'His Majesty,'
Bismarck
wrote in his Memoirs,
?
?
Robertson - Bismarck
The 'might have beens' of
history are only valuable as a help to an interpretation of
the actual. The thesis presupposes a wholly different
Bismarck, and a wholly different evolution of Germany
since 1815. Ranke's verdict that the war of 1870 was not
a war with Napoleon in. but with Louis xiv. was the
verdict of every German. There is every reason to
conclude that if the National Liberals had established
a constitutional monarchy and responsible parliamentary
government in 1866 they would have exacted from France
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? 28o
BISMARCK
in 1871 terms as severe as those imposed by the prelimi-
naries of Versailles. Bismarck correctly maintained that
for the German armies or himself to return to an Imperial
Reichstag without Alsace and Lorraine was impossible.
The annexations were the 'liberation' of German terri-
tories wrested from a divided Empire in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and without them the new Empire
could not be made. It was not the terms, but the use
made of them, which differentiated Bismarck from the
National Liberals. With the exception of the tiny hand-
ful of Socialist Democrats, represented by the two votes
of Bebel and Liebknecht in the Reichstag, every German
man and woman believed that Sedan was the judgment
of God (Gottesgericht), and that but for God and the
German armies Napoleon would have come to Berlin,
annexed the left bank of the Rhine, broken up the North
German Confederation, reversed the verdict of 1866, and
thrown back German unification for a century, perhaps
for ever. Moreover, every German man and woman was
convinced in 1870 that to Teutonic civilisation, and not to
the decadent Latin races, belonged the future and the
trusteeship of the higher humanism. Renan's La R6-
forme intellectuelle et morale de la France and the two letters
to Strauss with their dignified exposition of the qualities
of the French mind and their subtle indictment of the
Teutonic Gospel of Nationalism were as unintelligible to
the German mind, as was their style unapproachable by
any German pen. 'Ce qui nous a manque, ce n'est pas
le cceur,' Renan summed up,' c'est la t? te. ' In the differ-
ence between Renan's Letters and Treitschke's pamphlet
What we require from France was concentrated the whole
bitter controversy.
It was easier to make peace than to make the Empire.
The Unitarians had to decide what was to be the form of
the new imperial organisation; how and by what procedure
it was to be brought about, and by whom? Was there to
be an Emperor (Kaiser), and if so of what? What was to
be the Empire (Reich)? Were the Southern States to be
invited to enter the North German Confederation, and on
what terms? or was the Northern Confederation to wait for
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 281
the request from the south? From whom was the initial
request to come, and to whom? How could Bavarian and
Wiirttemberg 'independence' be reconciled with the
Praesidium of Prussia and the unity of control in policy and
executive administration? Or was it desirable to scrap
the Constitution of 1867 and make a wholly new one,
federal or unitary? By whom was unification to be
made? By the King of Prussia direct on his own initiative,
or by the German princes in solemn congress, or by the
German peoples in a second constituent Parliament at
Frankfurt, Berlin, or even Versailles? Hard questions,
indeed. So contradictory were the various views of war-
ring parties in Germany, so sharp the clash of conflicting
ambitions at military headquarters, so inextricably inter-
twined were political principles with personal feeling and
petty intrigues, so entangled was the German problem
with the question of peace with France, that Roon in the
retirement where he mourned the death of his soldier
son felt that not even Bismarck would be able to thread
the labyrinth and reach daylight.
The south had swung into line on July 19 with im-
pressive unanimity. Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Hessians
and Badeners had fought as fiercely as Prussian, Saxon, or
Hanoverian. Bismarck at Headquarters, watching with
anxiety the effect of the victories on the opinion of the
south, was rapidly convinced that the mould of unification
could be filled at once from the molten national passion
and the pride of victory. Postponement until after the
war would bring the inevitable reaction, stiffen the stiff
neck of Particularism, give Liberalism time to organise its
forces, and confront the empire-builder with the justice
of satisfying the national demand for a real unity and
responsible parliamentary institutions.
Behind the military front and in Germany every one was
thinking and talking about unification. The National
Liberals in the Reichstag discussed the idea of an address
requesting the King of Prussia to proclaim the Empire, in
the reconstitution of which a constituent Parliament
would subsequently play the decisive part. Two con-
versations in September with the Crown Prince revealed
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BISMARCK
that the heir to the throne was working for the resur-
rection of the Imperial Crown and an Empire with an
Upper House of Princes, and a Lower representative
chamber with an imperial ministry and executive respon-
sible to the Reichstag. The North German confederation
was strong enough, the Crown Prince held, to ' constrain'
the south, if it proved reluctant. The Crown Prince
voiced the ideals of moderate National Liberalism. On
the other hand, the King saw no need of any constitution-
making. The Prussian Crown was more glorious than
any imperial one. All that was necessary was to tighten
up the military alliances with the south, and secure beyond
all question the prerogative of the Prussian Crown in
policy and the army. An extension of parliamentarism,
or the interference of the German peoples in imperial
politics, was a return to the deplorable precedent of '48.
William had drunk of the chalice of victory as well as. of the
chalice of popularity since 1862, and the military ' demi-
gods ' daily reminded him that but for the King's prescient
statesmanship in the constitutional conflict he and his
loyal Prussian army would not be at the gates of Paris.
The King, not Bismarck, the army, not the politicians,
were the authors of the unprecedented triumphs. If
there was to be a revision, it must be in favour of Prussia,
not in favour of parliamentary parties who would have
destroyed the Prussian army in 1862, and would destroy it
again, if given the power to do so. Bismarck rejected all
these ideas and methods. He was as firmly determined
not to have the Crown Prince's or the Liberals' solution,
as he was to take the settlement out of the hands of the
soldiers and to compel the King to accept the Empire and
the Imperial Crown. The national passion and demands
of Germany were a reality. They could be exploited to
drive through a Bismarckian solution. 'We must have a
contented Bavaria,' he asserted. But how to content
Bavaria, the king of which was more interested in Wagner
and the Decree of Papal Infallibility than in German uni-
fication, and who fled from politics to the enchantment of
his castles?
But if the establishment of a unified and Imperial
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 283
Germany was not to be taken out of Bismarck's hands
either by the military chiefs, the princes, or the popular
forces in Germany, and a direction given which would
Sermanently affect the final result, it was essential that
ismarck should get hold of the controlling levers at once.
Bismarck, absent in France, desired first to master the
facts and probe the situation, before committing himself.
He promptly dispatched the ablest of his lieutenants,
Delbruck, on a mission to the south. Delbriick justified
the Chancellor's confidence in his diplomatic ability and
firmness. In Berlin he first captured Bennigsen and the
National Liberals for unity through the existing Con-
federation, and in the south he persuaded Bray, Varnbuler,
and Dalwigk that modifications in that Confederation were
the best way of combining unity with concessions to
Munich and Stuttgart. Action on that line, satisfied
Bismarck. Concessions to Bavaria and Wurttemberg
could be combined with the Praesidium of Prussia, the
continuance of the Bundesrat, and an Empire controlled,
as the North German Confederation had been, by an un-
reformed Prussia. By accepting the basis of the existing
Confederation National Liberalism had in fact cut its
throat. In its eagerness' to promote unity, it was building
a tomb for itself in the constitution of the new Empire.
The next step was to persuade the south to follow the
Liberals and cut its throat also on the altar of patriotism.
The idea of a Congress of Princes broke down on the im-
possibility of securing the attendance of the King of
Bavaria. Instead of the princes, however, came their
governments, and by October 26 Bismarck was negotiating
with groups of ministers headed by Bray (Bavaria), Mitt-
nacht and Suckow (Wurttemberg), Jolly (Baden), and
Dalwigk (Hesse). Once the governments consented to
negotiate at Versailles it was not difficult to deal with them
separately, and play one off against the other. The strong
unitarianism of Baden was a useful argument. True, the
web of diplomacy was broken by the King of Wurttem-
berg's brusque reversal of a provisional agreement. Bis-
marck replied by concluding terms separately with Baden
and Hesse (November 15); he isolated Wurttemberg by
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BISMARCK
a special convention (November 23) with Bavaria embody-
ing definite concessions to Bavarian particularism--' the
free and independent administration ' of the kingdom, the
retention of a separate postal service, the exclusion of the
Bavarian army, in time of peace, from Federal control, and
the presidency of a new Foreign Affairs Committee of the
Bundesrat in which Prussia was not represented. Bavaria
thus mollified with this tribute, illusory in fact, but im-
pressive on paper, to its pride and importance, agreed to
enter a Confederation, rebuilt on the Constitution of 1867.
