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B I S M A R C K'S
T A B L E - T A L K.
From a photograph by Loescher & Petsch, Photographers to the Royal Court, Berlin.

f/smarcé, 0%. ſº wo o, /ö/5-/398,
B I S M A R C K'S
TA B L E - T A L K.
ED ITED,
W/TH A W INTRODUCTION AAWD AWOTES,
EY
CHARLES LOWE, M.A.,
AUTHor of “PRINCE Bism ARck : AN HIStorical Brog RAPHY,” “ALEXANDER III.
of RUSSIA,” “THE GERMAN EMPEROR, willi AM 11.,” ETC, , Etc.
ãith 33 ortrait.
LoNDON : H. GREVEL AND CO.
PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1895.
WY D
2, 3,3
• L 9 |
Cop. 3
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, La., London and Aylesbury.
P R E F A C E .
HIS volume of BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK
is based on Herr von Poschinger's
recently published “First Bismarcé und die
Par/amentarier. Die Z ischgesſºrãche des
A'eichskanzlers ” (three volumes), and “A”irst
Bismarcé. A/eue Z ischgesſºrãche und /nter-
views.” These bulky volumes have been
carefully compiled from a great variety of
Sources and private communications, etc., and
present the great German Chancellor in his
most human and interesting light.
Numerous are the biographies which have
been written about the Prince ; but this of
Poschinger is the first systematic attempt to
portray the Iron Chancellor's character and
career, not in the words of others, but in
his own. Dr. Busch made a beginning in
} | 1
iv PREFACE.
this respect, but it was a mere fragment com-
pared with this new collection of Bismarckiana
compiled by the ex-Chancellor's more indus-
trious Boswell, Herr von Poschinger.
The latter includes in one of his tomes
a collection of all the chief interviews which
the ex-Chancellor accorded to representatives
of the Press after his dismissal from office and
retirement to Friedrichsruh ; but, as having
a peculiar character of their own, these will
form the subject of a future volume.
The present work exhibits the celebrated
statesman—the greatest doer of his time—in
familiar intercourse with his friends, to whom
he unbosoms himself on men and things in
general ; and though the time has not yet
come for these friends of the Prince to make
public his private utterances in their free and
complete form, enough has already been done
in this respect to show that Bismarck's table-
talk possesses a charm far Superior to that
of the greatest masters of the art—such as
Luther, Goethe, Johnson, or Coleridge.
C. L.
October 1895.
C H R O N O L O G Y .
festivities in honour of Bismarck's seventieth
birthday, there was held an Exhibition of all
the known, or at least all the attainable, products
of art and literature on the subject of his career.
Among the exhibits was an album belonging to the
German National Museum, and containing, in the
Chancellor's own large, bold handwriting, the follow-
ing characteristic summary of his life and triumphs :—
\ T Berlin, in April 1885, in connection with the
“Leopold Edward Otto von Bismarck, born at Schön-
hausen, in the Altmark, April 1st, 1815.
“Member of the United Prussian Landtag, 1847.
“Royal Prussian Envoy to the German Bundestag (Diet),
I 85 I.
“Ambassador to the Imperial Court of Russia, 1859.
“Ambassador to the Imperial Court of France, 1862.
“Royal Prussian Minister of State, September 23rd in
the same year.
“Chancellor of the North German Confederation, 1867.
“Chancellor of the German Empire, 1871.
“Aerz unda nec regiºur.”
He was dismissed from office, 18th March, 1890
(the anniversary of the Berlin Revolution).
V
C O N T E N T S .
—Q–
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION .
CHAPTER II.
STUDENT AND STATESMAN
CHAPTER III.
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN
CHAPTER IV.
BLOOD AND IRON
CHAPTER V.
KöNIGGRATZ
CHAPTER VI.
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR
CHAPTER VII.
THE FRENCH WAR
PAGE
23
42
6o
93
IO5
viii CONTENTS,
CHAPTER VIII.
SALZBURG AND WARZIN
CHAPTER IX.
REICHSKANZLER
CHAPTER X.
HONEST BROKER
CHAPTER XI.
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES .
CHAPTER XII.
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS
CHAPTER XIII.
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS
CHAPTER XIV.
A “CRACK'' WITH CRISPI
CHAPTER XV.
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR .
208
227
250
274
3OI
3 IQ
330
354
BIS MARCK'S TABLE – TALK.
CHAPTER I.
A AV ZTA’ O Z) O C 7" / O AV.
T was a strange anomaly that one of the wisest
men and best table-talkers of modern times
should have been born on All Fools' Day (1815).
It was still stranger that, in advertising the birth of
a son who was to become so famous, the parents
of Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen
should have begged their friends to “dispense with
their congratulations.” It also looked like a dis-
pensation of Providence that Bismarck should have
made his first appearance in the world just as
Napoleon was preparing to make his last appearance
on the world's stage—at Waterloo. Bismarck was to
prove the correlative, or rather the corrective, of the
Corsican upstart—an anti-Napoleon. As Buonaparte
had shaken to pieces the old and crumbling German
Empire, so it was to prove Bismarck's great life-task
to restore the shattered edifice, and give the ancient
structure, with its modern improvements, a time-
defying air. Napoleon had been a son of the South,
I I
2
BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
a representative of the Latin race. The Teutonic
North was now to have its turn in keeping up the
continuity of human greatness—of the one-man-power
kind—in the person of one of its most primaeval-
looking Sons, with the capacious brain of a statesman
and the huge, heroic figure of a mail-clad knight.
This great Soldier-statesman, this cuirassier-diplo-
matist, may be said to have reached the zenith, or
at least the mid-point, of his wonderful career at
the time when, in the presence of a brilliant flag-
embowered gathering of German sovereigns and
Soldiers in the storied palace of the kings of France,
he read forth the proclamation of the German
Empire. In 1862 King William of Prussia had
summoned Bismarck from Paris—where he was then
acting as ambassador—to Berlin to make him a
Minister ; and within eight short years Bismarck,
So to speak, had returned the compliment by sum-
moning King William from Berlin to Paris to make
him an Emperor.
Counting from the time of his appointment to
represent Prussia in the Diet of the old Germanic
Confederation at Frankfort, Bismarck had served his
country continuously for twenty years before the
proclamation of the Empire at Versailles. It had
taken him all this time to reconstruct the Reich, so to
speak ; and he was destined to spend just as long
a period on the still more difficult task of consolidat-
ing it. Before entering the service of the State, in
1851, he had figurcd in the parliamentary arena as
the self-constituted champion of a divine-right
royalty, and the sworn foe of all constitutional en-
INTRODUCTION. 3
croachments on the powers of the Prussian Crown.
In the same arena, too, he had clearly shown his
countrymen how national unity could not be achieved
—not by the popular will alone, but by this will
acting in harmony with that of the German Princes.
It was only, however, when Bismarck went to
Frankfort to represent Prussia in the Old Germanic
Diet that his career may be said to have begun—
a career which, after eight years' activity On the
banks of the Main, first led him to St. Petersburg
and then to Paris before he was finally summoned
to Berlin to become Premier and “Parliament-tamer "
to William I. How for the next eight years he led
a life of constant “sturt and strife "—in budgetless
conflict with the Prussian Chamber, and successively
at war with Denmark, Austria, and France ; how for
twenty long years, after refounding the Empire, he
was engaged in perpetual Combat with the perils
which beset the completion of his creative task—now
plunging into the Kulturkampf, or war with Papal
Rome; now wrestling with the ever-growing giant
of Social Democracy and carrying on the work of
economic reform parallel with that of repression ; at
one time battling for a protective tariff, and at another
entitling himself to be called the greatest State
Socialist of his age ; anon fighting for an increase of
the army, and again acting as an “honest broker”
with the view of securing to Germany and Europe
the continued blessings of peace ;--how Bismarck did
all these things and a thousand others which made
him for more than a quarter of a century the most
conspicuous figure on the stage of European history
4 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
—is the record of all that not too vividly impressed
On the popular memory to require more than a
general allusion in a work like this P -
Twenty-eight years That was a very long time
for any Minister to be continuously in harness,
Struggling with infinitely more than the labours of a
Hercules. In some countries—England, for example
—the out and in, or see-saw, system of party govern-
ment has its advantages. But I fear that it would
have been unsuited to the particular kind of work
which Bismarck was called upon to accomplish. The
unity of the Fatherland was a work which demanded
unity of purpose and continuity of effort ; and
Bismarck, alone, perhaps, among all his countrymen,
had at Once the physical and the mental character-
istics which fitted him for the performance of this task.
Within five-and-twenty years of the fall of the
Second Empire, France had well on to forty different
Ministries. But from 1862, when Bismarck was
called to office, till 1890, when he was dismissed from
it, the policy of Prussia and Germany was constantly
in the hands of one man. The elder Pitt was the
English Bismarck of his day, but he never enjoyed
such a continuous spell of opportunity for making his
Country great and glorious as his Teutonic after-type.
In this respect Bismarck's position was unique, just
as the products of his power are almost unparalleled.
But he was unparalleled nearly in cvery way. The
modern Plutarch will have to compare him, not with
one, but with a hundred other heroes before he can
bring out all the striking points of his strong in-
dividuality.
INTRODUCTION. 5
His character was full of strange contrasts. “I
have conducted this Conference,” he once remarked
to Lord Salisbury, “sometimes like a gentleman, and
sometimes like a sergeant-major.” The Conference
alluded to was the Congress of Berlin, and, Curiously
enough, when Bismarck first saw Anton von Werner's
famous picture of that diplomatic assembly, he com-
plained to the artist that he had made him—the
Chancellor—look like a Wac///leister (Sergeant-
major). That was truly marvellous intuition on the
part of the painter. For the Sergeant-major, or rather
the colonel of cuirassiers, was always as strong in the
character of Bismarck as it was in that of Cromwell,
to whom he otherwise bore so striking a resemblance.
But while Cromwell was a root-and-branch man,
Bismarck was a Royalist of the very first water. At
first, indeed, he was more of a Strafford than a
Cromwell, though the Lord High Chancellor shared
with the Lord High Protector the habit of overriding
and dissolving Parliaments. Both were straight-
forward to bluntness, and each avowed, in the words
of Bismarck, that “he feared God, but nothing else
in the world.” Neither was a good speaker, and of
both the best eloquence was their actions. Both
distrusted human nature as deeply as they knew it.
“Ac/; mean ſieber Su/ger,” said Frederick the Great to
one of his officials, “er kennt nicht diese verday, 177/e
A’asse”—“Ah, my dear Sulzer, you don't know this
accursed race of human beings so well as I do.”
Bismarck resembled Sulzer's Sovereign, not only
in his knowledge of human nature, but in many
Other respects as well. Had Bismarck been born to
6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the purple, had his colossal character enjoyed the
Setting of a Crown, what a magnificent monarch he
would have made, throwing deeply into the shade
even the personality of Frederick the Great But, as
it was, he certainly was the greatest son ever produced
by the whole Fatherland since the soldier-philosopher
of Sans Souci breathed his last. Stein, the re-
generator of Prussia, was great enough in his way,
but not to be compared with the regenerator of
Germany. Stein was a mere bureaucrat, while
Bismarck united all the virtues and many of the
brilliant vices which made up the political and
even military character of the greatest of all the
Hohenzollerns.
The ambition, the unscrupulousness, the benevolent
despotism, the resourcefulness, the indomitable courage,
the patriotism, the loves and hatreds of Frederick the
Great—all contributed to the making of Bismarck;
and in the case of each character these qualities were
all directed towards the same end. Frederick the
Great had to wage a war lasting Seven years in Order
to wrest a province from the Empress-Queen ; and
in a war lasting only seven weeks, or rather, indeed,
seven days, Bismarck succeeded in thrusting Austria
out of Germany altogether, and at the same time Out
of Italy too. Cavour has been called the Bismarck of
Italy, but even in Italy it was Bismarck who finished
what Cavour began. Yet it is doubtful whether
Bismarck could ever have unified his Fatherland
unless to the sagacious statesmanship and patient
diplomacy of a Cavour he had added the “blood
and iron " method which was peculiarly his own ;
INTRODUCTION. 7
unless, indeed, with the subtlety of the South he had
combined the irresistible energy of the North.
What King Alfred did for England in driving out
the Danes once for all, was achieved by Bismarck for
Germany by freeing it from the anomalous presence
of the Austrians, while the English King and the
German Chancellor had otherwise Several points in
common. Once the latter said that, if he had not
been born a Prussian, he would have liked to be an
Englishman, and indeed, as it was, he was in Some
things almost more of an Anglo-Saxon than of a
Teuto-Saxon. He spoke our language fluently, was
an ardent sportsman, a deadly shot, a daring rider,
a fearless swimmer, and as heavy a drinker as could
ever among us, in the bad old times, maintain his
seat at table after his fourth bottle of port. In his
younger days he led the life of Squire Western, while
in the personal tastes and political methods of his
manhood he bore a closer resemblance, perhaps, to
Sir Robert Walpole than to the elder Pitt. He had
all the Earl of Chatham's high-Souled patriotism and
sublime courage ; and, like Pitt, he ended by imbuing
all his countrymen, who had theretofore been little
else but objects of political contempt and ridicule
throughout Europe, with the same proud mol; //e
tangere, or civis Romanits suſ/1, Consciousness as, in
the time of the mighty Commoner, clothed every
Englishman as with a mantle of mail.
But while thus resembling William Pitt the elder,
Bismarck seemed to bear a still stronger likeness to
the “Glory of the Whigs” in his fondness for a
country life, his affection for dogs and horses, the
8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Occasional coarseness of his tastes and talk, his
business habits of mind, and the masculine common-
sense which formed the keystone of his character.
Both men had imbibed their notions of political
economy, not from books, but from actual contact
with “ears and acres” of corn and other commercial
realities. Both drove their bargains like farmers at a
fair. Both dragooned their Parliaments; but while
corruption was the instrument employed by Walpole,
Bismarck merely resorted to coercion. When Sir
Robert ceased to speak of politics he could talk
of nothing but women—but here the resemblance
between him and the German Chancellor came to
an abrupt end.
For the name of woman rarely ever crossed the
latter's lips. His private life was spotlessly pure.
Frederick the Great tolerated no women at his Court,
and in this other respect also Bismarck was like
Carlyle's peculiar hero. He was little subject to
feminine beauty, hated clever women, and married a
lady—well born, yet plain, unpretentious, and Country
bred—who was the perfoct type of a German
//ausfrau, or household goddess of the economic
kind. Apart from his only daughter, who used to
act as his cipherer, his wife was the only woman who
was ever able to exercise a subtle influence in politics
and personal questions over him. But with Queen
Victoria, when she went to Berlin to Sec her dying
son-in-law, he was greatly charmed, as with one of
“the wisest statesmen of the time.” Yet it was the
masculine more than the feminine element in the mind
of her Majesty which captivated the Iron Chancellor.
INTRODUCTION. 9
Totally unlike Sir Robert Walpole in respect of
his attitude to the fair sex, Bismarck also differed
widely in the same regard from Victor Emmanuel,
with whom he otherwise had so many points in
common. For the Ré Galantuomo was bluffly out-
spoken, hearty, human, soldierly, jovial, fearless, and
free; and the King of Italy, on going to Berlin,
found to his great delight that all these qualities also
formed part of the character of the Chancellor of
Kaiser Barbabianca, as the Italians called the Emperor
of Bismarck's creating to distinguish him from Kaiser
Barbarossa. Yet with the bluffness and soldierly
simplicity of Victor Emmanuel and of our own King
Hal, Bismarck combined the astuteness and subtlety
of a Richelieu or a Machiavelli. In diplomacy no
one ever outwitted him, and it was only in the field
of domestic politics, where his wisdom was less
apparent, and, indeed, was sometimes little else than
folly, that his opponents Occasionally got the better
of him, recalling to mind the spectacle of Samson
Agonistes when he was made sport of by the Philistines.
But, on the other hand, it rarely happened that the
Philistines in the German Parliament ever got clear
away without bitter reason to rue the mockery in
which they had indulged. For Bismarck never
forgot or forgave. It was his continual boast that
in all things he gave a Roland for an Oliver, and
even more than that—d corsaire, corsaire et de/z7.
He was not one of those model Christians who,
having been struck on one cheek, turn to the smiter
the other also. Nothing delighted him more than a
good fight, and, indeed, he used to lament that the
I O BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
powers which fitted him to shine in war had been
frittered away on party politics. The best parry, he
loved to Say, was always the cut.
He was, indeed, as combative as Luther, whom in
other respects also he so much resembled. As the
monk of Erfurt had given religious freedom to the
Fatherland, so the Knight of the Mark was born to
bless it with political unity; and on the broad and
crowded canvas of German history, certainly the two
most conspicuous and commanding figures—apart
from the Great Frederick—are those of Bismarck
and Luther. Never were the best and most cha-
racteristic qualities of the German race better
illustrated than in the careers of these two men—
both tough and steadfast like the Oaks of the Harz
Mountains, physically strong, morally courageous,
big-brained, shrewd-witted, rough-tongued, somewhat
coarse in fibre, yet true in feeling and mighty in
action. Bismarck had very much in common with
Luther ; but humility and self-effacement were not
qualities which the immortal Minister shared with
the immortal monk.
Frequently in the course of his career Bismarck
had boasted himself to be as ardently devoted as
was Cincinnatus to rural pursuits. But his love of
the plough was nothing compared with his lust of
power, and instead of imitating with a free and
tranquil mind, after his fall, the noble example of
Cincinnatus, he became transformed into a kind of
German Prometheus, who, chained to his forest rock,
spent all his bitter time in exclaiming against the
ingratitude and injustice of the new Teutonic gods.
INTRODUCTION. I I
Resembling in many respects the founder of the
United States of America, the founder of the Federal
State system of Germany could never bring himself,
like Washington, to relinquish his power after the
completion of his life-work and the advance of old
age. On the contrary, like Wallenstein, he had aimed
at something like sovereign Sway in a province ap-
pertaining to the Emperor; and, like Wallenstein, he
not only fell under the ban of his impetuous Kaiser,
but actually became a butt to the Swords and pikes
of the officers and henchmen who had formerly
trembled at and obeyed his very nod.
Like other great men, Bismarck had the defects of
his qualities, but even his failings leaned to political
virtue's side. His patriotism was of the loftiest and
purest kind, and everything that he did was for the
good of his country. The power he sought to
encroach upon was not aimed at for Selfish ends, as
in the case of Wolsey and of Wallenstein, but for the
public weal. “Right or wrong, 7/0, country,” as the
Emperor wrote on a portrait of himself which he
presented to an American, was Bismarck's motto even
more than his Majesty's. Inestimable are the benefits
which he conferred upon his Fatherland, and not the
least of these the fact that, after its unification, he
Secured to it for twenty years the blessings of con-
tinuous peace in a European world bristling with arms.
The huge Aleic/s/unde that always squatted on his
hearth or crouched beneath his table might have been
taken to Symbolise the dogs of war—which he ever
regarded it as his highest duty to hold well in leash.
Europe was grateful to him for keeping the peace so
I 2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
long, as it was also gratified by the spectacle of the
fallen Chancellor finally making his peace with the
Sovereign who so brusquely deprived him of the power
which he had wielded with such unparalleled results to
the Fatherland for eight-and-twenty long and eventful
years.”
The table-talk of such a man was bound to be
intensely interesting—a thousand times more so, for
example, than that of a Dr. Johnson, a Goethe, or a
Coleridge ; for the words of a man of action have ever
a greater charm, and, indeed, a higher value than
those of mere men of thought. Like most great table-
talkers, too, Luther included, Bismarck, after he had
become famous, rarely conversed ; he merely mono-
logued. An oracle himself, it was the duty of others
to listen, or at the utmost to suggest. But this had not
always been so. “Humboldt,” said the Chancellor once,
“took kindly to me, as I was such a respectful
listener, and thus I got a lot of things out of him.
It was just the same with old Metternich, when
once I spent a couple of days with him on the
Johannisberg. Thun said to me, Some time after,
‘I don't know what glamour you have been casting
over the old Prince, who has been looking down into
you as if you were a golden goblet.’
“‘Well,' said I, ‘I will tell you ; I listened quietly
to all his stories with a look of intelligence, merely
jogging the bell every now and then till it rang
again. That pleases these talkative old men.'”
* So far, this character-sketch was contributed by me to the
AJaz/y Chrozzzc/e, on the occasion of the Prince's eightieth
birthday. —C. L.
INTRODUCTION. I 3
And this was precisely how Bismarck himself was
treated after he had become famous. Dr. Johnson
had one Boswell; Bismarck has had hundreds, for
few who were admitted to his table ever failed to
make a note of his conversation. “I have thus,”
wrote one visitor to Friedrichsruh, “given you the
sense of what Bismarck said, and I only wish I
could repeat to you his very words, that you might
also to some extent feel the charm of his talk and
the deep impression he makes on all his hearers.
You sit there as at one of Shakespeare's plays : no
one thinks of putting a word in ; you only listen
and see before you in the body the great hero of
the century. Everything he says is of the deepest
interest. In his mouth the trivial becomes great, and
the apparently unimportant full of meaning.”
“Bismarck,” wrote Motley to his wife, after a
visit to his old Göttingen fellow-student at Varzin—
“Bismarck and I have had long talks about the great
events in which he has been the principal actor, and
he goes on always SO entirely savis gºne, and with so
much frankness and simplicity, that it is a delight to
listen. . . .” And again : “It is an infinite pleasure
to listen to Bismarck's conversation, to hear the
history of Europe during the last most eventful half-
dozen years told in such an easy-going, off-hand way
by the man who was the chief actor and director of
that amazing history. . . . He talks away right and
left about everything and anything.”
The Times, too, once remarked (in 1879): “In all
matters of great importance the nation is willing to be
guided and Counselled by him. The sparks of wisdom
I 4 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
which the Prince emits at his soirees will one day
yet have a higher value than the longest debates in
Parliament.”
The soirées here referred to were the parliamentary
“beer-evenings” which Bismarck instituted in the
year 1869, when still Chancellor of the North German
Confederation, and which gradually came to play as
prominent a part almost in the government of Prussia
and the Empire as the Tabaksco//egium, or Tobacco
Parliament, of Frederick William I., the father of
Frederick the Great, the kidnapper of giants, and the
founder of the Prussian army. For Bismarck was
quick to discover that he could do far more political
business with the deputies over beer and tobacco in
his own home than from the ministerial bench of
either Parliament. Hitherto the Chancellor had con-
fined his social intercourse with the representatives
of the people to the parliamentary dinners which he
Occasionally gave after taking office, and he had found,
during the “Conflict Time,” that these were an
excellent means of smoothing away some of the
asperities of partisan life, as well as of healing old
sores, which not even the granting of an indemnity
after Königgrätz had been wholly able to close. But
he soon began to find that these dinners were in-
sufficient for their purpose, and that he must expand
his social machinery if he was to extend his political
influence. -
At one of the dinners in question he complained
bitterly to Herr von Unruh, a National Liberal, that
the latter's party, in conjunction with some Con-
servatives, had tabled a certain obnoxious motion in
INTRODUCTION. I 5
the Reichstag without giving him private notice of
their intention ; and the reply was that there had
been no proper opportunity of doing so. An in-
dividual deputy durst not come to him without the
knowledge of his party, and, even if he did, there was
always the doubt whether the Chancellor would
receive him.
To this the latter rejoined that before an ambassador
could speak with him he must seek and be granted an
interview by writing, but that his hall-porter and
servants had orders to admit at once any deputy who
wished to see him. In future, however, there could
be no mistake, as he meant to Set apart Certain
evenings for the reception of members of Parliament,
en masse, when they could exchange ideas with him
and themselves to their hearts' content.
Such, then, was the origin of these “Saturday
evenings” at Bismarck's, which gradually developed
into his parliamentary soirées, or “Home Parliaments,”
on any evening. At first the Chancellor had felt
inclined to admit the Press to these free-and-easy
confabulations, and indeed a list of invitations to
the first of them had already been written out for the
chief journalists in the capital. But he suddenly
changed his mind, and resolved to keep the “quill
cattle” at their distance, contenting himself with the
immediate effect which he might seek to produce
upon the minds of his parliamentary guests them-
selves.
But though the Press, in its official and corporate
capacity at least, was rigorously excluded from these
parliamentary soirées, they were open to many others
I 6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
besides deputies—generals and other officers, govern-
ment officials, cabinet ministers, bankers, country
Squires, foreign attachés, distinguished strangers,
artists, littérateurs (as distinguished from mere press-
men)—in short, all the most representative elements
for the time being in the capital.
The hospitality of the Chancellor on these occasions
was perfectly frank, generous, and unrestrained. The
rooms were free, and the etiquette unconventional.
“Excellencies are easy of approach,” wrote an
American guest of the Chancellor at one of these
soirées, “and converse affably on the political situation
with obscure men who neither cast nor control a vote,
The great buffet, set up in one of the principal rooms,
is supplied with cask after cask of salubrious beer
from Bavaria, and is visited with growing frequency
as the evening wears away. A long table will be
spread with a cold collation ; and Germans have good
appetites. Such of them, finally, as desire more gentle
pleasures, and are not above the weakness of
gallantry, can stroll into the great Sal/e, made
famous by the sittings of the Congress, and pay
court to the Princess or the few scraggy dowagers
about her.
“The most characteristic part of the feast is reserved,
however, until late in the evening, after the ladies
have been dismissed. Cigars are then handed round,
but the Chancellor prefers a long German pipe, which
a discerning lackey will bring him at the right
moment, filled and ready for use. The Tobacco
Parliament is opened. Debate there is, indeed, none ;
for, although suggestions and inquiries may now and
INTRODUCTION. 17
then be thrown out timidly by the listeners, the
proceedings consist practically of a Sustained mono-
logue, which the Prince addresses to the group sitting
near him or standing farther away in a Semicircular
fringe about the chairs; nor are any formal conclu-
sions adopted. There is, nevertheless, a well-con-
sidered method in the programme.
“Unable to speak without entertaining, the Prince
has the art and the privilege of blending instruction
with entertainment, the useful with the pleasant ; and
thus compels the most frivolous guest to pause at
some grave practical truth, while laughing at in-
comparable jokes. Indeed, the kernel of the discourse
is perhaps to be found, only half concealed, in the
jokes themselves, or the stories. With him, these are
something besides a mere rhetorical device. He not
Only puts his hearers in good humour by pleasantries,
thus gaining a favourable ear for his cause, but he
actually combines precept and illustration with such
art, and in Such proportions, that his hearers are
already convinced while they think they are only
amused. That anecdote was not the setting of his
proposition ; it was the proposition itself. This pun
is not an insignificant ſeu d'esprit, but a vital truth,
or a sophism which the Prince wishes to see accepted
as a truth. Thus the last hour of the evening passes
away ; ” and next morning, it might have been added,
Some of the Berlin papers delight their readers
with tit-bits from the Chancellor's table-talk of the
previous night—delight their readers without dis-
pleasing the Prince himself. For though he continued
to the end to deny his invitations to the Press,
2
I 8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
he was not at all averse from seeing his colloquial
wisdom lend an additional lustre to its columns, and
he was well aware that some of the deputies made
a point of noting down his remarks for the use of
their journalistic friends.
Begun in 1869, these parliamentary entertainments
were continued till the Chancellor's dismissal from
office in 1890, though by this time they had become
changed from soirées into Frii/schoppen, or forenoon-
glass parties, when summer Maibozw/e of all kinds
(hock-cup) would be added to the foaming beer of
Munich, and the buffet in the Congress Hall would
be loaded with all sorts of seasonable dainties. For
as the Prince's health grew more and more indifferent,
his doctor (Schweninger) forbade him further in-
dulgence in his “beer and 'baccy evenings” with all
their late hours, eating, drinking, Smoking, and excite-
ment ; and the Frii/schopfen were devised to take
their place as a means of enabling the Chancellor
to go on delivering himself of his worldly wisdom to
the general crowd of deputies who cared to leave
their cards on him and accept his invitation. It was
only Radicals of the extremest type, and rough-
mannercq, irreconcilable Social Democrats who
scorned to do either one or the other.
But this was by no means the only opportunity
the Chancellor had of playing the Oracle. For from
time to time he gave select dinners to leading
politicians and diplomatists, and otherwise there was
scarcely a day, in the seventies at least, without his
having about a dozen favoured but informal guests
at table. The dinner hour was generally five ; and
INTRODUCTION. I 9
during, but especially after, this meal, the Prince kept
up a continual flow of the liveliest and most enter-
taining talk on the topics of the day, as well as his
reminiscences of the past. Then, again, the drawing-
rooms of the Princess Bismarck were for many years
open for the unceremonious reception of more intimate
family friends and adherents every night after nine
o'clock ; and the Chancellor rarely failed to join these
fortuitous gatherings for an hour or so, in order to
partake heartily of all the good things that were
going, and indulge in his favourite habit of thinking
aloud.
But with regard to this habit of his, take the following
anecdote. When Bismarck was ambassador at Paris,
M. Camille Doucet one day asked the Emperor for
a special audience. His object in doing so was to
repeat to him a conversation he had had with the
Comtesse de Pourtalès about Bismarck, who, they
both agreed, was destined to exercise a sinister
influence on France. The Emperor thanked him
for his warning, but said, “What danger can there
be in a man who notoriously thinks aloud P” M. Doucet
answered, “Count von Bismarck has a genius for
Conveying false impressions by telling the naked
truth. His frankness is like the inky fluid which the
cuttlefish at Biarritz throw round them—the more
truthful he is, the less one sees into him.”
In later years Bismarck's Social intercourse was
practically confined to those domestic entertainments
of his which I have enumerated ; for a year or two
after the French war—soon, in fact, after he was
universally acknowledged to be the greatest man of
2 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
his time—he accepted no invitations to the tables of
Others—unless, indeed, they came from Court, and
then they were in the nature of a command. But
otherwise, after reaching the zenith of his fame and
power, the Iron Chancellor broke festive bread under
no roof but his own. At no ball, or dinner, or
diplomatic entertainment, or theatrical performance,
was his towering form ever seen. As far, indeed, as
the Society of the capital was concerned, he might
as well have been dead. The Olympus-peak on
which the Jupiter of European statesmanship sat
enthroned was shrouded in a perpetual veil of mist.
Bismarck preferred the comforts and the colloquial
omnipotence of his own fireside, as he himself once
wrote in the album of Count Stillfried :-
“Aea/zz's 2//e /207/20
Qazi sedeſ 272 sud domo,
Qui sedef Żost formacem
Aſ habet Öomam Zacem.”
Which may be rendered :—
“Oh, happy is that man and blest
Who sits in his own home at rest,
Who snugly sits at his fireside
In tranquil peace, whate'er betide.”
But it was the love of authority as well as of social
comfort which thus confined the Chancellor to his own
fireside. For even if his one-man power might be
disputed in Parliament, his claims to be an autocrat
of the breakfast-, the dinner-, and the supper-table
were always readily allowed ; and even when he fell
from the throne of his political might, it was still
INTRODUCTION. 2 I
some consolation to him that he could not possibly
be deposed from his Delphic tripod. No longer the
greatest tyrant of his time, he could at least Continue
to be the greatest talker; and thus it was that
Friedrichsruh became a kind of latter-day Prophet's
Mecca, which attracted incessant streams of eager
worshippers from far and near.
And perhaps it was in the easy, unconventional
retirement of rural Varzin or sylvan Friedrichsruh
that the Chancellor was most expansive and delightful
as a table-talker. As was written by one of his
visitors, quoted by POSchinger —
“The life of Bismarck, as in the case of Luther
and Goethe, shows that it is just the domestic and
family side which furnishes a suitable frame to the
statesman's picture. Since the days of his activity
at the Frankfort Diet, utterances of Bismarck have
been given to us from the close circles of family
friends, utterances which shed abundant light on his
Original conception of life, his impulsive temperament,
and the innermost self of the hero. It was, however,
reserved for a later, maturer time to accomplish the
perfect, harmonious development of this uniquely
moulded nature.
“In the idyll of Friedrichsruh this consummation
is reached. It is pure, invigorating humanity which
there meets every visitor. An atmosphere of serenity,
tranquillity, and grandeur pervades the rooms in which
Prince Bismarck lives with his relatives and friends,
and in which he receives his countrymen from every
part of the Fatherland. Out of the speeches of the
ex-Chancellor shines forth his deep love for his
22 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Compatriots ; and since he is one of the select few
who are able to read the soul of this richly endowed,
but still scattered and undeveloped nation, he appears
to his contemporaries as a true prophet, a revealer of
truths, the contemplation of which may not be
neglected.”
CHAPTER II.
SZTO/OAZAV7' AAV/D STA TAZS/l/A/V.
T was not till after Königgrätz, when Bismarck
first stood clearly out to the world in all his
greatness, that people began to pay the closest
attention to his words, or to make a note of his
private sayings ; and thus it is that the record of his
table-talk prior to this point of time is not so rich as
it afterwards became. Nevertheless, there have been
preserved a considerable number of his utterances
which shed an interesting light on his character and
actions during what might be called the 'prentice
period of his career. And perhaps the first recorded
instance of his talk is the certificate of the com-
missioners who catechised him across a green baize
table at his first and only State examination.
After Bismarck had finished his university career
at Göttingen and Berlin—which he did without
taking a degree—he became “Auscultator,” or official
reporter, at one of the Berlin courts, and then re-
moved to Aix-la-Chapelle as an aspirant for the
office of “Referendary,” or unsalaried apprentice, to
the administrative chief of the district. But before
attaining to this rank he had to pass a very strict
examination, and the following was the report of the
23
24 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Commissioners—no bad testimonial surely to the
mental capacity and attainments of a youth but in
his twenty-first year, who had infected all his fellow-
students at Göttingen with a spirit of idleness. The
passages within brackets were subsequently struck
Out by the examiners before signing their certificate.
The name is spelt without the c, as, indeed, it was
only after Bismarck had entered public life that he
introduced it into his patronymic : —
“DONE AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE,
“This 30th June, 1836.
“In accordance with official instructions there was
held here this morning, from ten a.m. to one p.m., the
Oral examination of the Kammergerichts-Auscultator
—/Leopoſal Aduard Otto von Bismark—a candidate for
the rank of Government-Referendary. This ex-
amination first of all applied to the candidate's
general knowledge—especially in Greek and Latin,
history and philosophy, then to public law in general
and several branches of political economy and finance,
in particular the present system of taxation in
Prussia, and finally jurisprudence, the common law
of Prussia, the French civil law, as well as common
German feudal law—including a number of concrete
CaSCS.
“In respect of general school knowledge, the
candidate displayed a very good standard (rec/ºt g//e
Sc/au/studien), and evinced his familiarity with the
ancient tongues by translating and CXplaining several
passages from Xenophon's Cyropaºdia as well as
Ciccro's De Officiis. Of the Coonomic Sciences the
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 25
candidate showed a very good knowledge, and, above
all things, his answers to the questions that were put
to him in public law and administration proved that
he had been reflecting on what he had learnt [and
that he is already on the way to independent
views].
“Not less good was the candidate's examination in
jurisprudence. His answers showed that he had
mastered the general principles of the Roman as well
as of the Prussian law, and his judgments on the
concrete cases that were put to him proved that he
knows how to apply those principles. [His know-
ledge of French law was but slight.] Of French law
he seemed, at least, to have acquired some knowledge.
Altogether, the candidate showed an excellent power
of judgment, quickness of comprehension in the
questions put to him, and skill in oral expression.
“Accordingly, and in consideration of the fact that
the written work of the candidate has been very
favourably reported on, this Examination Commission
is unanimously of opinion that the Kammergerichts-
Auscultator von Bismark appears to be very well
qualified for promotion to the rank of Government-
Referendary.”
The independence of judgment above referred to
Bismarck had already shown when a student at
Göttingen on more than one occasion, but more
especially when the Rector once sent for and rebuked
him in a paternal way for his pugnacity. Bismarck
did not accept the reproof. To the Rector's astonish-
ment he made an indignant speech, expressing his
26 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
detestation of Frenchmen, French principles, and
revolutionary Germans, whom he called Frenchmen
in disguise. He prayed that the sword of Joshua
might be given to him to exterminate all these.
“Well, my young friend, you are preparing great
trouble for yourself,” remarked the Rector, with a
shake of the head; “your opinions are those of
another age.” “Good opinions blossom again like
the trees after winter,” was Bismarck's answer.
They were to blossom again with great luxuriance
after the winter of public discontent which culminated
in the March Revolution of 1848, by which time
Bismarck may be said to have entered public life as
a member of the first United Diet of the Prussian
monarchy, the first experiment in the way of a
national Parliament. “All great cities,” he said, “as
being mere hotbeds of anarchy and revolution, ought
to be swept from the earth ; ” a saying which procured
for him the sobriquet of “Stadt-vertiger,” or “Town-
destroyer.” Again the revolutionary Germans of
I848 were nothing but Frenchmen in disguise, and
Once more he longed for the sword of Joshua to
Smite them down. Could he but have had his own
way, he would have cleared the streets of Berlin with
volleys of grape-shot ; or at any rate he would have
adopted a much more energetic policy than that
pursued by the weak-willed King, Frederick
William IV., to cope with the forces of revolution.
As Bismarck himself subsequently said : —
“After the days of March, the troops were in
Potsdam and the King in Berlin. When I went out
to Potsdam a great discussion was going on as to what
STUDENT AND STATES MAN. 27
should be done. General Möllendorff, who was there,
sat on a stool not far from me, looking very Sour.
They had peppered him so that he could only sit
half on. One was advising this and another that, but
nobody very well knew what to do. I sat near the
piano, saying nothing, but I struck up a couple of
notes, ‘Dideldum Dittera' (here he hummed the
beginning of the infantry double-quick step). The Old
fellow got up from his stool at once, his face beaming
with delight, embraced me, and said, ‘That's the right
thing !—I know what you mean—march on Berlin.'
As things fell out, however, nothing came of it.”
On another occasion about this time Bismarck
went out to Potsdam to see the king, with whom
he walked up and down the terrace of the Orangerie,
near Sans Souci, discussing the situation and the
means of improving it.
His Majesty thought that it might be dangerous
to have recourse to sharp methods of dealing with
the insurrectionary movement.
“No,” replied Bismarck ; “it is only want of
Courage that can prove dangerous. Therefore,
Courage, Courage, and ever more courage, and your
Majesty will win.”
Just at this moment the Queen stepped from
behind Some bushes, exclaiming,
“Herr von Bismarck, how can you talk to your
King in such a way P”
“Oh, leave him alone,” said the King, with a
smile; “I shall manage him "; though he did nothing
of the kind, and only ended by granting his subjects
a constitution.
28 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“One of my most remarkable recollections,” wrote
Count Beust, “is connected with the last days of
I848, when I first met Prince Bismarck. I was
acquainted with Herr von Savigny, who was after-
wards envoy at Dresden. His house was close to
my residence in the Wilhelmstrasse. One morning,
when I went to see him, he said, ‘ I have a visitor
in the house, Herr von Bismarck, of whose doings
in the Landtag you must have heard.’ Immediately
afterwards Bismarck entered in his dressing-gown,
Smoking a long pipe. Our conversation turned upon
the news which had just been received that Robert
Blum (the barricade-fighter) had been shot at Vienna.
I expressed the opinion that, from an Austrian point
of view, this was a political mistake. “You are quite
wrong, said Bismarck, interrupting me ; ‘if I have
an enemy in my power, I must destroy him.' I
remembered this saying more than once.”
It has been frequently stated that Bismarck was
one of the founders of the Årezzº-Zeitung, but that
he was not. His name is not on the list of Original
shareholders, nor had he a hand in devising the
journal ; but he was a constant Contributor to it,
and received payment for his articles.
“I knew,” wrote Herr von Unruh (President of
the Constituent Assembly), “that Bismarck was
closely connected with the Kreug-Zeitung, and once
asked him how he could allow this print to teem,
as it did, with calumnies and lies, not cven sparing
honest women.
“Bismarck replied that he also was averse from that
kind of thing, but he was told that in such a struggle
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 29
it could not be otherwise ; and my remark that
such weapons only sullied those who used them had
no effect. I might have then concluded from this
incident, what subsequently became quite evident,
that Bismarck was not very scrupulous in the choice
of means to achieve a definite end.”
Bismarck sought and found a seat in the first
Prussian Parliament, which met in February 1849,
to frame a constitution ; but, Curiously enough, his
address to the electors dealt less with the question
of a constitution than with that of German unity—
a work, he said, which must be commenced in
Schleswig, and then gradually extended from North
to South.
The result of the elections had been about equally
favourable to the Royalists and the Radicals, and
the former were jubilant. On meeting Bismarck, one
of them exclaimed,
“We have conquered l’’
“No,” replied Bismarck calmly, “not yet ; but we
have attacked, and that is always the main thing.
Our victory has yet to come, but come it will !”—
which, however, it never did to the extent expected,
as the following year saw Prussia blessed (“cursed,”
said Bismarck) with a constitution.
One Liberal nobleman—Count Schwerin, who
acted as President of the Chamber—asked Bismarck
what he had against him. “That you were not
shot at the battle of Prague” (like the great
Frederick's General of the same name), was the
curt reply.
In the Committee sittings of the Diet, he sometimes
3O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
would desert his own political friends, and take his
seat among his opponents. One of these (Herr
von Unruh) Once asked him to what they were
indebted for the honour of his presence on their
side of the table.
“Oh, that is very simple,” replied Bismarck. “My
friends Over there bore me to death ; here I can
amuse myself much better.”
On one of these occasions he remarked to a
democratic opponent (d’Ester), -
“If it were in my power I would have you shot.”
“Well, Herr von Bismarck,” retorted d'Ester,
“when we get the upper hand I shall have you
hanged.”
But there is another version of this story, which
represents Herr d'Ester to have observed to
Bismarck,-
“You alone in all your party have always treated
us with politeness. Let us make a bargain. If we gain
the upper hand we shall spare you ; if fortune should
favour you, you shall do the same by us.”
To this Bismarck replied,
“If your party has its way, life will not be worth
living ; if ours is victorious, there will have to be
executions ; but they shall be conducted with polite-
ness up to the last step of the ladder.”
He had frequently been abused for belonging to
what was called the /u?/ºer party, but he simply
gloried in the title.
“Yes,” he said proudly, “I am a Junker, and much,
I think, to my advantage.”
And again,_
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 3 I
“Whig” and ‘Tory' are also epithets which
originally had a contemptuous meaning, and be
assured that we too, on our side, will yet bring the
name of /unker into respect and honour.””
When the Erfurt Parliament met in the spring of
1850 to imitate its Frankfort predecessor in the futile
discussion of the best means of attaining national
unity (not of the “blood and iron " kind), Bismarck,
as one of the youngest members, was appointed one
of the secretaries to the House ; and when his name,
in this capacity, was read out by the President, Dr.
Edward Simson (who had also presided over the
National Assembly in the Church of St. Paul at
" Here it may be as well to explain this term. A “Jazz7%er
(Jung Herr), or younker,” says Herr Bamberger, “is
essentially the scion of a noble house which has devoted
itself to military service—a mixture of Charles I. cavalier,
Prussian lieutenant, German feudal lord, and Spanish Don
Quixote.” In Prussia the term was originally applied to
cadets of the noblesse, and to young country gentlemen who
acted as ensigns, and did other squirely duties; while
Jazz/ºer/hi/m, or Junkerism, gradually came to denote the
social qualities which distinguished this class—family pride
(probably deepened by poverty), reactionary Conservatism,
and arrogant caste demeanour. In 1848 the word was applied
by the Liberals in a practical sense to the high Prussian or
Conservative party—mainly composed of the reactionary
landed gentry, who loathed the very name of reform.
Mommsen, in his History of Æome, speaks of “narrow-
mindedness and short-sightedness as the real and inalienable
privileges of all genuine Jun Kerſhi/777.” When the National
Assembly, in 1848, was busy with its root-and-branch schemes
of reform, a large number of titled gentlemen met in Berlin to
devise means of guarding their ancient rights, and their
Convention was dubbed the “Junker Parliament.”
32 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Frankfort), Bismarck, who happened just then to be
standing in front of the tribune, whispered to a fellow
deputy (Reichensperger), “My deceased father would
turn thrice in his grave, could he but hear that I have
become a scribe to a Jewish pedant.”
Long years afterwards, when the Empire had been
founded, Reichensperger ventured to remind the
Chancellor of this remark of his, adding, “Your
Highness has now made this Jewish pedant President
of the Supreme Court of the Empire (at Leipzig).”
Thereupon Bismarck warmly eulogised Simson—
whose parents, for the rest, he said, had become
Christians—as one of the most ardent and high-
minded champions of the national idea, “a noble
vessel, full of the finest sentiments.”
In the Erfurt Parliament Bismarck had shown his
countrymen how national unity could not be achieved,
and things returned to the status quo ante. At Olmütz
Prussia once more signed a contract of humiliating
subserviency to Austria, and the affairs of the divided
nation were again committed to the care of the
resuscitated Bund, or Diet of the Germanic Con-
federation, at Frankfort, under the presidency of the
Hapsburg Power. To this Power Bismarck, at that
time, professed his devotion as being a more emphatic
foe of the Revolution than Prussia had proved ; and
in his opinion repression of the spirit of revolution
was meanwhile a more pressing task than encourage-
ment of the national spirit.
In view of all these things, Frederick William
thought that he could not do better than send,
as his representative at the resuscitated Diet, the
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 33
man who had already made so great a mark in the
various Prussian Parliaments as the champion of
divine-right kingship, the foe of the Revolution, and
the friend of Austria. For some time the King
had had his eye on Bismarck, and even thought of
offering him a portfolio, though from this course he
was dissuaded by those who held the Knight of
the Mark to be still too young and inexperienced,
and too much of a Hotspur.
“The King,” said Bismarck afterwards, “regarded
me as a kind of egg, out of which he might be able
some day to hatch a Minister"—a 7/zot which may be
read in the light of the following incident of a later
time. Lord Ampthill once found him reading
Andersen's story of the Ugly Duckling, which relates
how a duck hatched a Swan's egg, and how the cygnet
was jeered at by his putative brethren, the ducklings,
until One day a troop of lordly Swans, floating down
the river, saluted him as one of their race. “Ah,”
observed Bismarck, “it was a long time before my
poor mother could be persuaded that, in hatching me,
she had not produced a goose.”
But Bismarck's King had a better opinion of him
than Bismarck's own mother, and resolved to offer
him the post of Prussian representative at the Frank-
fort Diet, through Herr von Manteuffel, his Premier.
The King was very much surprised at the promptness
with which Bismarck had accepted his offer, and
asked him whether he had well weighed all the
difficulties of the position. He could not help
admiring his courage, said his Majesty.
Bismarck replied that the King's courage in offering
3
34 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
him the post was much greater than his in accepting
it. “Your Majesty,” he added, “can give me a
trial, and if I don’t succeed, it will be easy to recall
me.”
But we have a supplementary account of this incident
from the pen of Mr. John Lothrop Motley, Bismarck's
old fellow-student at Göttingen and Berlin, who,
writing from Frankfort in 1855, said : “In the summer
of 1851, he told me, the Minister, Manteuffel, asked
him one day abruptly if he would accept the post of
Ambassador at Frankfort, to which (although the
proposition was as unexpected a One to him, as if I
should hear by the next mail that I had been chosen
Governor of Massachussets) he answered, after a
moment's deliberation, ‘Yes,’ without another word.
The King, the same day, sent for him and asked him
if he would accept the place, to which he made the
same brief answer, “ſa.’ His Majesty expressed a
little surprise that he made no inquiries or conditions,
when Bismarck replied that anything which the King
felt strong enough to propose to him, he felt strong
enough to accept.
“Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife
next day who was preparing for a Summer's residence
in a small house they had taken on the Sea-coast, that
he could not come, because he was already established
in Frankfort as Minister. The result, he said, was
three days of tears on her part. He had previously
been leading the life of a plain country Squire with a
moderate income, had never held any position in the
Government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever
been to Court. He went into office with a holy horror
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 35
of the mysterious nothings of diplomacy, but soon
found how little there was in the whole gall/zatias.
“. . . He is a man of very noble character and very
great powers of mind. . . . Strict integrity, and courage
of character, a high sense of honour, a firm religious
belief, united with remarkable talents, make up neces-
Sarily a combination which cannot be found any day
in any Court; and I have no doubt he is destined to be
Prime Minister, unless his obstinate truthfulness, which
is apt to be a stumbling-block for politicians, stands
in his way. . . . A man of most undaunted Courage.
“Of course, my politics are very different from his,
although not so antipodal as you might suppose,
but I can talk with him as frankly as I could with
you, and I am glad of an opportunity of hearing the
Other side, put by a man whose talents and character
I esteem, and who so well knows Ze dessous des cartes.
. . . The stand which he took in the Assembly from
Conviction, on the Occasion of the outbreak of 1848,
marked him out at once to all parties as one of the
leading characters of Prussia. . . . The prominent
place he now occupies as a statesman sought /kim. He
did not seek it, or any other office.”
But it was only by the merest accident almost
that his career had not taken a lower and a lesser
course. For, shortly before his appointment to
Frankfort, the Regent of Anhalt-Bernburg had
requested the Prussian Government to name several
men from whom one might be chosen for a high State
office in the Duchy. The request was complied with,
and among the names submitted was that of “Otto
von Bismarck-Schönhausen.” Bismarck and another
36 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
were Ordered to present themselves on a certain day
before the Regent to demonstrate their fitness for the
position to be filled. Both set out accordingly for the
Centre of the Duchy ; but, as ill luck or luck would
have it, the axle of the carriage in which Bismarck
journeyed broke on the way, and he was compelled
to stay a night at the nearest town. Next day he re-
Sumed his journey, but he arrived twenty-four hours
after the time appointed for the interview. In the mean-
while his rival had been given the post. So Bismarck
returned home, pretty much in the same position (if
he had only known it) as Saul after he had gone
forth to look for his father's asses and found a crown.
We have seen what Motley thought of Bismarck;
and now let us see what the latter thought of Motley.
Speaking to his Secretary Once, he said :
“I met Motley at Göttingen in 1832, I am
not sure if at the beginning of the Easter or
Michaelmas term. He kept company with German
students, though more addicted to study than we
members of the fighting clubs. Although not yet
having mastered the German language, he exercised a
marked attraction by a conversation sparkling with
wit, humour, and originality. In autumn of 1833,
having both of us emigrated from Göttingen to
Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we became
fellow-lodgers in the house, No. 161, Friedrich-
strasse. There we lived in the closest intimacy,
sharing meals and Outdoor exercise.
“Motley, by that time, had arrived at talking
German fluently : he occupied himself not only in
translating Goethe's Faust, but tried his hand even
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 37
in composing German verses. An enthusiastic
admirer of Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe, he used
to spice his conversation abundantly with quotations
from these his favourite authors. A pertinacious
arguer—so much so that he sometimes watched my
awakening in order to continue a discussion on
Some topic of Science, poetry, or practical life, which
had been cut short by the chime of the small hours—
he never lost his mild and amiable temper. . . . The
most striking feature of his handsome and delicate
appearance was his uncommonly large and beautiful
eyes. He never entered a drawing-room without
exciting the curiosity and sympathy of the ladies.”
Though appointed to the Diet at Frankfort
(May 1851), Bismarck still retained his seat in the
Prussian Chamber, in which, however, he now rarely
made his appearance. On the two first occasions of
his doing so, he incurred the risk of a challenge
from One Offended deputy, and sent his own second
to another. This latter was Herr von Vincke, who
had referred to Bismarck as a “renowned diplomatist,”
but at Once withdrew the expression, “as all I
know of his diplomatic achievements is limited to
the well-known story of the lighted cigar.” "
* Once, during the Franco-German war, Dr. Busch asked
the Chancellor about “the famous cigar story.” “Which
do you mean P” said the Prince. “When, your Excellency,
Rechberg kept on smoking a cigar in your presence, and you
took one yourself.” “You mean Thun ? Well, that was
simple enough. I went to him, and he was working and
smoking at the same time. He begged me to wait a moment.
I did Wait; but when it seemed too long, and he offered me
no cigar, I took out one, and asked him for a light, which
he gave me with a rather astonished look.”
38 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
As Bismarck looked upon these words in the light
of an insult, he hastened to call out his calumniator,
and they fought a bloodless duel with pistols on
March 25th, 1852.
On this subject General Leopold von Gerlach
wrote in his Memoirs (under date March 23rd):
“Bismarck came to see me last night, and was
very pleasant about his forthcoming duel—which
Stolberg regards in a very serious light, but never-
theless declares to be necessary. Büchsel.” (a pastor
of some kind) “had refused to give him the Sacra-
ment, which I do not think was right of him, as
the duel is in the nature of a righteous war of
defence. Kleist could not persuade Büchsel to yield
in the matter.” But again on March 28th : “Mean-
while, Bismarck's duel has taken place without any-
thing coming of it. Büchsel, after all, administered
to him the Holy Communion the previous day, and
before firing his first shot, he (Bismarck) offered up
a prayer—a thing, it is Said, which had a great
effect on Vincke. Bismarck has returned to Frankfort”
—whence he soon after wrote that he would not seek
re-election to a seat among such “Chamber-
chatterers.”
But this was by no means the only duel in which
Bismarck threatened to become involved—apart al-
together from the sixty sword-encounters from which
he had always emerged victorious at Göttingen. In
1849 he had sent a challenge to the editor of
A ſadderada/sch (the Berlin Punch), though later on,
during his membership of the Diet, the public
strongly suspected that he wrote secretly for that
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 39
paper, particularly whenever a specially good skit
appeared on an Austrian diplomatist.
But after his Vincke duel, the only other occasion
on which he sought to settle a personal dispute by
wager of battle was during the “Conflict Time”
–still ahead—when he called out the famous
physiologist, Professor Virchow, who, in the Chamber,
had roundly accused the Premier of unveracity.
“What do you think you can accomplish, gentlemen,
with a tone like this P” asked Bismarck. “Do you
really wish us to settle our political quarrels after
the manner of the Horatii and the Curiatii P. If
so,”—and, suiting the action to the word, home he
went and sent a challenge to his slanderer. But
the learned professor refused to meet the Minister-
President as the Albans had faced the Roman
brothers.
This incident caused a great sensation at the time,
but it was nearly forgotten when it was cited in a
singular way in court. A gentleman was on trial
for sending a challenge, and, in mitigation of Sentence,
the defendant referred to the case of Bismarck versus
Virchow, observing that Bismarck had never been
called to account for his challenge. The judge replied
that he was not prosecuted as being protected by the
military uniform which, as an officer in the Zandwehr,
he was accustomed and entitled to wear.
“With regard to the Virchow affair,” said Bismarck
to a friend, who had brought him to book for the
incident of his challenge, “I am past the time of
life when one takes advice from flesh and blood in
such things. When I stake my life for any matter,
4O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
I do so in that faith which I have strengthened by
long and severe struggling, but also in honest and
humble prayer to God; a faith which no word of
man, even that of a friend in Christ and a servant
of His Church, can overthrow.”
Some years later, when a young Prussian officer of
noble family was turned out of the army for declining
a challenge on conscientious grounds, an English
clergyman sent Bismarck a copy of the diary of
Mr. Adams, who was American Minister at the
Court of St. James in the beginning of this century.
Mr. Adams spoke with admiration of the efforts
which were being made to put down duelling in
England by force of public opinion. Bismarck, in
courteously acknowledging the book, wrote: “There
is much good sense in England, but you have not
done away with duelling, as you Suppose. There is
more of it among your Schoolboys, who fight with
their fists, than among those of any other country ;
and this may prevent the necessity for much fighting
in after-life. English boys take rank at School ac-
cording to their pluck, and hold that rank ever
afterwards.”
And d propos of this subject it may here be
mentioned that Bismarck once asked Pastor Stöcker,
of anti-Semitic renown, whether there were any text
in the Bible saying, “All men are cowards” P “No,
you are thinking of the text : “The Cretans are all
liars,” said Stöcker. “Liars—cowards, it comes to
much the same thing,” answered Bismarck ; “but it's
not true only of the Cretans; ” and then he asked
Stöcker whether he had met many thoroughly
STUDENT AND STATESMAN. 4. I
brave men. The Court Pastor replied that there
might be several definitions of courage; but Bismarck
interrupted him with a boisterous laugh : “Oh, yes,
the moral courage of letting one's face be slapped
rather than fight a duel; I have met plenty of men
who did that.”
More than once at Frankfort Bismarck was on the
point of fighting a duel with the Austrian President
of the Diet, for he had not been many weeks on
the Main before his attachment to Austria became
changed to gall and bitterness. On one occasion
things came to such a pitch that Count Rechberg
passionately exclaimed, “One of my friends shall
wait on you in the morning.”
“Why all this unnecessary delay P” Bismarck
coolly replied. “In all probability you have a pair
of pistols handy. Let us settle the matter im-
mediately. While you are getting the things ready
I shall write a report about the whole transaction,
which, in case I am killed, I request you to forward
to Berlin.”
Both set about their work. When Bismarck had
finished he handed the sheet to Count Rechberg,
requesting him to examine it. Rechberg's passion
had in the meantime given way to sober reflection.
After perusing the report, he said, “What you say is
quite correct ; but is it really worth while fighting a
duel for such a reason P”
“That is exactly my opinion,” was Bismarck's
answer ; and there the matter ended.
CHAPTER III.
AROM A7RAAVATA’OA 7" 7"O AAEA ZZAV.
S Bismarck invariably spoke as he wrote, his table-
talk during the Frankfort period of his career
will be found in the letters which he penned to his
wife and Sister throughout these eight years, as well as
in his official despatches to Berlin, some of which are
marvels of character-sketching. But here is a vivid
glimpse of his family life and ways—again from the
pen of his old fellow-student Motley, who visited him
at Frankfort in 1855:—
“. . . When I called, Bismarck was at dinner, so I
left my card and said I would come back in half-an-
hour. As soon as my card had been carried to him
(as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant after me to
the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came
back I was received with open arms. I can't express
to you how cordially he received me. If I had been
his brother, instead of an old friend, he could not
have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in
Seeing me. . . .
“Madame de Bismarck and her mother have both
assured me over and Over again that Bismarck was
nearly out of his wits with delight when he saw my
card. . . . It really gives me pleasure to know that a
4?
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 43
man of whom I think so highly has such a warm
and sincere friendship for me. I am sure that you
will like him, and I only regret that we can see SO
little or nothing of each other for the rest of Our
lives. . . .”
“The Bismarcks are as kind as ever. It is one of
those houses where every one does what One likes.
The show apartments where they receive formal
company are on the front of the house. Their living-
rooms, however, are a salon and dining-room at the
back, opening upon the garden. Here there are
young and old, grandparents and children and dogs
all at Once ; eating, drinking, Smoking, piano-playing,
and pistol-firing (in the garden), all going on at the
same time. It is one of those establishments where
every earthly thing that can be eaten or drunk is
offered you; porter, Soda-water, Small beer, champagne,
burgundy, or claret are about all the time, and
everybody is Smoking the best Havana cigars every
minute.”
This domestic picture may be supplemented by
one that was drawn a year or two later by a cavalry
officer attached to the Prussian Legation at Frankfort.
“Whenever Bismarck entered any social circle, he
received honours—not always willingly paid, not
always free from envy–On the part of the men, and
was the object of coquettish attentions on the part of
the ladies ; but, ever cheerful, and yet ever on his
guard, though apparently careless, he was always
master of the situation. When he sat down to take
tea in any company, how quiet, yet how sparkling,
was the flow of his wit. ‘He always says Something
44 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
unexpected, was the testimony of the fair ones who
Surrounded him ; and, indeed, it was not the brilliant
play of schooled and practised society wit, but an in-
exhaustible fountain of pure originality, a fountain
which continually renewed itself, and surprised its
owner hardly less than his hearers, so that the giver
was at the same time an enjoyer of what he gave.
No such gladness was shed around by De Morny, with
his airs of Superiority and his nimbus of half-
brothership ; nor did it grow round the conversational
arabesques of Count von Beust, or radiate from the
kid-leather of his elegant little boots. It was, there-
fore, pardonable if they or others, in their malice,
spoke of the former dike-surveyor of Schönhausen as
a ‘diſºſomate en sabots’—indeed, very pardonable, for
wooden shoes are better than wooden ways.
“All knew, feared, and spoiled the Bismarck of
Society; those who saw Bismarck at work were filled
with astonishment. He was quick, and at the same
time indefatigable. It was a thing never to be
forgotten to hear him dictate his reports. Arrayed
in a large-patterned dressing-gown of green damask
silk, his hands thrust into its pockets, pacing up and
down his room, he seemed to think aloud in im-
patiently overflowing sentences, now driving the
Secretary to wild haste, now, by some droll paren-
thetical remark, compelling him to lay down his pen,
lest, shaken by his laughter, it should drop a blot on
the paper. Sometimes it happened that Frau von
Bismarck interrupted her busy husband with Some
domestic query, and then an amusing interlude
would take place. Thus, I remember a question
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 45
about the fit of some newly-made shirts was once put
to him whilst at his writing-desk. The husband, who
had one of the new dozen on at the time, expressed
himself as satisfied on the whole, but objected to the
height of the collars, and, Seizing the paper-Scissors,
with a pleasant smile, clipped off the Superfluous
amount of collar to show how much he wished to
have them lowered.
“In matters of service Herr von Bismarck kept
strictly to the rule he had first laid down. The young
attaché might at any hour of the day or night
expect to be called into the study of the Ambassador.
It sometimes occurred that when he returned between
midnight and morning from a ball, or its epilogue at
a beer-house, he had to lay aside all his exhaustion,
along with his hat and his Cotillon rosette, and teach
his hastily Snatched-up pen to dance a long waltz
without any pauses, to the dictation of the Am-
bassador, who, even then, was sometimes troubled
with sleeplessness. On Such occasions, early or late,
many a hint fell—my memory does not deceive me—
On a gratefully willing ear. An historical inaccuracy
would be followed by the question, ‘Have you, then,
skipped over a page or two in Becker's History of
the World 'P The reply to a question about re-
lationships in a family of no very high standard
was, ‘Don’t you know that P A young diplomatist
must know the A//lanacſ, de Gotha by heart; for the
things that form its contents play an important part
in politics.' The Somewhat careless execution of a
given order was once more cuttingly reproved : ‘It
must be very unpleasant for yourself; for, no doubt,
46 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
you agree with me that what a gentleman has
engaged to do is already as good as done.’”
During his residence at Frankfort Bismarck was
ever a great traveller, and in particular he was a
frequent visitor to Paris. It had been mainly at his
instigation that the Diet hastened to recognise the
coup d'état and Napoleon's assumption of the Imperial
title, so that he stood high in the estimation of “the
man of destiny.” Being in the French capital in the
autumn of 1855 (during the Crimean War) a dinner
was given in his honour by Count Hatzfeldt, the
Prussian Minister, among the guests being M.
Rothan, a French diplomatist, who afterwards wrote:
“M. de Bismarck admired our army and declared
Napoleon III. to be a great ruler. Nor did he forget
the Empress, of whom he had spoken with such scant
consideration in his Frankfort letters, saying that
she was the loveliest woman he had seen in Paris,
doubtless in the belief that this flattery would reach
the proper quarter and bear seasonable fruit.”
It was on this occasion, too, that Bismarck first
made the acquaintance of Queen Victoria, who
had gone over to Paris to return the visit of her
Imperial ally. A grand ball was given at Versailles,
when, writes Sir Theodore Martin, “several of the
guests were presented to her Majesty, among others
one who was afterwards to visit the halls of the
palace of Versailles under very different circum-
stances—Count (only Herr von, as yet) Bismarck,
then Prussian Minister at Frankfort. He is
described ” (in the Queen's diary) “as ‘very Russian
and Åreu3-2eitung,' and as having said, in answer to
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 47
the Queen's observation, “how beautiful Paris was,'
‘Sogar schöner als Petersburg' (Even more so than
St. Petersburg).”
About the time of the marriage of the Princess
Royal of England to the Crown Prince of Prussia
(January 1858), Bismarck had written to his chief
at Berlin, in reply to a charge by Lord Bloomfield,
English Ambassador there, that in a certain matter
he had acted with great hostility towards England.
“I am really at a loss to know what could have
induced me to act as I am said to have done, seeing
that not only with both the Bentincks, but also with
Sir Alexander Malet” (English Minister at Frankfort)
“I have always been on the best footing, and seeing
also that, in general, as your Excellency knows,
my sympathies for England are livelier than for
any other country after my own.”
But, while cherishing this personal predilection
for England, Bismarck never allowed his sentiment
to influence his politics. “Bursts of sentiment are
Out of place in politics,” as he was afterwards to
tell M. Jules Favre, the tearful suppliant for pity
to his conquered country. It was this distinction
that Bismarck ever made between his own private
feelings and his political convictions which saved
Prussia from the danger of siding with the Western
Powers during the Crimean War—much to the
exasperation of these Powers.
