And yet, at that very moment, the idealistic Joseph, who with an excess of zeal, tried for political equality, made enemies of his nobles, enemies of his peasants, likewise. The great reformer was held a fanatic, intent on destroying government. Too far ahead of his time, his plans for political semi-equality failed.

This monarch, thinking to make a lesson, had swindling nobles placed in the stocks, like common thieves.

Joseph was one of the first great democrats, in the modern sense. To him, the cause of the common man was sacred. He believed in genuine equality, but alas, he did not know how to bring about the political Millennium.

He threw open the parks to the people; he proclaimed free speech and free thought; he abolished serfdom; he labored to construct a state-machine with one system of justice and one National plan.

Joseph, though overbrimming with emotions for the common man's political salvation, failed to allow for the ignorance of his people, their stubborn avowal of local self-interests.

And it fell out that his people thought that Joseph was trying to enslave them the more; ingratitude and misapprehensions followed, destroying the liberal reformer's most cherished plans for his beloved Austria-Germany.

The word was passed alone that Joseph was a tyrant. You see, as frequently happens, the people preferred old abuses to new ways. The general population hugged their chains and refused to be delivered.

This singular belief in the past, rather than in the future, is indeed a human weakness and has checked and restrained the rise of intellectual freedom since the world began.

* * * * *

It might all have been a good lesson to republicans, but the nobility assumed a threatening attitude and the peasants did not understand a monarch like Joseph.

Their idea of a king was a man going upstairs on horseback and eating spiders. A king must have powers of life and death and bags of gold. A citizen king was absurd.

The peasantry, on whom Joseph had endeavored to bestow many large democratic privileges, rose against him. He died Feb. 20, 1790, "a century too early," says Jellenz, and as Remer adds, "misunderstood by a people unworthy of such a sovereign."

* * * * *

Germany, in the sad period between 1750 and 1806 had long been a European political jest; these are hard words, but it is the language of truth.

She had sunk so low that she saw no degradation in going off to fight French or British wars, while at home remaining a mere political nonentity.

She had sunk so low, under French influences, and through her own lack of self-control, that she forgot her great ancestors and her noble traditions.

She had sunk so low that her very children were brought up to despise the language of the Fatherland; the children scoffing at the parents, aped foreign ways rather than support German originality, strength and national genius; young men coming of age preferred to leave the land of their birth, mocked the simple German virtues, and occupied themselves in idle dalliance in Paris, or failing in this, set up imitations of French courts in the petty German monarchies.

Thus, finally Germany became insensible, indifferent and debased by stupid and selfish ideals from beyond the Vosges; till at last Germany became, literally, a land without a people, a people without a land.

Worse still, the time came when, under these false teachings, a sense of shame no longer lived, to arouse great national interests and to recall degenerate sons to their solemn duties to their Fatherland.

Hundreds of noble Germans, at one time or another, during these dark years, tried in vain by voice or pen to restore national consciousness, but failed. The problem of German liberty seemed incapable of solution; and as for the still larger problem of German unity—that became a mere dream.

* * * * *

We glorify here and now, the genius and the manhood of Bismarck as the one man who had the strength of purpose to recall to Germans the heroic tale of a free and united Fatherland.

It took him thirty years or more, through well-nigh superhuman striving; he preached, he cursed, he vilified, he used the iron rod.

He would have absolutely nothing to do with the political ideas from over the Vosges; he knew too well the curse of olden times, and his one great central emotion was to end that condition—as he hoped forever.

You are to read of the battles of a giant, filled with immense compassion for the follies and weaknesses of his misled countrymen, filled, too, with fanatical zeal to punish, that good might come of it at last.

Bismarck used the strong military arm, the hell fires and the lightnings.

His nature scorned any further mere palliation of the weaknesses of human nature. Like all supermen, Bismarck struck straight from the shoulder; in turn to be misunderstood, cursed and reviled by the very people he would serve; but in the end aroused German manhood to a just comprehension of the power and dignity of a free and united Fatherland.

* * * * *

For upwards of 100 years before Bismarck's great hour, the French had been accustomed to exploit Germany. To fill the pocketbook, to provide soldiers for wars, or to afford opportunities for buccaneering expeditions, were all the same.

We do not say this to bring up any "moral" issue, but we make the statement merely as one uses the word dung or manure.

That is to say, certain historical facts stink to heaven.

Annexations, concessions, raids, riots at the hands of the French conspired to keep Germany disunited, belligerent and mutinous; and as the years passed Germany, to a large extent, seduced by French ways, lost a sense of her dignity. France had looked to Germany to furnish allies to help fight Prussia, Austria or England; then England turned the trick against France. It is discouraging to add that even the great Goethe was so seduced by the glamour of Napoleon's genius that he wrote these strange words in praise of the French tyrant:

Doubts that have baffled thousands, he has solved: Ideas o'er which centuries have brooded, His giant mind intuitively compressed.

Thus, you have before you this spectacle: Germany's greatest poetical genius forgets the sad reality of his broken, dispirited and disrupted country and leaves her to her wretched fate; passing his time as a sentimental voluptuary in the splendor of the Weimar court, where he concerns himself with such works as "Elective Affinities," a frank endorsement of adultery.

On the other side, the noble Schiller, poet of the people, recalled to his fellow countrymen the faded glory of Germany. "Schiller stands forth," says Menzel, "as the champion of liberty, justice and his country."

In a word, it took Germany 100 years to learn by suffering that if she is ever to regain her fallen prestige as a nation, she must fight her enemies at home and abroad; she must restore the military ideal of ancient times. And here, in a nutshell, is the very root of all this cry about militarism: The man who will not fight for what he regards as his political rights, remains a slave his whole life long; for it is the essential nature of man to exercise tyrannous power over human lives, whenever such practice holds out promise of advantage.

Therefore, Bismarck again trained Germany to be a fighting nation; and if an ideal of a free and united people is no justification, then words have no meaning.

15

The French peasant's son, returning from the wars brings his wife a diamond necklace.

The cross-angles of politics, for years, lead as far as one cares to go, in this German family fight. Each petty state has its intrigues and its grievances; you become befuddled; it is all weariness of the flesh.

However, behind all the political jargon, mighty forces are taking form; and little by little, certain outstanding facts come to view, involving every king, knight, bishop, prince and pauper on the German map, from the North Sea to the Black Sea.

After 1789, the German was down with that new disease, French constitutionalism; liberty, fraternity and equality. No human being knew exactly what it meant. It was a political fever that had to be gone through with; and blood-letting was the only cure.

Monarchs seemingly secure on their thrones from the days of old, now shivered like ghosts as the mobs marched the streets of Vienna and Berlin, waiving new flags and crying "Liberty!"

The word "liberty" went to the crook-backed German peasant's brain like wine; he grew mad with the idea of an impossible world, in which he could decree as he desired and all would bow to him, though he in return would bow to nobody; in short, liberty for him, but death to the others; and were it possible to confiscate the property of the princes and redistribute the loot among the peasants, so much the better.

Before we go into this thing, let us remember that as the French armies marched over Europe, the doom of kings had been cracking and rumbling.

The soldiers carried everywhere the idea of French equality, that is to say, to the popular mind an opportunity to share the loot. Napoleon himself, reflecting on his own career and on the follies of the French revolution, said: "Let us now turn ourselves to something practical; the bombastic ideas of the Revolution have exhausted themselves in grotesque efforts at self-government. All the Revolution means is an opportunity for a man of talents to show what he can do."

And the French soldiers, returning from the wars, brought their wives and daughters gold rings, bracelets and diamond necklaces, the loot of the capitals of Europe.

As for Napoleon, he, of course, took the lion's share; but a diamond necklace to a soldier's wife is indeed a powerful argument on the importance of the new democratic era, in which peasants' sons wear gold lace and their womankind ride in carriages.

Also, many of the generals of France were sons of peasants; and an account of Napoleon's marshals would show the humble origin of men of the hour, sons of soap boilers, tavern keepers, stable-bosses.

One may imagine the result of such surprising overturnings of caste, in old-world conditions. Henceforth the peasants of all lands will naturally regard their respective kings as so many dogs, to be shot to death at the first splendid opportunity! And Germany is no exception.

Forward march, ye sons of the soil, there are stormy days ahead for you, through your "new" ideas.



CHAPTER VI

Prussia's De Profundis

16

Humiliations heaped upon her by France; the strange combination, the lash and the kiss!

