Easy-going Austria--Vienna--Charm of town--A little piece of
history---International families--Family
pride--"Schlüssel-Geld"--Excellence of Vienna restaurants--The origin
of "_Croissants_"--Good looks of Viennese women--Strauss's
operettas--A ball in an old Vienna house--Court entertainments--The
Empress Elisabeth--Delightful environs of Vienna--The Berlin Congress
of 1878--Lord Beaconsfield--M. de Blowitz--Treaty telegraphed to
London--Environs of Berlin--Potsdam and its lakes--The bow-oar of the
Embassy "four"--Narrow escape of ex-Kaiser--The Potsdam
palaces--Transfer to Petrograd--Glamour of Russia--An evening with
the Crown Prince at Potsdam.
Our Embassy at Vienna was greatly overworked at this time, owing to
the illness of two of the staff, and some fresh developments of the
perennial "Eastern Question." I was accordingly "lent" to the Vienna
Embassy for as long as was necessary, and left at once for the
Austrian capital.
At the frontier station of Tetschen the transition from cast-iron,
dictatorial, overbearing Prussian efficiency to the good-natured,
easy-going, slipshod methods of the "ramshackle Empire" was
immediately apparent.
The change from Berlin to Vienna was refreshing. The straight,
monotonous, well-kept streets of the Northern capital lacked life and
animation. It was a very fine frame enclosing no picture. The
Vienna {49} streets were as gay as those of Paris, and one was
conscious of being in a city with centuries of traditions. The Inner
Town of Vienna with its narrow winding streets is extraordinarily
picturesque. The demolisher has not been given the free hand he has
been allowed in Paris, and the fine _baroque_ houses still remaining
give an air of great distinction to this part of the town, with its
many highly-decorative, if somewhat florid, fountains and columns.
One was no longer in the "pushful" atmosphere of Prussia. These
cheery, easy-going Viennese loved music and dancing, eating and
drinking, laughter and fun. They were quite content to drift lazily
down the stream of life, with as much enjoyment and as little trouble
as possible. They might be a decadent race, but they were
essentially _gemüthliche Leute_. The untranslatable epithet
_gemüthlich_ implies something at once "comfortable," "sociable,"
"cosy," and "pleasant."
The Austrian aristocracy were most charming people. They had all
intermarried for centuries, and if they did not trouble their
intellect much, there may have been physical difficulties connected
with the process for which they were not responsible. The degree of
warmth of their reception of foreigners was largely dependent upon
whether he, or she, could show the indispensable _sechzehn Ahnen_
(the "sixteen quarterings"). Once satisfied (or the reverse) as to
this point, to which they attach immense importance, the situation
became easier. As the whole of these people were interrelated, they
{50} were all on Christian names terms, and the various "Mitzis,"
"Kitzis," "Fritzis," and other characteristically Austrian
abbreviations were a little difficult to place at times.
It was impossible not to realise that the whole nation was living on
the traditions of their splendid past. It must be remembered that in
the sixteenth century the Hapsburgs ruled the whole of Europe with
the exception of France, England, Russia, and the Scandinavian
countries. For centuries after Charlemagne assumed the Imperial
Crown there had been only one Emperor in Europe, the "Holy Roman
Emperor," the "Heiliger Römischer Kaiser," the fiction being, of
course, that he was the descendant of the Cæsars. The word "Kaiser"
is only the German variant of Cæsar. France and England had always
consistently refused to acknowledge the overlordship of the Emperor,
but the prestige of the title in German-speaking lands was immense,
though the Holy Roman Empire itself was a mere simulacrum of power.
In theory the Emperor was elected; in practice the title came to be a
hereditary appanage of the proud Hapsburgs. It was, I think,
Talleyrand who said "L'Autrice a la Fächeuse habitude d'être toujours
battue," and this was absolutely true. Austria was defeated with
unfailing regularity in almost every campaign, and the Hapsburgs saw
their immense dominions gradually slipping from their grasp. It was
on May 14, 1804, that Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French in
Paris, and Francis II, the last of {51} the Holy Roman Emperors, was
fully aware that Napoleon's next move would be to supplant him and
get himself elected as "Roman Emperor." This Napoleon would have
been able to achieve, as he had bribed the Electors of Bavaria,
Württemberg, and Saxony by creating them kings. For once a Hapsburg
acted with promptitude. On August 11, 1804, Francis proclaimed
himself hereditary Emperor of Austria, and two years later he
abolished the title of Holy Roman Emperor. The Empire, after a
thousand years of existence, flickered out ingloriously in 1806. The
pride of the Hapsburgs had received a hundred years previously a rude
shock. Peter the Great, after consolidating Russia, abolished the
title of Tsar of Muscovy, and proclaimed himself Emperor of All the
Russias; purposely using the same term "Imperator" as that employed
by the Roman Emperor, and thus putting himself on an equality with
him.