“This policy of yours will conduct you to another
Jena,” haughtily remarked the Marquis de Moustier,
French Minister at Frankfort, in the spring of 1855.
“Why not to another Leipzig or another
48 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Waterloo P” Bismarck replied, with a lofty look ;
and, as a matter of fact, it was in virtue of Prussia
having thus remained neutral during the Crimean
War that Russia returned the compliment in 1866
and 1870, thus enabling Prussia to achieve another
Leipzig and another Waterloo, in the shape of a
Sadowa and a Sedan. This was one of the very
finest acts of foresight which ever distinguished
Bismarck's career ; but he would never have been
able to claim the credit for it, had he allowed his
personal predilection for England to influence his
international politics.
It was also for the same reason that he lamented
—quite as much as the Times did, though for a
very different reason—the betrothal of the Crown
Princess Royal of England to the heir to the
Prussian crown. There was some of his table-talk
on this subject which cannot very well be repeated ;
but the rest of it he himself thus reproduced in a
letter to General von Gerlach, Aide-de-Camp to
Frederick William IV. :—
“You ask me what I have to say to the English
marriage. I must separate the two words in order
to make my meaning clear. The English part of
the business pleases me not at all. As for the
marriage, it may be all right, for the Princess has
the reputation of being a young lady of mind and
heart; and one of the first conditions for discharging
one's duty in this world, whether as king or subject,
is that his home shall be free from all that is
represented in and involved by the contrary of
mind and heart in the wife who presides over that
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 49
home. If, therefore, the Princess succeeds in leaving
the Englishwoman in England, and becoming a
Prussian in Prussia, she will be a blessing to this
country. Royal marriages, as a rule, give the house
whence the bride comes influence over the house which
she enters, but not vice versdº. This is especially the
case when the wife's country is more powerful, and
has a more strongly developed national feeling than
the husband's.
“If, therefore, our future Queen should remain
even partly the Englishwoman on the throne of
Prussia, I can only see Our Court dominated by
English influences without any corresponding con-
sideration for Ourselves and the other numerous
sons-in-law of her gracious Majesty to be, except,
perhaps, when the Opposition in Press and Parlia-
ment may choose to abuse our own royal family
and country. With us, on the contrary, British
influence will find the most fertile soil in the servile
admiration of the honest German citizen for Lords
and Commons, and in the Anglomania for news-
papers, sportsmen, landowners, and magistrates.
Every Berliner feels himself already an inch taller
when a real English jockey addresses him and gives
him an opportunity of torturing the Queen's English.
What will it be when the first lady in the land is
herself an Englishwoman P”
“No petticoat government for us !” exclaimed
Bismarck at a later time ; and he was always fond
of descanting on the Superiority of the masculine
Over the feminine element in nature—the former
represented by the Germans, the latter by the Slavs
4
5 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
and Celts. He could not bear to let it be thought
that he was inferior in any respect to the fair sex.
Once at Frankfort he chanced to sit at a table
d"/6te Opposite a couple of young ladies from the
Baltic Provinces, who began conversing with con-
siderable abandon in the Lett tongue; and Bismarck
suspected that he himself was the main object of
criticism on the part of his fair but rather provincial-
mannered companions, who never imagined that a
barbarous dialect like theirs would be understood
by any one in a civilised city like Frankfort. The
quizzing mood of the ladies having reached its
climax with the dessert, Bismarck whispered to
his neighbour to hand him a key whenever he
heard him utter some unintelligible words. “Do/id
man Żó agleſſ,” said Bismarck presently to his friend,
who at once replied by producing the article
demanded ; whereupon the unsuspecting fair ones
from Courland looked at their vis-à-vis in horror,
then at each other in confusion, and, blushing a
deep crimson, vanished from the room.
He had picked up a smattering of Lettish when
once on a visit to Courland ; and now to his linguistic
accomplishments he was to add a considerable
knowledge of Russian when transferred from
Frankfort to St. Petersburg on the eve of the
Italian war (1859), in which he beheld Prussia's
opportunity for emancipating herself, once and for
all, from the intolerable tutelage of Austria.
Talking with a Liberal friend, Von Unruh, at this
time, about the subserviency of the minor States to
Austria, he remarked that “there was only one ally
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 5 I
for Prussia, if she knew how to win and deal with it,
and that was—the German people !”
Herr von Unruh expressed surprise to hear such
sentiments come from the lips of an anti-democratic
man like Bismarck.
“Well,” rejoined the latter, “I am still the same
Junker I was ten years ago, when we became
acquainted in the Chamber ; but I should have no
eyes and no brains in my head if I did not clearly
make out the actual state of Our affairs.”
Herr von Unruh had found Bismarck in bed
reading the Kreug-Zeitung, which he threw aside, on
the entrance of his friend, with the contemptuous
remark that “This journal has not a Spark of Prussian
patriotism, urging, as it does, Prussia to support
Austria against France and Italy.”
Bismarck spent about three years (1859-62) at
St. Petersburg, where he had been “placed in ice’
by the Prince Regent of Prussia (afterwards German
Emperor), and here he made the best possible im-
pression as a table-talker—even against his own
government and its questionable doings.
“Society,” said a Russian writer, “was unanimous
in declaring that this diplomatist formed a marked
contrast to his stiff, would-be well-bred, buttoned-up,
and pretentious predecessors, and that he was a
veritable “homeºne du 7/10/zde.’ The fresh, uncon-
strained, and yet self-possessed manner of the new-
comer accorded in every respect with the social
demands of our aristocracy. Instead of the anxious
precision which we had been accustomed to expect
from German statesmen, Herr von Bismarck displayed
52 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
an ease and affability that facilitated official as well
as private intercourse with him, and rendered
ceremony unnecessary. Business people were im-
pressed with the offhand readiness of the diplomatist,
who proved himself at home on every subject;
while the lions and lionesses of our drawing-rooms
were charmed with the unfailing good-temper, the
flowing wit, the distinguished yet simple manners,
and the excellent French of the man of the world.
Here, at last, was a German with whom we could
associate as easily and pleasantly as with other
people. Our Overweening aristocracy, accustomed to
look down on everything German, and to consider
itself superior to all others, joyfully acknowledged
him as one of its own caste.”
From St. Petersburg, where he had acted as
Prussian Minister for over three years, Bismarck was
transferred to Paris in the same capacity, though here
his stay only lasted a little over three months (June
to September, 1862). But during this brief period
he had ample opportunity of completing his study
of the character of Napoleon and his satellites.
De Morny was fond of quoting the anecdote about
Alcibiades having cut off the tail of his dog to give
the Athenians something to talk about, and he and
the Prussian Minister had more than one conversation
about the art of ruling. Bismarck had the frankness
to say that he looked upon the comedies of Dumas
the younger, and indeed on most French plays of
the lighter sort, as grossly corrupting to the public
morals. “Panem et circenses,” Smiled De Morny.
“A”anem et saturnalia,” muttered Bismarck.
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 53
Another point upon which the two diplomatists
could not agree was about the qualities requisite in
a public servant. De Morny cared nothing for
character. The men whom he recommended for
prefectships or posts in the diplomatic Service were,
for the most part, adventurers—brilliant, witty,
diseurs de rieſ, and cajolers of the other sex. “A
French Ambassador,” he maintained, “should always
consider himself accredited auprés des reines.”
Bismarck loathed ladies' men, and he had the
poorest opinion of Napoleon's diplomatists. His
own ideal of a State functionary was the blameless
man without debts or entanglements—laborious but
not pushing, well educated but not abounding in
ideas, a man in all things obedient. He sneered
at diplomatists like M. Benedetti and the Duc de
Gramont, calling them “dancing dogs without collars.”
They never seemed to have a master, he complained,
“but stood up on their hind legs and performed their
antics without authority from man alive. If they
barked, you were sure to hear a voice from Paris crying
to them to be quiet. If they fawned, you might expect
to see them receive Some sly kick, warning them that
they ought to be up and biting.”
One day Bismarck had been dining at the “Moulin
Rouge” with Von Beust and Seebach, and as they
were on their way to “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.”
It was on this occasion, as Beust writes in his
Memoirs, that “Bismarck told me it was a blessing
54. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
to him to have passed some years with ‘good-natured
Gortchakoff after all that he had suffered in Frankfort
from Prokesch '; while, on the other hand, Prokesch
had assured me, when I visited him at Frankfort in
October 1855, at the time of his appointment as
Austrian Minister to Constantinople, that the prospect
of negotiating with the wise Ali instead of with
Bismarck seemed to him like an Oriental vision of
the blessed.”
As for the attitude of France in the event of a war
between Prussia and Austria, Napoleon was good
enough to promise unconditional neutrality. It is
true, he again spoke of “Some slight rectification of
frontier,” mentioning the Saarbrück coal-fields as a
desirable acquisition for France ; but Bismarck
distinctly told him that Prussia would not part with
a single village, saying that, even if he himself were
willing (which he was not), the King would never hear
of such a thing. The Emperor, who underrated the
strength of Prussia, repeatedly warned Bismarck of
the danger he was incurring in language similar to
that which the latter himself had used to him in 1857,
when taken into his Majcsty's confidence with respect
to certain audacious Schemes of conquest and
aggrandisement affecting some of his neighbours :
“Sire,” Bismarck had replied then, “Sire, vous vous
embourbereg " (You will get yourself into trouble
with such ideas). It was now Napoleon's turn to
caution Bismarck in Similar language, but, Seeing
him full of hope and courage, despite his own evil-
boding, he dismissed him with a “Very well, then,
do what you cannot help doing.”
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 55
During his short stay at Paris Bismarck took a run
over to London, and this was what was afterwards
written of him by Count Vitzthum, then Saxon Envoy
in London —
“Among the princely personages who visited the
International Exhibition in London was the Grand
Duke of Saxe-Weimar. The Russian Envoy, Baron
Brunnow, gave a great dinner in his honour, and I
was present. Among the guests was the Prussian
Minister in Paris, Herr von Bismarck-Schönhausen,
who after dinner had a long conversation with Disraeli.
The leader of the Opposition gave me the following
account of this conversation —
“‘I shall shortly be compelled '—the Prussian states-
man spoke nearly in these terms— to undertake the
presidency of the Prussian Government. My first
care will be to re-organise the army, with or without
the help of the Diet. The King has rightly im-
posed this task upon himself, but with his present
counsellors he cannot discharge it. With the army
placed in a position to enforce respect, I shall seize
upon the first pretext for declaring war against
Austria, breaking up the German Federation, sub-
jecting the minor States, and giving Germany
national unity under Prussia's guidance. I have come
here in order to tell the Queen's Ministers this.’
Disraeli's commentary on this programme was : ‘Take
care of that man. He means what he says.'”
Already at the London Conference of next year
(1863), as POSchinger remarks, Lord John Russell
was to experience the truth of this remark.
But from the pen of Mr. Disraeli himself we have
56 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
what is probably a truer account of what Bismarck
Said to him on this occasion. For there can be little
doubt that Lord Beaconsfield did his Prussian friend
the honour of making him one of the characters
(Count Ferroll, quasi d ferro et igni) in his Endymion.
“The Count of Ferroll about this time made a visit
to England. He was always a welcome guest there,
and received the greatest distinction which England
could bestow upon a foreigner; he had been elected
an honorary member of White's. “You may have
troubles here,' he said to Lady Montfort, “but they
will pass , you will have mealy potatoes again and
plenty of bank-notes, but we shall not get off so
cheaply. Everything is quite rotten throughout the
Continent. This year is tranquillity to what the next
will be. There is not a throne in Europe worth a
year's purchase. My worthy master wants me to
return home and be Minister ; I am to fashion for
him a new constitution. I will never have anything
to do with new constitutions ; their inventors are
always the first victims. Instead of making a Con-
stitution he should make a country, and convert his
heterogeneous domains into a patriotic dominion.’
“But how is that to be done P’ ‘There is only one
way; by blood and iron.’ ‘My dear Count, you shock
me!’ ‘ I shall have to shock you a great deal more
before the inevitable is brought about.’”
Bismarck once told Lord Bloomfield that he had the
highest opinion of Charles Matthews, the actor. It
turned out that this opinion was not based on any
particular admiration for Matthews's professional
talcnt, but for his coolness during a theatrical
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 57
riot which Bismarck witnessed during his visit to
London.
Soon after returning from London to his post
at Paris, Bismarck started off on a Pyrenean tour,
and at Avignon (Sept. I 5th) he forgathered with a
young Frankfort couple–Lüning by name—who
were honeymooning in that romantic region.
“Excellency,” said Herr Lüning, “I only saw you
once in Frankfort, but I shall never forget the circum-
stance, or the excitement that was caused among Our
good citizens by the incident.”
“Indeed P And what was that P*
“It was on the Zeil” (the chief promenade in
Frankfort), “on the eve of the Austro-Italian war, and
you were walking up and down arm-in-arm with the
Italian Minister, Count Barral, to the horror of the
Austrians and the Frankforters, who were counting on
an alliance with Prussia.”
“Yes,” replied Bismarck, with a laugh, “and to the
special horror of Count Rechberg’’ (the Austrian
President of the Diet). “But the Austrians were
sharper than I was, for next day I got a telegram
ordering me to St. Petersburg.”
After dining together at the Hôtel Beau Séjour,
the three agreed to go for a drive ; and Bismarck had
but taken his seat at the side of the blooming young
bride, opposite her husband, when a telegram was
handed to him.*
* Two other telegrams reached Bismarck the same evening,
one from an old Pomeranian friend and fellow-squire, Moritz
von Blanckenburg : “A”ricit/u/z in mord. Dépêcheg-vows 1
Z'amº de Al/azarice He/2/21/?g ”; and another from the War
Minister, General von Roon : “The fruit is ripe.”
58 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
It was a message from King William, summoning
him to return at once to Berlin and assume the post
of Minister-President.
The Chamber had again rejected the estimates for
a reformed army—the condition precedent of all
Other reforms—and the King was in despair.
Bismarck made no secret of the contents of his
telegram, and expressed the hope that he would
yet succeed in reconciling the Government and the
Chamber.
But he would not interrupt the drive, which presently
led across the fine suspension bridge of the Rhone and
along the bank of the noble river to a locality lovely
with vineyards and olive groves, where the party got
Out of their vehicle to take a stroll and enjoy the
balmy evening air.
Suddenly Madame Lüning stopped, and, breaking
off a double twig from a young olive tree, offered it to
Bismarck with the words: “May this help you to
make it up with your opponents "
“I will accept the half of it,” gallantly replied
Bismarck, with a smile, as he returned the lady the
other, saying : “May this other half, with this rose,
bring you, dear madam, Constant peace in your happy
marriage ”
Four days later he was in Berlin, and about the
situation which there awaited him he afterwards Said :
“When I arrived in Berlin on September 19th,
1862, summoned by his Majesty from Paris, his
abdication, already signed, lay on his writing-table. I
refused to take office. The document was ready for
handing to the Crown Prince. The King asked me
FROM FRANKFORT TO BERLIN. 59
whether I was prepared to govern against a
majority of the Chamber even without a Budget. I
answered ‘Yes,’ and the letter of abdication was
destroyed.
“But even then the struggle was not over. A
fortnight after, the King wrote to me from Baden in a
state of intense despondency. I went to meet him
on his way back to Berlin, and waited for him at
Jüterbog station. The platform was quite dark. I
could not find the Royal carriage. In those days we
did not travel in special trains. At last I found the
King sitting in an ordinary first-class compartment.
He was terribly depressed. The Queen had pointed
to the lessons of history. I pointed to the Prussian
officer's sword which he wore. ‘What is going to
happen P’ he exclaimed. ‘I can see far enough from
the palace window to behold your head fall on the
Scaffold, and after yours—mine.’
“‘Well,' I replied, ‘for myself I cannot imagine a
nobler death than that, or on the battlefield. I should
fall like Strafford, and your Majesty like Charles I.,
not like Louis XVI. Surely your Majesty, as captain
of a company, cannot think of deserting it under fire P’
“Never, was the reply, and the King sprang up
resolute and erect. The Prussian Officer's sword had
carried the day, and I had won back my King. Such
was the Scrious character of the times we then went
through, and such was the stake my noble master
risked in order to lay the foundation-stone of our
military organisation.”
CHAPTER IV.
A / OO/D AAV/O / ACOA/.
ITH IN a fortnight of his meeting with the
Lünings at Avignon, Bismarck had made his
first speech at a sitting of the Budget Committee.
Military reform, he argued, was above all things
requisite for a “national policy.”
To this the objection was urged that it would be
much better of the Government to aim at making
moral Conquests in Germany by a Liberal policy.
Thereupon Bismarck produced his pocket-book,
and took from it a little twig with a few dried leaves
upon it.
“I brought this olive-leaf with me from Avignon,”
he said, “in order to offer it to the Progressists
(Radicals) as a symbol of peace, but I see that I
am much too soon with it.”
And on this assurance being only received with
a smile, Bismarck roused himself to sterner speech.
“Germany,” he said, “does not look to the
Liberalism, but to the power of Prussia, and Prussia
must pull herself together SO as not again to miss
the favourable moment. Not by speechifying and
resolutions, as in 1848 and 1849, can the great
questions of the time be decided, but by blood and iron.”
6o
BLOOD AND IRON. 6 I
And with that he crushed the withered olive leaves
in the palm of his hand, sprinkling their dust upon
the floor—such the history of the famous olive-twig
of Avignon, as well as of the still more famous phrase
which characterised the policy that was to make
Germany one.
Conversing soon after this with a Hessian deputy
(Dr. Friedrich Oetker) Bismarck complained that
his meaning had been perverted in the report of
his speech. “Blood,” for example, he had only used
as a synonym for “soldiers.”
“Here,” said Oetker, “I remarked that I was also
quite of the opinion that we should not achieve our
purpose without ‘blood and iron, nay, without
much blood—Bismarck listening in a kind of
reverie.”
Then he said that he was no longer the young
fellow who, in 1848, had placed himself in opposition
to the barricade-fighters. Every one, he said, was
influenced by his education, but at Frankfort his
eyes had been opened. For the rest, he had
simply taken office in order to obviate recourse to
eXtreme measureS.
Dr. Oetker said this was precisely what he himself
had fancied, and that he never for a moment thought
of Crediting the new Premier with plans in the sense
of the Kreug-Zeitung.
“God forbid ” exclaimed Bismarck with the
utmost warmth, as he proceeded to apply the vilest
and most opprobrious terms of abuse to the journal
to which he himself had once been a constant
contributor.
62 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
The Kreug-Zeitung was now no longer under the
control of its founder and first editor, Herr Wagener,
who had been one of Bismarck's most intimate
friends during the anti-revolutionary time (“AVous
7te voz//ons pas a contre-revolution, mais /e com/raire
de la revolution,” Bismarck had said); and Wagener
was the first person he asked to dine with him on
becoming Premier. On this occasion Bismarck set
forth the aims of his policy, saying that he would
not adhere to it if he thought it was at all possible
for the re-organised Prussian army to be beaten.
“Everything in Our military system can be copied–-
everything but the Prussian officer.”
In reply to a remark of Wagener, who could
not help expressing his admiration of the combined
boldness, caution, and self-confidence with which
Bismarck had at once buckled to his work, the
latter said :
“I am now devoting myself to foreign policy in
the same way as I used to do my Snipe-shooting
—that is to say, I never take another step forward
without feeling quite sure of the peat-heap on which
I want to gain a fresh footing.”
On a subsequent occasion—which we may here
anticipate—Bismarck offered another explanation of
what he had meant by his “blood and iron " phrase.
“My greatest triumph,” he exclaimed, “is to have
obtained from the King of Prussia the declaration
of war against Austria, and the permission to
convoke a German Parliament. Leave the rest
to the future, and do not ask me why I could
not achieve this, my highest aim, without turning
BLOOD AND IRON. 63
the Chamber and the Press against me. There
are great things which no discussions or votes can
give us. To obtain them, we must have five hundred
thousand bayonets.”
This was said in table-talk fashion at One of the
committee sittings of the Chamber, where he
liked best to let himself go just as the humour—
now reckless and defiant, now winning and genial
—might seize him. The unconstrained talk which
he could indulge in with closed doors suited his
disposition much better than public oratory. “At
such times,” said a witness to these discussions,
“everything passed before our eyes in kaleidoscopic
confusion, and with such rapidity that it was im–
possible to follow. There was a strange contrast
between the grave and matter-of-fact talk of the
commissioners and the brilliant rattle of the Minister,
with its strong sprinkling of foreign words.”
His power of work was at this time truly tremen-
dous, though, like Dr. Johnson, he preferred idleness
to work if that were possible.
An old acquaintance, who met Bismarck at this
time and asked him how he was, received for reply :
“How should I be P You know how I love to be
lazy, and how I have to work l’’
“I remember you in my boyish days very well,”
said Bismarck to Dr. von Arnim, Body-Physician
to Prince Albrecht; “you then struck me with your
enormous energy.”
“That is completely altered,” replied von Arnim
quietly, “for now you strike me enormously with
yours.”
64 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“How is it,” King William once asked his new
Minister-President and his cousin Herr von Bismarck-
Briest, “that the Bismarcks of Schönhausen are all
such tall, strapping fellows, and those of Briest just
the contrary P." *
“Because my ancestors,” replied Bismarck, “all
served the King as soldiers in battle, while my
cousins were engaged in civil affairs l’’
Herr von Bismarck-Briest promptly added, “That is
precisely why I have put my seven sons into the army.”
That Bismarck himself hated civil affairs and would
have preferred to be a soldier—a preference to which
he often gave expression—may be inferred from the
following letter, which he sat down to indite to his
old Göttingen friend, Motley, amid all the Babel of
a debate in the Chamber of Deputies:—
“I hate politics; but, as you say truly, like the
grocer hating figs, I am none the less obliged to keep
my thoughts increasingly occupied with those figs.
Even at this moment, while I am writing to you, my
ears are full of it. I am obliged to listen to particularly
tasteless speeches out of the mouths of uncommonly
childish and excited politicians, and I have therefore
a moment of unwilling leisure which I cannot use
better than by giving you news of my welfare.
“I never thought that in my riper years I should
be obliged to carry on such an unworthy trade as that
of a Parliamentary Minister. As Envoy, though
only an official, I still had the feeling of being a
gentleman ; as Parliamentary Minister one is a helot.
I have come down in the world and hardly know
how. . . . I am sitting again in the House of Phrases,
BLOOD AND IRON. 65
hear people talk nonsense, and end my letter. All
these people have agreed to approve our treaties with
Belgium, in spite of which twenty speakers scold
each other with the greatest vehemence, as if each
wished to make an end of the other ; they are not
agreed about the motives which make them unanimous;
hence, alas ! a regular German Squabble about the
Emperor's beard—guerelle d’A/lemand. . . .”
This was about the time of the Polish insurrection
(March 1863), and on this subject Bismarck entered
into conversation with a deputy at a Court ball.
“There were two ways,” he said, “of treating the
Polish question : Prussia might either join hands with
Russia to suppress the rebellion at once, and thus
create a fait accomple, which the Western Powers
would have no choice but recognise; or the Russians
and the Poles might be left to fight it out by them-
selves, after which, if the Russians begged for help,
or were beaten altogether, we might march into and
take possession of Poland.”
Hereupon the deputy, in Some amazement, asked
whether he was being treated to a carnival jest.
“Not at all,” replied Bismarck. “I am most serious.
Russia has long been sick and tired of Poland. When
I was Minister in St. Petersburg, Alexander II.
himself once told me that Russia, the most uncivilised
of nations, could not govern a civilised people like
the Poles, though the Germans might be able to do so.
In time we would Germanise Poland, though the
union between the two countries might only be a
personal one, and the Polish deputies would no longer
sit here" (in Berlin), “but in Warsaw.”
66 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
On the same occasion Herr von Oetker expressed
the hope that an end would now soon be put to the
conflict between Crown and Chamber about the army
estimates, a conflict which absorbed so much of the
Premier's energy.
“There you are right,” exclaimed Bismarck; “but
with Such people as our present parliamentarians no
agreement is possible. These professors think they
know everything better than I do, and want to have
a say in everything ; but that won't do in politics.”
Then he went on to abuse the Liberals.
“But, Excellency,” put in Oetker, “you forget that
I, too, am a Liberal.”
“Ah, yes, that may be,” rejoined the Premier, “but
then you are a man of Sound Common-sense and not
a mere hobby-horse rider. You start from the left,
I from the right, and we are sure to meet on common
ground. But as for the professors "
Of these Bismarck always had a holy horror.
“You must not take me for a Heidelberg professor,”
he once said to Prince Napoleon ; and his general
views on the class might be summed up in the
epigram :
“Gott weiss viel,
Doch mehr der Herr Professor ;
Gott weiss alles,
Doch er—alles besser.”
Of which the meaning might be rendered Or, at least,
illustrated, by the Oxford epigram :
“Look at me, my name is Jowett,
I am the Master of Balliol College;
All that can be known, I know it,
And what I know not is not knowledge.”
BLOOD AND IRON. 67
Once about this time a doctrinaire politician
advanced a very paradoxical statement at Bismarck's
dinner-table, and one of the guests set himself
to refute it. “Pray don't trouble yourself,” ex-
claimed the Premier. “If you will only have patience
for two or three minutes, the learned Herr Pro-
fessor will contradict himself in the most brilliant
manner | *
On another occasion Bismarck said to Professor
Virchow, “You perhaps imagine that you under-
stand the national policy better than I do ; but
I know that I understand better than you or the
Chamber what I call political policy (dže politisc/le
Politik).”
Bismarck had to say the same thing, a hundred
times over, to Count Beust, a great opponent of his
national policy, of whom he was afterwards to remark
at the table of an old sporting friend, Herr von
Dietze-Barby, when asked his opinion of the Saxon
Minister, “Well, when I wish to estimate the danger
that is likely to accrue to me from any adversary, I
first of all subtract the man's vanity from his other
qualities; and if I do this in the case of Beust,
there is little or nothing left.”
Previous to this, Beust had gone to the Prussian
capital to treat with Bismarck on certain political
matters. “Unrequited affection,” he wrote in his
Memoirs, “did not prevent my going to Berlin some
months later. . . . My reception was very polite and
even cordial. I remember our walking one evening
near the Wallner Theatre, and pursuing our conversa-
tion. We heard peals of laughter issuing from the
68 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
building, and Bismarck said, “They are making bad
jokes about us.' Farces were then being performed at
Berlin in which I appeared as one of the characters,
and I expressed a wish to see myself represented
on the stage by the actor Helmerding, a wish that
was not gratified.”
A little later in the same year (1863), there was held
at Frankfort a great “Congress of Princes” for the
purpose of making a final effort to achieve federal
reform, in the Austrian and Saxon sense of the term,
without recourse to “blood and iron.” But King
William—acting under advice from his “political
doctor,” as he called his Premier (“Voilà mon medecám /*
he had once exclaimed, on a Russian princess
congratulating him on the great improvement of his
looks)—had SCOrned to be a party to what Bismarck
described as mere “wind-baggery.” At the request
of his fellow-sovereigns, King John of Saxony went
to Baden to try to induce the King of Prussia to go
to Frankfort, but the latter, with Bismarck at his
elbow, was inexorable.
“I had the honour,” wrote Beust, “ of accompanying
his Saxon Majesty. It was my task to interview
Herr von Bismarck. We arrived in the afternoon.
I looked for Bismarck at the ‘Stephanienbad,' where
Napoleon had stayed in 1860. He was out, but soon
returned. It was late, and Bismarck asked me to
stay for dinner, an invitation which I gladly accepted.
“His first words were, ‘You come to drag us
down to perdition ; but you won't succeed.’
“‘I do not understand you,' I rejoined. ‘If
your King goes to Frankfort to-morrow, appears in
BLOOD AND IRON. 69
the Congress, and greets the Princes with hearty
words, saying that he is ready to take part in their
deliberations, but that, as he has gone through two
severe courses of medical treatment, he must request
them to excuse him for a while, and will return some
weeks later, the Congress will leave Frankfort on the
following day.'
“To which Bismarck replied, ‘What you say is
probable, very probable, but not certain.'
“When I began a further attempt to persuade him,
with the words, “Hitherto you have given me your
confidence,' he interrupted me, saying, “I have
lost all confidence in you since you made your speech
at Leipzig.' *
“As it is his habit to assume a jesting tone, even
when he is most annoyed, he added, “In this way
you only mislead your friends. You had no truer
friend in Prussia than General Manteuffel. On
reading your speech, he was taken ill, and had to
keep his bed for twenty-four hours, during which he
exclaimed incessantly, “How mistaken one can be
in such a man ’’’
“Of his own Sovereign he only said : ‘The King
became very sulky at the prospect of a visit from
your master. He says, “If they had only sent me
my Son-in-law' (Grand Duke of Baden), ‘I should
have rated him soundly ; but they actually send me
the venerable King of Saxony l’”
“The composition of the King's reply, in which he
" At a festival held in 1863 by the Gymnastic Societies of
Germany.
7o BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
refused to accept the invitation signed by all the
Princes, must have given a great deal of trouble, for
Herr von Bismarck did not bring it to me till late
at night. A special train soon took us back to
Frankfort ’’-re 27//ec/6.
Then came the Danish war, of which Bismarck was
afterwards to say : “When I was made a Prince the
King insisted on putting Alsace-Lorraine into my
coat-of-arms. But I would much rather have had
Schleswig-Holstein, for that is the campaign, politically
speaking, of which I am proudest.” His method of
Conducting the diplomacy of this campaign was well
illustrated by his billiard-room interview with Prince
Frederick of Augustenburg, the Legitimist claimant of
the Duchies, whose daughter, Princess Victoria, was
destined one day to become German Empress, as the
wife of William II. This Pretender went to Berlin
to treat with Bismarck about his claims, and it was
then that he heard, from the mouth of the Prussian
Premier, first mention of that project which has now
been realised in the Canal uniting the Baltic and
North Sea. But Prince Frederick would not yield
to all the Premier's demands in connection with the
matter.
“At first,” said Bismarck afterwards, “I wanted
from him no more than what the minor Princes
conceded in 1866. But he would not yield an inch
(thank Heaven, thought I to myself, and thanks to
the wisdom of his legal advisers). At first I called
him “Highness,' and was altogether very polite. But
when he began to make objections about Kiel
Harbour, which we wanted, and would listen to none
BLOOD AND IRON. 7 I
of our military demands, I put on a different face.
I now titled him ‘Serene Highness,' and told him at
last quite coolly that we could easily wring the neck
of the chicken which we ourselves had hatched.”
But amid all his war worries Bismarck could find
the heart to write (in English) such a rollicking note
as this, rollicking as his table-talk, to his old Göttingen
friend, now the brilliant historian of the “Dutch
Republic * :-
“JACK MY DEAR,-Where the Devil are you, and
what do you do that you never write a line to me P
I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and
you have nothing to do at all—you might as well
tip me a line instead of looking at your feet tilted
against the wall of God knows what a dreary colour.
I cannot entertain a regular correspondence; it
happens to me that during five days I do not find a
quarter of an hour for a walk ; but you, lazy old
chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old
friends? Why do you never come to Berlin P I
swear that I will make time to look with you on
Old LOgier's quarters, and drink a bottle with you
at Gerolt's, where they once would not allow you to
put your slender legs upon a chair. Let politics be
hanged and come and see me. I promise that the
Union Jack shall wave over our house, and con-
versation and the best old hock shall pour damnation
upon the rebels. Sez gut ſtºld Koſ/ſ/z oder sc/reibe.
“Dein V. BISMARCK
“Haunted by the old song, “In good old Colony
} }}
Times,’”—
72 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Of which the first verse ran –
“In good old colony times,
When we lived under a king,
Three roguish chaps
Fell into mishaps,
Because they could not sing.”
At the outset of the Danish war old Field-Marshal,
or “Papa,” Wrangel was at the head of operations.
There was some fear that the Western Powers might
object to the German troops entering Jutland ; in
consequence of which a telegram was sent to the
Field-Marshal, bidding him advance no farther, who
thereupon wired back to King William that “these
diplomatists, who spoil the most successful operations,
deserved the gallows.” Bismarck took care to ignore
Wrangel's presence whenever he met him on later
occasions, which could not fail to annoy him. One
day, however, they met at dinner, having both been
invited to the King's table. It was a peculiarity of
Wrangel that he always called everybody “Du,” or
“ thou’’; and, turning to Bismarck, who was seated
next to him, he said : “My son, canst thou not
forget?” “No,” was the curt reply. After a short
pause Wrangel began again, “My Son, Canst thou not
forgive P” “With all my heart,” answered Bismarck;
and the two remained friends till Wrangel's death.
But that Bismarck could forget as well as forgive
was shown by the following incident, which happened
about the same time :—
In the year 1863 a Princess Caroline of Reuss
(younger line) had made bold to impose a special tax
on her people in order to raise the wind for the
BLOOD AND IRON. 73
marriage outfit of one of her daughters, and the act
was severely commented on in the Press. Among
others, K/adderadatsch, the Punch of Berlin, published
a caustic poem on the subject, for which its editor,
Herr Dohm, was prosecuted by the Princess, and
sentenced, after a year's fighting, to five weeks'
imprisonment. But when he had “sat " for about four-
fifths of this time, there appeared in the same comic
print a cartoon, with the legend “Crino–caro–Zºne,”
showing poor Dohm sitting, “Cribbed, cabined, and
confined,” within the iron cage-like network of a huge
crinoline (the fashion of the day), with his colleagues
standing around full of sympathy. The King had
been much amused by this cartoon, and Bismarck,
who shared his master's feelings in the matter, had no
difficulty in getting His Majesty to agree to the
letting of Dohm out of gaol. So to the incarcerated
editor he wrote :—
“I beg to inform you that His Majesty the King
has just seen fit to remit the remainder of your
five weeks' imprisonment. Apart from yesterday's
ceremony” (the triumphal entry of the troops from
Schleswig-Holstein and the consequent graciousness
of His Majesty's mood), “the charming cartoon in
your last issue has not been without influence on this
decision. But may I combine a personal request
with this intimation, and beg you now to leave poor
Caroline alone P”
For his services in connection with the Treaty of
Vienna, resulting from the Danish war, Bismarck had
been decorated with the Black Eagle. Among those
who had written to congratulate him on this great
74 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
honour was Dr. Bonnell, with whom he had boarded
when attending the Grey Friars' Gymnasium at
Berlin, in 183 I ; and the Minister-President went to
take tea with his revered old teacher, in order to
return his thanks in person. On this occasion he
had much to say about the charms of Biarritz, where
he had lately been again, and referred to the numerous
threatening letters that reached him, though these he
despised and disregarded, as no party, he said, had ever
yet gained any advantage from political murder.
Then he told of a curious dream which he had at
Biarritz. He had, he said, been ascending a mountain
path, which grew ever narrower till at last he came to
a high wall, at its side being a deep abyss. For a
moment he stood reflecting whether he should not turn
back ; but then he struck out with his walking-stick
at the wall, which at Once disappeared, leaving his
path open and unimpeded—an encouraging Omen, he
added, for the difficulties that were in store for him.
But there was another walking-stick which about
this time seemed to Bismarck to be of still better
omen, and that was one which he had received
from King William as a Christmas present—probably
in consequence of his Premier having also repeated
to him his Biarritz dream. In acknowledging this
gift Bismarck wrote:—
“I thank your Majesty most respectfully and
warmly for so graciously remembering me to-day.
. . . I firmly trust that God will make your Majesty's
staff blossom in Germany like Aaron's rod, whereof
we read in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers,
and that, if necessary, it will also transform itself
BLOOD AND IRON. 75
into the serpent which swallows up the others, as
in the seventh chapter of Exodus.
“I would ask your Majesty to forgive this allusion,
into which I have been led by my feelings of
gratitude. This being Christmas-time I feel
constrained to assure your Majesty that my fidelity
and obedience to the master God has given me On
earth rest on the same firm foundation as my
religious faith. In deepest reverence and unchange-
able fidelity, I remain till death your Majesty's most
obedient servant, BISMARCK.”
Of Bismarck's visit to Biarritz, as above referred
to, we get an interesting glimpse from Jules Hansen,
a Danish journalist employed to manipulate the
European Press in favour of his country during
the Schleswig-Holstein trouble.
“The Prussian Minister occupied the ground
floor of the famous and now historic /l/aſsoſ, A'ouge,
situated on the shore of the Bay of Biscay, at the
foot of the hill on which stood the villa of the
Emperor. On my entering his cabinet de travail
I found him chatting with Prince Orloff, then
Russian Minister at Brussels, who soon withdrew
and left me alone with M. de Bismarck. King
William's Prime Minister was standing before a
large table covered with maps and books, and he
took up and began to play with a long Catalonian
knife—a weapon, it may be remarked, which every
visitor to Biarritz buys (as a souvenir) from the
Spanish pedlars who hawk the country. This was
the first time I had seen M. de Bismarck ; but he
76 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
did not then make upon me the deep impression
which he afterwards did. He even seemed to show
Some embarrassment in opening the conversation.
But at last, after reading my letter of introduction,
he began by abusing the Vicomte de La Guéronnière,
from whom I had brought it.
“‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘admit the right of this
“Monsieur” to introduce to me any one he likes. In
the Prance he has told terrific lies about me,
especially with regard to Polish affairs. But I
receive you merely because you are a Dane, and
although the Vicomte (with a Frenchman's
accuracy) calls you Hausen instead of Hansen.
Your name is not unfamiliar to me. I know quite
well that you have been hard on us Prussians in the
French Press.’
“‘That is indeed quite true,' I replied ; “I have
done all I could to make your position in France as
uncomfortable as possible.’
“‘Well, he rejoined, ‘that is only to your credit.
But what is the object of your visit P’”
Previous to this, in August 1864—Soon after the
close of the Danish campaign—Bismarck had gone
to Vienna, and was treated to a dinner by Count
Rechberg, Foreign Minister, at Kettenhoff, about
an hour's distance from the capital. Count Rechberg
had chosen this place as the scene of his entertain-
ment, as in Vienna itself he would not have been
able to accord his distinguished visitor the Seat of
honour in the presence of the foreign ambassadors.
At this dinner some one referred to Prince
Gortchakoff as having, after living in Vienna for
BLOOD AND IRON. 77
some time in his youth as attaché, left the city with
so unfavourable an impression of it as to affect all
his future feelings towards Germany, and these were
known to be anything but friendly. On this
Bismarck remarked :
“I cannot understand what influence the recep-
tion accorded to a representative of Russia in Vienna
can have on his views in reference to Germany.
We in Berlin consider Vienna at present as a non-
German city, and what goes on in Vienna as having
nothing to do with Germany. I know very well
that the city of Vienna stands, properly Speaking,
in German territory, but it is the capital of a
non-German Empire, and I protest against us
Germans being made responsible for what happens
in Vienna.”
Then, turning round with a somewhat ironical
smile : “I fear the place is badly chosen for making
this confession of faith to you ; but, be sure, One
gains nothing by closing one's eyes to evident facts.
It is manifest that the Austrian Monarchy is not
very much German, when one compares the number
of its German provinces with those which are non-
German. Austria, therefore, would do much better
to rely on the real force which lies in the alliance
of her numerous peoples, than to pursue the dream
of a sovereignty in Germany which we dispute
with her, and to which she has no claim. What
is German will, sooner or later, revert to Germany
that is inevitable. It is no more difficult to govern
Vienna from Berlin than to govern Buda-Pesth
from Vienna. Indeed, it would be easier ; ” all of
78 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
which was the boldest possible expression of the
policy by which he was preparing to expel Austria
from the Germanic Confederation altogether.
It was on this occasion that Motley (now American
Minister at Vienna) wrote: “The only ripple we
have had on our surface was when the bold Bismarck
made his appearance. . . . He dined with us
yesterday en famille, asking me to have no one
else except Werther, the Prussian Minister, here,
that we might talk of old times, and be boys again.
It was the greatest delight to me to see him
again. We drank three bottles of claret (not apiece);
but we sat till half-past nine, at table, much to the
amazement of the servants ; for what well-conducted
domestic in Vienna can tolerate any remaining at
table after the finger-bowls P”
Next year, on the occasion of another visit 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,
inquired the cause, and, being told that it was
ill-health, he replied, “Ah ! I always thought there
was something the matter with his Constitution.”
This was about the time of the Convention of
Gastein, which Bismarck had devised as a crafty
means of gaining time to complete his preparations
for war with Austria. “It is well known,” wrote
Beust, “that the Saxon troops who were entrusted
with the duty of carrying out the decision of the
Bund were driven from Holstein without ceremony
after the conclusion of the Peace of Vienna. In
BLOOD AND IRON. 79
the following year, 1865, I met Bismarck at Gastein.
He spoke of this incident not without regret, but
added, in a quotation from Schiller :
#
‘It is the curse of evil deeds
That they must ever evil deeds beget.’
‘And, he continued, “had you and your friends
not opposed our motion, your troops would have
been the first in the field, and would have taken
part in the storming of Düppel.’
“‘You are forgetting,' I rejoined, ‘what might
have happened had the Danes refused to fight.”
“‘I had taken precautions against that,’ was
Bismarck's answer. ‘I made the Cabinet of Copen-
hagen believe that England had threatened us with
active intervention, if hostilities should be opened,
although, as a matter of fact, England did nothing
Of the kind.’”
In the autumn of this same year (1865) Bismarck
again returned to his beautiful Biarritz, where he had
another interview with Napoleon. After a diffeuzner to
which he was treated by the Emperor, the latter took
occasion to ask what would be Prussia's attitude to
the troubles in the Danubian Principalities—his
Majesty's arrière-ſensée evidently being that these
territories might ultimately be used as a means
of compensating Austria for the possible loss of
Venetia.
Bismarck answered that Prussia's direct interest
in the fate of these Danubian lands did not meanwhile
go beyond the safeguarding of German trade therein,
and that her share in the re-fashioning of their future
8O BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
fate must be conditioned by the necessity of her not
getting into trouble with Russia about a question of
comparatively minor moment to her. The friendliness
of the relations already existing between Prussia and
her Northern neighbour, and the importance of
maintaining these, made it incumbent on her not to
undermine the mutual trust which had long united
the two Courts—a view which the Emperor seemed
to think sensible enough.
His Majesty then expatiated on the interest
which Europe had in preventing the spread of con-
tagious diseases—such as the cholera—which had
their origin in the pilgrimages to Mecca, and were
thus brought to the West by home-returning
worshippers of the Prophet. By common action the
European Powers might do much to counteract this
evil, and Prussia, he hoped, would not prove behind-
hand with her co-operation.
To this Bismarck replied that, though not blind to
the danger of thus interfering with the ways of
Mohammedan fanaticism, he nevertheless thought he
could assure the Emperor, in a general way, that
Prussia would be ready to lend her hand to every
civilising work of the kind referred to, so far as it was
possible for her to make her influence felt in those
remote regions.
Having sounded, and, as he thought, won over the
Emperor to his plans for picking a quarrel with
Austria, Bismarck returned home.
“I/ my a gue M. de Bismarck qui soit un vrai grand
/omme,” wrote Merimée at this time to his “Inconnue.”
“He has quite won me; as, indeed, he also captivated
BLOOD AND IRON. 8 I
Napoleon himself by his frankness and the charm of
his manners.”
He returned to Berlin, and at once began to prepare
for action.
“Do you mean to break the Convention of Gastein,"
bluntly demanded the Austrian ambassador Count
Karolyi, of the Prussian Minister-President.
“No,” replied the latter, with equal directness;
“but even if I did, do you suppose I should be
such a fool as to tell you ?”
On a previous Occasion Bismarck had spoken to
Count Karolyi with perfect candour.
“The relations of the two Powers,” he said,
“cannot continue on their present footing. They
must change either for the better or the worse. It is
the honest desire of the King's Government that they
should change for the better, but if the necessary
advances are not made by the Imperial Cabinet,
it will be requisite for Prussia to look the other
alternative in the face, and to make her preparations
accordingly.”
“Finally,” wrote Count Karolyi, a few weeks later,
“Bismarck placed before us, in so many words, the
alternative of withdrawing from Germany and trans-
ferring our centre of gravity to Ofen (Buda-Pesth),
or of Seeing Prussia in the ranks of our enemies on
the occasion of the first European war.”
One of these enemies was Italy, and Bismarck
determined to secure her assistance in his impend-
ing conflict with the common foe.
On March 17th, 1866, in the Italian Embassy at
Berlin, Bismarck met at dinner General Govone, who
6
82 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
had come from Florence on a special mission connected
with the approaching war.
Conversing with the General on this subject,
Bismarck said that nothing had embittered the Court
of Vienna So much as the suspicion that Prussia was
Secretly negotiating with Italy. Thus, if Prussia had
not yet burned her ships behind her, these were
already in flames ; and he could therefore offer him
(Govone) his complete confidence in the matter of the
proposed treaty, Seeing that His Majesty King
William was without doubt the very last Sovereign
in all Europe who would ever think of repudiating
his obligations. It was also clear, added Bismarck,
that the Italian question had reached a much
riper stage than the German one, and perhaps
therefore it would be better for the spark, which
was first to fire the powder-cask, to emanate from
Italy.
In reply, General Govone said that Italy, just then,
was not inclined to adopt such a course. Public
opinion, which was in the highest degree sound and
sensible, was all in favour, meanwhile, of the adminis-
trative and financial reform of the Country, as knowing
well that, when this was finished, other political
questions would settle themselves of their own
accord. At the same time, however, public opinion
would doubtless welcome a favourable and unforeseen
opportunity of anticipating this solution of the
Venetian question, and it was from this point of view
that the Italian Minister-President, La Marmora,
had sent him to Berlin, in the belief that Prussia
was preparing for war. But the Italian Government
BLOOD AND IRON. 83
was so convinced of the necessity of not acting rashly,
that it could not assume any initiative of the kind
which Bismarck had suggested.
Bismarck rejoined : “Oh, but you can wait. Your
finances do not force you to hurry on a settlement,
and you can join with us in accordance with the
plan of common action which I have sketched out
for you.”
“I believe,” said Govone, “that the Government
of Florence would refuse to wait (with the reform of
its finances), and in the meantime assume obligations
towards Prussia for remote eventualities, as it might
happen that, in order to remain true to her Sacred
treaty word, Italy might have to sacrifice other
interests. Just think for a moment, your Excellency,
of the possibility of circumstances forcing us to deal,
within six months, with the Roman question, and you
will admit the justice of our scruples.”
But such was the persuasiveness of Bismarck's
diplomacy that, within three weeks of this conversa-
tion, Prussia and Italy had signed the offensive and
defensive treaty, but for which the Bohemian campaign
might have taken a very different course.
It was about this time, when war with Austria
only seemed a question of a few weeks or months,
that Bismarck went to dine with the Saxon envoy
(Count Hohenthal), whose sympathies, of course, were
all with Austria.
“Pray tell me, your Excellency,” said his hostess to
him, with charming frankness, “is it really true that
you mean to go to war with Austria, and make a
conquest of Saxony P"
84 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“Certainly, my dearest Countess,” replied Bismarck,
with equal candour, “it is perfectly true. From the
very first day I took office I never thought of any-
thing else. Our guns are now all ready, and you
shall soon see that they are superior to the Austrian
artillery.”
“Oh, how frightful l’ exclaimed the Countess.
“But now that you are in such a candid mood, will
you also give me a friendly piece of advice P. We
have two estates, and I want to know which of them
I should fly to—the one in Bohemia, or the other near
Leipzig P”
“If you will take my advice,” replied Bismarck, “do
not go to Bohemia, for it is there, and precisely in the
neighbourhood of your estate, that we shall fight the
Austrians, so that you might have all sorts of terrible
adventures. You had better therefore go quietly to
Saxony, for there will be nothing doing near Leipzig,
and you will not even be bothered with the billeting
of troops, as your château does not lie on any military
road.”
When Bismarck was afterwards anxiously questioned
by other diplomatists as to this conversation, he was
much amused that the mocking repulse of an indiscreet
question should be taken seriously. But Herr von
Beust, remembering his long enmity against the
policy of Prussia, really took up the matter in earnest,
sent the important news to Vienna, demanded
Austria's protection, and declared that, if Austria
would arm at once, all the Middle States would
stand firmly by her, but that otherwise they would
turn their backs on her for ever. The communica-
BLOOD AND IRON. 85
tion was not without influence on the military circles
Of Vienna.
In table-conversation with Lord Augustus Loftus,
the English ambassador, about this time, when things
had come to look very black between Austria and
Prussia, Bismarck said that he meditated no act of
violence. The position now simply was that the
alliance between the two Powers was at an end.
Their relations, said the Count, might be charac-
terised by the words of Richelieu to his discarded
mistress: ‘AWous me som/zes pas eſtmemis, 1/zai's mous
me mous aimons //us.’”
On another occasion Bismarck complained to the
English ambassador that it was Austria who was the
threatening Power, and would attack Prussia when
ready for the fray.
“What would you do,” inquired the Count, “if
you found a violent, dangerous man in the street,
threatening the public security and peace P.”
The ambassador replied that he should immediately
call the police, and in his estimation the Powers
constituted the police of Europe, for the mainten-
ance of peace.
“But,” said Bismarck, “if it were the case of a
gentleman, you would give him your card.”
The ambassador replied, “I think not.”
At a full-dress banquet given by the ambassador
on the Queen's birthday, Bismarck, in talking to his
host on the Subject of peace and war, remarked :
“Why, after all, Attila was a greater man than
your John Bright. He has left a greater name in
history. The Duke of Wellington will be known
86 ë BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
in history as a great warrior, and not as a pacific
statesman.”
Perhaps Bismarck's table-talk was never livelier
than on the day (May 7th, 1866) when he was shot at
just opposite the Russian Embassy, Unter den Linden,
by a fanatic, Ferdinand Cohen (the stepson of
Karl Blind, a democratic fugitive of 1848, living in
London), who thus hoped that he might be able to
rid Germany of the man who was threatening to
disturb its peace. Arrived home, Bismarck sat down
and wrote a brief account of the incident to the King,
and then, entering the drawing-room, greeted the
Several guests assembled for dinner as if nothing
had happened. “I have been shot at, my child,” he
at last whispered to his wife; “but never mind, there's
no harm done. Let us go in to dinner.”
The marvellous escape of the Minister-President
naturally formed the topic of excited conversation at
table, and after dinner, in the drawing-room, the
Countess expressed her opinion of the would-be
assassin by energetically avowing that if “she were
in heaven, and saw the villain standing on the top
of a ladder leading down to hell, she would have
no hesitation in giving him a push.”
“Hush, my dear,” whispered her husband, tapping
her gently on the shoulder from behind ; “you would
not be in heaven yourself with such thoughts as
these l’’
Among the numerous congratulations which poured
in upon Bismarck after this “attentat" was one from
the Marquis Wielpolski who, in 1861, had held a
Ministerial portfolio at Warsaw, and been himself the
BLOOD AND IRON. 87
object of a similar attack. “Despite my business,”
replied Bismarck, “which leaves me not a moment's
rest day or night, I cannot refrain from personally
thanking you for the Congratulation and the good
wishes with which you were kind enough to honour
me. You yourself know from experience what sort of
a life I have ; its dangers, its ingratitudes, its priva-
tions, insufficiency of time and strength—and amidst
all that the only consolation one has is the doing of
One's duty and living up to the vocation which God
has given us. Think not that discouragement makes
me Speak thus, for I believe in victory without
knowing whether I shall live to see it; but I am often
Overcome with a feeling of weariness.”
Some declared that Bismarck had owed his
wonderful escape to the fact that, like Cromwell, he
had “bought his linen from the ironmonger.” But
that was not so. Referring to this attempt on his
life, Bismarck afterwards said : “Strange to say, on
the day I was shot at I had no weapon by me—not
even a stick. I was always accustomed to carry a
loaded revolver in my pocket, and to go along the
Streets with my hand on the butt end. I should not
have liked to take the long journey to Eternity
alone.”
In the previous autumn, as we saw, Bismarck,
quoting Schiller, had said to Beust –
“It is the curse of evil deeds
That they must ever evil deeds beget; ”
and one consequence of Blind's attempt to assassinate
him was that threatening letters now began to pour
88 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
in upon him from nearly every country in Europe,
especially from Germany.” But these he despised,
and disregarded, as he had told Dr. Bonnell, since
“no party had ever gained any advantage yet
from political murder l’
“At the present moment,” he remarked about this
time, “people would like to string me up, but in a few
* Here are two specimens:–
“BERLIN, May 8/h, 1866.
“EXCELLENCY,-Yesterday a thoughtless youth (Ferdinand
Blind) tried to take your life, but he should have acted more
warily, and then he would not have missed his mark. Never-
theless, as a good Prussian and patriot, I will endeavour to
warn you ere it is too late.
“A number of the best and noblest young men in Prussia
have vowed to take you off, and one of them will certainly
manage to do so. Surround yourself as you like with
constables and detectives—that won't help. You must die for
the good of the Fatherland, even if it should be in the same
manner as Minister Latour came to an end at Vienna in
1848.
“Excellency There is only one means of saving you.
Give the world peace; resign your office, and flee the Country,
so that the honour of Prussia may thus be saved, and not
smudged with murder and death.
“Excellency Make not light of this letter, for it is written
in all seriousness, and comes from the heart of a Prussian
who loves his country, and does not wish to see it become the
scene of the most frightful revolution.
“Once more, your Excellency, save your life l’’
“BERLIN, May 18%, 1866.
“HERR GRAF, I have just learned that you are to be shot
on Saturday evening. Ten men are ready to murder you as
soon as peace is broken.
“Even your wife must die with you.
‘‘ R. V. R.”
BLOOD AND IRON. 89
years I shall be the most popular man in all
Germany.”
While thus the scale of war was slowly making
that of peace to kick the beam, Bismarck made the
acquaintance of a Hanoverian, Dr. Miquel, a man
who was long afterwards to become Prussian Minister
of Finance.
“You are a Hanoverian deputy,” said Bismarck,
“and I should like to know what you think of the
prospects of our maintaining friendly relations with
your country.”
“Excellency, I can say nothing about that. I
belong to the Opposition, and have no touch with our
Court, neither do I know its views. You must apply
to your envoy for that.”
“We fought shoulder to shoulder with Hanover,”
rejoined Bismarck, “in the Seven Years' War and the
Liberation War. But if a conflict now arises—and I
am by no means sure about it—Prussia will be in a
very ticklish position. We can only hope, earnestly
hope, that Hanover will remain neutral—more we ask
not—and show a disposition to take part in the
reform of Our federal relations, which cannot possibly
remain as they are.” -
Conversing about the same subject, on the very eve
of the war, with Dr. von Gerlach, a judge of appeal,
a prominent Conservative, and a great champion of
the Legitimist principle, Bismarck said :
“You know what kind of promises the King of
Hanover has been exacting of the Austrians; and can
you, then, really expect of the Prussian Government
that it will treat this Sovereign—to whom Germany
QO BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
is nothing but a phrase—as if we had merely been
jesting with one another P”
“Are you not afraid,” replied Von Gerlach, “ of
thus entering on the path of international revolution,
and bringing about in Germany a state of things similar
to that which we now unfortunately have in Italy P”
“I can quite understand,” rejoined Bismarck, “that
you, as an old soldier of the Napoleonic wars, shrink
from the thought of our crossing swords with Austria,
and that you cannot familiarise yourself with the idea
of Seeing the German Bund disappear, and with it a
triumvirate of German Sovereigns. But pray, at the
same time, do not forget how Prussia has been treated
by this Bund, and that it is not the fault of its
members if we have not already been thrown back to
the position we occupied before the Seven Years'
War.”
“I am afraid,” persisted Gerlach, “that your
Excellency is about to embark on a very perilous
course, conjuring up spirits which you will find it
difficult to lay. I cannot follow you on the path
you are taking, and am now too old to change my
ideas like a Soiled garment.
“It will be a bitter pain to me,” concluded
Bismarck, “if our roads diverge, and if you should
feel bound, as I suppose you will, to oppose me
openly. But my resolution is inflexible. I can now
no longer look back, but only forward, and I shall
stand or fall with my policy.”
The die was now cast, and the rivalry of the two
leading German Powers had to be decided by the
sword. “I was with Count Bismarck,” wrote Lord A.
BLOOD AND IRON. 9 I
Loftus, “late on the evening of June 15th. We had
been walking and sitting in his garden till a late hour,
when to my astonishment it struck midnight. Count
Bismarck took out his watch and said, “A Z'/eure
qu'il est, mos troupes sont entrées en Hanovre, Sate, ed
Hesse-Casseſ.” He added : ‘The struggle will be
severe; Prussia may lose, but she will at least have
fought bravely and honourably. If we are beaten I
shall not return. I shall fall in the first charge. One
can die but once, and, if beaten, it is better to die.’”
A fortnight afterwards, at a late hour on the night
of June 29th, 1866, Bismarck entered his wife's
drawing-room to join the circle of private friends who
generally assembled there about this time, and rest a
little from the Herculean labours of the day. The
telegrams about the preliminary victories of the
Prussians had put every one in the best of spirits, and
naturally enough there was but one thing talked about
by all present.
“Gentlemen,” said Bismarck, after refreshing himself
with a cup of tea, “I always considered it an axiom
that, Organised and commanded as it now is, the
Prussian army is simply invincible, and thus it is
that I have accepted our victories so far as a mere
matter of course” (Mongengabe, gift on the morning
after the nuptial day). “At the same time, I am in
the hands of God, and will not laud the day until
the night has come. My watchword continues to be,
“Never return, or only as victor l’ If, therefore, I
wish you an and revoir, I do not say so in a spirit of
Overweening pride, but with the reservation, “if God
So wills it.' But what affects me more painfully than
92 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
anything else is the consciousness that my policy seems
to be least of all understood by those who used to be
my best friends, as well as the prospect of this stiff
and stubborn Prussian particularism of theirs proving
the greatest obstacle to my work of building up our
national unity. Help me, therefore, I beg of you, to
put life into the national idea, and do not forget that,
after Our war with Austria, we shall probably have to
engage in Other struggles from which Germany, with
her united strength, will emerge victorious.”
“I do not quite understand thee,” threw in Herr
von Kleist-Retzow, an old Conservative friend and
Dutcóruder (so intimate as to call each other “thou"),
who had felt piqued by the reproaches of the Premier.
“Hitherto we have unreservedly followed thee on all
thy ways without asking any questions, and I do
not well see what could now happen to change this
attitude of ours.”
“Think of our present conversation, my dear
Hans,” replied Bismarck, with a smile, “should it ever
happen that I have to address myself to thee with
an ‘B # tu, Brute /' Meanwhile I place all my hopes
in the army, which will not only lead us to victory,
but will also form the crystallising point for German
unity, and secure to us Our achievements on every
side. But now, gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse
me, as I shall probably have to greet the rising sun
at my writing-desk.”
Early next morning Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon,
set out with the septuagenarian King William for
Bohemia, where, in three days' time, they were to
witness the “crowning victory” of Königgrätz.
CHAPTER V.
A Ó NZ G G R A 7"Z.
“T) LEASE send me a revolver, of large size, a
holster-pistol,” Bismarck had written to his
wife on the day before Königgrätz; “also a novel to
read, but only one at a time”—which may be supple-
mented by the following extract :—
“M. Lefèvre de Behaine, who was Secretary of the
French Embassy at Berlin, related the following tale
to the Brothers De Goncourt, which occurs in their
diary under the date June IOth, 1867 : ‘That
Bismarck is certainly an astonishing fellow ! On my
journey to Vienna, after the battle of Sadowa, I
learned he was at Brünn. It was July 15th. I called
upon him at two o'clock in the morning, and found
him in bed. There was a table at his bedside, upon
which two candles were burning and two books were
lying. The man was reading; and what do you think
he read P You will scarcely believe me when I tell
you that it was Paul Feval's L'Aſéte/ Carnavaleſ.’”
Bismarck himself gave an interesting account of his
experiences in the war when he afterwards went with
his family to the beautiful island of Rügen, in the
Baltic, to recover from the fatigues of the campaign ;
and at a dinner given him by Prince Putbus, the
93
94 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
magnate of the place, the Count remarked, after
finishing his Oysters, that he had enjoyed no such
delicacies in Bohemia, where it was sometimes even
difficult to satisfy the pangs of hunger —
“But as the King himself went through everything,
so the soldier bore all privations and hardships easily.
At the battle of Königgrätz, I was in the King's suite,
and often enough we were in the midst of the turmoil
of the fight. At midday there was a momentary lull
in the roar of battle; the Crown Prince was expected
on the field—eagerly expected. During this anxious
pause, the King asked his suite if any one had anything
to eat—he was hungry. The groom had a little wine,
an officer drew, rather shamefacedly, a diminutive
piece of sausage from his haversack, and, with a
beaming face, a soldier stepped up with a piece of
commisórod in his open hand. ‘My son, have you
had your own dinner, then P' asked the King. ‘No,
your Majesty l’ ‘Then we will divide fairly.' And
the King broke the piece of bread into two pieces,
returned one-half to the soldier saying, ‘Take it,
my son ; your Sovereign thanks you.' Not long after,
the Crown Prince came up with his army, just at the
nick of time, and hence our Platt-Deutsch Soldiers
ever afterwards called him ‘A’ring taur rec/ºten Teit,'
‘Prince Nick-Of-Time.’
“After that the battle began to rage afresh. The
attention of the King was wholly fixed on the progress
of the battle, and he paid not the slightest heed to
the shells that were whizzing thickly around him. To
my repeated request that his Majesty might not so
carelessly expose himself to so murderous a fire, he
KÖNIGGRATZ. 95
only answered, ‘The commander-in-chief must be
where he ought to be." Later on, at the village of
Lipa, when the King in person had ordered the
cavalry to advance, and the shells were again falling
round him, I ventured to renew my request, saying,
“If your Majesty will take no care of your own
person, have pity at least on your poor Minister-
President, from whom your faithful Prussian people
will again demand their King ; and in the name of
that people I entreat you to leave this dangerous
spot.’ Then the King gave me his hand, with a ‘Well,
then, Bismarck, let us ride on a little.’ So saying,
his Majesty wheeled his black mare and put her into
as easy a Canter as if he had been riding down the
Linden to the Thiergarten. But for all that I felt
very uneasy about him, . . . and SO, edging up with
my dark chestnut to Sadowa ” (the name given to the
King's mare after the battle), “I gave her a good
(sly) kick from behind with the point of my boot;
she made a bound forward, and the King looked
round in astonishment. I think he saw what I had
done, but he said nothing.”.”
“Had your Excellency, then, a revolver with you
during the war P”
* “Count Bismarck,” wrote Lord Augustus Loftus in his
Memoirs, “told me that he remonstrated with his Majesty
against the danger he was incurring when the balls were
hissing around him, and on the King expressing his doubts
as to their being bullets, Count Bismarck replied, “ Glaubezz
Zhre Majestät dass es Schwalben sind P’ (‘Does your
Majesty think they are swallows P’) and urged the King more
Speedily beyond the range of fire, using his own spurs on the
King's horse.” That touch about the swallows was quite new.
96 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“No ; and I only once regretted not having one.
It was soon after the battle of Königgrätz. I was
riding alone 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 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.
“But the battlefield was otherwise full of touching
sights. For example, during the heat of the conflict,
I saw 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 P’ 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 we placed her in the
earth.’ So saying, he flung himself upon his horse,
this brave trooper, and rushed madly into the heat
of the battle.”
“But you also spoke of the comic side of things,
/ie/er Gra/P "
KÖNIGGRATZ. 97
“Yes, dear Countess; in spite of the seriousness of
the situation, I never saw anything more comic than
the caperings of the big regimental goat of the Berlin
Guard Artillery, as it went careering about at the
bugler's side, in the thickest of the bullet-rain, and
making for the enemy with its grotesque leaps and
bounds. The Austrians, too, are really said to have
believed that the form of this goat had merely been
assumed by Satan, with whom the wicked Bismarck
had entered into a compact against their invincible
Iron Brigade.”
“Lieber Otto,” here interposed the Countess Bis-
marck, “you mustn't touch that dish ; it's not good for
your stomach in its present nervous state.”
“Ladies,” replied the Count, as he motioned away
the proffered dish, “have you ever seen such a fine
example of an obedient husband P”
“Well, Countess,” threw in Prince Putbus, “you
have the happiness to be the only one, apart from the
King, to whom our Iron Count submits.”
“Oh, no,” rejoined the Countess, “there is still
another to whom Otto Sometimes also bows.”
“And who is this powerful person P”
“Well, you will never guess ; it is—the cook.”
