People say that it is of greater consequence in Russia than in France.
I believe the very opposite to be true. In France the press is a power
influencing the decisions of the government. In Russia it is not, nor
can it be. In both cases, however, the press is, so far as I am
concerned, mere printer's ink on paper, against which we do not wage
war. It cannot contain a challenge for us. Back of each article in the
press there stands after all only the single man who guided the pen
which launched this particular article into the world. Even in a
Russian sheet--suppose it to be an independent Russian sheet,
one which maintains relations with the French secret funds, it is of
no consequence. The pen which there indites an anti-German article is
backed by no one but him who is guiding it, the solitary man who is
concocting the sad stuff in his office, and the protector which every
Russian sheet is accustomed to have. He is some kind of a higher
official, run wild in party politics, who happens to bestow his
protection on this particular paper. Both weigh like feathers in the
scale against the authority of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia.
In Russia the press has not the same influence on public opinion as in
France. At best its declarations are the barometer by which to gauge
how much can be printed according to the Russian press-laws, but they
do not obligate the Russian government or His Majesty the Emperor of
Russia in any way. In contrast with the voices of the Russian press I
have the immediate testimony of Emperor Alexander himself, when a few
months ago I had again the honor of being received by him in audience
after the lapse of several years. I was then able to convince myself
afresh that the emperor of Russia harbors no hostile feelings against
us and does not intend to attack us, or to wage any aggressive wars at
all. What the Russian press says, I do not believe, what Emperor
Alexander says, I believe; I have absolute confidence in it. When both
are in the scales, the testimony of the Russian press, with its hatred
of Germany, rises light as a feather, and the personal testimony of
Emperor Alexander has the only effective weight, so far as I am
concerned. I repeat, therefore, the press does not induce me to
consider our relations with Russia to be worse today than they were a
year ago.
I now come to the other point, the allocation of the troops. It used
to take place on a big scale, but only since 1879, when the Turkish
war was concluded, has it assumed the proportions which today seem
threatening. It may easily appear as if this accumulation of Russian
troops near the German and Austrian frontiers--where their support
is more difficult and more expensive than farther inland--could only
be dictated by the intention of surprising and attacking one of the
neighbors unprepared, _sans dire gare!_ (I cannot for the moment think
of the German expression.) Well, I do not believe this. In the first
place, it would be contrary to the character of the sovereign and his
own words, and secondly its object could not easily be understood.
Russia cannot intend to conquer any Prussian provinces, nor, I
believe, any Austrian provinces. Russia has, I believe, as many Polish
subjects as it cares to have, and has no desire to increase their
numbers. To annex anything but Polish districts from Austria would be
even more difficult. No reason exists, no pretense which could induce
a European monarch suddenly to assail his neighbors. I even go so far
in my confidence as to be convinced that a Russian war would not ensue
if we should become involved in a French war because of some explosive
happenings in France, which no one can foresee and which surely are
not intended by the present French government. A French war, on the
other hand, would be an absolute certainty if we should be involved in
a Russian war, for no French government would be so strong that it
could prevent it, even if it was inclined to do so. But as regards
Russia I still declare that I am not looking for an attack; and I take
back nothing from what I said last year.
You will ask: "If that is so, what is the use of this expensive
allocation of the Russian troops?" That is one of the questions for
which one hardly can expect an answer from a ministry of foreign
affairs, itself vitally interested. If we should begin to ask for
explanations, we might receive forced replies, and our surrejoinders
would also have to be forced. That is a dangerous path which I do not
like to tread. Allocations of troops are things for which one does not
take the other country to task, asking for categorical explanations,
but against which one takes counter precautions with equal reserve and
circumspection. I cannot, therefore, give an authentic declaration
concerning the motives of this Russian allocation, but, having been
familiar through a generation with foreign politics and the policy of
Russia, I can form my own ideas concerning them. These ideas lead me
to assume that the Russian cabinet is convinced, probably with good
reason, that the weight of the Russian voice in the diplomatic
Areopagos of Europe will be the weightier in the next European crisis,
the stronger Russia is on the European frontier and the farther west
the Russian armies stand. Russia is the more quickly at hand, either
as an ally or as a foe, the nearer her main army, or at least a large
army, is to her western frontier.
