THE AUSTRIAN WAR: WORK IN THE HOSPITALS
We come now to the outbreak of the war with Austria, which arose
directly out of the war with Denmark, and which, as we now look back
upon it, seems to fall naturally into its place as part of Bismarck's
_politique de longue haleine_ for the unification of Germany.
The Royal personages of his time were to Bismarck only pawns in the
great game on which he was ever engaged. It is impossible to read his
life and other literary remains without being struck by the contempt
which he entertained for at any rate the great majority of those
belonging to the Royal caste, though the management of them sometimes
tried all his powers. It is significant that at one moment Bismarck had
practically made up his mind to espouse the cause of the Prince whom he
habitually called "the Augustenburger" in the Elbe duchies, and it was
only after a prolonged interview with the Prince himself that he changed
his mind, finding him to be, from his point of view, quite
impracticable.
As a rule, however, those Royal personages whom Bismarck looked upon as
pawns were actually not only content but proud of the position; the
capital exceptions were of course the Crown Prince and Princess, who
steadily resented and fought--sometimes successfully--against Bismarck's
efforts to relegate them to a position in which they would not count at
all.
It is curious to observe how Bismarck always managed to turn to account
even circumstances which seemed at first sight most prejudicial to his
designs. Thus in June 1865 the Budget, which included the payment of the
bill for the Danish War, was rejected by the Liberal Deputies in the
Chamber, but it was this which enabled Bismarck to take the plunge and
govern without the constitution.
This rejection of the Budget was followed by the Convention of Gastein
in August, by which Austria was to have the temporary government of
Holstein, and Prussia that of Schleswig. Such an arrangement contained
no element of permanence, and was indeed an obvious step on the way
towards annexation. To the hereditary claims of "the Augustenburger,"
which the Crown Prince had most loyally continued to support, it dealt a
fatal blow, and it is particularly interesting to note that Bismarck
implored the King to keep the negotiations which led up to the
Convention absolutely secret from the Crown Prince. He frankly told his
sovereign that if a hint should reach Queen Victoria, the suspicions of
the Emperor Francis Joseph would be aroused, and the whole negotiations
would fail, and he added, "Behind such failure there lies an inevitable
war with Austria."
The secret was duly kept from the Crown Prince; he received the news of
the Convention with amazement, and it served to increase--if that was
possible--his detestation of Bismarck's policy.
The year 1866 therefore began with the gloomiest prospects from the
point of view held by the Crown Prince and Princess. The Chambers were
opened, but quickly prorogued, and Prussia openly prepared for war.
Bismarck saw that the moment was most favourable, for Austria was in
want of money, and was also beset with domestic difficulties in Hungary,
while he himself had already practically arranged for the support of
Italy. Austria was thus driven to demand the demobilisation of Prussia,
and this was supported in the Federal Diet by Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, and other States. Thereupon, on June 14, Prussia declared
the Germanic Confederation dissolved, and war began on the 18th.
We have become so much accustomed to the conception of a united Germany
that it seems now extraordinary that in this war Prussia, with the
Northern States, should have been ranged against, not only Austria, but
Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, with Saxony and Bavaria.
It thus fell out that the Crown Princess and her sister, Princess Alice,
were on opposite sides--a singular penalty which Royal personages are
liable to pay for the privileges of their rank. The circumstance
naturally increased the maternal anxiety of Queen Victoria. There is no
doubt that she believed that Austria would win, and when the result
proved that she was wrong, her distrust of Bismarck was increased, not
by his success, but by the use which he made of it.
Princess Alice's correspondence with her mother reveals how much she was
affected by the prospect of this civil war, as she calls it. There are
constant references to "poor Vicky and Fritz." On the eve of the
outbreak she told her mother that her husband, Prince Louis of Hesse,
intended to go to Berlin for a day just to see Fritz and explain how
circumstances now forced him to draw his sword against the Prussians in
the service of his own country.
We have already noted the extent to which the Crown Prince was excluded
at this time from State policy, but as far as he possibly could, even up
to the eleventh hour, he continued to oppose the idea of war. The
moment, however, that the die was cast and war was declared, he became
the simple soldier, intent only on his military duties and ardently
desiring a victory for Prussia.
The Crown Princess's second daughter was born on April 12, and was
christened Frederica Amelia Wilhelmina Victoria.
In May, the Prussian Army was divided into three Corps, of which the
second was placed under the command of the Crown Prince, who was also
appointed Military Governor of Silesia during the mobilisation.
Immediately after the christening of the little Princess, the Crown
Prince joined his staff at Breslau. But he left under the most mournful
auspices. Just before his departure the baby Prince Sigismund, whom
Princess Alice had described as "that beautiful boy, the joy and pride
of his parents," fell suddenly ill, and, what seemed particularly cruel
and unnecessary, even the doctor in attendance on the sick child had to
leave for the front.
