alien Parliament] They were asked to cease to be
Prussians in order that they might become Germans.
This Bismarck refused to do. " Prussians we are,"
he said, " and Prussians we will remain." He had
no sympathy with this idea of a United Germany
which was so powerful at the time ; there was only
one way in which he was willing that Germany
should be united, and that was according to the ex-
ample which Frederick the Great had set. The
ideals of the German nation were represented by



76 Bismarck. [1849-

Arndt's famous song, " Was ist des Deutschen
Vaterland ? " The fatherland of the Germans was
not Suabia or Prussia, not Austria or Bavaria, it was
the whole of Germany wherever the German tongue
was spoken. From this Bismarck deliberately dis-
sociated himself. " I have never heard," he said, " a
Prussian soldier singing, ' Was ist des Deutschen
Vaterland ? ' " The new flag of Germany was to be
the German tricolour, black and white and gold.

" The Prussian soldiers," cried Bismarck, " have no
tricoloured enthusiasm ; among them you will find, as
little as in the rest of the Prussian people, the desire for
a national regeneration ; they are contented with the
name of Prussia, and proud of the name of Prussia.
These troops follow the black and white flag, not the tri-
colour ; under the black and white they die with joy for
their country. The tricolour they have learnt since the
18th of March to look on as the colours of their foes."

These words aroused intense indignation. One of
the speakers who followed referred to him as the
Prodigal Son of the German Fatherland, who had
deserted his father's house. Bismarck repudiated
the epithet. " I am not a prodigal son," he said ;
" my father's house is Prussia and I have never left
it." He could not more clearly repudiate the title
German. The others were moved by enthusiasm
for an idea, he by loyalty to an existing State,

Nothing was sound, he said, in Germany, except
the old Prussian institutions.

" What has preserved us is that which is specifically
Prussian. It was the remnant of the Stock- Preiissenthmn



1852] The German Problem. jj

which has survived the Revolution, the Prussian army,
the Prussian treasure, the fruits of many years of intelli-
gent Prussian administration, and the living co-operation
between King and people. It was the attachment of the
Prussian people to their hereditary dynasty, the old
Prussian virtues of honour, loyalty, obedience, and the
courage which, emanating from the officers who form its
bone and marrow, permeates the army down to the
youngest recruit."

He reminded the House how the Assembly at
Frankfort had only been saved from the insurgent
mob by a Prussian regiment, and now it was pro-
posed to weaken and destroy all these Prussian in-
stitutions in order to change them into a democratic
Germany. He was asked to assent to a Constitution
in which the Prussian Government would sink to the
level of a provincial council, under the guidance of
an Imperial Ministry which itself would be depend-
ent on a Parliament in which the Prussian interests
would be in a minority. The most important and
honourable duties of the Prussian Parliament would
be transferred to a general Parliament ; the King
would lose his veto ; he would be compelled against
his will to assent to laws he disliked ; even the Prus-
sian army would be no longer under his sole com-
mand. What recompense were they to gain for
this?

" The pleasant consciousness of having followed an
unselfish and noble policy ; of having satisfied the re-
quirements of a national regeneration ; of having carried
out the historical task of Prussia, or some such vague
expression."



78 Bismarck. [1849-

With this he contrasted what would have been a
true Prussian pohcy, a poHcy which Frederick the
Great might have followed.

" He would have known that now as in the day of our
fathers the sound of the trumpets which summoned
them to their sovereign's flag has not lost its power for
Prussian ears ; he would have had the choice either of
joining our old comrade Austria, and undertaking the
brilliant part which the Emperor of Russia has played,
and destroying the cause of the Revolution, or by the
same right by which he took Silesia, he might, after re-
fusing to accept the crown, have ordered the Germans
what constitution they should have, and thrown the
sword into the scale ; then Prussia would have been in
the position to win for Germany its place in the Council
of Europe.

" We all wish the same. We all wish that the Prussian
eagle should spread out his wings as guardian and ruler
from the Memel to the Donnersberg, but free will we
have him, not bound by a new Regensburg Diet. Prus-
sians we are and Prussians will we remain ; I know that
in these words I speak the confession of the Prussian
army and the majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I
hope to God that we will still long remain Prussian when
this sheet of paper is forgotten like a withered autumn
leaf."

