William of Germany Part 8
It is difficult to communicate an impression of the Court, whether at the Schloss in Berlin or the New Palace in Potsdam, and at the same time avoid the dry and dusty descriptions of the guide-books. If the reader is not in Berlin, let him imagine the fragment of a mediaeval town, situated on a river and fronted by a bridge; and on the bank of the river a dark, square, ma.s.sive and weather-stained pile of four stories, with barred windows on the ground floor as defence against a possibly angry populace, and a sentry-box at each of its two lofty wrought-iron gates. It may be, as Baedeker informs us it is, a "handsome example of the German renaissance," but to the foreigner it can as equally suggest a large and grimy barracks as the five-hundred-years-old palace of a long line of kings and emperors.
And yet, to any one acquainted with the blood-stained annals of Prussian history, who knows something of the ma.s.sive stone buildings about it and of the people who have inhabited them, who strolls through its interior divided into sombre squares, each with its cold and bare parade-ground, who reflects on the relations between king and people, closely identified by their historical a.s.sociations, yet sundered by the feudal spirit which still keeps the Crown at a distance from the crowd, above all to the German versed in his country's story--how eloquently it speaks!
When one thinks of the Court of Berlin one should not forget that the New Palace, the Emperor's residence at Potsdam, sixteen miles distant from the capital, is as much, and as important, a part of it as the royal palace in Berlin itself. The Emperor divides his time between them, the former, when he is not travelling, being his more permanent residence, and the latter only claiming his presence during the winter season and for periods of a day or so at other parts of the year, when occasion requires it. It is only during the six or eight weeks of the winter season that the Empress and her daughter, Princess Victoria Louise (now d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick), go into residence at the Berlin royal palace. There is a railway between Potsdam and Berlin, but since the introduction of the motor-car the Emperor almost always uses that means of conveyance for the half-hour's run between his Berlin and Potsdam palaces.
The other section of the Court, if Potsdam may be so described, is hardly less rich in memories than the old palace by the Spree. Indeed it is richer from the cosmopolitan point of view, for though Frederick the Great was born in the Berlin Schloss and spent some of his time there, it was at Potsdam that, when not campaigning, he may be said to have lived and died. To this day, for the foreigner, his personality still pervades the place, and that of the Emperor sinks, comparatively, into the background. The tourist who has pored over his Baedeker will learn that Potsdam has 53,000 inhabitants and is "charmingly situated"--it depends on your temperament what the charm is, and to guide-book framers all tourists have the same temperament--on an island in the Havel "which here expands into a series of lakes bounded by wooded hills." He will learn that the old town-palace, which few visitors give a thought to, was built by the Great Elector, that Frederick the Great lived here in "richly decorated apartments with sumptuous furniture and noteworthy pictures by Pater, Lancret, and Pesne"; that it contains a cabinet in which the dining-table could be let up and down by means of a trap-door, and "where the King occasionally dined with friends without risk of being overheard by his attendants"; that the present Emperor, then Prince William, lived here with his young wife when he was still only a lieutenant. He will drive to the New Palace--now old, for it was built by Frederick the Great in 1769, during the Seven Years' War, at a cost of nearly half a million sterling--and gaze with interest at the summer residence of the Emperor. If he is an American he may think of his multi-millionaire fellow-citizen, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who, when driving up to call on his erstwhile imperial schoolfellow and friend, was nearly shot at by a sentry for whom the name Vanderbilt was no "Open Sesame." He will see before him a main building, seven hundred feet in length, three stories high, with the central portion surmounted by a dome, its chief facade looking towards a park. The whole, of course--for Baedeker is talking--forms an "imposing pile,"