Bismarck was triumphant. 'Unity is made,' he exclaimed,
'and the Emperor also. ' Wiirttemberg could now only
hasten to adhere (November 25), but without obtaining
the special privileges of Bavaria. King Charles's vacil-
lating obstinacy had simply prevented his ministers from
exacting the price for agreement that could have been
gained a month earlier. 1
The several conventions were submitted to the respec-
tive legislatures for ratification. Both in the Reichstag of
the north and the Parliaments at Stuttgart and Munich
opposition to the terms was certain: in the Reichstag
because they diminished the unity demanded by the
National Liberals; in the south because they conceded too
much to Prussian supremacy. But Bismarck held the
critics of both camps in an insoluble dilemma. Amend-
ment or rejection would imperil the diplomatic contracts
and postpone indefinitely a true unification. The con-
ventions concluded at Versailles were not ideal, but they
were the best obtainable. The Reichstag was accordingly
menaced with larger concessions to southern particularism;
the south was warned that in a fresh negotiation the north
would insist on far more stringent conditions. A delay
of six months would imperil unification and perhaps ruin
1 The evidence that Bismarck used the secret papers from Cerc. ay--captured
by the Germans--to compel the Southern States to accept the Prussian terms, as
alleged by Ruville and others, is not convincing. Such a method of political
blackmail was quite in accordance with Bismarckian methods ; but we do not
know the full contents of the papers, nor how far they were genuine. In the
absence of more proof than has been so far vouchsafed, it is improbable that
the Southern States had seriously negotiated with France in 1867-1870, or that
the Cercay papers contained matter which Bray and others were afraid to see
published.
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 285
the treaty of peace with France. Delbriick's ability in
securing from the National Liberals and the south the
Constitution of 1867 as the basis of the new organisation
had disarmed National Liberalism completely. It could
now achieve its programme only by ruining an immediate
unification. The National Liberal leaders consoled them-
selves with the argument that unification would prove its
own reward. 'The lady,' Lasker said, 'is very ugly, but
we shall marry her for all that. ' The-future was to show
whether National Liberalism was justified in the Empire
it had accepted but not made.
Bismarck had still two sovereigns to convince--the King
of Bavaria and the King of Prussia. The latter he left to
the last. William was to enjoy the fate of Ulysses in the
cave of Polyphemus. But, acting on a happy suggestion,
Bismarck persuaded the King of Bavaria to write to the
King of Prussia, inviting him in the name of the German
Princes to take the Imperial Crown and exercise as
Emperor his Praesidial rights in the Confederation. On
December 1, at Schloss Hohenschwangau, King Louis in
bed and suffering from toothache, copied from Bismarck's
draft the formal request; and to prevent any slips the
letter was dispatched hot-haste by special messenger to
Versailles, and read to the King of Prussia on December 2.
William proclaimed it to be ' as inopportune as possible,'
and was very ' morose,' as was noted by the Crown Prince
in his Diary: 'As we left the room Bismarck and I shook
hands,' added the diarist; 'with to-day Kaiser and Reich
are irrevocably restored; the interregnum of sixty-five
years (i. e. since 1804), the Kaiserless, terrible time is past;
this glorious title is a guarantee. ' Bismarck could cordially
shake hands. If the door had shut on a King of Prussia,
indignant at being invited to convert himself into a
German Emperor, it had shut even more decisively on the
Liberal Empire of which the Crown Prince, the illuminated
princelets of the Coburg group, and the intellectuals of
Gotha had dreamed so ineffectually. William's fears
were unfounded. Prussia was not about to be dissolved
in Germany. Nor was the Prussian King to cease to be
War-Lord of the German nation in arms. It was a Prussia,
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BISMARCK
more Prussian than William himself, that was about to
absorb Germany.
King Louis' letter drove home the argument for rati-
fying the conventions. The Reichstag accepted (Decem-
ber 9), and the other legislatures followed suit; Bavaria,
true to its independence, deferring the decision beyond the
day fixed in the Convention (January 1). The finishing
touch was a visit to Versailles by a delegation from the
Reichstag (December 16) to expound the popular demand
for an Imperial Crown. Simson, the President, twenty-
one years before, in 1849, had headed a similar deputation
from the National Parliament at Frankfurt to Frederick
William iv. ; but, as M. Matter neatly puts it, 'Entre
1849 et 1870, Bismarck, Roon et Moltke avaient passe. '
William boldly told the parliamentarians that the valid
authority for conferring an Imperial Crown was not the
Reichstag, ' but the German Princes and the Free Cities. '
The implication that the Reichstag's function was simply
to confirm decisions, made elsewhere, was true in fact. It
was indeed the basis of the Empire which the Reichstag had
agreed to accept. To the King, to the military chiefs, to
'the unemployed princes who made " the second step " at
the H6tel des Reservoirs,' and to Bismarck himself, the
Thirty Delegates were either interlopers or superfluous.
They could ratify, but they could not originate; they
could praise famous men but they could not bestow Im-
perial Crowns. The dispensations of Providence stopped
at the threshold of the Throne. They did not extend to
the representatives of the nation. The deputies made
known their wishes, and were treated very frigidly by the
King, more warmly by the Crown Prince, and with cavalier
militarism by the soldier-chiefs. Bismarck was as' morose'
as his sovereign, and ' The Thirty' returned to Germany
effusive in their admiration for the King of Prussia!
For three weeks Bismarck wrestled with his obstinate
sovereign. 'What have I to do with this honorary
title ? (Character-major /),' William demanded sulkily. On
January 17, when the final details of the coming ceremony
were settled, he was so angry that he turned his back on
those present and, like a spoiled child, stared out of the
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 287
window until the business was settled. 'His reluctance,'
Bismarck wrote later,' was not unconnected with the desire
to obtain an acknowledgment rather of the superior re-
spectability of the hereditary Prussian Crown than of the
Imperial Title. ' William indeed was so ' morose ' that he
wrote to the Queen, saying that' he very nearly abdicated
and handed over everything to Fritz! ' An Empire and
an Emperor required an Imperial Chancellor. Bismarck
consented to accept the title and the office. 'They will
put me in very bad company,' he said,' for they will turn
me into a Beust! '
The final ceremony of January 18, 1871, in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles--the anniversary of the assumption
of the royal crown by the Electors of Brandenburg at
Konigsberg in 1701--proclaimed to the world the birth
of a new State. The guns that salute the births of heirs
to royal thrones added their welcome--they were the guns
forcing capitulation on the beleaguered and starving Paris.
The German Empire and German unity had their foun-
dations laid in the defeat, dismemberment, and impotence
of France.
It is commonly said that the Empire was not the creation
of the German people, but of the German princes. For-
mally this is true: but the amended and expanded consti-
tution of the North German Confederation was not the
work of the princes. It was not the Empire desired, either
by the King of Prussia, or the soldier-chiefs, or the dynasties.
The compelling force to unity came from the heart and
labours of the German people, and the princes who crowded
the dais on January 18 were the last to be converted--a
Mahometan conversion in truth by the sword of the King
of Prussia and his prophet, Bismarck. The structure,
character, principles, and purpose of the new imperial
polity and the new Federal Imperial State were the work of
one man--Bismarck. Delbriick's services cannot be exag-
gerated, but he was a superb instrument, not a creator.
The statesman who had defeated alike the dynasties and
the Liberals, the Unitarians and the Particularists, the
soldiers and the professors, was the new Imperial Chan-
cellor.
'His Majesty,' Bismarck wrote in his Memoirs,
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BISMARCK
'was so offended at the course I had adopted that, on de-
scending from the raised dais of the princes, he ignored me
as I stood alone upon the free space before it, and passed
me by in order to shake hands with the generals standing
behind me. ' 'Standing alone '--Bismarck since 1852 had
so often stood alone--in the presence of his sovereign and
Germany, but he had always ended by bending men and
affairs to his relentless will. And never so completely as
on January 18, 1871.