First, let us quote from Bismarck, who looking backward after his amazing politico-military triumph at Koeniggraetz, (1866), tells a French interviewer for "Le Siecle" this root-fact about Germans, their weakness and their power:

"No government, however it may act, will be popular in Prussia; the majority in the country will always be opposed to it; simply from its being the Government;—and holding authority over the individual, the central authority is always doomed to be constantly opposed by the moderates, and decried and despised by the ultras. This has been the common fate of all successive governments since the beginning of the dynasty. Neither liberal ministers, nor reactionary ministers have found favor with our Prussian politicians.

"Frederick William III, surnamed the Just, had succeeded as little as Frederick William IV in satisfying the Prussian nation.

"They shouted themselves hoarse at the victories of Frederick the Great, but at his death they rubbed their hands at the thought of being delivered from the tyrant! Despite this antagonism, there exists a deep attachment to the royal house. No sovereign or minister, no government, can win the favor of Prussian individualism. Yet all cry from the depths of their hearts, 'God save the King!' And they obey when the King commands."

* * * * *

With this clue from the master before us, the thing to do is, clearly, to reach out after this German Unity idea in a broad way.

Napoleon's armies had marched everywhere, during all those victorious years, and each soldier had been a living exemplar of the power of National glory.

This National spirit in his armies had helped Napoleon amazingly, despite his genius as a soldier. The great Prussian patriot, Stein, one of the leading men of his time and an early believer in the high destiny of his country, began studying some of the more obscure but vital forces behind Napoleon's career of glory. Stein finally read the secret and urged that as Napoleon had won by National spirit, so Napoleon could in the end be defeated by a similar National spirit when properly opposed to him; and Napoleon with one terrifying black look saw that von Stein had divined the real force of French solidarity, a proclamation was out for von Stein's head, and the patriot who dreamed of his Confederation of Germany, against the French, or any other foreign foe, was obliged to make his escape to the heart of the Bohemian mountains.

* * * * *

Fr: Wm. II (1797-1840), child of the Revolution, to his dying day remained untouched by the new political principles that had their origin beyond the Rhine. Compound of dreams and realities, William had led a repressed life; for one thing, he did not fight for his opinions; indeed his opinions were literary and artistic; a peculiar pietism bound him; he believed too much in man's natural goodness; being an honest man himself, he did not readily suspect others.

This Frederick was always thinking of a Germany built on the traditional order, with all intervening social grades, from peasant to king upon his throne, each bowing and scraping to the other; and Frederick, as the father of his kingdom, exercising a despotic paternalism.

Nor did he see that the French revolution had been fought and Napoleon's armies had carried afar if not the seeds of political equality, at least the glorious conception that "revolution means opportunity for men of talents, everywhere."

The pressure on the king was found in this: that under duress he had promised a written constitution.

And behold Frederick in these troublous times! For eleven long years, off and on, he tries to find a common ground of religious formulas for the united Lutheran and Reformed churches. He even attacks Rome on the question of mixed marriages. Of course, he failed utterly, this noble-minded Hohenzollern who believed too implicitly in the inherent goodness of mankind.

Repair then to your church windows and read your blackletter Bible, you dreaming Frederick; such is your story, in a few words.

Gabble about your Gothic restorations as you will, and your correct revisions of the liturgy, Frederick, it remains for your Louise to do a man's work against French foes, and thus hasten the slow-coming of United Germany.

* * * * *

In the meantime, Prussia is falling to pieces for lack of the mailed fist. Everything is going to rack and ruin; beloved Prussia repeatedly humiliated by French invaders; and had it not been for noble Queen Louise there might well be no Prussian glory at this hour to record.

Her lovely countenance, wreathed in smiles, is immortalized for us through the art of Joseph Grassi; and is to be seen in the Hohenzollern Museum.

The artist depicts her with youthful charm, her fair brow adorned by her slender crown, whose weight, alas, although slight, gave her no rest till death.

Her eyes are gentle, and about her face and form is the indefinable touch of ever-present girlishness, never to fade, even in the woman-grown.

It were nearer the truth to say Louise personifies Prussia's ambition to power.

This beautiful woman bore indeed a heavy burden; well she knew the dread and fear of kings and kingly office.

On the one side was the tyrant Napoleon, on the other Fr: Wilhelm, her kingly husband, without an idea outside of cathedral architecture and bishoprics in Jerusalem; yet Louise willed that Prussia should seize the reins of power, shake off the French yoke, and mount the heights of glory.

* * * * *

As a foil to the ferocious Bismarck—himself a majestic king-maker—here we reveal to you a true creator of National honor, in the form of a frail, fair woman; showing thus how far the pendulum of Time and Chance often rocks in bringing about political changes.

Though poles apart, the brutal Bismarck stands side by side with the lovely Louise; the blood and iron of the man were of no avail without the finesse of the woman.

Thus this singular cross-fertilization, compounded of smiles and frowns—the kiss and the lash—the white jeweled hand and the mailed fist in the end makes it possible for humiliated Prussia to rise again—the late harvest of the years bringing the reality of our United Germany.

Bismarck's amazing story we spread before you in detail, but beside that frowning rock we stoop for a moment to pluck the modest violets clinging all unobserved in a gloomy place where the sun seldom comes; these flowers are Louise and their subtle perfume symbolizes the penetrating yet delicate incense of her pathetic life.

Without Louise, our story were soon ended. Otherwise Bismarck himself could not have come into the illustrious pages of history. Noble Prussian queen, heroine of Prussian glory, mother-consoler in the twilight, your gentle spirit hovers like some evening-star, luminous with hope.

17

Napoleon's hated Continental system of domination causes Prussian downfall—The Queen decides to fight back.

The treaty of Luneville, February, 1801, now seemed to lend color to Napoleon's greatest delusion of grandeur; he would restore the ancient domain of Charlemagne, comprising France, Germany and Italy! Signing with Prussia and Bavaria, Napoleon confiscated broad Papal domains along the Rhine, lands that had been in possession of the church since Roman times. With this bribe for secular princes, as the price of the readjustment, exactly 112 Teutonic domains, petty in size but all-powerful with the prestige of centuries, vanished from the map. The holy Electors of Treves and Cologne, those empire-makers of ancient days, were stripped of their worldly possessions, and expelled from the Papal lands.

There were even rumors of a French-supported Emperor of Prussia—think of that!

Francis of Austria, for reasons of policy, gave up the high-swelling title, "Holy Roman Emperor," and more modestly contented himself with "Emperor of Austria."

And now, when Napoleon's delusion—Charlemagne—seemed on the very point of realization, there came the third Coalition against him; Prussia joined against France; but Napoleon soon gained the most noted of his victories, Austerlitz; 15,000 prisoners, 12,000 dead on the field, represented Austria's loss alone, but this was not all.

The victorious French pressed on to Vienna. By the treaty of Pressburg, Austria was excluded from Germany; Wuertemberg, Bavaria and the Rhinelands went over to the French, Napoleon setting himself up as Protector of the Rhine country, with his representative President Karl von Dalberg, former archbishop of Mainz.

* * * * *

Louise was high-spirited, impulsive, courageous, imaginative—the very foil of her slow-going Frederick, with his church restorations forevermore. The Queen, always for an aggressive policy, by her sympathy encouraged the Prussian war party; patriots, restive under the indecision of Frederick, were eager to shake off French domination. The appeal was to Militarism, but what would you? The Hun was not only "at the gate," but was inside the walls; and if a man will not fight for his fireside, then he must remain a slave. It was a virtuous cause.

The cabal at the Prussian court, secretly in opposition to the easy-going King, was aided by Louise. There were the King's brothers, the ambitious Hardenburg, the King's cousin, Ferdinand, the gifted Rahel Levin—and many others.

These plots within the palace gave to Louise's life strange political aspects.

The Queen desired to strike.

By 1805 Austria, Russia and Great Britain were united, but Russia still wavered.

Louise's secret influence became a watchword for Prussian patriots, who despised French rule.

* * * * *

After Austerlitz, Napoleon read Prussia his ultimatum: Shall it be war or peace? Peace and Hanover, or war with me?

A treaty was drawn giving to Napoleon control over Prussia; and this document Fr: William weakly signed. After that Napoleon simply ignored Prussia; made it so hot for Prussian ministers that they resigned when Paris frowned, or danced when Paris smiled. Napoleon set up his new Rhein Confederation without consulting Prussia; and Prussian patriots felt themselves mortified beyond endurance.