The policy of Radowitz was doomed to failure,
not so much because of any inherent weakness in it,
but because Prussia was not strong enough to de-
fend herself against all the enemies she had called
up. The other Courts of Germany were lukewarm,
Austria was extremely hostile. The Kings of Han-



1852] The German Problem. 79

over and Saxony retreated from the alliance on the
ground that they would enter the union only if the
whole of Germany joined ; Bavaria had refused to
do so ; in fact the two other Kings had privately
used all their influence to prevent Bavaria from join-
ing, in order that they might always have an excuse
for seceding, Prussia was, therefore, left surrounded
by twenty-eight of the smaller States. A Parlia-
ment from them was summoned to meet at Erfurt
in order to discuss the new Constitution. Bismarck
was elected a member of it ; he went there avowedly
to protect the Prussian interests. He had de-
manded from the Government that at least the
Constitution agreed on in Erfurt should again be
submitted to the Prussian Chamber ; he feared that
many of the most important Prussian rights might
be sacrificed. His request was refused, for it was
obvious that if, after the Parliament of Erfurt had
come to some conclusion, the new Constitution was
to be referred back again to the twenty-eight Parlia-
ments of the allied States, the new union would
never come into effect at all. It is curious here to
find Bismarck using the rights of the Prussian Par-
liament as a weapon to maintain the complete inde-
pendence of Prussia. Sixteen years later, when he
was doing the work in which Radowitz failed, one
of his chief difficulties arose from the conduct of
men who came forward with just the same demand
which he now made, and he had to refuse their
demands as Radowitz now refused his.

He did not take much part in the debates at
Erfurt ; as he was one of the youngest of the mem-



8o Bismarck. [1849-

bers, he held the position of Secretary ; the President
of the Assembly was Simpson, a very distinguished
public man, but a converted Jew. " What would my
father have said," observed Bismarck, " if he had
lived to see me become clerk to a Jewish scholar? "
On one occasion he became involved in what might
have been a very serious dispute, when he used his
power as Secretary to exclude from the reporters'
gallery two journalists whose reports of the meeting
were very partial and strongly opposed to Austria.
His attitude towards the Assembly is shewn by the
words :

" I know that what I have said to you will have no
influence on your votes, but I am equally convinced that
your votes will be as completely without influence on
the course of events."

The whole union was, as a matter of fact, broken
down by the opposition of Austria. Bismarck had,
in one of his first speeches, warned against a
policy which would bring Prussia into the position
which Piedmont had held before the battle of
Novara, when they embarked on a war in which
victory would have brought about the overthrow of
the monarchy, and defeat a disgraceful peace. It
was his way of saying that he hoped the King would
not eventually draw the sword in order to defend
the new Liberal Constitution against the opposition
of Austria. The day came when the King was
placed in this position. Austria had summoned the
old Diet to meet at Frankfort ; Prussia denied that
the Diet still legally existed ; the two policies were



1852] The German Problem. 8i

clearly opposed to one another: Austria desiring
the restoration of the old Constitution, Prussia, at
the head of Liberal Germany, summoning the States
round her in a new union. There were other dis-
putes about Schlesv/ig-Holstein and the affairs of
Hesse, but this was the real point at issue. The
Austrians were armed, and were supported by the
Czar and many of the German States ; shots were
actually exchanged between the Prussian and Bava-
rian outposts in Hesse. The Austrian ambassador
had orders to leave Berlin ; had he done so, war
could not have been avoided. He disobeyed his
orders, remained in Berlin, asked for an interview
with the King, and used all his influence to persuade
him to surrender. The Ministry was divided ; Rado-
witz stood almost alone ; the other Ministers, Bis-
marck's friends, had always distrusted his policy.
They wished to renew the old alliance with Austria;
the Minister of War said they could not risk the
struggle ; it was rumoured that he had deliberately
avoided making preparations in order to prevent the
King putting himself at the head of the Liberal
party. During the crisis, Bismarck was summoned
to the King at Letzlingen ; there can be no doubt
what his advice was; eventually the party of peace
prevailed, and Radowitz resigned. Bismarck on
hearing the news danced three times round the
table with delight. Brandenburg died almost im-
mediately after ; ManteufTel became Minister-Presi-
dent ; he asked Schwarzenberg for an interview,
travelled to Olmutz to meet him, and an agreement
was come to by which practically Prussia surren-

6



82 Bismarck.



[1849-



dered every object of dispute between the two great
Powers.

