Otto Edward Leopold, fourth child of Charles and Wilhelmina von
Bismarck, was born at Schönhausen in Prussia, April 1, 1815. The family
was one of the oldest in the "Old Mark" (now a part of the province of
Saxony), and not a few of its members had held important military or
diplomatic positions under the Prussian crown. The young Otto passed his
school years in Berlin, and pursued university studies in law (1832-5)
at Göttingen and at Berlin. At Göttingen he was rarely seen at lectures,
but was a prominent figure in the social life of the student body: the
old university town is full of traditions of his prowess in duels and
drinking bouts, and of his difficulties with the authorities. In 1835 he
passed the State examination in law, and was occupied for three years,
first in the judicial and then in the administrative service of the
State, at Berlin, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Potsdam. In 1838 he left the
governmental service and studied agriculture at the Eldena Academy. From
his twenty-fourth to his thirty-sixth year (1839-51) his life was that
of a country squire. He took charge at first of property held by his
father in Pomerania; upon his father's death in 1845 he assumed the
management of the family estate of Schönhausen. Here he held the local
offices of captain of dikes and of deputy in the provincial Diet. The
latter position proved a stepping-stone into Prussian and German
politics; for when Frederick William IV. summoned the "United Diet" of
the kingdom (1847), Bismarck was sent to Berlin as an alternate delegate
from his province.
The next three years were full of events. The revolution of 1848 forced
all the German sovereigns who had thus far retained absolute power,
among them the King of Prussia, to grant representative constitutions to
their people. The same year witnessed the initiation of a great popular
movement for the unification of Germany. A national Parliament was
assembled at Frankfort, and in 1849 it offered to the King of Prussia
the German imperial crown; but the constitution it had drafted was so
democratic, and the opposition of the German princes so great, that
Frederick William felt obliged to refuse the offer. An attempt was then
made, at a Parliament held in Erfurt, to establish a "narrower Germany"
under Prussian leadership; but this movement also came to nothing. The
Austrian government, paralyzed for a time by revolts in its own
territories, had re-established its power and threatened Prussia with
war. Russia supported Austria, and Prussia submitted at Olmütz (1850).
In these stirring years, Bismarck--first as a member of the United Diet
and then as a representative in the new Prussian Chamber of
Deputies--made himself prominent by hostility to the constitutional
movement and championship of royal prerogative. He defended the King's
refusal of the imperial crown, because "all the real gold in it would be
gotten by melting up the Prussian crown"; and he compared the pact which
the King, by accepting the Frankfort constitution, would make with the
democracy, to the pact between the huntsman and the devil in the
'Freischütz': sooner or later, he declared, the people would come to the
Emperor, and pointing to the Imperial arms, would say, "Do you fancy
this eagle was given you for nothing?" He sat in the Erfurt Parliament,
but had no faith in its success. He opposed the constitution which it
adopted, although this was far more conservative than that drafted at
Frankfort, because he deemed it still too revolutionary. During the
Austro-Prussian disputes of 1850 he expressed himself, like the rest of
the Prussian Conservatives, in favor of reconciliation with Austria, and
he even defended the convention of Olmütz.
After Olmütz, the German Federal Diet, which had disappeared in 1848,
was reconstituted at Frankfort, and to Frankfort Bismarck was sent, in
1857, as representative of Prussia. This position, which he held for
more than seven years, was essentially diplomatic, since the Federal
Diet was merely a permanent congress of German ambassadors; and
Bismarck, who had enjoyed no diplomatic training, owed his appointment
partly to the fact that his record made him _persona grata_ to the
"presidential power," Austria. He soon forfeited the favor of that State
by the steadfastness with which he resisted its pretensions to superior
authority, and the energy with which he defended the constitutional
parity of Prussia and the smaller States; but he won the confidence of
the home government, and was consulted by the King and his ministers
with increasing frequency on the most important questions of European
diplomacy. He strove to inspire them with greater jealousy of Austria.
He favored closer relations with Napoleon III., as a make-weight against
the Austrian influence, and was charged by some of his opponents with an
undue leaning toward France; but as he explained in a letter to a
friend, if he had sold himself, it was "to a Teutonic and not to a
Gallic devil."