On March 21 the Emperor William expressed the
verdict of Germany and Europe when he raised Count
Bismarck to the title and status of a Prince in the Empire
that he had made.
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? CHAPTER VI
THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR, 1871-1890
? I. The Empire, the System, and the Chancellor, 1871-1878
The seven months from July 1870 to January 1871 regis-
tered five events of capital importance: the Declaration of
Papal Infallibility (July 18), the virtual establishment of the
Third Republic in France (September 4), the unification
of Italy by the entry of the Italian troops into Rome
(September 20), the fall of the Temporal Power of the
Papacy, and the establishment of the unified German
Empire (January 18, 1871). Of these five the two most
momentous in their wide-world significance were the
Declaration of Papal Infallibility and the abolition of the
Temporal Power of the Papacy.
With January 18, 1871, secular Europe entered on the
age of Bismarck. 'Germany in the Age of Bismarck ' was
transformed into 'Europe in the Age of Bismarck,' the
Imperial Chancellor of the new German Empire. From
1871 to 1890 Bismarck was the transcendent figure in Euro-
pean politics, with an influence akin to, but far surpassing,
the ascendency of Metternich from 1815 to 1848. Metter-
nich had equals and rivals who contested his supremacy
and defeated his policy--Castlereagh, Canning, Palmerston,
Nicholas 1. Bismarck did not meet a British Canning nor
a Russian Nicholas. Lord Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill),
who weighed his words, wrote from Berlin in 1880: 'At
St. Petersburg Bismarck's word is gospel, as well as at Paris
and Rome, where his sayings inspire respect, and his silences
apprehension. ' And Lord Odo might have said the same
with equal truth of Vienna, Madrid, and Constantinople.
In 1872 Lord Odo had informed our Foreign Office that
Bismarck's policy was 'the supremacy of Germany in
B. T
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BISMARCK
Europe and of the German race in the world. ' When
Bismarck fell in 1890 the author and upholder of a definite
political system ended his career. Every one asked the
question: Could the system continue without a Bismarck?
Was a new system about to take its place, and, if so, what?
Two broad conditions after 1871 materially assisted
Bismarck's policy and German supremacy--the weakness
and disorganisation of most of the European States, and
the character of the Germany of which he was the Chan-
cellor. Although her recovery from the collapse of 1870
was astonishingly rapid, France had not securely found her-
self when Bismarck fell; and her internal history during
his chancellorship is a chronicle of crises, from the struggle
with the Commune to the suicide of Boulanger on the
grave of his mistress at Brussels (1891). These were sur-
mounted, it is true, but with great difficulty. The Dual
Empire of Austria-Hungary was a continuous prey to the
complications that had produced the Compromise of 1867,
and the consequences of that very provisional settlement.
Russia was swayed successively by the ideas underlying the
reform policy of Alexander n. , a reversion to the absolutism
of Nicholas 1. , Pan-Slavism, the rise of Nihilism, and the
conflicting claims of the Near and the Far East. The
closer that Russian policy, within or without the Empire,
in this epoch is studied, the stronger stands out the lack
of continuity and of insight, due to undeveloped resources,
administrative disorganisation, internal and immature fer-
mentation, and contradictory conceptions and indecision in
the successive directors of the autocracy. Italy, ambitious
to be a Great Power at a stroke, but forgetting that though
salvation could not come without unification, it would not
come by unification alone, wrestled ceaselessly with
poverty, and the terrible consequences, moral, political,
and intellectual, of three centuries of denationalisation and
misgovernment. And Italy suffered more than any other
European State from the inevitable opposition that the
Quirinal found in the Vatican.
Yet Italy, like France, was slowly finding herself, as she
groped her way through the valleys of disillusionment and
indecision. Spain was in no position to mark out an
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
independent orbit of policy, and the gravitation of Madrid
to the German system, which would have been accelerated
had Leopold of Hohenzollern crossed the Pyrenees in 1870,
was steadily accentuated between 1870 and 1890. The
Ottoman Empire and the Balkans were the Ottoman
Empire and the Balkans, and they provided in the evolution
of things many opportunities that Bismarck seized with a
cautious but relentless grip.
The one exception to the continental States was Great
Britain. Men of British speech analysing their politics
with a microscope, and forgetting the telescope and per-
spective so essential to sane and long views, are prone to
discover in these twenty years of British development
from 1870 to 1890 either nothing but the repellent scuffle
of parochial parties or an expansion of imperialism in
which the insular record is an irritating blot. The critical
function of history, however, like the critical function of
literature, is not summed up in the scheduling and auditing
of mistakes. Mistakes there were in plenty, but the connec-
tion between the external' expansion of England ' and the
internal development was intimate, vital, and decisive.
The Empire that was being expanded and consolidated
after 1870 rested securely, but not without many violent
controversies, within and without the island, on responsible
representative self-government for the heart of the system:
and from that heart it could radiate in time slowly and
surely to every part. It might well have been otherwise.
There were not lacking influential voices within, respond-
ing to the powerful influences without, that demanded a
different course leading to a very different result. Great
Britain did not altogether escape the hypnotism of Bis-
marckian Europe. But the broad fact remains that she
deliberately continued to toil up the steep and stony stairs
of representative self-government. Though she did not
recognise the full significance at the time, Great Britain
preserved and strengthened a polity, an ideal, and an
Imperial State that were the antithesis in every respect
of the German Empire. They were also the negation of
the ultimate efficacy and value of German principles.
Great Britain in the nineteenth, thus accomplished a
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BISMARCK
work no less momentous than her achievement in the
seventeenth, century. From 1603 to 1688 she cut herself
adrift from the tremendous swing of tendencies on the
Continent. From 1870 onwards she refused to surrender
or betray the principles which had given her a unique
position. The implicit antagonism of the "British State
to the monarchies of the Continent runs like a red thread
through the diplomacy of Bismarck. Bismarck recognised
the danger, but failed to exorcise or destroy it.
In comparison with Russia, France, Italy, Austria-
Hungary, and Spain, and despite the severity of her in-
ternal struggles, Germany revealed a continuity of foreign
policy clean-cut and self-conscious alike in principles and
methods, together with an executive and an administrative
stability, which contributed enormously to the riveting
of a German supremacy on the Continent. The con-
tinuity and stability were not wholly due to Bismarck.
The military, which preceded the political, ascendency of
Prussia was laid on the granite, hewn and dressed by the
German mind and German science. Bismarck had for
his instrument in completing the political supremacy,
which came last, a nation convinced that national like
individual success must be won by sacrifice and self-
discipline. We may both detest and admire the achieve-
ment of Germany, but it is only ignorance that fails to
recognise the solidity of work on which German ascend-
ency was based, and the futility of impeaching it except
by a superiority in toil, concentrated purpose, and sacrifice.
In 1871 the grand lines of German unification and a new
State-system, adjusted to the supremacy of a German
Central Europe, were roughly made, but the mould required
to be filled and adapted to use. Time and peace were the
two essential requirements, which the Chancellor must
provide. Foreign policy could provide peace--home
policy must see that the time was fully employed. When
Bismarck described himself as a Friedensfanatiker--a
fanatic for peace--he was not so far wrong. But it was
not peace in and for itself that Bismarck valued; it was
peace imposed by the armed strength of the Empire, a peace
by which Germany would develop every quality and char-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 293
acteristic that established the State as Power, carrying out
a policy the criterion of which was superiority in force.
Between 1870 and 1890 Bismarck was not converted to the
beauty and rationality of pacificism. Quite the contrary.
The last of his great speeches, February 6, 1888, was a pas-
sionate plea for an invincible German army as the arbiter
in international disputes; his theory of international
relations assumed that fear, greed, and jealousy were the
main motives of international life, and that a sharp sword
was the true weapon of policy; and the whole argument
was a coda built up from the leading themes that his state-
craft had continuously exemplified since 1862.
Bismarck returned to Berlin on March 9, and took part
on June 16 in the triumphal entry of the victorious army.
Between March 7 and May 10 the Chancellor's main task
had been to translate the Preliminaries of Versailles into
the definitive Treaty of Frankfurt. On March 21 the
Emperor had opened in state the first Reichstag of United
Germany, to which the new Constitution was submitted.
Bismarck might affect indifference whether the titles of
Empire (Reich) or League {Bund) was to be assigned to the
new polity, but at Versailles he had correctly maintained
that the imperial title ' made for unity and centralisation,'
and that' in" the term Praesidium lay an abstraction, in the
word "Emperor" a powerful coercive force'--and the
sequel proved that he was right. Exception was taken in
debate, more particularly to four points: the concessions
to Bavaria emphasized by the militarists; the virtual veto
vested in Prussia (objected to by the Southern States), since
rejection by fourteen votes of the Federal Council vetoed all
changes in the Constitution, and Prussia had seventeen votes
out of a total of fifty-eight; the futility of the new Com-
mittee of the Bundesrat on Foreign Affairs (from which
Prussia was excluded); and the requirement that for any
but a 'defensive war' the consent of the Federal Council
must be added to the imperial declaration. The reply to
these criticisms was given in the Reichstag; the concessions
to Bavaria rested on a treaty ratified by Bavaria, and it was
too late at this stage to impugn its validity or its terms;
the military convention was more formal than real, since
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BISMARCK
the Bavarian army would be organised in peace on the
Prussian model and would pass under the imperial
supreme command in war; the Foreign Affairs Committee
was a decorative luxury (as a matter of fact it has only met
four times, in 1875,1879, 1900, and 1910, and its influence
on foreign policy has been absolutely nit); the negative
veto of Prussia was an inevitable tribute to her complete
predominance in Germany, based on her contribution to
the Empire of from one-half to two-thirds of the total
wealth, area, and population; and finally, it was argued
with delightful naivete and prescience that Germany
would never wage an 'offensive' war, since the Foreign
Office would always see to it that a war was, in name at
least, 'defensive. '
The incorporation of Alsace and Lorraine provided an
interesting problem. The anti-German feeling of the
population foreshadowed years of hostility and alienation;
for, whatever ardent German historians and publicists
wrote about the essentially German character of the
annexed provinces, no one in Germany was ignorant that
a plebiscite would have resulted in an oveiwhelrning
majority against the forcible dismemberment from France
and annexation to Germany. 'French we are,' said the
Alsatians and Lorrainers in the Assembly of Bordeaux,
'and French we will remain. ' Treitschke spoke for
German Nationalism when he asserted that' we Germans
know better what is good for Alsace than the unhappy
people themselves . . . we will give them back their
identity against their will . . . we invoke the men of the
past against the present. ' But how was incorporation to
be carried out? Annexation to Prussia would have stirred
fierce jealousy, and would have planted Prussia on the
flank of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and Baden. Annexation
to any others of the federated States was open to grave
and obvious objections. The military chiefs and Bismarck
were united in fearing the tenderer heart of the south in
dealing with ' the unhappy people. ' It was dangerous to
split the annexed provinces and divide them amongst the
frontier States which might subsequently compete in the
severity of their coercion or the lenity of their humanity.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 295
The method of 'giving the Alsatians back their lost
identity' was therefore found in constituting the two
provinces an Imperial Territory (Reichsland), placed, until
January I, 1874, under an administrative dictatorship,
confided to the Emperor, whose legislative power was to
be exercised with the assent of the Federal Council. At
that date the Lorrainers and Alsatians were to receive
such a degree of 'forced freedom' as they merited or
circumstances justified.
This solution of the problem satisfied Bismarck, for it
was practically his own. Alsace and Lorraine under Prus-
sian administration were safe, and the treatment meted
out would be more a matter of policy than of justice, or
the ' English cant term ' of ' humanity ' and ' civilisation. '
The Reichsland would be a convenient whipping-boy for
the future delinquencies of France. The strategic value of
the annexation justified a multitude of administrative sins to
come. The Prussian staff accordingly set to work at once
to construct strategic railways and fortifications based on
Metz; -it contemplated a future invasion, pivoting on
the fortress won by Bazaine's military incompetence and
political treachery; and Metz as the crow flies is only one
hundred and sixty miles from Paris. The retention of an
unwilling Alsace and Lorraine was an irrefragable argu-
ment for keeping the new Empire armed to the teeth.
The use that Bismarck made of a French war of revenge
after 1871 is one of the most instructive episodes in his
policy; for when French feeling flagged, if German
policy required it, he invariably lashed French patriotism
into frontier incidents by a dose of severity to the
Reichsland.
Most Germans in 1871 undoubtedly believed that a few
years of German rule would make Alsace and Lorraine as con-
tented as Bavaria. The widespread belief in the magic of
their culture was so strong that, when the magic completely
failed, they could only explain the failure by the assump-
tion that the Latin, like the Polish race, was cursed with
a treble dose of original sin. If it be true that anything
can be done with bayonets except to sit on them, it is no
less true that the forcible imposition of an alien civilisation,
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BISMARCK
even if it be superior, can never succeed when the subjects
of the imposition can immunise themselves by anti-toxins
from an antagonistic and living civilisation at their doors.
The extirpation of France might in time have enabled a
purely German Alsace and Lorraine to grow up, as the
extirpation of Russian and Austrian Poland might have
Germanised the province of Posen. The magic of German
culture in Alsace and Lorraine was defeated by the
counter-magic from across the frontiers of a France that
after 1871 renewed the genius of the French mind in a
marvellous renaissance. Germany was placed in a dis-
agreeable dilemma. Justice to the annexed simply widened
the door by which French influence entered; injustice
strengthened the hold of the old allegiance.
Bismarck, probably, never entertained the illusions of
many of his nobler compatriots. He had not annexed
Alsace and Lorraine to convert good Frenchmen into bad
Germans. He accepted the historic argument of an
'unredeemed Germany' because it was a force in Ger-
many that it was dangerous to ignore and useful to exploit.
Alsace and Lorraine were essential to complete the
unified Germany that was to make a Central Europe the
throne of German hegemony. Without Alsace and Lor-
raine the Rhine was not secure, nor was France reduced to
the subordination that German Centralism required. The
stubbornness of Alsace and Lorraine probably did not
surprise him; it certainly neither weakened nor strength-
ened his reasons for the policy he subsequently pursued.
Just as Prussian Poland was an absolute necessity to the
position of Germany in the east, so Alsace and Lorraine
were a consummation of Germany's position in the west.
And if the inhabitants of- both territories were so stiff-
necked as to refuse to recognise that Germany's necessities
were Germany's law of existence and justification, so much
the worse for them. The State that was Power could not,
without denying the validity of its own title-deeds, admit
the validity of the title-deeds pleaded by Alsatian or Pole.
Might preceded right, and national safety outweighed all
sentiment. 'You are not a people,' Bismarck told the
Polish deputies to the Reichstag of 1871, 'you do not
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 297
represent a people; you have not got a people behind you;
you have nothing behind you but your illusions and
fictions. ' The same reply was in substance given to the
Danes in Schleswig as to the Alsatians and Lorrainers. 1
The force of nationality was in Bismarck's eyes' an illusion
and a fiction' unless it was backed by a material power
strong enough to enforce its claims. German Nationalism
had produced 1848 and *i 870. French Nationalism had
failed to save Alsace, and would no less fail to recover it.
Another remark of Bismarck's (April 19) in the consti-
tutional debates summed up a very significant view: 'I
see,' he said,' in the Federal Council (Bundesrat) a kind of
palladium for our future, a grand guarantee for the future
of Germany. Do not touch it. ' The Reichstag was not
allowed to 'touch it. ' And the Imperial Constitution,
ratified by the Reichstag, was simply a replica of the Consti-
modifications as were required to admit the south, practi-
cally on the same terms that the Northern States had
accepted in 1867. With that constitution before us, and
Bismarck's continuous refusal to admit the slightest modi-
fication that would facilitate ministerial responsibility, it
is astonishing to read, on Lord Odo Russell's authority,
that ' on more than one occasion Prince Bismarck com-
plained (to the British ambassador) of his imperial master
for resisting the introduction of a system of administration
under a responsible Premier, as in England, which he,
Prince Bismarck, considered the best method of developing
the education of the Germans, and teaching them the art
of self-government. '--(Life of Lord Granville, ii.
history are only valuable as a help to an interpretation of
the actual. The thesis presupposes a wholly different
Bismarck, and a wholly different evolution of Germany
since 1815. Ranke's verdict that the war of 1870 was not
a war with Napoleon in. but with Louis xiv. was the
verdict of every German. There is every reason to
conclude that if the National Liberals had established
a constitutional monarchy and responsible parliamentary
government in 1866 they would have exacted from France
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BISMARCK
in 1871 terms as severe as those imposed by the prelimi-
naries of Versailles. Bismarck correctly maintained that
for the German armies or himself to return to an Imperial
Reichstag without Alsace and Lorraine was impossible.
