A real Imperial Minister of Finance,
for example, responsible to the Reichstag, would obviously
supersede to a large extent the power and functions of the
Federal Council and transfer them partly to himself and
(no less important) partly to the Reichstag.
for example, responsible to the Reichstag, would obviously
supersede to a large extent the power and functions of the
Federal Council and transfer them partly to himself and
(no less important) partly to the Reichstag.
Robertson - Bismarck
org/access_use#pd-us-google
? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 345
scrutiny the case for and against so momentous a decision.
To-day, perhaps, when the Dual Alliance has lasted for
thirty-six years and seems as familiar and inevitable a
phenomenon in the firmament of continental policy as
King Charles's Wain in the heaven of stars, we are disposed
to ignore the problem that Bismarck strove to solve. The
Treaty of 1879 closes a crisis in the evolution of Bismarck's
statecraft. It marks a climax, but, like all climaxes, it
turned a fresh page, the writing in which was determined
by the character of the terminus.
What then were 'the perplexities'? It is clear on the
evidence that Bismarck in 1879 could have turned to
Russia and concluded a similar defensive treaty, with
Austria as the foe to be neutralised. The cordial meeting
of William and Alexander 11. at Alexandrovo, which cleared
up their personal relations, strengthened the German
Emperor's desire to heal the political breach and renew the
liaison established in 1872. William, indeed, failed to see
that Austrian and Russian ambitions were in conflict after
1878, and that Germany could not support both, but must
decide between them. Bismarck's deeper knowledge and
'prophetic coup d'aeil' had penetrated the logic of history,
'more remorseless than the logic of the Prussian audit
office,' and for him the antagonism of Austria and Russia
made the cruelty and inevitability of a choice. But why
not select Russia--the champion of order and monarchical
autocracy, the dynastic and political friend on whose sup-
ort Prussian policy had pivoted since 1862? Why not
y such a master-stroke close the Eastern frontier and
permanently dissolve the nightmare of a Franco-Russian
alliance? Would not such an alliance have before long
coerced Austria into renewing the Triple Entente of 1872?
Powerful critics in 1879 and 6ince have argued this thesis
impressively, and concluded that Bismarck now made his
first and biggest mistake. The road, it is said, to Peters-
burg via Vienna was impossible in reality; but the making
of a road to Vienna via Petersburg was not beyond
Bismarck's great gifts. The alienation of Great Britain
from Ruscia and the Anglo-Austrian entente in 1879 left, it
is also argued, Russia isolated, faced by a hostile Germany,
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? 346
BISMARCK
Austria, and Great Britain, the Near East closed, and
France alone as a possible friend. The Treaty of 1879, it
is therefore concluded, made a Franco-Russian entente--
the one result Bismarck feared--only a question of time.
Yet, if Bismarck erred, he did so with his eyes open. He
knew the arguments for a Russian alliance better than his
critics, and he rejected them. Why?
Three central points take us to the heart of the system
enshrined in the Austrian treaty. First, a sentence in the
confidential letter to the King of Bavaria, unaccountably
ignored by many students of Bismarck: 'The German
Empire in alliance with Austria would not lack the support
of England. ' Lord Salisbury, the British Foreign Secretary,
confirmed this prediction by saying that the rumour of such
an alliance was 'good tidings of great joy. ' Would a
British Foreign Secretary in 1879, ^89, or 1899 have
said the same of a Russo-German alliance? Bismarck
knew that an alliance with Russia must commit Germany
to the Russian antagonism to Great Britain, as well as to
the Russian antagonism to Austria. Neither in 1879
nor 1889 was he prepared to place such a wasting mort-
gage on German policy: for Bismarck had a sounder sense
of British strength than many of his critics then or since.
The alienation of Great Britain and of Austria in 1879
would almost certainly have involved a renewal of the
Anglo-Austrian alliance of 1856, to which France in 1879,
as in 1856, would have become a partner. 1
Secondly, was Germany prepared to see Russia at
Constantinople? Apart from any prior promises to
Austria, not involving Constantinople but Salonica, that
was a question of profound import for Bismarck in 1878-9.
His answer as given in his acts is a decisive 'No'; not
1 The Secret Treaty of April 15,185 6, which pledged Great Britain, France, and
Austria to unite in resisting any attempt to tear up the Treaty of Paris of 1856.
1 The extraordinary obiter dictum in the Memoirs (ii. 285) that Bismarck
personally would have 'welcomed ' the 'physical and diplomatic possession of
Constantinople' by Russia cannot be taken seriously. It is contradicted by the
argument in which it is embedded, and is belied by the action of" Germany
prior to, and after, 1879. Written late in life, it probably is a criticism on
German policy in the Near East after the Chancellor's dismissal, and is one of
the many similar 'confessions' suggesting that in matters of high military
policy he was continuously overruled by the Emperor, or the soldiers, or by his
colleagues, or by public opinion. CreJat Judteus Apella.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 347
because a Russian Constantinople rang out a sharp quietus
to Austrian ambitions, but because it ended all German
ambitions in the Balkans. Austria at Salonica was no bar
--rather a help--to German control of Constantinople and
the Ottoman Empire, the ' integrity' of which Beaconsfield
'consolidated' by annexing Cyprus, securing a tighter hold
on Egypt, and by handing over Bosnia to Austria, half
Bulgaria to a virtual Russian protectorate and the Armenian
frontier fortresses to Russia. But if a Russian alliance did
not mean Germany's acquiescence in the Russian advance
to Constantinople, it meant nothing. It meant, more-
over, that either Germany must support Russia in her
Eastern quarrel with Great Britain or obliterate the
treaty; and if there was an excentric dissipation of German
strength it would be to sacrifice Pomeranian Grenadiers
in Europe that Russia might annex Turkestan or Afghan-
istan. Bismarck was confident that Austrian Chauvinism
could be controlled, but a complete German control of
Russian policy was not a practical proposition. Teuton
and Slav could not work together as Teuton and Magyar
could for a common interest.
Thirdly, a Russian alliance left the main gateway of
Central Europe--the Danube--in neutral, and probably
hostile, hands. The strategical and economic confor-
mation of Central -Europe is moulded by three great river
basins--the Rhine, the Danube, and the Vistula. The
Rhine was now firmly in German hands: a Russian alliance
did not secure Germany the control of the Vistula, and it
left the Danube out of the central German control alto-
gether. Without a control of the Danube basin as com-
plete as the control of the Rhine, the political and economic,
no less than the military, conditions of centralism could not
be adequately realised. Moreover, Bismarck reckoned on
bringing Roumania with Austria's help into the system; and
thanks to Russian bungling, the Treaty of 1879 was promptly
followed by that close understanding between Bucharest
and Vienna which was certainly expressed in a precise con-
tract, the text of which has never been published. The
Austrian alliance, therefore, closed the Danube from source
to mouth: it brought Serbia and Bulgaria on the southern
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? 348
BISMARCK
bank into the sphere of Austrian policy; for it placed
Roumania as a German outpost to the north, and an
Ottoman Empire under German influence on their backs.
Moreover, the Austrian bastion in Galicia, from Cracow to
Czernowitz, left Russia controlling the Vistula only from
Thorn to Ivangorod, with Prussia on one, and Austria on
the other, flank, of the Russian Polish salient. In short,
the framework of Central Europe was completed by the
Austrian alliance. A Russian alliance, and Austria hostile,
would have destroyed it. Bismarck's diplomacy from
1879 to 1890 aimed at filling the mould thus created with
an organic and expanding system of political traditions,
habits, and ideals--the full life of the allied States incor-
porate in the environment that gave them blood and air.
There were two other positive advantages of great
weight--the maintenance of the Austrian monarchy, which
coincided with the maintenance of the Prussian State
regime, and the checking of Slav influence, working then
and since so powerfully against Germanism. The German
alliance gave to the Habsburg throne a support moral and
political, difficult to exaggerate. How the Habsburgs
would have fared without that support in the next thirty
years can be as easily imagined as can the effect on the
German Empire and the Hohenzollern throne if the
Habsburg monarchy had been crippled as a monarchy.
The alliance of 1879 was a compact with Buda-Pesth even
more than with Vienna. It set the seal of German approval
on, and assured the promise of German support to, the true
construction of the Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867--an
alliance of German and Magyar to crush all non-German
and non-Magyar elements (about one-half of Austria-
Hungary) into subordination. Was Bismarck not right,
from his point of view, in concluding that, so construed in
action, the Compromise which he supported on principle
in 1867 was worth an Emperor's ransom to an Imperial
Germany determined to establish a German hegemony?
What would have been the result had he in 1879 rejected
Andrassy's overtures, closed the door to Buda-Pesth, and
opened the door that led to the Nevsky Prospect and
Tsarskoe-Seloe?
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
Two obvious disadvantages, however, perplexed Bismarck
--the Polish question and the Austrian future in the
Balkans. The denationalisation of the Poles and the con-
tinuity of the tripartite dismemberment of 1795, endorsed
in 1815, was a question of existence for Prussia. Bismarck
held, as had been already indicated, that the dissolution of
the ancient kingdom of Poland by Frederick the Great and
Catherine was the pre-condition of a safe and strong
Prussia. The Polish problem was with him day and night,
and it had flamed into a fresh crisis with the Kulturkampf.
The relations and policy of the Dual Monarchy to the
Austrian Poles provided a very thorny internal conundrum
for the Ball-Platz, and Bismarck foresaw in 1879 that the
interests of Vienna and Berlin in Polish policy were not
identical, and might easily become antagonistic. The
Vatican, with its trusteeship for Roman Catholic Poland,
had an influence on Roman Catholic Vienna and Buda-
Pesth that foreshadowed the gravest complications. Nor
could the Dual Monarchy, in face of the Ruthenian popu-
lation in Galicia, treat the Poles as Prussia treated the
province of Posen. A liberal policy at Vienna towards
the Austrian Poles went ill with the drastic oppression of
Polish Prussia by Berlin. If Austria ' got out of hand' in
this sphere of action the basis of the Treaty of 1879 might
crumble away entirely.
There was a similar danger in the Balkans. If we knew
the whole truth of what lay behind the innocent clauses
of the Treaty of 1879, itself a further instalment of the
system begun in 1872, it is quite certain that it would con-
firm one broad conclusion. Germany endorsed cautiously
but deliberately the Austrian bill of exchange in the
Balkans. The nature and extent of the commitment can
only be roughly inferred from the tangled diplomacy that
preceded 1879 and fills the next thirty years. But in 1879
Bismarck took a great risk--all his public utterances con-
firm the guarded language of the Memoirs--and he took it
deliberately. The 'occupation' of Bosnia and Herze-
govina was nominally a transitory arrangement: its con-
version into an 'annexation' was a permanent bait to
Austria, but Germany secured a powerful control, for she
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? 350
BISMARCK
could always refuse to support the conversion. He placed
an ally in shining armour behind Francis Joseph and the
Magyar oligarchy: and the ally stood there, not in the
interest of Austria but of a Prussianised Germany. The
contention that the Treaty of 1879 made a Franco-Russian
alliance inevitable rests on arguing back from 1896 to 1879.
It is certain that no alliance between France and Russia
took place before 1890. Diplomatic coquetry and flir-
tations are even less convincing evidence of alliances than
glasses of wine and the toasts of monarchs (drafted by their
ministers) at ceremonial banquets. The whole point of
Bismarck's criticism of the policy of his successors after
1890 is concentrated in the indictment, that while he
prevented such an alliance (which was true), his successors
not merely permitted it, but by their diplomatic bungling
actually brought it about. It is therefore neither fair nor
historical to argue that the Dual Alliance of 1879 made
a Russo-French alliance inevitable. Bismarck could and
did argue that, so far from that result being inevitable, the
Dual Alliance, properly handled, made an entente between
Paris and Petersburg impossible.
Bismarck was a continentalist, and remained a continen-
talist to the end of his days; that is, he held as an axiom
that German supremacy must rest on mastery of the
strategical and political situation in Europe. Efforts out-
side the central European theatre were an excentric and
unjustifiable dissipation of German strength, the concen-
tration of which was required on the major objective.
Secure that, and the rest followed; lose it, and no
gains elsewhere would compensate the loss. Austria-
Hungary and the Balkans--the two could not be separated,
for the problem of south-eastern Europe was the problem
of the Dual Empire--were essential to German hegemony
and the sole avenue of continental expansion. The crisis
of 1875 reinforced the lesson that Europe would not
tolerate a further expansion westwards at the expense of
France and Belgium. But an expansion to the south-east
could secure British neutrality, if not active support, for
it would be at the expense of Russia. To-day we are apt
to forget that in 1879 Great Britain viewed Russia not
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 351
with the eyes of 1908 or 1914, but of 1856 and 1870.
How--Bismarck might well ask--was German trade to
expand after 1879 if Great Britain, the sea-power par
excellence, were driven by German action into the camp
of Germany's foes?
Nevertheless the gravity of the risk taken in 1879 is
proved by the insurance against its exploding into an un-
limited liability. Until 1890 Austria was never allowed
to get out of hand. How precisely this was done we
cannot say with certainty. But it was done. The control
of the Wilhelmstrasse over the Ball-Platz was effective, for
Bismarck had his personal prestige, unrivalled knowledge,
and experience to help in the difficult task. These are
qualities not acquired by intuition, still less by birth or
hereditary succession, but by brains and the travail of a
lifetime. Control of Austria was also assisted by positive
counterchecks--the alliance with Italy and the continuous
ring at the Russian front door. It is safe to conclude that
Bismarck prepared for the inclusion of Italy in 1879, and
that without the Dual Alliance Italy could not have been
secured. We have Bismarck's word for it, and his judg-
ment outweighs a dozen criticisms. For he had the whole
of the facts before him, whereas his critics argue from
edited documents written on one side only.
A further consideration is very relevant. Down to 1879
the isolation of France had been the prime object of
German policy. The policy was breaking down. France,
excluded from the Congress of London in 1870, took part
in the Congress of Berlin in 1878. After 1879 the diversion
of France became more important than her isolation: and
with it went the diversion of Russia and the diversion of
Great Britain--in each case the diversion being intended
ultimately to increase the antagonism. But these develop-
ments open up a fresh section of Bismarckian policy, with
an intrinsic character of its own. They lead to the Triple
Alliance and the consequences of that consummation of
the Chancellor's diplomacy.
Gastein in 1865 saw the making of a new Austria; Gastein
in 1879 provided the new Ar stria with an alluring future
and the means of realising it. Vienna was right in welcom-
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? 352
BISMARCK
ing Bismarck with a gratitude which deeply touched that
seared, proud, and sensitive heart. The Treaty of 1879
was a masterpiece. 1 It was signed by Bismarck and
Andrassy on October 7. On October 8 Francis Joseph
But the statesman who made it for Austria received the
reward of Beust, Benedek, Rechberg, Schmerling, Buol,
and Bach.
? 4. The New Era--Home Policy, 1878-1888
The years 1878-80 witnessed a gradual but complete
change in the home policy of the Chancellor, culminating
in the establishment of the system which Bismarck main-
tained until his fall. In foreign policy, as has been
already indicated, the development of events prevented
the continuance of the alliance of the Three Monarchies
on the lines originally planned, and imposed on Bismarck
the necessity of a choice. In home affairs the necessity of
a choice was even more urgent. Bismarck practically
said to Bennigsen, ' Do not compel me to choose between
you and Windthorst. ' And Bennigsen's reply was vir-
tually to the effect that the choice must be made.
The several elements in the problems by the spring of
1878 were clear, but together they made a very complicated
situation. First of all, there was the Chancellor himself.
His health and strength were no longer capable of bearing
the continuous strain of mastering and directing the foreign
and home policy of a great and expanding Empire, in
which Prussia was the predominant partner. An imperial
ministry did not exist. The imperial executive was
organised as a branch of the Imperial Chancery, the secre-
taries of the various departments being simply depart-
1 Prince von Biilow writes in his Imperial Germany (edition of 1916):--
'Prince Bismarck, a second Hercules, accomplished many great labours. . . .
If I were asked which of these is the more admirable from the point of view of
foreign policy I should say without hesitation--the Austrian alliance. ' The
whole chapter (v. ), as indeed the whole book, bears out Mr. Headlam's con-
sidered judgment on its importance as an authoritative exposition of German
principles and a German interpretation of the meaning of Bismarckianism--
a meaning falsified by his successors, of whom Prince von Biilow is the ablest.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
mental and executive officers, appointed by the Chancellor,
and responsible as managers of sub-departments to him
alone. Bismarck had stoutly resisted every effort to convert
these departments into independent ministerial offices,
with ministerial chiefs, colleagues in an imperial cabinet,
and representing their several departments in the Reichs-
tag; and his reason was not pure autocracy and personal
jealousy--the determination to keep everything in his
own hands--though they accentuated his. refusal. The
reasons went far deeper; an imperial cabinet, such as the
Progressives and the Left Wing of the National Liberals
had advocated since 1867 as an irrevocable advance to
parliamentary government and were urging with persist-
ence in 1877, cut at the root of the position of the Federal
Council, and the interlocking machinery by which Prussia
maintained her control of policy as a whole. For the
Federal Council, like the Tudor Privy Council in England,
was the real governing organ in the Empire, and combined
legislative with executive duties (through its committees),
and was essentially the organ which made policy. Al-
though we are without exact information as to how
Prussia, behind the closed doors of the Bundesrat, main-
tained her control, it is clear that it was exercised and
maintained by the chairmanship of the Imperial Chancellor,
who as Minister-President of Prussia cast the Prussian
vote; and in the secret deliberations of the Federal
Council, just as in the Tudor Privy Council or the modern
Cabinet in England, there could be perfect freedom of dis-
cussion, and a complete representation of different points
of view, while the decision arrived at was the decision of
the organ as a whole, and the voting was unknown except
to the initiated.
A real Imperial Minister of Finance,
for example, responsible to the Reichstag, would obviously
supersede to a large extent the power and functions of the
Federal Council and transfer them partly to himself and
(no less important) partly to the Reichstag. The creation
of such imperial ministers simply meant that in a few years
the Federal Council would either shrivel into the position
that the British Privy Council has shrivelled into, rela-
tively to the Cabinet and the House of Commons; or, it
b. z
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? 354
BISMARCK
would be transformed into a real Upper Chamber of the
Imperial Reichstag, as had been in 1870 the ideal of the
unitarians led by the Crown Prince and the intellectuals
of the 'Coburg and Gotha' school. But such a trans-
formation destroyed the essence of the institution which
was constituted out of, not over, the Federated governments.
No less serious (and to all Prussians of the Bismarckian
and conservative type, far more serious) would be the
effect on Prussia. The British student is apt to forget
that beside the Federal Council (Bundesrat) and the
Imperial Reichstag existed the Prussian Ministry, presided
over by the Prussian Minister-President, and the Prussian
Parliament (Landtag), and that Imperial Reichstag and
Prussian Parliament were frequently sitting at one and the
same time in Berlin. Indeed, a large number of Reichstag
members (who were Prussians) spent their time between
the two bodies, voting on and fighting the same issues in
two separate legislatures. The Kulturkampf was essen-
tially a Prussian affair, and the greater part of the 'May
Laws' was a Prussian, not an imperial, concern: just as
the administrative execution of those laws was mainly the
duty of the Prussian Minister of the Interior.
Prussia had, like the other federated States, her separate
(and very narrow) franchise, ministry, and bureaucracy,
the only difference being that Prussia was very nearly two-
thirds of the Empire, and that behind ministry and
bureaucracy stood a solid concrete wall of tradition and
conventions, the parapet of which was the royal autocracy.
There was a Prussian Minister, but no Imperial Minister,
of War; a Prussian Minister of Finance, Education, and so
forth, and the Prussian Foreign Minister was the Minister-
President who was also-Imperial Chancellor: an Imperial
Minister of Finance or War, not directly under the Chan-
cellor's control, involved the dual system in a terrible
dilemma. Either it meant the government of that im-
perial department by Prussia, or the government of that
Prussian department by the Empire. The former would
have led to a revolt of every non-Prussian State from the
imperial system, the latter to the dissolution of Prussia
in the Empire. Bismarck plainly told the Reichstag more
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? THE IMPERIAL- CHANCELLOR 355
than once that an independent Imperial Minister of
Finance would have for his greatest antagonist the Prussian
Minister of Finance. He might have added with even
greater truth that an Imperial Minister of War would
either have to swallow the Prussian War Office or spend
all his time in fighting the Prussian Minister of War. Was
the Imperial Minister to exercise the prerogative of the
Prussian Crown, or only the much more restricted power
of the Imperial Praesidium?
The duty of correlating this dualism and ensuring its
harmonious working was Bismarck's main task, and he did
it by combining the office of Chancellor and Minister-
President, by controlling the Federal Council, and by the
domination of the conservative majority in the Prussian
Landtag. As Minister-President he took care that the
decisions of the Prussian Ministry broadly coincided with
the policy of the Federal Council; as Imperial Chancellor
he took care that the Federal Council's decisions coincided
with the broad requirements of Prussian policy. Further-
more, his control of the Prussian Ministry was ensured by
the Cabinet order of 1852 by which the Prussian Ministry
in its relations to the Prussian Crown acted through the
Minister-President alone; the Minister-President was in
the same constitutional relation to the sovereign that
custom has assigned to the Prime Minister in the British
Cabinet. The Minister-President was the sole channel
of communication with the Crown; and Bismarck's im-
mense prestige, personal gifts, inexhaustible powers of
work, political tact, and commanding influence with the
sovereign enabled him to accomplish a perpetual miracle.
From 1871 to 1888 it must also be remembered that
Bismarck was the servant of a sovereign rapidly ageing.
William 1. was seventy-four in 1871, and he was content
to leave Bismarck a very free hand. The King was not
capable of doing the amount of work that autocracy and
an intimate personal control implied. The autocracy
was in fact shared by the King-Emperor with Bismarck.
William's governing interest, the army, fell outside the
shared power. Bismarck provided the legal basis and the
money, and left the army to the King and the General
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? 356
BISMARCK
Staff, for in his eyes the army was simply a superb executive
instrument of policy. The General Staff provided him,
through its chief, with the information necessary for a
correct judgment of any political situation, but he would
have resented the intervention of the ' demi-gods' in the
office of the Wilhelmstrasse even more fiercely than Moltke
resented the effort of the Imperial Chancellor to overrule
in problems of strategy the chief of the General Staff.
The system therefore rested on the individual char-
acter and gifts of King-Emperor and Chancellor more
securely than on the legal and constitutional relations
established by the Imperial and Prussian constitutions.
But if we assume that in 1878 the Cabinet order of 1852
had been repealed, and that in the place of William 1. , aged
eighty-one, was a sovereign young, active, capable, able
to do the work required, and with his own views of home
and foreign policy, not necessarily identical with those of
his Chancellor and Minister-President, the system would
have begun to show widening fissures that no papering
over by photographs, decorations, and eulogistic letters
would cover. What took place in 1890 might have taken
place at any time between 1878 and 1890. 'The older
one gets,' said Frederick the Great, ' the more convinced
one becomes that His Majesty King Chance does three-
quarters of the business of this miserable universe. ' In
1878, when a crisis had been steadily developed and Ger-
many and Bismarck had reached the cross-roads of a great
decision, had the bullet of Nobiling ended the life of
William 1. and put the Crown on the head of the Crown
Prince, it is as certain as anything can well be that the
history of the next ten years in Germany would have been
fundamentally different. The fate of Liberalism in
Germany might have been decided with a moderate
Liberal on the throne. 'King Chance ' provided that it
should be decided with an aged and very conservative
sovereign, the two attempts on whose life profoundly
influenced a critical general election. Had the Conser-
vatives and the Clericals hired the half-witted miscreant
who fired at the old gentleman to whom age, character,
and service to Germany should have given a perpetual
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 357
immunity, they could not have done a better stroke for
their parties.
In 1878 Bismarck recognised that personally he could
not carry on as he had done. The law which authorised
the creation of a Vice-Chancellor (Stellvertreter) to act
for the Chancellor, if required, was intended to relieve the
strain but retain the system. In 1873 Bismarck had met
it by resigning the Minister-Presidency to Roon, but that
solution had proved a failure. The Stellvertreter law of
1878 was a deliberate effort to avoid the other solution--
the creation of imperial and responsible ministers, who
could be real colleagues to the Chancellor, and relieve him
of half his work (and more than half his power). The
debates on the law revealed the issues, and the law passed
because Bismarck, for the reasons previously explained,
categorically refused any other alternative. The Reichs-
tag had to choose between Bismarck and an approximation
to parliamentary government. No one in 1878 could face
the possibility of governing the Empire and Prussia with
Bismarck out of office and in opposition; no one had any
confidence in a foreign policy directed by any one but
Bismarck; for the Congress of Berlin, the antagonism
between Russia and Austria, the renaissance of France, the
policy of Great Britain, and the menacing problems offered
by Italy, the Mediterranean, Greece, and the Ottoman
Empire--unsolved by the Congress--made no other de-
cision possible. In 1878 the Reichstag voted first for
the man, and with reluctance, for his system. The life
of States, as of families, was once more proved to be
dependent in the great crises on the individual.
Bismarck now had to keep the system that he had created
efficient. If it failed in efficiency, his own personal posi-
tion would crumble away. It was not enough to direct
foreign policy, anticipate and neutralise hostile coalitions,
and rivet in that German hegemony which, as he said
himself, had to face four fronts at one and the same time.
The German at home must be satisfied by material proofs
that Bismarckian government was the best both in theory
and practice. In 1878 the Germans had begun seriously
to doubt the adequacy of the theory and the benefits of
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BISMARCK
the practice. It was openly asserted by friends and foes
alike that Bismarck had done his work. The Reichstag was
the crux. The irresponsible autocracy of the Federal
Council that made policy must either work with the major-
ity in the Reichstag or make a majority for itself. The
Bismarckian system which in theory made the government
independent of party could only achieve its purpose
through the manipulation of the party vote. The per-
petual creation of King's Friends in sufficient numbers to
ensure 'the right' decision in the Lobbies was essential.
The general election of 1877 proved that under no con-
ceivable circumstance could the united Conservative
parties command the majority required, or indeed now
hope to win more than one-fourth to one-third of the
votes. The Conservatives must therefore be united with
another strong party. There were only two from which
to choose--the Liberals or the Clerical Centre. Union
with the Centre gave a working, with the Liberals a hand-
some, majority. Which therefore was to be secured?
The whole point lay in the ' securing. ' In Great Britain
under similar circumstances there would have been a
Coalition Ministry, representative of the fused parties.
But in Germany the problem for Bismarck was to get the
votes without admitting the voters to the control of policy.
Hitherto, the National Liberals had solidly supported the
government. The negotiations with Bennigsen revealed
two interesting results: National Liberal support would
be continued if the previous policy were continued, but a
change of policy meant probably a struggle with National
Liberalism. To the Liberals above all the maintenance
of Free Trade, the issues involved in the May Laws, and
ultimately parliamentary government, were the three
cardinal items.
Conservatism combined with the Centre involved
marching down the road to Canossa, and it was uncertain
that the Centre would vote for a new fiscal policy. While
Bismarck-faced this troubled political situation, accident
helped him partially to solve it. The death of Pio Nono,
and the elevation to the Pontificate of Leo xin. , created
a new situation at the Vatican. The new Pontiff could,
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 359
without damaging Papal prestige, inaugurate a more
conciliatory attitude; Bismarck without disinterring a
penitential white sheet could enter on an 'exchange of
views. ' Both sides, thoroughly tired of the struggle, in-
dicated through appropriate channels that conversations
would at any rate do no harm; and in the autumn of 1878
Bismarck sought a cure at Kissingen, which was also
recommended as the one health resort in Germany that
would help Monsignor Masella, the Papal Nuncio to
Bavaria. Nuncio and Chancellor met by an arranged
accident and exchanged views. They were really deter-
mining what they could buy or sell, and in 1878 the wares
on either side were simply brought out and handled in a
friendly manner.
More decisive for the present was the attempt (May 11)
by Hodel on the Emperor's life. The government at
once brought in a very severe bill which practically put
the Social Democrats at the mercy of the Ministry of the
Interior. For years the growing organisation of Social
Democracy had been alarming the Conservative classes.
Argument having failed, force alone remained. But the
bill was so comprehensive in its severity that it threatened
all political organisations not approved of by the govern-
ment. Despite a denunciation by Moltke of Social Demo-
cracy as the enemy of God and society, Bennigsen and
Lasker from the Liberal benches tore the measures in pieces,
and it was rejected by 251-57 votes, the Centre voting
with the Liberals. A few days later (June 2) Nobiling, a
doctor of philology, attempted to assassinate the Emperor,
and succeeded in wounding him severely. Bismarck heard
the news at Varzin. He struck his staff into the ground.
'Now,' he cried, 'we will dissolve the Reichstag. '
The dissolution was decreed promptly by the Bundesrat
(June 11), and the elections were held in all the excitement
of panic, aggravated by indignation. Liberalism was
aghast at the Chancellor's stroke: and the result bore out
their fears. They lost thirty-two seats at least, and the
united Liberal and Radical forces numbered 106 as against
176 in the old Parliament. The Centre gained a couple
of seats, but the seats lost by Liberalism went to the
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BISMARCK
Conservatives, who now disputed with the Clericals the
claim to be the strongest single party in the legislature.
The anti-Socialist law was promptly reintroduced, and
passed by 221 votes to 149. Bismarck was obliged to
accept some amendments from the National Liberals, for
without their help the measures could not become law,
and the chief concessions were two: first, the operation
of the law was limited to three years (March 31, 1881);
secondly, electoral meetings were excluded from its pro-
visions. But, as passed, the discretionary powers granted
to the government were tremendous, for it enabled the
central authorities in the States to prohibit public meetings,
dissolve political associations, suppress newspapers and
books, and decide who was or was not a Socialist, what was
or was not Socialist doctrine or objects calculated to under-
mine the State. Socialists could be banished from their
homes, and a whole district could in case of urgent danger,
decided by the authorities, be placed under a state of
minor siege.
The debates were remarkable for three utterances.
Bebel, in his attack on the bill, revealed the qualities which
in ten years were to make him the most remarkable political
character in Germany, after Bismarck himself. Richter
the Radical leader told the Reichstag that he feared
Social Democracy more under this measure than without
it. The Chancellor, after explaining that Socialism sought
a heaven in momentary and material enjoyment alone,
and confessing that if he lost his own faith in God and a
future life, he could not live a day in any peace of mind,
urged all parties to unite in making a bulwark against the
common enemy to the Empire. He also foreshadowed
the necessity of counteracting the insidious poison of these
pestilential foes by measures of social and economic benefit
to the industrial proletariat.
The Radicals and Progressives, with the left wing of the
National Liberals, gallantly fought the fight for freedom
of opinion and liberty of political utterance and association
to a finish. But the National Liberals by their action
threw the earth on their own coffin. The programme of
Social Democracy has always terrified middle-class Liberal-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 361
ism more than any other party. Chastened by the
election the Liberals were in a sad quandary. Fearing
the further loss of public support if they resisted the anti-
Socialist law, and surmising that Bismarck could throw
them over and secure the Clerical Centre, they supported
the measure, not from conviction but on calculation.
Persecution of the Socialists was a lesser evil in their eyes
than driving the Chancellor into the arms of Windthorst
and the Vatican. They therefore clung to the broad
principle of supporting the government as the sole means
of retaining their political influence. But in doing so
they sacrificed the essentials of their Liberalism, and they
virtually buried their party as an instrument of progress
and political freedom. Bismarck was quick to recognise
the weskness. He had forced them against the wall and
they had refused to fight. Another sledge-hammer blow
and they would break up. In political arithmetic that
meant that he would get half their votes without any
further concessions, and the other half would melt into
coalition with the Progressives and Radicals. When
National Liberalism had ceased to exist as a solid phalanx
the way would be open for a reactionary Conservatism.
National Liberalism was to learn the wholesome lesson
that when parties prefer tactics to principles and oppor-
tunism to convictions, the funeral service with their
antagonist as the officiating minister is at hand.
The anti-Socialist law was put into operation with
drastic severity. 'Now for the pig-sticking' (Jetzt geht
die Sauhatz- los ! ) Bismarck is reported to have remarked,
and the Prussian police got to work with energies whetted
by their failure against the Catholics. Everything that a
strong executive can do, when directed by men to whom
Social Democracy was the creed of the canaille, was done.
Berlin was placed under the minor state of siege, as were
later Hamburg, Leipzig, Stettin, and other city fly-belts
of the plague. Every club savouring of Socialism was
broken up; newspapers were prosecuted, pamphlets sup-
pressed. The police even forbade subscriptions for the
unfortunates selected for banishment from their homes.
Indeed, everything was done to provoke the broken into
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BISMARCK
violent outrage, to be used as a justification for further
severity. What the Chancellor felt about freedom of
speech was shown in his proposal, first, that two Socialist
members of the Reichstag should be delivered over to the
police because they had dared to attend the Parliament to
which they had been elected; secondly, that the Reichstag
should by law take power to limit the freedom of speech
within the House itself. Both these proposals were
rejected. Every one, except Bismarck and the Conser-
vatives, knew that the ' Muzzling Bill' (Maulkorbgesetz),
as it was speedily nicknamed, would be employed by the
governmental majority in crushing all serious criticism.
Criticism that is successful is always 'offensive' to auto-
crats and bureaucrats. It would be better to close the
Reichstag at once. Well might the most distinguished of
living German historians, Mommsen, publicly say in 1881
that 'the Prussia we had, the Germany we believed we
had, are at an end . . . the freedom of Germany will be
lost for many years to come.
? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 345
scrutiny the case for and against so momentous a decision.
To-day, perhaps, when the Dual Alliance has lasted for
thirty-six years and seems as familiar and inevitable a
phenomenon in the firmament of continental policy as
King Charles's Wain in the heaven of stars, we are disposed
to ignore the problem that Bismarck strove to solve. The
Treaty of 1879 closes a crisis in the evolution of Bismarck's
statecraft. It marks a climax, but, like all climaxes, it
turned a fresh page, the writing in which was determined
by the character of the terminus.
What then were 'the perplexities'? It is clear on the
evidence that Bismarck in 1879 could have turned to
Russia and concluded a similar defensive treaty, with
Austria as the foe to be neutralised. The cordial meeting
of William and Alexander 11. at Alexandrovo, which cleared
up their personal relations, strengthened the German
Emperor's desire to heal the political breach and renew the
liaison established in 1872. William, indeed, failed to see
that Austrian and Russian ambitions were in conflict after
1878, and that Germany could not support both, but must
decide between them. Bismarck's deeper knowledge and
'prophetic coup d'aeil' had penetrated the logic of history,
'more remorseless than the logic of the Prussian audit
office,' and for him the antagonism of Austria and Russia
made the cruelty and inevitability of a choice. But why
not select Russia--the champion of order and monarchical
autocracy, the dynastic and political friend on whose sup-
ort Prussian policy had pivoted since 1862? Why not
y such a master-stroke close the Eastern frontier and
permanently dissolve the nightmare of a Franco-Russian
alliance? Would not such an alliance have before long
coerced Austria into renewing the Triple Entente of 1872?
Powerful critics in 1879 and 6ince have argued this thesis
impressively, and concluded that Bismarck now made his
first and biggest mistake. The road, it is said, to Peters-
burg via Vienna was impossible in reality; but the making
of a road to Vienna via Petersburg was not beyond
Bismarck's great gifts. The alienation of Great Britain
from Ruscia and the Anglo-Austrian entente in 1879 left, it
is also argued, Russia isolated, faced by a hostile Germany,
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BISMARCK
Austria, and Great Britain, the Near East closed, and
France alone as a possible friend. The Treaty of 1879, it
is therefore concluded, made a Franco-Russian entente--
the one result Bismarck feared--only a question of time.
Yet, if Bismarck erred, he did so with his eyes open. He
knew the arguments for a Russian alliance better than his
critics, and he rejected them. Why?
Three central points take us to the heart of the system
enshrined in the Austrian treaty. First, a sentence in the
confidential letter to the King of Bavaria, unaccountably
ignored by many students of Bismarck: 'The German
Empire in alliance with Austria would not lack the support
of England. ' Lord Salisbury, the British Foreign Secretary,
confirmed this prediction by saying that the rumour of such
an alliance was 'good tidings of great joy. ' Would a
British Foreign Secretary in 1879, ^89, or 1899 have
said the same of a Russo-German alliance? Bismarck
knew that an alliance with Russia must commit Germany
to the Russian antagonism to Great Britain, as well as to
the Russian antagonism to Austria. Neither in 1879
nor 1889 was he prepared to place such a wasting mort-
gage on German policy: for Bismarck had a sounder sense
of British strength than many of his critics then or since.
The alienation of Great Britain and of Austria in 1879
would almost certainly have involved a renewal of the
Anglo-Austrian alliance of 1856, to which France in 1879,
as in 1856, would have become a partner. 1
Secondly, was Germany prepared to see Russia at
Constantinople? Apart from any prior promises to
Austria, not involving Constantinople but Salonica, that
was a question of profound import for Bismarck in 1878-9.
His answer as given in his acts is a decisive 'No'; not
1 The Secret Treaty of April 15,185 6, which pledged Great Britain, France, and
Austria to unite in resisting any attempt to tear up the Treaty of Paris of 1856.
1 The extraordinary obiter dictum in the Memoirs (ii. 285) that Bismarck
personally would have 'welcomed ' the 'physical and diplomatic possession of
Constantinople' by Russia cannot be taken seriously. It is contradicted by the
argument in which it is embedded, and is belied by the action of" Germany
prior to, and after, 1879. Written late in life, it probably is a criticism on
German policy in the Near East after the Chancellor's dismissal, and is one of
the many similar 'confessions' suggesting that in matters of high military
policy he was continuously overruled by the Emperor, or the soldiers, or by his
colleagues, or by public opinion. CreJat Judteus Apella.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 347
because a Russian Constantinople rang out a sharp quietus
to Austrian ambitions, but because it ended all German
ambitions in the Balkans. Austria at Salonica was no bar
--rather a help--to German control of Constantinople and
the Ottoman Empire, the ' integrity' of which Beaconsfield
'consolidated' by annexing Cyprus, securing a tighter hold
on Egypt, and by handing over Bosnia to Austria, half
Bulgaria to a virtual Russian protectorate and the Armenian
frontier fortresses to Russia. But if a Russian alliance did
not mean Germany's acquiescence in the Russian advance
to Constantinople, it meant nothing. It meant, more-
over, that either Germany must support Russia in her
Eastern quarrel with Great Britain or obliterate the
treaty; and if there was an excentric dissipation of German
strength it would be to sacrifice Pomeranian Grenadiers
in Europe that Russia might annex Turkestan or Afghan-
istan. Bismarck was confident that Austrian Chauvinism
could be controlled, but a complete German control of
Russian policy was not a practical proposition. Teuton
and Slav could not work together as Teuton and Magyar
could for a common interest.
Thirdly, a Russian alliance left the main gateway of
Central Europe--the Danube--in neutral, and probably
hostile, hands. The strategical and economic confor-
mation of Central -Europe is moulded by three great river
basins--the Rhine, the Danube, and the Vistula. The
Rhine was now firmly in German hands: a Russian alliance
did not secure Germany the control of the Vistula, and it
left the Danube out of the central German control alto-
gether. Without a control of the Danube basin as com-
plete as the control of the Rhine, the political and economic,
no less than the military, conditions of centralism could not
be adequately realised. Moreover, Bismarck reckoned on
bringing Roumania with Austria's help into the system; and
thanks to Russian bungling, the Treaty of 1879 was promptly
followed by that close understanding between Bucharest
and Vienna which was certainly expressed in a precise con-
tract, the text of which has never been published. The
Austrian alliance, therefore, closed the Danube from source
to mouth: it brought Serbia and Bulgaria on the southern
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? 348
BISMARCK
bank into the sphere of Austrian policy; for it placed
Roumania as a German outpost to the north, and an
Ottoman Empire under German influence on their backs.
Moreover, the Austrian bastion in Galicia, from Cracow to
Czernowitz, left Russia controlling the Vistula only from
Thorn to Ivangorod, with Prussia on one, and Austria on
the other, flank, of the Russian Polish salient. In short,
the framework of Central Europe was completed by the
Austrian alliance. A Russian alliance, and Austria hostile,
would have destroyed it. Bismarck's diplomacy from
1879 to 1890 aimed at filling the mould thus created with
an organic and expanding system of political traditions,
habits, and ideals--the full life of the allied States incor-
porate in the environment that gave them blood and air.
There were two other positive advantages of great
weight--the maintenance of the Austrian monarchy, which
coincided with the maintenance of the Prussian State
regime, and the checking of Slav influence, working then
and since so powerfully against Germanism. The German
alliance gave to the Habsburg throne a support moral and
political, difficult to exaggerate. How the Habsburgs
would have fared without that support in the next thirty
years can be as easily imagined as can the effect on the
German Empire and the Hohenzollern throne if the
Habsburg monarchy had been crippled as a monarchy.
The alliance of 1879 was a compact with Buda-Pesth even
more than with Vienna. It set the seal of German approval
on, and assured the promise of German support to, the true
construction of the Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867--an
alliance of German and Magyar to crush all non-German
and non-Magyar elements (about one-half of Austria-
Hungary) into subordination. Was Bismarck not right,
from his point of view, in concluding that, so construed in
action, the Compromise which he supported on principle
in 1867 was worth an Emperor's ransom to an Imperial
Germany determined to establish a German hegemony?
What would have been the result had he in 1879 rejected
Andrassy's overtures, closed the door to Buda-Pesth, and
opened the door that led to the Nevsky Prospect and
Tsarskoe-Seloe?
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
Two obvious disadvantages, however, perplexed Bismarck
--the Polish question and the Austrian future in the
Balkans. The denationalisation of the Poles and the con-
tinuity of the tripartite dismemberment of 1795, endorsed
in 1815, was a question of existence for Prussia. Bismarck
held, as had been already indicated, that the dissolution of
the ancient kingdom of Poland by Frederick the Great and
Catherine was the pre-condition of a safe and strong
Prussia. The Polish problem was with him day and night,
and it had flamed into a fresh crisis with the Kulturkampf.
The relations and policy of the Dual Monarchy to the
Austrian Poles provided a very thorny internal conundrum
for the Ball-Platz, and Bismarck foresaw in 1879 that the
interests of Vienna and Berlin in Polish policy were not
identical, and might easily become antagonistic. The
Vatican, with its trusteeship for Roman Catholic Poland,
had an influence on Roman Catholic Vienna and Buda-
Pesth that foreshadowed the gravest complications. Nor
could the Dual Monarchy, in face of the Ruthenian popu-
lation in Galicia, treat the Poles as Prussia treated the
province of Posen. A liberal policy at Vienna towards
the Austrian Poles went ill with the drastic oppression of
Polish Prussia by Berlin. If Austria ' got out of hand' in
this sphere of action the basis of the Treaty of 1879 might
crumble away entirely.
There was a similar danger in the Balkans. If we knew
the whole truth of what lay behind the innocent clauses
of the Treaty of 1879, itself a further instalment of the
system begun in 1872, it is quite certain that it would con-
firm one broad conclusion. Germany endorsed cautiously
but deliberately the Austrian bill of exchange in the
Balkans. The nature and extent of the commitment can
only be roughly inferred from the tangled diplomacy that
preceded 1879 and fills the next thirty years. But in 1879
Bismarck took a great risk--all his public utterances con-
firm the guarded language of the Memoirs--and he took it
deliberately. The 'occupation' of Bosnia and Herze-
govina was nominally a transitory arrangement: its con-
version into an 'annexation' was a permanent bait to
Austria, but Germany secured a powerful control, for she
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BISMARCK
could always refuse to support the conversion. He placed
an ally in shining armour behind Francis Joseph and the
Magyar oligarchy: and the ally stood there, not in the
interest of Austria but of a Prussianised Germany. The
contention that the Treaty of 1879 made a Franco-Russian
alliance inevitable rests on arguing back from 1896 to 1879.
It is certain that no alliance between France and Russia
took place before 1890. Diplomatic coquetry and flir-
tations are even less convincing evidence of alliances than
glasses of wine and the toasts of monarchs (drafted by their
ministers) at ceremonial banquets. The whole point of
Bismarck's criticism of the policy of his successors after
1890 is concentrated in the indictment, that while he
prevented such an alliance (which was true), his successors
not merely permitted it, but by their diplomatic bungling
actually brought it about. It is therefore neither fair nor
historical to argue that the Dual Alliance of 1879 made
a Russo-French alliance inevitable. Bismarck could and
did argue that, so far from that result being inevitable, the
Dual Alliance, properly handled, made an entente between
Paris and Petersburg impossible.
Bismarck was a continentalist, and remained a continen-
talist to the end of his days; that is, he held as an axiom
that German supremacy must rest on mastery of the
strategical and political situation in Europe. Efforts out-
side the central European theatre were an excentric and
unjustifiable dissipation of German strength, the concen-
tration of which was required on the major objective.
Secure that, and the rest followed; lose it, and no
gains elsewhere would compensate the loss. Austria-
Hungary and the Balkans--the two could not be separated,
for the problem of south-eastern Europe was the problem
of the Dual Empire--were essential to German hegemony
and the sole avenue of continental expansion. The crisis
of 1875 reinforced the lesson that Europe would not
tolerate a further expansion westwards at the expense of
France and Belgium. But an expansion to the south-east
could secure British neutrality, if not active support, for
it would be at the expense of Russia. To-day we are apt
to forget that in 1879 Great Britain viewed Russia not
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 351
with the eyes of 1908 or 1914, but of 1856 and 1870.
How--Bismarck might well ask--was German trade to
expand after 1879 if Great Britain, the sea-power par
excellence, were driven by German action into the camp
of Germany's foes?
Nevertheless the gravity of the risk taken in 1879 is
proved by the insurance against its exploding into an un-
limited liability. Until 1890 Austria was never allowed
to get out of hand. How precisely this was done we
cannot say with certainty. But it was done. The control
of the Wilhelmstrasse over the Ball-Platz was effective, for
Bismarck had his personal prestige, unrivalled knowledge,
and experience to help in the difficult task. These are
qualities not acquired by intuition, still less by birth or
hereditary succession, but by brains and the travail of a
lifetime. Control of Austria was also assisted by positive
counterchecks--the alliance with Italy and the continuous
ring at the Russian front door. It is safe to conclude that
Bismarck prepared for the inclusion of Italy in 1879, and
that without the Dual Alliance Italy could not have been
secured. We have Bismarck's word for it, and his judg-
ment outweighs a dozen criticisms. For he had the whole
of the facts before him, whereas his critics argue from
edited documents written on one side only.
A further consideration is very relevant. Down to 1879
the isolation of France had been the prime object of
German policy. The policy was breaking down. France,
excluded from the Congress of London in 1870, took part
in the Congress of Berlin in 1878. After 1879 the diversion
of France became more important than her isolation: and
with it went the diversion of Russia and the diversion of
Great Britain--in each case the diversion being intended
ultimately to increase the antagonism. But these develop-
ments open up a fresh section of Bismarckian policy, with
an intrinsic character of its own. They lead to the Triple
Alliance and the consequences of that consummation of
the Chancellor's diplomacy.
Gastein in 1865 saw the making of a new Austria; Gastein
in 1879 provided the new Ar stria with an alluring future
and the means of realising it. Vienna was right in welcom-
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BISMARCK
ing Bismarck with a gratitude which deeply touched that
seared, proud, and sensitive heart. The Treaty of 1879
was a masterpiece. 1 It was signed by Bismarck and
Andrassy on October 7. On October 8 Francis Joseph
But the statesman who made it for Austria received the
reward of Beust, Benedek, Rechberg, Schmerling, Buol,
and Bach.
? 4. The New Era--Home Policy, 1878-1888
The years 1878-80 witnessed a gradual but complete
change in the home policy of the Chancellor, culminating
in the establishment of the system which Bismarck main-
tained until his fall. In foreign policy, as has been
already indicated, the development of events prevented
the continuance of the alliance of the Three Monarchies
on the lines originally planned, and imposed on Bismarck
the necessity of a choice. In home affairs the necessity of
a choice was even more urgent. Bismarck practically
said to Bennigsen, ' Do not compel me to choose between
you and Windthorst. ' And Bennigsen's reply was vir-
tually to the effect that the choice must be made.
The several elements in the problems by the spring of
1878 were clear, but together they made a very complicated
situation. First of all, there was the Chancellor himself.
His health and strength were no longer capable of bearing
the continuous strain of mastering and directing the foreign
and home policy of a great and expanding Empire, in
which Prussia was the predominant partner. An imperial
ministry did not exist. The imperial executive was
organised as a branch of the Imperial Chancery, the secre-
taries of the various departments being simply depart-
1 Prince von Biilow writes in his Imperial Germany (edition of 1916):--
'Prince Bismarck, a second Hercules, accomplished many great labours. . . .
If I were asked which of these is the more admirable from the point of view of
foreign policy I should say without hesitation--the Austrian alliance. ' The
whole chapter (v. ), as indeed the whole book, bears out Mr. Headlam's con-
sidered judgment on its importance as an authoritative exposition of German
principles and a German interpretation of the meaning of Bismarckianism--
a meaning falsified by his successors, of whom Prince von Biilow is the ablest.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
mental and executive officers, appointed by the Chancellor,
and responsible as managers of sub-departments to him
alone. Bismarck had stoutly resisted every effort to convert
these departments into independent ministerial offices,
with ministerial chiefs, colleagues in an imperial cabinet,
and representing their several departments in the Reichs-
tag; and his reason was not pure autocracy and personal
jealousy--the determination to keep everything in his
own hands--though they accentuated his. refusal. The
reasons went far deeper; an imperial cabinet, such as the
Progressives and the Left Wing of the National Liberals
had advocated since 1867 as an irrevocable advance to
parliamentary government and were urging with persist-
ence in 1877, cut at the root of the position of the Federal
Council, and the interlocking machinery by which Prussia
maintained her control of policy as a whole. For the
Federal Council, like the Tudor Privy Council in England,
was the real governing organ in the Empire, and combined
legislative with executive duties (through its committees),
and was essentially the organ which made policy. Al-
though we are without exact information as to how
Prussia, behind the closed doors of the Bundesrat, main-
tained her control, it is clear that it was exercised and
maintained by the chairmanship of the Imperial Chancellor,
who as Minister-President of Prussia cast the Prussian
vote; and in the secret deliberations of the Federal
Council, just as in the Tudor Privy Council or the modern
Cabinet in England, there could be perfect freedom of dis-
cussion, and a complete representation of different points
of view, while the decision arrived at was the decision of
the organ as a whole, and the voting was unknown except
to the initiated.
A real Imperial Minister of Finance,
for example, responsible to the Reichstag, would obviously
supersede to a large extent the power and functions of the
Federal Council and transfer them partly to himself and
(no less important) partly to the Reichstag. The creation
of such imperial ministers simply meant that in a few years
the Federal Council would either shrivel into the position
that the British Privy Council has shrivelled into, rela-
tively to the Cabinet and the House of Commons; or, it
b. z
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? 354
BISMARCK
would be transformed into a real Upper Chamber of the
Imperial Reichstag, as had been in 1870 the ideal of the
unitarians led by the Crown Prince and the intellectuals
of the 'Coburg and Gotha' school. But such a trans-
formation destroyed the essence of the institution which
was constituted out of, not over, the Federated governments.
No less serious (and to all Prussians of the Bismarckian
and conservative type, far more serious) would be the
effect on Prussia. The British student is apt to forget
that beside the Federal Council (Bundesrat) and the
Imperial Reichstag existed the Prussian Ministry, presided
over by the Prussian Minister-President, and the Prussian
Parliament (Landtag), and that Imperial Reichstag and
Prussian Parliament were frequently sitting at one and the
same time in Berlin. Indeed, a large number of Reichstag
members (who were Prussians) spent their time between
the two bodies, voting on and fighting the same issues in
two separate legislatures. The Kulturkampf was essen-
tially a Prussian affair, and the greater part of the 'May
Laws' was a Prussian, not an imperial, concern: just as
the administrative execution of those laws was mainly the
duty of the Prussian Minister of the Interior.
Prussia had, like the other federated States, her separate
(and very narrow) franchise, ministry, and bureaucracy,
the only difference being that Prussia was very nearly two-
thirds of the Empire, and that behind ministry and
bureaucracy stood a solid concrete wall of tradition and
conventions, the parapet of which was the royal autocracy.
There was a Prussian Minister, but no Imperial Minister,
of War; a Prussian Minister of Finance, Education, and so
forth, and the Prussian Foreign Minister was the Minister-
President who was also-Imperial Chancellor: an Imperial
Minister of Finance or War, not directly under the Chan-
cellor's control, involved the dual system in a terrible
dilemma. Either it meant the government of that im-
perial department by Prussia, or the government of that
Prussian department by the Empire. The former would
have led to a revolt of every non-Prussian State from the
imperial system, the latter to the dissolution of Prussia
in the Empire. Bismarck plainly told the Reichstag more
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? THE IMPERIAL- CHANCELLOR 355
than once that an independent Imperial Minister of
Finance would have for his greatest antagonist the Prussian
Minister of Finance. He might have added with even
greater truth that an Imperial Minister of War would
either have to swallow the Prussian War Office or spend
all his time in fighting the Prussian Minister of War. Was
the Imperial Minister to exercise the prerogative of the
Prussian Crown, or only the much more restricted power
of the Imperial Praesidium?
The duty of correlating this dualism and ensuring its
harmonious working was Bismarck's main task, and he did
it by combining the office of Chancellor and Minister-
President, by controlling the Federal Council, and by the
domination of the conservative majority in the Prussian
Landtag. As Minister-President he took care that the
decisions of the Prussian Ministry broadly coincided with
the policy of the Federal Council; as Imperial Chancellor
he took care that the Federal Council's decisions coincided
with the broad requirements of Prussian policy. Further-
more, his control of the Prussian Ministry was ensured by
the Cabinet order of 1852 by which the Prussian Ministry
in its relations to the Prussian Crown acted through the
Minister-President alone; the Minister-President was in
the same constitutional relation to the sovereign that
custom has assigned to the Prime Minister in the British
Cabinet. The Minister-President was the sole channel
of communication with the Crown; and Bismarck's im-
mense prestige, personal gifts, inexhaustible powers of
work, political tact, and commanding influence with the
sovereign enabled him to accomplish a perpetual miracle.
From 1871 to 1888 it must also be remembered that
Bismarck was the servant of a sovereign rapidly ageing.
William 1. was seventy-four in 1871, and he was content
to leave Bismarck a very free hand. The King was not
capable of doing the amount of work that autocracy and
an intimate personal control implied. The autocracy
was in fact shared by the King-Emperor with Bismarck.
William's governing interest, the army, fell outside the
shared power. Bismarck provided the legal basis and the
money, and left the army to the King and the General
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? 356
BISMARCK
Staff, for in his eyes the army was simply a superb executive
instrument of policy. The General Staff provided him,
through its chief, with the information necessary for a
correct judgment of any political situation, but he would
have resented the intervention of the ' demi-gods' in the
office of the Wilhelmstrasse even more fiercely than Moltke
resented the effort of the Imperial Chancellor to overrule
in problems of strategy the chief of the General Staff.
The system therefore rested on the individual char-
acter and gifts of King-Emperor and Chancellor more
securely than on the legal and constitutional relations
established by the Imperial and Prussian constitutions.
But if we assume that in 1878 the Cabinet order of 1852
had been repealed, and that in the place of William 1. , aged
eighty-one, was a sovereign young, active, capable, able
to do the work required, and with his own views of home
and foreign policy, not necessarily identical with those of
his Chancellor and Minister-President, the system would
have begun to show widening fissures that no papering
over by photographs, decorations, and eulogistic letters
would cover. What took place in 1890 might have taken
place at any time between 1878 and 1890. 'The older
one gets,' said Frederick the Great, ' the more convinced
one becomes that His Majesty King Chance does three-
quarters of the business of this miserable universe. ' In
1878, when a crisis had been steadily developed and Ger-
many and Bismarck had reached the cross-roads of a great
decision, had the bullet of Nobiling ended the life of
William 1. and put the Crown on the head of the Crown
Prince, it is as certain as anything can well be that the
history of the next ten years in Germany would have been
fundamentally different. The fate of Liberalism in
Germany might have been decided with a moderate
Liberal on the throne. 'King Chance ' provided that it
should be decided with an aged and very conservative
sovereign, the two attempts on whose life profoundly
influenced a critical general election. Had the Conser-
vatives and the Clericals hired the half-witted miscreant
who fired at the old gentleman to whom age, character,
and service to Germany should have given a perpetual
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 357
immunity, they could not have done a better stroke for
their parties.
In 1878 Bismarck recognised that personally he could
not carry on as he had done. The law which authorised
the creation of a Vice-Chancellor (Stellvertreter) to act
for the Chancellor, if required, was intended to relieve the
strain but retain the system. In 1873 Bismarck had met
it by resigning the Minister-Presidency to Roon, but that
solution had proved a failure. The Stellvertreter law of
1878 was a deliberate effort to avoid the other solution--
the creation of imperial and responsible ministers, who
could be real colleagues to the Chancellor, and relieve him
of half his work (and more than half his power). The
debates on the law revealed the issues, and the law passed
because Bismarck, for the reasons previously explained,
categorically refused any other alternative. The Reichs-
tag had to choose between Bismarck and an approximation
to parliamentary government. No one in 1878 could face
the possibility of governing the Empire and Prussia with
Bismarck out of office and in opposition; no one had any
confidence in a foreign policy directed by any one but
Bismarck; for the Congress of Berlin, the antagonism
between Russia and Austria, the renaissance of France, the
policy of Great Britain, and the menacing problems offered
by Italy, the Mediterranean, Greece, and the Ottoman
Empire--unsolved by the Congress--made no other de-
cision possible. In 1878 the Reichstag voted first for
the man, and with reluctance, for his system. The life
of States, as of families, was once more proved to be
dependent in the great crises on the individual.
Bismarck now had to keep the system that he had created
efficient. If it failed in efficiency, his own personal posi-
tion would crumble away. It was not enough to direct
foreign policy, anticipate and neutralise hostile coalitions,
and rivet in that German hegemony which, as he said
himself, had to face four fronts at one and the same time.
The German at home must be satisfied by material proofs
that Bismarckian government was the best both in theory
and practice. In 1878 the Germans had begun seriously
to doubt the adequacy of the theory and the benefits of
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? 35>>
BISMARCK
the practice. It was openly asserted by friends and foes
alike that Bismarck had done his work. The Reichstag was
the crux. The irresponsible autocracy of the Federal
Council that made policy must either work with the major-
ity in the Reichstag or make a majority for itself. The
Bismarckian system which in theory made the government
independent of party could only achieve its purpose
through the manipulation of the party vote. The per-
petual creation of King's Friends in sufficient numbers to
ensure 'the right' decision in the Lobbies was essential.
The general election of 1877 proved that under no con-
ceivable circumstance could the united Conservative
parties command the majority required, or indeed now
hope to win more than one-fourth to one-third of the
votes. The Conservatives must therefore be united with
another strong party. There were only two from which
to choose--the Liberals or the Clerical Centre. Union
with the Centre gave a working, with the Liberals a hand-
some, majority. Which therefore was to be secured?
The whole point lay in the ' securing. ' In Great Britain
under similar circumstances there would have been a
Coalition Ministry, representative of the fused parties.
But in Germany the problem for Bismarck was to get the
votes without admitting the voters to the control of policy.
Hitherto, the National Liberals had solidly supported the
government. The negotiations with Bennigsen revealed
two interesting results: National Liberal support would
be continued if the previous policy were continued, but a
change of policy meant probably a struggle with National
Liberalism. To the Liberals above all the maintenance
of Free Trade, the issues involved in the May Laws, and
ultimately parliamentary government, were the three
cardinal items.
Conservatism combined with the Centre involved
marching down the road to Canossa, and it was uncertain
that the Centre would vote for a new fiscal policy. While
Bismarck-faced this troubled political situation, accident
helped him partially to solve it. The death of Pio Nono,
and the elevation to the Pontificate of Leo xin. , created
a new situation at the Vatican. The new Pontiff could,
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 359
without damaging Papal prestige, inaugurate a more
conciliatory attitude; Bismarck without disinterring a
penitential white sheet could enter on an 'exchange of
views. ' Both sides, thoroughly tired of the struggle, in-
dicated through appropriate channels that conversations
would at any rate do no harm; and in the autumn of 1878
Bismarck sought a cure at Kissingen, which was also
recommended as the one health resort in Germany that
would help Monsignor Masella, the Papal Nuncio to
Bavaria. Nuncio and Chancellor met by an arranged
accident and exchanged views. They were really deter-
mining what they could buy or sell, and in 1878 the wares
on either side were simply brought out and handled in a
friendly manner.
More decisive for the present was the attempt (May 11)
by Hodel on the Emperor's life. The government at
once brought in a very severe bill which practically put
the Social Democrats at the mercy of the Ministry of the
Interior. For years the growing organisation of Social
Democracy had been alarming the Conservative classes.
Argument having failed, force alone remained. But the
bill was so comprehensive in its severity that it threatened
all political organisations not approved of by the govern-
ment. Despite a denunciation by Moltke of Social Demo-
cracy as the enemy of God and society, Bennigsen and
Lasker from the Liberal benches tore the measures in pieces,
and it was rejected by 251-57 votes, the Centre voting
with the Liberals. A few days later (June 2) Nobiling, a
doctor of philology, attempted to assassinate the Emperor,
and succeeded in wounding him severely. Bismarck heard
the news at Varzin. He struck his staff into the ground.
'Now,' he cried, 'we will dissolve the Reichstag. '
The dissolution was decreed promptly by the Bundesrat
(June 11), and the elections were held in all the excitement
of panic, aggravated by indignation. Liberalism was
aghast at the Chancellor's stroke: and the result bore out
their fears. They lost thirty-two seats at least, and the
united Liberal and Radical forces numbered 106 as against
176 in the old Parliament. The Centre gained a couple
of seats, but the seats lost by Liberalism went to the
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? 360
BISMARCK
Conservatives, who now disputed with the Clericals the
claim to be the strongest single party in the legislature.
The anti-Socialist law was promptly reintroduced, and
passed by 221 votes to 149. Bismarck was obliged to
accept some amendments from the National Liberals, for
without their help the measures could not become law,
and the chief concessions were two: first, the operation
of the law was limited to three years (March 31, 1881);
secondly, electoral meetings were excluded from its pro-
visions. But, as passed, the discretionary powers granted
to the government were tremendous, for it enabled the
central authorities in the States to prohibit public meetings,
dissolve political associations, suppress newspapers and
books, and decide who was or was not a Socialist, what was
or was not Socialist doctrine or objects calculated to under-
mine the State. Socialists could be banished from their
homes, and a whole district could in case of urgent danger,
decided by the authorities, be placed under a state of
minor siege.
The debates were remarkable for three utterances.
Bebel, in his attack on the bill, revealed the qualities which
in ten years were to make him the most remarkable political
character in Germany, after Bismarck himself. Richter
the Radical leader told the Reichstag that he feared
Social Democracy more under this measure than without
it. The Chancellor, after explaining that Socialism sought
a heaven in momentary and material enjoyment alone,
and confessing that if he lost his own faith in God and a
future life, he could not live a day in any peace of mind,
urged all parties to unite in making a bulwark against the
common enemy to the Empire. He also foreshadowed
the necessity of counteracting the insidious poison of these
pestilential foes by measures of social and economic benefit
to the industrial proletariat.
The Radicals and Progressives, with the left wing of the
National Liberals, gallantly fought the fight for freedom
of opinion and liberty of political utterance and association
to a finish. But the National Liberals by their action
threw the earth on their own coffin. The programme of
Social Democracy has always terrified middle-class Liberal-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 361
ism more than any other party. Chastened by the
election the Liberals were in a sad quandary. Fearing
the further loss of public support if they resisted the anti-
Socialist law, and surmising that Bismarck could throw
them over and secure the Clerical Centre, they supported
the measure, not from conviction but on calculation.
Persecution of the Socialists was a lesser evil in their eyes
than driving the Chancellor into the arms of Windthorst
and the Vatican. They therefore clung to the broad
principle of supporting the government as the sole means
of retaining their political influence. But in doing so
they sacrificed the essentials of their Liberalism, and they
virtually buried their party as an instrument of progress
and political freedom. Bismarck was quick to recognise
the weskness. He had forced them against the wall and
they had refused to fight. Another sledge-hammer blow
and they would break up. In political arithmetic that
meant that he would get half their votes without any
further concessions, and the other half would melt into
coalition with the Progressives and Radicals. When
National Liberalism had ceased to exist as a solid phalanx
the way would be open for a reactionary Conservatism.
National Liberalism was to learn the wholesome lesson
that when parties prefer tactics to principles and oppor-
tunism to convictions, the funeral service with their
antagonist as the officiating minister is at hand.
The anti-Socialist law was put into operation with
drastic severity. 'Now for the pig-sticking' (Jetzt geht
die Sauhatz- los ! ) Bismarck is reported to have remarked,
and the Prussian police got to work with energies whetted
by their failure against the Catholics. Everything that a
strong executive can do, when directed by men to whom
Social Democracy was the creed of the canaille, was done.
Berlin was placed under the minor state of siege, as were
later Hamburg, Leipzig, Stettin, and other city fly-belts
of the plague. Every club savouring of Socialism was
broken up; newspapers were prosecuted, pamphlets sup-
pressed. The police even forbade subscriptions for the
unfortunates selected for banishment from their homes.
Indeed, everything was done to provoke the broken into
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BISMARCK
violent outrage, to be used as a justification for further
severity. What the Chancellor felt about freedom of
speech was shown in his proposal, first, that two Socialist
members of the Reichstag should be delivered over to the
police because they had dared to attend the Parliament to
which they had been elected; secondly, that the Reichstag
should by law take power to limit the freedom of speech
within the House itself. Both these proposals were
rejected. Every one, except Bismarck and the Conser-
vatives, knew that the ' Muzzling Bill' (Maulkorbgesetz),
as it was speedily nicknamed, would be employed by the
governmental majority in crushing all serious criticism.
Criticism that is successful is always 'offensive' to auto-
crats and bureaucrats. It would be better to close the
Reichstag at once. Well might the most distinguished of
living German historians, Mommsen, publicly say in 1881
that 'the Prussia we had, the Germany we believed we
had, are at an end . . . the freedom of Germany will be
lost for many years to come.