There is a very sad reference to the illness of her little nephew in a
letter written by Princess Alice on June 15: "The serious illness of
poor little Sigismund in the midst of all these troubles is really
dreadful for poor Vicky and Fritz, they are so fond of that merry little
child."
Prince Sigismund's disease was at first difficult to diagnose. As a
matter of fact it was meningitis, and very soon it became clear that
there was no hope. On June 19 the child died, at the very moment when
his father was addressing his troops at Niesse, and the Crown Princess
found herself alone, without anyone near or dear to her to share her
bitter grief in this, the second great loss of her life.
Queen Augusta journeyed to the front to tell her son of his bereavement.
He, however, more fortunate than the Crown Princess, had much to absorb
every moment of his time and thoughts. But after the war was over, in a
speech made to the Municipality of Berlin, the Crown Prince alluded
briefly to his loss. "It was a heavy trial to be separated from my wife
and my dying boy. It was a sacrifice which I offered to my country."
In the _Reminiscences of Diplomatic Life_ published by Lady Macdonell,
widow of Sir Hugh Macdonell, a fact is revealed which shows how the
mother's heart must have hungered for Prince Sigismund.
Lady Macdonell became on terms of considerable intimacy with the Crown
Princess, who was evidently impressed by her sympathetic nature. One
day, when they were going down a corridor in the New Palace, the
Princess suddenly unlocked a door, and in the room to which the locked
door gave access was preserved surely one of the strangest and most
pathetic forms of consolation to which a bereaved mother ever had
recourse. Lady Macdonell writes:
"I saw a cradle, and in it a baby boy, beautiful to look upon, but it
was only the waxen image of the former occupant, the little Prince
Wenceslau [a mistake for Sigismund], who had died when the Crown Prince
went to the war of 1866. How pathetic it was to note the silver rattle
and ball lying as though flung aside by the little hand, the toys which
had amused his baby mind arranged all about the cradle, his little
shoes waiting, always waiting--at the side."
When, five years later, Prince and Princess Charles of Roumania lost
their only child, Princess Marie, at the age of three and a half, the
Crown Prince wrote a letter of condolence to Prince Charles, who was
Prince Sigismund's godfather, in which he said:
"May the grace of God give you strength to bear the hopeless grief, the
weight of which we know from our own knowledge! In imagination I place
myself in your attitude of mind, and realise that you must both be
benumbed with sorrow at seeing your sweet child dead before you, knowing
that you can never again see a light in her dear eyes, never again a
smile on her face! Certainly it is hard to say: 'Thy will be done!' I
put this text on the tomb of my son Sigismund, your god-child, because I
know of no other consolation; and yet I cannot overcome that pain
to-day, though many years have already gone by, and though God has given
me a large family. Time does undoubtedly blunt the keenest edge of a
parent's anguish, but it does not take away the weight of sorrow which
goes with one for the rest of one's life. That my wife is united with me
in these sympathetic thoughts you know."
The course of the war of 1866 is well known, and there is no need to
trace it in detail. The operations of the Crown Prince with the Second,
or Silesian, Army exercised a crucial influence on the whole campaign.
Field-Marshal Count von Blumenthal, who, as Chief of the Staff, saw the
whole of the operations, bears testimony to the brilliant strategic
dispositions of the Crown Prince, which were particularly exhibited in
the defeat of the Austrians at Nachod and the subsequent engagements.
Von Blumenthal notes that the Crown Prince possessed, not only an
extraordinary power of self-control and coolness, but also, what is not
always found even in the greatest military leaders an instinctive
perception of how much he could leave to subordinates, while himself
keeping a firm hand on the general course of action. The soldiers
themselves adored him, for he always managed to find time to visit the
wounded in the field hospitals, as well as to encourage by his inspiring
utterances the troops in line.
The manner in which the Crown Prince effected a junction with Prince
Frederick Charles and the First Army was most masterly; he came up
exactly at the right moment and at the right place. Unfortunately, as
generally happens, politics intervened, and the Crown Prince was
prevented from following up the victories with as much energy as he
desired--indeed, it seemed to him that there was a conspiracy to tie his
hands and control his movements. He even dropped a hint in the
sympathetic ear of von Blumenthal that if this treatment continued he
would ask the King to relieve him of his command. Happily this was not
necessary. The King himself assumed the supreme command on July 1, and
two days later there came the crowning mercy of Königgrätz, or Sadowa,
when the Austrians, under Benedek, were totally defeated. It was for his
services at this great battle that the Crown Prince was decorated with
the Order "Pour le Mérite."