Young men in Berlin, by way of protest, made a demonstration. Going to the doorsteps of the French minister, they there sharpened their swords! Napoleon was furious; he sought out the bookseller circulating an anti-French pamphlet, "The Deepest Humiliation of Prussia," lured him across the frontier, and had him assassinated.

The Prussian patriotic party, begun as a court cabal secretly headed by Louise, decided on war.

The troops were drilled night and day in preparation for the great war of liberation. Never before had a downtrodden nation worked harder to win liberty through liberation from the French yoke. However, the immediate results were to be disastrous.

The Queen's dragoons went to the front; the Queen rode near by in her carriage; she wore a smart military coat, colors of her crack regiment; and General Kalkreuth, in a burst of enthusiasm, vowed that the Queen could herself win the war should she remain with the troops.

Yes, Louise was actually going out to fight Napoleon's veterans, Napoleon's famous marshals, Berthier, Murat and the others; and even the great Napoleon himself.

The decisive struggle took place at Jena, October 16, 1806; Prussian forces were annihilated.

Napoleon came on to Berlin and housed himself in the Prussian palace. From here he now issued bulletins denouncing Louise as the cause of the war; he attacked her character, accusing her of a liaison with the handsome Alexander of Russia, and of still other intrigues with high army officers; he presented her as a compound of shameless camp-follower and dangerous woman, plotting against her own husband, thus bringing ruin to her native land.

Napoleon even had Louise's apartments broken into and the Queen's papers seized, to see if incriminating evidence could not be uncovered. Ah, he knew all the tricks of love as well as of war!

* * * * *

But Napoleon went too far. His cruel persecution caused Prussians to sympathize with their Queen, instead of reviling her.

18

Years before the great question is settled Prussia indeed becomes Germany—in moody thoughtfulness—in stubborn determination—in unflinching courage.

Louise now reveals herself a glorious National heroine. In spite of her animosity toward Napoleon for his atrocious slanders, the Queen decided to arrange an interview with the conqueror and beg favorable terms for her beloved Prussia.

The meeting took place July 6, 1807. Napoleon sent his coach, drawn by six white horses, to bring the Queen to the miller's house, where the interview was staged in an upper room. Louise had on her finest court robe, white crepe embroidered with silver, and wore her famous crown of pearls; her loveliness and her woman's wit were to be used in behalf of prostrate Prussia.

Napoleon rode up in great style, surrounded by his brilliant staff—Berthier, Murat and the others. Louise awaited him at the head of the rickety stairs. As he went up in the semi-darkness, he stumbled and fell.

The Queen apologized that she was forced to meet the Emperor in so mean a place; but he immediately replied that to see so lovely a woman was well worth a few minor obstacles.

Louise now began pleading with Napoleon for leniency toward Prussia. What an interview that was!

How eloquently she set forth her people's sufferings in the great French wars; she pictured the sorrows of Prussia so vividly that at last Napoleon became mightily interested. Finally he said:

"Ah, your Majesty asks very much indeed, but I am dreaming!" By this he meant, "I do not hear a word you say; I am looking at your beautiful eyes."

The clever Louise saw that she was progressing with her arguments, and undoubtedly had the Emperor under the spell of her fatal beauty; to oblige a grand lady in distress, he would be willing to concede much indeed, in his famous rle of lady-killer and protector of feminine loveliness.

But at that precise moment, who should enter the room but Fr: Wilhelm himself, the Queen's blundering husband!

Always in the way—mentally clumsy—he spoiled everything! The interview ended abruptly.

Louise, heartbroken, retired in utter despair. She had believed that the justice of her cause, her eloquence, her loyalty to her people would go far to soften Napoleon's wrath, but in all this she was cruelly disappointed. Next day the French tyrant announced his terms: Indemnity of 154,000,000 marks; one-third cash; one-third payable in lands; the final third "on time," in the interim he would garrison in five fortified towns 30,000 French troops and 10,000 French cavalry, whose support was at the expense of Prussia, till the debt was paid.

This great Queen, after life's fever, sleeps enshrined in her snowy marble tomb at Charlottenburg.

One day you will stand with uncovered head beside her royal grave, and recall her noble life. She deserves well of her country!

* * * * *

But mark this well: out of Prussia's humiliations came her ultimate strength; the vanquished, as is often the story of human life, was strengthened more than the victors. Prussia, chastened by her severe lessons, henceforth proceeded to build herself up slowly till at last she was ready, many, many years later, to strike for German Unity that final blow at the palace of the French kings at Versailles.

In the wearisome stretch of time till that distant day of German glory, Prussia henceforth becomes Germany—in spirit—in moody thoughtfulness—in stubborn determination—yes, under God, by blood and iron! There float before us many noble names, poets, prophets, soldiers who aid in stimulating "German national faith"—Fichte, Arndt, Kleist, Roon, Moltke, Scharnhorst, Humboldt—and in the historical twilight big with mutterings and rumblings of the New Time to come with all its glory, taking the place of the Prussian ruin between 1806 and 1813, is Queen Louise, her gentle spirit a veritable evening-star, luminous with hope.

* * * * *

By 1813, Fr: William III had been induced by the pressure of public opinion to join Russia to fight off the French. May 17, 1813, William's famous decree, "To My People!" called for help to expel invaders, thereby to recover Prussian independence; and Napoleon was totally defeated in the tremendous battle of Leipzig, October 16-19, or "Battle of the Nations," as the Germans call Prussia's return to power and glory.

It was this patriotic appeal "To My People," that made William's troubles; the Prussian Liberals felt that the Government owed the people a Liberal political Constitution, in return for Leipzig.

His Majesty grabbed on it, twice, and was at his wit's end to know how to keep his crown and his declaration of friendship for the people.

In the meantime, twenty-three minor German states having adopted constitutions, more or less liberal, the growing demands of the common people for a share in Prussian government could be no longer denied.

19

Kingcraft comes upon evil days—in the rising tide of liberal ideas, monarchies of old are all but swept away.

When the Napoleonic dynasty collapsed, after Waterloo, there were 39 petty principalities in the German-speaking area grouped about Rhein, the Main, Neckar, Elbe; these knights' holdings, ecclesiastical strongholds, and domains of various descriptions became merged by cross-fighting throughout the Napoleonic era.

The Congress of Vienna (1815) deeming it advisable to set up a loose confederacy of the multitude of petty powers, founded a German Confederation, but whether it was geographical, racial or political no human being could say.

The local German princes kept full sovereign powers, but gradually, as a matter of expediency, the various states grouped themselves around Prussia and Austria. As for the Nation, there was no German sovereign, no supreme court, no commercial or political relationship worthy of the name. Instead, on every hand was intense local hatred, aloofness and suspicion. This condition continued for very many years.

The plain fact was that the various princes did not want German National unity; for the reason that it is not human nature for men to give up an advantage for an uncertainty. Also, at this time, neither Prussia nor Austria was strong enough to impose her hegemony upon Germany. Austria's policy was for delay; and in Prussia the general belief existed for many years that Austrian domination was really essential to put down the rising spirit of Democracy.

The authority of the Congress set up a Bond of Confederation, ruled by a Diet or Bundestag, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main.

In the hurly-burly, certain centres, such as Saxony, Bavaria and Wuertemberg, were raised in rank from duchies to kingdoms, while still others, such as Westphalia, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were dissolved. The free cities were reduced to four; caste declined in political importance. The Confederation of the Rhine was set aside.

Thus the close of the Napoleonic period found German territory without political unity.

* * * * *

The last stand of kingly ultra-conservatism is the one great political feature of Europe, from the downfall of Napoleon, 1815, to the popular outbreaks of 1848. During this dark period the cause of constitutional liberty in Prussia made little progress. Old forms as well as new were under suspicion. On the one side were ultra-conservative conceptions of Divine-right, upheld by Metternich, and on the other side was the idea that sovereignty came not from heaven but from earth, making the will of the people the voice of God.

Prussia and Austria, as the representatives of Divine-right, closely watched these revolutionary tendencies, suppressed uprisings, muzzled the press, in an attempt to check the surging tide of liberalism.

However much the kings had feared the wars of Napoleon, kingcraft was now confronted by an enemy more deadly. The babble of the bondsmen about to break their chains portended far greater disaster to dynasties than ever did bullets on the battlefield of Waterloo.

