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BISMA
BISMARCK.
FROM A PAINTING BY F. VON LENBAOH.
Iberoes of tbe IRattous
EDITED BY
Evelyn Hbbott, m.U.
FELLOW OF BALI.IOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
FACTA DUCIS VIVENT OPEROSAQUE
GLORIA RERUM. — OVID, IN LIVIAM 2G5.
THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WON
PAME SHALL LIVE.
BISMARCK
BISMARCK
AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE
GERMAN EMPIRE
JAMES WYCLIFFE HEADLAM
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREBT, STRAND
Stl^E 'flnukcrbnclur ^kss
1899
TWO
Copies
RECEIVED
^^W I 3 1909
^«ff^«ter Of CopyH,.,,^
Copyright, i8gg
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
SECOND COPY,
(=.'1 fi U
'5:fje TRnicftcibpcftcr ipiess, IHew Jt^orft
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE.
THE greater portion of the following pages were
completed before the death of Prince Bis-
marck; I take this opportunity of apologising
to the publishers and the editor of the series, for the
unavoidable delay which has caused publication to
be postponed for a year.
During this period, two works have appeared to
which some reference is necessary. The value of
Busch' s Mejnozrs has been much exaggerated; ex-
cept for quite the last years of Bismarck's life they
contain little new information which is of any im-
portance. Not only had a large portion of the book
already been published in Busch's two earlier books,
but many of the anecdotes and documents in those
parts which were new had also been published
elsewhere.
Bismarck's own Memoirs have a very different
value: not so much because of the new facts which
they record, but because of the light they throw on
Bismarck's character and on the attitude he adopted
towards men and political problems. With his
letters and speeches, they will always remain the
chief source for our knowledge of his inner life.
vi Preface.
The other authorities are so numerous that it is
impossible here to enumerate even the more import-
ant. I must, however, express the gratitude which
all students of Bismarck's career owe to Horst Kohl ;
in his Bismarck-Regesten he has collected and ar-
ranged the material so as infinitely to lighten the
labours of all others who work in the same field.
His Bismarck-JalirbiicJi is equally indispensable;
without this it would be impossible for anyone
living in England to use the innumerable letters,
documents, and anecdotes which each year appear
in German periodicals. Of collections of documents
and letters, the most important are those by Herr v.
Poschinger, especially the volumes containing the
despatches written from Frankfort and those deal-
ing with Bismarck's economic and financial policy,
A full collection of Bismarck's correspondence is
much wanted; there is now a good edition of the
private letters, edited by Kohl, but no satisfactory
collection of the political letters.
For diplomatic history between i860 and 1870, I
have, of course, chiefly depended on Sybel ; but those
who are acquainted with the recent course of criti-
cism in Germany will not be surprised if, while ac-
cepting his facts, I have sometimes ventured to differ
from his conclusions.
September, 1899. J. W. H.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE . ... . . I
CHAPTER II.
EARLY LIFE, 1821-1847 . . . . .14
CHAPTER III.
THE REVOLUTION, 1847-1852 . . . -34
CHAPTER IV.
THE GERMAN PROBLEM, 1849-1852 ... 7©
CHAPTER V.
FRANKFORT, 1851-1857 . . , . . 86
CHAPTER VI.
ST. PETERSBURG AND PARIS, 1858-1862 . . I27
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONFLICT, 1862-1863 ..... 162
CHAPTER VIII.
X SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, 1863-1864 , , , , 19-2
vili Contents.
CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
+ THE TREATY OF GASTEIN, 1864-1865 . . . 226
CHAPTER X.
-V OUTBREAK OF WAR WITH AUSTRIA, 1865-1866 . 240
CHAPTER XL
V THE CONQUEST OF GERMANY, 1866 . , . 259
CHAPTER XII.
^THE FORMATION OF THE NORTH GERMAN CON-
FEDERATION, 1866-1867 .... 291
CHAPTER XIII.
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR WITH FRANCE, 1867-
1870 315
" ■< CHAPTER XIV.
THE WAR WITH FRANCE AND FOUNDATION OF
THE EMPIRE, 1870-1871 .... 346
^ CHAPTER XV.
^HE NEW EMPIRE, l87l\,l878 .... 377
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AND ECO NOMIC _ R]EFORM,
1878-1887" . . . ^. \ '. ' . 405
CHAPTER XVII.
RETIREMENT AND DEATH, 1887-1898 . . . 440
INDEX , 465
ILLUSTRATIONS.