Of Bismarck's exertions in this war, an English observer who was with
the Prussian Army has left the following striking picture:
"Bismarck believes in himself and fully so. He believes he was called on
to do a certain work, and that he is quite able to accomplish it. His
power of endurance is very great. He often sits up night after night
working hard. During this campaign he has never slept more than three
hours out of the twenty-four: this is less than the great Napoleon, who
under similar circumstances took four hours' sleep. But constantly
continued work has had an effect upon him: his face is seamed all over,
he has dark lines under his eyes, and the eyes themselves are bloodshot.
He looks like a man who is knocked up by overwork, and yet he is gay and
jovial, pleasant and cheery. What surprised me most was his thorough
openness in conversation. Without the least reserve he spoke of his
intentions, of the future of Prussia and of Germany. For an hour and a
half he thus went on. His resolve is indomitable, and he also feels
certain of going through the work before him. The King is of course a
mere tool in his hands; but it shows his great skill and dexterity in
turning such an instrument to serve his purpose. I do not think him
Liberal in the sense that you or I are Liberal. There is no doubt but
what he thinks best he will enforce, and that what he does is, he
believes, for the good and glory of Prussia."
[Illustration: H.R.H. THE PRINCESS FREDERICK WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA PRINCESS
ROYAL OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AND THE INFANT PRINCE FREDERICK
WILLIAM VICTOR ALBERT, MAY 1859]
Further Prussian victories followed, and the negotiations for peace
exhibited a curious rearrangement of the three personalities concerned.
Bismarck was strongly in favour of concluding peace very much on the
terms offered by Austria, partly because he feared French intervention,
and partly because he saw the imprudence of pressing home her defeat so
deeply upon Austria as to leave her with a burning desire for revenge.
He wanted to look forward, in the diplomacy of the future, to a friendly
Austria. The King, however, could not bear to sacrifice, as it seemed to
him, the result of the expenditure of so much blood and treasure, and he
wished to follow up the Prussian victories, without having any very
clear idea of what further gains could thereby be made.
In these circumstances it was the Crown Prince who came forward as the
mediator between the King and his Minister; it was the Crown Prince who
supported Bismarck against his father. What really clinched the matter
with the King was Bismarck's threat to resign. At the critical Council
of War there was a dramatic scene. The King turned to the Crown Prince
and said, "You speak, in the name of the future;" and when he found that
his son agreed with Bismarck he gave in, and consented, as he himself
described it, to bite into the sour apple.
Nevertheless, the terms of peace were not at all bad for Prussia. Her
great object, namely, the dissolution of the Germanic Confederation, was
secured; she obtained a considerable accession of territory, including
Schleswig and Holstein, Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse, and other
territories, which covered more than 1300 square miles, with a
population of over four millions. Moreover, in August, 1866, on the
invitation of the King of Prussia, the Northern States of Germany
concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. Thus was
established the North-German Confederation, which was joined by Saxony
in the following October, and formed an important step on the way to a
united German Empire. Altogether the Confederation consisted of
twenty-two States, and the first meeting of the Deputies was held at
Berlin on February 24, 1867.
It was suggested that the Crown Prince should become Governor-General of
Hanover, thus newly annexed to Prussia. It was thought that this plan
would to a great extent console Hanover for losing her status as a
kingdom, especially as the Crown Princess was closely related to the
dispossessed monarch, King George V. The Crown Prince, however,
insisted on arrangements which would have made Hanover altogether too
independent to be agreeable to Bismarck, and so the idea was not carried
out.
On the close of the war of 1866, the Crown Prince and Princess proceeded
to Haringsdorf, a little village on the shores of the Baltic, to which
the Princess and her children had been sent on account of the cholera,
which was then very prevalent in Potsdam.
While there the Princess still busied herself with plans for the care of
the wounded in the war. She had already assigned a great part of the
palace at Potsdam for the nursing of wounded officers, and a little
later on she proceeded with her husband on a long visit to Silesia.
There they greatly improved the organisation of the war hospital at
Hirschberg. Everything was under their personal supervision, and, thanks
to their energy and kindly encouragement, the work was undoubtedly much
more efficiently done than it would otherwise have been.
The Crown Prince had ridden with his father over the stricken field of
Königgrätz, doing what they could to succour the wounded and the dying.
How deeply the horrors of war had been impressed on the Prince's mind is
shown by the words he wrote in his diary on the night of the battle: "He
who causes war with a stroke of the pen knows not what he is calling up
from Hades."
As for the Crown Princess, though she had been spared the sight of the
worst horrors, she had nevertheless seen enough to enable her, with her
eager, imaginative sympathy, to share in the fullest degree her
husband's intense feeling. She never felt she could do enough to
mitigate the sufferings of the soldiers, both on the battlefield and
afterwards in the weary months of convalescence in hospital. This autumn
she organised an enormous bazaar at the New Palace in aid of the
wounded, to which contributions came from all over the world. The Crown
Prince himself went round collecting money for the soldiers, and the
whole enterprise brought in a large sum for the fund.
