by
_Louis Lipsky_
_Introduction_
Theodore Herzl was the first Jew who projected the Jewish question as
an international problem. "The Jewish State," written fifty years ago,
was the first public expression, in a modern language, by a modern
Jew, of a dynamic conception of how the solution of the problem could
be accelerated and the ancient Jewish hope, slumbering in Jewish
memory for two thousand years, could be fulfilled.
In 1882, Leo Pinsker, a Jewish physician of Odessa, disturbed by the
pogroms of 1881, made a keen analysis of the position of the Jews,
declared that anti-Semitism was a psychosis and incurable, that the
cause of it was the abnormal condition of Jewish life, and that the
only remedy for it was the removal of the cause through self-help and
self-liberation. The Jewish people must become an independent nation,
settled on the soil of their own land and leading the life of a normal
people. Moses Hess in his "Rome and Jerusalem" classified the Jewish
question as one of the nationalist struggles inspired by the French
Revolution. Perez Smolenskin and E. Ben-Yehuda urged the revival of
Hebrew and the resettlement of Palestine as the foundation for the
rebirth of the Jewish people. Herzl was unaware of the existence of
these works. His eyes were not directed to the problem in the same
manner. When he wrote "The Jewish State" he was a journalist, living
in Paris, sending his letters to the leading newspaper of Vienna, the
_Neue Freie Presse_, and writing on a great variety of subjects. He
was led to see Jewish life as a phenomenon in a changing world. He had
adapted himself to a worldly outlook on all life. Through his efforts,
the Jewish problem was raised to the higher level of an international
question which, in his judgment, should be given consideration by
enlightened statesmanship. He was inspired to give his pamphlet a
title that arrested attention.
* * * * *
He wrote "The Jewish State" in a mood of restless agitation. His ideas
were thrown pell-mell into the white heat of a spontaneous revelation.
What was revealed dazzled and blinded him. Alex Bein, in his excellent
biography, gives an intriguing description, drawn from Herzl's
"Diaries," of how "The Jewish State" was born. It was the revelation
of a mystic vision with flashes and overtones of prophecy. This is
what Bein says:
"Then suddenly the storm breaks upon him. The clouds open. The
thunder rolls. The lightning flashes about him. A thousand
impressions beat upon him at the same time--a gigantic vision.
He cannot think; he is unable to move; he can only write;
breathless, unreflecting, unable to control himself or to
exercise his critical faculties lest he dam the eruption, he
dashes down his thoughts on scraps of paper--walking, standing,
lying down, on the street, at the table, in the night--as if
under unceasing command. So furiously did the cataract of his
thoughts rush through him, that he thought he was going out of
his mind. He was not working out the idea. The idea was working
him out. It would have been an hallucination had it not been so
informed by reason from first to last."
Not only did the Magic Title evoke a widespread interest among the
intellectuals of the day, but it brought Jews out of the ghettos and
made them conscious of their origin and destiny. It made them feel
that there was a world that might be won for their cause, hitherto
never communicated to strangers. Through Herzl, Jews were taught not
to fear the consequences of an international movement to demand their
national freedom. Thereafter, with freedom, they were to speak of a
Zionist Congress, of national funds, of national schools, of a flag
and a national anthem, and the redemption of their land. Their spirits
were liberated and in thought they no longer lived in ghettos. Herzl
taught them not to hide in corners. At the First Congress he said, "We
have nothing to do with conspiracy, secret intervention or indirect
methods. We wish to put the question in the arena and under the
control of free public opinion." The Jews were to be active factors in
their emancipation and, if they wished it, what was described in "The
Jewish State" would not be a dream but a reality.
* * * * *
The beginnings of the Jewish renaissance preceded the appearance of
"The Jewish State" by several decades. In every section of Russian
Jewry and extending to wherever the Jews clung to their Hebraic
heritage, there was an active Zionist life. The reborn Hebrew was
becoming an all-pervading influence. There were scores of Hebrew
schools and academies. Hebrew journals of superior quality had a wide
circulation. Ever since the pogroms of 1881, the ideas of Pinsker and
Smolenskin and Gordon were discussed with great interest and deep
understanding. There were many Zionist societies in Russia, in Poland,
in Rumania, in Galicia and even in the United States. In "The Jewish
State" Herzl alludes to the language of The Jewish State and passes
Hebrew by as a manifestation of no great significance. He has a poorer
opinion of Yiddish, the common language of Jews, which he regards as
"the furtive language of prisoners." This was obviously an oversight.
With the advent of Herzl, however, Zionism was no more a matter of
domestic concern only. It was no longer internal Jewish problem only,
not a theme for discussion only at Zionist meetings, not a problem to
heat the spirits of Jewish writers. The problem of Jewish exile now
occupied a place on the agenda of international affairs.
* * * * *
Herzl was not so distant from his people as many of the Russian
Zionists at first surmised. He was familiar with the social
anti-Semitism of Austria and Germany. He knew of the disabilities of
the Jews in Russia. There are many references in his feuilletons to
matters of Jewish interest. He had read an anti-Semitic book written
by Eugen Duehring called "The Jewish Problem as a Problem of Race,
Morals and Culture." One of his closest friends had gone to Brazil for
a Jewish committee to investigate the possibility of settling Jews in
that part of South America. In 1892 he wrote an article on French
anti-Semitism in which he considered the solution of a return to Zion
and seemed to reject it. He wrote "The New Ghetto" two years before
"The Jewish State" appeared. He was present at the trial of Alfred
Dreyfus in December, 1894. He witnessed the degradation of Dreyfus and
heard the cries of "Down with the Jews" in the streets of Paris. He
read Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic journal "La France Juive" and
said, "I have to thank Drumont for much of the freedom of my present
conception of the Jewish problem." While he was in Paris he was
stirred as never before by the feeling that the plight of the Jews was
a problem which would have to have the cooperation of enlightened
statesmanship. What excited him in the strangest way was the
unaccountable indifference of Jews themselves to what seemed to him
the menace of the existing situation. He saw the Jews in every land
encircled by enemies, hostility to them growing with the increase of
their numbers. In his excitement he thought first of Jewish
philanthropists. He sought an interview with Baron Maurice de Hirsch
in May, 1895. He planned an address to the Rothschilds. He talked of
his ideas to friends in literary circles. His mind was obsessed by a
gigantic problem which gave him no rest. He was struggling to pierce
the veils of revelation. He saw a world in which the Jewish people
lacked a fulcrum for national action and therefore had to seek to
create it through beneficence. He had a remarkably resourceful and
agile imagination. He weighed ideas, balanced them, discarded them,
reflected, reconsidered, tried to reconcile contradictions, and
finally came to what seemed to him at the moment the synthesis of the
issue which seemed acceptable to reason and sentiment.