I know by experience that it is impossible to din into the heads of
those unfamiliar with Russia that since Peter the Great's time there
has never been a Tsar. The words "Tsar," "Tsarina," "Cesarevitch,"
beloved of journalists, exist only in their imagination; they are
never heard in Russia. The Russians termed their Emperor "Gosudar
Imperator," using either or both of the words. Empress is
"Imperatritza"; Heir Apparent "Nadslyédnik." If you mentioned the
words "Tsar" or "Tsarina" to any ordinary Russian peasant, I doubt if
he would understand you, but I am well {52} aware that it is no use
repeating this, the other idea is too firmly ingrained. The
Hapsburgs had yet another bitter pill to swallow. Down to the middle
of the nineteenth century the ancient prestige of the title Kaiser
and the glamour attached to it were maintained throughout the
Germanic Confederation, but in 1871 a second brand-new Kaiser arose
on the banks of the Spree, and the Hapsburgs were shorn of their long
monopoly.
Franz Josef of Austria must have rued the day when Sigismund sold the
sandy Mark of Brandenburg to Frederick Count of Hohenzollern in 1415,
and regretted the acquiescence in 1701 of his direct ancestor, the
Emperor Leopold I, in the Elector of Brandenburg's request that he
might assume the title of King of Prussia. The Hohenzollerns were
ever a grasping race. I think that it was Louis XIV of France who,
whilst officially recognising the new King of Prussia, refused to
speak of him as such, and always alluded to him as "Monsieur le
Marquis de Brandenbourg."
No wonder that the feeling of bitterness against Prussia amongst the
upper classes of Austria was very acute in the "'seventies." The
events of 1866 were still too recent to have been forgotten. In my
time the great Austrian ladies affected the broadest Vienna popular
dialect, probably to emphasise the fact that they were not Prussians.
Thus the sentence "ein Glas Wasser, bitte," became, written in
phonetic English, "a' Glawss Vawsser beet." I myself was much
rallied on my pedantic {53} North-German pronunciation, and had in
self-defence to adopt unfamiliar Austrian equivalents for many words.
The curious international families which seemed to abound in Vienna
always puzzled me. Thus the princes d'Aremberg are Belgians, but
there was one Prince d'Aremberg in the Austrian service, whilst his
brother was in the Prussian Diplomatic Service, the remainder of the
family being Belgians. There were, in the same way, many
German-speaking Pourtales in Berlin in the German service, and more
French-speaking ones in Paris in the French service. The Duc de Croy
was both a Belgian and an Austrian subject. The Croys are one of the
oldest families in Europe, and are _ebenbürtig_ ("born on an
equality") with all the German Royalties. They therefore show no
signs of respect to Archdukes and Archduchesses when they meet them.
Although I cannot vouch personally for them, never having myself seen
them, I am told that there are two pictures in the Croy Palace at
Brussels which reach the apogee of family pride. The first depicts
Noah embarking on his ark. Although presumably anxious about the
comfort of the extensive live-stock he has on board, Noah finds time
to give a few parting instructions to his sons. On what is
technically called a "bladder" issuing from his mouth are the words,
"And whatever you do, don't forget to bring with you the family
papers of the Croys." ("Et surtout ayez soin de ne pas oublier les
papiers de la Maison de Croy!") The {54} other picture represents
the Madonna and Child, with the then Duke of Croy kneeling in
adoration before them. Out of the Virgin Mary's mouth comes a
"bladder" with the words "But please put on your hat, dear cousin."
("Mais couvrez vous donc, cher cousin.")
The whole of Viennese life is regulated by one exceedingly tiresome
custom. After 10 or 10.15 p.m. the hall porter (known in Vienna as
the "House-master") of every house in the city has the right of
levying a small toll of threepence on each person entering or leaving
the house. The whole life of the Vienna bourgeois is spent in trying
to escape this tax, known as "Schlüssel-Geld." The theatres commence
accordingly at 6 p.m. or 6.30, which entails dining about 5 p.m. A
typical Viennese middle-class family will hurry out in the middle of
the last act and scurry home breathlessly, as the fatal hour
approaches. Arrived safely in their flat, in the last stages of
exhaustion, they say triumphantly to each other. "We have missed the
end of the play, and we are rather out of breath, but never mind, we
have escaped the 'Schlüssel-Geld,' and as we are four, that makes a
whole shilling saved!"
An equally irritating custom is the one that ordains that in
restaurants three waiters must be tipped in certain fixed
proportions. The "Piccolo," who brings the wine and bread, receives
one quarter of the tip; the "Speisetrager," who brings the actual
food, gets one half; the "Zahlkellner," {55} who brings the bill,
gets one quarter. All these must be given separately, so not only
does it entail a hideous amount of mental arithmetic, but it also
necessitates the perpetual carrying about of pocketfuls of small
change.
The Vienna restaurants were quite excellent, with a local cuisine of
extraordinary succulence, and more extraordinary names. A universal
Austrian custom, not only in restaurants but in private houses as
well, is to serve a glass of the delicious light Vienna beer with the
soup. Even at State dinners at the Hof-Burg, a glass of beer was
always offered with the soup. The red wine, Voslauer, grown in the
immediate vicinity of the city, is so good, and has such a
distinctive flavour, that I wonder it has never been exported. The
restaurants naturally suggest the matchless Viennese orchestras.
