Prussia of the Duchies, in the interest of both coun¬ 
 tries against the revolutionary principle. Austria fell 
 into the snare and consented. Prussia lost no time in 
 sending a force into Schleswig, and was soon followed 
 by Austria. A series of engagements now took place 
 against the Danish troops, and the campaign ended 
 by the capture of Duppel, and the island of Alsen. 
 Thus in spite of the treaty of London in 1852, and of 
 the remonstrances of Earl Russell, who was not pre¬ 
 pared, however, to use more than moral force, Den¬ 
 mark was deprived not only of Holstein and Lauen- 
 burg, but Schleswig as well. These were formally 
 ceded to Austria and Prussia by the treaty of Vienna, 
 signed Oct. 30, 1864. 
 
 But who was to profit eventually by this successful 
 invasion ? Bismarck had determined that it should be 
 Prussia. It was Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia 
 that had gained the crowning victory in April 1864, 
 and when the King accompanied by Bismarck visited 
 that fortress shortly afterwards, they were both 
 received with enthusiastic shouts by the victorious 
 Prussian soldiers who had received their “ baptism of 
 fire ” under the Bismarck regime. 
 
 In the course of the summer Bismarck accompanied 
 the King to Carlsbad, thence to Vienna, and thence to 
 Gastein. He afterwards returned to Vienna, where he 
 joined in the Emperor’s great hunting parties. He 
 was rewarded by the Emperor for his services [?] in 
 Schleswig-Holstein with the order of St. Stephen. 
 
88 
 
 AT BIARRITZ. 
 
 From Vienna he went to Baden with the King ; then 
 visited Reinfeld in Pomerania ; and in October went 
 again to Biarritz. 
 
 While absent on this excursion he wrote to his wife, 
 on the 9th October, as follows :— 
 
 “ When I reflect what fires we used to keep up in 
 Baden, and even in Paris, and how the sun here has 
 politely prevailed upon me to lay aside my paletot 
 and cloth trousers ; how we sat yesterday until after 
 10 o’clock in the moonlight on the shore, breakfast to¬ 
 day in the open air, and I am writing to you at the 
 open window, gazing upon the blue sunny sea and 
 the people bathing, who wander, quite thinly clad, 
 with their naked feet in the water, on the shore, I am 
 compelled to say what a wonderful gift of God their 
 climate is to the natives of southern countries. I still 
 take only one bath, but shall soon go to two, if not 
 
 more, like - I only want news of you to make 
 
 me happy. If we could do as we wished I would 
 propose to you to come here with bag and bag¬ 
 gage [Kind und Kegel], and to remain for the 
 whole of the winter, as many English do for the 
 sake of the low prices which rule here during the 
 winter.” 
 
 To his sister he writes from the same place, on the 
 12th October :— 
 
 “ I got here at 7 o’clock in the morning, had had 
 fires still in Paris ; from Bordeaux and onwards 
 there was an agreeable temperature, and it is so 
 hot that summer clothing is necessary. The wind 
 
A T BIARRITZ. 
 
 89 
 
 has blown from the north since yesterday, and it 
 is cooler, but still the heat is greater than I have 
 felt this summer before. A very thin summer 
 overcoat is too much for an evening walk on the 
 strand. I am writing to you with the window open, 
 and the flickering lights and sea bathed in moonlight 
 before me, its murmurs mingling with the sound of 
 the bells of the waggons on the Bayonne road. The 
 lighthouse in front of me shows alternately a red or 
 white light, and I look rather hungrily at the clock to 
 see if it is not 7 o’clock yet, and time for dinner. I 
 have not found myself in such comfortable circum¬ 
 stances, as regards both climate and occupation, for a 
 long time ; and yet the bad habit of working has be¬ 
 come so deeply rooted in me that my conscience is 
 not quite easy about my idleness. I almost long to be 
 in the Wilhelmsstrasse, at least if those belonging to 
 me were there. I hear this moment ‘ Monsieur, le diner 
 est serin.’ ” 
 
 “ 13th. I was not able to write any more yesterday. 
 After dinner we took a moonlight walk on the 
 southern beach, from which we returned, very tired, 
 about 11 o’clock. I slept until nine and bathed at ten 
 with the water at 14° [Reaumur] but warmer than I 
 have ever found the Baltic in August; and now we 
 are going to drive together to Fuentarabia, the other 
 side of the frontier, dining in St. Jean de Luz, on our 
 journey back. The weather is splendid to-day, the 
 sea still and blue, and it is almost too warm for walk¬ 
 ing in the sun.” 
 
90 
 
 A T BIARRITZ. 
 
 From Izazu he writes, on the 17th October :— 
 
 “ I have, it is true, sent you a letter by courier, but 
 I must pour la rarete chi fait write to you from this 
 wonderful place. We had our breakfast here, 3 miles 
 [German] eastward from Biarritz, in the mountains, and 
 are sitting in the charming summer weather on the 
 bank of a murmuring stream, the name of which we 
 do not hear, as nobody speaks French—nothing but 
 Basque ; lofty, abrupt rocks before and behind us, with 
 all kinds of heaths, ferns, and chestnut-trees. They 
 call the valley Le Pas de Roland, the west end of the 
 Pyrenees. We took our baths before we set out, water 
 cold, air as in July. I despatched the courier, and 
 have had a charming journey through the mountains, 
 forests, and meadows. After we had eaten, drunk, and 
 clambered about till we were tired, we sat clown, five 
 of us, read to each other and wrote—I upon the lid 
 of a small box which had contained the grapes and 
 figs which we had eaten. At 5 o’clock we drive 
 through sunset and moonshine to Biarritz, dine at 8. 
 This mode of living is too agreeable to last ; the day. 
 before yesterday, the 20th, to Pau. It was wearisome 
 and close there, a thunderstorm with rain ; in the 
 evening we were on the railway from Bayonne hither' 
 
 by the road ; the sea was magnificent. 
 
 “ I have my fourteenth bath to-day, and I shall- 
 scarcely get any after the fifteenth, for it seems that I 
 must leave this pleasant shore to-morrow. I am still 
 struggling between duty and inclination, but I fear the 
 former will prevail. I will take my bath and then 
 
CONVENTION OF GASTE/N. 
 
 9i 
 
 decide whether it shall be the last but one. Any¬ 
 how we have spent the fourteen days here very 
 well, and I only wish that I could transfer you to 
 this place, or to Pau, without any of the difficulties of 
 travel.” 
 
 Bismarck reached Paris on the 25th of the month, 
 as he thus writes to his wife :— 
 
 “ Before I go to bed, after a fatiguing day, I will 
 announce to you my safe arrival here. I left charm¬ 
 ing Biarritz yesterday at mid-day. People were making 
 hay in the meadows when I left, in the hot sun. 
 Friends accompanied me to Bayonne ; I got here at 
 six in the morning, have had a deal of politics, an 
 audience at St. Cloud ; dinner with Drouyn de 
 Lhuys, and now I am going tired to bed.” 
 
 From Paris he shortly afterwards returned to Berlin, 
 where he devoted himself to State affairs. In the 
 summer of the following year he accompanied the 
 King to Carlsbad, and thence to Gastein, where the 
 well-known Convention was entered into between 
 Austria and Prussia with respect to the Duchies. 
 
 By the Convention of Gastein, August 14, 1865, 
 Austria now held Holstein, from which the Hano- 
 I .erians and Saxons had retired, while Prussia 
 occupied Schleswig. Also the Duchy of Lauenburg 
 was handed over to Prussia for a money payment to 
 Austria of 2,500,000 Danish rix-thalers. This con¬ 
 vention was censured in rather strong terms both by 
 Great Britain and France. In the circular of M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, it was spoken of as “ an abuse of 
 
92 
 
 CONVENTION OF GASTEIN. 
 
 power, perverting all notions of right and the con¬ 
 science of the people.” 
 
 On the 17th of September 1865, Bismarck was 
 raised to the rank of Count. 
 
 Still the contest with the Second Chamber went on. 
 Although in better odour with the country generally on 
 account of hissuccess in theDuchies,the deputies would 
 none of him—harping always upon the same string of 
 constitutional grievances. Something more had to 
 be attempted ; the grand coup was to be played of 
 deposing Austria from her supremacy, and for this 
 no better opportunity could be afforded than the 
 quarrels that must naturally arise from the joint 
 occupation of the territories conquered from Denmark. 
 Austria supported the claims of the Prince of Augus- 
 tcnberg, but Bismarck, although he at first acquiesced, 
 found out that the Grand Duke of Oldenberg had an 
 almost equal claim, and there were other claimants 
 besides. What so simple then as that Prussia should 
 appropriate them to herself? And who, after all, had 
 so good, a right to them ?—thought Bismarck. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 RUPTURE WITH AUSTRIA. 
 
 E shall not weary our readers by telling of the 
 different steps which led to the final rupture 
 with Austria and the war of 1866. 
 
 It was no easy task with Bismarck. He had to 
 overcome the prejudices of the King against demo¬ 
 cracy, encouraged as he was by the old Conservative 
 party in the belief that opposition to Austria natu¬ 
 rally savoured of revolution. He had to overcome 
 the Chambers in their prejudices against himself as 
 the great bulwark of Absolutism, and he had to 
 obtain the consent of the Emperor Napoleon to 
 his duel against the Austrian power. The Chambers 
 he found the most difficult; the King gradually 
 surrendered his own judgment ; he was dazzled 
 with the success of the expedition against the 
 Duchies and the prospect of incorporating them with 
 his own kingdom. The Emperor Napoleon thought 
 there could be no harm in the rival powers of Ger¬ 
 many coming into conflict, and thus weakening each 
 other for the benefit of France. Moreover he had the 
 prospect before him of seeing Venetia rescued from 
 the Austrians, without the cost and loss of an expedi- 
 
94 
 
 RUPTURE WITH A USTRIA. 
 
 tion on his own account. Bismarck had talked all !l 
 this over with M. Rouher and the Due de Gramont, 
 and now he went to Biarritz to have still further ex- 1 
 planations with the Emperor himself. The latter 
 warmly encouraged the proposal for a Prusso-Italian 1 
 alliance. 
 
 Bismarck could not have placed much confidence 
 in the fighting qualities of the Italians, but he 
 reckoned upon their being useful in retaining so many 
 hundred thousand Austrian troops in Venetia, whom 
 he would otherwise have to fight against with his own 
 Prussians in Germany or Bohemia. A secret treaty 
 was accordingly signed with Victor Emanuel, offen¬ 
 sive and defensive, against Austria ; and at the same 
 time, an understanding was in all probability come to 
 with Napoleon by which France should be indemnified 
 for any gain that might accrue to Prussia, by a cor¬ 
 responding increase of her own territory in the direc¬ 
 tion of Belgium or the Rhine. For, as money-lenders 
 will not advance even as much as a 20/. note to their 
 nearest kith and kin without interest and security, so 
 neither will your masters of state-craft stipulate any¬ 
 thing without a prospect of some corresponding 
 personal advantage. The prospect, no doubt, appeared 
 fair enough to the Emperor, and so he determined 
 not to hold Bismarck’s hands. 
 
 Assured of the Emperor Napoleon’s neutrality, and 
 that he might consequently use the soldiers in the Rhe¬ 
 nish garrisons in the forthcoming struggle, Bismarck 
 returned to Berlin full of heart and hope whatever 
 
RUPTURE WITH AUSTRIA. 95 
 
 might happen. In conversation with heads of parties, 
 whether Liberals or Conservatives, with newspaper 
 editors, foreign ambassadors, all kinds of persons, he 
 scarcely affected any concealment of his purpose. The 
 King he visited daily, finding it necessary, it was said, 
 to wind him up like a timepiece, as the Court influence 
 was continually brought to bear upon him in favour of 
 Austria. Even the Crown Prince had his misgivings. 
 But the army was never in such a high state of effi¬ 
 ciency, the treasury never so full, and the occasion for 
 a rupture never so promising. The further develope- 
 ment was as follows. 
 
 While General Manteuffel governed with rather 
 a high hand in Schleswig, the Austrian General, 
 Gablenz, was rather mild in his administration of 
 Holstein. He allowed a large public meeting to take 
 place in Altona, at which a demand was made for a 
 meeting of the Provincial Estates. Bismarck took 
 offence at this, and wrote a strong letter to the 
 Austrian Minister, denouncing Gablenz for allowing 
 such revolutionary behaviour “ under the Austrian 
 double eagle.” Other grievances were detailed at the 
 same time, to all of which the Austrian Minister 
 Count Mensdorfif replied in moderate' terms, at the 
 same time affirming the right of Austria to govern 
 Holstein in her own way. Austria now saw that a 
 quarrel was being forced upon her, and she began to 
 arm and look about for allies. Bismarck took offence 
 at this, and demanded of the Diet what it would do 
 to defend Prussia (poor lamb !) against the expected 
 
96 
 
 A TTEMPT ON THE 
 
 attack of Austria ? He proposed a reform in the Diet 
 itself ; he asked for a general Parliament of Germany [ 
 based on universal suffrage. 
 
 The Diet, however, was resolute against this. It , 
 decided in favour of Austria, and ordered the mo- 
 
 u 
 
 bilisation of three corps d'armte against Prussia. ! j 
 This vote gave Bismarck the opportunity of declaring 
 that the Diet had now completely violated the terms . 
 of the Confederation. This was on the 14th of June, j 
 1866, and on the following day he sent identical notes 
 to Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse Cassel, calling upon 
 them to side with Prussia in the coming war, and 
 guaranteeing to them their respective sovereignties in 
 case of their compliance. Answers were to be sent 
 on the same evening. Saxony refused, and the two 
 others made no reply ; upon which a declaration of 
 war was immediately made against the three. 
 
 Thus had the time come at last in which Prussia 
 was to measure swords with her ancient rival. Bis¬ 
 marck had ordered the Prussian troops to advance into 
 Holstein ; he had signed a formal treaty on the 8th of 
 March with Italy, which immediately put her troops 
 on a war footing, and he had brought his King, i 
 formerly the advocate of Divine right, to make 
 common cause with the party of universal suffrage. 
 How he must have thought and worked, to bring all 
 this about! And not without personal danger to 
 himself, as was witnessed in the mad and murderous 
 attack made upon him by a young fanatic, step-son 
 of Carl Blind, on the 7th of May, 1866. 
 
life of bismarck. 
 
 97 
 
 On this day, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, as 
 Bismarck was walking Unter den Linden, and going 
 home to dinner after a conference with the King, two 
 shots were fired at him, and turning round he perceived 
 a young man who, with a revolver, was preparing to 
 fire a third time. Bismarck seized him by the arm 
 and throat, but not before he fired a third shot, which 
 slightly grazed his right shoulder. Bismarck held him, 
 but he passed the revolver into his left hand, with 
 which he fired two more shots, one of which struck 
 Bismarck on a rib. There was not much harm done, 
 however, and Bismarck having handed over the assassin 
 to the police, walked home as if nothing had happened. 
 There was company to dinner, and he was a little 
 late ; he just wrote a short report to the King, then 
 entered the salon, offered his arm to a lady to 
 conduct her to the dining-room, and as they were 
 entering the dining-room, kissed his wife on the fore- 
 :head, saying, “ My child, they have shot at me, but 
 'there is no harm done.” 
 
 Bismarck himself was the only one that ate any 
 i dinner that day; before it was over the King him¬ 
 self came to congratulate his faithful minister on 
 his escape. Princes, generals, ministers, ambassa¬ 
 dors and friends then came flocking in to felici¬ 
 tate him. Later on he was serenaded, and had 
 ;o speak to the people of Berlin from the window. 
 The would-be assassin afterwards committed suicide. 
 There is no doubt that he was mad, and there is no 
 Evidence that he had any accomplices. This was not 
 
g8 
 
 VON MOLT ICE. 
 
 the only event that occurred during the anxious 
 time before the commencement of hostilities to make 
 Bismarck hesitate, if he were a man of less nerve and 
 determination, as to the issue of his daring policy. 
 He remained, however, always in the same rooted 
 confidence that he expressed about a year previously 
 to the Bavarian minister in the words—“ One single 
 encounter, one decisive battle, and Prussia will have 
 it in her power to dictate the conditions !” 
 
 War having been declared, the results whatever 
 they might be, especially if they proved disastrous, 
 would be ascribed to Bismarck. For this he had 
 made up his mind. But once engaged in it, he found 
 able strategical coadjutors in the Generals von 
 Moltke and von Roon. It is now universally allowed 
 that the success of the war in 1866 against Austria 
 was to the greatest extent owing to the admirable 
 military arrangements of Von Moltke, to whom was 
 committed the entire plan of the campaign. The 
 measures which he dictated were carried out to the 
 letter by the various generals in command, those of the 
 Royal House, namely the Crown Prince and Prince 
 Frederick Charles, distinguishing themselves par¬ 
 ticularly. The soldiers, man for man, were superior 
 in courage and intelligence to those of the Imperial 
 army. Moreover they were armed, for the most part 
 with the needle-gun, a weapon of precision, which in the 
 hands of a well-trained soldier does deadly execution. 
 Add to this that the Prussian artillery was the finest 
 in the world, and perhaps also the best served. 
 
BENEDEK. 
 
 99 
 
 The Austrians, on the other hand, had great confi¬ 
 dence in their General, Benedek, who most unac¬ 
 countably was credited in our own country with an 
 amount of skill which he by no means possessed. The 
 Austrian troops were supposed to have that amount 
 of dash in them which would win a victory before the 
 heavy Prussians, as they were called, thought of com¬ 
 mencing the battle. In fact, many believed it not at 
 all impossible that the Emperor would be able to 
 dictate peace in Berlin itself. 
 
 
 H 2 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CAMPAIGN OF 1866 —BISMARCK ON TIIE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 HE campaign which ensued was short, 
 indeed it is rightly called the “ Seven Days’ 
 Campaign;” but it.was sharp, bloody, and 
 decisive. The Prussian forces were divided into three 
 armies, of which the first was commanded by Prince 
 Frederick Charles, the second by the Crown Prince, 
 and the third, or the Army of the Elbe, by General 
 Herwarth. On the 23rd of June the first army crossed 
 the Bohemian frontier, advanced to Reichenberg, and 
 had an artillery engagement with the Austrians on the 
 26th, which obliged the latter to fall back upon Miin- 
 chengratz. Here there was a severe fight on the 28th, 
 and the Austrians were driven back to Gitschin or 
 Jetschen. Meanwhile the second army marched through 
 the Sudetian passes leading from Silesia into Bohemia. 
 The defile leading to Nachod was occupied by the 
 Austrians on the 27th of June. Soon afterwards the 
 leading columns of the Prussians under Steinmetz 
 were stopped by a strong force which at first caused 
 them to give way. But the Crown Prince came up at 
 the critical moment, a fierce action took place, 
 and the Austrians were defeated with a loss of 4000 
 
CAMPAIGN OF 1866 . 
 
 101 
 
 men. On the same day at Trautenau the Crown 
 Prince defeated the Austrians under Field-Marshal 
 Gablenz. 
 
 On the 27th the third army under General 
 Herwarth had crossed the frontier of Saxony and 
 Bohemia, and after driving back a small force opposed 
 to them, joined the army of Prince Frederick Charles. 
 On the 29th, General Benedek, after appointing Count 
 Clam Gallas to hold Gitschin, proceeded to take up 
 a position at Dubenitz in order to meet the army of 
 the Crown Prince and prevent it from forming a 
 junction with the other two. The Count, however, on 
 his own responsibility attacked the Prussians, and 
 suffered for his temerity by being driven out of 
 his position with considerable loss, right through 
 Gitschin, whence he was pursued by the cavalry. This 
 exposed the left flank of Benedek at Dubenitz, and he 
 therefore ordered his army to fall back in the direction 
 of Koniggratz. The loss of Gitschin was the most 
 disastrous thing that could happen to the Austrians, 
 and Benedek knew it. The battle-ground, however, was 
 mow taken up on which was to be decided which of 
 the rival powers was to attain to the hegemony of Ger¬ 
 many. A few short hours, and all would be decided. 
 
