I again slipped off the rails of my parliamentary liberal tendencies, with regard to which I found little understanding or sympathy in Pomerania, but which in Schonhausen met with the acquiescence of men in my own district, like Count Wartensleben of Karow, Schierstadt-Dahlen, and others (the same men of whom some were among the party of Church patrons in the New Era subsequently condemned).
This was the result of the style, to me unsympathetic, in which the opposition was conducted in the first United Diet, to which I was summoned, only for the last six weeks of the session, as subst.i.tute for Deputy von Brauchitsch, who was laid up with illness. The speeches of the East Prussians, Saucken-Tarputschen and Alfred Auerswald, the sentimentality of Beckerath, the Gallo-Rhenish liberalism of Heydt and Mevissen, and the boisterous violence of Vincke"s speeches, disgusted me; and even at this date when I read the proceedings they give me the impression of imported phrases made to pattern. I felt that the King was on the right track, and could claim to be allowed time, and not be hurried in his development.
I came into conflict with the Opposition the first time I made a longer speech than usual, on May 17, 1847, when I combatted the legend that the Prussians had gone to war in 1813 to get a const.i.tution, and gave free expression to my natural indignation at the idea that foreign domination was in itself no adequate reason for fighting.[31]
It appeared to me undignified that the nation, as a set-off to its having freed itself, should hand in to the King an account payable in the paragraphs of a const.i.tution. My performance produced a storm. I remained in the tribune turning over the leaves of a newspaper which lay there, and then, when the commotion had subsided, I finished my speech.
At the Court festivities, which took place during the session of the United Diet, I was avoided in a marked manner both by the King and the Princess of Prussia, though for different reasons: by the latter because I was neither Liberal nor popular; by the former for a reason which only became clear to me later. When, on the reception of the deputies, he avoided speaking to me--when, in the Court circle, after speaking to every one in turn, he broke off immediately he came to me, turned his back, or strolled away across the room--I considered myself justified in supposing that my att.i.tude as a Royalist Hotspur had exceeded the limits which the King had fixed for himself. Only some months later, when I reached Venice on my honeymoon, did I discover that this explanation was incorrect. The King, who had recognized me in the theatre, commanded me on the following day to an audience and to dinner; and so unexpected was this to me that my light travelling luggage and the incapacity of the local tailor did not admit of my appearing in correct costume. My reception was so kindly, and the conversation, even on political subjects, of such a nature as to enable me to infer that my att.i.tude in the Diet met with his encouraging approval. The King commanded me to call upon him in the course of the winter, and I did so. Both on this occasion at smaller dinners at the palace I became persuaded that I stood high in the favor of both the King and the Queen, and that the former, in avoiding speaking to me in public, at the time of the session of the Diet, did not mean to criticize my political conduct, but at the time did not want to let others see his approval of me.
II
VISIT TO PARIS
In the summer of 1855 Count Hatzfeldt, our amba.s.sador in Paris, invited me to visit the Industrial Exhibition;[32] he still shared the belief then existent in diplomatic circles that I was very soon to be Manteuffel"s successor at the Foreign Office. Although the King had entertained such an idea on and off, it was already then known in the innermost Court circles that a change had taken place. Count William Redern, whom I met in Paris, told me that the amba.s.sadors continued to believe I was destined to be made a minister and that he himself had also believed this; but that the King had changed his mind--of further details he was ignorant. Doubtless since Rugen.
August 15, Napoleon"s day, was celebrated among other ways by a procession of Russian prisoners through the streets. On the 19th the Queen of England made her entry, and on August 25 a State ball was given in her honor at Versailles at which I was presented to her and to Prince Albert.
The Prince, handsome and cool in his black uniform, conversed with me courteously, but in his manner there was a kind of malevolent curiosity from which I concluded that my anti-occidental influence upon the King was not unknown to him. In accordance with the mode of thought peculiar to him, he sought for the motives of my conduct not where they really lay, that is, in the anxiety to keep my country independent of foreign influences--influences which found a fertile soil in our narrow-minded reverence for England and fear of France--and in the desire to hold ourselves aloof from a war which we should not have carried on in our own interests but in dependence upon Austrian and English policy.
In the eyes of the Prince--though I of course did not gather this from the momentary impression made during my presentation, but from ulterior acquaintance with facts and doc.u.ments--I was a reactionary party man who took up sides for Russia in order to further an Absolutist and "Junker" policy. It was not to be wondered at that this view of the Prince"s and of the then partisans of the Duke of Coburg had descended to the Prince"s daughter, who shortly after became our Crown Princess.
