Chapter 11
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 assumption 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 God and only restricted by a constitutional 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 classes, 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 appetite 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 classical 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 passed 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 Constitution 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 God 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 Constitution. 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 hit, 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 assuring 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 assembled 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-Schillingsfürst, 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 passage 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 constitutional 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 constitutional 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 circumstances, 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 assuring 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.
"God 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.
"In this disposition I remain to you and yours in the future also your sincere, obliged, and grateful Emperor and King,
"WILLIAM I.R."
The Emperor has never, so far as is publicly known, issued, or caused to be issued, an official account of the episode and its _péripéties_, but the story he poured, evidently out of a full heart, into the ears of Prince Hohenlohe, then Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine, during a midnight drive from the railway station at Hagenau to the hunting lodge at Sufflenheim, is an historical document of practically official authenticity. It appears as follows in the Prince's Memoirs:--
"STRASBURG, 26 _April_, 1890.
"On the evening of the 23rd, nine o'clock, I drove with Thaden and Moritz to Hagenau, there to await the arrival of the Emperor. We spent the evening with circle-officer Klemm. I went to bed at eleven o'clock in the guest-room, and slept until half-past twelve. Moritz and Thaden drove to the station with a view to changing their clothes in the train. At one o'clock I was again at the station, when the Emperor punctually arrived. I presented the gentlemen to him, and turned over General Hahnke to Baron Charpentier and Lieutenant Cramer, for them to conduct him to the hunting ground. Our journey lasted about an hour, during which the Emperor related without a pause the whole story of his quarrel with Bismarck. According to this the coolness had already begun in December. The Emperor then demanded that something should be done about the Working Class Question. The Chancellor was against doing anything. The Emperor held the view that if the Government did not take the initiative, the Reichstag, _i.e_. the Socialists, Centre and Progressives, would take the matter in hand, and then the Government would lag behind. The Chancellor wanted to lay the anti-Socialist Bill with the expulsion paragraph again before the Reichstag, dissolving the chamber if it did not accept the Bill, and then, if it came to disturbances, to take energetic measures. The Emperor objected, saying that if his grandfather, after a long and glorious reign, were forced to repress disturbances no one would think ill of him. It was different in his case, who had as yet accomplished nothing. People would reproach him with beginning his reign by shooting down his subjects. He was ready to act, but he wished to do it with a good conscience after endeavouring to redress the well-founded grievances of the workmen, or at least after doing everything to meet their justifiable claims.
"The Emperor therefore demanded at a ministerial conference the submission of ministerial edicts which should contain what subsequently they in fact did contain. Bismarck would not hear of it. The Emperor then laid the question before the Council of State, and eventually obtained the edicts in spite of Bismarck's opposition. Bismarck, however, secretly continued his opposition, and tried to persuade Switzerland to persevere with its idea of an International Labour Conference. The attempt was rendered nugatory by the loyal attitude of the Swiss Minister in Berlin, Roth. At the very same time Bismarck was trying to influence the diplomatists against the conference.