* * * * *
Obviously, "The Jewish State" was not a dogmatic finality. Most of the
plans for settlement and migration are improvisations. The pamphlet
was not a rigid plan or a blueprint. It was not a description of a
Utopia, although some parts of it give that impression. It had an
indicated destiny but was not bound by a rigid line. It was the
illumination of a dynamic thought and followed the light with the hope
that it might lead to fulfillment. There was room for detours and
variations. It was to be rewritten, as he knew, not by its author but
by the Jewish people on their way to freedom.
* * * * *
In fact, it was revised from the moment the Zionist movement was
organized on an international basis. The "Society of Jews" became the
Zionist Organization, with its statutes, its procedures, its public
excitement and controversies. "The Jewish Company" became the Bank;
then more specifically, the Jewish Colonial Trust and later the
Anglo-Palestine Bank. The description of the _Gestor_, which appears
in the final chapter of the pamphlet, was never referred to again,
but in effect it was incorporated in the idea of a state
in-the-process-of-becoming. Its legitimate successor is the Jewish
Agency referred to in the Mandate for Palestine. He was first led by
the idea that the way to the charter was through the Sultan and that
the Sultan would be influenced by Kaiser Wilhelm. But both princes
failing him, he turned to England and Joseph Chamberlain, and came to
the Uganda proposal. This was Herzl's one political success although
the project was, in effect, rejected by the Zionist Congress. But
this encounter with England was a precedent which led to much
speculation in Zionist circles and gave a turn to Zionist thought
away from Germany and Turkey. It served to inspire Dr. Chaim Weizman
to make his home in England with the express purpose of seeking
English sympathy for the Zionist ideal. The successor of Joseph
Chamberlain was Arthur James Balfour. When Herzl opened Chamberlain's
door, Zionism had an easier access to the England of Balfour.
When Herzl first appeared on the political scene, he thought of
courtiers and statesmen, of princes and kings. He found that they
could not be relied upon for truth or stability. They were encircled
by favorites and mercenaries. Enormous responsibilities rested upon
their shoulders but they seemed to behave with regard to these
responsibilities as if they were gamblers or amateurs. Herzl soon
realized that these were frail reeds that would break under the
slightest pressure. He came to put his trust in the Jewish people,
the only real source of strength for the purpose of redemption.
Confidence in themselves would give them power to breach their prison
walls. His aristocratic republic had to become a movement of
democracy. Only in "The Jewish State" will you find reference to a
movement based upon Jews who endorse a "fixed program," and then
become members under the "discipline" of leadership. When Herzl faced
the First Congress, he saw that this conception of Zionism was foreign
to the nature and character of the Jewish people. The shekel was the
registry of a name. It led the way to the elevation of the individual
in Zionist affairs, first as a member of a democratic army "willing"
the fulfillment, and then settling in Palestine to become the hands
that built the Homeland.
Arrayed in the armor of democracy, the Zionist movement made the
self-emancipation ideal of Pinsker live in the soul of Herzl. At a
number of Congresses, in his articles in Die Welt, Herzl showed how
that idea had become an integral part of his life, although his first
thoughts ran in quite another direction.
But his analysis of anti-Semitism and how to approach the problem
remains true today after Hitler, as it was true then after Dreyfus.
This was the authentic revelation that in his last days was fixed in
his mind. The homelessness of the Jewish people must come to an end.
That tragedy is a world problem. It is to be solved by world
statesmanship in cooperation with the reawakened Jewish people. It is
to be solved by the establishment of a free Jewish State in their
historic Homeland. Herzl manifested his utter identification with the
destiny of his own people at the Uganda Congress when he faced the
rebellious Russian Zionists, spoke words of consolation to them and
gave them assurances of his fealty to Zion. He died a few months
later.
"The Jewish State" was not regarded by Herzl as a piece of literature.
It was a political document. It was to serve as the introduction to
political action. It was to lead to the conversion of leaders in
political life. It was to win converts to the idea of a Jewish State.
Although a shy man at first, he did not hesitate to make his way
through the corridors of the great and suffer the humiliations of the
suppliant. Through that remarkable friend and Christian, the Reverend
William H. Hechler, he met the Grand Duke of Baden; he made the rounds
of German statesmen, Count zu Eulenburg, Foreign Minister, Von Buelow
and Reichschancellor Hohenlohe; then he met the favorites who
encircled Sultan Abdul Hamid and the Sultan himself. He placed the
dramatic personae of his drama on the stage. The plan involved the
Turkish debt, the German interest in the Orient. It involved
stimulating the Russians and visiting the Pope. At first his political
activities were conducted as the author of a startling pamphlet, then
as the leader of his people. He became conscious of his leadership,
and played his part with superb dignity. He had ease of manner and
correct form. He created the impression of a regal personality; his
noble appearance hid his hesitations and fears. With the Sultan he
played the most remarkable game of diplomacy. He believed that once a
mutual interest could be arrived at, he would be able to secure the
funds, although at the time of speaking he had no funds at all.
Adjusting himself to the wily Turk, he had to change and diminish his
demands and finally, when he was dangerously near a disclosure, he was
saved by the Sultan's transferring his interest to the French and
obtaining his funds from them. With Kaiser Wilhelm, he soon
appreciated the fact that he had to deal with a great theatrical
personality who spoke of plans and purpose with great fire, but had
no courage and whose convictions melted away in the face of
obstacles.
The world Herzl dealt with has passed away. The Turkish Empire now
occupies a small part of the Near East. Its former provinces have now
become "sovereign" states struggling to establish harmony between
themselves and feeding on their animus towards the Jewish people
returning home. The methods of diplomacy have changed. Loudness of
speech is no longer out of order. Frankness and brutality may be
expected at any international gathering. It is now felt as never
before that behind political leaders, rulers, princes, statesmen, the
people are advancing and soon will be able to push aside those who
make of the relations of peoples a game and a gamble, a struggle for
power, which, when achieved, dissolves into the nothingness of vanity.
* * * * *
"The Jewish State" should be regarded as one of a series of books,
variations on the same theme, composed by the same author. The first
was "The New Ghetto" (1894). That was a play which dealt with the
social life of the upper class of Jews in Vienna. Then came the
"Address to the Rothschilds." That was a memorandum which contained a
proposal to Jewish philanthropists. "The Jewish State" was the third
effort of an agitated mind, wavering between the projection of a
Utopia or a thesis, and containing the political solution of the
Jewish problem. The final variant of the original theme was the novel
"Altneuland." Here he pictured the Promised Land as it might become
twenty years after the beginning of the Zionist movement. In the
interims, he played on the exciting stage of the Zionist Congresses.