Even soon after her arrival in Germany, in February, 1858, I became convinced, through members of the royal house and from my own observations, that the Princess was prejudiced against me personally.
The fact itself did not surprise me so much as the form in which her prejudice against me had been expressed in the narrow family circle--"she did not trust me." I was prepared for antipathy on account of my alleged anti-English feelings and by reason of my refusal to obey English influences; but from a conversation which I had with the Princess after the war of 1866 while sitting next to her at table I was obliged to conclude that she had subsequently allowed herself to be influenced in her judgment of my character by further-reaching calumnies. I was ambitious, she said, in a half-jesting tone, to be a king or at least president of a republic. I replied in the same semi-jocular tone that I was personally spoilt for a republican; that I had grown up in the royalist traditions of the family and had need of a monarchical inst.i.tution for my earthly well-being: I thanked G.o.d, however, I was not destined to live like a king, constantly on show, but to be until death the king"s faithful subject. I added that no guarantee could, however, be given that this conviction of mine would be universally inherited, and this not because royalists would give out, but because perhaps kings might.
_Pour faire un civet, il faut un lievre, et pour faire une monarchie il faut un roi_. I could not answer for it that for want of such the next generation might not be republican. I further remarked that in thus expressing myself I was not free from anxiety at the idea of a change in the occupancy of the throne without a transference of the monarchical traditions to the successor. But the Princess avoided every serious turn and kept up the jocular tone as amiable and entertaining as ever; she rather gave me the impression that she wished to tease a political opponent.
During the first years of my ministry I frequently remarked in the course of similar conversation that the Princess took pleasure in provoking my patriotic susceptibility by playful criticism of persons and matters.
At that ball at Versailles Queen Victoria spoke to me in German. She gave me the impression of beholding in me a noteworthy but unsympathetic personality, but still her tone of voice was without that touch of ironical superiority that I thought I detected in Prince Albert"s. She continued to be amiable and courteous like one unwilling to treat an eccentric fellow in an unfriendly way.
In comparison with Berlin it seemed a curious arrangement to me that at supper the company ate in three cla.s.ses, with gradations in the menu, and that such guests as were to sup at all were a.s.sured of this by having a ticket bearing a number handed to them as they entered.
The tickets of the first cla.s.s also bore the name of the lady presiding at the table to which they referred. These tables were arranged to accommodate fifteen or twenty. On entering I received one of these tickets for Countess Walewska"s table and later on in the ball-room two more from two other lady patronesses of diplomacy and of the Court. No exact plan for placing the guests had therefore been made out. I chose the table of Countess Walewska, to whose department I belonged as a foreign diplomatist. On the way to the room in question I came across a Prussian officer in the uniform of an infantry regiment of the guard, accompanied by a French lady; he was engaged in an animated dispute with one of the imperial household stewards who would not allow either of them to pa.s.s, not being provided with tickets. After the officer, in answer to my inquiries, had explained the matter and indicated the lady as a d.u.c.h.ess bearing an Italian t.i.tle of the First Empire, I told the court official that I had the gentleman"s ticket, and gave him one of mine. Now, however, the official would not allow the lady to pa.s.s and I therefore gave the officer my second ticket for his d.u.c.h.ess. The official then said significantly to me: "_Mais vous ne pa.s.serez pas sans carte_." On my showing him the third, he made a face of astonishment and allowed all three of us to pa.s.s. I recommended my two _proteges_ not to sit down at the tables indicated on the tickets, but to try and find seats elsewhere; nor did any complaints concerning my distribution of tickets ever come to my ears. The want of organization was so great that our table was not fully occupied, a fact due to the absence of any understanding among the _dames patronesses_. Old Prince Puckler had either received no ticket or had been unable to find his table; after he had turned to me, whom he knew by sight, he was invited by Countess Walewska to take one of the seats that had remained empty.
The supper, in spite of the triple division, was neither materially nor as regards its preparation upon a level with what is done in Berlin at similar crowded festivities; the waiting only was efficient and prompt.
