FIRST RELATIONS WITH BISMARCK
After the death of Prince Albert, the relations between the Crown
Princess and Bismarck become of absorbing interest to the student both
of politics and of human nature.
Bismarck seems to have first met Prince Albert in the summer of 1855,
when Queen Victoria and the Prince paid their state visit to Paris. In
his _Reminiscences_, Bismarck says that in the Prince's manner to him
there was a kind of "malevolent curiosity," and he convinced
himself--not so much at the time as from subsequent events--that the
Prince regarded him as a reactionary party man, who took up sides for
Russia in order to further an Absolutist and "Junker" policy. Bismarck
goes on to say that it was not to be wondered at that this view of the
Prince's and of the then partisans of the Duke of Coburg descended to
the Prince's daughter.
"Even soon after her arrival in Germany, in February, 1858, I became
convinced, through members of the Royal House and from my own
observations, that the Princess was prejudiced against me personally.
The fact did not surprise me so much as the form in which her prejudice
against me had been expressed in the narrow family circle--'she did not
trust me.' I was prepared for antipathy on account of my alleged
anti-English feelings and by reason of my refusal to obey English
influences; but, from a conversation which I had with the Princess after
the war of 1866, while sitting next to her at table, I was obliged to
conclude that she had subsequently allowed herself to be influenced in
her judgment of my character by further-reaching calumnies.
"I was ambitious, she said, in a half-jesting tone, to be a king or at
least president of a republic. I replied in the same semi-jocular tone
that I was personally spoilt for a Republican; that I had grown up in
the Royalist traditions of the family, and had need of a monarchical
institution for my earthly well-being: I thanked God, however, I was not
destined to live like a king, constantly on show, but to be until death
the king's faithful subject. I added that no guarantee could, however,
be given that this conviction of mine would be universally inherited,
and this not because Royalists would give out, but because perhaps kings
might. 'Pour faire un civet, il faut un liévre, et pour faire une
monarchie, il faut un roi.' I could not answer for it that, for want of
such, the next generation might not be Republican. I further remarked
that, in thus expressing myself, I was not free from anxiety at the idea
of a change in the occupancy of the throne without a transference of the
monarchical traditions to the successor. But the Princess avoided every
serious turn and kept up the jocular tone, as amiable and entertaining
as ever; she rather gave me the impression that she wished to tease a
political opponent.
"During the first years of my Ministry, I frequently remarked in the
course of similar conversation that the Princess took pleasure in
provoking my patriotic susceptibility by playful criticism of persons
and matters."
In this passage we have evidently a perfectly frank expression of
Bismarck's real feeling, and it gives an extraordinarily vivid picture
of these two remarkable personalities, facing one another with watchful,
guarded, measuring glance, like two duellists awaiting the signal for
combat.
That Bismarck to a great extent misunderstood the Princess is plain
enough, and indeed it would have been extraordinary if he had understood
her, so different was she from any normal type of German lady. But there
is abundant evidence that he did not underrate her intellectual ability,
though it must have been a perpetual astonishment to him to find such
mental powers in a woman, and there were even moments when the aims of
the two, generally so wide apart, seemed actually to converge. It is
curious to speculate how different the course of history might have been
if the Princess had added to her other qualities that tact, prudence,
and power of judging human character, which were surely alone wanting
to make her one of the most remarkable women who have ever held her
exalted rank.
The greatest injustice which Bismarck did the Princess lay in his
suspicion--to use a mild term--of her German patriotism. The Prince
Consort had consistently pursued the ideal of a union of the German
States under the leadership of Prussia as the champion of German
Liberalism. Such a new-born Germany might, or might not, have become the
ally of England, but the Prince Consort must certainly be acquitted of
any Machiavellian designs for the benefit of his adopted country; the
supreme end he had in view was undoubtedly the happiness and greatness
of Germany, and both his wife and his daughter knew and shared his aims.
From 1858 to 1861 the Prince Consort's influence in Prussian politics
may almost be described as paramount; but the happy relations between
England and Prussia were broken, partly by the inability of King William
to share the liberalism of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which
seemed to him positively anti-monarchical, partly by anti-Prussian
feeling in England, and partly by the claim of the Prussian Liberals to
dictate to the Crown on the question of army reorganisation.