The annexations were the 'liberation' of German terri-
tories wrested from a divided Empire in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and without them the new Empire
could not be made. It was not the terms, but the use
made of them, which differentiated Bismarck from the
National Liberals. With the exception of the tiny hand-
ful of Socialist Democrats, represented by the two votes
of Bebel and Liebknecht in the Reichstag, every German
man and woman believed that Sedan was the judgment
of God (Gottesgericht), and that but for God and the
German armies Napoleon would have come to Berlin,
annexed the left bank of the Rhine, broken up the North
German Confederation, reversed the verdict of 1866, and
thrown back German unification for a century, perhaps
for ever. Moreover, every German man and woman was
convinced in 1870 that to Teutonic civilisation, and not to
the decadent Latin races, belonged the future and the
trusteeship of the higher humanism. Renan's La R6-
forme intellectuelle et morale de la France and the two letters
to Strauss with their dignified exposition of the qualities
of the French mind and their subtle indictment of the
Teutonic Gospel of Nationalism were as unintelligible to
the German mind, as was their style unapproachable by
any German pen. 'Ce qui nous a manque, ce n'est pas
le cceur,' Renan summed up,' c'est la t? te. ' In the differ-
ence between Renan's Letters and Treitschke's pamphlet
What we require from France was concentrated the whole
bitter controversy.
It was easier to make peace than to make the Empire.
The Unitarians had to decide what was to be the form of
the new imperial organisation; how and by what procedure
it was to be brought about, and by whom? Was there to
be an Emperor (Kaiser), and if so of what? What was to
be the Empire (Reich)? Were the Southern States to be
invited to enter the North German Confederation, and on
what terms? or was the Northern Confederation to wait for
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 281
the request from the south? From whom was the initial
request to come, and to whom? How could Bavarian and
Wiirttemberg 'independence' be reconciled with the
Praesidium of Prussia and the unity of control in policy and
executive administration? Or was it desirable to scrap
the Constitution of 1867 and make a wholly new one,
federal or unitary? By whom was unification to be
made? By the King of Prussia direct on his own initiative,
or by the German princes in solemn congress, or by the
German peoples in a second constituent Parliament at
Frankfurt, Berlin, or even Versailles? Hard questions,
indeed. So contradictory were the various views of war-
ring parties in Germany, so sharp the clash of conflicting
ambitions at military headquarters, so inextricably inter-
twined were political principles with personal feeling and
petty intrigues, so entangled was the German problem
with the question of peace with France, that Roon in the
retirement where he mourned the death of his soldier
son felt that not even Bismarck would be able to thread
the labyrinth and reach daylight.
The south had swung into line on July 19 with im-
pressive unanimity. Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Hessians
and Badeners had fought as fiercely as Prussian, Saxon, or
Hanoverian. Bismarck at Headquarters, watching with
anxiety the effect of the victories on the opinion of the
south, was rapidly convinced that the mould of unification
could be filled at once from the molten national passion
and the pride of victory. Postponement until after the
war would bring the inevitable reaction, stiffen the stiff
neck of Particularism, give Liberalism time to organise its
forces, and confront the empire-builder with the justice
of satisfying the national demand for a real unity and
responsible parliamentary institutions.
Behind the military front and in Germany every one was
thinking and talking about unification. The National
Liberals in the Reichstag discussed the idea of an address
requesting the King of Prussia to proclaim the Empire, in
the reconstitution of which a constituent Parliament
would subsequently play the decisive part. Two con-
versations in September with the Crown Prince revealed
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BISMARCK
that the heir to the throne was working for the resur-
rection of the Imperial Crown and an Empire with an
Upper House of Princes, and a Lower representative
chamber with an imperial ministry and executive respon-
sible to the Reichstag. The North German confederation
was strong enough, the Crown Prince held, to ' constrain'
the south, if it proved reluctant. The Crown Prince
voiced the ideals of moderate National Liberalism. On
the other hand, the King saw no need of any constitution-
making. The Prussian Crown was more glorious than
any imperial one. All that was necessary was to tighten
up the military alliances with the south, and secure beyond
all question the prerogative of the Prussian Crown in
policy and the army. An extension of parliamentarism,
or the interference of the German peoples in imperial
politics, was a return to the deplorable precedent of '48.
William had drunk of the chalice of victory as well as. of the
chalice of popularity since 1862, and the military ' demi-
gods ' daily reminded him that but for the King's prescient
statesmanship in the constitutional conflict he and his
loyal Prussian army would not be at the gates of Paris.
The King, not Bismarck, the army, not the politicians,
were the authors of the unprecedented triumphs. If
there was to be a revision, it must be in favour of Prussia,
not in favour of parliamentary parties who would have
destroyed the Prussian army in 1862, and would destroy it
again, if given the power to do so. Bismarck rejected all
these ideas and methods. He was as firmly determined
not to have the Crown Prince's or the Liberals' solution,
as he was to take the settlement out of the hands of the
soldiers and to compel the King to accept the Empire and
the Imperial Crown. The national passion and demands
of Germany were a reality. They could be exploited to
drive through a Bismarckian solution. 'We must have a
contented Bavaria,' he asserted. But how to content
Bavaria, the king of which was more interested in Wagner
and the Decree of Papal Infallibility than in German uni-
fication, and who fled from politics to the enchantment of
his castles?
But if the establishment of a unified and Imperial
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 283
Germany was not to be taken out of Bismarck's hands
either by the military chiefs, the princes, or the popular
forces in Germany, and a direction given which would
Sermanently affect the final result, it was essential that
ismarck should get hold of the controlling levers at once.
Bismarck, absent in France, desired first to master the
facts and probe the situation, before committing himself.
He promptly dispatched the ablest of his lieutenants,
Delbruck, on a mission to the south. Delbriick justified
the Chancellor's confidence in his diplomatic ability and
firmness. In Berlin he first captured Bennigsen and the
National Liberals for unity through the existing Con-
federation, and in the south he persuaded Bray, Varnbuler,
and Dalwigk that modifications in that Confederation were
the best way of combining unity with concessions to
Munich and Stuttgart. Action on that line, satisfied
Bismarck. Concessions to Bavaria and Wurttemberg
could be combined with the Praesidium of Prussia, the
continuance of the Bundesrat, and an Empire controlled,
as the North German Confederation had been, by an un-
reformed Prussia. By accepting the basis of the existing
Confederation National Liberalism had in fact cut its
throat. In its eagerness' to promote unity, it was building
a tomb for itself in the constitution of the new Empire.
The next step was to persuade the south to follow the
Liberals and cut its throat also on the altar of patriotism.
The idea of a Congress of Princes broke down on the im-
possibility of securing the attendance of the King of
Bavaria. Instead of the princes, however, came their
governments, and by October 26 Bismarck was negotiating
with groups of ministers headed by Bray (Bavaria), Mitt-
nacht and Suckow (Wurttemberg), Jolly (Baden), and
Dalwigk (Hesse). Once the governments consented to
negotiate at Versailles it was not difficult to deal with them
separately, and play one off against the other. The strong
unitarianism of Baden was a useful argument. True, the
web of diplomacy was broken by the King of Wurttem-
berg's brusque reversal of a provisional agreement. Bis-
marck replied by concluding terms separately with Baden
and Hesse (November 15); he isolated Wurttemberg by
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BISMARCK
a special convention (November 23) with Bavaria embody-
ing definite concessions to Bavarian particularism--' the
free and independent administration ' of the kingdom, the
retention of a separate postal service, the exclusion of the
Bavarian army, in time of peace, from Federal control, and
the presidency of a new Foreign Affairs Committee of the
Bundesrat in which Prussia was not represented. Bavaria
thus mollified with this tribute, illusory in fact, but im-
pressive on paper, to its pride and importance, agreed to
enter a Confederation, rebuilt on the Constitution of 1867.