What struck me most was the difference in the regulations for the free circulation of the throng. In this respect the palace of Versailles offers much greater facilities than that of Berlin on account of the larger number and, if we except the White Hall, the greater s.p.a.ciousness of the apartments. Here those who had supped in cla.s.s 1 were ordered to make their exit by the same way as the hungry ones of cla.s.s 2 entered, their impetuous charge betraying certainly less acquaintance with the customs of Court society. Personal collisions occurred among the belaced and beribboned gentlemen and superelegant ladies, giving rise to scuffles and abusive language, such as would be impossible in our palace. I retired with the satisfactory impression that in spite of all the splendor of the imperial Court the Court service, the breeding and manners of Court society were on a higher level with us, as well as in St. Petersburg and Vienna, than in Paris, and that the times were past when one could go to France and to the Court of Paris to receive a schooling in courtesy and good manners. Even the etiquette of small German Courts, antiquated as it was, especially in comparison with St. Petersburg, was more dignified than the practice of the imperial Court. It is true that I had already received this impression in Louis Philippe"s time, during whose reign it became quite the fashion in France to distinguish oneself in the direction of excessively free and easy manners, and of abstention from courtesy, especially towards ladies. Although it had become better in this respect during the Second Empire, the tone in official and Court society and the demeanor of the Court itself still remained below the standard of the three great eastern Courts. Only in the Legitimist circles aloof from the official world were things different both in the time of Louis Philippe and in that of Louis Napoleon; there the tone was faultless, courteous, and hospitable, with occasional exceptions of the younger gentlemen spoilt by their contact with Paris, who borrowed their habits not from the family but from the club.
The Emperor, whom I saw for the first time during this visit to Paris, gave me to understand in several interviews, but at that time only in general phrases, his desire and intentions respecting a Franco-Prussian alliance. His words were to the effect that these two neighboring States, which by reason of their culture and their inst.i.tutions stood at the head of civilization, were naturally thrown upon each other"s a.s.sistance. Any inclination to express before me such grievance as might arise from our refusal to join the Western Powers was kept out of the foreground. I had the feeling that the pressure which England and Austria exercised in Berlin and Frankfort to compel us to render a.s.sistance in the western camp was much stronger, one might say more pa.s.sionate and rude, than the desires and promises expressed to me in an amicable form, with which the Emperor supported his plea for our understanding with France in particular. He was much more indulgent than England and Austria respecting our sins against occidental policy. He never spoke German to me, either then or later.
That my visit to Paris had caused displeasure at the court at home, and had intensified, especially in the case of Queen Elizabeth, the ill-feelings already entertained towards me, I was able to perceive at the end of September of the same year. While the King was proceeding down the Rhine to Cologne to attend the cathedral building festival, I reported myself at Coblentz and was, with my wife, invited by his Majesty to perform the journey to Cologne on the steamer; my wife, however, was ignored by the Queen on board and at Remagen.[33] The Prince of Prussia, who had observed this, gave my wife his arm and led her to table. At the conclusion of the meal I begged for permission to return to Frankfort, which was granted me.
It was not until the following winter, during which the King had again approached me, that he asked me once at dinner, straight across the table, my opinion concerning Louis Napoleon; his tone was ironical. I replied: "It is my impression that the Emperor Napoleon is a discreet and amiable man, but that he is not so clever as the world esteems him. The world places to his account everything that happens, and if it rains in eastern Asia at an unseasonable moment chooses to attribute it to some malevolent machination of the Emperor. Here especially we have become accustomed to regard him as a kind of _genie du mal_ who is forever only meditating how to do mischief in the world.[34] I believe he is happy when he is able to enjoy anything good at his ease; his understanding is overrated at the expense of his heart; he is at bottom good-natured and has an unusual measure of grat.i.tude for every service rendered him."
The King laughed at this in a manner that vexed me and led me to ask whether I might be permitted to guess his Majesty"s present thoughts.
The King consented, and I said: "General von Canitz used to lecture to the young officers in the military school on the campaigns of Napoleon. An a.s.siduous listener asked him how Napoleon could have omitted to make this or that movement. Canitz replied: "Well, you see just what this Napoleon was--a real goodhearted fellow, but so stupid!" which naturally excited great mirth among the military scholars. I fear that your Majesty is thinking of me much as General von Canitz thought of his pupils."
The King laughed and said: "You may be right; but I am not sufficiently acquainted with the present Napoleon to be able to impugn your impression that his heart is better than his head." That the Queen was dissatisfied with my view I was enabled to gather from the external trifles by which impressions are made known at court.
The displeasure felt at my intercourse with Napoleon sprang from the idea of "Legitimacy," or, more strictly speaking, from the word itself, which was stamped with its modern sense by Talleyrand, and used in 1814 and 1815 with great success and to the advantage of the Bourbons as a deluding spell.