* * * * *

With might and main, the monarchs, resisting the demands of the people for constitutional government, stamped out everything that looked like the first signs of National sentiment.

Nor was Germany alone in this reactionary attitude. The kingly side of all Europe stood shoulder to shoulder against new political experiments.

In Italy, Greece, Spain, sovereigns applied the lash the harder, in an endeavor to suppress this new evil against kingcraft; nevertheless, among the common people there continued to grow consciousness of political rights.

"Napoleon in many of the lands he conquered," says Ffyfe, "set up many revolutionary ideas that sounded the death knell of the Feudal system. It was part of his administrative genius to take the lands from barons and their class, and turn them over to peasants; it happened in France with the lands of the ecclesiastical barons of the church; it happened in North Germany, in 1810, when the decree of administrative following the annexation of the North German Coast swept away with a few strokes of the pen, thirty-six forms of Feudal privileges."

And these could never be restored, even after the Congress of Vienna spent seven or eight months, after Waterloo, dividing the loot among the old royal houses.

The system of monarchical Absolutism maintained itself in one way or another for years, but the old-line conception of the political legitimacy of despotic rulers had been rudely shattered.

In spite of a brave show of gold cloth, diamonds, laces, jewels, swords, silk stockings, lackeys, grooms, guards and crowns, kingcraft was now placed on the defensive. The cry of the people, "Liberty!" filled many a market-place.

Forces of democracy were working everywhere, ill-directed to be sure, but never despairing of ultimate victory over kingcraft, which indeed had now come upon evil days. It is an undeniable fact that Bonaparte had purged the political ideas of French Revolution of many excesses, and had turned to practical account certain forms of liberty, for example, ridding captured lands, as Ffyfe tells us, of offensive special privileges, on part of irresponsible rulers of petty degree; but the danger was found in this: that a mere "desire" for political expediency, however surrounded by the halo of popular rights, avails nothing unless ultimately sustained by strong central authority; and it requires no profound knowledge of men's way to know that at no time in the history of the world has collective rulership been other than a theory. The excesses of the French Revolution were not readily overlooked by the conservative elements in Germany.

20

German hope of National Union gleams like a star.

There gradually grew throughout Germany a spirit of intense longing for country, and many a noble spirit had in a vision seen from afar the common Fatherland. Especially in the universities, the feeling was strong.

The German universities were hotbeds of political excitement. For many years after Napoleon's downfall all manner of theories of government were strenuously debated, to the accompaniment of duels, beer-drinking, private feuds, and popular agitation, often ending in blood. The Burschenschaft, as the student brothers were called, finally formed themselves into a league comprising sixty schools; and held a famous meeting at Wartburg, 1817.

The patriots took Holy Communion, made impassioned speeches, built bonfires and cast into the flames hated books supporting Metternich's system of kingcraft. Also the patriots consigned to the fire an illiberal pamphlet by King Fr: Wilhelm III of Prussia.

Metternich became alarmed. Kotzebue, hated as a spy of Russia in Germany, was stabbed to the heart by Karl Sand. This gave to Metternich the desired opportunity, and he proceeded forthwith to impress on Fr: Wilhelm and the Czar the absurdity of toying longer with "Democratic ideas and paper constitutions."

Then and there the Biblical phrases of democrat-mongering kings, under the Holy Alliance, ceased in the high courts of Russia and Prussia. Metternich got hold of Fr: Wilhelm, also the other political tools of the Frankfort Diet, and at Carlsbad decrees were issued sounding the doom of Liberalism and the return to power of the old-line kings.

By gag-law and intimidation Metternich rushed the decrees through the Diet;—and for a generation "Carlsbad" signified the suppression of Democratic sentiments throughout Germany.

Metternich fought free speech, free parliaments and a free press. His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian spies were everywhere, searching out revolutionary societies.

The hope that Prussia might be the leader in the new German spirit of nationality now vanished. William III definitely withdrew his promise of a written Constitution, made in 1813, and reiterated in 1815.

Persecutions continued north and south; Prussia hounded Jahn for five long years, this Jahn whose gymnastic societies had been so helpful in hardening young men to Prussian army services; and the poet Arndt, whose impassioned verse intensified the National spirit of Germany, was shamefully treated, his papers scattered and the man driven from his university.

For many a long year the gloomy spirit of "Carlsbad" decrees hung over Germany.

* * * * *

However, the Germans have an intensely practical side as well as a dreamy poetical side. It is not surprising, therefore, that the earliest steps in the direction of German unity (1818) came through Prussian customs house reforms under the patriot, Maassen.

There had been, as we explained heretofore, no freedom of trade throughout Germany; each of the petty thirty-nine states was surrounded by Chinese walls; for example, to send goods from Hamburg to Vienna, the shipper had to pay ten separate tolls.

Under the old Prussian system there were in vogue at one and the same time no less than sixty-seven conflicting tariff systems. All this tax oppression meant a harvest for smugglers. But Maassen, at a stroke, established a common tariff in Prussia; made the tax so low that smuggling became unprofitable. The other states protested vehemently at first, but one by one entered this new customs union.

And we may understand now certain sarcastic remarks sometimes made about Germany by her historical enemies: "Paper, cheese, sauerkraut, ham, and matches, served to unite German hearts more than political ties!"

This slur is ill-deserved; at best, it simply means that the advantages of the "Zollverein" were economic as well as political; and, in later years, the necessity for a common system of doing business played a deservedly important part in helping along Bismarck's plans.

The customs league, called the "Zollverein," is generally held to be the very beginning of practical unity for Germany.

* * * * *

On the poetical side of German character, earliest appeals for the Fatherland—one and united!—were expressed down through the years; long indeed before actual political union was possible, Germany's bards, in their impassioned, semi-religious songs awakened in German hearts the spirit of intense longing for the common Fatherland, based on blood-brotherhood and language.

One of the famous types of this patriot-poet was Arndt, son of an emancipated slave. Arndt was a noble democrat; his history of slavery in Pomerania inspired Adolphus to abolish that evil, 1806; the Prussian aristocrats held Arndt a life-long grudge.

"Spirit of the Times," his patriotic trumpet-call aroused Prussians to fight France. Napoleon tracked the lyric poet out; Arndt fled to Sweden; but continued to write for the cause. He returned to Germany, 1809.

"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" remains one of the great semi-religious songs of nations. Arndt asks what comprises the Fatherland? Surely not Prussia, not Swabia, nor this nor that, but all side by side comprise the German brotherhood of race and language.

Where is the German Fatherland? Is't Swabia? Is't Prussia's land? Is't where the grape glows on the Rhine, Where sea-gulls skim the Baltic's brine? Oh, no! more great, more grand Must be the German Fatherland!

Here is a spirited verse from "The God That Lets the Iron Grow":

The God who made earth's iron hoard Scorned to create a slave Hence, unto man the spear and sword In his right hand he gave! Hence him with courage he imbued Lent wrath to Freedom's voice— That death or victory in the feud Might be his only choice!

"Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess," "Was blasen die Trompeten," were on all patriotic lips; at this, William III, mightily offended, had Arndt arrested and sent him into retirement for twenty years.

The old man lived to become a great National hero. He died January 29, 1860, aged 91. It is pleasant to record that on his ninetieth birthday Germany united in good wishes for their national poet of the dark hours.

The people built him a monument at the place of his birth, Schoritz, and another at Bonn, where for many years he had been professor of history.

21

It is not time, O William, to go to church but to go to war; yet you and your son keep on reading your Gothic Bible.

Now comes the year 1840; William III goes to the tomb of his ancestors, and is succeeded by Fr: William IV, with whom began anew the long battle between the principle of Divine-right of kings and political democracy exercised by the masses. William IV, intensely addicted to Divine-right theories of government, was in the course of a turbulent reign forced to face great political agitators. However, the King had behind his throne, always, that conservative class (found in every country) that clings tenaciously to the past and dreads the future. The watchword of all William's enemies was "Liberty!" The cry, visionary as it was, served as a rallying point for those who favored some form of French constitutionalism; and while, as a whole, the so-called friends of Liberty were very impracticable, had no definite plan for relief, we find among the political agitators foremost in their discontent many of the brightest minds in Germany, college graduates, professional men, the clergy, and solid middle class merchants. All were zealous for immediate political reforms.

* * * * *

Consider the position of our Fr: William IV. He was a peculiar man, to begin with—and an irresolute man, to end with. He was not built for times of war. Yet he had to face cannon!

