Chapter I: On the Voyage of Life (3)

Under these circumstances the wisdom of our military
precautions might be extended in other directions, and impart
significance to our attitude; then Prussian self-respect would
speak perhaps with a more conclusive tone than the Diet. _I
should only then care to see the word “German” in place of
“Prussian” inscribed upon our standard, when we should have
become more intimately and effectually bound up with our German
fellow-countrymen than we have hitherto been_; the word loses
its charm in proximity to the ideas of the Diet.

I fear that your Excellency will interrupt me in this
epistolary digression into the field of my former activity,
with the cry, “_Ne sutor ultra crepidam_;” nor was it my
intention to hold an official oration; I desired only to
present the testimony of an experienced person against the
Diet. _I see in our position in the Diet, a defect of Prussia,
which we shall have sooner or later to heal, ferro et igni_,
unless we adopt in time, and at a proper season of the year,
measures for a cure. Were the Confederation abolished this very
day, without substituting something in its place, I believe
that this negative acquisition would soon form better and more
natural relations between Prussia and her German neighbors,
than have hitherto existed.

BISMARCK.

TO A PRUSSIAN DIPLOMATIST.

Petersburg, 1st July, 1859.

I thank you for your letter, and hope you will not allow the
first to be the last. Among the matters which interest me, the
Frankfurt negotiations, next to immediate necessities, occupy
the first place with me, and I am very much obliged for any
news from thence. I regard our policy, up till now, as correct;
but I look mournfully into the future. We have armed ourselves
too soon and too strongly, and the heavy load which we have
assumed is dragging us down an inclined plane. There will be
intervention in order to occupy the Landwehr, as people do not
like simply to send them back home. We then shall not even
be Austria’s reserve, but shall sacrifice ourselves directly
for Austria, and relieve her of the stress of war. The first
shot on the Rhine brings with it a German war as the chief
circumstance, from its threatening Paris. Austria will get
breathing time; and will she make use of her freedom to aid us
in playing a brilliant part? Will her efforts not rather be
directed so to shape the measure and form of our success as
it may serve specific Austrian interests? If we are worsted,
the Federal States will all desert us, like faded plums in the
wind; and each State, the capital of which receives a French
garrison, will save itself in a patriotic way on the raft of
a new Rhenish Confederation. Perhaps it will be possible to
attain a combination of measures on the part of the three
great neutral Powers. We are too expensively armed to be able
to wait the result as patiently as England and Russia, and
our intervention will scarcely bring to light that quadrature
of the circle—a peace basis agreeable to France and Austria.
The public voice in Vienna is said to be very bitter against
their own Government, and is stated to have reached the pitch
of hissing their national hymn. Our enthusiasm for war seems
also to be only of a moderate character, and it will be
difficult to convince the nation that war and its evils are an
unavoidable necessity. The proof of this is too artificial for
the comprehension of a Landwehr man.

In a business point of view, my position here is very pleasant;
but there is a great deal to do to manage forty thousand
Prussians, for whom one has to be police, advocate, judge,
assistant, and councillor—every day there are twenty to fifty
signatures, without passports. I am still, as it were, in camp,
with a few beds, towels, and caps, bought in a hurry; without
cook and kitchen, as all utensils are wanting—and, in all
this heat, without summer clothing! My house is large enough,
and handsomely situated on the Newa; three great saloons, two
of them larger than those at Seufferheld’s; I have had the
Chancery placed in one, with a good flooring, looking-glass
doors, and silver chandeliers. All that I have as yet received
from Frankfurt are my weapons, unfortunately packed under
some crown chandeliers in such a way that three guns were
quite broken to pieces, and the barrels ruined. I wonder what
wiseacre packed them! If the rest of the things have been
packed so, I may perhaps congratulate myself if they have been
lost. The insurance is small, if the plate is with it; the
premium high, because the fool has insured against “war risk!”

* * * * *

Hohendorf, 3d February, 1860.

I still hear with pleasure, and with a sort of longing for
home, all intelligence concerning the state of things and
persons at Frankfurt; and when I read the papers, I often feel
a desire to hurry into the midst of battles at the sessions.
The campaign over the war constitution was capital. Let them
proceed openly and daringly to urge our demands; they are
too just not finally to be, although slowly, recognized. The
Sovereign States, by grace of the Rhenish Confederation and the
Diet, can not rely upon their particularity for any duration
against the stream of events. As in my recovery, there may
occur a time of standing-still and relapse occasionally; but
it still will go forward, when we courageously _dare_ and are
not ashamed of our daring any more, but openly proclaim in the
Diet, in the press, and, above all, in our Chambers, that which
we desire to represent in Germany, and what the Federation has
hitherto been for Prussia—an Alp and a noose about our necks,
with the end of it in the hands of the enemy, that only waits
the proper moment to run it tight. But enough of politics.