with "mediocre sculptures, but the effect of the weathered sandstone figures against the red brick is very pleasing." Here the Emperor's father, Frederick III, was born, lived as Crown Prince, reigned for ninety-nine days, and died. Here, too, are more "apartments of Frederick the Great," with pictures by Rubens, including an "Adoration of the Magi," a good example of Watteau and a portrait of Voltaire drawn by Frederick's own hand. In the north wing are situated the present Emperor's suite of chambers, where distinguished men of all countries have discussed almost every conceivable topic, political, social, religious, martial, artistic, financial, and commercial, with one of the most interesting talkers of his time. No b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy has defiled the palace, as did the murder of Lord Darnley at Holyrood, that of the Duke of Guise (Sir Walter Scott's "Le Balafre") the chateau of Blois, the execution of the Bourbon Duc d'Enghien the palace of Vincennes, or the murder of the boy princes the Tower of London. But bloodless tragedy, and exquisite comedy, and farce too, have doubtless had their hour within the walls. One such incident of the politico-tragic kind was that which pa.s.sed only two years ago between the Emperor and his Imperial Chancellor, when Prince von Bulow went as deputy from the Federal Council, the Parliament, and the people to pray the Emperor to exercise more caution in his public, or semi-public statements; and the historian may possibly find another, and not without its touch of comedy, in the reception by the Emperor of the Chinese prince, who headed the "mission of atonement" for the murder of the Emperor's Minister in Pekin during the Boxer troubles.
From the New Palace our foreigner will probably drive to the Marble Palace, which (for Baedeker is ever at one's elbow with the facts) he will mark was built in 1796 by Frederick William II, who died here, was completed in 1845 by Frederick William IV, and was the residence of the present Emperor at the time of his accession.
But while our foreigner has been hurrying from one palace to another, with his mind in a fog of historical and topographical confusion--if he is an American, half-hoping, half-expecting to meet the Emperor or Empress and secure a bow from one or other, or--why not?--one of William's well-known vigorous _poignees de main_, there is always one thought predominant in his mind--Sans Souci. That is the real object of his quest, the main attraction that has brought him, all unconscious of it, to Berlin, and not the laudable, but wholly mistaken efforts of the "Society for the Promotion of Tourist Traffic," which seeks to lure the moneyed and reluctant foreigner to the German capital. Our foreigner enters the Park of Sans Souci and his spirit is at rest. Now he knows where he really is--not in the wonderful new German Empire, not in modern Berlin with its splendid and to him unspeaking streets, its garish "night-life," its faultily-faultless munic.i.p.al propriety, not in Potsdam, "the true cradle of the Prussian army," as Baedeker, deviating for an instant into metaphor, describes it, but simply in Sans Souci. He is now no longer in the twentieth century, but the eighteenth--one hundred and fifty years ago or more--in Frederick's day, the period of pigtails, of giant grenadiers in the old-time blue and red coats, the high and fantastic shako made of metal and tapering to a point, of three-cornered hats resting on powdered wigs, of yellow top-boots, and exhaling the general air of ruffianly geniality characteristic of the manners and soldiers of the age.
As our foreigner advances through the park, where, as he is told, the Emperor makes a promenade each Christmas Eve distributing ten-mark pieces (spiteful chroniclers make it three marks) to all and sundry poor, he will notice the fountain "the water of which rises to a height of 130 feet," with its twelve figures by French artists of the eighteenth century, and ascend the broad terraced flight of marble steps up which the present Crown Prince is credited with once urging his trembling steed--leading to the Mecca of his imagination, the palace Sans Souci itself. The building is only one story high, not large, reminding one somewhat of the Trianon at Versailles, though lacking the Trianon's finished lightness and elegance, yet with its semicircular colonnade distinctly French, and impressive by its elevated situation. The chief, the enduring, the magical impression, however, begins to form as our foreigner commences his pilgrimage through the rooms in which Frederick pa.s.sed most of his later years.