He paid court to princes and their satellites. He led in the
organization of the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National
Fund. He delivered political addresses and engaged in political
controversy. He began the writing of his "Diaries" after he had
written "The Jewish State." His whole personality is reflected in that
remarkable book. There you see his ideas in the process of becoming
clear. There you see his sharp reactions; the reflection of his hopes,
his disappointments, his shifts from untenable positions to positions
possible after defeat. There you read his penetrating analysis of the
figures on the Zionist stage upon whom he had to rely. There you are
made to feel his doubts, his dread of death. In the midst of life he
felt himself encircled by the Shadow of Death. There you found the
explanation of his great haste, why he was so anxious to bring a
measure of practical reality to the Jewish people even if it
necessitated a detour from the land which was becoming more and more a
part of his hopes and desires. The "Diaries" are unrestrained and
unstudied. They were written hurriedly in the heat of the moment. They
reveal the making of the great personality who gave only a glimpse of
himself in "The Jewish State." They show the writer evolving as the
hero of a great and lasting legend. The pamphlet is one of the
chapters in the story of his struggle to achieve in eight years what
his people had not been able to achieve in two thousand years. He gave
his life to write it.
_Theodor Herzl_
A BIOGRAPHY
based on the work of
_Alex Bein_
Theodor Herzl was born on Wednesday, May 2, 1860, in the city of
Budapest.
Almost next door to his father's house was the liberal-reform temple.
To this house of worship the little boy went regularly with his father
on Sabbaths and Holy Days. At home, too, the essentials of the ritual
were observed. One ceremony which Theodor learned in childhood
remained with him; before every important event and decision he sought
the blessing of his parents.
Even stronger than these impressions, however, was the influence of
his mother. Her education had been German through and through; there
was not a day on which she did not slip into German literature,
especially the classics.
The Jewish world, not alien to her, did not find expression through
her; her conscious efforts were all directed toward implanting the
German cultural heritage in her children. Of even deeper significance
was her sympathetic attitude toward the pride which showed early in
her son, and her skill in transferring to him her sense of form, of
bearing, of tactfulness and of simple grace.
At about the age of twelve he read in a German book about the
Messiah-King whom many Jews still awaited and who would come riding,
like the poorest of the poor on an ass. The history of the Exodus and
the legend of the liberation by the King-Messiah ran together in the
boy's mind, inspiring in him the theme of a wonderful story which he
sought in vain to put into literary form.
A little while thereafter Herzl had the following dream: "The
King-Messiah came, a glorious and majestic old man, took me in his
arms, and swept off with me on the wings of the wind. On one of the
iridescent clouds we encountered the figure of Moses. The features
were those familiar to me out of my childhood in the statue by
Michelangelo. The Messiah called to Moses: It is for this child that I
have prayed. But to me he said: Go, declare to the Jews that I shall
come soon and perform great wonders and great deeds for my people and
for the whole world."
It may be to this period (of his _Bar Mitzvah_) of reawakened Jewish
sensitivity, of heightened responsiveness to the expectations of his
elders, of resurgent interest in Jewish historical studies--it may be
to this period that the dream of a dedicated life belonged. It is
almost certain, too, that for the great event of the _Bar Mitzvah_ the
old grandfather of Semlin came to Pest. About this time, again,
Alkalai, that early, all-but-forgotten Zionist, passed through Vienna
and Budapest on his final journey to Palestine. Whether or not each
one of these circumstances had a direct effect on the boy, the whole
complex surrounds his _Bar Mitzvah_ with the suggestion of the mission
of his life, and, certainly, occasion was given for the awakening in
him of the feeling of dedication to a great enterprise.
The attention, energy and time which Herzl devoted to literature, at
fifteen, his absorption in himself, his activity in the school
literary society meant of course so much less given to his school
work. He found no time at all for science; Jewish questions likewise
disappeared from his interests; he was completely absorbed by German
literary culture. This is all the more astonishing when we reflect
that anti-Semitism continued to increase steadily. As a grown man
Herzl could recall that one of his teachers, in defining the word
"heathen," had said, "such as idolators, Mohammedans and Jews."
Whether it was this incident,--as the memory of the grown man always
insisted--which enraged him beyond endurance, or the increasingly bad
school reports, or both circumstances together, the fact remains that
on February 4, 1875 Herzl left the Technical School.
At sixteen to eighteen in High School, he struggled to define the
basic principles of various literary art forms in order that he might
see more clearly what he himself wanted to say. He took an active and
eager part in the work of the "German Self-Education Society" created
by the students of his school. The Jewish world, whose inferior
position always wounded his pride, and whose obstinate separatism
seemed to him utterly meaningless, drifted further and further out of
his mind.
At eighteen, after the sudden death of his only sister, the family
moved to Vienna where Herzl entered the University as a law student.
Herzl, who accounted himself a liberal and an Austrian patriot,
plunged eagerly into the activities of a large student Cultural
Association, attended its discussions and directed its literary
evenings. He had occasion, there, to deride certain Jewish fellow
members who, in his view, displayed an excessive eagerness in their
loyalty to various movements.
This was the extent to which, in these days, he occupied himself with
the Jewish question--at least externally. He concerned himself little
or not at all with the official Jewish world which was seeking to
submerge itself in the surrounding world. He seldom visited the
synagogue.
He was an omnivorous reader. His extraordinary knowledge of books was
evident in his conversation, for he liked to adorn his speech with
quotations, which came readily to his memory. Herzl read Eugen
Duehring's book _The Jewish-Problem as a Problem of Race, Morals and
Culture_--the first and most important effort to find a "scientific,"
philosophic, biologic and historical basis for the anti-Semitism which
was sweeping through Europe in those days (1881). Duehring saw the
Jewish question as a purely racial question, and for him the Jewish
race was without any worth whatsoever. Those peoples which, out of a
false sentiment of humanity, had permitted the Jews to live among them
with equal and sometimes even with superior rights, had to be
liberated from the harmful intruder, had to be de-Judaized.
The reading of this book had the effect upon him of a blow between the
eyes. The observations set down in his diary burn with indignation:
"An infamous book.... If Duehring, who unites so much undeniable
intelligence with so much universality of knowledge, can write like
this, what are we to expect from the ignorant masses?"
This passionate reaction to Duehring's book shows us how deeply he had
been moved, and how fearfully he had been shaken in his belief that
the Jewish question was on the point of disappearing. We shall find
echoes of this experience in the pages of the _Judenstaat_. For the
time being, however, he shrank from the logical consequences of his
reactions. His inner pride began to build itself up.