I hope soon to be in trim for my journey—am perhaps already
so. My wife and the physicians conjure me to go south—to
Heidelberg or Switzerland. I long for Petersburg, that I may at
last live quietly in my own house.

* * * * *

Petersburg, 16th June, 1860.

We are pretty well at present, and I am much better than if I
were in Germany without being wanted. Rest and the comforts of
domestic life are doing their best. It is 24° in the shade,[43]
but always cool nights. Business proceeds, thanks to so
delightful a Minister as Gortschakoff, without annoyance—in
short, _cela va bien, pourvu que cela dure_. Our relations here
are excellent, no matter what the newspapers may fable about it.

The Augsburger people and Company are still afraid lest I
should become Minister, and think they can prevent it by
abusing me and my Franco-Russian ideas. It is a great honor to
be dreaded by the enemies of Prussia. My political flirtations
in the spring, at the Court, and with the Ministry, have,
furthermore, been so accurately sifted that they are well aware
of what the state of the case is, and how I am believed to find
precisely in the national aspirations powers of resistance and
strength. If I _am_ written down a devil, it is a Teutonic
one, and no Gallic fiend. ——’s lie factory might attack me
much more to the purpose on other grounds than on Bonapartism,
if they wish to make an impression at our Court, as among the
Augsburgers.

* * * * *

St. Petersburg, 22d August, 1860.

I am quite excluded from home politics, for with the exception
of newspapers, I only receive official statements, which do not
give me the groundwork of things. According to these, we have
promised nothing definite at Teplitz, but have made our support
of Austria dependent upon that _practical_ demonstration of
her good-will towards us in German politics; when this has
been done, she may reckon on our gratitude. I should be very
content with this; and if we only see the Vienna soap in a
lather, we should be glad to return the service. Certainly
the indirect accounts we receive from other courts sound
otherwise. According to these, if true, though we have not
concluded any guarantee treaty, we have, at any rate, bound
ourselves verbally to assist Austria, under all circumstances,
should she be _attacked_ by _France_ in Italy. Should Austria
find it necessary to act on the offensive, our consent would
be requisite, if our co-operation is to be anticipated. This
version appears more unprejudiced than it would, in fact, be.
Austria having security that we should fight for Venice, she
will know how to provoke the _attack_ of France—it has been
asserted that since Teplitz, Austria has come out boldly and
defiantly in Italy. Viennese politics, since the Garibaldian
expedition, desire to make things in Italy as bad as they can
be, in order that if Napoleon himself should find it necessary
to declare against the Italian Revolution, movements should
commence on all sides and former conditions be assimilatively
restored. This reckoning with and upon Napoleon may be very
deceptive, and it would seem as if, since Teplitz, it has
been given up, and there were hopes of attaining results by
_opposing_ Napoleon. The restless, passionate character of
Austrian politics endangers peace in both ways. What will the
Chamber say to Teplitz—to the organization of the army? All
sensible men will naturally agree with Government as to the
latter. But the influence of foreign politics can first be
estimated, when it is known _what the meaning of Teplitz really
is_. A well-informed but somewhat Bonapartist correspondent
writes to me from Berlin, “We were prettily taken in at Teplitz
by Viennese good-humor; sold, for nothing, not even a mess of
pottage.” God grant that he errs in this! In speaking of the
Bonapartists, it occurs to me that some kind of general rumors
reach me, that the press, _National Verein_, _Magdeburger_,
_Ostpreussische Zeitung_, carry on a systematic war of calumny
against me. I am said to have openly supported Russo-French
pretensions respecting a cession of the Rhine province, on the
condition of compensation nearer home; I am a second Borries,
and so on. I will pay a thousand Fredericks-d’or to the person
who will prove to me that any such Russo-French propositions
have ever been brought to my knowledge by any one. In the whole
period of my German residence I never advised any thing else
than that we should rely on our _own_ strength, and in the case
of war, upon the aid of the national forces of Germany. These
foolish geese of the German press do not see that in attacking
me they are losing the better part of their own efforts. I am
informed that the fountain-head of these attacks was the Court
of Coburg, in a writer who has personal spite against me.
Were I an Austrian statesman, or a German Prince and Austrian
reactionist, like the Duke of Meiningen, our _Kreuzzeitung_
would have protected me as it has him; the mendacity of these
assaults is unknown to some of our political friends. As I am,
however, an old member of their party, entertaining particular
ideas upon certain points, well known to him to his misfortune,
I may be slandered to their hearts’ content. I hear of the
whole affair principally from the _officious_ advocacy of the
_Elberfeld Zeitung_, which is sent to me. There is nothing
like inquisitors among themselves, and friends, who long have
partaken of the same cup, are more unjust than foes. I am
satisfied. One ought not to rely on men, and I am thankful for
every breath which draws me inward.

