1 But the
real cause of the mischief and the real responsibility for our
failure lay with the nation and its leaders.
real cause of the mischief and the real responsibility for our
failure lay with the nation and its leaders.
Robertson - Bismarck
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? 164
BISMARCK
was sorely needed in Downing Street and at the British
Admiralty, at the Qua: d'Orsay, in the Ball-Platz, and the
fly-blown offices of the Federal Diet.
Moreover, Bismarck foresaw the character of the coming
struggle--a real trial of strength between the diplomacy
and methods of the statecraft of power against the old
diplomacy of the State as the champion of right; between
the old system of the Concert of Europe with its' paradox'
of the Balance of Power and the revival of Prussianism
with its doctrine of force. The result must indicate
conclusively the efficacy and superiority of the Bismarckian
system; and Bismarck had this enormous advantage. He
knew the methods of his opponents, but they did not know
his. Obsessed by tradition and misled by ignorance of the
real Germany and Prussia, they were in the position of
generals fighting according to the red-tape of a conven-
tional warfare against a foe who had superior science and
used it to devise high explosives and asphyxiating gas.
The true moral of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, in
which Europe was signally routed, is not that the state-
craft of blood and iron must always win--men drew that
false conclusion from imperfectly framed premises--but
first, that the State which stands for right (Der Staat als
Recht) in death-grips with the State which stands for
power (Der Staat als Macht) must have better brains and a
clearer mastery of realities; and secondly, it must not mix
a sham copy of its rival's methods with its own, and then
bay the moon because real force, applied by genius, beats
sham force that lets ' I dare not wait upon I would. '
When Christian's action precipitated a crisis several
insist on the withdrawal of the March Constitution as a
condition of upholding the Convention; they might have
decided that the whole situation was so completely altered
as to require a new settlement, and have severed the Duchies
from Denmark and recognised the claims of Augusten-
burg; or they might have severed Holstein from Schles-
wig; or they might have supported Christian and
Denmark at all costs. All these and other courses were
possible and arguable in November 1863. But they all
solutions were possible.
? . . . i rLi j
Powers might at once
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 165
implied that the Concert of Europe responsible for the
Convention of London would act as a concert, and would
act promptly; and that was precisely what Bismarck guessed
they would not do, or intended to prevent. Bismarck
started with Russia practically on his side--Russia that in
1852 was responsible for the coercion of Schleswig-Holstein
and the integrity of the Danish monarchy. Four against
one--Prussia against the other European Powers--in 1852
was a hopeless position; but two against three raised a
practicable issue. When it had been converted into
three against two the business would settle itself.
The two fatal blunders for the Powers to commit were,
first: to allow an isolated and excited Denmark to be en-
tangled in a war with one or more members of the Concert
of Europe which were the guarantors of the integrity of the
Danish kingdom; and, secondly, to delude Denmark into
resistance by encouraging her belief that she would have
allies in the last resort, when no ally was prepared to give
more than the ' moral' support of diplomacy. Such moral
support is generally a euphemism for truly moral cowardice
and selfishness, and always an insulting travesty of the real
strength of the moral element in human affairs. Both
these blunders were committed. And there was a third.
In diplomacy, as in war, the statesman who trifles with
time is a criminal; doubly so, if he is pitted against an ad-
versary who puts time on his side. Throughout Bismarck
reckoned that while Lord John Russell's pen would be black-
ening many sheets of paper, and Napoleon was flickering
from one Napoleonic idea to another, the Prussian army
could cover a good many miles into Holstein, and it would
not meet the British fleet at Kiel. Both King William
and Queen Victoria had consciences which made them
obstinate, but it was easier to deceive King William than
Queen Victoria, and to prove to the royal satisfaction
of Prussia that black was white. The Queen of Great
Britain had an alternative to the ministers in office, who
were also not united. King William had no alternative
to Bismarck (who had really no colleagues) but surrender
to the opposition. So manifold in Bismarck's view were
the advantages of being the Prussian minister of a Prussian
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? i66
BISMARCK
long, who governed as well as reigned. The appeal of the
Congress of London in May, 1864, to Prussian good feeling
when the Prussian army had fleshed a victorious sword on
the obstinate Danes was as helpful as an appeal to the good
feelings of a terrier with a live rabbit in its mouth. The
Congress simply enabled Great Britain and France to
desert Denmark with all the phylacteries of diplomatic
Pharisaism unsoiled: it justly incurred the impotent
contempt of Denmark and the very potent contempt of
Bismarck. Worst of all, it taught Europe that right only
differed from might in the inefficiency of its State-egoism
and selfishness. The nadir of British moral power in
Europe was foreshadowed in the action of our Foreign
Office; the bankruptcy of the Second Empire was first pro-
claimed not at Queretaro nor by the guns of Koniggratz,
but at London in 1864. For us British it is tragic that
the Power which in i860 by a single dispatch silenced
Austria and enabled Cavour to complete the work of Gari-
baldi should have denounced, defied, and deserted in 1864.
Bismarck and Gortschakov took the hint, and enforced the
initial lesson in 1870. Dry powder and disbelief in God,
said Europe, is a better creed than belief in God and no
powder at all; and Providence, said the cynics, thought
with them. Were the cynics really so wrong?
The one solution that no one in November 1863 con-
templated was the annexation of the Duchies by Prussia:
for Prussia, apart from 'the folly' of crediting her with
the power to defy Europe, had no better title in law or
history to the Duchies than the President of the United
States or the Negus of Abyssinia. One title she could
create, the title of Frederick the Great to Silesia or Polish
Prussia--the title of the invincible sword, accepted by
Europe because it disbelieved in its capacity to invalidate
it. We know that Bismarck from the very first, perhaps
before he took office in 1862, steadily kept annexation
before bis eyes as the most satisfactory solution. Indeed,
his diplomacy is inexplicable otherwise. But prudently
recognising that the ideal is not always the attainable he
was determined to prevent a settlement that would block
the greater ends, to which the annexation was at best only
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 167
a stepping-stone. The worst that could happen would
be the severance of the Duchies from Denmark and their
incorporation under their 'lawful' duke, the Augusten-
burger, in the tessellated mosaic of Federal Germany.
Another petty State under a Liberal prince, hand in glove
with 'the Coburg gang,' voting in the Diet against
Prussia, and working in Germany as a perpetual balsam of
Liberalism and a mustard-plaster on the back of Prussia,
was intolerable. The enthusiasm of Austria, the dynasties,
and the National Liberals for the Augustenburger--the
ominous conjunction of everything and everybody anti-
Prussian--was quite sufficient to condemn that solution in
Bismarck's eyes. Better the complete incorporation with
Denmark than that.
Yet what easier and more tempting than to proclaim the
leadership of Prussia in a great German affair, and employ
the Prussian army to rip the Convention of London to tatters,
in the sacred name of nationalism and Germany? Why not
liberate the Duchies from ' Danish degradation,' and end
the constitutional conflict in Prussia with a demand that
the Prussian Parliament should expunge its votes and ex-
piate its rebellion by a doubled grant to a doubled army,
henceforward wholly to be at the uncontrolled disposi-
tion of the Crown for Germany and Prussia's needs?
William 1. would have kissed his minister on both cheeks,
the Crown Prince would have begged his pardon, the
opposition would have voted sackcloth and ashes for them-
selves and a laurel wreath for the minister, and Germany,
now burning Bismarck in effigy, would have kneeled at
his feet, had he announced such a policy. Bismarck de-
liberately rejected the temptation, for it meant an alliance
with National Liberalism in which he would be the horse
and the popular forces the rider. Instead, he embarked
on a course bristling with difficulties, and exposed to the
gravest perils, which drew upon himself a concentration
of hatred and indignation from Conservatives outside
Prussia and Liberals within it. He defied a passionate
public opinion and ran the serious risk of uniting Europe
against Prussia. Every one in Germany was against him
--the leaders of the Federal Diet, the Prussian Landtag,
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? i68
BISMARCK
the Duke oi Augustenburg, the Germans of the Duchies
themselves, the Crown Prince and his circle, the princes of
the middle and petty States. The Prussian Landtag re-
fused the special grant demanded, whereupon Bismarck
replied that he would take the money where he could find
it. The Prussian Liberals had concentrated on three
points--the desire to act legally and in support of Augus-
tenburg's' lawful' claims, the absolute identity of Prussia's
interest with that of all Germany, and the fear that Bis-
marck's opposition to German Liberalism and Nationalism
would isolate Prussia and repeat the humiliation of 1849. His
royal master, on whom everything turned, was an Augus-
tenburger, gravely perturbed by his minister's tortuous,
halting, and dubious proceedings, and by the arguments
of Bismarck's critics to which he had no satisfying answer.
Yet he could not dismiss Bismarck and face the cyclonic
onset of the popular forces, concentrated in a Landtag
that regarded the constitution as doubly violated by the
treason to Germany and Prussia expressed in the minister's
foreign policy. Bismarck did not dare to tell his royal
master the truth. Until the inexorable drip of one accom-
plished fact after another wore away William's conscience
it was better he should doubt his minister's sanity than be
convinced of his iniquity.
Bismarck's extreme caution at every stage is remarkable.
More than once he clearly was in grave perplexity as to
the next move, and his own simile of the method of stalk-
ing woodcock in marshy ground is illuminating in its
appositeness. Every step must be tested before the next
is taken. If the ground gives, or a stone waggles, wait
until a better foothold is found by patient exploration.
Do not fire until you have both feet on firm ground;
otherwise you will miss your shot, scare the game, and be
bogged into the bargain.
The successive moves of the next few months, viewed as
a whole, present very clearly the general framework of
Bismarck's strategy. The Danes must put themselves in
the wrong, and be manoeuvred into remaining in the
wrong: driven to resist and then defeated. Once Prus-
sian blood had been spilt, a claim for Prussian compen-
1 n1 1
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 169
sation could be set up. Germany as far as possible must
be kept out of it. The Convention of London was an
international document. It was easier to manipulate the
European than the German situation, and to drive wedges
between the Powers than to create discord in Germany.
Hence the controversy must be pinned down to the Con-
vention of London. Once that was torn up, the Powers
resumed--delicious phrase--their individual liberty of
action, and Bismarck guessed that none of the Powers was
prepared to make a European war on behalf of Denmark.
Why should they? They could not annex the Duchies.
Prussia could. She had a definite and material gain for
which to fight, in the last resort. Hence, combined action
with Austria was essential. That broke the unity of the
Concert, and the alliance of Vienna with the middle and
petty States. It left the Federal Diet practically helpless.
A skilful diplomacy working on the strained relations re-
sulting from the Polish fiasco, could probably separate
England and France. On a calculation of forces, England
and Denmark were not strong enough to win. England
would not risk it. The Duchies would be severed from
Denmark. The final disposition of them opened up a
much bigger problem--the settlement with Austria and
the settlement of the German question.
Behind this diplomacy throughout stood silent and
obedient'--the Prussian army. The crude Junkertum of
Roon, conscious of Prussian strength, grew very impatient
with Bismarck's finesse and haggling with politicians
armed only with a pen and phrases. 'The question of the
Duchies,' he pronounced, 'is not one of right or law, but
of force, and we have it. ' Roon and all his school, who
saw in history nothing but the blessing of Providence on
the big battalions, failed to penetrate the secrets of the
real statecraft of power, Bismarckian or otherwise. Moltke
and Treitschke saw deeper. The big battalions must
first range themselves on the side of Providence, before
they can hope to extort the blessing. The maximum of
effort can only be secured from the monarchical State as
Force when sovereigns and subjects have a good con-
science, convinced that their cause is lawful and right.
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? 170
BISMARCK
Bismarck undertook the apparently impossible task of con-
vincing his sovereign and countrymen that in 1864, 1866,
and in 1870 they were fighting, not an aggressive, but a
defensive, war. Neither Moltke nor he himself believed
that--quite the contrary. But it was essential that the
King and Prussia--the professors, the lawyers, the bour-
geois at his desk and the peasant in the fields--should
believe it. And they did--in the end. The professors,
who backed Augustenburg to a man, were the first and the
most easily converted. For the disciplined and patriotic
intellect must harmonise appetite with reason, and the
carnal appetites of intellectuals are generally as irrational
as their minds are rational. Bismarck relied on ranging
the moral forces in Germany behind the strength of the
Prussian army. But the moral forces must first be chained
up in the ^Eolus cellar of the Foreign Office, and only let
loose at the right moment. The key of the cellars and
of the barracks must not be in the keeping of the Landtag,
but in the pocket of the Prussian monarch, i. e. of his
Minister-President.
How could this Bismarckian plan of campaign have been
met? Only by first keeping Denmark in the right;
secondly, by a complete understanding between France
and Great Britain; thirdly, by making an Anglo-French
entente the basis for a complete understanding with
Germany other than Prussia. The isolation of Prussia was
the true diplomatic objective, as clearly as for Bismarck was
the isolation of Great Britain. It was essential to inform
Denmark categorically and at once that she must withdraw
from an untenable position, and place her cause unreser-
vedly in the hands of her friends, or face Germany by her-
self. Nor was it enough to maintain the Convention of
London and the status quo. The ambitions of the Danish
Radicals were a grave danger for the future. The German
demand had to be met frankly and with sympathy; for
the German population in the Duchies had genuine
grievances; and effective guarantees must be provided
that the Schleswig-Holstein question did not continue to
poison the situation in Europe. The distinction between
Germany and Prussia (under the control of Bismarck) was
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 171
real and deep. A true alliance with Germany other than
Prussia, and with the powerful anti-Bismarckian forces in
Prussia, was well within the scope of diplomacy, which could
thus have divided Prussia and isolated her in Germany.
But such a policy implied the sympathy and comprehension
that only knowledge and mastery of the realities could
give. The one thing needful was the one thing con-
spicuously wanting. English public opinion condemned
Germany no less than Prussia, just because the Liberals
in Germany were dead against the Convention of 1852/
It broke the hearts of the few Englishmen and the many
Germans who recognised the gravity of the issues at stake
for England and for Germany to see the blindness, apathy,
and ignorance on our side, and the squandering by our
ministers of opportunity after opportunity. Great Britain
deserted much more than Denmark. The alienation from
Great Britain of Nationalist and Liberal Germany and
Prussia--the commencement of the estrangement that
was to deepen into opposition and solidify into an irre-
concilable hostility--dates from 1864. Our policy, skil-
fully exploited by Bismarck, was the foundation of the
conversion of Prussia and Germany to Bismarckianism.
Yet if ever there was a British cause, the defeat of
Bismarckian statecraft in 1864 was that cause.
British statesmanship had gravely handicapped itself.
The rejection by the British government in November
1863 of Napoleon's proposal for a Congress was a criminal
blunder which had greatly angered the Emperor. -The
rooted distrust of Napoleon in. , and the exaggerated
estimate of his ability and strength, which Bismarck had
long ago abandoned, prevented a sincere Anglo-French
union. Napoleon, as usual, wandered in the twilight of
phrases which he mistook for principles. He was heavily
committed in Mexico, he was not prepared for war, and he
had had one damaging lesson from Poland in the blunder
of empty threats. When Great Britain proposed in June
1864 that France should join with her in an agreed line of
partition in Schleswig and make it an ultimatum, Drouyn
de Lhuys replied that with Poland before their eyes such
a step was, as Napoleon said, to invite another gros souffiet,
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? BISMARCK
and unless Great Britain were ready to go to the bitter end,
i. e. make refusal to accept the ultimatum a casus belli,
France would not join in the proposal. Great Britain was
not ready for that, and the proposal came to nothing.
The conception of Prussia as a representative of national-
ism, strengthened in the north to make an equipoise to
Austria in the south, fascinated Napoleon's ebbing imagi-
nation. He has received sympathy because Bismarck
blackmailed him deliberately. But the truth is that
Napoleon, like the gambler who fears the honest banker
and borrows from an unscrupulous moneylender, hoped
to get the money and evade the sixty per cent. He de-
sired to win an imposing success without striking a blow or
risking a French life. The Danes blew up their bridges
and burnt their boats, and then expected Great Britain
single-handed to intervene in their behalf.
The British Court, as has been revealed, had much
sympathy with the Augustenburg claims; and the Queen
was absolutely determined that her country should not be
involved in war to save the Duchies for Denmark.
1 But the
real cause of the mischief and the real responsibility for our
failure lay with the nation and its leaders. The ignorance
of ministers throughout the whole business was equalled
by the ignorance of the organs of public opinion and of
the nation they claimed to instruct. The newspapers--
The Times, in particular--surpassed themselves in the
winter of 1863-4 by the insufficiency of their knowledge
and the self-sufficiency of the lectures they poured out on
Germany and Prussia. 2 We were quite unprepared for
war. The nation was not willing to go to war, for it
1 Yet, curiously enough, in 1866 Queen Victoria desired 'to interfere by
force against Prussian designs in the Duchies' (Clarendon's Lift, ii. p. 311)--
a pretty clear proof of sympathy with Austria and the Augustenburg claims.
The ministers wee wholly against the Queen.
1 This is a deliberate judgment based on a careful study of the files of Tie
Times, and other British newspapers for 1863 and 1864: the cumulative im-
pression of such a study cannot be verified from a single reference. But I will
cite three examples of knowledge, political judgment, and prescience as
samples: 'The grievances of her (Denmark's) German subjects seem puerile
or groundless' (Times, November 16, 1863): 'We have ourselves as a nation
little interest in the question' (November 24, 1863): 'We believe that even
now (February 6, 1864) Prussia is anxious to leave the Danish state un-
touched. ' How Bismarck must have enjoyed reading that divination of
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT
173
scarcely knew where Schleswig-Holstein could be found
on the map, but we were ready to threaten what we had
no intention of performing, and we hectored every one
with the complacent superiority that deserves the title of
insular. The gravity of the German and European situa-
tion was quite unappreciated, because there are none so
blind as those who do not wish to see. The language of
responsible public men, and not merely of Palmerston, of
politicians, and of ' Society,' naturally misled the Danes,
who made the pardonable mistake of supposing that
England meant what she said, and of interpreting ignorant
bluster as moral conviction. 'I wasted several years of
my life,' Bismarck remarked, 'by the supposition that
England was a great nation. ' The price that we paid then
and subsequently was the price that we deserved to pay.
A nation with responsible parliamentary government is
not the victim but the author of its government's blunders;
and if it seeks to transfer the responsibility to politicians
and a party system, or some other scapegoat, it is guilty
of the lie in the soul.
Bismarck's first step was to secure Austria. It did not
escape his attention that Austria, compared with Prussia,
was in a very unfavourable position for effective military
and political action in the Duchies. Austria, humiliated
by the Polish fiasco and the failure of the Congress of
Princes, was only too ready to listen to the Prussian over-
tures. The rejection by the Federal Diet (January 14)
of the Prussian proposal, that Austria and Prussia, in virtue
of their international position, should occupy Schleswig
in order to secure the observance of the Convention, was
tantamount to a declaration that the Diet repudiated the
his policy and aims. The effect of these utterances on public opinion
at Copenhagen, throughout Germany, and at Berlin and Vienna, is not a
question of speculation. Morier and others saw with pain how our newspapers
encouraged the Danes, angered while patronising the German Liberals, inflamed
the tension, and were carefully studied by Bismarck, who was accurately in-
formed of the ignorance and bluster in London. 'England,' said a Prussian
deputy, 'is always full of consideration for those who can defend themselves. '
And the England of 1863-64 aUo seems to have been convinced that (a) the
British fleet had only to appear and Prussia would retire in humble fear;
and (A) still more characteristic, that military states would conduct their
military operations as our Government and War Office had conducted the
Crimean War.
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? 174
BISMARCK
Convention; it compelled Austria to accept the Prussian
alliance. 'We recognise,' said Bismarck, ' in King Chris-
tian the heir both of the rights and the wrongs of his
predecessor; our fidelity to treaties must be open to no
impeachment. ' The Treaty of January 16, 1864, bound
Austria and Prussia to determine the future of the Duchies
by joint agreement and to decide the succession question
only by common consent. It ruled out agreements with
a third party, and it made the two States, as guarantors
of the Convention and Protocol of 1852, a single State to
all intents and purposes. Austria could henceforward
only oppose Prussia or act with the Federal Diet, or another
European Power, by tearing up the treaty, which proved,
as Bismarck intended it to be, a millstone round Austria's
neck. It was to be the connecting link between the
German question and the question of the Duchies. Had
the Danes now accepted the Austro-Prussian ultimatum
of January 16, to withdraw the new constitution and place
the situation in the hands of the Powers, there must have
been at least delay, and time would have been brought on
to the Danish side. The Danish government knew, as
every one did, that Great Britain had previously rejected
the reference to a Congress. The British government was
of opinion that King Christian's claims to the Duchies
could not be questioned. The ultimatum was accordingly
rejected.
Bismarck afterwards smilingly admitted that a Danish
acceptance would have been a serious upset to his plans;
but he added, probably with truth, '1 had ascertained
that the Danes would certainly refuse, otherwise I should
not have taken the risk. ' The Danes, moreover, were only
given forty-eight hours to decide, and the Austro-Prussian
army crossed the frontier at once. The Prussian note of
January 31 virtually proclaimed that Danish resistance
ad torn the Convention of London to shreds and tatters.
And Danish resistance was openly applauded in England
--which expected to see 1849 repeated in 1864. So much
did England know of Prussia and of Denmark.
The situation was certainly peculiar. Saxon and Hano-
verian troops were acting for the Federal Diet, whose
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 175
jurisdiction was limited to Holstein. The Austrian and
Prussian troops, representing two signatories to the
Convention of 1852, could coerce Denmark, for the Con-
vention applied to the whole kingdom and not merely to
the Duchies. France, Great Britain, and Russia had an
equal right with Austria and Prussia to intervene; and
Austria and Prussia by themselves could not draw up a
new, or restore the old, Convention. A Congress was
inevitable. The Prussian General Staff, on its mettle,
recognised that the pace must be forced. The storm of
the Diippel lines (April 18) drove the Danes to accept
reference to a Congress at London, and the armistice of
April 18 left Austria and Prussia in practical possession of
the Duchies. Germany was jubilant: 1848 was avenged.
It only remained now for Europe to sever the Duchies
from Denmark, install the Duke of Augustenburg, and the
business was over.
'The business,' Bismarck had decided, was only begin-
ning. The Prussian Staff would not be whistled off its
prey by journalists in Printing House Square or Fleet
Street; the King, who flattered himself that he had faced a
scaffold in Unter Den Linden for the army, felt it was good
to be a Hohenzollern; and even the most rebellious
Prussian Radical had pride in the soldiers of Prussia. 'It
will not be amiss,' Bismarck concluded, 'if we enter the
Congress in possession of the object in dispute. ' But the
floors of European Congresses are notoriously slippery.
Bismarck, represented by Bernstorff in London, was deter-
mined to make the Congress end in a stalemate. He
could always block what he did not want, and then propose
what he felt sure would be rejected by others. The blood
and iron of the Prussian sword could then bring the curtain
down on the first act.
War was only a continuation of policy, a means to give yon
the terms on which you wish to live with your neighbours;
and Bismarck had three fine cards to play. A settlement
against the will of the Duchies was no settlement (that
appealed to Napoleon with his itch for plebiscites); the
restoration of the Duchies to Denmark would be violently
opposed by Germany, and every Augustenburger in Europe
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? 176
BISMARCK
(that was for the Queen of Great Britain, the widow of a
Coburg prince); a partition could probably be wrecked on
its details (that was for himself). Where in the Duchies did
the Danish fringe end and the German begin? Bismarck
had a crushing answer to the proposals of his opponents in
London. If he was thwarted he would resign, with the
result that Prussia, in the hands of the overwhelming oppo-
sition in the Landtag, would join the Diet and the princes
in supporting the Duke of Augustenburg, and Europe
would be confronted with a united Germany, holding the
Duchies in its possession and determined to fight for their
retention. He kept his hand on German nationalism,
and now opened the throttle to let the superheated steam
out. From the Wilhelmstrasse he invited the journalists
and the professors to lash public opinion into a frenzy.
'Let the whole pack go,' he commanded; and 'the whole
pack' let themselves go with German thoroughness and
rhetoric. As a corrective he encouraged Russia to revive
the claims of the house of Oldenburg, passed over in 1852.
Nor--he quietly insinuated--were the dynastic claims of
a Prussian claimant to be wholly overlooked.
The interest of the Congress does not lie in its tedious
details of proposals1 rejected by one or other of the parties,
but in the steady sapping and countermining by Prussia, so
as to bring about a deadlock. Clarendon penetrated the
blocking tactics. It was then too late. British public
opinion, confronted with a disinterested war by Great
Britain alone for two wretched Duchies on behalf of an un-
reasonable Denmark, which rejected every compromise, had
not the vision or the knowledge to graspthe significance for
Europe of Schleswig-Holstein, and the situation had been
so bungled by the British government and so skilfully en-
gineered by Bismarck that war on behalf of Denmark was
war with Liberal Germany. Our Court was determined to
1 The proposal to return to the position defined in the Convention of 1852
was rejected by Germany, Austria, and Prussia; the proposal to install the
Duke of Augustenburg in the Duchies, separated from Denmark, made by
Austria and Prussia, was rejected by Denmark and Great Britain; the British
proposal to divide Schleswig at the line of the river Schlei was rejected by
Germany; the Danish proposal to make the river Eider the frontier was
rejected by Prussia.
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 177
keep England out of war, and the ministers,- divided
amongst themselves, shrank from involving the Crown in
a ministerial crisis, in which it was very uncertain that
public opinion would support them. The government
had not decided in advance whether it was a British interest
to fight, and, if it was not, what line of action would
spare Great Britain from a humiliating rebuff and
treachery to friends it had deceived. Napoleon, 'the
Man of Sin,' was playing with the idea (suggested by
the Arch-Tempter) that the most reasonable solution
was to recognise the Nationalist principle and assign
the Duchies to Prussia as the representative of that
principle--of course for a compensation to be denned
later. The policy of disinterested idealism and the
policy of pourboir'es--the policy of the benevolent
heart and the policy of the calculating brain--are hard
to harmonise at any time, but the harmony is im-
possible for a muddled head and a heart suffering from
valvular disease.
While the Congress wrangled Bismarck was clearing a
difficulty of his own out of the way. Through the Crown
Prince and M. Duncker he gave the Duke of Augustenburg
an interview at Berlin (June 1). The King and the Crown
Prince were apparently confident that it would result in
the adoption by Bismarck of Augustenburg as the candi-
date of Prussia. It is impossible to reconcile the narratives
of that memorable scene, which come first hand from
Bismarck and the duke. Recent German critical scholar-
ship has held that the duke's story is the more trustworthy,
which is quite probable, but the controversy, though a
fascinating study in evidential sources, does not affect the
result. When the two men parted at midnight of June 1
Bismarck had decided that he had finished with the duke,
and the duke recognised that he would be installed in
the Duchies only by Bismarck's expulsion from office.
Bismarck expounded the difficulties, legal and political, of
enforcing the duke's claims; but if the duke were prepared
to agree to certain conditions, which would place the
Duchies in the military and administrative control of
Prussia, he would work on his behalf. The conditions
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? i78
BISMARCK
were such as to establish a virtual Prussian protectorate,
under which the duke would be nominally sovereign, but
in all essentials he would simply be the President (Regie-
rungs Oberprasident) of a Prussian province. The Duchies
were, in short, to be the ducal scabbard of the Prussian
sword. The duke rejected the conditions, as incom-
patible with his independence as a sovereign prince and his
desire to be an autonomous and Liberal ruler. When he
walked out into the summer night, he was walking out of
history. Upstairs the Minister-President was shrugging
his shoulders. Liberals never would see that half a loaf was
better than no bread. It was now quite clear that annexa-
tion-to Prussia was the only tolerable solution. Annexa-
tion? How? Would Austria consent to a Prussian
annexation?
The Congress broke up on June 25 on the deadlock that
Bismarck desired. Its debates registered three results:
first, that the Convention of 1852 had gone into the waste-
paper basket; secondly, that no alternative settlement had
been arrived at; and thirdly,--the really momentous
result--that Bismarck had smashed the Concert of Europe
into fragments. Henceforward one of the main prin-
ciples of his policy, not merely in the Schleswig-Holstein
affair, was to prevent the fragments from re-uniting.
German sentiment supported this policy. As long as the
European Powers fell out, Prussia and Germany would
come by their own. The next six years provided the
proof. Beust--the representative of the Federal Diet at
London--whom defeat always prompted to epigrams, said
happily enough: 'The conference closed after some very
animated debates, as a Black Forest clock sometimes stops
after ticking more loudly than usual. ' 'You came,' said
Clarendon to Bernstorff, 'into the conference as masters
of the situation, and as masters of the situation you now
leave it. Have a care how long that will last. ' Bismarck
appreciated the compliment from an experienced states-
man. As for the threat, he had the care to see that ' that *
lasted from 1864 to 1890. The disappointment at Wind-
sor Castle was even more bitter than Clarendon's disgust.
The failure of the Congress was a grievous blow to dynastic
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 179
Liberalism in Germany. 1 Our Court agreed with another
remark of Clarendon's: 'Je ne veux plus jamais rien avoir
a faire avec cet homme sans foi ni loi qui s'appelle M. de
Bismarck, ni celui qui est son negre M. de Rechberg
(the Austrian Prime Minister). ' Clarendon was to have
another bout later on with the man without faith or law,
and to fare no better.
Hostilities were resumed. The Danes saw the security
of their islands smashed in when Alsen was captured
(June 29) by the skill of the Prussian Chief of the Staff.
The miracle of British help, for which to the last they had
hoped against hope, was not vouchsafed. On August 1,
to avoid the fall of Copenhagen, preliminaries of peace
were signed. The Duchies were handed over in full sove-
reignty to Austria and Prussia conjointly, who in accord-
ance with the treaty of January 16, would now conjointly
determine their ultimate fate. The major military opera-
tions were over; but the major strategy of diplomacy had
simply closed the first phase of the campaign. 'We were
liberated Schleswig and Holstein to leave poor King
Christian in peace. ' For Bismarck the annexation of the
conquered Duchies was only a part, and not the most im-
portant part, of the great problem--the solution of the
German question in accordance with Prussian principles
and interests. The enemy in that vast field was Prussia's
ally Austria. And until Austria was as decisively defeated
as Denmark Prussia could not impose her terms.
The Prussian army had had a dress rehearsal in the
Danish campaign. It had justified itself. Let the
soldiers now see to it that the experience was used to pre-
pare the army for the much more serious trial that lay
ahead. 'The occasion for such a war,' Bismarck wrote in
December 1862, ' can be found at any moment, when our
position with regard to the great Powers is favourable for
carrying it on. ' But the tremendous task imposed on the
director of Prussian policy was how to force a war upon
1 'The Queen cannot but think that this country . . . has no other course
but to withdraw, and to refuse to take any further part in this lamentable
contest/ (Mem. to Lord Granville, June 27,1S64. Lift, i. p. 475. )
remarked later, 'once we had
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? i8o
BISMARCK
Austria, and at the same time convince King William,
Prussia, Germany if possible, and Europe, that it was
Austria forcing the war on Prussia; how also to link the
interests of Germany with the essential interests of Prussia,
and how to secure the European situation that would
leave Prussia to fight in a closed ring fence with Austria,
and garner undisturbed the fruits of victory. A Congress
of Paris, London, or Vienna to rearrange the map of
Europe and the organisation of Germany would be fatal
to a Prussian settlement. Bismarck's diplomacy in the
next eighteen months reveals his interpretation of the
situation: first, the settlement of the Duchies must be
kept open; secondly, the key of the international situation
lay at Paris; thirdly, that so far from quarrelling with
Austria in 1864 the benefits of the alliance were by no
means exhausted and must be exploited a great deal
further. 'So long,' he said, 'as we--Austria and Prussia
--remain united no one of the great Powers will move a
finger to disturb the status quo. ' What Bismarck really
intended was that they should not move a finger if Austria
and Prussia fell out--as they were bound to do.
From September 1862 (and earlier) until September
1870 at least, a repetition by Francis Joseph of
the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was perpetually in
his thoughts.
? 164
BISMARCK
was sorely needed in Downing Street and at the British
Admiralty, at the Qua: d'Orsay, in the Ball-Platz, and the
fly-blown offices of the Federal Diet.
Moreover, Bismarck foresaw the character of the coming
struggle--a real trial of strength between the diplomacy
and methods of the statecraft of power against the old
diplomacy of the State as the champion of right; between
the old system of the Concert of Europe with its' paradox'
of the Balance of Power and the revival of Prussianism
with its doctrine of force. The result must indicate
conclusively the efficacy and superiority of the Bismarckian
system; and Bismarck had this enormous advantage. He
knew the methods of his opponents, but they did not know
his. Obsessed by tradition and misled by ignorance of the
real Germany and Prussia, they were in the position of
generals fighting according to the red-tape of a conven-
tional warfare against a foe who had superior science and
used it to devise high explosives and asphyxiating gas.
The true moral of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, in
which Europe was signally routed, is not that the state-
craft of blood and iron must always win--men drew that
false conclusion from imperfectly framed premises--but
first, that the State which stands for right (Der Staat als
Recht) in death-grips with the State which stands for
power (Der Staat als Macht) must have better brains and a
clearer mastery of realities; and secondly, it must not mix
a sham copy of its rival's methods with its own, and then
bay the moon because real force, applied by genius, beats
sham force that lets ' I dare not wait upon I would. '
When Christian's action precipitated a crisis several
insist on the withdrawal of the March Constitution as a
condition of upholding the Convention; they might have
decided that the whole situation was so completely altered
as to require a new settlement, and have severed the Duchies
from Denmark and recognised the claims of Augusten-
burg; or they might have severed Holstein from Schles-
wig; or they might have supported Christian and
Denmark at all costs. All these and other courses were
possible and arguable in November 1863. But they all
solutions were possible.
? . . . i rLi j
Powers might at once
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 165
implied that the Concert of Europe responsible for the
Convention of London would act as a concert, and would
act promptly; and that was precisely what Bismarck guessed
they would not do, or intended to prevent. Bismarck
started with Russia practically on his side--Russia that in
1852 was responsible for the coercion of Schleswig-Holstein
and the integrity of the Danish monarchy. Four against
one--Prussia against the other European Powers--in 1852
was a hopeless position; but two against three raised a
practicable issue. When it had been converted into
three against two the business would settle itself.
The two fatal blunders for the Powers to commit were,
first: to allow an isolated and excited Denmark to be en-
tangled in a war with one or more members of the Concert
of Europe which were the guarantors of the integrity of the
Danish kingdom; and, secondly, to delude Denmark into
resistance by encouraging her belief that she would have
allies in the last resort, when no ally was prepared to give
more than the ' moral' support of diplomacy. Such moral
support is generally a euphemism for truly moral cowardice
and selfishness, and always an insulting travesty of the real
strength of the moral element in human affairs. Both
these blunders were committed. And there was a third.
In diplomacy, as in war, the statesman who trifles with
time is a criminal; doubly so, if he is pitted against an ad-
versary who puts time on his side. Throughout Bismarck
reckoned that while Lord John Russell's pen would be black-
ening many sheets of paper, and Napoleon was flickering
from one Napoleonic idea to another, the Prussian army
could cover a good many miles into Holstein, and it would
not meet the British fleet at Kiel. Both King William
and Queen Victoria had consciences which made them
obstinate, but it was easier to deceive King William than
Queen Victoria, and to prove to the royal satisfaction
of Prussia that black was white. The Queen of Great
Britain had an alternative to the ministers in office, who
were also not united. King William had no alternative
to Bismarck (who had really no colleagues) but surrender
to the opposition. So manifold in Bismarck's view were
the advantages of being the Prussian minister of a Prussian
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? i66
BISMARCK
long, who governed as well as reigned. The appeal of the
Congress of London in May, 1864, to Prussian good feeling
when the Prussian army had fleshed a victorious sword on
the obstinate Danes was as helpful as an appeal to the good
feelings of a terrier with a live rabbit in its mouth. The
Congress simply enabled Great Britain and France to
desert Denmark with all the phylacteries of diplomatic
Pharisaism unsoiled: it justly incurred the impotent
contempt of Denmark and the very potent contempt of
Bismarck. Worst of all, it taught Europe that right only
differed from might in the inefficiency of its State-egoism
and selfishness. The nadir of British moral power in
Europe was foreshadowed in the action of our Foreign
Office; the bankruptcy of the Second Empire was first pro-
claimed not at Queretaro nor by the guns of Koniggratz,
but at London in 1864. For us British it is tragic that
the Power which in i860 by a single dispatch silenced
Austria and enabled Cavour to complete the work of Gari-
baldi should have denounced, defied, and deserted in 1864.
Bismarck and Gortschakov took the hint, and enforced the
initial lesson in 1870. Dry powder and disbelief in God,
said Europe, is a better creed than belief in God and no
powder at all; and Providence, said the cynics, thought
with them. Were the cynics really so wrong?
The one solution that no one in November 1863 con-
templated was the annexation of the Duchies by Prussia:
for Prussia, apart from 'the folly' of crediting her with
the power to defy Europe, had no better title in law or
history to the Duchies than the President of the United
States or the Negus of Abyssinia. One title she could
create, the title of Frederick the Great to Silesia or Polish
Prussia--the title of the invincible sword, accepted by
Europe because it disbelieved in its capacity to invalidate
it. We know that Bismarck from the very first, perhaps
before he took office in 1862, steadily kept annexation
before bis eyes as the most satisfactory solution. Indeed,
his diplomacy is inexplicable otherwise. But prudently
recognising that the ideal is not always the attainable he
was determined to prevent a settlement that would block
the greater ends, to which the annexation was at best only
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 167
a stepping-stone. The worst that could happen would
be the severance of the Duchies from Denmark and their
incorporation under their 'lawful' duke, the Augusten-
burger, in the tessellated mosaic of Federal Germany.
Another petty State under a Liberal prince, hand in glove
with 'the Coburg gang,' voting in the Diet against
Prussia, and working in Germany as a perpetual balsam of
Liberalism and a mustard-plaster on the back of Prussia,
was intolerable. The enthusiasm of Austria, the dynasties,
and the National Liberals for the Augustenburger--the
ominous conjunction of everything and everybody anti-
Prussian--was quite sufficient to condemn that solution in
Bismarck's eyes. Better the complete incorporation with
Denmark than that.
Yet what easier and more tempting than to proclaim the
leadership of Prussia in a great German affair, and employ
the Prussian army to rip the Convention of London to tatters,
in the sacred name of nationalism and Germany? Why not
liberate the Duchies from ' Danish degradation,' and end
the constitutional conflict in Prussia with a demand that
the Prussian Parliament should expunge its votes and ex-
piate its rebellion by a doubled grant to a doubled army,
henceforward wholly to be at the uncontrolled disposi-
tion of the Crown for Germany and Prussia's needs?
William 1. would have kissed his minister on both cheeks,
the Crown Prince would have begged his pardon, the
opposition would have voted sackcloth and ashes for them-
selves and a laurel wreath for the minister, and Germany,
now burning Bismarck in effigy, would have kneeled at
his feet, had he announced such a policy. Bismarck de-
liberately rejected the temptation, for it meant an alliance
with National Liberalism in which he would be the horse
and the popular forces the rider. Instead, he embarked
on a course bristling with difficulties, and exposed to the
gravest perils, which drew upon himself a concentration
of hatred and indignation from Conservatives outside
Prussia and Liberals within it. He defied a passionate
public opinion and ran the serious risk of uniting Europe
against Prussia. Every one in Germany was against him
--the leaders of the Federal Diet, the Prussian Landtag,
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? i68
BISMARCK
the Duke oi Augustenburg, the Germans of the Duchies
themselves, the Crown Prince and his circle, the princes of
the middle and petty States. The Prussian Landtag re-
fused the special grant demanded, whereupon Bismarck
replied that he would take the money where he could find
it. The Prussian Liberals had concentrated on three
points--the desire to act legally and in support of Augus-
tenburg's' lawful' claims, the absolute identity of Prussia's
interest with that of all Germany, and the fear that Bis-
marck's opposition to German Liberalism and Nationalism
would isolate Prussia and repeat the humiliation of 1849. His
royal master, on whom everything turned, was an Augus-
tenburger, gravely perturbed by his minister's tortuous,
halting, and dubious proceedings, and by the arguments
of Bismarck's critics to which he had no satisfying answer.
Yet he could not dismiss Bismarck and face the cyclonic
onset of the popular forces, concentrated in a Landtag
that regarded the constitution as doubly violated by the
treason to Germany and Prussia expressed in the minister's
foreign policy. Bismarck did not dare to tell his royal
master the truth. Until the inexorable drip of one accom-
plished fact after another wore away William's conscience
it was better he should doubt his minister's sanity than be
convinced of his iniquity.
Bismarck's extreme caution at every stage is remarkable.
More than once he clearly was in grave perplexity as to
the next move, and his own simile of the method of stalk-
ing woodcock in marshy ground is illuminating in its
appositeness. Every step must be tested before the next
is taken. If the ground gives, or a stone waggles, wait
until a better foothold is found by patient exploration.
Do not fire until you have both feet on firm ground;
otherwise you will miss your shot, scare the game, and be
bogged into the bargain.
The successive moves of the next few months, viewed as
a whole, present very clearly the general framework of
Bismarck's strategy. The Danes must put themselves in
the wrong, and be manoeuvred into remaining in the
wrong: driven to resist and then defeated. Once Prus-
sian blood had been spilt, a claim for Prussian compen-
1 n1 1
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 169
sation could be set up. Germany as far as possible must
be kept out of it. The Convention of London was an
international document. It was easier to manipulate the
European than the German situation, and to drive wedges
between the Powers than to create discord in Germany.
Hence the controversy must be pinned down to the Con-
vention of London. Once that was torn up, the Powers
resumed--delicious phrase--their individual liberty of
action, and Bismarck guessed that none of the Powers was
prepared to make a European war on behalf of Denmark.
Why should they? They could not annex the Duchies.
Prussia could. She had a definite and material gain for
which to fight, in the last resort. Hence, combined action
with Austria was essential. That broke the unity of the
Concert, and the alliance of Vienna with the middle and
petty States. It left the Federal Diet practically helpless.
A skilful diplomacy working on the strained relations re-
sulting from the Polish fiasco, could probably separate
England and France. On a calculation of forces, England
and Denmark were not strong enough to win. England
would not risk it. The Duchies would be severed from
Denmark. The final disposition of them opened up a
much bigger problem--the settlement with Austria and
the settlement of the German question.
Behind this diplomacy throughout stood silent and
obedient'--the Prussian army. The crude Junkertum of
Roon, conscious of Prussian strength, grew very impatient
with Bismarck's finesse and haggling with politicians
armed only with a pen and phrases. 'The question of the
Duchies,' he pronounced, 'is not one of right or law, but
of force, and we have it. ' Roon and all his school, who
saw in history nothing but the blessing of Providence on
the big battalions, failed to penetrate the secrets of the
real statecraft of power, Bismarckian or otherwise. Moltke
and Treitschke saw deeper. The big battalions must
first range themselves on the side of Providence, before
they can hope to extort the blessing. The maximum of
effort can only be secured from the monarchical State as
Force when sovereigns and subjects have a good con-
science, convinced that their cause is lawful and right.
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? 170
BISMARCK
Bismarck undertook the apparently impossible task of con-
vincing his sovereign and countrymen that in 1864, 1866,
and in 1870 they were fighting, not an aggressive, but a
defensive, war. Neither Moltke nor he himself believed
that--quite the contrary. But it was essential that the
King and Prussia--the professors, the lawyers, the bour-
geois at his desk and the peasant in the fields--should
believe it. And they did--in the end. The professors,
who backed Augustenburg to a man, were the first and the
most easily converted. For the disciplined and patriotic
intellect must harmonise appetite with reason, and the
carnal appetites of intellectuals are generally as irrational
as their minds are rational. Bismarck relied on ranging
the moral forces in Germany behind the strength of the
Prussian army. But the moral forces must first be chained
up in the ^Eolus cellar of the Foreign Office, and only let
loose at the right moment. The key of the cellars and
of the barracks must not be in the keeping of the Landtag,
but in the pocket of the Prussian monarch, i. e. of his
Minister-President.
How could this Bismarckian plan of campaign have been
met? Only by first keeping Denmark in the right;
secondly, by a complete understanding between France
and Great Britain; thirdly, by making an Anglo-French
entente the basis for a complete understanding with
Germany other than Prussia. The isolation of Prussia was
the true diplomatic objective, as clearly as for Bismarck was
the isolation of Great Britain. It was essential to inform
Denmark categorically and at once that she must withdraw
from an untenable position, and place her cause unreser-
vedly in the hands of her friends, or face Germany by her-
self. Nor was it enough to maintain the Convention of
London and the status quo. The ambitions of the Danish
Radicals were a grave danger for the future. The German
demand had to be met frankly and with sympathy; for
the German population in the Duchies had genuine
grievances; and effective guarantees must be provided
that the Schleswig-Holstein question did not continue to
poison the situation in Europe. The distinction between
Germany and Prussia (under the control of Bismarck) was
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 171
real and deep. A true alliance with Germany other than
Prussia, and with the powerful anti-Bismarckian forces in
Prussia, was well within the scope of diplomacy, which could
thus have divided Prussia and isolated her in Germany.
But such a policy implied the sympathy and comprehension
that only knowledge and mastery of the realities could
give. The one thing needful was the one thing con-
spicuously wanting. English public opinion condemned
Germany no less than Prussia, just because the Liberals
in Germany were dead against the Convention of 1852/
It broke the hearts of the few Englishmen and the many
Germans who recognised the gravity of the issues at stake
for England and for Germany to see the blindness, apathy,
and ignorance on our side, and the squandering by our
ministers of opportunity after opportunity. Great Britain
deserted much more than Denmark. The alienation from
Great Britain of Nationalist and Liberal Germany and
Prussia--the commencement of the estrangement that
was to deepen into opposition and solidify into an irre-
concilable hostility--dates from 1864. Our policy, skil-
fully exploited by Bismarck, was the foundation of the
conversion of Prussia and Germany to Bismarckianism.
Yet if ever there was a British cause, the defeat of
Bismarckian statecraft in 1864 was that cause.
British statesmanship had gravely handicapped itself.
The rejection by the British government in November
1863 of Napoleon's proposal for a Congress was a criminal
blunder which had greatly angered the Emperor. -The
rooted distrust of Napoleon in. , and the exaggerated
estimate of his ability and strength, which Bismarck had
long ago abandoned, prevented a sincere Anglo-French
union. Napoleon, as usual, wandered in the twilight of
phrases which he mistook for principles. He was heavily
committed in Mexico, he was not prepared for war, and he
had had one damaging lesson from Poland in the blunder
of empty threats. When Great Britain proposed in June
1864 that France should join with her in an agreed line of
partition in Schleswig and make it an ultimatum, Drouyn
de Lhuys replied that with Poland before their eyes such
a step was, as Napoleon said, to invite another gros souffiet,
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? BISMARCK
and unless Great Britain were ready to go to the bitter end,
i. e. make refusal to accept the ultimatum a casus belli,
France would not join in the proposal. Great Britain was
not ready for that, and the proposal came to nothing.
The conception of Prussia as a representative of national-
ism, strengthened in the north to make an equipoise to
Austria in the south, fascinated Napoleon's ebbing imagi-
nation. He has received sympathy because Bismarck
blackmailed him deliberately. But the truth is that
Napoleon, like the gambler who fears the honest banker
and borrows from an unscrupulous moneylender, hoped
to get the money and evade the sixty per cent. He de-
sired to win an imposing success without striking a blow or
risking a French life. The Danes blew up their bridges
and burnt their boats, and then expected Great Britain
single-handed to intervene in their behalf.
The British Court, as has been revealed, had much
sympathy with the Augustenburg claims; and the Queen
was absolutely determined that her country should not be
involved in war to save the Duchies for Denmark.
1 But the
real cause of the mischief and the real responsibility for our
failure lay with the nation and its leaders. The ignorance
of ministers throughout the whole business was equalled
by the ignorance of the organs of public opinion and of
the nation they claimed to instruct. The newspapers--
The Times, in particular--surpassed themselves in the
winter of 1863-4 by the insufficiency of their knowledge
and the self-sufficiency of the lectures they poured out on
Germany and Prussia. 2 We were quite unprepared for
war. The nation was not willing to go to war, for it
1 Yet, curiously enough, in 1866 Queen Victoria desired 'to interfere by
force against Prussian designs in the Duchies' (Clarendon's Lift, ii. p. 311)--
a pretty clear proof of sympathy with Austria and the Augustenburg claims.
The ministers wee wholly against the Queen.
1 This is a deliberate judgment based on a careful study of the files of Tie
Times, and other British newspapers for 1863 and 1864: the cumulative im-
pression of such a study cannot be verified from a single reference. But I will
cite three examples of knowledge, political judgment, and prescience as
samples: 'The grievances of her (Denmark's) German subjects seem puerile
or groundless' (Times, November 16, 1863): 'We have ourselves as a nation
little interest in the question' (November 24, 1863): 'We believe that even
now (February 6, 1864) Prussia is anxious to leave the Danish state un-
touched. ' How Bismarck must have enjoyed reading that divination of
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT
173
scarcely knew where Schleswig-Holstein could be found
on the map, but we were ready to threaten what we had
no intention of performing, and we hectored every one
with the complacent superiority that deserves the title of
insular. The gravity of the German and European situa-
tion was quite unappreciated, because there are none so
blind as those who do not wish to see. The language of
responsible public men, and not merely of Palmerston, of
politicians, and of ' Society,' naturally misled the Danes,
who made the pardonable mistake of supposing that
England meant what she said, and of interpreting ignorant
bluster as moral conviction. 'I wasted several years of
my life,' Bismarck remarked, 'by the supposition that
England was a great nation. ' The price that we paid then
and subsequently was the price that we deserved to pay.
A nation with responsible parliamentary government is
not the victim but the author of its government's blunders;
and if it seeks to transfer the responsibility to politicians
and a party system, or some other scapegoat, it is guilty
of the lie in the soul.
Bismarck's first step was to secure Austria. It did not
escape his attention that Austria, compared with Prussia,
was in a very unfavourable position for effective military
and political action in the Duchies. Austria, humiliated
by the Polish fiasco and the failure of the Congress of
Princes, was only too ready to listen to the Prussian over-
tures. The rejection by the Federal Diet (January 14)
of the Prussian proposal, that Austria and Prussia, in virtue
of their international position, should occupy Schleswig
in order to secure the observance of the Convention, was
tantamount to a declaration that the Diet repudiated the
his policy and aims. The effect of these utterances on public opinion
at Copenhagen, throughout Germany, and at Berlin and Vienna, is not a
question of speculation. Morier and others saw with pain how our newspapers
encouraged the Danes, angered while patronising the German Liberals, inflamed
the tension, and were carefully studied by Bismarck, who was accurately in-
formed of the ignorance and bluster in London. 'England,' said a Prussian
deputy, 'is always full of consideration for those who can defend themselves. '
And the England of 1863-64 aUo seems to have been convinced that (a) the
British fleet had only to appear and Prussia would retire in humble fear;
and (A) still more characteristic, that military states would conduct their
military operations as our Government and War Office had conducted the
Crimean War.
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? 174
BISMARCK
Convention; it compelled Austria to accept the Prussian
alliance. 'We recognise,' said Bismarck, ' in King Chris-
tian the heir both of the rights and the wrongs of his
predecessor; our fidelity to treaties must be open to no
impeachment. ' The Treaty of January 16, 1864, bound
Austria and Prussia to determine the future of the Duchies
by joint agreement and to decide the succession question
only by common consent. It ruled out agreements with
a third party, and it made the two States, as guarantors
of the Convention and Protocol of 1852, a single State to
all intents and purposes. Austria could henceforward
only oppose Prussia or act with the Federal Diet, or another
European Power, by tearing up the treaty, which proved,
as Bismarck intended it to be, a millstone round Austria's
neck. It was to be the connecting link between the
German question and the question of the Duchies. Had
the Danes now accepted the Austro-Prussian ultimatum
of January 16, to withdraw the new constitution and place
the situation in the hands of the Powers, there must have
been at least delay, and time would have been brought on
to the Danish side. The Danish government knew, as
every one did, that Great Britain had previously rejected
the reference to a Congress. The British government was
of opinion that King Christian's claims to the Duchies
could not be questioned. The ultimatum was accordingly
rejected.
Bismarck afterwards smilingly admitted that a Danish
acceptance would have been a serious upset to his plans;
but he added, probably with truth, '1 had ascertained
that the Danes would certainly refuse, otherwise I should
not have taken the risk. ' The Danes, moreover, were only
given forty-eight hours to decide, and the Austro-Prussian
army crossed the frontier at once. The Prussian note of
January 31 virtually proclaimed that Danish resistance
ad torn the Convention of London to shreds and tatters.
And Danish resistance was openly applauded in England
--which expected to see 1849 repeated in 1864. So much
did England know of Prussia and of Denmark.
The situation was certainly peculiar. Saxon and Hano-
verian troops were acting for the Federal Diet, whose
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 175
jurisdiction was limited to Holstein. The Austrian and
Prussian troops, representing two signatories to the
Convention of 1852, could coerce Denmark, for the Con-
vention applied to the whole kingdom and not merely to
the Duchies. France, Great Britain, and Russia had an
equal right with Austria and Prussia to intervene; and
Austria and Prussia by themselves could not draw up a
new, or restore the old, Convention. A Congress was
inevitable. The Prussian General Staff, on its mettle,
recognised that the pace must be forced. The storm of
the Diippel lines (April 18) drove the Danes to accept
reference to a Congress at London, and the armistice of
April 18 left Austria and Prussia in practical possession of
the Duchies. Germany was jubilant: 1848 was avenged.
It only remained now for Europe to sever the Duchies
from Denmark, install the Duke of Augustenburg, and the
business was over.
'The business,' Bismarck had decided, was only begin-
ning. The Prussian Staff would not be whistled off its
prey by journalists in Printing House Square or Fleet
Street; the King, who flattered himself that he had faced a
scaffold in Unter Den Linden for the army, felt it was good
to be a Hohenzollern; and even the most rebellious
Prussian Radical had pride in the soldiers of Prussia. 'It
will not be amiss,' Bismarck concluded, 'if we enter the
Congress in possession of the object in dispute. ' But the
floors of European Congresses are notoriously slippery.
Bismarck, represented by Bernstorff in London, was deter-
mined to make the Congress end in a stalemate. He
could always block what he did not want, and then propose
what he felt sure would be rejected by others. The blood
and iron of the Prussian sword could then bring the curtain
down on the first act.
War was only a continuation of policy, a means to give yon
the terms on which you wish to live with your neighbours;
and Bismarck had three fine cards to play. A settlement
against the will of the Duchies was no settlement (that
appealed to Napoleon with his itch for plebiscites); the
restoration of the Duchies to Denmark would be violently
opposed by Germany, and every Augustenburger in Europe
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? 176
BISMARCK
(that was for the Queen of Great Britain, the widow of a
Coburg prince); a partition could probably be wrecked on
its details (that was for himself). Where in the Duchies did
the Danish fringe end and the German begin? Bismarck
had a crushing answer to the proposals of his opponents in
London. If he was thwarted he would resign, with the
result that Prussia, in the hands of the overwhelming oppo-
sition in the Landtag, would join the Diet and the princes
in supporting the Duke of Augustenburg, and Europe
would be confronted with a united Germany, holding the
Duchies in its possession and determined to fight for their
retention. He kept his hand on German nationalism,
and now opened the throttle to let the superheated steam
out. From the Wilhelmstrasse he invited the journalists
and the professors to lash public opinion into a frenzy.
'Let the whole pack go,' he commanded; and 'the whole
pack' let themselves go with German thoroughness and
rhetoric. As a corrective he encouraged Russia to revive
the claims of the house of Oldenburg, passed over in 1852.
Nor--he quietly insinuated--were the dynastic claims of
a Prussian claimant to be wholly overlooked.
The interest of the Congress does not lie in its tedious
details of proposals1 rejected by one or other of the parties,
but in the steady sapping and countermining by Prussia, so
as to bring about a deadlock. Clarendon penetrated the
blocking tactics. It was then too late. British public
opinion, confronted with a disinterested war by Great
Britain alone for two wretched Duchies on behalf of an un-
reasonable Denmark, which rejected every compromise, had
not the vision or the knowledge to graspthe significance for
Europe of Schleswig-Holstein, and the situation had been
so bungled by the British government and so skilfully en-
gineered by Bismarck that war on behalf of Denmark was
war with Liberal Germany. Our Court was determined to
1 The proposal to return to the position defined in the Convention of 1852
was rejected by Germany, Austria, and Prussia; the proposal to install the
Duke of Augustenburg in the Duchies, separated from Denmark, made by
Austria and Prussia, was rejected by Denmark and Great Britain; the British
proposal to divide Schleswig at the line of the river Schlei was rejected by
Germany; the Danish proposal to make the river Eider the frontier was
rejected by Prussia.
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 177
keep England out of war, and the ministers,- divided
amongst themselves, shrank from involving the Crown in
a ministerial crisis, in which it was very uncertain that
public opinion would support them. The government
had not decided in advance whether it was a British interest
to fight, and, if it was not, what line of action would
spare Great Britain from a humiliating rebuff and
treachery to friends it had deceived. Napoleon, 'the
Man of Sin,' was playing with the idea (suggested by
the Arch-Tempter) that the most reasonable solution
was to recognise the Nationalist principle and assign
the Duchies to Prussia as the representative of that
principle--of course for a compensation to be denned
later. The policy of disinterested idealism and the
policy of pourboir'es--the policy of the benevolent
heart and the policy of the calculating brain--are hard
to harmonise at any time, but the harmony is im-
possible for a muddled head and a heart suffering from
valvular disease.
While the Congress wrangled Bismarck was clearing a
difficulty of his own out of the way. Through the Crown
Prince and M. Duncker he gave the Duke of Augustenburg
an interview at Berlin (June 1). The King and the Crown
Prince were apparently confident that it would result in
the adoption by Bismarck of Augustenburg as the candi-
date of Prussia. It is impossible to reconcile the narratives
of that memorable scene, which come first hand from
Bismarck and the duke. Recent German critical scholar-
ship has held that the duke's story is the more trustworthy,
which is quite probable, but the controversy, though a
fascinating study in evidential sources, does not affect the
result. When the two men parted at midnight of June 1
Bismarck had decided that he had finished with the duke,
and the duke recognised that he would be installed in
the Duchies only by Bismarck's expulsion from office.
Bismarck expounded the difficulties, legal and political, of
enforcing the duke's claims; but if the duke were prepared
to agree to certain conditions, which would place the
Duchies in the military and administrative control of
Prussia, he would work on his behalf. The conditions
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? i78
BISMARCK
were such as to establish a virtual Prussian protectorate,
under which the duke would be nominally sovereign, but
in all essentials he would simply be the President (Regie-
rungs Oberprasident) of a Prussian province. The Duchies
were, in short, to be the ducal scabbard of the Prussian
sword. The duke rejected the conditions, as incom-
patible with his independence as a sovereign prince and his
desire to be an autonomous and Liberal ruler. When he
walked out into the summer night, he was walking out of
history. Upstairs the Minister-President was shrugging
his shoulders. Liberals never would see that half a loaf was
better than no bread. It was now quite clear that annexa-
tion-to Prussia was the only tolerable solution. Annexa-
tion? How? Would Austria consent to a Prussian
annexation?
The Congress broke up on June 25 on the deadlock that
Bismarck desired. Its debates registered three results:
first, that the Convention of 1852 had gone into the waste-
paper basket; secondly, that no alternative settlement had
been arrived at; and thirdly,--the really momentous
result--that Bismarck had smashed the Concert of Europe
into fragments. Henceforward one of the main prin-
ciples of his policy, not merely in the Schleswig-Holstein
affair, was to prevent the fragments from re-uniting.
German sentiment supported this policy. As long as the
European Powers fell out, Prussia and Germany would
come by their own. The next six years provided the
proof. Beust--the representative of the Federal Diet at
London--whom defeat always prompted to epigrams, said
happily enough: 'The conference closed after some very
animated debates, as a Black Forest clock sometimes stops
after ticking more loudly than usual. ' 'You came,' said
Clarendon to Bernstorff, 'into the conference as masters
of the situation, and as masters of the situation you now
leave it. Have a care how long that will last. ' Bismarck
appreciated the compliment from an experienced states-
man. As for the threat, he had the care to see that ' that *
lasted from 1864 to 1890. The disappointment at Wind-
sor Castle was even more bitter than Clarendon's disgust.
The failure of the Congress was a grievous blow to dynastic
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? THE MINISTER-PRESIDENT 179
Liberalism in Germany. 1 Our Court agreed with another
remark of Clarendon's: 'Je ne veux plus jamais rien avoir
a faire avec cet homme sans foi ni loi qui s'appelle M. de
Bismarck, ni celui qui est son negre M. de Rechberg
(the Austrian Prime Minister). ' Clarendon was to have
another bout later on with the man without faith or law,
and to fare no better.
Hostilities were resumed. The Danes saw the security
of their islands smashed in when Alsen was captured
(June 29) by the skill of the Prussian Chief of the Staff.
The miracle of British help, for which to the last they had
hoped against hope, was not vouchsafed. On August 1,
to avoid the fall of Copenhagen, preliminaries of peace
were signed. The Duchies were handed over in full sove-
reignty to Austria and Prussia conjointly, who in accord-
ance with the treaty of January 16, would now conjointly
determine their ultimate fate. The major military opera-
tions were over; but the major strategy of diplomacy had
simply closed the first phase of the campaign. 'We were
liberated Schleswig and Holstein to leave poor King
Christian in peace. ' For Bismarck the annexation of the
conquered Duchies was only a part, and not the most im-
portant part, of the great problem--the solution of the
German question in accordance with Prussian principles
and interests. The enemy in that vast field was Prussia's
ally Austria. And until Austria was as decisively defeated
as Denmark Prussia could not impose her terms.
The Prussian army had had a dress rehearsal in the
Danish campaign. It had justified itself. Let the
soldiers now see to it that the experience was used to pre-
pare the army for the much more serious trial that lay
ahead. 'The occasion for such a war,' Bismarck wrote in
December 1862, ' can be found at any moment, when our
position with regard to the great Powers is favourable for
carrying it on. ' But the tremendous task imposed on the
director of Prussian policy was how to force a war upon
1 'The Queen cannot but think that this country . . . has no other course
but to withdraw, and to refuse to take any further part in this lamentable
contest/ (Mem. to Lord Granville, June 27,1S64. Lift, i. p. 475. )
remarked later, 'once we had
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? i8o
BISMARCK
Austria, and at the same time convince King William,
Prussia, Germany if possible, and Europe, that it was
Austria forcing the war on Prussia; how also to link the
interests of Germany with the essential interests of Prussia,
and how to secure the European situation that would
leave Prussia to fight in a closed ring fence with Austria,
and garner undisturbed the fruits of victory. A Congress
of Paris, London, or Vienna to rearrange the map of
Europe and the organisation of Germany would be fatal
to a Prussian settlement. Bismarck's diplomacy in the
next eighteen months reveals his interpretation of the
situation: first, the settlement of the Duchies must be
kept open; secondly, the key of the international situation
lay at Paris; thirdly, that so far from quarrelling with
Austria in 1864 the benefits of the alliance were by no
means exhausted and must be exploited a great deal
further. 'So long,' he said, 'as we--Austria and Prussia
--remain united no one of the great Powers will move a
finger to disturb the status quo. ' What Bismarck really
intended was that they should not move a finger if Austria
and Prussia fell out--as they were bound to do.
From September 1862 (and earlier) until September
1870 at least, a repetition by Francis Joseph of
the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was perpetually in
his thoughts.