The more immediate reaction was undoubtedly a sharpened perception and
evaluation of his fellow-members in the Fraternity. Herzl had joined
and been active in a duelling Fraternity. Here, too, anti-Semitism was
breaking through; student after student expressed himself favorably
toward the Jew-baiting speeches of Schoenerer, who was making a
special effort to win over the universities. In the Fraternity debates
Herzl expressed himself sharply against any open or covert
manifestation of such sympathy. But he was already known for the
sharpness of his tongue and the individuality of his views. Thus he
won to himself neither the few co-religionists who belonged to the
Fraternity nor the mass of the Germanic students.
He had learned from newspaper reports that the Wagner Memorial
meeting, in which his Fraternity had taken a part, had been
transformed into an anti-Semitic demonstration. His Fraternity had,
therefore, identified itself with a movement which he, as a believer
in liberty, was bound to condemn, even if he had not been a Jew. "It
is pretty clear that, handicapped as I am by my Semitism (the word was
not yet known at the time of my entry), I would today refrain from
seeking a membership which would, indeed, probably be refused me; it
must also be clear to every decent person that under these
circumstances I cannot wish to retain my membership." Herzl withdrew
from the organization.
On July 30, 1884, Herzl was admitted to the bar in Vienna. His student
days were over. A new era opened for him, with its challenge to prove
whether or not there was something in him to establish and proclaim to
the world.
In August, he entered on his law practice in the service of the state
and was soon transferred to the court of Salzburg. Though he may at
that time have been so far from Judaism that only pride and a decent
respect for the feelings of his parents stood between him and baptism,
he could not help perceiving that as a Jew he would find the higher
levels of the civil service hierarchy closed to him. On August 5,
1885, he withdrew from the service, determined to seek fame and
fortune as a writer.
Brimming with hope, he set out on a journey which was to be the
introduction to his literary life. He visited Belgium and Holland and
in Berlin made valuable connections and became a regular contributor
to several important newspapers. Thus the range of his connections and
relationships widened from year to year, and when he travelled again
it was an ever-widening audience that waited for his impressions and
observations.
In a book of reprinted feuilletons of Herzl which appeared in the
first years of his success as a journalist a total of seven or eight
lines is devoted to Jews. His impressions of the Ghetto in Rome. "What
a steaming in the air, what a street! Countless open doors and windows
thronged with innumerable pallid and worn-out faces. The ghetto! With
what base and persistent hatred these unfortunates have been
persecuted for the sole crime of faithfulness to their religion. We've
travelled a long way since those times: nowadays the Jew is despised
only for having a crooked nose, or for being a plutocrat even when he
happens to be a pauper." Pity and bitterness abound in these lines,
but they are written by a detached spectator. He did not know how much
of the Jew there was in him even in this feeling of remoteness from a
world which offered him not living reality but folly.
By 1892, Herzl had achieved great success as a dramatist and as a
journalist; his plays had been performed on the stage of the leading
theatre of Vienna and, to cap the climax, came an appointment to the
staff of the _Neue Freie Presse_, one of the most distinguished papers
on the continent.
Early in October he received a telegram from the _Neue Freie Presse_
asking whether he would accept the post of Paris correspondent. He
replied at once in the affirmative, and proceeded to the French
capital at the end of the same month. He wrote to his parents: "The
position of Paris correspondent is the springboard to great things,
and I shall achieve them, to your great joy, my dear beloved parents."
Herzl sustained successfully the comparison with his great models and
predecessors. In style as well as in substance his reports and
articles were masterpieces of their kind. He came to his task with the
equipment of a perfect feuilletonist; his style was polished and
musical; he possessed in an exceptional degree the capacity to
describe natural scenery in a few fine clear strokes and of hinting
at, rather than of reproducing, a mood with a minimum of language.
Everything was there, background, mood and development of action in
plastic balance. It was only now, when a great opportunity provoked
him to the highest effort, that all the lessons of the years of his
apprenticeship built up a many-sided perfection.
He threw himself seriously and diligently into the journalistic craft.
He observed with close attention all that went on about him, and
listened with sharpened ears. But the moment had not yet come for the
unveiling of a mission within him. He was on the way; the process of
preparation had begun.
How, in this mood of his, could he possibly have avoided clashing with
the Jewish question? As far back as the time of his Spanish journey,
when he had sought healing from his domestic and spiritual torments,
the question had presented itself to him and had cried for artistic
expression. His call to Paris had been a welcome pretext, perhaps,
putting off the writing of his Jewish novel--the more so as he
probably was not ripe enough for such an undertaking. Now that he was
in Paris, where his eyes were opened to the full range of the social
process, he began to draw nearer in spirit to his fellow-Jews, and to
look upon them more warmly and with less inhibition. He found them as
difficult aesthetically as before, but he tried hard to grasp the
essence of their character and substance, and to judge them without
prejudice.
When Herzl arrived in Paris anti-Semitism, had not--in spite of
Drumont's exertions, and in spite of his paper, _la Libre Parole_,
founded in 1892--achieved the dimensions of a genuine movement, nor
was it destined to become one in the German sense. But it served as
the focus for all kinds of discontents and resentments; it attracted
certain serious critical spirits, too; its influence grew from day to
day, and the position of the Jews became increasingly uncomfortable.
Herzl's contact with anti-Semitism dated back to his student days,
when it had first taken on the form of a social political movement. He
had been aware of it as a writer, though the contact had never ripened
into a serious inner struggle or compelled him to give utterance to
it.
Now he read Drumont, as he had read Duehring. The impression was again
a profound one. What moved him most in the work was the totality of a
world picture based on a considered hostility to the Jews.
A ritual-murder trial was in progress in the town of Xanten, in the
Rhineland. On August 31, 1892, Herzl, dealing with this subject as
with all other subjects of public interest, summed up the general
situation in a long report entitled "French anti-Semitism."
By now Herzl was no longer content with a simple acceptance of the
facts; he was looking for the deeper significance of the universal
enmity directed against the Jews. For the world it is a lightning
conductor. But so far it was only a flash of insight which ended in
nothing more than a literary paradox. However, from now on it gave him
no peace.
At the turn of the year 1892-93 there came a sharp clarification in
his ideas. He had followed closely the evasive debates in the Austrian
Reichstag--debates which forever dodged the reality by turning the
question into one of religion. "It is no longer--and it has not been
for a long time--a theological matter. It has nothing whatsoever to do
with religion and conscience," declared Herzl. "What is more, everyone
knows it. The Jewish question is neither nationalistic nor religious.