* * * * *

Stolpmünde, 18th Sept., 1861.

In reference to the Conservative programme, I fully subscribe
to your observations. The _negative_ construction prevailing
throughout of the propositions should have been avoided from
the first. A political party can never stand, much less conquer
position and adherents, by a mere languid defensive policy.
Every party professes to abhor the dirt of the German Republic,
and the Opposition now forming give themselves honest trouble
not to have it—that is, the dirt. A figure of speech so much
wider than the requirements of the time, either means nothing,
or conceals what people do not desire to say. I myself am
in doubt whether the authors of the programme do not really
stand at the pure Würzburg point of view. Among our best
friends, we have so many doctrinaires who ask from Prussia an
identical duty of protecting foreign princes and countries as
she protects her own subjects. The system of the solidarity of
the conservative interests of all countries, is a dangerous
fiction as long as the fullest and most honest reciprocity does
not exist between the rulers of all countries. Were Prussia to
carry it out in isolation, it would become Quixotism, which
would only weaken our King and his Government in the solution
of the most important question, viz., that defense of Prussia
confided to the Crown of Prussia by the Almighty, against
injustice coming from within or without. We are gradually
making the whole unhistorical, ungodly, and illegal sovereignty
swindle of _those_ German princes who use the Confederation as
a pedestal whence to play at being European powers, into the
nurse-child of the Conservative party of Prussia. Internally
our Prussian _Government_ is liberal; abroad it is legitimist.
We respect foreign crown rights with greater constancy than
we do our own, and become enthusiastic about those lesser
sovereignties created by Napoleon and sanctioned by Metternich,
to blindness against all the perils with which the independence
of Prussia and Germany is threatened in the future, as long as
the nonsense of the _present_ Confederation endures, which is
nothing more than a hothouse of dangerous and revolutionary
efforts. I could have wished that, instead of vague expressions
against the German Republic, it had been openly stated in
the programme what we desire to see changed and restored in
Germany, whether by justly directed efforts towards alterations
in the constitution of the Confederation, such as definite
associations like the Customs Union, and the Military Treaty
of Coburg. We have the double task of giving evidence that the
existing Confederation is not our _ideal_, but that we purpose
to attempt the necessary alterations openly in a legal way,
and that we do not intend to go _beyond_ these in confirming
security and prosperity. To us the necessity of a firmer
consolidation of our defensive powers is as patent as that of
daily bread; we require a new and plastic system of customs,
and a number of institutions in common, to defend material
interests against the evils resulting from the unnatural
interior configuration of German frontiers. There should be no
doubt as to the sincerity and earnestness with which we ask for
these objects. Nor do I see, moreover, _why we should recoil
so prudishly from the idea of popular representation, whether
in the Diet, or in any customs, or associative parliament_.
Surely we can not combat an institution as revolutionary which
is legally established in every German State, and which we
Conservatives even would not wish to see abolished, even in
Prussia. In national matters we have hitherto regarded very
moderate concessions as valuable. A thoroughly conservative
national representation might be created, and yet receive the
gratitude of the liberals.

I am interrupted by the sounds of packing. In case you still
have an opportunity of conferring with our friends on the
subject, I enclose you the sketch I read to you with the
request, however, that it shall not become public, as I am
unaware whether the King would like that this hasty memorandum
of the conversation I had with His Majesty, and which I
committed to writing at his command, should become known, as I
hear several discussions have taken place about it.

* * * * *

Berlin, the 2d Oct., 1861.

In Koblenz and here I have been active for German politics,
and in the present state of things not quite without results.
I wrote about the 19th of last month from Stolpmünde to your
residence here, and enclosed in my letter the draught of the
short sketch I had presented to the King. I am to carry this
matter into greater detail. If, therefore, the letter and
enclosure, as I hope, has reached your hands, I beg of you to
send it me to Reinfeld, that I may work it up more completely
there. I am really home-sick for my household on the English
Quay, with the tranquil view of the Neva ice. On the 13th, it
will be necessary to meet at Königsberg.

* * * * *

Berlin, the 16th May, 1864.

I can understand your hesitation against the address, which,
however, in my opinion, at the present time seizes the
diplomatic position with useful pressure. I may certainly be
mistaken in this, for the longer I act in political affairs
the less is my confidence in human calculation; and if you
feel an inward opposition to it, I speak the less of it, as
I would rather be able to declare with a good conscience
that the Government has not inspired the idea mirrored in
it. The actual state of things, however, is such, that it
appears very necessary to let loose all the dogs willing to
give tongue (forgive this sporting simile) against Denmark
at the conference; the general cry of the pack will effect a
conviction on the part of alien Powers that the subjection of
the Duchies to Denmark is an impossibility, and the latter will
be obliged to consider projects which the Prussian Government
can not present to them. Among alien Powers in this last
category I class the Holsteiners themselves, together with the
_Augustenburg_, and all the eternally ignoble down to Königsau.
The Duchies have hitherto played the part of the birthday
child in the German family, and have accustomed themselves to
think that we are willing to bring every sacrifice to the
altar of their particular interests, and are willing to risk
the existence of Prussia for every individual German in the
north of Schleswig. The address will especially counteract this
frenzy; I do not fear that it will have so strong an effect as
to bring us into any difficulty. If Prussian ambition were to
rise to such a height among the nation, so that the Government,
instead of stimulating, would have to moderate the feeling, I
should not at all regret such a condition.