This policy has directed the Russian allocation of troops for a long
while. You will remember that the army assembled in the Polish kingdom
during the Crimean War was so large that this war might have ended
differently if the army had started on time. If you think farther
back, you will see that the events of 1830 found Russia unprepared and
not ready to take a hand, because she had an insufficient number of
troops in the western part of her empire. I need not, therefore, draw
the conclusion from the accumulation of Russian troops in the western
provinces (_sapadnii Gubernii_, as the Russians say), that our
neighbors mean to attack us. I assume they are waiting, possibly for
another Oriental crisis, intending then to be in the position of
pressing home the Russian wishes by means of an army situated not
exactly in Kasan, but farther west.
When may such an Oriental crisis take place, you ask. Forsooth, we
have no certainty. During this century we have had, I think, four
crises, if I do not include the smaller ones and those which did not
culminate. One was in 1809 and ended with the treaty which gave Russia
the Pruth-frontier, and another in 1828. Then there was the Crimean
War of 1854, and the war of 1877. They have happened, therefore, at
intervals of about twenty years and over. Why, then, should the next
crisis take place sooner than after a similar interval, or at about
1899, twenty years after the last one? I for one should like to
reckon with the possibility of its being postponed and not occurring
immediately.
Then there are other European events which are wont to take place at
even intervals, the Polish uprisings, for instance. Formerly we had to
expect one every eighteen or twenty years. Possibly this is one reason
why Russia wishes to be so strong in Poland that she may prevent them.
Then there are the changes of government in France which also used to
happen every eighteen or twenty years; and no one can deny that a
change of government in France may bring about such a crisis that
every interested nation may wish to be able to intervene with her full
might--I mean only diplomatically, but with a diplomacy which is
backed by an efficient army close at hand.
I assume on the strength of my purely technical-diplomatic judgment,
which is based on my experience, that these are the intentions of
Russia and that she has no wish to comply with the somewhat uncouth
threats and boastings of the newspapers. And, if this is so, then
there is surely no reason why we should look more gloomily into the
future now than we have done at any time during the past forty years.
The Oriental crisis is undoubtedly the most likely to occur, and in
this our interests are only secondary. When it happens, we are in a
position to watch whether the powers, who are primarily interested in
the Mediterranean and the Levante, will make their decisions and come
to terms, if they choose, or go to war with Russia about them. We are
not immediately called upon to do either. Every great power which is
trying to influence or to restrain the policies of other countries in
matters which are beyond the sphere of its interests is playing
politics beyond the bounds which God has assigned to it. Its policy is
one of force and not of vital interests. It is working for prestige.
We shall not do this. If Oriental crises happen, we shall wait before
taking our position until the powers who have greater interests at
stake than we have declared themselves. There is, therefore, no
reason, gentlemen, why you should look upon our present situation with
unusual gravity, assuming this to be the cause of our asking for the
mighty increase of our armaments which the military bill contemplates.
I should like to separate the question of reëstablishing the
_Landwehr_ of the second grade, in short the big military bill and the
financial bill, from the question of our present situation. It has to
do, not with a temporary and transient arrangement, but with the
permanent invigoration of the German empire.
That no temporary arrangement is contemplated will be perfectly clear,
I believe, when I ask you to survey with me the dangers of war which
we have met in the past forty years without having become nervously
excited at any one time.
In the year 1848, when many dikes and flood gates were broken, which
until then had directed the peaceful flow of countless waters, we had
to dispose of two questions freighted with the danger of war. They
concerned Poland and Schleswig-Holstein. The first shouts after the
Martial days were: war with Russia for the rehabilitation of Poland!