It is a social question."
Then came the summer, 1894, and at its close Herzl took a much needed
vacation. He spent the month of September in Baden, near Vienna, in
the company of his fellow-feuilletonist on the _Neue Freie Presse_,
Ludwig Speidel. Herzl has left a record of their conversation. What he
gave Speidel was more or less what he had felt, many years before,
after his reading of Duehring. He admitted the substance of the
anti-Semitic accusation which linked the Jew with money; he defended
the Jew as the victim of a long historic process for which the Jew was
not responsible. "It is not our fault, not the fault of the Jews, that
we find ourselves forced into the role of alien bodies in the midst of
various nations. The ghetto, which was not of our making, bred in us
certain anti-social qualities.... Our original character cannot have
been other than magnificent and proud; we were men who knew how to
face war and how to defend the state; had we not started out with such
gifts, how could we have survived two thousand years of unrelenting
persecution?"
At that time Herzl came across the Zionist solution, and definitely
rejected it. Discussing the novel _Femme de Claude_, by Dumas the
younger, he says of one of its characters: "The good Jew Daniel wants
to rediscover the homeland of his race and gather his scattered
brothers into it. But a man like Daniel would surely know that the
historic homeland of the Jews no longer has any value for them. It is
childish to go in search of the geographic location of this homeland.
And if the Jews really 'returned home' one day, they would discover
on the next day that they do not belong together. For centuries they
have been rooted in diverse nationalisms; they differ from each other,
group by group; the only thing they have in common is the pressure
which holds them together. All humiliated peoples have Jewish
characteristics, and as soon as the pressure is removed they react
like liberated men."
The inner apotheosis was drawing nearer and nearer for Herzl. In
October, 1894, Herzl was in the studio of the sculptor, Samuel
Friedrich Beer, who was making a bust of him. The conversation turned
to the Jewish question and to the growth of the anti-Semitic movement
in Vienna, the hometown of both Herzl and Beer. It was useless for the
Jew to turn artist and to dissociate himself from money, said Herzl.
"The blot sticks. We can't break away from the ghetto." A great
excitement seized Herzl, and he left the atelier, and on the way home
the inspiration came on him like a hammerblow. What was it? The
complete outline of a play, "like a block of basalt."
With this play Herzl completed his inner return to his people. Until
then, with all his emotional involvement in the question, he had stood
outside it as the observer, the student, the clarifier, or even the
defender. He had provided the world-historic background for the
problem, he had diagnosed it and given the prognosis for the future.
Now he was immersed in it and identified with it.
He had become its spokesman and attorney, as he was spokesman and
attorney for other victims of injustice. It was no accident that the
hero of the play was a lawyer by vocation and avocation. For the hero
was Herzl himself, and the transformation which unfolded in Dr. Jacob
Samuel was the transformation which was unfolding in Theodore Herzl.
He belongs utterly to the Jews; it is for them that he fights, and,
dying, he still sees himself as the fighter for their future. What
future Jacob Samuel foresaw for the Jews in his dying moments remained
unclear. It would appear that Herzl himself still believed that a
deepening of mutual understanding between Jews and non-Jews might
bring the solution.
But Herzl had travelled so much further by this time that he could not
have in mind the "reconciliation" which would come by the capitulation
of baptism. Indeed, the play emphasizes as a first prerequisite in
human relations the element of self-respect. "If you become untrue to
yourself," says the clever mother to the son, in the play, "you musn't
complain if others become untrue to you." It was like a fresh wind
blowing suddenly through the choking atmosphere of a lightless room.
It was a new attitude: decent pride!
It called for a frightful effort to descend from the intoxicating
heights of creativity to the ordinary round of work. For weeks now his
regular employment had filled Herzl with revulsion. The first reports
of the Dreyfus trial, which appeared while he was working on his _New
Ghetto_, therefore made no particular impression on him. It looked
like a sordid espionage affair in which a foreign power--before long
it was revealed that the foreign power was Germany, acting through
Major von Schwartzkoppen--had been buying up through its agent secret
documents of the French general staff. An officer by the name of
Alfred Dreyfus was named as the culprit, and no one had reason to
doubt that he was guilty, even though Drumont's _Libre Parole_ was
exploiting the fact that the man was a Jew.
But, after the degradation of Dreyfus, Herzl became more and more
convinced of his innocence. "A Jew who, as an officer on the general
staff, has before him an honorable career, cannot commit such a
crime.... The Jews, who have so long been condemned to a state of
civic dishonor, have, as a result, developed an almost pathological
hunger for honor, and a Jewish officer is in this respect specifically
Jewish."
"The Dreyfus case," he wrote in 1899, "embodies more than a judicial
error; it embodies the desire of the vast majority of the French to
condemn a Jew, and to condemn all Jews in this one Jew. Death to the
Jews! howled the mob, as the decorations were being ripped from the
captain's coat.... Where? In France. In republican, modern, civilized
France, a hundred years after the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
The French people, or at any rate the greater part of the French
people, does not want to extend the rights of man to Jews. The edict
of the great Revolution had been revoked."
Illumined thus in retrospect, the "curious excitement" which gripped
Herzl on that occasion takes on a special significance. "Until that
time most of us believed that the solution of the Jewish question was
to be patiently waited for as part of the general development of
mankind. But when a people which in every other respect is so
progressive and so highly civilized can take such a turn, what are we
to expect from other peoples, which have not even attained the level
which France attained a hundred years ago?"
In that fateful moment, when he heard the howling of the mob outside
the gates of the _Ecole Militaire_, the realization flashed upon Herzl
that anti-Semitism was deep-rooted in the heart of the people--so
deep, indeed, that it was impossible to hope for its disappearance
within a measurable period of time. Precisely because he was so
sensitive to his honor as a Jew, precisely because he had proclaimed,
in the _New Ghetto_, the ideal of human reconciliation, and had taken
the ultimate decision to stand by his Jewishness, the ghastly
spectacle of that winter morning must have shaken him to the depths of
his being. It was as if the ground had been cut away from under his
feet. In this sense Herzl could say later that the Dreyfus affair had
made him a Zionist.
He saw all about him the ever fiercer light of a blazing
anti-Semitism. In the French Chamber of Deputies the deputy Denis made
an interpellation on the influence of the Jews in the political
administration of the country. In Vienna a Jewish member of the
Reichstag rose to speak and was howled down. On April 2, 1895, were
held the municipal elections of Vienna, and there was an enormous
increase in the number of anti-Semitic aldermen. Changing plans passed
tumultuously through his mind. He wanted to write a book on "The
Condition of the Jews," consisting of reports on all the important
Jewish colonization enterprises in Russia, Galicia, Hungary, Bohemia,
the Orient, and those more recently founded in Palestine, about which
he had heard from a relative. Alphonse Daudet, the famous French
author with whom he had discussed the whole matter, felt that Herzl
ought to write a novel; it would carry further than a play. "Look at
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_."