Bismarck was triumphant. 'Unity is made,' he exclaimed,
'and the Emperor also. ' Wiirttemberg could now only
hasten to adhere (November 25), but without obtaining
the special privileges of Bavaria. King Charles's vacil-
lating obstinacy had simply prevented his ministers from
exacting the price for agreement that could have been
gained a month earlier. 1
The several conventions were submitted to the respec-
tive legislatures for ratification. Both in the Reichstag of
the north and the Parliaments at Stuttgart and Munich
opposition to the terms was certain: in the Reichstag
because they diminished the unity demanded by the
National Liberals; in the south because they conceded too
much to Prussian supremacy. But Bismarck held the
critics of both camps in an insoluble dilemma. Amend-
ment or rejection would imperil the diplomatic contracts
and postpone indefinitely a true unification. The con-
ventions concluded at Versailles were not ideal, but they
were the best obtainable. The Reichstag was accordingly
menaced with larger concessions to southern particularism;
the south was warned that in a fresh negotiation the north
would insist on far more stringent conditions. A delay
of six months would imperil unification and perhaps ruin
1 The evidence that Bismarck used the secret papers from Cerc. ay--captured
by the Germans--to compel the Southern States to accept the Prussian terms, as
alleged by Ruville and others, is not convincing. Such a method of political
blackmail was quite in accordance with Bismarckian methods ; but we do not
know the full contents of the papers, nor how far they were genuine. In the
absence of more proof than has been so far vouchsafed, it is improbable that
the Southern States had seriously negotiated with France in 1867-1870, or that
the Cercay papers contained matter which Bray and others were afraid to see
published.
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 285
the treaty of peace with France. Delbriick's ability in
securing from the National Liberals and the south the
Constitution of 1867 as the basis of the new organisation
had disarmed National Liberalism completely. It could
now achieve its programme only by ruining an immediate
unification. The National Liberal leaders consoled them-
selves with the argument that unification would prove its
own reward. 'The lady,' Lasker said, 'is very ugly, but
we shall marry her for all that. ' The-future was to show
whether National Liberalism was justified in the Empire
it had accepted but not made.
Bismarck had still two sovereigns to convince--the King
of Bavaria and the King of Prussia. The latter he left to
the last. William was to enjoy the fate of Ulysses in the
cave of Polyphemus. But, acting on a happy suggestion,
Bismarck persuaded the King of Bavaria to write to the
King of Prussia, inviting him in the name of the German
Princes to take the Imperial Crown and exercise as
Emperor his Praesidial rights in the Confederation. On
December 1, at Schloss Hohenschwangau, King Louis in
bed and suffering from toothache, copied from Bismarck's
draft the formal request; and to prevent any slips the
letter was dispatched hot-haste by special messenger to
Versailles, and read to the King of Prussia on December 2.
William proclaimed it to be ' as inopportune as possible,'
and was very ' morose,' as was noted by the Crown Prince
in his Diary: 'As we left the room Bismarck and I shook
hands,' added the diarist; 'with to-day Kaiser and Reich
are irrevocably restored; the interregnum of sixty-five
years (i. e. since 1804), the Kaiserless, terrible time is past;
this glorious title is a guarantee. ' Bismarck could cordially
shake hands. If the door had shut on a King of Prussia,
indignant at being invited to convert himself into a
German Emperor, it had shut even more decisively on the
Liberal Empire of which the Crown Prince, the illuminated
princelets of the Coburg group, and the intellectuals of
Gotha had dreamed so ineffectually. William's fears
were unfounded. Prussia was not about to be dissolved
in Germany. Nor was the Prussian King to cease to be
War-Lord of the German nation in arms. It was a Prussia,
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BISMARCK
more Prussian than William himself, that was about to
absorb Germany.
King Louis' letter drove home the argument for rati-
fying the conventions. The Reichstag accepted (Decem-
ber 9), and the other legislatures followed suit; Bavaria,
true to its independence, deferring the decision beyond the
day fixed in the Convention (January 1). The finishing
touch was a visit to Versailles by a delegation from the
Reichstag (December 16) to expound the popular demand
for an Imperial Crown. Simson, the President, twenty-
one years before, in 1849, had headed a similar deputation
from the National Parliament at Frankfurt to Frederick
William iv. ; but, as M. Matter neatly puts it, 'Entre
1849 et 1870, Bismarck, Roon et Moltke avaient passe. '
William boldly told the parliamentarians that the valid
authority for conferring an Imperial Crown was not the
Reichstag, ' but the German Princes and the Free Cities. '
The implication that the Reichstag's function was simply
to confirm decisions, made elsewhere, was true in fact. It
was indeed the basis of the Empire which the Reichstag had
agreed to accept. To the King, to the military chiefs, to
'the unemployed princes who made " the second step " at
the H6tel des Reservoirs,' and to Bismarck himself, the
Thirty Delegates were either interlopers or superfluous.
They could ratify, but they could not originate; they
could praise famous men but they could not bestow Im-
perial Crowns. The dispensations of Providence stopped
at the threshold of the Throne. They did not extend to
the representatives of the nation. The deputies made
known their wishes, and were treated very frigidly by the
King, more warmly by the Crown Prince, and with cavalier
militarism by the soldier-chiefs. Bismarck was as' morose'
as his sovereign, and ' The Thirty' returned to Germany
effusive in their admiration for the King of Prussia!
For three weeks Bismarck wrestled with his obstinate
sovereign. 'What have I to do with this honorary
title ? (Character-major /),' William demanded sulkily. On
January 17, when the final details of the coming ceremony
were settled, he was so angry that he turned his back on
those present and, like a spoiled child, stared out of the
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? NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 287
window until the business was settled. 'His reluctance,'
Bismarck wrote later,' was not unconnected with the desire
to obtain an acknowledgment rather of the superior re-
spectability of the hereditary Prussian Crown than of the
Imperial Title. ' William indeed was so ' morose ' that he
wrote to the Queen, saying that' he very nearly abdicated
and handed over everything to Fritz! ' An Empire and
an Emperor required an Imperial Chancellor. Bismarck
consented to accept the title and the office. 'They will
put me in very bad company,' he said,' for they will turn
me into a Beust! '
The final ceremony of January 18, 1871, in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles--the anniversary of the assumption
of the royal crown by the Electors of Brandenburg at
Konigsberg in 1701--proclaimed to the world the birth
of a new State. The guns that salute the births of heirs
to royal thrones added their welcome--they were the guns
forcing capitulation on the beleaguered and starving Paris.
The German Empire and German unity had their foun-
dations laid in the defeat, dismemberment, and impotence
of France.
It is commonly said that the Empire was not the creation
of the German people, but of the German princes. For-
mally this is true: but the amended and expanded consti-
tution of the North German Confederation was not the
work of the princes. It was not the Empire desired, either
by the King of Prussia, or the soldier-chiefs, or the dynasties.
The compelling force to unity came from the heart and
labours of the German people, and the princes who crowded
the dais on January 18 were the last to be converted--a
Mahometan conversion in truth by the sword of the King
of Prussia and his prophet, Bismarck. The structure,
character, principles, and purpose of the new imperial
polity and the new Federal Imperial State were the work of
one man--Bismarck. Delbriick's services cannot be exag-
gerated, but he was a superb instrument, not a creator.
The statesman who had defeated alike the dynasties and
the Liberals, the Unitarians and the Particularists, the
soldiers and the professors, was the new Imperial Chan-
cellor.
'His Majesty,' Bismarck wrote in his Memoirs,
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BISMARCK
'was so offended at the course I had adopted that, on de-
scending from the raised dais of the princes, he ignored me
as I stood alone upon the free space before it, and passed
me by in order to shake hands with the generals standing
behind me. ' 'Standing alone '--Bismarck since 1852 had
so often stood alone--in the presence of his sovereign and
Germany, but he had always ended by bending men and
affairs to his relentless will. And never so completely as
on January 18, 1871.
On March 21 the Emperor William expressed the
verdict of Germany and Europe when he raised Count
Bismarck to the title and status of a Prince in the Empire
that he had made.
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? CHAPTER VI
THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR, 1871-1890
? I. The Empire, the System, and the Chancellor, 1871-1878
The seven months from July 1870 to January 1871 regis-
tered five events of capital importance: the Declaration of
Papal Infallibility (July 18), the virtual establishment of the
Third Republic in France (September 4), the unification
of Italy by the entry of the Italian troops into Rome
(September 20), the fall of the Temporal Power of the
Papacy, and the establishment of the unified German
Empire (January 18, 1871). Of these five the two most
momentous in their wide-world significance were the
Declaration of Papal Infallibility and the abolition of the
Temporal Power of the Papacy.
With January 18, 1871, secular Europe entered on the
age of Bismarck. 'Germany in the Age of Bismarck ' was
transformed into 'Europe in the Age of Bismarck,' the
Imperial Chancellor of the new German Empire. From
1871 to 1890 Bismarck was the transcendent figure in Euro-
pean politics, with an influence akin to, but far surpassing,
the ascendency of Metternich from 1815 to 1848. Metter-
nich had equals and rivals who contested his supremacy
and defeated his policy--Castlereagh, Canning, Palmerston,
Nicholas 1. Bismarck did not meet a British Canning nor
a Russian Nicholas. Lord Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill),
who weighed his words, wrote from Berlin in 1880: 'At
St. Petersburg Bismarck's word is gospel, as well as at Paris
and Rome, where his sayings inspire respect, and his silences
apprehension. ' And Lord Odo might have said the same
with equal truth of Vienna, Madrid, and Constantinople.
In 1872 Lord Odo had informed our Foreign Office that
Bismarck's policy was 'the supremacy of Germany in
B. T
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Europe and of the German race in the world. ' When
Bismarck fell in 1890 the author and upholder of a definite
political system ended his career. Every one asked the
question: Could the system continue without a Bismarck?
Was a new system about to take its place, and, if so, what?
Two broad conditions after 1871 materially assisted
Bismarck's policy and German supremacy--the weakness
and disorganisation of most of the European States, and
the character of the Germany of which he was the Chan-
cellor. Although her recovery from the collapse of 1870
was astonishingly rapid, France had not securely found her-
self when Bismarck fell; and her internal history during
his chancellorship is a chronicle of crises, from the struggle
with the Commune to the suicide of Boulanger on the
grave of his mistress at Brussels (1891). These were sur-
mounted, it is true, but with great difficulty. The Dual
Empire of Austria-Hungary was a continuous prey to the
complications that had produced the Compromise of 1867,
and the consequences of that very provisional settlement.
Russia was swayed successively by the ideas underlying the
reform policy of Alexander n. , a reversion to the absolutism
of Nicholas 1. , Pan-Slavism, the rise of Nihilism, and the
conflicting claims of the Near and the Far East. The
closer that Russian policy, within or without the Empire,
in this epoch is studied, the stronger stands out the lack
of continuity and of insight, due to undeveloped resources,
administrative disorganisation, internal and immature fer-
mentation, and contradictory conceptions and indecision in
the successive directors of the autocracy. Italy, ambitious
to be a Great Power at a stroke, but forgetting that though
salvation could not come without unification, it would not
come by unification alone, wrestled ceaselessly with
poverty, and the terrible consequences, moral, political,
and intellectual, of three centuries of denationalisation and
misgovernment. And Italy suffered more than any other
European State from the inevitable opposition that the
Quirinal found in the Vatican.
Yet Italy, like France, was slowly finding herself, as she
groped her way through the valleys of disillusionment and
indecision. Spain was in no position to mark out an
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
independent orbit of policy, and the gravitation of Madrid
to the German system, which would have been accelerated
had Leopold of Hohenzollern crossed the Pyrenees in 1870,
was steadily accentuated between 1870 and 1890. The
Ottoman Empire and the Balkans were the Ottoman
Empire and the Balkans, and they provided in the evolution
of things many opportunities that Bismarck seized with a
cautious but relentless grip.
The one exception to the continental States was Great
Britain. Men of British speech analysing their politics
with a microscope, and forgetting the telescope and per-
spective so essential to sane and long views, are prone to
discover in these twenty years of British development
from 1870 to 1890 either nothing but the repellent scuffle
of parochial parties or an expansion of imperialism in
which the insular record is an irritating blot. The critical
function of history, however, like the critical function of
literature, is not summed up in the scheduling and auditing
of mistakes. Mistakes there were in plenty, but the connec-
tion between the external' expansion of England ' and the
internal development was intimate, vital, and decisive.
The Empire that was being expanded and consolidated
after 1870 rested securely, but not without many violent
controversies, within and without the island, on responsible
representative self-government for the heart of the system:
and from that heart it could radiate in time slowly and
surely to every part. It might well have been otherwise.
There were not lacking influential voices within, respond-
ing to the powerful influences without, that demanded a
different course leading to a very different result. Great
Britain did not altogether escape the hypnotism of Bis-
marckian Europe. But the broad fact remains that she
deliberately continued to toil up the steep and stony stairs
of representative self-government. Though she did not
recognise the full significance at the time, Great Britain
preserved and strengthened a polity, an ideal, and an
Imperial State that were the antithesis in every respect
of the German Empire. They were also the negation of
the ultimate efficacy and value of German principles.
Great Britain in the nineteenth, thus accomplished a
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BISMARCK
work no less momentous than her achievement in the
seventeenth, century. From 1603 to 1688 she cut herself
adrift from the tremendous swing of tendencies on the
Continent. From 1870 onwards she refused to surrender
or betray the principles which had given her a unique
position. The implicit antagonism of the "British State
to the monarchies of the Continent runs like a red thread
through the diplomacy of Bismarck. Bismarck recognised
the danger, but failed to exorcise or destroy it.
In comparison with Russia, France, Italy, Austria-
Hungary, and Spain, and despite the severity of her in-
ternal struggles, Germany revealed a continuity of foreign
policy clean-cut and self-conscious alike in principles and
methods, together with an executive and an administrative
stability, which contributed enormously to the riveting
of a German supremacy on the Continent. The con-
tinuity and stability were not wholly due to Bismarck.
The military, which preceded the political, ascendency of
Prussia was laid on the granite, hewn and dressed by the
German mind and German science. Bismarck had for
his instrument in completing the political supremacy,
which came last, a nation convinced that national like
individual success must be won by sacrifice and self-
discipline. We may both detest and admire the achieve-
ment of Germany, but it is only ignorance that fails to
recognise the solidity of work on which German ascend-
ency was based, and the futility of impeaching it except
by a superiority in toil, concentrated purpose, and sacrifice.
In 1871 the grand lines of German unification and a new
State-system, adjusted to the supremacy of a German
Central Europe, were roughly made, but the mould required
to be filled and adapted to use. Time and peace were the
two essential requirements, which the Chancellor must
provide. Foreign policy could provide peace--home
policy must see that the time was fully employed. When
Bismarck described himself as a Friedensfanatiker--a
fanatic for peace--he was not so far wrong. But it was
not peace in and for itself that Bismarck valued; it was
peace imposed by the armed strength of the Empire, a peace
by which Germany would develop every quality and char-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 293
acteristic that established the State as Power, carrying out
a policy the criterion of which was superiority in force.
Between 1870 and 1890 Bismarck was not converted to the
beauty and rationality of pacificism. Quite the contrary.
The last of his great speeches, February 6, 1888, was a pas-
sionate plea for an invincible German army as the arbiter
in international disputes; his theory of international
relations assumed that fear, greed, and jealousy were the
main motives of international life, and that a sharp sword
was the true weapon of policy; and the whole argument
was a coda built up from the leading themes that his state-
craft had continuously exemplified since 1862.
Bismarck returned to Berlin on March 9, and took part
on June 16 in the triumphal entry of the victorious army.
Between March 7 and May 10 the Chancellor's main task
had been to translate the Preliminaries of Versailles into
the definitive Treaty of Frankfurt. On March 21 the
Emperor had opened in state the first Reichstag of United
Germany, to which the new Constitution was submitted.
Bismarck might affect indifference whether the titles of
Empire (Reich) or League {Bund) was to be assigned to the
new polity, but at Versailles he had correctly maintained
that the imperial title ' made for unity and centralisation,'
and that' in" the term Praesidium lay an abstraction, in the
word "Emperor" a powerful coercive force'--and the
sequel proved that he was right. Exception was taken in
debate, more particularly to four points: the concessions
to Bavaria emphasized by the militarists; the virtual veto
vested in Prussia (objected to by the Southern States), since
rejection by fourteen votes of the Federal Council vetoed all
changes in the Constitution, and Prussia had seventeen votes
out of a total of fifty-eight; the futility of the new Com-
mittee of the Bundesrat on Foreign Affairs (from which
Prussia was excluded); and the requirement that for any
but a 'defensive war' the consent of the Federal Council
must be added to the imperial declaration. The reply to
these criticisms was given in the Reichstag; the concessions
to Bavaria rested on a treaty ratified by Bavaria, and it was
too late at this stage to impugn its validity or its terms;
the military convention was more formal than real, since
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? *94
BISMARCK
the Bavarian army would be organised in peace on the
Prussian model and would pass under the imperial
supreme command in war; the Foreign Affairs Committee
was a decorative luxury (as a matter of fact it has only met
four times, in 1875,1879, 1900, and 1910, and its influence
on foreign policy has been absolutely nit); the negative
veto of Prussia was an inevitable tribute to her complete
predominance in Germany, based on her contribution to
the Empire of from one-half to two-thirds of the total
wealth, area, and population; and finally, it was argued
with delightful naivete and prescience that Germany
would never wage an 'offensive' war, since the Foreign
Office would always see to it that a war was, in name at
least, 'defensive. '
The incorporation of Alsace and Lorraine provided an
interesting problem. The anti-German feeling of the
population foreshadowed years of hostility and alienation;
for, whatever ardent German historians and publicists
wrote about the essentially German character of the
annexed provinces, no one in Germany was ignorant that
a plebiscite would have resulted in an oveiwhelrning
majority against the forcible dismemberment from France
and annexation to Germany. 'French we are,' said the
Alsatians and Lorrainers in the Assembly of Bordeaux,
'and French we will remain. ' Treitschke spoke for
German Nationalism when he asserted that' we Germans
know better what is good for Alsace than the unhappy
people themselves . . . we will give them back their
identity against their will . . . we invoke the men of the
past against the present. ' But how was incorporation to
be carried out? Annexation to Prussia would have stirred
fierce jealousy, and would have planted Prussia on the
flank of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and Baden. Annexation
to any others of the federated States was open to grave
and obvious objections. The military chiefs and Bismarck
were united in fearing the tenderer heart of the south in
dealing with ' the unhappy people. ' It was dangerous to
split the annexed provinces and divide them amongst the
frontier States which might subsequently compete in the
severity of their coercion or the lenity of their humanity.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 295
The method of 'giving the Alsatians back their lost
identity' was therefore found in constituting the two
provinces an Imperial Territory (Reichsland), placed, until
January I, 1874, under an administrative dictatorship,
confided to the Emperor, whose legislative power was to
be exercised with the assent of the Federal Council. At
that date the Lorrainers and Alsatians were to receive
such a degree of 'forced freedom' as they merited or
circumstances justified.
This solution of the problem satisfied Bismarck, for it
was practically his own. Alsace and Lorraine under Prus-
sian administration were safe, and the treatment meted
out would be more a matter of policy than of justice, or
the ' English cant term ' of ' humanity ' and ' civilisation. '
The Reichsland would be a convenient whipping-boy for
the future delinquencies of France. The strategic value of
the annexation justified a multitude of administrative sins to
come. The Prussian staff accordingly set to work at once
to construct strategic railways and fortifications based on
Metz; -it contemplated a future invasion, pivoting on
the fortress won by Bazaine's military incompetence and
political treachery; and Metz as the crow flies is only one
hundred and sixty miles from Paris. The retention of an
unwilling Alsace and Lorraine was an irrefragable argu-
ment for keeping the new Empire armed to the teeth.
The use that Bismarck made of a French war of revenge
after 1871 is one of the most instructive episodes in his
policy; for when French feeling flagged, if German
policy required it, he invariably lashed French patriotism
into frontier incidents by a dose of severity to the
Reichsland.
Most Germans in 1871 undoubtedly believed that a few
years of German rule would make Alsace and Lorraine as con-
tented as Bavaria. The widespread belief in the magic of
their culture was so strong that, when the magic completely
failed, they could only explain the failure by the assump-
tion that the Latin, like the Polish race, was cursed with
a treble dose of original sin. If it be true that anything
can be done with bayonets except to sit on them, it is no
less true that the forcible imposition of an alien civilisation,
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? 296
BISMARCK
even if it be superior, can never succeed when the subjects
of the imposition can immunise themselves by anti-toxins
from an antagonistic and living civilisation at their doors.
The extirpation of France might in time have enabled a
purely German Alsace and Lorraine to grow up, as the
extirpation of Russian and Austrian Poland might have
Germanised the province of Posen. The magic of German
culture in Alsace and Lorraine was defeated by the
counter-magic from across the frontiers of a France that
after 1871 renewed the genius of the French mind in a
marvellous renaissance. Germany was placed in a dis-
agreeable dilemma. Justice to the annexed simply widened
the door by which French influence entered; injustice
strengthened the hold of the old allegiance.
Bismarck, probably, never entertained the illusions of
many of his nobler compatriots. He had not annexed
Alsace and Lorraine to convert good Frenchmen into bad
Germans. He accepted the historic argument of an
'unredeemed Germany' because it was a force in Ger-
many that it was dangerous to ignore and useful to exploit.
Alsace and Lorraine were essential to complete the
unified Germany that was to make a Central Europe the
throne of German hegemony. Without Alsace and Lor-
raine the Rhine was not secure, nor was France reduced to
the subordination that German Centralism required. The
stubbornness of Alsace and Lorraine probably did not
surprise him; it certainly neither weakened nor strength-
ened his reasons for the policy he subsequently pursued.
Just as Prussian Poland was an absolute necessity to the
position of Germany in the east, so Alsace and Lorraine
were a consummation of Germany's position in the west.
And if the inhabitants of- both territories were so stiff-
necked as to refuse to recognise that Germany's necessities
were Germany's law of existence and justification, so much
the worse for them. The State that was Power could not,
without denying the validity of its own title-deeds, admit
the validity of the title-deeds pleaded by Alsatian or Pole.
Might preceded right, and national safety outweighed all
sentiment. 'You are not a people,' Bismarck told the
Polish deputies to the Reichstag of 1871, 'you do not
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 297
represent a people; you have not got a people behind you;
you have nothing behind you but your illusions and
fictions. ' The same reply was in substance given to the
Danes in Schleswig as to the Alsatians and Lorrainers. 1
The force of nationality was in Bismarck's eyes' an illusion
and a fiction' unless it was backed by a material power
strong enough to enforce its claims. German Nationalism
had produced 1848 and *i 870. French Nationalism had
failed to save Alsace, and would no less fail to recover it.
Another remark of Bismarck's (April 19) in the consti-
tutional debates summed up a very significant view: 'I
see,' he said,' in the Federal Council (Bundesrat) a kind of
palladium for our future, a grand guarantee for the future
of Germany. Do not touch it. ' The Reichstag was not
allowed to 'touch it. ' And the Imperial Constitution,
ratified by the Reichstag, was simply a replica of the Consti-
modifications as were required to admit the south, practi-
cally on the same terms that the Northern States had
accepted in 1867. With that constitution before us, and
Bismarck's continuous refusal to admit the slightest modi-
fication that would facilitate ministerial responsibility, it
is astonishing to read, on Lord Odo Russell's authority,
that ' on more than one occasion Prince Bismarck com-
plained (to the British ambassador) of his imperial master
for resisting the introduction of a system of administration
under a responsible Premier, as in England, which he,
Prince Bismarck, considered the best method of developing
the education of the Germans, and teaching them the art
of self-government. '--(Life of Lord Granville, ii.