As he pauses in the Voltaire Chamber he imagines the two great figures, seated in stiff-backed chairs at a little table on which stand, perhaps, a pair of cut Venetian wine-gla.s.ses and a tall bottle of old Rheinish--the great man of thought and the great man of action, the two great atheists and freethinkers of Europe, with their earnest, sharply featured faces, and their wigs bobbing at each other, discussing the events and tendencies of their time. And how they must have talked--no wonder Frederick, though the idol of his subjects, withdrew for such discourse from the society of the day, with its twaddle of the tea-cups and its parade-ground plat.i.tudes.
As in our own time, there was then no lack of stimulating topics. The influence of the old Catholicism and the old feudalism was rapidly diminishing, the night of superst.i.tion was pa.s.sing, and the age of reason, that was to culminate with such tremendous and horrible force in the French Revolution, was beginning to dawn. The encyclopaedists, with Diderot and d'Alembert in the van, were holding council in France, mobilizing the intellects of the time, and, like Bacon, taking all knowledge for their province, for a fierce attack on the old philosophy, the old statecraft, the old art, and the old religion. Are such topics and such men to deal with them to be found to-day, or have all the great problems of humanity and its intellect been started, studied, and resolved? And are motor-cars, aeroplanes, dances, Dreadnoughts, millinery, rag-time reviews, auction bridge, the rise and fall of stocks, and the last extraordinary round of golf, all that is left for the present generation to discuss?
However, the guardian of the palace has moved on, the other members of the party are getting bored, and our foreigner follows the guardian's lead. Thus conducted, he pa.s.ses through half a dozen rooms, each a museum of historical a.s.sociations--the dining-room with its round table made famous by Menzel's picture (now in the Berlin National Gallery) in which Frederick and his guests are seen seated, but in which it is difficult if not impossible to be certain which is the host; the concert-room with the clock which Frederick was in the habit of winding up, and which "is said to have stopped at the precise moment of his death, 2.20 a.m., August 17th, 1786"; the death-chamber with its eloquent and pathetic statue, Magnussen's "Last Moments of Frederick the Great"; the library and picture gallery. Strangely enough, Baedeker has no mention of a female subject portrayed in the concert-room in all sorts of att.i.tudes and in all sorts and no sort of costume. Yet every one has heard of La Barberini, the only woman, the chroniclers (and Voltaire among them) a.s.sure us, Frederick ever loved.
She was no woman of birth or wit like the Pompadour, Recamier or Stael, but of merely ordinary understanding and the wife of a subordinate official of the Court. She charmed Frederick, however, and may have loved him. If so, let us remember that the morals of those days were not those of ours, and not grudge the lonely King his enjoyment of her beauty and amiability.
One thing only remains for our foreigner to see--the coffin of Frederick in the old Garrison Church. It lies in a small chamber behind the pulpit and looks more like the strong box of a miser than the last resting-place of a great king. For such a man it seems poor and mean, but probably Frederick himself did not wish for better. He must have known that his real monument would be his reputation with posterity. In fact the chroniclers agree, and the n.o.ble statue of Magnussen confirms the impression, that at the close of his stormy life he was glad finally to be at rest anywhere. "_Quand je serai la_," he was wont to say, pointing to where his dogs were buried in the palace park, "_je serai sans souci_."
In every court there is a disposition on the part of courtiers to agree with everything the monarch says, to flatter him as dexterously as they can, to minister to princely vanity, if vanity there be, to "crawl on their bellies," in the choice language of hostile court critics, or "wag their tails" and double up their bodies at every bow; show, in short, in different ways, often all unconsciously, the presence of a servile and self-interested mind. The disposition is not to be found in courts alone. It is one of the commonest and most malignant qualities of humanity, and can any day and at any hour be observed in action in any Ministry of State, any mercantile office, any great warehouse, any public inst.i.tution, in every scene, in fact, where one or many men are dependent for their living on the favour or caprice of another. On the other hand, let it not be forgotten that this innate tendency of human nature is at times replaced by another which has frequently the same outward manifestations, but is not the same feeling, the sentiment, namely, of embarra.s.sment arising from the fear of being servile, and the equally frequent embarra.s.sment arising from that principle which is always at work in the mind, the a.s.sociation of ideas, which in the case of a monarch presents him to the ordinary mortal as embodying ideas of grandeur, power, might, and intellect to which the latter is unaccustomed. Education, economic changes, and the art of manners have done much to conceal, if not eradicate, human p.r.o.neness to servility, and the Byzantinism of the time of Caligula and Nero, of Tiberius, Constantine, or Nikiphoros, of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, has long been modified into respect for oneself as well as for the person one addresses. There are, however, still traces of the old evil in the German atmosphere, and in especial a tendency among officials of all grades to be humble and submissive to those above them and haughty and domineering to those below them.