They were a source of never-ending delight to me. The distinction
they manage to give to quite commonplace little airs is
extraordinary. The popular songs, "Wiener-Couplets," melodious, airy
nothings, little light soap-bubbles of tunes, are one of the
distinctive features of Vienna. Played by an Austrian band as only
an Austrian band can play them, with astonishing vim and fire, and
supremely dainty execution, these little fragile melodies are quite
charming and irresistibly attractive. We live in a progressive age.
In the place of these Austrian bands with their finished execution
and consummately musicianly feeling, the twentieth century {56} has
invented the Jazz band with its ear-splitting, chaotic din.
There is a place in Vienna known as the Heiden-Schuss, or "Shooting
of the heathens." The origin of this is quite interesting.
In 1683 the Turks invaded Hungary, and, completely overrunning the
country, reached Vienna, to which they laid siege, for the second
time in its history. Incidentally, they nearly succeeded in
capturing it. During the siege bakers' apprentices were at work one
night in underground bakehouses, preparing the bread for next day's
consumption. The lads heard a rhythmic "thump, thump, thump," and
were much puzzled by it. Two of the apprentices, more intelligent
than the rest, guessed that the Turks were driving a mine, and ran
off to the Commandant of Vienna with their news. They saw the
principal engineer officer and told him of their discovery. He
accompanied them back to the underground bakehouse, and at once
determined that the boys were right. Having got the direction from
the sound, the Austrians drove a second tunnel, and exploded a
powerful counter-mine. Great numbers of Turks were killed, and the
siege was temporarily raised. On September 12 of the same year
(1683) John Sobieski, King of Poland, utterly routed the Turks, drove
them back into their own country, and Vienna was saved. As a reward
for the intelligence shown by the baker-boys, they were granted the
privilege of making and selling a rich kind of roll (into the {57}
composition of which butter entered largely) in the shape of the
Turkish emblem, the crescent. These rolls became enormously popular
amongst the Viennese, who called them _Kipfeln_. When Marie
Antoinette married Louis XVI of France, she missed her Kipfel, and
sent to Vienna for an Austrian baker to teach his Paris _confrères_
the art of making them. These rolls, which retained their original
shape, became as popular in Paris as they had been in Vienna, and
were known as _Croissants_, and that is the reason why one of the
rolls which are brought you with your morning coffee in Paris will be
baked in the form of a crescent.
The extraordinary number of good-looking women, of all classes to be
seen in the streets of Vienna was most striking, especially after
Berlin, where a lower standard of feminine beauty prevailed.
Particularly noticeable were the admirable figures with which most
Austrian women are endowed. In the far-off "'seventies" ladies did
not huddle themselves into a shapeless mass of abbreviated oddments
of material--they dressed, and their clothes fitted them; and a woman
on whom Nature (or Art) had bestowed a good figure was able to
display her gifts to the world. In the same way, Fashion did not
compel a pretty girl to smother up her features in unbecoming tangles
of tortured hair. The usual fault of Austrian faces is their breadth
across the cheek-bones; the Viennese too have a decided tendency {58}
to _embonpoint_, but in youth these defects are not accentuated.
Amongst the Austrian aristocracy the great beauty of the girls was
very noticeable, as was their height, in marked contrast to the short
stature of most of the men. I have always heard that one of the
first outward signs of the decadence of a race is that the girls grow
taller, whilst the men get shorter.
The Vienna theatres are justly celebrated. At the Hof-Burg Theatre
may be seen the most finished acting on the German stage. The Burg
varied its programme almost nightly, and it was an amusing sight to
see the troops of liveried footmen inquiring at the box-office, on
behalf of their mistresses, whether the play to be given that night
was or was not a _Comtessen-Stück_, _i.e._, a play fit for young
girls to see. The box-keeper always gave a plain "Yes" or "No" in
reply. After Charles Garnier's super-ornate pile in Paris, the
Vienna Opera-house is the finest in Europe, and the musical standard
reaches the highest possible level, completely eclipsing Paris in
that respect. In the "'seventies" Johann Strauss's delightful comic
operas still retained their vogue. Bubbling over with merriment,
full of delicious ear-tickling melodies, and with a "go" and an
irresistible intoxication about them that no French composer has ever
succeeded in emulating, these operettas, "Die Fledermaus," "Prinz
Methusalem," and "La Reine Indigo," would well stand revival. When
the "Fledermaus" {59} was revived in London some ten years ago it
ran, if my memory serves me right, for nearly a year. Occasionally
Strauss himself conducted one of his own operettas; then the
orchestra, responding to his magical baton, played like very demons.
Strauss had one peculiarity. Should he be dissatisfied with the vim
the orchestra put into one of his favourite numbers, he would snatch
the instrument from the first violin and play it himself. Then the
orchestra answered like one man, and one left the theatre with the
entrancing strains still tingling in one's ears.
The family houses of most of the Austrian nobility were in the Inner
Town, the old walled city, where space was very limited. These fine
old houses, built for the greater part in the Italian baroque style,
though splendid for entertaining, were almost pitch dark and very
airless in the daytime. Judging, too, from the awful smells in them,
they must have been singularly insanitary dwellings. The Lobkowitz
Palace, afterwards the French Embassy, was so dark by day that
artificial light had always to be used. In the great seventeenth
century ball-room of the Lobkowitz Palace there was a railed off
oak-panelled alcove containing a bust of Beethoven, an oak table, and
three chairs. It was in that alcove, and at that table, that
Beethoven, when librarian to Prince Lobkowitz, composed some of his
greatest works.