BISMARCK ..... Frontispiece
[From a painting by F. Von Lenbach.]
Bismarck's coat of arms ..... 2
schonhausen church interior . . • ^
luise wilhelmine von bismarck . . . lo
Bismarck's Mother.
KARL WILHELM FERD. VON BISMARCK . , ,12
Bismarck's Father.
BISMARCK IN 1834 . . . . . , 18
SCHONHAUSEN CASTLE ...... 26
BISMARCK IN 1848 ...... (i^
PRINCESS BISMARCK ...... 88
BISMARCK IN 1860 ...... I30
GENERAL VON ROON ...... I40
EMPEROR WILLIAM 1. ..... . 162
EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH ..... T94
BISMARCK . . . . . . . .214
[From a painting by F. Von Lenbach.]
GENERAL VON MOLTKE ...... 248
250
THE CAPITULATION OF SEDAN
[From a painting by Anton Von Werner
BISMARCK AND HIS DOGS
X
Ilhistrations,
NAPOLEON III. AND BISMARCK ON THE MORNING
AFTER THE BATTLE OF SEDAN
[From a painting by Wilhelm Camphausen.]
KING WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA PROCLAIMED EMPEROR
OF GERMANY, VERSAILLES, JANUARY l8, 1871.
[From a painting by Anton Von Werner.]
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS .....
OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF BISMARCK IN BERLIN
THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN, 1878 ....
[P'rom a painting by Anton Von Werner.]
FRIEDRICHSRUHE .......
[From a photograph by Strumper & Co., Ham-
burg.]
EMPEROR FREDERICK ......
SARCOPHAGUS OF EMPEROR WILLIAM I., CHARLOT-
TENBURG .......
SCHUECKENBERGE .......
[Where Bismarck's Mausoleum will be erected.]
MAP OF GERMANY SHOWING CHANGES MADE IN
1866
372
388
406
430
446
454
462
464
BISMARCK
BISMARCK.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.
OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD von BIS-
MARCK was born at the manor-house of
Schoenhausen, in the Mark of Brandenburg,
on April i, 1815. Just a month before, Napoleon
had escaped from Elba ; and, as the child lay in his
cradle, the peasants of the village, who but half a
year ago had returned from the great campaign in
France, were once more called to arms. A few
months passed by ; again the King of Prussia re-
turned at the head of his army ; in the village
churches the medals won at Waterloo were hung up
by those of Grossbehren and Leipzig. One more
victory had been added to the Prussian flags, and
then a profound peace fell upon Europe; fifty years
were to go by before a Prussian army again marched
out to meet a foreign foe.
The name and family of Bismarck were among the
oldest in the land. Many of the great Prussian states-
2 Bismarck.
men have come from other countries : Stein was
from Nassau, and Hardenberg was a subject of the
Elector of Hanover; even Bliicher and Schwerin
were Mecklenburgers, and the Moltkes belong to
Holstein. The Bismarcks are pure Brandenburgers;
they belong to the old Mark, the district ruled over
by the first Margraves who were sent by the Em-
peror to keep order on the northern frontier ; they
were there two hundred years before the first Hohen-
zollern came to the north.
The first of the name of whom we hear was Her-
bort von Bismarck, who, in 1270, was Master of the
Guild of the Clothiers in the city of Stendal. The
town had been founded about one hundred years
before by Albert the Bear, and men had come in
from the country around to enjoy the privileges and
security of city life. Doubtless Herbort or his father
had come from Bismarck, a village about twenty
miles to the west, which takes its name either from
the little stream, the Biese, which runs near it, or from
the bishop in whose domain it lay. He was prob-
ably the first to bear the name, which would have no
meaning so long as he remained in his native place,
for the iwn was still a mark of origin and had not
yet become the sign of nobility. Other emigrants
from Bismarck seem also to have assumed it ; in the
neighbouring town of Prenzlau the name occurs, and
it is still found among the peasants of the Mark ; as
the Wends were driven back and the German in-
vasion spread, more adventurous colonists migrated
beyond the Oder and founded a new Bismarck in
Pomerania.
BISMARCK'S COAT OF ARMS.
Birth and Parentage.
Of the lineage of Herbert we know nothing ^ ; his
ancestors must have been among the colonists who
had been planted by the Emperors on the northern
frontier to occupy the land conquered from the
heathen. He seems himself to have been a man of
substance and position ; he already used the arms,
the double trefoil, which are still borne by all the
branches of his family. His descendants are often
mentioned in the records of the Guild ; his son or
grandson, Rudolph or Rule, represented the town in
a conflict with the neighbouring Dukes of Brunswick.