III
THE EMS TELEGRAM
On July 2, 1870, the Spanish ministry decided in favor of the accession to that throne of Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern. This gave the first stimulus in the field of international law to the subsequent military question, but still only in the form of a specifically Spanish matter. It was hard to find in the law of nations a pretext for France to interfere with the freedom of Spain to choose a King; after people in Paris had made up their minds to war with Prussia, this was sought for artificially in the name Hohenzollern, which in itself had nothing more menacing to France than any other German name. On the contrary, it might have been a.s.sumed, in Spain as well as in Germany, that Prince Hohenzollern, on account of his personal and family connections in Paris, would be a _persona grata_ beyond many another German Prince. I remember that on the night after the battle of Sedan I was riding along the road to Donchery in thick darkness, with a number of our officers, following the King in his journey round Sedan. In reply to a question from some one in the company I talked about the preliminaries to the war, and mentioned at the same time that I had thought Prince Leopold would be no unwelcome neighbor in Spain to the Emperor Napoleon, and would travel to Madrid _via_ Paris, in order to get into touch with the imperial French policy, forming as it did a part of the conditions under which he would have had to govern Spain. I said: "We should have been much more justified in dreading a close understanding between the Spanish and French crowns than in hoping for the restoration of a Spanish-German anti-French constellation after the a.n.a.logy of Charles V.; a king of Spain can only carry out Spanish policy, and the Prince by a.s.suming the crown of the country would become a Spaniard." To my surprise there came from the darkness behind me a vigorous rejoinder from the Prince of Hohenzollern, of whose presence I had not the least idea; he protested strongly against the possibility of presuming any French sympathies in him. This protest in the midst of the battlefield of Sedan was natural for a German officer and a Hohenzollern Prince, and I could only answer that the Prince, as King of Spain, could have allowed himself to be guided by Spanish interests only, and prominent among these, in view of strengthening his new kingdom, would have been a soothing treatment of his powerful neighbor on the Pyrenees. I made my apology to the Prince for the expression I had uttered while unaware of his presence.
This episode, introduced before its time, affords evidence as to the conception I had formed of the whole question. I regarded it as a Spanish and not as a German one, even though I was delighted at seeing the German name of Hohenzollern active in representing monarchy in Spain, and did not fail to calculate all the possible consequences from the point of view of our interests--a duty which is inc.u.mbent on a foreign minister when anything of similar importance occurs in another State. My immediate thought was more of the economic than of the political relations in which a Spanish King of German extraction could be serviceable. For Spain I antic.i.p.ated from the personal character of the Prince, and from his family relations, tranquillizing and consolidating results, which I had no reason to grudge the Spaniards. Spain is among the few countries which, by their geographical position and political necessities, have no reason to pursue an anti-German policy; besides which, she is well adapted, by the economic relations of supply and demand, for an extensive trade with Germany. An element friendly to us in the Spanish government would have been an advantage which in the course of German policy there appeared no reason to reject _a limine_, unless the apprehension that France might be dissatisfied was to be allowed to rank as one. If Spain had developed again more vigorously than hitherto has been the case, the fact that Spanish diplomacy was friendly toward us might have been useful to us in time of peace; but it did not seem to me probable that the King of Spain, on the outbreak of the war between Germany and France, which was evidently coming sooner or later, would, with the best will in the world, be in a position to prove his sympathy with Germany by an attack on France or a demonstration against her; and the conduct of Spain after the outbreak of the war which we had drawn upon us by the complaisance of German princes showed the accuracy of my doubt.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ADOLPH VON MENZEL KING WILLIAM"S DEPARTURE FOR THE FRONT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.]