The tendency is perhaps not confined to Germany, but it seems, to the inhabitant of countries where bureaucracy is not a powerful caste, to penetrate German society and ordinary life to a greater degree--yet not to a great degree--than in more democratic societies.
The Emperor naturally knows nothing of such a thing, for there is no one superior to him in the Empire in point of rank, and he is much too modern, too well educated, and of too kindly and liberal a nature to encourage or permit Byzantinism towards him on the part of others.
Indeed Byzantinism was never a Hohenzollern failing. In his able work on German civilization Professor Richard tells of some Silesian peasants who knelt down when presenting a pet.i.tion to Frederick William I, and were promptly told to get up, as "such an att.i.tude was unworthy of a human being." Only on one occasion in the reign has an action of the Emperor's afforded ground for the suspicion that he was for a moment filled with the spirit of the Byzantine emperors--namely, when he demanded the "kotow" from the Chinese Prince Tschun, who led the "mission of atonement" to Germany. This, however, was not really the result of a Byzantine character or spirit, but of the excusable anger of a man whose innocent representative had been treacherously killed.
Of affinity with the idea of Byzantinism is that as frequently occurring idea in German court and ordinary life conveyed by the word "reaction." Here again we have one of those qualities to be found among mankind everywhere and always: the instinct opposed to change, even to those changes for the good we call progress, the disposition that made Horace deride the _laudator temporis acti se puero_ of his day, the feeling of the man who laments the pa.s.sing of the "good old times" and the military veteran who a.s.sures us that "the country, sir, is going to the dogs." In political life such men are usually to be found professing conservatism, owners of land, dearer to them often than life itself, which they fear political change will damage or diminish. In Germany the Conservative forces are the old agrarian aristocracy, the military n.o.bility, and the official hierarchy, who make a worship of tradition, hold for the most part the tenets of orthodox Protestantism, dread the growing influence of industrialism, and are members of the Landlords' a.s.sociation: types of a dying feudalism, disposed to believe nothing advantageous to the community if it conflicts with any privilege of their cla.s.s. Under the name of Junker, the Conservative landowners of the region of Prussia east of the Elbe, they have become everywhere a byword for pride, selfishness, in a word--reaction. They and men of their kidney are to be distinguished from the German "people" in the English sense, and hold themselves vastly superior to the burghertum, the vast middle cla.s.s.
They dislike the "academic freedom" of the university professor, would limit the liberty of the press and restrain the right of public meeting, and increase rather than curtail the powers of the police. On the other hand, if they are a powerful drag on the Emperor's Liberal tendencies--Liberal, that is, in the Prussian sense--towards a comprehensive and well-organized social policy, they are at least reliable supporters of his Government for the military and naval budgets, since they believe as whole-heartedly in the rule of force as the Emperor himself. The German Conservative would infinitely prefer a return to absolute government to the introduction of parliamentary government. At the same time it should not be supposed that the Emperor or his Chancellor, or even his Court, are reactionary in the sense or measure in which the Socialist papers are wont to a.s.sert. It is doubtful if nowadays the Emperor would venture to be reactionary in any despotic way. Given that his monarchy and the spirit that informs it are secure, that Caesar gets all that is due to Caesar, and that he and his Government are left the direction of foreign policy, he is quite willing that the people should legislate for themselves, enjoy all the rights that belong to them under the _Rechtsstaat_ established by Frederick the Great, and, in short, enjoy life as best they can.
