Among the letters preserved from the year 1896 I find an interesting one from Gumplowicz, the professor of philosophy. How I came to correspond with him I do not remember. It is not to be supposed that I could have been drawn to his works in admiration and sympathy, for, together with Gaboriau and Joseph Chamberlain, he is one of the most influential defenders of that vicious race theory on which are based Aryan pride and German and Latin conceit, which are so hateful to my very soul. Probably his son was the occasion of this correspondence. As radical as the father was conservative, he had sent me for my periodical a series of poems, entitled “The Angel of Destruction” (Der Engel der Vernichtung), translated by himself in a masterly manner from the “Slave Songs” of the Polish poet, Adam Asnyk. Whether it was this translation or some other publication which had aroused the displeasure of the German authorities, all I knew was that the young singer of freedom was condemned to a long period of imprisonment. When, during my lecture in Prague at the Deutsches Haus, I quoted various poems, I read also some stanzas from “The Angel of Destruction.” I see from an old account of that lecture that I informed the public of the poet’s fate in the following words:
A soul of fire ... but not wise and prudent: what moved him—sympathy with human misery, indignation against human enslavement—he spoke out too clamorously and in the wrong place, and he is now atoning for it in state prison, with two years and a quarter of solitary confinement.... Do you realize what that means for a youth with exuberant powers of vitality, with a soul full of poetic inspiration, with eager yearning for work, for love, for helping the world to betterment,—seven and twenty months of solitude!... I believe it will rejoice his heart if word is sent him that his verses, so deeply penetrated with emotion, have been heard in this circle, and that his fate has touched a few noble hearts here—it will be to him like a greeting from freedom, for freedom.... And if you now applaud this sentiment, may every handclap count as applause for our imprisoned colleague.
The hearty applause that followed vindicated the defiant bard of peace in Plötzensee.
Here is the letter from the professor at Graz:
Your note caused me great embarrassment. I am asked to give my views on your article, “Two Kinds of Morals,” which would necessitate uttering my opinion concerning your whole philosophy of peace. I will make you a counter-proposal,—fling me, together with the horrid Sighele, into a pot, and leave these naughty professors entirely out of consideration. There is nothing to be done with them. They only spoil your temper, drive you out of your dreams, and spoil that noblest enjoyment of yours which you find in agitating the peace idea. I, at least, will not take it upon me to play such a rascally rôle in opposition to you. You desire to see the picture at Sais and I am to raise the curtain, am I? No, my dear Baroness, that I will not do. I have long made it my principle:
Must I on your account go back on these principles? Again the poet warns me:
Not for a moment do I yield to the illusion that I could persuade you; the chasm is too wide for me to be able to throw a bridge across, and I am not convinced that by doing so I should do any good. It would be a better thing if you could convert me; but hops and malt are lost on me,—I am even worse than Sighele.
The difference between us bad professors and you, Baroness, is this, that we are stating facts,—among them the fact of the “Two Kinds of Morals,”—while you are preaching to the world how it ought to be. I always listen to your preaching with great pleasure. I should have no objection, on the contrary I should be very happy, if the world would change in accordance with your ideas. Only I am afraid that it does not depend on the world to slough off its skin, and that your moralizing is in reality a complaint lodged against the dear God in heaven, who made the world as it is. Yes, if you could stir him to bring out his work in a second revised edition, that would be really a success!
By all means believe that if the world will only “have the will,” then everything will come out all right! Because of taking that very standpoint my son is in prison in Plötzensee. He, too, could not comprehend that the State is so “unmoral” as to let the unemployed go hungry while it has control of bread and nourishment in ample sufficiency, this being in direct contravention of the commandment about love for the neighbor. And so he went forth and gave the State a castigation, calling it a “band of exploiters,” a “legally organized horde of bandits.” From the standpoint of “the one and only morality” he was perfectly right. Since he has been in prison I have refrained from attacking this standpoint to his face. Why? Because this enthusiasm for this “one and only morality,” the bringing about of which he has been striving for, makes him happy and enables him easily to endure all the trials and privations of his dungeon. And just for the same reason I have no idea of attacking to your face the standpoint which you accept; for in your endeavor to make this clear to all the world you are certainly finding your greatest happiness. How could I satisfy my conscience if I willingly disturbed your happiness?
Go on your way, my dear Baroness, in peace; do not worry about the Sigheles; do not read Gumplowicz’s “Conflict of the Races”; it might cause you sad hours; and do remain always what you are,—the champion of a beautiful idea! In order to fulfill that mission stick to the persuasion that this idea is the truth, the sole and only truth. And of this belief may no professorial chatter ever rob you!
With this wish, I remain with the sincerest respect
I have inserted this letter in my memoirs because I like to let the opponents, especially such eminent opponents, have their say. What reply I made to the professor I do not remember, but assuredly I did not leave uncontroverted the idea that I was pleased by the condescension with which he regarded my views as pleasing delusions! The morality that to-day is already beginning to influence the lives of individuals is not a fact handed down by tradition from the creation of the world, but a phase gradually won by social development and beginning to react on governmental life and to work on quite different factors from mere “hearts that glow calmly for peace.”
Italy at that time was trying to make war in Africa. It wanted to conquer Abyssinia; but that was not so easy. The Negus was victorious in many battles. The Italians had been obliged to withdraw from Fort Makoli. Then Menelik expressed his desire to enter into peace negotiations. General Baratieri sends Major Salsa into the enemy’s camp. But no conclusion of peace is reached. The Negus demands the evacuation of the newly acquired territories; whereupon Baratieri sends word that these propositions can neither be accepted nor be taken into consideration as a basis of further proceedings. So then, further prosecution of the war. Reënforcements are sent. The Riforma declares that Baratieri has done well in refusing the Negus’s overtures; they insult the dignity of the nation.
In place of Baratieri another generalissimo is to be shipped off, and the victory of Italy is assured. General Baldissera, Austrian born, who in the year 1866 had fought against Italy, is intrusted with this mission of conquest. So now let it be said that it can be something else than the most glowing patriotism that moves the mover of battles!...
And Menelik meantime? A French physician, drawn to the enemy’s camp during a journey of research, wrote from Oboch:
The Negus received me.... Is he really sad, or does he only put it on? He keeps affirming that he is to the last degree troubled about this war which has cost and will continue to cost the shedding of so much Christian blood. He is attacked—he defends himself; yet if he is too hard pushed and they want to try it again, then—Menelik seems confident as to the upshot of the war, but why so much blood?
Why, O swarthy Emperor? Because the white gentlemen in the editorial offices declare that it is the “duty demanded by honor.”
In Italy the protest of the people against the continuation of the war continues to grow louder. But since it is Republicans and Socialists who vote for the discontinuance of the campaign, their demonstrations are suppressed by the government. On February 29 a great anti-African banquet was planned in Milan, but forbidden by the prefecture. And on the next day comes the terrible news of the defeat in Adowa,—eight thousand men fallen—the rest put to flight—two generals killed—in short, a catastrophe; wild agony in Italy and sympathy throughout Europe. All the fury is concentrated on Baratieri because he attempted such a sortie.
Out of the multitude of reports about Adowa I have entered in my diary only one or two lines from Il Corriere della Sera of the eighth of March: “The soldiers of Amara, who are cruel brigands, hacked down the Italian wounded, mutilated them, and tore the clothes from their bodies.”
Gentlemen of the press, who have demanded the continuance of the war, does it not occur to your consciences that you are accessories in the mutilation of your fellow-countrymen? No, they demand that the blood of the fallen shall be avenged,—in other words, that still others, unnumbered, shall experience the same misfortune. L’Opinione writes:
Baratieri’s act was that of a lunatic; he wasted in a craven way the lives of eight thousand soldiers and two hundred officers. But our military honor remains unblemished. The material lost will be replaced within a month; our military power remains as it was. The country understands this and is ready to avenge the blood of the fallen. Those who think the contrary are a handful of people [that is to say, those who come out against the war—ah, why are they only a handful?], people without God and without a country. Nevertheless, these people can do no harm, for the nation is against them.
Was it?... A dispatch of March 9 says:
The anti-African movement is assuming great dimensions. In Rome, Turin, Milan, Bologna, and Padua, committees of ladies are active in getting signatures for a peace petition to Parliament. This has been signed by many thousand persons.
So acted the ladies; the women of the people were still more energetic. They threw themselves down on the rails before the cars that were about to carry away their husbands and sons to the place of embarkation, and thus actually prevented the departure of the trains.
Likewise in the barracks, a protest is made against sending more men to the African shambles, and large numbers of deserters are escaping over the border. What is beginning to take place in the whole country is a battle between the idea of war and that of peace.
The King, the first war lord, with a military education, grown up in soldierly traditions, sees only the possibility of continuing the war, of winning a victory, of brilliantly bestowing the honor of his arms,—would sooner abdicate than conclude peace now!... He would be glad to retain Crispi, but a storm is arising against him throughout the land and—Crispi falls. A new ministry is formed. Rudini—that name stands on the list of the Interparliamentary Union—becomes Prime Minister. What will he demand in the name of the government at the opening of Parliament? The Crispi journals and the papers representing the war party are fierce against any idea of peace: “Revenge for Adowa!” Guerra a fondo! (“War to the bitter end!”) And had it been a lustrum earlier, this cry alone would have come to the surface. Yet louder and more impetuously now arise the voices in protestation against the continuance of the unrighteous war. The movement of protest was organized; hence it was effective. Through Teodoro Moneta I learned all that was going on in this direction. It was a victory; for the new minister, Rudini, did not demand the continuance of the war....
It might be urged that what I am relating is really a political-historical chronicle, and not a biography. But it is my life’s history; for the very life of my soul was closely bound up with these events. My thoughts, my labors, my correspondence, were all filled with those performances on the world’s stage. And that I am repeating what is for the most part a matter of common knowledge, what was printed in the newspapers everywhere, and therefore is treasured in the memory of all,—this I do not believe. The forgetfulness of the public is great. What one day brings, the next swallows up again. I know from my own experience how, before I had begun to live for the peace cause, political events, even though they were important, disappeared from my memory without leaving a trace, if indeed they had attracted my attention at all. But now I noted in my diary everything that related to the struggle that was taking place between the new idea and the old institutions; this was the red thread which I followed in weaving the history of the day,—a thread which assuredly has quite escaped those who have not kept their eyes expressly fixed upon it.
A letter from my friend Carneri, written during the Italo-African war, shows that I had vigorously complained to him of the pain which that tragedy was causing me. The letter ran:
Do not be vexed if I fail to attain my object, which is none other than to give you permanent comfort in your suffering over the present condition of the civilized world.
We two from the beginning have taken a quite different standpoint (you may still remember my hesitation at the first invitation to join the Peace Society, and that I yielded, much less won by the cause itself than by your own personal charm), and I should like to bring you to my way of thinking, which consequently should be yours.
“Consequently,”—how so? I hear you say. Because you, like me, accept the theory of evolution. This knows nothing of a complete cessation of conflict, and recognizes only a gradual amelioration of the methods of the conflict. It also knows nothing of a complete disappearance of want—not to be confused with the wretchedness of poverty, which can very properly be checked; this theory holds rather that want is the great stimulus to progress. A cessation of all want would be absolute stagnation, and therefore it is just as little thinkable as a world of nothing but good people, which would be a contradiction in itself, just as it would be to think of a day without night.
I believe firmly in progress; but I expect it to come not in a universal improvement of men, but as a gradual refinement of the good. If you could be content with this modest but firmly established view of life, you would not need to make any change in your activity in the cause of peace, but you would look at the world with that calmness with which one must face what is unalterable, and you would be safeguarded against disillusions as painful as they are superfluous.
The movement toward the quickest possible establishment of a general arbitration tribunal is now on, and must take its course. At least do not promote it; for if it remain without results, this would be far more favorable for the cause of peace than if such a court, which would have to be preceded by an international agreement, should make a perfect fiasco. The only practical thing to-day is that the contending parties should themselves choose arbitrators in whom they have confidence. This custom is, happily, getting to be more and more generally adopted, and all attempts to push it can only endanger it. To win more and more advocates for this custom is the task which will bring the greatest blessings from the work of these peace unions; but all the peace unions in the world have not as yet in all this time performed such a service for the idea of peace as my Martha alone with her matchless tale.
This is one thing you have to keep ever before you, and if you will join me in smiling at the Utopias of those who believe it possible to have a world of angels, then you will share my indifference in the way you regard that ancient beast, Man, and his constant readiness to heap up inflammables on inflammables.
Do you remember how I warned you against an American who counseled disarmament? They will yet, in alliance with Russia, threaten Europe; and I am thoroughly convinced that it is only the enormous armies, which no one would be able to command and provide for, that are to-day an assurance of peace and are smoothing the way for the arbitrators.
The defeat of the Italians in Africa pains me; but it is a wholesome lesson. If I were Crispi’s successor, I should have no scruple in openly declaring, “Italy has been deservedly punished for a great offense; let us not make the offense worse; we have something better to do,” and Italy would give jubilant ratification to
I possess a copy of my reply, and I give some extracts from it:
Your letter is a new proof of your affection. I have known for a long time that you are not one of us,—have known it from the day when you discovered that it would be money ill spent to contribute a legacy as a proof of respect to my life work. You find my work useless,—almost harmful; but at the same time you love Martha and Löwos, and would like to spare Martha pain. But, my dear, if I did not feel pain what would be the impulse for my work? Certainly not, as my enemies say, vanity? You surely do not believe that? No, pain at the way men stick to their barbarism is what penetrates me and compels me to oppose my weak activity against the general inaction. If one should keep waiting for the next century or so for things to be done of themselves, they would never get done. After the principle of railroads was discovered (they, too, were sufficiently opposed), locomotives and tracks had also to be built, without waiting until a future generation should be ripe for such a mode of travel....
The war that does not break out because of worry over the responsibility, that is to say, because of the excess of armaments, is not peace, for it is doubly precarious: in the first place, because the armaments are in themselves ruinous, materially and morally, for they exhaust all resources, they enslave and degrade men, and they must keep alive the spirit of war and the worship of force, which is happening in all schools at the present time; secondly, because the explosion of the powder magazine is left to depend on the arbitrary will of a few people....
Of course disarmament—especially of a single state—cannot begin immediately; but just as the interminable increase of armaments is the consequence of the anarchy that prevails in the mutual relations of states, so would disarmament be the consequence of their mutual relations based upon law....
And if only people would not keep saying to us believers in evolution that the progress of culture is slow, as if we did not know it! But, because of that, to leave the first steps to the next generations and stand still ourselves is not a correct way to apply our knowledge of the slowness of the general movement forward; for we ought also to know that this trifling advance of the whole mass is the result of the greatest haste and the greatest output of energy on the part of single atoms.
... Yes, you are right; one looks calmly into the face of the unalterable and is spared painful disillusionment; but you are not right in adding that with such a realization I could maintain the same activity; for I regard the present state of things as not unalterable, and my whole activity consists in nothing else whatever than in modest but steady coöperation, according to my ability, in bringing about the change.
Your scruples about the Universal Court of Arbitration now in process of establishment rest upon an erroneous conception of the plan. That is usually the cause of mistaken judgments. It is believed that Mr. X is aiming at something irrational, and one therefore hesitates about helping Mr. X. On the other hand, Mr. X knows very accurately all the objections to what is attributed to him; unfortunately, however, the real thing that he wants is not known....
“Share your indifference in the way I regard that ancient beast, Man, and his constant readiness to heap up inflammables on inflammables.” No, the “young God” in man cannot have this indifference if he is going to conquer the ancient beast in man. The great heaps of inflammables, which are to-day growing smaller and smaller, even though they are still predominant, must not be left under the illusion that their realm is inviolable; and besides,
What separates us two is faith. If you believed, as I do, in the possibility of the result, you would suffer as keenly as I do from the inertia of the world around us, but you would yourself take hold and act, and you would find your own pain and grief a small price for the beckoning reward; at the same time you would have the additional joys which often stir me when I see how the work is advancing; how, here and there, ever more numerous and ever more determined, are arising those who demand the accomplishment of what is already granted theoretically by the majority.
May the difference of our beliefs in peace matters in no respect embitter our old friendship, but do not attempt any more to free me from my worries; it is in vain. Only he can mitigate them who shares them and helps me in the battle, but helps not because he is “won by personal charm,” but because he believes in the possibility, in the necessity, of this battle.
At this period I had still other political joys and sorrows. The persecutions of Armenians in Turkey were ever assuming more grewsome proportions. The Balkan tribes, in their distress, put their hope in the peace societies. One day I was surprised by the following dispatch from Rustchuk:
A meeting attended by more than two thousand persons was held to-day to express the wish that the twenty-third article of the Treaty of Berlin might be made operative in Turkey. It was voted in the name of the freedom of all the peoples of Turkey, and with a view to putting an end to the continual shedding of blood and preventing a possible European war, to urge you to enlist the services of the Peace League in recommending to the European governments the enforcement of Article 23 of the Berlin Treaty.
The insurrection of the unhappy Cubans, and the Draconic method of subjugation employed by the Spaniards, was a real paroxysm of the system of force. General Weyler, who was hated with a deadly hatred by the Cubans on account of his cruelties, was sent over as Governor General. On his arrival he issued a proclamation; the neat document is “sharp,” that must be confessed:
The death penalty for promulgation, directly or indirectly, of news favorable to the insurrection; death for assisting in smuggling arms or for failing to prevent same; death for the telegraph operator who communicates news of the war to third persons; death for any one who verbally or through the press or in any other way lowers the prestige of Spain; death for any one who utters words favorable to the rebels, etc.,—these punishments to be determined by a court-martial without appeal, and all verdicts to be immediately executed.
Thereupon great indignation in the United States regarding the Spanish dictatorship.
And now the joyful things which my diary contains:
A great event has happened: a professor in Würzburg,—his name is on all lips,—Professor Röntgen, has discovered a way of photographing the invisible by invisible rays. O thou wonderful world of magic! What splendid surprises hast thou still in store for us? Invisible rays which disclose the hidden—utterly new horizons open before us. Thus science enriches the world without having caused any increase of poverty or destruction. This is the true expander of empire,—a contrast to the sword which enriches one person only by what it has snatched from another, mangling him into the bargain!
And another joy I found in the progress of the Anglo-American arbitration treaty for the settlement of all differences, without any reference to the limitations that later treaties contain. It was not yet adopted and ratified, but the negotiations were powerfully urged on both sides of the ocean. The editors of the Review of Reviews (William T. Stead) and the Daily Chronicle, in coöperation with the English pacifists, established inquiries, meetings, demonstrations, petitions—in short, a popular movement, in which the most distinguished men of the day were enlisted and induced to take part. At the meeting which, on the third of March, brought six thousand people to Queen’s Hall, sympathetic letters were read from Gladstone, Balfour, Rosebery, Herbert Spencer, and others. The resolve of this meeting was communicated officially by its chairman, Sir James Stansfeld, a former member of the Cabinet and friend of Lord Salisbury’s, to the latter, whereupon the Premier replied that the matter had the sanction of the government. On Easter Sunday three English Church dignitaries issued a manifesto to the people. The issuer applied directly to Cardinal Rampolla, and he replied with the approval of the pope.
On the other side of the ocean there was the same movement in favor of the treaty. A national convention is called in Washington for the twenty-second and twenty-third of April for the same purpose, and the signatories are statesmen, bishops, judges, governors. President Cleveland is well known to be inspired with the same desire; in short, the conclusion of the treaty may confidently be expected to take place very soon; and a new epoch of the history of civilization will be thereby initiated.
Now death overtook the former French Prime Minister, in whom our movement had such a firm support,—Jules Simon. My friend Frédéric Passy was especially affected at this bereavement. It is a matter of common knowledge that Jules Simon had won the sympathies of Emperor William II.
I have a letter from the famous statesman and philosopher which shows clearly with what conviction and passionate eagerness he fought against the institution of war. I had written urging him to attend a festival meeting of our Union in Vienna, and received the following reply:
You ask if I will come to the meeting at Vienna. Alas! no, and I am very sorry that I cannot. I have taken upon me all kinds of obligations which are devouring my life without any too great advantage to the causes I am serving. You thoughtlessly accept an engagement and discover the next morning that if you had not alienated your liberty you could make a better use of your energies.
I could do nothing which would be more in line with my ideas and my tastes, if it be permitted to speak of one’s inclinations when it is a question of duty; no, I could do nothing that would satisfy me better than to go to Vienna and fight under your leadership and that of your friends against this eternal war from which we are suffering in the midst of perfect peace, and which is becoming a disease endemic in the whole human race.
I know perfectly well that I should not say anything which has not been said and which ought not to be repeated again this time. I do not blush for our cause because of its antiquity, nor because of the necessity which rests on its defenders of reiterating unceasingly the same arguments and the same complaints. It is like a Catholic litany, which ceaselessly repeats the same words to the same music, and which, in its monotony, is none the less an energetic and passionate prayer. I should have liked to mingle my voice in that chorus of thousands of voices which will be raised in protest against the collective assassinations, against the official massacres, against the destruction of human life and property in this horrible hell.
As I am unable to go there and raise my voice, I find some consolation, madam, in sending you my lamentation; and permit me to add to it my perfect admiration for all you are doing, and the homage of my respect.
Now we were getting ready to start for Budapest, where, during the Millennial Festival, the Seventh World’s Peace Congress and the Seventh Interparliamentary Conference were to be held.
General Türr was chosen as chairman of the Congress. On the twenty-sixth of August we were surprised by a dispatch from Türr announcing that he was coming to Harmannsdorf. He had arrived in Vienna from Rome, and before continuing his journey to Budapest he wanted to fulfill a promise made long before to visit us in our home.
It gave us great delight, and in order to show it we prepared a grand reception for him. Before the entrance to the palace a triumphal arch was erected, adorned with the inscription
and when the carriage that brought him from the station, whither My Own had gone to meet him, drove up, a double line of our foresters performed a fanfare. Türr was greatly pleased with the fun.
Although he was then seventy-one years old, he was as fresh and martial and elastic in his bearing as if he had been only fifty at most. At our house he added another to his conquests. Not to speak of myself, our pretty niece Maria Louise, who was twenty-two, was so fascinated by him that she begged a cousin who was a painter and happened to be with us to make a life-size portrait of the handsome old warrior. The portrait was painted and she hung it in her boudoir.
My diary has the following entry under date of August 26:
On arising I find a dispatch from Türr. Wire reply and make preparations. Arrival at four o’clock. Much fun over triumphal gate, banners, and fanfare; looks fine. At the very first, long chat in the billiard room about the Congress. Still much to be done in preparation, but the larger part has already been begun by his friends, and through his influence many advances by the government. Dinner with the whole family. Then black coffee in the garden. Very interesting stories. On the whole, he is full of gayety, goodness, and wit—like all men of the highest distinction who have been condemned to death two or three times!
Of the anecdotes from his experiences, which he intermingled with his conversation, I jotted down a few afterwards in a condensed form:
In the year 1868 he came to Vienna, commissioned by King Victor Emmanuel, whose adjutant general he was, to bring this message to Emperor Franz Joseph: “Tell the Emperor that in me he has not only a good relative but also a good friend.” Türr told us in what a friendly manner the Emperor received the message and the messenger—although he had once been proscribed and under the ban as a revolutionist.
Türr had no specially good things to say of Bismarck. From his conversations with the Chancellor he quoted the following remarks: “After supper I brought Rechberg to the point of letting me buy Lauenburg—I wanted to prove that this Austrian would sell what he had no right to.” And again: “I have not succeeded very well in persuading my king that we must wage war against Austria, but I have brought him to the very edge of the ditch, and now he must leap.”
Türr was once talking with a Chinaman about civilization. “Do you know,” remarked the man from the Middle Kingdom, “that your liberté, fraternité, égalité, are very fine, but a fourth thing is necessary.”
“And that is—?”
Un harmonisateur.
“What is that?”
The Chinaman, making a gesture suggestive of whipping, said, Le bambou.
Türr is also somewhat of the opinion that it would be a good thing if men could have some of their bad qualities whipped out of them, especially some of their stupidity. La bêtise humaine est in-com-men-su-ra-ble ... and that word is still too short!
With this sigh of resignation he used to conclude his observations over this or that piece of immeasurable stupidity among men.
He told us ever so much about his life as a soldier. He had already passed his fiftieth year in military service, for he had entered the army in 1842. During this half century he had seen so much that was horrible on the various battlefields, that he had consequently become an enemy of war:
It was in May, 1860. We were marching with Garibaldi’s thousand heroes against Palermo. In the neighborhood of the market place of Partenio we had a glimpse of something that filled the hardest-hearted of us with horror. Beside the road a dozen Bourbon soldiers lay dead, and a pack of dogs were gnawing at their bodies.... We approached and saw that the soldiers had been burned. Garibaldi expressed his indignation at this in a terrible outbreak of rage. He could hardly hold in till he entered the little town. The inhabitants received him with joy, but he shouted to the exulting people in a voice trembling with wrath:
“I have seen here a barbarous deed—the partisans of freedom have no right to give way to such inhumane cruelty....”
The people listened in deep silence to the general’s outburst of passion. Finally some one came forward and said:
“We must acknowledge that we have done wrong, but before you condemn us, listen to what happened here; perhaps you will find our action comprehensible....”
And the people conducted the general to a group of houses. He was taken into four or five of these houses and shown a heap of women and children, all scorched and burned to cinders. “This is what the Bourbon soldiers have done,” they cried; “they drove the women and children into these houses, set the houses on fire, and would not let one escape. They guarded the doors until the wretched creatures struggled with death in the flames. We heard their screams of agony and hurried to help them; but it was too late.... In our bitter indignation we could only wreak our vengeance for the innocent victims by hurling the monsters into the fire in turn, and then we brought them out into the road.”
Türr told us also of the document that Garibaldi, after the campaign was concluded, sent to all the crowned heads of Europe, urging them to form a league of peace. No notice was taken of this action and it is generally unknown. The only trace of it still remaining is the remark in the encyclopedia under the name Garibaldi: “Brave, patriotic, disinterested, warm-hearted, but without deep political insight, a visionary.” But it was really General Türr who suggested that attempt. Again I quote his own words:
One evening at Naples I was with Garibaldi on the balcony. The general, according to his usual custom, was contemplating the sky full of glorious stars. For a long time he was silent; at last he said:
“Dear friend, we have again done only half a job. God knows how much blood will still have to be shed before the unity of Italy is established.”
“May be ... but, general, you can be contented with the great result that we have brought about within six months. The shedding of much blood might be avoided if better views should obtain among the rulers.... If, as far as it were possible, an agreement might be entered into by the European countries; if what Henry the Fourth and Elizabeth, Queen of England, centuries ago dreamed, and what Minister Sully so beautifully described, could be brought about,—who knows but the king’s noble idea might even then have been realized, if a fanatic’s dagger had not struck him down. But it would seem as if the time had now come to carry it out, so as to save Europe from other dreadful massacres and battles. General, you have accomplished a great work; you would seem to be the very one to bring an appeal to the rulers and the nations in the interest of peace and confederation.”
We talked for a long time about this, and the very next morning Garibaldi brought the appeal which, with a few modifications, we sent to the powers. Since that time I have often had that appeal printed. Whenever opportunity has offered I have striven to call the attention of those in power and the great public to Garibaldi’s lofty ideas. And now, when the peace workers and the representatives of the nations are about to assemble on the occasion of the Millennial Festival, I am going once more to bring forth the never-to-be-forgotten leader’s inspired words of exhortation. It will not fail to be interesting—amid the conservative tendencies—to hear ideas of the so-called “revolutionists and subverters,” dictated as they were by the purest philanthropy; for those men sought to overthrow nothing except the dikes that block freedom and progress.
General Türr pulled out of his pocket a copy of Garibaldi’s appeal and handed it to me. It is an interesting document, and it makes one realize how thoughts which are regarded as new have been conceived many years back, and how they are swallowed up in forgetfulness, no matter how eloquently they may have been spoken. Ever again and ever again they have to emerge, like something new, surprising people, until at last they become common property.
In this appeal Garibaldi points to the enormous armaments of the sixties (what would he say to-day!); he laments that in the midst of so-called civilization we fill our lives with mutual threats against one another. He proposes an alliance of all the states of Europe; then there would be no more fighting forces on land and sea (that we should be now building air-fleets he did not foresee), and the enormous funds that have to be withdrawn from the necessities of the nations for unproductive, death-dealing purposes might be made available for ends that would improve property and lift the level of human life; these latter are then enumerated.
The document also gives satisfactory answers to possible objections. “What will become of the multitude of men who are serving in the army and in the navy?”
Rulers would have to study institutions of common utility if their minds were no longer absorbed in ideas of conquest and devastation.... In consequence of the advance in industry and the greater stability of commerce, the merchant service would soon take care of the whole personnel of the navy; the immense and innumerable works and undertakings which would spring up because of peace, the alliance, and security, would employ twice as many men as are serving in the army.
The appeal concludes with warm words addressed to those princes to whom “the sacred duty is intrusted of doing good and cherishing that greatness which is higher than ephemeral false greatness,—that true greatness the foundation of which would be the love and the gratitude of the nations.”
General Türr returned that same evening to Vienna and went the next day to Budapest, where he finished the laborious preparations for the Congress.
Two days before the Congress opened we three followed him there. I say “we three,” for we took our niece Maria Louise with us; we wanted her to enjoy this journey and the social festivities with us.
I see us on board a Danube steamer. It was a beautiful, sunny September day. There was quite a little peace band of us,—Malaria, Dr. Kunwald, the Grollers, husband and wife, and Countess Pötting, “die Hex”; of friends from abroad,—Frédéric Passy, Gaston Moch and his wife, Yves Guyot the former Minister, publisher of Le Siècle and a great free trader before the Lord, the Grelix couple, and M. Claparède from Switzerland.
So we had already a little Congress on deck; even at meals our company clung together. We passed by Pressburg, by Gran with its proud episcopal palace, and at Waitzen a deputation from Budapest which had been sent out to meet us came aboard,—three members of the Congress committee, and with them a reporter of the Pesti Napló (the “Budapest Journal”). It was already evening and all the lights were ablaze when we slowly came into port. On the dock stood other members of the committee, among them Director Kemény, who greeted us with an address; and gathered about was a dense throng shouting Éljen! (“Hail!”) at the top of their voices. Carriages in waiting whirled us all to the Hotel Royal, where General Türr and a number of other colleagues were already awaiting us. That was the day of our arrival, September 15. By the entries in my diary I will now bring in review before my memory the week of the Budapest Congress and Conference.
September 16. Interviews the whole morning. Leopold Katscher brings me newspapers and tells about the preliminary labors. Luncheon in the Hotel Hungaria given by General Türr with only a few intimate friends. Visits with Karolyi, Banffy, and others. In the evening of this day before the opening of the Congress all the delegates are invited to a reception in the great drawing-rooms of the Hotel Royal. Türr and Count Eugen Zichy, the great Asiatic traveler, act as hosts. At supper various addresses: Pierantoni, a giant in stature, with a stentorian voice, speaks in Italian, and as fascinatingly as if he were a famous reader rather than a famous teacher of international law. I make the acquaintance of Dr. Ludwig Stein, professor in Bern University, whose philosophical feuilletons in the press have long been a delight to me. Frédéric Passy and Frédéric Bajer speak, and the “Peace Fury” is also obliged to take part.
September 17. Opening session in the council chamber of the new City Hall. Before the door, in the entrance hall, and on the stairs are stationed pandours, splendid in their lace-adorned uniforms and armor. It reminds one of the reception at the Capitol. The hall is packed. The galleries are densely crowded. Türr takes his place on the platform between the Minister of the Interior and the Mayor. He opens the Congress with a brief, vigorous address. Here is a passage from it:
Not so very long ago there were princes and noblemen who fought one another and exercised jurisdiction over their subjects and serfs. If any one at that day had told them that the time would come when they would be required to bring their quarrels before a judge, they would have declared that person a dreamer, a Utopian, or something worse. And now these great lords are compelled to appear before the judge, where all their former serfs stand on the same footing with them.
This change might be brought about also in the relations of the powers, and all the easier since it does not here concern two or three hundred princes and thousands of members of the high and lower nobility. We have to-day six great powers; and even these have united,—some in the Triple Alliance, the others in a friendly union; and all for the purpose of preserving peace.
Now then, only one further step is required. If these two groups unite, then the smaller states will join, and the free confederation of the European powers is accomplished.
After the session the participants in the Congress are conducted to the Millennial Exposition,—the “Historical Exposition,” ... a thousand years of Hungarian history, from the primitive simplicity of the semibarbarous time of Arpád down to the refined industry of the highly developed—let us say only quarter-barbarous—to-day. And if another thousand years pass by and again an exposition illustrates the course of development, will the little medals with the word pax on them, such as we all have attached to our clothes as tokens, at that time be found perchance among the articles of apparel?
In the evening a garden party in Oes-Budavar. Everywhere at the appearance of the troops of peace ring forth from the densely encircling public hearty shouts of Éljen!
September 18. An interesting session. Élie Ducommun reads the report about the events of the past year. In the first place the progress of arbitration and the other successes and labors of the League; then a survey of the military events in Egypt, Abyssinia, Cuba, and Madagascar; finally, the latest events in Turkey. “Whoever may have been the originators of the atrocities, every civilized man must condemn them, just as he must condemn those who permitted the atrocities.”[10]
James Capper, the sympathetic Englishman with the white, apostolic head, with the hearty, ringing voice, gets the floor. “The report of the Central Bureau,” he says, “shows so clearly the absurdity of the so-called armed peace.... What! The many armies, the terrible engines of destruction, are for the purpose of furnishing and maintaining peace, are they? and yet six million soldiers have not sufficed to prevent the infamies that have been taking place in the Orient! We should not look idly on while brigands trample down a whole nation! If I see in the street a child attacked by villains, I consider it my duty to interfere with both fists in defense of the one attacked, and if in the struggle I should have to lose my life, I would do it willingly!” Loud applause. We all feel it would be a legitimate use of force to protect the persecuted against force.
A young French priest, Abbé Pichot, moves that the Congress send an address to the Pope, begging him to grant the movement his support: it is known to him that Leo XIII had the peace cause much at heart, and that a word of approval from that quarter would be of the highest value. I spring to my feet and second the motion. I also know for a fact that the Pope has frequently of late years spoken against preparations for war and in favor of the international arbitration tribunal; but it is not sufficiently well known, because these utterances were made to a Russian publicist and an editor of the Daily Chronicle. The Catholic press and the Church generally, as well as the whole Catholic world, have failed to hear those words. How very different would be the effect if the Pope should direct these observations of his directly to the millions of his faithful. So then, I urged, let the respectful request be submitted to him that he embody in an encyclical the expressions of encouragement already often pronounced by him in the presence of the advocates of peace. Some one objects: the motion could not fail to offend those of other beliefs, especially freethinkers; no religious tendency should be introduced. Frédéric Passy explains that we are dealing not with religious but with humanitarian demonstrations. The motion is carried.
In the evening, gala performance of the opera Der Geiger von Cremona.[11]
I receive a letter from Dr. Julius Ofner, deputy to the Austrian Parliament. I give the text of it here:
... I should gladly have taken part in the deliberations on the international arbitration tribunal. The talk that is made on this point seems to me too timid, too much directed to the welfare of the states and too little to their duties; apostles do not flatter.
From a legal point of view there can be no doubt: no law without a judge; no one can decide in his own cause, and history teaches that if states desire even the most unrighteous things, they have always found crown jurists to defend them and declare them lawful. As long, therefore, as there is no tribunal erected for international differences, there will be international politeness, international morals, but no international justice. The strong is infallible; injured justice turns only against the weak. The appeal to sovereignty, which, it is said, must not be curtailed, is nothing but a cloak for the desire to be permitted to do arbitrary wrong. For all law limits the single individual for the advantage of the rest, limits arbitrariness for the advantage of universal liberty. Law and righteousness are at the foundation of all culture, and what Kant said in regard to mankind in general applies to states,—“If there were no law it would not be worth while for men to live on earth.”
There is nothing sensational in the session. The afternoon is spent at the Othon, a journalists’ club. In Türr’s company my niece and I make a call on Prime Minister Banffy.
September 20. Outing for the members of the Congress. We are taken on special steamboats to the Margareteninsel, where the committee provide a luncheon. The weather is splendid—the tables are set in the open air, surrounded by the wonderful grounds of the park. “Do you know, my dear colleagues and friends,” said General Türr, “this island was formerly a wilderness. The owner, Archduke Joseph, by clearing, cultivating, and decorating it, has made a paradise of it. So may that wilderness which to-day prevails in international life be turned by the civilizing power of the work of peace into a blooming land like the Margareteninsel.”
Of course others also speak. Deep emotion is caused, however, when an Italian delegate, a former captain on the general staff, Conte di Pampero, lifting up his eight-year-old son and standing him on the table, asks permission to speak in the name of the youngest member of the Congress, and, laying his hand as if in blessing on the lad’s head, adjures those present to bring up their children, just as he is doing, to hate war and love humanity....
September 21. Very lively debate over dueling. A delegate—Félix Lacaze from France—makes the motion that all Peace Societies shall require their members to agree to decline all duels. A great controversy arises. Count Eugen Zichy declares that if this is carried he must as a matter of honor resign from the Union. Such an obligation cannot be undertaken in certain countries and in certain circles. The English members, who are indignant that the duel is being discussed, are provoked and refuse to allow Count Zichy to have the floor a second time, although he declares he wishes to speak in the line of conciliation. Finally Houzeau de Lehaye, the ever conciliatory, offers a compromise resolution which, although declaring that nothing can be mandatory upon the members, nevertheless urges them to make every effort to discourage the use of the duel, as contradictory to the principles which they are supporting, and to secure the execution of the laws that relate to it.
I have made an interesting new acquaintance,—a Russian by the name of Nepluief. He introduced himself to me during a recess in the proceedings, and is urging me to support his ideas. He has founded in his country an institution based on the principles of education for peace. He gives the impression of being a grand seigneur, and at the same time a deeply religious man. His idea in coming here is to acquaint the Congress with the institution which he has called into life, and have it imitated everywhere. He called himself on his visiting card “Président de la Confrérie ouvrière de l’Exaltation de la Croix.” In this way he imparts an ecclesiastical tinge to his socialistic undertaking. A multimillionaire, possesser of wide landed estates and numerous factories in the Government of Chernigof, he began his career as a diplomat, but gave it up in order to devote himself wholly to the task of elevating the Russian peasants morally and materially. At his own expense he founded popular schools for industrial and agricultural training, and peasant unions which he calls “Brotherhoods.” From the first he gave these unions a share in the profits of his undertaking; later he turned over his whole property to their complete control, reserving for himself only the title of life president of these enterprises. But things did not run smoothly. For years he had to contend with the ill will of the Russian bureaucracy, which suspected him of being a socialist. Finally, however, his work of education brought him satisfactory results. He has explained his methods and experiences in a pamphlet, which he distributed to the members of the Congress. He himself departed from Budapest the same day.[12]
In the evening a banquet is given by the city.
September 22. A deputation from the Society for the Protection of Animals call upon me and beg me to support their endeavors. I reply that I have at that moment a book under way, entitled Schach der Qual (“Check to Suffering”), in which there is to be a chapter pleading for our poor dumb fellow-creatures, that are so cruelly treated.
Final session. At half past one General Türr ends the Congress with the greeting Auf Wiedersehn. The “meeting again” takes place two hours later, in the Hotel Royal, where a farewell dinner is given to the president and the committee and the rest of us. Malaria—Olga Wisinger—had taken charge of the arrangements. But even now there is no general breaking up, for many of the participants remain here in order to be present at the opening to-morrow of the Interparliamentary Conference.
We were also among those who were going to remain a few days longer. As early as the sixteenth of August the following letter had reached us at Harmannsdorf: