In few statesmen has it been seen so clearly as in the case of the
Chancellor that no great man can make himself greater than a great
idea. Opposed to the Germanic union in the commencement of its
creative period, at the time of the revolution of '48, he accepted it
much later, not so much of his own initiative and free will as in
obedience to the teachings of unpleasant experiences. Between his
anti-union and almost feudal speeches which softened the disaster of
Olmutz, and his conversion, more than fourteen years ensued, the whole
space of time which extended from the dawn of the revolution to the
triumph of Italy. In that conversion lay the veritable glory of his
life, and he proved therein, by successive and tardy gradations, that
he could tenaciously avail himself of his courage, and lead up to the
triumph of the newly created and loved project with marvellous art.
The policy developed against Austria at Frankfort by its snares, by
its traps, by its deceits, and by its tricks, exhibited him to history
as a prodigy of cunning and foresight, in whom the enthusiasm of a
living sentiment was associated with computations of consummate
dexterity. His embassy to Paris and to St. Petersburg, where he united
against Austria persons so opposed to concord as Napoleon and
Alexander, each for his own part determined to do nothing which might
increase the power of Germany, surpassed in cleverness everything ever
achieved in celebrated combinations by such diplomats as Talleyrand
and Metternich, the two illustrious models of political strategy. The
inclusion of Austria in the incidents of the duchies of the River Elbe
and the jugglery done with the territory acquired with its direct
assent, in addition to the preparation of the final stroke for the
presidency of the Germanic federation, by means of a war prepared with
cunning stealth and carried out with rapid triumph, are among the
greatest feats for which praises and deifications are due to him and
which testify to his merit. I cannot forget that to his efforts we owe
the ruin of Austrian despotism, and of Napoleonic Caesarism; the
re-establishment of Hungarian independence; the return of Italy's
long lost provinces to her bosom; the end of the Pope's temporal
power, and the fortunate occasion of the new birth of the republic in
France. In his schemes Bismarck forwarded a higher ideal of progress
and, consciously or unconsciously, he--than whom nobody was ever more
inspired by motives and triumphant in his undertakings--has served the
universal interests of the democracy. But he has achieved his
undeniable victories by means and procedures which have not fitted him
for the position of a German deputy, and do not lend him any force,
either moral or material, for his new elective office. The whole of
his great edifice is founded on a complete oblivion of parliamentary
traditions, to-day courted lovingly by its most crafty enemy, whose
inconstancy is extraordinary. Reservedness, dissimulation, secrecy,
deceit, double meanings in words, what by analogy with the former we
call duplicity of character, treaties made by stealth, midnight
conspiracies, imposition of taxes not voted by parliament, levies
arbitrarily decreed by the executive without authorization and even
without consultation as in Asia, the right of conquest practised in
the light of reason, violent annexations which dismembered one nation
for the glory of another--such is the sum total of fatal traditions
which Bismarck now solicits to be allowed to continue by means of free
discussion, and in the bosom of open parliament. Palmerston and
Gortchakoff cannot hop in the same bag. The minion of a Czar and the
representative of a nation cannot be united in one and the same
person. What programme can Bismarck develop to his colleagues which
will have the moral character of necessary work? Moreover, the divine
word called human eloquence descends only on the lips of that
apostleship which redeems a nation from slavery and impels it forward.
You could not understand Daniel defending the kings of Babylon,
Demosthenes defending Philip, Cicero defending Mark Antony, O'Connell
defending the landlords of Ireland, and Vergniaud or Mirabeau
defending the absolute kings of France. If Bismarck accepts the
liberal and tolerant policy of to-day, will he not thereby countenance
the emperor who has ridiculed him and Caprivi who has audaciously
seated himself in that exalted position from which Bismarck thought
never to fall before his death? The great man is a poor appraiser of
ideas, accepting them from every quarter whence they blow to him if
only they will fill his sails and propel his bark; but he will never
understand what mischief he could work to his enemies by opposing a
programme of advanced democratic reform to the imperial programme
whose fixity resembles the rigidity of death. But what liberty can he
invoke--he who has disavowed and injured all liberties? Not personal
liberty--abused and trampled on constantly by his menials; not
commercial liberty, sold for thirty pieces of silver after the
Germanic Zollverein had brought great wealth to Prussia; not religious
liberty, placed in grave danger by complacency with anti-Jewish
preachers and by the May laws; not scientific liberty, after having
persecuted every department of science--even history--and invested the
state with full power to enforce the teaching of official doctrines
everywhere and by everybody; not industrial liberty, wasted away by
the regulation of labor which has transformed the workshops into
garrisons, and made of the workmen an army. What remains for him to
do? He has absolutely no resource at his disposal with which to
undertake a campaign of active opposition. In social questions nothing
is more worn out and useless than his pontifical socialism. This
species of abortion has lately resulted in advancing the parturition
of increased aspirations of the laborers, and as every kind of
abortion leaves the womb which bears it, has done so violently. His
law for the insurance of workmen, though dating only from '82, is
already tottering in almost decrepit decay. He even admitted himself
that it needed perfecting by means of a law that should establish
compulsory corporations, like the ancient guilds, which proposal was
objected to by the workmen themselves, more inclined to Saxon
individualism and revolutionary co-operation than to his socialism, in
which he saw salvation, and which they regarded as pedantic and
hybrid. Bismarck's system had no justification and derogated all laws
of ethics and justice. With his Utopian schemes the professors in
their lecture-rooms endeavored to excite the Socialists, who, if they
had listened and demanded their realization would have been exposed to
be shot down in the streets by the soldiery, without anyone being able
even to raise a protest against such indignities being possible in the
country. Even his foreign policy can scarcely be justified; however
skilful may have been the diplomatic and military preparations which
led to his first triumph, it has proved a perplexed and confused
policy since his final triumph. The Chancellor had no other
alternative than to come to an agreement either with France and
England against Russia, or else with Russia against France and
England. To come to an arrangement with France against Russia
necessitated the restitution of Alsace and Lorraine; to come to an
understanding with Russia, it was necessary to permit the Russians to
enter Constantinople. By these perplexities which shut out all hope of
retaliation from France, thus exciting its colonial appetite, and
which opened to Russia the path to the Bosphorus in a final eastern
war, detaining her for a time in St. Stephens and preparing the two
Bulgarias for an Austrian protectorate, Bismarck could have extricated
himself from danger from both Russia and France when the bonds of the
Triple Alliance were loosened at Rome by the fall of Crispi, and at
Vienna by the Treaty of Commerce. We have not spoken of the Chancellor
as an argonaut, of the Chancellor as a colonizer. All that he has been
able to do, after having given occasion for enormous difficulties with
Australia and England, with the United States and Spain, placing
himself and placing us in danger of war for the Carolines, has been to
break poor unlucky Emin Pasha's backbone, and to barter the
protectorate of Zanzibar for the sponge known as Heligoland. And may
thanks be given to William II. and to Caprivi for having, at such
small cost, got over the difficulties of the Socialist laws of his
home policy, and the colonial entanglements of his foreign policy.
Bismarck may believe an old admirer of his personality and of his
genius, though an adversary of his policy, and of the government
dependent on that policy. Society, like nature, devours everything
that it does not need. The death of William I., the Caesar; the death
of Roon, the organizer; the death of Moltke, the strategist, all say
to him that the species of men to which he belongs is fading out and
becoming extinct. Modern science teaches that extinct species do not
re-appear. Bossuet would say that the Eternal has destroyed the
instrument of His providential work, because it is already useless.
Remain, then, Bismarck, in retirement, and await, without neurotic
impatience, the final judgment of God and of history.