VII.
"DROPPING THE PILOT"
Heinrich von Treitschke, the German historian, writing to a friend, speaks of the dismissal of Prince Bismarck as "an indelible stain on Prussian history and a tragic stroke of fate the like of which the world has never seen since the days of Themistocles."
Opinions may differ as to the indelibility of the stain--which must be taken as a reflection on the conduct of the Emperor; and parallels might perhaps be found, at least by students of English history, in the dismissal of Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII, or that of the elder Pitt by George III. But there may well be general agreement as to the tragic nature of the fall, for it was a struggle between a strong personality and the unknown, but irresistible, laws of fate.
The historic quarrel between the Emperor and his Chancellor was not merely the inevitable clash between two dispositions fundamentally different, but between--to adapt the expression of a modern poet--"an age that was dying and one that was coming to birth." Old Prussia was giving place to New Germany. The atmosphere of war had changed to an atmosphere of peace. The standards of education and comfort were rising fast. The old German idealism was being pushed aside by materialism and commercialism, and the thoughts of the nation were turning from problems of philosophy and art to problems of practical science and experiment. Thought was to be followed by action. Mankind, after conversing with the ancients for centuries, now began to converse with one another. The desire for national expansion, if it could not be gratified by conquest, was to be satisfied by the spread of German influence, power, activity, and enterprise in all parts of the world. Such a collision of the ages is tragedy on the largest scale, for nothing can be more tragic--more inevitable or inexorable--than the march of Progress.
The natures of the two men were, in important respects, fundamentally different. Bismarck's nature was prosaic, primitive, unscrupulous, domineering: a type which in an English schoolboy would be described as a bully, with the modification that while the bully in an English school is always depicted as a coward at heart (a supposition, however, by no means always borne out in after-life), Bismarck had the courage of a bull-dog. Moreover, Bismarck was a Conservative, a statesman of expediency. The Emperor is a man of principle; and as expediency, in a world of change, is a note of Conservatism, so, in the same world, is principle the _leit-motiv_ of Liberalism. To call the Emperor a man of principle may appear to be at variance with general opinion as founded on exceptional occurrences, but these do not supply sufficient material for a fair judgment, and there are many acts of his reign which show him to be Liberal in disposition.
Not, it need hardly be said, Liberal in the English political sense.
Liberalism in England--the two-party country--usually means a strong desire to vote against a Conservative on the a.s.sumption that the Conservative is nearly always completely wrong and never completely right. As will be seen later, there is no political Liberalism in the English sense in Germany. The Emperor's Liberalism shows itself in his sympathy with his people in their desire for improvement as a society of which he is the head, selected by G.o.d and only restricted by a const.i.tutional compact solemnly sworn to by the contracting parties.
Proofs of this sympathy might be adduced--his determination to carry through his grandfather's social policy against Bismarck's wish, however hostile he was and is to Social Democracy; his steadfast peace policy, however nearly he has brought his country to war; his encouragement of the arts among the lower cla.s.ses, however limited his views on art may be; his friendly intercourse with people of all nationalities and occupations.
The characters also of the two men were different. Bismarck's was the result of civilian training; the Emperor's of military training.
Bismarck had small regard for manners, and would have scoffed had anyone told him "manners makyth man"; the Emperor is courtesy itself, as every one who meets him testifies. Bismarck was fond of eating and drinking, with the appet.i.te of a horse and the thirst of a drayman, until he was nearly eighty, and smoked strong cigars from morning to night--a very pleasant thing, of course, if you can stand it. The Emperor has never cared particularly for what are called the pleasures of the table, is fond of apples and one or two simple German dishes, and has never been what in Germany is called a "chain-smoker."
