Blood and Iron Part 31

And at waiting and at concealing Bismarck was past master. While usually figured as a blunt, bold, tyrannical man, there was also a side of inscrutable reticence.

-- Thus finally between outbursts of temper in which he attacked his enemies with the power of a battles.h.i.+p in action, followed by periods of silence after the storm, Bismarck remained master of the diplomatic situation, playing his waiting game.

-- And did his stern face never break into an ironical smile? Did he never betray himself?

It was impossible to preserve his great political secret from the intuitions of other and lesser minds.

-- You see, men have various ways of getting their will. Some fight, others play, still others threaten suicide if the money is not forthcoming. It is all a matter of temperament and peculiar style of doing battle.

With some, a curse will bring what a kiss will not; with others a club is more useful than a loving word. With Bismarck, the first instinct was to do battle by fire and sword, and this explains why his career is filled with broken wine bottles, fist cuffs, sword thrusts, and his "sic 'em!" to the big dogs that trailed around with him.

-- Once, during the crisis of which we now write, on going into a saloon for a gla.s.s of beer, some table talk on politics offended him.

He ordered the man to stop, then and there, "or I will smash a beer gla.s.s over your head!"

The man went on talking; Bismarck drank, turned around and said, "That for you!" smashed the tankard on the offending head, and coolly walked out!

BOOK THE FIFTH

The German People Are One and United

CHAPTER XIV

Windrows of Corpses

49

He is no longer the roaring delegate of the "White Saloon," but has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint.

-- Fight, fight, fight! Nothing but fight! And all this trying time, Bismarck suffered excruciating pains from his old rheumatic complaint.

He was irritable, melancholy and jaundiced; sat up all night half-buried in his mounds of state papers; dictating telegrams, quarreling with callers, denouncing, adjusting, scheming; four o'clock found him in bed; he tossed about till seven, when he managed to get to sleep; and was not seen again till late in the afternoon. The situation was getting on the master's nerves.

-- Enemies in the house of his friends spied on Bismarck, endeavored to poison the King against the doughty Minister. The Crown Prince, especially, who always had an aversion to Bismarck, despite the war-dog's inestimable services to the House of Hohenzollern, now tried to pull the Pomeranian giant down.

To this end, the Prince dissa.s.sociated himself from Bismarck's policy, avoided the great man at court. The situation pa.s.sed rapidly from political to social objections on part of the Prince, who spread before the King the ruin of Hohenzollern if Bismarckian policies were longer pursued.

-- But the King would not give Bismarck up. In this regard, William was as cold as ice. He saw that should Bismarck be asked to go, at that time, the Liberals would be irresistibly strengthened. The recoil of the mighty wave against kingcraft might even end by forcing abdication for the Prussian monarch.

-- Instead of fearing the Liberal leaders, Bismarck despised their plots. The master knew enough of human nature to see clearly one great central fact. The fire-breathing Democrats would, at the hour of Prussia's peril, join with the hated system of Bismarck and march to glory. In defense of Prussia, Liberals, Socialists and political nonconformists of every description, would be carried off their feet.

Then, Bismarck would be able to call on his very enemies to come forward and help him win the day.

-- And the old man, as usual, was absolutely correct. In the hour of danger how the Prussian Liberals fought! Like fiends they stood, took the murderous fire and went to their death singing, "I am a Prussian, will a Prussian be!"

-- The opportunity to test German National faith first came through the Holstein war, precipitated by Bismarck's clever manipulation of events.

-- As well ask from what quarters of the globe the hurricane came which last night tore up the old oak tree. You can read a dozen fat volumes on the Holstein problem, and still you will not be convinced.

Schleswig-Holsteiners in their rock-grit lands on the North Sea had their political troubles about the right of succession, and that sort of thing; the spit of land up there was aflame with war talk.