He returned to his former plan of a Jewish novel which he had
abandoned when he was called to his assignment on the _Neue Freie
Presse_ in Paris. His friend Kana, the suicide, was no longer to be
the central figure. He was instead to be "the weaker one, the beloved
friend of the hero," and would take his own life after a series of
misfortunes, while the Promised Land was being discovered or rather
founded. When the hero aboard the ship which was taking him to the
Promised Land would receive the moving farewell letter of his friend,
his first reaction after his horror would be one of rage: "Idiot!
Fool! Miserable hopeless weakling! A life lost which belonged to us!"
We can see the Zionist idea arising. Its outlines are still
indefinite, but the decisive idea is clearly visible; only by
migration can this upright human type be given its chance to emerge.
In _The New Ghetto_ Jacob Samuel is a hero because he knows how to
choose an honorable death. Now the death of a useful man is criminally
wasteful. For there are great tasks to be undertaken.
In essence it is the Act and not the Word that confronts us. What last
impulse it was that actually carried Herzl from the Word to the Act it
will be difficult to tell--he himself could not have given the answer.
Little things may play a dramatic role not less effectively than great
ones when a man is so charged with purpose as Herzl then was.
In the early days of May, Herzl addressed to Baron de Hirsch (the
sponsor of Jewish colonization in Argentina), the letter which opens
his Jewish political career. His request for an interview was granted.
Herzl prepared an outline of his position in notes, lest he omit
something important during their conversation.
In these notes he writes: "If the Jews are to be transformed into men
of character in a reasonable period of time, say ten or twenty years,
or even forty--the interval needed by Moses--it cannot be done without
migration. Who is going to decide whether conditions are bad enough
today to warrant our migration? And whether the situation is hopeless?
And the Congress which you (i.e. Hirsch) have convened for the first
of August in a hotel in Switzerland? You will preside over this
Congress of notables. Your call will be heard and answered in every
part of the world.
"And what will be the message given to the men assembled 'You are
pariahs! You must forever tremble at the thought that you are about
to be deprived of your rights and stripped of your possessions. You
will be insulted when you walk in the street. If you are poor, you
suffer doubly. If you are rich, you must conceal the fact. You are not
admitted to any honorable calling, and if you deal in money you are
made the special focus of contempt.... The situation will not change
for the better, but rather for the worse.... There is only way out:
into the Promised Land.'"
Where the Promised Land was to be located, how it was to be acquired,
is not yet mentioned. Herzl does not seem to have thought this
question of decisive significance; it was a scientific matter. It was
the organization of the migration which held his attention, the
political preparations among the Powers, the preliminary changes to be
brought about among the masses by training, by "tremendous propaganda,
the popularization of the idea through newspapers, books, pamphlets,
lectures, pictures, songs."
On the day of his conversation with Baron de Hirsch, Herzl wrote him a
long letter in which he sought to supplement the information and
impressions which had been the result of the meeting. "Please believe
me, the political life of an entire people--particularly when that
people is scattered throughout the entire world--can be set in motion
only with imponderables floating high in the air. Do you know what the
German Reich sprang from? From dreams, songs, fantasies, and
gold-black bands worn by students. And that in a brief period of time.
What? You do not understand imponderables? And what is religion?
Bethink yourself what the Jews have endured for two thousand years for
the sake of this fantasy....
"The exodus to the Promised Land presents itself as a tremendous
enterprise in transportation, unparalleled in the modern world. What
transportation? It is a complex of all human enterprises which we
shall fit Into each other like cog-wheels. And in the very first
stages of the enterprise we shall find employment for the ambitious
younger masses of our people: all the engineers, architects,
technologists, chemists, doctors, and lawyers, those who have emerged
in the last thirty years from the ghetto and who have been moved by
the faith that they can win their bread and a little honor outside the
framework of our Jewish business futilities. Today they must be filled
with despair, they constitute the foundation of a frightful
over-educated proletariat. But it is to these that all my love
belongs, and I am just as set on increasing their number as you are
set on diminishing it. It is in them that I perceive the latent power
of the Jewish people. In brief, my kind."
In this letter of June 3, 1895, Herzl for the first time imparted his
new Jewish policy to a stranger. The writing down of his views, as
well as his conversation on the subject, had had a stronger effect on
himself than on Hirsch. He had obtained a clear vision of the new and
revolutionary character of his proposals. On the same day or shortly
thereafter he began a diary under the title of _The Jewish Question_.
"For some time now, I have been engaged upon a work of indescribable
greatness. I do not know yet whether I shall carry it through. It has
assumed the aspect of some mighty dream. But days and weeks have
passed since it has filled me utterly, it has overflown into my
unconscious self, it accompanies me wherever I go, it broods above all
my commonplace conversation, it peeps over my shoulder at the comical
little journalistic work which I must carry out. It disturbs and
intoxicates me."
Then suddenly the storm breaks upon him. The clouds open, the thunder
rolls and the lightning flashes about him. A thousand impressions beat
upon him simultaneously, a gigantic vision. He cannot think, he cannot
act, he can only write; breathless, unreflecting, unable to control
himself, unable to exercise the critical faculty lest he dam the
eruption, he dashes down his thoughts on scraps of paper--"Walking,
standing, lying down, in the street, at table, in the night," as if
under unceasing command.
And then doubts rise up from the depths. He dines with well-to-do,
educated, oppressed people who confront the question of anti-Semitism
in a state of complete helplessness: "They do not suspect it, but they
are ghetto-natures, quiet, decent, timid. That is what most of us are.
Will they understand the call to freedom and to manhood? When I left
them my spirits were very low. Again, my plan appeared to me to be
crazy." Then at once he comes to "Today I am again as firm as steel."
He notes the next morning. "The flabbiness of the people I met
yesterday gives me all the more grounds for action."
Clearer and clearer becomes the picture which he has of himself and of
his task in the history of his people. "I picked up once again the
torn thread of the tradition of our people. I lead it into the
Promised Land."
"The Promised Land, where we can have hooked noses, black or red
beards, and bow legs, without being despised for it; where we can live
at last as free men on our own soil, and where we can die peacefully
in our own fatherland. There we can expect the award of honor for
great deeds, so that the offensive cry of 'Jew!' may become an
honorable appellation, like German, Englishman, Frenchman--in brief,
like all civilized peoples; so that we may be able to form our state
to educate our people for the tasks which at present still lie beyond
our vision. For surely God would not have kept us alive so long if
there were not assigned to us a specific role in the history of
mankind." He adds: "The Jewish state is a world need." He draws the
logical consequence for himself: "I believe that for me life has ended
and world history begun."