You will perceive from this how I comprehend the matter from a
human point of view. As to the rest, my impression of gratitude
for God’s assistance till now rises into a conviction that the
Lord knows how to turn even our errors to our benefit. I daily
observe this with salutary humility.

To clear up the situation I will conclude by saying that to me
Prussian annexation is _not_ the chief and necessary end, but
probably the most agreeable result.

With hearty salutation to your honored household, I am yours,

BISMARCK.

That Bismarck not only followed the German policy of Austria, but also her whole political action, with the lynx eyes of an opponent, is a matter of course, and he soon perceived on what a dangerous error this was based. Relying upon the apparent power which Prince Schwarzenberg’s daring moves, and Radetzky’s victories over Sardinia had obtained, Austria desired to attain to a European hegemony for herself by diplomatic trickery. By amity with France she wished to keep Italy down; by amity with England to overawe Turkey: by the alliance of both, as well as by the pressure she thought to exert over Prussia and the other German States, to humble and lame Russia, in whom she saw the sole antagonist of her visionary hegemony. This plan, however, which explains the attitude of Austria during the Eastern war, was condemned to failure, as the massive power of Russia, under the most favorable circumstances, could only be transitorily shaken by the temporary alliance of England and France; was condemned, as France certainly did not remain quiet in the west, out of pure friendship for Austria, after measuring swords with Russia in the East; was condemned because England scarcely would do any thing for Austria after attaining her ends in the East; finally it was most certainly condemned, as Austria undervalued the power of Prussia to an almost incomprehensible degree. Bismarck foresaw this failure, and, in his opinion, Prussia ought to make use of the crisis which had arrived to save herself and Germany from Austria. Hence at Berlin he continually urged the uttermost possible increase in the strength of the army. Nor were his warnings neglected, but, to his deep sorrow, circumstances took such a form that when the crisis actually came Prussia made no use of the situation. When the Italian war broke out, when Prussia did not declare against Austria, the Ministry thought the presence of Bismarck in Frankfurt had become an impossibility, and he was recalled. It was reserved for Bismarck himself, eight years afterwards, to carry through his German policy, by which Prussia was alone to accomplish her proper position, although at that time it was in alliance with France. Bismarck, in 1858, left the scene of his activity in Frankfurt with a heavy heart. He was convinced it was only there, where he was so accurately acquainted with the ground, that he could render his King and country important services. He departed with patriotic indignation at the contempt which Austria openly showed towards Prussia, but he also knew that a time of retribution would arrive.

His position at Frankfurt gave Bismarck an advantage not lightly esteemed by the statesman. Frankfurt lies like a great hotel on the road into which the great European travelling guild especially loves to call in the summer time. Not only did the representative of Prussia entertain princely guests, related or friendly to the Royal House of Prussia, but gradually became acquainted with a great number of the ministers and diplomatists of all European States. Among the princely personages whom he received in Frankfurt, and to whom he afterwards paid his respects in the watering-places close at hand, we should especially name the Grand-Duchess Helena of Russia, a born Princess of Würtemberg and widow of the Grand-Duke Michael Paulowitsch, a lady of extraordinary abilities, and well informed in political matters, whose influence is said to be very great, and that not alone in Russia.

Among the statesmen whose acquaintance Bismarck made upon the Rhine, we must first name the venerable Prince Metternich, to whom he paid a visit, shortly after his arrival in Frankfurt in the summer of 1851, at the Castle of Johannisberg. He had many conversations with the man who had so long conducted the policy of Austria, in more than one respect, in so masterly a manner, and, in contradistinction to Schwarzenberg, had ever evinced a statesmanlike amenity towards Prussia, and continued to do this in a very distinct manner.

Metternich and Bismarck seated together at the Johannisberg! The one venerable with age, who had been every thing; the other a man who was to become every thing. The representative of the past, and the representative of the future; the past had been allotted to Austria, the future was to be the heritage of Prussia. The present and the Johannisberg constituted the neutral ground where the last remains of Austrian good-will towards Prussia, and the last fragments of traditional reverence for Austria in Bismarck’s patriotic heart, were to meet. The two statesmen parted from each other with mutual respect.