Blood and Iron Part 43

The curious fact was this: that Bismarck in his own time had always held as an inviolable principle, "No criticism of the Government in foreign affairs," but now he claimed a privilege he had never granted to another.

-- One of his many startling confessions of state secrets was that the Franco-Prussian war never would have taken place but for the garbled Ems dispatch. Instead of being a "holy war," to support the very life of the Fatherland, it was now made clear that the old Divine-right idea had been but the stage-play of a political minister, for his imperial sovereign's march to glory.

-- The last illusion was now dispelled.

Caprivi was obliged to issue a circular-letter to Germany's diplomatic corps, everywhere, "Do not mind Bismarck's utterances; take no stock in them!"

-- Even when Bismarck's old friend, von Moltke, died, the Man of Iron refused to go to the funeral; he did not care to take a chance of meeting the Emperor, there!

-- Querulous, iron-willed--such he is to remain. No giving up, no softening, no forgiveness; but blood and iron to the end. We must present him thus, our sad-hearted, irritable old master, proclaiming against the vanity of earthly glories, and like Wolsey wondering on the frailties and ingrat.i.tude of kings, whose memories are indeed no longer than the going down of the sun.

-- Thus for two long weary years the bitter fight went on.

-- The old man now went on a trip to Vienna, to see his son Herbert married, but ahead of him the Government had telegraphed, "No official welcome for Bismarck!"

The German amba.s.sador, under instructions from Berlin, did not dare attend the wedding, refused to notice Bismarck's presence in Vienna, officially.

-- This was the last straw; it worked revulsion of popular feeling; the common people of Germany, the self-same people that Bismarck had so long doubted, now took up arms for fair play for the old man; and Caprivi, made the scapegoat, was forced to resign. He was succeeded by Hohenlohe, Bismarck's friend, and leader in the Bavarian National party.

-- On Bismarck's eightieth birthday, the Emperor came in person, and with military honors presented the old man with a magnificent sword; but on Bismarck's part the reconciliation was not sincere, you may well imagine that.

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Wherein, at last, abandoned by his King, the plain people, whom the great Bismarck so long politically ignored, now do indeed bind up the old man's wounds.

-- Bismarck's mighty nature never softened, but remained bitter to the day of his death, with fire and sword pursuing his enemies; broken by Fate, his power gone, Bismarck still continued consistent to the last; true to his iron nature, he returned the hatred of enemies with his own arrogant contempt.

-- As the years of his downfall pa.s.sed and men came to comprehend somewhat his extraordinary combination of overshadowing political genius in administrative and executive life, side by side with his strange superst.i.tions and his many weaknesses of a grand order, this awe-inspiring man became beloved for his frailties by the very common people whom all his life long he had held under suspicion. The people rallied to his defense when kings quitted his side; they took up his cause because the old man had been outraged in his sensibilities, rather than because he was right; they sent him thousands of sympathetic letters, telegrams, presents; thousands of students, business men, women and children, visited him in his retirement; and by that touch of human nature that proves the world kin, took the embittered old man to their hearts in the name of the United Germany that he had created with toil so infinite and battlings so long and blood-stained;--and they disarmed Bismarck by honoring the name of their old enemy.

-- It is a wonderful story of human nature, this story of how the German people rallied to Bismarck's side; a story that reaffirms how slender after all is the s.p.a.ce between the pomp of kings and the obscure destiny of the shepherd on the hills.

The proud figure of the grand old man who was not too high to fall from power stands side by side with Marius at the ruins of Carthage.

-- Finally, as between the kings whom Bismarck served so faithfully and who abandoned him at last, and the people whom he despised but who rallied to his side and bound up his wounds, this courageous giant, who during the long years in which he fronted the seemingly forlorn struggle for United Germany, had been so conscientious in the discharge of his unpleasant duties, came at last to his peculiar eminence as one of the world's greatest characters.

-- When he came to die, full of years and honors, although he had no National funeral like the magnificent outpouring that marked the return of Napoleon's body to the banks of the River Seine, yet in the hearts of the German people Otto von Bismarck was accorded the grandest funeral of modern times, if not of all time.