[Illustration: BISMARCK]
In the winter of 1858-9, as the Franco-Austrian war drew nearer,
Bismarck's anti-Austrian attitude became so pronounced that his
government, by no means ready to break with Austria, but rather
disposed to support that power against France, felt it necessary to put
him, as he himself expressed it, "on ice on the Neva." From 1859 to 1862
he held the position of Prussian ambassador at St. Petersburg. In 1862
he was appointed ambassador at Paris. In the autumn of the same year he
became Minister-President of Prussia.
The new Prussian King, William I., had become involved in a controversy
with the Prussian Chamber of Deputies over the reorganization of the
army; his previous ministers were unwilling to press the reform against
a hostile majority; and Bismarck, who was ready to assume the
responsibility, was charged with the premiership of the new cabinet.
"Under some circumstances," he said later, "death upon the scaffold is
as glorious as upon the battlefield." From 1862 to 1866 he governed
Prussia without the support of the lower chamber and without a regular
budget. He informed a committee of the Deputies that the questions of
the time were not to be settled by-debates, but by "blood and iron."
In the diplomatic field it was his effort to secure a position of
advantage for the struggle with Austria for the control of Germany,--a
struggle which, six years before, he had declared to be inevitable.
During his stay in St. Petersburg he had strengthened the friendly
feeling already subsisting between Prussia and Russia; and in 1863 he
gave the Russian government useful support in crushing a Polish
insurrection. To a remonstrance from the English ambassador, somewhat
arrogantly delivered in the name of Europe, Bismarck responded, "Who is
Europe?" While in Paris he had convinced himself that no serious
interference was to be apprehended from Napoleon. That monarch overrated
Austria; regarded Bismarck's plans, which appear to have been explained
with extraordinary frankness, as chimerical; and pronounced Bismarck
"not a serious person." Bismarck, on the other hand, privately expressed
the opinion that Napoleon was "a great unrecognized incapacity." When,
in 1863, the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark without direct heirs
raised again the ancient Schleswig-Holstein problem, Bismarck saw that
the opportunity had come for the solution of the German question.
The events of the next seven years are familiar history. In 1864 Prussia
and Austria made war on Denmark, and obtained a joint sovereignty over
the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. In 1866, with Italy as her ally,
Prussia drove Austria out of the German Confederation; annexed
Schleswig, Holstein, Hanover, Electoral Hesse, and Frankfort; and
brought all the German States north of the Main, except Luxemburg, into
the North German Confederation, of which the King of Prussia was
President and Bismarck Chancellor. When war was declared by France in
1870, the South German States also placed their forces at the King of
Prussia's disposal; and before the war was over they joined the newly
established German Empire, which thus included all the territories of
the old Confederation except German Austria and Luxemburg. The old
Confederation was a mere league of sovereign States; the new Empire was
a nation. To this Empire, at the close of the war, the French Republic
paid an indemnity of five milliards of francs, and ceded Alsace
and Lorraine.
In giving the German people political unity Bismarck realized their
strongest and deepest desire; and the feeling entertained toward him
underwent a sudden revulsion. From 1862 to 1866 he had been the best
hated man in Germany. The partial union of 1867--when, as he expressed
it, Germany was "put in the saddle"--made him a national hero. The
reconciliation with the people was the more complete because, at
Bismarck's suggestion, a German Parliament was created, elected by
universal suffrage, and because the Prussian ministers (to the great
indignation of their conservative supporters) asked the Prussian
Deputies to grant them indemnity for their unconstitutional conduct of
the government during the preceding four years. For the next ten years
Bismarck had behind him, in Prussian and in German affairs, a
substantial nationalist majority. At times, indeed, he had to restrain
their zeal. In 1867, for instance, when they desired to take Baden alone
into the new union,--the rest of South Germany being averse to
entrance,--Bismarck was obliged to tell them that it would be a poor
policy "to skim off the cream and let the rest of the milk turn sour."