Bismarck appears not to have had the faintest interest in art; the Emperor, while of late disclaiming in all art company his lack of expert knowledge, has always found delight in art's most cla.s.sical forms.
Yet the two men had some deeply marked traits of character in common.
The Emperor, as was Bismarck, is Prussian, that is to say mediaeval, to the core, notwithstanding that he had an English mother and lived in early childhood under English influences. He has always exhibited, as Bismarck always did, the genuine qualities of the Prussian--self-confidence, tenacity of purpose, absolute trust in his own ideals and intolerance of those of other people, impatience of rivalry, selfishness for the advantage of Prussia as against other German States, as strong as that for the newly born Empire against other countries. Finally, the Emperor is convinced, as Bismarck was convinced, that in the first and last resort, a society, a people, a nation, is based on force and by force alone can prosper, or even be held together. Neither Bismarck nor the Emperor could ever sympathize with those who look to a time when one strong and sensible policeman will be of more value to a community than a thousand unproductive soldiers.
Long before he became Imperial Chancellor Bismarck had done masterly and important work for the country. In 1862 he began his career by filling the post of interim Minister President of Prussia at a time when the present Emperor was still an infant. It was on taking up the position that he made the celebrated statement that "great questions cannot be decided by speeches and majority-votes, but must be resolved by blood and iron." Born in April, 1815, two months before the battle of Waterloo, at Schoenhausen, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, not far from Magdeburg, he studied at the universities of Gottingen and Berlin and pa.s.sed two steps of the official ladder--Auscultator and Referendar--which may be translated respectively protocolist and junior counsel. His parliamentary career began in 1846, two years before the second French Revolution. At that time Prussia was an absolute monarchy, without a Const.i.tution or a Parliament. There was no conscription, that foundation-stone of Prussian power and of the modern German Empire. Then came the agitated days of 1848, the sanguinary "March Days" in Berlin. Frederick William IV was on the throne, and in 1847 permitted the calling of a Parliament, the forerunner of the present Reichstag; but only to represent the "rights," not the "opinions," of the people. "No piece of paper,"
cried the King, "shall come, like a second Providence, between G.o.d in heaven and this land!" That, too, was Bismarck's sentiment, courageously expressed by him when the Diet was debating the idea of introducing the English parliamentary system, and proved by him in character and conduct until the day of his death. He would have made a splendid Jacobite!
The three "March Days," the 18th, 19th, and 20th of March, 1848, form one of the few occasions in Prussian or German history on which Crown and people came into direct and serious conflict. According to German accounts of the episode the outbreak of the revolution in France was followed by a large influx into Berlin of Poles and Frenchmen, who instigated the populace to violence. Collisions with the police occurred, and on March 15th barricades began to be erected. Traffic in the streets was only possible with the aid of the military. The King was in despair, not so much, the accounts say, at the danger he was in of losing his throne as at the shedding of the blood of his folk, and issued a proclamation promising to grant all desirable reforms, abolishing the censorship of the press, and summoning the Diet to discuss the terms of a Const.i.tution. The citizens, however, continued to build barricades, made their way into the courtyards of the palace, and demanded the withdrawal of the troops. The King ordered the courtyards to be cleared, the palace guard advanced, and, either by accident or design, the guns of two grenadiers went off. No one was. .h.i.t, but cries of "Treason!" and "Murder!" were raised. Within an hour a score of barricades were set up in various parts of the town and manned by a medley of workmen, university students, artists, and even men of the Landwehr, or military reserve.
At this time there were about 14,000 troops at the King's disposal, and with these the authorities proceeded against the mob. A series of scattered engagements between mob and military began. They lasted for eight hours, until at midnight General von Prittwitz, who was in command of the troops, was able to report to the King that the revolution was subdued.
