Blood and Iron Part 9

-- We glorify here and now, the genius and the manhood of Bismarck as the one man who had the strength of purpose to recall to Germans the heroic tale of a free and united Fatherland.

It took him thirty years or more, through well-nigh superhuman striving; he preached, he cursed, he vilified, he used the iron rod.

He would have absolutely nothing to do with the political ideas from over the Vosges; he knew too well the curse of olden times, and his one great central emotion was to end that condition--as he hoped forever.

You are to read of the battles of a giant, filled with immense compa.s.sion for the follies and weaknesses of his misled countrymen, filled, too, with fanatical zeal to punish, that good might come of it at last.

Bismarck used the strong military arm, the h.e.l.l fires and the lightnings.

His nature scorned any further mere palliation of the weaknesses of human nature. Like all supermen, Bismarck struck straight from the shoulder; in turn to be misunderstood, cursed and reviled by the very people he would serve; but in the end aroused German manhood to a just comprehension of the power and dignity of a free and united Fatherland.

-- For upwards of 100 years before Bismarck's great hour, the French had been accustomed to exploit Germany. To fill the pocketbook, to provide soldiers for wars, or to afford opportunities for buccaneering expeditions, were all the same.

We do not say this to bring up any "moral" issue, but we make the statement merely as one uses the word dung or manure.

That is to say, certain historical facts stink to heaven.

Annexations, concessions, raids, riots at the hands of the French conspired to keep Germany disunited, belligerent and mutinous; and as the years pa.s.sed Germany, to a large extent, seduced by French ways, lost a sense of her dignity. France had looked to Germany to furnish allies to help fight Prussia, Austria or England; then England turned the trick against France. It is discouraging to add that even the great Goethe was so seduced by the glamour of Napoleon's genius that he wrote these strange words in praise of the French tyrant:

Doubts that have baffled thousands, he has solved: Ideas o'er which centuries have brooded, His giant mind intuitively compressed.

-- Thus, you have before you this spectacle: Germany's greatest poetical genius forgets the sad reality of his broken, dispirited and disrupted country and leaves her to her wretched fate; pa.s.sing his time as a sentimental voluptuary in the splendor of the Weimar court, where he concerns himself with such works as "Elective Affinities," a frank endors.e.m.e.nt of adultery.

-- On the other side, the n.o.ble Schiller, poet of the people, recalled to his fellow countrymen the faded glory of Germany. "Schiller stands forth," says Menzel, "as the champion of liberty, justice and his country."

In a word, it took Germany 100 years to learn by suffering that if she is ever to regain her fallen prestige as a nation, she must fight her enemies at home and abroad; she must restore the military ideal of ancient times. And here, in a nutsh.e.l.l, is the very root of all this cry about militarism: The man who will not fight for what he regards as his political rights, remains a slave his whole life long; for it is the essential nature of man to exercise tyrannous power over human lives, whenever such practice holds out promise of advantage.

Therefore, Bismarck again trained Germany to be a fighting nation; and if an ideal of a free and united people is no justification, then words have no meaning.

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The French peasant's son, returning from the wars brings his wife a diamond necklace.

-- The cross-angles of politics, for years, lead as far as one cares to go, in this German family fight. Each petty state has its intrigues and its grievances; you become befuddled; it is all weariness of the flesh.

-- However, behind all the political jargon, mighty forces are taking form; and little by little, certain outstanding facts come to view, involving every king, knight, bishop, prince and pauper on the German map, from the North Sea to the Black Sea.

After 1789, the German was down with that new disease, French const.i.tutionalism; liberty, fraternity and equality. No human being knew exactly what it meant. It was a political fever that had to be gone through with; and blood-letting was the only cure.

Monarchs seemingly secure on their thrones from the days of old, now s.h.i.+vered like ghosts as the mobs marched the streets of Vienna and Berlin, waiving new flags and crying "Liberty!"

-- The word "liberty" went to the crook-backed German peasant's brain like wine; he grew mad with the idea of an impossible world, in which he could decree as he desired and all would bow to him, though he in return would bow to n.o.body; in short, liberty for him, but death to the others; and were it possible to confiscate the property of the princes and redistribute the loot among the peasants, so much the better.