Bismarck remained Chancellor of the Empire as well as Minister-President
of Prussia until 1890, when William II. demanded his resignation. During
these years the military strength of the Empire was greatly increased;
its finances were placed upon an independent footing; its authority was
extended in legislative matters, and its administrative system was
developed and consolidated. Conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy
(1873-87), and with the Social Democracy (1878-90) resulted
indecisively; though Bismarck's desire to alleviate the misery which in
his opinion caused the socialistic movement gave rise to a series of
remarkable laws for the insurance of the laboring classes against
accident, disease, and old age. With a return to the protective system,
which Bismarck advocated for fiscal reasons, he combined the attempt to
enlarge Germany's foreign market by the establishment of imperial
colonies in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean. In other respects his
foreign policy, after 1870, was controlled by the desire to preserve
peace. "Germany," he said, "belongs to the satisfied nations." When the
Russian friendship cooled, he secured an alliance with Austria (1879),
which Italy also joined (1882); and the "triple alliance" thus formed
continued to dominate European politics for many years after Bismarck's
withdrawal from office.
Of Bismarck's State papers, the greater portion are still buried in the
Prussian archives. The most important series that has been published
consists of his dispatches from Frankfort (Poschinger, Preussen im
Bundestag, 1851-8, 4 vols.). These are marked by clearness of statement,
force of argument, and felicity of illustration. The style, although
less direct and simple than that of his unofficial writings, is still
excellent. A large part of the interest attaching to these early papers
lies in their acute characterization of the diplomatists with whom he
had to deal. His analysis of their motives reveals from the outset that
thorough insight into human nature which was to count for so much in his
subsequent diplomatic triumphs. Of his later notes and dispatches, such
as have seen the light may be found in Hahn's documentary biography
('Fürst Bismarck,' 5 vols.). His reports and memorials on economic and
fiscal questions have been collected by Poschinger in 'Bismarck als
Volkswirth.'
Of Bismarck's parliamentary speeches there exists a full collection
(reproduced without revision from the stenographic reports) in fifteen
volumes. Bismarck was not an orator in the ordinary acceptation of the
word. His mode of address was conversational; his delivery was
monotonous and halting. He often hesitated, searching for a word; but
when it came, it usually seemed the only word that could have expressed
his meaning, and the hesitation that preceded it gave it a singular
emphasis. It seemed to be his aim to convince his hearers, not to win
them; his appeal was regularly to their intelligence, not to their
emotions. When the energy and warmth of his own feelings had carried him
into something like a flight of oratory, there was apt to follow, at the
next moment, some plain matter-of-fact statement that brought the
discussion back at once to its ordinary level. Such an anti-climax was
often very effective: the obvious effort of the speaker to keep his
emotions under restraint vouched for the sincerity of the preceding
outburst. It should be added that he appreciated as few Germans do the
rhetorical value of understatement.
He was undoubtedly at his literary best in conversation and in his
letters. We have several volumes of Bismarck anecdotes, Bismarck
table-talk, etc. The best known are those of Busch, which have been
translated into English--and in spite of the fact that his sayings come
to us at second hand and colored by the personality of the transmitter,
we recognize the qualities which, by the universal testimony of those
who knew him, made him one of the most fascinating of talkers. These
qualities, however, come out most clearly in a little volume of letters
('Bismarck briefe'), chiefly addressed to his wife. (These letters have
been excellently translated into English by F. Maxse.) They are
characterized throughout by vivid and graphic descriptions, a subtle
sense of humor, and real wit; and they have in the highest degree--far
more than his State papers or speeches--the literary quality, and that
indescribable something which we call style.
Bismarck furnishes, once for all, the answer to the old French question,
whether a German can possibly have _esprit_--witness his response to the
German prince who desired his advice regarding the offer of the crown of
one of the Balkan States:--"Accept, by all means: it will be a charming
recollection for you." He possessed also to a high degree the power of
summing up a situation or characterizing a movement in a single phrase;
and his sayings have enriched the German language with more quotations
than the spoken words of any German since Luther.
Of the numerous German biographies, Harm's gives the greatest amount of
documentary material; Hesekiel's (which has been translated into
English) is the most popular. The best French biography is by Simon; the
only important English work is that by Lowe. For bibliography, see
Schulze and Roller, (Bismarck-Literatur) (1895), which contains about
600 titles. The Frankfort dispatches and the speeches have been
translated into French, but not into English.
[Illustration: signature of Munroe Smith]