Bismarck as a National Type
From Glimpses of Modern German Culture by Kuno Francke, 1898.
From: 1898 C.E. To: 1898 C.E.
Location: Berlin, Germany
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Glimpses of Modern German Culture by Kuno Francke, 1898.
Bismarck as a National Type
October, 1898.
It was a spring day in 1883. The crafts and trades of Berlin were celebrating the anniversary of the founding of one of their guilds some four or five centuries ago. In good German fashion, there was an abundance of solemn and sonorous jollification throughout the day, but the climax of the exercises was reached in an historical pageant representing the growth of Berlin commerce and manufactures from the Middle Ages down to the present time.
It had been given out that this pageant was to be reviewed by the old Emperor from his familiar corner window, and it was rumoured that it would also pass by the Imperial Chancellery, and that Prince Bismarck would probably be there to see it pass. In anticipation of this event, a dense multitude had taken possession of the square in front of Bismarck's official residence—the Wilhelmsplatz—hours before the procession had even begun to move.
An eager, nervous expectation seemed to hover over the surging masses. Will the procession really come this way? And if it does, will he appear—he who is so indifferent to pompous demonstrations, so averse to appeals to the crowd? As yet there was no sign of life in the Bismarck mansion: the windows were closed; most of the curtains were drawn. Perhaps the Prince is not even at home, or is too engrossed in public business to have given any attention to this local holiday. In spite of such misgivings, the populace held out unfalteringly; every minute swelled its numbers. Now, not only the square, but the adjoining streets also were literally packed. Presently there was heard from the direction of Unter den Linden the low thunder of tumultuous cheering, interspersed now and then with some distant strains of martial music; evidently the procession was passing the Emperor's palace. Nearer and nearer the sounds came, and higher and higher ran our feverish excitement.
Presently in a wing of the Chancellery nearest to the Wilhelmstrasse a window was thrown open: the Princess Bismarck and Count Herbert leaned out, and far back in the darkness of the room there loomed up a shadowy form, from which a mighty head seemed to be shining forth with something like electric energy. To describe the frenzy which seized the thousands in the street at this sight would be a futile task. It was as though we had had a vision, as though something superhuman had suddenly flashed down upon us and extinguished every other feeling except the impulse to worship. How long we had been cheering before he came forward to the window I cannot tell, but I venture to say that even an American football enthusiast would have been pleased with our efforts.
At last, however, he did come forward, and, putting on a pair of immense spectacles which his wife handed to him, looked down upon us with an expression of grave satisfaction. Meanwhile, the procession of the guilds had swung into the Wilhelmstrasse, and now passed by the Chancellery in seemingly endless array, every band striking up The Watch on the Rhine just before it reached his window, every banner being dipped as long as his eye was upon it, and every man straightening himself up and feeling raised above his own narrow self while looking up to that stern and awe-inspiring face.
What was it that moved the multitude so profoundly during those hours, that gave to that impromptu demonstration the significance and dignity of a national event? Was it the consciousness of standing in the presence of the greatest diplomat of modern times, the maker and un-maker of kings and emperors, the founder of German unity, the arbiter of Europe?
Undoubtedly this was a large part of it. But political achievements alone are not sufficient to stir the people's heart. What called forth this extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm, what gave to everyone in that crowd the sense of a heightened existence, was, after all, the man, not his work; it was the instinctive feeling that in this one man yonder there were contained the lives of many millions of Germans, their dreams and struggles, their eccentricities and yearnings, their mistakes and triumphs, their prejudices, passions, ideals, their love, hate, humour, poetry and religion.
Let us single out a few of these affinities between Bismarck and the German people, in order to understand, however imperfectly, why the news of his death that has burst so suddenly upon us means for the sons of the Fatherland all over the globe the severing of their own lives from what they feel to have been the most complete embodiment, since Luther, of German nationality.
Perhaps the most obviously Teutonic trait in Bismarck's character is its martial quality. It would be preposterous, of course, to claim warlike distinction as a prerogative of the German race. Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, undoubtedly, make as good fighters as Germans. But it is not an exaggeration to say that there is no country in the world where the army is as enlightened or as popular an institution as it is in Germany. I do not underrate the evils of militarism. I believe the struggle against these evils will be the foremost task of the next twenty-five years in German political life. But I fail to see how it can be denied that the introduction of universal military service, which we owe to the inner regeneration of Prussia after the downfall of 1806, has been the very corner-stone of German greatness in this century.
The German army is not composed of hirelings, of professional fighters whose business it is to pick up quarrels, no matter with whom. It is, in the strictest sense of the word, the people in arms. Among its officers there is a large percentage of the intellectual elite of the country; its rank and file embrace every occupation and every class of society, from the scion of royal blood down to the son of the seamstress.
Although it is based upon the unconditional acceptance of the monarchical creed, nothing is farther removed from it than the spirit of servility. On the contrary, one of the very first teachings which are inculcated upon the German recruit is that in wearing the "king's coat" he is performing a public duty, and that by performing this duty he is honouring himself. Nor can it be said that it is the aim of German military drill to reduce the soldier to a mere machine, at will to be set in motion or be brought to a standstill by his superior. The aim of this drill is rather to give each soldier increased self-control, mentally no less than bodily; to develop his self-respect; to enlarge his sense of responsibility, as well as to teach him the absolute necessity of the subordination of the individual to the needs of the whole.
The German army, then, is by no means a lifeless tool that might be used by an unscrupulous and adventurous despot to gratify his own whims or to wreak his private vengeance. The German army is, in principle at least, a national school of manly virtues, of discipline, of comradeship, of self-sacrifice, of promptness of action, of tenacity of purpose. Although, probably, the most powerful armament which the world has ever seen, it makes for peace rather than for war. Although called upon to defend the standard of the most imperious dynasty of western Europe, it contains more of the spirit of true democracy than many a city government on this side of the Atlantic.
All this has to be borne in mind if we wish to judge correctly of Bismarck's military propensities. He has never concealed the fact that he felt himself above all a soldier. One of his earliest public utterances was a defense of the Prussian army against the sympathizers with the revolution of 1848. His first great political achievement was the carrying through of King William's army reform in the face of the most stubborn and virulent opposition of a parliamentary majority. Never did his speech in the German Diet rise to a higher pathos than when he was asserting the military supremacy of the Emperor, or calling upon the parties to forget their dissensions in maintaining the defensive strength of the nation, or showering contempt upon liberal deputies who seemed to think that questions of national existence could be solved by effusions of academic oratory.
Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties, and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home and hearth, was the oath of vassal loyalty constraining him to stand at his post until his imperial master released him of his own accord. And at the very height of his political triumphs he wrote to his sovereign:
"I have always regretted that my parents did not allow me to testify my attachment to the royal house, and my enthusiasm for the greatness and glory of the Fatherland, in the front rank of a regiment rather than behind a writing-desk. And even now, after having been raised by your Majesty to the highest honors of a statesman, I cannot altogether repress a feeling of regret at not having been similarly able to carve out a career for myself as a soldier. Perhaps I should have made a poor general, but if I had been free to follow the bent of my own inclination I would rather have won battles for your Majesty than diplomatic campaigns."
It seems clear to me that both the defects and the greatness of Bismarck's character are intimately associated with these military leanings of his. He certainly was overbearing; he could tolerate no opposition; he was revengeful and unforgiving; he took pleasure in the appeal to violence; he easily resorted to measures of repression; he requited insults with counter-insults; he had something of that blind furor Teutonicus which was the terror of the Italian republics in the Middle Ages.
These are defects of temper which will probably prevent his name from ever shining with that serene lustre of international veneration that has surrounded the memory of a Joseph II. or a Washington with a kind of impersonal immaculateness. But his countrymen, at least, have every reason to condone these defects; for they are concomitant results of the military bent of German character, and they are offset by such transcendent military virtues that we would almost welcome them as bringing this colossal figure within the reach of our own frailties and shortcomings.
Three of the military qualities that made Bismarck great seem to me to stand out with particular distinctness: his readiness to take the most tremendous responsibilities, if he could justify his action by the worth of the cause for which he made himself responsible; his moderation after success was assured; his unflinching submission to the dictates of monarchical discipline.
Moritz Busch has recorded an occurrence, belonging to the autumn of 1877, which most impressively brings before us the tragic grandeur and the portentous issues of Bismarck's career. It was twilight at Varzin, and the Chancellor, as was his wont after dinner, was sitting by the stove in the large back drawing-room. After having sat silent for a while, gazing straight before him, and feeding the fire now and again with fir-cones, he suddenly began to complain that his political activity had brought him but little satisfaction and few friends. Nobody loved him for what he had done. He had never made anybody happy thereby, he said—not himself, nor his family, nor anyone else. Some of those present would not admit this, and suggested "that he had made a great nation happy." "But," he continued, "how many have I made unhappy! But for me three great wars would not have been fought; eighty thousand men would not have perished; parents, brothers, sisters, and wives would not have been bereaved and plunged into mourning... That matter, however, I have settled with God."
"Settled with God!”—an amazing statement, a statement which would seem the height of blasphemy, if it were not an expression of noblest manliness; if it did not reveal the soul of a warrior dauntlessly fighting for a great cause, risking for it the existence of a whole country as well as his own happiness, peace, and salvation, and being ready to submit the consequences, whatever they might be, to the tribunal of eternity.
To say that a man who is willing to take such responsibilities as these makes himself thereby an offender against morality appears to me tantamount to condemning the Alps as obstructions to bicycling. A people, at any rate, that glories in the achievements of Luther has no right to cast a slur upon the motives of Bismarck. Whatever one may think of the worth of the cause for which Bismarck battled all his life—the unity and greatness of Germany—it is impossible not to admire the policy of moderation and self-restraint pursued by him after every one of his most decisive victories. And here again we note in him the peculiarly German military temper. German war-songs do not glorify foreign conquest and brilliant adventure; they glorify dogged resistance, and bitter fight for house and home, for kith and kin.
The German army, composed as it is of millions of peaceful citizens, is essentially a weapon of defense. And it can truly be said that Bismarck, with all his natural aggressiveness and ferocity, has in the main been a defender, not a conqueror. He defended Prussia against the intolerable arrogance and un-German policy of Austria; he defended Germany against French interference in the work of national consolidation; he defended the principle of state sovereignty against the encroachments of the Papacy; he defended the monarchy against the republicanism of the Liberals and Socialists; and his last public act was a defense of ministerial responsibility against the new-fangled absolutism of his young imperial master.
Francke, Kuno. Glimpses of Modern German Culture. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1898.
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