Next morning, however, the 19th, numerous deputations of citizens presented themselves at the palace, and a.s.suring the King that it was the only means of preventing the further effusion of blood, renewed the request for the withdrawal of the troops. The King consented, notwithstanding the opposition of Prince, afterwards Emperor, William, and the troops were drawn off to Potsdam. The citizens thereupon appointed a National Guard, which took charge of the palace, and in the evening a vast crowd appeared beneath the King's windows bearing the corpses of those who had fallen at the barricades during the two preceding days. The dead bodies were laid in rows in the palace courtyard, and the King was invited out to see them. He could not but obey, and bowed to the crowd as he stood bareheaded before the bodies.
It is clear from the occurrences in Berlin in 1848 that while the Prussian idea of monarchy is deeply rooted in the German mind, the possibility of a sudden change in public sentiment and a radical alteration of the relations between Crown and people are never at any time to be wholly disregarded. Hence it is that the Emperor and his Government are so insistent on the doctrine of Heaven-granted sovereignty, so ready to support more or less autocratic monarchies in other parts of the world, and so sensitive to popular movements like Anarchism and Nihilism in Russia, or the always-smouldering Polish agitation and the propaganda of the Social Democracy in Germany. When King Frederick William IV said to his a.s.sembled generals at Potsdam a week after the "March Days," "Never have I felt more free or more secure than when under the protection of my burghers," his words were drowned in the buzz of murmurs and the angry clanking of swords. The Emperor to-day might, or might not, endorse the words of his ancestor.
Most probably he would not; for, judging by his speeches, his care for the army, the military state with which he surrounds himself, and his habitual appearance in uniform, he, though in truth far more a civil monarch than the War Lord foreign writers delight in painting him, is evidently determined to rely only on his soldiers for every eventuality at home as well as abroad.
Perhaps the best German authorities on Bismarck's falling-out with the young Emperor are the statements regarding it to be found in the memoranda supplied at the time by Prince Bismarck himself to Dr.
Moritz Busch; the Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, subsequently Imperial Chancellor; and the monograph on Bismarck by Dr.
Hans Blum, one of the Chancellor's confidants. The memoranda supplied to Busch make regrettably few references to the subject, beyond giving the terms of the official resignation and some scanty addenda thereto; but enough is said generally by Busch concerning Bismarck's conversations to show that the Chancellor was deeply mortified by his dismissal. Bismarck indeed expressly denies this in a conversational statement quoted by an able Bismarckian writer of our own time, Dr.
Paul Liman; but in view of subsequent events and statements the denial can hardly be taken as sincere. The pa.s.sage referred to is as follows:--
"I bear no grudge against my young master, who is fiery and lively. He wishes to make all men happy, and that is very natural at his age. I, for my part, believe perhaps less in this possibility, and have told him so too. It is very natural that a mentor like myself does not please him, and that he therefore rejects my advice. An old carthorse and a young courser go ill in harness together. Only politics are not so easy as a chemical combination: they deal with human beings. I wish certainly that his experiments may succeed, and am not in the least angry with him. I stand towards him like a father whom a son has grieved; the father may suffer thereby, but all the same he says to himself, 'He is a fine young fellow.' When I was young I followed my King everywhere: now that I am old I can no longer accompany my master when he travels so far. Accordingly it is unavoidable that counsellors who remained closer to him should win his confidence at my expense. He is very easily influenced when one puts before him ideas which he supposes will happily affect the condition of the people, and he can hardly wait to put them into operation. The Kaiser will achieve reputation at once: I have my own to watch over, to defend.
I have sacrificed myself for renown and will not place it in jeopardy."
Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs are much more valuable in respect of positive information, and especially in supplying an account of the incident taken from the lips of the Emperor himself. The Prince was without his great predecessor's ability, but was much more amiable and sincere. He was, moreover, a friend of both the parties concerned, and he impartially jotted down events at the time they occurred. Lastly, if he was a courtier at heart, he was that not wholly unknown thing, an honest one. Dr. Hans Blum is obviously a partisan of the great Chancellor's, but he may also be referred to for a fairly connected account of the fall and the events that succeeded it up to the time of Bismarck's death on July 30, 1898.