Soon thereafter the danger was perilously near of being involved in a
great European war on account of Schleswig-Holstein. I need not
emphasize how the agreement of Olmütz, in 1850, prevented a great
conflagration--a war on a gigantic scale. Then there followed two
years of greater quiet out of general ill feeling, at the time when I
first was ambassador in Frankfort. In 1853 the earliest symptoms of
the Crimean War made themselves felt. This war lasted from 1853 to
1856, and during this whole time we were near the edge of the cliff, I
will not say the abyss, whence it was intended to draw us into the
war. I remember that I was obliged at that time, from 1853 to 1855 to
alternate like a pendulum, so to speak, between Frankfort and Berlin
because the late king, thanks to the confidence he had in me, used me
as the real advocate of his independent policy whenever the
insistence of the western powers that we too should declare war on
Russia grew too strong, and the opposition of his cabinet too flabby
for his liking. Then the play was staged--I do not know how
often--when I was called back here and ordered to write for His
Majesty a more pro-Russian dispatch, and Mr. von Manteuffel resigned,
and I requested to be instructed by His Majesty to follow Mr. von
Manteuffel, after the dispatch was gone, into the country or anywhere
else, and to induce him to resume his office. Yet each time Prussia,
as it was then constituted, was hovering on the brink of a great war.
It was exposed to the hostility of the whole of Europe, except Russia,
if it refused to join in the policies of the west European powers,
and, if it did, it was forced to break with Russia, possibly for a
very long while, because the defection of Prussia would probably have
been felt very painfully in Russia.
During the Crimean War, therefore, we were in constant danger of war.
The war lasted till 1856, when it was at last concluded by the treaty
of Paris, and we found, in the Congress of Paris a sort of Canossa
prepared for us, for which I should not have assumed the
responsibility, and against which I vainly counseled at the time. We
were not at all obliged to play the part of a greater power than we
were, and to sign the treaties made there. But we were dancing
attendance with the view of being permitted to sign the treaty. This
will not again happen to us.
That was in 1856, and as early as in 1857 the problem of Neuchâtel was
again threatening us with war. This did not become generally known. In
the spring of that year I was sent to Paris by the late king to
negotiate with Emperor Napoleon concerning the passage of Prussian
troops in an attack upon Switzerland. Everyone who hears this from me
will know what this would have meant in case of an understanding, and
that it could have become a far-reaching danger of war, and might have
involved us with France as well as with other powers. Emperor Napoleon
was not unwilling to agree. My negotiations in Paris, however, were
terminated because his majesty the king in the meanwhile had come to
an amicable understanding in the matter with Austria and Switzerland.
But the danger of war, we must agree, was present also during that
year.
While I was on this mission in Paris, the Italian War hung in the air.
It broke out a little more than a year later and came very near
drawing us into a big general war of Europe. We went so far as to
mobilize, and we should undoubtedly have taken the field, if the peace
of Villafranca had not been concluded, somewhat prematurely for
Austria, but just in time for ourselves, for we should have been
obliged to wage this war under unfavorable circumstances. We should
have turned this war, which was an Italian affair, into a
Franco-Prussian war, and its cessation, outcome, and treaty of peace
would no longer have depended on us, but on the friends and enemies
who stood behind us.
Thus we came into the sixties without the clouds of war having cleared
from the horizon for even one single year.
Already in 1863 another war threatened hardly less ominously, of which
the people at large knew little, and which will only be appreciated
when the secret archives of the cabinets will be made public. You may
remember the Polish uprising of 1863, and I shall never forget the
morning calls which I used to receive at that time from Sir Andrew
Buchanan, the English ambassador, and Talleyrand, the French
representative, who tried to frighten me out of my wits by attacking
the Prussian policy for its inexcusable adherence to Russia, and who
used rather a threatening language with me. At noon of the same days I
then used to have the pleasure of listening in the Prussian diet to
somewhat the same arguments and attacks which the foreign ambassadors
had made upon me in the morning. I suffered it quietly, but Emperor
Alexander lost his patience, and wished to draw his sword against the
plotting of the western powers. You will remember that the
French forces were then engaged with American projects and in Mexico,
which prevented France from taking a vigorous stand. The Emperor of
Russia was no longer willing to stand the Polish intrigues of the
other powers, and was ready to face events in our company and to go to
war. You will remember that Prussia was struggling at that time with
difficult interior problems, and that in Germany the leaven had begun
to work in the minds of the people, and the council of the princes in
Frankfort was under contemplation. It may be readily granted,
therefore, that the temptation for my gracious master was very strong
to cut, and thus to heal, his difficult position at home by agreeing
to a military undertaking on a colossal scale.
At that time war of Prussia and Russia together against those who were
protecting the Polish insurrection against us would undoubtedly have
taken place if his majesty had not recoiled from the thought of
solving home difficulties, Prussian as well as German, with foreign
help. We declined in silence, and without revealing to the other
German powers who had hostile projects against us the reasons which
had determined our course. The subsequent death of the King of Denmark
changed the trend of thought of everybody interested. But all that was
needed to bring about the great coalition war in 1863 was a "Yes"
instead of a "No" from His Majesty the King in Gastein. Anybody but a
German minister would perhaps have counseled affirmatively, from
reasons of utility and opportunism in order to solve thereby our home
difficulties. You see neither our own people nor foreigners really
have a proper appreciation of the amount of national loyalty and high
principles which guides both the sovereign and his ministers in the
government of German states.
The year 1864--we just spoke of 1863--brought a new pressing danger of
war. From the moment when our troops crossed the Eider, I was ready
every week to see the European Council of Elders interfere in this
Danish affair, and you will agree with me that this was highly
probable. But in those days we could observe that it is not so very
easy for Europe to attack Austria and Prussia when they are united;
and remember that the German federation which supported these two
states at that time had not nearly the same military importance which
the identical countries possess today. The difficulty of an attack on
Austria and Prussia showed itself even then, but the danger of a war
remained the same.
In 1865 it faced about, and the preparations for the war of 1866 were
beginning. I only remember a meeting of the Prussian cabinet which
took place in Regensburg in 1865 with a view to procuring the
necessary money, but which was rendered futile by the agreement of
Gastein. In 1866, however, the war broke out in full force, as you
know. A circumspect use of events alone enabled us to ward off the
existing danger of turning this duel between Prussia and Austria into
a fierce European war of coalition, when our very existence, our life
and all we had, would have been at stake.
This was in 1866, and in 1867 the Luxembourg problem arose, when only
a somewhat firmer reply was needed to bring about the great French war
in that year,--and we might have given it, if we had been so strong
that we could have counted on sure success. From then on, during 1868,
1869, and up to 1870 we were living in constant apprehension of war,
and of the agreements which in the time of Mr. von Beust were being
made in Salzburg and other places between France, Italy, and Austria,
and which, we feared, were directed against us. The apprehension of
war was so great at that time that I received calls--I was the
President of the cabinet--from merchants and manufacturers, who said:
"The uncertainty is unbearable. Why don't you strike the first blow?
War is preferable to this continued damper on all business!" We waited
quietly until we were struck, and I believe we did well to arrange
matters so that we were the nation which was assailed and were not
ourselves the assailants.
Now, since the great war of 1870 was waged, has there been a year, I
ask you, without the danger of war? In the first years of the
seventies--the very moment we came home, the question arose: "When
will be the next war? When will revenge be given? Within five years at
the latest, no doubt?" We were told: "The question whether we shall
have to fight and with what success surely rests with Russia
now-a-days. Russia alone holds the hilt." It was a representative of
the Catholic party who thus remonstrated with me in the Reichstag. I
may possibly revert to this subject later. In the meanwhile I wish to
complete the picture of the forty years by saying that in 1876 the
clouds of war again began to gather in the south. In 1877 the Balkan
War was waged, which would have led to a conflagration of the whole of
Europe, if this had not been prevented by the Congress gathered in
Berlin. After the Congress an entirely new eastern picture presented
itself to us, for Russia was offended by our attitude in the Congress.
I may revert to this later, if my strength permits.
Then there followed a period when we felt the results of the intimate
relations of the three emperors, which for some time permitted us to
face the future with greater placidity. But at the first symptoms of
any instability in the relations of the three emperors or of the
termination of the agreements which they had made with one another,
public opinion was possessed by the same nervous and, I believe,
exaggerated excitement with which we have had to contend these last
years, and which I consider especially uncalled for today.
From my belief that this excitement is uncalled for I am far from
drawing the conclusion that we do not need an increase in our
armaments. The very opposite is my view, and this may explain the
tableau of forty years which I have just exhibited before you,
possibly not for your enjoyment, and I ask your pardon.
[Illustration: THE BISMARCK MONUMENT AT HAMBURG LEDERER]
But if I had omitted even one of those years, which you yourselves
have lived through with trembling, you would not have received the
impression that the state of apprehension of great wars is permanent
with us. Great complications and all kinds of coalitions, which no one
can foresee, are constantly possible and we must be prepared for them.
We must be so strong, irrespective of momentary conditions, that we
can face any coalition with the assurance of a great nation which is
strong enough under circumstances to take her fate into her own hands.
We must be able to face our fate placidly with that self reliance and
confidence in God which are ours when we are strong and our cause is
just. And the Government will see to it that the German cause will be
just always.
We must, to put it briefly, be as strong in these times as we possibly
can be, and we can be stronger than any other nation of equal numbers
in the world. I shall revert to this later--but it would be criminal
if we were not to make use of our opportunity. If we do not need our
full armed strength, we need not summon it. The only problem is the
not very weighty one of money--not very weighty I say in passing,
because I have no wish to enter upon a discussion of the financial and
military figures, and of the fact that France has spent three
milliards for the improvement of her armaments these last years, while
we have spent scarcely one and one half milliards, including what we
are asking of you at this time. But I leave the elucidation of this to
the minister of war and the representatives of the treasury
department.
When I say that it is our duty to endeavor to be ready at all times
and for all emergencies, I imply that we must make greater exertions
than other people for the same purpose, because of our geographical
position. We are situated in the heart of Europe, and have at least
three fronts open to an attack. France has only her eastern, and
Russia only her western frontier where they may be attacked. We are
also more exposed to the dangers of a coalition than any other nation,
as is proved by the whole development of history, by our geographical
position, and the lesser degree of cohesiveness, which until now has
characterized the German nation in comparison with others. God has
placed us where we are prevented, thanks to our neighbors from growing
lazy and dull. He has placed by our side the most warlike and restless
of all nations, the French, and He has permitted warlike inclinations
to grow strong in Russia, where formerly they existed to a lesser
degree. Thus we are given the spur, so to speak, from both sides, and
are compelled to exertions which we should perhaps not be making
otherwise. The pikes in the European carp-pond are keeping us from
being carps by making us feel their teeth on both sides. They also are
forcing us to an exertion which without them we might not make, and to
a union among us Germans, which is abhorrent to us at heart. By nature
we are rather tending away, the one from the other. But the
Franco-Russian press within which we are squeezed compels us to hold
together, and by pressure our cohesive force is greatly increased.
This will bring us to that state of being inseparable which all other
nations possess, while we do not yet enjoy it. But we must respond to
the intentions of Providence by making ourselves so strong that the
pikes can do nothing but encourage us.
Formerly in the years of the Holy Alliance--I am just thinking of an
American song which I learned of my late friend Motley: "In good old
colonial times, when we lived under a King"--well those were the good
old patriarchal times when we had many posts to guide us, and many
dikes to protect us from the wild floods of Europe. There were the
German Union, and the real support and consummation of the German
Union, the Holy Alliance. We had support in Russia and in Austria,
and, above all, the guaranty of our diffidence that we should never
express an opinion before the others had spoken.