Prince Albert did not live to see how completely his hopes had been
shattered, and his premature death deprived his daughter of his counsel
at the very moment when Bismarck came into office in the full tide of
Russophil reaction and Anglophobia.
It is difficult to realise, in view of later events, how strong was the
distrust which Bismarck inspired at the beginning of his accession to
power. It was known that he desired an alliance with Napoleon III, and
it was even believed that he would be capable of ceding German territory
to France.
The trend of popular opinion was significantly shown on March 17, 1863,
when the fiftieth anniversary of the Proclamation "To my People" was
celebrated, and the foundation-stone of a memorial to Frederick William
III was laid in Berlin.
Nothing that the authorities could do to give distinction to the
occasion was omitted. The Crown Prince, who had just been appointed to a
high post on the staff, commanded the military parade, and was present
with his father at the festivities in honour of the survivors of the War
of Liberation and the Knights of the Iron Cross. The citizens of Berlin,
however, were conspicuous by their absence, and the popular feeling was
expressed by the great writer, Freytag, who said in an article in a
Liberal newspaper: "All good Prussians will pass this day quietly,
seriously, and will consider the means by which they may best preserve
the illustrious House of Hohenzollern for the future welfare of the
State."
The first real efforts made by Bismarck to alienate the King from the
Crown Prince and Princess date from the year 1863, just when the
Princess was beginning to recover her spirits and normal state of mental
health.
"Every kind of calumny was spread," wrote Morier, "respecting the
persons supposed to be the Prince's friends. Spies were placed over him
in the shape of aides-de-camp and chamberlains; conversations were
distorted and imagined, till the Dantzig episode brought matters to a
climax, and very nearly led to the transfer of the Prince to a
fortress."
This episode, a speech delivered by the Crown Prince at Dantzig,
possessed all the importance that Morier attributes to it, and it must
be admitted that it was in the circumstances a highly imprudent
utterance, for it dragged the differences between the Crown Prince and
his father into the light of day.
The speech was delivered to the municipality of Dantzig on June 5, 1863.
In it the Crown Prince referred to the variance which had occurred
between the Government and the people, by which he meant a new ordinance
restricting the freedom of the Press. This variance, he said, had
occasioned him no small degree of surprise; and he added:
"Of the proceedings which have brought it about I know nothing. I was
absent. I have had no part in the deliberations which have produced this
result."
Although the Crown Prince went on to pay tribute to the noble and
fatherly intentions and magnanimous sentiments of the King, nevertheless
the speech naturally created a great sensation, not only in Germany, but
in other countries too. A correspondence followed between the Prince and
his father, in which the former, while asking pardon for his action,
offered to resign all his offices. Bismarck professes to have himself
succeeded in making peace between the two, quoting to the King the text:
"Deal tenderly with the boy Absalom," and urging that it was not
advisable to make his Heir Apparent a martyr.
Bismarck's own account of the circumstances which led up to the speech
is significant for its emphasis on the dates. He says that the Royal
ordinance on the subject of the Press appeared on June 1; that on June 2
the Crown Princess followed the Prince to Graudenz; and that on June 4
the Prince wrote to the King expressing disapproval of the decree,
complaining that he had not been summoned to the councils in which the
step had been discussed, and enlarging on his view of his position as
Heir Apparent. This obviously suggests, without exactly saying so in
plain words, that the Crown Prince's speech on June 5 was inspired by
his wife. But behind both the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess,
Bismarck thought that he detected the hand of Morier. And yet it is on
record that Morier had not seen the Crown Prince or had any kind of
communication with him at the time, before, or after, the Dantzig
episode; in fact, it is quite clear, from letters Morier wrote to Ernest
von Stockmar, that both he and his German correspondent sincerely
regretted the Crown Prince's action.
The Crown Princess, however, seemed doomed to be associated with this
unlucky speech. Not long after the affair was apparently settled, a
remarkable and obviously inspired statement appeared in the _Times_ to
the following effect:
"While travelling on military duty the Prince allowed himself to assume
an attitude antagonistic to the policy of the Sovereign, and to call in
question his measures. The least that he could do to atone for this
grave offence was to retract his statements. This the King demanded of
him by letter, adding that, if he refused, he would be deprived of his
honours and offices. The Prince, in concert, it is said, with her Royal
Highness the Princess, met this demand with a firm answer. He refused to
retract anything, offered to resign his honours and commands, and craved
leave to withdraw with his wife and family to some place where he would
be free from suspicion of the least connection with the affairs of
State.