 The successes hitherto achieved were hailed with 
 enthusiastic delight in Berlin. On the 29th the news 
 was proclaimed, and from every house the black-and- 
 white flags were streaming. The people flocked to 
 :he Palace, and the King appeared at the window to 
 •eceive the salutations of his people. When Bismarck 
 
102 
 
 DECISIVE VICTORY 
 
 left the Palace at two o’clock he also received an 
 ovation. Such a shaking of hands was never known 
 as the First Minister experienced that day. In the 
 evening the multitude again assembled before the 
 palace, and sang Luther’s hymn Eiri feste Burg ist 
 wiser Gott. The King again appeared to return thanks ; 
 and thence they separated, to appear again, first at 
 the palace of the Crown Prince, then at that of Prince 
 Frederick Charles, and finally at Bismarck’s hotel in 
 the Wilhelmsstrasse, where the First Minister addressed 
 them. A thunderstorm* burst forth at the conclusion | 
 of his speech, and Bismarck exclaimed “ Lo! the ! 
 heavens conspire to greet us with their artillery at ; 
 this auspicious moment!” 
 
 On the next day, the 30th, Bismarck left Berlin in 
 company with the King, and Generals von Roon and 
 Moltke, for the battle-field. On the ist of July , 
 Bismarck wrote to his wife from Sichrow telling of 
 their journey from Reichenberg, and of the danger ! 
 they ran of being captured by the enemy’s cavalry. 
 On the 2nd he wrote again from Gitschin describing 
 the battle-field, and calling upon his wife to send him 
 innumerable cigars for the solace of the wounded—at 
 whatever price ; also (strange request) a French novel 
 for himself. At eleven o’clock that night a council 
 of war was called, which resolved that on the follow¬ 
 ing morning Prince Frederick Charles should attack 
 Benedek’s army in full front, and either conquer it or 
 keep it engaged until the Crown Prince’s army should 
 come up to insure a victory. 
 
OF SADOIVA. 
 
 103 
 
 A message having been dispatched to that effect to 
 the Crown Prince, the action commenced at eight 
 o’clock on the 3rd of July, in fog and rain, and at nine 
 the King, accompanied by Bismarck, appeared on the 
 field. Old Roon and Moltke were also there, all 
 four exposed for hours to shot and shell in the 
 thickest of the fight. Benedek was posted on a 
 semicircular range of low hills between the Prus¬ 
 sians and the fortress of Koniggratz, and from this 
 the army of Prince Frederick Charles strove to 
 dislodge him ; charge after charge was made, but 
 the Austrian artillery enabled Benedek to keep his 
 ground. 
 
 The battle reeled, and like Wellington waiting for 
 Blticher at Waterloo, every one longed for the arrival 
 of the Crown Prince. Nor did the gallant Crown Prince 
 fail to fulfil his part in the dreadful business. Not long 
 after noon he came. Bismarck was the first to discern 
 his advancing columns as they attacked the Austrians 
 in the rear. And now the result was no longer 
 doubtful. Benedek’s army broke and fled; the 
 Prussians pursued them until they came within the 
 range of the guns of Koniggratz ; and thus was 
 gained the decisive victory of Sadowa, sometimes 
 called the victory of Koniggratz. It was the crowning 
 triumph of the policy of Bismarck and the military 
 genius of von Moltke. 
 
 On the night of this eventful day, after passing 
 thirteen hours in the saddle, Bismarck had settled 
 himself to go to sleep under an open colonnade at 
 
io4 TREA TV OF PR A G UE. 
 
 Horitz, without straw, and with only a carriage 
 cushion for his pillow, when he was discovered by 
 the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and invited to share 
 his chamber together with Von Roon and two 
 adjutants. Thence he proceeded to Nicolsburg, 
 where an armistice was declared, which eventually 
 led to the Peace of Prague. There is no doubt that 
 the victorious army of Prussia might have entered 
 Vienna itself, had the King and Bismarck been so in¬ 
 clined, but they generously spared the Emperor this 
 humiliation. 
 
 Everything that Bismarck desired had been gained 
 by the glorious victory of Sadowa. The Prussians had 
 previously disposed of Hanover by capturing her en¬ 
 tire army after the battle of Langensalza. They de¬ 
 feated the Bavarian army in several engagements ; 
 routed the troops of Hesse-Darmstadt near Aschaffen- 
 berg ; then occupied Darmstadt and Frankfort. The 
 Electorate of Hesse-Cassel was occupied, and the Elec¬ 
 tor himself sent a prisoner to Stettin. Everywhere disas¬ 
 ter attended the friends of Austria as much as it did 
 Austria herself. Austria lost during the war 100,000 
 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and by the 
 fourth article in the Treaty of Prague, signed 23rd 
 August, 1866, she bound herself as follows :— 
 
 “ His Majesty the Emperor of Austria recognises 
 the dissolution of the late German Bund, and gives 
 his consent to a new formation of Germany, in which 
 the Imperial State of Austria shall take no part. 
 Moreover, His Majesty promises to recognise the 
 
TREATY OF PRAGUE. 105 
 
 closer Federal relations which His Majesty the King 
 of Prussia is about to establish north of the line 
 of the Main ; and also agrees that the German States 
 to the south of this line shall form an union, the 
 national connexion of which with the Northern Con¬ 
 federacy is reserved for a more defined agreement be¬ 
 tween both parties^ and which is to maintain an 
 international independent existence.” By the fifth 
 article, “ His Majesty the Emperor of Austria trans¬ 
 fers to His Majesty the King of Prussia all the rights 
 he acquired under the Peace of Vienna on the 30th 
 of October 1864, to the Duchies of Holstein and 
 Schleswig, with the understanding that the people of 
 the Northern District of Schleswig, if by free vote they 
 express a wish to be united to Denmark, shall be 
 ceded to Denmark accordingly.” By the sixth article, 
 “At the desire of His Majesty the Emperor of 
 Austria, His Majesty the King of Prussia declares 
 himself willing, on the approaching changes in Ger¬ 
 many, to allow the territory of the Kingdom of 
 Saxony to remain within its present limits, reserving 
 to himself the right of settling in a separate treaty 
 of peace with the King of Saxony the share to be 
 contributed by Saxony towards the expenses of the 
 war, and the position henceforth to be held by the 
 Kingdom of Saxony within the North German 
 Confederation.” 
 
 Such were the principal provisions of the Treaty 
 of Prague. The actual gain of territory to Prussia 
 consisted of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Hesse- 
 
io6 
 
 PRUSSIAN ACQUISITIONS. 
 
 Homburg, the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and 
 Lauenburg, part of Hesse-Darmstadt, the free city of 
 Frankfort, and the principality of Hohenzollern; 
 all of which were incorporated with the Prussian 
 dominions. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AFTER TIIE BATTLE. 
 
 N the 4th of August, Bismarck returned with 
 the King to Berlin. There was great re¬ 
 joicing, and the world of Berlin, Conserva¬ 
 tives and Liberals alike, seemed to have forgotten any 
 quarrel they might have had with the victorious 
 Minister, now that they realised the splendid results 
 of his policy. But he was not well. All the wear and 
 excitement had told upon his frame, though not upon 
 his vigorous intellect. Still he braced up his energies to 
 meet the Chamber, which with little or no opposition 
 voted an indemnity for all that concerned the irre¬ 
 pressible war-budget—that standing grievance of the 
 Liberal party. Then there was all the work to be 
 done of peace treaties with separate states, of indem¬ 
 nities to deposed sovereigns, and incorporation with 
 Prussia, and finally of framing the constitution of the 
 new great North German Confederation. 
 
 Some of this might wait. But one thing possibly 
 might not wait—a new war, namely, with France, 
 which was evidently agitated at the vast successes 
 of Prussia, and might desire a corresponding in¬ 
 crease of territory for herself at the price above men- 
 
io8 ATTITUDE OF PRUSSIA 
 
 tioned, of her neutrality in the contest. This was a 
 cause of uneasiness which night and day pressed upon 
 the harassed mind of the Minister. It is now well 
 known that Bismarck had an intention of incorpo¬ 
 rating not only Hanover, but the whole of Saxony, 
 with the Prussian territory. The attitude of France, 
 however, forbade his doing this. In so far he prudently 
 yielded ; but as to giving up any of the Rhine terri¬ 
 tory to France, he was firmly resolved that it should 
 not be done. 
 
 A French journalist, M. de Vilbort of the Sitcle , with 
 whom he had held a long conversation on the loth of 
 June, and which we shall afterwards quote in illustra¬ 
 tion of some traits of Bismarck’s character, sought for a 
 second interview with the Minister on the 7th of August, 
 which was granted with Bismarck’s usual urbanity. 
 Ten o’clock P.M. was the time appointed for the in¬ 
 terview, but Bismarck was then engaged in a serious 
 conversation with M. Benedetti. “ Will you oblige 
 me by going into the salon, and taking some tea ? 
 Presently I shall be with you.” Two hours elapsed 
 and more, and the Minister appeared. There was 
 smoking and beer, two things of which Bismarck is 
 excessively fond. Then the conversation commenced 
 on politics in general, French, German, and Italian. 
 War with France had been frequently talked of for 
 some days past ; and Vilbort asked whether he might 
 be allowed to ask this question—“Do I take war or 
 peace back with me to Paris ?” “ Friendship, a last¬ 
 
 ing friendship with France !” was the reply. “ I enter- 
 
TOWARDS FRANCE. 
 
 log 
 
 tain the firmest hope that France and Prussia will in 
 future represent the dualism of intelligence and pro¬ 
 gress.” On the following morning, the Minister 
 again addressed him thus : “Will you promise me to 
 keep a secret until you reach Paris ? Before fourteen 
 days we shall have war on the Rhine, if France per¬ 
 sists in her territorial demands. She asks of us what 
 we neither can nor will give. Prussia will not give 
 up an inch breadth of German ground. We could 
 not do it without raising the whole of Germany in in¬ 
 surrection, and so, let the war be rather against France 
 than against ourselves.” 
 
 All through August much work was done, and through 
 September up to the 20th, when the triumphal entry 
 of the troops into Berlin was made in grand pageant, 
 to celebrate the successful issue of the war. Never had 
 the capital witnessed such a triumph—King, Princes, 
 and Generals on horseback; Queen, Crown Princess, 
 and children in one carriage ; Queen-Dowager, looking 
 rather sad, for she did not quite sympathise, in another ; 
 and Bismarck, riding a tall charger, in the uniform of 
 Major-General of the Landwehr, to which he had been 
 promoted. His appearance on that day is thus de¬ 
 scribed by the correspondent of the Daily Nczvs, 
 who was present at the fete.* “ But for my part, I 
 own I could spare but little attention for the King 
 himself. A few yards further on there stood a group 
 of horsemen. One was General von Roon, the 
 Minister of War ; another was General Moltkc, the 
 * “The Battle-Fields of 1866.” By Edward Dicey. 
 
XIO 
 
 THE PAGEANT OP 
 
 soldier to whom more than any single person the 
 conduct and conception of the campaign are due. On 
 the extreme right, in the white uniform of a major of 
 Landwehr Cuirassiers, a broad-shouldered, short¬ 
 necked man sat mounted on a brown bay mare. Very 
 still and silent the rider sits, waiting patiently until 
 the interview between the King and the Civic autho¬ 
 rities is concluded. The skin of his face is parchment 
 coloured, with dull leaden-hued blotches about the 
 cheeks ; the eyes are bloodless ; the veins about the 
 forehead are swollen ; the great heavy helmet presses 
 upon the wrinkled brows ; the man looks as if he had 
 risen from a sick-bed which he never ought to have 
 left. That is Count Bismarck-Schonhausen, Prime 
 Minister of Prussia. Yesterday he was said to be 
 well-nigh dying; ugly rumours floated about the 
 town ; his doctors declared that rest, absolute rest, 
 was the only remedy upon which they could base their 
 hopes of his recovery. But to-day it was important that 
 the Premier should show himself. The iron will, which 
 had never swerved before any obstacle, was not to be 
 daunted by physical pain, or to be swayed by medical 
 remonstrances. And so, to the astonishment of all those 
 who knew how critical his state of health had been 
 but a few hours before, Count Bismarck put on his 
 uniform and rode out to-day to take his place in the 
 royal cortege. Even now the man who has made a 
 united Germany a possibility, and has raised Prussia 
 from the position of a second-rate power to the highest 
 rank among continental empires, is but scantly 
 
SEPTEMBER 20 . 
 
 hi 
 
 honoured in his own country; and the cheers with 
 which he was greeted were tame compared with those 
 which welcomed the generals who had been the instru¬ 
 ments of the work his brain had planned. But to those, 
 I think, who looked at all beyond the excitement of the 
 day, the true hero of that brilliant gathering was 
 neither King nor Princes of the blood royal, generals 
 nor soldiers, but the sallow, livid-looking statesman, 
 who was there in spite of racking pain and doctors’ 
 advice and the commonest caution, in order that 
 his work might be completed to the end.” 
 
 Subsequently, a grand dinner was given in honour 
 of Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon. Bismarck spoke, the 
 enthusiasm was at the highest, and every one rushed 
 forward to shake him by the hand. Among these was 
 his old tutor, Dr. Bonnell, of the Friedrich’s Werder 
 Gymnasium. He had addressed him in a copy of 
 verses, and Bismarck regretted his inability to reply 
 to him in choice Alcaics. The Burgomaster inquired 
 whether he sent his sons to the same school, and Bis¬ 
 marck answered —“ Certainly, and I also was a pupil 
 of Bonnell.” After this he went into the country to 
 Putbus, in the island of Riigen, where he became 
 seriously ill, but recovered again sufficiently to get 
 back to Berlin in the winter. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LUXEMBURG QUESTION—CONSTITUTION FOR NORTH 
 GERMANY—REST FOR A TIME. 
 
 ISMARCK’S presence in the capital was 
 much needed. The pride of France had to 
 be soothed, and the question of Luxemburg 
 settled. The North German Parliament also was to 
 meet for the purpose of settling the constitution of the 
 new Bund. Many things besides had to be done. 
 
 The immediate pressing difficulty with France re¬ 
 lated to the fortress of Luxemburg, one of great im¬ 
 portance. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, which 
 up to 1866 formed a part of the old Germanic Con¬ 
 federation, had the King of Holland for its sovereign, 
 while its great and strong fortress was garrisoned by 
 Prussian troops. Situated on the north-eastern fron¬ 
 tier of France, it was regarded by the latter Power as 
 a standing menace on the side of Germany, especially 
 now that Prussia had aggrandised herself so consider¬ 
 ably by the late war. Representations to this effect 
 were made by France, which Bismarck entertained in 
 a friendly spirit. He was disposed to conciliate France 
 rather than to provoke her, now that so much work 
 had to be done in the organisation of Germany itself. 
 
THE LUXEMBURG QUESTION. 113 
 
 He therefore wisely approved, and in fact promoted a 
 Conference of the European Powers on the subject. 
 
 The Conference met in London on the 7th May, 
 and included the representatives of England, France, 
 Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Holland. They finished 
 their labours on the nth, when a short treaty was 
 signed, guaranteeing the possession of the Grand 
 Duchy itself to the King of Holland ; and stipulating 
 that the Prussian garrison should withdraw, not to 
 return at any future period ; also, that upon such with¬ 
 drawal the fortifications of the citadel should be razed ; 
 and that Luxemburg should become an open town. 
 In this way a most serious difficulty was got rid of, 
 much to the satisfaction of every one. The French 
 Foreign Minister, the Marquis de Moustier, announced 
 it two days afterwards in the following terms :— 
 
 “ The treaty fully accords with the views of the 
 French Government. It does away with a state of 
 things established against us in evil times, and which 
 has been maintained for fifty years. It gives to our 
 northern frontier the guarantee of another neutralised 
 State. It secures to the King Grand Duke complete 
 independence, and it not only removes the causes of 
 an imminent conflict, but gives fresh pledges for the 
 strengthening of good relations, and for the mainte¬ 
 nance of the peace of Europe. The Government has 
 ;o congratulate itself upon having obtained these re¬ 
 mits, and shown how just and friendly are the senti¬ 
 ments of the several Powers towards us. The Govern¬ 
 ment thinks it useful especially as pointing out that 
 
 I 
 
NORTH GERMAN CONSTITUTION. 
 
 1x4 
 
 for the first time the meeting of a Conference, instead 
 of following a war and confining itself to sanctioning 
 its results, has succeeded in anticipating it and in pre¬ 
 serving the benefits of peace. This is a precious in¬ 
 dication of the new tendencies which prevail in the 
 world, and over which the friends of progress and 
 civilization should rejoice .”—0 si sic ovinia ! 
 
 The business of framing a Constitution for renovated 
 Germany was commenced on the 24th of Feb., 1867, 
 when the King in person opened the first North Ger¬ 
 man Parliament, and Bismarck brought in a bill for de-| 
 termining the Constitution of the new North German 
 Confederation. 
 
 After much discussion a Constitution was framed, 
 called “Die Verfassung des Norddeutschen Bundes,” ! 
 by which the following twenty-one States of North 
 Germany, viz. : — Prussia, Saxony, Mecklenburg- 
 Schwerin, Oldenburg, Brunswick, Saxe-Weimar,i 
 Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Saxe-Meiningen, Anhalt, Saxe- 
 Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, Waldeck, Lippe-Det- 
 mold, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwartzburg-Son- 
 dershausen, Reuss-Schleiz, Reuss-Greiz, Schaumburg-. 
 Lippe, Hamburg, Liibeck, and Bremen, formed them¬ 
 selves into a perpetual union “ for the protection of the 
 Union and its institutions, as well as for the care ol 
 the welfare of the German people.” 
 
 This Union or “Bund” was to have a legislative 
 representation vested in two bodies, the first called 
 the “ Bundes-Rath ” or Federal Council chosen b>| 
 the several Governments, and the second, called 
 
NORTH GERMAN CONSTITUTION. 115 
 
 I the “ Reichstag ” or Diet, elected by universal 
 I suffrage in each State. The executive power was 
 vested in the King of Prussia, styled Lord- 
 President, who has the supreme command of the 
 army and navy, declares war and peace, appoints 
 ' ambassadors, and conducts all the negotiations 
 1 with foreign powers. To the cost of the administra¬ 
 tion, the several States contribute according to the 
 amount of the population, &c. The entire population 
 1 also has been made subject to the same system of 
 military service as in Prussia, every man, namely, to be 
 1 a soldier, and no substitution allowed. The Federal 
 ! Council is presided over by a Chancellor appointed 
 by the King of Prussia. The internal administration 
 of the States is confided to the several Governments 
 of the same. Such are the principal provisions of the 
 ■ North German Constitution finally framed and rati¬ 
 fied on the 16th April, 1867. 
 
 Thus, to use a phrase of Bismarck, was “North 
 Germany put into the saddle, and there was no fear 
 [ of her being able to ride.” To make the assurance 
 ( doubly sure, however, he was himself appointed the 
 riding master, or Chancellor of the North German 
 Confederation, which met for the first time under the 
 new Constitution, on the 10th of Sept., 1867. 
 
 In June, 1867, Bismarck accompanied his Sovereign 
 , on a visit to the Great Exhibition of Art and Industry 
 at Paris ; and certainly of all the distinguished per¬ 
 sons who honoured Paris that year with their presence, 
 
 | he was the most remarkable. We may perhaps one 
 
 I 2 
 
REST TOR A TIME. 
 
 116 
 
 day know what passed in conversation between him 
 and the Emperor, both of whom could not fail to Bave 
 been impressed with the altered state of things since 
 their former interviews at Biarritz. 
 