Early in life, in impressionable years, through a court blunder, young William had had a tutor, Delbrueck, who poisoned his charge's mind against the Prussian military and bureaucratic system.

The attitude of Delbrueck was certainly heresy as vile as though your own child's nurse should bring your boy up to fear and despise his own father. Surely, you would not like that?

Delbrueck was quickly given the sack; and it was well that he got off without a broken head!

He was succeeded by a preacher, Ancillon, of renown in church affairs. This Ancillon started young William off on another track; antiques, church history, Bible study, architecture, the brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of God.

Then William studied art under Rausen, and under Schinkel; and also the future king became absorbed in landscape gardening and in architecture.

William was presumed to be "liberal" in his views, that is to say, he was, in a sense, supposed to be a "democrat."

Of course, the Radicals at this hour knew nothing of Bismarck, who was to be the power behind the throne. They saw instead only a weak king; and history tells over and over again, down through time, what becomes of weak kings when the people are throwing up barricades in the streets and are tossing up their caps and crying "Liberty!"

* * * * *

Under his royal nose the Liberals kept sticking his father's pledge of the glorious year, 1813. How about that long-promised Constitution, your Majesty? Thousands of deluded Prussians now believed that they could accurately define the peculiar word "Liberty!" It looked as though the people were bent on casting out a king. As yet there were in Prussia no organized party lines; the general situation was summed up in the growing hopes that the common people placed in French constitutionalism—wherever that might lead.

At any rate, the old rgime must go.

22

Bad business, this promising a written Constitution—The deluge breaks.

The Prussian nobility, always bound to the King by feelings of ardent loyalty, formed a military caste; the peasantry was industrious, thrifty and hard-working; the State officials were devoted to a spirit of discipline at once thorough and pedantic; the Prussian school-system was first in square-headed masters, who ruled with rods of iron. Thus, the Prussian National ideal was based on Discipline military in its severity, self-sacrifice and energy. "Throughout Prussia was a spirit of affirmation, expressive of the vigorous National egotism. As time passed, the machine men of olden Prussia were gradually replaced by free-willed, self-conscious citizens taking an enlightened interest in their country; the old-time tutelage headed by the monarchs underwent a transformation; and the trend was toward enlightened self-government; but many years were to pass before this ideal was reached."

William did indeed cherish, in a way, an idea of German Unity, and in this respect he was a democrat or a radical, whatever you wish to term him. Here, we must make one fact plain. It will make you smile at William's simplicity, will show you how utterly he was out of touch with the tendencies of the times; how good-natured he was; how honest he was. He believed that German Unity, if ever it came, should historically be an extension of the old Holy Roman Empire, through the illustrious House of Hapsburg!

Which is equivalent to saying that your own family should advance by humbling itself before your own greatest rival; that you should bow to your political enemy and submit to being effaced, to heighten your rival's glory.

Strauss calls William "A romanticist on the throne of the Csars!" This Fr: William IV wished to be an absolute monarch, after the traditional Hohenzollern style, yet he had so few soldierly instincts that the army hated him.

This political attitude with William was not a form of romantic idealism bordering on lunacy; it was instead a token of his blundering stupidity; also in a sense his four-square frankness in owning that Prussia was playing second fiddle to Austria, at this interesting moment. And, in truth, all that William thought was logical; the stream was tending that way; few denied it, except politicians interested in advancing their own fortunes by setting Austria back in the great game of grab. However, William, instead of loading cannon and turning them on the Radicals, now swarming around his palace, was much pleased to send a bishop to Jerusalem.

Nicholas of Russia warned William to beware of democrats, and to stand up for Divine-right of kings, but what is the use of advising a coward to be a hero, a fool to be a wise man? In the end, a man must go through life with the sort of head he has—round, square, flat, or mushy—is it not true? You are no exception, yourself; and our church-building William, in turn, was true to his own sthetic nature, regardless of bayonets poked under his nose.

Bad business this promising the people a written Constitution; ominous for the breed of kings; a situation, in short, not unlike that forced on the Grand Monarch at an earlier day, that is to say, no money without the States' General.

After 1840, Liberal opinions were directed against the King, personally, charging him with political reactionary tendencies. The course of popular liberty was taken by noted men, among them Arnold Ruge, Karl Marx, Feuerbach, Strauss, Bauer, Fallersleben, Dingelstedt, Meissner, Beck, Kinkel, and others. Also, when Ischech attempted to assassinate William IV, the dastardly act found supporters who gloried in the "patriot's" effort to rid the country of a "tyrant," even through cold-blooded murder.

Also, the very memory of the frightful excesses of the French Revolution still shocked the conservative political element of Europe. The land-owning classes of Prussia, backed by the Prussian army, stood shoulder to shoulder for their old titles. The new call of political liberalism was, therefore, in the view of Prussian conservatives, to be put down at all hazards. The position was, of course, largely selfish, but it was very human.

* * * * *

Matters came to a crisis in '47; King William IV needed money for a little railroad project in East Prussia. In his dilemma, he called his Baby Parliament, or Diet, April 11, 1847, and "deigned" to permit therein the right of petition; there were in truth no privileges of political significance, no real powers; it was a side-show, so far as the "people" were concerned—and for eleven weeks volleys of oratory crackled and thundered.

* * * * *

Here, we meet Bismarck face to face; and you should now be prepared, from what you have read, to understand the gigantic problem Bismarck was called upon to face—single-handed!

Furthermore, Bismarck's attitude was not, as has often been recorded, a case of "might is right." The French Revolution had proven conclusively that there can be no political "right" without a political "might." We should not forget this fact throughout the Bismarck story of Prussia's rise to power.



BOOK THE THIRD

Bismarck Supports His King



CHAPTER VII

Fighting Fire With Fire

23

The voice in the Wilderness proclaims the God-given glory of Kings, vicegerents of Christ on this earth.

The French Revolution brought to Paris adventurers and patriots from every part of Europe. Among these was a young Corsican who, with his mother and sisters, had been driven out of his native island. This man, Napoleon Bonaparte, was in the course of a few years to become Emperor of France and Master of Europe.

There is a classical picture of young Napoleon, at the time of the early riots in Paris.

Standing on a curbstone, to one side, he watches the passing of liberty-crazed mobs, armed with pikes—the self-same common people on whose shoulders Napoleon himself was later to ride into amazing power.

Thus, likewise, in another time of political crisis, (1847-48) men were flocking to Berlin to debate anew the well-worn theme, "The Rights of Man."

Quietly looking on was another man of destiny, Otto von Bismarck, burly dyke-captain of the Elbe, up to that time a farmer on his ancestral estates in Pomerania. What this young blond giant saw before him was somewhat of this extraordinary order:

The universal theme was once more "Liberty," and the din not only in Berlin but throughout German states, was ear-splitting. Of course, there were patriots who stood on broad National grounds, but the purely personal point of view was still very much in evidence.

Every man had his say, often accompanied by brandishing of fists or the laying on of canes; all dignified by the name "patriotism," but in truth it exhibited the old struggle of human nature for supremacy.

The masses were fighting to unseat kings, whose dogma of "Divine-right" had by the French Revolution been shown to be only insidious political quackery, in the past sustained largely by the sword. The common people were wrestling to grasp this monarchic sword away, and here and there had already seized the hilt or the blade—it mattered not which!—and the dynasties of Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, Wittelsbach, and all the lesser swarm, were suddenly put on the defensive. Hotly pursued sovereigns kept their heads only by some concession to popular fury; again, by flight. The people were intoxicated with the wine of their newly found power!

And what would they do with their new bauble, liberty, fraternity and equality? The centre of the stage was occupied by a struggling mass of kings, fighting not only for their crowns but for the very clothes on their backs! There were poets in fine frenzy declaiming; grenadiers firing muzzle-loaders; priests invoking the wrath of God; kings shouting out that they were the only accredited earthly representatives of Heaven; historians hotly insisting that all were in error, and that the scroll showed this or that; law-givers pleading for the old forms; lunatics laughing in demoniacal glee; peasants armed with pitchforks jabbing right and left; demagogues calling on Heaven to witness their lofty and disinterested leadership; while around the edges of the scene mountebanks, camp-followers, renegades, whores and political blacklegs, were waiting for their share of the plunder, let victory fall where it may.