"This letter is described as a remarkable performance, and it is added
that the Prince is to be congratulated on having a consort who not only
shares his liberal views, but is also able to render him so much
assistance in a momentous and critical juncture. It is not easy to
conceive a more difficult position than that of the princely pair
placed, without a single adviser, between a self-willed Sovereign and a
mischievous Cabinet on the one hand, and an incensed people on the
other."
Naturally this version of the affair, with its open reference to the
influence of the Crown Princess, aroused fresh excitement. Ernest von
Stockmar, the private secretary of the Crown Princess, was said to have
communicated the substance of the statement to the _Times_. Who really
did so has never been revealed.
The unfortunate Stockmar, in any case, knew nothing of the matter; he
would have given much to find out who was responsible. Indeed, this new
complication to an already painful and suspicious affair so distressed
Stockmar that he fell ill, and had to resign his position as secretary
to the Crown Princess. This was for her a real misfortune, as even the
most spiteful and prejudiced of her critics could not accuse the old
Baron's son and pupil of being anything but a sound and patriotic
German.
Bismarck was good enough to accept the Crown Prince's assertion that the
statement was inserted in the _Times_ entirely without his cognizance,
and he thought it was inspired by Geffcken; in fact, he attributed it to
the same quarter to which, as he believed, the Crown Prince owed the
bent of his political views, namely, the school of writers who extolled
the English constitution as a model to be imitated by other nations,
without thoroughly comprehending it.
What wonder, then, observed Bismarck, that the Crown Princess and her
mother overlooked that peculiar character of the Prussian State which
renders its administration by means of shifting Parliamentary groups a
sheer impossibility? The party of progress were then daily anticipating
victory in their struggle with prerogative, and naturally took every
opportunity to place the situation "in the light best calculated to
influence female minds."
In the following August, Bismarck says, the Crown Prince visited him at
Gastein, and there, "less under the sway of English influences," "used
the unreserved language of one who sees that he has done wrong and seeks
to excuse himself on the score of the influences under which he had
lain."
This attitude, however, if it was ever really adopted, was certainly
short-lived. A fresh difference broke out between the Crown Prince and
the King on the subject of the former's attendance at Cabinet Councils,
and on this point the Crown Prince undoubtedly held firm. Bismarck
prints his marginal notes on a memorandum sent by the Crown Prince to
his father. In these notes the whole constitutional position of the
Crown Prince is discussed, but we are here only concerned with the
following references to the Crown Princess:
"Especially necessary is it that the intermediary advisers, with whose
aid alone his Royal Highness can be authorised to busy himself with the
consideration of pending affairs of State, should be adherents, not of
the Opposition, but of the Government, or at least impartial critics
without intimate relations with the Opposition in the Diet or the Press.
The question of discretion is that which presents most difficulty,
especially in regard to our foreign relations, and must continue to do
so until his Royal Highness, and her Royal Highness the Crown Princess,
have fully realised that in ruling Houses the nearest of kin may yet be
aliens, and of necessity, and as in duty bound, represent other
interests than the Prussian. It is hard that a frontier line should also
be the line of demarcation between the interests of mother and daughter,
of brother and sister; but to forget the fact is always perilous to the
State."
In the autumn of 1863 Queen Victoria was staying at Coburg. She sent for
Morier and had a long talk with him on the growing difficulties which
seemed to encompass the Crown Prince and Princess. The fact that Morier
ventured to hint that any appearance of interference on the part of
England would be very prejudicial to the interests of their Royal
Highnesses, and that a suspicion that the Crown Prince was being
prompted from over the water would materially diminish in the eyes of
the Liberal party the value of his opposition, shows that there was
something, even then, to be said for the feeling which Bismarck so
sedulously fostered.