He let the first storm pass over him, yielding to its imperious will,
making no effort to stem its fury lest he interrupt the inspiration.
When it had had its way with him, he took hold of himself again, and
gathered up his energies for the effort to reconstruct everything
logically and in ordered fashion. He was afraid that death might come
upon him before he had succeeded in reducing to transferable form his
historic vision. Thus, in the course of five days, he added to his
diary a sixty-five page pamphlet--in effect the outline of _Der
Judenstaat_--which he called: _Address to the Rothschilds_.
In the address he writes, "I have the solution to the Jewish question.
I know it sounds mad; and at the beginning I shall be called mad more
than once--until the truth of what I am saying is recognized in all
its shattering force."
He wrote to Bismarck asking for an interview in order to submit his
plan for a solution to the Jewish problem but he received no reply.
He wrote to Rabbi Gudemann, Chief Rabbi of Vienna, the occasion being
the anti-Jewish excesses which had occurred in Vienna. "This plan ...
is a reserve against more evil days."
Herzl, in his first visit to England, met and talked with Israel
Zangwill, the novelist, whom he impressed without quite winning him
over. But Zangwill made it possible for him to meet more than a few
prominent, influential Jews of whom he made immediate converts. None
of them wanted to know anything about the Argentine, and on this point
the practical men were united with the dreamers: Palestine alone came
into the picture for a national concentration of the Jews.
After his experiences in England, Herzl resolved to present his plan
to the public at large. The _Address to the Rothschilds_ which was the
first complete writing of his plan, forged in the heat of inspiration
was thoroughly reworked and emerged as his great book _Der
Judenstaat_. Its title was: _The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern
Solution of the Jewish Problem. Der Judenstaat_ may properly be called
Herzl's life work; his philosophy of the world, his views on the
state, on the Jewish people, on science and technology, as we have
seen them developing to this, his thirty-fifth year are concentrated
in the book.
The "Jewish State" was published in an edition of three thousand. It
was read by small circles in various European capitals. It was sent to
leading personalities in the press and political circles. It was soon
translated into several languages. Herzl received many letters from
authors and statesmen in which the work was praised. But the general
German press, especially the Jewish-controlled press, took a negative
attitude. A number of journalists alluded to the adventurer who would
like to become Prime Minister or King of the Jews. No mention of the
"Jewish State" appeared in the Neue Freie Presse, then or ever. The
Algemeine Zeitung of Vienna said that Zionism was a madness born of
despair, The Algemeine Zeitung of Munich described it as a fantastic
dream of a feuilletonist whose mind had been unhinged by Jewish
enthusiasm.
It was upon the Jewish masses that Herzl made a tremendous impression.
He dawned upon Jews of Eastern Europe as a mystic figure rising out of
the past. Little was known of his pamphlet, for it was kept out of the
country by censorship in Russia. Only its title got their attention
and the stories told of Herzl--the Western Jew returning to his
people--gripped their hearts and stirred their imagination. He was
greeted by one of the Galician Zionist societies as the leader who,
like Moses, had returned from Midian to liberate the Jews. Max Nordau,
that devastating critic of art and literature, was swept off his feet
and described the pamphlet as a revelation, Richard Beer Hoffman, the
poet, wrote to Herzl saying "At last there comes again a man, who does
not carry his Judaism with resignation as if it were a burden or a
misfortune, but is proud to be the legal heir of an immemorial
culture."
It became clear to Herzl that he would have to take an active part in
the task he had set forth in "The Jewish State." He no longer felt
that he stood alone. He was not inclined to appear on a public
platform. He had the shyness of the man who had always written what he
had to say. He also felt that it would do more harm than good if his
ideas were to be obscured by his personal presence. Through
correspondence he set in motion Zionist activities--in London, in
Paris, in Berlin, in the United States. The amount of letter-writing
he developed was enormous.
He decided that there were three tasks to be undertaken at once. The
first was the organization of the Society of Jews. The second was to
continue diplomatic work in Constantinople and among interested
Powers. The third was the creation of a press to influence public
opinion and to prepare the Jewish masses for the great migration.
Through the Rev. Hechler, a chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna,
who believed in the Jewish return to the Holy Land, Herzl was
introduced to the Grand Duke of Baden, a Christian of great piety and
influence in political circles.
Herzl intended to use the influence of the Germans to affect the
Sultan and make him more sympathetic to Zionist proposals. Herzl told
the Grand Duke that he would like to have Zionism included within the
cultural sphere of German interests. The Grand Duke said that the
Kaiser seemed inclined to take Jewish migration under German
protection. The great powers were interested in maintaining certain
extra territorial rights within the Turkish Empire. If they had
nationals in any part of the Empire, they claimed the right to protect
them over and above Turkish law. It was, therefore, not the Kaiser's
interest in the Jews, but in extending German jurisdiction within the
Turkish Empire that persuaded him to suggest the adoption of Jews in
Palestine for that purpose. Germany had a special relationship to
Turkey. Most of the western powers were openly discussing the
impending partition of the Turkish Empire, but Germany was opposed to
it.
Herzl was told that the Kaiser was prepared to see him at the head of
a delegation when he visited Palestine, but Herzl was anxious to see
the Kaiser without delay. He suggested an audience before the trip to
Palestine in order that the Kaiser might be in a position to discuss
the Jewish question with the Sultan. The Grand Duke advised Herzl to
see Count Philip Zu Eulenberg, the German Ambassador at Vienna. Herzl
was given an opportunity to see Count Eulenberg in Vienna. Herzl told
him that he wanted His Imperial Majesty to persuade the Sultan to open
negotiations with the Jews.
The Count passed Herzl over to the German Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Von Buelow, who happened to be in Vienna at the same time. Van Buelow
knew a great deal about the Zionist movement. He said that the
difficulty lay in persuading the Sultan to deal with the Jews. He felt
certain that the Sultan could be impressed if he was properly advised
by the Kaiser. A week later Herzl was informed of the Kaiser's
inclination to take the Jews of Palestine under his protection, and
repeated that he would like to see Herzl at the head of a delegation
in Jerusalem, later on.
