Blood and Iron Part 30

-- He knew that in all Germans is a certain generosity of character which when appealed to in the right way made them eager to take the chance of death on the battlefield.

-- Bismarck played the positive as well as the negative side of this psychological fact. On the negative side, he stirred men with the idea that social ostracism rests on the man who in times of National danger tries to avoid the draft.

-- Bismarck's work thus shows him to be the great constructive poet of his time. He placed war before his fellow man in such a way that it was held a sweet privilege to die for one's land, which interpreted means Bismarck's idea of a new territorial arrangement of the map of Europe.

-- There was race prejudice behind his deeper plans. He made much of the fact that within a given area the German language was spoken, whereas while there were millions of German-speaking people in Austria there were also Slavs, Czechs, Bohemians and mongrel races.

-- The idea of brotherhood based on blood and language finally prevailed over the idea of the confraternity of races. Make as much out of this as you will, but the basic fact is incontestible.

-- Some 80,000 men perished to sustain Bismarck's peculiar conception of United Germany. Through the turmoil and misery of these three wars he had his way, and being at last successful, he suddenly became the most popular man in Europe, idolized by the millions who a little while before had reviled his name as the enemy of the Democrats.

-- Such is human nature.

-- Perhaps, after all, German National faith is only another name for the tremendous earnestness that set the whole land ablaze with singleness of purpose, consecrated to a high cause.

Bismarck in a very real sense because of faith in himself and in his ultimate cause, directed this National faith in the Fatherland and won thereby a magnificent United Germany. If we do not grasp the significance of this unseen but gigantic National German faith, as expressed in the increasing unity of will of the whole people, harked on by Prussia, we might as well close the book on Bismarck--and know him not.

-- To comprehend, somewhat, the firm roots of racial strength, as expressed by German National faith, let us for the moment pa.s.s from the 1840's, '50's and '60's, which we are now endeavoring to present with their psychological message of faith, and turn our eyes to the year 1914, when Germany and Austria, no longer enemies, now battle side by side, against armed forces of the world--British, Russian, Italian, Servian, French, Australian, East Indian, African, Belgian, Canadian, and j.a.panese!

The sustaining spirit in this life-and-death struggle, as in the wars that made Germany an empire, is bulwarked on German National faith.

-- For Germans are no longer soft-hearted heroes of lyrical poetry, as depicted by Arndt! They are men of blood and iron.

-- Bismarck's mother threw her wedding ring into the public melting pot for the benefit of the War Fund of 1813 and received in exchange a ring of iron; and thousands of German women did the same; and Bismarck's wife exchanged her gold ring for one of iron, for the War Fund of '66. Tens of thousands of German women did likewise, not only in Germany, but in foreign lands, wherever hearts beat for the Fatherland.

They did it in 1813, and in 1864, and in 1866, and in 1870;--and again in 1914!

-- For example, in the great war of 1914, Baroness von Ropp, granddaughter of Geo. Ebers, Germany's most foremost woman novelist, cries out for her country in the accents of true German nationality, the self-same spirit which Arndt stimulated in days of French and Austrian domination. And since it is this elusive spirit that we are endeavoring to bring home to you, in grasping the higher significance of Bismarck's work, and its true inner meaning, we quote freely from a private letter penned by the Baroness, from Magdeburg, August, 1914.

Ilse Hahn-Ropp did not write for publication, and therefore her words have the more weight.

-- "On the first day of mobilization I traveled to Magdeburg to say farewell to my husband, who was leaving for France. I had three hours; then I had to take the last train out of town. From that time only military trains were running. Shall I ever forget that ride? It was as though we were living in another world. People were standing in the cars closely packed together; but not a word of complaint. Each one felt he was no longer an individual--but a German! Rich and poor, n.o.bles and peasants, talked together as brothers. Each had the deep conviction that this war had been forced upon us, and that every one must throw his whole strength into the scales, for victory.

-- "Ceaselessly, military trains roll by, crowded with soldiers in gala uniforms, burning to reach the enemy. I hear them all night long from my parents' home--those wheels rolling, rolling westward; no hurry, no confusion; the mighty machine moves majestically on its way. Show us another nation which could duplicate that spectacle!

-- "And then, from a thousand throats, rose 'Die Wacht am Rhein.' It was overpowering--irresistible. This mighty anthem, from the lips of soldiers going out to battle!

-- "It was thus that both my brothers left us. I shall never, never forget. Every one gives his all gladly. I could not keep my husband with me, although exempt through his profession from military duty. He went as a volunteer, and I would not have held him if I could, though you can guess the cost of that parting!