The chivalrous Cid would have called France to account for interference in Spain"s free choice of a king, and not have left the vindication of Spanish independence to foreigners. The nation, formerly so powerful by land and sea, cannot at the present day hold the cognate population of Cuba in check; and how could one expect her to attack a Power like France from affection towards us? No Spanish government, and least of all an alien king, would possess power enough in the country to send even a regiment to the Pyrenees out of affection toward Germany. Politically I was tolerably indifferent to the entire question. Prince Anthony was more inclined than myself to carry it peacefully to the desired goal. The memoirs of his Majesty the King of Roumania are not accurately informed as regards details of the ministerial cooperation in the question. The ministerial council in the palace which he mentions did not take place. Prince Anthony was living as the King"s guest in the palace, and had invited him and some of the ministers to dinner. I scarcely think that the Spanish question was discussed at table. If the Duke of Gramont[35] labors to adduce proof that I did not stand aloof from and averse to the Spanish proposal, I find no reason to contradict him. I can no longer recall the text of my letter to Marshal Prim, which the Duke has heard mentioned; if I drew it up myself, about which I am equally uncertain, I should hardly have called the Hohenzollern candidature "_une excellente chose_": the expression is not natural to me. That I regarded it as "opportune," not "_a un moment donne_," but in principle and in time of peace is correct. I had not the slightest doubt in the matter that the grandson of the Murats, a favorite at the French Court, would secure the goodwill of France towards his country.
The intervention of France at its beginning concerned Spanish and not Prussian affairs; the garbling of the matter in the Napoleonic policy, by virtue of which the question was to become a Prussian one, was internationally unjustifiable and exasperating, and proved to me that the moment had arrived when France sought a quarrel against us and was ready to seize any pretext that seemed available. I regarded the French intervention in the first instance as an injury, and consequently as an insult to Spain, and expected that the Spanish sense of honor would resist this encroachment. Later on, when the turn of affairs showed that, by her encroachment on Spanish independence, France intended to threaten us with war, I waited for some days expecting that the Spanish declaration of war against France would follow that of the French against us. I was not prepared to see a self-a.s.sertive nation like Spain stand quiet behind the Pyrenees with ordered arms, while the Germans were engaged in a deadly struggle against France on behalf of Spain"s independence and freedom to choose her king. The Spanish sense of honor which proved so sensitive in the Carlist question simply left us in the lurch in 1870. Probably in both cases the sympathies and international ties of the Republican parties were decisive.
The first demands of France respecting the candidature for the Spanish throne, and they were unjustifiable, had been presented on July 4, and answered by our Foreign Office evasively, though in accordance with truth, that the _ministry_ knew nothing about the matter. This was correct so far, that the question of Prince Leopold"s acceptance of his election had been treated by his Majesty simply as a family matter, which in no way concerned either Prussia or the North German Confederation, and which affected solely the personal relations between the Commander-in-Chief and a German officer, and those between the head of the family and, not the royal family of Prussia, but the entire family of Hohenzollern, or all the bearers of that name.
In France, however, a _casus belli_ was being sought against Prussia which should be as free as possible from German national coloring; and it was thought one had been discovered in the dynastic sphere by the accession to the Spanish throne of a candidate bearing the name of Hohenzollern. In this the overrating of the military superiority of France and the underrating of the national feeling in Germany was clearly the chief reason why the tenability of this pretext was not examined either with honesty or judgment. The German national outburst which followed the French declaration, and resembled a stream bursting its sluices, was a surprise to French politicians. They lived, calculated, and acted on recollections of the Confederation of the Rhine, supported by the att.i.tude of certain West German ministers; also by Ultramontane influences, in the hope that the conquests of France, "_gesta Dei per Francos_," would make it easier in Germany to draw further consequences from the Vatican council, with the support of an alliance with Catholic Austria. The Ultramontane tendencies of French policy were favorable to it in Germany and disadvantageous in Italy; the alliance with the latter being finally wrecked by the refusal of France to evacuate Rome. In the belief that the French army was superior the pretext for war was lugged out, as one may say, by the hair; and, instead of making Spain responsible for its reputed anti-French election of a king, they attacked the German Prince who had not refused to relieve the need of the Spaniards, in the way they themselves wished, by the appointment of a useful king, and one who would presumably be regarded as _persona grata_ in Paris; and the King of Prussia, whom nothing beyond his family name and his position as a German fellow-countryman had brought into connection with this Spanish affair. In the very fact that the French cabinet ventured to call Prussian policy to account respecting the acceptance of the election, and to do so in a form which, in the interpretation put upon it by the French papers, became a public threat, lay a piece of international impudence which, in my opinion, rendered it impossible for us to draw back one single inch. The insulting character of the French demand was enhanced, not only by the threatening challenges of the French press, but also by the discussions in parliament and the att.i.tude taken by the ministry of Gramont and Ollivier upon these manifestations. The utterance of Gramont in the session of the "Corps Legislatif" of July 6:
"We do not believe that respect for the rights of a neighboring people binds us to suffer a foreign Power to set one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V. * * * This event will not come to pa.s.s, of that we are quite certain. * * * Should it prove otherwise we shall know how to fulfil our duty without shrinking and without weakness"--this utterance was itself an official international threat, with the hand on the sword hilt. The phrase, _La Prusse cane_ (Prussia climbs down), served in the press to ill.u.s.trate the range of the parliamentary proceedings of July 6 and 7; which, in my feeling, rendered all compliance incompatible with our sense of national honor.