It was his son Nicolas, or Claus as he is generally
called, who founded the fortunes of the family; he
attached himself closely to the cause of the Mar-
grave, whom he supported in his troubles with the
Duke of Brunswick, and whose interests he repre-
sented in the Town Council. He was amply re-
warded for his fidelity. After a quarrel between the
city and the Prince', Bismarck left his native home
and permanently entered the service of the Mar-
grave. Though probably hitherto only a simple
citizen, he was enfiefed with the castle of Burgstall,
an important post, for it was situated on the
borders of the Mark and the bishopric of Magde-
burg; he was thereby admitted into the privileged
class of the ScJilosszesessenen, under the Margrave,
the highest order in the feudal hierarchy. From
that day the Bismarcks have held their own among
the nobility of Brandenburg. Claus eventually be-
came Hofmeister of Brandenburg, the chief officer
* There seems no authority for the statement that the Bismarcks
had sprung from a noble Bohemian family.
Bisma7^ck.
at the Court ; he had his quarrels with the Church,
or rather with the spiritual lords, the bishops of
Havelburg and Magdeburg, and was once excom-
municated, as his father had been before him, and as
two of his sons were after him.
Claus died about the year 1385. For two hundred
years the Bismarcks continued to live at Burgstall,
to which they added many other estates. When
Conrad of Hohenzollern was appointed Margrave and
Elector, he found sturdy supporters in the lords of
Burgstall ; he and his successors often came there to
hunt the deer and wild boars, perhaps also the wolves
and bears, with which the forests around the castle
abounded ; for the Hohenzollerns were keen sports-
men then as now, as their vassals found to their
cost. In 1555, Hans George, son of the reigning
Elector, Albert Achilles, bought the neighbouring
estate of Letzlingen from the Alvenslebens ; there he
built a house which is still the chief hunting-lodge of
the Kings of Prussia. Soon he cast envious eyes on
the great woods and preserves which belong to Burg-
stall, and intimated that he wished to possess them.
The Bismarcks resisted long. First they were com-
pelled to surrender their hunting rights; this was
not sufficient; the appetite of the Prince grew; in
his own words he wished " to be rid of the Bismarcks
from the moor and the Tanger altogether." He of-
fered in exchange some of the monasteries which
had lately been suppressed ; the Bismarcks (the fam-
ily was represented by two pairs of brothers, who all
lived together in the great castle) long refused ; they
represented that their ancestors had been faithful
Birth and Parentage.
vassals ; they had served the Electors with blood and
treasure ; they wished " to remain in the pleasant
place to which they had been assigned by God Al-
mighty." It was all of no use ; the Prince insisted,
and his wrath was dangerous. The Bismarcks gave
in ; they surrendered Burgstall and received in ex-
change Schoenhausen and Crevisse, a confiscated nun-
nery, on condition that as long as the ejected nuns
lived the new lords should support them ; for which
purpose the Bismarcks had annually to supply a cer-
tain quantity of food and eighteen barrels of beer.
Of the four co-proprietors, all died without issue,
except Friedrich, called the Permutator, in v/hose
hands the whole of the family property was again
collected ; he went to live at Schoenhausen, which
since then has been the home of the family. No re-
mains of the old castle exist, but the church, built
in the thirteenth century, is one of the oldest and
most beautiful in the land between the Havel and
the Elbe. House and church stand side by side on
a small rising overlooking the Elbe. Here they
took up their abode ; the family to some extent had
come down in the world. The change had been a dis-
advantageous one ; they had lost in wealth and import-
ance. For two hundred years they played no very
prominent part ; they married with the neighbouring
country gentry and fought in all the wars. Rudolph,
Friedrich's son, fought in France in behalf of the
Huguenots, and then under the Emperor against the
Turks. His grandson, August, enlisted under Bern-
hard of Saxe- Weimar; afterwards he fought in the
religious wars in France and Germany, always on
6 Bismarck.
the Protestant side ; lastly, he took service under
the Elector of Brandenburg.
It was in his lifetime that a great change began
to take place which was to alter the whole life
of his descendants. In 1640, Frederick William,
known as the great Elector, succeeded his father.