The convention of Olmutz was the most complete
humihation to which any European State has ever
been subjected. Prussia had undertaken a policy,
and with the strong approval of the great majority
of the nation had consistently maintained it for over
a year ; Austria had required that this policy should
be surrendered ; the two States had armed ; the ulti-
matum had been sent, everything was prepared for
war, and then Prussia surrendered. The cause for
this was a double one. It was partly that Prussia
was really not strong enough to meet the coalition
of Austria and Russia, but it was also that the King
was really of two minds; he was constitutionally un-
able to maintain against danger a consistent course
of policy.

Bismarck was one of the few men who defended
the action of the Ministry. In the ablest of all his
speeches he took up the gauntlet, and exposed all
the weakness and the dangers of Radowitz's policy.
This was not a cause in which Prussia should risk
its existence. Why should they go to war in order to
subject Prussia not to the Princes but to the Chambers
of the smaller States ? A war for the Union would,
he said, remind him of the Englishman who had a
fight with the sentry in order that he might hang
himself in the sentry-box, a right which he claimed
for himself and every free Briton. It was the duty
of the councillors of the King to warn him from a
policy which would bring the State to destruction.

" Still I would not shrink from the war ; I would ad-



1852] The German Problem. 83



vise it, were anyone able to prove to me the necessity for
it, or to point out a worthy end which could be attained
by it and in no other way. Why do great States wage war
nowadays? The only sound principle of action for a
great State is political egoism and not Romanticism, and
it is unworthy of a great State to fight for any matter
which does not concern its own interests. Shew us,
gentlemen, an object worthy of war and you have my
vote. It is easy for a statesman in his office or his
chamber to blow the trumpet with the breath of popu-
larity and all the time to sit warming himself by his
fireside, while he leaves it to the rifleman, who lies
bleeding on the snow, whether his system attains victory
and glory. Nothing is easier ; but woe to the statesman
who at such a time does not look about for a reason for
the war which will be valid when the war is over. I am
convinced you will see the questions which now occupy
us in a different light a year hence, when you look back
upon them through a long perspective of battle-fields and
conflagrations, misery and wretchedness. Will you then
have the courage to go to the peasant by the ashes of
his cottage, to the cripple, to the childless father, and
say : 'You have suffered much, but rejoice with us, the
Union is saved. Rejoice with us, Hassenpflug is no
longer Minister, Bayernhofer rules in Hesse.' "

Eloquent words ; but what a strange comment on
them his own acts were to afford. In 1850 Prussia
had a clearer and juster cause of war than in 1866;
every word of his speech might have been used with
equal effect sixteen years later; the Constitution of
1850 was little different from that which Bismarck
himself was to give to Germany. The policy of
Radowitz was the only true policy for Prussia ; if



84 Bismarck. [1849-

he failed, it was because Prussia's army was not
strong enough ; war would have been followed by
defeat and disaster. There was one man who saw
the evils as they really were ; the Prince of Prussia
determined that if ever he became King the army
of Prussia should be again made strong and ef^cient.

It was probably this speech which determined
Bismarck's future career. He had defended the
agreement with Austria and identified himself with
the policy of the Government ; what more natural
than that they should use him to help to carry out
the policy he had upheld. Prussia consented to
recognise the restoration of the Diet ; it would be
necessary, therefore, to send an envoy. Now that
she had submitted to Austria the only wise policy
was to cultivate her friendship. Who could do this
better than Bismarck? Who had more boldly sup-
ported and praised the new rulers of Austria?
When the Gotha party, as they were called, had
wished to exclude Austria from Germany, he it was
who said that Austria was no more a foreign State
than Wiirtemberg or Bavaria. The appointment of
Bismarck would be the best proof of the loyal inten-
tions of the Prussian Government.