Our own Embassy in the Metternichgasse, built {60} by the British
Government, was rather cramped and could in no way compare with the
Berlin house.
I remember well a ball given by Prince S----, head of one of the
greatest Austrian families, in his fine but extremely dark house in
the Inner Town. It was Prince S----'s custom on these occasions to
have three hundred young peasants sent up from his country estates,
and to have them all thrust into the family livery. These bucolic
youths, looking very sheepish in their unfamiliar plush breeches and
stockings, with their unkempt heads powdered, and with swords at
their sides, stood motionless on every step of the staircase. I
counted one hundred of these rustic retainers on the staircase alone.
They would have looked better had their liveries occasionally fitted
them. The ball-room at Prince S----'s was hung with splendid
Brussels seventeenth century tapestry framed in mahogany panels,
heavily carved and gilt. I have never seen this combination of
mahogany, gilding, and tapestry anywhere else. It was wonderfully
decorative, and with the elaborate painted ceiling made a fine
setting for an entertainment. It was a real pleasure to see how
whole-heartedly the Austrians threw themselves into the dancing. I
think they all managed to retain a child's power of enjoyment, and
they never detracted from this by any unnecessary brainwork. Still
they were delightfully friendly, easy-going people. A distinctive
feature of every Vienna ball {61} was the "Comtessen-Zimmer," or room
reserved for girls. At the end of every dance they all trooped in
there, giggling and gossiping, and remained there till the music for
the next dance struck up. No married woman dared intrude into the
"Comtessen-Zimmer," and I shudder to think of what would have
befallen the rash male who ventured to cross that jealously-guarded
threshold. I imagine that the charming and beautifully-dressed
Austrian married women welcomed this custom, for between the dances
at all events they could still hold the field, free from the
competition of a younger and fresher generation.
At Prince S----'s, at midnight, armies of rustic retainers, in their
temporary disguise, brought battalions of supper tables into the
ball-room, and all the guests sat down to a hot supper at the same
time. As an instance of how Austrians blended simplicity with a
great love of externals, I see from my diary that the supper
consisted of bouillon, of plain-boiled carp with horse-radish, of
thick slices of hot roast beef, and a lemon ice--and nothing else
whatever. A sufficiently substantial repast, but hardly in
accordance with modern ideas as to what a ball-supper should consist
of. The young peasants, considering that it was their first attempt
at waiting, did not break an undue number of plates; they tripped at
times, though, over their unaccustomed swords, and gaped vacantly, or
would get hitched up with each other, when more dishes crashed to
their doom.
{62}
In Vienna there was a great distinction drawn between a "Court Ball"
(Hof-Ball) and a "Ball at the Court" (Ball bei Hof). To the former
everyone on the Palace list was invited, to the latter only a few
people; and the one was just as crowded and disagreeable as the other
was the reverse. The great rambling pile of the Hof-Burg contains
some very fine rooms and a marvellous collection of works of art, and
the so-called "Ceremonial Apartments" are of quite Imperial
magnificence, but the general effect was far less striking than in
Berlin.
In spite of the beauty of the women, the _coup d'oeil_ was spoilt by
the ugly Austrian uniforms. After the disastrous campaign of 1866,
the traditional white of the Austrian Army was abolished, and the
uniforms were shorn of all unnecessary trappings. The military
tailors had evolved hideous garments, ugly in colour, unbecoming in
cut. One can only trust that they proved very economical, but the
contrast with the splendid and admirably made uniforms of the
Prussian Army was very marked. The Hungarian magnates in their
traditional family costumes (from which all Hussar uniforms are
derived) added a note of gorgeous colour, with their gold-laced
tunics and their many-hued velvet slung-jackets. I remember, on the
occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887, the astonishment caused
by a youthful and exceedingly good-looking Hungarian who appeared at
Buckingham Palace in skin-tight blue breeches {63} lavishly
embroidered with gold over the thighs, entirely gilt Hessian boots to
the knee, and a tight-fitting tunic cut out of a real tiger-skin,
fastened with some two dozen turquoise buttons the size of
five-shilling pieces. When this resplendent youth reappeared in
London ten years later at the Diamond Jubilee, it was with a tonsured
head, and he was wearing the violet robes of a prelate of the Roman
Church.
As an instance of the inflexibility of the cast-iron rules of the
Hapsburg Court: I may mention that the beautiful Countess Karolyi,
Austrian Ambassadress in Berlin, was never asked to Court in Vienna,
as she lacked the necessary "sixteen quarterings." To a non-Austrian
mind it seems illogical that the lovely lady representing Austria in
Berlin should have been thought unfitted for an invitation from her
own Sovereign.
The immense deference paid to the Austrian Archdukes and
Archduchesses was very striking after the comparatively unceremonious
fashion in which minor German royalties (always excepting the Emperor
and the Crown Prince) were treated in Berlin. The Archduchesses
especially were very tenacious of their privileges. They never could
forget that they were Hapsburgs, and exacted all the traditional
signs of respect.