He it was who laid the foundations for that system
of government by which a small German principal-
ity has grown to be the most powerful military
monarchy in modern Europe. He held his own
against the Emperor ; he fought with the Poles and
compelled their King to grant him East Prussia ;
he drove the Swedes out of the land. More than
this, he enforced order in his own dominions ; he
laid the foundation for the prosperity of Berlin ; he
organised the administration and got together a
small but efficient military force. The growing
power of the Elector was gained to a great extent
at the expense of the nobles ; he took from them
many of the privileges they had before enjoyed.
The work he began was continued by his son, who
took the title of King; and by his grandson, who
invented the Prussian system of administration, and
created the army with which Frederick the Great
fought his battles.
The result of the growth of the strong, organised
monarchy was indeed completely to alter the posi-
tion of the nobles. The German barons in the south
had succeeded in throwing off the control of their
territorial lords ; they owned no authority but the
vague control of the distant Emperor, and ruled
their little estates with an almost royal independ-
Birth and Parentage. 7
ence; they had their own laws, their own coinage,
their own army. In the north, the nobles of Meck-
lenburg, Holstein, and Hanover formed a dominant
class, and the whole government of the State was in
their hands ; but those barons whose homes fell
within the dominion of the Kings of Prussia found
themselves face to face with a will and a power
stronger than their ov/n ; they lost in independence,
but they gained far more than they lost. They were
the basis on which the State was built up ; they no
longer wasted their military prowess in purposeless
feuds or in mercenary service ; in the Prussian army
and administration they found full scope for their
ambition, and when the victories of Frederick the
Great had raised Prussia to the rank of a European
Power, the nobles of Brandenburg were the most
loyal of his subjects. They formed an exclusive
caste ; they seldom left their homes ; they were little
known in the south of Germany or in foreign coun-
tries ; they seldom married outside their own ranks.
Their chief amusement was the chase, and their
chief occupation was war. And no king has ever
had under his orders so fine a race of soldiers ; they
commanded the armies of Frederick and won his
battles. Dearly did they pay for the greatness of
Prussia ; of one family alone, the Kleists, sixty-four
fell on the field of battle during the Seven Years'
War.
They might well consider that the State which
they had helped to make, and which they had saved
by their blood, belonged to them. But if they had
become Prussians, they did not cease to be Branden-
8 Bismarck.
burgers ; their loyalty to their king never swerved,
for they knew that he belonged to them as he did
to no other of his subjects. He might go to distant
Konigsberg to assume the crown, but his home was
amongst them ; other provinces might be gained or
lost with the chances of war, but while a single
HohenzoUern lived he could not desert his subjects
of the Mark. They had the intense local patriotism
so characteristic of the German nation, which is the
surest foundation for political greatness; but while
in other parts the Particularists, as the Germans
called them, aimed only at independence, the Bran-
denburger who had become a Prussian desired
domination.
Among them the Bismarcks lived. The family
again divided into two branches: one, which became
extinct about 1780, dwelling at Crevisse, gave several
high officials to the Prussian Civil Service ; the other
branch, which continued at Schoenhausen, generally
chose a military career. August's son, who had the
same name as his father, rebuilt the house, which
had been entirely destroyed by the Swedes during
the Thirty Years' War; he held the position of
Landrath, that is, he was the head of the adminis-
tration of the district in which he lived. He married
a Fraulein von Katte, of a well-known family whose
estates adjoined those of the Bismarcks. Frau von
Bismarck was the aunt of the unfortunate young man
who was put to death for helping Frederick the Great
in his attempt to escape. His tomb is still to be
seen at Wust, which lies across the river a few miles
from Schoenhausen ; and at the new house, which
Birth and Parentage.
arose at Schoenhausen and still stands, the arms of the
Kattes are joined to the Bismarck trefoil. The suc-
cessor to the estates, August Friedrich, was a thor-
ough soldier ; he married a Fraulein von Diebwitz
and acquired fresh estates in Pomerania, where he
generally lived.
He rose to the rank of colonel, and fell fighting
against the Austrians at Chotusitz in 1742. " Ein
ganzer Kerl " (a fine fellow), said the King, as he
stood by the dying of^cer. His son, Carl Alexander,
succeeded to Schoenhausen ; the next generation kept
up the military traditions of the family ; of four
brothers, all but one became professional officers and
fought against France in the wars of liberation. One
fell at Mockern in 1813 ; another rose to the rank of
lieutenant-general; the third also fought in the war;
his son, the later Count Bismarck-Bohlen, was
wounded at Grossbehren, and the father at once
came to take his place during his convalescence, in
order that the Prussian army might not have fewer
Bismarcks. When the young Otto was born two
years later, he would often hear of the adventures
of his three uncles and his cousin in the great
war. The latter, Bismarck-Bohlen, rose to very-
high honours and was to die when over eighty years
of age, after he had witnessed the next great war with
France. It is a curious instance of the divisions of
Germany in those days that there were Bismarcks
fighting on the French side throughout the war.