What a magnificent scramble for place, pelf and power! It were blasphemy to call this riot the desire for progress for the masses. It were equal blasphemy to call it stupidity and reaction, on the part of the contending monarchs, as against crushing with iron heel the hopes of the people for political and intellectual life. Either one of these diagonally opposed interpretations of the time is too extreme. The truth is in neither view. As a matter of fact, behind the seething mass of human forms was the age-old motive of human selfishness; and while here and there some lofty soul may have glimpsed in his fervid imagination a United Germany, based on a "German national faith," in which the rights of each citizen should be no more or no less than the rights of all others, with each man working for all men and all men for each man, this poetical idea was only another evidence of how the noblest minds place the illusion and the dream before the appalling fact of human selfishness in the universal struggle for personal aggrandizement.

The merging of the various German states, or the transference of land from one German monarch to another, in the ensuing political struggle for power, is, after all, as nothing compared with the change in ideas, now close at hand; what may be called the "mind" of Germany was about to undergo a veritable French Revolution! However, it was not to be a French Revolution in the sense of mob-rule. We shall make this clear as we come more especially to tell you, in details, of a certain political millennium which Bismarck scorned, although courageously pressed upon him by leaders of the party of the people.

On the whole, however, the drift of events was toward "German national faith," bringing in turn some form of representative government, as against the doctrine of Divine-right of kings. The monarchs were placed more and more on the defensive; it was to be their last stand, not only for their crowns but for their very lives!

* * * * *

And now face to face with the gigantic problem of a United Germany, again we study our last hope of kings—our Prussian Strafford von Bismarck. In some respects he is the historical foil of Strafford of Charles I, whose money-needs compelled the calling of the Long Parliament; and the help Strafford had given to the king in ruling without a parliament had mortally offended the Commons; Strafford was declared guilty of high treason—and despite Charles' efforts, Strafford went to the block!

Will Bismarck come to a similar end on the scaffold of the Prussian liberals?

* * * * *

We see before us a giant in form and in mental strength; a monster of will-power, with the iron ambition to compel men to do his individual bidding; a political superman.

He had spent his time more with cattle, horses and dogs than he had with men.

His spirit was high, untrammelled, rebellious. He ironically despised the common people; the burden-bearers in all forms of government were in this giant's opinion not good enough to sit beside kings.

Morose, obstinate, self-opinionated, with an enormous capacity for liquor, Bismarck was an intellectual as well as physical glutton.

Most of all, this strange man, half-beast, half-seer, was to turn out to be the very voice of the old decaying kingcraft. He had an immovable belief in the Feudal right of royalty to rule over its subjects as it pleased; and by his amazing power of intrigue supported by supreme abilities exercised during the ensuing thirty years, Bismarck at last rose to a height that overshadowed the monarchs whom he served—and ruled!

We wish to emphasize, again, that Bismarck's conception of kingcraft was no mere despotic thing. To him, a king was truly a man of great practical as well as moral responsibilities, akin to father, hence should be obeyed.

24

Our young blond giant appears at Third Estates' Assembly—The King's predicament—Bismarck's opportunity.

Behold Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, the country squire, straight from his cow-sheds and his hunting dogs; a young blond German giant, 32 years old, in the very prime of his massive strength and endurance; plentiful hair cropped short, ruddy face, blond beard, bright blue eyes, big fists; high, shrill voice, strangely out of keeping with his physical bulk. For years afterward, this peculiar voice became the stock in trade of newspaper writers. However, it was what the giant said!

Bismarck wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, military boots and his dykeman's overcoat. This rough, yellow-colored garment, for which he afterwards became famous, was long, baggy and loose. He used to wear it when floods were high along the River Elbe. In Berlin, at the time were only three notables who wore these yellow overcoats: the first, Bismarck; the second, the immortal Baron von Herteford, the last of his race, hereditary grand huntsman at Cleve, and the third was worn by Geo. Hesekiel, the German historian.

Bismarck, who was now to receive his first experience in handling men in political alignments, had inherited a country estate from the old family domains and was living the life of a squire; hunting foxes, with dogs and gay companions, passing nights in taverns, drinking heavily, eating like a glutton, amusing himself as he pleased; a giant in intellect and in stomach; turbulent, tempestuous, rough, a bad man to cross, believe me, but among his cronies voted a prince of good fellows. Such is our German hero as he comes upon the great stage of affairs.

When this burly Bismarck made his first entrance at the Diet, or Assembly of the Three Estates, held in the "White Saloon" of the Royal Palace at Coelin on the Spree, our future empire-maker and throne-overturner knew by practical experience absolutely nothing about the diagonal of political cross-purposes.

However, he was now taking up his great life-study, entering all unknowingly upon a magnificent career leading in after years to his fair renown as Father of the German Empire.

* * * * *

He had, as we have seen, thus far passed the time as a practical farmer; hale fellow well met, with upper-class leanings.

After taking his doctor's degree at Goettingen, he had made a few journeys, one to Italy, another to the island of Heligoland, on a shooting trip; had crossed the English Channel, and had brought back with him a smattering of Shakespeare, which he afterwards improved by considerable study; and by the way throughout the crises in his career, Bismarck often found refuge in apt Shakespearian quotations.

Then he had done a little governmental clerical work in the lower courts of his country, but his peculiar ideas of independence and his abruptness in speaking his mind unfitted him for this work. Glad to be rid of his job, he returned to the country. He knew nothing of administrative or executive life, and aside from the fact that he was a student of history, with a penchant for making historical parallels, there was nothing to show the bent of his powerful mind.

Yet, there is a great man before us! And since it is not based on his training, then it must come inherently from his natural endowment.

His master-mind was to unseat and seat princes, kings and emperors, in the fullness of time, rearranging the map of Germany to suit himself; engaging in three wars of ambition, signally victorious in each; and winning for himself imperishable fame during his active career of forty years.

* * * * *

By a singular turn, Bismarck knew or cared so little for politics, at this time, that his very entry into the "White Saloon," in which the Liberals decided to settle with this stubborn King Fr: Wm. IV, was wholly by accident.

The Saxon Provincial Diet at Meresburg had chosen Dyke Captain von Brauchitsch of Scharteuke, in the Circle of Jerichow, as Deputy at the United Diet, and had selected Dyke Captain von Bismarck of Schoenhausen as his proxy. As Herr von Brauchitsch was very ill, his substitute was summoned.

Bismarck appeared as representative of the Knight's Estate of Jerichow, and vassal and chivalric servitor of the King. How go the Fates! If the eminent von Brauchitsch had not had the toothache, that day, there might not have been a United Germany—is it not true?

In the group that gathered in the "White Saloon" at Coelin on the Spree, Bismarck met many men whose opinions were well known to him; his brother, the Landrath, his cousins, the Counts von Bismarck-Bohlen and von Bismarck-Briest; his future father-in-law, Herr von Puttkammer; von Thadden, von Wedell, and many others. Says Hesekiel:

"Unfortunately these gentlemen in general, as Herr von Thadden once bluntly said of himself, were not even bad orators, but no orators at all. Nor could the two Freiherrs von Manteuffel contend in eloquence with the brilliant rhetorics of the Liberals, such as Freiherr von Vincke, Camphausen, Mevissen, Beckerath, and others.

"Few persons today can read those speeches of the First United Diet, once so celebrated, without a melancholy or satirical smile. Those were the blossom-days of liberal phraseology, causing an enthusiasm of which we cannot now form any adequate idea!"

* * * * *

Troublous times indeed; and the King an autocrat of autocrats, forced by the liberal ideas of the hour, breaking everywhere. We can imagine William saying angrily:

"Confound the impudence of the Liberals with their crazy liberty, fraternity and equality. We supposed that all this nonsense was blown to bits by the guns at Waterloo!"

The bedeviled King began to show a streak of Prussian stubbornness; in these angry words he incautiously addressed those delegates who had dared to ask for a Constitution:

"I refuse to allow to come between Almighty God in Heaven and this Prussian land so much as a blotted piece of parchment to rule us with paragraphs, and to replace thereby the sacred bond of ancient loyalty!"

The widening gulf between monarchy and French constitutionalism was now manifest to almost any thoughtful Prussian, but, like the ostrich, our timid William continued to hide his head under the sand and believed himself safe.

25

For one whole month, burly Bismarck sits with his mouth shut, seemingly stricken dumb at the sacrilegious ideas of the Democrats.

Now this giant dyke-captain, this lover of dogs, horses and cattle, sat for one whole month, stricken dumb it seemed by the political heresies that he heard. For one solid month, he never opened his mouth! Then he could stand it no longer. He pleaded vigorously for the Middle Ages feudal system, and for the right of his own aristocratic class! In truth, without knowing it, he was expressing the King's sentiments, was a genuine King's Man.

The future prince's first speech swept like a hurricane over a garden in June—withering, blasting, uprooting. He began by denying, absolutely, that the great victory of 1813 which expelled for Prussia the French invaders was based on so low a consideration as the promise of a paper Constitution. Not at all! It was an exhibition of pure patriotism. In his historical reference, Bismarck, in this instance, was in error. In no sense was "the people" to be credited with the great Prussian victory of 1813; it came about largely through military tactics, training and general preparedness, in which "the people" had no part except to do their plain duty.

For his remarkable utterance, Bismarck was promptly hissed down by the Liberal side. Undaunted, Bismarck loaded his heaviest guns against this thing called "Liberalism," with all its mock-heroics of liberty, fraternity and equality. Would it not endanger our King's sacred throne? That was enough for Herr Bismarck.

Thus the doughty Dyke-captain from the Elbe endeavored to perform a political miracle—new wine in old bottles—and as fast as the bottles popped, he put the wine in still other old bottles. Was there ever more folly? Did a young champion of the Crown ever make greater fool of himself?

And with all Europe bawling for liberty, fraternity and equality; with thrones tottering in every direction; with 23 of the 39 German states already joyously exhibiting their new Constitutions? Here was a voice in the wilderness crying for monarchy and the Divine-right of kings! And what's more, gentlemen, he has before him a 30-years' fight, but in the end will ram it down your throats.

His cry at this moment is that ancient Prussian slogan, "Mitt Gott fuer Koenig und Vaterland!" The question on the proposed Constitution—the right of petition and certain specified control over state finance by the people—simple as all this seems today, created a terrible storm! The nobility, led by the Dyke-captain, felt uneasy; a parliament of the people was indeed a needless concession. And were the people prepared by education for this great change? Was it not hasty?

Meantime, the King was in truth a sort of broken reed, stirred by every blast that swept from the "White Saloon."

Fr: Wm. IV was a "Hamlet-hesitating monarch," who had it not been for the burly giant Bismarck would have been swept into oblivion by the first whiff of gunpowder. A stickler for religious dogma, the pietists adored him, but the classes despised him; he was one of those men who discuss trifles with elegant ease, but who have no conception of what is behind this present widespread demand for a constitution. This King Fr.: Wm. IV lived in a mystic medival dreamland; he restored the cathedral of Cologne; sent a missionary band to spread his beloved Lutheran doctrines to the Chinese, and established a Protestant bishop at Jerusalem. The political literature of the time is overwhelmingly against William. He did not understand the drift of events. Without Bismarck, the King's head would soon have rolled into the basket!

26

Bellowing his defiance, though the Liberals bring the rope—The new man explains his novel position, not as a politician but as a Prussian in deadly earnest—The Jew, and time's revenge.

There were three sessions of the Baby Parliament, and Bismarck was soon looked upon as the conservative leader. Perhaps conservative is not the word; reactionary would be closer. There was no Conservative party, nor a Liberal party for that matter. The obstinate fight with Bismarck was not because he wished to prevent the common people from having a share in their Prussian government, but because the change, if ever it came, would set up a peculiar type of Prussian government; a state-government, as it were, as against the old-time liege-lord master-and-servant conception of Hohenzollern "Divine-right" policy.

The very word "people" threw Herr Bismarck into hysterical frenzy! He determined upon resisting the heresy with all the virile courage of his colossal bulk.

It had been his duty, as Elbe dyke-captain, to protect his country against torrential waters; now he would do similar service against the rising floods of revolution. He set up the historical agreement that the edifice of Prussia, under an aristocratic form of rulership, was firmer toward foreign foes, firmer than was possible under the leader rule of the people.

A conservative deputy from Pomerania, addressing the administration member for West Havelland, said: "We have conquered!"

"Not so!" replied Bismarck, coolly. "We have not conquered, but we have made an attack, which is the principal thing. Victory is yet to come, but it will take years!"

These words accurately convey the nature of the situation. Bismarck was master of short phrases in which complex situations are summed up.

* * * * *

He had dog-like love for his master, the King: "No word," he exclaimed, "has been more wrongly used in the past year than the word 'people.' Each man has held it to mean just what suits his individual view."

"We are Prussians," was his eternal keynote, "and Prussia is all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, recognized as the color of their opponents. The accents of the Prussian National Anthem, the strains of the Dessau and Hohenfriedberg March are well known and beloved among them; but I have never yet heard a Prussian soldier sing, 'What is the German Fatherland?' The nation whence this army has sprung, and of which the army is the truest representative in the happy and accurate words of the president of the First Chamber, Rudolph von Auerswald, does not need to see the Prussian monarchy melt away in the filthy ferment of South German immorality. We are Prussians, and Prussians we desire to remain! I know that in these words I utter the creed of the Prussian army, the creed of the majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I hope to God that we shall continue Prussians, when this bit of paper is forgotten like the withered leaf of autumn!"

Yes, Bismarck, any day the mob may bring the rope; but you still bellow your defiance, your face of brass unabashed. Man among men—wrong though you be, Bismarck, you will have your say though the Heavens fall.

"I am proud to be a Prussian Junker, and feel honored by the appellation. Whigs and Tories were terms which once also had a very mean signification; and be assured, gentlemen, that we shall on our part bring Junkerdom to be regarded with honor and respect."

* * * * *

Aristocrats were delighted; von Thadden exclaimed: "I am enthusiastic over this man Bismarck!" Geo. v. Wincke, the Westphalian high official, short, fat, red-headed, never admired the burly giant Bismarck, smelling of the cow-sheds.

For twenty years, off and on, the testy v. Wincke indulged in invective, his theme ever being "The rule of law." This George v. Wincke in spite of his medals and his family tree was on the liberal side, bag and baggage.

There was a strain of bitter eloquence about this red-headed champion of the people's rights. He had read Guizot and talked much of Hampden, the Long Parliament, and all that. George had the legal side of the argument, especially since the French revolution had set liberty bells a-ringing everywhere, even in solemn old Prussia; but the doughty Bismarck would come thundering back with his "unlimited crown" and rulership over the people "by the grace of God," royal prerogative and general disdain for the masses;—as in the rgime of Louis the Magnificent at Versailles, when the convicts worked to build the $200,000,000 palace to shelter art, wit and pretty women, while the people starved. How out of tune, Bismarck; how hopelessly reactionary!

* * * * *

Bismarck voted against every new privilege. His speeches read like reports of personal rows! He was frank, fearless and frenzied, and in turn his volleys excited groans and hisses.

Was ever mortal so utterly out of touch with the prevailing French conception of liberty, equality and fraternity? Here is the way he summed up political equality:

"The goosequill arguments of newspaper writers!" "Relics of pot-houses!" "The emancipation of the people does not mean progress!" "A royal word is more than volumes of law!" "The Prussian sovereigns are in possession of a crown by God's grace!" "The king has said he did not wish to be coerced or driven!" "Let there be a period of four years, at least, before another such stupid meeting as this is held."

It was a curious situation. Bismarck was both rude and crude!

His style of delivery was lame, his voice improperly placed, his mannerisms grotesque. Despite his hobbling oratory, however, Bismarck was soon a marked man; he held his audience by his sensational ideas and his dogged courage!

* * * * *

Why did Bismarck vote against every new privilege? This may not be decently answered in a word; you must read on in detail; there was a great principle behind Bismarck's political attitude. True, it was crudely conceived and expressed, at this period; but he will improve with time.

Bismarck well remembered the excesses of German Jacobins, in the southwest, during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. Alsace and Lorraine had welcomed massacres as signs of political equality; mob leaders destroyed castles and monasteries; Jew-baiters went mad; Schneider, the tyrant of Strassburg, took charge of the guillotine, but not making enough blood flow, was soon aided by professional executioners, straight from Paris.

There was also the lunatic "Feast of Reason." Stark-mad Germans paraded with Marat's statue, attacked churches, wrecked altars, heaped up images of saints, crosses, pews, pulpits, and priests' garments, touched the match, and danced around the fire;—while Schneider harangued the mob on the joys of reason, as against revealed religion; solemnly assuring his thousands of listeners that Christianity was now a thing of the past.

Thus the mad war of liberty burst forth, accompanied by many extraordinary episodes. Nor were the followers confined exclusively to the rabble; we find many noted teachers, scholars and politicians endorsing the French guillotine as a remedy for all political ills—men like Blau, Wedekind, Hoffmann, Foster, Stamm, Dorsch, not overlooking the spectacular John Mueller, who in the cause of the people committed unheard-of follies with his pen, as a necessary support for the sword.

There was also a stark-mad leader named Cloots, who usually signed his bulletins "Cloots, Personal Enemy of Jesus of Nazareth." His object was the union of all mankind, literally speaking; no halfway measures for him, no long delays; he wanted his political salvation here and now.

So inflamed were the people that the discharge of a tailor's apprentice, in Breslau, precipitated a riot and the artillery was brought into play.

In Saxony, 18,000 peasants demanded a democratic constitution; but the authorities replied by sending the messenger to a mad-house.

Thus, in various directions, the crack-brained revolutionists played their parts; nor should history overlook the contribution of the learned Dr. Faust, of Buckelburg, whose profound treatise, "Origin of Trousers," was read in Paris as a sort of historical endorsement of the great democratic party that gloried in the equality, not to say liberty, exhibited by casting trousers aside.

* * * * *

Now what do you think? This King's Man, sprung up of a sudden, coming from his fox-hunting and his cow-sheds, hits right and left at the Jews! Yes, as against his "beloved Christians." Here is a new note indeed—old yet new.

We had not supposed Jew-baiting a thing of the past; but in these tempestuous times it did seem that race-prejudice had no place in a plain attempt to keep a king's crown.

"I will pass," Bismarck thundered, "to the question itself. I am no enemy of Jews, and if they are enemies to me, I will forgive them. Under certain circumstances, I even love them. I would grant them every right—save that of holding superior office posts in a Christian country.

"I admit I am full of prejudices, sucked in with my mother's milk. If I think of a Jew, face to face with me as a representative of the king's sacred majesty, and have to obey him, I must confess that I should feel myself deeply broken and depressed. The sincere self-respect with which I now attempt to fulfil my duties toward the state would leave me! I share these feelings with the mass of large strata of people, and I am not ashamed of their society."

* * * * *

Thus, now at this supreme moment, when with voice of brass our Bismarck is making his entry into the world of affairs with his sharp words on Christians and Jews, and more especially with his uncompromising conception that kings are indeed the personal representatives of God on this earth, we do see that Bismarck stems from a fighting race. All his years, this Bismarck was a frightful hater.

With the sorry figure of the world-oppressed Jew in our eyes and the malignancy of this new Jew-baiter, it is well that at the very outset this be made clear: That whatever Bismarck was or was not, at least he was no hypocrite. His words always fall like the wrath of God.

It is a solemn fact that he changed his point of view many, many times—even as you and I—but there is always the ring of sincerity about it that even the acid test of long time is unable to dissolve.

* * * * *

It was this tremendous earnestness—this sincerity—that made Bismarck feared, hated and despised.

Against your will, you are forced to believe what this giant says, no matter how mocking, how insolent, how absurd his charges!

Some tell us that Bismarck's ancestry stems from Bohemia, others trace the Bismarcks to Russia, still others assert Jewish origin.

This much is a fact: from a geographical point, the family name comes from the little river Biese, near Stendal.

Bismarck's passion and prejudice against Jews was proverbial. It did indeed often turn him, for the time being, into a mad dog!

Near the close of life, in retirement at Friedrichsruh, some candid friend desecrated the great man's retirement by sending him a copy of a book by an anonymous writer, "Bismarck, the Jew."

Ordinarily, Bismarck paid no attention to social lampoons, but on this day as he read the book aloud to guests, his anger became black and terrifying!

"I am determined to have the law on the audacious writer!" Bismarck's guests saw the old man in one of his moods of frightful rage.

But next day something intervened—and Bismarck never brought suit for damages.

* * * * *

Here is one thing that you must never forget in studying great men: That it is possible, nay inevitable, for a man to be at once very great and very small.

At the very beginning of his career, we find Bismarck ringing the solemn changes on "Christian," and we behold him in a characteristically unamiable mood over "Jews." Yet all the time he was endeavoring to lay down the dogma that the proper aim of the state is the realization of the Christian ideal!

If now you can understand this mental contradiction, you are in a position to grasp one of the strange paradoxes with which Bismarck's life is literally filled.

You see here, at once, why he has been so often accused of double-dealing, of stacking the cards, of changing his mind, of going ahead by going backwards, winning ultimately by fair means or by foul.

* * * * *

And now for the sequel. Many years later, Bismarck was exceedingly glad to be guided by the advice of Jews, more especially the Jewish banker Bleichroder.

On one side of the table sits Bismarck, the Pomeranian Junker, and on the other side the sallow-faced, undersized Jew, Bleichroder.

Great friends they are today, to be sure; and between them is a mound of treasury reports, telling in minute detail the financial resources of Louis the Little, now a helpless prisoner of war. France is at the Prussian's mercy, and a Jew is called in—a despised Jew!

Bleichroder and Bismarck coolly examined the balance sheets of France, the present state of her debts.

The money cost turns out to be the stupendous sum of five thousand millions of francs.

* * * * *

Literary and journalistic France, in book, editorial and oration made a great outcry at the moment, declaring dramatically that Prussian barbarians had decided "to bleed France white"—attributing to Bismarck a figure of speech borrowed from the butcher's block! Well and good, but France paid the indemnity in surprisingly short time; and had many millions left to go on her way rejoicing, had it not been for the miserable obsession, "Ravanche!" that kept her in hot water for years.

Bismarck was correctly quoted in this respect: That gold is as necessary in war as gunpowder; and the best way to keep a quarrelsome would-be Napoleon out of war is to empty his pockets.

The Jewish feature, however, shows Bismarck, through and through; and we could not present him without this surprising scene. Make the most of it.

* * * * *

"I do not much like the piety that proclaims itself," said Louis XIII. A similar remark may be made concerning Bismarck's life-long belief that the Lord was on Bismarck's side—Jew-baiter and all.

"The longer I work in politics," he once remarked, summing up his many political difficulties, "the smaller my belief in human calculation. I look at the affair according to my human understanding, but gratitude for God's assistance so far raises in me the confidence that the Lord is able to turn our errors to our own good; that I experience daily, to my wholesale humiliation."



CHAPTER VIII

Bismarck Suffers a Great Shock

27

Wherein it is shown that Bismarck's protest against disrespect for constituted authority was based on certain tragic historical instances he would not repeat.

It is freely granted that ideas of "Liberty!" that many German patriots desired to see come to pass, in 1848, were not those of 1789; but elements of lawlessness, of mob-rule, of marchings to "Ca Ira!" of absurd glorification of the common man, and of snarlings at kings as kings, were largely in the spirit laid down by Robespierre, Danton, Marat and that crew, with their chosen gangsters of the guillotine. Bismarck would have none of it!

True, many of the old-line excesses were no longer used for political purposes, but Bismarck was too well-balanced, had too much common sense, in short was too strongly aligned with landed interests to endorse "popular" government on the old type from over the Vosges. His protests were all in support of authority, discipline, duty, devotion to a deliberately chosen monarch, who ruled by the will of God.

In '48 the talk of the "Rights of Man" really meant the rights of individual men—the tailor, the barber, the shoemaker—each of whom felt that the time had now come to overturn the political system of kings and to bring on the rule of the common people.

Old-line hatred of Napoleon had passed away. The French military despot of the early part of the century was now figured as a "great democrat," whose wars had "all" been in the interest of the people. Could anything have been more absurd? The literary speculations of Rousseau, as to the status of a new society (such, for example, as running naked in the grove and rolling on the grass) were now replaced by loud discussions not on the Rights of Man, as a form of idealism, but the rights of all manner of men, each of whom felt that, under the new dispensation, hastened if necessary by bomb, dagger and poison-cup, the human race was to rise to nobler political ideals. It is not difficult to see that political theories of this sort have been indulged, in one way or other, by every generation in revolt against the settled ways of the fathers.

Let us, therefore, go back to original sources and see for ourselves just what account the common people had given of themselves, in a political way, in France at the time of her so-called political millennium. We shall then be able to grasp Bismarck's position clearly and be able at least to understand, if we do not support, his attitude of uncompromising severity toward popular rule, as understood at this moment in the political evolution of Germany.