“Ah, yes,” observed Bismarck; “it is surprising
what a man will do to enjoy peace in his own house,
after having had a thorough taste of war.” -
Then, proceeding to speak 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,
7
98. BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
in an abominable hole of a Bohemian village, with an
unpronounceable 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 fell softly
enough upon a dung-heap. I might have been
satisfied 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 to 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
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. But this
was not the worst bed I found in Bohemia. I still
reflect with horror and back-ache upon a night that
I spent in a child's crib.”
“A child's crib!” exclaimed a lady. “The Minister-
President of Prussia in a child's crib How did you
manage that, my dear Count P”
“Oh, that was simple enough. I doubled myself
up like a pocket-knife.”
After dessert, when coffee and cigars were handed
round, “Ah yes,” said Bismarck, as he proceeded to
light an excellent Havana, “the value of a good
cigar is best understood when it is the last you pos-
sess, and there is no chance of getting another. At
KÖNIGGRATZ. 99
Königgrätz I had only one cigar left in my pocket,
which I carefully 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 when I should enjoy it
after victory. But I had miscalculated my chances.”
“And how P ''
“A poor dragoon. He lay helpless, with both arms
crushed, moaning for something to refresh him. I
felt in my pockets and found I had only gold, which
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.”
But there seems to be some little discrepancy
between this cigar story and another one of the
same kind which Bismarck told at a dinner he gave
Soon after the war, his guests including Moltke, Roon,
the Bavarian military attac/le, Several distinguished
Generals, Herr von Bennigsen, Herr von Forckenbeck,
and other parliamentary celebrities. After dinner
the Chancellor himself opened a box of cigars, and
began to hand them round. His vis-à-vis was
Moltke, and to him he said, with a smile, as he
offered him a Havana :
“Do you remember, my dear General, the last time
you accepted a cigar from me?”
“No, I cannot say I do,” replied the great
Strategist.
“Well,” rejoined Bismarck, as he lighted his cigar,
“I myself shall never forget the occasion. It was on
I O O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the day of Königgrätz, during the anxious time
when the battle stood still, and we could neither go
forward nor backward—when one aide-de-camp after
another galloped off without ever returning, and we
Could get no news of the Crown Prince's coming. I
began to feel frightfully uneasy, and my eyes were
wandering about in Search of you. Looking round, I
Saw you Standing not far off. You were gazing on
the course of the battle with a look of the most serene
indifference, and the stump of a cigar in your mouth.
‘Well,' said I to myself, ‘if Moltke can go on smoking
So calmly as that, it can't be so very bad with us after
all.' So, riding up, I offered you my case, which con-
tained two cigars, a good and a bad one. With the
unerring glance of the commander you selected the
former. Gentlemen, I smoked the bad one myself
in the evening after the battle, and I can assure you
that I never had one in all my life that tasted so
well.”
On first entering the precincts of the Castle at
Nicolsburg, belonging to Count von Mensdorff-
Pouilly, where the peace preliminaries were afterwards
signed, Bismarck remarked to his companion, Herr
von Keudell (afterwards ambassador at Rome):
“My old mansion at Schönhausen is nothing in
comparison with this splendid edifice, but I would
much rather be here as the guest of Count Mensdorff
than that he should be now with us.”
It was here at Nicolsburg where Bismarck had
such a hard struggle with the King to exact only such
conditions of peace as contained not the seeds of a
future war. He had the ungrateful task, as he said,
KÖNIGGRATZ. I O I
“of pouring water into the (King's) foaming wine.”
In subsequent conversation with the celebrated jurist,
Professor Bluntschli, of Heidelberg, Bismarck remarked
that, after the battle of Königgrätz, he alone was for
peace. The King was out of humour, and the
Generals were enraged against the civilian element.
Bismarck told the King that he would rather resign
than take upon himself the responsibility for a con-
tinuance of the war, and begged his Majesty, if he
went on with the campaign, to give him a Commission
in the active army, in order to prove, at least, that he
had no lack of personal courage. Prussia had already
attained great results, and these should not be im-
perilled by aiming at such things as a triumphal
march into Vienna, or the annexation of Austrian Or
Saxon territory.
It was in this sense also that Bismarck spoke with
Count Seherr-Thoss, a nobleman who had, as early as
1862, in Paris, offered to place his services at the
disposal of the Prussian Minister in the event of his
desiring to enter into relations with Hungary and
play the rôle of a German Cavour. Starting from
Paris immediately after receiving the news of
Königgrätz, Count Seherr-Thoss arrived at the
Prussian headquarters (Pardubitz) on July 8th, and
caused much amusement by relating how Paris
had “burst out into flags and illuminations” on
hearing that Francis Joseph had ceded Venetia to
Napoleon.
“Looking like the god Jupiter,” wrote the Count,
“Bismarck appeared in the simple uniform of a major,
and was respectfully saluted on all sides. I had
I O2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Scarcely told him my errand when the Premier inter-
rupted me, and ran to the King to prevent his
receiving General von Gablenz, who had just come
for the second time to demand an armistice. Return-
ing, he offered me a cigar, and said :
“‘And you also put me down as a Junker and a
reactionary? Well, appearances are often deceptive.
I was obliged to play that part to attain my ends.
On all sides people tried to prejudice the King against
me by representing me as a Democrat in disguise.
I succeeded in obtaining his entire confidence by
showing him that I did not flinch even before the
resistance of the Chamber when the object was the
re-organisation of the army, without which war was
impossible and the security of the State in danger.
In this struggle my nerves have suffered, and all
my vital forces have been exhausted. But I have
vanquished them all, he cried, in magnificent
crescendo wrath, smiting the table violently with his
hand, and mentioning the names of three persons
who seemed to have caused him special annoyance.
“Within the next ten minutes two despatches from
Central Germany arrived, both announcing victories,
and I took the liberty of asking him what would be
the fate of Southern Germany.
“‘What could we do with those Ultramontanes P’
he replied. “We don't want them, and, moreover, we
must not swallow more than we can digest. We will
not fall into the same mistake as Piedmont, which has
rather weakened than strengthened itself by the
annexation of Naples.’”
This may be supplemented by a conversation which
KÖNIGGRATZ. I O 3
Bismarck had soon after the battle of Königgrätz with
a wounded Austrian officer, to whom he said :
“Prussia has a great interest in seeing the power of
the Hapsburg monarchy maintained. In the interest
of Germanism, both Prussia and Austria have their
separate missions to fulfil. It is the duty of Prussia
to achieve German unity, while on the other hand
Austria, as the ally of Prussia, will have to look after
the interests of Germanism in the East, and, acting as
the connecting link between this and Slavism, prevent
their coming into collision.”
“Do you really mean it?” remarked the officer.
“But people say of your Excellency that you will,
sooner or later, try to incorporate Austria with
Germany.”
“I know they say so,” rejoined Bismarck, “but
no true statesman will believe it of me. I should
be fit for a madhouse if I were to think of such
a thing. With Austria's expulsion from the Germanic
Confederation we have only attained the first step
towards our national aims, but it will be years
before Prussia can succeed in bringing about even
the outward form of German unity. Perhaps even
half a century will be needed to establish this unity
on foundations so firm that it cannot be destroyed.
I shall be dead long before that, and my successors
will have enough to do in strengthening the founda-
tions of the national fabric. But do you think we
should meanwhile be such utter fools as to annex
Austria and thus encumber ourselves with fourteen
million Slavs, a clerical Austro-German party, and a
powerful Ultramontane aristocracy P”
I O4 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
On his return from Bohemia, King William had
a very festive reception at Görlitz, which had been
the “Red Prince's" point of departure for the
campaign at the head of the First Army. Among
Other things his Majesty was greeted by a bevy
of white-robed maidens, who tendered him a laurel
wreath. His Premier, too, was offered one, but this
he declined, saying: “No, no, gmädiges Fräulein, this
is an honour I don’t deserve. For I was not a
combatant, you know, and had no share in Our
victories.”
“But your Excellency began the war,” replied
the maiden, with a prompt and pretty wit; and then
Bismarck, with a smile, accepted the proffered wreath.
CHAPTER VI.
AºA: DERA/L CHANCE/L/LOA’.
APOLEON had calculated on the defeat of
Prussia in her struggle with Austria. He had
done all he could “to curb this cruel devil” [Prussia]
“of his will,” and when he saw that Bismarck insisted
on garnering the fruits of victory in his own way, his
Imperial Majesty suddenly changed his tone. If he
had failed to curtail Prussia of her conquests, he could
at least demand an equivalent compensation for
France, so as thus to redress the balance of European
power. Bismarck had only been back in Berlin two
days with the draft of the Treaty of Prague in his
pocket, when he was again waited upon by M.
Benedetti, who, on behalf of his Imperial master, now
demanded a settlement.
“It is well known,” said the Chancellor afterwards,
“that on the 6th of August, 1866, it came to this,
that I was treated to a visit from the French
Ambassador, who, in brief language, delivered the
ultimatum : cede Mayence to France, or expect an
immediate declaration of war. Of course I did not
hesitate one Second with my answer, and it was,
‘Very well, then, let there be war !' With this reply
he went back to Paris, where they thought over the
I OS
I O6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
matter and gave me to understand, that his (Benedetti's)
first instructions had been extorted from the Emperor
during his illness.”
The same incident was graphically narrated by M.
Vilbort, correspondent of the Siècle, to whom Bismarck
had unbosomed himself in a memorable interview
before the war, and who now came to take leave of
the Prussian Premier prior to his returning to Paris.
“On the 7th of August,” said M. Vilbort, “we took
our leave of M. de Bismarck, from whom we had
received, before, during, and after the war, a con-
sistently kind reception, for which we are bound
to express our liveliest acknowledgments. About
Io p.m. we were in the study of the Premier, when
M. Benedetti, the French Ambassador, was announced.
‘Will you take a cup of tea in the salon P’ M. de
Bismarck said to me. “I will be with you in a
moment.’
“Two hours passed away; midnight struck ; one
o'clock. Some twenty persons, his family and inti-
mate friends, awaited their host. At last he appeared,
with a cheerful face and a smile upon his lips. Tea
was taken ; there was smoking and beer, in German
fashion. Conversation turned, pleasantly or seriously,
on Germany, Italy, and France. Rumours of a war
with France were again current in Berlin. At the
moment of my departure I said : ‘M. le Ministre,
will you pardon me a very indiscreet question ? Do
I take war or peace with me back to Paris?'
“M. de Bismarck replied, with animation, ‘Friend-
ship, a lasting friendship with France I entertain
the firmest hope that France and Prussia, in the
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. Ioy
future, will represent the dualism of intelligence and
progress.’
“Nevertheless, it seemed to us that at these words
we could detect a singular smile on the lips of a man
who is destined to play a distinguished part in
Prussian politics, the Privy Councillor Baron von
Keudell.
“We called on him the next morning, and admitted
to him how much reflection this smile had caused us.
“‘You leave for France to-night,’ he replied ; “well
give me your word of honour to preserve the Secret
I am about to confide to you until you reach Paris.
Ere a fortnight is past we shall have war on the
Rhine if France insists upon her territorial demands.
She asks of us what we neither will nor can give.
Prussia will not cede an inch of German soil; we
cannot do so without raising the whole of Germany
against us, and if it must be, we should much prefer
to see it rise against France rather than against our-
selves.’”
About this time Bismarck was much more accessible
to Press interviewers than he afterwards became.
On the occasion of one of his visits to Paris, he
called on M. Thiers, when the latter asked him what
he had been doing all day.
“Oh,” said Bismarck, “I refused myself to three
diplomatists, one of whom was an ambassador ; but,
On the other hand, I received five journalists, and
from them I learned more than I should have done
from the others, who are all more or less pupils of
Machiavelli or Talleyrand.”
Soon after his parting interview with M. Vilbort
I O8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
of the Siècle, Bismarck gave a long audience to the
editor of the St. Petersburger Zeitung, the champion
of Germanism in the Russian capital, when the talk
very naturally came to be of the Teutophobia then
raging in Russia.
“I do not believe,” said Bismarck, “that this hatred
will ever extend to other circles ; nor can it be
Otherwise, for the Russian will never be able to
dispense with the German. The Russian is a very
amiable fellow ; he has intellect, fancy, pleasant
manners, and Social talents; but to work even eight
hours a day, six times a week, with fifty of them in
the year—that no Russian will ever be able to learn
till doomsday. I cannot help thinking of what a
Russian officer once said to me. We were talking
about the fact that so many officers of German
extraction in the Russian army rose to the rank of
General. ‘Why should a German not become a
General P’ remarked the Officer. ‘ He neither drinks,
nor steals, nor leads a dissolute life; he rides his own
horse himself—he can't help rising to be General.’
And I am convinced that those very Russians who
are now loudest in the expression of their hatred of
us would take no physic from the hands of a native
apothecary if they could help it. In Russia they will
never be able to do without German druggists,
bakers, and sausage-makers. But even in much
higher spheres, too, the peculiar qualities of the
German will always bring him to the front. During
the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, Prince Gortchakoff
was long kept down and given unimportant, Sub-
ordinate posts; his talents had not been recognised.
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I O9
The Prince himself ascribed his suppression to
German influence; and on finally coming to the
helm, he set himself to removing as many as possible
of the Germans employed within the Sphere of his
own ministry. And what is the result P. At the
present moment the most important embassies—
those of London and Paris, Vienna, etc., are held
by Germans, while the ablest penmen of his own
ministry are also Teutons. Nay, Prince Gortchakoff
himself would never have had the working power he
possesses had his mother not been a German—as I
myself once told him.”
The conversation then turned to the subject of the
Baltic Provinces, on which Prussia, in the opinion of
the Germanophobes at St. Petersburg, was for ever
casting covetous eyes.
“What should we do,” said Bismarck, “with this
long strip of territory between the sea and Poland
without a Hinterland P Why should we exchange this
for Russia's everlasting enmity P No ; in future, also,
the Germans in the Baltic Provinces must act as
guano for manuring the vast Russian steppe. Be-
sides, I'm thinking that the inhabitants of these
Provinces themselves wouldn't thank us for making
them Prussians. As for Poland, we have never
coveted it, and will never do so. Hitherto our only
aim has been to act with Russia in keeping Poland
quiet. . . . Politics is the doctrine of the possible,
the attainable. . . . But as to the Baltic Provinces,
it would be the height of folly on the part of Russia
to denationalise and Russify them, as thus she would
deprive herself of the stock of honest functionaries
I IO BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
which she there procures. Is it not a well-known
fact that a Russified German is much worse than a
Russian himself? The Russian steals in order to
relieve his immediate wants, but when the German
Steals, he thinks of the future, of provision for his wife
and children, and robs with an emergie Teutonique, as
a clever Russian once remarked to me.”
But to return to France and Benedetti, who wanted
to steal Belgium, to speak of nothing else.
Bismarck had once kept Benedetti waiting in an
ante-room while conversing with a Hessian deputy, Dr.
Oetker, to whom he said, “Napoleon may do his
utmost now that we know how strong we are.”
And then, in reply to a question from the deputy
as to the annexation of Hesse-Cassel, “The diplomatist
that's waiting out there will be even less satisfied
with my answer than you.”
On Oetker asking why Prussia had not pursued
her brillant career of victory and settled the German
question off-hand, Bismarck replied, with the sudden
assumption of a very serious, almost gloomy, air :
“Ah, you have never yet seen a battlefield. Certainly
it was not fear of the French ; we should have been
on the Rhine sooner than they. But the cholera—
the cholera—about this I received the most disquiet-
ing reports.”
On another occasion, talking of Benedetti to a
deputy from Wiesbaden, Dr. Carl Braun, Bismarck
said, “I am scarcely sure of my life with this rabid
Corsican.” “But in saying this,” added Dr. Braun,
“he gave a smile, and we too broke out into a
laugh when we thought of a northern Oak of Our
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I I I
Chancellor's calibre being in danger from a little
Italian cactus.”
In this connection may be quoted an anecdote
told by Lord A. Loftus. Bismarck at this time
always wore a General's uniform, and in his own
house there was a table in an ante-room on which his
helmet was placed. One day, after dining with the
Chancellor, Count Benedetti approached this table
and took up the helmet to try it on his own head.
On replacing it he remarked, “Decadément 2/ a la fête
//us ſorte gue mod”—an observation of which Subse-
quent events were soon to prove the truth.
One of Bismarck's most pressing tasks after the
Bohemian campaign was the fitting of the conquered
provinces—Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, and Hesse-
Cassel—into the body politic of Prussia. Many
came to Berlin from those provinces to implore a
better fate, but the man of blood and iron was in-
exorable. To one deputation which came to him,
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
comfort”; and to another that complained of the
taxation and the military service, “Dear me, gentle-
men, do you think that you can become Prussians
for nothing P’’
Bismarck was heartily sorry for the fate of Hanover
and he was Said to have spent more sleepless hours
from thinking over the deposition of George V. than
Cromwell did from fretting over Charles I.'s execution.
He reconciled that deposition with the dictates of
his reason, but not with those of his faith in the
I I 2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
inviolability of kings. When it had been decided to
annex Hanover, the Crown lawyers were instructed
to draw up a report of legal justifications for this
measure ; but when Bismarck had read half through
this document, he threw it aside with irritation :
“Better nothing than that—it reminds me of Teste's
Memorandum on the confiscation of the estates of
the Orleans family.”
With regard to Hesse-Cassel, Bismarck once made
an interesting revelation. He had done all he could,
he said, to convince the Elector of the folly of the
course he seemed bent on pursuing ; and even on
the very day (June 15th) before the outbreak of
hostilities, he had tried to persuade the heir pre-
sumptive to the Electorate to proceed to Cassel and
induce the government there to assume a neutral
attitude. An extra train was offered him for this
purpose ; but it was of no good. The Landgrave
Frederick William placed his confidence in the 800,000
Austrians who had taken the field, and staked his
chances on them. True, he left for Cassel the same
day, but with the ordinary train, and placed himself
at the disposal of the Elector.
It is a curious fact that Bismarck's policy at this
time encountered almost as much opposition from the
King as it did from the Chamber. For it had cost
him, as he afterwards said, a “frightful struggle" to
persuade the King to fight Austria ; he had ex-
perienced equal difficulty in making his Majesty
forego his resolution to annex a portion of Austrian
territory after the war—an act, he argued, which could
only prove the cause of a future struggle ; and on the
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. II 3
question of an indemnity from the Chamber after the
war it was again the King who most stoutly opposed
this proposal, which aimed at effecting a formal recon-
ciliation between Crown and crowd.
Apart, perhaps, from the army, there were very
few subjects on which King William and his Premier
were quite at one ; and One of the questions that
seriously divided them was that of the crown of
Roumania, which Prince Charles of Hohenzollern had
accepted, in 1866, on the urgent private advice of
Bismarck. The King, on the other hand, had strongly
dissuaded his kinsman from doing this—the more so
as a Conference of the Powers sitting at Paris seemed
to favour the proposal, supported by Austria and
England, of appointing a native Hospodar to be
Regent of Roumania for a provisional term of four
years. In the event of this proposal being carried,
Bismarck feared that this Hospodar would become
the tool of Austria, and then it was that he sent for
Prince Charles, who was serving as a lieutenant in
the Prussian Guards, saying that he wished to speak
to him, not as a politician, but as a private friend.
As such, Bismarck advised him to act boldly, and
start at Once for Bucharest. He needn't ask the
King's express permission to do so, but simply beg
for leave of absence to travel abroad, which his
Majesty would be sure to give. Then he should go
direct to Paris in the strictest incognizo, as nothing
could be done without Napoleon. For Russia and
Turkey would protest against his election, and
Prussia in that case could not support him. “But
once you are in Bucharest,” he continued, “the
8
I I4. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
question can be much easier settled. The Conference
will then be confronted with an accomplished fact, and
the protesting Powers will have to end by recognising
a result which cannot be undone. But even should
the scheme fail, you will then have for the rest of
your life a pleasant recollection of a piquant
adventure.”
This, then, was the “pleasant recollection,” the
“schöne Erinnerung" which was so long falsely
ascribed to Bismarck with reference to Prince
Alexander of Battenberg and Bulgaria. Prince
Charles, finding that Bismarck's advice accorded with
his own inclinations, suddenly appeared upon the
scene at Bucharest, and was soon thereafter acknow-
ledged by the Porte and the other Powers as lawful
Prince, afterwards King, of Roumania.
Thus had Bismarck's policy of boldness triumphed
over his royal master's policy of caution. But in
the case of the “indemnity’ their rôles were just
reversed.
“The question of the indemnity,” said Bismarck to
Professor Bluntschli, “proved a very difficult one for
me. The rest of my ministerial colleagues would not
hear of it, while the King himself looked upon it as
imperilling his honour. He would never, he said,
make an apology to the Chambers. It cost me the
greatest efforts to make him understand that the
word indemnity here meant no more than if the
Chambers had known everything : they would have
acted, rebus sic stantibus, just as we did.”
It was this frequent reluctance of the King to act
on the advice of his Premier which made the latter
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. II 5
once compare his Majesty to a hunter, who must be
well spurred before taking a hedge. Another time
he said that there was too much and too little of the
Hohenzollern in him ; and again, “that he could not
do what he liked, because he had to Consult a king
whom he had not himself created.” But at a later time
he said: “I can never forget that his Majesty, in
following my advice, has twice imperilled his crown.
He condescended to take my counsel before going to
war with Austria, and, four years later, before going
to war with France. He knew full well, when he did
so, that all he valued in the world was at stake. But
he trusted me implicitly. For that reason alone I
would serve him to the best of my power, as long as
my services might be required by him.”
Germane to this subject was a conversation which
Herr von Unruh had with Bismarck several years
later, but which may now be recorded. Soon after
resigning the Premiership of Prussia—which he did
at the beginning of 1873, but resumed the Office again
before the end of the year—Bismarck gave a parlia-
mentary dinner, and the talk came to be of his
resignation, the Chancellor denying the rumour that
he had had any difference with the Emperor-King.
His double duties as Prussian Premier and German
Chancellor had simply been too much for him.
Herr von Unruh said it was a pity that the King's
touching letter to him on the subject had not been
published sooner, the general opinion being that his
Majesty had composed the thing himself, and that it
had come straight from his heart.
Bismarck confirmed this, adding that the draft of
I I 6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the letter had been submitted to him, and that he
had only corrected two mistakes in spelling (for the
Orthography of his Majesty was sometimes as faulty
as that of Blücher). He was sorry, however, that he
had done this, as then there would have been less
doubt as to the genuineness of the letter.
Herr von Unruh observed that there was one thing
which he and many others gave the Emperor credit
for, and which history also would acknowledge.
“And what was that P' asked Bismarck.
Herr von Unruh said he would out with what he
meant if the Chancellor would not take it amiss.
“Certainly not,” replied the Prince. “Say whatever
you like.” -
“Well, I mean the circumstance that the King not
only retains so inconvenient a Minister as no King
of Prussia ever had before, but also follows his advice
implicitly, in foreign affairs at least, and is grateful
to him for it.”
“There you are right,” rejoined the Chancellor,
who then went on to speak of the “indemnity’ which
he had successfully advocated after Königgrätz
against the wish of the King, to whom he had once
said : “If certain things are asked of me which I
honestly look upon as detrimental to the Crown or
the State, I can become your Majesty's soldier, but
must cease to be your Minister.”
Referring to the strong opposition of the King in
the matter of the “indemnity,” Herr von Unruh
remarked that the Crown Prince had at least cordially
supported the Premier in his wise and moderate
policy. º
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I I 7
“Yes,” said Bismarck. “Passively at least—actively
at Nicolsburg"—where the Chancellor had to restrain
the King from making immoderate demands of
Austria. And then he went on to relate how his
Majesty had written on the margin of the Peace-
Preliminaries :
“It was not my intention to approve these little
honourable conditions, which do not correspond with
the victories we have won ; but my son and Successor,
to whom they were submitted, having sided with my
Premier, there is nothing for me but to sanction
them.”
Bismarck added that he had taken special care to
preserve this document in the archives of the Foreign
Office.
In the course of an interview which Herr von
Unruh had with Bismarck after the war with Austria
had broken out, the Premier dwelt upon the necessity
for a speedy termination of the parliamentary “Con-
flict,” saying that the King would be all the readier
to terminate it in the event of his coming home from
Bohemia victorious.
Herr von Unruh doubted not the Premier's
present intentions in this respect, but did not feel so
Sure about what would happen if Austria were de-
feated. At any rate, he felt inclined to doubt whether
Bismarck himself would be able to get his views in
this respect carried out.
“Then in that case,” replied Bismarck, “I would
resign.”
Questioned then as to whether he thought it alto-
gether impossible for the Prussian army to be defeated,
I I 8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
and what would happen if nothing were done, Bis-
marck said : “Do you know what would then happen P
The King would abdicate.”
Compare this with what Motley wrote, on visiting
Bismarck a little later at Varzin : “He said he used,
when younger, to think himself a clever fellow enough,
but now he was convinced that nobody had any
Control over events—that nobody was really power-
ful or great—and it made him laugh when he heard
himself complimented as wise, far-seeing, and exer-
cising great influence over the world. A man in the
situation in which he had been placed was obliged—
while outsiders, for example, were speculating whether
to-morrow it would be rain or sunshine—to decide
promptly, ‘it will rain,' or ‘it will be fine,' and to act
accordingly with all the forces at his command. If
he guessed right, all the world said ' ' What sagacity
—what prophetic power | If wrong, all the old women
would have beaten me with broomsticks.’”
This was evidently a reference to a remark which
had been made to Bismarck by a Prussian General
on the evening of Königgrätz, when the Premier's
features relaxed into a smile as he at last beheld
the Austrians in full flight. “Ah,” said the General,
“you may well smile now ; but if things had gone
wrong with us, the market women of Berlin would
have beaten you about the ears with their brooms.”
But Bismarck had already decided never to expose
himself to this certain abasement. Among those who
had assembled to take leave of him before he started
for Bohemia was the Belgian Minister, who wished
him a cheery “Au revoir / " “Au revoir / " replied
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I I 9
the Premier, “if all goes well ; otherwise I shall get
myself ridden down in the last cavalry charge.”
That in such a charge he would have wielded his
sabre to good account before being hurled from the
saddle may be inferred, perhaps, from the fact that,
when at Göttingen, he had emerged victorious from
no fewer than about sixty sword duels, and that only
once was he accidentally hit. Among the members of
the first North German Reichstag there was one—
Bode by name—who had fought several duels with
Bismarck at Göttingen.
“Are you the man who did this P” asked the
Chancellor, pointing to a scar on his left cheek; and
on receiving an affirmative answer, he added, with a
smile : “But the cut was not according to the rules ;
it was only a splinter from your blade that did it.
But tell me, what has become of A. B. P '' another
fellow-student who had been the means of creating
very bad blood between the Brunswickers and the
Hanoverians (of whose fighting Corps Bismarck had
been a member).
“Oh 1” said Bode, “he has remained the black-
guard (Sc/weine/ºund) he always was.”
“God knows,” replied Bismarck, with a loud laugh,
“that he certainly was.”
Herr von Dietze-Barby was a very old boon-
Companion (Zechóruder) and country neighbour of
Bismarck, and when the former was first returned to
the Prussian Diet as well as the North German
Parliament, in 1866, the Chancellor was more than
delighted at this unexpected restoration to his side of
his “ancient, trusty, drouthie crony,” whom he invited
I 2 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
to dine with him on the very day of his arrival in
Berlin. “But only in your frock coat, mind you, for
I hate evening dress.”
Bismarck would not hear of members of the
Reichstag being paid for their legislative labours
(like those of the Prussian Parliament), but he said
to his friend von Dietze : “You don't get daily pay
in the Reichstag” (“I have taken precious good care
of that,” he might have added), “but I will do all I
can to make it up to you. I shall have a cover laid for
you every day at dinner-time.” -
Bismarck had already given his North German
countrymen universal suffrage, but he would on no
account hear of paying them for their legislative
services. The Prussian Constitution awards daily pay
(fifteen marks), in addition to their travelling expenses
to and from the seat of the Legislature, to members
of Parliament during the session ; but rather than
allow such a principle to figure in the Constitution of
the North German Confederation, the Chancellor
threatened to wreck it altogether. At one of his
parliamentary soirées, the talk came to be of this
question, and he said: “Personally, I should do
nothing but profit by the proposed payment of
members, Seeing that, as you know, my closest political
adherents are rather a lazy lot. But once pay them,
and they will turn up in much larger numbers, fear-
ing, as they would, that the Opposition would always
be in their seats.”
Bismarck himself frankly admitted that he looked
upon the non-payment of members as a Sound
corrective and counterpoise to the dangers of universal
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 2 I
suffrage, which had been freely granted to the German
people, and with this safety anchor he vowed he
would on no account part. In this respect, he said,
the Assembly could not do better than be guided by
the example of the English, who understood and
applied the principle of liberty much better than
other peoples. Once attach pay to the possession of
a seat in Parliament, and this would soon become an
arena for the activity of all sorts of dark “Catiline
characters,” as well as a mere academic dumping and
debating ground for the waifs and strays of the
cultured proletariat, from which Germany had already
suffered so much.
Introduce payment, he said, and Parliament would
very soon be swamped with a flood of mere “pro-
fessors” and unpractical dreamers—men who made a
profession of politics and lived, not in order to make
laws, but made laws in Order to live—a most dangerous
thing for any State. “The non-payment of members
would help to shorten the duration of the session, as
men with limited means could not afford to indulge
in the luxury of going on jaw-jawing for ever, and
listening to the music of their own eloquence.” There
was nothing like an unpaid Parliament for making it
dispose of its work rapidly and well; while, on the
Other hand, Diäten would tend to make men talk for
talking's sake, and protract the session, so as to swell
their own revenues.”
* The anti-payment-of-members clause in the Constitution
of the North German Confederation (1867) was included in
the draft Imperial Constitution of 1871; but in the course of
the debates on this draft the Reichstag, by a majority of
I 2.2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
It was for these reasons that Bismarck would give
his old friend Dietze-Barby no Diätem, but offered to
compensate him for the lack thereof by a daily dinner.
If Dietze failed to turn up for two or three days in
Succession, Bismarck would send to his hotel, Unter
den Linden, to inquire what had become of him.
And when Dietze rose to take leave of his importunate
host after dinner (about six or seven o'clock), “Well,
good-bye,” Bismarck would say ; “I shall see you
again about ten.”
Dietze was in the habit of giving grand shooting
parties in the winter-time—for what country in all
the world is So rich in fur and feather as the Mark of
Brandenburg, or Prussian Saxony P-and Bismarck
failed not on these occasions to honour the invitation
Of his old fellow-sportsman. At table one night, after
an immense slaughter of hares, the talk came to be
of the “Conflict" between Crown and Chamber,
which had finally been put an end to by Königgrätz,
and Bismarck remarked :
“I know all the Sovereigns of Europe, and have
the very greatest esteem for many of them. But,
gentlemen, I ask you to believe that I am not in-
I86 to 128, passed a resolution in favour of payment. This
resolution, however, was promptly negatived by the Federal
Council. Repeated attempts were subsequently made to
induce the Imperial Government to part with its non-payment
principle, but in vain. In 1874, however, this principle was,
by mutual consent, modified to this slight extent, that a law
was passed for placing free railway passes at the disposal of
members of the Reichstag, enabling them to travel anywhere
within the whole Empire during the Session, as well as eight
days before its commencement, and after its close.
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 2 3
dulging in a mere hackneyed phrase of loyalty when
I assure you that I respect none of them so much as
I do his Majesty King William. But even this King
William of ours I should not like to see become an
absolute monarch, since I look upon absolutism as
the most unfortunate of all forms of government.
You have no idea to what extent the destinies of a
despotically ruled land can sometimes be influenced
by a clever flunkey.”
And yet upon another occasion a little later,
Bismarck, in conversation with the celebrated jurist,
Professor Bluntschli, spoke in a somewhat different
strain. “In connection,” he said, “with the pro-
posal, after the war, that we should demand of the
Chamber an indemnity for all our irregular acts
previously committed, there also arose the question
as to whether absolutism should not rather be re-
introduced into Prussia. Personally I am not a
devotee of any constitutional system in particular.
A State can also be ruled with success in the absolute
way.”
Bluntsch/; : “In certain circumstances, certainly ;
but no longer surely in the case of a civilised people
of the present time. Absolutism is only possible
when exercised by great and imposing personalities,
Superior to all others; but the nations have no
guarantee of this.”
Ais/earcé “Quite true, nor for the fact that these
personalities are good ones. And then, the absolute
ruler must be guided by very many considerations
with which the constitutional sovereign does not need
to trouble himself. The latter can shift his responsi-
I 24 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
bility on to the shoulders of majorities, but not the
former. At the time I am speaking of I said to
those who were considering the question with me,
‘Prussia can be ruled in the absolute way, and it is
under an absolutist régime that she grew great. But
it won't do to rule in this way at one time, and in
that way at another. The State cannot prosper if it
is made to oscillate between two different kinds of
government. Have you got the approval of the
Crown Prince for the restoration of an absolutist
regimze P If not, we should not forsake the ways of
the constitution and recur to absolutism, seeing that
this latter would only last till the Crown Prince came
to the throne.’ This argument decided the matter,
as it was known that the Crown Prince would never
give his sanction to the proposed change.””
Recurring to the subject of his royal master,
Bismarck said to Bluntschli : “Like all the Hohen-
zollerns, the King has a lively sense of duty towards
the State. He labours the livelong day, and has
everything reported to him. More than once, in
connection with important affairs, I have had to wake
him up in the middle of the night, and submit to him
in bed papers for his approval and signature. Nothing
gratifies him more than the inspection of a regiment;
and yet, if he were on the point of riding off to review
* Writing to his wife from Vienna in 1864, Motley had said
of Bismarck: “He is as sincere and resolute a monarchist
and absolutist as I am a republican. But that does not
interfere with our friendship, as I believe that Prussia is
about as likely to become a republic as the United States to
turn into a military monarchy.”
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 25
a new battalion of the Guards, and I sent word that I
had a report to make, he would certainly be very
cross at this interference with his purpose, but he would
remain all the same and hear what I had to say. He
was brought up as a soldier, without any idea of his
ever coming to the throne. But after his accession
he at once set to work and did his best to make up
for omitted opportunities. He became a diligent
reader of documents—in the right way, too, beginning
at the end. At first it was rather stiff work ; but the
Sexagenarian monarch made much more rapid pro-
gress in his mastery of affairs than one would have
expected. His only amusement is an evening visit
to the theatre.*
“At the same time the King feels that his orders
will be absolutely obeyed by the army. Were he to
say to me, “Send all these gentlemen of the House
of Deputies to Spandau,' I do not say that, as a
constitutional minister, I would do so.” (with a smile);
“but what I do say is that the King is firmly convinced,
and not without reason, that the army would carry
out his command to the letter.”
A very different King this, thought Bismarck, from
* At a later time Bismarck said of the King: “When the
time of his Regency was approaching, he asked me for
written information about all sorts of things. I gave my
opinion in such detail as if I had been training a son in
political Science, so that privately the then Prince William
probably mocked at the elementary character of my com-
munications. But he was nevertheless grateful to me, as he
always found something new in what I said. As Regent he
wished always to be simply as an officer on duty, seeking
most conscientiously to do it.”
I 26 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
his father Frederick William III., the “hero" of the
Holy Alliance. Talking one day at table after the
Bohemian campaign with his old editorial friend of the
A rezºg-Zeitung, Herr Wagener, Bismarck said : “I
cannot understand all this present enthusiasm for a
renewal of the Holy Alliance (between Russia,
Austria, and Prussia), as it has lately become clear
cnough that this Alliance was nothing but a Russian
mouse-trap, and its epithet “Holy a mere joke.
You will live to sce, as I trust I too shall, that the
war with Austria was nothing in my policy but a
storm for clearing the air and preparing the way for
an enduring alliance between us and that Power on a
footing of perfect equality. You will all come to
apologise to me yet, and laud me as the real executor
of the will of Frederick William III.”
“It is not very pleasant,” Bismarck remarked to
Wagener on another Occasion, “to have an opera-
glass levelled at you at fourteen paces, or a revolver
at four ; and any little gratification of vanity that onc
feels at being stared at SO much does not last very
long. All the little vanities of life have only a charm
as long as we do not possess them. But once we
attain them, we only think of what King Solomon
said about the vanity of all things. Therefore it is
that I cannot comprehend how any onc can endure
life who doesn't believe in another and a better
Onc.”
Talking on another occasion with Wagener about
public opinion, the Chancellor said : “You doubtless
remember the saying of the first Napoleon that three
shrieking women will make more noise than a thousand
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 27
silent men. It is therefore very absurd of us to
attach so much importance to the shrieking women
of public opinion. True public opinion is that which
is the outcome of certain political, religious, and
social convictions, of a very simple kind, deep down
in the national life; and to recognise and give effect
to this is the task of the true statesman. I might
call it the undercurrent of public opinion. Hence it
is that I have never reckoned with our parliamentary
screamers, and that consequently I have always had
the satisfaction of having enlisted on my side the
public opinion by which I set any store. The
National Assembly in St. Paul's, Frankfort, and the
Union Parliament at Erfurt, were both in point of
fact composed of excellent speakers; and yet, what
remains of them now P ‘Swallowed up and forgotten :
such is the singer's curse.’”
On another occasion he remarked to Wagener :
“It is just the same with these oratorical gentlemen’
(Lasker, etc.), “as with many ladies who have small
feet. Not content with this they wear shoes that pinch
them, and are for ever pushing out their feet in order
that they may be seen and admired. In the same
way, when any one has the misfortune to be eloquent,
his tendency is to speak too often and too long.”
Some years afterwards Bismarck said of public
speaking : “The strongest wrestler, even in the field
of Oratory, worsts the others. But the orator is not
always the best judge of politics. To be a good
Speaker, you must have the gift of improvisation.
We have all often witnessed public entertainments—
* From Uhland's beautiful ballad, ZXes Sängers A*/uch.
I 28 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
music, varied with extempore declamation—at which
a subject with which the improvisatore was totally
unacquainted was given to him, and he delivered such
a brilliant Oration upon it as, but for my entourage,
would almost have succeeded in convincing me for
the moment. All I mean to say is that we cannot—
with Open eyes, at least—confide the guidance of
public affairs to masters of mere eloquence any more
than to professional improvisers; still less can we
trust to them as party leaders or Ministers. I only
mention this in order to point out that eloquence is a
gift which is nowadays over-estimated, and exercises
greater influence than is its due.
“A good speaker must be somewhat of a poet, and
therefore cannot adhere mathematically to the truth.
He must be piquant and exciting—easily inflamed,
that he may be inflammatory—wherefore, to my
mind, a good speaker can but seldom be a safe
statesman, Sensibility, not sense, must predominate
in his nature; and I believe it incompatible with the
physical constitution of humanity that any man
should be at once a good speaker and a Cool judge.
Eloquence frequently, and to a perilous extent,
outweighs discretion ; but a man of Cool reflection
and sure, exact calculation, to whom the management
of important business may be confidently entrusted,
can scarcely be an accomplished Orator. Whether
there be any remedy against the evils of eloquence
in our present state of high civilisation, I know not ;
but it is half the battle to recognise those evils for
what they are. Let me warn you, therefore, against
wasting so much time as heretofore upon exhibitions
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 29
of eloquence in our parliamentary work, which gives
us enough to do as it is, I repeat that speeches are
useful as conveying information ; but they must not
be allowed to govern. The elector has a right to be
represented by a person who is independent of
eloquence, neither stimulated nor terrorised by it.”
With respect to the introduction of direct and
universal Suffrage, Bismarck remarked to Wagener,
“If you wish to transform an ancient mould, you
must first liquefy it.”
On another occasion he described universal suffrage
as “the government of a house by its nursery"; but
he added, “You can do anything with children if
you only play with them.” Some one observed,
“You can make a mob cry anything by paying a few
men among them a groschen apiece to start the
shouting.” “AWein, but you need not waste your
groschen,” demurred the Premier : “es gióż immer Ese/
genug die sc/reſent 202&ega/k/ " (There are always asses
enough to bray gratis).
Bismarck himself was ever an adept at the art of
“starting the shouting,” and of manipulating that
public opinion which he sometimes affected to despise.
Never was his dexterity in this respect more con-
spicuously displayed than when Napoleon betrayed
a desire to acquire German Luxemburg from its
Sovereign, the King of Holland. By prompting Herr
von Bennigsen, Chief of the National Liberals, to put
a parliamentary question to the Government on the
subject, and replying to it in a most subtly alarmist
tone, the Chancellor managed to arouse such a storm
of indignant protest throughout the whole nation as
9
I 3O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
thoroughly frightened the rapacious land-grabber of
the Tuileries, and convinced him that he would have
to fight the whole of Germany if he was to fight at
all. In connection with this Luxemburg question—
which thus threatened to precipitate the inevitable
war between France and Germany in the spring of
I867—Count Bethusy had a conversation with General
Moltke, who expressed himself strongly in favour of
W211".
“After a war such as we have just had,” said
Moltke, “we cannot wish for another, and no one is
farther from doing so than myself. Nevertheless, I
am very strongly of opinion that the present oppor-
tunity for a war with France should be seized, for
within the next five years I hold such a struggle to be
quite inevitable, and during this period our present
indisputable Superiority over the French in armament
and organisation will gradually be reduced to our
disadvantage. So the Sooner we get to handgrips
with them the better. The present opportunity is
a good and natural one, therefore it should be
used.”
Count Bethusy repeated these arguments of SO
eminent an authority on war to Bismarck, who
admitted the justice of Moltke's contention, as well
from the political as the military point of view, but
at the same time declared that he never could assume
the responsibility of inflicting the miseries of Such a
war upon the nation unless this war were really
necessary, as it had been in the case of Austria, to
safeguard the nation's vital interests or honour. The
personal conviction of a ruler or statesman that war
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 3 I
was inevitable did not seem to him to justify its
precipitation. Unforeseen events might alter the
situation and avert what appeared to be unavoidable.
On being told next day what Bismarck had said,
Moltke remarked, “Bismarck's logic is unassailable,
but it will one day cost us many lives”—which it
certainly did.
A few months later, after the Luxemburg question
had been settled by the neutralisati n of the Grand
Duchy, Bismarck gave a dinner-party, his guests
including his old teacher, Dr. Bonnell, and the staff of
the Gymnasium, which was now in turn being attended
by the Chancellor's two sons. The conversation
turned on Luxemburg, and Some one contended, with
Moltke, that this question should have been made the
pretext for a war with France.
“My dear professor,” said Bismarck, “such a war
would have cost us the lives of at least thirty thousand
brave soldiers, and in the best of cases brought us no
profit. But he who has once gazed into the glazed
eye of a dying warrior on the field of battle will think
twice before beginning a war.”
Compare this with his reply to the Socialist Herr
Bebel, who had bitterly complained that Luxemburg
had been “lost to Germany.” “In my opinion,” said
the Chancellor, “we ought to be grateful to his
Majesty for having withstood the temptation to lead
his armies to new victories, seeing that the cause of
war would have been a mere right of garrison contested
by Our neighbours, and no longer maintainable by
ourselves. A Sovereign in the habit of himself lead-
ing his army to the field, who has witnessed the fall
I 32 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
of SO many of his warriors, and seen their eyes glazed
in death, does not lightly resolve upon war.”
At One of his parliamentary soirées, Bismarck re-
marked on the same subject :
“I thought for one long and troubled week—which
only lasted, however, from Tuesday to Friday—on
the question of war with France. It was not the
eventuality of defeat which concerned us, for Moltke
had positively assured us that we would win. No ;
it was the question whether we should begin a war
with France on the assumption of certain, or at least
highly probable, victory. This question we at last
negatived, deciding only to go to war if forced to do
SO. We took into consideration all the tremendous
losses which Such a war would entail, the misery and
wretchedness of thousands of families. No, my
friends, you need not look at me like that, as if you
felt surprised at my having a heart. Believe me, I have
one as well as you. War is always war—with its
wasted lands, its lamentation of widows and Orphans
—all of which is so terrible that I for my part will
only resort to it in the most extreme case of
necessity.”
It is more than probable that the French them-
selves, then and there, would have made a casus belli
out of Luxemburg, had their bellicose heat not been
suddenly cooled by one of Bismarck's “cold-water
douches" (AEaſtes Wassers/ra/l), as he called them, in
the shape of the Sudden and Surprising revelation
that, immediately after the campaign of 1866, the
South German States had concluded treaties of
defence and offence with the Northern Confederation.
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 33
Napoleon had not been aware of this ; and on the
publication of these treaties during the Luxemburg
crisis, he joined Count Beust in denouncing them as
“masterpieces of treachery,” “the me //us ultra of
Machiavelism.”
Of the genesis of these treaties Bismarck himself
gave a most interesting account. One day (Spring
of 1867) when war on account of Luxemburg seemed
to be inevitable, the Chancellor, leaving the ministerial
bench, sat down beside a deputy friend in the
Reichstag, and after whispering with him for some
time, he turned round to Herr von Unruh, who was
sitting behind, and said, “To-morrow you will find
Some very important reading in the Gazette.”
On Herr von Unruh asking whether he might not
be favoured beforehand with some indication of the
nature of the news, Bismarck readily replied :
“Oh, certainly : we have concluded treaties of
offensive and defensive alliance with the Southern
States—Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden.”
“Bravo l’’ exclaimed Herr von Unruh, with a look
of the utmost delight; and then Bismarck went on
to relate how, after the peace-preliminaries of
Nicolsburg—which did not include the South German
States—the Bavarian Premier, Herr von der Pfordten,
had come to Berlin to treat for peace also. At first
Bismarck had made Some very serious demands, in-
cluding a heavy war-contribution, and considerable
Cessions of territory—mentioning Ansbach-Bayreuth,
which had once appertained to Prussia. Having
thus rendered von der Pfordten very downcast and
sufficiently “pliable,” Bismarck said :
I 34. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“But you can have peace very cheaply, without
territorial cessions—apart, perhaps, from a slight
rectification of frontier—and with a moderate money
indemnity.”
The Bavarian Premier, in joyful surprise, asked
Bismarck what he meant.
“Nothing else but the immediate conclusion of an
offensive and defensive treaty ”
Hereupon von der Pfordten burst into tears and
embraced the Chancellor, though the latter used a
much more forcible expression in describing the
incident.
Soon after the settlement of the Luxemburg
difficulty by an international Conference held in
London, King William, accompanied by, Bismarck,
Moltke, and others, paid a visit to Paris—this being
the year of the great Exhibition which Napoleon had
devised in order to show that, above all things, he
was a man of peace—an apostle, in fact, of the
millennium. At first Bismarck had shown something
like disinclination to the trip, but a word from the
King made him change his mind.
“The King,” he said to M. Benedetti, “thinks I
am afraid, and that ever since my life was attempted
I have been haunted by the fear of assassins.”
In Paris, the Chancellor visited some of the theatres.
Offenbach's Grande Duc/lesse, which, as a skit upon
militarism, made so many laugh, excited in him only
anger. He was CSpecially indignant at the song,
“The Sabre of my Sire.” “You can't expect a pair
of Jews (Offenbach and Ludovic Halévy) to feel any
reverence for military traditions,” he said ; “but now
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 35
‘De Saffre de mom Père’ will be associated with
ludicrous ideas in the minds of Frenchmen, and old
generals will be ashamed to give their swords to their
sons on account of this odious jingle.” On the other
hand, Bismarck saw a performance of Sardou's AWos
ôons Villageois at the Gymnase, and he laughed
loudly at the scene in which a colonel, who is mayor
of his village, makes all the municipal Councillors sign
a document acknowledging that they are “a troop of
donkeys”—“a genuflecting troupeau,” as he himself
had once called his diplomatic colleagues at Frankfort.
Some one observed to the Count at dinner, jokingly,
“Did you not hear the people cry, Vive Bismarck / " ?
“No,” he said ; “they cried, “ V’la Bismarck, V'/a
Bis/larcó ‘–7/2ai's c'est éga/ /*-it is all one. On
returning home, he remarked that he had been
treated with “benevolent curiosity.”
At Paris, Napoleon affected to have forgiven
Bismarck for his “masterpiece of treachery" in con-
nection with the military treaties, but he still followed
with a jealous eye the progress of the national idea
in Germany. The Emperor continued to remain in
mortal apprehension about the “bridging of the Main,”
the boundary between North and South, which would
at last bring about the longed-for “Das gange Deutsch-
/and " of the poet Arndt. What Bismarck desired
above all things was the banding of the South into a
Confederation like that of the North, and with a Parlia-
ment at Munich similar to that at Berlin, “seeing,” as
he said, “that the two Assemblies would then be
as Sure to unite as the waters of the Red Sea after the
passage of the Israelites.”
I 36 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Talking with a Munich journalist, Julius Fröbel,
about this time, Bismarck said that the will of the
Southern States must not be forced in any way, even
if the unification of the whole Fatherland should take
thirty years, as otherwise the seeds would be sown of
an incurable hostility between North and South. . . .
“And as for Austria, I will act towards her, as long as
possible, as I would to my own wife if I were to
quarrel with her—that is to say, with Christian
patience. But between a velvet hand and cold steel
I know no medium.”
Pending the creation of a Vol/-Parlament for
all Germany, it was some progress in the desired
direction that a Zo//-A’ar/a/zeſzz for the whole Father-
land at last met in Berlin (spring of 1868); and if
this was not yet a bridge Over the Main, it was at
least the central pillar of the structure. The meeting
of the Zol/-Parlament, marking as it did another
decided advance in the direction of national unity,
occasioned another violent outburst of French jealousy,
and caused Bismarck to concentrate his thoughts on
the character and intentions of that restless and
resentful people. One of the chief members of the
Customs Parliament (for Baden) was Professor
Bluntschli, of Heidelberg, who one evening spent an
hour and a half with Bismarck over beer and cigars.
“It may sound fantastical to you, Herr Professor,”
said the Chancellor, “if I assert that nations, like
individuals, are either male or female. The Germanians
are so very masculine that by themselves they are
simply incapable of being ruled. Each of them tries
to live in his own peculiar way. But bind them all
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 37
together, and then they are like an irresistible torrent
that levels all before it. On the other hand, the Slavs
and the Celts are feminine—non-productive. The
Russians can do nothing without the Germans.
They cannot work, but are easily led. They have
no power of resistance, and simply follow their
maSterS.
“The Celts, too, are nothing but a passive mass.
It was only after the Germans went amongst them
that the blend produced a political people. It was
the same with the English ; also with the Spaniards
as long as they were under the Goths, and the French
when dominated by the Frankish element. But the
French Revolution expelled this element, and thus
restored the predominance of the Celtic nature. That
inclines the French to submit to authority.
“The Westphalians and the Swabians are pure
Germans with little alien admixture, and that is why
it is so hard to accustom them to the idea of the
State. But let them once be seized with a national
idea, become infuriated with it, so to speak, and they
will burst you rocks asunder. That, however, occurs
but rarely. As a rule every village and every peasant-
farmer wants to be left to himself. The Prussians
are a strong blend of Slavonic and Germanic elements,
and that is the chief cause of their political adapta-
bility, combining as they do the pliancy of the Slav
with the strength and virility of the German.
“And then another thing. The rule established
by the Hohenzollerns was from the very first a reality,
to which they brought the refractory nobility under
subjection. My Own family belongs to the noblesse
I 38 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
that dwelt on the left bank of the Elbe, and sided
with the Sovereign in his efforts to subjugate the
nobility on the right bank. But everywhere else in
Germany the nobility has maintained an independence
incompatible with the existence of any State. It is
only in Prussia that the nobles have learned how to
adapt themselves to and serve the State.
“True, our Sovereigns have been of the absolute
kind, but their absolutism aimed at benefiting the
State, not themselves. From time to time they have
even hanged members of the nobility, so as to show
that no one in Prussia may escape the law. It is in
this way that Prussia has grown great. How small
was it even under Frederick the Great, who said that
the Sovereign must be the first servant of the State
This doctrine the Hohenzollerns have never forgotten.
They have all been brought up in this spirit, which
has become part of their very being.
“Dread of France would never for a moment keep
me from a further advance in the field of German
unity. I am not afraid of France. We are far
superior to the French—a year ago more perhaps
than now, but now as well. In Saying this I do not
wish to brag—far from it. But we have thought
long and clearly over the whole thing. All our
Generals are of the same opinion. True, the French,
by a sudden rush, might get to Mayence or Coblentz.
But then it would be all over with them, for they
would meet with a resistance which they could not
break. They haven't more than three hundred
thousand men for the purposes of attack, and at
cvery decisive point we could meet them with a
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. 39
larger force. In the last war we had six hundred
and forty thousand under arms, and more in reserve.
“It is possible that the French might surprise us by
a sudden incursion in the South, but I do not believe
that they will do so, as for this they would need
fifty thousand men, who would then be wanting at the
point where a decisive battle would have to be fought.
In any case my advice to you is : let the French
take what they can get, but give them nothing. Treat
not with them, neither make them any concessions.
In the worst of cases some persons and places will be
ruined, but in the long run the whole nation will be
the gainers, and you will be richly compensated for
any losses.
“I do not set a higher value on the individual
Frenchman than on the German, but we have the
advantage of numbers. Therefore, supposing that
God will not withhold from us His favour and grant
it to the French, we shall repel their attack and then
march on Paris. Napoleon knows how strong we are,
and SO we shall have peace: such is my firm belief.
The united German people is the greatest military
Power in the world, and has nothing to fear.
“Under all circumstances Austria will remain
neutral. Apart from the state of her finances, she
cannot afford to wage war. All her interests are
against it. The German Austrians well know that a
war, resulting favourably for Austria, would again
imperil what they have won. Again, the Hungarians
are equally aware that a victorious Austrian army
would deprive them of their Constitution. As for the
Austrian Slavs, they are open to Russian influence.
I 4O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
But if need be we can, by means of Russia, hold
Austria completely in check. The Austrians will not
dare to draw the sword. True, one or two Archdukes
might be for such a course ; but what interest would
Austria have in thus staking her existence P She
would even lose in the event of the French beating
us, Seeing that she would then be powerless in face
of the French conquerors, and have to dance as the
latter piped.
“As for the Russians, we do not require to give
them anything for their alliance in a war with France.
Their weak side is Poland, which one French battalion
would be sufficient to insurrectionise. The Russians
cannot use the French as allies without thereby im-
perilling their dearest interests. The Poles are forced
to look to and attach themselves to us in the same
way as the Hungarians.
“With England our relations are excellent.
Formerly the English leaned towards Austria as
being the leading German Power, and as furnishing
her with a certain support against France. But since
the war of 1866 they have played quite another card,
like the practical people they are, and now entertain
no objection to the unification of Germany in Our
SC11SC.
“The late reception of the Crown Prince in Italy
surprised no one but the Prince himself. The King
sent him there because we knew that he would be
enthusiastically received, and because we wished to
thwart the formation of a La Marmora cabinet. The
plan succeeded, and a ministry hostile to us is now
impossible. You see, therefore, that we are sure of
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 4 I
our national cause, at the development of which we
now mean to work in peace.”
The first impression which Bismarck had made on
Bluntschli, as the latter wrote when recording this
interview, was that of “a heroic figure of the time of
the Nibelungen—gigantic, mighty, with bushy eye-
brows and penetrating eyes. . . . But however Titanic
and almost antediluvian he had appeared to me at
first sight, he produced a totally different impression
in the course of our conversation. He was exceed-
ingly amiable and amazingly Outspoken, yet charm-
ingly easy in manner. Sometimes he laughed with
his whole heart, while his voice revealed tender and
even soft emotions. But once or twice his eyes
flashed like lightning.”
Another distinguished member of the Customs
Parliament was Prof. Dr. Sepp, of the University of
Munich, who one day entered into conversation with
Bismarck as to the future relations between Bavaria
and North Germany.
Sepp : “I can see many steps that lead into, but
none out of, the lion's den.”
Bismarck : “We offer ourselves at par ; but if you
wish to have us above par, that is your affair.”
Sepp “We Bavarians are kinsmen of the Austrians,
the latter being East Bavarians, we Westerns. You
may knock us on the head, but you cannot turn us
into Prussians.”
Bismarcé. “We don't want to, but only to see
you, as good Germans, joining hands with us.”
Se// ; “We fancied that Austria was stronger than
she has proved to be, but even after Königgrätz we
I 42 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
should not like to be forced to take the field against
her, as we had to do under the first Napoleon.”
Bismarck : “Herr Professor, I have not taken a
Single inch of soil from the Austrians.”
Sepp : “But if it is a case of going against the
Czechs and the Magyars, we are prepared to help
you in letting them feel the superior weight of the
German sword.”
Bismarck : “There you talk like a professor of
history, and as a statesman I can make no reply.”
Sepp : “Beg pardon | But at the same time I can
only be guided by the lessons of history. Your
Excellency is a man of political action.”
Bis/larcó “ſa zvo/h/, a man of action ; and much
might be done if I had not so many personal obstacles
to encounter’—(saying which the Chancellor made a
vigorous motion with his foot, as if he were spurning
away a Snake).
Sepp : “Your power of work fills us all with wonder
and admiration.”
Bismarck : “Yes. Formerly I worked sixteen hours
a day, but now I can only manage my ten or twelve.
In the army I have worked my way up honestly to
the rank of major, but the loss of time in changing
my civilian attire every time I am called to the King
amounted to an hour a day, until his Majesty was
graciously pleased to allow me to go to him in any kind
of dress. Thirty hours' unnecessary loss of time per
month—just see what that makes in a whole year !” ”
* Bismarck only got into the habit of constantly wearing
his uniform on his promotion to the rank of General after the
war with Austria. Before that he only once took with him his
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 4 3
On another occasion—a grand banquet that was
given in the Berlin Exchange to the members of the
Customs Parliament (May 1868)—Professor Sepp
could not help complimenting Bismarck on his fresh
and youthful appearance.
Bismarck : “Well, I do belong to the younger
category of those about us here. But look at General
Steinmetz there—he is now seventy, and is looking
forward to another present from his young wife.
Parliamentary life, it is true, Soon ages a man—and
then, if to that you add official service . . . It is in-
credible the amount of matter I have to read through
every day ; and if I Say anything, my words are at
once weighted with a significance which would not be
attached to them if they fell from the lips of another.
I fancy that I am pushing, and am only pushed.”
Sepp : “We stick to acts. With mere words no one
can make history.”
uniform, as a Major in the Landwehr, when he accompanied
the King to a review. As Premier he used to wear a dressing.
gown till noon, and received the Counsellors in that garb.
He exchanged it for other garments only if an Envoy or a
Minister was announced. His dress on such occasions was
not always d quatre éðingles. At Varzin he wore a common-
looking shooting costume. His plain clothes were made at
Frankfort. At his Silver Wedding a dress coat, by no means
up to date, was found with great difficulty in the corner of a
press, and Bismarck was glad to doff this uncongenial garment
immediately after Divine Service. At Varzin, too, he always
worked in his dressing-gown in the morning. It had a rope
with tassels, with which Bismarck used to play when he
walked up and down or stood in the room, trying to find some
expression that he desired to use. As long as he wore plain
clothes, he always went to the King in the so-called “ small
uniform.’’
I 44. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Bismarcé: “For all that is now happening we have
to account to history.”
Von Stein/lets : “How do you like Berlin P’’
Sepp : “I can see nothing but uniforms and barracks,
nor is there any talk but of war. But if it comes to
this, should we Bavarians not best serve Prussia by
Observing an armed neutrality and covering your left
flank So as to compel the French to take the bull by
the horns on the Rhine?”
Stein/Zeitg. “What? What? You think of remain-
ing neutral in South Germany P’’
Sepp : “No, I don't say that, but in one single day
the French from Strassburg could be with us in
Freiburg, and a little later in Munich. North Germany
Cannot come to our assistance so quickly.”
Steinmetz “How many men do you think you
could bring into the field P”
Sepp : “An army of eighty thousand men—
sufficient only to occupy Ingolstadt and defend
Ulm.”
Szezm/zeżg : “With such a force I think I should be
ready to take the offensive in the field, without letting
it lie fallow in fortresses.”
Se//, “We quite understand that Prussia would be
able to survive a disastrous battle, but for France
such a thing would mean the fall of her dynasty.”
Steinme/g “What? Disastrous battle, said you ?
You shall see that we will make a very pretty thing
of it.”
Mo/t/te : “Herr Professor, before the French can
get to Munich, we shall be at Paris |"
Professor Sepp returned to Munich in a totally
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 45
different frame of mind from that in which he had
come to Berlin. Coming to scoff, he had remained to
pray, and to declare at the farewell banquet of the
Customs Parliament, “We have seen that, as every
time has its man, so the second half of this century
has its man for Germany ; and whatever may be the
opinion of others, I for my part, behold this man in
Count Bismarck.”
In 1871, after the foundation of the Empire,
Bismarck wrote to Dr. Sepp regretting that so good
and enlightened a South German patriot as he had
not been returned to the Reichstag ; and three years
later the Chancellor despatched the professor on an
expedition to Phoenicia to see whether he could
recover and bring back to Germany the bones of
Kaiser Barbarossa who, on One of his crusades, had
been drowned while crossing the river Saleph in
Cilicia, and his body entombed in the cathedral of
Tyre which collapsed twelve years afterwards. After
excavating for some time, like another Dr. Schliemann,
the learned professor concluded that he had found
the coffin of Kaiser Red Beard ; but alas ! it now con-
tained neither bones nor relics, and all he could do
was to return home and write an erudite treatise on
the subject, dedicated to his equally patriotic patron,
the Imperial Chancellor.”
* Dr. Sepp's negative discovery was perhaps calculated to
strengthen the popular belief in the legend which represents
Barbarossa as sitting asleep before a stone table in a cave of
the Kyffhäuser Mountain (in the Harz), and dreaming of the
way in which he shall re-conquer and re-constitute Germany.
A Shepherd having once been introduced by a dwarf into the
IO
I 46 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
It was at the Customs Parliament banquet, at
which Professor Sepp had eulogised his Prussian
patron as the man of all others for Germany, that
Prince Hohenlohe, another Bavarian (afterwards to
become the third German Chancellor), proposed, amid
tremendous cheering, “The Unity of Germany.”
“The short time we have been together,” said
Bismarck, in replying, “ has vanished like a spring
day; may it bear fruit like the blossoms of spring !”
Apart from his free-and-easy table-talk, Bismarck's
formal after-dinner oratory was always of the most
felicitous kind. Thus, at a banquet given by the
historian Bancroft, American Minister in Berlin, in
honour of General Grant's assumption of presidential
power, Bismarck, in proposing the “victorious
cave, Barbarossa rose and asked his visitor “whether the
ravens were still flying round the mountain P” and, on receiving
an affirmative answer, sank down again with a sigh and a cry
that he would still have to sleep another hundred years. This
was the legend to which Bismarck himself had once made
allusion in the Erfurt Parliament of 1850, which vainly essayed
to bring about national union. Herr Simson, on assuming
office as President, had reminded the Assembly that exactly
one thousand years ago a Reichstag had met in Erfurt; and
Bismarck (who was no less deeply versed in ancient German
history than this famous jurist) profited by the allusion to
show from old Spangenberg, the chronicler, that “King
Ludwig had held it in order to put an end to the extortionate
practices of attorneys and pettifoggers who at that time were
an intolerable nuisance in Germany.” And should its
successor (he added, with bitter mockery) achieve a similar
result, then “he would believe that the ravens of the Kyffhäuser
had vanished, and that the day of German unity was near.”
Little, perhaps, did Bismarck then dream that he himself was
to prove the “Barbarossa Aledºv/vus '' of the Fatherland.
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 47
General's,” health, pointed out that the event had a
special claim on the sympathy of the German people,
seeing that it was Frederick the Great who had been the
first neutral Sovereign in Europe to recognise the inde-
pendence of the North-American Republic. Nor had
the friendly relations between the two countries thus
established by Washington and Frederick (whose flag-
bedecked busts the Chancellor saw before him) ever
suffered the least interruption, as he could testify, no
less from his own experience than from the papers in
the Prussian Archives. “Not only has no difficulty
ever arisen between the two nations, but nothing has
ever happened of a kind to cause even explanations
to be offered on either side.”
Nevertheless, Bismarck had once been very sorely
tempted to imperil the good relations which ever
existed between Washington and Berlin. Talking
with an American journalist (AVezv-Yorker Zeitung)
in November 1866, after the war with Austria,
Bismarck said that the Conservative party in Prussia
had implored the King to recognise the Southern
States, but as it was clear to him (the Chancellor)
that only the North could be Prussia's true ally, he
had inflexibly opposed the proposal, the consequence
being that his Government never wavered in its friend-
ship for President Lincoln.