One branch of the family had settled in South Ger-
many ; the head of it, Friedrich Wilhelm, had taken
service in the Wurtemburg army ; he had become a
lo Bismarck.
celebrated leader of cavalry and was passionately
devoted to Napoleon. He served with distinction
in the Russian campaign and was eventually taken
prisoner by the Germans in the battle of Leipzig.
The youngest of the four brothers, Karl Wilhelm
Friedrich v. Bismarck, had retired from the army at
an early age : he was a quiet, kindly man of domestic
tastes ; on the division of the estates, Schoenhausen
fell to his lot, and he settled down there to a quiet
country life. He took a step which must have caused
m.uch discussion among all his friends and relations, for
he chose as wife not one of his own rank, not a Kleist,
or a Katte, or a Bredow, or an Arnim, or an Alvens-
leben, or any other of the neighbouring nobility ; he
married a simple Fraulein Mencken. She was, how-
ever, of no undistinguished origin. Her father, the
son of a professor at the University of Leipzig, had
entered the Prussian Civil Service ; there he had risen
to the highest rank and had been Cabinet Secretary
to both Frederick William H. and Frederick HL He
was a man of high character and of considerable
ability ; as was not uncommon among the ofificials of
those days, he was strongly affected by the liberal and
even revolutionary doctrines of France.
Fraulein Mencken, who was married at the age of
sixteen, was a clever and ambitious woman. From
her her son inherited his intellect ; from his father he
derived what the Germans call Gemiith, geniality,
kindliness, humour. By his two parents he was thus
connected with the double foundation on which
Prussia had been built: on his father's side he had
sprung from the fighting nobles ; on his mother's,
LUISE WILHELMINE VON BISMARCK.
BISMARCK'S MOTHER.
Birth a7id Parentage. 1 1
from the scholars and officials. In later life we shall
find that while his prejudices and affections are all en-
listed on the side of the noble, the keen and critical
intellect he had inherited from his mother enabled
him to overcome the prejudices of his order.
The early life of the young pair was not altogether
fortunate. Several children died at a very early age ;
the defeat of Prussia brought foreign occupation ;
Schoenhausen was seized by French troopers ; the
marks of their swords are still to be seen in a beam
over one of the doors, and Rittmeister v. Bismarck
had to take his wife away into the woods in order
to escape their violence.
Of all the children of the marriage only three
lived: Bernhard, who was born in i8iO, Otto, and
one sister, Malvina, born in 1827.
Otto did not live at Schoenhausen long ; when he
was only a year old, his father moved to Pomerania
and settled on the estates Kniephof and Kulz, which
had come into the family on his grandfather's mar-
riage. Pomerania was at that time a favourite resid-
ence among the Prussian nobility ; the country was
better wooded than the Mark, and game more plen-
tiful ; the rich meadows, the wide heaths and for-
ests were more attractive than the heavy corn-lands
and the sandy wastes of the older province. Here, in
the deep seclusion of country life, the boy passed
his first years ; it was far removed from the bustle and
turmoil of civilisation. Naugard, the nearest town,
was five miles distant ; communication was bad, for
it was not till after 1815 that the Prussian Govern-
ment began to construct highroads. In this distant
1 2 Bismarck.
province, life went on as in the olden days, little
altered by the changes which had transformed the
State. The greater portion of the land belonged to
large proprietors ; the noble as in old days was still
all-powerful on his own estate; in his hands was the
administration of the law, and it was at his manorial
court that men had to seek for justice, a court where
justice was dealt not in the name of the King but of
the Lord of the Manor. He lived among his people
and generally he farmed his own lands. There was
little of the luxury of an English country-house or
the refinement of the French noblesse ; he would be
up at daybreak to superintend the work in the
fields, his wife and daughters that of the household,
talking to the peasants the pleasant Piatt Deutsch of
the countryside. Then there would be long rides or
drives to the neighbours' houses ; shooting, for there
was plenty of deer and hares ; and occasionally in
the winter a visit to Berlin ; farther away, few of
them went. Most of the country gentlemen had
been to Paris, but only as conquerors at the end of
the great war.
They were little disturbed by modern political
theories, but were contented, as in old days, to be
governed by the King. It was a religious society ;
among the peasants and the nobles, if not among the