The unfortunate Empress Elisabeth, destined years after to fall under
the dagger of an assassin at Geneva, made but seldom a public
appearance in her husband's dominions. She had an almost {64} morbid
horror of fulfilling any of the duties of her position. During my
stay in the Austrian capital I only caught one glimpse of her,
driving through the streets. She was astonishingly handsome, with
coiled masses of dark hair, and a very youthful and graceful figure,
but the face was so impassive that it produced the effect of a
beautiful, listless mask. The Empress was a superb horse-woman, and
every single time she rode she was literally sewn into her habit by a
tailor, in order to ensure a perfect fit.
The innumerable cafés of Vienna were crowded from morning to night.
Seeing them crammed with men in the forenoon, one naturally wondered
how the business of the city was transacted. Probably, in typical
Austrian fashion, these worthy Viennese left their businesses to take
care of themselves whilst they enjoyed themselves in the cafés. The
super-excellence of the Vienna coffee would afford a more or less
legitimate excuse for this. Nowhere in the world is such coffee
made, and a "Capuziner," or a "Melange," the latter with thick
whipped cream on the top of it, were indeed things of joy.
Few capitals are more fortunate in their environs than Vienna. The
beautiful gardens and park of Schönbrunn Palace have a sort of
intimate charm which is wholly lacking at Versailles. They are
stately, yet do not overwhelm you with a sense of vast spaces. They
are crowned by a sort of temple, known as the Gloriette, {65} from
which a splendid view is obtained.
In less than three hours from the capital, the railway climbs 3,000
feet to the Semmering, where the mountain scenery is really grand.
During the summer months the whole of Vienna empties itself on to the
Semmering and the innumerable other hill-resorts within easy distance
from the city.
When the time came for my departure, I felt genuinely sorry at
leaving this merry, careless, music and laughter-loving town, and
these genial, friendly, hospitable incompetents. I feel some
compunction in using this word, as people had been very good to me.
I cannot help feeling, though, that it is amply warranted. A bracing
climate is doubtless wholesome; but a relaxing one can be very
pleasant for a time. I went back to Berlin feeling like a boy
returning to school after his holidays.
The Viennese had but little love for their upstart rival on the
Spree. They had invented the name "Parvenupopolis" for Berlin, and a
little popular song, which I may be forgiven for quoting in the
original German, expressed their sentiments fairly accurately:
Es gibt nur eine Kaiserstadt,
Es gibt nur ein Wien;
Es gibt nur ein Raubernest,
Und das heisst Berlin.
I had a Bavarian friend in Berlin. We talked over the amazing
difference in temperament there {66} was between the Austrians and
the Prussians, and the curious charm there was about the former,
lacking in intellect though they might be, a charm wholly lacking in
the pushful, practical Prussians. My friend agreed, but claimed the
same attractive qualities for his own beloved Bavarians; "but," he
added impressively, "mark my words, in twenty years from now the
whole of Germany will be Prussianised!" ("_Ganz Deutschland wird
verpreussert werden_") Events have shown how absolutely correct my
Bavarian friend was in his forecast.
In June, 1878, the great Congress for the settlement of the terms of
peace between Russia and Turkey assembled in Berlin. It was an
extraordinarily interesting occasion, for almost every single
European notability was to be seen in the German capital. The
Russian plenipotentiaries were the veteran Prince Gortchakoff and
Count Peter Schouvaloff, that most genial _faux-bonhomme_; the Turks
were championed by Ali Pasha and by Katheodory Pasha. Great Britain
was represented by Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury; Austria by Count
Andrassy, the Prime Minister; France by M. Waddington. In spite of
the very large staff brought out from London by the British
plenipotentiaries, an enormous amount of work fell upon us at the
Embassy.
To a youngster there is something very fascinating in being regarded
as so worthy of confidence that the most secret details of the great
game of diplomacy were all known to him from {67} day to day. A boy
of twenty-one feels very proud of the trust reposed in him, and at
being the repository of such weighty and important secrets. That is
the traditional method of the British Diplomatic Service.
As all the Embassies gave receptions in honour of their own
plenipotentiaries, we met almost nightly all the great men of Europe,
and had occasional opportunities for a few words with them. Prince
Gortchakoff, who fancied himself Bismarck's only rival, was a little,
short, tubby man in spectacles; wholly undistinguished in appearance,
and looking for all the world like an average French provincial
notaire. Count Andrassy, the Hungarian, was a tall, strikingly
handsome man, with an immense head of hair. To me, he always
recalled the leader of a "Tzigane" orchestra. M. Waddington talked
English like an Englishman, and was so typically British in
appearance that it was almost impossible to realise that he was a
Frenchman. Our admiration for him was increased when we learnt that
he had rowed in the Cambridge Eight. But without any question
whatever, the personality which excited the greatest interest at the
Berlin Congress was that of Lord Beaconsfield, the Jew who by sheer
force of intellect had raised himself from nothing into his present
commanding position. His peculiar, colourless, inscrutable face,
with its sphinx-like impassiveness; the air of mystery which somehow
clung about him; the romantic story of his career; even the remnants
of {68} dandyism which he still retained in his old age--all these
seemed to whet the insatiable public curiosity about him. Some
enterprising Berlin tradesmen had brought out fans, with leaves
composed of plain white vellum, designed expressly for the Congress.