“At the Outset of our own late war,” continued the
Chancellor, “Austria was superior to us by sea, and
we were not quite sure of Italy; so it was proposed
that I should accept the services of some of your
most distinguished naval officers in the South with five
thousand men and the requisite vessels. They were
I 48 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
not to come over to us as the Confederate Fleet, but
as private individuals. Thereupon I applied to your
Minister here in Berlin to know whether the accept-
ance of this offer might not be obnoxious to the
American Government. Mr. Wright had his doubts,
and wrote to Washington. He was instructed to
Oppose the idea, and so I declined to have anything
more to do with it. The proposal came from
Captain Semmes.”
Mr. Wright had been succeeded at the Berlin
Legation by Mr. Bancroft; and of the latter Bismarck
said, or rather wrote, to Motley, some little time
after the Grant banquet, “Bancroft is one of the
most popular personages in Berlin, and if you have
still the old good-will for the town that you had
when you looked out at the windows of Logier's house,
do what you can to enable us to keep him . . . If
you can, do prevent him from being sacrificed ; he is
better than most of the Europeans, who follow his,
yours, and my trade ; even if the smooth liars of the
trade should talk about him exactly as my intimate
enemies did about me, when they called me the
diplomatist in wooden shoes.”
We are to suppose that Bismarck always spoke
German with Bancroft, for to Motley again he wrote,
about the same time : “I am quite losing the habit
of speaking English, as Loftus, in Berlin, is the solitary
person who gives me an Opportunity, and I never
could write it without a dictionary, as I learnt it by
the sound and by ear ; SO excuse the above, which I
look upon as a school exercise for myself. I do not
know if I am going to Berlin soon ; hardly before the
FEDERAL CHANCELLOR. I 49
1st. I should like to wait and see if the Landtag will
not do me the favour of killing a few of my colleagues;
when I am there among them, the forbearance vouch-
Safed to me is extended to the rest. . . . In any event,
as Soon as I am in town, I hope to hear more about
your leave, and hear certainly about the time of your
visit. Then we will sit down again to a game of
chess at Logier's house, and dispute as to whether
Byron and Goethe can be compared to each other.
I think we were then better men, in better times;
that is, younger. Remember me to your ladies.”
CHAPTER VII.
7A/AE AERAEAVCAEW WAA’.
N the afternoon of July 19th, 1870, M. Le Sourd,
French Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin, handed to
the German Chancellor a declaration of war. But on
the I3th of the same month war had already been
as good as declared. Years after, at one of his
parliamentary soirées, Bismarck gave the following
account of how this came about :—
“Great events always become encircled with a
growth of legend, and that is often a good thing.
There are Some legends that should not be destroyed.
The King was in Ems, I at Varzin, when the row
arose about the candidature of Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern for the crown of Spain. The French
behaved as foolishly as possible—and more than all
their Government, headed by Ollivier, who was not at
all equal to the situation, and had no idea of the
harm he was doing in the Corps Legislatif with his
stupid boasting. At this time the situation was all
in our favour. We as a matter of fact had been
provoked, and as it had long been clear to us all
that we should have to settle up with France, the
present opportunity seemed a suitable One for doing
so. Therefore I left Varzin and came to Berlin to
I 50
THE FRENCH WAR. I 5 I
talk over all important matters with Moltke and
Roon. On the way I received a telegram to the effect
that Prince Charles Anthony of Hohenzollern had
withdrawn the candidature of his son for the Sake
of peace, and that everything was now all right.
“With this unexpected settlement of the affair I
was quite dumfoundered, for I doubted whether an
opportunity like the present would ever recur. On
reaching Berlin I sent for Roland (a Foreign Office
clerk), and told him to wire home that I should be
back in three days. At the same time I telegraphed
to His Majesty my resignation as Prussian Premier
and Federal Chancellor. Thereupon the King
telegraphed, asking me to come to Ems. But I had
pondered long and clearly over the situation, and
said to myself: ‘If I go to Ems, everything will be
spoilt. In the best of cases the matter will end in
an unworthy compromise, and then the only possible,
the Only great and honourable solution of the
problem will be out of the question. I must do all I
can to bring his Majesty back to Berlin, where he will
be able to feel the national pulse much better than in
Ems.” In the most respectful manner, therefore, I
tried to show his Majesty that it was quite impossible
for me to leave Berlin.
“Fortunately the shortsighted and overweening
French had meanwhile done all they could to throw
the carriage off the track. For they asked the King
to sign a letter which was tantamount to a deep
humiliation. His Majesty wired to me for my
advice, and I replied with a pure conscience,
“Signature impossible.’
I 52 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
“On the evening of the 14th I had asked Roon
and Moltke to dine with me, and discuss all eventu-
alities. We all shared the hope that the foolish
action of France in making such an unheard-of
demand Of Our King would, after all, obviate the
danger of a feeble and inglorious issue of the affair.
While we were still at table, a telegram came in from
Ems ” (detailing the last meeting between the King
and Benedetti, the further importunity of the latter,
and the final refusal of his Majesty to receive the
Ambassador again on the subject).
“On my reading out this telegram, both Moltke and
Roon dropped their forks and knives, and receded a
little from the table. There was a long pause. We
were all very much depressed, feeling that the matter
was slipping through our fingers. At last I said to
Moltke, ‘Is Our fighting instrument, is our army really
in such an efficient state that we can enter into a
war with the highest hope of success P’ Moltke's
belief in this respect was as firm as a rock. ‘We
have never,’ he answered, “had better war material
than now '; and Roon—though I had not quite SO
much confidence perhaps in him—backed up Moltke's
assurance to the full.
“‘Well, then,' said I to both, ‘you can now calmly
go on with your dinner.'
“Thereupon I sat down at the round marble table,
standing near the dining one, perused the King's
despatch once more with great attention, took a
pencil and crasca the sentences referring to Benedetti's
request for another audience, leaving only the head and
tail. And now the telegram read somewhat differently.
THE FRENICH WAR. I 53
“My two guests exclaimed, ‘Splendid That
will dol' and now we continued our meal with the
best of appetites.
“I gave directions for the telegram in its altered
form to be communicated as quickly as possible to
the semi-official News Agency (Wolff's Bureau), all
the newspapers, and all our embassies abroad. We
were still together when news came in about the
effect which the telegram had produced in Paris. It
had acted like a bomb. Whereas in reality the
French had submitted an insulting demand to Our
lord and master, the effect of my telegram was such
as to make them believe that their ambassador had
been rudely treated by the King. The Boulevards
now burst out into cries of ‘A Berlin A Berlin ''
. . . And a corresponding effect was also produced
among us. The King, who at my urgent request
had decided to interrupt his course of waters at Ems,
returned to Berlin, and was quite stupefied by the
outburst of popular enthusiasm which greeted him
from every side. For he had no idea of what had
meanwhile happened. . . . His eyes grew moist with
tears; and gradually he came to see that it was in
truth a national war which the people needed and
craved for. . . .
“The further development of affairs is known to
you all. But that was the point about which Gramont
in his Memoirs expresses his sincere astonishment.
He could not understand how, all at once, after the
matter had appeared to take a pacific turn, the
warlike mood again gained the ascendant. ‘Ume
apparition sinistre surviná. Tout d'un coup foºt est
I 54 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
change—Qu'était-il arrive P Monsieur de Bismarck
d Berlin.' I am quoting from memory, but Gramont's
words were Something like that. Anyhow, I was the
‘uncanny apparition.’
“But now let me only remark that I was quite
within my rights in making the omission I did from
the King's telegram ; for he had expressly left it to
me to publish the whole or part of it, according to
my discretion. I never had cause to regret the way
in which it was edited.”
On another occasion, when talking with the
historian, Herr von Sybel, Bismarck gave a slightly
different, yet substantially identical, account of the
incident. After the Chancellor had read out the
King's telegram in its modified form to his two
friends, Roon said, “That's better.” Moltke added,
“At first it sounded like a chamade, and now it is a
fanfare.” Bismarck remarked, “If the telegram is
delivered to the Ambassadors at eleven o'clock it can
also be made known at Paris by midnight, and then
the French will see how false is the assertion of their
newspapers that the Prussians are suing for mercy.
But suppose they take the thing amiss and draw the
sword, how stands it then with our chances of victory P”
“I believe,” replied Moltke, “that we shall prove
superior to them—always, of course, with the reserva-
tion that no one can ever foresee the issue of a great
pitched battle.” After going into details, he con-
cluded : “If I could only lead our army in this war,
then afterwards the devil would be quite welcome
to this skeleton of mine” (slapping his breast as he
spoke).
THE FRENICH WAR. I 55
It will be seen from the above that, in the course of
three years, Bismarck's views on war had undergone
a radical change. For he had previously resisted the
urgent advice of Moltke and others to seize the
Luxemburg question as a pretext for war with
France, on the ground that personal belief in the
inevitability of war was not a sufficient reason for
precipitating it.” Circumstances, he thought, might
after all arise to obviate an appeal to arms; but a
few years more of the Napoleonic policy had
convinced him beyond all doubt that the French
were only waiting for their opportunity, and that it
would therefore be worse than folly to leave them to
select their own time for drawing the Sword.
Therefore it was that he had left Varzin with the
firm intention to precipitate a decisive struggle or to
resign. Thus, in his “Rejoinder’ to certain state-
ments in the Crown Prince's “Diary" (published by
Dr. Geffcken), Bismarck said : “At the very be-
ginning of the Diary it is said that, on the I3th July,
I87O, I looked upon peace as Secured, and therefore
wanted to return to Varzin. As a matter of fact—
which can be proved by documentary evidence—
H.R.H. knew at the time that I regarded war as
necessary, and was resolved to go to Varzin only
after retiring from office if war were avoided. H.R.H.
was at One with me about this, as appears from the
alleged entry on the I 5th of July, where it is said –
“‘Bismarck tells me that he, too, is going with
Moltke and Roon to Brandenburg to meet the King
(returning from Ems). On the way thither he ex-
* See p. 130.
1 56 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
plained with great clearness and a seriousness worthy
of the Occasion, free from all the little jokes which
he is otherwise fond of, his views on the state of
Our relations with France, enabling me now to per-
ceive that any yielding on our part for the sake of
peace was already impossible. He and Moltke have
no great opinion of the strength and organisation of
the French army.’”
When the train, conveying the King and those
who had thus gone to Brandenburg to meet him, ran
into the station at Berlin, which was filled and
surrounded by dense crowds, Herr von Thile (of the
Foreign Office) handed to Bismarck a telegram with
the parliamentary statement of the French Ministry,
which had just arrived. It was read to his Majesty,
who said, “That looks very warlike ; we shall have
at once to mobilise three Army Corps.”
On this Bismarck remarked, “Your Majesty, that
won't be enough, for the French are already mobilising
their whole army.”
Then the King asked Bismarck to read the whole
despatch once more. “But that is a declaration of
war,” he then exclaimed, with deep emotion. “And
are we really going, then, to have such a war P Yes,”
he continued, “it means war. Well, then, so be it,
in God's name !”
Then the Crown Prince turned to the group of
officers behind him with the cry, “Arieg, mobil 1 ''
after which the King burst into tears and warmly
embraced his son. That same night the Order to
mobilise went forth to the troops, while corresponding
telegrams were ſlashed to the South German States.
THE FRENCH WAR, I 57
Conversing with Lord Augustus Loftus on the
eve of the war, Bismarck said that “Great Britain
should have forbidden France to enter on it. She
was in a position to do so, and her interests, as well
as those of Europe, demanded it of her. If Germany
should be victorious, of which he had every confidence,
the balance of power would be preserved ; but if
victory were accorded to France, she would be mistress
of Europe. England could have prevented this by
her action now.”
The same writer also says that at an evening enter-
tainment at Bismarck's, several days after the declara-
tion of war, the Chancellor said he had just received
the visit of a secret agent from Paris, who had assured
him that, if Prussia would only guarantee France the
possession of Belgium, she might annex the South
German States, including Bavaria, and that thus the
impending conflict between the two nations might
after all be obviated.
Shortly after the declaration of war, King William
said to Bismarck :
“What are we now going to do with France P”
“It will be '66 over again,” returned the Chancellor.
When General Phil Sheridan, Commissioner from
the United States army, presented himself to Bismarck
at Pont-à-Mousson on the eve of Gravelotte, the
Chancellor exhibited at times deep anxiety as to the
impending conflict, but his conversation was mostly
devoted to the state of public sentiment in America,
about which he seemed much concerned, inquiring
repeatedly as to which side—France or Prussia—was
charged with bringing on the war. On the way to
I 58 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the battlefield early next morning Bismarck again
recurred to the State of public opinion in America
with reference to the war. He also talked much
about the American form of government, and said
that, in early life, his tendencies were all toward
republicanism, but that family influence had overcome
all his preferences, and intimated that, after adopting
a political career, he found that Germany was not
sufficiently advanced for republicanism. He had been
reluctant, he said, to enter upon this political career,
and had always longed to be a Soldier, but that here
again family opposition had turned him from the
field of his choice into the sphere of diplomacy.
A little later the Chancellor again indulged in the
same vein of thought to two other acquaintances.
One day after dinner at Faulquemont he sat for a
long while talking with Herr Stieber, chief of the field
detective police; and after a short review of his past
life, the Chancellor ended with the remark, “So now
you see what can be made out of a Pomeranian
Junker who used to be hated and abused by every
one.”
Afterwards at Versailles the Chancellor was called
upon by the member of a Junker family, Otto von
Corvin, who had begun life as an officer, but had
ruined his prospects during the revolutionary time
(1848); he had been condemned to death, and had
then taken to journalism and other make-shift courses.
Bismarck listened to his story with the keenest
interest, and then remarked : “Well, now, you see
how fate ordains our affairs. The same sentiments
and convictions led you to prison, and me to the
THE FRENCH WAR. I 59
place where I now stand. . . . We were born and
brought up pretty much in the same circumstances,
and with the same tendencies and prejudices. I,
too, caused my family great uneasiness by my
advanced ideas. I began very early to dream of a
united Germany. Whenever any one asked me
abroad what my country was, I never said that I
was a Prussian—I know not why—but always that I
was a German.”
Curiously enough, the mother of the man to whom
Bismarck now made this confession had eloped with
the author of the famous A*rezassen/zed—“I am a
Prussian, know ye then my colours ?”
At Gravelotte Bismarck had watched the course of
the battle throughout the day, been in the thickest
of the shell-fire, and endured great privations from
hunger and heat. “I had sent my horse to water,”
he afterwards said, “and stood in the dusk near a
battery, which was firing. The French fell silent,
but when we thought that their artillery were dis-
abled, they were only concentrating their guns and
mitrailleuses for a last great push. Suddenly they
began quite a fearful fire with shells and such-like—an
incessant cracking and rolling, whizzing and screaming,
in the air. We were separated from the King, who
had been sent back by Roon. I stayed by the battery,
and thought to myself, “If we have to retire, put
yourself on the first gun-carriage you can find.' We
now expected that the French infantry would support
the attack, when they might have taken me prisoner
unless the artillery carried me away with them. But
the attack failed, and at last the horses returned, and
I 60 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
I set off back to the King. We had gone out of the
rain into the gutter, for where we had ridden to the
shells were falling thick, whereas before they had
passed Over Our heads. Next morning we saw the
deep holes they had ploughed in the ground.”
Subsequently, at Versailles, when dining once with
the Crown Prince, Bismarck began to speak of the
privations he had suffered in the field. The Com-
missariat Department, he complained, did not suf-
ficiently look after the wants of headquarters, the
maxim being that every one could buy comforts for
himself with his own money. On the day of Grave-
lotte, for example, they had ridden out at two or
three in the early morning and had nothing whatever
to eat till night. But at last he succeeded in buying
five eggs for twenty francs. Being hungry himself,
he at once consumed two of these, and rode off with
the other three to General Sheridan and another
person, with whom he fraternally shared the spoil,
without, however, telling them of his previous feast.
Of this conversation a note was made at the time
by Herr von Freydorf, Minister of Baden, who also
wrote : “If the high foreheads and bearded warriors
(of the King) reminded one of Wallenstein's banquet,
the younger entourage of the Crown Prince looked
like a scene out of the Mousquetaires de la Reine.”
Only Bismarck certainly belonged to the Wallenstein
grOup.
After the battle of Gravelotte, “Bismarck and I,”
wrote General Sheridan, “went off to look for shelter
for ourselves. . . . At last the Count fixed on a house
whose upper floor, we learned, was unoccupied, though
THE FRENCH WAR. I6 I
the lower one was covered with wounded. Mounting
a creaky ladder—there was no stairway—to the upper
storey, we found a good-sized room, with three large
beds, one of which the Chancellor assigned to the
Duke of Mecklenburg and aide, and another to Count
Bismarck-Bohlen and me, reserving the remaining
one for himself. Each bed, as is common in Germany
and Northern France, was provided with a feather
tick ; but the night being warm these spreads were
thrown off, and, discovering that they would make a
comfortable shake-down on the floor, I slept there,
leaving Bismarck-Bohlen unembarrassed by com-
panionship—at least, of a human kind.”
Next morning, “our route led through the village
of Gorze, and here we found the streets so obstructed
with waggons that I feared it would take us the rest
of the day to get through, for the teamsters would
not pay the slightest heed to the cries of our postilions.
The Count was equal to the emergency, however, for,
taking a pistol from behind his cushion and bidding
me keep my seat, he jumped out and quickly began
to clear the street effectively, ordering waggons to the
right and left. Marching in front of the carriage and
making way for us till we were well through the
blockade, he then resumed his seat, remarking, ‘This
is not a very dignifical business for the Chancellor of
the German Confederation, but it's the only way to
get through.”
“On another occasion Count Bismarck was particu-
larly unfortunate, being billeted in a very small and
uncomfortable house, where, visiting him to learn
more fully what was going on, I ſound him wrapped
I I
I 62 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
in a shabby old dressing-gown, hard at work. He
was established in a very small room, whose only
furnishings consisted of a table—at which he was
Writing—a couple of rough chairs, and the universal
feather-bed, this time made on the floor in one corner
of the room. On my remarking upon the limited
character of his quarters, the Count replied, with
great good-humour, that they were all right, and that
he should get along well enough. Even the tramp of
his clerks in the attic and the clanking of his orderlies'
Sabres below did not disturb him. He said, in fact,
he would have no grievance at all were it not for a
guard of Bavarian Soldiers stationed about the house
—for his safety, he presumed—the sentinels from
which insisted on protecting and Saluting the Chan-
Cellor of the North German Confederation in season
and Out of Season, a proceeding that led to embarrass-
ment sometimes, as he was much troubled with a
Severe dysentery. Notwithstanding his trials, how-
ever, and in the midst of the correspondence on
which he was so intently engaged, he graciously took
time to explain to me that the sudden movement
northward from Bar-le-Duc was the result of informa.
tion that Marshal MacMahon was endeavouring to
relieve Metz by marching along the Belgian frontier
— a blundering manoeuvre' remarked the Chancellor,
‘which cannot be accounted for unless it has been
brought about by the political situation of the
French.’”
On the day of Sedan, when the situation of the
French had become utterly desperate, the King
ordered the firing to be stopped, and at Once de-
THE FRENCH WAR. 163
spatched one of his staff—Colonel von Bronsart—with
a demand for a surrender. Just as this officer was
starting off, Sheridan remarked to Bismarck that
Napoleon himself would likely be one of the prizes;
but the Count, incredulous, replied, “Oh, no ; the Old
fox is too cunning to be caught in such a trap ; he
has doubtless slipped off to Paris"—a belief which
the American General found to prevail pretty gener-
ally about headquarters.
About this time Prince Putbus was sent by General
Blumenthal to stop the fire of a battery of which the
shells seemed to be threatening some German troops.
Having done this, the Prince, on his way back, fell
into conversation with some French prisoners, who
told him—to his great surprise—that they had seen
Napoleon that very morning. The Prince deemed
the news important enough to be communicated to a
member of the King's staff, who thereupon imparted
it to his Majesty. The latter, who had been talking
with Bismarck and Moltke, appeared to be rather
put out than otherwise by the intelligence, and, send-
ing for Prince Putbus, signified to him, somewhat
crossly, that he ought not to have come with such
“Tartar news” [Cock-and-bull] story unless he had
the best of reasons for believing it.
Confirmation, however, was quick to come in ; but
before this, Bismarck had turned to Prince Putbus
with the remark, “If this be true, peace is farther off
than ever.” All the others had concluded that peace
would ensue on the capture of Napoleon ; but
Bismarck instantly perceived that there would then be
no one in his place to treat for peace. The incident
I 64 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
was afterwards referred to as a striking instance
of the Chancellor's lightning quickness of perception.
While King William was writing his note, accepting
the proffered sword of Napoleon, Bismarck, wrote an
English newspaper-correspondent, “came up to
Generals Sheridan, Forsyth, and myself, and heartily
Shook Our hands. ‘Let me congratulate you most
sincerely, Count,' said General Sheridan. “I 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 Bismarck, of
having SO largely contributed to the winning of to-
day's victory.’
“‘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 Würtembergers 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.’”
Riding up to the Crown Prince of Würtemberg
—on the capitulation of Sedan being completed—
Bismarck shook him warmly by the hand, and Said,
“This day has secured and strengthened the German
Sovereigns, as well as the Conservative principle
among us.”
After the battle Sheridan was tired to death, but
THE FRENCH WAR. I 65
Bismarck-Bohlen (the Chancellor's nephew) bore with
him one great comfort—some excellent brandy.
Offering the flask to his uncle, he said, “You’ve had
a hard day of it; won't you refresh yourself?” The
Chancellor, without wasting time to answer, raised
the bottle to his lips, exclaiming, “Here's to the uni-
fication of Germany l’—a sentiment, wrote Sheridan,
which the gurgling of an astonishingly long drink
seemed to emphasise. The Count then handed the
bottle back to his nephew, who, shaking it, ejaculated,
“Why, we can't pledge you in return—there's nothing
left l” to which came the waggish response, “I beg
pardon ; it was so dark I couldn't see . "
No chronicle of Bismarck's table-talk could well
claim to be complete that did not include his own
account—which he drew up for the King—of his
conversation with the fallen Napoleon over the little
deal table in an upper room of the weaver's Cottage
near Donchery. On the morning after the battle of
Sedan, Napoleon had driven forth from the fortress
in search of the Chancellor, so as to make a personal
appeal for milder terms of capitulation. Learning
from an aide-de-ca/u/), who had ridden on before,
that the Emperor was coming to speak with him
Bismarck rose, dressed hurriedly, and rode off in the
direction of Sedan. He had not ridden far when he
encountered Napoleon in a hired carriage with several
attendant officers; and on his Majesty asking whether
King William had not appointed a place for him to
go to, Bismarck replied that he did not know, but
that he would meanwhile be glad to place his own
quarters at Donchery at the Emperor's disposal.
I 66 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“The Emperor,” wrote Bismarck, “accepted the
offer, and drove slowly towards Donchery, but
(hesitating on account of the possible crowd) stopped
at a Solitary cottage a few hundred paces from the
Meuse bridge leading to the townlet, and asked me
if he could remain there. I requested my nephew,
Count Bismarck-Bohlen, who had followed me, to
inspect the house, and he reported that, though free
from wounded, it was mean and dirty. “AW'importe,
said Napoleon ; and I ascended with him a rickety,
narrow staircase. In a Small, one-windowed room,
with a deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs, we
sat alone for an hour—a great contrast to Our last
meeting in the Tuileries, in '67.
“Our conversation was a difficult thing, wanting,
as I did, to avoid touching on topics which could not
but painfully affect the man whom God's mighty
hand had cast down.
“He complained at first of this unhallowed war,
which he had not desired. He had been driven into
it by the pressure of public opinion.
“I rejoined that neither had any one with us
wished war—the King least of all. We had looked
upon the Spanish question as Spanish, and not
German ; and we had expected from his friendly
relations with the princely house of Hohenzollern
that the hereditary Prince would easily have come
to an understanding with him.
“Then he turned to speak of the present situation.
As to that, he wished above all for a more favourable
capitulation.
“I explained that I could not enter upon a dis-
THE FRENCH WAR. 167
cussion on that point, as it was a purely military
question, on which Moltke must decide.
“Then we left the subject to speak of a possible
peace.
“He answered, he was a prisoner, and therefore
not in a position to decide; and when I asked him
whom he considered competent for that, he referred
me to the Government in Paris.
“I remarked to him that, in that case, things were
just where they were yesterday, and that we must
stand by our former demands with regard to the
army of Sedan, so as to have some pledge that the
results of the battle of yesterday should not be lost
to us.
“Moltke, who had been summoned by me, had
now arrived. He was of the same opinion, and went
to the King to tell him so.
“Outside, in front of the house, the Emperor
praised our army and its generalship ; and when I
admitted to him that the French had also fought
well, he came back to the conditions of the capitula-
tion, and asked whether it was not possible for us
to allow the Corps shut up in Sedan to cross the
Belgian frontier, and there lay down their arms and
be ‘interned.’
“I tried again to make him understand that this
was a military question, not for me to decide without
an understanding with Moltke. And as he had
explained that, as a prisoner, he could not take upon
himself the Imperial powers of the Government, the
negotiations on these questions could only be con-
ducted with the General-in-Command at Scolan.
I 68 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“Meantime, efforts had been made to find him
better accommodation, and the officers of the General
Staff had discovered that the château of Bellevue,
near Fresnois, where I had first met him, was suitable
for his reception, and was not yet filled with the
wounded. I told him so, and advised him to settle
himself there, as the little weaver's house was not
comfortable, and he perhaps needed rest. We would
inform the King that he was there. He agreed to
this, and I rode back to Donchery to dress myself
(in my full uniform). Then I conducted him, with a
guard of honour consisting of a Squadron of the first
Cuirassier regiment, to Bellevue.
“At the conference which now began the Emperor
wished to have the King present—from whom he
expected softness and good-heartedness; but he also
wanted me to take part.
“I, on the contrary, was determined that the military
men, who can be harder, should have the whole affair
to settle. So I whispered to an officer, as we went
upstairs, that he was to call me out in about five
minutes—the King wanted to speak with me ; and
he did so. With regard to the King, the Emperor
was told that he could not see him till after thc
capitulation was settled.”
General Sheridan had been a witness of Bismarck's
meeting with the fallen Emperor, and noticed how the
Chancellor, when abreast of the Emperor's carriage,
dismounted, and, walking up to it, saluted his Majesty
in a quick, brusque way that seemed to startle him.
Seeing Sheridan standing near the gate of the cottage,
after his interview with Napoleon, Bismarck joined
THE FRENCH WAR. I 69
the General for a moment, and asked whether he
noticed how the Emperor had started when first they
met; and on Sheridan saying that he had, Bismarck
added, “Well, it must have been due to my manner,
not my words, for those were, ‘I salute your Majesty
just as if you were my own King.’” As a matter of
fact, the Emperor had probably started at sight of
the revolver in Bismarck's belt.
Afterwards at one of his parliamentary soirées, when
the talk came to be of the French indemnity, Bismarck
referred to his historic meeting with Napoleon in the
weaver's cottage near Donchery.
“After sitting for nearly an hour opposite Napoleon
in the little room of the cottage near Sedan, I felt
precisely as I had once done when a young man at
a ball after engaging a partner for a cotillon, to whom
I could not say a single word, and of whom no one
would relieve me.”
Keeping pace with the tide of victory, Bismarck
reached Versailles on October 5th, and here he
remained—quartered in the house of Madame Jessé
in the Rue de Provence—till March 6th following,
exactly five months.
On the way from Sedan to Versailles, he had
quartered himself for some little time on the Hebrew
millionaire, the first cognisance of whose family
had been a “red sign-board” (Roth-schild) in the
Judengasse at Frankfort; and of his experience at
Ferrières the Chancellor subsequently told the follow-
ing story at one of his parliamentary soirees (March
I873) :
“Late one night, after a ride of several hours, I
I 7o BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
arrived, tired and hungry, at Baron von Rothschild's
Celebrated château. To my modest request for some-
thing to eat and drink, and a bed, the major-domo
replied, with a flood of pompous French phrases,
implying that he had nothing for me—taking me for
an officer. In this portly representative of the Paris
millionaire I at once recognised a son of the Free
City of Frankfort, and I asked him in German
whether he knew what a truss of straw was. The
honest Frankforter looked at me in amazement, and
then I explained to him that on such bundles of straw
recalcitrant major-domos could be bound with their
posterior parts upwards—the rest he would under-
stand. In less than a quarter of an hour all that I
had asked for was forthcoming.”
Dining with the Crown Prince soon after his
arrival at Versailles, the Chancellor met Mr. John
L. O'Sullivan, who had formerly been United States
Minister at Lisbon, and was now making himself an
intolerable busy-body in the cause of peace. He had
come to General Sheridan with a letter from Mr.
Washburne, the American Minister in Paris, and thus
managed to fasten himself on the Crown Prince.
At dinner he sat next Bismarck, and bored the
Chancellor to death with his millennial theories of
neutrality and what not. At parting Bismarck gave
him his hand, saying that he was very glad to have met
him. “But Mister Sullivan,” he added, “a strange
thing often happens to me. For in the afternoon I
make the acquaintance of a very pleasant gentleman,
and next day I am reluctantly compelled to get him
turned out of Versailles.” O'Sullivan repeated these
THE FRENICH WAR. 171
words to his friends the same evening, without in the
least suspecting that they had any reference to himself.
On returning to his hôtel, however, he found waiting
at his door a Prussian officer who at Once gave him
his marching orders—so that there was an immediate
end of “Mister " O'Sullivan and his inconvenient
plans of mediation and neutrality. Home, the
spiritualist, shared the same fate.
A few days later (October 12th) Lieutenant von
Usslar conducted into the presence of the Chancellor
a personage, just come out of Paris, who desired to
see him. His passport bore the name and title of
“M. Angel de Valleyo, Vice-President of the Spanish
Finance Commission in Paris, attached to the Spanish
Embassy.” In corroboration of his identity the
bearer of this passport displayed upon his breast the
sparkling orders of the Star of Isabella and the Cross
of St. John of Jerusalem.
To such a distinguished stranger Bismarck could
not but extend the courtesy due to his rank and
title. He invited him to dinner, his other guests
being his nephew, Count Bismarck-Bohlen, and Count
Hatzfeldt (afterwards Ambassador in London). The
Chancellor's dinner-table was lit by candles stuck
into the mouths of empty wine-bottles. On the other
hand, his butler presently appeared with several full
ones. The Count tried one—win de AVuits—but it
Suited not his taste. A second was uncorked and
found better. Smacking his lips after sipping it, and
holding up the roseate nectar between him and the
candle-light, “Ah,” he says, “this is excellent ; it is
from Romanée.”
I 72 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“You are a connoisseur of wine, M. Le Comte,”
observes the Spaniard, “and so I trust you will have
every reason to feel satisfied with the cellar of this
house.”
“Ah no, you are mistaken,” replies the Chancellor,
“this wine here comes from the ‘Hôtel des Reservoirs.”
I buy everything that I want ; I don't wish my sons
to have ever any cause to blush for me. That will
also explain to you why I must content myself with
empty bottles for candlesticks.”
Thinking that he could now perceive a faint smile
of incredulity stealing across the handsome features
of his distinguished guest, the Chancellor turned to
his butler.
“Tell me,” he asks, “how much do we pay for
this Romanée P "
“Six or eight thalers” (24s.), “Excellency,” replies
the man. “I think it is eight.”
And then Bismarck proceeded to speak of his own
cellar in Berlin.
“Yes,” he says, “an excellent cellar, seeing that it
all comes from that celebrated dealer, the Marquis de
T , whom you must have met in Paris. He is
the son of a rich landowner, who was called simply
Lemarquis. But after getting himself appointed to
the French Legation at Frankfort, he appended to his
name that of an estate belonging to his father, and
thus became Lemarquis de T After that he
gradually reconciled himself to the practice of others
who committed the mistake of writing his name in
two parts—till at last he took to the writing of it
himself in this manner. Once he came to Berlin ;
THE FRENCH WAR. I 73
and perceiving how very pleased he was (for I knew
the story) when addressed as ‘Marquis,' I invited
him to a diplomatic dinner, when he found his menu
under his napkin inscribed round and large with his
aristocratic title. The consequence was that next
day I received from him the present of a case of fine
Burgundy, which had just reached him from his place
in France ; and ever since then he has continued to
serve me to my complete satisfaction.”
After that the talk came to be of the Parisians,
who, according to the Spanish attaché, were firmly—
nay, fiercely—resolved on resistance to the death.
But at such an idea Bismarck scoffed.
“Their vanity has kept them up so far,” quoth the
Chancellor, “their vanity, which is the chief feature
of the French character. But in the face of real
suffering this quality will not hold out. No one will
ever make me believe that Paris is a “heroic' city;
but, be that as it may, we shall soon be in it.”
“You will scarcely do it by main force,” says the
Spaniard, “unless you decide to destroy the city by
bombardment, and Sacrifice a large portion of your
army in Storming it.”
“How the thing is to be done is not my affair,”
rejoins the Chancellor, “but that of our Generals.
For my own part I would never advise recourse to
an escalade—seeing that it would cost more than it
is worth. But with a little patience we shall get
possession of the place all the same, thanks to the
two allies that we have inside—Famine and the
Reds.”
“As for the Reds,” says the Spaniard, “they seem
I 74 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
to be kept pretty well in hand by the National Guard.
And as for Famine—that is still a long way off.”
“Oh, well, we can wait for months yet, but enter
Paris we shall.”
“But if the matter lasts as long as that,” suggests
the Don, “are you not afraid of the approach of a
relieving army, or of the intervention of all Europe P”
“Where is such an army to come from ?” replies
the Chancellor. “From the Loire, where some
battalions, more of the character of an armed mob
than of regular troops, have just been Scattered P
From Metz, where the starving garrison are sending
out daily flags of truce to treat for capitulation ?
Pray get rid of your illusions. France has no longer
got any army, nor will she have one for years. And
as for the neutral Powers, they are at least as friendly
to us as to France, whose self-conceit and restless,
aggressive policy have been a standing danger to
Europe for the last two centuries. Besides, it seems
to me that all the other Powers will soon have quite
enough to do with their own affairs. In the worst of
cases, however, we should know how to cope with
any foreign interference with a war into which we
entered at our own risk and peril.”
“In Paris,” throws in the Don, “great hopes were
entertained of M. Thiers's mission to the Courts of
Europe.”
“Bah!” says the Chancellor. “Believe me, this
mission had much less to do with peace than with the
accession of the Prince of Orleans. The French are
fools if they don't see that. But perhaps they do see
it, . . . and I can quite understand that they should
THE FRENCH WAR. I 75
prefer this to the dictatorship of M. Gambetta, this
briefless barrister, whose whole political Outfit Con-
sists of some coffee-house cackle and three Chamber
speeches stuffed with liberal phrases.”
“I do not think,” rejoins the Spaniard, “that
people in Paris have looked at the mission of M.
Thiers in this light. Anyhow, it was Said that
England and Russia had agreed to intervene.”
“Good Heavens ! What is the next thing that will
be said in Paris P England and Russia going hand in
hand P Ha haſ ha / " And with that the Chancellor
burst out into a loud laugh, looking as he did SO
at Count Hatzfeldt (who merely responded with a
discreet smile, as he thought of the Black Sea Comedy
now in active preparation), and then went On :
“And you Spaniards, do you also mean to join this
terrible coalition against us P I expected that you
would even have become our allies in the present war.”
“M. le Comte is pleased to jest,” observes M.
Angel de Valley.o.
“Far from it. It is to some extent on your account
that we are waging this war, and I should have
thought it quite natural of you to join us. Thus it
was that, on the day after war was declared, I asked
Marshal Prim what was the strength of the contingent
he proposed to place in the field. I was very surprised
to hear that the Marshal now shrank from the
Consequences of his policy.”
“Beg pardon,” pleads the proud and patriotic Don,
“but it is just as little the habit of Spain as of
Marshal Prim to retire. Had the Prince of Hohen-
Zollern not withdrawn from his candidature, and if
176 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
we had had to stand up for our rights, we should
have fought France.”
“Pity that it was not so,” says Bismarck, with a
Sigh, “for France would then have been taken in
front and rear, and by this time we should have been
in Paris. What an awakening that would have been
for your nation, which has been slumbering so long !”
Then, after a pause, “But what, then, are Marshal
Prim's present intentions P’’
“Ah, that I know not,” says the Spanish diplo-
matist ; “the Marshal, it is true, honours me with his
Confidence, though not to the extent of acquainting
me with his political plans.”
“Very well,” quoth the Chancellor, “but as you
will Soon have an opportunity of Seeing him, you may
tell him from me to think of it. I am not the man
to meddle with the affairs of others, and Prussia has
not the slightest intention of interfering with the
policy of Spain or of any other country. At the same
time, it seems to me that your selection of a German
prince for your King would have been a guarantee of
your regeneration. For look you, the Latin race is
now used up. I admit that in its time it has done
great things, but its mission is now at an end ; it is
now fated to dwindle, and possibly even to disappear
altogether—as a whole at least. This is a pro-
cess which far-Seeing Statesmen in Latin (Romanic)
countries should expedite instead of exhausting them-
selves in fruitless endeavours to thwart the decrees of
destiny. Our Hohenzollern Prince on your throne
would have infused some German life and energy
into the Spaniards, without humiliating them. The
THE FRENCH WAR. 177
German race is young and strong, and possessed of
all the virtues and spirit of enterprise which formerly
distinguished yours. The future belongs to the
northern nations, which will play the glorious part that
has been allotted them for the good of humanity.”
The conversation then turned on the course of the
war and the prospects of peace, Bismarck saying that
all he wanted now was a Government to deal with,
were it even one of Robert Macaire ; nor was he at
all certain that Napoleon would not after all be
re-instated. For what was it that France could
reproach him with ? Of having incurred defeat while
endeavouring to gratify the dearest wish of his nation
—the conquest of the Rhine.
To the remark of his Castilian visitor that the
cession of Alsace-Lorraine did not seem to him to
offer the prospect of a lasting peace, Bismarck
replied :
“In any case such is the will of the King. But
whatever may be the condition of peace, it will be
nothing but an armistice. France is much too vain
ever to forgive us for her defeats. Even supposing that
we were to agree to quit France to-morrow without
demanding Compensation of any kind, the national
vanity would feel none the less wounded, and the
French would force another war upon us as soon as
ever they could. Therefore, in the interest of Germany,
as well as of all Europe, Our policy must aim at en-
feebling France as much as possible, and rendering
her incapable for a long time of breaking the general
peace.”
Hereupon there followed an interval of gloomy
I 2
178 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
silence till at last the Spaniard, plucking up courage,
ventured on the remark, “You are always, M. le
Comte, harping on the will of the King, whereas
Europe looks upon you yourself as the supreme
arbiter in this war.”
“Well,” replies Bismarck, “Europe is wrong if it
thinks so. But it is only in France, I fancy, that
this superficial view prevails. This undisciplined
people, which is accustomed to be made the play-
thing of political adventurers, cannot comprehend
Our respect for monarchy, Our Organisation, our
hierarchical system. With us, sir, there is no sovereign
will but that of the King. It is he alone who wills,
because he alone has the right to do so. However
high my position, I am only the tool of his political
will, as the Generals are equally the instruments of
his military will. When his Majesty says so-and-so,
it is my duty to propose measures for the execution
of his ideas, and my reputation Consists in this—that
I have often succeeded in carrying these ideas out.
For the rest, my present activity is completely
subordinated to that of the Generals in the army, who
are not always of my way of thinking.”
After the conversation had thus lasted for several
hours, the Spaniard begged for leave to retire, and
Bismarck accompanied him to the door, Committing
him to the further care of his nephew.
“It is difficult,” said the Chancellor, “to find
quarters in Versailles; but I think we shall be able
to put you up, and to-morrow I will do my best to
procure you a passport from the military authorities.”
Stepping into the carriage which was in waiting
THE FRENCH WAR. I 79
for him, the Spaniard, five minutes later, was deposited
at a house in the Rue Montbauran, where rooms had
been ordered “for a personage of distinction.” The
orderly accompanying him said to the Owner: “Do
your best for this gentleman, for he is a person of
great importance; he has just given me a twenty-
franc piece, and his Excellency conversed with him
for about three hours.”
But the greatness of this important personage was
of short duration. For, towards the end of the talk,
Bismarck had somehow come to suspect that he was
entertaining unawares some one very different in
character from a Spanish angel, and even from a
Spanish attaché. He therefore at once caused in-
quiries to be set afoot, the result being that “Angel
de Valleyo, Vice-President of the Spanish Finance
Commission,” etc., proved to be identical with a
writer on the Gaulois, Angel de Miranda by name,
who had shortly before published in this print a most
venomous article against Prussia, in which King
William, among other things, was referred to as a
“caporal mystique.” Two days later the Chancellor's
honoured guest was arrested, when what should have
been found upon his person but a carefully drawn up
plan of the German positions round Paris Sent to
Mayence, he was “interned ” on parole ; but that did
not hinder him from profiting by the first opportunity
to escape, and to amuse his friends with a recital of
the circumstances under which he had successfully
interviewed the German Chancellor—one of the
boldest feats of journalism, perhaps, that was ever
performed.
I 80 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
To the Spanish Don, Bismarck had spoken very
bitterly about the Latin races, especially the French ;
but to others at Versailles he was still more con-
temptuously outspoken on the same Subject. Apollo,
who had flayed Marsyas from conceit and envy, and
from the same motives had slain Niobe's children, he
regarded as a perfect type of a Frenchman, who
could not bear that another should play the flute
better than, or even as well as he. “They are an
uncleanly people, these French,” he once remarked,
and it is pretty certain also that he shared his wife's
belief as to their utter lack of that godliness which is
said to be so closely akin to the virtue of Soap, water,
and rough towels. “I am afraid,” wrote the Countess
to him from Germany, “there may be no Bibles in
France, so I will send you a psalm-book by the first
opportunity, that you may read the prophecy in it
against the French : ‘I say unto thee that the wicked
shall be rooted out.’”
Of the French physique the Chancellor had but a
poor opinion. “The front of one of our Landwehr
companics,” he once boasted, “is at least five feet
longer than an equal number of the enemy.” And
while finding little stamina in the men, he could
discover no beauty in the women. “I have travelled
a good deal through France,” he once observed, “and
don't recollect ever having seen a pretty country girl,
but plenty of ugly ones. Any few beauties there
may be, go to Paris to find their market.” Poſitesse
de carur, argued the Chancellor, was not a native
French article at all. Whatever might be said of the
phrase, the thing itself existed only among the
THE FRENICH WAR. I 8 I
Germans, though the English also, it was true, might
have something of the sort. Natural politeness, like
an uncut diamond, was to be found among the
common soldiery of King William ; but the corre-
sponding quality of the French was a Counterfeit,
begotten of mere envy and hatred.
Moreover, some of the best men among the French
people were furnished by the German element in
Alsace-Lorraine; though this element was enviously
kept down by the Parisians, who ridiculed and
caricatured it. The French themselves, the Chancellor
laid down, were composed of Parisians and provincials,
the latter being the willing helots of the former.
France was a nation of ciphers—a mere crowd. It
had wealth and elegance, but no individual men.
They only acted in the mass. They were nothing
more than thirty millions of obedient Kafirs. Under
One recognised leader they were very powerful, but
not So much so as the Germans could be, if not torn
asunder by that infinite variety of opinion which
Sprang from independence of mind.”
The feeling of duty in a man who submitted to
be shot dead at his post rather than desert it,
alone and in the dark, did not animate the French ;
but it inspired the Germans, and was due to the
Survival of their religious instinct, which told them
that “Some One saw them when the Lieutenant did
not.” Theatrical posing was everything with the
French, and any of them would readily submit to the
lash if speechified to all the time about liberty and
the dignity of man, with appropriate attitudes. “Strip
* Compare pp. 137 and 273.
I 82 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
off the white skin of such a Gaul,” once said the
Prince, in reference to the cruel manner in which
the French were carrying on the war, “and you will
find a Turco.”
Talking once (in 1874) with Jókai, the Hungarian
poet and novelist, Bismarck said that, but for
geographical and strategical considerations of an
imperative kind, Germany would not have taken a
Single span of earth inhabited by Frenchmen. “For
the French are irreconcilable, savage foes, and if you
Strip them of the cook, the tailor, and the hairdresser
you will find nothing left in them but copper-skinned
Indians.”
During the siege of Paris, the Paris papers printed
all kinds of abuse of the Germans, “those sauerkraut-
eating barbarians.” When Jules Favre went for the
first time from Paris to Versailles, Bucher, the
Chancellor's private Secretary, had just received some
Smoked geese and a small barrel of sauerkraut, and
these German delicacies were served as the first
Course at dinner, at which Favre sat beside Bismarck.
Favre partook of them with an almost ravenous
appetite, and not only answered Bismarck's repeated
question as to whether he liked them with the most
Satisfactory assurances in the affirmative, but also
asked the name of this “exquisite dish,” which he
had never tasted before. Bismarck answered, with a
Smile, “Oh, that's the notorious choolcrozete.”
One of Bismarck's greatest pre-Occupations at
Versailles was to find some properly constituted
French authority with whom he might treat for peace.
The Empire had fallen, but no stable form of govern-
THE FRENCH WAR. I 83
ment had taken its place. Talking once at table
about the future of France, the Chancellor remarked
that he would in no way seek to prevent her from
establishing a Republican form of government, seeing
that this was the form which would, on the whole,
prove least troublesome and detrimental to Ger-
many.
“Bonapartists, Bourbons, Orleanists—they will all
equally hate us; so it is only a question which form
of government will involve the least danger to us.
It is the Bourbons who have done Germany most
harm, and there would be no sense in Our restoring
to the Tuileries the descendants of those who robbed
us of Alsace-Lorraine in time of peace. If this war
was brought about by a woman (Empress Eugénie),
peace will, at any rate, be concluded by men.”.”
* In the Reichstag afterwards Bismarck solemnly asserted
himself in a position to prove “that the war of 1870 was
declared in agreement with Rome, which securely reckoned
on the victory of the French ; and that the decision of
Napoleon for peace, which only lasted half an hour, was
shaken and undone by the influence of none but the Jesuits’’
—acting on the Empress Eugénie. Hear what is said by
Lord Malmesbury : “The Duc de Gramont was an agree-
able and polished man in Society, but vain and impetuous,
and had more liberty of action than was given by the Emperor
during his former régime to his Foreign Ministers. The
Duke himself gave me the following account of the last scene
on July 14th, before the declaration of war: The Hohenzollern
candidateship to the throne of Spain was abandoned, and the
Emperor was decidedly disposed to accept this renouncement
and to patch up the quarrel, and turn this result into a
diplomatic success; but his Ministers had avoided no oppor-
tunity of publishing the insult to all France, and the Press
stirred the anger and Vanity of the public to a pitch of mad-
I 84 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
But d propos of the Bourbons and the ravages they
Committed in Germany, take the following incident.
Dining one day at Versailles with the Chancellor
during the armistice negotiations, Jules Favre, in very
bitter and reproachful language, pointed to the smoke
of Saint Cloud, which was still darkening the air.
“Have you ever been in our Germany P " asked
the Chancellor, with a rising touch of indignation in
his tone. “And have you seen the ruins of our
Castles, which your armies so mercilessly burned and
destroyed P”
About the same time the Chancellor had a conver-
sation with the Mayor of Versailles, to whom he
said: “With the exception of 1792, when we were
carried along with the general stream of the time,
Prussia has never attacked France; whereas France
under Louis XIV., the Republic, and the two Napoleons,
has fallen upon us no fewer than three-and-twenty
times | *
Bismarck had sent for the Mayor in order to
remonstrate with him on the non-payment of a fine
of one hundred francs which had been levied on the
town for failing to furnish a carriage that was urgently
needed for the King's service, as well as to request
him to keep the streets freer of crowds of sight-seers
and possible assassins.
ness. None had yet taken advantage of this characteristic
temper of the Emperor. Before the final resolve to declare
war the Emperor, Empress, and Ministers went to St. Cloud.
After some discussion, Gramont told me that the Empress,
a high-spirited and impressionable woman, made a strong
and most excited address, declaring that “war was inevitable
if the honour of France was to be sustained.’”
THE FRENCH WAR. I 85
“Well, M. le Maire, it seems that we shall have to
spend the winter with you, though I should very
much like to return to Berlin.”
“That will be equally disagreeable for us,” replied
the Mayor, “but why must it, then, be so P”
“For the simple reason that without elections there
can be no peace. There is no one with whom we
can at present treat, neither the Comte de Chambord,
nor the Orleanists, nor the Empress Regent. We
shall be obliged to bring back Napoleon and treat with
him.”
“Oh, the Lord forbid That would be the worst
insult you could offer the nation. . . . If you, M
le Comte, will only pass me into Paris, I will Com-
municate to the National Government all the con-
siderations which you have set forth to me.”
“I should not advise you to do that ; for any
proposals that come from me are sure of rejection in
Paris, and they would infer that we no longer wished
to continue the war. America is the only country
which is really concerning itself about the fate of
France. Four American Generals have done what
they could. They went into Paris and saw the
members of your Government, but came back to me
and said, ‘There is nothing to be done ; no one will
hear of peace—with the exception of Trochu ; and
even he says that the Parisians have not yet been
sufficiently beaten.’”
“Then I will rather not go into Paris,” said the
Mayor. “At the same time I am happy to think that,
in spite of the bitterness of the struggle between us,
the rights of humanity have not yet been lost sight
I 86 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
of on either side. Two examples will suffice. This
very day the Town Council voted a sum of fifty francs
as a reward to a Prussian non-commissioned officer
for his gallantry in helping to extinguish a fire. On
the other hand, a Prussian soldier, who had the mis-
fortune to fall from a waggon and break his leg, was
carried into the house of an inhabitant of Versailles,
named Poidevin, and had his fractured limb set.”
“Well,” said Bismarck, “if this Poidevin cares to
have it, you had better give him the hundred francs
which we have levied upon the town as a fine for
non-delivery of the vehicle that we ordered of it,
and thus the matter will be settled.”
Saying this the Chancellor rose and offered the
Mayor his hand.
The latter, after some little hesitation, took it, with
this reservation :
“But it is only to you personally, M. le Comte, that
I give my hand.”
Bismarck replied, with a smile :
“At the outposts our respective soldiers frequently
shake hands with one another, do they not P "
The Samaritan Poidevin got his hundred francs.
It was no wonder that the Chancellor, a little later,
remarked to the Crown Prince that he was bcginning
to feel as if he were also in the Service of France, as
every Frenchman now came to him for advice.
Among those who had journeyed to Versailles to
help in negotiating the treaties between North and
South, was Herr von Freydorf, Minister of Baden,
who congratulated Bismarck on the final success of
his great work, the Chancellor having previously
THE FRENICH WAR. I 87
remarked to him in Berlin that the union of the South
with the North would as surely follow as water ran
down the mountain side. Among other things,
Bismarck now said, “We must not aim at doing the
work of our sons and grandsons.” “But it is already
done,” replied Von Freydorf.
Bismarck now related how he had (in France) come
across some letters of Benedetti to the Emperor,
dating from the year 1866, and referring to his con-
fidential conversations with himself (the Chancellor),
which showed, on one hand, that he had always
“poured out pure wine to the French,” and then
nourished the plan of unifying North Germany first
and the South with it afterwards, and, on the other,
that he had never made promises of any kind,
contenting himself with treating the proposals of
Napoleon in a “ dilatory" manner.
Bismarck had summoned to Versailles from Berlin
representatives of the leading parties in the Reichstag,
in order to discuss with them the treaties with the
South German States; but a Progressist (Radical) had
not been included in their number.
“What's the use P’’ exclaimed the Chancellor.
“For they are ever harping on the unattainable.
They are, in fact, like the Russians, who always want
to eat cherries in winter and oysters in Summer.”
The Crown Prince had said that the l’oſ/sºcitàng,
the Organ of this cherry-and-Oyster party, always hit
the nail on the head in discussing public questions,
though a little later he had to record in his Diary that
its further circulation at Versailles had been forbidden
by the Minister of War. The fact is that Bismarck
I 88 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
looked upon the Crown Prince as being quite as
much devoted to the unattainable as the Progressists
were ; and this is proved by the following conversation
—recorded by the Prince himself—which took place
between the two at the time when the negotiations
between North and South for national union threatened
after all to come to grief:-
“Conversation with Bismarck about the German
question, which he would like to see decided, but,
with a shrug of the shoulders, explains all the diffi-
Culties, asking what should be done with the South
Germans, and whether I wish them to be threatened.
“I reply, ‘Yes, indeed ; there would be no danger
in doing that ; let us act firmly and imperiously, and
you will see I was right in asserting that you have
not yet any proper consciousness of your power.’
“Bismarck would hear nothing whatever of threats,
all the less as, in case we were forced to resort to
extreme measures, such a course would throw these
States into the arms of Austria. Thus, on assuming
office (in 1862), he had firmly resolved to bring about
war between Prussia and Austria, but had taken good
care not to speak about his design on that Or any
other occasion to his Majesty before he deemed the
proper time to have come for doing so. Similarly,
the development of the German question must be
left to time.
“I replied that, as representing the future, I could
not view such delay with indifference, arguing that it
would not be necessary to use force, and that we
could quietly wait and watch whether Bavaria and
Würtemberg ventured to join Austria. Nothing was
THE FRENCH WAR, I 89
easier, I argued, than to have the Emperor proclaimed
by the majority of German Sovereigns now gathered
here, and also to procure their approval of a Con-
stitution with a supreme head answering to the just
demands of the German people. This would bring
pressure to bear which the Kings could not resist.
“Bismarck rejoined that I stood alone with these
views, and that in order to gain the wished-for goal
it would be more correct to let the Reichstag take
the initiative.
“On my referring to the sentiments of Baden,
Oldenburg, Weimar, and Coburg, he defended himself
by referring to the will of the King.
“I answered that I knew very well his opposition
alone was sufficient to make such a scheme as this
impossible of acceptance by his Majesty; to which
he replied that I was reproaching him, and that he
knew of quite other persons who deserved this. And
then again I must in political questions, he said, take
into account the great independence of the King
himself, his Majesty reading through every important
despatch, and even correcting it. He regretted that
the question of the Emperor and of the Upper House
had been discussed at all, as offence had thus been
given to Bavaria and Würtemberg.
“I said that it was Dalwigk who had broached
it.
“Bismarck averred that my opinions, thus expressed,
could only prove hurtful, saying that the Crown
Prince should not give vent to views of this kind at
all.
“I at once protested in the most emphatic manner
I 9 O BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
against my mouth being closed in this way, especially
as in a question thus affecting the future I felt bound
to leave no one in doubt as to my opinion in particular;
besides which it lay with his Majesty alone to instruct
me as to matters which I was free to discuss or not,
even if it were assumed that I was not yet old enough
to judge for myself.
“Bismarck said that if the Crown Prince com-
manded he would act in accordance with his views.
“I protested against this, as I had no commands
to give him, whereupon he declared that, for his
part, he would be very glad to make way for any
other person whom I might deem more competent
than he to conduct affairs ; but that until then he
must act upon his Own principles to the best of his
ability and knowledge of all determining circum-
StanceS.
“We then went on to speak of questions of detail,
and finally I remarked that I had perhaps spoken in
rather an animated manner, but that I could not be
expected to remain indifferent in view of a ‘world-
historic 'moment which was being neglected.”
Bismarck's chief difficulty lay in the fact that the
process of unification had to be rendered acceptable to
all the Federal States in such a way as to make each
of them feel assured that it would lose nothing by
the change. There were made, in consequence, the
most varied and curious reservations, which still czist.
When everything seemed in train, the enterprise
nearly came to grief over the Bavarian “caterpillar
helmet,” which the Bavarians did not like to sacrifice,
but which some very exalted Prussian Generals
THE FRENCH WAR. I 9 I
would not suffer in the German Army. The latter
only gave way when Bismarck said to them, “Well,
if you persist, history will say that it was impossible
to found the German Empire in 1871 because the
Generals could not endure the Bavarian Caterpillar
helmet.”
The treaties between North and South were finally
drawn up to the satisfaction of the respective Govern-
ments, but they still had to be sanctioned by the
Reichstag, and Bismarck was mortally afraid that,
after all, this body might reject them as being too
indulgent to Bavaria. Not insisting on his pound of
flesh from the ideal point of view of the politician,
the Chancellor had been content to sign such treaties
with the South as Secured simple union while sparing
Southern prejudices and special rights. To him
half a loaf had always been better than no bread,
but he was afraid that the Reichstag, with its doc-
trinaire Orators, would not share his opinion. To
Count Frankenberg—who said he could not believe
that the Reichstag would ever erect its own tomb-
stone by the rejection of the treaties, which must fill
the German people with a savage sorrow—Bismarck
remarked :
“You are quite right. Germany will grieve, and
Our enemies around will rejoice. We ourselves would
not perhaps take the thing so seriously, but other
Countries would point to Our dissensions and disbelieve
in the possibility of Our ever becoming one. The
conclusion of peace which we are now approaching
would be rendered infinitely more difficult and un-
favourable for us. How can we demand Alsace-
I 92 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Lorraine unless we do so as a united nation ? I
hear”—starting up from his seat, “that the Liberals
insist upon an Emperor ; and that they shall have—I
can promise them. The necessary steps have already
been taken.”
Happily Bismarck's fears for the fate of the treaties
proved groundless, and in due time a parliamentary
deputation came from Berlin to Versailles, and pre-
sented King William with an address praying his
Majesty “to consecrate the work of unification by
accepting the Imperial crown of Germany,” which
had been offered him by the King of Bavaria in the
name of his fellow-Sovereigns.
But there was some difficulty as to the precise
form of the title which was now to be assumed by the
King of Prussia as premier Sovereign of the united
Fatherland. “The King,” said Bismarck one day,
“still has his doubts between ‘German Emperor’ and
‘Emperor of Germany, but he rather inclines to the
latter. I cannot see much difference between the
two. It is a little like the question of the Homoousians
and the Homoiousians, in the days of the Councils.”
On another occasion, when the conversation drifted
into a learned discussion on the same subject, Bis-
marck asked, “Does any one know the Latin for
sausage?” “Parcimentum,” replied one. “Parcimen,”
said another. “Farciſſueſzúaſzz ve//arczyzeſz, whichever
you please,” said the Chancellor, Smiling; “mescio guid
mi/hi magis farciulentum esset” (I don't know which
of the two I should consider the more made-up
name).
Talking with the Crown Prince, however, on the
TIIE FRENCH WAR. I 93
day before the proclamation of the Empire, Bismarck
displayed less indifference on the subject. Said the
Prince in his Diary :-
“After noon, with the King, a council composed of
Bismarck, Schleinitz (Master of the Ceremonies), and
me, lasting three hours, in an over-heated room, about
title, succession to the throne, etc. While discussing
the title Bismarck confesses that previously, at the
discussion on the Constitution, the Bavarian pleni-
potentiaries refused to allow the title ‘Emperor of
Germany,’ and that finally, to please them, but with-
out beforehand asking his Majesty, he agreed to the
designation “German Emperor.’ This title displeased
the King, as it did me ; but in vain. Bismarck tried
to prove that “Emperor of Germany' implied a
territorial power which we did not at all wield over
the Empire, while ‘German Emperor’ was the natural
sequel of the //uperator Roſna/s. We had to give
in. However, in ordinary parlance the of Germany'
is to be employed.”
Bismarck now became Imperial Chancellor, “al-
though it is so hard,” wrote the Crown Prince,
“for him to bear the same title as Beust, that he
exclaimed he was getting into very bad company.”
Similarly when the Chancellor was made a Prince
a little later, he observed that it was singular that he,
who had always been opposed to petty Princes,
should now become one of them. “J'ai ſcstº foujours
contre les Princes, et voi/d gue /e Roi may associe l’’
At one of his Frii/schoppen parties, (June 1884)
Bismarck launched out into a eulogy of the Francis-
kaner beer which he had received as a present from
I 3
I 94 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
its noble brewer, at Munich, Count von Holnstein ;
and this led him to dwell on the very prominent
part which this Bavarian courtier had played in the
proceedings which led to the proclamation of the
Empire.
The capitulation of Paris, he said, was not far off.
The course of events had convinced him that the
moment had come for founding the German Empire,
and that it was of the utmost importance for the
future of this Reich that the German Sovereigns,
headed by the King of Bavaria, should ask the King
of Prussia to assume the Imperial dignity. After
having gained the necessary assent to this at head-
quarters, though not without difficulty, the next thing
was to find the proper person to deliver a letter to
King Ludwig, who, as was well known, was very
inaccessible. Count Holnstein was the only man
who could be thought of for the delicate mission, and
although he himself was by no means sanguine of
success, he declared his readiness to start that same
night and do all he could.
While the Count was packing his portmanteau, the
Chancellor drew up an official letter to the King (of
Bavaria), and to this he added a private one of his
own—the first time he had cver done such a thing—
in order to give his advice more weight. Its general
aim was to convince King Ludwig that the voluntary
decision of the German Sovereigns in the matter of
the new Empire would be much better for their
future position in that Empire than if it were to be
established without their proposal or even against
their wish. In all circumstances the German armics
THE FRENICH WAR. I 95
would have to be under a central power, and the
only question was this—whether the King of Bavaria
would in future prefer to recognise the German
Emperor or the King of Prussia as the supreme War
Lord. In the former case the King of Bavaria would
be co-ordinate with the King of Prussia ; in the latter,
subordinate to him.
The private part of his (the Chancellor's) com-
munication was to this effect, that not only as a
statesman did he advise the King to take the initiative
in the matter, but also as an old friend of the Bavarian
dynasty. For it had never been forgotten in the
Bismarck family that their ancient seat of Schönhausen
in the Mark had been a fief of the Bavarian Henry
the Lion, and therefore he (the Chancellor), as it were,
now offered his urgent counsel to King Ludwig as an
old and trusty vassal.
The success of Count von Holnstein's adventurous
mission was complete, but great had been the Chan-
cellor's anxiety until this was known ; and whenever
in after years he went to Kissingen to take the waters,
King Ludwig always made a point of placing royal
equipages and other comforts at his disposal, as a
proof that he had never had cause to regret acting
on the advice of his “old and trusty vassal.”
Years afterwards Bismarck related that King
Ludwig had been true to him to the end. “Only a
week before his death,” he said, “I received a letter
from him asking for advice, and I replied by saying
that he should come to terms with his Estates. His
Majesty rejoined, “But they won't grant me money
for my building purposes; and when I can no longer
I 96 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
build I can no longer live.' The last time I spoke
with him was in 1863, when I sat next him at dinner,
and got on capitally with him in conversation. This
was not in the usual style of Princes, such as “How
are you ?’ ‘How do you like this place?’ ‘Have
you ever been here before ?' but of a wide-ranging
and intellectual kind. Even then, however, the King
turned his eyes up, and never looked at the person he
was speaking to.”
About this cecentric King's father, also, Bismarck
retained a lively recollection from the time of his
residence at Frankfort. Comparing King Max with
his neighbour, King William of Würtemberg, the
Chancellor once said : “King William was a very
patriotic, jovial character, and looked upon me as a
young diplomatist of much enthusiasm. Whenever I
went to Munich I had to pass through a lane of
palace halberdiers to the grand reception-room, where
there was no such a thing as a chair for me, and I
had to stand for hours discussing questions of high
policy with King Max.
“But it was otherwise at Stuttgart. There, as soon
as ever I got to my hotcl, I was waitcd upon by a
royal aide-de-ca/, who asked me to go to the Schloss
just as I was. There I would see the King sitting
at the fireside, with one leg crossed over the other ;
and we would then discuss the very same questions
with the utmost case and comfort—a great contrast
to Munich.”
About the same time as the Chancellor told the
story of Count Holnstein's trip to Hohenschwangau in
the matter of King Ludwig's attitude to the question
THE FRENCH WAR. I 97
of the Empire, he related another incident to illus-
trate the consideration which he had always wished
to show towards the Southern States. He was
treating with Thiers for the capitulation of Paris,
and of the amount of its war-contribution. “Of
course,” he said, “I fixed this amount at very much
more than I knew would be given. I said to Thiers
that a large and wealthy city like Paris would feel
itself insulted if I demanded less of it than a milliard
francs in gold. Hereupon Thiers drew a very long
face, declared that it was simply impossible to pay
such a sum, and made as if to take his leave. Not
forgetting my manners, I accompanied him to the
door, and on the way downstairs we continued the
negotiation. We had reached the last step but one
when we agreed to the sum of two hundred millions.
Then I went to the Emperor and suggested to him
that this amount should be distributed to the Southern
States, on which we had levied contributions in 1866.