That was many years ago; but his unapproachable memory still lives, as Father of United Germany--and his fame goes marching on.

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The old man's strange fancies as he pa.s.ses the time awaiting his final call.

-- Behold our old master in retirement, as obscure as a simple country squire; and he reads again--what do you think? The Book of Job, Bismarck's last reading, reminds him of the evanescence of all earthly glory, which pa.s.ses away like the gra.s.s that is cut down by the mower.

-- Brave old fighter, with your show of dauntless spirit, down to the very end, we know that you are grown weary of it all, and in truth, in silent moments of self-communion, you do not care when the end may come, nor may it come too soon for you.

-- He is worried all the time, now; worried about his son's health; worried about the death of his brother; broken over the death of his wife; distressed by the death of favorite dogs and horses. Also, he recalls a gypsy saying having to do with the end of the Bismarck family, under strange conditions, in these mystical words:

Dem Grafen von Bismarck soll es verleiber So Lang sie vom Horste die Reiher nicht trieben--

Or, "The Counts Bismarck shall reign at Varzin as long as the herons are not driven from their ancient haunts"; in rude rhyme:

"The Bismarcks shall hold their domain till the day When they from their haunts drive the herons away."

-- You see, the old man's mind was wandering, and now and then he saw the future, as in a strange dream.

-- He watched the crows and jackdaws gather over the fields and at the rookeries, and he said one day, "They have their joys and sorrows like human beings."

-- He recited Shakespeare, thinking of the olden times when he went roaring up and down the land! "Let me play the lion, too! I will roar that it will do any man's heart good to hear me. I will that I can make the Duke say, 'Let him roar again, let him roar again!'"

-- Trifles annoyed the aged Bismarck, as might be expected; such things as changing the clocks to introduce "standard time," as it is called.

"I do not like this 'standard time'; here I get up half an hour too early and go to bed half an hour too soon," was the octogenarian's crabbed comment.

-- Day by day, crowds came to see him--children, students, laborers, artists, musicians, politicians, writers--all visited the sage in his retirement.

Levi, the Wagnerian Kappelmeister, journeyed from Munich to Friedrichsruh to beg the honor of owning, as a souvenir, one of Bismarck's old hats.

-- Lenbach, the renowned artist, came to paint Bismarck's picture; and noted the curious fact that although Mecklenburgers have the largest German skulls, "Bismarck's is larger still."

-- Bad nights, neuralgia, insomnia became his companions; but still ambition, the one supreme infirmity of his majestic mind, gives him no peace.

What would future generations say of Bismarck's work? And of the immediate present, has Caprivi helped it any? Was the repeal of my Iron Laws against Socialism wise? Why did not Caprivi follow my plan of making the Government the arbiter of German conscience? Why did not Caprivi carry the Army Bill? I fought for four years, once, to get army money for King William--and won over all obstacles!

-- Schaffer came to make the Bismarck bust; it shows the Chancellor with high-cut nostrils, heavy jaws, scowling brows.

The old man likes it, because it presents him as a soldier; he is proud that he is a Field Marshal, prouder still of the Bismarcks in the old wars, proud also that he is a Prussian General of Cavalry.

-- Then he scolds again about Caprivi's treaty with Austria, says it will cost fifty million marks a year and nothing gained.

-- Often in deep fits of melancholy, Bismarck thinks that Germany is ungrateful. For one thing, the Government ought to recognize my son Herbert; why, England saw in Pitt the son of his father, a chip of the old block; and why not one Bismarck after another, eh?

-- Maybe Dr. Schweninger could do me some good, what do you think? This doctor is from South Germany--and a very determined fellow with a jet black, piratical beard; he gives orders like a military man, is a believer in diet, and all that sort of thing.

Twenty years before, when Bismarck's weight was 247, this South German Dr. Schweninger put Bismarck through a course of "banting," and the Chancellor rewarded the doctor with a chair in Berlin, against the united protests of the faculty! Why, yes, bring up Dr. Schweninger; he can make me well, I am sure.

-- "I can make you live to be ninety, Prince!"

-- "Then get to work; spare no time; I am in bad shape!"