Armed with one of these fans, and with pen and ink, indefatigable
feminine autograph-hunters moved about at these evening receptions,
securing the signatures of the plenipotentiaries on the white vellum
leaves. Many of those fans must still be in existence, and should
prove very interesting to-day. Bismarck alone invariably refused his
autograph.
At all these gatherings, M. de Blowitz, the then Paris correspondent
of the _Times_, was much to the fore. In the "'seventies" the
prestige of the _Times_ on the Continent of Europe was enormous. In
reality the influence of the _Times_ was very much overrated, since
all Continentals persisted in regarding it as the inspired mouthpiece
of the British Government. Great was the _Times_, but greater still
was de Blowitz, its prophet. This most remarkable man was a
veritable prince of newspaper correspondents. There was no move on
the European chess-board of which he was not cognisant, and as to
which he did not keep his paper well informed, and his information
was always accurate. De Blowitz knew no English, and his lengthy
daily telegrams to the _Times_ were always written in French and were
translated in London. He was really a Bohemian Jew of the name of
{69} Oppen, and he had bestowed the higher-sounding name of de
Blowitz on himself. He was a very short, fat little man, with
immensely long grey side-whiskers, and a most consequential manner.
He was a very great personage indeed in official circles. De Blowitz
has in his Memoirs given a full account of the trick by which he
learnt of the daily proceedings of the Congress and so transmitted
them to his paper. I need not, therefore, go into details about
this; it is enough to say that a daily exchange of hats, in the
lining of the second of which a summary of the day's deliberations
was concealed, played a great part in it.
When the Treaty had been drawn up in French, Lord Salisbury rather
startled us by saying that he wished it translated into English and
cyphered to London that very evening _in extenso_. This was done to
obviate the possibility of the news-paper correspondents getting a
version of the Treaty through to London before the British Government
had received the actual text. As the Treaty was what I, in the light
of later experiences, would now describe as of fifteen thousand words
length, this was a sufficiently formidable undertaking. Fifteen of
us sat down to the task about 6 p.m., and by working at high pressure
we got the translation finished and the last cyphered sheet sent off
to the telegraph office by 5 a.m. The translation done at such
breakneck speed was possibly a little crude in places. One clause in
the Treaty provided that ships in ballast were to have {70} free
passage through the Dardanelles. Now the French for "ships in
ballast," is "_navires en lest_." The person translating this (who
was not a member of the British Diplomatic Service) rendered
"_navires en lest_" as "ships in the East," and in this form it was
cyphered to London. As, owing to the geographical position of the
Dardanelles, any ship approaching them would be, in one sense of the
term, a "ship in the East," there was considerable perturbation in
Downing Street over this clause, until the mistake was discovered.
Berlin has wonderful natural advantages, considering that it is
situated in a featureless, sandy plain. In my day it was quite
possible to walk from the Embassy into a real, wild pine-forest, the
Grünewald. The Grünewald, being a Royal forest, was unbuilt on, and
quite unspoilt. It extended for miles, enclosing many pretty little
lakelets. Now I understand that it has been invaded by "villa
colonies," so its old charm of wildness must have vanished. The
Tiergarten, too, the park of Berlin, retains in places the look of a
real country wood. It is inadvisable to venture into the Tiergarten
after nightfall, should you wish to retain possession of your watch,
purse, and other portable property. The sandy nature of the soil
makes it excellent for riding. Within quite a short distance of the
city you can find tracts of heathery moor, and can get a good gallop
almost anywhere.
There is quite fair partridge-shooting, too, within {71} a few miles
of Berlin, in the immense potato fields, though the entire absence of
cover in this hedgeless land makes it very difficult at times to
approach the birds. It is pre-eminently a country for "driving"
partridges, though most Germans prefer the comparatively easy shots
afforded by "walking the birds up."
Potsdam has had but scant justice done it by foreigners. The town is
almost surrounded by the river Havel, which here broadens out into a
series of winding, wooded lakes, surrounded by tree-clad hills. The
Potsdam lakes are really charmingly pretty, and afford an admirable
place for rowing or sailing. Neither of these pursuits seems to make
the least appeal to Germans. The Embassy kept a small yacht at
Potsdam, but she was practically the only craft then on the lakes.
As on all narrow waters enclosed by wooded hills, the sailing was
very tricky, owing to the constant shifting of the wind. Should it
be blowing fresh, it was advisable to sail under very light canvas;
and it was always dangerous to haul up the centre-board, even when
"running," as on rounding some wooded point you would get "taken
aback" to a certainty. Once in the fine open stretch of water
between Wansee and Spandau, you could hoist every stitch of canvas
available, and indulge with impunity in the most complicated nautical
manoeuvres. Possibly my extreme fondness for the Potsdam lakes may
be due to their extraordinary resemblance to the lakes at my own
Northern country home.
{72}
The Embassy also owned a light Thames-built four-oar. At times a
short, thick-set young man of nineteen pulled bow in our four. The
short young man had a withered arm, and the doctors hoped that the
exercise of rowing might put some strength into it. He seemed quite
a commonplace young man, yet this short, thick-set youth was destined
less than forty years after to plunge the world into the greatest
calamity it has ever known; to sacrifice millions and millions of
human lives to his own inordinate ambition; and to descend to
posterity as one of the most sinister characters in the pages of
history.