During the summer of 1863, the Crown Princess accompanied her husband on
a long tour of military inspections in the provinces of Prussia and
Pomerania, and her Royal Highness performed the ceremony of naming a
warship, the _Vineta_, at Dantzig.
This tour caused a good deal of discomfort to the Crown Prince and
Princess, for in most of the towns they visited the municipal
authorities ostentatiously refrained from celebrating the occasion; on
the other hand, the populace as a rule received the Royal pair with
abundant loyalty.
We have a curious glimpse of the sort of impression made in East Prussia
by the Crown Princess in a private letter written by a member of the
Progressive party, who afterwards became a confidential friend of the
Crown Prince. This gentleman says that everyone was pleased with the
Crown Princess, for she showed that she had a mind of her own. She
informed a certain official that she read the _Volkszeitung_, the
_National-zeitung_, and the _Times_ every day, and that she agreed
entirely with those newspapers--in the circumstances an amazingly
imprudent statement. It was, indeed, such a shock to the official that
it reduced him to blank silence.
The breach between the Crown and Parliament was not the only question
with which Prussia was troubled at this time. The summer of 1863 was
also marked by the attempt of Austria to take the solution of the German
question into her own hands by initiating a scheme for reforming the
Federal Constitution.
The Emperor Francis Joseph invited the Princes and the free cities of
Germany to a conference at Frankfort to discuss the reorganisation of
the Germanic Confederation. King William was inclined to accept this
proposal, but Bismarck held other views; and a further invitation from
the Emperor that the King should send the Crown Prince to the Congress
of Princes, was also declined.
Nevertheless the Congress was held, and there was also held a sort of
family gathering of what Bismarck would have designated "the Coburgers"
at Coburg. Queen Victoria was there, and in August the Crown Princess
joined her, quickly followed by the Crown Prince.
Lord Granville, who was a close observer of the complicated intrigues of
the Congress, wrote to Lord Stanley of Alderley: "The Princess Royal is
very Prussian on this Confederation question."
The Crown Prince's views on the subject were expressed in a letter which
he sent to his wife's uncle, Duke Ernest, early in September. From this
letter it seems clear that, whereas at first he had been inclined to
favour the Austrian move, he altered his views when Austria showed her
hand by demanding from the Congress a simple vote of assent or dissent
to her project of reform. He mentioned that he had asked the King for
permission to be absent from the meetings of the Cabinet, and indeed he
paid with his family a long visit to Italy.
From Italy the Crown Prince and Princess proceeded to England, and that,
with visits to Brussels and Karlsruhe, took up the rest of the year.
It must not, however, be thought that during this absence from Germany
the Crown Prince and Princess ceased to take an interest in politics; on
the contrary, they followed with the closest attention, what was indeed
a serious constitutional crisis in the autumn of 1863.
In October, after they had started for Italy, the Crown Prince wrote to
Bismarck:
"I hope that, to use your own words, your efforts in the present
difficult position of the constitutional life of our country may be
successful, and may accomplish that which you yourself describe as the
urgent and essential understanding with the national representatives. I
am following the course of events with the deepest interest."
The constitutional crisis turned on the rejection, by the Upper House
and the Crown, of the Budget which had been adopted by the Lower House.
The King, as advised by Bismarck, was for governing without a
constitution, but the Crown Prince, with his strong predisposition in
favour of the English constitutional system, which had by this time
been developed by Queen Victoria, could not help regarding his father's
attitude as jeopardising the security of the Crown.
The Crown Prince's position was particularly difficult because he was
appealed to by all parties--by the Liberals, who looked forward to the
day when he would be King of Prussia as perhaps not very far distant;
and by the Conservatives, who adjured him to support the Government on
dynastic grounds.
Of the two parties, the Liberals appeared to have the best of it, for
the prolonged absence of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess was
naturally interpreted in Germany as indicating, if not their sympathy
with the Liberal party, at any rate their dislike of the existing
Government.
But events were shaping themselves in such a way that the Dantzig
affair, with all that had led up to it and had followed it, was soon to
be forgotten in a crisis of much greater moment, and one which brought
to the Crown Prince his baptism of fire.
It was during the visit of the Crown Prince and his family to England
that King Frederick VII of Denmark, the last of his dynasty, died, and
the question of the succession to the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein
immediately became acute.