The Kaiser asked me to submit to him the proposal
in a formal shape, but I replied, ‘Your Majesty, I
can't do that ; for as Soon as ever I, as Chancellor,
put pen to paper in the matter, the thing is spoilt.
It is for your Majesty, as Commander-in-Chief, to do
that.' Thus I remained alone, and the matter fell
through.”
One of the Collateral consequences of the German
victories over the French had been the extinction of
the Pope's temporal power. This power had been
maintained by the presence of a French garrison at
Rome; but when, after Sedan, that garrison was with-
drawn, the Italians, in completion of their own national
I 98 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
unity, battered their way into the Eternal City, and
forced the Pope to forsake the Quirinal for the
Vatican. It then became a serious question with his
Holiness whether he should not seek a refuge in some
Other Country (as Some of his predecessors had done
at Avignon), and he even sent an emissary to
Versailles to sound King William as to the possibility
of his taking up his residence somewhere in Germany.
Under date November 12th, the Crown Prince
wrote: “Ledochowski (Archbishop of Posen) inquires
whether the Pope can be received in Prussia. Bis-
marck would regard it as a gigantic mistake of Pio
Nono to leave Rome, but says that his residence in
Germany would have a good effect, as the close
contemplation of Romish Sacerdotalism would cure
the Germans of their revcrence for it.”
It was in pursuit of the same subject that Bismarck,
one day at table, remarked to his guests: “We have
already been asked whether we could give him (the
Pope) an asylum. I have no objection to it—he
might go to Cologne (Castle Brühl), or Fulda. It
would be an unheard-of turn of things, but not SO
inexplicable after all ; and it would be a great ad-
vantage for us to appear to the Catholics what we
really are—the only Power at present able and
willing to offer protection to the Supreme head of
their Church. Every pretext for the opposition of the
Ultramontanes would then disappear—in Belgium
and Bavaria. Besides, when people of strong imagina-
tions, especially women, are in Rome, with the pomp
and incense of Catholicism about them, and the Pope
on his throne dispensing blessings, they feel inclined
THE FRENCH WAR. I 99
to become Catholics. But in Germany, where they
would have the Pope before their eyes as a nice,
good old gentleman, in want of help, as one of the
bishops, eating and drinking like the rest, taking his
pinch, and even smoking his cigar, there would be no
such danger.”
A few months later (February 13th, 1871) Bismarck
began to talk at table of a visit which he had just
received from the French Cardinal Bonnechose, and
said : “I think I shall yet be able to win the con-
fidence of the Catholic Church. Nothing can be more
absurd than to put me down as an enemy of the
Holy Chair. To me the Pope is primarily a political
figure, and I have an innate respect for all real power.
A man who rules over the consciences of two hundred
millions of Souls is to me a great monarch, and I
should not have the least hesitation in appealing for
his mediation, and even his arbitration, in a suitable
case of political emergency. My only mo/i me tangere
is the European position of re-unified Germany, which
of Course should be regarded as the most precious
jewel in the Papal treasury.”
Talking about the dogma of infallibility which had
been proclaimed at Rome simultaneously with the
declaration of war at Paris, Bismarck remarked :
“The worst of a Minister of Public Worship is that he
never forgets his own particular creed, and therefore
always remains a party man. I think I should there-
fore prefer a Jew for such a post.” And on another
Occasion : “The Jews have still no true home, but are
a sort of universal Europeans, or cosmopolitan
nomads. Their fathcrland is Zion.”
2 OO BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
M. Jules Favre frequently accepted Bismarck's
invitations to dinner; but during his week's residence
at Versailles, from October 3oth to November 6th,
M. Thiers, on the other hand, scorned to taste the
hospitality of the Chancellor.
“Excellency,” remarked the latter one day, “I
envy you your perseverance and your power of work;
but, while admiring, I cannot imitate you. For I
must eat, and always at my accustomed times.”
Bismarck ever showed a truly royal faculty of
recognition. The Military Commission which ac-
companied Jules Favre to Versailles, to treat for
an armistice, included the Comte Hérisson, officier
d"ordonnance ; and when they had been seated at the
dinner-table of the Chancellor, the latter said :
“M. d'Hérisson, this is not the first time I have
met you. Wait a moment ' Yes; it was at Baden-
Baden in the year 1866, on the staircase of the Villa
Mesmer, where the King was staying. You were
introduced to me by Princess Menschikoff.”
“It was really so,” wrote Count Hérisson, “and I
eagerly joined the chorus of admiration which escaped
from the company with such cyclamations as ‘What
a memory ! Wonderful ' What an astonishing man
It's only he who can do such things '’
The dialogue between Bismarck and Favre relative
to the conclusion of pcace was of a most dramatic
kind, and showed that Bismarck could have recourse
to artifice to gain his point. After an exchange of
civilities, Favre said he “was come to resume the
negotiations broken off at Ferrières,”; but Bismarck
represented “that the position was no longer the
THE FRENCI I WAR. 2 O I
same ; and if you hold to your former principle—“Not
an inch of our soil, not a stone of our fortresses'—it is
useless to discuss further. My time is precious, SO is
yours, and I don’t see why we should waste it. . . .
Moreover, you have come too late. There, behind
that door, is a delegate of the Emperor Napoleon III.,
and I am about to negotiate with him.”
On Favre these words produced an indescribable
impression of consternation and fear. Bismarck saw
at a glance the enormous advantage he had obtained,
and, while fixing his eyes on the door (which probably
was only a cupboard), said :
“Why should I treat with you? Why give to
your Republic an appearance of legality in signing a
treaty with their representative P In reality, you are
merely a band of rebels. Your Emperor, should he
return, would have the right to shoot you down as
traitors and rebels.”
“But,” cried Favre, “should he return, there will be
civil war and anarchy.”
“Are you quite so sure of that P’’ replied Bismarck.
“Besides, I do not see what harm that would do us
Germans.”
“Are you not afraid then, M. le Comte, of driving
us to the last extremity P of embittering still more
Our resistance P’’
“Yes, indeed, your resistance,” said the Chancellor, in
a loud tone. “You are proud of your resistance. But
let me tell you, M. le Ministre, that if General Trochu ’’
[Governor of Paris] “were a German General, I would
have him shot this very day. Listen well to my
words ! One has no right, in view of humanity, in
2O2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
the face of God, and for the sake of miserable military
glory, to Sacrifice a city of more than two millions of
Souls to famine. The railways on all sides are cut off,
and if we cannot restore them within two days, which
is not at all Certain, a hundred thousand will die daily.
Talk no more of your resistance—it is a crime.”
The Chancellor then rose as if to leave, and put his
hand on the handle of the door, behind which the
delegate of Napoleon was Supposed to be awaiting an
interview.
Thereupon Favre sprang up, hastened to Bismarck,
and called out imploringly : “No ; do not Have all
you ask, but do not impose on France, after all her
misfortune, the shame of being obliged to endure a
Bonaparte "
On the two resuming their seats, Favre began to
praise the advantages of the Republic, of impersonal
government, which alone could bear hard or ignomi-
nious conditions without being overthrown, and which
alone was in a condition to cnsure to Germany the
fulfilment of her treaties, etc.
Bismarck laughed.
“Are you so certain,” he asked, “ that France is as
Republican as you Say P”
“Completely so.” -
“I am not entirely of your opinion, M. le Ministre.
Before we negotiated with you, we studied the Spirit of
France. Notwithstanding the war which has proved
so unfortunate for you, and which was more forced
upon Napoleon by the French nation than desired by
him ;-notwithstanding the defeats of your armies,
nothing would be easier, believe me, than to restore
THE FRENCH WAR. 2O3
the Empire. It might not please in Paris, but it
would be accepted in the Provinces—a plebiscite would
do the rest. No ; the reason why we have not taken
up Bonaparte is because it appeared to us more
advantageous to treat with you. As to the alleged
love of France for the Republic, it would have dis-
appeared with wonderful rapidity. You have not
been long in power. Wait a little. When you have
governed men for several years, you, a Liberal, will
be transformed into a Conservative. From a Re-
publican you will become a Monarchist. Believe me,
one cannot lead or bring to prosperity a great nation
without the principle of authority—that is, the
Monarchy.”
Favre having protested against these opinions,
Bismarck added : “Look at me ! How did I begin P
I was a Liberal, but by virtue of thought and reflec-
tion, by the demonstration of facts, and by experience
of mankind, I, who love my country and wish it to
be great and prosperous—I am a Conservative.”
What between working on the fears of the Re-
publican Favre by playing off against him a dummy
delegate of the fallen Emperor, and dwelling on the
Superior merits of monarchy as a form of government,
Bismarck had gained his point. Five minutes later
the double principle of a cession of territory and a
war indemnity was accepted ; and then the Chancellor
invited his visitor to join him at dinner.
Before entering on the discussion of the preliminarics
for the surrender of Paris, Bismarck offered cigars to
Jules Favre, which the latter declined with thanks,
Saying that he did not smoke.
2O4. BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
“You are wrong,” said Bismarck. “When you
enter on a discussion which may lead to vehement
remarks, you should smoke. When one smokes, the
cigar is held between the fingers; one must handle
it, not allow it to fall, and thereby violent movements
of the body are avoided or weakened. With regard
to the mental condition, it does not deprive us of our
intellectual capacity, but it produces a state of kindly
repose. The cigar is a diversion, and this blue smoke
which rises in curves, and which the eye involuntarily
follows, pleases and renders us more flexible. The
eye is Occupied ; the hand is engaged ; the organ of
Smell is gratified ;-one is happy. In this state one is
very disposed to make concessions; and our business
—that of diplomatists—continually consists in the
making of mutual concessions.”
After deliberating on various questions, the topic
was raised whether Garibaldi should be included in
the armistice.
“No ; I must have him,” exclaimed Bismarck. “I
want to exhibit him in Berlin with a placard on his
back, inscribed, ‘Italian gratitude l’ After all we
have done for these people, their conduct is really
Outrageous.”
Favre strongly opposed the entry of the German
army into Paris.
Bismarck replied that he himself would have
given way here, but the King and the military
people insisted on it. “This,” he said, “is the
reward of our army. When I return home and meet
a poor cripplc with a wooden leg, he will say, ‘The
leg I left before the walls of Paris entitled me to
TI-IE FRENCH WAR. 2O 5
complete my conquest. . This diplomatist, who is in
possession of all his limbs, prevented it.' We can-
not expose ourselves on this point to violate public
feeling.”
On arriving at Frankfort to conclude the definitive
treaty of peace between France and Germany, Bis-
marck wore plain clothes, so that the chief waiter
of “The Swan" made bold to remark that he scarcely
recognised his Highness again.
“ſa, mein lieber,” returns the Chancellor, “it was
with the French just as it is with you—they only
recognised us with our uniforms on.”
Replying to the toast of his health, at a banquet
given him by the city of Frankfort on the definitive
conclusion of peace (May IOth, 1871), Bismarck said :
“To me it has been a source of great pleasure to
return to Frankfort, with which my life is already
associated by so many ties of friendship, in connection
with so memorable an occasion as the present. It
is a beautiful coincidence that the first great political
act of the resuscitated German Empire should have
been performed in the ancient imperial and coronation
city of Frankfort, and I cordially hope that the Peace
of Frankfort may also bring peace for and wit/
Frankfort”—an allusion to the annexation of the
Free City to Prussia in 1866.
The final scene of the French War—the “curtain,”
SO to speak, of the tremendous tragedy—was furnished
by the triumphal entry of a representative contingent
of the German army into Berlin. Preceded by his
paladins—his Bismarck, his Roon, and his Moltke—
the Emperor, at the head of the troops, rode all along
2O6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the Linden Avenue amid the enthusiastic acclamations
of the populace. Halting in front of Blücher's statue,
there were borne past him fifty-five captured French
colours with their silken folds fluttering and rustling
in the breeze created by the thundering cheers of the
multitude. Bismarck, who, in passing through the
Brandenburg Gate, had made a Curt intimation to
and received brief answer from the Emperor, sat
upright but restless in his saddle behind his Majesty,
looking around him as if in quest of something.
An acquaintance, approaching him, asked what his
Highness wanted. “Paper and pencil,” was the
reply ; and these articles were quickly procured from
the pocketbook of a policeman. The Prince wrote
off a hasty word or two on his thigh, and, holding
the paper aloft, said, “Here is a telegram ; will
you carry it P’’ “Yes,” replied the bystander thus
addressed. “Thanks,” said the Prince. “You can
read it.” Hurriedly passing through the crowd, the
messenger read it in the quieter Behrenstrasse
“To the German Commander of the Outposts,
Paris.-If the French outposts advance farther, attack
them.”
What a moment Close together lay the dice of
peace and war. Here were the standards unfurled
for the joyful march of peace, there was the drawn
sword raised to strike. What had happened P. The
French troops had pushed their outposts beyond the
line agreed upon, and the German Commander (of
the army of occupation left behind to ensure perform-
ance of the peace conditions) had asked whether he
should hold on to his line, or whether he should make
THE FRENCH WAR. 2O7
way for the French movement. Being admirably
acted on by Count Waldersee, the Military Attaché
at Paris, into whose hands the telegram came, the
war cloudlet vanished as quickly as it had risen, and
in undimmed splendour the Sun of peace again
beamed over Europe.
CHAPTER VIII.
SA/LZ/3 URG AAVZ) VARZ/AV.
N the autumn of 1871 the German and Austrian
Emperors met at Salzburg to discuss their future
relations in the light of the results of the French war,
and the interview was preceded by a meeting at
Gastein between their respective Chancellors, Bismarck
and Beust.
“The three weeks I passed there,” wrote the latter,
“ have left me the most pleasant recollections. We
were both staying at Straubinger's Hotel, and saw
each other daily. To those whom he likes Prince
Bismarck is the most agreeable of companions. The
originality of his ideas is only surpassed by that of
his expression of thcm. He has a spontaneous, and
therefore pleasing, bon/omic which mitigates the
asperity of his judgment. One of his favourite sayings
was, ‘Er is: ein recht dummer Ker/’ (He is a very
stupid fellow), without meaning any offence to the
person to whom he referred.
“‘What do you do when you are angry P’ he once
asked me ; ‘ I suppose you do not get angry as often
as I do.’
“‘I get angry,’ was my answer, “with the stupidity
of mankind, but not with its malignity.'
208
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2O9
“Do you not find it a great relief,' he asked, ‘to
smash things when you are in a passion ?’
“‘You may be thankful,” said I, ‘that you are not
in my place, or you would have smashed everything
in the house.’
“‘One day I was over there, he said, pointing to
the windows of the Emperor's apartments opposite,
‘and I got into a violent rage. On leaving, I shut
the door violently, and the key remained in my hand.
I went to Lehndorf's room, and threw the key into
the basin, which broke into a thousand pieces.
‘What is the matter P’ he exclaimed ; “are you
ill P’ ‘I was ill, I replied ; “but now I am quite
well again.'
“He spoke a great deal of the French war and of
his negotiations with Thiers and Jules Favre. ‘The
truce was coming to an end,' said Bismarck, ‘and I
said to Thiers : “Feouſes, Monsieur Thiers, wo:/ö 2/7te
heure gueſe subis votre éloquence, 2/ ſaut ºne ſois en
finir: je vous previens gueſe me parlerai plus français,
7e me parlerai qu'a/lemand.” “Al/ais, J/onsieur,”
answered Thiers, “nous fle com/upremons pas uſe not
d'allemand.” “C'est égal,” I replied ; “ſe me far/era.
gu'allemand.” Thiers then made a magnificent speech;
I listened patiently, and answered in German. He
and Favre went up and down the room, wringing
their hands in despair for half-an-hour ; at last they
yielded and did exactly what I wanted. Upon this
I at once spoke French again.'
“Another story was more to his credit. He was
riding with the German troops to the review at
Longchamps, when a man in a blouse came up to
I 4
- 2’
.." A
2 I O BISMABCK'S TABLE-TALK.
him, ~ Tº es zºne ſameuse cana://e.’ ‘l

ºve had him imprisoned,' said Bismarck ;
but Ywas delighted with the man's courage.'
/*Two other statements which he made to me
about the war were very interesting. The first was
that he had opposed the acquisition of Metz, because
of the disaffection of its French inhabitants, and that
he only yielded in consequence of the urgent demands
of the military authorities, who said that it would
make a difference of a hundred thousand men in time
of peace. The other was that the siege of Paris
would have had to be abandoned if Metz had held
Out another month.
“He told me of two remarkable facts of the past,
farther back than 1866. In 1859, when he had just
entered upon his post as Ambassador to Russia, he
was asked his opinion on the eve of the Italian War,
and instantly decided for energetic military action in
favour of Austria, but with the condition that Austria
Consented to a re-organisation of the Confederation as
Bismarck again demanded it before the war of 1866
—viz., a re-partition of Germany, giving the north to
Prussia, the South to Austria.
“Again, in 1864, after the peace with Denmark,
Bismarck proposed that Schleswig and Holstein
should be given to Prussia in exchange for a promise
to aid Austria in a war against Italy for the recovery
of Lombardy. I could scarcely believe this latter
statement, because at thc time it was made, and even
before Bismarck became Minister, Prussia had ac-
knowledged the kingdom of Italy, and Lombardy
had becn given Over to France, so that Napoleon was
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2 I I
personally engaged. But a functionary of the Foreign
Office, who was well initiated into these affairs, Con-
firmed Bismarck's words.
“But not only Bismarck's retrospective disclosures
were interesting; his prognostications of the future
were not less so. Thus he saw the whole Kulturkampf
in his mind's eye, and forecast it to me in all its
details. “They have acted villainously towards us
in Rome, he said—ruc/los being one of his favourite
adjectives.
“Our conversation also touched upon the German
provinces of Austria. Bismarck altogether denied
that the plan of acquiring them for the German
Empire had ever been entertained, saying that
Vienna and the Slav, as well as the Catholic popula-
tion, would only be an embarrassment and a burden.
I do not doubt Bismarck's sincerity in this ; but one
thing I cannot forget. “Much sooner,’ added he,
‘should we think of having Holland.’ When I
entered upon my post as Ambassador to London
some months later, the new Dutch Minister, who had
been Minister at Berlin, arrived at the same time.
One of the first things he told me was that Bismarck,
questioned by him on Germany's taste for the
possession of Holland, comforted him with the words :
‘We should sooner think of having the German
provinces of Austria.’”
This story may be capped by another of the same
kind.
Onc day when at Versailles, Lord Odo Russell
went to call on Bismarck, but found that he was
closeted with Count Harry Arnim. M y lord had
2 I 2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
not waited long before the Count came out, fanning
himself with his handkerchief, and looking as if he
were about to choke.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “I cannot understand how
Bismarck can bear that—smoking the strongest
Havanas in a stuffy little room. I had to beg him
to open the window.”
Presently my lord entered the sanctum of the
Chancellor, whom he found gasping for breath almost
at the open window.
“What strange tastes some people have l’ remarked
the Prince, after exchanging compliments with the
British envoy. “Arnim has just been with me, and
he was so overpoweringly perfumed that I could
stand it no longer, and had to open the window.”
Well may good my lord have asked, on afterwards
relating the story, “What is historical truth P’’
One of the visitors to Gastein, at the time of the
meeting there between Beust and Bismarck, was
Herr Christ, who was married to a niece of Archduke
John's widow, Countess of Meran. This Herr Christ
was a wealthy Frankfort banker, who spent his
money freely, and with whom Bismarck had been
intimately connected when he was Ambassador to
the Bundestag. Herr Christ gave a dinner in honour
of Bismarck, and invited Bcust and several other
Austrians besides. Towards the end of dinner Horr
Christ addressed to Bismarck the following words,
spoken in pure Frankfort dialect: “Oh, but tell me,
why didn't you go to Vienna in 1866 P.” Bismarck
grumbled something under his moustache, but Herr
Christ, undaunted, went on : “Oh, but didn't you
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2 I 3
often and often tell us in Frankfort that it would be
the happiest day in your life when you proudly rode
into Vienna P" The tableau which followed these
words is more easily imagined than described.
“I had the honour,” wrote Beust, “ of giving
my princely colleague a dinner at the so-called
‘Schweizer-Hütte, at which Sektionschef von Hofmann,
Herr von Keudell, and Herr von Abeken were also
present. The two latter had accompanied Bismarck
to Gastein. The dinner was served in a building
somewhat similar to the ‘Gloriette’ near Schönbrunn,
on an eminence Commanding an extensive view.
Suddenly we perceived a private carriage on the
road ; it contained Count Arnim, who had recently
been appointed Ambassador in Paris. I sent a
messenger to invite the Count to dine with us.
The carriage stopped, but its occupant was not
visible. At last we discovered that he had alighted,
and was changing his clothes behind the carriage,
although we were in morning dress. “That is the
Sort of man,’ said Bismarck, “with whom I have to
Settle questions of high State policy l’ This remark,
and the subsequent conversation at dinner, showed
that already at that time Bismarck and Arnim were
not on good terms.”
The trouble with Count Harry Arnim began when
this diplomatist—“Z)ey. Alſº,” or “Ape,” as he was
nicknamed by his familiars—said to Countess Von
Redern, at one of the Empress Augusta's private
parties, that he had hitherto been trying to walk on
his feet in Paris, but that from “his latest instructions
he gathered that he was expected until further notice
2 I 4 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
to walk on his hands.” The saying was reported to
Bismarck and made “his three hairs bristle.” “The
“Ape' has only been employed because we thought
him quadrumanous,” he exclaimed.
During the siege of Paris, Bismarck pronounced
Arnim to have a good head, but complained that
there was no relying on his reports, which often pre-
sented two wholly different views on the same day.
“When I was at Varzin,” he said, “and had to read
his despatches from Rome, his opinion about people
there changed twice every other week, according as
he had been well or ill treated. Indeed, he changed
with every post, and frequently had different views
in the same letter.”
Talking with a deputy (Dr. Schwarze) about the
Arnim case (1874) Bismarck remarked, “My dip-
lomatists must all wheel like soldiers at the word of
command.” The Chancellor but expressed the same
thing differently when he afterwards said that when-
ever any new individual force sprang up near him,
his tendency was to assimilate or annihilate it—make
it subservient to himself or suppress it altogether—
se sout/lettre oil se déïſlettre.
It was for thus objecting to be “assimilated,” to
subordinate himself in all things to the will of his
chief, that the “Ape” had to be annihilated several
years later when he had repeatedly refused to wheel
like a soldier at the Chancellor's word of command.
The main cause of difference between the two was the
question of the future form of government in France.
Curiously enough Bismarck, the monarchist, was all
in favour of a Republic, while Arnim thought it
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2 I 5
would best suit the interests of Germany to en-
courage the notion of a return at Paris to a monarchical
régime. Arnim affected to see in the democratic
legislature of France a real danger to the semi-
despotisms of neighbouring Sovereigns, while Bis-
marck argued that the Republican form of government
was the saucepan, so to speak, in which France might
best be made to stew in her own juice ; and above all
things he foresaw that, as long as France remained
Republican, she would have little chance of being able
to enter into an anti-German alliance with any of
the military monarchies.*
“My opinion,” wrote Count Arnim, in May 1872,
“is that we ought not to repel the addresses of the
Bonapartists.”
“A monarchical France,” replied the Prince, in
December of the same year, “would meanwhile be
more perilous to us than the contagious influence of
Republican institutions, the spectacle offered by these
being more deterrent than otherwise; wherefore you
are to regard my instructions on this head as uncon-
ditional, and to refrain from saying or doing anything
in an opposite sense.”
Nevertheless, Arnim continued to intrigue for the
return to a Monarchy in France, with the result that
he had to be abolished by his chief. In the whole
course of his career, Bismarck never displayed greater
foresight and wisdom than when he declared himself
in favour of a Republic in France. Had the “Affe "
been allowed to have his way, it is pretty certain that
* Compare this with Bismarck's conversation on the same
subject with Jules Favre, p. 202.
2 I 6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
peace between France and Germany would not have
remained unbroken so long. A Clerical Monarchy in
France, as Bismarck once remarked, would indubitably
have meant war.
But to return to the Gastein-Salzburg interview of
I87 I, where Arnim had made such an exhibition of
his vanity.
Before parting, Bismarck and Beust took a long
drive to Klesheim. “I remained, of course, perfectly
passive to the cheers of the people,” wrote Beust,
“leaving the honour entirely to the illustrious visitor,
who acknowledged them with unusual cordiality by
military salutes. He said to me : ‘I have arranged
things very well. In the days when people used to
hiss me, I wore civilian clothes, and had no occasion
to take off my hat; while now, when they cheer me,
I wear a uniform, and need only touch my head.’” “
Soon after the Salzburg meeting, the rap/rochement
between Germany and Austria necessitated the retire-
ment from office of Count Beust, in favour of Count
Andrassy, a more sincere friend of the new order of
things; and between Bismarck and Beust there was
* “On leaving,” wrote Beust, “the Emperor William said
to me, ‘I have rather blackened you.’ He meant that he
had invested me with the order of the Black Eagle, and I am
certain that his Majesty did not blacken me in any other sense,
but that other people did so especially during the time of my
embassy in Paris. When I returned to Vienna, an old-
fashioned Austrian said to me : “Do not let the Prussians be
whitewashed in your opinion.” “On the contrary’ said I, ‘I
have let them blacken me.’ On this subject I invented the
following charade : ‘Qu'est-ce que c'est P Azºre/ois 7e Z'étais,
azzjourd"/izzi ſe 2'ai P Za &ée 7027 e.’”
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2 17
no further communication till the spring of I 878,
when the Prince, referring to his new fellow-Chancellor
at Vienna (Andrassy), said in the Reichstag : “He is
as sure of my telling him the truth as I am of his
doing so too. But in former times it was otherwise.
For at the old Diet” [in Frankfort] “I have had Austrian
colleagues to whom I said, ‘It is a matter of perfect
indifference to me whether you speak or whether the
wind whistles down the chimncy, for I don't believe
a word you say.’”
Suspecting that these words might have been meant
to refer to him, Beust—who was now Ambassador in
London—wrote to Bismarck : “YOUR SERENE HIGH-
NESS,--Allow me to enclose an A//en0/ume, in re-
membrance of our last meeting at Gastein.” This
Aſpenblume consisted of a sonnet—for Beust was a
deft hand at the turning of a verse—containing some
very pretty and flattering conceits about the whistling
of the wind in the German Chancellor's chimney.
But the latter, in acknowledging the sonnet—which
he described as very witty—explainca that, in speak-
ing as he did, he had merely referred to Count
Prokesch, with whom, when at Frankfort, he had
frequently “indulged in altercations exceeding the
limits of diplomatic speech.” For the rest, it was
pleasant for him (the Prince) to reflect that the
suspicion of his having had a man of intellect (like
Beust) in his mind's eye had drawn down upon him
no sterner punishment than “an amiable reminder of
Gastein and a posy of elegant verses.”
In the autumn (1872) following on the meeting
of the Austrian and German Emperors and their
2 I 8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
respective Chancellors at Gastein and Salzburg,
Bismarck celebrated his silver wedding at Varzin, his
guests including his dear old Göttingen friend and
fellow-student, John Lothrop Motley.
“I asked him (Bismarck),” wrote Motley, “if he
was good friends with the Emperor of Austria. He
said ‘yes,' that the Emperor was exceedingly civil to
him last year at Salzburg, and crossed the room to
Speak to him as Soon as he appeared at the door.”
Bismarck, in fact, was now beginning to reap the
fruit of the moderation which he had shown towards
Austria in 1866. In the same letter Motley wrote:
“The military opinion was bent on going to Vienna,
after Sadowa. Bismarck strongly opposed this idea.
He said it was absolutely necessary not to humiliate
Austria, to do nothing that would make friendly
relations with her in the future impossible. He said
many people refused to speak to him. The events
have entirely justified Bismarck's course, as all now
agree. It would have been easy enough to go to
Vienna or to Hungary, but to return would have
been full of danger.”
Touching his other conversations with the Chan-
cellor, Motley wrote :
“After dinner Bismarck and I had a long walk
in the woods, he talking all the time in the simplest
and funniest and most interesting manner about all
sorts of things that had happened in these tremendous
years, but talking of them exactly as everyday people
talk of cveryday matters—without any affectation.
The truth is, he is so entirely simple, so full of
/aissez-aller, that One is obliged to be saying to
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 2 IQ
oneself all the time, “This is the great Bismarck—
the greatest living man, and one of the greatest
historical characters that ever lived.’ When One
lives familiarly with Brobdignags it seems for the
moment that everybody is a Brobdignag too, that it
is the regular thing to be ; one forgets for the
moment one's own comparatively diminutive Stature.
There are a great many men in certain villages that
we have known, who cast a far more chilling shade
Over those about them than Bismarck does.
“If he had learned nothing else, he said, he had
learned modesty. Certainly a more unaffected mortal
never breathed, nor a more genial one. He looks
like a Colossus, but his health is somewhat shattered.
He can never sleep till four or five in the morning.
He smokes very little now—only light tobacco in a
pipe. When I last knew him he never stopped
Smoking the strongest cigars. Now, he tells me,
he couldn't to save his life smoke a single cigar. He
has a disgust for them. . . . While he is sitting there
and talking to all of us, his secretary hands him the
piles of letters with which he is goaded in his
retirement, and with a lead pencil about a foot
long makes memoranda as to the answers and other
dispositions to be made. Meanwhile the boys are
playing billiards in another part of the same room,
and a big black dog, called ‘Sultan, is rampaging
generally through the apartment and joining in
cverybody's conversation.
“After breakfast Bismarck and I always took a
long walk, during which he was always talking—
generally about the events of the French War.
22 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
He talks away right and left about everything
and anything—says, among other things, that nothing
Could be a greater &&ise than for Germany to attack
any foreign country—that if Russia were to offer
the Baltic provinces as a gift, he would not accept
them. As to Holland, it would be mere insanity to
pretend to occupy or invade its independence. It
had never occurred to him or to anybody. As to
Belgium, France would have made any terms, at any
time with Germany, if allowed to take Belgium.
“I wish I could record the description he gave of
his interviews with Jules Favre and afterwards with
Thiers and Favre, when the peace was made. One
trait I mustn't forget, however. Favre cried, or
affected to cry, and was very pathetic and heroic.
Bismarck said that he must not harangue him, as if
he were an Assembly; they were two together on
business purposes, and he was perfectly hardened
against eloquence of any kind. Favre begged him
not to mention that he had been SO weak as to weep,
and Bismarck was much diverted at finding in the
printed account afterwards published by Favre that
he made a great parade of the tears he had shed. . . .
Without giving you, however, a colºrs d"/isſoire coſt-
temporaine, I could hardly undertake to give you
much of his conversation. . . . He does not dislike
Louis Napoleon, and said that he had long been of
opinion that his heart was much better, and his head
less powerful, than the world was inclined to believe.”
On January 9th, in the following year (1873),
Bismarck was sitting at dinner, his guests including
a German merchant from Melbourne. Towards the
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 22 I
end of the meal, a telegram was brought in to the
Chancellor. It was from the Ambassador, Count
Bernstorff, in London, announcing the death of
Napoleon that same morning at Chislehurst. On
reading the telegram, the Prince said to his wife : “I
told you he would never survive the Operation.
Napoleon died this morning.” Then, turning to the
messenger who had brought the despatch : “Has His
Majesty also received a telegram P No P. Well, then,
take this at once to the Emperor.”
Thereupon the Princess said, “Otto, you'll go into
mourning, won't you ?” Bismarck replied by saying
that Napoleon was a good man but a weak one, and
that he never forgot a good action. Once only he
had played him false, and that was when he
(Bismarck) was marching on Vienna after Königgrätz,
and Napoleon telegraphed to say that if the Prussians
advanced any farther, he would at once take the
field. He (the Chancellor) had never forgotten that,
and had paid him back for it.
Among other guests of the Chancellor at Varzin
in the year of his silver wedding, was Professor Karl
Aegidi, chief of the Press Department of the Foreign
office—in fact, the Prince's journalistic secretary. The
position of Professor Aegidi required that he should
have a very exact knowledge of his chief's political
intentions and aims. He saw the Prince daily, and
was at liberty to go to him at all times. Bismarck
required very much of him, but was “an ideal superior.”
He always, he said, acted like a gentleman to him.
Aegidi, indeed, had the title and held the office of a
Reporting Counsellor, though it was generally not he,
2 22 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
but Bismarck, who reported to the Sovereign. Bis-
marck's orders for the Press were always so pregnantly
worded that if Aegidi had used his precise expressions,
everybody would have seen that the article emanated
from the Chancellor himself. The Professor con-
fessed that it was often no easy task to clothe his
thoughts in less strikingly characteristic language.
When the Prince gave such instructions for the
Morddeutsche that Aegidi expected no good effect
to accrue, he took the precaution to lay the article
before the Prince in rough proof. It sometimes
happened that the Chancellor cancelled it or tore
it up.
One evening the Prince ordered Aegidi five times
to read certain documents that lay before him, and
to draw up Memorials founded on them. Aegidi got
the documents, and worked till half-past two in the
morning. The Memorials he drew up were copied,
and Aegidi agreed that the clerk should lay his
copies on the Prince's table as early as possible.
Aegidi expected to be summoned to the Prince about
noon. He was summoned, indeed, but not a word
was said about the Memorials. At ten in the evening
the Prince sent for him again, but said nothing about
the Memorials, and when Aegidi asked about them,
he replied, “They lie buried under this avalanche of
manuscripts.” When Aegidi went to the Foreign
Office next morning, the Chancellor had worked
through the whole heap of documents in the night,
and the five Memorials, all of them voluminous,
lay on Aegidi's table corrected and revised to the
last.
SALZBURG AND VARZIN. 223
Aegidi had first made the Chancellor's acquaintance
when, as a Professor at Bonn, he took the field in
charge of a voluntary ambulance-column during
the French War, and the Prince, with the keen
eye for a man to serve his purpose which ever dis-
tinguished him, was quick to perceive in the Bonn
Professor the very person he wanted for his Press
purposes.
“May I ask your Serenc Highness a question ?”
said Aegidi one day, two years later, at Varzin,
whither he had been invited by his chief to get the
taste of his communiqués to the AVorth German Gazette
washed out of his mouth.
“Certainly, my dear Professor.”
“Well, then, how was it that you were so very
effusive in your thanks at Tronville, on the morning
after Mars-la-Tour, when I directed you where to
find General von Voigts-Rhetz P”
“Oh, that is very simple,” replied the Chancellor ;
“late on the previous night I had heard that my son
Herbert had fallen in a cavalry charge at Mars-la-
Tour, and that Bill (his brother) had also been wounded.
My first thought, of course, was to ride off in Search
of them, and I knew that Voigts-Rhetz could probably
tell me where the Ist Dragoon Guards were lying.
I found him, as you directed, quartered with the
Knights of St. John at the other end of the village,
and was then conducted to the bivouac of the
regiment, where I soon discovered Bill to be well and
hearty, but that Herbert had been wounded by a
bullet through the thigh, though, thank God not
dangerously. Just fancy,” continued the Chancellor,
2 24 13ISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
turning to his wife, “if I had telegraphed to you,
‘ Herbert fallen in battle.’” ”
“Then I should never have forgiven you for be-
ginning the war,” replied the Princess, who thus
added an interesting bit of historical evidence to the
Confessions of the Chancellor already quoted at the
beginning of the last chapter.
One day, in the course of a drive, Bismarck stopped
the carriage at a fox's hole, and explained to Aegidi
its whole structure.
“Look ' " he then said. “Do you see these partridges
getting up 2 There they go, and there they alight
again. They want to make us believe that they arc
going farther in the same direction. But it won't do.
They are only deceiving us, and presently they will
take the very opposite direction.”
Another time, in the course of a walk, thcy passed
a stork's nest, where two male birds secmed to be
having an altercation in presence of a female one.
“Ah,” said the Chancellor to Aegidi, who was follow-
ing the incident with close attention, “I see that
you are fond of French novels, otherwise you would
not take such a deep interest in the divorce affair
which is going on up yonder.”
* Talking afterwards to some friends at Friedrichsruh,
Bismarck remarked that it was little short of a miracle how
the life of his cloſest son, Count Herbert, had been saved at
Mars-la-Tour. This had been done by a large watch which he
(the Chancellor) had presented to him. A French bullet would
have gone straight through his son's heart had its flight not
been stopped by this chronometer, which still marked the very
second when the shot had struck, and was thus valuable as
determining the exact time of the famous cavalry charge.
SALZBURG AND WARZIN. 225
At this time the Chancellor's organ, the Mort/.
German Gazette, was bringing out serially the trans-
lation of a story from the pen of an English writer,
and the talk came to be of how the thing would
end.
“That I can soon tell you,” said the Prince, turning
to his wife. And after he had forecast the plot of
the story to its close, Aegidi, who had read it in the
original, remarked : “Quite right. But your Excellency
must have read the English version ?”
“Not a bit of it,” replied the Chancellor, who had
merely divined the writer's drift from the first two or
three chapters, and constructed the rest of the plot,
on this foundation, out of his own head.
One day he entered his family circle and Com-
plained of being tired. “Till seven o'clock this
morning,” he said, “I was unable to close my eyes
—and all on account of Portugal. They have over-
turned a Cabinet at Lisbon, and I could not sleep
for thinking about its successor. Again and again
I turned over in my mind all the elements that could go
to the making of a new Ministry, but I could not
get the subject out of my head "-saying which he pro-
ceeded to talk about the leading men of Portugal
with a fulness of knowledge almost incredible.
On another occasion Aegidi ventured to express his
astonishment at the Chancellor's attainments in all
the principal fields of human knowledge. “Oh, that
is very simple,” replied the Prince. “At the time when
I was living in the country and had nothing else to
do, there was a large general library in the house, and
I literally devoured it.”
I 5
226 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
So much for Aegidi. But at a later time the
Chancellor, speaking of his early reading, remarked to
another friend: “In my time Hegel was taught at all the
Universities, but I learned of him only as much as I
wanted for the examination, and I am not conscious
of having received from him any impression on my
inner man. I gradually became a lawyer at the
beer-table and on the fencing-floor, and a life of
Contemplation in the midst of nature influenced me
more than the philosophers.”
In answer to the question whether Spinoza's
Pantheism had influenced him, the Prince answered,
“Yes, but Christianity in a much higher degree ;
indeed, in the highest degree.” He added, “I could
not get quite through Kant. What he says of
Morality, especially of ‘The Categorical Imperative,'
is very fine, but I prefer to live without the feeling
of the Imperative. I have never lived on principles.
When I have had to act, I never first asked myself
on what principles I was going to act, but I went at
it, and did what I thought good. I have often been
reproached for want of principles. In my youth I
often talked with a lady cousin of mine, who had a
tincture of philosophy, and who wanted to play the
aunt with me about the question whether I must
adopt principles or not. At last I put an end to
further dispute by remarking, ‘If I am to go through
life with principles, it seems to me just the same as if
I had to pass along a narrow forest path with a long
pole in my mouth.’”
CHAPTER IX.
Aº Aº, I CA/SA A MZ/A A'.
ONVERSING (in June 1871) with the Bur-
gomaster of Worms, who had came to Berlin
to present him with the freedom of that ancient city,
the Chancellor said :
“Considering the nature of the French attack
on us, I never thought that we should prove SO
quick with them as we did, and that was why I
insisted on the cession of Metz. I asked the
members of the General Staff what they thought
of Metz. “There can be no question at all about it,'
was their answer. ‘ Metz is worth an army of I2O,OOO
men, Belfort of 8000.’ Of these two places we wanted
one, and of course we retained Metz. This fortress
can detain a large army, while Belfort could be left
behind. For the rest, the French Lorrainers are not
half so bad as they are painted. Those who are good
haters can also be good lovers. The very first night
I slept in France—and I remember, by the way, that
I had a tame but very tough rabbit for supper—my
host said to me, ‘It is all the same who takes us,
Russians or Prussians; but we prefer those to whom
we pay fewest taxes.' I replied that he would have
to pay less to us than to France—though how long
227
228 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
this would last I couldn't say. “But how, then,
about the army P’ asked the man. I said that with
us every One must become a soldier—the son of the
Prefect as well as of the poorest man ; I and my sons,
for example, had had to serve. Upon which my
Lorraine friend declared himself satisfied.”
A little later there came to Berlin a deputation of
notables from the Reichsland to set forth their
wishes respecting it. After dinner, the Chancellor
took One of these notables, Count Dürckheim, aside,
and began to talk to him in the most confidential
manner about the future of the conquered provinces.
“You will have a Fatherland,” said the Prince,
“which will belong to the Empire and to no other.
Your Sovereign will be Kaiser William, the ruler of
the whole Reich.”
Count Dürckheim observed that there had been
Some talk of appointing a German Prince as Regent
Over Alsace-Lorraine.
“Oh, no,” put in the Chancellor briskly. “I won't
have anything of that kind. Princes are of no use
for such a purpose. What we want in Alsace are
people who will work—none of your Princes and
Court functionaries. ZZ ſay al/rait, dº 7 esſe, c/e3 volts
727 agréments mez distractions four 2/7, prince, et, vous
/e savez, Zes princes aimlent d s'aſſeuser. "
On another occasion, at one of the Chancellor's
evening receptions, Count Dürckheim, in taking leave
of his host towards midnight, once more commended
Alsace to his tender consideration. With an air of
deep emotion, Bismarck embraced the Count before
the whole company and said: “Have no fear. Your
REICHSKANZLER. 229
native province will never be treated in a step-motherly
fashion.”
Some few years later Bismarck went up to a group
of Alsatian deputies with a foaming mug of beer in
his hand, and said :
“Well, and how do you Alsatians like Germany P"
“Your Highness,” answered one of them—
Schneegans (Snowgoose) by name—“we have made
of it a marriage of reason, and sometimes that is the
best kind of wedlock.”
The Prince gave a laugh.
“Yes,” he said. “Love and mutual respect between
a couple often come from their living together. Let
us drink to that—prosit !”
Yet in the spring of 1878, when it had become
necessary to settle once and for all the future form
of Government in the conquered provinces, Bismarck
—in spite of his previously expressed aversion to
Princes as rois fainéants—strongly favoured the idea
of appointing the Crown Prince as a kind of Regent,
“I should like,” he said, “to make of Alsace-Lorraine
a kind of German Dauphiné, in which the Crown
Prince for the time being might have an opportunity
of familiarising himself with affairs, and thus fitting
himself all the better for the performance of his
duties when he comes to the throne.”
Soon after this, however, two Socialist attempts (by
Hödel and Nobiling) were made on the life of the old
Emperor ; and as his Majesty thenceforth wished to
have the Crown Prince ever near his person, the project
of sending him to the Reichsland fell through, Field-
Marshal von Manteuffel being appointed Statthalter.
23O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Referring a few years later to the state of parties
in the Reichsland, the Chancellor said :
“To rule with the help of one's enemies is ever the
worst kind of policy, wherefore I condemn every
government which is more complaisant to the wishes
of its opponents—in this case the Protesters—than
to those of their own supporters (the Autonomists) in
the hope of thus being able to win over these
opponents.”
Bismarck might very well have added, with refer-
ence to Mr. Gladstone's policy towards the Irish,
“AVo1/zane 1722//ato narražur /a/2//a de ze.”
The North-Schleswigers, who had been annexed
to Prussia in 1866, were pretty much in the same
predicament as the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine.
A clause in the Treaty of Prague, inserted at the
instance of Napoleon, had stipulated a pſábiscite for the
people of North Schleswig, after a certain experience
of their Prussian rulers, to determine whether they
would content themselves with their new masters or
resume their allegiance to Denmark. But this stipu-
lation had never been carried out, in spite of the fact
that a North Schleswig deputy (Krüger, of Haders-
leben) had repeatedly urged upon Bismarck the
justice of doing SO.
“I am sorry,” said the Chancellor, at One of his
soirées (in 1873). “Personally, nothing would give
me greater pleasure. But you must remember that
there are forty millions of Germans behind me, whose
opinions on the subject I am bound to respect as well
as yours, and they will not hear of such a thing.
Believe me, however, when I say that the more
REICHSKANZLER. 23 I
energetically you stand up for your cause in the
Reichstag, the more I shall respect you.”
It was in this way that Bismarck dealt with the
“national aspirations” of the Alsatians, the Poles, and
the North Schleswigers.
A few years later (1878), the clause in the Treaty
of Prague relating to North Schleswig was abrogated
altogether by mutual consent of Prussia and Austria ;
and it was soon after this that Bismarck, in conversa-
tion with a clerical deputy, Baron von Franckenstein–
made an interesting revelation with regard to the war
of 1866, which had resulted, among other things, in
Prussia's annexation of Schleswig-Holstein.
After the first shots had already been exchanged in
1866, he had, he said, offered to the Emperor Francis
Joseph, through the brother of General von Gablenz,
to come to terms. The Emperor had not been averse
from considering the proposal, but the Austrian
Minister, Count Larisch, had protested that it would
never do, saying that, in five weeks' time, either the
Austrian troops would be in Berlin—in which case
there would be plenty of money—or that the war would
go against Austria, when she would again have cause
to declare herself bankrupt. Count Mensdorff and
the other Ministers agreed with Count Larisch, and
then the war went on, resulting as it did.
The ambition, he further remarked, which had been
imputed to him of making further conquests for
Germany was one of those silly things that were always
being said of him. What sort of conquests were they
to be P Denmark, Holland, Belgium, or even Austria
as far as the Leitha, with Vienna as a new provincial
232 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
city ? Any Prussian Minister who ever thought of
such a thing would only prove his fitness for a lunatic
asylum. Germany and Austria, united, formed the
best pledge for the peace of Europe. He had always
thought so, and always would think so. It was for
this reason that, in 1866, he had not taken a single
inch of Austrian soil, as thus he would have sown the
Seeds of a long estrangement ; whereas close co-
operation between the two States was now (in 1879)
conceivable and possible. That the relations between
the Courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg were more
intimate than between the Courts of Berlin and Vienna
was simply due to the closer family connections
between the Russian and the German dynasties.
Austria and Germany together would be able to
cope with every enemy, whether France or Russia.
He had expressed himself in this sense to Kaiser
Franz Joseph, the first time he met him after
I 866.”
This was in 1872, when the three Emperors (of
Germany, Russia, and Austria) met at Berlin, and
entered into the informal Drei-Kaiser-Bund against
the growing forces of international anarchy.
On this subject Bismarck said, twenty years later :
“I enjoyed the confidence of Alexander II. to the end
of his life, to an unlimited degree. It was this that
brought Russia together for years with the two other
Empires—Germany and Austria-Hungary—to the
‘Three Emperors' Alliance.’ I succeeded in showing
the three Sovereigns every time they met that they
had infinitely more in common to defend in the
* Compare pp. IOI, II 6, 351.
REICHSKANZLER. 233
interest of ‘monarchy against revolution than they
would gain by individual conquests if separated.”
In the spring (April 1873) following the meeting of
the three Emperors at Berlin, Bismarck accompanied
the Emperor to St. Petersburg, where he said, “I
should regard myself as a traitor if ever I were to
entertain any hostile plan against Russia and her
Emperor.”
In connection with this subject some One expressed
a fear as to the political convictions of the Tsarevitch
(afterwards Alexander III.), but Bismarck Sought to
tranquillise him by explaining that it was rather the
rule than otherwise for heirs-apparent to join the
Opposition, but that they came to see things in a very
different light on succeeding to the throne.
It was about this time that the National Liberal
Herr Lasker—“that little lisping Jew,” as Bismarck
Once called him — had delivered himself in the
Prussian Chamber of one of his fulminations against
the railway speculators who had been the product of
the “Gründer-Era"—a speech which ultimately led
to the resignation of Count Itzenplitz, Minister of
Commerce, and which also contained a violent attack
on Bismarck's right-hand man, Herr Wagener, ex-
editor of the Kreug-Zeitung. Soon after this Bis-
marck gave a parliamentary dinner—Lasker himself
being one of his guests ; and the Chancellor made
no secret of the fact that he had not been particularly
edified by his philippic.
“But, your Serene Highness,” pleaded Lasker, “not
One single word of my attack was aimed at you.”
“Perhaps not,” returned the Chancellor, with a grim
234 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Smile ; “but your shot only missed my head by a
hair's breadth.”
On another Occasion Bismarck described Lasker, in
the hearing of the Crown Prince, as a “good soldier
but a bad General.”
On the same Occasion mention was made of an
anecdote referring to the French Minister of Finance,
Pouyer-Quértier, and his strange experience of
Prussian railways. This statesman—so ran the
Story—had Come to Berlin to treat for the evacua-
tion of the six departments round Paris, and at a
dinner given in his honour by the Chancellor after
the signature of the agreement, he had expressed his
Surprise at having had to pay a thousand francs for
the single-fare Conveyance of a special French railway
carriage from Aix-la-Chapelle to Berlin. On the
homeward journey, however, he found that the railway
officials had meanwhile been ordered to treat him as
if the thousand francs were meant to include the
return-fare as well, while at all the chief stations
Sumptuous repasts, Served by liveried attendants, were
awaiting him—for thus had Bismarck contrived to
counteract the bad impression which had been pro-
duced on the French statesman's mind by the extor-
tionate tariff of the Prussian lines.
The Chancellor laughed heartily at the story, but
declared it to have been applied to the wrong person.
It was not to Pouyer-Quértier, he explained, but to
Prince Gortchakoff that something of the same kind
had happened. In the course of his repeated journeys
in Prussia the Russian Chancellor had been asked to
pay such immense sums in the shape of Special fares
REICHSKANZLER. 235
that he at last complained about it in Berlin ; and ever
after that his railway journeys in Prussia had been
facilitated by the providing of lunches and dinners
for him here and there, and by a reduction of the
passenger tariff in his favour.
Of Pouyer-Quértier personally Bismarck entertained
a very high opinion, and when his name again came
up some time later, in connection with the payment
of the war-indemnity, the Chancellor remarked that
he had at first demanded no less than ten milliards,
but that at last he had gone down to five, which,
with interest, requisitions, keep of the troops of Occu-
pation in France, etc., came to a total of about six
milliards. He had summoned from Germany to
Versailles two bankers—Herr von Bleichröder and
Baron Erlanger—whom he sent into Paris, though
they were both mortally afraid they would never
come back alive. Baron Erlanger asked Bismarck
how he could ever have thought of demanding such
an enormous Sum, which never could possibly be paid.
The Chancellor replied that Jules Favre had regarded
his demand with equal amazement, saying that if any
One at the birth of Christ had begun to count such a
Sum, he would not yet have completed the work.
“Well,” rejoined Bismarck, “that is precisely why
I have Summoned to my side some one who began to
count even before the birth of Christ.”
Both Bleichröder and Erlanger were Jews.
And with regard to the Jews, the Chancellor's
private conversation, as became a man in his high
official position, was always of a very guarded kind.
It was only when the anti-Semitic agitation reached a
236 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
head, in 1881, that he spoke out. At a family dinner
at Varzin, where one of the brothers Behrend, tenants
of Bismarck's two paper-mills, was present, an in-
cidental remark by his guest gave the Chancellor an
Opportunity of explaining his attitude towards the
Jewish question. He entered into the most careful
details, and shed a strong light on characteristic phases
of the /uden/etºe. Among other things, replying to
the question whether he perfectly agreed with the
anti-Semitic movement:
“Nothing can be more unfair. I condemn very
decidedly the crusade against the Jews, whether on
the ground of religion or of race. One might with
equal right propose to assail Germans of Polish or
French extraction on the ground that they were not
Germans. That Jews should prefer to follow a
Commercial pursuit is simply a matter of taste. It
may, indeed, be founded on their exclusion from other
callings, but it is certainly no justification to make
their greater affluence a ground for those inflammatory
remarks which I find so very objectionable, because
they provoke the envy and malevolence of the masses.
I will never agree to Jews being denied any of the
rights which constitutionally are theirs. The mental
organisation of the Jews inclines them to criticism,
and so one generally finds them in the Opposition.
I make no distinction, however, between Christian
and Jewish opponents to the principles of economic
policy which, according to my convictions, I contend
for as being useful to my country. When I have
replied to addresses and telegrams expressing acqui-
escence in my opinions, I discharge a duty of Courtesy,
REICHSKANZLER. 237
as I said to Richter. I would have given equally
courteous answers to similar words from the Pro-
gressive party, only I never receive any.”
Referring to this expression of opinion about the
Jews three years later, the Chancellor said: “I might
perhaps still add that, in their polemical attitude
towards me, the Jews have never behaved so disgrace-
fully as my Christian opponents in the Progressist
party, as well as some of the Conservatives during the
time of the Reichsg/ocke” (“Bell of the Empire—a
print which had been founded, for the apparent
purpose of calumniating the Prince, by the adherents
of Count Harry Arnim and other foes). “Still, I
could understand the thing better if, for ‘Jews, were
substituted ‘Press-Jews.’”
As a matter of fact Bismarck looked upon the
anti-Semitic movement, not so much as unjustifiable
as inopportune, and therefore “undesirable.” More
than once he complained bitterly to his friends about
the crying ingratitude of the Jews, who owed their
emancipation throughout Germany mainly to him,
yet lost no opportunity, both in Parliament and the
Press, of attacking him and his policy.
“Those of them,” he once said, “who possess any-
thing, pay their taxes, write no democratic articles,
and do not take to the barricades. It is the others
who do this. The Jews do all they can to make an
anti-Semite of me.””
* It was only when he became German Chancellor that
Bismarck—who always boasted himself above all things to be
a statesman of expediency—ceased to resist the emancipation
of the Jews. In the first Prussian Parliament (1847) he had
238 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
But, with all their faults, the usurious Jews were
regarded by Bismarck as less inimical to the peace
and prosperity of the Fatherland than the intriguing
Jesuits; and with the latter he plunged into the
Kulturkampf almost immediately after the termination
of the war with France.
To the various fractions in the Reichstag a Clerical,
or Centre, party was now added ; and one of the
founders of this party was a personal enemy of the
Prince, Herr von Savigny, to whom he thus referred
at one of his parliamentary soirées (March 1877):
“Savigny wanted to be Chancellor, and, what is
more, there was at first some idea of giving him the
post. But the proceedings of the Constituent Reichstag
(in 1867) made it clear to me that the Prussian
Premier and Federal Chancellor must be one and the
voted against every new privilege demanded for them, and in
so doing gloried in being denounced as “the narrow-minded,
mediaeval spirit in the flesh.” He was no enemy, he said, of
the Jews as men; to a certain extent he even liked them. But
the very idea of his having to obey a Jew as representing the
sacred person of His Majesty filled him with pain and abase-
ment, nor was he ashamed to say that he shared this feeling
with the lowest classes of the people. There was every reason
to believe that the 9 zºde/2/hezze, or Jew-baiting mania which
originated at Berlin and swept over the Empire in 1880-81,
was partly persisted in under the popular conviction that the
Chancellor, true to the political principles of his youth, still
secretly sympathised with the movement. Interpellated on
the subject, the Prussian Government curtly replied that it
had no intention of altering existing legislation as to the
Jews; and, in the Reichstag, Bismarck sought to repel the
insinuation that he privately encouraged Anti-Semitic Societies,
remarking that he had kept aloof, as enjoined by his official
position, from a movement which was to him “undesirable.’’
REICHSKANZLER. 239
same person. Therefore I wrote to him that he must
either assume both offices or leave me the latter. I
also offered to make him Vice-Chancellor—the same
as Delbrück afterwards became. This would have
landed me in a pretty pickle, but Heaven saved me
from it. Savigny never answered my letter, ceased
to greet me in the street, and became my enemy.”
Soon after the Peace of Nicolsburg, which led to
the creation of the North German Confederation,
Bismarck remarked that he had just the proper
blend of blood for the post of North German Chan-
cellor, seeing that, on the father's side, he was
descended from a long line of Prussian noblemen,
while through his mother he was connected with a
famous family of Leipzig scholars.”
With regard to the Kulturkampf, which Savigny had
helped to bring about from feelings of personal
animosity against Bismarck, the latter said : “The
Struggle is purely political, and not one between a
* Bismarck’s mother—Louise Wilhelmina Menken—was
the only commoner who had ever married into the family.
But if she did not bring the Bismarcks blood, she brought
them brains. For it is not to be doubted that the Chancellor
inherited much of his intellectual capacity from his mother.
She was the daughter of a Geheimrath, or Privy Councillor,
who (curiously enough) had helped Frederick the Great to
manage his foreign affairs. He was descended from a
merchant-patrician family of Oldenburg, which had con-
tributed to the Fatherland several learned professors (at
Leipzig and elsewhere), a poet “Philander von der Linde,”
an historiographer to August the Strong, and the founder of
the first magazine of the learned in Germany—Acta AErzędź.
orzºz. (See “Prince Bismarck’’ in the “Statesmen Series"
of Biographies : W. H. Allen and Co.)
24O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Protestant dynasty and the Catholic Church ; it is
not one between faith and unbelief, it is only the
reappearance of the conflict—older than the advent
Of the Redeemer of the world, as old as the human
race itself; the same contest for power as Agamemnon
waged with his seers at Aulis, and which cost him his
daughter while preventing the Grecks from setting sail
for Troy; the conflict which raged all through the
Middle Ages between the Pope and the Kaisers, till
the Empire was ruined, and the last representative of
Swabian dynasty perished on the scaffold under the
axe of a French conqueror in alliance with Rome.”
The Chancellor once remarked to a couple of
Clcrical guests that he was by no means the first
member of his family who had come into collision
with the Roman Catholic Church. Onc of his
ancestors had even gone so far in this respect as to
knock down a Canon of Stendal on the Open Street
—for which he had been crºcommunicated ; “and
justly so,” added the Prince.
The Papal pretensions which Bismarck looked upon
as a curse to Germany had their countervailing
advantages to the Fatherland when asserted in France.
To some friends at Varzin he said (in 1875): “It is
really a blessing for us, this rising predominance of
the Clerical element in France, as thus the fencible
power of the country is weakened. A battalion in
which the Auſ/46/aier (chaplain) is of more account
than the Major is easily beaten. There is much
hypocrisy, but little service in it.”
Referring once to the Pope, Bismarck lauded LCO
XIII. as one of the most acute and enlightencil
REICHSKANZLER. 24 I
statesmen of the time, who had been quick to perceive
the importance of a well-ordered and Conservative
State like Germany in Central Europe. But the
Chancellor paid Queen Victoria a still greater Com-
pliment when, after conversing with her for some
time at Charlottenburg (in the spring of 1888), whither
she had gone to see her dying son-in-law—he pro-
nounced her Majesty to be “gifted with statesman-
like qualities of the very highest order.”
On the day (July 13th, 1874) when Bismarck, at
Kissingen, was shot at and slightly wounded in the
wrist by the Catholic fanatic, Kullmann—the Kultur-
kampf being then at its height—the Prince jovially
remarked at dinner, “Well, the affair is not part of
my prescribed course of waters, but it is only what a
man of my profession must expect.”
Addressing a surging multitude the same evening
from the balcony of his lodgings, with his arm in a
sling, the Prince said: “It is not for me to anticipate
judgment, but this I may safely say, that the blow
aimed at me was not directed against my person, but
the cause to which I have devoted my life—the unity,
independence, and freedom of Germany. And even
if I had died for that great cause, what more would
it have been than what has happened to thousands of
Our Countrymen who, three years ago, gave up their
blood and lives upon the battlefield P But the great
work which I have helped to begin with my poor
powers will not be brought to naught by such means
as that from which God has graciously preserved
me. It will be finished by the force of the united
German peoples.”
I G
242 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
When Parliament met, the Chancellor, addressing
himself to the Clericals, exclaimed, “Yes, gentlemen,
you may push away from you the assassin Kullmann
as much as ever you like, but he himself clings tightly
to your coat-tails all the same.” At his parliamentary
reception the following evening, these words were
naturally the subject of much comment, and Bismarck,
leading Some of his guests, including several ladies,
into his study, showed them the revolver and the
pistol with which Blind and Kullmann had respectively
tried to take his life.
He had, he explained, come into possession of these
two historic weapons in a very peculiar manner.
Blind's revolver had been presented to him by his
colleague, Delbrück, who had secured it at an
auction of the would-be assassin's confiscated effects;
and in the same way he had come by Kullmann's
pistol. He had applied for it to the public prosecutor
at Kissingen, who, not wishing to act on his own
responsibility in Such a matter, appealed to the
Chamber of Finance at Würzburg, which in turn
referred Bismarck to the Ministry of Finance in
Munich, which, after grave consideration, decided that
the Prince might have the weapon that had been
levelled against him at its market value. It was only
in this characteristically red-tape and roundabout
way that the Prince became possessed of the pistol,
and the Bavarian treasury of one thaler twenty silver
groschen—about three shillings and threepence.
A few evenings after he had related this story, the
parliamentary guests of the Chancellor were startled
by a loud report of firearms in his study, and the first
REICHSKANZLER. 24.3
impulse of all was to fear that the Prince might have
been made the object of another attentat in his own
house. Presently, too, it appeared that it was Blind's
revolver which had been again at work. A deputy,
Herr von Unruh-Bomst, had taken it up from the
Chancellor's study table, and one of its barrels,
strange to say, must have been left loaded all these
eight years, for it suddenly went off, and the ball had
even grazed the abdomen of what was described as a
“Titanic" member of the Reichstag, Jordan-Deides-
heim by name. Next day one of the journals asked
whether the deputies had never heard of the maxim,
“Never play with firearms.”
But that other than the deputies had never heard
of, or at least paid little heed to this maxim, was
proved by a story, referring to this same time, which
Bismarck himself told several years later—I 889—the
year after that of the accession of William II. In the
Reichstag on the previous day there had been a very
stormy Scene. Some Radical had contemptuously
cried out, Pfui / " “Fie upon you !”—the most
contemptuous of all German expressions—while the
Chancellor was speaking, and, in challenging the
author of the insult to stand up and declare himself,
he used Some very strong language himself.
At his next soirée he admitted that he had been
rather violent, but pleaded that it was a most
monstrous provocation to have had such a vile word
as “P/u? /* flung into his teeth before all the
Reichstag, which indeed was “tantamount to his having
been spat upon.” At the same time, he said, this
was by no means the first time that a similar insult
244 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
had been offered him in the same place by a member
of the Clerical Centre (Count Ballestrem). Just at
that time he happened to have a loaded revolver in
his pocket (for the Kullmann attental had led to the
discovery of other plots against his life), and involun-
tarily his hand wandered in search of this weapon.
But he had checked himself in time, and left the
dangerous thing lying in his pocket.
The Kulturkampf, with its Kullmanns and its
Ballestrems, had not long reached the height of its
fury when Bismarck, with the prescience of the
political Seer, began to warn his countrymen against
the Ominous gathering of the storm which was to
produce a Hödel and a Nobiling. “Socialism,” he
remarked at one of his soirées, in December 1875,
“has been making immense progress—much more SO
than you fancy, gentlemen, as you will see from the
next elections. In a few years the penal clauses
which you are now almost unanimous in rejecting
will be demanded by the bourgeoisie as ardently as
the lonely traveller in the desert longs for a drop of
water.”
The penal clauses referred to were contained in the
new Press Law for all Germany ; and on the subject
of the Press the Chancellor remarked : “In all Our
newspapers there is too much demand for the
sensational, as if something of the kind must Occur
every day. Every issue must contain something
quite new, important, extraordinary. In this way
they spoil their readers, who now expect and demand
such entertainment from their papers. The latter in
turn demand it of their correspondents, who are thus
REICHSKANZLER. 245
placed in a dire dilemma. For if their reports contain
nothing that is new or important they are put down
by their editors as either too negligent or too easy-going
to look about properly for news, or they are suspected
of a lack of good connections. In this predicament
the correspondent sets to work and takes counsel of
his fancy, or he goes to the Embassies, which of course
only furnish him with such news as serves a special
purpose.”
Referring on a subsequent occasion of the same kind
to the inadequate means afforded by the Press Law
for combating the “excesses” of Social Democracy
the Prince said: “I have always told our Sovereigns,
“If you combat Social Democracy by all the means at
your command, you suppress an acute disease. Care
for the middle class, and you bring on a chronic
disease difficult to cure.' Parleying with the revolu-
tionary parties seems to me just the same as if we
were to send a lawyer to negotiate with France, in
the event of her declaring war.”
Some one having wondered where the Social
Democrats got so much money for the purposes of
agitation, Bismarck remarked : “Possibly they get
Some from France—perhaps a million francs or SO—
scarcely more. The French devote a lot of money to
bribery and corruption, purchase of journalists, etc.
Yes, that they do in the higher circles even of some
countries that one would never think of. We are
obliged to do these things in a more roundabout way.
The French are less particular. They have the knack
of wrapping up an ugly proposal in pretty phrases,
and making an offer in this direct form. I should only
246 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
like to know how they manage to conceal these large
sums in their annual budgets—I have never been
able to discover.”