Moored in the "Jungfernsee," one of the Potsdam lakes, lay a
miniature sailing frigate, a complete model of a larger craft down to
the smallest details. This toy frigate had been a present from King
William IV of England to the then King of Prussia. The little
frigate had been built in London, and though of only 30-tons burden,
had been sailed down the Thames, across the North Sea, and up the
Elbe and Havel to Potsdam, by a British naval officer. A pretty bit
of seamanship! I have always heard that it was the sight of this toy
frigate, lying on the placid lake at Potsdam, that first inspired
William of Hohenzollern with the idea of building a gigantic navy.
The whole history of the world might have been changed by an incident
which occurred on these same Potsdam lakes in 1880. I have already
said that William of Hohenzollern, then only Prince {73} William,
pulled at times in our Embassy four, in the hope that it might
strengthen his withered arm. He was very anxious to see if he could
learn to scull, in spite of his physical defect, and asked the
Ambassadress, Lady Ampthill, whether she would herself undertake to
coach him. Lady Ampthill consented, and met Prince William next day
at the landing-stage with a light Thames-built skiff, belonging to
the Embassy. Lady Ampthill, with the caution of one used to light
boats, got in carefully, made her way aft, and grasped the
yoke-lines. She then explained to Prince William that this was not a
heavy boat such as he had been accustomed to, that he must exercise
extreme care, and in getting in must tread exactly in the centre of
the boat. William of Hohenzollern, who had never taken advice from
anyone in his life, and was always convinced that he himself knew
best, responded by jumping into the boat from the landing-stage,
capsizing it immediately, and throwing himself and Lady Ampthill into
the water. Prince William, owing to his malformation, was unable to
swim one stroke, but help was at hand. Two of the Secretaries of the
British Embassy had witnessed the accident, and rushed up to aid.
The so-called "Naval Station" was close by, where the Emperor's
Potsdam yacht lay, a most singularly shabby old paddle-boat. Some
German sailors from the "Naval Post" heard the shouting and ran up,
and a moist, and we will trust a chastened William and a dripping
Ambassadress were {74} eventually rescued from the lake. Otherwise
William of Hohenzollern might have ended his life in the
"Jungfernsee" at Potsdam that day, and millions of other men would
have been permitted to live out their allotted span of existence.
Potsdam itself is quite a pleasing town, with a half-Dutch,
half-Italian physiognomy. Both were deliberately borrowed; the first
by Frederick William I, who constructed the tree-lined canals which
give Potsdam its half-Batavian aspect; the second by Frederick the
Great, who fronted Teutonic dwellings with façades copied from Italy
to add dignity to the town. It must in justice be added that both
are quite successful, though Potsdam, like most other things
connected with the Hohenzollerns, has only a couple of hundred years'
tradition behind it. The square opposite the railway really does
recall Italy. The collection of palaces at Potsdam is bewildering.
Of these, three are of the first rank: the Town Palace, Sans-souci,
and the great pile of the "New Palace." Either Frederick the Great
was very fortunate in his architects, or else he chose them with
great discrimination. The Town Palace, even in my time but seldom
inhabited, is very fine in the finished details of its decoration.
Sans-souci is an absolute gem; its rococo style may be a little
over-elaborate, but it produces the effect of a finished, complete
whole, in the most admirable taste; even though the exuberant
imagination of the eighteenth century has been allowed to run riot in
it. The gardens of Sans-souci, too, {75} are most attractive. The
immense red-brick building of the New Palace was erected by Frederick
the Great during the Seven Years' War, out of sheer bravado. He was
anxious to impress on his enemies the fact that his financial
resources were not yet exhausted. Considering that he already
possessed two stately palaces within a mile of it, the New Palace may
be looked upon as distinctly a work of supererogation, also as an
appalling waste of money. As a piece of architecture, it is
distinctly a success. This list does not, however, nearly exhaust
the palatial resources of Potsdam. The eighteenth century had
contributed its successes; it remained for the nineteenth to add its
failures. Babelsberg, the old Emperor William's favourite residence,
was an awful example of a ginger-bread pseudo-Gothic castle. The
Marble Palace on the so-called "Holy Lake" was a dull, unimaginative
building; and the "Red Prince's" house at Glienicke was frankly
terrible. The main features of this place was an avenue of huge
cast-iron gilded lions. These golden lions were such a blot on an
otherwise charming landscape that one felt relieved by recalling that
the apparently ineradicable tendency of the children of Israel to
erect Golden Calves at various places in olden days had always been
severely discountenanced.
In spite of the carpenter-Gothic of Babelsberg, and of the pinchbeck
golden lions of Glienicke, Potsdam will remain in my mind, to the end
of my life, associated with memories of fresh breezes {76} and
bellying sails; of placid lakes and swift-gliding keels responding to
the straining muscles of back and legs; a place of verdant hills
dipping into clear waters; of limbs joyously cleaving those clear
waters with all the exultation of the swimmer; a place of rest and
peace, with every fibre in one's being rejoicing in being away, for
the time being, from crowded cities and stifling streets, in the free
air amidst woods, waters, and gently-swelling, tree-clad heights.
A year later, I was notified that I was transferred to Petrograd,
then of course still known as St. Petersburg. This was in accordance
with the dearest wish of my heart. Ever since my childhood's days I
had been filled with an intense desire to go to Russia. Like most
people unacquainted with the country, I had formed the most
grotesquely incorrect mental pictures of Russia. I imagined it a
vast Empire of undreamed of magnificence, pleasantly tempered with
relics of barbarism; and all these glittering splendours were
enveloped in the snow and ice of a semi-Arctic climate, which gave
additional piquancy to their glories. I pictured huge tractless
forests, their dark expanse only broken by the shimmering golden
domes of the Russian churches. I fancied this glamour-land peopled
by a species of transported French, full of culture, and all of them
polyglot, more brilliant and infinitely more intellectual than their
West European prototypes. I imagined this hyperborean paradise
served by a race of super-astute {77} diplomatists and officials,
with whom we poor Westerners could not hope to contend, and by
Generals whom no one could withstand. The evident awe with which
Germans envisaged their Eastern neighbours strengthened this idea,
and both in England and in France I had heard quite responsible
persons gloomily predict, after contemplating the map, that the
Northern Colossus was fatally destined at some time to absorb the
whole of the rest of Europe.
Apart then from its own intrinsic attraction, I used to gaze at the
map of Russia with some such feelings as, I imagine, the early
Christians experienced when, on their Sunday walks in Rome, they went
to look at the lions in their dens in the circus, and speculated as
to their own sensations when, as seemed but too probable, they might
have to meet these interesting quadrupeds on the floor of the arena,
in a brief, exciting, but definitely final encounter.
Everything I had seen or heard about this mysterious land had
enhanced its glamour. The hair-raising rumours which reached Berlin
as to revolutionary plots and counter-plots; the appalling stories
one heard about the terrible secret police; the atmosphere of
intrigue which seemed indigenous to the place--all added to its
fascinations. Even the externals were attractive. I had attended
weddings and funeral services at the chapel of the Russian Embassy.
Here every detail was exotic, and utterly dissimilar to anything in
one's previous {78} experience. The absence of seats, organ, or
pulpit in the chapel itself; the elaborate Byzantine decorations of
the building; the exquisitely beautiful but quite unfamiliar singing;
the long-bearded priests in their archaic vestments of unaccustomed
golden brocades--everything struck a novel note. It all came from a
world apart, centuries removed from the prosaic routine of Western
Europe.
Even quite minor details, such as the curiously sumptuous Russian
national dresses of the ladies of the Embassy at Court functions, the
visits to Berlin of the Russian ballets and troupes of Russian
singing gipsies, had all the same stamp of strong racial
individuality, of something temperamentally different from all we had
been accustomed to.
I was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing for myself at last this
land of mingled splendour and barbarism, this country which had
retained its traditional racial characteristics in spite of the
influences of nineteenth century drab uniformity of type.
As the Petrograd Embassy was short-handed at the time, it was settled
that I should postpone my leave for some months and proceed to Russia
without delay.
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess, who had been exceedingly kind to
me during my stay in Berlin, were good enough to ask me to the New
Palace at Potsdam for one night, to take leave of them.
{79}
I had never before had an opportunity of going all over the New
Palace. I thought it wonderfully fine, though quite French in
feeling. The rather faded appearance of some of the rooms increased
their look of dignity. It was not of yesterday. The great "Shell
Hall," or "Muschel-Saal," much admired of Prussians, is frankly
horrible; one of the unfortunate aberrations of eighteenth century
taste of which several examples occur in English country-houses of
the same date.
My own bedroom was charming; of the purest Louis XV, with apple-green
polished panelling and heavily silvered mouldings and mirrors.
Nothing could be more delightful than the Crown Prince's manner on
occasions such as this. The short-lived Emperor Frederick had the
knack of blending absolute simplicity with great dignity, as had the
Empress Frederick. For the curious in such matters, and as an
instance of the traditional frugality of the Prussian Court, I may
add that supper that evening, at which only the Crown Prince and
Princess, the equerry and lady-in-waiting, and myself were present,
consisted solely of curds and whey, veal cutlets, and a rice pudding.
Nothing else whatever. We sat afterwards in a very stately, lofty,
thoroughly French room. The Crown Prince, the equerry, and myself
drank beer, whilst the Prince smoked his long pipe. It seemed
incongruous to drink beer amid such absolutely French surroundings.
I noticed that the Crown Princess always laid down her needlework to
refill {80} her husband's pipe and to bring him a fresh tankard of
beer. The "Kronprinzliches Paar," as a German would have described
them, were both perfectly charming in their conversation with a dull,
uninteresting youth of twenty-one. They each had marvellous
memories, and recalled many trivial half-forgotten details about my
own family. That evening in the friendly atmosphere of the great,
dimly-lit room in the New Palace at Potsdam will always live in my
memory.
Two days afterwards I drove through the trim, prosaic, well-ordered,
stuccoed streets of Berlin to the Eastern Station; for me, the
gateway to the land of my desires, vast, mysterious Russia.
{81}