 On his return from Paris, Bismarck went to Varzin, 
 an estate which he had purchased, not far from Rein- 
 feld in Pomerania, the birthplace of his wife. It is 
 not a splendid place, but comfortable ; just where a 
 man of simple tastes might wish to retire to after the 
 turmoil of public life. Here, in June 1868, he was 
 laid up with a serious illness, and after partial recovery 
 had the misfortune to be thrown from his horse, which 
 again laid him up. Numerous remedies were pre¬ 
 scribed for him, among which an old soldier seriously 
 advised that he should smoke a pound of Porto Rico 
 tobacco every day. Bismarck sent him one of his own 
 pipes, and a half hundredweight of tobacco, request¬ 
 ing that for the present he would smoke for him. 
 Since that time he has again recovered, and is as fond 
 of his pipe or cigar, his beer or his champagne, as the 
 old soldier could wish him to be. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GENERAL SURVEY OF BISMARCK’S CHARACTER. 
 
 us traced the principal facts in the 
 of Bismarck, it is competent for us 
 t some general estimate of his cha¬ 
 racter. 
 
 Bismarck has thrown no veil around him, as some 
 other great men have done. He has lived in the eye 
 of the world since 1848, without any attempt on his 
 part at concealment of his aims and ends. Whether 
 as the “Hotspur Junker,” the defender of legitimate 
 i sovereignty, and as such the advocate of Austria in 
 revolutionary times : or the man from whose eyes the 
 scales had fallen off when he had viewed Austria more 
 nearly at Frankfort, he has never been at the pains 
 to hide himself from his fellow men, and wrap up his 
 views, whatever they may have been at the time being, 
 from their observation. He has always been hearty 
 and even jovial in the expression of his opinions. 
 That he has never had some arrtere pctisee , when in¬ 
 terviewed by a journalist, for instance, or in trying to 
 gain over a member of the opposition, we shall not 
 venture to affirm. But we do not believe that at any 
 time he has been actuated by the maxim—falsely 
 
 AVING th 
 
 biography 
 to arrive ai 
 
SURVEY OF 
 
 ix8 
 
 attributed to Talleyrand, being far older—that lan¬ 
 guage was given to man to conceal his thoughts. 
 
 There is a dualism in most men, and Bismarck is 
 like the rest of us. Much every way depends, not 
 only upon the mental but upon the physical consti¬ 
 tution of the individual; much also upon his educa¬ 
 tion and surroundings. It is trite to say this, but 
 many persons forget it in considering Bismarck’s 
 character. Conservatives have thought that he should 
 be always conservative, and Liberals cannot com¬ 
 prehend his partiality for legitimacy. The latter 
 believe him to be still the same as in 1848 and 
 1849, but he has made wonderful advances since that 
 period. 
 
 Bismarck is by no means a blind partisan of legiti¬ 
 macy, although certainly schooled to the idea that 
 Prussia owes an immensity to the Sovereign House 
 that raised her from the rank of a petty principality 
 to be the leading power in Germany. He recognises 
 the force of modern ideas, and seeks to enlist them in 
 support of the monarchical principle ; considering 
 that both may be made to work harmoniously to¬ 
 gether for the public good. The advancement of 
 Prussia to what he believed was her proper position 
 as the leader of Germany has been his great aim ; and 
 since that has been achieved, we are persuaded that it 
 has been his single object to make universal Germany 
 partaker in the honour and glory and welfare of the i 
 leading state—to weld the whole by a community of 
 interests, and render her invincible by any neighbouring 
 
BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 
 
 119 
 
 power, be it France on the one side or Russia on the 
 other. 
 
 If he has differed with his fellow-countrymen as to 
 the means of effecting this, the result proves that upon 
 the whole he has been wiser than they. Take, for 
 instance, the subject of the war budget, the o?ie ques¬ 
 tion which brought him so much odium in the Cham¬ 
 bers and the press, and who will deny that Bismarck 
 was quite in the right, and his opponents entirely in 
 the wrong ? The pressing need of Prussia in the in¬ 
 terest of German unity was a strong army ; first, to 
 conquer that unity from Austria, as she did in 1866, 
 and afterwards to maintain it against the assaults of 
 any foreign power, as she is now doing. He had a 
 thorough conviction of this, and a buoyant, elastic, 
 audacious spirit which has served him well in battling 
 for the realisation of his grand idea. He saw that 
 this was not to be effected by keeping within the 
 strict limits of Constitutionalism ; and in passing be¬ 
 yond them, his natural disposition made him reckless 
 of the consequences. 
 
 There is no doubt that the contemplation of Louis 
 Napoleon’s successes, and the frequent conversations 
 which he had with that Sovereign, made him in some 
 degree reckless of the means he might employ to com¬ 
 pass his object. They mutually admired each other, 
 although so opposite in their natures—Napoleon 
 being as remarkable for his reticence as Bismarck 
 was for the careless utterance of his opinions, and 
 objects. Napoleon’s Ministers were amused with the 
 
120 
 
 SURVEY OF 
 
 naive expressions of this outspoken Prussian Diplo- 
 matc. They looked upon him as un personnage 
 moquable. But the Emperor himself never ceased 
 to regard him as a man of superior abilities whose 
 designs might be safely encouraged, under the 
 idea that the superior Napoleonic intellect would 
 be able at the fitting time to control the Bis- 
 marckian. A fond and delusive thought, as the 
 sequel has shown. 
 
 It was from Napoleon, according to some of his 
 German critics, that he learned to be rather more 
 tolerant of democratic ideas, especially of universal 
 suffrage. But as far back as 1849, there were symptoms 
 of a desire on his part to conciliate the democrats in 
 opposition to the moderate party in the chamber. 
 Addressing a member of the Extreme Left, he said 
 in his bantering way—“ I know what you want. 
 You want to knock off the heads of all the sovereigns, 
 establish a German Federal Republic, if possible be¬ 
 come its President yourself, or at least get the post 
 for one of your relations, abolish the army, convert 
 the churches into libraries, and make all men inex¬ 
 pressibly happy. With the exception of the latter of 
 these objects, which I would also gladly bring about, 
 my wishes in regard to all your other aspirations are 
 exactly the reverse of yours ; and as we both know 
 what we want, we can at least understand each other, 
 and even unite on certain points. But as for our per¬ 
 fumed Moderates, how can any one know what they 
 want if they do not know it themselves, and would 
 
BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 
 
 121 
 
 not even give themselves any trouble to act for what 
 they really do want !” 
 
 At a later period he coquetted even with the Demo¬ 
 cratic Socialists, represented by Lassalle. Lassalle 
 was a man of dissolute principles and wild ideas, 
 though of great genius, and Bismarck thought the 
 working classes might be brought though his means 
 to support the Government in opposition to the 
 Chambers. At least this has been affirmed by Max 
 Schlesinger in an article in the Fortnightly Review. 
 “ The plan, too cleverly laid, and much too clumsily 
 betrayed, had not even been properly tried, when the 
 death of Lassalle, who fell in a duel about a love 
 affair, put an end to any further projects of a union 
 between Count Bismarck and the Socialist party.” 
 A far more important person was Lothar Bucher, one 
 of the leaders of the Democratic party, whom Bis¬ 
 marck succeeded in attaching to himself, and who 
 became an able advocate of his policy from thorough 
 conviction. 
 
 Bismarck is not over sensitive on the score of cri- 
 1 ticism. No man has been more abused by the press, 
 but he has shown a nobility of nature in disregarding 
 whatever was merely personal to himself. Some¬ 
 times, indeed, he has taken pains to correct mis- 
 statements ; as for instance when an article appeared 
 in the Kladderadatsch, mentioning the names of all 
 the Junker families which had supported the French 
 from 1S06 to 1813. Among these appeared the name 
 of the Bismarcks. Bismarck immediately wrote to 
 
122 
 
 BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 
 
 Dohm, the editor, sending him a list of a dozen Bis- 
 marcks who had fallen in the Liberation War, and 
 demanded from him a contradiction of the former 
 statement. An apology was made, and Dohm and 
 Bismarck afterwards became friends. Bismarck even 
 sometimes contributed articles to the paper, and when 
 he became Minister, shielded Dohm oftener than once 
 from prosecution. In the Chamber he never flinched 
 from any personal attack, and has frequently demo¬ 
 lished an adversary by some bold sarcasm or mock¬ 
 ing allusion. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BISMARCK’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND MANNERS— 
 INTERVIEW WITH M. VILBORT. 
 
 ISMARCK’S personal appearance and man¬ 
 ners have been often described. M. Vilbort, 
 the Paris journalist, who saw him in 1866, 
 speaks of him thus : “ Count Bismarck is a man of 
 lofty stature ; he has an anxious countenance ; a high 
 forehead, large and full, in which you see benevolence 
 combined with obstinacy. He has large eyes, deep- 
 set and soft, but which become terrible when lighted 
 up by the fire of anger. He has light hair scattered 
 thinly over the top of his head. He wears a military 
 moustache, which veils the irony of his smile. In his 
 language, always full of imagery, the bluntness of the 
 soldier is joined to the circumspectness of the diplo¬ 
 matist. He is at the same time the great lord, and the 
 courtier armed with all the seductions of a refined 
 politeness.” 
 
 A writer in the Daheim , Arnold Wellmer, who met 
 Bismarck at the house of Prince Putbus, in the island 
 of Riigen, soon after the war of 1866, thus describes 
 him : — 
 
 “ He is a tall, stately man, slenderly but yet power- 
 
124 
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE 
 
 fully built. His bearing has something of a military 
 stiffness, but yet full of youthful elegance, notwith¬ 
 standing his fifty-three years. His movements are 
 dignified and bold, and at the same time light and un¬ 
 constrained. And upon this knightly figure, sits a head 
 not very big, nor even beautiful, one which it is difficult 
 to describe, which you are never weary of looking at, 
 and which you will never forget to your dying day. 
 
 “ The thoughtful arched forehead is shaded by 
 scanty darkish-blond hair, already sprinkled with 
 grey. A thick moustache gives to the otherwise 
 smoothly-shaven face a military character. The eye, 
 which is rather too prominent, is clear and lively, 
 frequently permeated with a light that makes it 
 difficult to recognise its true colour. The complexion 
 is dull and of a peculiar paleness, fixed there by 
 bodily suffering, hard work, sleepless nights, and days 
 full of anxious thought and mental exertion. 
 
 “Around the thin lips plays an intellectual 
 ( geistreich ) smile ; for the moment, an amiable, harm¬ 
 less, cheerful smile ; but one that it is easy to see 
 requires only a slight twist to convert it into one of 
 withering irony. 
 
 “ Bismarck cannot be said to dress with taste. He 
 had on a buckskin coat, waistcoat of the same, and 
 grey trousers. But these seemed to tally so well with 
 his general appearance ; indeed, gave the figure such a 
 youthful, almost burschen air, that I fancy the light 
 dress coat would annoy the eye more than the sub¬ 
 stantial buckskin.” 
 
AND MANNERS 
 
 125 
 
 Max Schlesinger, by no means a partial critic, 
 writing in 1866, says:* “He is well fitted to be 
 amiable in society, for he has elegant manners, likes 
 animated conversation, is talkative to excess, commu¬ 
 nicative often to indiscretion, full of wit and original 
 thought, not too impatient of contradiction, and when 
 in good temper, quite open to argument. Whatever 
 prejudices he may have, he knows how to artfully 
 conceal them, and even to laugh at them ; but as the 
 boundary between prejudice and conviction, fancy and 
 belief, is hard to define, he only too often ridicules 
 what is looked upon by the mass of mankind as most 
 noble and sacred. In such moments his wit becomes 
 frivolous, his cleverness common-place, and his whole 
 demeanour repelling. 
 
 “ He may be hard, but he is certainly not spiteful, 
 not even to Austria. It is true that he wishes to 
 drive her out of Germany, and break her power for 
 ever ; but if it had been possible, he would have used 
 far gentler instruments for that purpose than Krupp’s 
 steel cannon and the needle-gun, and would have pre¬ 
 ferred to drive her to suicide by mere diplomatic means 
 —bare promises and threats. He has just as little 
 hatred in his heart for the Kings of Saxony and Han¬ 
 over, although it has always been his favourite idea to 
 mediatise them, together with a few others.” 
 
 A friend of our own, writing from Berlin, says :— 
 “ The personal appearance of the Count is that of a 
 grave thinker, but at the same time that of a very 
 * Fortnightly Review, July, 18 66. 
 
126 
 
 PAULINE LUCCA. 
 
 kind man, placing himself on an equal footing with 
 every one with Avhom he comes in contact. About 
 two years ago I met him at a public ball, to which I 
 accompanied an English family then in Berlin, includ¬ 
 ing a very pretty young lady, who, when the Count’s 
 entrance made some stir in the room, said rather 
 loudly, how happy she would be if she could have 
 a full look at him. He had come very near to 
 where we stood in a great crowd, and when he 
 heard his name uttered with a female English accent, 
 he turned round, and I seized the opportunity of 
 introducing the young lady to him. To her great 
 delight he immediately entered into conversation 
 with her in English, which he speaks fluently.” 
 
 At another ball Bismarck met the celebrated 
 Pauline Lucca, and addressed her without any 
 previous introduction. She not knowing him, thought 
 this a bit of presumption, and turned away from him. 
 When she afterwards learned from the gentleman 
 with whom she was conversing at the time, that it was 
 Bismarck himself that she had treated so slightingly, 
 she entreated her companion to give her an oppor¬ 
 tunity of making an apology. This was done at a 
 later period of the evening, when Bismarck observed, 
 as he held out his hand to her, “ It is for me, madam, 
 to apologise for my intrusiveness adding laughingly, 
 “ Let there be peace between us ; it would be sad if 
 the two greatest persons in Prussia should be at 
 enmity with each other”—alluding to the stature of 
 each, he being so tall and she petite. They afterwards 
 
M. VILBORT. 
 
 127 
 
 met at Ischl, when the great singer wishing to befriend 
 a poor photographer, proposed that Bismarck and 
 herself should be portrayed on the same cartc-de-visitc, 
 which was no sooner said than done, much to the 
 photographer’s delight and pecuniary advantage. 
 
 The best life-portrait of Bismarck, however, that we 
 have seen, is the one sketched by himself in an 
 animated conversation held with M. Vilbort men¬ 
 tioned above, the correspondent of the Siecle during 
 the war with Austria in 1866. 
 
 Just before the final rupture with Austria and the 
 commencement of hostilities, M. Vilbort sought an 
 interview with Bismarck, which was granted him by 
 appointment at 10 o’clock at night, in the Minister’s 
 Cabinet. Bismarck rose to receive him, shook hands, 
 and made him sit in a chair opposite to him, asked 
 him whether he smoked, and then offered him a cigar. 
 The conversation, which we have slightly abridged 
 from the original, was as follows :* 
 
 “ Monsieur le Ministre,” I said to him, “ I have 
 undertaken to inform the French public, as well as 
 I can, concerning everything that takes place in 
 Germany. Allow me then to address you with 
 perfect frankness. It is easy to perceive that in her 
 foreign policy, Prussia appears at the present day to 
 tend towards objects with which the French nation 
 eminently sympathises, for instance, the complete eman¬ 
 cipation of Italy from the Austrians, and Germany 
 constituted on the basis of universal suffrage. You 
 
 * “ L’Oeuvre de M. De Bismarck, 1863-1866.” Par J. Vilbort. 
 
DISCUSSION WITH 
 
 proclaim a National Parliament as the only source 
 from which Germany can issue regenerated—as the 
 sole supreme power which is capable of accomplishing 
 her new destinies ; and at the same time you treat 
 the Second Chamber at Berlin after the fashion of 
 Louis XIV. when he entered the Parliament of Paris 
 whip in hand. In France we cannot admit the 
 possibility of an alliance between Absolutism and 
 Democracy. And to speak the entire truth, public 
 opinion at Paris does not believe in your project of a 
 National Parliament; it is regarded only as a war 
 machine of excellent invention, which you will break 
 after it has served your purpose, or whenever it shall 
 become inconvenient or useless.” 
 
 “ A la bonne heure !” replied Bismarck. “ You go 
 to the bottom of things. In France, I know that I 
 have the same unpopularity as in Germany. Every¬ 
 where I am held solely responsible for a situation 
 which I have not made, but which has been imposed 
 upon me as upon all. I am the scape-goat of public 
 opinion, but I do not trouble myself about it. I 
 pursue, with a perfectly tranquil conscience, an object 
 which I believe to be of the utmost utility to my own 
 country and Germany ; as for the means, I have 
 availed myself of such as offered themselves to me, 
 for want of any others. With respect to the internal 
 condition of Prussia there would be much to say. 
 To judge of it impartially would require study and a 
 profound acquaintance with the character of the 
 people. While France and Italy form each at the 
 
M. VILBORT. 
 
 129 
 
 present time a vast social body animated by one 
 I spirit and one sentiment, in Germany, on the contrary, 
 it is individualism that rules. Each one here lives 
 apart in his own little corner, holding his own opinion 
 in the circle of his wife and children, always mis¬ 
 trustful of the government as well as of his neighbour; 
 judging everything from his personal point of view, 
 and never from that of society at large. The senti¬ 
 ment of individualism and the need of contradiction 
 are developed in a German to an inconceivable 
 degree; show him an open door, and rather than 
 pass through it, he will obstinately seek to make a 
 hole in the wall by the side of it. Consequently, 
 whatever may take place, no government will ever be 
 
 popular in Prussia.Our revolutionists are not 
 
 very terrible. Their hostility exhausts itself in 
 epithets against the Minister, but they respect the 
 King. It is I alone who have done them any harm, 
 and I am the only object of their vengeance. With a 
 little more impartiality they would perhaps see that 
 I could not have acted otherwise. In the actual 
 position of Prussia in Germany, and in face of 
 Austria, an army was our prime necessity. In 
 Prussia it is the only force that is disciplinable. I am 
 not sure whether the word is French.” 
 
 “Certainly, Monsieur le Ministre, it might be used 
 in France.” 
 
 “ Should a Prussian break one of his arms at a 
 barricade,” continued M. de Bismarck, “he would go 
 home to his lodging quite sheepish ; but in the 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 DISCUSSION WITH 
 
 army he is an admirable soldier, and fights like a lion 
 for the honour of his country. This necessity for a 
 great armed force, imposed by circumstances, has not 
 been recognised by our carping politicians, however 
 clearly seen. For myself I could not hesitate; by 
 birth, by education, I am a king’s man before any¬ 
 thing else. Now the King held to the new military 
 organization as firmly as he did to his crown, because 
 he also in his soul and conscience judged it to be 
 indispensable. On this point no one could make him 
 yield or compromise. At his age, now seventy, and 
 with his traditions, it is natural that he should be 
 obstinate in his opinion, especially when he believes 
 it to be right. For the rest, so far as concerns the 
 army, I entirely share his views. 
 
 “ Sixteen years ago I was living as a country gentle¬ 
 man, when, by the choice of my Sovereign, I was ap¬ 
 pointed the Envoy of Prussia at the Frankfort Diet. 
 I had been brought up in admiration, I might almost 
 say in the worship, of the Austrian policy. It was not 
 long before I lost the illusions of my youth with re¬ 
 spect to Austria and became her declared adversary. 
 
 “ The humiliation of my country, Germany sacrificed 
 to foreign interests, a crafty and perfidious policy—all 
 this was not of a nature to please me. I never anti¬ 
 cipated the part I should have to fill in the future, but 
 from that moment I conceived the idea, which I am 
 now seeking to realize ; namely, the rescue of Germany 
 from Austrian oppression ; at all events of that part of 
 Germany which is united by its genius, religion, man- 
 
M. VILB OR T. 
 
 ners, and interests to the destinies of Prussia—the 
 Germany of the North. In the projects which I have 
 put forth there is no question of overturning thrones, 
 of taking a duchy from this one, or a petty domain 
 from that. Even were it my wish to do so, the King 
 would not give his consent. Then there are family 
 relations, cousinships, a crowd of hostile influences 
 against which I have had continually to fight. 
 