-- "One hears not a single complaint from the women of the Fatherland.

We are all too thoroughly roused over the insults offered our loved country. Working each waiting moment for our wounded--for our soldiers--we have no time for tears.

-- "We will not give in until all are defeated, even though we women should have to take up the sword to defend the Fatherland. Were it not for my baby daughter I should be with my husband, as a nurse.

-- "You cannot picture how great, how n.o.ble, how grave this time is.

Human nature is transfigured. Individual fate is lost, in the fate of the Nation.

-- "I am at home with my parents. Scarcely a year has pa.s.sed since my happy, peaceful wedding day. And now my home is bare and desolate, and I am again the daughter of my father--I can write no more. My feelings are stifling me. The bells are ringing a new victory. Unfurl the black-white-red banner. Always lovingly yours,

ILSE."

A postscript reads:

"Oct. 6.--For six weeks I have been trying to send this letter--in vain. In the meantime both my brothers have died fighting for the Fatherland. My husband still lives, but--we must, we shall and must win!"

48

Bismarck balances between tempestuous outbursts and inscrutable silence; biding his time in the great game of German Unity.

-- In the gigantic project of creating an Empire for a king who solemnly protested that he was directly accountable to G.o.d for the throne, "and would never consent to have so much as a sheet of paper (const.i.tution) between my people and my Maker." Bismarck was under tremendous nervous pressure for years; and he meant that his political secrets for United Germany should not become too early known. Not only were the people as yet unwilling to help, but Austria was watching with jealous eyes the possibility of plunder for herself;--for where the carrion is there will the vultures wheel.

-- Bismarck's ambition bit him by day and by night, and there was for him no rest; he required a continent to turn 'round in, and nothing less would suffice. It was now only a question of waiting for the psychological moment to electrify the inert ma.s.s of the people to rally to his cause.

-- Naturally you ask, "Was this Bismarck then a beast?" Not at all. He was merely a human being who wanted a continent to turn around in.

In the gigantic project, Bismarck was exercising his own peculiar gifts in his own way--for none stood ready to give him what he wanted, without fighting for it--even as you or I lay out lesser plans to beg, or coax, or force the world to give us not what we think we need but what we are strong enough to obtain.

-- In this att.i.tude, Bismarck needs neither apology nor defense--for, after all, he is Bismarck.

Through thirty-odd years of din and roar and battle largely of his own making Bismarck knew neither rest nor peace; returning again and again to the attack and wearing down his enemies by the sheer brute force of courage. His idea was United Germany, through Prussian military power; at the same time, Prussia must hold her dynastic over-lordship, and must yield it finally only in a territorial German Empire.

-- Unquestionably there was, incidentally, a large element of injustice in his plans and purposes, but what of it? Is there not such in your own life, and do you know any man whose career is not based on injustice either in some coa.r.s.e, obvious or in some subtle way?

The world belongs only to those who do battle, and there is absolutely no chance for the man who will not fight!

All government is based on some form of injustice, all land tenure is stained with the sword, all "putting up" of one family, or individual, is based on "taking" something from some other family or individual.

Nor am I excepting the conquests of love itself, from time immemorial presented as a token of man's romantic, softer side. For, if the hero does not "save" the heroine from the villain, to take her for himself, then for whom does he save her?

-- The Bismarck struggle and the Bismarck triumph are as old as history--and as new as the career of the man of today who has achieved his heart's desire.

The empire-maker Bismarck had his way because he was strong enough to have his way, and while cruelties in various forms, for the ends of statecraft, coexisted in him with many fine qualities, after all that simply means that he was a human being with impulses of various kinds--good and less good--in one heart. It is also an undeniable fact that as late as 1862 Bismarck was by the common crowd in Prussia hated and feared, regarded as Germany's ogre of disaster.

-- Here then is the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l: His strong conservative, not to say reactionary, sentiments did not blind him to the fact that he could do nothing without the "people," whom politically he ignored in so far as their fitness for constructive government was concerned; but it was the "people," and the "people" only, who could bring United Germany.

He realized the present impracticability of such a Union as he had in mind for his master, the King of Prussia; that to urge it too soon would simply bring a new revolution, and G.o.d knows there had been enough blood-letting for the sake of power in and around Prussia for lo! these one hundred years gone by.

-- The only thing for him to do, then, was to keep his ambition to himself and his own crowd, and to bide his time to strike--for time makes all things right for him who can wait.