As the Press Law, in the opinion of the Chancellor,
was much too indulgent, so he also looked upon the
Criminal Code of the Empire as far too lenient in
many respects. It was a great mistake of legislators,
he said at one of his soirées in December 1875, to
yield to unwholesome sentiment and set so high a
value on the individual, sacrificing to him the interests
of the whole community. He quoted the case of the
man Thomas, who had recently destroyed so many
lives by the explosion of his infernal machine at
Bremen, and asked the jurists present how they
would classify his crime.” One said it was murder,
another, murder with do/us indeterminatus ; a third,
attempted murder ; a fourth, arson ; a fifth, destruc-
tion of property by explosives. But all agreed that,
had Thomas himself lived, he could not have been
Condemned to death, but only to penal Servitude for
life.
It was this same intolerance of a “sickly and
unsound sentimentality’ which had made Bismarck
successfully resist the false humanitarians who wished
to abolish capital punishment, and also press for the
* William King Thomas took it into his head to contrive an
infernal machine which should explode and destroy the
steamer Moseſ soon after its leaving Bremen for New York,
his object being to gain the insurance money on certain
wares which he had insured far beyond their value, and meant
to despatch by the vessel. By the premature explosion of his
machine about a hundred people were killed, and as many
wounded.
REICHSKANZLER. 247
bombardment of Paris as the best, and, on the whole,
the most merciful means of bringing the besieged to
their senses. “But there are some people’’ (including
the Crown Prince and Princess) “who above all
things want to be praised for their humanity, and
thus spoil all our plans. These people seem to forget
altogether that our first duty of humanity is to think
of our own soldiers, and see to it that they are not
exposed to unnecessary suffering and shot dead into
the bargain.”
It was the same intolerance of a false humanity
which pervaded Bismarck's conversation with the
American ex-President, General Grant, when the
latter went to Berlin about the time (June 1878)
that the old Emperor was seriously wounded by the
fowling piece of the Socialist Dr. Nobiling, within
three weeks after Hödel's unsuccessful attempt to take
his Majesty's life.
Grant: “I hope his Majesty will soon get better.”
Bismarck: “The prospect is as good as it can be ;
the Kaiser has a strong constitution, as well as much
Courage and patience, but you know he is an old
man.”
Grant : “This circumstance only increases the
horror inspired by the crime.”
Bismarck (with evident emotion) : “Here you have
an old man, one of the best men on the earth, and yet
they try to take his life. There never was a man of
a simpler, more magnanimous, and more humane
character than the Emperor. He is totally different
from those who are born to such a high position—or at
least, from many of them. You know that persons of
248 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
his rank, princes by birth, are inclined to look upon
themselves as something wholly different from other
men, attaching but little value to the feelings and
wishes of others. But the Emperor, on the contrary,
is a man in all things. He has never in his life
Wronged any one, nor hurt any one's feelings, nor
acted with severity. He is one of those men whose
kindly disposition wins all hearts, and he is always
occupied with, and mindful of, the happiness and
welfare of his subjects, and of those about him.
“It is impossible to imagine a finer, nobler, more
amiable and beneficent type of a nobleman, with all
the high qualities of a Sovereign and the virtues of a
man. I should have thought that the Emperor could
have passed through all his dominions alone, without
danger, and now they seek to kill him. In certain
respects the Kaiser resembles his ancestor Frederick
William, the father of Frederick the Great ; inasmuch
as the Old King had the same homely sort of character,
lived simply and retired, and led a true family life,
possessing all republican virtues. And so it is with
Our Kaiser, who is in all things so republican that
even the most incarnate democrat would admire him,
if his judgment were impartial.”
Grant (remarking that there was only one remedy—
the gallows—against the principles which had en-
dangered the life of the Emperor) : “I do not see why
a person who commits such a crime, that not only
imperils the life of an aged Sovereign but also fills the
world with horror, should not be visited with the
severest punishment.”
Bismarck : “That is precisely my vicw ; and my
REICHSKANZLER. 249
conviction on this head is so strong that (among other
reasons) I resigned the reins of power in Alsace so as
not to have to exercise mercy in cases of capital
punishment. It was impossible for me to force my
conscience. Well, now, look at this aged nobleman,
this Emperor of ours, whose subjects sought to murder
him : such is his largeness of heart that he never will
confirm a sentence of death. It is impossible to
imagine anything more unique—a monarch whose
clemency has, so to speak, abolished capital punish-
ment, becoming himself on that very account the
victim of a murder, or an attempt to murder | That
is a fact, but in this respect I cannot agree with the
Emperor ; and in Alsace, where I as Chancellor had
to countersign acts of mercy, I always inwardly
rebelled against doing so. In Prussia that is the
business of the Minister of Justice, but in Alsace it fell
to me. I feel, as the French say, that we owe justice
Something, and that in the case of crimes like this they
must be severely punished.”
Graſzą : “There is only one means of dealing with
such people; they must be destroyed.”
Bismarck “Exactly so.”
General Grant carried away with him the impression
that the German Chancellor was the most interesting
Conversationalist he had ever met.
Another American politician, Carl Schurz, who
Subsequently came to Berlin and was entertained by
the Chancellor, said that the best table-talkers he had
ever known were Mazzini and Oliver Wendell Holmes,
but that Bismarck was better than either.
CHAPTER X.
AIONEST BROKER,
T the time of the conversation between Bismarck
and General Grant on the subject of Dr.
Nobiling's crime, the Congress of Berlin was about
to meet to square the results of the Russo-Turkish
war with the interests of Europe.
“As for the Treaty of San Stefano,” said Bismarck
to General Grant, “I think the whole situation might
thus be summed up : Russia has swallowed more
than she can digest, and the Congress must try to give
her relief.”
At the close of the Congress, the Chancellor re-
marked to Lord Salisbury : “I have conducted this
Conference sometimes like a gentleman, and Some-
times like a sergeant-major.”
Curiously enough, when first Bismarck saw Anton
von Werner's famous picture of this diplomatic
Sanhedrim, he complained to the artist that he had
made him—the Chancellor—look like a Wacht/leister
(Sergeant-major).
A few years later the Chancellor went to see the
very fine panorama of Sedan which had been executed
by the same artist, when he scanned very carefully
all the details of the accompanying diorama represent-
250
HONEST BROKER. 25 I
ing his first meeting with Napoleon on the morning
after the battle, near the weaver's cottage. He could
not, he said, remember whether, in the hurry of
leaving his quarters at Donchery, he had put on his
Sash, as indicated by the painter, but in any case
it was inaccurate of the artist not to have added his
cartouche-case as well. “For thus,” he said, “you will
make me go down to posterity as an incorrect Soldier,
and if the Emperor sees this he will certainly find
fault with it. My trusty Rosa” [the horse he rode] “is
well done : it was a strong-boned animal—but a mare,
whereas you have given it rather a male head. Ah
me / she died last year.”
The same artist had been commissioned to execute
a series of wall-pictures commemorative of the war for
the Rathhaus at Saarbrück, and when he applied to
Bismarck for an appropriate motto to his portrait, the
latter pondered a little and then said, “O/ime A aiser,
Åein Reic/, ”—“Without an Emperor, no Empire.”
But to return to the Congress. About the be-
ginning of its sittings, Bismarck, the “honest broker,”
the President of the Congress, gave a dinner to the
members, the parole on this occasion being, “Not a
word of politics l’ And yet the Greek Minister, M.
Rhangabé, deftly succeeded in evading this rule, and
in giving full expression to the national aspirations
of his countrymen. The 7//enu, like the music, was
of an international character, and there was one course
of vegetables “d la Macédomie." On this dish being
handed round, M. Rhangabé passed it on without
helping himself.
“But, Excellency, why don't you take some
2 5 2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Macedonia P” asked Bismarck, to whom the Greek
minister sat opposite.
“Only some, your Serene Highness? Why, I
should like the whole of it !”
The Crown Prince wished to give a farewell “peace-
dinner " to the members, and Bismarck took occasion
to ask Lord Beaconsfield whether the next Thursday
would suit him for this purpose.
“Your Highness already speaks of peace and
parting, but is that not selling the bear's skin before
it is killed P”
“Well,” rejoined the Chancellor, “it is for you to
kill the bear” [Russia]
“That is precisely what I mean to do,” replicq the
British Premier.
Some time after the Congress Herr von Dietze-
Barby asked Bismarck which of the plenipotentiaries
he regarded as the first diplomatist.
“Ah, that I cannot tell you,” answered the Chan-
cellor ; “but certainly the second was Lord Beacons-
field.”
Shortly after the Congress, Lord Ampthill was
conversing with Bismarck on the character of the
first English plenipotentiary, when the Chancellor
pointed out that the only three works of art which
adorned his room were portraits of his wife, the
Emperor, and Lord Beaconsfield
On the other hand this was what was written by
Bayard Taylor, American Minister in Berlin: “I
made the acquaintance of all the members of the
Congress. After Gortchakoff . . . I was most im-
pressed by Beaconsfield. . . . But Bismarck is still
HONEST BROKER. 25.3
a head higher than all these. . . . Think of seeing
and talking with Bismarck, Gortchakoff, Beaconsfield,
Andrassy, Waddington, Mehemet Ali Pasha, Curtius,
Mommsen, Lepsius, Helmholtz, Grant, etc., etc., the
same day ! They are all pleasant and accessible
people, but Bismarck is an amazing man.”
And again : “Yesterday, when I had my first
interview with Bismarck, he began with, ‘ I read one
of your books through with my wife during my late
illness.' I passed an hour with him alone, in the
garden behind the palace, and felt in ten minutes as
if I had known him for years. I was astounded at
the freedom with which he spoke, but I shall honour
his confidence, and say nothing for years to come. . . .
“On Saturday I had an hour's talk with Bismarck
in the garden behind his palace; he being accompanied
by a huge black dog, and I by a huge brown bitch.
I tell you he is a great man | We talked only of
books, birds, and trees, but the man's deepest nature
opened now and then, and I saw his very self.”
At one of his parliamentary soirées shortly before
the outbreak of the war, which was followed by the
Berlin Congress, Bismarck said that he had known
exactly for two years already how the Eastern question
could best be solved.
At this there was a sudden silence in the room,
and all pricked up their ears to listen. But this
silence was followed by peals of laughter when the
Prince added :
“At the same time, as Germany has no interest in
the Eastern question, I would rather say nothing
about it.”
2.54 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Indeed, according to the Chancellor, the direct in-
terest of Germany in this question was so slight as
not to be worth “the healthy bones of a Pomeranian
musketeer”; and that was why he did all he
could to limit the area of the inevitable war to Russia
and Turkey. As for England's intervention, he did
not see that much could come of it. He might com-
pare a struggle between England and Russia to a
fight between a fish and a wolf—or rather, between a
whale and a bear—which never could get at each other
properly, and had to use long poles for the pur-
pose—a metaphor of a rather mixed kind.
The only thing that could induce Germany to
abandon her attitude of strict neutrality would be
the necessity of going to the assistance of Austria
should this Power see fit to take the field against
Russia, and be worsted in the encounter. Germany
could never stand idly by and behold Austria receive
a deadly or even a dangerous wound. The mainten-
ance of this State was an absolute necessity for the
balance of power in Europe, and in no circumstances
could Germany afford to let its integrity be im-
paired. The German provinces were the corner-stone
of the Dual Monarchy, which could not hold together
but for these, and hence the stupidity of those who
represented him as hankering after these provinces
for Germany. No ; these provinces were as absolutely
necessary for the stability of the Dual Monarchy as
the continuance of this Monarchy was essential to the
safety of the general situation in Europe, so let him
hear no more about his own lust of conquest in this
direction. Friendship with Russia if possible, but
HONEST BROKER. 255
friendship with Austria at all costs—such, in brief,
was the principle which would always determine his
attitude to the Eastern question. -
“First of all,” he said, upon another occasion of the
same kind, “we have to look after our own interests,
then those of Austria which coincide with Ours;
and after that we must continue to live on as good
a footing as may be with Russia.” Volumes could
not have better expressed the Chancellor's principles
of international policy.
Bismarck followed the war with the critical glance
of a soldier, as well as with the vigilant eye of a
diplomatist. “If I were the Tsar,” he remarked after
Plevna, when the fortune of arms seemed to be
against the Russians, “I would lead my troops back to
the left bank of the Danube, and there remain for the
winter. I would, however, at the same time issue a
manifesto to the Powers declaring that, if necessary,
I was prepared to continue the war for seven years,
even if I should be reduced to carry it on with
peasants armed with dungforks and flails. I would
then begin next spring by taking a few of the large
fortresses on the Danube, and gradually work my
way farther.”
Talking with Dr. Carl Braun, of Wiesbaden, Bismarck
remarked : “Frederick the Great used to say of
Kaiser Joseph II. that he always wanted to take a
Second step before finishing his first. Take care
that the same isn't said of us. Germany has great
tasks—above all things, that of preserving the peace
of Europe. This must be our guiding principle in
the Eastern crisis. We shall not intervene save in
256 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
a case of extreme necessity, for this intervention of
Ours might cause a European conflagration. Were
Austrian and Russian interests to come into collision
on the Balkan Peninsula, and were we to side with
One of these States, France would certainly join
the other, and a European war would be the
result. . .
“As for Turkey, I don't believe that she will be
partitioned, and the “unspeakable Turk, as Mr.
Gladstone calls him, expelled from Europe altogether.
Mr. Gladstone, at any rate, isn't the man to do
this "-Gladstone, of whom the Chancellor subse-
quently said that he had so long played with words
that now the words played with him.
But on the British Premier Bismarck once passed
a much more severe verdict still.
Speaking at Hatfield, August 30th, 1884, Lord
Lytton, Ex-Viceroy of India, said : “Shall I tell you
what was said the other day by a statesman whom I
take to be the greatest, as he is certainly the most
successful and powerful, in Europe P It was only a
few weeks ago that I heard, through an acquaintance
of Prince Bismarck, a recent remark of his, that if,
in the course of his whole life, he had inflicted upon
Germany half the ignominy and weakness which
Mr. Gladstone has inflicted upon England in the
course of four years, he (fearless and resolute man as
we know him to be) would not have had the courage
to look his countrymen in the face again.””
In speaking thus Bismarck was thinking of Mr.
* Compare this with what Bismarck said of Emil Ollivier,
P. 343.
HONEST BROKER. 257
Gladstone's great betrayal of England's honour to
the Boers after Majuba Hill, his vacillating policy in
Egypt, his unworthy truckling to the French, and
other kindred incidents in his ministerial career. But
above all things the German Chancellor had in his
mind's eye the shame which the Gladstone Cabinet
had brought upon England by its dog-in-the-manger
and ineffectual opposition to his colonial schemes. It
was some time before the Gladstone Government
could realise that Bismarck was in earnest with these
schemes, for his conversion to a colonial policy had
been rather sudden.
When some one talked to the Chancellor during
the French War of the cession of Pondicherry as part
of the French war-indemnity, he brusquely remarked :
“I want no colonies. They are good for nothing but
Supply stations. For us in Germany, this colonial
business would be just like the silken sables in the
noble families of Poland, who have no shirts to their
backs.” And again, several years later : “I am no
friend of emigration, and I fight against it as much as
I can. A German who can put off his Fatherland,
like an old coat, is no longer German for me, and my
clansmanlike interest in him is gone.”
But not long after this, the Chancellor stood forth
in the Reichstag and, declaring that the times had
changed and he with them, announced that the
German flag would now follow German trade in all
the unappropriated portions of the globe.
“Gentlemen,” said Bismarck at one of his beer-
evenings to a group of deputies who were discussing
his new Over-Sea enterprise, “colonial policy is not
I 7
2 58 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
carried on by Generals or Privy Councillors, but by
trading houses and commercial travellers.”
In reply to the remark of the Rector of the Berlin
University that the Mark of Brandenburg seemed to
him to furnish the best colonising material, the Chan-
cellor opined that the Swabians were even superior
in this respect, they being a pure German race who
stuck to their national qualities with especial tenacity
and maintained their individuality among foreign
clements.
And yet the Chancellor once told a story tending
to show that the Swabians possessed a very special
faculty for the assimilation of alien ways. Talking
about the ubiquity of the enterprising Swabians—
those Aberdeenshire Scots, so to speak, of the Father-
land—the Prince related that once, when travelling in
Prance, he had entered a restaurant and been served
by a waiter whom he at once perceived to be a South
German, in spite of his very flucmt French. Now, it
was known to him that the district of Balingen, in
Swabia, was then noted for the number of waiters
which it had scrit forth, and it occurred to him that
he would have a shot at the fellow. So without more
ado he suddenly asked him, in German, “You are
from Balingen, are you not P” The poor chap, who
really and truly hailcd from that district, grew as
white as a ghost, in the belief probably that he had
been tracked down by a detective who was too much
for him. r
During the sitting of the West African Conference
(winter of 1884-85) Bismarck's guests at dinner one
day included Henry M. Stanley and Herr Woermann
HONEST BROKER. 259
of Angra Pequeña fame. The latter was astonished
at the fluency with which the Chancellor spoke
English with the hero of the Dark Continent, and
afterwards the Prince expressed his surprise at the
fact that a man like Stanley, by simply walking
across Africa, had succeeded in founding SO large an
Empire as that of the Congo State. On this occasion
Herr Woermann said he carried away the impression
that the ease with which Stanley had founded this
State had done much to render the Chancellor far
more favourable than before to a colonial policy,
and to the acquisition of African territory for this
purpose.
Bismarck had cast a covetous eye on South-East as
well as South-West Africa, and therefore he made
himself particularly agreeable to a Boer deputation
which came to Berlin in the summer of 1884—just at
the time when his colonial squabbles with England
had reached their climax. At the head of this Boer
deputation was President Krüger, and when he sat
at the table of the Emperor beside the Chancellor,
the latter managed to make himself understood in
Platt-Deutsch to the Dutch Chief of the Transvaal,
who could converse in no language but his own.
In former times Latin used to be the means of
communication between those who had no other
common medium of speech ; and Bismarck himself
once said that, “when I was in the highest form at
school, I wrote and spoke Latin very well, though now
it has become difficult for me, and I have quite
forgotten my Greek.”
Once, too, he boasted that he was “about the only
26O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
man in the Foreign Office who understood Russian "
—a language, he suggested, which might be substituted
for Greek as a means of educational discipline, and
which he himself had acquired during his residence
at St. Petersburg, where two favourite inmates of his
house were a native tutor and a bear. And not only
did he master Russian, but he also learned Polish, so
that once during the French War when a Polish sentry
refused to allow him to enter a particular house, it was
only when he addressed the man in his own Slavonic
dialect that he was permitted to pass.
But the Chancellor's linguistic attainments did not
stop here. In honour of the International Conference
for delimiting the Graeco-Turkish frontier (June
1880), Bismarck gave a dinner, at which he paid great
attention to Colonel Perrier, Chief of the Geographical
Section of the French War Ministry, whose technical
acquirements had led to his appointment as Committee-
reporter to the Conference.
“On entering his drawing-room in full uniform,”
wrote the Colonel, “the Chancellor welcomed me in
the most cordial manner, and, laying his hands on my
shoulders, said, “How tall you are, Colonel !’
“‘Not so tall as your Highness,' I replied.
“After dinner we all went out into the garden
behind—for it was a beautiful Summer cvening—the
Chancellor leading the way with me.
“‘And now you must taste my Cognac,' he said.
‘For the last twenty years I have got it from an
cxcellent source in Bordeaux–I can give you the
address, if you like.’
“The conversation grew very animated, and lots of
HONEST BROKER, 26 I
anecdotes were told—especially about the Southern
French, Bismarck showing that he was quite at home
in this field, and treating us to Some rattling good
stories about Marseilles. Here the Italian Ambassador
remarked that I myself was a Southerner, and very
proud of it too.
“‘But not from Marseilles surely P’ inquired the
Chancellor, with a smile, as he thought of the
Marseilles stories which he had just been telling.
“‘Oh, no,' I replied ; “I am from the Cevennes.’
“‘Well, then, you are a Protestant, I suppose P’
“I answered in the affirmative, and then Bismarck
began to speak of the Huguenots who had been driven
from the South of France, describing their exodus in
the liveliest of colours, their arrival in Prussia, which
they did so much to benefit, and showing himself
wonderfully well versed in the history of these
emigrants.
“‘In the South of France, he said, ‘life is very
pleasant; if I could only go there I should not suffer
So much from rheumatism.’
“He now proceeded to speak of the wars of the
Albigenscs and the Troubadours, reciting—with a
strong Teutonic accent, it is true—a fourteenth-century
poem of the minnesinger, Bertram de Born, in the
Provençal dialect. While doing all this he failed not
to honour duly the cognac from his excellent source
in Bordeaux, till at last the Princess gently re-
minded him that the evening air was now growing
rather chill for him—a remark which the Chancellor's
guests construed as a signal to break up.”
Frequent were the occasions on which the Princess
262 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
thus acted as a Dea ea machiné to her grateful
lord.
For example : the ambassador of a Great Power
One day called on Bismarck, and, in the course of a
rather long conversation, asked the Prince how he
managed to get rid of troublesome visitors—of bores,
in fact. “Oh, that is very simple,” replied the
Chancellor. “When my wife thinks any one is staying
too long, she merely sends for me, and thus the inter-
view ends.” At that very moment a servant entered,
and, bowing low, begged his master to favour the
Princess with his presence for a few minutes. The
ambassador blushed, and at once withdrew, as grace-
fully as possible in the trying circumstances.
“She it is who has made me what I am,” once
said Bismarck of his wife to Signor Crispi ; and to
others also he never missed an opportunity of eulo-
gising her economic virtues.
The band of a Saxon rifle regiment had come to
Berlin (July 1874) to give a series of concerts, and
one day, after treating the Chancellor to some “table
music,” the members were invited in and shown all
the historical curiosities of his palace. “These are
my wife's apartments,” he said, “and, as you See’’
(pointing to a safe), “she acts as my treasurer. If
any of you are married, let me give you this piece of
good advice : leave the purse also to your wife, and
take nothing out of it which she doesn't give you.
From the very first I left my wife in charge of the
purse, and laid myself out for politics—and I have
always found that this was a very good arrangement.
“And here, look you, is a great curiosity—the table
HONEST BROKER. 263
on which peace was signed at Versailles. Herc we sat
—Thiers, Favre, and I–playing whist with a dummy ,
and that the dummy finally won was partly due to
you, for had all our men not behaved so bravely
there would have been no trumps for me to hold
in my hand. Had we only been a united people two
centuries ago, there is no reason why the French
should have then tyrannised over us as they did. But
now, thanks be to God, we are united, and I trust we
shall ever remain so. In that case, should the French
try to meddle with us again, we shall lay them on
their backs as bcfore.”
Referring to the campaign of 1866—in which the
Saxons had taken part against Prussia as the allies of
the Austrians—the Prince made each of his visitors
shake hands with him and promise that all the events
of that painful time should be forgotten and for-
given.
“And you may tell every honest Saxon,” continued
the Chancellor, “that I shall always take off my hat
to them ; for they alone had the courage to show us
a bold front when all the others" [Austrians] “had lost
their heads "[at Königgrätz].
Hereupon the Prince asked the senior of the
bandsmen what he meant to do when his time was up.
The man replied that he had thoughts of joining the
gendar/lerie (rural constabulary), or the telegraph
service.
“Ah, very well,” quoth the kindly Chancellor. “If
the latter is your aim, you had better come to me, as
I have some influence in that quarter.”
But while thus enjoining on Saxon, Bavarian, and
264 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Prussian alike, the duty of forgetting past differences,
and of losing sight of their “narrower Fatherland” ”
in their citizenship of the Empire, the Chancellor
argued that the several representatives of the Federal
Sovereigns at Berlin should display the utmost
independence of thought and action in dealing with
all the questions submitted to their consideration.
Speaking with a deputy from Lübeck and another
from Stuttgart at one of his soirées (April 1872),
Bismarck said :
“It is a pleasant thing about the meeting of the
Reichstag that it always enables us to meet our old
friends again, and to keep Our views fresh by an
exchange of opinion between North and South.
That should also be the task of the Federal Council "
[representing the allied Sovereigns], “but with its
present composition this is impossible. I consider
it a great advantage of our constitution that the
Empire consists of such a variety of States—large and
small ; and it should be the business of the Bundesrath
to give a true reflection, from its particular point of
view, of the aims and wishes of the whole Empire. It
is, however, painful to me to think that the minor
States and their representatives do not appear to
recognise this ; at least, they do not venture to Speak
out. As a matter of fact I should like to have more
opposition from them, and construe this reserve on
their part as a want of confidence in the honesty
of my intentions. It was a positive misfortune that
* “Angeres Water/and ”—the particular State (Prussia,
Saxony, Bavaria etc.) in which a German subject happens to
be born, as opposed to the “entire Fatherland.”
IHONEST BROKER. 265
Prussia became so large in 1866, and for my part, I
should like to have seen Hanover, Hesse, and Nassau
maintained as Sovereign States. Unfortunately
that could not be, the dynasties in question were SO
degenerate, and no longer able to understand their
position and their duties. They even carried their
folly so far as to divide humanity into men, women,
and princes.
“After the Peace” [of Frankfort] “it was rumoured
that the Emperor intended to give me a large sum
of money and make me ruling Duke of Lauenburg.
Well, I should have been very glad to have thus been
granted a bit of sovereign ground under my feet.”
But I should have acted very differently " [from the
minor Sovereigns] “had I thus become a member of
the Federal Council. In that body, as in the English
House of Lords, the various Governments should
assume a much firmer and more outspoken attitude
towards the Imperial Government. But what are you
to do with a number of jog-trot old bureaucrats who
always want to know what the large and powerful
States think of any matter before voting on it them-
selves P
“Why, for example, should the Prince of Schwarz-
burg-Rudolstadt not be as emphatic in his opposition
as an English Lord P But he is afraid that the next
* It will thus be seen that, in conferring the mere title of
Duke of Lauenburg on Bismarck, when dismissing him from
office (in 1890), William II. did even less than his grandfather,
William I., had thought of doing a score of years previously.
Anyhow, it was not a new idea on the part of the young
Emperor at all.
266 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
time he comes to Berlin for the Emperor's birthday, or
for a review, he will be treated rather coldly. Well,
Surely that wouldn't do him very much harm. Besides,
I would willingly undertake to see to it that my
gracious master should know nothing about such
doings in the Federal Council. I should even have
no objection to democratic brawlers being returned to
this body who, heedless of Prussia, would out with
their opinions in a firm and unreserved manner. Such
a struggle would be sure to bring out for the first
time what I believe to be the great advantage of our
Federal Constitution ; but in our present temper there
is no chance of this. It is only with time that the
thing can be done.”
This was a very fine theory of independence which
Bismarck had preached ; but when any member of
the Federal Council ventured on its serious practice,
the Prince himself was the first to protest against it.
Let one prominent instance suffice.
In the spring of 1880, the question of the day was
the inclusion of Altona within the customs-frontier of
the Empire—an act which the Senate of the Frce
City of Hamburg declared to be unconstitutional
without its express assent. The question was laid
before the Federal Council, and the Bavarian member
of this body, Herr von Rudhart, had made no secret
of his intention to support the view of the Hamburg
Senate. What, therefore, was the surprise of this
diplomatist, on presenting himself at the Chancellor's
ensuing soirée, to be assailed by his host before the
whole company with the bitterest of reproaches,
including even the word “conspirator.” Stammcring
HONEST BROKER. 267
out some few words to the effect that the Prince must
have been misinformed, Herr von Rudhart at Once
sent for his carriage, and, as soon as it was announced,
gave his wife his arm and took his leave.
Smarting with shame and wounded pride the un-
fortunate diplomatist wrote his host a high-toned
letter of expostulation. The Chancellor replied to
this by requesting the Government of his offended
guest to recall him from Berlin, and his Government
hastened to comply with the Chancellor's demand by
transferring its representative to St. Petersburg, where
Bismarck himself had becn similarly “placed in ice ’’
about a score of years before. The Prince regretted
this issue of the affair, but vowed he could not help
it. “Had the man shown more spirit in the matter,”
be said afterwards, “it would have been different.
It is true I may have spoken to him somewhat rudely,
but he ought to have answered me still more rudely
there and then, and the thing would have been over.
Instead of that he went away and wrote me an insolent
letter in cold blood, which I could not pardon.”
How, on the other hand, a soft answer was over
calculated to turn away the Prince's wrath was well
illustrated by the following incident.
A tipsy peasant fellow at Varzin had staggered up
against the Princess, and been sharply pushed aside
by her husband. What with the drink in his head
and the shove he had got from the Chancellor, the
man went sprawling ; but, picking himself up, he
apologised in such a humble and rueful manner that
the Prince at once repented of having treated the
boor SO roughly.
268 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“These people are so incredibly good-natured,” he
said to his wife, “that now I feel as if I should like to
go and beg the fellow's pardon.”
With a previous member of the Federal Council
for Bavaria, Count Perglas, Bismarck had a difference
which he treated with more delicacy.
The Prince had asked the Count to join him and
his fellow-members of that body in defiling before the
thronc. The Count, however, preferred to attach
himself for this purpose to the Diplomatic Corps,
whereupon Bismarck addressed him in French, saying
that as “Bavaria now appears to have resumed a
European position " [which she had voluntarily abne-
gated on the establishment of the Empire], “I must,
of Course, Converse with you in the usual language of
diplomacy.”
Four years after the Rudhart incident, there was
again some talk at Friedrichsruh about the inde-
pendence of Hamburg, which Some had thought to
be threatened by the policy of the Imperial Govern-
ment, and Bismarck remarked :
“I should like to know who it is that is going to
mcddle with the position of Hamburg as an indc-
pendent portion of the Empire. Certainly not the
Empire itself, seeing that it is particularly Solicitous
about the independence of the Hanse Towns—
especially Hamburg. It is only a pity that we
haven't more of the same kind, as half a dozen such
Free Cities would be a perfect blessing to Our Con-
federation. If those already belonging to it were to
cease to exist, there would only be left the larger
States—Prussia, Bavaria, etc.—and then the proceed-
HONEST BROKER. 269
ings of the Federal Council would become very
difficult. It is the minor States in the Confederation
which act as mortar for the others.”
In connection with the question of including the
Hanse Towns within the Zollverein of the Empire, an
official letter of Bismarck had somehow found its way
into print; and being asked whether he had not felt
very much annoyed by the indiscretion :
“Not in the least,” he replied, “for the letter only
showed that I had done my duty. Indeed, I felt
like the statesman who, on hearing that a letter of
his had been betrayed for the sum of thirty thalers,
remarked that he would gladly have written thirty
such letters for one thaler.”
But while maintaining that the minor States should
act as “mortar" to the Federal edifice, Bismarck was
of opinion that Prussia should cease to give a specific
character to the structure.
At one of his soirées (December 1875) a Würtemberg
deputy remarked: “If people in the South could only
get rid of the apprehension that Germany was to
be absorbed by Prussia, and come to believe in the
Contrary process, we should all feel that the national
unification had been rid of its last stone of offence.”
“You are quite right,” replied the Chancellor.
“Prussia must be absorbed by Germany ; but Prussia
is rather Stout. It must not be forgotten that I am
the only German Minister ; the others being Prussian,
I3avarian, etc.”
Two years later, at a dinner where Moltke was
among his guests, the Chancellor, talking on the same
Subject, said :
27,o BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
“Prussia is more in want of Germanising than
Germany of Prussianising.”
Holding thus that the institutions of Prussia should
be Germanised, the Chancellor was equally emphatic
in declaring that the Constitutions both of Prussia
and the Empire should not be abrogated or impaired.
The year 1872 had been the jubilee of Parliament-
arism in Germany—Frederick William IV. having
summoned the first United Diet to Berlin in 1847;
and on some one—a reactionary—remarking to
Bismarck, at One of his soirées, that Constitutionalism
in Germany would last half a century longer at least,
the Chancellor replied that he had too much to do
with the present to be able to concern himself with
profound speculations as to the future. But if he
were to express an Opinion as to Constitutions, he
must say that they could no longer be dispensed with.
Parliament and the Press were the necessary adjuncts
of a Government, for even the greatest absolute
monarch could no longer manage the complicated
machinery of a modern State. Above all things it
was the duty of Parliament and the Press to lay
bare administrative abuses. With /a /au/e /o///i7ue
(foreign affairs, etc.) they should concern themselves
less, as in this field the leading threads of policy lay
for the most part so much concealed as to make it
impossible for the uninitiated to form a sufficiently
sound Opinion on the Subject.
A few years later (February 1879) the Chancellor,
at one of his soirées, referred to the charges urged
against him by the Press, that his protectionist policy
was but a masked advance towards reaction. But he
HONEST BROKER. 27 I
did not, he said, want any reaction. If so, he could
easily have had it after 1866 and 1871. What was
meant by the word “reaction”? Absolute rule. But
this was no longer possible; a country must now be
ruled with the aid of public opinion. Whocver
wanted to hang modern times in ancient picture-
frames must remember that these were liable to be
broken by the slightest touch. Up to 1848 absolutism
had been of the benevolent but unintelligent kind. If
writers had to sign their articles, the Press could be
made much more effective ; but in existing circum-
stances, Parliaments were the best means of expressing
public opinion that could be devised. He had no
intention, therefore, of taking refuge in reaction, but
he would accept allies wherever he could find them.”
* Speaking in the Reichstag a little later (July 9th, 1879),
the Chancellor said: “On returning from the war of 1866 it
would have been easy for me to say, ‘ Prussia has now ex-
panded; her Constitution no longer suits her; we must amend
it.” In short, I was in a position to carry out the boldest and
most incisive policy of reaction with the success and Čc/a/
which still attached to me from Königgrätz. But, as you
know, I did the opposite, and in doing so incurred the
aversion of a large portion of my old political friends ; it cost
me a hard struggle to do the opposite of what they wished, to
ask for a bill of indemnity and to go on with the Constitutional
system. Gentlemen, I will not make myself better than I am.
. . I am no foe of Constitutionalism ; on the contrary, I hold
it to be the only possible form of government. If I had
thought that absolutism in Prussia would have better pro-
moted the work of German unity, I should most decidedly
have counselled recourse to it. But after bitter struggles to
overcome influences that were dear to me, I came to the con-
clusion that we must continue on the path of Constitutional
law.” See also p. 123.
272 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
But while thus declaring himself to be a constitu-
tionalist, the Chancellor astonished his guests one
evening (February 1881) by telling them that he had
just committed a coup d'état. Hitherto, he said, it had
been the rule in Prussia for fishing boats to show
red and green lights in the darkness and during a
storm, so as to obviate their being run down by
passing vessels. In other States this rule had been long
abolished. For, apart from the fact that the fishers
themselves naturally did all they could to obviate
such a danger, and that in the Kurischer Haff, for
example, they couldn't afford to get the necessary
lights, the rule in question was calculated to produce
an effect the very opposite of what it aimed at, seeing
that “the tumble and the tossing” of a stormy sea
tended to reverse the position of the lights, and thus
lure passing ships in the wrong direction—straight on
to the top of the fishing boats. That would never do ;
therefore he had blotted out this preposterous rule of
the sca, and, in fact, Committed a kind of coup d'état.
But while otherwise claiming to be a sincerely con-
vinced Constitutionalist, Bismarck was for ever harping
on the evils and defects of parliamentarism as
practised in Germany. Talking once about pro-
fessional politicians, he thought it was a great
misfortune for Parliament that so many of its
members always returned to it after new clections,
seeing that they thus represented their own opinions
and interests much less than those of the public.
What was wanted was new men and fresh blood.
And then as to the plague of partics : “In a large
State like Prussia or Germany it is not a question of
HONEST BROKER. 273
whether a particular Minister inclines more to the
Right or the Left on any subject, for this tendency
would be countervailed by Parliament. But it is
much more important that government should be in
one direction, for when half a dozen horses are yoked
to a waggon, they must be made to obey one will,
otherwise they won't get on.”
“Don’t you know,” said the Prince on another
occasion, “that wherever there are three Germans
there are always four opinions P But perhaps it was
a wise thing of Providence to have thus infected the
Germans with such a passion for contrariety, Seeing
that, if united in all things, such”[tremendous] “fellows
as they are would lift the whole world off its hinges.” "
At a later time (1878) the Chancellor remarked that
parliamentary government of the English kind was his
ideal. Such government was possible with two clearly
defined parties, as in England ; but not in Germany,
where there were seven or eight different fractions.
Even in the Prussian Chamber, too, some of these
parties—the Progressists, for example—were organised
differently from what they were in the Reichstag.
Some one having complained of the great incon-
venience which arose from the simultaneous sitting of
the Prussian and Imperial Parliaments in cach of which
many deputies held a seat, which thus entailed upon
them an enormous amount of work, the Chancellor
replied : “Well, we must have some consideration for
the Bavarian, Würtemberg, or any other Dict ; but a
member of the Prussian Landtag who also accepts a
seat in the Reichstag must simply have double nerves.”
* Compare p. 137.
I 8
CHAPTER XI.
A.SCO//A/2/US A1/W/O ACA////_/2.S.
T One of the Prince's soºrces in November 1881
there was some talk about the proposed new
Imperial House of Parliament (which now stands on
the Königsplatz in Berlin, having been opened by
William II. in 1894), and Herr von Unruh asked the
Chancellor where it was going to be built.
The latter replied that, if he could have his own way
in the matter, he would have it erected on the
Pfingstberg, at Potsdam.
“Or the Blocksberg’ [the mountain peak in the
Harz where the witches hold their dance on Wal-
purgis Night], rejoined Von Unruh jocosely.
“No,” rejoined the Prince. “I am really in earnest;
the Reichstag should not be held in the capital.
Just think how wise it was of the Americans to choose
Washington, instead of New York, as the seat of their
Legislature | The French, too, saw that Paris was un-
suited for their Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and
selected Versailles. In the same way the Germans
should go to Potsdam.”
To this Von Unruh objected that, in America, all
the State departments were also at Washington ;
that the members of the Reichstag could not be housed
274
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 275
at Potsdam ; that the Imperial authorities should have
the same location as the Prussian Ministries, and that
therefore there could be no question of transferring
the former to Potsdam, the cradle of the Prussian
army.
But this reasoning did not at all satisfy the Chan-
cellor, who contended that his plan was feasible
enough, and that villas might be run up near the
Pfingstberg for the accommodation of the deputies.
On a later occasion, too, in the Reichstag, he gave
serious expression to the same idea, although he had
previously been excessively mortified by the decision
of the Federal Council to locate at Leipzig the
Supreme Court of the Empire.
On the other hand, however, Bismarck himself
once threatened to transfer the seat of government
to Munich. This was when he wanted to get Dr.
Schweninger—a Munich man—appointed to the
Chair of Dermatology in the University of Berlin,
in order that this new-found and favourite physician
of the Chancellor might always be conveniently near
his person. But, owing to certain dark incidents in
the past career of the Doctor, there arose a great
outcry in Berlin against his being thus pitchforked
into such a position of social and professional honour.
The affair was brought before the Prussian Parliament,
and even the Minister of Public Worship, Herr von
Gossler, endeavoured to dissuade the Chancellor from
carrying out his masterful purpose.”
* When questioned on the subject in the Prussian Chamber,
the Minister of Public Worship was forced to admit that the
Chancellor’s “Banting ” had once come into conflict with the
276 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“Very well, then,” at last said Bismarck to Gossler;
“do as you like. But let me give you timely
warning—if Schweninger has to return to Munich,
I shall certainly go with him.” It is needless to say
that the Doctor got his chair, and that Berlin thus
continued to be the seat of the Imperial Government.
Schweninger—a very Semitic-looking man—had
been introduced to the Chancellor by the latter's
Second son, Count “Bill,” who, having grown
enormously stout for a man of his age, had success-
fully Submitted to a Banting process of maceration
at the hands of the Munich doctor. In 1881
Schweninger went with his patient, Count “Bill,” on a
visit to Varzin, and on this occasion he was secretly
consulted by the Princess regarding the Prince, and
by the Prince regarding the Princess. His stay was
prolonged until he had to remind the Prince that the
duties of his profession in Munich summoned him
away. Before he went, however, the Chancellor had
poured out his whole plaint to him. No sleep, aches
and pains in nerves and veins, disordered digestion—
doctors and prescriptions all of no use ! The doctors,
he said, had told him that he was worn out ; that he
must lie on a Sofa and stay indoors; that he must
avoid all excitement ; virtually, in fact, that he must
patiently await the arrival of death for release.
Schweninger listened patiently to all this tale of
woe, but he refused to prescribe unless he were per-
criminal law, but contended that the services of the “name-
less doctor,” as he was called, “to the person of our leading
statesman were meritorious enough to make it possible for us
to overlook his moral delinquencies.”
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 277
mitted to undertake the whole treatment and the
whole responsibility. He declared his opinion that
unless “the Chancellor's whole way of living were
changed, unless he practised strict Self-command, and
allowed his diet, exercise, repose, etc., to be submitted
to a most scrupulous and minute control, he might
drag along as he was doing for some six months
longer, but that Nature would then imperiously assert
her rights.”
Six months later, when Schweninger passed through
Berlin on his way to Dantzig, Bismarck had been
given up by the doctors, whose diagnosis wavered
between cancer of the liver and cancer of the stomach.
His powers were failing, and he lost in weight daily.
Schweninger, on being consulted informally, still con-
fined his replies to precepts of a general nature. But
he had scarcely arrived in Dantzig when a telegram
summoned him back to Berlin. The Prince's family
were in despair ; the Prince had resolved to entrust
himself unreservedly to Schweninger's care. But the
difficulty lay in the impossibility of controlling or
dictating to the Chancellor, who was accustomed to
command rather than to obey.
There was a very dramatic scene—the Prince
walking up and down in a state of alternate ac-
quiescence and rebellion, Schweninger calmly eyeing
him and awaiting his decision. At an early stage of
this first Consultation the Prince was said to have
lost his temper and to have growled, “Don’t ask so
many questions”; to which Schweninger replied,
“Then please consult a veterinary surgeon; he asks
no questions !” When, at the close of the interview,
278 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Bismarck tugged at the bell, the doctor was in doubt
as to whether he was not to be shown out into the
Street. But the command was, “Fetch the Doctor's
things from the station,” and thenceforth Schweninger
continued to be the Chancellor's body physician—
almost, indeed, a member of his household. Schwen-
inger was actually the hundred-and-first doctor who
had tried his skill on Bismarck, who said, “The
difference between Schweninger and my former
doctors lies in this : that I treated them, while
Schweninger treats me.”
At first Schweninger found it impossible to persuade
his patient to go to bed at ten, and used, therefore, to
call punctually at that hour for a long time to make
sure that he had really retired. This was well known
in the circles which Schweninger frequented ; and
when he disappeared at the usual hour, people used
to say, “He has to go and put the Prince to bed
first.”
An irreverent Frenchman once remarked that “if
the Colossus ever died, it would be in consequence of
a colossal fit of indigestion "; and, indeed, the
Chancellor had frequently exposed himself to danger
in this respect. Once he remarked that he was very
fond of “hard-boiled eggs, though now "[in 1870] “he
could only manage three ; but the time was when he
could make away with elevcn.” “In Our family,” he
said upon another occasion, “we are all great eaters.
If there were many in the country with Such a
capacity, the State could not exist. I should have
to emigrate.” And again : “If I am to work well, I
must be well fed. I can make no proper peace if
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES. 279
they don't give me proper food and drink ; that's
part of my pay;”—which reminds one of the reply of
Clearchus to the envoys of the Persian King, “that
there was no one who would dare to talk to the
Greeks of a truce without first supplying them with
a breakfast.”
He always preferred strong food, especially marrow ;
and in trying to bite through the hind leg of a hare
he once lost a tooth. Lothar Bucher, the Prince's
secretary, related this a few days afterwards to the
French Ambassador, M. de Courcel, who exclaimed,
in astonishment, “Oh, 7/107, Diez / Oh, 1ſton Diez / "
He had always been a great eater, a deep drinker,
and a heavy smoker. In his earlier days, indeed, he
was what the Germans call a “chain-smoker”—a
species of the weed-consuming genus whose morning
and night is connected by a cable of cigars, each link
of which is lighted at the stump of its predecessor.
Bismarck once related that in this way he had, for
example, smoked all the way from Cologne to Berlin,
a railway journey of about ten hours. “Happy
man " Once sighed Gambetta to a friend who was
talking to him about the German Chancellor. “Happy
man Beer and smoke agree with him.” But the
time came when he could not even look at a cigar.
“I have not given up cigars,” he once said ; “it is they
who have given up me.”
But not even Schweninger could wean him from
his love of good drink–Schweninger, of whom his
illustrious patient Once said : “The nearer one is to
Rome, the more he may sin.” A couple of Germans
living in Warsaw wagered a hundred roubles as to
28O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
whether their Chancellor drank more wine or beer, and
applied to him directly for a settlement of the point.
“His Highness,” replied his secretary, “directs me to
inform you that you are both right, as he is equally
fond of good wine and good beer, and, with the ex-
ception of those days when he is ill, drinks the one
as well as the other.”
Once, when entertaining at Friedrichsruh a deputa-
tion of veterans from Kissingen, the Chancellor
pressed his visitors to drink champagne, saying that
one or other of them would be sure to have to make
a speech yet, and that would give him courage. “It
was ever so with myself,” he added ; “I always spoke
much better in the Reichstag when I had a flask of
Moselle and a pint of champagne under my belt.”
“I have received so many presents of wine,” said
the Chancellor once to some guests, “that I am afraid
I shall not be able to drink it all in this world. I
grudge my heirs nothing except my wine cellar.”
All that Schweninger could do was to instruct the
Chancellor how to enjoy his cellar in the most innocent
manner. Once a certain Dr. Hofman of Hamburg
went to Friedrichsruh and found the Prince Seated on
a sofa, engaged in drinking a pint of champagne
out of the bottle itself. The Prince explained, in
extenuation of this unpleasant practice, that Dr.
Schweninger had ordered him to do so in order that
he might thus wholly assimilate the carbonic acid in
the liquid. He (the Prince) added, that he must
offer the same explanation to every One, SO as to
obviate the suspicion of his being a Secret toper.
At a dinner he gave (April 1876) to the members
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES. 28 I
of a Cholera Commission, consisting of Some of the
brightest medical luminaries in the Fatherland, one of
them, Dr. Günther, sought to interest the Chancellor
in the subject of the pollution of rivers.
“Ac/, /* exclaimed the Prince, “away with your
examinations of water—what can come of that P
Wine and beer are the things you Ought to examine—
it is incredible the extent to which they are adulter-
ated.”
Dr. Günther replied that no beer-analysis of which
he had any knowledge had ever revealed the exist-
ence of noxious elements. If any one suffered from
drinking malt liquor, it was to be assumed—either
that he had taken too much, or that the beer had
not been well kept, or that the ingredients used in its
production had not been wholly free from Objection.
But the Prince stuck to his proposition, maintaining
the necessity for the frequent analysis of beer and
wine.
And, d propos, he wondered how it was that in
many districts of Prussia, where wine used to be
grown, it was grown no longer. Was this because
the climate in the interval had become rawer, or that
our taste had grown more refined, and could no
longer relish the vineyard products of certain districts?
The latter theory seemed to the Chancellor to be the
likelier of the two, and none of his scientific guests
sought to gainsay it.
Once, when speaking of agriculture, the Chancellor
went on to compare the Pomeranians and the Nether
Saxons. The former were sober, moderate, and easily
satisfied, while the Saxons, on the other hand, bearing
282 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
more resemblance to the English, sought to make life
as Comfortable and easy as possible.
And, Suiting the action to the word, the Prince took
hold of a huge silver jug and began to fill the glasses
of his guests with Bavarian beer. In doing this he
drew their attention to the massive lid, which was
adorned with a fine medallion portrait. “That is the
head,” he said, “ of Field-Marshal Derfflinger” [the
conqueror of the Swedes at Fehrbellin], “who was
one of my ancestors.”
Thereupon some one asked whether this was a
model of the famous “Bernau Jug" which had
played such a prominent rôle in the life of the
illustrious Field Marshal. Young Derfflinger, who had
been apprenticed to a tailor, was one day despatched
to the neighbouring townlet of Bernau in the Mark
to fetch a jug of beer. But instead of returning home
with the liquor, he had drunk it all up, and then
cnlisted as a soldier—much to the advantage of his
fatherland. Bismarck was proud of his ancestor for
having done this.
Bernau is not so very far from Rathenow, the town
nearest to Bismarck's own birthplace of Schönhausen,
on the Elbe ; and when a civic deputation (in 1875)
came to Berlin to present the Chancellor with the
freedom of the little borough, they were received
with a warmth such as the Prince had shown to the
bearers of no similar compliment from the largest
cities in the Fatherland. “Gentlemen,” he said, when
introducing the deputation to his guests at a parlia-
mentary soirée, “you are not to look upon Rathenow
as a place of no account. It is, in fact, one of the
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES. 283
most important towns in the Prussian monarchy;
for it was there that the Great Elector, in 1675, laid
the foundation of what is now the Prussian army,
while it was there also, in 1848, that I myself began
my parliamentary career. It was there that I
delivered my maiden speech, and got pelted with
stones for doing so.”
But as young Derfflinger had drunk up the beer
that was intended for his parents, so there were
modern imitations of the embryo Field Marshal who
scrupled not to tamper with the liquor which was
consigned to the Imperial Chancellor.
In the Reichstag one day (November 1874)
Bismarck had contended for an increase of Imperial
taxation in a certain form, saying that the “Reich's-
cask should everywhere be tapped"; and at his
parliamentary soiree the same evening he himself was
the first to fill his mug from a keg of beer which had
been placed upon the table. But there seemed to be
something wrong with the taste of the malt liquor,
and the Chancellor shook the keg lightly, in order to see
whether it had been quite full—this being essential to
the perfect flavour of the beer. The shaking of the keg
revealed the existence of a vacuum decidedly larger
than that which would have been merely created by
the contents of the tankard he had drawn off, and
then he remarked, with a laugh, “Look here, gentle-
men, here is another argument in favour of the taxa-
tion policy for which I pleaded to-day, for even this
Reich's-cask here has not becn left untapped on its
way from Munich.”
At another of his “beer-evenings” (March 1881)
284 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
the Chancellor forgathered with some of his old
fellow-students and began to complain that he could
now only drink a pint or two before going to bed.
This was shortly before he put himself into the re-
storatory hands of Dr. Schweninger.
“Well, your Highness has changed tremendously
since we were at Göttingen. Great heavens ! When
I think of those days, and the ‘beer-journey' we made
among the towns and villages of the Thuringian
Forest ”
“ſa wo/i/,” replied the Prince, “we were conscien-
tious in our tasting of all the seventy different kinds
which you will find enumerated by my so-called
biographer, Wellmer. But I have learned something
in the course of my long life with regard to drinking
as well as economic policy. Formerly I conformed to
the prevailing taste. As Fitc/s (freshman) I drank
like our Senior, and as Minister I surrendered myself
to the leading Strings of Delbrück and Camphausen,
but now I have emancipated myself in One respect as
well as the other. In our potations, no less than in Our
political economy” [this was said about the beginning
of the Prince’s “Era of Economic Reform”], “we must
forsake the old, beaten paths. . . . I have often said
that beer-drinking makes one stupid "[he who drinks
beer, thinks beer], “and when I think of my young
days, and what I myself did in this respect, I wonder
that I am not wholly turned to phlegm.
“Look at one or two of your colleagues—Lasker, for
instance; he drinks absolutely nothing, and whenever
he wants a little recreation he goes to Pontresina and
potters about among the glaciers. How can anything
AESCU LAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 285
be made of a little man who leads a life like that P
Then, again, take Meyer of Breslau. He was formerly
not at all so bad, but now he has become beer-
Meyer,’ in theory as well as practice. And what is the
result P. He has gone over to the Secessionists. It's
a pity, for he has failed in life—like all beer that isn't
drunk ; you know the joke P’’
“Well, but there is Braun " [of Wiesbaden] “who
has also joined the Secessionists’ [radically inclined
offshoots from the National Liberals].
“Yes, alas ! but that he can only have done in a
champagne mood; otherwise he is a splendid fellow—
quite apart from his e1/2&ompoſſilſ. . . . Just think how he
lugged along with him half a dozen Rüdesheimer
Berg through the hills of Montenegro–the poor mule
that bore him died a week later of sheer exhaustion—
and drank brotherhood with Prince Nikita | It's a
positive fact, though the Montenegrin Gagette took
Care to say nothing about it. . . . But now he is /ræ,’”
eZ com/pagnie with beer-Swillers of the worst kind—
N—, for example, a beer-genius of folio size. Oh,
it's shameful And then he had the malice to write
this gutter-jingle of me —
‘ Gefähr/ich isã der A7%rassfer,
Ar rezºeſ Schriž 2//?d frz///# cric/ Brey.
(“Right dangerous is our Cuirassier;
He walks his horse and drinks much beer.”)
Well, I do neither one nor the other. But you see
what beer-drinking can bring a man to. I assure you
that the whole Radical ring is little other than a
product of ‘white beer.' There are some very clever
286 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
fellows among them, too, but at present they can do
nothing but sit and spout and worry me about my
taxation policy. . . . The horror of anything like a
tax is simply ridiculous ; and then they are silly
enough to imagine that I can abolish an old tax with-
Out imposing a new one ! -
“But to return to our subject: beer must be made
to bleed as well as tobacco—that we owe the public
purse as well as the public health. At the present
time fifty per cent. Of Our male population spend their
evenings in pot-houses, where they sit swilling beer,
smoking cigars and pipes, and abusing the Government,
after which they go home with a proud feeling of
having done a heavy day's work.”
“It would be much better,” remarked the Chancellor
on another Occasion, “for Our people to drink good
sc/maps. Beer only makes them stupid.”
Referring to a proposed new tax on spirits
(February, 1889) the Chancellor regretted that this
should press heavily on the common labourer, who in
cold and wet weather could not possibly do without
his sch/laps, especially in North Germany. Some
one mentioned the word tobacco, and Bismarck said,
“Yes, I know many people, especially women, who
don't want tobacco ; but al/ want their sc/maps.”
That he himself had always belonged to the latter
category he once illustrated by the following story :
“I am not at all fond of liqueurs and sweet rubbish of
that sort; but at the parties of the late Empress
Augusta there was nothing else. Fortunately, among
her Majesty's lacqueys there were one or two knowing
fellows—one tall chap in particular, who had been in
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 287
the artillery—I can see him still. Whenever he came
to offer me anything, I winked with my right eye—
thus—and when he responded in the same manner
with the left, I knew that on this side of his tray
I should find a stiff glass of cognac waiting for
me.”
On another occasion the Chancellor said he was
very fond of a certain kind of Moselle cognac, which
he made a point of drinking in order to encourage
native industry; and on One of his guests asking
whether he didn't prefer French brandy, “No,”
replied the Prince, “I am fonder of the Moselle
brand, as I don't get it so often.”
“I only hope,” he once said, “that we shall never
be like the English, since they have taken to drinking
only tea and water,”—a very small proportion of
them, surely Probably, however, the Prince had in
his mind's eye the unpleasant spectacle of an English
journalist of the Rechabite persuasion, who had,
Some little time previously, paid him a visit at
|Friedrichsruh.
And yet, while singing the praises of sc/maps as a
less Stupefying liquor than malt, the Chancellor did
all he could to encourage the practice of beer-drinking
among his own friends. It was verging towards
midnight at One of his soirées, and the Prince's guests
were preparing to depart. But he pressed them to
stay, and, drinking up his beer, called for another
glass pour encourager les autres. The servant brought
him some Berlin brew.
“No, no,” he said ; “I want Hofbräu " [from
Munich].
288 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“Your Highness, the cask is empty.”
“Then tap the other one.”
“Your Highness, that is empty too.”—a reply
which was followed by Homeric bursts of laughter
among the deputies at their own exceeding thirst.
Some one said of a former President of the Reichstag
that he could never fall asleep without reading eleven
pages of Goethe ; which made another deputy remark
that he, for his part, Could never close his eyes before
he had drunk fifteen Seidels (pints) of beer. And,
indeed, under the care of his Schweninger, the
Chancellor himself gradually improved his own power
of Consumption, or at least of absorption, in this
respect.
For instance, at One of these beer-evenings, a group
of deputies began to discuss the qualities of the
Chancellor's huge Reichshund, “Tyras,” which was
squatting at its master's feet, and one of them re-
marked that the magnificent animal was by no means
the first of its race which had ruled in the Radziwill
Palace. To make sure of the point, the deputy went
up to thc Chancellor, and, thinking that he had heard
the previous part of the conversation, begged to know
“how many of this sort” he had already had.
“Oh,” said the Prince, seizing up his glass of beer
and taking a good Swig, “this is already my eighth ;
but yesterday I managed my twelve pints and felt all
the better for them.”
The devotion of these dogs to their master was
great, in spite of Or, perhaps, cven in Consequence of
—the fact that he sometimes thrashed them severely.
Once the painter Lenbach went to call on the Chan-
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES. 289
cellor and found him quite beside himself with rage,
and unable to speak. When at last the Prince re-
covered his power of utterance, he explained that the
Reichshund had bitten a little lap-dog belonging to
his daughter, Countess Rantzau, and that he had
then lashed the animal with a riding whip until he
could no longer lift his arm. What with excitement
and exertion he had positively lost the use of his
tongue. The incident bore out the remark of one
who knew him well, that “the Chancellor is of a
choleric disposition, the least vexation being apt to
provoke him to volcanic outbursts of temper. But
the eruption rapidly subsides, and is never succeeded
by sulkiness or rancour.”
On another occasion Bismarck related that once,
sitting at table, he was seized with a kind of choking
fit, when his wife came and slapped him on the back
with the palm of her hand. Thinking that his beloved
master was being ill-used, the Reichshund rushed at
the Princess and, raising itself upon its hind legs,
seized her by the coiffure, and would have thrown her
to the ground had he not intervened.
A similar fatality, he said, had seemed to be im-
pending when once he put his arm round his wife's
waist to lead off a dance that was given to the younger
members of a dinner-party on the anniversary of
his escape from the bullet of Ferdinand Blind.
Thinking that their master was thus at handgrips
with an assailant, the two Realm-hounds began to
growl, and were with difficulty kept from springing
to his rescue. In the same manner the Prince had
saved Gortchakoff (at the time of the Berlin Congress)
I 9
29 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
from being set upon and worried by “Tyras ” when
the gouty Old Russian Chancellor, on rising from
table, had taken hold of his host's arm as a support
to the drawing-room.
It was no wonder that once, on a discussion arising
at Friedrichsruh as to whether the dog or the horse
was the more intelligent animal, the Chancellor stuck
up for the former, and supported his theory by several
racy anecdotes. The controversy taking a philo-
Sophical turn, the Prince—half in jest, perhaps—asked
whether it was right to represent man as the lord
of creation, and whether more highly developed beings
were not conceivable, and might even be in existence
in other worlds.
The predecessor of “Tyras” had been “Sultan,”
and when this favourite Reichshund lay down to die,
Bismarck watched beside his poor attendant with
Such an appearance of Sorrow that his eldest son at
last endeavoured to lead his father away. The
Prince took a few steps towards the door, but on
looking back his eyes met those of his old and faith-
ful friend. “No, leave me alone,” he said ; and he
returned to poor “Sultan.” When the dog was dead,
Bismarck turned to a friend who was standing near,
and said : “Those old German forefathers of ours
had a kind religion. They believed that, after death,
they would again meet in the celestial hunting-
grounds all the good dogs that had been their faithful
companions in life. I wish I could believe that.”
But what Bismarck did believe, he thus expressed
to some guests during the Franco-German war —
“If I were not a Christian, I would not continue to
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 29 I
serve the King another hour. Did I not obey my
God and count upon Him, I should certainly take no
account of earthly masters. I should have enough to
live upon, and occupy a sufficiently distinguished
position. Why should I incessantly worry myself
and labour in this world, exposing myself to em-
barrassments, annoyances, and evil treatment, if I did
not feel bound to do my duty on behalf of God P
Did I not believe in a Divine ordinance, which had
destined this German nation to become good and
great, I had never taken to the diplomatic trade; or,
having done so, I would long since have given it up.
“I know not whence I should derive my sense of
duty, if not from God. Orders and titles have no
charms for me ; I firmly believe in a life after death,
and that is why I am a Royalist ; by nature I am
disposed to be a Republican. To my steadfast faith
alone do I owe the power of resisting all manner of
absurdities which I have displayed throughout the
past ten years. Deprive me of this faith, and you
rob me of my Fatherland. Were I not a staunch
Christian, did I not stand upon the miraculous basis
of religion, you would never have possessed a Federal
Chancellor in my person. Find me a successor
animated by similar principles, and I will resign on
the spot.””
* In the spring of 1870, during a debate in the Reichstag
on the abolition of capital punishment, which he vehemently
opposed, Bismarck said: “For him who does not believe—
as / do, from Žhe Öoffo/72 of my hear?—that death is a transi-
tion from one existence to another, and that we are justified
in holding out to the worst of criminals in his dying hour the
comforting assurance, mors yazzaza vaſſa ; for him, I say, who
292 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
For the rest, we had better generalise the Chan-
Cellor's religious faith in the words which Lord
Beaconsfield puts into the mouth of one of his
characters. “‘As for that,’ said Waldersee, “sensible
men are all of the same religion.” “And pray what is
that P' inquired Prince Florestan. “Sensible men
never tell.’”
But while claiming to be a thorough Christian,
Bismarck was never much of a church-goer ; and on
the Subject of Sunday-observance he had peculiar
does not share that conviction, the joys of this life must
possess so high a value that I could almost envy him the
sensations they must procure to him. His occupations must
appear to him so teeming with promise of reward that I
cannot realise to myself what his state of feeling must be, if,
believing that his personal existence terminates for ever with
his bodily demise, he considers it worth while to go on living
at all. I will not in this place refer you to Hamlet's tragical
monologue, which sets forth all the reasons capable of induc-
ing him to put an end to himself, but for the contingency of
dreaming—perhaps of suffering—after death ; who knows
what P He who has made up his mind that no other existence
succeeds this one can scarcely expect a criminal—who, in the
words of the poet, ‘gazes steadfastly into nothingness from
the gallows,’ and for whom death is the peace, the slumber
yearned for by Hamlet—to carry on the necessary phosphoris-
ation of his brain for any length of time within the narrow
limits of a prison cell, bereft of all that lends a charm to
existence.” As a supplement to this may be quoted what the
Chancellor once said in the Reichstag (October 1878) with
reference to the materialistic belief of the party of anarchy :
“If I had come to entertain the belief attributed to these
men " [the Social Democrats]—“well, I live a life of great
activity, and occupy a lucrative post; but all this could offer
me no inducement to live One day longer did I not, as the
poet” [Schiller] “says, “believe in God, and a better future.’”
AESCUL.APIUS AND ACHILLES. 293
views. Once (May 1885) in connection with a debate
on compulsory Sunday observance (which he refused
to advocate in the Federal Council), Bismarck said :
“I must say that when I was in England I always
had a painful and uncomfortable impression of the
English Sunday ; and I was always glad when it was
over. I am sure, too, that many Englishmen had the
same feeling about it, for they sought to accelerate
the march of time (on that day), without witnesses,
in a manner which I would rather not characterise,
and were overjoyed when Monday dawned. Whoever
has lived in English society will understand what I
mean. On the other hand, if you go into the country
around Berlin, if it does not exactly happen to be
near a brewery, and look at the villages, you are pleased
with the appearance of the people in their holiday
garb, and thank God that we live not under the yoke
of an English Sunday.”
Reference had been made to Sunday observance
in England and America, and to the consequent
Superiority of these countries to Germany from an
industrial point of view. But the Prince contended
that this alleged superiority was due to very different
causes—in England, more especially, to the fact of its
possessing great contiguous stores of coal and iron, and
to the further circumstance that it enjoyed a start of
Several centuries in the race of civilisation. It could
be estimated, said the Chancellor, from many indica-
tions, that in the time of Shakespeare, or about three
Centuries ago, there was in England a degree of
material comfort, civilisation, and literary develop-
ment which Germany was then far from possessing.
2.94 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Germany had been thrown back by the Thirty Years'
War more than any other nation. Nevertheless, he
could not admit that the English, on the whole, were
better Christians than his own countrymen ; and as
for Sunday observance, there was a great deal of mere
habit in it.
One of the Chancellor's soirées towards the end of
1875 was held under the depressing influence of the
death of Count Wend zu Eulenburg, who had been
engaged to the Prince's only daughter. But the
Chancellor had expressed a wish that the deputies
would not allow this domestic bereavement of his to
interfere with their coming to his reception. In
matters of this kind, he said, he took a military
standpoint. Up to the funeral he observed strict
mourning, but after this he tried to assume a bold
and cheerful aspect.