The years that followed up to the outbreak of the war with France were
not very eventful.
At the beginning of 1867, the Crown Prince and Princess stayed a while
at Dover, where they met Princess Alice and her husband, who went back
with them to stay for a few weeks in Berlin. They afterwards went
together to Paris, at the invitation of the Emperor and Empress of the
French, in order to visit the great International Exhibition then being
held there. The Crown Prince had served as president of the Prussian
Committee for the Exhibition. Their stay in France gave great pleasure
to the Crown Princess; the two sisters visited many philanthropic
centres, and made an exhaustive survey of French art. It was on this
visit to Paris that the Crown Princess first conceived the idea of the
School of Design in Berlin which now bears her name, for she was greatly
impressed by the imaginative fertility of the Parisian craftsmen, and by
the perfection of their work.
The Crown Princess left Paris before her husband. Princess Alice wrote
to her mother on June 9: "Dear Vicky is gone. She was so low the last
days, and dislikes going to parties so much just now, that she was
longing to get home. The King [of Prussia] wished them both to stop, but
only Fritz remained. How sad these days will be for her, poor love! She
was in such good looks; every one here is charmed with her."
The Crown Prince had induced his father to visit the Exhibition, and the
King, who brought Bismarck with him, had a magnificent reception from
the Imperial Court. The Crown Prince and Princess did not abate their
interest in politics, and they certainly shared Bismarck's view at this
time that an arrangement with France was in every way desirable in order
to avert war and to consolidate the gains of 1866.
In the autumn a terrible scarcity, almost amounting to famine, in East
Prussia afforded a fresh opportunity for the practical sympathy of the
Crown Prince and Princess. Together they organised a relief fund and
relief works by which the sufferings of the population were much
mitigated.
It was on February 10, 1868, the anniversary of Queen Victoria's
wedding, and of the Crown Princess's christening, that another son was
born, who seemed sent to fill the terrible gap which the death of Prince
Sigismund had made two years before. The child was christened on the
King of Prussia's seventy-first birthday, at Berlin, receiving the names
of Joachim Frederick Ernest Waldemar. The Princess's fourth son was a
beautiful and clever child, and his death, which was to follow when he
was only eleven years old, was perhaps the deepest grief that fell on
his parents. It is significant that when the Emperor Frederick chose his
last resting-place, he desired to lie by the side of this child.
In the spring of 1868 the Crown Prince paid a visit to Italy in return
for the visit paid to Berlin by Prince Humbert the year before. The
Crown Princess did not go with him, but she followed with deep interest
and pleasure the accounts of his reception, which were remarkably
enthusiastic, and also politically useful, for it prevented the
accession to power of a Ministry hostile to Prussia.
In 1869 the Crown Princess received a long visit from Princess Alice at
Potsdam, and the two sisters spent their mother's birthday, May 24,
together. Princess Alice spoke in a letter to Queen Victoria of the
delightful life "with dear Vicky, so quiet and pleasant, which reminds
me in many things of our life in England in former happy days, and so
much that we had Vicky has copied for her children. Yet we both always
say to each other that no children were so happy, and so spoiled with
all the enjoyments and comforts children can wish for, as we were."
Again, on June 19, "Vicky was very low yesterday; she has been so for
the last week, and she told me much of what an awful time she went
through in 1866 when dear Siggie [Sigismund] died. The little chapel is
very peaceful and cheerful and full of flowers. We go there _en passant_
nearly daily, and it seems to give dear Vicky pleasure to go there."
The two sisters spent a happy time together at Cannes in the late autumn
of 1869, while their respective husbands were abroad. The Crown Prince,
with Prince Louis of Hesse, visited Vienna, Athens, Constantinople, and
the Holy Land, and went on thence to Port Said for the opening of the
Suez Canal. In Jerusalem the Crown Prince took formal possession in the
name of his father of the ruined convent of St. John, ceded by the
Sultan for the erection of a German Protestant Church. The two Princes
joined their wives at Cannes shortly before Christmas.
On their way home the Crown Prince and Princess spent a week in Paris,
staying at an hotel. The Crown Princess was surprised to see how changed
the Emperor Napoleon was since they had seen him last. She thought him
ailing and dejected. In the course of conversation, the Emperor
mentioned that he had a new Minister, a certain M. Ollivier.
The Crown Prince and Princess returned to Berlin on the morning of the
New Year, 1870. The next time the Crown Prince met Napoleon III was on
the morning after the capitulation of Sedan.