Herzl was afraid of going further in this direction without having in
existence the financial instrument without which neither negotiations
nor colonization could be carried on. Herzl urged David Wolffsohn and
Jacobus Kahn to proceed with the utmost speed to incorporate the
Jewish Colonial Trust. He foresaw the possibility that a demand might
be made at any time to show the color of his money. Although the
affairs of the Bank were in the hands of Wolffsohn and Kahn, Herzl
himself worried over every detail, urging and driving and complaining
about the slowness of the action. On March 28, 1899 the subscription
lists were opened. Herzl's expectations were not fulfilled. Only about
200,000 shares had been sold, three-quarters of them in Russia. The
Bank could not be opened until it had at least 250,000 paid-up shares.
After a great deal of effort, the minimum was finally obtained and the
Trust was officially opened in time for the opening of the third
Congress in August, 1899.
Herzl addressed a mass meeting in London in October, 1899, under Dr.
Gastner's chairmanship. In his address at this meeting, Herzl said
that he believed the time was not far off when the Jewish people would
be set in motion. He asked the audience to accept his word even if he
could not speak more definitely. "When I return to you again," he
said, "we shall, I hope, be still further on our path." At this
meeting Father Ignatius, a Catholic believer in Zionism, referred to
Herzl "as a new Joshua who had come to fulfill the words of the
Prophet Ezekiel." The effect produced upon the audience was not useful
to Herzl's purposes at that time. He had always tried to discourage
the impression of himself as a Messianic figure. The meeting in London
was the only occasion where he lost his self-mastery in public.
When Herzl met the Foreign Minister, Von Buelow, again, it was in the
presence of the Reich Chancellor, Hohenlohe. At once he perceived a
different nuance in the conversation and a dissonance in comparison
with the conversation he had had with Count Eulenberg. He thought that
the Chancellor and the Foreign Minister were not in agreement with the
Kaiser and did not dare to say it openly; or, on the other hand, they
might be favorably inclined but would not be willing to say it to him.
Finally, Herzl saw the Kaiser in Constantinople. After Herzl had
introduced the subject of his visit, the Kaiser broke in and explained
why the Zionist movement attracted him.
"There are among your people," said the Kaiser, "certain elements whom
it would be a good thing to move to Palestine."
He asked Herzl to submit, in advance, the address he intended to
present to him in Jerusalem. When he was asked what the Kaiser should
place before the Sultan as the gist of the Jewish proposals, Herzl
replied "a chartered company under German protection."
Herzl met the Kaiser, as arranged, in Palestine. Herzl arrived in
Jaffa on October 6, 1898. On a Friday morning, he awaited the coming
of the Kaiser and his entourage on the road that ran by the Colony of
Mikveh Israel. The Kaiser recognized him from a distance. He said a
few words about the weather, about the lack of water in Palestine, and
that it was a land that had a future.
In the petition Herzl later submitted to the Kaiser, many of the
pregnant passages were deleted by the Kaiser's advisers. All passages
that referred specifically to the aims of the Zionist movement, to the
desperate need of the Jewish people and asking for the Kaiser's
protection of a projected Jewish land company for Syria and Palestine,
had been removed. The audience with the Kaiser took place on Monday,
November 2nd. The Kaiser thanked Herzl for the address which, he said,
had interested him extremely. It was the Kaiser's opinion that the
soil was cultivable. What the land lacked was water and shade.
"That we can supply," said Herzl. "It would cost billions, but it will
bring in billions too."
"Well, you certainly have enough money, more than all of us," said the
Kaiser.
It was a brief interview. It was vague and seemed to lead nowhere.
Herzl was under the impression that certain influences had been
exerted between the interview in Constantinople and the audience in
Jerusalem.
When the official German communique was issued, the encounter with
Herzl was hid in a closing paragraph and deprived of all significance.
This is how it read:
"Later the Kaiser received the French Consul, also a Jewish deputation
which presented him with an album of pictures of the Jewish colonies
in Palestine. In reply to an address by the leader of the deputation,
His Majesty remarked he viewed with benevolent interest all efforts
directed to the improvement of agriculture in Palestine as long as
these accorded with the welfare of the Turkish Empire and were
conducted in a spirit of complete respect for the sovereignty of the
Sultan."
It was a sudden descent from hope into a closed road. Herzl refused to
be discouraged. It was hard for him to realize that the Kaiser's
enthusiasm in Constantinople could have cooled off so quickly in
Jerusalem, but it seemed that there was no way to continue contact
with the people he had interested in Germany. He tried to pick up the
broken threads, but, once broken, they could not be revived. The Grand
Duke of Baden remained ever constant and loyal, but he could do
nothing. Herzl never saw the Kaiser again. In a letter to the Grand
Duke, closing this chapter of Zionist history, Herzl said:
"I can only assume that a hope especially dear to me has faded away
and that we shall not achieve our Zionist goal under a German
protectorate."
At about the same time, Herzl met Philip Michael Von Nevlinski, a
descendant of a long line of Polish noblemen who had entered the
diplomatic service and became a diplomatic agent-at-large and a French
journalist. In the first stages, Nevlinski guided Herzl in all the
work he did in Constantinople. When Herzl came to Constantinople in
June, 1896 he was under the impression that Nevlinski had already
arranged an audience with the Sultan. It was not so easy, however. But
whether such an audience had been arranged or not, Herzl was able to
meet, a number of highly-placed Turkish officials, including the Grand
Vizier. At first, the line of action was not clear, but by now Herzl
had formulated his proposals to the Sultan.
Ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, Turkish finances had
been in a shocking condition. The Empire was being badly managed. The
Sultan was regarded as "the sick man of Europe." In 1891 the total
external debt, including unpaid interest, reached the figure of two
hundred and fifty-three million pounds sterling. In 1881 there was a
consolidation of the debt. It was reduced to one hundred and six
million pounds, but the finances of Turkey were placed under the
control of a committee representing the creditors, to whom was
transferred certain domestic Turkish monopolies and the collection of
several categories of taxes. This enabled the European powers to
intervene in the affairs of Turkey. Only by the removal of this
foreign tutelage could Turkey hope to regain its independence. It was
to achieve this end, Herzl thought, that the Jews, and the Jews alone,
could be useful. For this service, he intended to ask for a Jewish
State in Palestine. Herzl followed this line until finally the need
for refunding the Turkish debt disappeared.
But at this time Herzl was not able to obtain an audience with the
Sultan. Nevlinski reported that such an audience had been refused
because the Sultan declined to discuss sovereignty over Palestine.
Doubt was expressed as to the accuracy of the report. Whatever the
fact may be, the first venture of Herzl in Constantinople was not
successful.
Herzl moved along the lines that led to Constantinople and Berlin, but
he did not overlook the importance of maintaining contact with Jewish
philanthropies. A letter sent to the Baron de Hirsch came a day after
his death.