Otto von Bismarck

“ And yet the guests at this time relate that they were “miserably” bored at Bismarck’s nocturnal political discussions with his intimate friends, Dewitz of Mesow and Bülow of Hoffelde—so different in character, but so inseparable from him. Young gentlemen in those days were not so accustomed to political discussions as the youth of our time, and political parties were then nearly unknown. It should be stated, however, that Otto von Bismarck, despite his wild life, stood in high consideration, and he was heard with avidity, though the affair might be “miserably” tedious. ”

“ Fortunately, however, he was singularly open to conviction, 870 and Otto von Bismarck, though not yet in office, was already in his confidence. Bismarck realized that, in the struggle with Austria which he foresaw, Prussia could only be weakened were she to take up an attitude of opposition to the prevailing Liberal sentiment, and that to tamper with the constitution would not only be inexpedient, but useless, since special measures could always be resorted to, to meet special circumstances. The interests of Prussia, he urged, had been too often sacrificed to abstract ideas. ”

“ And among the tombstones are those of gallant Douglas Campbell of the 78th, Woodford of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, and Young of the 4th Bengal Native Infantry.
BISMARCK BEFORE AND DURING THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
The ex-Chancellor of the German Empire owed nothing of his unique career to adventitious advantages. Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen, who for more than a generation was the most prominent and most powerful personality of Europe, was essentially a self-made man. ”

“ Bismarck then produced the secret treaties with the southern states, an act which was, as it were, a challenge to France by the whole of Germany. During the next three years the Ultramontane party hoped to bring about an anti-Prussian revolution, and Napoleon was working for an alliance with Austria, where Beust, an old opponent of Bismarck’s, was chancellor. Bismarck was doubtless well informed as to the progress of the negotiations, for he had established intimate relations with the Hungarians. ”

“ Therefore, gentlemen, do not let us spoil the people of their Christianity; do not let us take from them the belief that our legislation is drawn from the well of Christianity, and that the State aims at the realisation of Christianity even if it does not attain its end."
We can well understand how delighted Herr von Thadden was with his pupil. "With Bismarck I naturally will not attempt to measure myself," he writes; "in the last debates he has again said many admirable things"; and in another letter, "I am quite enthusiastic for Otto Bismarck." ”

“ OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD von BISMARCK was born at the manor-house of Schoenhausen, in the Mark of Brandenburg, on April 1, 1815. Just a month before, Napoleon had escaped from Elba; and, as the child lay in his cradle, the peasants of the village, who but half a year ago had returned from the great campaign in France, were once more called to arms. A few months passed by; again the King of Prussia returned at the head of his army; in the village churches the medals won at Waterloo were hung up by those of Grossbehren and Leipzig. ”

“ I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you have nothing to do at all - you might as well tip me a line as well as looking on your feet tilted against the wall of God knows what a dreary colour. ”

“ But the great strain of the years is beginning to show. For one thing Bismarck’s eyes are failing; he uses a glass as he muses over his mounds of state papers; his face is lined with deep marks; care has done its work; our Otto is now bald, obese and stiff-jointed, much more so than his 54 years might seem to call for. In making speeches he does not speak as boldly, as directly as in days of yore. He stops, hesitates, stammers, but manages to hold the crowd.
¶ You see he has a world of things on his mind; the under-play of the great political game absorbs his very life. ”

“ Strong arm and tireless brain Time asked;—a man who could neither be bent, broken nor brow-beaten; a man who would for 40 years follow a plan by no means clear; often had to go out in the dark and find his way, all old landmarks lost, and no pole-star in sight.
¶ I dwell on one outstanding fact, all down through his [20] career: I mean Bismarck’s power to conceal pain. Hurricanes of insulting criticisms swept around his head, year after year, but on the whole Otto’s attitude was that of the mountain that defies the storm. ”

“ All the resistance of authority was overthrown; nothing, it seemed, stood between them and the attainment of their ideal of a united and free Germany. They had achieved a revolution; they had become a political people; they had shewn themselves the equals of England and of France. They had liberty, and they would soon have a Constitution. Bismarck did not share this feeling; he saw only that the monarchy which he respected, and the King whom, with all his faults, he loved and honoured, were humiliated and disgraced. This was worse than Jena. A defeat on the field of battle can be avenged ”

“ Nay, do not scoff at our Otto; he is only carrying on the old, old game called reaching out after place and power; is doing exactly what you would do yourself, if you had the will to rise to the mountain-tops where live the Bismarcks and the Cæsars.
Mask after mask Bismarck used to cover his real intent, from 1847 to 1870, the long years he was scheming to establish a German Empire; and he did his work well; more than that cannot be said of any man. Therefore, his fame is secure in the Valhalla of Mankind. ”

“ Otto had not indeed given up the habits he had learnt at Göttingen; his wild freaks, his noisy entertainments, were the talk of the countryside; the beverage which he has made classical, a mixture of beer and champagne, was the common drink, and he was known far and wide as the mad Bismarck. These acts of wildness were, however, only a small part of his life; he entered as a lieutenant of Landwehr in the cavalry and thereby became acquainted with another form of military service. It was while he was at the annual training that he had an opportunity of shewing his physical strength and courage. ”

“ Sunday, October 16th.—This morning I received another letter from Bamberger, who writes from Lausanne. He thinks Bismarck can do what he likes if he will only follow a sound German policy, that is to say, “if a United German State is now firmly established.” “In Germany people are convinced that this solution rests with the Chancellor of the Confederation, and all opposition offered to it is attributed by public opinion to the Minister. People say to themselves that if Count Bismarck did not secretly encourage that opposition it would not dare to manifest itself in such a great crisis.” ”