Apart from the differences in the ages and temperaments of the Emperor and the Chancellor, there were differences in their views as to certain measures of policy. There was a difference of opinion as to German policy regarding Russia. Friendship with that country had been the policy of both Emperor William I and Bismarck, and the latter had effected a reinsurance treaty with Russia, stipulating for Russian neutrality in case of a war between Germany and France, notwithstanding the subsistence of the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy. The reinsurance treaty, which had been made for a period of three years, was now about to expire, and while Bismarck desired its renewal, the Emperor, in a spirit of loyalty to Austria, was against the renewal, and the treaty was not renewed. This was the "new course" as it regarded Russia. The difference with regard to the anti-Socialist Laws has been referred to in our chapter on the accession.
The Royal Order of September, 1852, which has been mentioned as leading immediately to the resignation, regulated intercourse between the Prussian Ministers and the Crown, its chief provision being that only the Minister President, and not individual Ministers, should have audience of the Emperor regarding matters of home and foreign policy.
The Emperor desired the abrogation of the Order, for he wished to consult with the Ministers individually. The text of Bismarck's official resignation, after describing the origin of the Order, continues:
"If each individual Minister can receive commands from his Sovereign without previous arrangement with his colleagues, a coherent policy, for which some one is to be responsible, is an impossibility. It would be impossible for any of the Ministers, and especially for the Minister President, to bear the const.i.tutional responsibility for the Cabinet as a whole. Such a provision as that contained in the Order of 1852 could be dispensed with under the absolute monarchy and could also be dispensed with to-day if we returned to absolutism without ministerial responsibility. But according to the const.i.tutional arrangements now legally in force the control of the Cabinet by a President under the Order of 1852 is indispensable."
The Emperor replied to Prince Bismarck's resignation in a communication which the reader, according to his disposition, will regard as an effusion of the heart, immensely creditable to its composer, a model of an official reply as demanded by circ.u.mstances, a striking example of the art of throwing dust in the public eye, or an equally striking contribution to the literature of excusable hypocrisy. It was as follows:--
"MY DEAR PRINCE,--With deep emotion I learn from your request of the 18th instant that you have decided to retire from the offices which you have filled for long years with incomparable success. I had hoped not to have been compelled to entertain the thought of separation during our lives.
While, however, in full consciousness of the important consequences of your retirement, I am forced to accustom myself to the thought. I do so, it is true, with a heavy heart, but in the strong confidence that the grant of your request will contribute as much as possible to the protection and preservation for as long as possible of a life and strength of unreplaceable value to the Fatherland.
"The grounds you offer for your resignation convince me that any further attempt to induce you to reconsider your determination would have no prospect of success. I acquiesce, therefore, in your wish by hereby graciously releasing you from your offices as Imperial Chancellor, President of my State Ministry, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and trust that your counsels and energy, your loyalty and devotion, will not be wanting to me and the country in the future also.
"I have considered it as one of the most valued privileges in my life that at the commencement of my reign I had you at my side as my first counsellor. What you have done and achieved for Prussia and Germany, what you have done for my House, my ancestors, and me, will remain to me and the German people in grateful and imperishable memory. But also in foreign countries your wise and energetic peace policy, which I, too, in the future also, as a result of sincere conviction, decide to take as the guiding line of my conduct, will be always gloriously recognized. It is not in my power to requite your services as they deserve. I must rest satisfied with a.s.suring you of my own and the country's ineffaceable thanks. As a sign of this thanks I confer on you the rank of a Duke of Lauenburg. I will also send you a life-sized picture of myself.
"G.o.d bless you, my dear Prince, and grant you still many years of an old age undisturbed and blessed with the consciousness of duty faithfully done.