-- The Germans, as a people, wished Schleswig attached as a princ.i.p.ality of the German Confederation, but Bismarck's secret plan was to seize the territory for the gain of Prussia, a clean political theft of a huge estate. By pus.h.i.+ng the Danes out of the Frankfort Diet--that antiquated political stuffed-club of Austria--the Emperor of the South would also be forced out of German affairs. In a few words, that was the play.

-- Opposition? Why, Bismarck lived by opposition, grew fat on opposition. He is no longer the old roaring delegate of the "White Saloon," in his blossom time. He has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint. As a matter of fact, he now invited Austria "to co-operate," in settling the complex Danish question; and the unsuspecting Emperor of the South, who was also playing a deep game of his own, decided to take a hand.

-- Throughout his long career, Bismarck was everlastingly trading in political advantages. Often there was a large element of imagination in his promises to pay, but he gained his point in the Holstein problem. He had to face: Dissension between the Prussian Chamber and the Government; the feeling in rival German states; the general distrust of Prussia and the hostility of Austria; finally, the jealousy of other powers.

-- Volumes have been written, learned decisions handed down on the complex rights of the warring houses of Schleswig-Holstein. There were mountains of precedents on this side or that, as you pleased.

Bismarck's plan was to annex the domain to Prussia and seize the harbor of Kiel, with all the accrued advantages to the Prussian monarch; and while the talk went on Bismarck manoeuvered to enlist his old enemy, Austria, to make common cause in a clear way of plunder, if ever there was one. Then, they swept the country with fire and sword, took it by the "divine right" of the strongest; and it fell out that Bismarck stacked the cards against Austria, as a gambler stacks them against the man on the other side of the table who is supposed to be his friend, in a gentleman's game. Bismarck at a stroke thus won away Austria's share.

-- After the conquest of the Holstein duchies, King William became more ambitious; henceforth the object of his life was the aggrandizement of Prussia, in Germany. Bismarck had given the King the taste of blood.

The Iron Chancellor admits the fact. Here are Bismarck's exact words, from his interviews with Dr. Busch: "The King's frame of mind underwent a psychological change; he developed a taste for conquest."

-- Bismarck laid the foundation in this way: He reminded the reluctant William of the glories of Hohenzollern; how each Hohenzollern had added to the common family fortunes, ever-widening estates and power.

He told William how King Fr: Wm. IV had acquired Hohenzollern and the Jande District; Fr: Wm. III, the Rhine Province; Fr: Wm. II, Poland; Fr: II, Silesia; Fr: Wm. I, Old Hinter Pomerania; the Great Elector, Further Pomerania, etc.; "and I encouraged the King to do likewise."

-- Is it too much to say that in this great National crisis, Bismarck was more than servant of the King? In many respects Bismarck was the King's master. "If you only knew how I had to struggle to make the King go to war with Austria!" is a significant comment Bismarck once made in a moment of confidence.

It is a question whether he loved the King more, or himself less.

-- "My party consisted solely of the King and myself," wrote Bismarck many years later, "and my only aim was the restoration and aggrandizement of the German Empire and the defense of monarchial authority."

-- He always had a contempt for parliaments and for parties. This fact is so clear that we pa.s.s it without further comment. In short, Bismarck measures up to these lines in Tennyson:

"Ah, G.o.d! for a man with heart, head, hand Like some of the simple great ones gone Forever and ever by; One still strong man in a blatant land, Whatever they call him, what care I, Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat--"

-- However, in this world all things are relative; the finest coat has its reverse side, where the ugly seams show; and Bismarck is no exception. He has all the strong man's virtues, and vices. Make the most of it.

It is a solemn fact that, in his unfailing loyalty to his country, Bismarck showed little consideration for men who chanced to oppose his own principles--but what would you, pray?

Man at best is a curious animal; he indulges in great wars and he is capable of great mercies; he is all things by turn and nothing long; on the same day he loves and he hates, he commits crimes and he goes to church; he has his way and having it, is still dissatisfied.

-- And Bismarck was no exception.

-- He always expected absolute obedience. "My amba.s.sadors," he once said to one of them, "must wheel round like non-commissioned officers, at a word of command, without knowing why."