On July 12 I decided to hurry off from Varzin to Ems to discuss with his Majesty about summoning the Reichstag for the purpose of the mobilization. As I pa.s.sed through Wussow my friend Mulert, the old clergyman, stood before the parsonage door and warmly greeted me; my answer from the open carriage was a thrust in carte and tierce in the air, and he clearly understood that I believed I was going to war. As I entered the courtyard of my house at Berlin, and before leaving the carriage, I received telegrams from which it appeared that the King was continuing to treat with Benedetti, even after the French threats and outrages in parliament and in the press, and not referring him with calm reserve to his ministers. During dinner, at which Moltke and Roon were present, the announcement arrived from the emba.s.sy in Paris that the Prince of Hohenzollern had renounced his candidature in order to prevent the war with which France threatened us. My first idea was to retire from the service, because, after all the insolent challenges which had gone before, I perceived in this extorted submission a humiliation of Germany for which I did not desire to be responsible.
This impression of a wound to our sense of national honor by the compulsory withdrawal so dominated me that I had already decided to announce my retirement at Ems. I considered this humiliation before France and her swaggering demonstrations as worse than that of Olmutz, for which the previous history on both sides, and our want of preparation for war at the time, will always be a valid excuse. I took it for granted that France would lay the Prince"s renunciation to her account as a satisfactory success, with the feeling that a threat of war, even though it had taken the form of international insult and mockery, and though the pretext for war against Prussia had been dragged in by the head and shoulders, was enough to compel her to draw back, even in a just cause; and that even the North German Confederation did not feel strong enough to protect the national honor and independence against French arrogance. I was very much depressed, for I saw no means of repairing the corroding injury I dreaded to our national position from a timorous policy, unless by picking quarrels clumsily and seeking them artificially. I saw by that time that war was a necessity, which we could no longer avoid with honor. I telegraphed to my people at Varzin not to pack up or start, for I should be back again in a few days. I now believed in peace; but, as I would not represent the att.i.tude by which this peace had been purchased, I gave up the journey to Ems and asked Count Eulenburg to go thither and represent my opinion to his Majesty. In the same sense I conversed with the Minister of War, von Roon: we had got our slap in the face from France, and had been reduced, by our complaisance, to look like seekers of a quarrel if we entered upon war, the only way in which we could wipe away the stain. My position was now untenable, solely because, during his course at the baths, the King, under pressure of threats, had given audience to the French amba.s.sador for four consecutive days, and had exposed his royal person to insolent treatment from this foreign agent without ministerial a.s.sistance.
Through this inclination to take state business upon himself in person and alone, the King had been forced into a position which I could not defend; in my judgment his Majesty while at Ems ought to have refused every business communication from the French negotiator, who was not on the same footing with him, and to have referred him to the department in Berlin. The department would then have had to obtain his Majesty"s decision by a representation at Ems, or, if dilatory treatment were considered useful, by a report in writing. But his Majesty, however careful in his usual respect for departmental relations, was too fond not indeed of deciding important questions personally, but, at all events, of discussing them, to make a proper use of the shelter with which the Sovereign is purposely surrounded against importunities and inconvenient questionings and demands. That the King, considering the consciousness of his supreme dignity which he possessed in so high a degree, did not withdraw at the very beginning from Benedetti"s importunity was to be attributed for the most part to the influence exercised upon him by the Queen, who was at Coblenz close by. He was seventy-three years old, a lover of peace, and disinclined to risk the laurels of 1866 in a fresh struggle; but when he was free from the feminine influence, the sense of honor of the heir of Frederick the Great and of a Prussian officer always remained paramount. Against the opposition of his consort, due to her natural feminine timidity and lack of national feeling, the King"s power of resistance was weakened by his knightly regard for the lady and his kingly consideration for a Queen, and especially for his own Queen. I have been told that Queen Augusta implored her husband with tears, before his departure from Ems to Berlin, to bear in mind Jena and Tilsit and avert war. I consider the statement authentic, even to the tears.