“ There probably never lived at any time in any country a "statesman" who was less scientific, who had less knowledge, and who relied so purely on experience and a sort of half-gambler, half-peddler cunning, as Bismarck. Those offers to socialists place in the clearest light the untruthfulness of Prince Bismarck's claim that he always regarded the social democracy as incompatible with the existence of the state. Bismarck wanted to use socialism for the purpose of breaking up and dissolving the bourgeois liberal opposition, especially the Progressive party. ”

“ Should not, then, all manner of pains have been taken to keep them united in the mutual work of the organization of the empire? Should not the first thought of a politician, after having achieved such wonderful success, and having before him the obstacles which still remained to be overcome, have been to begin by establishing peace in religious matters?
But I must repeat the question, What did M. von Bismarck do? He repulses the Westphalians and people of the Rhine who had become reconciled; he revives in Bavaria and in the South that particularism which was dying out ”

“ Bismarck seemed to be the only man in Europe who really was able to grasp the solution of the German problem.
¶ Also, the granite soil of his heart is shown again and again. What a hater he was!
For example, refusing to go to Mass for the repose of Schwarzenberg’s soul, Bismarck gave the reason: “He is the man who said: ‘I will abuse Prussia and then abolish her.’”
¶ You see, our Otto is one of those uncomfortable Germans who in his own amazing personality expresses the National ideal of earnestness ”

“ In contradistinction to the wise, ambitious, but somewhat haughty mother, his father, a handsome, personable, and cheerful man, full of humor and wit, rather represented the heart and mind, without very great claims to strong intellect, or even knowledge. Strangely enough, the cultivated and literary Charles Alexander von Bismarck, transformed from a diplomatist into a cavalry officer by the command of the Great Frederick, educated his four sons for the army. ”

“ In August, 1867, Bismarck secured his advancement to the presidency of the Chancery of the North-German Confederation. He also became a Prussian Minister of State in 1868, and in both positions, in which he was virtually the representative of the ‘Iron Chancellor,’ he displayed a strict adherence to constitutional principles, notwithstanding the great difficulties frequently encountered in the defense of the measures advocated by Bismarck. ”

“ Fearful stories as to the cruelty of the enemy were told among the peasantry; and there can be no doubt that young Bismarck's early impressions in regard to Frenchmen were of anything but an agreeable nature. This explains why he was not very willing to listen when, in 1871, complaints were brought him respecting the conduct of the German soldiers in France. He had reasons of his own for believing that his countrymen, when compared to the victorious French in Germany, had behaved with humanity.
At six years old young Otto was sent to school in Berlin. ”

“ It has been surmised that the policy of the Prussian chancellor in respect to the church has been dictated to him by the necessity of satisfying the demands of the radical-liberal party. We cannot think that it is to be accounted for simply on this ground. The general idea and fundamental principle of Bismarck has been to destroy the community of nations which was the remnant of ancient Christendom, and raise up an independent, self-subsisting, absolute, and dominating German Empire. ”

“ Hour after hour went by and the Crown Prince did not come; if he delayed longer the attack would fail and the Prussians be defeated. We can easily imagine what must have been Bismarck's thoughts during this crisis. On the result depended his position, his reputation, perhaps his life; into those few hours was concentrated the struggle to which he had devoted so much of his lifetime, and yet he was quite helpless. Success or failure did not depend on him. It is the crudest trial to the statesman that he must see his best plans undone by the mistakes of the generals. ”

“ Nine years ago he had found the King ready to retire from the throne; now he had made him the most powerful ruler in Europe. Prussia, which then had been divided in itself and without influence in the councils of Europe, was the undisputed leader in a United Germany.
Fate, which always was so kind to Bismarck, was not to snatch him away, as it did Cavour, in the hour of his triumph; twenty years longer he was to preside over the State which he had created and to guide the course of the ship which he had built. A weaker or more timid man would quickly have retired from public life ”

“ To that statesman has been attributed the famous phrase: "Might makes right." As a matter of fact Bismarck never said it, because he was unable to distinguish between might and right; in his eyes right was simply that which is desired by the strongest, that which is declared in the law imposed by the victor upon the vanquished. His whole moral philosophy is summed up in that. The Germany of the present knows no other. She also worships brute force. And as she believes herself strongest she is entirely absorbed in adoration of herself. Her energy has its origin in this pride. ”

“ When the Russian disarmament rescript appeared in August, one of the severest criticisms made upon it was this: “Prince Bismarck has been dead twenty-eight days.” This was as much as to say that care had been taken not to submit this question to European statesmen for discussion during this great stateman’s lifetime, but they waited until after he was dead to spring it. ”

“ You are often too stormy for us; you are always coming with something new and we cannot always follow you in it, but you must not take that amiss. We are both old men and the Emperor is much older than we are, but we should like ourselves in our lifetime to see some of these reforms established. That I wish for all of us and for our German country, and we will do our best to help in it."
Opinions may differ as to the wisdom of Bismarck's social and financial policy; nobody can deny their admiration for the energy and patriotism which he displayed. ”

“ The men who avowed admiration for the Paris Commune, who were openly preparing for a revolution more complete than any which Europe had hitherto seen, could not complain if the Government, while there was yet time, used every means for crushing them. The mistake was in supposing that this measure would be successful. Bismarck would, indeed, had he been able, have made it far more severe; his own idea was that anyone who had been legally convicted of holding Socialist opinions should be deprived of the franchise and excluded from the Parliament. ”