The Chancellor had long been credited with cherish-
ing certain superstitions, such as a belief in ghosts,
in the influence of the moon on growth of plants and
human hair, in the mystic qualities of numbers, in
the unluckiness of doing business on Fridays, and of
thirteen sitting down to table. But at Varzin (in
1883) he once remarked to Dr. Busch : “All that
nonsense about my Superstitiousness has no more
solid foundation than mere jokes, or my consideration
for other people's feelings. I will make one of
thirteen at dinner as often as you please ; and I
transact the most important and critical business on
Fridays, if necessary.” -
But with dreams it was otherwise. Whatever the
Prince may have privately thought about these him-
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 295
self, he evidently deemed that they might be made
the means of breaking the opposition, by arousing the
fears, of his political adversaries. One evening (May
1872), for example, just at the time when certain of
the Chancellor's pet schemes—including a salt-tax—
were incurring bitter criticism in Parliament, he
gathered around him a group of deputies and told
them that he had lately had a frightful dream.
While anxiously meditating on the continuance of
national unity he had fallen asleep, and then the God
of Dreams had come and placed in his hands a map
of Germany. This had gradually grown more and
more rotten in his grasp, till at last it crumbled away
like tinder, and vanished in shreds. *
At this recital a kind of horror mantled the faces
of the deputies, but none of them, said an eyewitness,
had the courage, or the presence of mind, to remind
the Prince of the poet's words :
“A'izz Trazzzzz zsá 72/c//s, bedez, žef ???c//s fºrwahr,
Aezwegſes A/zzz zväzyż seizzey, Schau/z azaf wºe
Aezvegºes Wasser.”
(“A dream is nothing—meaning has it not ;
Our troubled blood throws up a surface-foam
Like troubled water.”)
“Bismarck,” remarked another, “underrates the
Splendour of his own work.” In consequence of
this tendency he was prone to dissatisfaction with
his own achievements. At the end of his official
career he said to Some friends at Friedrichsruh :
“I have seldom been a happy man. If I reckon
* On the subject of the Chancellor’s dreams, see also p. 74.
296 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
up the rare minutes of real happiness in my life, I
do not believe they would make more than twenty-
four hours in all. In my political life I never
had time to have the feeling of happiness. It was
Continuous fighting and wrestling, and when any
Success was achieved, then the anxiety not to lose it
again, and to find out how to turn it to the best
advantage, instantly cropped up. But in my private
life there have been moments of happiness. I re-
member, for instance, a really happy moment in my
youth, and that was when I shot my first hare. In
later years it gave me pleasure to see my irrigated
meadows and plantations thriving, and at home I
took pleasure in my wife and children.”
Again, at Varzin once, after sitting for some time
sunk in profound reflection, he lamented that he had
derived but small pleasure or satisfaction from his
political activity, but, on the other hand, much vexation,
anxiety, and trouble. He had, he said, made no one
happy by it—neither himself, his family, nor any one
else. “But probably,” he continued, “many unhappy.
Had it not been for me, there would have been three
great wars the less ; the lives of eighty thousand men
would not have been sacrificed ; and many parents,
brothers, sisters, and widows, would not now be
mourners. That, however, I have settled with my
Maker.”
How slippery a thing in the eyes of Bismarck peace
ever was may be inferred from his reply to a deputy
who, at one of his dinners (January 1888), expressed
his astonishment at the continued nervousness of the
Bourse in spite of the fact that the air had recently
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 297
been cleared by the arrival of the Tsar (Peace-
Keeper) in Berlin, and by the restoration of cordial
relations between the two Empires in Consequence of
Bismarck's exposure of the famous Bulgarian des-
patches, which had been maliciously forged with the
view of poisoning the mind of Alexander III. against
the German Chancellor.
“Well,” said Bismarck, “the late events certainly
justify the hope that for two or three years there will
be no war.” But then, correcting himself, “For this
year, at least, I think I may safely say.” And after a
short pause, “On the other hand, it is true, I was
equally of the same opinion in the year 1870, and
after all it turned out otherwise.”
Moltke believed that war, on the whole, was a
positive blessing for the human race, and that it would
go ill with the world when it ceased to fight. On the
other hand, Maurice Jókai once declared that war
would never cease on the earth, even if the human
race dwindled down to two individuals ; and in
speaking thus, the Hungarian author but expressed
the creed of the German Chancellor. At the pro-
posals of the International Peace and Arbitration
Society, Bismarck merely smiled.
Referring, at One of his soirées, to a disarmament
motion which had been brought forward in the
Reichstag (March 1879) by a Würtemberg deputy,
Herr von Bühler, Bismarck declared that such a thing
was altogether impossible for Germany; at any rate,
on account of her geographical position, Germany
could never make a beginning. This situation was a
very favourable one as far as transit-dues were con-
298 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
cerned, but otherwise she was in the disagreeable
position of having always to form front on four sides,
and of not being able to place implicit confidence in
any of her neighbours.”
The better to enable Germany to form front on
two sides at least, if not four, it was shortly after this
that Bismarck went to Vienna to conclude the
Austro-German Alliance; and then he wrote to his
co-negotiator, Count Andrassy : “With regard to the
final result of our efforts, we have indeed the satis-
faction of knowing that most of the honest people
between Aix-la-Chapelle and Mehadia are grateful to
us for the service rendered the two great Empires.
The fear of war has everywhere made way for the
confident hope of peace. But, så väs pace/a, para
be/u?/2 ; not our good intentions, only our united
fighting-forces, are the guarantees of peace. But if the
Monarchs and the people are forced to choose between
their Army and their Parliamentary orators, it cannot
fail in the long run that two-thirds of the people will
prove honest, else the machine is wrongly constructed.”
* To Herr von Bühler himself Bismarck wrote: “I am much
obliged to you for sending me your disarmament motion.
Unhappily, my attention is at present so much engrossed
with urgent Zºzºacázca/ business, that I cannot concern myself
with a future which I fear neither of us will live to see. It would
be only after you had succeeded in gaining over our neigh-
bours to your plan that I, or any other German Chancellor,
could undertake, for our ever-defensive Fatherland, the re-
sponsibility of any such proposal. But even then, I fear that
the mutual control of the nations over the armaments of their
neighbours would also be a difficult and slippery matter, and
that it would be hard to establish a tribunal which could
effectively exercise this control,”
AESCULAPIUS AND ACHILLES. 299
It was for reasons similar to those which he had
urged against disarmament that Bismarck would
never hear of the German army being “reformed,”
in the Radical sense of the term. In connection with a
new Army Bill which was presented to the Reichstag
in the spring of 1880, the Chancellor took occasion, at
one of his soirées, to condemn very strongly the de-
mand of the Opposition for the reduction of the
period of active service with the colours from three
to two years—a change which was ultimately effected,
as far at least as the infantry were concerned, soon
after the accession of William II.
In support of his arguments the Chancellor quoted
the campaign in Baden, whither some Prussian troops
had been despatched in 1848 to extinguish the
Revolution which had broken out in that State. The
conduct of these troops serving under the two-years'
system had made an indelible impression, he said,
on the Prince of Prussia, afterwards Kaiser William.
Whole battalions had shot away their ammunition
without ever so much as touching a single man, and the
insurgents had only been put down by the weight of
Superior but undisciplined numbers. How very differ-
ent it was on the battlefields around Metz, where the
prostrate rows of French grenadiers had testified
to the steady, Sure aim of the well-drilled Prussian
infantry !
On the same occasion the Chancellor told a story
referring to the Crimean War. He had been sent to
Stuttgart to try to induce King William of Würtem-
berg to join Prussia in her policy against France (the
Western Powers). But this the King refused to do.
3OO BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Taking a map, he showed how short was the distance,
from Weissenburg to Stuttgart, which the French
would have to traverse before Prussia could come to
his relief. Then, in order to spare his country tribu-
lation, he would have to make his peace with France,
seeing that “a shirt is always nearer the skin than a
coat.”
CHAPTER XII.
O/C VSSAES AMOAVG 7THE SU/TORS.
HEN the Prince celebrated his seventieth
birthday (1885), he passed a very high
eulogium on the army. On this Occasion one very
formidable contingent of his congratulators was
formed by the Gens Bismarckiana, or Clan Bismarck,
which had gathered from all parts of Germany to
present the illustrious head of their house with an
album containing the portraits of all the members
of his tribe. The Chancellor said he was glad to
See about him so many of those bearing his name
in the King's uniform. They had all had the honour
and advantage of serving, no less the Markgraves
and Electors of Brandenburg than the various Kings
of Prussia, as well as the present German Emperor,
with feelings of loyalty and obedience; and as long as
the race of Bismarck continued to be represented by
such men, it would be well with it. His confidence in
the army, he said, was steadfast, and it was this trust
which had supported him in the execution of his policy.
Thought and action (Ratſ, und That) must go hand-
in-hand. The army might have had no warlike work
to do for the last fourteen years, but still the officers
of the German army were the best in the world, and
3OI
3O2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
powerful instruments for preserving peace ; and he
was proud to feel that he, too, was a Prussian Officer.
On this same occasion Bismarck had expressed a
fervent hope that his race would never die out ; and
One day in the following spring (1886), as he sat at
dinner, he received a telegram announcing that he had
become a grandfather by the birth of a first child to
his younger son, Count William. Knowing that
Such an event was impending, the Prince had naturally
enough been very anxious to know whether his
illustrious race was to be continued in the male line,
and his son had equally longed for a boy. But the
telegram ran, “Only a girl.” Thereupon the Chan-
Cellor telegraphed back : “Take comfort. Marie also
was only a girl.” Marie—now the Countess Rantzau—
had been the Prince's first-born child, and she was
followed in due course by two brothers.
On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, above
referred to, the University of Göttingen—at which
Bismarck had resided for several terms—sent him
a degree in law by the hands of the Dean of that
Faculty ; and after dinner the latter induced his host
to talk about his student days. These, he said, had
been of a very wild and unprofitable kind. His
teachers had inspired him with little interest in the
subject of law, and it was only the historian, Heeren,
who had to some extent stirred his enthusiasm. So
little had his other teachers impressed him that he
could recall but the names of two, Hugo, and the
Privatdocent, Vallett, who lectured on the Pandects.
As for the famous Savigny, he had only been twice to
his lectures.
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3O3
One of his pleasantest reminiscences of Göttingen
was connected with the cooling dips which
he used to take in the Leine when returning
home late at night from the Kneipe (beer-house).
The little house he lived in on the line of the old
wall consisted of but one room, and as he was its sole
tenant, without any landlord or landlady to attend to
his going and coming, he had always to carry the key
about with him in his pocket. His education had
been thus one of the most perfect independence. Of
work there was but little. At that time it was the
custom of the students to spend their holidays at
the University, and in his case these had been mainly
devoted to drinking and card-playing. With the
proctors he had been on a much more intimate footing
than with the professors; and when he removed to
Berlin, to continue his so-called studies there, he had
to undergo a Carcer-Sentence that was passed upon
him at Göttingen. At that time the academic
authorities had sent after him to Berlin a warrant of
arrest, and now they had sent him a degree in law.
On the Occasion of a subsequent birthday the
fighting Corps of Göttingen sent the Chancellor a
silhouette of himself, dating from his residence at the
University. On the back of the picture was in-
scribed: “Otto von Bismarck, Pommern, vu/go Kinds-
kopf” [Child's Head], “Hassube, Barribal "-his
three Corps nicknames; while underneath were the
arms and emblems of the “Hannovera” club, with
the mottoes —O/i/ meſ/linisse juvabit, and Vestigia
nulla retrorsum. Referring to this latter motto, the
Chancellor said, with a chuckle : “Yes, yes, no steps
3O4 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
backward, but many a good zigzag"—a maxim which
had enabled him to escape from many a difficulty,
including his Kulturkampf with Rome, in spite of his
proud “Mach Canossa gehem wir nicht,” as well as
his conflict with Spain over the Caroline Islands.
In presenting him with his diploma, on the occasion
of his seventieth birthday above referred to, the Dean
of the Law Faculty of Göttingen had begged for
leave to read aloud to the Chancellor that portion
of it which recited his transcendent merits, on which
the Prince remarked, with a smile, “Ah now I see
what kind of a man I am.” And then to the Dean,
“I suppose I can now always address you as
colleague P’’ [Herr Kollege].
“I only regret,” returned the courtly-witted Dean,
“ that I myself cannot do the same.”
This exchange of compliments recalls another of
the same kind. At the time when “little Lasker,” the
National Liberal chief, used to accept the Chancellor's
hospitality, the latter remarked to him one day, half
in jest:
“I will lay a wager that we shall one day yet
become " [ministerial] “colleagues.”
“Indeed P” replied Lasker, with an air of mock
seriousness. “Your Highness, then, really thinks of
becoming an advocate "[like myself] P
Instead of becoming ministerial colleagues, the two
afterwards became such bitter enemies that when
Lasker died in the course of a visit to America, and
the House of Representatives sent over an address of
condolence to the Reichstag, Bismarck refused to be
the medium of its prescntation, and returned it to
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3O 5
Washington by the hands of the German Minister.
Lasker, he said, had embittered his life too much
for him (the Chancellor) to become reconciled to
the little Jew, even in death.
Bismarck had once said that a man allows himself
to talk much more roughly to his wife than to any
other ; and it was perhaps on this principle that he
always proved himself so brusquely outspoken to the
official representatives of America—a country whose
independence Prussia had been the first to acknow-
ledge, and which the Chancellor therefore looked upon
as in a sense bound to Germany by the ties of politi-
cal wedlock.” We have seen how he snubbed the
House of Representatives at Washington by returning
its Lasker address of Condolence; and about the same
time he subjected the United States Minister at Berlin,
Mr. Sargent—who had made himself obnoxious in con-
nection with the importation into Germany of Ameri-
can pig-flesh—to such a severe process of bullying at
the hands of the Chancellor's minions in the Press, that
the Minister had to resign his post and return home.
One of Mr. Sargent's successors—the Hon. W. W.
Phelps—also drew down upon himself a quieter kind
of snub when, in his official capacity, he made bold
to write :—
“DEAR PRINCE BISMARK [sic without the cl—
“I have received this morning a dispatch from
Mr. Fisher, an important journalist of San Francisco,
now in New York, which I take out of cipher and
repeat to you :
* See p. 147.
3O6 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“‘Prince Bismark is respectfully requested to cable
a few words in reference to the following question :
What benefit will be derived in your Grace's opinion
from International Expositions P’”
On the margin of this the Prince simply wrote in
pencil, “None !” and refused to be further drawn on
the subject.
Bismarck had been equally emphatic when Germany
was invited by France to take part in the Universal
Exhibition of 1878. Acceptance of this invitation
was unanimously negatived by the Federal Council
at the instance of the Chancellor, who set forth his
views on the subject at one of his soirées in a manner
as vigorous and characteristic as it was clear.
He was afraid, he said, that German exhibits at Paris
would be treated like “Wagner's melodies,” which
had been hissed ; or like the “sculptor's apprentice,”
who had been called a “ dog of a German "=" chiem
d' Allemand.” If this was the way German men and
things were treated at Paris at a time when the French
Government was doing all it could to make Germany
accept its invitation, what would be their lot when
they were “caught fast in the trap of the Exhibition ”?
To participate in this World-Show would evince a
lamentable lack of self-respect on the part of Germany
as long as she and her sons continued to be the
objects of French hatred and contempt.
“Even if it could be proved that Germany would
reap material benefit from the Exhibition, it would
be shameless of her to subordinate her honour to her
interest ; but, indeed, what or where was the industrial
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3O7
or other advantage which she had ever gained from
her association with such enterprises, whether at
Paris, London, Vienna, or Philadelphia (where the
‘cheap and nasty’ verdict had been pronounced on
German goods) P If many of our public prints,”
concluded the Chancellor, “regard it as a matter of
course that we should accept the French invitation,
I can only ascribe this partially to the utter lack of
thinking power” [Gedanken/osigkeit] “with which our
Press politicians still continue to follow the French
lead, and treat the reading public daily to every
French triviality”—a charge which he otherwise
formulated as “a total want of political-logic, the
craven spirit of diffidence which makes us always still
cringe to Paris.”
But it was sometimes the turn of Paris, if not to
cringe to, at least to take its cue from, Berlin. So at
any rate thought Bismarck when he feared that it
was the intention of Léon Gambetta to anticipate him
in the carrying out of his State-Socialism schemes.
In the autumn of I 88 I Gambetta made a most
mysterious tour in North Germany ; but he himself
at least afterwards avowed that his only object was to
see something of the people who had vanquished
France, and especially to make personal inspection of
the great Baltic ports. Within a month of his secret
visit to Germany, he had formed a French Ministry,
and taken to himself the portfolio of Foreign Affairs.
Referring to this event at a dinner to the members
of the Federal Council, and to the disquieting number
of journalists who had been included in the new
French Cabinet, Bismarck remarked that Gambetta,
3O8 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
in the course of his incognito peregrinations, had
even passed close to Varzin. He supposed that the
great Tribune had really intended to pay him a visit,
but abandoned his purpose on learning perhaps, en
7 oute, from his friends in Paris, that such an act
might be misconstrued in France. At any rate, he
knew that Gambetta had already begun to make a
close study of his (the Chancellor’s) schemes of
economic reform—State insurance, etc.—and he was
afraid that he might even be anticipated in their
execution by this French statesman. The Reichstag
was indifferent, and even hostile, to these schemes.
It was the old, old story of a prophet having no
honour in his own country. “It exemplifies anew
the German's Xenomania" [Aus/āndered], “his love of
everything foreign, his conviction that nothing native
can be very good, as expressed in the popular saying :
Das ist micht weſt /ler—‘Oh, that's no good ; it hasn't
come far.’”
Bismarck had already said of Gambetta that he
“worked upon the nerves of Europe like a man who
beats a drum in a sick room.”
Referring, in the previous spring (1880), to the
refusal of the French Government to extradite to
Russia the Nihilist Hartmann, who had been concerned
in a plot to blow up the Tsar Alexander II. near
Moscow, Bismarck remarked that however much he
abominated such ruffians and their ways, he could not
see that the attitude of France in the matter was an
incorrect one. In England the very popular Cabinet
of Palmerston had fallen when, after Orsini's Opera
attempt on Napoleon, it brought in the famous
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3O9
Conspiracy Bill. In the same manner the young
French Republic could not well have acted differently
from what it did, if it wished to obviate a similar
danger. . . .
“So long as extradition treaties between any two
nations did not exist, neither was entitled to complain
of the consequences; and such cases should always be
regarded from the domestic point of view of the nation
from which the handing-over was demanded. Had
he himself been a Russian Minister, he never would
have asked for the delivering up of Hartmann, as
knowing that the French Government in the circum-
stances could not comply with his request without
offending the Radicals and thus conjuring up internal
troubles. The incident,” he concluded, “may pro-
duce a little temporary estrangement between the two
countries; but not of a kind to prevent France and
Russia from coming together—say in six or seven
years—when they think they are sufficiently strong
to confront Germany.”
In the light of subsequent events this almost
reads like prophecy. For in nine years from this
time France and Russia had “come together ” at
Cronstadt.
Talking of Russia on another occasion the Chan-
cellor said : “I do not believe that the will of Peter
the Great is apocryphal. Anyhow, there are still
people in Russia who believe in it, and who are
always in favour of Russia pushing on towards
Western Europe, where she can get nothing but
Nihilism and other diseases that are incapable of
being cured, even by a “Holy Alliance.’ Her task
3 I O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
is in Asia. There, at least, she can represent the
progress of civilisation.””
Russian statesmen took not the least interest in
the German Chancellor's schemes of economic reform
which had so strongly aroused the interest, and even
the suspected rivalry, of Gambetta. The origin of
those Schemes dated back to the winter of 1874, when
Bismarck thus delivered himself at one of his beer-
evenings :
“Great things have been accomplished, and I am
now beginning to feel ennuyé. The German Empire
has been re-established. It is recognised and respected
by all nations and States. . . . Even if France cherishes
ideas of revenge, she will find no ally against us, and
without that she will venture nothing. In these
circumstances, what remains for me to do P Internal
affairs P. Well, I am by no means satisfied with them
in all respects, and I often think that, if I were to
resign, I should get elected to the Reichstag in order
to make the life of the Ministers who take my place
as unbearable as possible by my opposition. But all
these domestic questions—whether I remain in office
or join the Opposition—would be very secondary
affairs in comparison with what has hitherto been my
work.
“Why, therefore, should I not court repose P I am
no longer minded to go out shooting on the indifferent
* Curiously enough, one of William II.'s first acts of courtesy
to Nicholas II. was the sending to him of a picture by the
hands of his aide-de-cam/, Colonel von Moltke, entitled,
“The Triumph of European Civilisation over East Asiatic
Barbarism.”
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3 II
chance of finding game; for that I am too tired. But
if there were any prospect of my falling in with a
huge and powerful boar—an Erymanthian One, if you
like—I should be up and after him at once, with the
old sportsmanlike passion strong within me.
“To place the Empire on a strong and stable
financial footing, giving it a dominating position and
establishing an organic connection between it and all
our public interests in every field of our national life
—such is the great and worthy task that could stir
me to devote to it the remainder of my failing
powers.
“But the task is a difficult one. I am not an
expert in these matters, and my present advisers,
however capable they may be for current affairs, have
no creative ideas. They move along on beaten tracks.
Therefore it is that I myself am compelled to ex-
Cogitate plans of reform, and to choose my instru-
ments for their execution wherever I can find them.”
Four years later the Chancellor varied the simile of
the wearied sportsman by saying :
“When a man goes out shooting early in the
morning, he begins by firing away at all sorts of game,
and is quite willing to walk a couple of miles over
heavy ground in order to get a shot at some wild fowl.
But when he has trudged the livelong day, when
his game bag is full, and he is nearing home—hungry,
thirsty, Covered with dust, and tired to death—all he
asks for is rest. He shakes his head when his keeper
tells him that he has only a little way to go to get at
Some birds. But just when ready to drop, the beaters
sing out to him their discovery of a couple of splendid
3 I 2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
boars, and away at once he starts in pursuit of his
tusky prey, with lithesome step and re-awakened zeal.”
And so, too, would he (the Chancellor) buckle
to his work again with renewed energy, in order to
finish what he had taken in hand, if he had but
the assistance of the necessary beaters to drive before
his gun the running game. By “beaters ” the
Prince meant a compact and obedient majority in
the Reichstag, without which he could do nothing.
“I am not an expert in these matters,” the
Chancellor had said in the winter of 1874, in allusion
to the economic reforms which he then had in view ;
and even in the spring of 1879—by which time he had
presented the nation with a “Christmas card” in the
shape of his new protective tariff—he said to a circle
of friends at one of his soirées :
“Customs policy may be compared with the science
of medicine—there is nothing absolute in it. It is
only in surgery that medical Science has made any
progress; pathology has stood completely still.
When a patient dies, the doctor comes to the family
a few days after to condole with it and remark that
the deceased, according to all the rules of Science,
might well have lived another ten years.
“It is just the same with economics, which admit
of no hard and fast rules. According to all the rules
of science, France should have bled to death im-
mediately after the war of 1870–71, whereas she has
prospered brilliantly ever since ; while, on the other
hand, England and Germany—who are now both
suffering from commercial depression—Ought to have
been in a flourishing state. From the moment that
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3 I 3
America took leave of free trade, it went better with
her.”
“It is true that formerly I never concerned myself
seriously with economic questions, and should not have
known what to say had any one asked me as to the
state of Swedish iron. I should, in fact, have felt like
Rothschild, when once applied to by a business man
for his opinion on the same subject. ‘Meyer,' said
Rothschild, turning, in some embarrassment, to one of
his clerks, ‘Meyer, what is my opinion about Swedish
iron P’ But from the time that Delbrück left me, I
have had to rely on myself in such things, and have
devoted all my spare time to their serious study, SO
that I have now been able to form my own opinions
and conclusions.”
In everything he undertook Bismarck was always
thorough. Thus it was that, after he had fairly
entered on what he called his “Era of Economic
Reform,” he felt the necessity of acquiring closer touch
with the commercial interests of the nation. For
this purpose he determined to add the portfolio of
Commerce to the posts of Prussian Premier and
German Chancellor—which he had often declared to
be far above the strength of one man—so as thus to
force himself into a practical and profound acquaint-
ance with all the leading questions of the day. On
assuming his new office, in January 1881, he invited
all the chief officials of his department to dine with
him, and these gentlemen he at once impressed with
a sense of his special capacity for commerce by telling
the following story :—
“One day, when riding out to the Grunewald "[the
3 I 4. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Richmond Park of Berlin], “I suddenly came upon a
flock of sheep, which looked so well that I drew rein
and inquired after their owner. Learning that they
belonged to a City Councillor of Berlin I asked the
shepherd whether I could buy one of the animals,
and on his saying, ‘Yes,' I completed the purchase
there and then.
“A few days later I happened to be giving a
diplomatic dinner, and my Grunewald mutton was
placed upon the table. I had told my wife how I had
come by it, and I suppose the news must have pene-
trated to the kitchen. Anyhow the mutton appeared
on the menu as ‘Southdown Bâtard à la Municipal.’
“A little later still I went to dine with the Russian
Ambassador, and to my great surprise perceived that
his menu also included a joint described as ‘South-
down Bâtard à la Municipal. At this I could not
keep from smiling, and afterwards I learned that the
Ambassador's cook had somehow managed to procure
a copy of my own bill of fare, and simply copied the
description of my Grunewald mutton, without in the
least being aware of its particular association with the
municipal authorities of Our capital.”
But d propos of his rides in the Grunewald the
Prince afterwards remarked, at Friedrichsruh : “Berlin
is not the same place to me as it used to be. I don't
feel at home there any longer. Forty years ago I
used to ride a great deal in and around the city. But
as the capital continued to expand, the area of my
diversion grew ever more and more contracted, till
at last my rides had to be confined to the Thiergarten.
I began to feel exactly like a Redskin who has his
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3 I 5
happy hunting-grounds taken away from him by the
white man, one after the other.”
But to return to the dinner which the Chancellor
gave to the officials of his new Ministry of Commerce.
Over coffee and cigars he remarked, with a laugh, to
his guests, “I have come among you like Ulysses
among the suitors.” There was some smiling at this
classical allusion ; but a few months later, when the
new Minister of Commerce had got rid of some
officials whom he looked upon as mere cumberers of
the ground, and wasteful consumers of Prussian
Penelope's thrifty stores,--it was remembered by these
officials, with something very different from a smile,
that the Chancellor was a man who was never more
serious than when he spoke in jest.
After working for some time at the Ministry of
Commerce, the Prince was struck by the insignificance
of many of the matters he had to decide. If, for
instance, anybody had been caught illicitly hawking
goods and sentenced to a fine, but had to be pardoned
on the Score of poverty, it was necessary, for the
remission of the fine, to obtain the consent of two
Ministers—the Minister of Finance and the Minister
of Commerce. Bismarck had taken special note of a
case of this kind. A pedlar had been sentenced to a
fine of twenty marks (about a sovereign), and the
Under-Secretary of State reported to the new Minister
of Commerce that he was a poor devil who had to
maintain a wife and child, and would sink into still
deeper misery if the fine were converted into imprison-
ment. He therefore begged Bismarck to sign an im-
mediate report advising the King to pardon the pedlar.
3 16 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK,
But the Prince emphatically refused to do so. For,
said he, if the King had to be advised to use his right
of pardon in all such cases, justice would become a
dead letter. The pedlar had simply not to pay the
fine, and must escape imprisonment in order to save
himself and his family from absolute ruin. The
Under-Secretary of State then referred to the tradi-
tional practice, and appealed to the heart of his chief,
who answered, “All right. I’ll give the poor devil the
twenty marks out of my own pocket. But you shall
not have my signature for the thing.”
It was from similar motives of philanthropy that
the Chancellor about the same time declared, in
connection with the Accident Assurance Bill, “I will
Set my signature to no law which imposes a burden
on working men.”
In his solicitude for the welfare of working men
Bismarck even went the length of declaring himself
in favour of the Recht auf Aröeit, or the right of
every one to get work. “As our law, indeed, at
present stands,” he said to Dr. Windhorst at one of
his soirées in 1884, “no one is allowed to die of
hunger. If any one comes and says he is willing and
able to work, but can find none, we cannot simply
leave the man to himself, nor do we do so. That,
indeed, would be a desperate state of things. But I
think it will be justifiable for us to inaugurate works of
public utility to be carried out at the public cost. In
this way the assistance we give to the labourer would
be worthier and ampler than what he now gets from
public alms.”
At a dinner (February 1881), which Bismarck gave
ULYSSES AMONG THE SUITORS. 3 I 7
to the members of the Economic Council, he placed
on his left a wealthy “weaver-master,” Hessel, to whom
he bemoaned the sadly altered state of the times.
“When an artisan,” said the Chancellor, “Struggles on,
his only thought nowadays is how to grow rich ;
and he becomes less and less animated by pure
creative joy and love of his calling. When a man
makes money now, honestly or dishonestly, he takes
to speculating and finance, and aims at outward Show.
In former times it was otherwise, and Germany pro-
duced men like Krupp, Schwartzkopf, and Egells,
who had commenced life as locksmiths, Borsig
and Wöhlert as carpenters, Pflug as a cartwright,
Heckmann as a copperSmith, Vollgold as a goldsmith,
and hundreds of others of a similar kind. These
wealthy self-made men were never ashamed of the
way in which they began life, but, on the contrary,
always proud of it. I only wish our artisans would
continue to be animated by the same spirit.”
And yet the Prince had once encouraged his own
flesh and blood to take to the mere money-making
line. When one of his sons was in his sixteenth year,
said the Chancellor once, he had pointed out to him
the advantage of the wood-industry, saying that,
would he but devote himself thereto, he could
guarantee that in a comparatively short time he
would become a millionaire. “But the youngster
preferred to study, and there was an end of the
matter.” +
* The Prince himself always made a very good thing out
of his mills at Varzin, which he used for the making of paper
out of Wood.
3 I 8 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
At one of the Chancellor's receptions (May 1880)
there was some joking at the fact that Count “Bill”—
the Prince's second son, lately elected to the Reichs-
tag—had, in the same wilful spirit, voted against
Some proposal of his father's. But the Chancellor re-
marked that he had always made a point of allowing
his sons perfect independence in all things. Even
when they were boys of six—much against the will of
their mother—he had never asked them where they
were going or what they were doing, but left them
entirely to their own devices.
To a deputy who, at the same soirée, begged the
Chancellor to own that he (the deputy) had not spoken
against him that same day in Parliament, the Prince
replied, “I would much rather that you had spoken
against and voted for me, than held your tongue
and joined the Opposition.”
CHAPTER XIII.
A/LMEAV7'S AAWD EP/GRAMS.
T was about this time (1880) that the Prince Com-
plained of being “dead-beat" (ſodi-milde), and
his physical decrepitude now became a favourite theme
for him to descant upon, especially when he found it
necessary to manipulate his parliamentary foes with
the prospect of his resignation. During one or two
sessions, indeed, his physical ailments compelled him
to abstain from attending the Reichstag altogether ;
and in allusion to One or two written communications
from the Prince to the House, one Opposition journal
twitted him with having, in a disrespectful spirit of
petulance, degenerated into a mere “corresponding
member" of Parliament.
“Why,” asked the same journal, “could not
Bismarck get himself carried into Parliament, as
Appius Claudius and the great Earl of Chatham both
did P’’
To this the Chancellor replied that the Roman
Censor was only blind, and the elder Pitt merely
afflicted with the gout—ailments which still left to
both their victims the use of their tongues ; but that
his own neuralgic Sufferings had positively deprived
him of the power of speech.
319
32O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Already (in 1877) he had said : “If I were only to
do half my duty, I should have to work from ten to
fifteen hours a day; and I did so, too, for a long time.
But there is a limit to the strength of the strongest,
and I can do it no longer.”
One day at dinner, a year later, he spoke of himself
as “an old man.” The Princess interposed, “Why, you
are only sixty-three,” and he rejoined, “Yes, but I
have always lived hard and fast.” Then, turning to a
guest, “By hard, I mean that I always did what I
had to do with all my might ; whatever really suc-
ceeded I paid for with my health and strength.”
“A”atria inserviendo consumor" was a favourite
motto of the Chancellor, which he once wrote in an
album. “I have often thought of writing my
memoirs,” he said at one of his soirées in 1877, “but
I have really no time to do so . . . and I fear I shall
not be able to hold out much longer at my post : the
air here " [in Berlin] “doesn't agree with me. At
Varzin, where I spend from six to eight hours daily
in the open air, I always feel much better ; but here it
is all over with me again. I can never get to sleep
before five o'clock in the morning, and it is often six
or seven. But then I sleep till noon. Till five I lie
awake, recalling all the unpleasant things that have
occurred to me during the past thirty years—which all
come up again before my mind in the gloomiest
form.”
One of his hearers advised him to try mountain air.
“Oh, that would never do. I should be bothered
to death by tourists. I should never be able to be
alone—that is only possible at Varzin. There I feel
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS. 32 I
well, as I have known every tree from its youth. The
woods refresh me. I ought to have been a forester.”
And again : “I always feel best when in greased
boots—away from civilisation. ... My Spirits are always
highest where I can hear nothing but the woodpecker.”
Once, in connection with the subject of fishing,
Bismarck enumerated all the brooks and burns in
Pomerania and the Mark of Brandenburg which con-
tained trout. He himself, he said, had once at Varzin
caught a trout weighing eleven pounds.
The sight of nature made him happiest, and inspired
him with his finest thoughts. Thus it was that his
features assumed that nobly serious and almost
prophetic expression which marks his portrait by
Lenbach—one of the best extant. “We were en-
gaged in conversation,” said the Prince to a friend,
“and I happened to look upwards at a passing flight
of birds. Suddenly Lenbach exclaimed, ‘Hold hard
That will do capitally. Keep quite still !’ and so
forthwith made the sketch "→which is regarded as
betraying more of the inner Soul of the man than any
other portrait of the Chancellor.
It was this same yearning after solitude which
caused the Chancellor to take special precautions
for shielding himself from impertinent curiosity in
the spacious garden, or park, behind the Radziwill
Palace in the Wilhelm-Strasse. He had been com-
pelled, he said, to run a wall all round the garden,
and even Screen it off from view at some exposed
points by the erection of canvas curtains on the top
of the wall, as one house in the Königgrätzer Strasse
which dominated his private domain had been let to
2 I
322 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Englishmen, who would sit at the windows for hours
at a time and scrutinise all his doings in the most
impertinent manner with their field-glasses.
Some years later (1884) he remarked, with a smile :
“I have ceased to be an individual, and have become
an event. Whenever I make my appearance in the
streets my ear is at once struck by the clattering”
[K///-K/ap/) “footsteps of hundreds of people follow-
ing at my heels. How happy I am at Varzin, where
I can take a Solitary walk for miles, and often without
being recognised ”
On returning to Berlin from Varzin in the winter
of 1882 his friends scarcely knew the Chancellor again,
for he had meanwhile grown a full beard, which com-
pletely spoilt the impression of his massive, martial
features. He had done this, he said, as a possible
remedy against the acute neuralgia to which he had
become a victim. It was only when he had enjoyed
a full meal that his facial pains ceased, and these
were sometimes so vehement as to cause him to stop
in the middle of a sentence.
Daily almost he got prescriptions and medicaments
sent him by unknown admirers and sympathisers in
England, and some of these he had tried—with
temporary success. But in the long run it was just
the same with all these nostrums as with scarecrows—
which frightened away the birds for a few days, and
then the latter came back as boldly as ever. “At
Varzin, I can pull a fur cap over my ears, but here in
Berlin I can't do that without attracting a crowd of
boys and becoming a kind of ‘Papa 'Wrangel. There-
fore I long for the day when I shall be able to resume
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS. 323
a decent appearance, for I am not at all pleased with
my beard, and my wife still less.”
In the course of further conversation the Prince
complained that his previous tastes had all left him.
Formerly he had still believed that, in the worst of
cases, he would get himself rolled along in a Bath
chair, like an English Admiral afflicted with the gout,
in order to have a shot at a covey of partridges ; but
for the last half-dozen years he had lost all his love
of shooting, while even the biggest stag and heaviest
boar had now little or no attraction for him. Whenever
he took his stand for a battle at Varzin, his only wish
was that the thing would soon be over ; and it was
the same with riding. Perhaps even with politics that
would soon also be the case.
In pursuance of the same theme the Chancellor
came to speak of the Emperor. “His Majesty,” he
said, “holds up bravely, in spite of his sorrow for the
death of his brother ” [Prince Charles]. “All of us
together haven't got nerves like the Kaiser's ; or rather,
I should say that, in Spite of his incessant labours
and working from morning to night, the Emperor has
no nerves at all. It is a real blessing that he wears
so well, that Moltke is ever fresh, and that Kameke! ”
[Minister of War] “is still so tough. We civilians are
no good, for we are always Complaining of this or
that, so that when we grow in years we have no
dearer thought in the intervals of our work than how
to get away from it at the best opportunity.”
Bismarck was never tired lauding the constant
considerateness of the Emperor to all about him,
especially towards himself; and the Chancellor on
3.24. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
his part lost no opportunity of returning these atten-
tions. The question having once arisen at one of
his parliamentary dinners how far modern historians
should be allowed the run of the State-archives, the
Prince declared himself in favour of their use in the
most liberal manner, though on condition, of course,
that writers would spare the personal feelings of the
Emperor—especially with regard to his Majesty's
father (Frederick William III.).
On another Occasion, when lauding the old
Emperor's endurance and devotion to duty, the
Chancellor said he had noticed that, ever since he
was wounded by Dr. Nobiling, his Majesty had grown
fresher, both in mind and body. He could only
account for this by Supposing that the copious loss of
blood from which the Kaiser then suffered had
produced the same favourable effect upon his system
as was sometimes Observable in patients for whom
the doctors used to prescribe phlebotomy.
It was about the same time that Bismarck told the
story of his first meeting with Kaiser William. This
was at the house of Prince August of Prussia, and the
future German Emperor had asked him how it came
that a tall, strapping fellow like him had taken to law
instead of to a military career. To that Bismarck
had replied that he was no longer a stripling of from
fifteen to eighteen, when every young man wanted to
be a soldier ; apart from which, his parents had been
against his adoption of the career of arms. *
* When once acknowledging a birthday present from the
Emperor, in the shape of a miniature replica of Rauch's
celebrated equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, Bismarck
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS. 3.25
What a difference between the tall, strapping youth
who had then moved the recruiting passion of the
Prince of Prussia, and the weary giant who now SO
frequently complained to the Emperor about the
woeful falling-off in his physical powers'
“Tut!” said his Majesty one day. “Look at me.
I am a much older man than you are, Bismarck, and
yet I am still able to ride.”
“Ah, yes,” rejoined the Chancellor; “but then your
Majesty must remember that a rider always lasts
longer than his horse.””
In witty repartee of this kind Bismarck always
excelled. Thus, at one of his soirées (December 1876),
there was much talk about the new Judicature Act,
to many of the clauses of which, as approved by
Parliament, Bismarck would on no account agree.
wrote to his Majesty: “I have always regretted that my
parents never allowed me to testify my attachment to the
Royal House " [of Prussia], “and my enthusiasm for the great-
ness and glory of the Fatherland in the front rank of a
regiment rather than behind a writing-desk. And even now,
after being raised by your Majesty to the highest honours of a
statesman, I cannot altogether express a feeling of regret at
not having been similarly able to carve out a career for myself
as a soldier. Perhaps I should have become a useless
General, but had I been free to follow the bent of my own
inclination I would rather have won battles for your Majesty
than diplomatic campaigns.”
* Ten years previously Bismarck had said to his friend and
Colleague—Roon, the War Minister—who claimed to be the
shield on which he (the Chancellor) was uplifted : “My
strength has been over-strained. The King, as rider in the
saddle, is scarcely aware of how, in me, he has ridden a good
horse to pieces. It is the lazy ones that last longest ; but
z/tra. Žosse memo off/igatur.”
3.26 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“But, your Serene Highness,” threw in a Bavarian
deputy, “the wisest ever gives way.”
“I have been the wisest long enough,” replied the
Chancellor, “and now it is your turn.”
In the autumn of 1886, Bismarck and M. de Giers,
the Tsar Peace-keeper's penman, met at Franzensbad ;
and after lunching together they presented themselves
On the balcony of the hotel, when they were en-
thusiastically cheered by the “cure-guests.”
“That is meant for your Serene Highness,” said
the Russian Minister.
“No,” replied the German Chancellor; “they are
cheering our alliance” (which could not have been
very much of an alliance in view of the Triple Pact
to which Russia was not a party).
Again, at the ceremony of laying the foundation
stone of the new Imperial House of Parliament, the
Russian General, Prince Dolgoruky, could not help
expressing his admiration of Bismarck's full-dress
cuirassier uniform ; and he asked what his trousers
were made of.
“I/s sonſ de ſcal, "[pigskin], replied the Prince.
“And do you wear these also in time of war P”
“Je me sais / as : mous me ſaisons plus de guerre"—
“I don't know : we have done with war.”
On another Occasion, about the same time, some
one asked Bismarck whether it was really true, as
popular rumour had it, that he was going to visit
Germany's new colonial field of enterprise in South-
West Africa.
“Yes,” replied the Prince ; “but only on the back of
the camel that brought this piece of news.”
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS. 327
“And how stands it, then, with the Egyptian
question, your Serene Highness?” asked a prominent
financier of the Chancellor, on whose good-nature he
thought he could presume to get a tip or two for the
money-market.
“I really don't know,” answered the Prince, “for I
haven’t seen to-day's newspapers yet."
At epigram, too, the Chancellor was always just as
good as at repartee. Thus, at an evening reception
given by the French Ambassador, M. de Gontaut-
Biron, Bismarck, in his cuirassier uniform, with helmet
in hand, was standing chatting with the military
attaché, Prince Polignac, when four dapper little
Japanese diplomatists entered the salon with a rather
shy and overwhelmed air. They had previously been
dining with the Chancellor himself, who now observed :
“Ce sont des petits /o/l/les, mais des halt.ſes personnages.”
It was in the same pungent Spirit of antithesis that
Bismarck, when at Frankfort, had addressed his
excellent French cook, whom he was at last obliged
to dismiss for plunder and peculation of the worst
kind ; “ſe regrette beaucouſ de ne pas pouvoir vous
garder, ſlais 1/la/hel/reuseſ/tent mon budget n'est pas dº
Za /auteur de vos talents.”
Speaking about the various legislative bodies at
Berlin, Bismarck once remarked to a deputy that the
Reichstag (Imperial Parliament) was distinguished by
a higher tone than the Landtag (Prussian Parliament).
“The Lower Chamber " [of the latter] “can drink
champagne, but cannot pay for it ; the Upper Chamber
can pay for it, but cannot drink it ; while the Reichs-
tag, killing two birds with One stone, can both drink
328 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
and pay for it.”—an apologue which reminded one of
the saying that France had colonies, but no colonists;
Germany plenty of colonists, but no colonies; while
England had both colonies and colonists.
In the endeavour to procure colonies for her colonists,
Germany had had a very serious lovers' quarrel with
her cousin, England; and Bismarck was strongly of
Opinion that, in the maintenance of this quarrel, Count
Münster, the Ambassador in London, had shown a
lamentable lack of energy and penetration—for which
the penalty was his prompt transference to Paris.
“Eine lange Laterne offine Licht,” was how the Prince
hit off the character of this supine subordinate—
“a tall lamp-post without any light”; though this
apparent absence of informatory flame at the London
Embassy may, possibly, have been only due to the fact
that the Count had a habit of shedding his illumi-
nation on the wrong objects and in the wrong place.
Among the Chancellor's epigrams may be quoted
the following. In the album of a lady of title Count
Moltke had written the words, “Scheim verge/ht,
Wa/r/lett &esſe/it"—“Falschood passes away, but
Truth endures "; and immediately underneath this
reflection Bismarck inscribed the following quatrain :-
“Jeh g/auðe dass in ſemer Welf
Aze Wa/ar/leaf szeźs deſz Sieg behā/#;
Aoch 7772% der Zäge dºeses Zeóezzs
A ſim/ºff unser Marscha/Z se/ös; vergebens.”
Which may be rendered :—
“Believe I do that, beyond the grave,
Truth always will her banners wave;
But with the falsehoods of this life
E'en Moltke must wage bootless strife.”
AILMENTS AND EPIGRAMS. 329
While freely admitting that “ſa comparaison m'est
£as la raison,” Bismarck frequently betrayed a truly
poetic faculty in clothing his ideas with the rich and
attractive robes of concrete images; and some of his
similes, metaphors, and instances, in their telling apt-
ness, were quite worthy of Shakespeare. But never
did he make a neater comparison than when, on being
shown the Edison phonograph at Friedrichsruh
(October 1889), he said it struck him almost like a
realisation of the story in Baron Münchhausen, where
a trumpet-tone suddenly became congealed in the
horn, and afterwards began again to thaw into
sound. Only Edison excelled Münchhausen in this
respect, that his melodies could be heard, not once,
but a thousand times over.
The Prince was more than delighted with thc
invention, pronouncing it (in English) to be a “clever
instrument,” and one which must have cost its
inventor more than a world of pains. With in-
credulous wonder he listened to its repetition of
several operatic airs and military marches. He
himself spoke into the apparatus a few verses of his
favourite, “In good old colony times,” “ a quatrain
of “Gaudeamus igitur,” and a strophe or two of
Uhland’s “A/s Kaiser Rot/barſ /obesa/z "-all of them
lyrics which he had sung with Motley, the country-
man of Edison, in the old student days at Göttingen.
* See p. 72.
CHAPTER XIV.
A ‘‘ C/º A C/ ?' IV/7// CRISPſ.
T is a pity that an Edison phonograph was not
always placed in front of the Prince when enter-
taining guests at Friedrichsruh, for then we should
have had an accurate record of some of his most
entertaining conversations. But even without the
aid of this marvellous device for bottling up and
preserving human speech in the interest of future
generations, we have a most charming account of a
typical example of the Chancellor's table-talk at his
Tusculum in the Sachsenwald.
In the autumn of 1887 Signor Crispi, Italian
Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, journeyed
from Rome to Friedrichsruh to confer with the
German Chancellor on the European situation in
the light of the Triple Alliance. The two states-
men had not seen each other since 1877, when they
met at Gastein. Crispi’s first meal at Friedrichsruh
was supper, at which Count Herbert Bismarck, Dr.
von Rottenburg, and Dr. Schweninger, were also
present.
The conversation of the Chancellor and his Italian
visitor first turned on the rapid lapse of the years.
“Ah yes,” exclaimed the Prince, with a sigh of
330
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 33 I
resignation ; “but the main thing is to use one's
time well.”
Suddenly the conversation, at some remark of
the Chancellor, soared into the region of 'a ſalade
politique.
“What now remains of the treaties of 1815 P.”
asked Crispí. “Nothing !”
“And as far as I am concerned,” said the Prince,
“I have helped to wipe them out completely.”
“What remains of the treaty of 1856” [Paris]?
“Nothing, or next to nothing. Declarations of
principle as to blockades. And the treaty of 1878–
the Treaty of Berlin itself-has it not already
received several rents P Is it not already in tatters P”
“Yes,” admitted Bismarck ; “but by preserving
those tatters we can maintain the peace.”
Then the Chancellor went on to describe the
appearance of his mansion at Friedrichsruh, before
the Emperor presented him with the Sachsenwald.
“This change of proprietorship was by no means
calculated to please the people of the neighbourhood,
who were accustomed to feel themselves at home in
this sequestered spot” [the mansion had been used
as a sylvan restaurant]. “And even when I and my
family had become installed here, these people con-
tinued—such the power of habit—to roam about as
before. Our presence did not incommode them in
the least. I had not yet raised the wall which skirts
and screens off my estate on the railway side, and
So they came and wandered around the house as
formerly. Indeed, they were not very far from
asking me to let them rooms. Some of them came
3.32 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
and flattened their noses on the windows of my
study, in order to see what I was about, as I was of
Course the main object of their curiosity, or if you
like, their interest. My God . When a man has
been to the wars and seen camp-life, he is not easily
shocked, and would not hesitate to change his
shirt in the presence of ten thousand people. But
here at Friedrichsruh I did not feel comfortable in
the midst of all this public inspection, and things
even that didn't bother me might readily have proved
unpleasant to the ladies, so that I had at last to wall
myself off from intruders.”
Next morning at lunch, Bismarck, pointing to
Some very fine potatoes cooked in the English manner
said to his neighbour :
“Do you know what these are called with us?”
“Potatoes, are they not, your Highness P”
“Yes ; but they are also called Pomeranian bananas.
You don't know them by this name, do you ?”
“No ; but these potatoes produce very fine
grenadiers.”
“Ah, yes, that they do. But, nevertheless, this
Schweninger of mine here won't let me eat any of
them. Ach The wicked Doctor ”
“Sit modus in rebus l’ pleaded the Chancellor's
body-physician.
A dish of macaroni, in honour of the Prince's Italian
visitors (for Crispi had brought several secretaries
with him), was now passed round ; and Crispi
expressed his surprise that Dr. Schweninger should
allow his illustrious charge to indulge in such
farinaceous food.
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 33.3
“Oh,” said the Chancellor, with a laugh, “if I were
to follow the advice of Schweninger, he would do
with me as his colleague did with Sancho Panza,
Governor of the island of Barataria. He forbids me
the macaroni, but I eat it all the same.”
On the table were also some of those pickled
herrings which once, for several weeks at a time, had
formed the Chancellor's sole diet; and now he pressed
his visitors to taste them.
“But their true flavour,” he said, “only comes out
when you eat them with butter and Pomeranian
bananas.”
The talk then came to be of French and Italian
wines, Crispi praising those of Syracuse, and saying
that he would send Some specimens to the Princess,
as this was really a ladies' taste.
The Prince said he was well acquainted with the
north of Italy, where he had made his honeymoon
trip in 1847. He had then seen Milan, Genoa, and
Venice, in which latter place he forgathered with his
own Sovereign, Frederick William IV.
As the Chancellor called these cities by the Italian
form of their names, some one asked him whether he
could speak the language.
“Un poco,” he replied. “Enough at least to read and
understand a newspaper. I know a certain number
of elementary words, but I cannot manage the moods
and the suffixes. For example, I know the verb
/*ggere, but I doubt if I could go through all the
tenses and persons : :o leggo, tº leggi. . . .”
The Chancellor kept turning every now and then
from his guests to his dogs, to which he heaved bits
3.34. BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
of bread, but also tantalised them by retaining in his
hand the bits that he pretended to throw.
On this, some one remarked that the same thing
was often observable in politics—many a statesman
having thus played fast and loose with a State; and
indeed, it might have been added that this was pre-
cisely the game which Bismarck himself had played
with Napoleon and Benedetti in respect to Belgium
and other territorial “objects of compensation.”
At dessert the Italians were amazed at the magni-
ficence of the fruit that was handed round,-pears,
apples, and grapes such as they had never even seen
in their own country—magna Żarems fruguya.
“These grapes,” said the Prince, “are a present
from the Rhine. A man in my position often gets
many such gifts—quite disinterested ones, too. I must
accept them. What else can I do P If I were to
refuse them, I should only upset and insult their
donors.”
On coffee being served, Dr. Schweninger, who had
been rather infected by his patient's tendency to
paradox, observed that a man in good health Ought
to be able to manage a dozen pedits verres of Cognac
a day, though the number might vary with climate
and latitude. As for himself, he would honour the
Prince's brandy, though not perhaps to this extent.
Hereupon the Chancellor begged for medical per-
mission to drink a glass of cognac in honour of Signor
Crispí. The occasion was a too rare and felicitous
one for him to be deprived of this pleasure.
Dr. Schweninger looked as if he rather doubted
the wisdom of his patient doing this.
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 3.35
‘It is always so,” remarked the Chancellor, as he
tossed off the forbidden liquor; “the Doctor is afraid
that there won't be enough left for him. But he
needn't worry. There will be abundance for him,
even if he lets me have my share. I have still four
hundred bottles of the same brand, and it is very
old.”
“Will you have a cigar P” finally said the Prince,
handing a box of Havanas to the Italian Premier.
“What? You neither drink nor smoke P What a
singular being you must be "
The Italian visitors noticed that the matches secned
to be specially made for the Chancellor, being very
long and broad, so that they could be thrust deep into
his pipe, which was of unusual dimensions. The Prince
explained that he never smoked in the forenoon. He
always wore long cravats of white muslin or black
silk, wound several times round the neck, with which,
as he laughingly said, he had been “on a war footing
these fifty years, for they have never fitted well.” In
I857, he said, he had written from Paris to his sister :
“I have eleven large mirrors, and my cravat still
sits badly nevertheless. The knot persistently refuses
to keep in its place, and always shifts to one side.
As one must account for all things, I explain this on
the theory that my head moves in one direction more
than in the other.”
The Prince remarked that he had grown a beard
Several times, but his wife did not like it, and insisted
on his shaving, “I yielded,” he said. “And yet it
was so convenient l’’
On the Princess remarking, “It was convenient,
336 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
perhaps, but abominable, and did not become you in
the least,” he rejoined, “Abominable or not, you
would have done as I did—sacrificed this ornament
On the altar of domestic peace.”
The same night there was a more ceremonious
family dinner in honour of Crispi and the Italian
Ambassador, Count de Launay, who had meanwhile
arrived at Friedrichsruh from Berlin to take part in
the serious political business of the meeting. Crispi
led the way into the dining-room with the Princess
On his arm, while there was some hesitation among
the others as to who should follow next.
“Circules, messieurs, circules l’ urged the Chancellor,
“as the police say in Paris.”
At one end of the table the talk began to be of
German literature and its lights. Goethe, Schiller,
and Lessing were in turn discussed, and One of the
Italians declared himself to be a great admirer of
Jean Paul Richter.
“Ah, but he is now little read in Germany,”
remarked the Prince from the other end ; and then,
by some curious association of ideas, he went on to
Say :
“Gentlemen, I have a regular itching to abuse
Boulanger to you.” But the rest of his remarks were
lost, and he proceeded to speak of the last repre-
sentative of French imperialism.
“Napoleon,” he said, “was not a bad fellow ; he
meant well.”
Crispi remarked that he had no strength of will ;
that his policy was at once “deliberate and chimerical,
complicated and naïve.” While believing that he
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 337
was working towards a good end, he suppressed all
freedom in France, and kept Europe for twenty years
long under the menace of undefined and precarious
intentions. Wishing to exalt his country, he only led
it to catastrophe and ruin.
“He was ignorant,” struck in Bismarck, “and it was
with some surprise that I came to this conclusion,
Seeing that he had been educated at a German Lyceum,
and in his time the teaching in Germany was of a
very thorough and excellent kind. He was badly
up in history, with the exception of that of the first
Empire, and even with that he was acquainted only
in its own way—that is to say, as a glorification of
the first Napoleon and as a prologue to the restoration
of the Empire. In geography and history he was
ill-versed. People have paid his intellect too much
honour and his heart too little.”
The Chancellor then went on to speak of the sad
international position of Prussia at the time of the
Congress of Paris.
“Prussia,” he said, “stood very low then. Not
Only had she, in 1850, Stomached the humiliation of
Olmütz, and not only was her rôle in Germany equal
to zero, as Austria and the other States had entered
into a conspiracy against her, but in the following
years she had also inspired the rest of Europe with
distrust, and had on the whole emerged from the
Eastern Crisis connected with the Crimean War with
diminished prestige. Austria had proposed the
admission of Prussia to the conferences at Paris,
but this proposal was not seriously supported by
Austria, and positively resisted by England. In fact
22
338 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
there was a time, at the beginning of February 1856,
when Prussia's efforts to gain access to the Congress
might be regarded as a failure. Baron von Manteuffel,
who, as Our Foreign Minister, represented Prussia at
the Congress, had to put up with many a snub. He
was obliged to dance attendance in the ante-chamber
of the Congress after the other plenipotentiaries had
already begun their deliberations; and it was only on
the insistence of Napoleon that he was admitted to
the sittings. If I had been in Manteuffel's place, I
should not have put up with it, but withdrawn; and
indced, that would have been much better for us, for,
had we not signed the treaty, we should have had
a much freer hand afterwards.”
Here a splendid saddle of venison was brought in.
“Is this from your own preserves P’’ asked Crispi.
“No,” replied the Prince. “I do not care about
shooting my own deer.”
“Well, at any rate, it secms to be very well
cooked.”
“Ah, yes; French cuisine on the whole is excellent,
but French cooks don't understand the preparation of
such large joints. A special art is necessary for that,
and they don't possess it. You see, if venison is to
be properly enjoyed, one must not be impatient with
it, and that is just what the French are. You must
know how to wait. You never get the full flavour
out of fresh venison : it must hang till it becomes
tender. That saddle there has been hanging a fort-
night, and you will find that this is a great improve-
ment. French cooks fancy that it is enough to beat
meat well until it grows tender ; but that won't do.”
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 339
And then, after a thoughtful pause:
“Yes, that is perhaps part of the national character.
The French are fond of beating ” (AE/op/e/e). And
then, with a look at Schweninger : “There is always
something of the priest in doctors, for they are fond
of doing themselves what they deny to others.
Maraschino is an Italian liqueur, is it not P What is
it made of P’’
“Of a kind of wild cherry,” replied one of the
Italians, “which grows in Dalmatia, and is called
ſtarasca in the local dialect. The best of it comes
from Zara.”
Here the Chancellor proceeded to amuse the
company with the story of one of his old colleagues
in the Prussian Cabinet who was at once the overseer
of the royal forests and the royal farms—two totally
different departments.
“The Administration of the forests was in a state
of constant litigation with that of the farms, but the
Minister alternately signed every document for or
against each department, and without ever So much
as reading them. But even if he had perused them,
that would not have made the least difference—he
would have signed them all the same.”
Before the company rose, Crispi remarked that it
was probably unique in history—this spectacle of a
father and son thus conducting the diplomacy of a
State, as was the case with the Prince and his pre-
sumptive successor, Count Herbert.
“Not at all,” replied the Chancellor. “Pray think
of the elder and the younger Pitt.”
“Ah, yes, but that was something quite different.”
34C BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“Well, I don't know,” rejoined the Prince. “There
was certainly a resemblance between their political
activity and Ours, for they had always to be on the
watch against France.”
In the following autumn (August 1888)—the year
of William II.'s accession-- Signor Crispi returned to
Friedrichsruh, where he again received the warmest of
welcomes, the company asked to meet him this
time including Count and Countess Rantzau, the
Chancellor's son-in-law and daughter. And again
the first meal was supper.
First of all the talk was of meal-times, and one of
the Italians reminded the Chancellor of the French
maxim, “Rise at six, breakfast at ten, dine at six,
and go to bed at ten--and you will live to thc age
of ten times ten.”
“During my life,” said the Prince, “I have seen
the dinner-hour gradually changed from four to five,
from five to six, from six to seven, and from Seven to
eight.”
Then the conversation drifted to the subject of Italy.
“The Italians,” said the Chancellor, “grow excellent
wines and drink little of them, especially the
Southerners. It is just the same with the Hungarians,
who have fire enough already in their blood. But as
for us denizens of the North—we require a little
artificial excitement now and then. In France therc
is a saying, ‘As drunk as a Switzer’; and in this
respect we Northerners are often like the Swiss.”
“Excuse Ine, your Highness,” ventured one of the
Italians, “does the French saying not run, “To
drink like a Switzer, and be drunk like a Pole'? For
A “CRACK' WITH CRISPI. 34. I
it is characteristic of the Swiss that they can stand
much wine.”
“ſa, Ja,” rejoined the Prince, “you are doubtless
right, “and we feel that we are pretty much like the
Swiss.”
Some one referred to Garibaldi, on which the
Chancellor gave them to understand that he had but
little admiration for the Italian hero.
“Oh, but,” put in Crispi, “he was a lion in battle.
He was also an excellent General, and very resourceful
in action. As a politician and parliamentarian, he
didn't perhaps amount to much. Your Highness
remembers how he behaved after the French War P’’
“Ac/, 7a ; but the French paid him well back. He
was laughed at by the Assembly at Bordeaux.”
At dessert again the Italians could not help admiring
the magnificence of the fruit on the table, and asked
whether, as in the previous year, he had received it
as a gift from the Rhine.
“No ; that is from Hamburg,” explained the
Princess.
“Rarely, even in Italy, do we see such fruit.”
“Well,” said the Prince, “that must be because you
don't do enough to help nature. Providence has been
very kind to you, but you are accustomed to its
bounties and do nothing to improve upon them.
With us, industry must seek to make up for the
failings of nature—warmth, for instance. The climate
is inclined to deny us fruit, but we secure it by labour.
LOOk at Belgium and Holland : don't you witness
there the finest flowers in all the world P’’
“Here is a specimen of the fruit we get from
342 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Italy,” broke in the Princess, pointing to some peaches.
“What do you call these ?” w
“In Piedmont they are called pers; patamii, or
naked peaches, in the local dialect.”
“Are they not called brignoni P' inquired the
Chancellor.
The Italians now remembered to their shame, what
in fact they had forgotten, that this indeed was the
usual name of the fruit.
The conversation then fell on Bordeaux wines, the
Prince remarking :
“The English simplify matters. To them the human
body consists of only four or five parts—or at least
they only make mention of as many. In the same
way, all Bordeaux wines are only ‘claret’ to them,
and all Rhine wines ‘Hock.’”
From wine to tobacco the transition was natural,
and the Chancellor proceeded to describe the effect
of nicotine on his own organism. This was of a
twofold character. First of all, tobacco to him was a
narcotic and calmed his nerves ; for, as a matter of
fact, the less he smoked the more nervous he became.
Then again, the mechanical inhaling and exhaling of
the smoke had a tranquillising effect. The involuntary
watching of the smoke diverted him. In business
conversation, too, you had time to reflect. How
could any one let himself be carried away by passion
with Such a thing as a pipe in his hand P Napoleon
III. was a great Smoker, though only of cigarettes.”
* Compare this expression of the Chancellor's homage to
“My Lady Nicotine” with his remarks on the same subject
to Jules Favre, p. 204.
A “CRACK " WITH CRISPI. 343
“He was not lacking in intelligence,” went on the
Chancellor, “but this intelligence wanted edge. He
possessed a source of great power—an unshakable
belief in himself, in his star. He deemed himself
equal to anything, and brooded over the most fantastic
schemes. One day he said to me : ‘What would you
do if we were to occupy Belgium ? Would you
declare war P’ I replied : ‘No, perhaps not.’ ‘But
what, then, would you do?”—“Well,' I said, ‘we should
look for our Belgium elsewhere.' The only men of
considerable importance in the Second Empire were
Morny, Drouyn de Lhuys, and Thouvenel.”
“Yes,” remarked Crispi, “and after Morny died,
things began to go to the bad. Death deprived the
Emperor of a devoted counsellor, who had become as
cautious as he had formerly been bold. Has your
Highness read Emil Ollivier's book about the Papacy P
A poor performance "
“No, I haven't read it—fortunately. A few years
ago I got a letter from Ollivier—I forget what was
the occasion of it—but he wrote me in a way which
did not at all please me. I replied in a dry and
disagreeable manner, and that was the last of our
correspondence. My letter was something like this :
‘Sir, if in the course of my life I had had the mis-
fortune to do as much harm to my native country
as you have done to yours, I should have believed
that my days would not be long enough to pray to
God for forgiveness, etc.”
“And Gramont ?”
The Chancellor reflected a little.
“Well,” he then said, “he was a good sportsman.
344 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
But he ought to have got himself killed. With his
fine build and figure, his proper place in 1870 should
have been in a squadron of cuirassiers. But even in
the days of its decline the Empire had at least one
man of talent ; only he wasn't made any use of. He
had been a journalist and deputy, and been mixed
up in Some ugly law-suit or other—wait a moment
Surely there was a Camille in his name—Du Camille,
or something of the kind. Ah, yes, I have it now ;
Clement Duvernois.
“In 1871 I had some dealings with him. While
treating for peace with Thiers and Favre on one
hand, on the other I entered into negotiation with the
Empress-Regent by means of Duvernois. Once, when
Thiers was proving very recalcitrant, I said to him :
‘In Germany we have a French army of 200,000
prisoners. What would you say if I were to conclude
peace with Napoleon, and restore him the 200,000
soldiers who are now with us P What would become
of your Republic then P.'
“He bounded up. “Do that, would you ?' he
exclaimed.