A few years later he himself gave to Motley the
following account of his appointment :

" In the summer of 1851," Motley writes, " he told me
that the Minister, Manteuffel, asked him one day ab-
ruptly, if he would accept the post of Ambassador at
Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as un-
expected a one to him as if I should hear by the next
mail that I had been chosen Governor of Massachusetts)



1852] The German Problem. 85

he answered, after a moment's deliberation, ' yes,' with-
out another word. The King, the same day, sent for
him, and asked him if he would accept the place, to
which he made the same brief answer, * Ja.' His Majesty
expressed a little surprise that he made no inquiries or
conditions, when Bismarck replied that anything which
the King felt strong enough to propose to him, he felt
strong enough to accept. I only write these details,
that you may have an idea of the man. Strict integrity
and courage of character, a high sense of honour, a firm
religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make up
necessarily a combination which cannot be found any
day in any Court ; and I have no doubt that he is de-
stined to be Prime Minister, unless his obstinate truthful-
ness, which is apt to be a stumbling-block for politicians,
stands in his way."







CHAPTER V.

FRANKFORT.
1851-1857.

BISMARCK when he went to Frankfort was
thirty-six years of age ; he had had no experi-
ence in diplomacy and had long been un-
accustomed to the routine of official life. He had
distinguished himself by qualities which might seem
very undiplomatic; as a Parliamentary debater he
had been outspoken in a degree remarkable even
during a revolution ; he had a habit of tearing away
the veil from those facts which everyone knows and
which all wish to ignore ; a careless good-fellowship
which promised little of that reserve and discretion
so necessary in a confidential agent ; a personal and
wilful independence which might easily lead him
into disagreement with the Ministers and the King.
He had not even the advantage of learning his work
by apprenticeship under a more experienced official ;
during the first two months at Frankfort he held the
position of First Secretary, but his chief did not at-
tempt to introduce him to the more important nego-
tiations and when, at the end of July, he received his

86



1851] Frankfort. 87

definite appointment as envoy, he knew as little of
the work as when he arrived at Frankfort.

He had, however, occupied his time in becoming
acquainted with the social conditions. His first im-
pressions were very unfavourable. Frankfort held
a peculiar position. Though the centre of the Ger-
man political system it was less German than any
other town in the country. The society was very
cosmopolitan. There were the envoys of the German
States and the foreign Powers, but the diplomatic
circle was not graced by the dignity of a Court nor
by the neighbourhood of any great administrative
Power. Side by side with the diplomatists were the
citizens of Frankfort ; but here again we find indeed
a great money-market, the centre of the finance of
the Continent, dissociated from any great productive
activity. In the neighbourhood were the watering-
places and gambling-tables ; Homburg and Wies-
baden, Soden and Baden-Baden, were within an easy
ride or short railway journey, and Frankfort was
constantly visited by all the idle Princes of Germany.
It was a city in which intrigue took the place of
statesmanship, and never has intrigue played so large
a part in the history of Europe as during the years
1 850-1 870. Half the small States who were repre-
sented at Frankfort had ambitions beyond their
powers ; they liked to play their part in the politics
of Europe, Too weak to stand alone, they were also
too weak to be quite honest, and attempted to gain
by cunning a position which they could not main-
tain by other means. This was the city in which Bis-
marck was to serve his diplomatic apprenticeship.



88 Bismarck.



[1851-



Two extracts from letters to his wife give the best
picture of his personal character at this time:

" On Saturday I drove with Rochow to Riidesheim ;
there I took a boat and rowed out on the Rhine, and
bathed in the moonlight — only nose and eyes above the
water, and floated down to the Rat Tower at Bingen,
where the wicked Bishop met his end. It is something
strangely dreamlike to lie in the water in the quiet,
warm light, gently carried along by the stream ; to look
at the sky with the moon and stars above one, and, on
either side, to see the wooded mountain-tops and castle
parapets in the moonlight, and to hear nothing but the
gentle rippling of one's own motion. I should like a
swim like this every evening. Then I drank some very
good wine, and sat long talking with Lynar on the bal-
cony, with the Rhine beneath us. My little Testament
and the starry heavens brought us on Christian topics,
and I long shook at the Rousseau-like virtue of his soul."