Having decided to resign, in spite of the remonstrances which Roon made against it, I invited him and Moltke to dine with me alone on the 13th, and communicated to them at table my views and projects for doing so. Both were greatly depressed, and reproached me indirectly with selfishly availing myself of my greater facility for withdrawing from service. I maintained the position that I could not offer up my sense of honor to politics, that both of them, being professional soldiers and consequently without freedom of choice, need not take the same point of view as a responsible Foreign Minister. During our conversation I was informed that a telegram from Ems, in cipher, if I recollect rightly, of about 200 "groups," was being deciphered. When the copy was handed to me it showed that Abeken had drawn up and signed the telegram at his Majesty"s command, and I read it out to my guests,[36] whose dejection was so great that they turned away from food and drink. On a repeated examination of the doc.u.ment I lingered upon the authorization of his Majesty, which included a command, immediately to communicate Benedetti"s fresh demand and its rejection both to our amba.s.sadors and to the press. I put a few questions to Moltke as to the extent of his confidence in the state of our preparations, especially as to the time they would still require in order to meet this sudden risk of war. He answered that if there was to be war he expected no advantage to us by deferring its outbreak; and even if we should not be strong enough at first to protect all the territories on the left bank of the Rhine against French invasion, our preparations would nevertheless soon overtake those of the French, while at a later period this advantage would be diminished; he regarded a rapid outbreak as, on the whole, more favorable to us than delay.
In view of the att.i.tude of France, our national sense of honor compelled us, in my opinion, to go to war; and if we did not act according to the demands of this feeling, we should lose, when on the way to its completion, the entire impetus towards our national development won in 1866 while the German national feeling south of the Main, aroused by our military successes in 1866, and shown by the readiness of the southern states to enter the alliances, would have to grow cold again. The German feeling, which in the southern states lived long with the individual and dynastic state feeling, had, up to 1866, silenced its political conscience to a certain degree with the fiction of a collective Germany under the leadership of Austria, partly from South German preference for the old imperial State, partly in the belief of her military superiority to Prussia. After events had shown the incorrectness of that calculation, the very helplessness in which the South German states had been left by Austria at the conclusion of peace was a motive for the political Damascus that lay between Varnbuler"s "_Vae victis_" and the willing conclusion of the offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. It was confidence in the Germanic power developed by means of Prussia, and the attraction which is inherent in a brave and resolute policy if it is successful, and then proceeds within reasonable and honorable limits. This nimbus had been won by Prussia; it would have been lost irrevocably, or at all events for a long time, if in a question of national honor the opinion gained ground among the people that the French insult, _La Prusse cane_, had a foundation in fact.
In the same psychological train of thought in which during the Danish war in 1864 I desired, for political reasons, that precedence should be given not to the old Prussian, but to the Westphalian battalions, who so far had had no opportunity of proving their courage under Prussian leadership, and regretted that Prince Frederick Charles had acted contrary to my wish, did I feel convinced that the gulf, which diverse dynastic and family influences and different habits of life had in the course of history created between the south and north of the Fatherland, could not be more effectually bridged over than by a joint national war against the neighbor who had been aggressive for many centuries. I remembered that even in the short period from 1813 to 1815, from Leipzig and Hanau to Belle-Alliance, the joint victorious struggle against France had rendered it possible to put an end to the opposition between a yielding Rhine-Confederation policy and the German national impetus of the days between the Vienna congress and the Mainz commission of inquiry, days marked by the names of Stein, Gorres, Jahn, Wartburg, up to the crime of Sand. The blood shed in common from the day when the Saxons came over at Leipzig down to their partic.i.p.ation at Belle-Alliance under English command had fostered a consciousness before which the recollections of the Rhine-Confederation were blotted out. The historical development in this direction was interrupted by the anxiety aroused by the over-haste of the national craving for the stability of state inst.i.tutions.
This retrospect strengthened me in my conviction, and the political considerations in respect to the South German states proved applicable likewise, _mutatis mutandis_, to our relations with the populations of Hanover, Hesse, and Schleswig-Holstein. That this view was correct is shown by the satisfaction with which, at the present day, after a lapse of twenty years, not only the Holsteiners, but likewise the people of the Hanse towns, remember the heroic deeds of their sons in 1870. All these considerations, conscious and unconscious, strengthened my opinion that war could be avoided only at the cost of the honor of Prussia and of the national confidence in it. Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorization communicated to me through Abeken, to publish the contents of the telegram; and in the presence of my two guests I reduced the telegram by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to the following form: "After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government of France by the royal government of Spain, the French amba.s.sador at Ems further demanded of his Majesty the King that he would authorize him to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty the King bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. His Majesty the King thereupon decided not to receive the French amba.s.sador again, and sent to tell him through the aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to communicate to the amba.s.sador." The difference in the effect of the abbreviated text of the Ems telegram as compared with that produced by the original was not the result of stronger words but of the form, which made this announcement appear decisive, while Abeken"s version would only have been regarded as a fragment of a negotiation still pending, and to be continued at Berlin.
After I had read out the concentrated edition to my two guests, Moltke remarked: "Now it has a different ring; it sounded before like a parley; now it is like a flourish in answer to a challenge." I went on to explain: "If in execution of his Majesty"s order I at once communicate this text, which contains no alteration in or addition to the telegram, not only to the newspapers, but also by telegraph to all our emba.s.sies, it will be known in Paris before midnight, and not only on account of its contents, but also on account of the manner of its distribution, will have the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic bull.
Fight we must if we do not want to act the part of the vanquished without a battle. Success, however, essentially depends upon the impression which the origination of the war makes upon us and others; it is important that we should be the party attacked, and this Gallic overweening and touchiness will make us if we announce in the face of Europe, so far as we can without the speaking-tube of the Reichstag, that we fearlessly meet the public threats of France."
This explanation brought about in the two generals a revulsion to a more joyous mood, the liveliness of which surprised me. They had suddenly recovered their pleasure in eating and drinking and spoke in a more cheerful vein. Roon said: "Our G.o.d of old lives still and will not let us perish in disgrace." Moltke so far relinquished his pa.s.sive equanimity that, glancing up joyously towards the ceiling and abandoning his usual punctiliousness of speech, he smote his hand upon his breast and said: "If I may but live to lead our armies in such a war, then the devil may come directly afterwards and fetch away the "old carca.s.s."" He was less robust at that time than afterwards, and doubted whether he would survive the hardships of the campaign.
How keenly he wanted to put in practice his military and strategic tastes and ability I observed not only on this occasion, but also in the days before the outbreak of the Bohemian war. In both cases I found my military colleague in the King"s service changed from his usual dry and silent habit; he became cheerful, lively, even merry. In the June night of 1866, when I had invited him for the purpose of ascertaining whether the march of the army could not be begun twenty-four hours sooner, he answered in the affirmative and was pleasantly excited by the hastening of the struggle. As he left my wife"s drawing-room with elastic step, he turned round at the door and asked me in a serious tone: "Do you know that the Saxons have _blown up_[37] the bridge at Dresden?" Upon my expression of amazement and regret he replied: "Yes, with water, for the dust." An inclination to innocent jokes very seldom, in official relations like ours, broke through his reserve. In both cases his love of combat and delight in battles were a great support to me in carrying out the policy I regarded as necessary, in opposition to the intelligible and justifiable aversion in a most influential quarter. It proved inconvenient to me in 1867, in the Luxemburg question, and in 1875 and afterwards on the question whether it was desirable, as regards a war which we should probably have to face sooner or later, to bring it on _antici-pando_ before the adversary could improve his preparations. I have always opposed the theory which says "Yes"; not only at the Luxemburg period, but likewise subsequently for twenty years, in the conviction that even victorious wars cannot be justified unless they are forced upon one, and that one cannot see the cards of Providence far enough ahead to antic.i.p.ate historical development according to one"s own calculation. It is natural that in the staff of the army not only younger officers, but likewise experienced strategists, should feel the need of turning to account the efficiency of the troops led by them, and their own capacity to lead, and of making them prominent in history. It would be a matter of regret if this effect of the military spirit did not exist in the army; the task of keeping its results within such limits as the nations" need of peace can justly claim is the duty of the political, not the military, heads of the State. That at the time of the Luxemburg question, during the crisis of 1875, invented by Gortchakoff and France, and even down to the most recent times, the staff and its leaders have allowed themselves to be led astray and to endanger peace, lies in the very spirit of the inst.i.tution, which I would not forego. It only becomes dangerous under a monarch whose policy lacks sense of proportion and power to resist one-sided and const.i.tutionally unjustifiable influences.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 26: From _Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman._ Permission Harper & Brothers, New York.]
[Footnote 27: a gathering of, it is said, 30,000 at the Castle of Hambach in the Palatinate; where speeches were made in favor of Germany, unity, and the Republic.]