“‘Why not P’ said I. ‘The Republic has not been
recognised yet. For us the Emperor is still the
legitimate Sovereign of France.’ Thiers began to
reflect, and he now became more pliable.
“But I was speaking about Duvernois. Well, we
had only just come to an agreement with Thiers
when Duvernois returned with the offer of concessions
from the Empress. At first, too, she would on no
account hear of yielding us an inch of territory, but
at last she gave way, though too late.”
A “CRACK " WITH CRISPI. 345
The conversation then turned to the campaigns of
1866 and 1870–71, the Prince repeating what he had
said to Crispi in the previous year, that “Prussia did
not wish for war. But we were prepared for it all
the same. We all knew that a war with the French
would one day be inevitable. They had beaten the
Russians in the Crimea, the Austrians in Italy,
and now it was going to be our turn. The war on the
Rhine was a certainty—the more so as we had been
victorious at Sadowa. In 1867, when I accompanied
the King to Paris to see the Exhibition, I made the
acquaintance of a Marshal of France—Vaillant or
Raudon, I think the name—who was Governor of
Paris. We were chatting away, and he said to me,
‘One day yet we shall cross bayonets.”
“‘All right, I replied, “if you insist upon it. But
may I ask you why P’
“‘Because,’ he answered, ‘we are both cocks, and
because one cock doesn't like to hear another crowing
louder than itself. At Sadowa you crowed too loudly.’”
In some Connection or other the conversation then
turned to the Subject of baldness, about which the
Chancellor expressed himself in a very forcible
manner. “Some men grow grey,” he remarked, “and
others bald"—he himself belonging to the latter
category like the man who, in this respect, preferred
death to dishonour.
“Moltke,” he said, “wears a wig which deceives
nobody. If I wore a wig I should indulge in all my
humours, and wear wigs of all kinds—long, short and
middle-sized, fair and brown. In my eyes a wig is
simply a hood of hair, instead of wool, silk, or cotton.
346 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
I should therefore wear my wig as a hood ; and there
are hoods of different kinds, some warmer and others
lighter. There was a time, indeed, when I really did
make up my mind to wear a wig. That was at
St. Petersburg. My excuse was the cold. At a
temperature of twenty-five to thirty degrees (Réaumur)
below freezing point, I had sometimes to stand bare-
headed, with Scarcely more hair on my head than I
have now. This nuisance recurred annually at the
blessing of the Neva. Others had worn wigs before
me, and so I got one. At a review at Warsaw before
the Tsar Alexander II. and the Prince Regent of
Prussia, afterwards the Emperor William I., I had to
appear in a military uniform. A helmet is a bad
protection against both heat and cold, so I resolved
to put on my wig. We were galloping in the retinue
of the Princes when a General beside me looked at
me and said, half chaffingly, ‘What, are you wearing
a wig P’ ‘Is it visible P’ I replied. ‘Yes, devilish
distinctly. It's slipping down on One side.’ And so
it was. The carriage in which I was to drive home
was standing at some distance. I left the Staff where
it was. My General accompanied me, and we put
spurs to our horses. I pulled up mine at the carriage
—not an easy matter, for it was a thoroughbred—and
there and then, in the presence of the Tsar, the
Princes, the General Staff, and the Army, I took off
my helmet, tore off my wig, and threw it into the
carriage. The Prince Regent, who attached great
importance to forms, afterwards said to me rather
testily, ‘What a diabolical manoeuvre you executed
with that wig of yours l’”
A “CRACK " WITH CRISPI. 34.7
Some one then alluded to the approaching journey
of the Emperor (William II.) and his consort to Rome
to visit the King and Queen of Italy, and Crispi
asked the Chancellor whether he was going to
accompany his youthful Sovereign.
“No,” said the Prince, “I think not. For many
years past I have not been able to sleep Out of my
own house; I can only do so in the bed I am
accustomed to, and at my age a man cannot change
his habits. Whenever I travel I have my own
railway carriage, and my bed is put into it.”
“But we should do the same for you. With us you
would find yourself as tenderly and considerately cared
for as in your own Germany.”
“Oh, I don't doubt it. But it is not a thing of my
own choosing, for the Emperor would first have to
request my company. I cannot go to his Majesty
and say, ‘Here I am ; I mean to accompany you.’
And however gracious the Emperor is towards me, I
very much doubt whether he will ask me to go. It
is even considerate of his Majesty to dispense with
my company. Lately, before starting for St. Peters-
burg, his Majesty said to me, ‘ I am going to take
Herbert with me,’ which was tantamount to saying,
‘You can stay at home.' Moreover, that is quite
natural. Both in character and taste Herbert has
more in common with his Majesty than H. The
Emperor is thirty, and Herbert eight-and-thirty,
while I am now seventy-four.”
“We should have fêted you immensely, Prince,”
observed one of Crispi’s companions.
“That would be wrong of you,” rejoined the
348 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
Chancellor. “In the presence of his Sovereign, a
subject, no matter who or what he is, should retire
into the background and suppress himself. Whenever
I had occasion to accompany the late Emperor
William anywhere, personal ovations were never
offered me without his Majesty turning red at the
idea. And yet he knew me well—knew that I never
did anything to invite such demonstrations. Certainly,
too, in the course of his long life, he himself never
wanted for such applause.”
At lunch next day the conversation turned on the
French Press and its attacks on the Chancellor and
his chief Italian guest.
“I always thought,” remarked the Prince, “that I
was the best-hated man of my time; but perhaps it
was my vanity that inspired this conviction, as your
Excellency has now become a serious rival in this
respect.”
“Certainly,” remarked Crispi, “we are the two men
whom the French do most abominate, though there is
this difference between us. In the course of time
you have undoubtedly done France a good deal of
harm, while I, on the other hand, am always wondering
what in the world I have done to incur the hatred of
the French, and to what circumstance I Owe my repu-
tation as a Gallophobe.”
The Prince reflected for a moment, and then
said :
“There is something feminine in the French
character. Women have two weapons which they
can use to perfection—their tongues and their nails.
I don't know how it is with the nails, but the French
A “CRACK " WITH CRISPI. 349
are very fond of using their tongue and its equivalent,
the pen. They have a great faculty for satire, slander,
and malediction—which was recommended to them
by one of their greatest geniuses—him, I mean, who
was himself the best incorporation of their light and
brilliant intellect, and said of calumny that some of it
always took effect. As for me, they have vilipended
me in every way—not even sparing my private life,
though, finding nothing really objectionable in this,
they had recourse to invention. They would have
liked to paint me as a lost being, an immoral creature,
a perfect cannibal, always ready even to devour little
children.”
The merits of some French journals and journalists
were discussed, and Some One mentioned the name of
a “so-called authoress and politician " (presumably
Madame Adam).
“Ac/, die da . . . " " (“Oh, that woman ſ") exclaimed
the Prince, with a look of something like ineffable
contempt. And then : “I am not at all fond of
women who meddle with politics. Nothing can be
worse for a statesman than extra-ministerial influence
of this kind, and nothing more terrible than closet
intrigues which you cannot get at and control.”
Here the Prince called for a glass of Cognac—
presumably to wash the taste of the disagreeable
Subject out of his mouth.
“Absente //edico,” he observed, “wiſhi/ moccº.”
(Schweninger was not of the party.)
At dinner the same evening, after some talk about
the quality of claret, a telegram to the Chancellor
was brought in, and he begged for leave to read it,
3.5 O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
His countenance presently grew dark, and he called
for one of his big pencils.
“Excellency,” he said, turning to Crispi, “it has
probably happened to you to feel savage at the
ineptitudes of your colleagues.”
“More than once,” was the reply.
“One often feels inclined to disclaim having any-
thing to do with them, and yet we never do it. . . . I
should have liked to introduce a tobacco monopoly
such as you have in Italy. But both in the Reichstag
and the nation at large I met with such resistance to
the scheme that I had to abandon it altogether. It
will have to be carried out by my successors.
“And then as to a salt monopoly. As salt is
necessary for agriculture, great quantities must be
available for Our farmers and graziers at a cheap rate.
But to this end it must be mixed with some substance
which, without injuring the cattle, renders it unsuitable
for human use.”
Crispi remarked that the Italian peasants submitted
such a salt to a washing process, and thus adapted it
to their own wants.
“Well, then,” rejoined the Prince, “they don't mix
it with a something which is too disgusting. But this
is what we have done with our alcohols intended for
use in our industrics. For we have invented some
diabolical mixture which makes these alcohols quite
undrinkable. Oh the very smell of them | Some
samples that were kept at one of our Ministries for
several weeks emitted such a dreadful stench that the
officials fell ill; and if any one had the misfortune to
touch the thing, he couldn't get rid of the smell for
A “CRACK " WITH CRISPI. 35 I
several hours. Clothes and even food became impreg-
nated with it—it was something too horrible.”
Passing then to a pleasanter, if still painful, Subject,
the Prince detailed the struggle which he had to
undergo with the military party at Nicolsburg, in
1866, in the matter of the peace-preliminaries with
Austria.
“The aim of the war,” he said, “had been attained
with the exclusion of Austria from the Germanic
Confederation. We had nothing more to ask for, yet
the military party wanted more, and the King began
to waver. His Majesty said to me in a tone of
reproach : ‘It was you who wanted war, and now you
wish to keep me from reaping its just fruits.' But I
remained inflexible. One evening the King flung
himself down upon a sofa in a kind of pet. I said to
him, most respectfully, “Sire, your Majesty need only
deprive me of the honour of serving you,' and with
that I withdrew. To gain my room I had to pass
through a long Corridor, and this I did at my usual
pace. But just as I was about to enter my room, one
of the King's aides-de-ca/ overtook me and sum-
moned me back to his Majesty, who hoped that I
would now give in to him. The Crown Prince also
did all he could to induce me to remain in office, and
at last the King gave way. But it was a long time
after that before I could succeed in convincing his
Majesty that I had been in the right. The military
party looked upon the results of the war as simply
miserable.” ”
Here Crispi threw in, with a smile :
- * See pp. IOI, I 16, 232, cł Żass/m.
352 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“But what you did, then, was at any rate not to our
advantage.”
“No, your Excellency, but your own Ministers, your
‘Consorteria' were to blame for that. At that time
Italy was lukewarm.”
Then the Chancellor began to speak of Russia and
her language, saying that he had studied and was
acquainted with it. He instanced several of its diffi-
Culties, but said that he had been determined to learn
it at any price. As a language, Russian was rich and
perfect. His only wonder was that a people like the
Russians, who were still so backward in many things,
were in possession of such a beautiful and highly
developed tongue. As for the Russian soldiers, they
were excellent. What Russia had always lacked, as
it still lackcd, was a body of officers corresponding to
the needs of her army. Officers could never be highly
enough trained.*
“What your Highness says,” remarked Crispi, “is
quite true. It is often the officer who makes the
soldier. A good leader will carry away with him
hundreds of hesitating men. That was my Own
experience of our campaign of 186O.”
“The Emperor Nicholas,” remarked Bismarck, “ said
to his brother-in-law, our Frederick William IV.,
“With soldiers such as mine, commanded by Officers
like yours, not a single cannon-shot would be fired
against my will in all Europe from Moscow to
Cadiz.’”
In answer to some other remark the Chancellor said,
“We are not afraid of war, but we want peace; ” and he
* See p. 108.
A “CRACK" WITH CRISPI. 353
was of opinion that Germany alone would be able to
make head against her two great neighbours (France
and Russia), should they ever seek to fall foul of her.
He concluded, “We are like a strong young fellow
with two good fists at his disposal—one for each of his
antagonists.”
23
CHAPTER XV.
A FA/L/LEAV CAE/A/VCE/L/.O.R.
N the course of his conversation with Signor Crispi,
Bismarck had already hinted at the existence of
a growing coolness between himself and his “AWeue
Herr,” his “New Master,” William II. As Poschinger
remarks, it soon became strikingly apparent that
the youthful Kaiser was resolved to assert himself
personally much more than his grandfather had ever
done—a thing he could not do without a correspond-
ing self-suppression on the part of his hitherto omni-
potent Chancellor; and, indeed, it was not long
before Bismarck was thrown into the shade at / is own
parliamentary dinners and soirées by the new Emperor,
the sayings of the Chancellor being now little noted
in comparison with those of his Majesty. The “new
era” had already dawned.
Now, as afterwards when he was driven from office,
Bismarck began to display a Curious habit of lauding
the character and methods of the old Emperor, as thus :
“In his boyhood he had worn pigtail and powder
and he had, therefore, to go through a complete mental
transformation before he became the Prince whose
memory we all bless. One of his chief qualities was
the fidelity which he showed, even to his servants.”
3.54
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 355
Or again : “The enjoyment of happiness requires
a certain gift, which my late old master” [the
Emperor William] “had in a high degree, possessing,
as he did, the sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments
combined. It was often difficult to get him to make
up his mind, but once he had done so, “one could
build houses' on his resolution. Clearness and calm-
ness kept his mind and heart in the finest and most
harmonious equilibrium.
“Truth was dearer to him than aught else. In
my diplomatic work also I always endeavoured
to speak the truth, but circumstances sometimes
compelled us both to deviate from it a little in
public. But how hard that always was for the old
Emperor He always blushed on such occasions,
and I–I could not look at him, and so quickly
turned away.”
These things the Chancellor said after he had been
driven from office; but while as yet he held the reins
of power he indulged, at one of his soirées (March
I889), in the following Plutarch-like comparison :-
“Of the three Emperors whom I have served,
William I. was the One whom it cost me most trouble
to decide on doing anything. But when once he had
Come to a decision he stuck to it, and one could now
be quite sure of the matter.
“Frederick III., on the other hand, was easily
braced up to this or that, but he had a tendency
to change his resolution just as quickly. He lent his
ear to subsequent whisperings, and was then capable
of doing the very opposite of what he had previously
resolved to do.
356 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
“The present Emperor" [William II.] “is so
attentive to anything I have to say that he seizes and
assimilates a Suggestion almost before I have given
it full expression.”
Within a year, however, of this time, on February
4th, 1890, Bismarck said to several deputies at a parlia-
mentary dinner at which his Majesty himself had also
been present, “The Emperor is very fond of me, never-
theless I cannot make any forcible impression on him "
[?mpoſeferen Kazan ic/ iſºm docſ, nicht). “Perhaps you
will Succeed in doing so, gentlemen, if you only try ;
but I have my doubts.”
Over the coffee and cigars at this dinner the Emperor
had sat in one corner of the room, Bismarck in
another ; and already it was gravely suspected by
Some of the deputies that a coolness had arisen be-
tween master and man. As a matter of fact this
coolness was to result in a dissolution of co-partnery
before another month was over.
“It is coming to this, I see,” remarked the
Chancellor on the same Occasion, “that every work-
ing man will have an angel placed at his elbow, to
ask him from time to time whether he hasn’t been
doing a little too much.”
Before the Labour Conference met (March 1890),
the Emperor had summoned a Council of Experts
(Staatsrat/h) to hear their opinion on the subject, and
these included a master-locksmith, Deppe by name.
At a dinner which the Emperor gave to the members
of this Council, Bismarck—while the guests were
assembling—fell into conversation with the locksmith,
who expressed his pride at the fact that his Majesty
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 357
at one sitting of the Council, had “given him the
word ”—i.e., called upon him to speak.
“I wish to goodness,” said the impatient Chan-
cellor, “that his Majesty would now give the word
for us to go in to dinner, though he is a long time
about it !”
At a dinner which he gave to the French members
of the Labour Conference, on March 19th, I890—the
day after he had sat down to pen his resignation—
Bismarck remarked to M. Jules Simon : “But what-
ever happens, neither you nor I can be deprived of
the credit which attaches to our both having seventy-
five years behind us, with all their experience. I
have wealth, and am the owner of twenty thousand
acres of land, so it is high time that I should begin
to look after it.” The Chancellor's French guests
were delighted “de la Óonne mine glee ſe prince faisait
all mauvais jeu.” -
Entertaining a deputation of Göttingen students
on his seventy-fifth birthday—three days after his
retirement to the Sachsenwald, the Prince remarked :
“The Emperor has performed a singular chasses:-
croſses. For he has made his best General ” [Caprivil
“Chancellor, and his Chancellor a General ” [Colonel-
General of Cavalry]. But “Ae roi ſue reverra " was
one of the things attributed to him about this time
which he did not say.
A few weeks after retiring to Friedrichsruh, Bismarck
was waited upon by a very Select deputation of Berlin
citizens, who presented him with an address ; and at
lunch he compared himself to Prince Metternich, who
remarked after his fall that he had now descended
358 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
from the stage to the pit. But on a subsequent
Occasion the ex-Chancellor was more elaborate with
the comparison, or rather with the contrast, saying:
“Many a Minister before me has been in a similar
position. One who was particularly interesting to
me was Prince Metternich, with whom I came into
pretty close contact in my early years. He, too, was
at the head of the political affairs, not only of his
Own Country, but also, I think I may say, of all
Europe, for a long time. He was thrust aside more
Suddenly and disagreeably than I have been, and
had to flee; and a subsequent colleague of mine, dis-
guised as a cab-driver, got him safely out of Vienna.
“That was what he had to suffer after his great
and brilliant career ; but when I met him shortly
afterwards, I found him cheerful and contented. He
said to me : ‘I am glad to be out of the galley. I
used to be an actor on the stage, and now I am a
spectator in the stalls.' Well, Prince Metternich did
not have the compensation that I can boast in the
goodwill of his countrymen. I have never heard that,
after 1848, deputations from Austria went to thank
Prince Metternich at Vienna for his services to his
country. He had not this compensation, and yet was
happy and contented ; and so I beg you to be assured
that I, too, am not dissatisfied, but grateful to God
for granting me a spell of contemplative repose before
calling me away from this world.”
This is not the place for repeating all the Con-
fidences which the ex-Chancellor now began to pour
into the cars of journalistic visitors to Friedrichsruh,
these being reserved for a separate volume of the
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 359
Prince's table-talk. But what he again Said of the
three Emperors whom he had successively served
may now be quoted.
“I entertain no sense of resentment towards the
young Emperor. I stand towards him in the relation
of a father whom his son has ill used. When I was a
younger man I followed my King and master every-
where, and was thus able to counteract other in-
fluences. I am an old man now, and am physically
unable to accompany a Sovereign whose journeys are
so frequent, so rapid, and so distant. It is therefore
inevitable that advisers who are in closer communion
with him should have won his confidence, and won it
at my expense. I am pleased to find that the Emperor
means to undertake personally the work of Govern-
ment, but I am Sorry he did not let me know before
that he had had enough of me ; I should myself have
prepared a better exit. But, after all, I derive consola-
tion from the fact that, if the Crown is a real power
in Germany, I have mainly contributed to that result.
“It was a pleasure to serve the old Kaiser. And
yet he had a very high idea of his position and his
mission as a ruler. For him I would have done
anything, nay, if nothing else had been possible, I
would willingly have become his valet. . . . The old
William was not, it is true, a great statesman, but
he was a man of mature and sound judgment. He
would never act without consulting one or more of
his counsellors. Then, he was a perfect gentleman.
He was true ; he appreciated what the French call
la relation sure. I was deeply attached to him.
“The Emperor Frederick was a noble man. He
360 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
was not, perhaps, a man of great strength, yet he was
One of very considerable perception, discretion, and
tact. He was a sharp Sword with a short blade.
Three years before the Emperor William died, his
Son called me and asked me to stay with him. I saw
both him and the Empress Frederick, and I promised
to remain in Office. And I would have continued with
him to the last ; I would not have forsaken him, even
though I had myself thought he was going wrong.”
When entertaining the deputation of Berlin citizens
before referred to, the ex-Chancellor said, among
other things, that the “evening-red ” of his career
had been the reign of the ninety-nine days, during
which he had been able to serve the deceased Kaiser
Frederick. He had been quite prepared for having
no difference with this Sovereign ; and, as a matter
of fact, he had only had a good experience both of
him and his consort.” As for the Battenberg affair,
* It will be observed that Bismarck was here speaking of
the Emperor Frederick as a “monarch.” But nothing is
more notorious than that the Chancellor frequently had very
grave disagreements with that same monarch during the time
of his being Crown Prince. See, for example, p. 188, to speak
of nothing else. But, indeed, in the matter of the “Batten-
berger,” Bismarck had once before fiercely opposed the wish
of the Emperor Frederick (then Crown Prince) to ally his
daughter with Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, while as yet
the latter was on the throne. To a Russian journalist, soon
after his fall, Bismarck said: “Russia supported him ''
[Prince Alexander] “at first, and when he showed himself in
his real colours, who was it if not I who opposed the wish of
the Emperor Frederick and fought with might and main "
[literally, “with teeth and nails ''] “against the Batten-
berger’s marriage with a German Princess P’’
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 36 I
which had caused so many reproaches to be levelled
against him, he had only treated that in agreement
with Kaiser Frederick. Had that not been the case,
his Majesty would surely have given some sign of
his displeasure. But on the contrary, immediately
after the affair was settled, the Emperor had embraced
him.
Again, when entertaining another deputation of
congratulators on the eve of his seventy-seventh
birthday (1892), Bismarck began to talk about the
Emperor Frederick, whom he lauded as one of the
most amiable men he had ever known. Nothing was
more inaccurate than the widespread belief that his
relations to this monarch had not been particularly
good. On the contrary, Kaiser Frederick had always
agreed to his proposals, and at no time had he himself
(the Chancellor) been so unrestricted (in his policy)
as then. It had been touching to see how, during the
time of his fatal illness, his Majesty never omitted to
observe any of the rules of politeness. In spite of
his extreme bodily weakness, he had always insisted
on accompanying him to the door. He (the Prince)
would on these occasions follow the Emperor in
momentary expectation of his collapsing before he
could reach the door; and even when he got that
length, the august sufferer could only keep himself
erect by holding on to the handle.
At luncheon one day, soon after his retirement,
Some one asked the Prince why he had now given up
shooting, of which he used to be so passionately fond.
“Oh,” he said, “with my passions it is just the same
as with the trout in my fish-pond. One has eaten up
362 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
the other till there only now remains one fat old
trout. It is the same with me. In the course of
time my passion for politics has consumed all my
Other passions.”
And yet, two years later (January 1892), the ex-
Chancellor remarked one day at table to a party of
Leipzig students : “The interest which I formerly
took in politics is on the wane. I feel like a wanderer
in the Snow, who begins gradually to grow stiff, and
then drops down and is covered by the falling flakes—
a pleasant sensation now creeping over him. It is
pretty much the same with me. My interest in
politics is decreasing, but I feel all the better for it,
perhaps.”
At the luncheon-party above referred to, when the
Prince had declared that his passion for politics had
eaten up all his others, Count Kayserling threw in,
“Oh, but you will surely take to shooting again P”
“I think not,” was the reply. “I should now be
Sorry to shoot at game.” -
One of the Chancellor's guests begged for and
received permission to throw Some Scraps to his dogs.
“I love dogs,” said their master; “they never make
us suffer for any harm we may do them.”
Talking once of arboriculture—to which he was
much devoted in his sylvan retirement—the Prince
remarked that the pine was the most characteristic
tree of Northern Europe. People were accustomed
to regard the oak as the symbol of German virtues.
This might be true of Germany as a whole ; but for
Prussia—its northern and north-easterly portions at
any rate—the pine was much the more typical trec:
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 363
tough and frugal—these were the two qualities they
had in common. Formerly—up to the forties, indeed
—the Prussians had a reputation in other countries for
being easily satisfied. Thus it was that, even in
France, a Prussian had been treated with a certain
amount of goodwill, combined perhaps with Some
little disdain ; while the suspicion of his being an
Englishman had once procured for him—the Prince—
anything but benevolent treatment at the hands of a
Paris cabiman.
When entertaining, about this time, a party of
Independent Riflemen of German origin from New
York, the Prince said he might have gone to Varzin
to spend the evening of his life, but then he would
have had to become a thorough backwoodsman, Cut
off from all human intercourse. He had preferred
Friedrichsruh, as here he lived in the neighbourhood
of a large city (Hamburg), and could thus see Some
of his fellow-creatures from time to time.
It was a curious feeling, he said upon another
occasion, for him to wake up of a morning and find
that the only thing he had now to do was to wind up
his watch. What he really wanted was something to
do, although he was still suffering from the effects of
Overwork during his lifetime. The sense of re-
sponsibility for the lives of millions of men, and still
more millions of money, had been too great. Even
now he could not sleep sometimes for thinking of
what he might have done. Yet the repose he was
now enjoying was not altogether agreeable to him.
An able physician had once remarked to him that
the human mind accustomed to activity might be
364 BISMARCK's TABLE-TALK.
compared to a rocket, which continued to rise as long
as the powder in it burned, but sank and became
extinguished whenever this ceased to blaze. It would
just be the same with him, without something to do.
When lunching at Kissingen (August 1890) with
a party of gentlemen from Heilbronn, Bismarck said :
“A prophet, you know, has no honour in his own
Country. Once I was small, and now that I am
great, there are many who cannot forgive me for the
fact. But all malevolent judgments of me will be
forgotten with time. As for the newspapers and what
they write about me, I only look upon it as So much
dust which I quickly brush away. I only attach a
value to history and what it will have to say about
me. My Sole ambition now is to get a good epitaph.”
Speaking of newspaper writers on another Occasion,
the Prince said he was sorry he had not known them
better before his fall. One of the few things he
regretted was his well-known apophthegm that
journalists were men who had failed in their other
careers—a remark, for the rest, which had been
grossly misunderstood. He could quite see that there
were some men who preferred a life of free intellectual
activity to a humdrum and machine-like career. Such
men should be oftencr used in the service of the
State, cSpecially in diplomacy, as this was done, for
cxample, with the best results in France, Italy,
America, and England. “The value and utility of
a political correspondent,” said the Prince, about the
same time, “lie preciscly in the pliancy of his pen.”
Talking (in February 1892) with a Berlin journalist
of this pliant type, Maximilian Harden, about the
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 365
ultra-Conservative A reug-Zeitung and its noble editor
(who subsequently had to flee the Fatherland on
a charge of forgery), the Prince said : “ſa, ſa, do
you know that Hammerstein always reminds me of
Richter (the Radical chief)? He is a clever fellow,
but he tyrannises over his party precisely as Richter
does with his. With the Conservatives, too, that
is much easier, as they are mostly quiet, easy-going
people, who go to a meeting of their party after
wiping their lips over a dainty lunch, and are then
only too glad to be told by any one how they have
to vote.”
Referring to the Emperor's new sumptuary edict
relating to Court dress, the ex-Chancellor said to
the same visitor : “Such trifles make a lot of bad
blood. I can still remember how, as a boy, I admired
my uncle in his knee-breeches. But for those who
suffer from rheumatism, even when they wear an
additional layer of flannel next their skin, it is
dangerous. At the Court of Napoleon III, it was
Still the fashion, and, as Ambassador, I could not well
rebel against it , but while waiting in a draughty
corridor for my carriage I always had the feeling of
being up to my knces in water. Apart from the
English, who have still no other Court dress, it will not
be de rigeur with the other diplomatists to conform
with the new fashion.”
Referring to the public expectation of his returning
to Berlin to speak in the Reichstag, Bismarck said :
“I should make my appearance like Banquo's ghost
at the table of Macbeth, and many of my old friends
have a bad enough conscience on my account without
366 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
that. But no, I don't think I shall do anything of
the kind. People Over-rate my ambition, and under-
rate my Self-respect. Within the limits of our present
policy there is no place for me. Why should I go
and take up a critical attitude towards Caprivi, who
is only a mere chargé des affaires P I have always
been a good monarchist, and shouldn't like to say
anything that might be thought to have an anti-
monarchical Sound in the ears of the evil disposed.
But, on the other hand, I am no absolutist, and in
particular I do not think it is wise nowadays to
seize every opportunity of placing the Crown in the
foreground, and thus exposing it to direct attack.
“On my first becoming Minister I found the
monarchy in a precarious state. My aged master
even thought of abdicating, and it cost me no little
trouble to prevent him from doing so. At that time
I deemed it to be my duty to strengthen the power
of the Crown ; and, indeed, I succeeded to such an
extent in doing this that means must now again be
thought of for strengthening the power of Parliament.
It would, indeed, be a misfortune for Our monarchy
and our national unity if we were made to lapse into
an absolutist reaction, even of a transient kind ; for
then we should be ruled by a camarilla, or, worse
still, by the Ewig-Weib/iche '” [the “everlasting
feminine "]. “May we be spared all that l”
“The longer we live,” said Bismarck to Paul Heyse,
the author, at Munich, when dining with Lenbach
the painter, “the more we are compelled to oppose
people and make enemies of them. Gratitude with-
draws when one has done one's duty.” But it must
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 367
be borne in mind that at this time (June 1892)
Bismarck's heart was very much embittered by the
cold reception which had been accorded him at
Vienna on the occasion of his son, Count Herbert's,
wedding. For the German Emperor had directed all
the members of his Embassy in the Kaiserstadt to
take no notice whatever of the marriage—to boycot
all the Bismarcks, in fact ; while the ex-Chancellor
himself had been denied the audience which he begged
of Francis Joseph, and been otherwise cold-shouldered
by all official circles. But this only made the ovations
that were showered upon him by the people all the
more enthusiastic. On this subject the ex-Chancellor
said :
“Formerly all my efforts were directed to strengthen-
ing the monarchical feeling in the people. At the
Courts and in the Official world I was extolled and
Overwhelmed with proofs of gratitude. The people
wanted to stone me. Now, on the other hand, it is
the people who acclaim me, while the higher circles
are careful to avoid me. I think that is what is
called the irony of fate.”
A little later, at Kissingen, a New York lawyer
(Mr. J. W. Holl) strongly urged the ex-Chancellor to
visit America, where he was sure of the very warmest
of receptions. Such a journey, returned the Prince,
had been his ideal up to within ten years ago; but now
the vis inertia with him was too great, and only in
the event of his being expelled from Germany—this
he said with a smile—could he now think of crossing
the Atlantic,
On finishing his “cure" at Kissingen, after all the
368 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
worries and chagrins of his wedding visit to Vienna,
Bismarck retired for a season to Varzin, where he was
visited by a Leipzig professor (Dr. Otto Kaemmel),
to whom he launched out in the most enthusiastic
manner about the warmth of his popular reception at
Dresden, and everywhere else in Saxony, when on his
way to the Kaiserstadt. Kaemmel took Occasion to
say that the first time he had seen the Prince was on
June 30th, 1866 (three days before Königgrätz) while
the latter was on his way with King William to the
army in Bohemia.
“That must have been at Görlitz,” observed the
Prince.
“No ; it was at the railway station in Zittau.”
“In Zittau,” echoed the Chancellor reflectively.
“Yes. At Reichenberg then we were in a very pre-
carious position. For with us there we only had about
three hundred Army Service men, armed with
carabines of the 1813 pattern, which could be used
for drilling but not for shooting. At Leitmeritz,
however, about five-and-twenty miles distant, there
were, we knew, half a dozen Austrian and Saxon
cavalry regiments, which might ride across to us in
four hours and capture the King and headquarters.
Now, that would have been not so much tragical as
ridiculous, so I went to Moltke and drew his attention
to the danger. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in war everything is
dangerous.' I then went to the King, and managed
at least to get the three hundred men, without fuss
or alarm, drawn up round the Castle where his
Majesty was quartered. Me also they offered a
refuge there, but I remained in the town, as not wish-
A FAILLEN CHANCELLOR. 369
ing to be thought a coward. As it so fell out, every-
thing passed off all right, but the General Staff had
taken it very ill of me, and between it and me there
was a sort of tension ever after.”
Shortly before this, when entertaining a party of
visitors to lunch on July 3rd, I892—the anniversary
of Königgrätz—the Prince remarked, “We shall
probably never see another Königgrätz, but we must
still be prepared for a second Sedan.”
On a previous occasion, one of his visitors—a
Herr Bewer, who had written several books about
him—remarked that if France were to begin another
war with Germany, and were again defeated, she
would have to be rendered innocuous for the
future by surrendering her navy, ceding Algiers,
and being compelled to maintain a standing army
no larger than was required for preserving public
order.
To this the Prince replied : “Ships are, after all,
only empty iron and wooden boxes, and Germany
could not man more than her Own navy. Algiers
has thriven on the soil of French civilisation, and
could not easily be Germanised. The prohibition of
a standing army is impracticable.”
Herr Bewer argued against this opinion, but the
Prince cut him short, saying, “The French race
cannot be annihilated.” He afterwards said, “I
suppose Germany will never wage a ‘prophylactic’
war. However, the chemist is the only man who can
answer the war question. Whatever enemy of ours
gets the absolutely best powder first will give the
signal for attack. The idea that, after the next
24
37O BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
war, there will be eternal peace in Europe I regard
as Utopian.”
All men, he thought, were, and would continue to
be, soldiers, whether they wore a uniform or not.
“The deepest impressions,” he once remarked, “which
I absorbed in my youth were those of my term
of military service ; and I always cherished them, as
an officer, sometimes more than was useful. When
the time came for me to choose a profession, I was
Sorry that my parents did not allow me to remain in
the army. These feelings are in our blood. We
play at Soldiers in childhood, and afterwards we
are soldiers in earnest ; and, if in earnest, we
succeed.”
This was also the doctrine of life which the ex-
Chancellor preached to a number of school pupils
from Hamburg, who Sang to him a poem, composed
for the occasion, with the refrain, “We Germans fear
God, and nothing else on earth.” “ Referring to this,
the Prince said :—
“May these words apply to you when you are men.
He who trusts in God and himself surmounts every
danger. Never let yourselves be intimidated. The
true philosophy is Schiller's soldier-song in Wa//en-
stein's Zager’—‘ Wo/l/ au/, Aameradeſ, auf's Pferd,
auf's Pferd’: you know it. Do not ask what is going
to happen to you in life, but go forward and meet it
bravely and fearlessly. That is an old maxim, and
those who obey it will find that the waves of life will
* The words with which the Prince himself had concluded
his famous speech in the Reichstag (spring of 1888), in support
of a new Army Bill.
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 37 I
glide off them like water off a duck's back. If Our
lives lasted five hundred or a thousand years, and
one had to be killed at last, there would be Some
reason in fear ; but life is very short, and One Ought
to stake it for a great cause, courageously trusting
in God.
“You have just sung a very beautiful Song. I, too,
used to devote myself to music, but I was only a
middling pianist, and was glad when I was able to
shake myself free from the study. But I regretted it
extremely afterwards, for music is a faithful Com-
panion in life. I have missed it on many social
Occasions, and I strongly advise those of you who
have a talent for it to cultivate the art. I remind you
of my example in order to deter you from making the
mistake that I have to reproach myself with. For the
rest, I can give you only one piece of advice: Don't
be either ‘Camels, or brawlers.” ”
To the members of another Glee Club, the Prince
expressed his regret that when young he had neglected
music. He was grateful to music, for it had effec-
tively supported his political endeavours. German
Song he considered as “one of the imponderables.”
But it had at all events contributed to the success of
the efforts made to achieve German political unity.
He reminded his hearers of the powerful effect of
Becker’s “Rhein/ied" in 1848, and of the “ Wachſ ama
A/lein " in 1870.
In reply to the question whether he had ever been
* German students who do not belong to any Club are called
“Camels,” and those who do are lather apt to be quarrel-
SO1\le,
37.2 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
a singer himself, “Certainly,” he said. “I always had
to give the keynote in my Corps at Göttingen.”
In answer to the further question what the students
used to sing in those days, he replied, “Well, for
instance, ‘In eineſſ. Áil/i/en. Grunde’”—and now here
he was in the Sachsenwald in a very cool valley
indeed.
On another occasion, after being serenaded by the
members of a Dresden Choir (Liedertaſe/), the ex-
Chancellor summoned the singers to his refreshment
table with the words: “But now it is high time to
pass from the ballads to the bottles’ (von den Liedern
22, den Záterm ilāer&uge/e7e).
As for ballads, the Prince remarked, on the
occasion of one of his birthdays, which brought him so
many offerings in verse and prose : “It is a curious
thing that nowadays almost every one writes poetry,
and, it must be owned, mostly of a very good and
finished kind. In my youth it was different.”
For many years, he said at one of his luncheon
parties, he had never been to a theatre, having no time
for such diversion. The last play he had seen was
Heinrich Laube's Earl of Essex. Once he had
attended a gala performance at the Opera, when
R/leingold was given. But Richard Wagner was not
his favourite composer. This was Beethoven.
“It is true, I am not the man to take a ticket in
order to sit and listen to music on a narrow Seat, but
I have always liked music at home. Up to my
thirties, when I made the acquaintance of my very
musical wife, I always regretted that I could not keep
the music hour in my plan of lessons. As there is a
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 373
great deal of talk just now about the overburdening
of youth, I may mention that I had at School to work
thirteen hours a day. I had a French lesson and an
English lesson, besides the other usual ones. So I
had, unfortunately, to give up music. I have always
regretted that, for every German is by nature a friend
of music.”
In December 1891 Madame Etelka Gerster, the
celebrated opera-singer, was a visitor at Friedrichsruh,
and to her at table the ex-Chancellor lamented that
he had had so little time to devote himself to music
and the drama. Never since hearing Madame
Malibran sing had he enjoyed such a treat.
Learning from his tuneful guest that she was of
Magyar origin, the Prince began to talk of his own
Hungarian experiences. Once, in 1852, he had gone
on a special mission to Budapesth, and profited by
the opportunity to make a flying excursion into the
plains. He was escorted by a Uhlan picket, which
had been placed at his disposal by the authorities,
as travelling in the Hungarian steppes, at that time
was not particularly safe. In the course of his pere-
grinations he had once halted at a Czarda (roadside
inn), and on his escort retiring to take a short
rest, the peasants had hastened to him from all
sides, and begun to address him with lively ges-
ticulations, though he did all he could to make them
comprehend that he was totally ignorant of their
speech. It was only on the re-appearance of his
Uhlans that the peasants retired, and then he dis-
covered that they had taken him for a political
prisoner and offered to help him in escaping from
374 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
his escorting troopers. With this manifestation
of Sympathy for his fancied distress he had been
deeply touched.
On another occasion (May 1892) the Prince began
to talk at table about Hungary, and this gave occasion
to one of his guests—a certain Doctor Brendel from
Montevideo, who had come to present to the ex-
Chancellor an address from nearly a thousand Germans
in the La Plata States—to express his regret that the
Magyars treated so badly the Teutonic element in
Transylvania. But the Prince, refusing to be drawn
On this delicate subject, “assumed an icy air and an
appearance of incurable deafness.” “He gives the
keynote in conversation,” said the Doctor, “but he
is not a piano on which one can play.” Changing
the subject, the Prince began to inquire about the
Italians in La Plata, warmly praising their energy
and simple habits, and saying, “They are also the
best labourers of all those now engaged on the Elbe-
Kiel Canal.”
At a later time the ex-Chancellor said to the
Secretaries of some Chambers of Commerce whom he
was entertaining at lunch, that he had conceived the
idea of this Canal as early as 1864, and even then
treated for its construction with Duke Frederick of
Schleswig-Holstein. Subsequently, however, he had
encountered many objections on the subject from his
highly honoured friend, Moltke, who was chief of
the Commission of National Defence. Moltke thought
that, in the cvent of war, it would be necessary to
detach about sixty thousand men for the defence of the
mouth of the Canal. To that he had replied that it
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 375
really didn't matter whether sixty thousand men, more
or less, were wanted for this purpose or not, as, even
without the Canal, Moltke would have to defend
Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck, and even Berlin, against an
attack from the sea.
But the real strategic value of the North-Sea and
Baltic Canal was only perceived when Heligoland,
the naval station dominating the new sea-route from
Kiel to Wilhelmshaven, was exchanged by the Emperor
for the island of Zanzibar. Bismarck, already out of
office, had been a very hard critic of this agreement
(July 1890) between England and Germany; and
yet, when receiving a company of Hull merchants,
who had come over to Hamburg to be entertained by
Some shipping Companies there, he said to them
speaking in English :
“I am pleased to see so important a branch of
commerce here, and particularly such a one as the
mercantile marine, which has contributed so much
to promote and establish those relations which are
so profitable to both nations. Commerce is the great
promoter of civilisation, and has done much to create
the friendship which exists between England and
Germany. It is the Spring of all international
progress, and Conduces to Cordiality, in fact, because
politeness is the Oil of the engines of human life.
Things that are German are not so much esteemed
in England as English things in Germany. (No
No 1) Germany may be compared to a self-made
man, whereas England is an old aristocratic lord.
We have often been together in times of peace as
well as in trouble, still the best relations crist
376 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
between the two nations, and a proof of this has
been given by the speedy settlement of the African
question.”
Two years later (October 1892), when talking to
Some visitors about the Anglo-German agreement
with regard to Africa, the ex-Chancellor said of the
man whom he himself had sent out to suppress the
native insurrection against the Germans : “Wissmann
has crossed Africa twice, and never committed a
single folly. When he came to me before starting
for Zanzibar to put down Buschiri's insurrection, and
asked whether I had any special instructions for him,
‘My dear Major,' I said, ‘what would be the use
of instructions, in view of the fact that it takes six
weeks for a letter to reach Zanzibar P You surely
don’t take me for the old Aulic War-Council. Your
only instructions are to conquer. I give you full
leave to draw your bills of responsibility on me ; I
will accept them all.’ I have unlimited confidence in
Wissmann. He has traversed the Dark Continent
twice, and has come out each time with a white
waistcoat. He has never caused either us or himself
any difficulties. The sword-knot at his side is to me
a further guarantee for his conduct. If he should
get into conflict, my instinct will always prepossess
me in his favour. Emin may be much cleverer than
Wissman, and he certainly is a savant ; but I believe,
if I had his profile here, it would be seen that he has
no hind-head—that is, full animal energy—which
cannot be entirely dispensed with in Africa.”
Certainly the Prince himself had plenty of hind-
head, or occipital energy ; and otherwise he was
A FALLEN CHANCELLOR. 377
blessed with pretty much the same kind of tempera-
ment as had enabled Wissmann to cross the Dark
Continent twice with a “spotless waistcoat.”
In August 1891 representative students from all
the German Universities held at Kissingen a grand
festival commemoration in honour of the ex-Chan-
cellor; and one of them, in proposing his health,
had said, among other things, that the Prince had
always had “to struggle with German melancholy and
disunion.” In replying, the Prince begged leave to
remark, “in parenthesis,” that he himself had scarcely
ever been subject to melancholy, but that, on the
contrary, he had always been dominated in his actions
either by the choleric or the sanguine temperament.
This was the kind of temperament which had
enabled him to do such mighty things for his nation
as once drew from the old Emperor one of the finest
compliments, in the opinion of the Prince, which
had ever been paid him. When entertaining at
Friedrichsruh (May 1893) a party of Oldenburg
visitors, the talk came to be of the great national
monument in the Niederwald, near Rüdesheim on the
Rhine, and the Prince expressed his regret that ill-
ness had prevented him from attending the unveiling
ceremony (in 1883) along with the Emperor, all the
members of his family, and the magnates of the
realm. His Majesty, however, had presented him
with a miniature model of the work, and in doing so
said, “That is really your own monument.” “Ah,”
said the Prince, a little later, of the old Emperor,
“he was a whole man—sensible, honourable, and
brave.” About the same time, too, the Prince
378 BISMARCK'S TABLE-TALK.
called on a company of guests to drink in silence
to the memory of the Emperor William I., “the
Ruler who lives for ever in the recollection of his
people as a model of magnanimity, valour, love of
honour, and gratitude.”
But SOOn after this, the ex-Chancellor became out-
wardly reconciled to the grandson of this model of all
monarchical virtues—that grandson whom he had
Once characterised in the bitterness of his heart as a
“rich heir "; and the reconciliation appeared to be
complete when William II. sent the Prince, on the
Occasion of his seventy-ninth birthday, a magnificent
steel cuirass. “May the solid steel,” he wrote, “that
is to cover your breast be regarded as the symbol of
Gcrman gratitude, which cnfolds you with its stead-
fast loyalty, and to which I, too, desire to give my
cloquent expression l’ “I shall don this new breast-
plate,” replical the Prince, “as the symbol of your
Majesty's gracious favour, and leave it to my children
as a lasting memento of the same.”
“Whatever may be our political differences,” said
thc cx-Chancellor a few weeks latcr (April 1894),
when cntertaining a party of National Liberal deputics
at lunch, “the rallying point for us all must continue
to be the person of his Majesty the Emperor"—
William II. In spite of the cxcccding bitterness of
his heart, Bismarck, the real Unificr of the Fatherland,
was still staunchly truc to—
KAISER AND REICII.
I N D E X.
—4)—
A
Absolutism, I 16, 123, 138, 178,
270–2.
Accident Assurance, 316.
Adam, Madame, 349.
Adams, Mr., 40.
Aegidi, Prof., 22 I-5.
Alexander II. (of Russia), 65,
232, 308, 346.
Alexander III. (of Russia),
233, 297.
Alfred, King, 7.
Alliance, Austro-German, 298.
Franco-Russian, 309.
Holy, 120, 309.
Prusso-Italian, 83.
,, Triple, 232, 326,330.
Alsace-Lorraine, 70, 177, 181,
183, 191, 227, 249.
America, United States of,
146, 147, 185, 274, 293,
3O4, 305, 367.
Ampthill, Lord, 33, 2 I I, 252.
Andrassy, Count, 2 10, 253,
298.
Appius Claudius, 319.
Army, 283, 299, 324.
Arndt, I 35.
3 y
j 7
Arnim, Dr. von, 63.
Count Harry, 2 I I-15,
237.
Attila, 85.
August, Prince (of Prussia),
3.24. -
Augusta, Empress, 286.
Augustenburg, Prince Frede-
rick of, 70, 374.
Avignon olive-leaf, 61.
7 y
B
Baden, 69, 160, 299.
Baldness, 345.
Ballestrem, Count, 244.
Baltic Provinces, 50, Io9.
Bancroft, Mr., 146, 148.
Banquo, Ghost of, 305.
Barbarossa, Kaiser, 9, 145,
140.
Barral, Count, 57.
Battenberg, Prince Alexander
of, I 14, 300.
Bavaria, 189, 190, 192, 242,
268.
Beaconsfield, Lord, 55, 50,
252.
Beards, 322, 335.
37)
38O
INDEX.
Bebel, Herr, 131.
Beer-drinking, 279–88.
Beethoven, 372.
Benedetti, Count, 53, IoS,
I06, I Lo, I I I, 134, 152,
I87, 334.
Bennigsen, Herr von, 99, 129.
Bernstorff, Count, 22 I.
Bethusy, Count, 130.
Beust, Count, 28, 44, 53, 67,
78, 87, 133, 193, 208, 212,
2I 6, 217.
Bismarck-Bohlen,
171, 178.
Bismarck-Briest, 64.
3 y Count Herbert, 223,
330, 339, 367.
3 * Count William, 223,
276,302,317,318.
2 3 clan, 301.
y 5 Princess, 42, 44, 86,
97, 221, 223, 261,
I61, 165,
267, 320, 335.
Blanckenburg, Moritz Von,
5772.
Bleichröder, Herr von, 235.
Blind, Ferdinand, 86, 87, 88,
242, 289.
Blood and Iron, 61, 62.
Bloomfield, Lord, 47, 56.
Blum, Robert, 28.
Bluntschli, Prof., IOI,
123, 124, 136, 141.
Bonapartists, 183, 185, 20I,
2O3, 2 I 5, 343-4.
Bonnechose, Cardinal, 199.
Bonnell, Dr., 74, 88, 13 I.
Bores, 262.
Bourbons, 183, I84.
Braun, Dr. Carl, I IO, 255, 285.
II.4,
Bright, John, 85.
Bronsart, Colonel von, 163.
Brunnow, Baron, 55.
Bucher, Lothar, 182, 279.
Busch, Dr., 37, 294, 347.
Bühler, Herr von, 297.
C
Camphausen, 284.
Canal, Elbe-Kiel, 70, 374.
Capital punishment, 246–9,
29 Izz.
Caprivi, Count, 357, 366.
Carlyle, Thomas, 8.
Caroline Islands, 304.
Cavour, 6, IoI.
Celts, 50, I37.
Chambord, Comte, 185.
Charles I., 59.
,, Prince (of Prussia),
323.
Chancellor, office of, 238.
Chatham, Earl of, 319.
Christ, Herr, 212.
Christianity, 226, 290.
Cincinnatus, IO.
Cohen : see Blind.
Colonies, 257–9, 326.
Commerce ministry, 313.
Conference (Graeco - Turkish
frontier), 260.
5 y London, 55.
y 2 West African, 258.
“Conflict-Time,” 58, 66, 117.
Congress of Berlin, I6, 250–3.
y 5 of Paris (1856),337.
9 y of Princes, 69.
Congo State, 259.
Conservatives, 92, 237.
INDEX.
38 I
Constitutionalism, 120, 270
Cooking, French, 338.
Corvin, Otto von, 158.
Courcel, Baron de, 279.
Court dress, 365.
Crispi, Signor, 262, 330–353.
Cromwell, 5, 87, III.
Cronstadt meeting, 309.
Crown Prince : see Frederick
III.
Crown Princess : see Empress
Frederick.
D
Dalwigk, 189.
Delbrück, 239, 242, 284, 313.
Derfflinger, Marshal, 282.
Diary, Crown Prince's, 155.
Diet of Frankfort, 32,35, 37.
,, Prussian: see Parliament.
Dietze-Barby, 67, 119, 120,
I 22.
Disarmament, 297.
Disraeli: see Beaconsfield.
Dogs, 280, 290.
Dohm, Herr, 73.
Dolgoruky, Prince, 326.
Doucet, Camille, 19.
Dreams, 74, 294.
Prei-Kaiser-Bund, 232.
Dürckheim, Count, 228.
Duvernois, Clement, 344.
E
Eating and drinking, 278
288, 332, et seq.
Economic reforms, 310, 316.
Edison phonograph, 329.
Elector, the Great, 283.
Emperor, German : see Wil-
liam.
Empire, German, 192, 250.
England and Germany, 48,
I40, I57, 256–7, 337, 375.
Erlanger, Baron, 235.
Ester, Herr von, 30.
Eugénie, Empress, 46, 183,
I85, 344.
Eulenburg, 294.
Exhibition (of Paris, 1867),
I34.
2 3 (of Paris, 1878),
306
Exhibitions, 306.
F
Favre, Jules, 47, 182, I83,
184, 200, 201, 209, 220,
263, 344.
Federal Council, 264, 293.
Forckenbeck, Herr von, 99.
Francis Joseph, Emperor,
101, 217, 218, 231, 232,
367.
Franckenstein, Baron, 231.
Frankenberg, Count, 191.
Frederick II. (the Great), 5,
6, 8, 10, 14, 29, 138, I 47,
239, 248, 324.
Frederick III., Emperor, 58,
94, 16, 124, 155, 170, 247,
255, 351, 355, 359–61.
Frederick, Empress, 48, 247,
360.
Frederick William I., I4.
38.2
Frederick William III., 126,
I40, 187, 189, 241, 324.
Frederick William IV., 26,
32, 48, 270, 333, 352.
French, Character of, 173,
174, 245, 338, 348, 369.
Freydorf, Herr von, 160, 186,
187.
Friedrichsruh, described, 33 I.
Fröbel, 136.
G
Gablenz, General, I O2, 23.I.
Gambetta, 175, 307, 308, 3.I.O.
Garibaldi, 204, 34I.
Geffcken, Dr. I55.
Gerlach, Leopold von, 38, 48.
* 5 Dr. von, 89, 90.
Germans, Characteristics of,
108, 136, 176, 273, 306-8,
362.
Gerster, Madame Etelka, 373.
Giers, M. de, 326.
Gladstone, Mr., 230, 256, 257.
Goethe, 12, 2 I, 36, 37, 149,
288.
Gontaut-Biron, M., 327.
Gortchakoff, Prince, 54, 76,
108, Io9, 234, 252, 289.
Gossler, Herr von, 275.
Göttingen, Memories of 24,
38, 7.1, I 19, 226, 284,302,
329, 372.
Govone, General, 81, 82, 83.
Gramont, Duc de, 53, 153,
154, 183, 343.
Grant, General U. I46, 247-
249, 250.
Gravelotte, I57, I59.
Greatness, Penalties of, 320.
Gründer-Era, 233.
H
Hammerstein, Baron, 365.
Hanover, King of, 89, I 12, 265
Hanse towns, 266, 268.
Hansen, Jules, 75, 76.
Happiness, 296.
Hartmann, Nihilist, 309,
Hatzfeldt, Count, 46, 171, 175.
Hegel, 226.
Heligoland, 375.
Hérisson, Comte, 200.
Hesse-Cassel, I Io, 265.
Heyse, Paul, 366.
Hödel, 229, 244, 247.
Hohenlohe, Prince, 146.
Hohenthal, Count, 82.
Hohenzollern, Prince Charles
of, I 13,
Hohenzollern, Prince Leopold,
I50, 175, 176, 183.
Holland, I29, 2 II, 23.I.
Holmes, O. Wendell, 249.
Holnstein, Count, I 94, I05,
196.
Home (the spiritualist), 171.
“Honest Broker,” 3, 250.
Huguenots, 261.
Humboldt, 12.
Hungarians, I39, 340, 373.
I
Indemnity, Prussian (of 1866),
II.4, I 23.
j 3 French war, 169,
257.
Infallibility dogma, I99.
INDEX.
383
Italian characteristics, 330–
53, 374.
Itzenplitz, 233.
J
Japanese diplomatists, 327.
Jesuits, 238.
Jews, 32, 199, 235–7.
Johnson, Dr., 12, 13, 63.
Jókai, M. 182, 297.
Jordan-Deidesheim, 243.
Journalists, IO7, 237, 244, 349,
364,
Jowett, Prof. 66.
Junker, 30, 31, 5 I.
K
Kant, 226.
Karolyi, Count, 81.
Kayserling, Count, 362.
Keudell, Herr von, Ioo, Ioy,
213.
Kladderadatsch, 38, 73.
Kleist-Retzow, 92.
Königgrätz, 93, 94, I 18, 22 I,
263, 368, 369.
Kreuz-Zeitung, 28, 51, 61, 62,
I 26, 233, 365.
Krüger, President, 259.
Krupp, 317.
Kullmann, 241–44.
Kulturkampf, 3, 199,
238, 239, 24I, 304.
2 II,
L
Labour Conference, 356–7.
La Marmora, 82, 140.
Languages, 259, 333, 352.
Larisch, Count, 23.I.
Lasker, Dr., I27, 233, 234,
284, 304, 305.
Lauenburg, Duke of, 265.
Launay, Count de, 336.
Lehndorf, Count, 209.
Le Marquis, 17O.
Lenbach, 288, 321, 366.
Leo XIII., 240.
Lincoln, President, I-17.
Loftus, Lord Augustus, 85,
90, 95, I I I, I48, I57.
Lords, English House of 265.
Louis XIV., 184.
,, XVI., 59.
Ludwig, King (of Bavaria),
I92, 194, 195, 196.
Lüning, Herr, 57, 58.
Luther, Io, 12, 2I.
Luxemburg Question,
I 3 I, I.33, I55.
Lytton, Lord, 256.
I 29,
M
Macaire, Robert, 177.
Machiavelli, 17, 107, 133.
Macmahon, Marshal, 162.
Malet, Sir Alexander, 47.
Malibran, Madame, 373.
Malmesbury, Lord, 183.
Manteuffel, Herr von, 33, 34,
69, 338.
j j Field Marshal, 229.
Mars-la-Tour, 223.
Matthews, Charles, 56.
Max, King (of Bavaria) 196.
Mazzini, 249.
Mecca, 21, 80.
Menken family, 240.
384
INDEX.
Menschikoff, Princess, 200.
Mensdorff-Pouilly, Count, Joo,
23 I.
Merimée, 80.
Metternich, Prince, 12, 357.
Metz, 210, 227, 299.
Military career, 324, 370.
Miquel, Dr., 89.
Miranda, Angel de, 179.
Mohammedanism, 80.
Möllendorf, General, 27.
Moltke, 92, 99, IOO, 130, 131,
I32, I34, I52, I54, I 55,
I67, 205, 269, 297, 310,
328, 329, 345, 368, 374.
Monopolies, State, 350.
Montenegro, 285.
Morny, De, 44, 52, 53, 343.
Motley, John R. I.3, 34, 36,
43, 64, 71, 78, I 18, 124,
I48, 218.
Moustier, Marquis de, 47.
Münchhausen, 329.
Münster, Count, 328.
Music and singing, 37 I-3.
N
Napoleon I., 1.
Napoleon III., 46, 52, 54, 68,
79, 8 I, IOI, IoS, I Io, I I3,
I 26, 129, 133, 134, 135,
139, 163, 177, 187, 20I,
2IO, 220, 221, 25 I, 308,
334, 336, 342, 344, 365.
Napoleon, Prince, 66.
National Liberals, 129, 378.
Nicholas I., Emperor, IoS,
352.
Nicholas II., 3 Io.
Nicolsburg (Peace prelimin-
aries) IOO, I 17, 133, 218,
239, 35 I.
Nobiling, 229, 244, 247, 250,
324.
Novels, French, 92, 224.
O
Oetker, Dr, 61, 66, I Io
Offenbach, 134.
Ollivier, Emil, 150, 256, 343.
Olmütz, 32, 337.
Oratory, 127, 298.
Orleanists, 174, 183, 185.
Orloff, Prince, 75.
Orsini, 308.
O'Sullivan, J. L., 170.
P
Palmerston, 308.
Parliament, Imperial House
of, 274, 327.
Tobacco, I4.
5 y
y 2 of Erfurt, 31, 127,
I46.
} % Frankfort, 31,
I 27.
Parliamentarism, 64, 270, 273.
Parliamentary soirées, Origin
of, I 5.
Parties, Plague of, 270.
Payment of Members
Parliament), 120, 121.
Perglas, Count, 268.
Perrier, Colonel, 260.
Peter the Great, Will of, 309.
Pfordten, Herr von der, 133,
I34.
Phelps, W. W., Hon., 305.
(of
INDEX.
385
Pitt, William, 4, 6, 319, 339.
Plutarch, 4.
Poles, 65.
Pomeranian bananas, 332.
musketeers, 254,
332.
Portraits, 250, 321.
Portugal, Politics of, 225.
Poschinger, Herr von, 21, 55.
Pouyer-Quertier, 234, 235.
Press, 221, 244, 246, 270, 348,
364.
Prim, Marshal, 175.
Progressists, 187.
Prokesch, 54, 217.
Prometheus, Io.
Protectionism, 312.
Putbus, Prince, 93, 163.
3 y
R
Rantzau, Countess, 288, 302,
34O.
Rathenow, 282.
Rechberg, Count, 37, 41, 57,
76.
Red Prince, 104.
Reichensperger, 32.
Reichshund, I I, 219, 288, 289,
290, 333.
Reichstag (North German),
I IQ.
, , (Imperial), 274, 327.
Republic, French, 201, 214,
344.
Republicanism, 291.
Reuss, Princess Caroline, 72.
Revolution of 1848, 26, 33,
62.
Rhangabé, M., 251.
ſ
| Richelieu, 9, 85.
Richter, Eugen, 237.
Rome, Church of, 199.
Roon, General von, 57, 92,
99, I52, I 54, I55, I 59,
2O5, 325.
Rothan, M., 46.
Rothschild, Baron, 169, 313.
Rottenburg, Dr. von, 330.
Roumania, I I3, I I4.
Rudhart, Herr von, 266.
Russell, Lord Odo :
Ampthill.
y 7 Lord John, 55.
Russia, 232.
and England, 254.
,, and France, 309.
,, and Germany 65, I40,
254, 309, 352.
J'é62
22
S
Salisbury, Lord, 5, 250.
Salzburg meeting, 208.
Sancho Panza, 333.
Sardou, I 35.
Sargent, Mr., 305.
Savigny, 28, 238, 302.
Saxe-Weimar, Grand Duke,
55.
Saxony, 68, 69, 83, 281, 263.
Schiller, 79, 87, 292, 370.
Schleinitz, Count, 193.
Schleswig-Holstein, 70,
2 IO, 230.
Schliemann, Dr., 145.
Schmerling, Herr von, 78.
Schurz, Carl, 249.
Schweninger, Dr., 18, 275–8,
330-353.
75,
25
386
INDEX.
Schwerin, Count, 29.
Sedan, 162, 197, 250, 369.
Seherr-Thoss, Count, IOI.
Semmes, Captain, 148.
Sepp, Dr., 141, 145.
Shakespeare, 13,37, 293, 329.
Sheridan, General Phil, 157,
160, 161, 163, 164, 168,
I70.
Simon, Jules, 357.
Simson, Dr., Edward, 31, 146.
Slavs, 49, 103, 108, 137, 2 II.
Smoking, 204, 279, 335, 342.
Social Democracy, 3, 245,
292.
Spaniards, Character of, 176.
Spinoza, 226.
Sport, 3 Io, 32 I, 323, 338, 361.
Stanley, Henry M., 258.
State Socialism, 3, 307, 316.
Stein, 6.
Steinmetz, General von, 144.
Stieber, Herr, 158.
Stillfried, Count, 20.
Stöcker, Herr, 40.
Strafford, 5, 59.
Suffrage, Universal, 129.
Sulzer, 5.
Sunday observance, 292.
Superstitions, 294.
Swabians, 137, 240, 258.
Sybel, Herr von, 154.
T
Talleyrand, Io'7.
Taylor, Bayard, 252.
Thiers, M., IO7, 174, 197, 209,
263, 344.
Thomas, William King, 246.
Thun, Count, 37.
Złmes, The (newspaper), 13,
48.
Treaties (military), between
North and South Ger-
many, I 32, I44.
Treaty of Berlin, 331.
,, , , Black Sea, 175.
,, , , Frankfort, 205.
,, , , Gastein, 78, 81,
, , ,, Paris, 331.
, , ,, Prague, 230.
,, , , San Stefano, 250.
,, , , Vienna, 73.
Trochu, General, 185, 201.
Troubadours, 261.
U
Uhland, 127.
Ultramontanes, Io2, Io9.
Ulysses, 315.
Unruh, Herr von, 14, 28, 30,
50, 5 I, II.5, I 16, I 17, 133,
243, 274.
V
Vaillant, Marshal, 345.
Valleyo, Angel de, 17 1, 179.
Verse-writing, 328, 372.
Victor Emmanuel, 9.
Victoria, Princess (Schleswig-
Holstein), 70.
Victoria, Queen, 8, 46, 85,
24 I.
Vilbort, M., 106, Ioy.
Vincke, Herr von, 37, 38, 39.
Virchow, Prof., 39, 67.
INDEX.
387
Vitzthum, Count, 55.
Voigts-Rhetz, 223.
Vo/AEszeitung, 187.
W
Wagener, Herr (Kreuz-Zeit-
ung), 63, 126, 127, 129,
233.
Wagner, Richard, 306, 372.
Waiters, German, 258.
Waldersee, Count, 207, 292.
Wallenstein, I I, 160.
Walpole, Sir R., 7, 8, 9.
War, Austro-Italian, 57, 210.
,, Austro-Prussian, 62, 92,
I 12, 345, 351, 368.
,, Bismarck on, 130, 155,
296–7, 326, 352, 369.
,, Crimean, 299, 337, 345.
,, Danish, 70, 72, 73.
,, Franco - German, 1.30,
I38, 150, 205, 343–4.
,, Liberation, 89.
,, Russo-Turkish, 255.
,, Seven Years', 89, 90.
,, Thirty Years', 294.
Washington, 11.
Wellington, Duke of, 85.
Werner, Anton von, 5,
25O.
Western, Squire, 7.
Wielpolski, Marquis, 86.
Wigs, 345.
William I. (of Prussia),
German Emperor, 2, 3,
9, 51, 58, 64, 68, 72, 74,
82, 94, IOI, IO4, 123, I24,
134, 151 (eſ seq.), 178,
179, 2I 6, 232, 247–9, 274,
323, 346, 351, 354, 355,
359, 377.
William II, 70, 243, 265, 299,
3 IO, 340, 347, 354, 355,
350, 377–8.
William, Prince : see William
II.
Windthorst, 3.16.
Wines, 280, 333, 342.
Wissmann, Major, 376.
Woermann, Herr, 258–9.
Wolsey, Cardinal, I I.
Women in politics, 48,349,366.
Wood industry, 317.
Working men, 316, 356.
Wrangel, Field Marshal
(“Papa ''), 72, 322.
Wright, Mr. (American
Minister), 148.
Würtemberg, Crown Prince
of, 164.
y King of, 196,
2.99.
Z
Zanzibar, 375, 376.
Zoll-Parliament, 136, 143, I46.
Zollverein, 266–9.
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, La., London and Aylesbury.
Tº
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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN