TO A PRUSSIAN DIPLOMATIST.

Petersburg, 1st July, 1859.

I thank you for your letter, and hope you will not allow the first to be the last. Among the matters which interest me, the Frankfurt negotiations, next to immediate necessities, occupy the first place with me, and I am very much obliged for any news from thence. I regard our policy, up till now, as correct; but I look mournfully into the future. We have armed ourselves too soon and too strongly, and the heavy load which we have assumed is dragging us down an inclined plane. There will be intervention in order to occupy the Landwehr, as people do not like simply to send them back home. We then shall not even be Austria’s reserve, but shall sacrifice ourselves directly for Austria, and relieve her of the stress of war. The first shot on the Rhine brings with it a German war as the chief circumstance, from its threatening Paris. Austria will get breathing time; and will she make use of her freedom to aid us in playing a brilliant part? Will her efforts not rather be directed so to shape the measure and form of our success as it may serve specific Austrian interests? If we are worsted, the Federal States will all desert us, like faded plums in the wind; and each State, the capital of which receives a French garrison, will save itself in a patriotic way on the raft of a new Rhenish Confederation. Perhaps it will be possible to attain a combination of measures on the part of the three great neutral Powers. We are too expensively armed to be able to wait the result as patiently as England and Russia, and our intervention will scarcely bring to light that quadrature of the circle—a peace basis agreeable to France and Austria. The public voice in Vienna is said to be very bitter against their own Government, and is stated to have reached the pitch of hissing their national hymn. Our enthusiasm for war seems also to be only of a moderate character, and it will be difficult to convince the nation that war and its evils are an unavoidable necessity. The proof of this is too artificial for the comprehension of a Landwehr man.

In a business point of view, my position here is very pleasant; but there is a great deal to do to manage forty thousand Prussians, for whom one has to be police, advocate, judge, assistant, and councillor—every day there are twenty to fifty signatures, without passports. I am still, as it were, in camp, with a few beds, towels, and caps, bought in a hurry; without cook and kitchen, as all utensils are wanting—and, in all this heat, without summer clothing! My house is large enough, and handsomely situated on the Newa; three great saloons, two of them larger than those at Seufferheld’s; I have had the Chancery placed in one, with a good flooring, looking-glass doors, and silver chandeliers. All that I have as yet received from Frankfurt are my weapons, unfortunately packed under some crown chandeliers in such a way that three guns were quite broken to pieces, and the barrels ruined. I wonder what wiseacre packed them! If the rest of the things have been packed so, I may perhaps congratulate myself if they have been lost. The insurance is small, if the plate is with it; the premium high, because the fool has insured against “war risk!”

Hohendorf, 3d February, 1860.

I still hear with pleasure, and with a sort of longing for home, all intelligence concerning the state of things and persons at Frankfurt; and when I read the papers, I often feel a desire to hurry into the midst of battles at the sessions. The campaign over the war constitution was capital. Let them proceed openly and daringly to urge our demands; they are too just not finally to be, although slowly, recognized. The Sovereign States, by grace of the Rhenish Confederation and the Diet, can not rely upon their particularity for any duration against the stream of events. As in my recovery, there may occur a time of standing-still and relapse occasionally; but it still will go forward, when we courageously dare and are not ashamed of our daring any more, but openly proclaim in the Diet, in the press, and, above all, in our Chambers, that which we desire to represent in Germany, and what the Federation has hitherto been for Prussia—an Alp and a noose about our necks, with the end of it in the hands of the enemy, that only waits the proper moment to run it tight. But enough of politics.

I hope soon to be in trim for my journey—am perhaps already so. My wife and the physicians conjure me to go south—to Heidelberg or Switzerland. I long for Petersburg, that I may at last live quietly in my own house.

Petersburg, 16th June, 1860.

We are pretty well at present, and I am much better than if I were in Germany without being wanted. Rest and the comforts of domestic life are doing their best. It is 24° in the shade,[43] but always cool nights. Business proceeds, thanks to so delightful a Minister as Gortschakoff, without annoyance—in short, cela va bien, pourvu que cela dure. Our relations here are excellent, no matter what the newspapers may fable about it.

The Augsburger people and Company are still afraid lest I should become Minister, and think they can prevent it by abusing me and my Franco-Russian ideas. It is a great honor to be dreaded by the enemies of Prussia. My political flirtations in the spring, at the Court, and with the Ministry, have, furthermore, been so accurately sifted that they are well aware of what the state of the case is, and how I am believed to find precisely in the national aspirations powers of resistance and strength. If I am written down a devil, it is a Teutonic one, and no Gallic fiend. ——’s lie factory might attack me much more to the purpose on other grounds than on Bonapartism, if they wish to make an impression at our Court, as among the Augsburgers.

St. Petersburg, 22d August, 1860.

I am quite excluded from home politics, for with the exception of newspapers, I only receive official statements, which do not give me the groundwork of things. According to these, we have promised nothing definite at Teplitz, but have made our support of Austria dependent upon that practical demonstration of her good-will towards us in German politics; when this has been done, she may reckon on our gratitude. I should be very content with this; and if we only see the Vienna soap in a lather, we should be glad to return the service. Certainly the indirect accounts we receive from other courts sound otherwise. According to these, if true, though we have not concluded any guarantee treaty, we have, at any rate, bound ourselves verbally to assist Austria, under all circumstances, should she be attacked by France in Italy. Should Austria find it necessary to act on the offensive, our consent would be requisite, if our co-operation is to be anticipated. This version appears more unprejudiced than it would, in fact, be. Austria having security that we should fight for Venice, she will know how to provoke the attack of France—it has been asserted that since Teplitz, Austria has come out boldly and defiantly in Italy. Viennese politics, since the Garibaldian expedition, desire to make things in Italy as bad as they can be, in order that if Napoleon himself should find it necessary to declare against the Italian Revolution, movements should commence on all sides and former conditions be assimilatively restored. This reckoning with and upon Napoleon may be very deceptive, and it would seem as if, since Teplitz, it has been given up, and there were hopes of attaining results by opposing Napoleon. The restless, passionate character of Austrian politics endangers peace in both ways. What will the Chamber say to Teplitz—to the organization of the army? All sensible men will naturally agree with Government as to the latter. But the influence of foreign politics can first be estimated, when it is known what the meaning of Teplitz really is. A well-informed but somewhat Bonapartist correspondent writes to me from Berlin, “We were prettily taken in at Teplitz by Viennese good-humor; sold, for nothing, not even a mess of pottage.” God grant that he errs in this! In speaking of the Bonapartists, it occurs to me that some kind of general rumors reach me, that the press, National Verein, Magdeburger, Ostpreussische Zeitung, carry on a systematic war of calumny against me. I am said to have openly supported Russo-French pretensions respecting a cession of the Rhine province, on the condition of compensation nearer home; I am a second Borries, and so on. I will pay a thousand Fredericks-d’or to the person who will prove to me that any such Russo-French propositions have ever been brought to my knowledge by any one. In the whole period of my German residence I never advised any thing else than that we should rely on our own strength, and in the case of war, upon the aid of the national forces of Germany. These foolish geese of the German press do not see that in attacking me they are losing the better part of their own efforts. I am informed that the fountain-head of these attacks was the Court of Coburg, in a writer who has personal spite against me. Were I an Austrian statesman, or a German Prince and Austrian reactionist, like the Duke of Meiningen, our Kreuzzeitung would have protected me as it has him; the mendacity of these assaults is unknown to some of our political friends. As I am, however, an old member of their party, entertaining particular ideas upon certain points, well known to him to his misfortune, I may be slandered to their hearts’ content. I hear of the whole affair principally from the officious advocacy of the Elberfeld Zeitung, which is sent to me. There is nothing like inquisitors among themselves, and friends, who long have partaken of the same cup, are more unjust than foes. I am satisfied. One ought not to rely on men, and I am thankful for every breath which draws me inward.

Stolpmünde, 18th Sept., 1861.

In reference to the Conservative programme, I fully subscribe to your observations. The negative construction prevailing throughout of the propositions should have been avoided from the first. A political party can never stand, much less conquer position and adherents, by a mere languid defensive policy. Every party professes to abhor the dirt of the German Republic, and the Opposition now forming give themselves honest trouble not to have it—that is, the dirt. A figure of speech so much wider than the requirements of the time, either means nothing, or conceals what people do not desire to say. I myself am in doubt whether the authors of the programme do not really stand at the pure Würzburg point of view. Among our best friends, we have so many doctrinaires who ask from Prussia an identical duty of protecting foreign princes and countries as she protects her own subjects. The system of the solidarity of the conservative interests of all countries, is a dangerous fiction as long as the fullest and most honest reciprocity does not exist between the rulers of all countries. Were Prussia to carry it out in isolation, it would become Quixotism, which would only weaken our King and his Government in the solution of the most important question, viz., that defense of Prussia confided to the Crown of Prussia by the Almighty, against injustice coming from within or without. We are gradually making the whole unhistorical, ungodly, and illegal sovereignty swindle of those German princes who use the Confederation as a pedestal whence to play at being European powers, into the nurse-child of the Conservative party of Prussia. Internally our Prussian Government is liberal; abroad it is legitimist. We respect foreign crown rights with greater constancy than we do our own, and become enthusiastic about those lesser sovereignties created by Napoleon and sanctioned by Metternich, to blindness against all the perils with which the independence of Prussia and Germany is threatened in the future, as long as the nonsense of the present Confederation endures, which is nothing more than a hothouse of dangerous and revolutionary efforts. I could have wished that, instead of vague expressions against the German Republic, it had been openly stated in the programme what we desire to see changed and restored in Germany, whether by justly directed efforts towards alterations in the constitution of the Confederation, such as definite associations like the Customs Union, and the Military Treaty of Coburg. We have the double task of giving evidence that the existing Confederation is not our ideal, but that we purpose to attempt the necessary alterations openly in a legal way, and that we do not intend to go beyond these in confirming security and prosperity. To us the necessity of a firmer consolidation of our defensive powers is as patent as that of daily bread; we require a new and plastic system of customs, and a number of institutions in common, to defend material interests against the evils resulting from the unnatural interior configuration of German frontiers. There should be no doubt as to the sincerity and earnestness with which we ask for these objects. Nor do I see, moreover, why we should recoil so prudishly from the idea of popular representation, whether in the Diet, or in any customs, or associative parliament. Surely we can not combat an institution as revolutionary which is legally established in every German State, and which we Conservatives even would not wish to see abolished, even in Prussia. In national matters we have hitherto regarded very moderate concessions as valuable. A thoroughly conservative national representation might be created, and yet receive the gratitude of the liberals.

I am interrupted by the sounds of packing. In case you still have an opportunity of conferring with our friends on the subject, I enclose you the sketch I read to you with the request, however, that it shall not become public, as I am unaware whether the King would like that this hasty memorandum of the conversation I had with His Majesty, and which I committed to writing at his command, should become known, as I hear several discussions have taken place about it.

Berlin, the 2d Oct., 1861.

In Koblenz and here I have been active for German politics, and in the present state of things not quite without results. I wrote about the 19th of last month from Stolpmünde to your residence here, and enclosed in my letter the draught of the short sketch I had presented to the King. I am to carry this matter into greater detail. If, therefore, the letter and enclosure, as I hope, has reached your hands, I beg of you to send it me to Reinfeld, that I may work it up more completely there. I am really home-sick for my household on the English Quay, with the tranquil view of the Neva ice. On the 13th, it will be necessary to meet at Königsberg.

Berlin, the 16th May, 1864.

I can understand your hesitation against the address, which, however, in my opinion, at the present time seizes the diplomatic position with useful pressure. I may certainly be mistaken in this, for the longer I act in political affairs the less is my confidence in human calculation; and if you feel an inward opposition to it, I speak the less of it, as I would rather be able to declare with a good conscience that the Government has not inspired the idea mirrored in it. The actual state of things, however, is such, that it appears very necessary to let loose all the dogs willing to give tongue (forgive this sporting simile) against Denmark at the conference; the general cry of the pack will effect a conviction on the part of alien Powers that the subjection of the Duchies to Denmark is an impossibility, and the latter will be obliged to consider projects which the Prussian Government can not present to them. Among alien Powers in this last category I class the Holsteiners themselves, together with the Augustenburg, and all the eternally ignoble down to Königsau. The Duchies have hitherto played the part of the birthday child in the German family, and have accustomed themselves to think that we are willing to bring every sacrifice to the altar of their particular interests, and are willing to risk the existence of Prussia for every individual German in the north of Schleswig. The address will especially counteract this frenzy; I do not fear that it will have so strong an effect as to bring us into any difficulty. If Prussian ambition were to rise to such a height among the nation, so that the Government, instead of stimulating, would have to moderate the feeling, I should not at all regret such a condition.

You will perceive from this how I comprehend the matter from a human point of view. As to the rest, my impression of gratitude for God’s assistance till now rises into a conviction that the Lord knows how to turn even our errors to our benefit. I daily observe this with salutary humility.

To clear up the situation I will conclude by saying that to me Prussian annexation is not the chief and necessary end, but probably the most agreeable result.

With hearty salutation to your honored household, I am yours,

Bismarck.