Blood and Iron Part 14

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 pa.s.sed the time as a practical farmer; hale fellow well met, with upper-cla.s.s 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 d.y.k.e Captain von Brauchitsch of Scharteuke, in the Circle of Jerichow, as Deputy at the United Diet, and had selected d.y.k.e Captain von Bismarck of Schoenhausen as his proxy. As Herr von Brauchitsch was very ill, his subst.i.tute was summoned.

-- Bismarck appeared as representative of the Knight's Estate of Jerichow, and va.s.sal 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 Const.i.tution:

-- "I refuse to allow to come between Almighty G.o.d 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 const.i.tutionalism 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 d.y.k.e-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 cla.s.s! 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 Const.i.tution. 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 d.y.k.e-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 Const.i.tutions? 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 Const.i.tution--the right of pet.i.tion and certain specified control over state finance by the people--simple as all this seems today, created a terrible storm! The n.o.bility, led by the d.y.k.e-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 cla.s.ses 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 const.i.tution.

This King Fr.: Wm. IV lived in a mystic mediaeval 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 d.y.k.e-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 princ.i.p.al 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 G.o.d 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 bra.s.s 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 a.s.sured, 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 G.o.d," royal prerogative and general disdain for the ma.s.ses;--as in the regime 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!