-- Before we go into this thing, let us remember that as the French armies marched over Europe, the doom of kings had been cracking and rumbling.

The soldiers carried everywhere the idea of French equality, that is to say, to the popular mind an opportunity to share the loot.

Napoleon himself, reflecting on his own career and on the follies of the French revolution, said: "Let us now turn ourselves to something practical; the bombastic ideas of the Revolution have exhausted themselves in grotesque efforts at self-government. All the Revolution means is an opportunity for a man of talents to show what he can do."

-- And the French soldiers, returning from the wars, brought their wives and daughters gold rings, bracelets and diamond necklaces, the loot of the capitals of Europe.

-- As for Napoleon, he, of course, took the lion's share; but a diamond necklace to a soldier's wife is indeed a powerful argument on the importance of the new democratic era, in which peasants' sons wear gold lace and their womankind ride in carriages.

Also, many of the generals of France were sons of peasants; and an account of Napoleon's marshals would show the humble origin of men of the hour, sons of soap boilers, tavern keepers, stable-bosses.

-- One may imagine the result of such surprising overturnings of caste, in old-world conditions. Henceforth the peasants of all lands will naturally regard their respective kings as so many dogs, to be shot to death at the first splendid opportunity! And Germany is no exception.

-- Forward march, ye sons of the soil, there are stormy days ahead for you, through your "new" ideas.

CHAPTER VI

Prussia's De Profundis

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Humiliations heaped upon her by France; the strange combination, the lash and the kiss!

-- First, let us quote from Bismarck, who looking backward after his amazing politico-military triumph at Koeniggraetz, (1866), tells a French interviewer for "Le Siecle" this root-fact about Germans, their weakness and their power:

-- "No government, however it may act, will be popular in Prussia; the majority in the country will always be opposed to it; simply from its being the Government;--and holding authority over the individual, the central authority is always doomed to be constantly opposed by the moderates, and decried and despised by the ultras. This has been the common fate of all successive governments since the beginning of the dynasty. Neither liberal ministers, nor reactionary ministers have found favor with our Prussian politicians.

-- "Frederick William III, surnamed the Just, had succeeded as little as Frederick William IV in satisfying the Prussian nation.

-- "They shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e at the victories of Frederick the Great, but at his death they rubbed their hands at the thought of being delivered from the tyrant! Despite this antagonism, there exists a deep attachment to the royal house. No sovereign or minister, no government, can win the favor of Prussian individualism. Yet all cry from the depths of their hearts, 'G.o.d save the King!' And they obey when the King commands."

-- With this clue from the master before us, the thing to do is, clearly, to reach out after this German Unity idea in a broad way.

-- Napoleon's armies had marched everywhere, during all those victorious years, and each soldier had been a living exemplar of the power of National glory.

This National spirit in his armies had helped Napoleon amazingly, despite his genius as a soldier. The great Prussian patriot, Stein, one of the leading men of his time and an early believer in the high destiny of his country, began studying some of the more obscure but vital forces behind Napoleon's career of glory. Stein finally read the secret and urged that as Napoleon had won by National spirit, so Napoleon could in the end be defeated by a similar National spirit when properly opposed to him; and Napoleon with one terrifying black look saw that von Stein had divined the real force of French solidarity, a proclamation was out for von Stein's head, and the patriot who dreamed of his Confederation of Germany, against the French, or any other foreign foe, was obliged to make his escape to the heart of the Bohemian mountains.

-- Fr: Wm. II (1797-1840), child of the Revolution, to his dying day remained untouched by the new political principles that had their origin beyond the Rhine. Compound of dreams and realities, William had led a repressed life; for one thing, he did not fight for his opinions; indeed his opinions were literary and artistic; a peculiar pietism bound him; he believed too much in man's natural goodness; being an honest man himself, he did not readily suspect others.

-- This Frederick was always thinking of a Germany built on the traditional order, with all intervening social grades, from peasant to king upon his throne, each bowing and sc.r.a.ping to the other; and Frederick, as the father of his kingdom, exercising a despotic paternalism.

-- Nor did he see that the French revolution had been fought and Napoleon's armies had carried afar if not the seeds of political equality, at least the glorious conception that "revolution means opportunity for men of talents, everywhere."