 “ All this, added to the opposition which I have 
 met with in Prussia, has not prevented me from de¬ 
 voting myself soul and body to this idea—the estab¬ 
 lishment of Northern Germany in its logical and 
 natural form under the aegis of Prussia. To attain 
 this object I would brave everything: exile and even 
 the scaffold. I have said to the Prince Royal, who by his 
 education and tendencies is in favour of parliamentary 
 government, ‘ What matter if they hang me, provided 
 only that the cord shall securely bind your throne to 
 this new Germany ?’ ” 
 
 “ May I also ask you, Monsieur le Ministre,” I said, 
 “ how you can reconcile the liberal mission of a 
 National Parliament with the rigorous treatment which 
 the Berlin Chamber has experienced ? How, above 
 all things, have you been able to persuade the King, 
 the representative of Divine Right, to accept universal 
 suffrage, which is the democratic principle par ex¬ 
 cellence ?" 
 
 Bismarck replied with animation : “ It is a victory 
 gained after four years of struggle. When the King 
 sent for me four years ago, the situation was full of 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 j\I. VILDORT. 
 
 difficulties. His Majesty placed before me a long list 
 of liberal concessions, not one of them, however, con¬ 
 cerning the military question. I said to the King : ‘ I 
 accept, and the more liberal the Government shows 
 itself, the greater will be its strength.’ The Chamber 
 was obstinate on one side and the Crown on the other. 
 In this conflict I sided with the King. My veneration 
 for him, all my antecedents, all the traditions of my 
 family, made this my duty. But that I am, either by 
 nature or system, an adversary of national representa¬ 
 tion, a born enemy of parliamentary government, is 
 an entirely gratuitous supposition.” 
 
 It was near midnight, and the Journalist rose to go. 
 Bismarck shook hands, and asked him to dine with 
 him en famille the following day. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS. 
 
 UMEROUS anecdotes and sayings of Bis¬ 
 marck are recorded by Hesekiel, and by 
 writers in the magazines, newspapers, &c. 
 Some we have already mentioned, and here are a few 
 more culled at random from various sources. 
 
 The writer in the Daheim , from whom we have 
 before quoted, has recorded some of Bismarck’s talk 
 at the dinner-table. It ran chiefly on the incidents of 
 the war just ended. 
 
 Speaking of Koniggratz, he said —“ I saw, while 
 the conflict still raged, a youthful officer, pale and 
 fair, as if sleeping, leaning against a garden hedge. 
 He was dead. Inside the garden the roses were in 
 full bloom. A trooper was just plucking a handful. 
 He then got over the hedge and placed the roses on 
 the breast of the young hero, where a small round 
 hole showed itself in his uniform. ‘ Do you know 
 that young officer ?’ said I. ‘ No, Major,’ he replied ; 
 
 ‘ but I saw him fighting like a lion, and now fallen 
 like a lamb ; I thought that I would save him at least 
 from the horses’ hoofs, and so I carried him to the 
 hedge. We laid roses on my own dear mother when 
 
134 
 
 ANECDOTES 
 
 we placed her in the earth.’ So saying, he flung him¬ 
 self upon his horse, this brave trooper, and rushed 
 madly into the heat of the battle.” 
 
 Speaking of the difficulties he sometimes had in 
 finding sleeping accommodation, he said—“ Once I 
 was even compelled to camp in a village market¬ 
 place. I arrived after dark, and quite alone, in an 
 abominable hole of a Bohemian village/ivith an un¬ 
 pronounceable name. I had left the King to spend 
 the night upon a hard sofa. No lights to be seen in 
 any of the houses, and all of them closed. I knocked 
 at half a dozen doors, and broke a dozen windows, 
 but not a soul was to be seen. I then picked my way 
 through a passage into an unpaved yard. Suddenly 
 the ground yielded under my feet, and I lay softly 
 enough upon a dung-heap. I might have been satis¬ 
 fied with the softness of my bed, but my nose would 
 by no means accustom itself to the smells which 
 assailed it from the reeking mixture. I gathered 
 myself together again, got into the street, and at last 
 into the market-place. Here stood a piazza with 
 columns—whether Ionic, Doric, or Bohemian, I cannot 
 say, but I believe the last. Ah ! thought I, you lucky i 
 dog, you will at least have a roof over your head here, 
 and so I laid myself down upon the bare stones. I 
 was dead beat, and slept like a marmot.” 
 
 He continued—“ But this was not the worst bed I 
 found in Bohemia. I reflect with horror and back¬ 
 ache upon a night that I spent in a child’s crib.” “A 
 child’s crib!” said a lady. “The Minister President 
 
AND SA YINGS. 
 
 r 35 
 
 of Prussia in a child’s crib! How did you manage 
 that, my dear Count ?”—“ Oh, that was unfortunately 
 simple enough,” he replied. “ I doubled myself up 
 like a pocket-knife.” 
 
 “ The value of a good cigar,” said Bismarck, as he 
 proceeded to light an excellent Havannah, “ is best 
 understood when it is the last you possess, and there 
 is no chance of getting another. At Koniggratz I 
 had only one cigar left in my pocket, which I carefully 
 j guarded during the whole of the battle, as a miser 
 does his treasure. I did not feel justified in using it. 
 I painted in glowing colours, in my mind, the happy 
 hour in which I should enjoy it after the victory. 
 But I had miscalculated my chances.”—“ And what 
 i was the cause of your miscalculation ?” “ A poor 
 
 dragoon. He lay helpless, with both arms crushed, 
 murmuring for something to refresh him. I felt in 
 my pockets, and found I had only gold, and that 
 would be of no use to him. But stay—I had still my 
 treasured cigar ! I lighted this for him and placed it 
 between his teeth. You should have seen the poor 
 fellow’s grateful smile! I never enjoyed a cigar so 
 much as that one which I did not smoke.” 
 
 “ Had your Excellency a revolver with you during 
 the war ?”—“ No; and I only once regretted not having 
 one. It was soon after the battle of Koniggratz. I 
 was riding solitary over the dead-strewn field. It was 
 a sight to freeze the blood in the veins—horrible, 
 bloody, never to be forgotten. In one place I came 
 upon a poor horse, a beautiful animal, both of whose 
 
136 
 
 ANECDOTES 
 
 hind-feet had been torn away by a shell. While trying 
 to support himself upon his fore-feet, quivering and 
 neighing piteously, he looked up at me with his great 
 moist eyes, as if beseeching my help—and then I 
 longed for a revolver to send a bullet into his heart, 
 and so relieve him from his sufferings.” 
 
 Not so inhuman after all, then, this man of iron and 
 blood ! 
 
 Another writer in the Daheim tells a story of Bis¬ 
 marck which shows his fondness for a practical joke. 
 One day at Frankfort when he was dining with a friend 
 at the table-d'hote, he observed opposite to him two 
 young ladies who were talking loudly and laughing. It 
 was evident to him that he was the object of their merri¬ 
 ment, although as they spoke in Lettish he could not 
 understand a word they said. He had been recently 
 travelling in Courland, however, where he had learned j 
 two or three words of the language, and he determined 
 to use this scant knowledge against his fair assailants. : 
 So turning to his friend he whispered, “ When you hear 
 me speak in a foreign language give me your watch- 
 key.” Meanwhile the ladies went on talking more 
 loudly than ever, and by the time the dessert was put 
 on the table their hilarity knew no bounds. At 
 length, during a pause, after a somewhat heartier 
 burst of laughter than usual, Bismarck said to his 
 friend, in an audible voice, “ Dohd man to adek" (give 
 me the key). The effect was instantaneous. The ladies 
 started as if they were shot, and with their faces 
 covered with blushes, rushed out of the room. 
 
AND SA YINGS. 
 
 137 
 
 In the following instance, however, the lady had 
 by far the best of it. “ At a recent Court ball in 
 Berlin, one of the fair queens of society, wife of a 
 foreign diplomatist, was the object of Count Bismarck’s 
 attentions, and many observed that her beauty had 
 produced a great impression on the famous statesman. 
 The Count, with that audacity of conquest which is his 
 especial characteristic, extended his hand to pluck 
 without leave a flower from the splendid bouquet which 
 the lady carried. She rapped his knuckles with her 
 fan, saying, “ Pardon , Monsieur le Comte, but that 
 flower is not a German State ; you must ask for it.” 
 
 During a visit which the King and Bismarck paid 
 to Vienna, Herr von Schmerling, Austrian Minister 
 of the Interior, who had a personal dislike to the 
 Prussian Minister, refused to meet him at any of the 
 Court dinners. Bismarck noticing his absence in¬ 
 quired the cause, and being told that it was ill-health, 
 he replied, “ Ah ! I always thought there was some¬ 
 thing the matter with his Constitution'.' 
 
 A correspondent of the Temps relates that when 
 Bismarck was Ambassador at Paris, he had been 
 dining one day at the “ Moulin Rouge,” with Von 
 Beust and Seebach, and as they were on their way to 
 the “ Mabille ” to spend the rest of the evening, he 
 exclaimed, as he took the arm of Von Beust, “ Kind 
 gentlemen, when I am Minister I shall blow you all 
 into the air.” 
 
 When on a visit to Paris in 1867, in the suite of 
 the King of Prussia, to view the Great Exhibition, 
 
ANECDOTES, 
 
 138 
 
 neither Bismarck nor his Sovereign were at all popular. 
 Some one observed to Bismarck at dinner, jokingly, 
 
 “ Did you not hear the people cry ‘ Vive Bismarck ?’ ” 
 
 “ No,” he said ; “they cried ‘ V’la Bismarck, V’la Bis¬ 
 marck ’—mais c’est dgal ”—it is all one. 
 
 Once, when the President of the Diet at Frankfort 
 appeared at a sitting in a morning coat—it was at 
 the President’s own house we believe—Bismarck took 
 out his cigar-case, coolly lighted one, and then offered 
 another to his neighbour. The other ambassadors 
 understood him, and the Herr President never again 
 appeared in a morning coat. 
 
 When Count Karolyi, on the eve of the rupture 
 with Austria, asked Bismarck if he intended to violate 
 by main force the Convention of Gastein, Bismarck 
 replied, “ No ; but if I did, do you really think I should 
 have said yes ?” Count Karolyi officially reported 
 this, but Bismarck declared that the Count must have 
 misunderstood him. 
 
 Count Bismarck has often spoken very freely of 
 the King, while he will allow no one else to do so. 
 Once he compared him to a hunter, who must be well 
 spurred before he will leap over a hedge; another 
 time he‘said that there was too much and too little ; 
 of the Hohenzollern in him; again, “that he could 
 not do what he liked, because he had to consult a king 
 whom he had not himself created.” 
 
 Once on his return from France, sitting down 
 among the Deputies of the Extreme Left, he took a 
 little sprig of olive out of his cigar case, and said, in 
 
AND SAYINGS. 
 
 139 
 
 a half jesting manner, “This I gathered in the south 
 of France, and shall perhaps offer it some day to the 
 Democrats as a token of reconciliation. But as yet it 
 is too soon.” 
 
 After the war of 1866, a deputation from the city 
 of Billow, headed by the Mayor, waited upon Bismarck 
 at Varzin, to present him with a diploma of citizenship. 
 The Minister asked them to dinner, and pressed them 
 to stay the night, which they declined, saying that 
 their wives would be sitting up for them. On which 
 the Countess turned to him and said, merrily, “Hence¬ 
 forward imitate the example of the good city of 
 Biilow of which you are now a member.” Bismarck 
 shrugged his shoulders but made no answer. 
 
 To another deputation which came to him from one 
 of the newly incorporated provinces, with various 
 complaints, he said, “ Gentlemen, Prussia is like a 
 good warm woollen jacket, very unpleasant at first, 
 but one that will give you a great deal of com¬ 
 fort and to another that complained of the taxa¬ 
 tion, and the military service, “ Dear me, gentle¬ 
 men, do you think that you can become Prussians 
 for nothing ?” 
 
 The “ blood and iron” phrase by which he is best 
 known, appears in a speech made by him in 1862 
 to the Chamber, in which he observed, “ Not through 
 speeches and votes of the majority are the great 
 questions of the day to be decided—that was the 
 blunder of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood!' 
 
 When it was hinted to him that Austria might 
 
140 
 
 ANECDOTES. 
 
 after all come to terms of mutual accommodation, 
 his reply was, “Well, one hand washes the other, 
 and when we shall have once seen the lather of the 
 Austrian soap, we shall willingly return the service.” 
 
 Of a like homely character, and altogether German, 
 is a saying just recently attributed to him, in allusion 
 to the siege of Paris, “We must leave the Parisians 
 to frizzle in their own fat a little longer.” 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WAR WITH FRANCE.—TIIE PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 T the commencement of the year r870 Bis¬ 
 marck had recovered his usual health of body, 
 and with it that elasticity and strength of 
 mind which had borne him successfully, as we have 
 seen, through so many struggles—not alone in the 
 Cabinet and the Chamber, but on the battle-field. 
 Tam Marte quam Mercurio ! 
 
 He was now at the zenith of his power and in¬ 
 fluence. Prime Minister of Prussia, loved and honoured 
 by his Sovereign, and Chancellor of the North German 
 Confederation ! Still the old bitterness against him 
 rankled in the minds of many of his countrymen. 
 How was this to be eradicated ? One task was before 
 him, to which, so far as his health allowed him, he had 
 sedulously devoted himself ever since the war of 1866 
 —namely, the perfecting of that unity which he had 
 established. With his sagacious intellect he doubtless 
 foresaw that a struggle with France, jealous of the 
 aggrandisement of Prussia, was imminent, and for this 
 he had completely prepared himself. Come when it 
 might, Bismarck, with United Germany at his back, 
 was ready to meet it. Thus he waited for what might 
 
r 4 2 
 
 WAR WITH FRANCE, 
 
 happen ; not provoking war, but fully determined not 
 to decline it, should it be forced upon him. 
 
 A successful war with France, in which the latter 
 might be the aggressor, was the one thing needed by 
 Bismarck to insure his fame, and completely reconcile 
 any animosities towards him that might still exist in j 
 the mind of liberal and progressive Germany. And, 
 fortunately for him, the crisis came without any effort 
 on his part to seek it. 
 
 Such was the man—endowed with so much genius, 
 wisdom, and daring—against whom, in an evil hour 
 for himself and for France, the Emperor Napoleon, in , 
 the summer of this year, ventured to enter the lists in ' 
 mortal combat. He at least, who knew his antago¬ 
 nist well, ought to have paused still longer before 
 doing so. Four years he paused and hesitated before 
 he dared to attack Bismarck, supported as he was by 
 the might of a united people, thirty-eight millions in 
 number, and every able-bodied man of these a well- 
 trained soldier—his own army being small in numbers, 
 deficient in military organization, and corrupted at its 
 core by a system of favouritism in the choice of admi¬ 
 nistrators and generals. 
 
 Trochu, afterwards the brave defender of Paris, had 
 already, in an able work published in 1867, pointed 
 out the very defective condition of the French army, 
 so that the Emperor could scarcely be ignorant upon 
 the subject; and it had not improved since the time 
 when Trochu wrote. It is now well known that exemp¬ 
 tion from military service was largely purchased 
 
PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 r 43 
 
 in France by fines paid to the Government; such 
 fines being intended nominally for the reward of old 
 soldiers re-enlisting in the service, or for volunteers; 
 but in reality the money so obtained was spent upon 
 other objects. And so the battalions fell considerably 
 short of the due number of soldiers. Was it some fury 
 then, or was it some dire political necessity that drove 
 Napoleon into this disastrous war? It must have 
 been that he sought to divert the attention of the 
 French people, especially of the Parisians, from do¬ 
 mestic politics, by holding out to them a prospect 
 of territorial aggrandisement—thus flattering their 
 vanity, and ministering to their everlasting passion 
 for la gloire. Better this, he considered, than a revo¬ 
 lution in Paris ; better to fight with Prussians on the 
 Rhine frontier, or beyond it, than with the men of 
 Belleville and La Villette on the Boulevards. 
 
 Politically, indeed, he was in a bad way. He had 
 commenced the year well by taking to his counsels 
 M. Ollivier, the most liberal of all the statesmen 
 hitherto employed by him. Ollivier took office on a 
 distinct understanding that personal rule was hence¬ 
 forth to cease in France. The Government was to be 
 a constitutional one, and a programme to that effect 
 was put forth by the new Ministry. It seemed, in 
 fact, as if the time were already come for “ crowning 
 the edifice”—that time to which the Emperor used 
 always to say that he looked forward with such fond 
 expectation. Then came the affair of the Plebiscite ; 
 Ollivier having so far yielded to the personal wish of 
 
i-W 
 
 WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 Napoleon, contrary to the opinion of the Liberal party, 
 as to consent to take the votes of the nation, whether 
 there should be a constitutional government or not. It 
 was a bad business altogether. After which came the 
 affair of Pierre Bonaparte, which caused considerable 
 scandal; the prosecution of Rochefort ; other prosecu¬ 
 tions and scandals—all of which made the Emperor 
 exceedingly unpopular. The army too was not quite 
 sound in its allegiance, as was shown by the votes of 
 several thousands of the soldiers on the Plebiscite. 
 
 Besides all this, Napoleon felt within himself that 
 he had been outwitted by Bismarck in the game of 
 state-craft, at which they had been playing with each 
 other. We have seen the frequent interviews that 
 took place between them at Paris and Biarritz; also 
 the understanding that was come to between them 
 that in return for the liberation of Venetia through an 
 alliance between Italy and Prussia, the latter Power 
 should be at liberty to withdraw her garrisons from 
 the Rhine fortresses and use them against Austria ; 
 without any advantage being taken from their exposed i 
 condition to an attack from France, for the rectifi¬ 
 cation of the Rhine boundary. 
 
 But was there any further agreement entered into 
 between them, either then, or before, or since, that 
 France should have compensation in return for the 
 aggrandisement of Prussia ? The author of the article 
 in the Edinburgh Reviezv from which we have 
 before quoted, says—“In July, 1864, Bismarck met 
 M. Rouher at Carlsbad, and had many conversations 
 
PR ELI MIN A RIES. 
 
 *45 
 
 with him on the state of affairs. He began by hinting 
 at the necessity of giving Prussia a better geographical 
 configuration. She was divided, he said, by Hanover 
 and Hesse into two halves ; it would be next to im¬ 
 possible for her to allow the erection of a new federal 
 State on the Elbe, likely to make common cause with 
 the minor governments against her. It was this un¬ 
 fortunate delimitation of her frontiers which had so 
 long kept Prussia in the enchanted circle of the Holy 
 Alliance; if she was better constituted, she would be 
 at liberty to choose her alliances, and what alliance 
 could be more acceptable to her than that of P'rance ? 
 In Venetia, in the East, both Powers had the same 
 interests ; and if France should wish for an equiva¬ 
 lent to this Prussian aggrandizement, why there was 
 Luxemburg and Belgium. The King of Holland 
 would be glad to get rid of the encumbrance of the 
 Grand Duchy, and Belgium was a nest of Democrats ! 
 These expressions were of course repeated in Paris, 
 and if they were not taken as quite serious, it was at 
 least thought in the leading circles that M. de Bis¬ 
 marck might prove a useful man. He did his best 
 to strengthen this idea on his visit to Biarritz, and 
 although we do not know what passed between him 
 and the Emperor in their solitary walks on the shores 
 of the Atlantic, it is certain that he went home with 
 the conviction that he had nothing to fear from France 
 in the execution of his plans.” 
 
 Then what shall we say of the secret treaty alleged 
 by the Times to have been made between France and 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 Prussia after the war of 1866, through the intervention 
 of M. Benedetti ? The terms of it were given textually, 
 as follows, in that journal:— 
 
 “Article I.—His Majesty the Emperor of the 
 French admits and recognises the acquisitions made 
 by Prussia at the close of the last war made by her 
 against Austria and her Allies. 
 
 “Art. II.—His Majesty the King of Prussia 
 promises to facilitate for France the acquisition of 
 Luxemburg. To this end His Majesty will enter into 
 negotiations with His Majesty the King of the Low 
 Countries, in order to determine the latter to make to 
 the Emperor of the French the secession of his rights 
 of sovereignty over that Duchy in return for such 
 compensation as shall be deemed sufficient or other¬ 
 wise. On his side the Emperor of the French engages 
 to assume the charge of the pecuniary responsibility 
 involved in this transaction. 
 
 “ Art. III.—His Majesty the Emperor of the French 
 Will not oppose the Federal Union of the Confede¬ 
 ration of the North with the other States of Germany, 
 excepting Austria, which union can be consolidated 
 on the basis of one common Parliament, respecting 
 throughout in a just manner the sovereignty of the 
 said States. 
 
 “Art. IV.—Upon his part His Majesty the King 
 of Prussia, in case His Majesty the Emperor of the 
 French shall be compelled by circumstances to cause 
 his troops to enter into Belgium or to conquer it, shall 
 accord the assistance of his arms to France, and shall 
 
PRELIMINA R1ES. 
 
 M7 
 
 sustain her with all his forces, both by land and sea, 
 towards and against all the Powers that in that 
 eventuality may declare war against her.” 
 
 When this document was made public by the 
 Times, just after our guaranteeing the neutrality of 
 Belgium in the war between France and Prussia 
 about to commence, it created the utmost excitement, 
 and was made the subject of interpellations in our 
 Houses of Parliament. Its existence was denied, and 
 asserted again and again, until at length Bismarck 
 declared that it was true such a treaty had been 
 proposed to him by M. Benedetti, the French Am¬ 
 bassador at Berlin, but that he had given no heed to 
 it, further than to ask M. Benedetti to put on paper 
 for his consideration the actual proposals of his 
 Government; that M. Benedetti did this; and that 
 he, Bismarck, had in his possession the draught of 
 the treaty in Benedetti’s own handwriting. To this 
 the French Ministry replied, that if such was the case, 
 Benedetti had acted entirely on his own responsibility, 
 and that he had been tricked by Bismarck to commit 
 his proposals to writing. Altogether “ a very pretty 
 quarrel!” For ourselves, we consider it extremely 
 improbable that Bismarck ever sanctioned such a 
 proposal. Why, indeed, should he? What interest 
 could he have in furthering the ambition of France 
 just at the time when Prussia had no need of her 
 assistance ? Had the proposal been made before the 
 war of 1866, there might be some ground for supposing 
 that Bismarck acquiesced in it. 
 
 — 
 
143 lVAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 We mention these things because it would be 
 monstrous to suppose that the ostensible cause of the 
 dreadful war now raging between France and Prussia 
 was the real one. 
 
 The truth is, that whenever the governing power in 
 France has been in a difficulty, be that government 
 monarchical, republican, or imperial, it has generally 
 hitherto sought for its solution in a war on the Rhine. 
 The idea of such a war has always been popular. As 
 the Daily News well expresses it :—“ The Orleanist, 
 the moderate Liberal, the Republican ; in short, the 
 whole of France shared and still shares it. Men of all 
 parties expressed it; the Roman Catholic Montalem- 
 bert ; the Apostle of Free Trade, Michel Chevalier; 
 the Orleanist Thiers; the moderate Republican, Jules 
 Favre; the Republican poet,Victor Hugo; the Socialist 
 Republicans, Louis Blanc and Barbes, and all their 
 parties and followers, spoke or wrote of the necessary 
 acquisition of the left bank of the Rhine. The whole 
 of France, of all parties and generations—the present 
 generation and the present Republican Government 
 included—advocated the policy of Richelieu and 
 Mazarin—viz., acquisition of the left bank of the 
 Rhine, and the division and humiliation of Germany.” 
 
 The ostensible cause, however, of the present war 
 was the candidature of Leopold, Prince of Hohen- 
 zollern, for the vacant Crown of Spain. 
 
 It will be in the recollection of our readers that 
 ever since the revolution in Spain in September, 1868, 
 the Crown of that country has been going a begging 
 
 
 i 
 
PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 149 
 
 among the several Royal houses of Europe. At 
 length, after it had been declined by several Princes, 
 who shrunk from the responsibilities attached to 
 that high eminence, it was offered to Prince Leopold 
 of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and by him accepted 
 with the consent of the King of Prussia. This 
 Prince was thirty-five years of age, a Roman Catho¬ 
 lic, married to the sister of the King of Portugal, 
 and to all appearance in every way a desirable candi¬ 
 date for the throne, subject to the approval of the 
 Cortes. Moreover, although of the house of Hohen- 
 zollern, he was related more nearly to the Emperor 
 Napoleon himself than to King William ; being a 
 grandson, on the father’s side, of Marie Antoinette 
 Murat, and on the mother’s, of the Duchess Stephanie 
 of Baden, nee Beauharnais, the adopted daughter of 
 Napoleon I. 
 
 At what precise time the candidature was approved 
 of by the King of Prussia does not appear, but no 
 sooner was it made publicly known in Paris than at 
 once there was a tumult of excitement ; every one 
 asserting that the selection was made by Bismarck 
 for the express purpose of insulting France, and 
 making Spain a dependency of Prussia. This was on 
 the 5th of July ; on the following day the Duke de 
 Gramont, Napoleon’s Foreign Minister, declared 
 before the Corps Legislatif that the candidature and 
 acceptance had both been kept a secret from the 
 French Ministry, and concluded with these words :— 
 “We do not believe that respect for the rights of a 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 * 5 ° 
 
 neighbouring people obliges us to suffer a foreign 
 Power, by placing a Prince upon the throne of Charles 
 V., to disturb the European equilibrium to our dis¬ 
 advantage, and thus to imperil the interests and the 
 honour of France. We entertain a firm hope that 
 this will not happen ; to prevent it we count upon 
 the wisdom of the German nation and the friendship 
 of the people of Spain ; but in the contrary event, 
 with your support and the support of the nation, we 
 shall know how to do our duty without hesitation 
 or weakness.” Notwithstanding this declaration it 
 now appears that the candidature of Prince Leopold 
 was known to the French Ministers some months 
 before, and that it was even discussed in the French 
 and German newspapers. 
 
 De Gramont’s statement was received with enthu¬ 
 siastic applause by the assembled deputies. On the 
 evening of the same day M. Ollivier was asked for 
 documents and correspondence, which he declined to 
 produce for the present, asserting that the Ministry 
 sincerely hoped there would be peace, and that the 
 Assembly might trust the honour of the country to 
 their safe keeping. 
 
 The newspapers of the country at once took a 
 warlike tone, and raised the people’s passion against 
 Prussia, as if she had really done France some serious 
 injury. Officers were ordered back to their regiments, 
 and the frontier fortresses inspected. The utmost 
 vigilance prevailed in the war department—all in 
 expectation of the coming war. And, as might be 
 
PRELIMINARIES, 
 
 151 
 
 1 supposed, all the Exchanges in Europe were affected 
 with panic. 
 
 The Prussian Ambassador at Paris, Baron Werther, 
 upon this repaired to Ems to receive the instructions 
 of the King in such a crisis. The King authorised 
 him to say that he had nothing whatever to do with 
 the selection of Prince Leopold, and in fact knew 
 only of the Prince’s acceptance from the declaration 
 of the Duke de Gramont. This was communicated 
 to the Duke and the Cabinet, who were not at all 
 satisfied, and Benedetti was instructed to inform the 
 King that he must insist upon the withdrawal of the 
 condidature or that war would ensue. 
 
 In this crisis the Spanish Ambassador at Paris 
 produced a despatch which he had received from 
 Prince Leopold’s father, stating that his son had with¬ 
 drawn his candidature for the Spanish Crown. The 
 Duke announced this in the Legislative Assembly on 
 the 12th, but added, “ The negotiations which we are 
 carrying on with Prussia, and which never had any 
 other object in view than the above-mentioned solu¬ 
 tion, are not as yet terminated ; it is therefore impos¬ 
 sible for the Government to speak on the subject, or 
 to submit to-day to the Chamber and to the country 
 a general statement of the affair.” In fact, the affair 
 was by no means finished. The next day, the 13th, 
 the King of Prussia, while walking in the public gar¬ 
 den at Ems, met M. Benedetti, and showed him a 
 newspaper that he held in his hand, announcing the 
 withdrawal of Prince Leopold’s candidature; in con- 
 
152 
 
 11 'AR 11 1TH FRANCE. 
 
 sequence of which it might be supposed that the 
 whole affair .was at an end. Bencdctti replied, not 
 so ; and that the King must give a pledge that he 
 would never at any future time allow the candidature 
 to be brought forward. This the King absolutely 
 refused to do. Benedetti subsequently sought an in¬ 
 terview with him, when the King let him know 
 through an aide-de-camp that he approved of the with¬ 
 drawal of the candidature. He afterwards again met 
 Benedetti, and asked him if he had anything further to 
 say. Benedetti said he had only arguments to urge, 
 and these the King referred to Count Bismarck. 
 Benedetti then asked if the Count would be at Ems 
 the next day ; and when told not, he said that he 
 should consider the King’s answer as final. Bene¬ 
 detti telegraphed to Paris to this effect, and the King 
 at the same time to Bismarck at Berlin, whither he 
 had returned from his country seat at Varzin. Bis¬ 
 marck immediately caused the King’s telegram, men¬ 
 tioning the indignity sought to be put upon him, to 
 be inserted in an extraordinary supplement of the 
 North German Gazette the same evening, and dis¬ 
 tributed innumerable copies of it, gratis, to all comers. 
 
 On the previous day Baron Werther had been re¬ 
 quested by Ollivier and De Gramont to communicate 
 with Bismarck, and ask that the King should write an 
 autograph letter of apology to the Emperor. To 
 which Bismarck replied that he thought the Am¬ 
 bassador must be mistaken, and told him to ask the 
 French Ministry for their demand in writing. 
 
PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 x 53 
 
 All Berlin was in an uproar. Every one resented 
 the conduct of Benedetti as a personal insult to the 
 Sovereign, and cries of “ War !” “ Down with France !” 
 “ On to the Rhine !” resounded through the streets. 
 On the 15th the King returned to Berlin late in the 
 evening. There was an immense crowd waiting to 
 receive him ; upwards of 100,000 persons lined the 
 streets from the Brandenburg Gate to the Palace. 
 The promenade Unter den Linden was illuminated, 
 and decorated with Prussian and North German flags. 
 The King appeared repeatedly at the windows of the 
 Palace, bowing and saluting the crowd, who cheered 
 him with the utmost enthusiasm. It was a proud 
 moment for Bismarck, who, moreover, had the good 
 taste not to appear in the ovation. 
 
 While these things were going on at Berlin, there 
 were similar demonstrations in Paris. Crowds of 
 people paraded the streets, singing the “Marseillaise,” 
 and shouting “ a bas la Prusse !” “ a bas Bismarck !” 
 “ a Berlin 1 ” &c. Both nations seemed as if they had 
 gone mad in their eagerness to shed each other’s 
 blood. It was in vain that England interfered to 
 try and avert the impending war: in vain that she 
 sought to persuade P”ranee that the candidature 
 having been withdrawn, there was no real casus 
 belli. 
 
 On the 15 th M. Ollivier made a formal com¬ 
 munication from the Cabinet to the Corps Legis- 
 latif, recapitulating all that had occurred, dwelling 
 upon the King’s refusal to receive M. Benedetti as an 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 T S 4 
 
 insult to France ; mentioning also that Baron Wer- 
 ther was about to leave, and that Prussia was arming. 
 
 “Under the circumstances,” he said, “we should 
 have forgotten our dignity and our prudence as well 
 had we not made preparations. We have prepared 
 to maintain the Avar which is offered to us, leaving to 
 each that portion of the responsibility which devolves 
 upon him. Since yesterday we have called out the re¬ 
 serve, and Ave shall take the necessary meas’ res to guard 
 the interest, and the security, and the honour of France.” 
 Upon this there Avas enthusiastic cheering from the 
 majority of the .Assembly ; which, however, to their 
 honour be it said, Avas not shared in by Jules Favre, 
 Gambetta, Keratry, and the other members of the 
 extreme Left; nor by M. Thiers. The last-mentioned 
 spoke strongly against the Avar. M. Arago said that 
 the Ministers had made up their minds for AA'ar a tout 
 prix; and when the supplies were voted for carrying 
 it on, as many as nine members had the courage to 
 vote against the measure. This little band of patriotic 
 and honest men consisted of MM. Arago, Desseaux, 
 Esquiros, Jules Favre, Gagneur, Garnier-Pages, Glais- 
 Bizoin, Ordinaire, and Pelletan. 
 
 On the 16th there was a reception of the Senate 
 at St. Cloud, in which M. Rouher Avas the spokesman. 
 He said,— 
 
 “The guarantees demanded from Prussia have 
 been refused, and the dignity of France has been 
 disregarded. Your Majesty draws the sword, and 
 the country is Avith you, quivering Avith indignation 
 
PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 155 
 
 at the excesses which an ambition, over-excited 
 by one day’s good fortune, was sure, sooner or later, 
 to produce. Your Majesty was able to wait, but has 
 occupied the last four years in perfecting the arma¬ 
 ment and the organization of the army.” [Just the 
 thing which the Emperor had not done !] M. Rouher 
 added that “ he ventured to hope that the Empress 
 would again act as Regent, and that the Emperor 
 would himself take the command of the army.” 
 
 The Emperor replied— 
 
 “ Messieurs les Senateurs, — I was gratified to 
 learn with what great enthusiasm the Senate re¬ 
 ceived the declaration which the Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs had been instructed to make. When¬ 
 ever great interests and the honour of France are 
 : at stake, I am sure to receive energetic support 
 from the Senate.” [Of course he was : they were 
 all nominated by him, and handsomely paid for their 
 servility !] “ We are beginning a serious struggle, and 
 France needs the co-operation of all her children. I 
 ' am very glad that the first patriotic utterance has 
 come from the Senate. It will be loudly re-echoed 
 throughout the country.” 
 
 On the 22nd of July 'the Emperor received the 
 members of the Corps Legislatif, and in reply to the 
 speech of M. Schneider, the President, said :—“ I ex¬ 
 perience the most lively satisfaction, on the eve of 
 my departure for the army, at being able to thank 
 you for the patriotic support which you have afforded 
 my Government. A war is right when it is waged 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 156 
 
 with the assent of the country and the approval of 1 11 
 the country’s representatives. You are right to re- ® 
 member the words of Montesquieu, that ‘ the real 
 author of war is not he by whom it is declared, but d' 
 he who renders it necessary.’ We have done all in * 
 our power to avert the war ; and I may say that it is' 
 the whole nation that has, by its irresistible impulse, i 
 dictated our decisions. I confide to you the Empress, 1 
 who will call you around her if circumstances should 
 require it. She will know how to fulfil courageously : 
 the duty which her position imposes upon her. I 
 take my son with me. In the midst of the army he 
 will learn to serve his country. Resolved energeti¬ 
 cally to pursue the great mission which has been 
 entrusted to me, I have faith in the success of our 
 arms, for I know that behind me France has risen 
 to her feet, and that God protects her.” 
 
 Meanwhile the King of Prussia, on the 19th, con¬ 
 vened the North German Parliament, and addressed 
 its members in a spirit-stirring harangue, in which the 
 inspiration of Bismarck was clearly visible. He 
 concluded with the following words :—“ The more 
 the Confederate Governments are conscious of having j 
 done all that our honour and dignity permitted to 
 us to preserve to Europe the blessings of peace, and 
 the more indubitable it shall appear to all minds 
 that the sword has been thrust into our hands, so 
 much the more confidently shall we rely upon the 
 united will of the German Governments, both of the 
 North and South, and upon your love of country; 
 
PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 157 
 
 and so much the more confidently shall we fight for 
 our right against the violence of foreign invaders. 
 Inasmuch as we pursue no other object than the 
 durable establishment of peace in Europe, God 
 will be with us as he was with our forefathers.” 
 
 The King’s speech was cheered to the echo. While 
 delivering it he was frequently interrupted with 
 bravoes, especially when he alluded to the Unity 
 of Germany—the co-operation of Bavaria being clearly 
 understood. At its conclusion the Saxon Minister 
 Baron von Friessen called for cheers for the head of 
 the North German Confederation, which were heartily 
 given again and again by the whole Assembly. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day the North German 
 Parliament was opened by Dr. Simson for the de¬ 
 spatch of business. Count Bismarck and nearly all 
 the Federal Council were present, and there was a 
 large attendance of Deputies. Count Bismarck in¬ 
 formed the House that the French Charge d’Affaires 
 had that day delivered to him a formal declaration of 
 war by France against Prussia. Thereupon the whole 
 House rose and greeted the announcement with tre¬ 
 mendous cheering, the persons in the gallery joining in 
 the loud hurrahs. A speech was evidently expected 
 from Bismarck ; but he only remarked, “ After what 
 we have heard from the King in the speech from the 
 throne, I have nothing more to say.” 
 
 A h ighly loyal and patriotic address from the Par¬ 
 liament, in answer to the King’s speech, was then read, 
 knd adopted unanimously. At the same sitting Count 
 
WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 153 
 
 Bismarck laid on the table the papers relating to the ■ 
 war, and said that from the French Government he . 
 possessed only one document—namely, the declara¬ 
 tion of war of yesterday’s date. He produced the 1 
 telegram published in the newspapers, which had been 
 described as a diplomatic note by the French Govern - 1 
 ment ; the statement of the facts of the dispute 
 recently published by the Prussian Official Gazette; 
 and a report, dated the 12th inst, from Baron 
 Werther, detailing a conversation with the Duke de 
 Gramont. Count Bismarck said he did not lay this 
 despatch before the King, as the demand therein made 
 for a letter of apology from his Majesty appeared to 
 him ridiculous. The other documents presented were 
 England’s offer of mediation and its rejection by 
 Prussia, and the Prussian circular to the German 
 Governments relative to the outbreak of the war. On ! 
 the 21st the Parliament voted the Treasury Bills 
 placed before them for carrying on the war. Count 
 Bismarck thanked them in the name of the King, and 
 after a short speech from Dr. Simson, the Session ter¬ 
 minated amid loud and prolonged cheering. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF WAR, ETC. 
 
 HUS was the final step taken by Napoleon 
 and his Cabinet of sending the actual decla¬ 
 ration of war to Berlin. When made public 
 the Press received it with as much enthusiasm as the 
 Parliament. The following eloquent passage from 
 the Kolnische Zcitung (Cologne Gazette) is a specimen 
 of the spirit-stirring appeals made to the several 
 members of the great German nation when the war 
 was about to commence : — 
 
 “ Up, ye dwellers on the amber-coasts, ye brave 
 East Prussians, who opened the ranks of freedom 
 in 1813! Up, ye brave Suabians, ye who ere now 
 led the storming-flag of the Empire, and had the 
 front of the battle! Up, ye Silesians, ye who red¬ 
 dened the Katzbach with French blood! Up, ye 
 Hanoverians, ye who fought with honour upon the 
 Iberian Peninsula against the old despot, and now 
 show the new one how madly and abominably he 
 deceives himself when he believes that a single man 
 of you can be made a traitor to his flag when the 
 hereditary enemy is here! Break forth from your 
 mountains, ye old warrior Bavarians — from your 
 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 160 
 
 forests, ye Thuringians and Hessians ! Be an honour 
 to your fathers, ye true German Saxons, who threw 
 off the degrading scrfship of France and joyfully 
 went over to the German standard ! Up, all who are j 
 German ! To the Rhine, to the Rhine, to the sacred j 
 Rhine, with the wings of the storm, if so it can be. 
 We do here what we can. Rich and poor, old and 
 young, are rushing to the flag. The upper classes of 
 the colleges should be freed ; for even our youth, fired 
 with indignation, will redeem the honour of the King 
 and of the German name. Oh, Ernst Moritz Arndt, 
 had thine eyes seen this, thou wouldst have known 
 that thou didst not live in vain ! It is a crusade ; it is 
 a sacred war ; and if ever a war w r ere occasioned by 
 cunning and lies, it is this.” 
 
 Nor, on the other side, were the French papers 
 wanting in exertions to rouse the martial spirit in 
 France. The war—there is no denying it—became 
 at once popular. Among the people generally those 
 who opposed it were in pretty nearly the same 
 minority as the members of the extreme Left in the 
 Corps Legislatif. The Emperor himself was out- | 
 stripped by the nation in its eagerness to commence 
 hostilities. A writer in the Daily 7 'clcgraph , under the 
 signature of “ An Englishman,” gives the following 
 record of an interview that he had with him soon 
 after the declaration of war :— 
 
 “ I must begin by remarking that I have known the j 
 Emperor for many years, and have seldom seen him 
 looking better. When last I spoke with him, five 
 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 161 
 
 months ago, he looked careworn and haggard, with a 
 complexion more than usually sallow and ash-coloured, 
 yesterdayhis face looked fuller, his eye bright,his cheek 
 healthy. I wish, in addition, to premise that, after he 
 had spoken, I inquired whether we were at liberty to 
 repeat his words a haute voix. He answered—‘ I 
 wish nothing better than that I should be represented 
 to the people of England as holding these views.’ 
 The Emperor, after speaking with his usual quiet 
 kindliness upon some private matters, turned suddenly 
 to the political situation of P'rance and Europe. He 
 said—‘ One fortnight before the utterance of the Due 
 de Gramont in the Corps Legislatif—which utterance 
 has, as it seems to me, been so unjustly reflected upon 
 by the English press—I had no notice that war was at 
 hand, nor am I, even at this moment, by any means 
 prepared for it. I trusted that when the Due de 
 Gramont had set me straight with France by speaking 
 manfully in public as to the Hohenzollern candi¬ 
 dature, I should be able so to manipulate and handle 
 the controversy as to make peace certain. But France 
 has slipped out of my hand. I cannot rule unless I 
 lead. This is the most national war that in my time 
 France has undertaken, and I have no chance but to 
 advance at the head of a public opinion which I can 
 neither stem nor check. In addition, M. de Bismarck, 
 although a very clever man, wants too much and 
 wants it too quickly. After the victory of Prussia, in 
 1866, I reminded him that but for the friendly and 
 self-denying neutrality of France he could never have 
 
162 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 achieved such marvels. I pointed out to him that I 
 had never moved a French soldier near to the Rhine 
 frontier during the continuation of the German war. 
 
 I quoted to him from his own letter in which he 
 thanked me for my abstinence, and said that he had 
 left neither a Prussian gun nor a Prussian soldier upon 
 the Rhine, but had thrown Prussia’s whole and un¬ 
 divided strength against Austria and her Allies. I 
 told him that, as some slight return for my friendly 
 inactivity, I thought that he might surrender Luxem¬ 
 burg, and one or two other little towns which gravely , 
 menace our frontier, to France. I added that in this 
 way he would, by a trifling sacrifice, easily forgotten by ; 
 Prussia in view of her enormous successes and acqui- ! 
 sitions, pacify the French nation, whose jealousies it 
 was so easy to arouse, so difficult to disarm. 
 
 “ ‘ M. de Bismarck replied to me, after some delay— 
 
 “ Not one foot of territory, whether Prussian or neutral, 
 can I resign. But perhaps, if I were to make some 
 further acquisitions, I could make some concessions. 
 How, for instance, if I were to take Holland ? What 
 would France want as a sop for Holland ?” 
 
 “ ‘ I replied,’ said the Emperor, ‘ that if he attempted 
 to take Holland, it meant war with France ; and there 
 the conversation, in which M. de Bismarck and M. de 
 Benedetti were the interlocutors, came to an end.’ 
 
 “ T have repeated this conversation, as nearly as 
 possible, in the Emperor’s words.” 
 
 As a pendant to this we give the substance of a 
 conversation which, according to the Observer, took 
 
THE DECLARATION OF IVAR. 163 
 
 place between Count Bismarck and an English gen¬ 
 tleman just before the declaration of war :— 
 
 “ On Sunday last, Count Bismarck, in speaking on 
 the subject of the war to a gentleman about to proceed 
 to England, stated that he could wish the English 
 people might understand the real objects the French 
 Government had in view. ‘ Either,’ he said, ‘ the 
 war is carried on with the view of annexing portions 
 of German territory, or it is, as France now states, 
 carried on for an idea. In the former event, France 
 must mean to take the left bank of the Rhine ; and 
 in that case, as a glance at the map will show, the 
 annexation of Belgium follows as a matter of necessity. 
 In the latter case, France is reviving the policy of the 
 worst period of Louis XIV. and Napoleon I., and is 
 simply and solely making war on Prussia because she 
 cannot tolerate the notion that a neighbouring Power 
 should be independent of her will and should develope 
 her resources in peace.’ Such is the substance of the 
 Prussian Premier’s statement, though we do not pro¬ 
 fess to give the exact words. Whatever opinion may 
 be entertained as to the correctness of the above view 
 of the situation, it is well that it should be known as 
 an authentic utterance of Count Bismarck.” 
 
 The exact text of the declaration of war made by 
 France against Prussia—the greatest war perhaps 
 ever waged between two nations—w r as as follows :— 
 
 “The undersigned, Charge d’Affaires of France, 
 has the honour, in conformity with the orders he has 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 received from his Government, to bring the following 
 communication to the knowledge of His Excellency 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of His Majesty the 
 King of Prussia. The Government of His Majesty 
 the Emperor of the French being unable to view the 
 project of placing a Prussian Prince on the Spanish 
 throne otherwise than as an action directed against 
 the security of the territories of France, found itself 
 obliged to demand of His Majesty the King of 
 Prussia the assurance that such a combination could 
 not be realized with his consent. His Majesty having , 
 refused to give any such guarantee, and having, on 
 the contrary, declared to the Ambassador of His 
 Majesty the Emperor of the French that he intends 
 to reserve to himself for that eventuality, as for any 
 other, the right to be guided by circumstances, the 
 Imperial Government has been forced to see in this 
 declaration of the King an arriere-pensee, menacing in 
 like manner to P'rance and the European equilibrium. 
 This declaration has been rendered worse by the 
 communication made to the different Cabinets of the 
 King’s refusal to receive the Ambassador of the 
 Emperor, and to enter into further explanation with 
 him. In consequence hereof, the French Government 
 has thought it its duty to take immediate steps for the 
 defence of its honour and its injured interests, and has 
 resolved to adopt, for this object, all measures which 
 the situation in which it has been placed renders 
 necessary. It considers itself from this moment in a 
 state of war against Prussia, 
 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 i6 5 
 
 “ The undersigned has the honour to be your Ex¬ 
 cellency’s, &c. &c., “ Le Sourd. 
 
 “Berlin, July 19, 1370.” 
 
 It is well always to bear in mind the simple text of 
 such a declaration of war between two of the greatest 
 nations in the world, which will be quoted in the 
 pages of history to the end of time. The provocation 
 alleged in it as justifying the French Government in 
 lighting up the flame of war in Europe, we venture to 
 say, was of the flimsiest kind ever put on record, and 
 will be so regarded by posterity, as it was by all 
 thinking persons in Europe and America, of whatever 
 shade of politics, Conservative, Liberal, or Demo¬ 
 cratic. 
 
 There were still other documents issued before hos¬ 
 tilities actually commenced. As, for instance,the circular 
 addressed by the Duke dc Gramont to the representa¬ 
 tives of the Empire at the different Courts, dated July 
 21; the proclamation of the Emperor himself to the 
 French nation on the 23rd J uly ; the circular addressed 
 by Bismarck, as Chancellor of the North German Con¬ 
 federation, to its diplomatic agents, dated 19th July ; 
 and the proclamation of the King to his people, dated 
 21st July. 
 
 We give Count Bismarck’s circular in its full text 
 as a specimen of his trenchant style on a great occa¬ 
 sion :— 
 
 " The Imperial Government of France lias sent us, 
 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR , 
 
 166 
 
 through its Charge d’Afifaires, the enclosed document, 
 which contains the declaration of war. It is the first 
 official document we have received from the French 
 Government relative to the grave affair which has oc- j 
 cupied the world for a fortnight. In that document the j 
 French Government gives the following reasons for the 
 war it makes against us. Firstly, the refusal by the King 
 to pledge himself that the advent of a Prussian Prince 
 to the throne of Spain should not take place with his 
 consent ; secondly, the alleged notifications to the 
 Cabinets of the refusal by the King to receive the 
 Ambassador of France, and to continue negotiations 
 with him. We summarily answer to those allegations 
 that His Majesty the King, having full respect for the 
 independence and the autonomy of the Spanish nation, 
 and for the freedom of the resolutions of the Prince of 
 the Hohenzollern House, never thought of putting 
 Prince Leopold on that throne. 
 
 “ The demands to which His Majesty has been sub¬ 
 jected to obtain assurances for the future were both 
 unjustifiable and arrogant. To have a suspicion that 
 he entertained an afterthought of an intention hostile 
 to France was but a gratuitous invention. The alleged ; 
 notification to the Cabinets never took place, and the 
 King never refused to treat with the French Am¬ 
 bassador. On the contrary, the French Ambassador 
 never expressed the wish to enter into official negotia- | 
 tions with the King’s Government. It was personally, 
 and in private conversation with the King at Ems, 
 that he spoke about the questions referred to at home 
 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 167 
 
 and abroad. The German nation has recognised that 
 the efforts of the French Government had but one 
 aim—a humiliation, which the nation cannot bear. 
 It has recognised that war, which Prussia could never 
 have thought of, was imposed by France. The whole 
 civilised world will admit that the motives put forward 
 by France do not exist ; that they are merely pretexts 
 I invented for the occasion. The German Confedera¬ 
 tion and the Allied Governments of Southern Germany 
 protest against an aggression which never was called 
 for, and they will repulse it with all the means that 
 God has given to them. 
 
 “ You will leave a copy of the present despatch with 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Government to 
 which you are accredited. 
 
 (Signed) “VON BISMARCK.” 
 
a 
 a 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FORCES OF TIIE COMBATANTS—HOSTILITIES COMMENCED. 
 
 HE die was now cast. Both Governments, as 
 usual on such occasions, appealed to the God 
 of Battles, and at the same time set them¬ 
 selves to look after their gros bataillons. 
 
 The total number of the French army, when on a 
 war footing, according to its most recent organization, 
 is something over 700,000 men of all arms, not in¬ 
 cluding the Gardes Mobiles. Of these 700,000, how¬ 
 ever, scarcely one-half, or little more than 300,000 
 could be mustered at the commencement of the war. 
 Some say not more than 250,000. The regiments, 
 however, it was supposed, would be soon filled, and a 
 vast number of the Gardes Mobiles were being manu¬ 
 factured into soldiers. The regular army were for the 
 most part armed with the chassepot rifle ; the artillery 
 was in a tolerably efficient state, and they had a new 
 and much-dreaded instrument of war, the mitrailleuse, 
 calculated to mow down whole columns of the enemy 
 at a considerable distance. The cavalry were in due 
 proportion to the infantry. 
 
 To oppose these the North German Confederation 
 had an army of about 420,000 men, in thirteen corps 
 
FORCES OF THE COMBATANTS. 
 
 169 
 
 darmee —the Prussian Royal Guards being reckoned as 
 a corps—which could be all mustered in a fortnight ; 
 added to which there were about 80,000 men furnished 
 by the South German States, and placed under the 
 command of Prussia. These together constituted an 
 army of just half a million. Then there was an army 
 of reserve, to fill up vacancies, amounting to 220,000 
 men, and the army of the Landwehr, the best troops 
 of all, numbering 200,000 soldiers. Altogether, nearly 
 a million of men of all arms, with the best cavalry and 
 the best artillery in the world. It is an admirable 
 feature in the Prussian army that each army corps is 
 complete in every arm, and capable of rapid expan¬ 
 sion in time of war. The whole North German Con¬ 
 federation is under the same system of military service 
 as Prussia, and each army corps corresponds to a 
 certain portion of the territory of the North German 
 Confederation, within which it is kept constantly 
 quartered, and from which it draws its recruits. The 
 terms of service are, in the regular active army, three 
 years between the age of twenty and twenty-three ; 
 in the regular reserve army, four years between 
 twenty-three and twenty-seven ; in the Landwehr, 
 five years between twenty-seven and thirty-two. Be¬ 
 hind all this is the Landsturm, a further reserve force, 
 for home defence; so that the means for recruiting 
 the army are almost illimitable. 
 
 Such was the relative military strength of the two 
 nations when the declaration of war was made, and 
 Bismarck must have felt a reasonable confidence as 
 
1 7 o FORCES OF THE COMBATANTS. 
 
 to the success of his countrymen in the coming I 
 struggle. Fie had at least half a million of soldiers i 
 fully equipped, and ready in a few days, with all the 
 appliances of war, breech-loading artillery, needle- 
 guns, and cavalry the best instructed in the world for 
 outpost and reconnaissance service ; moreover, Von 
 Moltke and Von Roon to direct operations ; and Gene- i 
 rals like Prince Frederick Charles, the Crown Prince, j 
 and Steinmetz—all three bearing about with them the 
 prestige of previous victories—prepared to fulfil the in¬ 
 structions of the two great military leaders. These were 
 to meet an army of little more than half their 
 number. 
 
 The distribution of the military forces of the two 
 nations was as follows :— 
 
 About the 20th July the French army was divided 
 into eight corps d’armde, the first of which, under 
 MacMahon,was at Strasburg, or in the neighbourhood; 
 the seventh, under General Felix Douay, was south of 
 Strasburg as far as Belfort; the fifth, under De Failly, 
 was at Bitsche ; the second, under Frossard, was at 
 St. Avoid ; the fourth, under L’Admirault, was at 
 Thionville; the third, under Bazaine, was at Metz ; 
 and the sixth, under Canrobert, at or near Chalons. ; 
 The Imperial Guard, likewise constituting a corps 
 d'armte, had not yet left Paris, but its destination was 
 Metz. The Commander-in-Chief was the Emperor 
 Napoleon himself, who waited only for the completion 
 of certain necessary arrangements to join the army at 
 Metz, where Lebceuf, the Minister at War, and second 
 
FORCES OF THE COMBATANTS. 171 
 
 to the Emperor in command, directed everything until 
 the Emperor’s arrival. 
 
 The Prussian forces consisted of thirteen corps 
 d’armce, which were combined into three armies. Of 
 these, the first, or the right, under Steinmetz, consisted 
 of the seventh and eighth corps, which were moved 
 up the Moselle, and occupied the valley of the Saar, 
 with the plf ces in it—viz., Saarburg, Merzig, Saar- 
 louis, Saarbriick, &c.—as soon as the French appeared 
 on the frontier. The second, or centre army, was under 
 the command of Prince Frederick Charles, and con¬ 
 sisted of the Prussian Guards, of the first, second, 
 third, fourth, ninth, and tenth corps, and of the twelfth, 
 or Royal Saxon Corps. These assembled at Mayence, 
 Frankfort, and Darmstadt, and crossed the Rhine at 
 Mayence. The third army, or left, was under the 
 Crown Prince, and consisted of three corps—viz., the 
 fifth, sixth, and eleventh ; of the first and second 
 Bavarians, and a mixed corps of Wiirtembergers and 
 Badeners. These forces, with a few exceptions, were 
 all mustered and in the several positions allotted to 
 them within a fortnight from the declaration of war. 
 
 On the part of the French there was considerable 
 delay. The Emperor chafed under it, and again and 
 again urged on the preparations. But Leboeuf and 
 his staff were not equal to the exertions required, 
 and, indeed, too much had now to be done to repair 
 the want of previous organisation. At length the 
 Emperor left Paris, accompanied by the Prince Im¬ 
 perial, and appeared among his troops at Metz on the 
 
172 
 
 HOSTILITIES COMMENCED. 
 
 28th July. He issued the following proclamation to 
 his army :— 
 
 “ Soldiers ! I am about to put myself at your head ® 
 to defend the honour and the soil of the country. You 
 go to fight against one of the best armies in Europe ; ! il 
 but others who were quite as worthy were unable to 5 
 resist your bravery. It will be the same again at the a 
 present time. The war, which is now ''ommencing, 1 
 will be a long and severe one, since it will have for 
 the scene of its operations places full of fortresses and 1 
 obstacles ; but nothing is too difficult for the soldiers 
 of Africa, the Crimea, China, Italy, and Mexico. You 
 will again prove what the French army, animated by 
 the sentiment of duty, maintained by discipline, and I 
 inspired by love of country, can perform. Whatever 
 road we may take beyond our frontiers, we shall find 
 glorious traces of our fathers. We will prove ourselves 
 worthy of them. The whole of France follows you 
 with her ardent wishes, and the eyes of the world are 
 upon you. The fate of liberty and civilization depends 
 upon our success. Soldiers ! Fet each one do his 
 duty, and the God of armies will be with us !” 
 
 The allusions in this address to the fortresses and 
 obstacles beyond the frontier were peculiarly unfor¬ 
 tunate, although the Emperor was prescient enough 
 as to the length and severity of the war he was now 
 about to undertake. 
 
 But the French people were calling out for action. 
 They remembered that with the old Napoleon to 
 appear upon the scene was to strike, Consequently, 
 
HOSTILITIES COMMENCED. 
 
 x 73 
 
 by way of beginning the campaign, on the 2nd of 
 August, two divisions of the second corps d'anncc, 
 under General Frossard, were moved to the heights 
 above Saarbriick, which was occupied by a small de¬ 
 tachment of Prussians. The French had twenty-three 
 guns, and several mitrailleuses, with which they 
 attacked the enemy, and after a spirited resistance 
 the Prussians withdrew. The Emperor and the Prince 
 Imperial arrived on the scene at 11 o’clock A.M., 
 and witnessed the action, at the conclusion of which 
 the Emperor addressed to his wife the well-known 
 telegram, in which he spoke of Louis receiving his 
 “ baptism of fire,” and of the boy’s coolness under it. 
 After the action the Emperor and the Prince returned 
 to Metz. The Prussians, according to the French 
 accounts, suffered severely in this affair, but the 
 Prussians themselves acknowledged to a loss of only 
 seventy men and two officers. 
 
 Of course, all Paris was frantic with joy at this 
 glorious success of the French arms, and the cries of 
 “ a Berlin ! a Berlin !” were more frequent than ever. 
 But it was soon found to be a mistake, and that 
 the great victory of Saarbriick was a mere piece of 
 theatrical warfare, got up for effect. It was followed 
 by a substantial victory gained by the Crown Prince, 
 on the 4th August, over a portion ofMacMahon’s army, 
 commanded by General Abel^Douay, at Weissenburg. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 BATTLES OF WEISSENBURG, WORTH, AND FORBACII. 
 
 m 
 
 HE French troops had not improved the slight 
 advantage they gained at Saarbriick, and the 
 several army corps were still so separated 
 from each other that they could not act in conjunction. 
 There was a deplorable ignorance as to the where¬ 
 abouts of the German armies, especially that of the 
 Crown Prince. MacMahon was in the neighbourhood 
 of Strasburg, from which he was ordered to advance 
 northward and join De Failly. He had been rein¬ 
 forced by one division from the corps under Felix 
 Douay, and was to march along the Rhine, and then 
 turning to the left through the Vosges, advance on 
 Bitsche. To assist in accomplishing this he sent 
 forward a division under General Abel Douay to 
 Weissenburg, while the other forces were to march 
 through the hills. Douay’s division had reached 
 Weissenburg, and on the morning of the 4th, while 
 the troops were at breakfast, unconscious of the near 
 presence of a powerful army, they were attacked by 
 the fifth and eleventh Prussian army corps, and the 
 second army corps of Bavarians, commanded by the 
 Crown Prince. The French resisted gallantly, but 
 
BATTLES OF WEISSENBURG AND WORTH. 175 
 
 their General was killed early in the engagement. 
 Weissenburg was stormed and the Geisberg behind it. 
 Of the French killed and wounded there is no reliable 
 return. Five hundred unwounded soldiers, however, 
 were taken prisoners, including several Turcos; and one 
 piece of artillery, two mitrailleuses, and the camp of 
 the enemy fell into the hands of the conquerors. Al¬ 
 though the Prince’s army numbered more than 100,000 
 men, the troops said to have been actually engaged 
 were 36,000 infantry and 3500 cavalry. 
 
 In this engagement the French had been taken 
 completely by surprise. The Crown Prince, they 
 believed, was still in the Black Forest when he fell 
 upon them at Weissenburg like an avalanche, and 
 swept them completely away. 
 
 But we are not writing a history of the war, and so 
 must pass on as briefly as possible to mention what 
 next occurred. 
 
 The fugitives from Weissenburg hastened with all 
 their speed to rejoin MacMahon’s army. MacMahon 
 drew together his forces, amounting to between 50,000 
 and 60,000 men, and established himself in a strong 
 position near Worth, between Reichshofen and Weis¬ 
 senburg. The Crown Prince, after his victory, pushed 
 forward, and on the evening of the 5th was close to 
 MacMahon. The next day he attacked him with an 
 army of 130,000 men. The combat was too unequal. 
 MacMahon’s forces fought bravely, and it was only 
 late in the afternoon, when they were outflanked 
 by the Germans, that they gave way and fled. The 
 
176 
 
 BATTLE OF FORBACH. 
 
 rout, however, was complete. There were 10,000 
 killed and wounded of the French army, and the 
 same number taken prisoners, while thirty pieces of 11 
 artillery, six mitrailleuses, and two eagles were cap- j" 
 tured. A division from De Failly’s corps is said to " 
 have joined MacMahon during .the battle. 
 
 Nor was this the only disaster which befell the * 
 French on that day, the memorable 6th of August. 1 
 Frossard’s corps was attacked at Forbach by the 1 
 army under General Steinmetz, and defeated almost 1 
 as completely as MacMahon’s at Worth. 
 
 It appears that after the defeat ©f the French at 
 Weissenburg the Emperor, fearful of what might hap¬ 
 pen, had ordered General Frossard to withdraw the 
 troops he had on the heights overlooking Saarbriick. 
 This was done on the 5th. On the morning of the 6th 
 a leading division of the first Prussian army arrived at 
 Saarbriick, and were surprised to find the heights 
 deserted by the French, and the latter completely out 
 of sight. The Prussians, however, then mounted the ; 
 heights, from which they discovered the enemy not 
 far off, at and about Forbach, where there was another 
 hill, the Spicheren, steeper than the one they had i 
 left. 
 
 General Goeben, the Commander of the corps, 
 knowing that other divisions were coming up, and 
 that divisions from Prince Frederick Charles’s army 
 would likewise soon be on the scene, thought the 
 opportunity favourable for a battle. Not only were 
 the heights occupied by the Prussian soldiers, but 
 
BATTLE OF FOR BACH. 
 
 177 
 
 the woods swarmed with them. From these the 
 French sought to dislodge them, but in vain. The 
 action was for some time with artillery. The Prussians 
 were reinforced continually by fresh arrivals of troops, 
 while the French got no fresh supplies. At length 
 the Prussians left their own heights, crossed the plain, 
 and charged up the hill on which the French were 
 posted. This was terrible work ; they were mown 
 down by the chassepot as they advanced, but steadily 
 they marched on, and on gaining the ridge the French 
 turned and fled. The French were reckoned to 
 amount to about 30,000 in number, of whom they 
 lost from 10,000 to 12,000 in killed, wounded, and 
 j prisoners. The engagement was not concluded before 
 dark, otherwise the losses of the French might have 
 been greater. 
 
 MacMahon’s army, or what remained of it, after 
 Worth, retreated in the utmost confusion, thousands 
 of them throwing away their arms to expedite their 
 flight. As many as 3000 reached Strasburg, and 
 entered that town. The Marshal himself got as far 
 as Saverne, from which place he addressed a despatch 
 to the Emperor, which, however, was a long time in 
 reaching him. Indeed, it was not known at Metz for 
 some days what had become of MacMahon. The 
 Emperor, in telegraphing to the Empress, told the 
 bare truth,—“ MacMahon has lost a battle,” adding, 
 tout pcut sc re'tablir, “ all may be recovered”—an 
 ill-omened phrase, since it showed that he was him¬ 
 self doubtful that such would be the case, 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 MACMAHON'S RETREAT, 
 
 The remains of Frossard’s corps, after Forbach, 
 hurried in the same confused manner as MacMahon’s, [ 
 panic-stricken, towards Metz. 
 
 MacMahon, pursued by the Crown Prince, had to i 
 leave Saverne the same evening that he entered it. 
 Saverne was occupied by the Prussians, and the Mar- , 
 shal continued his retreat, in a deplorable plight, 
 without money, arms, or provisions, until he reached 
 Nancy. On the 13th he arrived at Chalons, with 
 barely 15,000 men. 
 
 It was a miserable commencement of the campaign 
 for the French. The results of the three battles con¬ 
 vinced the world of the thorough incompetence of the 
 French Commanders. Thebravestof them,MacMahon, 
 for whom one feels no small amount of pity, showed 
 that he was utterly unequal to the trust reposed in 
 him. De Failly showed something like cowardice ; 
 for he abandoned the frontier in haste and withdrew 
 towards Paris, stopping, however, at Chalons. General 
 Felix Douay’s corps also retired upon Chalons from 
 Belfort. Their united forces, joined to MacMahon’s 
 15,000, amounted to about 80,000 men. 
 
 One great feature of encouragement for the Prussians 
 in these first battles, and of proportional discourage¬ 
 ment to the French, was the bravery with which the 
 South German troops fought, side by side with the 
 Prussians, under the Crown Prince. There was no 
 jealousy, no bickering, nor animosity. 
 
 “ The two that were at strife had blended, 
 
 And all old troubles now were ended.” 
 
FEELING OF SOUTH GERMANS, 
 
 179 
 
 Napoleon had foolishly believed, or thought he 
 believed, that Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden would 
 abandon their engagements with the North German 
 Confederation so soon as war should be declared. 
 Indeed, in one of his proclamations he avowed that 
 ; one of his objects was to deliver them from the 
 tyranny of Prussia. But Bismarck knew that he held 
 them well in hand, and that when German soil was 
 threatened their sympathies would be entirely with 
 the great Fatherland. Napoleon was equally mistaken 
 in supposing that Austria would create a diversion in 
 his favour; and that Sweden and Denmark would 
 side with the French cause. None of all this, however, 
 took place. The sympathies of the Danish people 
 were no doubt with the French ; but their Government 
 dared not encourage them, lest a worse thing might 
 befall them than even the loss of Schleswig-Holstein. 
 Moreover, that Government must have recollected 
 how in 1864, when Earl Russell proposed a joint 
 intervention of France and England in favour of 
 Denmark to the Emperor Napoleon, the latter coolly 
 declined all obligations in the matter. 
 
 N 2 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BISMARCK AGAIN ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 UT where was Bismarck during all these pro¬ 
 ceedings, and how was he occupying himself ? 
 He was at Berlin with the King, Von Moltke, 
 and Von Roon, completing all the arrangements for 
 the campaign, until the 31st July. On that day he 
 left the capital in company with his Sovereign, the 
 two Generals just named, Prince Carl, and a number 
 of other Generals, for Mayence, which they reached by 
 train on the 2nd of August. Before leaving Berlin, it 
 is said that Bismarck was asked, whether, in the event 
 of the war proving successful for Prussia, he would 
 insist' upon the abdication of the Emperor; to which 
 he replied, “ No ; Germany can only fight for German 
 objects, not for French objects.” 
 
 On the loth of August, Bismarck, with the King 
 and his military advisers, left Saarbriick and entered 
 on the French territory. In doing so a proclamation 
 was issued in the King’s name, although doubtless 
 drawn up by Bismarck, in which the French people 
 were assured of the King’s protection, so long as they 
 abstained in a civil capacity from interfering with the 
 operations of his troops, The war was made against 
 
AT ST. AVOLD. 
 
 181 
 
 soldiers, not civilians : but the latter must abstain 
 from harassing the Prussian soldiers by any irregular 
 warfare; otherwise they would have to bear the 
 consequences. 
 
 On the 12th Bismarck was with the King at St. 
 Avoid, where we get the following glimpse of him 
 from a writer in Fraser s Magazine * 
 
 “ One morning I entered the cathedral at the time 
 of the Mass. There were a few women of the towns¬ 
 people present, and several German soldiers. The 
 priest went through his service with a scarcely audible 
 voice, and then the drear little assembly flitted away. 
 As they left, the King watched from the window with, 
 as I thought, a sympathetic expression. I had paused 
 a moment to look at the King, and on turning away I 
 saw a great columnar individual at the door of head¬ 
 quarters holding up his forefinger to me. I ap¬ 
 proached, and he came towards me. I had already 
 recognised him as Count Bismarck. He said, with a 
 pleasant and somewhat humorous tone, glancing at 
 my civilian’s dress, ‘ May I ask who you are and 
 where you are from ?’ I replied by presenting certain 
 documents. Having scrutinized these, he spoke in a 
 friendly way, offering me hospitalities. He was re¬ 
 markably frank in his conversation, and it was pretty 
 clear to me that he had not even at that date the 
 slightest misgiving as to the success of the German 
 arms. There was already something victorious in his 
 
 * “ A Month with the Belligerents Fraser's Magazine, 
 October, 1870. 
 
182 
 
 A T PONT-A-MOUSSON. 
 
 tread—in his quiet smile ; and a certain serene way in 
 which he puffed his cigar seemed to show that he was 
 forgetting the personal danger, which could not have 
 been slight, in enjoyment of the pleasant French climate. 
 I confess I was agreeably surprised in Count Bismarck. 
 There was no egotism in his manner, and there was an 
 occasional tone of genuine enthusiasm in his voice. 
 His outspokenness, and a certain straight look out of 
 the eye, were also attractive in a man one had been 
 accustomed to think of as a consummate diplomatist.” 
 
 Another day this writer met Bismarck at Pont-a- 
 Mousson, and observes— 
 
 “ The carelessness with which Bismarck walks the 
 streets excites remarks. He entered this city incog¬ 
 nito, and no sooner had he alighted than he began to 
 stroll about alone. I was in a shop in a by-street, 
 when the whisper was fairly hissed from door-to-door, 
 
 ‘ Here comes Bismarck !’ ‘ Bismarck, Bismarck !’ The 
 people tumbled over each other to their doors. Sure 
 enough it was the Count, serenely puffing his cigar. 
 Women trembled and men grew pale, as if the Count’s 
 custom of drinking blood instead of beer, and of 
 supping on at least two Gallic babies every night, 
 were no secret to them ; while the children seemed a 
 shade disappointed at not finding the one fiery eye in 
 the centre of his forehead.” 
 
 On the 13th the King was with the whole of the 
 first and second armies in the neighbourhood of Metz, 
 where Bazaine had concentrated his forces ; the King’s 
 headquarters being at Herny. 
 
BAZAINE'S ARMY. 
 
 183 
 
 Meanwhile, in consequence of the ill events that 
 had befallen the French arms, there was a change of 
 Ministry in Paris. The Ollivier Cabinet was dis¬ 
 solved, and its place supplied by one consisting almost 
 entirely of Imperialists, presided over by the Duke de 
 Palikao. 
 
 The Emperor himself had abandoned his office of 
 Commander-in-Chief, which was handed over to 
 Bazaine, who had been joined by a part of Canrobert’s 
 army. Thus he had under him an army of about 
 130,000 men. At Chalons, where there was a camp, 
 to which the Gardes Mobiles were sent for training, 
 everything was in confusion. There were not arms 
 enough for the troops to exercise with, and whole 
 companies of the Mobiles, or Moblots as they were 
 playfully called, were in a state of mutiny. They 
 demanded to be led back to Paris, as it was little 
 short of murder, they said, to be sent against the 
 experienced Prussian soldiers. When MacMahon 
 reached Chalons, however, on the 13th, he found fresh 
 forces there which had arrived from Paris, and others 
 were fast coming in. These, with his own 15,000, 
 made altogether a respectable army. 
 
 But the Crown Prince, with his victorious army, 
 which may be reckoned at about 130,000, or from that 
 to 150,000 men, was not far away, and an engagement 
 might shortly be expected. Without assistance from 
 Bazaine it would be madness to engage the Crown 
 Prince’s army whenever it might come up. Hence 
 the fruitless struggles that took place soon afterwards 
 
13 4 BATTLE OF GRAVELOTTE. 
 
 on the part of the French to effect a junction between a 
 the two armies. All Europe seemed to think that a t 
 decisive battle near Chalons was imminent, and ; 
 which, if the Prussians were again victorious, would in I 
 all probability end the war. But this was not to be. 
 
 It was rather the object of Moltke to keep Bazaine 
 at Metz, and fight and beat both Marshals separately. 
 
 On the 14th the Emperor and Prince Imperial left 
 Metz for Verdun, and on the same day a battle took 
 place before Metz between a large body of Bazaine’s 
 forces and the 1st and 7th corps of the Prussian army, 
 in which the Prussians were again victorious. This 
 has been called the engagement or battle of Cour- 
 celles. It was followed by the engagement of Vion- 
 ville on the 16th, and that of Gravelotte on the 18th 
 August, in each of which the Germans again con¬ 
 quered, although in each the French claimed to have | 
 the advantage. 
 
 The engagement at Gravelotte was the most im¬ 
 portant of the three mentioned. The King himself 
 was in it, as he had also been in the battle of Vion- 
 ville. The battle of Gravelotte lasted for nine hours, 
 and both sides fought bravely. The losses both to 
 the French and Germans were very great ; but the 
 result was to drive the forces of Bazaine completely 
 back to Metz, and to keep them there, utterly isolated 
 from the forces of MacMahon, as it were, in a net, 
 from which they afterwards on several occasions 
 fruitlessly endeavoured to make their escape. 
 
 During these events the Crown Prince, who was 
 
LEVY EN MASSE. 
 
 185 
 
 all along in communication with the central army, 
 remained comparatively inactive, a portion of his 
 army being ready, if necessary, to co-operate with 
 that of Prince Frederick Charles. 
 
 MacMahon now broke up his camp at Chalons, and 
 marched to Rheims. He had been reinforced by a 
 new corps, which raised his army to about 120,000 
 men. His proper course would have been to march 
 with these to Paris and there make a stand for the 
 defence of the capital; but the Emperor, who was 
 with him, dared not return to Paris, as a fugitive, 
 after so many disasters. He was a dead weight on 
 MacMahon, who now received orders from Palikao to 
 march northwards, and endeavour to unite with Ba- 
 zaine, by way of Sedan and Montmedy. 
 
 The King joined the Crown Prince at Bar-le-Duc 
 on the 25th, and MacMahon’s movements not being 
 clearly known, it was thought that both armies, after 
 leaving a sufficient force to keep Bazaine in check, 
 would march on to Paris. There was, consequently, 
 a panic in the capital, and a levy cn masse was or¬ 
 dered throughout the country. When it was ascer¬ 
 tained, however, in what direction MacMahon was 
 going, the Prince turned northwards ; while the 
 Crown Prince of Saxony, at the head of a fourth 
 army, which had been recently organised, was di¬ 
 rected to attack MacMahon at the passage of the 
 Meuse. MacMahon took seven days to reach Sedan. 
 All the time it was known that the Crown Prince was 
 in pursuit ; but the French newspapers, and some 
 
186 BATTLE OE CA RIG NAN. 
 
 English, were in ecstasies at the idea that MacMahon 
 had two days’ start, and would completely out¬ 
 manoeuvre the Germans. It was soon discovered 
 how vain was this confidence. 
 
 MacMahon was now close upon the Belgian fron¬ 
 tier. The Emperor was with him. He was pressed 
 upon by the Crown Prince of Saxony with an over¬ 
 whelming force, and on the 30th had to fight the 
 battle of Carignan, in which he lost in prisoners 
 alone as many as 7000 men, not reckoning the killed 
 and wounded. On the same day De Failly was de- 
 feated at Beaumont, and lost all his camp and bag- i 
 gage. Disaster attended MacMahon from the very , 
 commencement of the campaign. But his crowning j 
 defeat, which was to deprive him utterly of any claim j 
 to generalship—not, however, of his reputation for 
 personal bravery — was delayed some forty-eight 
 hours longer. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 BATTLE OF SEDAN. 
 
 HE Prussians left MacMahon almost undis¬ 
 turbed until the I st of September, by which 
 time the King of Prussia had come up with 
 an immense force, which threatened MacMahon’s 
 flank. He had thus an enemy in front and flank, 
 with overpowering numbers, the Belgian territory 
 behind, and only the bravery of his troops to depend 
 upon for a release from his awful dilemma. The 
 principal attacking force in the battle of the ist, 
 called the battle of Sedan, was the army of the 
 Crown Prince of Saxony, consisting of three corps 
 and of the Prussian Guards, which, coming from the 
 east side, was opposed to the main force of the 
 P'rench army. The Bavarians in the dawn of the 
 morning attacked Bazeilles, which was most vigo¬ 
 rously defended. Frequently they were driven back, 
 but by hard fighting they got possession of that un¬ 
 fortunate village. About 10.30, however, they were 
 in the utmost extremity, when the 4th corps came 
 to their assistance. The army of the Crown Prince 
 of Prussia was on the west, and had only the 5th 
 and nth corps engaged. The 6th army corps was 
 
DA TTLE OF SEDAN. 
 
 iSS 
 
 in reserve. The whole formed as it were a crescent I Pi 
 round Sedan, from which it was impossible for the I to 
 French to escape. The German artillery on that U 
 day was splendidly served ; but it was not to that o 
 alone, but to the personal bravery and endurance c 
 of the Bavarian, Saxon, and Prussian troops that 1 
 the splendid victory of Sedan was due. 
 
 MacMahon was wounded early in the action of i 
 Sedan, and the command then devolved on General 
 Wimpffen. About 4 o’clock Sedan was no longer 
 tenable, such a feu d'enfer was poured upon it 
 from the German artillery. At 5 o’clock there was a 
 sudden suspension of the firing along the whole line. I 
 This was occasioned by the appearance of a French | 
 colonel, bearing a flag of truce, with proposals for a 
 capitulation. The King and Moltke consulted, and 
 the messenger was informed that in so grave a matter 
 an officer of superior rank would have to be sent to 
 them. He was also told that unless he arrived within 
 an hour the guns should again open fire. At about 
 6.30 General Reilly came riding in, bearing a letter 
 to the King himself from the Emperor Napoleon. 
 
 “ As I cannot die at the head of my army, I lay my 
 sword at the feet of your Majesty.” Such were the 
 contents. 
 
 And now we get another glimpse of Bismarck 
 from the correspondent of Pall Mall Gazette , who 
 was present on the field of battle:— 
 
 “ On receipt of this most astounding letter there 
 was a brief consultation between the King, the Crown 
 
SURRENDER OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 1S9 
 
 Prince (who had come from his hill on the arrival of 
 the flag of truce), Bismarck, Moltke, and Von Roon. 
 After a few minutes’ conversation, the King sat down 
 on a rush-bottomed chair and wrote a note on another 
 chair, held on [as ?] a table by two aides-de-camp, to the 
 Emperor, begging him to come next morning to the 
 King of Prussia’s headquarters at Vendres. While 
 this note was writing, Count Bismarck came up to 
 Generals Sheridan, Forsyth, and myself, and heartily 
 shook our hands. ‘ Let me congratulate you most 
 sincerely, Count,’ said General Sheridan. 1 1 can only 
 compare the surrender of Napoleon to that of General 
 Lee at Appomatox Court House.’ When it was my 
 turn to grasp the Chancellor’s hand, I could not help 
 saying, after I had warmly congratulated him, ‘You 
 must feel proud, Count von Bismarck, of having so 
 largely contributed to the winning of to-day’s vic¬ 
 tory.’ ‘ Oh, no ! my dear sir,’ was the modest answer ; 
 * I am no strategist, and have nothing to do with the 
 winning of battles. What I am proud of is that the 
 Bavarians, the Saxons, and the Wiirtembergers have 
 not only been on our side, but have had so large a 
 share—the largest share — in the glory of the day. 
 That they are with us, and not against us, that is my 
 doing. I don’t think the French will say now that 
 the South Germans will not fight for our common 
 Fatherland.’ I asked his Excellency whether ‘ Louis’ 
 was taken with his papa, and was told that no one 
 knew. And I think that no one cared much where 
 that small youth was, When the King had written 
 
CAPITULATION OF 
 
 190 
 
 his letter, he himself handed it to General Reilly, 
 who stood bareheaded to receive it, the Italian 
 and Crimean medals glittering on his breast in the ,! 
 last rays of the setting sun. At 7.40 the General : 
 left for the beleaguered town, escorted by the Uhlans. 
 Then there was a general demand for something to 
 drink, and Count Bismarck’s aide-de-camp produced 
 two bottles of Belgian beer, one of which his Excel -1 
 lency shared with Generals Sheridan, Forsyth, and 
 myself, saying that he drank to the nearer union of 
 the three great Teuton peoples.” 
 
 The only terms granted were the unconditional sur¬ 
 render of the whole of MacMahon’s army as prisoners 
 of war, MacMahon and the Emperor being themselves 
 included. The capitulation did not take place the 
 same evening, and a fresh bombardment was threat¬ 
 ened at 10 o’clock on the following morning. The 
 Emperor then decided on seeing the King himself. 
 Count Bismarck was still in bed at his quarters in 
 Donchery, when he was roused up by an officer with 
 a message that the Emperor was coming to see him. 
 Bismarck rose hastily and went forward to meet him. 
 The Emperor was in a brougham, and was met by j 
 Bismarck just outside the town. As Napoleon alighted, 
 Bismarck took off his hat, and upon the Emperor 
 requesting him to be covered, he replied—“ Sire, I 
 receive your Majesty as I would my own Royal 
 Master.” For what further occurred we quote the 
 following from the Times correspondent:— 
 
 “ There happened to be near the place where the 
 
MACMAHON'S ARMY. 
 
 191 
 
 interview occurred, a few hundred yards outside the 
 squalid town of Donchery, the humble cottage of a 
 handloom weaver, of whom there are numbers about 
 Sedan. Count Bismarck led the way, and entered it. 
 The room was not inviting. The great Count walked 
 upstairs, and found that the apartment was filled by 
 the handloom and appliances of the weaver, so he 
 descended, and found the Emperor sitting on a stone 
 outside. Two chairs were brought out of the cottage. 
 The Emperor sat down on one outside the cottage, 
 Count Bismarck took the other and placed it on his 
 Majesty’s left-hand side. The officers in attendance 
 I on their fallen master lay down some distance away 
 upon a small plot of grass in front of the cottage. 
 
 “The conversation was a strange one, and as Count 
 Bismarck has repeated it freely, or the principal points 
 of it, no doubt it will soon be known and remain for 
 ever as historic. The great point to be gained was 
 peace, but, as far as his Imperial Majesty was con¬ 
 cerned, no assurance of it could be obtained by Count 
 Bismarck. The Emperor stated that he had no power. 
 He could not negotiate a peace ; he could not give 
 orders to the army, nor to Marshal Bazaine ; the 
 Empress was Regent of France, and on her and her 
 Ministers must devolve negotiations. So Count 
 Bismarck thereupon remarked that it was of no avail 
 to hold any further conversation on political matters 
 with His Majesty, and that it would be of no use to 
 see the King. The Emperor desired to see the King 
 in person, but Count Bismarck declared that it was 
 
192 
 
 SURRENDER OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 I 
 
 not possible to accede to His Majesty’s wishes ‘ until v 
 the capitulation had been signed.’ Then, ‘ as the con- ^ 
 versation was becoming rather dangerous, and as the ] 
 situation was becoming difficult on both sides, we lt( 
 ended it.’ The interview terminated. Count Bismarck | at 
 went to see the King. The Emperor withdrew to g f 
 consult his officers.” 
 
 At II.30 the capitulation was signed by which the! 1( 
 entire army became prisoners of war, and then an , 
 interview was arranged to take place between the||| 
 Emperor and the King in a pleasant chateau a little, a 
 distance out of the town of Sedan. a 
 
 “About 2 o’clock,” says the Times correspondent, ( 
 “ the King, with his body-guard and an escort of 
 cuirassiers, attended by the Crown Prince and a staff 
 of general officers, proceeded to the chateau, which 
 was charmingly furnished, and received the Emperor, 
 who came with his personal followers and staff in 
 charge under escort, which was ranged on the other 
 side of the avenue facing the cuirassiers. The King 
 and his captive retired into the glasshouse off one 
 of the saloons on the drawing-room floor, and they 
 could be seen by the staff outside engaged in ; 
 earnest dialogue. After the interview with the King, 
 the Emperor had a few minutes’ conversation with 
 the Crown Prince, in which he was much agitated 
 when alluding to the manner of the King. His great 
 anxiety seemed to be, not to be exhibited to his own 
 soldiers. The result was, however, that His Majesty, 
 wishing to avoid one mischief, was exposed to a great 
 
SURRENDER OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 J 93 
 
 humiliation, for his course had to be altered to avoid 
 Sedan, and thus he had to pass through the lines of 
 the Prussian army.” 
 
 Bismarck himself drew up the following official 
 account of the circumstances attending the capitu¬ 
 lation, addressed to the King, and dated Donchery, 
 September 2 :— 
 
 “ After I had yesterday evening attended here, in 
 accordance with your Majesty's commands, to take 
 i part in the negotiations concerning the capitulation, 
 these negotiations were interrupted till about one 
 o’clock at night, in consequence of our acceding to 
 a request for some time for consideration, which 
 General Wimpffen made after General von Moltke 
 had declared decisively that no other condition would 
 be accepted but that of a surrender by the French 
 army, and that the bombardment would be recom¬ 
 menced at nine o’clock in the morning if the capitu¬ 
 lation had not by that time been completed. 
 
 Early to-day, about six o’clock in the morning, 
 General Reille was announced to me. He informed me 
 that the Emperor wished to see me, and that he was 
 already on his way hither from Sedan. The General 
 immediately returned, to announce to his Majesty 
 that I was following him; and shortly after, some¬ 
 where about half way between here and Sedan, near 
 Frenois, I found myself in the presence of the Em¬ 
 peror. His Majesty, with three superior officers, was 
 in an open carriage, and besides this there were 
 several other officers on horseback, among whom 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 CAPITULATION OF SF.DAN. 
 
 Generals Castelnau, Reille, and Moskowa who ap¬ 
 peared to be wounded in the foot, and Vaubert, were 
 personally known to me. When I came to the car¬ 
 riage I dismounted, and, going up to his Majesty, 
 asked him what were his commands. The Emperor 
 immediately expressed a wish to see your Majesty, 
 being apparently under the impression that your 
 Majesty was in Donchery. After I had replied that 
 your Majesty was at that moment in the head¬ 
 quarters at Vendresse, three miles distant, the Em¬ 
 peror asked if your Majesty had appointed a place 
 to which he should next proceed, and eventually, 
 what was my opinion on the matter. I replied that 
 I had come hither in complete ignorance, and that 
 the locality was unknown to me ; and 1 offered for 
 his accommodation the house I occupied in Donchery, 
 which I was ready to leave at once. 
 
 The Emperor accepted the offer, and directed his 
 steps to Donchery. About a hundred yards, however, 
 from the bridge leading into the town, he stopped before 
 a labourer’s house, rather lonely in its situation, and 
 asked if he could not descend from his carriage there. 
 I secured the house through Count Bismarck-Bohlen, 
 Councillor of Legation, who had in the interval come 
 up to me ; and after we had been informed that it 
 was narrow and poorly accommodated, but free from 
 the wounded, the Emperor descended from the car¬ 
 riage, and requested me to follow him inside. There, 
 In a very small room, which contained one table and 
 two chairs, I had about an hour’s conversation with 
 
CAPITULATION OF SEDAN. 
 
 *95 
 
 the Emperor. His Majesty principally expressed a 
 wish to obtain more favourable terms of capitulation 
 for the army. I completely declined to negotiate on 
 this matter with his Majesty whilst the purely military 
 questions were to be settled between Generals von 
 Moltke and Wimpffen. 
 
 On the other hand, I asked his Majesty whether 
 he was inclined to enter into negotiations for 
 peace. The Emperor replied that, as prisoner, he 
 was not now in a position to do so ; and when I 
 further asked through whom his views in rela¬ 
 tion to the government of France were now to be 
 learned, his Majesty referred me to the Government 
 then established in Paris. After this point, of which 
 we could not safely form an opinion from the letter 
 of yesterday from the Emperor to your Majesty, had 
 been cleared up, I recognised, and I did not conceal 
 the fact from the Emperor, that the situation to-day, 
 as yesterday, presented no other practical bearing but 
 the military one ; and I drew attention to the para¬ 
 mount necessity to us of having in our hands, through 
 the capitulation of Sedan, before all things, a material 
 pledge of the confirmation to us of the military ad¬ 
 vantages we had gained. 
 
 I had already on the previous evening, with 
 General von Moltke, discussed on every side the 
 question whether it would be possible, without 
 injury to the interests of Germany, to offer condi¬ 
 tions more favourable to the sense of honour of an 
 army which had fought so well, than those already 
 
196 CAPITULA TION OF SEDAN. 
 
 insisted upon. After due deliberation, we were both t 
 compelled to adhere decisively to a negative answer I 
 to this question. When, therefore, General von Moltke, 
 who meantime had come out of the town, went to 
 your Majesty to lay before you the wishes of the 
 Emperor, it was not, as your Majesty knows, to speak 
 in their favour. The Emperor went out into the open 
 air, and invited me to sit beside him before the door 
 of the house. 
 
 His Majesty asked me if it was not practicable 
 to let the French army cross the Belgian frontier, 
 that it might be there disarmed and interned. I had 
 already discussed this contingency also with Gene¬ 
 ral von Moltke on the previous evening, and, for 
 reasons already alluded to, I could not enter into a 
 promise of this compromise. In reference to the 
 political situation, I, on my part, took no initiative, i 
 nor the Emperor either—only in so far as he lamented 
 the misfortunes of the war, and declared that he him¬ 
 self had not wished for the war, but that he had been 
 compelled to make it by the pressure of French public 
 opinion. 
 
 By inquiries in the town, and in particular through 
 reconnoiterings by the officers of the general staff, 
 it was made known, somewhere between nine and 
 ten o’clock, that the Chateau Bellevue, at Frenois, 
 was given up for the reception of the Emperor, and 
 was unoccupied by the wounded. I announced this 
 to his Majesty in this form ; I mentioned Frenois as 
 the' place which I should propose to your Majesty as 
 
CA PI TULA TION OF SEDAN. 
 
 197 
 
 the place of meeting; and I therefore suggested to 
 the Emperor whether he ought not to go there imme¬ 
 diately, as a delay inside the small labourer’s house 
 was unsuitable to him, and he, perhaps, was in want 
 of some repose. His Majesty readily agreed to the 
 suggestion, and I conducted the Emperor, preceded 
 by a guard of honour of your Majesty’s regiment of 
 Body Guards, to the Chateau Bellevue, where mean¬ 
 time the remainder of the suite and the equipage of 
 the Emperor, whose arrival there out of the town 
 appeared to be considered uncertain, had come from 
 Sedan. General Wimpfifen had also arrived, and with 
 him, while waiting for the return of General von 
 Moltke, General Podbielski resumed the conversation 
 in reference to the negotiations for capitulation, which 
 had been broken off on the previous day, in presence 
 of Lieutenant von Verdy and the chief of General 
 Wimpffen’s staff. 
 
 I was just taking part in the introduction of 
 these negotiations by laying before them the poli¬ 
 tical and moral aspect of the situation, as affected 
 by what the Emperor said to me, when I received 
 from Rittmeister Count of Noslitz, on the order 
 of General von Moltke, the information that your 
 Majesty would not see the Emperor until after the 
 completion of the capitulation of the army. This 
 announcement extinguished on both sides the hope 
 that any other conditions than those already offered 
 would be agreed to. I rode after this to Chenery to 
 see your Majesty, that I might announce to you the 
 
198 CAP 1 TULA TION OF SEDAN. 
 
 position of affairs. I met on the way General von 
 Moltke, with the text of the capitulation as approved 
 by your Majesty; which, after we entered Frenois, 
 was, without controversy, accepted and signed. 
 
 The conduct of General Wimpffen, like that of the 
 other French Generals on the preceding night, was very ; 
 dignified ; and this brave officer could not refrain from 
 expressing to me his pain at being called upon, forty- 
 eight hours after his arrival from Africa, and half a 
 day after his receiving the command, to sign his name 
 to a capitulation so fatal to the French arms. But 
 the want of provisions and ammunition, and the abso¬ 
 lute impossibility of any further defence, had, he said ) 
 laid upon him, as a General, the duty of sinking his 
 personal feelings, since further bloodshed could not 
 make any change in the situation. Our agreement to 
 let the officers depart on parole was received with 
 lively gratitude, as an expression of the intention of 
 your Majesty to spare the feelings of an army which 
 had fought bravely, as far as the demands of our 
 military and political interests would allow. To this 
 feeling General Wimpffen has given emphatic ex¬ 
 pression in a letter in which he has returned General 
 Moltke his thanks for the considerate manner in which 
 the negotiations on his side were conducted. 
 
 “ Count Bismarck.” 
 
 We may supplement this report by a little further 
 information taken from a letter addressed to the 
 Daily News* by a gentleman, who says that he 
 * Daily News, October 27th. 
 
CAPITULATION OF SEDAN. 
 
 199 
 
 t was a near spectator of the interview between Bis¬ 
 marck and the Emperor on the memorable 2nd 
 September. 
 
 This gentleman, Mr. Archibald Forbes, a regular 
 i correspondent, we believe, of the Daily News, states 
 that he, Dr. Kaisler, the accredited agent of the Berlin 
 Press, Mr. J. de Liefde, a correspondent of an English 
 provincial newspaper, and a German gentleman, a 
 tourist, were the only civilians who had personal 
 cognizance of what occurred. These four “stood in 
 a group by a hedge about three yards from the left 
 corner of the block of three cottages, in front of the 
 right-hand house of which, sat the Emperor and Bis¬ 
 marck.” From this they could just hear the murmur 
 of Bismarck’s voice. “ The conversation was in German. 
 The occupant of the first floor of the right-hand cot¬ 
 tage was all the while overlooking the pair out of his 
 front window. When the party broke up I asked 
 him if he could remember anything he had heard. 
 
 ‘ No,’ said he, ‘ I did not understand German. When 
 the Monsieur in the white cap first spoke to the 
 Emperor he addressed him in French, whereupon the 
 Emperor, interrupting him, said, ‘ Pardon, but I have 
 heard your Excellency has not the complete mastery 
 of the French language. Let us, if you please, use 
 the language of Germany.’ So it would appear that 
 Napoleon could be sarcastic even when on his back. 
 No doubt this was a sly poke at Bismarck, founded 
 on Benedetti’s explanation that the reason why the 
 famous treaty was in his handwriting was because 
 
200 
 
 CAPITULATION OF SEDAN. 
 
 Bismarck had bidden him pen it, since he (Bismarck) 
 was not quite an fait with French.” 
 
 Mr. Forbes further informs us that the chateau in 
 which the Emperor and the King met was called the 
 “ Chateau Belleville.” It belonged to a M. Amour, the 
 largest wine merchant in the North of France. The 
 Emperor slept in the chateau the night of the capitu¬ 
 lation, the 2nd, and Mr. de Liefde and Mr. Forbes 
 slept there the following night, the latter of the two 
 gentlemen occupying the same bed that the Emperor 
 had previously slept in. At that time the house was 
 handsomely furnished, and in the same state as when 
 the proprietor and his family left it; down even to the 
 knick-knacks in the young ladies’ bedchambers. The 
 two gentlemen strove in vain, with the assistance of the 
 gardener, to get something to eat and drink. Nothing 
 was forthcoming but a dry ham bone. The Bavarians 
 woke them up in the morning, and proceeded to ran¬ 
 sack the place. “ The Bavarians are, out of sight, the 
 most butter-fingered of the German soldiers, to use an 
 euphonism, and anything conveniently portable they 
 annexed with neatness and despatch.” They foraged 
 also until they found a large stock of wine, ingeniously 
 concealed, with which they immediately made free. 
 When the Germans left, whatever remained in the 
 chateau that was at all portable was carried off by 
 Belgian marauders. 
 
 By the capitulation of Sedan as many as 90,000 
 French soldiers were made prisoners of war, and sent 
 into Germany, 20,000 at a time. Such an event as 
 
 the 
 
 P s 
 
 an 
 
 be 
 
 v 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
CAP/TULA TI ON OF SEDAN. 
 
 201 
 
 the surrender of this large army is altogether un¬ 
 paralleled in history. The number of the Roman 
 army that surrendered at the Caudine Forks has never 
 been exactly ascertained, but in all probability they 
 were not more than 30,000. The troops under General 
 Burgoyne that surrendered to the American General 
 Gates were not more than 6000 ; while those under 
 the Austrian General, Mack, at the celebrated capitu¬ 
 lation of Ulm, amounted to only 40,000 ; and those 
 under Dupont at Baylen to only 18,000. Besides the 
 army itself, all its artillery and arms, small and great, 
 mitrailleuses, eagles, and munitions of war of all kinds, 
 became the property of the victors. The Emperor 
 himself was sent a prisoner to the castle of Wilhelms- 
 hohe in Hesse Cassel. And so ended the ill-considered 
 march northwards of MacMahon’s famous army, of 
 which the infatuated French Press in haughty and 
 boastful language asserted that it could not fail to 
 effect a junction with Bazaine’s army at Metz (eighty 
 miles away !) ; and that the result would be the anni¬ 
 hilation of the Prussian invaders. 
 
202 
 
 W ITH this we conclude for the present our notice 
 of the Life of Bismarck : not having space here 
 to treat of the siege of Paris, the surrender of Toul , 
 and Strasburg, the capitulation of Bazaine’s vast army 1 
 at Metz, and the other striking events of the war now 
 proceeding. Before its conclusion the South German C 
 States—Wiirtemberg, Baden, and Darmstadt—will 
 have joined the Great North German Confederation. 
 
 1 
 
 THE END. 
 
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