" Yesterday I was at Wiesbaden, and with a feeling of
melancholy revisited the scenes of former folly. May it
please God to fill with His clear and strong wine this
vessel in which the champagne of twenty-one years
foamed so uselessly. ... I do not understand how
a man who reflects on himself, and still knows, and will
know, nothing of God, can endure his life for contempt
and weariness. I do not know how I endured this in
old days ; if, as then, I were to live without God, thee,
and the children, I do not know why I should not put
life aside like a dirty shirt ; and yet most of my acquaint-
ances live thus."

Now let us see what he thinks of his new duties:
" Our intercourse here is at best nothing but a n^utual



1857] Frankfort. 89

suspicion and espionage ; if only there was anything to
spy out and to hide ! It is pure trifles with which they
worry themselves, and I find these diplomatists with their
airs of confidence and their petty fussiness much more
absurd than the member of the Second Chamber in his
conscious dignity. Unless some external events take
place, and we clever men of the Diet can neither direct
nor foresee them, I know already what we shall bring
about in one or two or three years, and will do it in
twenty-four hours if the others will only be reasonable
and truthful for a single day. I am making tremendous
progress in the art of saying nothing in many words ; I
write reports many pages long, which are smooth and
finished like leading articles, and if Manteuffel after
reading them can say what they contain, he can do more
than I. We all do as though we believed of each other
that we are full of thoughts and plans, if only we would
express them, and all the time we none of us know a
hair's breadth more what will become of Germany."

Of the Austrian Envoy who was President of the
Diet he writes :

" Thun in his outward appearance has something of a
hearty good fellow mixed with a touch of the Vienna
roue. Underneath this he hides, I will not say great
political power and intellectual gifts, but an uncommon
cleverness and cunning, which with great presence of
mind appears from underneath the mask of harmless
good-humour as soon as politics are concerned. I con-
sider him as an opponent who is dangerous to anyone
who honestly trusts him, instead of paying back in his
own coin."

His judgment on his other colleagues is equally
decisive ; of the Austrian diplomatists



90 Bismarck. [I85ir

" one must never expect that they will make what is
right the foundation of their policy for the simple reason
that it is the right. Cautious dishonesty is the charac-
teristic of their association with us. They have nothing
which awakens confidence. They intrigue under the
mask of good-fellowship."

It was impossible to look for open co-operation from
them ;

" their mouths are full of the necessity for common ac-
tion, but when it is a question of furthering our wishes,
then ofificially it is, ' We will not oppose,' and a secret
pleasure in preparing obstacles."

It was just the same with the envoys of the other
countries: with few exceptions there is none for
whom right has any value in itself.

" They are caricatures of diplomatists who put on their
official physiognomy if I ask them for a light, and select
gestures and words with a truly Regensburg caution, if
they ask for the key of the water-closet." Writing to
Gerlach he speaks of " the lying, double-tongued policy
of the Austrians. Of all the lies and intrigues that go
on up and down the Rhine an honest man from the old
Mark has no conception. These South German child-
ren of nature are very corrupt."

His opinion of the diplomatists does not seem to
have improved as he knew them better. Years later
he wrote :

" There are few diplomatists who in the long run do
not prefer to capitulate with their conscience and their
patriotism, and to guard the interests of their country and
their sovereign with somewhat less decision, rather than,



1857] Frankfort. 91

incessantly and with danger to their personal position,
to contend with the difificulties which are prepared for
them by a powerful and unscrupulous enemy."

He does not think much better of his own Prus-
sian colleagues ; he often complains of the want of
support which he received. " With us the ofificial
diplomacy," he writes, " is capable of playing under
the same roof with strangers against their own coun-
trymen."

These letters are chiefly interesting because of the
light they throw on his own character at the begin-
ning of his diplomatic career ; we must not take
them all too seriously. He was too good a racon-
teur not to make a good story better, and too good
a letter-writer not to add something to the effect of
his descriptions ; besides, as he says elsewhere, he
did not easily see the good side of people ; his eyes
were sharper for their faults than their good quali-
ties.* After the first few passages of arms he got on